Random Blogging – Page 45

Florida Man…Again

For the past couple of years, comedians have focused on nutty things done by people–okay, men–who live in Florida, leading to a much-used meme about “Florida man.”

Maybe there’s something in the water that leads Florida guys to lose it–that would go part way, at least, to explaining Ron DeSantis. (Nothing I can come up with can explain the Florida voters who support him.)

Diane Ravich recently reported on DeSantis’ headlong dive into authoritarian anti-Americanism.

Florida has become a Petri dish for potential fascism. DeSantis has made war on African Americans, on gays, on transgender people, on drag queens, on public schools, on higher education, even on private corporations (Disney). He likes to stand behind signs that declare Florida is “free,” but no one is free to disagree with him. That’s not freedom.

Now DeSantis has proposed to create a military force that answers only to him. To call out the National Guard, he must get federal permission. That’s not good enough for him. He wants a Florida state guard. Some other states have them, but they are not in the hands of a would-be dictator whose vanity knows no limits.

Ravich quoted a CNN report on the proposal that included the following paragraph:

But in a nod to the growing tension between Republican states and the Biden administration over the National Guard, DeSantis also said this unit, called the Florida State Guard, would be “not encumbered by the federal government.” He said this force would give him “the flexibility and the ability needed to respond to events in our state in the most effective way possible.” DeSantis is proposing bringing it back with a volunteer force of 200 civilians, and he is seeking $3.5 million from the state legislature in startup costs to train and equip them.

The thought of giving this tin-pot would-be dictator the authority to call out troops to “respond to events” triggers all kinds of questions. It doesn’t take much imagination to picture DeSantis using his chosen goons to break up peaceful demonstrations–or other “woke” events like those nefarious Drag Story Hours at the local library.

And speaking of DeSantis’ “war on woke,” Florida media are reporting on recent actions taken by judges Herr DeSantis has placed on the state Supreme Court

Florida judges no longer will need to learn how to at least try to ensure “fairness and diversity” while applying the law under a rule change that the Florida Supreme Court has adopted by a nearly unanimous vote.

Florida’s Code of Judicial Conduct still requires 30 hours of classes every three years about “judicial professionalism, opinions of the Judicial Ethics Advisory Committee, and the Code of Judicial Conduct.”

However, the court has stripped language mandating education in “fairness and diversity” to count toward the requirement.

The order was signed by Chief Justice Carlos Muñiz and by associate justices Charles Canady, Ricky Polston, John Couriel, Jamie Grosshans, and Renatha Francis. All but two of them–Canady and Polston– were placed on the court by DeSantis.

One Justice, Jorge Labarga, dissented strongly. Labarga, appointed by former Gov. Charlie Crist, wrote that “this unilateral action potentially eliminates vital educational content from our state courts’ judicial education curriculum and does so in a manner inconsistent with this court’s years-long commitment to fairness and diversity education… Moreover, it paves the way for a complete dismantling of all fairness and diversity initiatives in the State Courts System. I strenuously dissent.”

And of course, DeSantis continues to wage war on education–especially, but not exclusively, higher education.

As one Florida newspaper has reported, in the wake of George Floyd’s murder, Florida universities had been told to prioritize diversity plans. Two years later, DeSantis is gutting them. The report quoted one official saying “It takes years to get where we’ve gotten. It takes days to destroy it.”

As the Guardian has reported,

Florida’s rightwing Republican governor, Ron DeSantis – and likely would-be presidential candidate for 2024 – has launched a relentless campaign of attack on higher education in the state, seeking to appeal to his party’s Trumpist base by positing that the state’s colleges and universities are a bastion of liberal extremism that needs to be reformed.

Last week DeSantis unveiled plans for a sweeping overhaul of Florida’s state university system that has left thousands of in-state students and faculty members feeling by turns indignant and dumbfounded as the man seen by many as Donald Trump’s only serious Republican rival set them up as a punchbag for his self-declared “war on woke”.

