The World's Ten Happiest Countries Are Notably Protestant

These are ten happiest countries, according to the OECD's Better Life Index:

• Australia
• Sweden
• Canada
• Norway
• Switzerland
• United States
• Denmark
• The Netherlands
• Iceland
• United Kingdom

My best guess at this remarkable correlation: doing meaningful work makes us happy.  The Protestant Work Ethic, even in its attenuated form in the "iron cage" of the modern world economy, still keeps us working and seeking the vocation in our work.

Liberal Fairness, Conservative Fairness, and What They Have to Do With Justice

Justice means getting what you deserve.

This is a traditional definition, which I believe is true.

Jonathan Haidt, in The Righteous Mind, notes that "fairness" is a basic moral value, to which we have a strong emotional attachment.  However, Haidt found an interesting ideological difference in what fairness means.

To liberals, fairness means that you get an equal share.
To conservatives, fairness means that you get a share proportionate to what you put in.

However, neither view of fairness is based on getting the share you deserve. 

Knowing what you truly deserve is a very deep and hard question.  Ultimately, I think, only God can know that.  The best human approximation is how parents try to give their children what they should have, what would be most beneficial to their lives and development.  But, as all parents know, this approximation is uncertain, and we are prone to mess it up in practice.

So we use fairness as a rough proxy for justice.  But our different ideological views of what fairness entails has very difference consequences for the kinds of society we are trying to make.

Men Listen With Their Ears, Women Listen With Their Eyes

This was an aphorism that came to me after reading student papers on gender differences in communication. 

Women look at one another when they speak, men turn an ear toward the speaker. 

Men concentrate on the message; women, on the metamessage.

Discriminating Against Smart Cops - or Smart People in Any Job - is a Bad Idea for Society

Society benefits if we have smart people in all jobs.

The main point of The Bell Curve was not really about race.  Rather, Murray and Herrnstein were lamenting that the great IQ sorting machine was pouring our smartest people into a smaller and smaller number of occupations.  This is a loss to the rest of society.

Which is why I think it is such a bad idea for the New London, CT police department to reject a potential officer because he scored too high on an IQ test.  They argued that smart cops will get bored and leave, so it is not worth hiring and training them.

Police work, of all work, requires constant judgment calls about how to best use the great power of the state.  It requires more smarts than the average job.

Moreover, the leadership of the police department will eventually come from the new officers working their way up the chain of command.  No smart patrol officers now means no smart captains later.

Hate-Filled Religious Terrorists Think They Are the Good Guys

This is what a hate-filled religious terrorist looks like:

Barry West is a County Commissioner in Tennessee.  He posted this image on Facebook, which then went viral.  He was embarrassed enough to take it down, but not to take it back. He says he is “prejudiced against anyone who’s trying to tear down this country, Muslims, Mexicans, anybody.”

Objectively, he is threatening violence against people he defines as enemies of his way of life because they are of a different religion.  That is what "hate-filled religious terrorist" means.

What he thinks he is doing is defending the good against people who are objectively evil.  Which is exactly what the terrorists who attack our country think they are doing, too.

Worse, Mr. West is a government official threatening fellow Americans because of their religion. But he doesn't see that that is what he is doing, because he doesn't see Muslims as fellow Americans. Worse, he doesn't see armed threats by government officials as the worst kind of terrorism.

We will not understand what the terrorists who attack us are until we see that they think they are the good guys defending their way of life, just as we do.

I am not arguing that the 9/11 attackers or the Boston Marathon bombers were actually good guys.  They were actually hate-filled religious terrorists who did very evil things.  I am arguing, though, that when Americans make the same kinds of threats, they are becoming the thing they hate, while imagining they are doing the opposite.

Free Speech Protects NRA Shirts in School

I am as opposed to the National Rifle Association as anyone.  Nonetheless, I think it very wrong that an eighth grader in the Logan County, WV, middle school was suspended and taken away in handcuffs for wearing an NRA tee-shirt to school.

The First Amendment protects the others, including the Second.

Some Christian Homeschoolers Want Alternatives to Young Earth Creationism

Developers of Christian homeschooling material report that there is a growing market for material that either teaches a range of views about creation, or goes all the way to teach theistic evolution. 

I think this is an encouraging development in the culture war between homeschooling evangelical Christians and regular-schooling mainline Christians.

Most American Christians accept the "young earth" view that the universe was created by God pretty much as it is now within the last 10,000 years.  A sizable minority, though, believe the "theistic evolution" view that God created the universe a long time ago and has guided evolution since.  This is roughly the division between evangelical or traditionalist Christians, on the one hand, and mainliners, on the other. The number of Christians who believe in purely naturalistic evolution is vanishingly small (and hard to explain without contradiction).

I think the real issue for most young earth creationists is not how old the universe is, but that God made it.  For most educated biblical believers of all stripes, the shackles of the dogma that the universe is only 10,000 years old is an embarrassment, the kind that leads young people away from the faith altogether. The fact that there is a growing market for more open-minded creationist accounts shows that there is common ground to be developed across one of great divides among American Christians (which is to say, among most Americans).

And that common ground is a triumph for centrism.

There Are "Mommy Wars" But Not "Daddy Wars" Because Women Expect All Women to Be the Same More Than Men Expect All Men to Be the Same

This insight is informed by Deborah Tannen's work on how women talk to establish equality, whereas men talk to establish hierarchy.

I am also thinking of Catherine Hakim's contention that the distribution of women's preference across the spectrum from career-oriented to family-oriented is a bell curve, whereas men are bunched much more at the career end. 

Satisficing is to ADD as Maximizing is to Eating Disorders

I had this thought while talking to a student in my "Social Structure" class about men's and women's approach to problem solving.

Men are much more given to Attention Deficit Disorder.  I think that men are more likely to satisfice - to pick the first option that works, rather than trying to get perfect information about all options.

Women are much more given to eating disorders.  I think that women are more likely to maximize - to try for perfect information and perfect control.

So far, all I have is a good lumper's hunch.  But I think there is something deep here.

Wait To Marry - But Not Too Long

The National Campaign to Prevent Teen and Unplanned Pregnancy has a very sensible main point in their new report, "Knot Yet."  Delaying marriage past the teens is a good thing.  When educated couples marry in their mid or late twenties, and then have children, they are pursuing the most successful family strategy.  The less educated, though, are now having kids before marriage, in a pattern that is sure to bring them grief as a class (even if it does not harm each couple.)

I did want to raise an issue with one point in their report, though. They write:

Women enjoy an annual income premium if they wait until 30 or later
to marry. For college-educated women in their midthirties, this premium
amounts to $18,152.

I do not dispute this economic fact.  But women who wait to marry until after 30, and then to have children after that, risk waiting too long to have children at all.

Waiting the marry and have children is excellent advice for teenagers. It become risky advice for tweny-somethings.

Two Contrasting Social Lubricants

A thought for your consideration:

In low-functioning family systems, alcohol is the social lubricant.

In high-functioning family systems, humor is the social lubricant.

Nativism and Multiculturalism Are Twin, and Unsuccessful, Attempts to Resist the Melting Pot

Nativism is a rear-guard reaction by declining sectors of the old elite.  It does not work.

Multiculturalism is a rear-guard action by declining sectors of assimilating minorities. It does not work, either.

The great American melting pot works relentlessly to turn the middle of American society into Americans.  Our culture is changed somewhat by each group it assimilates, but is more continuous than changed.

And this is a good thing.

A Rough Analogy Between Peacocks and Pickups

A pickup truck is a very impractical vehicle for a family.  And if you aren't hauling bales of hay or the like regularly, it is kind of impractical for any other purpose.  Yet pickup trucks are hugely popular, especially with young men. 

I think the main appeal of pickup trucks to most of their owners is as a symbolic display of masculinity.

Displays of masculinity should, I would think, need to appeal to women to be useful in mate selection.  So why would women find a man with a pickup truck attractive?

