Superficially, human beings differ to some degree, with variations in hair, eye, and skin color, as well as moderately differing musculature and size, but those external differentiations are as nothing compared to the differences in what we believe.  Here, too, there are degrees of variation, generally, but not always, based on culture.  That is, for example and for the most part, belief structures within Anglo-American culture fall along a certain spectrum, while those in Middle-Eastern Islamic cultures fall along another, while belief structures in East Asian cultures follow another general spectrum.  Obviously, the beliefs of any given individual may be wildly at variance with the culture spectrum or norms of where that person lives, but by definition, as a result of cultural development, in most cases either a majority or, where no majority culture exists, either the largest or the most powerful minority tends to dictate cultural norms and beliefs.

One area of belief in which there is little variation among human beings is the belief that “what I believe is the ‘right’ belief, and everyone else should believe as I do.”  There is little variation in this internal dictum because thinking organisms who do not innately have such a guide tend to die out quickly.  The difference among humans does not lie in the first part of that dictum, but in the second, in how much tolerance an individual or a culture has for the beliefs of others.

Now… obviously for any society to survive, there has to be a shared set of values… or chaos and societal dissolution, or revolt and disaster, will soon follow. But the question facing any society is what values are absolutely necessary to be shared and how will that sharing be enforced. Historically, such “belief” domination/values sharing has been established not just through cultural and religious pressure, but through force, including, but not limited to, war; genocide; economic, political, legal, and social discrimination.

In addition, those groups who see their values threatened have a tendency to protest and oppose the loss of such values, often with great violence.  Today, much of the Islamic Middle East feels enormously threatened by the secularistic, less-gender-role-driven, and materialistic western European value structure. In the United States, in particular, fundamentalist Christian faiths clearly feel threatened and angered by beliefs that run counter to their views on such issues as abortion and marriage, and one well-known writer has gone as far as to suggest he will oppose any U.S. government that creates a legal definition of marriage counter to the “traditional” one of a man and a woman.

This “need” for values domination has often been carried to extremes by individuals, groups, and even governments who have happened to believe that the world only belongs to the “chosen people” or  “the master race” or “those who can afford it” or some other exclusive definition… almost always with disastrous results and extremely high loss of life.

Enter technology.  Technology requires certain shared values.  It also creates great dissemination of knowledge, as well as being an extremely effective tool for indoctrination and communication.  These factors, as well as a number of others, threaten many “traditional” values.  At the same time, the higher the level of technology, the greater the need for certain core shared values, that is, if one wants to keep that technology operational in a world that is getting smaller and smaller.

The additional problem today is that, like it or not, small groups, and even individuals, and certainly governments all have the power to create large-scale disasters, with violent societal and physical disruptions, either to impose their values, or to rebel against the imposition of other beliefs and values.  Moreover, as recent studies have begun to indicate, as such disruptions escalate, another group of individuals enters the dynamic, what one might best call “opportunistic terrorists,” who either use similar tactics for commercial profit, such as the Latin and South American drug cartels, or for personal fame or just because they enjoy the acts of terrorism.

In my view, and it is only my opinion, human society as a whole faces three possible futures:  (1) technological collapse because the values conflicts cannot be resolved; (2) the gradual imposition of  shared values through indoctrination and commercial and political pressure, as is happening in China today, and to a lesser degree in western cultures; or (3) greater understanding and cooperation in working out a “core values” framework that will allow a range of differing beliefs around the world.

The way matters are going right now, it appears options one and two are fighting it out, because no one wants to compromise enough to give option three a chance.

The other day I was reading a well-known “literary” periodical with large circulation… and I noticed something… and then I read another periodical of the same ilk – and I noticed the same thing.  So I went back, both through the various magazines, as well as my memory, and realized that, no indeed, my memory was not playing tricks on me.

And what was it that I noticed?  I’ll get to that… in a moment.

But first… poetry.  According to A Handbook to Literature, “The first characteristic of poetry, from the standpoint of form, is rhythm…”  The rather lengthy definition also notes that poetry is “characterized by compactness, intense unity, and a climactic order,” expressed with the vital element of concreteness and noting that one of the strengths of Shakespeare’s poetry is that almost every line “presents a concrete image.”

Many years ago, both when I studied poetry and later published some in long-vanished small magazines, there were still poets who believed and worked along those lines, who regularly wrote sonnets, sestinas, villanelles, and other strict poetic forms and who understood and could work with a range of metric forms and rhythms.  And because I tend to appreciate the beauty of language and form, those are the poets whom I read and praise… and the kind that I still seek and seldom find.

