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religion-is-a-mental-illness · 1 year ago

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By: John Barry

Published: Sep 6, 2023

Do you ever hear a new concept, and suddenly realise that it has tapped into an important truth that had already been floating around on the hinterlands of your consciousness for some time? Well, 2019 saw the birth of one such idea: the concept of luxury beliefs (explained below), which was launched in the New York Post by Dr Rob Henderson, a former student of Yale and recent PhD graduate of Cambridge. The concept struck a chord with many people, and academia suddenly became very interested in this wunderkind Henderson. Unexpectedly, this interest hasn’t been reciprocated, leaving the academic world somewhat perplexed.

As an interviewer, it’s hard for me to say which is more interesting - the story of why Rob Henderson turned his back on contemporary academia, what he is doing next, or indeed what it is about his background that helped him recognise the phenomenon of luxury beliefs before anyone else did. Read on and decide for yourself.

John Barry (JB): You are interested in a range of topics in psychology, sociology, and anthropology. What drew you to studying psychology?

Rob Henderson (RH): I suppose I’ve always been curious about human nature and social behaviour. What got me started on the academic track was when I was enlisted in the military – over 10 years ago now – I found a copy of How the Mind Works by Steven Pinker at an airport on my way to a deployment in Al Udeid. I picked up this book because I thought the cover and title were interesting. Hmmm… how does the mind work? So I picked it up on a whim, read the book, found it fascinating, and that just got me started in reading more psychology books, watching psychology lectures on YouTube, and that led me to decide to study psychology more formally. I applied to Yale and studied Psychology as an undergrad there. And while I was studying psychology, I was also experiencing a shift in the social environment, in the social class backgrounds of the people who were around me, and so naturally I connected what I was studying and these anecdotal observations. This contributed to my decision to keep studying psychology and get as much education as I could, and that led me to apply for a PhD in Cambridge which I finished in December of 2022.

JB: Was there any particular thing in Pinker’s book that hooked you?

RH: He talks about the desire for social esteem, recognition, respect. How well regarded we are by others is not a material reward, it lives in the minds of other people. Pinker links this to evolutionary psychology and how important social belonging and acceptance were in the human ancestral environment, and that was something I had never thought about at that point in my life in a conscious explicit way.

JB: Is this topic related to your PhD?

RH: I was a research assistant in Paul Bloom’s lab. He’s a developmental psychologist who studies the origins of morality in babies and young children, and that became interesting to me. I read Jonathan Haidt’s book The Righteous Mind and read about moral foundations theory, so those interests led me to study this for my PhD. It’s unrelated to my public writing, but I do still study status. One of the studies we published a couple of years ago found that social anxiety, which is a proxy for preoccupation with status, is heavily correlated with how morally objectionable people rate various transgressions. One interpretation of this is the more concerned people are with their status, the more harshly they condemn moral wrongdoers.

JB: So this is something you published from your PhD?

RH: Yes, in the journal Scientific Reports. During my doctoral program, I led another set of studies as well, and co-authored a commentary and a chapter, but otherwise I don’t really have a strong interest to publish academic texts. It was an interesting experience just to see how peer review works and how academic publishing works, but I find writing for a broader audience more interesting and fulfilling. But it’s not that I don’t appreciate it – I spend a lot of time reading these papers and trying to pull out interesting tidbits or writing about them or sharing them online, but as far as formal academic papers go, there are probably not that many left in me.

JB: Sure. When you are writing for a wider audience it doesn’t mean that academics can’t read those articles too. Going back to your experiences in Yale and Cambridge, did they teach anything about male psychology?

RH: There is some teaching on sex differences, and there isn’t that much controversy about it there, but there isn’t that much specifically about men. My impression is that if you were to highlight challenges that men face, and controversies around male behaviour, well then it does have to be framed in one specific way. If you were to cast men as victims of anything in any way I think that would be treated very unseriously. That’s just my general impression. Sex differences are probably still ok to talk about, at least in academic environments among peers, but male psychology I don’t think is taken particularly seriously.

JB: It’s sad to see that even in the most prestigious universities. If they were to teach male psychology, what do you think would be the most important topics to cover?

RH: It’s interesting that a lot of this stuff is discussed in academic research. I wrote a piece a couple of years ago, for Bari Weiss’ outlet Common Sense (now The Free Press), and for that piece I did quite a bit of research on developmental psychology which found that boys appear to be more sensitive to environmental and parental inputs than girls - not that girls are unresponsive to these inputs – but boys who are raised in single parent homes, or particularly unstable or harsh environments, are much more likely to have detrimental health consequences, so later are more likely to experience poverty and unemployment, addiction, criminality and so on, and I think these things might be worth focusing on, especially as we continue to see more and more boys and young men lose interest in education and attaining gainful employment and rates of incarceration per capita appear to be rising too, especially among men across all ethnic groups in the lower socioeconomic strata. Men with low levels of education and income are more likely to be incarcerated than they were in decades past which to me indicates that this isn’t entirely about income. Poor people existed 50 years ago, but a poor man today is much more likely to be arrested than a poor man 50 years ago.

JB: Poor families are less likely to have the stability of a father in the home. Warren Farrell described prisons as ‘institutes of dad deprivation’, or something like that. It’s interesting that you say boys are more sensitive to environmental inputs, whereas the impression we get is that boys are tougher than girls. I wonder if boys are raised to be more tough because we know that if we don’t raise them to be tough they will be more sensitive than girls.

RH: I’ve never heard that hypothesis before, that’s really interesting. So we have this social pressure for men to be tough to counteract their intrinsic sensitivity… that seems plausible. Joyce Benenson has research showing that boys are immunologically more compromised than girls, more likely to be sick and to die from illness. This was a big surprise during the peak of the covid pandemic, that boys and men were more likely to contract and fall seriously ill and die from this illness. I’ve talked to some women about this and they were shocked to hear these statistics. In the popular imagination, men are sturdier, and though we may be physically stronger, in other ways perhaps men aren’t quite as naturally resilient as we thought.

JB: And men tend to fall in love more quickly than-

RH: They are more likely to say ‘l love you’, and say it first, which surprises a lot of people-

JB: Putting themselves in a vulnerable position, demonstrating vulnerability… and suicide? Maybe there is something to this idea of the vulnerability of men…

RH: Something that just came to mind John is that it may be that the most disagreeable, hostile, aggressive and resilient people are men, but that’s just the fatter tail in the right side of the distribution, but these men become the mental model with which we compare everyone else, so we think that men in general behave that way, whereas in fact we are thinking of only the top 5% or 1% of men who act in that way, whereas most men aren’t like that.

JB: From a psychological point of view, sometimes the most aggressive men are fending off people who might hurt them, because they may have experienced severe hurt or abuse in their past. I think sometimes the idea of ‘fragile masculinity’ is just used to sneer at men, but there is something to the idea that sometimes men who are broken have to put themselves back together in a way that is harder to break again in the future. But it might be a very abrasive persona that they adopt.

RH: There was a great memoir a while back by Nora Vincent called Self Made Man. This was about a woman successfully impersonating a man for a year, and one of the things that surprised her was, she describes men as carrying this armour around them that signals strength and toughness to the world because they know that if they appear weak or vulnerable, other men will sense that and take advantage. So this was something that she had to learn to cultivate herself, because if she dressed as a man but expressed vulnerability and tenderness then other men would immediately sniff this out and sense how exploitable she – or in this sense he – was. And I found that insightful, something that only a woman who is impersonating a man would pick up on. I don’t think a man would necessarily understand in an explicit, verbalized way what they are doing when they project toughness.

JB: The armour is ok but dropping the armour is necessary sometimes too. My colleague Martin Seager described how in group therapy with men the dynamic is different that in mixed sex groups because male groups will have a lot of joking around, or banter as we call it here. But quite quicky the dynamic will go from banter to sharing serious experiences and comforting each other, and just as quickly again the dynamic can shift back again to banter. Getting back to universities teaching male psychology, this is the kind of thing that might be interesting, or on clinical training courses at least. But I don’t think that happens. Do you think there is enough diversity of thought on campus?

RH: No. There isn’t enough diversity of thought, and it seems to be shrinking. One of the reasons I decided to come to Cambridge was because of what was happening in America, with political correctness, and professors being targeted, with students and faculty uniting to try to fire academics. I saw it first hand at Yale, and at Cambridge I’ve seen it as well. Famously there was the case of Jordan Peterson having his invitation revoked. I’ve also seen behind the scenes to examples of people who were less well known academics who have been fired or had offers rescinded for basically disagreeing, for their ideas. Not for anything they had done or any behaviour they directed at any individual, but just ideas that they have expressed, either in writing or in podcasts etc. and people took issue with it. Generally my heuristic is that for every example we hear of where someone gets fired, there are probably 10 others that we don’t hear about, of people who aren’t famous or well known, who are just quietly let go. One reason I decided to relinquish continuing a traditional academic career path, and why I decided to get involved with the University of Austin, which is this new university – UATX – which is launching in Texas, because they made explicit their commitment to freedom of expression and academic inquiry, which is what I hoped that all universities would be like when I first matriculated to Yale. But instead, the place that people feel least free to speak their minds are oftentimes university, which I found absolutely stunning.

JB: Tell me more about the University of Austin. Is it a physical university?

RH: It’s in the process of being built. At the moment we are running summer programmes. I believe the inaugural date for the first official cohort of undergraduates is in the fall of 2024 and it will be a physical university. The aim is to be a traditional liberal arts education where students can feel free to explore novel ideas. There are a lot of high profile people involved, for example Pano Kanelos the former president of St John’s College in Annapolis, he’s now the president of UATX, Bari Weiss, Dorian Abbot from the University of Chicago, Glenn Loury from Brown, Peter Boghossian and many other notable academics. It’s still the early stages but I’m hoping we are building what a university should be.

JB: Is this the beginning of a trend?

RH: I hope so. Not that UATX should be cloned, but I hope more universities attempt to reform higher ed.

JB: I hope so too. There are some really questionable ideas doing the rounds in Social Sciences departments these days, such as negative views of masculinity, and ideas about male privilege and patriarchy theory. You came up with the idea of ‘luxury beliefs’ a few years ago. Would you say that ideas like patriarchy theory are examples of ‘luxury beliefs’?

RH: So luxury beliefs I’ve defined as ideas and opinions that confer status on the upper classes while often inflicting costs on the lower classes. The idea of patriarchy might be a luxury belief. A lot of things fall under the umbrella of patriarchy, for example a lot of people think marriage and monogamy are an outgrowth of patriarchy. A lot of highly educated and affluent people will publicly denigrate marriage, patriarchy, masculinity… all these things in their mind falls into the same broad category. And yet these people are the most likely to get married, the least likely to get divorced, they would be the last people to consider raising their kids without a father or strong male role model in their lives. And yet by broadcasting this belief and spreading it they have inadvertently created a situation where lower income people are less likely to get married – there’s more single mothers, single parents, more kids growing up fatherless. What’s interesting is that if you publicly discuss the challenges of kids who grow up fatherless, a lot of the anti-patriarchy people will cast an eye of suspicion upon you, like ‘Why would this be a problem?’, ‘What’s so special about fathers?’, ‘Maybe it’s a good thing’, ‘The real problem is that single mothers don’t have enough financial support, and if they just had enough money… a stack of cash can replace a father’, and all of this I think is associated with an anti-patriarchy ideology, and yes it could be considered a luxury belief. It’s interesting to think about it: if you asked on a scale of one to ten ‘Are men a problem?’ higher educated people and more affluent people would probably score on the higher end of that scale.

JB: We are both fans of The Sopranos (I co-authored an article about the relevance to men in therapy). Almost none of the characters are likable in the Sopranos, so why is it so popular?

RH: It’s like with any good story, when they take you into someone’s world, into their inner life, then someone who you wouldn’t ordinally sympathise with, you suddenly adopt their perspective and understand where they are coming from. The therapy sessions between Tony Soprano and Dr Melphi was an amazing device, so you could get a glimpse into his psyche. There were flashbacks to his severely unstable and dysfunctional childhood, with his father who was a gangster and a murderer and his mother who was clearly mentally unwell. So he was immersed in chaos and criminality from a very young age. And the show does a great job of depicting Tony outside of his criminal enterprise. You see him as a husband, a father, a regular guy going about his day wrestling with a lot of the same questions that everyone else wrestles with. So they are showing the humanity inside these characters.

JB: In a way you are saying that by walking in their shoes we are able to empathise with these characters. In male psychology we use the term ‘empathy gap’ and in The Sopranos there are a couple of times where Tony Soprano is the victim of domestic violence-

RH: I saw that in your piece. It’s so funny I’m so blind to it, that when you wrote that… I remember when I watched it about two years ago during the lockdown and it didn’t even occur to me that it was domestic violence when women are slapping him or throwing things at him. I just thought ‘Oh it’s Tony, it’s fine. He’s a man.’

JB: Exactly!

RH: David Chase [screenwriter of The Sopranos] was walking a fine line. I think for the first three or four seasons at least he was sort of on Tony’s side, so it was easy for the audience to forget who this guy really is, and what he is capable of and what he’s done. But especially when you get to the final couple of seasons, like when Tony murders his nephew, and he orders the death of Adrianna, he’s just getting more and more morally compromised. Finally towards the end you start to understand. There’s a great book on evil by Roy Baumeister called Evil: Inside Human Cruelty and Violence where he points out that if you want to understand evil, you have to suspend your judgement. You have to be willing to see things from the eyes of the perpetrator. But it’s even more important to remember that these people are evil and the rest of society needs to be protected from them. So it’s a tricky balance. They are still responsible for their acts even if you understand where they are coming from.

JB: I’ve sometimes said that one of the biggest challenges to forensic psychology is to be able to empathise with people who might have committed horrible crimes. I suspect some people are reluctant to because of the fear that if they empathise, they will then start to sympathise-

RH: And they don’t want to justify what the criminal has done. Yes. I think if someone made a mini-series about Hitler or Stalin or Mao, that might be very uncomfortable for a lot of people! Any villain, if you make them the main character, they just become an anti-hero.

JB: An interesting phenomenon. Maybe in a related way, military history is full of heroes, but we usually think of the military is being a cause of psychological damage to men, through combat stress or bullying etc. One of the surprising things I found when writing Perspectives in Male Psychology was finding out that the military could be good for mental health. How much was this your experience of the US Air Force?

