Blog Posts - Steve Harris

Wonders of Modern Medicine

7/22/2022

The early 20C American poet, T.S. Eliot, was struggling to express some of the banality of modern life when he wrote “I have measured out my life in coffee spoons.” (“The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock” (1915)). A century or so later, looking back on most of a life, I may be fairly said to measure our lives out in medical dosings. Indeed, in some ways my effective age may be measured out by the number of pills I take each day, with some added factor for the pills ready at hand for some known risk complication, plus a small fraction for the bottles in the back of the “medicine chest” previously prescribed and kept (regardless of potency date) against potential recurrence of prior ailments.

That I can marshal this small army of chemical bullets is the ordinary evidence of the “wonders of modern medicine” that keep me alive (or reduce my pains and fears). They are part of the vast armory of devices, techniques, and procedures that are a stunning reminder of my personal, physical fragility. At the same time, they are the basis of the amazing increase in human longevity worked by the application of many branches of the “scientific revolution” which has characterized the modern world over the past five hundred years and especially over the past two hundred.

The concept of inoculation against disease (smallpox) came to the “West” from the Ottoman Empire in the 18C. Germ theory was developed in the 19C. A complex of chemistry, biology, metallurgy and other materials sciences, epidemiology, physics has (incrementally, but seemingly continuously) advanced our knowledge of bodily malfunctions and the potential for prevention or remediation.

As a layman, I have to say that it's awesome. As the great SciFi writer Arthur C. Clarke once said: “Any technology sufficiently advanced is indistinguishable from magic.” And so it seems: laparoscopic surgery, CRISPR gene-splicing techniques, drugs with all manner of unpronounceable names (the FDA lists over 100,000). The deluge shows no sign of letting up: genetic treatments, drugs personalized for each individual, robotic surgery (although we are still waiting for Dr. McCoy’s tricorder on Star Trek).

It's easy to take it all for granted (especially for those with some decent health insurance). Since it all seems like magic, it’s hard to accept that there are limits. There’s frustration when a battery of orthopods, physical therapists, and acupuncturists using MRIs (3), X-rays (2), creams (2), exercises (at least 6), electro-shock, hypervolt, and drugs (at least 4), finally throw up their hands after a year and say that the cause of the pain near my right knee is “patella-femoral syndrome.” You know you’re in trouble when they use the word “syndrome,” because “syndrome” is doctor talk for “We don’t know what is hurting you.” Even worse is the ever-popular diagnostic dismissal: “you’re getting older.”

So, part of the resultant unhappiness is the physical pain, part is the uncertainty, part is anger at a body that (apparently) continues to age (i.e., break down), and part is the disappointment that the “wonders of modern medicine” don’t go so far as to solve my particular ailment.

My historian’s perspective tells me that things are getting better all the time and my personal experience confirms it. New therapies are coming on line every year. We all know versions of story A) in which someone (just a bit older than me) was born with a serious condition that, had she been born ten years earlier, she would likely have died quickly and had she been born twenty years later, she would be pretty healthy and spared a life of seizures and treatments. Or, in story B, a friend diagnosed with cancer is living a pretty complete life following innovative semi-customized treatments that may well have killed her ten years earlier. Or, in story C, a few weeks ago, I had a cardiac procedure that was first done forty years ago and has since expanded and specialized and is now “routine,” and I went home that afternoon.

Does forty years make it “old hat” or is it still “gee whiz”?

I suspect that taking the “gee whiz” approach is likely to contribute to a health-fostering “positive mental attitude;” so, I will stick with that. In the meantime (and, hopefully, for a considerable time thereafter), I will be counting out my life in pills.

***
Btw, while I’m talking medicine, can I express my bewilderment at the advertising for relatively uncommon ailments? I’m sure smart people who have studied such things believe that this is cost effective, but its amazing to me that the relatively small number of people with “moderate-to-severe rheumatoid arthritis” (~1.5M in the US have some degree of RA, so the “moderate-to-severe” group must be well under 1M; let’s just call it ? of 1% of the population) are worth all that airtime/ink. And then there’s all the bad news portion of the ads which consist of disclaimers and warnings (75%), pretty pictures and optimism (15%), and specific therapeutics (10%) (plausibly required by the FDA); again, it’s hard to see how this makes for an effective way to convince people to ask for the treatment. Big Pharma’s profits are legendary, but still…. It’s a mystery

Inequality II

7/15/2022

Last week, I talked about Jefferson’s postulate that “all men are created equal” as the basis for the formation of the US and an important contributor to the creation of democratic modernity on a global level. All well and good for a legal/political analysis and a story of incremental progress over the past quarter-millennium. But there is much more to the story of (in)equality, so this week, I bite off a bit more.

Of course, Jefferson’s statement is patently ridiculous. Whether in terms of height, strength, empathic capability, mathematical agility, or any number of other aspects, all people are not created equal; we are each radically different. So, Jefferson wasn’t making a statement about biology or psychology; rather, he was positing the formal structure of a society and its relationship to each of the individuals which comprise it, manifested in its legal and moral structure. As an aspiration, he looked to build a society in which each person was seen and dealt with equally by the state/government/body politic.

But, just as we are each born with different capabilities/attributes, when nurture is added to nature—different family environment, different physical environment, health/wealth/culture—things spin even more wildly.

In particular, I was thinking about social and economic aspects of inequality, the subject of the hefty (both physically and intellectually) recent volume: Capital and Ideology by the French economist Thomas Piketty. There is much to like in this book, as well as much to criticize. Still, it is striking when Piketty writes history as if equality is not measured by the formal legal structure of a society. He makes the point (implicitly) that we are so embedded in the state-centered, legally-defined, rights-oriented epistemology of modernity that we easily brush aside the vast and deep differences in standards of living (whether compared domestically or, even more so, internationally) and characterize ourselves as an ethical and successful society.

