In my next life, perhaps I will be a sociologist. Unlike philosophers who deal largely in the hypothetical, sociologists dwell in the here and now. Rather than look at life as it might be, they examine life as it actually is and try to understand its hidden catalysts. Sadly, the press tends to largely ignore their research.
Thankfully, we readers of The Washington Post are blessed with a weekly glimpse into the world of sociology, thanks to Washington Post reporter Shankar Vedantam. Every Monday, I turn the front page and there is Vedantam’s interesting sociology article of the week on page A-2. Today’s article deals with the bias many of us have toward people with baby faces. For some reason humans have a strong predisposition to trust these people more than others. It is too bad Richard Nixon was not born with a baby face. He might have gotten away with Watergate. (Karl Rove has a baby face. This might explain his luck to date.)
Two weeks ago, Vedantam reported on the work of sociologists Colin Loftin and David McDowall of University of Albany. They studied the homicide statistics in Washington D.C. between the years 1968 and 1987. Gun control did not begin in Washington D.C. until 1976, so the researchers had nine years of statistics before gun control and nine years after gun control.
One finding will cheer gun proponents: despite arguably the nation’s strictest gun control law, the law had no effect in reducing homicides in the city compared with statistics in neighboring Maryland and Virginia. (My suspicion is that this is because guns are so easy to acquire simply by stepping across the D.C. line.) However, the law did have one surprising effect: it cut the rate of suicides in the District by 25%. The neighboring states of Maryland and Virginia, which had no gun bans, recorded no similar reduction in their suicide rates during those years.
In short, owning a gun increases by 200 to 1000 percent the risk that you or someone in your household will use it to kill themselves. It appears that having such an expeditious way of killing yourself dramatically raises the likelihood that you will kill yourself. However, if you do not own a gun you are more likely to ride them out rather then follow through on our impulse.
If I had a gun, would I use it to kill myself? I just cannot see myself ever doing something like that. Nevertheless, the statistics are compelling. Having the ready means (a gun), raises the likelihood that I might. You cannot argue with the statistics. Until I read this article, that possibility had never occurred to me. It did occur to me that if I owned one, some member of my family might use its convenient location and ready lethality to kill herself.
I might rethink my decision to not own a gun if I lived in the Trinidad section of Northeast D.C. In the space of ninety minutes last Saturday, seven people were shot and one was knifed. One of those shot subsequently died. After all, if most of my neighbors were packing heat, I probably would feel the need for a little protection too. While that seems entirely rational, the number of people who actually use a gun to protect their lives and property are relatively small. In fact, many of the people who are the biggest advocates of gun rights live in generally safe communities. The likelihood that their guns will ever be used for self-defense is so remote as to be astronomical. Within Washington D.C., packing heat appears to provide only the illusion of self-defense. In fact, there is no correlation I could find between whether you own a gun and whether it actually improves your ability to defend yourself. This does not surprise me. Guns have the attribute of being both fast and lethal. I hope that I could pull a gun out of my pocket quickly enough, but most likely, the assailant would have shot me before I had the opportunity.
Consequently, if you want to reduce the likelihood of being a victim of gun violence your action plan is clear: move to neighborhoods where you are statistically less likely to be a victim of gun violence. Spend those five hundred dollars on a U-Haul instead of a gun.
If I owned a gun, it would constantly prey on my mind, the same way a stick of dynamite would if I kept one in the basement. The difference is that owning dynamite is illegal, and owning a gun is not. I would like to believe that I would never use a gun to kill myself, but who knows? I might get depressed, or lose my job, or have other major crises thrown at me at a vulnerable moment. I would like to think that no one in my family would kill themselves with a gun either. However, I cannot read their minds. Perhaps during a blue period they would elect to do so. The statistics are clear: having a gun available can make someone up to ten times more likely to commit suicide.
The article points out that last year there were 51,175 homicides nationwide. Of these, 32,637 of them were suicides. Of these suicides, 52 percent were a result of someone shooting himself or herself with a gun. Therefore, while gun control laws appear to have no effect by themselves in reducing the overall homicide rate, the D.C. study suggest they do dramatically reduce the number of suicides. Isn’t this by itself a compelling enough reason for gun control laws? Are we not a country that at least claims above all it wants to inculcate respect for life? Whose life is more important than our own?
Therefore, just as I know that wearing a seat belt improves the odds that I will survive a car crash, I also can now confidently state that by not owning a gun I may be saving my own life. If you value the your life and the life of anyone in your household, you should not own a gun.
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July 21st, 2008 at 07:10pm
Posted by
Mark |
Sociology |
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Tags: Guns
Some years ago, I wrote about the fading middle class. Today, the recent hikes in oil prices appear to be driving a stake through the heart of many in the middle class. I can point you to scary NPR stories like this one. If you are not experiencing the uncomfortable feeling that your middle class lifestyle may be slipping away permanently, consider yourself lucky.
The middle class has been living on its margins for a long time. For years, an accounting was postponed. We postponed it by drawing equity out of our inflated home values and by putting more and more of our debt on plastic. Now the middle class is faced with a triple financial whammy: declining home prices, rising unemployment and rapidly escalating gas prices. For many families this means living very precariously.
As the NPR story documents, some people are drawing from their IRAs just to pay their mortgages. The Washington Post reports today what I wrote about recently: the rapid extinction of the SUV. In some cases car owners are so anxious to ditch their SUVs that they sell them for less than they owe. This assumes of course that they can sell them at all. Gas prices have escalated so quickly that some people paying with credit can no longer pay at the pump. Many cards restrict at the pump purchases to $75 per transaction. Meanwhile, those of you who have a credit card debt, but have been responsibly making your payment every month, may be in for sticker shock. Many credit card interest rates are going up, even if your credit history is spotless. Someone has to make up for all those credit card defaults, so the cost is being pushed down to responsible borrowers. Oh, and by the way, interest rates in general are likely to go up, because The Fed is finally tackling inflation as the primary economic threat.
I hope that our economy is on a sound enough footing where we will experience just a mild recession, but that is looking more dubious. Stock markets reached bear territory today, and the price of oil shows no sign of falling. Perhaps the middle class can take some comfort in that many others are in far worse pain.
As I noted, this recession was probably preventable. I chastised our Congress for emulating its citizens by going so deeply into debt. Nevertheless, Americans are also at fault, spending way beyond our means. This has so many bad effects it is hard to know where to start. Perhaps the worst effect of all this deficit spending is that it pushes up the cost of oil. Since oil is traded in dollars, when the dollar is worth less, it makes oil disproportionately expensive. There is little we could do as a nation to restrain global demand, but had both government and its citizens lived within their means the dollar would not have dropped as much, which would have meant we would be less affected by the current oil shock.
There are compensations for our economic maladies. The rock bottom value of the dollar has made our goods and services a good buy, so our increased exports will help pull us out of recession. (However, the increased cost of transporting these goods may negate many of these benefits.) American productivity has also been amazing. It is infuriating that despite all our increased productivity, wages have been stagnant. The benefits of our increased productivity have gone disproportionately to the wealthy, who are also disproportionately enjoying lower capital gains taxes. In short, they are laughing all the way to the bank on your dime.
