Cars and Pedestrians--A Metaphor IV

 I want to push the metaphor comparing drivers and pedestrians to those entrapped in our racial web.

• the norms and rules for driving a car are both imposed by history and learned early, as we watch our parents and others drive from within the car, and watch other cars.  The norms and rules for being a pedestrian are less obvious and mostly less formal, except when walkers come into contact with cars, bicycles, etc.  But they too are learned early.  I had to learn to jaywalk; as a country boy and a natural born bureaucrat I over-conformed to the rules as I learned them. Mostly the norms are learned early enough they work below our consciousness--like walking to the right. 
• typically I think we are much less aware of the driver inside the car; we just see the car.  That's similar to how we treat members of racial/ethnic/identity groups.  We don't see the Amish or Hasids as individuals, not the ego within the body or clothing, just the outside.  The same goes for others on the stage of life: celebrities of all kinds.
• I choose to drive a car, or to walk. Once I make my choice, I inherit the whole cluster of norms described above.  My behavior as a driver is somewhat under my control, but it is very constrained.  The constraints are firmer for individuals; the norm is that an individual's racial identity is not under her control (particularly before the civil rights movement).  

I think what captured my imagination here is how quickly and sharply my behavior and attitudes switch when I got from pedestrian to driver and back.  Intellectually I know we fill many different roles as we live, all governed by social norms and habits, but this particular pair of roles illustrates their nature very well.

Anniversary of AS-400

 Saw a Facebook post in 2016 commemorating AS-400 (leaving the county FSA office).  Clicked on the hashtag and found some posts about job opportunities working on AS-400 programs, some dated relatively recently (i.e., 2021).  

IIRC the changeover from the System/36 to the AS-400 was happening as I retired in 1997. So the System/36 lasted maybe 10-15 years; the AS-400 maybe 20 years or so. 

Crime and My Six Convicts

 There's a lot of discussion of crime these days, particularly on Twitter where I follow Peter Moskos, @PeterMoskos, a professor who served as a policeman in Baltimore. 

A very popular book in 1951, so popular mom gave it to dad for Christmas, was this (from the entry in Goodreads):

My Six Convicts: A Psychologist's Three Years in Fort Leavenworth

by 

Donald Powell Wilson

really liked it 4.00  ·   Rating details ·  20 ratings  ·  2 reviews

With an appointment by the U.S.Public Health Service to conduct research in the relationship between drug addiction and criminality in the new research hospital at Fort Leavenworth Penitentiary, I arrived as a professor of psychology and left three years later as a professor of psychology in the 1930s, but not the same, not the same at all. But this book is not a record of the research project but rather a reminiscent impression of the "humors, whimsies and tragedies of my six convict assisants--my world as they saw it and their world as I saw it".

As he mentioned, he had six convicts who assisted in his research.  IIRC he didn't discuss his research much, but tells stories, stories which one reviewer found fictional.  But at the end, again if I remember, he described some of the six convicts as men who couldn't be rehabilitated and released. 

Health System--Dentistry

 My wife and I use Kaiser for health care.  It works well, testing, drugs, specialties, all under one roof (at least metaphorically because there's one database and efficient handoff from one provider to the next).

Unfortunately Kaiser doesn't do dentistry, so when significant problems crop up we're thrown into a different world:

• each provider has her own set of questions to obtain personal data and health history, allergies, drugs, etc.
• each provider has a process to move information back and forth, sometimes still including the use of fax!!!! (This is the 21st century, people).
• each  provider has a separate website which may or may not have been updated and which have their own structure and feel.
• referrals from one to another are a bit kludgey.
• transparency is often lacking.

Otherwise the people are nice and capable. Just operating within a poor structure. 

Cars and Pedestrians--A Metaphor III

 My second continuation:

The points I made in my previous post:What's going on?  

• binary--cars versus walkers
• power--cars have more power
• conflict over scarce resource
• laws and rules to govern power and conflict
• infringing laws
• identifying with fellows generates emotion
• game playing, esp by weaker

Any reader who has gotten this far may be asking: where's the metaphor:

Specifically, when we Americans have our usual discussions of race, of African-Americans and European heritage, we could be talking cars and walkers:

• blacks and whites are binary groups in society, but not in reality
• whites have more power than blacks
• the groups are competing for scarce resources--position in society as represented by wealth and prestige
• there are laws and norms to govern the behavior of the races
• both push the limits or violate the laws
• there's strong in-group feeling for those identifying with the group
• both sides play games, esp the weaker blacks

You Can't Have It Both Ways?

 I've seen this expression recently, mostly in relation to people like Pence who are getting credit from liberals like me for doing his duty or Liz Cheney for her position on 1/6. 