DeSantis may have trouble selling his “in your face” fascism to a national electorate. It’s hard to see how he might “pivot” to the center after winning the GOP nomination–even assuming he can wrest that nomination from Trump.

But “Florida man” is undoubtedly the (terrifying) face of today’s GOP.

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Some Encouraging News

Despite my constant negative rants, I have always considered myself an optimist. That optimism, struggling though it is, leads me to believe that the current cycle of racist backlash and the frantic efforts to turn back the clock by Christian Nationalists is beginning to abate.

Granted, those efforts still pose a considerable threat, but there are signs that the war on modernity is slowly losing ground, and we need to acknowledge them.

What was once a political party with a reasonably cohesive agenda is coming apart. For example, the GOP climate change deniers trying to keep companies from investing or otherwise doing business with environmentally and socially “woke” enterprises are angering longtime Republicans whose businesses are responding to reality–not to mention the demands of environmentally and socially responsible customers.

Other indicators:

Polls of the electorate show that a majority of young voters identify as Democrats, and that the crazed antics of Congressional Republicans have begun to turn off older voters.

Calls for higher taxes on the obscenely undertaxed wealthy are growing.

The ubiquity of cell-phone cameras has brought increasing urgency–and potency– to the longstanding calls to reform policing and address racism.

Foundations, not-for-profits and others have recognized the danger to democracy posed by local “news deserts” and have been sponsoring new efforts at local journalism intended to remedy the dangerous dearth of information that has resulted.

And in the wider society, we may be seeing less resentment of “elites”– defined as educated Americans. I was particularly relieved to come across this article in Axios about an increase in the number of students studying the humanities.

The pro-STEM movement has gutted high school and college humanities programs — but there’s some evidence of a post-pandemic revival afoot, Jennifer A. Kingson reports.

Why it matters: In academic circles, humanities’ decades-long decline is blamed for the proliferation of falsehoods on social media, crass political discourse, the rise in racism and the parlous state of democracy (not to mention our etiolated vocabularies).

Driving the news: When the University of California, Berkeley, reported an uptick in humanities majors this academic year, there was elation — and shock — at the prospect of a trend reversal.

The number of first-year Berkeley students declaring majors in the arts and humanities — which includes English, history, languages, philosophy and media studies — was up 121% over last year.

The number of high schoolers applying to Berkeley with the intention of studying humanities was up 43.2% from five years ago, and up 73% vs. 10 years ago.
Some other schools — such as Arizona State University and the University of Washington — have also seen a rise in students declaring humanities majors.
What they’re saying: “Students are turning to the arts and humanities as a way to make sense of our current moment,” Sara Guyer, dean of Berkeley’s division of arts and humanities and director of the World Humanities Report, told the university’s news service

Why do I believe that study of the humanities and liberal arts is so important?

“Paradigm” is one of our contemporary, and overused, buzzwords, but it is an appropriate word to use in connection with the importance of the liberal arts, because the liberal arts give us the paradigm we need if we are to function in an era of rapid change.

We inhabit a world that is increasingly global and–despised as some people find the term and the reality it describes–multicultural. A familiarity with human history, philosophy, literature, sociology and anthropology prepares us to encounter, appreciate and survive in that world.

The liberal arts teach us to be rational and analytic in an increasingly irrational age. They teach us to be respectful not just of results but of process–to understand that “how” and “why” are just as important as “what.”

Most important, from my perspective, the study of the liberal arts is based upon a profound respect for the importance of genuine human liberty. The life of the mind depends upon the freedom to consider any and all ideas, information, points of view. It cannot flower in a totalitarian environment. Technocrats can live with Big Brother, but poets and philosophers cannot.

It may be trite, but it is nevertheless true that learning how to communicate and learning how to learn are the essential survival skills. If all one learns is a trade–no matter how highly compensated the particular trade might be–he or she is lost when that trade is no longer in demand. But even if that never happens, lack of familiarity with the liberal arts makes it less likely that an individual’s non-work life will be full and rich.

There is a difference between learning a trade and acquiring an education. That difference is the liberal arts.

