July 29, 2012, 5:00 pm98 Comments
The Morality of Migration
By SEYLA BENHABIB
In announcing the Department of Homeland Security’s policy directive on June 15 stating that undocumented migrant youths who meet certain conditions would no longer be deported, President Obama said that “It was the right thing to do.” What he did not say was whether he meant “the right thing” legally or morally.
Obviously, he considered the action to be legal, even though this invocation of his administration’s power drew strong criticism from many, including Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia. But the president’s grounds for believing it moral were much less clear.
This should come as no surprise: the morality and politics of migration are among the most divisive issues in much of the world. In the United States, discussions of immigration flow seamlessly into matters of national security, employment levels, the health of the American economy, and threats to a presumptive American national identity and way of life. Much the same is true in Europe. Not a week goes by without a story of refugees from Africa or Asia perishing while trying to arrive at the shores of the European Union.
Nor are such developments restricted to the resource-rich countries of the Northern Hemisphere. The United Arab Emirates, Kuwait, Singapore, Israel and Jordan are countries with the highest percentage share of migrants among their total population, while the United States, the Russian Federation, Germany, Saudi Arabia, Canada and France lead in the actual number of international migrants. Migrations are now global, challenging many societies in many parts of the world.
Whereas from 1910 to 2012, the world’s population increased slightly more than fourfold, from 1.6 billion to to more than 7 billion, the number of people living in countries other than their own as migrants increased nearly sevenfold, from roughly 33 million to more than 200 million.
Leif ParsonsMigrations pit two moral and legal principles, foundational to the modern state system, against each other. On one hand, the human right of individuals to move across borders whether for economic, personal or professional reasons or to seek asylum and refuge is guaranteed by Articles 13 and 14 of the 1948 Universal Declaration of Human Rights. On the other hand, Article 21 of the declaration recognizes a basic right to self-government, stipulating that “the will of the people shall be the basis of the authority of government.” Under the current regime of states, that fundamental right includes control over borders as well as determining who is to be a citizen as distinguished from a resident or an alien.
The international system straddles these dual principles but it has not been able to reconcile them. The irony of global developments is that while state sovereignty in economic, military, and technological domains is eroded and national borders have become more porous, they are still policed to keep out aliens and intruders. The migrant’s body has become the symbolic site upon which such contradictions are enacted.
Why not advocate a “world without borders” then? From a moral point of view, no child deserves to be born on one side of the border rather than another, and it is deeply antithetical to our moral principles to punish individuals for what they cannot help being or doing. Punishment implies responsibility and accountability for one’s actions and choices; clearly, children who through their parents’ choices end up on one side of the border rather than another cannot be penalized for these choices.
A strong advocate of the right to self-government might retort that rewarding certain children for the wrongs committed by their parents, in this case illegal immigration, by legalizing undocumented youths is illogical as well as immoral and that “the right thing to do” would be to deport all undocumented migrants – parents and children alike. Apart from the sheer impracticality of this solution, its advocates seem to consider undocumented “original entry” into a country as the analog of “original sin” that no amount of subsequent behavior and atonement can alter.
But such punitive rigor unfairly conflates the messy and often inadvertent reasons that lead one to become an undocumented migrant with no criminal intent to break the law.
If conditions in a person’s native country so endanger his life and well-being and he becomes willing to risk illegality in order to survive, his right to survival, from a moral point of view, carries as much weight as does the new country’s claim to control borders against migrants. Immanuel Kant, therefore, called the moral claim to seek refuge or respite in the lands of another, a “universal right of hospitality,” provided that the intentions of the foreigner upon arriving on foreign lands were peaceful. Such a right, he argued, belonged to each human being placed on this planet who had to share the earth with others.
Even though morally the right to hospitality is an individual right, the socioeconomic and cultural causes of migrations are for the most part collective. Migrations occur because of economic, environmental, cultural and historical “push” and “pull” factors. “We are here,” say migrants, “because in effect you were there.” “We did not cross the border; the border crossed us.”
We do have special obligations to our neighbors, as opposed to moral obligations to humanity at large, if, for example, our economy has devastated theirs; if our industrial output has led to environmental harm or if our drug dependency has encouraged the formation of transnational drug cartels.
These claims of interdependence require a third moral principle — in addition to the right of universal hospitality and the right to self-government — to be brought into consideration: associative obligations among peoples arising through historical factors.
States cannot ignore such associative obligations. Migration policies, though they are often couched in nation-centric terms, always have transnational causes and consequences. It is impossible to address Mexican migration into the United States, for example, without considering the decades-long dependency of the rich California agricultural fields upon the often undocumented and unorganized labor of Mexican workers, some of whose children have now grown up to become “Dreamers” (so named after the Development, Relief, and Education for Alien Minors Act introduced to Congress in 2001). Among the three million students who graduate from United States high schools, 65,000 are undocumented.
The United States owes these young people a special duty of hospitality, not only because we, as a society, have benefited from the circumstances under which their parents entered this country, but also because they have formed strong affiliations with this society through being our friends, students, neighbors and coworkers. In a liberal-democratic society the path to citizenship must follow along these associative ties through which an individual shows him or herself to be capable and worthy of citizenship.
Migratory movements are sites of imperfect justice in that they bring into play the individual right to freedom of movement, the universal right to hospitality and the right of collectives to self-government as well as specific associative moral obligations. These rights cannot always be easily reconciled. Furthermore, international law does not as yet recognize a “human right to citizenship” for migrants, and considers this a sovereign prerogative of individual states. Nonetheless, the responsible politician is the one who acts with a lucid understanding of the necessity to balance these principles rather than giving in to a punitive rigorism that would deny, in Thomas Jefferson’s words, “the right which nature has given to all men of departing from [and I would add, from joining with] the country in which choice, not chance has placed them” (1774).
Whether or not President Obama considered all these moral aspects of the matter, his handling of this issue shows that he acted as a “responsible politician,” and not opportunistically as some of his critics charged. It was “the right thing to do.”
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Seyla Benhabib is the Eugene Meyer professor of Political Science and Philosophy at Yale University. She is the author of “Dignity in Adversity. Human Rights in Troubled Times” (2012).
http://opinionator.blogs.nytimes.com/20 ... y_20120730
SOCIAL TRENDS
August 24, 2012
Men, Who Needs Them?
By GREG HAMPIKIAN
Boise, Idaho
MAMMALS are named after their defining characteristic, the glands capable of sustaining a life for years after birth — glands that are functional only in the female. And yet while the term “mammal” is based on an objective analysis of shared traits, the genus name for human beings, Homo, reflects an 18th-century masculine bias in science.
That bias, however, is becoming harder to sustain, as men become less relevant to both reproduction and parenting. Women aren’t just becoming men’s equals. It’s increasingly clear that “mankind” itself is a gross misnomer: an uninterrupted, intimate and essential maternal connection defines our species.
The central behaviors of mammals revolve around how we bear and raise our young, and humans are the parenting champions of the class. In the United States, for nearly 20 percent of our life span we are considered the legal responsibility of our parents.
With expanding reproductive choices, we can expect to see more women choose to reproduce without men entirely. Fortunately, the data for children raised by only females is encouraging. As the Princeton sociologist Sara S. McLanahan has shown, poverty is what hurts children, not the number or gender of parents.
That’s good, since women are both necessary and sufficient for reproduction, and men are neither. From the production of the first cell (egg) to the development of the fetus and the birth and breast-feeding of the child, fathers can be absent. They can be at work, at home, in prison or at war, living or dead.
Think about your own history. Your life as an egg actually started in your mother’s developing ovary, before she was born; you were wrapped in your mother’s fetal body as it developed within your grandmother.
After the two of you left Grandma’s womb, you enjoyed the protection of your mother’s prepubescent ovary. Then, sometime between 12 and 50 years after the two of you left your grandmother, you burst forth and were sucked by her fimbriae into the fallopian tube. You glided along the oviduct, surviving happily on the stored nutrients and genetic messages that Mom packed for you.
Then, at some point, your father spent a few minutes close by, but then left. A little while later, you encountered some very odd tiny cells that he had shed. They did not merge with you, or give you any cell membranes or nutrients — just an infinitesimally small packet of DNA, less than one-millionth of your mass.
Over the next nine months, you stole minerals from your mother’s bones and oxygen from her blood, and you received all your nutrition, energy and immune protection from her. By the time you were born your mother had contributed six to eight pounds of your weight. Then as a parting gift, she swathed you in billions of bacteria from her birth canal and groin that continue to protect your skin, digestive system and general health. In contrast, your father’s 3.3 picograms of DNA comes out to less than one pound of male contribution since the beginning of Homo sapiens 107 billion babies ago.
And while birth seems like a separation, for us mammals it’s just a new form of attachment to our female parent. If your mother breast-fed you, as our species has done for nearly our entire existence, then you suckled from her all your water, protein, sugar, fats and even immune protection. She sampled your diseases by holding you close and kissing you, just as your father might have done; but unlike your father, she responded to your infections by making antibodies that she passed to you in breast milk.
I don’t dismiss the years I put in as a doting father, or my year at home as a house husband with two young kids. And I credit my own father as the more influential parent in my life. Fathers are of great benefit. But that is a far cry from “necessary and sufficient” for reproduction.
If a woman wants to have a baby without a man, she just needs to secure sperm (fresh or frozen) from a donor (living or dead). The only technology the self-impregnating woman needs is a straw or turkey baster, and the basic technique hasn’t changed much since Talmudic scholars debated the religious implications of insemination without sex in the fifth century. If all the men on earth died tonight, the species could continue on frozen sperm. If the women disappear, it’s extinction.
Ultimately the question is, does “mankind” really need men? With human cloning technology just around the corner and enough frozen sperm in the world to already populate many generations, perhaps we should perform a cost-benefit analysis.
It’s true that men have traditionally been the breadwinners. But women have been a majority of college graduates since the 1980s, and their numbers are growing. It’s also true that men have, on average, a bit more muscle mass than women. But in the age of ubiquitous weapons, the one with the better firepower (and knowledge of the law) triumphs.
Meanwhile women live longer, are healthier and are far less likely to commit a violent offense. If men were cars, who would buy the model that doesn’t last as long, is given to lethal incidents and ends up impounded more often?
Recently, the geneticist J. Craig Venter showed that the entire genetic material of an organism can be synthesized by a machine and then put into what he called an “artificial cell.” This was actually a bit of press-release hyperbole: Mr. Venter started with a fully functional cell, then swapped out its DNA. In doing so, he unwittingly demonstrated that the female component of sexual reproduction, the egg cell, cannot be manufactured, but the male can.
When I explained this to a female colleague and asked her if she thought that there was yet anything irreplaceable about men, she answered, “They’re entertaining.”
Gentlemen, let’s hope that’s enough.
Greg Hampikian is a professor of biology and criminal justice at Boise State University and the director of the Idaho Innocence Project.
http://www.nytimes.com/2012/08/25/opini ... h_20120825
Men, Who Needs Them?
By GREG HAMPIKIAN
Boise, Idaho
MAMMALS are named after their defining characteristic, the glands capable of sustaining a life for years after birth — glands that are functional only in the female. And yet while the term “mammal” is based on an objective analysis of shared traits, the genus name for human beings, Homo, reflects an 18th-century masculine bias in science.
That bias, however, is becoming harder to sustain, as men become less relevant to both reproduction and parenting. Women aren’t just becoming men’s equals. It’s increasingly clear that “mankind” itself is a gross misnomer: an uninterrupted, intimate and essential maternal connection defines our species.
The central behaviors of mammals revolve around how we bear and raise our young, and humans are the parenting champions of the class. In the United States, for nearly 20 percent of our life span we are considered the legal responsibility of our parents.
With expanding reproductive choices, we can expect to see more women choose to reproduce without men entirely. Fortunately, the data for children raised by only females is encouraging. As the Princeton sociologist Sara S. McLanahan has shown, poverty is what hurts children, not the number or gender of parents.
That’s good, since women are both necessary and sufficient for reproduction, and men are neither. From the production of the first cell (egg) to the development of the fetus and the birth and breast-feeding of the child, fathers can be absent. They can be at work, at home, in prison or at war, living or dead.
Think about your own history. Your life as an egg actually started in your mother’s developing ovary, before she was born; you were wrapped in your mother’s fetal body as it developed within your grandmother.
After the two of you left Grandma’s womb, you enjoyed the protection of your mother’s prepubescent ovary. Then, sometime between 12 and 50 years after the two of you left your grandmother, you burst forth and were sucked by her fimbriae into the fallopian tube. You glided along the oviduct, surviving happily on the stored nutrients and genetic messages that Mom packed for you.
Then, at some point, your father spent a few minutes close by, but then left. A little while later, you encountered some very odd tiny cells that he had shed. They did not merge with you, or give you any cell membranes or nutrients — just an infinitesimally small packet of DNA, less than one-millionth of your mass.
Over the next nine months, you stole minerals from your mother’s bones and oxygen from her blood, and you received all your nutrition, energy and immune protection from her. By the time you were born your mother had contributed six to eight pounds of your weight. Then as a parting gift, she swathed you in billions of bacteria from her birth canal and groin that continue to protect your skin, digestive system and general health. In contrast, your father’s 3.3 picograms of DNA comes out to less than one pound of male contribution since the beginning of Homo sapiens 107 billion babies ago.
And while birth seems like a separation, for us mammals it’s just a new form of attachment to our female parent. If your mother breast-fed you, as our species has done for nearly our entire existence, then you suckled from her all your water, protein, sugar, fats and even immune protection. She sampled your diseases by holding you close and kissing you, just as your father might have done; but unlike your father, she responded to your infections by making antibodies that she passed to you in breast milk.
I don’t dismiss the years I put in as a doting father, or my year at home as a house husband with two young kids. And I credit my own father as the more influential parent in my life. Fathers are of great benefit. But that is a far cry from “necessary and sufficient” for reproduction.
If a woman wants to have a baby without a man, she just needs to secure sperm (fresh or frozen) from a donor (living or dead). The only technology the self-impregnating woman needs is a straw or turkey baster, and the basic technique hasn’t changed much since Talmudic scholars debated the religious implications of insemination without sex in the fifth century. If all the men on earth died tonight, the species could continue on frozen sperm. If the women disappear, it’s extinction.
Ultimately the question is, does “mankind” really need men? With human cloning technology just around the corner and enough frozen sperm in the world to already populate many generations, perhaps we should perform a cost-benefit analysis.
It’s true that men have traditionally been the breadwinners. But women have been a majority of college graduates since the 1980s, and their numbers are growing. It’s also true that men have, on average, a bit more muscle mass than women. But in the age of ubiquitous weapons, the one with the better firepower (and knowledge of the law) triumphs.
Meanwhile women live longer, are healthier and are far less likely to commit a violent offense. If men were cars, who would buy the model that doesn’t last as long, is given to lethal incidents and ends up impounded more often?
Recently, the geneticist J. Craig Venter showed that the entire genetic material of an organism can be synthesized by a machine and then put into what he called an “artificial cell.” This was actually a bit of press-release hyperbole: Mr. Venter started with a fully functional cell, then swapped out its DNA. In doing so, he unwittingly demonstrated that the female component of sexual reproduction, the egg cell, cannot be manufactured, but the male can.
When I explained this to a female colleague and asked her if she thought that there was yet anything irreplaceable about men, she answered, “They’re entertaining.”
Gentlemen, let’s hope that’s enough.
Greg Hampikian is a professor of biology and criminal justice at Boise State University and the director of the Idaho Innocence Project.
http://www.nytimes.com/2012/08/25/opini ... h_20120825
September 10, 2012
Why Men Fail
By DAVID BROOKS
You’re probably aware of the basic trends. The financial rewards to education have increased over the past few decades, but men failed to get the memo.
In elementary and high school, male academic performance is lagging. Boys earn three-quarters of the D’s and F’s. By college, men are clearly behind. Only 40 percent of bachelor’s degrees go to men, along with 40 percent of master’s degrees.
Thanks to their lower skills, men are dropping out of the labor force. In 1954, 96 percent of the American men between the ages of 25 and 54 worked. Today, that number is down to 80 percent. In Friday’s jobs report, male labor force participation reached an all-time low.
Millions of men are collecting disability. Even many of those who do have a job are doing poorly. According to Michael Greenstone of the Hamilton Project, annual earnings for median prime-age males have dropped by 28 percent over the past 40 years.
Men still dominate the tippy-top of the corporate ladder because many women take time off to raise children, but women lead or are gaining nearly everywhere else. Women in their 20s outearn men in their 20s. Twelve out of the 15 fastest-growing professions are dominated by women.
Over the years, many of us have embraced a certain theory to explain men’s economic decline. It is that the information-age economy rewards traits that, for neurological and cultural reasons, women are more likely to possess.
To succeed today, you have to be able to sit still and focus attention in school at an early age. You have to be emotionally sensitive and aware of context. You have to communicate smoothly. For genetic and cultural reasons, many men stink at these tasks.
