Academic Culture is Not Driven by the Magic of Positive Thinking

As a proponent of cheerfulness and contentment, I felt obligated to read Barbara Ehrenreich's Bright-Sided: How Positive Thinking is Undermining America. She has not persuaded me to turn into a fusspot, but I will give her credit for being about 40% right.

Ehrenreich sees "positive thinking" as a kind of popular magic. At its loonier end, it claims that by simply visualizing what you want, you can make it come to you through the "law of attraction."

She finds the roots of today's positive thinking in the New Thought of the 19th century, which gave us Christian Science, the Unity Church, and the many kinds of mind cure. In the 20th century the focus shifted from envisioning health to envisioning wealth, as the hard-working Horatio Alger boys turned into the Power of Positive Thinking Dale Carnegie followers.

Ehrenreich shows that milder versions of positive thinking are endemic to corporations, megachurches, and, especially, to entrepreneurs. Which made we wonder about positive thinking in academic life. I can't think of any professors who are big consumers of motivational books, videos, or live seminars. To say the phrase "I visualize my article published in the leading journal in my field" seems weird. I can't see one academic bucking another up with "If you picture yourself as a full professor, it will come to you; name it and claim it." That just isn't how we think. Academic life is based a strong expectation that results come from work. Sure, there are many irrational factors in an academic institution, especially the large ones. But I rarely hear professors attribute their successes or failures to their ability to adjust their attitude right, which will attract success.

Academics really do believe in critical thinking, sometimes to excess. But the first great fruit of critical thinking is that we don't simply accept the magic of positive thinking.

Protestants Face Fear With Action, Then and Now

In Be Very Afraid, Robert Wuthnow offers this interesting comparison between how the first Protestants reacted to the fearful anxieties of their day, with how modern Americans react to the fearful anxieties of ours:

“The radical danger that people now fear is no longer that of roasting eternally in hell … It is the threat of life being cut off prematurely and on a massive scale that brings social chaos and perhaps destroys the planet or makes it unlivable for generations. … Yet the dominant response is action, just as it was for the Puritans. Action is driven by uncertainty. The possibility of danger is a motivating force. Taking action is a way of assuring ourselves that we are doing something – doing what we can, hoping that the search for knowledge will be rewarded.”

In each case, Wuthow, with Weber, argues against the popular idea that people deny and suppress their fears. Rather, the bias of Protestants, and the Protestant-shaped culture of America, is a bias toward action.

Alvin Wong - Happiest Man in America

Gallup has a nifty survey about happiness. They made a list of characteristics that correlate with happiness. The New York Times put these characteristics together and set out to find a person who embodied them. A married father, Chinese-American, observant Jew, successful in business - in Hawaii.

They found him, through a Honolulu synagogue: Alvin Wong.

What stands out to me in this list are the several factors that strengthen meaningful purpose in life. The core element, I think, is being a married father. Chinese Americans, and observant Jews, are both subcultures that strongly support married fatherhood. The successful business flows from sticking to the purpose of supporting your family with work, the more meaningful the better.

Hawaii is just a bonus.

Virgins Up, Sluts Down

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention has released their periodic National Health Statistics Report on sexual behavior. The news that has been making headlines is that virginity is up. Among women 15 - 44, the percent of virgins rose from 8.6% in 2002 to 11.3% in 2008.

I was also struck by the fact that the proportion of very promiscuous women, with 15 or more lifetime sex partners, went down over the same period, from 9.2% to 8.3%.

The proportions of women with one or two lifetime sex partners were unchanged. Together they make up a third of all women.

Something similar happened among men. The virgin proportion rose from 9.6% to 11.4%, while the very promiscuous proportion dropped from 23.2% to 21.4%.

Comparative Advantage Probably Yields a Traditional Division of Household Labor

The authors of Spousenomics say that couples are happiest if they divide chores by comparative advantage - that is, if you do what you are somewhat better at. There does have to be some rough balance of the total labor that each does for the family, too.

I am confident that if couples followed this rule, the division of household labor would skew toward a traditional gender division of tasks. Any given couple might divide tasks up in any way at all, and some couples would be very untraditional, indeed.

Nonetheless, the traditional division of labor got to be traditional for a reason. It reflects the skew in the population as a whole of the comparative advantage of the sexes. So be it.

Legislative Walkouts Are Not Good Democracy

I support the right of government workers to unionize. I think they are as likely to be exploited by their employers as private workers are. I think the attempt of Republican governors to break the public unions is wrong.

I also think legislators should stay in the legislature and fight political fights there. That is the democratic way. The right way to stall a vote to buy time to change public opinion is through the filibuster. "Filibuster by flight" is wrong.

If you lose the vote, then you lose. You reorganize and come back to fight the next election. You make your opponents' wrong-headed policies the main issue of the next election.

All the legislatures should get back to work. We'll take our lumps this time. The other side will reap the whirlwind next time.

Social Animal 5: The Main Point

The main point of David Brooks' The Social Animal is that our emotions and connections with others are the core of our being; the conscious, reasoning parts of our beings are better understood as servants of that core than masters.

Moral reasoning does not lead to moral behavior. Instead, we are more guided by intuition than reason. Our intuitions have supremacy but not dictatorship. We can encourage good moral habits, and sometimes we can consciously direct our actions even despite our moral responses, though it takes much work.

To be more moral, our best help is to interact more, to be more social, not to reason more. Our social interactions lead us to become part of institutions, which we did not build. When we inherit institutions, we feel like debtors to them and want to be stewards of our inheritance.

I will give Brooks the last word:

“The cognitive revolution demonstrated that human beings emerge out of relationships. The health of a society is determined by the health of those relationships, not by the extent to which it maximizes individual choice.”

Social Animal 4: Limerence

The most useful word I learned from David Brooks' The Social Animal is "limerance" - intensive love toward another with a strong desire for reciprocation. What we most desire is connecting with what we love. This is even more rewarding than completing the connection. The mind is geared more toward predicting rewards than the rewards themselves.

“So a happy life has a recurring set of rhythms: difficulty to harmony, difficulty to harmony. And it is all propelled by the desire for limerence, the desire for the moment when the inner and the outer patterns mesh.”

He reads limerence as melding together in harmony. It is not simply the fact of matching our map of the world, our information, with another person's that we value. We coat information with meaning, with emotional value. He cites a controversial theory that love is not an emotion, so much as a motivational state.

And what turns limerance at the individual level into a source of social structure is that we compete with others in order to connect. We can see this most clearly in the competition for mates, but it applies very broadly. We compete in patterned, predictable ways. These patterns are also information that we coat with meaning and emotion.

Social Animal 3: Good Character Comes from Right Perception

David Brooks' premise is that we are moved primarily by our emotions. This is especially important in understanding how we can come to have good character.

Most models of character focus on either the will or the reason. Neither work very well. They are not strong enough to overrule emotion.

Instead, the crucial step in building good character is the first one: how we perceive the situation. This is where our emotions are first engaged. Perceiving and judging are the same act.

People of good character perceive the world the right way. This makes it possible for their reason and their will to channel action in the right direction.

How we perceive the world the right way is a mystery, the result of a million good influences. The most important influences come down to:

• Being in a virtuous community;
• Seeing virtuous action; and
  
• Doing virtuous action

Social Animal 2: Marriage as Map Meld

David Brooks starts The Social Animal with a marriage and a baby. This lets him describe marriage as a "map meld," where two people gradually meld their maps of the world together.

The map meld, in turn, lets Brooks describe the minds of mammals in general as growing through "mindsight." We intertwine our lives with the lives of others. This applies to husband and wife, and to parent and child. We learn to feel what others are feeling by mirroring their actions in our minds – even if we do not mirror them in our bodies (this is the theory of "mirror neurons"). We mirror what others are feeling by interpreting the meaning of their actions.

I especially enjoyed Brooks' contention that humor is a tool we use for bonding with other people, and is itself the reward for getting our minds in sync with theirs.

Social Animal 1: Reason Lightly Guides Emotion

I have been favored with an advance copy of David Brooks' forthcoming book, The Social Animal: A Story of Love, Character, and Achievement. It is a substantial and interesting book about having a fulfilling life. Brooks makes his theoretical argument engaging by framing his philosophical ideas and empirical theories around the story of the fictional couple Harold and Erica.