RH: One thing is a selection effect. The military in the past century has perfected their screening method – standardised tests of physical health – and maybe mental health to a degree – and proxies for intelligence, and then multiple appointments, and then basic military training which selects for people who are fairly mentally adjusted. There are lots of hoops - it’s a long and extremely intense experience especially for 17 or 18 year olds. Lots of people don’t make it – they don’t make it through all of the hoops. So up front a lot of people are screened out. And then the experience of the military is unique. They are very good at creating communities out of strangers. They have learned, maybe through trial and error over the course of centuries, how to take a bunch of random men from all parts of the world or country, and make them feel like family members, getting them to feel connected. Even things like the uniform – immediately your identity is stripped. In basic training they shave your head, you are put in uniform, everyone is called by their last name, so immediately you feel like you are part of this group. So there is community, comradery, structure, predictability. When you are deployed and in the midst of severe conflict, there can be unpredictability introduced but day to day you know what the rules are, what’s expected of you, how to advance in the rank structure, who you are responsible for, who your superiors are, how to behave. All of these explicit guidelines make life easier, especially for young men. In the outside world there are all of these questions like ‘Who am I? What am I doing?’ All of these anxieties around identity. But in the military your identity is very clear. Success is clearly defined. You get regular feedback, performance reports. For a lot of guys it’s like a video game – success and failure are very clearly defined.

JB: Could it work as therapy? Could you take Christopher Moltisanti (The Sopranos) into the military and help him?

RH: He has a severe temper problem. I just don’t know if he could handle subjugating himself to the military. I had a cousin who tried to join the marines. At basic training he punched one of the recruits and then he tried to fight a drill instructor. They kicked him out. I think that might happen to Chris too. But maybe AJ (the son of Tony Soprano) could have been ok? Or maybe the young Tony Soprano. He was a high school athlete, with a high IQ, it could have worked for him, before he got too caught up in a life of crime.

JB: You joined the Air Force at age 17. What motivated you to join, and did it prepare you for the life you have led since?

RH: I joined because I grew up in foster homes and I wanted to flee as soon as I could to escape the complete chaos and disorder around me. My friends had similar upbringings. I barely passed high school, just getting into a lot of trouble, and I knew that I wasn’t on a good track, and I wasn’t really ready for college. I wouldn’t have been a good student anyway at that age, I was just so undisciplined and unfocused. So the military was a very appealing option because I knew that it would immediately get me out of the environment I was in, at that time in Red Bluff, California. I knew it would immediately get me out of there, put me on a completely different track, put me around new people, give me a different kind of structure. There were also older adults too. So one of my teachers was in the Air Force – he suggested it. My best friend’s dad also recommended I join. So these two older men that I respected, both of them could see there was some latent potential, and once I got there, all of the things I mentioned before – the discipline, respect, comradery, setting goals, building good habits – all of those things really helped me.

The other thing that I think people focus less on with the benefits of the military is… well you are well aware of the ‘young male syndrome’? 18, 19, 20 are the most volatile years of a young man’s life, most likely to commit crimes, acts of aggression, impulse, drugs, speeding, but because the military has such an overpowering structure where every aspect of your life is controlled, you can’t make mistakes. I mean you can, but they make it very clear that if you fail a drug test for example, you go to military prison. You can’t get away with anything. So it presses fast forward on the most volatile phase of your life, and then by the time you finish your enlistment in your early 20s, you have cooled off, you’ve matured, you are a bit less impulsive and full of anger and hormones. So even if you didn’t learn any lessons at all, it was a period of your life that you couldn’t screw up too badly.

JB: That’s a very good point. You mentioned ‘young male syndrome’, I read recently that young people are less likely to take risks now than youngsters in the past.

RH: They are still likely to be their most volatile years. I recently wrote an essay in The Free Press about why teenagers aren’t driving any more, and there are so many factors. As Jean Twenge says “The party’s on Instagram and Snapchat now”. I think social media is more appealing to girls, but video games are appealing to boys, as outlets for aggression and accomplishment. You can get your 5 buddies from class and go on a raid on World of Warcraft. Well, men used to go on raids, actual physical raids, which aren’t a good thing to do, but boys get excited about it still, online. And that’s how they spend their Friday nights instead of going out and getting drunk and speeding on the highway. Maybe that’s ok, but taking some risks, testing your limits, in some ways is actually a good thing. I’m curious as to where this is going to go, when you have this generation who are afraid or unwilling to take risks.

JB: I wonder how this generation would fare if a war broke out, not on Xbox, but in reality.

RH: The Pentagon said that 78% of adults wouldn’t qualify for enlisting in the military. That’s 8 out of 10 men aged 17 to 24, primarily due to issues of obesity, lack of education, and criminal records, tattoos, mental health issues - if you have repeated episodes of depression and anxiety. Jonathan Haidt has shown how anxiety and depression are increasing in teenagers and young adults in the last 15 years or so, which is alarming. Maybe some of these issues are intertwined: if you are never leaving your house, if you are always living your life online, this is contributing to issues of depression and anxiety to some extent.

JB: If you were to give advice to a guy aged 17 coming from a similar background as yourself who was considering options for their future…?

RH: My advice would be different to someone from a straight-A’s background, but a background similar to me… Look at your friends and say ask yourself if this is the kind of person you want to be like in five years time, or 10 years. Or look at people around you who are a little bit older. I worked at a restaurant when I was a teenager and I saw guys in their early 20s, or mid 20s, still working there, not making very much money. The highlight of their week was getting paid on Friday and drinking away the weekend, smoking, doing drugs, partying, it just didn’t seem like the kind of person I wanted to be when I was 25 years old. So consider getting a different peer group, whether that’s joining the military, getting involved in sports, volunteering… find a different crew to hang out with.

JB: Good advice. I know you have started Substack this year, and are with the University of Austin. Are there any other new projects coming up?

RH: I’m putting the final touches to my book. I recently did a book cover reveal on my newsletter and on Twitter/X and will say more about the publication date soon. The book elaborates on some of the things we have talked about, using my life and the lives of my childhood friends as a framework for understand what is going on with young men today, the ‘lost boys’ phenomenon that’s going on in the US and western countries in general. So most of my time is invested in my book and my Substack.

Final thoughts There is no doubt that academia needs more people like Dr Rob Henderson who can bring a fresh perspective to a culture that in recent years has started going stale. Some people say it’s a shame that he has left academia, but they are missing the point: he is helping rediscover – or reinvent - academia, and all of us left frozen on the deck need to take notice. A bit like the boy in the story of The Emperor’s New Clothes, Rob Henderson has seen right through the facade of highbrow elitism and the ivory-tower illusion of today’s academic world. His story is without doubt an interesting one, and definitely one to follow in the coming years.

#Rob Henderson #luxury beliefs #luxury goods #luxury items #status symbols #status seeking #social status #social standing #human psychology #psychology #male psychology #male vulnerability #domestic violence #domestic abuse #male victims of domestic violence #male victims of domestic abuse #violent women #religion is a mental illness #long post

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gardenofhera · 2 years ago

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The abstraction of privilege

BY ADOLFO ARANJUEZ | RIGHT NOW | 27 June 2017

An academic friend of mine once mentioned in passing that he feared “privilege-checking” had become a “secular religion”. Granted, he’s a white cisgender man – one employed, on salary, as an “intellectual” – so, depending on who you ask, his assertion is perhaps unsurprising. But he’s also queer, so that must count for something when weighing up his credibility in this debate. I proceeded to defend privilege analysis as a critical tool for making sense of society’s matrix of favour and disadvantage – for coming at life with an awareness of your and others’ possible impediments. But, despite the impassioned thrust of my retort, the intellectual damage had been done: was he right?

I had myself grown wary of the direction identity politics (IdPol) had taken of late. I’d first arrived at this position last year, sometime during my tenure as a Right Now columnist; ostensibly covering social-justice issues in the arts and media, what I eventually found myself doing was expounding on issues relating to IdPol – the school of thought that anchors action and analysis on societal labels relating to race, class, gender, sexuality and psychology, among others. I was constantly immersed in the discursive world of such labels, so it was inevitable that I began questioning the bases of my own position. I was even spurred to write a cautionary piece on the destructive tendencies of what’s been called the “Oppression Olympics” among progressives.

Today, my position is more crystallised than ever. IdPol has indeed become less like “a ‘road’ that facilitates the direction of discourse”, as I’d written back then, and “more like a ‘fence’ that cordons off certain people and ideas”. There is, echoing my friend’s foreboding, something incredibly proscriptive about IdPol – not unlike the rigidity of the Ten Commandments – and many of its “devotees” have become evangelical in their approach and dogmatic in their beliefs.

I’m not alone in thinking this, either. New York Magazine’s Andrew Sullivan has written that, in the IdPol schema, privilege is reminiscent of Judeo-Christianity’s “original sin”, positioning minorities – as the chosen ones free of this sin – as unassailable bearers of virtue and moral authority. There’s an unhealthy all-or-nothing bent to IdPol’s modus operandi, too; as Thembani Mdluli writes, there’s a tendency for one “wrong” move to tarnish a person’s entire reputation. This was demonstrated by the recent attacks on Nigerian feminist Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie, who (indeed damagingly) argued that trans women enjoyed some male privilege and are therefore less oppressed than women assigned female at birth.

IdPol is, like religion, a theoretical system that has, at best, iffy implications when put in practice.

In a now-infamous long-read for The Atlantic, Greg Lukianoff and Jonathan Haidt go so far as to allege that IdPol – in this case, as expressed through advocacy for trigger warnings in university course material – is characterised by a “vindictive protectiveness”. While in theory, they argue, IdPol’s staunchest adherents are driven by inclusiveness, in reality they end up spending more effort punishing those who stand in the way of their war against oppression. And, instead of confronting stances and actions they deem destructive, these people opt for demonising opponents wholesale and encouraging avoidance.

Certainly, their essay is not without its detractors. But they do raise a valid point: if problematic views aren’t challenged – if they’re merely silenced or ignored – they find more impetus to, in Mdluli’s words, “fester and spread”.

Admittedly, it’s never prudent to employ broad brushstrokes. IdPol is an effective framework for diagnosing what’s wrong with society. The many ills it brings to light – hate-based language, continued colonial violence, inequity based on sociopolitical marker – require redress. But it’s not a viable methodology; it is, like religion, a theoretical system that has, at best, iffy implications when put in practice.

I’m interested in interrogating IdPol’s pervasive but problematic essentialism. The argument goes that inequality exists as a result of unjust, but not unchangeable, structures built into society: racialisation is relative to a white centre; sexuality and gender are performative. Put another way, as Michel Foucault outlined in “The Subject and Power”, each person is a subject possessing agency – the main “protagonist” in the “stories” of our lives, so to speak – but is also subject to external factors like ideology, culture and other people. If the society is changed, therefore, constructed identities, and any marginalisation that arises from them, are likewise changed.

But by designating a person an irrevocable identity label and making immediate judgments about their political viability, their ethical worth, based on such a taxonomy – as IdPol’s devotees do – IdPol undermines its own core motivation to counteract destructive societal forces.

***

I’ve always been interested in the way the brain works – and in the way the brain works on, with and through ideas. So it’s no wonder that I’ve found myself enamoured of IdPol: it provides a vibrant battleground for pitting ideas against one another, as it’s through terminology that we formulate our identities. The frequent online tussles about the “right” gender and sexuality labels, and whether someone from the “wrong” ethnic group can deploy a piece of slang, are micro-arenas for identity expression, with individuals imbuing words and concepts with political potency.

It’s worth noting that abstractions such as these – concepts, definitions and labels used to “map” the world – are, on a more fundamental level, central to cognition: this is how the brain makes our environment digestible. It’s well established in the psychological institution that, as part of the process of comprehension, the brain inevitably breaks down the world’s complexity into simpler components and “weeds out” less-important information – if at least momentarily. This is also highlighted by what’s known as “Bloom’s Taxonomy” in pedagogical circles, with conventional teaching practice presupposing that “lower-order” learning (such as basic rules and definitions) must precede more complicated cognitive tasks (such as analysis, evaluation and creation).

From a socio-philosophical standpoint, psychoanalyst Jacques Lacan analysed how children’s acquisition of language – their entry into what he calls the Symbolic realm – imposes more and more boundaries on the otherwise-boundless Real (external reality) and gives shape to the amorphous, prelinguistic Imaginary sphere (instinct, fantasy, desire). We see, then, how the world is given “order” through arbitrary parameters grounded in language – toys are just generic “things” until we designate them as being “for children’s play”, and all toys are for all children unless we impose a distinction between “boys’ toys” and “girls’ toys”.

But this cognitive process is a mere step towards the ultimate goal of understanding; after we have grasped seemingly disparate concepts, we must link them back together into a larger epistemic system. Yet staunch identity-politicians fall prey to what philosopher William James has termed “vicious abstractionism”: the problematic tendency to treat abstractions of something as the thing-in-itself. We forget that we ourselves came up with the notions of “boys’ toys” and “girls’ toys”. Worse, we begin to think that this distinction is inexorable – the way it’s always been.

IdPol appears to have taken the second-wave feminist mantra “the personal is political” to a perilous extreme: whereas once it was a slogan for solidarity, foregrounding the shared struggle of marginalised individuals, it now seems to presuppose that a single person’s lived experience of disadvantage can conceptually represent those of an entire minority group. As I’d argued in “Oppression Olympics”, the logical extension of this contentious idea is that a lack of firsthand experience of the struggle-in-question means an outsider is unable to contribute to discourse or action, or to ever authentically depict that point-of-view.

Another outcome of this idea are appeals to “diversity”, channelled into conflicts over representation in art and media. Representation matters – it is a powerful way to normalise and validate lived realities. We learn about the world from cultural products; they prompt us on what and how to think. And under- or non-representation in art and media, known as “symbolic annihilation”, has a demonstrable correlation with low self-esteem among minorities.

But these works of art and media are also vehicles for ideology. They can be insidiously fashioned to depict certain forms of life as more legitimate or valuable than others – and, more significantly, can be geared towards capitalist consumption, with advertising becoming ever more influential in exploiting desire. The mere fact of being represented is not inherently good; being reduced to stereotypes or clichés can be even more damaging than absence.

And, as we of the left especially fall prey to vicious abstractionism, we find ourselves focusing more of our energies on “little wins” within this ideational battleground. We associate individual empowerment, as in “choice feminism”, with liberation on a broad scale. We celebrate breadcrumbs of diverse representation, as when characters are identified as queer. We assume that clicktivism – via Change.org boycotts against blackface and comment-thread debates where a person is “publicly shamed” for a single terminology misstep – is an effective substitute for real-world action. We advocate for quotas and parity in workplaces and witness the rise of diversity officers and pluralist “streams” in organisations and events that remain largely homogenous.

