Respect my authoritah!

On April 7, 2014August 31, 2016 By Swarn GillIn Commentary, Philosophy, Psychology, Science12 Comments

I was reading a fellow blogger’s post about the vaccination debate (a debate that should not even exist) as the author of the blog had highlighted a particular response to her blog from a physician and posed the question about why are we not willing to

listen to the physicians point of view. She was also interested about why we would trust doctor’s in one case, but not in the case of vaccinations. This is a very valid question. If you are going to say doctors are out to lunch on vaccines and the very same medical science goes into everything else in the profession then you should never go see a doctor, take care of things on your own, and most importantly keep your kid at home so he or she doesn’t infect anybody else.

However it is the “Why don’t we believe the physician?” question that had me thinking as I drove to work this morning and I started thinking about how this is true for things like climate change and other scientific issues now and in the past like GMOs, evolution, the dangers of smoking, etc. I was reminded of an excellent YouTube video that I have posted many times before called Good without Gods that talks about the basis for morality in a society. One of the ways in which we can acquire morality is by default to authority, sometimes mistakenly so. I believe that this is a basic cognitive bias humans have, perhaps because we all, from a very young age, default to the authority of our parents. Part of growing up is realizing that your parents don’t have all the answers and don’t know everything, but part of our brains never really grows out of this default to authority bias. This is in part why many people feel comfortable deriving their morality from religious authority without question. Of course there is too much to know in the world and defaulting to authority saves time, and thus energy of which we all have only a finite amount of. As a scientist I would say always be skeptical, but that means that we should also be equally skeptical to somebody who says vaccines cause autism. In the face of controversy it seems the default to authority is what people rely on, so the question is, why isn’t the authority thousands of scientists who by consensus and exhaustive amounts of research say one thing as opposed to a politician who says another? I have come up with a few possibilities but would be interested to hear what others think. Here are the thoughts that I have come up with so far:

False authority figures. Who are the people we value in our society?
Michele Bachmann – Not an authority figure (From http://www.warrenjasonstreet.com)

Here in the U.S. it seems like the views of celebrities, politicians, and people with money (who are sometimes all one and the same) carry weight as being an authority on scientific issues. This is simply not the case.
The power of money. In a highly consumer based society, money is seen as equivocal to power and thus authority. If you have a lot of money you must have been smart to get it. That is false of course. Many people inherit their wealth, have connections, work very hard (but don’t necessarily have a high intellect), and some just get lucky breaks. Most of the smartest people I know don’t make money their goal.
Devaluing intellectualism. In many countries I have visit those who are well educated, teachers, scientists are well respected in the community and in society at large. Education itself is increasingly devalued here in the U.S. and so if educated people don’t have value in society that how can they be a worthwhile authority on anything?

The American Dream was built on valuing education, change, and progress. We do not live in a society in which that dream is simply unobtainable for most and yet we believe in the concept like it manifested itself out of nothing.

Paltry Proverbs

On March 24, 2014March 25, 2014 By Swarn GillIn Commentary, Philosophy, Psychology11 Comments

If there was one thing Facebook is good for (or possibly bad for) is the dispensing of canned advice through adages, proverbs, clichés, and quotes from a random assortment of famous people. I’m not going lie, I do love a good quote now and then. There have been great minds in our history who have profound things to say. There is one adage that annoys me to no end, and so you’ll have to forgive for doing a little bit of venting.

“God only gives you only what you can handle”.

Now this has nothing to do with me being an atheist. Even if I was a theist this statement would be wholly false. Like many of the adages floating out there on social media at best this applies to first world citizens, but even then it still seems like it could end up insulting a lot of people.

My first thought when I first heard the expression: well how many people die of starvation every day? For your information 1.5 million children starve to death in the world each year. That’s over 4,000 children a day, or about 1 child every 20 seconds. Clearly these children were given a situation in which they could not handle. Why would God give children such a situation to begin with?

What about all the people who die of cancer, heart disease, or other fatal conditions? What about the people who suffer nervous breakdowns, have undiagnosed trauma, severe depression? What of those who go a step further and tragically take their own life?

There is no doubt that all of us have a certain amount of adversity we have to face in life. We of course want to survive and for the most case if we can handle it, we will. Nobody wants to just let a difficult situation destroy their lives, or weaken them to the point of personal neglect. Ultimately we handle adversity the best way can, and hope that we are better and stronger for it afterwards. But there are plenty of situations that are beyond one individual.

What is most bothersome about the saying is what it implies about you if you couldn’t handle the situation. If God gives you only what you can handle, if you didn’t handle it, then it must be your fault in some way. You must be doing something wrong. If this message is supposed to give you strength to handle a situation, failure to do so may not bring you the peace you desire.

