Tag Archives: thinking

My own inability to comprehend palm trees and Christmas decorations in one place

Posted on by

Several times in my life I have been in warm weather locales before and after Christmas. As is true in many places in the United States, this time of year involves Christmas decorations: lights, Christmas trees, garlands, and more. I have difficulty comprehending this.

When I think of Christmas, I think of cold weather. Snow at times. Warm jackets. Hats and gloves. This is the context in which I usually see all the activities of Christmas. Christmas trees and lights go up after the temperatures have dropped and winter is near or has just begun. I grew up in and have spent most of my life in the Chicago area where this is the norm.

We all have mental grids through which information we take in passes through. We have models of how the world works. Our experiences and understandings are influenced by our settings. What we see, hear, touch, smell, and taste around us helps inform us of the world.

When we confronted with something different compared to our understanding, it can cause us to pause. How does that work? It is possible to have Christmas and 80 degree weather? People can walk outside at Christmas in shorts and short sleeve shirts? People can go to the beach on Christmas?

If I lived in such a location, I suppose I would get used to this. It would be the way it is. Then traveling to cold and snow during Christmas would seem out of the ordinary. How do those people survive frigid air each holiday season?

In the meantime, any journey I take to warmer weather around Christmas will continue to confound me. I can enjoy it while there but it does not feel like the full holiday experience. I know Christmas in one particular setting and would need a lot more time elsewhere to alter my model of what Christmas can be.

An example of running into an academic argument that causes one to pause

Posted on by

I like to read and I see a lot of texts and information. But, sometimes a sentence or paragraph or idea sticks out and makes me stop. Here is one such recent example:

Photo by NIC LAW on Pexels.com

Adam Smith wrote the Wealth of Nations (1776) in a mercantilist era, when the only free market was the slave trade, about which he wrote nothing (Appleby 2010). He was thus not describing existing conditions. Instead, he was proposing an answer to the most important question to thinkers of his time: how to sustain a social order outside of a theological framework in which God served as both keystone and source of legitimation (Dumont 1977; Rosanvallon 1979; Carrier 1997). Early industrialization and the rise of the bourgeoisie had threatened the theological foundations of monarchical and noble rule. In response, Enlightenment political philosophy produced two conceptual pillars for the new society. One was the State, founded on popular sovereignty and the social contract. The other was the Market, based on a supposed natural right to property and the freedom to exchange (Donegani and Sadoun 2007; Audard 2009). The Classical economists’ ideal, self-regulating market, in other words, was a mechanism to replace God. (Gauthier, Francois and James Spickard. 2023. “”Pay No Attention to That Man Behind the Curtain”: a Critique of the Rational Choice Approach to Religion.” Method and Theory in the Study of Religion 35:151)

I do not have the expertise to weigh these claims. But, the final sentence caught my attention: in the shift away from religion, the market could be a substitute. Appealing to the workings of the market could fit where previously people and institutions might have appealed to religion. Where might this fit with Weber’s argument that the intertwining of religion and capitalism faded away as economic and rational logic took over? How does this fit with certain religious traditions and institutions that embrace a free market logic that might have attempted to replace them?

Because it is the end of the semester, I have limited time to follow up on this. Yet, I will explore more later. And I can clearly remember other books and articles that produced “aha” moments or unlocked a series of thoughts and other ideas that proved interesting. Maybe someday I will compile a list of such sources; they do not necessarily come along often and they are worth noting.

The value of lawn mowing

Posted on by

English professor Jerry DeNuccio discusses the value of mowing the lawn. In addition to being an important marker of a middle class lifestyle, he suggests it has additional value:

Cutting grass is transformative. Having finished, one can see, immediately, that the lawn is manifestly different than it was, manifestly better, improved, prettier. Mowing is applied art; in doing it, one edits the lawn, grooming the ragged, shearing the shaggy, making the unruly ruly. I value this transformation because it stands in such stark contrast to what I do for a living…

For me, cutting grass involves a kind of invisible growth. Ironically, the very routine of grass cutting, its essential mindlessness, clears mental space to fill with intentional, task-unrelated thoughts. I call it “the mull.” I experience regrets; weigh alternatives and make choices; plan upcoming events; sing songs I find meaningful, which almost always means songs from the 1960s…

But I find there’s another, less volitional mental activity that occurs while cutting grass, one that seemingly lowers a hook to snag things lurking beneath the surface of consciousness. Experts would call it “the incubation effect.” Most would call it “zoning out.” I call it “the dream-drift.” The mind wanders. Stray images and unkempt thoughts slipstream in from some far away cognitive Pacific…

This thinking aspect is intriguing. On one hand, DeNuccio suggests mowing the lawn is an accomplishment, giving the mower the ability to quickly see that one has “improved” the lawn. Man or woman has quickly tamed unruly nature with the force of a human-pushed machine.

On the other hand, the process of mowing the lawn grants one important time to let the mind wander. This sort of time seems to be in short supply in our modern world, particularly for younger generations where time tends to be filled with some kind of digital input. This time can be found in other places, such as driving on long car trips, but lawn mowing could provide a regular, uninterrupted place to mull.