photo: Tilford Bartman*
ENCOUNTER
We were riding through frozen fields in a wagon at dawn.
ENCOUNTER
We were riding through frozen fields in a wagon at dawn.
A red wing rose in the darkness.
And suddenly a hare ran across the road.
One of us pointed to it with his hand.
That was long ago. Today neither of them is alive,
Not the hare, nor the man who made the gesture.
O my love, where are they, where are they going
The flash of a hand, streak of movement, rustle of pebbles.
I ask not out of sorrow, but in wonder.
~ Czeslaw Milosz, Wilno, 1936
translated by the author and Lillian Vallee
Oriana:
So simple and so moving.
The themes of impermanence and mortality have become practically synonymous with poetry. Poets don’t strive to say something that has never been said before. They traffic in the same “eternal verities.” The magic lies in the fresh way of saying it — in the ever-new images that enter our psyche. The participate in that ride through the frozen fields at dawn (“a red wing rose in the darkness”), we see the hare suddenly running through the road, and the hand pointing to it.
And here comes mortality:
That was long ago. Today neither of them is alive,
Not the hare, nor the man who made the gesture.
And then we are drawn into the speaker’s question:
O my love, where are they, where are they going
The flash of a hand, streak of movement, rustle of pebbles.
I ask not out of sorrow, but in wonder.
We either have our own answer, or else need to “live the question.” If I quote Rilke here, it’s because Rilke, in the Second Duino Elegy, also wondered: “Oh smile, where are you going, oh upturned glance . . .” It’s like asking where the soul goes after death.
In my personal belief system, the soul (consciousness, mind) doesn’t go anywhere — it ceases to be, as does the smile and the glance. The problem stems in part from our grammar: soul, smile, glance are nouns, not verbs. Yes these are processes. What happens to the candle flame when the candle stops burning? Does the flame “go” anywhere? No, it ceases to be because either the source of fuel (the wax in the wick) has been exhausted, or else oxygen has been cut off (I always marveled at the sacristan putting out the tall altar candles with his hooded lance, like an executioner).
Poets might argue that that’s just so bleak and unpoetic to admit that the soul and the smile don’t go anywhere, but simply cease to be. Staying in wonder as you witness the myriad disappearances has an opening for hope. Our greatest wound is impermanence; for many, the antidote is the delusion of continuing forever. And ideally, not just the person, but everything dear to that person, would continue forever.
And indeed Milosz had a strange metaphysical hope that everything lost will be restored — the man, the hare, the wagon, the millions of insects and birds, exactly as they were . . . The information is stored somewhere in a supercomputer in outer space.
In the very same volume, “Bells in Winter,” Milosz says
Yet I am one of those who believe in Apokatastasis,
A word that promises returning movement,
Not what is fixed in Katastasis,
And appears in Acts 3,21.
It means: Restoration. This was believed by Gregory of Nyssa,
Johannes Scotus Erigena, Ruysbroeck, and William Blake.
Thus each thing, for me, has a dual existence,
Both in time and when time shall no longer be.
(my thanks to Leonard Kress for pointing out this crucial passage)
It’s interesting to ponder that, due to what he has experienced and witnessed, Milosz had a more keen sense of evil than the average person. He saw civilization as precarious. Of course enormous evil could happen again.
Milosz desperately wanted to believe in god and the resurrection in the flesh. Officially a Catholic, he was torn with doubt, much of it due to the problem of evil. Perhaps it’s not surprising that he’d cling to the belief that all that was lost will be somehow restored. Justice, not evil, shall triumph. Though I said it’s not surprising that this complex thinker should cling to such an optimistic belief, maybe just to preserve his sanity, a part of me can’t help but be surprised.
But then, “hope springs eternal.” It prevails over the skeptical intellect.
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FERNANDO PESSOA’S LAST WORDS
Fernando Pessoa died 85 years ago at the age of 47. His last words, written the night before he died: “I know not what tomorrow will bring.”
Oriana:
I was wondering if perhaps this was a quotation from Shakespeare, and that was the reason for Pessoa’s use of English to record those words. But I can find nothing on the Internet to confirm this supposition. Pessoa was fluent in English (and French, and of course his native Portuguese), so it’s possible that he used English for the same reason that I do: for the sake of a wider international audience.
“I know not” has a Shakespearean (or biblical) ring, and perhaps Pessoa wanted the gravitas of that.
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"Marriage is always a grave risk." ~ Henry James, The Portrait of a Lady
~ If all life moves inevitably towards its end, then we must, during our own, color it with our colors of love and hope. ~ Marc Chagall
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“FINALLY, AN ANSWER TO WHY SO MANY PEOPLE VOTED FOR TRUMP”
~ In one of Sam Harris’ most recent podcasts (#224 — The Key to Trump’s Appeal), he discusses a reason he thinks so many people voted for Trump. For me, it paints the clearest image yet of what’s going on here.
Harris begins by talking about how Trump really has none of the qualities we would typically call “virtuous”. Trump whines and complains, in particular about being asked tough questions. He’s brazenly hypocritical. He’s bragged about how his stardom allows him to do anything he wants to women, including grabbing them “by the pussy”. He’s not physically fit and only one pound away from being considered obese. He frequently eats fast food. He uses Twitter to spread lies, as well as to direct petty insults at anyone getting in his way. Finally, Trump demands mob-boss style loyalty but gives none in return.
Where in all of this mess do we find even a sliver of virtue? Nowhere, which might actually work in his favor.
According to Harris, Trump’s saving grace could be that he never claims to be morally superior to anyone. How could he? He doesn’t pretend or aspire to be anything other than the writhing mass of malice and narcissism that he is. He couldn’t possibly judge anyone and his supporters know this. They watch him wear his flaws with a shamelessness the likes of which they’ve never seen.
Harris describes Trump’s shamelessness as a kind of “spiritual balm” that gives comfort to people in a world that’s constantly telling them they’re not good enough.
According to Harris: “He offers a truly safe space for human frailty and hypocrisy and self-doubt. He offers what no priest can credibly offer— a total expiation of shame.”
A good example of this is our attitude toward fast food. With documentaries like Super Size Me shining a light on the dangers of fast food and the United States’ burgeoning obesity epidemic, everywhere we look people are now telling us what, when, and how to eat. Consciously or not, all of this advice is set against the backdrop of fat-shaming. Who wouldn’t want relief from this shame?
Indeed, a nationally representative survey showed that the more media coverage about Trump’s eating habits people viewed, the more likely they were to have a positive perspective toward fast-food. If we consider that any president becomes a de facto role model for the country’s people, we can understand why this would be the case. We might also start to get an inkling of why Trump’s shamelessness is appealing to his supporters— his actions are telling them, you don’t need to feel ashamed.
But, according to Harris, Trump’s appeal is even better understood juxtaposed to the perspectives on the far left.
What is being demonstrated by the far left today is a level of sanctimony that defies all reason. The left has taken the you’re either with us or against us approach, and God help you if you’re against them. If you don’t smile and nod while they scream in your face, you’re a racist, sexist, homophobic, Islamophobic, transphobic bigot and you deserve nothing more than to be torn down and destroyed.
The left is nothing but pure judgement.
And if you happen to be a white, cis, straight male, which is Trump’s base, best of luck to you! Not only are you guilty for your own sins, but you’re also guilty for the sins of your forebears, including slavery and colonialism. So, as Harris puts it, “tear down those statues and bend the fucking knee.”
The messaging between the left and the right couldn’t be starker. And when you hold both perspectives simultaneously, it’s possible to see Trump’s allure.
Crazy begets crazy
What I think we’re watching today is crazy on one side driving crazy on the other. Each side is continually upping the ante of crazy and that’s driving the polarization we’re seeing today. It’s a vicious cycle, but how do we end it?
I recently listened to an interview with Bill Doherty who is the co-founder of an organization called Braver Angels. Braver Angels offers workshops that bring democratic- and conservative-leaning participants together to learn about each other’s political perspectives. Critically, the workshops are structured in a way that allows people to humanize the other side. According to Doherty, he’s seen people walk into these sessions as enemies and leave as best friends.
How does he do it? He gets people to listen to each other. Doherty believes that much of the anger we see in politics comes from people having their perspectives misrepresented by the other side. So, he creates a safe space for people to talk openly and share their stories, and what happens is that everyone gains a better understanding of each other.
Through this process, the participants are able to break down stereotypes and discover that they share common values. So, even when they still disagree — Doherty calls this accurate disagreement — participants leave the sessions with the knowledge that they have more in common with the other side than they ever thought possible. Everyone is more optimistic about the future, as a result.
I think we need more accurate disagreement in our lives. We need to stop writing people off by calling them stupid or racist or homophobic because those answers are too easy, too simplistic. People are more complicated and less evil than we give them credit for.
So the next time you’re talking politics, try to aim for accurate disagreement. You might just stop the next Trump from being elected. ~
Let’s remember, though, that Biden won the popular vote by more than 7 million votes (latest figures: Biden: 81,264,673 (51.3%); Trump: Trump 74,210,838 (46.9%). That’s not a minor difference. And, arguably, many people weren’t voting FOR Biden; they were voting AGAINST Trump.
A month ago or so I read an opinion column in USA Today (once in a great while I venture outside my usual news sources). The topic was the greatest achievements of the Trump administration. I was expecting to read about the peace agreements in the Middle East, and/or the economy. But the author (I apologize for having forgotten his name) sang Trump’s praises for “setting back the cultural revolution.” A big deal was made of transgender people and restrooms, as well as allowing businesses such as bakeries not to serve gay customers. The article was basically a list (rather short) of victories in the culture wars, with particular attention given to transsexuals.
Once my shock of astonishment was over, I realized that it’s easy to forget the resentment some people feel about social change. “I want my grandchildren to grow up in the same America that I grew up in,” one senior Trump voter stated in an interview. I supposed it never entered his mind that that was simply impossible.
