24 July 2008
What I'm Reading Lately: Death, Dog Poisoning, Novelty, Flawed Heroes, Psych Experiments, Limiting Generalisations
A mish-mash of my recent online reading, pondering, etc.
>> Alpine murder mystery: Are sheepdogs being poisoned to save the grey wolf? (Independent, 18 July 2008):
So far this year, 17 sheepdogs (including Great Pyrenees) have been poisoned -- with slug poison placed inside pork meatballs -- in the high Maurienne mountains, just inside the French border with Italy. The killings seem to stem from an ongoing dispute between sheep-lovers (and shepherds) and wolf-lovers. "'The pork meat balls were left, some time during the night, most likely just before dawn, in a place where the dogs would be sure to find them. This is the work of a maniac – a madman. What if the meat had been found by a small child? There are tourists everywhere at this time of year, including many British tourists.'"
"The dogs have often died in great agony.... [The poison] causes instant and catastrophic diarrhoea and lung failure in small mammals like dogs. 'They finish up dying completely dehydrated but, before that, they drown in their own bronchial fluids.'"
There are about 100 wolves in France. There is a sheep-protection plan in place in the area, and there have been no wolf attacks on sheep in the Maurienne area for more than two years.
>> If you haven't read it yet, I recommend "Cancer & Creativity: One Chef’s True Story" (Food & Wine, July 2008):
"While undergoing treatment for tongue cancer, Grant Achatz temporarily lost his ability to taste. Paradoxically, it taught him brilliant new ways to create flavor."
>> Impossible Experiments (Psychology Today, 1 July 2008) is a small collection of research psychologists would like to do "if neither ethics nor practical reality stood in your way." What interests me is that almost all the comments (so far) are about one hypothesis, that how parents raise their kids doesn't influence them significantly. The experiment I would jump on is Tamler Sommers' "Another Man's Shoes." (The YouTube video at the end makes clear that the whole thing is a joke ... or is it?) Other never-done experiments.
>> "Our Infantile Search for Heroic Leaders" by Johann Hari (26 June 2008, Independent). Hari's thesis is two-fold: That there are no perfectly good leaders and that we can't expect leaders to solve our problems because "every civilising advance in history ... was won because ordinary people banded together and agitated for it." Not much new there, but what interested me about this article was Hari's critique of Mandela, Gandhi, and Churchill as flawed leaders. I never knew that Churchill, for instance, was "strongly in favour of using poisoned gas against uncivilised tribes." His portrayal of Gandhi as a murderer (of his wife) seems overdone, not because I don't believe it's possible but because even as Hari presents it, it sounds more like a matter of adhering to principles in one case (his wife's illness) and not in another (his own illness), a rather ordinary though insidious trait.
>> Reframing Questions by Dave Pollard at How To Save the World (16 July 2008) seeks to promote critical thinking, to help us think beyond our own "false myths and limiting generalizations." He gives some examples of some limiting myths and generalisations he encounters everyday in business, then reframes the questions, and then asks his readers: "What are the false myths and limiting generalizations that you are struggling with, and how might you use appropriate questions to reframe them, disempower them, put them to rest?" Some day I may give some energy to it and respond to that challenge here.
>> "Why We Like New Stuff" (Mental Floss, 16 July 2008). Basically, "our brains are actually hard-wired to prefer novelty and adventure. ... In fact, research on the ventral striatum (the part of the brain associated with rewarding behavior) seems to indicate that sating our sense of adventure provides us the same sort of satisfaction we get from sex and food." Dopamine figures, too. Full study (7 pages, PDF).
>> "Italian Outrage Over Roma Drowning Photos" (21 July 2008, CNN) is confusing to me. "Italian newspapers, an archbishop and civil liberties campaigners expressed shock and revulsion on Monday after photographs were published of sunbathers apparently enjoying a day at the beach just meters from where the bodies of two drowned Roma girls were laid out on the sand."
I think I might be creeped out if dead people were lying on the beach -- I'm creeped out when a dead seal or horseshoe crab is lying on the beach -- but the sunbathers' critics aren't shocked that they're not repulsed enough, presumably; they're shocked that the sunbathers are indifferent to the bodies. Shocked that they can act as if they aren't there, that they can do what they would ordinarily do without creating a sacred space for the bodies, without making their deaths the focus. That doesn't seem so bad to me. In any important way, the girls are not there, so why regard the dead bodies as something sacred, something whose presence means we should act differently than we do ordinarily? I guess it's because death is seen as such a powerful force.
The Archbishop of Naples, Cardinal Crecenzio Seppe, said in his blog that "'To turn the other way or to mind your own business can sometimes be more devastating than the events that occur.'" I'd agree if the girls were injured or needed lifesaving efforts; then it would be cruel to be indifferent. But I don't see how the sunbathers' can really mind the dead girls' business now, or why they should.
I've been in the presence of someone in the moments of her death, and in the presence of her body, as it lay in her house, for a couple of hours after that. The moment of dying, yes, that felt like something happened, something a little unusual and yet not, like breathing in and out. But for the hours afterwards? My experience was that life went on in its ordinary way. If I hadn't felt that all along that morning, I would have when the mortuary folks came with their plastic garbage-like bag and heaved her body into it. It was about as sacred-seeming as bodies under beach towels on a sunny day.
(In a twisted way, it kinda reminds me of this ...)
06:15 Posted in animals , death , neuroscience, psychology, the mind , other people said it , politics, government and law , pop culture , science and tech , travel and place | Permalink | Comments (0) | Trackbacks (0) | Email this
22 July 2008
Noose Watch
A surprising number of noose incidents in the southern New England and mid-Atlantic states ...
Click on map to learn details of each of the 78 incidents reported to authorities within the last year in the U.S.)
14:55 Posted in crime , death , politics, government and law | Permalink | Comments (0) | Trackbacks (0) | Email this
19 July 2008
Choice and Happiness
Scott Adams (Dilbert creator) writes (almost a year ago):
"We know from workplace studies that the biggest factor in employee satisfaction is the degree of control workers have over their jobs, assuming other factors such as the pay and the hours are somewhere in the normal range. People like choice more than they like the thing they choose.
"When you make your own choices, you manipulate cognitive dissonance in your favor. No matter what you choose, it seems like a better option than it really is because you chose it."
I don't think any 'real' Buddhist would say this, but it seems to me that most of Buddhist practice, at the core, is meant to be a remedy for this seemingly universal human tendency to equate a sense of control with happiness.
Most of life is not controllable. We don't have a choice about many things. Being born and dying, for instance. :-) We often can't control our own thoughts and actions, much less those of other people, or circumstances. So this tendency to equate control with happiness leads to suffering, as we see again and again that we are not 'the deciders,' and even when we are the deciders, we decide wrong. Still, we try to be the deciders. It feels good to be in charge rather than to be told what to do or to have circumstances forced upon us.
