Oxford University Press's Blog, page 220

Will Egypt have another uprising?

Egypt is well-known for its exceptionally rich history. For many, the country is synonymous with ancient wonders such as the pyramids of Giza and the royal tombs of Luxor. However, in January 2011, modern Egypt suddenly leapt to the center of the public’s imagination. Over a period of 18 days, millions of Egyptians engaged in sit-ins, strikes, and demonstrations as well as pitched battles with the security forces. Their efforts led to the removal of the country’s long-standing dictator, Hosni Mubarak, and the start of an experiment in democratic government. Egypt’s first freely-elected president, Muhammad Mursi, assumed office in July 2012. However, after a tumultuous year in power, the experiment came crashing down amid large protests and a military intervention that removed Mursi from power.

Was the January 2011 uprising an aberration, and has Egypt now returned to its historic norm of autocratic rule centered on the military? Or, was the uprising the first wave of a process of change that will resume and continue to shape Egypt and the region?

The uprising in January 2011 was rooted in long-standing grievances among the general population regarding brutality by the police, lack of civil and political rights, and deteriorating economic conditions. The catalyst for the uprising was activists calling for public protest combined with a new public perception that large-scale demonstrations could produce meaningful political change. This positive view of the efficacy of demonstrations was due to events in nearby Tunisia, where mass protests in December 2010 triggered the removal of that country’s dictator just a few weeks earlier. Finally, Egypt’s military permitted the demonstrations to unfold and facilitated Mubarak’s departure.

Each of the three broad areas of grievances that led to the 2011 uprising remain and, in some areas, have worsened. Human rights abuse by the security services are a substantial and growing problem. Civil and political rights have been further compromised by new legislation that expands the state’s surveillance powers, tightens restrictions on NGOs, and limits freedom of expression. The economic situation is also very difficult, with many Egyptians in dire straits. Inflation rose to over 30%in June 2017 while wages did not keep pace, leading to a decline in the standard of living for most Egyptians. The official unemployment rate is over 11% and youth unemployment is estimated by the World Bank at 34%. The tourism industry remains weak due to attacks by militants and the threat of continuing violence.

Despite these pressures, another uprising is unlikely in the near term. Much of the public has a less positive view of street protest than in 2011. The regime and its supporters have undertaken an extensive media campaign to shape the public’s perception of the 2011 uprising and, particularly, to link the country’s subsequent economic decline and security challenges to this event. Egyptians are also acutely aware of the costly civil wars that unfolded elsewhere in the region after the uprisings of the Arab spring, particularly in Libya, Syria, and Yemen. Many seem prepared to accept a strengthening of the security state in order to avoid such a fate.

Image credit: “Travel Egypt Pyramid,” by VladvI56. CC0 via , Pixabay

The regime has ensured that protest of any kind is very risky. It has sharply increased the penalties associated with dissent and has allowed the security forces to target potential opponents with impunity. Over 1,800 people were forcibly disappeared in 2015 alone, meaning they were abducted, held incommunicado, and usually tortured by security forces before they were released or their bodies appeared. Another 22,000 were imprisoned awaiting trials that same year, prompting the European Parliament to censure Egypt for human rights abuses.

Finally, the military is likely to steadfastly defend the regime rather than support protestors. In 2011, the military had grown distant from Mubarak and feared that he was engineering a succession to his son that did not fully protect their interests. The generals played a key role in allowing the demonstrations to grow and in orchestrating Mubarak’s exit. In contrast, the military in 2018 remains closely tied to President al-Sisi and the regime. Al-Sisi has gone to considerable lengths to expand the military’s authority, defend its interests, and allow its economic power to grow. Furthermore, there is not yet a major policy issue—such as succession or economic reform—that divides the military and the president, as was the case in 2011.

For the near-term, then, the regime is likely to endure. However, the demands for change that sparked the uprising in 2011 persist. The economic and security institutions that produced the public anger of 2011 remain unreformed. Al-Sisi has calculated that improved economic growth and greater security will be sufficient to retain the public’s support. However, if the regime stumbles in either area, the public’s quiescence could turn quickly to anger. The uprising of 2011 provided tangible proof of the power of the people to change the status quo, if only for a short period. Continued economic hardship, combined with growing repression, could spark renewed calls for change. The uprising of 2011 was the first step on a long and difficult path of transformation that has only just begun.

Featured image credit: “Egypt Uprising solidarity Melbourne protest, 30 January 2011 018” by Takver. CC0 via WikiCommons. 

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So you think music is beneficial for people with dementia?

Public interest in the benefits of music for people with dementia has increased over the years. Social media often highlights how music awakens strong emotional reactions in people with dementia. Music activities are generally regarded as inclusive and enjoyable for all, and there is a strong sense among the general public that “music is good for people with dementia”. However, is it simply: “more music, the better”?

The increasing popularity in the use of music in dementia care has led to many positive outcomes, but it also highlights the need to ensure safe, informed use of music with people with dementia. “Therapeutic music activities” can be un-therapeutic if facilitators do not pay sufficient attention to the mood and preferences of people with dementia in that moment. Playing someone’s preferred music is often considered beneficial but playing it repeatedly without interacting with the person won’t be helpful.