Mary: AGAINST SHAMING
Harris's focus on Trump's shamelessness as a balm to those who feel they are always judged as being "not good enough" strikes me as both valid and enlightening. The progressive, left leaning, politically correct can characterize those not on the bandwagon of social change as not simply mistaken, but as evil and worthy of condemnation with the same sanctimonious fervor as a preacher consigning sinners to hell. I think of Hillary's dismissive "basket of deplorables," and of the kind of shaming familiar to anyone witness to the "criticism, self-criticism" sessions held in leftist political circles as a way of rooting out and eradicating any traces of opposition. This kind of shaming can be brutal, self- righteous and exactly the tactic to strengthen opposition, even encourage it, rather than convince those scorned to change position. It even spurs opponents to exaggerate and retrench, rather than moderate their positions.
Not only does this go a long way to account for Trump's supporters, it shows how the rhetoric of his critics has contributed to strengthening his base. This has nothing to do with rational argument. It is all emotion--scorn, ridicule, condemnation, a smug dismissiveness, are all answered with defiance. If it all sounds like a schoolyard dynamic, that's because it is — that basic, that primal — a demonstration of how to emphasize and reinforce division rather than allow for cooperation.
What can be done? The simplest of things, perhaps. Listening with humility and kindness, offering understanding rather than condemnation, respect rather than scorn and humiliation. Stop shouting over the barricades we've built and stop demonizing each other. Realize that simply assigning blame is not a way to resolution and healing. Learn how to disagree without the knee jerk automatic condemmation we have become so used to. Recognize that social changes can be frightening and overwhelming even if they are positive.
Oriana:
What I hope for most right now is that the Biden administration will set a new standard for non-abusive, non-divisive language of public debate. Not political correctness but “political politeness.” Let’s at least fake respect for the other side — eventually, it may take.
The unknown here is whether Trump will continue to be an “influencer.” No one else has shown that degree of shamelessness and vulgarity, the bullying through insults, the demonizing, the delusional lying (“I won”). It takes deep psychopathology.
Now, how to find some common ground . . . “Core values” may not really do it, now that we know a third or so of Americans would welcome a “strongman” type of leader who doesn’t have to bother with Congress and elections (i.e. an outright dictator). Maybe “state rights.” There is something to be said for expanding state rights — that’s where I can imagine a civilized, rational debate.
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“FASCISM ONLY ONE SQUASHED BUTTERFLY AWAY”
~ In “On the Concept of History,” written in Paris in early 1940, Walter Benjamin talked about the “current amazement that the things we are experiencing are ‘still’ possible in the twentieth century.” Benjamin said that the shock comes, in large part, from the popular conviction—still current today—that the arc of history bends naturally toward justice, that the human race is on an unremitting escalator of progress.
“One reason why Fascism has a chance,” he wrote, “is that in the name of progress its opponents treat it as a historical norm … [but] the tradition of the oppressed teaches us that the ‘state of emergency’ in which we live is not the exception but the rule.” Even as we tell ourselves that fascism has been conquered, it remains our shadow, our dark future that’s always just one squashed butterfly away.
There is no word in English for the precise sensation of history holding its breath, but after a year of plague and insurrection and electoral uncertainty, most of us know how it feels. The word Benjamin uses, in his paper on history, is Jetztzeit. The literal translation is “here and now,” but it means more than that. Benjamin describes this sort of moment as the time when history is truly changeable, when the present stalks the future like a tiger hunting its prey, all bunched muscle and stored energy, ready to pounce. It’s useful to remember that when he wrote about history, in 1940, Walter Benjamin was a refugee, trying to find a way to escape Nazi-occupied Europe, where Jews like him were being hunted down and murdered. To us, that period of history seems fixed. But those who had to live through it had no idea what would come next.
It is not possible to predict the future by reading stories, but it is possible to describe the present. The nightmares of an age, its terrors and secret ambitions, seep out of the collective unconscious in storytelling. There are repeating patterns, questions that get posed again and again, themes that become clearer and more unsubtle the more often they are rehearsed. ~
https://www.wired.com/story/timelines-of-our-lives/amp
There is no word in English for the precise sensation of history holding its breath, but after a year of plague and insurrection and electoral uncertainty, most of us know how it feels. The word Benjamin uses, in his paper on history, is Jetztzeit. The literal translation is “here and now,” but it means more than that. Benjamin describes this sort of moment as the time when history is truly changeable, when the present stalks the future like a tiger hunting its prey, all bunched muscle and stored energy, ready to pounce. It’s useful to remember that when he wrote about history, in 1940, Walter Benjamin was a refugee, trying to find a way to escape Nazi-occupied Europe, where Jews like him were being hunted down and murdered. To us, that period of history seems fixed. But those who had to live through it had no idea what would come next.
It is not possible to predict the future by reading stories, but it is possible to describe the present. The nightmares of an age, its terrors and secret ambitions, seep out of the collective unconscious in storytelling. There are repeating patterns, questions that get posed again and again, themes that become clearer and more unsubtle the more often they are rehearsed. ~
https://www.wired.com/story/timelines-of-our-lives/amp
Evil too only wants to make us happy. ~ Stanislav Lec, Unkempt Thoughts
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BREAK UP OR STAY? FLIP A COIN
~ Determining whether it’s best to stick with your relationship or end things is a tough decision. Knowing what’s right is hard, and figuring out what’s best seems impossible. As difficult as it may be, the solution might just be deceptively simple: Flip a coin.
~ Determining whether it’s best to stick with your relationship or end things is a tough decision. Knowing what’s right is hard, and figuring out what’s best seems impossible. As difficult as it may be, the solution might just be deceptively simple: Flip a coin.
I know, I know… it seems too easy. First, a little background. In the book Think Like a Freak, economist Steven Levitt and his Freakonomics friend and co-author, Stephen Dubner, urge readers to think about the world differently. One way to do that is by training readers’ brains to approach complex problems in unique ways. Whereas many would suggest thinking “big picture,” they advocate for focusing on the smaller, more manageable (and more changeable) elements of a problem.
In the final chapter, “The Upside of Quitting,” Levitt and Dubner suggest that, contrary to what many people have told you in life, you should quit. When things get tough, you shouldn’t always tough them out and stick with it. Instead, it’s often better to quit and to do so sooner rather than later. Because many of us believe adages like “winners never quit and quitters never win,” we’re hesitant to give up. But that reluctance may hold us back.
Not wanting to quit lies at the heart of many tough decisions. To address this, Levitt and Dubner describe a “Freakonomics Experiment” where readers submitted a tough decision they wanted help with. You might assume that they would implement a fancy algorithm or formula to help readers make the most data-based decision. Nope… they thought differently and used a simple computerized coin flip. Despite the simplistic mechanism for making decisions (i.e., clicking a button that says “flip a coin”), readers submitted all types of questions. Some were about major life decisions (e.g., Should I ask for a raise? Should I quit my job?), whereas others were more mundane (e.g., Should I grow a beard?).
Of the questions readers asked, the most interesting to me was, “Should I break up with my boyfriend/girlfriend?” According to Think Like a Freak’s authors, more than 200 people posed this question, which means that the Freakonomics Experiment was potentially responsible for about 100 breakups (i.e., 50% of 200). Of course, this assumes that the users adhered to the coin’s decision (according to the book, the majority reported that they went through with it).
Not only that, but those who made breakup decisions based on the coin flip reported that they were happy with the outcome. Think about how bizarre that is: Up to 100 people in a relationship broke up based on a random decision made by a computer and were generally happy about it. (Of course, some were happy with the decision to break up and some were happy with the decision to stay together. I’m intentionally glossing over that second part because I find the happy breakups fascinating and potentially counterintuitive/freaky.) Clearly, they could have been unhappy with the outcome (i.e., they broke up with their partner and weren’t totally convinced they should have).
Kind of makes you wonder if there is any research linking breakups and happiness, eh? Good! Now you’re thinking like a freaky relationship scientist. The coin-flip results suggest that people can break up and be happy about it, which is consistent with research findings.
First, we know that people in relationships predict that they will be sadder about the breakup of their relationship than they are when it does actually break up. I also know from some of my own research that many people (about 2 out of 5) report that their breakup was positive. Maybe post-breakup happiness isn’t a completely freak occurrence.
There’s something else going on here as well. Who’s willing to submit their relationship’s future to a coin flip in the first place? Probably not people in fulfilling, healthy relationships. Rather, putting your relationship’s fate in the hands of a coin flip probably says that you’re already having significant doubts. For example, if you’re willing to take a 50% chance of your relationship ending, it is quite likely that your relationship already has less commitment. Those with more commitment wouldn’t take the chance.
There’s something else going on here as well. Who’s willing to submit their relationship’s future to a coin flip in the first place? Probably not people in fulfilling, healthy relationships. Rather, putting your relationship’s fate in the hands of a coin flip probably says that you’re already having significant doubts. For example, if you’re willing to take a 50% chance of your relationship ending, it is quite likely that your relationship already has less commitment. Those with more commitment wouldn’t take the chance.
We also know that relationships with less commitment are more likely to break up, which may also explain why users were happy when the coin suggested ending the relationship. They knew a breakup was imminent and conveniently had a coin-flip to blame (“it’s not me, baby, it’s the coin”). Of course, that coin may be doing both partners a favor since having doubts about your relationship prior to marriage (i.e., “cold feet”) relates to less marriage satisfaction and a higher likelihood of divorce, especially for women.
Ultimately, as far as your relationship is concerned, whether a virtual or real-life analog coin flip is the most effective way to make relationship decisions isn’t what’s most important. Rather, what may be most revealing is whether you would be willing to allow a coin flip to determine the fate of your relationship. Freaky.
