The Cognitive Dissident skipped first grade.
He blamed all his social and academic travails that followed on that (although he no longer blames his parents; they’ve both engaged in serious self-flagellant penitence for years since. Basically they just confused prodigy and prodigal…but what Jewish parent doesn’t?)
As a result of my educational experiences, I have become a big fan of the opposite approach: “academic redshirting”, or holding children back a year at the beginning of school.
Now, according the front page bold-type article in Monday’s New York Sun, “’Lengthening Childhood’ Has Ill Effect: Harvard Study Details Costs of Delaying School.”
Just in time for my birthday—which was Monday—I have my most salient excuse for living pulled out from under me.
Not so fast.
The article details two specific concerns on the part of the researchers: one, that there is more of a chance that public school kids will drop out if they start later, and when they do drop out, it will be with one year less education. Two, starting later means one year less in the workforce, which means one year less salary.
The second concern is easy enough to parry. If redshirting has the effect it is supposed to, the time these kids spend in the workforce should be more productive, e.g. they’ll earn more and be promoted faster, thus canceling out the “lost” year.
The first issue is more complicated to deal with, but I will assert that the effect has less to do with the effect of the redshirting than it does with the way primary and secondary academia are structured. Aside from the obvious issues—the day is too long, the classes are overcrowded, the unions are communo-fascist —one might say the time has come to make the school system more like university education. This means that some kids should have lighter workloads, attend on a part-time basis, spread classes over more years, etc.
Until the system becomes more flexible among the aforementioned lines, the issues described above will persist. Which means the study’s conclusion about redshirting will always be inconclusive at best, and if a parent is weighing factors in whether to redshirt a child, taking this study into account would be of dubious value.
Wednesday, July 23, 2008
Monday, July 21, 2008
Prime Time Prognosis: Fertile
Juno. Jamie Lynn. And now, teen pregnancy comes to prime time.
We’ve been here before, notably when Murphy Brown’s single motherhood ignited the election-year brouhaha regarding “cultural elites”. Knocked Up didn't quite elicit the same response, but then came Juno, whose smash critical and box office success was said to glorify teen pregnancy, which is somewhat analogous to believing that Nabakov’s erudition on display in Lolita served to glorify pedophilia.
Now, it’s no accident that Murphy, Juno, Alison and Amy are all white and live in rather stable socio-economic environments, although that may have more to do with target audiences than any residual ethno-cultural biases. However, there has been ample documentation beyond the Moynihan Report and the welfare rolls that there are pervasive beliefs regarding out-of wedlock conception and the consequent atomization of the nuclear family as unquestionable social progress. There is also more than ample documentation that the belief is put into practice far more often outside the demographics of Juno and The Secret Life of the American Teenager, never mind Knocked Up or Murphy Brown.
Murphy Brown and Alison Scott's characters' obviously have the wherewithal to care for their progeny; consequently, any notions of crisis regarding their pregnacies are rather tempered. In Juno's and Amy's cases, the pregnancies are unquestioningly treated as crises but the protagonists are never overtly stigmatized. This would be treated as problematic by both doctrinaire progressives (“cultural elites”?) who would assert that crises surrounding teen pregnancy are socially manufactured, and social conservatives who would decry any portrayal of any out-of-wedlock (and certainly teenage) pregnancy without the attachment of moral stigma.
Can this terrain be navigated in popular culture? This may be the first time someone has tried with any modicum of repeated success. Maybe a new, more effective model of related social services will result.
We’ve been here before, notably when Murphy Brown’s single motherhood ignited the election-year brouhaha regarding “cultural elites”. Knocked Up didn't quite elicit the same response, but then came Juno, whose smash critical and box office success was said to glorify teen pregnancy, which is somewhat analogous to believing that Nabakov’s erudition on display in Lolita served to glorify pedophilia.
Now, it’s no accident that Murphy, Juno, Alison and Amy are all white and live in rather stable socio-economic environments, although that may have more to do with target audiences than any residual ethno-cultural biases. However, there has been ample documentation beyond the Moynihan Report and the welfare rolls that there are pervasive beliefs regarding out-of wedlock conception and the consequent atomization of the nuclear family as unquestionable social progress. There is also more than ample documentation that the belief is put into practice far more often outside the demographics of Juno and The Secret Life of the American Teenager, never mind Knocked Up or Murphy Brown.
Murphy Brown and Alison Scott's characters' obviously have the wherewithal to care for their progeny; consequently, any notions of crisis regarding their pregnacies are rather tempered. In Juno's and Amy's cases, the pregnancies are unquestioningly treated as crises but the protagonists are never overtly stigmatized. This would be treated as problematic by both doctrinaire progressives (“cultural elites”?) who would assert that crises surrounding teen pregnancy are socially manufactured, and social conservatives who would decry any portrayal of any out-of-wedlock (and certainly teenage) pregnancy without the attachment of moral stigma.