Brooks' overarching idea about how people work is this:

“The central evolutionary truth is that the unconscious matters most. The central humanistic truth is that the conscious mind can influence the unconscious.”

One of the scholars Brooks draws on is University of Virginia psychologist Jonathan Haidt. In The Happiness Hypothesis, Haidt expressed this idea metaphorically. Our emotions are an elephant, and our reason is the rider. That gives some idea of the relative power of the two forces in our psyche.

I like Brooks' way of putting it, because it does equal justice to science and philosophy. Our bodies have strong tendencies, which is why sociobiology is so helpful in understanding our basic instincts. But our culture has also found ways to train our habits to direct our bodies in helpful ways.

Brooks puts the reason vs. emotion argument in a way I had not thought of before. In the story he tells in The Social Animal,

“The French Enlightenment, which emphasized reason, loses. The British Enlightenment, which emphasized sentiment, wins.”

Teaching Justice to the Privileged Youth

Last summer in Theory Camp we read Michael Sandel's Justice, based on his famous Harvard course of the same name.

This month I have been helping teach a Sunday School course on justice, using videos of Sandel teaching that course in a large auditorium.

Both book and course start from very individualistic conceptions of justice and work up to the communitarian argument. In the end, Sandel argues, we should see that we also have obligations of solidarity to groups that we did not simply choose.

Something I saw from the video, that I had not noticed in reading the book, is that this course is designed to bring accomplished and privileged young people, especially young men, from their natural starting point - I am an individual responsible only for myself - to the more mature position that they are responsible to a much larger whole. Indeed, accomplished and privileged young people - Harvard students, for heaven's sake - have greater responsibility to society than other people do.

Though Sandel is teaching an enormous class, he does call upon students in each class. His assistants run around with microphones, so the students can be heard responding to the challenges he has posed for them. Sandel always asks the students' names. And again and again, the students making the individualistic arguments are men, and the students groping toward some sense of communal ethics are women. These are not all white people - this is 2011, and Harvard draws excellence from the whole world. But there is a gender skew in who makes what kind of argument. When you are watching for it, it gets almost comic.

I had a further thought as I noticed the trend of "Justice," the course. I think the whole discipline of teaching ethics is designed to get people with the fewest responsibilities to others - smart, privileged, leisured, single young men - to work their way up to a sense of their connections with the larger social world. This was true when Socrates was walking around talking to leisured bachelors, and is true today.

The practice of ethics begins with community; the teaching of ethics begins with individuals, who need instruction to understand community.

Date Tables

The one thing I most wanted to change about Centre College in my first two decades here was the seating arrangement in the dining hall. It was a big round room, full of big round tables. The fraternity men sat together in the tables around edges of the room, looking at the sorority women at the tables on the inside of the room. Independents, and the handful of couples brave enough to eat together, sat in the wings - literally marginalized.

A few years ago we tore down that building. Our new student center was designed, in part, to break up that somewhat toxic seating arrangement. And it worked. The tables are smaller, and the seating patterns are more diverse and less static.

In a journal for my "Family Life" class a student noted that now there are three kinds of seating in the dining hall:

• Round tables - where groups discuss whatever;
  
• High toppers - taller tables, well suited for people watching; and
  
• Date tables - where couples eat together, publicly proclaiming their relationship

Date tables, and the public display of relationship that they entail, have their detractors. I think, though, that they represent a large step forward from the previous culture that tended to limit much of the sober cross-sex conversation to the classroom.

No Wedding, No Womb is a Great Idea

Christelyn Karazin is a journalist who specializes in black women's issues. She has launched a blog and blogger project on one of the biggest: combating the 72% out-of-wedlock black birth rate. She has given this project the catchy name of "No Wedding, No Womb."

I think the rising out-of-wedlock birth rate is one of the most important sources of national problems. In no community is this problem greater or more pressing than among African Americans. I have long thought the major initiative to do something about it will have to come from black women. Therefore I am especially glad to see "No Wedding, No Womb," and commend Christelyn Karazin's efforts to everyone.

Fertile Women Are Most Attractive to Men - Unless the Men Are Already Committed to Another Women

A nifty experiment put men in a room with women who were at various stages of their monthly fertility cycle - unbeknownst to the men. The men were then asked to rate the women's relative attractiveness.

One interesting finding is that men rated women differently depending on where the women were in their cycle, even though there was no obvious visual sign of their fertility.

The more surprising finding is that the single men found the most fertile women most attractive, but men in a relationship found the most fertile women least attractive.

This seems to me a subtle chemical defense of marriage that is going on in men.

Are Actions "Direct Communication?"

In the "Family Life" class we are discussing gender differences in communication.

One difference is that women are more inclined to communicate their love in words, while men do it with actions. To take an example we used in class, a woman complained that her husband never told her that he loved her. "What do you mean," says he, "I washed your car, didn't I?"

Another difference is that men are more likely to be direct in speech - directly addressing a topic, and speaking directly to the person they are trying to communicate with. Women are more likely to be indirect - introducing the subject indirectly, and speaking to a third party in the expectation that the message will eventually get back to the person they are trying to communicate with.

One female student took communicating love through actions - a man washing his wife's car - to be indirect. I realized from this conversation that I had simply been assuming actions to be direct communication. The difference illustrates the point we had been discussing.

I would be curious to know your reactions to this question. It would probably be useful to name your gender in your response, if that is not obvious.

This is the Most Exciting Moment in World Politics Since the Fall of the Wall

The great moment when the Berlin Wall fell was an era when two great bastions of tyranny fell - most of the Communist states, and most of the Latin American capitalist authoritarian states. The world is a freer, richer, and more peaceful place because of those two great revolutions.

They were revolutions not just of one nation or another, but of many nations suffering under similar ideological regimes. The several revolutions fed off one another as they rose up. And, just as important, those ideological regimes lost heart, lost faith in their own legitimacy. The continuous pressure and example from the democracies was vital to both encourage the people and discourage the regimes. The democracies, the United States included, have many faults and mixed motives, and we also supported many of those oppressive regimes for a long time. But in that glorious moment, the good causes and good reasons came together.

The Muslim states are the last major bastion of ideological authoritarianism on earth today. We are witnessing a similar combination of happy forces against that ideology. There are sufficient pro-democracy populations in most Muslim nations to rise up, and to rise up with amazing discipline. The ideology that authoritarianism is a Muslim value is tottering, and is being opposed by Muslim intellectuals, journalists, and some religious leaders. And the democracies seem willing, even eager, to support democratic regimes in Muslim nations - even the ones with oil.

The news of the next few months will no doubt bring blood and horror, as some regimes - the Libyan, for example - fight back with brutal oppression. And we do not know what kind of regime Egypt will end up with. After the Wall fell, after all, the Russians gave up their empire, but the Chinese did massacre their democrats at Tienanmen Square. Some tyrannies will win this round, and some oppressed people will not even try to rise up.

I believe that when the dust settles, though, there will be, say, half a dozen Muslim democracies, and a several less oppressive Muslim regimes. Most importantly, the connection between Islam and authoritarian ideology will be broken.

"Searching for the Wrong-Eyed Jesus" Has Fine Ethnographic Film In It

"Searching for the Wrong-Eyed Jesus" is a kind of documentary of poor white Southerners living extreme lives. It is framed by the commentary of people who are not poor white Southerners, notably musician Jim White, who like to put themselves near extreme lives in order to draw upon other people's passion and authenticity.

I think the commentary is mostly not helpful, especially when they try to claim that these scenes of people at the margins of American society represent the South as a whole.

I do commend, though, the segments shot in a bar, a prison, a coal mine, and Pentecostal church. These are fine bits of life. The people in all these places are clearly from the same place in society. They repeatedly talk about living a self-destructive life as young people. Some turn to church to turn their lives around. Some do not. Both, though, talk about God - and their willful attempts to follow God and live right - as their only hope for a decent life.

I think a fine short film could be made from just these scenes, with a neutral voiceover describing where, exactly, they are shot.

A big part of the film was showing off the performances of musicians described in all the commentary as "alt.country." I don't know enough about the genre to know if these were significant performers within it. The songs themselves were not my cup of tea; that is not essential to what I thought was most valuable in the film.

The filmed bits of real life, though, are worth the visit.

Financing the Ring

We had our first guest couple visit the "Family Life" class yesterday - the Newlyweds.

The piquant detail that the students most enjoyed: he paid for the engagement ring by selling his video games.