So–modest as they may be–harbingers of positive change….

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The Widening Gulf

A reader recently sent me a copy of a column from his local paper. (Congratulations on still having one of those…)

The column (behind a paywall) looked at the ever-widening gulf between legislatures controlled by Republicans and those in majority-democratic states. Those differences, the column suggested, can offer a lens on where the country is heading.

Given the rest of the column, I’d guess that we are heading for further polarization, if not a cold civil war…

The author identified three “big themes” playing out across state capitols this year. The first such theme is no surprise– the “continuing rise of hyper-polarized policies. Red and blue states will push further apart on everything from voting laws, abortion, gay rights, education and taxation. States under single-party dominance–the “trifecta states”– will feel free to pursue their very divergent approaches to America’s culture wars.

This year there are 39 “trifecta” states, in which a single party controls all three branches of government (both chambers of the legislature and the governor’s office). This allows states to “make decisions and make them relatively quickly,” says Peverill Squire of the University of Missouri, an expert on legislatures. “The contrast with Washington will be stark.”

The column gave examples, including Red Wyoming, where a bill that (mercifully) died in committee would have banned the sale of all new electric vehicles starting in 2035, in order to protect the state’s oil and gas industry.

Blue California is considering several new gun control proposals; while Florida and other Red states, are likely to legalize permitless carry.” (Red Indiana already passed this, over the dire and entirely accurate predications of law enforcement personnel.)

A second theme will be Red state governments taking aim at private companies that have the nerve to defy lawmakers’ partisan political agendas. Proposals currently pending in Republican states, including (of course!) Texas, would revoke firms’ tax incentives if they help employees get abortions.

What ever happened to the Republican Party that–according to Barry Goldwater–wanted to keep government out of both your boardroom and your bedroom? Ah–for the good old days…

Blue California is considering a cap on oil firms’ profits, while legislators in Arkansas, Missouri and South Carolina (and Indiana) want to prohibit state governments from doing business with firms that take environmental, social and governance (ESG) principles into account.

And of course,”some governors will use these legislative sessions as résumé-building for higher office.” Ron DeSantis is way out in front on that “theme”–staking out a coveted MAGA position as head of the White Nationalist movement. The column noted “DeSantis’s signature policies”–restricting what students can be taught about sex and sexuality, punishing Disney for inclusiveness, waging war on anything he can label “woke” and of course, gerrymandering and suppressing the votes of Black Floridians…

Constitution? What Constitution?

As the article pointed out, it isn’t just the big states that are political weather vanes.

smaller states that became Democratic trifectas in 2022, Michigan and Minnesota, will generate headlines too. If rumblings that Michigan is going to repeal its anti-union “right-to-work” law prove correct, it would be the first state to do so since 1965, says Chris Warshaw of George Washington University.

The column says that one way to think of these 2023 state legislative sessions is as a long-running television drama, featuring many of the “same characters and issues from last time: abortion, rights for LGBTQ people, and culture-war debates on curricula in public schools. Already, 202 LGBTQ-related bills have been introduced; a record, according to the American Civil Liberties Union. (Missouri, with 31, has the most, followed by Oklahoma’s 27.)”

Proposals include banning trans children from having surgery or anyone born male from taking part in girls’ sports. There is talk of banning and even criminalizing drag shows.

The author noted that more prosaic concerns–the actual work of government–are getting short shrift. But even there, the division between Red and Blue is stark:
in numerous states that are still enjoying large surpluses, thanks to high tax receipts and federal money, Red state governors want to use the funds to cut taxes, not to improve decaying infrastructure or (heaven forbid!) pay teachers a living wage.

As the column concluded,

Most legislatures would be wise to squirrel away some of their surpluses for times of economic duress, says Justin Theal of Pew Charitable Trusts, which monitors states’ fiscal health.

But for politicians, saving has never generated as many headlines as raving.

And headlines are the name of the game when politics becomes performative….

