WEBVTT - Is Curiosity Dangerous? 0:00:17.040 --> 0:00:20.480 You're listening to Part Time Genius, the production of Kaleidoscope 0:00:20.600 --> 0:00:21.600 and iHeartRadio. 0:00:23.079 --> 0:00:24.279 Guess what, Mango, what's that? 0:00:24.320 --> 0:00:24.560 Well? 0:00:24.960 --> 0:00:27.840 So I've been thinking about that old saying curiosity killed 0:00:27.840 --> 0:00:30.480 the cat, right, I know, we teased it in yesterday's episode. 0:00:30.520 --> 0:00:32.839 It's got me wondering if maybe we're a tattoo hasty 0:00:32.880 --> 0:00:35.760 and committing to a week long series about being curious. 0:00:35.800 --> 0:00:37.839 I mean, we've got families to think about, Mango. Can 0:00:37.880 --> 0:00:38.680 we really commit to this? 0:00:39.120 --> 0:00:44.599 There's no whimping out now. We are only on day two. Besides, 0:00:44.720 --> 0:00:47.640 haven't you heard the second part of that phrase, Curiosity 0:00:47.720 --> 0:00:50.320 killed a cat, but satisfaction brought it back. 0:00:50.560 --> 0:00:53.600 Okay, great, great? So raising the dead always ends well? 0:00:53.680 --> 0:00:55.960 Right, I know, but that phrase is really just a 0:00:56.000 --> 0:00:58.920 way to discourage people from asking too many questions. And 0:00:59.360 --> 0:01:02.520 when has other people's annoyance ever stopped us from asking questions? 0:01:02.560 --> 0:01:04.760 Not even once? I can't think of one time. I'm 0:01:04.760 --> 0:01:08.000 more of a dog person anyway. So I think you've 0:01:08.040 --> 0:01:09.680 convinced me. I'm back on board. Let's do this. 0:01:09.800 --> 0:01:11.760 I like it. So, for the sake of all the 0:01:11.760 --> 0:01:14.319 curious cats out there today, we're going to investigate whether 0:01:14.400 --> 0:01:17.560 asking questions really is as dangerous as some people would 0:01:17.560 --> 0:01:20.759 have as believe. Along the way, we'll examine how cultural 0:01:20.840 --> 0:01:24.199 views and literary depictions of curiosity have changed over time, 0:01:24.560 --> 0:01:26.679 as well as what it means to stay curious in 0:01:26.720 --> 0:01:31.000 a world where answers are easy and always at our fingertips. 0:01:31.000 --> 0:01:34.120 So muster your courage, sharpen your claws, let's dive in. 0:01:55.520 --> 0:01:57.720 Hey their podcast listeners, Welcome to the part time Genius. 0:01:57.800 --> 0:01:59.840 I'm Will Pearson, and as always I'm here with my 0:02:00.080 --> 0:02:02.320 friend manguesh hot ticketter and on the other side of 0:02:02.320 --> 0:02:05.280 the soundproof glass making a poster of some kind. That's 0:02:05.320 --> 0:02:09.000 our friend and producer Dylan Fagan. I can't quite tell 0:02:09.080 --> 0:02:11.160 what it says, though, Dylan, will you hold it up 0:02:11.160 --> 0:02:14.800 to the glass? It says reward five thousand dollars for 0:02:14.840 --> 0:02:18.120 the capture of history's most notorious cat killer. 0:02:18.280 --> 0:02:20.560 Come on, Dylan, I've never heard of a man hunt 0:02:20.560 --> 0:02:24.079 for an abstract concept for five grand I think it's word. 0:02:24.160 --> 0:02:25.400 Yeah, I think I'm gonna I think I'm gonna go 0:02:25.440 --> 0:02:28.200 focus on that. But I'm not sure which is less likely, 0:02:28.240 --> 0:02:32.720 someone physically capturing curiosity or Dylan ponying up five thousand dollars. 0:02:32.800 --> 0:02:35.000 I've never seen him give five thousand dollars to somebody 0:02:35.080 --> 0:02:38.320 of you, so I'm not surprised he's reacting so negatively 0:02:38.360 --> 0:02:40.959 to the phrase, because for as often as that expression 0:02:41.000 --> 0:02:43.840 gets thrown around, I don't think many people actually like 0:02:43.919 --> 0:02:45.560 it or even agree with the sentiment. 0:02:45.800 --> 0:02:48.560 Yeah, it's one of the darker idioms of the English language, 0:02:49.160 --> 0:02:51.480 many of which are cat based. For some reason. 