That most of what is published as poetry today, even by many publications with literary credentials and pretensions, is what one critic [whose name I can’t recall, or I’d cite him or her] called “greeting card free verse,”  devoid of strict (or even loose) metrics.  And much of the popularity of current so-called poetry rests on the spoken presentation of the work, rather than upon the structure and the words themselves.  Great poetry should not require a great speaker, but should sound great and shake the mind when recited by anyone of average intelligence and speech.

This trend toward greeting card verse and emphasis on presentation rather than substance is certainly why I take out my well-worn copies of William Butler Yeats, T.S. Eliot, Wallace Stevens, W.H. Auden, Dylan Thomas, and William Shakespeare, among others, when I wish to read poetry.  And yes, when I go to various bookstores, I do browse through the “current” poetry sections… and carefully replace the books I’ve perused on the shelves.  Now… I won’t claim that there’s no one out there who’s actually writing full-fledged poetry, but I will claim that, based on a fairly wide reading habit, there certainly aren’t many “poets” who are published today that merit the title in terms of the standards of the past.

As for what I noticed in those “literary” publications… it was that none of what was published as poetry in the issues I read or could find in recent months would have been called poetry until the last half century or so.  Robert Frost once made the observation that writing so-called free verse was like playing tennis with the net down.  Almost anyone could do it and call themselves a poet.

And that is why I praise the great poets who could and can encapsulate vivid images and meaning in rhythmic, rhymed forms without sounding stilted or forced and with words whose sounds, allusions, and connotations stir the mind and soul.

Those who can do all that… they are true poets.

There’s a growing, if underground, backlash against bilingualism in the United States, against the proliferation of directions and instructions in languages other than English, against ballots printed in Spanish, against ATMs with foreign language options.  Yet, from what I’ve observed, while I do believe that the legal language of the United States is and should remain English, so many of those who demand action or legislation to reinforce this are missing the linguistic boat.

The United States is indeed a nation of immigrants, and all too many youngsters today seem to have lost some of the skills of their parents.  For example, fewer and fewer of them can write adequately the language written and spoken by their parents.  This wouldn’t be such a loss… except the language I’m talking about is English, American English in particular. And I’m also not talking about those young people from disadvantaged backgrounds.  I’m referring to the vast majority of white Caucasian high school graduates from “good” urban or suburban high schools.

This linguistically disadvantaged majority – and actual tests of proficiency in English reading, writing, and comprehension show clearly this lack of ability – does not know basic grammar, basic spelling, or the construction and use of their native tongue. This spills over into everything, from essays to business correspondence, from newspaper and magazine articles even to headlines, not to mention blogs and advertisements. The number and percentage of grammatical and spelling errors in publications has increased dramatically.  I’ve gone back and checked older publications, and such lack of skill and care either didn’t exist or was caught by editors and proof-readers.

The same lack of precision in language permeates popular music – assuming one can even decipher the abysmal diction of most singers in order to suffer through grammatical inaccuracies and debasement of a once-proud language.  In point of fact, it’s amazing to realize that the music once considered almost degraded and backwoods-derived – country music, to be exact – is perhaps the only form of current popular vocal music where the majority of the lyrics can actually be understood.

Yes… a small percentage of Americans continue to write well and skillfully, but that proportion is declining every year, paradoxically at a time when recent studies show that the mastery of language equates directly to the mastery of thought and ideas.  Might it just be possible… just possibly… that the decline in the ability of Americans to articulate and understand the complexities of our society lies in the decline of their linguistic abilities?  Mastery of language is not merely the knowledge of vocabulary, but the ability to construct sentences that are clear and logical, and to understand those that are logically complex.  In short, clear thinking requires a good command of language, and there’s definitely a shortage of clear thinking today.

Why are simplistic political or commercial sound-bites so successful?  Is it because the euphony of simplicity appeals so much more readily to those who are linguistically disadvantaged?  Or because those whose language skills have atrophied or were never developed have difficulty in understanding anything more complex?

Whatever the reason, the English-only partisans seem unwilling and unable to understand that they’re well on the way to losing their battle… and they’re losing it from within.

