Welcome to the weekend,
I am currently at work on essays on C.S. Lewis and George Steiner. One is a longtime hero of mine, and the other is a brilliant thinker I only discovered this year (how is that possible?). In the meantime, here is what I’d like to share from around the Internet.
This week’s finds:
This short piece was a fascinating look into how shame and honor are communicated in different cultures! I’ve noticed a few cultural differences between Germany and the States (saying hello and goodbye when you enter and leave a store or restaurant, for example), but this list was surprising. Especially interesting was the point about asking for a person’s age, as the speaker wanted to avoid disrespecting both parties by not addressing the listener appropriately to their station.
Your teachers were right; rudeness is contagious. It turns out even witnessing incivility (via negative social media comments, for example) impacts our cognitive and mental abilities.
Have you ever wondered about who clicks on Internet advertisements these days? I don’t click on them; I’m sure you don’t click on them, yet, they persist. It turns out virtually no one is clicking on them. It strikes me as rather silly that the Internet advertising industry rakes in billions of dollars ($189 billion in 2021 alone), yet only has a click-through rate of 0.46%. All that money spent on a prospect which stands less than a 1% chance of even being viewed, much less purchased? It makes no sense. Enter, this theory.
A library in Ankara was started with books tossed in the garbage and salvaged by garbage collectors. Now open to the public, the library eventually collected over 6000 books, and includes a bilingual section with books in English and French. Thankfully, it seems people are donating directly to the library now, instead of trashing the titles. I don’t know that I’ve ever thrown a book in the trash, but isn’t it interesting to see how many are discarded each year!
Finally, yes, it’s me. I, too, have had this recurring school dream for the past few months wherein I’ve neglected to show up for a class all semester only find myself trying to pass a final exam. It seems I’m not the only one!
Currently reading: Beauty by Roger Scruton (A Very Short Introduction)
Have a wonderful weekend.
Photo by Alex Motoc on Unsplash
