"Relying on an anecdote, arguing ad hominem — these should be mortifying."

Said Steven Pinker, quoted in "Steven Pinker Thinks Your Sense of Imminent Doom Is Wrong" (NYT), an interview with Pinker about his new book "Rationality: What It Is, Why It Seems Scarce, Why It Matters."

Then the interviewer asks him "Do you see any irrational beliefs as useful?" and he says:

Yeah. For example, every time the media blames a fire or a storm on climate change, it’s a dubious argument in the sense that those are events that belong to weather, not climate. You can never attribute a particular event to a trend. It’s also the case, given that there is an availability bias in human cognition, that people tend to be more influenced by images and narratives and anecdotes than trends. If a particular anecdote or event can in the public mind be equated with a trend, and the impression that people get from the flamboyant image gets them to appreciate what in reality is a trend, then I have no problem with using it that way.

Should we be mortified?

I'm sure Pinker could give a rational or rational sounding answer to the question whether he contradicted himself, but let me try to do it myself. You can wish people would favor rationality so much that they'd be mortified by reliance on anecdote and still notice, quite rationally, that as irrationality rages on in the human mind, it will, at least some of the time, drive people in the right direction. 

By using climate change as his example, Pinker is assuming the reader already believes what he believes and what he believes rationally, which is that climate change is indeed an immense problem and one that the less rational people have difficulty facing. So he likes that irrational thought — reliance on "images and narratives and anecdotes" — will work on these less rational people. We already know what we need them to think and that their minds don't work right, so it's okay — it's rational — to do what's necessary to get them to think what it's good for them to think. In that sense, propaganda is rational.

I'm not agreeing with all that, just sketching it out as a sympathetic reader after I flagged a seeming contradiction. 

6:23, 6:29 a.m.

"At the close of the 2020-21 academic year, women made up 59.5% of college students, an all-time high, and men 40.5%..."

"The divergence increases at graduation: After six years of college, 65% of women in the U.S. who started a four-year university in 2012 received diplomas by 2018 compared with 59% of men during the same period.... American colleges, which are embroiled in debates over racial and gender equality... have yet to reach a consensus on what might slow the retreat of men from higher education.... Enrollment rates for poor and working-class white men are lower than those of young Black, Latino and Asian men from the same economic backgrounds.... Social science researchers cite distractions and obstacles to education that weigh more on boys and young men, including videogames, pornography, increased fatherlessness and cases of overdiagnosis of boyhood restlessness and related medications. Men in interviews around the U.S. said they quit school or didn’t enroll because they didn’t see enough value in a college degree for all the effort and expense required to earn one. Many said they wanted to make money after high school....  Jerlando Jackson, department chair, Education Leadership and Policy Analysis, at the University of Wisconsin’s School of Education, said few campuses have been willing to spend limited funds on male underachievement that would also benefit white men, risking criticism for assisting those who have historically held the biggest educational advantages. 'As a country, we don’t have the tools yet to help white men who find themselves needing help,' Dr. Jackson said. 'To be in a time when there are groups of white men that are falling through the cracks, it’s hard.'"

"A Generation of American Men Give Up on College: ‘I Just Feel Lost’/The number of men enrolled at two- and four-year colleges has fallen behind women by record levels, in a widening education gap across the U.S." (Wall Street Journal (no paywall)).

"We don’t have any literature that says he made the painting for Tiffany... But we know a little bit about Basquiat... We know he loved New York, and that he loved luxury and he loved jewelry."

"My guess is that the [blue painting] is not by chance. The color is so specific that it has to be some kind of homage. As you can see, there is zero Tiffany blue in the [ad] campaign other than the painting... It’s a way to modernize Tiffany blue."

Said Alexandre Arnault, a communications vice president at Tiffany, quoted in "Basquiat’s friends ‘horrified’ by Beyoncé and Jay-Z’s Tiffany campaign" (NY Post). 

I was going to quote the expressions of horror by Basquiat's friends, but when I got to Arnault's defense of Tiffany, I saw that those expressions were surplusage. You've heard the phrase "The best defense is a good offense." But sometimes the best offense is a bad defense. Defense is self-serving, so when it works against you, it really works. 

Jean-Michel Basquiat died of a heroin overdose 33 years ago at the age of 27.

