The Plight of the Millennials

Further explanation here. 

First, a bit about statistical norms and the normal distribution. In social sciences, for something to be considered a statistically significant characteristic of a group, it just needs to be present in about 68% of the population, or one standard deviation from the norm. There's tons of variation in the other 32%, so all the generalizations below might not apply to the people in your life. But, according to researchers, they apply to most people in each group, so we can still look at trends. I remember studies in my day showing a clear correlation between violent movie viewing and violent teens, yet I loved slasher flicks and still lean towards more gruesome films despite the stats. And, more to the point, nobody stopped making those movies. This recent article is unlikely to change a thing, but we're still wise to consider it.

The article in question is The Atlantic article, "Have Smartphones Destroyed a Generation?" which adds to a running list of problems with kids today caused by technology. It hits home from some of the trends I've noticed anecdotally in my classroom over the past 26 years: that phones are distracting, lead to unrealistic idealization and familial alienation, and affect sleep habits. But the writer misses any discussion that phones also drive constant change, consumerism, and cognizance of tragedies, and the significance of other factors affecting trends in this demographic. Here's a chart I sometimes use in class for an overview of demographics by year of birth. We've moved way beyond the boom, bust, and echo labels.

On the Philosophy of Mr. Money Moustache

A friend pointed me towards this podcast in which Tim Ferriss interviews Mr. Money Moustache (MMM), a man who retired from work in his 30s to live on the interest from his investments and then got a significant following as a blogger.

The podcast describes the kind of life I've tried to live (except for that early retirement bit), and MMM talks about ideas I've been writing about for ages. I'm successful in actually following some parts of this lifestyle and horribly disappointing in others. Like me, he loves to build things, and I'm going to have his explanation for why he doesn't love travelling at the ready next time I'm asked why I don't travel: he gets his joy from creating, which isn't travel-friendly. Absolutely!

He hates cars as much as I do, and cautions, "You should never get a job that requires you to drive to it." Once I started a permanent job, I moved closer to it to cut my daily travel time down to a ten minute walk. People don't do things like that anymore. He thinks walking is the best medicine in the world. Tim adds, "We've evolved to be able to walk very long distances. Humans are better humans, less neurotic, when they walk a lot."

MMM's billboard of choice.

On Sugar and Socialization

An Agenda discussion on sugar use is timely for me. I typically let students eat something small and healthy in class to tide them over until lunch, but, in one class this semester, I ended up having to police their choices. A few shovelled candy into their mouths before I'd tell them to put it away on a daily basis. I'd sometimes comment on their nutritional decisions even though it's not a health class, and then I'd immediately wonder if that's crossing a line. Sometimes my mom hat slips on when I should be in teacher mode. Or is that possibly a teacher's prerogative?

Gary Taubes provides a compelling argument for refined sugar being the primary cause of obesity not because it provides empty calories, or calories at all, but because it "creates a hormonal milieu that favours fat accumulation." This isn't entirely a new idea, except he goes a bit further with it, insisting that sugar has probably killed more people than tobacco. See the documentary Sugar Coated (currently on Netflix) for more thorough arguments.

The Smell of Your Moral Judgment

"If you're going to tell people the truth, make it funny or people will kill you."   

                        - Billy Wilder

I just watched a series of videos (65 minutes if you watch them all in one go) by Innuendo Studios that were made specifically about the backlash against Anita Sarkeesian, the feminist who questioned some of the choices made by video game creators, but the ideas in these videos can be applied to explain the backlash to any social movement, like environmentalism.

First, they look at why people get so angry at other people who bike to work or are vegan or don't like to play rapey video games and put something else out there instead. Why do people treat feminists and environmentalists and anyone actively engaging their moral agency with contempt?  Because we're dealing with (paraphrased), "a condition, somewhat like drunkenness, in which some of us become a belligerent and dangerous asshole when we feel our conception of ourselves as moral human beings is being threatened."

One eco-hater said of Colin Beavan's attempt to live without an impact on the world, "People are traumatized if you suggest they should do something different."  And that's just it. When we live a certain way that's morally sound, other's feel judged by the bold decisions we've made to live our lives giving a thought to the rest of civilization. It prompts them to think, "If they're right, what does that say about me?" even if nobody's saying anything about them.

So when I say, "I've never owned a car." Other people hear, "You're a bad person for having a car." It probably doesn't help when I suggest we should all drive less and turn down/off the A/C!

And people don't think they should be made to think about these things. It's not nice.

They used an analogy to explain this feeling: Imagine we have a patch of weird skin that could be a mild allergy or it could be cancer. We're rather ignore it and not know for as long as possible than to find out the worst. Activists are like the doctor that barges in to tell you that you actually do have cancer and you've really got to do something about it immediately. And then they decide they'll go for a second opinion ... later.

The fourth and longest video explains the dynamics of the gamergate group that are specifically about bashing feminists, and the much larger group that just wants to enjoy their games guilt-free, and the dynamics between them that allow for denial of harmful behaviours to perpetuate.

We want to operate under the belief that it's acceptable to do wrong things and still be a good person provided we do them in innocence (i.e. ignorance). If we don't know that a behaviour is wrong, then it's okay to do it, so we actively avoid knowledge about sweatshops, slavery, racism.... We resent people who tell us about the negative consequences of our actions because we feel judged, but also because it robs us of our innocence.

And there's a belief that learning about the world is consciously choosing to be less happy. This isn't in the video series, but I think that's because we equate freedom with happiness to an extreme. We want free speech even if it means saying heinous things to one another. We want freedom to be armed to the teeth even if increases our chances of getting shot (or having our gun stolen at gunpoint). I believe we are actually happier with some boundaries and limits in place, fewer mundane choices, but more freedoms where it really matters (to criticize rulers, to make decisions about our bodies, and generally to do anything that doesn't have the potential to cause harm to anyone else).