Image credit: Used with permission from the University of Melbourne.

Many people with moderate to severe dementia have limited communication skills to express their likes and dislikes. However, this does not imply they lack preferences. A study on the importance of music for people with dementia found close links between music, personal identity, and life events. The study also highlighted that musical preferences in people with dementia often remain despite progression of the disease.

Music activities are not meant to be “one size fits all,” but they provide opportunities to learn about the uniqueness of each individual and build two-way relationships. So how do we ensure facilitators of music activities are sensitive to the needs and preferences of people with dementia and develop sufficient skills and self-awareness to be helpful?

Image credit: Used with permission from the University of Melbourne.

Music therapists, who often find themselves having to extend their roles to meet clinical, cultural, political, financial, and organizational needs, may be key through offering what we have termed “indirect music therapy.” For dementia care, “indirect music therapy practice”  includes promoting informed use of music and encouraging regular mentoring/supervision for music activities facilitators.

This often involves “music therapy skill-sharing.” Here, trained music therapists work with staff, families, friends, and volunteers to support them to use music as a resource in their everyday lives. Skill-sharing can include practical advice on implementing everyday use of music (what), and should also highlight the importance of attuning to whatever the person expresses (how). In other words, the focus of indirect music therapy is to support the interpersonal process between carers and people with dementia through music, rather than directly addressing clinical needs of clients (people with dementia), as is the case in traditional “direct” music therapy practice. However, the ultimate focus of indirect music therapy in dementia care remains the wellbeing of people with dementia.

Interventions to support carers of people with dementia are not new in dementia psychosocial research, but it is still relatively new to music therapy research. One study recently published explores the use of therapeutic songwriting for carers to support them in their role as carers. The intervention is important to sustain their emotional wellbeing because it allows them “to explore the journey of being a carer. This is different from other carer interventions where the focus is on managing dementia symptoms and associated daily challenges. This is not to say therapeutic songwriting is superior to these other longer-established approaches; rather, it illustrates songwriting is a holistic intervention to enhance carers’ wellbeing and strengthen their relationships with family members with dementia.

Indirect music therapy practice is not a substitute for direct music therapy practice, as music therapists still need to maintain their traditional clinical role (e.g., by working with care home residents with persistent behavioral and psychological symptoms of dementia). Nevertheless, if we are to promote a person-centered approach, music activities facilitators need to move beyond simply providing enjoyable music activities and develop the skills and awareness of how to “meet the person in the moment.” Music therapists can help by supporting facilitators to ensure the therapeutic use of music.

Featured image credit: Piano time by Tadas Mikuckis. Public Domain via  Unsplash.

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Food labels: Can they help us to pick healthy portions?

From packaged food products on the supermarket shelves to calories listed on menus in fast food outlets, food labels and the nutrition information they contain are all around us. But what effect do these labels have on consumers? Does food marketing influence what you actually eat? 

Previous research has shown that food labels are a useful tool to assist consumers in making healthier food choices. They have also been found to influence how healthy people perceive products to be. For example, when an unhealthy food product was labelled with the Smart Choices logo, which is used to indicate a healthy food product, people believed that the product was healthier and contained more nutrients than the same product without a logo. 

While there is a lot of research on the impact of food labels on our purchasing and food selection choices, there is little research on the impact of food labels on how much we actually eat. Researchers at the University of Newcastle, Australia conducted a systematic review of the literature to attempt to answer this very question. Instead, they discovered there was no clear cut answer, as food labels were considered to have both a positive and negative role in influencing how much food people consume—as well as having no role at all.

There were nine different food label types identified in this review, and all but one label category (persuasive language labels, i.e. language intended to persuade consumers with words such as “wholesome” and “natural”) had a positive effect on consumption. This means that eight of the nine types of labels decreased consumption of ‘sometimes foods’ (energy-dense, nutrient-poor foods) or increased consumption of healthy, everyday foods (nutrient-dense foods). These findings show that food labels can influence consumption in a way that can improve short-term intake and therefore, have the potential to encourage the consumption of more appropriate portion sizes.

However, all but one label category (exercise equivalent labels, i.e. those that contain information related to the amount of exercise required to “burn off” the food) also had a negative effect on consumption. This means that they increased consumption of energy-dense, nutrient-poor foods or foods eaten outside of the home, which has been associated with a higher intake of energy, fat and sodium. These findings support previous research that found that when a food label emphasized one aspect of the food as healthy, it can lead to the creation of a “health halo,” whereby individuals increase their intake because they believe that they can consume as much of the food as they like without guilt or fear of weight gain. For example one of the studies in this review found that labeling foods as low calorie may create a halo effect which may lead to over-consumption of these foods in people who usually restrain their food intake.

Finally, in this review it was found that all but one label category (Nutrition Facts labels) had no effect on portion size. These findings are in line with previous research, which found that calorie menu labeling has no effect on calories from foods ordered or consumed. 

