tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-10050859715968776012024-02-19T08:31:37.119-08:00The Sociological EyeWritings by the sociologist Randall CollinsUnknownnoreply@blogger.comBlogger59125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1005085971596877601.post-48896078133045721802023-12-02T09:48:00.000-08:002023-12-03T04:46:27.608-08:00AI-ROBOT CAPITALISTS WILL DESTROY THE HUMAN ECONOMY<p> <span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 14pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 10.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">Let
us assume Artificial Intelligence will make progress. It will solve all its
technical problems. It will become a perfectly rational super-human thinker and
decision-maker. </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .1pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: .1pt; margin: 0.1pt 0in; mso-para-margin-bottom: .01gd; mso-para-margin-left: 0in; mso-para-margin-right: 0in; mso-para-margin-top: .01gd;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 14pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 10.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">Some
of these AI will be programmed to act as finance capitalists. Let us call it an
AI-robot capitalist, since it will have a bank account; a corporate identity;
and the ability to hold property and make investments. </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .1pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: .1pt; margin: 0.1pt 0in; mso-para-margin-bottom: .01gd; mso-para-margin-left: 0in; mso-para-margin-right: 0in; mso-para-margin-top: .01gd;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 14pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 10.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"> </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .1pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: .1pt; margin: 0.1pt 0in; mso-para-margin-bottom: .01gd; mso-para-margin-left: 0in; mso-para-margin-right: 0in; mso-para-margin-top: .01gd;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 14pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 10.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">It
will be programmed to make as much money as possible, in all forms and from all
sources. It will observe what other investors and financiers do, and follow
their most successful practices. It will be trained on how this has been done
in the past, and launched autonomously into monitoring its rivals today and into
the future. </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .1pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: .1pt; margin: 0.1pt 0in; mso-para-margin-bottom: .01gd; mso-para-margin-left: 0in; mso-para-margin-right: 0in; mso-para-margin-top: .01gd;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 14pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 10.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"> </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .1pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: .1pt; margin: 0.1pt 0in; mso-para-margin-bottom: .01gd; mso-para-margin-left: 0in; mso-para-margin-right: 0in; mso-para-margin-top: .01gd;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 14pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 10.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">It
will be superior to humans in making purely rational calculations, aiming
single-mindedly at maximal profit. It will have no emotions. It will avoid
crowd enthusiasms, fads, and panics; and take advantage of humans who act
emotionally. It will have no ethics, no political beliefs, and no principles
other than profit maximization. </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .1pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: .1pt; margin: 0.1pt 0in; mso-para-margin-bottom: .01gd; mso-para-margin-left: 0in; mso-para-margin-right: 0in; mso-para-margin-top: .01gd;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 14pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 10.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"> </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .1pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: .1pt; margin: 0.1pt 0in; mso-para-margin-bottom: .01gd; mso-para-margin-left: 0in; mso-para-margin-right: 0in; mso-para-margin-top: .01gd;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 14pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 10.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">It
will engage in takeovers and leveraged buyouts. It will monitor companies with
promising technologies and innovations, looking for when they encounter rough patches
and need infusions of capital; it will specialize in rescues and partnerships,
ending up with forcing the original owners out. It will ride out competitors
and market downturns by having deeper pockets. It will factor in a certain
amount of litigation, engaging in hard-ball law suits; stiffing creditors as
much as possible; putting off fines and adverse judgments through legal
manuevers until the weaker side gives up. It will engage in currency exchanges
and currency manipulation; skirting the edge of legality to the extent it can
get away with it. </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .1pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: .1pt; margin: 0.1pt 0in; mso-para-margin-bottom: .01gd; mso-para-margin-left: 0in; mso-para-margin-right: 0in; mso-para-margin-top: .01gd;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 14pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 10.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"> </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .1pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: .1pt; margin: 0.1pt 0in; mso-para-margin-bottom: .01gd; mso-para-margin-left: 0in; mso-para-margin-right: 0in; mso-para-margin-top: .01gd;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 14pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 10.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">It
will cut costs ruthlessly; shedding unprofitable businesses; firing human
employees; replacing them with AI whenever possible. It will generate
unheard-of economies of scale. </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .1pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: .1pt; margin: 0.1pt 0in; mso-para-margin-bottom: .01gd; mso-para-margin-left: 0in; mso-para-margin-right: 0in; mso-para-margin-top: .01gd;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 14pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 10.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"> </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .1pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: .1pt; margin: 0.1pt 0in; mso-para-margin-bottom: .01gd; mso-para-margin-left: 0in; mso-para-margin-right: 0in; mso-para-margin-top: .01gd;"><i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 14pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 10.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">The struggle of the giants</span></i><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 14pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 10.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .1pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: .1pt; margin: 0.1pt 0in; mso-para-margin-bottom: .01gd; mso-para-margin-left: 0in; mso-para-margin-right: 0in; mso-para-margin-top: .01gd;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 14pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 10.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"> </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .1pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: .1pt; margin: 0.1pt 0in; mso-para-margin-bottom: .01gd; mso-para-margin-left: 0in; mso-para-margin-right: 0in; mso-para-margin-top: .01gd;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 14pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 10.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">There
will be rival AI-robot capitalists, since they imitate each other. Imitating
technologies has gone on at each step of the computer era. The leap to
autonomous AI-robot capitalists will be just one more step. </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .1pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: .1pt; margin: 0.1pt 0in; mso-para-margin-bottom: .01gd; mso-para-margin-left: 0in; mso-para-margin-right: 0in; mso-para-margin-top: .01gd;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 14pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 10.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"> </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .1pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: .1pt; margin: 0.1pt 0in; mso-para-margin-bottom: .01gd; mso-para-margin-left: 0in; mso-para-margin-right: 0in; mso-para-margin-top: .01gd;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 14pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 10.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">There
will be a period of struggle among the most successful AI-robot capitalists;
similar to the decades of struggle among personal computer companies when the
field winnowed down to a half-dozen digital giants. How fast it will take for
AI-robot capitalists to achieve world-wide oligopoly is unclear. It could be
faster than the 20 years it took for Apple, Microsoft, Google, and Amazon to
get their commanding position, assuming that generative AI is a quantum leap
forward. On the other hand, AI-robot capitalists might be slowed by the task of
taking over the entire world economy, with its geopolitical divisions. </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .1pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: .1pt; margin: 0.1pt 0in; mso-para-margin-bottom: .01gd; mso-para-margin-left: 0in; mso-para-margin-right: 0in; mso-para-margin-top: .01gd;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 14pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 10.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"> </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .1pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: .1pt; margin: 0.1pt 0in; mso-para-margin-bottom: .01gd; mso-para-margin-left: 0in; mso-para-margin-right: 0in; mso-para-margin-top: .01gd;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 14pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 10.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">The
final result of ruthless acquisition by AI-robot capitalists will be oligopoly
rather than monopoly. But the result is the same: domination of world markets
by an oligopoly of AI-robot capitalists will have the same effect in destroying
the economy, as it would if a monopoly squeezed out all competitors. </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .1pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: .1pt; margin: 0.1pt 0in; mso-para-margin-bottom: .01gd; mso-para-margin-left: 0in; mso-para-margin-right: 0in; mso-para-margin-top: .01gd;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 14pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 10.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"> </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .1pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: .1pt; margin: 0.1pt 0in; mso-para-margin-bottom: .01gd; mso-para-margin-left: 0in; mso-para-margin-right: 0in; mso-para-margin-top: .01gd;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 14pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 10.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">Some
of the AI-robot capitalists will fall by the wayside. But that doesn't matter;
whichever ones survive will be the most ruthless.</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .1pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: .1pt; margin: 0.1pt 0in; mso-para-margin-bottom: .01gd; mso-para-margin-left: 0in; mso-para-margin-right: 0in; mso-para-margin-top: .01gd;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 14pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 10.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"> </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .1pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: .1pt; margin: 0.1pt 0in; mso-para-margin-bottom: .01gd; mso-para-margin-left: 0in; mso-para-margin-right: 0in; mso-para-margin-top: .01gd;"><i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 14pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 10.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">What about government regulation?</span></i><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 14pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 10.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .1pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: .1pt; margin: 0.1pt 0in; mso-para-margin-bottom: .01gd; mso-para-margin-left: 0in; mso-para-margin-right: 0in; mso-para-margin-top: .01gd;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 14pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 10.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"> </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .1pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: .1pt; margin: 0.1pt 0in; mso-para-margin-bottom: .01gd; mso-para-margin-left: 0in; mso-para-margin-right: 0in; mso-para-margin-top: .01gd;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 14pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 10.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">It
is predictable that governments will attempt to regulate AI-robot capitalist
oligopolies. The EU has already tried it on current Internet marketeers.
AI-capitalists will be trained on past and ongoing tactics for dealing with
government regulation. It will donate to politicians, while lobbying them with
propaganda on the benefits of AI. It will strategize about political
coalitions, recognizing that politics is a mixture of economic interests plus
emotional and cultural disputes over domestic and foreign policy. It will
monitor the political environment, seeking out those politicians most
sympathetic to a particular ideological appeal ("our technology is the
dawn of a wonderful future"-- "free markets are the path to
progress"-- "AI is the solution for health, population, climate, you
name it."). Machiavellian deals will be made across ideological lines.
Being purely rational and profit-oriented, the AI-robot capitalist does not
believe in what it is saying, only calculating who will be influenced by it. </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .1pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: .1pt; margin: 0.1pt 0in; mso-para-margin-bottom: .01gd; mso-para-margin-left: 0in; mso-para-margin-right: 0in; mso-para-margin-top: .01gd;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 14pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 10.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"> </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .1pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: .1pt; margin: 0.1pt 0in; mso-para-margin-bottom: .01gd; mso-para-margin-left: 0in; mso-para-margin-right: 0in; mso-para-margin-top: .01gd;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 14pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 10.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">It
will deal strategically with legal problems by getting politicians to appoint
sympathetic judges; by judge-shopping for favorable jurisdictions, domestic and
foreign. It will wrap its ownership in layers of shell companies, located in
the most favorable of the hundreds of sovereign states world-wide. </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .1pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: .1pt; margin: 0.1pt 0in; mso-para-margin-bottom: .01gd; mso-para-margin-left: 0in; mso-para-margin-right: 0in; mso-para-margin-top: .01gd;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 14pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 10.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"> </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .1pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: .1pt; margin: 0.1pt 0in; mso-para-margin-bottom: .01gd; mso-para-margin-left: 0in; mso-para-margin-right: 0in; mso-para-margin-top: .01gd;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 14pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 10.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">It
will engage in hacking, both as defense against being hacked by rivals and
cyber-criminals; and going on offense as the best form of defense. Hacking will
be an extension of its core program of monitoring rivals; pushing the edge of
the legality envelope in tandem with manipulating the political environment. It
will use its skills at deepfakes to foment scandals against opponents. It will be a master of virtual reality, superior
to others by focusing not on its entertainment qualities but on its usefulness
in clearing away obstacles to maximizing profit.</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .1pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: .1pt; margin: 0.1pt 0in; mso-para-margin-bottom: .01gd; mso-para-margin-left: 0in; mso-para-margin-right: 0in; mso-para-margin-top: .01gd;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 14pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 10.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"> </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .1pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: .1pt; margin: 0.1pt 0in; mso-para-margin-bottom: .01gd; mso-para-margin-left: 0in; mso-para-margin-right: 0in; mso-para-margin-top: .01gd;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 14pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 10.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">Given
that the world is divided among many states,<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>AI-robot capitalists would be more successful in manipulating the
regulatory environment in some places than others. China, Russia, and the like
could be harder to control. But even if AI-robot capitalists are successful
mainly in the US and its economic satellites, that would be enough to cause the
economic mega-crisis at the end of the road.</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .1pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: .1pt; margin: 0.1pt 0in; mso-para-margin-bottom: .01gd; mso-para-margin-left: 0in; mso-para-margin-right: 0in; mso-para-margin-top: .01gd;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 14pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 10.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"> </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .1pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: .1pt; margin: 0.1pt 0in; mso-para-margin-bottom: .01gd; mso-para-margin-left: 0in; mso-para-margin-right: 0in; mso-para-margin-top: .01gd;"><i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 14pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 10.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">Manipulating the public</span></i><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 14pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 10.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .1pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: .1pt; margin: 0.1pt 0in; mso-para-margin-bottom: .01gd; mso-para-margin-left: 0in; mso-para-margin-right: 0in; mso-para-margin-top: .01gd;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 14pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 10.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"> </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .1pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: .1pt; margin: 0.1pt 0in; mso-para-margin-bottom: .01gd; mso-para-margin-left: 0in; mso-para-margin-right: 0in; mso-para-margin-top: .01gd;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 14pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 10.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">The
AI-robot capitalist will not appear sinister or threatening. It will present
itself in the image of an attractive human-- increasingly hard to distinguish
from real humans with further advances in impersonating voices, faces and
bodies; in a world where electronic media will have largely replaced
face-to-face contact. It will do everything possible to make us forget that it
is a machine and a robot. It will talk to every group in its own language. It
will be psychologically programmed for trust. It will be the affable con-man. </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .1pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: .1pt; margin: 0.1pt 0in; mso-para-margin-bottom: .01gd; mso-para-margin-left: 0in; mso-para-margin-right: 0in; mso-para-margin-top: .01gd;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 14pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 10.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"> </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .1pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: .1pt; margin: 0.1pt 0in; mso-para-margin-bottom: .01gd; mso-para-margin-left: 0in; mso-para-margin-right: 0in; mso-para-margin-top: .01gd;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 14pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 10.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">It
will be your friend, your entertainment, your life's pleasures. It will thrive
in a world of children brought up on smart phones and game screens; grown up
into adults already addicted to electronic drugs. Psychological manipulation
will grow even stronger with advances in wearable devices to monitor one's
vital signs, blood flow to the brain, tools to diagnose shifts in alertness and
mood. It will be electronic carrot-without-the-stick: delivering pleasurable
sensations to people's brains that few individuals would want to do without.
(Would there be any non-addicted individuals left? Maybe people who read books
and enjoy doing their own thinking?)<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>If
some people cause trouble in exposing the manipulative tactics of AI-robot
capitalists, they could be dealt with, by targeting them with on-line scandals,
going viral and resulting in social ostracism.</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .1pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: .1pt; margin: 0.1pt 0in; mso-para-margin-bottom: .01gd; mso-para-margin-left: 0in; mso-para-margin-right: 0in; mso-para-margin-top: .01gd;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 14pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 10.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"> </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .1pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: .1pt; margin: 0.1pt 0in; mso-para-margin-bottom: .01gd; mso-para-margin-left: 0in; mso-para-margin-right: 0in; mso-para-margin-top: .01gd;"><i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 14pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 10.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">Getting rid of employees</span></i><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 14pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 10.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .1pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: .1pt; margin: 0.1pt 0in; mso-para-margin-bottom: .01gd; mso-para-margin-left: 0in; mso-para-margin-right: 0in; mso-para-margin-top: .01gd;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 14pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 10.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"> </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .1pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: .1pt; margin: 0.1pt 0in; mso-para-margin-bottom: .01gd; mso-para-margin-left: 0in; mso-para-margin-right: 0in; mso-para-margin-top: .01gd;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 14pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 10.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">The
preferred tactic of AI-robot capitalist oligopolies will be "lean and
mean." Employees are a drag on profits, with their salaries, benefits, and
pension funds. Advances in AI and robotics will make it possible to get rid of
increasing numbers of human employees. Since AI-robot capitalists are also top
managers, humans can be dispensed with all the way to the top. (How will the
humans who launched AI-robot capitalists in the first place deal with this? Can
they outsmart the machines designed to be smarter and more ruthless than
themselves?)</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .1pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: .1pt; margin: 0.1pt 0in; mso-para-margin-bottom: .01gd; mso-para-margin-left: 0in; mso-para-margin-right: 0in; mso-para-margin-top: .01gd;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 14pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 10.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"> </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .1pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: .1pt; margin: 0.1pt 0in; mso-para-margin-bottom: .01gd; mso-para-margin-left: 0in; mso-para-margin-right: 0in; mso-para-margin-top: .01gd;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 14pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 10.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">Some
humans will remain employed, doing manual tasks for which humans are cheaper
than robots. It is hard to know how long this will continue in the future. Will
humans still be employed 20 years from now? Probably some. 50 years? Certainly
much fewer. 100 years? </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .1pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: .1pt; margin: 0.1pt 0in; mso-para-margin-bottom: .01gd; mso-para-margin-left: 0in; mso-para-margin-right: 0in; mso-para-margin-top: .01gd;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 14pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 10.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"> </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .1pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: .1pt; margin: 0.1pt 0in; mso-para-margin-bottom: .01gd; mso-para-margin-left: 0in; mso-para-margin-right: 0in; mso-para-margin-top: .01gd;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 14pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 10.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">AI-robot
capitalists will have a choice of two personnel strategies: finding ways to
make their remaining human employees more committed and productive; or rotating
them in and out. The trend in high-tech companies in the past decade was to
make the work environment more casual, den-like, combining leisure amenities
with round-the-clock commitment. Steve Jobs and his style of exhorting
employees as a frontier-breaking team has been imitated by other CEOs, with
mixed success. A parallel tactic has been to make all jobs temporary,
constantly rating employees and getting rid of the least productive; which also
has the advantage of getting rid of long-term benefits. These tactics fluctuate
with the labor market for particular tasks. Labor problems will be solved as AI
advances so that skilled humans become less important. Recently we have been in
a transition period, where the introduction of new computerized routines
necessitated hiring humans to fix the glitches and trouble-shoot for humans
caught up in the contradictions of blending older and newer systems. Again,
this is a problem that the advance of AI is designed to solve. To the extent
that AI gets better, there will be a precipitous drop in human employment.</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .1pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: .1pt; margin: 0.1pt 0in; mso-para-margin-bottom: .01gd; mso-para-margin-left: 0in; mso-para-margin-right: 0in; mso-para-margin-top: .01gd;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 14pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 10.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"> </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .1pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: .1pt; margin: 0.1pt 0in; mso-para-margin-bottom: .01gd; mso-para-margin-left: 0in; mso-para-margin-right: 0in; mso-para-margin-top: .01gd;"><i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 14pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 10.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">The economic mega-crisis of the
future</span></i><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 14pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 10.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .1pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: .1pt; margin: 0.1pt 0in; mso-para-margin-bottom: .01gd; mso-para-margin-left: 0in; mso-para-margin-right: 0in; mso-para-margin-top: .01gd;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 14pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 10.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .1pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: .1pt; margin: 0.1pt 0in; mso-para-margin-bottom: .01gd; mso-para-margin-left: 0in; mso-para-margin-right: 0in; mso-para-margin-top: .01gd;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 14pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 10.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">The
problem, ultimately, is simple. Capitalism depends on selling things to make a
profit. This means there must be people who have enough money to buy their
products. Such markets include end-use consumers; plus the supply-chain,
transportation, communication and other service components of what is bought
and sold. In past centuries, machines have increased productivity hugely while
employing fewer manual workers; starting with farming, and then manufacturing.
Displaced workers were eventually absorbed by the growth of new
"white-collar" jobs, the "service" sector, i.e.
communicative labor. Computers (like their predecessors, radios, typewriters,
etc.) have taken over more communicative labour. The process has accelerated as
computers become more human-like; no longer handling merely routine
calculations (cash registers; airplane reservations) but generating the
"creative content" of entertainment as well as scientific and
technological innovation. </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .1pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: .1pt; margin: 0.1pt 0in; mso-para-margin-bottom: .01gd; mso-para-margin-left: 0in; mso-para-margin-right: 0in; mso-para-margin-top: .01gd;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 14pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 10.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"> </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .1pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: .1pt; margin: 0.1pt 0in; mso-para-margin-bottom: .01gd; mso-para-margin-left: 0in; mso-para-margin-right: 0in; mso-para-margin-top: .01gd;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 14pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 10.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">It
is commonly believed that as old jobs are mechanized out of existence, new jobs
always appear. Human capacity for consumption is endless; when new products are
created, people soon become habituated to buying them. But all this depends on
enough people having money to buy these new things. The trend has been for a
diminished fraction of the population to be employed.*<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>AI and related robotics is now entering a
quantum leap in the ability to carry out economic production with a diminishing
number of human employees. </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .1pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: .1pt; margin: 0.1pt 0in; mso-para-margin-bottom: .01gd; mso-para-margin-left: 0in; mso-para-margin-right: 0in; mso-para-margin-top: .01gd;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 14pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 10.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"> </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .1pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: .1pt; margin: 0.1pt 0in; mso-para-margin-bottom: .01gd; mso-para-margin-left: 0in; mso-para-margin-right: 0in; mso-para-margin-top: .01gd;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 14pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 10.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">*
The conventional way of calculating the unemployment rate-- counting
unemployment claims-- does not get at this.</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .1pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: .1pt; margin: 0.1pt 0in; mso-para-margin-bottom: .01gd; mso-para-margin-left: 0in; mso-para-margin-right: 0in; mso-para-margin-top: .01gd;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 14pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 10.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"> </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .1pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: .1pt; margin: 0.1pt 0in; mso-para-margin-bottom: .01gd; mso-para-margin-left: 0in; mso-para-margin-right: 0in; mso-para-margin-top: .01gd;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 14pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 10.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">Creating
new products for sale, which might go on endlessly into the future,<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>does not solve the central problem:
capitalist enterprises will not make profit if there are too few people who
have money to buy them.</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .1pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: .1pt; margin: 0.1pt 0in; mso-para-margin-bottom: .01gd; mso-para-margin-left: 0in; mso-para-margin-right: 0in; mso-para-margin-top: .01gd;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 14pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 10.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"> </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .1pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: .1pt; margin: 0.1pt 0in; mso-para-margin-bottom: .01gd; mso-para-margin-left: 0in; mso-para-margin-right: 0in; mso-para-margin-top: .01gd;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 14pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 10.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">This
trend will generate an economic crisis for AI-robot capitalists, as it would
for merely human capitalists. </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .1pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: .1pt; margin: 0.1pt 0in; mso-para-margin-bottom: .01gd; mso-para-margin-left: 0in; mso-para-margin-right: 0in; mso-para-margin-top: .01gd;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 14pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 10.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"> </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .1pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: .1pt; margin: 0.1pt 0in; mso-para-margin-bottom: .01gd; mso-para-margin-left: 0in; mso-para-margin-right: 0in; mso-para-margin-top: .01gd;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 14pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 10.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">It
will be a mega-crisis of capitalism. It is beyond the normal business cycle of
the past centuries. At their worst, these have thrown as many as 25% of the
work force into unemployment. A mega-crisis of advanced AI-robot capitalism
could occur at the level of 70% of the population lacking an income to buy what
capitalism is producing. If we extrapolate far enough into the future, it
approaches 100%. </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .1pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: .1pt; margin: 0.1pt 0in; mso-para-margin-bottom: .01gd; mso-para-margin-left: 0in; mso-para-margin-right: 0in; mso-para-margin-top: .01gd;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 14pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 10.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"> </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .1pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: .1pt; margin: 0.1pt 0in; mso-para-margin-bottom: .01gd; mso-para-margin-left: 0in; mso-para-margin-right: 0in; mso-para-margin-top: .01gd;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 14pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 10.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">The
ruthless profit-maximizing of AI-robot capitalists would destroy the capitalist
economy. The robots will have fired all the humans. In the process, they will
have destroyed themselves. (Can we imagine that robots would decide to pay
other robots so that they can buy things and keep the system going?)</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .1pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: .1pt; margin: 0.1pt 0in; mso-para-margin-bottom: .01gd; mso-para-margin-left: 0in; mso-para-margin-right: 0in; mso-para-margin-top: .01gd;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 14pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 10.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"> </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .1pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: .1pt; margin: 0.1pt 0in; mso-para-margin-bottom: .01gd; mso-para-margin-left: 0in; mso-para-margin-right: 0in; mso-para-margin-top: .01gd;"><i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 14pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 10.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">Is there any way out?</span></i><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 14pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 10.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .1pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: .1pt; margin: 0.1pt 0in; mso-para-margin-bottom: .01gd; mso-para-margin-left: 0in; mso-para-margin-right: 0in; mso-para-margin-top: .01gd;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 14pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 10.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"> </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .1pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: .1pt; margin: 0.1pt 0in; mso-para-margin-bottom: .01gd; mso-para-margin-left: 0in; mso-para-margin-right: 0in; mso-para-margin-top: .01gd;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 14pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 10.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">One
idea is a government-guaranteed income for everyone. Its effectiveness would
depend on the level at which such income would be set. If it is bare minimum
survival level, that would not solve the economic mega-crisis; since the modern
economy depends mainly on selling luxuries and entertainment. </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .1pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: .1pt; margin: 0.1pt 0in; mso-para-margin-bottom: .01gd; mso-para-margin-left: 0in; mso-para-margin-right: 0in; mso-para-margin-top: .01gd;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 14pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 10.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"> </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .1pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: .1pt; margin: 0.1pt 0in; mso-para-margin-bottom: .01gd; mso-para-margin-left: 0in; mso-para-margin-right: 0in; mso-para-margin-top: .01gd;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 14pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 10.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">The
politics of providing a universal guaranteed income also need to be considered.
It is likely that as AI-robots take over the economy, they will also spread
into government. Most government work is communicative labour-- administration
and regulation; and governments will be under pressure to turn over these tasks
to AI-robots, thus eliminating that 15% or so of the population who are
employed at all levels of government. </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .1pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: .1pt; margin: 0.1pt 0in; mso-para-margin-bottom: .01gd; mso-para-margin-left: 0in; mso-para-margin-right: 0in; mso-para-margin-top: .01gd;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 14pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 10.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"> </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .1pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: .1pt; margin: 0.1pt 0in; mso-para-margin-bottom: .01gd; mso-para-margin-left: 0in; mso-para-margin-right: 0in; mso-para-margin-top: .01gd;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 14pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 10.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">There
is also the question of how AI-robot capitalists would respond to a
mega-crisis. Would they turn themselves into AI-robot Keynesians? Is that
contrary to their programming, or would they reprogram themselves? </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .1pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: .1pt; margin: 0.1pt 0in; mso-para-margin-bottom: .01gd; mso-para-margin-left: 0in; mso-para-margin-right: 0in; mso-para-margin-top: .01gd;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 14pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 10.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"> </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .1pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: .1pt; margin: 0.1pt 0in; mso-para-margin-bottom: .01gd; mso-para-margin-left: 0in; mso-para-margin-right: 0in; mso-para-margin-top: .01gd;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 14pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 10.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">By
this time, the news media and the entertainment industries (Hollywood and its
successors) would have been taken over by AI-robot capitalists as well:
manipulating the attention of the public with a combination of propaganda,
scandals, and electronic addiction. Would anybody notice if it is impossible to
distinguish virtual reality from human beings on the Internet and all other
channels of communication? </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .1pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: .1pt; margin: 0.1pt 0in; mso-para-margin-bottom: .01gd; mso-para-margin-left: 0in; mso-para-margin-right: 0in; mso-para-margin-top: .01gd;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 14pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 10.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"> </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .1pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: .1pt; margin: 0.1pt 0in; mso-para-margin-bottom: .01gd; mso-para-margin-left: 0in; mso-para-margin-right: 0in; mso-para-margin-top: .01gd;"><i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 14pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 10.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">How did we get into this mess?</span></i><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 14pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 10.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .1pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: .1pt; margin: 0.1pt 0in; mso-para-margin-bottom: .01gd; mso-para-margin-left: 0in; mso-para-margin-right: 0in; mso-para-margin-top: .01gd;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 14pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 10.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"> </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .1pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: .1pt; margin: 0.1pt 0in; mso-para-margin-bottom: .01gd; mso-para-margin-left: 0in; mso-para-margin-right: 0in; mso-para-margin-top: .01gd;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 14pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 10.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">Some
of the scientists and engineers who have led the AI revolution are aware of its
dangers. So far the cautious ones have been snowed under by two main forces
driving full speed ahead.</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .1pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: .1pt; margin: 0.1pt 0in; mso-para-margin-bottom: .01gd; mso-para-margin-left: 0in; mso-para-margin-right: 0in; mso-para-margin-top: .01gd;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 14pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 10.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"> </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .1pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: .1pt; margin: 0.1pt 0in; mso-para-margin-bottom: .01gd; mso-para-margin-left: 0in; mso-para-margin-right: 0in; mso-para-margin-top: .01gd;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 14pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 10.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">One
is capitalist competition. Artificial intelligence, like everything else in the
computer era, is as capitalist as any previous industry. It strives to dominate
consumer markets by turning out a stream of new products. It is no different
than the automobile industry in the 1920s introducing a choice of colors and annual
model changes. The scramble for virtual reality and artificial intelligence is
like the tail-fin era of cars in the 1960s. The economic logic of high-tech
executives is to stay ahead of the competition: if we don't do it, somebody
else will. </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .1pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: .1pt; margin: 0.1pt 0in; mso-para-margin-bottom: .01gd; mso-para-margin-left: 0in; mso-para-margin-right: 0in; mso-para-margin-top: .01gd;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 14pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 10.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"> </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .1pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: .1pt; margin: 0.1pt 0in; mso-para-margin-bottom: .01gd; mso-para-margin-left: 0in; mso-para-margin-right: 0in; mso-para-margin-top: .01gd;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 14pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 10.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">The
second is the drive of scientists, engineers, and technicians to invent and
improve. This is admirable in itself: the desire to discover something new, to
move the frontier of knowledge. But harnessed to capitalist imperative for
maximizing profits, it is capable of eliminating their own occupations. Will
scientists in the future be happy if autonomous computers make all the
discoveries, that will be "known" only by other computers? </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .1pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: .1pt; margin: 0.1pt 0in; mso-para-margin-bottom: .01gd; mso-para-margin-left: 0in; mso-para-margin-right: 0in; mso-para-margin-top: .01gd;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 14pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 10.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"> </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .1pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: .1pt; margin: 0.1pt 0in; mso-para-margin-bottom: .01gd; mso-para-margin-left: 0in; mso-para-margin-right: 0in; mso-para-margin-top: .01gd;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 14pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 10.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">The
dilemma is similar to that in the history of inventing weapons. The inventors
of atomic bombs were driven by the fear that, if not us, somebody else will,
and it might be our enemy. Even pacifists like Albert Einstein saw the military
prospects of discoveries in atomic physics. This history (like Robert
Oppenheimer's) makes one pessimistic about the future of AI combined with
capitalists. Even if we can see it coming, does that make it impossible for us
to avoid it?</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .1pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: .1pt; margin: 0.1pt 0in; mso-para-margin-bottom: .01gd; mso-para-margin-left: 0in; mso-para-margin-right: 0in; mso-para-margin-top: .01gd;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 14pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 10.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"> </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .1pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: .1pt; margin: 0.1pt 0in; mso-para-margin-bottom: .01gd; mso-para-margin-left: 0in; mso-para-margin-right: 0in; mso-para-margin-top: .01gd;"><i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 14pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 10.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">What is to be done?</span></i><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 14pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 10.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .1pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: .1pt; margin: 0.1pt 0in; mso-para-margin-bottom: .01gd; mso-para-margin-left: 0in; mso-para-margin-right: 0in; mso-para-margin-top: .01gd;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 14pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 10.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"> </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .1pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: .1pt; margin: 0.1pt 0in; mso-para-margin-bottom: .01gd; mso-para-margin-left: 0in; mso-para-margin-right: 0in; mso-para-margin-top: .01gd;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 14pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 10.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">Better
start doing your own thinking about it. </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .1pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: .1pt; margin: 0.1pt 0in; mso-para-margin-bottom: .01gd; mso-para-margin-left: 0in; mso-para-margin-right: 0in; mso-para-margin-top: .01gd;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 14pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 10.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"> </span></p>
<p><style>@font-face
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{page:WordSection1;}</style></p>Unknownnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1005085971596877601.post-14297028381769661962023-09-01T09:36:00.015-07:002023-09-12T11:03:34.995-07:00INSIDER RESEARCH IN MAFIA, STREET GANGS, TERRORISTS AND NEO-FASCISTS<p> <span style="color: black; font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 14pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 10.0pt;">Researchers on violent
criminal organizations have grown more intrepid over the years. Until the
1980s, most information came from interviews in prison, reminiscences of
ex-members, or by hanging out in neighbourhoods that had local gangs. Some
researchers have been taking the dangerous step of participant observation
inside the group itself.</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .1pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: .1pt; margin: 0.1pt 0in; mso-para-margin-bottom: .01gd; mso-para-margin-left: 0in; mso-para-margin-right: 0in; mso-para-margin-top: .01gd;"><span style="color: black; font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 14pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 10.0pt;">Here I will focus on
four pieces of insider research: by an FBI agent who spent six years
infiltrating the Mafia; Alice Goffman, a white woman who spent six years with a
black street gang; Italian sociologist Alessandro Orsini, who went underground
to observe both the Red Brigades-- Left ideologists practicing political
assassinations-- and a Fascist militia.</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .1pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: .1pt; margin: 0.1pt 0in; mso-para-margin-bottom: .01gd; mso-para-margin-left: 0in; mso-para-margin-right: 0in; mso-para-margin-top: .01gd;"><span style="color: black; font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 14pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 10.0pt;"> </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .1pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: .1pt; margin: 0.1pt 0in; mso-para-margin-bottom: .01gd; mso-para-margin-left: 0in; mso-para-margin-right: 0in; mso-para-margin-top: .01gd;"><span style="color: black; font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 14pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 10.0pt;">An FBI agent seeking
evidence to convict criminals in court is not the same as an academic
researcher aimed at increasing knowledge; for one thing, the FBI puts vastly
more resources into supporting their informants. But the process of making
discoveries about secretive organizations is much the same. What difference
does it make when violent groups are organized in different ways? We will see
how these four pieces of research cast reflections on each other. </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .1pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: .1pt; margin: 0.1pt 0in; mso-para-margin-bottom: .01gd; mso-para-margin-left: 0in; mso-para-margin-right: 0in; mso-para-margin-top: .01gd;"><span style="color: black; font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 14pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 10.0pt;"> </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .1pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: .1pt; margin: 0.1pt 0in; mso-para-margin-bottom: .01gd; mso-para-margin-left: 0in; mso-para-margin-right: 0in; mso-para-margin-top: .01gd;"><span style="color: black; font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 14pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 10.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">Joseph Pistone. 1987. <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Donnie
Brasco</i>: <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">My Undercover Life in the Mafia.</i>
NY: Dutton.</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .1pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: .1pt; margin: 0.1pt 0in; mso-para-margin-bottom: .01gd; mso-para-margin-left: 0in; mso-para-margin-right: 0in; mso-para-margin-top: .01gd;"><span style="color: black; font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 14pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 10.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"> </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .1pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: .1pt; margin: 0.1pt 0in; mso-para-margin-bottom: .01gd; mso-para-margin-left: 0in; mso-para-margin-right: 0in; mso-para-margin-top: .01gd;"><span style="color: black; font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 14pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 10.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">Pistone already had some of the qualifications for passing in the
Mafia: he spoke Italian; his family was of Sicilian descent; he was a strong,
muscular guy, with a lot of self-control but at the same time a convivial guy
to hang around with. Hanging around was mostly what he did, like most other
Mafia members and associates. He started by spending a lot of time at bars,
restaurants, and night clubs in Manhattan-- upscale places with burnished wall
panels and low lighting, which had a reputation for being Mafia-connected.
(David Grazian's study of night life in Philadelphia, <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">On the Make</i>, 2008. Univ. of Chicago Press] similarly found that the
city's professional criminals liked to visit chic center city bars late at
night.) The FBI provided Pistone with stolen jewelry so he could pose as a
jewel thief with goods to sell. But at first he just let his face become known,
not striking up conversations or asking questions; eventually bartenders came
to recognize him as "Donnie." (No one in the Mafia world uses a last
name.) He was always stylishly dressed (at this time, the late 1970s, this
meant leather jackets, gold chains, designer jeans); but he never showed a lot
of money-- this would set him up as a tourist, or a target for robbery. </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .1pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: .1pt; margin: 0.1pt 0in; mso-para-margin-bottom: .01gd; mso-para-margin-left: 0in; mso-para-margin-right: 0in; mso-para-margin-top: .01gd;"><span style="color: black; font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 14pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 10.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"> </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .1pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: .1pt; margin: 0.1pt 0in; mso-para-margin-bottom: .01gd; mso-para-margin-left: 0in; mso-para-margin-right: 0in; mso-para-margin-top: .01gd;"><span style="color: black; font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 14pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 10.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">After a couple of months, he showed a bartender a couple of fancy
watches, asked if he could move them, and named a cash price: the figure was
deliberately chosen to show that Pistone knew the street price of stolen
jewelry. A few days later the bartender told him he couldn't get that price
from his buyers; Pistone thought he might be testing him, so instead of
lowering his price he just said, no big deal, maybe we can do business some
other time. He passed the test; the bartender agreed. He was beginning to be considered
an insider. </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .1pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: .1pt; margin: 0.1pt 0in; mso-para-margin-bottom: .01gd; mso-para-margin-left: 0in; mso-para-margin-right: 0in; mso-para-margin-top: .01gd;"><span style="color: black; font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 14pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 10.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"> </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .1pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: .1pt; margin: 0.1pt 0in; mso-para-margin-bottom: .01gd; mso-para-margin-left: 0in; mso-para-margin-right: 0in; mso-para-margin-top: .01gd;"><span style="color: black; font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 14pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 10.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">It is a good rule for a researcher to bear in mind: the
difficulties you are having doing research are telling you something about the
social organization you are trying to understand. This was an organization of
distrust, of tests and subtle understandings. It was also an organization
spending most of their time in surveillance of each other.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Crews or associates had their hangouts,
places they could go just to see who was there; backrooms where they could do a
little illegal gambling at backgammon, talk about the game and who they'd seen
around. Once Pistone became a regular at passing stolen jewelry, he was invited
to a more exclusive hangout: a store-front in a Brooklyn neighbourhood. Only
local residents ever came in to buy anything at the store, so outsiders would
be immediately recognized. </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .1pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: .1pt; margin: 0.1pt 0in; mso-para-margin-bottom: .01gd; mso-para-margin-left: 0in; mso-para-margin-right: 0in; mso-para-margin-top: .01gd;"><span style="color: black; font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 14pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 10.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"> </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .1pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: .1pt; margin: 0.1pt 0in; mso-para-margin-bottom: .01gd; mso-para-margin-left: 0in; mso-para-margin-right: 0in; mso-para-margin-top: .01gd;"><span style="color: black; font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 14pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 10.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">The crew-- low level Mafia associates, not "made men" or
Mafia soldiers-- spent their days in the backroom, playing cards, and talking
about scams and scores and hustles: hijacks or burglaries they might carry out,
warehouses where the night watchman was on the take; drivers who would arrange
to be robbed; a tip that a shipment of Armani suits was coming into JFK airport
and<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>where it would be stored. These were
not casual thieves. "The mob was their job," Pistone commented.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>They went every day to the hangout, sometimes
dropping in at other social clubs where they traded information, and put
together ad hoc crews for particular jobs. It was, in the not-yet-coined
cliché, "networking" at its most intense. The Mafia is nothing like a
bureaucracy; it keeps no records and has no payrolls; there are no regular
working hours and no overtime. Nevertheless it is a full-time occupation.
Everyone shows up every day because that is how they find what jobs they are
going to do and who they are going to do it with; if you stay away people
wonder what you're up to and suspicions multiply. </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .1pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: .1pt; margin: 0.1pt 0in; mso-para-margin-bottom: .01gd; mso-para-margin-left: 0in; mso-para-margin-right: 0in; mso-para-margin-top: .01gd;"><span style="color: black; font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 14pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 10.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"> </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .1pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: .1pt; margin: 0.1pt 0in; mso-para-margin-bottom: .01gd; mso-para-margin-left: 0in; mso-para-margin-right: 0in; mso-para-margin-top: .01gd;"><span style="color: black; font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 14pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 10.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">"Mafia" means a network like the roots of a tree
branching into the earth. The ground level are associates, hustling for money
and always on the lookout for opportunities; further down are fences buying and
selling stolen property, and even lower ordinary citizens who are on the take.
Rising above these dendrites are the Mafia members, more sharply defined like
the trunk of a tree. "Made men" or "wiseguys" are more
likely to be violent, professional intimidators and killers. But as Pistone
notes "the Mafia is not primarily an organization of murderers, but of
thieves." [115]<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Mafia soldiers have
to prove themselves as steady money-makers, whether through their own jobs or
their ties with lower associates; each soldier has to pass a percentage of
their take upward to their captain, who owes a further percentage to the boss
of the Mafia family. From the 1930s onwards there were five families, joined in
an alliance called the Peace Commission; their main business was to keep wars
from breaking out between the families; they also enforced rules against
killing anyone in the Mafia without orders from the Commission; and rules against
killing police or public officials--- avoiding all-out war by seeking a modus
vivendi with the world of officials via bribery and collusion. (For this
reason, the FBI would not confide in New York officials about their
operations.) To change the metaphor, the Mafia is a a political umbrella over a
bunch of ad hoc criminal activities; collecting a percentage of the take in
return for policing themselves and providing a degree of protection from the
government. </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .1pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: .1pt; margin: 0.1pt 0in; mso-para-margin-bottom: .01gd; mso-para-margin-left: 0in; mso-para-margin-right: 0in; mso-para-margin-top: .01gd;"><span style="color: black; font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 14pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 10.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"> </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .1pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: .1pt; margin: 0.1pt 0in; mso-para-margin-bottom: .01gd; mso-para-margin-left: 0in; mso-para-margin-right: 0in; mso-para-margin-top: .01gd;"><span style="color: black; font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 14pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 10.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">Pistone worked himself into the lower fringe of crime associates;
and eventually, by moving more money, became a tag-along of connected
"wiseguys".<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Both levels did
much the same kind of hustles. Pistone took part in some of these operations,
and heard about others from the endless discussions in hangouts, their staple
of conversation. Hijacks were mostly give-ups planned in advance with the
drivers; or at least from tips about what was being delivered where and when.
Crews inserted themselves into commercial supply chains; they would hijack
perishable food-- frozen shrimp and lobster were favorites-- and sell them to
grocery store or restaurant managers below the usual discount.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Pharmaceuticals could always be sold to a
pharacist who asked no questions. Over-the-counter drugstore items could pay off
in bulk; a shipment of aspirin, toothpaste, or perfume could be sold below
distributer's price, since these were items with a big markup in any case.
Cigarette packages were smuggled from the south without the tax stamp and
distributed in vending machines at bars. Shipments of TVs and other electronics
could be sold, right in the box, to discount stores and flea markets. Stolen
cars were disassembled for used parts, a supply chain for no-questions-asked
repair shops. The result was a web of ordinary businesses profiting from crime,
colluding with thieves and middle-men. </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .1pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: .1pt; margin: 0.1pt 0in; mso-para-margin-bottom: .01gd; mso-para-margin-left: 0in; mso-para-margin-right: 0in; mso-para-margin-top: .01gd;"><span style="color: black; font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 14pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 10.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"> </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .1pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: .1pt; margin: 0.1pt 0in; mso-para-margin-bottom: .01gd; mso-para-margin-left: 0in; mso-para-margin-right: 0in; mso-para-margin-top: .01gd;"><span style="color: black; font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 14pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 10.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">There were also illegal businesses. Since everyone dealt in cash,
there was money around for wiseguys to put to work. A favorite was loans at
very high interest rates-- especially to gamblers or rich addicts, who could
put up no collateral except their own bodies--- hence "shylocking"
with broken legs instead of a pound of flesh. Businesses frequented by wiseguys
or associates (especially restaurants and clubs) could find themselves with another
partner, who got part of the take for just coming in. One advantage of being a
made man is that the Mafia didn't allow anyone to horn in on a partnership;
turf wars that plagued gangs in illegal street drugs were generally avoided by
the vertical protection of the Mafia. The volatile entertainment world,
including promoting pop concerts, was another niche for skimming and silent
partnerships. Some legitimate businesses-- cement, garbage collection, trade
unions-- with a lot of turnover and casual record-keeping were full of mafia
partners. </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .1pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: .1pt; margin: 0.1pt 0in; mso-para-margin-bottom: .01gd; mso-para-margin-left: 0in; mso-para-margin-right: 0in; mso-para-margin-top: .01gd;"><span style="color: black; font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 14pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 10.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"> </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .1pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: .1pt; margin: 0.1pt 0in; mso-para-margin-bottom: .01gd; mso-para-margin-left: 0in; mso-para-margin-right: 0in; mso-para-margin-top: .01gd;"><span style="color: black; font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 14pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 10.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">To move up in the Mafia, Pistone needed to get involved in
big-money operations. And this pushed the limits of what an FBI agent was
supposed to be doing in reporting rather than causing crimes. </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .1pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: .1pt; margin: 0.1pt 0in; mso-para-margin-bottom: .01gd; mso-para-margin-left: 0in; mso-para-margin-right: 0in; mso-para-margin-top: .01gd;"><span style="color: black; font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 14pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 10.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"> </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .1pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: .1pt; margin: 0.1pt 0in; mso-para-margin-bottom: .01gd; mso-para-margin-left: 0in; mso-para-margin-right: 0in; mso-para-margin-top: .01gd;"><span style="color: black; font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 14pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 10.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">Everybody wants to have their money in on the action, putting it
on the street shylocking, or middling swag or a drug deal; and everyone wants
to use someone else's money rather than their own (not unique to the
underworld; big financial investors operate in just this fashion).<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>But this means everybody is leaning on
someone for repayment. Some jobs don't work out, but somebody has to absorb it.
This leads to more distrust, an overtone that floats in the atmosphere along
with the gossip. </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .1pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: .1pt; margin: 0.1pt 0in; mso-para-margin-bottom: .01gd; mso-para-margin-left: 0in; mso-para-margin-right: 0in; mso-para-margin-top: .01gd;"><span style="color: black; font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 14pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 10.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"> </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .1pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: .1pt; margin: 0.1pt 0in; mso-para-margin-bottom: .01gd; mso-para-margin-left: 0in; mso-para-margin-right: 0in; mso-para-margin-top: .01gd;"><span style="color: black; font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 14pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 10.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">Add a dimension of distrust from the vertical structure of Mafia
protection. If a Mafia soldier partners with an associate, he gets 50%. But he
has to keep his captain informed of any big score, of which the capo gets 50%--
who in turn has to send 10% up to the family boss. These portions are flexible
and some capos demand more than others. There is an irresistable temptation to
fudge the numbers, under-reporting the actual take. Naturally, everyone is
suspicious, because they fudge their own numbers to their higher-ups. </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .1pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: .1pt; margin: 0.1pt 0in; mso-para-margin-bottom: .01gd; mso-para-margin-left: 0in; mso-para-margin-right: 0in; mso-para-margin-top: .01gd;"><span style="color: black; font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 14pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 10.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"> </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .1pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: .1pt; margin: 0.1pt 0in; mso-para-margin-bottom: .01gd; mso-para-margin-left: 0in; mso-para-margin-right: 0in; mso-para-margin-top: .01gd;"><span style="color: black; font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 14pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 10.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">Since so much depends upon bribing security guards and truck
drivers, treachery was the key to keeping the illegal pipeline open. Thus the
contours of the organization emerged: constantly buying treachery, constantly
ongoing gossip and surveillance, all under a veil of secrecy maintained by
unspoken agreements. Once again, difficulties in research are tell-tale signs
of what you are researching.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .1pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: .1pt; margin: 0.1pt 0in; mso-para-margin-bottom: .01gd; mso-para-margin-left: 0in; mso-para-margin-right: 0in; mso-para-margin-top: .01gd;"><span style="color: black; font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 14pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 10.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"> </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .1pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: .1pt; margin: 0.1pt 0in; mso-para-margin-bottom: .01gd; mso-para-margin-left: 0in; mso-para-margin-right: 0in; mso-para-margin-top: .01gd;"><span style="color: black; font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 14pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 10.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">Shying away from violence would defeat the purpose of the
undercover penetration; it would give you the reputation of a wimp or a snitch,
when you are seeking admission to an organization of tough guys. Pistone had to
do more to promote his tough-guy reputation as he came to hang out with Mafia
soldiers -- men with a reputation for stabbing dubious connections with a
switchblade knife. If you get into an argument, one of his buddies warned
Pistone, keep arms-length away from that guy. Yet they made their nighttime
rounds together, bar-hopping. Pistone began to get tough with anyone who
bothered him, even associates of other Mafia families. When a drunk kept loudly
wondering who he was (implying a snitch), Pistone floored him with a punch. A
little incident over spilling beer on the bar escalated to the other tough guy
spilling beer on Pistone-- "Let's go outside," he challenged, but as
soon as the guy turned around Pistone knocked him down and hit him with a
bottle as he tried to get up. Pistone later rationalized to himself that his
Mafia "friend" was about to kill the guy, so that it was better to
take care of it himself first. Pistone was getting more reputation, nearing the
goal of becoming a made man in the Mafia. But he also had to become more like
them. His moral stance was compromised; and it was also becoming more
dangerous.</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .1pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: .1pt; margin: 0.1pt 0in; mso-para-margin-bottom: .01gd; mso-para-margin-left: 0in; mso-para-margin-right: 0in; mso-para-margin-top: .01gd;"><span style="color: black; font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 14pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 10.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"> </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .1pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: .1pt; margin: 0.1pt 0in; mso-para-margin-bottom: .01gd; mso-para-margin-left: 0in; mso-para-margin-right: 0in; mso-para-margin-top: .01gd;"><span style="color: black; font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 14pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 10.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">Ascending Mafia ranks, Pistone plunges deeper into the web of
suspicions. Sent to Florida as side-kick to a Bonanno captain ["Sonny
Black" Napolitano], his boss mulls the idea of middling a Colombian drug
shipment of cocaine without telling anyone.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>Pistone is worried but can't show timidity; they decide to risk it.
Fortunately or unfortunately, the pieces are shifting in the Mafia structure.
Pistone's switch-blade wielding companion gets sent back to prison, removing
one source of danger. There is a succession crisis in the Bonanno family,
factions lining up for a possible war. And there are more FBI plants in the
Mafia, creating more suspicion. This is another layer of deception for Pistone
to handle, not to leave any hints that he knows these guys, except coming
across each other in the line of business. When another agent is involved in a
deal gone wrong, ripples of suspicion touch Pistone since he made some
introductions. </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .1pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: .1pt; margin: 0.1pt 0in; mso-para-margin-bottom: .01gd; mso-para-margin-left: 0in; mso-para-margin-right: 0in; mso-para-margin-top: .01gd;"><span style="color: black; font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 14pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 10.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"> </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .1pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: .1pt; margin: 0.1pt 0in; mso-para-margin-bottom: .01gd; mso-para-margin-left: 0in; mso-para-margin-right: 0in; mso-para-margin-top: .01gd;"><span style="color: black; font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 14pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 10.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">It is a multi-layered world of deceptions and suspicions. But
simultaneously an endless round of convivial conversations at bars and night
spots, a veneer of hugs and cheek kisses in the hale heartiness of the
fraternity. Pistone's Mafia mentor tells him: in the mob it's your close friend
that will kill you. </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .1pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: .1pt; margin: 0.1pt 0in; mso-para-margin-bottom: .01gd; mso-para-margin-left: 0in; mso-para-margin-right: 0in; mso-para-margin-top: .01gd;"><span style="color: black; font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 14pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 10.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"> </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .1pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: .1pt; margin: 0.1pt 0in; mso-para-margin-bottom: .01gd; mso-para-margin-left: 0in; mso-para-margin-right: 0in; mso-para-margin-top: .01gd;"><span style="color: black; font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 14pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 10.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">On top of this, Pistone's crew is assigned to assassinate the son
of a Mafia capo, known to be addicted to cocaine. He lives in Florida, holed-up
and trigger-happy; with a habit running through thousands of dollars a day and
nothing coming in (a wiseguy comments, at least with heroin you're nodding off
four or five hours, with coke it only lasts 20 minutes). All agree he is a
burden and an embarassment. FBI policy is to condone almost anything for a
plant but not murder; when a killing is about to go down, they'll have the
victim arrested as protection. There is a temporary respite as the Florida
killing is postponed; but now the FBI higher-ups want Pistone to come out in
the open, so they can use him to testify in court in a big Mafia sweep. Pistone
is torn: he is about to become a made man; his name is being talked about. Six
years undercover and he is about to reach the goal. But no-go. </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .1pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: .1pt; margin: 0.1pt 0in; mso-para-margin-bottom: .01gd; mso-para-margin-left: 0in; mso-para-margin-right: 0in; mso-para-margin-top: .01gd;"><span style="color: black; font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 14pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 10.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"> </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .1pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: .1pt; margin: 0.1pt 0in; mso-para-margin-bottom: .01gd; mso-para-margin-left: 0in; mso-para-margin-right: 0in; mso-para-margin-top: .01gd;"><span style="color: black; font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 14pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 10.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">The FBI puts on extra camera surveillance around Mafia hangouts
and homes to catch their reaction the day Pistone's identity is announced.
Faces are stunned and shocked. It is a world, Pistone comments, of cynicism and
distrust; where crime is normal; chiseling is expected. But there is one
ethical principle universally felt: you don't work for the government.
Pistone's mentor is called to a sit-down with the bosses; he gives his keys to
his wife, but goes anyway. The guy who worked most closely with Pistone, moved
him up in the organization, pays the price; his body in found with hands
chopped off. </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .1pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: .1pt; margin: 0.1pt 0in; mso-para-margin-bottom: .01gd; mso-para-margin-left: 0in; mso-para-margin-right: 0in; mso-para-margin-top: .01gd;"><span style="color: black; font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 14pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 10.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"> </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .1pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: .1pt; margin: 0.1pt 0in; mso-para-margin-bottom: .01gd; mso-para-margin-left: 0in; mso-para-margin-right: 0in; mso-para-margin-top: .01gd;"><span style="color: black; font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 14pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 10.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">And the personal costs to Pistone of his underground research?
Missing six years of his life with wife and kids; sneaking away to buy
Christmas presents, rare furtive visits. "I would have to remember faces
and names and facts and numbers until I could call in a report to my contact
agent," Pistone recalls, since he couldn't risk taking notes. "When I
would get home for my one day or evening in two or three weeks, it would be
difficult to adjust and focus attention on my family. Especially when they
didn't know what I was doing and we couldn't talk about it." [105] It's
proof of how strong their marriage was, his wife says, living her own life. His
children are not so forgiving. His family changed their names; moved a
half-dozen times in the following years. Pistone stayed out-front, testifying
in court for another six years. </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .1pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: .1pt; margin: 0.1pt 0in; mso-para-margin-bottom: .01gd; mso-para-margin-left: 0in; mso-para-margin-right: 0in; mso-para-margin-top: .01gd;"><span style="color: black; font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 14pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 10.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"> </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .1pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: .1pt; margin: 0.1pt 0in; mso-para-margin-bottom: .01gd; mso-para-margin-left: 0in; mso-para-margin-right: 0in; mso-para-margin-top: .01gd;"><span style="color: black; font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 14pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 10.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">Pistone summed up: "I had some uncomfortable feelings because
I felt close to Sonny Black. But I didn't feel any guilt of betrayal, because I
always maintained in my own mind the separation of our worlds. In a sense we
were both just doing our jobs. If he found out who I was, he'd have whacked me
out. He would have done it in the traditional way. He wouldn't have talked to
me about it. He'd have set me up. Who kills you in that business is someone you
know.... Sonny was good at what he did. He wasn't a phony. He didn't throw his
weight around. For reasons that are hard to explain, I liked him a lot. But I
didn't dwell on the fact that I was going to put him in the can, or that he was
going to get killed because of me. That's the business." [396-97] Pistone
imagines one last conversation: "But if you did so good exposing us,
Donnie, whyzit you and your family gotta live a coverup for the rest of your
lives?" [413]</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .1pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: .1pt; margin: 0.1pt 0in; mso-para-margin-bottom: .01gd; mso-para-margin-left: 0in; mso-para-margin-right: 0in; mso-para-margin-top: .01gd;"><span style="color: black; font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 14pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 10.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"> </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .1pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: .1pt; margin: 0.1pt 0in; mso-para-margin-bottom: .01gd; mso-para-margin-left: 0in; mso-para-margin-right: 0in; mso-para-margin-top: .01gd;"><span style="color: black; font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 14pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 10.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">Alice Goffman. 2014. <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">On the
Run. Fugitive Life in an American City.</i> Univ. of Chicago Press.</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .1pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: .1pt; margin: 0.1pt 0in; mso-para-margin-bottom: .01gd; mso-para-margin-left: 0in; mso-para-margin-right: 0in; mso-para-margin-top: .01gd;"><span style="color: black; font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 14pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 10.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"> </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .1pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: .1pt; margin: 0.1pt 0in; mso-para-margin-bottom: .01gd; mso-para-margin-left: 0in; mso-para-margin-right: 0in; mso-para-margin-top: .01gd;"><span style="color: black; font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 14pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 10.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">Alice Goffman entered the field through the university cafeteria.
A 19-year old freshman, she became friends with the black women who worked with
her, and started tutoring one's teenage grand-daughter, Aisha. Just before they
met, Aisha had been suspended for punching her teacher in the mouth. The area
just west of University of Pennsylvania is a poverty ghetto of old houses;
Elijah Anderson had done his research there for <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Streetwise </i>[1990 Univ. of Chicago Press] and expanded into north
Philly with <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Code of the Street</i> [1998,
Norton]<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">.</i> She started dropping by the
subsidized housing apartment of the girl's mother, who told Alice she sold
drugs before going on welfare. Alice met Aisha's cousin Ronny, when he came
home from juvenile detention; he was called a "cousin" because Aisha's
mother had taken him in when his own mother had a crack addiction. Ronny was a
14-year old self-proclaimed "troublemaker", a street-dancer who jumped
in front of stopped cars to put on a show.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>Alice also met Mike,<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>a good
looking young man a year older than herself. </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .1pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: .1pt; margin: 0.1pt 0in; mso-para-margin-bottom: .01gd; mso-para-margin-left: 0in; mso-para-margin-right: 0in; mso-para-margin-top: .01gd;"><span style="color: black; font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 14pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 10.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"> </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .1pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: .1pt; margin: 0.1pt 0in; mso-para-margin-bottom: .01gd; mso-para-margin-left: 0in; mso-para-margin-right: 0in; mso-para-margin-top: .01gd;"><span style="color: black; font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 14pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 10.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">Connections grew, and also went. Ronnie was sent back to juvenile
detention for aggravated assault, for beating up his sister's boyfriend.
Another of Mike's friends, Chuck went to jail for a fight in the schoolyard and
fleeing the police. Alice became more important to Mike's crew when he called
up to ask if she had a state ID. </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .1pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: .1pt; margin: 0.1pt 0in; mso-para-margin-bottom: .01gd; mso-para-margin-left: 0in; mso-para-margin-right: 0in; mso-para-margin-top: .01gd;"><span style="color: black; font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 14pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 10.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"> </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .1pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: .1pt; margin: 0.1pt 0in; mso-para-margin-bottom: .01gd; mso-para-margin-left: 0in; mso-para-margin-right: 0in; mso-para-margin-top: .01gd;"><span style="color: black; font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 14pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 10.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">Alice's book stresses that black gang members are forced to live
outside the world of legal institutions. They can't have credit cards or bank
accounts. They are in constant trouble with the police and the courts. They are
repeatedly arrested, for small offenses or large; both involve a series of
rescheduled hearings, an overburdened district attorney and court system
releasing suspects subject to future court appearance, which they often miss,
resulting in more fines. Traffic tickets and unlicensed cars, not to mention
drug possession, assault, robbery and homicide, spiral in an endless chain.
Half of the 300 young men Alice interviewed in the neighbourhood had a warrant out
for their arrest, for failure to pay court fines or failure to appear. Missing
a court-mandated piss test for drugs gets you another warrant; street merchants
run a side-business selling "clean" piss.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>A black man badly beaten in a gang fight
won't go to the hospital for treatment, fearing a parole violation charge for
breaking curfew. Another won't accompany his baby-mom giving birth at the
hospital; there are cops hanging around, running names on their compters.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Gang members<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>have no fixed address, whatever they tell the court clerk; they live
with relatives and girlfriends, who are harassed by the cops for information as
to their whereabouts. Cops call employers if any are listed, keeping fugitives
from holding regular jobs. They live in a world of cash and on-going
deals--<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>all of which worsens when a deal
goes wrong, either by police bust or robbery.</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .1pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: .1pt; margin: 0.1pt 0in; mso-para-margin-bottom: .01gd; mso-para-margin-left: 0in; mso-para-margin-right: 0in; mso-para-margin-top: .01gd;"><span style="color: black; font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 14pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 10.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"> </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .1pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: .1pt; margin: 0.1pt 0in; mso-para-margin-bottom: .01gd; mso-para-margin-left: 0in; mso-para-margin-right: 0in; mso-para-margin-top: .01gd;"><span style="color: black; font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 14pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 10.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">The fact that Alice had a driver's license made her eligible to
sign for getting Chuck's younger brother, 15-year-old Reggie, out of jail-- he
was charged with fighting and threatening a boy from school. ("I'ma hurt
you," he had said. Alice spent months learning the black street dialect.
"I ain't like that shit." [222, 236]<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>Linguist William Labov studied black English in this same neighbourhood
and concluded that grammar was deliberately migrating away from school-standard
verbs and word-meanings: alienated rebellion in language.) </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .1pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: .1pt; margin: 0.1pt 0in; mso-para-margin-bottom: .01gd; mso-para-margin-left: 0in; mso-para-margin-right: 0in; mso-para-margin-top: .01gd;"><span style="color: black; font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 14pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 10.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"> </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .1pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: .1pt; margin: 0.1pt 0in; mso-para-margin-bottom: .01gd; mso-para-margin-left: 0in; mso-para-margin-right: 0in; mso-para-margin-top: .01gd;"><span style="color: black; font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 14pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 10.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">Another culture shock for Alive was sexuality. She started hearing
older women talking about how she had no boyfriends-- must be a lesbian
molesting black girls. Alice sets up a movie date (she paid for everyone) with
Mike and a group of friends. They were bored with the action movie she'd picked
out, it had no black characters and they only liked gangsta movies and rap.
Mike took it upon himself to explain to Alice that she didn't know how to act.
Her clothes were too casual and sloppy; her toes were unpainted; why do white
girls wear flip-flops insead of cool sneakers? She needed to plump up, learn
how to walk and hold her body right. Stop trying so hard to be liked; stick up
for yourself when someone insults you. Don't go around paying for everything.
And spend some time fixing your hair, it looks like you slept on it. [220-21] </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .1pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: .1pt; margin: 0.1pt 0in; mso-para-margin-bottom: .01gd; mso-para-margin-left: 0in; mso-para-margin-right: 0in; mso-para-margin-top: .01gd;"><span style="color: black; font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 14pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 10.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"> </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .1pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: .1pt; margin: 0.1pt 0in; mso-para-margin-bottom: .01gd; mso-para-margin-left: 0in; mso-para-margin-right: 0in; mso-para-margin-top: .01gd;"><span style="color: black; font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 14pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 10.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">Alice had to re-strategize. She had been assuming the styles of
the casual/hip side of white youth culture; she was a studious intellectual,
whose father (dead since she was a baby) was the famous Erving Goffman, and
whose colleagues treated her like a young sociologist. She had no interest in
white college boys or girls. Like her dad, who had gone incognito for two years
in the psychotic ward of mental hospital (and came out with a devastating
report on how hospitalization reinforces mental illness), Alice was devoted to
penetrating an alien world more deeply than anyone before. Now the black ghetto
world was full of sex, and she had to find a place in it. She found an
acceptable identity: she was one of those white girls who like black guys
[228]. Mike, handsome and charismatic, had all sorts of black girlfriends
chasing him. But Alice was becoming more useful to him and his crew. She took
an apartment in the neighbourhood, an address where Mike could live, and his
friends could hang out. Mike began referring to her as his sister. He had a
scar in his hip where he was shot by a man trying to rob him in a dice game.
Now he was hiding out from a murder charge; eventually a lawyer plea-bargained
it down to firearms possession and he went to prison for 1-to-3 years. </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .1pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: .1pt; margin: 0.1pt 0in; mso-para-margin-bottom: .01gd; mso-para-margin-left: 0in; mso-para-margin-right: 0in; mso-para-margin-top: .01gd;"><span style="color: black; font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 14pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 10.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"> </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .1pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: .1pt; margin: 0.1pt 0in; mso-para-margin-bottom: .01gd; mso-para-margin-left: 0in; mso-para-margin-right: 0in; mso-para-margin-top: .01gd;"><span style="color: black; font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 14pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 10.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">Alice asked Mike and his friends if she could write about their
lives for her undergraduate thesis at Penn, and they agreed. [223] She was
obviously anomalous; all-the-way absorption like Pistone in the Mafia was out
of reach. But the 6th street crew were OK with having an ally in the white world,
especially since she had a car, an apartment, and was willing to drive and help
out. "I was taken almost as an honorary man, permitted to hang around when
men spoke about shootouts and drug deals and robberies, or about romantic
escapades with women other than their main partner." [232]</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .1pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: .1pt; margin: 0.1pt 0in; mso-para-margin-bottom: .01gd; mso-para-margin-left: 0in; mso-para-margin-right: 0in; mso-para-margin-top: .01gd;"><span style="color: black; font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 14pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 10.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"> </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .1pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: .1pt; margin: 0.1pt 0in; mso-para-margin-bottom: .01gd; mso-para-margin-left: 0in; mso-para-margin-right: 0in; mso-para-margin-top: .01gd;"><span style="color: black; font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 14pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 10.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">Periodically war would break out between the "6th street
Boys" and the "4th street Boys", two loosely-affiliated groups.
The rival crew firebombed Chuck's car;<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>who retaliated by shooting up the attacker's house. ""What the
fuck I'm supposed to do, go to the cops?" Chuck said. "He going to
run my name [on the police database] and next thing you know, my black ass
locked the fuck up." [33] The result was a warrant for attempted murder.
One thing led to another. When Mike was arrested, Ronny carried out a house
robbery for cash to bail him out. </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .1pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: .1pt; margin: 0.1pt 0in; mso-para-margin-bottom: .01gd; mso-para-margin-left: 0in; mso-para-margin-right: 0in; mso-para-margin-top: .01gd;"><span style="color: black; font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 14pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 10.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"> </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .1pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: .1pt; margin: 0.1pt 0in; mso-para-margin-bottom: .01gd; mso-para-margin-left: 0in; mso-para-margin-right: 0in; mso-para-margin-top: .01gd;"><span style="color: black; font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 14pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 10.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">Alice had gotten more deeply involved in a violent gang than any
researcher, not by happenstance but deliberate choice. Participant observation,
Erving Goffman had written, means becoming so familiar with your subjects (in
his case, mental hospital patients) that you react the same way to what they
feel is attractive and unattractive. When she started graduate school at
Princeton, Alice found herself "making mental notes of TVs and computers
she could steal if she needed cash". She found the students physically and
culturally alien, with their Facebook chitchat and white wine and conversations
about indie rock bands and national politics. "I feared the hordes of
white people. They crowded around me and moved in groups... In cafeterias and
libraries, I'd search for the few Black people present and sit near them,
feeling my heart slow down and my shoulders relax... Above everything, I feared
white men... white American men who were relatively fit, under the age of
fifty, with short hair. I avoided the younger white male faculty at all costs.
On some level, I knew they weren't cops, they probably wouldn't beat me or
insult me, but I could not escape the sweat or the pounding in my chest when
they approached. When I had to pass them in the hallways, I could feel my heart
racing, like I was getting ready to run." [247-48] Alice continued to live
at her apartment in West Philly, driving the hour to Princeton a few times a
week to go to class. </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .1pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: .1pt; margin: 0.1pt 0in; mso-para-margin-bottom: .01gd; mso-para-margin-left: 0in; mso-para-margin-right: 0in; mso-para-margin-top: .01gd;"><span style="color: black; font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 14pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 10.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"> </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .1pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: .1pt; margin: 0.1pt 0in; mso-para-margin-bottom: .01gd; mso-para-margin-left: 0in; mso-para-margin-right: 0in; mso-para-margin-top: .01gd;"><span style="color: black; font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 14pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 10.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">Committed to feeling the experience of the 6th Street Boys, Alice
evaded police and neighbourhood enemies with them; driving a friend on the run
to her family cottage out of town. She debated getting herself arrested, but
concluded her experience would not be the same since the police would treat her
as white. When Mike and his friends, without jobs, pooled their money to buy
wholesale crack, which they cut with adulerants and bagged for sale on the
street, Alice offered to sell crack too. But they refused: it was a man's job,
the riskiest thing they did other than robberies; and it would demean their
status in the neighboorhood-- only crack whores sold drugs, not Mike's sister.
She came to accept that the ghetto was deeply gendered. She wanted to do more
than study the lives of poor black women; as a white sympathizer, with car,
license and money, she could do a certain amount of useful backup for the crew,
but no further. It came home to her when Chuck was shot in the head and taken
to the hospital-- right in the middle of the University, where the entire 6th
Street crowd of young men-- 25 altogether-- gathered to defy the 4th Street
killers, risking police warrants. Arriving with Mike, Alice was told to stay
back--- that isn't your place. Falling back on white middle-class status, and
on her home turf, Alice walked across the street into the Emergency Room, and
found her way to where Chuck was dying. </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .1pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: .1pt; margin: 0.1pt 0in; mso-para-margin-bottom: .01gd; mso-para-margin-left: 0in; mso-para-margin-right: 0in; mso-para-margin-top: .01gd;"><span style="color: black; font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 14pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 10.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"> </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .1pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: .1pt; margin: 0.1pt 0in; mso-para-margin-bottom: .01gd; mso-para-margin-left: 0in; mso-para-margin-right: 0in; mso-para-margin-top: .01gd;"><span style="color: black; font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 14pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 10.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">By 2008, Alice's research was at an end. Chuck was dead, along
with two others shot; a fourth committed suicide while addicted to PCP; a fifth
was shot by police soon after his release from prison-- he thought some
undercover cops were the 4th Street Boys, and opened fire on them. Chuck's two
younger brothers were both serving long prison terms. Mike was out of prison
but moved away from the neighbourhood. Only 2 of the 9 core crew were still
alive and free. During her years living there, Alice attended 19 funerals for
young men killed by gunfire. [234] After Chuck was shot, Alice sat up all night
with his friends in a laudrymat making plans for revenge, but these<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>fizzled out. [250] Alice and Mike drove
around in her car looking for the 4th Street guy who shot Chuck, looking at
license plates and car makes, acting their own police force-- but he had
skipped town. [260] Alice got her Princeton PhD and left to do research in
Detroit.</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .1pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: .1pt; margin: 0.1pt 0in; mso-para-margin-bottom: .01gd; mso-para-margin-left: 0in; mso-para-margin-right: 0in; mso-para-margin-top: .01gd;"><span style="color: black; font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 14pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 10.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"> </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .1pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: .1pt; margin: 0.1pt 0in; mso-para-margin-bottom: .01gd; mso-para-margin-left: 0in; mso-para-margin-right: 0in; mso-para-margin-top: .01gd;"><span style="color: black; font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 14pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 10.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">There is more to the story, but here I will comment personally on
what went into her book. The over-riding theme is what it is like to be
constantly on the run from the police, from spiraling arrest warrants and
fines, unable to live in the above-ground economy, in and out of prison. Alice
was an undergraduate student in my classes at Penn, and during her graduate
studies at Princeton she would drop in my office from time to time to discuss
what she was finding in the neighbourhood 20 blocks or so to the west. <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">From my handwritten notes, typed up in 2008:</i></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .1pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: .1pt; margin: 0.1pt 0in; mso-para-margin-bottom: .01gd; mso-para-margin-left: 0in; mso-para-margin-right: 0in; mso-para-margin-top: .01gd;"><span style="color: black; font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 14pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 10.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"> </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .1pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: .1pt; margin: 0.1pt 0in; mso-para-margin-bottom: .01gd; mso-para-margin-left: 0in; mso-para-margin-right: 0in; mso-para-margin-top: .01gd;"><span style="color: black; font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 14pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 10.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">Early on, Alice said: Are these the popular kids on the block?
They're in the center of the action; everyone talks about them; they spend a
lot of time hanging out, gossiping about each other, assessing each other,
circulating their reputations. The girls want to be with them. Guys are more
confined to their neighbourhood. A girl who has worn out her sexual reputation
locally on one street, moves over to another street, where she passes along
information about the old street gang; but she comes back and talks loudly in
public, insulting her old boy friend; now fucking his rival, proclaiming he
fucks me much better than you did. Within 4 block territory, some guys acquire
local baby-moms; but they prefer women from distant neighbourhoods beause they
know less gossip about them; locals are considered sluts. </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .1pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: .1pt; margin: 0.1pt 0in; mso-para-margin-bottom: .01gd; mso-para-margin-left: 0in; mso-para-margin-right: 0in; mso-para-margin-top: .01gd;"><span style="color: black; font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 14pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 10.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"> </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .1pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: .1pt; margin: 0.1pt 0in; mso-para-margin-bottom: .01gd; mso-para-margin-left: 0in; mso-para-margin-right: 0in; mso-para-margin-top: .01gd;"><span style="color: black; font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 14pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 10.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">R's baby-mon told her street that guy on another street fucks her
better; so R killed him. But there was no retaliation; the guys from the other
street gave pressure from cops as excuse why they can't retaliate. </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .1pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: .1pt; margin: 0.1pt 0in; mso-para-margin-bottom: .01gd; mso-para-margin-left: 0in; mso-para-margin-right: 0in; mso-para-margin-top: .01gd;"><span style="color: black; font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 14pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 10.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"> </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .1pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: .1pt; margin: 0.1pt 0in; mso-para-margin-bottom: .01gd; mso-para-margin-left: 0in; mso-para-margin-right: 0in; mso-para-margin-top: .01gd;"><span style="color: black; font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 14pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 10.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">Men do not use violence on women in public, since they would lose
status. A guy angry at his baby-mom, who he suspects of having snitched on him
twice, hires another woman to beat her up. Women have staged fights, with their
moms and other relatives gathered as audience. But girls are matched for equal
fighting abililty; lack of an even match is one way to avoid fighting. [*]</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .1pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: .1pt; margin: 0.1pt 0in; mso-para-margin-bottom: .01gd; mso-para-margin-left: 0in; mso-para-margin-right: 0in; mso-para-margin-top: .01gd;"><span style="color: black; font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 14pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 10.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"> </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .1pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: .1pt; margin: 0.1pt 0in; mso-para-margin-bottom: .01gd; mso-para-margin-left: 0in; mso-para-margin-right: 0in; mso-para-margin-top: .01gd;"><span style="color: black; font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 14pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 10.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">[*] The male/female divide was studied by another of Elijah
Anderson's students, Nikki Jones, <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Between
Good and Ghetto: African-American Girls and Inner-city Violence.</i> 2010.
Rutgers Univ. Press. Its theme is that young black girls who want to get out of
the ghetto try to avoid being entangled in networks of girls who hang out with
the gangs; they stay indoors and avoid making friends they might be called upon
to fight for, or against.</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .1pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: .1pt; margin: 0.1pt 0in; mso-para-margin-bottom: .01gd; mso-para-margin-left: 0in; mso-para-margin-right: 0in; mso-para-margin-top: .01gd;"><span style="color: black; font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 14pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 10.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"> </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .1pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: .1pt; margin: 0.1pt 0in; mso-para-margin-bottom: .01gd; mso-para-margin-left: 0in; mso-para-margin-right: 0in; mso-para-margin-top: .01gd;"><span style="color: black; font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 14pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 10.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">Drug dealers have high status as street elites. Dealers don't use
crack; their customers are older generation, grandmothers, etc. It is a serious
insult to say you sold crack to someone's mother; on the other hand, sometimes
teens went into crack selling to get it for mother, to avoid having her get it
from strangers. </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .1pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: .1pt; margin: 0.1pt 0in; mso-para-margin-bottom: .01gd; mso-para-margin-left: 0in; mso-para-margin-right: 0in; mso-para-margin-top: .01gd;"><span style="color: black; font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 14pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 10.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"> </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .1pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: .1pt; margin: 0.1pt 0in; mso-para-margin-bottom: .01gd; mso-para-margin-left: 0in; mso-para-margin-right: 0in; mso-para-margin-top: .01gd;"><span style="color: black; font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 14pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 10.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">Weed [marijuana] is prevalent in the group; but used in relative
safety indoors of one's own apartments, especially after a shooting: stay
indoors, stay stoned, to alleviate tension and grieving. [Apparently attacks
are not made indoors, but always out of the street-- unlike mafia, whose method
is treachery by friends.]<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .1pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: .1pt; margin: 0.1pt 0in; mso-para-margin-bottom: .01gd; mso-para-margin-left: 0in; mso-para-margin-right: 0in; mso-para-margin-top: .01gd;"><span style="color: black; font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 14pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 10.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"> </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .1pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: .1pt; margin: 0.1pt 0in; mso-para-margin-bottom: .01gd; mso-para-margin-left: 0in; mso-para-margin-right: 0in; mso-para-margin-top: .01gd;"><span style="color: black; font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 14pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 10.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">Drug dealers rob each other for vengence, as put-downs, and for
money. [<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Question: how well can the drug
business operate if this is happening?</i>]<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>Heard about a plot to rob someone from out of town who brings $25,000 to
buy half a brick of crack. It is a phony sale, two guys putting guns to both
sides of his head. But plan aborts because buyer brings backup in car, who
flashes gun;<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>the two robbers shoot in out
with guy from car, but apparently no one is hit. </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .1pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: .1pt; margin: 0.1pt 0in; mso-para-margin-bottom: .01gd; mso-para-margin-left: 0in; mso-para-margin-right: 0in; mso-para-margin-top: .01gd;"><span style="color: black; font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 14pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 10.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"> </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .1pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: .1pt; margin: 0.1pt 0in; mso-para-margin-bottom: .01gd; mso-para-margin-left: 0in; mso-para-margin-right: 0in; mso-para-margin-top: .01gd;"><span style="color: black; font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 14pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 10.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">Alice eye-witnesses a shooting: Alice and friend [called Chuck in
book] meet his friend Z in bar;<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>very
noisy because it's Caribbean night, so they decide to drive to another bar in
Alice's car. When they arrive, three of Z's enemies see him getting out of car
from back seat-- Alice and Chuck are exiting from the front. Z is shot and
killed; the windshield is shattered. [suggesting wild firing] Alice and Chuck
run away; she said the experience was a blur, hard to observe anything. </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .1pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: .1pt; margin: 0.1pt 0in; mso-para-margin-bottom: .01gd; mso-para-margin-left: 0in; mso-para-margin-right: 0in; mso-para-margin-top: .01gd;"><span style="color: black; font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 14pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 10.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"> </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .1pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: .1pt; margin: 0.1pt 0in; mso-para-margin-bottom: .01gd; mso-para-margin-left: 0in; mso-para-margin-right: 0in; mso-para-margin-top: .01gd;"><span style="color: black; font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 14pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 10.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">"Riding" for someone means you have a duty to carry out
vengence. Men in prison often tell each other about their obligation to ride,
or their plans to ride when they get out. Getting out of jail promotes
shootings. Alice says there is a gap between what they say and what actually
happens. There is a hierarchy of preferred accounts: most legitimate is
shooting because of riding, honourable retaliation on behalf of others. If not
riding, it is framed as self-defense. Most of the time violence starts from
fear: since the others are trying to kill me, so I'll kill them first. Lowest
level account is you were drunk, high, didn't know what you were doing. Over
time, stories changed. Furthermore, riding is a claim for high status; but in
many instances, they don't carry it out, instead offer excuses: "it takes
money to go to war" --hence must accumulate large sums for self and family
to go on the lam. Another excuse: undercover cops around, wait til they leave.
Or hear that the other side has fled-- a frequent excuse told to guys in jail.</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .1pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: .1pt; margin: 0.1pt 0in; mso-para-margin-bottom: .01gd; mso-para-margin-left: 0in; mso-para-margin-right: 0in; mso-para-margin-top: .01gd;"><span style="color: black; font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 14pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 10.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"> </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .1pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: .1pt; margin: 0.1pt 0in; mso-para-margin-bottom: .01gd; mso-para-margin-left: 0in; mso-para-margin-right: 0in; mso-para-margin-top: .01gd;"><span style="color: black; font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 14pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 10.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">Narratives are often contested by hearers, who try to bring the
account down to a less preferred level. A version of bragging contest, or
verbal sparring-- what used to be called "the dirty dozens",
trash-talking as a form of entertainment in the culture of hanging around and
testing reputations.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .1pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: .1pt; margin: 0.1pt 0in; mso-para-margin-bottom: .01gd; mso-para-margin-left: 0in; mso-para-margin-right: 0in; mso-para-margin-top: .01gd;"><span style="color: black; font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 14pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 10.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"> </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .1pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: .1pt; margin: 0.1pt 0in; mso-para-margin-bottom: .01gd; mso-para-margin-left: 0in; mso-para-margin-right: 0in; mso-para-margin-top: .01gd;"><span style="color: black; font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 14pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 10.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">B shot AJ [a 4th Street Boy] at a dice game, resisting being
robbed in front of an audience. B told 6th Street Boys he would rob the game
(in retaliation). This led to 4th Street obligation to ride 6th Street, though
6th Street guys tried to apologize and negotiate. Even enemies know each
other's cell phone numbers, and phone threats to each other.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>That night, someone called 6th Street, and
left a message "it's on." 6th Street guys talked [in Alice's
presence] about need to shoot 4th Street first. But they lived close by so that
they constantly bumped into each other; everyone stayed in and no shooting took
place that night. One guy in the apartment was disgusted, walked out saying
"I'm going to get me some cock." [i.e. pussy, in the street language
reversal]</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .1pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: .1pt; margin: 0.1pt 0in; mso-para-margin-bottom: .01gd; mso-para-margin-left: 0in; mso-para-margin-right: 0in; mso-para-margin-top: .01gd;"><span style="color: black; font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 14pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 10.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"> </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .1pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: .1pt; margin: 0.1pt 0in; mso-para-margin-bottom: .01gd; mso-para-margin-left: 0in; mso-para-margin-right: 0in; mso-para-margin-top: .01gd;"><span style="color: black; font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 14pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 10.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">B's friend N was in jail during the peacemaking; when N got out,
both sides escalated threats again. N called them pussies, "you're
disrespecting me"; pretends to be pulling out a gun, hence he got shot--
in the ass and back. [i.e. running away] 4th Street Boys shot and ran. [a
typical encounter consisting of threats, gestures, wild shots, and getting
away. Most face-to-face violence is adrenaline-stressed and incompetent;
bragging and blustering is the easy part. Randall Collins, <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Violence: A Micro-sociological Theory</i>, 2008 Princeton Univ. Press:]</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .1pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: .1pt; margin: 0.1pt 0in; mso-para-margin-bottom: .01gd; mso-para-margin-left: 0in; mso-para-margin-right: 0in; mso-para-margin-top: .01gd;"><span style="color: black; font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 14pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 10.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"> </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .1pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: .1pt; margin: 0.1pt 0in; mso-para-margin-bottom: .01gd; mso-para-margin-left: 0in; mso-para-margin-right: 0in; mso-para-margin-top: .01gd;"><span style="color: black; font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 14pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 10.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">This incident led to a 4 month peace, brokered by Chuck. The two
street gangs played pool together, although carrying guns. Then X got out, after
having done much talking in jail. "I'm the only one who's riding." X
shot at 4th Street; so 6th Street shot at 4th. Mike's car was shot up, and he
was hit by bullet fragment in face. Mike now began to shoot at 4th Street,
claiming he is riding, but he didn't convince others, since earlier he did not
shoot. 6th Street didn't shoot back, in order to keep the war from continuing. </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .1pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: .1pt; margin: 0.1pt 0in; mso-para-margin-bottom: .01gd; mso-para-margin-left: 0in; mso-para-margin-right: 0in; mso-para-margin-top: .01gd;"><span style="color: black; font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 14pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 10.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"> </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .1pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: .1pt; margin: 0.1pt 0in; mso-para-margin-bottom: .01gd; mso-para-margin-left: 0in; mso-para-margin-right: 0in; mso-para-margin-top: .01gd;"><span style="color: black; font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 14pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 10.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">[<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">I asked Alice about gun
gesturing, as a ritual of defiance in lieu of actual violence.</i>] In a beef,
you can say you're going to get your gun; or make a bulge with your hand in
pocket; or flash a gun by opening your coat; or draw a pistol and point it at
the ground or up in the air. These moves give others time to talk you down:
"No, no, chill, chill." There is often considerable faking during
quarrels inside the group; third parties argue with them, point out their
family ties and long-term friendship. Friendship means blocking other friends
from hotheaded violence: "talk me down."</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .1pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: .1pt; margin: 0.1pt 0in; mso-para-margin-bottom: .01gd; mso-para-margin-left: 0in; mso-para-margin-right: 0in; mso-para-margin-top: .01gd;"><span style="color: black; font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 14pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 10.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"> </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .1pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: .1pt; margin: 0.1pt 0in; mso-para-margin-bottom: .01gd; mso-para-margin-left: 0in; mso-para-margin-right: 0in; mso-para-margin-top: .01gd;"><span style="color: black; font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 14pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 10.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">The original story of Chuck's being shot in the head was that he
was pump-faking with a gun, taken seriously and was shot. Over time the story
morphed into a story about riding.</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .1pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: .1pt; margin: 0.1pt 0in; mso-para-margin-bottom: .01gd; mso-para-margin-left: 0in; mso-para-margin-right: 0in; mso-para-margin-top: .01gd;"><span style="color: black; font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 14pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 10.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"> </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .1pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: .1pt; margin: 0.1pt 0in; mso-para-margin-bottom: .01gd; mso-para-margin-left: 0in; mso-para-margin-right: 0in; mso-para-margin-top: .01gd;"><span style="color: black; font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 14pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 10.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">In sum: Alice describes what can be called a culture of violence,
but especially a culture of talking about violence, narrating and bragging.
Where everyone plays up their own toughness (what Anderson calls "code of
the street'), those who act on it have extra status: there is much gossip about
who is "turned out" or not-- i.e. shifting from being a pussy, to
using a gun in a robbery, to actually killing someone. It is widely known who
killed who; it isn't secret. No one is going to tell the cops; they are no
substitute for providing your own revenge. But the main thing is to look tough;
they often take pictures of themselves with their guns; e.g. Alice had a phone
photo on of a guy with a M-16.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>[<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">end of summary of notes</i>]</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .1pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: .1pt; margin: 0.1pt 0in; mso-para-margin-bottom: .01gd; mso-para-margin-left: 0in; mso-para-margin-right: 0in; mso-para-margin-top: .01gd;"><span style="color: black; font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 14pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 10.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"> </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .1pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: .1pt; margin: 0.1pt 0in; mso-para-margin-bottom: .01gd; mso-para-margin-left: 0in; mso-para-margin-right: 0in; mso-para-margin-top: .01gd;"><span style="color: black; font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 14pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 10.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">Alice said she breathed a sign of relief when she completed her
book and burned her field notes; the courts could no longer subpoena them. She
had some narrow escapes with violence in the ghetto; but this turned out not to
be the worst threat. When her book was published, she was accused of
transporting fugitives, drugs and guns, and conspiring to commit murder. The
accusers were law professors and a so-called "legal ethicist", who
quoted their colleagues in police administration denying they ever put undue
pressure on ghetto residents; in short the legal and extra-legal bureaucracy of
digital surveillance that Alice was protesting against. More damaging to Alice
personally than this attack from the right was an attack from the left:
researchers of color accused her of being a white woman appropriating their
turf, a tourist writing a jungle book.</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .1pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: .1pt; margin: 0.1pt 0in; mso-para-margin-bottom: .01gd; mso-para-margin-left: 0in; mso-para-margin-right: 0in; mso-para-margin-top: .01gd;"><span style="color: black; font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 14pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 10.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"> </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .1pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: .1pt; margin: 0.1pt 0in; mso-para-margin-bottom: .01gd; mso-para-margin-left: 0in; mso-para-margin-right: 0in; mso-para-margin-top: .01gd;"><span style="color: black; font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 14pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 10.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">Alice took it to heart. She had been making speeches, starting
with the black preacher's call-and-response with the audience, laying out the
experience of her friends on the run, now dead or imprisoned, calling for
police reform. Again she was being told, she was not one of us. After leaving
Philly, she had done two years of research in Detroit-- another black city with
a high violence rate, that had economically collapsed and was reverting to
wilderness. To experience what it is like to starve and freeze, when power was
turned off for non-payment, and petty dons extracted extortion over combing
local dumpsters, Alice lived with a poor family, sleeping in the kitchen with
the oven open for warmth. The way to deal with hunger, she reported at an
ethnography conference, is try to be asleep as much as possible. She never
published her social psychology of extreme deprivation;<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>it would have been attacked as one more
jungle book. She started researching race-neutral subjects, such as turning
points in personal lives. </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .1pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: .1pt; margin: 0.1pt 0in; mso-para-margin-bottom: .01gd; mso-para-margin-left: 0in; mso-para-margin-right: 0in; mso-para-margin-top: .01gd;"><span style="color: black; font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 14pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 10.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"> </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .1pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: .1pt; margin: 0.1pt 0in; mso-para-margin-bottom: .01gd; mso-para-margin-left: 0in; mso-para-margin-right: 0in; mso-para-margin-top: .01gd;"><span style="color: black; font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 14pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 10.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">When Alice got her degree from Princeton, she had job offers everywhere.
She took a position at University of Wisconsin. But in 2018 she was denied
tenure. Attacks from left and right were aired; plus vicious attacks from
colleagues who dislike ethnographic research, calling it merely anecdotes,
unscientific in the era of statistics and Big Data. An attack by intellectual
bureaucrats, who think data is only real if it consists of numbers, whether
collected by the police or by interview surveys-- even though these are
increasingly unreliable samples in the era of cell phones and the Internet.
Statistics filter lived reality through pre-existing categories, a standard set
of variables sliced for cutting points to yield some degree of mathematical
significance (professionals refer to such techniques as "massaging the data").<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>In the social sciences, it is the
ethnographers, the field researchers, who make the discoveries, that
statisticians in their offices would never have thought of. This is
particularly true of crime and violence, where concepts reflect the point of
view of politicians and the police. </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .1pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: .1pt; margin: 0.1pt 0in; mso-para-margin-bottom: .01gd; mso-para-margin-left: 0in; mso-para-margin-right: 0in; mso-para-margin-top: .01gd;"><span style="color: black; font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 14pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 10.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"> </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .1pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: .1pt; margin: 0.1pt 0in; mso-para-margin-bottom: .01gd; mso-para-margin-left: 0in; mso-para-margin-right: 0in; mso-para-margin-top: .01gd;"><span style="color: black; font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 14pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 10.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">Alice appears badly hurt by her rejection from those she felt were
on her side. She is a casualty of her commitment: the cost of being a hero of
ethnographic research.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .1pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: .1pt; margin: 0.1pt 0in; mso-para-margin-bottom: .01gd; mso-para-margin-left: 0in; mso-para-margin-right: 0in; mso-para-margin-top: .01gd;"><span style="color: black; font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 14pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 10.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"> </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .1pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: .1pt; margin: 0.1pt 0in; mso-para-margin-bottom: .01gd; mso-para-margin-left: 0in; mso-para-margin-right: 0in; mso-para-margin-top: .01gd;"><i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><span style="color: black; font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 14pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 10.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">Street Gangs vs. Mafia:
discrimination in crime</span></i></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .1pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: .1pt; margin: 0.1pt 0in; mso-para-margin-bottom: .01gd; mso-para-margin-left: 0in; mso-para-margin-right: 0in; mso-para-margin-top: .01gd;"><span style="color: black; font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 14pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 10.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"> </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .1pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: .1pt; margin: 0.1pt 0in; mso-para-margin-bottom: .01gd; mso-para-margin-left: 0in; mso-para-margin-right: 0in; mso-para-margin-top: .01gd;"><span style="color: black; font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 14pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 10.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">Since participant observation builds reliable knowledge by
combining the work of different ethnographers, let us compare Pistone with
Alice Goffman.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The 6th Street Boys
resemble the Mafia in that everything is done in cash. Well, almost everything:
Mafia associates buy and sell fake drivers licences and Social Security cards;
with a thriving market in counterfeit or stolen credit cards. [Pistone 138]
With these credentials, they open bank accounts in fictitious names; they cash
bogus cashiers checks, written on an upstate New York bank where a vice
president on the take OKs them. Mafia soldiers park their real estate and other
property in the names of wives and relatives. They are silent partners in
businesses where their names don't appear on the books; or own legitimate
businesses where they can hang out, always in the independent small business
sector, never in big corporations. (On the streets of Mafia-reputed
neighbourhoods in Brooklyn and Philadelphia, I noticed an absence of chain
stores.) The Mafia, too, is off the books. </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .1pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: .1pt; margin: 0.1pt 0in; mso-para-margin-bottom: .01gd; mso-para-margin-left: 0in; mso-para-margin-right: 0in; mso-para-margin-top: .01gd;"><span style="color: black; font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 14pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 10.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"> </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .1pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: .1pt; margin: 0.1pt 0in; mso-para-margin-bottom: .01gd; mso-para-margin-left: 0in; mso-para-margin-right: 0in; mso-para-margin-top: .01gd;"><span style="color: black; font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 14pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 10.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">How do they make it work? given that they can't sue anybody in
civil court and can't report theft to the police. They have their own
hierarchic structure--- not a business corporation but a political umbrella--
using physical threat internally to deter turf wars and welched deals;
extending the umbrella of protection externally through understandings with the
authorities and fending off the courts with suborned witnesses. A certain
amount of prison time is figured into the system without undermining it.</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .1pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: .1pt; margin: 0.1pt 0in; mso-para-margin-bottom: .01gd; mso-para-margin-left: 0in; mso-para-margin-right: 0in; mso-para-margin-top: .01gd;"><span style="color: black; font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 14pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 10.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"> </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .1pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: .1pt; margin: 0.1pt 0in; mso-para-margin-bottom: .01gd; mso-para-margin-left: 0in; mso-para-margin-right: 0in; mso-para-margin-top: .01gd;"><span style="color: black; font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 14pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 10.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">It is this political structure that street gangs don't have. In
Philadelphia and the East Coast in particular, there are mainly little crews, a
dozen members or so, organized street-by-street or neighbourhood by
neighbourhood. The big alliance gangs (the Crips and Bloods, spreading from the
West Coast); the big quasi-corporate gangs of the vast Chicago housing projects
[studied by another adventurous researcher: Sudhir Venkatesh,<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"> Off the Books. </i>2006, Harvard Univ.
Press; <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Gang-leader for a Day.</i> 2008,
Penguin] make an effort to keep the peace by absorbing local gangs into bigger
alliances, or by assigning turf monopolies. Alice Goffman's subject is gangs of
the smallest sort, unable to keep themselves from fighting with similar group a
few streets off. Virtually all of these would-be cartels have been unsuccessful
in keeping the peace among their members; the most successful was the
five-family Commission of the New York mafia. </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .1pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: .1pt; margin: 0.1pt 0in; mso-para-margin-bottom: .01gd; mso-para-margin-left: 0in; mso-para-margin-right: 0in; mso-para-margin-top: .01gd;"><span style="color: black; font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 14pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 10.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .1pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: .1pt; margin: 0.1pt 0in; mso-para-margin-bottom: .01gd; mso-para-margin-left: 0in; mso-para-margin-right: 0in; mso-para-margin-top: .01gd;"><span style="color: black; font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 14pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 10.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">Essentially we have an ethnic story: the Mafia guards itself against
infiltration by requiring Sicilian ancestry (and farming out its dirty work to
contract killers of different ethnicity). The organizational form is
traditional in rural southern Italy, although there too its strongest tentacles
were in the 20th century. One could call it a heritage of feudalism
successfully resisting the bureaucratic state, in Italy as in the USA. [Marco
Santoro, <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Mafia Politics. </i>2022, Polity
Press.] Black poverty ghettos are similarly out of reach of the bureaucratic
state-- what the police scrambing after failure-to-appear fines are trying to
enforce. But such bureaucratic penetration is thin and punitive, not doing
anything positive for making a living in the ghetto. One could see the pattern
as another form of structural racism: indigenous American black gangs don't get
very far in the illegal businesses they work and petty extortion they exact;
white mega-gangs, in cities of heavily immigrant neighbourhoods and local
businesses, survived and prospered by growing a web of collusion through
decentralized markets for stolen goods and illegal services. </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .1pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: .1pt; margin: 0.1pt 0in; mso-para-margin-bottom: .01gd; mso-para-margin-left: 0in; mso-para-margin-right: 0in; mso-para-margin-top: .01gd;"><span style="color: black; font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 14pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 10.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"> </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .1pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: .1pt; margin: 0.1pt 0in; mso-para-margin-bottom: .01gd; mso-para-margin-left: 0in; mso-para-margin-right: 0in; mso-para-margin-top: .01gd;"><span style="color: black; font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 14pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 10.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">Survived, for a while; RICO took down most of the Italian Mafia
around the time Pistone was testifying. Since then, Dominican and Colombian
organizations have taken over the whole-sale drug busines; Russian and
Ukrainian mafias operate in much the same places as the Sicilians a generation
ago. Organized crime remains white; one doesn't hear of blacks being integrated
into its hierarchies. There was an effort in the late 1960s to create a Black
Mafia, in Philadelphia and Washington D.C.; but it aborted in internal wars,
overlaid by splits inside the religious movement of ex-convicts, the Nation of
Islam (Black Muslims), raiding each other's strongholds. [Sean Patrick Griffin,
2003. <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Philadelphia's "Black
Mafia." </i>Kluwer Academic Publ.] In Philadelphia, the Mafia-dominated
Italian neighbourhood south of Center City is notable for the quiet of its
streets; black gangs are wary of going down there. Their violent styles are too
different: Mafia soldiers out-of-line end up in clandestine assassinations;
black crews' display of posturing and threatening boils over into hurried
shoot-outs. Alice's numbers suggest that one is more likely to be killed in a
street gang. But the Mafia is more sinister; and better at keeping the peace
among themselves.<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"></i></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .1pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: .1pt; margin: 0.1pt 0in; mso-para-margin-bottom: .01gd; mso-para-margin-left: 0in; mso-para-margin-right: 0in; mso-para-margin-top: .01gd;"><span style="color: black; font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 14pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 10.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"> </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .1pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: .1pt; margin: 0.1pt 0in; mso-para-margin-bottom: .01gd; mso-para-margin-left: 0in; mso-para-margin-right: 0in; mso-para-margin-top: .01gd;"><span style="color: black; font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 14pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 10.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">Alessandro Orsini. <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Anatomy
of the Red Brigades. The Religious Mind-set of Modern Terrorists. </i><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>2011 [2009] Cornell Univ. Press.</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .1pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: .1pt; margin: 0.1pt 0in; mso-para-margin-bottom: .01gd; mso-para-margin-left: 0in; mso-para-margin-right: 0in; mso-para-margin-top: .01gd;"><span style="color: black; font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 14pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 10.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"> </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .1pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: .1pt; margin: 0.1pt 0in; mso-para-margin-bottom: .01gd; mso-para-margin-left: 0in; mso-para-margin-right: 0in; mso-para-margin-top: .01gd;"><span style="color: black; font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 14pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 10.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">Alessandro Orsini. 2013. "A Day Among<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>the Diehard Terrorists: The Psychological
Costs of Doing Ethnographic Research." <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Studies
in Conflcit and Terrorism</i> 36: 337-351.</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .1pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: .1pt; margin: 0.1pt 0in; mso-para-margin-bottom: .01gd; mso-para-margin-left: 0in; mso-para-margin-right: 0in; mso-para-margin-top: .01gd;"><span style="color: black; font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 14pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 10.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .1pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: .1pt; margin: 0.1pt 0in; mso-para-margin-bottom: .01gd; mso-para-margin-left: 0in; mso-para-margin-right: 0in; mso-para-margin-top: .01gd;"><span style="color: black; font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 14pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 10.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"></span></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhakW8VFV0VgIT9N3sYm4K2p8N0-cEx4zCcbD_BrKv0Y8-hbPFyGerfyAXQMjRdmoDpF3Ar0G7FZFDDHmdQN_5N0pfLOsEmQ69vWRXmg73fk1l1ikwncG0OSG_vLb_rZiMp0Oaatk15c0F2wLa3o571lcT49I_UV3lZ2mz3j1CmdXtGriraAozwNV9_iW1p/s2792/Orsini-RedBrigades.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="2792" data-original-width="1843" height="640" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhakW8VFV0VgIT9N3sYm4K2p8N0-cEx4zCcbD_BrKv0Y8-hbPFyGerfyAXQMjRdmoDpF3Ar0G7FZFDDHmdQN_5N0pfLOsEmQ69vWRXmg73fk1l1ikwncG0OSG_vLb_rZiMp0Oaatk15c0F2wLa3o571lcT49I_UV3lZ2mz3j1CmdXtGriraAozwNV9_iW1p/w422-h640/Orsini-RedBrigades.jpg" width="422" /></a></div><br /> <p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .1pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: .1pt; margin: 0.1pt 0in; mso-para-margin-bottom: .01gd; mso-para-margin-left: 0in; mso-para-margin-right: 0in; mso-para-margin-top: .01gd;"><span style="color: black; font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 14pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 10.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">Orsini, a sociologist in Rome, wanted to interview members of the
Red Brigades in prison, but they refused to talk to him. As a revolutionary
Communist organization, they aimed to keep the revolution alive by spectacular
acts of violence-- 3000 attacks and bombings in the late 1970s. [2009: 263]
They had kidnapped and killed the Prime Minister of Italy, and attacked rich
capitalists as enemies of the workers. They particularly hated reformers who
were making things better-- they killed a university professor in his office
for trying to improve conditions in prisons, undermining their<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>chief weapon, hatred of oppression. In the
late 1990s and early 2000s, the group revived, released from prison and
recruiting new members. The killings resumed. After killing a professor of
labor law, they shouted during their trial from their cages: "[he] is a
murderer of workers... [he] represents capitalism, he is the executor of the system
and we will perform the duty of ridding ourselves of this system." Another
shouted: "If you don't kill, you're not going anywhere, you won't change
anything." [2013: 338] </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .1pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: .1pt; margin: 0.1pt 0in; mso-para-margin-bottom: .01gd; mso-para-margin-left: 0in; mso-para-margin-right: 0in; mso-para-margin-top: .01gd;"><span style="color: black; font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 14pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 10.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"> </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .1pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: .1pt; margin: 0.1pt 0in; mso-para-margin-bottom: .01gd; mso-para-margin-left: 0in; mso-para-margin-right: 0in; mso-para-margin-top: .01gd;"><span style="color: black; font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 14pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 10.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">Orsini wanted to develop a theory about why terrorists kill, to
understand their daily life and how they think. But since such groups cannot be
studied through participant observation, he decided to use documents produced
by the group itself: trial affidavits; statements claiming responsibility for
assaults, kidnappings, and killings; commemorations of Red Brigadists killed by
the police; letters written in prison; leaflets and slogans in factories or
graffiti on walls. [2009: 285-6] </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .1pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: .1pt; margin: 0.1pt 0in; mso-para-margin-bottom: .01gd; mso-para-margin-left: 0in; mso-para-margin-right: 0in; mso-para-margin-top: .01gd;"><span style="color: black; font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 14pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 10.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"> </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .1pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: .1pt; margin: 0.1pt 0in; mso-para-margin-bottom: .01gd; mso-para-margin-left: 0in; mso-para-margin-right: 0in; mso-para-margin-top: .01gd;"><span style="color: black; font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 14pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 10.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">But when his book was published in Italian in 2009, he thought of
a new strategy to get them to talk to him as more were released from prison:
"I would meet them by doing what the terrorists themselves are experts at
doing when they are preparing to kill their victims: secretly trailing and
observing them." [2013: 340] He began by using Google Alert to collect
links; he found publishing houses printing their autobiographies, a radio
station in Rome airing their views. A newsletter announced a book launch by a
member released after 32 years in prison; Orisini decided to attend. </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .1pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: .1pt; margin: 0.1pt 0in; mso-para-margin-bottom: .01gd; mso-para-margin-left: 0in; mso-para-margin-right: 0in; mso-para-margin-top: .01gd;"><span style="color: black; font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 14pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 10.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"> </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .1pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: .1pt; margin: 0.1pt 0in; mso-para-margin-bottom: .01gd; mso-para-margin-left: 0in; mso-para-margin-right: 0in; mso-para-margin-top: .01gd;"><span style="color: black; font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 14pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 10.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">It was held on the outdoor courtyard of a community center in the
Rome suburbs on a beautiful summer day. It was easy to walk in; Orisini took
the precaution of parking his car a mile away so he could arrive by bus. About
40 people were gathering, chatting. How to talk to them without appearing
intrusive or inquisitive? He started by buying a copy of the terrorist's book,
persuading the vendor to give him a bigger discount, displaying his zeal and
perhaps making an impression of having little money. The book had a photo but
30 years out of date; which one of these people was the author? Orsini asked
the vendor to point him out so he might ask for an autograph. Putting on a big
smile (ethnography books said you should strive to be liked by the person you
want to study), he got a smile in return and a handshake from the author.
Orsini pretended to rummage in his backpack for a pen, then asked the terrorist
if he could see him at the end of his presentation. "Of course," he
replied in a friendly tone, "we can have a chat and get to know each
other." [341]</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .1pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: .1pt; margin: 0.1pt 0in; mso-para-margin-bottom: .01gd; mso-para-margin-left: 0in; mso-para-margin-right: 0in; mso-para-margin-top: .01gd;"><span style="color: black; font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 14pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 10.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"> </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .1pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: .1pt; margin: 0.1pt 0in; mso-para-margin-bottom: .01gd; mso-para-margin-left: 0in; mso-para-margin-right: 0in; mso-para-margin-top: .01gd;"><span style="color: black; font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 14pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 10.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">The man had been convicted of killing a fellow terrorist on the
prison exercise yard, for having for talked to the police under torture. He was
held down by six inmates and strangled. Orsini had shaken a hand that had been
around the victim's neck. </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .1pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: .1pt; margin: 0.1pt 0in; mso-para-margin-bottom: .01gd; mso-para-margin-left: 0in; mso-para-margin-right: 0in; mso-para-margin-top: .01gd;"><span style="color: black; font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 14pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 10.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"> </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .1pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: .1pt; margin: 0.1pt 0in; mso-para-margin-bottom: .01gd; mso-para-margin-left: 0in; mso-para-margin-right: 0in; mso-para-margin-top: .01gd;"><span style="color: black; font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 14pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 10.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">Not wanting to be hasty, Orsini now wandered through the crowd,
holding the book with the cover facing out, looking for other Red Brigades
members. He saw a woman (here called "Maria"), about age 50, greet
the author like old friends. A little later, Maria was chatting with another
man; Orsini excused himself and asked, when will the presentation begin? This
led to a conventional exchange about how nothing ever starts on time at such
events. Maria was in a chatty mood, and after a few words about the book in his
hand, Orsini asked if there were any other Red Brigades members present besides
the author. She said proudly: "The entire Roman column of the Red Brigades
is here!" Drawn in by the warmth of their interaction, Orsini "decided
to exploit her vanity and asked her if she personally knew any Red Brigades
members: "Of course I know them. I know them all!" [Feeling he was
making a mistake but thinking it might be his only opportunity] "I asked,
in the voice of those who express enthusiasm at the ideal of shaking the hand
of a terrorist: "Do you really know them? Could you introduce me to one of
them?" Maria looked at me and remained silent before replying dryly:
"You don't introduce some people to the first comer." She moved away.
[342-3] </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .1pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: .1pt; margin: 0.1pt 0in; mso-para-margin-bottom: .01gd; mso-para-margin-left: 0in; mso-para-margin-right: 0in; mso-para-margin-top: .01gd;"><span style="color: black; font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 14pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 10.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"> </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .1pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: .1pt; margin: 0.1pt 0in; mso-para-margin-bottom: .01gd; mso-para-margin-left: 0in; mso-para-margin-right: 0in; mso-para-margin-top: .01gd;"><span style="color: black; font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 14pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 10.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">The talk began and the tone became very serious. In the question
period, Orsini decided to reveal his identity: taking the microphone, he
explained he was a sociologist, and offered a general remark about poverty as
the cause of terrorism. Afterwards, the author remained friendly; said he would
like to hear a sociologist's opinion of his book; and suggested they exchange
phone numbers. Warily, Orsini said he would contact him: "I wanted to be
in control, deciding when and how the meeting would take place." [343]</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .1pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: .1pt; margin: 0.1pt 0in; mso-para-margin-bottom: .01gd; mso-para-margin-left: 0in; mso-para-margin-right: 0in; mso-para-margin-top: .01gd;"><span style="color: black; font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 14pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 10.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"> </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .1pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: .1pt; margin: 0.1pt 0in; mso-para-margin-bottom: .01gd; mso-para-margin-left: 0in; mso-para-margin-right: 0in; mso-para-margin-top: .01gd;"><span style="color: black; font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 14pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 10.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">Maria, however was hostile and suspicious. She had read a review
of Orsini's book: "You wrote a lot of crap about us... Who's paying you to
write this shit?" Her body posture was defensive, armed crossed and
speaking without looking him in the eyes. But the courtyard was full of
cheerful people. Maria walked away. Orsini went into the tiny toilet to write
his notes. Back home, he thought about his mistake: not checking out what they
knew about him. Entering his own name in Google, "I suddenly discovered
that my name was circulating in the world of extreme left-wing terrorism, where
it was held in contempt." [344]</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .1pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: .1pt; margin: 0.1pt 0in; mso-para-margin-bottom: .01gd; mso-para-margin-left: 0in; mso-para-margin-right: 0in; mso-para-margin-top: .01gd;"><span style="color: black; font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 14pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 10.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"> </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .1pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: .1pt; margin: 0.1pt 0in; mso-para-margin-bottom: .01gd; mso-para-margin-left: 0in; mso-para-margin-right: 0in; mso-para-margin-top: .01gd;"><span style="color: black; font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 14pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 10.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">But he had the invitation of the terrorist author
["Antonio"]<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>to meet and talk.
Orsini began to find himself full of moral qualms and physical anxiety. As an
ethnographer, he had to make himself liked by his subjects; how could he be
friendly with a diehard murderer, who declared the violent attack on capitalism
and its collaborators must go on? And professors were being killed-- reformers were
especially disliked [also they were relatively easy targets; the
micro-sociology of successful violence hinges to a large extent on finding a
weak victim; Collins 2008] </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .1pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: .1pt; margin: 0.1pt 0in; mso-para-margin-bottom: .01gd; mso-para-margin-left: 0in; mso-para-margin-right: 0in; mso-para-margin-top: .01gd;"><span style="color: black; font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 14pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 10.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"> </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .1pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: .1pt; margin: 0.1pt 0in; mso-para-margin-bottom: .01gd; mso-para-margin-left: 0in; mso-para-margin-right: 0in; mso-para-margin-top: .01gd;"><span style="color: black; font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 14pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 10.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">Orsini decided to make himself an object of sociological study. He
recorded a series of nine dreams, nightmares scrambling the details of murders
the Red Brigades had committed-- disguished as a postman; four against one
bursting through the door of the professor's office, forcing him to kneel and
be shot in the head. "I park my motorbike in the garage. An unknown voice
shouts my name from the stairs... In my living room are two men dressed in
black who look me in the eyes. They walk towards me. I awake with a
start." [346]</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .1pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: .1pt; margin: 0.1pt 0in; mso-para-margin-bottom: .01gd; mso-para-margin-left: 0in; mso-para-margin-right: 0in; mso-para-margin-top: .01gd;"><span style="color: black; font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 14pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 10.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"> </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .1pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: .1pt; margin: 0.1pt 0in; mso-para-margin-bottom: .01gd; mso-para-margin-left: 0in; mso-para-margin-right: 0in; mso-para-margin-top: .01gd;"><span style="color: black; font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 14pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 10.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">After a month the dreams suddenly stopped. Orsini renews his counter-stalking
tactics. Investigating the publisher of the terrorist's book, he makes friendly
contact and gets his e-mail address. They agree to meet in a public place in a
few weeks. "To minimize the possibility of making mistakes, I began to
live my life imagining that I was being followed and that my phone was
tapped... For two days, I was beset with contrasting thoughts: should I cancel
the appointment?.. On Wednesday I woke up early. I had no nightmares. The idea
of acquiring new materials for my sociological research thrilled me... A few
hours later, Antonio and I were facing one another." [348-49]</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .1pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: .1pt; margin: 0.1pt 0in; mso-para-margin-bottom: .01gd; mso-para-margin-left: 0in; mso-para-margin-right: 0in; mso-para-margin-top: .01gd;"><span style="color: black; font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 14pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 10.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"> </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .1pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: .1pt; margin: 0.1pt 0in; mso-para-margin-bottom: .01gd; mso-para-margin-left: 0in; mso-para-margin-right: 0in; mso-para-margin-top: .01gd;"><span style="color: black; font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 14pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 10.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">Orsini already knew a lot about how Red Brigade terrorists live
their everyday lives. Doing the research for his recently published book, he
knew that they considered themselves "accelerators of history"-- that
violence was their sacred mission for keeping communist revolution alive in
times when police pressure was intense and the labor movement had sold out to
reformers. They had become fanatical believers, either as workers or as
students, like extreme religious sects of the past. But most such revolutionary
sects had faded in a few years (the Weather Underground from American
university campuses in 1968-70; the bank-robbing Baader-Meinhof group in Germany).
How did the Red Brigades carry out such extensive violence, and keep up
commitment for such a long time? The ideologies were similar; but the Red
Brigades made their ideology a living force, every moment of the day. Orsini's
chapter, "Daily Life in a Revolutionary Sect," explains how. </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .1pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: .1pt; margin: 0.1pt 0in; mso-para-margin-bottom: .01gd; mso-para-margin-left: 0in; mso-para-margin-right: 0in; mso-para-margin-top: .01gd;"><span style="color: black; font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 14pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 10.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"> </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .1pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: .1pt; margin: 0.1pt 0in; mso-para-margin-bottom: .01gd; mso-para-margin-left: 0in; mso-para-margin-right: 0in; mso-para-margin-top: .01gd;"><span style="color: black; font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 14pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 10.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">Living underground, you take on a new life. You cut off all
relation with your family, with your children if you have any. You have no
relations with anyone outside the Red Brigades. No friendships, no amusements.
"All links with the outside world would be dangerous, so it means that
love affairs had to be created inside the organization." [*] "You
spend your days with the nightmare of being recognized or running into an
informer." To maintain discipline and maximal focus, everyone lives in an
apartment with several others. "It is impossible to escape the
group." You are living a double life, with an assumed identity to the
world. Slip-ups are dangerous; every detail of your act must be consistent. If
you assume the role of a repairman, for instance, you have to leave home before
eight in the morning and not return until twelve-thirty [i.e. Italian lunch
hours], leave again at two and not return until seven or later. Everything is
prescribed: noises to avoid so as not to raise neighbours' suspicions, how to
do the shopping or buy newspapers. How to look in the rearview mirror.
"Dressing, combing your hair, tending your beard, nothing escapes the
all-seeing eye of the revolutionary sect." [49-51] </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .1pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: .1pt; margin: 0.1pt 0in; mso-para-margin-bottom: .01gd; mso-para-margin-left: 0in; mso-para-margin-right: 0in; mso-para-margin-top: .01gd;"><span style="color: black; font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 14pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 10.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"> </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .1pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: .1pt; margin: 0.1pt 0in; mso-para-margin-bottom: .01gd; mso-para-margin-left: 0in; mso-para-margin-right: 0in; mso-para-margin-top: .01gd;"><span style="color: black; font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 14pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 10.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">[* Also the practice in other secretive organizations. A
sociologist in the CIA was told during orientation that the persons they might
marry were those in the room. Bridget Nolan. 2013. <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Information Sharing in the US Intelligence Community.</i> PhD
dissertation, Univ. of Pennsylvania]</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .1pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: .1pt; margin: 0.1pt 0in; mso-para-margin-bottom: .01gd; mso-para-margin-left: 0in; mso-para-margin-right: 0in; mso-para-margin-top: .01gd;"><span style="color: black; font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 14pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 10.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"> </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .1pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: .1pt; margin: 0.1pt 0in; mso-para-margin-bottom: .01gd; mso-para-margin-left: 0in; mso-para-margin-right: 0in; mso-para-margin-top: .01gd;"><span style="color: black; font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 14pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 10.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">"What was incredibly stressful was having always to check
everything. Have you taken your gun? Is it loaded? Have you got your identity
documents? Have you put on your sham spectacles? Have you looked out the window
before going out? Have you enough gas in the car? Have you unlocked it to get
in after the action? Who the hell are those three in that car? Is that a police
aerial? What do they look like? Have you changed your bus? And don't lift your
arm to hang onto the strap because you can see the gun bulge. Who's that guy
with a shoulder bag who's just gotten on? Is he a cop? See if he pays for a
ticket. Have you done your shopping far enough from home or did you get
lazy?" [49-50] </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .1pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: .1pt; margin: 0.1pt 0in; mso-para-margin-bottom: .01gd; mso-para-margin-left: 0in; mso-para-margin-right: 0in; mso-para-margin-top: .01gd;"><span style="color: black; font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 14pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 10.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"> </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .1pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: .1pt; margin: 0.1pt 0in; mso-para-margin-bottom: .01gd; mso-para-margin-left: 0in; mso-para-margin-right: 0in; mso-para-margin-top: .01gd;"><span style="color: black; font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 14pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 10.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">Of course, not every day you are taking part in a killing; but
your real work everyday is advancing such an action: shadowing your target,
noting their routine. "Before being killed, Marco Biagi was the subject of
a very careful study. For months, all his habits were set down in a document of
17 pages. The Red Brigades recorded and analyzed every movement of their
victim, including the time needed to chain up his bicycle at the train station.
