My point of view

One of the benefits of half-listening to something, such as one does when the radio's on while you're getting up, or in any meeting that lasts more than 15 minutes, is that the speaker has to say something really quite good - and in a way that's tonally ear-pricking - in order for one to bother listening properly.

Perhaps it's laziness, or perhaps we're just not built to concentrate for that long, or perhaps it's just that the majority of stuff that's spoken is utterly bland and inconsequential. Whatever it is, I love it when a thought breaks cover and you're drawn back into the moment and forced to listen.

Such was the case on Start the Week this Monday when philosopher Raymond Tallis was talking about why pointing the finger is considered rude.

It's one of those 'why?' questions we pose when kids: 'Mummy, why is it rude? Why do I have to go to bed? Why does grandma smell funny?' - and the usual reply is less than satisfactory, along the lines of 'because I say so'.

And so we grow up just accepting much of this. Until we realise that sleep is necessary and that grandma had regressed in the hygiene stakes.

So it was an ear-pricker indeed when it was suggested that the reason that pointing is rude may well be that 'it reduces you to an object. You're skewered, left pinned and wriggling. You are merely that meaty object at this moment, now, and all your back history and your vision and opinions don't count.'

How luxuriantly metaphysical. What a delicious way of explaining why waggling a bit of bone and flesh in someone's direction is to ignore their fundamental 'themness'. I think I might even agree with this.

And by chance today, while trying to work out how to include this thought in a blog post, I ended up watching a brief film of Richard Feynman explaining how light works.

I should explain that I arrived at said video via various discussions about how so many marketers make life unnecessarily complex by using long and fancy words that get in the way of communicating an idea.

(And in the light of that sentiment, I avoided using the word obfuscate for fear of having the finger pointed at me.)

Feynman is, as most people seem to agree, bloody brilliant: an entertaining and understandable scientist; and one, unlike Adam-Bloody-Hart-Davis, who doesn't tell you that tax is simple. Which is bloody isn't.

In this video he actually helped me understand how light waves work, and even through his simple language and metaphor, made me realise how complex the functions are that help us distinguish our relative positions in the world.

And in the face of this complexity, I was left wondering whether that's not another reason why we don't like having the finger pointed at us: it's not just that we're reduced to an object, but that we're reduced to a single object: one who is marked out. Whilst some of us are happy to stand out from the crowd, the majority like to cling to each other in fear of being picked on as a special example.

Moreover, if you realise you're being pointed at, you the pointee are probably facing the pointer head on, so you're only having one aspect of yourself appreciated - and probably a differentiating one at that.

So the reasons for its rudeness are complex, and I now see why parents don't normally bother with the explanation.