So what does all of this mean? Are food labels helpful or unhelpful? Will they encourage you to eat more of the good stuff or trick you into eating the whole tub of yogurt because the label has the word ‘wholesome’ displayed? Well, the University of Newcastle review has definitely highlighted that there is no clear cut answer to this question, and that the topic itself is actually quite complex. Grouping the studies together and comparing the results is difficult, because labels such as those containing energy and fat information had been tested to a much greater extent than more recent food label types, such as exercise equivalent information. Furthermore, there was a large degree of heterogeneity within the included studies, both in widely differing methodologies used to evaluate the impact of food labels, as well as the way in which data were measured and reported.

The most important thing to keep in mind when reading a food label is to remember that it is there to provide you with information to help you make safe and appropriate eating choices. So ignore the buzz words displayed on labels such as ‘wholesome’ and ‘superfood’. They don’t mean anything. Look past the colorful images and symbols that are designed to attract your eye and focus on the nutrition information panel and the ingredients list. This is where you will find all the information you need to make appropriate choices. 

Featured image credit: appetite apple close up, CC0 Public Domain via Pexels

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From Darwin to DNA: evolution, genomics, and conservation of the Galapagos giant tortoises

When Charles Darwin arrived on the Galapagos Islands in 1835, the remarkable morphology of the native breeds of giant tortoise, unique to each island struck him as significant. Later on, these thoughts contributed to his ideas about the theory of evolution through natural selection.

In the 18th and 19th centuries, Galapagos giant tortoises were not just interesting scientific specimens, they were also a critical source of fresh meat for sailors during long sea voyages into the Pacific Ocean. With the Galapagos acting as a larder, more than 200,000 giant tortoises were taken from the islands for human consumption. Hundreds more were sacrificed to fill natural history museums throughout the world with specimens of these extraordinary beasts.

Image credit: Pinzón Galapagos giant tortoise. Photograph by Evelyn Jensen.

By the 1960’s, the giant tortoise populations were in rough shape; some were extinct, some were reduced to a handful of individuals, while all were facing severe habitat destruction and competition from invasive species, such as goats and rats. Concerted conservation actions began, focusing on recovering species by addressing the challenges specific to each case.

Image credit: Adult Pinzón Galapagos giant tortoise, underneath an Opuntia cactus. Photograph by Evelyn Jensen.

Key to these efforts was determining the scale at which to act. And for tortoises, this meant following up on Darwin’s observations and confirming that each population was a distinct evolutionary unit. To this end, phylogenetic and population genetic techniques have been applied to study the Galapagos giant tortoises since their development in the 1990’s. This body of work showed that the tortoises alive today could be divided into 12 unique lineages, and conservation actions have been made accordingly.

Most recently, we have used advanced sequencing techniques to conduct a genome-wide assessment of genetic diversity. These methods produce orders of magnitude more data than had previously been used, and can detect subtle signals inaccessible to traditional methods. However, the results from this study in The Journal of Heredity confirmed the previously found genetic lineages, and showed that measures of diversity were significantly correlated with those derived from the previous generation of genetic markers. These are welcome findings that confirmed the genetic uniqueness of each species and management plans for their conservation.

In another study in the same issue, we focused on just one species, the Pinzón Island giant tortoise, and questioned if genetic diversity before and after the population crash on the island was being accurately measured by the smaller datasets common to previous genetic sequencing studies. We found that if we had sequenced less than the whole mitochondrial genome (a feat which has only been possible on a large scale recently), we would have incorrectly estimated the differences in diversity between the population in 1906 and 2014, depending on the specific genes selected for the study. A loss of diversity between temporal samples is one of the genetic signatures of population decline, so a biased estimate may have implications for the conservation actions taken to protect a species.

For the Pinzón giant tortoise species, our studies using nuclear genomic and mitochondrial sequence data concluded that genetic diversity has persisted despite a dramatic population decline. This is thanks to a 50-year long head-start program that led the population to recover in size and an eradication effort that successfully eliminated invasive rats from the island that had been preying upon hatching tortoises.

The close genetic study of the Galapagos giant tortoises has yielded many important insights for conservation, but none so exciting as the discovery of living hybrids of two extinct species. The last Pinta Island tortoise was the famous Lonesome George, who died in 2012. A few years before his death, a genetic survey of the tortoise population on Volcano Wolf discovered individuals that are the offspring of the species native to the area and Pinta Island tortoises, as well as a second extinct species from Floreana Island. In both cases, the presence of the extinct tortoises was attributed to sailors dropping the tortoises overboard near Volcano Wolf.

Image credit: Adult Pinzón Galapagos giant tortoise, showing the “saddle backed” shell morphology. Photograph by Evelyn Jensen.

The happy accident of the existence and discovery of these hybrid individuals has opened up new possibilities for repopulating Pinta and Floreana Islands with giant tortoises that are partly related to the extinct native species. We recently reported on the success of the first three breeding seasons of the pilot Floreana giant tortoise breeding program. Once bred together, the majority of the progeny of the hybrid individuals showed ancestry from the Floreana species. The breeding program will be closely genetically monitored into the future to ensure that inbreeding is held at bay, and genetic diversity is maintained. Once they are large enough, the offspring from the program will be reintroduced to their ancestral home, Floreana Island, and help to ecologically restore it to a more natural state.

