When thought takes flight

Think Together Sheffield – whose members include Thoughtful trainers Helen, Rob, Topsy, Fufy, Rebecca and Kate, Thoughtful-trained facilitators Rosie and Paula, plus Co-Director Grace – delivered the evening’s programme, which was hosted by Sheffield Museums and funded by The Society for the Furtherance of Critical Philosophy.

In this post, Grace discusses the workshops she led as part of the event and reflects on the power of public philosophy to help people connect with new people and ideas.

Museums and galleries are full of artefacts that spark curiosity and invite conversation. They’re also public places where people with different perspectives and life experiences share the same space. But it isn’t always easy to strike up a conversation with a stranger, so most of the time, our thoughts are muted and we take them home with us, unsaid. But not on this occasion! Almost 200 strangers joined us at the Millennium Gallery in Sheffield to talk about everything from freedom and creativity, to gender and home.

My own focus for these philosophical exercises and enquiries, was on the kinds of everyday ethical issues familiar to all of us; issues that are at the same time prosaic and yet also profound. So, working in the metalwork gallery surrounded by cutlery and other domestic objects, we spoke about the virtues of decluttering, the politics of cleaning, the acceptability of regifting, and whether to show gratitude for unwanted gifts.

As an icebreaker, I invited the group to look around at the exhibits and imagine they were having a clear out: ‘What would you get rid of?’ I asked. A young woman spoke first, she explained that she couldn’t let go of anything, each object had been so expertly made and so lovingly conserved, it seemed wrong to discard any of it.

Later I asked, ‘Can you have too much stuff?’ and the woman’s boyfriend said he didn’t think so, providing you had enough space. ‘If you were rich and lived in a big house, there would be no limit to what you could own’ he argued. An older woman smiled at him, then wondered whether people’s attitude to clutter depended on their age. ‘When you are young, you’re building your life’ she suggested, ‘but as you get older you try to shed the layers’.

His girlfriend nodded thoughtfully, but then explained that she was currently moving out of a room she was renting. For her this necessitated shedding so much that she wished she could keep. Another person wondered if age was not so much an issue as housing insecurity, perhaps possessions feel more precious when everything is precarious. Recognition spread on the faces of several people.

Someone sitting back from the rest of the group, pointed out that our attitude to collecting things has a social, cultural, historical, and psychological roots. In times of scarcity like war or recession, we hold on to things out of fear and prudence.

A man who told me he was autistic and too shy to speak, explained privately that he was trying to declutter every room in his house because he thought it was unfair to pass on the task to someone else, after he died. After I echoed his contribution to the rest of the group. The women sitting back, moved forwards to tell the neurodivergent man that she felt tidiness is not virtuous, rather it’s just fashion: ‘One decade minimalism is in, the next it’s maximalism’. He needn’t feel morally obliged to declutter. But after that, several participants acknowledged the burden that similar situations had created for them, when their loved ones died.

In the next workshop the focus turned to gifts. I asked the group to choose from the artefacts in display cases, something they would like to give to someone else. A woman explained how vital gifts are in Sudanese culture, which is how she had grown up. She said she’d gladly gift her mother the giant wooden carriage clock which was the biggest and brightest object in the room. The group laughed.

One woman, standing by her husband, felt aggrieved that her mother-in-law has asked her not to buy her gifts anymore. The request had left her offended, she felt that no longer able to express her love and thoughtfulness. Another women of a similar age, became passionate. Speaking directly to the aggrieved woman and her husband, she explained that she had a friend who insists on giving her expensive gifts despite saying she doesn’t want them. She was angry that her friend wouldn’t listen to her, and she now felt obliged to buy expensive gifts in return. A young man who had studied philosophy at school, wondered who gifts are really for.

One person was too nervous to join in. She explained privately that she didn’t know what everyday ethics meant. Her friend then told us about her husband advising her about how to spend her money. She wasn’t sure why it bothered her so much. Together with the shy woman, they speculated about how important it is for women of their age and circumstances to have financial independence from men.

In a few short sessions with total strangers, we had what I would regard as a truly educative experience in the Deweyan sense in that genuine knowledge emerged out our collective experiences of living in the world. Participants were reminded of how their culture, age, grief, wealth, home, relationships, and a host of other factors, framed their view of the themselves and each other. They were reminded that even in the smallest decisions of everyday life there is deep and diverse meaning.

“Such an energising and at the same time calm space – it felt very inclusive, and it had a really authentic feeling of co-constructing and thinking together!”
Participant feedback

You can read reflections by all contributors here: https://www.thinktogethersheffield.org/post/our-philosophy-late-where-thought-took-flight