What Really Works to Reduce Teen Pregnancy (and Abortion)

Colorado is leading the way in providing long-acting reversible contraceptives - LARCs - to teenagers.  These include intrauterine devices (IUDs) and implanted contraceptives, such as Norplant.  The state covers the high upfront cost.

The results have been dramatic - a 40% reduction in teen pregnancy, and a 35% reduction in abortions.

The Colorado plan builds on earlier experiments in St. Louis and statewide trials in Iowa.  Colorado added a "no wrong door" approach, to try to reach teens anywhere and everywhere they might be open to talking about birth and birth control.  In addition to the LARCs, this approach included comprehensive sex education.

I believe LARCs have the possibility of breaking down the polarization about sex and abortion.  Reducing teen pregnancy and reducing the demand for abortion is a cause we can all get behind.

Culture is Ultimately About Ideas, Which Is Why Religion Can Produce Culture in a Way that "Race" Cannot

The Good News About Global Poverty

The good news is that global poverty at the very bottom has been cut in half in the past generation.

The surprising news is that most people think global poverty is as bad as ever, and maybe getting worse.

Sure, there are still hundreds of millions desperately poor.  But there are now billions of people who are not.

In the 1970s the world changed from mostly very poor, to mostly not very poor.

And the even better news: desperate poverty keeps declining.

Right-Wing Movements Are About Nationalism, Not Economics

There are right-wing movements all over the world.  Some are in more market-oriented societies, some in strong welfare states, some in state-authoritarian economies.  Their economic policies, likewise, range from populist social provision to you're-on-your-own-Jack austerity.

What they have in common is ethnic nationalism.

The Trump vote was driven more by white racial resentment than by economic dislocation.

I believe other studies will find similar things about the rise of right-wing populism in other countries, as well.

"Low Education Whites Dying Younger" May Be a Statistical Artifact, Not A Real Worsening

It has been widely reported that low-educated whites have had increased mortality at younger ages, reversing the decades-long trend of all groups living longer in the U.S.  Indeed, the "decline of the white working class" has been the main explanation of who the Trump voters are.

However, this Slate piece points to another possible explanation: the "low-education white" population has changed over time, with the healthier getting more education (and thus moving out of the "less than high school" category).

This takes us into the statistical weeds, and is not a sure thing.  What might have happened is this:

White people who did not finish high school have always been less healthy than more educated white people.  Nonetheless, for a long time, white people of all levels of education have been living longer.  Recently, though, "less than high school whites" started dying younger.  This could mean that this whole group is actually dying younger - they are less healthy, are smoking, drinking, and taking drugs  more (especially opioids), and are committing suicide more.

However, it could also be that the healthiest part of the group of low-education white people used to stop before high school graduation, but now they finish high school.  Even if the overall longevity of these people stayed the same, by using "less than high school" as the dividing line, it appears that the least educated are also dying younger.

As evidence, this article cites a paper which found that if we look at the lowest quartile of whites, there has been no decline in longevity.  It could be that, a generation ago, much of the lowest quartile of whites did not finish high school, so these two categories were very similar.  Now, with more people finishing high school, the "less than" group is smaller and composed of the worst off (who die sooner), while a rising portion of the lowest quartile are now high school graduates.

Immigration is Good For America

Tuesdays on WKYB I get to talk, mostly about happiness.

Immigrants are great for America.  They improve the economy at the bottom and the top.  They commit less crime.  They pay more in taxes than they receive in benefits. They have a higher fertility rate, which we need in an era of below-replacement fertility.

Some demagogues play on fears about immigrants, citing some scary stories.  They do not, though, show the proportions of crime, welfare use, and other scary things that immigrants produce compared to the native population.

Much of the illegality of illegal immigrants comes from their immigration status.  If we had an easy guest worker program, then they could live and work here above board.  This would prevent them from undermining wages, and make them more likely to cooperate with the authorities on all manner of civil order tasks.

The current ban on some immigrants, and the widespread fears of coming here that the administration has generated among all foreigners, has already hurt us in tourism, in foreign students, and in the kinds of workers we are trying to attract.

Let's go back to e pluribus unum and welcome immigrants.

Raising Kids in the Boburb

I am studying how what I call "boburbs" - bourgeois bohemian city neighborhoods - compare with suburbs.  Right now I am trying to figure out what the distinctive ideals of each kind of neighborhood would be.

The suburban ideal is driven by the nurture of children.  As such it is fundamentally an honorable ideal. 