But, in her fascinating new book, “The End of Men,” Hanna Rosin posits a different theory. It has to do with adaptability. Women, Rosin argues, are like immigrants who have moved to a new country. They see a new social context, and they flexibly adapt to new circumstances. Men are like immigrants who have physically moved to a new country but who have kept their minds in the old one. They speak the old language. They follow the old mores. Men are more likely to be rigid; women are more fluid.
This theory has less to do with innate traits and more to do with social position. When there’s big social change, the people who were on the top of the old order are bound to cling to the old ways. The people who were on the bottom are bound to experience a burst of energy. They’re going to explore their new surroundings more enthusiastically.
Rosin reports from working-class Alabama. The women she meets are flooding into new jobs and new opportunities — going back to college, pursuing new careers. The men are waiting around for the jobs that left and are never coming back. They are strangely immune to new options. In the Auburn-Opelika region, the median female income is 140 percent of the median male income.
Rosin also reports from college campuses where women are pioneering new social arrangements. The usual story is that men are exploiting the new campus hookup culture in order to get plenty of sex without romantic commitments. Rosin argues that, in fact, women support the hookup culture. It allows them to have sex and fun without any time-consuming distractions from their careers. Like new immigrants, women are desperate to rise, and they embrace social and sexual rules that give them the freedom to focus on their professional lives.
Rosin is not saying that women are winners in a global gender war or that they are doing super simply because men are doing worse. She’s just saying women are adapting to today’s economy more flexibly and resiliently than men. There’s a lot of evidence to support her case.
A study by the National Federation of Independent Business found that small businesses owned by women outperformed male-owned small businesses during the last recession. In finance, women who switch firms are more likely to see their performance improve, whereas men are more likely to see theirs decline. There’s even evidence that women are better able to adjust to divorce. Today, more women than men see their incomes rise by 25 percent after a marital breakup.
Forty years ago, men and women adhered to certain ideologies, what it meant to be a man or a woman. Young women today, Rosin argues, are more like clean slates, having abandoned both feminist and prefeminist preconceptions. Men still adhere to the masculinity rules, which limits their vision and their movement.
If she’s right, then men will have to be less like Achilles, imposing their will on the world, and more like Odysseus, the crafty, many-sided sojourner. They’ll have to acknowledge that they are strangers in a strange land.
http://www.nytimes.com/2012/09/11/opini ... h_20120911
Why Men Fail
By DAVID BROOKS
You’re probably aware of the basic trends. The financial rewards to education have increased over the past few decades, but men failed to get the memo.
In elementary and high school, male academic performance is lagging. Boys earn three-quarters of the D’s and F’s. By college, men are clearly behind. Only 40 percent of bachelor’s degrees go to men, along with 40 percent of master’s degrees.
Thanks to their lower skills, men are dropping out of the labor force. In 1954, 96 percent of the American men between the ages of 25 and 54 worked. Today, that number is down to 80 percent. In Friday’s jobs report, male labor force participation reached an all-time low.
Millions of men are collecting disability. Even many of those who do have a job are doing poorly. According to Michael Greenstone of the Hamilton Project, annual earnings for median prime-age males have dropped by 28 percent over the past 40 years.
Men still dominate the tippy-top of the corporate ladder because many women take time off to raise children, but women lead or are gaining nearly everywhere else. Women in their 20s outearn men in their 20s. Twelve out of the 15 fastest-growing professions are dominated by women.
Over the years, many of us have embraced a certain theory to explain men’s economic decline. It is that the information-age economy rewards traits that, for neurological and cultural reasons, women are more likely to possess.
To succeed today, you have to be able to sit still and focus attention in school at an early age. You have to be emotionally sensitive and aware of context. You have to communicate smoothly. For genetic and cultural reasons, many men stink at these tasks.
But, in her fascinating new book, “The End of Men,” Hanna Rosin posits a different theory. It has to do with adaptability. Women, Rosin argues, are like immigrants who have moved to a new country. They see a new social context, and they flexibly adapt to new circumstances. Men are like immigrants who have physically moved to a new country but who have kept their minds in the old one. They speak the old language. They follow the old mores. Men are more likely to be rigid; women are more fluid.
This theory has less to do with innate traits and more to do with social position. When there’s big social change, the people who were on the top of the old order are bound to cling to the old ways. The people who were on the bottom are bound to experience a burst of energy. They’re going to explore their new surroundings more enthusiastically.
Rosin reports from working-class Alabama. The women she meets are flooding into new jobs and new opportunities — going back to college, pursuing new careers. The men are waiting around for the jobs that left and are never coming back. They are strangely immune to new options. In the Auburn-Opelika region, the median female income is 140 percent of the median male income.
Rosin also reports from college campuses where women are pioneering new social arrangements. The usual story is that men are exploiting the new campus hookup culture in order to get plenty of sex without romantic commitments. Rosin argues that, in fact, women support the hookup culture. It allows them to have sex and fun without any time-consuming distractions from their careers. Like new immigrants, women are desperate to rise, and they embrace social and sexual rules that give them the freedom to focus on their professional lives.
Rosin is not saying that women are winners in a global gender war or that they are doing super simply because men are doing worse. She’s just saying women are adapting to today’s economy more flexibly and resiliently than men. There’s a lot of evidence to support her case.
A study by the National Federation of Independent Business found that small businesses owned by women outperformed male-owned small businesses during the last recession. In finance, women who switch firms are more likely to see their performance improve, whereas men are more likely to see theirs decline. There’s even evidence that women are better able to adjust to divorce. Today, more women than men see their incomes rise by 25 percent after a marital breakup.
Forty years ago, men and women adhered to certain ideologies, what it meant to be a man or a woman. Young women today, Rosin argues, are more like clean slates, having abandoned both feminist and prefeminist preconceptions. Men still adhere to the masculinity rules, which limits their vision and their movement.
If she’s right, then men will have to be less like Achilles, imposing their will on the world, and more like Odysseus, the crafty, many-sided sojourner. They’ll have to acknowledge that they are strangers in a strange land.
http://www.nytimes.com/2012/09/11/opini ... h_20120911
An Aging Europe in Decline
So what is the prescription for Europe’s ills — and the lesson for America’s future?
It is true that good monetary and fiscal policies are important. But the deeper problems in Europe will not be solved by the European Central Bank. No matter what the money supply and public spending levels, a country or continent will be in decline if it rejects the culture of family, turns its back on work, and closes itself to strivers from the outside.
More...
http://www.nytimes.com/2015/01/07/opini ... d=45305309
So what is the prescription for Europe’s ills — and the lesson for America’s future?
It is true that good monetary and fiscal policies are important. But the deeper problems in Europe will not be solved by the European Central Bank. No matter what the money supply and public spending levels, a country or continent will be in decline if it rejects the culture of family, turns its back on work, and closes itself to strivers from the outside.
More...
http://www.nytimes.com/2015/01/07/opini ... d=45305309
Building Better Secularists
Over the past few years, there has been a sharp rise in the number of people who are atheist, agnostic or without religious affiliation. A fifth of all adults and a third of the youngest adults fit into this category.
As secularism becomes more prominent and self-confident, its spokesmen have more insistently argued that secularism should not be seen as an absence — as a lack of faith — but rather as a positive moral creed. Phil Zuckerman, a Pitzer College sociologist, makes this case as fluidly and pleasurably as anybody in his book, “Living the Secular Life.”
Zuckerman argues that secular morality is built around individual reason, individual choice and individual responsibility. Instead of relying on some eye in the sky to tell them what to do, secular people reason their way to proper conduct.
Secular people, he argues, value autonomy over groupthink. They deepen their attachment to this world instead of focusing on a next one. They may not be articulate about why they behave as they do, he argues, but they try their best to follow the Golden Rule, to be considerate and empathetic toward others. “Secular morality hinges upon little else than not harming others and helping those in need,” Zuckerman writes.
As he describes them, secularists seem like genial, low-key people who have discarded metaphysical prejudices and are now leading peaceful and rewarding lives. But I can’t avoid the conclusion that the secular writers are so eager to make the case for their creed, they are minimizing the struggle required to live by it. Consider the tasks a person would have to perform to live secularism well:
- Secular individuals have to build their own moral philosophies. Religious people inherit creeds that have evolved over centuries. Autonomous secular people are called upon to settle on their own individual sacred convictions.
- Secular individuals have to build their own communities. Religions come equipped with covenantal rituals that bind people together, sacred practices that are beyond individual choice. Secular people have to choose their own communities and come up with their own practices to make them meaningful.
- Secular individuals have to build their own Sabbaths. Religious people are commanded to drop worldly concerns. Secular people have to create their own set times for when to pull back and reflect on spiritual matters.
- Secular people have to fashion their own moral motivation. It’s not enough to want to be a decent person. You have to be powerfully motivated to behave well. Religious people are motivated by their love for God and their fervent desire to please Him. Secularists have to come up with their own powerful drive that will compel sacrifice and service.
The point is not that secular people should become religious. You either believe in God or you don’t. Neither is the point that religious people are better than secular people. That defies social science evidence and common observation. The point is that an age of mass secularization is an age in which millions of people have put unprecedented moral burdens upon themselves. People who don’t know how to take up these burdens don’t turn bad, but they drift. They suffer from a loss of meaning and an unconscious boredom with their own lives.
Continue reading the main story
Continue reading the main story
- One other burden: Past secular creeds were built on the 18th-century enlightenment view of man as an autonomous, rational creature who could reason his way to virtue. The past half-century of cognitive science has shown that that creature doesn’t exist. We are not really rational animals; emotions play a central role in decision-making, the vast majority of thought is unconscious, and our minds are riddled with biases. We are not really autonomous; our actions are powerfully shaped by others in ways we are not even aware of.
It seems to me that if secularism is going to be a positive creed, it can’t just speak to the rational aspects of our nature. Secularism has to do for nonbelievers what religion does for believers — arouse the higher emotions, exalt the passions in pursuit of moral action. Christianity doesn’t rely just on a mild feeling like empathy; it puts agape at the center of life, a fervent and selfless sacrificial love. Judaism doesn’t just value community; it values a covenantal community infused with sacred bonds and chosenness that make the heart strings vibrate. Religions don’t just ask believers to respect others; rather each soul is worthy of the highest dignity because it radiates divine light.
The only secularism that can really arouse moral motivation and impel action is an enchanted secularism, one that puts emotional relations first and autonomy second. I suspect that over the next years secularism will change its face and become hotter and more consuming, less content with mere benevolence, and more responsive to the spiritual urge in each of us, the drive for purity, self-transcendence and sanctification.
http://www.nytimes.com/2015/02/03/opini ... 05309&_r=0
Over the past few years, there has been a sharp rise in the number of people who are atheist, agnostic or without religious affiliation. A fifth of all adults and a third of the youngest adults fit into this category.
As secularism becomes more prominent and self-confident, its spokesmen have more insistently argued that secularism should not be seen as an absence — as a lack of faith — but rather as a positive moral creed. Phil Zuckerman, a Pitzer College sociologist, makes this case as fluidly and pleasurably as anybody in his book, “Living the Secular Life.”
Zuckerman argues that secular morality is built around individual reason, individual choice and individual responsibility. Instead of relying on some eye in the sky to tell them what to do, secular people reason their way to proper conduct.
Secular people, he argues, value autonomy over groupthink. They deepen their attachment to this world instead of focusing on a next one. They may not be articulate about why they behave as they do, he argues, but they try their best to follow the Golden Rule, to be considerate and empathetic toward others. “Secular morality hinges upon little else than not harming others and helping those in need,” Zuckerman writes.
As he describes them, secularists seem like genial, low-key people who have discarded metaphysical prejudices and are now leading peaceful and rewarding lives. But I can’t avoid the conclusion that the secular writers are so eager to make the case for their creed, they are minimizing the struggle required to live by it. Consider the tasks a person would have to perform to live secularism well:
- Secular individuals have to build their own moral philosophies. Religious people inherit creeds that have evolved over centuries. Autonomous secular people are called upon to settle on their own individual sacred convictions.
- Secular individuals have to build their own communities. Religions come equipped with covenantal rituals that bind people together, sacred practices that are beyond individual choice. Secular people have to choose their own communities and come up with their own practices to make them meaningful.
- Secular individuals have to build their own Sabbaths. Religious people are commanded to drop worldly concerns. Secular people have to create their own set times for when to pull back and reflect on spiritual matters.
- Secular people have to fashion their own moral motivation. It’s not enough to want to be a decent person. You have to be powerfully motivated to behave well. Religious people are motivated by their love for God and their fervent desire to please Him. Secularists have to come up with their own powerful drive that will compel sacrifice and service.
The point is not that secular people should become religious. You either believe in God or you don’t. Neither is the point that religious people are better than secular people. That defies social science evidence and common observation. The point is that an age of mass secularization is an age in which millions of people have put unprecedented moral burdens upon themselves. People who don’t know how to take up these burdens don’t turn bad, but they drift. They suffer from a loss of meaning and an unconscious boredom with their own lives.
Continue reading the main story
Continue reading the main story
- One other burden: Past secular creeds were built on the 18th-century enlightenment view of man as an autonomous, rational creature who could reason his way to virtue. The past half-century of cognitive science has shown that that creature doesn’t exist. We are not really rational animals; emotions play a central role in decision-making, the vast majority of thought is unconscious, and our minds are riddled with biases. We are not really autonomous; our actions are powerfully shaped by others in ways we are not even aware of.
It seems to me that if secularism is going to be a positive creed, it can’t just speak to the rational aspects of our nature. Secularism has to do for nonbelievers what religion does for believers — arouse the higher emotions, exalt the passions in pursuit of moral action. Christianity doesn’t rely just on a mild feeling like empathy; it puts agape at the center of life, a fervent and selfless sacrificial love. Judaism doesn’t just value community; it values a covenantal community infused with sacred bonds and chosenness that make the heart strings vibrate. Religions don’t just ask believers to respect others; rather each soul is worthy of the highest dignity because it radiates divine light.
The only secularism that can really arouse moral motivation and impel action is an enchanted secularism, one that puts emotional relations first and autonomy second. I suspect that over the next years secularism will change its face and become hotter and more consuming, less content with mere benevolence, and more responsive to the spiritual urge in each of us, the drive for purity, self-transcendence and sanctification.
http://www.nytimes.com/2015/02/03/opini ... 05309&_r=0
By 2050, India to have the world’s largest Muslim population: study
A comprehensive Pew Research Center study shows that by 2050, India will surpass Indonesia to have the largest Muslim population by any country in the world. However, India will continue to have a Hindu majority, the study noted.
The Muslim population in India is likely to exceed 18% (310 million) while Hindus will comprise of 77% of the country’s population. In 2010, the percentage of Hindus in the country was about 80%, which is likely to come down to 77%. At the same time, over the course of four decades, the Muslim population will increase by four percentage points from 14% to 18%
As of 2010, Indonesia has the largest Muslim population (209 million) followed by India (176 million) and Pakistan (167 million). The largest share of Hindus as of 2010 is in India, followed by Nepal and Bangladesh. By 2050, India and Nepal will be the only two countries with a majority Hindu population, the same situation as of 2010, the study said.
Globally, the most interesting aspect from the study is the fact that by 2050, the number of Muslims will nearly equal the number of Christians in the world. Over the course of four decades, while Christians will go from 2.17 to 2.92 billion, Muslims are seen to have the fastest pace of growth to go from 1.6 billion to 2.76 billion. The study notes that Hindus will go from 1.03 billion to 1.38 billion. The world’s total population itself is expected to rise up to 9.3 billion, a rise of 35%.
Region-wise, Muslims are likely to be dominant in the Asia-Pacific region but their size itself will reduce from 62% in 2010 to 53% in 2050. They are also projected to surpass Hindus as the largest religious group in the region. Hindus will also be predominantly living in the Asia-Pacific region by 2050.
http://indianexpress.com/article/india/ ... ion-study/#
*****
Islam predicted to be fastest growing major faith over the next 40 years
NEW YORK — Over the next four decades, Islam is expected to grow faster worldwide than any other major religion, with the Muslim population nearly matching Christians in both number and share of the global population, according to projections released Thursday.
Christians will remain the largest religious group, increasing to 2.92 billion adherents by 2050 if current demographic trends continue. But Muslims will reach 2.76 billion, making each faith group about 30 per cent of the world population, analysts from the Pew Research Centre said.
The projections in the report, The Future of World Religions, are based on birth and death rates, immigration patterns and rates of religious conversions, among other information found in censuses, demographic surveys and additional reports that asked people to identify what faith they follow.
Much of the growth of both Christianity and Islam will occur in Africa. But Muslims will also grow to comprise 10 per cent of Europe’s population and will outnumber Jews in the U.S. by mid-century.
India is expected to retain a Hindu majority, but the country will surpass Indonesia as the nation with the world’s largest Muslim population. As a group, Muslims are younger and have more children than members of other faiths, driving their global growth, researchers said.
The report is the latest to measure how Christianity in developing countries is far outpacing the growth of the faith in the West. By 2050, four in 10 Christians are expected to be located in Africa. And Christians will no longer be a majority in the United Kingdom, France and Australia.
Atheists, agnostics and people who don’t identify with a religion will increase in much of Europe and North America, but globally will drop from about 16 to 13 per cent. Within the U.S., people with no religious affiliation are projected to become more than a quarter of the population, while the share of Christians is expected to decrease from more than three-quarters to two-thirds.