Making choices and feeling in control is a key way of finding ground. Feeling we're in control gives us the illusion, first of all, that there's an "I," an identity that is constant and solid, and second, that we have power, that we can determine outcomes. And we do have power. We can affect some outcomes. There's also luck, timing, and other people's power, which thwart our sense of control, and even when we do exert control, there's our own ambivalence about alternatives (which diverts our power), our indecision, our poor judgment, our lack of wisdom, and the unravelling of unforeseen consequences, which remind us that even when we act with control and power we may not actually control outcomes.
I guess the question is, if I consciously and over-and-over choose to let go of needing to feel a sense of control in order to feel happy, am I still holding on to a sense of control in making that choice? And what then?
(photo: cat, staring up at bird's nest)
07:10 Posted in girardian anthropology , neuroscience, psychology, the mind , other people said it , politics, government and law | Permalink | Comments (3) | Email this
17 July 2008
Need for Sense of Control, Either Personal or External
Overcoming Bias points to an article in the July 2008 issue of Journal of Personality and Social Psychology (links to full text here but it's fee-based, or available through your library system) that examines four psychological experiments and concludes that when we feel a weak sense of personal control, we are more likely to believe "in the existence of a controlling God" and to defend "the overarching socio-political system." The authors discuss "the implications of these results for understanding why a high percentage of the population believes in the existence of God, and why people so often endorse and justify their socio-political systems." Sounds interesting -- I hope to read more when the July issue is available via my library system's EBSCOhost subscription.
This hypothesis seems in line with earlier reporting correlating that the longevity of communities with their religious underpinnings (religious communities last longer than secular ones, on the whole) and finding that the communities persist longer when those underpinnings (and the lifestyle they lead to) are stricter, more controlling.
Marginal Revolution commented on the same article, hypothesising that similar effects may hold for medicine and media, i.e., that we'd be more likely to believe that doctors are effective when our health is in jeopardy and that we'd be more likely to believe in media accuracy when we believe we need that media information in order to be safe. In all cases, we want to feel that someone is in control.
08:40 Posted in community , neuroscience, psychology, the mind , politics, government and law , pop culture , theology, spirituality, philosophy | Permalink | Comments (0) | Trackbacks (0) | Email this
14 July 2008
Solutions: Religion (Notes from Status Anxiety)
Notes from Alain de Botton's Status Anxiety (2004). This is the tenth post on this topic; the first is here.
PART II: Solutions
CHAPTER 4 - RELIGION
Death
Tolstoy's novella The Death of Ivan llyich (1886) is a Christian memento mori. Ivan Ilyich is all about status. When he realises he's going to die, he recognises he's wasted his time on Earth by leading an outwardly respectable but inwardly barren life. He always wanted to appear important and to impress people whom, he sees now, don't care for him at all. Those around him love his status, not his true vulnerable self.
The prospect of death may cause us to do what matters most to us and to pay less attention to the verdicts of others. We see we cannot "afford to defer forever, for the sake of propriety, our underlying commitments to ourselves."
Ruins! They comfort us, reveal our "punishingly high-minded sense of the gravity of what we are doing," our own exaggerated self-importance. Our miseries are tied to the grandiosity of our ambitions.
Community
We all have the same vulnerabilities and the same two driving forces: fear, and a desire for love.
The Christian would say that there is no such thing as a stranger, "only an impression of strangeness born of failure to acknowledge that others share both our needs and our weaknesses."
Christianity attempts to enhance the value we place on community -- through ritual (a transcendent intermediary) and through music (great leveller and social alchemist -- we see that others respond as we do, which forges connection).
Twin Cities
Jesus is the model for Christians' understanding of status. He has two different sides, as ordinary carpenter and as the holiest of men. We can see the difference between earthly status (determined by occupation, income, others' opinions) and spiritual status (related to one's soul and merits in God's eyes).
The City of God, Augustine, 427 AD: All human action can be interpreted from either the Christian or the Roman (earthly) perspective, which are different. Christian status derives from humility, generosity, recognition of one's dependence on God, etc.
Divine Comedia, Dante, 1315: Dante's Hell is home to many who enjoyed high status while they lived.
Christian lore asserts the superiority of spiritual over material success and endows its virtues with "a seductive seriousness and beauty" through music, art, literature, architecture, etc. "Through its command of aesthetic resources, of buildings, paintings and Masses, Christianity created a bulwark against the authority of earthly values and kept its spiritual concerns in the public eye."
Heydey of cathedrals, 1130-1530.
Christianity never abolished the Earthly City or its values, but that we retain any distinction between wealth and virtue is largely due to the impression left on Western consciousness by Christianity.
06:00 Posted in books and reading , community , death , girardian anthropology , other people said it , politics, government and law , pop culture , theology, spirituality, philosophy | Permalink | Comments (0) | Trackbacks (0) | Email this
13 July 2008
Solutions: Politics (Notes from Status Anxiety)
Notes from Alain de Botton's Status Anxiety (2004). The book generally aligns with mimetic theory and Girardian ideas; I've added a G near comments that seem to do so particularly.
This is the ninth post on this topic; the first is here.
PART II: Solutions
CHAPTER 3 - POLITICS
"Every society holds certain groups of people in high esteem while condemning or ignoring others, whether on the basis of their skills, accent, temperament, gender, physical attributes, ancestry, religion or skin colour. Yet such arbitrary and subjective criteria for success and failure are far from permanent or universal." G It's the job of the status quo to make them seem absolutely universal and permanent.
Rather eccentric timeline: of who and what has been held in high status:
400 BC Sparta: Soldiers: Men, aggressive, vigorously bisexual, not family men, not business men.
Western Europe 476-1096: Saints: followers of Jesus Christ, shunning of material goods, suppression of sexual feelings, extreme modesty.
Western Europe 1096-1500 (after first Crusade): Knights: Wealthy, killed people and animals. Lovers, poets. Prized virgins. Loved money but not from trade, only from land.
England 1750-1890: Gentlemen: Dancing, dabblers, not merchants. Supposed to like families but OK to have mistresses. Cultivation of languid elegance. Hair. Women seen as taller children.
Brasil, 1600-1960 (Cubeo tribe): Men who spoke little, did not dance or play a part in raising children, and were good at killing jaguars. High status - hunters; low status - fishermen. Shameful to even be seen helping wife make a root-based meal.
London, Sydney, New York, LA, 2004: Anyone who can accumulate money, power and renown through their own accomplishments in some sector of the commercial world. Because culture is now seen to be meritocratic, financial achievements are understood to be deserved. The ability to accumulate wealth is proof of creativity, stamina, intelligence. Other virtues, like godliness and humility, don't matter much.
By what principles is status distributed?:
(1) by threatening and bullying
(2) by defending others (strength, patronage, control of resources, etc.). Where safety is in short supply, soldiers and knights are celebrated. Where the livelihood of the majority depends on trade and high-tech, entrepreneurs and scientists are celebrated.