Proactive leadership, if it exists, can at least ease most economic hard times. Clearly there has been little evidence of it in Congress, which accounts for its rock bottom approval ratings. No spending of significance has been restrained. Just a few weeks ago by veto proof majorities Congress passed yet another bloated farm subsidies bill.
The Great Depression taught us the painful lesson that banks need to be regulated so they do not do stupid stuff and wipe out their customers’ assets. (This lesson was more recently reinforced in the 1980s during the Savings and Loan debacle.) We seem to have forgotten some other lessons from those Depression years. Then, as today, people lived beyond their means. While credit cards did not exist, brokerage credit abounded, and was used to purchase overvalued stocks with someone else’s money. In this recession, it is our overvalued houses, sold even to people with bad credit or who could not afford them, that triggered the downturn. We should have learned our lesson in 1929.
In short, most economic calamities are self-inflicted. They result from either absent-minded government and/or absent-minded people.
In case you have not noticed, Occam’s Razor has tried to be something of a prophet. Granted, foreseeing the current economic mess was not that hard, I just chose to do something about it. Back in 2004, I purchased a hybrid. A year ago, we installed new energy efficient windows and compact fluorescent lights. I began biking to work. I hired a financial planner. I lived within my means and did not carry a credit card debt. I downsized my life compared to that of my financially distressed neighbors who are now trying to sell their overvalued McMansions and SUVs. I kept a low debt-to-earnings ratio.
Sure, I have financial concerns, but I know that my family will weather this economic downturn. Long ago, I made sure that we were ready to quickly batten down our financial hatches. So many of us though gave nary a thought to our financial comeuppance, living way beyond our means. It is not the least bit surprising that now that an economic storm is upon us that these people are suffering disproportionately. I know my ship’s hull is dry. It appears though that many of my neighbors are busy bailing water.
Should I chastise my fellow human beings? Or should I say that they were just being optimistic? Optimism is generally considered good, but sometimes it can be a foolish trap. Optimism has to be based on something tangible. When it is not, optimism degrades into foolishness. Certainly, it is not possible to be completely prepared for all life’s possible financial hits. If I were to lose my job, I would be in tight straits too, although I am fortunate to have a financial cushion where I could ride out my unemployment for a while. Only the very wealthy can protect themselves against all financial risks. Most of us though through the exercise of intelligence and by living modestly can weather most financial storms.
If you are one of the unfortunates caught in this financial storm, you have my sympathy. I hope you learn a lesson when good times reemerge, as they must eventually. Try to avoid the urge to resume your former lifestyle. Scale it back, even if you feel flush. Apply the difference to building long-term assets and an economic safety net. I doubt anyone going through financial pain today wishes they had overextended themselves, now that the storm is here. The reality is that when these storms occur, it is the financially savvy who profit from the detritus. Money, like matter and energy, does not disappear. It simply moves from one place to another. OPEC countries are clearly profiting. It is likely that by being prudent I will be a bit ahead of everyone else when this storm ends. If you were caught in this one, you should have a goal to end up ahead too when the next one happens.
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July 2nd, 2008 at 08:26pm
Posted by
Mark |
Sociology |
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Tags: Economy, Financial Planning
My family and I are making plans to vacation in New England this August. We have never really explored it so it makes for a convenient destination. Also part of our calculus is that New England is not that far away (we live in Northern Virginia). Like many Americans, with gas over $4 a gallon we are downsizing our vacation. We will be staying closer to home and will not be as extravagant with our spending as we were.
An era is passing that I do not think will return. Just as my parents remember an era when the milkman arrived every morning and their parents remembered a world where personal transportation meant a horse, our era, centered on the convenience and affordability of the automobile, is ending. Let’s call it The Era of Living Large. The evidence is everywhere but it will take a while before this fundamental reordering of our society will be apparent. Yet there are signs aplenty.
Amtrak, our stodgy national rail system that almost everyone ignored, is getting record usage. Despite our increasing population, we drove 1% fewer miles from November through April than we did during the same period a year earlier. At our local Silver Diner today, there were plenty of empty parking spaces right near the front door. A year ago, we would have had wait for a table. Perhaps the statistic that cemented it for me was this story in The Washington Post. The Washington region has one of the highest foreclosure rates in the country. House prices are dropping in most areas but less so the closer you are to the city or to public transportation. In Fairfax County, where I live, home prices have dropped on average 3.2 percent between April 2007 and April 2008. In our outer suburbs, the change is dramatic. In Loudoun, Prince William and Frederick counties, all about an hour’s drive (in no traffic) from the capital, house prices dropped on average 25 percent during that period. Within the city of Washington D.C., most home prices have stayed steady or have even risen.
Since 9/11, there has been a national malaise. We are trying to enjoy the same lifestyle we always have had but it is harder to come by and not as enjoyable when acquired. The economy throughout much of this period did relatively well, but little of it was felt where it mattered most: in our wallets. In 2005, when we traveled to Chicago I remarked how surreal it felt to pay nearly $2.50 a gallon for gasoline. There was a sense of unease even then. Three years later, we would pop a bottle of champagne to celebrate buying gas at that price.
Americans are discovering a new and inconvenient truth: we can never go back to the way things were. To expect that we will have the lifestyle that our parents knew is folly. Those days are swiftly passing. We do not know what the new order will look like, but we have a good idea what it will not look like. This uncertainty breeds unease and malaise. It contributes to polls that show Americans are far more disgruntled about the shape of the economy than the statistics merit.
The era of the SUV is ending. We are not all ditching our SUVs at once but news stories like this one are a harbinger. We demand fuel-efficient cars. I am trying to order a Honda Fit for my daughter only to discover there are few on the lots. We will have to wait for one to be delivered. I hope that it will arrive before her classes start. When we add on the cost of $4 a gallon gasoline, her choice to go to a community college now looks a little less affordable,
The far-flung suburbs are likely to disappear too. What may eventually replace them is the quaint notion of a village. It is hard for many of us to imagine actually living in the same community where we work. In the future employees may be forced to give preference to employees with short commutes. My friend Sokhama lives in Columbia, Maryland. Columbia is about halfway between Baltimore and Washington. She quit her job at a D.C. law firm a few months ago and is currently unemployed. She has had a few job offers, but she has spurned them because all involve a bad commute. She has decided that her next job will be much closer to home.
She is one example of a general trend. Americans everywhere are realizing that they have to rethink their lifestyles. This is why in D.C.’s far-flung suburbs house prices are down 25% from a year ago. Certainly, the sub-prime housing debacle has a lot to do with it. Yet $4 a gallon gasoline is also a major factor. We crave certainty in our lives. Uncertainty is lowered by moving closer to diverse sources of employment and public transportation. A new urban migration is beginning. Modern prospectors know that this is an excellent time to buy before everyone else jumps on the bandwagon.