The number of Buddhists will remain about the same, but because of overall global population growth, will comprise a smaller share of the world’s population. Hindus will grow to reach 1.4 billion people. Worldwide, the number of Jews is expected to grow by about 16 per cent to 16.1 million.
A comprehensive Pew Research Center study shows that by 2050, India will surpass Indonesia to have the largest Muslim population by any country in the world. However, India will continue to have a Hindu majority, the study noted.
The Muslim population in India is likely to exceed 18% (310 million) while Hindus will comprise of 77% of the country’s population. In 2010, the percentage of Hindus in the country was about 80%, which is likely to come down to 77%. At the same time, over the course of four decades, the Muslim population will increase by four percentage points from 14% to 18%
As of 2010, Indonesia has the largest Muslim population (209 million) followed by India (176 million) and Pakistan (167 million). The largest share of Hindus as of 2010 is in India, followed by Nepal and Bangladesh. By 2050, India and Nepal will be the only two countries with a majority Hindu population, the same situation as of 2010, the study said.
Globally, the most interesting aspect from the study is the fact that by 2050, the number of Muslims will nearly equal the number of Christians in the world. Over the course of four decades, while Christians will go from 2.17 to 2.92 billion, Muslims are seen to have the fastest pace of growth to go from 1.6 billion to 2.76 billion. The study notes that Hindus will go from 1.03 billion to 1.38 billion. The world’s total population itself is expected to rise up to 9.3 billion, a rise of 35%.
Region-wise, Muslims are likely to be dominant in the Asia-Pacific region but their size itself will reduce from 62% in 2010 to 53% in 2050. They are also projected to surpass Hindus as the largest religious group in the region. Hindus will also be predominantly living in the Asia-Pacific region by 2050.
http://indianexpress.com/article/india/ ... ion-study/#
*****
Islam predicted to be fastest growing major faith over the next 40 years
NEW YORK — Over the next four decades, Islam is expected to grow faster worldwide than any other major religion, with the Muslim population nearly matching Christians in both number and share of the global population, according to projections released Thursday.
Christians will remain the largest religious group, increasing to 2.92 billion adherents by 2050 if current demographic trends continue. But Muslims will reach 2.76 billion, making each faith group about 30 per cent of the world population, analysts from the Pew Research Centre said.
The projections in the report, The Future of World Religions, are based on birth and death rates, immigration patterns and rates of religious conversions, among other information found in censuses, demographic surveys and additional reports that asked people to identify what faith they follow.
Much of the growth of both Christianity and Islam will occur in Africa. But Muslims will also grow to comprise 10 per cent of Europe’s population and will outnumber Jews in the U.S. by mid-century.
India is expected to retain a Hindu majority, but the country will surpass Indonesia as the nation with the world’s largest Muslim population. As a group, Muslims are younger and have more children than members of other faiths, driving their global growth, researchers said.
The report is the latest to measure how Christianity in developing countries is far outpacing the growth of the faith in the West. By 2050, four in 10 Christians are expected to be located in Africa. And Christians will no longer be a majority in the United Kingdom, France and Australia.
Atheists, agnostics and people who don’t identify with a religion will increase in much of Europe and North America, but globally will drop from about 16 to 13 per cent. Within the U.S., people with no religious affiliation are projected to become more than a quarter of the population, while the share of Christians is expected to decrease from more than three-quarters to two-thirds.
The number of Buddhists will remain about the same, but because of overall global population growth, will comprise a smaller share of the world’s population. Hindus will grow to reach 1.4 billion people. Worldwide, the number of Jews is expected to grow by about 16 per cent to 16.1 million.
Sex Education in Europe Turns to Urging More Births
Recently, Sex and Society, a nonprofit group that provides much of Denmark’s sex education, adjusted its curriculum. The group no longer has a sole emphasis on how to prevent getting pregnant but now also talks about pregnancy in a more positive light.
It is all part of a not-so-subtle push in Europe to encourage people to have more babies. Denmark, like a number of European countries, is growing increasingly anxious about low birthrates. Those concerns have only been intensified by the region’s financial and economic crisis, with high unemployment rates among the young viewed as discouraging potential parents.
http://www.nytimes.com/2015/04/09/busin ... 05309&_r=1
Recently, Sex and Society, a nonprofit group that provides much of Denmark’s sex education, adjusted its curriculum. The group no longer has a sole emphasis on how to prevent getting pregnant but now also talks about pregnancy in a more positive light.
It is all part of a not-so-subtle push in Europe to encourage people to have more babies. Denmark, like a number of European countries, is growing increasingly anxious about low birthrates. Those concerns have only been intensified by the region’s financial and economic crisis, with high unemployment rates among the young viewed as discouraging potential parents.
http://www.nytimes.com/2015/04/09/busin ... 05309&_r=1
The Growing Generational Divide
BEREA, Ky. — I WAS always with older folks when I was very young. They called me “Little Man” and told me I was “an old soul.” I worked in the garden with my grandparents, learned how to count money with Old Man Hoskins at the local store, and eavesdropped on the tales of my ancient neighbors. But it was the stories of my fierce aunt, Sis, that were my favorite.
Unfortunately, it seems there are fewer opportunities for different generations to interact now. The 2010 United States census shows that Appalachia, where I live, has some of the lowest levels of age segregation in the nation. Yet even here I notice a shift away from the intergenerational activity I enjoyed as a child in the 1980s.
What do we lose as we drift further away from our elders?
I spent a great deal of my time with Aunt Sis, who seems to have always been old. She knew how to plant and how to build a fire. She had once been known as the wildest and most beautiful woman in Leslie County, Ky. She was blunt and hard to please. Sis loved to wear red dresses and red lipstick. Her coal-black hair was always styled, even after long hours in the yarn factory that left her hands bloody with thin cuts. I grew up right next door to her, and everyone said I was “her pick.” She didn’t bother to deny it. “Little Man is my baby,” she always said, even when I was into my 40s.
Sis challenged my notions of what it meant to be elderly. Sis loved the most current music. She cussed. She took me to concerts and sneaked me into R-rated movies. Sometimes she and I danced in her living room to the latest Bob Seger record. “He’s my favorite!” she’d yell while she snapped her fingers, every part of her moving. “Turn it up, Little Man!”
More than anything else, my aunt told me stories. She knew all the key elements of storytelling: love, mystery, trouble. In her tales there was comedy, tragedy, a man who got his comeuppance, a defiant woman who would not be defeated, a community that ostracized the heroine. She recalled rationing and claimed to remember listening to F.D.R., my childhood hero, on the radio. She brought my long-lost great-grandparents to life.
This is the main thing we lose when we don’t talk to our elders: the histories. How many teenagers, for example, know the intimate details of the Kardashians’ lives but don’t know the love stories of their own parents? The joys and sorrows of the older generations serve as examples for us to learn from, to emulate or, perhaps even more useful, to avoid. As age segregation becomes more ingrained in our culture, what cycles will be repeated, what misconceptions will flourish?
Sis was not without fault, of course. She could be racist and xenophobic in a casual way that many of her generation shared. I had learned that slurs like this were not appropriate, and taught her as much. Intergenerational education.
Many of us move away from our hometowns and extended family. As I got older, I moved, too. We also take less part in the activities that once brought different generations together: things like church, community-focused entertainment and communal work. In my hometown, entire families used to attend an annual sorghum cook-off. We pulled foam off the bubbling syrup, sat around an outdoor fire and exchanged stories. First the teenagers stopped coming, then the middle-aged folks. For a while the older generation soldiered on, but that particular tradition stopped a few years ago now.
The generational divide is nothing new, of course, and it may only continue to grow. According to the most recent census, the elderly population will more than double between now and 2050. Before then we’ll have to decide if it’s better to ignore a huge chunk of our population, or if we will embrace everything we can give to one another.
Members of the older generation can help; they are certainly not innocent in this. They, too, congregate with those their own age. My generation should be bridging the gap between the young and the elderly.
My daughters, both teenagers, spent a lot of time with Sis in her very old age. She may have been on oxygen and in a wheelchair, but the stories she shared taught them how to be as strong, defiant and determined as she had always been. Sis taught them that people of all ages have value, and revealed to them that multigenerational mixing can lead to true laughter, knowledge and mutual respect.
Sis’s favorite singer, Bob Seger, turned 70 this week and recently released another album. Shortly before her death in February, I played a few of his new songs for Sis. She managed to swing her foot along to the beat. Struggling for breath, she smiled at the music and our joint memories. Now she is gone, and a universe of stories has gone with her. Fortunately, I had been taught to listen, to be present, and so those stories go on in me and in my daughters, handed down from one generation to another.
http://www.nytimes.com/2015/05/08/opini ... pe=article
BEREA, Ky. — I WAS always with older folks when I was very young. They called me “Little Man” and told me I was “an old soul.” I worked in the garden with my grandparents, learned how to count money with Old Man Hoskins at the local store, and eavesdropped on the tales of my ancient neighbors. But it was the stories of my fierce aunt, Sis, that were my favorite.
Unfortunately, it seems there are fewer opportunities for different generations to interact now. The 2010 United States census shows that Appalachia, where I live, has some of the lowest levels of age segregation in the nation. Yet even here I notice a shift away from the intergenerational activity I enjoyed as a child in the 1980s.
What do we lose as we drift further away from our elders?
I spent a great deal of my time with Aunt Sis, who seems to have always been old. She knew how to plant and how to build a fire. She had once been known as the wildest and most beautiful woman in Leslie County, Ky. She was blunt and hard to please. Sis loved to wear red dresses and red lipstick. Her coal-black hair was always styled, even after long hours in the yarn factory that left her hands bloody with thin cuts. I grew up right next door to her, and everyone said I was “her pick.” She didn’t bother to deny it. “Little Man is my baby,” she always said, even when I was into my 40s.
Sis challenged my notions of what it meant to be elderly. Sis loved the most current music. She cussed. She took me to concerts and sneaked me into R-rated movies. Sometimes she and I danced in her living room to the latest Bob Seger record. “He’s my favorite!” she’d yell while she snapped her fingers, every part of her moving. “Turn it up, Little Man!”
More than anything else, my aunt told me stories. She knew all the key elements of storytelling: love, mystery, trouble. In her tales there was comedy, tragedy, a man who got his comeuppance, a defiant woman who would not be defeated, a community that ostracized the heroine. She recalled rationing and claimed to remember listening to F.D.R., my childhood hero, on the radio. She brought my long-lost great-grandparents to life.
This is the main thing we lose when we don’t talk to our elders: the histories. How many teenagers, for example, know the intimate details of the Kardashians’ lives but don’t know the love stories of their own parents? The joys and sorrows of the older generations serve as examples for us to learn from, to emulate or, perhaps even more useful, to avoid. As age segregation becomes more ingrained in our culture, what cycles will be repeated, what misconceptions will flourish?
Sis was not without fault, of course. She could be racist and xenophobic in a casual way that many of her generation shared. I had learned that slurs like this were not appropriate, and taught her as much. Intergenerational education.
Many of us move away from our hometowns and extended family. As I got older, I moved, too. We also take less part in the activities that once brought different generations together: things like church, community-focused entertainment and communal work. In my hometown, entire families used to attend an annual sorghum cook-off. We pulled foam off the bubbling syrup, sat around an outdoor fire and exchanged stories. First the teenagers stopped coming, then the middle-aged folks. For a while the older generation soldiered on, but that particular tradition stopped a few years ago now.
The generational divide is nothing new, of course, and it may only continue to grow. According to the most recent census, the elderly population will more than double between now and 2050. Before then we’ll have to decide if it’s better to ignore a huge chunk of our population, or if we will embrace everything we can give to one another.
Members of the older generation can help; they are certainly not innocent in this. They, too, congregate with those their own age. My generation should be bridging the gap between the young and the elderly.
My daughters, both teenagers, spent a lot of time with Sis in her very old age. She may have been on oxygen and in a wheelchair, but the stories she shared taught them how to be as strong, defiant and determined as she had always been. Sis taught them that people of all ages have value, and revealed to them that multigenerational mixing can lead to true laughter, knowledge and mutual respect.
Sis’s favorite singer, Bob Seger, turned 70 this week and recently released another album. Shortly before her death in February, I played a few of his new songs for Sis. She managed to swing her foot along to the beat. Struggling for breath, she smiled at the music and our joint memories. Now she is gone, and a universe of stories has gone with her. Fortunately, I had been taught to listen, to be present, and so those stories go on in me and in my daughters, handed down from one generation to another.
http://www.nytimes.com/2015/05/08/opini ... pe=article
Is Polygamy Next?
Chicago — NOW that the dust is settling from the Supreme Court’s decision in Obergefell v. Hodges, which recognized a right to same-sex marriage, there are new questions. In particular, could the decision presage a constitutional right to plural marriage? If there is no magic power in opposite sexes when it comes to marriage, is there any magic power in the number two?
Chief Justice John G. Roberts Jr.’s dissent in Obergefell raised this very question, intending to show how radical the majority’s decision could become. But the issue was hard to discuss candidly while same-sex marriage was still pending, because both sides knew that association with plural marriage, a more unpopular cause, could have stymied progress for gay rights. (Opponents of same-sex marriage had reasons to emphasize the association, while supporters had reasons to play it down.) With same-sex marriage on the books, we can now ask whether polyamorous relationships should be next.
There is a very good argument that they should. Justice Anthony M. Kennedy’s majority opinion in Obergefell did not focus primarily on the issue of sexual orientation. Instead, its main focus was on a “fundamental right to marry” — a right that he said could not be limited to rigid historical definitions or left to the legislative process. That right was about autonomy and fulfillment, about child rearing and the social order. By those lights, groups of adults who have profound polyamorous attachments and wish to build families and join the community have a strong claim to a right to marry.
And while Justice Kennedy’s opinion does not explicitly discuss this possibility, it is easy to see how future generations could read his language to include polyamory or plural marriage. Earlier court decisions about marriage, Justice Kennedy wrote, had “presumed a relationship involving opposite-sex partners,” but now we understand that the presumption was wrong. Similarly, while Justice Kennedy’s opinion repeatedly presumes that marriage involves two people, it is not hard to imagine another justice in 20 or 40 years saying that the assumption is similarly unenlightened. (It is even conceivable that Justice Kennedy himself anticipated that possibility.)
Nonetheless, many supporters of the same-sex marriage decision reject the possibility of plural marriage with surprising confidence. Writing in Slate after the decision in Obergefell, Judge Richard A. Posner of the United States Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit rejected a right to plural marriage because it would lead to gender imbalances if “the five wealthiest men have a total of 50 wives.” Similarly, the same-sex marriage advocate Jonathan Rauch has argued that polygamy allows “high-status men to hoard wives” and destabilizes society.
Gender equality is of course a serious concern. But the arguments above rest on the assumption that plural marriage will involve only one man and multiple women. That assumption is weak. Plural relationships could well be (and in some circles today are) between multiple people of both sexes, not all of whom are strictly heterosexual.
True, most past episodes of plural marriage have been patriarchal. But the lesson of the same-sex marriage case is that we should not be too wedded to historical assumptions. It was not that long ago that many people held vicious stereotypes about same-sex relationships that led them to wrongly assume that gay people were unfit for marriage. We should not make the same mistake in assuming we know what plural marriages in the future would be like.
To be sure, there are many potentially sound legal arguments against plural marriage. It might be administratively difficult to modify some of our marital laws, currently designed for pairs of people, to handle larger numbers of spouses. And if one thinks that the well-being of children can justify restricting marriage rights, it is possible that plural marriages could present difficulties. On the other hand, it may turn out that plural marriages are very good for children, because more adults are available to share the physical, financial and emotional demands of caring for them. If so, maybe any administrative difficulties will seem minor in comparison.
The deeper point is that we should remember that today’s showstopping objections sometimes come to seem trivial decades later. Very few people supported a constitutional right to same-sex marriage when writers like Andrew Sullivan and Mr. Rauch were advocating it only two decades ago. (Judge Posner, for example, did not.) As we witness more experiments with non-nuclear families, our views about plural marriage might change as well. As Justice Kennedy put it, “The nature of injustice is that we may not always see it in our own times.”
So the real force of the polygamy question is a lesson in humility. We should not assume that our judges have all the answers. And we should not assume we have them either. Instead we should recognize that once we abandon the rigid constraints of history, we cannot be sure that we know where the future will take us.
http://www.nytimes.com/2015/07/21/opini ... 05309&_r=0
Chicago — NOW that the dust is settling from the Supreme Court’s decision in Obergefell v. Hodges, which recognized a right to same-sex marriage, there are new questions. In particular, could the decision presage a constitutional right to plural marriage? If there is no magic power in opposite sexes when it comes to marriage, is there any magic power in the number two?
Chief Justice John G. Roberts Jr.’s dissent in Obergefell raised this very question, intending to show how radical the majority’s decision could become. But the issue was hard to discuss candidly while same-sex marriage was still pending, because both sides knew that association with plural marriage, a more unpopular cause, could have stymied progress for gay rights. (Opponents of same-sex marriage had reasons to emphasize the association, while supporters had reasons to play it down.) With same-sex marriage on the books, we can now ask whether polyamorous relationships should be next.