(3) by impressing others with goodness, talent, skill or wisdom (saints, European footballers)
(4) by appealing to conscience or sense of decency of peers - by moral authority.
Ideals are not cast in stone; the process by which they alter is politics.
For us in the western world now, prosperity = worthiness. And poverty = moral deficiency. Money is ethical. This equation of prosperity and worthiness seems "natural" to us but it only came into being as "the way it is" in the mid-1800s.
Thorstein Veblen's Theory of the Leisure Class (1899): "Wealth has become the conventional basis of esteem." Material goods confer honour (hence conspicuous consumption, to give evidence to one and all of one's 'true' worth).
Some have fought the idea of meritocracy, the idea that wealth = virtue, including most notable John Ruskin, and also George Bernard Shaw, Michel de Montaigne.
Modern life also posits a connection between making money and being happy. This connection rests on three assumptions:
(1) that we know what we need to be happy and so we know what careers and projects will help us flourish as humans. Rousseau refutes this (in Discourse on the Origin of Inequality, 1754): We are actually, he says, "dangerously inept at deciphering our own needs. Our souls rarely articulate what they must have in order to be fulfilled, and when they manage to mumble something, their requests are likely to be misfounded or contradictory .... Our minds are susceptible to the influence of external voices telling us what we require to be satisfied...." G
(2) that all of the occupational possibilities and consumer goods available to us are actually a helpful array that's capable of satisfying our essential needs.
(3) that the more money we have, the more goods and services we can afford, which increases our odds of happiness.
(de Botton writes more about this here: "Americans Were the First People to Worship Work")
Current Events Tie-In: "Will economic growth make Americans happier?" (23 June 2008, Chicago Tribune)
Some posit, in contrast to the money-happiness connection, that those who live in a "natural state" understand themselves much better. (Part of the 'noble savage' idea) E.g., the native Americans, who lived with little yet were reputed to be content. But within only a few decades of the arrival of the first Europeans, what came to matter to the Indians was the amassing of weapons, jewellery and whiskey. This didn't happen spontaneously; the European traders deliberately sought to foster desires in Indians to motivate them to provide animal pelts for the European market.
In 1690, the English naturalist and minister John Banister noted that the Indians of Hudson Bay area had been successfully tempted by traders to want "many things which they had not wanted before." As the volume of trade increased, suicide rates and alcoholism also rose, fracturing communities. Indian leaders called on tribes to renounce their addiction to European luxuries.
Defenders of commercial society argue that no one forces anyone to buy anything. Rousseau emphasised how strongly predisposed humans are to listen to others' suggestions about how to think and what to value. G
Advertisers et al. actually insist that their trades are ineffective because the population is so independent-minded. This is not shown to be true, based on what people once said were luxuries that they quickly came to see as necessities:
Percentage of Americans who say these are necessities:
2nd car in 1970: 20% / 2nd car in 2000: 59%
dishwasher in 1970: 8% / dishwasher in 2000: 44%
A/C in car in 1970: 11% / A/C in car in 2000: 65%
A/C in home in 1970: 22% / A/C in home in 2000: 70%
more than one telephone in 1970: 2% / more than one telephone in 2000: 78%
(Salon article about marketing -- "commercial persuasion industry" -- and consumerism: We Are What We Buy: "'We can talk all we want about being brand-proof ... but our behavior tells a different story.'")
"Life seems to be a process of replacing one anxiety with another and substituting one desire for another" and we're not aware of it. G We think achievements and acquisitions will satisfy us but they don't. Not only can we not stop envying, but we envy the wrong things!
John Ruskin excoriated 19th-century Britons for being wealth-obsessed. He said he was, too, but he was obsessed by being wealthy in kindness, curiosity, sensitivity, humility, godliness, and intelligence -- which in the aggregate he called "life."
In his conception, the wealthiest Britons would not be automatically merchants or landowners but rather those who felt the keenest wonder gazing at the stars or who were best able to alleviate the suffering of others. (in Unto This Last)
Ideology and Political Change
Lots of ideas have been seen as so immutable as to be 'natural', e.g.,:
- men's rule over women (Earl Percy, 1873)
- European people are better than Africans (Lord Cromer, 1911)
- women don't have sexual feeling (Sir William Acton, 1857)
- Africans are naturally subordinate to whites (Alexander Stephens, 1861)
Dominant beliefs are at great pains to suggest that they are no more alterable than the orbits of the sun. They are ideological -- "a statement that subtly promotes a bias while pretending to be perfectly neutral." The ruling ideas of every age are those of the ruling class; but they can't seem to rule too forcefully. The ideas have to seem natural and unforced, just "the way it is."
Ideology, like a colourless, odorless gas, is pervasive and yet unnoticed as what it is. It makes light of its perhaps unjust or illogical take on the world and meekly implies that it's only presenting age-old truths.
"When institutions and ideas are held to be 'natural,' responsibility for whatever suffering they cause must necessarily either belong to no specific agent or else to the injured parties themselves."
Virginia Woolf, when not allowed into a college library in England on the basis of being female, became sceptical of the feminine role model she grew up with, the image of a woman who was always charming and utterly unselfish. The model woman sacrificed herself daily. She took the worst piece of meat, the most uncomfortable seat, etc. "She was so constituted that she would never have a mind or wish of her own, but prefer to sympathise always with the minds and wishes of others."
"The enthusiasm for materialism, entrepreneurship and meritocracy that saturates the newspapers and television schedules of our own day reflects nothing more complex than the interests of those in charge of the system by which the majority earn their living."
06:45 Posted in books and reading , community , finance and business , girardian anthropology , media, film, tv, radio , other people said it , politics, government and law , pop culture | Permalink | Comments (0) | Trackbacks (0) | Email this
12 July 2008
Video: How to Pretend You Care About the Election
Video at The Onion News Network's "Today Now!" morning show.
Too funny (because it's true) not to post. I actually do care about the 2008 elections and will vote (as always), but I have no interest in talking about it with anyone, ever.
Watch for the text boxes "About the Candidates."
19:50 Posted in holidays and seasons , politics, government and law , silliness and humour | Permalink | Comments (0) | Trackbacks (0) | Email this
10 July 2008
Who are the Victims?
Another idea I have for an occasional series: News stories in which some group is labelled 'the victim' of a group, abstraction, or individual. I think it's educational and interesting to explore who or what are identified as victims and perpetrators in the media.