He also (expressly) makes the point that the era of “Atlantic Revolutions” (English (1689), American (1776), and French (1789) (not to mention others in Europe and Latin America in the first half of the 19C)) was, unsurprisingly about throwing over the idea that each person’s life was effectively determined by the status (clergy, nobility, commons) into which they were born. From the perspective of a ‘dialectic’ view of history, these revolutions were about getting rid of monarchy and formally embedded privilege. What remained were a variety of mechanisms, principally the sanctity of “private property” but also including slavery and imperialism, by which the “haves” continued to “have” and the “have nots” didn’t.

You don’t have to buy into his set of solutions (which he calls “participatory socialism”) to be impressed with the data-based analysis he musters to support his characterizations of economic inequality (again, both within and between countries) over the past 200+ years. Piketty also points out that while racist thinking has played a considerable role in this process, it is not the root of economic inequality. Indeed, he argues (as I have in earlier postings) that much of the current discontent among “working class”/less-educated whites in the US and Europe is a reflection of their belief that they are being left behind by economically advantaged/better educated cosmopolitan elites. And that this discontent represents a broad and fundamental challenge to the stability of “advanced” societies.

The point of all of this is to force us to reassess what we mean by “equality.” The French writer Anatole France said, late in the 19C: “In its majestic equality, the law forbids rich and poor alike to sleep under bridges, beg in the streets, and steal loaves of bread.” In the end, it is a question of whether the superficial quality of the law is morally sufficient. Engraved on the front of the US Supreme Court building is “Equal Justice under Law,” in case you were wondering what our official national priorities really are.

We know enough to know that the theory of “meritocracy” with which many of us grew up not only covers up all manner of embedded bias/advantage/privilege, but, by its very mechanistic nature also skews our moral thinking, allowing us to conflate individual worth with “success.”

It is no small matter to wrestle with these concerns at both a personal and at a societal level. It is far from simple to articulate the kind of restructuring of society implicit in a more substantive equality and to turn aspirations and slogans into concrete proposals. Is it sufficient, for example to aim for a substantial narrowing of income and wealth inequality over the next fifty years? Or do we need to start with the definitive goal of averaging it all out ASAP? Do we conceptualize and act on a national basis or a global one? Would I be comfortable living on 10% of my current net worth (still hugely more than national (much less global) averages)?

It is daunting to contemplate how to make the changes necessary to accomplish these goals. It’s not so clear precisely where we should be heading and the tactics of dealing with educational opportunity, tax structures, income redistribution, environmental, racial, and post-imperial justice are problematic to be sure. But it is more clear where passivity will lead, both in terms of personal integrity and societal cohesion.

In this way, the question of equality/inequality is not so different from the principal subjects of this blog: democracy, environment, and candor about who we are and what we want. These are all tough, steep roads to be walked; but, as my good buddy Chairman Mao once said: “A thousand mile journey begins with the first step.”

Inequality (I)

7/8/2022

Twelve score and six years ago, Thomas Jefferson postulated that “All men are created equal.” If he had been a better academic writer, he would have dropped a footnote alerting us to the fact that the term “men” was subject to multiple definitions and that he was using it in a particular way. (He might also still be waiting for his publisher to digest the peer review comments on his draft.) Since then, Americans have argued about what definition to use (including fighting a long and bloody war on this question).

Looking back, as we read the Declaration of Independence, we can easily criticize the hypocrisy of this slaveholder and exploiter of power over women. From that perspective, we can read Jefferson’s use of “men” to be limited to “White” males. And, of course, that’s true; but Jefferson’s point was not about race or gender or excluding certain types of each from power,

Rather it was about blowing up a central pillar of virtually all human societies, particularly those in Europe in the 18C: the domination of political societies by royalty/nobility/aristocracy. Whether he foresaw or would have endorsed the kind of approach to rights and citizenship that we have in the 21 C are interesting but separate questions; it’s not at all clear that he was a MLK “I have a dream” sort of guy.

In this way the Declaration falls into line with Magna Carta, that other staple of the story of “democratic progress” (an overloaded and simplistic version of which Historians refer to derisively as “Whig history, featuring large doses of inevitability and self-congratulatory moralizing). Magna Carta (1215) was NOT a democratic document. Yes, there were some references to the treatment of ordinary folks in medieval England, but the Barons did not force King John to the table at Runnymede (about five miles from Heathrow Airport) for the good of the common man. They were about protecting themselves and limiting the power of the Crown.

Similarly, the Declaration of Independence was not about democracy in the sense of “one-person, one-vote,” it was about rejecting the power of the Crown (actually more anti-Parliament than anti-King) and allowing the (white male) British citizens of the thirteen colonies to run their own show. In order to reject the deeply embedded ideas of fixed social status, the inheritance of power, and a whiff of the “divine right of kings,” Jefferson had to tear down these claims of privilege. For this purpose, “all men are created equal” is a tersely powerful claim.

Since then, with no small amount of work, risk and historical contingency (aka “luck”) they (we!) made it work.

This is not to say that the Founding Fathers achieved political utopia (nor have we). The American “Revolution” was about recognizing the shift of power from one set of white males to another set of white males. It is to say that they achieved their goal from their own perspective and resolved the largest issue facing them. The fact that later generations took their creation and moved it in a particular direction was not their fault or glory (depending on your perspective).