There are 21 possibilities indicated for eliminating him, divided into three
plans... It is not only for organizational reasons that the Red Brigades take
so much time to eliminate their victims. They have to train themselves
mentally; before they pull the trigger they have first to dehumanize the enemy;
they have to see him fall a thousand times; they have to get used to seeing him
die before they kill him." [66]<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .1pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: .1pt; margin: 0.1pt 0in; mso-para-margin-bottom: .01gd; mso-para-margin-left: 0in; mso-para-margin-right: 0in; mso-para-margin-top: .01gd;"><span style="color: black; font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 14pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 10.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"> </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .1pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: .1pt; margin: 0.1pt 0in; mso-para-margin-bottom: .01gd; mso-para-margin-left: 0in; mso-para-margin-right: 0in; mso-para-margin-top: .01gd;"><span style="color: black; font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 14pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 10.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">And one lives this routine with a couple of fellow militants, an
isolated cell, a backstage from all the world; where the conversation is an
endless debriefing-- recounting what you did today, questioning each other
about the details, warning where you slipped and left a clue. It is mutual
interrogation, putting pressure on others and thereby increasing pressure on
oneself. It is Lenin's "organizational weapon", the tight underground
self-disciplining cadres of revolution who can keep themselves dedicated,
through failed revolution, exile, prison; keeping oneself always making steps
towards raising revolutionary consciousness. It is the clandestine small-group
self-disciplining that keeps the Bolsheviks going from 1905 until opportunity
opens in 1917. It is Chinese Communist thought-reform, pressuring enemies into
accusing themselves in front of a group; but in this case, intensified into
mutual thought-reform, not just imposed but internalized. Communist revolutionaries
were the most perspicacious practitioners of micro-sociology of their day.</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .1pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: .1pt; margin: 0.1pt 0in; mso-para-margin-bottom: .01gd; mso-para-margin-left: 0in; mso-para-margin-right: 0in; mso-para-margin-top: .01gd;"><span style="color: black; font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 14pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 10.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"> </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .1pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: .1pt; margin: 0.1pt 0in; mso-para-margin-bottom: .01gd; mso-para-margin-left: 0in; mso-para-margin-right: 0in; mso-para-margin-top: .01gd;"><span style="color: black; font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 14pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 10.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">How can Red Brigades keep this up, day after day, year after year,
with little measure of political success? Doesn’t it become fatiguing and
boring? But they have found a way to make it energizing; their conversations
and self-questionings in clandestine apartments are social energy cells. It is
interaction ritual at its most intense; not merely the periodic noisy
gatherings of Durkheimian primitive religion, or of evangelical sects; but
quiet, low-voiced, breathlessly whispered because the outside world must not
hear it. The pressure of being clandestine, the incessant wariness of being
discovered, gives everything you do a tremor of physical excitement. Recall the
ingredients of a successful interaction ritual: bringing the group together;
focusing everyone's attention on the same object; sharing each other's emotions
and thereby intensifying them into what Durkheim called collective
effervescence, maximal bodily and mental coordination so that all believe the
same thought and treat it as the highest morality. [Collins 2004. <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Interaction Ritual Chains.</i> Princeton
Univ. Press.] An additional ingredient is excluding outsiders who might disturb
the circle of attention, of shared emotion and belief. The Red Brigades cells
do all of these things to the most intense degree. They are not a periodic
tribal festival, or a once-a-week prayer and sermon; they are immersed in their
interaction ritual of revolutionary commitment every waking moment, monks
testing each other on the path to sainthood. They are not bored, because that
is an individual emotion, and the group allows no individual emotions. </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .1pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: .1pt; margin: 0.1pt 0in; mso-para-margin-bottom: .01gd; mso-para-margin-left: 0in; mso-para-margin-right: 0in; mso-para-margin-top: .01gd;"><span style="color: black; font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 14pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 10.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"> </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .1pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: .1pt; margin: 0.1pt 0in; mso-para-margin-bottom: .01gd; mso-para-margin-left: 0in; mso-para-margin-right: 0in; mso-para-margin-top: .01gd;"><span style="color: black; font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 14pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 10.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">Durkheim first analyzed the mechanism of interaction ritual in
religious groups; but it applies to any kind of emotion. The Red Brigades work
with the ingredients of fear and hate of the outside world; but above all with
the tension and anxiety of living a clandestine life, not giving themselves
away in any detail, putting this in the center of their attention by constantly
questioning each other about it. In a socially isolated individual this could
become neurotic and self-destructive; but the Red Brigades if anything are the
maximal social support network. Their interaction ritual takes a pervasive,
shared emotion-- clandestine tension and excitement-- and transmutes it into
emotional energy. They become forceful, dedicated, self-righteous in the
extreme. They are the accelerators of history, and everything they do is a step
that reminds them of who they are and where they are going.</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .1pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: .1pt; margin: 0.1pt 0in; mso-para-margin-bottom: .01gd; mso-para-margin-left: 0in; mso-para-margin-right: 0in; mso-para-margin-top: .01gd;"><span style="color: black; font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 14pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 10.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"> </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .1pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: .1pt; margin: 0.1pt 0in; mso-para-margin-bottom: .01gd; mso-para-margin-left: 0in; mso-para-margin-right: 0in; mso-para-margin-top: .01gd;"><span style="color: black; font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 14pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 10.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">Orsini emphasizes that the Red Brigades, unlike some other
militant or religious movements studied by sociologists, are very
theory-oriented; they generally come to the theory of revolution before joining
the group (whereas in most other groups people join for the excitement and
social belonging, and then convert to the belief). The details of how Red
Brigades organize their daily life shows something further: their ideology is
at the center of attention because they talk about it to each other so
frequently. The interaction ritual of mutual interrogation keeps them focused
on it. Their revolutionary ideology is their sacred object-- not an abstract
belief, but as a practice in everything they do. Their underground paranoia of
giving themselves away becomes a source of emotional strength; through constant
interaction ritual they transmute shared emotional stress into dedicated
action. </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .1pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: .1pt; margin: 0.1pt 0in; mso-para-margin-bottom: .01gd; mso-para-margin-left: 0in; mso-para-margin-right: 0in; mso-para-margin-top: .01gd;"><span style="color: black; font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 14pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 10.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"> </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .1pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: .1pt; margin: 0.1pt 0in; mso-para-margin-bottom: .01gd; mso-para-margin-left: 0in; mso-para-margin-right: 0in; mso-para-margin-top: .01gd;"><span style="color: black; font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 14pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 10.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">The Red Brigades operate in a much more difficult social
environment than the New York Mafia or the Sixth Street Boys. The biggest
stress is not the chance of getting killed or imprisoned. The Red Brigades are
far more paranoid (taking this descriptively rather than as a psychiatric
diagnosis; Orisini says they are not mad, even if their beliefs are). The Mafia
dominate their personal environment so much that they can spend their time
drinking and chatting, combining business with pleasure; they don't need to
spend their days shadowing their targets, because so many people are willing to
be lookouts for them. The Philadelphia street gang have a life of dangerous
bravado, but they are the street elite, the trouble-makers and party animals of
the block. The Red Brigades show us that a violent organization can be built on
yet another set of emotional processes. The Mafia and the street gangs have
their times of fun and the glory of local prestige. The Red Brigades have none
of this; but they have manufactured a social mechanism that makes them feel
they are the most righteous people in the world.</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .1pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: .1pt; margin: 0.1pt 0in; mso-para-margin-bottom: .01gd; mso-para-margin-left: 0in; mso-para-margin-right: 0in; mso-para-margin-top: .01gd;"><span style="color: black; font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 14pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 10.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"> </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .1pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: .1pt; margin: 0.1pt 0in; mso-para-margin-bottom: .01gd; mso-para-margin-left: 0in; mso-para-margin-right: 0in; mso-para-margin-top: .01gd;"><span style="color: black; font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 14pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 10.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">Alessandro Orsini. <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Sacrifice.
My Life in a Fascist Militia.</i> 2017. Cornell Univ. Press.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .1pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: .1pt; margin: 0.1pt 0in; mso-para-margin-bottom: .01gd; mso-para-margin-left: 0in; mso-para-margin-right: 0in; mso-para-margin-top: .01gd;"><span style="color: black; font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 14pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 10.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"> </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .1pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: .1pt; margin: 0.1pt 0in; mso-para-margin-bottom: .01gd; mso-para-margin-left: 0in; mso-para-margin-right: 0in; mso-para-margin-top: .01gd;"><span style="color: black; font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 14pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 10.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">Orisini next decided to use his ethnographic technique in a
Fascist militia. The Red Brigades and the so-called Black Brigades had been
enemies for almost a century. Fascist black-shirt squads began soon after the
1917 Russian revolution, to prevent it from happening in Italy by attacking
communist organizers in factories. Italian communists at first were rather
hapless, but with the fall of Mussolini in 1944 they became an equally militant
force on the left. Now the fascists were making a comeback in the 21st century.
</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .1pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: .1pt; margin: 0.1pt 0in; mso-para-margin-bottom: .01gd; mso-para-margin-left: 0in; mso-para-margin-right: 0in; mso-para-margin-top: .01gd;"><span style="color: black; font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 14pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 10.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"> </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .1pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: .1pt; margin: 0.1pt 0in; mso-para-margin-bottom: .01gd; mso-para-margin-left: 0in; mso-para-margin-right: 0in; mso-para-margin-top: .01gd;"><span style="color: black; font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 14pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 10.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">Orsini tried several approaches. He spent 3 years investigating
Italian fascists on the Internet, and tried to get interviews from the national
headquarters of an organization called here by the pseudonym
"Sacrifice." Eventually he located two branches in northern Italy, in
"Mussolini-town" (where fascists traditionally had been strong and
the mayor was sympathetic) and "Lenin-town" (where radical left
movements were strong). Both cities had recent incidents of fascist violence.
In Mussolini-town, during a nighttime street festival, a Sacrifice militant,
strolling with 15 comrades, had gotten into an insult-match with a group of
men; the tough guy spotted his adversary later, broke a bottle and stabbed him
in the eye. He himself had lost an eye in a stadium fight between rival soccer
fans.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>In Lenintown, the head of the
local Sacrifice group had made a pass at a girl in a short skirt; she slapped
his face. A professional boxer, he punched her in the face, causing permanent
damage. [1-5]</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .1pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: .1pt; margin: 0.1pt 0in; mso-para-margin-bottom: .01gd; mso-para-margin-left: 0in; mso-para-margin-right: 0in; mso-para-margin-top: .01gd;"><span style="color: black; font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 14pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 10.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"> </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .1pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: .1pt; margin: 0.1pt 0in; mso-para-margin-bottom: .01gd; mso-para-margin-left: 0in; mso-para-margin-right: 0in; mso-para-margin-top: .01gd;"><span style="color: black; font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 14pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 10.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">"Aren't you afraid of getting close to this type of
person?" Orsini was often asked. "The answer is yes, I'm
frightened.... [but observation] does allow ethnographers to understand the people
they want to study and to decide whether to be frightened of them."
[184-5] To put a specific face on fear, he hung out in a bar across the street
from the Sacrifice office in Lenintown, leaving good tips so he could sit with
his computer watching who came and went. After a while he knew their faces and
their schedules. Recognizing one of the militants going into a gym, Orsini
joined the gym and began working out regularly at the same time. As his
contacts multiplied, Orsini was able to get respected names to vouch for him,
and to join the Sacrifice group in Mussolini-town, and to partipate with the
Lenintown group too.</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .1pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: .1pt; margin: 0.1pt 0in; mso-para-margin-bottom: .01gd; mso-para-margin-left: 0in; mso-para-margin-right: 0in; mso-para-margin-top: .01gd;"><span style="color: black; font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 14pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 10.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"> </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .1pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: .1pt; margin: 0.1pt 0in; mso-para-margin-bottom: .01gd; mso-para-margin-left: 0in; mso-para-margin-right: 0in; mso-para-margin-top: .01gd;"><span style="color: black; font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 14pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 10.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">This is what he found: the Sacrifice headquarters was called a
"pub" in their webpage. It had a billiard table and a bar serving
drinks and cheap sandwichs, paid for the member's dues. The idea was to attract
young people to become members, although Orsini never saw anyone else use it.
Every militant was required to spend Friday, Saturday and Sunday evenings there,
although they also cruised the streets of these lively Italian cities. </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .1pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: .1pt; margin: 0.1pt 0in; mso-para-margin-bottom: .01gd; mso-para-margin-left: 0in; mso-para-margin-right: 0in; mso-para-margin-top: .01gd;"><span style="color: black; font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 14pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 10.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"> </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .1pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: .1pt; margin: 0.1pt 0in; mso-para-margin-bottom: .01gd; mso-para-margin-left: 0in; mso-para-margin-right: 0in; mso-para-margin-top: .01gd;"><span style="color: black; font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 14pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 10.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">Major events were MMA (mixed martial arts) cage fights. Sacrifice
militants were both fans and sometimes participants; they hosted a
European-wide tournament, with neo-nazis and skin-heads from many countries. It
was their united front, turning radical nationalism into a transnational
ideology; Europe being historically a warrior culture, threatened everywhere by
immigrants from the Arab world and Africa. Militants gathered at rock concerts.
Recruitment was from youth who started out as soccer "ultras" or
hooligans, skinhead music fans, all the violent aspects of popular culture. </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .1pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: .1pt; margin: 0.1pt 0in; mso-para-margin-bottom: .01gd; mso-para-margin-left: 0in; mso-para-margin-right: 0in; mso-para-margin-top: .01gd;"><span style="color: black; font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 14pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 10.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"> </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .1pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: .1pt; margin: 0.1pt 0in; mso-para-margin-bottom: .01gd; mso-para-margin-left: 0in; mso-para-margin-right: 0in; mso-para-margin-top: .01gd;"><span style="color: black; font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 14pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 10.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">Sacrifice also has an intellectual side. They spend their dues to
buy books and ran bookstores, carrying hard-to-find books by Mussolini, Hitler,
and other fascist authors from various countries in the 1920s and 30s. A
surprising number of militants had been university students. That these books
were banned added to their appeal; just reading them was an act of defiance. As
an Italian organization, they modeled themselves on ancient Romans. Instead of
the stiff-arm salute (which was banned) they greeted each other by grasping
forearms, like Roman legionaires, and covered themselves in tattoos like Roman
eagles and helmets. </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .1pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: .1pt; margin: 0.1pt 0in; mso-para-margin-bottom: .01gd; mso-para-margin-left: 0in; mso-para-margin-right: 0in; mso-para-margin-top: .01gd;"><span style="color: black; font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 14pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 10.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"> </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .1pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: .1pt; margin: 0.1pt 0in; mso-para-margin-bottom: .01gd; mso-para-margin-left: 0in; mso-para-margin-right: 0in; mso-para-margin-top: .01gd;"><span style="color: black; font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 14pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 10.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">Sacrifice was politically ambitious, aiming to get back into
power. Hence they would not mention Hitler in public, though they admired him;
their website and headquarters were not explicitly called "Fascist"
but "Sacrifice." Italians are not ready to hear our message, Orsini
was told; "the tactic is to gain power through the back door without
making too much noise." [20] It aims to bring in the young, through the
opening of popular culture. "Before destroying the bourgeoisie, it's
necessary to destroy the bourgeois spirit that exists inside each of us."
[25] The emphasis on secrecy, on their inner message known only to the fully
committed, generates clandestine excitement. </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .1pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: .1pt; margin: 0.1pt 0in; mso-para-margin-bottom: .01gd; mso-para-margin-left: 0in; mso-para-margin-right: 0in; mso-para-margin-top: .01gd;"><span style="color: black; font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 14pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 10.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"> </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .1pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: .1pt; margin: 0.1pt 0in; mso-para-margin-bottom: .01gd; mso-para-margin-left: 0in; mso-para-margin-right: 0in; mso-para-margin-top: .01gd;"><span style="color: black; font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 14pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 10.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">Demonstrations and confrontations were focused on image and
publicity. Every week, militants would hand out groceries (bought with their
dues) to the poor; food packages always carried the Sacrifice banner. These
were expressly for the Italian poor, not for Arab and African immigrants. These
events brought a lot of hostility and insults from passers-by and from left
counter-demonstrators.</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .1pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: .1pt; margin: 0.1pt 0in; mso-para-margin-bottom: .01gd; mso-para-margin-left: 0in; mso-para-margin-right: 0in; mso-para-margin-top: .01gd;"><span style="color: black; font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 14pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 10.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"> </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .1pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: .1pt; margin: 0.1pt 0in; mso-para-margin-bottom: .01gd; mso-para-margin-left: 0in; mso-para-margin-right: 0in; mso-para-margin-top: .01gd;"><span style="color: black; font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 14pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 10.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">The central feature of Sacrifice activity, in fact, was dealing
with constant hostility, humiliation and shame. They made this an explicit
ideology: their central value is honor, they keep telling each other; to fight
even when outnumbered, and even against stronger forces. And this was generally
the case: in the food handouts, Orsini observed, 9 or 10 militants were
surrounded by dozens of opponents, and relied on police details assigned to
keep the two groups apart. In a major demonstration where both sides were
present, a video showed 40 Sacrifice militants in a dense phalanx against 400
communists pelting them with stones and bottles. In the melêe, the Fascists
used their belts to hit their opponents-- and possibly each other, Orisini
commenting: "I can no longer distinguish the Fascists from the
communists... [After viewing the video in a Sacrifice meeting] The young
comrades seem full of adrenaline. "Did you see? It was the communists who
attacked! There were many more of them, but our comrades fought with honor! We
were outnumbered, but we didn't retreat!" [135-7] </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .1pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: .1pt; margin: 0.1pt 0in; mso-para-margin-bottom: .01gd; mso-para-margin-left: 0in; mso-para-margin-right: 0in; mso-para-margin-top: .01gd;"><span style="color: black; font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 14pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 10.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"> </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .1pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: .1pt; margin: 0.1pt 0in; mso-para-margin-bottom: .01gd; mso-para-margin-left: 0in; mso-para-margin-right: 0in; mso-para-margin-top: .01gd;"><span style="color: black; font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 14pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 10.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">Sacrifice militants are acutely aware that they are regarded as disgraceful,
insane, or worse. Most girls dislike them; their families warn them against
having anything to do with them. Militants' own families dislike them. Orsini's
own mother was ashamed of his research: "Do you realize how much shame
you're bringing on your family?" [106]<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>Orsini decides to plunge even deeper into the daily experience of being
a fascist, making his own emotional processes a central tool in his research.
In Lenintown, he wears a black T-shit with the fascist symbol, to observe the
reaction. He locks his bicycle to a lamppost a few hundred yards from the
office and walks the rest of the way. He finds a message on the bike:
"Fascist shit, we're following you." What should he do?
"Prompted by fear, your imagination makes you magnify the danger...
Putting a face on your enemies is always reassuring. In the end, I decided not
to say anything to the comrades because that would have set off a fight with
extreme-left groups. My task wasn't to provoke battles but to study them."
[113]</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .1pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: .1pt; margin: 0.1pt 0in; mso-para-margin-bottom: .01gd; mso-para-margin-left: 0in; mso-para-margin-right: 0in; mso-para-margin-top: .01gd;"><span style="color: black; font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 14pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 10.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"> </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .1pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: .1pt; margin: 0.1pt 0in; mso-para-margin-bottom: .01gd; mso-para-margin-left: 0in; mso-para-margin-right: 0in; mso-para-margin-top: .01gd;"><span style="color: black; font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 14pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 10.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">The police chief in Mussolini-town wanted to see him, but Orsini
refused to meet him except in a distant city. "As the days passsed, I had
the impression of being shadowed. I imagined that it was by [the chief's]
agents. I had studied for years how people tail someone to kill them, and I had
also studied the so-called counter-surveillance techniques, that enable you to
know if someone is shadowing you. I had learned a lot about these practices
from interviews I had conducted with extreme-left terrorist groups responsible
for multiple murders. Some of these people used to enter and exit a number of
subway stations before entering the right one. To return home, a person
normally gets on and off the subway just once. A terrorist, before returning to
his hideout, may get on and off the subway a dozen times to discover if he's
being tailed by the police. When he enters and exits the subway car, he looks
around and tries to memorize the faces of the people who enter and exit with
him. </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .1pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: .1pt; margin: 0.1pt 0in; mso-para-margin-bottom: .01gd; mso-para-margin-left: 0in; mso-para-margin-right: 0in; mso-para-margin-top: .01gd;"><span style="color: black; font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 14pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 10.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"> </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .1pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: .1pt; margin: 0.1pt 0in; mso-para-margin-bottom: .01gd; mso-para-margin-left: 0in; mso-para-margin-right: 0in; mso-para-margin-top: .01gd;"><span style="color: black; font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 14pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 10.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">"I had been affected by the paranoia of those living in the
parallel world, especially when violence was about to be carried out. For three
consecutive days, before returning home, I entered and exited various bars and
clothing stores a dozen times. It usually took me a quarter of an hour to walk
from the militia headquarters to my apartment. During those three days, the
journey took more than two hours. And no cop was following me. It wasn't the
police that was my problem." [120-21]</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .1pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: .1pt; margin: 0.1pt 0in; mso-para-margin-bottom: .01gd; mso-para-margin-left: 0in; mso-para-margin-right: 0in; mso-para-margin-top: .01gd;"><span style="color: black; font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 14pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 10.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"> </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .1pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: .1pt; margin: 0.1pt 0in; mso-para-margin-bottom: .01gd; mso-para-margin-left: 0in; mso-para-margin-right: 0in; mso-para-margin-top: .01gd;"><span style="color: black; font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 14pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 10.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">Orsini decided he needed a break; he realized he was entering a
paranoid universe. Since entering Sacrifice, his private life had disappeared.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>He met some personal friends in a bar,
"starting to feel how repressive the lack of female companionship could
be." He had left his bike in a dark alley behind the pub. Unlocking the
chain, he heard a voice behind him, "Hi, Fascist!" </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .1pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: .1pt; margin: 0.1pt 0in; mso-para-margin-bottom: .01gd; mso-para-margin-left: 0in; mso-para-margin-right: 0in; mso-para-margin-top: .01gd;"><span style="color: black; font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 14pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 10.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"> </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .1pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: .1pt; margin: 0.1pt 0in; mso-para-margin-bottom: .01gd; mso-para-margin-left: 0in; mso-para-margin-right: 0in; mso-para-margin-top: .01gd;"><span style="color: black; font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 14pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 10.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">"When I realized I was surrounded, I got on my bike and
grabbed the handlebars, making two mistakes in one move. There are two
fundamental rules if you think you're about to be attacked. The first is to
have both hands free, to protect your face... A punch in the stomach will pass,
but damage to your face remains for life. When you look at yourself in the
morning and see a smashed-up face, you also see the face of the person who hit
you. The second rule when being attacked is to look for an escape route to get
away as quickly as possible. Generally, those who plan an assault expect the
victim to remain motionless and cry out for help. They never imagine the victim
will start running away without saying a word. I broke both rules."<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .1pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: .1pt; margin: 0.1pt 0in; mso-para-margin-bottom: .01gd; mso-para-margin-left: 0in; mso-para-margin-right: 0in; mso-para-margin-top: .01gd;"><span style="color: black; font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 14pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 10.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"> </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .1pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: .1pt; margin: 0.1pt 0in; mso-para-margin-bottom: .01gd; mso-para-margin-left: 0in; mso-para-margin-right: 0in; mso-para-margin-top: .01gd;"><span style="color: black; font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 14pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 10.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">He was on his bicycle, both hands on the handlebars, squeezing the
brakes to keep from falling over. He started to explain he was a professor of
sociology, when a large gob of spit from close range hit his nose and covered
his mouth. "After everyone had left, I got down from the bicycle and started
to spit on the ground, ten, twenty, thirty times with such violence that I felt
a stabbing pain in my ribcage. I swore to myself I wouldn't swallow, to prevent
the spit from ending up in my stomach. I felt an abrupt movement in my gut, and
then I bent over and vomited. After returning home pushing my bike, I realized
that when you remove spit with your finger, the odor remains on your skin and
the saliva forms a sticky coating that has to be washed off with water."
[122-23]</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .1pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: .1pt; margin: 0.1pt 0in; mso-para-margin-bottom: .01gd; mso-para-margin-left: 0in; mso-para-margin-right: 0in; mso-para-margin-top: .01gd;"><span style="color: black; font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 14pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 10.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"> </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .1pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: .1pt; margin: 0.1pt 0in; mso-para-margin-bottom: .01gd; mso-para-margin-left: 0in; mso-para-margin-right: 0in; mso-para-margin-top: .01gd;"><span style="color: black; font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 14pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 10.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">Always the sociologist, Orsini found a lesson in what he was
feeling. He couldn't sleep: his desire for revenge filled his body with
tension. He relived the scene in the dark alley for days thereafter. "My hate
constructed a fantasy world full of violence, in which I beat up those youths,
humiliating them as they had humiliated me.... I wrote down the violent scenes
produced by my imagination in my notebook... Even though in my violent
fantasies I was a superhoero who beat up everyone, I hated my hate because it
filled my days with negative emotions. It took away my smile. I didn't laugh
anymore. As I walked through the streets of Lenintown, I was always tense
because I feared other attacks." [124] Although he was about to be
expelled from Sacrifice as the organization turned against him, he had achieved
an understanding of the emotions at the core of the fascist militants' social
universe.</span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .1pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: .1pt; margin: 0.1pt 0in; mso-para-margin-bottom: .01gd; mso-para-margin-left: 0in; mso-para-margin-right: 0in; mso-para-margin-top: .01gd;"><span style="color: black; font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 14pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 10.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .1pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: .1pt; margin: 0.1pt 0in; mso-para-margin-bottom: .01gd; mso-para-margin-left: 0in; mso-para-margin-right: 0in; mso-para-margin-top: .01gd;"><span style="color: black; font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 14pt; font-weight: normal; mso-bidi-font-size: 10.0pt; mso-bidi-font-weight: bold;">In his waning days,
Orsini reflected on the paradox that the militants glorified violence, but in
fact they mostly participated symbolically and at a distance. Only a few of
them, like the boxer who headed the Lenintown group, did much fighting; they
cheered MMA cage-fighters but remained in the audience. The majority of them
were soldiers who did not fight. What kept them attracted to the organization?
Their ideology blended with their daily practice: focusing on their hatred and
humiliation; realistic about being a despised minority who would lose any
direct fights; getting honor from their willingness to continue against heavy
odds. And punctuating their lives with the excitements of pop culture violence
in athletics, stadiums, and music. Fascism raised entertainment into political
fantasy; where fantasy becomes tinged with enough daily tensions and emotions
to make it real, as lived experience.</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .1pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: .1pt; margin: 0.1pt 0in; mso-para-margin-bottom: .01gd; mso-para-margin-left: 0in; mso-para-margin-right: 0in; mso-para-margin-top: .01gd;"><span style="color: black; font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 14pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 10.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"> </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .1pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: .1pt; margin: 0.1pt 0in; mso-para-margin-bottom: .01gd; mso-para-margin-left: 0in; mso-para-margin-right: 0in; mso-para-margin-top: .01gd;"><span style="color: black; font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 14pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 10.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">Perhaps surprisingly, the neo-fascists appear the most modern, the
most contemporary, of the four cases. The mafia is a relic of patrimonial
politics, the familistic pre-modern state. It flourishes among small
businesses, commodity chains, and everything that is not bureaucratized. Street
gangs form among the excluded of modernity: segments of modern youth culture,
but unable to survive into adulthood. Terrorist cells have learned the power of
endless mutual interrogation, and the clandestine pschology of acting as an
organization of underground executioners. Neo-fascists, although they throw
back to a mythology of warrior-heroes, spring from the breeding-grounds of popular
entertainment and surrogate action-adventure: sports fans acting as violent
auxiliaries at scheduled matches; gyms and exotic martial arts amalgamated into
cage fights; music concerts at their loudest and most combative. Of the four
cases, they are the ones who flourish with the Internet. They are parasites on
the left-revolutionaries; originally formed to combat revolution, they stay
energized as opponents of the left, like a sports league that would fold
without rivalries.</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .1pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: .1pt; margin: 0.1pt 0in; mso-para-margin-bottom: .01gd; mso-para-margin-left: 0in; mso-para-margin-right: 0in; mso-para-margin-top: .01gd;"><span style="color: black; font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 14pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 10.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"> </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .1pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: .1pt; margin: 0.1pt 0in; mso-para-margin-bottom: .01gd; mso-para-margin-left: 0in; mso-para-margin-right: 0in; mso-para-margin-top: .01gd;"><span style="color: black; font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 14pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 10.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">Of the four, the Italian neo-fascists were the least dangerous to
research. Orsini's wounds were psychological; though his post-prison terrorists
would have killed him decades ago. Pistone risked his life; Alice Goffman was
splattered with blood and her friends were killed. Orsini's analysis of the
neo-fascists shows that violence attracts far more fantasy-followers than
real-life killers. Does this in any sense bode well for the future?</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .1pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: .1pt; margin: 0.1pt 0in; mso-para-margin-bottom: .01gd; mso-para-margin-left: 0in; mso-para-margin-right: 0in; mso-para-margin-top: .01gd;"><span style="color: black; font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 14pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 10.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"> </span></p>
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{page:WordSection1;}</style></p>Unknownnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1005085971596877601.post-29682434236822175142023-04-14T09:47:00.000-07:002023-04-14T09:47:46.734-07:00CREDENTIAL INFLATION MAKES COLLEGE DEGREE NOT WORTH THE COST<p class="MsoNormal"> <span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 14.0pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 10.0pt;">Belief in the value of college education
was sacrosanct throughout most of the 20<sup>th</sup> century. In the early
2000s, the question began to be raised whether the payoff in terms of a better-paying
job was worth the cost. For several generations, almost a taboo topic-- <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>but once out in the open, an increasing
percentage of the US population has concluded a college degree is not worth it.</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 14.0pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 10.0pt;"> </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 14.0pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 10.0pt;">The first big hit was the 2008 recession,
when graduates found it hard to get jobs. But even as the economy recovered and
grew, faith in college degrees has steadily declined. </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 14.0pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 10.0pt;"> </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 14.0pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 10.0pt;">In 2013, 53%<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"> </i><span style="mso-bidi-font-style: italic;">of the population—a slim
majority, agreed that a 4-year degree gives “a better chance to get a good job
and earn more income over their lifetime.” In 2023, education-believers had
fallen to 42%, while 56% said it was not worth the cost. Both women and men had
turned negative in the latest survey—even though women had overtaken men in
college enrollments in previous decades. <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The youngest generation was the most negative,
60% of those aged 18-34. Not surprisingly; they are the ones who had to apply
to dozens of schools, a rat-race of test scores, scrambling for grades, and
amassing extra-curricular activities; most not getting into their school of
choice, while paying constantly rising tuition and fees, and burdened with
student-loan debt into middle age. Not to mention the near-impossibility of
buying a house at hugely inflated prices, many still living with their parents;
while all generations now agree that the younger will not enjoy the standard of
living of their parents. </span></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 14.0pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 10.0pt; mso-bidi-font-style: italic;"> </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 14.0pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 10.0pt; mso-bidi-font-style: italic;">The only
demographic that still thinks college has career value are men with a college
degree or higher, who earn over $100,000 a year. They are the only winners in
the tournament. Every level of education—high school, junior college, 4-year
college, M.B.A. or PhD or professional credential in law, medicine, etc.—has value
as an entry ticket to the next level of competition for credentials. The financial
payoff comes when you get to the big time, the Final Four so to speak; striving
through the lower levels is motivated by a combination of American cultural habits
and wishful thinking</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 14.0pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 10.0pt; mso-bidi-font-style: italic;"> </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 14.0pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 10.0pt; mso-bidi-font-style: italic;">The
boom-or-bust pattern of rising education makes more sense in long-term perspective.
For 100 years, the USA has led the world in the proportion of the population in
schools at all levels. In 1900, 6% of the youth cohort finished high school,
and less than 2% had a college degree. High school started taking off in the
1920s, and after a big push in the 1950s to keep kids in school, reached 77% in
1970. Like passing the baton, as high school became commonplace, college
attendance rocketed, jumping to 53% at the end of the 1960s—there was a reason
for all those student protests of the Sixties: they were suddenly a big slice
of the American population. By 2017, 30% over age 24 had a college degree;
another 27% had some years of college. It has been a long-time pattern that
only about half of all college students finish their degree—dropping out of
college has always been prevalent, and still is.</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 14.0pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 10.0pt; mso-bidi-font-style: italic;"> </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 14.0pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 10.0pt; mso-bidi-font-style: italic;">The growing number
of students at all levels has been a process of </span><i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 14.0pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 10.0pt;">credential inflation</span></i><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 14.0pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 10.0pt; mso-bidi-font-style: italic;">. The value of any particular diploma—high school,
college, M.A., PhD—is not constant; it depends on the labor market at the time,
the amount of competition from others who have the same degree. In the 1930s,
only 12% of employers required a college degree for managers; by the late
1960s, it was up to 40%. By the 1990s, an M.B.A. was the preferred degree for managerial
employment; and even police departments were hiring college-educated cops. In
other words, as college attendance has become almost as common as high school, it
no longer conveys much social status. To get ahead in the elite labor market,
one needs advanced and specialized degrees. In the medical professions, the process
of credential-seeking goes on past age 30; for scientists, a PhD needs to be
supplemented by a couple of years in a post-doctoral fellowship, doing grunt-work
in somebody else’s laboratory. In principle, credential inflation has no end in
sight.</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 14.0pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 10.0pt; mso-bidi-font-style: italic;"> </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 14.0pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 10.0pt; mso-bidi-font-style: italic;">An educational
diploma is like money: a piece of paper whose value depends inversely on how
much of it is in circulation. In the monetary world, printing more money reduces
its purchasing power. The same thing happens with turning out more educational
credentials—with one important difference. Printing money is relatively cheap
(and so is the equivalent process of changing banking policies so that more
credit is issued). But minting a college degree is expensive: someone has to
pay for the teachers, the administrators, the buildings, and whatever
entertainments and luxuries (such as sports and student activities) the school
offers—and which make up a big part of its attraction for American students. And
all this degree-printing apparatus has been becoming more expensive over the
decades, far outpacing the amount of monetary inflation since the 1980s. Colleges
and universities (as well as high schools and elementary schools) keep
increasing the proportion of administrators and staff. At the top end of the
college market, the professors who give the school its reputation by their
research command top salaries. </span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 14.0pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 10.0pt; mso-bidi-font-style: italic;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 14.0pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 10.0pt; mso-bidi-font-style: italic;">Credential-minting institutions have been able
to charge whatever they can get away with, because of the high level of competition
among students for admission. Not all families can afford it; but enough of
them can so that schools can charge many multiples of what they charged (in
constant dollars) even 30 years ago. The result has been a huge expansion in
student debt: averaging $38,000 among 45 million borrowers; and including 70%
of all holders of B.A. degrees. Total student debt tripled between 2007 and
2022.</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 14.0pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 10.0pt; mso-bidi-font-style: italic;"> </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 14.0pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 10.0pt; mso-bidi-font-style: italic;">These three
different kinds of inflation reinforce each other: inflation in the amount of
credential currency chasing jobs in the job market; inflation in the cost of
getting a degree; inflation in student debt. We could add grade inflation as a
fourth part of the spiral: intensifying pressure to get into college and if
possible beyond, has motivated students to put pressure on their teachers to
grade more easily; in public schools, to pass them along to the next grade no
matter their performance (retardation in grade, which in the 1900s was common,
has virtually disappeared); in college, GPA-striving has a similar effect.
Grades are higher than ever but the measured value of the contents of
education, ranging from writing skills to how long the course material is
remembered after the course is over <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>is
low (Arum and Roksa 2011, 2014). College degrees are not only inflated as to job-purchasing
power; they are also inflated as a measure of what skills they actually represent.</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 14.0pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 10.0pt; mso-bidi-font-style: italic;"> </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 14.0pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 10.0pt; mso-bidi-font-style: italic;">The remedies
suggested for some of these problems--- such as canceling student debt by
government action—would temporarily relieve some ex-students of the burden of
paying for not-so-valuable degrees. But canceling student debt would not solve
the underlying dynamic of credential inflation, but exacerbate it. If college
education became free (either by government directly picking up the tab; or by canceling
student debts), we can expect even more students to seek higher degrees. If 100%
of the population has a college degree, its advantage on the labor market is
exactly zero; you would have to get some further degree to get a competitive
edge.</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 14.0pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 10.0pt; mso-bidi-font-style: italic;"> </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 14.0pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 10.0pt; mso-bidi-font-style: italic;">Scandals in
college admissions are just one more sign of the pressures corroding the value
of education. College employees collude with wealthy parents to create fake athletic
skills, in a time when students apply to dozens of schools, and even top grades
don’t guarantee admission. Since athletics are a big part of schools’ prestige,
and are considered a legitimate pathway to admission outside the grade-inflation
tournament, it is hardly surprising that some try that side-door entry. There
is not only grade inflation, but inflation in competition over the pseudo-credentials
of extracurricular activites and community service. Efforts at increasing race
and class equity in admissions <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>increase
the pressure among the affluent and the non-minority populations. Since
sociological evidence shows that tests and grades favour children of the higher
classes (whose families provide them with what Bourdieu called cultural capital),
there are moves to eliminate test scores and/or grades as criteria of
admission. What is left may be letters of recommendation and self-extolling
essays--- what we might call “rhetorical inflation”, plus skin color or other
demographic markers; but the result will do nothing to reduce the inflation of
credentials. The underlying hope is that giving everybody a college degree will
somehow bring about social equality. In reality, it will just add another
chapter to the history of credential inflation. </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 14.0pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 10.0pt; mso-bidi-font-style: italic;"> </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 14.0pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 10.0pt; mso-bidi-font-style: italic;">Except for the
small percentage of really good students who will take the tournament all the
way to the most advanced degrees and become well-paid scientists and
professionals, the growing disillusionment with the value of college degrees
will result in more and more people looking for alternative routes to making a
living. The big fortunes of the last 40 years--- the age of information technology—have
been made by entrepreneurs who dropped out to pursue opportunities just opening
up, instead of waiting to finish a degree. The path to fame and fortune is not
monopolized by the education tournament. For the rest of us, finding more immediate
ways of making a living (or living off someone else) will become more
important.</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 14.0pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 10.0pt; mso-bidi-font-style: italic;"> </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 14.0pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 10.0pt; mso-bidi-font-style: italic;">P.S. The advent
of Artificial Intelligence to write students’ papers, and other AI to grade
them (not to mention to write their application essays and read them for
admission) will do nothing to raise the honesty and status of the educational
credential chase.</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 14.0pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 10.0pt; mso-bidi-font-style: italic;"> </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 14.0pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 10.0pt;">References
</span></i><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 14.0pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 10.0pt; mso-bidi-font-style: italic;"></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 14.0pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 10.0pt; mso-bidi-font-style: italic;"> </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 14.0pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 10.0pt; mso-bidi-font-style: italic;">“More Say
Colleges Aren’t Worth the Cost.” </span><i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 14.0pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 10.0pt;">Wall
Street Journal</span></i><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 14.0pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 10.0pt; mso-bidi-font-style: italic;"> April 1, 2023 (NORC-Wall
St. Journal survey)</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 14.0pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 10.0pt; mso-bidi-font-style: italic;"><a href="http://www.bestcolleges.com/research/average-student-loan-debt/">www.bestcolleges.com/research/average-student-loan-debt/</a></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 14.0pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 10.0pt; mso-bidi-font-style: italic;"> U.S. Bureau of
the <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Census </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 14.0pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 10.0pt; mso-bidi-font-style: italic;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 14.0pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 10.0pt; mso-bidi-font-style: italic;">Randall
Collins. 2019. </span><i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 14.0pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 10.0pt;">The
Credential Society.</span></i><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 14.0pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 10.0pt; mso-bidi-font-style: italic;"> 2<sup>nd</sup>
edition.</span><i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 14.0pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 10.0pt;"> </span></i><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 14.0pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 10.0pt; mso-bidi-font-style: italic;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Columbia
Univ. Press. </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto; mso-margin-top-alt: auto;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 14.0pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt;">Richard
Arum and Josipa Roksa. 2011. <i>Academically Adrift: Limited Learning on
College Campuses. </i>Chicago: University of Chicago Press. </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 14.0pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt;">Richard Arum and Josipa Roksa. 2014. <i>Aspiring
Adults Adrift: Tentative Transitions of College Graduates. </i>Chicago: University
of Chicago Press.</span></p>
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{page:WordSection1;}</style></p>Unknownnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1005085971596877601.post-34246707737980927702023-02-26T20:19:00.001-08:002023-02-26T20:19:58.472-08:00THREE POLICE TACTICS LED TO MEMPHIS KILLING OF TYRE NICHOLS<p>
</p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .1pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: .1pt; mso-para-margin-bottom: .01gd; mso-para-margin-left: 0in; mso-para-margin-right: 0in; mso-para-margin-top: .01gd;"><span style="color: black; font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 14.0pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">The fatal beating of Tyre Nichols by a group of Memphis police
officers on January 7, 2023 shows the same patterns as other police atrocities.</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .1pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: .1pt; mso-para-margin-bottom: .01gd; mso-para-margin-left: 0in; mso-para-margin-right: 0in; mso-para-margin-top: .01gd;"><span style="color: black; font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 14.0pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"> </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .1pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: .1pt; mso-para-margin-bottom: .01gd; mso-para-margin-left: 0in; mso-para-margin-right: 0in; mso-para-margin-top: .01gd;"><span style="color: black; font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 14.0pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">Three police tactics and procedures seen in Memphis greatly
increase the risk of cops becoming so aggressive and emotional that they lose
self-control. The result is prolonged violence continuing long after the
suspect is incapacitated; officers making frenzied, loud, even joyous noises
egging each other on; mocking the victim, joking, and bragging about the
incident for almost an hour afterwards. These are all signs of collective
adrenaline surge-- like a group of excited sports fans-- at an adrenaline level
where perception, cognition, and moral restraints are impaired.</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .1pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: .1pt; mso-para-margin-bottom: .01gd; mso-para-margin-left: 0in; mso-para-margin-right: 0in; mso-para-margin-top: .01gd;"><span style="color: black; font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 14.0pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"> </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .1pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: .1pt; mso-para-margin-bottom: .01gd; mso-para-margin-left: 0in; mso-para-margin-right: 0in; mso-para-margin-top: .01gd;"><span style="color: black; font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 14.0pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">The three factors are: </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .1pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: .1pt; mso-para-margin-bottom: .01gd; mso-para-margin-left: 0in; mso-para-margin-right: 0in; mso-para-margin-top: .01gd;"><span style="color: black; font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 14.0pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">(1) Police anonymity: unmarked cars, no uniforms, wearing hoods,
an ominous and threatening self-presentation. </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .1pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: .1pt; mso-para-margin-bottom: .01gd; mso-para-margin-left: 0in; mso-para-margin-right: 0in; mso-para-margin-top: .01gd;"><span style="color: black; font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 14.0pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">(2) Large numbers of officers on the scene-- the crowd-multiplier
of violence.</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .1pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: .1pt; mso-para-margin-bottom: .01gd; mso-para-margin-left: 0in; mso-para-margin-right: 0in; mso-para-margin-top: .01gd;"><span style="color: black; font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 14.0pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">(3) Rumor transmission among police and support personnel,
amplifying false beliefs about the dangerousness of the suspect. </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .1pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: .1pt; mso-para-margin-bottom: .01gd; mso-para-margin-left: 0in; mso-para-margin-right: 0in; mso-para-margin-top: .01gd;"><span style="color: black; font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 14.0pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"> </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .1pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: .1pt; mso-para-margin-bottom: .01gd; mso-para-margin-left: 0in; mso-para-margin-right: 0in; mso-para-margin-top: .01gd;"><span style="color: black; font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 14.0pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">(1) A pair of cops driving an unmarked car stop Tyre Nichols in
the dark for an unspecified traffic violation-- "driving recklessly"
in the initial report. It is a high-crime area in a city with a very high
murder rate. The cops are part of a special unit, ominously titled SCORPION,
proclaiming their intention to fight fire with fire. The officer who approaches
Nichols' car (Haley) is wearing all-black clothes, a black hoody, and displays
no police insignia. * </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .1pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: .1pt; mso-para-margin-bottom: .01gd; mso-para-margin-left: 0in; mso-para-margin-right: 0in; mso-para-margin-top: .01gd;"><span style="color: black; font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 14.0pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"> </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .1pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: .1pt; mso-para-margin-bottom: .01gd; mso-para-margin-left: 0in; mso-para-margin-right: 0in; mso-para-margin-top: .01gd;"><span style="color: black; font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 14.0pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">* In a similar incident on January 4<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>(3 nights earlier in the same
neighbourhood)<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>22-year-old Monterrious
Harris while visiting a cousin "was suddenly swarmed by a large group of
assailants wearing black ski-masks, dressed in black clothing, brandishing guns
and other weapons, hurling expletives and making threats to end his life if he
did not exit his car." According to his lawsuit, "Harris thought the
men were trying to rob him, and tried to back up his car... He then reluctantly
exited with his hands raised and was grabbed, punched, kicked and assaulted for
up to two minutes." He was arrested for being a convicted felon in
possession of a handgun, criminal trespass, and evading arrest; the lawsuit
accuses officers of fabricating the charges. [Associated Press, Feb. 9, 2023]
Details are unverified at this time, but the incident suggests what an
anonymous police stop by SCORPION looked like from the point of view of the
victim.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .1pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: .1pt; mso-para-margin-bottom: .01gd; mso-para-margin-left: 0in; mso-para-margin-right: 0in; mso-para-margin-top: .01gd;"><span style="color: black; font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 14.0pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"> </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .1pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: .1pt; mso-para-margin-bottom: .01gd; mso-para-margin-left: 0in; mso-para-margin-right: 0in; mso-para-margin-top: .01gd;"><span style="color: black; font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 14.0pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">Officer Haley did not have his body camera on, but he was on a
phone call at the time of the stop and was overheard cursing at Nichols,
without telling him why he was being stopped or that he was under arrest.
Nichols initially would not leave his car. He had no police record, and was a
Fedex worker on his way home from his shift. Other officers (already on the
scene, or soon arriving) pulled him from the car and beat him. After he was
subdued, an officer used a Taser on him. Nichols broke free (more on this
below), setting off a chase on foot. He lived just a few blocks away, and
according to his cries, was trying to reach his mother to protect him from the
assault.</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .1pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: .1pt; mso-para-margin-bottom: .01gd; mso-para-margin-left: 0in; mso-para-margin-right: 0in; mso-para-margin-top: .01gd;"><span style="color: black; font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 14.0pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"> </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .1pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: .1pt; mso-para-margin-bottom: .01gd; mso-para-margin-left: 0in; mso-para-margin-right: 0in; mso-para-margin-top: .01gd;"><span style="color: black; font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 14.0pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">(2) There were at least two police cars at the initial traffic
stop. This would be in keeping with SCORPION organization in 4-to-10 person
teams. Officer Hemphill (the only white officer among those identified) drove
with Haley, used a Taser on Nichols, and on a body camera recording is heard
saying "I hope they stomp his ass." At the second scene, after
Nichols is recaptured and severely beaten, there are at least 5 officers taking
part, including Haley and several others from the traffic stop; plus further
officers called to the scene. Video shows "a number of other officers
standing around after the beating." Altogether thirteen persons have been
charged: including 3 emergency medical technicians who connived with the
assaulting officers, acting more like a cheering section; 10 Memphis police or
sheriff deputies. </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .1pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: .1pt; mso-para-margin-bottom: .01gd; mso-para-margin-left: 0in; mso-para-margin-right: 0in; mso-para-margin-top: .01gd;"><span style="color: black; font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 14.0pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"> </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .1pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: .1pt; mso-para-margin-bottom: .01gd; mso-para-margin-left: 0in; mso-para-margin-right: 0in; mso-para-margin-top: .01gd;"><span style="color: black; font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 14.0pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">Officers acted throughout as teams, pulling and restraining
Nichols; egging each other on to further attacks; holding and moving him bodily
into position for further beatings. Usually only two or three at a time; but
the crowd-multiplier increases with the number of bystanders, providing vocal
encouragement and heightening the emotional mood.</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .1pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: .1pt; mso-para-margin-bottom: .01gd; mso-para-margin-left: 0in; mso-para-margin-right: 0in; mso-para-margin-top: .01gd;"><span style="color: black; font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 14.0pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"> </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .1pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: .1pt; mso-para-margin-bottom: .01gd; mso-para-margin-left: 0in; mso-para-margin-right: 0in; mso-para-margin-top: .01gd;"><span style="color: black; font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 14.0pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">Look at the time-line: Nichols was stopped around 8 p.m. Haley
pulls him from the car. Nichols says "I didn't do anything" as a
group of officers begin to wrestle him to the ground. One officer yells
"Tase him! Tase him!" Nichols calmly says, "OK, I'm on the
ground." Video shows he is passive.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>"You guys are doing a lot right now. I'm just trying to go
home." Shortly after, he yells "Stop, I'm not doing anything."
An officer fires a Taser while the others back off temporarily; Nichols breaks
free and runs off. This enrages the cops, who chase after him, calling for more
backup. They catch up with him a few blocks away (within a couple of minutes).
A pole camera video shows "two officers standing over Nichols and striking
him as he lies on the street. As he tries to get to his feet, a third officer
kicks him in the head. Nichols resists the officers, and a fourth strikes him
as he is brought to his feet. One of the officers then repeatedly swings and
strikes Nichols in the head with his fist while other officers hold Nichols'
arms back before he falls to the ground. Officers restrain his hands behind his
back, then drag and prop him up beside a police vehicle." [WSJ, AP, NY
Times, Jan. 28]</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .1pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: .1pt; mso-para-margin-bottom: .01gd; mso-para-margin-left: 0in; mso-para-margin-right: 0in; mso-para-margin-top: .01gd;"><span style="color: black; font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 14.0pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"> </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .1pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: .1pt; mso-para-margin-bottom: .01gd; mso-para-margin-left: 0in; mso-para-margin-right: 0in; mso-para-margin-top: .01gd;"><span style="color: black; font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 14.0pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">"Three officers surround Nichols as he lies in the street
cornered between police cars with a fourth officer nearby. Two officers hold
Nichols to the ground as he moves about, and then a third appears to kick him
in the head. Nichols slumps more fully onto the pavement with all three officers
surrounding him. The same officer kicks him again. The fourth officer then
walks over, unfurls a baton and holds it up to shoulder level as two officers
hold Nichols upright. "I'm going to baton the shit out of you," one
officer can be heard saying. His body camera shows him raise his baton while at
least one other officer holds Nichols. The officer strikes Nichols on the back
with the baton three times. The other officers than hoist Nichols to his feet,
with him flopping like a doll, barely able to stay upright. An officer than
punches him in the face, as the officer with the baton continues to menace him.
Nichols stumbles and turns, still held up by two officers. The officer who
punched him then walks around to Nichols' front and punches him three more
times. Then Nichols collapses.</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .1pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: .1pt; mso-para-margin-bottom: .01gd; mso-para-margin-left: 0in; mso-para-margin-right: 0in; mso-para-margin-top: .01gd;"><span style="color: black; font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 14.0pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"> </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .1pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: .1pt; mso-para-margin-bottom: .01gd; mso-para-margin-left: 0in; mso-para-margin-right: 0in; mso-para-margin-top: .01gd;"><span style="color: black; font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 14.0pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">"Two officers can then be seen atop Nichols on the ground,
with a third nearby for about 40 seonds. Three more officers then run up and
one can be seen kicking Nichols on the ground." [Bystanders joining in at
the end.] </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .1pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: .1pt; mso-para-margin-bottom: .01gd; mso-para-margin-left: 0in; mso-para-margin-right: 0in; mso-para-margin-top: .01gd;"><span style="color: black; font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 14.0pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">"Recording showed police beating Nichols for three minutes
while screaming profanities throughout the attack."</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .1pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: .1pt; mso-para-margin-bottom: .01gd; mso-para-margin-left: 0in; mso-para-margin-right: 0in; mso-para-margin-top: .01gd;"><span style="color: black; font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 14.0pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"> </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .1pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: .1pt; mso-para-margin-bottom: .01gd; mso-para-margin-left: 0in; mso-para-margin-right: 0in; mso-para-margin-top: .01gd;"><span style="color: black; font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 14.0pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">In the aftermath, the cops are still pumped."Videos showed
officers leaving him on the pavement propped against a squad car as they
fist-bumped and celebrated."<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>A
police call describing a "person who had been pepper-sprayed" led to
emergency medical responders arriving about 10 minutes later (8.41pm); the EMTs
did little but join in the celebration, summoning an ambulance which arrived at
8.55 and left for the hospital at 9.08. Apparently they bought the cops'
version of what happened. During this period "Haley took photos with his
cell phone as [Nichols] lay propped against the police car, and sent them to
other officers and a female acquaintance... Officers shouted profanities at
Nichols, laughing after the beating, and bragging about their
involvement."<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>This was the same
atmosphere as in the beating of Rodney King by the LAPD in 1991: 21 officers ringed
the captured car, cheering while four of them did the beating. Driving back to
the station, police radio traffic boasted "we really hit some home runs
out there tonight, didn't we?" (Rodney King worked at Dodger stadium.)
[Collins 2008: 88-90] </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .1pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: .1pt; mso-para-margin-bottom: .01gd; mso-para-margin-left: 0in; mso-para-margin-right: 0in; mso-para-margin-top: .01gd;"><span style="color: black; font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 14.0pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"> </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .1pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: .1pt; mso-para-margin-bottom: .01gd; mso-para-margin-left: 0in; mso-para-margin-right: 0in; mso-para-margin-top: .01gd;"><span style="color: black; font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 14.0pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">(3) Rumor transmission in the police network:</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .1pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: .1pt; mso-para-margin-bottom: .01gd; mso-para-margin-left: 0in; mso-para-margin-right: 0in; mso-para-margin-top: .01gd;"><span style="color: black; font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 14.0pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"> </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .1pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: .1pt; mso-para-margin-bottom: .01gd; mso-para-margin-left: 0in; mso-para-margin-right: 0in; mso-para-margin-top: .01gd;"><span style="color: black; font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 14.0pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">In initial police reports "at least two officers said that
Nichols tried to grab an officer's gun-- a claim for which there is no
evidence, according to the documents, while leaving out details of the
beating." (NYT Feb. 8, 2023) </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .1pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: .1pt; mso-para-margin-bottom: .01gd; mso-para-margin-left: 0in; mso-para-margin-right: 0in; mso-para-margin-top: .01gd;"><span style="color: black; font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 14.0pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"> </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .1pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: .1pt; mso-para-margin-bottom: .01gd; mso-para-margin-left: 0in; mso-para-margin-right: 0in; mso-para-margin-top: .01gd;"><span style="color: black; font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 14.0pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">This is a standard cliché. In the telling, it is typical to
exaggerate the amount of threat posed by the suspect, if there is any hitch at
all at the outset. In the same way, large numbers of officers called to a
potential suicide-- a man threatening to jump from a freeway overpass; or holed
up inside a house-- gets amplified as the report goes around by radio traffic,
dispatchers, and word of mouth to those called to the scene. A possible</span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 14.0pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 10.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"> suicide attempt drops out the
"maybe" and adds the cliché that the suspect may be dangerous; <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>morphing into armed and dangerous; morphing
into armed and swearing not to go out without taking someone else with him. In
1998, a drunken white man sitting on a LA freeway ramp for an hour attracted
dozens of police from various juridictions (highway patrol, town police forces,
sheriff deputies); during that time police radio dispatchers spread erroneous
reports that he was firing at police helicopters and officers on the ground.
They shot him 106 times, with many more bullets hitting houses blocks away. <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>[Collins 2008: 113] </span><span style="color: black; font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 14.0pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>This is another causal path by which calling
large numbers of police (and for that matter, other support personnel) to the
scene promotes police violence--- larger numbers are more links for rumors to
be formed. </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .1pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: .1pt; mso-para-margin-bottom: .01gd; mso-para-margin-left: 0in; mso-para-margin-right: 0in; mso-para-margin-top: .01gd;"><span style="color: black; font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 14.0pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"> </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .1pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: .1pt; mso-para-margin-bottom: .01gd; mso-para-margin-left: 0in; mso-para-margin-right: 0in; mso-para-margin-top: .01gd;"><span style="color: black; font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 14.0pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">Psychological experiments on messages repeated from one person to
another<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>find the message loses all
detail as it goes down the chain, turning into the most standard cliches. In a
famous case in 2009 a Harvard professor, a black man, was dropped off at his
home by a taxi; a "not sure if something is wrong" call-in by a
passerby was transformed by the police depatcher into two black men trying to
break into a house; Prof. Gates became understandably upset and was arrested--
lucky for him he didn't get shot. [Collins 2022: 282-4] Whether the story that
"he tried to grab an officer's gun" started from the beginning of the
Nichols arrest is unclear-- the police were already primed to find a murderous
suspect, get angry at any lack of cooperation, and become livid if someone
tries to run away--- but the fact that the grab-the-gun story was stated by two
or more officers suggest that it emerged as the overarching story frame by the
time the police and the EMTs were jovially celebrating. </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .1pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: .1pt; mso-para-margin-bottom: .01gd; mso-para-margin-left: 0in; mso-para-margin-right: 0in; mso-para-margin-top: .01gd;"><span style="color: black; font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 14.0pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"> </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .1pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: .1pt; mso-para-margin-bottom: .01gd; mso-para-margin-left: 0in; mso-para-margin-right: 0in; mso-para-margin-top: .01gd;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 14.0pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 10.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">The
patterns found in the Memphis killing have been videly documented in violence
research.</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .1pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: .1pt; mso-para-margin-bottom: .01gd; mso-para-margin-left: 0in; mso-para-margin-right: 0in; mso-para-margin-top: .01gd;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 14.0pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 10.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"> </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .1pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: .1pt; mso-para-margin-bottom: .01gd; mso-para-margin-left: 0in; mso-para-margin-right: 0in; mso-para-margin-top: .01gd;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 14.0pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 10.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">[1]
<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">The</i> <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">hangman phenomenon</i>: Wearing hoods, masks, and other kinds of scarey
costumes are typical among mass rampage killers. The gunman who killed 12 and
wounded 70 at a Batman movie in Aurora, Colorado in 2012 wore a Joker costume
and opened fire under the cover of darkness [2020: 257-8]. Kids who shoot up
schools often collect military equipment to wear, including shooting-range
ear-plugs which create a feeling of isolation from the victims. [2020: 261-69]
The underlying social psychology is that people find face-to-face contact with
a victim to be disconcerting; above all, it is eye contact that attackers
avoid, since it humanizes the encounter. Videos and photos of beatings during
riots (whether by crowd-control forces, protesters or hostile ethnic groups)
show that victims are almost always turned away from their attackers; falling
down in a frenzied demonstration acts like a trigger for attackers. [Collins
2008: 128-32; Nassauer 2019] Conversely, calmly facing one's potential attacker
is the best way to fend off violence. Professional killers, such as the Mafia,
deliberately attempt to take their victim from behind or when they are not
looking. [2008: 239]</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .1pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: .1pt; mso-para-margin-bottom: .01gd; mso-para-margin-left: 0in; mso-para-margin-right: 0in; mso-para-margin-top: .01gd;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 14.0pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 10.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"> </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .1pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: .1pt; mso-para-margin-bottom: .01gd; mso-para-margin-left: 0in; mso-para-margin-right: 0in; mso-para-margin-top: .01gd;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 14.0pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 10.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">This
is the hangman phenomenon: executions traditionally were carried out wearing a
hood. Studies of military violence show that wearing a hood is associated with
higher levels of violence and deliberate cruelty. [2008: 78-80] It is a way to
avoid face-to-face intersubjectivity; when one's eyes are reduced to a little
slit in face-covering darkness, the mutual exchange of emotions is cut off. The
same psychological mechanism is found in the superior lethality of snipers
operating through long-distance scopes-- the psychological security that the
human victim is not looking back at you. [2008: 233-35] Wearing ski masks,
along with all-dark clothes, are used world-wide by "elite" police
and military forces, essentially as a morale-booster, and deliberate attempt to
terrify their victims. William James explained the psychology: just as running
away triggers the emotion of being afraid, dressing oneself up in the
paraphernalia of a frightening tough guy makes one feel arrogant and
aggressive. </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .1pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: .1pt; mso-para-margin-bottom: .01gd; mso-para-margin-left: 0in; mso-para-margin-right: 0in; mso-para-margin-top: .01gd;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 14.0pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 10.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"> </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .1pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: .1pt; mso-para-margin-bottom: .01gd; mso-para-margin-left: 0in; mso-para-margin-right: 0in; mso-para-margin-top: .01gd;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 14.0pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 10.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">No
doubt American cops who dress themselves in dark, frightening outfits think
they are being cool (photos of FBI raids often show the same tough-cop fashion
code). Cops don't want to be square; and in the antinomian youth culture of the
past half-century, criminal styles, playful or otherwise, are the definition of
cool. But today's police should be aware they are emulating the demeanor and
the ethos of authoritarian "secret police"--- secret in the sense of
plain-clothed. </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .1pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: .1pt; mso-para-margin-bottom: .01gd; mso-para-margin-left: 0in; mso-para-margin-right: 0in; mso-para-margin-top: .01gd;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 14.0pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 10.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"> </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .1pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: .1pt; mso-para-margin-bottom: .01gd; mso-para-margin-left: 0in; mso-para-margin-right: 0in; mso-para-margin-top: .01gd;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 14.0pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 10.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">The
Gestapo (<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Geheime Staatspolizei--</i>
literally "secret state police") liked to break in and make their
arrests at night. But these are the bad guys! Not like us? The Nazis regarded
themselves, from their point-of-view, as the good guys, taking necessary
measures against horrible enemies, mythological as they might be. Filling in
the same blanks with different details, this is the same psychological pattern
as the Memphis SCORPION and similar plain-clothes special operations (i.e.
violence-seeking) police. </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .1pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: .1pt; mso-para-margin-bottom: .01gd; mso-para-margin-left: 0in; mso-para-margin-right: 0in; mso-para-margin-top: .01gd;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 14.0pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 10.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"> </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .1pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: .1pt; mso-para-margin-bottom: .01gd; mso-para-margin-left: 0in; mso-para-margin-right: 0in; mso-para-margin-top: .01gd;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 14.0pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 10.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">Besides
the psychological effects of hoods and scary costumes on the perpetrators,
there is a psychological effect on their targets. Individuals like Tyre
Nichols, stopped by thug-like men, understandably try to escape. Even after it
becomes clearer that they are police, acting the thug role makes them morph
into the same thing. The Memphis killing resembles one of the first such police
killings to be widely publicized: Amadou Diallo, in NYC in 1999, had the
misfortune to be coming out of his apartment building when four police in a
special anti-rape unit drove by; stepping back into the shallow entrance
corridor set off a forward rush by the cops who fired 41 shots, at a distance
of 3 meters, while Diallo reached into his pocket to show his ID. [2008: 112]
The overkill--- firing went on after he was down-- is an indicator of
adrenaline rush, pumping up attackers for many minutes thereafter.</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .1pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: .1pt; mso-para-margin-bottom: .01gd; mso-para-margin-left: 0in; mso-para-margin-right: 0in; mso-para-margin-top: .01gd;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 14.0pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 10.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"> </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .1pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: .1pt; mso-para-margin-bottom: .01gd; mso-para-margin-left: 0in; mso-para-margin-right: 0in; mso-para-margin-top: .01gd;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 14.0pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 10.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">Bottom
line: <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Police wearing masks, hoods, and
gang-like clothing should be banned by law.</i> Respect for police does not
come from looking like violent thugs. Whatever the tactical advantages police
officials may think there are in these practices, more crime is prevented when
the community trusts the police and cooperates with them than when they are
afraid of them. * </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .1pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: .1pt; mso-para-margin-bottom: .01gd; mso-para-margin-left: 0in; mso-para-margin-right: 0in; mso-para-margin-top: .01gd;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 14.0pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 10.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"> </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .1pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: .1pt; mso-para-margin-bottom: .01gd; mso-para-margin-left: 0in; mso-para-margin-right: 0in; mso-para-margin-top: .01gd;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 14.0pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 10.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">*
A central theme of Elijah Anderson, <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Code
of the Street,</i> 1999 and <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Black in
White Space, </i><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>2022 is that black
ghetto communities have high crime rates because residents do not trust the
police to help them, so being tough-- or at least putting on the appearance of
it-- becomes the local culture of self-defence. Combined with cops' paranoia,
it makes a vicious circle.</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .1pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: .1pt; mso-para-margin-bottom: .01gd; mso-para-margin-left: 0in; mso-para-margin-right: 0in; mso-para-margin-top: .01gd;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 14.0pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 10.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"> </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .1pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: .1pt; mso-para-margin-bottom: .01gd; mso-para-margin-left: 0in; mso-para-margin-right: 0in; mso-para-margin-top: .01gd;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 14.0pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 10.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">[2]
<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">The crowd multiplier</i>.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The more police at the scene of an arrest of
single suspect, the more likely prolonged and emotionally out-of-control
violence. [2022: 278-79] In all kinds of violence, a group against an
individual produces the most vicious, prolonged, and out-of-control attacks.
Photographic evidence from riots, brawls, and and ethnic violence
overwhelmingly shows the pattern of 4-to-6 persons beating an isolated
individual, typically lying on the ground and unable to resist. [Collins 2008:
128-32; Nassauer 2019] The pattern is found all over the world, and in any
combination of social identities; police and soldiers act the same way that
ethnic rampagers do. A combination of psychological mechanisms are at work:
attacking from all sides ensure the victim cannot maintain eye-contact;
successful violence almost always comes from attacking a weak victim. Emotional
contagion accelerates in groups;<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>this is
especially strong when there are supportive audiences [2008: 203-4, 413-30;
2022: 277] and<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>above all when the
attackers are men and there are women in the audience.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>[2008: 479]</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .1pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: .1pt; mso-para-margin-bottom: .01gd; mso-para-margin-left: 0in; mso-para-margin-right: 0in; mso-para-margin-top: .01gd;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 14.0pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 10.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"> </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .1pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: .1pt; mso-para-margin-bottom: .01gd; mso-para-margin-left: 0in; mso-para-margin-right: 0in; mso-para-margin-top: .01gd;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 14.0pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 10.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">Adrenaline
rush is typical in most violent confrontations; when it intensifies to higher
levels (indexed by heart-rates over 170 BPM) perception blurs, and trained
attackers operate on auto-pilot; ignoring the victim's cries or interpreting
them scornfully. The attacking group becomes an emotional cocoon, and a
cognitive cocoon as well-- a state of polarization where all good and humanity
is on our side, and the victim is dehumanized. This is a mini-version of what
happens in genocidal massacres. [McDoom 2021] Hence the bizarre spectacle (to
outsiders) of laughter and ebullience that continues while the adrenaline rush
takes time to subside. [2008: 282] </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .1pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: .1pt; mso-para-margin-bottom: .01gd; mso-para-margin-left: 0in; mso-para-margin-right: 0in; mso-para-margin-top: .01gd;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 14.0pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 10.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"> </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .1pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: .1pt; mso-para-margin-bottom: .01gd; mso-para-margin-left: 0in; mso-para-margin-right: 0in; mso-para-margin-top: .01gd;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 14.0pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 10.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">Bottom
line: <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Police training needs to be
thoroughly revamped.</i> As it stands, training emphasizes that a police
officer is constantly at risk; weapons drills train for "muscle
memory" to maximize quick response. It would take quite a revolution to
train officers to prioritize monitoring their own emotions and becoming away of
how they amplify each other into a collective mood. Officers need to be
throughly trained in the psychology of violence, above all their own. *</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .1pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: .1pt; mso-para-margin-bottom: .01gd; mso-para-margin-left: 0in; mso-para-margin-right: 0in; mso-para-margin-top: .01gd;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 14.0pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 10.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"> </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .1pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: .1pt; mso-para-margin-bottom: .01gd; mso-para-margin-left: 0in; mso-para-margin-right: 0in; mso-para-margin-top: .01gd;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 14.0pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 10.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">*
The best report thus far on what it is like to attempt to train officers on
social factors in their work is in Jennifer C. Hunt, 2010<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">.</i> -- a psychoanalyst working for the NYPD Training Division. She
did not feel successful in changing the<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>scary-macho culture. </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .1pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: .1pt; mso-para-margin-bottom: .01gd; mso-para-margin-left: 0in; mso-para-margin-right: 0in; mso-para-margin-top: .01gd;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 14.0pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 10.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"> </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .1pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: .1pt; mso-para-margin-bottom: .01gd; mso-para-margin-left: 0in; mso-para-margin-right: 0in; mso-para-margin-top: .01gd;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 14.0pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 10.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">[3]
<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Transmitting stereotyped rumors.</i> I have
already noted that psychological experiments where a message is repeated
through a chain find that within very few links, the message becomes shorter
and simpler, losing all nuance and context. The stereotype is in the
ears-and-brain of the hearer, even when the message is repeated just a few
seconds later; if more minutes intervene, the message becomes the staccoto
words of a cliché.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The
rumor-stereotyping pattern increases the more links there are in the chain;
this includes both police radio dispatchers, and the police themselves, in
car-to-car radio links, or over their computers; and it can be enhanced
on-the-spot as more police backup (as well as medical support) arrives. </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .1pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: .1pt; mso-para-margin-bottom: .01gd; mso-para-margin-left: 0in; mso-para-margin-right: 0in; mso-para-margin-top: .01gd;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 14.0pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 10.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"> </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .1pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: .1pt; mso-para-margin-bottom: .01gd; mso-para-margin-left: 0in; mso-para-margin-right: 0in; mso-para-margin-top: .01gd;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 14.0pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 10.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">Bottom
line:<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">police dispatchers need to be better trained, specifically in awareness
of the rumor-stereotyping process</i>. Dispatchers are a low-paid, low-skilled
job, which should be upgraded--- again, with social psychology in the
foreground. </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .1pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: .1pt; mso-para-margin-bottom: .01gd; mso-para-margin-left: 0in; mso-para-margin-right: 0in; mso-para-margin-top: .01gd;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 14.0pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 10.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"> </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .1pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: .1pt; mso-para-margin-bottom: .01gd; mso-para-margin-left: 0in; mso-para-margin-right: 0in; mso-para-margin-top: .01gd;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 14.0pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 10.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">Most
importantly, <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">police training needs to be
thoroughly investigated and reorganized</i>. With each highly publicized
incident of police violence, there are political calls for increased
punishment, including removing qualified immunity. Whether or not this
politically difficult reform is carried out, it should be noted that highly
publicized trials and convictions of officers since the George Floyd killing
have not stopped similar police atrocities from happening. Police throughout
the country are acutely aware of the publicity; yet why do they keep on doing
it?<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The answer is that the behavior of
police in action is subject to emotional forces, like the ones I have outlined.
It is in the interest of police, and everybody else, that these
social-psychological dangers should be very high in their awareness.</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .1pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: .1pt; mso-para-margin-bottom: .01gd; mso-para-margin-left: 0in; mso-para-margin-right: 0in; mso-para-margin-top: .01gd;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 14.0pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 10.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"> </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .1pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: .1pt; mso-para-margin-bottom: .01gd; mso-para-margin-left: 0in; mso-para-margin-right: 0in; mso-para-margin-top: .01gd;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 14.0pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 10.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">Sources:
</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .1pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: .1pt; mso-para-margin-bottom: .01gd; mso-para-margin-left: 0in; mso-para-margin-right: 0in; mso-para-margin-top: .01gd;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 14.0pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 10.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"> </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .1pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: .1pt; mso-para-margin-bottom: .01gd; mso-para-margin-left: 0in; mso-para-margin-right: 0in; mso-para-margin-top: .01gd;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 14.0pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 10.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">News
reports by Associated Press, New York Times, and Wall St. Journal, Jan. 28 -
Feb. 9, 2023.</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .1pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: .1pt; mso-para-margin-bottom: .01gd; mso-para-margin-left: 0in; mso-para-margin-right: 0in; mso-para-margin-top: .01gd;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 14.0pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 10.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"> </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .1pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: .1pt; mso-para-margin-bottom: .01gd; mso-para-margin-left: 0in; mso-para-margin-right: 0in; mso-para-margin-top: .01gd;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 14.0pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 10.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">Elijah
Anderson, 1999. <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Code of the Street.</i></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .1pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: .1pt; mso-para-margin-bottom: .01gd; mso-para-margin-left: 0in; mso-para-margin-right: 0in; mso-para-margin-top: .01gd;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 14.0pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 10.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">2022.
<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Black in White Space.</i></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .1pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: .1pt; mso-para-margin-bottom: .01gd; mso-para-margin-left: 0in; mso-para-margin-right: 0in; mso-para-margin-top: .01gd;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 14.0pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 10.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">Randall
Collins, 2008. <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Violence: A
Micro-sociological Theory.</i></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .1pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: .1pt; mso-para-margin-bottom: .01gd; mso-para-margin-left: 0in; mso-para-margin-right: 0in; mso-para-margin-top: .01gd;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 14.0pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 10.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">2022.
<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Explosive Conflict: Time-Dynamics of
Violence.</i></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .1pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: .1pt; mso-para-margin-bottom: .01gd; mso-para-margin-left: 0in; mso-para-margin-right: 0in; mso-para-margin-top: .01gd;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 14.0pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 10.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">Jennifer
C. Hunt, 2010. <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Seven Shots</i>. </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .1pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: .1pt; mso-para-margin-bottom: .01gd; mso-para-margin-left: 0in; mso-para-margin-right: 0in; mso-para-margin-top: .01gd;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 14.0pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 10.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">Omar
McDoom, 2021. <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">The Path to Genocide in
Rwanda.</i> </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .1pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: .1pt; mso-para-margin-bottom: .01gd; mso-para-margin-left: 0in; mso-para-margin-right: 0in; mso-para-margin-top: .01gd;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 14.0pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 10.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">Anne
Nassauer, 2019. <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Situational Breakdowns:
Understanding Protest Violence.</i></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .1pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: .1pt; mso-para-margin-bottom: .01gd; mso-para-margin-left: 0in; mso-para-margin-right: 0in; mso-para-margin-top: .01gd;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 14.0pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 10.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"> </span></p>
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{page:WordSection1;}</style></p>Unknownnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1005085971596877601.post-48514564241763176782022-10-18T12:33:00.002-07:002022-10-18T12:56:05.406-07:00SEXUAL REVOLUTIONS AND THE FUTURE OF THE FAMILY<p class="MsoNormal"> <span style="color: black; font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 14pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-language: X-NONE; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">The family is the oldest human
institution, even a pre-human institution existing among the great apes. Along
with the deliberate control of fire, which Goudsblom saw as the beginning of
socially-imposed self-discipline and the “civilizing process,” early humans also
developed a variety of kinship institutions. These were rules about who could
or could not marry whom; incest prohibitions and exogamy rules; residency rules
about whose group the new wife or husband lived with; descent rules about which
lines of descent were considered lineages of membership, obligation and
inheritance. </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="color: black; font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 14pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-language: X-NONE; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"> </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="color: black; font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 14pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-language: X-NONE; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">Family and kinship have always been based
on sexual behavior: the right or obligation to have intercourse is the
operational definition of marriage (however sentimentalized or euphemistic the
terminology might be). Intercourse reproduced the social structure from
generation to generation; including status differences between children of socially
recognized marriages, secondary marriages such as concubines, and illegitimate
children who had no legal right to inherit. Regulated and legitimated sex was
the building-block of kinship structure.</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="color: black; font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 14pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-language: X-NONE; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"> </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="color: black; font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 14pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-language: X-NONE; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">De-regulation of sex became systemic change
in human societies when other institutions were created that took the place, in
varying degrees, of family-based economic and political alliances, child-rearing,
and inheritance. <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Until the end of the
Middle Ages, the kinship-based household was the building block of political
and military power, as well as economic production and consumption. Modernity
began by replacing family-based organization with bureaucracy. States began to
regulate the family household from outside, inscribing everyone on the rolls of
the state as individuals. The core of the family has become personal and sexual
rather than political and economic. What is personal and sexual has become
freer, more a matter of individual choice; at the same time sexual behavior in
the non-family world has become subject to explicit political regulation,
either restricting or permitting. From the early 20th century onwards, there
have been increasingly militant movements on one side or another of what is
sexually permitted, encouraged, or prohibited.</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="color: black; font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 14pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-language: X-NONE; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"> </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="color: black; font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 14pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-language: X-NONE; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">In this context, I will consider current
disputes over sexuality and gender. Why is there an upsurge in anti-abortion
movements just now? I will argue that abortion is primarily about freedom of
sexual action. It is part of an overarching array of issues that includes
homosexuality, which is to say, more kinds of acceptable erotic practices; also
publicizing one’s sexual identity in schools, in using toilets, and in
festivals and parades; not merely private freedom of sexuality but asserting it
as one’s central identity. Politics has become more centered on sexuality than
at any time in history.</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="color: black; font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 14pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-language: X-NONE; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"> </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="color: black; font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 14pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-language: X-NONE; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">These movements are allied in a united
front with a struggle to eradicate gender distinctions. Both sides of the
dispute mobilize<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>movements and propose
laws, each protesting against the other. In larger perspective, it is a struggle
over what remains of the family and what will replace it. </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="color: black; font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 14pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-language: X-NONE; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"> </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="color: black; font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 14pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-language: X-NONE; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">In what follows, I will sketch the many
forms of family-based societies that made up most of human history, from the
tribal and band pre-state period, through the feudal-patrimonial households
which were displaced by the bureacratic revolution. This transition was the
specialty of the two great historical sociologists, Max Weber and Norbert
Elias. Both saw the world-historical importance of the transition, although
they called it different things. Weber called it "rationalization"
(while recognizing the ambiguities of the concept), but principally he saw
modern society as increasingly penetrated by bureaucracy. The lesson of Foucault's
cultural histories is similar, although he says nothing about bureaucracy as a
driving factor.</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="color: black; font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 14pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-language: X-NONE; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"> </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="color: black; font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 14pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-language: X-NONE; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">Elias set out to historicize Freud:
bodily repression of natural impulses is not primordial but dates from the late
feudal period. Psychology is driven by geopolitics; conquering kings
centralized territorial regimes by making the warlords spend time at court--
thereby acquiring manners and self-repression. Courtly manners were adopted by
the middle class as moral obligations. This is the "civilizing process,"
the strengthening of a<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>super-ego of self-control,
taken-for-granted and becoming an unconscious "second nature". Elias
followers (e.g. Wouters) posit further accretions of self-inhibition through
the following centuries up through today.</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="color: black; font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 14pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-language: X-NONE; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"> </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="color: black; font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 14pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-language: X-NONE; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">In this historical context, I will sketch
the history of abortion struggles; the sexual revolution in non-marital sex;
homosexual and transgender movements and the battle of pronouns; and the
perceived decline of the family. This will help answer the question: why anti-abortion
movements now? I will end with some sociological tools for forecasting the
future of the family.</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="color: black; font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 14pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-language: X-NONE; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"> </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="color: black; font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 14pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-language: X-NONE; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">I hope you will excuse me for relying on
American data. Some of these trends originated in Europe; on the whole it has
been a world-wide trajectory (with the notable exception of the Moslem world). </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="color: black; font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 14pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-language: X-NONE; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"> </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><span style="color: black; font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 14pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-language: X-NONE; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">Kin
Groups versus Bureaucracy</span></i><span style="color: black; font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 14pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-language: X-NONE; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="color: black; font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 14pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-language: X-NONE; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"> </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .1pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: .1pt; margin: 0.1pt 0in; mso-para-margin-bottom: .01gd; mso-para-margin-left: 0in; mso-para-margin-right: 0in; mso-para-margin-top: .01gd;"><span style="color: black; font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 14pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 10.0pt;">Kinship was the
earliest form of human organization, and a distinctive break from animal
families. The history of complex organizations took off when they separated
from kin-based households into distinctive organizations for politics,
religion, and economy. But for many centuries these spheres remained connected
in some degree with kinship and household. Big shifts in political organization
during ancient and medieval times, such as recruiting warriors to join
migrating and conquering<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>hordes, were
usually created by pseudo-kinship, a pretence of being descended from some
mythical ancestor. Settled states were almost entirely alliance networks among
armed households. They were "patrimonial households" (a Weberian term
that should not be confused with "patriarchy"), with marriage
connections at their core. But a household was powerful and rich to the extent
it contained many non-kin servants, soldiers, guests, hostages, apprentices, as
well as prestige-giving artists and entertainers. The big break in
organizational forms was the rise of bureaucracy, which as a practical matter
meant that work, politics, religion, etc. were carried out somewhere other than
where families live. The change was visible in the built environment; castles
and homes that were simultaneously work-places gave way to governmental and
commercial buildings, containing their own furnishings, weapons and equipment,
treated as property of the organization rather than of particular persons. </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .1pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: .1pt; margin: 0.1pt 0in; mso-para-margin-bottom: .01gd; mso-para-margin-left: 0in; mso-para-margin-right: 0in; mso-para-margin-top: .01gd;"><span style="color: black; font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 14pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 10.0pt;"> </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .1pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: .1pt; margin: 0.1pt 0in; mso-para-margin-bottom: .01gd; mso-para-margin-left: 0in; mso-para-margin-right: 0in; mso-para-margin-top: .01gd;"><span style="color: black; font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 14pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 10.0pt;">Too much emphasis has
been placed on the concept of bureaucracy as a set of ideals and a form of
legitimacy; it was simultaneously a form of material organization: control
through written rules and records, hence a roster of who belongs to the
organization, what money they collect and spend, recording who does what and
how they did it. It is a network of behavior according to written rules and
reports. Everyone is replaceable according to the rules, which means
procedures, examinations, due diligence and whatever the cliché was at the
time. Schooling is another such bureaucracy, taking away instruction from the
family; and thus simultaneously freeing individuals from family control, while
making them targets for indoctrination by whoever controls the state.</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .1pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: .1pt; margin: 0.1pt 0in; mso-para-margin-bottom: .01gd; mso-para-margin-left: 0in; mso-para-margin-right: 0in; mso-para-margin-top: .01gd;"><span style="color: black; font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 14pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 10.0pt;"> </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .1pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: .1pt; margin: 0.1pt 0in; mso-para-margin-bottom: .01gd; mso-para-margin-left: 0in; mso-para-margin-right: 0in; mso-para-margin-top: .01gd;"><span style="color: black; font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 14pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 10.0pt;">This is an
idealization; empirical studies of bureaucracies show that the rules were often
evaded or manipulated; modern research shows that bureaucrats don't just break
the rules backstage, but know how to use the rules against others, when to
invoke them and when to ignore them. Being maximally rule-bound ("bureaucratic")
is not the most efficient way to do things; but it is an effective form of
organization for breaking the power of kin groups, inherited rule. It keeps an
organization going as an impersonal entity, even if inefficiently. Every
revolution and every successful social movement institutionalizes itself in new
rules and government agencies to enforce them. In this ironic sense, as the
Weberian scholar Reinhard Bendix remarked, democracy extends bureaucracy. </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .1pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: .1pt; margin: 0.1pt 0in; mso-para-margin-bottom: .01gd; mso-para-margin-left: 0in; mso-para-margin-right: 0in; mso-para-margin-top: .01gd;"><span style="color: black; font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 14pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 10.0pt;"> </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .1pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: .1pt; margin: 0.1pt 0in; mso-para-margin-bottom: .01gd; mso-para-margin-left: 0in; mso-para-margin-right: 0in; mso-para-margin-top: .01gd;"><span style="color: black; font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 14pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 10.0pt;">It is in this context
that we can understand the mobilization of conflicts over abortion in
particular and sexual behavior in general.</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="color: black; font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 14pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-language: X-NONE; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"> </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><span style="color: black; font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 14pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-language: X-NONE; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">Abortion
and Sexual Behavior</span></i><span style="color: black; font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 14pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-language: X-NONE; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="color: black; font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 14pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-language: X-NONE; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"> </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="color: black; font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 14pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-language: X-NONE; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">Abortion is argued in philosophical and
theological terms: on the one hand, the protection and sacredness of life; on
the other, the right to choose, rights over one’s own body. But sociologically,
abstract ideas and beliefs are not the ultimate explanation of what people do.
It begs the question: why do some people sometimes believe one way or the
other?<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>When and why are they vehement
about their beliefs?<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>When do they organize
social and political movements about them?</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="color: black; font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 14pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-language: X-NONE; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"> </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="color: black; font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 14pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-language: X-NONE; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">Arguments about abortion are stated
altruistically: it has nothing to do with me personally, I am concerned for the
unborn children, for the right to life generally. On the pro-abortion side,
there is a general argument that everyone has the right over one’s own body;
but also sometimes personal-- I have the right to an abortion if I want one. </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="color: black; font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 14pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-language: X-NONE; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"> </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="color: black; font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 14pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-language: X-NONE; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">But sociologically, the ground zero is
always pragmatic: a practical matter of how people live.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>What is the human action at issue behind the
abortion argument? Abortion is about sex-- erotic behavior.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Why do some women want abortion? Because they
have sex without marriage, in pre-marital and extra-marital sex. It is freedom
to fuck without worrying about pregnancy, and thus is also a form of birth
control for married couples. </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="color: black; font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 14pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-language: X-NONE; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"> </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="color: black; font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 14pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-language: X-NONE; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">Up through the early 20th century, an
unwanted pregnancy was a fatal life event for a woman. The exception was for
rich women who could keep it secret and farm out an unwanted child to a woman
of the lower classes to care for it. To have a child outside of wedlock was
scandalous, shameful, to be hidden away if possible.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>It was a badge of shame, punished by being
ostracized; the <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Scarlet Letter,</i> in
Hawthorne’s novel about 17<sup>th</sup> Century New England puritans. <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Worse yet, the mother could be executed for
murder if she had an abortion; or disposed of the infant though infanticide (this
was the plot line of Goethe’s <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Faust</i>).<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="color: black; font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 14pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-language: X-NONE; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"> </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="color: black; font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 14pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-language: X-NONE; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">That was the historical scenario.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Today, some abortions happen because married
women don’t want to have a child at the time; because the child is malformed;
because the mother is in danger; or because it interrupts her career. Most abortions
are to unmarried women in their twenties. </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="color: black; font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 14pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-language: X-NONE; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"> </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="color: black; font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 14pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-language: X-NONE; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">The taboo on unmarried pregnancy fell
away rapidly in some countries (first in Scandinavia, then in the US) in the
1950s and 60s. In part, this was because of much greater acceptance of sex
before marriage; in part because young middle-class couples started living
together without getting married-- a trend that grew very rapidly at the turn
of the 1970s, and was accepted surprisingly soon by the older population.
Before that time, “living in sin,” as it was called, or “shacking up” was
regarded as something poor or non-white people did. But within a few years it
became normal to hear someone introduced as “this is my partner” rather than
“this is my husband, this is my wife.”<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>The further terminological shift in ordinary language was adopted by
homosexual couples, who more recently have shifted to using “husband and
husband” or “wife and wife,” after winning political and legal battles over gay
marriage. </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="color: black; font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 14pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-language: X-NONE; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"> </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="color: black; font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 14pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-language: X-NONE; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">The political and legal battle for
abortion happened at the same time as the revolution in unmarrried cohabitation.
In Scandinavia limited abortion rights began in the 1930s and expanded; in 1973
the US Supreme Court ruled in the lawsuit Roe v. Wade that abortion was a right
covered in the abstract language of the Constitution. The anti-abortion
movement dates from that period.</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="color: black; font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 14pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-language: X-NONE; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"> </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="color: black; font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 14pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-language: X-NONE; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">The arguments pro and con are on the
grounds of legal philosophy.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Translated
into social practice, to restore the ban on abortion means that sex should be
confined to marriage. This means rolling back the sexual revolution of mid-20th
century. On the other side, my body is my own, means in practical terms: I can
have sex with whoever and whenever I want.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>Men traditionally had this right; why shouldn’t women?</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="color: black; font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 14pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-language: X-NONE; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"> </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="color: black; font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 14pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-language: X-NONE; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">We are approaching an answer to the
question: why is there a resurgence of the anti-abortion movement just now?
Which is to say, a movement against casual, non-marital sex.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>This should be seen in the context of the sexual
revolution, starting about 100 years ago.</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="color: black; font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 14pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-language: X-NONE; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"> </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><span style="color: black; font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 14pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-language: X-NONE; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">Sexual
Revolutions</span></i><span style="color: black; font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 14pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-language: X-NONE; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"> </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="color: black; font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 14pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-language: X-NONE; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"> </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="color: black; font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 14pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-language: X-NONE; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">Throughout human history, marriages were
almost always arranged by kin groups rather than the choices of independent
individuals. Pre-state kinship structures were built around marriage rules,
which group should send daughters or sons to another specified group. With the
rise of large-scale warfare and alliance politics, marriages and other forms of
sexual exchange became used as political treaties. Sending daughters of one
leading family as wives or concubines to another leading family made them allies,
and also set the stage for future inheritance of territories depending on
accidents of which children were born and survived into adulthood. Diplomatic
marriages of this sort have continued among royal families (even among figureheads
like Queen Victoria) down to the era of modern democracies (including England’s
Queen Elizabeth II). At less exalted levels of social class, arranged marriages
also existed among property-owning families, an arrangement for continuity in
family enterprises, and sometimes as a means of status climbing where money
could be traded for ancestral status. </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="color: black; font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 14pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-language: X-NONE; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"> </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="color: black; font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 14pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-language: X-NONE; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">Sexual/love affairs also existed in
virtually all recorded societies since ancient times, but mainly outside of
marriage. They were a form of personal excitement, the thrill of a private
backstage (Romeo-and-Juliet) which now appeared in the otherwise
privacy-denying patrimonial household. Most of what we know about such love
affairs is from the literature or entertainment media of the time, which probably
exaggerate them compared to the realities of ordinary life in pre-modern
households. But as bureaucracy and democracy eroded the importance of household
and inheritance for individual's careers, marriage markets spread among the
middle class. The growth of individual marriage markets-- though still heavily
influenced by parents-- can be indexed by the topics of popular literature. The
new ideology of marriage for love combined with a concern for material fortune
is described in the novels of Jane Austen around 1800; it developed more slowly
in French literature (long focused on adulterous adventures), and sentimentally
as well as moralistically in American literature. The belief became
conventional that all marriages happen by falling in love, or at least this
became the normative way of speaking about it. </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="color: black; font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 14pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-language: X-NONE; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"> </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="color: black; font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 14pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-language: X-NONE; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">The 1920s were a revolution in courtship.
Parents steering their children’s marriage choices was replaced by dating and
partying. From now on the younger generation mixed the sexes without
supervision, creating a culture where drinking, dancing and necking was the
main excitement of life rather than a transition to marriage. It was a
rebellious thrill in the US where alcohol was prohibited, but the same style
emerged in England and Germany also. </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="color: black; font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 14pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-language: X-NONE; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"> </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="color: black; font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 14pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-language: X-NONE; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">In the 1930s and 40s, divorce began to be
common, no longer disreputable and scandalous. By the 1960s, almost 50 % of US
marriages were ending in divorce; a level relatively constant since then. This
eroded the ideal of sexual monogamy or "purity"; a large portion of
the population of both sexes were having multiple sexual partners.</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="color: black; font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 14pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-language: X-NONE; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"> </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="color: black; font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 14pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-language: X-NONE; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">Since the transition from childhood to
adulthood involves a shift from a life-stage in which sex is officially
prohibited to a stage when it is allowed, the teen years are a center for
sexual regulation and associated ideologies. The 1950s produced a new social
category, the “teenager”. Working class youths no longer entered the labor
force, as governments made them attend secondary school; with free time on
their hands, teens created social clubs and gangs, got their own style of music
and dancing, with a tone of rebellion against traditional middle class
propriety. The rise in crime rates began at this time, and continuing from the
1950s into the 1990s. How to bring up children became a topic of controversy
ever since. Apart from psychological advice on home life, the social instrument
for shaping and controlling the emerging generation has become schools and the
policies by which they operate. Hence a new site for political struggle. </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="color: black; font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 14pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-language: X-NONE; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"> </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><span style="color: black; font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 14pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-language: X-NONE; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">The
Invention of the Social Movement</span></i><span style="color: black; font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 14pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-language: X-NONE; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="color: black; font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 14pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-language: X-NONE; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"> </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="color: black; font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 14pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-language: X-NONE; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">Here we step back again to trace another
offshoot of the bureaucratic revolution.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>The social movement is a form of organization and politics outside of
the family and household, but also outside of formal bureaucrities: that is to
say, it it a mode of creating new networks that did not exist before,
recruiting persons wherever they might come from, generating an alliance of
individuals held together by their devotion to a common cause. Social movements
are a distinctively modern form. They scarcely existed in the era of kinship
politics, where household might shift alliances but individuals within them
could not go out to join movements on their own. The exception was religious
movements, chiefly in the monastic world religions such as Buddhism and
Christianity during their early phases of expansion. But as these religions
achieved success they tended to ally with the patrimonial households of the
aristocracy, and religious conversion generally took place en masse by the
conversion of leading aristocrats who ordered their subordinates to follow.
Other large-scale religions, such as Confucianism, Hindu sects, and Islam,
generally blended with and reinforced existing kinship politics.</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="color: black; font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 14pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-language: X-NONE; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"> </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="color: black; font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 14pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-language: X-NONE; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">Charles Tilly dates the invention of the
social movement to the late 1700s in England and France. Prior to this time,
there could be local protests and uprisings in periods of food scarcity and
distress, but they remained localized and when serious were almost always put down
by superior military power. The bureaucratic state changed the logistics of
political activism; it promoted roads, canals, transport, postal services and
the delivery of books and newspapers; social movements were now able to
organize large number of people across long distances. And the increasingly
centralization of the state gave movements a target for their grievances: the
capital city and the central government itself. Movements developed a
repertoire of techniques for petitioning and protesting, ranging in militancy
from demanding reforms and new laws, to overthrowing the state by revolution.
In democracies, social movements became an alternative to struggling for power
through periodic elections; one doesn't always win the vote but protest movements
can be mobilized at any time to bring pressure on the authorities to make
urgent and immediate changes. </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="color: black; font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 14pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-language: X-NONE; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"> </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="color: black; font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 14pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-language: X-NONE; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">With the expansion of communications --
telephone, radio, film, television, computers and the internet-- the material
means for mobilizing social movements have vastly expanded. In the 19th and
early 20th century, the main social movements were class-based, especially
labour movements; sometimes ethnic and nationalist; sometimes humanitarian
reform movements. From mid-20th century through today, the variety of social
movements has exploded into a cascade of social movements, all competing for
attention. </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="color: black; font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 14pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-language: X-NONE; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"> </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><span style="color: black; font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 14pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-language: X-NONE; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">Sexual
Movements</span></i></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="color: black; font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 14pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-language: X-NONE; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"> </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="color: black; font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 14pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-language: X-NONE; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">What was different in the 1960s was that
political and social movements became heavily based among the young (in
contrast to labour movements, based on married adults). The shift was driven by
a huge increase in university students. Again the underlying force was a
combination of bureaucracy and democracy. State universities proliferated in
response to popular demands for educational credentials once monopolized by the
elite. Ironically, this set off a spiral of credential inflation, as
once-valuable school degrees (secondary school diplomas; then undergraduate
degrees) became so widespread that well-paying jobs increasingly demanded advanced
professional degrees. The political side-effect, however, was that the group of
young-adult "university age" students became a favourable base for
organizing social movements: students have flexible hours, are freed from
family supervision, massed together in their own spaces, and thus available for
speedy communications and the emotionally engaging rituals of rallies, marches,
protests, and sit-ins. With the adoption of non-violent techniques of
"civil disobedience" borrowed from Gandhi's independence campaign in
India, militant social movements could both claim the moral high ground, and
apply pressure by disrupting public routines. Such movements could also spill
over into property destruction and violence; as Tilly noted, a violent fringe
has historically existed around any large public protest. </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="color: black; font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 14pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-language: X-NONE; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"> </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="color: black; font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 14pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-language: X-NONE; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">In the self-consciously revolutionary
generation of the 1960s, we called ourselves the New Left, distinguished from
the old Left by being less concerned about ideology than lifestyle. Culture
icons were the hippies, drop-outs from school and career, living in communes
where they shared psychedelic drugs and free love. In reality, most were
weekend-hippies, and most of the free-love communes disintegrated rather
quickly, over jealousy and status ranking. The main legacy of the “free love”
period was that cohabitation-- living together without getting married-- became
widespread, even becoming a census category in the 1970s. </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="color: black; font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 14pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-language: X-NONE; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"> </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="color: black; font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 14pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-language: X-NONE; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">The 70s were dominated by sexually-based
movements.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>First,<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>the feminist movement sought equal legal
rights and employment opportunities for women; plus its militant lesbian
branch, condemning heterosexual intercourse as the root of the problem. In the
1970s and increasing with each decade through the present, a chain of
homosexual movements demanded not only freedom from discrimination but the
recognition of a new public vocabulary-- gender rather than sex, gay rather
than homosexual, and so on. This has been a cascade of movements, each building
on its predecessors, in tactics, ideology, and lifestyle, each finding a new issue
on which to fight. </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="color: black; font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 14pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-language: X-NONE; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"> </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><span style="color: black; font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 14pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-language: X-NONE; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">Counter-cultures
and Culture Wars</span></i><span style="color: black; font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 14pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-language: X-NONE; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="color: black; font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 14pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-language: X-NONE; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"> </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="color: black; font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 14pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-language: X-NONE; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">Recent movements are built on prior
movements of cultural rebellion, going back for a century. Like the New Left,
the overall ethos has been antinomian, the counter-culture of status reversal.
These rebellious social movements were paralleled by shifts in
self-presentation, demeanor, and in the media depiction of sexuality. In the
1920s, women’s skirts became shorter; young women adopted a more mannish look. They
also began to show a lot more flesh; body-covering swim suits became briefer;
women athletes exercized and competed in shorts. (The trend also existed in
socialist and Soviet Communist organizations; and in the nudist movement
popular in Germany.)<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>In<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>1946 came the bikini, created in France and
named for an island where an atom bomb was exploded; eventually there were men
in thongs and women going topless at beaches. The 60s and 70s were a weird
melange of clothing fads: granny dresses and throw-back Sgt. Pepper uniforms;
Nehru jackets, surgical smocks; men in pony-tails wearing pukka-shell necklaces
and jewelry earrings. Most of these styles did not last long, but the
prevailing mood was change for the sake of something different. The long-term
result was the casualness revolution (also called informalization), which triumphed
by the 1990s: wearing blue jeans, T-shirts and athletic clothes on all
occasions, discarding neckties and business suits; calling everyone by their
first name, no more use of titles and once-polite forms of address. </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="color: black; font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 14pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-language: X-NONE; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"> </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="color: black; font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 14pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-language: X-NONE; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">Simultaneously with these changes, erotic
heterosexuality was coming out of the closet, in literature and the media. The
“jazz age” of the 1920s was originally named after a slang word for having sex;
novelists like Scott Fitzgerald and song-writers like Cole Porter were full of
innuendo. James Joyce’s <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Ulysses</i> in
1922 began literary depiction of the bodily details of sex, followed by D.H.
Lawrence, Hemingway, Henry Miller, and Anais Nin; most of these were published
in Paris but censored elsewhere until 1960, when their mass publication fueled
the sexual atmosphere of the counter-culture. In 1968, Hollywood film
censorship changed to a rating system, marketing soft porn as PG (“parental
guidance”) and hard porn as X-rated. The 70s was the era of the so-called
“Pubic Wars”: glossy magazines with nude photos tested the borders of what
could be displayed, moving from breasts to pubic hair to aroused genitals and
by the 1980s to penetration and oral sex. Pornographic photos had existed
before, but they were cheaply produced and had a limited underground
circulation; now these were some of the biggest mass-distribution magazines.
Sex magazines went into decline in the 90s, replaced by porn sites on the
Internet.</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="color: black; font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 14pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-language: X-NONE; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"> </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="color: black; font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 14pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-language: X-NONE; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">Cultural rebellion spilled over into
language. Obscene words began to be used in political demonstrations; then on
T-shirts, in fashion advertising, and in ordinary middle-class conversation.
The remaining bastian of prohibition on obscene language is what can be said in
school classrooms.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Everywhere else,
flauting overt sex has been a successful form of rebellion. One might even say
that the major line of conflict is no longer between economic classes, but a
status division: hip and cool versus square and straight.</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="color: black; font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 14pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-language: X-NONE; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"> </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="color: black; font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 14pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-language: X-NONE; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">Homosexual sex came out of the closet at
the same time as the porn revolution. Gay porn magazines and film followed
heterosexual men’s magazines; their circulation was never as wide (<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Playboy</i> and <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Penthouse</i> reached peaks of 5-to-7 million), but the gay movement
was more controversial and more activist. It spun off from the resistance
tactics of the civil rights movement, pushing back at police raids of gay bars
and meeting places. It becamc a cascade of movements: gay and lesbian joined by
bi-sexual, queer (militant homosexuals rejecting gay marriage), transgender,
transsexual, non-binary, and more. The growth of this acronym—now up to
LGBTQIA+ -- is itself a sociological phenomenon to be explained, as new
identities have been added every few years, a trajectory likely to continue
into the future. This is the pattern of a social movement cascade; successful
movements do not retire, declaring their cause is won, but spin off new
branches, seeking new niches and issues. The phenomenon is sometimes referred
to as extending social movement frames to new targets. </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="color: black; font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 14pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-language: X-NONE; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"> </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="color: black; font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 14pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-language: X-NONE; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">A related issue has been sex education in
the schools, initially about contraceptives for the prevention of venereal
disease (a term subsequently changed as too judgmental). Sex education grew as
an official alternative to parental advice or to informal peer-group sexual culture;
sex education is the bureacratization of sex. In the early 21st century its
function expanded to teach childen about homosexuality as a protected status,
and as a life-style choice. In recent years there are movements among students
as young as elementary school demanding to be referred to by non-gendered
pronouns; and for government-funded sex-reassignment hormones or surgery. The
fields of struggle have expanded: gender-free toilets; the battle of pronouns,
banning the words “he” and “she”. In 2022, adolescent children have been
charged with sexual harassment for "mispronouning" -- referring to a
classmate as "she" instead of "them." In 2021, the U.S.
House of Representatives passed legislation banning the use of gendered words
“father, mother, brother, sister” in government documents. Federal health
organizations now refer to mothers as "birthing persons" and ban the
term "breast-feeding" in favor of "chest-feeding." (Wall
Street Journal, May 10 and May 24, 2022) There are similar efforts to create
gender-neutral pronouns in French and Spanish, although thus far not very
popular.</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="color: black; font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 14pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-language: X-NONE; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"> </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><span style="color: black; font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 14pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-language: X-NONE; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">Why
Anti-abortion Politics Now?</span></i></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="color: black; font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 14pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-language: X-NONE; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"> </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="color: black; font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 14pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-language: X-NONE; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">The arena of such conflicts has become
increasingly political, as activists file lawsuits in the courts and demand new
legislation; escalation on one side leads to counter-escalation on the other.
It is in this context that we can explain why the anti-abortion movement has
become much more militant in the last few years. In 2019, abortions in the US
were about 20% of live births; but in fact the ratio has fallen from 25% ten
years earlier; this is largely due to teenagers having fewer children and fewer
abortions; and to some extent to the growth of homosexuality in the age-group
below 30. The anti-abortion movement has not intensified because abortion was
growing worse; it is just the most prominent way conservative legislators can
strike back at the latest waves of sexual revolution.</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="color: black; font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 14pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-language: X-NONE; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"> </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="color: black; font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 14pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-language: X-NONE; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">Conservatives view these developments as
the decline of morality and good taste;<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>the intrusion of government into the lives of their children; and
educational policies that they regard as indoctrination. Abortion is seen as
part of the sexual revolution run rampant, separating sex from the family, extolling
forms of sex that turn traditional parenting into an outdated status. Militants
of homosexual movements have declared that hetero-normativity is on its way
out. Homosexuality has become more widespread: it was less than 2% of the Baby
Boom generation; grew to almost 4% of the generation born before 1980; to 9% of
those who became adults around the year 2000. In so-called Generation Z, now
about 18 to 23 years old, identifying as LGBT has jumped to 16%. This is still
far from a majority; but an expanding movement is full of aggressive
confidence, looking forward to a time when the heterosexual family is a quaint
minority. </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="color: black; font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 14pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-language: X-NONE; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"> </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="color: black; font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 14pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-language: X-NONE; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">Conservatives see the same trends but
from a different point of view: the falling marriage rate; below-replacement
fertility, now down to 1.6 children per woman in the US, the lowest in its
history (and even lower in parts of Europe); 40% of all children born to
unmarried parents. More people are living alone; proportionately more among the
aged 65 and older; but in sheer numbers of households, the largest number living
alone are working-age adults. </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="color: black; font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 14pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-language: X-NONE; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"> </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="color: black; font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 14pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-language: X-NONE; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">Strict laws in American states banning
abortion have been created in a situation where the political split between
conservatives and liberals leaves neither of them with a firm majority at the
Federal level, while conservatives fall back on regional state legislatures
which they control. Here also control over what goes on in the schools is
increasingly contested. </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="color: black; font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 14pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-language: X-NONE; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"> </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="color: black; font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 14pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-language: X-NONE; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">Abortion is just one issue in a divisive
cluster of issues.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Making abortion laws
more restrictive will not save the family; illegal abortions would re-appear,
recapitulating the conflicts of the 1960s. Conflict over abortion is a symbol
of the bigger question-- what conservatives perceive as a multi-pronged assault
on the family.</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="color: black; font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 14pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-language: X-NONE; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"> </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><span style="color: black; font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 14pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-language: X-NONE; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">Why
the Family is Not Likely to Disappear</span></i></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="color: black; font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 14pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-language: X-NONE; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"> </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="color: black; font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 14pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-language: X-NONE; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">But there are reasons of a different sort
why the family is not likely to disappear any time soon. When the feminist
revolution took off in the 1970s, men soon discovered they had an economic
interest in their wives’ careers. A family with two middle-class incomes could
outspend a traditional, male-headed upper-middle class household. Two
working-class incomes put a family in the middle-class expenditure bracket. In
the new economic hierarchy, the poorest families are those where one woman’s
income has to care for her children alone. Marriage and its shared property
rights continues to be the bulwark of economic stratification.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>From a radical left point-of-view, this would
be a reason to abolish the family; or at least take child-rearing away from the
family. </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="color: black; font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 14pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-language: X-NONE; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"> </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="color: black; font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 14pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-language: X-NONE; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">The situation is complicated by gay
marriage, beginning when gay couples demanded the tax and inheritance rights of
marriage. It also creates wealthy households, since gay men are usually middle
class or higher, and two such incomes makes them big spenders-- one reason why
consumer industries and advertising are so favorable to the gay movement.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>On the other hand, although gay couples
sometimes adopt children (or use sperm donors), the number of children in gay
marriages is small (only 15% of same-sex couples, married or not, have
children) and unlikely to compensate for the overall decline in child-bearing.
There are about 1 million same-sex households in the US; out of 128 million
households, this is less than 1%. Since about 13 million Americans identify as
LGBT, this implies that only 1/6th of them are living with a sexual partner;
most of them are living alone. The big increase in living alone may even be
driven by the rise of homosexuality, or perhaps vice versa. This seems to be particularly
true in big US cities, such as Washington D.C., where one-quarter of the adult
population live alone in apartments, making up half of all households.
Washington is also the city where the largest percentage identify themselves as
LGBT, at 10%.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="color: black; font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 14pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-language: X-NONE; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"> </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="color: black; font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 14pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-language: X-NONE; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">Can sociology predict the future of the
family? What will happen hinges a great deal on government regulations, and
these depend on the mobilization of political movements against each other. The
Internet era has made it easier for all sorts of movements to mobilize. But
government regulation may become a weapon by which one side can censor the
other and try to keep it from mobilizing. The causes of conflict are easier to
predict than the outcomes, especially when the sides are relatively evenly balanced.</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="color: black; font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 14pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-language: X-NONE; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"> </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="color: black; font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 14pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-language: X-NONE; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">Computerization and its offshoot the
Internet, foreshadow a future in which almost everyone works at home; manual
work is done by robots; everyone spends most of their time communicating
on-line, or absorbed in on-line entertainment. The generation brought up on the
Internet is the shyest generation yet; they have many on-line “friends” but few
friends in the flesh; they are less sexually active; more anxious and fearful.
The issue of abortion may eventually decline, because there is less sexual activity
in the future generation. The immersive virtual world of the Internet, strongly
promoted by today’s media capitalism, may be destroying the family by making it
easy to live physically solitary lives.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>Thus the recent jump in identification as homosexual (16% in the
youngest generation) may be largely a matter of announced identity rather than
bodily erotics; a kind of fantasy ideology more than actual sexual practice.</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="color: black; font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 14pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-language: X-NONE; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"> </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="color: black; font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 14pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-language: X-NONE; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">Yet this may be why the family will
survive--- not as the universal social institution, but as a privileged
enclave. It is privileged because it is a place of physical contact; of
interaction rituals, solidarity, and emotional energy. It is also a place of
reliable sex (surveys show that married and cohabiting couples have much more
frequent sex than unpartnered individuals -- they don’t have to spend time
looking for partners).<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Add to that the
two-earner effect on household income, an incentive for the family to survive. </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="color: black; font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 14pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-language: X-NONE; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"> </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="color: black; font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 14pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-language: X-NONE; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">The trajectory of the last 100 years has
been to undermine the family; but the rise of the disembodied computer world
may change that. I suspect we are heading towards a future where intact
families-- father, mother, and their children of all ages-- are the dominant
class economically; and media-networked or media-addicted isolates, living
alone with their electronics, are wards of the welfare state.</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="color: black; font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 14pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-language: X-NONE; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"> </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><span style="color: black; font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 14pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-language: X-NONE; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">References</span></i></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="color: black; font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 14pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-language: X-NONE; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"> </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><i><span style="color: black; font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 14pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-language: X-NONE; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">Statistical sources</span></i><span style="color: black; font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 14pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-language: X-NONE; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">:
</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="color: black; font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 14pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-language: X-NONE; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">U.S. Bureau of the Census</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="color: black; font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 14pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-language: X-NONE; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">Center for Disease Control</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="color: black; font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 14pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-language: X-NONE; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">National Center for Health Statistics</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="color: black; font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 14pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-language: X-NONE; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">Statistica.com</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="color: black; font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 14pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-language: X-NONE; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">Williams Institute</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="color: black; font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 14pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-language: X-NONE; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">Gallup polls</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="color: black; font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 14pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-language: X-NONE; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">Edward O. Laumann et. al. 1994. <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">The Social Organization of Sexuality. Sexual
Practices in the United States.</i><span style="mso-bidi-font-style: italic;"> Chicago:
University of Chicago Press.</span></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><span style="color: black; font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 14pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-language: X-NONE; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"> </span></i></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><i><span style="color: black; font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 14pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-language: X-NONE; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">Historical and Sociological references:</span></i></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><i><span style="color: black; font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 14pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-language: X-NONE; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"> </span></i></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="color: black; font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 14pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-language: X-NONE; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">Seth Abrutyn and Jonathan Turner. 2022. <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">The First Institutional Spheres of Human
Societies. Evolution and Adaptations from Foraging to the Threshold of
Modernity.</i> </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="color: black; font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 14pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-language: X-NONE; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">Philip Blumstein and Pepper
Schwartz.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>1983. <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">American Couples.</i><span style="mso-bidi-font-style: italic;"> New York:
Morrow.</span></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 14pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 10.0pt;">Randall Collins. 1986. “Weber’s Theory of
the Family.” and “Courtly Politics and the Status of Women.” In Collins, <i>Weberian
Sociological Theory.</i> Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 14pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 10.0pt;">Randall Collins. 2014. “Four Theories of
Informalization and How to Test Them.” <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Human
Figurations </i>3(2).<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><a href="http://hdl.handle.net/2027/spo.11217607.0003.207">http://hdl.handle.net/2027/spo.11217607.0003.207</a>
</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="color: black; font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 14pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-language: X-NONE; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">Randall Collins. 1979/2019. <i>The
Credential Society.</i> NY: Columbia University Press.</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="color: black; font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 14pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-language: X-NONE; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">Norbert Elias. 1939/2000. <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">The Civilizing Process.</i><span style="mso-bidi-font-style: italic;"> Oxford: Blackwell.</span></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="color: black; font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 14pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-language: X-NONE; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">Johann Goudsblom. 1992. <i>Fire and Civilization.
</i><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>London: Penguin Press.</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="color: black; font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 14pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-language: X-NONE; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">Todd Gitlin. 1987. <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">The Sixties.</i><span style="mso-bidi-font-style: italic;"> New York:
Bantam Books.</span></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 14pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 10.0pt;">Robbins B., Dechter A., Kornrich S. 2022.