Recently,
American people are the victims: "The whiners are the leaders. Hell, the American people are victims. ..." [Said by political advisor and former Congressman Phil Gramm, reported today]
Palestinians are the victims of Jewish persecutors: "Touring the somber [Holocaust] museum, it occurred to [Israeli-Arab lawyer] Mahameed that 'we Palestinians are the victims of the terrible things that were inflicted on the Jews by the Holocaust.' [8 July; the article is actually eye-opening, moving, IMO]
Bass and salmon are the victims of mismanagement: "Striped bass are the victims of gross state and federal mismanagement of Central Valley rivers and the Delta, as are collapsing Sacramento River chinook salmon populations." [8 July]
Tuna are the victims of their own success: "Chronically overfished, Mediterranean tuna are the victims of their success with fish lovers, especially with the passion for sushi." [3 July]
Sociopathic politicians, celebrities and sports figures are the victims: "For all the public examples of bad behavior set by politicians, celebrities and sports figures, many young people see these individuals for exactly what they are: spoiled, overrated sociopaths who are the victims of an overly indulgent, disengaged society in search of civilization." [7 July]
Pakistani college women are the victims of cell phone use: "Mostly intermediate students are the victims of mobile mania" [8 July]
San Diego stores are the victims of shopping cart theft and displacement: "The stores are the victims, Councilman Jack Feller said, and they aren't the ones who should be punished." [12 June]
and finally, the word "victim" isn't used but it's sure implied in this odd story [7 July]:
"A special meeting about Dallas County traffic tickets turned tense and bizarre this afternoon.
"County commissioners were discussing problems with the central collections office that is used to process traffic ticket payments and handle other paperwork normally done by the JP Courts.
"Commissioner Kenneth Mayfield, who is white, said it seemed that central collections 'has become a black hole' because paperwork reportedly has become lost in the office.
"Commissioner John Wiley Price, who is black, interrupted him with a loud 'Excuse me!' He then corrected his colleague, saying the office has become a 'white hole.'"That prompted Judge Thomas Jones, who is black, to demand an apology from Mayfield for his racially insensitive analogy."
wtf?
20:15 Posted in animals , community , crime , earthcare and environment , girardian anthropology , other people said it , politics, government and law , pop culture | Permalink | Comments (0) | Trackbacks (0) | Email this
Causes: Dependence (Notes from Status Anxiety)
Notes from Alain de Botton's Status Anxiety (2004). This is the sixth post on this topic; the first is here.
CHAPTER 5 - DEPENDENCE
Status, historically, was tied to what one was at birth, not what one achieved in one's lifetime. [Can you imagine that this is a new concept? It seems so wholly part of what one seems to know.] Modern societies try to reverse this, to make rank dependent only on achievement -- usually, financial achievement.
The most evident trait of the struggle to achieve status now is uncertainty.
de Button lists five unpredictable elements:
(1) talent - it could desert us or we could find we never really had it
(2) luck - no longer as acceptable to point to as a factor, no moody gods to blame these days. The world is "enamored of rational control."
(3) dependence on an employer (q.v., Machiavelli, Guicciardini, La Rochefoucauld, La Bruyère, et al.)
(4) dependence on an employer's profitability
(5) dependence on the global economy
Workers' status is never guaranteed, is always dependent on their own performance and on factors that are outside of their control.
06:00 Posted in books and reading , finance and business , girardian anthropology , other people said it , politics, government and law , pop culture | Permalink | Comments (0) | Trackbacks (0) | Email this
09 July 2008
Causes: Meritocracy (Notes from Status Anxiety)
Notes from Alain de Botton's Status Anxiety (2004). This is the fourth post on this topic; the first is here.
CHAPTER 3 - MERITOCRACY
Explanations for why one might be poor and what one's value to society is have grown "notably more punitive and emotionally awkward in the modern era."
From AD 30 to the latter part of the 20th century, there have been three stories for the "lowest in Western societies" that were consoling:
(1) The poor are not responsible for their condition and are the most useful members of society. This is the medieval and pre-modern story. God and/or the natural order are responsible for societal position. In this story, there's a sense of mutual dependence among the classes, and the lowest classes are acknowledged for making life easier for the upper classes.
(2) Low status has no moral connotation. Per Scripture. Neither wealth nor poverty are an accurate index of moral worth. Jesus was poor and good. If anything, poverty was good because it led to the recognition of one's dependence on God.
(3) The rich are sinful and corrupt and owe their wealth to the robbery of the poor. 1754-1989. Rousseau, Marx (1887), Engels (1845)
These weren't the only stories, but they were widely credited.
Beginning around the middle of the 18th century, 3 more troubling stories (if you were poor) began to form:
(1) The rich are the useful ones. Bernard Mandeville's The Fable of the Bees (1723) is the written origin of this story, which says that the rich contribute more to society because their spending provides employment for everyone under them. The impact of the rich on others is the most beneficial even if their intentions and motivations are not beneficent. (To those of us in the 21st century, this 'fable' seems to have been always with us, but it's a relatively new take on things!) Hume repeats this idea in 1752, and Adam Smith seals the deal in 1759: "The whole of civilisation, and the welfare of all societies" depended on people's desire and ability to accumulate unneeded capital and show off their wealth. The greedier they are, the better for all.
(2) Status does have moral connotations. Seen in Thomas Paine (The Rights of Man), Napoleon, Carlyle -- all against hereditary aristocracy and for meritocracy, i.e., an aristocracy of talent. Inequality is OK so long as there is equality of opportunity (e.g., in education). This led to public schools, SAT tests (scientifically proven meritocratic standard - could rank people by their "real worth"), and the 1946 Universal Declaration of Human Rights which required compulsory education in the countries that signed on. Also led to equal opportunity in the workplace (1961, Kennedy) and competitive entrance exams (1870, Britain).
Now worldly position was obviously related to inner qualities: "Faith in an increasingly reliable connection between merit and worldly success in turn endowed money with a new moral quality." The rich were not only wealthier; they were plain better.
Christianity in the U.S. revised its thinking: now to possess riches in this world was evidence that one was deserving. The Rev. Thomas P. Hunt's The Book of Wealth: In Which it is Proved from the Bible that it is the Duty of Every Man to Become Rich (1836), was a bestseller. More on this connection between moral goodness and prosperity here at Talking Pentecostalism.
(3) The poor are sinful and corrupt and owe their poverty to their own stupidity. The poor were no longer seen as unfortunate. Now they were seen as undeserving failures. Poverty became a matter of shame.
Social Darwinism -- the weak are nature's mistakes and should be allowed to perish. Herbert Spencer in Social Statics: or, The Conditions Essential to Human Happiness Specified, and the First of Them Developed (1851) argued that biology is opposed to charity. Andrew Carnegie, in his autobiography, said that "Those worthy of assistance, except in rare cases, seldom require assistance. The really valuable men of the race never do."
--- * --- * --- *
Current Events Tie-In: Extremely wealthy Americans evoke sense of awe in their wealthy psychiatrists: "Dr. [Byram] Karasu acknowledged that he was not immune from taking satisfaction in the success and fame of his patients. 'Wealthy people bring about a degree of awe, even in their therapists sometimes,' he said. 'This is the biggest problem I see in the doctors I supervise. And these are fully practicing doctors, doctors making $400, $500 an hour.'"