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MERITOCRACY: A FALSE AND HARMFUL BELIEF?
MERITOCRACY: A FALSE AND HARMFUL BELIEF?
‘We are true to our creed when a little girl born into the bleakest poverty knows that she has the same chance to succeed as anybody else …’ —Barack Obama, inaugural address, 2013
‘We must create a level playing field for American companies and workers.’ —Donald Trump, inaugural address, 2017
Meritocracy has become a leading social ideal. Politicians across the ideological spectrum continually return to the theme that the rewards of life – money, power, jobs, university admission – should be distributed according to skill and effort. The most common metaphor is the ‘even playing field’ upon which players can rise to the position that fits their merit. Conceptually and morally, meritocracy is presented as the opposite of systems such as hereditary aristocracy, in which one’s social position is determined by the lottery of birth. Under meritocracy, wealth and advantage are merit’s rightful compensation, not the fortuitous windfall of external events.
Most people don’t just think the world should be run meritocratically, they think it is meritocratic. In the UK, 84 per cent of respondents to the 2009 British Social Attitudes survey stated that hard work is either ‘essential’ or ‘very important’ when it comes to getting ahead, and in 2016 the Brookings Institute found that 69 per cent of Americans believe that people are rewarded for intelligence and skill. Respondents in both countries believe that external factors, such as luck and coming from a wealthy family, are much less important. While these ideas are most pronounced in these two countries, they are popular across the globe.
Although widely held, the belief that merit rather than luck determines success or failure in the world is demonstrably false. This is not least because merit itself is, in large part, the result of luck. Talent and the capacity for determined effort, sometimes called ‘grit’, depend a great deal on one’s genetic endowments and upbringing.
This is to say nothing of the fortuitous circumstances that figure into every success story. In his book Success and Luck (2016), the US economist Robert Frank recounts the long-shots and coincidences that led to Bill Gates’s stellar rise as Microsoft’s founder, as well as to Frank’s own success as an academic. Luck intervenes by granting people merit, and again by furnishing circumstances in which merit can translate into success. This is not to deny the industry and talent of successful people. However, it does demonstrate that the link between merit and outcome is tenuous and indirect at best.
According to Frank, this is especially true where the success in question is great, and where the context in which it is achieved is competitive. There are certainly programmers nearly as skillful as Gates who nonetheless failed to become the richest person on Earth. In competitive contexts, many have merit, but few succeed. What separates the two is luck.
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In addition to being false, a growing body of research in psychology and neuroscience suggests that believing in meritocracy makes people more selfish, less self-critical and even more prone to acting in discriminatory ways. Meritocracy is not only wrong; it’s bad.
The ‘ultimatum game’ is an experiment, common in psychological labs, in which one player (the proposer) is given a sum of money and told to propose a division between him and another player (the responder), who may accept the offer or reject it. If the responder rejects the offer, neither player gets anything. The experiment has been replicated thousands of times, and usually the proposer offers a relatively even split. If the amount to be shared is $100, most offers fall between $40-$50.
One variation on this game shows that believing one is more skilled leads to more selfish behavior. In research at Beijing Normal University, participants played a fake game of skill before making offers in the ultimatum game. Players who were (falsely) led to believe they had ‘won’ claimed more for themselves than those who did not play the skill game.
Other studies confirm this finding. The economists Aldo Rustichini at the University of Minnesota and Alexander Vostroknutov at Maastricht University in the Netherlands found that subjects who first engaged in a game of skill were much less likely to support the redistribution of prizes than those who engaged in games of chance. Just having the idea of skill in mind makes people more tolerant of unequal outcomes. While this was found to be true of all participants, the effect was much more pronounced among the ‘winners’.
By contrast, research on gratitude indicates that remembering the role of luck increases generosity. Frank cites a study in which simply asking subjects to recall the external factors (luck, help from others) that had contributed to their successes in life made them much more likely to give to charity than those who were asked to remember the internal factors (effort, skill).
Perhaps more disturbing, simply holding meritocracy as a value seems to promote discriminatory behavior. The management scholar Emilio Castilla at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and the sociologist Stephen Benard at Indiana University studied attempts to implement meritocratic practices, such as performance-based compensation in private companies. They found that, in companies that explicitly held meritocracy as a core value, managers assigned greater rewards to male employees over female employees with identical performance evaluations. This preference disappeared where meritocracy was not explicitly adopted as a value.
This is surprising because impartiality is the core of meritocracy’s moral appeal. The ‘even playing field’ is intended to avoid unfair inequalities based on gender, race and the like. Yet Castilla and Benard found that, ironically, attempts to implement meritocracy leads to just the kinds of inequalities that it aims to eliminate. They suggest that this ‘paradox of meritocracy’ occurs because explicitly adopting meritocracy as a value convinces subjects of their own moral bona fides. Satisfied that they are just, they become less inclined to examine their own behavior for signs of prejudice.
Meritocracy is a false and not very salutary belief. As with any ideology, part of its draw is that it justifies the status quo, explaining why people belong where they happen to be in the social order. It is a well-established psychological principle that people prefer to believe that the world is just.
However, in addition to legitimation, meritocracy also offers flattery. Where success is determined by merit, each win can be viewed as a reflection of one’s own virtue and worth. Meritocracy is the most self-congratulatory of distribution principles. Its ideological alchemy transmutes property into praise, material inequality into personal superiority. It licenses the rich and powerful to view themselves as productive geniuses.
While this effect is most spectacular among the elite, nearly any accomplishment can be viewed through meritocratic eyes. Graduating from high school, artistic success or simply having money can all be seen as evidence of talent and effort. By the same token, worldly failures becomes signs of personal defects, providing a reason why those at the bottom of the social hierarchy deserve to remain there.
This is why debates over the extent to which particular individuals are ‘self-made’ and over the effects of various forms of ‘privilege’ can get so hot-tempered. These arguments are not just about who gets to have what; it’s about how much ‘credit’ people can take for what they have, about what their successes allow them to believe about their inner qualities. That is why, under the assumption of meritocracy, the very notion that personal success is the result of ‘luck’ can be insulting. To acknowledge the influence of external factors seems to downplay or deny the existence of individual merit.
This is why debates over the extent to which particular individuals are ‘self-made’ and over the effects of various forms of ‘privilege’ can get so hot-tempered. These arguments are not just about who gets to have what; it’s about how much ‘credit’ people can take for what they have, about what their successes allow them to believe about their inner qualities. That is why, under the assumption of meritocracy, the very notion that personal success is the result of ‘luck’ can be insulting. To acknowledge the influence of external factors seems to downplay or deny the existence of individual merit.
Despite the moral assurance and personal flattery that meritocracy offers to the successful, it ought to be abandoned both as a belief about how the world works and as a general social ideal. It’s false, and believing in it encourages selfishness, discrimination and indifference to the plight of the unfortunate.
Mary: WE NEED TO BELIEVE IN OUR OWN AGENCY EVEN IF IT’S LARGELY A MYTH
The idea of meritocracy serves to keep everyone in place rather than offer the opportunity it seems to promise. It also leaves a lot of bitterness behind. If everyone gets ahead because of their own efforts on an even field, and you have not gotten ahead, it means either you were lazier and less talented or the field wasn't even, and you were cheated.
Of course, the field is not and never will be even, and the biggest factor determining where people are in that field is not effort or ability, but luck.
We find those things, unfortunately, as uncomfortable as failure itself. If everything is random, a toss of the dice, and we never did or will have equal opportunity, there's no use trying, or even living for that matter, and there's no real meaning to anyone's life. I think that's an important reason we have the ideal of that even playing field and the impetus to make it truly possible. We also need to believe in our own agency, even if it's largely a myth.
Without those two ideas, that everyone has a chance and everyone has the power to choose his actions and direction, life appears predetermined and static, without hope or meaning.
So even if luck is the true determinant, and there is never equal opportunity, self determination and the potential to win are the stories we need to tell ourselves, the stories that give both meaning and hope.
Oriana: LEARN SOMETHING DIFFICULT; THINK SMALL
We don’t control the most important things — our genetic endowment, the wealth or poverty of our parents, the historical era or the country we’re born in, or whether we’re male or female. Past centuries spoke of Fortuna, or Lady Fortune, and her fickleness. Now, for me personally the idea of luck, of the power of circumstances, was hugely liberating. I was brought up in the worship of achievement, so a failure to be rewarded for that achievement had to be my fault. Friends were invaluable here, pointing out factors outside my control. I was also able to redefine “success” so it didn’t depend so much on winning or losing — rather than simply doing the work I love doing, being surrounded by beauty, being in touch with some kindred minds.
“An artist is never poor,” was one of the statements that have helped me. My parents too showed me that real wealth was the inner wealth, a rich mind.
But I agree with you that we need a sense that it’s not all luck, and our actions can have an impact. Upon careful analysis, everything can be traced back to circumstances. Malcolm Gladwell shows it in his fascinating book, The Outliers. But why drive ourselves crazy analyzing everything? Sometimes the pragmatic position is best: no matter what your limits happen to be, do what helps you live a satisfying life. Aside from extreme situations, there are generally some options. We have the ability to resist being purely reactive, and pause and think. We can see that circumstances are bleak, but add just one word in our minds: “nevertheless” — and enable ourselves to see something positive, or a way out.
Another thing I learned relatively early in life is the value of mastering something difficult. It’s a terrific booster of “believing in yourself.” Let me give the simplest example: a strenuous Pilates exercise. It’s called “roll-up and roll-down.” It engages most of the major muscles and has to be done in slow-motion. The slower the movement, the greater the intensity. I picked it as the one exercise I would try to master, and practiced it every day until it felt almost easy.