In the end it is a fairly empty piece of advice, applicable to relatively mild situations, and really only verifiable in hindsight to someone who got through a difficult situation successfully. Personally I think we can come up with something a little more helpful than this expression.

Join Together With the Band

On March 19, 2014 By Swarn GillIn Philosophy, Psychology6 Comments

Whether self is an illusion or not the end result is the same. We try to set ourselves apart. Even with respect to those we are closest with. It can be a simple thing such as the way we style or hair or the clothes we like to wear. But more often we set ourselves apart from people through bigger traits, such as intelligence, style, athleticism, friendliness, openness, leadership, etc. To do this often we must make judgments. Sometimes those judgments are through evidence, but many times they are not. Our sense of self not only wants us to be unique but often more special as well.

This is all clearly one side of the coin, because on the other side is the part of us that wants to be part of a collective. Here we find a

strong desire for community, a need to fit in, a want to be surrounded by those that are like us. It seems that most people exist on a spectrum between pure individualism and pure collectivism. Some people need community more than others. Some people value their individualism more than others. Many people I know who are religious, while they may talk firmly about their religious convictions, when they talk about what they enjoy most about their faith, it is being with groups of people who share the same beliefs. The sense of community is often strong with them; whether it is fond memories of big family gatherings surrounding religious holidays, or socializing with members from their church. I know at a lot of Sikh temples, the women get dressed to the nines to go to church because it is much more of a social gathering than a simple practice of faith.

What really interests me about a group or a collective are the mechanisms in which they work. Besides the psychological comfort of being surrounded by like-minded people, there is also safety and protection with in a group. A group, singular in purpose, will often be more successful and have higher productivity than an individual. Sometimes that purpose can be positive such as a group of volunteers cleaning up a neighborhood or park. Other times large groups can become a mob and be damaging and irrational.

What I think is fascinating is that despite how singular the purpose the group may have, it seems that the most successful groups are the ones in which there is diversity and a good deal of individualism. A sports team may have an overall purpose of winning a game, but a football team will never win if everybody is only good at throwing the ball. Each player must have their specialty and those individual efforts must be coordinated in achieving a purpose. Most things that require a group of people require diversity as well; whether that is diversity in skills, talents and ideas. Diversity generally benefits the entire group. All people have a chance to grow as they learn from others and appreciate others for the special skills that they bring to the collective.

I am a big fan of the rock band Queen. I remember watching an interview once with Freddie Mercury or Brian May. I can’t quite remember who said the words, but the words themselves have always stuck with me. It was something along the lines of “We are

all very different people and studio sessions are exhausting as all 4 of us fight to get a little of what we want on each album or track. But because of all that fighting we are able to produce something better than what any of us could produce individually”. Dealing with diversity is exhausting. It would be much easier if everybody thought exactly the same way and things didn’t have to turn into arguments, and that you didn’t have to compromise. When the value of diversity is not appreciated that is when groups fall apart. This is true whether it’s a leader who doesn’t listen to others, or a team member who forgets that it is teamwork that wins in the end and not solely an individual effort.

Our desire for individualism and being part of a group or community is a fundamental part of humanity. People say that the U.S. is a very individualistic society and that we are built on a strong sense of individualism. Yet the first words of the Constitution are “We the people…”. I do think our desire for both does often lead to struggle though. If self is a product of knowing others than the group even becomes more important as we try to define ourselves as individuals. As the world gets connected more globally, it is easy to feel more lost and unsure of who we are as individuals and how we can contribute to this large community. Maybe that’s why I’ve always valued learning and education. The more I know about the world, the more I learn about myself.

Love Child

On March 9, 2014April 6, 2014 By Swarn GillIn Parenting, Philosophy, Psychology4 Comments

After my son was born I suddenly realized how people could be baby crazy and wrote an apology to all those who I thought were insane. 🙂

In that same vein I would like to continue with this topic as I reflect upon the love I have for my son right now.

It’s insane. The love is like no other. It feels so strong that it’s like it could literally jump out of my chest and wrap itself

around my boy. I am not going to say it’s better or worse, but it’s unique. It’s like falling in love, but as I mentioned before, even when you fall in love it feels like it’s based on something in the other person that is describable, even though the love you feel is more than the sum of those tangible criteria. This feeling is totally biological. My son barely has a personality, has barely acknowledged my existence, knows nothing about me, and we can’t communicate, but my love grows each in every day. So much so that it scares me.

