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.

What is the Civil Religion "Holiday Season" For?

The season from Halloween through New Years contain the High Holy Days of the the American civil religion.  The great melting pot of pagan, Christian, and Roman holidays has been Americanized.  And the keystone of the arch of holidays is Thanksgiving.

Each holiday serves multiple purposes, high and low.  Halloween brings out artistic creativity, and lets us serve cute little neighbor kids coming to the door.  New Years is a time for new starts, the beginning of the year, and the beginning of the great quarter of getting down to work.  Christmas, of course, is a significant religious holiday for the Christian majority, but is also a great family holiday, the start of a week of togetherness with which to end the year.

Thanksgiving is also a great family holiday.  More than that, though, it is the moment of greatest moral depth - of reflecting on all that we have to be thankful for.  Of all the actions tied to our holidays, this is the one most likely to bring enduring happiness.  The happiest people show the thanksgiving habit year-round.

To be sure, each of these holidays is also an important commercial day.  All of our civil religion holidays have elements to encourage no-holds-barred spending. The last quarter of the year drives the consumer economy.   Each of these economic customs has the potential to make us more materialistic in ways that produce dissatisfaction and unhappiness.

Still, each of our civil holidays, if approached correctly, can promote happiness and a better civic spirit.  And the greatest of these is Thanksgiving.

Violence is Never in the Interest of Rational Actors

I am not sure this is true.  I am chewing on it.

I know that sometimes rational actors will have to be violent to protect themselves from irrational actors.

But I don't think two rational actors ever need to resort to violence to settle their differences.

I take it as given that long-term survival is a premise of rationality, for societies if not for each individual in it.  So rational societies in a world of rational societies know that violence for short-term gain will not make sense if it leads to retaliatory violence or other sanctions.

In societies as in individuals, "self-interest" and "selfish interest" are not the same thing.

Encourage Black Women to Run

Melissa Harris Perry gave an impassioned speech to the American Anthropological Association that ended with her repeating "Where are my black girl leaders?  Where are my black girl leaders?  Where are my black girl leaders?"

She argued that Donald Trump was elected by white women - most of whom almost always vote Republican.  By contrast, black women turned out for Hillary Clinton, and were the only group to turn out at the same (high) rate for Hillary Clinton as they had for Barack Obama.

She made the point that black women are rarely encouraged to run for office themselves.  The black women in office often came to the role unexpectedly, indirectly, or through a male relative's election.  She argues that we should systematically encourage black women to run for office, at all levels, and in their own right.

This strikes me as a good idea.

Black women among my students, past and present, prepare for a discussion about your social duty and civic capability. :-)

Hope Is a Thing You Have, Not Something You Are Given

Wendell Berry, Kentucky's leading intellectual, spoke at Centre College.

He was asked by an audience member for words of hope.

Berry considered this for a moment.

Then he said: "I don't have any.  Hope is a virtue that you are just supposed to have. So get it up!"

DC Statehood is a Bad Idea

Before we moved to lovely Danville, Kentucky, Mrs. G. and I lived in the District of Columbia.  "Statehood for DC" was a constant political refrain of local politics.

The citizens of the District just voted overwhelmingly (79%) for a plan to separate out a small federal district for the main government offices and monuments, and turn the rest into a new state of New Columbia.

I like the idea of shrinking the District of Columbia down to a federal core - Capitol and Supreme Court, White House, the mall and its adjacent offices and, in my version, across the river to include the Pentagon.

I do not think, though, that the city of Washington surrounding this core is a state.  I do believe that they should have voting representation in the House of Representatives.  But not their own senators.

SO my proposal:  the federal District of Columbia shrink to the smaller diamond I outlined above.  The rest becomes Washington City, Maryland.

Protesting President Trump's Election is Misguided

I don't care for political street theater.  I am glad that in a free country people who like to do that sort of thing can.  But I think it is counterproductive, and usually self-indulgent.

Which is why I think the protests of President Trump's election are a bad idea.  Just as I thought the protests of President Obama's election eight years ago were a bad idea.

I understand that there are many people who are fearful, my own students included.  And some people have already been treated hatefully by Trump supporters, my own students included.  The right response is for the police to prosecute the assailants.