The sociobiological study of mate selection has wrestled with a signature puzzle: the peacock's tail.  The giant, bright tail on the peacock would seem a huge hazard to peacocks - attracting predators and slowing down the peacock's escape from predators. The ingenious answer to this puzzle that sociobiologists have come up with is the "handicap theory." The peahen, who tends to select the peacock with the biggest and brightest tail, may be thinking that if this peacock can survive despite the gigantic handicap on its butt, it must have tremendous genes.

I think the pickup truck bed is something like the peacock's tail.  The pickup driver's mate may reason (subconsciously) that if this guy can succeed in having enough resources to afford a vehicle, despite the huge handicap it imposes on having friends or family, then he must really have something on the ball.

Why Is the Tea Party So Mad About Their Taxes Helping Others?

What really incenses the Tea Party is the idea that their taxes help cheaters who do not really need the help.   

That anger is what leads to the (unjust) leap from knowing that there are some cheaters to believing that all of the 47% (or whatever the number might be) are cheaters.   

When I help cheaters, I do not reap a status benefit for kindness, but lose one as a sucker.

Happy AIDS News from Africa

That headline may be unexpected. 

New AIDS cases are down 25% in a decade in sub-Saharan Africa.

The better news:  the main actors seem to be local leaders, not outsiders, especially religious leaders of many different communions.

I Partially Agree With Rand Paul: Reduce Marijuana Sentences

I do not often agree with my Senator, Rand Paul, but I do commend his efforts to reduce the federal minimum penalties for marijuana use. 

He says using marijuana is a bad idea.  As we know, he speaks from experience.  I agree with him.

But he also thinks that marijuana use is not the sort of thing that should lead to a life-ruining arrest, either.  I also agree with him about that.

Sen. Paul does not want to legalize marijuana.  Here I do not agree with him. I believe marijuana, though foolish, is not worse than bourbon.  I think it should be fully legal, fully regulated, and fully taxed.

But I am very glad to see Sen. Paul helping to create common ground with Democrats for some progress in Congress.

Are the Rising Number of "No Religion" a Sign of the World Getting Better?

Those who answer "none" to survey questions asking "what religion do you consider yourself to be?" have been rising.  They are about 15% of all U.S. adults, and in the 20-something percentages for young adults.  In Europe and other developed countries, the percentages are higher.

The proportion of religious "nones" roughly correlates with how well-ordered a society is.  In that way, the growth of religious nones might be taken as a proxy of increasing social order.

I am not arguing that irreligion makes society better, or that religious nones are happier. They aren't.

On the contrary, I am a Presbyterian elder and a pretty traditional Calvinist.

Rather, people who say they have no religion often do not mean that they are atheists.  They haven't rejected God or a spirit-infused way of thinking about the world.  They just don't take part in an institution that requires them to think about God or a divine order.  And because none of their institutions require it, most of them just don't think about religion in their daily lives - until some survey comes along and asks.

I do think that a well-ordered society makes it easier to believe that we can make a decent society ourselves, without thinking much about God. 

Yet it is also the case the the people who live within religious institutions and find their work in the world to be meaningful because it accords with a divine order are more likely to do the very things that make a well-ordered society well ordered. They are more likely to be helpful, and to be happy because they are helpful.  They are more likely to think their lives are meaningful because they help make good order for everyone. 

Especially for young people who still believe that their well-ordered world just is, rather than being something that good people make.

Are Indian Gang Rapes the Fruit of Sex-Selection Abortion?

India has been killing off girls at high rates for a generation.  Sex-selection abortions have produced ratios of 120 boys to 100 girls born in some rural provinces. There are already millions of young men in India with no reasonable hope of marriage.

The world heard the horrible story of the gang rape and murder of a woman in Delhi in 2012.  This month a Swiss woman was gang-raped in central India.  In each case the woman was with a man, who the gang beat and subdued before raping the woman in front of him.

Two cases does not make a social trend.  Still, these cases, in the larger context of masses of poor, unmarriageable men, suggests to me a story that makes sense.  Gang rape is extremely rare - almost all rapes, even stranger rapes, are by lone men who hide their deeds from everyone.  To get a whole gang of men in a condition to rape a woman together, and in front of one another, takes unusual circumstances.  And the circumstances of seeing a young woman having fun with a man seems to me the very circumstance that would madden a gang of permanent bachelors the most.

The killing off of girls, mostly by sex-selection abortion, is a great evil in the world.  China, India, Eastern Europe, and the Arab countries are the worst offenders.  I think they will reap the whirlwind.  A rising rate of gang rapes is one the forms of that whirlwind that I think likely.

What If: A Nigerian Pope?

When Karol Wojtila was chosen as Pope John Paul II, the political value was immediately apparent.  The Polish pope was an old hand at resisting communists, and was a strong voice in the years leading up to the collapse of the Soviet empire.

With that in mind, I have been thinking about what might have been: a pope from sub-Saharan Africa, the front lines of the world-wide struggle between militant Islam and Christianity.  (NOTE: I am not saying there is a struggle between all of Islam and Christianity.) 

I have no objection to the newly chosen Argentine pope, and no brief for any particular African bishop.

I am glad that the cardinals did not go with a Curia insider, or indeed with any European.  And it certainly makes sense to finally pick someone from the most Catholic continent.  But, in a sense, a South American is a safe choice.  A Nigerian would have shifted the world power balance in one of the great cultural struggles of our time. At least a little.

Differential Life Expectancy of the Rich and Poor is Half Chosen, Half Structural

The Washington Post has an interesting article by Michael Fletcher on how raising the Social Security benefit age would affect poor people much more than rich people.  The catchiest fact:

the life expectancy of male workers retiring at 65 had risen six years in the top half of the income distribution but only 1.3 years in the bottom half over the previous three decades.

However, deep in the article they also note that the behavior of the poor and the rich among the old are quite different.  Comparing a poor Florida county with an adjacent rich one (Putnam vs. St. Johns), Fletcher notes:

Adults also smoke at nearly double the rate they do in St. Johns, and they are far more likely to be obese and far less likely to be physically active.

He quotes doctors who say that the difference in life expectancy shows differences in health insurance and health care availability. Yet it is clear that a big part of the difference is due to self-chosen behavior, by both the rich and poor populations.

The centrist position here is that both factors are relevant. 

But I think at this point we can say that the many bad effects of smoking, at least, are the smokers' own dumb fault, and not primarily to be addressed by health insurance and having more doctors.  And in coming years I think we will reach the same conclusion about most causes of obesity and lack of exercise.

The Routinization of Charisma of the Pope

Max Weber described the "routinization of charisma," the process by which the personal authority of a leader is transformed into the institutional authority of the leader's office.  This is a predictable part of the rationalization of any social institution.

Pope Benedict XVI, by resigning rather than dying in office, has taken a crucial step in routinizing the charisma of the Pope into the Papacy.

I expect his successors will follow suit more often than not.

The Good, the Bad, and the Tolerated in Family Forms

I am reading a pretty good new book, What is Parenthood?, edited by Linda McClain and Daniel Cere.  It consists of paired essays arguing what they call an "integrative" versus a "diversity" model of family life.  The editors are law professors, so the central concern is with family law, but a broad range of disciplines are engaged.

This argument is a version of conservative vs. liberal, with some useful nuance in defining the terms.  Indeed, while Cere is more conservative than McClain, both claim to be moderate versions in the diversity spectrum.

The core of the integrative model is that a married couple raising their own children is the best model of family life for society as a whole.  The diversity model argues that other family arrangements can also be good for society.  The debate over same-sex marriage is a central case in this debate, but not the only one.

In her introductory essay, McClain summarizes the result of a Pew survey on what most Americans feel about the current diversity of family forms.  She says about a third oppose accepting all family forms, a third support accepting all family forms, and a third are tolerant but skeptical.

