Oxford University Press's Blog, page 155

Police enforcement measures to control social disorder in the midst of COVID-19

As the COVID-19 pandemic spreads we have to take unprecedented steps to deal with it, people are being denied rights and resources they have long regarded as inalienable. And the police are in the unenviable position of having to enforce these restrictions. What happens when people feel they have to go out to work but a police officer tells them to go home? What will happen if the National Health Service is overwhelmed ends up telling patients they cannot have a hospital bed or a respirator? Will patients’ anger and frustration boil over? Will there be riots on our streets? And what can the government and police do to deal with these challenges?

As part of our role as part of the group of behavioural scientists feeding advice into the government response to the pandemic, we believe there are three key things to keep in mind.

First the good news is that social disorder is not inevitable! A large body of evidence shows that people don’t riot as a knee-jerk reaction when they are frustrated, or they don’t get what they want. Even when people are starving, that doesn’t necessarily generate food riots. Rather, people need to feel that the way the situation is being handled is unjust and that they share a collective grievance with others in the same boat as themselves (their ingroup). Second, they need to identify a clear source (or outgroup) who is responsible for their plight and who they can target.

Whether a sense of grievance emerges or not depends critically upon the government policy framework. On the one hand, the government needs to bring people together with a clear sense of community. Without such a platform, there is a much greater danger that people will avoid acts of citizenship and instead embrace a harmful and conflict-inducing perspective of “everyone for himself.”

On the other hand, government must formulate its policies clearly for the overall good of the community to prioritise those who are most vulnerable in the community. If this is the case, people are more likely to accept such policies, even if they lose out personally. However, if people see the policies as inequitable and to unfairly advantage certain groups over others, then there’s more prospect for conflict. If, for instance, the government formulates its criteria for essential workers poorly then enforcing confinement could be a recipe for disaster.

Within the framework of government policy, it’s important that people see the police as acting for the whole community in their enforcement measures. While this is closely linked to perceived equity of those measures, there are still important things the police themselves can do to avoid being seen as an alien force imposed on the community.

First of all, it’s more important now than ever for the police to build up community relations and form relationships with a network of local community influencers. Only with this background work and the consolidation of these relationships will it be possible for the police to understand local concerns and priorities.

Second, and at an operational level, the police need to prioritise talking to and negotiating with local communities and giving priority to facilitating their needs. This is crucial to reducing conflict. Essentially this is a matter of understanding community priorities, starting from the premise of how best to support these, and clearly communicating (where possible using community representatives themselves) why policing measures are necessary in order to further the communal interest.

As previous research has shown, when the police do this people are more likely to accept police actions and also actively self-police in order to stop other people from acting in harmful ways.

Riots are not inevitable even in the hard times like those we face at present. Whether or not conflict develops is to a large extent dependent upon whether or not communities see the government measures and policing initiatives as developed with them and working for them, or else as illegitimate impositions upon them.

Featured Image Credit: ev via www.unsplash.com

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How G. E. M. Anscombe revolutionised 20th-century western philosophy

Gertrude Elizabeth Margaret Anscombe (b. 1919-d. 2001) was an important figure and gave significant contributions to the field of analytic philosophy, philosophy of mind, and moral and religious philosophy. Born in Limerick in March 1919 to Allen Anscombe and Gertrude Anscombe (nee Thomas), the family returned to England when her father returned from the British Army to teach as a schoolmaster. With an impressive academic career, Anscombe attended St. Hugh’s College at the University of Oxford, when she achieved a first-class degree in Literae Humanities (Classics and Philosophy) in 1941. She then continued to study at St Hugh’s as a research student, but shortly afterwards moved to study at Newnham College, Cambridge. In 1946, Somerville College, Oxford, offered her a Research Fellowship, and then a teaching Fellowship in 1964, which she accepted. However, she did return to Cambridge in 1970 to accept the chair of philosophy at Cambridge University. The chair, interestingly, was previously held by Ludwig Wittgenstein, whom she deeply admired both personally and professionally as a philosopher, for his theories on logic.

Anscombe first met Wittgenstein in Cambridge after she had graduated from Oxford, and attended his lectures regularly. She continued to study and then work with him even after her return to Oxford. Following his death in 1951, she translated some of his most important works into English, including Philosophical Investigations, published posthumously in 1953. She also translated and published many of his notebooks and manuscripts. Curiously, in life Wittgenstein disliked female academics, though he evidently made an exception for Anscombe.