Professor Dafina-Lazarus Stewart, who identifies as nonbinary, describes such motions for diversity as embodying the politics of appeasement. Here, inclusion is targeted via superficially progressive measures while also ensuring that the broader institution remains unchanged. Researcher Tania Canas puts forward a similar perspective, arguing that the notion of “authenticity” in diversity discourse – whereby an individual from a marginalised group is framed as representative of that entire group – is, in fact, hindering, as it fallaciously presumes a unified experience among the marginalised.

Moreover, such “authentic” perspectives tend to be understood as existing counter to those of the dominant group; notions such as “person of colour” (which implies “white” as neutral) and “culturally and linguistically diverse” (as code for “non-Anglo” and “non-English-speaking”) immediately come to mind. In this way, IdPol’s fight for diversity inadvertently allies itself with subjugation, forever defining minority experiences and values in opposition to those in power; as negation, they affirm the existence of that which they negate.

***

As part of my recently published interview for Liminal magazine, I spoke about my practice as an emerging dancer and my love for hip-hop/urban dance. The interviewer asked me what my thoughts were on cultural appreciation versus appropriation, particularly in light of the genre’s origins in the African-American community. I sidestepped the question because I worried I couldn’t do it justice; moreover, I didn’t feel I had skin in the game to make a judgment call, given I wasn’t from the “right” cultural group, nor was I responsible for initiating the artistic exchange. I was merely a participant.

Maybe I’m part of the problem. The debate surrounding cultural appropriation is founded on tricky notions of cultural ownership, which is understandable considering the history of theft and exploitation suffered by minorities as a result of colonialism.

youtube

In a YouTube video about black hair and culture, African-American actor Amandla Stenberg addresses cultural appropriation, explaining that it’s harmful to pillage artefacts from a marginalised group, without giving due respect to the people of that group, because it magnifies disadvantage and exclusion. Beyond the adoption of black hairstyles, another salient example is white musician Macklemore’s winning Best Rap Album at the 2014 Grammys, after which he admitted to feeling as though he’d “robbed” contender Kendrick Lamar of the accolade.

Yet, as Cultural Appropriation and the Arts author James O. Young writes, the issue also hinges on the notion of permissions; if an authoritative member of the group “signs off” on a particular instance of cultural exchange, then all is well. But this hardly broaches the difficulty of establishing who can rightfully occupy such a position of authority. It’s a multifarious debate to wade into, with no definitive answers but lots of diverging opinions. Nevertheless, the idea that cultural appropriation is always immediately contemptible retains currency in IdPol circles.

In a New Yorker article, Elizabeth Kolbert argues that impressions, once formed, are difficult to dislodge, even in the face of counterarguments and even when individuals wish to. She cites cognitive scientists Hugo Mercier and Dan Sperber, whose 2017 book The Enigma of Reason examines how rationality evolved in humans to ensure our species’ survival via enforced diplomacy: there’s safety in numbers, so we all had to get along by whatever means necessary. As a result, humans accept ideas – even when they aren’t the most sound or valid – if they have traction among the collective.

This idea isn’t entirely new. In the mid-twentieth century, George Herbert Mead studied how the cyclical relationship between language and our perceptions of reality are underpinned by the human drive to belong: group identity is pivotal to how we form and employ concepts. Ultimately, he contends, the way we use reason – the way we think, how we express what we think – betrays what group/s we (believe we) belong to. The more ardently we assert and adhere to group beliefs, the more deeply rooted our professed membership becomes.

The flipside of this form of “social rationalising” is the increasing difficulty of entertaining views that deviate from the group’s, for fear of becoming a pariah. Kolbert recounts how it became pragmatic for humans to implement a “division of cognitive labour”. As populations became larger, and societies more complex, it became less and less important to fully understand the mechanics of daily life. But, while this is prudent when it comes to toilets or trains or painkillers (we don’t need to know how these work to be able to properly use them), a lack of understanding is poisonous when it comes to civic participation: evaluating ethical ideas requires a grasp on how these ideas came about, how they impact on others, and how they themselves can be fallible.

When the desire for group belonging combines with the division of cognitive labour in the political arena, then, what we can end up with are group-enforced “truths” of varying cogency – not unlike religious dogma.

I don’t think many would question the orthodoxy that we must protect minorities from any harm or exploitation that cultural appropriation may wreak. In the case of black culture, some permissions have been given: speaking to Bullett, rapper Mykki Blanco responds to the mainstream-isation of hip-hop by celebrating the melding of cultural aesthetics; in the same article, artist/writer Juliana Huxtable expresses weariness regarding “conversations that ricochet between angry accusation and dismissive arrogance”, championing the role of education and earnest cultural appreciation. In IdPol circles, an oft-bandied catchcry is that “intent is less important than impact” – but, considering the complexity of the debate and the voices that have contributed to it, why should intent’s significance be downplayed? And how is impact credibly measured?

And as Conor Friedersdorf challenges, when an outsider engages with the history of an artefact, educates themselves deeply, seeks permissions, and contributes positively to the examination and discussion of that culture, surely they are not deserving of censure.

Without a deeper understanding of the whys and wherewithals of such “rules”, conflicts between opposing factions inevitably become difficult to resolve. Without a handle on the larger whole of which these abstracted ideas are part, group-based thinking can easily devolve into groupthink, fuelled by the very potent fear of being ostracised for failing to display allegiance to our comrades.

The 2017 live-action Hollywood remake of Japanese manga Ghost in Shell bombed at the US box office, following the backlash surrounding its “whitewashed” casting (something Paramount itself has partly owned up to). This has been touted as evidence of IdPol’s viability as a tool for social change. Certainly, the speed and sheer volume of articles calling out the issue, compounded by the voraciousness of social media outrage against the casting of Scarlett Johansson as lead, attest to how extensively digital technologies possess the potential to empower the otherwise-marginalised.

But they also birth insularity. In their provocation for The Channel’s “LGBTQIA+ in Australia” panel earlier this year, which I also spoke at, trans commentator Fury counselled against the ageism and classism of contemporary IdPol, which presupposes that everyone should already know the “right” terms of discourse and is up to speed with the minutiae of every social-justice debate – immediately condemning those who do not. Fury also quoted trans activist Starlady, who is “saddened by the exponential growth of ‘call-out culture’” and warns that “we are using the politics of privilege as a means to engage in lateral violence”. Gay rights advocate Dennis Altman expressed similar sentiments in a 2016 Meanjin essay, writing that, as a member of the older generation, he has felt alienated by the overwhelming pace at which IdPol evolves today.

Certainly, keeping abreast of the changes to IdPol discourse rests on the expectation that we possess not only access to the internet, but also the time, energy and ability to wade through the various Tumblrs and other online sources in which these discussions are playing out. But beyond this, it’s important to recognise how new media themselves have altered the way we engage with and evaluate information in the first place.

The Guardian editor-in-chief Katharine Viner argues that, in the age of online and social media, “truth” has become tied to what each person feels is true. This has arisen largely because new media have made it easier for a multitude of perspectives to disseminate – the contemporary landscape is burdened with anti-intellectualism, tempered by the ability of anyone, expert or otherwise, to publish on a topic online. This gives rise to what she calls an “information cascade”, whereby people share information that they agree with (no matter the veracity) to feel societally involved and in-the-know.

Social media platforms such as Facebook can analyse these patterns of behaviour using algorithms, which keep track of what types of content users do, and don’t, like to engage with. Due to the commercial imperative to retain users on the platform, to maximise advertising revenue, Facebook will feed users content similar to what they’ve already “liked”, inadvertently reinforcing their extant beliefs. As information cascades grow, the drive to share and feel belonging becomes ever more powerful.

And, as communications professor Joshua Meyrowitz has proposed, such online engagement creates “glocalities” that allow us to perceive our immediate, subjective realities as integral parts of a more encompassing world. This, arguably, is “the personal is political” in its most abstracted form: everyone is “entitled to an opinion” – so goes the oft-cited defence of freedom of expression – and now, with new media, they have populist platforms with which to reach others in the global community who share this opinion.

In his 1982 book Orality and Literacy, Walter J. Ong examined how the brain was altered by the transition from oral-based societies to ones predominated by print. He proposed that the “closed-ness” and permanence of written and printed texts distanced “knower” from “known”, endowing human consciousness with the ability to reflect on itself and the world. This externalisation was not present in the age of “orality” – before print allowed the world to be pinned down into hierarchies and definitions, it was impossible to abstract knowledge, transmitted through speech, from its use in the immediate context. Print-based technologies enabled humanity to comprehend how we are always tied to a particular time and place, and thus gave us the ability to momentarily “step outside” that time and place in order to analyse it. Abstraction, therefore, is fundamentally tied to the written word.

If print facilitated our “drawing away” from the world by capturing otherwise-ephemeral, organic phenomena into static, organised prose, what changes to our cognitive processes have digital media – now our prevailing technology for communication – brought? Today we are doubly abstracted: after having lost the primacy of our aural faculties, we’re now growing apart from the tactility of print, too. And we’ve forgone with restrictive textual linearity: hypertext theorists writing in the 1990s, such as George Landow and Jay David Bolter, focused their attention on the networked, interactive and always-editable nature of the web, which ostensibly paves the way for a more democratised media landscape.

Almost three decades on, we can conjecture that this democratisation has (at least partly) been co-opted by a cunning neoliberalism: encouraged by the highly user-centric functionality of new media, we are seemingly less willing to engage with ideas we find unpalatable. Unlike a print text, which we have to slog through from start to finish, digital technologies allow us to click away on whim. We are also faced, more than ever, with manifold options for format, medium, bias and tenor, so much so that we can gravitate towards particular online outlets that tap into our existing values – stimulating our reward centres for confirmation bias – and find sanctuary in non-threatening echo chambers.

Returning to Ghost in the Shell, I do discern a significantly short-sighted aspect of the whitewashing debate, which is symptomatic of IdPol-based call-outs like it. Despite the scale of the uproar against Johansson’s casting and the movie’s depiction of cultural identities more generally, it’s worth noting that a substantial portion of the furore ensued in the West. Yet, as Japanese-American writer Emily Yoshida clarifies, the casting was not as controversial in the manga’s country of origin because race is understood differently and is embedded in completely distinct power dynamics there; the very notion of “whitewashing” was difficult to translate. Mamoru Oshii, who directed the 1995 Ghost in the Shell anime, even defended the decision to hire Johansson, and upon its release the Hollywood movie was generally well received by Japanese audiences.

Here, we see a plurality of viewpoints throwing into question what is a purportedly unified front. And, here, we are reminded of the troubles of speaking for others and assuming that we do, and can, know others’ wishes and motivations. To avoid vicious abstractionism, we must endeavour to see situations holistically, from various perspectives; only in doing so can we engage in transformative discourse. The film’s protagonist, Major Kusanagi, does get a non-human robot body; Kusanagi does have a Japanese name; anime characters are somewhat de-racialised; Johansson is a talented actor; whitewashing is a systemic problem in Hollywood. None of these statements are mutually exclusive. But, depending on which corner of the internet you choose to restrict yourself to, you may be led to believe – often as a result of well-meaning politicking – that they are.

***

Humility is key; we’re all still learning, and no-one is above criticism

Researchers Steven Sloman and Philip Fernbach have found that, while existing beliefs are hard to dislodge, convincing people they lack deep understanding of an issue does work in inspiring them to modify their views. Their suggestion for those of us fighting for change is to focus less on asserting our own beliefs and more on delving into the nuances and implications of those beliefs, and on engaging with those who have divergent opinions. We must be wary of our penchant for directing advocacy towards one another and patting ourselves on the back about “little wins”. Instead of resting on laurels, we need to reach out to those who don’t already agree with us, rather than shaming them and expecting this will catalyse changes in their ethical position.

As new media continue to take ascendancy in our lives and, in turn, modify our cognitive processes, it’s imperative that we fight the urge to disconnect from – to “block”, “unfollow”, “mute” – those whose perspectives we don’t agree with. I recognise that respectability politics – agitating for change in ways that don’t “ruffle too many feathers” – may seem defeatist; I agree that educating others is exhausting, and that self-preservatory safe spaces can be generative. But if we don’t take this task upon ourselves – and if those who don’t already share our views merely hold fast to their existing beliefs, because reason is a stubborn mental beast – then how do we rebuild our societies founded on oppression?

Taking our cues from William James, and accepting that all abstractions must be used in context, acknowledging their history and for a specific purpose, to what end are we truly deploying IdPol? Is it merely for self-congratulatory empowerment, or part of a larger emancipatory struggle?

Dennis Altman says that true liberation lies not in concessionary gestures within the prevailing society (he mentions, by way of example, contemporary pride marches), but rather in an overhaul of the system as a whole. Tania Canas advocates for a similar gambit: dispensing with appeals to diversity, which often just lead to tokenism, and aiming instead for initiatives that target equity from the get-go. But, as I see it, the most strategic way to achieve all of this is through chipping away at the larger system of oppression from within. If not respectability, then we can at least accommodate respect; if not education, then empathy.

Instead of seeking sanctuary from those who challenge us – presuming ill will on their part, casting them away as bearers of privilege-based sin – I entreat us all to seek middle ground and aim for deeper understanding, lest we alienate those who are already our allies and fail to “recruit” those who could be. And lest we ourselves stagnate because we have become ruled by our abstractions and duped into just toeing the party line, forever encased in our ideational bubbles.

Much like cognitive-behavioural therapy on a personal scale, actionable change on a societal level must begin with changes in perception and definition. Despite the separatism based on essentialist notions of identity that IdPol, in its extreme forms, seemingly takes as its starting point, political participation is inherently intersubjective. All knowledge – as feminist scholar Patricia Hill Collins has pointed out – is partial, both biased and incomplete; this means individual understanding is finite and fallible. We must therefore bolster it with others’ input and rely on one another’s cumulative expertise.

The dangers of proscription – of letting destructive ideas “fester and spread” – are more pressing than ever in this age of Trumpism, Hansonism, Islamophobia and the alt-right. Humility is key; we’re all still learning, and no-one is above criticism, no matter how few or many their “disadvantage points” are.