But Beyonce and Jay-Z are living well and posing artfully....

It's all so stilted, this "modernization." To my eye, Jay-Z is a tribute to the Maxell blown-away guy of the 1980s...

... and Beyonce is a tribute to John Singer Sargent's "Portrait of Madame X":

Not too "modern." 

Then again I could be wrong in my mental associations. At least they are — unlike Arnault's idea that Basquiat mixed that color blue to say "Tiffany!" — unaffected by commercial interests.

"He take me round to the city hospital. The clock was striking ten/I done hear my companion say, 'I don't b'lieve I'll see your smiling face again.'"

 

A song — "Meningitis Blues" — that I ran into while poking through jug band music on Spotify (which I was doing as a result of listening to a podcast about skiffle music). I thought it made interesting listening during our covid times. 

Here's the Wikipedia article on The Memphis Jug Band, which was "an American musical group active from the mid-1920s to the late 1950s... [that] featured harmonica, kazoo, fiddle and mandolin or banjolin, backed by guitar, piano, washboard, washtub bass and jug [and]... played slow blues, pop songs, humorous songs and upbeat dance numbers with jazz and string band flavors."

"A statue of divisive European explorer Christopher Columbus that was on prominent display in Mexico City will be replaced with a figure of an Indigenous woman..."

"The looming Columbus figure had stood tall on the Paseo de la Reforma boulevard for over 100 years, but on Sunday the mayor of the capital city, Claudia Sheinbaum, said it was time for a change of landscape and to make way for a monument that delivers 'social justice.'... Last month, [President Andrés Manuel] López Obrador asked the country’s Indigenous peoples for forgiveness for the abuses inflicted on them during the bloody 1521 Spanish conquest of the Aztec empire. He has previously called on Spain’s royal family and Pope Francis to formally apologize for atrocities committed during the Spanish conquest at the beginning of the 16th century.... For Mónica Moreno Figueroa, a Mexican academic in the United Kingdom and co-founder of the Collective to Eliminate Racism in Mexico (COPERA), the removal of the Columbus statue is 'symbolically important.'... However, simply replacing Columbus with a possibly anonymous Indigenous woman, in a country that is home to at least 50 Indigenous groups, lacked nuance...."

From "Statue of Christopher Columbus in Mexico City to be replaced by Indigenous female figure/The removal of statues of the explorer has been common in the United States and elsewhere as countries reckon with the public commemoration of their past" (WaPo).

"Attacks such as those of former President Donald Trump on the 'deep state' turned out to be attempts to demolish the bureaucratic state itself."

"The ultimate effect, and often the explicit intention, was to return power to the person of the ruler. In this respect, Trump can be understood as part of a global wave of anti-bureaucratic patrimonialism that includes Vladimir Putin in Russia, Rodrigo Duterte in the Philippines, and Victor Orban in Hungary. In each case, rule by men requiring unfailing loyalty as a prerequisite for political influence has led to the de-modernization of political authority and a return to personalistic rule. This explains why social divisions about public health measures are so bitter and enduring: They are rooted in divisions about the nature of political legitimacy itself. The global rebellion against the modern bureaucratic state, and the scientific and professional expertise on which it is built, has degenerated into a zero-sum struggle against any effort whatsoever to impose binding, impersonal rules to defend the public good.... The robust defense of rational, reasonable public health measures to fight COVID-19 can play a useful role in pushing back against patrimonialism, in the U.S. and globally."

From "Why can't we mandate anything?" by Stephen E. Hanson (vice provost for academic and international affairs at the College of William & Mary) and Jeffrey S. Kopstein (professor of political science at the University of California, Irvine) (The Hill). 

I added that link on "patrimonialism." And I want to underscore that the authors are saying that mandating things is a way to push back against a system in which power flows directly from the leader. In this view, bureaucracy is a safeguard, and people ought to appreciate it. But how do you get people to appreciate it? One idea that a mask requirement would provide an occasion for speaking persuasively to the people about how "rational, reasonable" experts are working earnestly to preserve good order. 

"After retiring from his 40-year career as a machine operator for Gardner Bakery about 10 years ago, Krieger, 72, filled his days with card games and visits with friends."