Can this terrain be navigated in popular culture? This may be the first time someone has tried with any modicum of repeated success. Maybe a new, more effective model of related social services will result.
Thursday, July 17, 2008
Morally Offended
I suppose as a responsible blogger I should weigh in on the controversy surrounding the most recent cover of the New Yorker depicting Obama bin Barack and his wife Angela Davis.
It was offensive.
It was funny.
It was funny precisely because it was offensive.
In theory, it would be even funnier if it were offensive to everyone, as ostensibly it was if you believe both McCain and Obama's moral harrumphing. Personally, I think they both got a chuckle out of it but probably think it would politically suspect to even give hint they might find it funny. (Then again, nothing impairs a politician's sense of humor more severely than losing, and since it seems that both think that something like this could cost either one in the polls, I could be wrong.)
However, as far as I'm concerned, this whole brouhaha is paradigmatic of the fact that "Moral Offense" is an oxymoron.
To wit: if something is immoral, it remains immoral irrespective of its offensiveness. If something is offensive, that probably has nothing to do with its morality, or lack thereof.
More specifically: if you find something wrong, and it really IS wrong, I don't care if it offends you. If something offends you, morally or otherwise, don't assume that everyone must agree with your calling it wrong.
The confusion of morality with offense (and vice-versa?) is probably the single most toxic element of contmeporary political discourse. In theory, one should really not have a problem with that; in fact, it might be what makes political discourse intoxicating in the first place. The inability to draw a line between immoral and offensive is symptomatic of one needing treatment in some sort of political detox.
Oh wait, that sounds like political re-education. Never mind.
It was offensive.
It was funny.
It was funny precisely because it was offensive.
In theory, it would be even funnier if it were offensive to everyone, as ostensibly it was if you believe both McCain and Obama's moral harrumphing. Personally, I think they both got a chuckle out of it but probably think it would politically suspect to even give hint they might find it funny. (Then again, nothing impairs a politician's sense of humor more severely than losing, and since it seems that both think that something like this could cost either one in the polls, I could be wrong.)
However, as far as I'm concerned, this whole brouhaha is paradigmatic of the fact that "Moral Offense" is an oxymoron.
To wit: if something is immoral, it remains immoral irrespective of its offensiveness. If something is offensive, that probably has nothing to do with its morality, or lack thereof.
More specifically: if you find something wrong, and it really IS wrong, I don't care if it offends you. If something offends you, morally or otherwise, don't assume that everyone must agree with your calling it wrong.
The confusion of morality with offense (and vice-versa?) is probably the single most toxic element of contmeporary political discourse. In theory, one should really not have a problem with that; in fact, it might be what makes political discourse intoxicating in the first place. The inability to draw a line between immoral and offensive is symptomatic of one needing treatment in some sort of political detox.
Oh wait, that sounds like political re-education. Never mind.
Tuesday, July 15, 2008
Pseudo-Intellectual
An intellectual has been defined as one who, because he/she is an expert in one area, assumes he/she is by extension an expert in everything. (Noam Chosmky’s generalizing of linguistics to politics comes to mind.)
The pseudo-intellectual, however, an actual expert in no area, professes to therefore be an expert in whatever area he/she happens to be professing about at that very moment. The Cognitive Dissident has no problem being categorized as such. Of course, I make no pretensions about my lack of pretension, owing in no small part to my Ivy League “pedigree” (Penn BA, Columbia MA)--possibly because said pedigree is all I have left to hang on to.
Anyway, I found it interesting enough that Atlantic Monthly dedicated its July/August cover story to how the internet is changing the way our brains work (or, in their parlance, whether “Google[was] making us Stoopid”). Several historical parallels were drawn. To make it ridiculously simple: when writing became widespread, there was worry that people would stop trying to memorize information and use their brains less. When the printing press was invented, there was worry that people would stop writing information down and use their brains less. Similar things happened with the advent of photography, moving pictures, radio, and television. In short, it has always been believed that there is a directly inverse relationship between the accessibility of information and the quality of either a) the use to which the information can be put, b) the quality of the people accessing/using the information, or c) both.
In other words, the internet is making everyone a potential pseudo-intellectual.
All this would merely prove that the internet has changed nothing beyond the speed with which all of this occurs. Irrespective of the internet’s actual impact on our collective cognitive function, it is highly unlikely that there will be much of a shift in the proportion between true intellectuals and pseudo intellectuals. And to those who would add moral or religious complaints to the socio-intellectual ones, let me quote Scripture (Ecclesiastes 7:10): “Don’t say, ‘Why were the former days better than these?’ For you do not ask wisely about this.”
