Is it irrational to not want to wear a murderer’s sweater?

From time to time I listen to “Hidden Brain,” an NPR podcast about weird things we do and think.

Today I listened to an episode called “Why We Hold On To Things,” in which the expert / guest gave a couple examples of how we “irrationally” attribute meaning to objects.

In one example, people were asked how much they would pay for used wedding rings. Some of them were from successful marriages, while others were from divorced couples. People valued the “divorce rings” well below the “success rings.”

In another example, a man holds up a used (but professionally cleaned) sweater, and asks an audience who would be willing to try it on for $20. A bunch of people raise their hands. Then he asks who would still be willing to try it on after they learned the sweater belonged to an infamous serial killer, and many people lower their hands.

Valuing a success ring higher than a divorce ring, or being unwilling to wear a serial killer’s sweater, were both labeled as irrational, because things are just things. They don’t have the spirit of the previous owner in them. They don’t carry any magic mojo. They’re just physical objects.

Right?

Well … I’m not so sure.

I would accept that it’s irrational to believe that the sweater or the ring causes any harm if nobody knows about it. E.g., if I find a ring, I’m not going to fear that some magic attaches to it because of the behavior or character of the previous owner.

But knowing does change things, and I’m not convinced it’s entirely irrational.

Imagine a guy named Tom who intentionally goes to the estate sales of murderers so he can buy (and usually wear) their clothes. He says he’s doing it to get a bargain, and it’s true that he gets good-quality clothes for cheap.

Won’t people assume there’s something weird about Tom? And are they entirely unjustified in thinking that?

He says he’s just getting a bargain, but is motivation always a univariate, simple thing? Might the people who find Tom a little odd have somewhat of a point?

Sometimes materialist assumptions seem to go a little too far at times, in my opinion.

16 thoughts on “Is it irrational to not want to wear a murderer’s sweater?”

  1. In the RC/EO world there’s a big thing about relics… not just bones or hair, but objects a holy person has owned. I’m sure Mother Theresa’s rosary or John Paul’s II pectoral cross or staff would be in high esteem. Even some fundies might reverence Billy Graham’s personal bible if they ever got their hands on it.

    I’m sure people would want to burn anything of Fr. Maciel’s

  2. I agree with you, but I think there’s a big difference between willing to put something on once in exchange for a tangible reward, and having a fascination with and active desire to own and use objects with certain associations.

    There’s everything rational in becoming worried about the guy who suddenly gets excited about trying on the sweater when he knows the provenance. There’s nothing rational about the person suddenly saying they thought it was worth $20 to them to put something on one time and immediately take it off, but it isn’t because now they know the provenance, even though there is nothing about the provenance that can possibly harm them in any objective way.

    But, just because that’s not a rational reaction, doesn’t mean it’s a bad one. The problem here may not be in the judgment that it’s an irrational reaction, it’s in thinking the irrationality of the reaction necessarily means it’s a wrong one.

    But wasn’t that part of the point being made in the podcast? I listened to it several days ago so I don’t clearly remember, but it seems to me that was in there. Our attachment to physical things isn’t wholly rational but that’s not the same thing as saying it’s bad or meaningless.

  3. It’s just a matter of association. There are certain pop songs that repel me because I associate them with certain repellent people, not because the I find their aesthetic quality objectionable. (I find it hard to listen anything by Yes because they were the favorite band of a lying, cheating, stealing person – probably a sociopath – I used to know.) There is nothing inherently irrational about association any more than there is about raw sensory experience (if there is such a thing, since it is hard to identify sensations which aren’t laden with associations).

  4. I’m just assuming that “irrational” is the opposite of “rational,” and “rational” means “founded on reason”. I don’t see how these associations are founded on reason. That doesn’t make them bad or to be rejected out of hand, but it seems to me that they are irrational in nature. They are not about reason, but about other potentially valid aspects of human experience.

    1. I’m not sure I would say rational means “founded on reason.” Some online dictionary I consulted said “agreeable to reason,” which makes more sense to me.

      1. Sure, I was just using an off the cuff definition. Still I don’t think that these vague, intuitive associations are really “agreeable to reason” since there’s nothing about them that correlates to or even agrees with reason. Reason tells you that there’s no material objection to putting on a sweater just because a bad and unsavory person owned it. It can’t hurt you, it can’t make you more like that person, etc. The negative reaction to putting on the sweater disagrees with reason’s conclusion. That doesn’t mean that not wanting to put on the sweater because of a strong negative association is wrong or foolish, it’s just not “rational”. The associations are real and have potential validity, they’re just not within the realm of reason.

        It just seems to me that you are taking the word “irrational” as pejorative or as exclusive of being valid, and I don’t think the podcast intended it that way, and I don’t think the word has to mean that.

        1. Okay, I’ll agree that it depends on what you mean by rational, and that the podcast guy wasn’t necessarily saying “irrational” necessarily means bad.

  5. QUOTE: But knowing does change things, and I’m not convinced it’s entirely irrational.

    It seems “agreeable to reason” that people would act based on knowing because when they know they make meaningful associations. For instance, it seems sensible that people would gravitate to rings worn by people who had successful relationships because that would typically be associated with something positive. The same would apply to people avoiding clothing worn by a murderer because that typically would be associated with something negative. In these cases, it would seem people’s behavior would be based on associations, not the inherent qualities of the inanimate objects. As such, that doesn’t seem totally irrational.

    1. Yes, that’s what I was thinking. It’s not that they think some magic adheres to the ring or sweater, it’s that the ring or sweater would have bad associations, and that will be a kind of emotional weight.

      1. Exactly. Given those associations, their behavior appears reasonable (to most). Per the podcast, that’s likely why it’s not typically considered incongruous when people develop attachments to or retain things long beyond their utility.

        1. Yeah, but what if someone believes that there is a malevolent spirit dwelling in the serial killer’s sweater?

          1. I have two reactions to that. The first is, obviously there’s not a malevolent spirit living in the sweater. But my second is, what does “malevolent spirit dwelling in the sweater” mean?

            Let’s say, for example, that one person believes there’s a malevolent spirit in the sweater, and another person believes it’s just an object and it’s ridiculous to assign any meaning to its history.

            I would lean more towards the perspective of the second person, but there is some sense in which he may have thrown away too much. The history of the object does have some meaning, which is crudely and primitively expressed in the idea of a spirit inhabiting the object.

            I’m reminded (again) of the Bene Gesserit, who are committed atheists, but who believe superstition and religion and prophecies and such are important elements of society. (Which they seek to control for their own purposes.)

            Just this morning I read that China has changed their policy to allow families to have three children. They are still below population replacement rate.

            The trouble is that having children is both a sacrifice and an act of faith in the future, and as people become more content and secular, they don’t think it’s worth it. There is a sense in which something like religion is necessary to keep a society going.

            All of which is to say that while I don’t believe there are spirits in sweaters, I think it’s important to figure out why people had / have that idea, and to try to extract the human meaning out of it.

            1. In other words, if there were no malevolent spirit dwelling in the serial killer’s sweater, it would be necessary to invent it.

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