Don’t count on it

I didn't think I belonged in college. It was my first semester and I was failing my intro to algebra class. The professor was intimidating when he spoke and when he turned away he furiously wrote figures on the chalkboard. I figured if I couldn't do well in a low level class like his, I probably should quit. I dropped the class but stayed in college and discovered something: That professor wasn't doing it right. He disappeared from the schedule the next year. I heard rumors about something being wrong with him and it dawned on me that the reason I wasn’t doing well wasn't me but his poor teaching. Whew! What a relief.

But back when I was sitting in his classroom, I didn’t know what was ahead. I didn’t know I would eventually attend graduate school and one day teach students in their first semester—just like I was. 

Some students will be sitting in college classrooms for the first time this week and by the end of the semester they will think that they don’t belong. They won’t know until another semester or two rolls by that the first semester was an adjustment to a new life. They won't know the context until later. They were just figuring out how to survive college and after that first set of classes they will slowly find their footing. 

There are other students about to have the opposite experience. They will have an easy time during their first semester and assume the rest of college will be a breeze. But somewhere along the way they will hit their ceiling. They just haven't been challenged yet. When they begin to struggle, they’ll have to adjust as well.

Throughout our lives, we’ll be tempted to think that first experience is “the way it is.” Sometimes that’s true. Don’t count on it. 

Stephen Goforth

Kindness glues couples together

Research has shown that kindness (along with emotional stability) is the most important predictor of satisfaction and stability in a marriage. Kindness makes each partner feel cared for, understood, and validated—feel loved. “My bounty is as boundless as the sea,” says Shakespeare’s Juliet. “My love as deep; the more I give to thee, / The more I have, for both are infinite.” That’s how kindness works too: there’s a great deal of evidence showing the more someone receives or witnesses kindness, the more they will be kind themselves, which leads to upward spirals of love and generosity in a relationship.

There are two ways to think about kindness. You can think about it as a fixed trait: either you have it or you don’t. Or you could think of kindness as a muscle. In some people, that muscle is naturally stronger than in others, but it can grow stronger in everyone with exercise. Masters tend to think about kindness as a muscle. They know that they have to exercise it to keep it in shape. They know, in other words, that a good relationship requires sustained hard work.

Emily Esfahani Smith writing in The Atlantic 

We’re hardwired to delude ourselves

When people hear the word bias, many if not most will think of either racial prejudice or news organizations that slant their coverage to favor one political position over another. Present bias, by contrast, is an example of cognitive bias—the collection of faulty ways of thinking that is apparently hardwired into the human brain. 

If I had to single out a particular bias as the most pervasive and damaging, it would probably be confirmation bias. That’s the effect that leads us to look for evidence confirming what we already think or suspect, to view facts and ideas we encounter as further confirmation, and to discount or ignore any piece of evidence that seems to support an alternate view. Confirmation bias shows up most blatantly in our current political divide, where each side seems unable to allow.

Ben Yagoda writing in The Atlantic 

Tiny tweaks in word choice make a difference

In 1973, America watched as then President Richard Nixon vehemently declared on national television, “I am not a crook” in regards to the Watergate scandal.

Not many people believed him.

In fact, as soon as he uttered the word “crook,” most people immediately envisioned a crook.

The major mistake Nixon made was in his framing. By saying the word “crook,” he evoked an image, experience, or knowledge associated with crook in the minds of everyone watching. 

George Lakoff, a professor in cognitive science and linguistics at University of California, Berkeley, makes the point in his book Don’t Think of an Elephant! that when trying to get your point across, refrain from using the other side’s language. Doing so will activate and strengthen their frames and undermine your own views. Instead, successfully arguing a point requires you to establish your own frames and use language that evokes images and ideas that fit the worldview you want.

Think about it this way: Something that has a “95% effective rate” will sell better than something with a “5% failure rate.” It’s all in how you frame it.

