Saturday, January 15, 2011

Crosshairs and Causality

The January 8th shooting in Tuscon Arizona of Representative Gabrielle Giffords has grabbed the nation's attention in a big way. Predictably, pundits are punditing, politicians are politicizing, and academics (like me) are academizing as to the cause and meaning of this tragic event.

Mass shootings are sadly not new to us, but they still evoke horror and revulsion. And this one has an added impact because of its political context. I think much of the social turmoil in the wake of the shooting can be seen as a desperate effort to cope with the uncertainty and unpredictability it represents. The threat that horrific unexpected events pose to our understanding of the world around us is one of the most unpleasant of human emotions, and we go to great lengths to reduce it, sometimes by adopting simplistic causal theories that we believe can explain away the event's initial incomprehensibility.

The causal theories we adopt are likely to be those that are in line with our general world view, and also that serve specific psychological functions for us. The January 8th shooting occurred in a climate of political rhetoric that has become increasingly vitriolic, and some have suggested this as the primary cause. Others, particularly those who have been noted for using such language (like Sarah Palin) have vigorously rejected rhetoric as a cause and instead label the shooter's behavior as simply "insane," or "crazy," thereby absolving anyone of culpability.

The cultural and psychological context of causal theories becomes particularly apparent when you look at the way the Giffords shooting has been reported in the foreign media. Analysis of world media coverage by The Global Post, found that "Many commenters in the foreign press around the world said they were little surprised given America's lax gun laws and recent history of mass shootings. Still other media outlets ignored the American tragedy entirely. For example, in Europe the story has generally been covered much less than in the U.S. According to the Global Post's Michael Goldfarb, "The French press is consumed by the murder of two Frenchmen murdered in Niger by an African subsidiary of Al Qaeda. The German press has major flooding along the Rhine to contend with. But the lack of prominence given to the story could be down to this: For many in Europe, violence of the sort that occurred in Tucson on Saturday is almost expected in America." Ouch.

In other parts of the world the media reflected on the meaning of the event in terms of their own social dynamics. Global Post correspondents Erik German and Solana Pyne noted that in Latin America, "Lima’s El Comercio, Peru’s biggest newspaper, published a profile of Daniel Hernandez, the young Gifford staffer who held a bandage over the Congresswoman’s wounds before paramedics arrived on the scene. The “Hispanic angel,” El Commercio wrote, “saved the life of congresswoman Gabrielle Giffords.” As to causal analyses, Argentina’s biggest daily, Clarin, published a 500-word piece by their Washington correspondent, Ana Baron, who focused heavily on Arizona’s tough stance on Latino immigration and what she described as the “growth of hatred and intolerance in U.S. politics.”

These examples illustrate (a) how the emotional impact of an event is moderated by the personal and culture context in which it is perceived, (b) the motivated nature of causal analysis, and (c) how simplistic explanations can satisfy our yearning for clarity and understanding. But the true situation is most certainly far more complex and not amenable to sound bites. One of my favorite columnists (E.J. Dionne) has as usual offered what I regard as an astute insight into these things and I'll close this blog with his words:
It is not partisan to observe that there are cycles to violent rhetoric in our politics. In the late 1960s, violent talk (and sometimes violence itself) was more common on the far left. But since President Obama's election, it is incontestable that significant parts of the American far right have adopted a language of revolutionary violence in the name of overthrowing "tyranny."

It is Obama's opponents who carried guns to his speeches and cited Jefferson's line that the tree of liberty "must be refreshed from time to time with the blood of patriots and tyrants."

It was Sharron Angle, the Republican candidate against Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid in Nevada, who spoke of "Second Amendment remedies." And, yes, it was Palin who put those gun sights over the districts of the Democrats she was trying to defeat, including Giffords.

The point is not to "blame" American conservatism for the actions of a possibly deranged man, especially since the views of Jared Lee Loughner seem so thoroughly confused. But we must now insist with more force than ever that threats of violence no less than violence itself are antithetical to democracy. Violent talk and playacting cannot be part of our political routine. It is not cute or amusing to put crosshairs over a congressional district.

Liberals were rightly pressed in the 1960s to condemn violence on the left. Now, conservative leaders must take on their fringe when it uses language that intimates threats of bloodshed. That means more than just highly general statements praising civility.

Sunday, January 2, 2011

Thoughts for a New Year

The year 2011 marks the beginning of the second decade of my retirement. A good time for some reflection and prognostication. ** [Warning: This may get a little boring, so feel free to go do something more interesting, like sorting your socks.]**

My wife and I retired in 2000 at age 55. Such a young retirement age may seem almost hopelessly unattainable for most people in the current economic climate, but conditions were much better then. We were fortunate to be able to finance our retirement through a combination of prudent savings, conservative investing, and 30+ years of contributions to a state teachers' pension plan. Oh, and we didn't have kids.

Looking back at these last ten years, I have to say that on the whole they have been really, really, good. In analyzing the reasons I feel so positive about this past decade, I've of course relied on my psychological training and my ability as a university professor to concoct an answer to any question whatsoever, regardless of whether I know what I'm talking about.

Retirement is an exercise in existential angst management second only to being a teenager (well, and for men maybe a Mid-Life Crisis). These times confront you with fearsome challenges to define your values and  goals, and to set a life course that will have a major impact on your emotional, social, and psychological well-being. The problem in both cases is that there is really no road map or set of guidelines to follow, and this lack of clarity can be quite scary.

Sure, you can make plans to do X or Y, as people often do when they retire: "I'm going to start a new business;" "I want to play every Robert Trent Jones course in the world;" I want to sail the South Pacific; "I'm going to buy an RV and travel;" "I'm going to learn Sanskrit;" "I'll clean out my garage." But having a plan doesn't really address the angst issue, even though it makes you feel like you've got everything under control. The truth is that over the past ten years, and indeed over the previous 55 years, the best experiences I've had were (a) unplanned and (b) unexpected.

Retirement has forced me to confront issues of what and who I am -- issues that I thought I had resolved during my career. In fact I now realize just how much my career was a defining structure that provided answers to these questions and gave my life meaning and purpose. When retirement removed that structure I had to confront the questions anew.  And since we moved away from the academic environment to a completely different cultural setting, I didn't even have the old social situations and institutions to ease the existential burden.

So, what I have learned, and why has it made me happy? Here's a partial list:
  • Existential questions probably don't have final answers.  When you accept this, continuing to ask them and to explore temporary answers can actually be very satisfying and even fun.
  • Learning new things and learning more about old things is a vital source of  my happiness, and learning can occur at any time and in any place if you let it.
  • If you look closely at something, you will often find an amazing world in the details.
  • Worrying is truly a waste of time that could be better spent doing something that enhances happiness.
  • The qualities of people and things that we think make us happy or unhappy are not inherent in them.  Happiness isn't caused by people or things, but rather by our reactions to them.
  • Compassion is the best antidote for anger.  And of course, you can't be happy and angry at the same time.
 See you in another ten years.