“Hey, you, in the front row — you make it look so effortless!” one male Pilates student affectionately grumbled. And indeed at that point it was nearly that, and I was the best in class. More important, however, was the fact that it was an effort that has led to a reward. Every time it happens, we get a boost to self-esteem, and feel more confident that we can handle whatever life throws at us.
It’s lifelong training. But it starts with those early challenges, such as learning to play a new instrument or taking an art class. Think in terms of small goals. Big success usually lies too much in the realm of luck, but reaching small goals is achievable. The rewards can be wonderfully surprising.
Of course, the field is not and never will be even, and the biggest factor determining where people are in that field is not effort or ability, but luck.
We find those things, unfortunately, as uncomfortable as failure itself. If everything is random, a toss of the dice, and we never did or will have equal opportunity, there's no use trying, or even living for that matter, and there's no real meaning to anyone's life. I think that's an important reason we have the ideal of that even playing field and the impetus to make it truly possible. We also need to believe in our own agency, even if it's largely a myth.
Without those two ideas, that everyone has a chance and everyone has the power to choose his actions and direction, life appears predetermined and static, without hope or meaning.
So even if luck is the true determinant, and there is never equal opportunity, self determination and the potential to win are the stories we need to tell ourselves, the stories that give both meaning and hope.
Oriana: LEARN SOMETHING DIFFICULT; THINK SMALL
We don’t control the most important things — our genetic endowment, the wealth or poverty of our parents, the historical era or the country we’re born in, or whether we’re male or female. Past centuries spoke of Fortuna, or Lady Fortune, and her fickleness. Now, for me personally the idea of luck, of the power of circumstances, was hugely liberating. I was brought up in the worship of achievement, so a failure to be rewarded for that achievement had to be my fault. Friends were invaluable here, pointing out factors outside my control. I was also able to redefine “success” so it didn’t depend so much on winning or losing — rather than simply doing the work I love doing, being surrounded by beauty, being in touch with some kindred minds.
“An artist is never poor,” was one of the statements that have helped me. My parents too showed me that real wealth was the inner wealth, a rich mind.
But I agree with you that we need a sense that it’s not all luck, and our actions can have an impact. Upon careful analysis, everything can be traced back to circumstances. Malcolm Gladwell shows it in his fascinating book, The Outliers. But why drive ourselves crazy analyzing everything? Sometimes the pragmatic position is best: no matter what your limits happen to be, do what helps you live a satisfying life. Aside from extreme situations, there are generally some options. We have the ability to resist being purely reactive, and pause and think. We can see that circumstances are bleak, but add just one word in our minds: “nevertheless” — and enable ourselves to see something positive, or a way out.
Another thing I learned relatively early in life is the value of mastering something difficult. It’s a terrific booster of “believing in yourself.” Let me give the simplest example: a strenuous Pilates exercise. It’s called “roll-up and roll-down.” It engages most of the major muscles and has to be done in slow-motion. The slower the movement, the greater the intensity. I picked it as the one exercise I would try to master, and practiced it every day until it felt almost easy.
“Hey, you, in the front row — you make it look so effortless!” one male Pilates student affectionately grumbled. And indeed at that point it was nearly that, and I was the best in class. More important, however, was the fact that it was an effort that has led to a reward. Every time it happens, we get a boost to self-esteem, and feel more confident that we can handle whatever life throws at us.
It’s lifelong training. But it starts with those early challenges, such as learning to play a new instrument or taking an art class. Think in terms of small goals. Big success usually lies too much in the realm of luck, but reaching small goals is achievable. The rewards can be wonderfully surprising.
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LAUGHING AT THE MENTALLY ILL
~ In the nineteenth century, tourists visited insane asylums to laugh at the inmates. There has always existed a strong human impulse to revel in the humiliation of others. Behold, for instance, multitudes of those who found it hilarious when Trump mocked disabled New York Times reporter. Millions of TV-viewers in Russia hoot with laughter at a skit in a prime-time show trading in the most vile, medieval-grade racism.
But they — those pitiable people, past-bound aficionados of moral ugliness — are in the minority now, everywhere. Over time, we are getting better as human beings. Slowly but surely. We are. ~ Mikhail Iossel
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THE DEMOGRAPHIC FUTURE OF THE WORLD IN THREE COLORS
~ “Much about demography is “baked into the future” and is certain to happen. And this demographic future can be summarized in three colors: more gray, more green and less white.
Society after society is becoming older through a combination of fewer births and longer life expectancy. Aging of populations is a phenomenon which has been observed in region after region, as fertility rates have fallen and life expectancy has risen. The median age of the world’s population has already risen by around seven years since 1960. In the developed world, it has risen by more than a decade in the same period, while in east Asia as a whole it has risen by 16 years and in South Korea, an astonishing 22 years. Meanwhile, outside sub-Saharan Africa there is barely a country or territory where the median age has not risen in the past 60 years.
Yet the process is only just beginning. According to the middle-range UN forecasts, by the end of the present century median man or woman will be over 40, a dozen years older than today. This means that between 1960 and 2100 the median person will have doubled in age from barely 20 to more than 40. Among the record-breakers for greater age will be Ethiopians (today on average 18, by 2100 aged 43), and Syrians (today aged barely 20, in 2100 likely to be aged nearly 47).
Many countries, from Poland to Sri Lanka and Japan, will have a median age of over 50. By the end of this century, Libya’s median age is projected to be roughly where Japan’s is now. Such aged societies have never been seen in history. When Leonard Bernstein’s West Side Story was first produced in 1957 the median age among Puerto Ricans (in Puerto Rico rather than in New York, it is true) was around 18; by 2100 it will be little short of 55. It is only a slight exaggeration to say that, to be age representative, a latter-day Bernstein would need to set his musical in an old people’s home rather than among street gangs.
How this marked aging will affect the world cannot be predicted with any certainty, but it is surely the case that a world in which the median age is around 20 (1960) is profoundly different from one in which it is over 40 (2100), not only because of all the political, economic and technological changes that are likely to have happened, but also by sheer dint of its aging population. The changes effected by aging are likely to be both positive and negative. Viewed optimistically, the world is more likely to be a peaceful and law-abiding place.
There is a strong correlation between the youth of a society and the violence and crime within it. Not all young societies are embroiled in crime and war, but almost all old societies are at peace. Not only are older people less likely to take up arms or become criminals; young people, where they are few and far between, are more valued and more heavily invested in. Mothers who have only one son are less likely than mothers with many sons to goad them to take up arms against enemies real or perceived.
On the other hand, older societies are less likely to be dynamic, innovative and risk-taking. An older population is more likely to want to hold the safest sort of investment, high-quality bonds rather than equities, for example, and this will affect markets and in turn the real economy. Real estate demand will also change as more and more accommodation is required by elderly singles and less and less by growing families—these effects are already at work in much of the developed world, and are set to go global.
While median age captures the age of a society as a whole, it is the rise in the number of elderly which tends to receive the greatest attention, not least because of the pressure this is likely to put on the welfare states of developed countries where state provision for older people is advanced. This is often expressed as a “support ratio”—the number of people of working age (however defined) to each older person—and as early as 2050 in Japan this figure will be approaching one to one. In Western Europe, although lower than Japan, it will be twice as high in 2050 as it was in 2005. Pensions in the developed world as a whole are set to double as a share of GDP without significant reform by 2050, and the greater demands of older people on health services will also be a fiscal challenge for a developed world where budgets are already under strain and debt to GDP ratios are seen by many as perilously high.
There will also be a sharp rise in the “older old”—in the UK there are 1.4 million people aged over 85 today, and this figure will double in 20 years and triple in 30 years as the baby boomers move from the frontiers of aging into its more advanced stage. Some would argue that the welfare state as we have known it since the Second World War has the characteristics of a Ponzi scheme: it works only if each new generation of workers is larger than the last. Where old-age pensions are funded from current taxation, there is certainly something in this, and it seems unlikely that welfare states will be able to carry on in anything like their current form as societies age.
Yet, at the same time, with more and more people having no children to care for them, reliance on the state will grow. The UK’s 2017 general election was in large measure fought on the issue of “social care”, namely who will pay for the daily assistance the elderly need—such an issue would never have gained such prominence at a time when the elderly made up only a small share of the total population. It is, however, but a foretaste of things to come.
In the developed world, with state welfare provision, this may still be an issue, but in the developing world the question will be more critical. Countries will have to cope with growing old before they grow rich. In the developed world, however financed, young workers from countries like Thailand and the Philippines can be drawn in to help with elderly care, at least if allowed to do so by local immigration legislation. For developing countries with an aging population this will not be a luxury they can afford.
Accepting that almost come what may, the world is set to become more gray, there is also every chance that it could become more green. This flies in the face of conventional wisdom, which suggests that humanity is still in the midst of a population explosion which is wrecking the planet.
Where human population starts to decline, from Japan to Bulgaria, nature moves fast into the void. Because of slower than once expected decline in African fertility rates, the UN now expects the global population to exceed 11 billion and not to have stopped growing by the end of the current century; however, by then it should just about have stabilized, with growth at a tenth of that experienced today and a twentieth of that experienced in the late 1960s and early 1970s. Demography is a car that first trundles along slowly, then reaches tremendous speed and most recently has decelerated so significantly that in the course of this century it is very likely to have ground to a halt.
The third color we can predict with some certainty is “less white.” With the great population explosion starting among the Anglo-Saxons and then moving on to other Europeans, the white population of the world experienced an extraordinary expansion both in absolute and relative terms from the start of the 19th century to the middle of the 20th century. This has had profound political consequences, and without it, it is hard to imagine that European imperialism could have grown so extensive or had such an impact on the world. However, the Anglo-Saxons had no monopoly on falling mortality and sustained high fertility (and hence high population growth), and neither have people of European extraction.
