Monday Links

 Wealth, War, and Worse A short history of the Plague

Generations of microbes evolve in hours, not millennia.  We can learn an enormous amount about evolution in general

Sally Satel reviews Unshrunk. She is right because she agrees with me! I suspected from the start that Laura Delano had Borderline Personality Disorder, for which medications are not often useful. As the story unfolded it became inevitable where the story would end. She got off meds, endured the pain of learning to reduce impulsiveness and make good decisions, and got older. All three help.

Good and Evil are Native Pagan Concepts  at Norse Mythology and Germanic Lore 

The green energy myth is condemning Africa to Poverty 

 

 

Sunday Links

 A video of Ted Cruz getting quite exercised about the growing antisemitism on the right.  Good for him.

Highbrow Misinformation   Even without a subscription you can read the part about climate.

The highly-literate and abundantly fertile Psmiths cleverly review a book about why having children should be easier now but is harder. 

Also the Psmiths, reviewing The Real Korea   I did not know this.  Not even a little bit.

The quest for perfect communism was also assisted, ironically enough, by the fact that only half the peninsula was heading that way. In the first years of the two Koreas, the line of demarcation between them was very poorly guarded. This resulted in a vast demographic sorting, analogous to India’s partition, but far more thorough. Many of the most idealistic and educated South Koreans, who tended to harbor leftist and communist sympathies, headed North to create a worker’s paradise. This further added to North Korea’s human capital. Conversely, a torrent of former landlords, entrepreneurs, and Christian activists fled South.  

 Arctic Frost Is a Real Scandal, by Eli Lake.  I'm sure it is, but I think of Bullwinkle 

 

O Waly, Waly

The Water is Wide, I cannot cross o'er

And neither have I wings to fly

Give me a boat that can carry two

And both shall row, my love and I 

Sometimes I think I would like to have the verse on the bench that is our headstone.  Mrs. Wyman disagrees. It is a good verse for when one has died and the other remains. 

 

The Water is Wide has a jumbled history, as most folk songs do. I did not know until I read the Grokipedia entry that one can sing "When I Survey the Wondrous Cross" to it.

France Is Already Doing This

When I have discussed reduced fertility and possible pro-natalist policies that would help, I not only quote "things to try," and "reasons why we aren't having children," but my commenters are likely to offer their own ideas. However...

France has already implemented most of the modern pro-natalist wish list (reducing income tax rates based on the size of the household, cash payments to mothers at birth, cash allowances for families, subsidized child care, universal paid parental leave, school cost payments, and housing subsidies for families with three or more children), though many of these programs are means-tested, and the French state has been ideologically pro-natalist since the interwar period. In total, France spends about 3.6% of GDP on family programs, rising to 4.7% if you account for the indirect income tax adjustments and pensions benefits (the highest in the OECD). France does have the highest fertility in Europe… but this is largely due to the exceptionally high fertility (TFR = 2.95) of non-European immigrants, who account for 22% of total births. Rather than bringing French fertility to replacement, the French pro-natalist state overwhelmingly subsidizes large families in the massive Arab and African populations (which makes the problems of population decline worse, not better). Contrary to the Age of Malthusian Industrialism hypothesis, native French fertility (TFR = 1.62) is at the high end for Europe but by no means exceptional.

(From Arcotherium at Aporia "Communist Pro-Natalism")

Comeback

In an online argument I read last night a young man was furious at how difficult the economy is for young people now, citing familiar statistics about housing costs (new houses were 1/3 the size in the 1960s) and wages (exclusive of benefits, the much smaller percentage of people working at that level, and more) and college costs. 

He fell into a trap laid by an older person who partly agreed with him, stressing deterioration of services by cheap bastard companies trying to gouge us. He described the amazing meals and service in airplanes compared to what they served now, and how little space we have. There was an exchange of agreement. 

"So how was your last flight?" 

The boy bit, and complained about a transatlantic flight last year. 

The older man: "I didn't even go up in a plane until I was 41, and not to another country for ten years after that. Yeah, life is tough for young people now." 

Infant and Maternal Mortality

"America’s maternal mortality rate is shocking: In 2023—the most recent year for which there’s reliable data—almost 19 in 100,000 women died in childbirth. (The equivalent figure in the UK was 12.67.) Among black women, the rate was 50 in 100,000. Every American should demand better care for mothers—and be grateful to Carmon for her reporting." (Iris Carmon, author of Unbearable.)  Kara Kennedy "Progressives Can't Bear Pregnancy" at The Free Press

Numbers like this circulate a lot. Aaron Sorkin* had one of his characters rant over a decade ago about everything the US did wrong, and nearly every number had the same explanation. The black numbers are much worse in many categories, and they are 11% of the overall population. If you apply that to the quote above, you will see that our mortality rate is not shocking - our black mortality rate is shocking. The rest of the country, including Hispanics and Asians, is about the same as the UK. This applies to education rankings, longevity, homicide, incarceration, and more. If you do the quick math in your head and multiply the black rate by whatever factor separates them and then apply it to the whole, the numbers match up moderately well. 

The followup questions are all variations of why. There is an automatic leaping to the conclusion that it must be about racism, or poverty, or lack of access, or medical professionals paying worse attention to black women.  Yet when you try to illustrate with real data what people are sure must be true it turns out to be hard to nail down. Because the mortality numbers vary somewhat by state, inequality is probably part of the answer.  That could be some of it.  But it is well less than half the explanation, because the numbers are the same for blacks in other countries.  For every country to be exactly as racist, or blacks there to be exactly as comparatively poor is less likely than the probability that something genetic is happening. Survival in Africa was different from survival in Pakistan was different from survival in London. That this entire evolutionary history vanishes in a couple of centuries is too much to ask. 

Other countries talk about racism, but we are one of the very few countries that actually are multi-racial.  I have long been irritated at Europeans sniffing at us when they are just short of a Viking invasion for whiteness overall. Plus, their record with Jews and Roma is still poor, and recent immigration is not going smoothly. The Anglo Canadians don't even get along with their French, who were also white Northern Europeans. Sorry, that was a tangent to an old soapbox of mine. 

None of the three links address full reasons for the maternal/infant mortality rates racial disparities, but they all bring out interesting possibilities. 

I think Cremieux's is the most interesting  and most thorough

Peter Frost  at Aporia has one about Mother-Fetus Mismatch that was surprising.

Plus some data from Europe. I am wondering if the UK definition of Asian is different from ours, or the countries that make it up have a different balance.

*When I went looking for the Aaron Sorkin tirade from over a decade ago that the US is not the greatest country in the world, citing the infant mortality statistics.  Graph Paper Diaries was the sixth search engine entry. 

Repeal the 19th Amendment

Apparently this is a thing now.  I have heard it suggested humorously for many years, and quarter-seriously by some men looking at the voting demographics and not liking the results. The premise seems to be that women are fooled by charismatic charlatans who can't deliver on what they promised.  Well they are.  But this is one of the main ways that men get to have sex, so you may not want to advertise the point too loudly. This also points up a major weakness of the scheme, that men also get taken in by women who um, don't necessarily have their best interests at heart.  Or by men who have great advice what will work with women.