05:45 Posted in books and reading , community , consumption , education , finance and business , girardian anthropology , other people said it , politics, government and law , pop culture | Permalink | Comments (0) | Trackbacks (0) | Email this
08 July 2008
What You Need: One Nag, One Hysteric, One Geek, etc.
Assistant Defense Secretrary S. Ward Casscells says that advocates need to speak up when they feel that their war-wounded loved ones are being ill-served by military hospital staff:
"On your team you need a champion. ... You need a nag, a hysteric, someone with computer skills, and someone who can read the legal fine print. It's daunting."
(in "When Wounded Vets Come Home" by Barry Yeoman, AARP magazine, July/Aug. 2008)
14:40 Posted in health and medicine , other people said it , politics, government and law | Permalink | Comments (0) | Trackbacks (0) | Email this
Causes: Expectation (Notes from Status Anxiety)
Notes from Alain de Botton's Status Anxiety (2004). The book generally aligns with mimetic theory and Girardian ideas; I've added a G near comments that seem to do so particularly.
This is the third post on this topic; the first is here.
CHAPTER 2 - EXPECTATION
Material Progress
In 1800s England, services and goods that previously only the elite had access to were now available to the masses. "Luxuries became decencies, and decencies necessities." From the 1750s, one could identify specific fashion styles for each year, which had never been the case before. The change was mostly due to agricultural innovations from 1700-1820s, and in the 1800s to technological innovations like the can opener, sewing machine, typewriter, lighting, sanitation, etc.
Equality, Expectation and Envy
A decline in actual deprivation has led to an increase in the sense of deprivation and in the fear of deprivation: "Neither who we are nor what we have is quite enough."
How do we decide how much is enough? It's never determined independently but rather by comparison to a reference group, "a set of people who we believe resemble us." G
A feeling that we might, under other circumstances, be other than what we are can be brought on by "exposure to the superior achievements of those whom we take to be our equals" and can lead to anxiety and resentment. G
We envy only those whom we feel are like us, our reference group. G
Per David Hume, it's not the disproportion between ourselves and others that produces envy but the proximity (in A Treatise on Human Nature, 1739). The greater the disproportion, the less likely we will envy because the other is remote from us, diminishing the effects of the comparison. G
The more people we take to be our equals, the more there will be for us to envy. [This is where differentiation comes in.]
Historically, inequality and low expectations for achievement were the norm. In 18th and 19th centuries, there began a belief in the innate equality of all and the unlimited potential for anyone to achieve anything. Previously, it was believed by most as Aristotle said, "Some by nature are free and others by nature are slaves." The working class were seen as without reason, and without rights and aspirations.
All believed inequality was fair, or at least inescapable.
Christianity affirmed the belief in inequality in practice. "Humans might be equal before God, but this offered no reason to start seeking equality in practice!" A "good Christian society" was stratified, with absolute power at the top and each in their place underneath. God was seen as creating all beings in rank order, with some superior and some inferior.
By the mid-17th century, political thought began to be more egalitarian. Hobbes (Leviathan, 1651), Locke (Two Treatises of Government, 1689, with its completely new idea that rulers were instruments of the people!), the American Revolution in 1776.
Society changed from a "hereditary, aristocratic hierarchy" to a "dynamic economy in which status was awarded in direct proportion to the (largely financial) achievements of each new generation."
Tocqueville, visiting in the USA in the 1850s, first pointed out a "particular problem that seemed to be endemic to the equal societies they created;" he observed that though Americans had much, this didn't prevent them from wanting more or from suffering envy. In a society where "everything is more or less level, the slightest variation is noticed .... G That is the reason for the strange melancholy often haunting inhabitants of democracies in the midst of abundance."
Previously, Tocqueville noted, "a serf considered his inferiority as an effect of the immutable order of nature. ... Democracy ... tore down every barrier to expectation."
Concerning expectation, William James said that "We are not always humiliated at failing things, ... only if we invest our pride and self-worth in ... an achievement and then are disappointed. ... Every rise in our level of expectation entails a rise in the danger of humiliation. What we understand to be normal is critical in determining our chances of happiness." [This may be the key sentence in the book for me.]
For instance, we could accept aging, fat, poverty, obscurity, but we generally don't.
Note the prevalence, since the 19th century and starting with Ben Franklin's Autobiography, of autobiographies of self-made heroes, advice for attainment and achievement, and "morality tales of wholesale personal transformation."
The mass media, beginning with magazines in the 1880s, gave people the opportunity for the first time to study the lives of people of higher status and to forge a connection with them. The magazines, and the advertising, created longings. Rousseau (1754) said that being truly wealthy isn't achieved by having lots of things, it's achieved by having the things one longs for. Wealth is not absolute but is relative to desire.
With expectation and a sense of unlimited possibility comes anxiety that we are far from being what we might be.
06:40 Posted in books and reading , community , consumption , girardian anthropology , other people said it , politics, government and law , pop culture | Permalink | Comments (0) | Trackbacks (0) | Email this
07 July 2008
How Revolutions Feel
I'm reading Jacques Barzun's From Dawn to Decadence: 1500 to the Present (2000). It's very readable for an 800-page book, though a bit heavy on the lap when sitting on the deck in the sun, and because Barzun's style is so conversational, it's highly quotable.
Here, very early on, is what Barzun says about revolutions, of which he posits there were four from 1500-2000: the 16th-century religious revolution; the 17th-century monarchical revolution; the "liberal, individualist 'French'" revolution straddling the 18th and 19th centuries; and the 20th-century 'Russian' revolution, "social and collectivist." He defines a revolution as "the violent transfer of power and property in the name of an idea."
Barzun takes two pages to describe the movement of a revolution from "ripple" to "tidal wave" -- something is done or said that "fits a half-conscious mood or caps a sitatuation," it's given airplay, news spreads, there's rumour, there are exaggerations and lies and misunderstandings, some other event related to the issue occurs and arouses emotions and passions, people feels their lives are upset, "manners are flouted" and insults become commonplace, buildings are defaced and looted, people read and talk about the issues with "delight or outrage," people takes sides and identify turncoats, people with a grudge take one side or the other, youths with high spirits catch the wave, leaders try to determine how they can benefit from the unrest, "voices grow shrill, parties form and adopt names or are tagged with them in derision and contempt," authorities try threats and concessions and hope the "surge of subversion will collapse."
"Such," Barzun concludes, "is roughly, how revolutions 'feel.' The gains and the deeds of blood vary in detail from one time to the next, but the motives are the usual mix: hope, ambition, greed, fear, lust, envy, hatred of order and of art, fanatic fervor, heroic devotion, and love of destruction."