0:02:52.240 --> 0:02:53.800 I guess you're right and thought about that. You got 0:02:53.840 --> 0:02:56.160 scaredy cat, you got copycat and some cat. 0:02:56.360 --> 0:02:58.720 No room to swing a cat, more than one way 0:02:58.760 --> 0:03:02.680 to skin a cat, right, lots of cat animosity, And as. 0:03:02.840 --> 0:03:05.200 We've talked about this many times before, I'm a little 0:03:05.240 --> 0:03:07.560 freaked out by cats for all of our listeners. Before 0:03:07.560 --> 0:03:10.120 anybody gets mad, I don't hate cats. I'm just sort 0:03:10.160 --> 0:03:12.600 of freaked out by that. But now I'm thinking they 0:03:12.600 --> 0:03:14.480 have way more reason to be afraid of us. 0:03:14.960 --> 0:03:18.080 Definitely, And I think curiosity Kill the cat is extra 0:03:18.160 --> 0:03:20.560 going because not only does it make us imagine a 0:03:20.600 --> 0:03:24.440 dead cat, it also maligns curiosity, which is something most 0:03:24.480 --> 0:03:27.639 of us enjoy. In fact, we sent our friend Mitra 0:03:27.720 --> 0:03:29.720 out to Brooklyn to ask people how they felt about 0:03:29.720 --> 0:03:32.920 the famous saying and spoiler alert. Pretty much all of 0:03:32.960 --> 0:03:35.960 them hated it. There were two people in particular, Herman 0:03:36.160 --> 0:03:38.800 and Lindsay, who did a great job breaking down why 0:03:38.840 --> 0:03:41.320 it's such a terrible concept. Here's what they had to say. 0:03:41.600 --> 0:03:44.559 I think it's a very negative perspective to have on curiosity. 0:03:44.640 --> 0:03:46.200 You have to be curious if you want to learn, 0:03:46.200 --> 0:03:47.600 if you want to grow, if you want to evolve, 0:03:47.960 --> 0:03:52.200 and things like that. Question anything and everything. Anybody that's 0:03:52.360 --> 0:03:56.200 frowning upon you questioning it. Yeah, it's probably a beast side. 0:03:58.440 --> 0:04:01.080 When I think of curiosity, kill the cat, it feels 0:04:01.120 --> 0:04:06.839 like control. It feels like a repressive kind of ethos, 0:04:07.000 --> 0:04:11.200 like don't ask too many questions, just accept things the 0:04:11.240 --> 0:04:14.240 way they are, turn a blind eye to things that 0:04:14.280 --> 0:04:17.320 you can't explain, or else you might die like that 0:04:17.400 --> 0:04:22.400 cat over there. So that expression never really resonated because 0:04:22.440 --> 0:04:28.840 it feels like just some kind of patriarchal, repressive kind 0:04:28.920 --> 0:04:30.880 of idea. You know. 0:04:30.920 --> 0:04:33.919 It's interesting she brings up the patriarchy because some historians 0:04:33.960 --> 0:04:36.920 actually think that's why a cat was chosen as Curiosity's 0:04:36.960 --> 0:04:40.320 target in the first place. Cats are historically associated with 0:04:40.360 --> 0:04:44.799 femininity and traditional male dominated cultures. Women were the last 0:04:44.800 --> 0:04:46.600 people who were supposed to be asking questions. 0:04:47.240 --> 0:04:49.320 Yeah, it's no coincidence that Eve was the one who 0:04:49.480 --> 0:04:52.160 ate the forbidden fruit in the Bible, or that Pandora 0:04:52.240 --> 0:04:54.400 is the one who opens the box that unleashes evil 0:04:54.440 --> 0:04:57.039 on the world. Those are some of the earliest examples 0:04:57.040 --> 0:04:59.359 of storytelling we have, and both of them cast women's 0:04:59.400 --> 0:05:03.120 curiosity as the source of humanity's woes, like it's not 0:05:03.240 --> 0:05:04.000 really that subtle. 0:05:04.360 --> 0:05:06.560 No, it's not. And sadly, we can trace the threat 0:05:06.560 --> 0:05:09.719 of misogyny all through the development of Western culture, especially 0:05:09.720 --> 0:05:12.120 with the many attempts to keep women out of academia 0:05:12.200 --> 0:05:15.120 and institutions of learning. But that isn't to say women 0:05:15.160 --> 0:05:18.120 were the only ones who've been discouraged from asking questions. 0:05:18.680 --> 0:05:21.120 For most of human history, a person's primary goal in 0:05:21.160 --> 0:05:23.880 life was just to stay alive long enough to procreate 0:05:23.960 --> 0:05:26.480 and keep the species going, So that meant a lot 0:05:26.520 --> 0:05:29.640 of time spent on sourcing food, building shelter, and avoiding 0:05:29.680 --> 0:05:34.080 unnecessary risks. So anything that took away energy from those tasks, 0:05:34.080 --> 0:05:39.440 like indulging your curiosity was typically frowned upon by ancient societies, which. 