I imagine you could ask advertisers for their opinion who would tell you with a straight face "Oh!  Oh sure! Men never spend their money on stupid things, which is what makes our job so hard!"

Thus the best you can manage at that point is "Okay, men are also fooled by politicians and stupid ideas, but women are fooled more often." Pretend it's true. How are you going to repeal the amendment?  Where are you going to find the votes for that, even in Congress which is predominantly male. Secret ballot? How are 74 men going to convince their wives and daughters that they weren't one of the 67 who voted for it? But say it works by some wild chance.  Now you have 100,000,000 angry women who will then blame men - with some justification - for everything that goes wrong.  I mean, even more than they do now. Tell you what, Mack. Why don't you find that country and get back to me how moving there worked out for ya.

So it's obviously trolling women to convince them everything would be better if they were more like men. Well. I suppose that would be a refreshing change from what I have been hearing from women since fifth grade, but I think that will have the same success rate as trying to repeal the 19th. Shaming people always works so well, y'know?  

 

Not a Pet

 Man explaining his leashed cat to store security:  It's not a pet, it's a "lack of support" animal to prevent me from becoming too conceited.

Next woman in line: It's not working. 

Politics and Religion

Politics and religion have been dancing a long time. And every time it happens, politics ends up leading - and stepping all over the feet of religion. Mike Woodruff "The Friday Update" Woodruff is senior pastor at a multi-site church in the northern suburbs of Chicago.  My wife has been reading me quotes from his updates for a few weeks now, and I always sigh at what new Christian site she has found that I'm not going to like.  But I am entirely wrong about this and I find his simple style engaging.  I think he is doing what I do, only better.

I have aware of this concept for some time - it is very much part of Lewis's teaching, such as the "Christianity and..." of Screwtape, several of the essays in God in the Dock, and most chillingly, in That Hideous Strength. I thought we came to "the fell incensed points of might opposites" (Hamlet) in the 80s and 90s, when I was assailed by the mostly-decent but quietly self-righteous believers left and right. I was not good at being nice to either of them. 

It is back with a vengeance now, or maybe social media just gives a platform to the worst of them.  I don't think Episcopalians have heard many sermons on demon rum or adultery over the last decades - the priests reserve the hellfire and brimstone for the evils of Republicans.  I suspect it has the same effect as the old sermons did, scaring the bejeesus out of the already converted and making sure they don't dare leave and go out into the void, but chasing the unconverted away. I cannot believe the tone and accusation I am hearing from men and women of the cloth, spoken with the absolute certainty that is itself a red flag. 

Yet that isn't the whole story. Simmering up among the online young is a Christian conservatism with many good aspects, but entirely too welcoming to old demons in new disguises.  I don't know these children that well, and I doubt they will listen to one such as I.  But I have seen this before. I recall the revival weekends on church signs: Faith. Family. Country. " 

“If Affection is made the absolute sovereign of a human life the seeds will germinate. Love, having become a god, becomes a demon.” CS Lewis The Four Loves.  Yes, if even love can fall, and can fall farther than mere lust, so too can love of family and love of country. The higher a thing can rise, the greater is its fall.

My own words would be that if a Christian develops any politics, the danger of the political beliefs becoming the faith is so great as to be irresistible without Divine aid.  Our tendency to self-deception is bottomless, whether we go off a cliff or sink into the marshes. The demon discovered simply hides one level further down. 

Are the Narnia Books or Lord of the Rings Allegorical?

 Earl at Wind Off The Hill (sidebar) has a new entry on this long-debated topic.

Old School

Shilo Brooks and Coleman Hughes discuss Thomas Sowell's book A Conflict of Visions, which came out almost 40 years ago. Sowell considered it his best, and it is the best of the four I have read. Tearing the argument down to the studs - the constrained versus unconstrained view of humanity - is greatly clarifying. 

Paul Anka Looks Young

 He was young here.  19.

We sat on the couch for prayer time tonight and I asked my wife to put her head on my shoulder. I started singing the song and she joined in.  For one line. Then we both said "That's all I know."

So here it is. BTW, I hadn't realised that he wrote the English lyrics to Frank Sinatra's "My Way."

 

Permanently Installed in a Back Closet

 

It pops its head out once in a while.

Why No Elections?

 I'll bet he had fun writing this today.

 

 

 

Michael Adams, KY Secretary of State

@KYSecState

We’re getting calls about polls being closed. They are closed because we do not have elections today. Kentucky votes next year. You cannot vote today in Kentucky for the mayor of New York City or the Governor of Virginia. Sorry.

Shifting Values

It is interesting that liberals have become more and more European, and have oriented themselves toward Western European comparisons, just as Europe itself is disintegrating. They have castigated conservatives for being provincial and prided themselves on being internationalists.  But international means China, Japan, India, Indonesia, and Singapore now.  Europe still has plenty of juice and will for a long time.  "There's a great deal of ruin in a nation," as Adam Smith said. But the world is turning, and the new version is not well understood by either conservatives or liberals.

Norman Greenbaum

Before "Spirit In the Sky" with its fuzz bass, Norman Greenbaum was part of Dr. West's Medicine Show and composed this half-psychedelic, half-Roaring 20s novelty hit. 

Believers noted "Spirit in the Sky" was theologically weak right from the start. No Christian would say "Never been a sinner, I never sinned."  It seemed to be one of those California Jesus Freak things. People now know Greenbaum grew up in an observant Jewish family - big surprise, I know. But still...California or maybe Colorado or something. 

Well, there is even more to the story than that.  He was from Malden, MA, and was obsessed with Westerns as a boy.  What he was picturing was being inspired by a cowboy "dying with his boots on." Looked at from that perspective, a vague, general I've been a good person would be about what an average Jewish boy might think of Cowboy Christianity.

Less Parenting

 The Free Press has a new article The Secret to Parenting:  Do Less of It. I don't need to read it to know that I agree with it.  I often say to young couples about children "Have more children and pay less attention to them.  They'll be fine." It is analogous to the Rules of the House of God in the book of the same name about medical residency after med school.  The chief resident would tell the first years do as little medicine as possible. This was not laziness, but wisdom.  Over time, the author learned that the second half of the lesson was save it for when you really need it. The same applies for parenting.  Some children will require a lot (though even those should have as mujch time on their own as can be managed). All children will have episodes where they requirte more parenting. We found that once we mutually reached the conclusion that the current behavior required some sort of heightened response, defining what was wrong usually pointed to the answer.

I wish we had learned the lesson earlier.  Our first son in particular could have benefited from less pressure.  He would have done as well with half the effort. The three adopted sons all had periods when they needed more intervention, but we had learned to back off more by then and it was doable. 

Another Aspect of Concern For The Poor

 We discussed the restoration of Lazarus to life this morning, and specifically the oft-mentioned verse "Jesus wept." Why would he weep?  He knows that he is going to raise him.  Everything will be good again. At first glance it makes no sense.  Lewis offers that it is because Death is still the ultimate indignity. We skip too quickly over that part when we contemplate our own resurrection.  It wasn't supposed to be this way. Jesus was there for the creation of life and the creation of man, and he knew better than any other what was lost. That is in fact why his rising again is important. Without it, the good creation, Life, goes under the waves and is lost forever.  Everything was for naught. Joy would have meaning only for a moment, and suffering would have no meaning at all. 

