Skewed perceptions have us fearing wrong things

Previously pubished in the Terre Haute Tribune-Star, 12/30/2012

TERRE HAUTE — Regular readers of my essays probably know that sociologists are often more interested in people’s responses to tragedies like the Newtown, Conn., school massacre than trying to explain the event itself.

Two responses are evident in the immediate aftermath of the tragedy — compassion and fear. The compassion toward the families and the community of Newtown is evident. Indeed, a poll conducted by the Pew Charitable Trust, following the tragedy finds that 57 percent of adults are following the story closely.  

Fear is evident in the spike in handgun sales immediately following the tragedy, the talk of arming teachers or putting more armed individuals in schools. Fear is evident in the rush to regulate guns, too. It’s hard to imagine a gun law or set of laws that could have stopped Adam Lanza. Nevertheless, fear will compel our leaders into passing new laws that evidence shows, paradoxically, might actually make people more vulnerable to such attacks.

Pew also asked whether people thought the shootings reflected broader societal problems or just the isolated acts of troubled individuals. The public is divided. Forty-seven percent say broader societal problems and 44 percent say the acts of isolated, troubled individuals. Is this divide random or does the divide reflect other “divisions”?

Men and women are divided in their view. Fifty-four percent of women and only 39 percent of men see the shootings as reflecting broader societal problems while 51 percent of men and 37 percent of women see it as acts of isolated, troubled individuals. This doesn’t surprise me because it is males who are the usual shooters and seeing them as “monsters” is a way to distance themselves from the shooters, who otherwise look like them. However, broader societal problems could relate directly to the seeming increase in these mass shootings. Perhaps the loosening of social bonds in our society is creating more isolated, troubled individuals.  

To listen to extremists who suggest that God’s displeasure with us is why these horrific acts happen is to be willfully blind to a host of indicators that suggest something different. Divorce is down, out of wedlock births are down, abortion is down, violent crime is down, murder is way down, teen drug and alcohol abuse is down … so much due to the aging of our population.

But our media-driven perceptions of our society are the opposite of that. Even mass shootings like that in Newtown are not necessarily increasing, though they seem to be because of the sensational coverage such events receive in our media-saturated culture.

The evidence, though, suggests that such incidents are stable (though some experts argue that they are increasing). What is true is violent crime and murder rates are falling, while mass shootings are stable. In short, our perception of events is actually more important than the reality of them.  

And what is driving the perception? Who benefits from a fearful and anxious population, when in fact, our streets and homes are safer than they have been in two decades?

According to a Scripps-Howard study, from 1980 to 2008, 4,685 died in 965 massacre shootings (defined as four or more deaths). Counting the carnage in just this year’s notable massacres, including Newtown, adds to less than half the 163 people who died annually in that 28-year period.

In the first quarter of 2012, traffic deaths soared, 13.5 percent with 7,630 people killed. How many of them died in suicides or because of drunk or impaired driving? But traffic deaths are not given grisly coverage on television and there are no slick production shows that feature “death at the wheel” every week, so the public’s perception is such that it underestimates the true risk of driving.

Without even calculating the odds, I bet that kids are safer in school, even with lax security measures, than when mom or dad (or teen sibling) is driving them to school. In the same 28-year period cited above, according to the Centers for Disease Control, the incidence of childhood obesity increased 13 percentage points, to where one in five kids, aged 6-11, is obese.

We are wired to fear imminent danger; to run away or to fight. Yet, our leaders and our media-saturated, intense culture seem to stoke fear over reason, thus blinding us to certain dangers like traffic deaths and death by carbohydrates. The most common killer of kids is accidents, with car accidents being the most likely.

If we are to live in fear, at least be afraid of the right things.           

If you're thankful you need to show it

Previously published, Thanksgiving Day, 2012, in the Terre Haute Tribune Star

TERRE HAUTE —

No doubt, during Thanksgiving week Americans are in a thankful mood. Take away the national cue to give thanks, are we a thankful people the other 51 weeks of the year? Much suggests we take much for granted, that we assume the incredible affluence that characterizes the American lifestyle, that we feel entitled to the newest, the best and the most. We take our freedoms and the relationships in our life for granted.