Bicycle commuting, which I took up a few years ago, is becoming chic. Among all the new light rail projects, expect many communities to also construct bike trails for easy commuting. This will give them a competitive edge against other communities and help encourage progressive businesses to move to their cities. Many families are trying to orient their lives so they need only one car. This will give these families thousands of dollars a year to spend.
The global climate change skeptics are reduced to a crazy handful. Academics suggest that recent flooding in the Midwest is likely a direct result of global warming and using the land in ways for which it was not meant. So far, hurricane season has proven to be benign, but it is just beginning. However, this year tornadoes have been unusually numerous and powerful and have begun earlier. It is hard to escape the feeling that we are reaping the results of ignoring our impact on the environment.
One of our retirement goals is to take a cruise around the world. We are allocating $60,000 for the once in a lifetime experience. Now I am wondering if this is enough money. Perhaps we will have to settle for a cruise of the Pacific instead. With the cost of diesel exceeding the cost of gasoline, I have to wonder if the cruise industry will be one of the casualties of this new reordering.
Our round the world cruise, along with the cross country car trip I had planned, are possible activities we will have to give up due to the societal reordering underway. Perhaps instead of using a car we will take a train across the country. It will likely to be crowded.
I am also looking at my third of an acre lawn, which I meticulously mow weekly with $4 a gallon gasoline. I am wondering if it is time to give up the lawn in favor of a more natural terrain. A lawn is yet another invention of man. Grass has been around for millions of years, but keeping it neatly trimmed is not possible without either a lawn mower or many goats. I do not see our homeowner’s association approving us keeping a herd of goats in our backyard.
If oil prices continue to skyrocket, society may look a lot shabbier in the future. I passed a tree service truck today. Will there be the petrol to fuel these behemoth trucks in a couple decades? If there is petrol available, will anyone be able to afford it but the rich? It is hard for me to escape the feeling that thirty years from now, if I am still alive, that I will hardly recognize the crowded, denser and noisier world that I will be passing to my daughter.
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June 20th, 2008 at 03:04pm
Posted by
Mark |
Sociology |
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Tags: Economy, Global Warming, Migration
Call it a hunch, but based on my observations over many years, being exceptionally intelligent, like being a celebrity, is at best a mixed blessing.
I am not speaking of smart people in general. I am talking about the exceptionally smart, the top 1 to 2 percent of the population. It is easy for them to dazzle me with their intellect. Yet typically, when I get to know them beyond the surface level I find that their lives are often a disordered wreck. Many cannot hold a job. Some strike me as introverted to the point of paranoia. Others leave a trail of wrecked relationships. (Albert Einstein used the proceeds from his Nobel Prize to pay alimony.) Many of them are dealing with major psychological problems. I have known more than a few who have been diagnosed with manic depression or dyslexia.
Yes, all humans suffer from stuff, but over the course of 50+ years, I have gotten to know many extremely smart people. I definitely think the brilliant suffer from more issues than the population as a whole. I wonder if the problem is because they are born into a society that for the most part cannot appreciate their gifts. In any event there are plenty more of us average folk than there are geniuses. Just as I have difficulty relating to a moron, I think it must be challenging sometimes for the brilliant to relate to people like me.
Yet I suspect this is not the case because many of the super intelligent people I know find people like themselves annoying too. While I suspect that most end up in a Mensa club at some point, few hang around. Apparently, when you are brilliant it is not necessarily that much fun to hang around other brilliant people. I hear from brilliant people that they have come to revile their peers’ personalities. For many, attending one Mensa meeting was enough for a lifetime.
My parents like most parents encouraged me to make the most of my intelligence. I suspect I am smarter than most, but I doubt what intelligence I have is due to genetics. Rather, it comes from perseverance. I fought for almost every A on my report card. I cannot say the same about the many very intelligent people I have met. To learn, I find it necessary to memorize, futz, underline facts with yellow highlighters and retype my notes. The very intelligent soak up information the way a dry sponge soaks up water. They just cannot help it. Their brain is fine-tuned for acquiring and retaining information. When a teacher speaks, the knowledge is automatically stored, filed and properly indexed. They read a textbook and they get it: the concepts, the relationships between ideas, the detail and the inner meaning. Term papers become academic exercises. Studying for tests is rarely required.
This allows them to get 4.0 or better averages and be the class valedictorian. Yet based on my observations over many years, many of them have problems applying their knowledge successfully to the real world. I think this is because to succeed in the human world you must also master human relationships. Humans are endlessly complex and non-deterministic. I am guessing this is as baffling to the brilliant among us as it is to me.
Perhaps I am just rationalizing my prejudices because I cannot join their lofty intellectual ranks. However, I am left to infer that being too intelligent may be something of a handicap. Unquestionably, it is hard for many of us to relate to people far above our mental plain. It would not surprise me if it went in both directions. I find it challenging to relate to the guy who empties my trash or the security guard who checks my badge. I frankly envy people like my wife who can relate to pretty much anyone. I suspect she is a rather rare bird.
Having great intelligence does not mean you are also functional in society. I suspect the biggest movers and shakers in our country, the Donald Trumps and Jack Welchs are not Mensa material. However, I suspect they are shrewd by nature, organizationally gifted and have mastered perhaps the most important skill needed to be successful: relational skills. After all, machines do not change the world, people do. If you can win friends and influence people, you have a skill that is arguably much more important than extreme intelligence. Nor does excessive intelligence mean that you will be blessed with an entrepreneurial spirit or an intense drive to succeed.
Despite the focus given to intelligence in the schools, overall it is a poor predictor of ultimate success. Perhaps we should value skills like leadership and innovation over high intelligence. I do not mean to discount the value of intelligent people. Brilliant people made many of our important scientific discoveries. Yet, it takes people with a plethora of talents for the world to make progress. The very intelligent serve an important role in human progress. I am not sure they necessarily deserve the accolades that we give them or that so many of us really need to aspire to be like them. We may be better off aspiring to be simply who we are.
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June 10th, 2008 at 05:35pm
Posted by
Mark |
Sociology |
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Tags: Geniuses
This is the eighth in an indeterminate series of entries that provides my “real world” lessons to young adults. It is my conviction that these lessons are rarely taught either at home or in the schools. For those who did not get them growing up you can get them from me for free. This is part of my way of giving back to the universe on the occasion of my 50th birthday.
It has been a while since I wrote an entry in this series. Yesterday’s huge jump in oil prices, combined with a .4% increase in the unemployment rate in one month, along with a stock market which dropped precipitously (the DJIA dropped nearly 400 points) made me think about one of the major reasons the economy is tanking. It can be summed up in one word: debt.