In other words: nostalgia is nothing more than a disease. Trust me. Google it.
The pseudo-intellectual, however, an actual expert in no area, professes to therefore be an expert in whatever area he/she happens to be professing about at that very moment. The Cognitive Dissident has no problem being categorized as such. Of course, I make no pretensions about my lack of pretension, owing in no small part to my Ivy League “pedigree” (Penn BA, Columbia MA)--possibly because said pedigree is all I have left to hang on to.
Anyway, I found it interesting enough that Atlantic Monthly dedicated its July/August cover story to how the internet is changing the way our brains work (or, in their parlance, whether “Google[was] making us Stoopid”). Several historical parallels were drawn. To make it ridiculously simple: when writing became widespread, there was worry that people would stop trying to memorize information and use their brains less. When the printing press was invented, there was worry that people would stop writing information down and use their brains less. Similar things happened with the advent of photography, moving pictures, radio, and television. In short, it has always been believed that there is a directly inverse relationship between the accessibility of information and the quality of either a) the use to which the information can be put, b) the quality of the people accessing/using the information, or c) both.
In other words, the internet is making everyone a potential pseudo-intellectual.
All this would merely prove that the internet has changed nothing beyond the speed with which all of this occurs. Irrespective of the internet’s actual impact on our collective cognitive function, it is highly unlikely that there will be much of a shift in the proportion between true intellectuals and pseudo intellectuals. And to those who would add moral or religious complaints to the socio-intellectual ones, let me quote Scripture (Ecclesiastes 7:10): “Don’t say, ‘Why were the former days better than these?’ For you do not ask wisely about this.”
In other words: nostalgia is nothing more than a disease. Trust me. Google it.
Tuesday, July 8, 2008
Cognitive Dissidence 101
What’s a cognitive dissident?
Well, in the simplest sense, it means I’m weird, and I admit it.
OK, what else does it tell you that’s not on my Facebook profile?
Let’s put it in political terms.
I might be a swing voter.
I remain a registered Democrat, although as I get older I find myself in accord with the Churchillian (or was it Clemenceauan? (is that the correct proper adjective?)) notion that one who is not a socialist at 20 has no heart, one who is a socialist at 40 has no brains. Or, maybe, I’m just getting closer a simpler notion expounded by the brother of a friend of mine: “Nobody dies a liberal.” (He was commenting more on the fact that his brother was attending an Ivy League school while he had graduated from a city school, but nonetheless.)
Yet, despite the fact that I find the positions expounded by the standard bearers of the Democratic Party increasingly rub me the wrong way, I find myself reluctant to a) admit that I might be (gulp) conservative, b) change my political affiliation, c) and even if I did change my political affiliation, admit it in public. All this despite the fact that I fast approach my 15th college reunion, and a decade and a half should be enough time to cure myself of youthful political sentiment based on…sentiment.
Politics are always sentiment with an admixture of self-interest. The balances are always in question: witness the liberals’ complaint that the working uneducated poor consistently vote against their economic interest because of, at best, religious sentiments or, at worst, unlettered bigoted sentiments; ditto conservatives' complaints that rich liberals vote their vague notions of guilt. (Or, in the case of people like George Soros, they have enough good people working for ‘em that they’ll never have to pay the tax hikes they advocate, so it becomes a question of apperances.)
I suppose, then, that the past 15 years leave me with a solid core of what I, for lack of a more accurate description, would call a vague caucasian/Jewish guilt-progressive-Democratic-hollywood-rock and roll-pop culture-sentiment. (Actually, forget the “lack of…”—if I had any more adjectives to add that would be as far as possible from conservative, I’d use those too. Further on, I probably will.)
In addition to the above political conundrum I’ve conveniently placed myself in, I also am (or claim to be) fiercely Judeocentric.
(That could mean a lot of things, but lets set two criteria for clarity’s sake: I am a Jew. I am pro-Israel. I realize that has probably discredited any liberal credentials I might claim to have, but bear with me.)
So much of my politics—particularly any positions I advocate as a result of my Judeocentrism—may lean toward what I would call apparently conservative, although some doctrinaire conservatives—particularly those of the paleo- variety—would be all too happy to disavow any conservative credentials I might claim even faster than doctrinaire leftists would disqualify my liberal notions. However, as I freely admit, were I to actually seek to place myself in one camp of the other, I would much rather be called liberal than conservative. It may be that no one dies a liberal, but I assume that no one wants to live as a fascist. (Unless one really has that kind of power. Or money. Like George Soros.)