I have always thought that the fatalist "death is part of life" is a twisting of the meaning. Death is not part of life; the new life transcends death, it does not negate it. 

Jesus does not evade this, he leans into it.  People are always dying, always being born blind, always going hungry.  When he says "the poor you will have with you always" he emphasises this. This world and perhaps the whole of creation is fallen and that will never be fixed, only transcended, especially on the last day.

This is why looking to fixes in this world is dangerous.  The fantasy is that if we just allowed the market to work freely, or just taxed the 1% more, or created more technical marvels then things would be fixed.  Even if we scale that back to "well, I mean pretty much fixed" the temptation is unchanged. It is the desire to get away from the shared pain, to have done with it all and be able to go outside and play. 

Any of our endeavors might help, and we should put great effort into that because of the life that we share with all the others.  But the temptation to want things to be fixed eventually descends into horror and cruelty, because we will excuse great cruelties and injustice in order to achieve this unachievable goal. I don't know how many tip-offs there are of this, so that we might recognise in ourselves that this demon has inhabited us.  But one is certainly when we believe that it is someone else who must fix it, that we have no part in the work at all. 

I had a patient years ago who was so delusional that he was unemployable. He collected a disability check, but felt he still should always do what he could for others. He got up every morning and swept the sidewalk on his block. It was the landlords' job, and the city's job, and the shopkeepers' job, but it was something he could do, so he did it. In the winter he would shovel it before sweeping it.  When he got old and could not shovel so much he felt bad about it. He also thought because he had food he should always give some away. When manipulators and thieves would take advantage he hit upon a new scheme.  He made a little extra each meal and would bring that little down to street level and look for someone to give it to.  I only knew bob a short while forty years ago but his example has stuck with me.  He had found a way to not only give back, but to be part of.  

We are called to be forever part of helping. Solving is a skill that can greatly aid helping, but solving is also a great temptation that leads to despair, and anger, and blaming others. The bastards.  Everything would be solved if it wasn't for them.

Shadow of My Own Heart

 

I had not ever heard of her.  Janis Joplin was considered the pioneer of white-girl-sings-the-blues, but Rose brings more style, more pain, a few years earlier. Come to think of it, I'll bet there were plenty before Joplin, but not in my ken.

Was Aethelred Really That Unready?

Aethelred only partly-deserves his bad rap in the history books.  His military actions are generally condemned, but even at that, he had a harder road than most other kings.  The Danish invaders were more formidable in the late 900s than even the Great Heathen Army of 865.  Aethelred bought them off for much of his reign, but did choose to fight them in ineffective ways intermittently. Buying them off was probably the best strategy most of the time - history teaches that wars are always more expensive than we pretend when we go in - but in retrospect historians thought this only encouraged the Danes to look at England as a renewable resource for raiding.  Better, they thought, to have defended fiercely at some earlier times. Yet he turned the tide a bit by hiring some Danes to protect England against other Vikings. While this is always a risky strategy, it can work for a long time.

So easy to say in retrospect. The disastrous Battle of Maldon was under Aethelred and considered partly his fault, but as the poem commemorates, the decisions of others were the problem.  It is one thing to say later if we were going to fight so arrogantly and stupidly it would have been better to buy them off this time as well, had the English fought and won then the subsequent raiding would probably have been different.  In that context, the execution of many already-settled Danes was a second disaster, because it gave the invaders reasons for revenge in addition to loot. None of it worked out, and it is agreed that he was not a good judge of character and chose terrible advisors.  This was ironic given that his name Aethel-red means "nobly-advised." 

Yet that is the real meaning of "Unready" at the time. It meant poorly-advised.  (Those who took German or know a bit of its history will recognise Rathaus as "advice-house" or town hall.) When he wasn't supporting the various nobles who were out for themselves rather than for him or for England, he did reasonably well. Despite the attacks and hemorrhaging money the institutions of government, not created by him but still new and potentially insecure, continued to function so that trade, law, the Church, and agriculture held up through it all.  More recent scholarship has tried to describe how exactly Aethelred accomplished this, but it is first noted that the whole thing might have collapsed but it didn't.  He must have done more than a few things right. Then, as now, people take for granted that life goes on and has some day-to-day predictability. But survival and success are never guaranteed. The take wisdom and effort to remain in place.

Sunday Links

Universal Basic Income has little to no effect in developed countries, but yet another study shows effectiveness in a poorer country 

A couple of years ago I highlighted the gathering of obesity research done at SMTM that point to chemical exposures, primarily lithium, as being the main culprit for weight gain. At the time, there was not much that consistently worked for weight loss, only calorie reduction and increased activity, which tends not to be sustainable. It sucks when reversing what got you into this mess doesn't seem to help get you out of it.  In response to a collection of criticisms, SMTM updates its defense, and I think the case looks even stronger now.

Why Is Switzerland So Rich? 

It's not just that Wikipedia gets it wrong, it's that they won't back down   

Jonny Steinberg on South African Crime and Punishment, the Mandelas' Marriage, and the Post-Apartheid Era.  "The writer of one of Tyler’s favorite books of the last decade on cops who won’t police, a marriage that shaped a nation, and the optimistic case for South Africa." I liked the podcast because it revealed how wrong my supposed knowledge about South Africa was. Oppressions I believed in were false, and ones I hadn't thought about were true.

Wind Off the Hilltop

 Earl has placed new material on his site, and surprised me with poems by Dorothy Parker.  I admit, I have only known her as a wit and an epigrammist (Asked to use the word horticulture in a sentence she said "You can lead a horticulture, but you can't make her think.") But her poetry! 

 The Little Old Lady in Lavender Silk
 

I was seventy-seven, come August,
  I shall shortly be losing my bloom;
I’ve experienced zephyr and raw gust
  And (symbolical) flood and simoom.

When you come to this time of abatement,
  To this passing from Summer to Fall,
It is manners to issue a statement
  As to what you got out of it all.

So I’ll say, though reflection unnerves me
  And pronouncements I dodge as I can,
That I think (if my memory serves me)
  There was nothing more fun than a man!

In my youth, when the crescent was too wan
  To embarrass with beams from above,
By the aid of some local Don Juan
  I fell into the habit of love.

And I learned how to kiss and be merry—an
  Education left better unsung.
My neglect of the waters Pierian
  Was a scandal, when Grandma was young.

Though the shabby unbalanced the splendid,
  And the bitter outmeasured the sweet,
I should certainly do as I then did,
  Were I given the chance to repeat.

For contrition is hollow and wraithful,
  And regret is no part of my plan,
And I think (if my memory’s faithful)
  There was nothing more fun than a man! 