We must remember that privilege, like any other abstraction, is a concept we conceived of – a tool – for discussing a particular phenomenon. If we are going to be truly intersectional in our politics, truly accounting for the various matrices of fortune and disadvantage in our societies, then we need to go beyond resorting to identity labels as shorthand for authority, worth and cogency. Just like our language, our perspectives need to keep evolving to better serve the political ends we hope to achieve. And, if we’re going to worship at the IdPol altar, I’d rather we look our god in the face while we do.

Notes

This essay was assisted by Creative Victoria (Australia)

Artwork by Tia Kass

Edited by Roselina Press

Adolfo Aranjuez is the editor of Metro, Australia’s oldest film and media periodical.

#right now #idpol #lovethoughts #philosophy #adolfo aranjuez #creative victoria #australian literature #Youtube

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adk-almanack-mirror · 2 months ago

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#ADK #Adirondacks #Adirondack Almanack #Adirondack Park

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tallmantall · 3 months ago

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James Donaldson on Mental Health - Is teen social media use a crisis or moral panic?

James Donaldson on Mental Health - Is teen social media use a crisis or moral panic? By Beth Greenfield So are smartphones destroying our kids or not? "The Anxious Generation" researcher responds to critics. Jonathan Haidt’s New York Times bestseller The Anxious Generation: How the Great Rewiring of Childhood is Causing an Epidemic of Mental Illness has resonated with tens of thousands of parents who are concerned about the addict-like behavior of their kids when it comes to their smartphones. And it’s not only people with children who are concerned: The American Psychological Association, Common Sense Media, and U.S. Surgeon General Vivek Murthy, who has called for social media platforms to come with warning labels, are all on high alert regarding the effect of smartphones and social media on adolescents’ mental health. Still, Haidt’s claim—that Gen Z kids are different from their predecessors in terms of mental health because they’ve grown up on smartphones—as well as his suggestions for dialing it back, have prompted much pushback. Frequent Haidt critic Andrew Przybylski, an Oxford professor, told Platformer, “Extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence. Right now, I’d argue he doesn’t have that.” Chris Ferguson, at Stetson University, attempted to take some wind out of Haidt’s sails by pointing out that America’s recent suicide increase is not a phenomenon specific to teens. And Candice Odgers of the University of California Irvine, in her Nature journal critique of his book, said Haidt is adding to a “rising hysteria” around phones and that he is “telling stories that are unsupported by research.” But Haidt and his chief researcher, Zach Rausch, are holding their ground in what Rausch calls “a normal academic debate.” What they are trying to explain, Rausch tells Fortune, is “a very specific change that happened in a very specific time among a specific subset of kids.” Besides, he offers, “I’m totally open to the idea that maybe we’re somewhat wrong about just how much it can explain the change over the last decade. But I certainly think that we are on very strong footing to say that have led to a pretty substantial increase in anxiety and depression and self-harm among young people.” Here, Rausch lays out the theories of The Anxious Generation and responds to criticisms. #James Donaldson notes:Welcome to the “next chapter” of my life… being a voice and an advocate for #mentalhealthawarenessandsuicideprevention, especially pertaining to our younger generation of students and student-athletes.Getting men to speak up and reach out for help and assistance is one of my passions. Us men need to not suffer in silence or drown our sorrows in alcohol, hang out at bars and strip joints, or get involved with drug use.Having gone through a recent bout of #depression and #suicidalthoughts myself, I realize now, that I can make a huge difference in the lives of so many by sharing my story, and by sharing various resources I come across as I work in this space. #http://bit.ly/JamesMentalHealthArticleFind out more about the work I do on my 501c3 non-profit foundationwebsite www.yourgiftoflife.org Order your copy of James Donaldson's latest book,#CelebratingYourGiftofLife: From The Verge of Suicide to a Life of Purpose and Joy www.celebratingyourgiftoflife.com Link for 40 Habits Signupbit.ly/40HabitsofMentalHealth If you'd like to follow and receive my daily blog in to your inbox, just click on it with Follow It. Here's the link https://follow.it/james-donaldson-s-standing-above-the-crowd-s-blog-a-view-from-above-on-things-that-make-the-world-go-round?action=followPub What is the Anxious Generation claiming? The core idea of the book is that something changed in the lives of American young people somewhere around 2010 to 2015. “What we’re trying to explain in the book is what changed during this period to help explain why Gen Z is so different. And the specific things in which they’re different are often related to their mental health, anxiety, rates of anxiety, depression, self harm, even suicide,” says Rausch. He and Haidt point to a slew of findings, including that the percentage of U.S. teens who say they’ve had one “major depressive episode” in the past year has increased by more than 150% since 2010, with most happening pre-pandemic. And that, among American girls between 10 and 14, emergency room visits for self-harm grew by 188% during that period, while deaths by suicide increased by 167%; for boys, ER visits for self-harm increased by 48% and suicide by 91%. “We see this in the United States,” Rausch adds. “We see this across the Anglosphere, the English speaking countries, and well-being and mental health measures in many countries around the world are showing similar declines around the same time. So that’s the big thing that we’re trying to address.” What they theorize is that one of the fundamental things that changed in the period in question—specifically among young people and most especially among adolescent girls—is “the movement of social life onto smartphones and social media, where now they move from spending very little time on platforms like Instagram, which came out in 2010, spending upwards of four, five hours a day on these platforms by 2015.” It’s changed the way kids relate to each other, as well as to family and strangers. “That’s what we mean by the rewiring of childhood,” says Rausch. “It is a rewiring of the way that we interact. It’s our social ecosystem and how that really changed, and that it makes it very different from other technologies. Television didn’t rewire our relationships with everybody.” Debate has swirled around three questions First, Rausch says, skeptics ask: Is there a mental health crisis, and to what extent does it exist? Second: Is it international or is it just happening in the United States? And third: If you agree there is a mental health crisis, what is the role of social media? But even if you disagree that there is such a crisis, Rausch notes, “social media could still not be safe for kids, right? This is something that I feel like gets missed, like with the Surgeon General report, where the focus is all about, ‘Can it explain this huge rise?’ But there are all sorts of consumer products for kids that kill 50 kids a year that we immediately take off the market.” Sticking points: Moral panic, lack of evidence One consistent argument against the book, Rausch says, is that “there are a number of people who have studied media effects for a while and are very attuned to past panics around technologies, whether that be video games or comic books, and there is a justified skepticism and worry that maybe this is happening again.” In response, he stresses, they try to make the case that, simply, “This is this time. It really is different.” The second detail they get called out on involves the evidence that Raush and Haidt point to, by collecting every study they could find, all of which they’ve collected in public Google Documents. That amounts to “hundreds and hundreds … a lot of them low-quality, some better quality,” says Rausch. Some critics point to the studies showing correlation rather than causation between, for example, social media and mental health issues. But doing actual experiments on young people that might show cause is tricky, he explains. “One, social media is relatively new, especially in the kind that we’re talking about, which is constantly evolving every year.” Plus, “You don’t do experiments, generally, on kids. And to do the kind of experiment that maybe you would want to do to really test this out is completely unethical and would never happen—assigning a group of kids to have one kind of childhood and another group to have another.” It’s why arriving at a very precise, conclusive scientific claim is difficult. “And this is kind of the nature of social science,” he says, “and why there is so much debate.” To bolster their arguments, Rausch and Haidt try to draw on various lines of evidence, including firsthand accounts from Gen Z, parents, and teachers—as well as internal documents from social media companies themselves, such as Instagram’s documentation of teen girls reporting that using the platform makes their body image and mental health worse. The researchers have also zeroed in on their belief that social media, especially with heavy use, has “addictive-like qualities,” and will, in turn, cause withdrawal when stopped. “A large part of the story is that we’re trying to tell about what happens when an entire group of people move their lives onto addictive-like platforms,” he says. Other reasons for pushback “There are camps of people that are very techno-optimist—you have a lot of faith that technology, and believe that more technology will solve the world’s problems,” Rausch says. And for those who strongly feel that way, Anxious Generation’s findings might prompt a feeling that “it’s just a little bump in the road. Things are going to get better as we make more technology to solve problems that technology creates, and we’ll kind of keep going in that direction.” There’s also the “very real concern” of government control of social media, which Rausch calls “more of a libertarian critique.” Finally, he says, there’s the worry that these issues are getting too much attention as compared with just-as-important subjects of other researchers—from poverty to the opioid epidemic. But all arguments aside, he says, much of what Anxious Generation has focused on is “irrefutable.” That includes not only the correlation between heavier social media use and anxiety or depression, but the “large portion of harm that happens on these platforms,” including the rise in sextortion cases, or teens being coerced into sending explicit photos online. And what always reassures Rausch that they’re on the right track is talking to a teen, parent, or teacher. “Whenever I have doubt,” he says, “I go to the source.” Read the full article

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tieflingkisser · 7 months ago

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The great rewiring: is social media really behind an epidemic of teenage mental illness?

The evidence is equivocal on whether screen time is to blame for rising levels of teen depression and anxiety — and rising hysteria could distract us from tackling the real causes.

Two things need to be said after reading The Anxious Generation. First, this book is going to sell a lot of copies, because Jonathan Haidt is telling a scary story about children’s development that many parents are primed to believe. Second, the book’s repeated suggestion that digital technologies are rewiring our children’s brains and causing an epidemic of mental illness is not supported by science. Worse, the bold proposal that social media is to blame might distract us from effectively responding to the real causes of the current mental-health crisis in young people. Haidt asserts that the great rewiring of children’s brains has taken place by “designing a firehose of addictive content that entered through kids’ eyes and ears”. And that “by displacing physical play and in-person socializing, these companies have rewired childhood and changed human development on an almost unimaginable scale”. Such serious claims require serious evidence. Haidt supplies graphs throughout the book showing that digital-technology use and adolescent mental-health problems are rising together. On the first day of the graduate statistics class I teach, I draw similar lines on a board that seem to connect two disparate phenomena, and ask the students what they think is happening. Within minutes, the students usually begin telling elaborate stories about how the two phenomena are related, even describing how one could cause the other. The plots presented throughout this book will be useful in teaching my students the fundamentals of causal inference, and how to avoid making up stories by simply looking at trend lines. Hundreds of researchers, myself included, have searched for the kind of large effects suggested by Haidt. Our efforts have produced a mix of no, small and mixed associations. Most data are correlative. When associations over time are found, they suggest not that social-media use predicts or causes depression, but that young people who already have mental-health problems use such platforms more often or in different ways from their healthy peers1. These are not just our data or my opinion. Several meta-analyses and systematic reviews converge on the same message2–5. An analysis done in 72 countries shows no consistent or measurable associations between well-being and the roll-out of social media globally6. Moreover, findings from the Adolescent Brain Cognitive Development study, the largest long-term study of adolescent brain development in the United States, has found no evidence of drastic changes associated with digital-technology use7. Haidt, a social psychologist at New York University, is a gifted storyteller, but his tale is currently one searching for evidence. Of course, our current understanding is incomplete, and more research is always needed. As a psychologist who has studied children’s and adolescents’ mental health for the past 20 years and tracked their well-being and digital-technology use, I appreciate the frustration and desire for simple answers. As a parent of adolescents, I would also like to identify a simple source for the sadness and pain that this generation is reporting. There are, unfortunately, no simple answers. The onset and development of mental disorders, such as anxiety and depression, are driven by a complex set of genetic and environmental factors. Suicide rates among people in most age groups have been increasing steadily for the past 20 years in the United States. Researchers cite access to guns, exposure to violence, structural discrimination and racism, sexism and sexual abuse, the opioid epidemic, economic hardship and social isolation as leading contributors8.

[keep reading]

#child welfare #child psychology

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raffaellopalandri · 10 months ago

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Book of the Day - The Happiness Hypothesis

Today’s Book of the Day is The Happiness Hypothesis, written by Jonathan Haidt in 2006 and published by Basic Books. Jonathan Haidt is a renowned social psychologist and author who mainly works in the psychology of morality and moral emotions fields of study. He is the Thomas Cooley Professor of Ethical Leadership at New York University’s Stern School of Business. The Happiness Hypothesis, by…

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jyt-120 · 1 year ago

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Title: "Social Media's Impact on American Democracy: Polarization, Politician Behavior, and Election Dynamics"

Introduction:

The influence of social media on American democracy has reached a critical juncture, extending beyond the political realm. The pervasiveness of platforms like Facebook and Twitter is reshaping the democratic landscape, from political campaigns to the behavior of elected officials. This article examines the multifaceted impact of social media on politics in the USA.

Social Media: An Existential Threat to American Democracy:

Social psychologist Jonathan Haidt from New York University's Stern School of Business asserts that social media platforms represent an existential threat to American democracy. Haidt's research indicates a direct correlation between the rise of social media and a decline in the functionality of democracy. This relationship is primarily fueled by the platforms' success metrics, which prioritize user engagement, often at the expense of political polarization. The more divisive the content, the more successful it becomes on social media.

Partisanship Amplified:

Social media platforms thrive on the promotion of divisive content. Studies show that content attacking political opponents is 67% more likely to be shared, and anger is a catalyst for engagement. Social media platforms' algorithms favor content that incites anger and indignation, reinforcing the polarization of political discourse.

Impact on Elected Officials:

Elected officials, including members of Congress, have become increasingly responsive to social media, significantly altering their behavior. The desire for engagement on these platforms has led some politicians to prioritize performing for their Twitter audience over productive political discourse. This shift has implications for the constitutional design of American politics, which relies on discourse, compromise, and the pursuit of common ground.

Role in Elections:

Social media platforms have played an integral role in elections. Candidates utilize these platforms to engage with voters and mobilize support. Social media campaigns have become essential in the political landscape, reaching millions of voters and significantly influencing election outcomes.

Algorithms, Big Data, and Microtargeting:

Social media companies use algorithms to curate content based on demographic data, interests, and engagement. This curation enables advertisers, including political campaigns, to microtarget ads to specific demographic groups. However, the misuse of user data has raised ethical concerns and led to calls for greater transparency.

Misinformation and Echo Chambers:

Social media's content curation inadvertently creates echo chambers where users are exposed to content that aligns with their existing beliefs. This insularity contributes to the spread of misinformation, as unchecked and unchallenged content circulates within these bubbles.

Election Interference:

Social media platforms have been susceptible to election interference by antagonistic state actors. Instances like Russia's involvement in the 2016 presidential election highlight the global consequences of the platforms' engagement-focused algorithms.

Navigating Social Media Wisely:

Individual users are encouraged to be discerning in their social media behavior. This involves questioning and verifying information before sharing it, as well as considering the impact of their online presence on others in their network.