I am in that last group.  I do think that a married couple raising their own children is the best model for society.  But I also think that many children do not have that option, so in those cases the closest approximation we can manage is a good thing for society to accept and promote. Likewise, I think marriage is better for people who don't want to be alone - which is nearly everyone - so society does well to accept several kinds of marriage.

However, in the Gruntled Center Manifesto that sits on the upper left column of every post on this blog, I argue that a fundamental principle of centrism is the three-part distinction between the Good, the Bad, and the Tolerated. I think the Pew survey, noted above, show exactly the distinction I am talking about.  Extremists try to force us to believe that there are only two choices - theirs, or their enemy's.  But centrists see that most of life offers us some choices that are good, and a separate category of "good enough."

The hard part of maintaining a principled centrism is holding on to the difference between good and good enough, in the face of extremist pressures.

The Hard Passage of the Islamic Reformation

The Reformation was a necessary reform in Christianity.  One of its fruits, ultimately, was democracy in the state.  Along the way the English-speaking church and state suffered through the excesses of a Puritan regime.  But the improvement in church and in the state ultimately vindicated even that hard passage.

Islam is going through its Reformation now.  I think ultimately - within a generation or two - this will mean a revitalized Islam, as at peace with democracy, science, and social pluralism as Christianity is now.

To get there, though, they may have to go through a hard passage of some Salafist regimes.

The Arab Spring is a huge advance over the corrupt tyrannies, derived from socialism, which preceded them. 

I am confident that the ultimate result will be a democratic Arabic Islam.

But in the short run - in Egypt, in Syria, in Yemen - the world may see some less corrupt but equally hard regimes of Islamic Puritans.

Many Small Pleasures Make us Happier Than a Few Big Ones

This is one of several bits of wisdom compiled by Sonja Lyubomirsky in Myths of Happiness. 

She applies it to many areas of life, especially to the savoring of experiences and objects.

I think this idea is also helpful in thinking about the relationship between children and happiness.  Raising children can make us unhappy at any given moment. Raising children often deals a major blow to our marital happiness for years.

And yet, and yet.  Raising children is counted by most parents as the most meaningful thing they do in their lives. On reflection, most parents can come up with many precious moments of delight about their children to savor.

The lesson I take from Lyubomirsky's summation of happiness research on this subject: savor the many small pleasures of children while they are happening.  These many small pleasures are they very stuff of a happy life.

I Am Married Tomorrow

M. Keith Chen at Yale offers a fascinating study about the different effects of languages that do distinguish between present and future, such as English, and those that do not, such as German:

Speakers of languages that do not distinguish between the present and the future save more money, retire with more wealth, smoke less, practice safer sex, and are less obese, according to Chen’s findings.

I often try to get students to think about their future marriages now, to plan as strategically for their family life as they do for their careers.

The example Chen uses is Morgen regnet es - "morning raining is" - as the German equivalent of "It will rain tomorrow."

I may get students to try saying "I am married tomorrow" to see if that gives them a more future-oriented view of family life.

The Symmetry of Sexual Fantasies

I put this out tentatively, and would welcome correction as well as comment.

One of the most common sexual fantasies of men is of the nymphomaniac, a woman with an endless desire for sex.

One of the most common sexual fantasies for women is of being ravished, particularly by a bad boy.

It is very puzzling why women, who hate rape so much, and want decent men to marry, would have a fantasy like this.

It is also puzzling, though not puzzled over as much as it should be, why men, who fear sexual comparison and want loyal women to marry, would have a fantasy like this.

I think I have been looking at these fantasies the wrong way.  If I ask "what's in it for the fantasizer," the potential appeal is a little clearer.

Women want to feel irresistible, and wish their sexual attraction to be enough to not only draw a strong man, but to tame him, to overcome his resistance to commitment.

Men want to feel free to have sex with a woman without judgment, commitment, or, importantly, injustice.  They do not need to deceive a nymphomaniac that they are more committed to her than they really are.

And here is where the symmetry breaks down.  Women might fantasize about taming the ravisher and marrying him.  Men are not likely to fantasize about marrying the nymphomaniac. She goes on a different list than the potential wife.

[And no, I do not think these differences are the result of socialization, nor can they be simply abolished by social engineering.  Civilization teaches us to self-control our actions much better than it can change our fantasies.]

"Schep Naches" is a Wonderful Gruntled Idea

The Yiddish expression schep naches is commonly used to describe the pride parents and grandparents feel at the achievements of their offspring.

Sonja Lyubomirsky, in Myths of Happiness, says it can also be used to mean a general sense of "deriving pleasure from the experience of others."

In this sense, she writes, we can use it as the opposite of Schadenfreude.

Deriving pleasure, or calm contentment, from the experience of others seems to me a fine way to make my life, and my community, a happier place.

Japanese Valentine's Day

I was discussing comparative holidays with a Japanese student in my "Family Life" class.  She said Valentine's Day is celebrated in Japan - but women give men chocolate.

This struck me as odd, since the norm of courtship is for men to show their capacity for resource provision to women.

She then told me that there is also a counterpart holiday, White Day, one month later, in which men give chocolate to women.  Originally they gave white chocolate (hence the name), but now the browner kinds are also common.

And Wikipedia tells me that on White Day, if a man merely gives as much as he was given, that signals that he wants to end the relationship.  To continue the romance, he gives twice or thrice as much chocolate as he received on Valentine's Day.

The imbalance in the sociobiological universe is made right.

Your Older Self Can Help You Save for the Future

A nifty experiment from Jeremy Bailenson's virtual reality lab:

Ask 20-somethings how much they want to start setting aside for their retirement.

Then show them a picture of their own face, morphed to show what they will look like at 70.

Now they want to set aside twice as much.

This is a great nudge.

If the World Is Getting Better, Isn't It Simpler to Think That God is Helping?

I believe the world is getting better.  The material evidence is all around us, as I have written before.

I believe that God guides the general direction of the world with a providential hand.

Most of the writers who share my belief that the world is getting better seem to atheists who believe in naturalistic evolution. 

If you are a naturalistic evolutionist who does not believe the world is getting better, then you have no problem - species simply adapt to whatever the environment happens to be at the moment, without direction or meaning.  The world is neither getting better nor getting worse, because there is no naturalistic meaning to those terms when applied to all existence. Evolution is simply change over time.

But naturalistic evolutionists who do believe in progress have to go through some elaborate twists to explain both why our evolutionary practice seems to show a positive design without a designer, and how we keep progressing even though our evolved psychology is pessimistic.

It seems to me that theistic evolution is a simpler account of how a species designed for both hope and fear, designed for pessimistic assumptions but optimistic actions, can in fact achieve such progress.

I don't have an elaborate philosophical argument here.  I just think that people who see that the world is improving through the amazing collective action of creative humans are halfway to seeing that we are meant for this by a Creator.

Today's Good News: Westboro Baptist Church Leaders Leave the Church Without Repudiating Christianity

Megan Phelps-Roper and her sister Grace have left their family's Westboro Baptist Church and apologized for the hurt the church has caused in the name of Jesus. They report that their family and their congregation - which overlap considerably - have disowned them, but they return that rejection with love.

Repentance without further hate is one of the most hopeful changes we ever see in the world.

What Intransigence Costs Senator McConnell

Mitch McConnell, the senate majority leader and senior senator from my state, is a regular Republican, as establishment as they come.  I don't usually agree with him on policy, but I do respect him as an effective politician, capable of making a deal and moving the government forward.  When he wants to.

At the beginning of President Obama's first term, Sen. McConnell made a fateful decision to oppose the president on everything, no matter what cost to the country.  He said that the highest priority of the Republican Party was to make Obama a one-term president.  That decision did not work out very well for the country, or for Sen. McConnell.

A new poll shows that only 17% of Kentucky voters plan to vote for Senator McConnell, even though he is the highest ranking Republican in the U.S. Senate and the head of the Republican Party in the commonwealth.  Even among Republicans, only 34% are sure they will vote for him.  By contrast, 34% of Kentuckians are already sure they will vote against him.  The rest will wait and see who his opponents are.  Indeed, he is likely to get a primary challenge from the Tea Party.