Semi-Coercive Medical Care for the Self-Destructive

I was talking to a doctor friend today. She treats many alcoholics, drug addicts, and heavy-eating diabetics who come to the hospital regularly to be cleaned up - only to go right back to their self-destruction.

Medical ethics and the law mean that these very sick patients can't simply be turned away, even if they have been treated and taught better many times before.

This is a "moral hazard" problem - when we subsidize help for people's problems, some of them will produce more of that problem than they would if they were on their own. That is the hazard of helping. Yet it is a great moral good when the able help the hurting.

I do not think there is an excellent solution to this problem.

The best solution I can think of is that the persistently self-destructive can have the free or subsidized care that they get now - at the cost of losing some freedom to damage themselves. For example, after the nth detoxification for an alcoholic, they have to take Antabuse, either implanted (if such a thing exists) or show up at a location for to be observed and certified while taking it. Accepting the detoxification would legally constitute voluntary acceptance of this restriction for a time - say, a year.

The Great Black Return Migration

A century ago the Great Migration of African Americans out of the rural South to the northern cities began. They left to escape caste oppression, racism, lynching, and massive economic discrimination. Fifty years later, half of African Americans lived outside the South. Moreover, black Americans had changed from overwhelmingly rural peasants to overwhelmingly urban proletariat.

Now, fifty years further on, there is a significant move of African Americans back to the South. This great migration, though, is led by the middle class and professional class. They are heading to Sunbelt cities, not the "black belt" farm country their great grandparents left. Georgia has displaced New York as the state with the most African Americans. Atlanta has displaced Chicago as the city with the second most African Americans, after New York City.

I take it as a great thing, a measure of the huge progress that the United States has made in overcoming our original sin - anti-black racism. Fifty years ago, the American South was the last place black Americans would want to move to. Today, the South is as appealing to black Americans as it is to everyone else - which is quite a bit.

Facebook Versus the Church

Richard Beck, a psychology professor at Abilene Christian University, makes a strong argument that "Facebook killed the church." His conclusion is this:

Why are Millennials leaving the church? It's simple. Mobile social computing has replaced the main draw of the traditional church: Social connection and affiliation.

I think Beck's insight is sound. The main appeal of any voluntary organization is the social connection with the people there. If it is to serve a function beyond social connection, then the activity that people do together has to be worthwhile in itself. Facebook can't replace, for example, playing sports together, no matter how much you like the camaraderie of the team - playing the sport requires others, and playing has a value to you beyond the social connection.

So what is the value of the activity of church? The stated goal is to worship God. I think it is a well attested sociological fact that collective worship can be more powerful than individual devotion - perhaps the most powerful of all human activities. But emotionally powerful worship is rare in ordinary church life, especially for young people.

My church is the kind of church that builds powerful social connections from regular, face-to-face interaction. Ours is a small-town church that plays a significant role in our town. It makes sense for us to get together regularly at church.

Most millennials are more likely to go to large, self-contained churches that could be located anywhere. The social space of a megachurch is not that much different from the social space of Facebook. They do not need church to make their social connections, which they then nurture daily by virtual means.

Of course, it helps that the people in my church are so old that most of them have not adapted to Facebook. But that will gradually change.

Free Public Radio From Federal Funding

There are few bigger fans of public radio than the Gruntleds. We start our day with "Morning Edition" each day. We are donors every year. Local public radio stations are the best network of local political reporting. Our local station, WUKY, has the best mix of music during the day. I have long advised students to begin each day with "National Professors Radio," just as most of their teachers do.

I think public radio would be better off if it were freed from federal funding.

Members like me can and should support the best news network on American radio. Rich people who like depth reporting should endow their local station and the whole network for everyone.

Moreover, National Public Radio would be better off if it were free from the endless threats from its opponents.

The time has come. Free Public Radio from Federal Fetters.

Right-Sizing a Family House

Yesterday I wrote about a family who found that their big dream house was separating them as a family. This led to some interesting personal replies and links about what is a good size for a family house.

We used to live in a lovely small house of about 1100 square feet. Facing the prospect of three growing kids and one bathroom, we moved down the street to a house of about 1800 square feet with two more half baths. It is hard to know how exactly to measure the space - we have an attic which makes a wonderful teen bedroom, despite the 4-foot ceilings in most of it. Likewise, the dry basement is good for storing things, though it is not living area.

In any case, I find the size of our house to be ample for our family. I am delighted that our house has long been the place that teenagers hang out and sleep over. Last Christmas we had our college girls back with their friends and a horde of teens in the attic - all at the same time. Mrs. G. and I sat by the fire, reveling in the life of the house.

As I look at the websites offering advice on a good square footage for families, the modest consensus seems to be about 200 per person. We are well over that. I have been trying to figure out how a smaller space would work for us. None of the kids share a room. We also have an old outside porch that has been enclosed, which is additional space, though a bit awkward. Still, we seem to be over the recommended family-sized house, without feeling too spread out. Hmm; perhaps I shouldn't count the attic and basement.

As I think about how we use the house, we do seem cozier. We tend to gather together when we are all home. Still, as I imagine what we would have to do with a room lopped off of each floor, we could adjust well.

I think one of the things that makes McMansions so hard on families is that each room tends to be large, larger than the family needs even if they were all together at once. That may be the next frontier in thinking about family-sizing a house.

The Power of Half of Our Too-Big House

The Salwen family were living a comfortable upper-middle class life. Hannah, a tender-hearted fourteen year old, was moved by the plight of the have-nots when her family had so much. This story is probably repeated in most upper-middle families.

What made the Salwens notable is that Hannah's parents were moved by her argument. The family cut their expenditures in half, so they could give to others more. They have written about their new life in The Power of Half: One Family's Decision to Stop Taking and Start Giving Back.

What particularly struck me in their story is that the family's biggest move was to sell their "dream house" in suburban Atlanta and move into a house half that size. I don't know the exact sizes of these houses, but I have seen suburban Atlanta upper-middle class neighborhoods, and they can run to quite large. Kevin Salwen, the father in the family, reported the unexpected effect of living in their large dream house:

In our big house, we stopped communicating. We'd scatter to different rooms, far from one another physically and spiritually. The house actually began to weaken our love, or at least our ability to express that love.

I think the richer classes in America are often afflicted with this unexpected problem: their houses are too big for their families to live in as families. The much-desired structure actually undermines family life.

Perhaps a silver lining of the bursting of the housing bubble is that more people will want more modest houses, with manageable mortgages. And the unexpected benefit will be greater intimacy in their families.

Malcolm Gladwell Book Generator

I do learn interesting things from Malcolm Gladwell, but I also find his books a bit precious.

Evidently, other share this feeling: Malcolm Gladwell Book Generator.

Premarital Sex 5: The Main Point

Most emerging adults engage in premarital sex. This has been true for awhile. What is new in this generation is that they have fully sexual relationships which they do not expect will lead to marriage.

Many think that getting broad sexual experience will help their later marriages. Some think that sex is no big deal. A few think that introducing sex early in a relationship will speed it along to true intimacy and love. They are all wrong.

The earlier sex is introduced in a relationship, the shorter it is likely to be.

Women tend to be emotionally hurt by sexual relationships that go nowhere, even when they think they won't care.

Men and women are scarred by broken relationships. The more broken relationships we have in our past, the harder it is to make a secure marriage in the future.

Interestingly, Regnerus and Uecker found that the intercourse itself was a positive factor in the quality of the relationship while it was happening, and even afterward. But that positive effect was outweighed by the negative of a broken relationship, and a broken sexual relationship was even more negative than a non-sexual one.

Premarital Sex 4: Drinking

Regnerus and Uecker found a pretty straightforward connection between drinking and casual sex:

“One in three women who drink almost every day reports having had sex with someone the first time they met, a number even higher than their male counterparts (at 29 percent).” (91)

“drinking does have a strong, linear, and enduring connection to the formation of casual sexual relationships: the more alcohol, the greater the likelihood of sex.” (280, n. 11)

Their research shows that young women who were sexually abused or strongly pressured into sex in high school or younger are more prone to casual sex or to sex at the beginning of what they hope will be a relationship. We know from other research that fatherless girls are more likely to turn to sex earlier and with older men.