 

Some others

Sanctuary 

Song of Perfect Propriety 

Inventory 

Concern For The Poor

I know people who do nothing I can see for the poor but are very quick to illustrate how much they care about them by complaining that other people don't care about the poor. I don't think I need to give examples. I was going to accuse them of desiring simple solutions that don't cost them much personally because they actually don't care about the poor.  They want something that allows them to stop having to think about it. I thought this about the Affordable Care Act, because of which Son #5 has had to spend lots of money his entire adulthood to purchase insurance that doesn't get him much medical care. Yet so many people breathed a sigh of relief when it was passed because they could now pretend it was solved and not think about it.

But this is what writing is good for.  In marshaling my arguments against these people, I recognised a lot of holes in my case. I don't know what these people actually do for the poor, or for humanity in general.  They may give a great deal in secret. (Okay, the ones I am thinking of almost certainly do not, but it's a slippery slope.) They may have relative they support who would be in dire straits without them. That in turn reveals that I don't have a clear definition of what I even mean by "caring for the poor." They may time or concern or prayer that I know nothing about. They might also not be avoiding doing anything as already shouldering the burden for some relative and not wanting it to get worse. If we all helped just a bit it would be a big deal for them. It's hard to accuse that group of selfishness. 

Lastly, the accusation looks back over its shoulder at me: "An' what are you doin' for them, mate?" 

The people who want those simple solutions are likely those with the better imaginations who are haunted by the suffering of others - and who wants to be haunted? The realise there isn't much they can do themselves, so they hope that taxing billionaires or improving the local tax base or overthrowing capitalism will bring them peace. When I make it personal like this I understand their motivation better.  They want it to go away because it hurts. It is tough to accept that the poor will always be with us, that we will always hurt, and that we cannot get away from it by leaving it to others. Trying to do that only deadens us. 

Saturday Links

 From ACX October links: T Greer on Trump’s flip-flopping Ukraine-Russia policy (X): “Every administration since Clinton comes in determined to reset US-Russian relations, to clear away old legacies and bad blood. Clinton, Bush, Obama, Trump I, even Biden. It is the swampiest of all swampy ideas, resetting relations with the Russians. It never works.” 

A Billion Years of Sex Differences 

The Science of Snickers  Caramel has to be done at 240-245 degrees Fahrenheit. That seems like a narrow window.

Political Extremists are the same under the skin 

Political Symbolism and Social Order The study argues that Confederate monuments actually reduce violence against Blacks because they reinforce the white supremacist order and white people feel comfortable with that.  Tearing them down makes the white people insecure and they get more violent to reassert supremacy.  I think a couple of things are being missed here. First, white-on-black crime is very low to begin with, and political versions are even lower, so the amounts being measured are small.  Secondly, the whole study is related to data from Reconstruction and a century ago, with this hand-waving idea "and it's just the same now." The modern data is...more sparse. Thirdly, if you go into any town and start tearing down its monuments there is going to be a baseline level of people who feel interfered with and annoyed, and that doesn't seem to be accounted for here. All measured violence is because of white supremacy, not for the insults, accusations, assumptions, or disruptions. The study does have formulas (!) which give it an air of precision, though.

It's Official

 There has been a language change, from progressive exaggeration.  When someone now says "Well, it's official..." they mean something near the opposite. It is no longer used to signify that some authority has certified a thing, it means some new occurrence has brought to the point of no return, or sometimes, the people I disagree with have admitted how evil they really are.  

We hear it most often about politics, but it's multipurpose.

"Well, it's official, the Democrats have declared war on the rest of the country."

"Well, it's official, Donald Trump is cancelling the 2028 elections."

"Well, it's official, the Presbyterians have denied the gospel of Jesus Christ."

"Well, it's official, the school board doesn't care about special-needs children."

This will be followed by some minor and often obscure news that they want you to pay attention to, because it proves what they have been saying all along. As with most hyperbole, there was originally some meaning behind it, treating some major event as the final straw, that everything but an official declaration had occurred, and we should be aware of our real situation.  But of course that is just too delicious to leave alone.  It's fun to perceive things that others have missed, to look smarter than the rest. The temptation is to prove yourself a True Princess by detecting the pea under so many mattresses. Progressive padding was likely inevitable. 

The Way Old Friends Do

 

The Mississippi Miracle

A few South Central states - Mississippi, Louisiana, Arkansas, and Alabama - have all seen recent gains in measured school testing.  They have been among the worst for years and are now average or better. I am suspicious of any education miracles, because they tend not to scale up, or persist, or measure what they say they do.  OTOH, even small well-distributed improvement is much to be desire. 

Here is some of the debate, courtesy of Astral Star Codex

Kelsey Piper stresses that it is literacy and continuing education for teachers focused on curriculum.

Freddie deBoer reminds us that there are no education miracles. (And he's got a list, which probably includes your favorite solution that you are just sure would work)

Derek Deek thinks there might be a little something to it, but not much. 

Natalie Wexler insists that phonics only gets you so far She likes the better teacher training, though.

Kelsey Piper shares some of the critics' doubts but still defends the strategies 

So many good observations and arguments were made that I don't want to muddy the waters much. I will note the following:

Some of the data is over more than a decade of (slower but sustained) improvement.  Some of it is flashy but only a few testing seasons.

Improvement was concentrated among but not confined to the worst students. 

Teacher training has included untraining - stressing that some popular things have been shown to be ineffective.  Note that these are not necessarily damaging, as critics sometimes accuse, but simply ineffective. 

Thursday Links

 Brain Difference Between Psychopaths and Normals Psychopaths have a 10% larger striatum than non-psychopaths, suggesting biological differences in brain structure. This enlargement is tied to impulsivity and a higher craving for stimulation. I wonder if this is part of what we see in the differences in criminality and violence that I have posted about recently. In some domains I have higher impulsivity and need for stimulation.  I'll have to think about what that means and where the divide it.

Parallel Parking Championship  I sent this to Son #5, Kyle, who is masterful at this.

Go over and check out a few controversial topics at Grokipedia versus Wikipedia. Bernadine Dohrn (21 mentions of violence, 16 mentions of bombings) versus Bernadine Dohrn (no mentions of violence except in the footnotes, one mention of bombing). Or compare Alger Hiss versus Alger Hiss.

In Almost All Fictional Worlds, God Exists, by Robin Hanson at Overcoming Bias, linked by Rob Henderson  It’s not that a deity appears directly in tales. It is that the fundamental basis of stories appears to be the link between the moral decisions made by the protagonists and the same characters’ ultimate destiny.  

The tylenol/autism brouhaha is an escape hatch for RFK Jr. who wanted to claim it was vaccines but had to settle for this, which is going to amount to a medication long off-patent having to put a warning label on.  To repeat: the increase in autism diagnoses is a product of progressively milder symptoms being allowed for diagnosis. It doesn't mean they "aren't real" - there were misdiagnoses fifty years ago as well. Behavior is complicated. 

Model Cities

Articles about Model Cities are usually just "great ideas some people have" plus some drawings and proposals.  But ACX is keeping track of things worldwide - it is clearly a topic that Scott Alexander has a fondness for - and gives updates on actual projects, some with land, buildings, and people.  The Bahamas, California, Honduras, Sierra Leone, and brief reports on a few others. 