Anscombe’s Intention is arguably the most important and influential piece of philosophical work from the 20th Century, and it continues to be used as a point of reference for students, scholars, and those working in action theory and philosophical psychology. Written after she opposed the decision by the University of Oxford to award an honorary degree to President Harry S. Truman following the bombing of Nagasaki and Hiroshima, Intention considers the nature of agency through an understanding of intention, and drew the ethical evaluation of these actions. Anscombe believed that there was a distinction between intention and acting intentionally.

She developed her action theory, or intention, in part a way to give clarity to the reasons behind her own condemnation of certain aspects, events, and actions of others. It was important in her denunciation of Oxford’s decision to award Truman, a murderer in Anscombe’s perspective, with an honorary degree. It was also important to her sorting out controversial topics such as contraception, which as a devout Catholic, Anscombe also opposed. She discussed her opposition in Intention.

Modern Moral Philosophy (1958) is another incredibly significant piece of philosophical writing, and it is from this book that Anscombe was credited for first coining the term consequentialism. Modern Moral Philosophy reinvigorated an interest in virtue ethics, which emphasises a virtue of mind, amongst Western philosophy. Anscombe drew upon work from the ancient philosopher Aristotle taking inspiration from his stance on virtue ethics, and criticising modern approaches to it.

Some of Anscombe’s most influential work was on the nature of causation, particularly adopting a more singularist approach to it. As the nature of cause and effect has always been difficult to distinguish clearly, Anscombe’s belief was that cause cannot be defined or observed in a single instance, but that a particular action, or cause, triggers a particular effect.

Throughout her life, Anscombe was inspired by many philosophers, ancient and modern. Aristotle, Ludwig Wittgenstein, and Thomas Aquinas were three key sources of inspiration. However, she created new and original work which revolutionised action theory and moral, religious and ethical philosophy.

She died in 2001, aged 81. G E. Anscombe remains an inspiring and highly relevant philosopher, whose work is still studied by students, scholars, theorists, and those who generally take an interest in philosophy.

Featured Image Credit by Yeshi Kangrang via Unsplash

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How to rate and rank potential doctoral students

Graduate education, particularly the training of doctoral students, plays crucial role in the progress of society. Around 1,500 of the country’s 4,500 or so universities award doctoral degrees. In 2018 according to the Survey of Earned Doctorates 55,185 students were doctorate recipients in the United States.

To match potential graduate students and graduate programs needs the interplay among students, college professors as evaluators, and admission committees.  Many academics are involved in the admission process of graduate students.

As a college professor, it’s my seasonal duty each fall to write letters of recommendation and rate students based on several criteria in order to help them gain acceptance to graduate schools. Students should ask several professors to evaluate them. Occasionally, I have to tell a student that I would not be able to write a strong recommendation, so it would be better not to ask me. We evaluators combine quasi-objective data (say, grades) and subjective impressions to generate a rating score. Despite the subjective nature, these evaluations are far from random, and college professors don’t have better ways of helping students and graduate programs find a good match.   At the individual level, rating and ranking of application to graduate schools dramatically influences the life of students. Admissions committees have a strong interest in ensuring they only accept mature, polite, reliable, and stable people into their program, and my professional duty is to help them achieve this goal.

One company provides software as a service to many universities for admissions and applications evaluations. Its software uses six criteria to rate students:

Knowledge in chosen fieldMotivation and perseverance toward goalsAbility to work independentlyAbility to express thoughts in speech and writingAbility/potential for college teachingAbility to plan and conduct research

For each criterion, the evaluator picks among five options: exceptional (upper 5%), outstanding (nxt 15%), very good (next 15%), good (next 15%), and okay (next 50%).

How do we generate the numbers and check the appropriate rubric? In principle, a micro-rationalist, bottom-up approach would work. Teachers could collect and store data from students throughout decades, and they might have a formal algorithm for calculating the percentages. I believe it is more likely that many of us apply top-down strategies. We ask ourselves:  do I want to grant a set of grades that is all exceptional? Does the applicant have a clear weak point, in which I should check the third or maybe the fourth category? What if I score, say,  four outstanding and two exceptional?  The table below shows an example:

Image credit: Peter Érdi

I thought this student should be supported, because she seemed to be very motivated, independent and clever. However, I have never checked anybody to be “exceptional” in all categories. First, nobody is exceptional in everything, second, it would be suspicious if my scores were unfair and consciously biased, and so it might be counterproductive. In the case shown in the figure the candidate had little experience in her chosen field, so I checked the second column. Probably the third or even the fourth column would have been more appropriate. I did not feel I was cheating, but I knew I was a little biased.

Good or bad, decision makers calculate the sum of the scores, analyze their distribution, read the recommendations, and adopt some strategies to bring  decisions. (In some version of the ranking game, weights are assigned to the different features, to expressing the relative importance of the different features. University ranking systems  famously assign relative percentage weights to each ranking factors .) While rating with numbers contains subjective elements, we don’t have better ways to approximate objectivity.

