Friday, April 22, 2011

Half. [Do alphabetized spices make me a better person?]

I threw away half the spices. At least. Then I alphabetized what remained.
I heard a story on the radio last week - and you'll have to bear with me, because I can't find it again - about railway sanitation workers going on strike in Denmark. I think it was Denmark. Anyway, the trash piled up until commuters were literally wading through it. A group of sociologists - being scandinavian and sociologists - saw it as an opportunity! So they surveyed the passengers, asking questions like "How do you feel about Muslims? Homosexuals? the Dutch?" and then repeated the survey after the cleaning crew had returned to work. They found that people were considerably more tolerant of their fellow man in a tidy train station.
What's the difference? I have no idea. Chaos engenders bigotry? The illusion of control eases tension? Do alphabetized spices make me a better person? Possibly.

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