The Surprising Thing I Learned About My Students' Image of 9/11

I am teaching a short course on 9/11. 

I wanted to teach this course when I realized that next year's first-year students were in kindergarten in 2001.  Soon the Centre student body will have no memory of the 9/11 attack, while the grownups around them will continue to refer to the events as if they happened yesterday.

The juniors and seniors I am teaching this term were in third or fourth grade at the time. They do remember, though mostly they remember the commotion among the adults and in their school.  But they all saw the pictures of the burning towers of the World Trade Center that day.

The surprising thing I learned from teaching them is that they did not know that the twin towers were a famous landmark before 9/11.  They asked me if, when we heard that the World Trade Center had been hit by airplanes, could most people picture what those buildings looked like?

For young adults today - and likely the whole next generation - their main image of the World Trade Center is of the twin towers on fire, and then collapsing into rubble.

Obamacare Will Be A Pretty Big Success

I think the extension of health insurance to all Americans is a huge step forward. It will soon become as much a part of the fabric of American life as Social Security and Medicare.  It will be hard to convince students in a few years that there was a time when we did not have universal health insurance.

It will also be hard to convince students, especially the Republican students, that Republican legislators all voted against universal health insurance.  That the Republican Party ran three elections on trying to defeat and then overturn what they called Obamacare.  The Tea Party is opposed to the Affordable Care Act beyond the point of reason sometimes.  They shut down the government and were ready to bankrupt the country rather than let the uninsured have health insurance.

The Republican alliance with the Tea Party will, I think, be seen as a disastrous miscalculation, especially about Obamacare.

The Republican Party is strenuously, even frantically, opposed to Obamacare because they know it will be a success.

M23 Rebels Lay Down Arms, Agree to Talk in Congo

"The rebels agree to lay down their arms and negotiate ..." is almost always good news. 

In today's good news, the M23 rebel group in Congo were the ones stopping their war.  The government of the Congo will negotiate to achieve the rebels' reintegration into society. 

The Congolese government was backed by UN troops who, unusually, were sent there to fight.  The rebels' main outside supporters, the government of Rwanda, also accepted the peace deal.

This is not the end of fighting in the eastern Congo - several other rebel groups and gangs remain.  But today's good news sets an excellent precedent for creating lawful order in one of the most lawless places on earth.

We Dwell on Wars that Settle Ethical Conflicts

I attended a fruitful symposium at Maryville College on the moral meaning of the Civil War.

The best idea I had while taking part in this discussion is that the wars we dwell on - the Civil War, the Second World War, the American Revolution, the French Revolution - settled deeply vexing ethical issues. 

Equally big wars that did not settle such questions, though, we ignore.  The War of 1812 or the Korean War, for Americans.  The First World War for the world. 

The comparison I thought most about at the conference was between the U.S. Civil War and the 30 Years War.  This conference emphasized the moral and theological problem that slavery posed for both sides in the Civil War, a problem that could not be settled by the usual theological means.  The 30 Years War, likewise, grew out of a very deep theological problem that could not be settled by theological means. 

But the 30 Years War ended in military stalemate and ideological exhaustion.  The theological conflict was not settled - instead, the Enlightenment thinkers concluded that religious issues simply had to be removed from politics.

The Civil War, by contrast, settled the ethical problem of slavery when the churches and the parties could not.  That war did not settle the problem of racism, which got worse in the post-war era before it got better.  But the Civil War ended the question of slavery, just as World War II ended the question of fascism.

No war is good, but the wars we dwell on did a good thing in settling an ethical conflict too deep to be handled any other way.

Ending the Shutdown: The Reluctant Center Prevails

I am hopeful that the current cooperation between Republican and Democratic leaders in the U.S. Senate will end the government shutdown, and remove the threat of a debt default.

Even more importantly, the leaders of both parties, especially the Republican, have been obliged to act like centrists, even if they do not want to. Actually, I think most Republican and Democratic leaders, year in and year out, do want to cooperate with one another. 

For the past few years the Republicans have been bowing to their coalition partners, the Tea Party.  The Tea Party does not wish to cooperate, as they have made clear from day one. Yet the coalition of the two rightist parties was doomed from the beginning. A governing party and an anti-government party can not, by their very natures, work together to govern. 

The Republican Party made a Faustian bargain with a disorganized mass of anti-government social movements, going back to the Reagan Administration. This worked for them through most of the Reagan and Bush, Sr. years, because once in office the Republicans ignored their anti-government wing. They cooperated with the Democrats in making the government larger.