The continuous application of genetic, and now genomic, methods to study Galapagos giant tortoises has consistently provided information that is both scientifically interesting and a valuable aid in conservation. Galapagos giant tortoise species have been brought back from the brink of extinction, and perhaps even back from extinction to a certain extent. They are undoubtedly a conservation success story. One we can hopefully learn from to better protect other species.

Featured image credit: Maud Quinzin

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Technology picks up its sword in the service of social justice

Most Americans think of activism primarily in the context of and petitioning our elected representatives. It’s true that elected officials do have an important influence on the development of policies and programs that affect the lives of Americans—issues like immigration, reproductive rights, gun violence, mass incarceration, sexual harassment, and the opioid crisis are front and center in November’s election. The reality, however, is that activism and advocacy is a constant, ongoing process carried out by individuals, organizations, and professionals often far outside of Washington, D.C. Similar to its pervasive influence in other spheres in our life, technology has changed the nature of activism in our world. Looking at the innovations in digital activism provides a lens in the nature of change beyond what we see at the polling booth.

We live in times that challenge our commitment to a just and fair society. The media presents a picture of our country characterized by inequality, violence, and hatred.  It’s important to remember, though, that this is not new—people have faced these situations for centuries and have found ways to fight back. Community organizing, public interest lobbying, political action committees, legal advocacy and political fundraising have long been traditional tools of the public interest community. These methods helped create the eight-hour work day, children’s rights, social security, and a host of progressive legislation. The development of the global information economy, however, has created new threats while also posing challenges for these traditional techniques. Local community organizing models are less useful in a world of international corporations. Technology allows local activists to broaden their reach to a global stage.

Activists and organizers in the 1980’s began using technology to build communities and organize around issues, such as world peace, the environment and poverty. Their practices were primitive by today’s standards, but evolved into a formidable capacity in the 1990s and early 2000s.  Web 2.0 and social media created the opportunity for tremendous progress.  Advocacy techniques, data science capacity, fundraising technology, and the ability to manage far flung operations make technology a central part of the future of activism

Technology that supports advocacy revolves around four functions: issue research, educating the public, recruiting and organizing, and applying power to decision makers. Many of the earliest technologies, such as e-mail and discussion lists, are still heavily used and address all of these functions. Newer technologies, such as social media, open street maps, and GitHub—while designed for other purposes have also been used to meet these traditional aims of activism. This has meant identifying a set of practices that go along with using a certain technology in a new context which can often be more difficult it would first appear.

Probably the most significant development that is being deployed for activism lies in the data revolution and the vast quantities of information about people, and problems that’s being collected. Government data is supplemented by private corporate data released through corporate data philanthropy and data Collaboratives; there is also a large amount information available from a variety of sensors and other data collection systems. While there are serious concerns about the reach of data gathering and the decline of privacy, there is also a good deal of potential benefit that can come from the data revolution.

Activists have found different ways to use this data. Civic technology combines data with technology that harnesses the work of volunteer technologists to address issues in government and nonprofit organizations. Code for America, for example, provides fellowships as a means to link volunteer talent with organizations. Hackathons are another means of to bring technologists and organizations together.—NASA hosts annual hackathons, and beginning in 2014, the British government has organized a hackathon to develop tools for those living with dementia. Civic technology can lead to positive change in government from outside and anyone’s skills can be part of this movement. A similar movement, Data4Good links professional data scientists with nonprofits and social movement organizations. This creates the capacity to address social needs using the sophisticated techniques that data science brings to a problem. One example is Data Kind an international nonprofit that applies data science tools to human problems worldwide—they’ve tackled projects as diverse as working with foster care workers and disaster risk management

Technology and public interest have grown from small beginnings to a place of major impact. The future promises a wealth of new and exciting possibilities. Many of the limitations that plagued activists for generations are addressed by tools that allow a movement to reach more potential supporters more quickly and at lower costs.  Technology can also change the way that government operates by infusing the voice of the citizen into the corridors of power. More importantly, it is beginning to provide a way for everyday people to work for the issues that are important for them—it reminds us all that individuals have as much power as elected officials, and we can all work towards change every day, not just this 6 November.

Featured Image: Two iPhones neon city sign by Seth Doyle on Unsplash.

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Two Cheers for Inconsistency? : Orwell’s Doublethink

ow concerned should we be about consistency? The answer if you were George Orwell would seem to be not very much. Orwell was, to use one of his own phrases, a “change-of-heart man.” So in the 1930s he held the view that fascism and capitalist democracy were flipsides of the same coin, but by 1940, he had dismissed such views as deeply irresponsible. He was on the side of pacifism in the late 1930s, but in the 1940s he felt that to be a pacifist was to be on the side of Hitler. He placed a famously large premium on truth, though he also felt that lies were justifiable for political ends (as his diaries make clear, he was certainly prepared to spread false information for the BBC during the Second World War). If this was hypocritical, then even his views on hypocrisy were two-faced: it was politically benign, but it was also vicious.