In Lesson 2 of this series, I did discuss debt in general. Today I would like to focus on one kind of debt in particular: credit card debt. The Federal Reserve keeps a handy report on consumer debt, all neatly categorized. As of June 2008, total credit card debt is just shy of one trillion dollars: 956.9 billion dollars, or roughly $3200 for every man, woman and child in the country. In 2003, unsecured “revolving” (i.e. credit card) debt was 770.5 billion dollars. Perhaps more ominous is the rate of increase in unsecured credit card debt: 2.9 percent in 2003 and 7.4 percent in 2007. Americans are living way beyond their means and they are funding their lifestyle in the worst possible way: by charging it.
Why is “charging it” worse than other forms of debt? It is because credit card debt is unsecured, which means that you do not have to pledge collateral like your car or house to buy things today. This makes credit card debt riskier for lenders. They compensate by charging interest on your credit card debt that is often two or three times as much for an equivalent amount of money in a conventional loan. This also makes credit card debt potentially more profitable than other forms of debt. Hence, you are likely solicited with many credit card offers a week, many seducing you with frequent flier miles or low introductory interest rates.
Young people in particular are easy prey for this kind of debt. Just starting out, you do not tend to have much if anything in the way of assets. A credit card allows you to buy stuff today and pay it off later when you have more income. All you have to do is meet that “minimum monthly payment”. The problem of course is that young people tend to see money as abstract rather than real. What matters becomes not your credit card balance, but whether you can meet your monthly payment.
Charge card companies love providing you credit because of the interest and fees they get to charge you on the balance. Those teaser rates look great but credit card agreements are fungible and can be changed with minimal notice. Typically, interest rates go up after six months or so, along with all sorts of bogus fees. Often the time between when you receive your credit card statement and when you must pay your bill is squeezed, making it more likely that you will pay other fees for “late” payments. Providing you can keep making those monthly payments, credit card companies are likely to keep increasing your charge card limits, thus encouraging you to exacerbate your indebtedness to them. In short, as you probably have read, unsecured credit for many can eventually become something of an albatross. Like a Ponzi scheme, at some point the burden of your debt will crush you and your future. Instead of paying for life’s necessities like food, you are primarily paying the interest on your outstanding balance. This means life’s other necessities get short shrift. You may think a bankruptcy can bail you out. However, some years back Congress tightened the bankruptcy laws. No bankruptcy is good and bankruptcies, if you can secure one, cost money too. It stains your credit, making it harder to borrow money in the future for life’s major purchases, like houses. It is also bad for creditors, who lose money.
Like you, I probably get three or four credit card solicitations a week. How many credit cards do I have? I have exactly two. In reality, I have one. Recently I got a Sears credit card, specifically because I saved $100 off the cost of a dishwasher by enrolling. I do not intend to use it again. I did not pay a dime in interest when my bill arrived because I had set money aside to pay for it in full.
In reality, I have only one credit card: a humble Visa card issued by my credit union. My credit union offers no rewards program. I get no frequent flier miles for charging expenses on it. It does have one major advantage. Because I am a member of my credit union, as opposed to a customer, I am unlikely to get screwed by my credit union. My interest rates are likely to be better than most credit cards. The terms of service will not change very often. Moreover, my grace period will stay relatively static. In short, I get predictability and credit card value.
What balance do I carry on my credit card? Every month I get a statement that says I have a balance of a few hundred dollars. What is my real balance? Zero. How much have I paid in fees and interest rate charges in the years I have had my credit card? Zero. How is this magic possible? It is possible because while I have credit I pay off my balance every month. As soon as I make an expenditure on my credit card, I debit it from the checkbook I will use to pay off the charge. This way there is never any ambiguity about whether I can afford to buy something. I simply look at my checking account. Is there enough money in there to pay all my other expenses? If not, this is my signal that I cannot afford this purchase. Is it fun to deny myself stuff today? Not particularly. Does my strategy have any advantages? Of course. Rather than paying hundreds or thousands of dollars in interest and fees a year, I get to pocket the money and use it for something that actually gives me something tangible in return. Nor do I wake up in sweats in the middle of the night worrying about my debt load.
I make a credit card work for me, instead of against me. A credit card can work for you when it can give you advantages that check cards and cash cannot. When I use a credit card, I get a certain amount of financial protection. Should the seller be bogus, I can get a refund, or I am out no more than $50. I always use a charge card for purchases like airline tickets. Who knows whether an airline will be around in 90 days? If you have the fortitude to pay off your balance every month, you also essentially get free access to money for a period.
Have I paid interest on my charge cards? Yes, but only tiny amounts over the years when I messed something up or when I was just establishing credit. I started with a humble Montgomery Ward charge card and I paid less than my balance for a few months. This encouraged Wards to up my credit limit and established my credit worthiness. Then I stopped this tactic. As a result, when I do need to borrow money, I tend to get the lowest rates. Lenders know based on my track record that I will not miss a payment.
I encourage you to not be owned by your credit card, but to have it work for you too. I suggest you try my strategies. If you are one of these types who will be compelled to spend if you have a credit card, it is better to avoid them altogether and use check cards instead. Granted, it is not always fun to live within your means. Nevertheless, you should feel in control of your financial life, and that is a wonderful feeling. If you must make larger purchases, do not use a credit card. Take out a personal loan, preferably with a financial institution where you already have a history. If you have equity in your house consider taking out a home equity loan. Be cautious taking out any loan. You might want to review Lesson 2 of this series if you are trying to distinguish whether a particular loan helps or hurts you.
America is drowning in debt. It is not just young adults, but millions of Americans are living beyond their means. It is also our government, which is exacerbating the problem by using foreign credit to get us to spend more money now to spend our way out of a recession. This is like a drunk drinking their way to sobriety. It makes little sense until we all start to use debt responsibly. Much of the increase in the price of oil is due to our falling dollar, which falls because our government is spending too much and likely taxing too little. The more in debt we incur, and in particular the more we go into debt for things that add no value, like our War in Iraq, the worse the recession and our pain will be.
Do not be a financial loser, like most Americans. Vow to be a financial winner. To start, you must know where your money goes, how much you can really afford and you must use debt responsibly.
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June 7th, 2008 at 08:37pm
Posted by
Mark |
Sociology |
no comments
Tags: Credit, Real Life 101
I read two items in the news that are guaranteed to make obese people and the parents who raise them feel guilty. First, obese people are contributing disproportionately to global warming. Apparently, because obese people are larger, they need more calories to sustain their weight. This also translates into the need for more fuel to move them around on cars and public transportation. According to the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine, obese people on average require eighteen percent more calories than people of the same height and age of normal weight.
The second story (and to me the more frightening one) is the lead story in today’s Washington Post, Obesity Threatens a Generation. Apparently, the youth of today who are obese or even overweight have a much higher likelihood of developing chronic diseases earlier in life.
Doctors are seeing confirmation of this daily: boys and girls in elementary school suffering from high blood pressure, high cholesterol and painful joint conditions; a soaring incidence of type 2 diabetes, once a rarity in pediatricians’ offices; even a spike in child gallstones, also once a singularly adult affliction. Minority youth are most severely affected, because so many are pushing the scales into the most dangerous territory.
