I have been watching television inappropriate for my age.

[capri0mni]

Okay. Now that I've got access to Qubo, I've been watching alot of TV aimed at the three-and-unders, much of it recycled from decades ago, some of it relatively new.

One of the shows airing on qubo is also currently shown on CBeebies: Boo! (yes, the exclaimation point is part of the title). I have two main thoughts about this:

1. There is no way television this simple should be this engrossing, and


2. This is basically an ongoing lessen in the Homeric tradition of epithets, isn't it (as in: "Growling Tiger," "Laughing Duck," "Gliding Swan," "Chattering Monkey," "Swift-footed Achilles")?

The other show I've found myself addicted to, somewhat to my chagrin, is Theodore Tugboat -- a show that is now defunct on the stations that debuted it: CBC in Canada, and PBS in the US. And now, I can't get the following question out of my head:

Is the personification of, and childhood fascination with, vehicles and machines (Planes, Trains, and Automobiles) a thoroughly modern phenomenon, completely dependent on the internal combustion engine? Or did children five hundred years ago play make believe games with wagons and carriages? Would the living horse, donkey or oxen in front of the thing have kept it only, and no more than, a thing?

Unfortunately, the interest in children's folk culture and lore doesn't go back that far, and the make-believe games of four-year olds don't survive well in the annals of history.

---

Here ends my semi-random braindump of the day.

Comments

[spiralsheep.livejournal.com]

Would the living horse, donkey or oxen in front of the thing have kept it only, and no more than, a thing?

Ooo... ::pets your shiny thoughts::

Anthropomorphism and related thought processes are as old as written history but I'm guessing it's easier for most children to anthropomorphise animals than inanimate objects.

[capriuni.livejournal.com]

*my shiny thoughts are purring*

I'm guessing it's easier for most children to anthropomorphise animals than inanimate objects.

Yes, certainly.

I think one reason I find Theodore so compelling is that the set is a scale model of an actual, working harbor (Halifax) and the remote control puppets are moving over actual water (a filled in swimming pool at an old abandoned school), so it transports me back to a time when I was four (or so), looking out the car windows as I drove past factories and harbors and riversides.

It is certainly easier to see any moving thing as alive, and a creature with its own volition when the actual agent of movement is invisable, just as a creature's mind is invisable. So if you can see the horse and driver of a wagon, you can easily tell that the object and the creature are seperate entities, the way you can't with a car.

*Notes that ships and boats have been personified since long before engines, so there's that*

*Notes, also, that she has been known (even as a fully rational adult) to yell at books and other things that drop from her hands.*

[spiralsheep.livejournal.com]

::nods general agreement::

*Notes that ships and boats have been personified since long before engines, so there's that*

Ooo... more shiny thinking.

has been known (even as a fully rational adult) to yell at books and other things that drop

I wonder if cultures who recognise household spirits, such as lares, are more inclined to talk to those spirits and less inclined to anthropomorphise inanimate household objects? Like your horse + cart example.

[capriuni.livejournal.com]

Like your horse + cart example.

Ohh, I like your speculation! ^points to icon^

These thoughts are beginning to seem related to my theories on the origins of theology:

Namely, that the brain is as hardwired to recognize the presence of person-ness at an instinctive and pre-rational level, much in the same way we're hardwired to recognize faces automatically (because by the time you make the rational decision that you're looking at a knot in a tree trunk, instead of the gaping, toothy maw of a monster, it may well be too late). Recognizing personality is much more subtle, of course, and the needs for survival are less immediate, time-wise, but humans are such social creatures that, like faces, it may be be better to be safe than sorry, and when in doubt, just assume first that you're dealing with an entity that respects good manners, and worry about whether or not you're making a fool of yourself later, at a safe distance. So just as we see "faces" as soon as a certain minimal pattern is visible (as in light sockets, or the facades of houses), we also perceive a "thou" as soon as we sense a minimal level of complexity. So, entering a forest ecosystem, we sense the presence of forest gods and spirits -- the same with rivers and mountains, and kitchens and households... And we also paint eyes on the noses of our airplanes, and on the bows of our ships.

I haven't quite decided yet whether I sense a personality because a personality is actually there, or because of instinct. Whichever, though: the moral of the story is: it's probaly irrelevant, as long as you're polite to your surroundings, and the creatures there with you.

[spiralsheep.livejournal.com]

Interesting. Thank you. I shall let that idea settle into my brain for a while.