So Orwell was liable to give two fingers to consistency. He was a walking paradox of the Left who believed that “to defend Socialism it is necessary to start by attacking it.” He was a disciple of brotherhood who recoiled from a good cross section of his brothers (“the sandal-wearers and fruit-juice drinkers who come flocking towards the smell of progress like bluebottles to a dead cat”). He was a socialist egalitarian who denounced “the personal inferiority of many individual Socialists.” He was a revolutionary and an internationalist who insisted that no ‘real revolutionary has ever been an internationalist.’ He was an intellectual who loathed intellectuals. “To accept an orthodoxy,” Orwell believed, “is always to inherit unresolved contradictions,” but to oppose orthodoxies for heresy’s sake – as Orwell did – was also to generate them. So he became a utopian when surrounded by realists and a realist when confronting utopians. In the face of other people’s windy moralism, he could sound like an economic determinist, but against the fatalism of certain nay-sayers he stressed the importance of moral effort.

It’s easy to take a dim view of Orwell’s inconsistencies, seeing them as signs of obtuseness, sloppiness, arrogance, or opportunism – vices that were expressed and disguised by a relentless air of certitude. Yet Orwell’s shifts and pivots raise broader questions about how much consistency we can reasonably demand in moral and political life. His belief in certain ideals – namely, liberty, equality and fraternity – gave a certain coherence to his politics, but they also supplied them with their element of contradiction. While this trinity of values might entail each other (in Orwell’s eyes, they provided socialism with its basic, ethical co-ordinates), they could also conflict and they frequently do so across his writings. So liberty might need equality if it is to be enjoyed by all (Orwell does a good job showing why), but the installment of this equality through state intervention can erode minimalist ideas of freedom. Orwell’s commitment to such liberty made him speak of the “nightmare of state intervention.” At other moments, however, Orwell sided with equality even if it threatened to involve a type of serfdom. Elsewhere Orwell’s fundamentalism about freedom could make even brotherhood seem deeply coercive (indeed, the very word comrade seemed to trigger allergies in Orwell). Yet in 1943 he championed brotherhood over happiness itself. The fact that one might have to choose between them was itself deeply revealing.

Throughout his life Orwell struggled to answer the question that faces all moderns: “Which of the warring gods should we serve?” Like most of us, Orwell ended up serving different masters at the same time. This could make his politics look like a mess. But it was also a noble mess – the result of a principled refusal to throw over the basic values that justice should serve, even if they were liable to culminate in confusion. So a commitment to justice and charity made him want to kill fascists in Spain; an appeal to the same principles also accounts for his refusal to kill them – at least when their trousers were down (see his reflections on this matter in “Looking Back on the Spanish War”). This may seem inconsistent, but moral clarity has often proved to be pretty brutal in what it is prepared to set aside. Orwell loathed the ways in which intellectuals were often willing to relinquish their moral intuitions and messier feelings in the name of theoretical consistency. On the other hand, Orwell was happy to embrace the mess even if it yielded conflicting views of what was right.

And yet he couldn’t let it rest there. After all, his writings repeatedly stress the virtues of consistency and emphasise the political and existential dangers of its abandonment. He was an excoriating critic of collective “schizophrenia” and “doublethink” and showed how the abandonment of reason’s laws leads to collective servitude. As Winston Smith declares in Nineteen Eighty-Four: “Freedom is the freedom to say that two plus two make four. If that is granted, all else follows.” What Orwell appears to defend here is not simply freedom of speech, but the idea of consistency itself: without some commitment to this principle we stop making sense to ourselves and the world fails to make sense. We thus lose rational control over our lives, and cease to be free on any meaningful level. Perhaps it is fitting that on the question of consistency itself Orwell was once again inconsistent.

Featured image credit: “Brick” by werner22brigitte. CC0 via Pixabay .

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The ABCs of successful aging

espite some people saying that the secret to longevity is all in the genes (so pick your parents wisely!), there is a lot we can to do age well. In fact, most of these secrets are really good things to do at any age in life. Here is a short summary of the ABCs of successful aging:

Active

Staying active is key to staying fit, both mentally and physically. Learning new things, reading books, and doing anything that challenges your brain can help prevent dementia.  But there is an important connection between being active mentally and physically. New research has shown that walking can improve memory, leading to enhanced brain regions involved in remembering. The hippocampus, the part of the brain that helps us make memories, tends to decline in size after the age of 50 (about 1% a year). However, research has shown that people who walked regularly (3 times a week for 45 minutes) showed an increase in the size of the hippocampus, as well as improvements on memory tests. The brain was actually getting bigger as a result of walking. Being physically active can take many forms, and can also involve having social connections when couples walk together, or friends meet to motivate each other to take more steps.

Balance

Having good balance in life is important, ranging from balancing work with pleasure, balancing our finances, and finding time to do what we enjoy, but physical balance may be a forgotten form of successful aging. Falls can happen as we age, ranging from falls in the bathroom, at night, tripping on a rug, and simply when getting up off the couch. These falls can be devastating as they can result in broken hips and bones, and hospitals stays. Injuries from falls can be a major setback in life, as it then prevents people from staying active, which can lead to a cascade of physical and mental health challenges. There is a lot we can to do improve balance. Try balancing on one leg (while holding on to something), and you might be surprised at how hard it is to balance for more than 5 seconds. Then challenge yourself to see how long you can do it. After a few days of these simple exercises, you will notice you are getting better at it, but the first few times can be a real challenge. The cerebellum, one of the most primitive parts of the brain, is getting a workout when you do balance training, and balance training can keep you out of the hospital, on your feet, and let you stay active.