I’ve always tried to understand the darker nature in ourselves and what I am feeling right now helps understand some behaviors better, while others I am even more clueless. For instance I don’t understand how people can do unspeakable cruelty to their children; beat them, scream at them, shake them to death, forget about them. I am not talking about parents who work very hard to try to provide for their kids and whose hearts are broken that they don’t get to spend more time with them. But real abuse. It feels as wrong to me as 2+2=5. It’s just not an option.

On the other hand I get a glimpse into the type of parent who would do very irrational things to protect their children. Or parents who would make their whole world revolve around their children to the point of their detriment. I am not condoning these behaviors only that I see it. It’s not an abstract thing to me anymore. I can see how the intense love you feel would make you do some pretty stupid things. As intense love is prone to do, for whomever you feel it for. But it is still very different from that intense love and passion of romantic love. Perhaps I lack some depth of feeling but there is something about falling in love with an adult that is different because the other person is an adult. You have the feeling that they can take care of themselves, they have the ability to make their own decisions, and there is a certain understanding that you can’t control the other person (healthy love anyway, obviously many try to control their partners and this usually become dysfunctional quickly). The helplessness and the innocence of a baby turns your love into such a fury of protection that it’s without measure. As my love grows I get so scared about what would happen if I lost him. I already have no idea how I’d emotionally deal with something so big. I hope I never have to pass through such a trial because I am not sure I could carry the weight. So I get it. I see it as though I stand on the top of a hill and see how slippery the slope is to just doing stupid

Trying to convince my son to smile...he wasn't quite ready at 5 weeks. :) — Trying to convince my son to smile…he wasn’t quite ready at 5 weeks. 🙂

things out of love. And whenever this happens I am thankful for it because I know I have increased my capacity for forgiveness.

And though I see such things I know that I am capable of keeping my sense of reason. It is precisely because I love my son so much that I know that if I really want to give him the best opportunities in this world he needs to have a dad who maintains a measure of reason in the face of overwhelming emotion. So I must continue to be vigilant and direct my love into ways that will strengthen him and not weaken him.

Are we ourselves?

On March 8, 2014 By Swarn GillIn Commentary, Philosophy, Psychology, Science9 Comments

Psychology has become a fascination for me in recent years, particularly trying to understand how the mind works. A class I sat in last year about love which focuses a lot on our relationship to others had me also asking the question “What about the

love we have for ourselves?” In talking to my colleague who teaches the class, she said to her knowledge, while many have done intensive studies both through surveys and neuroanalyses of the brain in relation to the love we feel towards others, she wasn’t aware of any studies that really studies our brain when we think about our own self. For instance I wonder, what areas of the brain activate when we start talking about ourselves? Is it the same area that activates when we talk about our mother? A frightening thought indeed. Like many questions it began to lead me down a whole other path of thinking as well about how we develop identity and about individualism. How do we become the people that we are? How do we know ourselves? Is our sense of self just an illusion?

In the first month or so it is clear that newborns don’t have a sense of self, and numerous studies have shown that they still see themselves as extensions of their mother. Essentially still in the womb, although the womb conditions have clearly gone through some big changes. 🙂 For the past few weeks I can clearly start to see changes in my son as he begins to engage in the world and starts realizing that he is an individual separate from others. Although filled with a lot of terminology I am less familiar with my colleague sent me a link to a paper that talks about the development of self (as well as other things). I found it interesting to learn that the sense of self is initial learned by imitating and watching the behavior of others. As social animals only through learning about others do we begin to get a sense of self. I found this to be a fascinating dichotomy. Because on one hand we think of ourselves as unique, which is at the heart of our individualism, but this uniqueness appears to come from the observations of others.

Now I am not suggesting that we don’t have some genetic uniqueness as well. Many parents report their children having a personality from very young ages that appears to be different from their own or their siblings. I have no doubt that this is true. But it could be that the children are picking up on personality traits that we don’t recognize (or admit) in ourselves or it could be that genetic differences influence how we perceive the actions of others and thus each child interprets behaviors and intentions slightly differently.

It seems to me that even if this would not be the case we would still all be quite unique because our lives are sum of a unique set of experiences. No person meets the exact same people, goes to the exact same places, and experiences the exact same education. We are all dynamic and constantly changing individuals such that even children of the same parents will experience their parents and different times in their lives when they have more or less experience, different skill sets, etc.