I am worried not only for the children out there who are overweight but also for my own daughter. She had times in her childhood when she was technically obese. For a few years, we enrolled her in Taekwondo. During that time, she had a normal weight and was in great physical condition. Eventually chose to give up the sport to concentrate on her academics. We encouraged her to exercise but she got out of the habit.
Now that she is eighteen and is earning her own money, she has the freedom to buy whatever she wants. Apparently, our choice of junk foods is very modest, so she has begun to buy her own food. Her food choices have been discouraging. She eats what most in her generation eat: a preponderance of junk food. My wife and I have of course registered of concern, but are being careful not to overdo it. As a young adult, she has the right to make her own choices and too much nagging is likely to be counterproductive. Fortunately, her job at a bookstore provides exercise simply because associates are so often on their feet. That helps.
Obesity runs in my wife’s side of the family. I am hoping my daughter did not pick up that particular gene. Given that my wife is one of many Americans struggling with obesity, I cannot help but wonder if ten or twenty years down the line, or perhaps even sooner, my daughter will be struggling with the same issues. I hope of course that she will emulate me and eat better, and exercise regularly. Like most teenagers, she thinks she is immortal. She realizes she may have to eat better and exercise regularly someday, but for now, she chooses to ignore the issue.
As do a preponderance of our youth, apparently. I am skeptical that today’s youth will find the wherewithal to address the problem as adults. I think without some major societal intervention that it is much more likely that they will stick with their current eating and exercise choices, because it has the feeling of familiarity and thus provides the illusion of comfort in a confusing world.
The consequences for these latest generations are truly dire. Yet there is little in the way of planned action to address these chronic problems. It appalls me to think that I may live to an older age than my daughter, primarily because my mother fed us healthy and nutritious food. Single parent families or dual income families are disproportionately raising today’s generation. That was true for our daughter. We both had full time jobs when our daughter was growing up. Living on one income, however modestly, was out of the question until the last few years. Our daughter ate most of her lunches in the school cafeteria, where she could safely consume the foods she wanted, like pizza, rather than the foods she needed. She fit right in. Her friends largely did the same thing.
I think dual income parenting contributed a lot toward the obesity epidemic. With family time so squeezed, it is not surprising that parents often rustled up meals from of a box or out of a fast food bag. It was also not surprising that our children tended to prefer these meals too. Food vendors do not stay in business by making uninteresting food. In order to attract more business, food had to be jazzed up. In that sense, American capitalism succeeded very well. Over time, we developed strong preferences for this unhealthy kind of food.
Congress may have inadvertently done our kids in too. Our agricultural subsidies, most of which went to subsidizing grains that could rarely turn a profit, made grain incredibly cheap. When certain types of food are cheap to purchase, many of us feel inclined to consume more of them than we used to. It used to be that we would rotate through seasonal foods over the course of a year. With grain cheap all year round, we added more and more grain to our diets. With sugar also artificially cheap, we had a deadly combination: cereals and breads laced with sugars. Cheap grain also encouraged us to give it to our livestock, making the price of meat cost less too. Most foods served in America were relative bargains throughout the latter half of the 20th century. There was little reason for restaurants not to super-size our portions when the ingredients were so cheap.
Our additional eating was one part of the equation. Lack of exercise was the other part. When I was a youth, we were free to roam neighborhoods at will as long as our homework was done and we returned home in time for dinner. Neighborhoods were assumed safe. My parents gave little thought to where we were as long as we were in the neighborhood. We also lacked modern indoor distractions like computers and videogames. Going outside and playing with the kids on the block was a compelling alternative to the drudgery of being home. Modern parents perceive that if they give the same freedom to their children that their children are at risk from child molesters. Parents believe it is safer to keep children at home rather than let them roam the neighborhood. To make this unfortunate reality easier to swallow, we provided indoor amusements for them. The combination of a poor diet and reduced exercise appears to be toxic.
Few of our children are likely to end up in professions where exercise will be built into the jobs. Most are likely to spend their lives much as we do: in offices living sedentary work lives much like Dilbert’s. Perhaps in their off hours they will be able to grab some exercise. That seems unlikely, for they will likely have children of their own at home, and these children will have to be fed and protected.
Our society desperately needs a culture shift. We may need to reduce our workweeks to 35 hours a week simply to allow adults to have time for physical fitness and parenting. An hour-long workout may not be enough, but it is a start. Employers may need to be required to offer exercise facilities to their employees to use at work. Just as you cannot keep horses in the stables for days on end, neither should humans be trapped in cubicles, cars and their homes for days on end. We are built to move, not to sit.
Exercise needs to be seen as a necessary and critical part of being a human being. What has changed over the last generation or two is that most Americans must now dedicate time for exercise. It should be encouraged by our leaders and our employers. Health insurance premiums should be substantially discounted for people who participate in monitored exercise programs. Our children need more than recess and occasional PE classes. They need regular and more vigorous exercise at school, extending the school day if needed, as well as more healthful food in school cafeterias. Since they are children, their weekly exercise should be monitored and tracked by school officials. It may seem offensive to some to require our children to be regularly weighed and tested for their physical fitness at school. However, these prosaic activities also encourage children toward a lifelong appreciation toward the necessity of exercise and healthy eating.
My suspicion is that these are the sorts of steps that must be taken to keep future generations of Americans from being obese, dying prematurely and the obscene health care costs that are associated with obesity. They may seem Big Brotherish, but for the sake of our children, we need to do it.
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May 18th, 2008 at 08:47pm
Posted by
Mark |
Sociology |
no comments
Tags: Children, Exercise, Health Care, Obesity, Young Adults
In 1980 at the tender age 23, I voted for John B. Anderson for President. Anderson was an independent candidate. Anderson was full of great ideas that were politically non-starters. One of his ideas was to increase the federal gasoline taxes by fifty cents per gallon. This was at a time when you could buy a gallon of gasoline for under a dollar a gallon. His rationalization was that the tax would serve three purposes: reduce our dependence on foreign oil (we had already been through two oil shocks during the 1970s), give us incentive to practice conservation and provide the funds needed to achieve energy independence. This great idea killed his campaign. He started his campaign at above 25% support in polls and ended up with 7% of the vote.
In one of life’s little ironies, just a month after the tragic events of September 11th, John Anderson showed up at my church and gave a talk. (See picture.) He was then about to retire as president of the World Federalist Society (now Citizens for Global Solutions). There was time for questions and answers after his lecture. I went to the podium, looked him in the eye and told him I proudly voted for him in 1980. I mentioned his gas tax proposal and opined that events had sure proven him right. Had we taken the unpopular steps he suggested in 1980 and imposed on ourselves a fifty cent a gallon gasoline tax, the events of September 11th likely could have been avoided. It was President Reagan after all who strategically aligned us with Saudi Arabia, providing a compact of military arms for a dictatorial state for the assurance of low oil prices. It was our support of this oppressive state that provided the animus for Osama bin Laden, a citizen of Saudi Arabia to target the United States on September 11th. If only we had the courage to follow through on Anderson’s courageous idea, three thousand Americans who died that day would still be alive and we might also be energy independent today.