Bohemias and boburbs are primarily for childless people, and their neighborhood projects are adult oriented.  

Still, there is an ideal of human development as "cosmopolitan citizens" that leads some parents to include children and child rearing into the boburb project.  They are not just finding a way to raise kids in the city, they embrace it as a better way for the kids.  This is especially true for adolescents.  

This is a higher risk, but higher payoff, form of adolescent rearing.

International Day of Happiness

Tuesdays on WKYB I get to talk, mostly about happiness.

March 20 is the International Day of Happiness. The United Nations first proclaimed this annual event in 2012.  They take this occasion to report on well-being around the world.  The index used in this report emphasizes a range of measures of well-being that go beyond economic activity.

This year's report places Norway at the top of the well-being ladder, along with several other Scandinavian countries.  At the bottom are several sub-Saharan African countries, along with Syria. The United States ranks 14th.

Clearly, well-being is roughly related to wealth.  That, though, is not the whole story.  The world rankings show that several Latin American countries are better off than their economic performance would suggest, because they also invest in the kinds of quality relationships that improve well-being.

National governments have been trying to measure and promote overall well-being since the '70s, when Bhutan proclaimed that they would aim to improve Gross National Happiness, more than just Gross National Product. GNP includes all measures of economic activity - more money spent on security and divorce and disease, as well as money spent on good things.  Well-being measures, by contrast, look specifically at things that make life better.

In the U.S., our economic indicators have been improving since the recession, but our social trust measures have been declining.

Helping When Another's Religion is Under Attack

On Tuesdays I get to talk on WKYB, Danville's country station.  This was this week's topic.

Mr. Rogers famously said "When I was a boy and would see scary things on television, my mother would say 'Look for the helpers. You will always find people who are helping.'"  Fred Rogers was a Presbyterian minister.  This attitude reflects both a Calvinist sense that there will always be sin in the world, tempered by a mainline faith's belief that the world is full of decent people who will come to provide aid.

I have been struck by the number of instances recently in which, in response to terrorist attacks on one faith, people of other faiths have been quick to help.  When the Jewish cemeteries in Missouri and Pennsylvania were vandalized, Muslims organized the relief effort. When a mosque was burned in Texas, people from all over, mostly Christians, quickly raised a million dollars to rebuild. In Cameroon, where a Muslim terrorist organization threatens not just vandalism but murder against any who do not practice their eccentric brand of Islam, Christians and Muslims take turns protecting one another's places of worship on their respective sabbath days.

The religious terrorists are few.  The religious helpers are many.  Look for the helpers.

Economics is Sociology Without the Human Element

This aphorism came to me in class today.

The Plunder Agenda is the Main Point of the Trump Administration

The main activity of the new Republican government has been to roll back regulations that costs corporations and their rich owners money.  Lobbyists have been sending in their wish lists of environmental, health and safety, consumer protection regulations they want ended - even rules that protect the entire world capitalist system from another meltdown.

In nearly all cases, the Trump administration and the Ryan-McConnell Congress has been complying with these corporate wishes before the public can respond. The administration of the "best negotiator" has asked for nothing in return - no alternative method of protecting the public or the future, no jobs made or saved, to alternative revenue to pay for the president's hugely expensive announced agenda.

The foxes are in charge of the henhouses, and are dealing out the chickens as fast as they can.

This is really what this administration is about.  Their actions on immigration, abortion, marijuana, and the endless tweets are secondary at best, and a smokescreen most of the time.

The Good News About Reforestation

On Tuesdays I get to talk on WKYB, Danville's country radio station.  This was today's topic.

The world is reforesting at a delightful rate.

True, we are still losing more forest each year than we gain.  But the rate of deforestation has slowed. Brazil, home to the "world's lungs," the Amazon rainforest, has made great strides in reducing forest cutting.

Moreover, some countries have had astoundingly successful reforestation programs.  China has had a net gain of 46,000 square miles of forest in the past decade. Pakistan has planted 750 million trees just in the past year or so. And last summer India planted almost 50 million trees in one day.

The United States has more trees now than it did a century ago.  We use much less wood for fuel, and have returned many acres of marginal farmland to trees.  Some of this effort is government driven, but quite a bit is from the decisions of millions of private property owners that it makes sense to plant trees - or just to let them regrow naturally.

In Danville, yours truly has helped raise money in an ongoing project to plant 50 trees a year along downtown streets.  This is a micro initiative, but is like many others which, taken together, add up to a macro reforestation of urban America.

Good going, trees.