Wednesday Links

 People Versus Things I am not surprised that there is a preference between men and women, but I am surprised how strong it is. More freedom equals more revealed preference rather than constrained preference.  In poor countries both sexes are under pressure to choose whatever pays more.  Not so in developed societies.

Asch's Moral Conformity effect also holds when the companions are online. It worked for half the dilemmas, anyway. It is easier to go along with the group.

TL:DR Will AI Solve Medicine? Is AI saving us any time if we have to read about it so much? The little I did read was interesting. It sould be a great podcast if you are taking a five-hour round trip anytime soon.

Bird Dog is back from France and wherever, so Maggie's Farm is back up. 

I don't read books anymore.  I'm in two book clubs and have to force myself to read things that should interest me.  I am reading Hidden Gospels by Philip Jenkins and loving it each time I pick it up - which is seldom.  I am not who I was. Part of it is falling asleep. Most of it is that I want summarised information, which is now available in abundance. 

The Psmiths review John McWhorter's Our Magnificent Bastard Tongue, which I read years ago and liked. It is thorough enough that it is actually a summary of the book - in case you also prefer that now. But she does give some outside information as well, such as Have I mentioned that John McWhorter is a language contact specialist? If you move in the right circles, his theories about creoles are more contentious than his thoughts on affirmative action. Fun to know.

Water Skiing

 This was my era on skis, beginning at Baptist Pond in Westford in 1959. 

The high point of this one is seeing Princess Margaret smoking with a cigarette holder about halfway through.

 

Technology Replacing Us

 David Foster has a review of Peter Gaskell's Artisans and Machinery, which Tyler Cowen also recently reviewed (interior link). Gaskell is very worried about the social changes that are already under way that are destructive to jobs, to the family, and to morals.  In Great Britain in 1836. I picked up quickly what Foster highlights about the changes. Gaskell rhapsodises about the age of Squires and good fresh air.

Gaskell explicitly states that he does not mean to portray the pre-industrial times as any kind of Arcadian paradise, but to a considerable extent he does just that. His almost entirely positive portrayal of the Squire would, I suspect, have been roundly mocked by those living within the domains of a fair number of real-life squires. 

I thought of Dickens's London (and Blake's "dark satanic mills*"), which in detailing the horrible conditions of the poor in the cities neglects that people have come to these places of their own free will.  However bad conditions were, they preferred them to life in the country. Steam power may have been replacing the employment of weavers, but the weavers did not go back to the farm. 

We will naturally think of comparisons to our own day and the dire warnings about AI and robots. I'll not say that it won't be true this time just because it wasn't true then.  After all, the arrival of my ancestors in Europe in the 3rd Millennium BC wiped out a more advanced civilisation, as did the Sea Peoples in 1187BC.  It's not all upward trajectory. But David touches on that only briefly.  He stays put in the Industrial Revolution and its effects because there's plenty to reflect on there.  It's a fun read.

*In the popular understanding.  Blake's meaning is more complicated. 

Update:  Right on cue just after I hit "post," Aporia sent me Video: You're Going to Be Replaced I haven't looked at it, I only note the irony.

Tuesday Links

 Banning cell phone use during class resulted in higher test scores. As Gurwinder says, it's an easy intervention, and unlikely to do any harm. 

The microplastics worry is based on sloppy studies. 

Tyler Cowen has a theory that had not occurred to me about Trump's foreign policy goal: A unified Western Hemisphere as a counter to China's rising power.  Well, it's a theory.  And it's a fascinating new way to look at things. It does rather fall into the "first, catch your rabbit" category.

Bskings True Crime Part 5 is up. 

Seth Dillon of the Babylon Bee sees bad ideas, particularly antisemitism, rising on the Right.  This ties in to my previous comments about double-siloing. The internet allows groups within groups to talk almost exclusively with each other, having little contact with larger trends. Not only are these not your grandfather's conservatives, they aren't even your children's conservatives. There was something of this among both evangelicals and libertarians in the 80s and 90s

Chushingura

 Heavy, man

 

The Wrong Toppings

 An IRS lawyer on furlough has opened a hotdog stand called Shysters.

 

Improvisations on Recent Themes

 Grim riffs on some recent posts here, and brings in interesting new connections. A Rare Political Post.

The Necessity of Chivalry

 

Frog Update

I have been thinking about Earl's comment that the purpose of the frog and other cute inflatable costumes is to make the police and enforcers look ridiculous for subduing a children's toy. Scott Alexander of Astral Codex Ten thought they looked cringe and disapproved for other reasons, but several of his commenters echoed exactly that sentiment. Others pointed out that the meaning is different in places like Portland and Chicago where there has been actual violence, and the majority of other places where violence never looked like it was going to be much of an issue. In Portland, the violence is after dark. I thought that could be used as an argument in either direction, that it was dangerous disguise in some places, but just silly in others.  But people protesting in safe places can have a few reasons for wanting to imitate those in more danger. It was an interesting discussion. 

After it all, I still didn't like it but wasn't quite sure why. It may be that I see it as a tactic that the already-convinced think really pwns MAGA, but independents are unlikely to be moved by, and thus, signifying nothing. But that can't be it either, because if it truly signified nothing, I wouldn't be annoyed, would I?

 

Sunday Links

 Self-rated IQ is a terrible measure of IQ, but an excellent measure of self-esteem. Whenever the IQ debates start, it is common for people to quickly comment that they have known people with high IQ's that didn't seem that smart (and certainly not wise). I have wondered aloud how they know these are high-IQ people.  If the people in question told you that, they are likely to be wrong.

Better All the Time.  From N3, the decline in infant mortality in Africa since the 1950s. Wonderful to look at.

Also from N3 Microaggressions - weak evidence. It is unsurprisingly from the work of Lee Jussim of Rutgers, who has also exposed the lack of evidence for Implicit bias, priming, and stereotype threat.  Also, the surprisingly good evidence for stereotypes being partly true. I have written about him several times before

How To End A Sentence With Style 

I learned from my granddaughters, who have watched Ten Things I Hate About You multiple times, that it is based on "The Taming of the Shrew"

In rough terms, if you make $50K/year you are in the top 1% globally - and the globe is in its richest era in history.  We are the billionaires. 

The Rage of the Falling Elite by Rob Henderson. The first time I heard this some years ago it sounded intuitively right. It's nice to see some hard evidence for it.

This helps to explain why modern movements like Occupy Wall Street were filled not with the destitute but with college-educated professionals. These were not people starving; they were aggrieved that they were in the 90th percentile rather than the 99th. Surveys show progressive activists are wealthier, whiter, and more highly educated than the average American. They are nearly three times as likely to hold a postgraduate degree.

Foliage

Every year we say what a strange winter it is. Hardly any snow except for that one big storm...so little variety this year, just hovering between 5 and 35 for five weeks after Christmas... I point out that there has never been a normal winter here.  They are all strange. We might say it's been a wet spring, or a hot summer, or a late fall, but we don't tend to describe those seasons as strange, even when it was wet in June and dry in August and September, as this year. But this was a strange autumn, perhaps because of the rain irregularity of summer, or any of the five other standard explanations for why the foliage is doing what it is doing this year.

