Fading creativity

As IQ inches upwards, creativity is sagging, according to this Newsweek article:

Like intelligence tests, Torrance’s test—a 90-minute series of discrete tasks, administered by a psychologist—has been taken by millions worldwide in 50 languages. Yet there is one crucial difference between IQ and CQ scores. With intelligence, there is a phenomenon called the Flynn effect—each generation, scores go up about 10 points. Enriched environments are making kids smarter. With creativity, a reverse trend has just been identified and is being reported for the first time here: American creativity scores are falling.
Why is this happening? The article suggests some possible reasons. "One likely culprit is the number of hours kids now spend in front of the TV and playing videogames rather than engaging in creative activities. Another is the lack of creativity development in our schools."

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Mel Gibson and the Problem of Public Privacy

So Mel Gibson has been exposed (once again) as an intolerant, sexist, abusive person. A recording of a phone conversation with his former girlfriend is now Out There on the internet and one can listen to Mel spill molten verbiage into her earpiece while she calmly refutes his charges. All I can wonder is, So what? What business is this of ours? This is private stuff. People lose control. Between each other, with strangers, but more often with those closest, people have moments when the mouth ill-advisedly opens and vileness falls out. The question is, does this define us? Are we, in fact, only to be defined by our worst moments? That would seem to be the case for people like Gibson. The reason, I think, is that for most of us, the Mel Gibsons of the world have no business having shitty days and acting like this. For most of us, there is just cause for having these kinds of days and attitudes, because for most of us the world is not our oyster and we do not have the luxury of squandering time, friends, and money. Mel Gibson is wealthy and famous and, at one time, admired. He ate at the best restaurants, appeared on television, gave interviews, has his picture on the covers of magazines. Is seen with other people, regularly, who fall into that category of Those Who Have It Made.

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We are in big trouble

Take a guess . . . what percentage of young adults from Philadelphia would be qualified to serve in the military? 92%? 45%? Now check this out:

A nonprofit group says that up to 90 percent of young Philadelphians are ineligible for military service because of criminal records, obesity or lack of education.
So you're probably thinking that the problem is with young adults in big cities, but you're an optimist:
Nationally, the Defense Department estimates that 75 percent of young adults are disqualified from military service.
Ouch. We need boot camp for everyone. We need to put a moratorium on French fries, television and the "war on drugs."

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Jury Duty Again

Every other year, I pull jury duty. I received my latest summons with some chagrin, as it seems like I just had it. So sure was I that I had served in 2009 that I checked the box on the survey form that says I've just done the duty within the last 24 months. So I thought I might be excused. But to do this post, I checked my records. It has already been 30 months since I last spent half a week sitting in the courthouse deciding someones fate for up to $1.50/hr. Oops. They'll probably check and I'll make those big bucks yet again this July. I've sat on several juries, and been foreman a couple of times. Civil lawyers don't like me. I get bumped from all lawsuits involving measurable things, like product liability cases. But criminal attorneys don't seem to mind my rational bent. I may have to try harder. Murder trials are very stressful. Maybe an Atheist shirt or button would help. Atheists are among the most distrusted demographics in this nation. Sex offenders get more respect. How do I feel about this regular duty? Consider my official number.

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The things our biggest and most nebulous villains have in common

Jonathan Haidt's The Happiness Hypothesis is one of my favorite books of all time. It is in the top 10 books I have heavily annotated. Here's a sampling of why (although if you search for "Haidt" in the search field of this website, you will find 20 of other posts regarding Haidt's work). In the following excerpt, Haidt discusses what all of our biggest villains seem to have in common:

When the moral history of the 1990s is written, it might be titled desperately seeking Satan . With peace and harmony ascendant, Americans seemed to be searching for substitute villains. We tried drug dealers (but then the crack epidemic waned) and a child abductors (who are usually one of the parents). The cultural right vilified homosexuals; the left vilified racists and homophobes. As I thought about these various villains, including the older villains of Communism and Satan himself, I realized that most of them share three properties: they are invisible (you can't identify the evil one from appearance alone) their evil spreads by contagion, making it vital to protect impressionable young people from infection (for example from communist ideas, homosexual teachers, were stereotypes on television); and the villains can be defeated only if we all pull together as a team. It became clear to me that people want to believe they are on a mission from God, or that they are fighting for some secular good (animals, fetuses, women's rights), and you can't have much of a mission without good allies and a good enemy.
How devastingly "refreshing" that modern villains are so identifiable and that they are doing such tangible damage. We are now looking at a devastated national economy, two expensive and needless wars, a ruined ecosystem in the Gulf of Mexico, an energy crisis and a helpless political system created by an utterly dysfunctional election system that, for the most part, attracts megalomaniac ignoramuses and repels humble, good-hearted and well-informed people. It remains to be seen whether we will ever be able to let go of our bogeymen and, instead, focus on our real villains. Addendum: See this related post on "The Power of Nightmares."

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