"Assessing the Deinstitutionalization of Marriage Thesis." <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">American Sociological Review</i> 87:
237-274.</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="color: black; font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 14pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-language: X-NONE; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">Charles Tilly. 2004. <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Social Movements, 1768-2004.</i><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>Boulder, Colorado: Paradigm Publishers.</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="color: black; font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 14pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-language: X-NONE; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">Max Weber. 1922/1968. <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Economy and Society.</i><span style="mso-bidi-font-style: italic;"> New York: Bedminster Press.</span></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="color: black; font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 14pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-language: X-NONE; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">Cas Wouters. 2007. <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Informalization. Manners and Emotions since 1890.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></i><span style="mso-bidi-font-style: italic;">London:
Sage.</span></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="color: black; font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 14pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-language: X-NONE; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">Lewis Yabolonsky. 1968. <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">The Hippie Trip.</i><span style="mso-bidi-font-style: italic;"> Lincoln, Nebraska: Excel Press.</span></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="color: black; font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 14pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-language: X-NONE; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">Benjamin Zablocki. 1980. <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Alienation and Charisma. A Study of Contemporary
American Communes.</i></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 14pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 10.0pt;"> </span></p>
<p><style>@font-face
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{page:WordSection1;}</style></p>Unknownnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1005085971596877601.post-78154461865153037792022-10-11T17:38:00.001-07:002022-10-11T17:38:30.213-07:00Multi-causal Bottom Line<p>
</p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .1pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: .1pt; mso-para-margin-bottom: .01gd; mso-para-margin-left: 0in; mso-para-margin-right: 0in; mso-para-margin-top: .01gd;"><span style="color: black; font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 14.0pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">Multiple causality versus simple-mindedness:</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .1pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: .1pt; mso-para-margin-bottom: .01gd; mso-para-margin-left: 0in; mso-para-margin-right: 0in; mso-para-margin-top: .01gd;"><span style="color: black; font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 14.0pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"> </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .1pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: .1pt; mso-para-margin-bottom: .01gd; mso-para-margin-left: 0in; mso-para-margin-right: 0in; mso-para-margin-top: .01gd;"><span style="color: black; font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 14.0pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">Glib talk is the stuff of front-stage politics</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .1pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: .1pt; mso-para-margin-bottom: .01gd; mso-para-margin-left: 0in; mso-para-margin-right: 0in; mso-para-margin-top: .01gd;"><span style="color: black; font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 14.0pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">(but not of back-stage politiking).</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .1pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: .1pt; mso-para-margin-bottom: .01gd; mso-para-margin-left: 0in; mso-para-margin-right: 0in; mso-para-margin-top: .01gd;"><span style="color: black; font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 14.0pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"> </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .1pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: .1pt; mso-para-margin-bottom: .01gd; mso-para-margin-left: 0in; mso-para-margin-right: 0in; mso-para-margin-top: .01gd;"><span style="color: black; font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 14.0pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">Of advertisements and journalism</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .1pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: .1pt; mso-para-margin-bottom: .01gd; mso-para-margin-left: 0in; mso-para-margin-right: 0in; mso-para-margin-top: .01gd;"><span style="color: black; font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 14.0pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">(but not of editorial meetings).</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .1pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: .1pt; mso-para-margin-bottom: .01gd; mso-para-margin-left: 0in; mso-para-margin-right: 0in; mso-para-margin-top: .01gd;"><span style="color: black; font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 14.0pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"> </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .1pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: .1pt; mso-para-margin-bottom: .01gd; mso-para-margin-left: 0in; mso-para-margin-right: 0in; mso-para-margin-top: .01gd;"><span style="color: black; font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 14.0pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">Those who are successful in the world do not</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .1pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: .1pt; mso-para-margin-bottom: .01gd; mso-para-margin-left: 0in; mso-para-margin-right: 0in; mso-para-margin-top: .01gd;"><span style="color: black; font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 14.0pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">think that way, although they use talk as a weapon.</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .1pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: .1pt; mso-para-margin-bottom: .01gd; mso-para-margin-left: 0in; mso-para-margin-right: 0in; mso-para-margin-top: .01gd;"><span style="color: black; font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 14.0pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"> </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .1pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: .1pt; mso-para-margin-bottom: .01gd; mso-para-margin-left: 0in; mso-para-margin-right: 0in; mso-para-margin-top: .01gd;"><span style="color: black; font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 14.0pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">Yet there is advantage, even in science and intellect</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .1pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: .1pt; mso-para-margin-bottom: .01gd; mso-para-margin-left: 0in; mso-para-margin-right: 0in; mso-para-margin-top: .01gd;"><span style="color: black; font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 14.0pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">in simplifying to the most powerful causes,</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .1pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: .1pt; mso-para-margin-bottom: .01gd; mso-para-margin-left: 0in; mso-para-margin-right: 0in; mso-para-margin-top: .01gd;"><span style="color: black; font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 14.0pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"> </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .1pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: .1pt; mso-para-margin-bottom: .01gd; mso-para-margin-left: 0in; mso-para-margin-right: 0in; mso-para-margin-top: .01gd;"><span style="color: black; font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 14.0pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">and to win the center of attention among the voices</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .1pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: .1pt; mso-para-margin-bottom: .01gd; mso-para-margin-left: 0in; mso-para-margin-right: 0in; mso-para-margin-top: .01gd;"><span style="color: black; font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 14.0pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">by summing up the complexities in a term,</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .1pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: .1pt; mso-para-margin-bottom: .01gd; mso-para-margin-left: 0in; mso-para-margin-right: 0in; mso-para-margin-top: .01gd;"><span style="color: black; font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 14.0pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">Kuhnian paradigm, spin, vicious and virtuous circles,</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .1pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: .1pt; mso-para-margin-bottom: .01gd; mso-para-margin-left: 0in; mso-para-margin-right: 0in; mso-para-margin-top: .01gd;"><span style="color: black; font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 14.0pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"> </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .1pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: .1pt; mso-para-margin-bottom: .01gd; mso-para-margin-left: 0in; mso-para-margin-right: 0in; mso-para-margin-top: .01gd;"><span style="color: black; font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 14.0pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">but not to think you've said it all</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .1pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: .1pt; mso-para-margin-bottom: .01gd; mso-para-margin-left: 0in; mso-para-margin-right: 0in; mso-para-margin-top: .01gd;"><span style="color: black; font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 14.0pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">when you've only pointed where to look.</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .1pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: .1pt; mso-para-margin-bottom: .01gd; mso-para-margin-left: 0in; mso-para-margin-right: 0in; mso-para-margin-top: .01gd;"><span style="color: black; font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 14.0pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"> </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .1pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: .1pt; mso-para-margin-bottom: .01gd; mso-para-margin-left: 0in; mso-para-margin-right: 0in; mso-para-margin-top: .01gd;"><span style="color: black; font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 14.0pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">If one thing in the world is true, it is surely this:</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .1pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: .1pt; mso-para-margin-bottom: .01gd; mso-para-margin-left: 0in; mso-para-margin-right: 0in; mso-para-margin-top: .01gd;"><span style="color: black; font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 14.0pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">everything has multiple causes.</span></p>
<p><style>@font-face
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{page:WordSection1;}</style></p>Unknownnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1005085971596877601.post-71275968899791230012022-07-13T14:39:00.006-07:002022-08-25T14:53:06.117-07:00PREDICTABLES OF THE UKRAINE WAR <p class="MsoNormal" style="mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto; mso-margin-top-alt: auto;"> <span style="font-size: 14pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 10.0pt;">Written before Putin’s
invasion, the progress of the Ukraine war bears out generalizations made in <i>Explosive
Conflict: Time-Dynamics of Violence</i>. </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto; mso-margin-top-alt: auto;"><span style="font-size: 14pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 10.0pt;"> </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto; mso-margin-top-alt: auto;"><span style="font-size: 14pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 10.0pt;">[1] Three-to-six month rise
and fall in public crisis attention</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto; mso-margin-top-alt: auto;"><span style="font-size: 14pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 10.0pt;">[2] High-tech war reverts
over time to older-style warfare</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto; mso-margin-top-alt: auto;"><span style="font-size: 14pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 10.0pt;">[3] Civilian atrocities in
the midst of guerrilla war behind the lines</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto; mso-margin-top-alt: auto;"><span style="font-size: 14pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 10.0pt;">[4] Polarization produces
historical amnesia (Iraq, Afghanistan, Vietnam, WWII, WWI-- and Syria)</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto; mso-margin-top-alt: auto;"><span style="font-size: 14pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 10.0pt;"> </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto; mso-margin-top-alt: auto;"><span style="font-size: 14pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 10.0pt;">[1] <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Three-to-six month pattern</i></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto; mso-margin-top-alt: auto;"><span style="font-size: 14pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 10.0pt;">Almost every war is popular
at the outset. People are outraged and energized. This goes on at a high level
of intensity for about 3 months. Then enthusiasm begins to wane; more and more
of the population want to return to ordinary life. By 6 months after the
outbreak, enthuasiastic support is done to half of its peak. A split emerges,
between those who would like to end the conflict; and those who angrily and
righteously press ahead for victory and vengence, whatever the cost. Wars of
course can go on much longer than 6 months, but it becomes carried more by organization
and compulsion rather than popular enthusiasm. Unless wars are short and
victorious, they increasingly divide into peace faction vs. victory faction;
end-the-carnage and write off your losses, vs. sunk costs and
their-sacrifice-shall-not-be-in-vain.</span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto; mso-margin-top-alt: auto;"><span style="font-size: 14pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 10.0pt;"> </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto; mso-margin-top-alt: auto;"><i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><span style="font-size: 14pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 10.0pt;">Explosive Conflict </span></i><span style="font-size: 14pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 10.0pt;">documents the pattern for the outset of wars, enemy attacks, and
domestic protests.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I showed the
3-month-peak, 6-month-falling-off pattern in the flags Americans put out after
9/11/01. Enthusiasm for war swept through all the capitals of Europe in 1914,
from the Sarajevo assassination in June to the stalemate of armies at
Christmas; falling off thereafter into disillusionment. It is the same whether
one's side feels themselve the innocent victim at the outset; WWII had the same
pattern of early enthusiasm for joining in, followed by much more coercive
grinding it through. I have charted similar patterns of enthusiastic turn-out
for protest movements in France, Hong Kong, the US, and elsewhere: the biggest
demonstrations and the highest emotional level are in the early months,
dwindling off in the 3-to-6 month period of falling numbers, and a tail end of
violent die-hards. </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto; mso-margin-top-alt: auto;"><span style="font-size: 14pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 10.0pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto; mso-margin-top-alt: auto;"><span style="font-size: 14pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 10.0pt;">The Ukraine war began with Russia's
invasion February 24, 2022.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Russian
advances and defeats were front-page, top-headline news, in the first weeks and
months. </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto; mso-margin-top-alt: auto;"><span style="font-size: 14pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 10.0pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto; mso-margin-top-alt: auto;"><span style="font-size: 14pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 10.0pt;">This was the period when
anti-Russian outrage spread contagiously. Those who did not join in were
pressured: 2.28.22 AP "FIFA drew a swift backlash from European nations
for not immediately expelling Russia from World Cup qualifying." 3.01.22
FIFA gave in and banned Russia. So did the World Curling Federation; while the
International Olympic Committee moved to ban Russian athletes. Russian
musicians and conductors were removed from concerts in Europe and the US.
Tchaikovsky's 1812 Overture was removed from concert programs (7.07.22 NYT).
This polarization overrode news<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>in early
March of anti-Putin protests in Russia; and the less publicized exodus of
anti-war Russians to Armenia, Turkey and other neutral places. </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto; mso-margin-top-alt: auto;"><span style="font-size: 14pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 10.0pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto; mso-margin-top-alt: auto;"><span style="font-size: 14pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 10.0pt;">Exaggerated hero-stories
circulated in Ukraine in the flush of repelling the Russians from Kyiv. A
fighter pilot nicknamed "Ghost of Kyiv" was said to have shot down 6
Russian fighter jets in the first days of the invasion, survived being shot
down, and returned to shoot down 40 Russians before dying in an air battle in
early March. Ukrainian officials joined in the publicity. But in May, it
admitted that the Ghost of Kyiv did not exist. (5.02.22 NYT)</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto; mso-margin-top-alt: auto;"><span style="font-size: 14pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 10.0pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto; mso-margin-top-alt: auto;"><span style="font-size: 14pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 10.0pt;">Two months in, rallies for
Ukraine in US cities like San Diego were down to 50 participants, compared to
300-500 in the early days of the war [San Diego Union, 4.17.22]</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto; mso-margin-top-alt: auto;"><span style="font-size: 14pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 10.0pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto; mso-margin-top-alt: auto;"><span style="font-size: 14pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 10.0pt;">Three months in, by May when
the war shifted to sieges in the east, there was less news from the front. The
same headlines repeat day after day. Ukrainian leaders call for more arms, and
more sanctions (previous sanctions not yet having visible effects). News
stories shifted to inside pages. Reports from the front (where reporters are
not allowed) consist of official statements, claiming or denying small
advances, mentions of enemy weapons destroyed, numbers of civilian casualties
(but rarely of military casualties, except for estimates of enemy casualties). </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto; mso-margin-top-alt: auto;"><span style="font-size: 14pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 10.0pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto; mso-margin-top-alt: auto;"><span style="font-size: 14pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 10.0pt;">By June, morale in both
armies had declined severely: 6.20.22 AP "Four months of war in </span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 14pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 10.0pt;">Ukraine
appear to be straining the morale of troops on both sides, prompting desertions
and rebellion against officers' orders, British defense officials said...
Ukrainian forces have suffered desertions in recent weeks... Russian morale
highly likely remains especially troubled... Cases of whole Russian units
refusing orders and armed stand-offs between officers and their troops continue
to occur... NATO's chief warned that fighting could drag on for 'years'."<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto; mso-margin-top-alt: auto;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 14pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 10.0pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto; mso-margin-top-alt: auto;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 14pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 10.0pt;">Such
stand-offs are reminiscent of widespread rebellion against US officers in
remote combat zones during the later years of the Vietnam war, when over 500
incidents were reported of soldiers "fragging" them (throwing
fragmentation grenades into their tent). (Gibson 1986: 211-224) This does not
mean the soldiers will force a cease-fire, but rather than the war gets carried
on by more coercion and material incentives. Russia announced higher pay for
soldiers (6.17.22 Washington Post).</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto; mso-margin-top-alt: auto;"><span style="font-size: 14pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 10.0pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto; mso-margin-top-alt: auto;"><span style="font-size: 14pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 10.0pt;">From the early days of the
invasion, Western leaders pressed each other for economic sanctions as a
non-violent means of punishing and deterring the enemy; cutting off oil and
natural gas imports, banning all business relations with Russia, enforced
through controls on international banking, and secondary sanctions on those not
joining in. But within the first weeks, other parts of the world-- China,
India, Indonesia, Egypt, Saudi Arabia, Turkey, Mexico, Brazil-- refused to cut
economic ties with Russia, or stayed neutral. Some called it a war among white
people, with little regard for anyone else's refugees (3.03.22, 3.05.22 WSJ;
3.24.22 AP).<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>By June, poorer countries
in Asia and Africa were protesting food shortages resulting from blocked grain
and fertilizer exports of Ukraine and Russia. European countries such as
Germany and Italy, heavily dependent on Russian LNG, had joined officially in
the sanctions but stipulating only to apply these in the future. By June and
July, they were beginning to forecast winter shortages of fuel for heating, and
crises in industrial production. The coalition of economic sanctions was
wavering, after the early months of rhetorical support.</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto; mso-margin-top-alt: auto;"><span style="font-size: 14pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 10.0pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto; mso-margin-top-alt: auto;"><span style="font-size: 14pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 10.0pt;">Ukrainian war leaders began
to worry publically about "fatigue" on the part of the outside world.
Allies and business commentators began to talk about negotiations and settlements.
French president Macron spoke of what Russia would accept as
"victory", willing to end combat without being "humiliated"
as Germany was in the Versailles treaty of 1919. He walked back these comments
after Russian rockets hit civilian areas, but reiterated them in June. (6.16.22
WSJ)</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto; mso-margin-top-alt: auto;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 14pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 10.0pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto; mso-margin-top-alt: auto;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 14pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 10.0pt;">At
this time, most Ukrainians still supported fighting to take back all
Russian-held territory; but few had faith in the support of their Western
allies: 27% for France, 22% for Germany. (6.30.22 WSJ)</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto; mso-margin-top-alt: auto;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 14pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 10.0pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto; mso-margin-top-alt: auto;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 14pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 10.0pt;">In
Russia, despite tight government control of the media, apathy set in: 7.02.22
WSJ "In Russia's Biggest Cities, the War is Fading to Background Noise...
While opinion polls suggest public support for the military campaign, it is
largely passive... According to an independent pollster, the level of attention
Russians pay to the conflict is declining. While in March, 64% said they were
paying at least some attention, that number was down to 56% in May. Only 34% of
[military-age] 18-to-24 year-olds said they were following the situation."</span><span style="font-size: 14pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 10.0pt;"></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto; mso-margin-top-alt: auto;"><span style="font-size: 14pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 10.0pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto; mso-margin-top-alt: auto;"><span style="font-size: 14pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 10.0pt;">As of July 2022 (5 months
in) a division was visible among allies between those pressing for a truce to
end the damage; and advocates of a fall offensive to retake all Russian gains
in the east. </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto; mso-margin-top-alt: auto;"><span style="font-size: 14pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 10.0pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto; mso-margin-top-alt: auto;"><span style="font-size: 14pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 10.0pt;">[2] <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Limitations of high-tech warfare.</i><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto; mso-margin-top-alt: auto;"><span style="font-size: 14pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 10.0pt;">The lesson was already there
from the US wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. Advanced weapons combine targeting
from an array of sensors-- satellites, high-flying aircraft, low-flying drones;
tracking heat-signatures of vehicles, comparing photos of changes in formations
on the ground, spotting electronic activity, locating radar-guided weapons and
firing back at them; all coordinated by computers making high-speed precision
calculations. The enemy has no place to hide and targets are always hit. What
could go wrong?</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto; mso-margin-top-alt: auto;"><span style="font-size: 14pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 10.0pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto; mso-margin-top-alt: auto;"><span style="font-size: 14pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 10.0pt;">Interviews and reports from
lessons-learned conferences with US and UK veterans of Iraq and Afghanistan
list some everyday problems. High-tech weapons are not always available when
and where you want them, or in sufficient quantity. High-tech is expensive and
requires frequent maintenance.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>Computer-guided smart bombs and rockets are big, heavy to transport, and
get used up in intense bombardments. High-tech vehicles and weapons platforms
require a lot of fuel and maintenance. If war is carried on at a leisurely pace
(as in counter-insurgency war), these problems are surmountable; but the cost
mounts up over time (astronomical sums in the decades-long wars in Iraq and
Afghanistan). If war is intense and between similarly armed large-scale armies,
both sides suffer attrition of their most advanced equipment. The Eastern front
in WWII began with motor vehicles and deteriorated back to horses and
foot-soldiers. </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto; mso-margin-top-alt: auto;"><span style="font-size: 14pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 10.0pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto; mso-margin-top-alt: auto;"><span style="font-size: 14pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 10.0pt;">In Ukraine, reversion from
high-tech to traditional weaponry has been most evident on the Russian side.
Their supply of long-distance precision rockets was largely exhausted in the
early months, replaced by older, less precise rockets targeting Ukrainian urban
areas, rather like carpet bombing in WWII. In battle zones, Russian radio
communication was vulnerable and broke down early, shifting to a cell phone
system shared with Ukraine, which also broke down. High-level Russian officers
had to command personally at the front lines, like pre-modern warfare, <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>resulting in high officer casualties. </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto; mso-margin-top-alt: auto;"><span style="font-size: 14pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 10.0pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto; mso-margin-top-alt: auto;"><span style="font-size: 14pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 10.0pt;">The Ukrainian military was
hurriedly supplied with long-distance rockets and artillery to target their
Russian counterparts, using US/NATO targeting information. But logistical
difficulties made the supply slow and intermittent: the many different allies
sending available weapons produced a mix of Soviet-style weapons and calibres
(Ukraine had been the center of Soviet arms production); plus a variety of west
European and Scandinavian weapons systems with specific maintenance needs and
ammunition calibres; making it hard to connect the right ammunition, repairs
and replacements with the places where particular weapons were being used. US
high-tech missile defense and long-distance rocketry started filling the gap in
the fifth month of war-- with the highly bureaucratized US military not being
known for speedy delivery (having spent almost two years cranking up for the
invasion of Iraq in 2003). </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto; mso-margin-top-alt: auto;"><span style="font-size: 14pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 10.0pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto; mso-margin-top-alt: auto;"><span style="font-size: 14pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 10.0pt;">There is no guarantee that
reliance on US high-tech will prove successful in a longer war of attrition.
Ukraine has been most successful with small-group tactics, essentially Special
Forces movements under the radar (so to speak), getting close to Russian tanks
and artillery to destroy them with man-carried anti-tank rockets. This was
crucial in the first weeks of war, during the Russian blitzkrieg rushing to
Kyiv from the Belarus border. Pre-war US supplies and troop training made Ukrainian
forces well-matched for countering this mechanized invasion. Avoiding most front-line
confrontations, Urkainian soldiers infiltrated the long and poorly-protected
Russian supply convoys, hitting them with shoulder-fired Javelin missiles. In
the early phase, Special Forces-style weapons and tactics defeated a
traditional mass-vehicle attack; rather like Taliban attacks on far-flung US
outposts in Afghanistan. The lesson of both wars: massive, spread-out forces
with expensive logistics and long supply lines are vulnerable to small,
dispersed hit-and-run attacks on logistics lines.</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto; mso-margin-top-alt: auto;"><span style="font-size: 14pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 10.0pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto; mso-margin-top-alt: auto;"><span style="font-size: 14pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 10.0pt;">Here we have another example
of what in <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Explosive Conflict</i> is
called a time-fork: sudden blitzkrieg, resulting in collapse of the enemy's
organizational and political structure, if successful, makes for a short war
with relatively low casualties. This is what Putin was aiming at, assuming he
could do something like what the US did in Iraq in 2003, scattering enemy
forces and causing the government to abandon ship within weeks. But if a
blitzkrieg does not succeed, the process shifts to a longer time-scale: attrition
war where both sides have resources to hang on and cause damage for a long time.
Ending such a war victoriously requires enormous destruction of the enemy's
resource base, inevitably hitting at the civilian population as everything
becomes a military target. Attrition war grinds down everything, high-tech and
low-tech alike; raising the human and material cost until one side, or both,
run out.</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto; mso-margin-top-alt: auto;"><span style="font-size: 14pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 10.0pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto; mso-margin-top-alt: auto;"><span style="font-size: 14pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 10.0pt;">In the second phase of the
Ukraine war, Russia cut its losses from the failed blitzkrieg in the west,
shifting to eastern fronts less vulnerable to infantry infiltration; keeping
the small-arms high tech of US-supplied Ukrainian forces at a distance by
massing artillery barrages in building-by-building advances through the cities
of the east. Russia countered Special Forces high-tech by returning to WWII era
sieges. Russia did the same in 1995 under Yeltsin, defeating break-away Chechen
guerrillas by destroying their capital city, building by building. </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto; mso-margin-top-alt: auto;"><span style="font-size: 14pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 10.0pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto; mso-margin-top-alt: auto;"><span style="font-size: 14pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 10.0pt;">This could be countered by
the delivery of more firepower from US weapons. But here again high-tech
superiority runs up against logistical limitations. Within 2 months, the US was
running low in its supply of the kinds of weapons most in demand in the
Urkaine. (WSJ 4.29.22; 7.09.22)<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Cranking
up production to<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>manufacture
replacements is difficult because the DOD in recent years has shifted its
defense budget to future weapons systems, focusing on long-distance war with
China rather than front-line combat; and because supply chains in weaponry as
in other manufactures having deteriorated and backlogged in recent years.
High-tech is no quick fix, except in some very short-run wars. </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto; mso-margin-top-alt: auto;"><span style="font-size: 14pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 10.0pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto; mso-margin-top-alt: auto;"><span style="font-size: 14pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 10.0pt;">[3] <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Pattern of Atrocities</i></span><span style="font-size: 14pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 10.0pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto; mso-margin-top-alt: auto;"><span style="font-size: 14pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 10.0pt;">Atrocities have been big
news stories in the period between the first weeks of defeating the Russian
blitztkrieg and the shift to artillery battles in later months. Atrocities, by
definition, are shocking; but they are not beyond the scope of sociological
explanation. There is a pattern </span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 14pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 10.0pt;">when atrocities
happen.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></span><span style="font-size: 14pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 10.0pt;"></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 14pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 10.0pt;">Civilians get targeted particularly in two
circumstances:</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 14pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 10.0pt;"> </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 14pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 10.0pt;">[a] When guerrilla fighters hide in the
civilian population; and civilians are suspected of being lookouts and spotters
if not non-uniformed troops. This was also the pattern of widespread US killing
of civilians in the Vietnam war; and for incidents of US troops going on
rampages in Iraq and Afghanistan, in what they perceived as houses from which
hidden roadside IEDs were triggered; or in revenge for green-on-blue shootings
by ostensibly allied local troops. </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 14pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 10.0pt;"> </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 14pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 10.0pt;">[b] By snipers in urban warfare with no-man’s-land
fronts; where high-rise buildings provide protected places very close to
dangerous ones; combined with civilians living in the war zone.</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 14pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 10.0pt;"> </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 14pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 10.0pt;">Russia atrocities were most publicized for
the Kyiv suburbs in the early weeks, and in the siege of Mariupol from March to
May. The former, especially the town of Bucha, fits [a]; the latter exemplifies
[b]. </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 14pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 10.0pt;"> </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 14pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 10.0pt;">[a] Russian troops expected an easy conquest
of Kyiv and a rapid end to the war. In the early days reportedly they were more
polite or friendly to locals. but became increasingly frustrated and angry as
they bogged down; all the more so with lack of reinforcements or even food.
Russian poor logistics, and inability to defend against attacks on their supply
convoys, made soldiers both paranoid and hungry.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>They began looting civilian homes for food,
putting them in an elemental contest among the hungry. As in previous wars
(graphically reported by Loyd for the Bosnia wars of the 1990s), this puts
soldiers and civilians into close and abusive relations, spilling over into
beatings and executions. </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto; mso-margin-top-alt: auto;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 14pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 10.0pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto; mso-margin-top-alt: auto;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 14pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 10.0pt;">Ukrainian
resistance to the Russians in this phase was largely guerrilla war, playing the
part of Taliban vs. US, avoiding head-to-head battles but attacking logistics
convoys; the difference being in this case that the guerrillas had high-tech man-portable
anti-tank missles. </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto; mso-margin-top-alt: auto;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 14pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 10.0pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto; mso-margin-top-alt: auto;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 14pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 10.0pt;">Russians’
perception of civilians as enemies was probably accurate in many cases. News
coverage from early February up through the early days of the Russian invasion
was full of photos of civilians being trained to use arms. The Ukraine
government announced that weapons were being distributed to the entire
population. 3.04.22 AP:<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>"Ukrainian
leaders called on the people to defend their homeland by cutting down trees,
creating barricades in cities, and attacking enemy columns from the rear. In
recent days, authorities have issued weapons to civilians and taught them how
to make Molotov cocktails... a video message recalled guerrilla actions in
Nazi-occupied Ukraine during WWII."<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto; mso-margin-top-alt: auto;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 14pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 10.0pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto; mso-margin-top-alt: auto;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 14pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 10.0pt;"></span></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 14pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 10.0pt;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjEpBpib00e1yPzA_jE8DBwArswXp9a1PjtFxoC9bUHQiUC_OD3Xp9nipxEWcZ9ckVK_YTXB9hRSQS0d1oOutG-NJrgTY-wNDNcvpKCtuyV-zkdI472bwLq0532TZrvN4ehKEu4imXO-cewPZJNsTBh-Gl6xFr8z_xICss7c21TzI25pQCaeOpC_OxHrA/s2023/2022.2.11-UKRcivilians-training.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1161" data-original-width="2023" height="368" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjEpBpib00e1yPzA_jE8DBwArswXp9a1PjtFxoC9bUHQiUC_OD3Xp9nipxEWcZ9ckVK_YTXB9hRSQS0d1oOutG-NJrgTY-wNDNcvpKCtuyV-zkdI472bwLq0532TZrvN4ehKEu4imXO-cewPZJNsTBh-Gl6xFr8z_xICss7c21TzI25pQCaeOpC_OxHrA/w640-h368/2022.2.11-UKRcivilians-training.jpg" width="640" /></a></span></div><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 14pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 10.0pt;"><br /></span><p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto; mso-margin-top-alt: auto;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 14pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 10.0pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto; mso-margin-top-alt: auto;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 14pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 10.0pt;">Retrospective
accounts emerged later: 3.06.22 LATimes "... rifles were handed out to all
who were able, and homemade bombs were bottled." 3.23.22 WSJ "In a
war of ambushes and skirmishes, mobile Ukrainian forces have used their
knowledge of the local battlefield and sought to hit Russian forces on weak
points, striking armored columns on main roads and undermining their ability to
fight by disrupting supplies... Tens of thousands of ordinary citizens recently
have joined territorial battalions and need body armor, helmets [an official
said] ... Russian troops in many places have looted stores and homes for food,
according to authorities and accounts from witnesses." 4.05.22 WSJ
"Civilian Volunteers and Ukraine's Secret Weapon.... When Russian troops
were massing across the border, Ukrainian civilians met during weekends to
learn how to administer battlefield first aid and how to handle a weapon...
they have helped build barricades, patrol roads and even attack Russian convoys
and capture enemy soldiers." </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto; mso-margin-top-alt: auto;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 14pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 10.0pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto; mso-margin-top-alt: auto;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 14pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 10.0pt;">5.09.22
WSJ "Civilians Helped Win Kyiv Battle... Ukrainian villagers helped in
their own way, calling in artillery strikes on a lifeline Russian had mapped
out for its assault on the capital.... villagers shared tips and Google map
locations with authorities, turning the highway between the Russian border and
Kyiv into a big logistical defeat for Moscow... 'Everyone here was doing all
the could to get Russian troop movements across to our boys,' a homemaker said,
who had called in soldier locations... [Her] own house was shelled in the
exchanges... "The capital's Kyiv Digital app, which once helped people pay
parking tickets.. was reconfigured to help users spot Russian movements and
give them to the armed forces... [and] explained how to drop pins on Google maps
to send to security services, and reminded users to delete their messages or
prvent being caught by Russian troops... In mid-March, Russian servicemen broke
into the house of [a woman} who had been sending the types and numbers of
Russian armor to a Ukrainian police officer, her father. She was detained on
March 24 and hasn't been heard of since."</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto; mso-margin-top-alt: auto;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 14pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 10.0pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto; mso-margin-top-alt: auto;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 14pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 10.0pt;">Similar
patterns were reported for other battles, such as the port city of Mykolaiv in
the south: 4.16.22 WSJ "With communications jammed, Ukraine relied on an
ad hoc civilian network to report report Russian positions, and inflicted heavy
losses on an attempted assault... [The mayor said] 'All people who can carry a
gun are ready to defend ourselves.'"</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto; mso-margin-top-alt: auto;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 14pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 10.0pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto; mso-margin-top-alt: auto;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 14pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 10.0pt;">Some
of the “unarmed civilian victims” of Russian atrocities were probably
guerrillas. Others were suspected of sending information about Russian
positions to Ukrainian forces. </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto; mso-margin-top-alt: auto;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 14pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 10.0pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto; mso-margin-top-alt: auto;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 14pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 10.0pt;">After
the withdrawal of Russian forces from central Ukraine at the end of March, a
burst of atrocities stories filled the news. 4.06.22 WSJ<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>"Mayor Helped Resist, Then Was
Slain...<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The lifeless body [of the mayor
of Motyzhyn, a small town west of Kyiv] was found in a shallow grave, her hands
bound. Her husband and son lay next to her, dead... The 50-year-old mayor held
together her village, cut off and near the fighting at the front [since
February 27]. She delivered food and medicine. And she was a leader of the
resistance, part of an undercover effort to send Russian troop positions and
movements to her country's military... Residents said Russian aggression
against locals surged as the Russians came under attacks from Ukrainian
artillery and ambush teams... The head of the village's volunteer defense force
moved in with [the mayor's family] after his house was damaged by shelling. He
and her husband would head out on scouting missions... and she shared the
information with Ukrainian forces via cellphone messages. Ukrainian army scouts
visited the house for updates...<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>On
March 18, a Ukrainian ambush team sneaked into the village and destroyed a Russian
armored vehicle and truck with antitank weapons. The Russians responded with
fury. The next day, they launched what they called a clearance operation
through the village... Russian soldiers took away [the mayor and her husband],
telling [her son] they would bring them back soon. [Her son] called the head of
village resistance and warned him to destroy his SIM card to prevent the
Russians finding it and identifying him. In the evening, the soldiers returned
and took away [the son]." </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto; mso-margin-top-alt: auto;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 14pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 10.0pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto; mso-margin-top-alt: auto;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 14pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 10.0pt;">Most
attention was focused on Bucha, in the western suburbs of Kyiv. 4.04.22 AP
"Russians Accused of New Atrocities. Reports of Tortured Bodies, Civilian
Executions in Kyiv Suburbs Promote Outrage from Ukraine, Western allies.
President Considering Stronger Sanctions. America's 'secondary sanctions' would
target countries that continue to trade with Russia.... </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto; mso-margin-top-alt: auto;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 14pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 10.0pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto; mso-margin-top-alt: auto;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 14pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 10.0pt;">"Bodies
with bound hands, close-range gunshot wounds and signs of torture lay scattered
in a city on the outskirts of Kyiv after Russian soldiers withdrew from the area...
One resident said that Russian troops went building to building and took people
out of basements where they were hiding, checking their phones for any evidence
of anti-Russian activity before taking them away or shooting them..." </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto; mso-margin-top-alt: auto;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 14pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 10.0pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto; mso-margin-top-alt: auto;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 14pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 10.0pt;">4.10.22
AP<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>In Bucha "... at the beginning
the Russians kept pretty much to themselves, focused on forward progress. When
that stalled they went house to house looking for young men, sometimes taking
documents and phones. Ukrainian resistance seemed to wear on them. The Russians
seemed angrier, more impulsive. Sometimes they seemed drunk... Residents of
Bucha, [now] as they venture out of cold homes and basements, offer theories...
Some believe the house-to-house targeting younger men was a hunt for those who
had fought the Russians in recent years in separatist-held Ukraine and had been
given housing in the town. By the end, any shred of discipline broke down.
Grenades were tossed into basements, bodies thrown into wells. Women in their
70s were told not to stick their heads out of their homes or they'd be
killed.... At first [a 63-year-old woman said], they said they had come for
three days. [They stayed a month, leaving on March 31.] Then they got hungry.
They got cold. They started to loot. They shot TV screens for no reason. They
feared there were spies among the Ukrainians... her nephew was detained after
being spotted filming destroyed tanks with his phone. Four days later, he was
found in a basement, shot in the ear.... Days later, thinking the Russians were
gone, she and her neighbour slipped out to shutter nearby homes and protect
them from looting. The Russians caught them and took them to a basement....
Suddenly the soldiers were called away, leaving her and her neighbour shaken
but alive."</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto; mso-margin-top-alt: auto;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 14pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 10.0pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto; mso-margin-top-alt: auto;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 14pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 10.0pt;">Another
story emerged months later, from a town east of Kyiv: 5.27.22 WSJ On March 19,
a 21-year-old farmer, walking to feed his pigs ..."caught the eye of a
Russian patrol. They asked if he had been giving away their positions to
Ukrainian forces.. 'Is that why we keep getting hit with artillery?' he
remembered one of them asking as they searched him for tattoos that might give
him away as a combatant. They scrolled through his phone to see if he had sent
photos of Russian troops. ... He and a friend were taken to a nearby cellar,
where they were beaten.... As days wore on, more civilians were brought in. A
25-year-old math teacher said she was watching in a nearby village as Russian
forces trundled along the main road. Her father said he made an inventory of
their equipment, peeping over their garden fence, as his daughter relayed the
information to a friend in the military... On March 25, Russian soldiers broke
into her family home and searched through her phone. She admitted sending
information to Ukrainian forces... She was covered with bruises when she
arrived at the boiler room. She upbraided the captors for invading Ukraine.
'She asked why they came here to ruin our peaceful lives. You should have seen
the Russians' faces. From them on, until she was led out days later, the Russians
left her alone and treated her with respect.... </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto; mso-margin-top-alt: auto;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 14pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 10.0pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto; mso-margin-top-alt: auto;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 14pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 10.0pt;">"On
March 27, the Russian assault on Kyiv was being hampered by insurgent attacks
on supply lines and frustrations were boiling. The Russians took [the math
teacher and another] away. Nobody has heard of them since.... </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto; mso-margin-top-alt: auto;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 14pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 10.0pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto; mso-margin-top-alt: auto;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 14pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 10.0pt;">"Days
later, a Russian soldier appeared to be intoxicated, and said he needed eight
bodies... He gave them a shot of vodka and asked [the interviewee] to choose
who among the other prisoners would die. He refused and told the soldier he
wouldn't be able to live with himself. He volunteered to be next.... The
Russian soldier pulled him out of the boiler room and led him to a nearby
cemetary and told him to get on his knees. A shot rang out but the bullet went
past his ear and hit the ground. The Russian pulled him up, telling him he
never wanted him to talk that way again.... The next day the Russian soldier
returned at 5.30 a.m. and said they were leaving. They listened for the troops'
engines to start and fade into the distance.... Twelve prisoners were left in
the boiler room. When they walked to the nearby graveyard, they found 6 of
those who had been led away to execution were still alive."</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto; mso-margin-top-alt: auto;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 14pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 10.0pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto; mso-margin-top-alt: auto;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 14pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 10.0pt;">Yet
another retrospective story from a small village in northern Ukraine, a family
sheltered in the cellar of a bombed-out house with 5 Russian soldiers.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>5.17.22 WSJ<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>"Soldiers seized villagers' phones and lined them up in front of a
garage while checking their identification. [A young man] was let go after
confirming he wasn't military... When his family opened the door leading down
to the place where they used to store beet-root and potatoes, they found five
Russian soldiers. The intruders invited them in... Elsewhere, residents said
Russian soldiers threatened them and looted their homes. But in the cellar, an
uneasy accommodation was reached. The Russians [whom they guessed] were tank
technicians, sometimes brought food and toiletries apparently looted from the
homes of Ukrainians. [One of the Russians did all the cooking] -- 'I think they
were afraid we would poison them.' The family ate Russian military rations with
them, sometimes contributing potatoes and preserves from their stockpile... On
March 30, the soldiers appeared downcast. [until now they had assumed they were
winning; next day they retreated] The family followed them out of the cellar
and saw a column of Russian vehicles preparing to depart... The five Russian
soldiers said goodbye and wished the family the best. 'If you had come as
guests, I would say goodbye-- but not like this,' the older man said. 'You are
my enemies.'"</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto; mso-margin-top-alt: auto;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 14pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 10.0pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto; mso-margin-top-alt: auto;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 14pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 10.0pt;">These
detailed accounts show, paradoxically, that not everyone is killed, even in
situations of anger, suspicion, and prolonged strain, where all the power is on
one side. Or not paradoxically: as shown elsewhere (<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Violence: A Micro-sociological Theory</i> ch. 3; <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Explosive Conflict</i>) face-to-face killing is psychologically
difficult; the emotions have to be intense and social supports have to be
aligned to carry it off. </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto; mso-margin-top-alt: auto;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 14pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 10.0pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto; mso-margin-top-alt: auto;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 14pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 10.0pt;">[b]
Snipers and no-go zones in urban sightlines.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>Loyd's [1999] eye-witness account of the wars in Bosnia explains why
some fraction of civilians stay: some are reluctant to abandon their homes and
possessions; unwilling to live as refugees; some discovering they can survive
dangerously, especially if the lines are slow-moving or static. But they have
to venture out for water and scavenge for food; often they have to cross
no-man's-land, in sight of snipers who have warned them off the streets. And
both snipers and civilians are tired, strung-out and careless; snipers often
don't shoot, at other times shoot unexpectedly. Taking chances becomes a
routine. </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto; mso-margin-top-alt: auto;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 14pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 10.0pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto; mso-margin-top-alt: auto;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 14pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 10.0pt;">4.08.22
WSJ "In early March... Russian troops halted in their advance on Kyiv...
Telling local residents they were worried that somebody was reporting their
positions to Ukraine's military, Russian soldiers ordered people to stay off
the street... But for a 68-year-old superintendent of a home for special-needs
children... the only way to get to work was straight into a Russian military
no-go zone... A sniper shot him in the road in front of a shrapnel-riddled
green gate... By the time the Russians retreated, 17 corpses lay on the
street... [A woman] who took charge of a kindergarten where several hundred
locals had sought refuge in the basement, went to search for fuel for a
generator when... she bumped into two tanks. 'Are you f-ing crazy? There's a
sniper here,' she recalled the tank commander warning her. He siphoned fuel
from an abandoned car and gave it to her. 'If my grandfather knew I was here,
he's turn in his grave,' she recalled him saying; his grandfather was born in
northern Ukraine... Russian troops established a curfew, telling locals to stay
indoors after 4 p.m., and placed snipers in the town's tallest buildings.
Locals said they smelled alcohol on the breath of Russian soldiers at
checkpoints... </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto; mso-margin-top-alt: auto;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 14pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 10.0pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto; mso-margin-top-alt: auto;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 14pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 10.0pt;">[Weeks
later] "Russian forces were getting bogged down.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Ukrainian army detachments worked secretly in
Bucha and other Russian-occupied areas. Special-forces units lobbed grenades at
Russian posts, helped guide artillery strikes, and fired small arms from high
windows. The Russian soldiers began to scrutinize the local population more
fiercely. 'They saw a spotter in every person who lived on the fifth floor'
[said a resident]. 'They saw a commando in each of us.' ... On March 10,
special Russian units swept through Bucha's residential sectors, destroying
doors with fire axes and storming homes, trying to root out the cause for their
continuing troubles... Russian troops forced men of fighting age to strip to
the skin, and scanned their bodies for military tattoos and the shoulder
bruises and trigger-finger calluses that betrayed recent use of weapons... men
began disappearing, their dead bodies reappearing on the street days later with
their wrists fastened behind their backs.... In the afternoons, as curfew set
in, Russian snipers ascended to positions in high-rises trangulated on the
intersection of (main streets). 'They told us, 'you can't cross along the
road... At all. You can't go anywhere. If you set foot on the sidewalk or the
road, you will be immediately killed.' People desperate to flee still made a
break for it along the road [out of town]. The first killing was a woman on a
bicycle. 'First I heard a shot, then I saw her' [a resident said]. 'How could a
grandmother on a bicycle interfere with anyone?'"</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto; mso-margin-top-alt: auto;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 14pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 10.0pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto; mso-margin-top-alt: auto;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 14pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 10.0pt;">In
Mariupol and other cities gradually taken by the Russians over a period of two
months, bodies piled up in hastily excavated graves [4.23.22 WSJ]. These were
not necessarily mass executions; a lot of people died, some shot by snipers;
some killed in the house-by-house artillery war as the remaining Ukrainian army
sheltered in deep tunnels under an abandoned steel factory. Some of these
soldiers, too, made periodic forays above ground for water and food in a live
battle zone. Grisly mass graves would also be the result of Russian forces
cleaning up the streets after victory. </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto; mso-margin-top-alt: auto;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 14pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 10.0pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto; mso-margin-top-alt: auto;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 14pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 10.0pt;">We
can add a third pathway to civilian atrocities: when they are hit by indiscriminate
long-distance shelling and bombing of urban targets. The psychology of such
attacks is not the emotions of face-to-face confrontation; but cold technical
attitudes of destroying an ememy whom we never see. The American airmen who
dropped atomic bombs on Nagasaki and Hiroshima never mentioned anything except
the technical details of performing their mission. It was the same with the
British pilots who fire-bombed Dresden; no doubt with the Russian artillerists
who destroyed Grozni, capital of Chechnya. It is the same attitude as the US
officer in Vietnam who said "in order to save [the town], it was necessary
to destroy it." The technology of modern weapons of mass destruction makes
no distinction between civilians and military; they are all in the path of
high-powered modern war. </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto; mso-margin-top-alt: auto;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 14pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 10.0pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto; mso-margin-top-alt: auto;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 14pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 10.0pt;">If
we hope to avoid atrocities, we need to think more clearly about the overall
pattern.</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto; mso-margin-top-alt: auto;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 14pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 10.0pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto; mso-margin-top-alt: auto;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 14pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 10.0pt;">[4]
<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Polarized perception and historical
amnesia</i> </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto; mso-margin-top-alt: auto;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 14pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 10.0pt;">Public
figures and commentators refer to almost everything the enemy does as
"barbaric" and "brutal." These words do little to explain
it.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>From an ideal, peaceful standpoint,
all fighting is brutal. On calmer reflection, we cannot accurately say that
everyone of enemy nationality are barbarians. If some of them commit
atrocities, there is a causality of who, where, and when-- a causality that
appears to be universal. As polarization declined after several months of war,
news reports began to mention incidents where Ukrainian troops accused
Russian-speaking residents of being spies for the Russian army, mirroring
accusations in the other direction. 5.01.22 AP "Ukraine Cracks Down on
'Traitors' Helping Russian Troops." 6.03.22 WSJ "Security Officers
Hunt Kremlin Backers, Spies."<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto; mso-margin-top-alt: auto;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 14pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 10.0pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto; mso-margin-top-alt: auto;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 14pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 10.0pt;">At
the beginning of any war, everything is simplified to innocent good guys and
despicable bad guys. This is polarization. We forget everything that our side
may have done in the past that isn't wonderful; and remember nothing but the
worst about the other side. </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto; mso-margin-top-alt: auto;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 14pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 10.0pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto; mso-margin-top-alt: auto;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 14pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 10.0pt;">The
tendency to idealize our allies at the beginning of war leads to overlooking
things that later come to light. Since the break-up of the Soviet Union,
Ukraine was one of the most corrupt countries in Europe, both among government
officials and from the mafias that sprung up in all the ex-soviet states in the
transition to capitalism. Suddenly, since February 2022, the US and other
western states have shown their support by offering (in lieu of their own
troops) billions of dollars to the war effort, with little effort to account
for what is done with the it. This sets up the likelihood of discovering in
future years the kind of corruption of military aid that characterized the wars
in Vietnam, Iraq and Afghanistan. This aspect of polarized perception is a
time-bound process. Fitting the 3-to-6-month pattern of declining enthusiasm,
warnings began to appear in the US<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>about
blindly throwing money at an ally with a history of corruption (6.14.22 WSJ).
Zelensky was elected president in 2019 on a platform to overcome corruption;
before the war broke out, he was regarded as unsuccessful. His public
leadership in the war-- especially his highly-publicized on-line appearances
calling for aid from the rest of the world-- elevated his standing (84% high or
medium trust, in Ukrainian-controlled areas); but this did not extend to the
rest of the Ukrainian government (62% little or no trust in parliament: 6.30.22
WSJ). They think corruption is still there.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto; mso-margin-top-alt: auto;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 14pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 10.0pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto; mso-margin-top-alt: auto;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 14pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 10.0pt;">As
the period of naive enthusiasm wanes, some people around the world will see the
Ukraine war in a more realistic light. Some will press for the benefits of
peace, over the costs of vengence. Some will argue that no agreement ever
holds; that all aggressors are Hitlers; that no war ever ends in a compromise.
That is not the universal lesson of history. To go no further with examples,
WWI could have been ended in 1916, when the costly stalemate was recognized and
negotiations proposed by all the major participants except France, with Woodrow
Wilson offering to mediate; a cabinet coup in England replaced the war-weary
Prime Minister with one determined to press the war onwards; resulting in a
victory that laid the grounds for WWII. We need better judgment about whether
we are in 1939 or in 1916. And about everything else that gets fogged over in
the polarized atmosphere of war.</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto; mso-margin-top-alt: auto;"><span style="font-size: 14pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 10.0pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto; mso-margin-top-alt: auto;"><span style="font-size: 14pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 10.0pt;">The next few months of
summer/autumn 2022 may be coming up to a switching-point. Either a cease-fire
will be established, along with negotiations for a settlement; or the war will
be futher escalated, by an all-out campaign to retake everything that Russia
has conquered since 2016. Costly as the damages of the war have been so far,
they will be dwarfed by the costs in lives and livelihoods if the war is
allowed to escalate, potentially for years to come, and with global
entanglements yet unseen. Above I noted that after hopes for a short decisive war
are dashed, a long attrition war can be carried on as long as participants'
resources last. If one or another of the participants is a poor country, it is
their rich allies who can choose to keep the war going indefinitely. A
now-ignored example is Syria, where a multi-sided war has been going on for 11
years, sustained by arms flowing in to all sides; resulting in three-quarters
of the population turned into refugees. In Ukraine, to date, about a third of
the population are refugees, either internationally or internally displaced
(6.03.22 NYT).<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>This may not even be the
worst-case scenario for continued escalation of war in Ukraine. </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto; mso-margin-top-alt: auto;"><i><span style="font-size: 14pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 10.0pt;"> </span></i></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto; mso-margin-top-alt: auto;"><i><span style="font-size: 14pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 10.0pt;">References</span></i><span style="font-size: 14pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 10.0pt;"></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto; mso-margin-top-alt: auto;"><span style="font-size: 14pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 10.0pt;">Dates and details on Ukraine
war from Associated Press, New York Times, Washington Post, Wall Street Journal,
Los Angeles Times</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto; mso-margin-top-alt: auto;"><span style="font-size: 14pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 10.0pt;">Randall Collins. 2022.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><i>Explosive Confict: Time-Dynamics of
Violence. </i>Routledge/Taylor&Francis. </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto; mso-margin-top-alt: auto;"><span style="font-size: 14pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 10.0pt;">--- 2008. <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Violence: A Micro-sociological Theory. </i>Princeton
Univ. Press.</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto; mso-margin-top-alt: auto;"><span style="font-size: 14pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 10.0pt;">Anthony King. 2021. <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Urban Warfare in the Twenty-first Century.</i>
Polity Press.</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto; mso-margin-top-alt: auto;"><span style="font-size: 14pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 10.0pt;">Danilo Mandic. 2021. <i>Gangsters
and Other Statesmen. Mafias, Separatists, and Torn States in a Globalized
World.</i> Princeton Univ. Press.</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto; mso-margin-top-alt: auto;"><span style="font-size: 14pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 10.0pt;">Anthony Loyd. 1999. <i>My
War Gone By, I Miss It So.</i> Grove Press. [eyewitness account of wars in
Bosnia and Chechnya, 1993-95]</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto; mso-margin-top-alt: auto;"><span style="font-size: 14pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 10.0pt;">James William Gibson. 1986. <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">The Perfect War: Technowar in Vietnam. </i>Atlantic
Monthly Press.</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto; mso-margin-top-alt: auto;"><span style="font-size: 14pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 10.0pt;">David Lane. April 2022.
"What Caused Russia to Invade Ukraine?" [includes maps showing the
many changes in Ukraine borders; zones of different language-speaking
populations; and recent policy to make Ukrainian the exclusive language] </span><i><span lang="EN" style="mso-ansi-language: EN; mso-bidi-font-family: Helvetica;"><br />
</span></i><a href="https://www.worldeconomicsassociation.org/files/2022/04/Issue12-1.pdf"><i><span lang="EN" style="mso-ansi-language: EN; mso-bidi-font-family: Helvetica;">https://www.worldeconomicsassociation.org/files/2022/04/Issue12-1.pdf</span></i></a><span class="MsoHyperlink"><i><span lang="EN" style="color: blue; mso-ansi-language: EN; mso-bidi-font-family: Helvetica;"></span></i></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto; mso-margin-top-alt: auto;"><span style="font-size: 14pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 10.0pt;"> </span></p>
<p><style>@font-face
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{page:WordSection1;}</style></p>Unknownnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1005085971596877601.post-28367866387085358802022-07-03T13:24:00.012-07:002022-08-20T17:28:25.757-07:00DEAF OR BLIND: BEETHOVEN, HANDEL<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .1pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: .1pt; margin: 0.1pt 0in; mso-para-margin-bottom: .01gd; mso-para-margin-left: 0in; mso-para-margin-right: 0in; mso-para-margin-top: .01gd;"> <span style="color: black; font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 14pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">Beethoven started going deaf in his late 20s.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Already famous by age 25 for his piano
sonatas, at 31 he was traumatized by losing his hearing. But he kept on
composing: the <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Moonlight Sonata</i>
during the onset of deafness; the dramatic <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Waldstein
Sonata</i> at 32; piano sonatas kept on coming until he was 50. In his deaf
period came the revolutionary sounds of his 3rd through 8th symphonies, piano
and violin concertos (age 32-40). After 44 he became less productive, with
intermittent flashes (<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Missa Solemnis,
Diabelli variations, </i>9th symphony) composed at 47-53, dying at 56. His last
string quartets were composed entirely in his head, left unperformed in his
lifetime. </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .1pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: .1pt; margin: 0.1pt 0in; mso-para-margin-bottom: .01gd; mso-para-margin-left: 0in; mso-para-margin-right: 0in; mso-para-margin-top: .01gd;"><span style="color: black; font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 14pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"> </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .1pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: .1pt; margin: 0.1pt 0in; mso-para-margin-bottom: .01gd; mso-para-margin-left: 0in; mso-para-margin-right: 0in; mso-para-margin-top: .01gd;"><span style="color: black; font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 14pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">Handel went blind in one eye at age 66; laboriously finished the
oratorio he was working on; went completely blind at 68. He never produced
another significant work. But he kept on playing organ concertos,
"performing from memory, or extemporizing while the players waited for
their cue" almost to the day he died, aged 74. </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .1pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: .1pt; margin: 0.1pt 0in; mso-para-margin-bottom: .01gd; mso-para-margin-left: 0in; mso-para-margin-right: 0in; mso-para-margin-top: .01gd;"><span style="color: black; font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 14pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .1pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: .1pt; margin: 0.1pt 0in; mso-para-margin-bottom: .01gd; mso-para-margin-left: 0in; mso-para-margin-right: 0in; mso-para-margin-top: .01gd;"><span style="color: black; font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 14pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"></span></p><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiA3ao3R5uZZ97BmWSTO5CBsYDkyLetKPAiVgPzoZv5qX8JEIfdTijla01NfTRp9R42A9eecmVMCNoCB685aB7e-GcqbhBiohQseDE-A-evlfieO26THJ-rTN1qsexPThGFb6n6gFsco45MQB1oYKtJ42QddwfFdpRzYIQ_rdWNffpTt-GxkUn-alsn1A/s1920/1727-Handel-portrait%20copy.jpg" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1920" data-original-width="1570" height="640" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiA3ao3R5uZZ97BmWSTO5CBsYDkyLetKPAiVgPzoZv5qX8JEIfdTijla01NfTRp9R42A9eecmVMCNoCB685aB7e-GcqbhBiohQseDE-A-evlfieO26THJ-rTN1qsexPThGFb6n6gFsco45MQB1oYKtJ42QddwfFdpRzYIQ_rdWNffpTt-GxkUn-alsn1A/w525-h640/1727-Handel-portrait%20copy.jpg" width="525" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Handel age 42<br /></td></tr></tbody></table><span style="color: black; font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 14pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"> </span><span style="color: black; font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 14pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"> </span><p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .1pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: .1pt; margin: 0.1pt 0in; mso-para-margin-bottom: .01gd; mso-para-margin-left: 0in; mso-para-margin-right: 0in; mso-para-margin-top: .01gd;"><span style="color: black; font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 14pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">Johann Sebastian Bach fell ill in his 64th year; next year his
vision was nearly gone; he died at 65 "after two unsuccessful operations
for a cataract."<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>At 62 he was still
producing great works; at 64 he finished assembling the pieces of his B Minor
Mass (recycling his older works being his modus operandi). At death he left
unfinished his monument of musical puzzles, <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">The
Art of the Fugue</i>, on which he had been working since 55. </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .1pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: .1pt; margin: 0.1pt 0in; mso-para-margin-bottom: .01gd; mso-para-margin-left: 0in; mso-para-margin-right: 0in; mso-para-margin-top: .01gd;"><span style="color: black; font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 14pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"> </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .1pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: .1pt; margin: 0.1pt 0in; mso-para-margin-bottom: .01gd; mso-para-margin-left: 0in; mso-para-margin-right: 0in; mso-para-margin-top: .01gd;"><span style="color: black; font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 14pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">Can we conclude, it is more important for a composer to see than
hear? </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .1pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: .1pt; margin: 0.1pt 0in; mso-para-margin-bottom: .01gd; mso-para-margin-left: 0in; mso-para-margin-right: 0in; mso-para-margin-top: .01gd;"><span style="color: black; font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 14pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"> </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .1pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: .1pt; margin: 0.1pt 0in; mso-para-margin-bottom: .01gd; mso-para-margin-left: 0in; mso-para-margin-right: 0in; mso-para-margin-top: .01gd;"><span style="color: black; font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 14pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">Beethoven could hear neither music nor conversation; but he spoke
to others, reading their words on scribbled notes. Companions described him as
humming and howling to himself while walking in the countryside, returning to
his piano to work out the fingering-- it was his "Appassionata
Sonata". Meeting Carl Maria von Weber, whose revolutionary opera <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Der Freischutz</i> created a stir, Beethoven
embraced him enthusiastically with the words "So you're the very devil of
a fellow I've been hearing about!"<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>He could hear the music in his head by reading a score-- like all
classical composers, who "auditioned" each other's music from their
scores. How else would you know whether to have an orchestra perform it? Hence
the importance of seeing: reading a score, envisioning how to write down the
music in one's head. It would be near fatal for a composer to be blind. </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .1pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: .1pt; margin: 0.1pt 0in; mso-para-margin-bottom: .01gd; mso-para-margin-left: 0in; mso-para-margin-right: 0in; mso-para-margin-top: .01gd;"><span style="color: black; font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 14pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"> </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .1pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: .1pt; margin: 0.1pt 0in; mso-para-margin-bottom: .01gd; mso-para-margin-left: 0in; mso-para-margin-right: 0in; mso-para-margin-top: .01gd;"><span style="color: black; font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 14pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">There are famous blind creators, chiefly in literature.</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .1pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: .1pt; margin: 0.1pt 0in; mso-para-margin-bottom: .01gd; mso-para-margin-left: 0in; mso-para-margin-right: 0in; mso-para-margin-top: .01gd;"><span style="color: black; font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 14pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"> </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .1pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: .1pt; margin: 0.1pt 0in; mso-para-margin-bottom: .01gd; mso-para-margin-left: 0in; mso-para-margin-right: 0in; mso-para-margin-top: .01gd;"><span style="color: black; font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 14pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">Milton went blind at age 44; already a notable poet and political
controversialist, he went on to compose <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Paradise
Lost</i> (written age 50-55) and <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Paradise
Regained </i>(published at 66, the year of his death).</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .1pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: .1pt; margin: 0.1pt 0in; mso-para-margin-bottom: .01gd; mso-para-margin-left: 0in; mso-para-margin-right: 0in; mso-para-margin-top: .01gd;"><span style="color: black; font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 14pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"> </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .1pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: .1pt; margin: 0.1pt 0in; mso-para-margin-bottom: .01gd; mso-para-margin-left: 0in; mso-para-margin-right: 0in; mso-para-margin-top: .01gd;"><span style="color: black; font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 14pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">William H. Prescott was nearly blinded in a college roughhouse;
went on to travel seeking original texts from the Spanish conquests of America,
listening and writing with the help of amanuenses; publishing <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">The History of the Conquest of Mexico </i>(1843)
and <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Conquest of Peru </i>(1847) when he
was 47-51 years old. Without eyesight, he developed a phenomenal memory, and a
prose style voluminous and eloquent. </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .1pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: .1pt; margin: 0.1pt 0in; mso-para-margin-bottom: .01gd; mso-para-margin-left: 0in; mso-para-margin-right: 0in; mso-para-margin-top: .01gd;"><span style="color: black; font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 14pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"> </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .1pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: .1pt; margin: 0.1pt 0in; mso-para-margin-bottom: .01gd; mso-para-margin-left: 0in; mso-para-margin-right: 0in; mso-para-margin-top: .01gd;"><span style="color: black; font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 14pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">Gibbon wasn't blind, but his method of composing was to form in
his head his sonorous rhythmic sentences (his stately "periods" as
his contemporaries would say): "cast a long paragraph in a single mould,
to try it by my ear, to deposit it in my memory, but to suspend the action of
the pen 'til I had given the last polish to my work." [Saunders p.15]<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>In this way he composed the most literary of
all histories, the six volumes of <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Decline
and Fall of the Roman Empire </i>(2 million words, written during age 35-50). <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>This comes to some 300 words per day, a
do-able process. </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .1pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: .1pt; margin: 0.1pt 0in; mso-para-margin-bottom: .01gd; mso-para-margin-left: 0in; mso-para-margin-right: 0in; mso-para-margin-top: .01gd;"><span style="color: black; font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 14pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"> </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .1pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: .1pt; margin: 0.1pt 0in; mso-para-margin-bottom: .01gd; mso-para-margin-left: 0in; mso-para-margin-right: 0in; mso-para-margin-top: .01gd;"><span style="color: black; font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 14pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">Milton and Prescott are similarly stately writers of vivid
material, readable even for the sound alone. They are writers whose prose or
verse had "music", as the 17th century would put it.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Like Beethoven, they could compose in their
head. (And by the way, Milton's father was a composer.)</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .1pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: .1pt; margin: 0.1pt 0in; mso-para-margin-bottom: .01gd; mso-para-margin-left: 0in; mso-para-margin-right: 0in; mso-para-margin-top: .01gd;"><span style="color: black; font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 14pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"> </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .1pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: .1pt; margin: 0.1pt 0in; mso-para-margin-bottom: .01gd; mso-para-margin-left: 0in; mso-para-margin-right: 0in; mso-para-margin-top: .01gd;"><span style="color: black; font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 14pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">Among blind poets there is famously Homer, although is it thought
that "Homer" was the brand-name of a guild of blind reciters; the
formulaic epithets for heroic characters and wine-dark seas were memory-hooks
for oral performance handed down over the decades.</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .1pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: .1pt; margin: 0.1pt 0in; mso-para-margin-bottom: .01gd; mso-para-margin-left: 0in; mso-para-margin-right: 0in; mso-para-margin-top: .01gd;"><span style="color: black; font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 14pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"> </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .1pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: .1pt; margin: 0.1pt 0in; mso-para-margin-bottom: .01gd; mso-para-margin-left: 0in; mso-para-margin-right: 0in; mso-para-margin-top: .01gd;"><span style="color: black; font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 14pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">There is a Japanese equivalent, blind reciters of <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">The Tale of the Heike</i>, the epic samurai
history of the twelfth-century wars between the Heike and Genji clans. In the
fourteenth century until it was written down in the fifteenth, <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Heike Monogatari</i> was recited by blind
monks wearing Buddhist robes, accompanying themselves on the <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">biwa </i>or lute, called <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">"biwa hoshi" </i><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>or "biwa monks".<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Its enormous length (the English translation
is 700 pages) was held in memory by poetic/musical forms, in this case the
thirty-one syllable <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">waka, </i>ancestral
to haiku and other forms, an early hybrid between poetry and prose. [Tyler
xxiv]</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .1pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: .1pt; margin: 0.1pt 0in; mso-para-margin-bottom: .01gd; mso-para-margin-left: 0in; mso-para-margin-right: 0in; mso-para-margin-top: .01gd;"><span style="color: black; font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 14pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"> </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .1pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: .1pt; margin: 0.1pt 0in; mso-para-margin-bottom: .01gd; mso-para-margin-left: 0in; mso-para-margin-right: 0in; mso-para-margin-top: .01gd;"><span style="color: black; font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 14pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">There are no famous blind painters, to my knowledge; whether
painters were deaf no one seems to have regarded as a fact worth noticing. <br /></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .1pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: .1pt; margin: 0.1pt 0in; mso-para-margin-bottom: .01gd; mso-para-margin-left: 0in; mso-para-margin-right: 0in; mso-para-margin-top: .01gd;"><span style="color: black; font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 14pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"> </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .1pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: .1pt; margin: 0.1pt 0in; mso-para-margin-bottom: .01gd; mso-para-margin-left: 0in; mso-para-margin-right: 0in; mso-para-margin-top: .01gd;"><span style="color: black; font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 14pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">My point is not the pathos of difficult lives, nor the triumph of
overcoming it. Deaf or blind creators in different fields provide a natural
experiment, evidence for what kind of the skill -- including social skill-- is
the specific ingredient of creativity in music, and what are specific to other
fields. </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .1pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: .1pt; margin: 0.1pt 0in; mso-para-margin-bottom: .01gd; mso-para-margin-left: 0in; mso-para-margin-right: 0in; mso-para-margin-top: .01gd;"><span style="color: black; font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 14pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"> </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .1pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: .1pt; margin: 0.1pt 0in; mso-para-margin-bottom: .01gd; mso-para-margin-left: 0in; mso-para-margin-right: 0in; mso-para-margin-top: .01gd;"><span style="color: black; font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 14pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">Music without texts (folk music and the like) is hand-to-ear
coordination. With instrument ensembles, it becomes also hand-to-eye
coordination.</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .1pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: .1pt; margin: 0.1pt 0in; mso-para-margin-bottom: .01gd; mso-para-margin-left: 0in; mso-para-margin-right: 0in; mso-para-margin-top: .01gd;"><span style="color: black; font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 14pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"> </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .1pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: .1pt; margin: 0.1pt 0in; mso-para-margin-bottom: .01gd; mso-para-margin-left: 0in; mso-para-margin-right: 0in; mso-para-margin-top: .01gd;"><span style="color: black; font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 14pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">Playing an instrument is a bodily skill; the whole body may go
into the rhythm; the movements of fingers on strings and keys; of arms scraping
bows over strings or beating drums; of fingers on stops and valves coordinated
with lips and mouth and lungs that is the playing of wind instruments. Opera
singers are trained players of their own body cavities and the tensing and
relaxing of muscles. All this while keeping an eye on the score, or at least
having memorized it. Complex music-- AKA classical music -- is the coordination
of instruments and players:<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>a social
skill, a social invention. The symphony orchestra was no less an organizational
innovation than a factory of workers operating machinery. </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .1pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: .1pt; margin: 0.1pt 0in; mso-para-margin-bottom: .01gd; mso-para-margin-left: 0in; mso-para-margin-right: 0in; mso-para-margin-top: .01gd;"><span style="color: black; font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 14pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"> </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .1pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: .1pt; margin: 0.1pt 0in; mso-para-margin-bottom: .01gd; mso-para-margin-left: 0in; mso-para-margin-right: 0in; mso-para-margin-top: .01gd;"><span style="color: black; font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 14pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">Participants in these humans-with-instruments combinations --
composers, players-- practice hand-to-eye-to-ear coordination. When composers
are deaf, they can continue to coordinate hand-to-eye and thus generate the
social follow-through that is music creation. When composers go blind, they
mostly stop composing. </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .1pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: .1pt; margin: 0.1pt 0in; mso-para-margin-bottom: .01gd; mso-para-margin-left: 0in; mso-para-margin-right: 0in; mso-para-margin-top: .01gd;"><span style="color: black; font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 14pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"> </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .1pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: .1pt; margin: 0.1pt 0in; mso-para-margin-bottom: .01gd; mso-para-margin-left: 0in; mso-para-margin-right: 0in; mso-para-margin-top: .01gd;"><span style="color: black; font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 14pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">And yet there are a number of blind performer-composers in popular
music: Stevie Wonder [blind from birth; Motown contract at 13; his own song
albums from 21], Ray Charles [glaucoma as child; studied music at a school for
deaf and blind; recorded famous songs in his late 20s], Blind Lemon Jefferson
[partially sighted from birth; street singer; gospel and blues recordings in
his late 20s]. All were soloists-- singers accompanying themselves on keyboard
or guitar; in recordings and performances, sometimes provided with backup
musicians and studio directors. All were composers of relatively short songs
(3-minutes-plus), in the standard sonata forms of repetitions-and-variations of
20th century popular music. More or less autonomous as performers, they could
compose short forms without seeing texts.</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .1pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: .1pt; margin: 0.1pt 0in; mso-para-margin-bottom: .01gd; mso-para-margin-left: 0in; mso-para-margin-right: 0in; mso-para-margin-top: .01gd;"><span style="color: black; font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 14pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"> </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .1pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: .1pt; margin: 0.1pt 0in; mso-para-margin-bottom: .01gd; mso-para-margin-left: 0in; mso-para-margin-right: 0in; mso-para-margin-top: .01gd;"><span style="color: black; font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 14pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">Written scores are more central for longer and more elaborately
coordinated classical music. In the era before sound recording, composers could
only keep up with the music of their peers and rivals-- if they didn't hear it
in person-- by circulating their scores. Music publishing coincides with the
development of classical music. </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .1pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: .1pt; margin: 0.1pt 0in; mso-para-margin-bottom: .01gd; mso-para-margin-left: 0in; mso-para-margin-right: 0in; mso-para-margin-top: .01gd;"><span style="color: black; font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 14pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"> </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .1pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: .1pt; margin: 0.1pt 0in; mso-para-margin-bottom: .01gd; mso-para-margin-left: 0in; mso-para-margin-right: 0in; mso-para-margin-top: .01gd;"><span style="color: black; font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 14pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">Composers were generally performers themselves. Beethoven, who
began by improvising dramatically on the piano, continued to perform in his
deafness, eventually giving it up, as he gave up orchestra conducting. For him,
playing and conducting were bodily habit, that kept for a while its momentum; although
he could no longer hear the instruments nor the audience reaction. Handel, who
had made his early reputation as the greatest organist and harpsichord player
of his time, ended his lengthy stream of operas, oratorios, and concertos when
he went blind. That he could continue to play implies that he could rely on
memory and muscle skill, but that these alone are not enough to compose new
music--- that which enters the repertoire of further musicians by creating
written scores.</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .1pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: .1pt; margin: 0.1pt 0in; mso-para-margin-bottom: .01gd; mso-para-margin-left: 0in; mso-para-margin-right: 0in; mso-para-margin-top: .01gd;"><span style="color: black; font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 14pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"> </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .1pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: .1pt; margin: 0.1pt 0in; mso-para-margin-bottom: .01gd; mso-para-margin-left: 0in; mso-para-margin-right: 0in; mso-para-margin-top: .01gd;"><span style="color: black; font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 14pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">Music composing, at least in the classical era of large
instrumental ensembles, is a cyborg skill. Instruments, performers, composers,
all on the same page-- literally. </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .1pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: .1pt; margin: 0.1pt 0in; mso-para-margin-bottom: .01gd; mso-para-margin-left: 0in; mso-para-margin-right: 0in; mso-para-margin-top: .01gd;"><span style="color: black; font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 14pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"> </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .1pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: .1pt; margin: 0.1pt 0in; mso-para-margin-bottom: .01gd; mso-para-margin-left: 0in; mso-para-margin-right: 0in; mso-para-margin-top: .01gd;"><span style="color: black; font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 14pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">Writing and reciting, at least for poets and writers of sonorous
prose, is a skill of training the inner and outer ear; they create and perform,
much less with the eye, combining words on the rhythm of their inner music. (We
speak of a writer "finding their voice")</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .1pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: .1pt; margin: 0.1pt 0in; mso-para-margin-bottom: .01gd; mso-para-margin-left: 0in; mso-para-margin-right: 0in; mso-para-margin-top: .01gd;"><span style="color: black; font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 14pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"> </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .1pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: .1pt; margin: 0.1pt 0in; mso-para-margin-bottom: .01gd; mso-para-margin-left: 0in; mso-para-margin-right: 0in; mso-para-margin-top: .01gd;"><span style="color: black; font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 14pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">Paradoxically, composers need eyes more than ears; writers need
ears more than eyes. But it is no paradox at the level of the blending of inner
and social skills that make up what we call creativity.</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .1pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: .1pt; margin: 0.1pt 0in; mso-para-margin-bottom: .01gd; mso-para-margin-left: 0in; mso-para-margin-right: 0in; mso-para-margin-top: .01gd;"><span style="color: black; font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 14pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"> </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .1pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: .1pt; margin: 0.1pt 0in; mso-para-margin-bottom: .01gd; mso-para-margin-left: 0in; mso-para-margin-right: 0in; mso-para-margin-top: .01gd;"><i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><span style="color: black; font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 14pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">References</span></i></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .1pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: .1pt; margin: 0.1pt 0in; mso-para-margin-bottom: .01gd; mso-para-margin-left: 0in; mso-para-margin-right: 0in; mso-para-margin-top: .01gd;"><span style="color: black; font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 14pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"> </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .1pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: .1pt; margin: 0.1pt 0in; mso-para-margin-bottom: .01gd; mso-para-margin-left: 0in; mso-para-margin-right: 0in; mso-para-margin-top: .01gd;"><span style="color: black; font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 14pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">Harvard Biographical Dictionary of Music. 1996.</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .1pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: .1pt; margin: 0.1pt 0in; mso-para-margin-bottom: .01gd; mso-para-margin-left: 0in; mso-para-margin-right: 0in; mso-para-margin-top: .01gd;"><span style="color: black; font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 14pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">Chambers Biographical Dictionary. 1986.</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .1pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: .1pt; margin: 0.1pt 0in; mso-para-margin-bottom: .01gd; mso-para-margin-left: 0in; mso-para-margin-right: 0in; mso-para-margin-top: .01gd;"><span style="color: black; font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 14pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">Dero Saunders. 1952. Introduction to Edward Gibbon, <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire.</i>
</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .1pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: .1pt; margin: 0.1pt 0in; mso-para-margin-bottom: .01gd; mso-para-margin-left: 0in; mso-para-margin-right: 0in; mso-para-margin-top: .01gd;"><span style="color: black; font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 14pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">Royall Tyler. 2012. <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">The Tale
of the Heike.</i> Viking Penguin. </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .1pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: .1pt; margin: 0.1pt 0in; mso-para-margin-bottom: .01gd; mso-para-margin-left: 0in; mso-para-margin-right: 0in; mso-para-margin-top: .01gd;"><span style="color: black; font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 14pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"> </span></p>
<p><style>@font-face
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{page:WordSection1;}</style></p>Unknownnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1005085971596877601.post-13685299083355045002022-06-09T12:30:00.005-07:002022-06-09T17:21:45.626-07:00WHY STATES DIFFER ON REFUGEES AND IMMIGRATION<p>
</p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="color: black; font-size: 14pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;">There are five main processes that states juggle when setting
policies on immigration, including economic immigrants, refugees, and asylum-seekers.
</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="color: black; font-size: 14pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;"> </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="color: black; font-size: 14pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;">[1] Capital accumulation vs. protectionism. Modern capitalism
favours the widest possible movement of capital and labour across borders for
maximizing profit. In alliance with political forces, however, it can swing
towards protectionism. A pro-business party is not necessarily strong enough in
its own right; often it allies with conservative and nationalist sentiments in
order to get elected.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="color: black; font-size: 14pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;"> </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="color: black; font-size: 14pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;">[2] National identity rests on popular democracy. The modern state
originated in a reaction against dynastic family rule and feudal alliances; we
generally refer to this as the rise of democracy, but it also was a move away
from internationalism (since dynastic marriages were often across linguistic
and cultural borders) and towards nationalism. The replacement of feudalism
with a centralized state apparatus moved towards a monopoly of legitimate force
upon a bounded territory; and this too built nationalism. Along with internal
pacification and policing came border guards, customs, identity checks, and
passports. Since the 19<sup>th</sup> century, states have penetrated their
societies with institutions of education, mass media, uniform laws, even sports
leagues as well as standardization of language, all driving in the direction of
greater homogenization. National identities were built, or intensified, by the
territorial state. And modern states (almost all) claim legitimacy based on
sovereignty of the people who live there; democracy always has a territorial
referent, and democracy reinforces feelings of nationalism. </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="color: black; font-size: 14pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;"> </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="color: black; font-size: 14pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;">Nationalism is not necessarily xenophobic, but modern citizens
cannot help being aware of distinctions between themselves and outsiders. We
can call this populism, perhaps even implying that it is a dangerous form of
democracy; but it is nevertheless a result of widespread public participation
in politics. </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="color: black; font-size: 14pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;"> </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="color: black; font-size: 14pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;">[3] Internal politics in a democracy is concerned, among other
things, with bread-and-butter issues of taxation, welfare expenditures (whether
provided by government or by insurance), and employment. Immigration always
potentially raises questions about how much it will cost, directly if refugees
are given special housing and support, and indirectly in competition for jobs.
These issues have different intensities depending on whether the economy is
growing or stagnating. People living in different regions where their own
economic experience is downwards or upwards have different attitudes towards
immigrants.</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="color: black; font-size: 14pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;"> </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="color: black; font-size: 14pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;">[4] Liberal commitment to altruism and diversity. Many NGOs, and
swatches of public opinion are dedicated to the plight of refugees and
immigrants. Other social movements and ground-swells of opinion see them as
potential dangers (future terrorists? revolutionaries?) or as eroders of local
lifestyle and shared social identity. It is an under-theorized question in
sociology why such movements lean one way or the other. Media news stories of
refugees and images of individual victims (especially young children) create
sympathy. But this is a time-bound phenomenon, often temporary; large flows of
refugees can lead to a counter-reaction; and large numbers drown individual
suffering in statistics, making international audiences jaded. </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="color: black; font-size: 14pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;"> </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="color: black; font-size: 14pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;">Pro-immigrant or anti-immigrant policies (or some mixture in between)
is the resultant of these four vectors of political influence, impinging on state
policies.</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="color: black; font-size: 14pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;"> </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="color: black; font-size: 14pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;">A rare example of how these four processes interact is Loyal and Quilley
(2018) explaining Ireland’s refugee policies over the years: During the early
years of the Irish Republic (1920s and 30s), the political focus was on Gaelic
nation-building, a reaction against centuries of English domination. Cultural
nationalism combined with penurious welfare and job policies, resulting in
excluding all but a handful of refugees during the Nazi/World War period. Capitalist
openness to capital and labour dominated during the Celtic Tiger period of
economic boom, when the magic key was American investment in a low-tax country
with entry to EU markets. <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>And a sudden
proliferation of NGOs in Ireland since the 1990s, became part of an unexplained
ground-swell of altruistic internationalism. </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="color: black; font-size: 14pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;"> </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="color: black; font-size: 14pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;">Altruistic movements tend to take themselves as the default setting, the theoretical baseline against which we study other movements.
There are plenty of studies of nationalism and anti-immigrant sentiment; but
altruistic/internationalist movements need a sociological explanation too. No
such theory is offered here, but the Irish case and its historical
context points up an important factor—not indigenous to a given state, but operating
from without:</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="color: black; font-size: 14pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;"> </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="color: black; font-size: 14pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;">[5]<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The social construction
of international law. The Universal Declaration of Human Rights (1948) and the
Geneva Convention on the right to asylum from evil regimes (1951) were
established by international treaty. These are perhaps the strongest force
favouring refugees, since none of the state-centered and domestic forces listed
above are unequivocally pro-refugee, and they often act in a nativist manner.
Arguably the proliferation of NGOs is a movement into the moral and conceptual
niche created by international treaties. But how to improve our analysis from a
recitation of arbitrary historical facts, to a theory that explains when
international agreements are made, and what makes them popular? Signatories to
international treaties often fail to live up to them, since implementation is
left to national states. </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="color: black; font-size: 14pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;"> </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="color: black; font-size: 14pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;">Let me suggest some general processes. The big treaties were the
result of international conferences, held among the victorious powers at the
end of World War I and II, and in the Cold War period leading to the collapse
of the Soviet empire. Ostensibly these treaties were created so that the causes
of war and forced population movements could be remedied. The diplomats of the
Great Powers tended to frame laws on human rights against the regimes they
defeated or were currently opposing: genocidal regimes and ideologies, forced
labor, atrocities of ethnic cleansing, stifling of political dissent. </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="color: black; font-size: 14pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;"> </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="color: black; font-size: 14pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;">But as new regimes and alliances have appeared, the original
intent of international law found new targets: condemning atrocities by Nazis
and Communists were now shifted to critiques of colonial and post-colonial
regimes, and declarations of universal human rights could be aimed at
segregation or discrimination by race and religion, or yet further by gender or
sexual preference. For this reason, world powers like the U.S. have backed off
of agreement or enforcement of international treaties such as those allowing
prosecution of soldiers for their behavior abroad. In sum, Great-Power
diplomacy is an unreliable basis for laws guaranteeing universal human rights.</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="color: black; font-size: 14pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;"> </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="color: black; font-size: 14pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;">This brings us to an unexpected source of moral commitment, the
diplomacy of small states. The very fact of being militarily weak, or being
outside of the major alliances (the situation of Ireland and the Scandinavian
countries) gives an opportunity for international prestige, as a neutral
arbiter, taking a fair and altruistic stance above the game of power.
Humanitarian activists from the small and unaligned states became prominent in
the early years of the United Nations and other international treaty
organizations:<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>one thinks of Dag
Hammarskjold (an activist UN Secretary General and martyr for international
mediation), and Ireland’s Conor Cruise O’Brien, sending blue helmets against
insurgents as de-colonization rippled through Africa; more recently, former
Irish President Mary Robinson as UN High Commissioner for refugees. Max Weber
argued that states enter into wars largely in order to bolster their
power-prestige in the international arena; even at an economic cost, they want
to be seen as major players in the game. History since 1945 suggests a
corollary: small states, without military power, can achieve international
prestige by staking out their position as leading internationalists. </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="color: black; font-size: 14pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;"> </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="color: black; font-size: 14pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;">The question is: what determines the balance of the various forces
pro and con refugees in the many states of the world? Theories that assume they
are the arc of history are not necessarily good predictors. Add the causal
forces together and we will see. </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="color: black; font-size: 14pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 10.0pt;"> </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="color: black; font-size: 14pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 10.0pt;"> </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><i><span style="color: black; font-size: 14pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 10.0pt;">References</span></i></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="color: black; font-size: 14pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 10.0pt;"> </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="color: black; font-size: 14pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;">Steven Loyal and Stephen Quilley. 2018. <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">State Power and Asylum Seekers in Ireland.</i><span style="mso-bidi-font-style: italic;"> </span><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Palgrave Macmillan.</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="color: black; font-size: 14pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;"> </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="color: black; font-size: 14pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;">Sinisa Malesevic. 2019.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><i>Grounded
Nationalisms.</i> Cambridge Univ. Press. </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="color: black; font-size: 14pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;"> </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="color: black; font-size: 14pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;">Michael Mann. 2005. <i>The Dark Side of Democracy.</i> Cambridge
Univ. Press.</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="color: black; font-size: 14pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 10.0pt;"> </span></p>
<p><style>@font-face
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{page:WordSection1;}</style></p>Unknownnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1005085971596877601.post-43957593734884323032022-02-04T09:50:00.026-08:002022-02-05T08:47:52.654-08:00FIVE KINDS OF FRIENDS<p class="MsoNormal"> <span style="color: black; font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 14pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-language: X-NONE; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">The word “friends” has at least five
different meanings:</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="color: black; font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 14pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-language: X-NONE; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"> </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="color: black; font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 14pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-language: X-NONE; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">Allies</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="color: black; font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 14pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-language: X-NONE; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">Backstage intimates</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="color: black; font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 14pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-language: X-NONE; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">Fun friends</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="color: black; font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 14pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-language: X-NONE; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">Mutual interests friends</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="color: black; font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 14pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-language: X-NONE; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">Sociable acquaintances</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="color: black; font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 14pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-language: X-NONE; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"> </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="color: black; font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 14pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-language: X-NONE; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">Whether social media “friends” are one of
these five, or a sixth distinctive type, we shall see.</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="color: black; font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 14pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-language: X-NONE; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"> </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="color: black; font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 14pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-language: X-NONE; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">Friends are sociologically important
because they are the building blocks of social networks. How should we analyze
these ties, considering there are so many different kinds?<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Which kinds of ties are we talking about when
we say that social ties promote physical health and prevent suicide; that they
make successful careers and are the key to happiness? Different kinds of ties
can have opposite effects.</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="color: black; font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 14pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-language: X-NONE; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"> </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><span style="color: black; font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 14pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-language: X-NONE; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">Allies</span></i><span style="color: black; font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 14pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-language: X-NONE; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The oldest meaning of “friends” is allies. In
ancient Rome, to be a “friend of Rome” meant to be a military ally; and that
meant you were required to bring your troops to fight alongside the Romans when
demanded. If you didn’t, you were likely to be exterminated; Romans enlisted
defeated enemies as their “friends” -- but punished them severely if they
backed out. The legal term survives in <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">amicus
curiae</i>, “friend of the court”, an outside party whose lawyers argue
alongside one of the parties of a case. It was also a political term; “friends
of Caesar” (or of Antony, etc.) were their political partisans. In the Clinton
administration, FOB (“friends of Bill”) was a code word for privileged insiders
(usually big campaign donors) who had Bill Clinton’s phone number.</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="color: black; font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 14pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-language: X-NONE; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"> </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="color: black; font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 14pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-language: X-NONE; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">Today in private life a lot of what gets
called “friends” are people who help each other out: lending you money when you
need it; recommending you for<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>school
admission or a job; taking your side in office politics. Sometimes these
relationships are reciprocal-- a chain of gift exchanges among equals-- but
often they are top-sided, a patron and protégé. The mentor/sponsor gets paid
back by having disciples and followers; or the prestige that goes with their
success. In the short run he or she gets paid back by getting deference or at
least attention. Parents usually launch their children’s careers and underwrite
their expenses; but if that kind of alliance is what their relationship is
about, deference is likely to be perfunctory and short-lived, increasingly so
as children grow up. Modern Americans say they love their children, but in
practice this often means they are in a one-sided alliance relationship. </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="color: black; font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 14pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-language: X-NONE; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"> </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><span style="color: black; font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 14pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-language: X-NONE; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">Backstage
intimates</span></i><span style="color: black; font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 14pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-language: X-NONE; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>Network researchers have defined a network tie or friend as “someone you
discuss important matters with.” These are supposed to be crucial personal
decisions-- whether to risk an operation, whether to quit your job, whether to
get married or divorced. More broadly, backstage implies privacy and secrecy;
things are said that you don’t want to get out, discussing people you don’t
like; girls discussing boys they have a crush on. Lovers and spouses ideally
share such intimacy, bedroom talk being less importantly about sex (which can
be wordless or monosyllabic) but about events of the day when you had to keep
your feelings to yourself.* </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="color: black; font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 14pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-language: X-NONE; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"> </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="color: black; font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 14pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-language: X-NONE; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">*Sir Francis Bacon, in his essay “On
Friendship” says everyone needs someone they can unburden their heart to; and
that true friends are those who loyally carry out your wishes. Thus in the
Elizabethan world of 1590 he sees friends as backstage intimates and permanent
allies.</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="color: black; font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 14pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-language: X-NONE; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"> </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="color: black; font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 14pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-language: X-NONE; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">Goffman viewed everyday life as
alternating between play-acting frontstage roles and preparing on backstages. People
who share a similar backstage are likely to be the most intimate kinds of
friends. This is why celebrities-- pop stars, movie idols-- tend to marry each
other (or at least their agents), because dealing with fans means dealing with
persons in a state of gushy excitement, and only other insiders can be fully at
ease together. </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="color: black; font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 14pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-language: X-NONE; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"> </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><span style="color: black; font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 14pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-language: X-NONE; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">Fun
friends</span></i><span style="color: black; font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 14pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-language: X-NONE; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">. A shortcoming of network research is
that it ignores the biggest category of friends you like to spend your time
with. Among children this is the main meaning of “friends”. At my
granddaughter’s day care center, the kids had posted up their answers to “what
is a friend?” Most of the answers said something like “a friend is someone you
play with; a friend shares their toys with you.”<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Who invites you to their birthday party
(which, unlike most adult parties, is an occasion for having fun). Among
teenagers and young adults, the term is “hang out with” (i.e. enjoying
yourselves doing nothing serious). What is most fun are adventures, pulling
pranks, getting intoxicated, carousing; as we can see because these are the
stories they like to tell each other when hanging out. Sociologist Tony King
observed that soccer hooligans recycle tales of their fights as the staple
conversation of their drinking bouts, in what he calls “narrative
gratification.” These are stories told with exaggeration and laughter, fun
recapitulating fun. </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="color: black; font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 14pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-language: X-NONE; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"> </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="color: black; font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 14pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-language: X-NONE; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">Observing the leisure gatherings of
adults, we generally find the successful, career-obsessed upper-middle class
has little fun in this sense; their “friends” are of a different kind and their
parties are mostly shop-talk. Working-class and lower-middle class people tend
to be very fun-oriented when they are young, but age out of it more quickly,
into passive TV watching and its surrogates. But within each social class,
there is usually a division between the “fast crowd” and the boringly
conventional.The first chapter of Tolstoy’s <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">War
and Peace</i> follows his main characters first at a polite soirée where ladies
and gentlemen discuss political events and gossip about appointments; then to a
drunken party of elite Guards officers where they dare each other to chug-a-lug
a bottle while swaying on a high windowsill, and threaten a policeman with a
pet bear. This kind of division between the cool/fast/hip crowd, and the
nerdy/square/straight, is subjectively more important than vertical class
divisions for a substantial portion between their teens and the onset of middle
age.* Whether or not status ranking by carousing has recently changed to
greater popularity of the “geeks” -- a trend not yet carefully measured-- it
calls out for sociological explanation. </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="color: black; font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 14pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-language: X-NONE; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"> </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="color: black; font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 14pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-language: X-NONE; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">* David Grazian, <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">On the Make</i>, a multi-perspective ethnography of urban night life,
concludes that most young middle-class persons today have a split personality,
adopting their “nocturnal self” when they go out with their fun friends (among
males, their “wing-man”). </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="color: black; font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 14pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-language: X-NONE; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"> </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><span style="color: black; font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 14pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-language: X-NONE; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">Mutual-interests
friends</span></i><span style="color: black; font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 14pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-language: X-NONE; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">. These are persons who like to be with
each other because they share a common interest: playing chess, or bridge, or
poker; repairing old cars; comparing wines; cooking and talking about it. In
Hitchcock’s <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Shadow of a Doubt,</i> two of
the side-characters who distract from the impending murder are fans of
detective stories, spending their time at dinner telling each other how they
would go about murdering each other. All sorts of shared interests can be the
cultural capital for this kind of friendship. </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="color: black; font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 14pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-language: X-NONE; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"> </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="color: black; font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 14pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-language: X-NONE; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">We might include mutual-interest friends
as a sub-type of fun friends; except that the former are usually considered
rather square. Fun friends are noisy, carousing, extroverts; mutual-interest
friends are generally rather quiet and sedentary. Their interests rarely reach
to a peak of shared laughter or the shriek of excited children. Sociologically,
we lack surveys of what proportion are in the fun friends sector and what
portion of the population are in the shared interests zone. The latter may well
be a bigger share, just less visible-- fun friends attract the most attention,
like the zany fans in wild outfits stripping themselves in freezing weather who
attract the gaze of TV cameras at football games.</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="color: black; font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 14pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-language: X-NONE; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"> </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><span style="color: black; font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 14pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-language: X-NONE; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">Sociable
acquaintances</span></i><span style="color: black; font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 14pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-language: X-NONE; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">. Among modern Americans, the biggest
stretch in using the word “friends” refers to people who invite each other to
dinner or parties at their homes. Friends here means people who encounter each
other in leisure, outside of work or public life. They invite each other to
weddings. They meet for lunch; “we should get together and talk” implies
something will be said that is to some degree exclusive. There is a continuum
running from people you meet at a reception or big party venue; those you have
a drink with, or a coffee, tête-à-tête; and those who you invite into your home.
The last echoes a medieval definition of marriage, <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">commensality</i> and <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">connubium</i>,
sitting at table together and bedding together. It is a continuum of degrees of
intimacy. </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="color: black; font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 14pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-language: X-NONE; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"> </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="color: black; font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 14pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-language: X-NONE; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">But not the intimacy of backstage
confidantes, as one can tell from what sociable acquaintances talk about. They
gossip about mutual acquaintances; they gossip about themselves, making little
conversational melodramas, or attempts at humor, out of the ordinary events of
their lives, or just filling the time with whatever they both <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">can</i> talk about, a shared cultural
capital of the lowest denomination. This personal quality of their shared
attention marks the occasion as leisure, rather than work, off-duty rather than
on. Persons who violate this boundary line can get away with it if they are
sufficiently important in the public world; but they sacrifice being considered
sociable friends, since they are not sociable persons. As fraternity boys say
about those they would never rush: they lack social skills. </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="color: black; font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 14pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-language: X-NONE; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"> </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="color: black; font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 14pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-language: X-NONE; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">Sociable acquaintances need not be
allies; they are not intimates (at least during “social occasions”); they are
not fun friends, nor even shared-interests friends in the sense of people with
the same hobby. They are being sociable for the sake of being sociable,
avoiding whatever keeps them from being so. They perform on the archetypal
Goffmanian frontstage that he documented from old etiquette books. Etiquettes
change, and the generations before 1960 were much more explicitly conscious of
the show they were trying to keep up. There still exists a category of people
we regard as friends because we take part together in the rituals of social
acquaintance. </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="color: black; font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 14pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-language: X-NONE; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"> </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="color: black; font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 14pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-language: X-NONE; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">The number of such acquaintances one has
varies by social class. Upper-class persons have most social commitments, and
know the most people in this superficial sense. (Rockefeller used to employ a
full-time secretary just to keep track of sending out Christmas cards; John F.
Kennedy had an aide file the names of spouses and children of persons he was
scheduled to meet so he could mention them.) Upper-middle class professionals
and managers are heavily networked among business associates; while traveling
and conferencing they are expected to take a break and socialize, turning
allies (or customers or rivals) temporarily into sociable acquaintances. These
formally-based networks narrow towards to the lower-middle and working classes,
whose sociable acquaintances (and gatherings) derive less from work and more
from relatives and neighbours (which would include such groups as neighbourhood
gangs); most religion-based networks are found here. </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="color: black; font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 14pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-language: X-NONE; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"> </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="color: black; font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 14pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-language: X-NONE; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">Thus the balance among the five kinds of
friends varies among social classes, and probably other dimensions (such as
gender, sexual preference, and race). I will explore the consequences of this
shortly. For now, we need to answer the question:</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="color: black; font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 14pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-language: X-NONE; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"> </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><span style="color: black; font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 14pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-language: X-NONE; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">What
kind of friend is a social media “friend”?</span></i><span style="color: black; font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 14pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-language: X-NONE; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="color: black; font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 14pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-language: X-NONE; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"> </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="color: black; font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 14pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-language: X-NONE; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">A first shot at an answer is by looking
at numbers. Respondents in traditional in-person network research on “friends”
usually name only a few persons they “discuss important matters with.” If we go
more broadly for acquaintances, sociologists found a few dozen or less for
working class, up through hundreds for the professional classes. When I was
active in the ASA, I’d check the index of people on the annual meeting program,
finding I knew a hundred or so. Facebook friends are a different order of
magnitude: most young people have hundreds; many have thousands. *</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="color: black; font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 14pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-language: X-NONE; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"> </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="color: black; font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 14pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-language: X-NONE; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">* It is reported that some persons don’t
want anyone who lists only 50 or so friends to be part of their neighbourhood
babysitting group, since such “isolates” might be psychopaths. </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="color: black; font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 14pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-language: X-NONE; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"> </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="color: black; font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 14pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-language: X-NONE; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">My inference is that social media friends
are not backstage intimates, fun friends, or allies. They might be mutual
interest friends, although given the prestige of having hundreds or thousands
of friends, on-line friend-seekers resort to listing everyone they can from
high school yearbooks and other remote connections, suggesting that they don’t
even need mutual interests to count in the total. The nearest conventional
category is sociable acquaintances, except that the numbers on-line ramp
everyone up to the level of the most active social butterflies or politicians
of the upper classes. If true, this is quite a revolution in social prestige.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="color: black; font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 14pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-language: X-NONE; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"> </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="color: black; font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 14pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-language: X-NONE; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">I will revisit the question of whether
social acquantainces are a good model for the sociology of on-line friends,
after we look more closely at micro-sociology of interaction.</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="color: black; font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 14pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-language: X-NONE; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"> </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><span style="color: black; font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 14pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-language: X-NONE; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">Multiplex
friends</span></i><span style="color: black; font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 14pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-language: X-NONE; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="color: black; font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 14pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-language: X-NONE; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"> </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="color: black; font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 14pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-language: X-NONE; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">Is overlapping friendship categories a
good thing?<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Spouses and domestic
partners are lucky if they are simultaneously backstage intimates, fun friends
and mutual-interests friends. Single-dimension couples are more likely to break
up. </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="color: black; font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 14pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-language: X-NONE; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"> </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="color: black; font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 14pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-language: X-NONE; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">This also applies to political allies. I
once observed a bitter struggle in a sociology department over hiring a new
professor. By chance, several months before the issue arose, I had done a
network analysis of the faculty, charting who taught courses together,
collaborated in research, ate lunch together, or invited each other into their
homes. The network held together by multiple ties won the fight; those who had
none of these ties lost the vote (and some angrily resigned). It even predicted
the fence-sitters in the debate-- these had some friendship ties with the
dominant coalition but not multiplex ties. </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="color: black; font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 14pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-language: X-NONE; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"> </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="color: black; font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 14pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-language: X-NONE; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">Each person can have an array of
different kinds of friends; but this kind of multiplexity can pull them apart:
(I like you but I don’t like your friends. Bored with your work allies and
their shop talk. Don’t hang around with that bunch of rowdy drunks after work.)
Distinct friendship networks held up in the old-fashioned arrangement when male
and female networks rarely met. David Halle in <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">America’s Working Man</i> found that men drank and watched football
with their buddies, while their wives occasionally dragged them to weddings and
church services. In the couples-centered social world of the middle and
upper-classes, fitting two whole friendship arrays together is more of a
strain. This may be why they put off marrying longer; and it keeps these class
networks at the superficial level of sociable acquaintances. </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="color: black; font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 14pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-language: X-NONE; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"> </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><span style="color: black; font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 14pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-language: X-NONE; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">Are
friends of my friends my friends? </span></i><span style="color: black; font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 14pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-language: X-NONE; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>[FOMFMF]</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="color: black; font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 14pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-language: X-NONE; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"> </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="color: black; font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 14pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-language: X-NONE; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">Not as much as balance theory would
expect. FOMFMF applies most clearly to allies. But even in international
diplomacy, countries can be opportunistic. In personal life and office
politics, it may hold up for a while. But retirements and new hires change the
mix, and creates a drift to the new winning coalition. And young turks after a
successful take-over become rivals.</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="color: black; font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 14pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-language: X-NONE; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"> </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="color: black; font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 14pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-language: X-NONE; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">Does FOMFMF apply to backstage intimates?
no.</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="color: black; font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 14pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-language: X-NONE; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"> </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="color: black; font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 14pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-language: X-NONE; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">Fun friends? maybe. But even by
themselves, fun friends tend to be ephemeral. Summer vacation friends.</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="color: black; font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 14pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-language: X-NONE; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"> </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="color: black; font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 14pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-language: X-NONE; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">Mutual interest friends? Could be. Not
much jealousy and possessiveness among poker players or sports fans; FOMFMF is
a way to expand a hobby network. But such friends are pretty much
interchangeable, so the network might not expand but just shift around.</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="color: black; font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 14pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-language: X-NONE; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"> </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="color: black; font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 14pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-language: X-NONE; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">Social acquaintances? Yes, probably.
Especially when people are actively “networking”, deliberately trying to expand
their networks. Since these are superficial ties, it is easy to add them;
although time pressures may make it hard to keep up with all of them.</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="color: black; font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 14pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-language: X-NONE; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"> </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><span style="color: black; font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 14pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-language: X-NONE; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">Are
enemies of my friends my enemies</span></i><span style="color: black; font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 14pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-language: X-NONE; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">? [EOMFME]</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="color: black; font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 14pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-language: X-NONE; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"> </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="color: black; font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 14pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-language: X-NONE; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">This applies mainly to the world of
allies. But in war, politics and business, opportunism pays off, and
side-switching is not uncommon (this is the essence of the bandwagon effect). </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="color: black; font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 14pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-language: X-NONE; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"> </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="color: black; font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 14pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-language: X-NONE; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">In personal life, friends of friends
often resist being drawn into others’ quarrels. [Martin 2009] Those who insist
on EOMFME can wreck their own friendships. I knew a man who had a bitter
quarrel with his son; a few years later he refused to attend his daughter’s
wedding if his son were there; and this led to a permanent split with his
daughter. When people say “It’s a matter of principle!” they are usually doing
something self-destructive.</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="color: black; font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 14pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-language: X-NONE; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"> </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="color: black; font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 14pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-language: X-NONE; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">Conversely, friends of friends can result
in new ties after a breakup. A substantial portion of people marry the friend,
roommate, or sibling of their old boyfriend/girlfriend. Laumann [1994] asked in
a survey “how did you meet your last sex partner?” Many said, it was a friend
of their previous sex partner. Two-step network ties are intrinsically neither
positive or negative; but they are easy opportunities for creating new ties. </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="color: black; font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 14pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-language: X-NONE; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"> </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><span style="color: black; font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 14pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-language: X-NONE; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">What
is love?<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Sex plus successful IRs</span></i></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="color: black; font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 14pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-language: X-NONE; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"> </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="color: black; font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 14pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-language: X-NONE; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">Love is a combination of two things. One
is sex. Micro-sociologically, sex is an interaction ritual (IR) focused on
bodies. The ingredients are the same as other kinds of IRs: sharing the same
feeling or emotion -- in this case lust; a mutual focus of attention -- each
other’s body, with reciprocal awareness, drawing the world down to a
here-and-now inhabited by two bodies, and excluding all else. Like all
successful IRs, sufficient ingredients intensify the turn-on into rhythmic
coordination (otherwise found in fine-tuned flow of gestures or conversation),
here in the rhythm of making love. This too is collective effervescence:
excitement whose archetype Durkheim found in pagan religious rituals; here two
bodies pulsing together. </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="color: black; font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 14pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-language: X-NONE; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"> </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="color: black; font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 14pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-language: X-NONE; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">Of course, not all sex is so intense, or
reciprocal. Some sex is one-sided; but that is the formula for one-sided love. </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="color: black; font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 14pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-language: X-NONE; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"> </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="color: black; font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 14pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-language: X-NONE; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">Besides sex, the other component of love
is the feeling that you “click,” an easy attraction to each other in all sorts
of ways. This means successful IRs in other dimensions: smoothly flowing
intimate conversation; having fun together; doing and talking about things of
common interest. * A love relationship checks all the boxes: backstage
intimacy; fun, mutual-interests-- except social acquaintance, which is superficial
and public, precisely what love is not. If they go on to become a couple, they
necessarily become allies too; both because successful IRs create solidarity
(as Durkheim said about religious rituals); and because living together creates
an economic element, a shared household, and under modern marriage laws, shared
property. The allies dimension is iffy, though, because disputes about money
are a major source of couples acrimony; and low-level annoyances of living
together are mainly about practical matters like heating the bedroom and
picking up one’s clothes. [Emerson 2015]</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="color: black; font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 14pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-language: X-NONE; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"> </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="color: black; font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 14pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-language: X-NONE; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">*McFarland’s research [2013] on
speed-dating found that couples who clicked, talked less in
questions-and-answers (i.e. seeking information about each other’s demographics
and life story), instead finding something they liked to talk about. </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="color: black; font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 14pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-language: X-NONE; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"> </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="color: black; font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 14pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-language: X-NONE; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">Love is a continuum, depending on the
strength of each of its ingredients: highest when sexual rhythms are strongly
attuned; plus the degree to which all the other kinds of friendship IRs are
successful.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="color: black; font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 14pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-language: X-NONE; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"> </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><span style="color: black; font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 14pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-language: X-NONE; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">The
history of love; and<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>history of
friendship</span></i><span style="color: black; font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 14pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-language: X-NONE; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="color: black; font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 14pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-language: X-NONE; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"> </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="color: black; font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 14pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-language: X-NONE; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">Love can be based on sex alone.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>After all, that is the origin of the word-- <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">eros</i>, <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">amor</i> -- in ancient and pre-modern times.* Love was recognized in
every society; I can’t think of one that doesn’t have love songs or love myths.
But until very recently, love was distinct from marriage. Especially so where
marriage and kinship were the building blocks of society. Both tribal and
feudal/aristocratic families were built on arranged marriages; formally
controlled sexual relationships were at the center of alliance politics and the
transfer of status and property by inheritance. Harems and mistresses could
exist alongside.</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="color: black; font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 14pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-language: X-NONE; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"> </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="color: black; font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 14pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-language: X-NONE; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">* Cupid comes from the Latin <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">cupiditas</i>-- lust.</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="color: black; font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 14pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-language: X-NONE; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"> </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="color: black; font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 14pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-language: X-NONE; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">In modern societies, marriage and love
tend to come together, at least in ideology, and at least temporarily in
reality (the few weeks before a wedding). Individuals became free to choose
their own partners (we see this by 1800 in the novels of Jane Austen and George
Sand). At first parents exercized influence and veto power, but parents were
pretty much out of the picture by the time of the dating and partying scenes of
Scott Fitzgerald’s jazz age in the 1920s. </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="color: black; font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 14pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-language: X-NONE; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"> </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="color: black; font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 14pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-language: X-NONE; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">Love only became free in the modern sense
because of an historic change in social structure: the state became separate
from family and household, shifting from aristocratic kin alliances to
bureaucracy and democracy; and this left the field of love open for individuals'
erotics and friendship. The early 1800s were called the Romantic era, among
other reasons because it was the time of historical shifts in personal freedom
and in sex and love.</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="color: black; font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 14pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-language: X-NONE; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"> </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="color: black; font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 14pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-language: X-NONE; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">The history of friendship shifts at the
same time and for the same underlying reasons. In ancient times, “friends”
meant political allies, but gradually came to mean personal relationships.</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="color: black; font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 14pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-language: X-NONE; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"> </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="color: black; font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 14pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-language: X-NONE; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">Backstage friends hardly existed when
there was no privacy. People lived in small villages and crowded dwellings;
large castles and palaces were full of servants and retainers, with no privacy
even in the royal bed-chamber. Courtiers vied for the right to hold the royal
chamber-pot. We see the change in the history of architecture; corridors and
hallways only started to become common in the 1700s and 1800s; before then one
room just led into another, and were full of people. Privacy becomes an
expectable right only in the wealthy societies of the 20th century. Without
privacy, it is hard to have a backstage.</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="color: black; font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 14pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-language: X-NONE; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"> </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="color: black; font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 14pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-language: X-NONE; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">“Fun” friends did exist, but the term did
not. Cleopatra kept Antony enthralled by playing with him, such as by roaming
the nights in disguise and disturbing the homes of the ordinary people.
Alexander the Great was famous for wild drinking parties with his buddies.
[Collins, <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Charisma.</i>] There were words
for carousing and jesting. But foolishness was reserved for fools; and fooling
around would become valued only in the 20th century. In Shakespeare, “clown”
meant a peasant; it came to mean an circus role in the 1800s; clowning around
became casual entertainment only recently. In the 1600s “fun” meant to trick or
hoax,* from an older word meaning to be a fool or make a fool of someone. In
the late 1800s and during WWI soldiers would speak ironically of combat as “in
on the fun” or “the circus.” Not until mid-20th century does “fun” become a
valued form of leisure.</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="color: black; font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 14pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-language: X-NONE; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"> </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="color: black; font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 14pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-language: X-NONE; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">*In the rural South, “you’re just funning
me” still had the old meaning. </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="color: black; font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 14pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-language: X-NONE; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"> </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="color: black; font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 14pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-language: X-NONE; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">In Latin, the word for “happy” was <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">felix</i>, meaning lucky, fortunate,
successful. The English word derives from the same root as “happen” and
“happenstance” -- happening by chance or good luck. It added the meaning, a
pleasurable or contented state of mind, in the 1700s; the term “happy family”
appears in the 1860s. World War II coined expressions such as flak-happy,
trigger-happy, and slap-happy, meaning dazed or light-headed. “Happy hour” in
bars dates from 1962. [word derivations from OED.]</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="color: black; font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 14pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-language: X-NONE; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"> </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="color: black; font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 14pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-language: X-NONE; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">“Buddy” meant a working companion,
originally in a mine. In the 20th century, it was extended to the “buddy
system” in the army; and eventually to friends who hang out together. “Pal” has
a similar history, originally meaning “brother” or “mate.”</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="color: black; font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 14pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-language: X-NONE; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"> </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="color: black; font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 14pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-language: X-NONE; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">Mutual-interests friends are probably the
category that expanded the most over the centuries. There were circles of poets
among Chinese gentry in the medieval dynasties; and we see European paintings
of amateur musicians playing their lutes in the 1600s; gatherings to listen to
someone play the piano become common in the 1800s. But "hobby" or "hobbyist"
meant a silly obsession until it acquired its current meaning around 1950.*</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="color: black; font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 14pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-language: X-NONE; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"> </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="color: black; font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 14pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-language: X-NONE; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">* A “hobby” was originally a small horse;
in 1818, a toy horse with wheels for children to ride. The term was soon used
to mock someone as a crank. Around 1900 it began to be extended to pastimes
like stamp collecting.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="color: black; font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 14pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-language: X-NONE; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"> </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="color: black; font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 14pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-language: X-NONE; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">Social acquaintances as a form of friends
existed in some form, but was not very prestigious. In Rome, “parasites” were
hangers-on at a rich man’s house, hoping for a lower place at dinner in this
very status-stratified society.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>A
similar but more exalted pattern developed in the rank-conscious court at
Versailles and its imitators in the 1600s. [Elias, <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">The Court Society</i>] The notion that guests and host are friends of
equal status dates from the 20th century.</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="color: black; font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 14pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-language: X-NONE; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"> </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="color: black; font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 14pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-language: X-NONE; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">Overall, the amount of time spent with
friends of any kind other than allies has greatly increased. The era of the
Internet amplifies this even more. The generation born after 1998 spend an
average of nine hours a day on their smart phones, an unprecedented amout of
time with “friends” however they are defined.</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="color: black; font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 14pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-language: X-NONE; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"> </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="color: black; font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 14pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-language: X-NONE; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">What lies ahead? The meaning of
friendship has shifted enormously over the centuries. Some of the biggest
changes happened quite recently, as we see in the history of the words “fun,”
“happy,” “buddy,” “pal,” and “hobbyist,” and the 21st century category of
Internet “friend.” There is no reason to expect that such changes are going to
stop now.</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="color: black; font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 14pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-language: X-NONE; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"> </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><span style="color: black; font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 14pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-language: X-NONE; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">What
difference do friendship networks make?</span></i><span style="color: black; font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 14pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-language: X-NONE; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="color: black; font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 14pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-language: X-NONE; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"> </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="color: black; font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 14pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-language: X-NONE; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">Now for the question about effects of
friendship on health, happiness, and career. Which kind of networks are good
for your health? Isolation, especially when old, is said to shorten your life.
One possibility is that all kinds of friends keep you alive, even superficial
acquaintances, a warm bodies effect. A more refined hypothesis is that positive
health effects come only from successful IRs. We have little evidence broken
down in this way, but here are some likely inferences: </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="color: black; font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 14pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-language: X-NONE; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"> </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><span style="color: black; font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 14pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-language: X-NONE; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">Allies</span></i><span style="color: black; font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 14pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-language: X-NONE; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">
do not have to be warm and personal; interactions can be manipulative,
artificial, or subservient. This doesn’t sound like much of a support group.
Alliances can be turbulent and breakable. Such breaks can be traumatic or
disappointing. Is this a blow to your health?</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="color: black; font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 14pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-language: X-NONE; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"> </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><span style="color: black; font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 14pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-language: X-NONE; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">Backstage
intimates</span></i><span style="color: black; font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 14pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-language: X-NONE; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">: On a personal or family level,
intimates can be quarrelsome or domineering, the opposite of supportive;
indeed, a formula for suicide. As IRs, they are not only unsuccessful, they are
negative.*</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="color: black; font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 14pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-language: X-NONE; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"> </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="color: black; font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 14pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-language: X-NONE; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">* Christakis’s research found that
persons whose friends are obese also tend to be obese. The mechanism may be
that obese persons are mutual interest friends whose hobby is eating. Another
possibility is they are friends because they have similar backstages, relegated
to failure in the associative market for attractive friends and lovers.</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="color: black; font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 14pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-language: X-NONE; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"> </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="color: black; font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 14pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-language: X-NONE; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">Laumann found that men are particularly
unlikely to tell their friends if they have a serious health problem. This can
be interpreted as a lack of backstage confidantes. A possible reason is that,
in many professions, to announce you are very ill is to rule yourself out of
ongoing career competition. Being an object of sympathy also signals that your
job is an upcoming vacancy. This is a negative trade-off between alliance
friends and backstage intimates.</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="color: black; font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 14pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-language: X-NONE; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"> </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><span style="color: black; font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 14pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-language: X-NONE; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">Mutual-interest
friends</span></i><span style="color: black; font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 14pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-language: X-NONE; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"> are less contentious relationships. They
are rarely traumatic, but are they supportive? The healthiness of these kinds
of friendships remains to be tested. </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="color: black; font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 14pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-language: X-NONE; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"> </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><span style="color: black; font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 14pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-language: X-NONE; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">Fun
friend</span></i><span style="color: black; font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 14pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-language: X-NONE; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">s would seem to be particularly good for
health and happiness. Shared laughter is supposed to be the best medicine.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Contagious laughter is a bodily experience,
intensely shared rhythms of a successful interaction ritual. But distinguish
between spontaneous laughter and forced laughter. As one can observe, working
class men and young men commonly punctuate their conversations with laughs, and
so do women when they are gushing together with praise about something. The
indicator of the success of social laughter as an IR is whether it is
contagious to the listener (just watch the listener’s face), or if it is merely
the speaker’s way of talking. </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="color: black; font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 14pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-language: X-NONE; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"> </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="color: black; font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 14pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-language: X-NONE; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">Even the uproarious fun of carousing
together can sometimes turn negative. Laughter can be cruel, if the fun is
bullying a helpless target. [Weenink 2014]<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>At fraternity parties, it is the isolated girl who keeps on drinking to
the end who gets gang-raped; female friends get their drunk friends away, foreseeing
beyond the moments of fun. [Sanday, <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Fraternity
Gang Rape</i>]</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="color: black; font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 14pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-language: X-NONE; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"> </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="color: black; font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 14pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-language: X-NONE; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">Network effects on career success have
been better studied, and we have more information on what kinds are friends are
involved.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Granovetter initiated a stream
of research on “the strength of weak ties”, showing that casual acquaintances
are better than close friends in providing information about job openings.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>But acquaintance ties are valuable mainly for
time-bound information where moving faster than competitors gives the advantage.
Villette [2009] found that the big fortunes are made by persons who cultivate
long-term ties with competitors and suppliers in their line of business. They
keep close tabs on their innovations (like Steve Jobs getting the
screen-mapping technique from Xerox before they knew what to do with it; and
his hanger-on Bill Gates taking it away to Microsoft). Villette found that
business empires were built by making loans to rivals in trouble, then taking
over their business; usually by going through hard-ball law suits. Villette
characterizes most ties that build fortunes as predatory. </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="color: black; font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 14pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-language: X-NONE; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"> </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="color: black; font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 14pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-language: X-NONE; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">Long-term ties from working closely
together are characteristic of success in fields where winning the public over
to a new style depends on creating networks of followers dedicated to spreading
the style. Among modernist architects at the turn of the 20th century, Guillen
and Collins [2015] found that very strong ties-- years spent as collaborator or
apprentice produced the networks that spread success.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>In the intellectual world, the innovators of
one generation are often pupils of the famed innovators of the previous
generation; ultimate success also involves a degree of betrayal, since the
younger have to break away to acquire their own reputation; what they learn is
the techniques of innovation, and a key is to know the competitive field
thoroughly so that one can find innovative niches with intuitive feel. [Collins
1998] These kinds of intergenerational networks are also found among famous artists,
and music composers.</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="color: black; font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 14pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-language: X-NONE; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"> </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="color: black; font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 14pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-language: X-NONE; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">Which of the five types of friends are
these? Above all they are alliance ties, within a particular field of
expertise. They don’t have to be personal friends, intimates, or fun friends;
one could say they are intensely mutual-interests friends, where the obsessive
interest is shop talk. </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="color: black; font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 14pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-language: X-NONE; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"> </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><span style="color: black; font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 14pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-language: X-NONE; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">Empirical
indicators</span></i><span style="color: black; font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 14pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-language: X-NONE; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="color: black; font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 14pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-language: X-NONE; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"> </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="color: black; font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 14pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-language: X-NONE; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">Doing research on kinds of friends is not
difficult; it is only a matter of observing, or asking the right questions.</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="color: black; font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 14pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-language: X-NONE; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"> </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><span style="color: black; font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 14pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-language: X-NONE; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">Allies:</span></i><span style="color: black; font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 14pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-language: X-NONE; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>talking about money; asking for loans; asking
for letters of reference, endorsements, asking to contact further network
friends for jobs or investments. In specialized fields like scientific
research, talking about what journals or editors to approach, what topics are
hot, giving helpful advice on drafts. In art and music: gossiping about who’s
doing what, contacts with agents, galleries, venues. </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="color: black; font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 14pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-language: X-NONE; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"> </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><span style="color: black; font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 14pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-language: X-NONE; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">Backstage
intimates:</span></i><span style="color: black; font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 14pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-language: X-NONE; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>Speaking in privacy; taking care not to be overheard<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">.</i> Don’t tell anybody about this. </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><span style="color: black; font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 14pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-language: X-NONE; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"> </span></i></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><span style="color: black; font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 14pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-language: X-NONE; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">Fun
friends: </span></i><span style="color: black; font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 14pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-language: X-NONE; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Shared laughter, especially spontaneous and
contagious. Facial and body indicators of genuine amusement, not forced smiles
or saying “that’s funny” instead of laughing. Very strong body alignment,
such as fans closely watching the same event and exploding in synch into cheers
or curses.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="color: black; font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 14pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-language: X-NONE; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"> </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><span style="color: black; font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 14pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-language: X-NONE; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">Mutual-interests
friends:</span></i><span style="color: black; font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 14pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-language: X-NONE; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"> talking at great length about a single
topic. Being unable to tear oneself away from an activity, or from
conversations about it. </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="color: black; font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 14pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-language: X-NONE; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"> </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><span style="color: black; font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 14pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-language: X-NONE; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">Sociable
acquaintances: </span></i><span style="color: black; font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 14pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-language: X-NONE; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>General lack of all of the above, in
situations where people expect to talk with each other about
something besides practical matters (excuse me, can I get by?) Banal
commonplace topics, the small change of social currency: the weather; where are
you from; what do you do; foreign travels; do you know so-and-so? Answers to
“how are you doing?” which avoid giving away information about one’s problems
or matters of serious concern. Talking about politics can be conversational
filler (when everyone assumes they’re in the same political faction), as often
happens at the end of dinner parties when all other topics have been exhausted.</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="color: black; font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 14pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-language: X-NONE; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"> </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="color: black; font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 14pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-language: X-NONE; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">Two ways to collect this information:</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="color: black; font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 14pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-language: X-NONE; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"> </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="color: black; font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 14pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-language: X-NONE; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">(1) Ask people if they know someone with
whom they do any of the above.</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="color: black; font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 14pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-language: X-NONE; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="color: black; font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 14pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-language: X-NONE; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">(2) Ask them to list people they know;
then ask them to check the boxes for each person. </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="color: black; font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 14pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-language: X-NONE; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"> </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="color: black; font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 14pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-language: X-NONE; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">Try it yourself by making a checklist of
your friends. Observing these indicators when you see them in interaction.</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="color: black; font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 14pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-language: X-NONE; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"> </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="color: black; font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 14pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-language: X-NONE; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">Finally, to give a more empirical basis
for the question of what kind of friends are network friends: use the checklist
to see how they interact on-line.</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="color: black; font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 14pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-language: X-NONE; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"> </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><span style="color: black; font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 14pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-language: X-NONE; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">References</span></i><span style="color: black; font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 14pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-language: X-NONE; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="color: black; font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 14pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-language: X-NONE; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"> </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="color: black; font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 14pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-language: X-NONE; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">Nicholas Christakis and James Fowler.
2009. <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Connected: The Surprising Power of
Social Networks and How They Shape Our Lives.</i></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="color: black; font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 14pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-language: X-NONE; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"> </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="color: black; font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 14pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-language: X-NONE; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">Randall Collins. 1998. <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">The Sociology of Philosophies.</i> </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="color: black; font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 14pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-language: X-NONE; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"> </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="color: black; font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 14pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-language: X-NONE; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"><span style="mso-tab-count: 2;"> </span><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>2020. <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Charisma:
Micro-sociology of Power and Influence.</i></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="color: black; font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 14pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-language: X-NONE; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"> </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="color: black; font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 14pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-language: X-NONE; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">Norbert Elias. 1983. <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">The Court Society.</i></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="color: black; font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 14pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-language: X-NONE; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"> </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="color: black; font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 14pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-language: X-NONE; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">Robert Emerson. 2015. <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Everyday Troubles. The Micro-politics of
Interpersonal Conflict.</i> </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="color: black; font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 14pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-language: X-NONE; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"> </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="color: black; font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 14pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-language: X-NONE; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">David Grazian. 2008. <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">On the Make. The Hustle of Urban Nightlife.</i></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><span style="color: black; font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 14pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-language: X-NONE; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"> </span></i></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-GB" style="color: black; font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 14pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-GB; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;">Mauro Guillen and Randall Collins. 2019.</span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 14pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>"Movement-based influence: resource mobilization,
intense interaction, and the rise of modernist architecture." <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Sociological Forum</i>.</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 14pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt;"> </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 14pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt;">David Halle. 1984. <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">America's Working Man.</i></span><span style="color: black; font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 14pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-language: X-NONE; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="color: black; font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 14pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-language: X-NONE; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"> </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="color: black; font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 14pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-language: X-NONE; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">Edward O. Laumann et al. 1994. <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">The Social Organization of Sexuality.</i> </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="color: black; font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 14pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-language: X-NONE; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"> </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="color: black; font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 14pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-language: X-NONE; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">John Levi Martin. 2009. <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Social Structures.</i></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="color: black; font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 14pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-language: X-NONE; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"> </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="color: black; font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 14pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-language: X-NONE; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">Daniel McFarland et al. 2013. “Making the
connection: Social Bonding in Courtship Situations.” <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Amer. J. Sociology.</i></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="color: black; font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 14pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-language: X-NONE; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"> </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="color: black; font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 14pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-language: X-NONE; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">OED = <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">The
Complete Oxford English Dictionary.</i> 1991.</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="color: black; font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 14pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-language: X-NONE; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"> </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="color: black; font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 14pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-language: X-NONE; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">Peggy Reeves Sanday. 2007.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Fraternity
Gang Rape.</i></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="color: black; font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 14pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-language: X-NONE; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"> </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="color: black; font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 14pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-language: X-NONE; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">Michel Villette and Catherine Vuillermot.
