Thanks to Barack Obama's ingenuity and his faith that human beings should always be challenged to figure out their differences with empathy, we have a wonderful resolution rather than an interminable ugliness. Bold, beautiful move.
Here's how Henry Louis Gates now sees things:
Let me say that I thank God that I live in a country in which police officers put their lives at risk to protect us every day, and, more than ever, I’ve come to understand and appreciate their daily sacrifices on our behalf. I’m also grateful that we live in a country where freedom of speech is a sacrosanct value and I hope that one day we can get to know each other better, as we began to do at the White House this afternoon over beers with President Obama.
I was watching the one hour documentary "How Kevin Bacon Cured Cancer" and thought I'd share a few thoughts. Presumably anyone reading this already knows the principle of "Six Degrees of Separation" and the game involving this actor. My thoughts have nothing to do with the actor, but rather with the field of study that actually emerged from this Urban Myth: Network Theory.
One thing that jumped out at me was that network theory appears to neatly show how organization and information growth are necessary results of random connections. In other words, organization Just Happens. This has always been observed. It was historically explained as either the result of very, very sophisticated design, or a "goal" of evolution. But now there is a mathematical model showing that systems become organized because of entropy, not in spite of it. Unfortunately, those who doubt evolution usually never get far enough in math to see this.
Another thought I had was in response to the observation that a network becomes efficient given many points (or nodes) with few and local connections, plus a few nodes with many and far-ranging connections. These widely connected nodes are the key to the usual success of the game of six degrees, or the stability of the internet, or the synchrony of crickets, or the efficiency of our nervous system, or any other network.
I asked myself, "Given a choice, would I want to be a social node of local, or widespread connections?" I'm not particularly interested in how useful I may be as a connection in a game of Six Degrees, but rather how much fuller is ones life given wider connections. More points of view lead to understanding more ideas. I talk to people in all lines of work, of any political or religious affiliation. I converse to listen. Ideas that conflict with what I "know" are interesting to investigate. (At least until I understand why they conflict, and then they are inflicted repeatedly by those who don't understand the conflict.)
Although I am a social stick-in-the-mud, I've met relatives who live on 4 continents, and have visited yet another. I gravitate toward people who also collect people. This blog (for example) has authors from several continents.
I have also traveled to a few places, many shown on this "Cities I've Visited" vanity map:
What makes people happy? On quite a few occasions, I've posted at DI with regard to ideas that I learned through reading various books and articles (a search for "happiness" in the DI search box will give you dozens of articles). What does that reveal about me, I wonder?
Today, I had the pleasure of reading an extraordinarily thoughtful article on this same topic: "What Makes Us Happy?" by Joshua Wolf Shenk appears in the June 2009 edition of The Atlantic. You'll find an abridged edition of the article here.
Shenk's article is anchored by the Harvard Study of Adult Development, the longest running longitudinally study of mental and physical well-being in history. It was begun in 1937 in order to study "well-adjusted Harvard sophomores (all male), and it has followed its subject for more than 70 years." The study was originally known as "The Grant Study," in that it was originally funded by W.T. Grant. Despite all odds, the study has survived to this day--many of the subjects are now in their upper 80's. Along the way, the study was supplemented with a separate study launched in 1937 dedicated to studying juvenile delinquents in inner-city Boston (run by criminologists Sheldon and Eleanor Glueck).
You'll enjoy Joshua Shenk's work on many levels. He writes with precision, providing you with a deep understanding of the featured longitudinal studies. You will also enjoy his seemingly effortless ability to spin engaging stories (there are dozens of stories within his article) and his exceptional skill at crafting highly readable prose. I'm writing this post as a dare, then. Go forth and read Shenk's article and I guarantee that you will be thoroughly enriched and appreciative.
The Atlantic also provided a video interview of George Vaillant, now 74, who since 1967 has dedicated his career to running and analyzing the Grant Study. As you'll see from Shenk's article, Vaillant is an exceptional storyteller himself. The Atlantic article, then, might remind you of one of those Russian dolls, and that is a storyteller telling the story of another storyteller who tell stories of hundreds of other storytellers. For more than 40 years, Vaillant has not only gathered reams of technical data, but he has poured his energy into interviewing the subjects and their families and melding all of that data into compellingly detailed vignettes of the subjects. Telling stories is not ultimately what the study was supposed to be about, of course, and Vaillant also tells us what those stories mean for the rest of us. Truly, what makes people happy? Vaillant offers answers that you will be tempted to immediately apply to your own situation.
Vaillant has a lot to say about "adaptations," how people respond to the challenges they face in life. As a Shenk explains,
Would you like to know about a group of six or seven fundamentalist Christian Congressmen who believe that they have been tapped by God to usurp more power for the already powerful? Then consider Rachel Maddow's discussion about The Family with Jeff Sharlet, author of a brand new book: The Family: The Secret Fundamentalism at the Heart of American Power.
Jeff knows about The Family because he went undercover and spent time living among them at 133 C-Street, the group's headquarters in Washington D.C, which is a church that looks like a house. Senator John Ensign lives at the house. So does Senator Tom Coburn. Mark Sanford mentions an affiliation with C-Street while he was having his affair. What goes on at C-Street stays there, thanks to the secrecy pact enter by the members. Wikipedia offers far more.
What do these guys want? To do God's will, of course. What is God's will? As long as you are chosen by God, the means justify the ends. Anything is justified, even monetary bribes; they sometimes call themselves "The Christian Mafia." They prefer to operate behind the scenes. Maddow sums up the aim of The Family:
promoting American power, world wide, unfettered capitalism with no unions, no programs to help poor people, all with this idea that godly powerful rich men should get as many resources as possible personally, and they should just privately help everyone else.
People from my town of St. Louis are going ape-shit thinking that the national spotlight will come to our city along with the All-Star Game. It's really sounding like mega-insecurity to me. If you're really proud of your city, then be proud. You shouldn't need some sports announcer to say a few nice things about one's tourist attractions between pitches in order to feel validated. And if that sports announcer's opinion is so important, let's make sure that he takes a tour of our decaying city schools before the baseball game so that he can give the national sports audience an informed opinion or two on that, between pitches. And, really, what's more important if you had to choose between having first rate tourist attractions and a first rate school system?
But my ambivalence leads to an important question. What is St. Louis really like? I've lived here all my life, and there is much to like about our city (as well as many things that need much improvement). Rather than write my own lengthy description of St. Louis, I'm going to refer you to this well-written balanced account by Alan Soloman of the Philadelphia Inquirer. What should we be thinking about St. Louis as the All-Star Game approaches? Here's Soloman's ominous opening, although his article eventually veers to many of the positive aspects of my river city.
The Gateway Arch, symbol of the place, and the museum beneath it represent the nation at its swaggering best, symbols of a Western expansion that would define us in so many ways. That we're talking about St. Louis - a city that's seen its share of rough times and that, like the country, isn't exactly in swagger mode right now - in a way adds particular power and poignancy to this year's celebration.
For another angle on how St. Louis is doing, check out this article in The Riverfront Times, where the author asks whether the recent efforts to beautify St. Louis amount to "putting lipstick on a pig."
Hello, I invite you to subscribe to Dangerous Intersection by entering your email below. You will have the option to receive emails notifying you of new posts once per week or more often.