Conclusion:

The influence of social media on American democracy is profound, with both positive and negative consequences. While social media offers an unprecedented platform for political engagement and campaigns, it also presents challenges related to political polarization, misinformation, and interference. Addressing these challenges and finding ways to navigate the digital landscape wisely are crucial for maintaining a robust and functional democracy in the digital age.

References:

"How social media has changed the U.S. Congress",(Elizabeth Germino, 6 Nov 2022),viewed on 13 Oct 2023.

https://www.cbsnews.com/news/social-media-u-s-congress-60-minutes-2022-11-06/

"Majority of American voters say politics do not belong on social media",(Amy Ellis, 22 Feb 2022), viewed on 13 Oct 2023.

https://news.fiu.edu/2022/majority-of-american-voters-say-politics-do-not-belong-on-social-media

"How tech platforms fuel U.S. political polarization and what government can do about it",(Paul Barett ,Justin Hendrix ,and Grant Sims,27 Sep 2021),viewed on 13 Oct 2023.

https://www.brookings.edu/articles/how-tech-platforms-fuel-u-s-political-polarization-and-what-government-can-do-about-it/

"Social Media’s Influence on Elections",(Maryville University, n.d.),viewed on 13 Oct 2023.

https://online.maryville.edu/blog/social-media-influence-on-elections/

#mda20009 #week5 #social media #politics #election #president #democracy

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probaway · 1 year ago

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AI approaches the wisdom of Jonathan Haidt

Jonathan Haidt (1963 – >) is an American philosopher of morality at New York University’s Stern School of Business. The very ritual practices that the New Atheists dismiss as costly, inefficient, and irrational solve one of the humanities hardest problems: cooperation without kinship. Jonathan Haidt (1963 – >) is an American philosopher of morality, at a TED talk. Probaway maximizing…

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dreaminginthedeepsouth · 2 years ago

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(Photo courtesy of ashokboghani via Flickr/Creative Commons)

* * * *

"Just look at your stream of consciousness when you are thinking about a politician you dislike, or when you have just had a minor disagreement with your spouse. It's like you're preparing for a court appearance. Your reasoning abilities are pressed into service generating arguments to defend your side and attack the other. We are certainly able to reason dispassionately when we have no gut feeling about a case, and no stake in its outcome, but with moral disagreements that's rarely the case. As David Hume said long ago, reason is the servant of the passions.”

—From Jonathan Haidt’s "Moral Psychology and the Misunderstanding of Religion” in the online magazine “The Edge” (2007). Haidt is a social psychologist studying the psychology of morality and the moral emotions at New York University.

(Traversing)

#quotes #Jonathan Haidt #Moral Psychology and the Misunderstanding of Religion #The Edge #ashokboghani #Traversing #stream of consciousness #the passions #feeling

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argumate · 4 years ago

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Social psychologist and New York University professor Jonathan Haidt notes a “gigantic increase” in depression, anxiety, self-harm and suicide among pre-teen and teenage children, Gen Z, who have been on social media since mid-primary school.

He says numbers of teenage girls admitted to hospital for self-harm including cutting were stable until around 2011-13, but in the US these have risen 62 per cent for 15-19-year-olds and 189 per cent for pre-teen girls; "that is horrifying".

"We've seen the same pattern with suicide," he said. In older teen girls it's up 70 per cent compared with the first decade of this century and "in pre-teen girls, who had very low rates [previously] it's up 151 per cent and that pattern points to social media."

guess that’s a story we haven’t heard the end of yet.

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prideguy · 6 years ago

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Meet your new woke inquisitors, same as the old ones

[ad_1]

Officials at Middlebury College canceled a speech by an anti-liberal European Parliament member last week, citing safety concerns. (Wilson Ring, File)

Middlebury College in Vermont kicked off this year’s college disinvitation season on April 17, canceling a speech by anti-liberal Polish philosopher Ryszard Legutko hours before his scheduled talk. The success of…

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#inquisitors #Jonathan Haidt #meet #Middlebury College #New York University #Ryszard Legutko #Twitter #woke

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settledthingsstrange · 4 years ago

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Brooks notes, “America is addicted to political contempt. While most of us hate what it is doing to our country and worry about how contempt coarsens our culture over the long term, many of us still compulsively consume the ideological equivalent of meth from elected officials, academics, entertainers, and some of the news media. Millions actively indulge their habit by participating in the cycle of contempt in the way they treat others, especially on social media. We wish our national debates were nutritious and substantive, but we have an insatiable craving for insults to the other side. As much as we know we should ignore the nasty columnist, turn off the TV loudmouth, and stop checking our Twitter feeds, we indulge our guilty urge to listen as our biases are confirmed that the other guys are not just wrong, but stupid and evil.” Jonathan Haidt, Thomas Cooley Professor of Ethics at New York University, and noted social psychologist, in his recent interview with The Atlantic, adds to this point; “I’ve gotten more and more alarmed every year at our political polarization…and there are several trends that are very disturbing, including the rise of ‘affective polarization,’ or the mutual dislike and hate each political side feels for the other. When there’s so much hatred, a democracy can’t work right…You can’t get compromise. You get exactly the situation that the Founders feared, that [James] Madison wrote about in ‘Federalist 10,’ which is faction, which is people care more about defeating the other side than they do about the common good.”

Ron Carucci, “Love Your Enemies; How To Get Past America’s Divided Culture Of Contempt: My Interview With Arthur Brooks”

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isslibrary · 4 years ago

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NEW LIBRARY MATERIAL September 2020 - February 2021

Bibliography

Sorted by Call Number / Author.

011.7 F

Fadiman, Clifton, 1904-1999. The new lifetime reading plan / : the classical guide to world literature, Revised and expanded. 4th ed. New York : HarperCollins Publishers, 1999, c1997.

155.2 G

Gladwell, Malcolm, 1963-. David and Goliath : underdogs, misfits, and the art of battling giants. First edition. Goliath : "Am I a dog that you should come to me with sticks?" -- The Advantages of Disadvantages (and the Disadvantages of Advantages). Vivek Ranadiv©♭: "It was really random. I mean, my father had never played basketball before." ; Teresa DeBrito: "My largest class was twenty-nine kids. Oh, it was fun." ; Caroline Sacks: "If I'd gone to the University of Maryland, I'd still be in science. -- The Theory of Desirable Difficulty. David Boies: You wouldn't wish dyslexia on your child. Or would you? ; Emil "Jay" Freireich: "How Jay did it, I don't know." ; Wyatt Walker: "De rabbit is de slickest o' all de animals de Lawd ever made." -- The Limits of Power. Rosemary Lawlor: "I wasn't born that way. This was forced upon me." ; Wilma Derksen: "We have all done something dreadful in our lives, or have felt the urge to." ; Andr©♭ Trocm©♭: "We feel obliged to tell you that there are among us a certain number of Jews.". This book uncovers the hidden rules that shape the balance between the weak and the mighty and the powerful and the dispossessed. In it the author challenges how we think about obstacles and disadvantages, offering a new interpretation of what it means to be discriminated against, or cope with a disability, or lose a parent, or attend a mediocre school, or suffer from any number of other apparent setbacks. He begins with the real story of what happened between the giant and the shepherd boy (David and Goliath) those many years ago. From there, the book examines Northern Ireland's Troubles, the minds of cancer researchers and civil rights leaders, murder and the high costs of revenge, and the dynamics of successful and unsuccessful classrooms, all to demonstrate how much of what is beautiful and important in the world arises from what looks like suffering and adversity. -- From book jacket.

170 H

Haidt, Jonathan, author. The happiness hypothesis : finding modern truth in ancient wisdom. Paperback edition. "The Happiness Hypothesis is a book about ten Great Ideas. Each chapter is an attempt to savor one idea that has been discovered by several of the world's civilizations--to question it in light of what we now know from scientific research, and to extract from it the lessons that still apply to our modern lives and illuminate the causes of human flourishing. Award-winning psychologist Jonathan Haidt shows how a deeper understanding of the world's philosophical wisdom and its enduring maxims--like "do unto others as you would have others do unto you," or "what doesn't kill you makes you stronger"--can enrich and even transform our lives."--Back cover.

171 K

Kohn, Alfie. The brighter side of human nature : altruism and empathy in everyday life. New York : Basic Books, c1990.

305.5 W

Wilkerson, Isabel, author. Caste : the origins of our discontents. First edition. The man in the crowd -- Toxins in the permafrost and heat rising all around -- The arbitrary construction of human divisions -- The eight pillars of caste -- The tentacles of caste -- The consequences of caste -- Backlash -- Awakening -- Epilogue: A world without caste. "In this brilliant book, Isabel Wilkerson gives us a masterful portrait of an unseen phenomenon in America as she explores, through an immersive, deeply researched narrative and stories about real people, how America today and throughout its history has been shaped by a hidden caste system, a rigid hierarchy of human rankings. Beyond race, class, or other factors, there is a powerful caste system that influences people's lives and behavior and the nation's fate. Linking the caste systems of America, India, and Nazi Germany, Wilkerson explores eight pillars that underlie caste systems across civilizations, including divine will, bloodlines, stigma, and more. Using riveting stories about people--including Martin Luther King, Jr., baseball's Satchel Paige, a single father and his toddler son, Wilkerson herself, and many others--she shows the ways that the insidious undertow of caste is experienced every day. She documents how the Nazis studied the racial systems in America to plan their out-cast of the Jews; she discusses why the cruel logic of caste requires that there be a bottom rung for those in the middle to measure themselves against; she writes about the surprising health costs of caste, in depression and life expectancy, and the effects of this hierarchy on our culture and politics. Finally, she points forward to ways America can move beyond the artificial and destructive separations of human divisions, toward hope in our common humanity. Beautifully written, original, and revealing, Caste: The Origins of Our Discontents is an eye-opening story of people and history, and a reexamination of what lies under the surface of ordinary lives and of America life today."--.

305.8 W

Williamson, Joel. A rage for order : Black/White relations in the American South since emancipation. New York, NY : Oxford University Press, 1968. Full ed.: published as The crucible of race. 1984. Traces the history of race relations, examines changing public attitudes, and tells the stories of those involved in Civil Rights movement.

305.9 P

Pipher, Mary Bray. The middle of everywhere : the world's refugees come to our town. First edition. Cultural collisions on the Great Plains -- The beautiful laughing sisters-an arrival story -- Into the heart of the heartland -- All that glitters ... -- Children of hope, children of tears -- Teenagers--Mohammed meets Madonna -- Young adults--"Is there a marriage broker in Lincoln?"-- Family--"A bundle of sticks cannot be broken" -- African stories -- Healing in all times and places -- Home-a global positioning system for identity -- Building a village of kindness. Offers the tales of refugees who have escaped countries riddled by conflict and ripped apart by war to realize their dream of starting a new life in America, detailing their triumph over adversity.

306.4 P

Pollan, Michael. The botany of desire : a plant's-eye view of the world. Random House trade pbk. ed. New York : Random House, 2002. Desire : sweetness, plant : the apple (Malus domestica) -- Desire : beauty, plant : the tulip (Tulipa) -- Desire : intoxication, plant : marijuana (Cannabis sativa x indica) -- Desire : control, plant : the potato (Solanum tuberosum). Focusing on the human relationship with plants, the author of Second nature uses botany to explore four basic human desires, sweetness, beauty, intoxication, and control, through portraits of four plants that embody them, the apple, tulip, marijuana, and potato. Every school child learns about the mutually beneficial dance of honeybees and flowers; the bee collects nectar and pollen to make honey and, in the process, spreads the flowers' genes far and wide. In The botany of desire, Michael Pollan ingeniously demonstrates how people and domesticated plants have formed a similarly reciprocal relationship. In telling the stories of four familiar species that are deeply woven into the fabric of our lives, Pollan illustrates how the plants have evolved to satisfy humankind's most basic yearnings. And just as we've benefited from these plants, the plants have done well by us. So who is really domesticating whom?.

307.1 I

Immerwahr, Daniel, 1980-. Thinking small : the United States and the lure of community development. First Harvard University Press paperback edition 2018. Cambridge, MA : Harvard University Press, 2015. Preface: Modernization, development, and community -- Introduction: Actually existing localism -- When small was big -- Development without modernization -- Peasantville -- Grassroots empire -- Urban villages -- Epilogue: What is dead and what is undead in community development?.

323.60973 I

In the hands of the people : Thomas Jefferson on equality, faith, freedom, compromise, and the art of citizenship. First edition. New York, NY : Random House, 2020. "Thomas Jefferson believed in the covenant between a government and its citizens, in both the government's responsibilities to its people and also the people's responsibility to the republic. In this illuminating collection, a project of the Thomas Jefferson Foundation, #1 New York Times bestselling author Jon Meacham has gathered Jefferson's most powerful and provocative reflections on the subject, drawn from public speeches and documents as well as his private correspondence. Still relevant centuries later, Jefferson's words provide a manual for U.S. citizenship in the twenty-first century. His thoughts will re-shape and revitalize the way readers relate to concepts including Freedom: "Divided we stand, united we fall." The importance of a free press:"Were it left to me to decide whether we should have a government without newspapers, or newspapers without a government, I should not hesitate a moment to prefer the latter." Public education: "Enlighten the public generally, and tyranny and oppressions of body & mind will vanish like evil spirits at the dawn of day." Participation in government: A citizen should be "a participator in the government of affairs not merely at an election, one day in the year, but every day.""-- Provided by publisher.

324.6 P

Terborg-Penn, Rosalyn. African American women in the struggle for the vote, 1850-1920. Bloomington : Indiana University Press, c1998. Revisiting the question of race in the woman suffrage movement -- African American women in the first generation of woman suffragists : 1850-1869 -- African American woman suffragists finding their own voices : 1870s and 1880s -- Suffrage strategies and ideas : African American women leaders respond during "the nadir" -- Mobilizing to win the vote : African American women's organizations -- Anti-black woman suffrage tactics and African American women's responses -- African American women as voters and candidates -- The nineteenth amendment and its meaning for African American women. This study of African American women's roles in the suffrage movement breaks new ground. Rosalyn Terborg-Penn draws from many original documents to take a comprehensive look at the African American women who sought the right to vote. She discovers numerous Black suffragists previously unknown. Analyzing the women's own stories, she examines why they joined the woman suffrage movement in the United States and how they participated in it - with white women, Black men, as members of African American women's organizations, or simultaneously in all three. Terborg-Penn further discusses their various levels of interaction and types of feminist philosophy. Noting that not all African American woman suffragists were from elite circles, Terborg-Penn finds representation from working-class and professional women as well.They came from all parts of the nation. Some employed radical, others conservative means to gain the right to vote. Black women, however, were unified in working to use the ballot to improve not only their own status, but the lives of Black people in their communities. Drawing from innumerable sources, Terborg-Penn argues that sexism and racism prevented African American women from voting and from full participation in the national suffrage movement. Following the ratification of the Nineteenth Amendment, state governments in the South, enacted policies which disfranchised African American women, with many white suffragists closing their eyes to the discriminatory acts. Despite efforts to keep Black women politically powerless, Terborg-Penn contends that the Black suffrage was a source of empowerment. Every political and racial effort to keep African American women disfranchised met with their active resistance until Black women achieved full citizenship.