0:05:39.200 --> 0:05:41.800 Is kind of ironic when you consider that curiosity helped 0:05:41.839 --> 0:05:44.920 us build civilization in the first place, right, Like, how 0:05:44.960 --> 0:05:47.360 else would we have mastered the ability to create fire 0:05:47.440 --> 0:05:51.520 if not by observing it right or wondering how it worked, 0:05:51.600 --> 0:05:53.360 or trying to replicate it all those things. 0:05:53.440 --> 0:05:55.800 Yeah, that's true. But you know, once civilization was up 0:05:55.839 --> 0:05:59.560 and running, the focus quickly shifted to maintaining the status quo. 0:05:59.680 --> 0:06:02.159 Right wrong, there, that became, you know, the real focus, 0:06:02.160 --> 0:06:04.480 and those empowered decided the best way to do that 0:06:04.600 --> 0:06:08.200 was to limit the public's ability to ask questions. Previously, 0:06:08.200 --> 0:06:10.880 most people were just too busy to indulge their curiosity, 0:06:10.960 --> 0:06:14.440 but the rise of civilized society provided a new deterrent, 0:06:14.680 --> 0:06:16.320 the lack of moral authority. 0:06:16.680 --> 0:06:18.720 So what do you mean, like leaders told people it 0:06:18.839 --> 0:06:19.359 was wrong. 0:06:19.240 --> 0:06:22.279 To be curious, exactly, Like just in the stories you referenced, 0:06:22.320 --> 0:06:25.240 being curious was no longer considered just a dangerous use 0:06:25.279 --> 0:06:28.039 of time. It was condemned as a violation of the 0:06:28.160 --> 0:06:31.640 natural order. But rather than explain all this myself, Gabe 0:06:31.720 --> 0:06:35.279 actually set down with a full time genius, Barbara Benedict. 0:06:35.279 --> 0:06:37.640 She's an English professor at Trinity College and the author 0:06:37.680 --> 0:06:41.880 of Curiosity, a Cultural History of Early modern inquiry. And 0:06:41.920 --> 0:06:44.800 here's what she had to say about mankind's early systematic 0:06:44.920 --> 0:06:46.360 crackdown on curiosity. 0:06:47.400 --> 0:06:50.160 There are all sorts of prohibitions against asking questions from 0:06:50.200 --> 0:06:53.159 revered sources. Start with the Bible, which tells the lay 0:06:53.160 --> 0:06:55.760 people not to inquire into God's mysteries, not to ask 0:06:55.839 --> 0:06:57.960 questions that haven't already been answered, because God has kept 0:06:58.000 --> 0:07:01.200 things secret for his own sake. He moves in mysterious ways, 0:07:01.240 --> 0:07:03.600 and you better just accept that. And there is a 0:07:03.680 --> 0:07:06.440 kind of reflection in the social sphere to the political sphere. 0:07:06.680 --> 0:07:09.040 The way that politics, even from an early time, worked 0:07:09.160 --> 0:07:12.600 was by elevating certain people above others for a particular reason. 0:07:12.640 --> 0:07:14.800 They could be religious, they could be to do with property. 0:07:14.880 --> 0:07:17.440 But most of the time, the lesser people, the ones 0:07:17.480 --> 0:07:20.680 on the receiving end of authoritarianism, they are told it 0:07:20.720 --> 0:07:23.280 is wrong to ask. Don't ask why the gender system 0:07:23.320 --> 0:07:25.520 is the way it is, why the wealth distribution is 0:07:25.520 --> 0:07:27.200 the way it is, why the laws are the way 0:07:27.200 --> 0:07:29.360 they are. Just accept it because we know better. 0:07:29.800 --> 0:07:32.960 So, this war on public curiosity, it was really just 0:07:33.000 --> 0:07:35.560 a means of control by the upper classes. 