A running theme of Premarital Sex in America is that emerging adults follow a small number of standard "scripts" about sex that shape what they think is normal. I think that some young women follow a script that says that casual sex is a quick way to get men to pay attention to them (which is true). But they also experience that casual sex and broken relationships hurt them, even if they try to tell themselves that it shouldn't.

Putting these facts together, I think young women who follow the casual sex script, even though it hurts them, use alcohol to self-medicate against the pain that their script - their lives - are causing them. Drunkenness provides a socially understandable excuse and fuzzes their memory of what happened.

Premarital Sex 3: Who Has Sex the Most?

Yesterday we looked at which unmarried young adults were likely to be virgins. Today we look at the opposite end of the spectrum in the same group.

Regnerus and Uecker start with a bit of bracing realism: “Men report more sexual partners than women do. Period. Everywhere.” This is not a false stereotype, nor a construct of our culture. How is this mathematically possible? Because some women have sex with many men.

They present the figures on how many sex partners these young adults, 18 - 23, have had, broken out by sex, ethnicity, education level, religiosity, parents' marital status, drinking habits, risk-taking habits, and other characteristics. Since real people are combinations of these categories, they also make a list of some common combinations. They then ask, what proportion of this group has had five or more sex partners?

The lowest category was not surprising to me:

Hispanic women who have gone to college, attend Mass, and have married parents: 0.6%

The second highest category was not a big surprise, either:

Black men, not in college, who first had sex before 16, and like risks: 58%

The highest category - the group most likely to have had five or more sex partners before age 23 - did surprise me:

White women who drink regularly and have had an abortion: 73%

Premarital Sex 2: Who Are the Virgins?

Regenerus and Uecker estimate that at 18, the threshold of emerging adulthood, 1/3 are still virgins. Who are most likely to be virgins?

• In college
• Religious
• Not prone to getting drunk
• Do not think of themselves as popular

Some subgroups that are especially likely to choose to delay sex:

• Asian men
• Regular churchgoers - men more than women
• Politically conservative women

The role of physical attractiveness is interesting in predicting sexual activity. In their interviews, the Texas team rated the physical attractiveness of their subjects, as well as asking the subjects to rate themselves. The actual physical attractiveness of the young adults they talked to was not correlated with whether they were virgins or not. However, people who thought they were attractive - regardless of what the interviewer thought - were more likely to be sexually active.

The basic fact of sexual attraction is that any willing woman can find a man for sex, especially among young adults. What needs to be explained, then, is why some choose not to. Young adults who are still virgins have a reason and a support structure that helps them stick to their choice.

The main reason is they want to finish their education, and sometimes get their careers launched, first. College students, and especially Asian men in school, are particularly moved by this reason.

The main support structure is a religious community. This is a complex matter, though: evangelical Protestants are more likely to have sex than mainline Protestants. Regnerus and Uecker argue that evangelicalism is such a relational, pro-marriage, pro-family culture that it makes sex more likely - in part because it also supports marriage and family life if they do get pregnant. Episcopalians and Presbyterians were more likely to be virgins: they were more likely to have education and career plans that would be derailed by early pregnancy.

Premarital Sex 1: They Don't Expect Sex to Lead to Marriage

This week I will be blogging on Mark Regnerus and Jeremy Uecker's Premarital Sex in America: How Young Americans Meet, Mate, and Think About Marrying. This is a fine, large empirical study that will be the standard work on this question for some time.

They are looking at "emerging adults," 18 - 23, who rushed through their adolescence, only to be in a holding pattern before full adulthood until their mid or even late '20s. Nearly all of them want to marry, but they connect marriage with having a job and being ready for kids - which is not where they are yet. On the other hand, they do not connect sex with either marriage or children. Instead, sex is something that women see as a natural part of a romantic relationship, even if it doesn't lead to marriage. Men don't even insist on the romantic relationship as a setting for sex, though they accept that rule if women insist on it. As a result, 84% of the unmarried emerging adults are not virgins, and most of them have sex fairly regularly.

Premarital sex is certainly not new. What is new, Regnerus and Uecker conclude, is that it is no longer connected in the minds of young adults with marriage, at least not to the person you are in a relationship with now. That, they say, is a sea change in our sexual scripts.

The Sort of Thing That Gives Christianity A Good Name

This is a real spirit lifter:

Egyptian Christians formed a massive human shield to protect their Muslim countrymen as they prayed during the violent protests.

Skin Graft Gun is an Exhilarating Good Thing

The long, painful, and dangerous process of skin grafts seems to have taken a giant leap forward. This is such a "wow!" story that it worth a whole day of hopefulness.

A World of Democratic States

The Muslim world is the major ideological holdout against democracy.

To be sure, there are still a few "Communist" states that justify one-party rule with a veneer of ideology. Yet nearly all of them have become market capitalist states in fact. I think it is only a matter of time - short time - before the middle classes being created by capitalism in those places demand a say in the government.

There are also military dictatorships and naked kleptocracies. This will always be true, I think - sometimes gangs get into power.

And there will always be organized criminal gangs in the poorest places, fighting with the legitimate authorities for control.

But since the end of the Cold War there has been only one large bloc of states that ideologically resist, if not reject, the idea of democracy - the Muslim states from Morocco to Indonesia. Turkey has been a Muslim nation with a democratic state for a long time, but it did so at the cost of a fierce secularism. Several Muslim nations have had elections, but they have had a very hard time holding two free elections on schedule, in a row.

Yet it is clear to me that there is a large core of pro-democracy Muslims in every Muslim nation, concentrated in the sectors that are connected to the world economy. If the wave of pro-democracy movements sweeping the Muslim world right now were to bear fruit in several states at once, the back would be broken of Islamic ideological resistance to democracy.

If the Muslim world became predominantly democratic, there is not now another serious anti-democratic ideology capable of creating a bloc of states. There would still be islands of tyranny, and there would still be plenty for democratic states to argue about, both internally and with each other. But we can imagine a world, within this generation, of democratic states.

Nurturing the Fragile Flower of Muslim Democracy

A great good thing may be happening in the world. Massive movements against dictatorship and for democracy have broken out in Egypt and Tunisia. Anti-dictator protesters are in the street in Yemen. Polite crowds pushing for parliamentary monarchy are on the move in Jordan. Massive street protests for free elections were suppressed recently in Iran, but the sentiment has not been crushed. The one great example of democracy in a Muslim nation, Turkey, has seen a Muslim party come to power without destroying democracy or the secular state.

The most encouraging thing to me about these movements is that they are led by local leaders of civil society organizations, who have grown up in uneasy independence from the state. There are, of course, dangerous people, secular and religious, who want to exploit this unrest. People just like them are in power now. But the crowds in the streets have been surprisingly disciplined. They seem focused on getting the bad regime out, and creating a legitimately elected regime in its place. What happens after that is up to the course of normal politics.

The second most encouraging thing to me has been the restraint and quiet positive nudges from the world powers. The U.S. and European governments seem to be helping the democracy movement, as much by staying out the way as by not propping up the dictators. The Russians, Japanese, and Indians seem not to be making things worse. The Chinese have been hiding the pro-democracy story from their people, not surprisingly, but so far have made no openly disruptive moves.

If there were a wave of democratic movements in the Muslim heartland the world would be a better place.

The Lesson of Vietnam and Middle Eastern Democracy

Elections were scheduled for 1956 in north and south Vietnam to create a government for a unified state. When it became clear that the Communist Party would win the election in the north, the strongman in the south refused to participate. He was backed up by the U.S. government. Instead, prime minister Diem rigged a referendum, in which he "won" 98.2% of the vote, and declared a separate state in the South. Thereafter, the U.S. backed an illegitimate government, which we later helped overthrow in an even less legitimate coup. After 20 years and millions dead, we finally gave up.

The Vietnamese Communists were, indeed, communists. They would have created a centrally controlled economy, and limited political freedom, no matter what we did. However, they were nationalists first, fighting what they regarded as a war of national liberation against the French. Ho Chi Minh, the nationalist, Communist leader, appealed to the United States for help, and quoted the Declaration of Independence.

I believe that if we had supported democracy, Vietnam would have held elections in 1956. If we had spent our political capital promoting democracy, instead of merely anti-communism, we might have pushed for free elections, commitment to future free elections, and protections for religious groups that feared persecution. Ho would likely have won. He would have made a communist, or at least a socialist, state. BUT if we had supported democracy, and honored the results of the election even if our opponents won, the whole disastrous Vietnam war could have been avoided. Vietnam would be, at least, the kind of market socialism that it is today, without the decades of catastrophe in between.