The prevailing culture in the United States is “individualism.” And despite some who claim that individualism is dying or dead, my conversations with international students and with immigrants about their struggles to understand the individualistic American leads me to conclude individualism is quite robust.

“Individualism,” in short, refers to the exaltation of the individual person over the group, including family, church and state. A child learning the culture of individualism would learn such things as follow your own path, to do what you want, to follow your own interests. The epitome of individualist culture is for a person to do what they want, without regard to what others think. It is an ideology of self-sufficiency, economic independence, and self-determined values and morality. In short, it is the passionate pursuit of self-interest and those interests are determined selfishly.

Think about it. If you do it yourself, who do you thank?

It matters little about the facts on the ground whether we actually do it ourselves or we are dependent on a myriad number of others to achieve our self-interest. If we believe we did it ourselves, then does it matter? If we believe we build a successful company on our own, despite the taxpayer-paid-for infrastructure, public education of the company’s employees, and Social Security providing social insurance for their employees, who do we thank for the good outcomes? If we believe we did it ourselves, is there any need to thank anyone?

Radical individualists go so far as to view gratitude as superfluous. If everyone is just pursuing their self-interest, then a kindness or even what appears to be a “selfless” act is not that at all, but just another example of a person pursuing their self-interest. Do I need to thank someone who just did something for themselves and not for me? A child has no need to be thankful for parents because parents are just pursuing their self-interest. A radical individualist would not view Jesus Christ as giving himself up for our sins. Instead he was pursuing self-interest, he did it for himself, the forgiveness of our sins is just a residual benefit of his own radical pursuit of self-interest. It’s no different than the rich person who builds a grand home in the neighborhood enhancing the value of your home.

What about those who do show gratitude to others? Research suggests that showing gratitude can have measurable positive effects on people. Positive effects can be shown for mood, various hormones, pleasure-related neurotransmitters, the immune system, stress, heart health, blood pressure and blood sugar.

It seems like a good thing for people to show gratitude. It’s in one’s best self-interest with all those health benefits to show gratitude to those we feel thankful for. The trick it seems is to ignore the ideology of individualism, to recognize the inherent interdependent social basis and (at times selfless) cooperation that makes our world work, and show gratitude to those people who are important to us and reap the personal health benefits of doing so.

Give thanks to the important people in your life. Given the health benefits, nothing is more self-interested than being thankful and showing it.

Measuring the march of time, culture in Morocco

TERRE HAUTE — I spent 10 days in Morocco in October. We were planning a study abroad trip for May 2013. My impression of Morocco, after a couple of days, was both familiar and “mysterious.” Familiar due to its French influences, Morocco was a French colony until 1956. In the capital city of Rabat it was hard not to think I was in a European city. That French was spoken, that signage was in French, that buildings reminded me of New Orleans, all made the first days in Morocco familiar and comfortable.

Just as my college French seemed to be coming back to me, as I got familiar with bon jour, oui, merci beaucoup and si’l vous plait, we moved from Rabat and its meetings with government officials to smaller towns, university officials, back-street cafes, and bold, stark landscapes. Then something happened. New feelings pushed in, as the familiar gave way to the unfamiliar … the more Arabic aspects of Morocco.

In Marrakesh we visited the largest public square in Morocco. The square and the large open-air market adjoining the square, has a frenetic energy. No fancy malls, no slick advertising, no sales promotions, just the raw energy of buyers and sellers negotiating a deal to mutual satisfaction.

In Essaouira I began to relax and feel comfortable with mysterious Morocco. Essaouira is a very old walled city on the Atlantic coast. Founded by the Portuguese in the 14th century, we stayed in an old Spanish style villa in the old medina. There we sat at a café, drinking atay, the traditional mint tea, watching the locals and tourists in the market, hearing the call to prayer at the three nearby mosques. On our way from Marrakesh, our driver, Mustafa, showed us various economic development projects, one a winery. We bought a bottle and after the sun was down, and the air cooler, we sat in the courtyard of the villa, the Riad Al Madina, enjoying the wine. Later, I restfully slept with the windows open to the cool dry air, with the deep, rough, powerful Atlantic but a few hundred yards away. I changed in Essaouira, I was beginning to see the real Moroc (as Morocco is called by Moroccans).