In Inequality the Price of Peace

I have previously promoted Steven Pinker's The Better Angels of Our Nature on the decline of violence. I still think this is a great book, and a phenomenon worth celebrating.

I am now reading Walter Scheidel's The Great Leveler: Violence and the History of Inequality from the Stone Age to the Twenty-First Century. His main point is that the only things that have worked so far in human history to level economic inequality have been accomplished with great violence - war, revolution, state collapse, or pestilence.

A point that is secondary to Scheidel's argument, but primary to my consideration of the happy society, is that peace and stability seem to necessarily lead to increasing income inequality.

I will have to chew on this.  More as I digest Scheidel's argument.

Middlebury's Shameful Suppression

Charles Murray was invited by students to speak at Middlebury College by a conservative group.  The college accepted this invitation, and the president of the college spoke before Murray.  She said clearly that Middlebury was liberal, while Murray was not, but that as liberals, the college was open to listening to opposing views.

Whereupon liberal students shouted down Murray to the point that he had to leave the room.  The college attempted to interview him in a separate location, streaming the interview back to the original hall, but that was shouted down, too.

Murray's car was attacked.

Worse, a professor who had helped with the interview was physically attacked, ending up in a neck brace.

But worst of all, the college has taken no disciplinary action against the suppressors.  I think  they should at least be suspended, with notation, for the rest of the year, and have to reapply for admission.

This is exactly the kind of mob action that the fascists engaged in, which these same liberals so fear and condemn.

The Racists Even Hated Obama's Dog

We are reading Michael Tesler's Post-Racial or Most Racial: Race and Politics in the Obama Era in class.

Tesler's main finding is that the people with the most "racial resentment" strongly opposed Barack Obama - no surprise - and everything associated with him.  They didn't care about Sen. McCain or Gov. Romney until those men were the "last line of defense" against Obama.  They supported Gov. Crist, a Republican, until he hugged Obama - then his career as a Republican was over.  They liked Hillary Clinton when she was Obama's opponent in the primary, but strongly disliked her when she was his Secretary of State.

In one wonderful, though head-shaking, experiment, Tesler showed people pictures of a Portuguese water dog.  When they said it was Ted Kennedy's dog, Splash, the racially resentful rated it the way they did other Democrats' dogs.  However, when they told people the identical picture was of Barack Obama's dog, Bo, their dislike of the dog went up 20 points.

Why It Matters That the First Lady Recited the Lord's Prayer at a Presidential Event

First Lady Melania Trump recited the Lord's Prayer at a rally held by her husband.

This event was billed as a re-election (!) campaign event, one month into Pres. Trump's first term.  Therefore, it does not come under some of the same restrictions that an official government event does.  And the First Lady is not a government official, in any case - almost nothing she does is restricted by government ethics.

My concern is not that the separation of church and state was violated.

Rather, I am troubled by the regression of Republican politicians to a solely Christian expression of public faith.

One of the great achievements after World War II was to become a nation that embraced all people of faith, and no faith.  Robert Bellah's famous essay on "Civil Religion in America" in the mid-1960s noted that, while presidents routinely invoked God in their inaugural addresses, they did not name Jesus.  Our civic culture explicitly included Catholics and Jews, along with Protestants, in the "banquet religions" of ordinary American life after the war.  After 9/11, President George W. Bush pointedly included Muslims in the faiths he invoked in naming who is included in America.

Lately, though, Republican political ritual has been content to invoke explicitly Christian statements of faith - and leave it at that, without further inclusions.

White Christian nationalism is the most likely source of, and route to, fascism in this country.  Our political culture has evolved past being exclusively Christian in order to live up to both of our mottos - E Pluribus Unum and In God We Trust.  We must not revert to religious exclusion.

Why We Should All Think Like Scientists

On Tuesday mornings I get to talk on WKYB, Danville's country radio station. This was our topic today.


Jonathan Haidt, a leader in positive psychology, emphasizes that we human beings are not selfish individuals, but a groupish social species. It is overwhelmingly a good thing that we are attached to our groups.  We try to be loyal to the group, and believe what it believes.


The bad thing that can happen from our groupishness, though, is that we tend to seek evidence that supports what the group already believes, and reject evidence which contradicts this belief.  We have a strong "confirmation bias." This bias is not simply a feature of some people's individual psychology, but of everyone's natural (and mostly admirable) tendency to be loyal to our group. Haidt, in The Righteous Mind, writes "For non-scientists, there is no such thing as a study you must believe."