There is a very good argument that they should. Justice Anthony M. Kennedy’s majority opinion in Obergefell did not focus primarily on the issue of sexual orientation. Instead, its main focus was on a “fundamental right to marry” — a right that he said could not be limited to rigid historical definitions or left to the legislative process. That right was about autonomy and fulfillment, about child rearing and the social order. By those lights, groups of adults who have profound polyamorous attachments and wish to build families and join the community have a strong claim to a right to marry.
And while Justice Kennedy’s opinion does not explicitly discuss this possibility, it is easy to see how future generations could read his language to include polyamory or plural marriage. Earlier court decisions about marriage, Justice Kennedy wrote, had “presumed a relationship involving opposite-sex partners,” but now we understand that the presumption was wrong. Similarly, while Justice Kennedy’s opinion repeatedly presumes that marriage involves two people, it is not hard to imagine another justice in 20 or 40 years saying that the assumption is similarly unenlightened. (It is even conceivable that Justice Kennedy himself anticipated that possibility.)
Nonetheless, many supporters of the same-sex marriage decision reject the possibility of plural marriage with surprising confidence. Writing in Slate after the decision in Obergefell, Judge Richard A. Posner of the United States Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit rejected a right to plural marriage because it would lead to gender imbalances if “the five wealthiest men have a total of 50 wives.” Similarly, the same-sex marriage advocate Jonathan Rauch has argued that polygamy allows “high-status men to hoard wives” and destabilizes society.
Gender equality is of course a serious concern. But the arguments above rest on the assumption that plural marriage will involve only one man and multiple women. That assumption is weak. Plural relationships could well be (and in some circles today are) between multiple people of both sexes, not all of whom are strictly heterosexual.
True, most past episodes of plural marriage have been patriarchal. But the lesson of the same-sex marriage case is that we should not be too wedded to historical assumptions. It was not that long ago that many people held vicious stereotypes about same-sex relationships that led them to wrongly assume that gay people were unfit for marriage. We should not make the same mistake in assuming we know what plural marriages in the future would be like.
To be sure, there are many potentially sound legal arguments against plural marriage. It might be administratively difficult to modify some of our marital laws, currently designed for pairs of people, to handle larger numbers of spouses. And if one thinks that the well-being of children can justify restricting marriage rights, it is possible that plural marriages could present difficulties. On the other hand, it may turn out that plural marriages are very good for children, because more adults are available to share the physical, financial and emotional demands of caring for them. If so, maybe any administrative difficulties will seem minor in comparison.
The deeper point is that we should remember that today’s showstopping objections sometimes come to seem trivial decades later. Very few people supported a constitutional right to same-sex marriage when writers like Andrew Sullivan and Mr. Rauch were advocating it only two decades ago. (Judge Posner, for example, did not.) As we witness more experiments with non-nuclear families, our views about plural marriage might change as well. As Justice Kennedy put it, “The nature of injustice is that we may not always see it in our own times.”
So the real force of the polygamy question is a lesson in humility. We should not assume that our judges have all the answers. And we should not assume we have them either. Instead we should recognize that once we abandon the rigid constraints of history, we cannot be sure that we know where the future will take us.
http://www.nytimes.com/2015/07/21/opini ... 05309&_r=0
India Will Be Most Populous Country Sooner Than Thought, U.N. Says
Demographers have known for some time that the number of people in India would surpass the number in China, the two most populous countries in the world. But they did not anticipate that the change would happen so quickly.
The United Nations reported on Wednesday that India’s population will probably surpass China’s by 2022, not 2028, as the organization had forecast just two years ago.
In its 2015 revision report, the population division of the United Nations Department of Economic and Social Affairs said China’s population was now 1.38 billion, compared with 1.31 billion in India. But in seven years, the populations of both are expected to reach 1.4 billion.
Thereafter, the report said, India’s population will grow for decades, to 1.5 billion in 2030 and 1.7 billion in 2050, while China’s is expected to remain fairly constant until the 2030s, when it is expected to slightly decrease.
Over all, the report said, the world’s current population of 7.3 billion is expected to reach 9.7 billion by 2050, slightly more than the 9.6 billion forecast two years ago. The number could reach 11.2 billion by the end of the century.
Much of the overall increase between now and 2050 is expected in high-fertility countries, mainly in Africa, or in countries with large populations, the report said.
Half the growth is expected to be concentrated in just nine countries: India, Nigeria, Pakistan, the Democratic Republic of Congo, Ethiopia, Tanzania, the United States, Indonesia and Uganda.
By contrast, the populations of 48 countries are expected to decline in that period, mainly in Europe, because of a slowdown in fertility rates that started decades ago. The report said several countries faced a population decline of more than 15 percent by 2050, including Bosnia and Herzegovina, Bulgaria, Croatia, Hungary, Japan, Latvia, Lithuania, Moldova, Romania, Serbia and Ukraine.
Among the 10 largest countries by population, one is in Africa (Nigeria), five are in Asia (Bangladesh, China, India, Indonesia and Pakistan), two are in Latin America (Brazil and Mexico) one is in North America (the United States), and one is in Europe (Russia). Among these, Nigeria’s population, currently ranked seventh largest, is growing the fastest, and it is expected to surpass the population of the United States by 2050, which would make it the world’s third most populous country.
The population revision report also included some notable findings on aging. The number of people 80 or older is projected to more than triple by 2050 and increase more than sevenfold by 2100, the report said. In 2015, 28 percent of all people 80 and older lived in Europe, but that share is expected to decline to 16 percent in 2050 and to 9 percent by 2100, as the populations of other areas increase in size and grow older.
The revision report confirmed that substantial improvements in life expectancy have been made in recent years.
Globally, life expectancy has risen to 68 years for men and 73 years for women in 2010-15, from 65 years for men and 69 years for women in 2000-5.
The highest levels of life expectancy in 2010-15 are in China, followed by Japan, Italy, Switzerland, Singapore, Iceland, Spain, Australia and Israel, in that order.
Globally, the report said, life expectancy is projected to rise to 77 years in 2045-50 and 83 years in 2095-2100, from 70 years in 2010-15.
The population estimates and projections from the United Nations are an important benchmark for global trends, as well as for helping provide demographic data to calculate many other important indicators, including health data, around the world.
http://www.nytimes.com/2015/07/30/world ... d=45305309
Demographers have known for some time that the number of people in India would surpass the number in China, the two most populous countries in the world. But they did not anticipate that the change would happen so quickly.
The United Nations reported on Wednesday that India’s population will probably surpass China’s by 2022, not 2028, as the organization had forecast just two years ago.
In its 2015 revision report, the population division of the United Nations Department of Economic and Social Affairs said China’s population was now 1.38 billion, compared with 1.31 billion in India. But in seven years, the populations of both are expected to reach 1.4 billion.
Thereafter, the report said, India’s population will grow for decades, to 1.5 billion in 2030 and 1.7 billion in 2050, while China’s is expected to remain fairly constant until the 2030s, when it is expected to slightly decrease.
Over all, the report said, the world’s current population of 7.3 billion is expected to reach 9.7 billion by 2050, slightly more than the 9.6 billion forecast two years ago. The number could reach 11.2 billion by the end of the century.
Much of the overall increase between now and 2050 is expected in high-fertility countries, mainly in Africa, or in countries with large populations, the report said.
Half the growth is expected to be concentrated in just nine countries: India, Nigeria, Pakistan, the Democratic Republic of Congo, Ethiopia, Tanzania, the United States, Indonesia and Uganda.
By contrast, the populations of 48 countries are expected to decline in that period, mainly in Europe, because of a slowdown in fertility rates that started decades ago. The report said several countries faced a population decline of more than 15 percent by 2050, including Bosnia and Herzegovina, Bulgaria, Croatia, Hungary, Japan, Latvia, Lithuania, Moldova, Romania, Serbia and Ukraine.
Among the 10 largest countries by population, one is in Africa (Nigeria), five are in Asia (Bangladesh, China, India, Indonesia and Pakistan), two are in Latin America (Brazil and Mexico) one is in North America (the United States), and one is in Europe (Russia). Among these, Nigeria’s population, currently ranked seventh largest, is growing the fastest, and it is expected to surpass the population of the United States by 2050, which would make it the world’s third most populous country.
The population revision report also included some notable findings on aging. The number of people 80 or older is projected to more than triple by 2050 and increase more than sevenfold by 2100, the report said. In 2015, 28 percent of all people 80 and older lived in Europe, but that share is expected to decline to 16 percent in 2050 and to 9 percent by 2100, as the populations of other areas increase in size and grow older.
The revision report confirmed that substantial improvements in life expectancy have been made in recent years.
Globally, life expectancy has risen to 68 years for men and 73 years for women in 2010-15, from 65 years for men and 69 years for women in 2000-5.
The highest levels of life expectancy in 2010-15 are in China, followed by Japan, Italy, Switzerland, Singapore, Iceland, Spain, Australia and Israel, in that order.
Globally, the report said, life expectancy is projected to rise to 77 years in 2045-50 and 83 years in 2095-2100, from 70 years in 2010-15.
The population estimates and projections from the United Nations are an important benchmark for global trends, as well as for helping provide demographic data to calculate many other important indicators, including health data, around the world.
http://www.nytimes.com/2015/07/30/world ... d=45305309
Will the World Come To Europe?
My Sunday column took up the question of the world’s obligations to Syrian refugees, and looked back to an earlier column to question the wisdom of Germany’s present open door policy. Given the demographic pressure facing Europe over the next half-century— the aging of the native population and the rapid population growth to Europe’s southeast and (especially) south — I argued that the continent needs to manage migration policy very carefully, or risk a dramatic escalation of its existing assimilation problem (and the nativist backlash associated with it).
As a partial counterpoint, offering a more sanguine take on the underlying demographic issues, I recommend this piece by Matt Ridley for the Times of London, which makes the case that the long-run pressure on Europe will be much weaker than merely running the numbers for population trends on either side of the Mediterranean would suggest. Ridley’s core point is that it takes a truly extraordinary event, like the complete collapse of Syria and Iraq, to persuade large numbers of people to pick up and move, so it’s a mistake to extrapolate from the current wave of migration to a Eurabian or Eurafrican future:
With African populations growing fastest, are we glimpsing a future in which the scenes we saw on the Macedonian border, or on Kos or in the seas around Sicily last week will seem tame? … I don’t think so. The current migration crisis is being driven by war and oppression, not demography. Almost two thirds of the migrants reaching Europe by boat this year are from three small countries: Syria, Afghanistan and Eritrea. These are not even densely populated countries …
… demography is a poor predictor of migration. Nowhere in the world are people leaving countries specifically because of population growth or density … Tiny Eritrea, with only five million people, is a hell-hole for purely political reasons. It has a totalitarian government that tries to make North Korea and the old East Germany look tame: it conscripts every 17-year-old into lifelong and total service of the state. No wonder 3 per cent of its people have already left.
So it is simply not the case that migration of Africans (or Asians) will be driven by their ever-increasing numbers. Ethiopia, next-door to Eritrea, is the second most populous country in Africa, with higher population density than Eritrea, and 90 million people. But its government is only mildly authoritarian, its economic growth rate is an astonishing 8-12 per cent over the past five years and people are not clamouring to leave.
Geographically speaking, Africa is an enormous continent. You can fit China, India, the United States, Mexico, Europe and Japan inside it, and still have space left over. When it has a population of 2.4 billion in 2050, it will still have fewer people than the 4 billion who live in those places today. Of the 50 least densely populated countries in the world, 16 are in Africa. The continent is far from overflowing.
Ridley goes on to quote a range of optimistic projections about Africa, all of which suggest that the continent is unlikely to produce a Jean Raspail-style exodus in the next half century, and that its billions of inhabitants will be able to do well enough, and get rich enough, while staying home. And then, too: “Africa’s population growth will slow during this century,” and “the richer it gets the more that growth rate will slow.” So the only thing Europe should fear is a political-driven — or religious-extremism-driven — mass migration; the demographics alone will not make the current scene in the Mediterranean a permanent feature of European life.
Ridley may be right, and I would go with him this far: The Syrian crisis is distinctive, the current surge of refugees into eastern and southern Europe need not represent the beginning of a permanent emergency, and if it does the problem will be, as he says, heavily political rather than purely demographic. Demographic pressure doesn’t work this fast unless there’s a military-political catastrophe driving it, and if the Middle East and North Africa stabilize somewhat and the African continent as a whole stays on a solid economic path, the pressure will ease, the pace of change will slow, and this summer’s remarkable scenes won’t be recreated annually on Europe’s borderlands and shores.
But of course the Levant and the Maghreb may not stabilize for a while … and even if they do, migration rates need not hit this summer’s crisis point every year for demographic change to matter a great deal. In particular, the fact that Africa will be (hopefully) richer and more politically stable in 2050 and 2100 than today, and the fact that the continent theoretically has room enough for its growing population, by no means precludes steady northward migration over the next 50-100 years.
Mexican and Latin American immigration to the United States, for instance, has proceeded at a brisk pace since the 1970s in the absence of Syrian-style disasters or Eritrean-style nightmares — or, for that matter, extraordinary human density — south of the Rio Grande. Yes, Mexico was stagnant and occasionally crisis-wracked during this period, but it was much richer than most African nations, and yet still millions of people decided to move north, even risking their lives to do it, simply because the potential rewards, to keep and/or to send back home, were so obvious and large. And if you take the last thirty years of Hispanic immigration to the U.S. rather than the Syrian refugee crisis as the template for what might happen as Europe ages and African populations grow, you could still end up with a world-historical demographic transformation, as Noah Millman noted earlier this year:
… Historically, migration out of Africa has been relatively small, with only 440,000 people leaving per year from 2000 to 2005, a rate equivalent to roughly 2 percent of population growth. If this rate of out-migration continues over the next 35 years, then an additional 26 million Africans will leave the continent—mostly for Europe, based on past migration patterns.
But that migration rate is likely to increase for several reasons. Higher rates of migration within Africa, between countries and toward urban areas, will make for a more mobile society acutely aware of the opportunities outside the continent. The presence of significant diaspora communities will make it easier for new migrants to contemplate the journey. And, as Africa’s population numbers rise, both prosperity or stagnation could drive larger outflows, the former by providing greater means for travel, the latter due to a desperate battle for limited resources within Africa.
To get a handle on the possible scale of future African migration to Europe, it’s worth looking at past Mexican migration to America. Prior to the 1970s, migration from Mexico to the United States was negligible; fewer than 1 million Americans in 1970 were immigrants from Mexico. But beginning in the mid-1970s, migration from Mexico to the United States began to increase, and increased further with every decade until only a few years ago. Today, roughly 11 million Americans were born in Mexico. During a period in which the Mexican population doubled, growing by about 60 million people, an additional 10 million (on a net basis) migrated to the United States. Applying comparable ratios to Africa and Europe, between now and 2050 nearly 200 million Africans would be expected to migrate to Europe. Between one in four and one in five Europeans would be African immigrants.
It seems safe to assume that the 200 million scenario simply won’t happen; the width of the Mediterranean alone makes that hard to imagine, to say nothing of what’s likely to happen in European domestic politics. But then if you had predicted a few years ago that Germany would be accepting hundreds of thousands, and possibly millions, of mostly-Muslim refugees during a single period of crisis, that would have seemed fairly implausible as well. And this crisis doesn’t have to repeat itself exactly to set a precedent that attracts the young, the adventurous, the ambitious, and the wired-in and social-media-savvy from countries where they might do well enough if they stayed, but where no matter how they worked and saved they could never hope to have it as good as the average European.
That’s the dynamic, and the incentive, that’s drawn people north into the United States, and I suspect it will be enough to draw people north into Europe at rising rates even absent massive crises. Which is why the choices that Europe’s policymakers make now, the scale of the welcome they extend, matters for the long term: Not because the world must inexorably come to Europe, but because trends build on themselves, migration patterns get established, and the more people come and stay, the more will expect to, want to, and try to follow them.
http://douthat.blogs.nytimes.com/2015/0 ... 05309&_r=0
My Sunday column took up the question of the world’s obligations to Syrian refugees, and looked back to an earlier column to question the wisdom of Germany’s present open door policy. Given the demographic pressure facing Europe over the next half-century— the aging of the native population and the rapid population growth to Europe’s southeast and (especially) south — I argued that the continent needs to manage migration policy very carefully, or risk a dramatic escalation of its existing assimilation problem (and the nativist backlash associated with it).
