Proud to be #Bulgarian!

Law professor William Ian Miller describes oh so beautifully the beauty of living without hope (“May You Have My Luck”).  Reading his piece reminded me of a frequently evoked Bulgarian proverb: “Mnogo dobro ne e na dobro.” Which translates loosely as: “Too much good fortune doesn’t bode well.” And which conveys better than a thousand books and articles Bulgaria’s status as, according to #TheEconomist, the unhappiest place on Earth as proportionate to GDP (“The Rich, the Poor and #Bulgaria”).

Just focus!?

Half a year ago, #MariaKonnikova published some tips on “Being a Better Reader” – citing much authoritative research/opinion to illustrate the depth of the problem. Her takeaway? “Maybe the decline of deep reading isn’t due to reading skill atrophy but to the need to develop a very different sort of skill, that of teaching yourself to focus your attention.” Perhaps, but there may be a slight problem with heeding this advice. According to research done by #neuroscientists like Anthony Jack and Matthew Lieberman, the relentless focus needed for non-casual online reading could interfere with the dreamy, “trance-like state of mind” associated with #deepreading (and evoked by #NicholasCarr in “The Dreams of Readers”). 

Do our #gadgets make us stupid?

Apparently not, in neuropsychologist Daniel Willingham’s informed judgment (“Smartphones Don’t Make Us Dumb”). He says being glued to screens for most of our waking hours does not diminish our ability to concentrate – since “mental reorganization at that scale happens over evolutionary time,” not within the lifespan of any individual. Instead, we (and our kids) are losing merely the desire to concentrate as we are lured by endless entertainment opportunities. Prof. Willingham also points to research showing “that the amount of leisure reading hasn’t changed with the advent of the digital age” – and, besides, “brainier hobbies have never been all that popular.” This raises all sorts of interesting questions – is the absence of statistically significant experimental evidence reliable evidence of absence? And what about some studies which contradict Willingham’s statements? Caleb Crain [“Twilight of the Books”], for example, has cited studies showing that “we are reading less as we age, and we are reading less than people who were our age ten or twenty years ago”; that between 1992 and 2003 the proportion of [American] adults who qualified as proficient readers (who could, for example, compare the viewpoints expressed in two editorials) declined from 15 to 13 percent”; that in the  Netherlands in the mid-1990s, college graduates born after 1969 were reading less than people without a college degree born before 1950; etc. Let’s hope this time the majority neuroscientific opinion is on more solid ground than the near-consensus which produced the assault on dietary fat, for example.

#Narcissism works!

So the DJIA has pushed beyond 18,000. It may not quite get to 30,000 soon, but still – what a momentous achievement! Which reminds me of a remarkable #Colbert interview from March 2009. The guest was #EmilyYoffe who had just published an article on Narcissistic Personality Disorder in Slate. The previous week the Dow Jones had hit rock bottom at 6,547, and Ms. Yoffe explained somewhat sternly that the whole financial meltdown had resulted from Americans “binging on ‘I deserve it.’” After asking a few probing questions, the Colbert character retorted: “But the economy and the market is really all based on confidence. Why don’t we just recapture that narcissism that we had a year ago and pretend that everything is just OK, and won’t the market come right back? Won’t we just rebuild the bubble?” At the time this was meant as a joke, but now the joke is on the non-believers, or should I say – the non-narcissists?

The quiet #Mutti

The way #AngelaMerkel comes through in her lengthy New Yorker profile (“The Quiet German”) can provoke some mischievous thoughts. “She has always been,  ‘in her body language, a bit awkward’” (according to her long-time photographer); found public speaking “visibly painful…, her hands a particular source of trouble” – until “she learned to bring her fingertips together in a diamond shape over her stomach”; but still tends to speak in “toneless” voice, as if “reading out regulatory guidelines for the national rail system”; carries “an orange-red leather handbag that clashes with her jacket”; once worked on quantum chemistry, and still displays a “scientific habit of mind” (approaching “problems methodically” and with “scientific detachment” and empiricism – which makes her a sort of human “computer”); “was physically clumsy” as a child, and “could barely walk downhill without falling” (according to an earlier profile, she was five when she finally learned to come down stairs); looked “colorless,” as she wasn’t interested in clothes or in how her hair looked; her teacher had to “exhort [her] to look up and smile while offering another student a glass of water in Russian”; “is not a woman of strong emotions” (according to a prominent German journalist), and is hard to read due to her “emotional opacity”; doesn’t do well small talk; has “a reputation for accepting little criticism”; the way she stabbed her patron Helmut Kohl in the back “mixed Protestant righteousness with ruthlessness”; “is not from this world” (in the words of along-time political associate); has failed to develop “a fingertip feel for public opinion”; “plainness remains her political signature”; eventually came to appreciate the extent to which she and President Obama “were alike – analytical, cautious, dry-humored, remote.” These characteristics have been mentioned before, and previous articles can add some curious details – for example, about the way Frau Merkel left her first husband quite abruptly, taking away only the fridge from their Spartan apartment. And her eyes can look disturbingly empty in photos. But here the personality profile seems most complete.

