Adam Gopnick's Telling Point about the power of stories

This quote is worth noting:

And if these claims seem almost too large to argue, the more central claim—that stories increase our empathy, and “make societies work better by encouraging us to behave ethically”—seems too absurd even to argue with. Surely if there were any truth in the notion that reading fiction greatly increased our capacity for empathy then college English departments, which have by far the densest concentration of fiction readers in human history, would be legendary for their absence of back-stabbing, competitive ill-will, factional rage, and egocentric self-promoters; they’d be the one place where disputes are most often quickly and amiably resolved by mutual empathetic engagement. It is rare to see a thesis actually falsified as it is being articulated.

Read more http://www.newyorker.com/online/blogs/books/2012/05/can-science-explain-why-we-tell-stories.html#ixzz1wAu41PP6

Yes, the whole post is worthwhile, but the quote is too good!

In Praise of Audio Books

This article about audio with kids & this one on more generally on audio books highlights a favorite pass  time of mine: being read  to. I almost always have a book or lecture going in my car. From Moby Dick to The Illiad to The Great Gatsby, I've enjoyed them as much or more by having them read to me. And as to kids books, The Giver and The Witches pop to mind immediately as a part of our trips to Michigan!  I received a great deal of pleasure reading the our daughters--1HP even suffered me to read to her in high school (she's old enough to admit it now) from the instructional & enigmatic Sophie's World.


Great readers & performers? Of course, the great Shakespearean actors reading Shakespeare: Geilgud, Olivier, Burton, Guiness, etc. (I often go back to Burton reading John Donne, too--what a treat!). George Guidall will always be the voice of the great phyisician-essayist Lewis Thomas to me, and Frank Muller brought Moby Dick to life in a way that a couple of futile attempts at reading it could not.

Perhaps I should join the author of the second article in listening to Caro's lastest installment his incredible LBJ biography. Hmmm, maybe. But in the not too distant future, I won't have a car. Listening as I drive makes me a much happier driver. (Currently listening  to Thinking, Fast & Slow: highly recommended.)

Why Is This Man Laughing? by Garry Wills | NYRblog | The New York Review of Books

Why Is This Man Laughing? by Garry Wills | NYRblog | The New York Review of Books

I've held a conversation as recently as today about Romney's awkwardness. Just an awkward smart/rich guy who can't fit in? Is he just plain weird? As I generally avoid watching him since I rarely agree with him, he panders far beyond even the average politician (a high bar to exceed), I won't vote for him, and he IS AWKWARD. Thus, I don't see his laugh that often, but Wills gives us some insight from his position as a veteran political reporter, as well as Kundera & Dostoevsky reader. Very interesting.

Thomas Friedman, Michael Sandel & Sky Boxes

Thomas Friedman considers Michael Sandel's arguments fron Sandel's new book, What Money Can't Buy: The Moral Limits of Markets. I write about it for three points:

 1. Friedman points out this observation by Sandel that bears repeating & consideration:

Sandel sees them [intrusion of commercial advertising into almost all areas of life] as signs of a bad trend: “Over the last three decades,” he states, “we have drifted from having a market economy to becoming a market society. A market economy is a tool — a valuable and effective tool — for organizing productive activity. But a ‘market society’ is a place where everything is up for sale. It is a way of life where market values govern every sphere of life.”

This is an important distinction. Markets allow information to travel across diverse & unconnected users and distribute assets with an efficiency that eludes any central planner. (Hayek here.) But this cultural trend goes way beyond that, making us consumers and not citizens. A very big and important difference to my mind.

 2. Sky boxes. When in college, I gave a ride the hometown radio folks from the airport to Kinnick Stadium to broadcast the Hawkeye-Cyclone game, the first such game in about three decades. Anyway, I went to the press box, up high, very nice, but I couldn't stay. The electricity and fun of the game was in the stands with my fellow students. I couldn't scream, curse, chant, or do victory dances in the the press box! Now, they have sky boxes, antiseptic glass booths for the well-heeled to make appearances and schmooze. I don't envy those folks, I kind of feel badly for them. If you come to a public event such as a Hawkeye football game, come for the communal experience, not to be isolated. I think that the commercialization of big-time (read football & men's basketball) college athletics appears to me more and more a mistake. Anyway, my rant seems apropos of Sandel's more sophisticated thoughts. Another book for my reading list.

 3. One more thing: would the United State of America have survived and flourished without civic virtue practices by the Founders? These men were not angels or demi-gods; they had their material sides, but they were motivated by ideals as well, ideals in part from the tradition of civic republicanism. (The book to read to get a sense of this: Garry Wills' Cincinnatus: George Washington & the Enlightenment.)

Garry Wills on Christianity & Marriage

In the NYRB blog, Wills gives a brief but eye-opening history of marriage in the Christian tradition. He wrote this in light of Obama's recent endorsement of gay marriage and the continuing debate in this country about that. (Obama, of course, following Joe Biden on this!) The blog speaks for itself, but beyond the issue of gay marriage, it's a reminder that all human institutions have a history and are marked by change. We only know of the passage of time because of change. We have to understand that all human institutions, including religious institutions and beliefs, change with time. Fortunately, most now agree that the slavery, polygamy, and genocide favorably referenced in the Bible are wrong. This is, of course, a historical development. We need to consider how core messages worth keeping can be separated from the baggage of past human cultures that we can no longer endorse. Gay marriage is such an example.

Gary Taubes Continues the Good Fight

I tweeted a reference to this article, but you should read it. It summarizes his arguments and insights about obesity. As the referenced documentary apparently makes clear, the CW (conventional wisdom) still attacks the same old shibboleths, but to no avail. Time to take Taubes seriously.

Garry Wills on Caro on LBJ & Bobby

Garry Wills is a master writer and biographer of--among others-- Nixon & the Kennedy clan. Robert Caro, is perhaps the great biographer of our times, and his recently published The Passage of Power: The Years of Lyndon Johnson takes on a time that seems far away, but is well within the memory of many of us. In this piece, Wills does a riff on Caro's work. Wills notes that one of the great themes arising from Caro's most recent volume is the hatred between LBJ & Bobby Kennedy. Hatred, as an important component of this book, overrides, at least in part, Caro's grand theme of the exercise and struggle for political power in mid-20th century America. This piece is a delight, but as Wills notes, the hatred between Kennedy and Johnson brought out the worst in both of them. As Wills describes it, it's like watching two trains colliding head-on.