326.80922 B

Brands, H. W., author. The zealot and the emancipator : John Brown, Abraham Lincoln and the struggle for American freedom. First Edition. Pottawatomie -- Springfield -- Harpers Ferry -- The telegraph office. "What do moral people do when democracy countenances evil? The question, implicit in the idea that people can govern themselves, came to a head in America at the middle of the nineteenth century, in the struggle over slavery. John Brown's answer was violence--violence of a sort some in later generations would call terrorism. Brown was a deeply religious man who heard the God of the Old Testament speaking to him, telling him to do whatever was necessary to destroy slavery. When Congress opened Kansas territory to slavery, the eerily charismatic Brown raised a band of followers to wage war against the evil institution. One dark night his men tore several proslavery settlers from their homes and hacked them to death with broadswords, as a bloody warning to others. Three years later Brown and his men assaulted the federal arsenal at Harpers Ferry, Virginia, with the goal of furnishing slaves with weapons to murder their masters in a race war that would cleanse the nation of slavery once and for all. Abraham Lincoln's answer was politics. Lincoln was an ambitious lawyer and former office-holder who read the Bible not for moral guidance but as a writer's primer. He disliked slavery yet didn't consider it worth shedding blood over. He distanced himself from John Brown and joined the moderate wing of the new, antislavery Republican party. He spoke cautiously and dreamed big, plotting his path to Washington and perhaps the White House. Yet Lincoln's caution couldn't preserve him from the vortex of violence Brown set in motion. Arrested and sentenced to death, Brown comported himself with such conviction and dignity on the way to the gallows that he was canonized in the North as a martyr to liberty. Southerners responded in anger and horror that a terrorist was made into a saint. Lincoln shrewdly threaded the needle of the fracturing country and won election as president, still preaching moderation. But the time for moderation had passed. Slaveholders lumped Lincoln with Brown as an enemy of the Southern way of life; seven Southern states left the Union. Lincoln resisted secession, and the Civil War followed. At first a war for the Union, it became the war against slavery Brown had attempted to start. Before it was over, slavery had been destroyed, but so had Lincoln's faith that democracy can resolve its moral crises peacefully"--.

328.73 M

Meacham, Jon, author. His truth is marching on : John Lewis and the power of hope. First edition. Overture: the last march -- A hard life, a serious life -- The spirit of history -- Soul force -- In the image of God and democracy -- We are going to make you wish you was dead -- I'm going to die here -- This country don't run on love -- Epilogue: against the rulers of the darkness. "John Lewis, who at age twenty-five marched in Selma and was beaten on the Edmund Pettus Bridge, is a visionary and a man of faith. Using intimate interviews with Lewis and his family and deep research into the history of the civil rights movement, Meacham writes of how the activist and leader was inspired by the Bible, his mother's unbreakable spirit, his sharecropper father's tireless ambition, and his teachers in nonviolence, Reverend James Lawson and Martin Luther King, Jr. A believer in hope above all else, Lewis learned from a young age that nonviolence was not only a tactic but a philosophy, a biblical imperative, and a transforming reality. At the age of four, Lewis, ambitious to become a preacher, practiced by preaching to the chickens he took care of. When his mother cooked one of the chickens, the boy refused to eat it--his first act of non-violent protest. Integral to Lewis's commitment to bettering the nation was his faith in humanity and in God, and an unshakable belief in the power of hope. Meacham calls Lewis "as important to the founding of a modern and multiethnic twentieth- and twenty-first century America as Thomas Jefferson and James Madison and Samuel Adams were to the initial creation of the nation-state in the eighteenth century. He did what he did--risking limb and life to bear witness for the powerless in the face of the powerful--not in spite of America, but because of America, and not in spite of religion, but because of religion"--.

333.95 W

Wilson, Edward O. A window on eternity : a biologist's walk through Gorongosa National Park. First Simon & Schuster hardcover edition. Prologue: The Search for Eternity -- The Sacred Mountain of Mozambique -- Once There Were Giants -- War and Redemption -- Dung and Blood -- The Twenty-Foot Crocodile -- The Elephant Whisperer -- The House of Spiders -- The Clash of Insect Civilizations -- The Log of an Entomological Expedition -- The Struggle for Existence -- The Conservation of Eternity. "E.O. Wilson, one of the most celebrated scientists in the United States, shows why biodiversity is vital to the future of Earth and to our own species through the story of an African national park that may be the most diverse place on earth, in a gorgeously illustrated book"--. "The remarkable story of how one of the most biologically diverse habitats in the world was destroyed, restored, and continues to evolve--with stunning, full-color photographs by two of the world's best wildlife photographers. In 1976, Gorongosa National Park was the premier park in Mozambique, boasting one of the densest wildlife populations in all of Africa. Across 1,500 square miles of lush green floodplains, thick palm forests, swampy lakes, and vast plains roamed creatures great and small, from herds of wildebeest and elephant to countless bird species and insects yet to be classified. Then came the civil war of 1978-1992, when much of the ecosystem was destroyed, reducing some large animal populations by 90 percent or more. Due to a remarkable conservation effort sponsored by an American entrepreneur, the park was restored in the 1990s and is now evolving back to its former state. This is the story of that incredible transformation and why such biological diversity is so important. In A Window on Eternity, world-renowned biologist and two-time Pulitzer Prize-winner Edward O. Wilson shows why biodiversity is vital to the future of the Earth, including our human population. It is in places like Gorongosa in Africa, explains Wilson, that our own species evolved. Wilson takes readers to the forested groves of the park's watershed on sacred Mount Gorongosa, then far away to deep gorges along the edge of the Rift Valley, places previously unexplored by biologists, with the aim of discovering new species and assessing their ancient origins. He treats readers to a war between termites and raider ants, describes 'conversations' with elephant herds, and explains the importance of a one-day 'bioblitz.' Praised as 'one of the finest scientists writing today' (Los Angeles Times), Wilson uses the story of Gorongosa to show the significance of biodiversity to humankind"--.

340.092 S

Sligh, Clarissa T., artist. Transforming hate : an artist's book. First edition. "This book evolved from a project for which I folded origami cranes from pages of white supremacist books for the exhibition, Speaking Volumes: Transforming Hate ... I was trying to look at what it was like for me to turn hateful words into a beautiful art object. What actually evolved from that exploration helped me understand more fully the many levels of oppression and violence at the intersections of race, gender, class and sexual orientation." --inside front cover.

343.730 I

Internet law. Amenia, New York : Grey House Publishing, 2020.

345.73 C

Carter, Dan T. Scottsboro : a tragedy of the American South. Rev. ed. Fourth printing. Baton Rouge : Louisiana State University Press, 2007.

349.41 H

Honor©♭, Tony, 1921-2019. About law : an introduction. Reprint: 2013. Law -- History -- Government -- Property -- Contracts and treaties -- Crimes -- Torts -- Forms and procedures -- Interpretation -- Justice -- Does law matter? -- Glossary.

363.73 P

Pollution. New York, NY : Grey House Publishing, 2020.

371.102 A

Agarwal, Pooja K., author. Powerful teaching : unleash the science of learning. First edition. Introduction -- Discover the power behind power tools -- Build a foundation with retrieval practice -- Empower teaching with retrieval practice strategies -- Energize learning with spacing and interleaving -- Engage students with feedback-driven metacognition -- Combine power tools and harness your toolbox -- Keeping it real: use power tools to tackle challenges, not add to them -- Foster a supportive environment: use power tools to reduce anxiety and strengthen community -- Spark conversations with students about the science of learning -- Spark conversations with parents about the science of learning -- Powerful professional development for teachers and leaders -- Do-it-yourself retrieval guide -- Conclusion: unleash the science of learning.

512 G

Algebra. 2004. New York : Springer Science+Business Media, 2004.

575.1 A

Arney, Kat, author. How to code a human. Meet your genome -- Our genetic journey -- How do genes work? -- Under attack! -- Who do you think your are? -- People are not peas -- Genetic superheroes -- Turn me on -- Sticky notes -- The RNA world -- Building a baby -- Wiring the brain -- Compatibility genes -- X and Y -- The viruses that made us human -- When things go wrong -- Human 2.0. "How to Code a Human takes you on a mind-bending journey through the world of the double helix, revealing how our DNA encodes our genes and makes us unique. Covering all aspects of modern genetics from the evolution of our species to inherited diseases, "junk" DNA, genetic engineering and the intricacies of the molecular processes inside our cells, this is an astonishing and insightful guide to the code of life"--Back cover.

598 S

Sibley, David, 1961- author, illustrator. What it's like to be a bird : from flying to nesting, eating to singing -- what birds are doing, and why. How to use this book -- Introduction -- Portfolio of birds -- Birds in this book -- What to do if... -- Becoming a birder. Explore more than two hundred species, and more than 330 new illustrations by the author, in this special, large-format volume, where many of the primary illustrations are reproduced life-sized. While its focus is on familiar backyard birds -- blue jays, nuthatches, chickadees -- What It's Like to Be a Bird also examines certain species that can be fairly easily observed, such as the seashore-dwelling Atlantic Puffin. David Sibley's exacting artwork and wide-ranging expertise bring observed behaviors vividly to life. And while the text is aimed at adults -- including fascinating new scientific research on the myriad ways birds have adapted to environmental changes -- it is nontechnical, making it the perfect occasion for parents and grandparents to share their love of birds with young children, who will delight in the big, full-color illustrations of birds in action. -- back cover.

613.6 C

Bushcraft Illustrated: a visual guide. New York, NY : Simon & Schuster, Inc. (Adams Media: imprint of Simon & Schuster), 2019.

638.1 B

Michael Bush. The Practical beekeeper. Nehawka, Nebraska : X-Star Publishing Company, 2004-2011. V. 1 - The Practical Beekeeing Naturally; V.2 - Intermediate Beekeeping Naturally.

660.6 D

Druker, Steven M., author. Altered genes, twisted truth : how the venture to genetically engineer our food has subverted science, corrupted government, and systematically deceived the public.

709.2 A

Atalay, B©ơlent. Math and the Mona Lisa: : the art and science of Leonardo da Vinci. New York, NY : Smithsonian Books in association with HarperCollins Publishers, 2006. Leonardo was one of history's true geniuses, equally brilliant as an artist, scientist, and mathematician. Following Leonardo's own model, Atalay searches for the internal dynamics of art and science. He provides an overview of the development of science from the dawn of civilization to today's quantum mechanics. From this base, Atalay offers a view into Leonardo's restless intellect and modus operandi, allowing us to see the source of his ideas and to appreciate his art from a new perspective.

741.5 G

Greenberg, Isabel. The encyclopedia of early earth : a graphic novel. First American edition. Love in a very cold climate -- Part 1. The land of Nord. The three sisters of Summer Island ; Beyond the frozen sea ; The gods ; The odyssey begins -- Part 2. Britanitarka. Summer and winter ; Creation ; Medicine man ; The storytellers ; Creation ; Dag and Hal ; The old lady and the giant ; The time of the giants ; The children of the mountain ; The long night ; Dead towns & ghost men -- Part. 3. Migdal Bavel. Migdal Bavel ; The mapmaker of Migdal Bavel ; The bible of Birdman: Genesis ; Bible of Birdman, book of Kiddo: The great flood ; The tower of Migdal Bavel ; The palace of whispers ; The gods #2 -- Part 4. The South Pole. The gods #3 -- Appendices. A brief history of time ; The Nords ; Hunting and fishing ; The 1001 varieties of snow ; The invisible hunter ; Britanitarka ; Birds & beast from early Earth ; The moonstone ; The plucked firebird of Hoo. "Chronicles the explorations of a young man as he paddles from his home in the North Pole to the South Pole. There, he meets his true love, but their romance is ill-fated. Early Earth's unusual and finicky polarity means the lovers can never touch"--Publisher's website.

808.1 G

How poetry can change your heart. San Francisco, CA : Chronicle Books, 2019.

808.5 E

Franklin, Sharon. Essentials of speech communication. Evanston, Ill. : McDougal Littell, 2001.

808.53 H

Hanson, Jim. NTC's dictionary of debate. Lincolnwood, Ill., USA : National Textbook Co., c1990.

808.53 W

Strategic debate. Textbook. Columbus, OH : Glencoe/McGraw-Hill, 2006.

810.8 B

Lepucki, Edan, author. The best American nonrequired reading 2019. This anthology presents a selection of short works from mainstream and alternative American periodicals published in 2019, including nonfiction, screenplays, television writing, fiction, and alternative comics.

815 R

Representative American speeches, 2019-2020. Amenia, New York : Grey House, Publishing, 2020. "Selected from a diverse field of speakers and venues, this volume offers some of the most engaging American speeches of the year. Distinguished by its diversity, covering areas in politics, education, popular culture, as well as trending topics in the news, these speeches provide an interesting format to explore some of the year's most important stories."-Publisher.