I think Sen. McConnell can improve his chances of re-election by dropping his policy of obstruction and going back to ordinary politics.  He has already made a promising beginning in the compromise to raise taxes on the rich and to raise the debt ceiling.  More of that will be better for him, and for the country.

Shirtsleeves to Shirtsleeves in Six Generations (What Surname Changes Show About Social Mobility)

Gregory Clark, an economic historian at the University of California - Davis, has a nifty paper on the persistence of surnames in England from the 1200s to now.  He was looking for how much specific family names stayed in the same class. 

Clark's conclusion is that family names seem to cycle in and out of the top and middle classes (at least) over about six generations. He concludes from this that there are not really permanent classes in Britain, a famously class-ridden society.

Clark offers some important caveats, and the interesting suggestion that it is only now, in the more meritocratic society that was supposed to end family privilege, that there is actually greater persistence of the same families in the same classes.  He cannot demonstrate that point in this paper, but I hope he follows up.

On the one hand, it is good news for the happy society that the "regression toward the mean" pushes social mobility.  Privilege does not last forever, or even very long.  Nor does subordination.

On the other hand, showing that families move in and out of classes is not at all the same as proving that there are no classes.  On the contrary, he has to use some persistent features of the class structure, such as the amount of estate tax paid, as his measure of which class a family name is in.

Lineages are mobile, up and down, which is good news.  But the class structure endures, which is a basic fact of modern societies.

Is an Arsenal of Guns Like a Closet Full of Shoes?

A new survey of Kentuckians asked whether they had a gun in the household, and if so, whether they had more than one. The results were interesting:

No gun: 35%

One gun: 27%

More than one gun: 38%

That is, about 58% of households with a gun have more than one.

National surveys show that about 3/4ths of households with a gun have more than one.

Indeed, more than half of all the guns in America are owned by only about 1/7th of all households.

For the minority who don't want guns at all outside of a well-regulated militia, the puzzle is why other people want to have any guns. For them, any gun in the house is a far greater source of danger than of protection.

However, these figures make me think that an even more interesting question is why a few people want to have many guns in their house.  For most gun owners, the weapon seems to be a tool, as one might have a dishwasher.

For a few people, though, guns seem to be something else - a status good, a comfort item, perhaps even a fetish.

Some people buy many guns, I think, for the same reason that some women buy many shoes.

Join the "New Conversation on Marriage"

The Institute for American Values has launched a "New Conversation on Marriage."  I strongly endorse this conversation, and was honored to be asked to be among the original signatories.

The conversation has several parts.  The one I am particularly moved by is this: "marriage is rapidly dividing along class lines, splitting the country that it used to unite."

I will share the further fruits of this conversation with you as they develop.

In the meantime, I urge you to check out the call.

Today's Good News for Centrists: A Bipartisan Proposal for Immigration Reform

Eight senators - four Democrats and four Republicans - have announced a framework for a immigration reform.

After four years of a failed alliance with the Tea Party and their policy of "no government," I am delighted to see the Republicans rejoin the government.

Marriage: An Advantage You Can Make for Yourself (and Your Children)

The estimable Isabel Sawhill, in The Brookings Review, argues that class is displacing race as a determiner of life chances in America, and that family structure is a major factor in class.  These are themes I have often argued in this blog.  She writes

I am also struck by the lessons that emerge from looking at how trends in family formation have differed by class as well as by race. If we were once two countries, one black and one white, we are now increasingly becoming two countries, one advantaged and one disadvantaged.

I see here a crucial difference between the two kinds of division.  You can't change your race, and you can't change the family you are from.  But you can mostly determine the family that you make, the family your children will have. 

Marriage is an advantage that you can choose.

Meaning is a Component of Happiness

The Atlantic has an article by Emily Esfahani Smith, "There's More to Life Than Happiness," which raises a perpetual issue in the happiness discussion.

On the one side is the Aristotelian view that happiness is the end of life, the one end which is not a means to another end.

On the other side is the view that happiness is a feeling that may accompany the highest end(s) of life, but is not that end.

This dispute is mostly semantic.  But there is a substantive question here.

The best alternative contender for the chief end of life is "meaning."  This is the alternative that Smith's article, and many others like it in this long-running dispute, raises.

The modern empirical study of happiness keeps coming back to this question: "On the whole, would you say that your life is very happy, somewhat [or pretty] happy, or not too happy?"  The overwhelming majority of people pick the first or second option.

What is important to me here is that people can answer this question about the lives on the whole. I think this means they are understanding happiness as a state of being, not a temporary feeling.

So how do we square the circle? I think meaning is a vital component of happiness.  When people say that, on the whole, they are happy, this includes some judgment that their lives are meaningful enough.

There is much more to be said on this subject.

Today's Good News: The Center Rises in Israel

In Israeli elections yesterday the governing right-wing party did win the most seats, as expected. 

But widespread gloomy predictions that the next biggest bloc would be an even more right-wing party, bent on driving all Palestinians out of Israel, proved false. 

The second largest party in the Knesset will be a new centrist party.

Hopes for a peaceful and semi-just settlement in Israel and Palestine stay alive.

Stealth Bomber Parents

I learned a new distinction and a new ideal type this morning. 

A college staff member who deals with parents said that Baby Boomers are the generation of helicopter parents, hovering over their children.

Gen Xers, on the other hand, don't hover, but instead are fierce advocates for their children.  She called them "stealth bomber parents."

Needed: A "No Sex Till Marriage" Dating Site

Dan Slater Atlantic has a good article about a sad phenomenon: online dating makes some relationships less stable and less likely to lead to marriage.

One of the reasons for this instability is that online relationships tend to quickly lead to sex.  As Mark Regnerus and Jeremy Uecker found in Premarital Sex in America, the earlier sex is introduced into a relationship, the shorter the relationship is likely to be.

This leads me to think there is a market for a new kind of dating site: one of the ground rules would be "no sex till marriage."  Or at least until she has a ring and a date. 

Such a site would separate the let's-have-sex-and-see-what-happens online daters from the I-am-here-for-lifelong-marriage online daters - to the mutual benefit of both groups.

Family Scholars Online Discussion of "Does the Shape of Families Shape Faith?"

I invite you all to participate in an online discussion, today and tomorrow, at the Family Scholars blog on their new report, "Does the Shape of Families Shape Faith?" 

Yours truly has contributed one of the response essays, and I will be following the discussion and commenting where appropriate.

The link is here.

"The End of Courtship?" is Really About The Subculture of Courtship Incompetents

The New York Times has a story that those of us in the pro-marriage business are obliged to read.  It is a popular theme in upper-middle class publications that hope to attract young adult readers: courtship is impossible now because men are incompetent and/or women are incomprehensible. She wants a traditional date, but he only wants to hang out in a group.  He tries to be traditional and romantic, but she attacks his macho presumption.  And they don't have enough money for courtship.  And Facebook Ruins Everything.

I think the good news is that the extreme incompetence that such stories highlight is not universal, but is the kind of anecdote that makes a good hook - the sort of stuff that forms the core of most stand-up comedy.

I think the core of the problem is that there are two groups here, working at cross-purposes.  One group wants a game with sex; the other wants a clear path to marriage.  Most of the players in the first group are men, and most of the players in the second group are women.  Clearly, though, there are overlaps - which adds to the confusion.

One of the core features of dysfunctional relationships is unclear communication.  Therefore,  I think our best hope in ending the "end of courtship" story is to say clearly which game - that is, which kind of social relationship - you are seeking.  To that end, by the authority vested in me by having a blog, I offer three pieces of advice:

1) Figure out what you want, say so, and stick to it.  Ambivalence kills.

2) The earlier sex comes into a relationship, the less likely it is to last.  Women control sex - this is just a basic, asymmetrical fact - so if you want marriage, don't allow sex early.