If the United States supports democracy even when our opponents win, we will serve our interests, and the good of other nations, better than we do when we accept dictatorship in the name of stability and short-term gain.

If all the Middle Eastern dictatorships held free elections, some of them would be won by anti-American groups. But if we support the legitimacy of democratically elected governments over and over again, their periods of anti-Americanism will be shorter and less violent. Indeed, if we supported democracy consistently, there would be much less anti-Americanism to begin with.

Democratic Dominoes in the Middle East

I am very hopeful about the possibility of a good "domino effect" producing a series of democratic states in the Middle East. Egypt is the most hopeful, with Tunisia close behind. Yemen is imaginable, though a long shot. The new nation of South Sudan, or whatever it will be called, is likely to at least to attempt to begin as a democracy.

Some friends to my right politically are worried that people in that region are not culturally ready for democracy, and fear that removing useful dictators will create a power vacuum for something worse. This is, of course, a real possibility, as Somalia shows. Nonetheless, I am very hopeful about a democratic movement that begins in massive, peaceful street protests, supported by a varied (and competing) set of opposition groups.

Other people on the news have been worried that free elections might bring to power people we do not like. Liz Cheney, who supported the Palestinian elections in 2006, now thinks they were a mistake because they brought to power a group she does not like. I think this position is based on a legitimate fear, but also on a basic misunderstanding of democracy. There is no contradiction in a democratic nation electing a government that opposes other democratic nations, including opposing the United States. Indeed, if the U.S. has supported a dictatorship that prevented democracy, we should expect that the first free government would be anti-American.

Democratic governments, though, tend to moderate over time and to get along with others. This does not even take very long; the knowledge that another election is coming soon moderates extremists now. In general, democracy is good for peace, freedom, and prosperity. The people tend not to elect governments that keep repressing them. The people tend not to elect governments that make big wars which require popular sacrifice and interfere with trade. If there were a wave of democratic revolutions in the Middle East, it is likely that some of the first governments would be anti-American, and some would be more strongly Muslim (these are not at all the same thing). Even so, I believe the U.S. should support the democracy movements in the Middle East, and in all Muslim lands. This will create more moderate states that are less repressive of their own people, less threatening to Israel and the West, and better partners to the U.S.

The Young Are Embracing "Mixed Race"

The New York Times has a nifty story about the younger generation choosing to identify more as "mixed race." I think the Census Bureau made a sensible decision in 2000 to allow people to choose combinations from broad array of races and ethnicities. The current younger generation embraces it.

I think, though, that two generations from now, most of the "races" that we now talk about will be archaic. And America will never have a "minority majority," but will have absorbed most third-generation-plus Americans into the great American ethnicity.

Does Jesus Require Us to Carry Guns

A Georgia church and the organization GeorgiaCarry.org filed suit against a law prohibiting carry guns in a church. The GeorgiaCarry.org president offered this argument against the law, which is a new one to me:

Stone wrote in a filing that his “motivation to carry a firearm as a matter of habit derives from one of my Lord's last recorded statements at the ‘last supper,’ that ‘whoever has no sword is to sell his coat and buy one ... I believe that this injunction requires me to obtain, keep and carry a firearm wherever I happen to be.”

Ayn Rand Goes on Medicare

Ayn Rand's brand of libertarianism has always puzzled me. I don't think her vision of utterly independent individuals, only a few of whom are competent and forever under siege by the parasites, is at all like real human life. Even more puzzling, I don't understand why many people find it an attractive vision of life, rather than a dystopian nightmare. Last year I read Atlas Shrugged to gain some insight into the Randians. One of my libertarian churchmates, who had been shaped by the book in his youth, was eager to hear how it affected me, hoping I would join the movement. I told him it was the most preposterous story I ever read. Moreover, her view is so scornful of church - any church - that I didn't see how he as a Christian could reconcile the two.

Rand was particularly scornful of government programs that taxed everyone to help citizens when they are in need, like Social Security and Medicare.

I was particularly interested to learn, therefore, that the recently published memoir of people who knew Ayn Rand, 100 Voices, reveals that she herself went on Medicare. She did not admit this, and went on excoriating the "parasites" who did. Rand, a chain smoker, needed medical help late in life. She allowed her lawyers to quietly apply for the help under her real name, Ann O'Connor.

Rand was entitled to the help of Medicare. She had paid into it as other workers in the commonwealth of the nation did. She was entitled to is as a citizen who was ill and needed help. Rand accepted Medicare. But apparently the reality of her own need did not affect her ideology that people should not be in need.

Obama Assessment, Year Two: Overall

I think any Democrat could have been elected president in 2008. That person would have faced extraordinary challenges, the worst of which were leftovers. Any Democrat would have come in with some version of the Democratic agenda. We have the "mommy party" aims of equalizing opportunity and providing a basic safety net, and the "knowledge party" agenda of education, new technology, new energy sources, and transparency. Any new Democratic president would have had 18 months to fix the inherited mess and to pass the most important new initiatives. After that, the continuing economic mess, even if it was getting better, would still be so bad that the Democratic Party would lose seats in the midterm election, and probably lose a house of Congress. All of this seemed clear (to me, anyway) in January of 2008.

I believe we got a better-than-ordinary Democrat in Barack Obama. I think he understood the challenge before him in the same outline that I did.

He hit the ground running, attacking the economic collapse as soon as he was able. I think he did a pretty good job. The decisions to save some "banks" and let others collapse had already been made. The bailout for AIG, the remaining "banks," and the car companies had already been made. The decision to have some kind of massive stimulus had already been made. Given that, I think the administration did a reasonably good job. The car company bailout has been managed pretty well. Cash-for-clunkers, even if it made no big economic dent, was worth trying, and did restore a sense of hope that the government was working on the economic problem. Also, it improved the fuel economy of the country's automobile fleet (that is what made a "clunker" worth trading up).

Obama also had a problem of winding down the wrong war, and pursuing the right one. This has been done about as well as could be expected.

At the same time, I am glad he had the nerve to spend most of his political capital on universal health care. From fifty years of debate and resistance by the companies that benefit from the old system, anyone could see this was going to be a huge fight. The opposition party was unusually united and oppositional, and some members of the president's own party were unusually opportunistic. Nonetheless, I give Obama great credit for succeeding. He had the nerve to go ahead with a new initiative despite the many fires he also had to put out, and he had the wisdom to put almost everything else on hold until that job was done.

If he had done nothing else but prevent a great depression and get universal health care, Barack Obama's first Congress would be counted a success. That he had quite a few other successes, and the most successful lame duck session in half a century, is a happy bonus.

Obama has done some things that I am disappointed about. I would have been tougher on the investment banks and AIG - at the least, they should not have been allowed to give those ridiculous bonuses until they had paid back the bailout. I think he should have cleared out all of our political prisoners - charged them, put them on trial, and gotten it over with. This would have meant revealing the torture, violations of human rights conventions, violations of our own laws, and the other ways in which we botched the prosecutions of possible enemies. This would have been painful and extraordinarily embarrassing to the United States, but the worst would be over by now. We help our enemies when we act like them; when we prolong the offense and cover it up, this only makes the problem worse.

I am a centrist and a Christian realist. I think President Obama is, too. He is probably a bit to the left of me, but he is also realist enough to know that the electorate is a bit to the right of him. He also does not act alone - the chief executive is partner to the legislature, both of whom are constrained by the judiciary. I think President Obama's chief partner in the House of Representatives, Speaker Pelosi, was a very effective leader; Senator Reid - not so much. The judiciary was mostly its usual sensible self, except for the significant mischief of the Citizens United decision. In the new Congress, the president will face a persistent opponent in the new Speaker, and a competent obstructionist in the Senate's minority leader. President Obama's second Congress will probably be less successful than his first. On the other hand, the lame-duck session showed that the president's long and lonely pursuit of bipartisanship is starting to bear fruit.

I look forward to the next two years. I believe things will be even better in President Obama's second term.

Obama Assessment, Year Two: Big Achievements

President Obama has had a series of significant achievements, with an especially strong rally in the lame duck session. I will list just a few of my favorites.

The nuclear weapons treaty with Russia is probably the greatest substantive achievement, and the culmination of Obama's major concern when he was in the Senate.