As I realize that this is all of my own making, and I freely admit it, I become a dissident in whatever camp I place myself. If I get the chance to place myself in any camp at all. (The pro-Israel Judeocentric camp, maybe, but as I’ll give you the chance to read in the future, I may be a cognitive dissident in those camps as well. As some of you may already know, the politics within that bailiwick has a life—and mind—of its own.)
In a nutshell, this is probably the best way I can describe myself in political terms, and also to prepare you for what you are going to read on this blog. And, while there will be plenty of personal, one shouldn’t be surprised. As the doctrinaire (or, as I suppose might be more appropriate in my case, and as I will probably use from now on, “orthodox”) feminists used to say “the personal is political”. While that may or my not be true, bear in mind that the converse (or was it inverse?) definitely is true: the political is always personal.
That’s what the cognitive dissident is getting at.
(Oh, by the way, as I’m sure you’ve noticed by now, I have a tendency to (over)use parentheses. You tell me—you rather I use footnotes? I’m not gonna write any less.)
Well, in the simplest sense, it means I’m weird, and I admit it.
OK, what else does it tell you that’s not on my Facebook profile?
Let’s put it in political terms.
I might be a swing voter.
I remain a registered Democrat, although as I get older I find myself in accord with the Churchillian (or was it Clemenceauan? (is that the correct proper adjective?)) notion that one who is not a socialist at 20 has no heart, one who is a socialist at 40 has no brains. Or, maybe, I’m just getting closer a simpler notion expounded by the brother of a friend of mine: “Nobody dies a liberal.” (He was commenting more on the fact that his brother was attending an Ivy League school while he had graduated from a city school, but nonetheless.)
Yet, despite the fact that I find the positions expounded by the standard bearers of the Democratic Party increasingly rub me the wrong way, I find myself reluctant to a) admit that I might be (gulp) conservative, b) change my political affiliation, c) and even if I did change my political affiliation, admit it in public. All this despite the fact that I fast approach my 15th college reunion, and a decade and a half should be enough time to cure myself of youthful political sentiment based on…sentiment.
Politics are always sentiment with an admixture of self-interest. The balances are always in question: witness the liberals’ complaint that the working uneducated poor consistently vote against their economic interest because of, at best, religious sentiments or, at worst, unlettered bigoted sentiments; ditto conservatives' complaints that rich liberals vote their vague notions of guilt. (Or, in the case of people like George Soros, they have enough good people working for ‘em that they’ll never have to pay the tax hikes they advocate, so it becomes a question of apperances.)
I suppose, then, that the past 15 years leave me with a solid core of what I, for lack of a more accurate description, would call a vague caucasian/Jewish guilt-progressive-Democratic-hollywood-rock and roll-pop culture-sentiment. (Actually, forget the “lack of…”—if I had any more adjectives to add that would be as far as possible from conservative, I’d use those too. Further on, I probably will.)
In addition to the above political conundrum I’ve conveniently placed myself in, I also am (or claim to be) fiercely Judeocentric.
(That could mean a lot of things, but lets set two criteria for clarity’s sake: I am a Jew. I am pro-Israel. I realize that has probably discredited any liberal credentials I might claim to have, but bear with me.)
So much of my politics—particularly any positions I advocate as a result of my Judeocentrism—may lean toward what I would call apparently conservative, although some doctrinaire conservatives—particularly those of the paleo- variety—would be all too happy to disavow any conservative credentials I might claim even faster than doctrinaire leftists would disqualify my liberal notions. However, as I freely admit, were I to actually seek to place myself in one camp of the other, I would much rather be called liberal than conservative. It may be that no one dies a liberal, but I assume that no one wants to live as a fascist. (Unless one really has that kind of power. Or money. Like George Soros.)
As I realize that this is all of my own making, and I freely admit it, I become a dissident in whatever camp I place myself. If I get the chance to place myself in any camp at all. (The pro-Israel Judeocentric camp, maybe, but as I’ll give you the chance to read in the future, I may be a cognitive dissident in those camps as well. As some of you may already know, the politics within that bailiwick has a life—and mind—of its own.)
In a nutshell, this is probably the best way I can describe myself in political terms, and also to prepare you for what you are going to read on this blog. And, while there will be plenty of personal, one shouldn’t be surprised. As the doctrinaire (or, as I suppose might be more appropriate in my case, and as I will probably use from now on, “orthodox”) feminists used to say “the personal is political”. While that may or my not be true, bear in mind that the converse (or was it inverse?) definitely is true: the political is always personal.
That’s what the cognitive dissident is getting at.
(Oh, by the way, as I’m sure you’ve noticed by now, I have a tendency to (over)use parentheses. You tell me—you rather I use footnotes? I’m not gonna write any less.)
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