3) Use social media to your advantage.  If you want a traditional courtship leading to marriage, spell it out.  If you just want to hang out and not get serious, say that, too.  And whichever side of that divide you are on, Don't Go Out With the Other Kind.  Period.

Following these simple rules are more likely to keep the two games separated, and to get you want you want.

I commend "Café" as a morally and theologically interesting film

I lucked into a theologically interesting film. "Café" is a small independent movie, though the recognizable Jennifer Love Hewitt is one of the leads.  It is set in a small independent coffee house in West Philadelphia.  I found it when I was looking for films to use in my "Cafés and Public Life" class.

What "Café" is really about, though, is the idea that this reality might just be virtual, a simulated reality set up by a programmer.  I am not very interested in that idea.  But the film uses it to run a parallel conversation about how our free will is consonant with God's foreknowledge.  I thought they handled this tricky idea well.

Moreover, the several running stories of the regulars in the coffee house all lead them toward potential evil choices.  Most of the characters use their free will well.  I will not spoil it by saying more.

The ending will not be satisfying to all. I thought it was too pat, though intelligible.

Divorce Undermines Children's Trust in Other Institutions, Too

Yesterday I wrote about the new report "Does the Shape of Families Shape Faith?"

Today I want to connect that report with other recent research on young people and institutions.

Divorced kids are less likely to become churched adults.  Yet these unchurched adults are not usually atheists.  They are just disappointed with and suspicious of the institution of religion.

Divorced kids are also less likely to get married. Yet they are not against romance, parenthood, or even the idea of permanent pair bonding.  They are just disappointed with and suspicious of the institution of marriage.

A recent study from the Pew Research Center, led by Robert Putnam of Bowling Alone fame, found that a fifth of Americans say they have no religious affiliation. Yet most of them believe in God and think of themselves as in some way spiritual. They are religious, but decline to register with a religious institution, in the same way that they are political, but decline to register with a political party. This is especially true of young people.

My best guess is that the young people are reluctant to trust institutions because they were divorced upon in their childhood, or never saw their parents even attempt marriage in the first place.  The experience of family is more basic than the experience of other institutions, and the decline in marriage precedes the decline in religious and political affiliation.

The shape of families not only shapes faith, it shapes children's trust of all institutions.

Kids Often Lose Their Church Network in the Divorce

The Institute for American Values will soon release an excellent report, "Does the Shape of Families Shape Faith?" by Elizabeth Marquardt, Amy Zeitlow, and Charles E. Stokes.

This study of the religious effects of divorce on kids suggested to me a connection to another effect of divorce on kids.

Researchers have long noted that many divorced kids not only lose all connection with their fathers, but also with their father’s whole side of the family.  The keenest loss is of their paternal grandparents, who are usually a huge part of a child’s support network.   

In the same way, if children lose their religious community in the divorce, they lose one of the richest sources of general support that our society offers.  They not only lose the small number of people in the church they might have had close personal ties to; divorced kids often lose the much larger network of weak ties that a congregation gives them, the adults who take some interest in their lives and connect them to many other networks of information and support.

Puffing Up Rural Districts With Prisoners

Felons are from cities, but are mostly imprisoned in the countryside. 

The Census does not count them in their home cities, but it does count them in their prison counties.   

Thus, the rural districts inflate their population figures with prisoners, even though the prisoners cannot vote for the district's representatives. 

The felons are subtracted from the population of mostly Democratic districts and used to inflate the populations of mostly Republican districts.

(A second useful point: I learned this interesting fact from a bad book, Hattery and Smith's African American Families Today. We can learn from all sorts of sources, even bad ones.)

The House Votes for Normal Politics, Too.

The House of Representatives passed the Senate "fiscal cliff" bill.  They did so with a strong bipartisan vote. 

Speaker Boehner himself voted for it, though the Speaker does not usually vote. In fact, Speaker Boehner engaged in a great act of statesmanship: he abandoned the gridlock-inducing "Hastert Rule" of only bringing to a vote bills that a majority of the majority would support.  The Republican Speaker brought the bill to a vote and voted for it himself, even though most Republicans voted against it. 

The Republican leadership, especially Speaker Boehner and Senate Majority Leader McConnell, are also to be commended for abandoning another foolish rule, the "Norquist Pledge" to never, ever, ever raise taxes.

I hope this important example of bipartisan cooperation - including compromise and horse-trading - is a portent of things to come. A competent legislature is the heart of a good government.

A Good Start to the New Year: Normal Politics Resumes

The United States Senate kept working, making compromises, doing the ordinary business of governing, and passed a bill.  At 2 in the morning, New Year's Day.  And an 89 - 8 vote means that it was a bipartisan effort.

This is the best present the Congress could give the country.

If we can get the House of Representatives to follow suit, we will have taken our government back from the intransigents.

2013 could be an excellent year for improving public order in the United States.

Most Republicans Own Guns

Most Republicans own guns.  Most Democrats do not.  Most independents do not.

This is a real difference - gun ownership is one of the strongest predictors of Republican affiliation.

There are Republican majorities in all age groups and both sexes.

The more education Americans have, the less likely they are to own a gun.

The biggest gap:

High-school educated Republicans: 59%
Post-graduate educated Democrats: 22%

Hurrah! Normal Politics Resumes

The decline of the Tea Party, as I have been arguing, allows Republicans to resume the normal politics of compromise.

I am very hopeful that the Republican and Democratic leadership will reach a deal to raise taxes on the rich and cut government spending, especially on defense contractor entitlements.

I am also hopeful that the Republican and Democratic leadership will reach a deal on controlling assault weapons and other mass-murder tools.

I am hopeful that Grover Norquist will fade into the sunset, now that Republicans are ready to break their foolish pledge never to raise taxes, no matter how much it hurt the country.

I am less hopeful that the gun lobby will fade away, but at least some conservatives are willing to break with them when little white children get massacred.

Is the Casual Sex of Today Like the Smoking of Yesterday?

Today we look back on the indifference to the effects of smoking in the '60s with amazement. Now we know better, mostly due to science.

I think future ages will look at us the same way when they think about the emotional effects of casual sex. And this change will also mostly be due to science.

Why I Don't Like to Travel, Dressed Up in Sociologese.

I don't really like to travel, though I do a fair amount.

I have been thinking about why, exactly, I do not. 

I do like to learn about other people and places; that is one of the reasons I am a sociologist. 

I do not much need to feel the aura of special places, to have an authentic experience of "being there."  On the other hand, I always notice things about the juxtaposition of places and cultures that I would not have seen from just reading about other places. 

Still, I would rather be in my house or campus or coffee house, talking to people and working.

I think this is the main reason I do not like to travel:

When I am home, I feel that I am building social capital.
When I travel, I am spending it.
Each trip, therefore, had better be worth the social expense.

A Hopeful Sign: Egyptian President Gives Up Dictatorial Powers.

The Arab Spring is one of the most hopeful movements for a peaceful world.

The Islamic world has been so resistant to democracy that some have seen democratic government as un-Islamic.  This charge has not only come from opponents of Islamic nations, but from some Islamist theorists.  Many regimes, from merely authoritarian to brutally fascist, have been protected by the anti-democratic united front of Islamic states.

The Arab Spring looks like it will break that anti-democratic tradition.  If a group of stable democracies were established in the heart of the Islamic world, then the pressure for better government would ripple out all the way to Morocco and to Indonesia.  The "bloody borders" of the Islamic world that Samuel Huntington famously noted would turn to normal, peaceful, compromising, nation-upbuilding politics.

The most important nation trying to establish Islamic democracy is Egypt.  When an Islamist, Mohammed Morsi, was elected president after the overthrow of the dictator, many were worried. That he represents the Muslim Brotherhood, which had assassinated the previous president for making peace with Israel, was even scarier. However, I remain hopeful that having political responsibility will make the Muslim Brotherhood a more responsible and normal political party.