Peak foliage was at a normal time, but was disappointing this year. The bright reds and oranges of the maples were subdued.  When that happens, we adjust and look at the goldenness of the birches and beeches and enjoy that.  We were surprised as we headed up to Quebec City, because the drama of the foliage diminished up through NH and VT as expected, but lingered in Quebec Province even as we headed farther north. The maples were late there, and fully dramatic. When we drove out through the Plains of Abraham, almost three weeks after it was supposed to be peak, it was the best display we had seen all year.

Now we are home, and many leaves have fallen. Yet a lot of the sugar maples are at peak only now. There are large vivid patches on the hills. What held the maples back but not the others this year? People speak knowledgeably and convincingly as if they know about such thin gs, but the following year their predictions are no better than anyone else's. 

It's been a strange autumn.

 

It Depends

I have been assuming from the start that this bombing of Venezuelan drug smuggling boats has been a serious overreach by the Trump administration and illegal. I was quite surprised then when Free Press legal correspondent Jed Rubenfeld, who is extremely unsympathetic to this administration, reports looking into it and finding it more complicated. Even if technically legal and justifiable it still might be very unwise and counterproductive, but that's not the issue at hand.  If it's not legal it doesn't matter if it is wise or not.  So determining the legality is the first order of business.

It has long been a humorous cliche among lawyers that the answer to everything is "It depends." Maybe it does.

The Whiteness and Oldness

Conservative sources are stressing the white 55+ aspect of the "No Kings" protests, and often show stills and videos highlighting that. A secondary group is quite young people, disproportionately gender-ambiguous and carrying PRIDE signs.  A third group, with better signs and prominent among organisers and speakers seems to be government union and socialist groups. But it is easy to select people out of a crowd for photographs, which is why colleges always get nonwhite students, especially black, onto the first page of their websites and brochures and females onto the laboratory pages. 

An online person assured me that there was a noticeable Black, Hispanic, and Asian presence at the rally he attended "even in all-white New Hampshire." Well, he was in Nashua, which is more than 25% nonwhite, so he was shading the truth on that one. But I didn't go myself, so I wanted to get a more accurate picture. I looked at photos, but Hispanics - half of the nonwhites - are not always easy to pick out at a distance in a crowd. White hair is probably a better identifier than skin among seniors. 

I couldn't find a second black person, so I tried Boston, and couldn't find a third one in all the pictures there.  But still, that's an imprecise measure, figures in a crowd shoot. All the closer, clearly identifiable people were white save one, and it was definitely a white-and-gray-haired crowd, even when taken by people sympathetic to the cause. Nationally, the Atlanta Journal and Constitution had an interview with a black man complaining that the protest was mostly white people and there were only a few articles like that except from conservative sources.  I didn't see a lot of strollers or kids on shoulders. More electric carts and wheelchairs. But again, I wasn't there.

Historically, black people show up for black protests but not others. LGBT groups and women whose signs are coded pro-choice ("Hands off," "Women's health") show up for everyone; socialists show up with few people but great signs; environmentalists, antiwar, and Hispanics are variable. College students are variable along different lines, probably more social than group-identified. I don't know how that played nationally this past weekend.  

Also Manchester, the other city in the state 25% nonwhite. 

Do any of you know from actual attendance, an abundance of local photos from sources expected not to shade things, or reliable reporting in your area? 

Succinct Explanation

If it's not just the labor, and it's not just the capital, then what is it? D'Souza explains how Marx asks a profound question, but answers it wrongly. Not everyone at a "No Kings" rally is a Marxist, by any reading. Likely not even a healthy percentage. But signs for this and approval for this particular Marxist idea seems to be much more present these days.

 

Sports Betting

All the discussion about how sports are being ruined by betting reminds me of PG Wodehouse's story "The Purity of the Turf" in The Inimitable Jeeves. Bertie, Bingo Little, and Jeeves form a syndicate to bet on events at a school fair, including the Girl's Egg-and-Spoon race, the Mother's Sack Rack, and the Choir Boys' 100-Yard Run based on insider information.  When a competing bettor starts interfering with the contestants, they counter-interfere. 

 In that case," he said, "those bets, you know – I'm afraid you lose your money, dear old boy. It's a pity you didn't put it on S.P. I always think S.P.'s the only safe way."
I gave him one look. Not a bit of good, of course.
"And they talk about the Purity of the Turf!" I said. And I meant it to sting, by Jove! 

Schizophrenia Voices

 50-Year-Old Theory on Schizophrenia's "Voices" Confirmed by Recent Study at Science Alert. 

"In healthy people, using inner speech produces the same kind of reduction in brain activity as when they speak out loud," Whitford says. "But in people who hear voices, that reduction of activity doesn't happen. In fact, their brains react even more strongly to inner speech, as if it's coming from someone else. That might help explain why the voices feel so real."

Underlying study from  University of New South Wales Sydney, patients from Sydney and Hong Kong

This has long been believed anecdotally by people who have heard lots of schizophrenics relate what voices are telling them. Auditory hallucinations can vary quite a bit, and focusing on an individual can lead one to leap to conclusions, which is why hallucinations in literature do not fit this pattern well. But hearing a thousand versions reveals a common pattern of voices accusing them of what they fear most, or explaining to them what they have already believed. A striking example was a patient of mine who had a severely disabled nonverbal son who required a great deal of care. After his wife died he gradually developed the idea that the young man was communicating to him mentally that he hated his life and wanted to die.  The impression became overwhelming, and he eventually killed him. It is not difficult to see that this was his own wish projected onto his son.

The method they set up to test the idea was clever.  The result reminded me very much of unshakeable delusions that schizophrenics can have, now narrowed down to a brain inability to compare one narrative against another simultaneously, so that new data and explanations cannot be held firmly in the mind, and the installed narrative cannot be dislodged. The lack of brainwave answer for internal versus external speech seems similar. 

The Artist Who Mastered Water

 Frits Thaulow.  Norwegian 1847-1906. It doesn't show up as magically at this level of detail. The links give you more.

 

Further examples from The Culturist on substack. It is a wonderful site "Pursuing the True, the Good, and the Beautiful."  He is clearly a Tolkien fan, including the Appendices.

Violence and IQ

From N3 

As shown in the graph below, the prevalence of violent behavior dropped steadily with increasing IQ: 16.3% of individuals with IQs in the 70-79 range reported violent behavior, compared with just 2.9% of those with IQs of 120-129. The link held even after controlling for demographic factors, childhood adversity, substance use, and mental health.

 I would note that the graph does not go to zero, as far as we know.  That even smart people sometimes fight someone suggests that sometimes it's a good calculation. Even Jesus beat the moneylenders out of the Temple.

Among the possible reasons mentioned, I would add that in the emergency psych biz we would note that less intelligent people could not articulate their complaints as well and got frustrated by this. 