Jerry Seinfeld, the comedian now in his 60s, was contemplating how to be active and age well, said “To me, if life boils down to one thing, it’s movement. To live is to keep moving.”

Connect

As we get older, it can be easy to fall out of touch with friends and family. We are often so busy working that we might not have a close group of people we can count on to just have a coffee with, and enjoy some time together. Retirement can also lead to a change in social connections, as many people’s jobs are also their ways to socialize. Some research suggests that loneliness can be just as bad for your health as smoking a pack of cigarettes a day. Older adults can also be targets for scams because of loneliness. It is estimated that one in four adults in America, at some point in their lives, say they are lonely. These feelings of isolation can lead to depression and also can have physical consequences.

Feeling lonely isn’t just for older people, as many younger adults who are heavily connected via technology and social media still report feelings of social isolation. While people may have fewer friends in older age simply because people move away or die, the friendships that are maintained in older age may be closer and even more important than just having hundreds of Facebook friends.

We can’t pick our parents wisely, but in older age, we need to pick friends wisely. In older age, we may choose to spend more time with the people we care most about, but also less time with those whose company we don’t enjoy. We want to be around people who make us feel good, are interesting and stimulating, and know us well. One older adult told me quite simply that the most important thing in life is love: finding it and keeping it all around you. John Wooden, the famous UCLA basketball coach who lived to age 99 said the two most important words in the English language were “love” and “balance”.

Connecting with the right people, getting involved in a hobby or activity, and finding your calling (or a new calling) can be a great way to connect with others who have similar interests, and to explore new things in the world.

Putting all this together, research suggests that people who stay busy tend to age well, and many older adults say staying busy is important. But it is a different kind of busy than when you were younger and juggling a job, raising children or other responsibilities. Ideally, it is a kind of busy you where you have more control over what you do,  what keeps you active, balanced, and connected—and that allows you to enjoy older age.

It is hard to summarize successful aging just with a few simple ABCs, as people age well in all sorts of different ways (that is why there is the rest of the alphabet!). But these ABCs capture some of the most important observations, anecdotes, and what the latest scientific research says about how to stay sharp, stay fit, and enjoy older age.

Featured image credit: “Conversing” by Cristina Gottardi. Public Domain via Unsplash.

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Sitting down with author and historian Colin G. Calloway

The National Book Award is an American literary prize given out each year by the Nation Book Foundation. Five judging panels made up of writers, literary critics, librarians, and booksellers determine a long list, award finalists, and award winners for a selection of categories.

We recently had the opportunity to catch up with historian Colin G. Calloway, whose book The Indian World of George Washington is a finalist for the Nonfiction National Book Award. In the interview below, Colin discusses the research behind his book, the complicated relationship between George Washington and Native Americans, and his one key takeaway from Washington’s life.

When you were researching Washington, Native Americans, and early American life for this book, what did you learn that was new or surprising to you?

I knew that Washington was an avid speculator in Indian lands, but I was not aware of the lengths to which he went to acquire lands at the expense of former comrades-in-arms.

I knew the broad outlines of the Indian policy Washington formulated, and the destructive assaults he launched in Indian country, but I was not aware of the amount of thought and worry he devoted to trying to treat Indian peoples fairly and honorably, as he understood those terms. His concerns never stood in the way of acquiring Indian land, but I found I could not simply dismiss them as hypocrisy.

Image credit: Colin G. Calloway. Photo provided by Meg Calloway. Please do not use without permission.

Could you describe George Washington’s relationship with Native Americans?

I find it ambivalent. On the one hand, he demonstrates the prejudices of his times, has a lifelong obsession with getting Indian land—either for himself or for his nation—and initiates policies and campaigns that have devastating effects in Indian country. On the other, he struggles with how to reconcile expansion over Indian land with just treatment of Native people. As a result, some Indian people after his death remembered him as “Town Destroyer”; others revered his memory as a president who, in contrast with some of his successors, at least tried to deal justly with Native people.

George Washington’s legacy has led to him being referred to as both the “great father” and the “Town Destroyer.” Could you elaborate on why both these titles are fitting?

The two descriptions seem contradictory but are actually two sides of the same coin. Washington fathered a nation that was built on Indian land. The growth of the nation demanded the dispossession of Indian people. Washington hoped the process could be bloodless and that Indian people would give up their lands for a “fair” price and move away. But if Indians refused and resisted, as they often did, he felt he had no choice but to “extirpate” them and that the expeditions he sent to destroy Indian towns were therefore entirely justified.

After learning more about Washington’s relationship with Native Americans, do you think that readers will think differently of Washington and his legacy as one of our founding fathers?

I hope that readers will not see the book as an attempt to make George Washington look bad, although, obviously, any frank examination of his career as a land speculator and his record on Indian relations reveals a darker side to the first president than that we usually see. I hope instead that readers will have a greater appreciation of the presence and power of Indian nations in the formative era of US history, of the extent to which Washington’s life was interwoven with Native America, and of Washington’s role in developing policies that permanently affected Native America.