For me, a half loaf is better than none.  Any time someone on the right does something good, it's fine.  I'd compare them to Sen. Ervin during Watergate, or Gov. Hogan's father, who was a member of House Judiciary Committee who voted for impeachment, which was surprising given his generally conservative record. 

Cars and Pedestrians--A Metaphor II

 A continuation from yesterday:

What's going on?  

• there's a good binary separation going on: I'm either a driver in a car, or a walker.
• there's a power difference: as a walker I can't do much to a car; as a driver I can kill the walker
• there's a conflict of interests--drivers and walkers are dividing up a scarce resource--the right to traverse the intersection.
• there's laws, rules, and norms for each, I suspect particularly because of the conflict and power difference. We're both supposed to act in obedience to the traffic light.
• reality is that drivers and walkers push the envelope routinely.  We mock a driver who obsessively follows traffic laws, like never speeding. We acknowledge jaywalking.
• judging by my emotions, I feel some kinship with fellow drivers, also with fellow walkers; I'd guess that's a common feeling.
• both sides can play mind games. As a driver I don't always yield to a walker in the cross-walk.
• it seems to me mind games are the weapon of the weaker party. Personally, at the intersection I'm describing, there's are turn arrows.  When the through lanes change to red, the right turn arrow turns green.  After the turning traffic gets its turn, the turn arrow goes blank. A couple seconds later the walk sign turns on (and the turn arrow goes to blinking yellow).  I make a habit of starting to cross when the turn arrow goes blank-- figuring that means the turning traffic now needs to stop.  That means I'm often  stepping into the path of cars whose drivers are planning to slow but not stop for the turn.  I take satisfaction in imagining the drivers are frustrated, and perhaps will remember to be more cautious next time.

Cars and Pedestrians--a Metaphor-I

 When I cross Reston Parkway on the way to and from my garden, I now use the button for pedestrian crossing.  (I used to jaywalk because it was easy enough to see oncoming traffic, I was impatient, but no longer--the risk seems greater the older I get.) Particularly going to the garden there's often stopped cars in the 2 through lanes, so cars zooming up Reston and looking to make a right turn onto Glade can't see me starting to cross. They are used to not having to stop, despite the law. 

As I'm walking I silently dare the bastards to run into me.  

When I drive north on Reston Parkway to the library, Home Depot, or Trader Joes, I pass by Reston Town Center.  There's apartment buildings on the south side of the road, with the hotel, stores and office buildings of the center on the north side.  So there's a pedestrian crossing with a button. With a four-lane parkway, it takes forever for the damn pedestrians to amble across.  Or at least, the light is timed so as not to hurry an eighty-year old man with bad legs.

I sit in the car, steaming.  

I think this scenario can serve as a metaphor for racism. 

I'll try to expand on this in the future.

Fearing Climate Change--Don't Underestimate Resilience

 Virginia Postrel has an old article  on several things, but the hook is the difference between East and West Coasts, specifically Silicon Valley and Boston.  It leads up to this:

In his 1988 book, SEARCHING FOR SAFETY, the late UC-Berkeley political scientist Aaron Wildavsky laid out two alternatives for dealing with risk: anticipation, the static planning that aspires to perfect foresight, and resilience, the dynamic response that relies on having many margins of adjustment:

Anticipation is a mode of control by a central mind; efforts are made to predict and prevent potential dangers before damage is done. Forbidding the sale of certain medical drugs is an anticipatory measure. Resilience is the capacity to cope with unanticipated dangers after they have become manifest, learning to bounce back. An innovative biomedical industry that creates new drugs for new diseases is a resilient device. . . . Anticipation seeks to preserve stability: the less fluctuation, the better. Resilience accommodates variability; one may not do so well in good times but learn to persist in the bad.

 I want to apply the distinction to our approach to climate change. Most of the things we're doing are anticipatory, central, top-down.  That's good, but my general optimism is based on human resilience.  There are many things going on which will enable us to survive with a reasonable standard of living.  For example, in today's papers there was a brief mention of scientists working on wheat varieties which are more heat tolerant. 

Who, Me Worry? GOP Election Deniers

 Kevin Drum has a post on the election deniers who are seeking office. There's lots of concern over the idea that someone who thinks the 2020 election was fraudulent being in a position of authority over the 2024 election.

I'm not nearly as worried about it as others seem to be.

Why not?  Human nature.  Put briefly, I think once most of these people get into office (which I fervently hope does not happen), they'll try to run "fair" elections by their lights.  "Fair" may well include more restrictions on voting than I want, but I don't see many trying to stuff ballot boxes. 

Way too optimistic?  Maybe, but that's my prediction.