I’m fascinated by the way time is experienced in the culture of the land I am visiting. At first, Moroc felt like the industrial time that is America, an unrelenting industrial drum beat of time. Americans, even the laid back ones, are in a rush. Schedules, meetings, appointments, rush, rush, rush, in constant motion rushing from one thing to another. That was how our first days in Rabat were, rushing from meeting to meeting, place to place.

Moroccans, however, build in time for the pleasures of life, like eating. In Moroc, the most delicious and “artful” food can be served to you in McDonald’s-like time. On the streets and back alleys, a tajine (a conical-shaped “crock pot” cooked over hot coals) cooks all morning so as to be ready for lunch. One actually inspects the particular tajine, negotiates its price, then it’s served at your table. If it were McDonald’s, the food would be served then, and 10-12 minutes later, we’d be off to the next appointment. Not in Moroc. Time is really the secret spice in Moroccan cuisine. No meal is “fast.” “Hurry up” spoils the meal. Table talk is as important as the khobz (bread) served with every meal.

Order atay (Moroccan mint tea) and you get a small metal pot of boiling green tea with fresh mint and several large sugar cubes. It is not served ready to drink. The fresh mint must be added and let steep. Sugar must be added and mixed. Mixing is done by pouring the tea into a small, shot-glass sized glass, from a rather high distance to put a frothy head on the tea and then that is poured back into the pot, over and over and over. Until it is right. Time to get it right. Not clock time, but right to the taste.

Amidst the frenetic energy of the medina, the traffic of the boulevard, the time intensive march of modernity, Moroccans wait for the tea to be just right. How much have we lost in the U.S., especially in the important relationships in our lives, because time either rushes things or we find we don’t have enough time to get it right?

In political terms, who are the ‘middle class’?

Previously published in the Terre Haute Tribune-Star, 10/14/2012

TERRE HAUTE — Will the 2012 presidential election win a prize for how many times the candidates say they care about the “middle class?” Who is this “middle class” they talk about? In many ways, the candidates are really talking to anyone and no one at the same time.




“Middle class” is a bland term, one that is broadly inclusive in an uncontroversial way and helps the candidates obscure their policy paybacks to their political base. To the candidates, middle class status is simple: it’s a single dimension, an income range, with no stated bottom, but a ceiling of $250,000. This is the political equivalent of redefining the shrinking middle class to enlarge it. There is no serious discussion of poverty. Hence, the middle class is construed as expansive. In short, it’s America.



According to the Pew Research Center’s study of 2,508 U.S. adults during July of this year, 49 percent identified themselves as “middle class.” The middle class brand is for mass consumption. Self-identified middle class status varies little by race, age (except for 65 and above), or education. Forty-six percent of those who earn $100,000 or more, 65 percent who earn $50,000-$99,999, 51 percent who earn $30,000-$49,999, and 35 percent who earn less than $30,000 self-identify as middle class.



If middle class means middle income, Pew used Census data to estimate how many people fall into a range of middle incomes. They found the share of adults who self-identified as middle class in the survey was about equal to the share of adults living in households defined as middle income using Census data falling in a range of two-thirds to double the overall median size adjusted household income. Hence, Pew found that 51 percent of adults lived in households with incomes $33,331-$101,004. If President Obama and Gov. Romney think middle income is above $200,000, it would be interesting to hear them explain why.



It is to the politicians’ advantage to use an abstract concept of social class, one based only on income. This simplistic, non-relational, concept of social class helps to obscure real social class differences that might cause political difficulties for the economic elite in the United States.



Many reading this surely remember everyday terms that real people use to describe various social class groupings. One that was common just 20 years ago was “working class.” And working class people had influential non-governmental organizations to help represent their interests in the rough and tumble world of politics — labor unions. How about white collar and blue collar? Those terms reflect social class as a relation, not just a crude income category; they reflect social class in terms of one’s relationship to the economic institution. In short, how a person makes their living, which is not the same as one’s income.



People who earn their money by working for a paycheck are treated differently on a daily basis in their work and through public policy than those who earn their money by “renting” their wealth. Most employees are “at- will” employees and serve at the will of their employers. Losing their job means losing their income, their health insurance and a whole lot more.