Until recently the lowest fertility, oldest and slowest-growing populations in the world were in Europe, and it was here, too, that population decline in recent times first set in. More recently, however, the peoples of north-east Asia have begun to catch up and in some cases, on some measures, overtake Europeans, and in time no doubt others will follow. Thai women have fewer children than British women, although Thailand still has some “demographic momentum” to enjoy.
The decline in people of European origin can be seen on two levels: continental within a global context, and country by country. Starting with the first of these, in 1950, as the era of European imperialism was ending, the population of the European continent contained around 22 percent of humanity. Adding in overwhelmingly white Canada, Australia, New Zealand and the USA, the figure came to 29 percent. Sixty-five years later, Europe’s share was down to 10 percent and that of the “wider white world” down to 15 percent. Taking UN median projections, these two figures will by the end of the current century fall to 6 percent and 11 percent respectively. Many countries in Europe are already experiencing population decline, or would be were it not for inward migration. If UN projections are correct, then Bulgaria and Moldova will have lost half their population by the end of the current century and Latvia will not be far behind. Germany will have lost 10 percent and Italy 20 percent.
Moreover, those countries are themselves becoming less white. By the middle of this century people of “white British” origin may be just 60 percent of the population of the UK, although admittedly many of the immigrants and people of immigrant origin will be of European extraction. The white population of the United States, 85 percent in 1965 and 67 percent in 2005, is projected to dip below 50 percent by mid-century. In both countries it is likely that a “mixed origin” element will be significant and fast-growing.
The flipside of white decline in relative numbers has been and will continue to be the rise of Africa. In the middle of the 20th century, after centuries of being sidelined, colonized and subject to slavery, sub-Saharan Africans accounted for barely one person in ten on the planet; by the end of this century they are likely to account for one person in four.” ~
https://lithub.com/what-will-happen-to-the-world-as-life-expectancy-goes-up/?fbclid=IwAR0EsstxSw-BoV06GCH1zEJIyKnL2E_Lm85BOwJEW9SusCy04lOTzoVLgZk
The decline in people of European origin can be seen on two levels: continental within a global context, and country by country. Starting with the first of these, in 1950, as the era of European imperialism was ending, the population of the European continent contained around 22 percent of humanity. Adding in overwhelmingly white Canada, Australia, New Zealand and the USA, the figure came to 29 percent. Sixty-five years later, Europe’s share was down to 10 percent and that of the “wider white world” down to 15 percent. Taking UN median projections, these two figures will by the end of the current century fall to 6 percent and 11 percent respectively. Many countries in Europe are already experiencing population decline, or would be were it not for inward migration. If UN projections are correct, then Bulgaria and Moldova will have lost half their population by the end of the current century and Latvia will not be far behind. Germany will have lost 10 percent and Italy 20 percent.
Moreover, those countries are themselves becoming less white. By the middle of this century people of “white British” origin may be just 60 percent of the population of the UK, although admittedly many of the immigrants and people of immigrant origin will be of European extraction. The white population of the United States, 85 percent in 1965 and 67 percent in 2005, is projected to dip below 50 percent by mid-century. In both countries it is likely that a “mixed origin” element will be significant and fast-growing.
The flipside of white decline in relative numbers has been and will continue to be the rise of Africa. In the middle of the 20th century, after centuries of being sidelined, colonized and subject to slavery, sub-Saharan Africans accounted for barely one person in ten on the planet; by the end of this century they are likely to account for one person in four.” ~
https://lithub.com/what-will-happen-to-the-world-as-life-expectancy-goes-up/?fbclid=IwAR0EsstxSw-BoV06GCH1zEJIyKnL2E_Lm85BOwJEW9SusCy04lOTzoVLgZk
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How little love and ecstasy we see in population statistics. ~ Stanislaw Lec, Unkempt Thoughts
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THE GOD OF SPINOZA
“When Einstein gave lectures at U.S. universities, the question students asked him most was: Do you believe in God? And he always answered: I believe in the God of Spinoza.
Baruch Spinoza was a Dutch philosopher considered one of the great rationalists of 17th century philosophy, along with Descartes.
According to Spinoza, God would say: “Stop praying. I want you to go out into the world and enjoy your life. I want you to sing, have fun and enjoy everything I've made for you.
“Stop going into those dark, cold temples that you built yourself and saying they are my house. My house is in the mountains, in the woods, rivers, lakes, beaches. That's where I live and there I express my love for you.
“Stop blaming me for your miserable life; I never told you there was anything wrong with you or that you were a sinner, or that your sexuality was a bad thing. Sex is a gift I have given you and with which you can express your love, your ecstasy, your joy. So don't blame me for everything that others made you believe.
“Stop reading alleged sacred scriptures that have nothing to do with me. If you can't read me in a sunrise, in a landscape, in the look of your friends, in your son's eyes—you will find me in no book!
“Stop asking me, ‘Will you tell me how to do my job?’ Stop being so scared of me. I do not judge you or criticize you, nor get angry or bothered. I am pure love.
“Stop asking for forgiveness, there's nothing to forgive. If I made you, I filled you with passions, limitations, pleasures, feelings, needs, inconsistencies, and best of all, free will. Why would I blame you if you respond to something I put in you? How could I punish you for being the way you are, if I'm the one who made you? Do you think I could create a place to burn all my children who behave badly for the rest of eternity? What kind of god would do that?
“Respect your peers, and don't give what you don't want for yourself. All I ask is that you pay attention in your life—alertness is your guide.
“My beloved, this life is not a test, not a step on the way, not a rehearsal, not a prelude to paradise. This life is the only thing here and now—and it is all you need.
“I have set you absolutely free, no prizes or punishments, no sins or virtues, no one carries a marker, no one keeps a record.
You are absolutely free to create in your life. It’s you who creates heaven or hell.
“Live as if there is nothing beyond this life, as if this is your only chance to enjoy, to love, to exist. Then you will have enjoyed the opportunity I gave you. And if there is an afterlife, rest assured that I won't ask if you behaved right or wrong. I'll ask, ‘Did you like it? Did you have fun? What did you enjoy the most? What did you learn?’
“Stop believing in me; believing is assuming, guessing, imagining. I don't want you to believe in me, I want you to believe in you. I want you to feel me in you when you kiss your beloved, when you tuck in your little girl, when you caress your dog, when you bathe in the sea.
“Stop praising me. What kind of egomaniac God do you think I am? I'm bored with being praised. I'm tired of being thanked. Feeling grateful? Prove it by taking care of yourself, your health, your relationships, the world. Express your joy! That's the way to praise me.
“Stop complicating things and repeating as a parrot what you've been taught about me. Why do you need more miracles? So many explanations?
“The only thing for sure is that you are here, that you are alive, that this world is full of wonders.” ~ Mary Beth Williams, Facebook
Deus sive Natura — “God or Nature”; “God, meaning Nature.” ~ Spinoza’s best known quotation.
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THE CHARM OF MYTHOLOGY UNDERSTOOD AS MYTHOLOGY
THE CHARM OF MYTHOLOGY UNDERSTOOD AS MYTHOLOGY
— an imaginative fount of moral lessons, but not at the price of forcing yourself to believe in nonsense, and even cowering in fear before a fictitious judge and ruler. I’m thinking of the notion of a Lamed-Vavnik, and how 36 righteous men (women don’t count) keep god from destroying the world. It’s charming as long as we don’t believe in it.
If we take it literally (I doubt that anyone does, but let’s suppose), it’s monstrous — what if one generation becomes short of just one Lamed-Vavnik? And the dangerous lunatic up there is constantly counting and re-counting . . . But if we take it metaphorically — yes, the world is sustained by the righteous — if we think of examples of people who are indeed very kind — then no harm is done and our hearts are uplifted.
I like the idea that a Lamed-Vavnik doesn’t realize he’s one of the 36 Righteous Men; what pressure that kind of knowledge would be!
From Wiki:
Some, including Jorge Luis Borges, believe the concept to have originated in the Book of Genesis 18:26: And the Lord said, If I find in Sodom fifty righteous within the city, then I will spare all the place for their sakes.
If you take this literally, then it's always human fault when a disaster happens: perhaps the righteous fell one short of fifty (Sodom), or 36 (the world in general). Never mind that it doesn't make sense: religion and logic never met. But there can be some charm in those tales and imaginings.
I like the idea that a Lamed-Vavnik doesn’t realize he’s one of the 36 Righteous Men; what pressure that kind of knowledge would be!
From Wiki:
Some, including Jorge Luis Borges, believe the concept to have originated in the Book of Genesis 18:26: And the Lord said, If I find in Sodom fifty righteous within the city, then I will spare all the place for their sakes.
If you take this literally, then it's always human fault when a disaster happens: perhaps the righteous fell one short of fifty (Sodom), or 36 (the world in general). Never mind that it doesn't make sense: religion and logic never met. But there can be some charm in those tales and imaginings.
Baal-Shem-Tov, the founder of Hassidism
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TUBERCULOSIS AND ITS INFLUENCE ON FASHION
~ By the mid-1800s, tuberculosis had reached epidemic levels in Europe and the United States. The disease, now known to be infectious, attacks the lungs and damages other organs. Before the advent of antibiotics, its victims slowly wasted away, becoming pale and thin before finally dying of what was then known as consumption.
The Victorians romanticized the disease and the effects it caused in the gradual build to death. For decades, many beauty standards emulated or highlighted these effects. And as scientists gained greater understanding of the disease and how it was spread, the disease continued to keep its hold on fashion.
“Between 1780 and 1850, there is an increasing estheticization of tuberculosis that becomes entwined with feminine beauty,” says Carolyn Day, an assistant professor of history at Furman University in South Carolina and author of the forthcoming book Consumptive Chic: A History of Fashion, Beauty and Disease, which explores how tuberculosis impacted early 19th century British fashion and perceptions of beauty.
