One word of advice to #graduates — and it's not #plastics

The “plastics” reference, which many of today’s graduates might not even catch, is from dialogue in the movie, “The Graduate,” between Mr. McGuire (Walter Brooke) and Ben (Dustin Hoffman), as also shown in the clip above.

Mr. McGuire: I want to say one word to you. Just one word.
Ben: Yes, sir.
Mr. McGuire Are you listening?
Ben: Yes, I am.
Mr. McGuire: Plastics.
Ben: Just how do you mean that, sir?

I’m not Steve Jobs, Steven Spielberg, or a past or present president of the United States. So, I don’t get a lot of graduation speaking gigs. (If only they knew what they were missing.)

But, in an occasional newspaper column, and occasional blog piece, I’ve written about graduation before. I’ve noted that it’s not a finish line. Related to that, I’ve said that it’s just one step in life; I once compared it to being a rite of passage.

The Jobses and others of the world seem to be dripping with pearls of wisdom. But if not, since this is the Internet era, people make up fake speeches that they think these people, or a Bill Cosby, a George Carlin, or some other comedian or humorist should have given.

Whether in real or fake versions, these speeches try to have an aura of timelessness. That’s also important in today’s Internet era. No speaker, or speaker faker, wants to refer to the latest social media trend and thus produce a speech that may have an 18-month shelf life rather than a potentially timeless one.

So, old proverbs get updated and polished. Religious insights get a more generic spirituality and rebranded. Sports and other competition clichés get trotted out.

Behind all of this, there’s one element that seems to be hovering in the background, and, because of that, another element that’s blocked out.

The background element seems to be that, in some ways, life is relatively simple or predictable. And, that idea tends to shove aside the one that life has a fair element of luck

Now, by “luck,” I don’t mean any metaphysical force. Rather, to trot out two of those old clichés, I mean something like, “That’s the way the ball bounces,” or “That’s the way the cookie crumbles.”

And, sometimes, that’s exactly what happens. And we even have an old saying for that: “There but for the grace of God go I.”

The end of high school, or the end of college, may seem a time of near-invincibility. And, of course, belief in one’s invincibility never wants to let luck enter into the picture.

If I were to be asked to give a few thoughts today, they’d probably touch a lot on luck.

For new high school or college graduates, luck can change a job path, a career path or a study path. It can open one’s mind, if a person is ready for that. It can provide a bit of humbleness, without humiliation, if someone is open to accepting that he or she isn’t in total control. Or, it can provide a little bit of humiliation to anyone who doesn’t want to accept that.

Luck can also provide a degree of connectedness. Per the “There but for the grace of God go I” proverb, luck can tell people the reason they did or did not get a new job, a raise, or a promotion, or a new boyfriend or girlfriend, isn’t always due to rational reasons, but sometimes, due to luck.

In short, as graduates prepare to enter the edges of the adult world, thinking about luck can be a reminder that a new version of Social Darwinism, repeatedly plugged by Tea Party types that seems to be growing stronger in America, that certain material rewards or achievements are “proof” of one’s own skill, especially one’s own inherited, inborn skill, simply aren’t true.

Beyond Social Darwinism, a similar, religiously spit-polished version of this is promoted as the Success Gospel. Here, it’s not what genes you inherited that are behind your success. Rather, this is all a mark of blessing from God.

Well, at spots in the Hebrew Tanakh, and the Christian Bible, God doesn’t like storing up wealth very much. Read Amos, for example, or the Sermon on the Mount. But, at other times, like in Psalms and Proverbs, he’s pretty much “down” with getting rich as a sign of his favor to humans indeed.

As a secularist, I find this as bad as Social Darwinism. I find the New Agey version of the Success Gospel even worse, if anything. Neither the virililty of one's genes, nor the strength of one’s faithful willpower, with NO apologies to either Schopenhauer or Hitler, has a tremendous amount of connection with a lot material success for a lot of people.

Rather, it’s that good, old, non-metaphysical randomness that we call “luck.”