The repeal of Don't Ask, Don't Tell - and his call, in the State of the Union Address this week, for the return of ROTC to all the colleges and professional schools which have long excluded the military because of the DADT policy.

Streamlining and expanding financial aid for college students.

Health care for 911 first responders - why the opposition party opposed it in the first place is a mystery.

I think extending the Bush tax cuts for nearly all Americans is a good idea. I think it would have been better if the tax cuts for the top 2% had not been extended - that would have been a good $500 billion start on reducing the deficit. Nonetheless, if that was the price the President had to pay for his other successes, so be it. In two years, when the economy is stronger - and the deficit will still be pretty large - we can let the top tax cuts expire.

President Obama has begun to achieve the modest beginning of bipartisanship. This despite the very sad decision of the Republican leadership to obstruct Obama and the Democratic Party merely for the sake of opposing. My senior senator, Mitch McConnell, is the worst offender, having declared that the top agenda of the Republican Party is making Obama a one-term president. I hope we will see much more bipartisanship in the new Congress.

There are many more. I would be interested in your favorites.

Obama Assessment, Year Two: Health Care

Universal health care will be the signal achievement of the first Obama administration. Long after the recession is gone and the Iraq and Afghanistan wars are over, all Americans will be able to afford basic health care.

I am confident the net effect will be to reduce health care costs, as we eliminate the overhead costs of preventing some people from getting care, and of forcing other people to use emergency rooms for basic medicine. As we integrate the health care system better, standardizing reporting, records, and electronic information, we should make the whole system much more efficient. Indeed, we should be able to make it a true health care system for the first time.

The health care law as we have it has many problems, most of them inflicted by legislators protecting specific home-state or big-donor industries. The government will improve the law for decades to come. Right now the Republican leadership is making a show of repealing universal health care, but this is more theater than substance. Universal health care is overwhelmingly popular, and they know that it will become more so as Americans come to count on it as much as they do on Social Security and public schools. The act will cost more in the short run, as millions of people are included in regular (not just emergency) health insurance, but the Republicans know it will starting saving money soon - that is why they specifically exempted health care repeal from their requirement that all new bills reduce the deficit.

The United States has the best health care for those who can afford it, but a truly terrible health care system. We have started on the long road to fixing that problem.

Obama Assessment, Year Two: Wars

A year ago I praised President Obama for winding down the wrong war in Iraq and pursuing the right war against Al Qaeda. A year later, he has made further progress in winding down the Iraq war. We should have nearly all American troops out of direct fighting by the end of this year, and will start reducing the gigantic cost of that war.

Al Qaeda was driven out of Afghanistan. They are pursuing their best defense, namely, hiding in terrain that is only partly controlled by our vital ally Pakistan. They know that a full-scale invasion of Pakistan would strengthen our enemies. We know it, too. Thus, we have been pursuing a very delicate war against Al Qaeda and their allies the Taliban. We probably cannot drive the Taliban out of Afghanistan. It is their country, even if most Afghans do not want them back in power. We can, though, defeat, capture, and kill Al Qaeda.

I am still very disappointed that Guantanamo and Bagram Airfield and other even more secret prisons still remain. There are secrets we have not been told, and cannot be told, about what goes on there. For my part, I think our torture of the prisoners has so screwed up any hope of prosecuting them that we are stuck with them for a long time.

Still, in war we are making things better, and not making things worse.

Obama Assessment, Year Two

A year ago I made a series of posts on the first year of the Obama administration. Now, as he enters his second year, it is time for a second assessment.

The most urgent task the Obama administration inherited was to save the American and world economy, which was collapsing at the end of the Bush administration. The economy is one of the most complex of all social institutions. No one person or organization can control it. President Bush initiated the bailout of specific large companies, leaving the government in temporary control of several of them. President Obama continued those bailouts, though with a bit more regulation, especially of the stockbrokers turned "investment banks" that had produced the crisis in the first place.

The bailouts worked. Much of the money authorized for bailouts was not actually spent, and most of the loans that were made have already been paid back. In particular, we saved half the auto industry, which is an essential pillar of our economy. In the end, we might even make money.

The recession stopped getting worse, and has slowly been getting better. The most recent consensus of economists is that the next couple of years might see enough growth to recover most of the lost jobs, as well as the lost profits that are already improving.

The administration has also been trying to invest in new industries to establish the foundation for our future economy. They have been particularly interested in alternatives to oil as an energy source, and in making up for the big slowdown in new drug development. Naturally, the large companies that benefit from the current energy and drug markets, and their representatives in the legislature, have opposed these new investments. Nonetheless, I am hopeful that the economy of, say, twenty years from now will rest on investments in alternatives that we make now, both by government and by business.

I believe the economy is the single most important issue determining how people vote - most especially, whether they feel secure in their own economic future. I expect that by 2012 the economy will be sufficiently improved that Democrats will have a big year, and President Obama will probably be re-elected.

Creation Museum: No Death, No Birth

Yesterday I wrote about why young-earth creationists do not accept creation followed by long eons of development. Our host offered the explanation that old-earth creation would entail that death was part of God's design for the universe - a view they reject.

It occurs to me that one implication of this view is that there would also have been no birth in paradise. No babies, no children, no growing up. Not for people, nor for animals.

That is a hard teaching for a sentimental dad like me. And I think it is hard to reconcile with how the promise of children is described in Genesis. Childbirth is to be painful as a result of sin. But children are not a penalty of sin. Children are a gift.

Creation Museum Visit, 2011

Every few years I teach "The Sociology of American Religion," which includes a trip to the Creation Museum near Petersburg, Kentucky. Dr. David Menton, a retired medical school professor who is one of the scientific advisors to the museum, graciously met with the class and answered many questions.

One question that had been on my mind since our last visit was this: many mainline Christians agree with the Creation Museum that God created the universe and that life evolved within the different kinds of animals. What they do not accept, though, is that all of this happened within the last 10,000 years, nor that the Bible requires us to read it as having a chronology from Adam to now of only six thousand years. There are many old-earth creationists, who are not that far from the museum's young-earth creationists. I asked Dr. Menton what was objectionable in an old-earth creationist view? He offered that if the earth was millions of years old, then death had to have been part of the design of creation, with new life replacing old. The museum's view is that death came to humans and animals (though not, I infer, plants) with Adam's sin. Without sin, Adam and Eve and all the animals created with them would have lived forever, without successors.

This was a detail of the young-earth creationist view I had not encountered before.

Beth Prather, a student in the class, took several fine pictures. The "7 C's" is the basic understanding of history taught by the Creation Museum. "Creation's Orchard" and my own (bad) picture of the development of the horse shows what the museum means by "development within kinds" - micro-evolution, in contrast to the "Evolutionist's Tree" macro-evolution from one spark of life to all living things. The final picture is Beth on a humorous treat at the end of the museum.

Sick Privilege at Duke

Caitlin Flanagan has a very sad essay in the Atlantic, "The Hazards of Duke." She follows a pathetic young woman who, as a fake "senior thesis" prior to her graduation from that university last spring, sent out a slide show rating all of her drunken, violent sexual experiences with Duke athletes.

This combination of arrogant, sexually exploitative men and needy, self-destructive women can be found at any college. It is the standard stuff of the guaranteed-to-horrify-parents websites, such as Texts From Last Night and TotalFratMove. Flanagan thinks Duke collects, even glorifies, this bad combination more than other schools do. I cannot comment on that.

I did find this essay helpful in thinking about what is wrong with privilege. Privilege as a social structure is not something that privileged individuals can simply overcome or wish away. But when privileged people do not realize their privilege, but instead believe themselves to have earned and be entitled to all of their advantages, then the social sickness grows. And few people are most privileged than moneyed, white, male, athletes at elite schools who have women begging them for sexual exploitation.

Can anyone add to this list? I think it is helpful to define the pole of privilege, to start dealing with it with curiosity, gratitude, and humility.

Pushing Kids Toward Individual vs. Social Excellence

David Brooks has an interesting reply to Amy Chua's "Battle Hymn of a Tiger Mother." Chua wrote that she pushes her kids hard to master skills such as mathematical calculation and musical performance, harder than other American mothers do. Brooks notes that there has been some fussing against her for being too hard on her kids. He, by contrast, is critical because she does not push her kids enough to learn the harder, social skills.