Still, if Magna Carta’s effort to constrain royal power grabs was a plausible and useful predicate to the Declaration, then the Declaration has been a plausible and useful predicate to the development of modern political society in the US (and the world). It took a further 90 years to make clear that Africans held in slavery were (at least nominally) included in that “all men” who were created equal. It has taken a further 150 years to make much of that nominal equality more real. It took most of the 19C to break down the legal limits on the rights of women, and almost 150 until they had the right to vote, and that, too, is a work still very much in progress.

It was only when the status and treatment of these two major segments of our population were significantly addressed that other aspects of “all men” could be dealt with. Thus, we now wrestle with questions of the status and treatment of those with less common gender identities and preferences.

All of these developments reflect changes in the popular epistemology; i.e., in the interpretation of “all men” and the implementation of that premise in law and practice. Throughout this time, the words have remained the same, but it clear that their meaning has changed. Even the 14th Amendment, the greatest constitutional change since 1787, merely says that “all persons” shall be entitled to the “equal protection of the laws.” In the aftermath of the Civil War, even though there is no mention of Africans, African-Americans, Negroes, Blacks, or former slaves, it was clear that the words meant something different than they had previously and now included these people.

The (lapsed) effort to adopt the “Equal Rights Amendment” in the late 20C (which expressly referred to sex) was seen as necessary because the judicial interpretation of the Constitution didn’t fully recognize such equality. Virtually all of its purpose has been accomplished through revised judicial interpretation and widespread social and statutory changes. (although these are perhaps at risk per Justice Thomas’ rationale in overturning Roe). These are the evidence of epistemological change and they co-evolve. As generations rise and fade, the culture in which they are raised nudge them in different directions. For example, I was raised to refer to women as “Mrs.” or “Miss,” which I doubt is the case for most folks born in the last 40 years.

This process of change is not smooth or one-way, as the election of an African-American as President fourteen years ago and his replacement by a misogynistic and racist individual provide ample testimony. Such changes require attention and effort…and patience.

All of which is to say that Jefferson’s words are still sufficient, but it is up to us in the 21C to say what we mean by “all men are created equal.”

Rights and Wrongs, Roe and Wade

7/1/2022

The leak of the Alito draft opinion in May this year accelerated the inevitable strident debate on the legal treatment of abortion in this country. It was a dress rehearsal for what we are seeing now, but the leak didn’t change anything and the opinion finally released last week got some things right and some things wrong.

What it got right was process and structure. What it got wrong was the impact on millions of people.

The legal status of abortion in the US has been set for almost fifty years by a court decision that had to stretch to find constitutional justification for immunizing women for the terminating a pregnancy. It preempted state regulation of abortion prior to fetal viability.

The substance of Roe—the line-drawing and moral balance it struck—make a great deal of sense to me (and, apparently, to the majority of Americans). The thought that the government should regulate a person’s control of their own body (in the absence of a) other criminal activity or b) harm to another person) seems a direct application of the core principle of personal liberty on which our country and most other modern liberal democracies are founded.

At the same time, the thought that the government should allow the death of a fetus is also deeply troubling. Of course there are important issues of viability and “personhood” here. They are further complicated by the advances of medical science that has been bringing forward the date of fetal viability.

So, we have two sensible, plausible principles in the abstract that run directly into each other. It’s hard to say there is a plain, ethical “right answer.”

This clash of principles is fundamentally complicated by the sex-based difference in who writes and who is affected by such regulations. If both men and women got pregnant, then the tensions noted above would still be present; but sex differences inevitably skew everyone’s analysis. In fact, millennia of patriarchy have led to laws written almost entirely by men and broader social values also articulated almost entirely by men. While this has begun to change over the past 50-ish years, since social inertia is even more embedded than are legal provisions, our traditional worldview is still very much with us.

This is an intractable analytic problem since women will always be the only subject of abortion regulation. Simply stated, there is no objective (sex-neutral) stance on this issue. Men’s conception (so to speak) of the impact of governmental intrusion into an individual’s body can never be as organic as can women’s and it would require a concentrated empathetic effort to approximate it. Getting past the embedded social inertia of patriarchy to do so is difficult indeed.

In any event, ideally this issue of moral balancing should be a matter for legislative action rather than judicial. But even back in the 1970s, the politics of abortion were fraught (although placid by today’s standard). The Court’s intervention effectively took the issue off the political table for decades. This is not to ignore the many efforts at regulation that have been advanced, particularly in the past thirty years. But there was virtually no activity in Congress on this issue, and most people viewed the relevant governing rule to be judicial, not legislative.

I have written before about the problems that result from the disenfranchisement of the political process. It’s not healthy for the body politic. It alienates people from their democracy and makes the judiciary an easy target. It also facilitates reliance on the judiciary and made it easier for those who are “pro-choice” to not pay as much attention to legislative solutions (e.g. codifying Roe) as they might have. This decision has already incited a new activism, but it’s way too early to tell whether the response will have the necessary staying power or breadth of engagement with the wide range of challenges our society faces. Although, the other recent decisions—on the EPA’s powers (& therefore the climate disaster), various voting-related rulings, and gun control—will broaden the group who see a fundamental constitutional problem.

One problem is inertia. Existing rules—whether legislative or judicial in origin—continue along and they are difficult to change, regardless of the will of the “majority.” Our system has become sclerotic and change is difficult. The Roe Court preempted this inertia and jumped to a plausible, sensible compromise solution to the conflict of two sensible principles. “Pro-choice” forces have to come to terms with the fact that there are many in this country who would draw the line elsewhere and that overcoming the vehemence of the “pro-life” forces will be a difficult and perhaps impossible task, but it must be a political task, not a legal one: changing legislatures, changing constitutions are the work of the day (and the decade). Here, as in many issues, table-pounding is of limited use.