So, 2014 graduates? Take that word with you. For your peace of mind, it’s a lot more valuable than “plastics.” And, with an American population expected to hit 400 million by 2050, and a world population of 9 billion by then, you're going to need a lot of it.

Amy Chua enters Jenny McCarthy Hall of Infamy

Per the History News Network, her new book, which I had heard about on NPR, is utter quackery, a mix of Social Darwinism and blatant racial stereotypes. Hence my header.

A Tweet on that page gives you the snark to justify that header:

Tiger Mom: Some races are just better http://t.co/qx1ZQZZoir - Dear Amy Chua & Jed Rubenfeld, the 1920s called and want their theories back

How so?

Here's a bit longer version, including about her racialist claims:

The author of Battle Hymn of the Tiger Mother, which celebrated the superiority of Chinese American parenting styles, is set to publish a follow-up book in February. Co-authored with her husband, Jed Rubenfeld, The Triple Package: How Three Unlikely Traits Explain the Rise and Fall of Cultural Groups in America appears to be more of the same, expanding her cultural determinist argument, which imagined Chinese parenting as both superior and a pathway to inevitable success, to now include seven more groups (Jewish, Indian, Chinese, Iranian, Lebanese-Americans, Nigerian, Cuban exiles, and Mormons), whose success is attributable to their possessing the requisite values and cultural attributes. The selected groups, all of whom are immigrant groups, the selective grouping (only Cuban exiles; Lebanese-American but Nigerians), the lack of intersectional analysis, not too mention the dehistoricizing, reveals a flawed premise at its face.

Yeah, the idea that a certain group of exiles became geniuses for and upon leaving Cuba, the idea that Nigerian immigrants to the US are somehow smarter than other modern African immigrants, the idea that Lebanese-Americans are brilliant compared to Syrian-Americans? All wrong. (By the way, Amy, a century ago, racialists such as Charles Davenport thought Ashkenazi Jews were idiots.) 

And, more on the idea that Lebanese immigrants magically outperform Syrian ones? That Nigerian immigrants outperform others from Africa? She ignores an obvious discriminatory element: Most the Nigerian and Lebanese immigrants are Christian, the others Muslim.

Her own people were the subject of racial stereotypes in the U.S. 150 years ago, too. Indeed, in American, per James W. Loewen's detailed book, "Sundown Towns," the first sundown town in the U.S. was anti-Chinese, Rock Springs, Wyo., in 1868, and not anti-black.

Anyway, given the pull quotes above, you don't need to read the book unless you're really desperate for a healthy dose of pure-on pseudoscience. (That said, given Skeptic magazine's past history with genetic-based racialists Vince Sarich and Frank Miele, I'm curious what sort of review Michael Shermer's gang gives to the book.)

Also more seriously? Yes, Chua is Chinese and not Japanese, but some of the Japanese-American critiques from within its own culture as well as outside of the "model minority" trope should give her pause, one would think,

One other observation? Given that Chua is a professor at Harvard, this once again illustrates that the only guaranteed return from a Harvard education on a resume is an easy entree into the lifestyles of the elite. Her book on hyperpowers, as she calls them, claiming tolerance for minorities was the reason for their success, also seems thin soup.

Finally, per the header? If we can have annual Darwin Awards, we can have a Jenny McCarthy Hall of Infamy for pseudoscience whoppers. Last I checked, things like sociology and cultural anthropology were sciences of some sort.

4 strands of biology, sociology, economics, philosophy connect

The four strands? Competitiveness in general, capitalism, Pop Evolutionary Psychology and social Darwinism.

Regular readers know that I’ve recently written about No. 4, including listing one candidate most wouldn’t put there. I’ve regularly written about Pop Ev Psych and its largely unscientific, occasionally pseudoscientific claims; I’ve been wary of it even when less liberal than I am now, so this is not driven by political issues.

I am that liberal, though … left-liberal of a sort for America, at least. So, in various ways, I’ve definitely written about No. 2, capitalism?

No. 1, competitiveness, somewhat ties all the others together.