0:07:35.600 --> 0:07:37.520 I guess that's right. But you know, back then, no 0:07:37.560 --> 0:07:40.000 one would have used the word curiosity to describe what 0:07:40.160 --> 0:07:43.680 was actually being fought, and that's because curiosity didn't refer 0:07:43.720 --> 0:07:47.720 to inquisitive thinking until around the seventeen hundreds. Before that, 0:07:47.760 --> 0:07:50.280 the words meaning was much closer to the Latin form, 0:07:50.320 --> 0:07:53.960 which was derived from cura or care. So curiosity in 0:07:53.960 --> 0:07:57.280 the Middle Ages referred to an unusual level of carefulness 0:07:57.360 --> 0:08:00.280 or attention to detail. So think about an or flatly 0:08:00.360 --> 0:08:03.520 carved piece of furniture, or a sculpted figure in a 0:08:03.600 --> 0:08:05.800 church or something like that. Those would be described as 0:08:05.880 --> 0:08:09.440 curiosities or curios because there was an evident sign of 0:08:09.520 --> 0:08:13.040 care and craftsmanship in their construction, and this made them 0:08:13.080 --> 0:08:16.040 stand up from the kinds of objects that people owned themselves, 0:08:16.120 --> 0:08:17.960 which were plain and utilitarian. 0:08:18.400 --> 0:08:20.440 So even though the meaning was totally different, there was 0:08:20.480 --> 0:08:23.600 still a kind of classessm tied up with early conception 0:08:23.680 --> 0:08:26.520 of curiosity, like only the wealthy could afford to buy 0:08:26.720 --> 0:08:27.600 curious objects. 0:08:27.640 --> 0:08:29.720 I'm guessing right, right, and the powers that be made 0:08:29.760 --> 0:08:32.400 it clear this kind of curiosity wasn't something the average 0:08:32.440 --> 0:08:35.560 person should aspire to in their own life, Karen. Attention 0:08:35.640 --> 0:08:39.080 to detail were luxuries for a very chosen few. Everyone 0:08:39.080 --> 0:08:41.000 else was supposed to stay in their lane and let 0:08:41.080 --> 0:08:43.440 good enough be good enough. And in fact, the infamous 0:08:43.440 --> 0:08:46.760 phrase was originally care killed the cat. Really, it's true. 0:08:46.800 --> 0:08:49.360 It actually first appeared in fifteen Yeah no, no, for real, 0:08:49.600 --> 0:08:52.440 in a fifteen ninety eight play by the English playwright 0:08:52.480 --> 0:08:56.720 Ben Johnson. So the line read helter skelter, hang sorrow, 0:08:57.160 --> 0:09:01.120 Carol killed the cat, uptails all and Louise for the hangman. 0:09:02.040 --> 0:09:03.160 I have no idea. 0:09:03.280 --> 0:09:04.080 I don't know what I mean. 0:09:04.240 --> 0:09:07.440 Is well, it's thought that Johnson was using care and 0:09:07.520 --> 0:09:10.439 the sense of worry or concern, basically saying, don't let 0:09:10.440 --> 0:09:12.079 stress or anxiety get the best of you. 0:09:12.200 --> 0:09:14.800 So, in other words, akuna matata exactly. 0:09:15.160 --> 0:09:17.200 I don't know why I didn't just write that. And 0:09:17.240 --> 0:09:19.400 the reference to a cat is also kind of tough 0:09:19.400 --> 0:09:21.920 to explain, since cats aren't really known to be overly 0:09:22.000 --> 0:09:23.040 concerned about things. 0:09:23.480 --> 0:09:27.120 Yeah, I mean mostly just food and ear scratches. 0:09:27.200 --> 0:09:29.640 Right, Yeah, it's a pretty short list, which is why 0:09:29.720 --> 0:09:31.880 my best guess is that it's not actually the cat 0:09:31.920 --> 0:09:35.080 who's stressing in this scenario. And what Johnson was really 0:09:35.120 --> 0:09:38.000 saying is that a person's anxieties can become so toxic 0:09:38.360 --> 0:09:40.520 that they even intrude in the care free life of 0:09:40.559 --> 0:09:43.600 a cat. So while the phrase wasn't aim specifically at 0:09:43.600 --> 0:09:46.560 the kind of care displayed in curious objects, it did 0:09:46.640 --> 0:09:48.800 warn against excessive care in general. 0:09:49.520 --> 0:09:51.560 So I could see how stress and worry might be 0:09:51.559 --> 0:09:54.480 bad for a person. But why would just caring about 0:09:54.480 --> 0:09:57.559 something be dangerous? Like if someone cared enough to look 0:09:57.559 --> 0:10:00.320 into why the sky is blue? How is what's a 0:10:00.320 --> 0:10:01.240 threat to society? 0:10:01.440 --> 0:10:03.280 Well, in that case, I think someone in the Middle 0:10:03.320 --> 0:10:06.120 Ages would say that you're prying into sacred knowledge, like 0:10:06.120 --> 0:10:09.080 you're overstepping the limits of what humans are meant to know. 0:10:09.640 --> 0:10:12.760 But according to Professor Benedict, it's also about social conformity. 