On music

Posted by on

Owing to the release of dopamine, listening to music makes you feel good. This much is known. Studies suggest that the brain’s natural opioids also play a part. This might help explain why music can act as an analgesic, and explains its use by some hospitals to help relieve pain after surgery.

Some types of music may have greater healing potential than others. A key factor appears to be rhythm. One reason is that neurons in the brainstem seem to fire synchronously with the tempo of sounds we hear. Other research shows that slow-tempo music can reduce heart rate, blood pressure, body temperature and other responses controlled by the brainstem. Such rhythm effects might help music combat stress and anxiety.

Research by Peter Sleight at Oxford indicates that slow music with a 10-second repetitive cycle calms listeners. He believes this is because it matches the length of a cycle of signals sent from the brain to the heart to regulate blood pressure. Music by Verdi, as well as the slow movements of Beethoven’s ninth symphony and the arias in Puccini’s opera Turandot are rich in such 10-second cycles. (based on an article in New Scientist, Sept 2015).

So why is it that orchestras and pianists in particular, now play pieces far too loudly and very much faster than a generation ago? I personally get exasperated by this, but it does one surefire thing – it gets the audience on its feet in frenzied enthusiam. Yes, the standing ovation, a very American habit! Some music is intended to stimulate and excite, but it is usually accompanied by other, slower, quieter passages that calm and soothe the mind. The audience is thus treated to a wide range of moods. But the current trend is away from the gentle, melodic treatment of music towards crude sensational “sturm und drang”- to its great loss.

One of the most sensitive pianists I have heard was at one time Louis Lorti, a Canadian. His Chopin recordings are superb examples of what true music is supposed to sound like. But, bowing to the (dare I say it) vulgarisation of the musical canon, the last time my wife and I heard him in person was a shock – he was thumping the piane as if he wanted to rip out the keys. The audience shot up the moment the concert ended in ecstaic applause. We thought the whole thing un-musical, but this is what the modern audience apparently seems to want. No taming of the savage breast encouraged. Epicureans want, and need, peace.

Prisons again: British prisons are a disgrace, too.

Posted by on

Two recent shocking reports into jails in Nottingham and Liverpool show that conditions remain Dickensian – inmates crammed into filthy, freezing cells; cockroaches; rats; extensive violence. Whether you measure it by the high levels of re-offending or the number of suicides, it’s clear the system is failing; yet we keep locking more and more people up – England and Wales have the highest rate of imprisonment in western Europe.

Something has to change, and if ministers are wise, they should seek inspiration from Scotland. There, the SNP government rightly concluded that short jail terms disrupt family and work ties, and thus usually do more harm than good. So eight years ago it ruled that whenever judges imposed a sentence of less than 12 weeks, they’d have to justify in court why they hadn’t imposed community service or another penalty. Since then, both prison numbers and reconviction rates have fallen: there are now plans to extend the anti-jail presumption to sentences of up to 12 months. Westminster should follow suit. (Ian Birrell, published in i newspaper and The Week, 3 February 2018)

When you come to think of it jails are the universities of crime. If you are an amateur criminal when you go in, given your fellow inmates you will be a professional when you come out. Jail is where people uninterested in a normal respectable life hone their skills: the best areas to sell drugs and the best suppliers of them; how to break into modern cars and disable alarms prior to burglary; how to run a ponzi scheme, rob a cash machine and other activities the reader will be able to think of. Why is it that small countries like Finland, Sweden, Scotland etc have reduced both crime and incarceration while countries like the US and Britain are still mentally back in the 19th Century on this subject? One reason is inertia; another is that politicians stoke up fear of crime, even when, as in the US, it is actually going down. I am sure a dose of jail probably persuades an un-hardened few to change their lifestyle, but how many?

Too many Americans in prison

Posted by on

According to the US Bureau of Justice Statistics, 2,220,300 adults were incarcerated in US federal and state prisons, and county jails in 2013 – about 1 in 110 of the U.S. resident population. Additionally, 4,751,400 adults in 2013 (1 in 51) were on probation or on parole. For-profit companies were responsible for approximately 7 percent of state prisoners and 18 percent of federal prisoners in 2015 (the most recent numbers currently available).

A 2016 report by the U.S. Department of Justice asserts that privately operated federal facilities are less safe, less secure and more punitive than other federal prisons.  Shortly thereafter, the DoJ announced it will stop using private prisons. Nevertheless, a month later the Department of Homeland Security renewed a controversial contract with the CCA to continue operating the South Texas Family Residential Center, an immigrant detention facility in Dilley, Texas.