Evolution by natural selection does involve a degree of competitiveness, to be sure. However, that competitiveness is usually against members of other species, more than members of one’s own species. To the degree there is intraspecific competition, it’s often sexual selection that’s the driver. That said, at the same time, group selection can be a driver for collaboration with other members of the same species.

So, that’s biology. Pop Ev Psych is sociology, primarily in what it says about its adherents. Ditto for social Darwinism (the fourth modern variety of social Darwinism, New Atheism, has many libertarian adherents, and yes, adherents is the right word). Capitalism is obviously a matter of economics.

Philosophy? Trying to extrapolate from the biological basis of and need for competitiveness to the other three gets us to Davie Hume’s famous is-ought distinction. (It’s worth noting that, in my opinion, many people who claim that Hume’s comments on this are misconstrued, misinterpreted, wrongly implied, etc., have personal reasons for stating this; see ox, whose and goring.)

Just because we have to fight to escape a lion (or per the old joke, run faster than a companion also seeking to escape it) doesn’t mean that Wall Street plutocracy, Pop Ev Psych “just so” stories and the beliefs behind them, or the social Darwinism of either New Atheism or old-time religion has to be that way.

Because it doesn’t.

And, this is part of why the American education system is problematic, and not just K-12 education.

I don’t think I am overstating matters when I say 90 percent of Americans are unfamiliar with Hume’s is-ought distinction. And that’s sad. Hume is one of the most “approachable,” largely non-technical, philosophers in modern, or even modern plus ancient, philosophical history.

The varieties of Social Darwinism worth rejecting

This post starts with three main observations.

One is that Social Darwinism, whether under that name or not, has a long history in America.

The second is that, in general, this has been more a respected than a disrespected position in American social, political and even religious thought.

The third is that, along with increasing income inequality, a renewed focus on Social Darwinism started in Reagan's time.

That said, let's jump to the theme of the header.

I see modern American Social Darwinism falling into four main streams.

One of them is definitely rooted in its earliest days. The second, under somewhat different guises, is, too. The third goes back a century or so, longer than most people think, and has permutated since then. And the fourth is brand new, and will probably shock some people to be listed here.

More on all four, how and why each qualifies as Social Darwinistic, etc., below the fold.

Anti-unemployed bill will solve nothing

I don't know whether President Barack Obama's push, in the American Jobs Act, to ban want-ad discrimination against the long-term unemployed, is more naivete, cluelessness about how the online job applications process works today (this from Preznit Technology Pusher) or political posturing.

I totally agree that this is a real problem. But, Obama's solution is a non-solution, as far as real-world practicality.

Large and medium companies don't have an HR person look at our Word document resumes any more. Instead, we upload it on their browser, where add-on software like Taleo or ICIMS parses it out. So, short of outright lying (hey, list volunteer work as a job, and be creative about your "volunteerism," if needed), a bill prohibiting want ads from saying "no unemployed need apply" will help nothing. Long-term unemployed will still get filtered out by medium and large companies, and even smaller ones.

Oh, sure, you could write a very detailed and specific bill, targeting not just ads, but human and software filtrations, too. But, how are you going to enforce that one? Really. And, if you do think of a way to enforce it, what penalties are you going to attach to it?

Frankly, I'd rather have it as it is now, and see the ugly "honesty"of Social Darwinism in the light of day than be hidden away.

Now, what can be done that has more potency, and is more realistic at the same time?


1. Those tax credits for hiring unemployed? Why not target them to hiring of long-term unemployed?
2. Many of the longer-term unemployed are older. Start bringing federal age discrimination investigations, which might discourage companies from firing these folks in the first place. Add in the threat of the Department of Justice automatically filing an amicus brief on any age discrimination suit brought by an older worker recently shown the door.

3. If the longer-term unemployed really have lost skills, then give on-the-job training tax credits to companies that hire them, too.


Nos. 1 and 3 have more of a carrot than the Obama bill offers. No.2 swings a bigger stick.
As for the options above, I suspect Preznit Kumbaya is naive/clueless more than posturing on his original bill. But, what the hell. Contact the White House and tell him the truth. Offer alternatives, whether mine or yours.

