The Fred West cardigan stunt dramatically revealed that my listeners’ rapid and automatic intuition kicked in before they had time to consider why they would not wear it. Sadistic killers disgust most of us and, without even thinking about it, we would not want to come into physical contact with them or their possessions. Not all of us, however, feel this way. Psychopaths and sociopaths do not feel any connection with their fellow humans, and that’s what enables them to do the inhuman things they do. They don’t show the same emotional arousal the rest of us have.6 However, not everyone who could wear the cardigan is psychotic. Some are simply not sentimental about objects. They may decline the invitation to wear the cardigan, but only because they do not want to stand out from the crowd. Whether we feel the presence of Fred West or simply do not want to be seen to be different, most of us refuse the invitation. Anyone who boldly insists on wearing the cardigan can argue the illogical nature of the association, but that person is still going to lose friends. Would you associate with someone who was not bothered about doing something that most others find repugnant?
I think the main reason the stunt annoyed critics who read about the event was that they probably experienced the same clash between intuition and logic that my audience felt. They initially considered how they would have responded using their inituitive processes, and then, with their rational mind, they realized the logical inconsistency of either a yes or no answer. Also, there is simply no correct answer to the question, making it all the more vexing. Would you wear a killer’s cardigan for £1? What about £10,000? There is a point at which most people would change their mind, but what is so undesirable in the first place about touching items owned by evil people or living in houses where murders were committed? Why do the majority of us have these reservations?
The idea for the Fred West cardigan stunt came from the work of Paul Rozin at the University of Pennsylvania.7 Rozin’s experiments are some of the most interesting and provocative examples of the peculiar nature of human reasoning. Much of his work concerns the complex human behaviour of disgust. Disgust is a universal human reaction triggered by certain experiences that elicit a strong bodily response. Anyone can recognize that nose-wrinkling, revolted, nauseous, retching, stomach-churning sensation we get when we are disgusted. It’s a powerful and involuntary response that can be difficult to control.
Disgust is interesting because we all develop nausea reactions to specific things such as human excrement and putrid corpses. However, there is also room for learning: certain substances and behaviours can be deemed disgusting if others say so. The diversity of food preferences, personal hygiene, and sexual practices across different cultures proves this. It is well known that Asian cuisine includes insects and reptiles that are considered unpalatable by Western standards. Less well known is the beverage Kopi Luwak, a rare gourmet coffee from Indonesia that is made from beans passed through the digestive system of a palm civet, a dark brown, tree-dwelling, catlike creature found throughout Southeast Asia. Kopi Luwak is sold mainly to the Japanese at up to £300 a pound, making it the world’s most expensive ‘crappacino’. Or take phlegm. There are few things more revolting than someone else’s creamy mucous. In the run-up to the 2008 Beijing Olympics, the city officials tried to outlaw the commonly accepted Chinese practice of clearing phlegm in public by spitting and sinus-clearing, which are nauseating practices to most Westerners. Ironically, the Western practice of blowing the contents of one’s nose into a handkerchief and putting the handkerchief, with its contents, in one’s pocket could bring on dry-heaves in many Japanese, who consider it disgusting to carry such fluids around on one’s person. I guess we in the West would think the same of other bodily excrements kept in our pockets. Or consider sex with animals. Like many others, I had thought bestiality to be universally taboo until I discovered that intercourse with donkeys is acceptable in the northern Colombian town of San Antero, where adolescent boys are actively encouraged in this practice. They even have a festival to celebrate this bestiality; particularly attractive donkeys are paraded in wigs and makeup.8 (I am still hoping that this last example is an elaborate hoax.)
There’s a saying in the north of England, ‘There’s nowt so queer as folk’, and these few examples demonstrate how society and culture can shape what we find disgusting and what we find acceptable. In later chapters, we will see that all of us experience feelings of disgust. Our responses to some disgusting things are automatic and largely unlearned, but the people around us shape others, such as the violation of taboos. In this way, gut-wrenching disgust can be triggered to prevent behaviours that threaten the sacred values of our society.
WHY DON’T WE WANT TO WEAR THE CARDIGAN?
Rozin’s work on contamination shows that adults do not want to come into physical contact with disgusting items even after they have been washed. (One of the items he used was Hitler’s sweater. It didn’t take much ingenuity to adapt this to Fred West’s cardigan for a modern audience, as the principles are the same.) Rozin identified at least four reasons why we refuse to touch evil items, and he found that adults endorse each of these reasons to varying degrees.
1.
We do not want to be seen to undertake an action that the majority would avoid.
2.
Any item associated with a killer is negative, and thus wearing it produces associations with the act of killing.
3.
We believe that there is a physical contamination of the clothing.
4.
We believe that there is a spiritual contamination of the clothing.
Social conformity, the first explanation, is sensible, but only when we imagine what others would think of us. In other words, why does society regard touching certain items of clothing as so unacceptable? Why is the physical contact more wrong than simply saying the name or painting a picture of the culprit? The answer lies somewhere in the remaining three reasons.
Many Web critics argued that my cardigan stunt demonstrated simple association only and that there was no need to talk about contamination. However, an explanation based on association rings hollow to my ears. How and why should a cardigan come to represent the negative association with a killer? If I had chosen a knife or noose, the association account would have been adequate. A cardigan is not an item usually linked to murderers. It is something that offers warmth and comfort and, most importantly for my demonstration, intimacy. This combination was meant to jar and shock. The infamous photo of a snarling Fred West taken at his arrest produces a strong association, but personal items such as clothing trigger stronger negative responses. Images are powerful, but objects are even more so. Intimate clothing is more powerful still. That’s why you never see someone else’s underwear for sale in secondhand clothing stores no matter how well they might have been cleaned and sterilized. This is what Rozin has shown in many similar experiments in which he presents adult subjects with items that have been contaminated. In spite of efforts to sterilize the items, adults still feel disgusted. Something persists in the clothing. More people would rather wear a cardigan that has been dropped in dog faeces and then washed than one that has also been cleaned but worn by a murderer.