So it’s not that self is so much an illusion but rather that the concept of self perhaps has no value without the context of others, especially for a social species. We are constantly comparing ourselves to others, judging others, labeling and categorizing others, and while I can see the harm that this can sometimes, it seems that it is something we have been doing all our lives. Without doing that can we understand who we are as individuals without comparing and contrasting ourselves to

others? People tell you not to care what others think of you, but this seems like somewhat unrealistic advice. No matter how much a person protests that they don’t care, there is no question we all do care. What we really want to do is shrug off the people who think we suck and believe hook, line, and sinker in the people who think we are awesome. It seems to me that this is really hard thing to do given how much of our life we spend defining ourselves through our relationships with other people and so we must often take the good with the bad and then reflect on the interpretation that others seem to gather of our behaviors and actions.

I would love to hear the thoughts others have about this, and would love to get academic about it as well is you have any expertise to share. This I would like to be just one in a 3 part series as I am also fascinated, as an extension of individualism, by collectivism. After that I’d like to look at the somewhat more ethereal topic of duality.

Love and the Future

On January 22, 2014June 30, 2016 By Swarn GillIn Parenting, Philosophy, Psychology, Science6 Comments

Lately and perhaps not surprisingly with a newborn in my arms I have been pondering love again. This, in addition with a psychology class I sat in on last semester about the subject, and some other articles I read recently, has led me to feel like exploring my thoughts a little. Not too long ago I was conversing with a fellow blogger who posted some writings from a Buddhist about love that said something to the order of “true love can only exist in the present”. As I paused for thought, I appreciated the truth of those words in an ideal sense, but it struck me as not how love seems to

From www.mindbodygreen.com — From http://www.mindbodygreen.com

work.

When I’ve fallen in love before, and others that I’ve talked to share similar experiences, thoughts of the future seem to go with it. I often described it as painting pictures in your mind. You fall in love, you start to see happy times, future celebrations, children, growing old together. These pictures seem extremely vivid. Like memories you’ve built on events yet to happen. From a biological sense this seems to make sense because that is how love should work. Love builds attachments, and attachments in this world give you strength. If love did not make us feel this way it seems like we would lose an important part of what love is really for; to give us companionship and togetherness, and increase our chances of survival in a world filled with uncertainty. Feelings of security and visions of the future seem so tangible to me, I wonder if it is true to others who have been in love. Nevertheless, if you could truly stay focused on the present, maybe this could take away much of the pain when a relationship ends. And I think sometimes this is why a relationship ends. You focus on the future that you take the other for granted in the present. And the loss of a relationship leaves you with vivid visions of events that will now no longer take place. Those events are in your memory and I’ve always felt that recovery from a relationship literally requires erasing those memories.

As I look at my son in my arms, I am filled up with love. Of course this also makes sense from a biological standpoint. I think the love of a parent in animals is somewhat proportional to how helpless they are when they are born. Human children are completely helpless such that any indifference on our part would lead to less care and more infant mortality. Some creatures have the ability to “hit the ground running” parents are protective to a certain degree, but especially if you are born prey, the kid has to kind of take care of himself a bit too and learn to run as fast as possible. Love comes in many forms and certainly the love for one’s child is different than romantic love, but I started to ask myself, what is that I love about my son? If asked the same question about my wife I could point to a large list of qualities in her, I could recount numerous wonderful memories and happy moments. There are of course physical attributes too as a basis for attraction. The love has a clear basis. No quality is perhaps unique in her, but all together she certainly is unique. The fact that I love her is not surprising, and the fact that there aren’t others out there who I might love or have loved her is not surprising either. But as I look at my son I wonder what is it based on other than a biological drive to love my child. I find him beautiful of course. Every parent finds their child beautiful. Once again if we didn’t, we might be less likely to want to take care of them. But he has no personality to speak of. He hasn’t been alive more than a month yet and we have few memories together at all. We have nothing in common except some DNA. We can’t really do a whole lot together. It is a purely one sided relationship. We give and he takes. If this were anybody else, friends would say,” you need to get out of that relationship.” Lol

I then read a story about someone having twins prematurely and losing one of them and of course I naturally thought about how I would feel if

my son were to die. Of course it would be grievously painful, but I thought to myself what would I be grieving about? If I lost my wife, the pain of numerous past memories and a deep sense of loss over qualities she possessed that I would no longer be privilege to would flood my mind for many years to come, in addition to the loss of the future I dreamed of us having together. It seems that if I did lose my son the majority of my grief would be grieving the loss of his future. For as someone in love with his child I see a future filled with vacations, camping trips, teaching him science, helping him with homework, going to graduations, seeing him grow and hit milestones in his life as we all do.

