Personal Folklore and How it Affects my Worldview

Until reading Tolkein's piece about worldview, I did not think much of folklore influencing how I perceived life. But a few key phrases really jumped out at me:

1. The individual who wants to get along in American society is therefore encouraged to plan the future, not to daydream.

This is so very true. In high school theatre students were sneered at and told this class would never lead to a reliable career. It never seemed to matter that taking oceanography as an elective would not lead to a reliable career either because it was perceived as cerebral, not imaginative like theatre. People will ask children the minute they learn to talk: What do you want to be when you grow up? As if this child could possibly know—that is not the point; their point is to discourage unlikely career choices like being superwoman or a ballerina.

2. When we want to indicate that someone else is crazy, it is often by making a gesture directly opposed to the linear perspective, that is, by making a circle around the ear with the forefinger. This well-known gesture may be one of the most important examples of the issues raised in this chapter, for it is the conscious employment of a folk gesture in a “different” pattern to indicate not simply disagreement with another per- son but total negative evaluation of the other person’s approach or behavior.

Gestures like this fill up my life. Such as making a rolling motion will in the car to indicate someone should roll down their window (despite the fact very few cars have manual windows). When angry with a person I snap my hands from my chest toward nothingness as a literal representation of getting the person away from me. This idea of circular motion representing non-linear, "different" people fascinates me. We get this idea of crazy across in other ways to: we cross our eyes, we screw up our face—we make ourselves look "different" and therefore not correct.

3. If an Arab (coming from a culture that encourages close body contact among people of the same gender in conversational situations) approaches an American (who comes from a culture that discourages physical body contact except under amorous or sports conditions) each one will feel something has gone wrong.

I know this feeling all too well. At my job a lot of Europeans come through and approach me with questions. This would be fine except they stand exceptionally close to me. They smile, they are cordial, their breath does not stink but still I am uncomfortable. I wonder why they feel the need to be, as I like to say, "all up ons".

My personal folklore and my worldview are much tighter knit than I previously supposed. I am not comfortable in a bar full of men because tradition indicates I am going to be hit on lewdly. If I am in a classroom that has no clock, I am annoyed and continue to look to the back of the room (where the clock is inconveniently placed for students) for the time out of habit. I find it bizarre when people face the "wrong way" on elevators despite the fact there is no sign indicating which way to face. These are just minor examples of how tradition has affected my worldview, but this is the first time I've actually stopped to think about it.