The notion of objective reality refers to anything that exists as it is independently of any conscious awareness or perceiver. Subjective reality is related to anything that depends upon some conscious awareness or some perceiver. Objectivity is associated with concepts like reality, truth, and reliability. Objectively ranking the tallest buildings in the world is relatively easy, since it is based on verifiable facts, and we have a result that everybody will accept.

If we accept that it is an impossible task to objectively ranking graduate students, what we could and should do? On the one hand, we could improve our ranking methodologies, on the other hand we (all stakeholders of the game from students to professors) should feel that our actions are as fair as possible.

Featured Image by Joshua Golde from  Unsplash

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How to be an ally for transgender rights

The last day of March is the International Transgender Day of Visibility, celebrated each year to honor transgender people around the world and the courage it takes to live authentically and openly. It is also an opportunity to raise awareness about the severe, ongoing discrimination and violence that transgender people often face every day. Estimates suggest that 331 transgender and gender diverse people were killed worldwide in 2019. In the United States, at least 26 transgender or gender non-conforming people were fatally shot or killed by violent means. The majority of those murdered were people of color.

Allies and activists working to mitigate transphobia have often turned to classic social movement tools including street activism and community events. The challenge remains that people often fear those they perceive as different. Most people don’t know anyone who is transgender but many have been exposed to harmful, false stereotypes that depict transgender people as mentally ill and as a threat to children.

How do we push back against this fear and help others treat transgender people with equality and respect? Remind us all that we have a superpower. When we speak up, we can change people’s perspectives, change public opinion, and change public policy. Every one of us can play a part in improving the lives and treatment of transgender people.

The key is to appeal to people’s existing values and feelings, boosting their existing identities and reassuring folks who feel uncomfortable that they are good people. Here is our actionable, evidence-based advice—grounded in empirical data—on how to help folks be more comfortable with transgender people and more supportive of their rights:

First, start the conversation. Changing minds sooner rather than later means making it a social priority and making it the topic of frequent discussion. It’s okay to not know the perfect thing to say; what matters more is showing that the issue is important enough for you to want to talk about it.

When your mom says something at the dinner table about how scared she was when a man dressed as a woman came into the women’s bathroom at her office, don’t just look down at your plate. Don’t berate her but ask why she felt that way and then share your own perspective. Don’t leave that intolerance hanging there. Start the conversation.

Second, share your own journey story or that of others to provide a model of how one can become more supportive of members of outgroups. In our research, when we told folks the story of Kimberley Shappley, a mom who changed her attitude about transgender people after her daughter came out as transgender, people were more than 9% more likely to say they felt comfortable around transgender people and 18% less likely to think that transgender people were mentally ill.

Knowing that others have changed their minds makes it easier for people to allow themselves to do the same.

Third, emphasize humanity and morality in people and how good they feel when they’re acting in a way that’s consistent with their core values. There’s a powerful emotional response called moral elevation. That’s that the warm fuzzy feeling you get when you see those viral videos of firefighters rescuing ducklings stuck in a sewer or a man jumping onto the subway tracks to rescue a stranger who has fallen off of the platform.

When people see a short uplifting video that makes them think about how good people can be to one another, they want to model that sort of behavior. Their levels of transphobia drop and they are 17% more likely to sign a petition giving transgender people access to the public restroom of their choice. When you feel good about yourself, it’s easier to be more open to accepting others.

And finally, strengthen your appeal with famous backup. You can increase the likelihood of openness to persuasion by bringing in celebrities and attitude leaders who agree with you. When people learn that Admiral Mike Mullen, former chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, supports transgender people like Staff Sergeant Logan Ireland serving openly in the US military, they become more likely to agree with him.

These strategies work because people in your ingroups want your approval. If you make it clear that you think a certain way, then they will listen to what you have to say because they know and trust you. They might not change their perspective right away. Think of it like launching a boat across a body of water, sailing from prejudice to inclusion. You’re giving that boat a little nudge toward the other shore.

It doesn’t mean you have to convince people to be completely comfortable with everyone who is different. It is entirely possible to support fair treatment for all while still being uncomfortable with transgender people. It won’t work on everyone: Some people are so committed to their opinions that they aren’t able to shift their perspective.

Sometimes, though, you can get them to see things a different way. It can’t hurt to try. The only way that change is impossible is if we don’t try.

Being an ally for social justice means having difficult conversations with people you know and opening them up to treating members of outgroups with respect.