0:10:13.040 --> 0:10:16.640 By expressing care for something that others consider trivial, you're 0:10:16.679 --> 0:10:19.480 also setting yourself apart from the crowd, and by extension, 0:10:19.559 --> 0:10:20.960 you're making yourself a target. 0:10:22.000 --> 0:10:26.560 There's a strong social and moral resistance to curiosity in 0:10:26.600 --> 0:10:29.480 all of its forms, because it's subversive, because it's asking 0:10:29.559 --> 0:10:33.520 questions are not supposed to be asked, and therefore, if 0:10:33.679 --> 0:10:38.319 a character is pursuing an inquiry, there must be something 0:10:38.400 --> 0:10:43.040 slightly wrong with him or her Because the artists are 0:10:43.080 --> 0:10:45.200 all out there and most of us have accepted that. 0:10:45.520 --> 0:10:48.400 But for this quirky person. Somehow they have to push 0:10:48.720 --> 0:10:51.040 the envelope and go a little bit further than anybody 0:10:51.080 --> 0:10:54.840 else is going. But it's also a question of you, 0:10:54.920 --> 0:11:00.840 as a curious person, investigating something that other people think valueless, 0:11:01.240 --> 0:11:04.840 which means that you're putting your own structure value above 0:11:05.320 --> 0:11:07.840 that of the rest of society, which makes you arrogant 0:11:07.880 --> 0:11:11.319 because it's sort of sneering at the rest of society's 0:11:11.400 --> 0:11:15.120 concerns and claiming that you have better knowledge of what's 0:11:15.160 --> 0:11:18.760 important than they do. It's a real sort of social struggle. 0:11:19.640 --> 0:11:22.560 I really kind of love that she frames curiosity as 0:11:22.600 --> 0:11:26.199 this subversive acts. Like, obviously it's natural to care about 0:11:26.200 --> 0:11:29.400 things and to ask questions, and yesterday we talked about 0:11:29.440 --> 0:11:32.800 how our brains are hardwired to be curious. But once 0:11:32.800 --> 0:11:36.040 you put all these systems in control into place, whether 0:11:36.040 --> 0:11:39.080 it's religion or the state or peer pressure, the mere 0:11:39.200 --> 0:11:44.160 act of being curious becomes this violation of social norms. Now, luckily, 0:11:44.240 --> 0:11:46.760 curiosity is more accepted than it used to be, at 0:11:46.840 --> 0:11:49.360 least in some countries, and the reason for that change 0:11:49.559 --> 0:11:52.199 is pretty surprising. We're going to tell you about it 0:11:52.280 --> 0:12:09.800 right after this break. Welcome back to part time genius. 0:12:09.840 --> 0:12:12.960 It's day two of our week long dive into curiosity. 0:12:13.120 --> 0:12:15.080 If you've enjoyed it, do as a favor and share 0:12:15.120 --> 0:12:17.160 this episode with a curious friend. You can also leave 0:12:17.160 --> 0:12:20.160 as a nice rating and review. It really helps the show, 0:12:20.200 --> 0:12:23.560 and mostly it satisfies our curiosity about knowing what you 0:12:23.679 --> 0:12:27.640 think of us will. Before the break, you explained that 0:12:27.679 --> 0:12:30.800 for a long time, curiosity, at least in the Western world, 0:12:31.000 --> 0:12:33.760 was seen as a threat to the social order. Elites 0:12:33.800 --> 0:12:36.360 and people in power didn't want the rabble to ask 0:12:36.440 --> 0:12:39.160 too many questions or investing too much care in the 0:12:39.160 --> 0:12:42.600 world around him. Now that starts to change again. We're 0:12:42.600 --> 0:12:46.280 talking about Western culture in the seventeenth century with the 0:12:46.320 --> 0:12:49.880 English Civil Wars, among other things, King Charles the First 0:12:50.080 --> 0:12:53.240 was found guilty of treason and beheaded, the first and 0:12:53.280 --> 0:12:55.680 so far only time a British monarch has been put 0:12:55.720 --> 0:12:56.120 to death. 0:12:56.960 --> 0:12:59.440 And so what was there? People who are like he's 0:12:59.480 --> 0:13:01.520 gone can be curious now or what happened? 