I was very distressed, therefore, when President Morsi proclaimed dictatorial powers.  The oppressed imitate their oppressors.

However, there was broad and sustained resistance in Egypt to Morsi's dictatorship.

Today, responding to the protests, Morsi annulled the decree giving him dictatorial power.

The conflict is far from over in Egypt, but this is a hopeful sign for a happier world.

Another Improvement in Congress

I have been arguing for some time that the Tea Party has been the major obstacle to competent politics, and that this election cycle was their last hurrah.

Yesterday came a further sign that the prospects are improving for compromise and progress in Congress.  Senator Jim DeMint, the Tea Party leader, resigned his Senate seat to become head of the conservative think tank Heritage Foundation.

DeMint's resignation in the middle of his term of actual power is reminiscent of Governor Sarah Palin's resignation in the middle of her term of actual power.

These resignations make sense: it is hard for people with an anti-government ideology to serve in government.  It is hard for people with an anti-compromise ideology to serve in a legislature.

I look forward to better normal government in the coming year.

Gratitude: The Most Powerful Happiness Tool

This week we finished the first iteration of my "Happy Society" course.

As I reflect on what we have learned this term about what works to make people feel happier, I think reminding ourselves of how much we have to be grateful for is among the most powerful.   

With privileged people, I believe gratitude is the single most powerful tool we have.

A Nation That Runs on Immigrants Can't Afford to Run Short

American fertility has been at or a little below the replacement rate for a generation.  Our rate is the highest in the developed world, and our demographic future is generally bright.

Immigrants are the main reason that our fertility rate is near replacement.  Immigrants have a somewhat higher fertility rate than the native born.  This bump seems to last only one generation, though, so we benefit from continued immigration.

In the recent recession, immigrant fertility fell, and fell even more than native-born fertility. Fertility normally falls during a recession, and bounces back as people become more optimistic about the future. Immigration also fell during the recession, and indeed there seems to have been more return migration to Mexico (at least) than in-migration during that period.

All of which argues to me that the U.S. has a strong interest now in making immigration easy.  Likewise, we have a strong interest in making it easier to normalize the condition of migrants already in the country illegally.  Moreover, we have an even stronger interest in encouraging the permanent immigration of families, with their higher fertility rates, to insure that we have a sufficient nation - of citizens, as well as merely of workers - in the future.

Our Happy Prospects of Legislative Compromise

A happy society benefits from a competent government, most especially from a competent legislature.  The legislature, by its nature, will have representatives of conflicting interests.  It will naturally be full of conflicts much more often than it starts with broad agreement on major issues.  Thus, a competent government requires a willingness to compromise and work together for the good of the country.

Lately, our government, especially our legislature, has been polarized by a faction, the Tea Party, that rejects compromise on principle.  Moreover, the federal legislature has been hamstrung by a pledge that many members of one party, the Republican Party, made to never raise taxes, no matter what effect that has on the country.

There are happy signs that the logjam in the legislature is breaking up.  The uncompromising faction lost more than it gained in the recent election.  This frees the establishment of their host party, the Republicans, to make deals in the usual way, to move the government forward.

Recently, there has been another happy trend: many Republican leaders who signed the "never raise taxes" pledge are expressing a willingness to shrug off that straightjacket.

I am very hopeful that the lame duck session, and the new Congress to follow, will be very productive in solving a number of problems facing the federal government.

Do Some Feel That Organ Donation is Polluting?

My "Happy Society" class has conducted a project to sign up the entire Centre College community as organ donors.  We have had excellent success with the faculty, pretty good success with students, but only so-so with the blue-collar staff.

A couple of the latter said they would not sign up as organ donors because they "came in with all their organs, and they plan to go out with them."

I have a hypothesis about why this is so, which I don't have enough data to test.  Jonathan Haidt, in The Righteous Mind, argues that all kinds of people tend to have immediate emotional reactions to moral questions.  Educated people, though, have trained themselves to only accept judgments that serve to prevent harm and advance care, or prevent inequality and advance fairness.  But most people also have an emotional commitment to liberty, sanctity, loyalty, and purity.  If they are not trained in Enlightenment theories, most people will go with their first emotional reactions.

My hypothesis is that when some people imagine their organs going in to other people react with disgust at the impurity of it, the pollution of their identity that would result.

The Tea Party Has Shot Its Bolt

This was the last Tea Party election. Like most uncompromising "know-nothing" movements, they fade away after about three elections because they don't get everything they want, and don't understand that all of politics requires compromise. 

To be sure, some politicians elected by the Tea Party will remain in office, such as my own junior senator Rand Paul.  But now the Republican establishment will be able to free itself from this threat from the right, and begin to make deals in the normal way.  And I hope we can also dispense with Grover Norquist and his foolish "don't raise taxes" straightjacket, too. My own senior senator, Mitch McConnell, is already talking about raising taxes.

One part of the Tea Party is burning itself out in petitions to secede from the United States.  This is open treason, and might be cause for serious criticism by regular, patriotic Republicans if the movement weren't so laughable.

Another part of the Tea Party will go back to grumbling political inactivity, along with the would-be socialists and anarchists.

A third part will become regular members of the Republican Party, arguing for their positions, but working to make deals that move the country forward.  I hope that my junior senator evolves in that direction. Likewise, I hope that my senior senator helps him by working with the Democratic Party to actually govern.

An Unexpected Benefit of the Election: Mormons are Normalized for Evangelicals

Evangelical Protestants have been suspicious of the Latter-Day Saints since the church began.  Until recently, even well-known ministries described Mormonism as a cult.

However, evangelical Protestants are also the core constituency of the Republican Party today.  So, when the G.O.P. nominated a Mormon for president, some thought evangelicals would be cool to Mitt Romney, a Mormon bishop and very active church leader.

Instead, evangelical Protestants dropped their opposition to Mormonism.

Though Mitt Romney did not win, I think his candidacy normalized Mormonism in American politics as much as John F. Kennedy's candidacy normalized Roman Catholicism in American politics.

What I Like About Obama: The Personal Reason

I believe that Barack Obama is the person most like me who will ever be president of the United States.  And the Obama family is the most like my family that will ever occupy the White House.

Barack Obama is a year younger than me.  I am conscious of being right on the cusp between the Baby Boomer generation and Generation X.  As I get older, I side more and more with the younger generation, the Xers.  Barack Obama is clearly a Gen Xer - a pragmatist who rebuilds basic institutions, willing to compromise to get practical reforms moving.  That is my attitude toward politics, large and small, as well.

Barack and Michelle Obama are meritocrats from financially modest backgrounds who made their way by academic success.  They finished their schooling at Harvard, which my wife and I, who did our graduate work at Yale, do not hold against them.

The Obamas are long and solidly married, and devoted parents. The Gruntleds married younger, so our kids are older, but I predict that Malia and Sasha Obama will likewise be successful students.  When Malia is ready for college in a couple of years, I imagine there will be stiff competition, especially between Columbia and Princeton, her parents' alma maters.

The Obamas are mainline Christians from a Reformed tradition of stewardship for society. Their faith informs their politics - including a firm sense that church and state should be separated for the good of each.

The Obamas were raised with the Civil Rights movement as the living chapter of the long sacred history of America, a heroic fulfillment of the long-denied promise of our nation's birth.  The Gruntleds see American history the same way. We have a triptych over our fireplace, surrounding the many family pictures: Lincoln, Martin Luther King, and above all, Jesus, in Rembrandt's rendition.

I feel a personal connection to Barack Obama that I am not likely to feel for any other president. I happily voted for him before, and again today.

What I Like About Obama: The Joshua Generation

One of the greatest achievements of President Barack Obama is how little we talk about him now as the first black president.

Four years ago, candidate Obama was very much seen as the great hope of the Joshua generation of black leaders to complete the civil rights revolution wrought by the Moses generation of Martin Luther King and his contemporaries.  Obama himself honored his elders, and sought to carry forward the mantle honorably.