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Behavior Versus Identity

Last Sunday, I was a guest in an adult class at St. Luke’s United Methodist church. The class wanted to discuss the recent, disturbing rise in anti-Semitism. (St. Luke’s is one of the local churches in my “good guys–actual Christians” column.)

The format was informal–Q and A– but I did begin by suggesting that, before embarking on discussion, it was important to distinguish between hatred and ignorance.

As I explained, when I was young, growing up in one of only 30 Jewish families in Anderson, Indiana, most of what I encountered was ignorance: I was asked things like “Do Jews have tails?” and “Do Jews live in houses like real people?” But there was also animus: in third grade, a playmate informed me that “My parents said I can’t play with you because you’re a dirty Jew.”

It’s also important to distinguish between criticisms of Israeli actions/politics and anti-Semitism. Criticizing Israel’s government or policies is not anti-Semitic (plenty of American Jews are appalled by Netanyahu). That said, criticisms of Israel grounded in longstanding anti-Jewish tropes are anti-Semitic.

In the United States, citizens are supposed to be judged on our behavior, not our identities. Today’s polarization is to a great extent a fight between Americans who want their countrymen to live up to that principle and those who defend negative stereotypes based on religion, sexual orientation and skin color.

Anti-Semitism is hatred of Jews because we’re Jews.

In The Nature of Prejudice, Gordon Allport’s seminal book about the roots of bigotry, published in 1954, Allport pointed out that most prejudices come from ignorance–the relatively unthinking acceptance of what “everyone knows.” Jews are “sharp” businessmen, blacks are lazy, women are emotional and illogical. Most people aren’t emotionally invested in these negative social stereotypes, and Allport thought the misconceptions would erode once there was greater familiarity and more contact.

Allport’s great contribution was to distinguish between prejudices that were simply an outgrowth of widely held–albeit inaccurate and unfair– social attitudes and those that were central to an individual’s identity. He found that most people who expressed bigotry against blacks or Jews (then the most frequent targets) were not invested in their negative opinions –they had simply accepted common stereotypes about “others,” and they could be educated to change what were essentially casual beliefs they had never really examined.

But there was, he found, another category. It was much smaller, but also much more troubling. These were individuals that Allport—who founded the discipline of social psychology—described as invested in their bigotries. For whatever reason—bad toilet training, lack of parental affection, abuse—their belief in the inferiority of designated “others” had become absolutely central to their personalities. Education and contact would have no effect at all on their attitudes.

Allport recognized that we all have a fundamental human desire for status and upward mobility, and that desire makes a certain amount of what we might call “identity-based one-upsmanship” inevitable. He also recognized that such prejudices are heightened during times of rapid social change.

As the Roman Empire crumbled, Christians were more frequently fed to the lions; in the forties and fifties, whenever the cotton business in the American south slumped, lynchings increased; when forest fires swept across Maine in 1947, many citizens blamed the Communists. As Allport put it, “whenever anxiety increases, accompanied by a loss of predictability in life, people tend to define their deteriorated situations in terms of scapegoats.”

In other words, we want to blame our anxieties on someone or something we can identify—we channel our aggressions against an outsider, an “other.”

Of course, there are many numerical minorities that are not usually chosen as scapegoats. Why this group and not that one? Allport notes that the nearest thing to an “all-purpose” scapegoat is a group that has a degree of permanence and stability. So while a few Macedonians in Lexington, Kentucky (assuming there have ever been any) might exhibit cultural differences that arouse majority hostility for a time, there really isn’t any basis for a good, persistent mythology about Macedonians in general, and even if there were, the next generation is likely to be so Americanized as to be indistinguishable from others who live in Lexington.

Jews, blacks and gays, however (along with women) have always been around, and probably always will be. And in all likelihood, we’ll all continue to be sufficiently different to be useful for scapegoat purposes.

Undoubtedly, there will always be emotionally-unhealthy people who need someone or something to blame for the disappointments in their lives. My conversation with the lovely folks at church last Sunday reminded me that there are also a lot of good people “out there.”

At times like this, that’s comforting to know.