If you could impart one key takeaway from Washington’s life, what would it be?

Indian people and Indian lands played a crucial role in shaping the life of the man who shaped the nation.

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Dilemmas of the Age of Innovation

We live in the age of scientific optimism. Tomorrow’s new knowledge will vastly expand our understanding of ourselves and our mastery of the world. The flip side of scientific optimism, however, is that today’s knowledge is fraught with gaps and errors of which we are not yet aware. Furthermore, knowledge and understanding do not always grow gradually like the rings of a tree. Conceptual jolts and surprises fill the history of discovery, invention and innovation: the world is not flat; the heavens are not immutable; motion is not absolute; light is an electromagnetic phenomenon; flight is not limited to bugs and birds; biological species are neither perfected nor immutable; the human psyche harbors dark thoughts and hidden desires; there is intelligent life on Mars (not yet, but imagine how surprised we’ll be).

Our profound confidence in knowledge-based progress entails a dilemma: a new and innovative idea or object is putatively better than its precursor, but is often more uncertain precisely because of its newness. What if innovative looks better, but it might be much worse. We cannot know today what we will understand tomorrow about today’s discovery or invention. This innovation dilemma needn’t undermine our scientific optimism, but we must manage the continuous upheaval of knowledge.

Let’s consider a few examples of innovation dilemmas: e-reading, disruptive technology, attempts in ending terrorism, and the habit of open-mindedness.

e-reading

Digital tablets are versatile interactive graphic devices. They display pictures, project voices, show movies, store data, and link to user-chosen options and to the world. Is the tablet a good device for teaching young children reading and other language skills? The possibilities are great; tablets are fun and enable access to vast resources. But reading a tablet is different from reading a printed book. That’s precisely the attractive promise of this new technology. But are all the differences beneficial? To use or not to use this new device is an innovation dilemma. The new technology has tremendous purported and evident advantages over the familiar printed book. Its difference is its attraction, but also the source of concern because the impacts of those differences may be far worse than anticipated. The long-range impacts are poorly understood or not known at all because the device is new. At some point in the future the dilemma will vanish because we’ll know as much about e-reading as we now know about print-reading. But today we face an innovation dilemma.

Disruptive technology

Many successful firms maintain their standing by monitoring and responding to their customers’ needs, and by actively investing in new technologies or methods that sustain and extend the utility of their products to those customers. The continual improvement in data density of computer disk drives is an example. The core customers of the computer industry valued this sustained improvement, and the leading firms maintained their standing by responding to this need. Established customers can say what they need, but they cannot say what they don’t yet know that they need. A disruptive technology builds on a new market by offering a new capability that established major markets don’t (yet) need. The history of the computer industry illustrates that a disruptive technology identifies and nurtures a small potential market that is ignored by leaders in the industry. The innovation dilemma facing the successful manager is that a disruptive technology could peter out or it could overwhelmingly supplant existing technologies, and insufficient market data and insight are available to confidently predict which it will be.

Terrorism

The West faces serious terrorist threats from numerous radical Islamic organizations, including al-Qaeda and its off-shoot, the Islamic State. The split between al-Qaeda and the Islamic State derived from clashes of personality, strategy and tactics. The killing of bin Laden weakened al-Qaeda, and one would expect a similar impact on the Islamic State. However, the death of either leader would remove a major obstacle to the re-unification of these organizations, and could thus lead, inadvertently, to a strengthening of the world jihadist threat. The radically innovative strategy of leaving the leaderships intact could have a far better outcome than the standard approach of eliminating a charismatic leader of a terrorist regime. However, not attacking a ruthless and brutal terrorist organization could reverberate globally, among both friends and foes, in ways that are very difficult to predict. The innovative strategy is less familiar and more uncertain than the standard strategy. The innovation could be much better or far worse than the standard decapitation strategy. The paradigm of the innovation dilemma characterizes this situation even though new technology is not involved.

Open-mindedness

Habits are valuable, though they may also be detrimental. The habit of open-mindedness is a case in point because it constitutes an innovation dilemma. Without the habit of believing that past patterns will recur, we would be incapacitated and ineffectual. Who would dare climb stairs or fly planes without the belief that, like in the past, the stairs will bear our weight and the wings will carry us aloft. Without habits we’re lost in an unknowable world. And yet, openness to new ideas, tastes, sounds and other experiences can itself be a habit, and perhaps a good one. It is the habit of testing the unknown. The habit of open-mindedness is paradoxical. On the one hand habits are conservative. We repeat past practices by habit. On the other hand, the habit of open-mindedness can bring us to abandon our former habits, perhaps even abandoning the habit of open-mindedness. This paradox is an innovation dilemma. Openness to new things, ideas, and behaviors is potentially beneficial but possibly dangerous, where the uncertainty results from the newness. Habits, including the habit of open-mindedness, seem to be a good thing even though we can never know for sure how good or bad they really are.

The paradox of our enthusiasm for today’s innovations is that tomorrow’s discoveries will reveal today’s ignorance about those innovations. The challenge is in deciding today whether to use or abandon an enticing innovation.