As a partial counterpoint, offering a more sanguine take on the underlying demographic issues, I recommend this piece by Matt Ridley for the Times of London, which makes the case that the long-run pressure on Europe will be much weaker than merely running the numbers for population trends on either side of the Mediterranean would suggest. Ridley’s core point is that it takes a truly extraordinary event, like the complete collapse of Syria and Iraq, to persuade large numbers of people to pick up and move, so it’s a mistake to extrapolate from the current wave of migration to a Eurabian or Eurafrican future:
With African populations growing fastest, are we glimpsing a future in which the scenes we saw on the Macedonian border, or on Kos or in the seas around Sicily last week will seem tame? … I don’t think so. The current migration crisis is being driven by war and oppression, not demography. Almost two thirds of the migrants reaching Europe by boat this year are from three small countries: Syria, Afghanistan and Eritrea. These are not even densely populated countries …
… demography is a poor predictor of migration. Nowhere in the world are people leaving countries specifically because of population growth or density … Tiny Eritrea, with only five million people, is a hell-hole for purely political reasons. It has a totalitarian government that tries to make North Korea and the old East Germany look tame: it conscripts every 17-year-old into lifelong and total service of the state. No wonder 3 per cent of its people have already left.
So it is simply not the case that migration of Africans (or Asians) will be driven by their ever-increasing numbers. Ethiopia, next-door to Eritrea, is the second most populous country in Africa, with higher population density than Eritrea, and 90 million people. But its government is only mildly authoritarian, its economic growth rate is an astonishing 8-12 per cent over the past five years and people are not clamouring to leave.
Geographically speaking, Africa is an enormous continent. You can fit China, India, the United States, Mexico, Europe and Japan inside it, and still have space left over. When it has a population of 2.4 billion in 2050, it will still have fewer people than the 4 billion who live in those places today. Of the 50 least densely populated countries in the world, 16 are in Africa. The continent is far from overflowing.
Ridley goes on to quote a range of optimistic projections about Africa, all of which suggest that the continent is unlikely to produce a Jean Raspail-style exodus in the next half century, and that its billions of inhabitants will be able to do well enough, and get rich enough, while staying home. And then, too: “Africa’s population growth will slow during this century,” and “the richer it gets the more that growth rate will slow.” So the only thing Europe should fear is a political-driven — or religious-extremism-driven — mass migration; the demographics alone will not make the current scene in the Mediterranean a permanent feature of European life.
Ridley may be right, and I would go with him this far: The Syrian crisis is distinctive, the current surge of refugees into eastern and southern Europe need not represent the beginning of a permanent emergency, and if it does the problem will be, as he says, heavily political rather than purely demographic. Demographic pressure doesn’t work this fast unless there’s a military-political catastrophe driving it, and if the Middle East and North Africa stabilize somewhat and the African continent as a whole stays on a solid economic path, the pressure will ease, the pace of change will slow, and this summer’s remarkable scenes won’t be recreated annually on Europe’s borderlands and shores.
But of course the Levant and the Maghreb may not stabilize for a while … and even if they do, migration rates need not hit this summer’s crisis point every year for demographic change to matter a great deal. In particular, the fact that Africa will be (hopefully) richer and more politically stable in 2050 and 2100 than today, and the fact that the continent theoretically has room enough for its growing population, by no means precludes steady northward migration over the next 50-100 years.
Mexican and Latin American immigration to the United States, for instance, has proceeded at a brisk pace since the 1970s in the absence of Syrian-style disasters or Eritrean-style nightmares — or, for that matter, extraordinary human density — south of the Rio Grande. Yes, Mexico was stagnant and occasionally crisis-wracked during this period, but it was much richer than most African nations, and yet still millions of people decided to move north, even risking their lives to do it, simply because the potential rewards, to keep and/or to send back home, were so obvious and large. And if you take the last thirty years of Hispanic immigration to the U.S. rather than the Syrian refugee crisis as the template for what might happen as Europe ages and African populations grow, you could still end up with a world-historical demographic transformation, as Noah Millman noted earlier this year:
… Historically, migration out of Africa has been relatively small, with only 440,000 people leaving per year from 2000 to 2005, a rate equivalent to roughly 2 percent of population growth. If this rate of out-migration continues over the next 35 years, then an additional 26 million Africans will leave the continent—mostly for Europe, based on past migration patterns.
But that migration rate is likely to increase for several reasons. Higher rates of migration within Africa, between countries and toward urban areas, will make for a more mobile society acutely aware of the opportunities outside the continent. The presence of significant diaspora communities will make it easier for new migrants to contemplate the journey. And, as Africa’s population numbers rise, both prosperity or stagnation could drive larger outflows, the former by providing greater means for travel, the latter due to a desperate battle for limited resources within Africa.
To get a handle on the possible scale of future African migration to Europe, it’s worth looking at past Mexican migration to America. Prior to the 1970s, migration from Mexico to the United States was negligible; fewer than 1 million Americans in 1970 were immigrants from Mexico. But beginning in the mid-1970s, migration from Mexico to the United States began to increase, and increased further with every decade until only a few years ago. Today, roughly 11 million Americans were born in Mexico. During a period in which the Mexican population doubled, growing by about 60 million people, an additional 10 million (on a net basis) migrated to the United States. Applying comparable ratios to Africa and Europe, between now and 2050 nearly 200 million Africans would be expected to migrate to Europe. Between one in four and one in five Europeans would be African immigrants.
It seems safe to assume that the 200 million scenario simply won’t happen; the width of the Mediterranean alone makes that hard to imagine, to say nothing of what’s likely to happen in European domestic politics. But then if you had predicted a few years ago that Germany would be accepting hundreds of thousands, and possibly millions, of mostly-Muslim refugees during a single period of crisis, that would have seemed fairly implausible as well. And this crisis doesn’t have to repeat itself exactly to set a precedent that attracts the young, the adventurous, the ambitious, and the wired-in and social-media-savvy from countries where they might do well enough if they stayed, but where no matter how they worked and saved they could never hope to have it as good as the average European.
That’s the dynamic, and the incentive, that’s drawn people north into the United States, and I suspect it will be enough to draw people north into Europe at rising rates even absent massive crises. Which is why the choices that Europe’s policymakers make now, the scale of the welcome they extend, matters for the long term: Not because the world must inexorably come to Europe, but because trends build on themselves, migration patterns get established, and the more people come and stay, the more will expect to, want to, and try to follow them.
http://douthat.blogs.nytimes.com/2015/0 ... 05309&_r=0
The Most Important Thing, and It’s Almost a Secret
We journalists are a bit like vultures, feasting on war, scandal and disaster. Turn on the news, and you see Syrian refugees, Volkswagen corruption, dysfunctional government.
Yet that reflects a selection bias in how we report the news: We cover planes that crash, not planes that take off. Indeed, maybe the most important thing happening in the world today is something that we almost never cover: a stunning decline in poverty, illiteracy and disease.
More...
http://www.nytimes.com/2015/10/01/opini ... d=71987722
We journalists are a bit like vultures, feasting on war, scandal and disaster. Turn on the news, and you see Syrian refugees, Volkswagen corruption, dysfunctional government.
Yet that reflects a selection bias in how we report the news: We cover planes that crash, not planes that take off. Indeed, maybe the most important thing happening in the world today is something that we almost never cover: a stunning decline in poverty, illiteracy and disease.
More...
http://www.nytimes.com/2015/10/01/opini ... d=71987722
China Ends One-Child Policy, Allowing Families Two Children
BEIJING — Driven by fears that an aging population could jeopardize China’s economic ascent, the Communist Party leadership ended its decades-old “one child” policy on Thursday, announcing that all married couples would be allowed to have two children.
The decision was a dramatic step away from a core Communist Party position that Deng Xiaoping, the Chinese leader who imposed the policy in the late 1970s, once said was needed to ensure that “the fruits of economic growth are not devoured by population growth.”
For China’s leaders, the controls were a triumphant demonstration of the party’s capacity to reshape even the most intimate dimensions of citizens’ lives. But they bred intense resentment over the brutal intrusions involved, including forced abortions and crippling fines, especially in the countryside.
The efforts to limit family size also led to a skewed sex ratio of males to females, because traditional rural families favor boys over girls, sometimes even resorting to infanticide to ensure they have a son.
More....
http://www.nytimes.com/2015/10/30/world ... 87722&_r=0
BEIJING — Driven by fears that an aging population could jeopardize China’s economic ascent, the Communist Party leadership ended its decades-old “one child” policy on Thursday, announcing that all married couples would be allowed to have two children.
The decision was a dramatic step away from a core Communist Party position that Deng Xiaoping, the Chinese leader who imposed the policy in the late 1970s, once said was needed to ensure that “the fruits of economic growth are not devoured by population growth.”
For China’s leaders, the controls were a triumphant demonstration of the party’s capacity to reshape even the most intimate dimensions of citizens’ lives. But they bred intense resentment over the brutal intrusions involved, including forced abortions and crippling fines, especially in the countryside.
The efforts to limit family size also led to a skewed sex ratio of males to females, because traditional rural families favor boys over girls, sometimes even resorting to infanticide to ensure they have a son.
More....
http://www.nytimes.com/2015/10/30/world ... 87722&_r=0
The Displaced: Introduction
Nearly 60 million people are currently displaced from their
homes by war and persecution — more than at any time since
World War II. Half are children. This multimedia journey in text,
photographs and virtual reality tells the stories of three of them.
By JAKE SILVERSTEINNOV. 5, 2015
http://www.nytimes.com/2015/11/08/magaz ... d=45305309
Nearly 60 million people are currently displaced from their
homes by war and persecution — more than at any time since
World War II. Half are children. This multimedia journey in text,
photographs and virtual reality tells the stories of three of them.
By JAKE SILVERSTEINNOV. 5, 2015
http://www.nytimes.com/2015/11/08/magaz ... d=45305309
Is Humanity Getting Better?
The world now is a thoroughly awful place, compared with what it should be. But not compared with what it was.
Excerpt:
The percentage of states perpetrating mass killings of civilians is also well down since 1945, and fatalities from armed assaults on civilians (and from genocide) are down since reliable records have been kept. And while the numbers on deaths from terrorism vary according to the definition of that word, all agree that the numbers of terrorism deaths are quite small compared with those caused by (increasingly rare) wars.
These statistics definitely do not prove that animus or madness has ended. No decent person would deny that violence is still much too high everywhere. And there is no guarantee that any of these positive trends will continue.
Still, the big picture of postwar history shows significant improvements in nearly all indicators of lived human experience. The average life span of humans is today longer than it has ever been. A smaller proportion of women die in childbirth than ever before. Child malnutrition is at its lowest level ever, while literacy rates worldwide have never been higher. Most impressive has been the recent reduction in severe poverty — the reduction in the percentage of humans living each day on what a tall Starbucks coffee costs in America. During a recent 20-year stretch the mainstream estimate is that the percentage of the developing world living in such extreme poverty shrank by more than half, from 43 to 21 percent.
The real trick to understanding our world is to see it with both eyes at once. The world now is a thoroughly awful place — compared with what it should be. But not compared with what it was. Keeping both eyes open gives depth to our perception of our own time in history, and makes us better able to see where paths to more progress may be open.
More...
http://opinionator.blogs.nytimes.com/20 ... 87722&_r=0
The world now is a thoroughly awful place, compared with what it should be. But not compared with what it was.
Excerpt:
The percentage of states perpetrating mass killings of civilians is also well down since 1945, and fatalities from armed assaults on civilians (and from genocide) are down since reliable records have been kept. And while the numbers on deaths from terrorism vary according to the definition of that word, all agree that the numbers of terrorism deaths are quite small compared with those caused by (increasingly rare) wars.
These statistics definitely do not prove that animus or madness has ended. No decent person would deny that violence is still much too high everywhere. And there is no guarantee that any of these positive trends will continue.
Still, the big picture of postwar history shows significant improvements in nearly all indicators of lived human experience. The average life span of humans is today longer than it has ever been. A smaller proportion of women die in childbirth than ever before. Child malnutrition is at its lowest level ever, while literacy rates worldwide have never been higher. Most impressive has been the recent reduction in severe poverty — the reduction in the percentage of humans living each day on what a tall Starbucks coffee costs in America. During a recent 20-year stretch the mainstream estimate is that the percentage of the developing world living in such extreme poverty shrank by more than half, from 43 to 21 percent.
The real trick to understanding our world is to see it with both eyes at once. The world now is a thoroughly awful place — compared with what it should be. But not compared with what it was. Keeping both eyes open gives depth to our perception of our own time in history, and makes us better able to see where paths to more progress may be open.
More...
http://opinionator.blogs.nytimes.com/20 ... 87722&_r=0
The End of Monogamy? Real Couples with Open Relationships
The fact that Madeleine Maynard, a 31-year-old Toronto cross-stitch artist, uses the dating site OKCupid and the Tinder app to find men and women for hookups doesn't mean she's not committed to her long-term partner. In fact, she and George,* her boyfriend of four years, plan to marry.
Madeleine and George's romantic life might sound complex ' or even strange ' but they're part of a growing number of couples that are 'opening up' their relationships. The decision to choose consensual non-monogamy as a way to make a relationship work is experiencing a surprising uptick in popularity. As many as 10 percent of all committed relationships, including marriages, now identify as open, according to Susan Pease Gadoua and Vicki Larson in their book, The New 'I Do': Reshaping Marriage for Skeptics, Realists and Rebels. The authors suggest that couples that are facing affairs or stuck in sexless marriages might benefit from long-term non-monogamy.
The conversation seems particularly timely in the wake of the Ashley Madison scandal last summer, when countless marriages were potentially shattered after the 30 million plus registered members' names were exposed online. Unlike in open marriages, Ashley Madison users were hiding their indiscretions from their 'loved ones' ' a betrayal that can be costly.
As the breach of the famous cheating site pointed out, extramarital affairs are more prevalent than many of us think. Statistics on infidelity vary, along with how people define infidelity (does watching porn, or sexting count?), but anywhere from 25 to 70 percent of people in committed relationships step out on their spouses, say Pease Gadoua and Larson. Since 30 to 50 percent of marriages end in divorce, with an affair often cited as a contributing factor to the downfall of a relationship,is it possible that people in open marriages are on to something?
Changing the rules of traditional marriage and monogamy isn't easy, though. Nor is it for everyone. With no social model for the most successful or most acceptable way to practise opening up a relationship and no one way of doing it, couples are left to carve out new territory.
More...
http://www.msn.com/en-ca/lifestyle/rela ... lsignoutmd
The fact that Madeleine Maynard, a 31-year-old Toronto cross-stitch artist, uses the dating site OKCupid and the Tinder app to find men and women for hookups doesn't mean she's not committed to her long-term partner. In fact, she and George,* her boyfriend of four years, plan to marry.
Madeleine and George's romantic life might sound complex ' or even strange ' but they're part of a growing number of couples that are 'opening up' their relationships. The decision to choose consensual non-monogamy as a way to make a relationship work is experiencing a surprising uptick in popularity. As many as 10 percent of all committed relationships, including marriages, now identify as open, according to Susan Pease Gadoua and Vicki Larson in their book, The New 'I Do': Reshaping Marriage for Skeptics, Realists and Rebels. The authors suggest that couples that are facing affairs or stuck in sexless marriages might benefit from long-term non-monogamy.
The conversation seems particularly timely in the wake of the Ashley Madison scandal last summer, when countless marriages were potentially shattered after the 30 million plus registered members' names were exposed online. Unlike in open marriages, Ashley Madison users were hiding their indiscretions from their 'loved ones' ' a betrayal that can be costly.
As the breach of the famous cheating site pointed out, extramarital affairs are more prevalent than many of us think. Statistics on infidelity vary, along with how people define infidelity (does watching porn, or sexting count?), but anywhere from 25 to 70 percent of people in committed relationships step out on their spouses, say Pease Gadoua and Larson. Since 30 to 50 percent of marriages end in divorce, with an affair often cited as a contributing factor to the downfall of a relationship,is it possible that people in open marriages are on to something?
Changing the rules of traditional marriage and monogamy isn't easy, though. Nor is it for everyone. With no social model for the most successful or most acceptable way to practise opening up a relationship and no one way of doing it, couples are left to carve out new territory.
More...
http://www.msn.com/en-ca/lifestyle/rela ... lsignoutmd
The World Has a Problem: Too Many Young People
AT no point in recorded history has our world been so demographically lopsided, with old people concentrated in rich countries and the young in not-so-rich countries.
Much has been made of the challenges of aging societies. But it’s the youth bulge that stands to put greater pressure on the global economy, sow political unrest, spur mass migration and have profound consequences for everything from marriage to Internet access to the growth of cities.
The parable of our time might well be: Mind your young, or they will trouble you in your old age.
A fourth of humanity is now young (ages 10 to 24). The vast majority live in the developing world, according to the United Nations Population Fund.
Nowhere can the pressures of the youth bulge be felt as profoundly as in India. Every month, some one million young Indians turn 18 — coming of age, looking for work, registering to vote and making India home to the largest number of young, working-age people anywhere in the world.
Already, the number of Indians between the ages of 15 and 34 — 422 million — is roughly the same as the combined populations of the United States, Canada and Britain.
By and large, today’s global youth are more likely to be in school than their parents were; they are more connected to the world than any generation before them; and they are in turn more ambitious, which also makes them more prone to getting fed up with what their elders have to offer. Many are in no position to land a decent job at home. And millions are moving, from country to city, and to cities in faraway countries, where they are increasingly unwelcome.