Media and Message

Various media favor types of communication. I have a face made for blogging. Substack favors long form, but its chat feature is similar to X. YouTube favors longer videos, even hours long, but reels are becoming a heavier portion. TikTok and Instagram have different audiences, though they overlap. Facebook favors memes, reels, and personal photos. Podcasts are definitely long form, but being audible, they attract a crowd on the road, more like talk radio. Or like talk radio used to be.  I don't even know who is on anymore. Of all of these I disapprove of reels the most, because they seem to be more prone to faked scenes, and can vouch for their addictiveness by the number of them I click. I don't know what's up with cable or network TV these days, nor movies. I don't go to news sites anymore, though many of my blog sites are link and news heavy.

We talk about silos in our receiving news, but we usually mean political silos, echo chambers. We are becoming double-siloed now. Instagram stars can be completely unknown on Tiktok or YouTube. Bloggers and substackers are pretty much known only to themselves and each other. Podcasters seem to cross a lot of boundaries, but are more likely to avoid political or cultural commentary altogether. Thus when I hear about young conservatives, I realise I know almost nothing about them. The worst of young leftists get highlighted by conservatives exposing them, but I at least see them, even if a biased sample. 

If siloing is bad, double-siloing has got to be worse, doesn't it? 

I Feel Free

 

Gurgi

Gurgi was a favorite character when I read Lloyd Alexander's "Prydain Chronicles," based on Welsh mythology, aloud. He is a half-man, half-beast character who speaks in rhyme and refers to himself in the third person. Yes! Faithful Gurgi will fight them with smackings and whackings! I learned today that Gwrgi means man-dog in Welsh, and is the name of a great warrior in ancient Wales.

Education Doesn't Work 3.0

Freddie deBoer on the current refinement of his idea that schools do not accomplish what they say they do. Education Doesn't Work 3.0

Our educational debates are largely useless because most people engaged in those debates assume out of hand that, absent unusual circumstances like severe neglect or abuse or the presence of developmental or cognitive disabilities, any student can be taught to any level of academic success, and any failure to induce academic success in students is the result of some sort of unfortunate error. Some tend to ascribe the failure to reach academic excellence as the result of exogenous social variables (like poverty and racial inequality) while others insist that students who have failed to learn to standard are evidence of failing schools and feckless, untalented teachers. My own perspective insists instead that as with any other kind of human ability, academic ability is unequally distributed across the population, with some destined to excel, some destined to struggle, and many destined to meet various levels of mediocrity. My belief is that this tendency is the result of some sort of intrinsic or inherent academic potential, that just as in natural talent for playing a musical instrument or playing a sport, there is such a thing as talent in school, and like all other talents, this one is not distributed equally to all people and is thus not fair. 

Please note that deBoer is very liberal, somewhere between socialist and communist, so he does not have an easy home anywhere in education discussions. His thought is because the unfair distribution of all abilities is real, and intelligence is particularly needed at some level for nearly all jobs now, a strong safety net is the only moral and fair thing to do. 

Over the last 50 years in developed countries, evidence has accumulated that only about 10% of school achievement can be attributed to schools and teachers while the remaining 90% is due to characteristics associated with students. Teachers account for from 1% to 7% of total variance at every level of education. For students, intelligence accounts for much of the 90% of variance associated with learning gains. - Douglas K Detterman

Teachers do not like being blamed for students not doing well, and if the above is true, one can see why. They can see right in front of them that things outside their control are affecting student outcomes. This is why teachers are quick to blame parents, and administrators, and school boards, and taxpayers, and the culture, and social media, and the students themselves. It isn't their fault, so it must be one of those others.  In fact, in the circle of education all of those groups blame one or all of the others, because while they all know they aren't perfect and could do better, they couldn't do that much better in order to fix what they see in front of them. Our education discussions are pretty much each of these groups blaming the other. Accountability or new programs are not going to fix things, but we want to believe that something is going to fix it. Maybe some new technological marvel will.  I doubt it.

But teachers don't want to give up taking credit for what they do, and that sort of goes with the territory. This is again true for all the other groups as well, the administrators, the taxpayers, the parents. We want credit and we don't want blame. You can't have it both ways. 

This is the place where I usually go on to point out the good things about character and habits that school do and should do. Yet this time I'm not going to. The first thing is to understand this point about differences in all abilities, including intelligence.  It is always of some importance, in every time and place, but in the last few centuries in the West it has become primary. It's not fair that this ability which is so important is not evenly distributed, but nothing is. Always, everywhere, in every environment, the number one thing people need to succeed will be unequally divided.  Blame evolution, which is ruthless. Blame fate, which is blind. Blame God, who at least might have some plan about what the unfairness is supposed to accomplish, even though it bothers us. 

But inequality is the universal. 

Writing and Thinking

The act of writing reveals to you, in quite a brutal way, just how many of your thoughts are merely feelings. You really have no idea what you actually think until you attempt to write it down. Dylan O'Sulliavan 

Even then. 

Why You Are Probably An NPC

Gurwinder, over at The Prism (sidebar) had an essay about everyone being some sort of NPC (because it is efficient to take thinking shortcuts), about two years ago. He identifies five types of NPC

1. The Conformist.  I say - yes, I have said things like this about other people before.  I also say ouch.

2. The Contrarian. I also say yes, he is echoing some of my themes about such thinking. I also say ouch.

3. The Disciple. Less often, but reliably, I have expressed this as well.  Not as well. And Ouch.

4. The Tribalist.  I complained about this group for the whole first decade of this blog. BTW, ouchies.

5. The Averager.  A much better version of things I haven't said quite often enough. OUCH, dammit.

He offers an interesting solution to these thinking shortcuts.  Ouch to that, too.

Saxon Village

 From "The Age of Arthur"

                     Model of the Saxon village of Feddersen Wierde (Museum Burg Bederkesa)

One of the best excavated pre-migration settlements of the Saxons is Feddersen Wierde, on the north-western coast of Germany. The Feddersen Wierde site was excavated from 1955-1963, and at its peak in the third century, the settlement featured 26 longhouses and had a population of about 300 people. The early Saxon village was abandoned in the fifth century and it is quite clear why. The whole population seem to have gotten into their boats and migrated elsewhere.

"Elsewhere" presumably being East Anglia through Kent in the land of the Britons.

My first thought looking at this was This would be a great setting for a Dungeons & Dragons module. I have not made such a module for decades, but I still think that way. 

Ed Sullivan...

 ...delivered when he called it a variety show

 

Still Stuck on Empathy

I keep mulling it over, trying to get the concept and phrasing as clear as possible.

Empathy and projection are nearly the same thing. Our ability to feel what another person feels is dependent on what we believe we would feel like in their shoes. This is especially true when we are considering people at  distance or in groups, and thus political empathy is always a red flag for projection. It is not a useless skill. "How would you like it if someone did that to you" is a technique we introduce in childhood, and remind each other of even as adults. But it can go horribly wrong, believing that we understand someone we do not.

I have written several times over the years that not taking the Lord's name in vain refers to not forging His signature under our ideas, rather than bad language. Projection is forging someone else's signature under our sentiments, and thus a sneaky way of convincing others (or ourselves) how compassionate we are. We pretend to fight their battles when they are merely our own.

