No Country for All Men

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I think this is maybe why you and I tend to do the thing where we watch something first without taking notes. We need our unconscious to do your thing, then I'll try to interpret. But if I start trying to interpret before you've even had a chance to do your work, then it's not going to be as good. That's also why it's a different thing confronting something with another person than talking about no country because we're going to talk about it versus we're not. Some ideas just need to be articulated.

The Summer of Cormac McCarthy continues – this time we dive into his one piece of non-fiction, the short essay “The Kekulé Problem.” How does our unconscious mind solve problems that conscious deliberation can’t crack? Why does it often work elliptically, in code, rather than giving us the answer directly in language? Is McCarthy right that the unconscious doesn’t trust language because it’s such a newcomer to the human brain?

Plus we select the finalists for our listener selected episode – thanks to our beloved patrons for all their terrific suggestions!

"The Kekulé Problem" by Cormac McCarthy

Pinker & Bloom 1990

Dijksterhuis & Strick 2016