19:30 Posted in books and reading , other people said it , politics, government and law , pop culture | Permalink | Comments (0) | Trackbacks (0) | Email this
Causes: Lovelessness (Notes from Status Anxiety)
Notes from Alain de Botton's Status Anxiety (2004). The book generally aligns with mimetic theory and Girardian ideas; I've added a G near comments that seem to do so particularly.
This is the second post on this topic; the first is here.
CHAPTER 1 - LOVELESSNESS
Each adult is defined by two great love stories, (1) the quest for sexual love, and (2) the quest for love from the world. The first is acceptable and celebrated; the second is secret and shameful.
Love is a kind of respect, a sensitivity on the part of one person to another person's existence. It's attention, the feeling that one is the object of concern, that one's presence is noted, ones views are listened to, ones needs are ministered to. The loved one feels the "benevolent gaze of appreciation."
The impact of low status is not primarily material for most people. It's in the challenge that it poses to one's sense of self-respect. We will sustain many material hardships if we have an awareness of being held in esteem by others.
Being ignored drives us to "rage and impotent despair," said William James, in The Principles of Psychology, 1890. James also argued that "The attention of others matters to us because we are afflicted by a congenital uncertainty as to our own value." G Others' judgments and responses to us hold us captive.
The place we occupy in the world determines how much love we are offered and in turn whether we can like ourselves or lose confidence in ourselves.
05:35 Posted in books and reading , consumption , neuroscience, psychology, the mind , other people said it , politics, government and law , pop culture | Permalink | Comments (0) | Trackbacks (0) | Email this
06 July 2008
Notes from Status Anxiety - The Basics
Just finished Alain de Botton's Status Anxiety (2004), a book I have long wanted to read. Most of it was enlightening; the ending was disappointing. The book generally aligns with mimetic theory and Girardian ideas; I've added a G near comments that seem to do so particularly.
THE BASICS
Status is position in society, one's value or importance in the eyes of the world. In the west, it's increasingly tied to financial achievement.
Consequences of high status: resources, freedom, sense of being cared for, space, time, being thought valuable, comfort.
Status is conferred in flattery, laughter, invitations, deference, attention.
Status anxiety is the pernicious worry about the danger of failing to conform to ideals of success laid down by society. We're anxious because our self-concept is dependent on what others make of us. G
Chapter 1, Lovelessness, here.
Solutions: Politics, here.Solutions: Religion, to come.
Solutions: Bohemia, to come.
20:40 Posted in books and reading , consumption , finance and business , girardian anthropology , other people said it , politics, government and law , pop culture | Permalink | Comments (0) | Trackbacks (0) | Email this
04 July 2008
RIP Jesse Helms 1921-2008
Southern politician Jesse Helms, who served in the U.S. Congress for 30 years, has died at age 86 of natural causes. He died around 1:15 a.m. this morning, Independence Day.
Full story at the Raleigh (NC) News & Observer. Also at the Washington Times, the Heritage Foundation, and the NYT. The AP has collected some quotes by Helms.
When I heard, the lyrics of the disappear fear song, Sink the Censorship, came to mind: "Hey, Jess, just take one black man / Or one lesbian, one Lithuanian / Or any U.S. senator / Cut open their hearts - it's the same, it's the same."
11:45 Posted in death , politics, government and law , pop culture | Permalink | Comments (0) | Trackbacks (0) | Email this
27 June 2008
Current Events Quote of the Day
"It's so disappointing," Linda Wilmesherr, a local resident, tells the Associated Press. "With all the guns in this county, couldn't we kill a muskrat?"
from Muskrats blamed for levee breach in Missouri, in USA Today
17:10 Posted in animals , gardening and weather , other people said it , politics, government and law , silliness and humour | Permalink | Comments (1) | Trackbacks (0) | Email this
20 June 2008
Collective Violence - Examples - Part V
It's been another month since I last blogged about mob violence, which continues pretty well unabated. Below are some of the latest incidents reported, and some commentary on the phenomenon by others. (And here's why I'm doing it.)
I won't be making the Girardian connections for each of these as I have previously because the connections are the same as always -- scapegoat is often someone from the margins (disabled, poor, stranger, female, old, young, from another caste or class or country, seen as privileged, etc. ), mob often forms spontaneously or grows larger as the scapegoating occurs due to accusatory mimesis, perpetrators easily justify the scapegoating as necessary and right, scapegoating's intention is to bring about peace in the community.
INCIDENTS
** 15 May 2008, Baltimore MD: "Child Was a 'Demon'"
"One Mind Ministries of Baltimore, MD, allegedly starved an 18-month old child because he was viewed as a ‘demon' ... after the baby wouldn’t say 'amen' at mealtime." The baby's "body was found last month in a suitcase in Philadelphia two years after his death." Immediately after his death, "the baby was placed on a mattress, on which cult members said God would resurrect him from the dead." Examiner article here.
** 31 May 2008 Para, Brasil, in the Amazon: "Brazilian Tribes Say Dam Threatens Way of Life" reported at NPR
Indigenous people protesting a proposed hydroelectric dam on the "remote, pristine Xingu River," near the mouth of the Amazon River, attack Paulo Fernando Rezende, a representative from the state's electric power enterprise, with machetes as he speaks to them about the dam:
"Roquivan Alves Silva takes the microphone and declares: 'If necessary, I will make war to protect the Xingu and the people of the entire region.' Moments later, the Indians rise in unison. A mix of warriors and women moves menacingly across the room toward Rezende. Then suddenly they're on him. Machetes and sticks flailing, they push Rezende to the floor, poking him with their weapons. The warriors rip his shirt to shreds and carve a deep gash in his right arm. Blood pooling on the floor, Dom Erwin, the Catholic Bishop of Xingu, steps in. The gymnasium hangs suspended between fear and euphoria. Chief Tabata, whose tribe lives in the Xingu National Park in the state of Mato Grosso, says he feels the Eletrobras representative lied. ... 'We have to hurt them. They weren't respecting the Indians. ... That's our fight. I want the people, the white people to understand why the Indians are so angry.'"
** 2 June 2008 Imphal, Manipur, India: Woman killer lynched: Mob justice at Umathel:
"In a macabre incident, a woman (45) was hacked to death by a man (60) who was subsequently lynched by an angry mob at Umathel Mamang Leikai under Waikhong Police Station this morning. ... According to police report, at around 6 am today, Sangai was returning home from collecting monthly subscription of a Marup from a person at Umathel Mamang Leikai. While she was preparing to cross a bailey bridge, Khullachandra, who was then splitting bamboo, came from behind and hacked her on the neck killing the woman on the spot. When the news of the incident spread, angry locals came out in large number and beat up Khullachandra to death. The body of Khullachandra has been picked up by the Waikhong police. None of his family members have come to claim the body so far."
