Nobody likes a Clown after Midnight
Posted: Wed Jul 14, 2021 7:32 am
A number of years ago my wife and I took my then three year old granddaughter to the circus in expectation that she would enjoy the thrilling new experiences to be found under the 'big top'.
About three minutes into the show however, the circus clowns came gambling out into the arena and upon seeing them she immediately broke down in tears which rapidly developed into screams of terror. Despite a brief attempt to calm her, it became obvious that she was deeply afraid of the performers and we left forthwith.
Now this is interesting on a number of points. She had certainly never seen clowns before: she had not been exposed to films like It or any other clown related horror stories, and yet she was instinctively (it would seem) paralyzed with fear by such manifestations. What can we learn from this, I wonder?
We are all products of a combination of nature (what is inherently given to us via our genes) and nurture (what we learn subsequent to our birth as we develop). It would seem on the face of this account of my granddaughter's fear, that her terror of the clowns was an inherent part of her makeup, genetically acquired rather than resulting from learned experience, and while this is not an absolute guarantee (who can say what other 'thing' from her experience might not have been associated with these faces) it does seem likely. Now if this is indeed the case, we must ask why this might be so. Could it be that the clown face was in some way a replication of some other threat, commonly encountered in a much earlier time in the human development story; a threat so dangerous that it actually acted upon the natural selection process which has determined what we have since become? In such a scenario, those born with a gene that by mutation or whatever, conferred an inbuilt fear of something that bore a similarly to the clown face, and by virtue of this avoided encounter and subsequent death, would pass on this gene to their offspring. Those not in possession of the gene, at a disadvantage, would die, and over generations the gene would become more widespread until it became common to most if not all humans going forward.
The alternative explanation would fly in the face of the central dogma of molecular biology, that acquired characteristics (I mean those acquired during the life of a given individual, not those acquired genetically) do not cross the barrier into the production of the gametes that go into the making of the next generation. In this alternative explanation we can see a situation where the frightening of an individual by an event (say my granddaughter's mother by a particularly nasty clown encounter) is so powerful that it becomes genetically transferred onto the next generation (ie my granddaughter).
This latter explanation seems unlikely to me - but then the former one does as well. Are we truly to believe that something in our deep history so resembled the clowns of today's circus rings, that we have carried a genetic fear of it down through the generations until today, where it still manifests in the form of the deep unease that many of us feel in the presence of a clown.
I don't know; I can't answer the question - but one thing I can say is that I share my granddaughter's feelings in respect of the face painted fuckers of today. For some reason I can't say, they give me the creeps and I don't like 'em!
About three minutes into the show however, the circus clowns came gambling out into the arena and upon seeing them she immediately broke down in tears which rapidly developed into screams of terror. Despite a brief attempt to calm her, it became obvious that she was deeply afraid of the performers and we left forthwith.
Now this is interesting on a number of points. She had certainly never seen clowns before: she had not been exposed to films like It or any other clown related horror stories, and yet she was instinctively (it would seem) paralyzed with fear by such manifestations. What can we learn from this, I wonder?
We are all products of a combination of nature (what is inherently given to us via our genes) and nurture (what we learn subsequent to our birth as we develop). It would seem on the face of this account of my granddaughter's fear, that her terror of the clowns was an inherent part of her makeup, genetically acquired rather than resulting from learned experience, and while this is not an absolute guarantee (who can say what other 'thing' from her experience might not have been associated with these faces) it does seem likely. Now if this is indeed the case, we must ask why this might be so. Could it be that the clown face was in some way a replication of some other threat, commonly encountered in a much earlier time in the human development story; a threat so dangerous that it actually acted upon the natural selection process which has determined what we have since become? In such a scenario, those born with a gene that by mutation or whatever, conferred an inbuilt fear of something that bore a similarly to the clown face, and by virtue of this avoided encounter and subsequent death, would pass on this gene to their offspring. Those not in possession of the gene, at a disadvantage, would die, and over generations the gene would become more widespread until it became common to most if not all humans going forward.
The alternative explanation would fly in the face of the central dogma of molecular biology, that acquired characteristics (I mean those acquired during the life of a given individual, not those acquired genetically) do not cross the barrier into the production of the gametes that go into the making of the next generation. In this alternative explanation we can see a situation where the frightening of an individual by an event (say my granddaughter's mother by a particularly nasty clown encounter) is so powerful that it becomes genetically transferred onto the next generation (ie my granddaughter).
This latter explanation seems unlikely to me - but then the former one does as well. Are we truly to believe that something in our deep history so resembled the clowns of today's circus rings, that we have carried a genetic fear of it down through the generations until today, where it still manifests in the form of the deep unease that many of us feel in the presence of a clown.
I don't know; I can't answer the question - but one thing I can say is that I share my granddaughter's feelings in respect of the face painted fuckers of today. For some reason I can't say, they give me the creeps and I don't like 'em!