Stock prices for CCA and GEO Group surged following Donald Trump’s victory in the 2016 elections. On February 23, the DOJ under Attorney General Jeff Sessions overturned the ban on using private prisons. According to Sessions, “the (Obama administration) memorandum changed long-standing policy and practice, and impaired the bureau’s ability to meet the future needs of the federal correctional system. Therefore, I direct the bureau to return to its previous approach.” (NPR report)

2,220,300 people locked up! Extraordinary. While the more enlightened countries, such as the Nordic countries, are incarcerating fewer people and trying to rehabilitate offenders in more civilised ways, the United States jails people for possesion of marijuana or driving through red lights, especially if the happen to be black. Then, when the offenders leave jail they are on their own – no help, no money and no help to find jobs. At least in England there are advisors available to help released offenders adjust to freedom, sending them to companies prepared to accept offenders, arranging temporary accommodation, clothing etc.

Someone commented to me years ago that the so-called War on Drugs in the US was simply a way of getting young blacks off the streets. Because with a criminal record you don’t have the vote i. most states; thus the black vote is suppressed. Meanwhile, the incentive for private jail owners is obviously profit. They are well known for cutting corners in staffing, space allocated to offenders, food and prisoner welfare. This is a human rights issue. It is also an indication of the level of fear among the proponents of the “lock ‘em up” crowd.

Should 16 year olds be given the vote?

Posted by on

Should the British voting age be reduced to 16? Labour, the Lib Dems, the Greens, SNP and Plaid Cymru all believe so, and recently sought unsuccessfully to vote through a private members’ bill in Parliament to that effect.

The arguments made for this idea are specious. Letting 16-year-olds vote, it is claimed, would invigorate our democracy and show that the young, too, are responsible, engaged members of society. Really? So are they also calling for 16-year-olds to be allowed to smoke, drink, buy fireworks, gamble, get a tattoo, buy a house, drive a car or get married without parental permission? Are they clamouring for 16, not 18, to be the age limit for being sent to an adult prison? Of course not. The only reason the proponents are so keen to enfranchise 16-year-olds is that it would add 1.5 million people to the electorate, most of whom would be “blissfully naive about politics” and temperamentally inclined to vote for the Left – “easy prey”, in other words. Forget the high-minded talk about inclusivity. Their crusade “isn’t empowering; it’s child exploitation”. (The Week)

On this I absolutely agree. Sixteen is an age of rebellion, flux, embracing one idea today and abandoning it tomorrow, experimentation, irritating your elders etc. etc. The last time I had a political discussion with a member of my family of around that age I came away thinking he sounded like a mix of Napoleon, Franco, Enoch Powell and any one of a dozen right wing dictators. But judging him for this would be inappropriate – he was just experimenting, trying out various recipes life, and carefully watching my face as he spoke! I have no doubt he will end up wise – but not quite yet.

Uncovering your hidden biases

Posted by on

Are your hidden biases soon to be revealed? A computer program claims to be able to unmask them by scrutinising people’s body language for signs of prejudice.

Algorithms can already accurately read people’s emotions from their facial expressions or speech patterns. So a team of researchers in Italy wondered if they could be used to uncover people’s hidden racial biases. First, they asked 32 white college students to fill out two questionnaires. One was designed to suss out their explicit biases, while the second, an Implicit Association iTest, aimed to uncover their subconscious racial biases.

Then, each participated in two filmed conversations: one with a white person, and one with a black person. The pair spent three minutes discussing a neutral subject, then another three on a more sensitive topic, such as immigration. Their movements, heart rates and skin responses were monitored.  An algorithm then searched for correlations between the participants’ questionnaire responses and their non-verbal behaviour during the filmed conversations. For example, it found that those who showed strong hidden racial biases kept a bigger distance between themselves and their black conversational partners. Conversely, those who were comfortable in the conversation seemed to pause more and to use their hands more when they spoke.

Then, the computer looked back at the same data and trying to predict who would have scored high or low on the hidden biases test. It was correct 82 per cent of the time. The team has already started working on follow-up experiments. One focuses on hidden biases towards people who are HIV-positive, while another examines the behaviour of children.

It is hoped that these techniques may lead to improvements in the way interactions between people are studied,  providing objective information on a moment by moment, second by second basis. They could reveal  hidden prejudices and maybe  gently nudge the subject,to act differently. (Adapted from a New Scientist article by Aviva Rutkin)

The problem with this is that people are biased against others for all sorts of reasons, skin colour being only one.  We unconsciously change the way we talk to people according to appearance, age, way of speaking, perceived education, political beliefs, appearance, manners, context of a conversation and a raft of other things.  To have prejudices is part of being human. “We are always biased, and bias is not based just on the colour of the skin,” says Hatice Gunes at the University of Cambridge.  Quite.