** 2 June 2008 Flushing, New York: "Mob Violence Against Falun Gong Worsens in Absence of Police"
"About forty Falun Gong practitioners were surrounded on Main Street in front of the Flushing Library Saturday evening between 5 p.m. and 7 p.m. by a large, angry mob. According to eyewitness reports and Epoch Times reporters on the scene, the mob was emboldened by the absence of the police. ... 'These mobs, there were hundreds of them, at least 200-300 of them.'" ... There is speculation that the Chinese consulate is organizing the mobs and that "some of the violence is being aggravated and encouraged by well-placed individuals among crowds of Chinese. On Sunday, an unidentified Chinese man, standing among a large crowd of Chinese on Sanford and Kissena Streets, described how he had attacked a female Falun Gong practitioner the previous week, ripping the sign she was holding and knocking her to the ground. The man, who was described as about 5'7" and in his mid-40's with scars on his face, encouraged people in the crowd to attack Falun Gong practitioners themselves." More on an earlier incident here.
** 9 June 2008 Bagamoyo, Tanzania:
Kate Kozonasky reports on her blog of an incident of mob violence: "A few nights ago ... us girls were sitting outside at night, probably around 730, inside out home base just talking. All of the sudden, we heard this massive ROAR of people coming from outside the gate; it was ridiculous. at first it just sounded strictly like shouting, but as we ran outside our protective gates to see what the fuss was, we realized that at LEAST 150 people were running down the road with torches and spears, screaming "THIEF!" Our Tanzanian security gaurd explained that this often happens in Bagamoyo when there is a crime; when something happens and a citizen witnesses it, he has to scream to get others attention to catch the criminal themselves, because police are not affective here. So apparently, a man stole from a local store and they were literally chasing him out of the town to kill him!"
COMMENTARY examining triggers for mob violence:
South Africa: Ugly Politics Aggravate Xenophobia by Terence Corrigan and Faten Aggad, 4 June 2008: The "recent eruption of mob violence targeting foreigners living among us" in South Africa" have been put down to "xenophobia," but this, the authors contend, "cannot on its own explain the violence. After all, South Africans have been living alongside foreign nationals for decades. This suggests that other factors are involved. We need to understand what they are – urgently." Factors the suggest and explore are (1) the inability of the existing democratic process to mitigate conflict; (2) the 'uneven' South African policy on immigraton, which leads to grievances such as "anger at competition for jobs and services, envy at the perceived success of foreigners, and suspicion of other cultures;" (3) a political system that fails "to channel people's grievances into formal channels;" (4) "a lack of understanding on the part of ordinary people as to how they can make themselves heard."
South Africa: Graca Machel Warns of Revolt Among Victims of Pogroms, 10 June 2008:
"Mozambique's former first lady, Graca Machel, who today heads one of the country's most respected NGOS, the Community Development Foundation (FDC), on Tuesday warned of possible revolt among the tens of thousands of Mozambicans who have fled from anti-foreigner pogroms in South Africa. ... Should the government prove unable to satisfy their demands, and to reinsert them into Mozambican society, that could lead the victims of the pogroms to revolt against their own government" with mob violence. ...
"She added that the solutions to such problems must lie in the establishment of governments that are able to respond to the needs of their citizens, and reduce the likelihood that they will be driven to the margins of society. Machel claimed that the mob violence in South Africa was aimed more against the sub-human living conditions in the townships than against foreign citizens. She argued that the attacks had been unleashed by people who were 'rejected, marginalized and unused' by the South African system. (However, contrary to this view, there is good evidence that the initial riots were far from spontaneous, but were organised by self-styled 'community leaders'). Machel argued that the development models adopted by African governments have produced millions of marginalized and excluded people, living in conditions favourable to outbreaks of brutal violence. 'Extreme poverty dehumanizes people and leads them to madness,' she said. 'That's what happened in Rwanda over ten years ago.'
South Africa: Xenophobia on Trial at Boekehuis: Dark Tales and Hope by Liesl Jobson, 2 June 2008:
"Johannesburg readers crammed into Boekehuis" recently to "talk about xenophobia in literature. ... Store manager Corina Van der Spoel [chaired] the event," introducing "the topic with a series of salient readings and reflections, starting with an excerpt from the Goldstone Report of 1993/4, which noted the different ways that perpetrators, victims and bystanders react to massive human rights abuses -- the callousness with which innocent people are murdered, raped and tortured, and the shallow excuses produced by the perpetrators for such brutality.
"'He finds similar behaviour everywhere,' said Van der Spoel. 'The situations are universal. Throughout the world one must recognise that any people, anywhere, has the potential for evil on a massive scale. And all victims, whoever they may be, need the opportunity to heal. No continent, no region, and no people are immune from it.'" ...
"Van der Spoel also quoted from the Southern African Migration Project's World Values Survey on International Attitudes to Immigration, which she described as 'astounding'. In calibrating attitudes to foreigners it was found that South Africans held the harshest anti-immigrant views among the 29 nations surveyed. 'More than 20% of people surveyed here wanted all foreigners barred from entering the country on any grounds, compared with 13% holding this view in Britain, 11% in China, and 4% in the USA and Mozambique.'"
Pakistan: Burning of robbers shows lack of justice, police inefficiency by Zamir Sheikh, 26 May 2008:
Speaking of "the unfortunate burning of two alleged robbers by an angry crowd in Karachi recently" -- due to "a daylight robbery in a flat located in the congested locality" -- Skeikh points to "the rising unbearable cost of living" as a possible cause.
He also notes, "The desperate element in the street justified the mob justice arguing that there is no other way than to handout instant justice to the perpetrators of heinous crime. ... It is difficult to single out one single factor as the cause of the incident. It was just the instant anger with no restraining saner voice in the mob that caused the gruesome and inhumane act. But if discussed from various angles, one could reach the conclusion that snail pace process of justice, overburdened police force dominated by a few corrupt elements, tribal justice system prevalent in some areas the country and lack of trust of the judicial system were some of the factors that forced the unconscious mind of an enraged mob to indulge in an act which is prohibited both by the God and the man made laws.
"None other than William Shakespeare had written about the mob mentality in his famous drama Julius Caesar, how Mark Antony is his funeral speech played with mobs emotions in order to whip them into a frenzy of rage.
"The crowd that caught hold of the robbers as soon as the victims raised hue and cry had to react immediately and in the fit of mob anger they found no alternate than to beat them near death. Some one in the crowd who might have seen or undergone the sufferings of facing a similar personal experience lost his sanity and resorted to an act which otherwise under normal circumstance he would have just avoided and handed over the culprits to the police."
Pakistan: Rule of the mob by Ishtiaq Ahmed, 7 June 2008:
"In the wake of viciously gruesome attacks recently by angry mobs on criminals -- robbers and thieves -- caught recently red-handed on the scene in Karachi and other parts of the country, Gallup Pakistan conducted an opinion survey on May 18 and 19, 2008 ... Fifty-two percent (52%) of the total respondents were of the opinion that beating to death and then burning the bodies of those robbers apprehended on the spot was the "right thing to do" while 42 percent (42%) disapproved of such brutal methods. ...