Featured Image Credit: by Sara Rampazzo via Unsplash

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Why self-help won’t cure impostor syndrome

Do you feel as if your professional success is due to some kind of mistake? That you don’t deserve your grades, promotions, or accolades? That you’re somehow getting away with a fraud which could be uncovered at any moment?  We have a name for that cluster of anxieties: you’re suffering from impostor syndrome.

At the heart of impostor syndrome is a mismatch between external measures of success – prizes or good grades, entry to a selective university or career, workplace progression – and internal feelings of self-doubt. It’s said that sufferers from impostor syndrome fail to “internalise” their success, that they ignore objective evidence which is apparent to their friends and mentors. Impostor syndrome is pictured as a form of irrationality, a psychological deficiency characterised by flawed thinking.

If you suffer from impostor syndrome, then you’re in impressive company: Many celebrities have claimed the label, including Meryl Streep, Tina Fey, Tom Hanks, and Maya Angelou. It features in Sheryl Sandberg’s best-selling Lean In, which urges professional women to forge their own destinies by shedding or powering through impostor feelings. Lean In is only the most prominent of many self-help guides that feature impostor syndrome, and talk of impostor syndrome is a staple of advice for women and minorities in many professional fields.

This balloon of cultural significance floats over a rather ambivalent basis of psychological research. There are many interesting individual studies, but little consensus about whether impostor syndrome afflicts women more than men, about how widespread it is (the most ambitious figure is that 70% of us suffer), or about its causes, correlates, or potential cures. Impostor syndrome is not a clinically-diagnosable mental disorder, and researchers prefer the term “impostor phenomenon”.

Nevertheless, the high cultural profile of impostor syndrome suggests that it chimes with some common experiences. Learning about the apparent prevalence of impostor syndrome may help people to recognise their own troubling feelings. Indeed, self-help guides presuppose that self-diagnosis is an important first step towards recovery. Once we somehow recognise this flaw in our own thinking, we can get to work on fixing that flaw.

But the self-help approach to impostor syndrome is fundamentally misguided, for several interlocking reasons.

First, self-diagnosis requires the sufferer to combine conflicting thoughts: I doubt my talent, my success, or my entitlement to that success, and yet I am talented, successful, and deserving of success. This is because recognising my doubts is not enough for self-diagnosis: I must also recognise that those doubts are misplaced. After all, if I am genuinely an impostor, then my impostor feelings accurately reflect reality. So reading about impostor syndrome can open up more self-doubt: can I really claim the diagnosis for myself? Or am I an impostor-syndrome impostor?

Secondly, public discussions of impostor syndrome make it difficult to step up and say “Actually, I don’t have impostor syndrome”. What, you think your success is all down to your personal talent? You never worry that your next project will fail? What kind of narcissist are you? Again, self-diagnosis requires us to identify our own feelings and evaluate whether these are a rational response to reality. And hearing that many people do this badly can make this task even harder.

Thirdly, hearing that impostor syndrome is relatively common can promote fatalism. If multi-Oscar-winning Meryl Streep can’t lean into her talent, what hope do the rest of us have? Celebrity confessions also add to the social difficulty of disclaiming impostor syndrome: so you’re more self-confident than Meryl Streep?

Most importantly, the self-help approach to impostor syndrome frames impostor thoughts and feelings as individual psychological deficiencies, to be overcome (somehow) through more rational thinking and feeling. But instead of individualising responsibility, we should ask why so many otherwise clear-thinking and capable people feel this way. Could they be responding rationally to a very mixed bag of evidence? This may include good grades, promotions and prizes, but also minority status in the workplace, hostile or indifferent responses from co-workers or managers, unrealistic expectations, or confusing feedback. It may be entirely sensible to feel like an impostor in such a challenging epistemic environment, even if you are in fact successful and talented.

We should also scrutinise our collective habits of thinking and talking about success and achievement. In public and in private, how do we value persistence, teamwork, and learning through experience, as opposed to lone genius and (apparently) effortless superiority? What do we expect success to look like on the outside, and feel like on the inside?

Treating impostor syndrome as a self-help issue heaps extra burdens upon those who suffer, and allows the rest of us to ignore the social factors which incubate impostor feelings. Instead of asking people to fix themselves, one at a time, we should be working together to fix our collective environment.

Featured Image Credit: by Nik Shuliahin via Unsplash.

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A guide to parent self-care during the COVID-19 pandemic

As school closures and quarantines take place across the globe, the overwhelming anxiety is palpable in the newfound realities of a pandemic. Trips to the grocery store are now strategized, as shoppers face empty shelves and shortages of household staples. This will undoubtably continue as anxiety thrives on uncertainty increasing stress and driving us to seek answers and information in an evolving landscape. Keeping ourselves healthy and safe is a tall order and is further compounded by the challenge of maintaining our values and goals as parents. Still, it is vital that we support ourselves as individuals first, because maintaining our mental and physical health is the foundation from which we support our children during these trying times.