The future is truly uncertain and so loving only in the present seems wise in some respect, but I’m not sure it’s possible. I think the best we can do is try not to build those hopes and dreams so solidly that we allow them take different shapes. Nevertheless a part of me feels like the love I have right now for my child seems less solid somehow because it seems largely based on a feeling completely intangible and dreams of the future. However, I know that as he grows and I spend more time with him it will simply gets stronger and I know that as we do build more memories and I do get to know him as a person that I will be more and more in love with him. Given how much I love him already the thought of that fills me with nothing but pleasure. That is at least one vision of the future that I can hold on to without fear.

Unhealthy thoughts

On January 19, 2014January 19, 2014 By Swarn GillIn Parenting, Psychology2 Comments

A friend of mine gave us this adorable little lumberjack outfit as a gift for the birth of our child. It’s probably going to be a year or so before he fits into it, but he is going to look so cute when he is wearing it. In my mind I was picture how handsome he is going to look and then all of a sudden I was thinking how adorable he would look in all sorts of outfits. He’s such a beautiful baby. I wouldn’t be surprised if professionals wanted to take his picture. He’d become a baby model. Then I started picturing him as this little toddler, hair-styled, posing for pictures in magazines and advertisements. The world confirming how beautiful my child is, and me feeling good the whole way. Then I started imagining become all self-centered and narcissistic about his looks and this horrible teenage model who all the other kids hated, and I was the cause of it all. Then all of a sudden the metaphorical sound of a record scratching occurred in my head, and I was like “Whoa, where did that come from?”

For a second I got inside the mind of those crazy parents who rear their children to be in beauty contests, or TV children from the outset. Maybe in some ways that was a good thing as I always like to try to understand people, even where what seem like a ridiculous and foreign notion comes from. Then there it was, popping into my head though I was diametrically opposed to such practices before having a kid. Well I still am, but I think I saw the beginning of the reasoning. Love is a strange thing. If you’ve fallen in love before, you know that you sort of just expect everyone else that you know to love that person too. Maybe the love I feel for my son is making me want others to love him just is much, which neither practical or realistic. But that is probably a more innocent explanation. Individuality takes time to develop in a new life. Somewhere around 6 months a baby will realize that it is a separate being from the mother. They learn individuality from watching their parents of course, so even individuality is something that is learned through others. In the time before they see themselves as extensions of their mother. I pondered that perhaps the relationship works both ways. It’s something that I have noted before having a child perhaps, but didn’t really understand. How long does it take parents to not see children as an extension of themselves? For some parents it seems to never end. As a professor I have had to deal with many parents who will not let their child make a decision for themselves even though they are college aged. It is clear to me that the mother who enters who daughter into beauty pageants from the age of a toddler is clearly not respecting the individuality of the child as is doing it for themselves. Parents who force their kids into one profession or another also are projecting their wishes on their child. So I thank those unhealthy thoughts for putting what I knew in my subconscious into my conscious that I better always remember to respect the individuality of my child. I still can’t wait to see him in that lumberjack outfit though. 🙂

Monster Trucks and Big Guns

On January 3, 2014January 3, 2014 By Swarn GillIn Parenting, Philosophy, Psychology7 Comments

There is nothing like the having a child that teaches you more what a woman goes through, and reminds you what you don’t. I’ve spent most of my adult life becoming aware of the position of privilege I enjoy as a man in a patriarchal society. The hardships that women face when it comes to unwanted advances, objectification and legislation of their bodies, being judged by appearances over the content of what’s inside, and of course the even harsher realities of domestic abuse and sexual violence. But having journeyed with my wife through pregnancy, birth, and caring for a baby the world couldn’t seem more upside down.

In my new favorite book series, The Kingkiller Chronicles, by Patrick Rothfuss he describes a culture called the Ademre. In this culture they are not very sexually conservative. Sex and love are separate and so sleeping around is no big deal. As a result of this lifestyle they have not made the connection that a man is associated with making children. Women think they just sort of “get pregnant”, because there is no monogamy. As a result they think other cultures who think there is such thing as “fatherhood” are silly. I know this doesn’t sound very convincing to you, but the book takes place in a non-modern society so you can’t do any DNA tests or anything, and you just have to read it to know that it’s very hard to find a hole in the reasoning. The main character of the book who is male cannot either and feels extremely frustrated that he can’t convince the woman that men play a role in making a child. Both my wife and I feel even uncomfortable reading that section, because men feel so diminished that you actually start to feel bad for men. That’s some good writing Rothfuss! And I know that is his intent. To make you feel uncomfortable. (as an aside, I think finally figured out the hole in how a culture could not develop in such a way, but that’s for another time). My point in this preamble is that through pregnancy up until now it is pretty clear, how little I have to do with creating life. One microscopic sperm out of millions, and my part was over. Life grows in a woman and then after its out she feeds it! Amazing!