Democratically elected presidents and potentates are equally aware: Aspirations, when thwarted, can be a potent, spiteful force. No longer can you be sure that a large swell of young working-age people will enrich your country, as they did a generation ago in East Asia. “You can’t just say, ‘Hey look, I’ve got a youth bulge, it’s going to be great,’ ” said Charles J. Kenny, an economist at the Washington-based Center for Global Development. “You’ve got to have an economy ready to respond.”
By The New York Times
“It is the big development challenge these countries face — more decent jobs,” he added.
A case in point are the caste protests that paralyzed a prospering North Indian state in recent weeks. They were driven by a powerful landowning caste whose sons can neither support themselves through farming nor secure the jobs of their choice. So the protesters took to the streets demanding caste-based quotas for government posts. They blocked rail lines and set trucks on fire; the police say 30 people died in the unrest.
This is just part of India’s staggering challenge. Every year, the country must create an estimated 12 million to 17 million jobs.
Worldwide, young workers are in precarious straits. Two out of five are either not working or working in such ill-paid jobs that they can’t escape poverty, according to figures recently released by the International Labour Organization. In the developing world, where few can afford to be unemployed, most young workers have jobs that are sporadic, poorly paid and offer no legal protection; women are worse off.
Youth unemployment is especially striking in richer countries. Across Europe, youth unemployment is 25 percent, not just because of a sluggish economy but because many young Europeans don’t have the skills for the jobs available, from electricians to home health aides; it explains in part the surge of anti-immigrant sentiment on the Continent. In the United States, nearly 17 percent of those between the ages of 16 and 29 are neither in school nor working.
That does not bode well. An increase in youth unemployment is a better predictor of social unrest than virtually any other factor, warned Raymond Torres, the Labour Organization’s research chief. “The social contract is weakened because of unfulfilled promises,” he said.
In some ways, the global demographic portrait reflects what we are doing right: Our babies are far less likely to die, and our grandparents live longer. Women have fewer children, and die less often in childbirth. More good news: Primary school enrollment has shot up in the developing world. In India, for instance, nearly all children are enrolled in school.
But even those gains are uneven. According to the latest survey carried out by a national nonprofit called Pratham, half of Indian schoolchildren enrolled in fifth grade are unable to read from a second-grade textbook, and half cannot subtract. They’re in school, but they are not learning much.
What’s more, even modest education fuels ambition. Yet it can also frustrate those who can’t find work. Across the Middle East, where authoritarian rulers invested in education, youth unemployment is soaring — along with unrest.
The global generation gap is widening. In Germany, the median age is over 46, and in Russia, 39. In the United States, the median age is over 37; in India, 27; and in Nigeria, just over 18. China is running out of young workers so fast that it ended its decades-old one-child policy last year to allow married couples to have two children.
The worldwide age divide makes migration — along with job creation in the global south — critical to balancing the world demographically, according to Rainer Münz, head of research and development at the Erste Group Bank in Brussels. Mr. Münz proposes what he calls a system of “demographic arbitrage,” with industrialized countries competing for talent from elsewhere. Even China, he maintains, will have to enter that race.
“A demographic arbitrage between aging societies with a shrinking work force and youthful societies would be good thing, if the whole thing could be managed,” he said.
Many politicians are making the opposite case. Just last week, Donald Tusk, the president of the European Council, told migrants not to come to Europe, which has sought to stanch the flow by offering development aid to the migrants’ home countries.
YET development aid can’t tamp down dreams. As poor countries prosper and their young become more educated, they are more likely to migrate. It explains in part why India has the largest diaspora in the world: In 2015, 16 million Indians were living outside India, double the number in 2000.
Perhaps most worrisome for some societies is the bachelor gap.
In China, where girls have been systematically culled from the population, there were 34 million extra men in 2010, according to census data. In India, there are 17 million more men and boys between the ages of 10 and 24. That makes the marriage market even more competitive, which puts a man without a good job at a major disadvantage. Many are bound to be bachelors for life — a potent formula for violence, some scholars say, especially against women.
Little surprise then that the recent caste protests in India took place in Haryana, the state with the sharpest gender imbalance in the nation, with 879 women for every 1,000 men in the population. This lopsidedness stems from a disdain for daughters. Technology and rising incomes have allowed expecting couples to pay for illegal sex determination tests, and female fetuses are often aborted. A result is a surplus of young men, making it necessary to import brides from other parts of the country.
And so the parable of our times may really be: Mind your daughters, or your future will come to ruin.
Somini Sengupta is the United Nations correspondent for The New York Times and the author of “The End of Karma: Hope and Fury Among India’s Young.”
http://www.nytimes.com/2016/03/06/sunda ... ef=opinion
AT no point in recorded history has our world been so demographically lopsided, with old people concentrated in rich countries and the young in not-so-rich countries.
Much has been made of the challenges of aging societies. But it’s the youth bulge that stands to put greater pressure on the global economy, sow political unrest, spur mass migration and have profound consequences for everything from marriage to Internet access to the growth of cities.
The parable of our time might well be: Mind your young, or they will trouble you in your old age.
A fourth of humanity is now young (ages 10 to 24). The vast majority live in the developing world, according to the United Nations Population Fund.
Nowhere can the pressures of the youth bulge be felt as profoundly as in India. Every month, some one million young Indians turn 18 — coming of age, looking for work, registering to vote and making India home to the largest number of young, working-age people anywhere in the world.
Already, the number of Indians between the ages of 15 and 34 — 422 million — is roughly the same as the combined populations of the United States, Canada and Britain.
By and large, today’s global youth are more likely to be in school than their parents were; they are more connected to the world than any generation before them; and they are in turn more ambitious, which also makes them more prone to getting fed up with what their elders have to offer. Many are in no position to land a decent job at home. And millions are moving, from country to city, and to cities in faraway countries, where they are increasingly unwelcome.
Democratically elected presidents and potentates are equally aware: Aspirations, when thwarted, can be a potent, spiteful force. No longer can you be sure that a large swell of young working-age people will enrich your country, as they did a generation ago in East Asia. “You can’t just say, ‘Hey look, I’ve got a youth bulge, it’s going to be great,’ ” said Charles J. Kenny, an economist at the Washington-based Center for Global Development. “You’ve got to have an economy ready to respond.”
By The New York Times
“It is the big development challenge these countries face — more decent jobs,” he added.
A case in point are the caste protests that paralyzed a prospering North Indian state in recent weeks. They were driven by a powerful landowning caste whose sons can neither support themselves through farming nor secure the jobs of their choice. So the protesters took to the streets demanding caste-based quotas for government posts. They blocked rail lines and set trucks on fire; the police say 30 people died in the unrest.
This is just part of India’s staggering challenge. Every year, the country must create an estimated 12 million to 17 million jobs.
Worldwide, young workers are in precarious straits. Two out of five are either not working or working in such ill-paid jobs that they can’t escape poverty, according to figures recently released by the International Labour Organization. In the developing world, where few can afford to be unemployed, most young workers have jobs that are sporadic, poorly paid and offer no legal protection; women are worse off.
Youth unemployment is especially striking in richer countries. Across Europe, youth unemployment is 25 percent, not just because of a sluggish economy but because many young Europeans don’t have the skills for the jobs available, from electricians to home health aides; it explains in part the surge of anti-immigrant sentiment on the Continent. In the United States, nearly 17 percent of those between the ages of 16 and 29 are neither in school nor working.
That does not bode well. An increase in youth unemployment is a better predictor of social unrest than virtually any other factor, warned Raymond Torres, the Labour Organization’s research chief. “The social contract is weakened because of unfulfilled promises,” he said.
In some ways, the global demographic portrait reflects what we are doing right: Our babies are far less likely to die, and our grandparents live longer. Women have fewer children, and die less often in childbirth. More good news: Primary school enrollment has shot up in the developing world. In India, for instance, nearly all children are enrolled in school.
But even those gains are uneven. According to the latest survey carried out by a national nonprofit called Pratham, half of Indian schoolchildren enrolled in fifth grade are unable to read from a second-grade textbook, and half cannot subtract. They’re in school, but they are not learning much.
What’s more, even modest education fuels ambition. Yet it can also frustrate those who can’t find work. Across the Middle East, where authoritarian rulers invested in education, youth unemployment is soaring — along with unrest.
The global generation gap is widening. In Germany, the median age is over 46, and in Russia, 39. In the United States, the median age is over 37; in India, 27; and in Nigeria, just over 18. China is running out of young workers so fast that it ended its decades-old one-child policy last year to allow married couples to have two children.
The worldwide age divide makes migration — along with job creation in the global south — critical to balancing the world demographically, according to Rainer Münz, head of research and development at the Erste Group Bank in Brussels. Mr. Münz proposes what he calls a system of “demographic arbitrage,” with industrialized countries competing for talent from elsewhere. Even China, he maintains, will have to enter that race.
“A demographic arbitrage between aging societies with a shrinking work force and youthful societies would be good thing, if the whole thing could be managed,” he said.
Many politicians are making the opposite case. Just last week, Donald Tusk, the president of the European Council, told migrants not to come to Europe, which has sought to stanch the flow by offering development aid to the migrants’ home countries.
YET development aid can’t tamp down dreams. As poor countries prosper and their young become more educated, they are more likely to migrate. It explains in part why India has the largest diaspora in the world: In 2015, 16 million Indians were living outside India, double the number in 2000.
Perhaps most worrisome for some societies is the bachelor gap.
In China, where girls have been systematically culled from the population, there were 34 million extra men in 2010, according to census data. In India, there are 17 million more men and boys between the ages of 10 and 24. That makes the marriage market even more competitive, which puts a man without a good job at a major disadvantage. Many are bound to be bachelors for life — a potent formula for violence, some scholars say, especially against women.
Little surprise then that the recent caste protests in India took place in Haryana, the state with the sharpest gender imbalance in the nation, with 879 women for every 1,000 men in the population. This lopsidedness stems from a disdain for daughters. Technology and rising incomes have allowed expecting couples to pay for illegal sex determination tests, and female fetuses are often aborted. A result is a surplus of young men, making it necessary to import brides from other parts of the country.
And so the parable of our times may really be: Mind your daughters, or your future will come to ruin.
Somini Sengupta is the United Nations correspondent for The New York Times and the author of “The End of Karma: Hope and Fury Among India’s Young.”
http://www.nytimes.com/2016/03/06/sunda ... ef=opinion
The Middle-Age Surge
The phrase almost completes itself: Midlife … crisis. It’s the stage in the middle of the journey when people feel youth vanishing, their prospects narrowing and death approaching. So they become undone. The red Corvette pops up in the driveway. Stupidity reigns.
There’s only one problem with the cliché. It isn’t true.
“In fact, there is almost no hard evidence for midlife crisis at all, other than a few small pilot studies conducted decades ago,” Barbara Bradley Hagerty writes in her new book, “Life Reimagined.” The vast bulk of the research shows that there may be a pause, or a shifting of gears in the 40s or 50s, but this shift “can be exhilarating, rather than terrifying.”
Bradley Hagerty looks at some of the features of people who turn midlife into a rebirth. They break routines, because “autopilot is death.” They choose purpose over happiness — having a clear sense of purpose even reduces the risk of Alzheimer’s. They put relationships at the foreground, as career often recedes.
“Life Reimagined” paints a portrait of middle age that is far from grim and decelerating. Midlife begins to seem like the second big phase of decision-making. Your identity has been formed; you know who you are; you’ve built up your resources; and now you have the chance to take the big risks precisely because your foundation is already secure.
The theologian Karl Barth described midlife in precisely this way. At middle age, he wrote, “the sowing is behind; now is the time to reap. The run has been taken; now is the time to leap. Preparation has been made; now is the time for the venture of the work itself.”
The middle-aged person, Barth continued, can see death in the distance, but moves with a “measured haste” to get big new things done while there is still time.
What Barth wrote decades ago is even truer today. People are healthy and energetic longer. We have presidential candidates running for their first term in office at age 68, 69 and 74. Greater longevity is changing the narrative structure of life itself.
The elongation of vital life has changed the phases of life. The most obvious change is the emergence of the odyssey years. People between age 20 and the early 30s can now take a little more time to try on new career options, new cities and new partners.
However, another profound but more hidden change is the altered shape of middle age. What could have been considered the beginning of a descent is now a potential turning point — the turning point you are most equipped to take full advantage of.
It is the moment when you can look back on your life so far and see it with different eyes. Hopefully you’ve built up some wisdom, which, as the psychologists define it, means seeing the world with more compassion, grasping opposing ideas at the same time, tolerating ambiguity and reacting with equanimity to the small setbacks of life.
By middle age you might begin to see, retrospectively, the dominant motifs that have been running through your various decisions. You might begin to see how all your different commitments can be integrated into one meaning and purpose. You might see the social problem your past has made you uniquely equipped to tackle. You might have enough clarity by now to orient your life around a true north on some ultimate horizon.
Lincoln, for example, found in midlife that everything so far had prepared him to preserve the Union and end slavery. The rest of us don’t have causes that grand, but plenty of people bring their life to a point. They dive fully into existing commitments, or embrace new ones.
Either way, with a little maturity, they’re less likely by middle age to be blinded by ego, more likely to know what it is they actually desire, more likely to get out of their own way, and maybe a little less likely, given all the judgments that have been made, to care about what other people think.
The people who find meaning at this stage often realize the way up is down.
They get off that supervisor’s perch and put themselves in direct contact with the people they can help the most. They accept that certain glorious youthful dreams won’t be realized, but other, more relational jobs turn out to be more fulfilling.
They achieve a kind of tranquillity, not because they’ve decided to do nothing, but because they’ve achieved focus and purity of will. They have enough self-confidence, and impatience, to say no to some things so they can say yes to others.
From this perspective, middle age is kind of inspiring. Many of life’s possibilities are now closed, but limitation is often liberating. The remaining possibilities can be seized more bravely, and lived more deeply.
http://www.nytimes.com/2016/03/22/opini ... d=71987722
The phrase almost completes itself: Midlife … crisis. It’s the stage in the middle of the journey when people feel youth vanishing, their prospects narrowing and death approaching. So they become undone. The red Corvette pops up in the driveway. Stupidity reigns.
There’s only one problem with the cliché. It isn’t true.
“In fact, there is almost no hard evidence for midlife crisis at all, other than a few small pilot studies conducted decades ago,” Barbara Bradley Hagerty writes in her new book, “Life Reimagined.” The vast bulk of the research shows that there may be a pause, or a shifting of gears in the 40s or 50s, but this shift “can be exhilarating, rather than terrifying.”
Bradley Hagerty looks at some of the features of people who turn midlife into a rebirth. They break routines, because “autopilot is death.” They choose purpose over happiness — having a clear sense of purpose even reduces the risk of Alzheimer’s. They put relationships at the foreground, as career often recedes.
“Life Reimagined” paints a portrait of middle age that is far from grim and decelerating. Midlife begins to seem like the second big phase of decision-making. Your identity has been formed; you know who you are; you’ve built up your resources; and now you have the chance to take the big risks precisely because your foundation is already secure.
The theologian Karl Barth described midlife in precisely this way. At middle age, he wrote, “the sowing is behind; now is the time to reap. The run has been taken; now is the time to leap. Preparation has been made; now is the time for the venture of the work itself.”
The middle-aged person, Barth continued, can see death in the distance, but moves with a “measured haste” to get big new things done while there is still time.
What Barth wrote decades ago is even truer today. People are healthy and energetic longer. We have presidential candidates running for their first term in office at age 68, 69 and 74. Greater longevity is changing the narrative structure of life itself.
The elongation of vital life has changed the phases of life. The most obvious change is the emergence of the odyssey years. People between age 20 and the early 30s can now take a little more time to try on new career options, new cities and new partners.
However, another profound but more hidden change is the altered shape of middle age. What could have been considered the beginning of a descent is now a potential turning point — the turning point you are most equipped to take full advantage of.
It is the moment when you can look back on your life so far and see it with different eyes. Hopefully you’ve built up some wisdom, which, as the psychologists define it, means seeing the world with more compassion, grasping opposing ideas at the same time, tolerating ambiguity and reacting with equanimity to the small setbacks of life.
By middle age you might begin to see, retrospectively, the dominant motifs that have been running through your various decisions. You might begin to see how all your different commitments can be integrated into one meaning and purpose. You might see the social problem your past has made you uniquely equipped to tackle. You might have enough clarity by now to orient your life around a true north on some ultimate horizon.
Lincoln, for example, found in midlife that everything so far had prepared him to preserve the Union and end slavery. The rest of us don’t have causes that grand, but plenty of people bring their life to a point. They dive fully into existing commitments, or embrace new ones.
Either way, with a little maturity, they’re less likely by middle age to be blinded by ego, more likely to know what it is they actually desire, more likely to get out of their own way, and maybe a little less likely, given all the judgments that have been made, to care about what other people think.
The people who find meaning at this stage often realize the way up is down.
They get off that supervisor’s perch and put themselves in direct contact with the people they can help the most. They accept that certain glorious youthful dreams won’t be realized, but other, more relational jobs turn out to be more fulfilling.
They achieve a kind of tranquillity, not because they’ve decided to do nothing, but because they’ve achieved focus and purity of will. They have enough self-confidence, and impatience, to say no to some things so they can say yes to others.