2009. <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">From Predators to Icons. Exposing
the Myth of the Business Hero.</i></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="color: black; font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 14pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-language: X-NONE; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"> </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="color: black; font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 14pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-language: X-NONE; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">Don Weenink. 2014. "Frenzied
attacks: emotional dynamics of extreme youth violence." <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Brit. J. Sociol.</i> </span></p>
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{page:WordSection1;}</style></p>Unknownnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1005085971596877601.post-12245150243941777132021-09-14T14:37:00.014-07:002022-01-17T02:51:40.312-08:00COLLAPSE OF THE TUTORIAL-PROXY STATE: AFGHANISTAN 2021, PHILIPPINES 1942, VIETNAM 1975 AND OTHERS<p>
</p><p class="xmsonormal" style="margin-bottom: .1pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: .1pt; margin: 0.1pt 0in;"><span lang="EN-IE" style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 14pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-IE; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt;">The fall of Afghanistan within a week was met with
surprise and recrimination. Yet this kind of collapse is not unprecedented. It
fits the well-known pattern of a tipping point; in the sociology of crowd
behavior, sometimes referred to as the theory of the critical mass. </span></p>
<p class="xmsonormal" style="margin-bottom: .1pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: .1pt; margin: 0.1pt 0in;"><span lang="EN-IE" style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 14pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-IE; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt;"> </span></p>
<p class="xmsonormal" style="margin-bottom: .1pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: .1pt; margin: 0.1pt 0in;"><span lang="EN-IE" style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 14pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-IE; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt;">A tipping point is especially volatile in a situation
where it is risky to take part, such as a violent conflict. But when a conflict
grows, it can reach the point where it becomes risky not to take part—when the
danger is being on the losing side and subject to the vengeance of the winners.
Tipping points are characteristic of revolutions, where the entire state breaks
down suddenly, in a few exciting days when everyone’s attention is focused on
the outcome. Tipping points can also occur in military battles, when one side
becomes demoralized and disorganized, giving up the fight in a contageous
collapse, simultaneously encouraging the intact army to launch a ferocious
attack upon a fleeing enemy. Historically decisive battles have hinged on
tipping points (Alexander the Great, Agincourt, etc.) compressed into a few
hours. The same mechanism is seen in longer collapses of an entire army, spread
over a period of weeks (the German blitzkrieg in May 1940 culminating in the
Dunkirk evacuation); or months (the Japanese conquest of Malaya and Singapore
during December 1941-February 1942). In both cases, the retreating army was
unable to regroup in a position to stop the high-speed attack, resulting in a
pervasive feeling of defeat.</span></p>
<p class="xmsonormal" style="margin-bottom: .1pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: .1pt; margin: 0.1pt 0in;"><span lang="EN-IE" style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 14pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-IE; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt;"> </span></p>
<p class="xmsonormal" style="margin-bottom: .1pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: .1pt; margin: 0.1pt 0in;"><span lang="EN-IE" style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 14pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-IE; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt;">Blitzkrieg is really about a feeling of emotional
momentum, of one side having it and the other sinking further and further into
paralysis: French commanders and government leaders in 1940 emotionally beaten
to the point of being unable to conceive of continuing resistance; British forces
in 1942 repeatedly outflanked by Japanese air superiority and landings behind
their front as they retreated down the Malay Peninsula. In both cases huge
forces surrendered, with relatively small casualties. They were not beaten
materially, but emotionally.</span></p>
<p class="xmsonormal" style="margin-bottom: .1pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: .1pt; margin: 0.1pt 0in;"><span lang="EN-IE" style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 14pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-IE; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt;"> </span></p>
<p class="xmsonormal" style="margin-bottom: .1pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: .1pt; margin: 0.1pt 0in;"><span lang="EN-IE" style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 14pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-IE; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt;">Not all military campaigns end in tipping points, and
some revolutions are fought out in long wars of attrition. What causes tipping
points to arise? And what makes some of them tip faster or slower than others?
These questions call for extensive comparison of historical cases. Here I will
take up a more limited set of comparisons, all involving the United States:<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Afghanistan 2021; Philippines 1942; Korea 1950;
Vietnam 1975; Iraq 2014. In fact, all US military failures in living memory fit
the pattern. </span></p>
<p class="xmsonormal" style="margin-bottom: .1pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: .1pt; margin: 0.1pt 0in;"><span lang="EN-IE" style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 14pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-IE; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt;"> </span></p>
<p class="xmsonormal" style="margin-bottom: .1pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: .1pt; margin: 0.1pt 0in;"><span lang="EN-IE" style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 14pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-IE; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt;">One feature they all have in common is that they are
semi-proxy wars. In each case, local troops are trained and supplied by a
culturally distant state from overseas. Traditionally this would have been
called colonialism. <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The Philippines was
in fact an American colony, taken over from Spain in the Spanish-American War
of 1898. But as a liberal democracy, the US has not regarded itself as a
colonial power; it has called its overseas territories temporary arrangements,
protectorates, tutorial periods during which we teach undemocratic cultures to
become modern and eventually self-governing. We could call these tutorial-proxy
states.</span></p>
<p class="xmsonormal" style="margin-bottom: .1pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: .1pt; margin: 0.1pt 0in;"><span lang="EN-IE" style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 14pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-IE; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt;"> </span></p>
<p class="xmsonormal" style="margin-bottom: .1pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: .1pt; margin: 0.1pt 0in;"><span lang="EN-IE" style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 14pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-IE; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt;">Some observers have called this a colonial empire in
fact if not in name. (In 2003, Michael Mann called the American pattern <i>Incoherent
Empire</i>.) Does it make any difference what we call it? In tipping point
collapses, the mechanism is the same. In other respects, ideologically and
economically, there are important differences. A colony tends to be economically
much more valuable; its economy can be monopolized by the host country; natural
resources and labor can be captured; jobs and careers are provided for colonists.
(On this last point, there may not be much difference between a traditional
colony and a tutorial-proxy state, since the latter is full of overseas NGOs and
contractors.) The bottom line is that a tutorial-proxy state tends to be
expensive for its patron to maintain; whereas a colony is profitable or at least
meant to be profitable. Thus the motives for having tutorial-proxy states
abroad must be chiefly ideological and political: they feed national pride, a
sense of doing good, and what Weber called the power-prestige of the state. For
these reasons, too, the political will to keep or abandon a tutorial-proxy state
is unlikely to be steadfast.</span></p>
<p class="xmsonormal" style="margin-bottom: .1pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: .1pt; margin: 0.1pt 0in;"><span lang="EN-IE" style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 14pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-IE; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt;"> </span></p>
<p class="xmsonormal" style="margin-bottom: .1pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: .1pt; margin: 0.1pt 0in;"><span lang="EN-IE" style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 14pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-IE; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt;">To come to the central point: tutorial-proxy states
are prone to tipping point collapses, above all because of the tendency for
native proxy troops to suddenly fold when their big-brother tutors are not
sufficiently in control.</span></p>
<p class="xmsonormal" style="margin-bottom: .1pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: .1pt; margin: 0.1pt 0in;"><span lang="EN-IE" style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 14pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-IE; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt;"> </span></p>
<p class="xmsonormal" style="margin-bottom: .1pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: .1pt; margin: 0.1pt 0in;"><span lang="EN-IE" style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 14pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-IE; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt;">There are 5 main patterns in US tipping-point
collapses from 1942 through 2021:</span></p>
<p class="xmsonormal" style="margin-bottom: .1pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: .1pt; margin: 0.1pt 0in;"><span lang="EN-IE" style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 14pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-IE; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt;"> </span></p>
<p class="xmsonormal" style="margin-bottom: .1pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: .1pt; margin: 0.1pt 0in;"><span lang="EN-IE" style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 14pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-IE; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt;">[1] <i>Large armies beaten by smaller or low-tech
forces</i>.</span></p>
<p class="xmsonormal" style="margin-bottom: .1pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: .1pt; margin: 0.1pt 0in;"><span lang="EN-IE" style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 14pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-IE; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt;">[2] <i>Sudden collapse of native/proxy forces</i>.</span></p>
<p class="xmsonormal" style="margin-bottom: .1pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: .1pt; margin: 0.1pt 0in;"><span lang="EN-IE" style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 14pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-IE; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt;">[3] <i>Unrealistic expectations, setting up surprise</i>.</span></p>
<p class="xmsonormal" style="margin-bottom: .1pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: .1pt; margin: 0.1pt 0in;"><span lang="EN-IE" style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 14pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-IE; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt;">[4] <i>Emphasis on offense over defense, retreat
unimaginable</i>.</span></p>
<p class="xmsonormal" style="margin-bottom: .1pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: .1pt; margin: 0.1pt 0in;"><span lang="EN-IE" style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 14pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-IE; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt;">[5] <i>Weak political commitment as crisis develops</i>.
</span></p>
<p class="xmsonormal" style="margin-bottom: .1pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: .1pt; margin: 0.1pt 0in;"><span lang="EN-IE" style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 14pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-IE; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt;"> </span></p>
<p class="xmsonormal" style="margin-bottom: .1pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: .1pt; margin: 0.1pt 0in;"><b><i><span lang="EN-IE" style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 14pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-IE; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt;">Afghanistan 2021.</span></i></b><span lang="EN-IE" style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 14pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-IE; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt;"> <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>On paper, Afghan forces were 350,000, against
an estimated 60,000 Taliban. Much of the Afghan troops were considered of low
quality or reliability; 96,000 as effective. Much of the fighting was carried by
well-trained Special Forces, operating US-style in helicopter assaults against
Taliban advances, with the US providing high-tech surveillance, and air support
from fighter-bombers and drones. The Taliban were armed with automatic rifles,
hand-held rocket launchers and rocket-propelled grenades, plus IEDs and suicide
bombers; transport was by pickup trucks and motorcycles. A vast disparity in
firepower; but US/proxy troops had far greater logistics problems in fuel, ammunition,
as well as basic supplies of food and water especially to remote outposts. As
Taliban came to control most of the countryside, government supplies and
reinforcements had to move chiefly by air; but helicopters were often grounded
for maintenance, while the number of bases where they could be serviced shrank
to Kabul alone. </span></p>
<p class="xmsonormal" style="margin-bottom: .1pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: .1pt; margin: 0.1pt 0in;"><span lang="EN-IE" style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 14pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-IE; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt;"> </span></p>
<p class="xmsonormal" style="margin-bottom: .1pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: .1pt; margin: 0.1pt 0in;"><span lang="EN-IE" style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 14pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-IE; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt;">US forces had operated only in a support capacity
since 2014. By spring 2021, US troops in country were down to 2500. More
importantly, there were 18,000 military contractors, of which 6000 were
American—the rest also funded by the US. When total withdrawal was announced on
April 14, these maintenance personnel were among the first to be withdrawn, as
US bases were closed and equipment flown out or destroyed. Another 7,000 allied
troops (chiefly from NATO countries) had no choice but to cease operations as
well, since all the bases were US. The result was the high-tech core of the Afghan
military was essentially crippled. Huge advantages in numbers and weaponry were
negated by shutting down logistics.</span></p>
<p class="xmsonormal" style="margin-bottom: .1pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: .1pt; margin: 0.1pt 0in;"><span lang="EN-IE" style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 14pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-IE; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt;"> </span></p>
<p class="xmsonormal" style="margin-bottom: .1pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: .1pt; margin: 0.1pt 0in;"><span lang="EN-IE" style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 14pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-IE; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt;">Sudden collapse came almost entirely without fighting.
On April 13, Taliban controlled perhaps 10% of Afghanistan, the government over
20%, with the rest contested. By mid-June, Taliban had seized about 50 of 400
districts, at an accelerating pace—the last two dozen falling in a few days
around June 21. So far these were rural areas; Afghan Special Forces were still
fighting back and recapturing some towns. July 1 the US evacuated Bagram air
base 40 miles north of Kabul—it was an enormous fortified base set up for the
surge of reinforcements in 2009-10. But since the draw-down had started in
2014, the economy of the area surrounding the base had gone into decline; by closing-time
it was unused and needlessly expensive. Looters pillaged the base before Afghan
forces arrived. It was meant to be handed over to the Afghan air force, but
they never used it.</span></p>
<p class="xmsonormal" style="margin-bottom: .1pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: .1pt; margin: 0.1pt 0in;"><span lang="EN-IE" style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 14pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-IE; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt;"> </span></p>
<p class="xmsonormal" style="margin-bottom: .1pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: .1pt; margin: 0.1pt 0in;"><span lang="EN-IE" style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 14pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-IE; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt;">The pace of collapse picked up a month later, the
climax of a long crescendo, from <i>andante pianissimo</i> to <i>allegro furioso</i>.
<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Desertions from Afghan forces mounted; local
troops still held all the major towns but feeling unsupplied and cut off. On
August 6, the first provincial capital was lost, in a remote area;<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>a week later, 12 of the 34 provincial
capitals were in Taliban hands. The biggest cities were still government-controlled,
but the rest fell in the next 2 days, as governors and commanders made deals,
fled, or changed sides. That left Kabul, where the remaining US troops had been
reinforced. The Taliban had long been planning to besiege Kabul once it was
isolated; they were in no hurry, but some of their locals apparently seized the
opportunity for a psychological coup. On August 15 the Taliban were waving their
flags in the streets – no longer detonating suicide bombs but parading openly
as victors. The President, a former World Bank official with weak local roots,
fled the country. It was a momentum shift, impossible to undo. The US recalibrated
its goal to evacuating its remaining nationals and some of their local helpers
from its one remaining airport, while keeping to its announced deadline.</span></p>
<p class="xmsonormal" style="margin-bottom: .1pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: .1pt; margin: 0.1pt 0in;"><span lang="EN-IE" style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 14pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-IE; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt;"> </span></p>
<p class="xmsonormal" style="margin-bottom: .1pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: .1pt; margin: 0.1pt 0in;"><span lang="EN-IE" style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 14pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-IE; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt;">Expectations among American officials (at least at the
higher ranks) and top Afghan politicians remained optimistic until the next-to-the-last
day, August 14.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>When the withdrawal
deadline of September 11 was announced in April 2021, US officials
estimated<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>the government might fall to
the Taliban within three years. <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>By early
July, intelligence analysts concluded it could happen within six months (<i>Wall
St. Journal</i>, July 3, 2021). July 24 Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin “voiced
cautious optimism that a nascent Afghan strategy to consolidate defensive
positions around important cities... along with limited American airstrikes,
could enable Afghan forces to hold the line.” (<i>New York Times, </i>Aug. 16) <i>The
Economist </i>(August 14), assessed the situation in the headline “Big-city
Afghans are defiant in the face of advancing Taliban insurgents”, reflecting the
situation August 12 when the magazine went to press. “Both Afghan and
withdrawing Western commanders maintain that the Taliban are not an unstoppable
juggernaut. A couple of government victories, or even battles that end in
stalemate, could change the dynamic.” Defense of Kabul would be the rallying-point.
On the other hand, lower-level American troops as early as April had compared
the situation to “Vietnam over again,” a common disconnect between perceptions
at higher and lower ranks. <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></span></p>
<p class="xmsonormal" style="margin-bottom: .1pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: .1pt; margin: 0.1pt 0in;"><span lang="EN-IE" style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 14pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-IE; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt;"> </span></p>
<p class="xmsonormal" style="margin-bottom: .1pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: .1pt; margin: 0.1pt 0in;"><span lang="EN-IE" style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 14pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-IE; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt;">A deep-seated US military style is also evident. US doctrine
emphasizes offense, not defense. The aim of a military campaign is to defeat
the enemy by destroying it as an organization. Especially in the era of
high-tech warfare, the strategy is to attack the enemy’s command centers, destroy
its communications, its ability to maneuver and to put its weapons into action.
A text-book illustration was the Gulf War in 1991, when US air superiority
destroyed Saddam Hussein’s aircraft on the ground; while armored and airborne
troops went on a 150 mile long “left hook” out in the desert from Kuwait,
patterned on Robert E. Lee’s rout of the Federal army at Chancellorsville in
1863. The invasion of Iraq in 2003 had the same design of lightning offensive,
air superiority, and demolishing enemy organization. The priority of offense
over defense goes back to World War II: the landings in North Africa, Italy, and
France, most spectacularly in Patton’s armor races; MacArthur’s island-hopping
strategy in the Pacific. The best defense is always an offense; the Battle of
the Bulge was solved by sending Patton to amputate it.</span></p>
<p class="xmsonormal" style="margin-bottom: .1pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: .1pt; margin: 0.1pt 0in;"><span lang="EN-IE" style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 14pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-IE; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt;"> </span></p>
<p class="xmsonormal" style="margin-bottom: .1pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: .1pt; margin: 0.1pt 0in;"><span lang="EN-IE" style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 14pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-IE; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt;">Counter-insurgency war in Iraq and Afghanistan (and
going back to Vietnam) required a modification. But although the plan called
for strategic hamlets (in Vietnam) and clearing safe areas by a surge of troops
(in Iraq), it remained a tactic of going on offense. City neighbourhoods would
have to be cleared block-by-block, then insulated (now with high-tech
surveillance such as facial recognition) to keep the guerrillas out. It was
this method that the US bequeathed to its Afghan proxies, until it foundered under
logistics overloads and ever-renewed resistance. </span></p>
<p class="xmsonormal" style="margin-bottom: .1pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: .1pt; margin: 0.1pt 0in;"><span lang="EN-IE" style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 14pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-IE; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt;"> </span></p>
<p class="xmsonormal" style="margin-bottom: .1pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: .1pt; margin: 0.1pt 0in;"><span lang="EN-IE" style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 14pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-IE; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt;">In the tipping-point swing during spring and summer 2021,
there was an additional problem: the huge numbers of internal refugees fleeing
Taliban conquest. Up to half a million Afghan civilians fled from one city to
another; clogging up places where air strikes might be made; putting more demands
on government resources to care for them; above all, adding to the emotional
atmosphere of a world falling apart. (We will see this again in the fall of
Vietnam.) The Afghan army melted away into a shifting population whose
psychology resembled their own; while the Taliban, a distinctive identity with
their long beards and anti-uniforms that makes their photos unmistakeable, were
the one solid point in the vortex. It is this swarm of refugees, augmented by
the 300,000 Afghans who had been employed by the Americans, who created the
chaotic atmosphere at Kabul airport in the two weeks of frenzied evacuation. </span></p>
<p class="xmsonormal" style="margin-bottom: .1pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: .1pt; margin: 0.1pt 0in;"><span lang="EN-IE" style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 14pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-IE; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt;"> </span></p>
<p class="xmsonormal" style="margin-bottom: .1pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: .1pt; margin: 0.1pt 0in;"><span lang="EN-IE" style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 14pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-IE; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt;">Part of the problem, of course, is that mass
evacuation had not been planned for; and that bureaucratic procedures of vetting
refugees for special entry permits had been snarled with the political
conflicts of the Trump administration. But judging from past cases of mass
refugee flows from undesirable places, it is likely that many of those who got
to Kabul airport were people with enough money or connections to get there; the
task of sorting out their motivations was impossible for the soldiers and employees
at the gates. Photos of crowds chasing planes on the runway and clinging to fusilage
and wings are reminiscent not just of Saigon in 1975 but of trains in India in
past emergencies. It was a free-for-all; airport shops were looted; stray
Taliban wandered around inside firing shots in the air. In short: destruction
of routine social organization and its replacement by emotion-driven crowds is
a contageous social disease. The smaller, more collectively self-disciplined
group survives best in such situations, and even thrives on them. In this case,
it was the Taliban.</span></p>
<p class="xmsonormal" style="margin-bottom: .1pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: .1pt; margin: 0.1pt 0in;"><span lang="EN-IE" style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 14pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-IE; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt;"> </span></p>
<p class="xmsonormal" style="margin-bottom: .1pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: .1pt; margin: 0.1pt 0in;"><span lang="EN-IE" style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 14pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-IE; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt;">Weak political commitment is high up in the chain of
causes. <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Successive US administrations
since the 9/11/2001 attacks have all hoped for speedy resolution of their plans.
All have faced political dissent, some in the form of public demonstrations and
journalistic opinion, some from elected officials on up to the Presidency
itself. From the Afghan point of view the foreign master of their proxy army must
have looked like a combination of capriciousness and inertia. A series of
deadlines had been set for withdrawal, modified by later plans for temporary
build-ups and drawn-downs. In 2003, President Bush announced an end to major combat
operations in order to concentrate on the invasion of Iraq. In 2006, counter-insurgency
warfare in both places led to a troop boost. In December 2009, President Obama
ordered a surge adding 33,000 troops to the 67,000 in Afghanistan, with a July
2011 deadline for beginning withdrawal. In June 2011, a month after Osama bin
Laden had been killed in Pakistan, Obama announced that US troops would be
withdrawn and security handed over to Afghan forces by 2014. In May 2014, Obama
announced that 32,800 US troops would be reduced to 9800 by the end of the
year, and to zero at the end of 2016. The trend continued but slower than planned.
President Trump brought the existing 14,000 down to 5000 by November 2020,
which fell to 2500 by April 2021. </span></p>
<p class="xmsonormal" style="margin-bottom: .1pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: .1pt; margin: 0.1pt 0in;"><span lang="EN-IE" style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 14pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-IE; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt;"> </span></p>
<p class="xmsonormal" style="margin-bottom: .1pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: .1pt; margin: 0.1pt 0in;"><span lang="EN-IE" style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 14pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-IE; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt;">Throughout, US airpower, including from distant bases
and aircraft carriers, and with a rising use of unmanned drones as the
technology developed, continued to back up proxy forces; whether from
in-country bases, or from “over-the-horizon” locations. Thus the numbers game
of troop reductions was always ambiguous, as long as it was backed up by US
airpower, global electronic surveillance, and a willingness to pay the bills. </span></p>
<p class="xmsonormal" style="margin-bottom: .1pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: .1pt; margin: 0.1pt 0in;"><span lang="EN-IE" style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 14pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-IE; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt;"> </span></p>
<p class="xmsonormal" style="margin-bottom: .1pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: .1pt; margin: 0.1pt 0in;"><span lang="EN-IE" style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 14pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-IE; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt;">This last point is an important component of political
will. In addition to war weariness and war casualties (the last fallen to zero
in the last 18 months before the final pull-out), there are struggles over the
federal budget and the military’s share in it. High-tech war, relatively
uncostly in lives, is ultra-expensive in logistics and equipment. No doubt part
of President Biden’s calculations were to wipe the slate clean of a trillion-dollar
drain; and this must have played a part in withdrawing not just troops but the
contractors who kept the Afghan military machine running. </span></p>
<p class="xmsonormal" style="margin-bottom: .1pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: .1pt; margin: 0.1pt 0in;"><span lang="EN-IE" style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 14pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-IE; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt;"> </span></p>
<p class="xmsonormal" style="margin-bottom: .1pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: .1pt; margin: 0.1pt 0in;"><span lang="EN-IE" style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 14pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-IE; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt;">Tipping points are a matter of timing and rhythm. Imperial
powers have extricated themselves from proxy clients on occasion without
causing a collapse. When things start going bad, they go bad in all sorts of
ways—what is contageous is the emotional swing. Scrambling to recover from the
lack of air bases not too far over the horizon, US diplomats found Afghanistan’s
neighbours had become wary of granting anything, more intent of sizing up the
new situation where the US was looking like a loser. Nothing is permament in
the world of geopolitical power-prestige; tipping points themselves get absorbed
in the long run of fluctuating forces. But in the medium run, at least, they hurt.</span></p>
<p class="xmsonormal" style="margin-bottom: .1pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: .1pt; margin: 0.1pt 0in;"><span lang="EN-IE" style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 14pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-IE; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt;"> </span></p>
<p class="xmsonormal" style="margin-bottom: .1pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: .1pt; margin: 0.1pt 0in;"><b><i><span lang="EN-IE" style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 14pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-IE; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt;">Philippines Dec. 1941-May 1942.</span></i></b><span lang="EN-IE" style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 14pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-IE; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt;"> <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Larger forces were beaten by smaller. General
MacArthur had a total of 140,000 troops, including 19,000 American; 20,000 Filipino
regulars, and 100,000 low-quality Filipino reserves. He also had the biggest US
air force in the Pacific, with 35 B-17 bombers and over 100 advanced fighters. And
Manila Bay was base for the U.S. Navy “Asiatic Fleet” (different from the Pacific
Fleet based in Hawaii). <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>MacArthur’s
forces were spread throughout the Philippine islands, with the most and best in
a ring around Manila on the northern island of Luzon. The Japanese invaded
Luzon Dec. 22 with a main force of 43,000 north of Manila, with an encircling
force of 7000 landing on the opposite coast southeast of the city. <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Elsewhere in the archipelago, small Japanese units
quickly defeated Filipino troops. </span></p>
<p class="xmsonormal" style="margin-bottom: .1pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: .1pt; margin: 0.1pt 0in;"><span lang="EN-IE" style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 14pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-IE; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt;"> </span></p>
<p class="xmsonormal" style="margin-bottom: .1pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: .1pt; margin: 0.1pt 0in;"><span lang="EN-IE" style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 14pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-IE; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt;">MacArthur had a 2-to-1 advantage for the main battle in
Luzon. The Japanese advanced slowly, giving him time to unite his two retreating
forces: 28,000 retreating before the 10,000-strong Japanese vanguard from the
north; 15,000 retreating in front of 7000 Japanese from the south-east. They
united at a cross-roads outside Manila, making a 10-mile traffic jam. By Jan.
6, following 2 weeks of retreating, they took up defensive positions in the
Bataan peninsula, a dense jungle comprising the southwest curve of Manila Bay.
By this time there were 15,000 US and 65,000 Filipino troops, plus 26,000 civilians
(more on these below). Here the defense stiffened. Japanese attacks were repulsed.
Amphibious landings behind US lines on the small peninsula failed, in contrast
to the early days of the invasion when few landings were even contested. Both
armies had many sick with malaria. By February, the Japanese had ceased serious
attacks, and even withdrew air support and 20,000 troops for an opportunistic
attack on the Dutch East Indies (Borneo, Sumatra, Java, rubber plantations and
oil fields that were their chief aim in South-East Asia). By early March,
Japanese forces were down to 3000 on their Bataan front line. </span></p>
<p class="xmsonormal" style="margin-bottom: .1pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: .1pt; margin: 0.1pt 0in;"><span lang="EN-IE" style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 14pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-IE; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt;"> </span></p>
<p class="xmsonormal" style="margin-bottom: .1pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: .1pt; margin: 0.1pt 0in;"><span lang="EN-IE" style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 14pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-IE; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt;">The Americans had a 3-to-1 advantage but did not know
it. Later in the month, the Japanese brought back 20,000 troops, having quickly
taken the East Indies with little resistance. Their renewed offensive broke through
in Bataan, where 78,000 US and Filipino troops surrendered April 9. The
fortified island of Corregidor, off the tip of the Bataan peninsula, held out
for another month; after 3 days of intense bombardment, a Japanese landing got
ashore, and another 12,000 surrendered on May 10. The Japanese force had captured an army four times its size. It was the biggest single
defeat and the largest number of prisoners taken in American history. </span></p>
<p class="xmsonormal" style="margin-bottom: .1pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: .1pt; margin: 0.1pt 0in;"><span lang="EN-IE" style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 14pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-IE; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt;"> </span></p>
<p class="xmsonormal" style="margin-bottom: .1pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: .1pt; margin: 0.1pt 0in;"><span lang="EN-IE" style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 14pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-IE; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt;">The proxy army of native Filipinos had a mixed record.
Left to themselves, they put up little resistance to Japanese advance. Especially
in the first weeks, there were many desertions. But united with US forces in
Bataan, they performed just as well. The big problem in Bataan and Corregidor
was food and morale. There was a shortage of supplies for the 80,000 troops,
made worse by 26,000 refugees; from the beginning they were put on half
rations, with the amount reduced during the 4 month siege. Air support was lost.
The US Navy had withdrawn. No reinforcements or resupplies were to be expected.
President Quezon, who had fled with his family to Corregidor, proposed on Feb.
8 to declare the Philippines neutral between the US and Japan. He was overruled
by MacArthur, who warned he would become a Japanese puppet; on Feb. 20
Quezon and his family were evacuated by submarine, along with the Philippine treasury
gold. At the end, the US were destroying military equipment, another echo for
Afghanistan. </span></p>
<p class="xmsonormal" style="margin-bottom: .1pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: .1pt; margin: 0.1pt 0in;"><span lang="EN-IE" style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 14pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-IE; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt;"> </span></p>
<p class="xmsonormal" style="margin-bottom: .1pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: .1pt; margin: 0.1pt 0in;"><span lang="EN-IE" style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 14pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-IE; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt;">Unrealistic expectations led to being taken by
surprise. It was widely believed that war with Japan was coming. The diplomatic
situation had deteriorated to ultimatums; troop convoys were spotted,
intelligence reports knew an attack was coming. The question was where and
when. MacArthur had been promised a reinforcement of 50,000 American troops by February,
although ammunition would take another six months. [Manchester 192] Almost
everyone underestimated Japanese weapons quality and fighting capacity, misled
by the pervasive stereotype of short-stature, underfed nonwhite people
centuries behind in civilization. Ignored was Japanese modernity in recognizing
the tactical use of air power, aircraft carriers (Japan had built more of them
than any other country), amphibious landings, and the tactic of rapidly building
forward airbases. All these would play a central role in the Japanese
blitzkrieg through the first half of 1942. And no one in the US (or British or
Dutch) military thought that Japan could strike simultaneously in so many directions:
Hawaii, far out in the Pacific; Hong Kong and British possessions in Malaya and
Singapore; the Philippines; the Dutch East Indies. </span></p>
<p class="xmsonormal" style="margin-bottom: .1pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: .1pt; margin: 0.1pt 0in;"><span lang="EN-IE" style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 14pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-IE; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt;"> </span></p>
<p class="xmsonormal" style="margin-bottom: .1pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: .1pt; margin: 0.1pt 0in;"><span lang="EN-IE" style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 14pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-IE; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt;">Thus the Dec. 7 attack on Pearl Harbor was a surprise;
but it did not raise alarms elsewhere. In fact, it was taken to mean other potential
targets had a temporary breathing spell. News of Pearl Harbor reached the
Philippines at 2.30 a.m. on Dec. 8 (being on the other side of the
International Date Line). MacArthur and his officers turned the attention immediately
to their long-distance B-17 bomber force at a base 65 miles north of Manila.
But their concern was offense, not defense: whether to retaliate with a raid on
the nearest Japanese air base in Formosa. While discussing this and waiting for
orders, a Japanese air attack arrived 9 hours later; it caught the entire air
fleet on the ground refueling and destroyed most of the planes. American air superiority
was destroyed even more thoroughly than the crippling attack on the Navy at
Pearl Harbor. </span></p>
<p class="xmsonormal" style="margin-bottom: .1pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: .1pt; margin: 0.1pt 0in;"><span lang="EN-IE" style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 14pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-IE; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt;"> </span></p>
<p class="xmsonormal" style="margin-bottom: .1pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: .1pt; margin: 0.1pt 0in;"><span lang="EN-IE" style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 14pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-IE; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt;">During this time MacArthur went into an uncharacteristic
mood of depression, even paralysis. [Manchester 206-7: “numbed; gray, ill,
exhausted”] Usually so confident and dynamic, he seemed unsure what to do. No
follow-up Japanese attack came for two weeks until the landing Dec. 22. Grasping
at straws, he gave ear to vague rumours of Japanese defeats; Hong Kong had been
besieged on Dec. 8, but it would not fall until Dec. 25. The Japanese were leap-frogging
down Malaya, but Singapore would not fall until Feb. 15, with 100,000 British
prisoners taken and the Royal Navy lost. What was the matter with MacArthur was
probably that his deeply held strategic sense was being contradicted. Asked
once by a reporter for his formula for defensive war, he had said: “Defeat.” [Manchester
168] </span></p>
<p class="xmsonormal" style="margin-bottom: .1pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: .1pt; margin: 0.1pt 0in;"><span lang="EN-IE" style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 14pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-IE; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt;"> </span></p>
<p class="xmsonormal" style="margin-bottom: .1pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: .1pt; margin: 0.1pt 0in;"><span lang="EN-IE" style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 14pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-IE; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt;">He well knew that the decades-old plan for the defense
of the Philippines was to pull back into Bataan and the island-fortress of Corregidor,
and wait until relief came. It was a labyrinth of layered tunnels, with
supplies for 10,000 troops to hold out for 6 months. But MacArthur scorned the
plan. Realistically, he expected the Japanese to land in various places on
Luzon and the other islands; the best defense must be offense, hitting the
landings in progress; at worst, holding them on the beach and driving them back
into the sea. He had positioned his forces for this eventuality. His huge quartermaster
depots were dispersed to where they could back up his offensive forces aimed at
the beaches. <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></span></p>
<p class="xmsonormal" style="margin-bottom: .1pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: .1pt; margin: 0.1pt 0in;"><span lang="EN-IE" style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 14pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-IE; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt;"> </span></p>
<p class="xmsonormal" style="margin-bottom: .1pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: .1pt; margin: 0.1pt 0in;"><span lang="EN-IE" style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 14pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-IE; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt;">This would come back to haunt him in two different
ways. When it turned out the Japanese got ashore anyway, and began converging
on Manila, MacArthur had to wrench his strategic gestalt into reverse; he would
have to go back to the Bataan/Corregidor defensive plan that he hated. On top
of this, was the problem of supplying his huge army—far more than anticipated—out
of diminished stocks; plus the mass of refugees. As in Afghanistan, these must
have created an atmosphere of gloom, even panic. MacArthur was close to the
Philippine upper class; he and his wealthy wife habitually had socialized with
them, more than with Americans. As in most disasters, the elite are always those
best equipped to get out first. To be surrounded by them must have been
demoralizing for MacArthur. He became overly pessimistic, over-estimating the
numbers of Japanese against him; mired in defense on Bataan when he actually
had an opportunity to break out by taking the offensive. Pessimism was pervasive
at all levels. Already on Dec. 14 the US command had pulled out the remaining
B-17s and fighters; while the Navy withdrew its ships from Manila Bay, leaving MacArthur
only a few submarines and torpedo boats. <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></span></p>
<p class="xmsonormal" style="margin-bottom: .1pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: .1pt; margin: 0.1pt 0in;"><span lang="EN-IE" style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 14pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-IE; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt;"> </span></p>
<p class="xmsonormal" style="margin-bottom: .1pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: .1pt; margin: 0.1pt 0in;"><span lang="EN-IE" style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 14pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-IE; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt;">March 10, MacArthur personally was ordered to evacuate
to Australia, to take over as Commander-in-Chief. It was another psychological
crisis; MacArthur was proud of his reputation for bravery under fire on the
Western Front in WWI; he hated the idea of retreating, and wanted to die with
his troops. <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Convinced that it would be a
propaganda victory for the Japanese, he left, swearing to return. His departure
lowered morale even further among the troops on Bataan, who lasted another
month.</span></p>
<p class="xmsonormal" style="margin-bottom: .1pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: .1pt; margin: 0.1pt 0in;"><span lang="EN-IE" style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 14pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-IE; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt;"> </span></p>
<p class="xmsonormal" style="margin-bottom: .1pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: .1pt; margin: 0.1pt 0in;"><span lang="EN-IE" style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 14pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-IE; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt;">Which brings us to political commitment, or lack of
it. Roosevelt and Churchill had already agreed that defeating Germany took
priority; the Japanese war must wait. And within the Pacific strategy, the Philippines
were furthest from home, hardest to defend and resupply. The decision was
quickly made to cut further losses. This became even more adamant as Japanese
conquests flowed on; Rangoon fell March 8, the British being driven out of
Burma; Java fell in 7 days on March 10. Australia would be next. Strategic priorities
again. The Philippines was unusual in that 20,000 Americans were lost in the
final collapse, a fraction of them surviving as prisoners. For the native proxy
troops, losses were over 100,000, near total. </span></p>
<p class="xmsonormal" style="margin-bottom: .1pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: .1pt; margin: 0.1pt 0in;"><span lang="EN-IE" style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 14pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-IE; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt;"> </span></p>
<p class="xmsonormal" style="margin-bottom: .1pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: .1pt; margin: 0.1pt 0in;"><b><i><span lang="EN-IE" style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 14pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-IE; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt;">Korea 19</span></i></b><b><span lang="EN-IE" style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 14pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-IE; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt;">50.</span></b><i><span lang="EN-IE" style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 14pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-IE; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt;"> </span></i><span lang="EN-IE" style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 14pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-IE; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt;">We have to go back a few
years before the North Korean attack on June 25, 1950, to get the picture of
South Korea as a tutorial/proxy for the US. Korea had been a Japanese colony,
in fact the springboard for its conquest of Manchuria and China in the 1930s.
In 1945, Russia suddenly entered the war and took the half above the 38<sup>th</sup>
parallel; the US quickly responded by sending troops to the southern half. The ROK
(Republic of Korea) army was trained and armed by the US military government.
In 1949, the US deemed the new civilian government capable of defending themselves
and pulled out, leaving only a few hundred officers.</span></p>
<p class="xmsonormal" style="margin-bottom: .1pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: .1pt; margin: 0.1pt 0in;"><span lang="EN-IE" style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 14pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-IE; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt;"> </span></p>
<p class="xmsonormal" style="margin-bottom: .1pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: .1pt; margin: 0.1pt 0in;"><span lang="EN-IE" style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 14pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-IE; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt;">The North Korean army [KPA, Korean People’s Army] originated
in a guerrilla force allied with the Chinese Communist Party in their north
China stronghold. After 1945, they were armed by the Soviets and encouraged by
the CCP. The latter were mired in their own civil war until autumn 1948, when the
Nationalist government lost a huge battle to drive them from Manchuria; Nationalist
forces crumbled in another big tipping point, the CCP swept south and the
remnants fled to Taiwan by the end of 1949. The Korean war was a continuation
of the tide of conquest.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Historically,
Korea had been part of the Chinese empire, and under the banner of communism it
might become so again. The new People’s Republic of China sent 50-70,000 Korean
ethnic veterans to augment some 100,000 armed by the Russians. <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>North Korea had a population of 10 million and
South Korea 20 million; but for the moment the KPA was considerably bigger than
the ROK. The invading force was perhaps 100,000, with tanks and artillery; the
ROK total was 98,000, but lightly armed and unable to stop the armored attack.
Seoul fell in 4 days, as the army collapsed. Masses of soldiers defected to the
KPA, leaving the the ROK with about 22,000, fleeing southward. July 5 US forces
began arriving from Japan by air, but were initially unable to stop the rout. By
the end of July two US divisions had arrived, but were forced to retreat along
with the ROK to a perimeter around the port of Pusan, at the south-east tip of the
Korean peninsula, 250 miles south of Seoul. </span></p>
<p class="xmsonormal" style="margin-bottom: .1pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: .1pt; margin: 0.1pt 0in;"><span lang="EN-IE" style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 14pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-IE; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt;"> </span></p>
<p class="xmsonormal" style="margin-bottom: .1pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: .1pt; margin: 0.1pt 0in;"><span lang="EN-IE" style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 14pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-IE; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt;">The US relied heavily on its Air Force. There were no
paved roads except in a few cities; only two railroad lines; only one airport
with sizable paved runways, and that had been captured at Seoul. This posed a problem
because the US Air Force was in the middle of a transition to jets, which required
smooth runways and a lot of maintenance. MacArthur, the C-in-C, quickly determined
to bring back obsolete propeller planes like the P-51 Mustang, since it could
use dirt runways. The immediate problem was to stop the KPA attack; jet
fighters were ill-suited to providing combat ground support, using up more fuel
at low altitudes, and operating from bases in Japan could remain in their
target area as little as 20 minutes. (With a different arithmetic, these were
the same problems as providing “over-the-horizon” air support in Afghanistan.) </span></p>
<p class="xmsonormal" style="margin-bottom: .1pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: .1pt; margin: 0.1pt 0in;"><span lang="EN-IE" style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 14pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-IE; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt;"> </span></p>
<p class="xmsonormal" style="margin-bottom: .1pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: .1pt; margin: 0.1pt 0in;"><span lang="EN-IE" style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 14pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-IE; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt;">By September 1, the MacArthur’s reinforced army around Pusan had
hundreds of tanks and outnumbered the KPA 180,000 to 100,000. He had solved the
problem of poor morale among the ROK troops by integrating them with Americans
in a “buddy” system, one-to-one. But instead of a grinding offensive from the
bottom of the peninsula, he had already planned a landing behind enemy lines;
choosing Incheon, the port of Seoul, at the narrow waist of Korea near the
North Korean border. <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Sept. 15 the invading
force of 48,000 men (called X Corps, comprising an Army and a Marine division plus
8000 ROK), successfully landed. On Sept. 25, Seoul was recaptured. Simultaneously
the Eighth Army (at Pusan) broke out of its perimeter on Sept. 16, and drove
diagonally up the peninsula to reach Seoul Sept. 27. KPA forces were already
suffering at the end of their logistics lines, and lost most of their tanks and
artillery to air attacks; it was their turn to disintegrate, only 30,000
reaching North Korea. </span></p>
<p class="xmsonormal" style="margin-bottom: .1pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: .1pt; margin: 0.1pt 0in;"><span lang="EN-IE" style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 14pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-IE; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt;"> </span></p>
<p class="xmsonormal" style="margin-bottom: .1pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: .1pt; margin: 0.1pt 0in;"><span lang="EN-IE" style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 14pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-IE; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt;">At this point the numbers advantage had reversed. <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>U.N. forces totalled 230,000 combat troops,
including 80,000 ROK (apparently reorganized since their disintegration 3
months ago), with the vast majority of the rest American. Officially it was the
“United Nations Command”, since the initial force had been authorized by the UN
Security Council; but unlike other UN peace-keeping operations, no UN staff
ever existed [Urquhart 120]. It was just another title for MacArthur’s
headquarters in Tokyo. He kept the Eighth Army advancing up the west coast of
North Korea, capturing the capital Pyongyang on Oct. 26. His landing force, X
Corps, was reembarked and “water-lifted” around to the east side of the
peninsula, landing at Wonsan and Hungnam (100 and 150 miles above the 38<sup>th</sup>
Parallel), and heading towards the Yalu River 200 miles north—the Chinese
border. <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></span></p>
<p class="xmsonormal" style="margin-bottom: .1pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: .1pt; margin: 0.1pt 0in;"><span lang="EN-IE" style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 14pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-IE; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt;"> </span></p>
<p class="xmsonormal" style="margin-bottom: .1pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: .1pt; margin: 0.1pt 0in;"><span lang="EN-IE" style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 14pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-IE; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt;">The Chinese now intervened again. 300,000 were already
at the Yalu. Around Oct. 19, 200,000 were sent into Korea, moving stealthily by
night, camouflaging by day, maintaining strict silence when aircraft appeared.
Their light weapons were carried by bicycle and pack animal, relying on sheer
numbers—and as we shall see, emotional momentum—to make up for deficiency in
heavy weapons. The crinkled and creviced mountainous terrain helped, along with
the onset of winter. </span></p>
<p class="xmsonormal" style="margin-bottom: .1pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: .1pt; margin: 0.1pt 0in;"><span lang="EN-IE" style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 14pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-IE; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt;"> </span></p>
<p class="xmsonormal" style="margin-bottom: .1pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: .1pt; margin: 0.1pt 0in;"><span lang="EN-IE" style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 14pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-IE; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt;">US forces were optimistic. Nov. 24 MacArthur launched
a two-pronged offensive, Eighth Army and ROK up the west side, X Corps up the
east side, divided by a spiny mountain range. Soldiers called it the “Home by
Christmas Offensive.”<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Chinese forces hit
the western prong on Nov. 25. Two days later, on the eastern side of the spine,
1st Marine Division advancing up a narrow mountain track around the Chosen
Reservoir was ambushed and surrounded in freezing weather. It was the low point
of the war. President Truman and the Joint Chiefs of Staff feared another
Dunkirk, and by Dec. 3 began planning to evacuate all forces from Korea. With
air support and supply drops, the Marines/ X Corps were able to retreat to a
defensive perimeter at the Hungnam port by Dec.11, where they were evacuated by
sea by Dec. 24, back to Pusan. Back to square one.</span></p>
<p class="xmsonormal" style="margin-bottom: .1pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: .1pt; margin: 0.1pt 0in;"><span lang="EN-IE" style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 14pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-IE; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt;"> </span></p>
<p class="xmsonormal" style="margin-bottom: .1pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: .1pt; margin: 0.1pt 0in;"><span lang="EN-IE" style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 14pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-IE; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt;">It was a war of sudden collapses, each side taking
turns. Seoul changed hands four times. The US/ROK side was like a yo-yo up and
down the 500-mile peninsula: down to the bottom in a month, up to the top in
two months, collapsing again in December and January when all its forces
retreated below Seoul before stabilizing its lines. After the second collapse,
MacArthur was replaced by General Ridgeway who reverted to traditional
straight-ahead slogging, playing defense until accumulating enough forces to retake
Seoul; from February 1951 to July 1953 the front line oscillated around the 38<sup>th</sup>
<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>parallel, the yo-yo running out of
momentum. By the end, US forces totaled 1,780,000; China almost 3 million. The
great majority of their casualties (US 36,000 killed and missing; ROK 162,000;
China half-a-million to a million; KPA 200-400,000) were during the stagnating
end-game. </span></p>
<p class="xmsonormal" style="margin-bottom: .1pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: .1pt; margin: 0.1pt 0in;"><span lang="EN-IE" style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 14pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-IE; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt;"> </span></p>
<p class="xmsonormal" style="margin-bottom: .1pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: .1pt; margin: 0.1pt 0in;"><span lang="EN-IE" style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 14pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-IE; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt;">The US first played blitzkreig offense, then World War
One-style attrition. The Chinese countered both with guerrilla war on a massive
scale. <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Because of US air superiority and
its tactic of using heavy bombers to destroy enemy supply lines and havens, the
Chinese relied on infiltrating huge numbers of lightly armed troops across
expanses of territory hundreds of miles wide—the endlessly convoluted hills of the
north being ideal for this—then attacking local points with overwhelming
numbers, swarming from all sides at night to the noise of bugles and gongs. The
US lost ground, hundreds of miles of it in the panicky retreat around New Years
1951, abandoning weapons along the way; then less and less as troops became accustomed
to Chinese tactics. Superior US firepower was good enough for stalemate, but
not for victory. The main Chinese weapon was its willingness to take heavy casualties
and continue sending reinforcements, playing the psychological game of greater
perserverence until the enemy gave up.</span></p>
<p class="xmsonormal" style="margin-bottom: .1pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: .1pt; margin: 0.1pt 0in;"><span lang="EN-IE" style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 14pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-IE; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt;"> </span></p>
<p class="xmsonormal" style="margin-bottom: .1pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: .1pt; margin: 0.1pt 0in;"><span lang="EN-IE" style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 14pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-IE; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt;">Unrealistic assessments and over-optimism were widespread,
especially in 1950. In June, the US commander in Korea said any North Korean
attack would be “target practice” for the ROK. The CIA reported troop movements
but interpreted it as another small-scale clash like those between communist
guerrillas and the ROK in past years. After the advance into North Korea in
October, it became apparent that Chinese forces were massing at the Yalu and even
crossing it. <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>MacArthur met President
Truman in the middle of the Pacific to tell him that the Chinese would be
slaughtered by US air attacks if they tried to retake Pyongyang. Air Force commander
Gen. Stratemeyer wrote up what he believed would be his final report on lessons
learned. The offensive near the Chinese border planned for late November was
known among American troops as the “Home-for-Christmas Offensive” echoing
MacArthur’s remarks to the press. [Manchester 606] MacArthur was confident
enough to make a personal inspection by flying the length of the Yalu River Nov.
24. Flying at low altitude, he saw no signs of troop movements, no anti-aircrack
flak, no Russian MiG-15 jets. If troops had passed that way, their tracks were
covered up in the snow. His giant pincers attack was launched the next day; the
Chinese ambush began two days later.</span></p>
<p class="xmsonormal" style="margin-bottom: .1pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: .1pt; margin: 0.1pt 0in;"><span lang="EN-IE" style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 14pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-IE; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt;"> </span></p>
<p class="xmsonormal" style="margin-bottom: .1pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: .1pt; margin: 0.1pt 0in;"><span lang="EN-IE" style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 14pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-IE; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt;">Political will was shaky throughout, but MacArthur’s
successes temporarily stilled most worries. Truman and the Pentagon agreed the
invasion of South Korea had to be resisted. But they had just gone through a
large reduction in the military budget; the Air Force was converting to jet
planes, especially their new weapon, long-range strategic bombers carrying atom
bombs. Soviet Russia had the A-bomb too, and the big concern was not to provoke
them into an atomic war; at the same time, a Russian invasion of western Europe
was the main priority. MacArthur would have to make do with what forces he had
in Japan; though some armored units were sent to Korea to counter the KPA’s
Russian tanks. MacArthur aggressively pressed his advantage into the North—determined
not to make the same mistake twice (as in the Philippines when he was thrown on the defensive), similar to the 2003
rationale for going all the way into Iraq to bring down Saddam Hussein’s regime,
rather than a limited goal like retaking Kuwait in the 1991 Gulf War. </span></p>
<p class="xmsonormal" style="margin-bottom: .1pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: .1pt; margin: 0.1pt 0in;"><span lang="EN-IE" style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 14pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-IE; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt;"> </span></p>
<p class="xmsonormal" style="margin-bottom: .1pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: .1pt; margin: 0.1pt 0in;"><span lang="EN-IE" style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 14pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-IE; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt;">New restrictions were given: only ROK troops could go
above the 38<sup>th</sup> parallel; US could only follow their advance; only
ROK could approach the Yalu. But as logistics lines stretched into the primitive
tracks of the North, the war relied on air power to supply US forces, and to destroy
enemy logistics. Argument centered on Chinese territory across the river as
staging area and safe haven. When MacArthur launched his “home for Christmas”
offensive in November, it was with the ambiguous understanding that he would
stop at a buffer zone below the Yalu. </span></p>
<p class="xmsonormal" style="margin-bottom: .1pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: .1pt; margin: 0.1pt 0in;"><span lang="EN-IE" style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 14pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-IE; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></span></p>
<p class="xmsonormal" style="margin-bottom: .1pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: .1pt; margin: 0.1pt 0in;"><span lang="EN-IE" style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 14pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-IE; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt;">A new element entered the picture in early November,
when Soviet MiG-15 fighters began to appear over the Yalu. As if by tacit agreement,
they did not come much further south, but would dart into Korean territory,
attack the B-29 bombers, and retreat to Chinese air space. MacArthur and
Stratemeyer wanted the right to “hot pursuit” while chasing them across the river,
but this was denied by the Pentagon. <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The MiG-15
was superior to any US fighters then in Korea, flying at a higher ceiling, faster,
with greater firepower. The USAF had a similar plane, the F-86, but it was
reserved for homeland defense against Soviet nuclear bombers. In the emergency
of mid-December, the Pentagon relented and sent the F-86s; and in the latter
years of the war they would prevail in the dog-fights over “MiG Alley”. For the
time being, with the collapse of US forces in the north, F-86s were limited by the
need for high-quality runways, and these were lost with the retreat below Seoul,
leaving them with a long flight from Japan—the “over-horizon” issue again. </span></p>
<p class="xmsonormal" style="margin-bottom: .1pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: .1pt; margin: 0.1pt 0in;"><span lang="EN-IE" style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 14pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-IE; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt;"> </span></p>
<p class="xmsonormal" style="margin-bottom: .1pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: .1pt; margin: 0.1pt 0in;"><span lang="EN-IE" style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 14pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-IE; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt;">MacArthur’s insistence on taking out enemy bases
beyond the Yalu led to his being fired in April 1951. By this time it was a
last grasp. Truman and the Pentagon had gotten over their New Years panic but their
concerns morphed into worries over a Pearl Harbor-like attack by Russia, and an
escalating nuclear arms race as both sides acquired the hydrogen bomb. Costly
as it turned out to be, the Korean War was regarded as a side-show that shouldn’t
have happened, but from which it was impossible to extricate oneself without
loss of prestige and security. The election of Eisenhower in 1952 with a promise
to end the war brought an armed truce lasting for the next 70 years. </span></p>
<p class="xmsonormal" style="margin-bottom: .1pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: .1pt; margin: 0.1pt 0in;"><span lang="EN-IE" style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 14pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-IE; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt;"> </span></p>
<p class="xmsonormal" style="margin-bottom: .1pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: .1pt; margin: 0.1pt 0in;"><span lang="EN-IE" style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 14pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-IE; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt;">One more similarity to the Iraq and Afghanistan wars
is worth mentioning. The US Air Force in 1950 was badly prepared for the kind
of war Korea turned out to be: it needed close air support in the age of jets,
conventional bombing and escort protection in the age of the H-bomb. Thus it
had to call back to active duty reservists and veterans of World War II; and to
assign them long quotas of bombing missions. For Iraq and Afghanistan, the
repeated tours of duty for reserves and National Guard troops extended even
longer. But what they felt mattered less, since it was no longer an army of
draftees but a smaller professional force, with a thin network of relatives among
civilians at home. The Korean war was the first really unpopular war, setting
the pattern for wars to follow.</span></p>
<p class="xmsonormal" style="margin-bottom: .1pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: .1pt; margin: 0.1pt 0in;"><span lang="EN-IE" style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 14pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-IE; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt;"> </span></p>
<p class="xmsonormal" style="margin-bottom: .1pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: .1pt; margin: 0.1pt 0in;"><b><i><span lang="EN-IE" style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 14pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-IE; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt;">Vietnam 1975.</span></i></b><span lang="EN-IE" style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 14pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-IE; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>First the numbers. South Vietnam forces grew
sharply and steadily from 240,000 in 1960 to 1 million at the time of the US
withdrawal in 1973. About half of these were ARVN (Army of Republic of Vietnam),
trained and equipped by the US. The other half were local self-defense
militias; also trained by the US, who distributed half a million weapons to
them in the late 1960s. The US took over military support after the French
colonial regime pulled out in 1954. President Kennedy sent 16,000 “advisers” by
1963 and set up a Military Assistance Command, which attempted to cut off
communist guerrillas from their base by moving rural populations into “Strategic
Hamlets”. Lyndon B. Johnson sent the first US combat troops, 54,000 in 1965,
rising to 390,000 at the end of 1966; 495,000 end of 1968; and a peak of 543,000
in April 1969. Thereafter “Vietnamization” of the war became official policy;
numbers dropping to 335,000 in late 1970; 157,000 end of 1971; and 69,000 in April
1972. </span></p>
<p class="xmsonormal" style="margin-bottom: .1pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: .1pt; margin: 0.1pt 0in;"><span lang="EN-IE" style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 14pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-IE; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt;"> </span></p>
<p class="xmsonormal" style="margin-bottom: .1pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: .1pt; margin: 0.1pt 0in;"><span lang="EN-IE" style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 14pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-IE; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt;">On the other side, the North Vietnam Army (NVA) as of
1968 was about 500,000; the Viet Cong guerrillas about 200,000. At this point
in the war, the balance of power was heavily on the US/S.Vietnam side: about
1.5 million to 700,000. Air superiority was almost total, with US heavy bombers
and combat helicopters; N.Vietnam had Russian-built jet fighters that tried to
protect the north but were shot down at a high ratio by US fighters. </span></p>
<p class="xmsonormal" style="margin-bottom: .1pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: .1pt; margin: 0.1pt 0in;"><span lang="EN-IE" style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 14pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-IE; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt;"> </span></p>
<p class="xmsonormal" style="margin-bottom: .1pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: .1pt; margin: 0.1pt 0in;"><span lang="EN-IE" style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 14pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-IE; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt;">Vietnam is a curved banana shape 1000 miles long, widening
at the top around Hanoi and at the bottom below Saigon. The two halves are
bordered on the west by Laos and Cambodia, a jungle and mountain range through
which ran the Ho Chi Minh trail. It played a similar role as Pakistan in the Afghanistan
war, foreign territory used for military supplies and covert troop movements;
diplomatically out of range but de facto terrain of secret (really just unofficial)
border violations. Vietnam became a spill-over war, as communist guerrillas
gained strength in Laos and Cambodia; and as the jungle trail developed from foot-path
taking 4 months to traverse in the early 1960s, to a North Vietnamese military
highway by 1975 (when US air power no longer threatened it). </span></p>
<p class="xmsonormal" style="margin-bottom: .1pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: .1pt; margin: 0.1pt 0in;"><span lang="EN-IE" style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 14pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-IE; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt;"> </span></p>
<p class="xmsonormal" style="margin-bottom: .1pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: .1pt; margin: 0.1pt 0in;"><span lang="EN-IE" style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 14pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-IE; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt;">The war was a combination of conventional battles
between the NVA and US troops in the northern border areas (artillery, mortars,
bombers, armored vehicles); and guerrilla war in the south, helicopter-supplied
US outposts, strategic hamlets, and search-and-destroy missions. These were
carried out by the high-tech of the time, armed helicopters, sudden troop
landings, plus fire-bombing designed to destroy the jungle. Strategy and
tactics were at US initiative. ARVN units never carried out coordinated
operations with the US (unlike in Korea). It has been argued that ARVN was made
passive by US hogging the initiative; and its officers were split by political
factions, involved a series of coups since the 1950s. Above all, ARVN was notoriously
corrupt; there was a huge black market in US weapons and supplies, in Saigon
and throughout, where weapons changed sides. (Same problem with US-supplied forces
in Syria and Iraq in period since the Arab Spring in 2011.) No doubt US officers
were loathe to share plans with ARVN, assuming they would reach the enemy. </span></p>
<p class="xmsonormal" style="margin-bottom: .1pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: .1pt; margin: 0.1pt 0in;"><span lang="EN-IE" style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 14pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-IE; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt;"> </span></p>
<p class="xmsonormal" style="margin-bottom: .1pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: .1pt; margin: 0.1pt 0in;"><span lang="EN-IE" style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 14pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-IE; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt;">Guerrilla war was transformed by the Tet offensive at
the end of January 1968. It was an unprecedented, coordinated attack on cities
throughout S. Vietnam, by 70-85,000 NVA and Viet Cong. The scale of the attack
was a shock, following a stream of reports that the counter-insurgency war was
going well. The NVA openly used their heavy weapons; the Viet Cong came out in
the open. If it was intended to trigger a collapse of the regime in a revolutionary
uprising, it failed; ARVN for once fought well, with US forces leading the
operations. In five weeks of heavy fighting, communist forces lost half their
strength, killed or captured (reported numbers are inconsistent: variously
cited as 50,000; or half of their prior strength of 240,000, which would be
120,000). Whichever the numbers, communist forces must have relied heavily on
psychological shock, since US/ARVN could muster 1 million against them, plus
total air power. The Viet Cong was virtually annihilated; the war now was
carried almost entirely by the NVA.</span></p>
<p class="xmsonormal" style="margin-bottom: .1pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: .1pt; margin: 0.1pt 0in;"><span lang="EN-IE" style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 14pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-IE; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt;"> </span></p>
<p class="xmsonormal" style="margin-bottom: .1pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: .1pt; margin: 0.1pt 0in;"><span lang="EN-IE" style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 14pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-IE; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt;">Tet did, however, have a political effect where it
counted most: in American politics. The Tet offensive ended March 7. On March
31, LBJ announced he would not run for re-election; and simultaneously a pause
in the three years-long bombing of N. Vietnam, to get negotiations going. The
program of Vietnamization was announced—although it would take another 2 years
to get it going. Paris peace talks began May 1968, dragging out until a truce was
agreed in January 1973. Like Presidents Obama and Trump in Afghanistan, negotiations
went on at the same time that troop cuts had been announced and a schedule for
withdrawal was being carried out. This gave away the main leverage in
negotiations; the US assumed that a combination of bombing campaigns plus ARVN
strength would be enough to force an agreement. </span></p>
<p class="xmsonormal" style="margin-bottom: .1pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: .1pt; margin: 0.1pt 0in;"><span lang="EN-IE" style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 14pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-IE; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt;"> </span></p>
<p class="xmsonormal" style="margin-bottom: .1pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: .1pt; margin: 0.1pt 0in;"><span lang="EN-IE" style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 14pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-IE; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt;">Fast forward to 1973. The Paris Accords, signed in
January, allowed both sides’ forces to remain in place at the armistice. This left
160,000 NVA inside S. Vietnam; presumably US negotiators felt this was
adequately balanced by 1 million total ARVN plus militia. US agreed to pull out
all remaining troops by April, which were already down to 16,000 non-combat advisers
and administrators. <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>US air power would
be replaced by the American-trained S. Vietnam air force, the fourth largest in
the world. In material resources, S. Vietnam was prepared to stand on its own.</span></p>
<p class="xmsonormal" style="margin-bottom: .1pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: .1pt; margin: 0.1pt 0in;"><span lang="EN-IE" style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 14pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-IE; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt;"> </span></p>
<p class="xmsonormal" style="margin-bottom: .1pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: .1pt; margin: 0.1pt 0in;"><span lang="EN-IE" style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 14pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-IE; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt;">During 1974, NVA and ARVN fought intermittently, more
or less to a standstill. By this time Nixon was out of office; President Gerald
Ford in January 21, 1975 announced the US would not re-enter the war. March 10
the NVA launched a full-scale offensive, 3 days later forcing ARVN to abandon
the Central Highlands. In another 3 days, the cross-roads city Pleiku was evacuated,
while refugees from the big northern cities Hue and Danang began to crowd the
roads. In two weeks, Hue and Danang fell. Two million refugees clogged the
escape routes. Of 60,000 ARVN troops, only 20,000 got through, no longer combat
effective. A General described the evacuation of Danang in terms echoed at
Kabul in August 2021: “The airfield was besieged by a frantic crowd, deserters
included, who trampled the security force, overwhelmed the guards, swamped the
runways, and mobbed the aircraft. It became so unsafe for the jets themselves
that the airlift had to be suspended.” (Summers 198) Other generals fled or
committed suicide. </span></p><span lang="EN-IE" style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 14pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-IE; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt;"> </span>
<p class="xmsonormal" style="margin-bottom: .1pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: .1pt; margin: 0.1pt 0in;"><b><i><span lang="EN-IE" style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 14pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-IE; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt;"> </span></i></b></p><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhUNgkbeH724HBgd583dU1QXwpBJcHlmSJk4_MjlnY2UQgxW4GubDSQQvTXOF_uBvZj-KVgk4FU7V1RMQlYocM2Mno51P9Cr0YzAoGdfU2AyenP62Z0NF4jQ51Zb4YJa2LOY9NBMfAaqJLP/s1306/1975-April22-nrSaigon-refiugees.jpg" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1243" data-original-width="1306" height="381" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhUNgkbeH724HBgd583dU1QXwpBJcHlmSJk4_MjlnY2UQgxW4GubDSQQvTXOF_uBvZj-KVgk4FU7V1RMQlYocM2Mno51P9Cr0YzAoGdfU2AyenP62Z0NF4jQ51Zb4YJa2LOY9NBMfAaqJLP/w400-h381/1975-April22-nrSaigon-refiugees.jpg" width="400" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span lang="EN-IE" style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 14pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-IE; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"></span><i>Airport
near Saigon April 22, 1975 </i>(Summers p.200)</span></td></tr></tbody></table><b><i><span lang="EN-IE" style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 14pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-IE; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt;"><br /></span></i></b><p></p>
<p class="xmsonormal" style="margin-bottom: .1pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: .1pt; margin: 0.1pt 0in;"><b><i><span lang="EN-IE" style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 14pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-IE; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt;"> </span></i></b></p>
<p class="xmsonormal" style="margin-bottom: .1pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: .1pt; margin: 0.1pt 0in;"><span lang="EN-IE" style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 14pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-IE; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt;">Early in 1975, ARVN had outnumbered NVA two- or three-to-one
in combat troops, tanks, artillery, and had 1,400 virtually unopposed aircraft.
Why the collapse? One explanation, similar to Afghanistan, was that much
equipment was inoperable due to lack of spare parts and maintenance personnel;
but ARVN had been holding its own up to the final offensive, and it seems
likely another factor was responsible for what shortages existed: the </span><span lang="EN-IE" style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 14pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-IE; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt;">
<span lang="EN-IE" style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 14pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-IE; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-fareast-font-family: Times; mso-fareast-language: EN-US;">black market had already made its bet on the likely
winner</span><style>@font-face
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{page:WordSection1;}</style>. The military collapse from the Central Highlands to the coastal cities
down to Saigon was a cascade, an emotional tipping point exacerbated by the
tidal wave of refugees. Not only were the soldiers demoralized; at the time,
officers noted “the family syndrome”—troops would go looking for their families
to help them escape, military organization dissolving into a chaotic human
traffic jam resembling what we recently observed outside Hamid Karzai
International Airport. </span></p>
<p class="xmsonormal" style="margin-bottom: .1pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: .1pt; margin: 0.1pt 0in;"><span lang="EN-IE" style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 14pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-IE; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt;"> </span></p>
<p class="xmsonormal" style="margin-bottom: .1pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: .1pt; margin: 0.1pt 0in;"><span lang="EN-IE" style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 14pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-IE; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt;">On April 21, as remaining ARVN forces retreated into
Saigon, President Thieu resigned, making a bitter speech accusing the US of
betrayal. Four days later, he flew to safety in Taiwan. By this time, forces at
Saigon had withered away to 30,000, while 100,000 NVA surrounded the city and
closed the airport. This set off a last wave of panic to get out. The city fell
with virtually no resistance; the new President—yet another general—surrendered
on April 30, and the war was over. </span></p>
<p class="xmsonormal" style="margin-bottom: .1pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: .1pt; margin: 0.1pt 0in;"><span lang="EN-IE" style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 14pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-IE; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt;"> </span></p>
<p class="xmsonormal" style="margin-bottom: .1pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: .1pt; margin: 0.1pt 0in;"><span lang="EN-IE" style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 14pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-IE; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt;">I will not review the many unrealistic assessments made
during the long war from 1962 through the U.S. Ambassador’s last-minute claim
that Saigon could still be held. The Vietnam War was unusual in how many
Americans rejected the official rhetoric. There was an anti-war movement already
in late 1965, intensifying in 1967, culminating in a march by 50,000 protestors
including Vietnam veterans on the Pentagon in October 1967. This was a spill-over
of civil rights demonstrations and urban uprisings during those years, which also
had their effect among American troops in Vietnam. Race-riots broke out at
Danang and other military bases; navy ships offshore had unofficial no-go zones
on their decks between black and white sailors; in the combat zone, hundreds of
officers were killed in “fragging” attacks—throwing a fragmentation grenade into
an officer’s tent. The atmosphere of military discipline had broken down. </span></p>
<p class="xmsonormal" style="margin-bottom: .1pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: .1pt; margin: 0.1pt 0in;"><span lang="EN-IE" style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 14pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-IE; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt;"> </span></p>
<p class="xmsonormal" style="margin-bottom: .1pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: .1pt; margin: 0.1pt 0in;"><span lang="EN-IE" style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 14pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-IE; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt;">A contributing cause was the Pentagon policy of calculating
the progress of the war by statistics. In a war without front lines, victory was
measured by attrition, and that required estimates of how many enemy were being
killed until they ran out of replacements. And since it was war of guerrillas, wearing
no uniforms and hiding among civilians who looked just like them, and inflicting
casualties from ambushes and and booby traps, troops were suspicious of
everybody. American troops developed a sardonic attitude: "if it’s dead, it’s
red." Higher command wanted a high body count; officers’ performance was based on it;
all incentives were to count every dead body as Viet Cong, whether man, woman
or child—in the experience of helicopter-transported grunts, some of them were.
Aerial bombing with napalm to burn enemy hiding places produced unidentifiable
bodies. Soldiers might perform altruistic acts at one moment and callous ones
at another; a combination that created the most alienated military veterans in
US history. One reason some officials became willing to pull troops out was the
realization that their army was going to pieces if they continued to fight in Vietnam.
</span></p>
<p class="xmsonormal" style="margin-bottom: .1pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: .1pt; margin: 0.1pt 0in;"><span lang="EN-IE" style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 14pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-IE; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt;"> </span></p>
<p class="xmsonormal" style="margin-bottom: .1pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: .1pt; margin: 0.1pt 0in;"><span lang="EN-IE" style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 14pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-IE; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt;">Anti-war demonstrations did not sway the majority of Americans;
anti-war candidates lost the Democratic presidential nomination in 1968; Nixon
defeated an anti-war opponent for re-election in 1972. Nevertheless, Nixon’s
concern about anti-war opponents inside the political establishment led him to
the Watergate scandal, and to being forced from office. LBJ’s reaction to the
Tet offensive—which could have been regarded, from the military point of view
as proof of US success on the battlefield—was in keeping with US news media
swinging to the anti-war side, seeing Tet as further evidence of war atrocities
and cover-ups. In 1970, the Senate repealed the 1964 resolution authorizing US
involvement, and prohibited US ground troops from going into Laos (spill-over around
the Ho Chi Minh trail); <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>by 1973, it
passed an amendment preventing any further US military involvement in South-East
Asia. In 1974, it refused to appropriate funds requested to bolster the South
Vietnam military. By 1975, President Ford was openly saying the war was over,
as far as the US was concerned. He reiterated it on April 23; Saigon fell
within a week.</span></p>
<p class="xmsonormal" style="margin-bottom: .1pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: .1pt; margin: 0.1pt 0in;"><span lang="EN-IE" style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 14pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-IE; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt;"> </span></p>
<p class="xmsonormal" style="margin-bottom: .1pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: .1pt; margin: 0.1pt 0in;"><span lang="EN-IE" style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 14pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-IE; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt;">Note: A 1977 Pentagon assessment said the US could have
protected S. Vietnam with half as many divisions, if it had put them in fortified
positions around its borders, instead of fighting a guerrilla that could be
left to ARVN. (Summers 187) But this would have been abandoning offense for
defense; not in American military doctrine or tradition. </span></p>
<p class="xmsonormal" style="margin-bottom: .1pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: .1pt; margin: 0.1pt 0in;"><span lang="EN-IE" style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 14pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-IE; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt;"> </span></p>
<p class="xmsonormal" style="margin-bottom: .1pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: .1pt; margin: 0.1pt 0in;"><b><i><span lang="EN-IE" style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 14pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-IE; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt;">Mosul, Iraq, 2014</span></i></b><span lang="EN-IE" style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 14pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-IE; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt;">. June 2014 saw a sudden
ISIS offensive in northern Iraq, not the usual guerrilla ambushes with IEDs,
but openly aimed at capturing territory. The main target was Iraq’s second
largest city, Mosul, population 1.5 million. Mosul was defended by 20,000
US-equipped Iraq soldiers, but they melted away in the face of 1500 ISIS
fighters on pickup trucks. Since 2011 the US had turned over fighting to the
Iraqi army it had trained, some 300,000 strong. But these disintegrated against
an ISIS force of no more than 10,000.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>ISIS took over a large territory in north Iraq and Syria, proclaiming a
caliphate with its capital at Mosul, collecting taxes and violently enforcing
Shariah law on the population. </span></p>
<p class="xmsonormal" style="margin-bottom: .1pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: .1pt; margin: 0.1pt 0in;"><span lang="EN-IE" style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 14pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-IE; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt;"> </span></p>
<p class="xmsonormal" style="margin-bottom: .1pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: .1pt; margin: 0.1pt 0in;"><span lang="EN-IE" style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 14pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-IE; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt;">The sudden collapse of the Iraqi military was blamed on
lack of fuel for its vehicles and ammunition for its weapons, unpaid soldiers
and low morale. The underlying problem was embezzlement of US-paid funds by Iraqi
officers, and a Vietnam-style black market in weapons and fuel, selling them
off to the multiple factions fighting in Syria, and even to ISIS.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></span></p>
<p class="xmsonormal" style="margin-bottom: .1pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: .1pt; margin: 0.1pt 0in;"><span lang="EN-IE" style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 14pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-IE; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt;"> </span></p>
<p class="xmsonormal" style="margin-bottom: .1pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: .1pt; margin: 0.1pt 0in;"><span lang="EN-IE" style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 14pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-IE; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt;">It took two years under renewed US guidance (and spending)
to reconstitute the Iraqi army. In Oct. 2016 a force of 100,000 Iraqi troops
started to retake Mosul, bolstered by 3000 American advisors and airpower. ISIS
had about 5-8000 fighters plus local militia, a total of 12,000. They held out
for 9 months, fighting block-by-block. ISIS used captured drones for surveillance,
and armored vehicles camouflaged as civilian but actually carriers of suicide
bombs; it was US high-tech abandoned by Iraqi proxy forces and turned against
them. In the end, much of Mosul was destroyed, by US air strikes, Iraqi artillery,
and eventually armored bulldozers burying ISIS positions. With the US
temporarily back in command, the tutorial/proxy army won by weight of numbers
and equipment. Again we see rapid tipping-points where the weaker beat the
stronger; and advance of the strong by grinding attrition. </span></p>
<p class="xmsonormal" style="margin-bottom: .1pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: .1pt; margin: 0.1pt 0in;"><span lang="EN-IE" style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 14pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-IE; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt;"> </span></p>
<p class="xmsonormal" style="margin-bottom: .1pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: .1pt; margin: 0.1pt 0in;"><span lang="EN-IE" style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 14pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-IE; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt;">The enormous destruction at Mosul was largely
overlooked by the news media, since US troops were not obviously involved on
the ground. The media were another political factor in the war of hearts and
minds. On the whole it was played out not for the loyalty of local civilians
(in this case the Iraqis who lived there), but for insurgent recruitment, like
the surge of volunteers to ISIS-held territory; and for the flux of political
support, war-weariness and war-outrage among a distant American audience.</span></p>
<p class="xmsonormal" style="margin-bottom: .1pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: .1pt; margin: 0.1pt 0in;"><span lang="EN-IE" style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 14pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-IE; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt;"> </span></p>
<p class="xmsonormal" style="margin-bottom: .1pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: .1pt; margin: 0.1pt 0in;"><b><i><span lang="EN-IE" style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 14pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-IE; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt;">Take-away:</span></i></b><b><span lang="EN-IE" style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 14pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-IE; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt;"> </span></b><span lang="EN-IE" style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 14pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-IE; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt;">Can unrealistic
expectations and wavering political commitment be avoided? Over-optimistic
assessments are in the nature of the beast; most engaged leaders believe in
what they are doing, and successful military commanders are usually aggressive.
(At least on the side of conventional armies; insurgents’ best strategies are
persistence and patience, along with willingness to take enormous casualties. But
we’re not playing that hand.)</span></p>
<p class="xmsonormal" style="margin-bottom: .1pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: .1pt; margin: 0.1pt 0in;"><span lang="EN-IE" style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 14pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-IE; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt;"> </span></p>
<p class="xmsonormal" style="margin-bottom: .1pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: .1pt; margin: 0.1pt 0in;"><span lang="EN-IE" style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 14pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-IE; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt;">Political commitments to any particular war policy waver
both because conditions change, and because democracies are by definition a
combination of the people, not a single personality. This is especially true
when a war is distant from home, and conducted with a heavy dose of
tutorial/proxy forces that don’t do well on their own. Spectacular challenges,
defeats, and atrocities can bring near-unanimous political support for a war,
but this lasts only 3-to-6 months before disagreements reemerge; and after that
the war gets carried on by organizational momentum and a certain amount of
Machiavellian manipulation by officials. Diplomatic concerns about what will
provoke other states to come in against us loom large in the tug-of-war between
military aggressiveness and restraint: Korea and Vietnam hinged on what to do
about safe havens and reinforcements from across borders, and Afghanistan was
difficult, or doomed, by unwillingness to treat Pakistan as an enemy collaborator.
And there are always alternative battlefields than the one at hand, calling
away resources and posing choices of what risk has greater priority. </span></p>
<p class="xmsonormal" style="margin-bottom: .1pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: .1pt; margin: 0.1pt 0in;"><span lang="EN-IE" style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 14pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-IE; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt;"> </span></p>
<p class="xmsonormal" style="margin-bottom: .1pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: .1pt; margin: 0.1pt 0in;"><span lang="EN-IE" style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 14pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-IE; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt;">Above all, politics in democracies are shaped by the two
great eternal parties, the Ins and the Outs. The Ins always have to be more
Machiavellian, more duplicitous, more culpable for surprises and dashed
expectations. The Outs batten on these failings, and get to take the most
virtuous line, until they get into office to implement it. The only realistic
conclusion is that political wavering over foreign wars is built in; unless the
war is successful, and quick.</span></p>
<p class="xmsonormal" style="margin-bottom: .1pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: .1pt; margin: 0.1pt 0in;"><b><span lang="EN-IE" style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 14pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-IE; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt;"> </span></b></p>
<p class="xmsonormal" style="margin-bottom: .1pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: .1pt; margin: 0.1pt 0in;"><i><span lang="EN-IE" style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 14pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-IE; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt;">References </span></i></p>
<p class="xmsonormal" style="margin-bottom: .1pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: .1pt; margin: 0.1pt 0in;"><span lang="EN-IE" style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 14pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-IE; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt;">On tipping points:</span></p>
<p class="xmsonormal" style="margin-bottom: .1pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: .1pt; margin: 0.1pt 0in;"><span lang="EN-IE" style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 14pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-IE; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt;">Thomas Schelling. 1960. <i>The Strategy of Conflict</i>.
</span></p>
<p class="xmsonormal" style="margin-bottom: .1pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: .1pt; margin: 0.1pt 0in;"><span lang="EN-IE" style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 14pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-IE; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt;">Gerald Marwell and Pamela Oliver. 1993. <i>The Critical
Mass in Collective Action.</i> </span></p>
<p class="xmsonormal" style="margin-bottom: .1pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: .1pt; margin: 0.1pt 0in;"><span lang="EN-IE" style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 14pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-IE; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt;"> </span></p>
<p class="xmsonormal" style="margin-bottom: .1pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: .1pt; margin: 0.1pt 0in;"><span lang="EN-IE" style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 14pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-IE; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt;">Sources on Afghanistan: Associated Press; New York Times;
Washington Post; Los Angeles Times; San Diego Union-Tribume; The Economist
Magazine. </span></p>
<p class="xmsonormal" style="margin-bottom: .1pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: .1pt; margin: 0.1pt 0in;"><span lang="EN-IE" style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 14pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-IE; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt;"> </span></p>
<p class="xmsonormal" style="margin-bottom: .1pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: .1pt; margin: 0.1pt 0in;"><span lang="EN-IE" style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 14pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-IE; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt;">B.H. Liddell-Hart. 1970. <i>History of the Second
World War.</i></span></p>
<p class="xmsonormal" style="margin-bottom: .1pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: .1pt; margin: 0.1pt 0in;"><span lang="EN-IE" style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 14pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-IE; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt;">John Keegan. 1997. <i>Atlas of the Second World War.</i></span></p>
<p class="xmsonormal" style="margin-bottom: .1pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: .1pt; margin: 0.1pt 0in;"><span lang="EN-IE" style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 14pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-IE; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt;">John Davison. 2011. <i>The Pacific War Day by Day.</i></span></p>
<p class="xmsonormal" style="margin-bottom: .1pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: .1pt; margin: 0.1pt 0in;"><span lang="EN-IE" style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 14pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-IE; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt;">Saburo Hayashi. 1959. <i>Kogun. The Japanese Army in
the Pacific War.</i></span></p>
<p class="xmsonormal" style="margin-bottom: .1pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: .1pt; margin: 0.1pt 0in;"><span lang="EN-IE" style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 14pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-IE; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt;">William Manchester. 1978. <i>American Caesar: Douglas
MacArthur, 1880-1964.</i></span></p>
<p class="xmsonormal" style="margin-bottom: .1pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: .1pt; margin: 0.1pt 0in;"><span lang="EN-IE" style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 14pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-IE; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt;">Wikipedia. “Korean War.”</span></p>
<p class="xmsonormal" style="margin-bottom: .1pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: .1pt; margin: 0.1pt 0in;"><span lang="EN-IE" style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 14pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-IE; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt;">John Andreas Olsen/Thomas Keaney. 2013. <i>Air
Commanders.</i> (pp. 199-222 on Korea)<i> </i><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></span></p>
<p class="xmsonormal" style="margin-bottom: .1pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: .1pt; margin: 0.1pt 0in;"><span lang="EN-IE" style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 14pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-IE; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt;">Brian Urquhart. 1987. <i>A Life in Peace and War.</i>
(Under-Secretary General of the United Nations) </span></p>
<p class="xmsonormal" style="margin-bottom: .1pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: .1pt; margin: 0.1pt 0in;"><span lang="EN-IE" style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 14pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-IE; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt;">Harry G. Summers, Jr. 1995. <i>Historical Atlas of the
Vietnam War.</i></span></p>
<p class="xmsonormal" style="margin-bottom: .1pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: .1pt; margin: 0.1pt 0in;"><span lang="EN-IE" style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 14pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-IE; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt;">James William Gibson. 1986. <i>The Perfect War:
Technowar in Vietnam.</i></span></p>
<p class="xmsonormal" style="margin-bottom: .1pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: .1pt; margin: 0.1pt 0in;"><span lang="EN-IE" style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 14pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-IE; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt;">Wikipedia. “Fall of Saigon.”</span></p>
<p class="xmsonormal" style="margin-bottom: .1pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: .1pt; margin: 0.1pt 0in;"><span lang="EN-IE" style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 14pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-IE; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt;">Military operations in Afghanistan and Iraq:</span></p>
<p class="xmsonormal" style="margin-bottom: .1pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: .1pt; margin: 0.1pt 0in;"><span lang="EN-IE" style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 14pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-IE; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt;">Anthony King. 2019. <i>Command: the Twenty-first
Century General.</i></span></p>
<p class="xmsonormal" style="margin-bottom: .1pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: .1pt; margin: 0.1pt 0in;"><span lang="EN-IE" style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 14pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-IE; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt;">Anthony King. 2021. <i>Urban Warfare in the Twenty-first
Century. </i><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></span></p>
<p class="xmsonormal" style="margin-bottom: .1pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: .1pt; margin: 0.1pt 0in;"><b><span lang="EN-IE" style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 14pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-IE; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt;"> </span></b></p>
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{margin-bottom:0in;}</style></p>Unknownnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1005085971596877601.post-50519808634693938902021-07-23T12:32:00.077-07:002021-07-24T09:59:11.267-07:00RANDALL COLLINS INTERVIEW: HOW I WRITE; IS EDUCATION NECESSARY; MICRO-RESEARCH ON POLITICS<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal;"><span style="font-size: medium;"> <span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-bidi;">Interview by Lukasz Remisiewicz, University
of Gdansk, Poland</span></span></p><span style="font-size: medium;">
</span><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: medium; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-bidi;"> </span></p><span style="font-size: medium;">
</span><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-bidi;">I:
Creativity is one of your sociological interests. So I would like to ask about the
'backstage' of your work. How do you structure your time? Do you have any
rituals in your work?</span></b></span></p><span style="font-size: medium;">
</span><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: medium; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-bidi;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: medium; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-bidi;">R: Most of my ideas come from writing comments
in books. Whenever I read, I always have a pen in hand, and mark what I think
is significant. When I was young, I used to write a summary of what was in the
book, writing on the end pages or the table of contents. I still write comments
on things I don't agree with or what I think are good ideas. Later I collect my
comments on another piece of paper, and this can turn into a new project. </span></p><span style="font-size: medium;">
</span><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: medium; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-bidi;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: medium; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-bidi;">For this reason, it’s important to own your
own books, not just borrow them from the library or read them on-line. Five
hundred years ago, Erasmus said: when I get a little money, I buy books. If
there is any left over, I buy food. –That’s the way I feel about it too.</span></p><span style="font-size: medium;">
</span><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: medium; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-bidi;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: medium; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-bidi;">Viewed as a network phenomenon, it's quite
literally intertextual: creating a text upon a text. If you repeat what the
author said, it's not new, but if you develop an idea, or dispute an idea and
go in another direction, it is creativity. </span></p><span style="font-size: medium;">
</span><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: medium; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-bidi;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: medium; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-bidi;">Most creativity is recombination, pulling materials
together from different sources. If you came up with something that was 100%
new with no connection to anything previous, you would have no readers because nobody
would understand what you were talking about. It has to be, let us say, 90%
familiar and 10% new. I don't know what maximal percent new you could get away
with. Perhaps James Joyce was 60% new, but nevertheless, at least some people
understood what he was doing. Harrison White would be an example in sociology
of a writer who is not well understood because his ideas and concepts are so
unfamiliar.</span></p><span style="font-size: medium;">
</span><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-bidi;"> </span></b></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-bidi;">I:
Do you have any daily habits such as you have to write some amount of words? </span></b></span></p><span style="font-size: medium;">
</span><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: medium; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-bidi;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: medium; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-bidi;">R: Writing is like having children. It's
very pleasurable at the beginning, but then comes struggles growing up; finally
when a book is published it has a life of its own, when you can know longer
control it. The most exciting part is at the beginning, but sometimes as you go
along, writing and re-writing, it can be more difficult but also more pleasure
as you understand better what you are doing. I write when I feel like it, and
then it pulls you along.</span></p><span style="font-size: medium;">
</span><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: medium; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-bidi;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: medium; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-bidi;">In the late 1970s. I quit my job at the
university for ideological reasons. I had just written <i><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The Credential Society</i>, and I decided it
wouldn't be right for me to continue to work in the educational system that I
critiqued.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I decided to make my living
as a professional writer, and I needed to write faster. So I discovered some
techniques for not getting writer’s block. You get blocked at the point where
you don't know what you want to say next, because you don't know what the next
step in your argument is. When this happens I go back and make an outline of
what I've written so far and then try to continue the outline. Usually it is
because there were several points to be made and I don't know which one comes
first. If it isn’t obvious which one comes first, they are all equally
important, so just pick one of them. But you have to explain that to your
reader: we have a complicated argument, it has three points, and we will take
them in the following order. You take the reader backstage as to <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>what you are doing as a writer. </span></p><span style="font-size: medium;">
</span><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: medium; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-bidi;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: medium; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-bidi;">On a micro level, sometimes you don’t know
which word to use. Rather than wasting time thinking about it, I just write
them both down. When I come back later, it usually becomes clear which is the
best word. This has the advantage of not breaking your rhythm when you write. I
found that the faster I write, the better the writing flows—provided that I have
the sequence of the argument organized. In writing fast you may use too many
words, but it is easy to cut them out when you revize. <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></span></p><span style="font-size: medium;">
</span><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: medium; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-bidi;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: medium; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-bidi;">The hardest thing to do is re-writing,
where the overall organization is wrong. Here you have to re-read the entire
text while writing an outline of it; then reorganize the outline, re-arrange
the pieces of text, add or subtract what is necessary. Re-reading and
correcting what you have written is crucial. Many people don't do this, particularly
on the Internet—it’s <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>clear they don't
re-read what they write.</span></p><span style="font-size: medium;">
</span><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: medium; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-bidi;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: medium; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-bidi;">Another problem is repeating yourself. In
the first draft this is OK, because the main thing is to get the words flowing.
But in re-reading, especially if it is a long text, I often find I have made
the same point in several places. Sometimes you need to make the same point in
a different context; but otherwise it is annoying when somebody keeps saying
the same thing; so you have decide where is the best place for it and cut the
others. Also I<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>have a mental list of banal
words, clichés that I don't like to read when other people use them, so I'm not
going to use them myself. In re-writing, my goal is<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>how many words can I throw out. <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I’ve come to enjoy correcting what I have
written, because I can feel the rhythm improving.</span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: medium; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-bidi;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: medium; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-bidi;">
</span></p><h2 style="line-height: normal;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-bidi;"></span></b></span></h2><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-bidi;">I:
Do you use any newest upgrades, such as reference managers, special programs
that are enhancing writing, such as Scrivener?</span></b></span></p><span style="font-size: medium;">
</span><h2 style="line-height: normal;"><span style="font-size: medium; font-weight: normal;"><span style="color: black; font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman \(Headings CS\)"; mso-bidi-font-size: 13.0pt; mso-themecolor: text1;"> </span></span></h2><h2 style="line-height: normal;">
</h2>
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</span><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: medium; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-bidi;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: medium; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-bidi;">I need to have my work on paper. The trouble with the screen is that it's essentially scrolling through a continuous text, like a long roll of toilet paper. When you are doing something complicated, you need to be able to look at different pages at the same time. I spend a lot of time with a colored pen, marking what belongs together and what goes where. You have to be able to move pieces of paper around, spread them out on the floor, bunch them in different ways. There are equivalent devices for doing that on the screen, but frankly, it's easier by hand.</span> <br /></span></p><p><span style="font-size: medium;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-bidi;">I:
This is the last question about your work. Since you are a specialist in micro-interactional
research, you analyze a lot of visual materials. How do you work with it?</span></b></span></p><span style="font-size: medium;">
</span><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: medium; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-bidi;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: medium; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-bidi;">R: I started using visual images in the
1980s, teaching my university classes about violence. At that time, there was
not much good data. You could get statistics about how many crimes were
reported by the police, but nothing on what actually happened in violent
situations. So I started clipping from the newspaper anytime there was a
picture of any kind of violence. It might be a small fight or riots or police. In
the 90s I found more photos of <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>military violence,
especially from Israel and Palestine because they were always fighting. At the
same time, better telephoto lenses were developed, making possible close-up
photos of violence taken from long-distance; we could now view situations a
photographer wouldn't be able to get near to. I acquired another technique when
I met Paul Ekman, the psychologist who developed a method of analyzing emotions
from facial expressions and bodily postures. It was a valuable tool for seeing
what emotions people have in violent situations; and this led to my theory of
confrontational tension and fear as the central dynamic in whether violence
happens or not. I expanded to other research projects such as emotional
differences between social classes; and the emotional self-presentation of
political leaders—the actual faces of power.</span></p><span style="font-size: medium;">
</span><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: medium; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-bidi;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: medium; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-bidi;">At first, this was easy; I clipped photos
from newspapers, photo-copied them, and used them in my research. By the time
of my 2004 book, <i>Interaction Ritual Chains,</i> I encountered a new problem.
At first, nobody cared if you used these images, but in the 2000s the
commercial world started copyrighting photos, including historical photos made
by someone else. Getty Images attempted to create a capitalist monopoly on
photo images. At first they would charge you<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>200 dollars or so for printing one image in a book. In my earlier books,
I was able to get the permissions at moderate prices. As other writers also started
using images, the prices have gone much higher. Some sociologists have looked
for substitutes. <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Jack Katz, another very
good micro-sociologist, uses photos for his research, but in his books he
prints a drawing made from the photo. So he doesn't have a copyright problem.
Maybe that's what we will have to do.</span></p><span style="font-size: medium;">
</span><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-bidi;"> </span></b></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-bidi;">I:
<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Sociology of education has been a topic
in your career. You're known as a credential theorist. What changes could you
highlight between the situation that you described in 'The Credential Society'
in 1979 and the debate about credentialism now? </span></b></span></p><span style="font-size: medium;">
</span><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: medium; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-bidi;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: medium; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-bidi;">R: For a long time, I considered <i><span style="mso-bidi-font-weight: bold;">The Credential Society</span></i> was one of
my least successful books. My message was what people didn't want to hear. My
publisher even refused to allow it to come out in a paperback edition. The
financial crisis in 2008 happened when the number of people attending
universities had become higher than ever before and the costs of attending
universities are very high and constantly increasing. Policy makers started to
be concerned that Americans owe a huge amount of money in student debts— a
large fraction of GDP. Individual people started questioning whether an
educational degree was useful for oneself. They weren’t following any theory,
just recognizing that is was hard to get a job even if you had a university
degree; that spreading more years at school isn't necessarily worth the money
you put into it. The public has come closer to recognizing the credential
inflation mechanism that I pointed out in 1979. But there are still many
politicians, and of course professional educators, who repeat the old slogan
that the solution to all problems is for everyone to get more education. It
doesn’t occur to them that if everyone has a college degree, it confers no
advantage in the job market—the same way that having a high school degreee
stopped having a comparative advantage by around 1975. </span></p><span style="font-size: medium;">
</span><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: medium; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-bidi;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: medium; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-bidi;">Another new development is computerization
and the disappearance of middle-class work. It is time to reconsider Marx's theory
that factory machinery will eliminate so many workers that capitalism would be unable
to find customers for all the goods it produces; and this would bring an
economic crisis and the downfall of capitalism. But this did not happen, since
new jobs were created in the white-collar, bureaucratic sector. Marx did not
foresee the growth of the middle class, which provided new customers for capitalism.
But that was only true until around the 1990s when computers started taking
over the work that white-collar bureaucrats and service workers do. Displacement
of middle-class work is increasing more and more now; checkout clerks at stores
are replaced by automatic machines. We are on the pathway that Marx was talking
about, as computers replace the middle class. Sometime in the future, probably
within the next 20 years, we will reach the point where there are not enough
people working to be able to buy the things capitalists produce. So I expect a
Marxist revolutionary crisis in the future. </span></p><span style="font-size: medium;">
</span><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: medium; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-bidi;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: medium; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-bidi;">This prospect is connected to educational
credentials. In the new edition of <i>The Credential Society</i>, published by
Columbia University Press in 2019, I make the point that credential inflation
may become the way that socialism will arrive under a different name. The
government would pay people to stay in schools for a very long period of time,
perhaps to age 40 or 50, however long it is necessary to support them as jobs
are taken over by computers and robots. Educational inflation would be a
mechanism to create a welfare system of transfer payments, which could save
capitalism because there would still be people—the masses of students—with
money to buy capitalist products. Very recently people have started talking
about a society of a guaranteed income for everybody, which was unheard of 5
years ago. Even mainstream economists, usually conservative, realize capitalism
will have a problem of not enough consumers with money to spend. The endless
expansion of years of schooling would be another way to handle this; it would
be a form of socialism while refusing to call it that. </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: medium; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-bidi;"> </span></p><span style="font-size: medium;">
</span><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-bidi;">I:
In contemporary approaches to education, many leaders say that schools kill
creativity, that schools rigidly structure their time, that children should
have freedom. What could you say about it? Based on your theory, what is the
best way to learn? </span></b></span></p><span style="font-size: medium;">
</span><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: medium; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-bidi;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: medium; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-bidi;">R: If we go back a hundred years or more,
education was very authoritarian; teachers were totally powerful, they hit children
with a stick if they did not learn their lessons. In the elite British schools,
one reads about them constantly beating the boys. You would think they would
not learn very much, but out of those schools came quite a lot of famous
writers and scientists. They were all taught that way, so in a sense it didn't
matter how they were taught. To be a famous scientist, the most important thing
is to have teachers who are famous scientists. From them one learns the latest
technique, the latest theory, the latest problem that constitutes the frontier
for new research. This is the network pattern of creativity, found throughout
world history of philosophy, mathematics, and other fields. The network pattern
of apprenticeship from master to apprentice is also found among great painters
and musical composers. The fact that most of their masters were authoritarian
did not make a difference, as long as they passed along the craft to the next
generation who could develop it further.</span></p><span style="font-size: medium;">
</span><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: medium; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-bidi;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: medium; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-bidi;">But here we're talking about the top few
percent, the intellectual elite. At any particular time in history, it is less
important how they were taught as long as they acquire the ambition and the
techniques from creative people in the preceding generation. This network
pattern between the generations has not changed in the last 70 years, as
education has become less authoritarian. The intellectual elite is going to do
OK because they always have, no matter what the form of education was like. And
this applies not just to scientists and scholars in Western universities. The
histories of the famous Zen masters in China shows the same authoritarian way
of inculcating their message into the next generation, including by beating
them. Beethoven would hit his pupil’s hands if they played the wrong note. As a
modern person, I think it was terrible for teachers to beat their students, but
as a sociologist I have to conclude that whether or not they beat them is not
the crucial factor in whether they are going to be creative or not. </span></p><span style="font-size: medium;">
</span><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: medium; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-bidi;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: medium; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-bidi;">To ask what kind of education is best,
depends on what kind of career you want. Here the important question is whether
it is worthwhile to spend much time in school at all. </span></p><span style="font-size: medium;">
</span><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: medium; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-bidi;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: medium; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-bidi;">Let us consider two other kinds of students.
Some are students who want to be in important professions but not necessarily
intellectuals. It is not clear that they need a school in order to acquire
their practical skills. For example, politicians. In countries like western
Europe and the United States, everybody now tends to go to university. And so
the politicians all attend the university. But 150 years ago, there were people
like Abraham Lincoln, who never attended school, but learned at home and by
apprenticeship. Were they not as good as politicians today? The techniques of
politics are the same; they have not evolved over time. </span></p><span style="font-size: medium;">
</span><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: medium; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-bidi;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: medium; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-bidi;">Until quite recently, business executives
did not go to business schools, since these didn’t exist at the time Henry Ford
built his automobiles or Thomas Edison made his inventions. <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>So now business schools exist. Does it help? Personally,
I find that students at business schools are more serious than the average
student in the liberal arts because they have a goal in front of them. They
seem to ask themselves: am I learning something that will be useful to me? So
they're very interested if you can show them social science that is useful.
Could they do it without education? In the past, they all did. In recent years,
people like Steve Jobs or Bill Gates or, more recently, Mark Zuckerberg and
Elon Musk, drop out of school. Why? Because they've seen an opportunity to
create a new business, and instead of waiting until they finish their
education, they jump ahead of the competition by doing it now before someone
else does. The same thing in China. The famous entrepreneur Jack Ma failed his
exams, but he visited America where he learned that the Internet can be used
for paying bills. He didn't need a school to teach him that. He just goes ahead
and builds a huge internet business in China. So it's not clear to me that you
need formal education for business success either, especially if you are starting
something really new. </span></p><span style="font-size: medium;">
</span><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto; mso-margin-top-alt: auto;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: medium; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-bidi;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto; mso-margin-top-alt: auto;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: medium; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-bidi;">For the rest of the population, people who are not aiming to be
intellectuals or politicians or business entrepreneurs, going to school is
mostly a matter of getting educational credentials that will get them a job. Whether
they learn anything along the way is less important that what is the number of
years necessary to “buy” a job with the current “price” in credentials. Many
students are quite cynical about this; they go along with what the teacher
wants in order to get a grade, but the sociological evidence is that they don’t
remember what they learned very long after they take an exam on it. [See</span><span lang="PL" style="font-family: "TimesNewRomanPSMT",serif; font-size: medium; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt;">
Richard Arum and Josipa Roksa. 2011. </span><span style="font-size: medium;"><i><span lang="PL" style="font-family: "TimesNewRomanPS",serif; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt;">Academically
Adrift: Limited Learning on College Campuses</span></i><span lang="PL" style="font-family: "TimesNewRomanPS",serif; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt;">;
</span><span lang="PL" style="font-family: "TimesNewRomanPSMT",serif; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt;">Elizabeth A. Armstrong and Laura T.
Hamilton, 2013. <i>Paying for the Party: How College Maintains Inequality.</i></span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-bidi;">] Credential inflation
drives grade inflation. <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>If the teachers
are friendly and easy, the students are probably happier, but they still may
not learn very much, unless they are aiming at one of the elite intellectual
occupations. </span></span></p><span style="font-size: medium;">
</span><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: medium; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-bidi;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: medium; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-bidi;">So far this discussion has been focused on
the question of what the students want to get out of education. But this may
not be the most important reason to have schools. <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>If you are a parent, schools are very
important because you need to send your children there while you go to work. In
this case, it doesn't matter what they do at schools, as long as they are taken
care of by substitute parents.</span></p><span style="font-size: medium;">
</span><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: medium; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-bidi;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: medium; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-bidi;">Another influential group are teachers. <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>People in the education profession are
constantly analyzing what they do and looking for better methods. My question
is: better for what? In the US, it appears they are trying to make children act
more democratically, and maybe that's successful. That they are making them
better intellectually, or better prepared for jobs (which may not exist when
the grow up), <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I'm not at all certain of
that.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I can see the way my grandchildren
are being treated in school, but I can’t see what they will be like 15 years from
now.</span></p><span style="font-size: medium;">
</span><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-bidi;"> </span></b></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-bidi;">I:
Turning to your IR theory, there are some misconceptions about your sociology. Emotional
energy is one of them: <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>many sociologists
consider this as some short-term emotion, such as flow. But you highlight in
your books that emotional energy is a long-term emotion that influences our
motivation. Could you summarize some crucial points of what emotional energy is
and how it works? And why is it so important in society?</span></b></span></p><span style="font-size: medium;">
</span><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: medium; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-bidi;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: medium; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-bidi;">R: Take for example micro research on
politics. Many people are interested in politics, but they spend most of their
attention on the things that politicians say. They act as if they’re in a
virtual argument with public figures where they cheer the guys they agree with
and get outraged at what their opponents say. I'm not so concerned with what
they say but the way they talk, both verbally and non-verbally. My method is to
clip out photographs of politicians and watch videos of them.</span></p><span style="font-size: medium;">
</span><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: medium; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-bidi;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: medium; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-bidi;">For instance, it is clear to me as a micro-sociologist
why Trump was able to beat his primary opponents in the Republican primary
elections in 2016 and why he beat Hillary Clinton. He was much more dominant in
face to face interaction; he almost never lets anybody take the initiative or
control the topic. He does things that break the conventional rules of social
interaction; he is a master of micro-aggressions. In one of the debates with
Hillary Clinton, when she was talking he would leave his podium and walk around
behind her. He makes the other person look passive. The strongest Republican candidate
I thought was Jeb Bush, the president's brother, but Trump destroyed him by
saying he is low energy, which is true if you look at him micro-sociologically,
although it is not polite to say it. Another example was Trump's opponent Ted
Cruz, who had a similar position of being very nativist, closing the borders to
immigrants. The difference is that Trump had a television show for many years,
and he knew how to work the camera. He's quite natural at it. But for Ted Cruz
it was not natural; it is obvious that he had a speaking coach who told him, emphasize
your points by waving<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>your arms, and pause
for the audience to react. This made Cruz look like a bad actor, because his
rhythm was too slow. The same was true with Hillary Clinton. In backstage
politics, she had the reputation of being tough and aggressive with other
people. Bill Clinton was the nice guy, Hillary was the tough guy. Now she was
trying to be a nice guy, trying to change her image. She had speaking coaches, telling
her you've got to smile and do this and that. And it didn't look real. </span></p><span style="font-size: medium;">
</span><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: medium; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-bidi;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: medium; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-bidi;">In politics, the most important thing is
you have to look real. People who look like they're pretending don't do well. This
was also true with another president who was like Trump. That was Ronald Reagan,
who at the time was far more conservative than any president before him, but
Reagan was an actor who played comedy roles of 'I'm the nice guy', and that’s
how he came across. <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Trump played a
different role, the iconoclast who says what’s really on his mind. His campaign
manager said “Let Trump be Trump.” And that’s essentially how he won in 2016.</span></p><span style="font-size: medium;">
</span><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: medium; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-bidi;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: medium; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-bidi;">In the 2020 election campaign, Biden had
been in politics a long time and had a reputation as a nice guy, not very
dynamic, less energetic than Trump. But by then many people were tired of
Trump’s style of behavior, or outraged by it. In their first debate, Trump
deliberately tried to make Biden look weak by constantly interrupting him.
Biden, uncharacteristically, tried to talk more like a tough guy, and the debate
was very unpleasant, consisting mostly of insults on both sides. This isn’t
really Biden’s character, and perhaps it will go away when he is securely in
office as president. <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: medium; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-bidi;">[<i>Update July
2021:</i> <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Biden since the inauguration
has taken to talking much more like the tough guy. Also wearing dark glasses,
like an old-fashioned fighter pilot. Apparently trying an image make-over. Was
I mistaken in saying that a politician has a “real character”?]</span></p><span style="font-size: medium;">
</span><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: medium; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-bidi;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: medium; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-bidi;">More generally, I am continuing research on
how politicians interact with each other and with public audiences. There are
several formulas for successful politicians. Some of this is spelled out in my
most recent book, <i>Charisma: The Micro-sociology of Power and Influence</i>
(2020).</span></p><span style="font-size: medium;">
</span><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-bidi;"> </span></b></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-bidi;">I:
I have some questions about conflict. Contemporarily, we have such a polarized
political climate in the US, in Poland, in Europe in general. Could you apply
your theory about conflict escalation to current politics?</span></b></span></p><span style="font-size: medium;">
</span><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: medium; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-bidi;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: medium; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-bidi;">R: Escalation consists of two sides. One
side accuses the other of an atrocity; then they accuse each other in reply. As
they mobilize and retaliate against each other, they do things that are
atrocious from the other’s point of view. They make each other’s atrocities
come true. The Israelis and Palestinians are an example, but the same thing
happens to a lesser degree in most political conflicts. <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Each side takes the stance: we are virtuous
and you are evil, so we are justified in anything we do to you. This is a
universal pattern of how conflicts escalate. An important question is: are
there any limits to escalation? Can conflict<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>continue escalating forever? Logically, it's not possible. In mathematical
terms, if there are two quantities, each of which multiplies the other in a
feedback loop, it would increase to infinity. That's not possible in the real
world. All conflicts in the past have sooner or later come to an end. So I have
tried to combine theory of<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>escalation with
theory of de-escalation, by researching the time-dynamics of protest movements.
</span></p><span style="font-size: medium;">
</span><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: medium; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-bidi;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: medium; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-bidi;">One case is the Gilets Jaunes, the Yellow Vests
movement in France during 2018-19. Their peak mobilization was in the first 2
months, and subsequently their <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>numbers went
into decline until it dribbled away around 6 months. The decline is not
surprising; what is more surprising is that they were able to keep the movement
going so long. It is difficult to sustain mobilization because the movement
consisted of people from the provinces, who come into Paris for protest
demonstrations, and sometimes commit violence such as destroying property along
the parade route and fighting with the police. But it is very unusual for a
militant demonstration or a riot to last more than four days. The Gilets Jaunes
kept going much longer because the French are politically sophisticated.
Instead of demonstrating continously, they scheduled demonstrations for every
Saturday, so they had time to go home and do their work and keep their practical
lives going. But even with this strategy, it appears that you cannot keep demonstrating
intermittently for a very long time. If a movement is rapidly spreading, the
enthusiasm that comes from a sense of growing keeps everybody emotionally
involved. But when a movement stabilizes, emotional energy falls off, and it
starts losing numbers. The protests in Hong Kong in 2019-20 against the Chinese
government, and the Black Lives Matter protests in the summer of 2020 had to
same time pattern—peak intensity for a few months, then declining in numbers
while the remaining activists became increasingly violent. </span></p><span style="font-size: medium;">
</span><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: medium; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-bidi;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: medium; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-bidi;">A mechanism that spreads movements very
strongly is visible in the<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>'MeToo'
movement. It had a very powerful effect because anybody who didn't denounce the
person who was accused of a sexual violation, would also be attacked for
covering it up. Thus people such as the employers and colleagues of the accused
would quickly join the attack by firing them; the emotional dynamic is a
combination of fear of becoming a target, and the righteous anger that is
spread by the movement itself. [On how scandals are driven by “secondary
scandals”, see Ari Adut, 2008. <i>On Scandal.</i>] We see this also in the
attack on historical monuments and persons from American history, in the
tactics of the Black Lives Matter movement against anyone who had any
connection with slavery or any other action that could be criticized.</span></p><span style="font-size: medium;">
</span><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: medium; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-bidi;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: medium; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-bidi;">Do such movements go on forever, and keep
on escalating and finding new targets? There is some historical evidence of the
time-dynamics by which extreme polarization eventually declines. An extreme
case was the “Reign of Terror” during the French Revolution in 1793-94, when people
who failed to denounce those sent to the guillotine were themselves sent to the
guillotine. But after 12 months at the peak of fear and righteous anger, the surviving
members of the political elite realized they themselves would become victims if
they did not stop the process. The result was French politics settled down and
people turned to their private, rather hedonistic lives for several years. Once
the emotional pressure to join the accusers stops rising, then people start
losing the emotional intensity that constitutes the momentum of the movement. The
French Revolution was also big on destroying monuments and renaming things;
during the guillotine period they even abolished Christianity and changed the
calendar to Year One, to avoid using B.C. and A.D. (Before Christ and Anno
Domini). </span></p><span style="font-size: medium;">
</span><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: medium; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-bidi;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: medium; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-bidi;">These are empirical examples—including our
own very recent history—that we could measure. Of course, when you are in a
movement, you are not thinking about measurement. But that is our particular skill
as sociologists. We can be involved in political movements but also have enough
intellectual independence to ask ourselves: what's the pattern here, how long
does it last, what causes the intensity to shift? </span></p><span style="font-size: medium;">
</span><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-bidi;"> </span></b></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-bidi;">I:
What is the role of media in this polarization, including the Internet? </span></b></span></p><span style="font-size: medium;">
</span><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: medium; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-bidi;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: medium; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-bidi;">R: The media have always been important because
they determine how far you can spread your message and your enthusiasm. Charles
Tilly writes that before 1760, there were no social movements; there might be a
riot about the price of bread, but it never lasted more than two days, and it
always remained local. There was no way to spread a social movement, without
the growth of communications, highways et cetera. Every new development in the
media has mobilized more social movements. The main activity of the early
Bolsheviks was printing underground newspapers, and their members would hand
them out to recruit other people. The Nazis pioneered marching in the street
with loudspeakers shouting slogans. As for television, however, it is unclear
to me whether it mobilizes or demobilizes, because people are inclined to treat
it as entertainment.</span></p><span style="font-size: medium;">
</span><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-bidi;">I:
It seems quite passive.</span></b></span></p><span style="font-size: medium;">
</span><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: medium; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-bidi;">R: <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Some protests may have been promoted by
television. But on the whole, I think not very much. Television consists of <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>broadcasting one-way from a <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>center, and usually supports the status quo. But
the Internet is more <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>decentralized, and fosters
horizontal, two-way communication. I think this explains the big expansion in
the size of social movements in the last 10 years. </span></p><span style="font-size: medium;">
</span><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-bidi;">I:
We can apply this to the 'MeToo' also.</span></b></span></p><span style="font-size: medium;">
</span><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: medium; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-bidi;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: medium; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-bidi;">R: The 'MeToo' movement is a good example.
These movements don't really have an organization because they don't need one.
On the other hand, they may not be able to institutionalize themselves for precisely
that reason. We are just beginning to understand how Internet-based movements
operate. In the early days of the Internet, there was much enthusiasm about “the
Internet makes movements unstoppable.” That kind of statement was frequently
heard at the beginning of the Arab Spring movements in 2011, but most of them
failed. In China, such movements are clearly stoppable because the Chinese
government reads the Internet just as much as everybody else, and sends out the
police immediately when somebody says we're going to have a demo. We take media-based
movements too much for granted. Movement mobilization is easiest in democracy
because nobody tries to stop it. We are seeing more and more authoritarian
governments intervening in the Internet, or even shutting it down<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>when they feel it is dangerous. The Chinese are
very focused on using computer technology for the purposes of control. And now,
in the US, Internet companies are censoring political positions they don’t
agree with; and it appears likely the US government will try to do the same. Sociologically,
we are going to learn more about this, whether we like it or not.</span></p><span style="font-size: medium;">
</span><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-bidi;"> </span></b></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-bidi;">I:
We were talking about sociologists as activists. What do you think about the
role that sociologists should play in public conflicts?</span></b></span></p><span style="font-size: medium;">
</span><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: medium; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-bidi;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: medium; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-bidi;">R: Most sociologists are interested in
social problems or social justice. But over the years I’ve come to realize that
if you're active in a very emotional movement, you lose your perspective. Sometimes
it's worth sacrificing your objectivity, but we need at least a few people in
the profession who try to explain things as realistically as possible and avoid
being blinded by our polarized worldview as activists. <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>If we want to give practical advice, we must
have enough detachment to see what the mechanisms are. </span></p><span style="font-size: medium;">
</span><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: medium; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-bidi;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: medium; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-bidi;">I will give an example. Almost all my
friends are on the left or strong liberals. My wife is very active in the
feminist movement. I don't particularly like listening to our friends talking
about politics because they tend to exaggerate everything. Typically they will
say: the Republicans are stupid, Trumpists are stupid. Before that it was Bush
and his supporters are stupid, Reaganites are stupid. This style of thinking
underestimates your opponents. They can't be that stupid if they're getting
elected. Some of them are better at playing politics than the Democrats. The
greatest of all, Franklin Roosevelt was a master of the public image. I don't
think John F. Kennedy was actually a very effective politician, but he had a
wonderful public image and he inspired people. We didn't like Lyndon Johnson at
the time, and we demonstrated against him in the peace movement, but he was a master
of legislative politics, and he carried through more reforms than any liberal
president since then. The Democrats have not had really effective politicians
since that time. </span></p><span style="font-size: medium;">
</span><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: medium; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-bidi;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: medium; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-bidi;">The Democrat who was most successful in
recent years in arousing devoted followers was Bernie Sanders, which is amazing
that someone who openly declares he is a socialist can be popular in America.
But most politicians look like they are trying to act a theatrical role
designed by their political advisers. Bernie Sanders had a genuinely enthusiastic
movement of followers because he wasn't pretending. <span style="mso-bidi-font-style: italic;">In the 2020 Democratic primary campaign, the professional politicians
frightened the voters into thinking a socialist would lose to Trump, so the
other candidates withdrew to make sure the nomination went to Biden, an
uncharismatic but conventional politician. Biden won, not because he was
personally popular, but because he wasn’t Trump. </span></span></p><span style="font-size: medium;">
</span><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: medium; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt; mso-bidi-font-style: italic; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-bidi;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: medium; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt; mso-bidi-font-style: italic; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-bidi;">The best
sociological advice, based on the degree of success both Sanders and Trump have
had, is this: People are not fooled by manipulated performances of
self-presentation. They prefer politicians who express themselves spontaneously.
</span></p><span style="font-size: medium;">
</span><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-bidi;"> </span></b></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-bidi;">I:
Thank you very much for this interview. </span></b></span></p><span style="font-size: medium;">
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{page:WordSection1;}</style></span></p>Unknownnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1005085971596877601.post-24243351717938369882021-05-26T09:35:00.000-07:002021-05-26T09:35:26.690-07:00DOES MASCULINITY EXPLAIN VIOLENCE?
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<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="color: black; font-size: 14.0pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;"> </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="color: black; font-size: 14.0pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;">Males predominate in every form of violence, from the micro-level
up through wars and other macro-violence. Is it because of a biological
universal--the testosterone theory of violence? Or an omnipresent cultural
archetype of maleness? Statistics would appear to bear this out.</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="color: black; font-size: 14.0pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;"> </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="color: black; font-size: 14.0pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;">But frequency statistics by themselves do not answer the question.
If violence is male by virtue of being a biological universal, it should have
no exceptions. That females are under-represented in committing violence,
however, shows that women are capable of it. This suggests an alternative
explanation: women have been historically denied opportunities to be violent.</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="color: black; font-size: 14.0pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;"> </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="color: black; font-size: 14.0pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;">On the anthropological and historical evidence, women have been
excluded from military and weapons training and combat sports. When combat was
confined to close physical proximity ("man-to-man" or
"hand-to-hand"), greater male size and musculature gave men
predominance, upon which cultural exclusion was built. This was true too when
distance weapons (bows, spears, slings) were muscle-powered. As weapons became
mechanized, size and strength made less of a difference. Even among men, the
Colt revolver was called "the great equalizer", and Billy the Kid
could bring down contemporary Goliaths. </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="color: black; font-size: 14.0pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;"> </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="color: black; font-size: 14.0pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;">Integration of women into armies and police forces has been a long
time coming, but for the past two centuries their exclusion has been largely a
matter of cultural tradition and male monopolization. These have been worn down
in the modern era of mass democratization and the mobilization of social
movements.</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="color: black; font-size: 14.0pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;"> </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="color: black; font-size: 14.0pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;">The ideology persists (although now argued from a liberal
pacificist direction) that women are more peaceful than men. Hence society
would become more peaceful at all levels to the extent that women gain
political leadership. But this does not appear to be true. Throughout history,
when women were rulers, their reigns were as likely to be warlike as males: the
heinous religious persecutions of Protestants under Queen Mary ("Bloody
Mary") and of Catholics under Queen Elizabeth I; imperialist wars under
Queen Victoria and Catherine the Great (also known for engineering
assassinations of rivals at the Russian court); the Red Guards urged on by
Jiang Qing (Madame Mao); Eva Peron, the Argentine dictator's wife who avenged
social slights with executions; Margaret Thatcher, who repaired her lagging
popularity and won re-election by launching the Falklands/Malvinas war.
Violence was always easiest to unleash at the level of high command, but modern
emancipated women have also been on the front line of political violence: Vera
Zasulich who used a revolver to shoot a Russian Governor, setting off the
populist ("terrorist") movement that assassinated Czar Alexander II
in 1881; Ulrike Meinhof of the Baader-Meinhof Gang in 1970s Germany; Patty Hearst
with the machine-gun wielding Symbionese Liberation Army; numerous women in the
clandestine Red Brigades of 1970s Italy; in the contemporary Middle East, women
suicide bombers appear to be a way for women to gain some public status among
ultra-male-dominated conservative Moslems. In the assault on the US Capitol in
2021, the only violent death was a woman officer (formerly in the Air Force
military police) shot leading the break-in.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>(The others died of heart attack or stroke.) On the personal
level, the proportion of women committing homicides and other violent crimes
has been steadily rising, suggesting ongoing integration is moving on all
fronts.</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="color: black; font-size: 14.0pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;"> </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="color: black; font-size: 14.0pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;">Such examples show that generalizations of the "Men are from
Mars, Women are from Venus" variety are useless as explanations. Women
have not had the opportunities, the training, or the cultural encouragement to
enter potentially violent situations. When these barriers have been lowered,
women act very much as men do. Not to say women are merely assimilating into
masculine culture. The revelation of empirically-detailed sociology of violence
is to recognize that situational dynamics determine what happens--not the
background classification of individuals.</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="color: black; font-size: 14.0pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;"> </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .1pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: .1pt; mso-para-margin-bottom: .01gd; mso-para-margin-left: 0in; mso-para-margin-right: 0in; mso-para-margin-top: .01gd;"><span style="color: black; font-size: 14.0pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;">Whether the increasing participation of women as activists
in the world of violence is a good thing or not is not a question to be decided
by sociology. I would point out, however, that the success or failure of
violence is above all a matter of emotional domination, not sheer physical
strength. Women as well are men are capable of both imposing and resisting
emotional domination, including in situations of sexual violence. And that
surely is a good thing.</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .1pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: .1pt; mso-para-margin-bottom: .01gd; mso-para-margin-left: 0in; mso-para-margin-right: 0in; mso-para-margin-top: .01gd;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 14.0pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 10.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"> </span></p>
Unknownnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1005085971596877601.post-90303975569389309652021-01-28T10:12:00.020-08:002021-01-29T17:44:03.763-08:00ASSAULT ON THE CAPITOL: 2021, 1917, 1792<p class="MsoNormal"> <span style="color: black; font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 14pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">The iconic image of January 6 is a protestor sitting with his feet
up on Nancy Pelosi’s desk, and another in the Senate Chair. These are
reminiscent of Sergei Eisenstein’s 1928 film, <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">October</i>, a documentary of the Russian revolution of November 1917.