Another important angle is that a “conservative” court whose rationale speaks to historical traditions as the premise for law is also enamored of “originalism” in judicial interpretation. There are many problems with originalism, not least that it assumes a clarity of historical interpretation that almost all historians disavow. It is ironic that this decision and the “penumbra” it casts over dozens of heretofore seemingly well-established rights (as pointed out by the dissent) will likely be an important part of the spur for modernizing the country’s laws and constitutional principles. The more things get out of whack with reality (which is the essence of conservatism) the greater the opportunity for some sort of revolution. This decision increases the tension on the social cohesion implicit in a democratic society.

In the short term, I don’t have any simple solution to all this. I think a Roe-ish statute (a la the Collins-Murkowski bill) would make the most sense, but our politics is far too poisoned to get to a sensible compromise. But we’ve got to get to work to see what is possible. More broadly, we have to take on the fundamental test of democracy: getting enough people to care about the nature of their (our) society to write rules and build a culture which is willing to work together

The Meaning of Fifty.2

6/24/2022

The great fiftieth reunion has come and gone. Back in ’72 we might have predicted that it was going to happen, but had no frigging idea what it meant; indeed, we had little sense of the concept of fifty years at all and no patience to contemplate it. Even incremental reunions along the way seemed to exist on their own, with no apparent connection to prior or subsequent events on the list. Indeed, the most common refrain was on the absurdity of it all. For me, this reunion brought home that my self-mythologizing of my life is far more fragile and constructed than I might like to think.

So, before I go too far down that trail, congrats and thanks to those who, over the past 18 months or so, chatted up the idea and then did the unglamorous work of putting together what will likely be a model for other alumni classes in terms of events and esprit de corps. I was glad to be part of the team.

As in the past, we were—entirely justifiably—self-congratulatory. Back then, we knew we lived in unusual times and were given rare opportunities to learn and live with instructors and a campus of extraordinary beauty.

This time, we had about 80 folks present (almost half of those still around), a remarkable showing especially since only about 15-20 still live in the Metro Detroit area. We had gracious hosts from our class for some special evenings, a well-executed program from the School, musical talent, and an outstanding guide to the revival of the city of Detroit (an amazing story of history, demographics, collapse, and innovation).

As a historian, the saga of Detroit’s mid-century power, late-century decline, and recent resurgence illustrates the cyclical nature of many historical phenomena and the futility of prediction based on blithe extension of current trends. In the end, I came away optimistic; having seen the effects of intelligence, inspiration, and effort that stand as a rebuttal to the easy despair of our current national/global situation.

We were fortunate to have with us one of our teachers with us for the weekend. He (too) was young then (fresh out of college) and was part of the English Department which gave me great gifts of literature, criticism, creativity, and the discipline of writing. As a professor now, I was especially glad to be able to thank him (as did many others) for his work and to give him a glimpse of his effect on me and the world (which is the secret and rarely-found food of all teachers).

I had noticed, as early as my tenth reunion, that the campus, even if a bit more buffed up than in my day and graced with all manner of new facilities, seemed smaller than when I was bustling through as teenager. The new buildings and refurbished interiors made clear the distance from then ‘til now. We were there, in the words of one school song: “shorter in wind as in memory long,” but it wasn’t ours anymore (if it had seemed so at the time). The school, the students, the styles were clearly of this time and era; and, in that way ordinary. Our memories—of different clothing, different music, different sophistication, and different presence—stood out for their difference (not to say ancientness): faded ghosts running down the same hallways.

Of far greater richness was the time—three-days—of hugs and back pats, winks and knowing smiles, some grimaces, some tears together. How can words capture the immersion in memory? All the cliches are rampant: in the mind’s eye hair is longer, fuller, darker; faces fresher; steps springier.

Even richer was the chance, if only for an hour, to leave those cliches to the side and have some serious talk and reflection about our state(s) of mind. I was gratified that about 30 folks came together to push past the glad-handing and make an effort to see ourselves and each other. We have now all returned to our “normal” lives; but I, for one, feel a bit more anchored, both to my past and to my fellows. The time has come, as I said to the group, to “put down the baggage” of the competition and insecurities of that youth. Getting some understanding of the intervening years/lives of all those with whom I worked and played has helped to clear away those ancient burdens and see my self (both then and now) more clearly.

As our discussion ended, I challenged the group: The clock is ticking. There will be fewer of us at the 60th. When we re-gather, let’s report back on how will I account for the intervening decade (beyond the inevitable physicalities)? How will I leverage what I learned long ago (and since)?

Back in 9th or 10th grade English class, we read and had to memorize Coleridge’s poem “Kubla Khan” (1816) [it was an English-inspired prep school, after all].

I can still recite it (mostly). The closing lines read:

Could I revive within me
Her symphony and song,
To such a deep delight ’twould win me,
That with music loud and long,
I would build that dome in air,
That sunny dome! those caves of ice!
And all who heard should see them there,
And all should cry, Beware! Beware!
His flashing eyes, his floating hair!
Weave a circle round him thrice,
And close your eyes with holy dread
For he on honey-dew hath fed,
And drunk the milk of Paradise.

Part of my mission was to find the boy who was entranced by that language, to reconnect to the energy and the possibilities it splashed across my consciousness; to push the intervening years aside a bit and look forward as I did then.