This strategy has come back to bite them, though.  All those years under the wing of the Republican Party taught the disparate anti-government types how to function as a loose party.  In the last three cycles, the Tea Party has emerged as the more effective part of the 'conservative' coalition. The minority Republican Party was forced to make a coalition with the Tea Party to gain shaky control of the House of Representatives.

I think now, having brought the credit of the United States to the brink of collapse, the Republican Party is finally starting to cut their ungovernable progeny loose.

Which is good for centrism, and for responsible government.

Juan Linz: An Appreciation

My dissertation director, Juan Linz, died recently. He was 86, and had been retired for some years.

Linz was a German-born Spaniard who spent his whole career in the U.S., mostly at Yale. He was a political sociologist, propagator of the idea of 'authoritarian' regimes, an expert on the Basque terrorists, and a major theorist of democratic regimes.  His recent work on gridlock and worse in presidential democracies is being much cited just now.

He turned out to be an odd choice as dissertation director.  He was a European and a Catholic (though he was careful never to let students see his faith).  My dissertation was about American Presbyterians.  I often thought that he secretly believed that America and Protestantism were novelties that it was too soon to get too involved with. 

His students will long tell stories of the two large Gladstone bags of books that he always carried with him, and his chain smoking of strong Spanish "Ducados" cigarettes.

I worked with him because he was a Weberian, and had thought a great deal about religion and politics.  I learned a great deal from him on those subjects.

Obscenity and Pornography

This one goes a bit into the weeds.  I apologize for its length.

Yesterday we at Centre had a talk by a visiting philosopher on obscenity law.  My "Happy Society" class went because we have been studying Haidt's Righteous Minds, which talks about the different moral foundations that liberals and conservatives appeal to.  When I read the poster describing Michael Kessler's approach, I knew he was a liberal.  His argument was that an individual's choice to use obscene material hurts no one, so there should be no law against it. A conservative, by contrast, would argue that pornography - the specific example of obscenity that Kessler was concerned with - degrades the sanctity of the body, both of individuals and of the body politic.

To make his argument, Kessler used three arguments:

1) Mill says I am the sovereign over myself, as long as I do no harm to others.

2) The Rowan decision said that householders could opt out of receiving obscene material in the mail.

3) the Miller decision said that community standards could prohibit sending obscene material in the mail to anyone in the community.

Kessler read this sequence this way:
Mill was right - individuals are sovereign over what they do, as long as it does not harm other individuals.

Rowan was right - individuals can exercise their sovereign individuality by choosing not to receive obscene material.

Miller was wrong - the state is imposing a universal judgment that obscene material is not open to the free choice of individuals.

I think this reading is wrong.

Mill is talking about individuals.  I think in practice the range of things that apply only to individuals, without affecting the other people that individual is connected to, is very small.

Rowan is not about individuals, it is about households. The responsible adults of a household decide to protect their little community from the intrusion of obscene material.

Miller is not about the state, and certainly not about the state making a universal substantive judgment.  The community is a larger version of the household that was acting in Rowan.  This large household is making a similar decision to protect their somewhat larger community from the intrusion of obscene material.

Kessler objected to any community standards on the grounds that they might be used to support racism.

But here is the problem.  Liberals use community standards the same as everyone else.  They decide in the little community of their household, or in the somewhat larger community of the social networks they control, such as campuses, that some obscene material is not permitted. For example, they forbid the use of racist words.

Banning the 'n-word' is a community standard.

I think Kessler was confused about obscenity and pornography.  He was drawing a distinction, but the wrong one.  What makes anything obscene is its public quality.  The debate over obscenity is over whether things which are not, or cannot be, forbidden in private must also be accepted in public. Rowan drew the public/private line at the household mailbox.  Miller, more ambitiously, drew the line at the community's border.  Pornography is just one example of the vastly broader category of obscenity.

The other thing at issue in Rowan and Miller is whether pornography is an inherently dangerous substance. Some things are banned even in private because they are too dangerous to the community to be in private hands.  Nuclear weapons would be an uncontroversial example.

Pornography is a somewhat dangerous substance.  I think porn is about as dangerous as marijuana.  They both do dull the moral sense.  But neither is very dangerous.  Therefore, I think they should be regulated the same way.  Not forbidden in private, but strongly discouraged in public.  In other words, obscene - off stage.

Disney Does a Happy Thing: Upgrading Their Part-Time Employees

Disney has decided to make its 30-hour-per-week employees full-timers, so they can get health insurance.  This is a happy outcome, brought about by the Affordable Care Act.