From this perspective, middle age is kind of inspiring. Many of life’s possibilities are now closed, but limitation is often liberating. The remaining possibilities can be seized more bravely, and lived more deeply.
http://www.nytimes.com/2016/03/22/opini ... d=71987722
China to protect migrant workers' 'left-behind' children
The Chinese government has issued new guidelines to protect children in rural areas whose parents have moved to cities to work.
An estimated 61 million children are "left behind" by their migrant parents.
Many people can only access public services in the villages they come from, so migrant workers' children stay behind to keep up their education.
Rural governments will be asked to monitor the welfare of children who live alone.
Parents will be encouraged to take their children with them when possible.
In 2013 a spate of sex abuse cases involving "left-behind" children shocked China.
Millions of migrant workers have moved from the Chinese countryside to cities in recent decades. The World Bank predicts that by 2030, up to 70% of Chinese people will live in cities.
WATCH: "They are not at home for us"
China children 'pesticide deaths'
Many children are left with extended family members but circumstances force some to live alone.
In June 2015 four "left-behind" siblings died of apparent pesticide poisoning. They were all under the age of 14 and their parents had left the village in search of work. The police did not rule out suicide.
http://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-35581716
The Chinese government has issued new guidelines to protect children in rural areas whose parents have moved to cities to work.
An estimated 61 million children are "left behind" by their migrant parents.
Many people can only access public services in the villages they come from, so migrant workers' children stay behind to keep up their education.
Rural governments will be asked to monitor the welfare of children who live alone.
Parents will be encouraged to take their children with them when possible.
In 2013 a spate of sex abuse cases involving "left-behind" children shocked China.
Millions of migrant workers have moved from the Chinese countryside to cities in recent decades. The World Bank predicts that by 2030, up to 70% of Chinese people will live in cities.
WATCH: "They are not at home for us"
China children 'pesticide deaths'
Many children are left with extended family members but circumstances force some to live alone.
In June 2015 four "left-behind" siblings died of apparent pesticide poisoning. They were all under the age of 14 and their parents had left the village in search of work. The police did not rule out suicide.
http://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-35581716
Interesting facts about world population
Slide show:
http://www.msn.com/en-ca/news/photos/in ... li=AAggNb9
World Population day, celebrated annually on July 11, was conceived in 1989 by the Governing Council of the United Nations with an aim to focus on urgent population issues. This year the U.N. has decided to focus on "investing in teenage girls." It's aim is to provide young girls with better education and healthcare, and empower them so they become agents of positive change in their communities.
We look at interesting facts about world population. (Pictured) Girls participate in morning school prayer in New Delhi, India.
Slide show:
http://www.msn.com/en-ca/news/photos/in ... li=AAggNb9
World Population day, celebrated annually on July 11, was conceived in 1989 by the Governing Council of the United Nations with an aim to focus on urgent population issues. This year the U.N. has decided to focus on "investing in teenage girls." It's aim is to provide young girls with better education and healthcare, and empower them so they become agents of positive change in their communities.
We look at interesting facts about world population. (Pictured) Girls participate in morning school prayer in New Delhi, India.
Six wealthiest countries host less than 9% of world's refugees
US, China, Japan, Germany, France and UK accommodate just 2.1 million refugees, according to Oxfam report
The six wealthiest countries in the world, which between them account for almost 60% of the global economy, host less than 9% of the world’s refugees, while poorer countries shoulder most of the burden, Oxfam has said.
According to a report released by the charity on Monday, the US, China, Japan, Germany, France and the UK, which together make up 56.6% of global GDP, between them host just 2.1 million refugees: 8.9% of the world’s total.
Of these 2.1 million people, roughly a third are hosted by Germany (736,740), while the remaining 1.4 million are split between the other five countries. The UK hosts 168,937 refugees, a figure Oxfam GB chief executive, Mark Goldring, has called shameful.
In contrast, more than half of the world’s refugees – almost 12 million people – live in Jordan, Turkey, Palestine, Pakistan, Lebanon and South Africa, despite the fact these places make up less than 2% of the world’s economy.
Oxfam is calling on governments to host more refugees and to do more to help poorer countries which provide shelter to the majority of the world’s refugees. “This is one of the greatest challenges of our time yet poorer countries, and poorer people, are left to shoulder the responsibility,” said Mark Goldring, chief executive of Oxfam GB. “It is a complex crisis that requires a coordinated, global response with the richest countries doing their fair share by welcoming more refugees and doing more to help and protect them wherever they are.
“Now more than ever, the UK needs to show that it is an open, tolerant society that is prepared to play its part in solving this crisis. It is shameful that as one of the richest economies the UK has provided shelter for less than 1% of refugees.”
According to the UNHCR Globals Trends 2015 report, more than 65 million people have left their homes due to violence, war and human rights violations, the highest number since records began. Most of these (40.8 million) are displaced within their own country, with 21.3 million as refugees and 3.2 million awaiting asylum decisions in industrialised countries. The conflict in Syria has played a large role in this displacement, as have conflicts in Burundi, Central African Republic, Iraq, Nigeria, South Sudan and Yemen.
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2016/ ... 9-per-cent
US, China, Japan, Germany, France and UK accommodate just 2.1 million refugees, according to Oxfam report
The six wealthiest countries in the world, which between them account for almost 60% of the global economy, host less than 9% of the world’s refugees, while poorer countries shoulder most of the burden, Oxfam has said.
According to a report released by the charity on Monday, the US, China, Japan, Germany, France and the UK, which together make up 56.6% of global GDP, between them host just 2.1 million refugees: 8.9% of the world’s total.
Of these 2.1 million people, roughly a third are hosted by Germany (736,740), while the remaining 1.4 million are split between the other five countries. The UK hosts 168,937 refugees, a figure Oxfam GB chief executive, Mark Goldring, has called shameful.
In contrast, more than half of the world’s refugees – almost 12 million people – live in Jordan, Turkey, Palestine, Pakistan, Lebanon and South Africa, despite the fact these places make up less than 2% of the world’s economy.
Oxfam is calling on governments to host more refugees and to do more to help poorer countries which provide shelter to the majority of the world’s refugees. “This is one of the greatest challenges of our time yet poorer countries, and poorer people, are left to shoulder the responsibility,” said Mark Goldring, chief executive of Oxfam GB. “It is a complex crisis that requires a coordinated, global response with the richest countries doing their fair share by welcoming more refugees and doing more to help and protect them wherever they are.
“Now more than ever, the UK needs to show that it is an open, tolerant society that is prepared to play its part in solving this crisis. It is shameful that as one of the richest economies the UK has provided shelter for less than 1% of refugees.”
According to the UNHCR Globals Trends 2015 report, more than 65 million people have left their homes due to violence, war and human rights violations, the highest number since records began. Most of these (40.8 million) are displaced within their own country, with 21.3 million as refugees and 3.2 million awaiting asylum decisions in industrialised countries. The conflict in Syria has played a large role in this displacement, as have conflicts in Burundi, Central African Republic, Iraq, Nigeria, South Sudan and Yemen.
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2016/ ... 9-per-cent
Marriage Falls in China, Transforming Finances and Families
HONG KONG — Liu Zhenfeng got married at 25. The usual trappings of family life followed — a daughter, a home, furniture, toys.
That daughter, Song Zongpei, now 28, is taking a different path. Ms. Song shares a rented apartment in Beijing with two roommates and is focusing on her career and her finances. She does not see marriage or motherhood in her immediate future. “At this stage, the most important thing for me is personal development,” Ms. Song said.
Fewer Chinese people are getting married, a shift with profound implications for China’s economic and social life. The decline in marriages means a decline in the number of babies, and potentially less spending on homes, appliances and other family-related purchases — the kind of spending China needs to drive economic growth.
Already some businesses are thinking single. Jewelry makers are offering cheaper baubles for unmarried sweethearts. One appliance maker is selling smaller rice cookers. Foreign fertility services are advertising for Chinese women who want to freeze their eggs — a process that is prohibited for single women in China — to have children later.
But the marriage slump — caused in large part by China’s aging population and the legacy of its harsh one-child policy — has a silver lining. It also stems from the rise of an educated population of women. Specialists in economics, demography and sociology say some of those women are delaying marriage to build careers and establish financial footing, resulting in a more empowered female population that no longer views marriage as the only route to security.
“Because they are highly educated, they hold well-paid jobs, they lose the financial incentive to get married,” says Zhang Xiaobo, a professor of economics at Peking University’s National School of Development.
China continues to emphasize marriage in its official media, entreating women not to wait for Mr. Right. But demographics and changing social mores make that a tough sell.
More...
http://www.nytimes.com/2016/09/12/busin ... 05309&_r=0
HONG KONG — Liu Zhenfeng got married at 25. The usual trappings of family life followed — a daughter, a home, furniture, toys.
That daughter, Song Zongpei, now 28, is taking a different path. Ms. Song shares a rented apartment in Beijing with two roommates and is focusing on her career and her finances. She does not see marriage or motherhood in her immediate future. “At this stage, the most important thing for me is personal development,” Ms. Song said.
Fewer Chinese people are getting married, a shift with profound implications for China’s economic and social life. The decline in marriages means a decline in the number of babies, and potentially less spending on homes, appliances and other family-related purchases — the kind of spending China needs to drive economic growth.
Already some businesses are thinking single. Jewelry makers are offering cheaper baubles for unmarried sweethearts. One appliance maker is selling smaller rice cookers. Foreign fertility services are advertising for Chinese women who want to freeze their eggs — a process that is prohibited for single women in China — to have children later.
But the marriage slump — caused in large part by China’s aging population and the legacy of its harsh one-child policy — has a silver lining. It also stems from the rise of an educated population of women. Specialists in economics, demography and sociology say some of those women are delaying marriage to build careers and establish financial footing, resulting in a more empowered female population that no longer views marriage as the only route to security.
“Because they are highly educated, they hold well-paid jobs, they lose the financial incentive to get married,” says Zhang Xiaobo, a professor of economics at Peking University’s National School of Development.
China continues to emphasize marriage in its official media, entreating women not to wait for Mr. Right. But demographics and changing social mores make that a tough sell.
More...
http://www.nytimes.com/2016/09/12/busin ... 05309&_r=0
Italy’s ‘Fertility Day’ Call to Make Babies Arouses Anger, Not Ardor
ROME — One ad pictured a woman holding an hourglass next to the words: “Beauty has no age limit. Fertility does.” Another portrayed a pair of baby shoes wrapped in a ribbon of the Italian flag. Yet another showed a man holding a half-burned cigarette: “Don’t let your sperm go up in smoke,” it read.
They were part of a government effort to promote “Fertility Day” on Sept. 22, a campaign intended to encourage Italians to have more babies. Instead, the ads set off a furor, were denounced as being offensive, and within days were withdrawn.
What they did succeed in doing, however, was to ignite a deeper and lasting debate about why it is that Italy has one of the lowest birthrates in the world, and what can be done about it.
More...
http://www.nytimes.com/2016/09/14/world ... d=45305309
ROME — One ad pictured a woman holding an hourglass next to the words: “Beauty has no age limit. Fertility does.” Another portrayed a pair of baby shoes wrapped in a ribbon of the Italian flag. Yet another showed a man holding a half-burned cigarette: “Don’t let your sperm go up in smoke,” it read.
They were part of a government effort to promote “Fertility Day” on Sept. 22, a campaign intended to encourage Italians to have more babies. Instead, the ads set off a furor, were denounced as being offensive, and within days were withdrawn.
What they did succeed in doing, however, was to ignite a deeper and lasting debate about why it is that Italy has one of the lowest birthrates in the world, and what can be done about it.
More...
http://www.nytimes.com/2016/09/14/world ... d=45305309
Rural Indian Girls Chase Big-City Dreams
Extract:
A government program has drawn the trainees from the vast population of rural Indian women who spend their lives doing chores. In 2012, the last time the government surveyed its citizens about their occupation, an astonishing 205 million women between the ages of 15 and 60 responded “attending to domestic duties.”
Economists, with increasing urgency, say India will not fulfill its potential if it cannot put them to work in the economy. They say that if female employment were brought on par with male employment in India, the nation’s gross domestic product would expand by as much as 27 percent.
Experiments like the one in Bangalore run against deep currents in India, whose guiding voice, Mohandas K. Gandhi, envisioned a socialist future built on the small-scale economy of the village. They also collide spectacularly with an old way of life, in which girls are kept in seclusion until they can be transferred to another family through arranged marriage.
More....
http://www.nytimes.com/2016/09/25/world ... 87722&_r=0
Extract:
A government program has drawn the trainees from the vast population of rural Indian women who spend their lives doing chores. In 2012, the last time the government surveyed its citizens about their occupation, an astonishing 205 million women between the ages of 15 and 60 responded “attending to domestic duties.”
Economists, with increasing urgency, say India will not fulfill its potential if it cannot put them to work in the economy. They say that if female employment were brought on par with male employment in India, the nation’s gross domestic product would expand by as much as 27 percent.
Experiments like the one in Bangalore run against deep currents in India, whose guiding voice, Mohandas K. Gandhi, envisioned a socialist future built on the small-scale economy of the village. They also collide spectacularly with an old way of life, in which girls are kept in seclusion until they can be transferred to another family through arranged marriage.
More....
http://www.nytimes.com/2016/09/25/world ... 87722&_r=0
The one per center next door
All latest updates
You may be higher up the global wealth pyramid than you think
IF YOU had only $2,220 to your name (adding together your bank deposits, financial investments and property holdings, and subtracting your debts) you might not think yourself terribly fortunate. But you would be wealthier than half the world’s population, according to this year’s Global Wealth Report by the Crédit Suisse Research Institute. If you had $71,560 or more, you would be in the top tenth. If you were lucky enough to own over $744,400 you could count yourself a member of the global 1% that voters everywhere are rebelling against.
Unlike many studies of prosperity and inequality, this one counts household assets rather than income. The data are patchy, particularly at the bottom and apex of the pyramid. But with some assumptions, the institute calculates that the world’s households owned property and net financial assets worth almost $256trn in mid-2016. That is about 3.4 times the world’s annual GDP. If this wealth were divided equally it would come to $52,819 per adult. But in reality the top tenth own 89% of it.
That lucky tenth now includes over 44m Chinese, about 4.4% of the country’s adult population. A far greater number (almost half of China’s adults) cluster in the next three deciles down. Closer to the bottom of the pyramid, there is a similar bulge of Indians in the second and third deciles (with wealth between $30 and $603). Below them, the bottom tenth is a peculiar mix. It is populated by poor countries, where many people have nothing, and rich ones, where people can own very much less than that. It includes a surprising number of Americans (over 21m), whose debts outweigh their assets. But most Americans are much better off. Over 40% belong to the top tenth of the global wealth distribution (and over 18m belong to the global 1%). Some of those railing against the global elite probably do not know they belong to it.
http://www.economist.com/news/business- ... lydispatch[/b]
All latest updates
You may be higher up the global wealth pyramid than you think
IF YOU had only $2,220 to your name (adding together your bank deposits, financial investments and property holdings, and subtracting your debts) you might not think yourself terribly fortunate. But you would be wealthier than half the world’s population, according to this year’s Global Wealth Report by the Crédit Suisse Research Institute. If you had $71,560 or more, you would be in the top tenth. If you were lucky enough to own over $744,400 you could count yourself a member of the global 1% that voters everywhere are rebelling against.
Unlike many studies of prosperity and inequality, this one counts household assets rather than income. The data are patchy, particularly at the bottom and apex of the pyramid. But with some assumptions, the institute calculates that the world’s households owned property and net financial assets worth almost $256trn in mid-2016. That is about 3.4 times the world’s annual GDP. If this wealth were divided equally it would come to $52,819 per adult. But in reality the top tenth own 89% of it.
That lucky tenth now includes over 44m Chinese, about 4.4% of the country’s adult population. A far greater number (almost half of China’s adults) cluster in the next three deciles down. Closer to the bottom of the pyramid, there is a similar bulge of Indians in the second and third deciles (with wealth between $30 and $603). Below them, the bottom tenth is a peculiar mix. It is populated by poor countries, where many people have nothing, and rich ones, where people can own very much less than that. It includes a surprising number of Americans (over 21m), whose debts outweigh their assets. But most Americans are much better off. Over 40% belong to the top tenth of the global wealth distribution (and over 18m belong to the global 1%). Some of those railing against the global elite probably do not know they belong to it.
http://www.economist.com/news/business- ... lydispatch[/b]
The mistress whisperer
All latest updates
Divorce is on the rise in China
And so are imaginative schemes to prevent it
Extract:
China has a long history of adultery. In imperial times wealthy men kept multiple concubines as well as a wife; prostitution was mostly tolerated, both by the state and by wives (who had little choice). Married women, in contrast, were expected to be chaste. After 1950 concubines were outlawed and infidelity deemed a bourgeois vice. Even in the 1980s few people had sex with anyone other than their spouse or spouse-to-be.
Over the past 30 years, however, sexual mores have loosened and more young Chinese are having sex, with more partners and at a younger age. Some clearly continue to wander after marriage. Some 20% of married men and women are unfaithful, according to a survey of 80,000 people in 2015 by researchers at Peking University.