Games Historians Play

6/17/2022

Just so you know, in the last few days, I’ve been a Jesuit, Cardinal, and Pope; then an English Viscount. IRL, I just got back from Boulder, where I attended a conference of history professors who play games. In class. And get paid for it!

Actually, we spent four days talking about how to teach using historically-embedded live-action role-playing games in history (and other) courses, mostly by practicing playing the games ourselves. This time, I played one game based on the Trial of Galileo (17C Italy) and another based on the Industrial Revolution (19C England).

In the first game, I was Christoph Grienberger, an Austrian Jesuit mathematician in the College of Rome. I played Vatican politics so that I was elected Pope (the first Jewish guy to do so since St. Peter!) and tried to protect Galileo, but the conservatives were unhappy and elected an antipope! In the second game, I was Viscount Melbourne, the aristocratic magistrate of Manchester in 1817-18. I tried to keep the peace between workers and merchants, all the while investing in the newfangled industrial factories. I made a pile of money and ended up with a fine country estate and a splendid house in the city as well. I had to “read the Riot Act” to the disgruntled workers and sentence one troublemaker to be banished to Australia.

For over 20 years, Reacting to the Past has used these games to teach history, critical thinking, and communications skills in classrooms in over 500 colleges across the country. The group now deploys more than 25 published games (including instructor’s manuals, student gamebooks, and individual character roles), and has over 100 games in development addressing situations from pre-history to the 21st century and engaging students with primary sources from dozens of cultures. Through structured debates and the motivating elements of collaboration and competition, students teach themselves and one another about conflicting ideas and motivations from political, social, strategic, and cultural inflection points in history. Check it out here.

It's not “re-enacting,” i.e., replicating history. Students are not obligated to do what “actually happened” in history. Sometimes, Socrates is not convicted by the Athenians. I’ve had Constitutional Conventions where they couldn’t agree on a document and the US stayed under the Articles of Confederation. Sometimes, slavery is abolished; sometimes not. Sometimes, World War I starts “on schedule,” sometimes peace is maintained. Students get to see that individuals matter and if they don’t speak or vote, their side will more likely lose.

I’ve been part of this group since 2017 when I stumbled across some of the game books at a publisher’s table at a regular historians’ conference. I was looking for some way to get my students more engaged in their own learning. What I found was a remarkable community of teachers and a way to combine fun with history. I’ve been to a bunch of conferences since and was glad when we re-emerged from COVID to gather again this past week. It was the first time I’ve been in a room with dozens of historians in over two years (oh, we also have teachers of philosophy, politics, economics, communications, rhetoric, literature, etc.).

I use several games regularly in my courses: Athens 403BC and South Africa 1993 feature in my freshman seminar on the history of democracy; Philadelphia 1787 is the focus of my course on US Constitutional history (along with a short game on the 13th Amendment); a game on the diplomatic crisis leading up to WWI was the culmination of my 19C International History course. I have also run games on the English Glorious Revolution in 1689, the French Revolution in 1789, Kentucky’s decision on secession in 1861, as well as some short introductory games.

I really love using this way of teaching (and it is not (obviously) because I don’t like to give lectures)). Student’s (most of them at least) read primary sources and argue about the issues of the day. They have to figure out practical politics of teams and factions, negotiate deals, based on the beliefs and the goals that their characters actually had. I sit in the back and watch, guide, and grade. My workload is actually about the same as a “regular” class, but what I do is different. I’m more of a coach to their learning than the font of wisdom and knowledge which is the usual stance of university professors. More importantly, students come away with a deeper knowledge of some segments of history as compared with whatever they might retain (usually not too much) from lectures, especially in terms of the context and mentality of the time and place we’re studying. They have fun and they learn more (not a coincidence).

As for me, I get to work with authors of the games I am playing and trade tips and ideas with others who are running games. As a recovering lawyer/business guy, I’ve also been able to help the organization improve its structure, management, and strategy.

Overall, Reacting has been great for me as a teacher and as a colleague. Based on many of their comments, it’s been terrific for my students too!

Vox Populi

6/10/2022

It seems that much of what passes for ‘news’ these days is really just reporting on what people (ordinary folks, that is) think, whether via structured polling or person-in-the-street interviews that purport to represent the sensibilities of a broad group. From one perspective—as a tool to predict political or commercial activity—there might be some substance here, but more often, not. When compounded—one media story reporting on what other media are reporting or reaction to such reports, I usually have the sense that (per McLuhan) “the medium is the message;” i.e., that all this airtime/ink/electrons are being spilled to create and validate media power rather than actually tell us something. Particularly useless in this regard are the reports of what “the people” think about thus-and-such factual matter (e.g., whether COVID is a bigger threat than the flu or whether China will leverage the Russian debacle in Ukraine), as if public opinion could change (or create) the real world of epidemiology or geopolitics. Just as bad are reports which (in the interests of “fair and balanced” news reporting) offer opinions on “both” sides of some issue as if the presence of some “controversy” justifies coverage when often it’s merely a tool for the media to hype up the adrenaline in order to get us to watch.

I suppose that this noise is, to some degree, the product of the modern global culture (fetish?) of democracy. It’s not enough that the masses should choose the President, but now they should also tell us what is true or good.

Looking across the world, it’s striking how much the mantra of “public opinion” seems to count, even in countries with considerably less “democracy” than the Western model. Since relatively few countries experience popular revolutions (as compared with military coups), the substantive weight of the “people” in such countries wouldn’t seem to matter much. Does anyone expect marches in Beijing, Moscow, or half of Africa to topple the existing power structure? Popular unrest might prompt insiders to launch a coup, but that aint democracy. So, what does it matter? In other words, “public opinion” (as mediated/defined/invented?) by the press represent anything real or is it just a construct for the chattering classes/politicos?