Disney's action is in contrast to the shameful decision by some employers - notably Kentucky-based Papa John's Pizza - to downgrade its nearly full-time employees to part time so that they would not get health benefits.

I believe as universal health insurance becomes the norm in the United States, more companies will follow Disney's lead.

Why Were the Fifty-Somethings the Least Likely to Leave Religion?

The Pew Religion and Public Life project hosted an excellent discussion of what the increase in religious 'nones' (people who profess no religion) means.  One of the tables presented plotted the increase by age from 2008 to 2012.

The main point is that the young are more likely to now say they have no religion than are the old.

What struck me most, though, was the trough right in the middle of this chart: people in their early 50s were the least likely to say they had become less connected to a religious institution in that period.

I am drawn to this table because it has a puzzling anomaly that needs explaining.  I am also drawn to this table because I am in my early 50s, and I have had no inclination in this period to leave the church.

I do not have a good explanation.  I do have one hypothesis to offer, and maybe two.

First, this age group is on the cusp between the Baby Boomers and Generation Xers, between inflated rhetoric and 'just do it.' Being able to partly identify each way, perhaps we are willing to give the church, the land of inflated rhetoric, another chance to just do it in making a better world.

Second, this is exactly the age group of President Obama (b. 1961).  The people most likely to say they had no religion are young Democrats. Perhaps Democrats of the president's cohort are less likely to give up on religion when they see him stay with the mainline church that gave his life direction.

Why Do the Petite Bourgeoisie Like Strongmen?

The small business class is famously the most conservative in society.  They are the backbone of anti-democratic movements, and the supporters of dictators.  Even in very democratic societies, they like leaders who act, and regard political negotiation as weakness.

One of the solid findings of happiness research is that we hate loss more than we like an equivalent gain. We continue to be anxious about possible losses, but quickly get used to sizable gains.

I believe the petite bourgeoisie favors the strongman because their own economic position feels perpetually precarious.  They have a little and hate to lose it.  They fear the poor - whom they tend to regard as lazy, dependent, and undeserving - as coming for their stuff.  Democratic politics, which tends to give something to every group of potential voters, is dangerous because it enables and encourages the poor.  Strongmen are better because they don't have to give any group anything.

Once again, fear appears to be the great solvent of a happy, trusting society.

Hurrah for Rand Paul! He Supports Restoring Felons' Voting Rights.

Senator Rand Paul calls for restoring the voting rights of felons with the completion of their sentences.  He also wants to reclassify the lowest kind of felonies to misdemeanors so the convicts would not lose their voting rights in the first place.

I don't often agree with Sen. Paul, but I thoroughly agree with him on this issue.  Kentucky has the most difficult path for felons to get their voting rights restored, so it is particularly helpful to have a Kentucky senator take this strong line.

Changing the Name of "Grand Wizard High School"

The bad news: 

There is a public high school in Jacksonville, Florida named for Nathan Bedford Forrest, the Confederate general who was the first Grand Wizard of the Ku Klux Klan.  The then all-white school was given that name in 1959 as a protest against the federal requirement that public schools integrate.

The worse news:

When parents at the now-integrated (and half black) school asked the school board to change the school's name in 2007, the board voted 5-2 to keep the name.

The good news:

Parents are leading a new movement to change the school name.  75,000 have signed their petition.  And all five pro-Grand Wizard members of the school board have been replaced.

The movement to end anti-black racism in this country will be long and slow, and still has decades to go.  But we make progress by little steps, like changing a school name.

National Exceptionalism is True of Every Nation, and Dangerous

This is taken from CNN's account of today's minor dustup over national exceptionalism:

It was a reference to President Vladimir Putin's address Tuesday night, in which he said that while Russia can't be a global cop, it ought to act when in certain situations.

"That's what makes us exceptional," Putin said. "With humility, but with resolve, let us never lose sight of that essential truth."

Obama's answer to that?

"It is extremely dangerous to encourage people to see themselves as exceptional, whatever the motivation," he wrote.

He concluded with the line, "We are all different, but when we ask for the Lord's blessings, we must not forget that God created us equal."

This seems to me to be true and not really that controversial. As a sociologist I have to object to equating God creating all individuals equal with all nations being equal. Likewise, I object to conflating nations with the governments of those nations.

The main point, though, holds.  All nations are exceptional in some way.  But when a government thinks that its policies are justified because our nation is better than other nations, that is dangerous.  It is dangerous for everyone, most especially for the nation imagining that it is above the laws that affect other nations. 

The United States as a state, and the American people as a nation, have some distinctive virtues.  I celebrate and promote them often. But we also have the same kind of self-serving temptations that all states do to see our interests as justifying acting unilaterally, and claiming it is for the common good.