During that time, consumption was thought to be caused by hereditary susceptibility and miasmas, or “bad airs,” in the environment.
Among the upper class, one of the ways people judged a woman’s predisposition to tuberculosis was by her attractiveness, Days says. “That’s because tuberculosis enhances those things that are already established as beautiful in women,” she explains, such as the thinness and pale skin that result from weight loss and the lack of appetite caused by the disease.
The 1909 book Tuberculosis: A Treatise by American Authors on Its Etiology, Pathology, Frequency, Semiology, Diagnosis, Prognosis, Prevention, and Treatment confirms this notion, with the authors noting: “A considerable number of patients have, and have had for years previous to their sickness, a delicate, transparent skin, as well as fine, silky hair.” Sparkling or dilated eyes, rosy cheeks and red lips were also common in tuberculosis patients—characteristics now known to be caused by frequent low-grade fever.
“We also begin to see elements in fashion that either highlight symptoms of the disease or physically emulate the illness,” Day says. The height of this so-called consumptive chic came in the mid-1800s, when fashionable pointed corsets showed off low, waifish waists and voluminous skirts further emphasized women’s narrow middles. Middle- and upper-class women also attempted to emulate the consumptive appearance by using makeup to lighten their skin, redden their lips and color their cheeks pink.
The second half of the 19th century ushered in a radically transformed understanding of tuberculosis when, in 1882, Robert Koch announced that he had discovered and isolated the bacteria that cause the disease. By then, germ theory had emerged. This is the idea that microscopic organisms, not miasmas, cause certain diseases. Koch’s discovery helped germ theory gain more legitimacy and convinced physicians and public health experts that tuberculosis was contagious.
Preventing the spread of tuberculosis became the impetus for some of the first large-scale American and European public health campaigns, many of which targeted women’s fashions. Doctors began to decry long, trailing skirts as culprits of disease. These skirts, physicians said, were responsible for sweeping up germs on the street and bringing disease into the home.
Consider the cartoon "The Trailing Skirt: Death Loves a Shining Mark," which appeared in Puck magazine in 1900: The illustration shows a maid shaking off clouds of germs from her lady’s skirt as angelic-looking children stand in the background. Behind the maid looms a skeleton holding a scythe, a symbol of death.
Corsets, too, came under attack, as they were believed to exacerbate tuberculosis by limiting the movement of the lungs and circulation of the blood. “Health corsets” made with elastic fabric were introduced as a way to alleviate pressure on the ribs caused by the heavily boned corsets of the Victorian era.
Men’s fashion was also targeted. In the Victorian period, luxuriant beards, sculpted mustaches and extravagant sideburns had been all the rage. The trend can be partly credited to British soldiers who grew facial hair to keep warm during the Crimean War in the 1850s. But facial hair was also popular in the United States where razors were difficult to use and often unsafe, especially when not cleaned properly.
But by the 1900s, beards and mustaches themselves were deemed dangerous.
“There is no way of computing the number of bacteria and noxious germs that may lurk in the Amazonian jungles of a well-whiskered face, but their number must be legion,” Edwin F. Bowers, an American doctor known for pioneering reflexology, wrote in a 1916 issue of McClure’s Magazine. “Measles, scarlet fever, diphtheria, tuberculosis, whooping cough, common and uncommon colds, and a host of other infectious diseases can be, and undoubtedly are, transmitted via the whisker route.”
By the time Bowers penned his spirited essay, facial hair had largely disappeared from the faces of American men, especially surgeons and physicians, who adopted the clean-shaven look to be more hygienic when caring for patients.
The Victorian ideal of looking consumptive hasn’t survived to the current century, but tuberculosis has had lingering effects on fashion and beauty trends. Once women’s hemlines rose a few inches at the beginning of the 1900s, for example, shoe styles became an increasingly important part of a woman’s overall look. And around the same time, doctors began prescribing sunbathing as a treatment for TB, giving rise to the modern phenomenon of tanning.
Oriana:
This is an opportunity to remind readers that BCG, the old French vaccine against TB (like Covid, an air-borne disease) has shown promise in increasing immunity to covid. Alas, there isn’t much money to be made off an old vaccine. As one MD I met sadly commented, “It’s not enough that a cure exists — someone also has to get very rich off it.”
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THE BRAIN IS NOT FOR THINKING, BUT FOR KEEPING THE BODY ALIVE
GQ: Your first lesson is that the brain is not for thinking. So then: what is the brain for?
Lisa Feldman Barrett: The brain's most important job is not thinking or seeing or feeling or doing any of the things that we think of as being important for being human. Its main job is running a budget for your body—to keep you alive, to keep you healthy. So every thought you have, every emotion you feel, every action you take is ultimately in the service of regulating your body. We don’t experience mental life this way, but this is what is happening under the hood.
The technical term for body budgeting is allostasis. It basically means that your brain’s job is to anticipate the needs of your body and meet those needs before they arrive. Budgeting resources like glucose, oxygen, and all of the nutrients that your body needs so that you can do your most important job from an evolutionary standpoint: pass your genes on to the next generation.
There are limited resources [in your body] and every action that you take—every movement that you make, every new thing that you learn—costs something. And so every time your brain prepares to move your body or to learn something new, your brain is asking itself, figuratively, is this a good investment? Is it worth it?
This is one of the most amazing, and unsettling, revelations in the book, this idea that the brain is a prediction machine. Instead of passively observing reality—in what we think of as a stimulus-response pattern—it's actually constructing our reality?
We can use a baseball example. The batter walks up to the plate. He takes his stance with the bat. A major league pitcher throws at a speed of 80 to 100 mph, giving the batter between 400 and 500 milliseconds to react. This is not enough time to see a ball, then decide to swing the bat, plan the action, and execute it. But a brain that works by prediction is fast enough to make baseball possible as a game.
Predicting and correcting is a much more efficient way to run a system than reacting all the time. So what your brain is doing all the time is making these guesses, and then comparing them to sense data from your body and from the world, as a way of reducing uncertainty, which, it turns out, is the metabolically most efficient thing to do.
The example that got me in the book was the fact that it takes 20 minutes for water to reach your bloodstream, so when you drink a glass of water and feel like your thirst is immediately quenched, that’s not a biological reality, but a kind of a neurological trick.
Here's another one that I just learned. You know how when it’s just starting to rain, and you might feel one drop of water on your skin, and you can tell it’s going to start to rain? Well, you have no wetness sensors in your skin. So how is it that you feel those drops of water? Your skin has touch sensors and temperature sensors, and your brain is doing this internal calculus, integrating the information about touch with the information about temperature to construct a prediction of water on your skin. So when you feel wetness under your underarms or you feel dampness on your skin for any reason, it’s basically a construction of your brain taking two sources of information and combining them.
Every single thing that you do, and every single thing that you feel and think—basically everything you experience—is some combination of what's going on inside your brain and what's going on outside your skull. Your brain doesn't know for sure what's going on in your body. It’s only receiving sense data. That sense data is the effect of some set of causes that are going on in your body. But your brain doesn't know what the causes are. It has to guess. Similarly, your brain doesn't know what's going on in the outside world. All it's getting are wavelengths of light, changes in air pressure, concentrations of chemicals, and so on. Again, those are the effects of some set of causes. This is what philosophers call a reverse inference problem. So what is your brain using to solve the reverse inference problem, to guess at the causes of the sense data that will arrive in a moment from now? Past experiences.
As your brain attempts to solve the reverse inference problem, it is not asking itself, figuratively speaking “What is this?” Instead, it is asking something more akin to “What is this like?” “What is this similar to in my past experience?” Your brain is making guesses about what is going to happen next, so it knows how to act next to keep you alive and well. It’s continuously drawing on your past experiences to create your present. The really cool thing about this? It's really hard for people to change their past. However, by changing your present, you are cultivating a different future. By changing what you do and say, and feel, you are seeding your brain to predict differently in the future.
This gets us into all sorts of knotty questions about responsibility and free will.
The bottom line is we're more responsible for ourselves than we might think, and, as I discuss in the book, we're also more responsible for other people than we might think. Or want. You know, sometimes you're responsible for something not because the situation is your fault—you're responsible for something because you're the only person who can change the way things are. It's not an issue of culpability. The actions and the experiences that your brain makes today become your brain's predictions for tomorrow. So making an effort to cultivate new experiences and learn new things today is an investment in who you will be tomorrow.
Some people have control over many things in their lives, and some people have less control because of their life circumstances, but everyone can control something.
There’s that example in your book of a man who mistakes a shepherd boy holding a herding stick for a guerilla fighter with a rifle, and almost shoots him before being stopped. In his subjective reality, which his brain has constructed, he’s taking aim at a militant fighter. In objective reality, he’s taking aim at a kid with some cows. How do we think about holding him accountable?
There’s that example in your book of a man who mistakes a shepherd boy holding a herding stick for a guerilla fighter with a rifle, and almost shoots him before being stopped. In his subjective reality, which his brain has constructed, he’s taking aim at a militant fighter. In objective reality, he’s taking aim at a kid with some cows. How do we think about holding him accountable?
Well, in this case, responsibility is complicated because he was drafted into the army by the government. But what was true for him is true for all of us: what we see is a combination of what is going on out in the world and inside our own bodies, as well as what is going on inside our heads. To the best of my knowledge, here is what the scientific evidence suggests: It is possible for a person to literally see a gun where there is no gun. So, if the soldier’s brain predicted that another person was holding a gun, and his heart was racing at 180 beats a minute, his brain would have had trouble sampling visual information from the world effectively. And the result would be that his brain would go with his prediction—and he sees a gun—instead of correcting the prediction with visual input of a stick, from the world. Think about what this might mean for the tsunami of problems in policing that we are grappling with right now.