First and foremost – plan
More than ever, it is important to follow the warnings and guidelines of trusted resources. This includes the WHO, state and local governments, and public health agencies. For personal advice, turn to your doctor and your child’s pediatrician. Websites, including the American Academy of Pediatrics, are another source of trusted information.

Disconnect to reconnect
After keeping up to date with developments in the pandemic, schedule time to disconnect from the consumption of social media and news outlets. Being bombarded with information fuels panic and inhibits preparedness. Further, media consumption turns you away from face-to-face interactions with your partner/spouse and children leading to missed opportunities for connection and comfort. By imposing limits, we can model how to manage our handling of difficult information, and also limit our child’s exposure to anxiety ridden media and social media content.

Simultaneously, take this hibernation as an opportunity to recharge and strengthen bonds as a family. The forced decluttering of our schedules allows us to foster one-on-one interactions, a sense of togetherness, and protects us from anxiety.

Maintain your foundation
Undoubtably routines, habits, and daily activities are disrupted by cancellations in schools, activities, and events. These disruptions are unavoidable, unnerving, and trigger negative emotions that may stray us away from essential self-care routines needed to support our health and mental health. Self-care takes many forms including daily mediation practice, home-based hobbies (such as cooking/baking, gardening, redecorating, channeling your inner Marie Kondo), exercise, crafting or sewing, writing, art, collecting, reading, etc. By taking care of yourself first you are fueling your ability to care for others and minimizing your vulnerability to illness, irritability, and anxiety – all of which draw you away from mindful parenting. For example, I have committed to starting each day with a yoga practice and ending many days with a meditation practice. These few quiet moments ensure that no matter how much arguing my kids do (with myself or each other), I reduce my vulnerability to stray from my parenting goals.

Reconnect with natural joys
Exercise and nature are pillars for maintaining our health and mental health, making them an essential part of our daily routine. Vitamin D, daily exposure to the elements, and physical activity help maintain our health, ensure better sleep, and protect us from negative moods. This is also a great way to pass time with kids or grab a few moments of needed solitude. This can be as simple as doing daily activities outside such as meals, reading, work, and schoolwork or more adventurous such as exploring your neighborhood or local hiking paths.

Practice gratitude and altruism
Reflecting on the gifts of today is an essential element of happiness and contentment. And while it is easy to ruminate on our loss of freedom and normalcy, focusing on the negative only perpetuates despair. Although it may not be automatic, taking a few minutes each day to mindfully list things you are thankful for will change your perspective and increase your sense of well-being. The practice of gratitude is also great for the whole family, allowing children to focusing on the positive.

The same goes for helping others in a time of need. Can you run errands for your elderly neighbor? Or help organize activities for kids and share them with other parents? Take this opportunity to sort out old toys, books, and clothes and make donations to charity? By helping others, we strengthen our sense of belonging and gain a sense of community.

Know when to seek help
Lastly, as you and your family will undoubtably experience anxiety during the coming days and weeks it is important to know when and where to seek help. Panic will only fuel impulsive behavior, reduce intelligent decision making, and increase our vulnerability. The Anxiety and Depression Association of America has compiled a list of trusted resources and expert tips. Taking care of your mental health is a vital part of ensuring that your kids and teens navigate this time successfully. We know from well-established scientific studies that children’s mental health improves when parents seek mental health care first.

Featured Image Credit:  Photo   by prostooleh via Freepik

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Maria Edgeworth, Jane Austen’s forgotten idol

In the first years of the nineteenth century the most prominent, and highly respected, novelist in Britain was a woman. It was not Jane Austen but her contemporary, Maria Edgeworth. Indeed Austen was herself a fan of the woman regarded as “the great Maria.” “I have made up my mind to like no Novels really, but Miss Edgeworth’s, Yours & my own,” Austen  wrote in 1814 to a young niece trying her own hand at fiction.

Maria Edgeworth (1768-1849) was eldest daughter of an Irish landowner, the inventor and scientist Richard Lovell Edgeworth (her mentor throughout her literary life), and the first of his four wives. She was brought up both in an intellectual environment and with a leading role to play in a very extended family. She wrote many widely-read stories for children, and she always claimed that her adult fictions were not novels but moral tales. But her moral purposes rarely swamped her ability to conjure up absorbing plots, engaging characters, and scenes of ordinary contemporary life presented with wisdom, wit, and humour.

