September 6, 2006

Yes, Professor, I’m Attached To My Stuff

You are recently engaged. Excited, you do what every bride-to-be does - you get your nails done and start gesticulating more as you speak to emphasize the rock on your finger. You show all your friends (twice) and describe every detail to Mom over the phone.

You don’t mind that it’s a replica of the one featured in the Zales commercials and that probably thousands of other women have one just like yours.

However, you would mind if you found out that it previously belonged to your beau’s ex-fiancée. At least that’s what one British scientist foresees.

Professor Bruce Hood of the University of Bristol is conducting research on people’s sentimentality toward inanimate objects, and his findings show that a great majority of us compromise rationality and attribute special meaning to items.

Hood claims that we are educated from infancy that certain objects are infused with an essence. What started with your favorite teddy bear or blankie will continue throughout your lifetime as you endow everything from articles of clothing to houses with special meaning.

Hood, who recently presented his research at the British Association’s Science Festival, emphasizes the irrationality of human sentiment and explains it by referring to our need to make sense of the world.

Yet again, we are faced with the false dichotomy between rationality and ritual.

Our sentiment toward an object is, in a way, based in postmodernism - the school of thought that emphasizes the subjective experience of reality. What may look like scrap metal to me is a family heirloom to you.

Science leaves little, if any, room for interpretation or approximation. Anyone who has been to a dentist can acknowledge that this is a good thing.

But when science tries to expose our personal and largely harmless customs as unfounded and needless, we should question its motives.

Sentiment-laden objects do not serve a real purpose. Granted, your definition of real purpose may have to exclude such minor details of human lives as remembrance, joy, appreciation and attachment. But those are not rational, so what do they matter?

As hard as it may be for people like Dr. Hood to understand, even if we accept his premise that we are acting irrationally when we keep our child’s first drawing or smile every time we hear that song, we will still enjoy doing it.

The misconception that all things ‘irrational’ are somehow inferior is quite damaging to human relationships.

Keeping certain objects while not others helps us define ourselves as independent and unique agents. Passing them on to others allows us to build bonds with them and leave a part of ourselves with them as we depart.

Some things are too special or too sacred to be questioned and probed at, even by the most prestigious minds with the best of intentions.

Nonetheless, now that Hood has determined that we are (surprise!) sentimental, emotional and superstitious, he should continue his research of the human psyche and find answers to questions and problems caused by those aspects of human nature.

Considering his innovative approaches and fascination with irrationality, he may just be the one to find out what makes men recycle engagement rings.

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