Mental Illness Diagnosis

 

 The link on X is here

The original article including the research is here. 

The article at Skeptic focuses on the worrisome and inaccurate things that have been told to succeeding generations about poverty/inequality, climate danger, and threats to democracy. They make a pretty good case that succeeding generations believe worse things about the country and the world, making their anxiety and depression about it more reasonable. I concur with a lot of this and don't want to supplant it. 

However I do want to add to it, and clarify this a bit.  Note first the wording, especially the terms "challenges" and "identity." The former suggests something ongoing, and the latter is a phrasing that Boomers would be less likely to use, though they have the concept. The identity of the young is more tied to who they think they are.  Older people are more likely to point to what they have done. I am outgoing...I'm ambitious...I'm something of an idealist Versus I'm a mother of three...I'm a teacher...I'm a joiner. That may account for at least some of the difference. The numbers may not just be the difference between generations, but something that happens naturally with age. Boomers might, if you asked them, acknowledge having had mental health challenges that they called by a different name when they were young, but consider that past and no longer a big deal. Stories like "When we first moved to a tiny apartment in Peoria and I was at home with two toddlers..." or "When I got back from Vietnam I wasn't in good shape..." might suggest what I mean there. We didn't call that a mental health challenge then.

The generations are made of the same stuff genetically. We have had different experiences, but they have more similarity than not. To find this much variation in one direction along an important axis tells me that some other things must be being measured. Fear? It is a staple of 60s panic that children had drills to take cover under their desks in case of nuclear attack. You might get drafted and sent to war. The percentage in poverty wasn't that different 60 years ago, but we were much closer to parents and especially grandparents who had experienced serious poverty. The possibility of "not succeeding" meant hunger, not embarrassment. There were more diseases and accidents that would kill you young or middle aged. 

I am also seeing some definitional problems between how we would have explained things then and what we call them now. Mentally ill was not the usual term, and mental health was even less common.  Worried and anxious are similar concepts but force us to speak about them differently.  This is true for sad, blue, or depressed as well.

Finally, we are being shown only a portion of the full graph. We are seeing the middle 50% of it, with 25%  truncated off each end, making it look more dramatic. That 27% of Boomer males that endorsed having a mental health challenge likely had more serious issues - like a disability or serious prejudice - to get anyone to even notice. Teachers, youth pastors, online polls, and doctors offices actively ask you how you are doing on specific topics. So do parents, who have a readier vocabulary of psych terms now.  I had a dozen symptoms of anxiety* as a child, but no one ever asked me if I was anxious. I can now recognise post hoc something of how this affected me and how I responded, but would I say that a mental health challenge is a part of my identity?  It probably depends on how the question is asked and what led up to it.

Yet suppose that my correctives only explain half the variation, and the above graph tells us something real about attitudes.  In addition to genetics, I also believe in incentives. The graph tells us that men get less attention for emotional or adaptation issues than women, and everyone gets more attention for them now than we did then.  Is that a good thing?  Dunno. A clever person could make an argument either way, and most would say it is mixed but lean in one direction. We don't want real problems to be ignored but we don't want overattention to create problems that aren't there. 

Let me offer an additional possibility. Giving something a name creates more permanence. We experience depression or anxiety differently if we believe it is temporary, tied to our unemployment or a breakup, than if we believe it is something we are prone to, or even are.  

*In children, lots of problems present as anxiety. You have to know more emotionally to process bad feelings into something more nuanced, like resentment, depression, or guilt. Until then, being anxious is about all you can manage. 

21 Years Ago

The Red Sox had given away the 2003 ALCS to the Yankees in one of those terrible collapses they were known for. This year they had been down zero games to three when it was the Yankees who had the greatest choke of all time, surpassing even the many Boston versions. 

Derek Lowe pitching on two days rest. It lacked drama, and most fans remember the world series instead (Pitchers Tim Wakefield, Curt Schilling, Pedro Martinez, and again Derek Lowe for the final win.) Until the middle of game four, which I watched at Granite Dad's apartment, I was sure the Red Sox were going to find some way to throw it all away again. After all, they had throughout my life, and even before. They killed our fathers and our grandfathers, and now the sonsabitches are coming after us!  But Derek Lowe was amazing, and even I dared hope. 

 

 My father had died the year before, and my mother three years before that. 

The Great Feminization

Bsking sent this to me,* then I started seeing it everywhere. As I worked in predominantly female departments at the hospital my whole career, I have some experience with this. However, I feel an extra need to be cautious thereby, as the people who are my examples each have personalities that I liked or didn't, and this may influence me too much to safely generalise. So let me start with just one observation about psych nurses working together. If that doesn't go too long I may go on to a second example.

When I started at the hospital in the late 70s, a lot of people still smoked. We didn't have to go out for smoke breaks, because you could smoke right on the units.  We even rolled cigarettes for the patients, as that is a group that uses nicotine to "get normal."  It is a stimulant that promotes short-term alertness by the very effective method of inhalation, but also calms the jonesing that crops up about 30 minutes after the last one. But nurses would take smoke breaks together a few times a shift. The line staff would resent it, because nurses got to get away from noisy, angry units of patients asking for more cigarettes and coffee, or demanding to know why they were still there, or had to take medications, or couldn't stay up all night. But we knew the answer and didn't bring up the complaint.  They had important things to discuss and decisions to make. 

While this was more than 50% excuse, it wasn't entirely untrue. Managing a unit of psych patients can be impossible. Particular diagnoses can create shift wars, or are litigious, or create danger for other patients. So for years I thought it was just their method of all getting on the same page, definitely a female one, but quite workable. I rather admired it as an informal, organic solution.  Only when new approaches to women with Borderline Personality Disorder started to catch hold did I start to change my mind on that.  In fact, it was well after the changes were underway that I questioned myself - and them. I began to see it as a constant power struggle over whose authority was going to hold the day. This also involved alliances and rewarding others with parts of their ideas being incorporated As this sometimes involved undermining decisions made by the doctor or by the whole treatment team (which had already made lots of compromises with each other) this could get nasty. 

And I finally saw that getting to the best answer was not the point. I would kid about the Old Girl's Network, but it was truer than I knew.

I don't see nurses in teams anymore, only those with clearly-defined duties, so I don't know where this has gone.  Nursing homes also have teams of nurses, but i no longer have any idea what the dynamics of those arrangements are. 

No second example.

*She, my sons and I have been having email conversation.  I will pass on that she has mixed feelings about this, seeing its point but wondering if it leaves out some valuable information. Here is the third paragraph of one of her emails. 

It strikes me that a problem of feminism for a while was overgeneralizing the bottom 5-10% of men, but the new "things are too feminized" crowd actually seems to want to act like they don't exist. Any plan for "men" that excludes the most aggressive and violent men is missing a huge issue that every society spends a lot of effort on dealing with, and a quick look at homicide data reminds us that other men are the most likely targets for aggressive males. So basically, any time you go to corral the most troublesome men, you are going to get widespread female agreement AND widespread male agreement, meaning it will be easier to crack down.