Science, by contrast, is the honest search for truth.  It is a hard discipline of reason and of moral candor.  All of us act like scientists in this regard sometimes.  And professional scientists do not always live up the high standards of science, even in their scientific work.

The great virtue of thinking like a scientist, a virtue we can all follow, is the ability to steel ourselves to follow the evidence wherever it leads, even if that means rejecting a cherished belief of our group. This is our best defense, as individuals, as groups, and as society as a whole, against false beliefs and the hopeless conflicts they engender.

Truth is in order to goodness, and thus to happiness.

Feelings Toward Muslims Are Warming

Pew reports some unexpected good news:  the feeling of Americans in general toward all religious groups have improved since 2014.

Even Muslims, the least-liked religious group, rose on the "feeling thermometer" from an unfriendly 40 (out of 100) to 48.

The only group whose rating did not change were evangelical Christians, who stayed at 61.

The rating of Muslims rose among both Democrats and Republicans.  The two parties differ, though, in how highly they rate Muslims: Democrats today rating them 52, while Republicans rate Muslims 39 on the feeling thermometer.

Valentine's Day Is a Useful - and Much Used - Ritual for Expressing Happiness in Love

On Tuesday mornings I get to talk on WKYB, Danville's country radio station. This was our topic today.


Valentine's Day is a structured ritual for expressing happiness to, and with, our loved ones.  A study of 4.6 million tweets over several years found a large spike of happiness tweets each February 14 - just below Christmas as a day for expressing happiness.

Some people think having a structured ritual invalidates expressions of love. I think, though, that getting people to articulate what they are, in fact, already feeling is a good thing.  It is, especially valuable to have a reason, and a way, for men to express -- by action and words (tweets?) -- their love for their spouses and romantic partners.




I can take or leave the more commercial elements - candy, flowers, dinner out.  Whether those particular actions are living or stilted depends on the couple.  But I do think it is a good thing to have periodic reminders to express to your mate, and to the world, your love.

In Studying the Virtues, Start With Courage

Perhaps courage is the easiest cardinal virtue to study because it is the lowest and most widespread. Plato says it is the virtue we share with animals.

You do not have to master all the higher virtues in order to understand this one.

This is helpful in thinking about how to study what is involved in building up a virtuous society.

Strongmen Are What Make the World a Dangerous Place

There is a good market right now for fear entrepreneurs who sell the idea that the world is a dangerous place.  There are always such nostrums on the market - and politicians ready to cash in.  For most of the last three generations since World War II the forces of order have kept the fear mongers and would-be strongmen in check.

But now the last generation to remember the rise of the strongmen is nearly gone.  Younger people take orderly institutions for granted.  They do not see that the rule of law is fragile, even in old republics like ours.  The permanently fearful minority allies with the short-term partisans, and the next thing you know we have elected a strongman.

All across the democratic world, right-wing nationalists challenge the governments which have made the world safer since VJ Day. All across the Muslim world, right-wing nationalists launch terror attacks on the democratic nations that keep invading them, while threatening their local authoritarian governments who make peace with the invaders.

When the strongmen come to power, the structural logic of their ideology makes them push for more danger and more war as proof that they were right about the world being dangerous.  And the more danger they create, they more they can suspend normal checks and balances and consolidate all power in themselves.

Measles Eradicated in the Americas

On Tuesday mornings I get to talk on WKYB, Danville's country radio station. This was our topic today.

The global effort to eradicate disease is one of the most powerful arguments that things are getting better.

Smallpox has been wiped out.  Polio is on the verge, if not already eradicated.

And now we get word that measles has been eradicated in the wild in the Western Hemisphere. There are still occasional outbreaks, but they come from outside.

There is a new danger now from the people who do not vaccinate their children, in the foolish belief that the vaccines themselves cause autism.  These folks, as well as some anti-vaccine faith healing groups, endanger us all by lowering our "herd immunity."

Nonetheless, the sustained and coordinated effort of international health organizations, governments, charities, and local public health workers has achieved this great good for our part of the world.

Keeping Your Heart Together Through Christmas

On Tuesday mornings I get to talk on WKYB, Danville's country radio station. This was our topic today.

Doctors have long known that there is a spike in heart-related deaths just after Christmas. This is not a huge rise - about 4% higher than one would predict from other months.  Being medical types, they looked first for physical causes.  They speculated that the cold weather might make people with weak hearts more vulnerable.

To test this, a study was done in New Zealand, where Christmas falls in high summer - the equivalent of the end of July on the northern hemisphere. They found the same rise in post-Christmas heart deaths.