Vivian Giange, writing in Fast Company    

What I would change about myself

I always pray that I won't get angry. Because most of the time when I get angry or emotional, I don't make good decisions. People don't remember what you say; they remember how you made them feel. I think I've gotten a little better at that, but there is definitely room for improvement.

Alabama football coach Nick Sabin to ESPN

Denialism and Science

Denialism, and related phenomena, are often portrayed as a “war on science”. This is an understandable but profound misunderstanding. Certainly, denialism and other forms of pseudo-scholarship do not follow mainstream scientific methodologies. Denialism does indeed represent a perversion of the scholarly method, and the science it produces rests on profoundly erroneous assumptions, but denialism does all this in the name of science and scholarship. Denialism aims to replace one kind of science with another – it does not aim to replace science itself. In fact, denialism constitutes a tribute to the prestige of science and scholarship in the modern world. Denialists are desperate for the public validation that science affords.

While denialism has sometimes been seen as part of a post-modern assault on truth, the denialist is just as invested in notions of scientific objectivity as the most unreconstructed positivist. Even those who are genuinely committed to alternatives to western rationality and science can wield denialist rhetoric that apes precisely the kind of scientism they despise. Anti-vaxxers, for example, sometimes seem to want to have their cake and eat it: to have their critique of western medicine validated by western medicine.

The rhetoric of denialism and its critics can resemble each other in a kind of war to the death over who gets to wear the mantle of science. The term “junk science” has been applied to climate change denialism, as well as in defence of it. Mainstream science can also be dogmatic and blind to its own limitations. If the accusation that global warming is an example of politicised ideology masked as science is met with indignant assertions of the absolute objectivity of “real” science, there is a risk of blinding oneself to uncomfortable questions regarding the subtle and not-so-subtle ways in which the idea of pure truth, untrammelled by human interests, is elusive. Human interests can rarely if ever be separated from the ways we observe the world.  

I do not believe that, if only one could find the key to “make them understand”, denialists would think just like me. If denialists were to stop denying, we cannot assume that we would then have a shared moral foundation on which we could make progress as a species.

Keith Kahn-Harris, Denial: The Unspeakable Truth  

Is it relatable?

"Relatable" is in the eye of the beholder, but its very nature is to represent itself as universal. It's shorthand that masquerades as description. 

The problem arises when "relatability" becomes the sole interpretive lens.

Can you "relate" to being enslaved, for example?  Probably not, but that should make the prospect of reading Frederick Douglass all the more enticing. Many popular texts printed in the United States before the 20th century dwell on religious thought in a way that seems strange to us now. How can nonreligious people living in the 21st century "relate" to that mindset? The realization "I don't relate to that" could be followed by a subsequent self-examination: "What is it about my life, and my time, that has made it so that I don't really get it?"

Rebecca Onion writing in Slate

Defeating the Toxic Lie

Stop trying to change yourself, because you’re pretty much stuck — and that’s okay. You can improve yourself, of course, but there are limitations, and you shouldn’t beat yourself up because you’re not Beyoncé. The toxic lie that our culture gives us is that we can be anyone we want, do anything we want, but that’s never been true. If you want to be happy and find fulfillment, don’t try to be Beyoncé or Elon Musk; instead, find the thing you’re good at and become even better at it, and try to help the people around you as much as possible. It’s really that simple. 

Will Storr quoted in Vox

JOMO: The joy of missing out

One of the joys of aging (I’m 64) is to recognize that what used to be important no longer is. There’s no obsession now with social media, no need to follow fleeting trends; the latest movie or fashion style or restaurant or celebrity is unimportant. There’s a sense of peace that comes with pulling back from the zeitgeist and spending the day reading a library book, taking a walk, and preparing a meal. JOMO is real, and its benefits can be achieved at any age if the desire is strong enough.

Comment made by NYCtoMalibu on the New York Times article, “How to Make This the Summer of Missing Out”