0:13:01.720 --> 0:13:04.760 Not exactly, but before the wars, Charles was thought to 0:13:04.800 --> 0:13:08.160 have been appointed by God, and after his death there 0:13:08.200 --> 0:13:10.960 was no divine retribution. In fact, the country was doing 0:13:11.000 --> 0:13:15.280 pretty well, so suddenly the whole idea of authoritarianism gets 0:13:15.280 --> 0:13:18.880 called into question. Right, people start to think, maybe God 0:13:18.920 --> 0:13:21.480 doesn't care who the king is, and maybe that means 0:13:21.520 --> 0:13:23.440 he's laid back about other things. 0:13:23.200 --> 0:13:26.320 Too, like questioning how society should function or why the 0:13:26.320 --> 0:13:27.000 sky is blue? 0:13:27.040 --> 0:13:29.920 I guess right, And that new mindset paved the way 0:13:29.960 --> 0:13:33.040 for all sorts of radical developments, including the rise of 0:13:33.120 --> 0:13:37.320 empirical science. Previously, people believe that everything worth knowing was 0:13:37.360 --> 0:13:40.960 revealed to them by God, but in the late sixteen hundreds, 0:13:41.200 --> 0:13:44.400 English philosopher John Locke suggested that we learned through our 0:13:44.440 --> 0:13:47.840 five senses and from reflecting on the knowledge we gain 0:13:47.960 --> 0:13:51.120 from those senses. So that kind of levels the intellectual 0:13:51.160 --> 0:13:52.679 playing field. You don't have to be a member of 0:13:52.720 --> 0:13:55.800 the clergy or even a scholar to learn. If you 0:13:55.840 --> 0:13:58.640 have the time and inclination, you can just go explore 0:13:58.720 --> 0:14:01.199 whatever catches your fancy. Yeah, and what's more, you could 0:14:01.240 --> 0:14:03.360 share what you learned with other people. And that was 0:14:03.679 --> 0:14:06.480 thanks to another game changer that happened around then, which 0:14:06.600 --> 0:14:09.000 was the printing press. So in a way, this is 0:14:09.000 --> 0:14:11.000 an origin story of what you and I like to 0:14:11.000 --> 0:14:13.800 call part time geniuses, right, like amateur is going out 0:14:13.840 --> 0:14:17.200 into the world and chasing their curiosities in their spare time. 0:14:17.280 --> 0:14:19.240 That's exactly right. And you know this is also the 0:14:19.240 --> 0:14:21.960 era when people started to assemble their own collection of 0:14:22.040 --> 0:14:26.560 curious objects, fossil shells, scientific equipment, artifacts from other countries. 0:14:27.000 --> 0:14:29.400 We typically think of this trend in relation to the 0:14:29.400 --> 0:14:32.880 fancy sort of cabinet of curiosities that later became the 0:14:32.920 --> 0:14:35.880 basis for modern museums, which is something I know you 0:14:35.920 --> 0:14:38.840 and Gabe talked about in your episode on tiny museums. 0:14:38.840 --> 0:14:42.320 But according to Professor Bennedictt, collecting unusual objects was a 0:14:42.320 --> 0:14:45.120 hobby enjoyed by Europeans from all walks of life. 0:14:45.680 --> 0:14:48.680 The Royal Society for the Advancement of Learning, which Charles 0:14:48.720 --> 0:14:52.920 the SECA established in sixteen sixty two, was deliberately looking 0:14:53.120 --> 0:14:57.560 at objects of nature to explain how they worked and 0:14:57.600 --> 0:15:00.600 to ask all those naughty questions about you then, how 0:15:00.840 --> 0:15:03.920 clouds dropped rain, and the generation of the sexes, and 0:15:03.960 --> 0:15:06.080 the movement of the spheres, and all those things that 0:15:06.120 --> 0:15:09.600 had previously been the province of the church. So in 0:15:09.680 --> 0:15:13.440 order to study nature, they had repositories, which we would 0:15:13.480 --> 0:15:18.720 call collections of natural and artificial objects, and therefore it 0:15:18.760 --> 0:15:22.880 became a sort of national point of pride and national pursuit, 0:15:23.320 --> 0:15:26.120 a kind of identification of the national character of the 0:15:26.160 --> 0:15:30.400 English as being empirical investigators. So whereveryone did it, And 0:15:30.600 --> 0:15:34.920 people didn't just collect precious things like Japanese netski or 0:15:34.960 --> 0:15:38.360 you know, snuff boxes or something like that. They collected 0:15:38.400 --> 0:15:41.600 stones they found that they thought were peculiar looking, you know, 0:15:41.920 --> 0:15:44.960 interesting twisted branches that might look like a hand. It 0:15:45.000 --> 0:15:46.280 was a national passion. 