From a historical perspective, it is hard to find countries where democracy was more than an aspiration before the 20C. Thus, it has always been intriguing to me to see references to “public opinion” in the19C, even in Britain or France (which had as much of a claim to democracy as any (even with only small fractions of the population having a vote)). So, it’s important to read the phrase “public” as meaning “the powerful outside the formal governmental structure” rather than fall into the anachronistic trap of thinking of the subjects of a Gallup poll or the number of “re-tweets.”

Most modern historians would argue that there wasn’t even such a thing as the “public” until the late 17C (England, France, Netherlands, US). The 20C German writer Jurgen Habermas articulated the concept of the “public sphere” to describe the emergence of a group of people who developed and debated opinions on the political and cultural issues of the day, often in the context of salons, newspapers, and newfangled coffeehouses, they were outside the scope of official discussions within the royal court, but including an open-ended group of people, beyond a private dinner party; thus: “public.” It’s hard to imagine the birth of modern democracy without such a space and so, the “public” and its opinion became an essential part of the model.

Very often, pre-20C (indeed, pre-WWII) “public opinion” really meant whatever the leading media of the day said it did, sometimes based on their own views, sometimes based on (the very limited range of) the people they talked to. Sometimes, “public opinion” was a shorthand, used by leading public figures to project their own views and clothe them in the garb of popular support (when it really was just the views of three fellows at the club last night). All-in-all, not worth very much except to create the impression of democracy.

Now, we have polls—lots of polls—which tell us with apparent statistical validation what it is that “the people” think. For many reasons, they can be (at best) a coarse diagnostic tool for understanding our society and its politics. Certainly, they provide fodder for breathless news reports (e.g., “exit polls” for those who can’t wait a few hours for the actual election results) or for the apparently more considered question of whether “the people” have a “favorable opinion of______.” Such questions conflate people’s feelings (i.e., whether they are happy about the state of their lives) with something more objective and analytic (i.e., whether the President is effectively addressing the issues of the day or implementing his promised agenda). It’s all part of the commodification/marketing of politics.

The extent to which we now commonly take polls for politics is symptomatic of the superficiality of modern democracy (both a bug and a feature). The specialization/division of labor inherent in periodically-chosen representative democracy is based on the complexity of modern life and the inherent limited education and short-attention-span of most of the electorate. At best, polls can only provide a directional indication for policy (another reason why California’s law-by-referendum process is so cockamamie).

“Public opinion” is a great concept—in theory. But it is redolent, in Shakespeare’s phrasing, of “sound and fury, signifying nothing” or, to paraphrase the famous line about the effectiveness of advertising: “half of it is meaningful; we just don’t know which half.” It provides news filler, rationalizations, and a substitute for sound thinking. Whenever someone cites it to persuade you of something, makes sure your wallet is secure

Sound Tracks

6/3/2022

Growing up in the era of Motown and the explosion of rock-n-roll, it’s hard for me to imagine young people having an affinity for the music of my parents’ era. Sinatra, Streisand, Mitch Miller, etc. seemed awfully ‘white bread’ compared to the rhythm of the Four Tops or the juice of The Who. While I now have some appreciation for the standards of the American Song Book (mostly from watching my wife perform much of it in the last twenty years), back then I found it b-o-r-i-n-g. And, while I’m not sure that (even now) I can articulate what “Stairway to Heaven” or “Sgt. Pepper” were all about, their meaning and their power were evident to me at the time (preferably at loud volume).

I pretty much disconnected from pop/rock music in the ‘80s and have shifted to classical (especially baroque) and jazz, but I have observed that one of the ways in which late 20C/early 21C culture is different than ‘back-in-the-day’ is the taste of young people. Naturally, their tastes run primarily to the popular music of their day, especially various flavors of rap. It’s not my style, but what is remarkable is their affinity for the music of my era. What are my friends’ kids doing lining up for a Stones’ concert, or going to see the Eagles’ (umpteenth) reunion tour??? Why are they downloading tracks from Santana or Stevie Wonder onto their iPhones?

There is part of me that would like to think that the popular culture of my era was distinctively great; with universal appeal that transcends generations. The first era of rock-n-roll (i.e. from 1956 up to Disco) was awesome, but I’m sure much of my opinion is solipsistic. Actually, however, I suspect that there is something else going on here. It has to do with the infamous “generation gap” and the evolving nature of mass culture in an increasingly technology-driven media environment.

For one thing, culture (especially music) is much more easily available today than 60 years ago when getting a record player or an “8-track” was a big deal. This has been true since CDs (the fax-like music technology of the late 20C) and even cassettes made it simple to get your hands on and swap the latest tunes. Making the “back catalog” available was low-hanging fruit for the music companies (and now, with streaming, even more so).

Second, we “owned” our music in a way that differed from our parents’ relationship with their music. Part of this was due to the inherent rebellion of Rock and its tight generational affiliation. We were proud of our music in a way I don’t think our parents ever were. It’s not surprising, therefore, that we were prone to push it at the next generation. Plus, the economic and cultural power of us boomers made it harder to avoid our tastes and memories than those of earlier generations. We can see this in the innumerable (and often horribly-named) tribute bands reviving the “Golden Oldies” of yesteryear; not to mention hearing “Layla” on Muzak.

Third, the evolutionary nature of popular music since the ‘60s made our sales job easier; i.e., our music is closer to our kids’ music than our parents’ music was to ours (e.g., in terms of volume or rhythm or angst). So, it’s a much shorter bridge and we were more willing to cross it and to bring our kids over to our stuff (and they were more willing to listen than we were, too!).