Me, myself, and I

Among all the “10 best” lists rolled out before the holidays, the NYT offers a real gem: “The 10 Best Modern Love Columns Ever.” At no. 10 there stands “Somewhere Inside, a Path to #Empathy.” It was written back in 2009 by David Finch, an engineer who tells a most heart-warming story – how his wife, a therapist treating autistic children, diagnosed him with Asperger’s. And then applied unfailing tact and perseverance to bring him out of his mental shell so they could reinvent their faltering marriage. The essay is written with so much self-insight, sensitivity, and sense of humor that the diagnosis seems a bit off the mark.  So #Mr.Finch – unlike his fictional namesake from “Person of Interest” – must have come a long way. As he acknowledges, however, developing a degree of empathy was a hard act – “given that my Aspergerish point of reference is myself in every circumstance.” How about, then, all those economists who – like James Buchanan – believe the notion of a “public interest” or “common good” can’t possibly be real; and even politicians like Clement Attlee or Jóhanna Sigurðardóttir must be pursuing their own, self-referential utility? As John Cassidy once showed in the New Yorker (“After the Blowup”), such cases are mostly untreatable. Or perhaps the French graduate students who at the turn of the century called for a "post-autistic economics" have merely lacked what Mr. Finch's wife had in such plentiful supply.

Rationalization and its discontents?

Yet another random attack in Sydney. It is tempting to explain all these incidents as part of some sort of rational strategy – which can be countered the way Soviet designs were ostensibly defused during the cold war. On the other hand, there is some research indicating that culture shock (as in the case of immigration) can push some vulnerable individuals over the edge – and into a clinical expression of schizophrenia. I am wondering if a similar form of psychosis could be a better story explaining the recent spate of ISIS-inspired attacks. To say nothing of the whole idea of a global caliphate under the black flag – which is clearly delusional.

Sisters are doing it for themselves

For someone with the right post-everything sensibility, it must be easy – and probably a lot of fun – to dismiss #ChristopherLasch as a white middle-aged male curmudgeon, overreacting to some sort of personal insecurity. It is curious, though, to what extent his anxieties resonated with those of one of the main ideologists of the “new left” quasi-revolution – #Marcuse. Both detested the soul/eros-draining drudgery modern labor had become – and neither was eager to see women drafted en masse into the capitalist meat, corporate/bureaucratic structures, the hedonic treadmill, etc. Which, of course, did not prevent “leaning in” and full-throttle self-expression from becoming the main plank of women’s lib (with some digital detox and meditation thrown in) – at least in some freedom-loving circles. Apparently, that was a more stimulating experience compared to the choke hold of the family nest. The way this total makeover was pulled off must remain one of the abiding mysteries of the short but eventful 20^th century. And the caravan, indeed, must press on…

Life, liberty, and the #pursuitofoverstimulation

A few months ago #VivianGornick sought to rehabilitate American #self-absorption (“In Defense of #Narcissism”). The intellectual target she chose, though, was not psychologist #JeanTwenge. Rather, she sought to deconstruct #ChristopherLasch. An alleged “age of diminished expectations”? “That, unfortunately, was the way the world looked to a white, middle-class man without the gift of empathy who found all the social tumult depressing rather than stimulating” – or so Gornick thinks. In fact, Lasch did realize that the multi-pronged rebellion that broke out in the 1960s was quite stimulating. He described how the human quest for freedom turned mostly into an exhilarating pursuit of overstimulation – until meta-habituation (and relativistic non-judgmentalism) set in.

The post-cringe society

A former student sent me a link to a new video clip – #Only, by female rap “artist” #NikiManaj (featuring also some male collaborators). She had found the piece utterly appalling – offering final proof that there is, indeed, nothing sacred left anywhere anymore. This, of course, should hardly be surprising – given all the hand-wringing (or celebration) regarding the “desacralization” of the world since the 19^th century. The “song” itself is a string of profanities set against the backdrop of a music-like sound track and stylized/computerized Nazi-like imagery. Of these, only the latter has apparently provoked some – no doubt anticipated – protests. The whole video project, meanwhile, has “received generally positive reviews from critics” – if the Wikipedia entry is a reliable source. This latest contribution to the neverending quest to shock, and shock, and shock the bourgeoisie seemed particularly grotesque – as I watched it after a CNN “story” featuring a young man lying dead in front of his shack in Freetown. So why do “artists” now need to go to such lengths to appear provocative and generate some buzz?

#WitheringoftheState - finally!!