"After adding garbage collection to his hobbies, Krieger can’t go anywhere without stopping for litter. He even keeps a backup trash grabber in his car at all times, what he calls his 'gun.' 'In some ways I’m sorry I started, but then I’m thinking, "Just stop. Could you live with it?"' The answer, Krieger said, is always no."

From "Watch now: 'Garbage man' cleans his Madison neighborhood one cigarette butt at a time" (Wisconsin State Journal)(video at link).

"The Taliban on Monday seized Panjshir province, a restive mountain region that was the final holdout of resistance forces in the country..."

"... cementing its total control over Afghanistan a week after U.S. forces departed the country. Taliban spokesman Zabihullah Mujahid said in a statement that the Islamist group had 'completely conquered' the Panjshir Valley. 'Our last efforts for establishing peace and security in the country have given results,” he said. A senior official of the National Resistance Front of Afghanistan, who spoke on the condition of anonymity due to the sensitivity of the matter, confirmed that the Taliban had taken over. 'Yes, Panjshir has fallen. Taliban took control of government offices. Taliban fighters entered into the governor’s house,' the person said."

WaPo reports.

"The full title of Mr. Vizinczey’s best-known book was 'In Praise of Older Women: The Amorous Recollections of Andras Vajda.'"

"Its title character was a philosophy instructor who reminisces about finding his way to maturity through his relationships with a series of older lovers. The character’s definition of 'older' — and Mr. Vizinczey’s — may seem odd today; a woman in her mid-30s qualified. But the point, Mr. Vizinczey said at the time, was to provide an alternative to the prevailing view of sex. 'The North American myth that youth is wonderful, that the perfect "woman" is 18 years old, is simply a lot of hogwash,' he told The Gazette of Montreal in 1965, when the book was first published in Canada."

 
FRom "Stephen Vizinczey, ‘In Praise of Older Women’ Author, Dies at 88/His best-known work, somewhat scandalous for the mid-1960s, treated sex frankly and sold millions of copies" (NYT).

6:22, 6:27 a.m.

At the Goldenrod Café...

... you can talk about whatever you want.

"Mr. Biden is not a Gold Star father and should stop playing one on TV."

Wrote William McGurn, a speechwriter for President George W. Bush, in an op-ed in The Wall Street Journal, quoted in a New York Times column that strives to put Biden in the most beautifully golden light, "In Invoking Beau, Biden Broaches a Loss That’s Guided His Presidency/Referring to Beau Biden with families of U.S. Marines killed in the Kabul airport bombing drew criticism, but the president remains haunted by memories of a son he described as 'me, but without all the downsides.'" 

That headline appears above a photograph of Biden with his eyes closed and a tear rolling down his cheek. The piece is by White House correspondent Katie Rogers:

Mr. Biden has never claimed that his son died in combat, but he has often spoken of his son’s overseas deployment and the toll it took on his family. Mr. Biden’s supporters say that military families are entitled to their grief, but that the president is also entitled to his....  

The general thinking among Mr. Biden’s supporters is that he is a welcome change from President Donald J. Trump, who was almost always publicly unable to express empathy. They believe Mr. Biden is the right president for this moment in history, one so far marked by the unthinkable loss....

Biden needs to show people that he's focused on the problems that beset us now and that he can do something to help us. To stand there offering up himself as an example of a person who has suffered doesn't send a message of focus and competence. It's a message that can be read as Hey, I've got problems of my own. Faced with parents of marines who'd just been killed, he said, essentially, my son died too. 

His son died 6 years ago. You might be tolerant of an old man who came up to you at your child's funeral and wanted you to know how much he still hurts from the death of his child 6 years ago. It might be difficult, but you'd probably think something like, that poor old guy. But this poor old guy is President of the United States. He asked to be President of the United States, and by some strange twists of fate, he got what he said he wanted. And now everyone's problems are his. He needs to act like someone who can handle all that. If he's swallowed up in grief over his lost son — if he's "haunted," as the NYT headline has it — perhaps he should resign. 

It is possible — though it's awkward to say this — that he's not as absorbed in grief as he acts. He may be doing the theater of empathy. It's worked for him to a certain extent. Some people like to see a big display of empathy in politics. Others — a dead marine's father, McGurn, etc. — are telling Biden he's going too far. If it's theater, he can rein it it. Touch up those speeches. Get back to Obama-level empathy, but stress competence and mental clarity. 