While citing history is usually doomed to failure, because so few understand its parallels, or want to, I will point out that Latin was once the language that ruled the world.  As it became debased, so did Rome… to the point where Latin is a dead language, and Italian bears but a passing resemblance to the language it replaced… and… oh… Italy couldn’t even reunite itself until more than 1,900 years after the death of Julius Caesar.

Last weekend, we went to a party, one that marked a significant set of dates in the lives of some friends and one to which we were invited with a large engraved invitation.  I did note a phrase at the bottom which read, “Cocktail Attire.”  Now it may be that I come from a very conservative background, but to me that suggested a coat and tie at the very least, and apparel of a similar nature for my wife – which indeed we did wear. The event was catered and featured an array of excellent foods, from appetizers to deserts, and a range of beverages from water to expensive liquors and champagnes.  Each couple, or individual, was given a set of wineglasses with the dates and the symbols in gold lettering.

But frankly, I was appalled at what many of the guests wore – faded jeans and polo shirts, women in beach capris.  I will admit I didn’t see any tee-shirts and short-shorts, but that was more likely due to the fact that the temperature was in the high 60s than to the taste, or lack of it, on the part of some of those attending. At one point, a famed and world-class pianist performed… and almost no one listened or moderated their conversations, even after the host asked for quiet.

What was even more surprising to me was that none of those attending would have been considered less than substantial members of the community.  The guests included doctors, lawyers, accountants, university officers and professors, prosperous ranchers, business professionals, and the like.  Exactly what did perhaps a quarter of those attending fail to understand about “cocktail attire”?  And if they did not wish to dress for the occasion, there was no need to attend.  It certainly wasn’t even an indirectly compulsory event.

This sort of behavior isn’t limited to events such as these.  Even after warnings that cell phones, cameras, texting, and the like are prohibited at local concerts, there are always those who still persist in electronic disruptions – or other disruptions – of  performances, and despite stated policies against bringing infants to performances, there are still would-be patrons who protest.

All of these instances, any many more, reflect a lack of courtesy and manners.  Dressing appropriately for an event equates not only to manners, but also to respect for those giving the event.  Being quiet in an audience is a mark of respect for the performers.

So… why are so many people – especially those who, from their levels of education and professions, should know better – so ill-mannered and often disrespectful?  Part of it may be that, frankly, their parents failed to teach them manners.  Mostly, however, I think it is the growth of the cult of self – the idea that each person is the center of his or her universe and can wear what he or she wants whenever he or she wants to, can say what they like whenever they want.  Yet these same individuals can become extremely bellicose if anyone ever suggests that their behavior infringes on someone else’s freedom to speak, etc.  The parents who insist that their children be respected by a teacher are all too often totally disrespectful of the teacher. Then there are the citizens who demand that law enforcement officers be civil and respectful under the most trying of circumstances, but who are anything but that when stopped for traffic or other infractions.  Or customers who would bridle at the slightest hint of frustration by a sales clerk, but who have no hesitation about berating those clerks over matters beyond the control of the salespeople.

This goes beyond personal interactions as well, so that we have a political arena filled with name-calling, misrepresentation, and hatred.  I’m not saying that we should all agree, because we never will on all matters, but we might well have a more livable world if we remembered that not a single one of us is the center of the world and that shouting at someone is only going to make them want to shout back.  Manners were developed in order to reduce unnecessary conflict and anger, and it’s too bad that all too many people seem to have forgotten that.

On Sunday, Boyd K. Packer, the President of the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles of the Church of the Latter Day Saints, thundered forth against the “immorality” of same sex attractions and declared that the only marriage was that of a man and a woman and that such marriage was one of “God’s laws.”  Packer went on to equate this “law” with the “law of gravity” by stating “A law against nature would be impossible to enforce. Do you think a vote to repeal the law of gravity would do any good?”  While some members of Congress might well try that if they thought it would get them re-elected, I find Packer’s statements not only chilling in their arrogance, but also typical of the ignorance manifested by so many high-profile religious figures.

Like it or not, same-sex attraction has been around so long as there have been human beings.  The same behavior pattern exists in numerous other species of mammals and birds.  What Packer fails to grasp, or willfully ignores, is that laws of nature aren’t violated.  The universe does not have large and significant locations where gravity [or Einstein’s version of it] doesn’t exist, and there certainly haven’t been any such locations discovered on Earth.  Were the heterosexual behavior that Packer extols actually a “law of nature,” there would be no homosexual behavior, no lesbian behavior.  It couldn’t happen.  It does.  Therefore, the heterosexual patterns demanded and praised by Mormon church authorities are not God’s inflexible laws; they’re codes of behavior created by men [and except for Christian Science, pretty much every major religious code has been created by men] attempting to discern a divine will in a world where there is absolutely no proof, in the scientific sense [regardless of the creationist hodgepodge], that there even is such a supreme deity. God may exist, or God may not, but actual proof is lacking.  That’s why religious systems are called “beliefs” or “faiths.”