I wonder how much of this transfers to other modes of popular culture? Remakes of movies and play revivals hearken back to their originals; but that’s not new, Shakespeare and Euripides have been performed for centuries. What is different is the continuing availability of the originals. Although the first two tries at Dune are best left unwatched; the 1951 version of A Christmas Carol is still the best. The remakes say more about the profitability models of media companies than about an aesthetic judgement of earlier versions (see also King Kong). Still the continued availability of the earlier works makes it feasible for multiple generations to share the same cultural experience.

Overall, it seems that the presence of electronic media has fundamentally changed the nature of the inter-generational transfer of culture. Given the rapidity of technological change, it’s likely that the 20C phenomenon noted here will morph considerably on the rising tide of games, VR/AR, mash-ups, and other experimental/experiential genres. It will be interesting to see if grunge bands or rap artists carry the same longevity twenty to thirty years hence or if the current phenomenon was/is a “one-off.”

But for now, we can see that the nature of culture has changed. The past is still available in ways that weren’t previously possible. The ties between generations is different. Perhaps have we found one way to bridge the famous “gap?”

The Meaning of 50

5/27/2022

Next month, I will be going back to the Detroit area (where I grew up) to participate in my 50th high school reunion. I was given the extraordinary opportunity to go to the best private school in the state during a period of remarkable change in US society (1968-72) with a group of students who knew, even then, that we were a unique group.

While I have stayed active as an alumnus as part of the school’s official program, our class in particular, and (in terms of personal connections) to some of my classmates, this anniversary of our graduation has opened a new perspective, leading me to realize, in a personal and profound way, the path of my life, the nature of memory, and the meaning of history. There are those who dismiss reunions and their accompanying memories as either nostalgia, a place for mental indolence and rampant historical revisionism, or a celebration of contingency, exalting the chance meeting of people for a few years out of an extended lifetime which carries no more than its proportional weight (<10%). All are certainly risks, but they seem worth taking for the benefit of reflection (and not a few beers and laughs).

All sorts of influences burst into the consciousness of the era—political, aesthetic, technological, and herbal—on top of the usual strains of the hormonally-defined world of adolescence. It all seems impossibly distant now, but it’s equally impossible to know how our experience of this fifty-year distance squares with that of our grandparents’ generation or that of our grandchildren. I suspect that the pace of change has accelerated across the 20C; so, while we have seen more change than our forbearers, we are more used to change and acceleration which makes it, in a way, less disorienting; and the same is likely true for millennials compared to us.

Some members of our class recently had a Zoom call with some current graduating Seniors from the school. It was great to reconnect with their energy and sense of opportunity. It also struck me how many of the great cultural changes that were so urgent in our era are embedded and ordinary now. We “matured” in an era when “sex, drugs, and rock-n-roll” were not only our bywords, but were fairly new cultural descriptors. The cultural power of us “Boomers” has carried much of that forward. We saw (and often helped make) cracks in the social rigidities of gender, race, and religion that have, in the ordinary slow pace of historical development, brought us to the choices and confusions of the 21C.

One benefit of accumulated experience (a nine-syllable euphemism for “age”) is that we lived it and know it. Of course, we should always be wary of conflating memory with history. One of the interesting aspects of talking with people with whom I shared a lot of experiences back “in the day,” will be to see what of my memories are corroborated by others and what events and interactions I have stored so far back in my internal filing cabinet (another incipient anachronism) that their rediscovery will be revelatory (and disorienting in their own way). Perhaps I will get to see what aspects of the persona I have constructed over this half-century are truly rooted in those years or since or what was just a mask. Perhaps I will see what aspects of the “Steve” I created at 16 were real or useful or costly. Perhaps it’s finally time to put down some of the baggage I decided was so crucial to pick up back then. If I am fortunate, perhaps some of my group will—with candor and kindness—tell me how I appeared to them.

Anniversaries are always an opportunity to look back; to press “pause” on the day-to-day stories of our lives and try to comprehend the big chunks of change in ourselves and our world. (Back then, we “pressed ‘pause’” on the coolest tech of the day: an 8-track cartridge, rather than just asking Alexa to do it.) We get to try to see what of all the things we were excited about (then, and since)—cars, sports, creativity, relationships, moon landings, the War, college choices—really mattered when assessed over the course of a lifetime (so far). We redraw a line from there to here. It lets us see the turns not taken; the flukes, the choices, the plans and the surprises: it’s a life.

For all the advantages I had (socio-economic and genetic), did I actually make better choices? How did I use this launch pad to benefit my life and maybe even to craft it? Was my learning curve towards what I currently conceive of as “wisdom” any steeper? Were the regrets over which I anguished worth the stress?

The other end of this particular rainbow is today. Of our class of ~180 (boys and girls (in separate schools when we started)), we have lost 11 (that we know of). Their memory will hang over us, but likely less for what I remember of them than as an insistent reminder that our 60th reunion will see a lot more of us gone. Can I relish our time with this shadow on the one hand and an appreciation that a 90%+ survival rate in our late 60s would seem remarkable to our grandparents’ era? And, given the decade or two (on average) remaining to me, what will I do with this combination of memories and inspiration?

As we updated the contact information for our group, I was initially startled to see a lot more addresses in Florida, North Carolina, and southern California than I remembered when I was keeping active tabs on our class. Then it struck me: “geez, we’re ‘retiring’ now.” After all, we have already spent most of our lives. Fifty years on: careers increasingly completed, families raised and dispersed, so much to digest, so little to grasp onto.