Many of her works are set in Ireland and reveal social conditions there as well as celebrate, for the first time in print, the humour and exuberance, often alongside extreme poverty, of the Irish peasants. Others explore the lives and dilemmas of the English gentry and aristocracy.  The most successful of these is Belinda (1801), which Austen singled out in Northanger Abbey as an example of all that was best about the novel as a genre “in which the greatest powers of the mind are displayed, in which the most thorough knowledge of human nature, the happiest delineation of its varieties, the liveliest effusions of wit and humour are conveyed to the world in the best chosen language.”

For all Jane Austen’s relative obscurity as a novelist in her lifetime, Maria Edgeworth was aware of her novels at least as early as 1814, when she read Mansfield Park shortly after publication, finding it “like real life and very entertaining.” Edgeworth was much less complimentary about Emma. Austen had had a copy sent to her on publication, presumably in hopes that the famous Miss Edgeworth would be impressed, but it is to be hoped she never learned Edgeworth’s opinion of her work. Having read the first of the three volumes Edgeworth had had enough, complaining that:

Maria Edgeworth by John Downman, 1807. Public domain via Wikimedia Commons.

… there was no story except that Miss Emma found the man whom she designed for Harriet’s lover was an admirer of her own – and he was affronted at being refused by Emma – and Harriet wore the willow – and smooth thin water gruel is according to Emma’s father’s opinion a very good thing & it is very difficult to make a cook understand what you mean by smooth thin water gruel!

She was, alas, equally unimpressed by Northanger Abbey a couple of years later, dismissing it rather disarmingly as “one of the most stupid nonsensical fictions I ever read (excepting always the praises of myself …)” and singling out as “quite outrageously out of nature” the behaviour of General Tilney in abruptly sending Catherine Morland home “without a servant or the common civilities which any bear of a man not to say gentleman would have shown.” But she was full of praise for Persuasion, published alongside Northanger Abbey, which

excepting always the tangled useless histories of the family in the first 50 pages, appears to me in all that relates to poor Anne & her loves to be exceedingly interesting & natural – The love & lover admirably well drawn so that we feel it is quite real – Don’t you see Captain Wentworth or rather in her place, feel him taking the boisterous child off her back as she kneels by the sick boy on the sofa? And is not the first meeting after their long separation admirably well done? And the overheard conversation about the nut? …

And as time passed, though we don’t know that she ever changed her mind about Northanger Abbey, Edgeworth’s views on Emma evidently mellowed. In 1838, when she was entering her 70s and no longer writing fiction, and when Austen herself was long dead, she recorded that one of her relatives was reading aloud to the family group in the evenings “Emma all through & Pride and Prejudice. And I liked them better than ever.”

In her own lifetime, and for many years after her death, Jane Austen’s achievement as a novelist was entirely overshadowed by Maria Edgeworth. As late as 1870, in A Memoir of Jane Austen, Austen’s nephew James Edward Austen Leigh wrote that if the Austen neighbours had known “that we, in our secret thoughts, classed her with … Miss Edgeworth … they would have considered it an amusing instance of family conceit.” It is interesting to find that between the two writers themselves there was, in the end, mutual respect and admiration. And it is one of the ironies of literature that 150 years after the Memoir the reputations of the two writers has completely reversed, and that it is now through Jane Austen that many readers come to rediscover the work of Maria Edgeworth, the author she admired so much.

Featured image Trinity College Dublin by Dmitrij Paskevic via  Unsplash . 

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A visual history of skyscrapers [infographic]

Where did the structural capability for skyscrapers come from? The 1860s saw the refinement of the Bessamer process, or a steel-making process, now largely superseded, in which carbon, silicon, and other impurities are removed from molten pig iron by oxidation in a blast of air in a special tilting retort, pushing skyscraper construction into unstoppable motion. As steel is stronger and lighter in weight than iron, the use of a steel frame made possible the construction of truly tall buildings. (The passenger elevator, so essential to the skyscraper, was originally designed by Elisha Otis and first installed in a building in 1857.)-of-skyscrapers-infographic

In history, the question of a single definitive “first skyscraper” was debated throughout the 20th century. Yet indisputably, the Chicago Home Insurance Building, built in 1884-5, is considered to be one of the first modern skyscrapers. Designed by William Le Baron Jenney and standing ten stories tall, the Home Insurance Building was one of the first structures of its time to be supported by a fireproof structural steel and metal frame on both the inside and outside of the building.