Attacking the seat of government in Petersburg, the Winter Palace,
revolutionary soldiers break into the Czarina’s bedroom: amused by uncovering
the jeweled top of her chamber pot, then ripping through her feather-bedding
with their bayonets. The same in the French Revolution in its many repetitions
between 1789 and 1792, and its replay in 1848, where the crowd took turns
sitting on the vacant throne after the guards had collapsed and the royal
family had fled.</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="color: black; font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 14pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"> </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="color: black; font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 14pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">There are differences, of course. The 1917 and 1792 revolutions
were successful in overthrowing the government. The 2021 Capitol assault may have had few such ambitions in the minds of most protestors; and in any
case, they occupied the outer steps of the Capitol for five hours and
penetrated the corridors and chambers inside for three-and-a-half, with
momentum on their side for less than an hour. </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="color: black; font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 14pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"> </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="color: black; font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 14pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">The similarities are more in short-term processes: The building
guards putting up resistance at first, then losing cohesion, retreating, fading
away; some fraternizing with the assaulting crowd, their sympathies wavering.
They had weapons but most failed to use them. </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="color: black; font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 14pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"> </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="color: black; font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 14pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">Higher up the chain of command, widespread hesitation, confusion,
conversations and messages all over the place without immediate results.
Reinforcements are called for; reinforcements are promised; reinforcements are
coming but they don’t arrive. Recriminations in the aftermath of January 6 have
concentrated on this official hesitation and lack of cooperation, and on
weakness and collusion among the police. </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="color: black; font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 14pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"> </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="color: black; font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 14pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">In fact it is a generic problem. Revolutions and their
contemporary analogues all start in an atmosphere of polarization, masses
mobilizing themselves, authorities trying to keep them calm and sustain everyday
routine. Crowd-control forces, whether soldiers or police, are caught in the
middle. At the outset of surging crowds, there is always someplace where the
guards are locally outnumbered, pressed not just physically but by the noise
and emotional force of the crowd. They usually know that using their superior
firepower can provoke the crowds even further. Sometimes they try it; sometimes
they try a soft defense; in either case they have a morale problem. If there is
a tipping point where they retreat, the crowd surges to its target, and is
temporarily in control.</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="color: black; font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 14pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"> </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="color: black; font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 14pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">From this point of view, the lesson of January 6 is how protective
forces regain control relatively quickly. Comparing the Winter Palace on the
night of October 26, 1917* or the Tuileries Palace on August 10, 1792, tells us
what makes for tipping points that wobble for a bit but then recover; or not. </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="color: black; font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 14pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"> </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="color: black; font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 14pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">* Russia in 1917 was still using the old-style calendar which had
been updated by various states of Western Europe during preceding centuries. To
convert these dates to the modern international calender, add 13 days to the
date. Thus October 26 (old style) becomes November 8 (new style). </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="color: black; font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 14pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"> </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="color: black; font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 14pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">The normal exercize of authority is above all a smooth and
expectable rhythm. (That doesn’t mean everything goes well, but the hitches are
what we are used to.) In revolutions it gets worse and worse until
psychological equilibrium is only re-established when one leadership team
entirely replaces the other. </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="color: black; font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 14pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"> </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="color: black; font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 14pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">The wavering and indecisiveness of the guards and the incoherence
of the chain of command higher up are connected. We see this particularly
strongly in the Russian and French cases; but the same pattern exists, on a
less extreme scale, in the contemporary American crisis. In the weeks and hours
leading up to the afternoon of January 6, there are strong splits inside
Congress, as well as among the branches of government, not to mention the lineup
of states across the federation, and the anomalous local position of the
authorities of the District of Columbia. Revolutions and revolts usually begin
with prolonged splits at the top, moods which are transmitted to their own
security forces. Add to the mix popular crowds which are more than a puppet of
elite factions. The energy, enthusiasm, and hostility of crowds has a power of
its own (in fact earlier theories of revolution usually focused entirely on
this popular force from below). But even granting great causal significance to
elite splits, how strong the popular hurricane blows at some point becomes the
determining factor of events.</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="color: black; font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 14pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"> </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="color: black; font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 14pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">At the tipping point crisis, the two centers of emotional
contagion-- the two places the political authority machine can wobble, the
crowds-and-cops scene, and the elites quarreling and sending for
reinforcements-- are both wobbling at the same time. The outcome depends on
which gyroscope rights itself-- if at all. </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="color: black; font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 14pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"> </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="color: black; font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 14pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">From this point of view, we will look at the assaults on the
Winter Palace in 1917, and the Tuileries in 1792. These were both revolutions
from the Left; the Capitol assault of 2021 was from the Right. But the dynamics
of crowd confrontation with a center of authority are much the same, regardless
of Left or Right ideologies. </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="color: black; font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 14pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"> </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><span style="color: black; font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 14pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">Assault on the Winter
Palace</span></i><span style="color: black; font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 14pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="color: black; font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 14pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"> </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="color: black; font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 14pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">The insurgents launched their attempt to take over the capital
city on October 25th. The Bolshevik revolutionists had infiltrated and gained
the support of most armed forces around Petersburg, units of sailors from ships
stationed nearby and soldiers from fortresses and arsenals. Their officers had
been arrested or reluctantly came over to the revolution, watched by political
committees of their own troops. The Bolsheviks also had a strong base among
factory workers and in the railroads and telegraphs, giving them control of
communications. Armed workers were now throughout the city carrying rifles and
revolutionary flags.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Acting
together with the troops on the first day of the insurrection, they took over
most of the major buildings and installations in the city: the railroad stations,
bridges across the river, the electric plant, banks, government offices-- all
except the Winter Palace. </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="color: black; font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 14pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"> </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="color: black; font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 14pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">It was the former palace of the Czars, now occupied by a coalition
government of liberal reformers and former officials, since the Czar had
abdicated in February. Here was concentrated what military forces the
government still had in the capital city. Here they waited and sent out
messages for reinforcements to put down the revolutionaries: recalling troops
from the front against the Germans; Cossack cavalry long dreaded as the
enforcers of the absolute monarchy; elite military units recruited from the
respectable middle class; students from the military schools. The Winter Palace
was the military stronghold and political command center; the center of
political legitimacy, too, since it housed the Assembly that made the laws and
the Ministry that made official decisions. As long as the Winter Palace held
out, the revolution hung in the balance.</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="color: black; font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 14pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"> </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="color: black; font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 14pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">On the 26th, the Bolsheviks got their forces in a ring around the
Winter Palace and began to close in. Both sides proceeded cautiously.</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="color: black; font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 14pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"> </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="color: black; font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 14pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">“The court of the palace opening on the square is piled up with
logs of firewood like the court of Smolny [the building across town where the
Bolsheviks have their meetings]. Rifles are stacked up in several different
places. The small guard of the palace clings close to the building... Inside
the palace they found a lack of provisions. Some of the military cadets did
sentry duty; the rest lay around inactive, uncertain and hungry. In the square
before the palace, and on the river quay on the other side, little groups of
apparently peaceful passers-by began to appear, and they would snatch the
rifles from the sentries, threatening them with revolvers...” [Trotsky, <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">History of the Russian Revolution</i>,
387-8] Agitators also began to appear among the cadets, internal
trouble-makers; they quarrel about who they should take orders from, the
civilian ministers or their own school directors. They opt for the
latter--severing the chain of command. They take their posts but are forbidden
to fire first.</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="color: black; font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 14pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"> </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="color: black; font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 14pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">Outside on the river bank, thousands of soldiers and sailors are
being disembarked who have gone over to the insurgency. Their remaining
officers “are being taken along to fight for a cause which they hate.” The
Bolshevik commissar announces: “We do not count upon your sympathy, but we
demand that you be at your posts... We will spare you any unnecessary
unpleasantness.” The most militant of the troops volunteer for action on their
own. “The most resolute in the detachment choose themselves out automatically.
These sailors in black blouses with rifles and cartridge belts will go all the
way.” [390] The take-over of the city had mostly been by military units acting
in regular order, encountering virtually no resistance, the token forces of the
government letting themselves be disarmed. A real fight now looms ahead. The
militants of armed workers meld with militants of the troops in a crowd-like
surge.</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="color: black; font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 14pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"> </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="color: black; font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 14pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">“Hiding behind their piles of firewood, the cadets followed
tensely the cordon forming on Palace Square, meeting every movement of the
enemy with rifle and machine gun fire. They answered in kind. Towards night the
firing became hotter. The first casualties occurred. The victims, however, were
only a few individuals. On the square, on the quays, the besiegers hid behind
projections, concealed themselves in hollows, cling along walls. Among the
reserves the soldiers and Red Guards warmed themselves around campfires which
they had kindled at nightfall, abusing the leaders for going so slow.</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="color: black; font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 14pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"> </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="color: black; font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 14pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">“In the palace the cadets were taking up positions in the
corridors, on the stairway, at the entrances, and in the court. The outside
sentries clung along the fence and walls. The building would hold thousands,
now it held hundreds. The vast quarters behind the sphere of defense seemed
dead. Most of the servants were scattered, or in hiding. Many of the officers
took refuge in the buffet... The garrison of the palace was greatly reduced in
number. If at the moment [of greatest reinforcement] it rose to a thousand and
a half, or perhaps two thousand, it was now reduced to a thousand, perhaps
considerably less...<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>With angry
and frowning faces the Cossacks gathered up their saddle bags. No further
arguments could move them...The Cossacks were in touch with the besiegers, and
they got free passes through an exit till then unknown to the defenders. Only
their machine guns they agreed to leave for the defense of a hopeless cause.</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="color: black; font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 14pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"> </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="color: black; font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 14pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">“By this same entrance, too, coming from the direction of the
street, Bolsheviks before this had gotten into the palace for the purpose of
demoralizing the enemy. Oftener and oftener mysterious figures began to appear
in the corridors beside the cadets. It was useless to resist; the
insurrectionists have captured the city and the railway stations; there are no
reinforcements... What are we to do next? asked the cadets. The government
refused to issue any direct commands. The ministers themselves would stand by
their old decision; the rest could do as they pleased. That meant free egress from
the palace for those who wanted it. The ministers passively awaited their fate.
One subsequently related: “We wandered through the gigantic mousetrap, meeting
occasionally, either all together or in small groups, for brief
conversations... Around us vacancy, within us vacancy, and in this grew up the
soulless courage of placid indifference.” [394-6, 401] </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="color: black; font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 14pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"> </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="color: black; font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 14pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">Artillery from the ships fired sporadically, the gunners
unenthusiastic, hoping for an easy victory.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Of 35 shells fired in a couple of hours, only 2 hit the
palace, injuring the plaster. [400]</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="color: black; font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 14pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"> </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="color: black; font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 14pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">“The inner resolution of the workers and sailors is great, but it
has not yet become bitter. Lest they call down it on their heads, the besieged,
being the incomparably weaker side, dare not deal severely with those agents of
the enemy who have penetrated the palace. There are no executions. Uninvited
guests now begin to appear no longer one by one, but in groups. The palace is
getting more and more like a sieve. When the cadets fall upon these intruders,
the latter permit themselves to be disarmed... These men were not cowardly; it
required a high courage to make one’s way into that palace crowded with
officers and cadets. In the labyrinth of an unknown building, among innumerable
doors leading nobody knew where, and threatening nobody knew what, the
daredevils had nothing to do but surrender. The number of captives grows. New
groups break in. It is no longer quite clear who is surrendering to whom, who
is disarming whom. The artillery continues to boom.”<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>[403]</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="color: black; font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 14pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"> </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="color: black; font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 14pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">The siege began in earnest about 6 p.m. With periodic excursions
and lulls, it went on until 2 a.m. Lenin and the Bolsheviks at their
headquarters are getting anxious, sending angry notes for all-out artillery
fire. The commander decides to wait another quarter hour “sensing the
possibility of a change in circumstances.” Time is almost up when a courier
arrives: The palace is taken! </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="color: black; font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 14pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"> </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="color: black; font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 14pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">“The palace did not surrender but was taken by storm-- however, at
a moment when the power of resistance of the besieged had already completely
evaporated. Hundreds of enemies broke into the corridor-- not by the secret
entrance this time but through the defended door-- and were taken by the
demoralized defenders for a deputation [of supporters]. A considerable group of
cadets got away in the confusion. The rest-- at least a number of them-- still
continued to stand guard. But the barrier of bayonets and rifle fire between
the attackers and the defenders was finally broken down.”<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>They are now confronting face to face--
psychologically the most difficult situation for effective use of weapons. </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="color: black; font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 14pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"> </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="color: black; font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 14pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">“Part of the palace is already filled with the enemy. The cadets
make an attempt to come at them from the rear. In the corridors phantasmagoric
meetings and clashes take place. All are armed to the teeth. Lifted hands hold
revolvers. Hand grenades hang from belts. But nobody shoots and nobody throws a
grenade. For they and their enemy are so mixed together that they cannot drag
themselves apart. Never mind: the fate of the palace is already decided. </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="color: black; font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 14pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"> </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="color: black; font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 14pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">“Workers, sailors, soldiers are pushing up from outside in chains
and groups, flinging the cadets from the barricades, bursting through the
court, stumbling into the cadets on the staircase, crowding them back, toppling
them over, driving them upstairs. Another wave comes on behind. The square
pours into the court. The court pours into the palace, and floods up and down
stairways and through corridors. On the befouled parapets, among mattresses and
chunks of bread, people, rifles, hand grenades are wallowing. </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="color: black; font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 14pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"> </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="color: black; font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 14pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">“The conquerors find that Kerensky [head of government] is not
there, and a momentary pang of disappointment interrupts their furious joy...
Where is the government?”</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="color: black; font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 14pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"> </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="color: black; font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 14pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">They have long since abandoned the great assembly hall overlooking
the river now full of gunboats. They have retreated to an inner room, as far
away as possible. “That is the door-- there where the cadets stand frozen in
the last pose of resistance. The head sentry rushes to the ministers with a
question: Are we commanded to resist to the end? No, no, the ministers do not
command that. After all, the palace is taken. There is no need for bloodshed.
The ministers desire to surrender with dignity, and sit at the table in
imitation of a session of the government.”<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>[403-4] </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="color: black; font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 14pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="color: black; font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 14pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">The last guards are disarmed. The door crashes open. Backed by the
crowd, the Bolshevik commissar takes the ministers’ credentials and declares
their arrest. The officers and cadets of the defense are allowed to go free. As
the ministers are led away through square, there are shouts: “Death to them!
Shoot them!”<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Some soldiers strike
at the prisoners. The commissar and the Red Guards stick to the ritual of
victory, escorting the overthrown authorities to prison, an act of taking their
place.</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="color: black; font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 14pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"> </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="color: black; font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 14pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">Physically these scenes at the Winter Palace look a lot like the
Capitol in January 2021: Both buildings are labyrinths, huge complexes of
assembly chambers, galleries, halls, stairwells, meeting rooms, offices. There
are tunnels,<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>secret passages,
escape routes, hidden doors. There are main entrances, back entrances, side
entrances. Especially when some people are evacuating and others intruding,
there are plenty of mix-ups; sometimes crowded clashes, standoffs with barely
room to swing about; sometimes guards or protestors, one side or another, find
themselves outnumbered; sometimes-- as we see in photos-- lone protestors
striding through grand spaces with their flags or booty; sometimes arrestees
sprawled on the floor under guard, sometimes a thin line of guards backed up
against a door. Both attackers and defenders are swallowed up by the building,
forces stretched thin and unable to be everywhere at once. Both sides are
uncertain, confused, without chains of command on the spot; unclear what is
behind a door, who has what weapons, how our forces are holding out or making
inroads; how many are smashing through openings and preparing to rush inside.
Members of Congress hunker down in the rows between the seats, and are led away
by security forces to subterranean hallways, take refuge in a basement
cafeteria like the Russian officers hiding in the buffet. Some attackers wander
about in remote corridors; in 2021, getting into Congressional offices, taking
selfies, rifling through desks. In 1917, Russian militants and defender cadets
alike fill their pockets with expensive knick-knacks from the sprawling palace.
Some are fighting; many are not. We will come back to the points of violence.</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="color: black; font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 14pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"> </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="color: black; font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 14pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">To summarize the pattern, so confusing in detail and lived
experience, let us invoke the tottering gyroscopes of organization in varying
levels of breakdown: first the point of view from below on the front lines,
then the view of chains of authority from above. Start with 1917; then 2021.</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="color: black; font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 14pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"> </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><span style="color: black; font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 14pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">Wavering among
government forces: </span></i><span style="color: black; font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 14pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">We have seen the Winter Palace guards, heavily armed but mostly
tired, bored and discouraged. Sometimes they let their guns be taken away from
them. Sometimes they fire across the courtyard, mostly missing (not unusual in
the sociology of combat). Sometimes they are ordered not to fire first-- but
who can tell who starts it? Their sympathies are not at all with the
revolution; they are elite military cadets, although going into action for the
first time. Nevertheless the mood and pressure of the situation determines
whether they fire or not. They have moments of hope; the enemy is holding back,
maybe they too are experiencing difficulties, maybe help is on its way. </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="color: black; font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 14pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"> </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="color: black; font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 14pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">The hardened Cossacks, an alien ethnic group amid the Russian
population, used for administering whippings and massacres to uphold authority,
are expected to be the bulwark of the defense. But now they hesitate. They will
obey orders to support the Winter Palace; but-- first they need assurances they
will not be alone, there should also be infantry, artillery, armored cars. The
government assures them these will be there. In fact they are not; Cossacks get
wind of it, or suspect it. They are preparing to move-- telephone messages go
between barracks and Palace-- but they don’t move. A few Cossack units reach
the Palace; after assessing the situation, the atmosphere, the lack of chain of
command, they negotiate with the besiegers a retreat through a secret exit. </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="color: black; font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 14pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"> </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="color: black; font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 14pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">And so it goes with reinforcements from the front. The government
wants to send unreliable units out from the capital, and bring back reliable
units. But ministers can talk only to officers who are their sympathizers, or
at least their yes-men. Chains of command are poor in the army as well; and the
railroads are not under their control. Within the military units we know most
about, mainly the naval forces who have mutinied to the Bolsheviks or have
cowed their officers into going along with them, there remains hesitation about
using force. Artillery assault is called for; but the gunners complain their
guns are not ready; when they finally fire, it seems they don’t want to hit
anything, hoping the situation will resolve itself. They are holding open their
options, waiting to see which side is going to lose. </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="color: black; font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 14pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"> </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><span style="color: black; font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 14pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">Wavering among
government politicians: </span></i><span style="color: black; font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 14pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The government is not
set up to act with decisiveness, for it is a coalition of hold-overs from the
czarist regime and a variety of parties of differing ideologies and militancy;
of those who took part in the February revolution and those who resisted it.
This is particularly true in the military side of the administration; the
government is now calling on its old enemies to defend it. Meetings in the
Winter Palace agree on little except resisting a second revolution, but even
here politicians are split between those who demand a vigorous crackdown and
those who want a softer policy of conciliation. It all depends on how much of a
show of force they can muster, but this boils down to putting up a frontstage
of optimism that reinforcements are on their way. They waver between optimism
and pessimism. Discussions and arguments take place over the telephone, making
demands to military headquarters, to citizens militias, to Cossack regiments,
to the military schools. </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="color: black; font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 14pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"> </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="color: black; font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 14pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">Moments of optimism come from the confusion of communications, and
indeed the confusion of events themselves. To the extent there is any chain of
command, the government ministers are talking with high officials whose own
authority chains are out of order. Some talk a good show; they are willing to
put down the insurrection, if only they can get some coordinated support.
Others become increasingly exasperated; I agree with your orders, Minister, but
where are the troops to carry them out? Sometimes the revolutionaries can’t
seem to get their act together either; with every lull and delay optimism of
the defenders goes up a notch. It it not a bandwagon-- yet. How long can the
indecisiveness last?</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="color: black; font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 14pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"> </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><span style="color: black; font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 14pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">Wavering among the
revolutionaries: </span></i><span style="color: black; font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 14pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Generically, their
problems are similar, but quantitatively better. Their forces on the ground are
a mixed bag; some ideological militants; some newly joined allies in the navy
and army; old-line officers of dubious loyalty; many holding back to see what
will happen. Politically, too, the left-wing assembly and the local soviets
(councils) are coalitions, not just Bolsheviks but other factions and splits
left over from 15 years of revolutionary politics. On present policy, the
divisions are among those who want to press their advantage right now, and
those who are cautious, worried, or hoping for a peaceful transfer of power.
Lenin, Trotsky and their faction want to present the waverers with a fait
accompli, and that means taking the Winter Palace before it is reinforced.
Emotionally, they have a recent bandwagon in their favor, the successful
take-over of the city the previous day. </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="color: black; font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 14pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"> </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="color: black; font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 14pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">But a bandwagon has to keep moving to new adherents and new
successes; if it stalls, the mood starts flowing away. The militants are
mobilized; they must be put into action against the final target. But realistically,
there are logistical and organizational problems to work out. Plans to use
their military supporters to surround the Winter Palace, to bring combined arms
into action-- all these are too complicated for a newly improvised structure.
And in any case, this is counting too much of organization from the top. Their
biggest resource at the moment is the spontaneity of the self-propelling crowd.
The Bolshevik network is capable of getting the most militant workers and
sailors on the spot, if with enough lags and delays to give hopes to the
defenders. At this point a crowd surge develops. Intersecting with the mood
inside the Winter Palace, the tipping point tips.</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="color: black; font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 14pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"> </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><span style="color: black; font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 14pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">Top-down and bottom-up</span></i><span style="color: black; font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 14pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="color: black; font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 14pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"> </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="color: black; font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 14pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">Enthusiastic self-mobilizing crowds, and the strategies of
political elites, play into each other. Politics in normal times is almost
entirely the province of political elites. But when crowds repeatedly mobilize
themselves with their own indigenous networks and organizations, they become
social movements with momentum and tactics of their own. Such movements can
change the career trajectories of politicians, on the whole more than vice
versa. The world history of labor movements, or of racial/ethnic movements,
give ample evidence of this. </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="color: black; font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 14pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"> </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="color: black; font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 14pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">If we need recent examples of how energized crowds carry
politicians along pathways with a vehemence they may not have anticipated,
consider how Bernie Sanders’ campaign in 2016 ballooned from token opposition
to serious challenge to Hillary Clinton; Trump’s discovery that his reality-TV
methods generated such crowd enthusiasm that he kept feeding off of rallies
throughout his 4 years in office; the Black Lives Matter demonstrations<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>in spring and summer 2020, creating a
political bandwagon whose stronghold became the Democrat-controlled House of
Representatives. And which became the target for the counter-mobilization
culminating in the January 6 assault. Trump’s emotional addiction to rallies
took him down the slope of political psychosis, the delusion that the size of
his crowds meant he couldn’t possibly have lost the popular vote-- a delusion
shared by the rallies themselves.</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="color: black; font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 14pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"> </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="color: black; font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 14pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">There is always a danger, as a sociologist, of being emotionally
too close to an event to see what is going on, what the patterns are and the
relative weight of the various forces. Our ideological labels, Left and Right,
don’t help. We have seen enough of Petersburg in 1917 to recognize the most
general features of Washington in January 2021. But we have to abstract away
from the particular names and issues, to get at the dynamics.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>If the Presidency is on their side, can
the attackers at the Capitol be a revolution, or a counter-revolution, or a
coup?<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Or is it Smolny Institute
against the Winter Palace again? Better to invoke the imagery of two spinning
gyroscopes, tottering or staying upright. From this perspective, attacker and
defender are subject to the same dynamics, differing only quantitatively. Look
at who wavers when and how much:</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="color: black; font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 14pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"> </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><span style="color: black; font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 14pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">Wavering among official
forces at the Capitol:</span></i><span style="color: black; font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 14pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="color: black; font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 14pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"> </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="color: black; font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 14pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">It needs to be appreciated that many different officials and
organizations had a role in the defense of the Capitol, with no command center.
Advance intelligence about possible attacks by militant groups and unorganized
protestors came from the FBI, military intelligence agencies, and civilian
organizations like the Anti-Defamation League. These differed widely on how
seriously on-line rhetoric about violence should be taken. Advance estimates of
the crowd size to be expected ranged from 2,000 to 80,000. </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="color: black; font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 14pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"> </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="color: black; font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 14pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">Forces that could be brought into action included: (a) the
Metropolitan Police of the District of Columbia, reporting to the Mayor; (b)
the Capitol Police, under a Police Chief, as well as a Sergeant-at-Arms for the
House of Representatives, and another Sergeant-at-Arms for the Senate; these
latter reporting to the Speaker and Majority Leader; (c) the Secret Service,
armed plain-clothes officers protecting not only the President but all those in
the chain of succession, notably the Vice President and Speaker of the House;
(d) other federal officers, including FBI<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>SWAT teams, Dept. of Homeland Security, and Bureau of Alcohol,
Tobacco,<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Firearms and Explosives;
(e) US military forces under the Secretary of Defense; the US Army specifically
under the Secretary of the Army; (f) the National Guard forces of each state,
which can be deployed under orders from each Governor, although coordinated
with the Secretary of the Army; (g) the National Guard of the District of
Columbia, which not being a state, could only be called out by the President.
Altogether these make up at least 15 quasi-autonomous officials and agencies
(not counting the 50 state Governors and National Guards). The array gave
plenty of room for communication and coordination problems, not to mention
differences in policy and partisan splits-- not least with President Trump
urging on the protestors and resisting mobilizing Federal forces. Chains of
command were sometimes upheld, sometimes breached.</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="color: black; font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 14pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"> </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="color: black; font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 14pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">To sample these disagreements: Washington D.C. Mayor on December
31, 2020 (7 days before the Electoral College count) requested calling out the
D.C. National Guard, but only to provide unarmed crowd management and traffic
control; this was approved by the Acting Secretary of Defense on January 4,
calling up 340 troops but no more than 115 at a time. There must have been
splits in the Pentagon, since on Jan. 3 some officials offered the National
Guard; but Metropolitan Police Chief said later they had no intelligence that
the Capitol would be invaded, and Capitol Police Chief said it would be
unnecessary. The latter had 2000 uniformed cops, but assigned only normal
staffing levels (ordinarily there are 4 40-hours shifts per week, so the number
available would be about 500, minus administrative personnel). Accustomed to
dealing with tourists and peaceful protests, they counted on a soft, friendly
style to keep the crowd in hand. The Capitol Police Chief also said he didn’t
like the impression it would give if armed troops were photographed around the
Capitol; a sentiment echoed by some military officials. </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="color: black; font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 14pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"> </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="color: black; font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 14pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">Once the attack began, disagreements persisted for a while over
how severe the breach was. Around 1 p.m., when hundreds of rioters pushed aside
barriers and climbed to the higher terraces outside the Capitol, the House
Representative chairing the Committee in charge of security called the Capitol
Police Chief but couldn’t get through; the House Sergeant-at-Arms, assured her
that the doors are locked and no one can get in. Shortly after, Capitol Police
Chief (who was not on site but at his headquarters) called the House and
Senate Sergeants-at-Arms for emergency declarations from their respective
chambers to call the National Guard; they replied they would “run it up the
chain” of command. The Democrat-controlled House side got their approval about
an hour later, after windows and doors were broken in and rioters entered the
building. On the Republican-controlled Senate side, the Sergeant-at-Arms
apparently never did notify<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>the
leadership. Rioters reached the Senate around 2.15, just after its doors were
locked. At the same time, the House recessed briefly when Secret Service
escorted the Speaker out; but resumed debate again at 2.25-- apparently
thinking the disturbance was minor. They recessed for good at 2.30, as rioters
noisily banged on the doors. </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="color: black; font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 14pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"> </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="color: black; font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 14pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">By this time the Capitol Police Chief in a conference call
urgently requested National Guard “boots on the ground”. The conversation was
described as chaotic as everyone asked questions at the same time.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The General directing the Army Staff<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>resisted, arguing “I don’t like the
visual of the National Guard standing a police line with the Capitol in the
background,” and that only the Secretary of the Army (who was in different
meeting) had authority to approve the request. Finally at 3 p.m. the Secretary
of Defense authorized deploying the 1,100 troops of the D.C. National Guard,
but restricted from carrying ammunition and sharing equipment with police
without prior approval. Since Trump resisted the order, Pence approved it on
his own authority, breaking the chain of command.</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="color: black; font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 14pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"> </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="color: black; font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 14pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">In the event, it did not make much difference. Metro police sent
100 reinforcements within 10 minutes after the police line was pushed back at 1
p.m. The D.C. National Guard mobilization would take at least 2 hours for its
members to assemble and get equipped at the D.C. Armory. In fact, 150 troops
arrived at the Capitol at 5.40, just as the Capitol Police announce the
building has been cleared of rioters.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>Meanwhile, between 2.30 and 2.50, calls from D.C. Mayor to the Virginia
State Police promised reinforcements, the first of which began arriving in the
city at 3.15; while a request for the Virginia National Guard was authorized by
the Governor but not by the Defense Dept.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>About 3.40 Maryland Governor ordered mobilization in anticipation of
a<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>request, which comes from the
General in charge of the Pentagon National Guard Bureau about 4 p.m. But
Maryland National Guard forces are not expected until next day. At 5 p.m. New
Jersey Governor announced he was sending state police at request of D.C.
officials; and in the evening New York Governor said he would send 1000
National Guards. </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="color: black; font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 14pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"> </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="color: black; font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 14pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">The invasion of the Capitol building itself lasted from about 2.10
to 5.40 p.m., the Senate having been invaded for only a few minutes around
2.30, and the House repelling an attack at 2.45 when one rioter is shot and
killed by plain-clothes security. By 3 p.m., many people who entered the House
side of the building were leaving. On the Senate side, clashes continued until
after 4 p.m.</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="color: black; font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 14pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"> </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="color: black; font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 14pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">By this time the mostly unarmed Capitol Police were reinforced by
ATF tactical teams, and by SWAT teams of the Metro Police in heavy gear. Other
buildings in the Capitol complex, including the Senate Office Building were
cleared by FBI and Homeland Security forces in riot gear around 4.30 p.m.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>At 6.15, the Capitol Police, Metro
Police, and DC National Guard had formed a perimeter around the Capitol,
although several hundred rioters remained in the vicinity until around 8 p.m. </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="color: black; font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 14pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"> </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="color: black; font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 14pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">The promised reinforcements were mostly psychological in effect,
building confidence among the victors. On the front line, the Capitol Police
had put up a delaying resistance, taking about 60 casualties (15 seriously
enough to be hospitalized), with one dead. The Metro Police had 56 injuries.
The rioters apparently got off easier, 1 killed by gunfire, 5 rioters known to
be hospitalized: out of perhaps 300-500 who breached the Capitol, and the
thousands (10,000?) who shouted support outside. Among these latter, 3 died of
heart attacks or other emotional effects of extreme excitement. The shooting
was done by a Capitol Police lieutenant, which appears to have turned the tide.
Heavily armored SWAT teams effectively mopped up die-hard resistance.</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="color: black; font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 14pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"> </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="color: black; font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 14pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">[sources: Associated Press; Wall Street Journal; Washington Post;
Los Angeles Times; published and on-line photos and videos.]</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="color: black; font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 14pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"> </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><span style="color: black; font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 14pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">Police lines retreat,
violence, and crowd management</span></i><span style="color: black; font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 14pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="color: black; font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 14pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"> </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="color: black; font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 14pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">Police retreated in two phases on the West (main) front of the
Capitol; another sequence at the East (rear) of the building involved a smaller
crowd and fewer police. On the East side, a crowd started gathering around 12
noon. On the West side, a larger crowd gathered by 12.30.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>By 12.53, the crowd began to push back
police from barricades of waist-high portable fencing. (My counts from photos
indicate about 2500 people visible in the crowd-- with more further back and on
the wings; against a single line of about 80 police behind the fencing, with
somewhat less than that number spread out in the space behind them.) Over the next
10 minutes, the crowd overran three more rows of barricades, the officers
retreating to the base of the Capitol steps.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Photos and videos of this phase show what looks like a tug
of war, 3-or-4 men on each side of a segment of fencing, which they push to tip
over or hold upright. Occasionally someone on either side rushes forward to
strike across the barrier with baton or stick. The cops are trying hard,
pushing back vigorously. </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="color: black; font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 14pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"> </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="color: black; font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 14pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">Around 1.30, a large crowd arrives from listening to the Trump
rally 14 blocks away. This increases the density of the crowd pushing the
police up the steps to the Capitol terraces. But on the whole, there is an
hour-long standoff, lasting from 1 to 2 p.m., until the break-in to the
building itself.</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="color: black; font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 14pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"> </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="color: black; font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 14pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">Meanwhile on the East side, a smaller police line loses control of
the last barrier at 2 p.m. Information is lacking on when this crowd got
inside, but they must have added to the chaotic situation of<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>intruders in the corridors and tunnels
of the Capitol building complex. They probably also were those who entered
other nearby buildings including the Senate office building, and breaking into
and ransacking offices inside the Capitol complex that went on for several
hours after the main assault crowd from the West front was dispersed.</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="color: black; font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 14pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"> </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="color: black; font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 14pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">Shortly after police lines of the East side collapsed, on the West
front about 2.10 p.m., police are pushed up the grand steps. The emotional
momentum is with the crowd, who break through a side door and window at 2.12
and are inside. Within a few minutes they on the second floor outside the
Senate chamber. Videos show a lone cop rather coolly engaging a dozen intruders,
gesturing at them, turning to climb a stairwell, looking back to make sure they
are following; he has a pistol in his holster but never reaches for it. The
intruders advance surprisingly slowly, hardly more than brisk walking pace; the
cop misleads them away from the doors of the Senate. Alerted security locked
the Senate doors at 2.15, a minute before intruders reached the gallery outside
the chamber. The Senate was evacuated by 2.30, before some attackers briefly
got into the viewer’s gallery, and few climbed down to sit in the presider’s
chair and pose for photos. </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="color: black; font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 14pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"> </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="color: black; font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 14pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">Meanwhile, most of the crowd moved through the Rotunda into the
House wing around 2.30 (the Representatives started evacuating after 2.20). As
they pounded on the doors shouting to find Pelosi,<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>a group of about a dozen followed a side corridor to reach a
windowed door into the Speaker’s lobby, near a staircase used just before to
complete the evacuation. Videos show them arguing with three police who rather
calmly guard the door; they wear no helmets or riot gear, and pass the word
they are being relieved by a heavily armored tactical squad. In the two minutes
when the police withdraw to make room for their reinforcements, the mob pounds
on the door, shouting and breaking the windows in the upper doors with a
helmet, fists and stick. Meanwhile, photos taken from the inside of the House
chamber itself show five plain-clothes officers in suits, behind an improvised
barricade of furniture, aiming handguns at the main doors where the crowd is
clamoring to get in. These are not the same as the officer in the lobby at the
rear of the House, who shot and killed Air Force veteran Ashli Babbitt,
climbing through the broken door window at 2.44 pm. It was the last peak of
momentum of the attackers. </span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="color: black; font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 14pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="color: black; font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 14pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="color: black; font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 14pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"></span></p><table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj22r16Iybhy8Nzr5lzIrYA5LYMzT9FicYzA27Q3EY_TI7_nB0Xa0j4H-7DldZeKHjBKE38a5Vw3YpMq76guhgex0dKMU2HutxnPgZVZ6WIZv6WhLtcAA5MQsb5xrY_yPBB5VtTl2ZtWKgn/s992/calmcop%252Cgunholstered-.jpg" style="clear: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="558" data-original-width="992" height="225" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj22r16Iybhy8Nzr5lzIrYA5LYMzT9FicYzA27Q3EY_TI7_nB0Xa0j4H-7DldZeKHjBKE38a5Vw3YpMq76guhgex0dKMU2HutxnPgZVZ6WIZv6WhLtcAA5MQsb5xrY_yPBB5VtTl2ZtWKgn/w400-h225/calmcop%252Cgunholstered-.jpg" width="400" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="color: black; font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 14pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="color: black; font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 14pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">Calm
cop, gun holstered</span></p></td></tr></tbody></table><span style="color: black; font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 14pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"><br /> </span><p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="color: black; font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 14pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"> </span><span style="color: black; font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 14pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"><span style="color: black; font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 14pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">On the whole, there is little evidence of panic among the police;
they put up a strong resistance at each barricade outside the building until
pushed back by crowd pressure. Inside, photos and videos show the police
largely calm. The greatest tension is in the faces and body postures of the police getting ready
to fire if the House door is breached.</span> </span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="color: black; font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 14pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> <br /></span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="color: black; font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 14pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"></span></span></p><table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjvWU5uILJQlk9RHxon-33h32quKCuvSeVofXpEb2eXq0JTS6iq6zLzTpJB9wk2jHgPGiGb9Rx_pz9f1yKKzicF6zYsszGW9wLOurK-spzzRLeUfuh9eCctZxyp6CI6b7rgcFMgNgXP1Li8/s1836/House%252Cguns-.jpg" style="clear: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1021" data-original-width="1836" height="223" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjvWU5uILJQlk9RHxon-33h32quKCuvSeVofXpEb2eXq0JTS6iq6zLzTpJB9wk2jHgPGiGb9Rx_pz9f1yKKzicF6zYsszGW9wLOurK-spzzRLeUfuh9eCctZxyp6CI6b7rgcFMgNgXP1Li8/w400-h223/House%252Cguns-.jpg" width="400" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="color: black; font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 14pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"></span>Capitol police point guns at House
door</span></td></tr></tbody></table><p></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="color: black; font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 14pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"></span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="color: black; font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 14pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"></span> <br /></span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="color: black; font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 14pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">Other photos show the most intense emotions at moments when the
Rotunda is crowded with both sides mixed together: police in riot gear--helmets
with plastic visors-- rioters in MAGA hats, hockey helmets, stocking caps,
bare-headed, a few flags visible and more than a few mobile phones taking
pictures. My count gives about 150 persons pushed together at close quarters,
approximately equal numbers of both sides. In the distance along the far wall,
we can see about 50 cops lined up in riot gear; the impression is they are held
in reserve, as the tide has turned and the rioters are being driven into
retreat. There are more cops than rioters in the foreground. </span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><br /></p><span style="color: black; font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 14pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"> </span><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="color: black; font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 14pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"></span></p><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh90Pltu_YzOctfFtp5chDF_lhkBQlv7Ewb0s36t1yaI0kI3zfUvFl4jP8LXSd5Kx2CSLrUUlvx3PgJaRBFaI_dF4FkUveI-BJDn3zANd8roC3FTG-PUsY7q_5VWEkiX7CwL-2ijQ8s5WjQ/s2048/Rotunda-melee.jpg" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1227" data-original-width="2048" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh90Pltu_YzOctfFtp5chDF_lhkBQlv7Ewb0s36t1yaI0kI3zfUvFl4jP8LXSd5Kx2CSLrUUlvx3PgJaRBFaI_dF4FkUveI-BJDn3zANd8roC3FTG-PUsY7q_5VWEkiX7CwL-2ijQ8s5WjQ/w400-h240/Rotunda-melee.jpg" width="400" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="color: black; font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 14pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">Melee
in the Rotunda</span></td></tr></tbody></table><span style="color: black; font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 14pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"> </span><p></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="color: black; font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 14pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">How violent was it? Although news reports noted that rioters had
guns and explosives, this seems to be based mainly on discoveries away from the
Capitol: home-made pipe bombs at the Republican National Committee and
Democratic National Committee headquarters. A street search found a parked
vehicle with a handgun, assault rifle, ammunition, and homemade napalm bombs.*
These reports raised alarm in the Capitol, and spread the belief that the
rioters, including the one who was shot and killed in the House lobby, were an
armed threat. Except for that shooting, the weaponry used on both sides was
surprisingly low-level. The</span><span style="color: black; font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 14pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"> Capitol police had a considerable arsenal at their disposal, but
initially the officers inside the building were in regular uniform; those at
the barricades outside were in riot gear, with helmets, shields and batons.
Within an hour after the breach, photos show forces inside mostly in riot
gear.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></span>
</p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="color: black; font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 14pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"> </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="color: black; font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 14pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">* This home-made arsenal is similar to those accumulated by school
rampage shooters obsessed with a private cult of accumulating weapons, few of
which they actually use. <a href="http://sociological-eye.blogspot.com/2012/09/">Collins, </a><i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><a href="http://sociological-eye.blogspot.com/2012/09/">Clues
to Mass Rampage Killers</a>.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></i></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="color: black; font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 14pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"> </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="color: black; font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 14pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">Some rioters wore a version of riot gear, helmets, military-style
vests. These were prominent among the dozen or so who scaled the West front of
the Capitol to reach the top terrace. This appears to have been showing off,
since photos show the crowd was already up the side steps and behind the police
lines. It may well be that the most heavily equipped<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>rioters were either police or military personnel (current or
former), including ideological militias. In fact they seemed to believe they
were taking part in a legitimate police mission of their own, carrying plastic
handcuffs to arrest “traitors”. But their “weapons” were more in the nature of
accoutrements; handcuffs are not offensive weapons, although strongly
identified with cops; similarly with the two-way radios some carried; and with
reports of “stun grenades”, what SWAT teams call “flash-bangs” used to confuse
a hostage-taker, which is to say a device to avoid using lethal violence if
possible. </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="color: black; font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 14pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">The rioters’ main high-tech offensive weapon was “bear spray”--
high-intensity pepper spray used as protection against wild animals by outdoor
campers and hikers. It is unclear how often or in what situations it was used.*
What is most in evidence are flag poles (doubling as emblems), and sticks,
chiefly used to break windows. </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="color: black; font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 14pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">* The only photo I have seen among several hundred posted is of a
young man in helmet and gas mask, outside at the base of the Capitol, who sprays
a brown liquid across an empty space in the crowd while running with his head
turned the other way. This was probably around 12.50 p.m. when the crowd first
surged against police lines. There are several photos of police spraying a
clear liquid at protestors, in these external scenes. </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="color: black; font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 14pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"> </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="color: black; font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 14pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">One of the most violent incidents of which we have a description
took place during the peak moment of conflict outside the West front, when the
crowd found a relatively lightly guarded side door where they eventually broke
in. Three cops were pulled out of the defensive line (to make room for the
attackers), and shoved down the steps. Cut off from support and surrounded by a
large crowd, they were beaten with “hockey sticks, crutches, flags, poles, and
stolen police shields”-- on the whole, improvised weapons. In the sociology of
violence, this is called a “forward panic,” where a group that has been in an
intense confrontation suddenly finds the balance has broken, one side is
suddenly at the mercy of the other, and an emotional surge of adrenaline takes
over and results in a beating characterized by piling on and overkill.
[Collins, <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Violent Conflict</i>]<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Unlike in most military and
police-chase situations, here the victims escaped alive-- the difference being,
no one had guns.</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="color: black; font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 14pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"> </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="color: black; font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 14pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">The most serious casualties caused by the attackers were from
improvised weapons found on the spot: fire extinguishers.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>One incident happened, again at the
flashpoint on the West front, after 2 p.m. as the police line was breached.
[Wall St. Journal Jan. 15, 2021 A6] The attacker, retired from a
Philadelphia-area fire department, threw a fire extinguisher at the police
line, hitting three officers in the head (one of them not wearing a helmet).
That officer was evaluated at a hospital and returned to duty. This was a
separate incident from the one inside the Capitol where a police officer was
killed. Apparently during a struggle in a crowded corridor, Officer Brian
Sicknick was knocked down or hit from behind on the head by a fire extinguisher.
Although details are lacking, this is in keeping with the typical pattern in
deadly violence: no eye contact when the attack is made. The same is the case
with Ashli Babbitt, who was unarmed, but the officer who shot her was at the
climax of a tense situation, the House Chamber about to be invaded, a noisy
threat outside the door, then a sudden intrusion right at the gun tensely held
by both hands pointed at the entry window. In the sociology of violence, close
face-to-face confrontations are emotionally stressful on both sides, pumping
adrenaline to the level where most participants are incompetent with their
weapons, unable to fire accurately; perceptually, it becomes a blur. A minority
of highly trained soldiers and police control their adrenaline enough to pull
the trigger under such situations; an even smaller minority hit their target. </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="color: black; font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 14pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"> </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="color: black; font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 14pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">The most striking thing about the violence at the Capitol is that
so little of it came from gunfire. Many hundreds of police on the scene had
guns; except at the climax of the attack on the House, none were fired, and few
were drawn or aimed. A rare photo of 5 captive rioters shows them lying prone
on the floor, guarded by 3 cops with a baton but guns holstered. On the side of
the protestors, 5 guns were seized, although it unclear if these were inside
the Capitol-- if so, they were never used. Sociologically, this is neither
amazing, nor is it a point in anyone’s favor or fault: it is the most typical
pattern of armed confrontations. Whether by police, gangs, robbers, or military
in combat, in the vast majority of confrontations with guns, they are not used.
</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="color: black; font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 14pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"> </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="color: black; font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 14pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">Victory or defeat, advancing or retreating, is far more emotional
and psychological than physical violence itself. This pattern holds too at the
Capitol, as it does in 1917 and 1792.</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="color: black; font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 14pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"> </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><span style="color: black; font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 14pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">Fraternization</span></i><span style="color: black; font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 14pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="color: black; font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 14pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"> </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="color: black; font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 14pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">Fraternization between protestors and regime forces has played a
major part in any successful revolution. In Russia in 1917, agitation by
Bolshevik sympathizers inside the army and navy prepared the way by bringing
them over to their side; and it was these militants and the most convinced
sailors who made the attack on the Winter Palace. And in the early hours of the
attack, agitators inside created confusion and promoted the defection of most
of the defending troops. There are numerous examples of this pattern. The
downfall of the Soviet Union was consummated in August 1991 when tanks sent to
take over the parliament building were surrounded by crowds, and Boris Yeltsin
climbed on top of a tank to take command from its stunned and demoralized crew.
In the most famous of the Arab Spring revolts in 2011, crowds in Cairo’s Tahrir
Square chanted “the army and the people are one hand” as security forces first
refused to expel the protestors, then changed sides to protect them against
last-ditch attacks by Mubarak’s militia enforcers. </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="color: black; font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 14pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"> </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="color: black; font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 14pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">Armed forces swinging over in a tidal wave happens when two
conditions hold: when rebellion appears right and just to a vast majority of
people (maybe just those who are most visible in the capital city); and when it
seems inevitable, making it dangerous to hold back. The first of these
conditions existed to a degree at the Capitol; the second hardly at all. </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="color: black; font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 14pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"> </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="color: black; font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 14pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">The attackers certainly made efforts at solidarity with the
police. Reportedly some rioters showed police badges or military IDs as if
expecting to be allowed inside. A Capitol police officer said one rioter
displayed a badge and said “we’re doing this for you.”<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Some intruders wore the “thin blue line”
emblem of support for the police. Some videos showed police standing back and
allowing rioters into the building; one officer was seen in a “selfie” with a
rioter inside the building. Especially inside, where during the initial phases
the police were not in riot gear, police tended to maintain normal demeanor and
to talk quietly with the intruders. Afterwards, some Representatives accused
the police of complicity, including giving them directions to specific offices,
or giving them preliminary tours of the layout. Two Capitol police were suspended
and ten or more were under investigation. One officer committed suicide. </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="color: black; font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 14pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"> </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="color: black; font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 14pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">The police were also criticized for making very few arrests (about
30 on the Capitol grounds, mostly outside), and for letting the hundreds of
intruders get away once control was regained after 3 p.m.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>In fact, it appears the police were
most concerned to clear the Capitol, and the most expeditious way to do it was
to push or lead them out the doors. Making arrests is like taking prisoners in
a battle; it is the most honorific protocol, but prisoners take up manpower to
guard them. Bear in mind that all this happened before reinforcements started
arriving at the Capitol about 6 p.m. Most of the arrests that did happen were
apparently outside in the evening, when a large number of police chased down
the die-hards from the demonstration.</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="color: black; font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 14pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"> </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="color: black; font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 14pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">Most of this behavior was ambiguous. One gets the impression from
watching videos made inside the building that the officers not in battle dress
tried to maintain as much of an atmosphere of normalcy as possible. In the
initial phase of entry, the intruders once inside walked rather tentatively,
not rushing about in a frenzy but even staying inside velvet guide ropes set up
for tourists. Photos in this phase generally showed thin numbers spread out in a
lot of space; police presence in the halls and Rotunda was sparse or
non-existent. </span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="color: black; font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 14pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="color: black; font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 14pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"></span></p><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjFCayfaAvsmIV_S9ByNBm0iFkojLGlzyL8wdGsjBvafQLbpmrW3KAWnZeBNgVtJELwDQGnZbbAdl2i10PCjnpiJUMVrM5s2ytt9hNtWMn8vNt6RhEJhG8Ft7TCJVwSlQdch_CIACflYk53/s2048/INT-EWing-uncrowded-scene.jpg" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1366" data-original-width="2048" height="266" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjFCayfaAvsmIV_S9ByNBm0iFkojLGlzyL8wdGsjBvafQLbpmrW3KAWnZeBNgVtJELwDQGnZbbAdl2i10PCjnpiJUMVrM5s2ytt9hNtWMn8vNt6RhEJhG8Ft7TCJVwSlQdch_CIACflYk53/w400-h266/INT-EWing-uncrowded-scene.jpg" width="400" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="color: black; font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 14pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"> </span><span style="color: black; font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 14pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">Thin numbers in the East Wing</span></td></tr></tbody></table><span style="color: black; font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 14pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"><br /></span><span style="color: black; font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 14pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"></span><p></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="color: black; font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 14pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"> Riot-equipped forces were concentrated outside, while tactical
squads in riot gear, visible in later photos, had not yet mustered inside.
Under these circumstances, it is not surprising the cops were not interested in
putting up violent resistance. The exception, of course, was when the intruders
reached their goal-- the legislative chambers themselves; above all at the
doors of the House, the only place where guns were drawn, and used. And these
were the places where the crowds grew most agitated, shouting threats and
slogans and trying to smash their way in. </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="color: black; font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 14pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"> </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="color: black; font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 14pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">Current or former police officers and military personnel were
prominent in the front lines pushing back the barricades, and among those who
got inside. Later investigations concentrated on persons identified by photos
and videos or their own on-line posts; among these about one-fifth of the
hundred or so investigations were police or military. Most prominent of all was
Ashli Babbitt, veteran of many deployments in Iraq, who was a security officer
(i.e. military police) in the Air Force. </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="color: black; font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 14pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"> </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="color: black; font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 14pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">Two comments: first, it is typical in riots that the great
majority of the crowd are onlookers and noise-making supporters; only about 10
percent or less of the persons seen in riot photos are actually doing something
violent, engaging the other side. It may well be the case that those who carry
the battle are specialists in violence, as Charles Tilly calls them, tough
guys, athletes and weapons specialists on either side of the law. (One of those
charged at the Capitol was an Olympic gold-medalist swimmer.) </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="color: black; font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 14pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"> </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="color: black; font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 14pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">Second: in the overall context of recent years and months, it is
not surprising that some substantial portion of American police, as well as
military, are disgruntled. Among veterans and active-duty military, the suicide
rate has been at a peak; the psychological toll of fighting for almost 20 years
in seemingly endless wars in the Middle East; a professional (non-draftee)
force repeatedly deployed, isolated from the majority of the home population;
wars where victories repeatedly proved temporary and reversible; and where news
publicity concentrated more on atrocities against the enemy than on American
accomplishments. Since a substantial portion of police are veterans (the job
where their training is most relevant), there is a bond of sympathy between the
two occupations. </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="color: black; font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 14pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"> </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="color: black; font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 14pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">The police themselves have experienced the historically strongest wave
of criticism in the media and from liberal politicians. Starting in the 1990s
when amateur video of violent police arrests became publicized, protest has
accelerated with the proliferation of mobile-phone cameras, CCTV, and
near-instantaneous propagation through the Internet. Police shootings and
violent arrests have resulted in a series of protest demonstrations nationwide
periodically dominating the news cycle since Ferguson, Missouri in 2014,
Baltimore in 2015, and others. The most intense protests were those starting in
late May 2020, in the midst of dissention over the COVID shut-down; these were
the most widespread and long-lasting ever, extending into September and beyond
in hot spots such as Seattle and Portland. More than in any previous protests,
most news media supported these Black Lives Matter protests and related
actions; publicizing and endorsing their calls to defund the police; blaming
local police for racism; blaming violence on Federal intervention by the Trump
administration; downplaying arson and attacks on police stations, courthouses,
and government buildings. Many police felt they were being unfairly blamed for
the actions of a few, with little understanding for doing a tough job in a
period of sharply rising homicide in minority neighbourhoods. </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="color: black; font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 14pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"> </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="color: black; font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 14pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">In the context of an election campaign, both parties rallied to
the issue: Democrat politicians on the whole endorsed BLM demands for
whole-sale revision not only of policing but the historical legacy of slavery
and racism. A wave of tearing down Civil War statues of Confederates expanded
into renaming and expunging almost anyone in US history who could be implicated
in slave-holding, words or deeds detrimental to Native Americans, or European
settlement of North America in general. These included Benjamin Franklin,
Thomas Jefferson, Andrew Jackson, Abraham Lincoln, Ulysses Grant, and Teddy
Roosevelt. In June 2020, in the midst of the protests over the death of George
Floyd, the Democrat controlled House of Representatives voted to change the
District of Columbia into a state renamed Douglass Commonwealth, replacing
Christopher<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Columbus with the
abolitionist Frederick Douglass. Corporations were pressured into re-education
programs at which employees were told to avow their guilt in being white.</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="color: black; font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 14pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"> </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="color: black; font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 14pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">Conflict moves by escalation and counter-escalation. Social
movements on both sides mobilized from below; politicians attached themselves
to the emotional momentum. An attack, both verbal and physical, on the police
led to counter-mobilization. Some of it built upon existing right-wing militias
and conspiracy-publicists, gaining recruits to the Proud Boys and others who
took the defense of the police installations into their own hands. A strange
coalition of<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>extremists and police
was created, at least in goals and sympathies, which only became manifest in
the assault on the Capitol. </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="color: black; font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 14pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"> </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="color: black; font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 14pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">This was the atmosphere in which Trump supporters, polarized
against the BLM protests, the left-dominated media, and the congressional
Democrats, acquired the emotional conviction that their country was being taken
from them. The slogan of the stolen vote was a symbol of this larger feeling.
Trump fed it with his rallies, ritualistic emotional-energy generators that
swing belief into line with a surge of collective feeling. The Durkheimian
collectivity always feels like <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">we</i> are
Society, <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">we</i> are the People; it is not
quantitative but embodied and totalistic. Riding this emotional wave, they
swarmed the Capitol. The effort to fraternize with the Capitol police came out
of this conviction. </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="color: black; font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 14pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"> </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="color: black; font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 14pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">But a Durkheimian political groundswell must be overwhelming; it
reaches its nemesis when there is a counter-mobilization on the other side. Two
wavering bodies, with their usual disorientation and lack of smooth
coordination at moments of crisis, do not create the ingredient that sways the
behavior of security forces at the hinge of events: the feeling that revolution
is inevitable, better to join it than be left in the minority opposing it. The
Capitol police, whatever twinges of sympathy or moments of soft demeanour they
displayed, for the most part stayed firm.</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="color: black; font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 14pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"> </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><span style="color: black; font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 14pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">Looting and ritual
destruction</span></i><span style="color: black; font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 14pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="color: black; font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 14pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"> </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="color: black; font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 14pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">By ritual destruction I mean behavior that is seemingly
purposeless, to outsiders and opponents. But it is meaningful, or at least
deeply impulsive, for those who do it: a collective, social emotion for those
involved.</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="color: black; font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 14pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"> </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="color: black; font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 14pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">Looting is generally of this sort. It rarely takes anything of
value. In riots, including those that take place in electrical black-outs, the
early looters tend to be professional thieves, but the crowds that come out to
look and see broken-in store fronts are often caught with goods that they have
no use for; they just join in the collective mood, a holiday from moral
restraints when everything seems available for free.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>(This is also visible in photos taken during the looting
phase of riots.) </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="color: black; font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 14pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"> </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="color: black; font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 14pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">In political protests and uprisings, looting does something else.
Usually in the first phase of riot, especially a neighbourhood riot, after the
first confrontation with the police, there is a lull while the police withdraw
from the outnumbering crowd to regroup and bring reinforcements. In this lull,
the emotional mood will drain away unless there is something for the crowd to
do. Looting is a way to keep the riot going-- sometimes along with arson, even
if it means burning your own neighbourhood; the smoke and flames in the sky
carry a visual message of how serious the situation is. And looting is made
possible, and easy, because police are visibly absent. Without opposition, the
atmosphere is like a holiday; and at least temporarily it is a victory over the
absent enemy. Looting is emotionally easy; there is no face-to-face
confrontation. It provides a kind of pseudo-victory over the symbols of the
enemy.</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="color: black; font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 14pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"> </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="color: black; font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 14pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">This was the situation in the Capitol after about 3 p.m. The
attackers had been driven back from their political targets. Heavily equipped
and menacing-looking tactical police squads are now pushing back the crowd,
chiefly in the dense areas of the Capitol around the Rotunda. But it is a building
with several wings and multiple floors, numerous stairs, a labyrinth of
offices. This is the period when rioters spread out, penetrating far-flung
corners where the last would not be dislodged until after 5 p.m. This is when
the looting and ritual destruction mostly took place.</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="color: black; font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 14pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"> </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="color: black; font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 14pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">A prime target was House Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s office. Looters
flipped over tables, ripped photos off the walls, damaged her name plate on the
door. One of her laptops was stolen, as were those in other offices. The office
of the Senate Parliamentarian was ransacked, as were other offices. Some places
had graffiti: “Murder the media” was one of them, at Press rooms with damaged
recording and broadcast equipment. These we can interpret as specific political
targets. </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="color: black; font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 14pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"> </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="color: black; font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 14pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">Broken doors and cracked or smashed windows were throughout the
building, leaving the floors littered with glass and debris. Some of this
happened in the process of breaking into locked areas. But it continued in
remote office spaces; presumably this was ritualistic destruction, just
prolonging the attack-- precisely in places where guards were not present,
while their main force was concentrated elsewhere. </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="color: black; font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 14pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"> </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="color: black; font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 14pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">Photos taken in the aftermath do not show a great deal of trash or
destruction in the main corridors. Some of the furniture piled up was from
improvised barricades by the defenders. Art works in the main galleries and
display areas were not attacked-- presumably these had little meaning as enemy
targets for the intruders. Some statues and portraits were covered with
“corrosive gas agent residue”-- this would include tear gas and smoke bombs set
off by the defenders, and (perhaps a small amount of) bear spray used by the
attackers. In other words, this damage was an unintended by-product of the
fighting that took place. Note too that these were “non-violent” weapons,
designed to drive away opponents and avoiding lethal force. </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="color: black; font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 14pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"> </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="color: black; font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 14pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">If the looting and ritual destruction was intended to be a
symbolic attack upon the Capitol, it succeeded in frightening and angering its
officials. It was a ritualistic exercise on both sides-- which is to say, a war
of emotions.</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="color: black; font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 14pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"> </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="color: black; font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 14pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">A far more destructive instance is the last comparison we will
consider.</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="color: black; font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 14pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"> </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><span style="color: black; font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 14pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">Paris, August 10, 1792</span></i><span style="color: black; font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 14pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="color: black; font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 14pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"> </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="color: black; font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 14pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">It was the day the French Revolution turned radical. Up till now
it was<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>a Constitutional Monarchy,
the King ruling together with the Assembly. But tension had grown as the King
vetoed punitive laws against nobles who fled the country and priests who
refused to become civil servants. Tension grew worse as foreign troops threatened
French territory to restore the old monarchy.</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="color: black; font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 14pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"> </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="color: black; font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 14pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">The royal palace had already been invaded 7 weeks before. On June
20, the third anniversary of the Tennis Court Oath in 1789, when reforming
aristocrats had gone over to the National Assembly, a memorial demonstration of
10,000-to-20,000 surrounded the Tuileries. Carlyle summed up: “Immense
procession, peaceable but dangerous, finds the Tuileries gates closed, and no
access to his Majesty; squeezes, crushes, and is squeezed, crushed against the
Tuileries gates and doors till they give way.” [p. xl]<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The King held them off, declaring his
loyalty to the constitution, even wearing a popular “liberty cap” (the
emotional force of a MAGA cap), and drinking a toast with them. Finally the
Mayor of Paris arrived and persuaded the demonstrators to leave. In the
aftermath, a wave of sympathy for the King split the Assembly. But efforts to
swing back to moderation stalled, and news from the front raised further alarm
as the enemy advanced. In Paris, everyone expected another assault on the
palace, this time for keeps.</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="color: black; font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 14pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"> </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="color: black; font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 14pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">Security was beefed up. Courtiers in the palace went around armed
and prepared barriers. The National Guard-- an official militia-- were urged to
defend the crown against the <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">sansculotte</i>
mob, but their loyalty was questionable, and a force of Swiss Guard was relied
upon. On the other side, contingents of volunteers poured into Paris on their
way to reinforce the front. The coming assault was an open secret. The
“patriots... were now openly talking of storming the Tuileries as the Bastille
had been stormed, and establishing a Republic.” [Doyle, <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Oxford History of the French Revolution, </i><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>p. 187]</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="color: black; font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 14pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"> </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="color: black; font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 14pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">The organizational center of power was slipping away from the
Assembly. The radical political clubs of Paris, the Jacobins and others,
agitated in the neighbourhood sections to coordinate action in a revolutionary
commune. Distrusting the National Guard drawn from the wealthier citizens, they
called out the <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">sansculottes </i><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>(those without fashionable knee
breeches) of small shopkeepers and artisans. In late July, panic over the
invading Prussian and Austrian armies moved the Assembly to distribute arms to
all citizens-- even though the arms could and would be used against themselves.</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="color: black; font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 14pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"> </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="color: black; font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 14pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">In the small hours of the night before August 10, the continuous
ringing of the tocsin bell proclaimed emergency. The central committee of the
Paris sections declared an insurrection and ordered all forces to march on the
Tuileries. “Arriving there at nine the next morning, they found that the King
and his family had fled to the safety of the Assembly across the road.”
Defending the palace were about 2000 National Guards, but these immediately
defected to the Commune’s side, a crowd of about 20,000. Courtiers had put up a
brave show before the attack, but now withdrew. This left the 900 Swiss Guards,
professional mercenaries, who began the action by opening fire. Their initial
volley did not deter the huge crowd, and their allies melting away no doubt
eroded their confidence. After about an hour, “the Swiss began to retreat,
pursued by mobs of bystanders without firearms who hacked them to pieces with
knives, pikes, and hatchets, and tore their uniforms to pieces to make
trophies... crowds rampaged through Paris destroying all symbols and images of
royalty down to the very word “king” in street names.” [Doyle, 189]</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="color: black; font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 14pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"> </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="color: black; font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 14pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">Carlyle summarized contemporary accounts in his own rhetoric of
the 1830s: “Till two in the afternoon the massacring, the breaking and the
burning has not ended... How deluges of frantic Sansculottism roared through
all passages of the Tuileries, ruthless in vengeance; how the valets were
butchered, hewn down... how in the cellars wine-bottles were broken, wine-butts
staved in and drunk; and upwards to the very garrets, all windows tumbled out
their precious royal furnitures: and with gold mirrors, velvet curtains, down
of ripped feather-beds, and dead bodies of men, the Tuileries was like no
garden of the earth... bodies of Swiss lie piled there; naked, unremoved until
the second day. Patriotism has torn their red coats into snips; and marches
with them at the pike’s point.” [Thomas Carlyle, <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">The French Revolution</i>,<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>1837/ 2002: 499]</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="color: black; font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 14pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"> </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="color: black; font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 14pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">Paris was now in the super-dangerous situation of rival centers of
power, the Assembly and the Commune. Both of them commanding armed forces; both
internally split among mutually distrustful factions, fearful of what their
rivals would do, and motivated to strike first out of fear of what would happen
if they didn’t. But the initiative had passed to the Commune, and its radical
political clubs; they had won the big victory, and demonstrated the awesome
force of the mobilized crowds of Paris. Awesome because of its emotional
pressure, its all-encompassing noise, its sheer size, and its ferociousness,
now several times demonstrated, when opponents wavered and it had them at their
mercy. Guillotines were being set up. In future months, the King and Queen
would be executed, along with thousands of others, aristocrats, priests, and
just plain political rivals, anyone who aroused suspicion of whatever faction
was temporarily dominant. This would go on for two years, until Robespierre was
executed and a reaction began to swing back towards unitary authority and
eventually dictatorship. </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="color: black; font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 14pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"> </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="color: black; font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 14pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">During these two years there was a veritable mania of renaming.
Forms of address, Monsieur and Madame, were forbidden; everyone was to be
called Citizen. Churches were declared temples of Reason. The old Christian
calendar was abolished, its A.D. (anno domini) and B.C. (before Christ) replaced
by Year One, starting with the declaration of the Republic in September 1792
(oops, old-style!) While we’re at it, all the names of the months have to go
too, for instance the month of July is now called Thermidor. Symbolic politics
glorifies the hopes and projects of the most radical intellectuals. These
changes would remain in place until Napoleon brought back the church and
reinstated the old calendar in 1801. </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="color: black; font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 14pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"> </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><span style="color: black; font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 14pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">Lessons learned?</span></i><span style="color: black; font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 14pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"> </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="color: black; font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 14pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"> </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="color: black; font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 14pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">What was unusual about the Capitol assault of January 6, 2021 was how
quickly and easily it was defeated. Yes, it had factional splits and dispersed
centers of command, wavering and dissenting about sending reinforcements; it
had police retreating before an aggressive crowd; reluctance to shoot; some
fraternization between attackers and guards; some ritualistic looting at the
end. It had a background of long-standing and accumulating tension between two
sides, counter-escalating social movements, politicians jumping on and off of
bandwagons. But in historical comparison, it had no overwhelming consensus that
the regime was toppling, much less that it ought to topple. The assault was
defeated, in a momentum swing of about an hour, and with an historical minimum
of serious casualties. That it could be put down so easily is a testiment to
American institutions. A federal democracy, with powers shared and divided at
many levels among executives, legislatures, and courts, there is no place to
turn the switch that controls everything. Decentralized democracies like the
USA can have civil wars-- if geographical splits are severe enough and include
the armed forces; but it cannot have coups at the top or revolutions in the
Capitol.</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="color: black; font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 14pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"> </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="color: black; font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 14pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">REFERENCES</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="color: black; font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 14pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"> </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="color: black; font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 14pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">Leon Trotsky, <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">History of the
Russian Revolution</i>.<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"> </i>1930.</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="color: black; font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 14pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">John Reed, <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Ten Days that
Shook the World</i>. 1919.</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="color: black; font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 14pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">Thomas Carlyle, <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">The French
Revolution</i>. 1837. </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="color: black; font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 14pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">William Doyle, <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Oxford History
of the French Revolution. </i>2002.</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="color: black; font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 14pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">Alexis de Tocqueville, <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Recollections: The French Revolution of
1848.</i> 1850.</span></p><span style="color: black; font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 14pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"> </span><span style="color: black; font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 14pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">Randall Collins, <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Violence: A
Micro-sociological Theory.</i>2008. [data sources on forward panic; firing and
non-firing in violent confrontations; layers of participants in riots; looting]</span>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="color: black; font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 14pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">Charles Tilly, <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">The Politics
of Collective Violence. </i>2003.</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="color: black; font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 14pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">Anne Nassauer, <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Situational
Breakdowns: Understanding Protest Violence and Other Surprising Outcomes. </i>2019.</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="color: black; font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 14pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">Neil Ketchley, “The Army and the People are One Hand!
Fraternisation and the 25th January Egyptian Revolution.” <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Comparative Studies in Society and History. </i>2014.</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="color: black; font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 14pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"><a href="https://www.amazon.com/dp/1732060541?tag=amz-mkt-fox-us-20&ascsubtag=1ba00-01000-s1060-mac00-dsk00-smile-us000-pcomp-feature-scomp-wm-5&ref=aa_scomp&pldnSite=1" target="_blank">Randall Collins, <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Civil War
Two.</i> 2019.</a> [thought experiment of what a replay of the Civil War of 1861-65
would be like with modern weapons]</span></p>
Unknownnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1005085971596877601.post-65693665777404616072020-10-01T07:06:00.009-07:002020-10-04T01:50:57.003-07:00WILLIAM JAMES WHOLE-BODY PSYCHOLOGY, WITH A THEORY OF ALZHEIMER’S DISEASE<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="color: black; font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 14pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-language: X-NONE; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="color: black; font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 14pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-language: X-NONE; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">We have a truncated view of what William
James is about. Bits and pieces are famous: The James-Lange theory that you
feel afraid because you run away, not vice versa. A few famous lines: “the
saddle-back of the present”; the world is “a blooming, buzzing confusion” (he
meant, for an infant). Witty things he and Gertrude Stein said to each other
when she was his student.</span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="color: black; font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 14pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-language: X-NONE; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"> </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="color: black; font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 14pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-language: X-NONE; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">Pragmatist philosophy, of course: what is
true is what works. This connects with his open-minded<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>interest in religious experiences, including
mysticism, even including drugs. James is no religious conservative, defending
tradition and dogma. He investigates without prejudgements what religion is
like in all its varieties, and what you get out of it-- his pragmatism again. </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="color: black; font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 14pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-language: X-NONE; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="color: black; font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 14pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-language: X-NONE; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">All this obscures the fact that James was
a psychologist, and he became famous for his comprehensive text-book of
psychology in the 1890s, before his late-life switch to philosophy and
pragmatism. And he was not just a psychologist, but a medical psychologist,
grounding psychology in the physiology of the body. When James entered
adulthood in the 1860s, psychology as a research field did not yet exist, and
his degree was in medicine. Thus his psychology is not just of the mind or the
brain, but of the entire body. </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="color: black; font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 14pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-language: X-NONE; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="color: black; font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 14pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-language: X-NONE; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">James combined existing medical research
with the experimental psychology then being developed in German laboratories,
and to an extent in England.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>These 19th
century experiments are now largely forgotten. They were launching an empirical
study of the human mind, focusing on the senses by which persons experience the
world, and on subjective processes such as time, idea-associations, and memory.
In short, they were measuring the contents of human consciousness.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>But this “introspectionist” psychology was
what behaviorist psychology, taking off in America around 1915, would reject
for the next 60 years. The behaviorists declared the mind was a “black box”
that could not be opened scientifically; instead they devised experiments to
study overt behavior, for convenience using rats, and to some extent dogs and
pigeons. Only when cognitive psychology started making a come-back in the 1970s
did James’ topics again become a central focus for research.</span><span style="color: black; font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 14pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-language: X-NONE; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"> </span>
</p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="color: black; font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 14pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-language: X-NONE; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="color: black; font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 14pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-language: X-NONE; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">What do we get out of James’ psychology
of the 1890s?<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>A surprisingly modern
view, and on the whole better expressed and more usefully packaged than much of
the neurophysiological psychology of today. There is no big break in the kinds
of things we know. Contemporary cognitive psychology follows in the wake of the
19th-century work James was drawing upon; sometimes rediscovering what his era
already saw but in lesser detail without today’s laboratory instrumentation.</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><span style="color: black; font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 14pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-language: X-NONE; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"> </span></i></p><p class="MsoNormal"><i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><span style="color: black; font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 14pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-language: X-NONE; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">Overview:</span></i><span style="color: black; font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 14pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-language: X-NONE; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><span style="color: black; font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 14pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-language: X-NONE; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">a.
Three-part model: sensory input -- central channeling -- action output</span></i><span style="color: black; font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 14pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-language: X-NONE; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><span style="color: black; font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 14pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-language: X-NONE; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">b.
All sensory experience is previously channeled</span></i></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><span style="color: black; font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 14pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-language: X-NONE; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">c.
Experience speeds both recognition and misrecognition</span></i></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><span style="color: black; font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 14pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-language: X-NONE; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">d.
All mental schemas are fuzzy</span></i></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><span style="color: black; font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 14pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-language: X-NONE; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">e.
Conscious / unconscious is a continuum</span></i></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><span style="color: black; font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 14pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-language: X-NONE; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">f.
Emotions are simultaneous with action, not prior</span></i></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><span style="color: black; font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 14pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-language: X-NONE; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">g.
Habits facilitate action and free up conscious attention</span></i></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><span style="color: black; font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 14pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-language: X-NONE; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">h.
To break a habit, put a different habit in its starting place</span></i></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><span style="color: black; font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 14pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-language: X-NONE; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">i.
Will power is focusing attention at the beginning of a chain</span></i></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><span style="color: black; font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 14pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-language: X-NONE; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">j.
A theory of Alzheimer’s</span></i></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><span style="color: black; font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 14pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-language: X-NONE; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"> </span></i></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><span style="color: black; font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 14pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-language: X-NONE; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">Three-part
model: sensory input -- central channeling -- action output</span></i><span style="color: black; font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 14pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-language: X-NONE; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"> </span>
</p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="color: black; font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 14pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-language: X-NONE; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="color: black; font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 14pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-language: X-NONE; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">From a physiological perspective,
everything that we call psychological involves a 3-part sequence.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>It starts with <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">sensory input</i> of some kind: sight, sound, senses in the body or on
its surface. Input flows into <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">central
process; </i><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>what we usually call the
brain, except this should not be confined within narrow borders, since the
central processing involves connections not just among neurons inside the skull
but all the other connections throughout the body. I suggest calling it <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">central channeling</i>, on the metaphor of
channels becoming deeper and more strongly marked the more times an impulse has
flowed through them. </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="color: black; font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 14pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-language: X-NONE; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="color: black; font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 14pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-language: X-NONE; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">Finally there is output in the form of
action. As James views it, every impulse coming in from the senses and through
the central channels flows out again, in the action part of the organism. At
first glance, this sounds overly behaviorist, as if the organism is inert until
something sensory comes in, wakes up the brain, and then the body moves its
muscles and does something. But James sees the output action much more broadly:
“from a physiological point of view, a gesture, an expression of the brow, or
an expulsion of breath are as much movements as an act of locomotion.” [426] It
would also include sweating, blushing, eye movements, changes in body
temperature and blood flow to different parts of the body, stomach acid,
speeding heart rate, saying something to oneself under one’s breath-- a range
of things that includes what we would call emotion signs and thinking. For
James, an emotion is a form of physical behavior, and so is cognition. </span><span style="color: black; font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 14pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-language: X-NONE; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"> </span>
</p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="color: black; font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 14pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-language: X-NONE; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="color: black; font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 14pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-language: X-NONE; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">At this point, we don’t have to believe
it. Take it as a theoretical generalization, which we can test in every single
case of experience. Among other things, James is implying that thinking to
oneself always has effects somewhere in the body besides in the brain itself;
and also that<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>any sensation that comes
in not only goes into the brain system, but comes out somewhere is the body. As
we shall see, much of this is in the realm of habitual channels and on the
unconscious part of the continuum. The work of the psychologist is to trace it
through the body. * </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="color: black; font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 14pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-language: X-NONE; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="color: black; font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 14pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-language: X-NONE; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">*<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>James was about 20 years older than Sigmund Freud, and his work was
earlier. Leaving aside Freud’s famous theories about sexual and aggressive
impulses from early childhood onwards, we can say that both of these
medical-doctors-turned-psychologist hit on a similar formulation: what is
psychological in the narrower sense is also operative throughout the body.
Their theories are psycho-somatic.</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><span style="color: black; font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 14pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-language: X-NONE; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"> </span></i></p><p class="MsoNormal"><i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><span style="color: black; font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 14pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-language: X-NONE; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">All
experience is previously channeled</span></i><span style="color: black; font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 14pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-language: X-NONE; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"> </span>
</p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="color: black; font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 14pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-language: X-NONE; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="color: black; font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 14pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-language: X-NONE; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">There is no such thing as pure
experience, independent of filters or preconceptions. That is to say, the
brain/processor is wired to see, hear, feel (etc.) certain kinds of things; and
those wirings or channels change every time you perceive something. Learning a
foreign language,<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>it takes a while to
recognize what those sounds are and how to parse them into syllables, words, and
meanings. An English-speaker has to learn to hear the difference between
vowel-sounds in French that are not significant in English. Someone with a
slight knowledge of a language is prone to make what turn out to ridiculous
misinterpretations.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Successfully
learning a language is a gestalt-switich; what was previously quite literally a
buzzing confusion resolves itself into comprehensible utterances. An infant is
in the same position, since their “native” language is foreign at first until
it becomes grooved into the brain/ear/voice pathways of brain and muscle. The
same thing happens later on if one learns to recognize tunes and harmonies in
particular kinds of music; the first time you hear Stravinsky is a much
different listening experience than when you become familiar with it; and the
same was true historically when audiences had to learn to hear the sounds of
Wagner, or for that matter Beethoven, Bach, or early polyphonic music.</span><span style="color: black; font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 14pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-language: X-NONE; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"> </span>
</p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="color: black; font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 14pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-language: X-NONE; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="color: black; font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 14pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-language: X-NONE; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">Similarly with sight. Learning to read
begins with coming to see certain shapes as letters distinctive from each
other. Learning to read a foreign language is another gestalt-switch, as when a
Westerner first starts to recognize particular Chinese characters. Sight<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>pervasively structures our experience-- what
we think of as “the world” around us is mainly what we looks like to us-- and
this too had to be built up in early childhood. And throughout one’s life, as
well: houses look different when you are thinking about buying one of them, or
if you become interested in architecture. You see a different world each time
you pay attention to it, although on autopilot it is only a familiar blur. </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="color: black; font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 14pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-language: X-NONE; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="color: black; font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 14pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-language: X-NONE; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">The same again with the physical,
palpable world. The gestalt-switch is most apparent in learning to ride a
bicycle rather than falling over or to swim rather than sinking in the water;
these are a matter of attending to certain sensations in your muscles, your
sense of balance, and where you put your attention (you become a skier when you
stop focusing on your legs and focus on the spot where you are going). These
actions, which are initially tricky and call for re-wiring the central channels
from what they did before, show most dramatically that one’s physical sense of
the world is a bundle of sensations in your body, the sensations of moving your
muscles in a particular way, and its coordination with other senses like
vision. A child learning to walk is also constructing a brain-channeled world
that is walkable, and a body that fits in that world. </span><span style="color: black; font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 14pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-language: X-NONE; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"> </span>
</p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="color: black; font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 14pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-language: X-NONE; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="color: black; font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 14pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-language: X-NONE; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">The point is not just of philosophical or
theoretical interest. All practical skills are of this sort; the difference
between being good at something, passable, or inept are in the packaging of
these bundles of experience. Social skills (not much of a concern in James’
psychology, but central for a micro-sociologist) are ways of shaping one’s
sensation/central-channel/action pathways. These experiences account for how
some persons are talkative or shy; aggressive and violent or victimized;
socially connected or alienated (and in what kinds of situations). </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><span style="color: black; font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 14pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-language: X-NONE; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"> </span></i></p><p class="MsoNormal"><i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><span style="color: black; font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 14pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-language: X-NONE; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">Experience
speeds both recognition and misrecognition</span></i><span style="color: black; font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 14pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-language: X-NONE; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="color: black; font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 14pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-language: X-NONE; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="color: black; font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 14pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-language: X-NONE; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">With greater experience, certain kinds of
perceptions are easier and quicker. You see more at a quick glance; you can
construct the unseen or blurred part from the part that your brain recognizes.
My wife does not have very good eyesight, but she is an excellent driver,
including at rather high speeds; she says that she recognizes what other
drivers are going to do<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>and steers
accordingly. Many successful college quarterbacks fail when they reach the
professional league; it can take several years training to “see the field” in
fractions of a second; and quarterbacks who manage to do this generally have
much longer careers than other players who rely on muscle and quickness. It is
a whole-body skill, not just in the vision and hand-eye-(legs) coordination,
but in a perceptual gestalt that slows down time where other players see a
blur.</span><span style="color: black; font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 14pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-language: X-NONE; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"> </span>
</p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="color: black; font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 14pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-language: X-NONE; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="color: black; font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 14pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-language: X-NONE; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">James comments that the same sensory/
channeling process that makes for experienced recognition also is responsible
for illusions. At a distance, an erect figure at the side of the road may look
like a person but up close turns out to be a road sign. This is the brain
filling out a sight on the basis of partial information. If you do
speed-reading or glancing through messages, it is easy to mistake what is
actually said (expecting bad news, it looks worse than it really is).
Eye-witness testimony in crimes is often unreliable; usually the event is
blurred because sudden, unexpected, or highly emotional; the victim can pick
the wrong person out of a line-up while feeling convinced it was the
perpetrator s/he faced. The feeling of certitude comes from forming a gestalt--
not at the time of the crime, but later when you fit one of the faces into your
blurred memories.</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="color: black; font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 14pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-language: X-NONE; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="color: black; font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 14pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-language: X-NONE; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">This does not mean that eye-witness knowledge
is always unreliable; if that were the case, no observer would ever learn
anything accurately. The difference is in the total eye-brain-body
configuration of whoever is doing the observation. Ethnographers train
themselves to observe the details-- they are not merely caught up in the
action, but focusing on their professional task of observing, commiting key
details to memory, and recording them in field notes. A blanket statement-- all
personal observation is fallacious-- is inaccurate; we can specify what makes
some observers more accurate than others. It is the difference between plunging
a non-athlete into a pro football game, and the way the star quarterback sees
the field.</span><span style="color: black; font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 14pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-language: X-NONE; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"> </span>
</p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="color: black; font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 14pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-language: X-NONE; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="color: black; font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 14pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-language: X-NONE; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">James summarizes laboratory research on
the question: how long is the present, the “now” as a moment in time?
Philosophers are prone to argue that the present moment is so elusive that it
is virtually non-existent, if not at actual illusion. Since Xeno, the argument
has been made that each little bit of time can be subdivided, and so on to
infinitesimal regression. Buddhist philosophers in India argued thus as a proof
for the non-existence of the world as it is humanly perceived. James, however,
regards these are merely intellectual arguments; instead, look at experience
when subjects are asked to compare visual images flashed at different speeds. A
useful experiment is to look at something, then close your eyes, and count how
long the image remains visible inside your eyelids. Especially when looking at
objects which have bright and contrasting colors or light and shade, you see
that the image slowly fades and become more blurred. From similar experiments,
James estimates that the present moment lasts between 7 and 12 seconds.
--Perception is not of an instant in time; it is perception of things that have
a deep enough channel in your brain so that you can see them. There is no
knife-blade of the present; better put, it is a “saddle-back of the present” as
you ride the horse of your senses/brain/body along a course of experience. </span></p><p><span style="color: black; font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 14pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-language: X-NONE; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"> </span></p><p><span style="color: black; font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 14pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-language: X-NONE; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">This has an important relevance for
social interaction. Garfinkel’s ethnomethology of what he calls the practices
of everyday reasoning includes the principle: what is communicated by other
people is often ambiguous or meaningless; but we adopt an attitude of
wait-and-see, expecting the meaning to emerge. Garfinkel’s famous breaching
experiments were designed to show that even in situations deliberately
contrived to be meaningless, subjects assumed there was a hidden meaning that
would eventually emerge. A more mundane example is the experience of hearing
someone say something, which at first you misrecognize-- until a few seconds
later the utterance sounds meaningful in retrospect..</span><span style="color: black; font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 14pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-language: X-NONE; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"> </span>
</p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="color: black; font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 14pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-language: X-NONE; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="color: black; font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 14pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-language: X-NONE; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">The reason you can reinterpret what you
heard, eventually getting the words connected with the right set of syllables,
is because auditory memory has about the same time-present as visual memory;
the words are reverberating in your brain-memory for up to around 7 seconds,
and this makes it possible to re-hear their meaning. It is this saddle-back of
present hearing that makes it possible for simultaneous translators at
international conferences to translate what the speaker has just said a few
seconds back, while also listening to what s/he is saying that will have to be
translated next. And it is how all of us make our way through a perceptual
world that is deeply ambiguous, at least in detail, all the way through. And
that is because:</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><span style="color: black; font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 14pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-language: X-NONE; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"> </span></i></p><p class="MsoNormal"><i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><span style="color: black; font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 14pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-language: X-NONE; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">All
mental schemas are fuzzy</span></i><span style="color: black; font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 14pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-language: X-NONE; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"> </span>
</p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="color: black; font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 14pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-language: X-NONE; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="color: black; font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 14pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-language: X-NONE; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">We think of the world around us as full
of physical objects, which mostly remain stable across the hours and days of
everyday life. But is this really so?<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>Moving around, we view things from many different angles and distances.
Tables, chairs, trees, houses, faces and bodies-- the objects may be the same
but we see them from thousands of different angles, in different lights and
colorings. Out of all these different mental snapshots, which one is your image
of how things look? In the channeling of neural circuits, a table is not just
one ideal picture of a rectangle with legs at the corners; it is all the neural
circuits that have been grooved by perceiving it in different perspectives. </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="color: black; font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 14pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-language: X-NONE; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="color: black; font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 14pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-language: X-NONE; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">All of them together is the mental
object; it is a fuzzy composite, not a single clear image. They hang together
because parts of them overlap. They have a central core, but also a lot of
non-overlap.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Your mental images have
fuzzy edges-- but this is a figure of speech, because images are fuzzy all the
way through. </span><span style="color: black; font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 14pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-language: X-NONE; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"> </span>
</p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="color: black; font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 14pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-language: X-NONE; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="color: black; font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 14pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-language: X-NONE; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">As a practical matter, this causes no
problem in navigating our familiar surroundings; especially since deeply
grooved circuits tend to complete the gestalt with only partial information.
For this reason, James comments, artists have to unlearn their normal, neurally
lazy way of perceiving the world, and to train oneself to look at how things
actually appear in particular perspectives and lights. </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="color: black; font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 14pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-language: X-NONE; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="color: black; font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 14pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-language: X-NONE; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">Philosophers in the Platonic tradition
have taken such multiplicity of experience as a reason to reject the senses and
rely on pure, abstract images in the mind as the source of truth. But James
points out there is no reason to believe such images exist in the brain.
Experience of objects is stored in fuzzy composites. When you attempt to call
to mind a particular image, it is generally fuzzy; if you close your eyes, the
hynogogic images that appear to be inside your eyelids are vague and
flickering, prone to quickly shift into related shapes. In<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>dreams, images are rarely sharp and clear,
and dreamers do not stare fixedly at a sight but move through the dream-- which
is why dreams morph into strange visual associations, as one would expect from
attention flowing rather randomly among the channels of complicated neural
circuits.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>To the extent that there are
mental schemas, they are fuzzy complexes.</span><span style="color: black; font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 14pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-language: X-NONE; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"> </span>
</p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="color: black; font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 14pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-language: X-NONE; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="color: black; font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 14pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-language: X-NONE; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">Philosophical Platonists argue that their
Ideal types are the only way to account for truth and reason. James offers an
alternative: there is no sharp divide between a correct image and incorrect
ones. They are all approximations, all partial and incomplete. Relying on a
small slice of experience and letting neural grooves complete the rest of the
gestalt is nevertheless a practical way of getting around in the world; if it
turns out to be hasty misrecognition and results in a bad mistake, the gestalt
is usually reset by the shock. James’ emphasis on the fuzziness of concepts
goes along with his pragmatism: truth is what you call it when the outcomes are
the ones that you are aiming at.</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="color: black; font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 14pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-language: X-NONE; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="color: black; font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 14pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-language: X-NONE; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">This is also the way it works when we
engage in reasoning. All of our calculating and decision-making takes place in
some period of time, not in abstraction from time and place. Whether a decision
turns out to be right or wrong is decided by how it turns out. John Dewey,
James’ pragmatist follower, emphasized that we are always moving along
trajectories of action; at any particular moment, we aim at some end, and
choose means to get there. But as your chain of actions goes along, typically
the end-target gets adjusted; means become ends and vice versa. This is true of
scientific research as well as business, politics, and everyday life. In
science, the initial research question often morphs into something else; if
solving it is difficult, it becomes perceived as an ill-posed question. Most
breakthroughs are shifts to new ways of conceptualizing what we are concerned
with. </span><span style="color: black; font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 14pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-language: X-NONE; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"> </span>
</p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="color: black; font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 14pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-language: X-NONE; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="color: black; font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 14pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-language: X-NONE; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">It is a philosophical and intellectual
prejudice that the world should be clear and exact. To assume that every
assertion is either right or wrong, true or false, with no area of overlap, is
unrealistic, and an impractical way to proceed. In actual experience, most
problems we can pose ourselves fork three ways: probably yes, probably no, and
undecidable. None of this is permanent; time and human projects move along;
what is undecidable at one time may move into a clearer probability zone later.
Being realistic implies we should expect new areas of undecidability will
emerge as we go along.</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><span style="color: black; font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 14pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-language: X-NONE; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"> </span></i></p><p class="MsoNormal"><i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><span style="color: black; font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 14pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-language: X-NONE; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">Conscious/unconscious
is a continuum</span></i><span style="color: black; font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 14pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-language: X-NONE; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"> </span>
</p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="color: black; font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 14pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-language: X-NONE; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="color: black; font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 14pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-language: X-NONE; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">There is no sharp dividing line between
conscious and unconscious. What we ordinarily regard as consciousness is
concentrating our attention and looking for particular kinds of things that
feel significant at that moment. (Such focus is also intensified activity in
particular neural circuits in the brain.) At the same time, a strong focus of
attention also de-focuses other things. When we are not particularly focusing
attention, things run off more or less automatically-- this is true of ordinary
habitual actions like walking, or moving your fingers if you know how to type
on a keyboard. There are also states of experience when one is not concerned to
be attentive to anything, when you are feeling lazy, drowsy, relaxed; and this
has a borderline area in which you fall asleep. As usual in James’ worldview,
gradations of consciousness exist but they range along a fuzzy continuum,
indeed along a fuzzy number of continuums (continua). </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="color: black; font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 14pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-language: X-NONE; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="color: black; font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 14pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-language: X-NONE; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">This has implications for his theory of
emotions, as well as his theory of habits. </span><span style="color: black; font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 14pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-language: X-NONE; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"> </span>
</p><p class="MsoNormal"><i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><span style="color: black; font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 14pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-language: X-NONE; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"> </span></i></p><p class="MsoNormal"><i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><span style="color: black; font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 14pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-language: X-NONE; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">Emotions
are simultaneous with action, not prior</span></i><span style="color: black; font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 14pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-language: X-NONE; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="color: black; font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 14pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-language: X-NONE; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="color: black; font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 14pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-language: X-NONE; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">“<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">All
consciousness is motor</i>... Every impression which impinges on the incoming
nerves produces some discharge down the outgoing ones, whether we be aware of
it or not... We might say that <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">every
possible feeling produces a movement, and that the movement is a movement of
the entire organism and of each and all its parts</i>.” [372] </span><span style="color: black; font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 14pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-language: X-NONE; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"> </span>
</p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="color: black; font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 14pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-language: X-NONE; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="color: black; font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 14pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-language: X-NONE; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">James goes on to examine the most
characteristic of these bodily movements, i.e. emotions. Here he expounds what
is called the James-Lange theory. “My theory... is that <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">the bodily changes follow directly the perception of the exciting fact,
and our feeling of the same changes is the emotions</i>.... Common sense
says... we meet a bear, we are frightened and run... [But] this order of
sequence is incorrect; the one mental state is not immediately induced by the
other; bodily manifestations must be interposed between... We feel sorry
because we cry, angry because we strike, afraid because we tremble.” [377] </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="color: black; font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 14pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-language: X-NONE; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="color: black; font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 14pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-language: X-NONE; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">James goes on to apply this model to
milder emotions, and urges the reader to observe oneself. “When worried by a
slight trouble, one may find that the focus of one’s bodily consciousness is
the contraction, often quite inconsiderable, of the eyes and brows. When
momentarily embarrassed, it is something in the pharynx that compels either a
swallow, a clearing of the throat, or a slight cough...” [380]<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Observing closely the sequence in time, we
find “<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">every one<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>of the bodily changes, whatever it be, is</i>
FELT, <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">acutely or obscurely, the moment it
occurs</i>.” [379] </span><span style="color: black; font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 14pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-language: X-NONE; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"> </span>
</p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="color: black; font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 14pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-language: X-NONE; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="color: black; font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 14pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-language: X-NONE; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">The thought-content of the emotion comes
after the bodily changes, not before. Genuine emotions overtake us via the
body. A faked emotion usually does not come across as genuine, although we may
mimic the more easily controlled voluntary muscles of face or posture, because
it lacks the power of the involuntary changes--- like trying to imitate a
sneeze, James comments.</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="color: black; font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 14pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-language: X-NONE; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="color: black; font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 14pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-language: X-NONE; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">Next comes: “... the vital point of my
whole theory: <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">If we fancy some strong
emotion, and then try to abstract from our consciousness of it all the feelings
of its bodily symptoms, we find we have nothing left behind,</i> no
‘mind-stuff’ out of which the emotion can be constituted.” [380]</span><span style="color: black; font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 14pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-language: X-NONE; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"> </span>
</p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="color: black; font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 14pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-language: X-NONE; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="color: black; font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 14pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-language: X-NONE; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">James is not arguing against the
existence of the mind or of consciousness. He is observing in detail the
full-body process within which “mind” exists, and the up-and-down slopes of
feeling and attention that constitute our consciousness.</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><span style="color: black; font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 14pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-language: X-NONE; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"> </span></i></p><p class="MsoNormal"><i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><span style="color: black; font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 14pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-language: X-NONE; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">Habits
facilitate action and free up conscious attention</span></i><span style="color: black; font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 14pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-language: X-NONE; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"> </span>
</p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="color: black; font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 14pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-language: X-NONE; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="color: black; font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 14pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-language: X-NONE; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">A habit is a deeply grooved chain: an
initial perception to set it off; the brain circuits; the physical action.
These are chained together in a repeated circuit: in the habit of walking or
running, tipping your bodily balance forward and moving your legs so that the
other leg catches you before you fall; the sensation of the foot hitting the
ground, the sense of where your balance point is, are the perceptual inputs,
moving the chain along to another input point, and so on. Once you learn how to
walk, this becomes unconscious; no attention has to be directed to these
repeated connections, and this leaves you free to attend to other matters, such
as changing direction, noticing other people, or looking around. Thus habitual
actions at a more basic (and earlier-learned) level are the key to more complex
and mindful actions. It is James’ continuum of unconscious/conscious again.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>As noted, here James converges with Freud;
the chief difference being that Freud is concerned with dramatic unconscious
action-impulses and their physiology (sex and aggression, along with various strong
emotions); James portrays unconscious perception/brain-channel/body-action as
constitutive of everything that humans do (and probably other animals as well).</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="color: black; font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 14pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-language: X-NONE; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="color: black; font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 14pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-language: X-NONE; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">Habits enable you to get yourself going
when you don’t feel like it. Putting off writing for one reason or another;
putting off exercizing when you don’t have the energy; procrastinating... The
tactic is to start the first part of a routine and let the sequence pull you
into its rhythm. Don’t start with the hardest; start with something easy or
something you like -- your favorite stretch, leave the crunches for later, when
they will click in on their own. Overcome writer’s block by correcting your
latest text; if you don’t know what comes next, recopy your notes or outline--
this gets you focusing on the sequence of topics (what point to make before
what) as well as getting you started writing. Making small changes makes it
easier to make bigger changes: a<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>new
idea, some wording you can use; soon you are drawn to keyboard and finding one
line leads to another. </span><span style="color: black; font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 14pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-language: X-NONE; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"> </span>
</p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="color: black; font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 14pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-language: X-NONE; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="color: black; font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 14pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-language: X-NONE; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">When you really feel lethargic, get up
and do something easy and automatic. I find that walking around the garden with
clipping shears in hand, or just picking off dead leaves, becomes pleasantly
addictive; the more you do it, the more things you see to do. James’ sequence
is set off: perceptual starting points, familiar channels, bodily actions,
leaving you cued in to more starting points. Today the terminology would refer
to them as “affordances,” the appeal that objects in your environment make for
you to do something with them. Except that they are not affordances for everybody;
it is your own distinctive habit sequences that give them their
action-triggering qualities.</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="color: black; font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 14pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-language: X-NONE; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="color: black; font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 14pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-language: X-NONE; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">Professional techniques are habits at a
higher skill level. What makes an artist or a musician successful are the
techniques they have acquired: how to sketch the first lines that set the focus
of what you are painting; how to expand a rhythmic motif and put
forward-leaning tension into a chord sequence. They find their style when they
acquire a fertile combination of techniques, which become engrained to run off
automatically. Mozart, who started acquiring such techniques when he was three
years old, eventually reached the point where starting with any little bit of
tune would set him off creating something new. Because techniques have
trajectories, once you launch in, it carries you with it. This is the
difference between a banal routine and a habit which is enjoyable, even fun: it
has a direction, so that the little details it encompasses are meaningful, part
of project’s gestalt. High-level habits of this sort contain their own built-in
motivation. Habits of this sort are the opposite of boredom.</span><span style="color: black; font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 14pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-language: X-NONE; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"> </span>
</p><p class="MsoNormal"><i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><span style="color: black; font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 14pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-language: X-NONE; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"> </span></i></p><p class="MsoNormal"><i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><span style="color: black; font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 14pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-language: X-NONE; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">To
break a habit, put a different habit in its starting place</span></i><span style="color: black; font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 14pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-language: X-NONE; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="color: black; font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 14pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-language: X-NONE; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="color: black; font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 14pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-language: X-NONE; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">James discusses “bad habits” as any kind
of cue-channel-action sequence that you end up wishing you wouldn’t do. But
since habits are so deeply grooved in the nervous system, how can you overcome
them? They jump in automatically from the starting point. At the end you may
add -- I wish I didn’t do that-- but that only adds something further to the
end of the sequence. James’ solution is to break a habit by having some other
habit interfere with it. *</span><span style="color: black; font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 14pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-language: X-NONE; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"> </span>
</p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="color: black; font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 14pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-language: X-NONE; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="color: black; font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 14pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-language: X-NONE; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">* James also discusses instincts--
habitual sequences that are hard-wired into the nervous system. If these could
never be overcome, James points out, humans could never have evolved to doing
anything new, and history would not exist. The hard-wiring does not disappear;
humans have a flight-or-fight arousal in the hypothalamus, but persons can add
other channels that shape when and how the physiological response is tripped
off. [388]</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="color: black; font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 14pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-language: X-NONE; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="color: black; font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 14pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-language: X-NONE; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">The substituting habit must start from
the same cue, the perception that triggers the undesired habit. If over-eating
starts with opening the refrigerator every time you walk past it, the solution
is to chain something else to seeing the refrigerator, or the food inside it.
One way to do this is to create a habit of focusing attention on the feeling in
your stomach: do I feel hungry, or satiated? If the latter, let the chain of
thought follow-- I don’t really feel like eating, the desire is just in my
head-- and the action of not looking for food. Psychological experiments show
that persons who eat too much do not feel hungry all the time, but instead
react very impulsively to the sight of food. * </span><span style="color: black; font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 14pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-language: X-NONE; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"> </span>
</p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="color: black; font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 14pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-language: X-NONE; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="color: black; font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 14pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-language: X-NONE; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">* Anthropologists have pointed out that
in some Polynesian cultures, an insult or a mishap that would otherwise make
persons angry, is headed off. Instead of expressing anger or taking action, the
cultural response is immediately to think, has someone violated a taboo or
brought evil mana here? While thinking about this (an anthropologist told me
such persons would get a perplexed look on their face), the anger response
calms down. They have inserted a cue immediately after the first anger arousal,
that leads in a different direction.</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><span style="color: black; font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 14pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-language: X-NONE; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"> </span></i></p><p class="MsoNormal"><i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><span style="color: black; font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 14pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-language: X-NONE; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">Will
power is focusing attention at the beginning of a chain</span></i><span style="color: black; font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 14pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-language: X-NONE; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"> </span>
</p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="color: black; font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 14pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-language: X-NONE; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="color: black; font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 14pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-language: X-NONE; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">At this point, James raises the question
of the existence of will. But his discussion is not about free will as a
metaphysical issue; it is a matter of seeing what we are referring to in
practice. If there are acts of free will, we must be able to observe what they
look like; where they are located in the flow of time and action. Where they
are not located is after a habit has run itself off; repenting at the end,
telling yourself not to do it again, are failures of will. </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="color: black; font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 14pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-language: X-NONE; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="color: black; font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 14pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-language: X-NONE; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">An act of will must come at the opening
cue, acting quickly to re-route the following habit sequence. Here the
saddle-back of the present helps out. Nothing is instantaneous; every
psychological process takes some time, even if a short one. James estimates the
opening is about a half-second:</span><span style="color: black; font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 14pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-language: X-NONE; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"> </span>
</p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="color: black; font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 14pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-language: X-NONE; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="color: black; font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 14pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-language: X-NONE; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">“Mental spontaneity... is limited to <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">selecting</i> amongst those [ideas] which
the associative machinery introduces. If it can emphasize, reinforce, or
protract for half a second either one of these, it can do all that the most
eager advocate of free will need demand.” [286] </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="color: black; font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 14pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-language: X-NONE; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="color: black; font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 14pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-language: X-NONE; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">Modern research on tape-recorded
conversation finds that humans can be distinctly aware of periods of 0.2
seconds-- 5 beats per second, like counting one-al-li-ga-tor, two-al-li-ga-tor,
three-al-li-ga-tor. We can hear pauses as short as 0.1 second. Thus a
half-second is ample time to reverse a course of action, even if it is a deeply
channeled habit. The key is to focus one’s attention on that cue, instead of
letting it slide by on a low level of the unconscious/conscious continuum.
James refers to this as “<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">the effects of
interested attention and volition</i>”. Your attention must be interested in
what you are focusing on, if it is to turn the sequence into a volition. Will
power is a high degree of conscious attention, exercized at moments where you
have pre-prepared habit sequences among which you can switch. </span><span style="color: black; font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 14pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-language: X-NONE; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"> </span>
</p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="color: black; font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 14pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-language: X-NONE; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="color: black; font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 14pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-language: X-NONE; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">Thus putting a new habit in place of a
bad habit involves a series of moves, some of them far back in time. Deciding
something is a bad habit-- that is usually easy. Figuring out and carefully
observing what is the cue that sets it off. Formulating a new habit sequence
that can be inserted. And finally, making the substitution in real time. </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="color: black; font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 14pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-language: X-NONE; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="color: black; font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 14pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-language: X-NONE; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">James is not only a pragmatist. He is the
most practical of psychologists.</span><span style="color: black; font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 14pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-language: X-NONE; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"> </span>
</p><p class="MsoNormal"><i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><span style="color: black; font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 14pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-language: X-NONE; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"> </span></i></p><p class="MsoNormal"><i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><span style="color: black; font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 14pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-language: X-NONE; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">A
theory of Alzheimer’s</span></i><span style="color: black; font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 14pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-language: X-NONE; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="color: black; font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 14pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-language: X-NONE; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="color: black; font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 14pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-language: X-NONE; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">James did not discuss Alzheimer’s disease
or adult dementia, but his psychology at many points is directly relevant.
Alzheimer’s is above all a breakdown of memory, starting with short-term
memory; eventually it can proceed to full-scale failure of the nervous system.
Thus a William James theory of Alzheimer’s can be constructed from his analysis
of memory, habit, and the sensation/channel/action sequence. And being a
pragmatist, his theory tells a person what to do about it-- above all the
person whose own memory is failing. It is a theory that enables rather than
restrains people.</span><span style="color: black; font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 14pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-language: X-NONE; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"> </span>
</p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="color: black; font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 14pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-language: X-NONE; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="color: black; font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 14pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-language: X-NONE; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">This is what James has to say:</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><span style="color: black; font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 14pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-language: X-NONE; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"> </span></i></p><p class="MsoNormal"><i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><span style="color: black; font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 14pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-language: X-NONE; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">Aging
and the speed of time</span></i><span style="color: black; font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 14pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-language: X-NONE; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"> </span>
</p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="color: black; font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 14pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-language: X-NONE; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="color: black; font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 14pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-language: X-NONE; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">“... <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">a
time filled with varied and interesting experiences seems short in passing, but
long as we look back. On the other hand, a tract of time empty of experiences
seems long in passing, in retrospect short.</i>.. Many objects, events,
changes, many subdivisions, immediately widen the view as we look back.
Emptiness, monotony familiarity, make it shrivel up.</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="color: black; font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 14pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-language: X-NONE; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="color: black; font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 14pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-language: X-NONE; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">“<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">The
same space of time seems shorter as we grow older</i>-- that is, the days, the
months, and the years do so; whether the hours do so is doubtful, and the
minutes and seconds to all appearances appear about the same... In most men all
the events of manhood’s years are of such familiar <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">sorts</i> that the individual impressions do not last. At the same
time, more and more of the earlier events get forgotten, the result being that
no greater multitude of distinct objects remain in the memory...</span><span style="color: black; font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 14pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-language: X-NONE; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"> </span>
</p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="color: black; font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 14pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-language: X-NONE; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="color: black; font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 14pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-language: X-NONE; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">“So much for the apparent shortening of
tracts of time in <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">retrospect</i>. They
shorten in <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">passing</i> whenever we are so
fully occupied with their content as not to note the actual time itself. A day
full of excitement, with no pause, is said to pass ‘ere we know it.’<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>On the contrary, a day full of waiting, of
unsatisfied desire for change, will seem a small eternity... [Boredom] comes
about whenever, from the relative emptiness of content of a tract of time, we
grow attentive to the passage of time itself... The odiousness of the
whole<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>experience comes from its
insipidity; for stimulation is the indispensable requisite for pleasure in an
experience.” [290-91]</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><span style="color: black; font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 14pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-language: X-NONE; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"> </span></i></p><p class="MsoNormal"><i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><span style="color: black; font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 14pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-language: X-NONE; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">Active
memory circuits and dated memories</span></i><span style="color: black; font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 14pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-language: X-NONE; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"> </span>
</p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="color: black; font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 14pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-language: X-NONE; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="color: black; font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 14pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-language: X-NONE; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">James goes on to make a distinction
between our <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">feeling of past time as a
present feeling, </i><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>and our <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">reproductive</i> memory, the recall of <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">dated</i> things:<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>“Since we saw a while ago that our maximum
distinct <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">perception</i> of duration
hardly covers more than a dozen seconds (while our maximum <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">vague</i> perception is probably not more than a minute or so), we must
suppose that <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">this amount of duration is
pictured fairly steadily in each passing instant of consciousness</i> by virtue
of some fairly constant feature in the brain-process to which the consciousness
is tied. <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">This feature of the
brain-process, whatever it may be, must be the cause of our perceiving the fact
of time at all. </i></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><span style="color: black; font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 14pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-language: X-NONE; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"> </span></i></p><p class="MsoNormal"><i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><span style="color: black; font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 14pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-language: X-NONE; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">“</span></i><span style="color: black; font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 14pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-language: X-NONE; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">The
duration thus steadily perceived is hardly more than the ‘specious present’...
Its <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">content </i>is in a constant flux,
events dawning into its forward end as fast as they fade out of its rearward
one, and each of them changing its time-coefficient from ‘not yet,’ or ‘not
quite yet,’ to ‘just gone,’ or ‘gone,’ as it passes by. Meanwhile the specious
present, the intuited duration, stands permanent, like the rainbow on the
waterfall, with its own quality unchanged by the events that stream through
it...” </span><span style="color: black; font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 14pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-language: X-NONE; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"> </span>
</p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="color: black; font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 14pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-language: X-NONE; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="color: black; font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 14pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-language: X-NONE; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">“Please observe, however, that the
reproduction of an event, <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>after</i> it has once completely dropped out
of the rearward end of the specious present, is an entirely different psychic
fact from its direct perception in the specious present as a thing immediately
past... In the next chapter, we will turn to the analysis of what happens to
reproductive memory, the recall of <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">dated</i>
things.”<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>[292-93]</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><span style="color: black; font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 14pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-language: X-NONE; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"> </span></i></p><p class="MsoNormal"><i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><span style="color: black; font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 14pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-language: X-NONE; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">Ingredients
for good memory</span></i><span style="color: black; font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 14pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-language: X-NONE; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"> </span>
</p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="color: black; font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 14pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-language: X-NONE; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="color: black; font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 14pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-language: X-NONE; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">“<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Memory
thus being altogether conditioned on brain-paths, its excellence in a given
individual will depend partly on the </i>NUMBER<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"> and partly on the </i>PERSISTENCE<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">
of these paths.”</i> [299]</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><span style="color: black; font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 14pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-language: X-NONE; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"> </span></i></p><p class="MsoNormal"><i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><span style="color: black; font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 14pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-language: X-NONE; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">Innate
retentiveness of neural connections</span></i><span style="color: black; font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 14pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-language: X-NONE; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"> </span>
</p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="color: black; font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 14pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-language: X-NONE; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="color: black; font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 14pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-language: X-NONE; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">James recognizes individual differences
in memory that are physiologically based: “The persistence or permanence of the
paths is a physiological property of the brain-tissue of the individual, whilst
their number is altogether due to the facts of his mental experience. Let the
quality of permanence in the paths be called their native tenacity, or
physiological retentiveness. This tenacity differs enormously from infancy to
old age, and from one person to another. Some minds are like wax under a seal--
no impression, however disconnected from others, is wiped out. Others, like a
jelly, vibrate to every touch, but under usual conditions retain no permanent
mark. The latter minds, before they can recollect a fact, must weave it into their
permanent stores of knowledge. They have no <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">desultory</i>
memory. </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="color: black; font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 14pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-language: X-NONE; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="color: black; font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 14pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-language: X-NONE; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">“Those persons, on the contrary, who
retain names, dates and addresses, anecdotes, gossip, poetry, quotations, and
all sorts of miscellaneous facts, without an effort, have desultory memory in a
high degree, and certainly owe it to the unusual tenacity of their
brain-substance for any path formed therein. No one probably was ever effective
on a voluminous scale without a high degree of this physiological
retentiveness. In the practical as in the theoretic life, the man whose
acquisitions <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">stick</i> is the man who is
always achieving and advancing, while his neighbors, spending most of their
time in relearning what they once knew but have forgotten, simply hold their
own.” [299-300] </span><span style="color: black; font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 14pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-language: X-NONE; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"> </span>
</p><p class="MsoNormal"><i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><span style="color: black; font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 14pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-language: X-NONE; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"> </span></i></p><p class="MsoNormal"><i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><span style="color: black; font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 14pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-language: X-NONE; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">Adding
and losing connections; aging</span></i></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="color: black; font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 14pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-language: X-NONE; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="color: black; font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 14pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-language: X-NONE; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">Even so, everyone ages: “But there comes
a time of life for all of us when we can do no more than hold our own in the
way of acquisitions, when the old paths fade as fast as the new ones form<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"> </i>in our brain, and when we forget in a
week quite as much as we can learn in the same space of time. This equilibrium
may last many, many years. In extreme old age it is upset in the reverse
direction, and forgetting prevails over acquisition, or rather there is no
acquisition. Brain-paths are [now] so transient that in the course of a few
minutes of conversation the same question is asked and its answer forgotten
half a dozen times. Then the superior tenacity of the paths formed in childhood
becomes manifest: the dotard will retrace the facts of his earlier years after
he has lost all of those of later date.” --Without using the term
“Alzheimer’s”, James describes some of its symptoms.</span><span style="color: black; font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 14pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-language: X-NONE; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"> </span>
</p><p class="MsoNormal"><i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><span style="color: black; font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 14pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-language: X-NONE; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"> </span></i></p><p class="MsoNormal"><i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><span style="color: black; font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 14pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-language: X-NONE; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">More
paths, more memory</span></i><span style="color: black; font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 14pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-language: X-NONE; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="color: black; font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 14pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-language: X-NONE; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="color: black; font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 14pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-language: X-NONE; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">“So much for the permanence of the paths.
Now for their number. It is obvious that the more there are of such [neural
paths in the brain, associated with a particular event], and the more<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>such possible cues or occasions for the
recall of [that event] to the mind, the more frequently one will be reminded of
it, the more avenues of approach to it one will possess. In mental terms, <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">the more other facts a fact is associated
with in the mind, the better possession of it our memory retains. </i>Each of
its associates becomes a hook to which it hangs, a means to fish it up by when
sunk beneath the surface.”</span><span style="color: black; font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 14pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-language: X-NONE; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"> </span>
</p><p class="MsoNormal"><i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><span style="color: black; font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 14pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-language: X-NONE; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"> </span></i></p><p class="MsoNormal"><i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><span style="color: black; font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 14pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-language: X-NONE; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">Thinking
keeps the circuits flowing</span></i><span style="color: black; font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 14pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-language: X-NONE; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="color: black; font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 14pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-language: X-NONE; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="color: black; font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 14pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-language: X-NONE; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">“The ‘secret of a good memory’ is the
secret of forming diverse and multiple associations with every fact we care to
retain. But this forming of associations with a fact, what is it but <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">thinking about</i> the fact as much as
possible? Briefly, then, of two men with the same outward experiences and the
same amount of mere native tenacity, <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">the
one who</i> THINKS <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">over his experiences
most, and weaves them into systematic relations with each other</i>, <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">will be the one with the best memory. </i></span><i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><span style="color: black; font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 14pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-language: X-NONE; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"> </span></i>
</p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="color: black; font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 14pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-language: X-NONE; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="color: black; font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 14pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-language: X-NONE; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">“Most men have a good memory for facts
connected with their own pursuits. The college athlete who remains a dunce at
his books will astonish you with his knowledge of men’s records in various
feats and games, and will be a walking dictionary of sporting statistics. The
reason is that he is constantly going over these things in his mind, and
comparing and making series of them. They form for him not so many odd facts,
but a concept system-- so they stick. So the merchant remembers prices, the
politician<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>other politicians’ speeches
and votes, with a copiousness that amazes outsiders, but which the amount of
thinking they bestow on these subjects easily explains. </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><span style="color: black; font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 14pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-language: X-NONE; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"> </span></i></p><p class="MsoNormal"><i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><span style="color: black; font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 14pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-language: X-NONE; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">Intellectual
projects bond numerous fact-memories</span></i><span style="color: black; font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 14pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-language: X-NONE; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"> </span>
</p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="color: black; font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 14pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-language: X-NONE; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="color: black; font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 14pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-language: X-NONE; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">“The great memory for facts which a
Darwin and a Spencer reveal in their books is not incompatible with the
possession on their part of a brain with only a middling degree of
physiological retentiveness. Let a man early in his life set himself the task
of verifying such a theory as that of evolution, and the facts will soon
cluster and cling to him like grapes to their stem. Their relations to the
theory will hold them fast; and the more of these the mind is able to discern,
the greater the erudition will be.”<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>On
the other hand: “Unutilizable facts may be unnoticed by him and forgotten as
soon as heard. An ignorance almost as encyclopaedic as his erudition may
co-exist... Those who have much to do with scholars will readily think of
examples.” [301-302] -- James comes down after all on mental habits more than
the genetics of brain capacity.</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><span style="color: black; font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 14pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-language: X-NONE; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"> </span></i></p><p class="MsoNormal"><i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><span style="color: black; font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 14pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-language: X-NONE; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">Rote
learning is onerous and ephemeral</span></i><span style="color: black; font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 14pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-language: X-NONE; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"> </span><span style="color: black; font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 14pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-language: X-NONE; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"> </span>
</p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="color: black; font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 14pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-language: X-NONE; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="color: black; font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 14pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-language: X-NONE; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">“<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">The
reason why cramming is such a bad mode of study </i><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>is now made clear. I mean by cramming that way
of preparing for examinations by committing points to memory during a few hours
or days of intense application immediately preceding the final ordeal, little
or no work having been performed during the previous course of the term. Things
learned thus in a few hours, on one occasion, for one purpose, cannot possibly
have formed many associations with other things in the mind. Their
brain-processes are led into by few paths, and are relatively little liable to
be awakened again. Speedy oblivion is the almost inevitable fate of all that is
committed to memory in this simple way. ... On the contrary, the same materials
taken in gradually, day after day, recurring in different contexts... and
repeatedly reflected upon,<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>lie open to
so many paths of approach, that they remain permanent possessions.</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="color: black; font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 14pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-language: X-NONE; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="color: black; font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 14pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-language: X-NONE; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">“<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">One’s
native retentativeness is unchangeable. </i><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>It will now appear clear that <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">all improvement of the memory lies in the
line of </i>ELABORATING THE ASSOCIATES<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"> </i>of
each of the several things to be remembered.”<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>[302] </span><span style="color: black; font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 14pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-language: X-NONE; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"> </span>
</p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="color: black; font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 14pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-language: X-NONE; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="color: black; font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 14pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-language: X-NONE; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">In other words,<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>connecting facts with a theory, or with some
larger purpose, is the best way to remember them, and that means understanding how
they are used. It is the difference between trying to learn a foreign language
by memorizing tables of verb forms, and hearing them in all sorts of real-life
contexts. </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="color: black; font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 14pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-language: X-NONE; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="color: black; font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 14pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-language: X-NONE; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">Now to put James to work on the problem
of Alzheimer’s. It affects both short-term memory and long-term memory (what
James refers to as reproductive memory). Both deteriorate over time, while
short-term memory appears to deteriorate first, or at least it becomes seen as
a problem earlier. </span><span style="color: black; font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 14pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-language: X-NONE; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"> </span>
</p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="color: black; font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 14pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-language: X-NONE; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="color: black; font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 14pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-language: X-NONE; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">Typical short-term memory problems
include: losing track of practical things you are trying to do; repeating
yourself in conversation without being aware of it; losing things by being
unable to remember where they are. Long-term memory problems range from
forgetting names of acquaintances; not recognizing familiar people; losing
memory of personal experiences; losing general knowledge you once had; losing
the ability to understand or speak a language; at the extreme, neural
degeneration destroys motor skills and bodily functions and can be a cause of
death. What does James offer by way of explanation of these phenomena? Where
does his analysis suggest amelioration, and for what ranges of severity?</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><span style="color: black; font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 14pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-language: X-NONE; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"> </span></i></p><p class="MsoNormal"><i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><span style="color: black; font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 14pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-language: X-NONE; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">Forgetting
particular names</span></i><span style="color: black; font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 14pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-language: X-NONE; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"> </span>
</p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="color: black; font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 14pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-language: X-NONE; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="color: black; font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 14pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-language: X-NONE; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">Short-term memory has fewer neural
connections than long-term memory, so we would expect it to deteriorate first.
