Parables of Cleaning
What does cleaning have to tell us about our lives, society, and meaning in general?
As I write this mid-March, winter has passed in Texas. Every day for the past several weeks the weather has gotten into at least the 60s and some days were in the 70s. The switch to spring reminds me of “Spring Cleaning,” one of the few times every year my family and I would go through old objects to determine if we still wanted them. We would also prepare things we hadn’t used in a while, such as outdoor swimwear, for another summer season.
Spring Cleaning always made me reflect on the passage of time, as it marked another year gone. The more I’ve cleaned in years since, the more I’ve appreciated the many lessons cleaning offers. Many of these lessons are reflected in Blog pieces I’ve had the pleasure of editing or reading since I began working with the APA Blog. As we consign yet another winter to history, I want to share the philosophical parables cleaning holds for the interested mind.
Erasing the old, creating the new
What is dust if not remains of times gone by and memories of the past? For all the frustration it brings, a careful analysis of dust tells you a lot about a place, as forensic scientists know. A philosophical work is the remains of times someone spent philosophizing and a memory of their conclusions. Just like dust, such works tell us about the places and times in which they were composed. This is why historians of philosophy emphasize understanding texts in relation to their context, not simply as independent theories.
Yet as a remnant of times past, dust is both despised and cherished. It can symbolize that which holds us back and prevents us from innovating. Yet it also represents tradition and respect for history. Many culture war topics are motivated by people’s desires to either keep society as it was or to embrace new ideas, but few people would advocate entirely for one or the other. Rarely do people want to fully eliminate history or traditions, but the same applies to embracing newness. Finding the right mix of both for a society is an ongoing project as people wrestle with how much their values are subjective or objective. Philosophers embrace new ideas, yet find value in past works which are, admittedly, flawed. How much should we change, broaden, or keep the canon? Should there be a canon? If we can’t record everything, which new ideas should we keep and which ideas should we let go of? People obviously reach different conclusions given the diversity of philosophical projects. I doubt philosophers would like someone enforcing answers from the top-down, so we pick and choose for ourselves and watch the field develop. Similarly, as I can never clean everything, I pick and choose what’s most important to work on, accepting both the spotlessness and dust that remains.
Finding meaning in small actions
Cleaning gets a reputation as onerous, tedious, and unpleasant. We don’t often want to do it because it is not high on our list of work or play. Unless you’re a professional, no one pays you to clean, so it is less financially rewarding than your job. Yet cleaning isn’t generally as relaxing as watching television, playing a game, reading, or spending time with friends. We usually do it because we prefer the outcome of cleaning rather than the act of cleaning. Having a clean house leads to pleasant feelings even if cleaning does not.
Yet philosophers discuss the value of tedious and seemingly unnecessary tasks. In a world where it is unlikely that we will ever have absolute knowledge of the Big Questions, it is beneficial to spend time focused on tasks you can complete and control. Though cleaning itself will never be complete, individual tasks will, and that itself can be meaningful. In other words, while the cycle of cleaning - things getting dirty and then cleaning again - is never-ending, we can find meaning in individual instances of cleaning. This meaning will be incomplete and temporary, but some philosophers say that this is the nature of all meaning. Recognizing this on an individual level helps you accept it on a global level. Perhaps cleaning need not be an onerous, tedious task. Perhaps, instead, it is a vehicle guiding us to a happier life.
To be responsible in life
Cleaning is usually considered one’s responsibility. As ethics is the study of responsibility, or what one should or shouldn’t do, cleaning invokes elements of ethics. To clean often means that you are doing what is required of you, or that which is necessary. While cleaning is a duty we give ourselves or which we are given by our community, it is nevertheless a real responsibility.
I’ve often found that people who are clean are disciplined (which is not to say that the unclean lack discipline per se). They can complete a diverse set of tasks using good time management and will motivate themselves to complete work despite any dissatisfaction. Good discipline is an important character trait in virtue ethics, and the related pedagogy of ‘teaching the whole person’ emphasizes it. Other ethical theories encourage good discipline, but not as the goal of ethics. That said, one could also argue that people who are clean are happier, more caring, and better intentioned.
Perhaps we can use our cleaning practices to better understand our lived ethical selves, in contrast to our ethical ideologies. This is similar to Buddhist scholars encouraging one to clean as a form of meditation, using it to cultivate the mindset one should have towards all things.
Signs of status and purity
Numerous sayings associate cleanliness with positive things such as “godliness” and “happiness.” It’s no wonder that cleanliness has also become a sign of status. As with many other such signs, one way the enfranchised achieve high status is by hiring others to do their work. Having maids and servants signifies wealth and a well-kept house while being a maid or servant is traditionally considered lower-class work. Cleanliness’s (paradoxically) ugly side is its attachment to colonialism and elitism.
While being clean is rarely condemned, using cleanliness as a metaphor for purity while making public judgments of others fits into ongoing patterns of oppression. Just as it is impossible to get my apartment entirely clean, so too should we be careful how we laud cleanliness. It is best to applaud cleanliness as a practice, not as a goal (especially when that goal is unrealistic). We should welcome people who work consistently to improve the cleanliness of their places, not the cleanliness of the places per se. Not everyone has the same resources and time to put into cleaning as others, yet we should praise the effort they put in.
These days I tend to do any cleaning towards the Summer, after my semester has ended. Yet I still mark those occasions by reflecting on the meanings cleaning has. There’s a wealth of knowledge to be found.
More from the APA
From the Archive: https://blog.apaonline.org/2018/06/21/recently-published-book-spotlight-the-hiddenness-argument/
This is one of the Blog’s earlier “Recently Published Book Spotlights.” It discusses an argument against the existence of God and was written by a philosopher who taught the book in his Philosophy of Religion class. It delves into the argument of the book, why the author wrote it, and some of the ongoing themes that come up in discussions about God’s existence.
What we’re watching: I just finished The Beef. It is on Netflix and revolves around an ongoing conflict between two people of Korean descent who have a road rage incident in a parking lot. Most of the characters in the show make poor decisions at one point or another, and it’s not hard to dislike some of the characters. However, rarely do you come away without a sympathetic understanding of what motivates the character and how, but for some poorly timed events outside their control, they may not have done the things they did.
News Story of the Month: The multitude of stories and perspectives on Trump’s trials.
It is clichéd to say that this election season is like no other in history, yet it is. While I’m already tired of all the messaging and propaganda surrounding the trials, I am curious to see how our social institutions respond to this moment in US history. I hope we’ll have a better understanding of each other by the end of this cycle than we do currently.