At the same time, there's the economic wingnuts at Reason, who mock a "long-term unemployed activist" by asking if "unemployee" is going to become a new job title. While you're at it, you can email Tim Cavanaugh about that stupidity. (And, it's stuff like this that keeps me from going to Reason as a civil liberties source.)

Perry, Bachmann and Merck ... and Mammon as god

Gail Collins has a good column (why isn't she writing more?) on how Michele Bachmann is largely off base on the Merck/Gardisil vaccine deal, other than, of course, the $30K Merck gave Tricky Ricky.

She then notes, near the end, Tricky's support, strong support, of abstinence-only sex ed.

Well, Tricky Ricky, if you really believe that, if you really oppose talking even about condoms, then why do young girls NEED a Gardisil vaccination? If you're 100 percent sure abstinence-only sex ed works, period, end of story, why do young girls NEED a Gardisil vaccination?

Oops. Just one more internal contradiction of Rick Perry. Or, yet just another example of how, like many alleged Christian rightist political and social leaders, there's no contradiction between worshiping Mammon and God because Mammon is their God.

Of course, about no other Republican in the race can make that charge against Perry because they're guilty of it, too. Bachmann and hubby make money off alleged gay-to-straight conversions; they don't do their twisted version of "the Lord's work" for free. Jon Huntsman? Good Mormonism didn't stop Marriott from pay-per-view porn in its hotel rooms. Mitt Romney surely wasn't that clueless about the bribery that brought those Winter Olympics to Salt Lake City. Ron Paul? Celebrating the capitalism that lets a former staffer die at 49 because of lacking health insurance says enough there about his true God. Ditto for most the other GOP.

The one true libertarian in the GOP race, Gary Johnson, is the one candidate who could honestly level that charge against not only Perry, but all the rest. Too bad he's not getting more airplay.

The problem? The Success Gospel, which really is, at bottom line, the Social Darwinist Gospel. Didn't get that new job? Your faith must not be strong enough. And, actually, a more extreme version would say, "God knew that job would be wasted on you, like the man who buried the one talent, and gave it to somebody else instead."

That said, can most Democrats do much better? As long as Democratic presidents and other national leaders play me-too-ism on things like faith-based initiatives, the answer is no. As long as black Democratic support is centered in black churches, many of which loudly preach their own versions of the Success Gospel, the answer is no.

Positivity BS

Tali Sharot, in talking up the desirability of semi-blind, semi-irrational optimism, shows he has never read Barbara Ehrenreich. He's also never read more serious studies on the benefits of pessimistic thinking.

With the BS he offers new college grads, she needs to. Helicopter-mommed students need a good dose of both reality and humility.

Beyond that, the idea of think everything will be rosy? It's a small-scale, individualized version of American exceptionalism. Also, it at least opens the door to some version of social Darwinist thinking, or, among people of certain religious mindsets, success gospel thinking.

Now, in the past, friends and coworkers have known me to promote a certain amount of positivity. That said, mine was of the level of "things will most likely turn out OK in the end," and not, "I'll make senior partner at a major law firm within 10 years."

Second, there's a difference between talking positivity to a small group of friends, where a certain level of realism, and a certain level of "hedging," can be seen. vs. mass psychologizing of 10,000 college grads.

Finally, per the advantages of thinking more realistically at times, "positivity" of Sharot's type can often be denialism. That includes denying these realities — helicopter-mommed students running the asylum, possibly not learning that much.

Social Darwinism, Great Recession, and rightists

I don't know whether this company in question is owned by a tea partier or a more generic right winger, but ...

The job, posted on Indeed.com, seemed promising - an opening in Texas for a quality engineer with experience in dimensional gauging and benchtop test equipment, offering up to $62,000 a year.

But the advertisement included a caveat: "Client will not consider/review anyone not currently employed regardless of the reason."

A job where the company won't even consider the application of a currently unemployed person? Social Darwinism is raising its ugly rightist head.

There's no other word for some of the employment issues the Great Recession has raised, other than Social Darwinism.

And, I wouldn't want to work at a company like this anyway.