I think the explanation actually says something very positive about human happiness, and human freedom.  

We all die eventually, but, with rare exceptions, we don't determine exactly when.  But it makes sense to me that people whose hearts are fading make an extra effort to hold on through the holidays.  They want to see the family one last time.  They don't want to ruin Christmas for other people. Consciously or otherwise they hold on through the year-end  holidays.  

And then they let go.

Being together with family is, for most people, a source of happiness.  And having some control of the end is an empowering exercise of freedom.

Angela Merkel and Justin Trudeau are now the leaders of the free world

As the United States descends into a nationalist bunker, I am grateful that there are still leaders of the broad-minded, warmhearted, law-abiding global community. Angela Merkel and Justin Trudeau display a rational sense of what is in best interest of their countries, the west, and the world.

Capital So far they have been able to stand up against the fear-based nationalists at home.

Long made they wave. I hope we can rejoin them soon.

Loyalty to the truth versus loyalty to the team

Which picture has more people in it?

In a survey conducted on the Sunday and Monday after Pres. Trump's inauguration, 15% of Trump voters said the one on the left. Only 2% of Clinton voters, and only 3% of nonvoters, said the same.

I do not believe that Trump voters can't count, nor that they have bad eyesight.

Rather, they are deliberately giving a false answer – what psychologists euphemistically call expressive responding – to show their loyalty.

Sadly, it appears that they have greater loyalty to their team than to the truth.

The three things we can count on the business party to do

I used to think that there were two things we could count on the business-oriented party to do whenever they were in power. First, reduce taxes on the rich. Second, reduce regulations on corporations.

I have come to realize that there has always been a third objective: privatize government functions so for-profit corporations could rake in tax money.

The business party presents privatization as a way to do things more efficiently. What usually turns out, though, is that the government was doing it about as efficiently as private industry would. What the government doesn't have to do, though, is make a profit at.

Therefore, what privatization amounts to is giving businesses the governments cost of achieving a public end, plus a guaranteed profit.

Oh, and the privatizing businesses are always big donors to the business party.

Why I am marching today

Today I will join millions around the country and the world in a "Women's March." The impetus of the march looks back - to protest the election of Donald Trump as president of the United States. Not to contest the election - he won under the rules, if only on a technicality. But to protest the fearful nationalism of his official platform, and to oppose the elements of his coalition who are much worse than that.

That was the impetus of the march - of the many marches.

The meaning of the marches, though, looks forward. America is a great nation already. Part of our greatness is a willingness to face our problems and fix them. America has been steadily getting better, and helping the world get better.

I am marching for what, as Langston Hughes said, America will be.

Why I find this election humiliating

Until now, one of the most admirable parts of American exceptionalism is that we have not used our democratic power to elect a demagogue.

Andrew Jackson was close, but at least he was a general who served the country in some ways.

Donald Trump ran as something like Silvio Berlusconi, with hints of Benito Mussolini.

This is a humiliating loss of American exceptionalism.

I miss Obama already

Today is the last day of the Obama presidency, and I miss him already.

I believe that Barack and Michelle Obama are the people most like Mr. and Mrs. Gruntled who will ever be in the White House. They are our age, share a similar educational background, and have a similar family structure. Most importantly, they share the same sacred history narrative of America.

The fact that the Obamas are African-Americans, while the Gruntleds are Euro white people, is actually not the overriding fact of our identities. Both families are educated, hopeful, Christian Americans. We both believe in working for the promise of this country.

I particularly appreciate President Obama's thoughtful, calm, and analytical approach to social problems. I thought he governed masterfully in the face of intransigent opposition.

I also appreciated the high moral tone that the Obamas brought to government, as well as to their personal life.

I am glad that they both plan to stay involved in public life for many years to come.

Too late for the wall against Mexico?

It may already be too late to build a wall against Mexico.

Michael Barone, in his fine book Shaping Our Nation, talks about the cycles of immigration to the United States. Immigration tends to come from countries that are just shy of middle income. They're not so poor that residents can not afford to leave, but not yet so rich that they stay to work in domestic industries. For much of the 20th Century, Mexico fit that bill. The great wave of migrants from Mexico came after the Second World War and continued up to the Great Recession in 2008.