The book read by all first-year students at Centre this year was John Pomfret's Chinese Lessons. Pomfret first studied in China in the early 1980s. His fellows students remembered the worst days of the communist terror of the Cultural Revolution, and the long gray years of forced collective action afterwards. Pomfret was surprised to find that Chinese people were not inclined to do things collectively - they were much more individualistic than the supposedly individualist Americans, whenever the government let them be.

Putting these two stories together, I see Chua's fascinating piece differently than I did at first. I read her willingness to push her children to strenuous individual achievement as a feature of being closer to the immigrant generation than most Americans are. Now, though, I think Chua's particular kind of achievement push is more Chinese-American than it is just immigrant. She pushes her kids to individual effort, where other upper-middle class American parents push their kids to team achievement.

And the great ecology of America benefits from both kinds of skills, and both kinds of parental pressure.

Orphans as Practice Babies

Sociological Images has a short account of how college home economics departments used to train students on "practice babies" drawn from local orphanages. They note that this kind of training fell out of fashion after baby experts became convinced that infants suffered if they were not attached to one particular person. After 1969 the use of practice babies died out.

It occurs to me that another reason for the disappearance of a large number of institutionalized infants for use in schooling at about that time is that after Roe v. Wade in 1973, the bottom fell out of the "orphan" market.

The Best Way to Continue Dr. King's Dream: Close the Marriage Gap

Several friends on Facebook have been posting an argument made by GOOD, one of my favorite websites and magazines. The post is entitled "In Honor of Dr. King: Let's Solve the Worst Crisis Facing Black Children Since Slavery." The crisis that the author, Liz Dwyer, has in mind is the education gap.

I respectfully disagree. I think the gap that lies behind all the other black/white gaps in America is the marriage gap. African Americans have the lowest rate of marriage of any ethnic group in the U.S. 70% of black kids are born out of wedlock - by far the highest percentage of any ethnic group. If African Americans had the same marriage rate as other Americans, most of the racial gap would disappear.

The Sabbath as an Argument for Young-Earth Creationism

This week my "Sociology of Religion" class visited an Orthodox synagogue. When asked by the students about the age of creation, the rabbi promptly said "5770 years." (His son gently corrected him: "5771".)

This exchange prompted a student to ask one of her Orthodox friends how, exactly, he was taught the young-earth view growing up. He said that his parents relied on the Bible - as Christian young-earth creationists do, as well. However, this Orthodox Jewish family made a somewhat different argument than the Christian arguments that I have met with. They cited God's gift of the sabbath as evidence that the seven days of creation are normal, 24-hour days. God worked for a normal week, and then rested a normal day. Thus, when we are commanded to work six days but honor the sabbath, both weeks are of the same kind.

A sabbath-based argument strikes me as a distinctively Jewish way of making the case for young-earth creationism.

Adam the Prophet

My "Sociology of American Religion" class had an excellent visit to our local Muslim school yesterday. The principal, Dr. Jitmoud, very helpfully explained the basics of Islam. He said something that I had heard before, but then gave it a further application I had not appreciated.

By the Muslim account, Adam is the first prophet of God (Allah), a witness to the Creator. In saying that Adam is the first prophet of God, Islamic thought thus reasons that Islam is the oldest religion. This also then makes sense of the claim that all people are really Muslims, most of whom need to be encouraged to return to the original religion. And this, in turn, helps account for why they are so hard on people who convert from Islam to other faiths.

The Power Denominations: Episcopalians, Presbyterians, and Jews

Steve Prothero has just release his analysis of the 112th Congress. He notes that three denominations are vastly overrepresented there. Episcopalians, Presbyterians, and Jews together make up just 5.9% of the population. However, they make up nearly a quarter of the Congress, at 23.4%.

These three denominations are not merely the best educated and richest denominations, which we should always expect to be over-represented in the halls of power. These three traditions also have the best developed theories - along with Congregationalists and Catholics - of how to wield power. They develop in their members a stronger sense that they should take on the burden of responsibility for the common good.

It is fascinating to see that Jews have displaced Congregationalists among the Big Three power denominations. I think this a very good sign about the state of American pluralism.

Smiling Young People Are 1/5th as Likely to Divorce

Matthew Hertenstein and colleagues found this interesting result:

If you didn't smile for photographs early in life, your marriage is five times more likely to end in divorce than if you smiled intensely in early photographs.

This is probably because optimists smile more, and optimists are more likely to have successful marriages.

Marriage is the Upward Mobility Path You Most Control

Doyle McManus has a fine op-ed in the Los Angeles Times summarizing the three main elements of upward mobility for the poor, as summarized by Ron Haskins of the Brookings Institution:

"If young people do three things — graduate from high school, get a job, and get married and wait until they're 21 before having a baby — they have an almost 75% chance of making it into the middle class."

McManus reasonably focuses on the big things government, business, and other social institutions can do to improve the chances of upward mobility for poor people. Creating jobs and improving the quality of schools is beyond what most people can affect individually.

The main tool that people have to lift themselves is in the hands of all Americans, no matter how poor they start out: stay married and have your kids in marriage.

Decent Muslims Turn Out to Protect Christians

This is how to make a good society.

When Muslim extremists threatened to attack Christians on Christmas eve, ordinary decent Muslims turned out by the thousands to act as human shields to protect their Christian neighbors.

That all of this happened in Egypt, where Christians are a small minority, and the government has turned a blind eye to Muslim attacks on Christians, makes this story all the more remarkable and heroic.

Women's tears reduce men's sexual arousal

This is such a nifty study. Lots of animals have tears, but people make tears to express emotions. Women's emotional tears have a chemical that causes men to dial back their (easily aroused) sexual desire. This says to me that we have yet another ingenious system to calibrate the sexual communication between men and women.

What the Government Does Is What Matters, Not Simply How Big It Is

David Brooks has a great column on "The Achievement Test" for judging government. His core point:

The size of government doesn’t tell you what you need to know; the social and moral content of government action does. The budgeteers and the technicians may not like it, but it’s the values inculcated by policies that matter most.

Right. Shrinking government is not a good in itself. Judgment is required.

Liberal Brains vs. Conservative Brains

A small study of University College London students found this interesting result:

"Self-proclaimed right-wingers had a more pronounced amygdala - a primitive part of the brain associated with emotion. ... However, those aligned to the left had thicker anterior cingulates - which is an area associated with anticipation and decision-making."

Strong Marriages Develop Shared Traits

This is a lovely experiment, by psychologist Arthur Aron:

"In experiments by Dr. Aron, participants rated themselves and their partners on a variety of traits, like “ambitious” or “artistic.” A week later, the subjects returned to the lab and were shown the list of traits and asked to indicate which ones described them. People responded the quickest to traits that were true of both them and their partner."

The article that this experiment is reported in, Tara Parker-Pope's "The Happy Marriage is the 'Me' Marriage," sensationalizes, or at least misreads, the data it is based on. She draws a false contrast between enduring and "sustainable" marriages, without offering any evidence that there are many enduring but unsustainable marriages to begin with.

Nonetheless, this experiment is an interesting demonstration of the way in which strong marriages shape the couple into one.

Homely Work in A Deep Society

Alain de Botton writes light, thoughtful books about living a meaningful life. In The Pleasures and Sorrows of Work, he follows various kinds of work and workers. He explores how the work may or may not lead to a fulfilling life for the worker, and for the society in which they work. One of his chapters is devoted to the creation and marketing of a new British biscuit ("cookie" in American). De Botton uses this homely case to see both how narrow this work seems in itself, but also how it is part of a larger economy of wealth and deeper human value.

From the beginning, observers of these [commercial] societies have been transfixed by two of their most prominent features: their wealth and their spiritual decadence. ... Their self-indulgence has consistently appalled a share of their most high-minded and morally ambitious members, who have railed against consumerism and instead honoured beauty and nature, art and fellowship. But the premises of a biscuit company are a fruitful place to recall that there has always been an insurmountable problem facing those countries that ignore the efficient production of chocolate biscuits and sternly dissuade their ablest citizens from spending their lives on the development of innovative marketing promotions: they have been poor, so poor as to be unable to guarantee political stability or take care of their most vulnerable citizens, whom they have lost to famines and epidemics. It is the high-minded countries that have let their members starve, whereas the self-centered and childish ones have, off the backs of their doughnuts and six thousand varieties of ice cream, had the resources to invest in maternity wards and cranial scanning machines.