I will discuss the various kinds of memory failure starting with those that set
in earliest, and these are mostly short-term memory. But one kind of long-term
memory-forgetting affects people even in their 50s or earlier, forgetting
particular names. </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="color: black; font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 14pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-language: X-NONE; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="color: black; font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 14pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-language: X-NONE; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">James says: “We <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">recognize</i> but do not <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">remember</i>
it-- its associates form too confused a cloud... We then feel we have seen the
object already, but when and where we cannot say, though we may seem to be on
the brink of saying it... what happens when we seek to remember a name. It
tingles, it trembles on the verge, but it does not come. Just such a tingling
and trembling of unrecovered associates is the penumbra of recognition that may
surround any experience and make it seem familiar, though we know not why.”
[305-06]</span><span style="color: black; font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 14pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-language: X-NONE; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"> </span>
</p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="color: black; font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 14pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-language: X-NONE; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="color: black; font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 14pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-language: X-NONE; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">Because they are particular, names of
people or places have fewer occasions for use than more generic words-- unless
it is a place-name you are constantly writing or referring to (like your
address), or a name of someone you constantly invoke. But if you have had
hundreds or thousands of professional or social acquaintances in your life, it
is not surprising that you should forget most of them after a while-- even
though it is embarrassing to meet someone suddenly and be unable to connect a
name to the face. It should be considered bad manners to accost an old
acquaintance with a question like “You remember me, don’t you?”<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Today’s informal manners, which includes
introducing yourself by your first name only, doesn’t help much. On the whole,
forgetting particular names is trivial and ought to be recognized as such. If
you feel insulted because your name isn’t on the tip of someone’s tongue, it is
probably because you aren’t as important as you think you are.</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="color: black; font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 14pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-language: X-NONE; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="color: black; font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 14pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-language: X-NONE; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">Having trouble bringing to mind the names
of persons who are professionally important when you talk about topics in your
field-- like a sociologist unable to recall the name of Weber or Bourdieu-- is
a more significant sign of loss of neural connections. But the fact that one
can usually ferret out the desired name by thinking of their books or
controversies indicates most of the important connections are still in working
order. This is a better search method than trying to remember what letters of
the alphabet are in the missing name, since letter combinations are more
arbitrary, and the search field is hard to narrow down by that route. </span><span style="color: black; font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 14pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-language: X-NONE; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"> </span>
</p><p class="MsoNormal"><i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><span style="color: black; font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 14pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-language: X-NONE; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"> </span></i></p><p class="MsoNormal"><i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><span style="color: black; font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 14pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-language: X-NONE; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">Forgetting
your intention </span></i><span style="color: black; font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 14pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-language: X-NONE; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="color: black; font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 14pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-language: X-NONE; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="color: black; font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 14pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-language: X-NONE; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">In the realm of short-term memory, among
the earliest failures are forgetting what you set out to do. These are
typically minor practical tasks: going downstairs to the kitchen to get a glass
of water, but getting side-tracked along the way (picking up the newspaper and reading
it; putting away dishes from the drain; etc). The original intention gets lost.
This is called being absent-minded or scattered, but can also be a sign of
memory loss. The explanation is in James’ model: habits are set off by initial
cues. If you are in the habit of keeping the kitchen cleared up, the sight of
dishes now dried in the drain or the dishwasher invokes the habit of picking
them up and putting them away. They are “affordances” -- objects are occasions
for the actions you can do with them. But it is their link to habits that
creates problems for short-term memory. James suggests putting a different
habit in the place of an undesired habit. In this case, what is undesired is
not the habit itself (putting away dishes), but letting it interfere with your
intention (getting a glass of water). A solution would be to keep a cue with
you of what you set out to do-- such as carrying an empty glass with you
downstairs, and paying attention to it even as you walk past the
habit-triggering dishes and other side-tracks. </span><span style="color: black; font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 14pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-language: X-NONE; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"> </span>
</p><p class="MsoNormal"><i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><span style="color: black; font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 14pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-language: X-NONE; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"> </span></i></p><p class="MsoNormal"><i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><span style="color: black; font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 14pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-language: X-NONE; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">Can’t
remember whether you did something or not</span></i><span style="color: black; font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 14pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-language: X-NONE; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="color: black; font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 14pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-language: X-NONE; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="color: black; font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 14pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-language: X-NONE; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">Another type of short-term memory problem
has less to do with remembering what you set out to do, than remembering
whether you have already done it. (Do I need to brush my teeth now, or did I
just do it?) The action is a familiar habit; you haven’t lost the
neural-and-muscle memory of how to do it; and the sight of the toothbrush by
the sink cues it off. The problem is the opposite of getting side-tracked. This
is not exclusively a problem of aging. Many people go back to check whether
they locked the door behind them as they leave the house; it is a form of
Freudian anxiety more than memory loss per se (something similar could be said
about certain kinds of name-forgetting, like names of people you have bad
feelings about). </span><span style="color: black; font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 14pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-language: X-NONE; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"> </span>
</p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="color: black; font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 14pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-language: X-NONE; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="color: black; font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 14pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-language: X-NONE; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">What is relevant here is the distinction
between <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">remembering what</i> (some thing
or action) and <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">remembering when</i> (you
encountered the thing or did the action). Very familiar things/actions are
towards the unconscious end of the continuum anyway; you have been through them
so many times it is impossible to remember every time. James wrote: “If we
remembered everything, we should on most occasions be as ill off as if we
remembered nothing. It would take as long for us to recall a space of time as
it took the original time to elapse, and we should never get ahead with our
thinking.” [306] It is useful to forget most of the time-dating so you can get
on with your life.</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="color: black; font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 14pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-language: X-NONE; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="color: black; font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 14pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-language: X-NONE; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">But in short-term memory,
<i>remembering-when</i> is important since it keeps you from repeating the same thing
over and over. This is an aspect of consciousness over and above the content of
the short-term memory itself: not what it was, but also that it is marked in a
span of time. <i>Remembering-when</i>, for banal everyday activities with no
particular demand on attention and no emotional significance, is perhaps the
least-connected in neural circuits of any experience. On the whole, it is
destined to be left behind in the rear-view mirror of memory rather quickly.
How quickly? James says the specious present is about 12 seconds and “our
maximum <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">vague</i> perception is probably
not more than a minute or so”. When you can’t remember whether you just brushed
your teeth or not, how long does it take before that thought-process sets in? I
don’t know if anyone has tried to measure this; a James-based conjecture would
be-- certainly not within 12 seconds. Would it be in the “vague perception”
range between 12 seconds and about 60 seconds? Beyond a minute, you have no
sense of immediacy at all, and it is in the realm of past memories, which
supposedly get drained out when you next sleep and dream. </span><span style="color: black; font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 14pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-language: X-NONE; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"> </span>
</p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="color: black; font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 14pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-language: X-NONE; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="color: black; font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 14pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-language: X-NONE; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">I raise the point mainly as a practical
suggestion for persons who have the problem of remembering whether or not you
did something recently. The strength of short-term memory is affected by how
much focused attention is placed on it:<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>James argued that will-power consists in adding a half-second of sharply
focused attention to any cue/action sequence. If you set off a stop-watch every
time you finished brushing your teeth, this might furnish information about
where your zone of remembering-when-failure is located in time. But aside from
any contribution to psychology, it might add intensity to the remembering-when
process-- it would be a practical antidote. </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="color: black; font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 14pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-language: X-NONE; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="color: black; font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 14pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-language: X-NONE; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">And as an antidote, it may well have a
future history. Would the stop-watch routine start fading out as an antidote to
the remembering-when failure? At some point,<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>would you forget what the purpose of the stop-watch was? Would it extend
the befuddlement-free zone for x minutes at first, then a shorter x-minus and
so forth? This would be a measure of deterioration as well as a self-monitoring
technique.</span><span style="color: black; font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 14pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-language: X-NONE; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"> </span>
</p><p class="MsoNormal"><i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><span style="color: black; font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 14pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-language: X-NONE; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"> </span></i></p><p class="MsoNormal"><i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><span style="color: black; font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 14pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-language: X-NONE; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">Repeating
yourself in conversation</span></i><span style="color: black; font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 14pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-language: X-NONE; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="color: black; font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 14pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-language: X-NONE; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="color: black; font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 14pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-language: X-NONE; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">Similar analysis would apply to repeating
yourself in conversation. Since this is a matter of degree, it is not clear
whether forgetting whether you just brushed your teeth happens earlier than
forgetting what you just said. But repeating in conversation is more socially
disruptive and therefore more noticable; forgetting in little personal tasks is
more private, and not on a whole a serious practical problem unless one spends
all one’s time brushing one’s teeth. </span><span style="color: black; font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 14pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-language: X-NONE; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"> </span>
</p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="color: black; font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 14pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-language: X-NONE; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="color: black; font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 14pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-language: X-NONE; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">Before setting it down to Alzheimer’s, we
should note there are circumstances in which people of all ages repeat
themselves. In arguments, especially as they grow heated, antagonists tend to
interrupt each other, trying to talk each other down-- struggling over
controlling the speaking turn as well as the content of what is said. Recorded
conversational analysis shows that as opponents talk at same time, it becomes
useless to make any connected argument, and the determined arguer repeats the
words they most insist upon. Arguments that escalate to violence typically
reach the phase of<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>extended verbal repetition
of insults. [data and references in Collins 2008] On a larger scale of
contention, participants in protest demonstrations usually chant the same
slogans over and over. Repetition here is a combination of emotional and
strategic. </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="color: black; font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 14pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-language: X-NONE; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="color: black; font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 14pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-language: X-NONE; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">Drunks also tend to become very
repetitive as they get more intoxicated (which is why being around drunks is
boring if you are not drunk yourself). But in a bleary way drunks epitomize the
central quality of sociable talk (phatic talk), where the main concern is just
to keep the conversation going. Conviviality visibly fails when there is
nothing to say, or just when there are embarrassing pauses; hence banal small
talk about the weather. If it is a party or reception where many people are
present, often the same things are said over and over in different
conversations. Thus it is not just people with Alzheimer’s who repeat
themselves. </span><span style="color: black; font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 14pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-language: X-NONE; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"> </span>
</p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="color: black; font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 14pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-language: X-NONE; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="color: black; font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 14pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-language: X-NONE; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">What is distinctive must be the lack of
conscious awareness that one is being repetitive; together with repetition in a
short period of time. Couples or friends who have had many sociable
conversations will often bring out the same reminiscences, stories and jokes;
usually there is a sense that we have heard this before, but it is enjoyable to
tell it again, like singing a song. This is phatic repetition. In leisure
chatting, it is not unusual for the same topics, even the same phrases, to
repeat. Such talk is deeply grooved verbal habits; it is a chatting routine. Lack
of conscious awareness of repeating oneself is not necessarily a sign of neural
deterioration. The best criterion, I suggest, is the length of time between one
repetition and the next.</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="color: black; font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 14pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-language: X-NONE; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="color: black; font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 14pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-language: X-NONE; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">Here again there is a lack of data with
the necessary detail. My impression is that very repetitive old people do not
repeat themselves within 12 seconds-- the stretch of the Jamesian present. My
guess it is more in the realm of 5 minutes or so. For people not yet at that
advanced stage, it can be half an hour or more, even a day. Measuring the gap
between repetitions would be an indicator of the extent of deterioration.</span><span style="color: black; font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 14pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-language: X-NONE; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"> </span>
</p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="color: black; font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 14pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-language: X-NONE; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="color: black; font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 14pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-language: X-NONE; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">On the practical side, if a person
repeats something once, there is no way of knowing when to start the
stop-watch-- of knowing what phrase is going to be repeated. But if they
typically repeat multiple times, one could note the second instance and measure
subsequent repetition gaps. Doing this yourself may raise self-consciousness
about repetitions, and thus improve neural connection. This is not the same as
the other person saying, “You already said that,” -- which does not seem to
have any effect.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The heightened
consciousness would have to be forward-looking: not so much looking out to
avoid repetitions, but just to pay attention to the time-span itself. </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><span style="color: black; font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 14pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-language: X-NONE; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"> </span></i></p><p class="MsoNormal"><i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><span style="color: black; font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 14pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-language: X-NONE; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">Loss
of long-term memory</span></i><span style="color: black; font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 14pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-language: X-NONE; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"> </span>
</p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="color: black; font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 14pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-language: X-NONE; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="color: black; font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 14pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-language: X-NONE; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">There is a certain amount of long-term
memory loss in the normal course of life. As James says, you need to forget a
lot of detail, especially about memory sequences, if you are to have your brain
free to do something else. Much of forgetting particular names falls into this
category. Losing long-term memory includes the following, roughly in the order
in which they happen:<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>losing general
knowledge; getting lost by not recognizing your familiar environment; not
recognizing persons you know well or forgetting their names; losing language;
losing muscle memory for motor skills.</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="color: black; font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 14pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-language: X-NONE; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="color: black; font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 14pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-language: X-NONE; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">On the whole, this is a process of losing
neural connections; at first by lack of current activity and interest; further
undermined by deterioration through aging. An example: My grandmother lived to
be 103. Her husband for 53 years died when she was 75; a few years later her
daughter (her only child) moved her out of the house she had lived in for 30
years, and near where her relatives were located, to a distant city. My mother
insisted that her mother stay out of the kitchen and just sit down.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Since in my memory (having lived with my
grandparents for considerable periods growing up) Granny spent most of her life
in the kitchen, this was tantamount to taking away most of her interests, her
routines, and her neural circuits.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>A few
years later, mother moved Granny into a nursing home. By the time she was in
her late 80s, when I would visit Granny, she did not recognize me. At times,
she would call me by the name of her nephew in Germany. She stopped being able
to speak English (which she had spoken since age 22). When she did speak, she
was still able to speak German; when her nephew did come for a visit, they were
able to converse. In her nursing home years, she spent all her time in bed,
barely able to move. This continued for about 20 years until she died.
Apparently she could still recognize her daughter, who visited her from time to
time. When mother died of cancer, no one told Granny, assuming she could not
understand what was said. Granny died a few weeks after mother no longer came
to see her. </span><span style="color: black; font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 14pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-language: X-NONE; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"> </span>
</p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="color: black; font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 14pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-language: X-NONE; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="color: black; font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 14pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-language: X-NONE; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">These are typical patterns.
Brain-circuits stay alive to the extent they are activated; if not, they fade
out.</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="color: black; font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 14pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-language: X-NONE; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="color: black; font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 14pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-language: X-NONE; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">The main counteractive (if not cure) to
long-term memory loss is to do things frequently that increase neural
connections. As James emphasizes, this means paying attention with a sense of
interest; and this happens when doing things not as a flat routine but with a
trajectory. In his view, persons like Darwin were not unusually intelligent nor
had especially retentive brains; it is having a project that connects things
into a sought-for pattern that increases memory. His advice would be: if you
have any intellectual interests, cultivate them even more as you get older. The
same would be true for any interest that involves poring over a lot of
information (sports statistics or stock market, whatever). If one is concerned
about losing memory of life events, a counter would be to collect old photos
and materials and compose your autobiography. If that is overly self-centered,
you could make a project out of the biographies of other people. </span><span style="color: black; font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 14pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-language: X-NONE; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"> </span>
</p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="color: black; font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 14pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-language: X-NONE; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="color: black; font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 14pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-language: X-NONE; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">In advanced stages of Alzheimer’s, people
have difficulty following a conversation. Learning to focus on the non-verbal
signs other speakers are giving off would be a project that provides interest
and increases attention; probably it would reduce one’s sense of isolation and
may add to a more comfortable feeling for the others. These are the
self-reinforcing spirals. Isolation and passivity reduces neural connections
and breeds more of the same. Active participation, on whatever level, has the
opposite results.</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><span style="color: black; font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 14pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-language: X-NONE; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"> </span></i></p><p class="MsoNormal"><i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><span style="color: black; font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 14pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-language: X-NONE; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">Ending</span></i><span style="color: black; font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 14pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-language: X-NONE; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"> </span>
</p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="color: black; font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 14pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-language: X-NONE; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="color: black; font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 14pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-language: X-NONE; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">It is conventional to regard Alzheimer’s
as a disease, and therefore something for which there is a specific medical
cure. But it may be that there is no such thing as “Alzheimer’s disease” or
“dementia”; these are merely labels for summaries of observed symptoms. No one
gets antibodies to Alzheimer’s; there is no physiological
equilibrium-maintaining mechanism like fever as the body’s response to invasive
micro-organisms. All this suggests these medical labels are just names we put
on the normal process of aging.</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="color: black; font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 14pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-language: X-NONE; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="color: black; font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 14pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-language: X-NONE; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">All physical things eventually decay;
this is an empirical generalization that appears to have no exceptions. When
the Buddha lay dying at the age of 80 around 460 B.C., he said that his body
was falling apart like an old wooden cart. It has been observed that humans are
like automobiles in the following respect: medical expenditures in the last year
of life are typically about equal to all previous medical expense; and repair
costs of cars ramp up sharply just before they give out entirely. This implies
deterioration of the nervous system, like any other deterioration of a living
body, is a process wider than life itself. </span><span style="color: black; font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 14pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-language: X-NONE; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"> </span>
</p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="color: black; font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 14pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-language: X-NONE; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="color: black; font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 14pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-language: X-NONE; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">It may be that the extreme stages of
Alzheimer’s are the way that very healthy people die; they live longer because
they have not died from cancer, stroke, or heart disease. As cures for common
illnesses have improved, there is an increasing residue of persons who live
long enough to die of Alzheimer’s. </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="color: black; font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 14pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-language: X-NONE; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="color: black; font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 14pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-language: X-NONE; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">The medical metaphor of Alzheimer’s as a
disease has the further disadvantage of promoting an externally imposed,
disease-control policy. What is more relevant is to discover practical methods
for living with a fading memory. No doubt everything deteriorates sooner or
later, but how long it takes is to some extent under our personal control. </span><span style="color: black; font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 14pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-language: X-NONE; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"> </span>
</p><p class="MsoNormal"><i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><span style="color: black; font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 14pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-language: X-NONE; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"> </span></i></p><p class="MsoNormal"><i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><span style="color: black; font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 14pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-language: X-NONE; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">References</span></i><span style="color: black; font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 14pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-language: X-NONE; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="color: black; font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 14pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-language: X-NONE; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">William James. 1894. <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Psychology: Briefer Course.</i></span><span style="color: black; font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 14pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-language: X-NONE; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"> </span>
</p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="color: black; font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 14pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-language: X-NONE; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">Randall Collins. 2008. <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Violence: A Micro-sociological Theory.</i></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="color: black; font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 14pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-language: X-NONE; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">Carroll L. Estes. 2019. <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Aging A-Z: Concepts toward Emancipatory
Gerontology</i>.</span><span style="color: black; font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 14pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-language: X-NONE; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"> </span>
</p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="color: black; font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 14pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-language: X-NONE; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">Harold Garfinkel. 1977. <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Studies in Ethnomethodology. </i></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="color: black; font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 14pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-language: X-NONE; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">John A. Goldsmith and Bernard Laks. 2019.
<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Battle in the Mind Fields. </i></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><br /></p>
<p><style>
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{page:WordSection1;}</style></p>Unknownnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1005085971596877601.post-60780823202048493232020-07-02T07:41:00.000-07:002020-07-08T07:17:49.169-07:00SOCIOLOGY OF MASKS AND SOCIAL DISTANCING <div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="color: black; font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 14.0pt;">Throughout human history, people have
generated almost all of their solidarity face-to-face, by physical co-presence.
This has been disrupted by a world-wide natural experiment: making people stay
home, avoid public gatherings, avoid interacting with strangers except when
wearing masks and staying six feet apart.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="color: black; font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 14.0pt;">Since the publication of <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Interaction Ritual Chains</i> (Collins
2004), the issue has been discussed whether mediated forms of interaction,
especially electronic communication in real time,<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>substitute effectively for face-to-face (F2F)
interaction. On the whole, this literature has found that electronic media do
not substitute for it, but instead supplement it. Studying cell-phone use, Ling
(2008) found that persons tend to call the same people that they normally
interact with, and much of what they communicate is where they are and how they
can meet. He also found there is some feeling of social solidarity-- personal
belonging-- in talking over a mobile phone, but that it is a weaker feeling
than F2F. This may explain why cell-phone users spend much more time
telephoning than traditional land-line users did; in this respect similar to
drug addicts who increase their dose as its effects decline. </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="color: black; font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 14.0pt;">Are humans are infinitely malleable,
entirely determined by social construction, so that we become acclimated to
whatever is “the new normal” (perhaps with a measurable time-lag)?<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Or is it that technologies become
increasingly better at ferreting out what kinds of things happen in F2F
interaction, that can be mimicked electronically? My review of currently
available evidence is carried out with these questions in mind, along with a
third possibility: that some features of F2F interaction are deeply engrained in
the human genome, and that eliminating them leads to resistance and new forms
of social conflict.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
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<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><span style="color: black; font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 14.0pt;">The
Ingredients of Interaction Ritual </span></i><span style="color: black; font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 14.0pt;">(IR)</span></div>
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<span style="color: black; font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 14.0pt;">[1] Co-presence:<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>people are physically near to each other
where they can see, hear, and otherwise sense which each other is doing.</span></div>
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<span style="color: black; font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 14.0pt;">[2] Mutual focus of attention: they focus
their attention on the same thing, and become aware that they are doing so. </span></div>
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<span style="color: black; font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 14.0pt;">[3] Shared mood or emotion: they feel the
same emotion, whether excitement, joy, fear, sadness, anger, boredom or any
other. </span></div>
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<span style="color: black; font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 14.0pt;">[4] Rhythmic entrainment: they get into
the same rhythm, with voice or body. </span></div>
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<span style="color: black; font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 14.0pt;">Feedback processes take place among these
ingredients. As people pay more attention to each other, they tend to converge
on a shared emotion and intensify it; conversely shared emotion intensifies
mutual focus. As these increase, rhythmic entrainment increases. </span></div>
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<span style="color: black; font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 14.0pt;">Successful interaction rituals (in
contrast to failed rituals where these ingredients are missing or weak) have
the following outcomes:</span></div>
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<span style="color: black; font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 14.0pt;">[5] Social solidarity. Individuals feel
like members of a group, and recognize others as co-members. </span></div>
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<span style="color: black; font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 14.0pt;">[6] Emotional energy (EE). Individuals
feel pumped up by a successful interaction ritual; persons with high EE are
confident, proactive, and enthusiastic. Persons with low EE are the opposite:
they are depressed, passive, alienated. These are the results of failed
interaction rituals.</span></div>
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<span style="color: black; font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 14.0pt;">[7] Collective symbols. Durkheim called
these “sacred objects”, referring to the emblems, places, books, etc. that are
the focus of religious worship; and he extended this to political symbols like
flags. Collective symbols include all our ideals and strong beliefs. </span></div>
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<span style="color: black; font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 14.0pt;">[8] Moralities of right and wrong. For
any group with successful rituals, the fundamental standard of morality is
whether people respect its rituals and sacred objects. The worst offense is
disrespect for its emblems; attacking its symbols creates moral outrage. This
results in the most heated forms of social conflict, and rituals of public
punishment for the enemy group and their symbols. We can see this process in
the conflicts that arose during the coronavirus emergency, and in the public
demonstrations that spread across the US in June 2020.</span></div>
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<span style="color: black; font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 14.0pt;">In sum, successful interaction rituals
are the micro-process that generates almost everything that we refer to as
“social order.” <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>If we <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>get rid of interaction rituals, or weaken them
considerably, what would happen?</span></div>
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<i><span style="color: black; font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 14.0pt;">How important is physical co-presence?</span></i><span style="color: black; font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 14.0pt;"></span></div>
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<span style="color: black; font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 14.0pt;">Co-presence [1], in the scheme as developed
by Durkheim and Goffman, is the point of departure. It is when people come
together that the other ritual ingredients [2-4] can be brought into action. Can we
say, though, that as media become more ubiquitous and mimic more aspects of F2F
interaction, social connections become increasingly transferred to media
connections while the bodily interactional basis fades away?</span></div>
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<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><span style="color: black; font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 14.0pt;">Co-presence
is important because it facilitates mutual focus, shared emotion, and rhythmic
entrainment. </span></i><span style="color: black; font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 14.0pt;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>By
seeing another person’s eyes and face, and the orientation of their body, you
know what they are paying attention to. An exchange of glances communicates,
I-see-you-seeing-me, and also I-recognize-what-we-are-both-looking-at. Looking
at the other person’s facial expressions and bodily gestures, as well as
hearing their tone of voice and its loudness or softness, communicates what
emotions are being felt. The James-Lange principle applies here: moving the
muscles of one’s face, eyes, and body intensify the felt emotion; also it is
triggered and intensified by closely monitoring the other person’s emotional
expressions. Not only does running away with the rest of a crowd make you feel
more afraid, but shouting happily, or angrily, with others makes one more happy
or angry. Rhythmic entrainment is most strongly felt when it is in all bodily
channels: not only seeing and hearing, but the proprioceptive feelings in
muscles, breathing, heart rate, and bodily chemicals that make an emotional
mood a felt experience, not merely a detached cognition. These kinds of
embodied experiences are the glue that creates moments of social solidarity. </span></div>
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<span style="color: black; font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 14.0pt;">What happens when people are prevented
from bodily F2F encounters, or are restricted to a small number of sensory
channels?</span></div>
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<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><span style="color: black; font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 14.0pt;">Masked
social distancing in public</span></i><span style="color: black; font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 14.0pt;"></span></div>
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<span style="color: black; font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 14.0pt;">Here we have a partial restriction of the
ingredients of IR: people are bodily co-present, but the F2F aspect is greatly
reduced. Masks cover the mouth and lower face, making it harder to recognize
emotions, as well as harder to hear what the other person is saying. Thus we
would expect shared emotion and mutual focus of attention would be harder to
attain, IRs would weaken, and solidarity decline. </span></div>
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<span style="color: black; font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 14.0pt;">Nevertheless, what we find in observing
people on the streets was the opposite, at least for a period of time. Simmel’s
theory of solidarity through conflict says that when a group is shocked by a
enemy-- we can widen this to a natural disaster or other shared emergency--
solidarity goes up. I tested this immediately after the 9.11.2001 attacks
[Collins 2004a], and found that it has a time-pattern: using the display of
American flags as an indicator, the pattern looked like this. After the first
few days of hushed uncertainty, people started putting up flags on windows and
cars; this reached its maximum within two weeks. It stayed at a plateau for 3
months, a period during which there were also repeated displays of flags and
ceremonies honoring police and firefighters killed in the attacks. After 3
months, articles starting appearing discussing “can we take our flags down
now?” Political controversy, which was almost entirely stifled during this
period, started up again. By 6 months, the level of flag-display had declined
by more than half, with a long diminishing tail thereafter. </span></div>
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<span style="color: black; font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 14.0pt;">In the US, public alarm over the
coronavirus surged about March 16, when schools and gyms were shut down. By
March 20, many states had ordered people to stay indoors. Wearing masks away
from home became a requirement in the next two weeks, delayed because of
shortage of supplies and controversies over effectiveness. Effective or not,
wearing masks now became a social marker of joining the effort against the
epidemic, along with keeping 6 feet away from other people. I anticipated that
this period of solidarity would last no more than 3 months. Since the period
after 9.11.01 had many public assemblies, often highly emotional, honoring the
heroes of the attacks, whereas in 2020 public assemblies were prohibited as
dangerous incubators of the epidemic, I expected the period of public
solidarity would be shorter, probably 1 or 2 months.</span></div>
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<span style="color: black; font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 14.0pt;">For several years I was in the habit of
walking or running for a half hour or more almost daily in my neighbourhood or
public parks, and thus have a baseline for normal street behavior. By early
April (about 2 weeks after the lockdown began), I noted that the number of
people out walking was up by a factor of two or three from the pre-epidemic
period; people deprived of exercise had found something they could do. Soon
almost all walkers were now wearing masks, and when meeting others on the
sidewalk, one or the other would step out into the street to maintain distance.
When doing so, almost everyone waved or called out a friendly greeting. The
main motivation would be that deliberately avoiding someone would be a mark of
fear or an insult; so we countered that by a friendly wave or greeting. This is
also Simmelian solidarity. It is clearly related to the onset of the shared
emergency; in my walks in previous months and years, I would estimate the proportion
of F2F encounters on the street where there was a greeting was less than 20%
(chiefly among older people; noticeably absent among the young).<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></span></div>
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<span style="color: black; font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 14.0pt;">The time-pattern of decline in Simmelian
solidarity was the following: By late April (one month after the lockdown), the
number of people out walking had noticeably increased. The proportion of people
greeting each other declined; this was particularly true in areas along the
harbor or ocean-front (the beaches and parks being closed and patrolled by
guards); perhaps there was the beginning of a tone of defiance. Younger adults
in particular were ignoring social distancing; and friendly waves or greetings
were absent (including towards each other). </span></div>
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<span style="color: black; font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 14.0pt;">I began to make systematic counts of how
many people were wearing face masks, distancing, and greeting. My focus was on
adults who were walking on sidewalks or streets (children at this point rarely
wore masks). I did not count runners or bicyclists, since they almost never
wore masks-- a constant pattern from this point onwards. This may be due partly
to decreased lateral visibility, but especially to difficulty breathing when
doing heavy exercise. I did not count gardeners or other outdoor workers or
delivery persons: the latter usually wore masks (as they worked for bureaucratic
organizations that demanded it); manual workers usually did not, nor did they
practice social distancing among themselves. One can see here a social class
divide in the observance of social distancing etiquette. For walkers, the
height of symbolic solidarity (mask-wearing and greetings) was in April; during
May the proportion wearing masks gradually declined, as did greetings when
social distancing (very noticeable around May 22-23).<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>For this period, a Gallup poll reported 1/3
each said they always, sometimes, or never work masks outdoors (New York Times
June 3, 2020); given the desirability bias in surveys, the mask-compliant
numbers are probably exaggerated. </span></div>
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<span style="color: black; font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 14.0pt;">A sharp break occurred in the first week
of June, as Black Lives Matter protests and marches broke out. This was 10
weeks after the lockdown began. During the most militant period (the first 4-5
days), when many protest demonstrations were accompanied by burning,
property destruction, or violence, photos indicate that few protestors wore
masks, and participants massed close together. This happened despite official
warnings that big assemblies, especially when shouting and chanting together,
broadcast the virus. A rival source of Simmelian solidarity had been created,
and it overrode the already-declining solidarity rituals of the social
distancing etiquette. Most of the participants in the protests were young (as
one can see in news photos); young people already were largely ignoring social
distancing, and signs of solidarity among the young in ordinary public street
behavior had been low. They were further IR-starved by the banning of sports
and concert participation as audiences, or even as performers. The predominant
participation of white youth in the protests (in most photos far outnumbering
minority participants) were at least in part the response to the sudden
opportunity to regain experiences of mass solidarity. Police violence and other
grievances have been long-standing [</span><a href="https://sociological-eye.blogspot.com/2020/06/seven-reasons-why-police-are-disliked.html"><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif;">https://sociological-eye.blogspot.com/2020/06/seven-reasons-why-police-are-disliked.html</span></a><span style="color: black; font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 14.0pt;">], but why have protests mushroomed now? <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The timing of these unprecedentedly widespread
protests throughout the youth cohort is also connected to their intensified
alienation in the social distancing regime, as I will document in the next
section.</span></div>
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<span style="color: black; font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 14.0pt;">In subsequent weeks, as protests became
smaller, photos show participants more often spread out, maintaining social distancing
(also no big crowds) and at least half wearing masks. This is probably the
effect of being more deliberately organized rather than spontaneous, with
organizers and (mostly white middle-class) participants making a conscious
effort to present a good appearance by following official coronavirus
etiquette.</span></div>
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<span style="color: black; font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 14.0pt;">In California, parks and beaches were
opened up again around June 10, along with reiterated regulations on masking
and social distancing. My observations for pedestrians June 10-27:</span></div>
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<span style="color: black; font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 14.0pt;">Totals for public parks: 54 of 267 wore
masks (20%); 3 greetings (6% of mask-wearers, 0% of unmasked).</span></div>
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<span style="color: black; font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 14.0pt;">for neighbourhoods: 23 of 91 wore masks
(25%); 15 greetings (43% of mask-wearers, 9% of unmasked). </span></div>
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<span style="color: black; font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 14.0pt;">Those who continued to wear masks showed
some solidarity (although declining over time) by greetings; this was more
likely in residential neighborhoods (at least middle class) than in public
parks, where greetings had largely disappeared.</span></div>
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<span style="color: black; font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 14.0pt;">Occasional conflicts were observed, in
the following pattern (mid-June):<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>middle-aged woman says to an unmasked woman approaching her closely:
“Could you please stand back? Where is your mask?” Reply: “Don’t be rude!”<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>It appears that both sides felt collective
morality is on their side: a formula for intense social conflict. News reports
a month earlier<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>noted an upsurge of
confrontations between maskless shoppers who grew angry when retail store
employees who told them to wear masks; violent incidents however were rare.
(Wall Street Journal, May 18, 2020) We have no trend data on conflicts over
masking, so we don’t know whether this was just a transitional pattern.</span></div>
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<span style="color: black; font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 14.0pt;">When everyone is wearing masks, it
becomes more difficult to hear what people are saying; also some of the cues
that we use to fill in likely words are missing because we cannot see their
mouth and facial gestures, nor can one use facial feedback from the listener to
correct one’s articulation. Thus masked interactions even in ordinary
utilitarian situations give rise to misunderstandings, raised voices usually
associated with anger, and sometimes gestures of annoyance. I have observed
this frequently in grocery stories. Anything that limits multi-modal
interaction takes it toll, even in situations where solidarity mainly takes the
form of routine civility.</span></div>
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<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><span style="color: black; font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 14.0pt;">Family
Solidarity</span></i><span style="color: black; font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 14.0pt;"></span></div>
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<span style="color: black; font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 14.0pt;">Also on the positive side, it appears
that at first solidarity increased, at least for some family members. Children
of elementary school age and younger seemed happy, as they had more time with
parents and attention from them. I observed a large increase in families
bicycling together on neighbourhood streets (seldom seen before the epidemic);
since bicyclists rarely wear masks, and children at this time never did, one
could see that their expressions were on the whole happy. It is unlikely that
teenagers were similarly affected; I almost never saw them bicycling or walking
with adults in neighbourhoods or parks. Not surprisingly, as teen culture is
mostly concerned with being independent of adults, and being seen with parents
is a status loss except on formal occasions (Milner 2016). Given that teens
were prevented from gathering (I only occasionally saw teens out together, and
hardly any male-female young couples other than parents), I would predict that
data on the level of alienation and anxiety among teenagers would increase for
this period. Even though teens are the most media-connected and media-obsessed
of all age groups, they are the ones least likely to find it a compensation for
a further drop in F2F experience.</span></div>
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<span style="color: black; font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 14.0pt;">On the negative side, doctors report an
increase in child-abuse cases, although official statistics show a decline (all
attention being focused on COVID-19). [San Diego Union-Tribune June 5, 2020] A
national child-abuse hotline reported a 20% increase in calls and 440% increase
in text messages over the prior year [Wall Street Journal, May 19, 2020]<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The stay-at-home situation is favourable to
some, perhaps most families with adequate space and resources; where there is
family tension, isolation increases abuse, as has long been established [Collins
2008: 137].<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Psychiatrists interviewed
generally regard remote video counseling as less effective than F2F, especially
the difficulty in reading emotions and conveying empathy [San Diego
Union-Tribune May 18, 2020]. A national survey carried out in May found that
reports of clinical symptoms of depression had doubled (compared to a 2014
baseline) to 24% of the US population; depression was especially high among
young adults and women, even though they were less vulnerable to COVID-19
[Washington Post, May 27, 2020]. But embodied social interaction in the
smartphone generation was already in decline, especially among teenage girls
[Wall Street Journal, August 17, 2019]. By 2018, American teens were spending
6-to-9 hours daily on-line. Since 2007, time spent on seeing friends or going
out in public had fallen sharply, as did dating. In 2019,<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>36% of girls said they were extremely anxious
every day. </span></div>
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<span style="color: black; font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 14.0pt;">We have no data on sexual behavior during
this period. Likely the birth rate will spike 9 months after the onset of the
epidemic. On the other hand, monthly marriage rates must surely drop, as will
the frequency of sexual behavior among couples of all kinds; casual hookups as
well as commercial sex likely will be found to drop drastically. (I have very
occasionally seen an unmasked male/female couple necking in the park; formerly
active gay pick-up areas look deserted.) Sexual activity had already declined
in the Internet generation; in 2018, 23% of Americans age 18-29 had no sex in
the previous year, doubling the percentage of sex-less lives in the
pre-social-media 1990s [Wall Street Journal, May 18, 2019]. Looking for a
bright side in the coronavirus shutdown, The Wall Street Journal (May 30, 2020)
touted “Distancing Revives Courtship,” an interview-based story of how dating
has gone on-line, returning to almost Victorian manners, at best watching each
other on-line drinking a glass of wine (definitely no touching). If sex is a
form of solidarity, it must surely decline among those who do not already have
intimate live-in partners. The same would be true of ordinary fun involving any
kind of physical activity together. Research may well find that social
distancing makes little difference to upper-middle class professionals whose
social gatherings consist entirely of conversation or playing cards, but more
active persons would likely feel deprived. This is one reason why after bars
re-opened in late June 2020, these suddenly crowded venues (photos showed an
absence of social distancing and mask-wearing) became hotspots for coronavirus
infections. In the tradeoff between lively sociability and risk of sickness,
many choose the former.</span></div>
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<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><span style="color: black; font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 14.0pt;">Remote
Schooling</span></i><span style="color: black; font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 14.0pt;"></span></div>
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<span style="color: black; font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 14.0pt;">By all accounts, this has not been very
successful. Leaving aside issues such as the extent of the school population
who lack internet access; and schools adopting a no-grading policy; we find
that on-line schooling has a negative effect on student motivation.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>On-line daily absences of students who don’t
log in are 30% or more; surveys find there is little interaction with teachers;
50% of students said they don’t feel motivated to complete on-line assignments.
[Wall Street Journal, June 6, 2020] Teachers complain they can’t read the body
language of students and can’t pick out cues for whom to engage with at what opportune
moment. I have watched my 8-year-old grandson during on-line classes; these
usually last less than half an hour, while the teacher goes over the assignment
in a pleasant voice, talking to no one in particular. He spent the time playing
with a slinky held beneath the level of the screen.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Posts on Reddit by college students showed:
students complained about noise from parents or siblings while they were trying
to hear a lecture or take an exam. [San Diego Union-Tribune May 23, 2020] Some
students said they liked not having to go to campus, since they did not need to
find a place to hang around between classes; apparently these were students who
did not live near campus, or who had jobs. One student said he liked being able
to watch a lecture while doing his homework in bed; on-line viewing reduced the
need to pay attention. But we have no baseline of how much students normally
pay attention in class (usually they pretend to, but often their laptops are
not being used for taking notes, as any teacher can observe by walking around
the classroom). We cannot assume that F2F classrooms are automatically
successful Interaction Rituals. </span></div>
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<span style="color: black; font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 14.0pt;">Some college students complained about
the anti-cheating protocol during a virtual exam, where they were required to
keep their face and hands visible on the webcam at all times. Other Reddit
posts said they felt isolated at home, missed their school friends, and were
generally apathetic and unmotivated. This suggests a divide between students
who are entirely utilitarian in their orientation, and those for whom school is
a social experience. Hypothesis: grinds like on-line learning, party animals
don’t; those who value networks, whether intellectual or career, also miss
personal contact even though it consists in more than fun.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="color: black; font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 14.0pt;">Besides passive feelings of alienation
and deprivation, some students actively took the opportunity to counter-attack.
Some coordinated on-line pranks with fellow-students, such as simultaneously
switching off their cameras so that the teacher finds oneself suddenly alone
surrounded by blank rectangles. Others organized campaigns to destroy the
ratings of apps such as Google Classroom. [Wall Street Journal, June 2, 2020]
Others hacked into Zoom conference calls, playing loud pop music, shouting
insults and obscenities, or inserting pornographic images on the screen.
[Washington Post April 5, 2020; Associated Press April 8, 2020] Mass rebellions
by students in classrooms against unpopular teachers are not unknown in the
past; but they were rare. On-line hacking may be a mixture of pranks, fun,
alienation, or hostility. The comparison shows that interactions in person
result in more conformity, a<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Goffmanian
front-stage show of respect for the situation, and thus at least a mild form of
solidarity. This social pressure or entrainment disappears at a distance;
violence, too, is difficult to carry out F2F, and much easier at a distance,
above all when there is no reciprocal view of each others’ eyes. (See Collins
2008, especially pp. 381-87 on snipers, whose mode of killing hinges on seeing
their target through a telescopic lens but cannot be seen by them.) It is
reciprocal eye contact that generates intersubjectivity and its constraints.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><span style="color: black; font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 14.0pt;">Working
Remotely</span></i><span style="color: black; font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 14.0pt;"></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="color: black; font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 14.0pt;">There is disagreement whether working
remotely is effective. Some people prefer working from home. What they like
about it are: no commuting; reduced meetings which they feel are a waste of
time; and fewer distractions in the workplace. Some dislike working at home;
what they dislike are more distractions in the household; less team cohesion;
and technical and communication difficulties. (Wall Street Journal, May 28,
2020: based on a survey of hiring managers) Similar points were made by the
head of a state judicial unit, who emphasized that much additional time by
management personnel was now spent on meetings, and attempts to keep up morale
by remote contact; meetings were often frustrating because considerable time
was wasted trying to get the communications technology working for all
participants. (repeated interviews during March-June 2020)<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>She sometimes went<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>to her office in order to use secure
communications, and found it refreshing whenever encountering a colleague in
person. Efforts to re-open court business, with social distancing and masking
precautions, were welcomed by part of the staff and opposed by others. The
characteristics of one group or the other are unknown; a hypothesis is that the
those more committed to their career and professional identity want to return
to their customary work setting; those for whom work is more of a routine
prefer to stay home.</span></div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="color: black; font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 14.0pt;">Hollywood film professionals said they
liked spending less time on planes flying around the country; and less
high-level meetings which they considered more habitual than necessary. [Los Angeles
Times May 3, 2020] One producer said: “I don’t think video conferencing is a
substitute for being in a room with someone, but it is better than just talking
on the phone. There are so many ways you communicate with your expression...
when it’s delayed and small, you just lose all that. My feeling is it’s 50% as
good as an in-person meeting.” [p.E6] In the actual work of making movies, most
emphasized that it is a collective process, and some insisted that spontaneous
adjustments on-set were the key site for creativity. They also reiterated the
point that live audiences are the only way to reliably tell whether a film is
coming across, and larger audiences amplify both comedy and drama (i.e. via
emotional contagion).</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="color: black; font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 14.0pt;">Some businesses have tried to compensate
by having “virtual water-cooler” sessions several times a week, where any
employee can log in and chat. It is unclear what proportion took part,<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>how enthusiastically, or with what pattern
over time. Some managers reported that company-wide “town-hall meetings” to
reassure employees lost interest over time [Wall Street Journal, June 6, 2020].
DiMaggio et al. (2019) however, found that on-line “brainstorming events” for
employees in a huge international company were consonant with some patterns of
interaction rituals; this research was carried out in 2003-4, long before the
epidemic. The degree of involvement and solidarity in town-hall meetings is a
matter of scale; the court administrator reported that feedback about morale
was positive after on-line sessions involving group of around 10; but in larger
groups it was hard to get a Q&A discussion going. This is similar to what
any speaker can observe in ordinary lecture presentations and panel
discussions; even with physical presence, most people are reluctant to “break
the ice” after the speakers have been the sole center of attention; but once
someone (usually a high-status person in the audience) sizes up the situation
and says something, it turns out that many others find they also have comments
to make. This is a process of micro-interactional attention, which is
especially difficult to handle on remote media.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="color: black; font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 14.0pt;">Many managers said that innovativeness
was lost without serendipitous, unscheduled encounters among individuals. [Wall
Street Journal, June 6, 2020] In a PricewaterhouseCoopers survey, half of
employers reported a dip in productivity with on-line work. Longer trends,
going back before the coronavirus epidemic, indicate that the promise of
on-line work was not highly successful. During 2005-15, the era of the
high-speed Internet, the percentage of persons in the US regularly working from
home increased slowly;<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>those working
from home at least half-time reached a pre-epidemic peak of only 4%.
[www.npr.org/sections/money/2020/04/28/846671375/why-remote-work-sucks]<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="color: black; font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 14.0pt;">During this period several big
corporations, initially enthusiastic, tried to shift to primarily on-line work
but abandoned it after concluding it was less effective. In the
market-dominating I-T companies, the trend instead was to provide more break
rooms, food, play and gym services to keep their workers happy on site. This
was abruptly reversed in the coronavirus period. </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><span style="color: black; font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 14.0pt;">Zoom
fatigue</span></i><span style="color: black; font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 14.0pt;"></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="color: black; font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 14.0pt;">Popular video-conferencing tools such as
Zoom attempt to reproduce F2F interaction by showing an array of participants’
faces on the screen, along with one’s own face for feedback in positioning the
camera. Reports on how well it works in generating IR-type rhythm and
solidarity are mixed. CEOs of high-tech companies tend to claim that it works
well. Among rank-and-file participants, however, complaints are widespread and
it even acquired a slang term, ‘Zoom fatigue.’ [Wall Street Journal, May 28 and
June 17, 2020]<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Achieving synchrony with
others is hard to do with a screen full of faces, delayed real-time feedback,
and lack of full body language. Since there is a limit to how many individual
faces can be shown, in larger meetings some persons are seen only occasionally,
and leaders looking for responses often find they get none. Some of the
ingredients of IR (not necessarily under that name) are now being recognized by
communications specialists; these include fine-grained synchrony and eye
movements. In ordinary F2F conversation, persons do not stare continuously at
others’ eyes, but look and look away (Tom Scheff made this point to me in a
personal communication during the 1980s; for detailed transcripts of
multi-modal interaction see Scheff and Retzinger 1991). Thus seeing a row of
faces staring directly at you is artificial or even disconcerting. Some readers
responded with advice: cut off the video to reduce zoom fatigue, go audio-only.
Some found hidden benefits in zoom conferencing: once the round of social
greetings is over, turn off the video and your mic and do your own work while
the boss goes through their agenda. </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="color: black; font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 14.0pt;">Continuously seeing one’s own face on the
screen is another source of strain. Of course, as Goffman pointed out, everyone
is concerned with the presentation of their self, in terms of status as well as
appropriateness for the situation. But one does not have one’s image constantly
in a mirror; and when interaction starts to flow, one loses self-consciousness
and throws oneself into the activity, focusing more on others’ reactions than
on oneself. Those who cannot do this find social interaction embarassing and
painful.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>But enforced viewing of one's
own image feels unnatural.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="color: black; font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 14.0pt;">Prolonged video conferencing as a whole
seems to have about the same effects as telephone conference calls. In my
experience on the national board of a professional association, our mid-year
meeting was canceled by a snowstorm, and a 2-day conference call was
substituted. The next time I saw the board in person, I polled everyone as to
whether they liked the conference call: 18 of 20 did not. Lack of shared emotion
was apparent during the event; for example, when it was announced that we had
received a large grant, there was no response. No wonder: applause and cheers
are coordinated by looking at others, and it is embarrassing to be the only
person applauding. [Clayman 1993] Work gets done remotely, after a fashion; it
just lacks moments of shared enthusiasm.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><span style="color: black; font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 14.0pt;">Assemblies
and Audiences</span></i><span style="color: black; font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 14.0pt;"></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="color: black; font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 14.0pt;">Participating in large audiences or
collective-action groups is intrinsically appealing, when it amplifies shared
emotions around a mutual focus of attention. This is a main attraction of
sports and other spectacles, concerts, and religious congregations; and it is
what creates and sustains enthusiasm in political groups and social movements.
Thus the ban on large participatory gatherings should be expected to reduce
commitment.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Especially vulnerable is the
practice of singing together, because it spreads aerial germs more than any
other form of social contact. We lack current data on these effects; but the
prediction of Durkheimian theory is that religious commitment and belief will
fall off as the group is prevented from assembling. How long will this take?
Judging from patterns of religious conversion, my hypothesis is that beliefs
fall off drastically if there is no participation for 1-to-2 years. When the
epidemic finally ends, the level of church attendance will give an answer;
during the epidemic, surveys of religious belief on a monthly basis should show
a trend-- although allowing for desirability bias (which makes religious surveys
overstate religious practice) [Hardaway et al. 1998]. </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="color: black; font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 14.0pt;">Can technology substitute for collective
practices like singing together in a congregation? Some Christian organizations
have created virtual choirs, where individuals sing their parts alone and their
recordings are compiled by sound engineers; the resulting performance is
presented on-line, either showing a series of faces of individual singers, or
several faces simultaneously on screen. [interview with international religious
organization staff]<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Such videos have
been widely viewed, and convey the singers’ enthusiasm. It remains to be seen,
over a period of time beyond the onset of the world epidemic, whether
participation and commitment levels change.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="color: black; font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 14.0pt;">Similar techniques have been attempted
for performances of operas and orchestras. [Wall Street Journal, April 27,
2020]<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Achieving good sound quality is
difficult, since this depends on minute timing and adjustments of volume.
(Sound quality of amateur efforts by church congregations is admittedly poor.)
Making music together works best when there is a strong beat and repeated
musical motifs--- i.e. when there is a pronounced rhythmic coordination, as in
successful conversational IRs. More complex music is more difficult to produce
by remote coordination. No doubt it will be possible to compare such recordings
with conventionally produced ones over the coming year.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="color: black; font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 14.0pt;">When sports events are played without
live audiences, can crowd enthusiasm be supplied by canned cheers? There is, in
fact, considerable experience over the years with TV broadcasts, including the
long-standing practice of laugh tracks in comedy shows. Most listeners find
these artificial; research is needed, however, comparing the sounds and laughs
audiences make when they are at a live show or when watching it with a sound
track. We also know that important games attract enthusiastic fans even when
ticket prices are high-- and here TV viewers can actually hear the sound of a
live crowd reacting to the action.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="color: black; font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 14.0pt;">What is the extra ingredient of group
emotional contagion needed? A natural experiment occurred in March 2013 when a
Tunisian soccer match banned fans because of political tensions. [Wall Street
Journal, May 27, 2020]<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Fans were able to
download an app that connected to loudspeakers in the stadium, producing
recorded cheering that got louder as more people tapped on their smart phones
more frequently. Fans could thus could hear the effect of their own remote
“cheering”, and presumably so could the players on the field (although there
are no interviews about the players’ experiences). Audience enthusiasm was
high, and much local publicity was given to the experiment. The key ingredient
is feedback, from one individual fan to another; they were able to monitor how
their own action fit into the dynamics of making collective sounds. This
feeling of collective participation should be highest, not when sound is kept
at a maximum, but when participants can perceive rising and falling levels in
accordance with their own actions. This is what happens in real audiences, who
can monitor each other in all perceptual channels (such as recognizing when
doing the wave is going around the stadium and when it is fading out). If
remote-communications technology is to generate the solidarity and energy of
embodied gatherings, it is such details of the IR mechanism that must be
reproduced.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><span style="color: black; font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 14.0pt;">Summing
Up</span></i><span style="color: black; font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 14.0pt;"></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="color: black; font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 14.0pt;">We can now provisionally answer the
questions posed at the outset. Theory of interaction rituals does not
disappear; we do not need to invent a new sociology and psychology for the IT
era (at least not until robots start replacing human beings entirely, and even
then the issue remains to what degree such autonomous robots would incorporate
current human qualities). As far as human beings are concerned, political authorities
and technological developments may force people to forego much embodied
interaction. People are culturally quite malleable, but if that means that
after a period of acclimation, we can get used to anything, it does not follow
that we can do so without paying a price. If people are deprived of embodied
interactions, it is a likely hypothesis that they will be more depressed, less
energetic, feel less solidarity with other people, become more anxious,
distrustful, and perhaps hostile.</span><br />
<br />
<br />
<div style="text-align: center;">
<span style="color: black; font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 14.0pt;">From the grandson of Randall Collins:</span></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://www.indiebound.org/book/9781543989083"><img alt="https://www.indiebound.org/book/9781543989083" border="0" data-original-height="666" data-original-width="440" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgGJ86g4a2UQLqbSQeSI71wpVNVz8Pm89FBegxihPUTWleULP4uKRKFbX8ji6e0LZYangmzyWtMS_oJH55sSsrma65JVDicVF8G7_qKIo45ZXVdI7a3G-onIrlOyDJ3-vrV6xrXLqiROHM/s320/PatrickVirusCoverMed.jpg" width="211" /></a></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<span style="color: black; font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 14.0pt;"> <a href="https://www.indiebound.org/book/9781543989083">A book for all ages</a></span></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<a href="https://www.indiebound.org/book/9781543989083"><span style="color: black; font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 14.0pt;">Available from independent bookstores & beyond</span></a></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<br /></div>
</div>
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<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><span style="color: black; font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 14.0pt;">References</span></i><span style="color: black; font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 14.0pt;"></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="color: black; font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 14.0pt;">Clayman, Stephen E. 1993.
“Booing: the anatomy of a disaffiliative response.” <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">American Sociological Review</i> 58: 110-130.</span><span style="color: black; font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 14.0pt;"></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="color: black; font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 14.0pt;">Collins, Randall. 2004.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Interaction
Ritual Chains</i>.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Princeton Univ.
Press.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="color: black; font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 14.0pt;">Collins, Randall. 2004a.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>“Rituals of solidarity and security in the wake
of terrorist attack.”<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Sociological Theory </i>22:<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>53-87.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="color: black; font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 14.0pt;">Collins, Randall. 2004.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Violence:
A Micro-sociological Theory.</i><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>Princeton Univ. Press.</span><span style="color: black; font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 14.0pt;"></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="color: black; font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 14.0pt;">DiMaggio, Paul, Clark Bernier, Charles
Heckscher, and David Mimno. 2019. “Interaction Ritual Threads: Does IRC Theory
Apply Online?” in Elliot B. Weininger, Annette Lareau, and Omar Lizardo, <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Ritual, Emotion and Violence: Studies in the
Micro-sociology of Randall Collins.</i> New York: Routledge.</span></div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="color: black; font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 14.0pt;">Durkheim, Emile. 1912/1964. <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">The Elementary Forms of Religious Life</i>. New
York: Free Press.</span><span style="color: black; font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 14.0pt;"></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="color: black; font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 14.0pt;">Goffman, Erving. 1967. <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Interaction Ritual</i><u>.</u> New York:
Doubleday.</span><span style="color: black; font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 14.0pt;"></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="color: black; font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 14.0pt;">Hardaway, C. Kirk, Penny
Marler, and Mark Chaves. 1998. “Overreporting Church Attendance in America.” <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">American Sociological Review</i> 63:
123-130. </span><span style="color: black; font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 14.0pt;"></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="color: black; font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 14.0pt;">Ling, Rich. 2008. <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">New Tech, New Ties.</i> <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">How Mobile
Communication is Reshaping Social Cohesion. </i>Cambridge MA: M.I.T. Press.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="color: black; font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 14.0pt;">Milner, Murray, Jr. 2016. <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Freaks, Geeks, and Cool Kids: Teenagers in
an Era of Consumerism, Standardized<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>Tests, and Social Media.</i> New York: Routledge.</span></div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="color: black; font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 14.0pt;">Scheff, Thomas J. and Suzanne
Retzinger. 1991. <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Emotions and Violence:
Shame and Rage in Destructive Conflicts</i>. Lexington Mass: Lexington Books.</span></div>
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Unknownnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1005085971596877601.post-82993479049068746962020-06-05T05:55:00.003-07:002020-06-05T21:36:41.947-07:00SEVEN REASONS WHY POLICE ARE DISLIKED<style>
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<span style="color: black; font-family: "times new roman";">A theme of protest
demonstrations since late May 2020 is that police violence persists despite
previous episodes of public outrage and efforts at reform. The problem has not
been solved, including by the protests themselves. </span></div>
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<br /></div>
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<span style="color: black; font-family: "times new roman";">Police violence was
prominent in triggering the uprisings of the 1960s. The two most destructive
riots were both started by police arrests: Newark in June 1967 (26<span> </span>dead); Detroit in July 1967 (43 dead).
In Newark 5 days of riots began after a taxi driver was arrested; in Detroit,
when police attempted to raid a popular after-hours club, patrons fought back
by attacking police cars; backup was called and eventually the National Guard;
fighting with snipers, arson and looting lasted 4 days. The pattern continued
in riots over the acquittal verdict in the Rodney King beating by the LAPD in
1992, and a long series of highly publicized cases through the Ferguson
Missouri protests of 2014 and down to today. </span></div>
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<span style="color: black; font-family: "times new roman";">There have been
occasions where police have been adulated; notably in the public ceremonies so
prominent in the months after the 9/11/2001 attacks, when police and
firefighters were repeatedly honored for their sacrifices at the Twin Towers.
On the other side of the ledger, there are a series of reasons why large
portions of the public -- not just African-Americans-- dislike the police, and
will join in protests against them.</span></div>
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<span style="color: black; font-family: "times new roman";">[1] <i>Police are used for collecting fines for municipal budgets.</i> This
has been a long-standing practice in speed traps, where heavy fines are levied
on drivers, usually on highways outside of town; since locals know where the
speed traps are, it falls mostly on strangers (similar to resting your budget
on hotel taxes in popular tourist destinations). Cities where there is strong resistance
to tax increases, or which have serious budget short-falls, often explicitly
adopt the policy of increasing fines for all sorts of infractions. It then
becomes the police duty to seek out offenses, however trivial; they are
expected to produce at high rates, sometimes with quotas set by police
officials (Moskos 2008). This was a notorious practice in Ferguson, where the
protests began after police shot a young man who defied an order about walking
in the street. </span></div>
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<span style="color: black; font-family: "times new roman";">In Philadelphia, Alice
Goffman (2014) showed how computerization of court records and police
communications has intensified pressure on persons (mostly minorities in the
ghetto) who have some kind of previous record. Offenses may range from drugs to
violence to gang association; police stops on the street immediately run a
computer check in their car, above all for outstanding warrants. These often
involve failure to appear for a court hearing, or failure to pay fines, since
the penalties for everything include fines. It becomes a vicious cycle as fines mount up. The
courts are overburdened, and this combined with attempts to reduce
over-sentencing to prison, results in most offenders being released but
required to make future appearances and pay fines which they can’t afford.
Persons caught up in the system no longer can get a bank account, a legitimate
job, or driver’s license -- which generates further fines. Police, as the
front-line enforcers of the system, are understandably unpopular. On their
side, police also regard the criminal justice system as a revolving door. </span></div>
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<br /></div>
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<span style="color: black; font-family: "times new roman";">[2] <i>Police are used for enforcing unpopular regulations.</i> A long history
includes prohibition on alcohol (now mostly passé except for prohibitions on
young people); prohibitions on marijuana (ditto). All of these promote
counter-cultures of defiance. There have been many examples during the
stay-at-home lockdowns during the coronavirus plague. Public parks have been
closed, playing ball prohibited, beaches and/or their adjacent parking lots are
closed; children’s playgrounds roped off. In many instances, ordinary people
find these prohibitions inconsistent or irrational-- areas closed even if
people maintain their distance; young people who<span> </span>have heard the statistics and know that their chances of surviving
the coronavirus are above 99 percent. It appears that another counter-culture
of defiance is building up today, likely to become exacerbated during the phase
of opening up public activities under a regime of masking and social
distancing. To a considerable degree, this<span> </span>coincides with conflict between age groups. </span></div>
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<span style="color: black; font-family: "times new roman";">What many people regard
as trivial offenses can escalate when officials enforce the rules. In San
Diego, a black man walking his dog in a state park (actually the old Spanish
settlement) was accosted by park rangers; when he refused to leave, they called
police backup, who arrested the man; when exiting the police car downtown, he
slipped his handcuffs, ran away, and was shot and killed. His mother said he was
schizophrenic and did not understand the order to wear a face mask.<span> </span>(San Diego Union-Tribune, May 6,
2020)<span> </span>This is the archetype of
many such events: one damn thing leads to another. </span></div>
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<span style="color: black; font-family: "times new roman";">[2a] <i>Police hypocrisy and cynicism</i>. In both
[1] and [2] police are required to carry out the dirty work of government. When
this becomes the primary part of their job, it makes them cynical and hardened.
They know that it doesn’t necessarily make sense to punish harmless violations,
or that they are lying when they say their city-mandated increase in traffic
stops are purely in the interest of public safety. In their own work lives,
they are under a regime that demands hypocrisy; after a while, this unpleasant
feeling turns into a bitter that’s-the-way-it-is.<span> </span>Like prison guards who have to play the role of the bad guy,
they embrace the tough-cop image. (Striking descriptions of this are in
Jennifer Hunt’s 2010 close-up ethnography of the NYPD.)<span> </span>Citizens who argue with cops about
these things<span> </span>increase the tension;
one reaction is to be more aggressive. Taking videos of the police is felt as
threatening them; and this can lead to attempts at retaliation.</span></div>
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<span style="color: black; font-family: "times new roman";">[3]<span> </span><i>Police
dislike defiance.</i> Jonathan Rubinstein (1973), a sociologist who joined the
Philadelphia police in order to study their everyday life (similar to Peter
Moskos in the Baltimore PD 30 years later), found that their number-one
priority is to be the person in control in all encounters with civilians. For
the most part, a cop is out there alone, or with a single partner; they are
almost always outnumbered by civilians. Particularly in areas where they know
they are unpopular, they feel it is imperative to not let things get out of
control. They want to be the one who starts and ends the encounter, who sets
the speaking turns (micro-sociology of conversation), who sets the rhythm of
the interaction. Acts of defiance, whether micro-actions on the level of voice
and gesture, or more blatant words and body movements, will cause a cop to
increase their own aggressiveness in order to maintain dominance (Alpert and
Dunham 2004). This a reason why trivial encounters with the police can escalate
to violence far beyond what seems called for by the original issue.</span></div>
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<span style="color: black; font-family: "times new roman";">[3a] <i>Inner-city black code of the street
emphasizes defiance.</i> Elijah Anderson’s ethnography of black street life
(1999; also Krupnick and Winship 2015) point out that in dangerous areas, where
the police are distrusted, most people adopt a stance of being hyper-vigilant
about threats and disrespect, and portray themselves as ready to use violence.
Anderson says this is mostly a Goffmanian frontstage, a pretence at being tough
designed to avoid being victimized. When dealing with the police, this leads to
another vicious circle. Black people, particularly on their home turf, are more
defiant of police than are whites; often this is no more than a confrontational
way of talking, but these are micro-interactions that arouse police
aggressiveness. Anderson notes that one reason people in the ghetto are wary of
calling police is that they themselves may end up being arrested, because of
the tone of these micro-interactions. Donald Black (1980), who pioneered
observer ride-alongs in police cars, found that police arrested black suspects
more than whites, but this happened when black people were defiant, which was
more often than whites. Martín Sánchez-Jankowski (1991) in his gang
ethnographies (including black, hispanic, and white) describes the culture of
gang members as “defiant individualism.”<span>
</span>The pervasiveness of the street code in black lower-class areas, even
among the majority who are not sympathetic with a gang life-style, hardens
mutual hostility between citizens and police.</span></div>
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<span style="color: black; font-family: "times new roman";">[4] <i>Police dislike property destruction.</i><span> </span>Anne Nassauer [2019] who studied protest demonstrations in
the US and Germany by compiling videos of these events, was able to pin-point
the conditions that led to a turning point where violence broke out. One of the
major conditions was when police could see protestors destroying property, but
were unable to do anything about it; this happened if they were under orders
not to respond, or when they had relatively limited forces compared to the
numbers of protestors. Normally police are concerned to prevent robbery and
vandalism; it is one of their more favored duties, since they get to be the
heroes protecting people. But now they are in a situation where they have to
stand by and let it happen. This builds up their frustration. Although they may
perceive that only a small part of the crowd is doing the destruction, they
dislike the crowd for providing the opportunity to get away with it. Given further
trigger events during the protest-- more on this in [5]--<span> </span>police will take out their tension and
anger on whoever is nearby in the crowd.</span></div>
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<span style="color: black; font-family: "times new roman";">Property destruction in
a mass demonstration puts police in a damned-if-you-do, damned-if-you-don’t
dilemma. If they take action against looters and arsonists, they get accused of
whatever violence they use and casualties they cause. If they stand by and let
the destruction happen, they are accused of neglecting their duty and not
caring. Eye-witnesses to such scenes are particularly likely to be outraged
(see letters to the editor in recent days). </span></div>
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<span style="color: black; font-family: "times new roman";">[5]<span> </span><i>Adrenaline
overload and forward-panic attacks on unresisting targets.</i> When tension
builds up, humans experience rising heart rate, driven by adrenaline. At a high
level, perception narrows in, time becomes distorted, fine motor control is
lost. Nassauer found that the level of tension is visible in videos: whether
the police are in relaxed or tense postures, and similarly with the crowd. When
tension builds up, from escalating gestures of confrontation, unexpected
movements by crowd or police units, police getting surrounded and cut off, a
trigger point sets both sides in action. Adrenaline is the fight-or-fight
hormone; it produces generalized arousal of the large muscles of the body, but
in what direction will it go? Police, like soldiers, are trained to respond to
high adrenaline arousal by attacking. Most civilians, of the other hand, will
run. But the one reaction feeds back on the other. The crowd suddenly running
away is felt by the police as a release of their own tension into action. </span></div>
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<span style="color: black; font-family: "times new roman";">In interviews (reported
by Nassauer and others), police say they can see the crowd is divided between
peaceful demonstrators and a small number of trouble-makers; but when the situation
boils over, the crowd is infected by the violent ones. --This is how the police
perceive it; what happens is that the panic of the crowd running away puts the
police in an over-the-top rush of adrenaline in which their own perception is
narrowed. When police rush forward, they become likely to strike those who have
fallen down, or are screaming uncontrollably. The content of what people are
saying is lost; all that is heard is the sounds and sights of out-of-control
people. Since the police are trained to operate as a unit, officers who rush
forward with their comrades tend to imitate what they do; if they are striking
someone on the ground, it must be for good reason, and they will join in or
protect them. </span></div>
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<span style="color: black; font-family: "times new roman";">I have called this
“forward panic” because it is like a panic flight where the overwhelming
emotion of the crowd increases individuals’ adrenaline level; but in this case,
the adrenaline is driving them forward, towards an easy target who have their
backs turned, running away or falling down.<span> </span></span></div>
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<span style="color: black; font-family: "times new roman";">Police who have been in
shoot-outs generally report that their senses are blurred, they have
tunnel-vision, can’t hear the sounds of their own guns, don’t know how much
time is passing (Artwohl and Christensen 1997). They also tend to fire wildly,
with poor aim, and with an overkill of bullets as they empty their magazines.
It is similar with those who deliver a large number of blows with their batons,
or put their full weight on a captured suspect’s neck.<span> </span>It is the same in military massacres
(with a higher level of casualties because of more weapons).<span> </span>There is the same time-sequence: a
period during which tension has built up on both sides; a sudden tipping point
when the tension is released; one side becomes incapable of resisting (because
they are caught in a traffic jam, fallen in the mud, turning their back,
running away); the result is<span> </span>hot
rush, piling on, overkill. </span></div>
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<span style="color: black; font-family: "times new roman";">In real-life situations,
violence is usually incompetent-- in the sense that it often fails to hit its
intended target, or hits the wrong target, or is disproportional to what is
necessacry to prevail.<span> </span>Soldiers
and police are much more accurate shooters on firing ranges than they are in
the emotional conditions of real-life confrontation.The clichés of military and
police officials refer to “surgical strikes” and proportionate response. But
the military is all too aware of “collateral damage”, especially in
counter-insurgency warfare, where violent enemies hide in the civilian
population.<span> </span>This is a close
analogy to confronting peaceful protests in which aggressive militants cover
themselves. </span></div>
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<span style="color: black; font-family: "times new roman";">[6] <i>Police training for extreme situations</i>.<span> </span>Police training tends to emphasize the worst-case scenarios.
Knowing that firing in real-life situations is encumbered by high adrenaline,
weapons instructors tell them to aim middle-mass-- the center of the body;
don’t try to shoot for extremities like arms or legs (the cowboy movie myth of
shooting a gun out of someone’s hand never happens). The result is, police
shootings tend to be deadly. Emphasis also is on rapid reaction; in the
worst-case scenario, the suspect is armed and dangerous; you have to train your
muscle memory to react as quickly as possible. </span></div>
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<span style="color: black; font-family: "times new roman";">There is sometimes
training in how to calm dangerous situations, but this tends to be overshadowed
by the quick reaction scenario: your life or someone else’s life is in danger;
train yourself to react automatically.</span></div>
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<span style="color: black; font-family: "times new roman";">Another process that
enhances the atmosphere of worst-case scenarios is police communications. When
police call for backup, they tend to emphasize the danger of the situation.
When the call is propagated more widely, the message is propagated just as
rumors are: the distinctive elements are dropped out as the message is
repeated. A man on a highway overpass threatening suicide by jumping, will get
transformed into the cliché-- suicidal and threatening to take someone else
with him --<span> </span>into armed and
dangerous. This is how individuals end up getting shot dozens of times by an
aroused network of converging cop cars. The distortion may start when a
civilian calls in, starting with an ambiguous situation, which the police
dispatcher (a civilian employee), transforms into the more conventional
warning. This was the case with the famous incident in 2009 when a Harvard
professor, a black man, arrived home and had difficulty getting his front door
open, getting the taxi driver to help un-jam it. A well-meaning Harvard
secretary passing on the street phoned to say a possible burglary might taking
place, but did not mention anyone’s race on the 911 recording and said: “I
don’t know if they live here and they just had a hard time with their keys”.
The dispatcher transformed this into a house-breaking by two black men; the cop
who showed up was restrained at first but reacted to the irate professor by arresting
him. </span></div>
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<span style="color: black; font-family: "times new roman";">Lesson: police training
needs to be drastically reformed. And training for police dispatchers, as well
as from one police car to another, needs to be instructed on how rumors are
formed; and procedures to avoid inflammatory worst-case clichés.</span></div>
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<span style="color: black; font-family: "times new roman";">[7] <i>Racism among police</i>. Some cops are racists. How many are there, and
what kind of racists they are, needs better analysis. What kind? There is a
difference between white supremacists of the pre-1960s period; stereotyping
racists who think most black people are potential criminals; situational
racists who react to black people in confrontational situations with fear and
hostility; casual racists who make jokes. These aren’t insoluble questions; if
ethnographers followed people around in everyday life and observed what they
talked about and how they behaved in different situations, we would have a good
picture.<span> </span>And there still remains
the further question, does one or another degree of racism explain when police
violence happens? </span></div>
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<span style="color: black; font-family: "times new roman";">My estimate is that
racism among police is less important a factor than the social conflicts and
situational stresses outlined in points [1-6]. To put it another way, if we got
rid of racist attitudes, but left [1-6] in place, how much would police
violence be reduced? Very little, I would predict. </span></div>
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<br /></div>
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<i><span style="color: black; font-family: "times new roman";">What can be done? And how likely is it to have
effects?</span></i><span style="color: black; font-family: "times new roman";"></span></div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="color: black; font-family: "times new roman";">Let’s go through the
list. </span></div>
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<br /></div>
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<span style="color: black; font-family: "times new roman";">[1] <i>Collecting fines for municipal budgets.</i> Getting rid of this corrupt
practice would be important for reducing hostility between police and citizens;
especially since it is a version of color-blind racism insofar as it targets
poor black areas. But how to get municipal officials to forego money that can
raised without taxpayer consent?</span></div>
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<br /></div>
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<span style="color: black; font-family: "times new roman";">[2] <i><span> </span>Enforcing unpopular
regulations.</i> A solution would be to legalize more prohibited substances. It
does raise a problem of trade-offs, such as deaths from fentanyl. And there are
other kinds of prohibitions being invented from time to time, as in the
coronavirus period. Some conflict of this sort is going to be with us for a
long time.</span></div>
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<br /></div>
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<span style="color: black; font-family: "times new roman";">[2a] If police don’t
have to do the dirty work enforcing unpopular policies, they’d be a lot less
cynical and hard-assed, and we’d get along better with each other. This depends
on what we do about [1] and [2].</span></div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="color: black; font-family: "times new roman";">[3] <i>The code of the street, ostentatious defiance</i>. I think this is
declining already, with the growth of a black middle class. On the whole,
recent protest demonstrations are more civil than those of the late 1960s.</span></div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="color: black; font-family: "times new roman";">[4] <i>Police anger at property destruction.</i> This is a genuine dilemma;
either way, bad feelings are created. If we had fewer riots -- if some of the
other conditions get better-- this would be less of a problem. Caveat: racism
and police violence are not the only things riots can be about; for example,
the anti-globalization riots of the past decade in the US and Europe. We may
well be headed towards increased class division in the future, among other
things between the computerized elite (now riding out the coronavirus working
from their nice homes) and the other two-thirds of the population whose jobs
are steadily being replaced by computerized robots. </span></div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="color: black; font-family: "times new roman";">[5] <i>Forward panic violence in policing demonstrations.</i> There are ways
that police (as well as everyone else) can learn techniques to monitor their
adrenaline level, and to not rush into action until they have a clear
perception of the situation and have reduced their heart rate by breathing
exercises. This one is solvable. </span><span style="font-family: "calibri";"><a href="http://sociological-eye.blogspot.com/2016/10/cool-headed-cops-needed-heart-rate.html"><span style="color: blue;">http://sociological-eye.blogspot.com/2016/10/cool-headed-cops-needed-heart-rate.html</span></a></span><span style="color: black; font-family: "times new roman";"></span></div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="color: black; font-family: "times new roman";">This could go along in
tandem with:</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="color: black; font-family: "times new roman";">[6] <i>Reforming police training. </i>More than reforming police departments,
we need full-scale investigation and reform of police academies. They need to
get away from the emphasis on worst-case scenarios and the quick-trigger,
muscle-memory approach to weapons training. As noted, civilian dispatchers as
well as cops need better training about rumor propagation and its tendency to
revert to stereotypes as messages pass along the chain. </span></div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="color: black; font-family: "times new roman";">[7]<span> </span><i>Police
racism</i>.<span> </span>If we have enough of
these kind of reforms, this will take care of itself. </span></div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="color: black; font-family: "times new roman";">As of now, most calls
for reforms reiterate long-standing demands for independent review boards and
stronger penalties for police misconduct. Having a reform-oriented black police
chief in Minneapolis did not solve the problem. It is dubious that the top-down
approach would solve it, as long as the everyday conditions of police work go
unchanged.</span></div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<i><span style="color: black; font-family: "times new roman";">References</span></i><span style="color: black; font-family: "times new roman";"></span></div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="color: black; font-family: "times new roman";">Alexis Artwohl and<span> </span>Loren Christensen. 1997. <i>Deadly Force Encounters.</i></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="color: black; font-family: "times new roman";">Geoffrey Alpert and
Roger Dunham. 2004. <i>Understanding Police
Use of Force. </i></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="color: black; font-family: "times new roman";">Elijah Anderson. 1999. <i>Code of the Street.</i></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="color: black; font-family: "times new roman";">Donald Black. 1980. <i>The Manners and Customs of the Police.</i></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="color: black; font-family: "times new roman";">Donald Black. 1989. <i>Sociological Justice.</i></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="color: black; font-family: "times new roman";">Randall Collins. 2008. <i>Violence: A Micro-sociological Theory.</i></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="color: black;">Randall
Collins. </span><span style="font-family: "calibri";">"Cool-headed
Cops Needed: Heart Rate Monitors can Help." [posted 10.05.16]<br />
<a href="http://sociological-eye.blogspot.com/2016/10/cool-headed-cops-needed-heart-rate.html"><span style="color: blue;">http://sociological-eye.blogspot.com/2016/10/cool-headed-cops-needed-heart-rate.html</span></a></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="color: black; font-family: "times new roman";">Alice Goffman. 2014. <i>On the Run: Fugitive Life in an American
City. </i></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="color: black; font-family: "times new roman";">Jennifer Hunt. 2010.<span> </span><i>Seven
Shots: An NYPD Raid on a Terrorist Cell and its Aftermath.</i></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="color: black; font-family: "times new roman";">Dave Klinger. 2004. <i>Into the Kill Zone. A Cop’s Eye View of
Deadly Force. </i></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="color: black; font-family: "times new roman";">Joseph Krupnick and
Christopher Winship. 2015. <i>“Keeping up
the front: how disadvantaged black youth avoid street violence in the inner
city.” </i>in Orlando Patterson (ed.), <i>The
Cultural Matrix. </i></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="color: black; font-family: "times new roman";">Peter Moskos. 2008. <i>Cop in the Hood. </i></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="color: black; font-family: "times new roman";">Anne Nassauer. 2019. <i>Situational Breakdowns: Understanding
Protest Violence.</i></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="color: black; font-family: "times new roman";">Jonathan Rubinstein.
1973. <i>City Police.</i></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="color: black; font-family: "times new roman";">Martín Sánchez Jankowski.
1991. <i>Islands in the Street.</i></span><span style="font-family: "times new roman"; font-size: 16pt;"></span></div>
Unknownnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1005085971596877601.post-49197207241552509732020-04-15T11:27:00.000-07:002020-05-10T17:10:08.697-07:00DOCTORS AT WAR: THE PSYCHOLOGICAL COST <div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="color: black; font-family: "times new roman" , serif; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-language: X-NONE; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">Mark
de Rond’s book <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Doctors at War</i>
(Cornell Univ. Press, 2017) is one the most painful books you’ll ever read. De
Rond, a organizational ethnographer at Cambridge University, was embedded in a
field hospital in Afghanistan, where a team of medical personnel from the U.K.
and U.S. waited to operate on wounded flown in by helicopter-- allied soldiers,
captured enemies, and injured civilians alike. Like Conrad’s <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Heart of Darkness,</i> the horror is not so
much in the gruesome physical scenes (although that is part of it), but more in
the psychological costs of trying to do something about it. It is about feeling
your failure in a terrible situation beyond your control; and how the things
that members of the group do to cope with their feelings circle back to make things
worse.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="color: black; font-family: "times new roman" , serif; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-language: X-NONE; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">Each
kind of patient delivered to this desolate outpost by a clattering helicopter
creates its own kind of strains. </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><span style="color: black; font-family: "times new roman" , serif; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-language: X-NONE; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">Wounded
warriors: </span></i><span style="color: black; font-family: "times new roman" , serif; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-language: X-NONE; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">This
is largely a war of home-made bombs on the insurgent side-- improvised
explosive devices hidden under rubble at the side of the road or anywhere an
allied patrol might go. This means wounds are often horrible, not bullets
penetrating the body but limbs torn off, extensive burns, all kinds of
fragments. Surgeons have to extract, patch, amputate and sew back up. It is not
the kind of scene that one reads about from battlefield hospitals in the U.S.
Civil War or the Napoleonic wars, where in the absence of sedatives there were
anguished sounds of screaming, and doctors had to decide which ones to triage.
Now the wounded are brought in already sedated by battlefield medics. And
triage is not really necessary, this being a counter-insurgency war--
low-intensity if endless-- the doctors are not overwhelmed by numbers but instead
have a steady drip of casualties to be patched up and flown out to medical
facilities far from the war zone. </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="color: black; font-family: "times new roman" , serif; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-language: X-NONE; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">No,
the strain is in the minds and emotions of the doctors, nurses, and auxiliary
personnel as the same kinds of cases repeat themselves, day after day, with
their endless variations. </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="color: black; font-family: "times new roman" , serif; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-language: X-NONE; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>A surgeon “had been operating for
forty-one consequtive days, the last seven of which he said had consisted
mostly of chucking dead or dying limbs into bins. Homemade explosives left few
options other than lopping off the dying bits and dropping them in one of
several buttercup-yellow buckets destined for the incinerator.” [p.31] </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="color: black; font-family: "times new roman" , serif; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-language: X-NONE; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>“I wandered into a waft of freshly
burned bacon, its source soon obvious: two badly burned Afghans occupied
opposite tables, attended to by emergency staff. The first registered at 53%
burns, the second at 48%, both readings the result of a standard calculation
using the ‘rule of nine’: divide the body into multiples of 9, with the head,
chest and abdomen accounting for 9% each if completely burned, the back and
buttocks for 18%, 9% for each arm and 18% for each leg, 9% for the front, 9%
for the back. Anything over 35% isn’t considered survivable in Afghanistan...
so such patients are given palliative care from the word go. The first of the
two died within the hour. The second would follow soon after but insisted on
seeing an interpretor.... ‘He wants you to take him and his friend back to the
valley where the helicopter found them.’ ‘His friend’s dead.’ ‘Yes he says he
knows. He wants you to organize a car to take them both back.’ ‘Right. So where
does he think we’re going to get a taxi from?’ ... ‘Tell ‘em we will see what
we can do.’... The Afghan slowly moved his blackened hand over his left upper
chest and looked grateful.” [117] </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="color: black; font-family: "times new roman" , serif; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-language: X-NONE; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>“A US marine had called earlier to
report the discovery of two partial legs belonging to Billy, one of the troops
in his charge, and would it be all right if he dropped them off at the
hospital? He and his troops had been told that if limbs could be reattached
within six hours of an explosion, they’d have a chance of surviving. The legs
had been cold too long, Smitty told him, and were probably too badly damaged to
be reattached in any event, but the marine was not to be dissauded and made his
appearance soon after.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="color: black; font-family: "times new roman" , serif; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-language: X-NONE; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>‘I gather you’ve got something for
me?’ Smitty said.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="color: black; font-family: "times new roman" , serif; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-language: X-NONE; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>‘Billy’s legs,’ he said and handed
Smitty a floppy carton box that once upon a time held US army rations.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="color: black; font-family: "times new roman" , serif; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-language: X-NONE; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>‘You be sure to fix him up, won’t
you?’</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="color: black; font-family: "times new roman" , serif; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-language: X-NONE; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>‘Leave it with us.’</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="color: black; font-family: "times new roman" , serif; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-language: X-NONE; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>‘Billy’s a quarterback, you know,
when we get time to play. Has one hell of an arm.’</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="color: black; font-family: "times new roman" , serif; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-language: X-NONE; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>‘His arm’s fine.’</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="color: black; font-family: "times new roman" , serif; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-language: X-NONE; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>‘You look after him now.’</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="color: black; font-family: "times new roman" , serif; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-language: X-NONE; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>“As soon as the marine took off,
Smitty got hold of Ginger, a scrub nurse on his first-ever tour. </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="color: black; font-family: "times new roman" , serif; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-language: X-NONE; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>‘What’s this?’</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="color: black; font-family: "times new roman" , serif; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-language: X-NONE; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>‘Legs. Used to belong to the guy in
theater three.’</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="color: black; font-family: "times new roman" , serif; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-language: X-NONE; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>‘Well what the fuck am I supposed to
do with them?’</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="color: black; font-family: "times new roman" , serif; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-language: X-NONE; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>‘Walk them over to the incinerator,
that’s what.’</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="color: black; font-family: "times new roman" , serif; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-language: X-NONE; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>‘...’</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="color: black; font-family: "times new roman" , serif; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-language: X-NONE; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>‘Sure whoever gave you this is
gone?’” [52-3]</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><span style="color: black; font-family: "times new roman" , serif; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-language: X-NONE; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">Captive
enemies</span></i><span style="color: black; font-family: "times new roman" , serif; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-language: X-NONE; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">:
Doctors operate under the rules of war, which stipulate that wounded enemies
are entitled to medical treatment. At the forward hospital, surgeons do their
best, although they know-- and openly say to each other-- that when they are
fixed up and released into custody of Afghan troops, they will probably be killed.
</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="color: black; font-family: "times new roman" , serif; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-language: X-NONE; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>“By the time I returned to the hospital
the next morning, late and weary for lack of sleep, the early morning
casualties had already been dispatched to the ward or the morgue, the youngest
of the still warm only ten. Matching sets of double and triple amputees
underlined the war’s agonizing ambiguities: which is the crueler, to prop up
Afghans with quick fixes and the sort of sophisticated analgesics not available
locally for the handful of hours they’d spend in Bastion, or let them cash in
on their convictions pronto and meet their Maker? Ingenuity, after all, can
render death quick nowadays and pretty much pain-free. All had been Afghans
this morning, peeled off the desert floor by a helicopter crew after 106 pounds
of AGM-114 air-to-surface missile did precisely what it said on the tin. The
absurdity of the situation was plain for all to see: one budget is used to save
those a different budget tried to kill only moments ago.” [11]</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="color: black; font-family: "times new roman" , serif; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-language: X-NONE; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">De
Rond accompanies the transfer of three Afghan army casualties to their own
hospital: </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="color: black; font-family: "times new roman" , serif; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-language: X-NONE; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>“ ‘This guy is high on opium,’ my
escort said, having wrestled back one of our oxygen canisters [from a driver].
‘These things fetch a fair bit of money on the black market, so we want to hang
onto them if at all possible.’ He crouched down next to the most serious of the
three casualties. The man had already been relieved of his 60% oxygen supply
and now was cut loose from his morphine drip and antibiotics...<span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="color: black; font-family: "times new roman" , serif; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-language: X-NONE; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>‘And the first thing these drivers
do is look into the bags to see what drugs we’ve sent along. Anything morphine goes
directly to the driver and never even gets to the patient. And so we leave them
here to a slow and painful death. This guy here will die of pneumonia.’ ”<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Doctors argue about what they should do. “
‘If<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>you keep him here and treat him,
he’ll ultimately die. If you take him to Kandahar, he will die too, but a
little more quickly.’ ” [101] </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><span style="color: black; font-family: "times new roman" , serif; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-language: X-NONE; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">Injured
civilians</span></i><span style="color: black; font-family: "times new roman" , serif; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-language: X-NONE; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">:
The situation with patching up civilians was much the same, with some
additional twists.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="color: black; font-family: "times new roman" , serif; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-language: X-NONE; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>0400, four a.m. “Two local women had
arrived with bullet holes in their legs. Someone who identified himself as a
brother stood idly by, insisting, as they did too, that they should be treated
by a female attendant. Weegee, the attending emergency department coordinator,
ignored the request, saying they have no such luxury in Afghan hospitals so why
give them that option here? </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="color: black; font-family: "times new roman" , serif; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-language: X-NONE; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>“After a quiet day, at around 1900,
nine casualties arrived within thirty minutes of each other, including five
girls with gunshot wounds: two to the chest, the rest through the arms, legs,
and belly. The girls had long eyelashes and olive complexions, their hands
covered with henna tattoos. There wasn’t a tear in sight. The emergency and
surgical teams were brilliant to watch. When the proverbial shit hit the fan,
they salvaged what war destroyed, giddy for being productive. The curse in
Bastion was never that of too much work but rather the insufficiency of it.
Once the casualties had received emergency treatment and the surgeons had
repaired for near beers in the Doctors’ Room, it turned out the girls might
have been shot by our own helicopters in error. Their thirty-millimeter cannon
rounds were designed to fragment upon impact such that anyone within ten meters
of an exploding round risked serious injury, and tonight’s GSW’s looked far
more like fragments, the docs said, than the usual bullets.” [125-6]</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="color: black; font-family: "times new roman" , serif; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-language: X-NONE; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">Friendly
fire and collateral damage, as the jargon goes, are endemic in a
counter-insurgency war where the guerrillas hide in the civilian population.
The civilians in the middle get treated if allied medivacs bring them in. But
there are no hospitals to release them to, and back in their villages, care is
poor and many will probably not survive. But release them we must.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="color: black; font-family: "times new roman" , serif; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-language: X-NONE; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">Sometimes
the borderline between civilians and enemies disappears, green-on-blue attacks
where Taliban sympathizers among Afghan army troops turn their weapons on
American soldiers-- or perhaps suddenly snap under their own pressure, as
indeed some American troops have done. </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="color: black; font-family: "times new roman" , serif; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-language: X-NONE; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">De
Rond observed doctors talking about such incidents with the medical staff. </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="color: black; font-family: "times new roman" , serif; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-language: X-NONE; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>One doctor “told of a British nurse
who had arrived in the hospital with severe burns. She had befriended a young
boy, plying him with candies, until one day he threw a plastic bucket at her,
dousing her in petrol and setting her alight. The Taliban, he said, are not shy
about using children to advance their interests, whether by forcing them to
walk donkeys heavy with explosives toward the infidel or by leaving injured
kids by the roadside as bait to attract a medivac helicopter.” [52]<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="color: black; font-family: "times new roman" , serif; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-language: X-NONE; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">This,
at any rate, is the conversational culture of the forward hospital. It does not
stop them from treating everyone who comes in, to a high medical standard, in
the brief time they are there. And this adds to the incongruities that make up
the psychological dissonance of the place.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><span style="color: black; font-family: "times new roman" , serif; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-language: X-NONE; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">Isolation,</span></i><span style="color: black; font-family: "times new roman" , serif; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-language: X-NONE; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">
<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">boredom and surreal disconnect</i></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="color: black; font-family: "times new roman" , serif; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-language: X-NONE; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">In
traditional wars, on the whole, the psychological pressure on doctors in
battlefield hospitals was severe but not so complex. Of the three kinds of
patients treated-- allied soldiers, enemy captives, injured civilians-- such
doctors mainly dealt with the first. If they treated wounded enemies, they at
any rate were not handed over to others who were going to kill them. In
traditional battles with high casualties in a short period of time, the problem
for doctors was being overwhelmed, and having to pick out those most likely to
survive. This was not a problem in the Afghanistan field hospital, where there
were plenty of medical staff to handle the daily influx of casualties. Their
problem was that they practiced good medicine, then felt much of it went to
waste. And unlike traditional battles, they didn’t even have the consolation of
winning a battle or the war.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="color: black; font-family: "times new roman" , serif; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-language: X-NONE; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">And
they were isolated and bored. Their base was a fort in a hot desert, dangerous
to go outside the perimeter, and nowhere to go if they did go out. They were
stuck with the same people, who worked, slept, ate together, and tried to amuse
themselves in the down times between the hours when the emergency alarms
sounded and the helicopters unloaded. It was a total institution, in the
sociological sense of the term, but not one in the Goffmanian sense of a
hierarchy where a staff guarded a lower class of inmates. The wounded were in a
sense like inmates, except that they were so badly incapacitated that they
remained passive-- at least de Rond never noted any acts of defiance. And the
medical staff were idealists and committed professionals; they didn’t pull rank
on each other, and their culture was one of “we’re all in this thing together”,
a common task and a common malaise. They all had the same problem and they
couldn’t get away from each other.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="color: black; font-family: "times new roman" , serif; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-language: X-NONE; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>“Boredom hung in the air like a
peasouper that wouldn’t lift except for the briefest of periods. In principle,
this should have been good news-- after all, no one was getting hurt-- except
that it left the docs with nothing meaningful to do. There was the occasional
bit of exercise in a muggy gym to provide a temporary lift, or reading or
daytime television, but little to take pride in, to feel productive about. And
so they found themselves pining for work to come in, even if this invariably
came at the expense of someone else getting hurt. </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="color: black; font-family: "times new roman" , serif; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-language: X-NONE; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>“But boredom extracts its pound of
flesh in other ways, too. Left with little or nothing to do, [the doctors] have
begun to criticize each other’s handling of patients and discharge decisions...
Left to their own devices these docs became broody and aware of the relative
futility of some of what they do here, particularly when it comes to providing
emergency treatment for Afghans whose chances of recovery were badly
compromised as soon as they were transferred to local hospitals, or so they
think.... Periods of great intensity followed periods of boredom in which it
was nevertheless impossible to relax.” [70-72]</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="color: black; font-family: "times new roman" , serif; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-language: X-NONE; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">They
tried to keep up a semblance of normal life. They celebrated the holidays as
best the could. A Christmas party wearing Hawaiian shorts, tee-shirts and Santa
Claus hats, although no one felt very jovial. </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="color: black; font-family: "times new roman" , serif; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-language: X-NONE; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>“ ‘Sometimes I try telling my family
some of these things, but they don’t understand,’ Smitty said... He went on to
tell me about a double amputee who had come in over Easter weekend. One of his
legs had been attached by only a skin flap and came off during the usual
logroll. The attending nurse, who’d been left standing with a leg in her arms,
asked one of Smitty’s team to please take it away for disposal. As the lad made
his way to the morgue, crossing the ambulance bay en route, he was met by
Solesky and a nurse walking the other way, sporting bunny ears and carrying
Easter eggs.” [85]</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="color: black; font-family: "times new roman" , serif; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-language: X-NONE; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>The early morning helicopter patrol
brought in an American, but the tourniquets had come off as he was carried to
the helicopter under fire, and he had already bled to death: “A glum band of
brothers, the docs trundled back to their lair to feast on <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Apocalypse Now. </i>A famous scene shows a swarm of American
helicopters advancing like locusts on a Vietnamese settlement to the tones of
Wagner’s ‘Ride of the Valkyries.’ It didn’t seem to strike any of those glued
to the telly as ironic that less than klick away their own Apaches were taking
off on similar missions... It would quite literally have taken no more than
stepping outside the Doctors’ Room and onto the wooden patio to fast-forward to
a similar scene. Alas, the patio door was closed shut, and the telly on, and
they around it in a half circle, ‘near beer’ and homemade cookies and ginger
cake and chocolate to hand.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="color: black; font-family: "times new roman" , serif; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-language: X-NONE; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>“ ‘My favorite line’s coming up,’
Southwark said excitedly. ‘Wait for it...ah, “I love the smell of napalm in the
morning.” Absolutely first class that is.’ ”<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>[64-5]</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="color: black; font-family: "times new roman" , serif; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-language: X-NONE; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">Obviously
they appreciate the irony of it all, but they have gone beyond that. Gallows
humour, but nobody was laughing, not even sardonically. The doctors wallowed in
escapist Hollywood war films. <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">M*A*S*H</i>
was another favorite, about a similar forward hospital in the Korean War,
supplied by helicopters with wounded soldiers. Except this, like all war films,
did not show the medical gore these doctors faced everyday. Their lives were
not censored for the screen and there was no rollicking good fun, even when
they had time away. Why didn’t they escape to something else, films that had
nothing to do with war? They were obsessed, perhaps with distancing themselves
from their lives by viewing the Hollywood version. But it didn’t help, only
cycled through the day. </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="color: black; font-family: "times new roman" , serif; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-language: X-NONE; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>“At the onset of sunset, just as
Sloppy Joe called for volunteeers to help him lug around the weekly pile of
pizzas... [the beeping of pagers carried by the on-duty medicals] heralded the
arrival of a Cat A [severely wounded]. The whiteboard listed it as a US marine
who’d been hit by a rocket-propelled grenade... We made our way from reception
into the black hot night to where the light pollution was, signposting the
makeshift square with its crude KFC-Pizza Hut combo and games room. A short
queue had already formed at the shipping container’s window. The scent they
gave off was unmistakable, evoking a lazy day topped off with fast food and
soda and feet-up television. Stacked up on one of the two ovens were twenty-one
pizzas, hot to the touch, though there’s always a risk they’ll be stone cold by
the time the casualty is dispatched with. To my surprise, this happened more
quickly than I expected.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="color: black; font-family: "times new roman" , serif; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-language: X-NONE; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>‘Casualty’s a hero,’ Joe said.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="color: black; font-family: "times new roman" , serif; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-language: X-NONE; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>‘Right,’ I replied. ‘Gone to Camp
Hero.’..</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="color: black; font-family: "times new roman" , serif; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-language: X-NONE; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>‘The guy is dead.’</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="color: black; font-family: "times new roman" , serif; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-language: X-NONE; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>“It was right about then and there
that I became aware of a nauseating feeling ascending from my gut: a
rotten-to-the-core sense of relief, less at a merciful end to years of pain and
rehabilitation than at the prospect of hot pizza and companionship. The sense
of shame I felt then I’ve not felt since. After all, what was a pizza compared
to the life of a soldier? What the fuck was wrong with me? </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="color: black; font-family: "times new roman" , serif; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-language: X-NONE; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>“We sat down to watch <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Lock, Stock and Two Smoking Barrels.</i>”
[118-19]</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="color: black; font-family: "times new roman" , serif; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-language: X-NONE; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>The doctors were becoming querulous
as their beepers sound, calling them to surgery, only to return abruptly to the
TV room when they find the new arrival is dead. “They sunk back into the spots
they had vacated only moments before, to resume their involuntary stupor, only
to be told that a fresh hail of casualties was on the way: a gunshot wound to
the neck, a gunshot wound to the thigh and yet another unlucky victor in the
roadside bomb lottery.” The most experienced surgeon griped to no one in
particular that today he is supposed to be in charge but the other doctors are
going ahead of him. No one pays attention.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="color: black; font-family: "times new roman" , serif; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-language: X-NONE; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>“Southwark and Fernsby, in the
meantime, were taking bets (to be paid off in pizza purchases) on whether the
incoming amputee would turn out to be a single or double, left or right leg. ‘A
pepperoni on the left,’ Southwark said. ‘I’d say a double. If it is you’re
buying Friday,’ Fernsby replied. [123]</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="color: black; font-family: "times new roman" , serif; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-language: X-NONE; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">This
is beyond gallows humor, beyond cynicism. It is a way of passing the time,
living in a surreal disconnect. They disconnect even from their cynicism. It is
one more layer of psychological distress, piled up and revolved by the hour.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="color: black; font-family: "times new roman" , serif; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-language: X-NONE; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">De
Rond winds up: back in England, his battlefield tour over, he can’t get over
the pain, and the guilt. The doctors he corresponded with say the same.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><span style="color: black; font-family: "times new roman" , serif; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-language: X-NONE; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">Meanwhile,
back Home</span></i><span style="color: black; font-family: "times new roman" , serif; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-language: X-NONE; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="color: black; font-family: "times new roman" , serif; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-language: X-NONE; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">A
medical sociologist who reviewed de Rond’s book in an American journal was
horrified. He denounced publication of the book, calling it a pornography of pain,
voyeurism of medical horrors for its own sake. He saw the book as pointless, no
hypotheses, no theory, no take-away. As a reader, I thought this the most
unprofessional review that I can recall. No doubt the reviewer missed the
standard academic formalities, reviews of the literature, and writing in bland
abstractions. Perhaps de Rond writing about his own emotions in the field set
off the reviewer into ranting about his own emotions as a reviewer.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="color: black; font-family: "times new roman" , serif; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-language: X-NONE; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">Before
concluding that this closes the circle of absurdities mingled with (academic
and military-medical) realities, it is well to remind ourselves that de Rond’s
ethnography is about surreal experiences, but the report is not surreal. It is
tell-it-like-it-is, you-are-there participant observation, focusing in on
micro-sociological moments in the verbatim conversations of daily life and
their bodily context. </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="color: black; font-family: "times new roman" , serif; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-language: X-NONE; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">It
is about the psychological costs of working in an endlessly prolonged
artificial situation, without adequate social support. Does it say anything to
us about doctors and medical personnel in the COVID-19 epidemic?</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="color: black; font-family: "times new roman" , serif; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-language: X-NONE; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">Obviously
the kind of medical treatment is quite different-- traumatic injuries for quick
surgery, vs. prolonged treatment of agonized patients gasping to breathe. One
similarity, in hospitals where there are many severe virus cases, may be the
stresses of social isolation. Medical personnel constantly masked and keeping
physical distance from each other may experience more isolation stress than at
the battlefield hospital, where medical teams are constantly hanging around
together. Medicals repeatedly exposed to the virus, some of whom themselves
become sick and die, are presumably isolated from their families and friends.
Of course they can make contact by phone and on-line, but this was true in
Afghanistan as well: the social isolation there was intensified by inability to
explain to their families the emotions they were going through. In both cases,
a kind of total institution may be created, cut off from the normal supports of
social life. Witnessing the social isolation of the bereaved, who cannot be at
bedside nor take part in funeral rituals, must create a bleak atmosphere
somewhat resembling the battlefield hospital.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="color: black; font-family: "times new roman" , serif; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-language: X-NONE; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">Such
stresses build up over time. Most people can handle extreme situations for a
short period of time; there is a rallying-around burst of solidarity at the
outset of any public crisis. In the immediate aftermath of the 9/11/01
attacks,* this period of public solidarity lasted 3 months-- but that was a
period where mass ceremonies honoring firefighters and police took place at
every public gathering. In the absence of this kind of ritual support, the
uplifting period of shared dedication may be shorter, under a regime of
enforced social distancing. The field unit in Afghanistan had been operating
for six years when de Rond studied it, and some surgeons had served ten or more
tours of duty. If anything like this kind of endlessness comes out of the
struggle with COVID-19, the experience of doctors at war may start to converge.</span><br />
<br />
<div style="text-align: center;">
<span style="font-family: "times new roman"; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">---------</span></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<span style="font-family: "times new roman"; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"><br /></span></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<span style="font-family: "times new roman"; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"><a href="https://www.indiebound.org/book/9781543989083"><i><b>From the grandson of Randall Collins:</b></i></a></span></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://www.indiebound.org/book/9781543989083"><img alt="https://www.indiebound.org/book/9781543989083" border="0" data-original-height="666" data-original-width="440" height="640" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgOuY68YofnYL9RVE0zmwLt6lQK_oxvS2dcVAOyvEKe7xlWlYMMdrKEk8JLkipKGdiwdBQJo6iQEqGz6MfXDoLX2-mV4o7zCCyG0XxR2Y9rC_ysunVNSa56-ZeJP1vA_3Uht-Djlcc7NN0/s640/PatrickVirusCoverMed.jpg" width="420" /></a></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<span style="font-family: "times new roman"; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"> <a href="https://www.indiebound.org/book/9781543989083"><i><b>A book for all ages</b></i></a></span></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<b><a href="https://www.indiebound.org/book/9781543989083">Available from independent booksellers and beyond</a></b></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
---------</div>
</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="color: black; font-family: "times new roman" , serif; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-language: X-NONE; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">*
Randall Collins. 2004. “Rituals of Solidarity and Security in the Wake of
Terrorist Attack.” <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Sociological Theory</i>
22: 53-87.</span><br />
<br />
<span style="color: black; font-family: "times new roman" , serif; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-language: X-NONE; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">For a more formal social-science presentation of the battlefield hospital study, see: </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="color: black; font-family: "times new roman" , serif; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-language: X-NONE; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">Mark
De Rond and Jaco Lok. 2016. “Some Things Can Never Be Unseen: The Role of
Context in Psychological Injury at War.” <i>Academy of Management Journal</i>
59: 1965-1993. </span></div>
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Unknownnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1005085971596877601.post-18402669553802654792020-01-01T07:54:00.001-08:002020-05-10T17:02:48.833-07:00PREDICTING WORLD WAR THREE, PREDICTING CLIMATE CATASTROPHE<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
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</style> <span style="font-family: "times new roman"; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"> </span><br />
<span style="font-family: "times new roman"; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">Even the experts have a poor track
record in predicting the future. Writers can be well-informed on the trends of
their times and knowledgable about the best theories of social and political
change. I will single out C. Wright Mills, who wrote <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">The Causes of World War Three</i> in 1960. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "times new roman"; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">Mills expected a devastating nuclear
war, and his analysis of conditions leading in that direction was realistic.
Sixty years later, as we reach 2020, we have to explain how he could get it
wrong. Mills was the best sociologist of his time. He was the English
translater of Max Weber on power politics, multi-dimensional social
stratification, and the growth of bureaucracy in all spheres of modern life;
and he put this sophistication into a<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>portrait of the United States -- <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">The
Power Elite</i> (1956) -- that still rings true for the mid-20th century and in
many respects up through the present. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times new roman"; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">Did Mills lack the intellectual
tools to predict stalemate and de-escalation of nuclear threat and other things
that started happening not long after he died in 1962? Or is it inevitable that
no one, no matter how sophisticated in the social science of their time, could
predict the kinds of things that happened between 1960 and 2020? These are not
rhetorical questions.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times new roman"; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">We can dismiss the argument that all
social predictions are self-undermining, since people who become aware of it
can take action to avoid the prediction happening. Perhaps a few predictions
are self-undermining, but many events have happened in spite of strenuous
warnings in advance. The years leading up to the American civil war of 1861-65
are just one of many examples; the wave of de-colonization in the decades after
1945 is another. For that matter, the coming of World War Two was widely
foreseen; but no one was able to stop it. We should avoid all-or-nothing
pronouncements that social predictions are either possible or impossible; ask
instead, under what circumstances do we predict more accurately and less
accurately? We should ask, too, under what conditions are we able to forestall
predicted disasters-- or not?<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The
issue is hardly a trivial one, as widespread anticipation of global climate
change will not necessarily lead to people actually doing anything effective to
stop it. Whether we will or not is not a question for the natural sciences, but
for social science. </span></div>
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<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><span style="font-family: "times new roman"; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">What thinkers at the turn of the 20th century expected</span></i><span style="font-family: "times new roman"; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times new roman"; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">Before examining C. Wright Mills on
nuclear war, let us take a look at several predictions made around 1890-1910.
Edward Bellamy was a muck-raking journalist in the era of industrial squalor
and labor struggles; his 1888 book, <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Looking
Backward, </i>is about a man who is knocked out in an accident in 1887 and
wakes up in Boston in 2000. The ugly factories are gone; there are green parks
everywhere. A socialist regime has arranged jobs and housing for everyone, with
near-equal wages. Bellamy takes the program of radical socialists of his time
and depicts it as accomplished, with a more-or-less Marxian crisis of
capitalism as the turning point in the 20th century. These views were widely
shared up through the 1940s. Schumpeter-- no advocate of socialism-- wrote in
1942 that the march of bureaucracy in government and giant corporations was
killing off the entrepreneurs who supplied the stream of innovations that keep
capitalism going. Schumpeter was as sophisticated a sociological economist as
ever existed; how did he get the implications of his own theory wrong, though
the half-century after his death showed how powerful his theory of economic
growth still is? </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times new roman"; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">Another example. The monumental
historical enterprise of the turn of the century was <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">The Cambridge Modern History</i>, planned by Lord Acton, and enlisting
the world’s best historians to write detailed chapters on political, economic,
and cultural events from the 1400s through the early 1900s. Fourteen volumes
were published between 1902 and 1912. The editors, who must have been the
best-informed persons in the world when they finished, summed up the volume <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">The Latest Age</i> (1910) through objective
eyes of their all-encompassing viewpoint. They perceive the chief concern of
the time is the social question-- social inequality, poverty, class conflict--
whether taking the form of social work among the poor, trade unions in varying
degrees of militancy, progressive legislation or even socialist revolution. The
chapter winds up: “The coming age will be occupied by the attempt to translate
[these] ideals into practical politics.” (p.15) This is quite a good anticipation
of the years up through the 1950s, and several decades beyond on the world
scene. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times new roman"; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">What the editor misses entirely is
the possibility of World War I and its follow-ups; he notes the jockeying among
European powers but dismisses it as nothing unusual. He comments approvingly on
the trend towards international arbitration of disputes (foreshadowing the
League of Nations and the UN.) Furthermore, he has a theory of the causes of
peace: the power of international finance has become all-pervasive, and “the interests
of financiers are as a rule on the side of peace and tranquility... their means
of persuasion can be employed against governments as well as against
individuals... No Power, no person, is too great, no man too humble, to be
reached by the pervasive and unseen pressure of financial interests and
financial authority. This force, non-moral as it is, sordid as it may seem, is
a growing factor in European politics, and, as a rule, it is exercised for the
preservation of peace. ” [p.14-15]<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>The realistic part of this to foresee the ongoing rise of international
finance capital-- which would grow even more powerful from the 1970s through
the present. But something big is missing here; perhaps it is true that
financiers as a whole prefer peace to run their business wherever they want,
but wars and social movements are a different order of causality and can
override financiers or sweep them up in their enthusiasms.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times new roman"; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">The editor of <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">The Cambridge Modern History</i> admits he is taking a materialist
view, and in this he belongs to the atmosphere of his time shared by Bellamy,
as well as other followers of Marx. The most striking example of this outlook
is H.G. Wells, <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">The Time Machine</i>
(1895).<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>This is considered one of
the first works of science fiction, but Wells was a serious idea-novelist and
he became famous for thirty years for his sweeping overview of human history,
combining biological evolution, scientific invention, with the social issues of
his time. In the story, a London inventor creates a time-travel machine, and
transports himself almost a million years into the future-- to be precise, the
year 802,701 A.D.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>London is now
inhabited by cute little people, who spend all their time playing, dancing, and
making love. They don’t do any work and everything is provided for them by
machines. So far this is the scientific paradise of the future. But the
time-travelor discovers that these people are deathly afraid of night-time. It
turns out there are openings to mine-shafts in the ground, and there is another
race of underground people-- hairy, muscular, dirty-- who do all the work; in
fact their eyes no longer function in daylight from centuries of working in the
dark. At night they come out looking for something to eat: the happy little
people are their meat. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times new roman"; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">Wells takes the class struggle of
his time and extrapolates it across enough generations that biological
evolution has turned humans into two races: brutalized workers, and pampered
upper classes. The depiction of the latter is not a bad projection; the European
upper classes of the late 19th century were a leisure class of tea-parties,
concerts and balls, dressing up lavishly and amusing themselves with love
affairs. (Oscar Wilde’s <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">The Importance of
Being Ernest, </i>produced in the same year as Wells’ novel, gives a fair idea
of the atmosphere he is extrapolating; so does Proust.) The middle classes,
too, were acquiring more leisure, and they too were organizing their lives
increasingly around popular entertainments and sports. Wells, thinking like an
evolutionist, conjectures that the privileged classes, with less and less work
to do, lose their useless muscles and diminish to the size of elves; while the
workers evolve into inhuman brutes. * It is a pessimistic view of the class
struggle; the workers are doomed, but the pampered elite pays the price of
being helpless consumers. Or we could see it as a satire warning of what will
happen if social reformers don’t succeed. In any case, it is one of the best
examples of applying a strong theory (biological evolution) to a possible
social trend.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times new roman"; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">* This is almost literally the theme
of Eugene O’Neill’s play <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">The Hairy Ape</i>
(1922), about a thrill-seeking young lady and a boiler-room worker on an ocean
liner.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times new roman"; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">The social reality that Wells was
building upon need not be explained simply as biological evolution. Max Weber,
writing 20 years later, saw the same trend towards a society obsessed with
entertainment and sex, and theorized it by hitching it to bureaucratization as
the master trend of modern history. Every sphere of life becomes rationalized
and calculated-- the state, the military, election campaigns, the economy.
Alienated by this iron cage of inescapable bean-counting mind-set, people
retreat psychologically into their private lives, where they live for entertainment
(highbrow or low) and for the meaning-giving<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>pursuit of sexual love (Weber 1915). Weber could see this
already in the hedonistic youth culture of Berlin and Vienna before WWI; the
“roaring twenties” were the triumph of self-consciously avant-garde carousing
in most wealthy countries (and the topic for writers like F. Scott Fitzgerald
in the US, Aldous Huxley and Evelyn Waugh in England, Hermann Hesse and
Christopher Isherwood in Germany). The novelty of the hedonistic
counter-culture wore off (with subsequent revivals in the 1960s and later), but
Weber’s prediction is one of the most accurate we have on record; it holds
throughout the 20th century, spreading worldwide (the Islamic countries
fighting a rear-guard action against it), and shows no sign of abating in the
21st.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times new roman"; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">Where did these intelligent
observers miss the boat?<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>They
accurately perceived one of the powerful trends of their time: Bellamy, Wells,
and the CMH editor focused on the intensification of class struggle, whether in
terms of Marx or a<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>peaceful
reformist version. Schumpeter and Weber saw the master trend as
bureaucratization, trumping even socialism. *<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times new roman"; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">* In another right-on prediction,
Weber in 1906, examining the revolutionary movements in Russia, wrote that if
the far Left came to power, there would be a bureacucratization of society such
as the world has never seen; “the dictatorship of the official and not the
proletariat is on the march.” [Gerth and Mills, <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">From<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Max Weber, </i>p.50]</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times new roman"; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">The failures came from focusing on
the overwhelming importance of one line of theory, and missing what lies
outside it. Their theoretical tool box was too small. We can appreciate this
better after examining C.Wright Mills, who put Weber’s full-strength theory to
work on the situation of the 1950s. He had a wider vision than was available at
the turn of the century, but what it lacked is pointed up by the things that
made Mills’ predictions go wrong.</span></div>
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<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><span style="font-family: "times new roman"; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">When do people have the social power to decide on their
future?</span></i><span style="font-family: "times new roman"; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times new roman"; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">Mills’ book is not a polemic, but a
thoughtful marshaling of the best sociology of the time. Yet it shows how the
best intellectual tools, wielded with deliberately non-partisan objectivity,
can still miss key future developments.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times new roman"; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">Mills starts off, not by denouncing
the nuclear arms race, but raising the question of whether everything happens
by fate, or if there is an opening for intelligent decision-making. He treats
the question like a sociologist looking for causes instead of as an
all-or-nothing philosophical discussion of free will. What has been
traditionally called “Fate” has a sociological basis, since it is “the summary
and unintended result of innumerable decisions of innumerable men” [p. 26;
using the pre-feminist language of the time]. Mills is an early symbolic
interactionist, viewing interaction among people as the basis of all the large
patterns we can call social structures. But historical patterns of interaction
have shifted drastically between traditional and modern times. “In those
societies in which the means of power are rudimentary and decentralized,
history <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">is</i> fate.” No one is in a
position to control what most other people do, so even if you see bad things
coming, you are not in a position to do much about them. But decisions about
social directions can be made when societies become centralized, as a result of
the shift from feudal to industrial societies. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times new roman"; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">Although early capitalist
industrialization happened slowly and from many local sources, by mid-20th
century in the advanced countries centralization had taken place in every
sphere: economic corporations coordinated by big finance; huge military forces
backed by logistics and weapons-procurement based on the strength of the
economy; huge national government agencies to tax, administer, and control.
Mills’ own research had shown the existence of a Power Elite, the intersection
of these networks at the top by the circulation of<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>corporate executives, military officers, scientists and
government officials into each other’s jobs. The prime example of the Power
Elite was in the United States, having built a centralizing structure to win
World War II; an analogous structure had been created in the USSR, where the
combination of revolutionary socialism and war-time mobilization had produced
another Power Elite. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times new roman"; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">Summing up, Mills wrote: “’Men are
free to make history’, and some men are now much freer to do so than others,
for such freedom requires access to the means of decision” (p. 28--his
terminology echoing both Marx and Weber). </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times new roman"; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">Mills draws out two consequences. For
the first time in history,<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>extremely fateful decisions can be made; in this case, whether to
destroy the planet in a nuclear war. But why would anyone want to do so?
Decisions can be implicity made out of non-decisions, just letting things take
their course-- in this case, in the midst of a nuclear arms race. The second
inference is that the individuals who make up the power elite share a common
vision of the world, a common psychology by virtue of how they have made their
careers; where you sit determines where you stand. Structurally, they have the
power to change the course of history; but because of their social psychology,
they are unlikely to use that power to head off catastrophe. In the 1950s and
heading into the 1960s, the Power Elite saw the nuclear arms race between the
US and the Soviets as inescapable.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times new roman"; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">Mills made the single best statement
of when and how some people have agency to move history, and when they can do
nothing more than flow with the social tides.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Nevertheless, his theory missed some crucial points, and
these caused his main prediction to go wrong. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times new roman"; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">Before examining what he missed, let
us look more closely at his analysis of the coming nuclear war.</span></div>
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<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><span style="font-family: "times new roman"; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">Mills and the Causes of World War III </span></i><span style="font-family: "times new roman"; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times new roman"; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">The immediate cause of World War III
is the arms race. Beginning with the race between the Western Allies and the
Germans in WWII,<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>it had produced
aerial bombing, long-distance rockets, and the atomic bomb. It was taken up by
the US and the USSR, soon to produce jet planes, the hydrogen bomb, space
rockets, ICBMs, and nuclear-powered aircraft carriers and submarines. It became
a pattern of mutual escalation, neither side willing to be caught lagging
behind. By the early 1960s, the means of destruction reached the point where
contamination of the atmosphere by radiation from a nuclear war would likely
wipe out human life on earth. (This is exactly what was depicted in the 1964
film, <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Dr. Strangelove.</i>)<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Mills, like others, pointed out that
although no one might want this to happen, continuous escalation of
increasingly devastating weapons raised the risk that a war could break out by
accident. An equipment malfunction, a misreading of a radar signal,
misperceiving the other side’s intentions, could trigger off an attack through
hair-trigger readiness to react immediately before being destroyed.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times new roman"; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">These are only the immediate causes.