Thus, to assert that a particular code of human behavior is “God’s law” is arrogance writ large.  For a Mormon church authority to do so, in particular, is not only arrogant, but hypocritical.  Little more than a century ago, the Mormon culture and beliefs sanctioned polygamous relationships as “God’s law.”  Well… if God’s laws are immutable, then why did the LDS Church change them?  If the LDS Church authorities recognized that they were wrong in the past, how can they claim that today’s “truth” is so assuredly God’s law?  What will that “truth” be in a century?

While Newton’s “law of gravity” has been modified since its promulgation centuries ago, it still operates as it always did, not as men would have it operate, unlike so many of the so-called laws of God promulgated by men.  Since time immemorial [human time, anyway], humans have exhibited a range of sexual attractions and practices.  Like it or not, those suggest that the laws of nature, and presumably of God, for those who believe in a supreme deity, not only allow, but require for at least some people, differing sexual attraction.  Societies may in fact need to, and should, prohibit cruel and depraved practices, such as those involving unwilling participants or children… but to declare that one set of sexual customs is the only acceptable one, under the guise that it is God’s law, remains arrogant, ignorant, and hypocritical.

Political, organizational, and corporate leaders are  either outsiders or insiders.  Insiders who rise to leadership positions almost always do so by mastering the existing structures and ways of doing things.  In short, the best of them do what has always been done, hopefully better, while the worst cling to the most comfortable ways of the past, often rigidly enforcing certain rules and procedures, whether or not they’re the best for the present times.

On the other hand, outsiders who become leaders of established organizations or institutions are generally far more open to change.  In addition, such leaders carry with them ideas and practices that have worked in other settings.  As a result, as I’ve observed over the years, both in government and business, “outsider” leaders all too often impose changes without any understanding of the history and processes that created the practices and procedures that worked in the past for the organization…and that still do, even if not so well as the leader and those the organization serves would like.

Like it or not, there are reasons why institutions behave the way they do, and a leader needs to understand those reasons and the conditions that created them before attempting to make changes.  Also, at times, the environment changes, and the impact of those changes affects behavior.  One of the greatest changes in the political environment in the last century has been the combination of the electronic information revolution with the pervasiveness of the media.  The end result has been to make almost any sort of political compromise impossible, as witness the recent electoral defeats of politicians who have attempted or supported compromise.  While “purists” attack and condemn any politician who even attempts a compromise political solution, governing is difficult, if not impossible, without compromise, since most nations, especially the United States, are composed of people with differing interests.

Thus, a political leader who wishes to hold on to power cannot compromise, at least not in any way that the media can discover, but since actual change requires at least partial support from those with other views, any leader who manages change effectively destroys his own power base.

In the corporate world similar factors play out, with the major exception that a corporate leader is under enormous pressure to maintain/increase market share and profits.  So is every division head under that leader, and, as I’ve observed, time after time, subordinates are all too willing to implement changes that benefit their bottom line but increase the burdens and costs on every other division/part of the organization.  Likewise, I’ve seen so-called efficiency/streamlining measures imposed from the top end up costing far more than the previous “inefficiencies” because all too many organizational leaders failed to understand that different divisions and/or subsidiaries had truly different cost structures and needs and that “one size does not fit all.”

In the end, a great deal of the “leadership” problem boils down to two factors: lack of understanding on the part of both leaders and followers and the unwillingness/inability to compromise.  Without understanding and compromise, organizations…and nations… eventually fragment and fail.

According to recent news reports, a significant amount of the damage caused by the flooding in Pakistan may well be the result of pressure on officials not to breach certain dams in order to release the flood waters into a designated flood plain – because individuals and families of the elite who were well-connected were using the flood plain to grow cash crops and didn’t want to lose their investment.  In short, these individuals pressured an official to do something to their benefit and to the detriment of millions of small farmers who had no such influence.

Corruption?  Certainly, at least one news story played it that way.

