The wide and deep dysfunction of inequality

Is social inequality merely something to be ashamed of, or does it bring ruin upon a society? I just finished reading a book review of The Spirit Level: Why More Equal Societies Almost Always Do Better (2009). This book by Richard Wilkinson and Kate Pickett was reviewed in the April 30, 2009 edition of Nature (available online only to subscribers). The reviewer was Michael Sargent, a developmental biologist. The Wilkinson/Pickett book explores the social consequences of income inequality.

Using statistics from reputable independent sources, they compare indices of health and social development in 23 of the world's richest nations and in the individual US states. Their striking conclusion is that the societies that do best for their citizens are those with the narrowest income differentials-such as Japan and the Nordic countries and the US state of New Hampshire. The most unequal-the United States as a whole, the United Kingdom and Portugal do worst. Many measures of the quality of life, including life expectancy, are correlated with the degree of economic equality in each country.

Here's the elephant in the political room: there is nothing in the Republican platform to address this damage being inflicted upon society. Quite the opposite: the Republican platform has continually stoke a wild unregulated capitalistic engine that disproportionately rewards some at the expense of others. What kind of damage is caused by this widespread disparity? You name it:

Problems such as mental illness, obesity, cardiovascular disease, unwillingness to engage with education, misuse of illegal and prescription drugs, teenage pregnancy, lack of social mobility and neglect of child welfare increase with greater inequality. Violence, from murder to the bullying of children in school follows the same pattern. These trends are tied up with the issues of trust: the authors chart a profound decline in trust and United States from the 1960s to the present, which matches rising inequality during the long Republican ascendancy.

The authors go so far as to suggest a local hardwired biological mechanism: neuroendocrinological stress. The perception that others are reveling in the good life at one's expense undermines self-esteem and releases the hormone cortisol which causes stress, accompanied by high blood pressure and high blood sugar levels. The cortisol overwhelms hormones, such as oxytocin, that are critical for trust-building. The damaging effect of long-term cortisol has been well-studied and established in other animals. In some experiments, monkeys that were chronically shoved to the bottom of a wide social hierarchy "are more inclined to self medicate with cocaine, if given the opportunity." This article give me yet more evidence that we would be often better off to relinquish much of our judgmentalism and to reconceptualize morality as an aspect of ecology.

Continue ReadingThe wide and deep dysfunction of inequality

Parents Support Transgendered Child

An eight-year-old child in Omaha, Nebraska, the middle of three boys, has told his parents throughout his life that he is a she. Since he learned to talk, he has said, daily, that he is really a girl. His parents have come to believe him, and are letting him begin the next school term in a new school, as a girl, with a new name. Ben-turned-Katie will not be allowed back in his Catholic elementary school. According to the priest in the parish, since the Catholic Church believes a person is born one gender and cannot change, his appearance at school would lead to too many questions and cause discomfort for the other children. It might, of course. Certainly it would raise all kinds of questions, yes. Hard questions, the kind that parents aren't sure how to answer. My guess is, though, that if the school called in an expert on the subject and held an assembly in which the child's situation is explained in brief and concrete terms and the other children were allowed to ask any questions they had, parents were allowed to attend, etc., the issue could be handled and put to rest. Children that age are amazingly accepting, and what a wonderful life lesson it could be. That is how it would be handled in our school - or similarly, somehow - one of the many reasons we are there. In watching the video, I was struck by the dedication of these parents to their child. I am so relieved, on Katie's behalf, that she has this kind of support. In conservative Nebraska, this can't be easy. I wish them well, and thank them for being the kind of parents every kid deserves to have. Unconditional love at its finest.

Continue ReadingParents Support Transgendered Child

The wheel of life turns in the backyard

My family has a dog named "Holly." She's a friendly mutt. Loyal to a fault. A big raccoon took up residence on or in our garage recently, and Holly didn't like it at all. Our neighbors often saw the raccoon on our garage roof. We often heard Holly's barking, thanks to the raccoon. We live in the middle of the City of St. Louis, and we know that there are lots of raccoons running around. The City Animal Control told me that if we trapped a raccoon, they would come by to pick it up. By the time I got around to setting a trap, the neighbors mentioned that there was now one big raccoon and several small ones. As I was setting the trap near the garage, I could smell the smell of death. Even as we were trying to trap a raccoon, at least one of the raccoons had already died. I really do wonder how they can survive in a congested urban area, but the do, often enough, anyway. The next morning, my children excitedly mentioned that we had caught a large raccoon in our trap. raccoonIt looked like it weighed 15 pounds. I called the City Animal Control, and they indicated that they would come out and take away the raccoon. I didn't ask where they would take it, as I assumed that I was essentially dooming the mother raccoon to death, and possibly dooming the babies too (by taking away their mother). As I mentioned above, even as we waited for Animal Control, we were smelling the smell of death whenever we were in our garage. It was getting stronger by the hour. The next day (today), we still couldn't find any dead raccoon baby, but we did find that there were flies all over the garage, so the raccoon body was apparently nearby. window-fliesNature, red in tooth and claw. But I'm not done yet. This mini-life cycle started with a human family who wanted the companionship of a neotonous wolf (Holly), who got upset at the raccoon, who had been deprived of her natural habitat by the humans. At least one of her dead babies was being eaten by flies. Now what about the flies? You've all heard the joke, "Why did the fly fly?" Answer: "Because the spider spider." This afternoon that joke became incarnate, right in the corner of my garage. Though these macro photos didn't turn out in the sharpest focus, you can clearly see that a spider had caught one of the flies in a web and was making a meal of it (there's also a piece of leaf in the foreground). image by Erich Vieth If only we humans ate spiders, this cycle would be at its end (or a beginning), but it gets all the more convoluted from here. For instance, 90% of the cells in your body are "aliens," most of them are bacteria that allow us to digest our food. Without them we would die. And while I'm pointing out connections, consider that parallel universe of fungi living under the ground. Two weeks ago, I saw an eruption of mushroom (their fruiting bodies) in the front yard. Without this fungi, most of our plants would die. img_6679 It occurred to me today that, right here in the middle of a major city, whether or not I'm aware of it, nature is churning away, doing its thing in an entirely amoral way. Except for us humans, they say. We supposedly have a "moral" sense that is not anchored to our animal-ness. Or are we spinning elaborate intellectual webs in coming to this conclusion?

Continue ReadingThe wheel of life turns in the backyard

47 million year old primate fossil

Some scientists are touting a 47 million year old primate fossil as potentially being a direct descendant of humans, though they admit that there is a lot more work to do before making that conclusion with certitude. What is not in dispute is that this lemur-like fossil is extremely well preserved.

Continue Reading47 million year old primate fossil

Altruism in Sports – Strength Fest 2009

This past week I had the very enjoyable assignment of creating a short video of a four event strongman contest. The event was called Strength Fest 2009 and was held to celebrate the 10th anniversary of Iron Sport Gym which caters to athletes who compete in Strongman and Highland Games competitions. I thought that the readers of DI might find this video generally interesting but, more than that, I wanted to point out an aspect of the sport that I find fascinating, refreshing and which reminded me of a recent post here at Dangerous Intersection. One of the things that always strikes me about strongman competitions is the camaraderie. We are all familiar with teammates supporting each other, but in this case I am speaking about the camaraderie between rivals. Starting at around 2:15 watch how the competitors try to inspire one athlete to complete his lift, going so far as to slap him in the face to help him get motivated! (Watch carefully, he asks for it!)

Continue ReadingAltruism in Sports – Strength Fest 2009