#PatrickBuchanan, who is apparently still taken seriously in some circles, recently made the following sweeping observation: “Many private institutions are succeeding splendidly. But our public institutions, save the military, seem to be broadly failing.” It is, indeed, hard to argue on behalf of any public institution these days. As for the private side, we seem to live at a time when RIO has become the measure of all things. So I guess Buchanan’s verdict would apply most forcefully to the most financially successful entities – the likes of Goldman and the other Godzillas of shadow banking (or “alternative banking,” as some aficionados prefer to call it).

A rarely repentent foodie

#JohnLanchester makes in #TheNewYorker a rarely, almost incoceivably perceptive observation for a foodie: “If shopping and cooking really are the most consequential, most political acts in my life, perhaps what that means is that our sense of the political has shrunk too far—shrunk so much that it fits into our recycled-hemp shopping bags. If these tiny acts of consumer choice are the most meaningful actions in our lives, perhaps we aren’t thinking and acting on a sufficiently big scale. Imagine that you die and go to Heaven and stand in front of a jury made up of Thomas Jefferson, Eleanor Roosevelt, and Martin Luther King, Jr. Your task would be to compose yourself, look them in the eye, and say, 'I was all about fresh, local, and seasonal.'” Not a happy thought – and it shoudn’t be. But what else is left for a humanitarian #intellectual, really?

#PowertotheMeek, with some reservations

A little over a weak ago, a NYT opinion piece reported some studies according to which women tend to take better decisions under stress (“Are Women Better Decision Makers?”). Apparently, this advantage comes mostly from a tendency among men to take silly risks when stressed out. Under such conditions, women remain better attuned to others – and, apparently, to their own gut feelings. In one of the experiments, they performed better on a version of the famous Iowa Gambling Task. In fact, it could just be the case that it is individuals with better calibrated empathy and visceral sensitivity – as opposed to those detached and supremely cool – who make better decisions under stress. And, for some mysterious – mostly biological – reasons most of these individuals happen to be women. So much for the much vaunted superior self-confidence of men – which women are now often prodded to embrace in order to get ahead in the ever accelerating rat race.

#Cool and cooler

In the aftermath of the Ottawa attack, PM #StephenHarper made the obligatory utterances about maintaining Canadian resolve, liberties, etc. Substantively, his statement seemed well crafted. But he himself appeared removed and somehow untouched by all the drama that had unfolded – and after spending over 12 hours under lockdown in the parliament building. This, of course, could be seen as an expression of much needed, admirable, steadfast determination in the face of pure evil. Yet, I was reminded of #LewisMumford’s putdown of spineless #liberals at the start of WW II: “His first impulse in any situation is to get rid of emotion because it may cause him to go wrong. Unfortunately for his effort to achieve poise, a purely intellectual judgment, eviscerated of emotional reference, often causes wry miscalculations. … Instead of priding himself on not being ‘carried away by his emotions,’ the liberal should rather be a little alarmed because he often has no emotions that could, under any conceivable circumstances, carry him away.”

#Self-control for the masses

So what is the secret of effective self-control? According to psychologist David DeSteno (“A Feeling of Control: How America Can Finally Learn to Deal With Its Impulses”), the first step would be to recognize that relying on mere willpower or cognitive control may not be the best strategy. These resources are easily depleted, and we have an almost limitless capacity to invent rationalizations for various lapses. Instead, we need to recognize the role of pro-social emotions like compassion and gratitude. As he and others have demonstrated, such “moral sentiments” can increase one’s capacity to resist unhealthy temptations by 12 percent or perhaps more. And how can we acquire such affective aptitudes? According to DeSteno, it can be taught “fairly easily.”

Dumb and dumber?

Vaughan Bell has hacked into yet another loony book peddling pop neuroscience, Susan Greenfield’s Mind Change (“Head in the Clouds”). Obviously, Bell disagrees with about 98 percent of what the baroness has to say. So why does she hold on to a different, obviously untenable point of view? According to Bell, the famed (if controversial) neuroscientist is basically a half-wit who can barely function at the cognitive level of an average undergrad. In any case, she is less mentally competent than a first-year graduate student who has been warned in a research methods seminar not to confuse correlation with causation. Now this is one curious causal explanation.

Long live #DelayedAdulthood!!

On the web site of the NYT, psychology professor Laurence Steinberg makes “The Case for Delayed Adulthood” (and also pitches his new book on that timely topic). The phenomenon of prolonged adolescence (a.k.a. “emerging adulthood”) is now well established, and psychologists, psychiatrists, and neuroscientists are busy making a positive spin on it the new cultural norm. Here is Prof. Steinberg’s hopeful conclusion: “If brain plasticity is maintained by staying engaged in new, demanding and cognitively stimulating activity, and if entering into the repetitive and less exciting roles of worker and spouse helps close the window of plasticity, delaying adulthood is not only O.K.; it can be a boon.”