909.09 D

Davis, Jack E., 1956- author. The Gulf : the making of an American sea. First edition. Prologue : history, nature, and a forgotten sea -- Introduction : birth -- Part one. Estuaries, and the lie of the land and sea : aborigines and colonizing Europeans. Mounds -- El golfo de M©♭xico -- Unnecessary death -- A most important river, and a "magnificent" bay -- Part two. Sea and sky : American debuts in the nineteenth century. Manifest destiny -- A fishy sea -- The wild fish that tamed the coast -- Birds of a feather, shot together -- Part three. Preludes to the future. From bayside to beachside -- Oil and the Texas toe dip -- Oil and the Louisiana plunge -- Islands, shifting sands of time -- Wind and water -- Part four. Saturation and loss : post-1945. The growth coast -- Florida worry, Texas slurry -- Rivers of stuff -- Runoff, and runaway -- Sand in the hourglass -- Losing the edge -- Epilogue : a success story amid so much else. Significant beyond tragic oil spills and hurricanes, the Gulf has historically been one of the world's most bounteous marine environments, supporting human life for millennia. Based on the premise that nature lies at the center of human existence, Davis takes readers on a compelling and, at times, wrenching journey from the Florida Keys to the Texas Rio Grande, along marshy shorelines and majestic estuarine bays, both beautiful and life-giving, though fated to exploitation by esurient oil men and real-estate developers. Davis shares previously untold stories, parading a vast array of historical characters past our view: sports-fishermen, presidents, Hollywood executives, New England fishers, the Tabasco king, a Texas shrimper, and a New York architect who caught the "big one". Sensitive to the imminent effects of climate change, and to the difficult task of rectifying the assaults of recent centuries, this book suggests how a penetrating examination of a single region's history can inform the country's path ahead. --.

910.92 I

Inskeep, Steve, author. Imperfect union : how Jessie and John Fr©♭mont mapped the West, invented celebrity, and helped cause the Civil War. Aid me with your influence -- The equal merits of differing peoples -- The current of important events -- Miseries that attend a separation -- I determined to make there a home -- The manifest purpose of providence -- A taste for danger and bold daring adventure -- The Spaniards were somewhat rude and inhospitable -- I am not going to let you write anything but your name -- Do not suppose I lightly interfere in a matter belonging to men -- We pressed onward with fatal resolution -- Jessie Benton Fr©♭mont was the better man of the two -- We thought money might come in handy -- All the stupid laurels that ever grew -- Decidedly, this ought to be struck out -- He throws away his heart. "Steve Inskeep tells the riveting story of John and Jessie Fr©♭mont, the husband and wife team who in the 1800s were instrumental in the westward expansion of the United States, and thus became America's first great political couple John Fr©♭mont grew up amid family tragedy and shame. Born out of wedlock in 1813, he went to work at age thirteen to help support his family in Charleston, South Carolina. He was a nobody. Yet, by the 1840s, he rose to become one of the most acclaimed people of the age -- known as a wilderness explorer, bestselling writer, gallant army officer, and latter-day conquistador, who in 1846 began the United States' takeover of California from Mexico. He was a celebrity who personified the country's westward expansion. Mountains, towns, ships, and streets were named after him. How did he climb so far? A vital factor was his wife, Jessie Benton Fr©♭mont, the daughter of a powerful United States senator. Jessie wanted to play roles in politics and exploration, which were then reserved for men. Frustrated, she threw her skill and passion into promoting her husband. Ordered by the US Army to map the Oregon Trail, John traveled thousands of miles on horseback, indifferent to his safety and that of the other members of his expeditions. When he returned home, Jessie helped him to shape dramatic reports of his adventures, which were reprinted in newspapers and bound as popular books. Jessie became his political adviser, and a power player in her own right. In 1856, the famous couple strategized as John became the first-ever presidential nominee of the newly established Republican Party. The party had been founded in opposition to slavery, and though both Fr©♭monts were Southerners they became symbols of the cause. With rare detail and in consummate style, Steve Inskeep tells the story of a couple whose joint ambitions and talents intertwined with those of the nascent United States itself. Americans linked the Fr©♭monts with not one but three great social movements of the time -- westward settlement, women's rights, and opposition to slavery. Theirs is a surprisingly modern story of ambition and fame; they lived in a time of globalization, technological disruption, and divisive politics that foreshadowed our own. The Fr©♭monts' adventures amount to nothing less than a tour of the early American soul"--.

940.54 S

Sledge, E. B. (Eugene Bondurant), 1923-. China marine. Oxford University Paperback, 2003. Tuscaloosa : University of Alabama Press, c2002. China Marine 1 -- Epilogue: I Am Not the Man I Would Have Been 149.

940.54 T

Terkel, Studs, 1912-2008. "The good war" : an oral history of World War Two. New York : New Press, [1997.

943.36 H

Hunt, Irmgard A. (Irmgard Albine), 1934-. On Hitler's mountain : overcoming the legacy of a Nazi childhood. First Harper Perennial edition. 2006. On writing a childhood memoir -- pt. 1. 1906-1934 : the P©œhlmanns. Roots of discontent ; In search of a future -- pt. 2. 1934-1939 : Hitler's willing followers. The rituals of life ; "Heil Hitler" ; Ominous undercurrents ; Meeting Hitler ; Gathering clouds -- pt. 3. 1939-1945 : war and surrender. Early sacrifice ; Learning to hate school ; Lessons from a wartime friendship ; A weary interlude in Selb ; Hardship and disintegration ; War comes to Berchtesgaden ; The end at last -- pt. 4. 1945-1948 : Bitter justice, or, Will justice be done? Survival under the Star-spangled Banner ; The curse of the past ; Escape from darkness. The author provides an account of her life growing up in Berchtesgaden, a Bavarian village at the foot of Hitler's mountain retreat, discussing a childhood encounter with the Nazi leader, and shedding light on why ordinary Germans, including her parents, tolerated and even supported the Nazis.

951.04 M

Mitter, Rana, 1969- author. Forgotten ally : China's World War II, 1937-1945. First U.S. Edition. The path to war: As close as lips and teeth : China's fall, Japan's rise ; A new revolution ; The path to confrontation -- Disaster: Thirty-seven days in summer : the outbreak of war ; The battle for Shanghai ; Refugees and resistance ; Massacre at Nanjing ; The battle of Taierzhuang ; The deadly river -- Resisting alone: "A sort of wartime normal" ; Flight into the unknown ; The road to Pearl Harbor -- The poisoned alliance ; Destination Burma ; Hunger in Henan ; States of terror ; Conference at Cairo ; One war, two fronts ; Showdown with Stilwell ; Unexpected victory ; Epilogue: The enduring war. "For decades, a major piece of World War II history has gone virtually unwritten. China was the fourth great ally, partner to the United States, the Soviet Union, and Great Britain, yet its drama of invasion, resistance, slaughter, and political intrigue remains little known in the West. In this emotionally gripping book, made possible through access to newly unsealed Chinese archives, Rana Mitter unfurls the story of China's World War II as never before and rewrites the larger history of the war in the process. He focuses his narrative on three towering leaders -- Chiang Kai-shek, Mao Zedong, and the lesser-known collaborator Wang Jingwei -- and extends the timeline of the war back to 1937, when Japanese and Chinese troops began to clash, fully two years before Hitler invaded Poland. Unparalleled in its research and scope, Forgotten Ally is a sweeping, character-driven history that will be essential reading not only for anyone with an interest in World War II, but also for those seeking to understand today's China, where, as Mitter reveals, the echoes of the war still reverberate"--.

952 J

Takada, Noriko. The Japanese way : aspects of behavior, attitudes, and customs of the Japanese. 2nd ed. Chicago : McGraw-Hill, c2011 . Abbreviations and contractions -- Addresses and street names -- Arts and crafts -- Asking directions -- Bathing and bathhouses -- Body language and gestures -- Borrowed words and acronyms -- Bowing -- Brand names and brand-name goods (burando-hin) -- Business cards (meish) -- Calendar -- Cherry blossoms and flower viewing -- Compliments -- Conversation -- Crime and safety -- Dating and marriage -- Death, funerals, and mourning -- Dialects -- Dining out -- Dinner invitations -- Directness -- Discussion and consensus -- Dress -- Drinking -- Driving -- Earthquakes -- Education -- English-language study -- Family -- The Jag and the national anthem -- Flowers and plants -- Food and eating -- Footwear -- Foreigners -- Gender roles -- Geography -- Gifts -- Government -- Hellos and good-byes -- Holidays and festivals -- Honorific speech (keigo) -- Hotels and inns -- Housing and furnishings -- Humor -- The Imperial family -- Individuals and couples -- Introductions and networking -- Karaoke -- Leisure (rgli) -- Letters, greeting cards, and postal services -- Love and affection -- Lucky and unlucky numbers -- Male/female speech -- Money -- Mt. Fuji -- Music and dance -- Myths, legends, and folklore -- Names, titles, and forms of address -- Numbers and counting -- Oriental medicine -- Pinball (pachinko) -- Politeness and rudeness -- Population -- Privacy -- Reading material -- Religion -- The seasons -- Shopping -- Shrines and temples -- Signatures and seals -- Social structure -- Sports -- Table etiquette -- Telephones -- Television/radio/movies -- Thank-yous and regrets -- Theater -- Time and punctuality -- Tipping and service charges -- Toilets -- Travel within Japan -- Vending machines -- Visiting private homes -- Weights, measures, and sizes -- Working hours -- The written language -- "Yes" and "no" -- "You first" -- Zoological calendar.

972.81 P

Proskouriakoff, Tatiana, 1909-1985. Maya history. First edition. Foreword / Gordon R. Wills -- Tatiana Proskouriakoff, 1909-1985 / Ian Graham -- Introduction / Rosemary A. Joyce -- 1. The Earliest Records: (A.D. 288-337) -- 2. The Arrival of Strangers: (A.D. 337-386) -- 3. The Maya Regain Tikal: (A.D. 386-435) -- 4. Some Ragged Pages: (A.D. 435-485) -- 5. Expansion of the Maya Tradition: (A.D. 485-534) -- 6. A Time of Troubles: (A.D. 534-583) -- 7. Recovery on the Frontiers: (A.D. 583-633) -- 8. Growth and Expansion: (A.D. 633-682) -- 9. Toward a Peak of Prosperity: (A.D. 682-736) -- 10. On the Crest of the Wave: (A.D. 731-780) -- 11. Prelude to Disaster: (A.D. 780-830) -- 12. The Final Years: (A.D. 831-909) -- 13. The Last Survivals: (A.D. 909-938). The ruins of Maya city-states occur throughout the Yucatan peninsula, Guatemala, Belize, and in parts of Honduras and El Salvador. But the people who built these sites remain imperfectly known. Though they covered standing monuments (stelae) and public buildings with hieroglyphic records of their deeds, no Rosetta Stone has yet turned up in Central America to help experts determine the exact meaning of these glyphs. Tatiana Proskouriakoff, a preeminent student of the Maya, made many breakthroughs in deciphering Maya writing, particularly in demonstrating that the glyphs record the deeds of actual human beings. This discovery opened the way for a history of the Maya, a monumental task that Proskouriakoff was engaged in before her death in 1985. Her work, Maya History, has been made ready for press by the able editorship of Rosemary Joyce. Maya History reconstructs the Classic Maya period (roughly A.D. 250-900) from the glyphic record on stelae at numerous sites, including Altar de Sacrificios, Copan, Dos Pilas, Naranjo, Piedras Negras, Quirigua, Tikal, and Yaxchilan. Proskouriakoff traces the spread of governmental institutions from the central Peten, especially from Tikal, to other city-states by conquest and intermarriage. And she also shows how the gradual introduction of foreign elements into Maya art mirrors the entry of outsiders who helped provoke the eventual collapse of the Classic Maya. Fourteen line drawings of monuments and over three hundred original drawings of glyphs amplify the text. Maya History has been long awaited by scholars in the field. It is sure to provoke lively debate and greater understanding of this important area in Mesoamerican studies.

973.04 A

Asian Americans : the movement and the moment. A wide-ranging collection of essays and material which documents the rich, little-known history of Asian American social activism during the years 1965-2001. This book examines the period not only through personal accounts and historical analysis, but through the visual record--utilizing historical prictorial materials developed at UCLA's Asian American Studies Center on Chinese, Japanese, Korean, Filipino, and Vietnamese Americans. Included are many reproductions of photos of the period, movement comics, demonstration flyers, newsletters, posters and much more.

973.0496 D

W.E.B. DuBois. The Souls of Black Folk. BIGFONTBOOKS.COM.

973.7 B

Barney, William L. Battleground for the Union : the era of the Civil War and Reconstruction, 1848-1877. Englewood Cliffs, N.J. : Prentice Hall, c1990.

973.9 I

Imani, Blair, author. Making our way home : the Great Migration and the Black American dream. First edition. Separate but equal: Reconstruction-1919 -- Beautiful -- and ugly, too: 1920-1929 -- I, too, am America: 1930-1939 -- Liberty and justice for all: 1940-1949 -- Trouble ahead: 1950-1959 -- The time is in the street, you know: 1960-1969 -- All poer to all the people: 1970-1979. "A powerful illustrated history of the Great Migration and its sweeping impact on Black and American culture, from Reconstruction to the rise of hip hop. Over the course of six decades, an unprecedented wave of Black Americans left the South and spread across the nation in search of a better life--a migration that sparked stunning demographic and cultural changes in twentieth-century America. Through gripping and accessible historical narrative paired with illustrations, author and activist Blair Imani examines the largely overlooked impact of The Great Migration and how it affected--and continues to affect--Black identity and America as a whole. Making Our Way Home explores issues like voting rights, domestic terrorism, discrimination, and segregation alongside the flourishing of arts and culture, activism, and civil rights. Imani shows how these influences shaped America's workforce and wealth distribution by featuring the stories of notable people and events, relevant data, and family histories. The experiences of prominent figures such as James Baldwin, Fannie Lou Hamer, El Hajj Malik El Shabazz (Malcolm X), Ella Baker, and others are woven into the larger historical and cultural narratives of the Great Migration to create a truly singular record of this powerful journey"--.

973.9 L

Longley, Kyle, author. LBJ's 1968 : power, politics, and the presidency in America's year of upheaval. A nation on the brink: the State of the Union Address, January 1968 -- Those dirty bastards, are they trying to embarrass us? The Pueblo Incident, January-December 1968 -- Tet: a very near thing, January-March 1968 -- As a result, I will not seek re-election: the March 31, 1968 speech -- The days the earth stood still: the assassination of Martin Luther King, Jr., April 1968 -- He hated him, but loved him: the assassination of Robert Kennedy, June 1968 -- The big stumble: the Fortas Affair, June-October 1968 -- The tanks are rolling: Czechoslovakia crushed, August 1968 -- The perfect disaster: the Democratic National Convention, August 1968 -- Is this treason?: the October surprise that wasn't, October-December 1968 -- The last dance, January 1969 -- Conclusion.

974.7 F

Feldman, Deborah, 1986-. Unorthodox : the scandalous rejection of my Hasidic roots. 1st Simon & Schuster trade pbk. ed. 2020. New York : Simon & Schuster Paperbacks, 2012. Traces the author's upbringing in a Hasidic community in Brooklyn, describing the strict rules that governed her life, arranged marriage at the age of seventeen, and the birth of her son, which led to her plan to leave and forge her own path in life.

