Blog, page 12

Polina Aronson in Aeon:

The clash of romantic regimes was precisely what I was experiencing on that day in the school library. The Seventeen girl was trained for making decisions about whom to get intimate with. She rationalised her emotions in terms of ‘needs’ and ‘rights’, and rejected commitments that did not seem compatible with them. She was raised in the Regime of Choice. By contrast, classic Russian literature (which, when I was coming of age, remained the main source of romantic norms in my country), described succumbing to love as if it were a supernatural power, even when it was detrimental to comfort, sanity or life itself. In other words, I grew up in the Regime of Fate.

Exceptional article that illustrates, among other things, the power of cultural difference to highlight otherwise-invisible cultural presuppositions. In the end however, both “regimes” — the traditional and the progressive — are tyrannies, and both fall short of the highest view of love, sex, and romance.

(h/t @nickoparsons)

Nicholas Kristof in the NYT:

I mourned [our family dog’s] passing on social media and received a torrent of touching condolences, easing my ache at the loss of a member of the family. Yet on the same day that Katie died, I published a column calling for greater international efforts to end Syria’s suffering and civil war, which has claimed perhaps 470,000 lives so far. That column led to a different torrent of comments, many laced with a harsh indifference: Why should we help them?

The numerous comments defending sympathy for the pet and indifference (or worse) for the person only illustrate Kristof’s tragic observation.

MTV executive Nick Shore in Fast Company:

A century of “parent-centered” nuclear family has steadily been under-going a paradigm shift, and may have just passed the tipping point. The nucleus of the family has been moving towards the child, and Millennials look like the first generation raised in that new nuclear family structure. No longer the hierarchical structure with authoritarian parent “leadership,” the new family is flattened to a democracy, with collective (if not kid-driven) decision-making process. Parents are more like best friends, life coaches, or as we at MTV call them “peer-ents.”

h/t @briankruck

The Economist:

…Nigeria’s faith leaders also played a constructive role, at times, helping for example to keep last year’s election peaceful…. …perhaps the best recent example of religious leaders helping to maintain social peace: in the turbulent run-up to this week’s local elections in South Africa, church leaders (including Anglicans, Catholics and pan-Christian bodies) have played an outstanding role in calling for calm and denouncing politicians who in their view were inciting tension for their own ends.

Bloomberg:

Starting later this month, Uber will allow customers in downtown Pittsburgh to summon self-driving cars from their phones, crossing an important milestone that no automotive or technology company has yet achieved. Google, widely regarded as the leader in the field, has been testing its fleet for several years, and Tesla Motors offers Autopilot, essentially a souped-up cruise control that drives the car on the highway. Earlier this week, Ford announced plans for an autonomous ride-sharing service. But none of these companies has yet brought a self-driving car-sharing service to market.

This, of course, has enormous implications: for jobs, for city planning, for parking and roadways, and for cultural norms like the teen rite of passage of getting a driver’s license.

—Tim and Kathy Keller

The percentage of American adults who say they smoke weed has nearly doubled in three years, according to a new Gallup poll.

For reference, we’re closing in on smoking marijuana (13% of adults) surpassing smoking cigarettes (16%).

NY Mag:

It gets worse. We now recognize that getting the lives we want depends on cultivating the right attitude, so we beat ourselves up every time our state of mind is less than 100 percent optimistic. If there’s a mass religion of global culture, it’s the high-capitalist belief, trumpeted at every turn by every single voice in the spotlight, that by believing in yourself (without fail!) you can get everything you’ve ever dreamed of. Everything depends on your faith and your ability to squelch the doubts in your head that arise when yet another glamorous on-brand winner pops up in your Instagram feed.

CityLab, discussing newly developed tool that demonstrates Aaron Renn’s “new/old donut” models:

A new study published by the Demographics Research Group of the University of Virginia’s Weldon Cooper Center for Public Service analyzes the demographic trends of 66 major U.S. metros, measuring how they change with distance from the city center. The report’s charting tool helps visualize the data on an “objective, intuitive spatial scale” rather than on subjective “urban”/“suburban” categories…

It’s fun to select your city and see the charts. One of the most interesting tables for Chicago, for example, is population density: it shows a 10,000 person per square mile increase in the city center from 1990 to 2012.

Pascal-Emmanuel Gobry in The Week:

It wasn’t always this way. It used to be taken for granted that the best indicator of a nation’s health was its citizens’ desire and capacity to reproduce. And it should still seem self-evident that people’s willingness to have children is not only a sign of confidence in the future, but a sign of cultural health. It’s a signal that people are willing to commit to the most enduring responsibility on Earth, which is raising a child.

“Prison gerrymandering” is a thing too:

A U.S. District Judge ruled today that the City of Cranston violated the one person, one vote principle of the U.S. constitution when it counted people incarcerated at the Adult Correctional Institutions as “residents” of one Ward of the City.

NYT cites current zoning laws mean that “40% of the buildings in Manhattan could not be built today,” and rightly points out that it’s precisely these “too tall” or “too dense” structures that make Manhattan great:

New York’s zoning code was the first in the country, meant to promote a healthier city, which was then filling with filthy tenements and office towers. Since it was approved in 1916, the ever-evolving, byzantine code has changed many times to suit the needs of a swollen metropolis. Just in March, the administration of Mayor Bill de Blasio won approval for a vast citywide plan that would encourage sleeker, more affordable developments.

Full article has some great infographics.

Judith Shulevitz, “feminism, culture and science” columnist for the NYT:

But non-Republicans would be foolish to dismiss pornography as a non-issue. Internet pornography is a real problem for the 66 million American parents with children under 18. Parents don’t have to believe that such material is a direct cause of sexual violence to be driven a little crazy by it. It’s bad enough that it’s giving our sons and daughters some very creepy ideas about how they’re supposed to look and act.

…who walk in the light of your presence, LORD. They rejoice in your name all day long; they celebrate your righteousness.

–Psalm 89:15-16

Eric Zorn in the Tribune:

But fairness here is not only ethical, it also makes good strategic sense. Supporters undermine and discredit their causes with unfair distortions…

No need to warp [Clinton’s and Trump’s] words. The truth is bad enough.