During the recession, though, Mexican migration was negative. That is, there were more returnees than new migrants. This could just be an effect of the recession, and the Mexican migration might resume. However, Barone makes me think that the main era of Mexican migration to the United States is over. The Mexican economy, despite the violence and corruption of some parts of it, is now heading into the middle income of world economies. Moreover, the Mexican birthrate has declined to replacement levels. The pressure of young people to find jobs has diminished.

It might be a great irony of the Trump years that we make a "yuge" effort to build a big wall against Mexico at the very time when it is no longer relevant.

Today's coffee houses produce the public sphere, just as they did in the past

Coffee houses are where the public sphere was born.

This is the argument of Juergen Habermas, an eminent German sociologist. He feared that coffee houses today do not produce as much political argument as the coffee houses of the Golden age, the late 1600s in London.

I think coffee houses have always produced a public sphere, but little of it is directly about politics. This was as true then as now. More often the public discussion in coffee houses is about popular culture. And this is fine; the people should discuss popular culture–that's what makes it popular.

I believe Habermas is correct, though, that some people need to be talking about politics in the coffee house. Indeed, some people need to be organizing civic action in the coffee house and elsewhere. As I read Tocqueville, this is where he thought the voluntary associations would come from that make American democracy work.

Some think we are in dire times for civic engagement. They imagine a golden past when people were more involved in civic life. I think as many people are involved in civic life now as ever have been. The voluntary associations that make our society work have always been the job of minority. The coffee houses of today are as productive of the public sphere as they ever were.

For King and President

In my church we take turns offering prayers of the people. This was my offering for the week including Martin Luther King Day and the presidential inauguration.

Oh lord, we thank you for the task that you have given us of advancing the great call of our secular creed that all men are created equal. 

This day we look back to the work of the last-born of the founding fathers, Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. This week we look ahead to the peaceful transition of power. This ritual is one of the glories of our republic. We humbly ask for your support and protection of the outgoing president. We fervently hope for your guidance of the new holder of that great office. 

We all have a part to play in building up the work of our republic, equally as citizens and as Christians. And in this work we know, as Dr. King reminded us, that the moral arc of the universe is long, but it bends toward justice.

Coffee Houses Are Great Places for the Mentally Unusual to Work

I commend Bitty and Beau's Coffee House in Wilmington, NC, for employing the mentally handicapped.  It is so hard for the mentally unusual - such as those with Down's syndrome, or autism - to find jobs at all.  A coffee house has all kinds of jobs that are honorable and feasible for such persons.

Even more so, a small-town, independent coffee house is an excellent place for unusual people of all kinds to find a place and be part of a community.  My own coffee house, the Hub, has hard-working, friendly, and beloved staff members who are also ambassadors for the respectful treatment of autistic and mentally limited people.  The place wouldn't be the same without them.

And, as the owners of Bitty and Beau's note, the Southern tradition of hospitality is a real help from both customers and employees in making a small-town, independent, Southern coffee house a good home for the mentally unusual.

Jane Jacobs is a Model Public Intellectual

I commend the life of Jane Jacobs as a model of thought about civilization, especially as it is made in cities.

She is also a pretty good model of an engaged public intellectual.  She was never an academic, which in her case probably helped her have a broader view than academic specialists can afford.  She was a writer, trained in specialist magazines (Iron Age, Vogue, and Architectural Forum) and in writing war propaganda.  This was excellent training for close observation of reality, and of writing to be understood by the educated lay public.  She was also free from the standard academic models of city design and development, which allowed her to develop paradigm-shifting insights.

I have often thought that I have an advantage as an intellectual because I am a liberal arts college teacher, rather than a research university scholar.  I need to read broadly to teach many subjects, and I have the freedom to do so because my main job is not producing specialist research quickly.

I plan to re-read Jacobs' urban trilogy, beginning with The Death and Life of the Great American Cities, as preparation to write my own book about why people choose their neighborhoods in Louisville.

Obama vs. Coates on the Arc of History

The Atlantic has an important cover story by Ta-Nehisi Coates on the Obama presidency

In the opening editorial of that issue, editor Jeffrey Goldberg contrasts the view of history of the two men.

President Obama often quotes Martin Luther King the "the arc of the moral universe is long, but it bends toward justice."

Mr. Coates, by contrast, believes that the arc of the universe "bends, in fact, toward chaos." He elaborates that he does not mean history tends toward meaninglessness, but rather that it is open, and subject to disruption.  He regards Obama's election as "a sign of chaos, of disruption."

Still, on this matter I am with Obama, and King, and Theodore Parker, the Unitarian minister from whom the metaphor originally came:  "I do not pretend to understand the moral universe, the arc is a long one ... But from what I see I am sure it bends toward justice."