"If we now recall that in the past few weeks a Hindu worker has been killed in a similar fashion by a mob which suspected him of blasphemy, incensed lawyers beat up pro-Musharraf ministers of the previous government in Lahore, and rival groups of lawyers fell upon each other in Karachi, causing a number of deaths, then the situation becomes very worrisome. It is symptomatic of not only a state and its institutions failing to establish and uphold law and order but civil society failing as well to inculcate norms and ethics that discourage violent conduct.
"When such a situation becomes endemic the name for the phenomenon is ochlocracy, devised by the ancient Greeks to describe mob rule or mob justice. Sometimes another word, "mobocracy," is applied instead to describe the power of the masses, in contrast to the power of an established ruling elite. ...
"The outbursts of mob fury and the concomitant 'rough' justice meted out to the culprits [in Pakistan] reflect not only loss of faith in the political leaders and state institutions' ability to maintain law and order and practice justice. Rather, in a more serious manner such extreme behaviour is a manifestation of helplessness and despondency in relation to the ruling class. "
More on Pakistan's blasphemy laws and the consequences for those accused of it. ("The blasphemy laws impact everyone, regardless of religion -- and the tragedy is that almost every case is completely fabricated. ... The reason is simple. The blasphemy law requires no evidence other than an accusation made by one person against another.")
06:00 Posted in community , crime , death , girardian anthropology , politics, government and law , travel and place | Permalink | Comments (0) | Trackbacks (0) | Email this
17 June 2008
Change is Hard
From Morning Edition this morning:
Romanian Village Re-Elects Dead Mayor. The news that he had died of liver disease just after voting started on Sunday "did not deter supporters, who gave him a 23-vote win over a living opponent." One said: "I know he died, but I don't want change." More here,
10:05 Posted in death , politics, government and law , travel and place | Permalink | Comments (0) | Trackbacks (0) | Email this
31 May 2008
What I'm Reading Online: We All Need -- or Don't Need -- to Improve!
>> at Zen Habits, 12 Practical Steps for Learning to Go With the Flow. A simple list. I like the quotes, especially this one: 'Flow with whatever is happening and let your mind be free. Stay centered by accepting whatever you are doing. This is the ultimate.' - Chuang Tzu. I wonder whether the idea of accepting whatever I'm doing is consistent with Christianity, with prayers of confession, etc.
>> from Life 2.0, Follow Your Bliss. The central idea, similar to the quote above, is 'no need for self improvement.'
"The central premise behind all the self improvement stuff (although often unseen as it can be oh so subtle) is that there is something wrong with us, something flawed that needs to be improved, something we need to do in order to be happy, healthy, successful and fulfilled. It is this unexamined assumption, that we can be improved and therefore must be less than perfect, that keeps us in chains ... that reinforces this illusion of brokenness, powerlessness and being a victim-of-circumstances-beyond-our-control, which we see reflected back to us in the world we perceive around us."
Instead, this weblog counsels "an alternative to self-improvement, a spiritual path or another kind of seeking.... Vow to do what makes you happy right now and see where that takes you." Ah, but "anything we think we want, we have been conditioned to want," so it's not as easy as it might seem to do what makes us happy.
What I can't help thinking is that this plan to "be happy" is self-improvement by another name, with its implication that we're not happy enough already, and that we need to do something about this lack.
>> "Jesus Made Me Puke" by Matt Tabbi in Rolling Stone, about a 3-day "Encounter Weekend" retreat with John Hagee's Cornerstone Church:
"The program revolved around a theory that [pastor Philip] Fortenberry quickly introduced us to called 'the wound.' The wound theory was a piece of schlock biblical Freudianism in which everyone had one traumatic event from their childhood that had left a wound. The wound necessarily had been inflicted by another person, and bitterness toward that person had corrupted our spirits and alienated us from God. Here at the retreat we would identify this wound and learn to confront and forgive our transgressors, a process that would leave us cleansed of bitterness and hatred and free to receive the full benefits of Christ.
"In the context of the wound theory, Fortenberry's tale suddenly made more sense. Being taken on that eighteen-hole golf trip with the barmaid, and watching his family ditched by Dad, had been his wound. It was a wound, Fortenberry explained, because his father's abandonment had crushed his 'normal.'
"'And I was wounded,' he whispered dramatically. 'My dad had ruined my normal!'
"The crowd murmured affirmatively, apparently knowing what it was to have a crushed normal."
>> at Marginal Revolution, How To Choose An Apartment. How much does the actual living space matter, and how much does the location matter? Do we under- or over-invest in one or the other? Interesting anaylsis via comments. I now live in a house I don't really like, in a location I love. Before this, I lived in a house (including extensive grounds) that I loved in a location I didn't like. I still don't know which is better.
>> provacateur PJ O'Rourke's "Fairness, Idealism and Other Atrocities," commencement advice. His advice: make money, don't be an idealist (they're bullies), get politically uninvolved (politics is anathema to truth), forget about fairness, be a religious extremist (that is, realise that "using politics to create fairness is a sin").
About fairness:
"Well, I am here to advocate for unfairness. I've got a 10-year-old at home. She's always saying, 'That's not fair.' When she says this, I say, 'Honey, you're cute. That's not fair. Your family is pretty well off. That's not fair. You were born in America. That's not fair. Darling, you had better pray to God that things don't start getting fair for you.'"
>> 25 Things All Women Should Learn to Do Already by the women at Jezebel. Ranges from manual and practical skills like rapid vegetable chopping, masturbation, financial investing, and assembling furniture, to the more abstract realm of truth-telling, and social skills like withholding information, getting angry without being passive-aggressive, and not taking things personally. And of course, there are comments.
>> "Total Recall … Or At Least the Gist" at Miller-McCune, on the differences between gist and verbatim memory. What interests me here is the hypothesis called 'fuzzy trace theory,' which "explains how we can 'remember' things that never really happened:"
"When an event occurs, verbatim memory records an accurate representation. But even as it is doing so, gist memory begins processing the information and determining how it fits into our existing storehouse of knowledge. Verbatim memories generally die away within a day or two, leaving only the gist memory, which records the event as we interpreted it. Under certain circumstances, this can produce a phenomenon Reyna and her colleagues refer to as 'phantom recollection.' She calls this 'a powerful form of false alarm' in which gist memory -- designed to look for patterns and fill in perceived gaps -- creates a vivid but illusory image in our mind." ...
"Gist memory allows us to make snap decisions. But life does not always follow familiar patterns, and harm can result when we discard evidence that doesn't fit our assumptions."
They note that this 'misremembering' is a very common, ordinary occurence.
>> "The Candidate, the Preacher and the Unconscious Mind" by Shankar Vedantam in the WaPo. Central idea: We are biased against people who are in proximity to people we are already biased against. Seco