An important consideration here: where do your brain’s predictions come from? Those predictions come from not just your own past experiences, but what you read and what you see in the news and what you watch on television and the social media that you're exposed to. That's where your predictions come from—from a world that others curate for you. As you get older, you have some choice in curating that world by what you expose yourself to (and what you don’t).
We're getting into Lesson Seven in the book: we're social animals and we learn from each other. We don't just learn by doing, we also learn by telling stories and listening to one another. We communicate our own experiences to other people and other people learn from those experiences. So we don't have to go through the painful process of learning everything on our own. This social learning has serious benefits, but it also has some risks. This is one aspect of free will that few people talk about: You can broaden your experiences today to predict differently tomorrow. Effective control over your behavior requires that you broaden the horizon of time. Having control of your actions isn't only about avoiding certain actions “in the heat of the moment”—it’s also about seeding your brain to have more flexibility in constructing your predictions before the heat of the moment.
It’s important to understand what the scientific evidence is regarding how your brain controls your actions. You don't see stuff in the world and then draw a gun. Based on your brain’s best understanding of how the world is right now, your brain prepares your upcoming actions, like drawing a gun, taking aim, and so on, and that makes it more likely that you will literally see certain things, like a gun, if your brain has learned these associations in the past. That is how your brain works.
Obviously, this is a very anxious time with the election and coronavirus. I'm curious how you see your work in your first book, How Emotions Are Made, intersecting with this stressful moment.
To better understand anxious, stressed feelings, we have to return to your brain’s most important job: to control the systems of your body in an energy efficient way. You can think about energy efficiency like a budget. A financial budget tracks money as it’s earned and spent. A budget for your body similarly tracks resources like water, salt, and glucose as you gain and lose them. Every time your brain has to learn something new is like a withdrawal from your body budget. Actions that replenish your resources, such as eating and sleeping, are like deposits. What is stress? It is when your brain makes a withdrawal from the body budget. Good stress occurs when the withdrawal is followed by a deposit. Chronic stress is when your brain keeps spending and spending, without sufficient deposits, driving the body budget into a deficit. This is a simplified explanation, but it captures the key idea that running a body requires biological resources. Every action you take (or don’t take) is an economic choice—your brain is guessing when to spend resources and when to save them. Ditto for everything you learn (or don’t learn). (The scientific term for body budgeting is allostasis.)
Everything you think, feel, and do is a consequence of your brain’s central mission to keep you alive and well by managing your body budget. We don’t experience our every thought, every feeling of anxiety, happiness or anger or awe, every hug we give or receive, every kindness we extend, and every insult we bear as a deposit or withdrawal in our metabolic budgets, but under the hood, that is what’s happening.
When your brain can’t predict well—when there is too much uncertainty, for example—your brain may attempt to learn something new so that it can predict better next time. Learning involves the release of a whole set of chemicals, some of which are related to making you feel jittery and on edge. In the short term, learning is a good investment of energy, because it's likely to pay dividends in the future. The key is to replenish what you've spent, to keep your body budget solvent.
If the uncertainty goes on for too long maybe because of COVID fears, or economic uncertainty—if your body budget is being drained—you may end up running a deficit, which leaves you feeling constantly worked up and unpleasant. In our culture, we have learned to make sense of these feelings as anxiety. Making sense of uncomfortable, heightened arousal as anxiety might lead us to act in ways that only further burden our body budgets, rather than trying to pay down the debt by getting enough sleep, eating healthfully, giving and receiving support to loved ones, and so on. Eventually, this can sometimes lead to bigger problems. I mean, what do you do when your actual bank account is running a deficit?
Stop spending.
Right. What does that mean for a brain? It means that you stop moving your body as much and you stop learning. Think about the current social moment. Why does it feel better for people to surround themselves with other like-minded people in an echo chamber? Social media may help construct that chamber, but that’s not the whole story. Why don’t more people forage for novel information that does not conform to their beliefs? Perhaps because it’s metabolically expensive. And when your body budget's already encumbered because you're not sleeping enough or because there's tremendous amount of economic uncertainty, or you're worried about not being able to feed your kids, or you're worried about getting sick . . . You end up making lots of little withdrawals over time that are not made up by deposits — it’s like paying lots of little taxes that add up over time. Persistent uncertainty is very, very hard on the human nervous system.
How does the idea of “emotional granularity” offset that? This idea that if we understand our world through the concepts that we have, then the more concepts we have, the better we can understand what we're feeling.
An emotion is an episode in which your brain uses what you know about emotion – emotion concepts – to make sense of the changes in your body (changes in heart rate, in breathing, and so on) by connecting these sense data and the feelings that they give rise to with what is going on around you in the world. This is how you might come to experience a tightness in your chest as anxiety, determination, or the physical symptoms of a respiratory infection. The more concepts you know, the more flexibly your brain can guess at might cause the sense data from your body in a given situation.
Concepts help you understand emotions after they have emerged, sure, but they are also a key ingredient of constructing emotions in the first place. Emotions don’t happen to you—they are made by your brain as you need them. They are not built into your brain at birth. They are built by your brain using the emotion concepts that you have learned. Using emotion concepts, your brain runs your body budget by predicting the causes of upcoming events in your body in a way that is linked to the situation that you are in, for the purposes of acting in a particular way. So ultimately, concepts are tools for making emotion. More generally, concepts are tools for making new meaning of the physical sensations from your body, in the context that you're in, to guide your actions in a particular way. And the result is sometimes an emotion. So emotional granularity doesn't mean that you just understand your emotions better. It means that you construct your emotions more precisely to fit the situation that you are in.
How does that change our experience of the world then? For example, if I were to say, “I'm not sad, I'm disappointed.”
To answer your question, we have to talk about affect. Your brain is constantly managing your body budget, and your body is constantly sending back sense data to your brain. This is happening right now, even though you are probably unaware of it. And that’s because you are not wired to consciously experience this continuous symphony of sense data. Evolution has given you a workaround, though: simple feelings of comfort or pleasantness, discomfort or unpleasantness, feeling wound up or tired. These simple feelings you might call mood. Scientists call them affect.
Let’s say you're running a body budget deficit. So you feel crappy. Let’s say you're not a very granular person and, for you, anger, sadness, fear are all synonyms of, “I feel like shit.” Well, what should you do next to deal with the situation? Your brain hasn’t made a very specific guess. Do you have a drink of water? Do you yell at someone? Do you go for a run? It’s hard to know because your brain hasn't made a concept that allows it to predict a specific action.
But if your brain has learned that sadness means you have lost something dear to you, whereas disappointment means that your hopes or expectations have been dashed—that is, when you have learned that sadness and disappointment are not synonyms, but are distinct concepts involving distinct actions—then making your affect meaningful with a concept for sadness will lead to very different actions than if your brain makes a concept for disappointment.
Here’s a trivial example: like many people in this country, I am weary and I am stressed.
Under the hood, my brain is constructing concepts to predict and make sense of what is going on inside my body in relation to the situation I am in. My brain could construct an experience of anxiety, or depression, or hopelessness. But instead, it constructs a concept of an encumbered body budget. And this guides my actions. I need to make sure that I sleep and I need to make sure that I drink enough water. I need to make sure that I exercise, even though I really don't feel like it. I make sure to get enough social contact with those I love.
Emotional granularity is also knowing when not to make an emotion. Instead, my brain is making meaning of the sense data, and the affective feelings that they cause, as a physical phenomenon. And what does this granularity buy you? It buys you the flexibility to make sense of your sensations and act on them differently depending on the context, tailoring your actions to the situation you are in.
THE SURPRISING BENEFITS OF COFFEE (IN JUST THE RIGHT AMOUNT)
~ The caffeinated drink is more than just a mood-stabilizer and morning savior. Among its many health benefits, researchers have linked it a lowered risk of Alzheimer’s disease and suggest it’s a worthy defender against cirrhosis of the liver.
Critics of the beloved bean juice have long maintained that coffee is bad for the heart, and considering too many cups tend to make people jittery, that rationale has gone mostly unchallenged. However, a study published in PLOS Biology argues that there is an optimum amount of coffee intake that will maintain a healthy heart. “We’ve disproved what doctors have told your grandma: Don’t drink coffee if you have a heart problem,” study co-authors Joachim Altschmied, Ph.D. and Judith Haendeler, Ph.D., told Inverse.
Altschmied and Haendeler, both University of Dusseldorf biologists, say that four cups a day can actually help heart cells function more efficiently, as that amount of caffeine will “push” a protein called p27 into the mitochondria of heart cells.
It’s not the only health benefit. “It’s known that four cups or more of coffee lowers the risk for heart attack, stroke, and diabetes,” says Altschmied. So the next time you’re worried about grabbing that late afternoon cuppa, remember these health benefits that come with four cups of coffee.
DECREASED RISK OF HEART DISEASE
Not only does coffee boost heart cell activity, but researchers at Sungkyunkwan University in South Korea found that regular coffee drinkers have less risk of heart disease. The study, led by Dr. Yuni Choi, screened over 25,000 men and women and found those who consumed three to five cups of coffee a day were less likely to see a prevalence of coronary artery calcium or early signs of heart disease.
REDUCED RISK OF COLORECTAL CANCER
According to a study at the University of Southern California, coffee can reduce the odds of developing colorectal cancer by 26 percent. And that’s just if you’re the casual coffee drinker. For those who drink more than 2.5 servings of coffee a day, the risk of cancer decreases up to 50 percent. This was true even when participants drank decaf, meaning there’s more goodness to coffee than just the caffeine.
“We were somewhat surprised to see that caffeine did not seem to matter,” said Stephen Gruber, M.D., Ph.D., M.P.H., and lead author of the study. “This indicates that caffeine alone is not responsible for coffee’s protective properties.”