Change is never fun and serious change is usually resisted. Those who embrace inevitable changes though often end up ahead in the end. Why has the Euro been doing so well while the U.S. dollar has been in the toilet? It is because in Europe they were prepared for a changing world. Gasoline has been highly taxed for decades in Europe specifically to discourage the automobile and to encourage public transportation. If you have been to Western Europe, you know that it has phenomenal public transportation. Right now, Europe is also leading the way on global climate change. Among many initiatives, it is markedly reducing its carbon footprint through fuel efficiency standards in place today that we will not have in ten years. Not surprisingly, the European economy is doing rather well in shaky economic times. Its currency is so valuable because Europe as it is configured and managed is very well matched for our changing times.
What has the United States done? It would be polite to say we have been dragging our feet. In reality, we have largely ignored the environment and concentrated on glorious selfishness instead. We started an unnecessary and foolish war in Iraq that is bankrupting us. We have pretended to care about global climate change while doing almost nothing to address it. We have blithely ignored the consequences of our increased oil dependency. Public transportation, which is still inadequately funded, remains focused on highways and bridges. We have thrown mostly chump change at mass transit solutions.
It’s karmic payback time. In the years to come, we are going to get sticker shock at the cost of having ignoring these problems for so many decades. We may come to resemble Haiti in the sense that we will ask our leaders to deliver the impossible: address climate change, keep our taxes low but not allow our standard of living to change. If the 1980 election is any guide, when we discover our current leader cannot do it, we will elect someone else who will claim they can, but who will also fail.
Whether we like it or not, the times, they are a changing. We can choose to adapt to this new reality or, more likely, continue to try to have the same selfish lifestyle we always have had and take half measures. However, more of the same will only result in additional unnecessary pain. It is time to acknowledge that our future lives will be markedly more downscale than our current lives are. This transition is unlikely to be much fun. As a nation, we are in the initial phase of an extended high colonic.
Here are some likely outcomes that I see. Traditionally, the cost of living out in the country has been cheap. That is going to change. Life in the country may become a privilege for the rich. To live in the country you will have to pay the freight: ever-higher gas prices. As those living further out feel the gas squeeze, they will naturally choose to live closer in. By doing so, they will be less affected by the cost of oil. They will also be closer to jobs. By living closer in, they will have access to public transportation so they can get by with one or no cars. This will allow them to have a comparatively higher standard of living and more job security than if they live in the country or in a far-flung exurb.
This will work for a while. Of course, economic factors will make most who do not live around a city also want to move in closer too. This means land prices will rise the closer you are to urban areas. Which means the cost of living will go up around cities too. You will feel damned either way. As I suggested in a recent post, people watching these mega-trends are already making the smart choices. They are moving in now while housing prices and interest rates are down. Their houses are going to be smaller than they envisioned, but they will gladly pay this price for convenient access to jobs and transportation.
Energy costs will continue to rise, which will drive everything toward energy efficiency. Energy efficiency though will not come cheap. New houses will probably need more than just better insulation and highly energy efficient windows. They will need solar panels on the roof. It will be built into the building codes. Houses will be required to be built with LEED Silver or better standards. This will raise the cost of housing making it that much harder to afford to buy a house in the first place. Older houses are probably too hard to retrofit to be LEED compliant. Eventually they will become too expensive to inhabit, so they will have to be replaced with energy efficient houses. More likely, they will be replaced with condos and apartment communities. Demand will require it.
We will require readily accessible public transportation. This will mean heavy rail, light rail, trains, buses and bike trails everywhere and maybe even the return of trolleys. This cannot be done for free. It will require substantial tax increases. In short, we are all going to feel very squeezed which will have the consequence of us having lifestyles that will seem markedly poorer than our parents. We will probably resent this new reality.
What I have outlined is something of a best case. What actually happens is likely to be quite different and probably worse. Certain trends like people migrating from far-flung areas to closer in areas are inevitable. Most likely, we will try incentives like tax credits to ease the pain. Yet tax credits still have to be paid from somewhere. In short, to reinvent society takes incredible amounts of money. We will pay it one-way or the other. It can be intelligently accomplished through taxes and careful planning, or unintelligently through reaction to market forces. It is a road that we will have no choice but to traverse. However, we do have a choice on how painful it will be. As with most things, the sooner you start and the more intelligently it is accomplished, the less painful it will probably be.
I suspect that if a candidate today proposed a fifty cent a gallon tax on gasoline, he would get the same response at the voting booth that John Anderson received in 1980. Unfortunately, because we have dragged our feet for thirty years, the cost of procrastination has gone up dramatically.
So get ready. Our economic foundations are starting a seismic shift that will affect every one of us. Are you going to work with these natural forces? Or are you going to resist them? We all need to realize that to adjust to these new realities will require extraordinary sacrifice, akin to what our parents went through during World War II, but unfortunately lasting much longer. Over the next fifty years, we will have to reinvent ourselves as a society and as a world. I hope that this time we find the determination to do it intelligently. If government of the people, by the people and for the people is not to perish, we the people are going to have to come to terms with these costly changes that are already unfolding all around us.
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May 8th, 2008 at 07:46pm
Posted by
Mark |
Sociology |
no comments
Tags: Energy Independence, Environment, John B. Anderson
(Warning: This blog entry is rated R.)
We are told that if something is too good to be true, it is. There is no such thing as a calorie free brownie. We wanted to believe we could eat potato chips made with Olestra and never get fat. Even if the fat passes through you, you still absorb the carbohydrate calories. Moreover, this manufactured non-absorbent fat gives many people abdominal cramping and loose stools.
We court our spouses anticipating that they are our perfect mental, emotional and sexual match. Typically we do not discover until sometime after we are married that they have as many faults and foibles as we do. We men want to have sex on demand with them, but quickly learn that except for a freakish few of them and certainly no one you would happen to marry (although during courtship you may be misled), women don’t work that way. Moreover, women have this inconvenient time of the month when they are sexually out of commission. Should our wives or girlfriends turn into sexual ice cubes, we must weigh the potential consequences on being non-monogamous like sexually transmitted diseases and frying pans flying at us from across the kitchen. Use a condom and sex is suddenly 30% as pleasurable as it could be. Regardless of the pitch, we have learned through bitter experience that somewhere in the fine print is a gotcha. If we knew about it going in, we might have avoided the pleasurable activity altogether.
Not any more, I am happy to say, at least if you are a man. There is definitely at least one activity in life where you can truly have your cake and eat it too. This is absolutely true if I am to believe this article and since I found it on Yahoo News then it must be true. This activity that is both exquisitely fun and pleasurable. The more you do it, the healthier you are likely to be. It is not only completely harmless but also is good for your health. One small side effect is that it does have a tendency to be a bit messy. We are talking about that often lifetime habit of men married and single which can be as addictive as cocaine and just as fun: masturbation.