Others can earn a middle class income through dividends, interest payments on large sums of money and buying and selling stores of wealth. Others earn their money directly off the labor of their employees. Some earn a salary by supervising and managing the labor of others who in turn make money for the enterprise’s owners.



Public policy treats sources of income differently. Income earned through work is, except at the very lowest levels, taxed higher than income earned through expending no effort other than lending money, buying municipal bonds, and renting assets. In short, those who can live off their wealth are in a different social class than those who live mainly or solely from what they can earn with their labor. A job can be easily expropriated, but wealth cannot. These people are in different classes even if their incomes are similar.



Reducing complex social relationships that create power differences between people into broad groupings of people based on income serves only to benefit those who govern the rest of us. The Washington gridlock and the political polarization isn’t serving the interests of the middle class. Whose interests does such a situation benefit? The poor?



The median household income in Vigo County in 2011 was $39,229. Twelve percent of households earn over $100,000 and 22.5 percent of families with minor children live in poverty. That means that virtually everyone, to listen to President Obama and Gov. Romney, are middle class in Terre Haute. Really?

Morning not just a time of day, it’s an emotion

Previously published in the Terre Haute Tribune Star, 16 September 2012

TERRE HAUTE — During church last Sunday, one of the hymns was “Morning Has Broken,” popularized by Cat Stevens in the early 1970s. As the organist played the first few bars and the congregation began to sing, I experienced one of those emotional waves that only music causes; that spine-tingling, goose-bump raising, overwhelming emotional rush. It surprised me and for the rest of the service I sat contemplating why had I reacted so strongly to this song? Nothing like church to prompt introspection.

I am a morning person, easily rising early daily, even when I don’t really want to, around 5-ish. Always been this way; scientists tell us that some are wired this way and others are not. I’m definitely wired that way, as I suspect my father was.

My psychologist colleagues likely would point to some aspect of personality for both early rising and the emotional reaction to the song. I can shoe-horn myself into a psychological profile: I like beginnings better than endings (you can tell that by looking at my many started projects that never seem to get finished). I have a fairly short memory for bad things, each day is new, why hold onto yesterday’s crap (and frankly why hang on to the good stuff … today’s is new!). The nutritionist might point to the need for coffee. While I like coffee, I don’t drink enough anymore for a coffee jones to explain my “morningness” or my emotional response to that tune.

As a sociologist, I tend to lean toward explanations of behavior in terms of socialization, relationships, situations, and perhaps values, which include the entire range of motivators, economics, and other types of reward systems. Sociological explanations are not for individual persons but for the entire class of “morningphiles.”

As I contemplated through the morning prayer, I noted that I spent my childhood and youth waking early with my dad. He rose every day at 5:30 a.m. As he headed for the kitchen to make coffee, he would turn on my bedroom light. I’d pad out to the “Florida” room, exchange a few words with Dad, who was not much of a talker, as he settled into his morning routine, which included watching the sunrise, the animal action in our backyard, and girding himself for a day of work that he was not all that fond of.

I, by the time I was in school, had my own routine that included reading the newspaper, front page to the classifieds, and making myself breakfast. My mother, who was not an early riser, made me independent and self-reliant, qualities I hope my wife and daughters appreciate. This routine lasted until I left home for college and resumed anytime I was home.

I also spent many special mornings with my dad. He was an avid bass fisherman and we spent many a weekend fishing. Getting on the water before dawn was always a goal. He and I spent many mornings on Florida lakes and rivers.

While I appreciate the solitude that being the first one up provides (that and a hot shower), I also enjoy sharing morning with others. Because my wife works on a factory schedule (public school) and I do not, I dealt with our daughters, waking them, fixing them breakfast, getting them going. One daughter is a morningphile and one a morningphobe. They are now gone from the house, but I still have the dog. She and I have our own routine that includes barking at the dark and morning carrots.

Even on vacations, I rise early, and like to find a neat place to sit, sip coffee (check email and read the newspaper online now) and talk with other morning junkies. I enjoy the morning light, its coolness, its freshness, and as the song notes, “the sweetness of the wet garden.”

