As I’m sure many of you may have noticed, I have an interest in human behavior, and more specifically, in the things that we do and have no idea why. For instance, I had a person sneeze in the cubicle right next to mine a few moments ago, and my kneejerk response was to say, “Bless you!”.
I’m not religious. I don’t believe in God. I don’t believe in the soul, or that it’s trying to escape; I have no illusions that a demon has inhabited this person and is now escaping. And yet, I feel obligated and rude if I don’t acknowledge the fact that this person has sneezed. Why?
We’ve all heard the stories and beliefs, the superstitions and ideas behind why people say, “Bless you” after a sneeze. But do you know the real reason for it? Do you know what the original reason was? No? Don’t feel bad. Nobody else does, either.
In fact, we have no explanation for it. At all.
There has been mention of the practice as far back as 77 AD by Pliny the Elder in “Natural History”. Sadly enough, he doesn’t say why either; He only mentions that Tiberius Caesar himself even observed this superstition.
At one time it was believed that Pope Gregory I was the originator of the myth, as it was believed that a sneeze was the beginning symptoms of the plague. He had everyone say “Bless You” after every sneeze around 540 AD. If everyone observed the convention then (and they did), obviously nobody could become sick with the black death, right?
But that was almost a full 500 years after Pliny the Elder’s written account, so that can’t exactly be right. So honestly, we have no answer to our question. It was at once believed that the heart stops when you sneeze (it doesn’t), but that myth can’t be attributed to any text prior to Pliny or even subsequent to his account.
In turn, it’s a mystery, and always will be as far as we can tell. Unless by some miracle we run across an ancient text that just happens to mention what the reasoning behind it was.
I just find it deliciously ironic that we all, with few exceptions, observe a 2,000 year old superstition and have no idea why. We follow it because it’s considered rude not to. We are told and retold as a child that we are to say “Bless you” when someone sneezes, and really, it’s not for superstition anymore. It’s simply to recognize the existance of another human.
But isn’t it strange that, even though we don’t know why we say it, we pass it on as a classic social convention so that our children are not singled out or considered “rude” for not doing the same? It’s just a superstition and pointless social rhetoric. It’s the same (equivalently) as knocking on wood twice to ward away bad luck, or refusing to walk under ladders, or working on a Sunday. There are some people that still observe these practices, and do so fervently; they teach their kids the same. In turn, their kids will do the same.
But let’s change gears now, and look at a few more of our commonly held beliefs that aren’t true, shall we? Let’s start with Halloween candy and the potential tainting that strangers tend to do to it.
Do you know that, aside from a very small number of very select cases (all of which involved family members or family friends), there has never been a case of halloween candy being tampered with? No razor blades, no poison, no needles, nothing. Don’t believe me? Check it out.
And yet, what’s the first thing that every parent does when their child brings home the loot? They check every piece of candy, one by one, or send it through an x-ray machine at the local hospital. I hear metal detectors are pretty popular too. But now we have millions of kids that are terrified to eat their candy before bringing it home, they wait for their parents to check each piece, and for what? For nothing. Quite literally, nothing. And these same kids will do the same thing to their children. More pointless superstition and misinformation.
Have you ever been to a chiropractor or had acupuncture? Both professions are based purely on superstitious belief and very little, if any, medical basis. And I know, I know, there are a lot of you that will yell and scream, “It’s a conspiracy by the man against a profession that helps people, and blah blah blah.”
Yeah well, sorry, but you’re wrong. There are plenty of third party double blind studies that refute anything you can say in defense of chiropracters. See here. Same with acupuncture, but I’m too lazy to be bothered to look up the studies again. Though, I do like getting stuck with needles, so there is that.
The point is, with enough fear, repitition, reputation, or otherwise, people will believe or follow just about any pointless rhetoric without even the smallest bit of critical thought. It’s frustrating, if a little amusing, to see the extent of which people take it. I could just as easily bring in morality and religion in to this discussion, but I think it would become much more of a rant, and I want to avoid that.
I’ll end this post with one of my very favorite examples of this type of thinking. It’s about corporate policies and how they’re made, but this short story can easily be applied to anything I’ve talked about above, or any other social convention we tend to follow. Religious or otherwise.
Start with a cage containing five monkeys. Inside the cage, hang a banana on a string and place a set of stairs under it. Before long, a monkey will go to the stairs and start to climb towards the banana. As soon as he touches the stairs, spray all of the other monkeys with cold water. After a while, another monkey makes an attempt with the same result, and all the other monkeys are sprayed with cold water. Pretty soon the monkeys will try to prevent it.
Now, put away the cold water. Remove one monkey from the cage and replace it with a new one. The new monkey sees the banana and wants to climb the stairs. To his surprise and horror, all of the other monkeys attack him. After another attempt and attack, he knows that if he tries to climb the stairs, he will be assaulted.
Next, remove another of the original five monkeys and replace it with a new one. The newcomer goes to the stairs and is attacked. The previous newcomer takes part in the punishment with enthusiasm! Likewise, replace a third original monkey with a new one, then a fourth, then the fifth.
Every time the newest monkey takes to the stairs, he is attacked. Most of the monkeys that are beating him have no idea why they were not permitted to climb the stairs or why they are participating in the beating of the newest monkey. After replacing all the original monkeys, none of the remaining monkeys have ever been sprayed with cold water. Nevertheless, no monkey ever again approaches the stairs to try for the banana. Why not? Because as far as they know that’s the way it’s always been done around here.
And that, my friends, is how a company policy begins.