My Track Record

I was contemplating writing a post called “Which is worse — lying or narcissism?” But I don’t have the time or energy or focus to do that, so instead I’ll just link to my two favorite Slate writers, Dahlia Lithwick and Lili Loofbourow, who, as usual, have expressed themselves with the perfect combination of facts and logic and emotion.

• Dahlia Lithwick: The Election Is Too Close to Ignore Trump’s Claim That He Won
• Lili Loofbourow: The Blue Wave Isn’t Coming

If you were to infer from these links that I feel incredulous, angry, and sad, you’d be right.

It is one thing for 46% of voters to say — as they did in 2016 — “I don’t think the current political system is working, so I’ll give this unorthodox new guy a try.” (Don’t get me wrong, that was horrifying in light of what the unorthodox new guy represented, but I could understand the desire to shake things up.) It is quite another thing for a similar percentage of voters to witness four years of epic presidential cruelty, lying, mismanagement, and corruption, and to conclude, “This hasn’t been so bad — more of this, please.”

After writing about Donald Trump with some frequency in 2016 and 2017, I have mostly avoided political posts since then. The main reasons for this have been (1) a lack of time, (2) a sense that everything I could say was being said more effectively by others, (3) a sense that my 20 readers were not hungry for my particular take on political issues, and (4) a desire to avoid making any of my students feel unwelcome, pressured to think a certain way, etc.

Nevertheless, a lack of words should not be interpreted as a lack of interest. So … to be as clear as possible …

(1) To any current or future students of mine who may happen to read this: please vote according to your own conscience. If you and I happen to differ politically, that is OK with me. I want to help you all learn biology regardless of whom you vote for.

(2) To everyone else: I will not attempt to summarize the Trump presidency, except to link to this article by the consistently perceptive and eloquent Slate writer Lili Loufbourow: Donald Trump is America’s Abusive Father. The article is super-harsh toward Trump, but he has spent the last four years earning this analogy, and I see no reason to shy away from it now. Trump is cruel even when the cruelty serves no larger goal. As one memorably titled article put it, the cruelty is the point.

My hope for November 3rd is that America rejects this wanton cruelty (along with the endless lying, etc. etc.) and gives Joe Biden and Kamala Harris a chance to lead us out of Trump’s dungeon.

Here is a quick story to illustrate what awareness of racism looks like in a well-intentioned but insufficiently attentive white guy.

In 2014 or 2015, I read Claude Steele’s book “Whistling Vivaldi: How Stereotypes Affect Us And What We Can Do.” The title refers to a black graduate student (Brent Staples, now of the New York Times) who would whistle classical music to make his presence seem less threatening to white people on the streets of Chicago.

At the time, my reaction to this anecdote was:
* Yes, racism is real, important, and tragic.
* What an efficient, clever way of putting everyone at ease and avoiding conflict!

Note that my reaction did NOT include the following:
* What a shame that this innocent black guy had to take it upon himself to calm everyone else.
* Gee, I wonder whether such defense mechanisms are common among people of color?

Now fast-forward to the present. George Floyd has just become the latest unarmed, nonthreatening black man to be killed by out-of-control police officers. I come across the article It Does Not Matter if You are Good by R. Eric Thomas. And some more grim realities finally start to sink in:
* Whistling Vivaldi, in the metaphorical sense, is VERY common among people of color, and especially among black men.
* It’s deeply unfair that potential victims of racism should have to whistle as a means of protecting themselves.
* No matter how loud or how tuneful the whistling is, it doesn’t always save you.

This reminds me of another metaphor — one that reveals the seemingly cheerful opening of Steele’s title to maybe not be so cheerful after all.

“Whistling in the wind” is an old phrase referring to an action that is utterly ineffectual.

Enough whistling!

Nobody asked for my personal take on the Blasey Ford/Kavanaugh allegations, but here it is anyway.

My main concern here is the question, who is most likely to be telling the truth? We will never know for sure, but we can consider what is possible and what is likely.

First: Could they BOTH be telling the truth? Could Blasey Ford really have been assaulted in the manner that she described, but by someone else whom she mistook for or misremembers as Kavanaugh? Not likely. Blasey Ford has said there is zero chance that she has the wrong guy. Either her story is wrong, or Kavanaugh’s is.

Second: Is either person known to be serially dishonest? I don’t think so. Blasey Ford is a generally respected psychology professor; Kavanaugh is a generally respected judge. Some have argued that Kavanaugh perjured himself before the Senate, but the details are sufficiently dense that I’m not sure what to believe.

No, what really has me pissed off are the ignorant, disingenuous, and cruel portrayals of Blasey Ford as an out-of-control liar — from people who demonstrate little to no germane understanding of sexual assault in general or Blasey Ford’s case in particular. Here are some of the common yet utterly wrong claims being made.

(1) “The timing of her compliant is highly suspicious.” No, it’s not, explains Dahlia Lithwick. Blasey Ford kept this to herself for a long time because that’s what many girls and women do in a society that has shown them little sympathy. She eventually alluded to the event in years-ago conversations with her husband and therapist, then wrote her letter when Kavanaugh was one of several potential nominees under consideration. That’s not proof of anything, but it’s not suspicious either. Imperfect handling of her charge by Sen. Feinstein and Democrats is not her fault.