Donald Trump did, indeed, empower the white nationalists.  But protesting his election is to misdirect the anger at should actually be aimed at the actual wicked people on the ground.

Just wait.  There will be plenty of substantive things to protest later.

Voting to Get Our Old Jobs Back Will Not Repeal Global Capitalism

Two decades ago an economist gave a talk at Centre College in which he predicted that, due to automation and increased efficiencies in delivery, we could "optimistically" expect to eliminate 25 million jobs in the United States.

"You mean 'pessimistically,' don't you?" I asked.

No, he was thinking like an employer - or, really, as a shareholder - who was concerned about increasing profits by reducing costs.

I was thinking like a sociologist, looking at the effect on the entire population.

I think the margin in this election were the 25 million people who lost their jobs, or the possibility of those jobs.  Those jobs - low education mass employment - is gone forever, and not just to China.  Most have been eliminated altogether.

The governing class of both parties supports globalization of the economy, including automation.  Voting against "elites" in favor of a strongman who promises to bring back those jobs is a hope against hope.

The Republic Will Survive President Trump

My first presidential election was 1980, when Ronald Reagan unseated Jimmy Carter. Mrs. G. and I were students at a very liberal college, and we and all of our friends were devastated.

The 2000 election was, if anything, worse. President Bush the younger came into office by one vote, and that voter later concluded she had voted wrongly.

On this morning after election day, this one feels like an even harder kick in the gut. The campaign promises made by Donald Trump are far worse than anything his predecessors proposed. On the other hand, the worst are so un-American, un-Constitutional, or even physically impossible, that they will not actually happen. And, as he has made clear many times, he often says things he does not mean and will later deny having said.

Moreover, unlike Ronald Reagan, or George W. Bush, or even the Tea Party, there are no other Trumpian legislators. He will have to rely on regular Republican politicians to govern. This should have a moderating influence, though they will likely enact many things I disagree with.

Still, the Trump campaign has unleashed a white nationalist layer of Americans who normally do not vote or proclaim their positions in public. I do fear that they will feel emboldened to act on their sense of entitlement in dangerous ways.

Happily Voting for Hillary

I have known since election night, 2008, who I would be voting for tomorrow: Hillary Clinton.

I was, and remain, a strong supporter of Barack Obama.  I believe he has been a very good president, and has accomplished a great deal despite colossal obstruction.  I thought Hillary Clinton would make a good president in 2008, but Obama would make a better one.  I have not changed my mind.

Since then she has done all she could to prepare to succeed Obama.  As with the parade of policy wonks who head the lists of Democratic politicians these days, she does her homework.  She is better prepared on foreign policy than Obama was.  She has invaluable experience as a senator.  And she has the unprecedented preparation of having been First Lady.

Like her husband, the first President Clinton, she is a trimmer.  She has cut deals and cut corners.  Nonetheless, on the scale of presidential-level politicians, I would rate her failures about a 2 on a ten-point scale.  Of presidents in the past century, I think only Jimmy Carter and the current incumbent would rate higher on that scale.  That includes some very effective presidents.

And then there is the great historic moment of the first woman president.  Mrs. Gruntled and I will be wearing suffragette colors when we vote, in honor of this new epoch.  And I dearly hope, and expect, that she will win.

How to Change "Locker-room Talk": Harvard Cancels the Men's Soccer Season

The Harvard men's soccer team produced a "scouting report" of the sexual value of each member of the Harvard women's soccer team.  Again.

This time, Harvard responded by cancelling the rest of the men's soccer season (Harvard was leading in the Ivy League).

When Donald Trump was caught bragging about groping women and getting away with it, this was dismissed as "locker room talk."

Many athletes came forward to say that they never talk that way or hear others talk that way, even in the locker room.

But even if you allow that this kind of callous sexual objectification of real women has been common in locker rooms in the past, we can choose to change the norm.

Harvard is leading the way in showing that "locker-room talk" is wrong, has consequences, and is worth changing.

Democrats Can Come Clean About Their Liberal Religious Motivations

My colleague Ben Knoll and I were interviewed by Bill Goodman, of Kentucky Educational Television, for a podcast on religion and politics.