But what is corruption exactly?  Is it the use of money or influence to gain special favors from officials that others cannot obtain?  Is it using such influence to avoid the restrictions placed on others by law?

Are such practices “corruption” if they are widely practiced in a society and if anyone can bribe or influence an office-holder or law enforcement official, provided they have enough money?  What is the ethical difference between a campaign contribution and a direct bribe to an elected official?  While one is legal under U.S. law, is there any ethical difference between the two?  Aren’t both seeking to influence the official to gain an advantage not open to others?

And what is the ethical difference between hiring a high-priced attorney to escape the consequences of the law and bribing a police officer to have the charges dismissed… or never brought?  In the USA, such bribes are illegal and considered corrupt, but those with fame and fortune hire legal champions to effect the same end… with means that are legal.  So Paris Hilton and Lindsay Lohan and others escape the legal consequences of their actions – or get off with wrist slaps – while those without resources serve time.

In legal and “official” terms, Northern European derived societies generally have the least “permissive” definition or outlook on what they term corruption. But are these societies necessarily more ethical – or do they just have more rules… and perhaps rules that restrict how money and influence can be used to accomplish personal ends?  Rules that limit what most individuals can do… but not all individuals?

Under the current law – at least until or unless Congress finds a way to change it – corporations now have the right to spend essentially unlimited funds to campaign for legislative changes during an election. As I read the Supreme Court decision, corporations can’t directly say that Candidate “X” is bad because he or she supports or opposes certain legislation, but they can say that any candidate who does is “bad.”  In effect, then, U.S. law allows unlimited funding to influence public policy through the electoral process, but strictly forbids the smallest of direct payments to office holders.  One could conclude from this that the law allows only the largest corporations to influence politicians.  If corruption is defined as giving one group an unfair advantage, isn’t that a form of legalized corruption?

But could it just be that that, in ethical terms, corruption exists in all societies, and only the definition of corruption varies?  And could it also be that a society that outlaws direct bribery of officials, but then legalizes it in an indirect form for those with massive resources is being somewhat hypocritical?  In the USA, we can talk about being a society of laws, but we’ve set up the system so that the laws operate differently for those with resources and those without.  While I’m no fan of the Tea Party movement, this disparity in the way the “system” operates is another facet behind that movement, one that, so far, has not been widely verbalized.  Yet… who can blame those in the movement for feeling that the system operates differently for them?

Recently, there was a sizable public outcry in the great state of Oklahoma.  The reason?  A billboard.  It was just a standard oversized highway billboard that asked a question and provided a website address.  But the question was: “Don’t believe in God?”  Following that was the statement, “Join the club,” with a website for atheists listed. The outcry was substantial, and that probably wasn’t surprising, since surveys show that something like 80% of Oklahomans are Christians of some variety.

There is another side to the issue, of course.  You can’t drive anywhere, it seems to me, without seeing billboards or other signs that tout religion.  And there are certainly hundreds, if not thousands, of religious programs on television, cable/satellite, and radio.  Why should so many people get upset about atheists advertising their “belief” and reaching out to others who believe there is no supreme deity?  Yet many religious people were calling for the removal of the message, claiming it was unChristian and unAmerican.  UnChristian, certainly, and, I suppose, unIslamic, unHindu, etc…. but unAmerican?  Not on your life, not while we live under a Constitution that provides us with a guarantee of the freedom to believe what we wish, or not to believe.

The double standard lies in the belief of the protesters that it’s all right for them to champion their beliefs publicly and to seek converts through public airspace and billboards, but not to allow that to those who disavow a supreme deity.

Unhappily, we live in the age of double standards.  Those who champion subsidies and “incentives” for business, but who oppose earned income tax credits or welfare, practice a double standard as well.  For all the rhetoric about such corporate incentives creating jobs, so do income supports for the poor, and neither is as effective at doing so as their respective supporters would claim.  But… arguing for one taxpayer-funded subsidy and against another on so-called ethical or moral grounds is yet another double standard.

Here in Utah, the governor has claimed that he’s all for better education, but when his opponent for the office suggested a plan to toughen high school graduation requirements, the governor opposed it because it would limit the “release time” during the school day that allows LDS students to leave school grounds and attend religious classes at adjoining LDS seminaries – and then the governor blasted his opponent for sending his children to parochial schools.  Wait a minute.  Using the schedules of taxpayer-funded schools to essentially promote religion is fine, but spending your own money (and saving the taxpayers money to boot) to send a child to a religious school is somehow wrong?  Talk about a double standard.