(2) “It’s not plausible that she remembers X from this incident, but not Y.” Blasey Ford’s account should certainly be examined for internal consistency and for consistency with other external facts. But if you claim (as a physician friend of mine did on Facebook) that Blasey Ford’s story is incompatible with “basic behavioral psychology,” you’re being WAY too presumptuous about what she should and shouldn’t remember. When a person experiences trauma and then tries unsuccessfully to forget about it for 35 years, the nature of the 35-year-old memory will depend on (A) the details of the trauma, (B) the details of the post-trauma processing, and (C) the particular brain of the survivor. I’m not an expert on memory per se, but I do have a Ph.D. in physiology. Most amateur psychologists, including my friend, are in over their heads on this one.

(3) “She just made this up to stop the Kavanaugh nomination because she’s pro-choice, etc.” I’d assume that Blasey Ford, like most academics, is politically liberal, and there has been some reporting to support that. But I haven’t seen any good evidence that she’s a radical activist or anything like that. More to the point, who among us would trade a peaceful, happy life for a flurry of death threats and public vilification, all for the sake of possibly reducing a particular judge’s chances of confirmation, when the next judge nominated will probably be equally pro-life anyway? That’s not an ulterior motive; that’s closer to masochism.

It’s those who are smearing Blasey Ford who have the ulterior motive.

Some of my favorite blogs have regular “linkfest” posts featuring notable pieces from around the web, often with brief commentary. I’ve wanted to do that myself for years, so here’s a post along these lines. More will follow if I can find the time and energy. For now, I’ll just admit that I get a lot of my news from Slate and the New York Times, so these sources will be overrepresented in listings like those below.

NEW YORK TIMES

• Frank Bruni
• Death in the age of narcissism (Aug. 27). How much of ourselves should we inject into remembrances of the departed?
• What I learned in secretarial school (Aug. 11). In praise of endless, mind-numbing practice.
• Bret Stephens
• The outrage over Sarah Jeong (Aug. 9). Should somebody be fired over bad tweets? Not necessarily.
• Trump will have blood on his hands (Aug. 3). Words matter. Trump’s rants about the news media are dangerous.

SLATE

• Dahlia Lithwick
• No more Mr. Nice Justice (Aug. 6). Includes a small but sincere tip of the cap to Clarence Thomas.
• Lili Loofbourow
• Some things aren’t complicated (Aug. 30). An incisive look at the harassment case of NYU’s Avital Ronell.
• We are in a linguistic emergency when it comes to Trump (June 14). Just brilliant.
• Will Saletan
• The triumph in John McCain’s losses (Sept. 1). McCain, unlike our current president, saw life as more than a wins/losses scorecard.
• Roe block (July 3). A counterargument to the argument (made frequently in Slate and elsewhere) that the confirmation of Brett Kavanaugh will lead to the evisceration of Roe v. Wade.

Speaker of the House Paul Ryan (R-WI) has decided not to run for reelection. Some liberals are reacting very smugly. For example, Slate’s Will Saletan (whom I generally consider to be a reasonable journalist) notes that Ryan claims to want to spend more time with his children, then dismisses this as obviously fictitious:

It’s great that Ryan wants to be with his kids. But they’re teenagers now. Having chosen to spend 16 years in Congress while they were small, he asks us to believe that he has suddenly decided they need him in a way that requires him to retire. And he denies that this year’s inauspicious polls, which have driven dozens of other Republicans to leave Congress, played any role in his decision.

Saletan is not necessarily wrong, but his speculation is unseemly in multiple ways.

First of all, he isn’t paraphrasing Ryan very well. What Ryan actually said was, “My kids aren’t getting any younger. And if I stay, they’re only going to know me as a weekend dad. And that’s just something I consciously can’t do.” Does this mean his kids NEED him? Maybe. Or maybe HE just WANTS to know THEM better, before they’re gone for good. We can’t really tell.

Second, it certainly is possible that one or more of his children really DO need him. Some teens sail through the teenage years essentially independently of their parents; others require more support than ever as they navigate the minefields of hormones, acne, bullying, etc. We should not assume that Ryan’s kids don’t need or want much parental oversight simply because they’re teenagers.

Third, note the unnecessary sarcasm of “suddenly decided they need him in a way that requires him to retire.” Ryan did NOT say, “The situation is so dire that I have no choice but to retire.” Maybe he just weighed his options and picked the one that was best for his family. But what if one of his kids truly IS in a crisis situation (e.g., suicidal thoughts) and this WAS a sudden decision?

Fourth, “having chosen to spend 16 years in Congress while they were small” is too snide and judgmental for my taste. Maybe Ryan skypes with his kids daily, or exchanges lots of emails with them. Who knows what innumerable decisions he and his wife have made about child-rearing over the years, and how well they have lived up to their goals? Let’s not assume he’s been a bad dad just because he chose to be a Congressman.

So, sure, “I want to spend more time with my family” might be a cover for other motives. But to simply assume this, without allowing for the possibility that Ryan actually cares about his children, is cynical and mean.