0:15:47.120 --> 0:15:49.320 That makes me feel so much better about my stick collection. 0:15:50.880 --> 0:15:53.480 You've got the best stick collection I've ever seen, Mango. 0:15:53.560 --> 0:15:56.160 But you know, seriously, it's tempting to view collecting as 0:15:56.200 --> 0:15:59.040 consumerism ron a muck or someone trying to fill a 0:15:59.120 --> 0:16:01.480 void by hoarding a bunch of stuff. But there's also 0:16:01.560 --> 0:16:03.520 another way to look at it. Like the word curate 0:16:03.600 --> 0:16:06.120 also comes from the Latin word for care, as we 0:16:06.200 --> 0:16:09.040 talked about, and curating a collection turns it into an 0:16:09.120 --> 0:16:13.480 intellectual exercise, a way of exploring curiosity. So think about it. 0:16:13.560 --> 0:16:16.800 You consider which objects to include or reject and how 0:16:16.840 --> 0:16:19.320 to display them, and you learn the history of objects, 0:16:19.360 --> 0:16:21.520 and that helps you better understand the world and the 0:16:21.560 --> 0:16:22.440 relationship to it. 0:16:22.880 --> 0:16:24.800 That's a really lovely way to look at it. Yeah. 0:16:24.840 --> 0:16:26.920 I mean, these kinds of collections were a major source 0:16:26.960 --> 0:16:29.880 of knowledge and inspiration for people in the seventeenth century, 0:16:29.920 --> 0:16:33.360 and they were meant to be shared. People gave tours 0:16:33.400 --> 0:16:36.480 of collections as a form of after dinner entertainment. And 0:16:36.760 --> 0:16:38.600 I feel like this is such a great concept and 0:16:38.600 --> 0:16:40.320 we kind of need to bring it back, you know. 0:16:40.480 --> 0:16:43.680 So every day this week we've got a listener activity 0:16:44.000 --> 0:16:46.160 and anyone who participates has a chance to win a 0:16:46.240 --> 0:16:49.920 part time Genius prize pack. We introduced this yesterday and 0:16:49.960 --> 0:16:53.360 the fans went crazy. I'm just assuming this. I'm assuming 0:16:53.360 --> 0:16:56.080 the fans went crazy. So today we're inspired by the 0:16:56.080 --> 0:16:59.440 Cabinet of Curiosities. We asked our resident collector, Gabe to 0:16:59.520 --> 0:17:02.480 build out a shelf with some of his own curious objects. 0:17:02.760 --> 0:17:04.960 Head over to Instagram or Blue Sky and watch the 0:17:05.040 --> 0:17:07.919 video he made for inspiration. Then leave us a comment 0:17:08.359 --> 0:17:11.080 telling us three objects that you would include in your 0:17:11.119 --> 0:17:11.920 own display. 0:17:12.480 --> 0:17:16.120 Yeah, they could be anything you want, natural, artificial, old, new, 0:17:16.640 --> 0:17:18.680 stuff you own, stuff you'd like to own. We are 0:17:18.720 --> 0:17:21.439 not picky, and we are not here to judge. We 0:17:21.560 --> 0:17:24.080 just want to know what sparks your sense of curiosity. 0:17:24.440 --> 0:17:26.119 We are going to pick one person at random to 0:17:26.119 --> 0:17:28.520 win a prize pack, and if you want a bonus entry, 0:17:28.640 --> 0:17:31.760 make an actual video showing us your cabinet of curiosities 0:17:31.760 --> 0:17:35.560 and tag us. The deadline is Sunday, October twenty six. 0:17:35.720 --> 0:17:38.280 Details and links are in the show notes and on 0:17:38.359 --> 0:17:39.760 our social media accounts. 0:17:39.960 --> 0:17:42.520 All right, Mango, so what would you put in your cabinet? 0:17:43.400 --> 0:17:45.359 You know, I actually was thinking about this a little bit, 0:17:45.359 --> 0:17:47.560 and I'm not that much of a collector. I mean, 0:17:47.560 --> 0:17:51.000 I've got like some stuff that like I've got these 0:17:51.040 --> 0:17:54.760 old binoculars that my grandfather, who was in the forestry Service, 0:17:54.920 --> 0:17:58.359 used to use, and they're like brass and beautiful. But 0:17:58.440 --> 0:18:00.640 it was actually thinking that I've got all my old 0:18:00.680 --> 0:18:02.800 iPhones from the first iPhone. Oh, and so like just 0:18:02.840 --> 0:18:05.440 how you catch shelf of like like the other variations 0:18:05.480 --> 0:18:09.199 going forward. Or my friend Chathan, his parents never drank 0:18:09.240 --> 0:18:11.280 soda and he never drank soda, but they'd always have 0:18:11.320 --> 0:18:13.320 soda for parties. So you walk through his basement and 0:18:13.359 --> 0:18:16.720 it's like a soda museum. So they've got like pepsicona 0:18:16.800 --> 0:18:19.119 and okay soda and like all this stuff about no 0:18:19.160 --> 0:18:20.760 one remembers I would definitely put those. 