The Sound of Two Hands Clapping

One of the books that had the most impact on me when I was younger was Sophie’s World by Jostein Gaarder. One scene in particular has always stuck with me. There’s a point in the story where two characters are talking about the way the typical person gets used to existence and stops questioning the world around them. This is held up in contrast to the philosopher ideal, a person who never stops questioning. The book uses the metaphor of people living in a rabbit’s fur to describe how as people get older they sink deeper into the fur and concern themselves less with anything outside of their immediate knowledge.

I’ve tried to keep on the edge of the rabbit’s fur since then, although that’s nowhere near as easy as it sounds. One place it is easier than most is in a foreign country, especially one where you don’t speak the language. No longer having the ability to quickly understand what’s going on based on language you have to rely instead on gesture and visual aids, all of which encourages a closer analysis of human interaction than most people would normally engage in. In my case the foreign country is Japan where I’m living and working. Sometimes the things I notice are peculiar to the Japan and sometimes they’re more universal.

So it was that last week I found myself watching people clapping. Stripped of an understanding of precisely what was going on I was struck by just how odd clapping is. Of course it doesn’t seem particularly strange but then weird things we all agree to accept as normal tend to have that quality (neck ties).

So I’m watching an audience applauding and thinking to myself how strange this all is. How otherworldly that this is the sign of approval. And then the questions start to come. Who decided that striking our hands together was a sign of approval? Why not a sign of disapproval? Why don’t we beat our chests? Or click our fingers? There are other sounds we can make, either with our hands or with our mouths (or with our hands and our mouths). Why is that that this one was the one that was decided on? And was it decided on by multiple groups of people in a mass coincidence? Or did one group bring it to all the other groups? Do all people clap? And if some people don’t clap what do they do instead?

We’ve all been clapping since we were a few months old so I realise it’s difficult to think of clapping as anything but natural and maybe it is. Unfortunately Wikipedia wasn’t much help in my quest for information on clapping so I have had to just content myself with thinking about it alone. When I stopped and look at it it seemed to have a real beastial quality to it. I imagine those documentaries about wild animals where you see all the monkeys screeching and squawking at each other. Is this what we look like to anyone not immersed in human society?

I love thinking about human behaviour and social interaction and if I had the opportunity to do any degree I wanted I think something in that field would be the most interesting. When I told Rui about my thoughts today she said she’d had similar thoughts herself a few years ago. Clearly I’m not alone, then. How about you, dear reader? Any insights? Is it strange? Or is there nothing really to it and I’m making a lot of hay out of nothing? (I’m sure there’s a different phrase about making hay that I’ve just massacred.) Maybe you don’t have any thoughts or maybe you haven’t had any thoughts yet. Maybe you just have something to think about the next time someone calls for a round of applause.