Political correctness

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In America there is a full-scale party political assault on political correctness.  The Republican debate last night was full of it, half the problems of the country being put down to the allegedly pusillanimous obeiscence to it on the part of the government, and, increasingly, students.

The following is a comment by AC Grayling,  Master of New College of the Humanities in London:

“The origins of political correctness were profoundly honourable, in combating prejudice and promoting inclusion in its place. But its extension to anything that could give affront, or which could alarm tender sensibilities, goes vastly too far. University is precisely the place where such sensibilities should be vigorously shaken up, because the world at large is not interested in pretending that realities do not exist.

“Two key points are overlooked by champions of the new politically correct dogma. One concerns free speech. By its nature free speech can be disruptive and even offensive, but the answer to bad free speech is not censorship but better free speech. Censorship is much more harmful than debate; however unpalatable a view, it is better to challenge it than hide from it.

“The other, related, commitment is to intellectual courage. Facing the world and its complexities in order to understand and deal with them is obviously far better than burying one’s head in the sand, hoping that the nasty things will go away because one is ignoring them. The latter attitude is worse than silly, it is infantilising and disempowering – precisely what university life should not be.

“To attend university is not only to learn more, and to learn it with richer attendant insight, it is also thereby to mature one’s intellect, to grow up, to become an enfranchised adult in mind. Recreating nursery conditions to protect oneself even from mention of what happens in unvarnished human experience is a perversion of that process. In America, students call their universities “school”; alas, it seems that the cotton-wool connotation of that term is too literally carried across to what should be very unlike school in a number of respects. University is where one is not only taught, but learns independently; where one is not only guided, but challenged; where there are not teachers and pupils, but colleagues; where a steady gaze is directed at the data of life and the world, with the aim of understanding both.”

What do you think?

Creativity

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In their book “Art and Fear”,  David Bayles and Ted Orland tell of a ceramics teacher who announced on the opening day of class that he was dividing the students into two groups. Half were told that they would be graded on quantity. The pots they had made would be weighed.  They would get an “A” for 50lb of pots, a “B” for 40lb, and so on. The other half would be graded on quality. They just had to bring along their one, perfectly designed pot.

The results were emphatic – the works of highest quality, the most beautiful and creative designs, were all produced by the group graded for quantity. As Bayles and Orland put it: “It seems that while the ‘quantity’ group was busily churning out piles of work – and learning from their mistakes – the ‘quality’ group concentrated on perfection, and in the end had little more to show for their efforts than a pile of dead clay.”

We only see  final products – the amazing movie, the super-efficient vacuum cleaner, the beatiful painting.  What we don’t see is the deeper story of how they emerge. The tales we tell about creativity overlook this, too. We think of Archimedes shouting “eureka” or Newton being hit on the head by the apple and instantaneously inventing the theory of gravity.

Insight is the endpoint of a long term, iterative process, rather than the starting point.  People should be encouraged to experiment, test ideas, to see their flaws, and to be triggered into new associations and insights  (a precised version of an article by Matthew Syed, author of “Black Box Thinking: The Surprising Truth About Success”.)

So try and try often, dear reader.  Feel free to fail. It is good for you and you will end up with a finer product in the end.

US food industry uses shortcuts on food additives

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A 1958 law allows food companies to avoid formal regulations if it can show that the additives they use are generally used and regarded as safe.  About a third of the time companies  make safety evaluations in secret without ever telling the FDA, and a single consultant can sign off on safety determinations.

Even when they go the more formal route, critics say, the system that introduces new food products to market is rife with conflicts of interest.  A panel of three (usually the same) experts review the research and determine best practice. It is alleged  that these scientific panels are populated by “industry-hired guns”. They are used two thirds of the time, and their decision is the final word on the use of the ingredients in a whole array of foods, with no notice to or review by the FDA. Critics say that when scientists depend on the food industry for income, they may be less likely to contest the safety of ingredients companies hope to market. The fact that some of them have also worked for the tobacco industry does not enhance their perceived integrity.  (from an investigation by the Center for Public Integrity,Copyright 2015 NPR.)

So what is the point of having the Food and Drug Administration?  This seems to be part and parcel of “getting the federal government off our backs”, whereas protecting the public from unscrupulous operators is an essential activity of government.  Were Epicurus alive today I believe  he would support the idea of more impartial oversight into what we put into our mouths.

As we celebrate the worldwide agreement on climate change……

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…..,,,,,,, 75% of Americans think climate change is a problem that needs fixing. And most of them claim they’re “willing to do absolutely anything necessary to stop this impending disaster”.

Their actions, however, tell a very different story. Are they embracing electric cars? Hardly. Fewer than 3% of all cars, SUVs, pickup trucks and light-duty vehicles in the US today run on anything but petrol or diesel. The use of hybrid cars has actually fallen since 2013. Are people rushing to share cars to work? No. In 1980, 64% of the Americans who commuted to work by car did so alone. Today, even after a massive PR campaign to get people out of their cars, 74% do. Efforts to encourage cycling have fared little better. In 1980, 0.05% of Americans biked to work. Now, a mighty 0.06% do.

Whatever Americans tell pollsters, the evidence suggests most of them aren’t too bothered about climate change. Perhaps that’s because they think there’s nothing we can do about it, or because they “understand that humans have been adapting successfully to slight changes in the climate forever”. Or perhaps they just don’t care. Either way, they’re not buying “the ceaseless end-of-days rhetoric from our politicians and media”. (David Harsanyi, The Federalist)

All we can do is to be good citizens. This means walking and using the car as little as possible; re-cycling; turning the lights and computers off when not using them, electing good people, reducing consumption of meat, and, in general, being aware of our individual impacts on the environment.  I would like to think that global warming is a constant background concern in my own life, and that I do as much as I can.  But I am very aware that I am in no position to preach to anyone! Probably, none of us are. How can we do better individually? Suggestions?

Abortion

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Local Republican legislators in 43 States are desperately trying to make abortion more onerous.  By the end March this year they had introduced 791 provisions related to sexual and reproductive health and rights. Nearly 42% of these provisions (332 provisions) seek to restrict access to abortion services; fifty-three abortion restrictions had been approved by a legislative chamber, and nine had been enacted. Meanwhile, Republicans are assaulting Planned Parenthood in the US Congress.

Why the urgency?  Because half of all Americans now consider themselves “pro-choice” on abortion, surpassing the 44% who identify as “pro-life.” This is the first time since 2008 that the pro-choice position has had a statistically significant lead in Americans’ abortion views.   Gallup reports the increase has occurred almost equally among men and women. The biggest change by age since 2001 is that middle-aged and older Americans are more likely to be pro-choice today, while the percentage of young adults who identify with the term is about the same.  This could be the last chance to make the lot of women, unable or unwilling to bring up an unwanted child, even more miserable.

Strange, isn’t it? These people get very exercised when the constitutional right to carry a weapon is criticised or attacked, but they are quite  happy to undermine the constitutional right of every woman to determine whether she has a child or not and what she does with her body. There are arguably too many human beings on this planet as it us; we shouldn’t be deliberately bringing into the world those who are unwanted and unloved.