I always feel good in the morning, every morning. It is not too much a stretch to say, I go to bed at night looking forward to another morning.

I’m not sure this introspective discourse explains my emotional reaction Sunday. As I reflect on what I just wrote and think about how to end this essay, I can’t help but observe that I associate mornings with my most intimate relationships. Not sure that is why I reacted so to “Morning Has Broken,” but I know today is a good day because it is early afternoon and the light and feel of the day still has a morning quality to it.

Rep. Akin’s view has roots in pro-life movement

Previously published in the Terre Haute Tribune Star, 26 August 2012

TERRE HAUTE — “It seems to me first of all from what I understand from doctors that’s really rare [a pregnancy resulting from rape], if it’s a legitimate rape, the female body has ways to try to shut that whole thing down.”


— Missouri Republican Senate candidate Todd Akin in a local news interview on Aug. 19 in response to a question about abortion in the case of rape




To most this quotation sounds bizarre/offensive/obscene, so much so that leading conservatives have pleaded with Mr. Akin to step aside so that another candidate can be put on the Missouri ballot.



As the father of two daughters, Mr. Akin’s statement completely disqualifies him in my view. But he is not alone in those views, they have a history in the pro-life movement.



The extreme position of outlawing all abortions in all cases is not widely supported. Exceptions in the case of rape or threats to the health of the mother enjoy broad-based support and are currently constitutionally necessary in any law restricting abortion.



Kristen Luker, in “Abortion and the Politics of Motherhood” published in 1984, carefully described and analyzed the worldviews and strategies of both pro-choice and pro-life activists. Exceptions are unacceptable to the pure pro-life ideology. The fictive female biological response to “shut that whole thing down” was once a common response of pro-life activists to this moral/ethical dilemma. Luker writes: “Most of the pro-life people [activists] we interviewed said that women who are raped simply don’t become pregnant very often, and many of them said they thought this was because something biological happens to rape victims that precludes the possibility of pregnancy.”



This view may not be as widespread as it once was because ardent holders of pro-life views today see the hand of God in pregnancies resulting from rape. Sharon Barnes, a Missouri GOP activist, is quoted in defending Mr. Akin, “If God has chosen to bless this person [the rape victim] with a life, you don’t kill it.” In short, pro-lifers have substituted a narrow religious interpretation for their former bad biology.



That pregnancies following rapes are rare is because of how rape victims are medically treated. Those rape victims that come forward and accept treatment are given powerful “morning after” drugs thus preventing pregnancies. Yet current efforts to define personhood beginning at conception would effectively outlaw those procedures. Such pregnancies would be justified as God’s will or “a blessing” as a matter of public policy. By such logic, a woman resisting a rapist could be resisting “God’s will.” Is that next?



In Indiana, current law provides that a rapist father can claim custody of his child (I believe this is the case in 30 other states). In Indiana, current efforts to change that law are running into opposition.



Before Mr. Akin uttered “legitimate rape” he framed well the moral conundrum, “Well you know, people always wanna try and make that one of those things, well, how do ya, how do ya, how do you slice this particularly tough sort of ethical question.” He followed with the sentence that caused the firestorm.



He is correct in part; it is a “tough sort of ethical question.” Yet, he and his fellow believers avoid the tough ethical question by inserting the active hand of God or myths concerning female biology.



These extreme positions are those of a relentless, relatively small, but politically well-organized and funded group, which is, in effect, forcing its extreme, religious views on America. There are many religions as well as religious individuals who do not share these views, including many Christians, Jews, Muslims, not to mention atheists. Indeed, the views of the extreme pro-life movement mirror closely Theravada Buddhism. I suspect that if the justifications for banning abortion were in terms of “karmic sin,” “karmic rebirth,” and thus “consciousness begins at conception,” that those views would not be acceptable as public policy, but perfectly acceptable as an individual’s way to decide these thorny ethical and moral dilemmas for themselves.



Women who are raped and perhaps become pregnant must actually wrestle with that tough ethical/moral question. Imagine that she and her husband are trying to get pregnant. Taking the morning after pill might end what they are trying to make.