As a Historian, I know that it takes some attention to separate the signal from the noise; to construct a narrative and choose what is significant and what is the interval. There is one story that emphasizes the past fifty years and consigns the earlier time and the time remaining to the sidelines. At the same time, from another perspective, I can see the fifty years since “back then” (even if briefly interrupted by prior reunions with some of the group) as a gap for which hormonally-imprinted youth and the immediacy of age seem all the more real.

The musical we produced our Senior year was “West Side Story,” the current revival of which provides one of many inevitable historical ironies of any pair of dates. We had an extraordinarily talented group of singers, dancers, and producers. It gave us part of our lives’ soundtrack, along with Motown, the Moody Blues, Zeppelin, and Don McLean’s “American Pie” (top of the charts for 1972!).

The show concludes with a reprise of “Somewhere,” insisting that, for Tony and Maria, “there’s a time and place for us.” For our group, which I like to think was extraordinary (even if only because it was ours), we had an overlapping life in a particular and rare “time and place” for which I am immensely grateful. This group…this time…this place… helped launch me on a particular trajectory (skewed with gifts and baggage). This regathering, fifty years on, will help me take stock of that trajectory and help me plan the rest.

Denial

5/20/2022

If you get caught in flagrante delicto, the late great comedian Lenny Bruce has some advice for you: “Deny it. Flat out - deny it! If you really love your wife, deny it. If they got pictures, deny it. … If they walk in on you, deny it. Just say this strange chick came into the apartment shivering with a sign around her neck that said, ‘l have malaria. Lie on top of me and keep me physically active or I'll die.’” – a schtick by Lenny Bruce (from the movie Lenny (1974)).

We all deny stuff (I know my own list is … robust). Since the days of the broken window and pointing at my little brother, we have done so most of our lives. As Lenny Bruce implied, even if the facts are clear, there’s some small chance you might get away with it. Why? Because, as Bruce said: “They want to believe it!” Or, as Jack Nicholson’s character said in A Few Good Men: “You can’t handle the truth!”

We all (or at least some part of virtually all of us) want to believe a nice story. A simple understanding of the world seems vastly preferable to the stresses of dealing with its complexities; and “truth” takes a back seat to sanity. Sometimes, of course, there’s no self-deception involved; denial is a cynical/dishonest ploy to avoid blame/responsibility (“Tobacco doesn’t cause cancer” worked for some folks for a while). But, sometimes we do it because we can’t tolerate living in a world in which the (denied) fact is true.

This explains a lot of the climate deniers or Covid deniers. A world in which the world (i.e. nature) is actually running the show is scary. Things were easier when just about everybody believed in God. All the weird stuff and problems could be written off to Him and were psychologically manageable via faith in His goodness or his plan/providence from which we would all (sooner or later) benefit.

Science, however, has shrunk the scope of God’s domain. He’s only around the fringes now and faith is harder to come by and seems to have less to do with how the world works than it used to.

Left to our own devices (so to speak) we fabricate coherence.

I’d like to think that this inability to cope is behind some of the well-known phenomenon of Holocaust denial. Certainly there were those who were excessive apologists for Nazi Germany. Certainly there were those who sought the fame/notoriety of controversy. Certainly there were those who had plenty of reason to distrust conventional and governmental information and then ran a bit amok. But, some folks couldn’t handle the truth of man’s inhumanity to man (or, more particularly, the evil of their own country/people/allies). Their weltanschauung (“worldview”) was shattered.

As I have pointed out in previous postings, there are a lot of folks here in the US and elsewhere whose weltanschauung has been pretty well hammered and so, things that don’t fit are labelled “fake news.” There are a bunch of folks who “can’t imagine” that our democracy is at risk/ Russia will invade / Japan would attack the US Fleet in Pearl Harbor/ Britain would leave the EU / … (you get the idea).

The rantings and machinations of the “Stop the Steal” gang following Biden’s victory in November 2020 are a textbook example. Trump couldn’t contemplate a world in which he lost; so he created one in which he didn’t. Millions followed (still follow) this delusion. Perhaps some will wake up and admit to temporary insanity; or they will just hope this incident fades into history and they won’t be asked to take a stance on the question. But, I suspect, too many drank too much Kool-Aid and will never recover. At this stage, it’s hard to imagine that Rudy Giuliani was a respected/feared US prosecutor and (not entirely terrible) Mayor of NYC. What’s left is a sorry knock-off of Batman’s arch-foe “the Penguin” who got suckered into self-parody by Borat.

Whether recent or more dated, in order to offset these imaginings, evidence and rational analysis don’t work so well when dealing with the most ancient parts of the human brain. Those in “fight or flight” mode don’t stop to read statistical tables.

It’s an interesting question as to whether this psychostress is uniquely or even particularly a “modern” phenomenon. I suspect that core bio-psychological human capabilities have been placed, over the past few centuries, in an environment of far more complexity and rapid change than for most of our first 70,000+/- years. The bling of electronic living has not helped, nor have the hormone-stimulating activities of the media and advertising industries. Indeed, it’s ironic that the same drivers of rationalistic modernity: the “Scientific Revolution” and Enlightenment have also led to these anti-rationalist pressures and many brains can’t stand the strain.

Regardless of its historical origins, however, denial remains an apparently useful tool for many. Lenny Bruce would be proud.

Condemned to Repeat It --
Musings on history, society, and the world.

I don't actually agree with Santayana's famous quote, but this is my contribution to my version of it: "Anyone who hears Santayana's quote is condemned to repeat it."

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