975.7 B

Ball, Edward, 1959-. Slaves in the family. Paperback edition. Journalist Ball confronts the legacy of his family's slave-owning past, uncovering the story of the people, both black and white, who lived and worked on the Balls' South Carolina plantations. It is an unprecedented family record that reveals how the painful legacy of slavery continues to endure in America's collective memory and experience. Ball, a descendant of one of the largest slave-owning families in the South, discovered that his ancestors owned 25 plantations, worked by nearly 4,000 slaves. Through meticulous research and by interviewing scattered relatives, Ball contacted some 100,000 African-Americans who are all descendants of Ball slaves. In intimate conversations with them, he garnered information, hard words, and devastating family stories of precisely what it means to be enslaved. He found that the family plantation owners were far from benevolent patriarchs; instead there is a dark history of exploitation, interbreeding, and extreme violence.--From publisher description.

975.7 B

Ball, Edward, 1959-. The sweet hell inside : a family history. First edition. Preface -- Part 1-The Master and His Orphans-Part 2-High Yellow-Porch 3 -Eyes Sadder Then the Grave-Part 4-Nigger Rich-Part 5-The Orphans Dancers-Part 6-A Trunk in the Grass-Notes-Permission and Photography Credits-Acknowledgments-Index. If. Recounts the lives of the Harleston family of South Carolina, the progeny of a Southern gentleman and his slave who cast off their blemished roots and achieved affluence in part through a surprisingly successful funeral parlor business. Their wealth afforded the Harlestons the comfort of chauffeurs, tailored clothes, and servants whose skin was darker than theirs. It also launched the family into a generation of glory as painters, performers, and photographers in the "high yellow" society of America's colored upper class. The Harlestons' remarkable 100-year journey spans the waning days of Reconstruction, the precious art world of the early 1900s, the back alleys of the Jazz Age, and the dawn of the civil rights movement.--From publisher description.

DVD Gre

The Great debaters. 2-disc collector's edition; Widescreen [ed.]. [New York] : Weinstein Company, c2008. Denzel Washington, Nate Parker, Jurnee Smollett, Denzel Whitaker, Jermaine Williams, Forest Whitaker, Gina Ravera, John Heard, Kimberly Elise, Devyn Tyler, Trenton McClain Boyd. Melvin B. Tolson is a professor at Wiley College in Texas. Wiley is a small African-American college. In 1935, Tolson inspired students to form the school's first debate team. Tolson turns a group of underdog students into a historically elite debate team which goes on to challenge Harvard in the national championship. Inspired by a true story.

F Alb

Albertalli, Becky, author. What if it's us. Told in two voices, when Arthur, a summer intern from Georgia, and Ben, a native New Yorker, meet it seems like fate, but after three attempts at dating fail they wonder if the universe is pushing them together or apart.

F Arc

Astral Traveler's Daughter. First Simon & Schuster Trade Paperback edition, April 2019. New York, NY : Simon & Schuster, Inc, 2019. "Last year, Teddy Cannon discovered she was psychic. This year, her skills will be put to the test as she investigates a secretive case that will take her far from home--and deep into the past in the thrilling follow-up to School for Psychics"-- Provided by publisher.

F Chi

Chiaverini, Jennifer, author. Enchantress of numbers : a novel of Ada Lovelace. "The only legitimate child of Lord Byron, the most brilliant, revered, and scandalous of the Romantic poets, Ada was destined for fame long before her birth. Estranged from Ada's father, who was infamously "mad, bad, and dangerous to know," Ada's mathematician mother is determined to save her only child from her perilous Byron heritage. Banishing fairy tales and make-believe from the nursery, Ada's mother provides her daughter with a rigorous education grounded in mathematics and science. Any troubling spark of imagination--or worse yet, passion or poetry--is promptly extinguished. Or so her mother believes. When Ada is introduced into London society as a highly eligible young heiress, she at last discovers the intellectual and social circles she has craved all her life. Little does she realize that her delightful new friendship with inventor Charles Babbage--brilliant, charming, and occasionally curmudgeonly--will shape her destiny ..."--Jacket.

F Chr

Christie, Michael, 1976- author. Greenwood : a novel. First U.S. edition. "It's 2038 and Jake Greenwood is a storyteller and a liar, an overqualified tour guide babysitting ultra-rich vacationers in one of the world's last remaining forests. It's 2008 and Liam Greenwood is a carpenter, fallen from a ladder and sprawled on his broken back, calling out from the concrete floor of an empty mansion. It's 1974 and Willow Greenwood is out of jail, free after being locked up for one of her endless series of environmental protests: attempts at atonement for the sins of her father's once vast and violent timber empire. It's 1934 and Everett Greenwood is alone, as usual, in his maple syrup camp squat when he hears the cries of an abandoned infant and gets tangled up in the web of a crime that will cling to his family for decades. And throughout, there are trees: thrumming a steady, silent pulse beneath Christie's effortless sentences and working as a guiding metaphor for withering, weathering, and survival. A shining, intricate clockwork of a novel, Greenwood is a rain-soaked and sun-dappled story of the bonds and breaking points of money and love, wood and blood--and the hopeful, impossible task of growing toward the light"--.

F Cle

Memoirs of Fanny Hill. Published by arrangement with Edito-Service S. A., Geneva, Switzerland. New York, NY : Peebles Press International Inc, 1973.

F Col

Andre's Reboot. Birmingham, AL : Stephen B. Coleman, Publisher, 2019.

F Def

Moll Flanders. Reprint. 2020. Columbia, SC, : August 12, 2020.

F Def

Defoe, Daniel, 1661?-1731. The fortunes and misfortunes of the famous Moll Flanders ... A new edition.

F Fit

Fitzgerald, F. Scott (Francis Scott), 1896-1940, author. The great Gatsby. Foreword to the seventy-fifth anniversary edition: F. Scott Fitzgerald, The Great Gatsby, and the House of Scribner ; Preface / by Matthew J. Bruccoli -- THE GREAT GATSBY -- The text of The Great Gatsby / by Matthew J. Bruccoli -- Publisher's afterword / Charles Scribner III -- FSF : life and career / James L.W. West III. Overview: The mysterious Jay Gatsby embodies the American notion that it is possible to redefine oneself and persuade the world to accept that definition. Gatsby's youthful neighbor, Nick Carraway, fascinated with the display of enormous wealth in which Gatsby revels, finds himself swept up in the lavish lifestyle of Long Island society during the Jazz Age. Considered Fitzgerald's best work, The Great Gatsby is a mystical, timeless story of integrity and cruelty, vision and despair. The timeless story of Jay Gatsby and his love for Daisy Buchanan is widely acknowledged to be the closest thing to the Great American Novel ever written.

F Jam

The Turn of the Screw, the Aspern Papers, and Two Stories. Barnes & Noble Classics, 2003; Intro. and notes by David L. Sweet. New York, NY : Barnes & Noble, 2003.

F Ora

Orange, Tommy, 1982- author. There there. First Vintage books edition. Here is a story of several people, each of whom has private reasons for travelling to the Big Oakland Powwow. Jacquie Red Feather is newly sober and trying to make it back to the family she left behind in shame. Dene Oxendene is pulling his life together after his uncle's death and has come to work at the powwow to honour his uncle's memory. Opal Viola Victoria Bear Shield has come to watch her nephew Orvil Red Feather, who has taught himself traditional Indian dance through YouTube videos and has come to the powwow to dance in public for the very first time. There will be glorious communion, and a spectacle of sacred tradition and pageantry. And there will be sacrifice, and heroism, and unspeakable loss.

F Pat

Patchett, Ann, author. The Dutch house : a novel. First edition. "Ann Patchett, the New York Times bestselling author of Commonwealth and State of Wonder, returns with her most powerful novel to date: a richly moving story that explores the indelible bond between two siblings, the house of their childhood, and a past that will not let them go"--.

F Rob

Roberts, Nora, author. The awakening. First edition. "#1 New York Times bestselling author of the epic Chronicles of The One trilogy returns with the first in a brand new series where parallel worlds clash over the struggle between good and evil"--.

F Row

Rowling, J. K. Harrius Potter et philosophi lapis. Cover illustration first pub. 2015. London : Bloomsbury, 2003, ℗♭1997. Latin translation, Peter Needham, 2003. Rescued from the outrageous neglect of his aunt and uncle, a young boy with a great destiny proves his worth while attending Hogwarts School for Witchcraft and Wizardry.

F Rus

Russell, Karen, 1981-. Swamplandia! 1st ed (Borzoi Book). New York : Alfred A. Knopf, 2011. Twelve year old Ava must travel into the Underworld part of the swamp in order to save her family's dynasty of Bigtree alligator wresting. This novel takes us to the swamps of the Florida Everglades, and introduces us to Ava Bigtree, an unforgettable young heroine. The Bigtree alligator wrestling dynasty is in decline, and Swamplandia!, their island home and gator wrestling theme park, formerly no. 1 in the region, is swiftly being encroached upon by a fearsome and sophisticated competitor called the World of Darkness. Ava's mother, the park's indomitable headliner, has just died; her sister, Ossie, has fallen in love with a spooky character known as the Dredgeman, who may or may not be an actual ghost; and her brilliant big brother, Kiwi, who dreams of becoming a scholar, has just defected to the World of Darkness in a last ditch effort to keep their family business from going under. Ava's father, affectionately known as Chief Bigtree, is AWOL; and that leaves Ava, a resourceful but terrified thirteen, to manage ninety eight gators as well as her own grief. Against a backdrop of hauntingly fecund plant life animated by ancient lizards and lawless hungers, the author has written a novel about a family's struggle to stay afloat in a world that is inexorably sinking.

F Sha

Shaw, Irwin, 1913-1984. The young lions. Chicago : University of Chicago Press, 2000.

F Tol

The Hobbit. 75th Anniversary. The text of this edition is based on edition published by HarperCollins Publishers in 1995. Bilbo Baggins, a respectable, well-to-do hobbit, lives comfortably in his hobbit-hole until the day the wandering wizard Gandalf chooses him to take part in an adventure from which he may never return.

F Tow

Towles, Amor. Rules of civility. A chance encounter with a handsome banker in a jazz bar on New Year's Eve 1938 catapults Wall Street secretary Katey Kontent into the upper echelons of New York society, where she befriends a shy multi-millionaire, an Upper East Side ne'er-do-well, and a single-minded widow.

F Wat

Watson, Ren©♭e, author. Piecing me together. Tired of being singled out at her mostly-white private school as someone who needs support, high school junior Jade would rather participate in the school's amazing Study Abroad program than join Women to Women, a mentorship program for at-risk girls. "Acclaimed author Renee Watson offers a powerful story about a girl striving for success in a world that too often seems like it's trying to break her. Jade believes she must get out of her poor neighborhood if she's ever going to succeed. Her mother tells her to take advantage of every opportunity that comes her way. And Jade has: every day she rides the bus away from her friends and to the private school where she feels like an outsider, but where she has plenty of opportunities. But some opportunities she doesn't really welcome, like an invitation to join Women to Women, a mentorship program for "at-risk" girls. Just because her mentor is black and graduated from the same high school doesn't mean she understands where Jade is coming from. She's tired of being singled out as someone who needs help, someone people want to fix. Jade wants to speak, to create, to express her joys and sorrows, her pain and her hope. Maybe there are some things she could show other women about understanding the world and finding ways to be real, to make a difference.".

F Wil

Williams, Katie, 1978- author. Tell the machine goodnight. Pearl's job is to make people happy. Every day, she provides customers with personalized recommendations for greater contentment. She's good at her job, her office manager tells her, successful. But how does one measure an emotion? Meanwhile, there's Pearl's teenage son, Rhett. A sensitive kid who has forged an unconventional path through adolescence, Rhett seems to find greater satisfaction in being unhappy. The very rejection of joy is his own kind of "pursuit of happiness." As his mother, Pearl wants nothing more than to help Rhett--but is it for his sake or for hers? Certainly it would make Pearl happier. Regardless, her son is one person whose emotional life does not fall under the parameters of her job--not as happiness technician, and not as mother, either.-Amazon.

SC D

The Daniel Defoe Collection : The Life and strange surprising adventures of Robinson Crusoe, of York, Mariner; The farther adventures of Robinson Crusoe; A journal of the plague year; Moll Flanders. South Carolina, USA, : August 2020.

SC L

Link, Kelly, author. Get in trouble : stories. Random House trade paperback edition. The summer people -- I can see right through you -- Secret identity -- Valley of the girls -- Origin story -- The lesson -- The new boyfriend -- Two houses -- Light. A collection of short stories features tales of a young girl who plays caretaker to mysterious guests at the cottage behind her house and a former teen idol who becomes involved in a bizarre reality show.

SC P

Packer, ZZ. Drinking coffee elsewhere. 1st Riverhead trade pbk. ed. New York : Riverhead Books, 2004, ℗♭2003. Brownies -- Every tongue shall confess -- Our Lady of Peace -- The ant of the self -- Drinking coffee elsewhere -- Speaking in tongues -- Geese -- Doris is coming. Discovered by The New Yorker, Packer "forms a constellation of young black experience"* whether she's writing from the perspective of a church-going black woman who has a crisis in faith, a young college student at Yale, or a young black man unwillingly accompanying his father to the Million Man March. This universally appealing collection of short fiction has already established ZZ Packer as "a writer to watch.".

SC S

Sedaris, David, author. Calypso. First edition. When he buys a beach house on the Carolina coast, David Sedaris envisions long, relaxing vacations spent playing board games and lounging in the sun with those he loves most. And life at the Sea Section, as he names the vacation home, is exactly as idyllic as he imagined, except for one tiny, vexing realization: it's impossible to take a vacation from yourself. Sedaris sets his powers of observation toward middle age and mortality, that vertiginous moment when your own body betrays you and you realize that the story of your life is made up of more past than future.

SC S

Sedaris, David, author. Let's explore diabetes with owls. First Back Bay paperback edition, June 2014. From the perils of French dentistry to the eating habits of the Australian kookaburra, from the squat-style toilets of Beijing to the particular wilderness of a North Carolina Costco, we learn about the absurdity and delight of a curious traveler's experiences. Whether railing against the habits of litterers in the English countryside or marveling over a disembodied human arm in a taxidermist's shop, Sedaris takes us on side-splitting adventures that are not to be forgotten.

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