Her body changes. She feels the motion of the baby inside. She feels the baby leave her body. Her hormones are jacked up the whole time and even now. Her need for attachment through breastfeeding. There is just a very clear biological change every step of the way, that my body does not go through. Watching even just how amazing she is right now, and how in control she is in taking care of this child, for something she has never done before is just phenomenal to see. The hormones get strong sometimes, and she cries sometimes because she feels the slightest failure in breastfeeding, or if she accidentally scratches him or something, but she is amazing. And then their is the pain in giving birth. A pain unlike I’ve never seen her go through before. She tried to be brave and go without the epidural to begin with. Neither of us are believers that natural childbirth is necessary or anything, but I knew she would want to test the waters. Had she been able to go into labor naturally and do the things that are supposed to help in dealing with the pain of contractions I believe she could have done it, but regardless women have been doing this for a couple hundred thousand years and here we are today.

She has been the star of the show, and I a supporting actor. Now before men reading this get up and arms, let me say that, there is no question that this child will do better the more adults it has in his life, and that two people can better care for the child than one. And an equal partnership will be not only be a great advantage to the child in raising, but give him an excellent example to look up to when he forms his own relationships with others. Whether they be friendships or romantic relationships, regardless of his sexual orientation.

What inspired me to write this post is, how is it that we live in a patriarchal society? Why am I am not the one fighting to assert myself as an important gender? How can any man not come to realize that women are absolutely amazing? Is it just because of our physical strength? This seems like a poor answer, but possibly. One biological aspect that I know men feel in regards to birthing is fear. Fear that their offspring are not their own and are less likely to care for the offspring as a result. Is this fear so strong that it has led to the control of women and their bodies just to make sure that we can guarantee that the offspring she has belongs to us? Given that we evolved in social groups, that had community support to help raise children, even this seems like not a very good answer, but possibly.

But then I wondered if it isn’t all just overcompensation. The fear that we might not be really that important after all and thus we assert ourselves the most. We joke all the time when we see a guy drive down the street in his loud and chrome fitted truck with giant wheels …”What’s he compensating for?” What if it all this is just men trying to make themselves seem more in control than they really are? More powerful than they really are?

Some questions to think about. This man has to go feed his child some breast milk his wife made and stored in a bottle while she catches up on some much needed sleep. 🙂

Crime and Punishment

On December 21, 2013October 20, 2014 By Swarn GillIn Commentary, Philosophy, Politics, Psychology2 Comments

On Dec. 17^th, Ethan Couch, age 16, was sentenced to 10 years of rehabilitation after admitted to driving drunk and killing four people. The reason for his light sentence according to the judge was that the defense successfully proved that he suffered from affluenza.

If you clicked on the Wikipedia link I provided for this condition (a condition which doesn’t even pass my spell check), I think that one could conclude that if someone was suffering from this condition, this could certainly impact their decision process greatly and make them likely to be reckless and careless.

Now I am a strong supporter of psychological treatment and the impacts our parents have on our development and decision-making processes. We over-incarcerate far too much in this country and I am especially for providing our young with psychological treatment over incarceration because study after study shows how the earlier we recognize a behavior (whether due to a traumatic event or crappy parents) we can correct that behavior.

Ethan is a rich, white kid. Worst-case scenario his parents are selfish assholes who spent little time with him, who enjoyed the privilege that money has given them. They probably flouted laws themselves knowing that as an upstanding member of the community they probably wouldn’t get too many speeding tickets if pulled over, and even if they did they could pay any fine. Remembering, I’m sure, to mention to the cop that they might have a talk with some politician of theirs who is a friend and talk about possibly reducing the budget of the police force after a generous donation to that politician’s re-election campaign. When you have ridiculous sums of cash, the law is always on your side. After 16 years of seeing such behavior and without your parents giving you the time a day, I would say that your sense of right and wrong would be screwed up. Your attachment to reality would also be screwed up, because you literally don’t understand how most of the world lives when the only other people you know are also filthy rich. So I support the idea that it is at least possible that bad, extremely rich parents can screw up their kid so badly that he would do something so terrible. I mean there was no intent to kill here, but this is always the danger of drinking and driving, and punishments are often quite harsh for most people. Now most people are outraged by the judge’s verdict of affluenza, and for good reason. I am among one of those outraged, but perhaps for slightly different reasons.