Now, as you have probably realized, I did amend CNN's account of the kerfuffle slightly: I swapped "Putin" and "Obama," and substituted "Russia" for "America."  But the same principle holds.  And it would hold if any other leader were swapped for "Putin" and any other country swapped for "Russia."

Better-off People Seem to Be Having More Children

This is the conclusion of a private report from BCA Research, described in The Economist.

The birth dearth that was threatening to crash the populations of developed nations in a generation or two seems to be reversing. And it is reversing in exactly the cohorts one would most hope it would: educated, married couples who have the structure and resources most conducive to raising children.

A generation ago, the more educated a woman was, the fewer children she was likely to have.  Now, it appears, the opposite is true for younger cohorts.

This is good news, indeed.

The Russians Get the Syrians to Destroy Chemical Weapons? Win, Win, Win

The great news coming out the Syrian crisis would be a win for everyone. 

A win for the Syrian people, first and foremost, who would no longer be gassed by their government.

A win for the United States and its allies in not having to bomb the Syrian weapon capacity.

A win for the Russians in showing that they have the power to help, and actually helping.

It is probably also a win, if only temporary, for the Syrian the dictatorship, in showing that they are slightly less awful than they could possibly be.

This is not a done deal, of course, but it certainly would be happy news if it can be brought home.

Good News From the New Iranian Leadership

My friend Ron Stockton posted these useful facts:

President Rohani, the new President of Iran, sent Rosh Hashana greetings to all Jews "but especially to Iranian Jews." The Foreign Minister of Iran sent his own greetings. The daughter of Nancy Pelosi, a filmmaker who knows the foreign minister, sent a message asking what this message meant given that Iran had denied the Holocaust. The Foreign Minister, who studied and lived in the US, responded that "Iran never denied the Holocaust. One man denied the Holocaust and he is gone. Happy Holidays."

Obama Takes a Centrist Approach to Syria

I think the president is following the right, careful path in Syria.

He is right that the whole international community can't let chemical weapons be used with impunity. Since the U.S. is the leading power in the international community, it falls to us to lead - and, if necessary, carry out - the response.

At the same time, he is right that the whole international system is endangered if countries respond to bad regimes, like Syria, by simply overthrowing them.  That is a cure worse than the disease.

Therefore, a measured response, targeted as far as possible at destroying the specific Syrian military units that carried out the poison gas attacks, is a good centrist path.

Moreover, the U.S. government works better when the president and Congress agree on military action. It has become easier and easier for presidents to make war and bypass Congress.  This is a dangerous practice.  Congressional leaders constantly push to be consulted and to debate and vote on military action.  Sometimes there is no time.  Syria is not one of those cases.

President Obama is right to propose a clear, limited military action that will not (in itself) overthrow the Syrian dictator, and he is right to ask Congress to vote to support this plan or explain why not.

One good outcome of this debate is that so many Republican leaders in Congress have insisted that the president must consult with them before making war.  I hope they will remember this the next time a Republican president wants to make war.

The bigger issue, though, is that I think there are always middle positions and calibrated steps that we can take in policy.  Granted, once an all-out war begins and fear takes over, it is hard to stick to limits.  But we have not had an all-out war in decades, and are not likely to soon.  The Syrian case is the right place for a measured, transparent, policy-driven response.

How to End Voter Suppression: Base Congressional Representation on the Number of Registered Voters

I am disheartened by the repeated efforts to make it harder to vote, mostly for poor people.

I have an idea to create an incentive the other way - to get the parties to be interested in expanding the number of voters:

Base congressional representation on the number of registered voters, not on the sheer number of people, in a district.

Chinese-Slavic Match-Making?

When high-achieving women have a hard time finding suitable husbands in Western societies, where there are roughly equal sex ratios, that is bad.  But when high-achieving women have a hard time finding husbands in China, which has way more men than women, that is terrible. 

Maybe China should import Eastern European men, who also greatly outnumber women in several countries.  The men might be glad to find high-achieving wives and to move to a more vibrant economy, and the Chinese women might be glad to have husbands who don't come with the baggage of oppressive mothers-in-law.

'Stay-at-Home Moms' Who Work Full Time

An interesting tidbit from an American Sociological Association meeting session:

In a study of women's work/family arrangements, a number of women described themselves as 'stay-at-home moms' even though they worked 30 or 40 hours per week.  When pressed, they said that they thought of themselves as stay-at-home moms if they were there when their children were awake.

Naturally, these women did not get much sleep themselves.