 

Featured image credit: ‘People Boy Ipad’, Public Domain via Max Pixel.

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Ask OUP: we answer your questions about US elections

In September, we asked our followers to send us questions regarding the US midterm elections using the hashtag #AskOUP. We compiled a list of our favorite questions and answered them below.

How many seats do the Democrats need to regain control over the House and Senate?
In order for the Democrats to gain control over the House, they would need to see a net gain of 24 seats. To regain control of the Senate, Democrats would need to keep all of their seats and capture two of the Republican seats for a 51-49 majority. Of the seats up for election, 35 are held by Democrats, and nine are held by Republicans.

What is the average voter turnout for midterm elections?
Answered by L. Sandy Maisel in American Political Parties and Elections: A Very Short Introduction
In Denmark and Germany, turnout in typical elections for the legislature averages between 70 and 90 percent; in Poland and Switzerland, about 50 percent; and in recent US elections, around 36 percent have voted in midterm elections and about 50 percent in presidential.

How serious of an issue is voter fraud? What is being done to prevent it?
Answered by the editors of Electoral Integrity in America
We know surprisingly little about exactly what types of registration and voting procedures pose trade-offs between maximizing access and preventing electoral fraud, and what areas of election administration provide opportunities to pursue both goals simultaneously. Some scholars are circumspect about the trade-offs between these goals, arguing that there is no tension between inclusion and security, at least concerning certain policies like voter identification, Election Day, and early voting. Some argue more broadly that “efforts to make it easier to register and vote are compatible with the prevention of election fraud.” Yet comparative research shows that some efforts to clean up elections have the potential to disenfranchise some voters, and in the US popular concerns about voter fraud and partisan acrimony over voting procedures persist. Concerns about voter fraud continue to be used to justify not only voter identification policies but also regulations on voter registration drives and cutbacks in early voting.

Because partisanship surrounds contemporary debates over election administra­tion procedures, it can be difficult to distinguish between strategic efforts to shape voting rules for partisan advantage and genuine ideological or pragmatic differences over competing goals of electoral integrity. It is thus important to have evidence-based analysis of how different election administration practices affect voter access and election fraud.

#AskOUP question about the midterm elections asked on Twitter. Image used with permission of @lmtaylor222.

Are there still systems and laws in place that affect the way votes are cast and counted?
Answered by the editors of The Oxford Handbook of the American Congress
How votes are aggregated through any electoral system affects political outcomes. Single-member district systems tend to distort vote shares into seat shares more than other representational systems, to the detriment of non-geographically concentrated minor political parties. Those who control redistricting can further manipulate these distortions to their advantage through a strategy known as gerrymandering.

In the theoretical extreme, it is possible for a political party that receives a quarter of the votes to win half of the seats, if it arranges its supporters such that they constitute a bare majority in half of the districts. The distribution of partisan supporters among districts may also be manipulated by varying the number of persons within districts, a practice known as malapportionment. Prior to the 1960s, state legislators—who often have primary authority to draw district lines—were loath to redistrict, since this upset connections between representatives and their constituents. Inaction created “creeping malapportionment,” whereby fast-growing urban areas were incrementally afforded less representation than slow-growing rural areas. Redistricting must now occur in a timely manner, following a national decennial census, although state laws dictate whether states may redistrict more than once between censuses. 

Does political polarization pose a problem in US politics?
Answered by Yochai Benkler, Robert Faris, and Hal Roberts in their book Network Propaganda
Prior to the 2018 midterm elections, an unusually high number of incumbent Republican senators and representatives announced that they would retire from Congress rather than seek re-election.  Polarization was not the only factor at play. Some were facing increasingly competitive elections and the possibility of losing the power and leverage of being part of the majority party. However, increasing polarization and acrimony in Congress was a frequently cited factor, accentuating the fact that this is a conspicuous and unfortunate aspect of political life in the United States today, even among those who have at times helped to further and deepen legislative polarization.

I feel like today’s news cycle jumps from controversy to controversy. How can we better communicate when it comes to political policies?
Answered by Walter Sinnott-Armstrong in his book Think Again
Politicians cannot work together, at least partly because they do not understand each other. Opponents will never agree to bear their share of the burden if they do not understand why that burden needs to be carried. This lack of understanding might sometimes result from incommensurable world views or conflicting assumptions that prevent mutual comprehension. However, political opponents too often do not even try to understand each other, partly be­cause they see no personal or political gain in reaching out and being fair. Indeed, they often have strong incentives neither to reach out nor to be fair. Tweeters and bloggers go wild on the Internet, because their goal is to gain likes for their jokes and gibes. They receive few such rewards on the Internet from balanced attempts to see the other side in contentious debates. Why should they try to understand their opponents when they think that they are bound to fail and get nothing in return for their attempts? Admittedly, many interesting and insightful conversations do occur on Twitter and the Internet, but the huge number of lurking trolls scares off many potential contributors.

When they give up on understanding, they turn to willful misunderstanding and misinterpretation. Arguments do little good when the audience is not receptive, so we also need to learn social skills and habits to encourage our audiences to be receptive to reasons.

Featured image credit: Vote Voting Ballot by mohamed_hassan. CC0 via Pixabay.

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