One development in this election that may shape the future of religion and politics: the explicit articulation of liberal Christian positions by the Democratic candidates.  Hillary Clinton has long said that her politics have been shaped by the Methodist Social Creed, which she learned from her youth group leaders as a teenager.  And Tim Kaine has exemplified Catholic Social Teaching, especially as propagated by Jesuits, all his life.  Both have made their faith, and their religious motivations, central to their story in this campaign.

The Christian ethic of "care for the harmed" has long driven liberal political action.  Usually, though, liberals who are religiously motivated don't say so publicly, for fear of "shoving their religion down other people's throats."  Which is, seemingly paradoxically, one of the defining religious beliefs of religious liberals.

I hope after this election that candidates in both parties will feel equally free to talk about their religious motives and religious conclusions in shaping their policies and commitments.

What "Keep [Here] Weird" Movements Are For

Starting something new.  Every Tuesday morning, 7:30 - 8:00, I am on WKYB in Danville talking with Archer.  On Tuesdays I will post here at the Gruntled Center on the same topic.

I visited Austin, Texas, last week, to explore the "Keep Austin Weird" movement.  This movement began as an appreciation to the public radio station for promoting distinctive local culture.  It was taken up by independent businesses. That movement has inspired other "Keep [place] Weird" movements in other cities, including Louisville, fostered by local independent business associations.

The "Keep it Weird" movements honor the deep human need to be attached to a place, not just a generic location in space.

"Keep [here] Weird" movements, and other "buy local" campaigns, are also part of a class struggle.  This is a struggle within the upper half of the economic structure between what I call the knowledge class and the corporate class.

The knowledge class defines itself by its mastery of distinctive cultural knowledge.  They find the McDonaldization of everything to be soul-sapping.  

The corporate class defines itself by control of material things.  They find brand names and chains to be reassuring.

"Keep [This Place] Weird" is an assertion by the knowledge class that our distinctive culture is what makes this place worth loving and meaningful out of all the spaces in the world.

South Korea Shows Women's Rarity Does Not Entail More Respectful Treatment

Some economists think that if women are rare, they will be treated with greater respect.

South Korea tests this hypothesis.  They have an unusual combination of a gross excess of men due to widespread sex-selection abortions twenty and thirty years ago and a very low fertility rate.  This should be the ideal circumstance for men, hoping to marry the rarer women and have children, treating them with greater respect.

Instead, South Korea has among the ugliest gender wars in the world.  The nascent feminist movement has generated an intense and open backlash among men.  This is especially true of unemployed men, as the South Korean economy has been slow to recover at the very time that women are significantly increasing their education and job-seeking.

South Korea - along with similarly situated Japan and Hong Kong - are the rare developed countries in which the female murder rate exceeds the male.  (For comparison, in the U.S. men are murdered more than three times as often as women.) This is because the South Korean domestic violence rate is very high.  Women are safe on the streets from strangers, but at much more risk from boyfriends and (ex-) husbands at home.

Democratic Doctors Deal With People, Republican Doctors Deal With Bodies

An interesting new Yale study measured the partisanship of doctors in different medical specialties.  Many specialities split close to evenly between Democrats and Republicans.  Overall, doctors who have a party are slightly more Democratic than Republican, 54% to 46%.

At the extremes, though, there are significant differences in partisan alignment by medical specialty.

The two most Republican specialties are Surgery, at 67%, and Anesthesiology, at 65%.  The two most Democratic specialties are Infectious Diseases, at 77%, and Psychiatry, at 76%.

The thing that stands out to me is that the doctors who most have to deal with conscious people who talk about lives quite different from the doctor's own are likely to be Democrats.  The doctors who deal with unconscious bodies whose lives they need to know the least about are likely to be Republicans.

Some have speculated that Republicans go into the highest paying specialties for the money.  I think, though, that is is more likely that Democrats are more likely to chose to deal with patients most harmed by the way they live and have been acted on.  Care for the Harmed is a core liberal value.

Can Dictators Be Leaders? Authoritarians Say Yes, Democrats Say No

One battle in the vice-presidential debate between Tim Kaine and Mike Pence was over Pence's claim that Vladimir Putin was a stronger leader than Barack Obama.

Kaine said a dictator could not be a "leader."  Pence said Putin had a bigger impact on world affairs than Obama, so therefore was the stronger leader.