Following the construction of the Home Insurance Building, skyscrapers have continuously cropped up all across the globe, from Russia to France, New York to Dubai, and more. While skyscraper construction has only been possible for approximately the past one hundred and fifty years, the advancements achieved in the field have been astronomical. In 1885, the tallest building in the world (the aforementioned Home Insurance Building) stood at 180 feet. In 2020, the tallest building in the world, Dubai’s Burj Khalifa, stands at 2,722 feet, including the height of its spire.

The infographic below details an introductory history to the architectural construction of skyscrapers. Each building is hyperlinked with more information on the history behind the movements, history, and more behind these feats of architecture.

Featured Image courtesy of Sean Pollock via Unsplash .

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Yesterday’s fake news: Donald Trump as a 1980s literary critic

In 1987, during a CNN interview with Republican political consultant Pat Buchanan, author and real estate developer Donald Trump was asked about his taste in literature.

“Well I have a number of favorite authors,” Trump replied. “I think Tom Wolfe is excellent.”

“Did you read Vanity of the Bonfires?” Buchanan asks.

“I did not,” Trump responds.

“It’s a phenomenal book,” Buchannan explains, while quickly correcting himself: “Bonfire of the Vanities.”

When asked what he is reading now, Trump responds: “Well I’m reading my own book again because I think it’s so fantastic…The Art of the Deal.”

“Besides your own book, what are you reading?” Trump is asked.

“Well I’m reading Tom Wolfe, his new book.”

Now, wait: In 1987, Tom Wolfe’s new book, published the same week of the Black Monday stock market crash on 19 October was, of course, The Bonfire of the Vanities.

When told that, Trump looks askance and begins fidgeting with his earpiece. “He’s a great author. He’s done a beautiful job. I really can’t hear because of this earpiece.”

The whole scene is absurd. Circular and contradictory, it could easily be from the pages of the other famous novel of the late 1980s, American Psycho by Bret Easton Ellis. Like Wolfe’s novel, Ellis’s novel revolves around murder, wealth, and a Manhattan investment banker. The “psycho” of the title refers to the protagonist and narrator, Patrick Bateman, who is narcissistically confident but often delusional. It’s hard to tell what of his observations are truth or fiction and the novel moves in a non-linear fashion, repeating itself, circling back, sometimes stopping mid-sentence.

In fact, Ellis did base a scene in American Psycho off Donald Trump’s interview. Indeed, Trump is a character in American Psycho and Ellis’s novel is a satire of both Wolfe’s The Bonfire of the Vanities and Trump’s autobiography, The Art of the Deal, also published in 1987.

Welcome to the strangely literary world of high finance in the 1980s, a time in which many famous financiers published their autobiographies and some of the most well-known novels were about finance. Meanwhile the financer financial journalists called a “fraud,” and whose co-writer, Tony Schwartz, called a “sociopath” has become the president of the United States.

If this all sounds too postmodern to be true, then that’s simply another historical facet of our story: It was in the 1980s that postmodern fiction finally arrived on course syllabi, in news stories, at conferences, and even in public discourse. In his 1989 book, The Condition of Postmodernity, geographer David Harvey defined postmodernity as “dominated by fiction, fantasy, the immaterial.” Nowhere is this description more accurate than in the decade-long comingling of finance and literature.

The Automated Teller Machine was introduced that decade and it quickly developed a narrative presence in novels including Don DeLillo’s 1984 White Noise and Ellis’ American Psycho. The Savings and Loans scandals dragged on throughout the decade. Jane Smiley would later memorize them in her novel, Good Faith. And then there were the financiers themselves, they both published autobiographies and became involved in financial scandals.

In neat reply, American Psycho itself became a scandal. After some of more gruesome passages were leaked to the press, Simon and Schuster dropped the book, weeks before its scheduled publication. Vintage picked it up and published it anyway.

Critics have had much to say about this grisly and controversial novel, but few of them have situated it in its appropriate historical context.

What can we make of the violence that saturates American Psycho? One thing we can say is that it’s historically accurate. Violence was the idiom of finance in the 1980s. By 1982 The New York Times was reporting on a new type of businessman, the corporate raider: “They have even developed their own language, laced with the images of aggression and sexual conquest: raids, battles….”

The financial autobiographies of Ivan Boesky, T. Boone Pickens and Donald Trump adopt this violent language, in part codifying it and in part representing accurately the financial world. For Boesky, a financial deal “is like war.” For Boone, “it’s like murder.” In Trump’s The Art of The Deal he includes a picture of himself in full military regalia marching down New York City’s Fifth Avenue with the caption, “my first real glimpse of prime Fifth Avenue property.”

Is it any wonder that the best satire of 1980s finance would be laced with violence? Asked at a club what he does, Patrick answers, “I’m into, oh, murders and executions mostly.” The female interlocutor responds, “most guys I know who work in mergers and acquisitions don’t really like it.” It’s not only that this language of financial violence was omnipresent, it was also rarely noticed.