More on this Social Darwinism:

"Sometimes the unemployed are unemployed for a reason, and the reason is they are lousy," said Ken Dubin, president of the Dubin Group, a Bala Cynwyd recruiting agency that specializes in accounting and finance.

No, Ken, it's called age discrimination, often.f

But, refusing to hire the unemployed is itself not a discriminatory offense under EEOC purview.

Is Evolutionary Psychology the new sexism, or the new Social Darwinism?

Note – per a blog post earlier this week, I once again have clearly explained the difference between Evolutionary Psychology and scientifically investigatable evolutionary psychology.

Here’s the link to my evolutionary psychology label; a few of the more illustrative individual posts. Several of these are especially illustrative of how Ev Psych approaches, if not goes beyond sexism … and no, you Ev Psychers, not just beyond a social construct called sexism, but, beyond sexism.
Women’s improvement in gaming refutes Ev Psych;
Ev Psych claims for sarcasm are “stretched” (mainly by ignoring cultural evolution);
The stereotypical male-female math gap can be reversed;
Susan Pinker plays wrongly plays down workplace sex discrimination;
Definitional questions EvPsych, and, to a lesser degree, ev psych, leave undefined;
The core of the differences between Ev Psych and ev psych.
Some serious snark about Ev Psych riffing on Leibnitz’s “best of all possible adaptationist worlds”;

And,finally, David Buller’s seminal article on the subject at Scientific American. (To you Ev Psychers who dismiss him as “just a philosopher, what do you do with Dan Dennett, then?)

Read his book, too.

Or, a decent but not really good read is Richard Francis’ “Why Men Won’t Ask for Directions.”

On the flip side, in this post about behavioral economics, among several posts, you’ll see how I praise evolutionary psychology. Just not Evolutionary Psychology.

Do NOT e-mail me, or comment to this post, that I am against evolutionary psychology, lowercase, until you’re read that post, at least, and perhaps others on my blog in general.

That said, I do propose that capital-letter Evolutionary Psychology does threaten to become the new Social Darwinism, and with a political bias to it, too, at least in some cases.

Steve Pinker admitted as much, near the end of “The Blank Slate.”

He told political liberals that they needed to accept the reality of what he said was “evolutionary psychology” (and what I say is Evolutionary Psychology), deal with it as best they could, and adjust their political prescriptions accordingly. Pretty political to me.

The other reason I think that threatens to be Social Darwinism is its focus on sexual differences. By arguing that men have dominated societies in the past (not true, as far as I can see, before the invention of agriculture), capital-letter Ev Psychers give the appearance, at least, of telling women today to accept the glass ceiling, accept secondary status in society, and deal with it – because it’s all normal.

And, if you’re not prepare to describe why you personally, if you do, focus so much of your ev psych discussion, or especially, your Ev Psych discussion, on sexual selection issues, move on. Because that WILL be part of the dialog and investigation from my end.

A book with a few thoughts on that is Robert Sapolsky’s “Monkeyluv: And Other Essays on Our Lives as Animals.”

In fact, let me excerpt a few sex-specific comments from my Amazon review of Sapolsky, by page number:

63. In a study with ducks, with attractive males, it actually appears that the female invests more energy in the egg, laying a larger egg when impregnated by an attractive male. (The egg size is under female control.)
Both of these should put some question to old stereotypes about peacock tails being signs of fitness and so increasing mating, etc. At the least, they should caution us to look for more nuanced explanations.

177. In many species, females in some way manipulate alpha-male type males into fighting over them, to go off and mate with more "nice guy" types.

Some more food for thought.

And, I’m not going to even bother linking to the recent story showing girls do as well on math as boys, which undercuts one of Ev Psychers’ favorite male-female difference talking points.

Beyond that, with true, lower-case ev psych, there’s plenty of things to talk about in the evolution of the human mind, not the “male” or “female” mind.

I mean, look at Scott Atran’s “In Gods We Trust.”

There’s books on behavioral economics; the effect of evolutionary psychology on Homo economics is certainly not small. (Don’t forget to allow for cultural evolution here, too, though.)

Enough said.