Authoritarians fear that their world is threatened.  They see the options as black and white, want a muscular response, and reject contrasting information.  Political scientists have noted that, in past generations, the authoritarian fraction of the population was split between the two parties more evenly.  Since the Civil Rights Movement, however, the Republican Party has been courting them. Authoritarians are the core of the Trump base.

To authoritarians, the strong man is what it means to be a "leader."

To a (small d) democrat, by contrast, a leader is someone who can work a compromise among opposing interests to create a functioning consensus.  A good leader is one who can see the way forward that serves the varied groups in society, and who has the skill to work the compromise.

Trump and Pence praise dictators as strong leaders, regardless of which policies they impose.  Clinton and Kaine reject the idea that dictators can be leaders, because imposing policies is oppressive to parts of society, and undemocratic.

The Nobel Prize Shows Mrs. Thatcher's Continuing Gift to American Academia

When Margaret Thatcher was Prime Minister of Great Britain, she drastically cut support for higher education, and reduced the security that academics there had in their jobs.

The result was a mass exodus of academic talent to the United States.

Today the Nobel Prize in Physics was announced.  It went to three British scientists.  And where did they do their prize winning work?  The University of Washington, Princeton University, and Brown University.

Thank you, Mrs. Thatcher.

The Just Grievances of Trump Supporters

The Democratic Party aims to "care for the harmed", especially those harmed by the government itself. Trump appeals to those who believe that they have been harmed by the government because the government helps those who have been harmed by previous government policies. The Trump people - working class white men, in particular - believe they were in line for the American Dream, and that Democratic "care for the harmed" policies amount to letting other people - women, people of color, gays and lesbians, the handicapped, immigrants - jump the line ahead of them for no good reason. The Trump people are right that they are losing a benefit (a privilege) they used to have. But on this point I think the Democratic Party policy is fundamentally right.

The best Democrats can do to address this real grievance is the plan to reduce the cost of college, especially community college, for the ambitious part of the white working class. I would trumpet that policy right at the Trump supporters.

The harder issue to address is about the effects of globalization. The leaders of both parties are internationalists, for good reason. The world is safer with a free-trade regimen, our national economy benefits, all consumers benefit, and many workers benefit. But not all. Here the Trump supporters have a real grievance, which cannot be easily addressed by either party. Low-skilled manufacturing jobs are not going to come back in sufficient number to re-employ them at family-supporting wages. They refuse to take farmworker jobs, which can fill that gap for people willing to do very hard work (as the immigrants show).

Sovereign Immunity Protects the United States the Most

Congress passed a law to allow U.S. citizens to sue foreign governments - specifically, Saudia Arabia, for their possible role in the 9/11 attacks.

President Obama vetoed that bill, on the grounds that the doctrine of "sovereign immunity" - foreign governments are immune from suit in our courts for their government actions - protects us.  If we allow U.S. citizens to sue foreign governments for their acts, that opens the door for foreign citizens to sue the U.S. government.

The United States invades, bombs, and intervenes in more countries than any other - probably more, these days, than all others combined.

Congress overrode President Obama's veto - the first time they have done so.  And immediately the Republican leadership regretted what they had done.

The President is right.  Our self-interest, rightly understood, should lead us to preserve sovereign immunity.

The Irony of Suburban "Covenants, Codes, and Restrictions" Is That Private Government Is More Intrusive Than Real Government

Many suburban subdivisions are minutely regulated by Covenants, Codes, and Restrictions.  These can cover just about anything that is visible from outside your house.  Legally, it is like living in a shopping mall.

Suburban homeowners give up a great deal of their freedom in the interests of keeping up the property values of the whole neighborhood. The task, and bane, of Homeowners Associations is enforcing these rules.

The irony is that these same suburbs are also more likely to be home to the kind of conservatives who resent government regulation of their lives and property.

There is no logical contradiction here - choosing to enter into a private contract to give up your liberty is different from being subject to regulation whether you personally chose it or not.  But in practice the homeowners association restricts many "small government" conservatives much more than the government does.

And the people who live in the super-liberal bohemian neighborhoods in the city have, in practice, much more freedom about what they do with their property.