Another double standard is the legal distinction between crack and powdered cocaine, especially since the legal penalties against the powdered form are far less stringent than those for crack, and since the powdered form is used by celebrities and others such as Paris Hilton, while crack is the province more of minorities and the denizens of poorer areas.  I may be misguided, but it seems to me that cocaine is cocaine.

I’ve also noted another interesting trend in the local and state newspapers.  Crimes committed by individuals with Latino names seem to get more coverage, and more prominent positioning in the same issue of the paper, than what appear to be identical crimes committed by those with more “Anglo” surnames. Coincidence?  I doubt it.  While it may be more “newsworthy,” in the sense that reporting that way increases sales, it’s another example of a double standard.

Demanding responsibility from teachers, but not from students, a practice I’ve noted before, is also a double standard.  So is the increasing practice of colleges and universities to require better grades and test scores from women than from men, in order to “balance” the numbers of incoming young men and women.  Whatever the rationale, it’s still a double standard.

Going into Iraq theoretically to remove an evil dictator and to improve human rights, but largely ignoring human rights violations elsewhere, might be considered a double standard – or perhaps merely a hypocritical use of that rationale to cover strategic interests… but why don’t we have the courage to say, “Oil matters to us more than human rights violations in places that don’t produce goods vital to us” ?

Double standards have been a feature of human societies since the first humans gathered together, but it seems to be that the creativity used in justifying them is increasing with each passing year.  Why is it that we can’t call a spade a spade… or a double standard just that?

The September 4^th edition of The Economist included an article/commentary entitled “Declining by Degree” that effectively forecasts the collapse of U.S. higher education, citing a number of facts and trends I’ve already mentioned in previous blogs and adding in a few others.  For example, an American Enterprise Institute study found that in 1961, on average, U.S. students at four year colleges studied 24 hours a week, but today only study 14.  While U.S. household income has grown by a factor of 6.5 over the period, the cost of attending an in-state public college or university has increased fifteen times, while the cost of private universities, pricy even in 1960, has increased 13 times.  Yet educational outcomes are no better, and less than 40% of all students graduate in four years.

While the commentary identifies many of the causal factors I’ve mentioned, such as the incredible administrative bloat and building elaborate facilities not directly related to academics, i.e., football stadiums and lavish student centers, it addresses the problem of faculty as “indifference to student welfare” and inflated grades to faculty preoccupation with personal research and scholarship. I’d agree that there is considerable institutional indifference to student welfare, despite all the inflated claims and protestations to the contrary.  Based on my own years of teaching and more than twenty years of observing my wife and several offspring who teach at the university level, that indifference generally does not come from the individual faculty member, but from the combination of administration, parental, and student pressures that most faculty – especially non-tenured, tenure track junior professors – are unable to withstand if they wish to keep their positions.

Like it or not, grades have become the sine qua non for entry into graduate programs or jobs, and, also, like it or not, virtually all university professors are judged in large part on how good their student evaluations are, and, according to studies, the higher the grades a professor gives, and the less demanding the student workload, the better the student evaluations.  The other principal aspect of gaining and retaining tenure – especially now that more and more universities are instituting post-tenure review – is the faculty member’s scholarship and/or research.  In addition, to cope with the incredible increase in tuition and fees, more and more students are working part-time or even full-time and/or taking out significant student loans, which they intend to pay back by getting a high-paid job after completion of their education, and they see the pay they will receive as at least in part determined by their grades/class ranking.  As an illustration, an incoming student at my wife’s university inquired about the percentage of As granted in each class for which he was registered – and immediately dropped the hardest class after the first week of classes. He wasn’t the only one; it’s a pattern that faculty members recognize and note year after year.

The combination of these pressures effectively communicates to faculty that their own welfare is determined by their popularity and by their scholarship and research, not by how well they prepare students. For at least ten years, the vast majority of professors I’ve known who require in-depth preparation and learning on the part of students have had to resist enormous pressures from their superiors, and sometimes even from colleagues, not to be “too hard” on the students. Under these circumstances, it’s not hard to see why American college graduates are, as a whole, less prepared than their predecessors, and why more than half of the graduating college seniors are effectively marginally literate… or why The Economist cites the coming decline of U.S. universities. You can’t put professors in a situation where, to improve student performance, they effectively have to destroy their own future, and expect the vast majority to be that self-sacrificing.