PROTECTION AGAINST ALZHEIMER’S
There have been several studies that suggest caffeine can protect against dementia and Alzheimer’s disease. Not only does caffeine offer short-term stimulating effects on the central nervous system, but researchers are beginning to study the long-term impacts on cognition. One such study from Portugal found that coffee drinkers have up to a 65 percent lower risk of getting Alzheimer’s disease, which could open possibilities for preventing or postponing the onset of the disease.
(Oriana: Coffee reduces the risk of Parkinson’s Disease.)
PROTECTING THE LIVER
There’s plenty of evidence that alcohol is bad for the liver. But if you’re drinking coffee the morning after a party, you might be healing more than just the hangover.
Many diseases, such as hepatitis, fatty liver disease, or chronic alcoholism, can lead to cirrhosis, or scarring of the liver. However, separate studies conducted in the United States and Italy found that people who drank four or more cups a day up to an 80 percent lower risk of cirrhosis, especially the type brought on from alcohol consumption.
Unlike other caffeinated beverages, coffee’s unique properties are offering scientists key insights on how to prevent diseases, suggesting that it’s more than just a stimulant.
And from another source:
~ The case for coffee is stronger than ever. Study after study indicates you could be getting more from your favorite morning beverage than you thought: Coffee is chock full of substances that may help guard against conditions more common in women, including Alzheimer’s disease and heart disease.
“Caffeine is the first thing that comes to mind when you think about coffee. But coffee also contains antioxidants and other active substances that may reduce internal inflammation and protect against disease,” says Diane Vizthum, M.S., R.D., research nutritionist for Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine.
Your brew gives you benefits beyond an energy boost. Here are the top ways coffee can positively impact your health:
YOU COULD LIVE LONGER
Recent studies found that coffee drinkers are less likely to die from some of the leading causes of death in women: coronary heart disease, stroke, diabetes and kidney disease.
YOUR BODY MAY PROCESS GLUCOSE BETTER
That’s the theory behind studies that found that people who drink more coffee are less likely to get type 2 diabetes.
YOU ARE LESS LIKELY TO DEVELOP HEART FAILURE
Drinking one to two cups of coffee a day may help ward off heart failure, when a weakened heart has difficulty pumping enough blood to the body.
YOU ARE LESS LIKELY TO DEVELOP PARKINSON’S DISEASE
Caffeine is not only linked to a lower chance of developing Parkinson’s disease, but it may also help those with the condition better control their movements.
YOUR LIVER WILL THANK YOU
Both regular and decaf coffee seem to have a protective effect on your liver. Research shows that coffee drinkers are more likely to have liver enzyme levels within a healthy range than people who don’t drink coffee.
YOUR DNA WILL BE STRONGER
sDark roast coffee decreases breakage in DNA strands, which occur naturally but can lead to cancer or tumors if not repaired by your cells.
YOUR CHANCES OF COLORECTAL CANCER GO DOWN
One in 23 women develop colon cancer. But researchers found that coffee drinkers — decaf or regular — were 26 percent less likely to develop colorectal cancer.
YOU MAY DECREASE YOUR RISK OF ALZHEIMER’S DISEASE
Almost two-thirds of Americans living with Alzheimer’s disease are women. But the caffeine in two cups of coffee may provide significant protection against developing the condition. In fact, researchers found that women age 65 and older who drank two to three cups of coffee a day were less likely to develop dementia in general.
YOU ARE NOT AS LIKELY TO SUFFER A STROKE
For women, drinking at least one cup of coffee a day is associated with lowered stroke risk, which is the fourth leading cause of female deaths.
https://www.hopkinsmedicine.org/health/wellness-and-prevention/9-reasons-why-the-right-amount-of-coffee-is-good-for-you
Oriana:
Coffee is the greatest source of antioxidants and polyphenols for the average American. But tea lovers also enjoy health benefits. (By the way, black tea also has benefits.)
Lilith:
Wow, the article about coffee is life changing for me. Here I was thinking my love of coffee was self-destructive. Sounds like it might have been saving my life all along. Thanks for posting it.
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Oriana:
I wish I were less sensitive to caffeine. Alas, after 4 pm it's strictly green tea for me. Fortunately, that too is a health-giving beverage.
What particularly interests me about coffee is its neuroprotection. Coffee (and nicotine as well) lowers the risk of Alzheimer's and Parkinson's. My father drank only a tiny amount of coffee -- maybe one-third of a cup. He died of Parkinson's, a horrible way to die. Now, maybe drinking four cups of coffee a day would not have saved him, but you can't help but wonder . . .
THE EFFECTIVENESS OF COVID VACCINES — IT DEPENDS
~ The front-runners in the vaccine race seem to be working far better than anyone expected: Pfizer and BioNTech announced this week that their vaccine had an efficacy rate of 95 percent. Moderna put the figure for its vaccine at 94.5 percent. In Russia, the makers of the Sputnik vaccine claimed their efficacy rate was over 90 percent.
“These are game changers,” said Dr. Gregory Poland, a vaccine researcher at the Mayo Clinic. “We were all expecting 50 to 70 percent.” Indeed, the Food and Drug Administration had said it would consider granting emergency approval for vaccines that showed just 50 percent efficacy.
From the headlines, you might well assume that these vaccines — which some people may receive in a matter of weeks — will protect 95 out of 100 people who get them. But that’s not actually what the trials have shown. Exactly how the vaccines perform out in the real world will depend on a lot of factors we just don’t have answers to yet — such as whether vaccinated people can get asymptomatic infections and how many people will get vaccinated.
What do the companies mean when they say their vaccines are 95 percent effective?
The fundamental logic behind today’s vaccine trials was worked out by statisticians over a century ago. Researchers vaccinate some people and give a placebo to others. They then wait for participants to get sick and look at how many of the illnesses came from each group.
In the case of Pfizer, for example, the company recruited 43,661 volunteers and waited for 170 people to come down with symptoms of Covid-19 and then get a positive test. Out of these 170, 162 had received a placebo shot, and just eight had received the real vaccine.
From these numbers, Pfizer’s researchers calculated the fraction of volunteers in each group who got sick. Both fractions were small, but the fraction of unvaccinated volunteers who got sick was much bigger than the fraction of vaccinated ones. The scientists then determined the relative difference between those two fractions. Scientists express that difference with a value they call efficacy. If there’s no difference between the vaccine and placebo groups, the efficacy is zero. If none of the sick people had been vaccinated, the efficacy is 100 percent.
A 95 percent efficacy is certainly compelling evidence that a vaccine works well. But that number doesn’t tell you what your chances are of becoming sick if you get vaccinated. And on its own, it also doesn’t say how well the vaccine will bring down Covid-19 across the United States.
What’s the difference between efficacy and effectiveness?
Efficacy and effectiveness are related to each other, but they’re not the same thing. And vaccine experts say it’s crucial not to mix them up. Efficacy is just a measurement made during a clinical trial. “Effectiveness is how well the vaccine works out in the real world,” said Naor Bar-Zeev, an epidemiologist at the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health.
It’s possible that the effectiveness of coronavirus vaccines will match their impressive efficacy in clinical trials. But if previous vaccines are any guide, effectiveness may prove somewhat lower.
The mismatch comes about because the people who join clinical trials are not a perfect reflection of the population at large. Out in the real world, people may have a host of chronic health problems that could interfere with a vaccine’s protection, for example.
The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention has a long history of following the effectiveness of vaccines after they’re approved. On Thursday, the agency posted information on its website about its plans to study the effectiveness of coronavirus vaccines. It will find opportunities to compare the health of vaccinated people to others in their communities who have not received a vaccine.
What exactly are these vaccines effective at doing?
The clinical trials run by Pfizer and other companies were specifically designed to see whether vaccines protect people from getting sick from Covid-19. If volunteers developed symptoms like a fever or cough, they were then tested for the coronavirus.
But there’s abundant evidence that people can get infected with the coronavirus without ever showing symptoms. And so it’s possible that a number of people who got vaccinated in the clinical trials got infected, too, without ever realizing it. If those cases indeed exist, none of them are reflected in the 95 percent efficacy
rate.
People who are asymptomatic can still spread the virus to others. Some studies suggest that they produce fewer viruses, making them less of a threat than infected people who go on to develop symptoms. But if people get vaccinated and then stop wearing masks and taking other safety measures, their chances of spreading the coronavirus to others could increase.
“You could get this paradoxical situation of things getting worse,” said Dr. Bar-Zeev.
Will these vaccines put a dent in the epidemic?
Vaccines don’t protect only the people who get them. Because they slow the spread of the virus, they can, over time, also drive down new infection rates and protect society as a whole.
Scientists call this broad form of effectiveness a vaccine’s impact. The smallpox vaccine had the greatest impact of all, driving the virus into oblivion in the 1970s. But even a vaccine with extremely high efficacy in clinical trials will have a small impact if only a few people end up getting it.
“Vaccines don’t save lives,” said A. David Paltiel, a professor at the Yale School of Public Health. “Vaccination programs save lives.”
On Thursday, Dr. Paltiel and his colleagues published a study in the journal Health Affairs in which they simulated the coming rollout of coronavirus vaccines. They modeled vaccines with efficacy rates ranging from high to low, but also considered how quickly and widely a vaccine could be distributed as the pandemic continues to rage.
The results, Dr. Paltiel said, were heartbreaking. He and his colleagues found that when it comes to cutting down on infections, hospitalizations and deaths, the deployment mattered just as much as the efficacy. The study left Dr. Paltiel worried that the United States has not done enough to prepare for the massive distribution of the vaccine in the months to come.
“Time is really running out,” he warned. “Infrastructure is going to contribute at least as much, if not more, than the vaccine itself to the success of the program.”
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ending on beauty:
I
Among twenty snowy mountains,
The only moving thing
Was the eye of the blackbird.
II
I was of three minds,
Like a tree
In which there are three blackbirds.
~ Wallace Stevens
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