The videos argue that that happiness thing has more to do with the idea that we think we're either good or bad, instead of labelling our specific actions good and bad, and I agree that's part of the problem too. We have to stop thinking of ourselves two-dimensionally as good guys and bad guys, and shift our focus on doing good acts.

Once we're given knowledge on a truth about the word, then it's hard to ignore it, and people become spiteful rather than ignorant. And spitefulness is hard to maintain. We want our innocence back, but we can never get there again. So some people prioritize the expression of their own feelings of anger over another person's well being.

Getting people on board is easier if we can be funny about it.  Comedians agree: In the video below comedian John Fugelsang says, "The burden you all have is you're the ones pushing morality on very comfortable people in the first world....And it's easier to do with good cheer!"



When Colbert made fun of gamergaters, it was a turning point for the fight.

It also helps if we all respond to some of the backlashy comments we come across in a calm, reasonable. and clear fashion, NOT to expect to persuade the original poster, but because we might persuade others reading the exchange - especially if we stay reasonable in the face of hysteria and focus on the arguments they present rather than exploring who they are. Even just 5% of us chiming on on comments can help, but don't not comment in hopes that someone else might. Silence merely allows the myths to be perpetuated.

Faith that the End is Near

In today's G&M, Jared Bland writes from a perspective I've been taking lately as well.

"Despite seeming reasonable in other areas of my life, I believe that we are quite likely living in or near the fabled end times....[I]t's becoming easier and easier to feel that the shadow hanging over us isn't just another massive rain cloud.  That it's something bigger, something worse.  And that it's moving in awfully quickly.....I'm convinced that things would be a lot better, were we to start to expect the end.  We fear it, we suspect it, but we need to embrace it....What if, instead of responding to disaster with kindness and support, we were just kind and supportive?   What if this were how we lived?.... [Living as if the end is nigh] allows us to think and feel and act in ways we otherwise might deny ourselves.  It encourages us to be more direct, more honest, more loving.  It says, in fact, that we must."

On Addictive Pleasures and the Fear of Death

I recently read Stephen Greenblatt's The Swerve, a book about the hiding and finding of the 1st century poem On the Nature of Things by Lucretius, which is a tribute to  Epicurus and his philosophy.  Lucretius writes of Epicurus, "When 'human life lay groveling ignominously in the dust, crushed beneath the grinding weight of superstition' one supremely brave man arose and became 'the first who ventured to confront it boldly'" (72).  I'm not sure the poem ushered in the modern world when it was unearthed in the 15th century, as Greenblatt suggests, but the book is quite provocative nonetheless.  And then I read Luc Ferry's A Brief History of Thought - a trip through the major western philosophies, which almost completely ignores Epicurus.  Curious.  I'll get to Ferry's book another day.

Epicurus' philosophy was developed about 300 BCE, and a few centuries later people attempted to destroy it as it was totally incompatible with the Christian way of life - particularly the bits about all things being made of atoms (adopted from Democritus).  If everything's made of atoms, then nothing is better than anything else, so the entire hierarchy of the church is a problem as is our insistence that human beings are superior to all other creatures.  Also, it means we don't stay together as one being when we die, so the possibility of an afterlife falls apart (and the hopeful justice measured out in rewards and punishments to be found there).  And choosing a life of pleasure over pain?  That's just going way too far for many old school Christians .

I had a couple stop-and-think-about-it-for-a-few-days episodes reading The Swerve (these are off the beaten path from his general thesis):

On How to be Happy

At 74, after the roaring twenties came to an end, and the depression was just beginning to settle in a while, Freud wrote Civilization and its Discontents. This was a few years before the Nazis would allow him to leave the country but only after forcing him to sign a statement saying he was not mistreated.  He sarcastically asked if he could add, “I can most highly recommend the Gestapo to everyone.”  This is something to remember:  He was a ballsy guy.  To write the books he wrote at the time he wrote them, took courage. He also famously noted, “What progress we are making.  In the Middle Ages they would have burned me.  Now, they are content with burning my books.”  The following year, after a long struggle with cancer, his doctor helped him die with an overdose of morphine.  He missed all the burning the Nazis did.  This book explores how to be happy in the face of misery, and he espouses a surprisingly open view of sexuality near the end.  (This very well may be the longest post in all the land!)

On the Ethics of Wealth

"There is no more fatal blunderer than he who consumes the greater part of his life getting his living." - Thoreau

Tony Shin sent me this info-graphic and asked if I'd add it to my blog.   Of course I have a few things to say about the 1% first.

Paul Feldman did a study in the 80s with bagels being sold on each floor of an office building using an honesty jar and price list.  He tracked who paid the right price for the bagels.  The people in the lowest floor - the mail room - paid about 95%, but as they went up the floors, and up the corporate ladder, the sales were worse and worse.  The richest people paid the least.

On Pleasure and Pain

In Freud’s Beyond the Pleasure Principle, written in his mid-60s at the end of WWI as influenza killed one of his daughters, he tries to sort out why our lives generally suck even though we seem to be driven towards pleasures and away from pains.

What I love about Freud is that, like Montaigne, he’s just figuring. He doesn’t suggest that he knows all the answers; he’s just throwing out some ideas for consideration:

“We must hold ourselves in readiness to abandon the path we have followed for a time, if it should seem to lead to no good result….I am neither convinced myself, nor am I seeking to arouse conviction in others” (part VI).