The problems and trends are indeed real, but, as in so many cases that I discuss, few want to look at the root causes.

A while back I commented on the fact that one of the problems with all the education “reformers” was that virtually all the rhetoric and the effort was concentrated on teachers and schools, but primarily upon teachers. In recent weeks, there have been new programs, press interviews with the Secretary of Education, Arne Duncan, and the national head of the teachers’ union, not to mention all sorts of other commentary to coincide with the beginning of the new school year.  And what do we continue to hear?  It’s all about how getting better and more inspiring teachers will improve education.

Who can disagree with that?

Except… it’s only focusing on half the problem.  It’s like saying that a good coach will always have a good team, no matter what sort of players the coach has, no matter what their background and motivation are.  That is, pardon me, bullshit.  Good teams require good coaches and good players.  Likewise, good education requires good teachers and good students, and unlike coaches, teachers don’t have the luxury of selecting and educating only the best students.  Putting all the focus on teachers, especially at a time when teachers have less and less respect from students and parents and, frankly, fewer and fewer tools to maintain discipline in a culture that has multiplied manifold the possible distractions and student problems, is not only unrealistic, but short-sighted.  Placing all the responsibility on the teachers is, however, far more politically and personally attractive than addressing the “student problem.”

What almost all of these “reformers” overlook are some of the key reasons why private schools and the best charter schools have better records in improving student performance.  In addition to better teachers, the parents are more involved, and they play a far greater role in demanding more of their children.  In addition, disruptive and disinterested students can be dealt with, and removed if they don’t improve their behavior. In short, they deal with student motivation and aspiration, and provide a supportive and disciplined structure for learning.

The other problem in focusing on teachers is that the growing emphasis is on test scores and their improvement.  Teachers tend to oppose this focus – and for very good reasons.  No matter how good the teacher, a classroom composed of inner-city students with poor educational backgrounds and difficult personal situations will not progress as fast as one composed of the best and most highly motivated students in the school.  How do you measure what progress represents a “good” teacher?  It’s easy enough to determine a terrible teacher, but an excellent teacher may put more effort and skill into creating a modest improvement with a difficult class while a competent teacher may show greater improvement with a less educationally-challenged class.

In addition, excessive test-oriented teacher evaluation creates pressures to “teach to the tests,” rather than pressure to teach students how to learn.  This further emphasizes teacher behavior and test-related causality, rather than dealing with the long-term needs and requirements of the students.

So… when are we as a society, especially the educational reformers, going to address the entire spectrum of problems with education, rather than placing the entire responsibility on the teachers?

One of the key elements in human society and human relations is the capacity for communication on a person-to-person basis.  People who have trouble reading emotions and responding appropriately to them – whether through a genetic factor, such as Asperger’s Syndrome or autism, or brain injuries – are severely disadvantaged. Humans are a social society. In interacting with others, we learn to read people’s body expressions, their tone of voice, the minute expressions in their eyes, and scores of other subtle signals.  These skills are increasingly more vital in a complex society because, frankly, the majority of people don’t understand the technology and the institutions.  What most people are left with is their ability to read other people. In addition, one of the factors that reduces hatred and conflict is empathy with others, and that’s generated through face-to-face experiences. Electronic technologies, particularly cellphones and hand-held texting devices, are expanding to the point where they’re largely replacing face-to face and even aural communications.  Texting, in particular, removes all personal interaction from communications, leaving only a written shorthand.

High school and college students walk around with earbuds all the time, ignoring those around them, often fatally, as when they walk in front of light-rail, cars, and buses.  But that’s not the only danger.  The excessive volume used in such devices, perhaps boosted to isolate them from others, has resulted in permanent hearing loss in roughly 20 percent of the teenaged population of the United States.  In addition, the self-selecting effect of electronic communications removes or limits the interactions with others who are different – at a time when in the United States in particular, cultural homogeneity is disappearing in a multicultural society.  Perhaps some of the impetus for electronic isolation or segregation is a reaction to that trend, because a less homogenous society represents unpleasant change for some… but ignoring it through the filter of self-selecting electronic social networking does nothing to address a growing cultural and communications gap.

The vast majority of users of Facebook and MySpace and other social networking sites reveal all sorts of personal information that can prove incredibly helpful to identity thieves, information that most people would balk at telling to casual acquaintances – yet they post it on networks for other users – and hackers across the world – to see and use.