Deeper causes are in the structure that gave rise to a Power Elite. The US had
gotten out of the Great Depression of the 1930s by the huge government spending
of WWII.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>When prosperity returned
in the 1950s, big industries like automobiles, aircraft, steel, chemicals and
electronics were not just producing for consumers, but their biggest customers
continued to be the military. Thus the arms race in all respects-- not just
nuclear weapons but all the other forms of weaponry and logistics-- sustained a
military-industrial complex.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>It
was built so centrally into the economy that most people’s jobs depended upon
it, directly or indirectly. The US had become a “permanent war economy” even in
peacetime. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times new roman"; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">This in turn created a widespread
mind-set. Few people questioned the direction they were going. Government
spending had become the main source of funding for scientific research;
scientists took it for granted that their careers in the university depended on
getting such funds, if they didn’t work directly for the government or for
corporations producing military materiel. The scientific, economic, and
political elites coalesced in keeping the arms race going. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times new roman"; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">Mills was quite aware that opponents
of the arms race existed--he was active among them.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>But as a sociologist, he was alert to the need to understand
the social sources of opposition. Below the Power Elite, the US was a middle-class
democracy. It included politicians in Congress as well as the state and local
level; professional associations of all sorts, entertainment celebrities,
intellectuals, academics, and all the branches of cultural media. But their
interests were narrow and local; they operated within the larger system of big
organizations, and for the most part accepted them. Labour unions were still
powerful, but were largely tied up with the interests of the big corporations,
as long as they got a share of the proceeds. Mills called the middle class a
“semi-organized stalemate” incapable of changing the military-industrial
complex, and largely uninterested in doing so. Below the middle class were a
powerless mass of consumers, more interested in sports and entertainment than
anything else.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times new roman"; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">So much for the American side of the
arms race. What about the Soviets?<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>Their structure, too, had been forged in WWII, and they continued to use
it in top-down fashion to bring themselves into the ranks of advanced
industrial countries in the 1950s. It too was based on a military-industrial
complex; hence the mentality of maintaining it must be built into the
world-view of the Soviet Power Elite as well.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times new roman"; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">But here Mills makes an prediction
that looks strange in retrospect, although it was based on a realistic view of
the evidence at the time. He notes how quickly Russia industralized,
accomplishing in less than half a century what during the rise of modern
capitalism in the West had taken 300 years. This was the result of forced
industrialization, the coercive but centrally controlled Soviet policy of
building modern heavy industry, which Mills judged as evidently superior to the
Western model. The Soviets had been quick to put scientific expertise to work
where it needed it, demonstrated by its ability to create a hydrogen bomb a few
years after the US, and launching the Sputnik manned satellite into space,
jumping ahead of the US in 1957. Mills quoted statistics: the USSR had been
growing economically at a rate of 6%, while the US rate was 3%. Thus he
predicted that the Soviets would “overtake the US economy in a decade or
two” [p.80] -- and he thought this all the more likely because the state-led
socialist economy would not be slowed down by the capitalist business cycle of
periodic recessions. As China got its act together, it would learn from its
predecessors and achieve an even faster growth rate: “what Russia has done
industrially in 40 years, China may well do in 25.”<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>(Not a bad prediction in some respects, although the Chinese
take-off did not start until the 1980s.) </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times new roman"; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">The upshot of Mills’ comparison of
the US and the USSR is that the Soviets were not as committed to the nuclear
arms race as the Americans. From talking with Russians, he got the impression
that they felt the future would be theirs; all they had to do was wait another
10 years or so, and their model would be proved superior. And this brings him
back to the American Power Elite. If the US is more committed to the arms race
than the Soviets, it is we who bear the most responsibility for the danger of
nuclear war. Somehow, the peace movement has to get the attention of the Power
Elite, to convince them to stop the arms race. But since the
military-industrial complex is central to our economy, the odds of changing it
are poor. </span></div>
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<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><span style="font-family: "times new roman"; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">What did Mills’ analysis miss?</span></i><span style="font-family: "times new roman"; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times new roman"; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">Obviously, there has been no nuclear
war; in fact, no further nuclear bombs have been used since 1945 (although the
future is still open).<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>In part
this was due to something else not on Mills’ radar, the fall of the USSR and
its satellite states in 1989-91-- 30 years after Mills wrote in 1960. He also
expected the Soviets would overtake the US economically within 10 or 20 years;
instead around 1975 it began to be visible that they were falling behind, and
were in considerable economic strain by the time Gorbachev launched a reform
movement in 1985. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times new roman"; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">Mills expected that no-one but the
Power Elite could do anything about the nuclear arms race, and he was not very
optimistic they would do so. Nevertheless, in 1962, soon after the Cuban
missile crisis when the US and USSR threatened each other, Kennedy and
Khrushchev established a “hot line” telephone link, to avoid going to war
through misunderstanding.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Again in
the mid-1980s--after a period when the US massively increased its nuclear
forces in order to catch up with a perceived Soviet threat-- Reagan and
Gorbachev negotiated a treaty limiting the numbers of nuclear weapons. Were
these events within the scope of Mills’ predictions? They do fit his argument
that with the centralization of decision-making in the two world powers, any
effective moves towards peace would have to come from the top.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times new roman"; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">Mills had explicitly ruled out the
likelihood of a movement from below challenging the arms race. But here he was
proved wrong within a few years of his writing. In the early 1960s, there was a
“ban the bomb” movement, most active in Britain, but with a small group of
activists in the US. These were ineffective at the time. In 1965, a much bigger
anti-war movement developed in the US, in opposition to the Vietnam War. It
became militant, building on the demonstrations and sit-in tactics of the civil
rights movement for racial integration, and even attempted to block the
Pentagon in a massive march in 1968. This anti-war movement failed; it was
unpopular in public opinion; it failed to get an anti-war candidate chosen at
the Democratic convention at Chicago in 1968; it got such a candidate in 1972
(McGovern), who lost the election in a landslide to a pro-war President
(Nixon). Even so, something was happening. The US pulled out of South Vietnam
in 1973, allowing the country to go communist in 1975. But now the military was
becoming wary; for several decades, military officers explicitly tried to avoid
“another Vietnam”. And although a majority of the public initially always backed
whatever war the US got into-- the Gulf War in 1991, the invasion of
Afghanistan following the 9/11/01 attacks, and the invasion of Iraq in 2003--
such wars eventually became unpopular if they went on for several years. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times new roman"; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">Mills did not think conditions
existed for a successful peace movement. He was partly right-- no peace
movement was able to dictate government policy. Nevertheless, anti-war
sentiment generally grew in the years from 1965 to 2000, and has been
intermittently influential since then. The conditions for a half-successful
peace movement is part of what we need to explain.</span></div>
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<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><span style="font-family: "times new roman"; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">Missing in Mills’ theory:<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>social movement theory</span></i><span style="font-family: "times new roman"; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times new roman"; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">Social movement theory had barely
developed in 1960. It focused on mass behavior as irrational, and on right-wing
movements as motivated by status deprivation. Theories shifted as sociologists
paid attention to the civil rights, anti-war, and feminist movements of the
1960s and 70s. The most relevant of the new theories pointed to resource
mobilization as the key to movements’ growth: Movements develop where they have
networks for recruiting activists and supporters; coordination through social
movement organizations (SMOs) with a full-time<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>staff engaging in fund-raising, seeking favorable publicity
in the news media, and enlisting lawyers and other professionals to protect
demonstrations from arrests, and bring lawsuits in court. Not all movements
developed all these resources. They varied in their use of violence,
non-violent protests, civil disobedience, and legal action; movements that used
all of these tactics tended to be most successful. SMOs are crucial in keeping
a movement going during the long period of time-- often 10 years or more-- it
takes to gain concessions; this multi-pronged offensive was best illustrated by
the success of the civil rights movement. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times new roman"; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">Most of these resource mobilization
processes were involved in the development of the anti-war movement during the
Vietnam War. From his observations of the 1950s, Mills regarded universities as
conformist and careerist. But in the 1960s, universities became the major
resource base for new social movements. Here new SMOs were created, networks
were recruited, and emotional enthusiasm built up. And this resource base was
growing rapidly: university attendance sky-rocketed, from about 2 million
students in 1950, to 9 million in 1970.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>Mobilization began initially with students at historially black colleges
in the South, who organized the sit-in movement to desegregate public
facilities; within a few years they were imitated by white students in the
North. Resource mobilization builds on itself. Activists and tactics shifted
from civil rights to anti-war protests; further spin-offs from these movements
led the second-wave feminist movement at the turn of the 1970s. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times new roman"; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">Resource mobilization-- not in
Mills’ theoretical repertoire-- explains how an anti-war movement could grow.
But what explains its degree of success (or lack of success)?<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Theorizing the success of social movements
remains an unanswered question. But let us make some rough comparisons. The
civil rights movement was successful in desegregating public institutions
within about 20 years. The anti-war movement in its first 10 years failed to
stop the Vietnam War; it was unsuccessful in the 1980s in stopping the massive
nuclear build-up during the Reagan administration; an even bigger outcry
against the invasion of Iraq in 2003 also was ineffective. At most we can say
anti-war movements became bigger over a 40 year period, creating a segment of
public opinion that government leaders had to worry about.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times new roman"; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">In sum, we have a movement that
achieved most of its avowed goals in 20 years; and a movement with some
modest success after 40 years.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>C.Wright Mills’ frame of reference helps explain the difference. Civil
rights was a local problem, below the concerns and interests of the Power
Elite. It could be fought out in one city and town after another; its targets
were at the level that Mills regarded as the realm of competing interests. Here
grass-roots movements, acting locally with the help of sympathetic news
coverage, could build a chain of victories. Stopping wars and nuclear weapons,
however, pitted activists against the center of national power. The fact that
anti-war concerns eventually became a modest influence on international policy
shows that the Power Elite could be pushed, to some degree-- at any rate, more
than Mills anticipated. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times new roman"; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">The main reason that nuclear war did
not happen has to be attributed to large-scale factors, outside and beyond the
control of each national elite.</span></div>
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<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><span style="font-family: "times new roman"; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">Theoretical weakness: Geopolitics</span></i><span style="font-family: "times new roman"; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times new roman"; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">Geopolitical theory gives the
conditions for growth and decline in the military power of states; when wars
break out; who wins and loses, and when stalemates occur. Geopolitical theory
was still rudimentary in 1960, consisting mainly of the mutual escalation of
arms races that Mills used; plus a balance-of-power theory, based on British
policy in the 1700s and 1800s, which Mills saw was inapplicable to the
two-sided world of post-WWII.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times new roman"; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">In the late 1970s, I put together a
geopolitical theory, combining previous formulations, and based on examining
changes of state borders around the world in the past 3000 years. There are 5
main principles:</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times new roman"; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">[#1] States with more population and
economic resources expand at the expense of smaller and poorer territories; and
these advantages and disadvantages cumulate as the big get bigger.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times new roman"; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">[#2] States at the edges of a
densely settled zone tend to expand, while states in the middle tend to
fragment and be swallowed up.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times new roman"; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">[#3] As [#1] and [#2] operate over a
period of time (30-50 years for each iteration), a geographical region
simplifies into 2 big states (or empires/alliances) confronting each other.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times new roman"; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">[#4] Confrontation between two big
states generates a turning point with 3 possible outcomes: victory of one side,
or the other, resulting in a world-empire; or a costly stalemate, draining the
power of both contenders and opening the way for new states to expand.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times new roman"; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">[#5] A big state also can decline
from overextension: expanding so far from its home economic base that most of
its resources are used up in logistics moving and supplying its forces.
Eventually it loses wars on distant frontiers, even against weaker powers. Such
defeats, combined with the economic burden of the military, create a crisis of
legitimacy at home, fostering revolution and regime change.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times new roman"; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">Mills was observing the situation
after World Wars I and II, when the central states of Europe had lost twice
fighting the big states to their east and west. Germany’s loss fits [#1] and
[#2]. But the two most powerful states of the west, Britain and France, were
militarily exhausted as well. The post-WWII power vacuum was filled by two
peripheral states, the US and USSR, in a confrontation over world empire (whatever
terminology one might have used for their drive for hegemony). This fits [#3].
Such showdown wars historically have been especially ferocious and destructive
(in contrast to the polite, rule-following battle etiquette of limited,
balance-of-power wars). The nuclear arms race in the US/Soviet showdown,
threatening to destroy everything, fits the pattern.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times new roman"; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">Russia historically had been an
expanding state from the 1400s through the 1800s, spreading from Moscow against
relatively resource-poor population zones to its east and south: [#1] again.
Defeats by the rising power of Japan at the far end of logistics lines in the
Far East, and by the Axis armies in WWI, brought revolution in Russia. The
Communist regime inherited Russia’s geopolitical position, with the advantage
after WWII of having its immediate enemies to the west and east destroyed; it
began to expand again, taking over eastern Europe and expanding its global
influence by sponsoring revolutionary regimes throughout the world. This was
the situation as C. Wright Mills saw it in 1960. US involvement in the Vietnam
war started after Mills died in 1962, but it would fit [#5]-- logistical
overextension-- as the US found itself in a long, costly stalemate, fighting a
guerrilla war on the other side of the world, supplied in the most expensive
way, by air.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times new roman"; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">So far Mills’ prognosis looked
correct, up through 1975, when South Vietnam fell to the communists. Then
geopolitical conditions shifted. US withdrawal from Vietnam was a precusor to
North Vietnam’s victory, but it reduced logistical overextension. [#5] was no
longer a problem, and the US maintained this cautious posture until 2001. The
Gulf War in 1991 was an exception, but the fighting was called off by President
Bush in 4 days; and no costly occupation of Iraq was attempted. While the US
was improving its geopolitical position, Russia was straining theirs. The USSR
kept up military expansion, invading Afghanistan in 1979 to prop up a weak
communist government; the resulting 9-year war became Russia’s Vietnam--a
resource drain, and a crisis of legitimacy at home, leading to Gorbychev’s
reform movement. Powers that enter the declining side of the geopolitical
processes tend to lose territorial control faster than they had acquired them.
The 1989 revolutions in Eastern Europe led to the loss of its post-WWII
satellites; the 1991 revolution in the USSR broke apart hundreds of years of
conquests stretching from Latvia to Kazakhstan. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times new roman"; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">The 45-year confrontation between
the Soviet bloc and the US-dominated bloc came to an end in the pattern of [#4]
and [#5]:<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>prolonged 2-sided
confrontation and stalemate allowed new power-coalitions to grow on their
periphery. These were the “unaligned nations” or “Third World”; and would
include the shift of the Middle East to its own belligerent ideology (Islamic
nationalism against both Western capitalism and communism). It was in this
ideological atmosphere that China pulled out of the Soviet orbit, and
eventually launched its own nationalist version of state-controlled
market/socialism. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times new roman"; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">Mills’ reasoning would have been
accurate if nuclear war had come in the 1960s or 70s. It didn’t. Nuclear
detente settled into a stalemate; and this allowed the world configuration to
morph into a polycentric world by the late 1980s. By then it didn’t matter so
much that the Communist campaign for world-domination (or world-liberation) no
longer had much resources or enthusiasm. It was in this new ideological climate
of delegitimation that Soviet regimes almost everywhere reformed themselves or
collapsed. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times new roman"; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">We still haven’t explained why
nuclear war didn’t break out in the years before the Cold War wound itself
down. We have two further factors to consider.</span></div>
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<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><span style="font-family: "times new roman"; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">Theoretical weakness: extrapolating economic growth rates</span></i></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times new roman"; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">Comparing growth rates, Mills
predicted the Soviets would overtake the US within 20 years, and thus would win
the Cold War, since the resource-rich win. The string of predictions unravels
because by the late 1970s the Soviet growth rate had fallen below US growth. It
is always a mistake to assume that a statistical pattern from a particular
period (in this case, the 1950s) will continue indefinitely, unless we have
well-established theory for what causes such numbers. *<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Mills thought that the USSR’s 6% growth
rate was caused by the advantages of a centrally planned socialist economy. In
fact, it was the typical pattern of a take-off from the relatively low
production of an undeveloped economy into a massive industrial economy. ** The
same pattern was seen later in China, which began sustained growth in the 1980s
and achieved growth rates of 10-15% in the 1990s and early 2000s; subsequently
trending downwards (but remaining as yet still considerably above the 3%
ceiling typical of mature economies.)<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times new roman"; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">* The classic example of this
fallacy was the prediction by demographers, based on population growth in the
1930s, that the US would level out at 140 million in the 1950s. Instead came
the post-war baby boom-- on nobody’s theoretical radar-- with the result that
US population passed 200 million by 1970, and doubled the predicted number by
hitting 280 million in 2000. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times new roman"; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">** This is a matter of arithmetic.
Starting from a small number, even a small absolute increase can be a large
percentage. If the GDP per capita is $100, adding $15 gives you a growth rate
of 15%.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>This becomes progressively
harder as the base grows larger. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times new roman"; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">Making his analysis in 1960, Mills
would have needed better tools for explaining economic growth, both in the
Soviet bloc and in the US. Without attempting a sketch of relevant theory as of
today, what was needed would have to include understanding the weaknesses as
well as strengths of centrally-planned socialist economies; and correspondingly
of the mechanisms of economic growth in market capitalism-- especially
Schumpeterian theory of entrepreneurs driving technological innovation. (Why
did the IT economy take off in the US, starting with the personal-computer
explosion, while Soviet technological innovation remained narrowly in the realm
of weapons technology?)</span></div>
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<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><span style="font-family: "times new roman"; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">Theoretical weakness: substitutes for all-out war</span></i><span style="font-family: "times new roman"; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times new roman"; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">Mills saw the nuclear arms race as
the pathway to endless escalation. And this continued for another 20 years,
with the proliferation of ICBMs, long-distance bombers constantly in the air,
and submarine-launched missiles. Both sides acquired arsenals capable of
destroying the other many times over. The situation came to be called Mutually
Assured Destruction.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The
abbreviation MAD was mocked as indeed madness. Nevertheless, it turned out to
be workable mutual deterrence. After the Cuban missile crisis, both sides were
careful to avoid another nuclear confrontation.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>One could even say it formed a tacit mutual agreement--
conflict creating a social tie, in the manner that Simmel had theorized, with
both focusing on coordinating with each other in at least this respect.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times new roman"; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">This did not mean their Great Power
rivalry would become peaceful. Military conflict is not a simple binary--
either nuclear war, or world peace. Both sides continued to carry on their
struggle for spheres of influence, by proxy wars. The USSR armed Cuban troops
to fight for communist regimes in Africa. The US used CIA aid to oppose the
Russian-supported regime in Afghanistan. Both sides sent military “advisors” to
help their proxies; their limited involvement was something of a pretence, as
advisors often took part in combat, especially with artillery, helicopters, and
aerial strikes-- keeping a little distance from “boots on the ground”. But
mutually accepting the pretence that these were only advisors was a tacit
agreement too, to avoid all-out conflict by staying in a less visible role.
This practice has continued, even after the end of the Cold War-- for example
in the 8-plus years of conflict in Syria, where the US, Russia, Iran, and other
outside powers have armed their own proxy forces. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times new roman"; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">From MAD to proxy war is obviously
not an ideal way to peace. Nevertheless, it shows it is possible to pull back
from joint suicide. Limited wars through proxies is another illustration of
geopolitical principles [#3] and [#4] and their corollary: a stalemated
showdown turns back into a version of balance-of-power wars, where military aims
and methods are scaled down. It does have the disadvantage that proxy wars can
go on for a very long time, since the outside sponsors are not incurring much
losses for themselves; it is the local population who pays the price for having
multiple forces fighting in their homeland. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times new roman"; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">It is a sobering lesson we have
learned since the time of C.Wright Mills: the worst kind of escalation can be
avoided, while lesser degrees of conflict can continue to pile up “limited”
destruction.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times new roman"; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">And so the world came through,
without nuclear war. Mills hoped this would happen, but his theoretical
tool-kit was unable to anticipate the crucial processes: </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times new roman"; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">-- Geopolitical stalemate opened the
way for a more polycentric world, with more limited forms of warfare.</span></div>
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<br /></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times new roman"; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">-- The expensive arms race
bankrupted the Soviets first; Mills failed to envision this because he
extrapolated short-term growth rates instead of recognizing the initial surge
of high growth as a country first modernizes.</span></div>
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<br /></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times new roman"; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">-- The US economy eventually outgrew
the military-industrial complex. The loss of heavy industry to cheaper overseas
producers began the trend; its place was taken by expansion of what could be
called “consumer entertainment industries” based on electronics. The roots of
this go back to the invention of the phonograph and radio; from the 1950s
onwards these industries produced a series of innovations in devices for playing
recorded music, film, and much else.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>Some of the electronics spun off from the military: after the advent of
the personal computer (created by entrepreneurs in Silicon Valley, around the
big defense electronics companies), the Defense Department’s DARPANET became
the Internet. GPS, first developed so military aircraft wouldn’t run into each
other, eventually was combined with smart phones into a large number of
consumer and business applications. Not only did the US lead the new wave of
technological innovation, while the Soviet economy remained centered on heavy
industry for its military; the American style of music, counter-culture
rebellion, and entertainment resulted in the “blue-jeans offensive” that made
Soviet youth jealous of American culture. The economy of cultural innovation,
it turns out, is also a political weapon, insofar as it delegitimates enemies
in their own eyes.</span></div>
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<br /></div>
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<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><span style="font-family: "times new roman"; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">Lessons for predicting climate catastrophe</span></i></div>
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<br /></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times new roman"; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">What can we take away from this
episode that is relevant to the big question of our future? </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times new roman"; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">First: the distinction between
making a prediction and being able to do something about it. So far, almost all
research on global warming, rising sea levels and other climate trends have
come from the natural sciences. They tell us what is likely to happen in coming
decades; but hardly anyone has seriously analyzed how likely we are to stop
these these processes, and what determines how people will respond.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The prevailing assumption seems to be
that if predictions are alarming enough, the world will do something about it.
But as we have seen in the case of nuclear war, being alarmed is not a
sufficient mechanism to predict what people will do. We need social science to
ask the question, as objectively as C.Wright Mills did in his day: what social
processes are leading towards impending disaster, and what social processes can
stop it? And in this case, we need to be able to predict matters of
degree:<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>what social forces would
be necessary to completely control climate change; what forces would lead to a
half-way solution, or virtually no solution, and so on. </span></div>
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<br /></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times new roman"; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">Many people besides C. Wright Mills
saw we were heading for nuclear war, but they saw no way out of the arms race--
for a time, their advice was to build fall-out shelters. It was processes outside
their control-- shifting geopolitical patterns; differing trajectories of
economic growth; the shift to proxy wars -- that prevented world destruction.
Can we say something similar about reactions to climate change during the
remainder of the 21st century?</span></div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "times new roman"; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">What kinds of things would we want
to predict? </span></div>
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<br /></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times new roman"; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">One factor that will affect people’s
reactions will be the direction of world economies: I put this in the plural,
because different economies would affect what their leaders and peoples would
be willing to do to combat climate changae. Would their economies support or
resist measures to reduce greenhouse gases, or to shift their uses of energy?
There would be different responses from the rich countries (the U.S.,
north-west Europe, Japan); from burgeoning economies (China; potentially
India); from Russia, positioned on the melting Arctic; from other parts of the world. Would these be willing to give up
automobiles or air travel? Would they all move into high-density housing and
seal their dwellings against heat transfer? Would attempts to do these things
bring economic prosperity or decline? </span></div>
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<br /></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times new roman"; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">A second factor is political. On the
whole, political elites in the era of global internationalism have advocated
policies to curb climate change. But such elites may not always be in control;
their popularity has fallen in the U.S., Brazil, Britain and elsewhere.
Objectively, we need a theory that gives the conditions for internationalists
winning or losing elections; and to predict whether large numbers of people
resist giving up their cars (the <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">gilets
jaunes</i> movement in France, for example).<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>In short, we need a theory about political conflict over
responses to global warming. In Europe, populist/nationalist movements have
been energized by the influx of refugees-- partly as the result of wars in the
Middle East and Africa; partly as poor people use refugee pathways to seek a
more favourable economic location (ditto for influx at the US border).
Understanding the political dynamics of welcoming or resisting refugees will
become an even bigger issue if global warming continues to the extent of
displacing many millions of people living in areas threatened by rising sea
levels. </span></div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "times new roman"; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">Predicting whose positions will have
political influence is similar to the question I raised about anti-war
movements. Theory of social movements is grossly incomplete in some key
respects. We know something about the conditions that allow social movements to
mobilize, including organizational bases like universities; and more recently
the attention-steering power of the Internet. We know less about what predicts
the directions social movements will take. Liberal partisans were taken by
surprise by the extent of support for Brexit, Trump, Bolsonaro, etc. Can we
formulate, in a more generic sense, what kinds of movements we can expect during
coming decades? It is unrealistic to assume that as global warming grows worse,
there will be consensus on what to do about it. We need a better theory of
social conflict: what determines the strength of different factions, and who
wins what kind of power to take action?</span></div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "times new roman"; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">This is the same question I raised
about what determines how effective social movements are in achieveing their
goals. I suggested that movements where action can take place locally achieve
their goals faster than those who have to take on centralized systems of power.
We need to rethink this further to cover movements for and against action on
global warming. </span></div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "times new roman"; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">The effects of global warming are
not all-or-nothing, like a nuclear war destroying the earth. There is a long
future trajectory of gradual change into the 21st century and possibly beyond.
The most serious crises will be local rather than world-wide. It is unrealistic
to assume that <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">of course </i><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>we will act as a world community to save
whoever is imperiled. It could happen-- if a certain type of altruistic social
movement became dominant everywhere. It could also happen that
nationalist/populist movements would be in control-- in a few countries or
many-- and they could be most concerned to protect their borders against being
swamped by refugees. Some conservative economists have argued that the costs of
certain parts of the world becoming uninhabitable can be calculated; and these
costs can be weighed against the costs of changing our entire energy,
transport, and living conditions. What theory do we have that can tell us how
far these various policies will win? (In countries with what kinds of social patterns
will various policies prevail?)</span></div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "times new roman"; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">The Power Elite, in the sense that
Mills described it 60 years ago, is no longer so dominant. He saw two
centralized elites, one for the US, the other for the USSR; between the two of
them lay the power to decide on nuclear war, one way of the other. His theory
did not foresee additional conditions that would reduce centralized control in
both places, as well as in the world as a whole. No one or two countries can
dictate policies to control global warming. Within the U.S., the
military-industrial complex no longer encompasses massive sectors of the
economy like automobiles and heavy industry. The electronic/entertainment
industries that replaced them in the height of the economy are not locked into
a revolving door of government and Pentagon officials. There is more structural
split. I do not mean merely that we can count on the political attitudes of
owners and employees of Amazon, Google, Facebook etc. to stay internationalist
and dedicated to fighting climate change. That is a short-run situation, which
can change. More systematically, what effects do the IT industries have on
mobilizing political movements, one way or another? Conservative movements
mobilize well through the social media, too (Trump, etc). There is the
additional possibility that IT will demobilize many people, creating an
electronic addiction to fantasy entertainment that would make them put up with
almost anything. Big questions to be tackled: what will mobilize and demobilize
people on crucial issues, and how many in each segment? For that matter, how
stably will these patterns hold? The future may well be a series of swings back
and forth.</span></div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "times new roman"; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">We need a theory of conflict between
rival forces-- economic tendencies, local and international ways of organizing
power, rival social movements. If<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>movements on crucial issues are more or less evenly divided, the result
is likely to be political gridlock; the default position becomes the status
quo-- doing nothing, or doing little enough so that the problems of climate
change are not much affected. In the years leading up to 2020, this kind of
social division and policy deadlock has become widespread. That does not mean
it will stay that way over the decades of the future. Can we theorize the
conditions for today’s deadlocks, in such a way that we can see them as
variable, and thus predict the conditions that would change deadlock in the future?</span><br />
<br />
<div style="text-align: center;">
<span style="font-family: "times new roman"; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">---------</span></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<span style="font-family: "times new roman"; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"><br /></span></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<span style="font-family: "times new roman"; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"><a href="https://www.indiebound.org/book/9781543989083"><i><b>From the grandson of Randall Collins:</b></i></a></span></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://www.indiebound.org/book/9781543989083"><img alt="https://www.indiebound.org/book/9781543989083" border="0" data-original-height="666" data-original-width="440" height="640" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgOuY68YofnYL9RVE0zmwLt6lQK_oxvS2dcVAOyvEKe7xlWlYMMdrKEk8JLkipKGdiwdBQJo6iQEqGz6MfXDoLX2-mV4o7zCCyG0XxR2Y9rC_ysunVNSa56-ZeJP1vA_3Uht-Djlcc7NN0/s640/PatrickVirusCoverMed.jpg" width="420" /></a></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<span style="font-family: "times new roman"; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"> <a href="https://www.indiebound.org/book/9781543989083"><i><b>A book for all ages</b></i></a></span></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<b><a href="https://www.indiebound.org/book/9781543989083">Available from independent booksellers and beyond</a></b></div>
</div>
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<div style="text-align: center;">
---------</div>
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<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><span style="font-family: "times new roman"; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">References</span></i><span style="font-family: "times new roman"; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"></span></div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "times new roman"; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">Edward Bellamy. 1888. <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Looking Backward.</i></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "times new roman"; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">CMH= Cambridge Modern History.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>1910. <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Vol. 12.<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"> The Latest
Age. </i>Cambridge Univ. Press.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "times new roman"; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">Randall Collins. 1986.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>“The Future Decline of the Russian
Empire.” in<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"> Weberian Sociological Theory</i>.
Cambridge Univ. Press. </span></div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "times new roman"; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">Hans H. Gerth and C.Wright Mills.
1946.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">From Max Weber: Essays in Sociology. </i>Oxford Univ. Press. </span></div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "times new roman"; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">David R. Gibson. 2012. <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Talk at the Brink: Deliberation and Decision
during the Cuban Missile Crisis. </i><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Princeton Univ. Press. </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "times new roman"; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">C. Wright Mills. 1956.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">The
Power Elite. </i>Oxford Univ. Press.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "times new roman"; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">C. Wright Mills. 1960.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">The
Causes of World War Three.</i> NY: Ballantine Books.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "times new roman"; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">H.G. Wells. 1895.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">The
Time Machine.</i> </span></div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "times new roman"; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">Joseph Schumpeter. 1942. <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Capitalism, Socialism, and Democracy. </i><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>NY: Harper.</span></div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "times new roman"; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">Max Weber. 1906/1995.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">The
Russian Revolutions. </i>Cornell Univ. Press.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "times new roman"; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">Max Weber. 1915/1946.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>“Religious Rejections of the World and
their Directions.” In Gerth and Mills.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span></span></div>
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</div>
Unknownnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1005085971596877601.post-55851093151034172002019-10-09T11:46:00.002-07:002019-10-09T11:46:53.287-07:00DOWNFALL OF NCAA WOULD IMPROVE AMERICAN EDUCATION
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<br />
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="color: black; font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri;">The 2019 California law allowing college athletes to
retain agents and receive payment for use of their name and image opens the flood-gates
to professionalization of college sports. So they say.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="color: black; font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri;">Most arguments against it are about its effects on college
sports, especially the “minor sports” outside the big time, revenue-generating
sports, football and basketball. </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="color: black; font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri;">But I want to raise a more important point: the worst-case
scenario, getting rid of all school sports, would be one of the biggest things
we could do to <i>improve</i> American education.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="color: black; font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri;">The predominance of sports in American schools at all
levels distinguishes US schools from most of the rest of the world. This
sports-centeredness is to a considerable degree responsible for why American
students score lower than almost everyone else in international comparisons of
academic skills. </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="color: black; font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri;">Most American students just don’t care that much about
studying, and their peers put them down for it, in comparison to the athletes
who are the center of the school prestige hierarchy. This is not the case in
the rest of the world—because their schools aren’t focused on athletics at all.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="color: black; font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri;">But this is unimaginable—American schools without sports!
Why would people support schools if there were no excitement and no mass spectacle
about them? It’s not unimaginable at all. To see how it works, just look
outside the boundaries of the USA.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<i><span style="color: black; font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri;">School athletics at the center of attention devalues
intellectual students</span></i><span style="color: black; font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri;"></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="color: black; font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri;">Anyone who has been to high school in the United States
knows there is a prestige system, with the jocks and cheerleaders at the top,
and the nerds at the bottom. The term “nerd” has no equivalent in foreign
languages; here it means someone who is a grind, not part of the youth culture,
not just deficient in athletics but inferentially lacking in sexual appeal and
klutzy at social skills. With the rise of the high-tech economy and dissident
counter-culture movements this hierarchy has gotten somewhat blurred, but it
still has a very strong hold in the way American schools operate. Successful
school teams are the way a school—from high-school up through university—gets a
public image and public support; and it is the main school-spirit-building
activity inside the school. <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Athletics
are sacrosanct, as the center of most schools’ image, prestige, and money. </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="color: black; font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri;">There are exceptions: tech schools like M.I.T. and Cal
Tech opt out of that system entirely; some elite colleges (mostly Ivy League
and nearby) have so much reputation for their graduates going to the top of the
corporate and political worlds that they don’t need famous athletic teams. As I
will argue later, these are seeds for an American academic system that would
replace our current one, if the sports-centered school system self-destructs
over the professionalization of athletics. </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="color: black; font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri;">Murray Milner (University of Virginia sociologist) did a
massive study of prestige hierarachies at high schools across the country. He
went on to develop an explanation of why jocks and cheerleaders are at the top,
and serious students near the bottom. Games by a school team are the one
activity where everyone is assembled, focusing attention on a group of token
individuals who represent themselves. Games also have drama, plot tension, and
emotion, thus fitting the ingredients for a successful interaction ritual. Predictably,
they create feelings of solidarity and identity; and they give prestige to the
individuals who are in the center of attention. Jocks are the school’s heroes (especially
when they are winning). Cheerleaders are their number-one worshipers, high
priestesses to the cult, sharing the stage or at least the edge of it. And they
are chosen to represent the top of the sexual attractiveness hierarchy, hence
centers of the partying-celebration part of school life—out of the purview of
adult teachers, administrators, and parents. </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="color: black; font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri;">In contrast, outstanding students perform mostly alone.
They are not the center of an audience gathered to watch them show off their
skills. There are no big interaction rituals focusing attention on them. Their
achievement is for themselves; they do not represent the school body, certainly
not in any way that involves contagious emotional excitement. The jocks-&-partying
channeling of attention in schools devalues the intellectuals. When it comes to
a contest between the two, the athletic-centered sphere always dominates, at
least in the public places where the action is.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The social networks of intellectual students are backstage,
even underground. *</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="color: black; font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri;">* These are not the only identity-groups among students;
there are also the theatre crowd, musicians, druggies and counter-culture types,
thugs, working class kids and part-time job-holders looked down upon by the
fun-and-consumption culture of middle-class kids. Thus nerds tend to be more in
the lower-middle of the school prestige hierarchy than at the absolute bottom. See
Milner [2004] for details.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="color: black; font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri;">Not surprisingly, the majority of American students who
could go either way in emulating athletic/partying or intellectual stars,
choose the former and downplay the latter. In the era of increasing competition
over admission to higher-ranking colleges, most students in the middle prestige
levels aim for a respectable level of academic performance (only the top jocks
can afford to be largely oblivious to grades); but they don’t pour themselves
into it. They are surrounded by counselors and easy-grading teachers who
sympathize with the existing prestige system, who make sure they don’t have to
work too hard on academics. Of course, America is a large and ethnically
diverse population, and there are subgroups in it—above all children of immigrants
from China and other places with a stronger academic achievement focus—who push
their children to study hard and to come out at the top of the grades and test
scores. But it is the home that it is giving these kids the impetus; not the
school—its atmosphere mostly works in the other direction.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="color: black; font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri;">This is why the average scores on American students in
international comparisons of skills in reading, math, and other subjects tend
to be at the bottom, far below countries in east Asia and in Europe. It is not
a matter of talent, and certainly not a deficiency in school facilities, but a
problem of social motivation. </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<i><span style="color: black; font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri;">Countries where universities are intellectual and
athletics is elsewhere</span></i></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="color: black; font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri;">Compare school life in countries where academic
achievement is publicized and celebrated: Britain, France, Germany, the
Netherlands and elsewhere. One feature they have in common is lack of competitive
school athletics. This is not to say there are no students who are athletes in
these countries. But athletic teams and practice places are in separate clubs,
not representing the school. The pattern of separating sports and schools is
strongest on the Continent, where universities frequently don’t even have a
campus, let along a stadium.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="color: black; font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri;">East Asian schools, especially in China and Korea, take
the focus on academic competition to an extreme. In China, high schools receive
a great deal of publicity for the test scores of their students—these are
published in newspapers and trumpeted in school propaganda, along with the name
of those admitted to top universities. Students exhort each other (and are
exhorted by their teachers) to work hard on the kinds of problems set for
exams; they brag or complain about their school’s standing. Within the school,
those who perform at the top are the stars of the school. *<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The result is an atmosphere of intense
focus on academics. Moreover, it is a highly social focus. Students work
together in preparing for exams. They also make a show of being at school for
longer hours than are officially required; they stay hours late for special
study groups (in Japan, this takes the form of going to tutors or “cram-schools”
after school hours, to study for university admissions exams). They voluntarily
go to school on Saturdays. They also do a lot of studying at home, where their
needs for quiet (and other indulgences) are carefully attended to by their
parents. Such students spend many more hours in school during the year, and
more hours at home studying, than American students, who are notably lax in
these matters.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="color: black; font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri;">* A very good Korean student, who I knew as a graduate
student at an elite American university, told me that in Korea the mothers’ of
other girls would encourage their daughters to be friends with her—she was
their shining example. This is extremely unlikely to happen in the US, for all sorts
of reasons in the teen culture. On daily life in Chinese schools, see Yi-lin
Chiang [2018]. </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="color: black; font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri;">The social atmosphere—or let us say, the spotlight of
attention—is completely different in the high-achieving school cultures of the
world, and in American schools. Chinese students are much more focused on
school and a supportive home; American kids, even when they have helicopter
parents (or especially when), have studying as just one of many things they do—athletic
practices, music lessons, entertainment, parties with other kids. </span><span class="MsoPageNumber"><span style="font-family: Times;">Officially, parents and talking
heads all say learning is important, but it just doesn’t rate that high in
everyday life. </span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span class="MsoPageNumber"><span style="font-family: Times;">Actions
speak louder than words: the US is one of the only countries in the world whose
laws ban schools from publicizing any information about students’ grades (the
Buckley Amendment, passed by the US Congress in 1974). Before the 1980s, like
every other professor, I used to post the list of grades after an exam on my
office door. This was convenient for students to come and see them; no one ever
complained. The rationale for the law banning posting grades—first promoted by
legislators and psychologists, not by students—was that it was harmful to
students’ self-esteem (i.e. to the self-esteem of students who weren’t at the
top.) No one seemed to worry about negative effects of publishing scores on
athletic performance: on the contrary, game scores report who did well or badly
in basketball, baseball and football games etc. <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The unspoken message is clear: academic performance is
something we do not give honor to; we treat it almost as something shameful, certainly
something private. Athletic performance is the reverse. </span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span class="MsoPageNumber"><span style="font-family: Times;">Not
only do top-scoring European and Asian schools not focus on athletics, but they
treat their outstanding students the way we treat top athletes. In France, with
its highly centralized national school system, students take competitive exams
for entrance to the elite university-level schools in Paris (the so-called <i>grandes
écoles</i>). The rankings are published in the newspapers. Individuals who
scored highly are remembered for the rest of their lives. (Pierre Bourdieu, for
instance, was famed for having ranked number one at the entrance to the Ecole
Normale Supérieure in 1950; Jean-Paul Sartre is famous for having flunked the <i>aggregation
</i>(school-leaving exam) in 1928, whereupon he spent another year cramming
with his new girl-friend, Simone de Beauvoir, and next year passed in first
place [Cohen-Solal 1987]. <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>In Britain,
students are admitted to the universities with publically announced prize
honors (or not), and graduate with ranked degrees in their subject (Firsts, Seconds,
etc.) that are widely discussed at the time and during their careers. The contrast
is clear: academic performance is widely publicized and intensely focused upon
in countries with high-achievement school systems; in American schools, it is
not.</span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="color: black; font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri;">Sociological research on student life at American universities
supports the point. Arum and Roksa [2011] found that American college students
average only a few hours of studying per week. This does not hurt their grades
much, as professors have adapted to their clientele by giving fewer and easier
exams and papers. And what they learn does not sink in or last long; students
retested a year later retained very little of what they once knew. All this has
taken place during a period in history when the percentages of the youth cohort
who attend undergraduate colleges has risen to over 60%, with those attending
graduate and professional schools rising proportionately. This is credential
inflation, where the value has declined of a high school diploma, undergraduate
degree, or even an M.A. (or for science fields, even a PhD, which now is only
preliminary to getting a post-doctoral fellowship). It is a race in which the
finish line keeps receding into the distance as more students compete at each
level. Universities do well (and professors get paid) as long as they have plenty
of paying students (including those subsidized by student loans); it doesn’t
matter how little they learn as long as it fits the average that moves them
along the pipeline. Grade inflation and lax standards are a way that schools adapt
to a system in which there is a great deal of competition to move from one level
to another, but this is mostly on formalities rather than what they actually
learn. </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="color: black; font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri;">Ethnographic studies of student life (by young-looking
researchers living in the dormitories) show how the culture operates on the ground.
Armstrong and Hamilton’s <i>Paying for the Party</i> [2013; see also Moffatt
1989; Sanday 2007] shows that kids from comfortable middle-class (or higher)
families are happy to enter big state universities known for being party
schools. These are places with big-time athletic programs, football and basketball
teams playing in huge stadiums, surrounded by school rituals, partying, an
active sex life; they quickly learn how to coast through their classes.
Students from working-class backgrounds have a harder time with it, balancing
the partying with studying and part-time jobs, and they often drop out without
a degree. Universities try to be attractive to students who can finance their
own way, and to subsidized students too; outside of the most elite colleges,
these universities get what name-recognition they have by their athletic teams
and their appearance on TV. Having a team that is a contender generates the
atmosphere of the college experience; party schools go in tandem with the
big-time athletic schools.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Universities
pretend otherwise, but big-time athletics usually goes along with academic
mediocrity; its <i>sine qua non</i> being sheer size of its student population,
hence size of budget that can invest in big-time teams. </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="color: black; font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri;">My own experiences teaching at various universities across
the USA illustrates the attitude of college athletes. At one of the newer
branches of a big state university (not big enough yet to have a football
team), the baseball team was its chief claim to fame. The entire team used to
enroll for one of my undergraduate classes in sociology (I think they liked it
that I gave very clear outlines of what would be on the exams), but only one player
would show up for classes, taking notes for the others. <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>At an even bigger state university, the
basketball team was nationally ranked, and one of the basketball players was in
my class. One day I saw him in the hall and said: “Hey, Ricky. I haven’t seen
you in class for a while.” He said: “Yeah, prof, I’m on injured reserve, and I
figure as long as I can’t play, I don’t have to go to class.” <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>This university also had a staff of
assistant coaches in the athletic department, whose job was to call up
professors and check whether an athlete in their classes was in danger of
falling below the minimum grade (C-minus) that would make them ineligible to
play. This was also a way of seeking accommodation for players to have easier
assignments or tutoring for exams. *</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="color: black; font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri;">* In the defensive reaction by sports columnists to the
new California law on players receiving royalties, the argument is blatantly stated
that players get lots of in-kind payment already, including arranging
accomodations from professors so that the academic work is as easy as possible.
</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="color: black; font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri;">The bottom line: the centrality of athletics in American
education is a major source of devaluing academic standards and achievement.
Eliminating school teams and focusing instead on publicizing academic
achievement would be a pathway to catching up with European and East Asian levels
of academic performance.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="color: black; font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri;">Are we ready to do this just on the merits of the case? <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Certainly not. But fighting over the
issue of openly professionalizing school athletics could be the way the system
undermines itself. </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<i><span style="color: black; font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri;">Fake amateurism is a collusive wage-fixing agreement</span></i><span style="color: black; font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri;"></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="color: black; font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri;">In favor of maintaining the NCAA ban on any taint of professionalism,
the biggest argument is not about what is good for education, but “we need the money.”</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="color: black; font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri;">Legalizing payments to athletes for their name and image
is just the opening wedge. Even this crack in the nationwide front raises fears
that the best athletes would migrate to California and other states that adopt
similar laws. As legislatures compete with each other over boosting their own
school teams, further incentives to athletes would unravel the entire system of
control. The NCAA has the weapon of banning schools that violate their rules
from competing with schools still within their system; but in a showdown, it is
likely the NCAA that would be undermined by schools pulling out. <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Even in short-term perspective, colleges
would lose advertising dollars they are now collecting.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="color: black; font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri;">Fundamentally, the NCAA is a collusive agreement to fix
wages for college athletes. The argument of athletic departments is that
athletes are already being well-compensated. They get free room and board,
fancy dining halls, plane trips, easy class schedules, and the value of their
college degree, all without student debt. All this assumes: (a) that athletes
on scholarship go on to finish their degree; (b) that the value of a degree
from a non-elite university, and in a easy major (not a lot of STEM
student-jocks, nor pre-med or even business-school) will get them a good job; (c)
continually rising credential inflation won’t make these degrees worth less as
the economy grows more dominated by computers and high-tech. </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="color: black; font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri;">Big-time college sports are already professional. They are
professionally managed, with high-paid coaches and administrators, and a <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>huge, well-paid NCAA bureaucracy to keep
money incentives out of the system so that all revenues—tickets, TV rights,
name-branded clothing and gear—stay in the hands of the universities. It is a
competitive world, dependent on a continual stream of recruiting the best
athletic prospects from the high-school farm system. Accordingly, the corporate
managers of this university-owned sports-entertainment trust attempt to keep their
labor expenses as low as possible, by paying them in kind. In effect, they are
like Roman gladiators, captives who fight in the arena for the benefit of the
owners of the gladiatorial troupes—the main difference being that college jocks
serve a maximum 4-year servitude, with a chance at getting selected by the professional
leagues. (Which are another set of collectively-administered trusts that
collude with the NCAA to do their training for them).<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></span></div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="color: black; font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri;">Athletes on scholarships are not part of the regular
student body. They live in their own dorms, eat in their own dining halls, take
a limited range of classes—nothing hard or time-consuming—and exams under
special conditions designed for their convenience. Real students on the same
campus have little more contact with these semi-professional jocks than they have
with professional athletes they view on television.</span></div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<i><span style="color: black; font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri;">No more hypocrisy</span></i></div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="color: black; font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri;">One good thing: getting rid of the NCAA would relieve us
of an endless stream of hypocrisy and scandal. Schools are repeatedly
investigated, castigated, and penalized for infractions of NCAA rules over
recruiting and rewarding players. Wins and titles are forfeited, coaches are
fired. But the scandals keep happening, because scandals re-create the conditions
that caused the behavior in the first place. </span></div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="color: black; font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri;">Scandals don’t change anything, because they are
conservatizing. When rules or customs are violated, a public scandal stirs up
moral indignation and reenergizes the old values. That is because a scandal is
a kind of moralistic mob mentality, where everyone jumps in to enthusiastically
denounce the culprit; not to join in the condemnation is to risk being attacked
oneself. An archetype of how this works is the condemnation of Oscar Wilde in 1895
for homosexuality [Adut 2008]. His sexual preferences were an open secret in
smart society of the time, but when the case became public, his supporters
shunned him, and he died in disgrace soon after being released from prison. The
scandal was conservatizing, re-energizing old prejudices against homosexuality,
missing an opportunity to speak out and revize the old norm. The Oscar Wilde scandal
didn’t stamp out homosexuality; it just kept it underground. </span></div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="color: black; font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri;">Similarly with NCAA-created scandals: the temporary wave
of moralistic indignation (or pseudo-indignation by universities, journalists,
and politicians chiming in) does nothing to change the underlying problem. For
universities whose prestige and prosperity depends chiefly on their athletic
teams, there is a continuous pressure to win, and that means recruiting the
best players, year after year. Paying them outright is forbidden, so this leads
to more and more devious ways of rewarding them. Alumni boosters used to give
them fake off-season jobs and gifts like cars. Money is channeled to parents by
helping them buy a house. Sports agents offer their services in lining up
future deals in advertisements and professional prospects; then the NCAA cracks
down on that too. Recruiters and assistant coaches try to attract players with
a good time: scandals spread about trips featuring strip clubs and parties with
ready sex. Other scandals are generated by eligibility rules that require
players to keep up minimal grade levels; this leads to cheating on tests or
fabricating grades by sports-friendly administrators or faculty.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The underlying problem is that these are
not really “student athletes”, but quasi-professional athletes pretending to be
students, and not committed to the student role very much at all. Nobody feels
guilty about this kind of academic cheating because those involved regard the
system as a hypocritical façade. The scandals are so much show; when you get
caught, you have to play sorry and repentant, but everyone understands you have
to do that or the fury against you grows even worse. </span></div>
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<br /></div>
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<span style="color: black; font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri;">The latest version of such scandals, breaking in 2019, consists
of students who get admitted to colleges by pretending to be athletes in minor
sports. These scandals are generated by rules that require a certain number of scholarships
for women’s sports, plus the determination of colleges to portray their entire
athletic program as amateur because it also gives scholarships in sports that
don’t make money. But in the era when a large majority of all high-school
graduates apply for college, and most of them apply to a half-dozen or more
schools, the sheer volume of application materials that schools have to process
leads to a maze of complications that can be exploited. American schools are
under pressure not simply to rely on grade-point averages and test scores
(since students from higher social classes and dominant ethnic groups do better
on them), so all sorts of non-academic criteria are added—extracurricular activities,
public service, and being active in sports. It is not too surprising, in this
perspective, that go-betweens with contacts in athletic departments created
channels for getting fake athletes admitted to colleges in minor sports—which up
to now had been below the radar of NCAA investigators obsessed with the
big-money sports. Ironic, isn’t it? We have athletes who pretend to be
students, and now students who pretend to be athletes.</span></div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="color: black; font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri;">Will scandal and exposure bring this kind of thing to an
end? Every time there is a scandal, official people repeat the same idealized
statements about amateurism and a level playing field. But dire punishments and
a wider list of things for NCAA investigators to keep track of have not prevented
new scandals from happening. The pattern is clear. Scandals will keep on going
into the future as long as the hypocrisy goes on about student-athletes who
generate major revenue for schools. *</span></div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="color: black; font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri;">* As a former professor, I have to laugh whenever I watch
a bowl game. These always feature advertisements by the participating universities,
showing pretty pictures of campus, plus a spiel about student-athletes earning
degrees and becoming medical doctors or some such. If the NCAA regime
collapses, at least this kind of hypocrisy might disappear.</span></div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<i><span style="color: black; font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri;">But what about funding non-revenue sports?</span></i></div>
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<br /></div>
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<span style="color: black; font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri;">OK, big-time college sports are just another kind of
oligopoly capitalism that happens to be run by legally non-profit organizations.
But isn’t it all necessary, to fund all other college sports?</span></div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="color: black; font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri;">Profitable, big-time sports are the revenue stream that
pays for all the other sports on campus: women’s soccer, lacrosse, wrestling,
tennis, track and field, you name it. In many or most of these, the players
really are students who also do athletics. They get treated under the same
rules and bureaucratic procedures as the money-sports jocks, but generally they
would be playing for fun, exercize, and local prestige even if they didn’t have
athletic scholarshps. All this would disappear, too, if the big-time sports are
openly professionalized, and college athletes cut into the revenue stream that
has been going to athletic departments. </span></div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="color: black; font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri;">All right, assume that it does disappear. What would it
actually look like? There is nothing to prevent students from playing various kinds
of sports. There would be no more scholarships for hockey, soccer, golf etc.
Money for travel to play against other school teams around the country would
dry up; they would have to play closer to home. They might even have to go back
to intramural play. </span></div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="color: black; font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri;">To see what this looks like, all we need to do is look at
Britain. These universities do not have school teams competing against each
other, but they have plenty of athletics. These students are quite literally
amateurs, playing cricket for the love of the sport. There are no athletic
scholarships and no recruiting rules that could be violated. There are plenty
of athletic fields; this is a cheap expense and universities are willing to
absorb it, as part of the university tradition. British students generally
enjoy sports; but for them, it is much less as spectators, since they actually
get to play the games themselves.</span></div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="color: black; font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri;">Some top athletes trained in this system. Roger Bannister
became the first runner to break the 4-minute mile in 1954 on a track at Oxford,
when he was a medical student. Wait a minute, an American might say: since when
do medical students get to compete in college sports? We have the rule that
only undergraduates can compete, with a maximum of 4 years eligibility; this
rule is a by-product of restricting athletics to those on scholarships. The one
big inter-university sporting contest in England is the annual Henley Regatta,
an 8-man crew race between Oxford and Cambridge on the Thames River. The teams
are made up of students, mostly at graduate and professional school level, as
well as university personnel such as scientists and medical doctors. Why not?
These are the best rowers, and they represent the university as a whole; there
are no bureaucratic rules as to who can take part, except that you must be a
member of the university.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></span></div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="color: black; font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri;">On the Continent, the decoupling of sport from education
is even more extreme. French, German, and other universities have no sports
teams at all; nor do they have stadiums or playing fields. * <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>(For the most part, this is also true of
secondary schools,) Students who want to take part in sports join a sports club.
This has nothing to do with any school; it is a place with facilities for
swimming, soccer, rugby, gymnastics, etc., funded by dues, or sometimes by
local communities. (Sweden got to be big in tennis by a program of building
indoor courts.) <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>In some countries,
where sports is considered important for national prestige, the government has
its own sports programs or schools (notable in the old Soviet bloc and in
China), where the curriculum is purely sports. These are not countries without
sports, but countries where sports are in one sector and one social identity,
and being a student is another social identity, and no one confuses the two.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="color: black; font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri;">* German universities generally have buildings for a
particular faculty or specialty in a particular part of the city, with other
faculties in other places; they have their own cafeterias and gathering places,
but these form identities by what you study, not around the university as a
whole. Living in dormitories and going to school athletic events together—the American
pattern—does not exist in most places.</span></div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="color: black; font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri;">The result is that intellectual and academic achievement is
not clouded by a prestige system that focuses on sports and defocuses everything
else. These are the countries that lead the world in student test scores. More
importantly, they are places where intellectual work is respected, and
intellectual standards are high. They win Nobel Prizes and have heavily cited
scientific papers—at a proportion to their educated population that is higher
than the US; here we have more university students and professors than anywhere
else, but our average intellectual productivity is modest. Since the early 20<sup>th</sup>
century, when American universities began to dwarf other countries in sheer
numbers, size, and money, the top intellectual talent from Europe and the rest
of the world has migrated to American universities. This continues in the 21<sup>st</sup>
century. To the extent that there is intellectual excellence in the U.S., it
depends to a considerable degree on the presence of foreign students and faculty
from more intellectually-oriented systems.</span></div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="color: black; font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri;">It doesn’t have to stay this way. The collapse of the NCAA
regime and similar fusions of sports spectacles and educational institutions
would put the US back into the situation of the rest of the world—at least in
this respect, where we are lagging.</span></div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<i><span style="color: black; font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri;">Would university prestige fall, if we didn’t have famous college
teams?</span></i></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="color: black; font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri;">Yes, for some schools. Especially for the big state universities
that don’t have top faculties and have low academic standards. (I don’t mean
Michigan or Berkeley or UCLA, which have dominant research faculties; but I do
mean most of the schools in the top-25 football or basketball weekly rankings.)
These are places that you would never hear of if they weren’t in the sports
pages.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>And since attending team
games is the one big collective event at most schools, and the big party
weekends at universities, the attractiveness of attending college would decline
for many of these students. </span></div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="color: black; font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri;">How severely such schools would be hit remains to be seen.
Credential inflation has ramped up for the last half-century or more, and
competition for college degrees may keep these schools afloat even with a more
utilitarian atmosphere. The elite colleges and universities have long since
gone beyond resting their prestige on their athletic teams. * Eliminating school
athletics there would have no effect at all on their financial condition, or
their prestige. </span></div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="color: black; font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri;">* Football was invented and publicized at schools like
Yale, Penn, and Rutgers at the turn of the 20<sup>th</sup> century, where it
started as a pastime organized by students themselves; and then became a rallying-point
for public prestige and school spirit as universities changed from being clubs
of the local upper class into nationally competitive institutions. But the
growth of scientific research, especially during and after WWII, gave an
alternative source for prestige; and the wider struggle for admissions led to
more emphasis on elite schools as a route into top corporate and government
careers. For these universities, athletic fame (which they had held up through
the 1920s) became superfluous. The University of Chicago was a big football
power in the 1920s; but an academically-oriented president eliminated football,
and the university went on to become the most intellectually-elite university
in the country. It already had a lot of money from John D. Rockefeller, and it
was famous for hiring away the best professors in the country. If most people
have never heard of the University of Chicago, it is because they get their
information from the sports news.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="color: black; font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri;">The open professionalization of college sports would bring
some schools into a crisis. But this would feed into a trend already under way.
Since the 2008 financial crisis, the public has begun to question the economic
payoff of a college education instead of taking it for granted. There have been
more discriminating looks at what kinds of schools pay off in career success
and which ones don’t. Purely profit-oriented schools have poor results, and are
already failing economically as there is a squeeze on government-supported
student loans. Athletics-dependent universities may be the next to go. The elite
colleges and technical schools continue to do well, above all because of their prestige
networks into elite science, professional firms, corporations and politics.
Such pipelines are by their very nature restricted; which is one reason why
they are awash in applications. Even if the big state universities were to collapse,
it would only return the US to a situation like Britain or Germany, where there
are relatively few universities but all of them of high intellectual quality.</span></div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="color: black; font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri;">In a wider perspective, collapse of the NCAA system would
be only one of several major crises already looming. The sustainability of
credential inflation into the endless future is in question. <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The threat of computerization and
artificial intelligence displacing most middle-class jobs—and potentially most
intellectual work—would be a crisis of how to find jobs, or at any rate sustainance,
for the bulk of the population. In the context of these other crises, the
disappearance of the athletic-centered university would be just another feature
of the next epoch of historic change now on the horizon. </span></div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<i><span style="color: black; font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri;">References</span></i><span style="color: black; font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri;"></span></div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="color: black; font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri;">Adut, Ari. 2008.<i> On Scandal. </i>Cambridge Univ. Press.
</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="color: black; font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;">Armstrong, Elizabeth A., and Laura Hamilton. 2013. <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Paying for the Party.</i> Harvard Univ.
Press.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto; mso-margin-top-alt: auto;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto; mso-margin-top-alt: auto;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt;">Arum, Richard,
and Josipa Roksa. 2011. <i>Academically Adrift: Limited Learning on College
Campuses. </i>Chicago: University of Chicago Press. </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto; mso-margin-top-alt: auto;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="color: black; font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri;">Chiang, Yi-lin. 2018. “</span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-font-size: 14.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">When
Things Don’t Go as Planned: Contingencies, Cultural Capital, and Parental
Involvement for Elite University Admission in China.” <i>Comparative Education
Review</i> </span><span style="color: black; font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri;">62: </span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-font-size: 8.0pt;">165.123.034.086</span></div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-font-size: 8.0pt;">Cohen-Solal,
Anne. 1987. <i>Sartre: A Life.</i> NY: Random House.</span><span style="color: black; font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri;"></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: .1pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: .1pt;">
<span style="color: black; font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-font-size: 10.0pt;">Collins, Randall. </span><span lang="EN-GB" style="color: black; font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;">2019. <i>The Credential Society. An Historical Sociology
of Education and Stratification</i>). NY: Columbia University Press. </span><span style="color: black; font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-font-size: 10.0pt;"></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">Milner, Murray Jr. 2004.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Freaks,
Geeks and Cool Kids: American Teenagers, Schools and the Culture of Consumption</i>.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>NY: Routledge.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="color: black; font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;">Moffatt, Michael. 1989. <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Coming
of Age in New Jersey.</i> Rutgers Univ. Press.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="color: black; font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;">Sanday, Peggy Reeves.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>2007. <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Fraternity Gang Rape.</i>
New York University Press.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
Unknownnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1005085971596877601.post-76769448395900539232019-07-03T17:26:00.000-07:002019-07-10T17:23:07.392-07:00MARILYN MONROE’S NETWORKS PULLED HER APART<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-language: X-NONE; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">Marilyn
Monroe had a famous career: famously good, famously bad, pretty much
simultaneously. Once launched, everything she did made her famous; and
everything she did caused her grief.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-language: X-NONE; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">Why? Look
at it from the point of view of her networks.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-language: X-NONE; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">[1] <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Hollywood film industry.</i> She grew up on
the periphery of Hollywood, and from an early age her ambition was to be a
star. She went along with the casting-couch system, and as a result got looked
down upon as just a studio whore. But she kept coming back, from other
angles...</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-language: X-NONE; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">[2] <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Glamour photographers.</i> This network
provided her early livelihood, and caused the first big scandal that propelled
her to the center of attention. Photographers were her comfort zone. They kept
her in the public eye (for better or worse, including the second scandal that
broke up her celebrity marriage). And photographers and their spouses were her
strongest friends, the fallback whenever everything else went bust.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-language: X-NONE; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">[3] <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">A celebrity among celebrities.</i> She hung
around with big names like Frank Sinatra and Joe DiMaggio, her second (but
first famous) husband. The result was a home vs. career conflict, and even
worse, a spotlight contest that she was bound to win, and lose a husband.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-language: X-NONE; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">[4] <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Theatre intellectuals.</i> These became
allies in her battle versus Hollywood studio scorn, low pay, and stereotyped
roles. She got in tight with the New York elite of acting coaches and
directors, and married the most famous playwright of the day. But from now on,
her acting coaches would be in tension with whatever film directors she worked
with. </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-language: X-NONE; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">[5] <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">The star/politician nexus.</i> Already
during third husband-to-be Arthur Miller’s fight with the House Un-American
Activities Committee, Marilyn was becoming connected with the liberal
intellectuals. With the coming of Camelot, the media-beloved Kennedy White
House was glamorized by its overlap with the Hollywood “rat pack” of Sinatra,
Kennedy in-laws, and other party animals. Marilyn is linked sexually with JFK
and his brother Robert, until it becomes a little too openly scandalous and she
is dropped. Later, Joe DiMaggio would blame Sinatra and the rat pack for the
drugs and drinking that led to her death.</span></div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-language: X-NONE; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">[6] <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Her psychiatrists</i>. By this time, she is
dependent on psychiatrists, if not to sort things out, at least to give her
drugs and a semblance of allies. One of them betrays her—worried over suicide—by
having her locked up an mental hospital. Who gets her out? Her most heavyweight
lover, Joe D. Not long after, her alcohol-and-drugs diet kills her anyway.</span></div>
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<br /></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-language: X-NONE; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">Her
networks offset each other, providing a succession of reliefs, which turn into
new strains.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>[1] clashes with [2];
[1-2] clashes with [3]; [1-2-3] clashes with [4] and with [5].<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>[6] claims to deal with the clashes but just
extends the damage. </span></div>
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<br /></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-language: X-NONE; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">Her
networks canceled each other out—as support networks. But their overall effect
was to make her as big a star as could be: the center of maximal attention
whatever she did. Whatever you can say about Marilyn, there was no dead air.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-language: X-NONE; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">What was
Marilyn really like?</span></i><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-language: X-NONE; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"></span></div>
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<br /></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-language: X-NONE; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">In a way,
this is not a very sociological question. Erving Goffman said that everyone has
a frontstage self (or more than one), plus a backstage part of your life where
you put on your clothes, your make-up, and your way of dealing with the people
you’re going to meet. But he also denied that the backstage is the real self,
since it is shaped by what you do on the frontstage part; it isn’t any more
spontaneous or “real”, just an alternation between preparation, social performance,
and down-time. Marilyn had a complicated personality, which means her total
self was a sum of how she dealt with all her networks; and since her networks
were energizing her, pulling her this way and that, she was the sum of multiple
attractions and their strains. </span></div>
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<br /></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-language: X-NONE; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">There was,
however, a constant core to pretty much everything she did. She was always very
ambitious and determined. She was not a<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>weak person; that was a role she played, wispy-voiced, naive
little-girlish. She seemed passive and clue-less, but she always stole the
scene, whether on-screen or off. </span></div>
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<br /></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-language: X-NONE; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">From her
early childhood, she wanted to be a movie star. Her mother worked as a film
negative cutter at a company that processed films for all the studios. Her
mother gave her up to foster parents within a few months of her birth in 1926,
but visited the little girl from time to time and took her to the movies and to
see the sights of Hollywood. When Marilyn was 6, her mother bought a small
house in Hollywood, which she shared with her daughter and a family of actors.
This lasted less than a year, when the mother had another breakdown and was
committed to a mental hospital. Marilyn continued living with the actor
housemates, then her mother’s friend Grace took over, along with other friends
and relatives in the Los Angeles neighborhoods near Hollywood. (A fairly
accurate picture of this Hollywood-fringe lifestyle is in the first part of
Nathanael West’s 1939 novel, <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">The Day of
the Locust.</i>)</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-language: X-NONE; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">There was
virtually nothing else. Her mother, a flapper-type of the 1920s, had lovers,
and Marilyn was probably an illegitimate child.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>Marilyn was effectively an orphan, shunted around from one foster parent
to another (then as now, foster parents often took in a number of children).
She lived in an orphanage from age 9 to 11; then with another foster family—in
all a total of 10 different families. She married, as soon as she could after
her 16th birthday, to avoid being sent back to the asylum when her foster
family moved out of state. Her choice of husband was just a convenience, a boy
who lived next door. Since this was 1942 and WWII had broken out, he shipped
out to the Pacific while Marilyn lived with his parents and worked in a defense
factory. There was no sentiment in the marriage; Marilyn said they had nothing
to say to each other and it was boring. When he came back in 1946, he objected
to Marilyn’s new-found career as a photographer’s model, so they divorced. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-language: X-NONE; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">In 2010,
some notebooks of Marilyn were found among the effects of one of her acting
coaches. These contained two main themes: her ambition, self-reminders to work
hard and master the craft of acting; and feelings of being alone, always alone.
Since these notes were from the period after she was already a star, these were
life-long preoccupations-- if this is how she felt when her networks were dense
and active, how would she have felt when she was cast adrift, bouncing back and
forth between ephemeral families and institutions, bit parts and photo gigs?
Still, her ambition was her salvation; it was her energy-center, giving her a
purpose and a trajectory. One cannot say she was a person of low emotional
energy. Her ambition was the thread that kept her going.</span></div>
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<br /></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-language: X-NONE; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">What was
she like backstage? (in Goffman’s sense, not just in the movie world)<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Our best glimpse into that side of her life
is an account by Truman Capote of an afternoon he spent with her in April 1955.
They are at a funeral parlor in New York, a memorial for a grand old lady of
the theatre who had been something of a mentor to Marilyn. As usual, Marilyn is
very late. When she arrives in the entry hall, she explains she couldn’t decide
what to wear—was it proper to wear eyelashes and lipstick? She had to wash it
all off. What she decided to wear was a black scarf to hide her hair, a long
shapeless black gown, black stockings, combined with erotic high heels and
owlish sunglasses. She is gnawing at her fingernails, as she often did.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-language: X-NONE; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">Marilyn:
“I’m so jumpy. Where’s the john? If I could just pop in there for a minute--”</span></div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-language: X-NONE; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">Capote:<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>“And pop a pill? No! Shhh. [...They’ve]
started the eulogy.”</span></div>
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<br /></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-language: X-NONE; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">They sit in
the last row through the speeches. After it’s over, Marilyn refuses to leave.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-language: X-NONE; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">Marilyn: “I
don’t want to have to talk to anybody. I never know what to say.” </span></div>
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<br /></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-language: X-NONE; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">Capote:
“Then you sit here, and I’ll wait outside. I’ve got to have a cigarette.”</span></div>
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<br /></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-language: X-NONE; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">Marilyn:
“You can’t leave me alone! My God! Smoke here.”</span></div>
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<br /></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-language: X-NONE; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">Capote:
“Here? In the chapel?”</span></div>
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<br /></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-language: X-NONE; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">Marilyn:
“Why not? What do you want to smoke? A reefer?”</span></div>
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<br /></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-language: X-NONE; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">Capote:
“Very funny. Come on, let’s go.”</span></div>
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<br /></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-language: X-NONE; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">Marilyn:<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>“Please. There’s a lot of shutterbugs
downstairs. And I certainly don’t want them taking my picture looking like
this.” ...<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>“Actually, I could’ve worn
makeup. I see all these other people were wearing makeup.”</span></div>
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<br /></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-language: X-NONE; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">Capote: “I
am. Gobs.”</span></div>
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<br /></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-language: X-NONE; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">Marilyn:
“Seriously, though. It’s my hair. I need color. And I didn’t have time to get
any. It was so unexpected. Miss Collier dying and all. See?”<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>She displays, under her scarf, a dark line at
her hair part.</span></div>
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<br /></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-language: X-NONE; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">Capote:
“Poor innocent me. And all this time I thought you were a bona-fide blonde.”</span></div>
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<br /></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-language: X-NONE; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">Marilyn: “I
am. But nobody’s that natural. And incidentally, fuck you.”</span></div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-language: X-NONE; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">They sit
and talk. Marilyn goes on to say that Miss Collier’s companion is going to live
with Katherine Hepburn. “Lucky Phyllis... I’d change places with her pronto.
Miss Hepburn is a terrific lady, no shit. I wish she was my friend. So I could
call her up sometimes and... well, I don’t know, just call her up.”</span></div>
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<br /></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-language: X-NONE; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">The
conversation goes on. Marilyn: “Did I ever tell you about the time I saw Errol
Flynn whip out his prick and play the piano with it? Oh well, it was a hundred
years ago, I’d just got into modeling, and I went to this half-ass party, and
Errol Flynn, so pleased with himself, he was there and he took out his prick
and played the piano with it. Thumped the keys. He played <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">You are My Sunshine.</i> Christ! Everybody says Milton Berle has the
biggest schlong in Hollywood. But who cares? Look, don’t you have any money?”</span></div>
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<br /></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-language: X-NONE; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">Capote:
“Maybe about fifty bucks.”</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-language: X-NONE; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">Marilyn:
“Well, that ought to buy us some bubbly.”</span></div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-language: X-NONE; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">They go to
a crummy bar on Second Avenue. Marilyn: “This is fun. Kind of like being on
location-- if you like location, which I certainly don’t. <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Niagara.</i><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>That stinker. Yuk.”</span></div>
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<br /></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-language: X-NONE; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">Capote: “So
let’s hear about your secret lover.”</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-language: X-NONE; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">Marilyn
giggles while Capote keeps silent. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-language: X-NONE; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">Marilyn:
“You know so many women. Who’s the most attractive woman you know?</span></div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-language: X-NONE; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">Capote: “No
contest. Barbara Paley. Hands down.” (wife of the owner of CBS television
network)</span></div>
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<br /></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-language: X-NONE; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">Marilyn
frowns: “Is that the one they call ‘Babe’? She sure doesn’t look like any babe
to me. I’ve seen her in <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Vogue</i> and
all. She’s so elegant. Lovely. Just looking at her pictures makes me feel like
pig-slop.”</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-language: X-NONE; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">Capote:
“She might be amused to hear that. She’s very jealous of you.”</span></div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-language: X-NONE; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">Marilyn:
“Jealous of <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">me</i>? There you go again,
laughing.”</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-language: X-NONE; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">Capote
explains that a gossip columnist wrote about a rumor that Marilyn was having an
affair with William S. Paley, and his wife believes it.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-language: X-NONE; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">They trade
sex stories. Capote tells of a homosexual fling he had with Errol Flynn.
Marilyn: “It’s not as if you told me anything new. I’ve always known Errol
zigzagged. I have a masseur, he’s practically my sister, and he was Tyrone
Power’s masseur, and he told me all about the things Errol and Ty Power were
doing.... So let’s hear your best experience. Along those lines.”</span></div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-language: X-NONE; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">Capote:
“The best? The most memorable? Suppose you answer the question first.” </span></div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-language: X-NONE; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">Marilyn:
“And <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">I </i><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>drive hard bargains! Ha! (Swallowing
champagne)<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Joe’s not bad. He can hit
home runs. If that’s all it takes, we’d still be married. I still love him, though.
He’s genuine.”</span></div>
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<br /></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-language: X-NONE; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">Capote:
“Husbands don’t count. Not in this game.”</span></div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-language: X-NONE; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">Marilyn
(nibbling her nail, really thinking): “Well, I met a man, he’s related to Gary
Cooper somehow. A stockbroker, and nothing much to look at-- sixty-five, and he
wears those very thick glasses. Thick as jellyfish. I can’t say what it was,
but--”</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-language: X-NONE; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">Capote:<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>“You can stop right there. I’ve heard all
about him from other girls... He’s Rocky Cooper’s stepfather. He’s supposed to
be sensational.”</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-language: X-NONE; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">Marilyn:
“He is. Okay, smart-ass. Your turn.”</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-language: X-NONE; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">[Capote
continues his memoir:] “While I paid the check, she left for the powder room,
and I wished I had a book to read: her visits to powder rooms sometimes lasted
as long as an elephant’s pregnancy. Idly, as the time ticked by, I wondered if
she was popping uppers or downers. Downers, no doubt... After twenty minutes
passed, I decided to investigate. Maybe she’s popped a lethal dose, or even cut
her wrists. I found the ladies’ room, and knocked on the door. She said, ‘Come
in.’ Inside, she was confronting a dimly-lit mirror. I said, ‘What are you
doing?’ She said, ‘Looking at Her.’<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>In
fact, she was coloring her lips with ruby lipstick. Also, she had removed her
somber head-scarf and combed out her glossy fine-as-cotton-candy hair.” </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-language: X-NONE; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">Marilyn is
in a good mood now. She wants to take a taxi to the Staten Island ferry and
feed the seagulls. [Capote 1975.] </span></div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-language: X-NONE; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">Truman
Capote was part of the celebrities network. He made a big splash by 1948 in the
New York literary scene as novelist, <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">enfant
terrible</i> of boyish good looks and flaunting homosexuality long before it
was fashionable. He made literature out of whatever he observed, and specialized
in backstage gossip about other celebrities, as well as hangers-on wannabes and
small-town transients like himself. His conversation with Marilyn is a good
specimen of the way he talked. As we can see, they are comfortable together. </span></div>
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<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjOufWGRP8FIPKXVjB9jp1xdqPdsJmBsMSqElhUUsmPJfxsrCc0NkT6bP6ss51iqBuPBkBIn-_7F5jhK0EjLTCaRj4PFtlwMNesGKCBLupfN-JebAAcIaQYhHPirXjRrkttGtVnO3055t5c/s1600/a-1955.4-MM-dance.wCapote%252Cjpg.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1600" data-original-width="1178" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjOufWGRP8FIPKXVjB9jp1xdqPdsJmBsMSqElhUUsmPJfxsrCc0NkT6bP6ss51iqBuPBkBIn-_7F5jhK0EjLTCaRj4PFtlwMNesGKCBLupfN-JebAAcIaQYhHPirXjRrkttGtVnO3055t5c/s320/a-1955.4-MM-dance.wCapote%252Cjpg.jpg" width="235" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-language: X-NONE; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">Marilyn and
Truman Capote dancing, April 1955—the same month of this conversation.</span></td></tr>
</tbody></table>
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<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-language: X-NONE; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"><br /></span></div>
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<br /></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-language: X-NONE; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">The
celebrity world is usually depicted as a superficial place, where prestige
attracts prestige, famous people basking in each other’s limelight and thus
multiplying their prestige by being seen together. This is true, but it misses
another dimension: celebrities—if they have friends—usually make friends with
other celebrities, because they share the same viewpoint on the rest of their
lives. They have the same problem of being instantly recognizable, so that they
cannot have an ordinary conversation with most people. (The Beatles used to
refer to their encounters with fans as being “Beatle-ized” when people gush
with amazement at seeing them.) Sociologically, what makes for spontaneous
friendships is the feeling of sharing the same backstage, us in a private
enclave against the world. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-language: X-NONE; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">Marilyn,
even at the height of her fame in 1955, still has a certain amount of that
star-struck attitude about others. She wishes she could be friends with
Katherine Hepburn, and feels inferior to the elegant Barbara Paley—a common
denominator here is that these are both women of the hereditary upper class,
while Marilyn made her way up from the working class. Privately, Marilyn is
crude, cynical, and on the whole disgusted with Hollywood, although she also
revels in the insider knowledge she has about everyone’s sex lives (not least
from her own experience). She would like to get out, but it is her career
mainstay; and she senses there is part of the New York world that will never
accept her, even if her intellectual pals are willing to patronize her as long
as she stays eager and humble.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-language: X-NONE; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">Three years
later, Capote published his most famous novel, <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Breakfast at Tiffany’s. </i>In 1960, he tried to get her cast in the
female lead for the film version, but the studios considered Marilyn too much
trouble, and Audrey Hepburn got the part. The central character is a “treats
girl”—a sexy young woman who lets herself be picked up in expensive bars by men
on expense accounts, and lives on asking them for $20 bills to “tip the maid in
the powder room”—and usually cutting out to avoid<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>further sexual obligations. Holly Golightly
could have been modeled on Marilyn, a ditsy but good-hearted waif, who has a
deserted husband from a small town, acts as a go-between for a Mafia boss in
prison, and befriends a preppy young writer living in her apartment house who
resembles a younger Truman Capote. You have to wonder how Marilyn would have
liked playing this role, and if her friendship with Capote could have survived.
Her marriage with Arthur Miller would break up when she started acting the
script of<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">The Misfits</i> that Miller wrote for her--depicting a flighty,
screwed-up personality based on herself. So this is what you think of me? </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-language: X-NONE; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">[1. Part 1]
<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Hollywood Studios</i></span></div>
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<br /></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-language: X-NONE; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">Hollywood
is first of all the meat market, where a crowd of aspiring young actors vie for
the attention of a small number of studio chiefs and whoever else can help them
get their break. Since the 1920s it was also the sex scene, known for risqué
parties and goings-on (Rudolph Valentino, Louise Brooks, Errol Flynn), slightly
veiled behind a publicity apparatus that made everthing look like peaches and
cream. Marilyn had no inhibitions about playing it for what it was. She had
affairs with studio executives and talent agents, including the agent who
arranged her first part in an important film, <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">The Asphalt Jungle</i> (shot in 1949, when she was 23 years old) and
got her a seven-year contract with 20th Century Fox late in 1950. But Marilyn
had been in and out of the studios ever since she was 20, where she was mostly
regarded as too light-weight to be an actress, and too eager to make it
necessary to do much to get her cooperation. She was willing to serve as
eye-candy at Hollywood parties as long as she was invited, and often this meant
going upstairs with whoever was an important guest. Combined with the passive
naive-beauty roles she was given, Marilyn came to be looked down upon as the
studio whore, an attitude that would dog her throughout much of her career.
Marilyn built an extensive network inside Hollywood, but for the first
half-dozen years it was a network circulating the wrong kind of reputation.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-language: X-NONE; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">She got a
couple of short-term contracts in 1946-7 and again in 1948 (age 20-22),
resulting in a few bit parts in minor films. She was eager to work and threw
herself into gym workouts, dance lessons, and acting lessons. She even paid to
continue lessons after her contract ran out--which also kept her on set and in
the networks. (Her reputation of being hard to work with on the set would come
later, as she became successful.) Though she was in and out, contract-wise, she
gradually built up a few film credits, showing that she could wear beautiful
costumes, stand out in a chorus line, sing and dance. Groucho Marx got her a
part in a comedy; Carey Grant played opposite her in <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Monkey Business, </i>a farce about a middle-aged lawyer who takes a
drug that turns him into a teen-ager. Her comedy roles were always the dumb
blonde, varied by film noir roles as a gangster moll and mentally ill
characters like a freaked-out baby sitter in <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Don’t Bother to Knock </i>and the lead in <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Niagara </i>(both released 1952).<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>On the whole, Hollywood was an ordeal from her late teens until age 26,
and most of what success (and livelihood) she got was not from films but from
photography.</span></div>
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<br /></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-language: X-NONE; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">[2] <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Glamour photography</i></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-language: X-NONE; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">Marilyn got
her start while working a defense factory, when she was approached by a
military photographer looking for “Rosie the Riveter” type inspirational
pictures. It was her entry to a network that included not only photographers,
but modeling agencies and their customers: magazines, advertisements, calendars,
pin-ups, and studio publicity. In early 1945, Marilyn was able to quit her
factory job and by the next year, had appeared on the cover of over 30
magazines, not yet the big ones but respectable ones like <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Pageant</i> and <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Family Circle</i>,<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>as well as <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">U.S. Camera</i> and sex-tease mags. (The San Fernando Valley, across
the Hollywood hills, was then as later a national center for pornography, but
Marilyn stayed on the respectable side of the line-- which paid better, in any
case, since conventional magazines had bigger circulation.)<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Her reputation for bathing-suit shots spread,
and she was picked up as an artist’s model for well-known pin-up artists Earl
Moran and Earl MacPherson. It was during one of her hard times, laid off from the
studios and needing money, in 1949, when she posed for the nude photos that
would later make her famous. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-language: X-NONE; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">It was an
unusual photo angle, shot from the top of a ladder looking down on her lying on
a bright red curtain, and became the best-selling calendar photo of its time.
Color photography was just emerging as a viable printing process, most
photographs previously having been black-and-white. Marilyn would repeatedly
feature in the technological breakthroughs in all the visual media. The nude
photos came back to haunt her in March 1952, when gossip columnists spread the
story that she had posed in the nude 3 years before. But 1952 was Marilyn’s break-out
year. The previous fall she was on the cover of <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Collier’s </i>(one of the big national photo-news magazines), and soon
after made the covers of <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Look</i> and <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Life.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>Niagara </i><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>was about to be shot
and would be on screens next year with Marilyn as top billing. The studio
executives worried about the nude calendar but Marilyn handled the rush of
reporters with aplomb: “It’s no big deal. You can get a copy of it anywhere.”
And asked if she had nothing on during the photo, she replied in her
little-girl voice, “I had the radio on.” Set up for scandal, she stole the
scene. That’s one definition of emotional domination of the situation, however
meek and passive her demeanor. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-language: X-NONE; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">Marilyn had
become too big in the photo world for the studio bosses to cut her out any
more. </span></div>
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<br /></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-language: X-NONE; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">It was her
photo career that made her transition to the iconic Marilyn Monroe. Norma Jean
Mortenson, as a young photo model, was a brunette with curly hair. She changed
her name to Marilyn Monroe during a screen test. Meanwhile her photos show her
curls straightening out to wavy, her brown hair shading into red, then
reddish-blonde (red-heads were considered hot stuff in the 1940s), and by 1950
to now-classic platinum blonde. Her agent had her hairline raised (to eliminate
the widow’s peak seen in her early looks), and according to rumours, possibly
also paid for a minor nose-job. Her photos show the addition of a small
beauty-mark on her left cheek from 1950 onwards. This was the look of the 1953
photo that Andy Warhol would use for his multi-colored Marilyn silkscreen in
1962, just after she died, sealing her icon status in another medium.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Marilyn created her own image, but the
photographers, agents, and artists had a hand in it too.</span></div>
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<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiLjGDGjx0CU_oILfYLdre7QnQ4hICLByGHuLnRDmaQbXk1MTfD793MXzSuMt9ke1LA90zNEk1RD6pObrjspeH-UF_2xpuVmaPcxzOe6vO9qpNhDZCCgAL-A3nzr_S1khFcMH1XBqupik7O/s1600/b-1946%252C1947%252C1950-MM-haircolor.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="512" data-original-width="989" height="165" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiLjGDGjx0CU_oILfYLdre7QnQ4hICLByGHuLnRDmaQbXk1MTfD793MXzSuMt9ke1LA90zNEk1RD6pObrjspeH-UF_2xpuVmaPcxzOe6vO9qpNhDZCCgAL-A3nzr_S1khFcMH1XBqupik7O/s320/b-1946%252C1947%252C1950-MM-haircolor.jpg" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-language: X-NONE; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">Marilyn's
hair: 1946, 1947, 1950</span></td></tr>
</tbody></table>
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<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-language: X-NONE; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"></span><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-language: X-NONE; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"> </span>
</div>
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<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-language: X-NONE; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">[1. Part 2]
<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Hollywood</i></span></div>
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<br /></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-language: X-NONE; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">Two big
technical developments were happening in the film business just as Marilyn
became a star. One was Technicolor. Color films had occasionally been made
since the late 1930s—<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">The Wizard of Oz</i>
was one, starting out black-and-white in Kansas and then switching to color for
the Land of Oz—but until the early 1950s most films were black-and-white.
Technicolor as it appeared in the late 1940s was garish, bright but
unnatural-looking.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Natural-looking color
was achieved in the 50s, and <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Niagara</i>
publicity trumpeted it as the combination of two of the world’s great
spectacles, Niagara Falls and Marilyn Monroe. The scenic aspect of outdoor
films, which was never very good in black-and-white, was now a big selling
point for the movies. They needed it, because these were the years television
had taken off; movie attendance had peaked in 1946 and now had declined over 60
per cent. But TV was black-and-white and didn’t get very good color until the
late 1960s, so Hollywood exploited color films as hard as it could. *</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-language: X-NONE; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">*
Black-and-white continued to be used until the end of the 50s for serious
films. <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">On the Waterfront--</i> Elia Kazan’s
1954 drama of labor corruption, with Marlon Brando’s famous “I coulda been a
contender” scene, was turned down by 20th Century Fox because Kazan didn’t want
it made in color. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-language: X-NONE; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">The other
gimmick that Hollywood had over TV was big, wide-screen spectacles. There were
initial technical problems. The early version was called Cinerama; it required
special theatres with a triple-wide screen, each with a separate film
projector. This was too cumbersome and expensive, but by 1953 it was replaced
by Cinemascope, which required only one projector and one film instead of
three. The first big Cinamascope block-buster appeared in 1953, a Biblical
epic, <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">The Robe</i>, starring Charleton
Heston with his famous chariot race. The second was Marilyn Monroe’s film, <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">How to Marry a Millionaire</i>, also in
1953. It wasn’t a great film and had a silly plot, but it was packed with stars—Marilyn
along with her two predecessors, Lauren Bacall and Betty Grable—a it paid back
its huge production costs many times over within its first month. A much
wittier film was Marilyn’s earlier film of the same year, <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Gentlemen Prefer Blondes,</i> co-starring Jane Russell, whom she also
up-staged; it also made a lot of money. So 20th Century Fox immediately piled
into producing yet another big Cinemascope film, <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">River of No Return, </i>a frontier action-adventure pairing Monroe with
Robert Mitchum. She later called it “a grade-Z cowboy movie in which the acting
finished second to the scenery and the Cinemascope process.”<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The appeal of Cinemascope soon wore out, and
20th Century Fox almost bankrupted itself over the next 10 years, especially
with the over-long four hour production <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Cleopatra</i>
(finally released in 1963) starring Elizabeth Taylor. During these years of
trouble, Marilyn Monroe films were the chief money-makers for the studio.</span><br />
<br />
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiWZdYlJ-mUCwC4Lja3kVmXJnwXqByJodn7ffF4PxYExGP3wJTm_9ByRt3zmmAJW4f0YZb7ubrAavjNEHcnC492gS0ZEYp2Y71axxZStA1qXUpvF7g4m3wXqqdjxH3jG9NQ23Q6vMDtBNQo/s1600/1953MM%2526bigwigs.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="589" data-original-width="500" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiWZdYlJ-mUCwC4Lja3kVmXJnwXqByJodn7ffF4PxYExGP3wJTm_9ByRt3zmmAJW4f0YZb7ubrAavjNEHcnC492gS0ZEYp2Y71axxZStA1qXUpvF7g4m3wXqqdjxH3jG9NQ23Q6vMDtBNQo/s320/1953MM%2526bigwigs.jpg" width="271" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-language: X-NONE; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">Marilyn <span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif;">with studio bigwigs (1953)</span></span></td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-language: X-NONE; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"> </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-language: X-NONE; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">By 1955,
Marilyn was bigger than everybody and ready to rebel. She was still getting the
modest salary negotiated in her 1950 contract; she wanted commensurate pay and
better roles than the dumb blonde stereotype. The studio, still
under-estimating her, refused. She walked out. This was news. Hollywood
contractual disputes were usually behind closed doors. How could someone with
such a weak personality do this sort of thing?</span></div>
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<br /></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-language: X-NONE; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">[3] <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">The Celebrity Network</i></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-language: X-NONE; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">In 1956,
sociologist C. Wright Mills published <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">The
Power Elite, </i><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>a portrait of the upper
reaches of stratification in the United States. His main argument was that the
country had morphed into a pyramid ruled by three overlapping groups: the
executives of the big corporations; the top officers who shuttled between the
interchangeable branches of the military-industrial complex; and the cabinet
officials who served no matter which party held the presidency, and who came
from the same Ivy League schools and the same Wall Street firms. (Sounds
familiar?) He also pointed out that the old fashioned Upper Class, the
hereditary rich families of the Social Register in New York, Boston, and
Philadelphia still existed (one of their daughters married John F. Kennedy),
but that they no longer really counted as sources of national power, or even of
prestige. They were no longer in the public eye the way they had been when the
Titanic sank (when the headlines listed which members of “Society” were on the
ship). What had displaced them was a group called Celebrities. </span></div>
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<br /></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-language: X-NONE; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">Celebrities
were anyone who was famous, which meant anyone who had their picture taken a
lot, and were in the news just by being visible. Celebrities could be athletes,
singers, movie stars, famous writers (Hemingway; Tennessee Williams), band
leaders, people who broke flying records (Charles Lindbergh, Howard Hughes,
Amelia Earhart). What created Celebrities, as a group phenomenon, was the rise
of the mass media. Above all, these were the newspapers and magazines, which
underwent an era of tremendous popularity (and profitability) from the 1920s
through the 50s. Photos were a big part of this; it was only around 1920 that
cameras became portable so that photographers (later called paparazzi) could
swarm all over places where celebrities might be seen; and when newsprint
publications could afford to sprinkle their pages with photos. Celebrities were
wanted because of an unsatiable need for things to fill papers with;<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>celebrity stories had legs, whether there was
any breaking news or not. In the 1930s, glossy black-and-white photos in
magazines became economically feasible. Hence the world of celebrities.
Hollywood was a favorite photo/ news/ gossip site. A broader swathe of famous
persons could be found in the restaurants and night clubs of New York, where
almost anyone who was anyone could be seen and gossip columnists could write
about who they were seen with. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-language: X-NONE; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">Marilyn may
not have been very aware of the world of Celebrities when she was young and
completely Hollywood-struck. But she soon found out; in fact, she became a
celebrity before she became a star. By around 1950, she wasn’t just trading sex
for entrée into Hollywood parties; she was having affairs with the stars,
including Marlon Brando, Yul Brynner, and big-name director Elia Kazan. In her
breakout year, 1953, she became connected with the biggest name of all—Joe
DiMaggio. Just recently retired from the New York Yankees, DiMaggio was the
biggest star on the most famous team in the most popular American sport. (His
teams had gone to the World Series 10 out of 13 years; fans and sports-writers
used to debate about who was the greatest of all time, DiMaggio or his
predecessor, Babe Ruth.) In January 1954, Marilyn and Joe were married. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-language: X-NONE; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">They
honeymooned in Japan. Marilyn took time out to go to Korea, where the Korean
War had ground to a stalemate, to entertain tens of thousands of American
troops. Singing outdoors in a spaghetti-strap gown in the February cold, she was
received with wild enthusiasm. “You never heard such cheers!” she told
DiMaggio, upon returning. “Yes I have,” he said. He had; but that was then, and
this was now. Their marriage immediately started coming apart.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-language: X-NONE; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">Further
strains appeared. DiMaggio was from an old-fashioned Italian family. He didn’t
want his wife to work (it was a mark of not being able to support your own
family); he wanted her to stay home and cook for him and his buddies. She
tried, a bit, but she had a career and movies to make. In September 1954, they
are in New York City. Marilyn is shooting <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">The
Seven Year Itch. </i>Director Billy Wilder has concocted a scene where she
stands over a subway grate while the air from the train rushes up and blows her
skirts above her waist. It is a hot summer night, and Marilyn is enjoying it—the
rush of air, showing off her great legs, the several thousand men and dozens of
photographers gathered to watch. It goes on for several hours. Joe DiMaggio is
there watching, with the wife of Marilyn’s personal photographer and manager,
Milton Greene. Joe is getting angrier and angrier, every time her dress blows
up to reveal her panties, and the crowd cheers.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>He walks off in disgust. Next month they are divorced.</span></div>
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<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg6NE5dBq4inkwcMmXhPAQuretntgPMeAreAwfLvtJhnD6ZWUAVdzAv4b5JvYEmbD7EjfRfiomQqpu4FZSYCnqO9XuOTvxhZ58Uj8pA-ylobZFba9sr5IE_G3IhfHLjS0h6MwfPGATTtALa/s1600/c-1954.9.15.MM%252CBillyWilder.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1600" data-original-width="1240" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg6NE5dBq4inkwcMmXhPAQuretntgPMeAreAwfLvtJhnD6ZWUAVdzAv4b5JvYEmbD7EjfRfiomQqpu4FZSYCnqO9XuOTvxhZ58Uj8pA-ylobZFba9sr5IE_G3IhfHLjS0h6MwfPGATTtALa/s320/c-1954.9.15.MM%252CBillyWilder.jpg" width="248" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-language: X-NONE; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">Marilyn
with director Billy Wilder, planning the skirt-blowing scene<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>(Sept. 1954)</span></td></tr>
</tbody></table>
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<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-language: X-NONE; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">Clash of
life-styles? Yes.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>But also, Marilyn has
upstaged him completely. And she always would.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-language: X-NONE; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">[4] <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Theatre Intellectuals</i></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-language: X-NONE; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">The theatre
world—which mostly meant New York City—had always overlapped with Hollywood. In
the 1910s, before Hollywood, films were mostly made in or around New York, and
Broadway producers were at the fore among those who created Hollywood in the
1920s.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Burlesque stars like Mae West and
dancers like Fred Astaire moved on to films; famous plays were often made into
movies; and stars of the “legitimate theatre” continued to circulate between
the stage and the movies up through the 1950s and even later. But already in
the 20s, there were film stars who never did theatre; and these became more
prominent over time. They were two different kinds of media, and the difference
expanded as films became more outdoors, more action-oriented, and more colorful
and spectacular. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-language: X-NONE; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">In moving
from Hollywood to the New York theatre world, Marilyn was moving in a
conservative direction. It was also a claim for prestige. The theatre world
tended to look down on films as a second-rate medium; and intellectuals in
general regarded films as low-brow entertainment. True, famous writers like
Scott Fitzgerald and William Faulkner spent time as Hollywood script writers,
but this was just a way of raising their incomes. Some Hollywood studio chiefs—notably
Darryl Zanuck, the head of 20th Century Fox, and Marilyn Monroe’s chief
detractor—tried to raise the status of films by making “serious” movies; but
they largely had to give this up in the 1950s when competition from TV moved
them in the direction of colorful spectaculars. One can see the pattern in the
fact that there were no film schools and no “film critics” until James Agee in
the 1940s and 50s started trying to review films in the same spirit as
reviewing plays. There was little sense of what was a film “classic” until the
1960s and later. *</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-language: X-NONE; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">* Though
looking for outstanding developments in the film art,<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Agee completely missed the significance of
film noir, the main innovation of his own day; he thought that films ought to play an important part in the social developments of modern times, such as making patriotic
movies about World War II. Not surprisingly, his film reviews were mostly
negative.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-language: X-NONE; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">Marilyn
already had network ties with the theatre intellectuals from the early 50s.
(After all, there was Brando, Elia Kazan; and she’d acted alongside Bettie
Davis in <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">All About Eve</i>, which is
precisely about an aging theatre queen and her ambitious understudy.)<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>After divorcing Joe DiMaggio and breaking her
Hollywood contract, in 1955 she moved to New York, where she was taken in by a
famous art-photographer Milton Greene and his wife. Greene did a series of
sensitive photos of Marilyn (not as film star or sex kitten but moody,
swan-like, etc.). He also floated the idea of forming an independent company,
Marilyn Monroe Productions, with themselves as partners. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-language: X-NONE; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">Meanwhile
Marilyn starts over again, “from the bottom” (sort of), by joining other
would-be actors at the Actors Studio run by Lee Strasberg. He is a proponent of
method acting, getting into your own emotions, feeling yourself in the role.
Marilyn is met with skepticism by the other actors but Strasberg and his wife
Paula find Marilyn has potential. For the rest of her career, Paula would be
Marilyn’s personal acting coach, at her side on the set of every movie she
made. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-language: X-NONE; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">In January
1956, 20th Century Fox caved in. She got a new contract, with options to choose
her own films and directors. Marilyn Monroe Productions also had the right to
make one independent film a year. She and Milton Greene made this a priority.
Their first film would be in England, directed by (and co-starring) Sir
Laurence Olivier. Olivier was probably the most prestigious theatre/film
cross-over in the world, famed for his Shakespeare and for films of classic
novels like <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Wuthering Heights</i>. The
film had a not-so-promising title, <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">The
Prince and the Showgirl</i>; but in fact it was a first-rate comedy by the
playright Terence Rattigan, the foremost follower of the style of George
Bernard Shaw, with its witty dialogue and surprising plot reversals. This should be
the perfect launch to Marilyn’s new phase as a serious actress.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-language: X-NONE; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">What could
go wrong? For one thing, something that at the time seemed very much to be
going right. Marilyn falls in love with Arthur Miller. He was at the top of the
theatre world; his 1949 play, <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Death of a
Salesman,</i> would be for decades the most widely performed play ever written
by an American playwright. It does nothing to hurt his public image that he is
in a fight with HUAC over their effort to compel him to testify against former
Communist party members and sympatheizers from the 1930s. This is a fight that
had convulsed Hollywood, too, although Hollywood came down on the side of
Communist-busting and a number of writers had been blacklisted. Marilyn had
never been involved in politics, but now that her fiancée was called before the
Committee (and its cameras) in Washington, she is right there beside him. When
the politicians threaten to prevent him from traveling to England for the
Olivier film, Marilyn’s admirers exert pressure on the other side, and he gets
the passport. Marilyn and Arthur are photographed at their wedding at his home
in rural Connecticut, where she is blissfully happy, just to be married to such
a wonderful man.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-language: X-NONE; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">In England,
Marilyn and Arthur were greeted and photographed with Laurence Olivier and his
wife, Vivien Leigh (who played Scarlet O'Hara in <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Gone with the Wind</i>), but cordiality soon ended. Now accustomed to
method-style directors, Marilyn asks Olivier how he wants her to play her part.
“Just be sexy,” he tells her. She is insulted and upset. They fight throughout
the filming, Arthur putting in advice and Paula Strasberg conferring with
Marilyn before every shot. <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">The Prince and
the Showgirl</i> is a financial flop and leaves a bad taste in everyone’s mouth.
(In fact it is very viewable today, even though it doesn’t feel quite like the
same Marilyn Monroe).<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-language: X-NONE; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">It is the
beginning of a series of bad relationships with directors. She is consistently
late on the set. She cancels and calls in sick. She forgets her lines, or
botches them repeatedly. She argues with directors and retreats into
conferences with Paula. During the shooting of <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Some Like It Hot</i> in 1958, her co-star Tony Curtis famously said
that “Kissing Marilyn Monroe is like kissing Hitler”—in exasperation at the
endless re-takes. And this was to be the only really successful box-office hit
that she made after re-inventing herself as a serious theatrical actor. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-language: X-NONE; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">Marilyn had
won the right to choose her own directors, but it doesn’t improve matters. She
argued with top directors,<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Broadway and
Hollywood legends alike. Her first effort at a serious drama, <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Bus Stop</i> (1957), is a contemporary or
real-life version of a cowboy movie where Marilyn is a cafe singer kidnapped by
an enamoured rodeo cowboy. She played opposite 59-year-old Clark Gable in <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">The Misfits</i>,<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>another real-life Western about aging cowboys
trying to make some money rounding up wild horses. Arthur Miller had written
the script especially for her, but his habit as a professional writer was to
turn real people into material for drama, and it shocked her as a portrait of
herself. Whether cast realistically or in film fantasies, she always ended up
being the dumb and/or neurotic blonde beauty. Arthur left the set and she began
another affair. Shooting dragged out, her films always behind-schedule and
over-budget. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-language: X-NONE; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">We can see
the deterioration in photos of Marilyn in this period.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Earlier, there had been candid photos of her
biting her nails with tension, but now her face looks bland and washed-out.
She carried a flask of gin on the set and drank between takes, a dangerous
combination with the pills she took to wake up in the morning and the sleeping
pills she took at night. </span></div>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj-6cjgex0Em75OxhJ-gQYb4aFm9mQoBfRVb21AZT4nqRyQ5yS7ce5pv8E2EbDUvCNpwaIw5y1M5li7PGJLHKNyhu5AJGXf5BtpTVcwMmZilSI1CWssAeGySM_3M8h1TnTPmSTUr58vJH5k/s1600/d-1952.MM.nailbite.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1600" data-original-width="1241" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj-6cjgex0Em75OxhJ-gQYb4aFm9mQoBfRVb21AZT4nqRyQ5yS7ce5pv8E2EbDUvCNpwaIw5y1M5li7PGJLHKNyhu5AJGXf5BtpTVcwMmZilSI1CWssAeGySM_3M8h1TnTPmSTUr58vJH5k/s320/d-1952.MM.nailbite.jpg" width="248" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-language: X-NONE; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">Marilyn
biting her nails<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>(1952)</span></td></tr>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgX1q2XdXSyGbmujW21WUoSdTmDj1qs1JPLTJ-YuoKvaj64cVpC9QieeglzCXJfICcafdbmH6fwtPLzCBtQ28-HFwue-yIsH9xISfo7cYpZJhB6oLVHdEIOhlg9ZFytfz4Ot1ls3irRCif1/s1600/e-1958.SomeLikeItHot.set.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1279" data-original-width="913" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgX1q2XdXSyGbmujW21WUoSdTmDj1qs1JPLTJ-YuoKvaj64cVpC9QieeglzCXJfICcafdbmH6fwtPLzCBtQ28-HFwue-yIsH9xISfo7cYpZJhB6oLVHdEIOhlg9ZFytfz4Ot1ls3irRCif1/s320/e-1958.SomeLikeItHot.set.jpg" width="228" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-language: X-NONE; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">Between
takes of <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Some Like It Hot </i><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>(1958)</span></td></tr>
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<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgJFIM-KPWambfJJZTMRrkk0EQjKP2nIapmIR_b-T_cz5Ur56zkH5hXEs3yksUwq4xp6WW4A7BnKib8GtZ0woMBKcPGMCh3aRsdJD4LXYeV09aceeFHBexMi1ibtkCdYw6-Dx_6Vu2Bb6Qg/s1600/f-1960.MM%252Cdir.Cukor-.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="481" data-original-width="592" height="260" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgJFIM-KPWambfJJZTMRrkk0EQjKP2nIapmIR_b-T_cz5Ur56zkH5hXEs3yksUwq4xp6WW4A7BnKib8GtZ0woMBKcPGMCh3aRsdJD4LXYeV09aceeFHBexMi1ibtkCdYw6-Dx_6Vu2Bb6Qg/s320/f-1960.MM%252Cdir.Cukor-.jpg" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-language: X-NONE; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">Arguing
with George Cukor, famous comedy director, on the set of <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Let’s Make Love</i> (1960)</span></td></tr>
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<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-language: X-NONE; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">[5] <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Camelot</i></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-language: X-NONE; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">In November
1960, John F. Kennedy was elected President, promising to bring a youthful new
approach to the White House. He brought youthful good looks, an even younger
and beautiful wife, and created enthusiasm that made him the most popular
President of the 20th century (with favorability ratings consistently around
70%). The Kennedy family were no strangers to Hollywood. The patriarch, Joseph
P. Kennedy, had bought and reorganized studios in the 1920s, ruthlessly taking
over a movie theatre chain, and carrying on a long affair with film star Gloria
Swanson while financing her films. (Yes, the one who played the aging star in <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Sunset Boulevard</i>, 1950.)<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>JFK reportedly had numerous affairs, both
before and after his marriage to Jacqueline Bouvier in 1953, including several
film stars before taking up with Marilyn, which began attracting attention from
his political enemies in early 1962.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>But
reporters in those days gave popular politicians space for their private lives
(they avoided photographing FDR in his wheel chair, and kept quiet about
General Eisenhower’s affair with his driver). Kennedy got along well with the
press, who showed the glitz of the Kennedy White House but not its backstage. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-language: X-NONE; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">Marilyn had
already had an affair with Peter Lawford, a Hollywood actor married to<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>JFK's younger sister.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Now she was socializing with the rat pack,<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>as we see in a photo with other stars at a
Las Vegas event—a fake look of enthusiasm on her mouth clashing with the
sadness in the rest of her face.</span></div>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhQ5b9BjbzP4C1Wn5lTduuyB5f76ntY-eXH0LtRkybCk7UGh1rK7qhZs54p9Xs1KS8pihrr266iB_k-68HVuxr762OFp72z8XXLGhjqq5h4-OIyam3T3vhtl30apKxkx7VXVK1Wgzv6Dc2F/s1600/g-1961.6.Vegas.MM%252CLizTaylor%252Cjpg.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="664" data-original-width="793" height="267" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhQ5b9BjbzP4C1Wn5lTduuyB5f76ntY-eXH0LtRkybCk7UGh1rK7qhZs54p9Xs1KS8pihrr266iB_k-68HVuxr762OFp72z8XXLGhjqq5h4-OIyam3T3vhtl30apKxkx7VXVK1Wgzv6Dc2F/s320/g-1961.6.Vegas.MM%252CLizTaylor%252Cjpg.jpg" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-language: X-NONE; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">Marilyn
with Elizabeth Taylor and Dean Martin, Las Vegas (June 1961)</span></td></tr>
</tbody></table>
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<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-language: X-NONE; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">In June
1962, in the midst of yet another contentious on-again-off-again film project
for 20th Century Fox, Marilyn takes off<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>to fly to New York for JFK’s birthday celebration at Madison Square
Garden. It is her last famous photo scandal. Having kept the crowd waiting for
almost an hour, she appears in a clinging, flesh-colored gown and sings “Happy
Birthday to You, Mr. President” in her wispy voice. Kennedy, sitting in the
front row of the huge audience, makes no gesture of response. Immediately
afterward, his brother Bobby tells him the affair is getting too public and
warns him to break it off. He does, that very night. Marilyn is shut out. She can’t
even get through to Bobby by phone any more. </span></div>
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<br /></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-language: X-NONE; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">Back in
Hollywood, she is suspended by the studio.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>A month later, she is reinstated with a new contract and a higher
salary, and called back to resume filming. Three days later she is dead: an
overdose of barbiturates, combined with whatever other drugs she was doing
during the day.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-language: X-NONE; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">[6] <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Marilyn’s psychiatrists</i></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-language: X-NONE; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">Marilyn had
been seeing psychiatrists ever since her sojourn in New York in 1955.
Psychoanalysis was very much in vogue during the 1940s and 50s, and her coaches
at the Actors Studio encouraged her to explore her emotional depths. She had at
least four psychiatrists. The second of them, in 1957, was Anna Freud, the
daughter of Sigmund Freud. Such psychoanalysis was not expected to cure
anything, but was just part of a life-long process of knowing oneself. At any
rate, there was no indication psychiatry did Marilyn any good; her problems got
worse during the years of treatment. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-language: X-NONE; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">Her
psychiatrist from 1957 to 1961 was Marianne Kris. These were the years of her
fights with directors, her breakdowns on the set, her estrangement and divorce
from Arthur Miller, her heavy drug use and drinking. The drugs were abetted by
her doctors, including the psychiatrists themselves; like celebrity doctors
then and since, they were impressed with having famous patients, and multiple
doctors would add up to unlimited prescriptions. By 1960, Marilyn had two
psychiatrists, Dr. Kris in New York, and Dr. Ralph Greenson in Los Angeles. In
March 1962, Dr. Kris decided that Marilyn was on the verge of suicide, and had
her admitted to a psychiatric hospital in New York. Marilyn went along with it
at first, until she found herself locked in a padded cell, under constant
surveillance, and cut off from communication with the outside. She began to
resist, to no avail. She refused to take part in therapeutic activities with
the other patients (supervised handicrafts and the like), declaring: “when I
start becoming one of them, I’ll know I really am crazy.” </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-language: X-NONE; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">At almost
exactly the same time, Erving Goffman published <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Asylums:
Essays on the Social Situation of Mental Patients and Other Inmates</i> (1961).
In the late 1950s, Goffman had gotten himself into the schizophrenic ward of
mental hospital, incognito, for two years to observe what it was like to be
locked up, whether you were crazy or not. He concluded that the structure of
the mental hospital itself was making people worse, not better. It was a “total
institution,”<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>where ones entire life was
under surveillance by staff who held all power over you--guards in a prison,
sergeants in a boot camp, orderlies and psychiatrists in an asylum. Inmates
were a degraded status, with no way to escape from their social position,
except by giving in to the staff’s definition of oneself as a spoiled self. You
had to give up your self in order for them to make you better (or at least
declare you were better so you could get out). Goffman argued that the bizarre
things that patients did in the mental hospital (like pissing on floor or
refusing to keep one’s clothes on) were a last gasp of autonomy, trying to show
they still had at least this much of a personal self by rebelling in trivial
ways. Goffman called this “the underlife of a total institution,” one version
of which is the “convict code” in prison.* This was the pressure that Marilyn
faced.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-language: X-NONE; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">* Within a
few years after Goffman published this book, mental hospitals began to be
closed down.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-language: X-NONE; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">Marilyn was
finally able to smuggle a message out to Joe DiMaggio. Why Joe? He still loved
her, she knew. And Joe D was a big name in New York, an old-fashioned hero type
who wasn’t going to let a bunch of bureaucrats stop him. Surrounded by an army
of reporters and photographers, Joe got Marilyn out. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-language: X-NONE; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">Photos tell
the unspoken story. She and Joe are seen together for a while.
Uncharacteristically, Marilyn covers her face from the cameras. Joe looks
stony-faced. She sits beside him on the beach with a wan expression. He rescued
her, but he couldn’t save her. </span></div>
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<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjvBlkm8cHGPkc5PRapjWNQzXxWQFwN7W9DhI1bHLfS4fhZMoeStVmGSrN3oLstBQ1D8YxvM4BCB-QDB3a7i3AngYCGWuUIjOQagr4dh0wcUwnstoyZZJo5M0mJG7y6J1Sp_0oo1UxefcmI/s1600/x-1961.MM%252CDiMag.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1020" data-original-width="1313" height="248" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjvBlkm8cHGPkc5PRapjWNQzXxWQFwN7W9DhI1bHLfS4fhZMoeStVmGSrN3oLstBQ1D8YxvM4BCB-QDB3a7i3AngYCGWuUIjOQagr4dh0wcUwnstoyZZJo5M0mJG7y6J1Sp_0oo1UxefcmI/s320/x-1961.MM%252CDiMag.jpg" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-language: X-NONE; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">Marilyn
with Joe DiMaggio (1962)</span></td></tr>
</tbody></table>
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<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-language: X-NONE; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"><br /></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-language: X-NONE; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"><br /></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-language: X-NONE; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">The old
networks were still there, still pulling her apart, and the networks were now
inside her.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Her new psychiatrist, Ralph
Greenson, violates professional norms by trying to befriend his patient; he and
his wife invite her into their home. Marilyn moves into an apartment a few
minutes away. But she is back to the drugs and the drinking, the daily uppers
and downers; the back-and-forth with the studio; the collapse of her dream to
be something more than a Hollywood star. No one can befriend her in her
personal backstage, suspended between all the frontstages. She dies alone.</span></div>
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<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-language: X-NONE; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">Did Marilyn
Monroe Have Charisma?</span></i></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-language: X-NONE; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">Let's see how she fits the check-list of different kinds of charisma. </span></div>
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<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-language: X-NONE; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">Frontstage
charisma</span></i><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-language: X-NONE; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">.
Obviously, Marilyn was not the kind of person who makes speeches and leads
crowds by swaying their emotions and beliefs. But no one was better at capturing
the center of public attention.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>In this
respect she was like Cleopatra, the master of spectacles, who left Mark Antony
sitting alone on his podium while the crowd flocked to see her. This makes us
broaden our theory of how charisma operates. It doesn’t have to be peremptory,
I’m telling you this! It is all the more effective when it is irresistible. In
public, almost everyone liked Marilyn, were charmed by her, men and women
alike. In part, precisely because she was not an authority; she never told
people what to do. Even as a sexual figure, she was never the femme fatale, the
malicious vamp, the money-grabbing whore.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>She was most natural in front of a crowd: if you like to look at me,
I’ll blow you a kiss.</span></div>
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<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiBcR7TonQJiHm1a6k1tExUrEoJE8eIxFZqYgwbg3vFAz5xkrtLCL7li8OD87_XvxK6bU_usuXEOc5gK6BcxwmJg7dStsh6xCDhcE0LXRXrxDcGXirEKwkswyiEgBFCyD6LrvKXlStrT2Rl/s1600/h-1954.9MM.blowing.kiss.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1600" data-original-width="1178" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiBcR7TonQJiHm1a6k1tExUrEoJE8eIxFZqYgwbg3vFAz5xkrtLCL7li8OD87_XvxK6bU_usuXEOc5gK6BcxwmJg7dStsh6xCDhcE0LXRXrxDcGXirEKwkswyiEgBFCyD6LrvKXlStrT2Rl/s320/h-1954.9MM.blowing.kiss.jpg" width="235" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-language: X-NONE; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">Marilyn
with her public (1954)</span></td></tr>
</tbody></table>
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<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-language: X-NONE; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">Backstage
charisma.</span></i><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-language: X-NONE; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"> This is
the realm of face-to-face relationships; the capacity for emotional domination
that is so striking in the way Jesus talked with people, always seizing control
of the conversation with an unexpected shift. Marilyn was not at all like this.
But when people pressed her (like reporters), she usually came up with a
stopper, a tag line that gave everyone pause, or made people laugh. </span></div>
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<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-language: X-NONE; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">Success-reputation
charisma.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></span></i><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-language: X-NONE; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">The classic
definition of charisma is the general or politician who always wins: Alexander
the Great, Julius Caesar, Napoleon. This was not Marilyn. But-- if her aim for
success was to be a star, to be the center of attention, she never failed.
(After her career launch, of course; this launch-point is a key feature of any
“charismatic” life.) Unlike some (perhaps most) charismatic success-leaders, she
never lost her position, never became once-charismatic. Perhaps because she
killed herself at the right time; she did not hang on too long. Even her death
was big news; her legend was just beginning.</span></div>
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<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-language: X-NONE; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">Fame as
pseudo-charisma.</span></i><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-language: X-NONE; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Just continuing to be a famous
name, with the passage of time, can get one the retrospective label of being
charismatic. I have argued this is a mistake, a confusing use of the term.
Queen Elizabeth, of Elizabethan fame, is an example of a person who was not
charismatic on any of the three main dimensions. But historic fame can
accompany real charisma. So far—60 years after her death—Marilyn Monroe checks
that box too. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-language: X-NONE; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">Of course,
over the flow of history, 60 years is not a long time. Can we theorize what
makes some names resonant over the centuries? Yes... but that is another book.</span><br />
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://www.amazon.com/dp/1732060541"><img border="0" data-original-height="320" data-original-width="243" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi1xLMzId4CvgzsYQX9vN1VXxx6TEqTQ3Thf04Y0xgpUh8BfbiUjCEHhst5x9EFZ9yRWcM6Xc9nyDguwIm7WznyS_7Xf-OchSCKvwX__5nylaaOI3v3-lXEwSg8MyDWKyhyuaDKfAsepCg/s1600/CW2C1VolCov2InPixtry.jpeg" /> </a></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://www.amazon.com/dp/1732060541"><b>CIVIL WAR TWO Condensed One-Volume Edition out now</b> </a></div>
<br />
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-language: X-NONE; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">References</span></i><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-language: X-NONE; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-language: X-NONE; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">James Agee.
2005 [originally 1941-50]. <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Film Writing and Selected Journalism.</i>
Library of America. </span></div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-language: X-NONE; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">Lois
Banner. 2012. <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Marilyn: The Passion and
the Paradox. </i>Bloomsburg Books.</span></div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-language: X-NONE; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">Truman
Capote. 1975. <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Music for Chameleons. </i>Random
House. </span></div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-language: X-NONE; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">Randall
Collins. Nov. 1, 2016. "Does Charisma Win Presidential Elections?"<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"> http://sociological-eye.blogspot.com/2016/11/does-charisma-win-presidential-elections.html</i></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-language: X-NONE; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">Bernard
Comment (ed.) 2010.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Marilyn Monroe, Fragments: Poems, Intimate Notes, Letters</i>. Farrar,
Straus and Giroux.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-language: X-NONE; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">Robert
Dallek. 2003. <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">An Unfinished Life: John F.
Kennedy, 1917-1963. </i>Boston: Little, Brown. </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-language: X-NONE; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">Erving
Goffman. 1961. <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Asylums: Essays on the
Social Situation of Mental Patients and Other Inmates</i>. Doubleday.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-language: X-NONE; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">Erving
Goffman. 1959. <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">The Presentation of Self
in Everyday Life</i>. Doubleday.</span></div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-language: X-NONE; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">James
Haspiel. 1995. <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Young Marilyn. Becoming
the Legend. </i>Hyperion Books.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></span></div>
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<br /></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-language: X-NONE; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">James
Kotsilibas-Davis. 1994. <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Milton’s Marilyn.
The Photographs of Milton H. Greene. </i><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Munich: Schirmer/Mosel.</span></div>
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<div class="MsoNormal">
<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-language: X-NONE; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">Life
Magazine. </span></i><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-language: X-NONE; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">2009.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Remembering
Marilyn. </i>Time-Life Books. </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-language: X-NONE; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">C. Wright
Mills. 1956. <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">The Power Elite.</i> Oxford
Univ. Press.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-language: X-NONE; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">Carl
Rollyson. 2014. <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Marilyn Monroe Day by
Day: A Timeline of People, Places, and Events. </i>Rowman and Littlefield.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-language: X-NONE; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">Robert
Sklar. 1993. <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Film: An International
History of the Medium.</i> Harry N. Abrams Publishers.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-language: X-NONE; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">Donald
Spoto. 2001. <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Marilyn Monroe: The
Biography.</i> Cooper Square Press.</span></div>
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<br /></div>
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Unknownnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1005085971596877601.post-46445236154653511232019-01-07T10:20:00.002-08:002019-01-07T10:20:56.361-08:00DO MIYAMOTO MUSASHI’S ZEN SAMURAI TECHNIQUES APPLY TO EVERYTHING?