It is a huge measure of his success that now his supporters, like me, point to his solid record of practical achievements in righting the ship of state from the disaster of the previous administration, and making dozens of improvements in how government functions.  Likewise, Obama's opponents attack him for many things, but only rarely for his blackness.

To be sure, Barack Obama's election to the presidency brought the racists out of the woodwork of American politics.  And some of his most vociferous and poisonous opponents are motivated by racism, which they sometimes foreground in their attacks.
NOTE: I am not saying that all opponents of Pres. Obama are racists.  Most of just Republicans, opposing the Democrat, in the most ordinary of ways.

I think that anti-black racism is the original sin of America.  I therefore believed four years ago that in electing a black president, American had taken a giant step forward.  And in electing a hugely accomplished meritocrat, married to another hugely accomplished meritocrat, who were devoted parents, committed church members, patriotic citizens - in short, just what we usually want our First Family to be - the Obamas made it clear that there were plenty of African-Americans ready and able to take their place in the leading classes of ordinary, bourgeois America.

Barack Obama was elected as, among other things, the first black president, and that mattered a great deal.  But he will be re-elected (I believe) as just the president, and that matters more.

What I Like About Obama: His Long List of Practical Improvements

I have been wrestling with this post for some days because the list of Pres. Obama's practical achievements is so long, I have not known just which ones to lift up in a short post.  Here is one fairly current list, of many.

And the list itself is only half the story. Obama has succeeded as a practical reformer.  He is not the radical that either extreme paints him to be - and never was. 

He campaigned and government as a practical reformer. And in his first term, especially in his first two-year Congress, he had a list of achievements that only Roosevelt and Johnson can compare to in the past century. In his second two-year Congress he has continued to achieve practical good, especially in foreign affairs, despite an opposition party that is publicly committed to opposing him no matter what effect that has on the country.

Jonathan Chait makes the practical, moderate case for Obama very well.  I particularly like this summary:

"Obama can boast a record of accomplishment that bests any president since Roosevelt, and has fewer demerits on his record than any of them, including Roosevelt."

What I Like About Obama: Everyone is Better Off Than They Were Four Years Ago - Except bin Laden

The world economic system was collapsing in 2008, as the Bush administration waited to expire. They bailed out the mortgage banks, but not the mortgage holders.  They were ready to let the auto industry die, as Gov. Romney explicitly argued at the time.

The Obama administration acted quickly to save the banking system. They saved the auto industry. They stimulated the economy, as much as the intransigent Republican leaders would allow. They could have created jobs, which would have done the most to stimulate the economy, but the Republicans chose to cut jobs instead.

Four years later, the economy is steadily recovering. The auto industry is thriving. The banking industry is thriving.  Even housing is starting to come back.

Everyone benefits from this recovery.

Thanks to President Obama, GM is alive, and bin Laden is dead.

What I Like About Obama: The Long Game

There are many particular achievements of Pres. Obama that I applaud.  I will get to some of them in the next few posts.  But I want to note, first, that I believe the president has had a clear, politically realistic vision from the outset, which he has been amazingly successful at achieving.

I believe the big goal that Barack Obama set for himself from the beginning of his campaign for president was to finally, finally, achieve universal health insurance.  This has been the dream of the whole middle and left of the political spectrum since the New Deal.  Many presidents, Republicans and Democrats, have failed in this great attempt, sunk by insurance and drug companies.  The Clinton administration, under what should have been ideal conditions, failed spectacularly.

When Obama set out on this great quest for universal health insurance, he knew it would take all of his political capital. He knew he would have to make big compromises, in his own party as much as with the opposition. And on top of the huge task passing universal health insurance, he had to save the entire economy.

The biggest constraint the Pres. Obama administration faced was that they only had two years to do nearly every important thing on their agenda.  When Democrats won big in the 2008 election it was clear to me that they would lose the lose big in the 2010 midterms.  This usually happens to the incumbent party, even in the best of times.  Add a massive recession and the most intransigent opposition since the Wilson administration, and the midterms would probably stop nearly all progress.

In fact, the Obama administration, working with Speaker Pelosi and Majority Leader Reid, managed the most successful Hundred Days since FDR. And that made possible the great push for the health care bill. Obamacare - a term that began as an insult, but will, I think, become one of the greatest terms of praise of the president - is a huge step forward.  I don't like all the compromises that had to be made to pass it, but I appreciate that it was necessary for the president to make compromises.  Barack Obama is a masterful politician - I trust his judgment about which rat parts needed to go into the sausage.

Pres. Obama knew that he had until the end of the 111th Congress to pass most of what he would be able to pass in his first term. And he did, right up to the budget compromise at the end.

Barack Obama is a great player of the long chess game of governance.

Obama: What I Don't Like

The rest of my posts from now to the election will be what I do like about Pres. Obama.

Today I want to start with what I don't like.

He didn't close Guantanamo Bay prison.

He assassinates American citizens with a thin veneer of due process.

He spies on American citizens with a slightly thicker veneer of due process.

He has not prosecuted the Wall Street barons who created the financial crises quickly enough.

He has too many Wall Street veterans in charge of economic policy.

There are also some compromises he made that I am uneasy with, though they may have been necessary to get the deal done.  This is especially true for the health care bill and the budget compromise.

Re-Elect President Obama

I think Barack Obama has been a very good president.  I enthusiastically support his re-election.

Each day until the election I will give a reason why I support President Obama. 

I welcome your comments.

An Appreciation of George McGovern

The first election I paid attention to was the 1972 Nixon-McGovern debacle.  I don't think Sen. McGovern could have beaten Pres. Nixon even if he had run an excellent campaign.  Turns out, though, that Nixon would eventually do it for him.

I give Sen. McGovern full credit, though, for opposing the Vietnam War. That war was wrong in so many ways, and as it headed toward its third decade, it needed killing.  Having the standard bearer a major party - the historic war party - oppose that war help speed its end.

McGovern stood for good causes all of his public life, in office and out. He did not cash in in retirement; in fact, he didn't really even retire.

By opposing the Vietnam War, though, the Democratic Party did acquire a reputation for softness.  This was mostly undeserved, but not wholly.

It is fitting, therefore, that the end of George McGovern's honorable life should come during the term of a Democratic president who is clearly not soft.  An era has ended; another has begun.

The Interests of Romney and Obama Followers

A fascinating graphic from iProspect about the election compares the Facebook followers of Gov. Romney and Pres. Obama.  This suggests, in tantalizing outline, a social portrait of the two groups.

Gov. Romney has 1.5 million followers on Facebook.  Pres. Obama has 20.9 million.

The top activities listed by Gov. Romney's followers:

• Basketball
• Guns
• Gardening
• Football
• Church
• Quilting

The top activities listed by Pres. Obama's followers:

• Camping
• Meditation
• Stand-up Comedy
• Power Walking 
• Playing Computer Games
• Jigsaw Puzzles

I wish they broke this down by the standard sociological categories of race, class, and gender, as well as age, but it does create a picture in the mind of the different "ideal type" voters for each candidate.

The European Union's Well-Deserved Nobel Peace Prize

The European Union was the surprise winner of the Nobel Peace Prize this week.  Yet, as I pondered this choice, I chided myself for not having thought of it before.  The Long Peace of Europe since the Second World War is so much a part of our taken-for-granted world that we have already forgotten what an achievement that peace is. 

The massive decline in violence in the world in the past two generations is due primarily to the strong system of inter-connected and law-abiding states. And the core of the system of peaceful states is a stable Europe and a stable North America.

Good job, Nobel committee.  The prize is long overdue.  I hope it helps the EU overcome its current financial difficulties.

Creating, Versus Consuming, Love on the Internet Dating Market

I am working through the new book of that fine sociologist, Arlie Hochschild. In The Outsourced Self: Intimate Life in Market Times she looks at the many ways we have turned to the market for aspects of personal life that we used to rely on "the village" for.