Women Benefit Especially from Mixed-Used Neighborhoods

When the car suburbs were first created, women were reluctant to go.  Being trapped in the house, with kids always in tow, nothing in walking distance, and husband off with the family car, they found the suburbs to be a loss.  The men thought they were protecting their families by isolating them.  They did not think about the social costs of that isolation.

Now, urban designers were deliberately listening to how women use cities.

"And because women in general are more likely to combine work with family commitments, cities like Berlin are trying to break up the division between residential and commercial districts, between suburb and office. That means more mixed-use neighborhoods, with homes, shops, and workplaces all jumbled up—something with numerous other benefits as well, like neighborhood character or being able to walk rather than having to get in a car every time you leave the house."

Generous Givers Are Happier

This is what we talked about on WKYB this morning.

Habits of generosity make people happier.

These habits flow from a worldview of abundance and generosity.  People who think the world has a point and their lives in it have a purpose are more likely to give their time and money to others - and to give their care to other people in their lives.

People who do not think life has a larger purpose give less, and are less happy as a result.  Fully 45% of the population give no charitable gifts.  At Christmastime, especially, this is so hard to fathom.

The generous portion of the population makes the society go 'round.  And they reap happier lives, as a result.

(I commend The Paradox of Generosity, by Christian Smith and Hillary Davidson, for more details on this research.)

Robots and the Future of Racism

I believe the main point of the invention of racism in this country was to divide the workers, to make it easier to control labor.

If the demand for labor declines, will the demand for racism decline, as well?

Post-Election Culture Wars

This podcast is an interview with me about the culture wars effects of the 2016 election.

Talking to Strangers Fosters Happiness - and Social Trust

When we start conversations with strangers, we usually have a pleasant experience - and so do they.

This is the upshot of experiments conducted by social psychologist Nick Epley.  He asked commuters on buses and trains to initiate conversations with strangers.  They asked both the initiator and the other person how they felt afterwards.  The main effect was that it made them both happy.

We typically do not initiate conversations with strangers because we are anxious about possible negative reactions.  This anxiety is of a piece with the normal human tendency to overestimate costs and underestimate benefits of action. That anxiety, taken to the next level, fills us with fear, which is the greatest enemy of happiness.

What sociology can add to this picture is that most of the strangers we encounter will have quite a bit in common with us, precisely because they have chosen to be in the same social setting we have chosen to be in.  The strangers we run across are not a random assortment of humanity, but are likely to be much more like us than not.

The First Step in Fighting Fascists Is Not to Be One

This is a moment in which fear entrepreneurs are fanning the flames of tribalism all around the world.

The first thing we need to do in the coming fight with fascism is not to become tribalists ourselves.

The great principles of democracy, pluralism, and America are enough to make a decent and happy society with.

These principles are also our greatest weapons against a narrowing and fearful xenophobia.

"Hacksaw Ridge" is Extremely Bloody, But Seriously Moral

Mel Gibson makes gorefests, and this film is no exception.

However, the true story of Desmond Doss, the conscientious objector in World War II who won the Medal of Honor as a medic for saving many wounded under fire is worth the time.

The core story is about moral courage, as both different than, and inspiring to, physical courage.

As we face a rising tide of fascism around the world, we may need both.

This Moment is What the Electoral College Was Intended For

If I were an elector, I would not vote for Donald Trump.

If Hillary Clinton won the electoral college, that would not be a constitutional crisis.

It would be a constitutional triumph.

Poor People Spend Money in Socially Useful Ways

A new meta-analysis looked at what poor people spend on if you just give them money.  The worry is that they would waste it on cigarettes and booze.  However, "not one of the 19 studies found that cash grants increase tobacco and alcohol consumption and many of them found that it leads to a reduction."

This is similar to the argument that I find persuasive for raising the minimum wage:  poor people put the money right back into circulation, buying stuff they need.  This employs other people, and is a more likely stimulus to the economy than giving more money to rich people.  Plus, the poor peoples' lives are better.

Country Music on the Right Way to Live

On Tuesday mornings I get to talk on WKYB, Danville's country radio station.

Peter Lewis did a semi-serious analysis of the standard themes of top country songs, from the '60s to today.  He boiled them down to four:  It's all over; It's not working out; Love and devotion (which he originally coded as Sappy love songs); and Right way to live.

The first three categories are primarily about romantic relationships, but include frustrations with jobs and a few other relationships.