The case raises numerous philosophical questions for me. At what age do we become blameless for the mistakes of our parents? Should parents ever be made responsible for crimes their children commit? How long does the psychological impacts of things that happen in our childhood last? How long can we use them as an excuse for poor decisions that we make? A child that is raised to hate African-Americans will probably hate African-Americans, but will he ever commit a hate crime? Who knows, but if he did, would it be an acceptable excuse to use the fact that your parents taught you to hate as a defense? If the kid committed the crime at 13, is that adult enough? Would we still all be as outraged at the verdict? What about traumatic events like sexual abuse or physical abuse? These things have definitely been shown to do psychological damage for possibly the rest of one’s life. It seems reasonable that if you reinforced from childhood that a certain behavior is acceptable, you will likely feel that way as an adult. The condition of affluenza, however, is perhaps not as legitimate as one thinks, at least according to one of the co-producers of the 1997 PBS documentary on the subject. As John de Graaf points out, that in a capitalistic, consumer based society such as ours, we may all suffer from this to a certain degree. Furthermore he says it is not a psychological condition, but rather a societal criticism. Affluenza is not a condition recognized by the American Psychological Association.

But let’s say that even if we accept that bad parenting seriously messed up this kid, a whole host of other questions come to mind. How often can we use psychological conditions as a defense? Are such rulings equally applied to all such cases? If there is a psychological condition that can be contracted by rich kids, what psychological condition does poverty cause and can these not be made for their defense when they commit crimes?

The same judge gave a 14 year old African-American a much harsher sentence for a much lesser crime the previous year. One only has to look at the amount of minorities and poor people in the prison system, who commited crimes that did not lead to anyone’s death, to be convinced that such defenses as affluenza or any other defense based on psychological damage in their upbringing has not been successful. The impacts of poverty on children, in fact, is a far greater reason actually for “deviant” behavior as young adults and is actually well researched within the psychological community. Ultimately this is why I am so enraged. There is probably no greater slap in the face the legal system could give to the poor than this verdict. A compassionate sentence is either deserved by all or by none. Whether you think incarceration helps society or not, there cannot be any true justice when it does not apply equally to all citizens. If prison isn’t the answer for Ethan Couch then at the very least he should be made to volunteer and live in an inner city neighborhood. If society truly believed in his correction then he won’t receive the education he sorely needs which is compassion and understanding for how the rest of society lives, especially since he hasn’t been punished in a way that the rest of society is punished for similar crimes. His parents are paying $450,000/year to go to this swanky facility in California. I shudder to think how many lives could be made better with that money instead of teaching one kid a lesson that would perhaps be better taught in other ways. There is nothing inherently more valuable about Ethan Couch than any other youth who has been sent to a juvenile detention center or jail. As income disparity mounts every branch of our government still continues to help the smallest minority ; the rich. How long can we live in this illusion that we are the best country when we incarcerate more people than those places we consider our enemy and backwards in thinking? How long can we live in the illusion of trickledown economics? How long can we live in the illusion of the American Dream that all you have to do is work hard and that dream will come true? This case is as much about racism and inequality as the George Zimmerman case and it is even more of a reason to be outraged at where our country is headed. Don’t confuse the meanings of money and value. Nobody is better person just because they have money and it’s time the government and the justice system stopped acting like this was true.

Only the Lonely

On December 13, 2013 By Swarn GillIn Philosophy, Prose and Poetry, Psychology6 Comments

From childhood’s hour I have not been
As others were; I have not seen
As others saw; I could not bring
My passions from a common spring.
From the same source I have not taken
My sorrow; I could not awaken
My heart to joy at the same tone;
And all I loved, I loved alone.
Then- in my childhood, in the dawn
Of a most stormy life- was drawn
From every depth of good and ill
The mystery which binds me still:
From the torrent, or the fountain,
From the red cliff of the mountain,
From the sun that round me rolled
In its autumn tint of gold,
From the lightning in the sky
As it passed me flying by,
From the thunder and the storm,
And the cloud that took the form
(When the rest of Heaven was blue)
Of a demon in my view.

Alone by Edgar Allen Poe

I wanted to preface this post with one of my favorite poems. I spend a lot of time thinking about how we interact with people because I love company, I love talking to other people, trying to understand them as I try to also understand myself. I have a wonderful wife, great friends, and am surrounded by bright and energetic students and colleagues, but an incident recently made me feel alone, and I started contemplating what it means to be lonely, to feel alone. I’ll understand if this isn’t a fun read during the holiday season! 🙂

Being alone can have two different meanings and I’d like to focus mostly on only one of them. One can of course be literally alone with nobody else around. I equate this more as solitude and solitude can be a

good thing. It can be a time of reflection, possibly getting in touch with nature, and can be a very rejuvenating experience. Being alone however can mean lonely and this is quite different. Certainly you can be literally alone and feel lonely, but I find that loneliness comes in many shapes and forms and is most strongly felt when one is not literally alone.