In many respects growing infidelity is a predictable consequence of economic development. Individuals are increasingly willing to put their own emotions or desires above familial obligations or reputation. Improved education and living standards mean they have more financial freedom to do so. Most Chinese couples previously had few chances to meet members of the opposite sex in social situations after marriage, but migration means that many couples live apart. Even if they live together, the pool of temptation has grown larger and easier to dip into, thanks to social media.
More...
http://www.economist.com/news/china/217 ... lydispatch
All latest updates
Divorce is on the rise in China
And so are imaginative schemes to prevent it
Extract:
China has a long history of adultery. In imperial times wealthy men kept multiple concubines as well as a wife; prostitution was mostly tolerated, both by the state and by wives (who had little choice). Married women, in contrast, were expected to be chaste. After 1950 concubines were outlawed and infidelity deemed a bourgeois vice. Even in the 1980s few people had sex with anyone other than their spouse or spouse-to-be.
Over the past 30 years, however, sexual mores have loosened and more young Chinese are having sex, with more partners and at a younger age. Some clearly continue to wander after marriage. Some 20% of married men and women are unfaithful, according to a survey of 80,000 people in 2015 by researchers at Peking University.
In many respects growing infidelity is a predictable consequence of economic development. Individuals are increasingly willing to put their own emotions or desires above familial obligations or reputation. Improved education and living standards mean they have more financial freedom to do so. Most Chinese couples previously had few chances to meet members of the opposite sex in social situations after marriage, but migration means that many couples live apart. Even if they live together, the pool of temptation has grown larger and easier to dip into, thanks to social media.
More...
http://www.economist.com/news/china/217 ... lydispatch
After One-Child Policy, Outrage at China’s Offer to Remove IUDs
Extract:
Then last year, confronting an aging population and a shrinking work force, President Xi Jinping relegated the one-child policy to the Communist Party’s scrap heap of discarded dogma. And without so much as an expression of regret or an admission that it had perhaps made a mistake, the party pivoted from punishing couples for having a second child to encouraging them to get on with reproducing.
To that end, an official said at a recent news conference that 18 million women would be eligible for the free removal of IUDs in the next three years so they could bear a second child.
“Our country provides support in terms of law, finance and service systems to ensure citizens’ access to the free removal of IUDs,” said the official, Song Li of the National Health and Family Planning Commission’s department of women and children.
But the head-spinning reversal, the paternalistic attitude, the failure to accept any culpability — for some, it was too much. Within hours of the news conference, the internet was fuming with indignation.
More..
http://www.nytimes.com/2017/01/07/world ... 87722&_r=0
Extract:
Then last year, confronting an aging population and a shrinking work force, President Xi Jinping relegated the one-child policy to the Communist Party’s scrap heap of discarded dogma. And without so much as an expression of regret or an admission that it had perhaps made a mistake, the party pivoted from punishing couples for having a second child to encouraging them to get on with reproducing.
To that end, an official said at a recent news conference that 18 million women would be eligible for the free removal of IUDs in the next three years so they could bear a second child.
“Our country provides support in terms of law, finance and service systems to ensure citizens’ access to the free removal of IUDs,” said the official, Song Li of the National Health and Family Planning Commission’s department of women and children.
But the head-spinning reversal, the paternalistic attitude, the failure to accept any culpability — for some, it was too much. Within hours of the news conference, the internet was fuming with indignation.
More..
http://www.nytimes.com/2017/01/07/world ... 87722&_r=0
How to Do Social Science Without Data
With the death last month of the sociologist Zygmunt Bauman at age 91, the intellectual world lost a thinker of rare insight and range. Because his style of work was radically different from that of most social scientists in the United States today, his passing is an occasion to consider what might be gained if more members of our profession were to follow his example.
Mr. Bauman wrote scores of books and taught for many years at the University of Leeds, in England. He became a scholar to be reckoned with relatively late in his career. A major success came in 1989, at age 64, when he published a landmark study, “Modernity and the Holocaust.” Against the widespread view that the Holocaust reflected an anti-Semitic madness that had seized civilized Germany and thrown it back into an atavistic state, Mr. Bauman described the genocide as an all-too-characteristic creature of the modern era.
The early 20th century, he noted, had brought us large-scale factories, efficient systems of transport, huge enterprises with disciplined work forces and pseudoscientific ideologies like eugenics. These were essential elements, alongside anti-Semitism, of Hitler’s mass slaughter. Mr. Bauman argued that we must not celebrate the achievements of the modern age without also paying attention to its dark side.
“Modernity and the Holocaust” was a work of theory and synthesis. He collected no data and had no methodology to speak of. That didn’t make it any less of a powerful contribution.
A Polish Jew by birth, Mr. Bauman left his homeland in 1939, after the German invasion, escaping to the Soviet Union. There he joined the Army, fighting the Nazis on the eastern front. After the war he returned to Poland, embarking on an academic career.
Behind the Iron Curtain, being a sociologist meant being an expert on all things Marx. Mr. Bauman jumped right in. But while his commitment to the left never faded, his enthusiasm for communism did. When he lent his support to student dissidents in the 1960s, he lost his teaching post and was told to get out of the country.
He moved to England, where the work of the sociologist Max Weber became his touchstone. Though Mr. Bauman rejected Weber’s idea that social scientists must strive to keep personal values out of their scholarship, he found compelling Weber’s account of modern society, which emphasized the central role of bureaucracies.
Weber saw bureaucracies as powerful, but dispiritingly impersonal. Mr. Bauman amended this: Bureaucracy can be inhuman. Bureaucratic structures had deadened the moral sense of ordinary German soldiers, he contended, which made the Holocaust possible. They could tell themselves they were just doing their job and following orders.
Later, Mr. Bauman turned his scholarly attention to the postwar and late-20th-century worlds, where the nature and role of all-encompassing institutions were again his focal point. Craving stability after the war, he argued, people had set up such institutions to direct their lives — more benign versions of Weber’s bureaucracy. You could go to work for a company at a young age and know that it would be a sheltering umbrella for you until you retired. Governments kept the peace and helped those who couldn’t help themselves. Marriages were formed through community ties and were expected to last.
But by the end of the century, under pressure from various sources, those institutions were withering. Economically, global trade had expanded, while in Europe and North America manufacturing went into decline; job security vanished. Politically, too, changes were afoot: The Cold War drew to an end, Europe integrated and politicians trimmed back the welfare state. Culturally, consumerism seemed to pervade everything. Mr. Bauman noted major shifts in love and intimacy as well, including a growing belief in the contingency of marriage and — eventually — the popularity of online dating.
In Mr. Bauman’s view, it all connected. He argued we were witnessing a transition from the “solid modernity” of the mid-20th century to the “liquid modernity” of today. Life had become freer, more fluid and a lot more risky. In principle, contemporary workers could change jobs whenever they got bored. They could relocate abroad or reinvent themselves through shopping. They could find new sexual partners with the push of a button. But there was little continuity.
Mr. Bauman considered the implications. Some thrived in this new atmosphere; the institutions and norms previously in place could be stultifying, oppressive. But could a transient work force come together to fight for a more equitable distribution of resources? Could shopping-obsessed consumers return to the task of being responsible, engaged citizens? Could intimate partners motivated by short-term desire ever learn the value of commitment?
In a 2003 book, “Liquid Love,” he posed this last question as a paradox. Today, he wrote, people are “despairing at being abandoned to their own wits and feeling easily disposable,” and are therefore “desperate to ‘relate.’ ” At the same time they’re “wary of the state of ‘being related’ ” because they fear it “may severely limit the freedom they need — yes, your guess is right — to relate.”
Finally, he worried, wasn’t there a risk that those whom “liquid modernity” had not treated well would turn to a strongman, a leader who promised to restore certainty and send cosmopolitanism packing?
Any sober appraisal of Mr. Bauman’s work would conclude he spread himself too thin. Much of his writing was scattershot, aphoristic and repetitive. He knew nothing of disciplinary boundaries, veering into philosophy, literature, anthropology; it could be fruitful or dilettantish. Empirical evidence was equally unknown to him. Imagination and acumen counted for everything.
American social science doesn’t have much room for thinkers like Mr. Bauman. Our leading researchers prefer the concrete to the abstract, the causal claim you can rigorously test to the flowery theoretical description you can’t. And there’s clearly a lot to be said in favor of such a fact-based approach.
But we could do with more of the broad intellectual sweep and vision that Mr. Bauman brought to the enterprise. His writing — eagerly consumed by European audiences, especially — helped readers think about the times, and their own lives, in entirely new ways.
Neil Gross is a professor of sociology at Colby College.
Follow The New York Times Opinion section on Facebook and Twitter (@NYTOpinion), and sign up for the Opinion Today newsletter.
https://www.nytimes.com/2017/02/09/opin ... inion&_r=0
A version of this op-ed appears in print on February 12, 2017, on Page SR8 of the New York edition with the headline: Social Science Without Data. Today's Paper|Subscribe
Continue reading the main story
With the death last month of the sociologist Zygmunt Bauman at age 91, the intellectual world lost a thinker of rare insight and range. Because his style of work was radically different from that of most social scientists in the United States today, his passing is an occasion to consider what might be gained if more members of our profession were to follow his example.
Mr. Bauman wrote scores of books and taught for many years at the University of Leeds, in England. He became a scholar to be reckoned with relatively late in his career. A major success came in 1989, at age 64, when he published a landmark study, “Modernity and the Holocaust.” Against the widespread view that the Holocaust reflected an anti-Semitic madness that had seized civilized Germany and thrown it back into an atavistic state, Mr. Bauman described the genocide as an all-too-characteristic creature of the modern era.
The early 20th century, he noted, had brought us large-scale factories, efficient systems of transport, huge enterprises with disciplined work forces and pseudoscientific ideologies like eugenics. These were essential elements, alongside anti-Semitism, of Hitler’s mass slaughter. Mr. Bauman argued that we must not celebrate the achievements of the modern age without also paying attention to its dark side.
“Modernity and the Holocaust” was a work of theory and synthesis. He collected no data and had no methodology to speak of. That didn’t make it any less of a powerful contribution.
A Polish Jew by birth, Mr. Bauman left his homeland in 1939, after the German invasion, escaping to the Soviet Union. There he joined the Army, fighting the Nazis on the eastern front. After the war he returned to Poland, embarking on an academic career.
Behind the Iron Curtain, being a sociologist meant being an expert on all things Marx. Mr. Bauman jumped right in. But while his commitment to the left never faded, his enthusiasm for communism did. When he lent his support to student dissidents in the 1960s, he lost his teaching post and was told to get out of the country.
He moved to England, where the work of the sociologist Max Weber became his touchstone. Though Mr. Bauman rejected Weber’s idea that social scientists must strive to keep personal values out of their scholarship, he found compelling Weber’s account of modern society, which emphasized the central role of bureaucracies.
Weber saw bureaucracies as powerful, but dispiritingly impersonal. Mr. Bauman amended this: Bureaucracy can be inhuman. Bureaucratic structures had deadened the moral sense of ordinary German soldiers, he contended, which made the Holocaust possible. They could tell themselves they were just doing their job and following orders.
Later, Mr. Bauman turned his scholarly attention to the postwar and late-20th-century worlds, where the nature and role of all-encompassing institutions were again his focal point. Craving stability after the war, he argued, people had set up such institutions to direct their lives — more benign versions of Weber’s bureaucracy. You could go to work for a company at a young age and know that it would be a sheltering umbrella for you until you retired. Governments kept the peace and helped those who couldn’t help themselves. Marriages were formed through community ties and were expected to last.
But by the end of the century, under pressure from various sources, those institutions were withering. Economically, global trade had expanded, while in Europe and North America manufacturing went into decline; job security vanished. Politically, too, changes were afoot: The Cold War drew to an end, Europe integrated and politicians trimmed back the welfare state. Culturally, consumerism seemed to pervade everything. Mr. Bauman noted major shifts in love and intimacy as well, including a growing belief in the contingency of marriage and — eventually — the popularity of online dating.
In Mr. Bauman’s view, it all connected. He argued we were witnessing a transition from the “solid modernity” of the mid-20th century to the “liquid modernity” of today. Life had become freer, more fluid and a lot more risky. In principle, contemporary workers could change jobs whenever they got bored. They could relocate abroad or reinvent themselves through shopping. They could find new sexual partners with the push of a button. But there was little continuity.
Mr. Bauman considered the implications. Some thrived in this new atmosphere; the institutions and norms previously in place could be stultifying, oppressive. But could a transient work force come together to fight for a more equitable distribution of resources? Could shopping-obsessed consumers return to the task of being responsible, engaged citizens? Could intimate partners motivated by short-term desire ever learn the value of commitment?
In a 2003 book, “Liquid Love,” he posed this last question as a paradox. Today, he wrote, people are “despairing at being abandoned to their own wits and feeling easily disposable,” and are therefore “desperate to ‘relate.’ ” At the same time they’re “wary of the state of ‘being related’ ” because they fear it “may severely limit the freedom they need — yes, your guess is right — to relate.”
Finally, he worried, wasn’t there a risk that those whom “liquid modernity” had not treated well would turn to a strongman, a leader who promised to restore certainty and send cosmopolitanism packing?
Any sober appraisal of Mr. Bauman’s work would conclude he spread himself too thin. Much of his writing was scattershot, aphoristic and repetitive. He knew nothing of disciplinary boundaries, veering into philosophy, literature, anthropology; it could be fruitful or dilettantish. Empirical evidence was equally unknown to him. Imagination and acumen counted for everything.
American social science doesn’t have much room for thinkers like Mr. Bauman. Our leading researchers prefer the concrete to the abstract, the causal claim you can rigorously test to the flowery theoretical description you can’t. And there’s clearly a lot to be said in favor of such a fact-based approach.
But we could do with more of the broad intellectual sweep and vision that Mr. Bauman brought to the enterprise. His writing — eagerly consumed by European audiences, especially — helped readers think about the times, and their own lives, in entirely new ways.
Neil Gross is a professor of sociology at Colby College.
Follow The New York Times Opinion section on Facebook and Twitter (@NYTOpinion), and sign up for the Opinion Today newsletter.
https://www.nytimes.com/2017/02/09/opin ... inion&_r=0
A version of this op-ed appears in print on February 12, 2017, on Page SR8 of the New York edition with the headline: Social Science Without Data. Today's Paper|Subscribe
Continue reading the main story
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Economic shocks are more likely to be lethal in America
New research shows the mortality of middle-aged whites continues to rise
Extracts:
AMERICAN workers without college degrees have suffered financially for decades—as has been known for decades. More recent is the discovery that their woes might be deadly. In 2015 Anne Case and Angus Deaton, two (married) scholars, reported that in the 20 years to 1998, the mortality rate of middle-aged white Americans fell by about 2% a year. But between 1999 and 2013, deaths rose. The reversal was all the more striking because, in Europe, overall middle-age mortality continued to fall at the same 2% pace. By 2013 middle-aged white Americans were dying at twice the rate of similarly aged Swedes of all races (see chart). Suicide, drug overdoses and alcohol abuse were to blame.
......
The authors suspect more amorphous, long-term forces are at work. The fundamental cause is still a familiar tale of economic malaise: trade and technological progress have snuffed out opportunities for the low-skilled, especially in manufacturing. But social changes are also in play. As economic life has become less secure, low-skilled white men have tended towards unstable cohabiting relationships rather than marriages. They have abandoned traditional communal religion in favour of churches that emphasise personal identity. And they have become more likely to stop working, or looking for work, entirely. The breakdown of family, community and clear structures of life, in favour of individual choice, has liberated many but left others who fail blaming themselves and feeling helpless and desperate.
More...
http://www.economist.com/news/finance-a ... n/NA/email[/b]
New research shows the mortality of middle-aged whites continues to rise
Extracts:
AMERICAN workers without college degrees have suffered financially for decades—as has been known for decades. More recent is the discovery that their woes might be deadly. In 2015 Anne Case and Angus Deaton, two (married) scholars, reported that in the 20 years to 1998, the mortality rate of middle-aged white Americans fell by about 2% a year. But between 1999 and 2013, deaths rose. The reversal was all the more striking because, in Europe, overall middle-age mortality continued to fall at the same 2% pace. By 2013 middle-aged white Americans were dying at twice the rate of similarly aged Swedes of all races (see chart). Suicide, drug overdoses and alcohol abuse were to blame.
......
The authors suspect more amorphous, long-term forces are at work. The fundamental cause is still a familiar tale of economic malaise: trade and technological progress have snuffed out opportunities for the low-skilled, especially in manufacturing. But social changes are also in play. As economic life has become less secure, low-skilled white men have tended towards unstable cohabiting relationships rather than marriages. They have abandoned traditional communal religion in favour of churches that emphasise personal identity. And they have become more likely to stop working, or looking for work, entirely. The breakdown of family, community and clear structures of life, in favour of individual choice, has liberated many but left others who fail blaming themselves and feeling helpless and desperate.
More...
http://www.economist.com/news/finance-a ... n/NA/email[/b]