American Psycho not only satirizes financial autobiographies by literalizing violence, it is a postmodern satire of Wolfe’s widely hailed “new realist novel.”

Like Tom Wolfe’s protagonist in The Bonfire of the Vanities, Sherman McCoy, Patrick Bateman works at a fictional bond-trading firm called Pierce & Pierce. Unlike Sherman McCoy, Patrick never gives us any indication of the work that he does or of his technical knowledge of finance. In his office, he does crossword puzzles, listens to popular music on his Walkman, and manages his extensive social life. The only financial object to be found on his desk? Donald Trump’s memoir, The Art of the Deal.

Photo by Ionut Andrei Coman on Unsplash

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Why it’s so hard to write a William Wordsworth biography

“A divine morning–At Breakfast William wrote part of an ode—Mr Olliff sent the Dung & William went to work in the garden.”  This entry in Dorothy Wordsworth’s journal for 1802 is characteristically straightforward, but for the biographer how to deal with it is anything but.

After years of unsettled wandering William and Dorothy Wordsworth had returned to the Lake District where they were born and were now at the beginning of the second year of their life together on the edge of Grasmere village.  It was to be an experiment in holistic living.  Brother and sister had little money, but they were determined to create a home together, to decorate and furnish their rented cottage, to become as self-sufficient as possible domestically and as productive as conditions in the garden would allow. Wordsworth had come to believe that he had a calling to be a poet, but the production of poetry had to be part of living the good life.  Composing verse was to be in continuum with digging and planting in the garden. Saturday 27 March began with drafting lines over breakfast and then when the dung promised by their neighbour Mr Olliff arrived, William set to, spreading and digging it in.

As he bent over the spade, was he going over the “part of an ode” he had written at the breakfast table?  It seems likely. And what an ode it is. In lines eventually entitled Ode. Intimations of Immortality from Recollections of Early Childhood, the attempt is made to assuage the pain of loss through acknowledgement of the compensations life offers as we grow older.  Another great poet, Gerard Manley Hopkins, wagered that “St. George and St. Thomas of Canterbury wore roses in heaven for England’s sake on the day when that ode was penned.”  Perhaps they did, for the Intimations ode is certainly a marvelous achievement. 

Evidence about the dung and evidence about the genesis of one of Wordsworth’s finest poems are very different, however, different not only in kind but in importance. The first is a matter of selection from the documentary material that survives to bring to life the historical figure, William Wordsworth.  This figure, moreover, might be fleshed out in a narrative that avoided almost all mention of poetry and it could engage any reader with historical interests, for Wordsworth lived in tumultuous times and he was intelligently responsive to them. 

The challenge for the biographer would be what to emphasise from the mass of available evidence. Should it be Wordsworth as lover, husband, father? Wordsworth’s political journey perhaps?  His passion was “wandering,” Wordsworth declared, but he also thought he would have made a good general. So how much weight in the narrative should be given to his amazing feats of walking and how much to his correspondence with a leading military strategist? Wordsworth was a keen angler, who admitted to envying Sir Humphry Davy’s fine rods. At least half a chapter could be devoted to their shared passion.  For all of these topics lots of evidence exists.  What it calls for is selection, interpretation, emphasis. How important is the dung? Readers will have their own views, but there can be no dispute as to the fact that on 27th March 1802 William Wordsworth dug it in. 

The other kind of evidence is quite different.  It concerns Wordsworth the writer, someone who believed he was called to devote his life to the art of poetry, one who were he alive today would be able to rejoice in a reputation that proves he was not misled in this belief.  But how can the biographer deal with this figure, the creative artist?  A considerable amount of manuscript and bibliographical material survives to document the material history of Wordsworth’s poems, from first drafts to final publication, and it has been mined by scholars in densely detailed accounts of the poet’s working practices.  But whereas the textual scholar is concerned only with the words on the page, the biographer must be concerned with the relation between those words and the lived experience of the creating but also dung-digging poet.  And what that relation is always presents itself ultimately as a mystery inviting speculation.  At breakfast William wrote part of an ode.  Why then?  The poem opens with an unequivocal acknowledgement of huge loss.  The celestial light that once appareled meadow, grove and stream, is gone.  Where is it now?  But this same poet only months before, in Home at Grasmere, had declared himself blessed beyond all expectation and was soon to be writing many of his loveliest lyric poems, jubilant in the joy of life. What are we to make of this moment?  Deciding what to do with this kind of material is much more difficult than deciding what to do with the dung.  And altogether more important. 

Feature Image Credit: via Wikimedia 

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