The year that changed everything?

#NicholasCarr has a new article out. It’s crowned by an ominous title (“The Manipulators: Facebook’s Social Engineering”), but in fact carries a hopeful message. Carr begins by with a look back at the founding and relentless expansion of virtual behemoths like #Google, #Facebook, #YouTube, #iTunes, #Twitter and the like – whose stamp on sentient life has been boosted exponentially with the rapid spread of hand-held devices. In his words, “it has been a carnival ride, and we, the public, have been the giddy passengers.” But don’t be dispirited, for “this year something changed” – courtesy of a scholarly paper exposing Facebook’s experiment involving the manipulation of users’ moods, plus the European court ruling obliging Google and its kin to erase information citizens might deem inaccurate or outdated. “Arriving in the wake of revelations about the NSA’s online spying operation, both seemed to herald, in very different ways, a new stage in the net’s history – one in which the public will be called upon to guide the technology, rather than the other way around. We may look back on 2014 as the year the internet began to grow up.”

Who needs meaning?

According to the programmatic statement published by a new European framework formed to study e-reading, “empirical evidence indicates that affordances of screen devices might negatively impact cognitive and emotional aspects of reading.” This may (or – more likely – may not) raise some curious questions related to the following “causal” chain: if e-reading evokes a weaker affective response, and neuroscientists say “meaning” comes primarily from this sort of neurosomatic arousal, would an evocative text read from a screen have a less vibrant meaning? Of course, the whole beauty of a screen-based life is that it can make you immune to sensing such minor deficits – and asking such potentially troubling questions. 

#CNN means business!!

This is how #HoraGorani, one of CNN’s own “leading women,” wrapped up her “show” the other day – much of it dedicated to the beheading of the second American hostage by the ISIS lunatics: “Stay with CNN – which means business is next.” Indeed – after the commercial break. Gorani also bragged CNN was showing only a still image from moments before the gruesome execution – but, of course, #QuestMeansBusiness had to show a moving image, just shy of the real thing, too. The strategy to overdramatize “stories” which are almost unbearable in their own right – with all available means, topped by the inescapable Richard Quest – may be a bit pathetic. But it has probably bumped up their ratings – as if to prove that no, there is no cosmic justice after all. Or who knows?

Charles Simic’s “Portable Hell”

In his latest NYRB article, Simic describes grimly the kind of hell “that can fit comfortably inside your head, despite the vast crowds of the damned and all that fire and smoke, is what you end up with after reading the world news these days.” Yes, the news these days can be a bit hard to digest, or even follow faithfully with so many depressing “stories” unfolding simultaneously around the globe. But there is an easy solution to this. All Simic needs to do is spend more time reading the “Fixes” blog on the NYT web site, and follow people like Bill Gates, Jeffrey Sachs, and Steven Pinker on Twitter, etc. – as opposed to watching obsessively all the endless images of dead children and grandparents he mentions.

For Big-Data Scientists, ‘Janitor Work’ Is Key Hurdle to Insights

This is the title of a new NYT article reflecting the view from then data trenches. It says “data scientists, according to interviews and expert estimates, spend from 50 percent to 80 percent of their time mired in this more mundane labor of collecting and preparing unruly digital data, before it can be explored for useful nuggets.” One data executive, “whose sensor-filled wristband and software track activity, sleep and food consumption, and suggest dietary and health tips based on the numbers,” complains how little this aspect of data analysis is appreciated by “data civilians.” The solution? But, of course – (almost) full automation of data collection, an effort spearheaded by a few promising startups. And how about all the research suggesting that insight is linked to intuition, and excessive analysis and overthinking – and particularly formal modeling – tend to suppress these “softer” aptitudes? I suspect most “data scientists” will hardly worry about this.

Tyranny of the #algorithm?

A NYT article carries the following ominous title: “As Work Shifts Vary, Family’s Only Constant Is Chaos.” And this is the teaser which appears online under it: “Increasing numbers of low-income mothers and fathers are at the center of a new collision that pits workplace scheduling technology against the routines of parenting.” No prizes for guessing the ultimate winner…

Comedic genius and mental illness

The Scientific American web site carries an article/blog post under the following title: “Robin Williams’s Comedic Genius Was Not a Result of Mental Illness, but His Suicide Was.” The author, Scott Barry Kaufman, is a recognized authority on creativity. I am wondering why he didn’t think/write of Shelley Carson’s “shared vulnerability” theory to which he has referred in the past.  In a nutshell, Carson’s theory (which she recently outlined for the lay public in Scientific American) states that extremely creative individuals and those suffering from schizophrenia and a few other mental maladies have similar neurosomatic predispositions. I guess after each suicide or semi-suicide by a particularly gifted celebrity Shelley is tempted to sigh: “I told you so!”