It is individuals who eventually must decide and it is they and their families who bear the cost of those decisions. A public policy, albeit clean and simple (no abortions under any circumstances), takes that tough decision away from the people closest to the dilemma and inserts justifications that many, perhaps most people, do not believe in. It is imposing religion through public policy.



Let those who believe in “no abortions under any circumstances” follow that belief. Proselytize others into sharing that belief, if they must, but it is fundamentally anti-American to force religious views, through the State, down the throats of people who disagree. It violates religious freedom.

Mystique of 'guns' ensure control efforts fruitless

Previouisly published in the Terre Haute Tribune-Star, 29 July 2012

A simple Google search on “Batman shooting” produces about 376,000,000 hits. That number isn’t very meaningful until put in some context. “Barack Obama” produces about 280,000,000 hits; “Mitt Romney” about 21,000,000 hits.


Not to diminish the tragedy, but in the big picture, the upcoming presidential election is more important, yet its Google search just barely out-“hits” “Batman shooting” with 387,000,000 hits. Worldwide phenomena should produce more hits than the “Batman” shooting, so “2012 Olympics” produces about 2.4 trillion hits. It helps to put things into proper perspective.

As a sociologist I am usually more fascinated by people’s response to this kind of tragedy than to the event itself. In an age of round-the-clock media, to borrow from Roger Ebert’s review of the tragedy, “we’ve seen this movie before.” The responses are predictable: the NRA wastes no time in doing its version of a deranged Paul Revere shouting through the land, “gun control is coming, gun control is coming.” As if on cue the anti-gunners call for closing some obvious loopholes in our current gun laws which in turn has the NRA pointing with glee at evidence for the truth of their delusions.

Politicians eager to up their hits on Google issue ridiculous statements like Louie Gomert, R-Texas, suggesting that prayer in school would have prevented this problem. I’m sure Charles Whitman (the Austin, Texas, shooter from 1966 who killed 16 people) had plenty of school-led prayer growing up in Lake Worth, Fla. He had a brain tumor that likely explained his behavior. Who knows what we will find with James Holmes, the Batman shooter? There are those who blame media violence; those who blame the death penalty (both sides, too much and not enough). There are those who blame the victims for not being armed, stupidly relying on the “guvmint” to protect them.

I predict that, as with Ted Bundy, eventually someone will get an interview with him, and he will explain his own behavior. Bundy basically agreed with the theory that pornography made him do it. The psych-pundits are saying paranoid schizophrenia. Stay tuned.

I don’t think we can prevent incidents like this. We could possibly reduce the opportunities for them to happen, but in the present cultural and political climate, any attempt to control guns isn’t going to happen. The gun control lobby doesn’t seem to understand gun owners and especially the very vocal and organized (and perhaps big in numbers) “gun fetishists.”

Some disclaimers: I own guns. I grew up with guns and learned to safely handle guns very early in life — before I could drive, before I could pilot a powered watercraft, before I could go to a movie by myself. I’ve enjoyed guns for recreation; I’ve never felt the need to protect myself or my “castle” with one. I knew three people who died from gunshots (one murdered, one suicide, and one accidental), more than I knew who died in car accidents. According to the CDC, more than 30,000 people die from gunshots each year, just a few thousand less than who die in car accidents each year. Injuries are much higher. Indeed, the price of freedom is very high.

Just as cars are more than just a means of transportation, guns are more than their designed function: recreation, protection, and a means to kill others (all protected by the Second Amendment).

People add much more to them than their designed functions. For instance, an armed populace represents the ultimate bulwark against tyranny. (Please don’t try to argue whether this is possible or not, it is part of gun mystique.) Guns represent “power.” It is the ultimate way to say no or to force someone else to say yes. With our hyper-emphasis on “individualism,” guns represent freedom, independence and self-reliance every bit as much as cars do. And when we add “gun culture” to the many fears that people have of “they” (as in “they are taking away our freedom; they are taking away our way of life; they are coming for our guns”) a gun provides a sense of security and safety that our society does not provide to everyone.

And yes, as the number of guns increases and the number of “yahoos” with guns increases, more gun tragedies are going to occur with increased handgun sales and applications for concealed carry permits following each tragedy. DIY.

As long as people perceive that guns provide more solutions to their problems than does “gun control,” effective gun control is a dead-end.