When I moved away from home to go to graduate school I didn’t know a soul, and since I didn’t have the money to come down and look for housing I unfortunately lived in the dorms for the first couple of months (a horrendous experience I might add!). I ate my meals in the cafeteria and University of Oklahoma is a big school. There were probably about 500 people eating their meal and I would of course find a spot that wasn’t next to anybody and eat my meal. Now there are some people who might have just sat down next to somebody and started talking, but I’m not that way. It really hits you that you don’t know anybody and yet you are surrounded by people. It is a very intense feeling of loneliness. I would have felt less lonely if the cafeteria was empty. This of course was compounded by the fact that I had just moved away from home and so when you are feeling very lonely it is easy to think more about the friends and family you’ve left behind.

Of course this feeling of loneliness is something you get used to, to a certain degree. Being in new social

situations where you don’t know anyone, can feel awkward especially if you are like me and seek genuine conversation over the normal small talk. It’s a skill you have to learn to get good at the small talk to get to the better stuff. I think a lot of introverts are like that, but they just refuse to play the game. A lot of people think I’m an extrovert, but I just think I’m an introvert who has learned to be more brave with time. 🙂

One of the more intense feelings of loneliness I think occurs when we don’t have someone to be intimate with. I am not just talking about physical intimacy, although we certainly crave and miss that as well, but just the intimacy of even a close friend; somebody that you can share thoughts and feelings with, and most importantly be yourself around. This type of loneliness is compounded by the presences of others, especially those we wish to be closer to but are not. When you’re shy or lack confidence in approaching someone I think we all start to even get down on ourselves thus worsening the situation instead of making changes to improve our situation to feel less lonely.

Loneliness of this kind can lead to all sorts of behavior that can be unhealthy to you and others. In a desire to get intimacy we may turn to sex as a substitute which gives momentary pleasure but not the intimacy we crave that is longer lasting and ultimately more fulfilling. We may turn to a group of friends that become “drinking buddies”. This may feel like fun temporarily, but often those friends aren’t confidants are even people that you can really be yourself around, and at the end of the evening you still come back alone and feel empty again. We may seek out chat rooms on the internet, and sometimes you can even get to know someone really well, but it’s just no substitute for being in someone’s physical presence.

I have also noticed a type of loneliness that I could best describe as intellectual or behavioral loneliness. A sort of loneliness you feel when it feels like you are the only one who thinks a certain way. Like being surrounded by a bunch of pro-gun people and after the umpteenth school shooting you are thinking

maybe we should pass some gun laws, and they say make the teachers wear guns! Or wondering if you are the only one who thinks that Julia Roberts isn’t that great of an actress! I know many people who often feel lonely when raised in a certain religion and feel doubts about their beliefs, but feel alone because nobody else seems to be asking the same questions. I would imagine realizing you’re homosexual and not knowing anybody else who is, has to feel very lonely too in this sense of loneliness I am talking about. When you feel like you are different from everybody else. Poe was a pretty depressed guy, but I think this is the type of loneliness he speaks of in his poem and what inspired this post. This loneliness is both unsettling yet necessary. I am not sure if I can explain why I think that. I just do. Perhaps this is why the poem has captured me.

The most painful feeling of loneliness however comes from the people we love the most when we fight, or a relationship is ending. When I was having marriage troubles and it seemed like divorce was imminent, since we both live far from our families we had no place to go so we had to live in the same house, sleep in separate rooms. It was horrible. I never felt so alone in my life. Here was somebody I was so close to emotionally, and so close in proximity, but all of a sudden I felt there was a great distance between us. Someone I loved so much and yet I felt like touching her was inappropriate and maybe even talking to her intimately was inappropriate, it was terrible. I am sure many have experienced this before, but it’s not something that I would want people to go through. Because for all the ways of feeling lonely I’ve talked of already this is the only one that I didn’t feel like I learned anything from. Maybe I should have, but I didn’t. It just sucked.

My goal in exploring this topic is the recognition that loneliness is a very shared experience. We’ve all felt it in its various forms and so what seems sort of cool and interesting to me is that even through loneliness are we together and I take some comfort in that. I wish you the least amount of loneliness possible, but loneliness is something all people have to bear throughout their lives and I have found it to be an extremely good source of self-esteem to have battled through lonely days towards better days. It makes you appreciate good company even more. 🙂

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Cloak Unfurled

Category: Psychology