But it's no wonder he's lapsed into the misconception that "Beau" is a magic word. The press has propped him up so much — including with this "Invoking Beau" article. You know, to "invoke" means "To call on (God, a deity, etc.) in prayer or as a witness" or "To summon (a spirit) by charms or incantation; to conjure; also figurative" or "To call upon, or call to (a person) to come or to do something." 

How is Biden "invoking" Beau? 

"Biden’s overall approval rating fell from 50 percent to 44 percent from June, also dragged down by 2-to-1 disapproval for..."

"... his handling of Afghanistan following a chaotic withdrawal. Biden’s ratings for handling the economy also have declined, from 52 percent positive in April to 45 percent in the latest survey."

WaPo reports. 

But elsewhere in WaPo, we have "Opinion: The Supreme Court rides to Biden’s rescue" by Kathleen Parker. 

That's got to be the most predictable column of the week. Yes, Biden's doing horribly, and yes, it's awful the way the Supreme Court couldn't stop that Texas abortion law, but isn't it good for Biden and the Democrats that the threat to abortion rights is suddenly powerfully grabbing the everybody's attention? 

That's my paraphrase. Here's a bit of Parker's pep talk:

President Biden’s personal hell month featured...  Hurricane Ida... Afghanistan... covid-19’s delta variant... a dragging economy... and uncontrollable fires out west.... 

The president has been bouncing all over the four Horses of the Apocalypse....

It's not "four Horses of the Apocalypse." It's Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse. And I can't picture bouncing all over them. Is he supposed to be the rider of all 4 horses, like he is all 4 Horsemen of the Apocalypse? I don't think the Biblical reference is properly understood here.

Back to the column:

The president has been bouncing all over the four Horses of the Apocalypse, a reluctant gladiator trying to rein in the ruin of his presidency when...

So a gladiator is bouncing on the horses, trying to rein them in? Here's a nice painting of the Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse (by Viktor Vasnetsov, 1887):

"Coffee-pot groups were groups of poor black teenagers, who performed on street corners and tried to reproduce the sounds of the lush records they heard on the radio, using… well..."

"... using the equipment they had to hand. For string parts, you’d play ukuleles or guitars or banjos, but for the horns you’d play the kazoo. But of course, kazoos were not particularly pleasant instruments, and they certainly didn’t sound much like a saxophone or clarinet. But it turned out you could make them sound a lot more impressive than they otherwise would if you blew them into something that resonated. Different sizes of container would resonate differently, and so you could get a pretty fair approximation of a horn section by having a teapot, a small coffee pot, and a large coffee pot, and having three of your band members play kazoos into them. The large coffee pot you could also pass around to the crowd afterward, to collect the money in...."

 
From "A History of Rock Music in 500 Songs/Episode 6: The Ink Spots — 'That’s When Your Heartaches Begin.'" I'm immensely enjoying this podcast, so I recommend starting with "Episode 1: 'Flying Home' by the Benny Goodman Sextet." 

There is so much detail to the story — the story of rock music — and I've simply pulled out one sample passage that's both really interesting and demonstrative of the level of detail to be found. I love that the podcaster, Andrew Hickey, gives us a complete transcript. It's nice for people who want to share things on line and start conversations, as I'm doing here.

I'm up to "Episode 15: 'Hound Dog' by Big Mama Thornton."

"With the aid-dependent country’s economy in free-fall — nearly 80 percent of the previous government’s budget came from foreign aid that has been cut off..."

"... the United Nations has convened a 'high-level ministerial humanitarian meeting' in Geneva on Sept. 13 to appeal for aid. Nearly half the country is 'malnourished,' said the U.N.’s humanitarian coordinator in Afghanistan, Ramiz Alakbarov. Nearly half of all children under the age of 5 are predicted to be acutely malnourished in the next 12 months, the U.N. said. Still, there were signs of a creeping return to a kind of normality, as domestic flights resumed and the U.N.’s humanitarian flights restarted. Two cash transfer agencies, Western Union and MoneyGram, reopened for business, a vital step for a country with a large diaspora."

From "Taliban Fighters Crush a Women’s Protest Amid Flickers of Resistance/The women were assaulted with rifle butts, tear gas and metal clubs, while anti-Taliban rebels in the north vowed to repel an assault by the Islamist group" (NYT).