The last one is the one I am particularly interested in.  In Lewis' calculation, these songs covered Things were better back then, Me and my rowdy friends (the land of the current bro-country party songs), and Let's get back to basics.  This is the category for analyzing the social structure.

Now, no popular genre addresses the social structure directly - it is too boring as an emotion, too far removed from narrative, and too big for most people to readily grasp.  Instead, these songs tend to call up the wisdom of small towns, farms and factory hard work, marriage and parenthood, and patriotism.  They are, implicitly and sometimes explicitly, against cities, elites, and status-seeking.

Lewis' analysis reveals that the first two categories - the "tears in my beer" songs - have declined, while the latter two have risen.  His conclusion: modern country fans are more interested in healthy relationships, motivational speeches, and having a good time than sadness and misery.

On the whole, this is a good development, I think.  But we do need to keep thinking critically about the macro-processes of the social structure.

A Grump about Trump

I try to stay positive here, but there are a few things about the incoming administration that worry me.

I fear that Mr. Trump so values his business empire, and has so little taste for actually governing the country, that he will constantly use his office to advance his private interests.  This is not a matter of bribery, exactly, but rather of shaping US policy to benefit his business, with the connivance of foreign governments.

I fear that the Trump presidency will be the most corrupt administration ever.

In a related note, I think his daughter Ivanka is really the brains of the operation.  Her recent announcement that she will be moving to Washington confirms my suspicion that she will not only be running the Trump businesses, but will also be de facto First Lady, hosting for and advising the Trump White House.  In fact, she seems more committed to living and working in the capital than her father does.

Culture Wars of a "Change Election"

2016 was a change election.  As often happens, after two terms of one party in the White House, many people vote for the other party, just for a change.

The exit polls show that the people who thought things were going well voted for Clinton, and the people who thought things were going poorly voted for Trump.

The Trump voters were not voting for issues - abortion, guns, immigration, even the economy - in any ordinary sense.

They were, though, mobilized by Trump's polarized, culture war framing of the real struggle: the  "politically correct" educated elite versus ordinary people.  This was a theme that Donald Trump and his surrogates pushed again and again.

The very vagueness of the supposed positions that the politically correct were supposed to embrace made this a useful slogan - globalization for economic nationalists, Muslim terrorism for Christian nationalists, immigration for white nationalists.

And Trump voters were not wrong that the educated elite do support free trade and pluralism.

Nationalism, though, tends to produce very bad consequences for minorities and for international peace.

Good News: Dementia Is Declining

The disease I fear most is dementia.  Like most academics, I suspect, I value my mind over most other aspects of my body.  Losing it is a most disturbing prospect.

Which is why it is so encouraging that the dementia rate has declined significantly since 2000.

Researchers don't know why dementia is declining, because they don't know what causes it in the first place.

They do note, though, two factors that correlate with a lower likelihood of dementia:  being highly educated, and being fat.

I've got this covered.

On The Passing of Fidel Castro

Fidel Castro overthrew a brutal dictator, improved literacy, and vastly improved health care in Cuba.  For those those things he deserves praise.

He reigned as an oppressive dictator himself, though probably less corrupt than his predecessor, for decades.  For this he should be condemned.

The United States foolishly strengthened Castro's rule by attempting to overthrow him, and then by blockading Cuba for those same decades.  This not only strengthened him as a dictator, but also pushed him into the arms of the Soviets.  Their nuclear missiles in Cuba led to the crisis that almost started a nuclear war.

I believe if we had pressed for commercial relations from the beginning, Cuba would long ago have become democratic. Coca Cola and McDonalds can send ambassadors where mercenaries and the Marines can't go.

I hope that when his brother Raoul passes, as well, President Obama's opening to Cuba can be completed, and in short order we can construct the bases of democracy.

Rising Nationalism Threatens World Peace

The greatest human achievement of the past two generations has been preventing a major war.

Since the end of the Korean War, and really since the end of the Second World War, there has not been a war between major powers.

This is because of the structure of international organizations that we created precisely to prevent another world war, and the web of organic relations of trade and social ties that grew up under that structure.

The most important of these structures, in my estimation, are NATO and the European Union.  Many people take for granted the structure of peace they created.

Nationalism is the substitute religion created by modernity.  It has some good uses in creating group solidarity. But it also has a great and obvious danger in promoting international wars.

The rising tide of nationalism that we see in all countries threatens world peace.  But most dangerous is nationalism in the United States and Europe, which undermines the structures of international order that the world's central powers guarantee.