Merry Christmas to one and all - see you in the new year

The Gruntled Center shuts down for two weeks in the year - August family reunion at Capon Springs, and Christmas week.

I hope you all get to enjoy blessings this week, and that we all return refreshed in 2011.

The Gruntlwagon, Complete

I owe you several weeks of Saturday posts of the new stickers on the Gruntlwagon, much delayed by weather. Here, as an early Christmas present (to me, at least), is the finished, um, canvas.

If they are too small to read, the five rows, from top to bottom, left to right, read:

Earlham; Swarthmore; Yale.

Flaming Moderate; Fear Less, Sanity More.

E Pluribus Unum [Earth flag]; GRUNTL; We the People Are All Immigrants.

Moderate profits fill the purse; Obama sunrise; Centre College; Contentment is natural wealth, luxury is artificial poverty - Socrates.

Christian and a Democrat.

Accommodating Breastfeeding Is Good Family Support

President Obama has set up a group to create uniform standards for federal agencies to accommodate workers who breastfeed their babies. Many federal agencies have their own policies. The new standards would provide a model for the other agencies and encourage best practices. Accommodating breastfeeding is a good, low-key kind of family support.

Interestingly enough, the first federal agency to create its own breastfeeding policies was the National Security Agency.

Teens Plan For Recession, Have Fewer Babies

The teen birth rate is down 6% since last year - the lowest level recorded in 70 years of U.S. statistics.

The young adult birth rate is down 7% since last year.

Both drops are probably due to the bad economy - girls and women choosing not to have babies because it will be harder to afford them.

Which demonstrates that most of the teen pregnancy rate is not due to ignorance or an inability to plan.

The Birth of an Erroneous Statistic: How Many Wives Earn More Than Their Husbands

About a quarter of wives make more than their husbands in couples in which both work.

This figures is based on a study made just before the recession. Since the recession laid off more husbands than wives, the number may, at this moment, be closer to 1/3. In many of those couples, the husband is not working at all, though he is likely looking for work.

Historically, husbands and fathers work or seek work - period. Most wives and mothers, on the other hand, are more likely to trade off work, or more consuming work, against family needs.

Moreover, in cohabiting couples, she is likely to work more and he is likely to work less than in married couples. Mixing the two kinds of couples muddies the statistics.

A recent Reuters story, citing an unnamed "Princeton study," stated flatly that in a third of couples, she makes more than he does. The nuance of "married" and "both working" was lost.

I fear that this number - "She makes more than he does in one third of American households" - will take on an independent life, like the "50% of marriages end in divorce" myth.

No Labels Will Go Nowhere

As a centrist I want to like No Labels, an attempt to create a common ground political movement. They offer that they are Democrats, Republicans, and independents marching under the slogan "Not left. Not right. Forward."

Alas, I think they will get nowhere. We have never been a non-partisan country - that version of "no labels" is a non-starter. The centrist path has always depended on bipartisanship. Bipartisanship depends on there being two parties with a plan for governing. Right now the civil war within the Republican Party has left them torn among the social conservatives, the libertarians, and the remaining lower-taxes-on-the-country-club Establishment. The only thing they agree on is preventing Democrats from governing. I think that until the tea party revolt runs its course, the GOP will have no positive plan of what it is for.

When we return to the normal American condition of two parties each in favor of government and governing, then we can have bipartisanship and a centrist way forward again.

Still No Stickers

No new bumper stickers on the Gruntlwagon this week. To top the snow of two weeks ago and the rain of last week, we had an ice storm.

Go Mother-Bear Wallets!

MIT is developing proverbial wallets that physically change as your electronic accounts grow and shrink. They aim at "unabstracting virtual assets" - just as the amount of bills and coins in your pocket unabstracts how much physical money you have.

I particularly like the "Mother Bear" model. It has a hinge inside, and an electronic connection to your bank. If making your monthly budget goal looks tight, the wallet makes itself harder to open. That is a good nudge.

Claiming the Sad Virtues of Divorce

Rachel Zucker's "Let's Get a Little Divorced" column is shocking, as it is meant to be.

Her underlying sentiment, that married couples should keep up their independent skills even as they work together as a team, is a sound and honorable one. Framing independence as a good fruit of divorce is not entirely wrong. Still, it is a sad commentary that we have to work backwards through divorce to think about how to be married well.

It reminds me of the story that goes around every year before Black Marriage Day. A little boy in a community where marriage is rare and decent fathers are scarce vows "when I grow up I am going to be a good dad; I'll pay my child support." This is so sad it makes the grandmothers weep.

Sidney Center, NY, Does Religious Unity Right

The Sufi community in the little town of Sidney Center, NY, buried one of their own on the community's farm. The Board of Supervisors investigated to make sure the burial was legal. It was. Nonetheless, one Supervisor, an anti-government Republican named Robert McCarthy, still objected, calling for the dead to be disinterred because "you can't just bury Grandma in the backyard under the picnic table."

That is the ugly part. This is the good part.

The town rallied 'round the Sufis. The next Board of Supervisors meetings was packed - a rare occurrence - calling shame on McCarthy. A local lawyer, who is Jewish, offered to represent the Sufis pro bono. A Republican committee woman resigned in disgust, and instead went to the Sufi community center to meet her turbaned neighbors for the first time. Hans Hass, spokesman for the Sufis, became a national figure for a moment as the story spread. But Hass was already a well-respected local figure, integrated into the town. Hass is a building contractor, volunteer fireman, and captain of the ambulance squad (!).

As if on cue to illustrate the points I had been writing about from American Grace, Sidney Center shows how religious difference binds us together, even in the face of the uncivil minority.

Newseum Press Freedom Map is a Good Shaming Tool

The Newseum in Washington, D.C. has a fascinating map of world press freedom. Green countries have a free press, yellow are partly free, and red countries control their press. The calculations are made by Freedom House, and the tiles that make up the map are changed annually.

The press freedom map shows how unusual our press freedoms are. The map is also an effective tool for shaming the yellow countries into loosening up. For example, Israel moved back from yellow to green this year when it lifted government restrictions on reporting from Gaza.

"What's That Name?" as Class Privilege

This is a fine illustration of class privilege.

One More Thought About American Grace

Robert Putnam is famous for Bowling Alone, his study of declining social capital in America.

American Grace is his major follow-up study, in which he was looking for what does hold America together. He concluded that religion actually does hold us together (which is does not do in some countries). This is an encouraging conclusion, more encouraging that Bowling Alone.

In fact, Putnam and Campbell said that “praying together seems to be better than either bowling together or praying alone.”

No Stickers Again

Too rainy. Soon, though.

American Grace: Conclusion

Putnam and Campbell conclude that religion is the glue that holds American society together. Most people, of all faiths, think all good people go to heaven (or the equivalent good outcome).

Even the "intolerant tenth," who think there is only one true religion, think religious diversity is good for America.

So why doesn't religion divide America, as it does other nations? Because nearly all Americans have friends or relatives of other faiths in their social networks. Putnam and Campbell call them "Aunt Susan" and "my pal Al."

The conclusion that Putnam and Campbell reach at the end of American Grace:

“Devotion plus diversity, minus damnation, equals comity."

American Grace 11: How Does a Religiously Divided Nation Get Along So Well?

The puzzle that Putnam and Campbell are trying to explain: how a country with high religious diversity and high religious devotion has such low religious conflict?

The answer is that we are not really very divided by religion. The secular tenth are the outliers on most measures. The moderately religious and the very religious are alike in most things.

On feeling thermometer measures - how warm (positive) toward Group X do you feel? - the results are a little unexpected:
Mainline Protestants, Catholics, and Jews are all liked by others at above average rates;
Evangelical Protestants and Nones a bit below average;
Mormons, Buddhists, and Muslims (in that order) are least liked.

In the end, ideology generates more animosity than religion does.

American Grace 10: Religious People Oppose Dissent

The one civic negative that Putnam and Campbell find about religious people is that they are more likely to oppose dissent and accept restrictions on civil liberties.

After disposing of two possible arguments - that religious people are more Manichean in their worldview, or that religious skeptics support dissent - the authors offer a different explanation.

Religious people support authority more than secular people do. Religious people build up the social order by giving and serving those in need. For a similar reason, they build up civic order by supporting the authority on which that social order legitimately rests.