0:18:20.680 --> 0:18:22.520 Into Oh that's fun, haven't it. That's fun? 0:18:22.680 --> 0:18:23.200 How about you. 0:18:24.240 --> 0:18:26.400 I actually like to think back on the things that 0:18:26.520 --> 0:18:30.199 I collected or was interested in the past that I honestly, 0:18:30.240 --> 0:18:31.920 and I don't say this in a joking way, I 0:18:32.080 --> 0:18:35.480 just have no interest in now, Like things like baseball 0:18:35.520 --> 0:18:37.480 cards and stuff like that that I was just so 0:18:37.600 --> 0:18:39.399 consumed by as a kid, And it's just kind of 0:18:39.440 --> 0:18:41.320 fun to look back and think, like, what was it 0:18:41.320 --> 0:18:43.400 that it was so interested in this or other things 0:18:43.440 --> 0:18:46.760 that we collected as a kid. My parents every year 0:18:46.840 --> 0:18:49.840 would give me a different nutcracker at Christmas, and there 0:18:49.880 --> 0:18:52.240 was this collection of these until finally I kind of 0:18:52.280 --> 0:18:54.639 honestly had to put a stop to this. At some point, 0:18:54.800 --> 0:18:56.560 I think I was like seventeen or eighteen. I had 0:18:56.600 --> 0:18:58.000 to say to my mom. I was like, I think 0:18:58.000 --> 0:19:00.119 this is enough. It's starting to freak me out, but 0:19:00.160 --> 0:19:03.119 there are so many nutcrackers on the shelves at the holidays. 0:19:03.160 --> 0:19:05.320 But just like thinking about the things that people collected 0:19:05.359 --> 0:19:07.080 and that brought them Joe. I think the one thing 0:19:07.119 --> 0:19:11.040 though that I probably would include. My grandfather was a 0:19:11.080 --> 0:19:14.560 pocket watch and watch and clock collector, and like those 0:19:14.640 --> 0:19:16.680 were super cool, and so I still have a handful 0:19:16.720 --> 0:19:19.240 of those pocket watches that are fun to just pull 0:19:19.280 --> 0:19:22.160 out for memory's sake, and they're just such cool objects 0:19:22.200 --> 0:19:22.680 to look at. 0:19:22.880 --> 0:19:26.400 That's really awesome. Okay. Well, so you mentioned earlier that 0:19:26.440 --> 0:19:29.280 the printing press came along around the time when Europeans 0:19:29.280 --> 0:19:32.680 were starting to embrace the concept of curiosity, and by 0:19:32.720 --> 0:19:35.680 the eighteenth century print was in full swing. It was 0:19:35.720 --> 0:19:39.040 spreading new ideas and new questions all around the globe. 0:19:39.240 --> 0:19:42.560 This gave rise to modern journalism, which of course is 0:19:42.600 --> 0:19:46.760 all about investigation, but it also helped people create the novel. 0:19:47.720 --> 0:19:51.280 One genre of novel became immensely popular right off the bat, 0:19:51.480 --> 0:19:55.040 and that was detective fiction and murder mysteries. These books 0:19:55.040 --> 0:19:58.159 were designed to peak the reader's curiosity but also reinforced 0:19:58.200 --> 0:20:01.400 some of the old negative thinking about inquisitive people and 0:20:01.440 --> 0:20:04.080 how did they do that well. The detectives in these 0:20:04.080 --> 0:20:06.879 stories typically had some kind of character flaw, so it 0:20:06.960 --> 0:20:10.399 was a trope that later became known as the defective detective. 0:20:11.119 --> 0:20:12.840 They were so single minded in their pursuit of the 0:20:12.840 --> 0:20:14.800 truth that they forgot how to be normal, and they 0:20:14.840 --> 0:20:17.840 really weren't like standard functioning people, so in the case 0:20:17.840 --> 0:20:20.679 of Sherlock Holmes, they turned to drug abuse when stimulating 0:20:20.720 --> 0:20:24.680