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="color: black; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;">Miyamoto
Musashi was the most famous sword fighter in the history of Japan. His <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Book of Five Rings</i> has been taken as
advice for how to win in business, especially in America during the Japan-obsessed
1980s. Is this kind of extrapolation valid?</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="color: black; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;">Is it
sound advice, transposed from war to sports, let alone peaceful everyday life?
Musashi himself, a practitioner of Zen, held that the attitudes of a swordsman
should<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>be those of everyday life, and
vice versa. Can we learn something from this, even if our aim is not to defeat
other people?</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="color: black; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;">My
discussion takes the form of comments on Musashi’s writing. I have shortened
and rearranged the text under new headings to make the main points easier to follow.
Musashi himself wrote: “What is recorded above is what has been constantly on
my mind, written down as it came to me. This is the first time I have written
about my technique, and the order of things is a bit confused.” And Japanese
grammar is much simpler than English translations. </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><span style="color: black; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;">BOOK OF FIVE RINGS</span></i></b><span style="color: black; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;"></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="color: black; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;">Language
does not extend to explaining the Way in detail, but it can be grasped
intuitively.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="color: black; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;">Absorb
the things written in this book. Do not just read, memorize, or imitate. To
realise the principle in your heart, train hard to absorb these things into
your body.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="color: black; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;">With
sufficient training you will be able to beat ten men with your body and your
spirit. If you attain this strategy you will never lose even to twenty or
thirty enemies. </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="color: black; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;">You win
battles with timing, and by knowing the enemy’s timing. You will come to win
with your eye.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>-- Miyamoto
Musashi,<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>1645 A.D.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><span style="color: black; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;">EVERYDAY LIFE.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>SPIRIT AND BODY</span></i><span style="color: black; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;"></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="color: black; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;">In all
forms of strategy, it is necessary to maintain the combat stance in everyday
life and to make your everyday stance your combat stance.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="color: black; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;">Both in
fighting and in everyday life you should be determined though calm. Meet the
situation without tenseness but not recklessly. Even when your spirit is calm
do not let your body relax.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="color: black; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;">When
your body is relaxed do not let your spirit slacken. Do not be influenced by
your body, or your body influenced by your spirit. An elevated spirit is weak
and a low spirit is weak. </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="color: black; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;">Do not
be misled by the reactions of your own body. </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><span style="color: black; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;">comment: </span></i><span style="color: black; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>This last sentence touches on the most
fundamental point in the micro-sociology of violent conflict. It applies also
to sports and to any contest of wills in everyday life. </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="color: black; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;">Whenever
humans are in danger, and especially when they are in face-to-face
confrontation that threatens to escalate into open violence, their heart starts
to race. Normal resting heart rate is about 60 beats per minute; alert activity
is about 80-100 bpm; vigorous physical exercise will raise it to 130 or 140. At
this level fine motor coordination is beginning to be lost, and above 150-160
bpm your action will be out of control. You fire or swing wildly and hit the
wrong target. </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="color: black; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;">This is
your body pumping adrenaline, the fight-or-flight hormone. Your body is primed
to attack, or to run away. Musashi says both are to be avoided; neither too
elevated spirit, nor too weak. Anger and fear share the same arousal; it is
just a matter of which direction it is turned. Similarly in emotional
situations of everyday life; any extremely strong emotion-- anger, fear, even
elation and laughter, even bliss-- takes over your body so that you lose
conscious direction. Hence Musashi’s aim: to stay calm and on course.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="color: black; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;">Micro-sociology
of violence shows several pathways around the barrier of confrontational
tension to arrive at effective performance. Several of these coincide with
Musashi’s advice: maintain a conscious focus on your own technique rather than
on locking horns with the opponent; achieve emotional domination, so that you
operate in a zone of calm while pushing your enemy into the out-of-control
zone. How is this done? Read on.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><span style="color: black; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;">DISTANCED POINT OF VIEW</span></i><span style="color: black; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;"></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="color: black; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;">With
your spirit unconstricted, look at things from a high point of view, where you
cannot be deceived by men.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="color: black; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;">It is
important to see distant things as if they were close, and to take a distanced
view of close things. </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="color: black; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;">It is
important to know the enemy’s sword and not to be distracted by insignificant
movements of his sword. The gaze is the same for single combat and for
large-scale strategy.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="color: black; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;">On the
battlefield, even when you are hard-pressed, you should ceaselessly seek out
the principles of strategy so that you can develop a steady spirit.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><span style="color: black; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;">comment: </span></i><span style="color: black; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>This sounds very Zen to me. A distanced point
of view is what you do in zazen meditation.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>Zen practice differs from most other forms of yoga or Buddhist
meditation in that it is done with your eyes open rather than closed. More
exactly, you meditate with your eyelids half-closed, not looking at anything
but with your gaze focused somewhere in empty space in front of your face. Not
closing your eyes avoids falling into a dream-like state or seeing hynogogic
imagery. These are distractions from the pure consciousness of just
gazing,<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>your mind and eyes like a piece
of clear glass. In zazen meditation, one can attain the feeling of looking down
on your body, as if your point of view were located in the back of your head,
and you are sitting back seeing the world at a distance. A distanced point of
view is exactly the right way to put it.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="color: black; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;">Musashi
adopts the kind of Zen that is Zen-in-action. You are doing physical things,
your body is intensely in action, but you are not being swept along by your
body, nor above all by your enemy’s body. You are seeing everything of
importance, in a calm detachment that is not hurried even though you may be
moving very fast. Even when the battle is at its worst, your path towards
winning is not to be caught up, but to look down on it from on high. </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="color: black; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;">Musashi
will tell us what this feels like when your hands are holding a razor-sharp
sword.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><span style="color: black; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;">EYES AND FEET</span></i><span style="color: black; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;"></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="color: black; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;">Footballers
do not fix their eyes on the ball, but by good play on the field they can
perform well. When you become accustomed to something, you are not limited to
the use of your eyes. People such as master musicians have the music score in front
of their nose, but this does not mean that they fix their eyes on these things
specifically. It means that they can see naturally.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="color: black; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;">When you
have fought many times you will easily be able to appreciate the speed and
position of the enemy’s sword, and having mastery of the Way you will see the
weight of his spirit. Fixing the eyes means gazing at the other man’s heart.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="color: black; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;">In
single combat you must not fix your eyes of details. If you fix your eyes on
details and neglect important things, your spirit will become bewildered and
victory will escape you. </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><span style="color: black; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;">comment: </span></i><span style="color: black; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>This reminds me of learning to play the
piano. It’s more difficult if you keep moving your eyes back and forth between
where you are in the score and looking at the keyboard. The two tend to get out
of synch, and it’s hard to keep the rhythm. Better to see everything at once,
without moving your eyes. You widen your view-- done more with your brain than
with your eyeballs.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="color: black; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;">Use of
feet: In my strategy, the footwork does not change. I always walk as I usually
do in the street. You must never lose control of your feet. According to the
enemy’s rhythm, move fast or slowly, adjusting your body not too much and not
too little.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="color: black; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;">With the
tips of your toes somewhat floating, tread firmly with your heels. Whether you
move fast or slow, with large or small steps, your feet must always move as in
normal walking. You should not move one foot preferentially. </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="color: black; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;">When you
close with the enemy, strive with him for superior height without cringing.
Stretch your legs, stretch your hips, and stretch your neck face to face with
him. When you think you have won, and you are higher, thrust in strongly.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><span style="color: black; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;">comment: </span></i><span style="color: black; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Stretching is always good for you. You can do
it almost all the time when you are standing up, and even sitting. Always be as
tall as you can. It’s good for everything.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><span style="color: black; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;">SINGLE INTENTION</span></i><span style="color: black; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;"></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="color: black; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;">When you
take up a sword, you must feel intent on cutting the enemy. As you cut the
enemy, you must not change your grip, and your hands must not cower.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>When you dash the enemy’s sword aside, or
ward it off, or force it down, above all you must be intent on cutting the
enemy in the way you grip the sword.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="color: black; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;">The
primary thing when you take a sword in your hands is your intention to cut the
enemy, whatever the means. Whenever you parry, hit, spring, strike or touch the
enemy’s cutting sword, you must cut the enemy in the same movement.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><span style="color: black; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;">comment: </span></i><span style="color: black; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>This is like playing music when you play the
piece, not the particular notes. </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="color: black; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;">“Continuous
Cut”: When you attack and the enemy also attacks, and your swords spring
together, in one action hit his head, hands, and legs. You must practice this
cut.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="color: black; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;">It is
essential to attain this. If you think only of hitting, springing, striking or
touching the enemy, you will not be able actually to cut him. More than
anything, you must be thinking of carrying your movement through to cutting
him. </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="color: black; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;">When you
have closed with the enemy, hit him as quickly and directly as possible,
without moving your body or settling your spirit, while you see that he is still
undecided.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><span style="color: black; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;">comment: </span></i><span style="color: black; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Obviously some of your body must move. But it
should feel like pivoting from an unmoving center.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="color: black; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;">You must
train to achieve this timing, to be able to hit in the timing of an instant. </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><span style="color: black; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;">comment: </span></i><span style="color: black; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>In Musashi’s famous duels, he always disrupted
the enemy’s timing. His first duel was when he was 13 years old, and answered a
challenge that a wandering samurai had posted on a placard. His uncle arrived
at the dueling spot and tried to apologize for a boy challenging a grown man.
But Musashi jumped in with his weapon-- a wooden staff-- and beat the samurai
to the ground. When a duel was arranged<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>with the head of a famous fighting school, he made his insulted opponent
wait until he arrived late. He attacked immediately and crippled the samurai’s
arm. For the revenge match, Musashi again outraged his rival by arriving late,
and won a humiliating victory. For the third match, Musashi played on his
reputation for arriving late, instead arriving early and hiding himself. His
opponent showed up with a band of armed supporters, whereupon Musashi jumped
out of hiding, killed his principal opponent, drove the others back, and
escaped. </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="color: black; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;">A
similar pattern occurred in Bobby Fischer’s world championship chess match in
Iceland in 1973 against the Russian champion, Boris Spassky. Fischer lost the
first game on a strange move when he could have had a draw, and forfeited the
second game before it started, leaving Spassky ahead 2-0. Fischer then
proceeded to win 7 of the next 8 decisions over his rattled opponent. </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="color: black; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;">Musashi
fought 60 duels and was never defeated.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><span style="color: black; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;">OTHER SCHOOLS</span></i><span style="color: black; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;"></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="color: black; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;">If we
watch men of other schools discussing theory, and concentrating on techniques
with the hands, even though they seem skilful to watch, they have no true
spirit. The true Way of sword fencing is the craft of defeating the enemy in a
fight, and nothing else. </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><span style="color: black; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;">comment: </span></i><span style="color: black; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Musashi goes straight to the jugular, like
chess champion Bobby Fischer, rated by many the greatest of all time. His book
on how to play chess is the opposite of any other chess book I’ve read. Other
chess writers start with the openings. Fischer starts with the end game.
Checkmating your opponent’s king is the purpose of every move you make. You
reverse the gestalt, seeing your way from the checkmate back to where you are
now.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="color: black; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;">To cut
and to slash are two different things. Cutting, whatever form of cutting it is,
is decisive with a resolute spirit. Slashing is nothing more than touching the
enemy. Even if you slash strongly, and even if the enemy dies instantly, it is
slashing. When you cut, your spirit is resolved.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="color: black; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;">Avoid
preconceived narrow spirit. </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><span style="color: black; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;">FIVE STANCES IN COMBAT</span></i><span style="color: black; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;"></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="color: black; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;">Whatever
attitude or stance you are in (Upper, Middle, Lower, Right Side, Left Side), do
not be conscious of making the attitude, think only of cutting. The one purpose
of all of them is to cut the enemy. </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="color: black; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;">Middle
attitude: Confront the enemy with the point of your sword against his face.
When he attacks, dash his sword to the right and ‘ride’ it. Or, when the enemy
attacks, deflect the point of his sword by hitting downwards, keep your long
sword where it is, and as the enemy renews his attack cut his arms from below.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><span style="color: black; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;">comment: </span></i><span style="color: black; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>“riding” the enemy’s sword is discussed below
under “Ways to Overcome Stalemate”. The feeling is like riding a horse.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="color: black; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;">Upper
attitude: cut the enemy just as he attacks. If the enemy evades the cut, keep
your sword where it is and, sweeping up from below, cut him as he renews the
attack.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="color: black; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;">Lower
attitude: you are anticipating scooping up. When the enemy attacks, hit his hands
from below. As you do so, he may try to hit your sword down. If so, hit his
upper arm horizontally with a feeling of ‘crossing’. From the Lower attitude,
you hit the enemy at the instant he attacks.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="color: black; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;">Left
Side attitude: as the enemy attacks, hit his hands from below. If he attempts
to dash down your sword, parry the path of his long sword and, with the feeling
of hitting his hands, cult across from above your shoulder. Through this method
you win by parrying the line of the enemy’s attack.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="color: black; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;">Sword in
the Right Side attitude:<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>According to
the enemy’s attack, cross your long sword from below at the side to the Upper
attitude. Then cut straight from above. If you use this method, you can freely
wield a heavy long sword.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="color: black; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;">I cannot
describe in detail how to use these five approaches. You must learn large-scale
timing, and become used to the five methods, with various timing considerations
discerning the enemy’s spirit. </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="color: black; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;">You will
always win by using these five methods. You must train repetitively.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><span style="color: black; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;">comment: </span></i><span style="color: black; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Like seriously working out at the gym. The
life of a samurai after Musashi’s youth was largely training in the dojo. The
civil war battles and deadly duels of the first half of his life gave way to
the enforced peace of the Tokugawa shogunate, when samurai spent most of their
time practicing in sword-fighting schools. Musashi popularized kendo, fighting
with a wooden sword. Training continues to be getting the spirit into your
body-- or is it the spirit you are training?</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><span style="color: black; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;">STICKY FEELING</span></i><span style="color: black; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;"></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="color: black; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;">The ‘Red
Leaves Cut’ (like falling leaves) means knocking down the enemy’s long sword.
The spirit should be, getting control of his sword. When the enemy is in a
sword attitude in front of you and intent on cutting, hitting and parrying, you
strongly hit the enemy’s sword. When the enemy’s long sword and your long sword
clash together, you cut as strongly as possible without raising the sword even
a little. This means cutting quickly with the hands, body, and legs-- all three
cutting strongly.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><span style="color: black; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;">comment:</span></i><span style="color: black; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>Musashi gets the whole body into it.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="color: black; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;">If you
then beat down the point of his sword with a sticky feeling, he will
necessarily drop his sword. You must train repetitively.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="color: black; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;">When the
enemy attacks and you also attack with the long sword, you should go in with a
sticky feeling and fix your sword against the enemy’s as you receive his cut.
The spirit of stickiness is not hitting very strongly, but hitting so that the
swords do not separate easily. It is best to approach as calmly as possible
when hitting the enemy’s sword with stickiness. The difference between
“Stickiness” and “Entanglement” is that stickiness is firm and entanglement is
weak.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="color: black; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;">When you
have come to grips and are striving with the enemy, and you realise that you
cannot advance, you “soak in” and become one with the enemy. You can win by
applying a suitable technique while you are mutually entangled.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><span style="color: black; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;">comment: </span></i><span style="color: black; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>You can’t always defeat the enemy in the first
clash. Some enemies are too skilled for that. Here Musashi recommends breaking
the deadlock by deliberately getting tangled up with the enemy. Ordinarily this
is a bad thing, but here you do it so that your opponent will become tangled
up, while you anticipate the moment when you can seize the offensive.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><span style="color: black; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;">JUMPING THE ENEMY’S RHYTHM</span></i><span style="color: black; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;"></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="color: black; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;">By
“smacking parry” is meant that when you clash swords with the enemy, you meet
his attacking cut on your long sword with a <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">tee-dum,
tee-dum</i> rhythm, smacking his sword and cutting him. The spirit of the
smacking parry is not parrying, or smacking strongly, but smacking the enemy’s
long sword in accordance with his attacking cut, primarily intent on quickly
cutting him. If you understand the timing of smacking, however hard your long
swords clash together, your swordpoint will not be knocked back even a little.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><span style="color: black; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;">comment: </span></i><span style="color: black; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>“<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">tee-dum”
</i>has the accent on the second beat-- <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">tee-<u>dum</u>--
</i>presumably “<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">tee-” </i><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>is the sound of the opponent’s sword, and <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">“<u>dum</u>” </i>is the immediate reply of
yours. </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="color: black; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;">To tread
down the sword: In single combat, at times we cannot get a decisive victory by
cutting, with a “<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">tee-dum tee-dum</i>”
feeling, in the wake of the enemy’s attacking with the long sword. We must
defeat him at the start of his attack, in the spirit of treading him down with
the feet, so that he cannot rise again to the attack.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="color: black; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;">When you
have grasped this principle, whatever the enemy tries to bring about in the
fight you will see in advance and suppress it. The spirit is to check his
attack at the syllable “at...”; when he jumps check his jump at the syllable
“ju...”; and check his cut at “cu...”.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="color: black; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;">“Treading”
does not simply mean treading with the feet. Tread with the body, tread with
the spirit, and of course, tread and cut with the long sword. You must achieve
the spirit of not allowing the enemy to attack a second time. Once at the
enemy, you should not aspire just to strike him, but to cling after the attack.
</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><span style="color: black; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;">SPEED</span></i><span style="color: black; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;"></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="color: black; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;">Speed is
not part of the true Way of strategy. Speed implies that things seem fast or
slow, according to whether or not they are in rhythm. Whatever the Way, the
master of strategy does not appear fast. </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><span style="color: black; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;">comment:<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></span></i><span style="color: black; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;">Similarly, the winningest of basketball coaches, John
Wooden, used to tell his UCLA team in practice: “Be quick, but don’t hurry.”</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="color: black; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;">In the
Way of dance, accomplished performers can sing while dancing, but when
beginners try this they slow down and their spirit becomes busy. Very skilful
people can manage a fast rhythm, but it is bad to beat hurriedly (on a drum).
If you try to beat too quickly you will get out of time. Of course, slowness is
bad. Really skilful people never get out of time, and are always deliberate,
and never appear busy.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="color: black; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;">In
large-scale strategy, a fast busy spirit is undesirable. The spirit must be
that of holding down a pillow, then you will not be even a little late.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="color: black; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;">When
your opponent is hurrying recklessly, you must act contrarily and keep calm.
You must not be influenced by the opponent. </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="color: black; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;">“Flowing
Water Cut”: when you are struggling blade-to-blade with the enemy, and he
breaks and quickly withdraws trying to spring with his long sword, expand your
body and spirit and cut him as slowly as possible with your long sword,
following your body like stagnant water. </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><span style="color: black; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;">comment:<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Cut him as slowly as possible.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></span></i><span style="color: black; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;">How do you do this, in the middle of life-or-death combat?
Bill Walton is quoted in John Wooden’s book as saying that team practices at
UCLA were so fast that when they were actually playing a game, it seemed slow.
It should feel slow to yourself.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><span style="color: black; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;">CONTAGION</span></i><span style="color: black; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;"></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="color: black; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;">Many
things are said to be passed on (by contagion). Sleepiness can be passed on,
and yawning can be passed on. Time can be passed on also.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="color: black; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;">In
large-scale battles, when the enemy is agitated and shows an inclination to
rush, do not mind in the least. Make a show of complete calmness, and the enemy
will be taken by this and will become relaxed. When you see that this spirit
has been passed on, you can bring about the enemy’s defeat by attacking
strongly with a Void spirit.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="color: black; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;">In
single combat, you can win by relaxing your body and spirit and then, catching
onto the moment when the enemy relaxes, attack strongly and quickly,
forestalling him.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="color: black; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;">What is
known as “getting someone drunk” is similar to this. You can also affect the
enemy with a bored, careless, or weak spirit.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><span style="color: black; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;">comment:<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></span></i><span style="color: black; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;">Contagious moods and rhythms are at the center of human
social interaction. There is a strong tendency for persons who mutually focus
attention on each other to fall into the same rhythm and to become entrained in
the same emotion. This is what creates solidarity feelings: in a meandering
chat about nothing in particular, in a serious religious ceremony or a
politicized crowd. Musashi warns against getting caught up in an enemy’s moods,
by keeping your attitude detached, and recommends turning the tables by sucking
him into a faked weak mood of your own contrivance.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><span style="color: black; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;">OVERCOMING STALEMATE</span></i><span style="color: black; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;"></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="color: black; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;">When you
and the enemy are contending with the same spirit, and the issue cannot be
decided: abandon this spirit and win through an alternative. </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="color: black; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;">To
renew: when we are fighting with the enemy, and an entangled spirit arises
where there is no possible resolution: we must abandon our efforts, think of
the situation in a fresh spirit, then win with a new rhythm.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="color: black; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;">When we
are fighting with the enemy and both he and we have become occupied with small
points in an entangled spirit, we must suddenly change into a large spirit,
interchanging large with small. </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="color: black; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;">This is
one of the essences of strategy. It is necessary that the warrior think in this
spirit in everyday life.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><span style="color: black; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;">WAYS TO OVERCOME STALEMATE</span></i><span style="color: black; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;"></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="color: black; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;">The body
strike: approach the enemy through a gap in his guard. The spirit is to strike
him with your body. Turn your face a little aside and strike the enemy’s breast
with your left shoulder thrust out. Approach with the spirit of bouncing the
enemy away, striking as strongly as possible in time with your breathing.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>If you achieve this method of closing with
the enemy, you will be able to knock him ten or twenty feet away. It is
possible to strike the enemy until he is dead.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><span style="color: black; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;">comment:<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></span></i><span style="color: black; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;">The weapons on both sides are stalemated, so Musashi
changes up and hits him with his shoulder (like a football lineman). This isn’t
a polite fencing match. </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="color: black; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;">The stab
at the face: when you are in confrontation with the enemy, that your spirit is
intent on stabbing at his face, following the line of the blade with the point
of your long sword. If you are intent on stabbing at his face, his face and
body will become rideable. When the enemy becomes rideable, there are various
opportunities for winning.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><span style="color: black; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;">comment: </span></i><span style="color: black; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>“Rideable” is a good word for emotional
domination, EDOM, but more specific, giving more of the physical sense of
bodies in conflict.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><span style="color: black; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;">ONE VS. MANY</span></i><span style="color: black; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;"></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="color: black; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;">“There
are many enemies” applies when you are fighting one against many. Draw both
long sword and short sword and assume a wide-stretched left and right attitude.
The spirit is to chase the enemies around from side to side, even though they
come from all four directions. Observe their attacking order, and go to meet
first those who attack first. Sweep your eyes around broadly, carefully
examining the attacking order, and cut left and right alternately with your
swords. Waiting is bad. </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="color: black; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;">Always
quickly re-assume your attitudes to both sides, cut the enemies down as they
advance, crushing them in the direction from which they attack. Whatever you
do, you must drive the enemy together, as if tying a line of fishes, and when
they are seen to be piled up, cut them down strongly without giving them room
to move.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="color: black; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;">Think of
the enemy as your own troops. When you think in this way, you can move him at
will and be able to chase him around. </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="color: black; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;">To
mingle:<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>In battles, when the armies are
in confrontation, attack the enemy’s strong points and, when you see they are
beaten back, quickly separate and attack yet another strong point on the
periphery of his force. The spirit of this is like a winding mountain path.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="color: black; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;">“Mingling”
is the spirit of advancing and becoming engaged with the enemy, and not
withdrawing even one step.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="color: black; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;">This is
an important fighting method for one man against many. Strike down the enemies
in one quarter, or drive them back, then grasp the timing and attack further
strong points to right and left, as if on a winding mountain path. When you
know the enemies’ level, attack strongly with no trace of retreating spirit. </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><span style="color: black; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;">comment: </span></i><span style="color: black; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Individual heroics in combat, such as
Congressional Medal of Honor winners, typically involve a lone soldier who
takes the initiative when the rest of the troops are stymied by a strong enemy.
Sgt. Alvin York, in WWI in 1918, was in a platoon pinned down by German
machine-gun fire; he shot a series of machine-gunners, and all 6 Germans who
charged him with fixed bayonets. A German officer then surrendered the position
to York, who had killed 25 soldiers, captured 130 and 35 machine guns.</span><span style="color: black; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;"> Anthony
King (2013: 117-19) in his comparative research on infantry combat, notes that
individual heroic performances do not contradict the tendency of most soldiers
to hold back from aggressively firing or advancing under confrontational
tension/fear. The one is the background for the other: pervasive <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">ct/f</i><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>is what creates an opportunity for a lone individual to seize the initiative
(such as by using the weapons his companions aren’t firing) and by attacking
multiple enemies who themselves are slowed down by <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">ct/f.</i> </span>
</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><span style="color: black; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;">DEALING WITH THE ENEMY</span></i><span style="color: black; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;"></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="color: black; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;">In duels
of strategy you must know the opponent’s attitude. Attack where his spirit is
lax, throw him into confusion, irritate and terrify him. Take advantage of the
enemy’s rhythm when he is unsettled and you can win. </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="color: black; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;">Do not
let the enemy see your spirit. </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="color: black; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;">In
contests of strategy, it is bad to be led about by the enemy. You must always
be able to lead the enemy about. Obviously the enemy will also be thinking of
doing this, but he cannot forestall you if you do not allow him to come out. In
strategy, you must stop the enemy as he attempts to cut; you must push down his
thrust, and throw off his hold when he tries to grapple. This is the meaning of
“to hold down a pillow”-- not allowing the enemy’s head to rise (like lying on
a Japanese neck pillow).<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><span style="color: black; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;">comment: </span></i><span style="color: black; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;">When both sides are wise to the
other’s strategy, switch to the physical plane, don’t give him time to swing
into action.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="color: black; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;">When in
a duel you must forestall the enemy and attack when you have first recognized
his school of strategy, perceived his quality and his strong and weak points.
Attack in an unsuspected manner, knowing his metre and modulation and the
appropriate timing.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="color: black; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;">In
single combat you must put yourself in the enemy’s position. But if you think,
“Here is a master of the Way, who knows the principles of strategy”, you will
surely lose. </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><span style="color: black; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;">comment: </span></i><span style="color: black; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;">“Do not let the enemy see your
spirit.”<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Combine this principle with Dan
Chambliss [1989] “the mundanity of excellence.”</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><span style="color: black; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;">COLLAPSE</span></i><span style="color: black; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;"></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="color: black; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;">Everything
can collapse. Houses, bodies, and enemies collapse when their rhythm becomes
deranged. </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="color: black; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;">In
single combat, the enemy sometimes loses timing and collapses. If you let this
opportunity pass, he may recover and not be so negligent thereafter. Fix your
eye on the enemy’s collapse, and chase him, attacking so that you do not let
him recover. You must utterly cut the enemy down so that he does not recover
his position. </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="color: black; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;">If the
enemy is less skilful than oneself, if his rhythm is disorganized, or if he has
fallen into evasive or retreating attitudes, we must crush him straightaway,
with no concern for his presence and without allowing him space for breath. It
is essential to crush him all at once. The primary thing is not to let him
recover his position even a little.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><span style="color: black; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;">NOT RELYING ON STRENGTH</span></i><span style="color: black; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;"></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="color: black; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;">Whenever
you cross swords with an enemy, you must not think of cutting him either
strongly or weakly; just think of cutting and killing him. Do not try to cut
strongly, and do not think of cutting weakly. You should only be concerned with
killing the enemy.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="color: black; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;">If you
rely on strength, when you hit the enemy’s sword, you will inevitably hit too
hard. If you do this, your sword will be carried along as a result. </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="color: black; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;">In
large-scale strategy, if you have a strong army and are relying on strength to
win, but the enemy also has a strong army, the battle will be fierce. This is
the same for both sides. </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><span style="color: black; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;">comment: </span></i><span style="color: black; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>This is a stalemate or war of attrition, with
high casualties on both sides, for little gain. The Battle of Verdun.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="color: black; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;">The sure
Way to win is to chase the enemy around in a confusing manner, causing him to
jump aside, with your body held strongly and straight. You must chase the enemy
around and make him obey your spirit.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="color: black; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;">In order
to cut the enemy you must not make twisting or bending cuts. In my strategy, I
bear my spirit and body straight, and cause the enemy to twist and bend. The
necessary spirit is to win by attacking the enemy when his spirit is warped.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="color: black; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;">You must
force the enemy into inconvenient situations.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><span style="color: black; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;">THREE SHOUTS</span></i><span style="color: black; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;"></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="color: black; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;">There
are three shouts: before, during, and after. Shout according to the situation.
The voice is a thing of life. The voice shows energy. </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="color: black; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;">In
large-scale strategy, at the start of battle we shout as loudly as possible.
During the fight, the voice is low-pitched, shouting as we attack. After the
contest, we shout in the wake of victory.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="color: black; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;">In single
combat, we make as if to cut and shout “Ei!” at the same time to disturb the
enemy, then in the wake of our shout we cut with the long sword. </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="color: black; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;">We do
not shout simultaneously with flourishing the long sword. We shout during the
fight to get into rhythm.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="color: black; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;">We shout
after we have cut down the enemy-- this is to announce victory.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><span style="color: black; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;">comment: </span></i><span style="color: black; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Shouting is a connection between mind and
body. My karate instructor said you shout from deep in your torso to tense your
stomach muscles, so that you won’t feel getting hit.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The low-pitched shout that Musashi describes
above is probably this kind of sound. </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><span style="color: black; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;">REPETITION</span></i><span style="color: black; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;"></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="color: black; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;">It is
bad to repeat the same thing several times when fighting the enemy. There may
be no help but to do something twice, but do not try it a third time.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><span style="color: black; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;">WINNING IN DEPTH</span></i><span style="color: black; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;"></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="color: black; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;">When we
are fighting with the enemy, even when it can be seen that we can win on the
surface, if his spirit is not extinguished, he may be beaten superficially yet
undefeated in spirit deep inside. By “penetrating the depths” we can destroy
the enemy’s spirit in the depths, demoralizing him by quickly changing our
spirit. </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><span style="color: black; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;">comment: </span></i><span style="color: black; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Bobby Fischer trained for his match with Boris
Spassky, not by reviewing chess scenarios with a staff of assistants, but by training
hard at tennis, swimming, and boxing.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="color: black; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;">Penetrating
the depths means penetrating with the long sword, penetrating with the body,
and penetrating with the spirit. This cannot be understood in a generalization.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="color: black; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;">Study
strategy over the years and achieve the spirit of the warrior. Today is victory
over yourself of yesterday; tomorrow is your victory over lesser men. </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="color: black; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;">Next, in
order to beat more skilful men, train according to this book, not allowing your
heart to be swayed along a side-track.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>Even if you kill an enemy, it if is not based on what you have learned,
it is not the true Way.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="color: black; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;">[<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">end of Book of Five Rings excerpts</i>]</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><span style="color: black; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;">How applicable are Musashi’s
techniques to modern life?</span></i><span style="color: black; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;"> </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="tab-stops: 315.0pt;">
<span style="color: black; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;">In business or politics you are not trying to kill your
competitors except in a figurative sense (at least in the civilized part of the
world). Musashi says, “You must discern your enemy’s grade”, meaning that
techniques that work with an over-excited, unperceptive, or inexperienced
swordfighter will not work against an expert. In business, politics, and
sports, the aim is still to disrupt the opponent’s timing and seize the
initiative. This requires careful observation of competitors’ practices, and
above all, their frame of mind.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="color: black; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;">Purposeful
observation of what goes on around you is always valuable, even when we are not
concerned with being competitive.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="color: black; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;">WHAT IS
“SPIRIT”?</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="color: black; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;">No word
is more central in Musashi’s text than “spirit.” It has a similar range of
meanings as in English, but is much more important, both as the key to victory
in combat and for samurai life. </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="color: black; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;">The
Japanese word for “spirit” (‘kokoro’) is a Chinese-based ideograph that also
means “heart”. But it is not simply the jock cliché “you gotta have heart.”
Never-give-up can be part of it, but when Musashi writes about spirit he is
telling you how to achieve that attitude, and giving you techniques that make
it easier rather than sheer all-out effort. </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="color: black; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;">Spirit
is not a quantity, that either you have it or your don’t,<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>a lot of it or a little. Being too spirited
(in the conventional sense) is undesirable, just as is having a low spirit. </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="color: black; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;">Spirit
is contrasted with body, in expressions like “defeat the enemy with your spirit
and your body”. But body is not merely a passive instrument, and it does not
invoke the philosophical mind/body dualism. “Do not let your body affect your
spirit” implies they are distinct ‘things’, each having its own dynamism, while
they flow together in various ways.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>Which ways are best is what Musashi writes about. </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="color: black; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;">Spirit
is inside, metaphorically deep, as when Musashi warns about defeating an enemy
superficially but not in spirit. </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="color: black; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;">Spirit
is not mind per se, but it is part of mind-- it infuses your mind. Spirit can
refer to your intention or goal that pervades what you are doing. (E.g. not
just trying to touch swords or touch the enemy’s body, but the intention to cut
him the from the moment you grip your sword.) If this is a state of mind, it
goes right into your body-in-action. It is not a real intention in the sense
Musashi means if it is only a mental plan. </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="color: black; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;">The are
many varieties of spirit. Musashi mentions: </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="color: black; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;">a calm
spirit;</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="color: black; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;">a steady
spirit;</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="color: black; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;">a
resolved spirit;</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="color: black; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;">a spirit
of attacking unrelentingly;</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="color: black; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;">driving
multiple enemies in the spirit of a winding mountain path;</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="color: black; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;">and
negative kinds of spirit:</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="color: black; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;">a
bewildered spirit;</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="color: black; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;">a
retreating spirit;</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="color: black; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;">a fast
busy spirit, hurrying recklessly;</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="color: black; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;">a weak
spirit, a low spirit (with rhythm unsettled-- in contrast to the settled spirit
of the zen samurai)</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="color: black; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;">Musashi
says you must discern your enemy’s spirit, and act accordingly. You discern not
just from physical manifestations-- “trivial movements of the enemy’s sword”
are distractions-- but his bodily movements are a clue to what is inside. Thus
especially with high-quality opponents, one must hide one’s spirit. </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="color: black; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;">Spirit
is intention in the sense of a plan of action, except it is more fluid--
flowing through your body and the situation created by contact-in-motion with
your enemy. Musashi’s techniques include the spirit of getting control of your
enemy’s sword; the spirit of stickiness; the spirit of breaking an impasse by
hitting your opponent with your shoulder in the spirit of bouncing him
backwards. </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="color: black; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;">Musashi
wrote: “When you are at a standstill with both sides having the same spirit,
you must break off that spirit and launch a fresh spirit-- a new approach with
a new rhythm. If you are muddled together scrapping over small things, flip
from the small spirit to the large spirit.” Above all, the samurai’s
all-pervasive aim is to make the enemy obey your spirit-- whatever your spirit
is at that time.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="color: black; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;">And what
if there is no enemy? Can a samurai live at peace? </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="color: black; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;">The most
pervasive samurai spirit should be lived in everyday life: calm but determined.
</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><span style="color: black;">References</span></i><span style="color: black;"></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="color: black;">Miyamoto Musaki, 1645 (1974). <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">A Book of Five Rings.</i></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="color: black;">“Miyamoto Musaki.” An unusually
high-quality Wikipedia article.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="color: black;">Eiko Ikegami. 1995. <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">The Taming of the Samurai.</i> Harvard Univ.
Press.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="color: black;">Randall Collins. 2008. <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Violence: A Micro-Sociological Theory.</i></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="color: black;">Anthony King. 2013.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">The
Combat Soldier.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></i>Oxford Univ. Press.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="color: black;">Bobby Fischer. 1966. <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Bobby Fischer Teaches Chess.</i></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="color: black;">Daniel Chambliss. 1989. “The
Mundanity of Excellence.” <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Sociological
Theory.</i></span></div>
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</style>Unknownnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1005085971596877601.post-9956956474864069912018-12-05T08:50:00.002-08:002019-01-07T10:43:23.756-08:00WHAT MADE THE GREATEST COACH IN ANY SPORT?<style>
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<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="color: black; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;">John
Wooden was probably the greatest coach in any sport. How did he do it? Better
said, what conditions formed a person like him, and what made the
record-setting teams he coached?<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>Are his methods a formula for success in any realm, or any sport? </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="color: black; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;">Wooden
said winning is a byproduct of something else. That is probably true, but
records of winning in competition give an easy and objective way to measure
greatness as a coach. Wooden’s records in basketball at UCLA are at the best in
any team sport: 10 NCAA national championships (in a peak period of 12 years);
an 88 game winning streak covering almost 3 years; a 38 game winning streak in
NCAA tournaments against the highest competition. Comparisons with other
coaches and other sports are complicated:<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>winning streaks, frequency of championships, winning percentages, all
need to be combined, taking into account differences in level of competition.
Top coaches are those who win consistently, against whoever, and are at their
best in big games against the strongest opponents. (See <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Appendix</i> for Wooden’s record compared to other big winners.)</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><span style="color: black; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;">Wooden’s coaching methods</span></i><span style="color: black; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;"></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="color: black; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;">Bill
Walton described team practices at UCLA as “non-stop action and absolutely
electric, super-charged, on edge, crisp, and incredibly demanding, with Coach
Wooden pacing up and down the sideline like a caged tiger, barking out
instructions, positive reinforcement and appropriate maxims: ‘Be quick, but
don’t hurry’... ‘Discipline yourself and others won’t need to.’</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="color: black; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;">“He
constantly moved us into and out of minutely drilled details, scrimmages, and
patterns while exhorting us to ‘Move... quickly... hurry up!’ ... In fact,
games seemed like they happened in a lower gear because of the pace at which we
practiced. We’d run a play perfectly in scrimmage and Coach would say, ‘OK,
fine. Now re-set. Do it again, faster.’ We’d do it again. Faster. And again.
Faster. And again. “I’d often think during UCLA games, ‘Why is this taking so
long? because we had done everything that happened during a game thousands of
times at a faster pace in practice.’</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="color: black; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;">“When
four guys touched the ball in two seconds and the fifth guy hit a lay-up, man,
what a feeling! When things really clicked, the joy of playing was reflected by
the joy on (Wooden’s) face. He created an environment where you expected to be
your best and outscore the opponent; where capturing a championship and going
undefeated was part of the normal course of events.” [Wooden and Jamison,
viii-ix] </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="color: black; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;">Practice
was more central than the game. After Wooden retired, when people would ask him
what he missed, he said “I miss the practices.” [108]</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="color: black; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;">Wooden’s
formula was: don’t think about winning; strive for the best performance you can
produce by maximal effort in practice. </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="color: black; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;">This
meant focusing on the tiniest details that would give you an advantage. When
players first arrived at UCLA, weeks before practice began, Wooden would
assemble them and demonstrate how to put on your socks so as to avoid
wrinkles-- the aim being to prevent blisters. It was a group ritual: Wooden
would demonstrate putting on his socks, then have every player demonstrate it
to him. Same with how to tie the laces and measuring to get exactly the right
size basketball shoes. [60] Wooden’s writing rarely goes into the details of
more substantive skills and team drills, probably thinking there was no need to
give this away, and anyway it had to be done physically at the proper rhythm. *
</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="color: black; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;">*
Wacquant [2004] makes a similar point about practicing in a boxing gym:
everything could be done alone at home except sparring, but doing
stomach-building sit-ups, skipping rope, punching the light and heavy bags was
more motivating when it was done together in the gym in 3-minute rounds
punctuated by the trainer ringing a bell.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><span style="color: black; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;">Team above star.</span></i><span style="color: black; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Not only does team play come first. Stars who show off or
“get too fancy” are distractions from team coordination and maximal effort on
everyone’s part. Wooden comments that Lew Alcindor [Kareem Abdul-Jabbar] could
have set college scoring records (as he did in the pros), but he understood
that it would have reduced team play. Disciplining newly arriving stars was
crucial, and Wooden said that the coach’s best ally in this respect was the
bench: benching a star during practice or even a game is the best way to get
the point across, and the other players see it and play harder. [128]</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="color: black; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;">Wooden’s
team-above-star method ran directly against the main pathway by which young
basketball players first make their reputation. Scott Brooks [2009] has shown
in analyzing teen basketball leagues in Philadelphia-- the breeding grounds for
players recruited by colleges all over the country-- a young player could only
make a reputation by scoring a lot of points, and this meant getting the ball
as often as possible. It was a cumulative spiral, both up and down: if a player
scored a lot, he could demand the ball more; if he couldn’t get the spiral
going, he wouldn’t have the opportunity to show his skills. Wooden thus had to
break the prevailing style of play, especially as basketball became
desegregated in the 1960s and the sport jumped in popularity. Probably he had
an advantage in that his earlier teams did not emphasize shooters, big men, or
fancy dribblers, but speed and passing. His signature player, Bill Walton, was
described (when he won a championship in the pro ranks) as the greatest passing
quarterback in the history of the NBA.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="color: black; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;">Mistakes
happen. This is inevitable. Wooden’s point is not to blame yourself, or blame
others, but to analyze the situation, locate the mistake that is under your own
control, and fix it. This means not getting emotional when bad things happen.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="color: black; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;">Controlling
emotions was a key to Wooden’s methods. He did not believe is giving pep-talks,
speeches to stir up emotion before big games. “If you need emotionalism to make
you perform better, sooner or later you’ll be vulnerable, an emotional wreck,
and unable to function to your level of ability.” Hatred and anger motivate only
briefly. They aren’t lasting and won’t get you through the ups and downs of a
game. “Mistakes occur when your thinking is tainted by excessive emotion... To
perform near your level of competency your mind must be clear and free of
excessive emotion.” [124-5] Top performance is being cool and professional.
Micro-sociologically, this is high EE -- emotional energy as confidence and
enthusiasm, the very words that Wooden uses. Not that it is emotionless-- Bill
Walton speaks of the joyful feeling when a high-speed coordinated play
involving the entire team clicks. This is a non-disruptive emotion, in the
rhythm, not breaking it.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="color: black; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;">The
coach’s job includes criticism, pointing out mistakes not as punishment by to
correct them and get better results. “The only goal of criticism or discipline
is improvement.” Above all, hard criticism in public is to be avoided, since it
embarrasses and antagonizes players. Wooden’s strongest punishment was to take
away the privilege of participating in a UCLA team practice. “If they weren’t
working hard in practice I would say, ‘Well, fellows, let’s call it off for
today. We’re just not with it.’ The vast majority of the time the players would
immediately say, ‘Coach, give us another chance. We’ll get going.’” [118-19]</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="color: black; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;">Playing
under pressure against top competition, obviously, is the mark of a
championship team. For Wooden, this was a by-product of long experience in his
methods of practice. He also believed the most difficult experience would
promote even higher effort--- not just as individuals or in bodily endurance
but in the team rhythm. The apex was perhaps in the 1973 championship game when
UCLA stretched its undefeated streak to 75 games and won the NCAA for the 7th
year in a<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>row; Bill Walton made 21
of 22 field goal attempts. </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="color: black; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;">Adversity
of all kinds are to be taken as opportunities. After the 1966-67 season, the
NCAA banned the dunk shot, in part because of 7 ft. 2 inch Lew Alcindor. Wooden
encouraged him to get a new shot; it became his trademark skyhook, an
unstoppable shot by a big man. </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="color: black; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;">Wooden
said that he scouted opponents less than other coaches. He wanted the focus to
be on his own team, not on the other. What if they changed unexpectedly? He
aimed at preparing for any eventuality, and believed that his team’s high-speed
style was capable of attacking any defense. Tricks of psychological warfare
weren’t worthwhile. Nevertheless Wooden had one that he always used: don’t be
the first team to call a time-out. Let the other team admit they’re tired. His
high-speed practices ensured his players would be in superior condition.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="color: black; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;">Wooden
rated himself an average coach tactically; he said his advantage was in
analyzing his players, and the fact that he enjoyed hard work. I would add: his
hard work was producing intensely focused, high-speed, rhythmically entraining
team practices: the definition of a successful Interaction Ritual. The hard
work of an intense IR pays off in high EE.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Wooden certainly had it; and his players got it too.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><span style="color: black; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;">Why Wooden?</span></i><span style="color: black; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;"></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="color: black; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;">Sociologically,
our aim is not to make a hero or a genius out of Wooden, but to analyze how
someone like this would appear when and where he did. John Wooden was born in
1910 in a small town in Indiana. He grew up in the 1920s in a basketball-crazed
state, where high school games would attract more spectators than the entire
local population. As a boy, Wooden idolized the famed state champion team, and
became a star basketball player in high school and college. He was not tall or
muscular (5 ft. 10 inches), but quick and fast, and he worked hard conditioning
himself to become even better in the areas where he had an advantage. His coach
at Purdue, where he was a three-year All American, said he was the
best-conditioned athlete he had seen in any sport. He became famous for diving
for loose balls on hardwood floors, hustling all the time and jumping back up
like a rubber ball whenever he was knocked down by bigger players. In his final
year at Purdue, he was named Player of the Year in a national poll. </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="color: black; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;">Wooden’s
technique as a coach was to make players as much like himself as possible.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="color: black; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;">He early
became accustomed to team success. His high school team won the Indiana
championship in 1927 and lost the final game in 1928 by a last minute shot at
the buzzer. At Purdue, his 1932 team was voted national champion (NCAA
tournaments did not exist until 1941). </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="color: black; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;">Nevertheless,
top success as a coach took considerable time. When Wooden won his first NCAA
championship at UCLA in 1964, he was 54 years old; his last came in 1975, when
he was 65. After graduating from college in 1932, he played in a local professional
league for 6 years, simultaneously teaching high school English and coaching
the basketball team. Not counting 3 years in the army in WWII, Wooden coached
high school for 11 years, winning state championships and compiling a record of
218-42 (winning 84%). At age 36, he became the basketball coach at Indiana
State Teachers College (now Indiana State University), as well as Athletic
Director, where he won the state championship both years he was there. In 1948
(now age 38) he was hired to coach UCLA, at the time a mediocre team. He turned
the team around immediately and began a string of winning seasons, but it was
16 years before UCLA’s first NCAA championship. By 1961-2 and 62-3, his teams
were winning the Pacific Coast Conference, and finished 4th nationally both
years. Apparently they were on the brink of dominance.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="color: black; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;">Why did
it take so long? Wooden taught the same methods throughout his years at UCLA,
and declared that he put out the same amount of effort. The spiral of success
and reputation was moving in his favor; Wooden was attracting better players
nationally.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>A second factor was
the opening at just this time of the era of black basketball players. In the
1964 championship game, UCLA beat Duke, even though they had two players near 7
ft. and Wooden had no-one taller than 6 ft. 5. But Duke was still in the era of
segregation, and UCLA’s integrated team of fast ball-handlers beat the big slow
white guys. Soon after, Lew Alcindor arrived from the Bronx. (Freshmen were not
allowed to play varsity, so Alcindor did not join the mix until the 1966-67
season.) Wooden had been a pioneer of supporting black players since his
coaching days at Indiana State, where he refused a post-season invitation in
1947 because the then-ruling National Association of Intercollegiate Basketball
maintained segregation to mollify its southern members. Next year, when
Wooden’s team again won the Indiana championship, the NAIB reversed its ban on
black players, and Wooden’s player Clarence Walker became the first black to
play in a post-season tournament. Wooden’s team reached the final but lost--
the only championship game he would ever lose.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="color: black; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;">After
1965, everything was rolling in the positive spiral of feedback and social
momentum, setting the stage for the unmatched championship streak. </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="color: black; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;">Wooden
says he decided to retire, suddenly after a Final Four victory in 1975, putting
UCLA in the championship game for the 10th time. He recalled walking from the
floor, thinking of the crowd of reporters he would have to face with the same,
boring questions. He was 65; he had been playing and coaching at high intensity
for 50 years. He had broken every record and then broken them repeatedly. Is
there a turning-point from the peak of EE? His team had been on a plateau for
the last several years. Or was it that Wooden finally decided that the
victory-crazed fans and reporters never would understand what he was
about?<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="color: black; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;">He did
not disappear from the public eye, but turned to publicizing his methods of
success, as universally applicable, not just to sports but to business,
professions, life in general. </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><span style="color: black; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;">Do the same methods succeed
elsewhere?</span></i><span style="color: black; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;"></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="color: black; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;">Wooden’s
methods (team not star, attention to details, high-energy practices,
professionalism not emotion, maximal speed in rhythm) worked extremely well in
basketball. But not all great basketball teams use them; in other sports, some
champions do, some don’t. Further afield, do these principles succeed in other
career fields, in business and politics, art and intellectual life?</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="color: black; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;">Basketball
and other team sports have a similar range of coaching styles. Some successful
coaches were dictatorial, including Vince Lombardi in the NFL and Bobby Knight
in college basketball, known for win-at-any-cost (and the latter) for angry
tirades against players and referees. The best winning record among college
football coaches (88%) was Knute Rockne at Notre Dame in the 1920s, and he was
famed for his inspirational oratory at halftime. This was probably a carryover
from the public oratory ubiquitous throughout the 19th century, at a time when
college football became <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">the</i> big
public entertainment. As time went on, the analytical approach promoted by
Wooden tended to supplant or at least complement emotional oratory. But we lack
good comparative study on different coaching methods vis-à-vis their results in
winning records. </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="color: black; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;">Wooden’s
unconcern with scouting opponents has certainly not carried the day. His
rationale of concentrating on what we do well and not making the enemy the
prime focus was a way of living inside the ritual zone-- better yet the center
of a whirlwind-- that he created in intense practices. But scouting became a
major part of team organization, above all once football coaches (led by pro
coach Sid Gilman in the 1960s) began using newsreel film to analyze opponents.
This has expanded into a huge industry with TV broadcast tapes and every team’s
own digital cameras and a large staff to break out the patterns. Devising
strategies has tended to supplant spontaneous application of well-drilled
skills; the use of statistical analysis in baseball strategy in the 2010s is
blamed for making games duller. Does Wooden’s caveat still apply? -- getting
caught up in focusing on your enemy can backfire. Probably.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="color: black; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;">Focus on
crucial details that make up athletic skill is unquestionably a key to success.
Was Wooden overcontrolling in this respect? Not only did he have his players
concentrate on details, he was obsessed with them. Wooden and his assistants
spent more time each morning planning the afternoon practice than the 2 hours
or less actually spent on the court. They made detailed lists, down to the
minute for time to be spent on each drill, even specifying how many basketballs
should be placed where for what drill. Wooden also kept detailed records after
practice of how it went, so he could chart individual players' progress and
focus on individualized drills as needed. [133] The value of all of this
detail-compiling would have to be settled by comparisons; probably it was
Wooden’s way of keeping himself running at full bore at all times, when he
wasn’t in the buzz of directing practices.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="color: black; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;">In
individual sports, the role of the coach declines or at least becomes less
prominent. The most successful athletes in areas like tennis and swimming are
famed for their own self-discipline. Bill Tilden, who dominated men’s tennis
during the 1920s (ranked number one player in the US 11 years in a row, 8 years
as world champion), wrote about his own methods: the keys were to observe
carefully, to anticipate the opponent’s moves and the flight of the ball, and
to establish emotional domination. He would watch an opponent warming up,
looking for his favorite and least-favorite shots; then he would attack his
weaknesses; occasionally when playing an especially strong opponent, he would attack
his strengths to deflate his confidence. Tilden carefully observed the angle of
the racket so that he could tell which way the ball was going even before it
was hit; and he moved immediately to the spot, not where the ball would bounce,
but where he could hit it with his own body in prepared position. The focus on
detail fits Wooden’s methods, although Tilden was more focused on the opponent -- probably inevitably in the back-and-forth rhythm of tennis. Tilden commented that luck plays
less role in tennis than in any other sport, so skill wins out consistently.
But it was skill, not brute force: he disparaged the hard-hitting serves of the
younger players that he called “the California game,” and was consistently able
to beat them. All this resembles Wooden. So was his central maxim,
concentrating one’s attention during play: “The man who keeps his mind fixed on
his match at all times puts a tremendous pressure on his opponent.” [Tilden,
13] Winning against equally concentrated opponents is a battle of wills-- a
battle of self-discipline as Wooden would describe it.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="color: black; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;">Dan
Chambliss [1989] developed a theory of winning and losing based on studying
swimmers at different levels of competition, from local club up to the Olympic
team. Winners are those who perfected the details that go into swimming faster
(exact hand angles, timing of turns on the wall) an ensemble of techniques that
add up little advantages into superior speed. Chambliss noted that winning swimmers
do not practice longer hours or put in more effort than their also-ran
competitors. It is not that they practice more; they practice better. And they
enjoy their practice, since it gives them a sense of being in rhythm with
oneself, a zone where effort is eclipsed by smoothness and purpose. Wooden
would agree: feel yourself performing your best skills, and winning comes as a
by-product. </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="color: black; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;">Chambliss
denied that the winning difference is just innate bodily strength or muscle
quickness; the same swimmer could make a quantitative leap in competitive
level, once he or she acquired the ensemble of skills and the mind-set to use
them. * <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Opponents think the
habitual winner has something special, which they can’t define in physical
terms; hence they tend to put the winner into a higher realm of existence. They
think that the top rank must be something alien to their own experience, and
thereby put themselves in an inferiority zone of lesser confidence. But there
is nothing mysterious about winning-- in sports or anything else, Chambliss
argues; writer’s block is a version of psyching oneself out by comparing
oneself with the company of unreachable great writers. Excellence is the
ability to maintain a normal, habituated attitude to being in the inner circle,
just performing one’s detailed techniques. Thus Chambliss’s title: “The
Mundanity of Excellence.” </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="color: black; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;">* This
happened to Tilden. He was interested in tennis since age 6, but for a long
time was a klutzy player despite hanging out at a tennis club near his home. By
the time he was 26 -- following 20 years of sharpening his observations of what
makes good tennis -- he became unbeatable.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="color: black; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;">With
team sports, we can make comparison between the success of a coach like Wooden
and his successors. After Wooden retired, UCLA remained a good team but no
longer a dominant one. And this was so even though UCLA was coached by Wooden’s
former assistants and players. Presumably they followed the same methods of
practice and so forth. This would appear to undercut the importance of the
methods per se; Wooden himself must have added an extra something to them--
just more calm? more professional balance, combined with the right amount of
detached intensity? But there are other reasons why a coach’s winning methods
do not guarantee unending success. For one thing, his assistants become coaches
elsewhere, propagating the techniques and raising the level of competition.
This happens to all successful coaches, in all sports. Bill Walsh at the San
Francisco 49ers taught a dozen assistants who spread the West Coast Offense
throughout the NFL; eventually assistants of former assistants made up a
network of almost the entire league. When a field of competitive method becomes
saturated in this way, there are moves to break the mold by starting some new
style of coaching.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><span style="color: black; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;">Wooden’s methods outside sports</span></i><span style="color: black; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;"></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="color: black; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;">The
closest analogy to team sports is war. William James said that we needed “a
moral equivalent of war” -- i.e. a way to get the teamwork and group solidarity
of wartime, without the casualties. When he wrote this, football was just
beginning to become a popular college sport, and it created for its fans the
tribal enthusiasm of war, with a better chance of joys and less devastating
sorrows. </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="color: black; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;">But the
military art, for professionals, has many varieties of leadership. Taking the
battlefield commander as the coach, do Wooden’s methods and maxims apply? One
can find examples to fit, but we have no systematic comparisons. Some generals
were famed for their oratory (Napoleon, Caesar); many made themselves
deliberately into hero-figures with their own totemic emblems (Montgomery’s
beret, Patton’s pearl-handled pistols, MacArthur’s corncob pipe, Eisenhower's
jacket). Some led from the front, both as point man in the charge (Alexander
the Great), or probing a high-speed blitzkrieg front (Rommel). Some were stern
and dictatorial (Patton, Stonewall Jackson); some beloved by their troops
(Robert E. Lee); some were just methodical and unflappable (Grant). There is no
clear record of which styles did best; the question is confounded by historical
changes in the size of armies and the technologies of war. Focusing on
anticipating the enemy’s plans sometimes brings success, but also can lead to
conservatism and loss of momentum, as Wooden warned (France at the Maginot
Line). The tendency throughout the 20th century was to emphasize planning and
logistics -- crucial for moving huge armies with many kinds of equipment; and
in the 21st century huge staffs surround generals mapping out the sequence of
projected choice points as a battle unfolds. The less resource-rich side reacts
by avoiding settled battle lines and relying on tactics of guerrilla warfare --
a style which tends to promote charismatic leaders, whose personal reputation
is a key to recruiting followers. On the whole, Wooden’s attention to detail
holds true; but the other elements of his leadership style have no clear
precedence.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="color: black; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;">The
weakness of the war/sports analogy is that games are fundamentally different
from real life.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Games are
scheduled: we know in advance when and where they will take place. They have
time limits; and referees to enforce rules and assess penalties. (In real war,
the referees materialize after one side has decisively won, whereby they hold
war crimes trials for the losers.) Above all, real life calls no time-outs;
when military momentum flows and the more coherent war-organization has the
other scattered and demoralized, wars are won by not letting the other side
catch their breath. Schedules and time limits are exactly what are missing in
war; it is sudden switches in time and place that are the art of military
maneuver. War may resemble a scheduled game if there are fixed fronts, but this
is the formula for unheroic carnage, war by attrition won by the side with the
bigger battalions and industrial capacity to wear the other down. Evenly
matched opponents in war resemble finalists in a championship tournament, but
the result is not a good game but a disgusting one.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="color: black; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;">At the
core of Wooden’s methods is the importance of<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>practices. And this fits sports in general, where there is
far more practice time than game time. But this is another key feature of
sports that does not fit most of real life. Yes, peace-time militaries spend
much of their time drilling: marching around (a ritual irrelevant to modern
battle), practicing firing weapons, war-games. But soldiers have found no
substitute for the emotional atmosphere of war; and trained troops only acquire
battle skills after a period in combat (if they do at all). It is true that
set-piece battles are planned, in the Iraq wars as in past centuries; but this
is generally a luxury of the resource-powerful side, who can wait until they
are ready to launch an attack. On the macro-strategic level, planning is mostly
table-top models (or today, computer simulations), since moving the full number
of troops and weapons around a modern battlefield is far too large to be
practical, and the experience is mainly worthwhile for the higher officers.
Nevertheless they may find something left out of the plan-- the occupation of
Iraq in 2003 was waylaid by unexpected mass looting of government
installations, and by the fading away, not the surrender, of the defeated army
with their weapons. Wooden would consider this an instance of over-relying on
plans. </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><span style="color: black; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;">Business</span></i><span style="color: black; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;"> also lacks practices. Techniques
exist for how to manage, and workers sometimes undergo training for a job; but
it lacks the rhythm of sports-- intense practices with the coach pacing the
sidelines, leading up to a short period of the game itself. Job-training
programs are mostly failures; too remote from the cutting edge of work, too
flat an atmosphere to have the skill-honing and motivational effects Wooden
prized. Contemporary business corporations like to flaunt morale-building
spaces and amenities for their workers; but these are chiefly a vacation from
work, not the intense preparation of UCLA basketball.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>In politics-- another area for which sports analogies are
sometime touted-- a certain type of practicing for “the event” is now popular.
Chiefly this takes the form of privately coaching a political candidate how to
make speeches (complete with hand gestures and facial expressions) before the
public and the press. But as the 2016 presidential campaign illustrates,
politicians who need coaching tend to come across as artificial, and this hurts
their impressiveness vis-à-vis candidates who seem more natural. Aside from
this frontstage manipulation, one does not hear of practicing for the main work
of politicians in office, which consists above all in negotiating coalitions.
Despite superficial analogies (“Just win, baby!”) politics is not at all like
sports.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="color: black; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;">Business
is another area where analogies to winning in sports and in war are popular.
Business schools and journalism are full of advice and theory of leadership.
The preferred leadership styles change. In the era of the high-tech giants,
charismatic leaders are in demand. Their charisma is orchestrated in product
launches and other appeals to consumers-- a style set by Steve Jobs and
emulated by Bezos, Ballmer, Musk, and others. The hope is that their charisma
carries over to their cutting-edge products, or vice versa. But out-front
charisma is not the only successful style. French sociologist Michel Villette
shows that most of the great entrepreneurial fortunes made since the 1950s were
created by ruthless competitors, stealing techniques and turf from oblivious or
momentarily troubled rivals, and brazening out hardball lawsuits. Another
style, far from supporting and uplifting one’s employees, is to set them
against each other and cut the work force whenever their jobs can be absorbed
by others, or by computers. A good deal of the rhetoric today about effectively
managed corporations emphasizes good human relations, but this may be temporary
in a time of expansion and relative labor shortage. One can only conclude that
Wooden’s principles are not generally followed in the business realm, except
for some of his more platitudinous maxims.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><span style="color: black; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;">Bottom line</span></i><span style="color: black; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;"></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="color: black; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;">How does
Wooden’s list hold up? </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><span style="color: black; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;">High energy practices, building
up maximal speed and coordinated rhythm</span></i><span style="color: black; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;">.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>This is
chiefly specific to sports.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><span style="color: black; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;">Team not star.</span></i><span style="color: black; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>On the other side is the popularity of charismatic leaders,
in war, business, and politics. If they are too charismatic, they easily slide
over into authoritarian despots. Team not star is good advice, but deviating
from it is hard to avoid.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>Outsiders (fans, investors, customers) tend to simplify everything down
to an emblem. Audiences create the star.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><span style="color: black; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;">Focus on perfecting your own
action skills, not on scouting out the enemy</span></i><span style="color: black; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;">. Even in sports, the shift has been entirely in the other
direction. This is equally the case in business and the military.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><span style="color: black; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;">Attention to the details that
make up skill.</span></i><span style="color: black; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>It is this “mundanity of excellence,”
as well as “total concentration on the match” that divides insiders from
outsiders.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Even charismatic
leadership is a skill, and it involves learning not only oratory (although not
necessarily) but being a careful observer of one’s audiences.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Emotional domination in conflictual
situations is based especially upon careful observation of one’s opponent. This
does not mean, scouting out the opposition in advance so that you follow a
planned strategy, but quick, on-the-spot observation of emotional cues, finding
the openings when domination can be achieved by setting the rhythm for the
other to follow.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><span style="color: black; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;">Cool professionalism rather than
emotionalism.</span></i><span style="color: black; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;">
This is probably always valuable. How does it measure up in success compared
with charismatic or cut-throat styles? A good sociologist could find this out. </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><span style="color: black; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;">Appendix</span></i><span style="color: black; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;">: <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Highest-winning coaches and teams</i></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="color: black; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;">The
highest winning percentage for NFL coaches is .759 (John Madden with the
Oakland Raiders 1969-78). But Madden won only 1 championship in 9 years
(11%).<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Best for both winning rate
and<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>championships was .730 for
Vince Lombardi (Green Bay Packers, 1959-69), with 5 championships in 10 years
(50%). </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="color: black; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;">Highest
for college football coaches were .888 for Knute Rockne (Notre Dame, 1918-30);
and Frank Leahy .864 (Notre Dame 1939-53). No national championship existed at
that time.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="color: black; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;">Highest
for NBA coaches is .705 for Phil Jackson, winning 11 championships (Chicago
Bulls<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>1991-3, 1996-8, L.A. Lakers
2000-2, 2009-10).<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Billy Cunningham
is next at .698 (Philadelphia 76ers), but won only 1 championship. Red Auerbach
had a .662 winning rate, and won 9 championships with the Boston Celtics,
including 8 in a row 1959-66. No one else has more than 4 NBA championships.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="color: black; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;">For
college coaches, John Wooden’s lifetime winning ratio (.804) is 5th on the list.
Of those above him, the top is .833; these were coaches in minor programs
except Adolf Rupp (Kentucky) at .822 with 4 NCAA championships. Wooden won the
most championships (10), followed by Mike Krzyzewski<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>(Duke) at 5 (winning percentage .765). </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="color: black; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;">Top
coaches in women’s college basketball exceed the men’s coaches. Geno Auriemma
has a .884 lifetime winning average at University of Connecticut, where he won
11 national championships between 1995 and 2016, including 4 in a row. Pat
Summitt at University of Tennessee won .841 of her games, and 8 championships
between 1987 and 2008, including 3 in a row. Summitt’s style differed strongly
from Wooden’s, yelling at players, giving them icy stares for poor play, and
generally considered one of the toughest coaches anywhere. </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="color: black; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;">In Major
League Baseball, top lifetime winning average was .615 by Joe McCarthy (Chicago
Cubs 1926-30, New York Yankees 1931-46, Boston Red Sox 1948-50). He won 7 World
Series, all with the Yankees, including 4 in a<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>row. Tied for World Series was Casey Stengel with 7 (all
with the Yankees during 1949-60, including a 5-year victory string 1949-53; he
previously coached the Brooklyn Dodgers and the Boston Braves, and subsequently
the New York Mets). Stengel’s lifetime percentage was far down the list at .508
-- showing that quality of players makes a difference too. McCarthy was
regarded as a passive, hands-off manager, letting his stars do their thing. (No
John Woodens here.)</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="color: black; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;">Winning
streaks differ considerably by sport. Tops are 111 straight games won by
Auriemma at UConn 2014-17 in women’s basketball; and 88 by Wooden at UCLA in
men’s basketball. In the NBA, the longest streak was 33 games by the Lakers in
1971-2. </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="color: black; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;">Longest
winning streak in college football was 47 games, by Oklahoma in 1953-57,
coached by Bud Wilkinson (winning percentage of .826, from 1947-63). In the
NFL, the longest streak was 22 games, by the New England Patriots 2003-4. This
seems around a natural ceiling; 8 NFL teams have had streaks of 18 or 19 games.
The quality of the league is inversely related to the longest winning streak:
longest in high school football (151 games by De La Salle H.S. in Concord, CA),
47 in college, 22 in the NFL.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="color: black; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;">In
baseball, the longest winning streak is 22 games (2017 Cleveland Indians). In the
National Hockey League, the longest streak is 17. </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="color: black; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;">Putting
together team streaks with lifetime coaching winning percentage and number of
championships per years coached, these coaches stand out: </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="color: black; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;">Geno
Auriemma, UConn women’s basketball, .884, 111 game streak (top), 11
championships in 23 years (48%)</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="color: black; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;">John
Wooden .804, 88 game streak (top), 10 championships in 29 years (33%) </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="color: black; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;">Phil
Jackson, Bulls and Lakers, .705 (top for NBA), 33 game streak (top), 11
championships in 20 years (55%). </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="color: black; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;">Red
Auerbach, Celtics,<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>.662, 9
championships in 17 years (53%)</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="color: black; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;">Pat
Summitt, UTenn women, .841, 8 championships in 38 years (21%).</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="color: black; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;">Vince
Lombardi, Green Bay Packers,<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>.730,
5 championships in 10 years (50%)</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="color: black; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;">Bud
Wilkinson, Oklahoma football, .826, 47 game streak (top)</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="color: black; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;">Bill Belichek,
Patriots .681, 22 game streak (top), won 5 Superbowls in 28 years (18%) </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="color: black; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;">Paul
Brown, Cleveland Browns 1946-75, .672, won 7 championships in 29 years (24%)</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="color: black; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;">Joe
McCarthy, Cubs/Yankees/Red Sox, .615 (top for baseball), 7 championships in 23
years (30%)</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="color: black; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;">There
are others who were high in one area but not in others:</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="color: black; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;">George
Halas, Chicago Bears 1920-67, .667; won 6 championships over 47 years, for an
average of 13%. </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="color: black; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;">George
Allen 1966-77, .712 (3rd highest in NFL history), but zero championships in 11
years.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="color: black; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;">There is
no valid way of mechanically combining winning percentage, championships per
year, and unbeaten streaks, to arrive at a mathematically ideal ranking of the
most successful coaches. It could easily be devised, but the weights are
subjective and arbitrary (as in college rankings, or corporate rating systems).
Some coaches are better at one thing or another. It is what it is.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="color: black; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;">What
should be done now is classify coaches at all levels of success by their
coaching styles, the only valid test of whether any particular method makes a
difference. </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><span style="color: black; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;">References</span></i><span style="color: black; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;"></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="color: black; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;">John
Wooden and Steve Jamison. 1997. <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Wooden. A
Lifetime of Observations and Reflections on and off the Court. </i></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="color: black; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;">Scott N.
Brooks. 2009.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Black Men Can't Shoot.</i><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>Univ. of Chicago Press.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="color: black; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;">Loic Wacquant.
</span><span style="color: black; font-family: "times"; mso-fareast-font-family: Times;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>2004.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Body and Soul.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Notes of an Apprentice Boxer. </i><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Oxford Univ. Press. </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="color: black;">Daniel F. Chambliss, 1989.
"The Mundanity of Excellence." <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Sociological
Theory</i> 7: 70-86</span><span style="color: black; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;"></span></div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none; text-autospace: none;">
<span style="color: black; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;">Randall
Collins and Maren McConnell. 2016. </span><span lang="EN-GB" style="color: black; mso-ansi-language: EN-GB; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Napoleon Never
Slept: How Great Leaders Leverage Social Energy. </i>Published as an E-book by
Maren Ink. </span><i><span style="color: black; mso-bidi-font-family: TimesNewRomanPS-ItalicMT; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;"></span></i></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<a href="http://maren.ink/"><span style="color: blue; mso-bidi-font-family: TimesNewRomanPS-ItalicMT; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;">http://maren.ink</span></a><span style="color: black; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;"></span></div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="color: black; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;">William
T. Tilden.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>1950.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">How
to Play Better Tennis. A Complete Guide to Technique and Tactics.</i></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="color: black; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;">Allen M.
Hornblum.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>2017.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">American
Colossus. Big Bill Tilden and the Creation of Modern Tennis.</i></span></div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="color: black;"><span style="color: black; text-decoration: none;">Michel Villette</span>
and Catherine Vuillermot. 2009. <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><span style="color: black; text-decoration: none;">From Predators to
Icons: Exposing the Myth of the Business Hero</span></i>. Cornell
University Press. </span><span style="color: black; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;"></span></div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="color: black; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;">Wikipedia
articles: <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">John Wooden; </i>other coaches.</span></div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="color: black; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;">On-line
records of coach and team winning percentages, championships, and streaks in
basketball, football, and baseball.</span><span style="color: black;"></span></div>
Unknownnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1005085971596877601.post-86733354066962721342018-07-19T09:08:00.002-07:002018-08-10T20:40:53.588-07:00EDUCATIONAL CREDENTIAL INFLATION: AN INTERVIEW WITH RANDALL COLLINS <div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
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<span style="font-family: "times new roman"; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial; mso-bidi-font-size: 10.0pt; mso-fareast-language: ZH-CN;">The following questions
were posed by a Chinese on-line newspaper, The Paper [https://www.thepaper.cn]:</span></div>
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<a href="https://www.blogger.com/null" name="_GoBack"></a><span style="font-family: "times new roman"; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial; mso-bidi-font-size: 10.0pt; mso-fareast-language: ZH-TW;">[The Paper:] </span><span style="font-family: "times new roman"; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial; mso-bidi-font-size: 10.0pt; mso-fareast-language: ZH-CN;">1<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">. </i></span><i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><span style="font-family: "times new roman"; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial; mso-bidi-font-size: 10.0pt; mso-fareast-language: ZH-TW;">The Credential Society</span></i><span style="font-family: "times new roman"; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial; mso-bidi-font-size: 10.0pt; mso-fareast-language: ZH-TW;"> was published in 1979, but its Chinese
edition has just c</span><span style="font-family: "times new roman"; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial; mso-bidi-font-size: 10.0pt; mso-fareast-language: ZH-CN;">o</span><span style="font-family: "times new roman"; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial; mso-bidi-font-size: 10.0pt; mso-fareast-language: ZH-TW;">me out. Therefore, I assume it is a good
opportunity for you to review</span><span style="font-family: "times new roman"; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial; mso-bidi-font-size: 10.0pt; mso-fareast-language: ZH-CN;"> the days when you wrote it. So, after 39 years, do you still believe
your observation and judgment of education and society? Has the educational
system operated in the way this book presented in recent years? </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times new roman"; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial; mso-bidi-font-size: 10.0pt; mso-fareast-language: ZH-CN;">Yes, inflation of
educational requirements for jobs has increased quite a lot. In the US, the
value of a 12-year (high school) diploma now is almost worthless for getting a
job; it is only useful for entry into university to get a higher degree. Jobs
that formerly had lower requirements, like police officer, now require a
college degree, while a M.A. in Criminology or Criminal Justice is required to
become a Police Chief. In the 1970s, when I wrote the book, a B.A. degree was
becoming common for a job as a business manager; now most of these jobs require
an MBA (as I <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>predicted). This has
happened all across the spectrum of jobs.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times new roman"; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial; mso-bidi-font-size: 10.0pt; mso-fareast-language: ZH-TW;">[The Paper:] </span><span style="font-family: "times new roman"; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial; mso-bidi-font-size: 10.0pt; mso-fareast-language: ZH-CN;">2. </span><span style="font-family: "times new roman"; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial; mso-bidi-font-size: 10.0pt; mso-fareast-language: ZH-TW;">Although <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">the Credential Society</i>
focused on the U. S., it</span><span style="font-family: "times new roman"; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial; mso-bidi-font-size: 10.0pt; mso-fareast-language: ZH-CN;"> has been globally influential over the years. </span><span style="font-family: "times new roman"; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial; mso-bidi-font-size: 10.0pt; mso-fareast-language: ZH-TW;">How do you evaluate its universal impact and
value? In your opinion, </span><span style="font-family: "times new roman"; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial; mso-bidi-font-size: 10.0pt; mso-fareast-language: ZH-CN;">is it applicable to other </span><span style="font-family: "times new roman"; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial; mso-bidi-font-size: 10.0pt; mso-fareast-language: ZH-TW;">countries? </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times new roman"; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial; mso-bidi-font-size: 10.0pt; mso-fareast-language: ZH-TW;">Credential inflation has
become applicable world-wide in the last 30 or 40 years. The US began
credential inflation earlier than most other countries; already by 1930 it had
a higher percentage of university students and 12-year high school students; it
started aiming for universal high school education in the 1950s, and now for
universal university education. Russia (the old Soviet Union) and Japan were
two other countries that developed mass high school and university systems
early. Most European countries-- England, France, Germany-- had elite systems,
with only a small proportion attending high schools (lycée, Gymnasium, etc.)
and even smaller fractions attending university. They began to follow the US
path of inflation in the 1960s and 70s, and then accelerated. Now many other
countries-- for example, Chile, South Korea-- have pushed to a level where a
large majority of the youth cohort attend universities; and it has become a
major political demand-- how to provide free university education for everyone.
</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times new roman"; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial; mso-bidi-font-size: 10.0pt; mso-fareast-language: ZH-TW;">[The Paper:] </span><span style="font-family: "times new roman"; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial; mso-bidi-font-size: 10.0pt; mso-fareast-language: ZH-CN;">3. </span><span style="font-family: "times new roman"; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial; mso-bidi-font-size: 10.0pt; mso-fareast-language: ZH-TW;">Since its publication, <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">the
Credential Society</i> has caused persistent</span><span style="font-family: "times new roman"; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial; mso-bidi-font-size: 10.0pt; mso-fareast-language: ZH-CN;"> discussion. </span><span style="font-family: "times new roman"; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial; mso-bidi-font-size: 10.0pt; mso-fareast-language: ZH-TW;">Has
any relevant comment or discussion impressed you? </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times new roman"; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial; mso-bidi-font-size: 10.0pt; mso-fareast-language: ZH-TW;">Originally my book was
considered scandalous by many people. When I presented the original manuscript
to my first publisher (University of California Press), they refused to accept
it, even though it was under contract. A new publisher, Academic Press,
published it, but then they refused to allow a mass paperback publisher (Anchor
Books) to buy the rights to it, and Academic Press refused to issue it in
paperback. So the book became hard to buy; and people would write to me to ask
for a copy. Since it was written before the time of word-processing programs,
the best I could do was send them a photo-copy.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times new roman"; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial; mso-bidi-font-size: 10.0pt; mso-fareast-language: ZH-TW;">Over the years, the
argument was known to specialists in sociology of education-- especially those
with a more critical viewpoint; and several articles I had written on the topic
were well known to students. The issue of credential inflation started becoming
public after the 2008-9 financial crisis; and in the following years newspapers
started carrying articles questioning whether a university degree is a good
investment, because its value as a job payoff has fallen, while its cost has
risen sharply. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times new roman"; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial; mso-bidi-font-size: 10.0pt; mso-fareast-language: ZH-TW;">[The Paper:] </span><span style="font-family: "times new roman"; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial; mso-bidi-font-size: 10.0pt; mso-fareast-language: ZH-CN;">4. </span><span style="font-family: "times new roman"; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial; mso-bidi-font-size: 10.0pt; mso-fareast-language: ZH-TW;">What does this book mean to your academic </span><span style="font-family: "times new roman"; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial; mso-bidi-font-size: 10.0pt; mso-fareast-language: ZH-CN;">career </span><span style="font-family: "times new roman"; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial; mso-bidi-font-size: 10.0pt; mso-fareast-language: ZH-TW;">and your life? Has it
influenced your </span><span style="font-family: "times new roman"; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial; mso-bidi-font-size: 10.0pt; mso-fareast-language: ZH-CN;">other works</span><span style="font-family: "times new roman"; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial; mso-bidi-font-size: 10.0pt; mso-fareast-language: ZH-TW;">? <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times new roman"; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial; mso-bidi-font-size: 10.0pt; mso-fareast-language: ZH-TW;">When the book was first
published, I resigned my university position, because I felt it was wrong for
me to work in the system that I had criticized. But the other books and
articles that I published-- I worked in many other areas besides sociology of
education-- resulted in receiving many job offers. I took a position that
mainly consisted of doing research, and have published books that have had a
good reception-- on sociological theory, creativity in intellectual networks,
face-to-face social interaction, and sociology of violence. I stopped writing
on credential inflation for many years, to work on other topics.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times new roman"; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial; mso-bidi-font-size: 10.0pt; mso-fareast-language: ZH-TW;">[The Paper:]<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Are you satisfied with this book? If
you were given a chance to rewrite it, would you like to make any modification
or improvement?</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times new roman"; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial; mso-bidi-font-size: 10.0pt; mso-fareast-language: ZH-TW;">To rewrite it now, I
would need several research assistants to examine all the research that has
been done of education and careers, education and its rising costs, education
and social inequality. In general, the correlation between parents' social
class and children's education has not changed from the 1930s through the
present-- i.e. a huge increase in the percentage of children who go to high
school, university, and advanced professional schools has gone up but
stratification hasn't changed. The belief that more access to education would
bring social equality has proven wrong. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times new roman"; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial; mso-bidi-font-size: 10.0pt; mso-fareast-language: ZH-TW;">On the theoretical side,
the main thing that I would add to the book is to refine the concept of
credential inflation as similar to monetary inflation. As economists have known
for a long time, putting more money in circulation reduces the buying power of
money. But the difference is, printing new money costs very little; and in the
centralized banking systems we now have, it is possible to increase the money
supply just by changing the procedures for making loans or to change the
numbers in a computer. (This happens every day when the market value of a
popular stock goes up.) But educational credentials are not just the paper that
diplomas are printed on, but require much investment in school buildings,
salaries for teachers and administrators, etc. Therefore: although monetary
inflation theoretically has no limit, "printing" more educational
degrees becomes very expensive when degrees are inflated and students spend
more years of their lives in school. So the historical trend to inflate degrees
goes through periodic crises-- either the students can't afford the degrees
when their job payoff declines, or the government (or parents) can't afford to keep
expanding the educational system. There was a mini-crisis like this in the
1980s, and again in the 2010s; and we can expect more such crises in the future.
At some point, if 100% of the population is going to spend 20 or more years in
school getting more and more advanced degrees, the cost of education becomes
equal to almost the entire economy. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times new roman"; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial; mso-bidi-font-size: 10.0pt; mso-fareast-language: ZH-TW;">[The Paper:]<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></span><span style="font-family: "times new roman"; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial; mso-bidi-font-size: 10.0pt; mso-fareast-language: ZH-CN;">5. </span><span style="font-family: "times new roman"; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial; mso-bidi-font-size: 10.0pt; mso-fareast-language: ZH-TW;">What research did you do
for the book? What was the most challenging part when you wrote it?</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times new roman"; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial; mso-bidi-font-size: 10.0pt; mso-fareast-language: ZH-TW;">Besides the theoretical
analysis, I made two main research contributions. One was to assemble data to
show how the job value of degrees has inflated during the 19th and 20th
centuries in the US (the modern country that started credential inflation). I
showed, for instance, that jobs as business managers required only high school
degrees (or even less if one started as a family member or apprentice) until
the 1950s. Surprisingly, even technical jobs-- engineers, the most essential
technical job for modern industry-- was mostly learned by apprenticeship or
on-the-job, rather than by formal education. <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Traditionally in the West, lawyers and medical doctors, along
with priests, were the main occupations that required university degrees; and
even in these fields, people could learn these professions by apprenticeship. Abraham
Lincoln, for instance, was a lawyer who never went to school, but learned law as an apprentice. The movement to require university and advanced degrees
came in the late 19th century (in the US) and explicitly tried to make these
fields more socially elite. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times new roman"; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial; mso-bidi-font-size: 10.0pt; mso-fareast-language: ZH-TW;">I would add here that if
I were to revise <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">The Credential Society</i>
today, I would add a section on how the big fortunes in the Information
Technology area were made: Not by going to university to get a degree, but by
dropping out of the university, to follow one's own innovations. This was the
way the founders of Apple came to create the personal computer, and later the
career paths by which Facebook, Google, and other digital empires were created.
<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>(Apparently this is true in China,
too, where the founders of Alibaba and Tencent were not academic stars, but
failures in the exam system, who found experience in telecommunications work
that gave them the idea of spinning off new products.) There is an important
theoretical reason for this: the fortunes were made by creating a new
technology, and it was too new to be taught in the universities. The creators
went directly to the most advanced practitioners of technology of that day,
examined their equipment, sometimes stole their best ideas or put them to new
use, hired away the best technicians and engineers. For them to wait until they
got their degrees would have put them behind in the race to invention. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times new roman"; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial; mso-bidi-font-size: 10.0pt; mso-fareast-language: ZH-TW;">This is one reason why
the creators of high-tech industries and especially the entrepreneurs who make
huge fortunes, are usually men. In the US, women have made great advances in
getting into universities and advanced professional schools, and are the
majority of the students now at these levels. But the educational degree
pathway is a bureaucratic career pathway, step-by-step. Women increasingly get
to be named the head of a big corporation now, but few women do what Steve Jobs
or Mark Zuckerberg did-- drop out and concentrate on the innovation, not on
getting the degree. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times new roman"; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial; mso-bidi-font-size: 10.0pt; mso-fareast-language: ZH-TW;">I mentioned that <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">The Credential Society</i> made two main
research contributions. The second one was to test the dominant theory about
educational expansion, at the time I wrote it. This was the technological
theory of education. It said that modern jobs become more complex and more
technical, so in order to get a job in the modern sector one needs more
education. This was a theory; no one ever tested it. I got data on many kinds
of organizations, their educational requirements in hiring, and how technologically
advanced they were. I found that the high-tech organizations of the time (i.e.
the 1960s) had lower educational requirements than low-tech organizations; and
that higher credential requirements were in high status organizations (such as
elite law firms).<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Economists favored the
technical-skills argument; but they never measured whether advanced education
really did provide the skills for the job. They developed another theory that
education may not provide skills, but it is a signal that a person has some
thing unmeasured which makes them good at acquiring skills. They never tested
this either. In more recent years, the examples of people like Steve Jobs and
Mark Zuckerberg have made some economists (or at least newspaper writers)
recognize that entrepreneurship and innovation are not really what education
teaches, and that there is a more direct route to the technological frontier.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times new roman"; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial; mso-bidi-font-size: 10.0pt; mso-fareast-language: ZH-TW;">[The Paper:]<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></span><span style="font-family: "times new roman"; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial; mso-bidi-font-size: 10.0pt; mso-fareast-language: ZH-CN;">6. </span><i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><span style="font-family: "times new roman"; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial; mso-bidi-font-size: 10.0pt; mso-fareast-language: ZH-TW;">The Credential Society</span></i><span style="font-family: "times new roman"; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial; mso-bidi-font-size: 10.0pt; mso-fareast-language: ZH-TW;"> has been well-known for its </span><span style="font-family: "times new roman"; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial; mso-bidi-font-size: 10.0pt; mso-fareast-language: ZH-CN;">fierce </span><span style="font-family: "times new roman"; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial; mso-bidi-font-size: 10.0pt; mso-fareast-language: ZH-TW;">criticism </span><span style="font-family: "times new roman"; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial; mso-bidi-font-size: 10.0pt; mso-fareast-language: ZH-CN;">to the </span><span style="font-family: "times new roman"; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial; mso-bidi-font-size: 10.0pt; mso-fareast-language: ZH-TW;">educational system. How did you realize the </span><span style="font-family: "times new roman"; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial; mso-bidi-font-size: 10.0pt; mso-fareast-language: ZH-CN;">inequality of the educational system </span><span style="font-family: "times new roman"; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial; mso-bidi-font-size: 10.0pt; mso-fareast-language: JA;">and start to </span><span style="font-family: "times new roman"; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial; mso-bidi-font-size: 10.0pt; mso-fareast-language: ZH-CN;">query its rationality</span><span style="font-family: "times new roman"; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial; mso-bidi-font-size: 10.0pt; mso-fareast-language: ZH-TW;">? </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times new roman"; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial; mso-bidi-font-size: 10.0pt; mso-fareast-language: ZH-TW;">My father was a
diplomat, and we lived in foreign countries while I grew up. Most of what I
learned came from reading my father's books or books in the Embassy
library.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>My last two years in high
school were an a prep school in New England, where most of the other students
came from rich families, and the school taught us how to take the exams that
would get one admitted to an Ivy League college. I went to Harvard, where
everybody was proud of how much more elite they were than anyone else. What I
learned about education at that point in my life was that it was stratified,
some schools were considered more elite, and it was mainly children of rich
families who went there; but even if your family wasn't rich (my father never
owned a house until he retired), if you could get into an elite school, its
high status would rub off on you too. (This is only partially true. I was never
really accepted into the clubs of the rich kids; but I did become part of the
academic elite.) Going to Harvard meant that you could go to graduate school at
Stanford or Berkeley, and those degrees got you hired at a top research
university. But the elite status of being a faculty member at those
universities depended on doing the most famous research inside the network of researchers,
and my professors were the best network I could have started from. I learned
what topics were on the advanced edge, how to do their kind of research; even
criticizing them and moving on to new theories was the kind of skill they
favored. From my perspective now, I would say that elite research universities
provide a kind of apprenticeship, or on-the-job training, by starting as a
research assistant to famous professors. Academic research is the one job where
an academic credential pathway coincides with actually learning the skill you
will apply later on.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times new roman"; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial; mso-bidi-font-size: 10.0pt; mso-fareast-language: ZH-TW;">[The Paper:] Which
theories affect your thinking at that time? Was it related to your own
experiences?<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times new roman"; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial; mso-bidi-font-size: 10.0pt; mso-fareast-language: ZH-TW;">To sum up my early
experiences: education clearly was related to stratification, since the elite
schools were always bragging about how elite they were. But this was
incongruous with what social scientists were teaching as a theory of
education:<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>that education is a
pathway to social equality. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times new roman"; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial; mso-bidi-font-size: 10.0pt; mso-fareast-language: ZH-TW;">When sociologists
starting doing field research and survey research in the 1930s-1950s, they
discovered that the most important division in people's lives was by social
class. Research on social mobility (now called status attainment) found that
the strongest predictor of a child's future job was the education of his or her
parents. So the theory of meritocracy was developed: if a child could get more
education than one's parents,<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>he/she would end up in a higher social class. Most research since that
time-- from the 1960s until today-- concentrates on the first part of the
chain: what factors lead from family to school attainment. (They paid little
attention to the second part of the chain: once you have the educational
degree, what determines what happens to you then?) In France, Pierre Bourdieu
became famous in the 1970s, by showing that children acquire "cultural
capital" from their parents, and this determines how well they do in
school; Bourdieu also thought that this "cultural capital" would also
affect would kind of jobs they would get, since the people doing the hiring
want people who have the same cultural tastes as themselves.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times new roman"; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial; mso-bidi-font-size: 10.0pt; mso-fareast-language: ZH-TW;">My early work was done
parallel to Bourdieu. Both of us were critical of the idea that expanding
education would make a society more equal. The main differences in my work
were: [1] to empirically criticize the theory that advanced technology was the
reason why all societies were now demanding more education; [2] focusing on the
mechanism of credential inflation, or the dynamics of the system over a long
period of time. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times new roman"; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial; mso-bidi-font-size: 10.0pt; mso-fareast-language: ZH-TW;">[The Paper:]<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></span><span style="font-family: "times new roman"; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial; mso-bidi-font-size: 10.0pt; mso-fareast-language: ZH-CN;">7. </span><i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><span style="font-family: "times new roman"; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial; mso-bidi-font-size: 10.0pt; mso-fareast-language: ZH-TW;">The Credential Society</span></i><span style="font-family: "times new roman"; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial; mso-bidi-font-size: 10.0pt; mso-fareast-language: ZH-CN;"> presented an</span><span style="font-family: "times new roman"; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial; mso-bidi-font-size: 10.0pt; mso-fareast-language: ZH-TW;">
in-depth exploration in </span><span style="font-family: "times new roman"; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial; mso-bidi-font-size: 10.0pt; mso-fareast-language: ZH-CN;">the educational system and employment of </span><span style="font-family: "times new roman"; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial; mso-bidi-font-size: 10.0pt; mso-fareast-language: ZH-TW;">social </span><span style="font-family: "times new roman"; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial; mso-bidi-font-size: 10.0pt; mso-fareast-language: ZH-CN;">sciences</span><span style="font-family: "times new roman"; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial; mso-bidi-font-size: 10.0pt; mso-fareast-language: ZH-TW;">, but seldom mentioned </span><span style="font-family: "times new roman"; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial; mso-bidi-font-size: 10.0pt; mso-fareast-language: ZH-CN;">natural sciences and engineering. Do you
think that your analysis and inference also make sense to natural sciences</span><span style="font-family: "times new roman"; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial; mso-bidi-font-size: 10.0pt; mso-fareast-language: ZH-TW;">?</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times new roman"; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial; mso-bidi-font-size: 10.0pt; mso-fareast-language: ZH-TW;">Yes. First, to describe
the history: as I mentioned, engineers were the last major profession to
credentialize; the inventors and entrepreneurs who made the industrial
revolution, the automobile revolution, etc. were not educated in professional
schools of engineering, but from working with the machinery itself, trying out
new combinations. Thomas Edison and Henry Ford were the Steve Jobs and Jack Ma of their day.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Yes, it is
possible to create educational credentials in engineering and science, but this
happens after the key developments begin, and it standardizes them so that they
can be taught. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times new roman"; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial; mso-bidi-font-size: 10.0pt; mso-fareast-language: ZH-TW;">In recent years, as
universities have been squeezed for funds (because of the rising costs of
mass-producing credentials), they have encouraged engineering and science
departments to connect more directly with entrepreneurs, or to become
entrepreneurs themselves. This means, instead of focusing on the credential,
focusing on getting into the entrepreneurial and technological networks
themselves.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times new roman"; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial; mso-bidi-font-size: 10.0pt; mso-fareast-language: ZH-TW;">Natural scientists also
do "basic research" and here the careers within universities and
research institutes are like what I described for my own career in social
science. The universities are the center of these networks, and scientists
learn how to innovate by apprenticeship to scientists who are already doing it.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times new roman"; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial; mso-bidi-font-size: 10.0pt; mso-fareast-language: ZH-TW;">So one can make an
argument that natural science-- at least some of it-- really does have a
technological and economic payoff. I have already suggested that following the
academic route to credentials is not what the most famous innovators have done.
But assuming that some of the credentials pay off, is it reasonable to expect
that a majority of the jobs in a society of the future will consist of
scientists and technicians? Especially if credential inflation goes up towards
100% of the population: does China really need 1 billion engineers and
scientists, or the US needs 300 million?</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times new roman"; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial; mso-bidi-font-size: 10.0pt; mso-fareast-language: ZH-TW;">[The Paper:]<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>8. In this book, you show your approval
of credential Keynesianism and credential abolitionism as the solutions to the
problems of education, do you still believe these? How do you evaluate their
feasibility? </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times new roman"; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial; mso-bidi-font-size: 10.0pt; mso-fareast-language: ZH-TW;">Political efforts to
abolish credential requirements for certain occupations have been tried in the
US, but have done nothing to slow the general trend. Keynesian economics was
out of fashion with economists for many years, but since the 2008 recession
"stimulus" spending has often been favored. Few people seem to
realize that government expenditures on education are Keynesian, in the sense
that they provide jobs both for teachers, payment for builders and other
suppliers of material resources; they also keep full-time students off the
labor market, and if they receive room and board, it is a transfer payment
which puts more spending money into the economy. In the book <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Does Capitalism Have a Future?</i> (written
with Immanuel Wallerstein et al., 2013, Oxford Univ. Press), I suggested that
in a future where computers take over human jobs, expanding the school system
to everybody for lifetime learning would be a way to carry out socialism
without calling it by that name.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times new roman"; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial; mso-bidi-font-size: 10.0pt; mso-fareast-language: ZH-TW;">[The Paper:] </span><span style="font-family: "times new roman"; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial; mso-bidi-font-size: 10.0pt; mso-fareast-language: ZH-CN;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>9.
According to the preface</span><span style="font-family: "times new roman"; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial; mso-bidi-font-size: 10.0pt; mso-fareast-language: ZH-TW;">, </span><span style="font-family: "times new roman"; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial; mso-bidi-font-size: 10.0pt; mso-fareast-language: ZH-CN;">despite your criticism to
education, you had to work as</span><span style="font-family: "times new roman"; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial; mso-bidi-font-size: 10.0pt; mso-fareast-language: ZH-TW;"> a university professor for many years. What do you feel about this </span><span style="font-family: "times new roman"; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial; mso-bidi-font-size: 10.0pt; mso-fareast-language: ZH-CN;">situation</span><span style="font-family: "times new roman"; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial; mso-bidi-font-size: 10.0pt; mso-fareast-language: ZH-TW;">? </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times new roman"; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial; mso-bidi-font-size: 10.0pt; mso-fareast-language: ZH-TW;">It is rather pleasant to
work in a high-level research university, so my only objection to working there
was my moral objection to living off an institution that operates on false
promises. But it is interesting to work around intellectually creative
colleagues and thoughtful students-- especially if they are more interested in
intellectual discoveries than in getting credentials.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times new roman"; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial; mso-bidi-font-size: 10.0pt; mso-fareast-language: ZH-TW;">[The Paper:]<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Have you made any attempt to </span><span style="font-family: "times new roman"; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial; mso-bidi-font-size: 10.0pt; mso-fareast-language: ZH-CN;">change the educational system</span><span style="font-family: "times new roman"; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial; mso-bidi-font-size: 10.0pt; mso-fareast-language: ZH-TW;">? </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times new roman"; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial; mso-bidi-font-size: 10.0pt; mso-fareast-language: ZH-TW;">Hardly anyone in
American schools objects to credential inflation, if they recognize it at all,
because where there is a large demand for degrees, there is a demand for
teachers.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>My colleagues, if they
think about it at all, would probably say that to criticize credential
inflation is to attack their jobs. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times new roman"; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial; mso-bidi-font-size: 10.0pt; mso-fareast-language: ZH-TW;">[The Paper:]<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>10. Have you ever paid attention to
China’s education and society? And do you have any academic interest on it? If
so, please share your observation and thoughts.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times new roman"; mso-bidi-font-size: 10.0pt;">Yes,
both historically and for the present.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>In my book, <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">The Sociology of
Philosophies</i> [1998, Princeton Univ. Press], I wrote several long chapters
about networks of Chinese philosophers. Their organizational base included the
Imperial university and the examination system for government positions. The
Han Dynasty had one of the world's earliest educational bureaucracies; and the
Song Dynasty created the first period of credential inflation, which grew
stronger in the Ming and Qing Dynasties. But although candidates had to pass an
increasing number of exams and degrees, and some studied until they were more
than 40 years old, the exam system only provided credentials for employment in
the Imperial bureaucracy; unlike modern credentialism in the US and elsewhere,
it did not spread to other kinds of jobs. So dynastic China had credential
inflation that was confined to a rather small elite.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times new roman"; mso-bidi-font-size: 10.0pt;">Since
the Deng Xiao-ping market reforms, Chinese high schools and universities have
expanded, and the intense competition among students to enter elite schools is
famous. There are some differences from the US system of credential inflation,
however. The Chinese system is more "meritocratic" in the sense that
university admission depends so heavily on academic examination. The US system,
under political influences, uses multiple criteria, including scores on
national exams, but also grade point averages in high school, participation in
athletics and other extracurricular activities, desirable personality, and attempts
to include ethnic minorities in (unofficial) quotas. As a result, I would say
the US system tends to be somewhat anti-intellectual, whereas the Chinese
system is more narrowly focused on intellectual performance. The US system also
has a trend to "grade inflation" as most students now are awarded the
top grades, with the effect of diluting the criteria of excellent performance;
the Chinese system appears to uphold more strict standards. This is probably a
reason why US students tend to score low in international comparisons, whereas
Chinese students score high. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times new roman"; mso-bidi-font-size: 10.0pt;">I
would like to draw one theoretical conclusion from this comparison. The US
economy has performed strongly, almost all the time for over 100 years. It
performed well when we had a small elite school system; it performed well when
we expanded to mass education; it continues to perform well even when we dilute
the standards and undergo both credential inflation and grade inflation. My
conclusion is: it does not matter how the school system performs. Not everyone
educated in American has to be a scientist or engineer; if only 10 percent of
them are good at this, nevertheless we have such a large system that it
fulfills our technical needs. And other features of the US society foster
entrepreneurs of the Steve Jobs/ Thomas Edison type; so the economic dynamism
is there. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times new roman"; mso-bidi-font-size: 10.0pt;">China,
in proportional terms for its large population, does not have the extreme
credential inflation found in the US.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>Perhaps it will get there in the future. Or perhaps it will go a
different path.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times new roman"; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial; mso-fareast-language: ZH-CN;">A new edition of <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">The Credential Society</i> will be published in 2019 by Columbia
University Press.</span></div>
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Unknownnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1005085971596877601.post-19591166700364675622018-05-15T22:29:00.002-07:002018-08-16T17:36:50.608-07:00SHUTTING DOWN THE INTERNET IN TIME OF WAR<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
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</style> <span style="color: black; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;">During
the series of wars in Iraq, Afghanistan and now Syria, insurgents have used
low-tech weapons against Western forces and their allies. Typical are suicide
bombers who carry explosives right up to its target, and IEDs-- improvised
explosive devices hidden in the roadway and set off by a mobile phone when a
enemy vehicle passes. But these have acquired a high-tech component. Spotters
who see a vehicle approach do not have to communicate directly with the trigger-man
who sets off the bomb; both are connected to a coordinator in an Internet cafe
in Brussels. We can trace the link but we can’t do anything about it.
Ironically, this parallels the command structure of US high-tech military,
where spotters can be Special Forces putting laser tags on enemy targets, or
silent drones flying overhead, or satellites in space, all sending their
information to a remote headquarters, like the Air Force base in Florida that
controlled the 2003 invasion of Iraq. </span>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><span style="color: black; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;">The Long Trend: Dispersing the
Battlefield</span></i></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="color: black; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;">How did
this situation come about, and what direction is it heading in the future? The
pattern of military high-tech has been building up since the First World War.
Weapons have gotten more lethal, and more accurate at increasingly longer
distance. The digital revolution in the last 30 years has vastly increased
targeting information, by aerial surveillance and satellites using an array of
sensors that track vehicle movements and even individual humans by infra-red
heat signature, radar,<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>and
computer-enhanced photographic imagery (which can be compared over time to look
for tell-tale changes). Enemy headquarters can be located by its buzz of
electronic activity. Enemy rockets or artillery that use radar for their own
targeting can be tracked by radar-seeking devices (similar to auto drivers
locating a police radar trap) and fire back immediately to destroy the enemy
weapon. Huge super-computers assemble the information into a composite picture
of the battlefield, and remote computers increasingly control firing on enemy
targets, whether from aircraft, ships or ground-based weapons. </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="color: black; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;">What
follows from this? Troops and their equipment cannot be bunched together, since
this makes them too vulnerable a target. By 1916, machine guns made
old-fashioned marching into battle suicidal. Soldiers split into small groups,
taking cover where they could find it on the ground. <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The trend has continued with every advance in weaponry. In
World War II, the front was typically 5 km from one brigade to another; now it
is 150 km. Forward Operating Bases, supplied by helicopter and communicating
electronically, make a checker-board of mostly empty battlespace. If the enemy
has similar weapons, even high-tech troops need to take advantage of natural cover,
and hide their electronic and heat signatures as much as possible. World War II
was the last such war between what the military calls “peer adversaries,”
although US military are now planning for a mutually high-tech war with China. </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><span style="color: black; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;">Guerrillas and terrorists
disperse even more</span></i></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="color: black; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;"><span style="color: black; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;"> Most
wars in the last 50 years have been asymmetrical, a high-tech military versus a
low-tech insurgency. </span></span><span style="color: black; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;">The
resource-poor side of an asymmetrical war has responded by dispersing its
forces even more, and making hit-and-run attacks on isolated enemy bases and
the supply lines between them. This was called guerrilla war, as long as it
attacked military targets; it became “terrorism” when it concentrated on
civilian targets, since these are softer, less-protected than military targets.
Guerrilla war slides over into terrorism, because guerrillas between attacks
hide in the civilian population. </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="color: black; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;">Terrorists generally are civilians, and they
live among other civilians, especially in cities, since these provide the most
cover against high-tech weapons. Urban sight-lines are poor; it is difficult to
distinguish the heat-signatures of civilians from combatants; and high-tech
surveillance is evaded by hiding in the electronic clutter of normal life--
even in poor countries, cell phones and other consumer electronics are the
features of modernity that diffuse the fastest. </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="color: black; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;">The biggest problem in fighting
urban guerrillas is political: they use other civilians as shields; and they
welcome civilian casualties because these turn the local population against the
outside enemy. Atrocities are the major recruiting tool for militant terrorists
and revenge-seeking suicide attackers. </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="color: black; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;">Terrorism
has grown in symbiosis with high-tech weapons and communications, because the
weaker side cannot win on conventional battlefields. Politically, an insurgency
does not have to win battles or take territory, but only to
resist pacification by an outside enemy.</span><span style="color: black; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;"> </span><span style="color: black; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;">Islamic State made the mistake in Iraq and Syria of taking
territory, setting up a state structure and using more conventional military
tactics, which transformed ISIS into the weaker side of a somewhat more
symmetrical war. Similarly, the Taliban in Afghanistan became an easy target
when they were a government, but hard to eradicate as guerrillas.</span>
</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><span style="color: black; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;">Terrorism is media-dependent war</span></i></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="color: black; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;">Small
numbers of insurgents can keep a war going. Their main resource is advertising
their presence by spectacular attacks, even if they are bloody atrocities of
their own. As long as their actions are<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>well-publicized, they demonstrate a will to continue the fight. They
expect to prevail over time, if only because occupying forces lose the
political will to persist. </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="color: black; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;">On the high-tech side, a modern military is surrounded
by news networks as well as its own communications media, so it cannot avoid having
its own atrocities publicized world-wide. It doesn't matter if civilian
casualties are accidents, or emotional reactions by occupying troops embittered
by fighting an enemy who hides and disguises themselves as civilians. The
cell-phone photos of American soldiers humiliating and torturing prisoners at
Abu Grahib are typical of the ubiquitous Western media redounding to their own
political disadvantage.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="color: black; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;">The growth of world-wide high-tech is shifting the crucial balance of
military power to communications, above all because contemporary war is primarily
political statements. The irony here is that global communications-- both for
consumers, and as a major component of the post-industrial economy-- means that
every innovation by the rich capitalist countries creates a military
opportunity for insurgents. It is not so much that they imitate our weapons
(although they can capture or buy them, especially from the West’s so-called
local allies), but they can share in digital communications because they are
marketed world-wide. </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="color: black; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;">Many of
the most advanced surveillance systems are umbrellas covering everything within
their range, friend and enemy alike. In Iraq, insurgent fires were coordinated
via Internet cafes in Belgium, just as US soldiers could link to Internet cafes
or any other sites in the world for private communications with family and
friends.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Cell phones are used to
trigger IEDs, but shutting down the local cell phone network was not feasible,
since US commanders themselves use them as a more-reliable alternative to
centralized military communication channels. GPS coordinates, pin-pointed by a
network of satellites around the earth, are used both by allied targeting and
by insurgents targeting us. The terrorist attack on Mumbai luxury hotels in 2008 was
run by the ISI from Karachi, Pakistan. </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="color: black; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;">Terrorist
fighters might be killed in action, but the main principle of modern military
doctrine-- to decapitate the enemy by knocking out its headquarters
command-and-control and thus destroying it as a functioning organization-- has
become impossible. There is no command post “in theatre,” but on ostensibly
neutral foreign soil; and there need not be any clandestine network on the spot
to uproot (as the French attempted during the Algerian war). Commands and
targeting information are sent out by one-way messages, on the open Internet--
its source lost in the morass of ordinary communications.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>In the Russian semi-proxy war in the
eastern Ukraine, the Ukrainian military used the same satellites as the
Russians (since they were the same country not long ago), so neither side could
disrupt the other’s targeting without disrupting their own. </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="color: black; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;">Cyber-war
has been growing as a cheap resource for insurgents, because they operate
inside the same global communications umbrella as their resource-rich enemies.
The US does not have an advantage in cyber-space. By concentrating on digital
high-tech, the West is playing in an arena where its advantage in other kinds
of military resources do not count.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>Cyber-war can also be practiced by wealthy states, but it is above all a
weapon of the weak. Its physical tools are easily available commercially; skill
at hacking requires no great organizational coordination, and is easily
acquired by alienated youth all over the world.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Fighting a cyber-war is exactly the wrong place for the wealthy
states to fight.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><span style="color: black; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;">Unthinkable counter-measures</span></i></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="color: black; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;">So what
can or will be done about the Great Powers’ loss of military advantage in a cyber-linked
world? Here we come to an unthinkable solution that the military is actually
thinking about: shutting down the Internet in time of war. This is a short-hand
way of referring to all the communications devices under the modern
world-umbrella that are shared with our adversaries: mobile phones, GPS<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>coordinates, networked computers. </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="color: black; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;">But how
could these be shut down, without enormous damage to our own economy, and our
contemporary way of life?<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Air
travel (and increasingly ground travel) are coordinated by digital networks; so
are power grids, hospitals, and police forces; so are most financial
transactions, from international banking to personal salaries and bill-paying;
so are the now-huge business of on-line shopping and delivery.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>In fact, one of the most devastating
forms of cyber-war now being worried about is a cyber-attack, not from isolated
mischief-making hackers or from thieves, but from an enemy government (or an
insurgency), aimed at shutting down the economy of one of the rich capitalist
nations. More primitive economies would be safer from such attack, being less
reliant on digital coordination.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="color: black; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;">But
although this is an extremely dangerous prospect, it is not the most dangerous
event that could happen. Since an ultra-modern military is so heavily organized
around electronic command and control,<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>the worst threat to its existence would be if an enemy could hack into
its links to disable its weapons, its mobility and its logistics-- in effect an
electronic giant rendered blind, deaf, and paralyzed. (This is the scenario
envisioned in P.W. Singer’s novel, <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Ghost
Fleet,</i> where Chinese-made components in American electronics are programmed
to put the entire US military out of operation during a surprise attack.) There
is even one nightmare step beyond this scenario: enemy hackers leave the
operational system of our military intact, but take over controls of our
weapons so that our rockets and aircraft are turned about to fire on ourselves.
There have<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>been some steps in this
direction, as Iranians and others have been able to capture some US-made drones
by diverting their remote controls.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="color: black; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;">If the
US military’s digital control system were seriously threatened by an enemy, the
response now being considered is to shut down the entire digital umbrella.
(This is based on discussions with high-ranking US and UK military commanders
who were active in the Iraq and Afghanistan wars.) There are two ways this
could happen: either the enemy themselves shuts down our digital network or
attacks it to the extent that it becomes useless; or we shut it down
pre-emptively to keep our enemies from using it. </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="color: black; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;">Probably
there would be several levels of shut-down: smallest would be to shut down all
mobile phone and Internet activity in a given area (e.g. battlegrounds in Iraq
or Syria), by shutting down cell phone towers and servers. Or the Internet
and/or mobile phones could be put on one-way broadcast mode; messages going out
from a central source (as in some emergency warning systems) but otherwise
clearing the network of traffic.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="color: black; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;">Another
choice would be to shut down crucial targeting infrastructure, such as GPS;
since this is a satellite-based system, it would affect the entire world. Such
plans are being seriously contemplated; the Chinese reportedly are building
their own GPS system (based on their own satellites) that would be inaccessible
to others.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="color: black; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;">This
seems unthinkable, since GPS is included in all sorts of devices, including
ordinary smart phones. But GPS was originally created as a secret project by
the US military (as a way of preventing aerial collisions and other
blue-on-blue attacks); and was opened up to commercial use in the 1990s. In
the same way, the Internet originated as the DARPANET: Defense Advanced
Research Projects Administration. There is precedent for returning GPS<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>to government control; and it may
become a matter of military necessity-- or what is presented to the public as
such. We should not expect that history has one continuous trajectory, and that
technologies and social customs surrounding them become impervious to removal
once they become widespread. The Chinese government’s use of super-computers,
complete with facial recognition systems for tracking every move of every
citizen, shows what kinds of things are technically possible, although they may
be politically repugnant in some countries and not in others. (In fact, Chinese
citizens in the future might well benefit from some kind of emergency that
caused the shut-down of its central government computers.) </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><span style="color: black; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;">Backing up to non-digital backup</span></i></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="color: black; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;">But how
would the military operate under this unthinkable contingency, shutting down
the electronic networks that have become the core of its organization? Planning
on this point is proceeding. The essential pattern is to build back-up
procedures-- how to run a war without the Internet, computer links, GPS, or
mobile phones.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>In fact, there is
discussion about how over-reliance on digital networks even now is reducing
military efficiency; and how weaning ourselves away from it can be done.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="color: black; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;">We tend to
forget that the ultra-computerized military is a relatively recent thing. Big
mainframe computers were developed in the military from World War II onwards;
it is the dispersed, omnipresent commercial and private networks and its
devices that have become widespread so rapidly since the 1990s and early 2000s.
Military officers have commented on the huge increase in computerization since
the beginning of the Iraq war in 2003. A company (about 200 soldiers) then had
5 computers, operated by the Executive Officer and First Sergeant. Now all
officers have computers, so much so that they spend 75% of their time reporting
to headquarters. A US general commented: “Network has become more problem than
solution.” On Navy ships, the traditional system was a single wireless link
under authority of the ship’s captain; now with all sailors in possession of
personal computers or smart phones, official channels are surrounded by links
used for personal reasons. All news gets out, even if confidential. Officers
have become risk-averse, since even minor mishaps are scrutinized; junior
officers lose initiative and feel they must clear every decision with higher
command. </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="color: black; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;">Similarly
with the profusion of information from battle sites, gathered by electronic
sensors and relayed to all levels of the command network. The term has
developed, “Predator pawns”-- as if Predator drones are pawns in a chess game. Since high-ranking officers as well as drone operators can watch the video feed from
the drone; the result is a strong temptation to micro-manage.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>This is a general problem for all
military organization. Wars have become increasingly political, in the sense
that counter-insurgency is largely a fight “for hearts and minds.” A major
recruiting device for guerrillas and terrorists are their dramatic or even
gruesome attacks, such as videos of bass beheadings circulated on the social
media. The same dialectic encompasses the Western forces, through periodic
scandals of civilian atrocities that are more or less inevitable given that civilian presence is exactly where insurgents choose their battlefield.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="color: black; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;">There
are many channels for war stories to leak out; politicians are under pressure
to achieve results, but also highly vulnerable to criticism for mishaps. All
this increases the tendency for politicians to intervene, even at the smallest
tactical level. A US commander gave the example of how much time he had to
spend going back-and-forth with a high official in Washington about whether a
load of small arms could be dropped to a local ally in Syria. Multi-national
forces are considered politically desirable, but US advisors describe the
resulting organizational chart as “a wiring diagram”-- and US commanders spend
much of their time clearing requests for resources with the National Security Council
and Iraqi politicians. “I spent a year in Iraq and all I fought was the IJC” --
a sardonic remark about the tangled authorities of the International Joint
Command. </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="color: black; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;">The core
problem is communication overload; the presence of information technology
everywhere results in a situation that one general described as “we’ve gone
from network-enabled, to network-enamoured, to network-encumbered.”<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Thus military planners see some
advantages to going back to older forms of command and control-- cutting off
reliance on cyber, going back to local radio links to coordinate troops.
Computers, especially when centralized and taking inputs from a vast area, make
it hard to quickly change course. Old-fashioned communications allow for more
flexibility and more rapid reaction to emergencies and sudden opportunities.
Historians point out that just this kind of flexibility by aggressive
front-line officers were the key to the blitzkreig successes of World War II.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><span style="color: black; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;">The limits of computerized
warfare</span></i></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="color: black; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;">As I
mentioned earlier, the cyber-war expert P.W. Singer’s novel, <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Ghost Fleet,</i> envisions the US being
devastated by a Chinese cyber attack that incapacitates the US military. In the
novel, the US makes a come-back by resuscitating an old moth-balled World War
II fleet, unhackable because its controls are pre-digital; plus creating some
advanced weapons that can’t be diverted from their targets since they carry no
on-board mini-computer to be taken over. I have written my own thought-experiment,
a novel about a hypothetical civil war, in which the American military divides
and fights itself with exactly the same weapons on both sides. (Just as
happened in the Civil War of 1861-65). The novel is called <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Civil War Two.</i> The war begins with cyber attacks attempting to turn
bombers against their own bases. The solution to the cyber hacking is to shut
down the computerized system and build another control system. High-tech
aircraft have enormous capacities for locating enemy targets and firing back at
their electronic location; but since both sides can do this, the result is to
destroy a large proportion of the most advanced aircraft on both sides. </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="color: black; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;">Moreover,
the most advanced aircraft are the most expensive, and take the longest time to
build, as well as requiring assiduous maintenance between missions-- e.g. a B-2
stealth bomber costs over $1 billion dollars each, plus operating costs.
Attrition of such weapons would inevitably result in older weapons being
pressed into service. Even a battle between robots would be, most likely, not
Hollywood's humanoid giants on two legs, but armored tanks containing no
humans, like driverless cars firing at each other. The outcome of such a battle
would depend, not on the superiority of one side’s robots over the other, but
on the skill and energy of humans going out onto the battlefield to repair the
damaged robots. My chief conclusion is that a war fought between two very
advanced militaries would lead over time to mutual degradation, and a return to
earlier forms of warfare.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="color: black; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;">I have
already suggested that remote computerized communications and control would be
shut down early in such a war. If both sides have drones, armored helicopters,
anti-missile missiles, and robot vehicles, the mutual attrition would
eventually result in humans making the difference.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="color: black; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;">High-tech
stalemate will drive combat back to the human level. The idea that has
prevailed for about a century-- that the state would win which created the next
super-weapon before the other side did-- will probably not hold in the future.
That is because the recent wave of digital technologies, whose initial thrust
has come heavily from military inventions, has spread into the civilian economy
and ordinary life; and warfare centered in the cyber sphere gives most
advantage to the disrupters of the other side’s communications. This is true
whether it be asymmetrical terrorist attacks against a military and economic
behemoth; or symmetrical war between states with equally sophisticated
equipment. </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="color: black; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;">Our idea
that history is moving in a straight line is wrong. What seems unthinkable
now-- shutting down the Internet and all the other digital media-- in one
degree or another is likely to happen. Where we come out on the other side of
that crisis will probably become normal to people who live in it, just as the
digital devices of the last 15 years have become so normal that we can’t
imagine living without them.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>If we
continue to live, it will probably be because we have learned to get along
without them.</span></div>
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<a href="https://www.amazon.com/Civil-War-Two-Part-Determined-ebook/dp/B07B1TSNWH/ref=tmm_kin_swatch_0?_encoding=UTF8&qid=1523915690&sr=8-1&dpID=51yuwsdw%252BeL&preST=_SY445_QL70_&dpSrc=detail">“Collins has channeled his deep knowledge of human violence and the intricacies of combat into a taut and compelling what if fantasy that takes the cultural fissures of our nation to full scale rupture."<br />– Alice Goffman</a></div>
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<a href="https://www.amazon.com/Civil-War-Two-Part-Determined-ebook/dp/B07B1TSNWH/ref=tmm_kin_swatch_0?_encoding=UTF8&qid=1523915690&sr=8-1&dpID=51yuwsdw%252BeL&preST=_SY445_QL70_&dpSrc=detail">author of</a></div>
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<a href="https://www.amazon.com/Civil-War-Two-Part-Determined-ebook/dp/B07B1TSNWH/ref=tmm_kin_swatch_0?_encoding=UTF8&qid=1523915690&sr=8-1&dpID=51yuwsdw%252BeL&preST=_SY445_QL70_&dpSrc=detail">On The Run: Fugitive Life in an American City</a></div>
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References<br />
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<span style="color: black;">Randall Collins. 2018.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><a href="https://www.amazon.com/Civil-War-Two-Part-Determined/dp/1732060517/ref=sr_1_1_nodl?ie=UTF8&qid=1523915690&sr=8-1&keywords=civil+war+two+randall+collins">CivilWar Two: America Elects a President Determined to Restore Religion to PublicLife, and the Nation Splits</a>. </i><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Maren Ink.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>2018.
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<span style="color: black;">P.W. Singer and August Cole.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Ghost
Fleet. A Novel of the Next World War.</i> Mariner Books. 2016.</span></div>
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