Frequent masturbation may help men cut their risk of contracting prostate cancer, Australian researchers have found. It is believed that carcinogens may build up in the prostate if men do not ejaculate regularly, BBC News reported on Wednesday. The researchers surveyed more than 1,000 men who had developed prostate cancer, and 1,250 men who had not. They found that men who had ejaculated the most between the ages of 20 and 50 were the least likely to get cancer. Men who ejaculated more than five times each week were a third less likely to develop prostate cancer.
This is exciting news for both men and pimply faced boys across the world. No longer do you need to feel that your secret vice is sinful. Now it is healthy. When I was growing up, if you could muster the courage, you would confess your masturbation habit to your local parish priest. I never did, of course, but I strongly suspect saying three Hail Marys would not absolve me of my sin. I am confident that my priest would have prayed to Jesus so that I would avoid the near occurrence of this dreadful sin. Perhaps times have changed in the last forty years. However, I also know that there are few things that the Catholic Church is more obsessed over that the sanctity of life. We are supposed to prolong our lives as much as humanly possible. Since prostate cancer is almost universal in men that reach a certain age, we now have a safe way to significantly lower our risks and it is completely drug free! Yes, it is time to get out the Penthouse, head to the bathroom five or more times a week and beat off. By doing so, we cut our risk of prostate cancer by up to a third.
Our wives might prefer that we make love to them five or more times a week rather than masturbate. That suits me fine, but I confess at age 51 I am not entirely sure I could partake in such an intimately pleasurable act five or more times a week for weeks on end. Actually, I am not sure even that with lots of glossy Playboys, Penthouses and even saucy Penthouse Forum Variations whether I could feel quite that sexual over the course of the week. Yet it sounds like I should try this therapy. If my wife is not in the mood, well, excuse me dear while I head to the bathroom or shut the bedroom door while I get off. Doctor’s orders.
I have no idea how much it costs to treat prostate cancer, but I bet it is expensive and scary as hell. I know prostate cancer is a very slow growing cancer. I know we all have to die of something. I also know one of the frequent side effects of removal of the prostate is impotence, although frequent loss of urinary control that also occurs does not sound appealing either. So why take the chance? Better to find some ready pornography and maybe prevent this cancer from occurring altogether.
There may even be some taxable benefits. If the dirty magazines weren’t cutting it, maybe my doctor would prescribe the Real Doll™. According to their web site, I can select from ten bodies, my choice of eye color and even select my doll’s preferred pubic hair style. Moreover, I can guarantee you that I never knew a woman in the biblical sense who came anywhere close to being attractive as these dolls. If I get sick of the same face, well apparently you can order extra faces with your Real Doll™. The standard female is only $6,499 plus shipping and handling, but at least it would be tax deductible. It has to be less costly than prostate surgery.
Somehow, I suspect the Catholic Church would find something sinful in my suggestions. By blogging about this I am probably sinning because I am inspiring lust. Perhaps if I saved my lust for marriage rather than masturbated during my teenage years like every other boy with hands was doing it would have made my wife that much hornier for my body. Consequently, we could procreate more children and bring more souls to God. Even my priest might have to concede the validity of this latest medical research.
No matter. While I was raised a Catholic, that was then. Now I am a free agent spiritually. I am generally cautious by nature but if my doctor tells me that masturbation is safe and news reports like this one tell me it is not only safe, but healthy, I’m in.
Now excuse me, I need a little privacy.
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April 23rd, 2008 at 08:49pm
Posted by
Mark |
Sociology |
no comments
Tags: Health Care, Sexuality, Sociology
Count me as one of those not lining the streets of Connecticut Avenue in Washington, D.C. trying to get a glimpse of the pope. This may have something to do with me not being a Catholic.
Of course, I understand Pope Benedict heads the Roman Catholic Church. To those vested in the faith I am sure his visit is a big deal. Even if I were inclined, it would be devilishly hard to even get a glimpse of the man. Getting a ticket to the mass he held today at the new Washington Nationals Stadium was challenging even for devout local Catholics. Most area Catholics will have to be contented watching him on TV. The good news for Pope Benedict XVI is that he picked a wonderful time to pay a visit to Washington. You could arguable that the weather was heavenly inspired: clear blue skies, abundant sunshine, mild winds with flowering trees everywhere.
Yet I find nothing particularly holy about Pope Benedict or the institution he heads. Like most large institutional religions, Catholicism has had big ups and downs. Unless you measure success in souls saved, it is hard to make the case that Catholicism’s pluses have outweighed its minuses. As much as the Catholic Church would like to pretend otherwise, I see it as an institution of men, not of God. It suffers from being guided by men whose lives are so warped from reality they have lost perspective. As a result, they needlessly lead billions down treacherous spiritual paths. It may be true that God’s agenda is very different from that of mans’. However, it appears to this observer that there is a causal relationship between priestly celibacy and priest abuse scandals here in America. It is easy to applaud Pope Benedict’s 25 minutes spent today with victims of priestly pedophilia. Nonetheless, I would feel the contrition were more genuine if the pope required that all priests were bonded by insurance companies. That way if there are any future victims they at least will not have to wait decades and file lawsuits to be reimbursed for the mental health expenses.
I suspect that for every indigent person helped by Catholic Charities there is another soul who was one of its victims. I count myself among its victims. Thankfully, I was never abused by a priest. However, I was abused and witnessed regular physical and emotional abuse from its sisters during nine years of parochial school. I have spent thousands of dollars on therapy over the years in part trying to come to terms with the abuse I witnessed. Somehow, I doubt the Vatican will be cutting me any checks.
Catholicism is hardly unique for instilling its values in the young, but few religions are so aggressive cementing a faith. You are baptized as a baby before you can babble a word and without your consent. You are typically confirmed when you are just entering adolescence, and sometimes a little before. This typically occurs at your parents’ prodding and long before you have an adult perspective of whether Catholicism is really a lifelong calling. You learn that even you, a sweet and innocent baby, was born with the stain of original sin. You learn that Jesus is forgiving, but except for a few asterisks, you must depend on your parish priest to act as your intercessor. God may be full of grace, but grace is largely earned by jumping through the hoops of its various sacraments. Your head is filled with beliefs that amount to nonsense, such as the consecrated host is the real body of Jesus and that Mary was immaculately conceived.
It is no wonder then that a church full of such cognitive dissonance is capable of soaring to great heights and falling to such great depths, sometimes at the same time. In many ways, the Vatican embodies humanity in all its highs and lows. For relatively benign and holy popes like John Paul II, there are execrable popes, like Pope Gregory XIII. When French Catholics in 1572 killed somewhere between ten and a hundred thousand French Protestants (Huguenots) on Saint Bartholomew’s Day, Pope Gregory was giddy in joy. He took it as proof that God was wreaking vengeance on what he saw as the apostasy of Protestantism. In his glee, he ordered a special Thanksgiving where a Te Deum was sung. To this day, the Catholic Church has not fully apologized for inciting this massacre, although some claim that Pope John Paul II’s 1997 statement amounted to an apology.