In the chapter on internet dating that opens the book, she makes this helpful observation: internet dating clients had such trouble finding a mate because "they were preparing to be consumers, not creators, of love."

One fruitful insight of our "Happy Society" class is that the simple act of performing acts of kindness for others makes one feel happier.  And we notice that our friends, seeing our example, are more likely to do the same.

I find that students have another, even more unexpected insight.  They have clear feelings about whether society is happy and kind, or unhappy and cold.  But until doing this class exercise, they had just never thought about themselves as the creators of the moral tone of society.

Creating love, like creating kindness, is hard and risky.  But it is also empowering.  And, of course, good.

Protestants Fall to Less Than Half: Nones Rise to a Fifth

The Pew Research Center has released a new report, The Rise of the Nones, on the changing shape of American religion.

Protestants are down by 5% to 48% total.

Religiously unaffiliated (nones) are up 5% to 20%.

Catholics are down 1% to 22%

Other religions are up 2% to 6%.

The main thing that seems to have happened is that lightly affiliated Protestants of five years ago now no longer call themselves religious at all.

Marriage is the "Group Selection" on a Molecular Scale

Evolutionary thought usually focuses on individuals being selected for, and thus passing on individually valuable traits.  The idea that groups can be selected for, thus passing on a trait of "groupishness," is usually dismissed.  Jonathan Haidt, in The Righteous Mind, makes a case for group selection. It is precisely groupishness that gives humans an advantage as a species, and more social groups of humans their advantage, in the long run, over anti-social aggregations of people.

We see the same group advantage at the molecular level of society: families.  Couples who successfully marry and raise children together have well-documented advantages in their own lives.  Their children, likewise, benefit in many ways.  The gap between the social class that marries and the class that does not is growing.

What this says to me is that successful marriage is an instance of group selection in an evolutionary sense. Lineages that produce more successful marriages get selected for, generation after generation.  These benefits accrue quickly, too.  It does not take the tens of thousands of years that random physical mutations do to become part of the dominant fraction of the species.  People choose who they marry, and who they have children with, much more than other species do.  Thus, those selecting for long marriages can do so deliberately and with pretty good information.  And pass their advantage on in human-scaled time to their descendents.

If We Really Want to Reduce the Abortion Rate, We Should Provide Reliable Contraception for Free

An exciting study from Washington University School of Medicine provided reliable birth control - intrauterine devices and hormone implants - for free to 9000 women, aged 14 - 45 for three years. The researchers tracked the effects on their abortion rate, and also on their teen pregnancy rate.

Nationally, women in this age range have about 19.6 abortions per 1000 - a huge number.

The women in this study: 4.4 to 7.5 abortions per 1000.  That is a huge improvement.

Moreover, teen girls (15 - 19) have a staggering 34.4 births per 1000 every year.

The girls in this study: 6.3 per 1000 annually.

Moreover, IUDs and hormone implants such as Norplant are cheaper than birth control pills.  They are also more reliable, since many women, especially the poorer and younger ones, don't usually take the pill every day - a problem that is solved by implanted methods. 

The implants, though, have a higher up-front cost, which tends to put off those same younger and poorer women from using them.  This is why providing them free was a crucial element of this study.

As someone who would like to dramatically reduce the abortion and teen pregnancy rates, I find this study to be very good news.

Thrift Was a Greater Virtue When We Were a More Modest People

David Brooks gave an excellent lecture at Centre College last night on how our politics today reflects a change in our culture.

During World War II, he argued, we placed more value on modesty, self-control, and limiting our self-assertion.  The cultural revolution since then produced many good things, especially in overcoming the oppression and self-suppression of African-Americans and women.

But some things have been lost, which has contributed to the polarization and mistrust of the current moment.

This talk led me to make a connection that I had not seen before.  People who are personally modest are more likely to be thrifty.  If it seems wrong to spend lavishly on yourself, you are less likely to go into debt for things.  If you think that your present comfort and status are not more worthy than your children's and their children's, you are more likely to save.

Thrift is not only a good personal virtue and family virtue. Thrift is a humble virtue.

The Privileged Have a Greater Duty to Initiate Positive Reciprocity

Jonathan Haidt, in The Happiness Hypothesis, says that reciprocity is the currency of society. Giving and getting help bind our group together. Some of this reciprocity comes in direct tit-for-tat,  contract-like exchanges.  More comes from longer term gift exchanges - I give a gift to you or the group now, you give a gift to me or the group later. 

Economists and others who emphasize self-interested choices as the measure of rational action note that it is hard to explain why anyone would initiate a cycle of reciprocal trust and gift giving - even though all can see the benefits of being in such a social group.

As part of our "Happy Society" class, I assigned students to perform random acts of kindness for other people each day for a time, recording and reflecting on the results.  All students found the assignment interesting and nearly all reported that it increased their happiness (as happiness research predicts).

I have been thinking about a hidden element of this assignment: it was easy for my students, and me, to initiate a beneficial cycle of gift giving because we are privileged relative to nearly everyone else we interact with. 

This leads me to a general insight: the privileged risk less by giving the gift of trust and service.  Therefore, it is more incumbent on the privileged to take that risk and start the virtuous cycle of reciprocity.

Which Candidate Do Small Business Owners Think Would Be Better?

What do actual job creators (not just rich people) think about the presidential candidates?

George Washington University and Thumbtack.com survey small business owners and entrepreneurs, who create 2/3rds of new jobs in the average year.  They were asked which candidate is most supportive of small business.  The results:


39% President Obama
31% Governor Romney
28% Not sure

This result is particularly interesting, since small business owners have traditionally been one of the most conservative and Republican constituencies.

Moving Out of a Poor Neighborhood Makes You Happier Like a $13,000 Raise

In the 1990s a major experiment was done to improve the lives of some of the poorest city people.  They were given subsidies to move out of the slums of concentrated poverty into neighborhoods that were a little better off and better mixed economically.  The policy makers hoped that the people who moved would get more education and better jobs.

They didn't.

What they did get, though, was much happier.  Moving their families to safer, less stressful neighborhoods increased their happiness the equivalent of a $13,000 raise.

A parallel experiment that moved poor non-white people into equally poor white neighborhoods had no such positive effect.

This report does not tell what happened to the children of these relocated families.  My guess is that they grew up safer, with better chances, and happier.

Baby Boom Among Women Ph.D.s

A decade ago, one third of women Ph.D.s past 40 were childless.

Today that fraction has dropped to a quarter.

(Thank you Pew Center for another nifty study.)

In my own little faculty at Centre College, six female colleagues have had babies in the past three years.  One was born yesterday.  Her birth announcement was the first I had seen with a full account of the classical derivation of her name, with footnotes and web links.

Why Religious Belongers Are Happier

I am teaching a Sunday School class on "Happiness and Faith."  Reviewing the research on this subject, I have come to this partial insight.

Happiness comes more from the process of doing something worthwhile with other people we care about than it does from any specific outcome of that process.  This is a common finding of happiness research.

Religious people are, on the whole, happier, than non-religious people.  This is also a standard finding of happiness research.

Happiness correlates more with religious belonging than with believing - that is, people who are active in religious communities report higher happiness, whereas people with strong religious beliefs who are not part of religious communities do not report higher levels of happiness.

I believe what religious institutions do that adds to happiness is to give structure and permanence to the process of doing good things together with other people.  One-off group projects are good, and an interest in civic betterment can produce such projects.  But for sheer persistence and long-term effect, nothing can compete with religious institutions for getting a group of people to work together for the common good week after week, year after year, decade after decade.

New alumni-driven college ranking rates Centre graduates “Happiest in the Nation”

Sometimes, the world writes my blog for me.

I am a Centre College professor, teaching and writing about happiness.

This story is the lead on the Centre College website. 

The story is a based on a new form of ranking from The Alumni Factor, which uses, as the name suggests, on surveys of alumni.