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Misinformation Matters

A good friend of ours, originally from Canada, left his faculty position in Indianapolis and moved to Ottawa to assume a position as President and CEO of the Council of Canadian Academies, or CCA.

Knowing my preoccupation with media and misinformation, he has shared some intriguing research from an expert panel appointed by the CCA. That research delved into the effects of misinformation on science and health, going beyond the typical hand-wringing over the extent of misinformation and its potential harms, and looking instead at the nature and extent of quantifiable damage done by widespread dissemination of patently wrong information.

As a news release explained

Considerable and mounting evidence shows that misinformation has led to illness and death from unsafe interventions and products, vaccine preventable diseases, and a lack of adherence to public health measures, with the most vulnerable populations bearing the greatest burden. The Expert Panel on the Socioeconomic Impacts of Science and Health Misinformation estimates that misinformation cost the Canadian healthcare system at least $300 million during nine months of the COVID-19 pandemic in 2021.

While combatting misinformation is a complex and long-term challenge, the report details several measures that have shown promise. Ensuring that accurate health and science information is widely accessible and is communicated honestly, understandably, and by trusted messengers can help insulate people from misinformation. Identifying, labelling, and debunking misinformation can also be effective, as are measures that better equip individuals to sort through the increasingly complex information environment, particularly the promotion of critical thinking and media and science literacy in school curricula.

You can access the entire report here.Some of the findings struck me as particularly significant, especially the description of when, why and how people come to accept what the panel calls “misinformation” and I would probably label conspiracy theories and lies.

Misinformation is designed to appeal to emotion and–as the report notes–intended to exploit our “cognitive shortcuts.” We are all susceptible to it, especially in times of crisis.

Science and health misinformation damages our community well-being through otherwise preventable illnesses, deaths, and economic losses, and our social well-being through polarization and the erosion of public trust. These harms often fall most heavily on the most vulnerable.

The research found a number of outcomes directly attributable to the spread and acceptance of misinformation; they included: Illness, poisoning, and death from unsafe health interventions and products; Illness and death from communicable and vaccine-preventable diseases; money wasted on disproven products and services; susceptibility to further and potentially more insidious forms of misinformation; increased healthcare and societal costs; and Inaction on or delay of public policy responses.

Misinformation contributes to a lack of adherence to public health measures and to vaccine hesitancy, which can result in vaccine-preventable disease outbreaks, increased healthcare costs, and elevated risk to the health and well-being of vulnerable populations. Misinformation also amplifies social divisions, which have resulted in overt conflict and violence, often directed at racialized communities. Furthermore, the consequences of science and health misinformation are not borne equally — for instance, negative health impacts during the COVID-19 pandemic have been found to disproportionately affect the well-being of racialized and other underserved communities, exacerbating existing inequalities.

Where possible, panel members put numbers to these generalized descriptions, estimating that widely circulated misinformation about COVID-19 had cost the Canadian healthcare system “at least $300 million in hospital and ICU visits between March 1 and November 30, 2021.” That number did not include the costs of outpatient medication, physician compensation, or long COVID.

And for obvious reasons, the panel was unable to estimate what it called “broader societal costs.” Those included such difficult-to-quantify effects as “delayed elective surgeries, social unrest, moral injury to healthcare workers, and the uneven distribution of harms borne by communities.”

The negative consequences of misinformation are–obviously–not confined to citizens of Canada. In the absence of credible, trustworthy information that is widely trusted and accepted, it proliferates. In the U.S., political data confirms the harm: the MAGA folks who rejected vaccination (evidently believing it to be some sort of nefarious liberal plot) died of COVID in far larger numbers than the independents and Democrats who trusted the science.

The question is: what can be done to counter the confusion and reduce the damage sowed by purveyors of propaganda and inaccurate information? One answer is clearly education, especially science education. (That conclusion supports concerns over the metastasizing voucher programs that are sending students to private, predominantly religious schools–many of which have been found to teach creationism in lieu of science).

When citizens don’t inhabit the same evidence-based reality, both individual and social health are compromised–sometimes fatally.

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