I realize my own religion, Unitarian Universalism, is figuratively an ant next to the institution called the Catholic Church. It too has suffered its share of sins. One of our interim ministers some years ago scandalized the denomination by faking some references so he could get a permanent ministry. I heard that some UU youth groups decades ago amounted to free love communities. However, our denomination never caused any wars, or tried to exterminate people who did not share their beliefs. On the contrary, the Unitarians experienced oppression by the early Christian church, which would not tolerate the Unitarian belief that there was no trinity. It is unlikely any of our heroes would qualify as Catholic saints, but had she bothered to twiddle a rosary Clara Barton could give Mother Teresa a run for the money. At least our denomination, rather than indoctrinate someone into a faith, is creedless. Our salvation may feel more ephemeral than eternal, but at least we make no claim to understand the mind of God. We realize that beliefs evolve just as people evolve because beliefs are a human manifestation. Consequently, what suits us today may not suit the changing world of tomorrow.
Pope Benedict of course sees truth like Prudential Insurance sees the Rock of Gibraltar. The same ideas that Jesus preached 2000 years ago remain wholly applicable today. The splintering of religion, and indeed the splintering of Christianity into innumerable denominations, is proof that Pope Benedict should take to heart: that no religion, not even Catholicism, can fit all souls.
The Catholic Church will always appeal to those who value constancy. Increasingly though constancy no longer works in a world that seems to reinvent itself with every generation. The sex abuse scandal in the Catholic Church is proof that the square peg of Catholicism no longer fits into the round hole that is modern man. I find it hard to believe there would have been a sex abuse scandal at all had Catholic priests had the privilege of marriage, as they in fact had until about five hundred years ago.
It is a good thing I am not the President of the United States. I would not pander to Pope Benedict the way our president is doing. I would treat him as an honored guest of our country. I would never assert that he is any holier than any of us, only that he is holy to most of the Catholics in our country.
Instead, I might be tempted to preach to the pope. I would preach that the diversity and tolerance, which is built into the fabric of our country is a blessing. I would point out that the diversity of faiths in our country makes us a stronger country and a stronger people. I would celebrate our separation of church and state, one of the most enlightened and brilliant ideas ever practiced by a country, and the secret of our two hundred plus year union. I would show him our version of holy writ, the Constitution of the United States and the Declaration of Independence. These too are solid moorings on how people can be happy and live in harmony. Our political faith is a pragmatic one that works with our natural weaknesses, rather than against them.
I have no doubt that the Pope would be unmoved. He spent too many years learning that the reason the Catholic Church survives today is because of its constancy. Constancy though is actually the faith’s Achilles heel. Because of the constant pruning by its clerics, the faith has become surreal and moribund. It is like a bonsai, always alive, but constantly pruned and propped up so that it can never grow naturally. In the end, it makes it weird and surreal, giving the illusion of wonder but leaving it nonetheless ultimately spiritually bereft.
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April 17th, 2008 at 09:22pm
Posted by
Mark |
Sociology |
no comments
Tags: Catholicism, Religion
Today is April Fools’ Day. It is a tradition that is so old that according to Wikipedia (which hopefully is not fooling us) its origins are lost in antiquity. Its origins may be so old that no one remembers how it began, but I wish we would kill it.
We have all been victims of April Fools’ Day at one time or another. Because it only happens once a year many of us, unless we are mindful of the approaching holiday, find it easy to succumb. At least today, most of them are easy to spot. Even I wasn’t fooled by Google’s Gmail Custom Time joke today. But hey, if anyone can invent an email Wayback machine, it is those wizards at Google.
So why do I loathe April Fools’ Day? I think I hate it because I hate being humiliated, thus I simply cannot find it within myself to debase others by humiliating them. That we are all gullible at times is hardly news. It is part of the human condition. Heck, even our president, who strikes me as a genuinely foolish man, once actually said, “Fool me once, shame on you. You can’t get fooled again.” I am more tolerant of self-humiliating fools. (I also know that we all have times when we are a bit incoherent. I think this is a condition of middle age.) The instigator of an April Fools joke though is really its unintended recipient. It says a lot about someone’s lack of character that he considers it fun to humiliate other people. It tells me that this is someone to avoid.
People who have been serially humiliated, and there are millions of them, suffer quite severe psychological damage. The primary damage is to their self-esteem. It builds a feeling of inadequacy and breeds a sense of paranoia that can last a lifetime and be truly disabling. Through events like April Fools’ Day, it is possible to reinforce opinions about someone they generally dislike anyhow. This can often be done in very cruel ways, such as by doing it in front of large groups of people. Anyone who laughs along in this humiliation is also slimed, because they are tacitly condoning such events.
Perhaps that is why most of us grown adults do not stoop to direct humiliation, but can find other less obvious ways of achieving the same goals. There are many ways to humiliate someone but they can all have a similar wounding effect. The accumulation of such events can result in lifelong problems, problems that never need to have happened.
Why do we do this? We do it to cover up our own inadequacies. By proving someone else as a fool, it is harder for others to see us as foolish. Some people instead may see the joker as clever, or popular, or a risk taker, or a practical jokester. I don’t. I know too many people, including tangentially myself, who have been the victims of such meanness. It is never funny to be the butt of a joke.
When I see someone using a joke to humiliate someone else, my dander is raised. I am not the type easily roused toward direct confrontation, but such events generally have me confronting the utterer. I will say things like, “Perhaps you meant to be funny, but I don’t think what you did is funny. I think it is hurtful.” I am probably one of a very few out there willing to say things like this. April Fools Day often gives me the opportunity. What I usually hear is, “Oh, I didn’t mean anything but it. It’s just a joke.” Yes, perhaps this is true, if humiliation is humorous. I do not believe that it is, but if it is then we can do without this kind of humor.
I do not know how we end something like April Fools’ Day. It is not an official national holiday so there is no law Congress can pass to make it go away. However, our leaders could show a little leadership on this issue. Perhaps it is nothing in the great confluence of world events with which they allegedly wrestle. Nevertheless, wouldn’t it be something if President Obama were to use the occasion of April Fools’ Day in 2009 to hold a press conference to simply proclaim the truth that there is nothing funny about making people look foolish. Perhaps as a token gesture, he could issue an executive order banning the exercise of any April Fools’ Jokes by federal civil servants. Perhaps he could include in his press conference some psychologists, who can testify to the damage that organized humiliation inflicts on human psyches.
I am probably something of a fool to think that my little blog entry will do anything to change this despicable holiday. Perhaps if I along with a thousand other bloggers use the occasion of this day to raise the visibility of this issue, it will be taken with the sobriety it deserves, even on this most dubious of days.
It may be April Fools’ Day, but no fooling; it is time to end this sick tradition.
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April 1st, 2008 at 10:18pm
Posted by
Mark |
Sociology |
no comments
Tags: Psychology, Self Esteem