Likewise, for all the rhetoric about multi-tasking, study after study has shown that multi-taskers are less efficient than “serial-taskers” and that, in many cases, such as texting while driving or operating machinery, multi-tasking can prove fatal.  Equally important, but more overlooked, is the fact that electronic multi-tasking erodes the ability to concentrate and to undertake and complete tasks that require sustained continuous effort and concentration.  In essence, it can effectively create attention-deficit-disorder.

Add to that the fact that even email is becoming a drag on productivity because all too many supervisors use it to demand more and more reports – and those reports only detract from more productive efforts.

So again… why do we as a society tout and rush to buy and gleefully employ electronic equipment that is ruining our hearing, reducing our abilities in assessing others and thus handicapping us in making good decisions while amplifying negative traits such as negative stereotyping, seducing us into often dangerous patterns of behavior, increasing the chances for costly identity-theft, and reducing the productivity of millions of Americans? Or, put another way, why are we as a society actively promoting and advocating technology that will effectively replicate the effects of such handicaps as Asperger’s Syndrome or attention-deficit disorder?

If the Islamic terrorists released a virus that accomplished these ends, we’d consider it an act of war… but we seem to be doing it all on our own, and, at the same time, denouncing anyone who suggests that all this personal and social-networking high-tech communications isn’t in our best interests as a technophobe or a“dinosaur”… or “not with the times.”

But then, thoughtful consideration seems to be one of the first casualties of extreme technophilia.

Earlier this year, my wife received a job application from a singer with a master’s degree who had not only sung professionally across the United States, but who made that very clear in her vita. She also knew my wife… and made a point of noting that in her cover letter.  In fact, my wife had taught the woman for the majority of her undergraduate years, but what was most interesting about the application was that the applicant’s vita never listed my wife as ever having taught her.  Yet my wife had spent more time teaching this singer than had several of those the woman had listed as her teachers – and the position the woman was applying for was to teach voice students on the undergraduate level under my wife’s supervision.

By comparison, such world-renowned singers as Rene Fleming and Kelli O’Hara make a practice of recognizing their first teachers.  Yet this applicant not only failed to acknowledge her undergraduate teacher, but had the nerve to apply for a job from her with a resume that didn’t even list her as one of her teachers.  If this applicant did not happen to be favorably disposed toward my wife – and that does happen – why would she want to work for her?  If she happened to be desperate for the position, why did she not at least acknowledge her former teacher?

It’s also possible that the letter and resume were “merely” general and sent to many institutions, but whatever the reason for such an oversight, the result suggests either a focus just on the applicant alone or a lack of care on the part of the applicant or a certain lack of respect – not any of which are exactly characteristics an employer prefers in an employee.  What was also somewhat amazing is that the applicant was not someone just out of graduate school, but a singer with professional experience in her forties.  Was the approach the result of having been a diva… or just stupidity?

I’d like to say that this happened to be an isolated incident.  I can’t.  I cannot count the number of times either my wife or I have run across similar cases – such as the time when I was guest of honor at a science fiction convention and I introduced myself, at the request of my editor, to an up-and-coming young writer.  His first words to me were, “I’m sorry.  I don’t know who you are.”  That was despite the fact that my name was on the front of the program.  Needless to say, although I never mentioned the fact, until right now, to anyone but my wife, the once young author has up and come and largely departed the scene.  I had nothing to do with his career path.  Like the singer I mentioned above, he took care of it all by himself.

At the higher levels of any profession, whether it be politics, writing, music, or anything else, the communities are comparatively small, and sooner or later, everyone tends to know more about everyone else than most of those entering the field have any idea or understanding.  Ability and even genius alone are usually not enough to succeed.  In the end, like it or not, we all need other people in order to succeed in what we do… and actions that offend or insult people, whether intentional or not, are less than career-enhancing moves.

Not matter how talented you are, it’s not all about you.

Over the past few years, I’ve noticed an increasing trend with regard to the sales of my books.  When a book is initially released, it generally ranks much higher on the Amazon.com sales list than it does on the B&N.com list, and that ranking stays correspondingly higher for somewhere between one and two months after publication, and then plummets on the Amazon.com list.  This holds true whether the book is electronic, hardcover, or paperback, although the difference appears to be getting greater with regard to paperback sales of books more than three months past publication date. From what I can tell, the pricing policies don’t change in these time frames so that it can’t be that Amazon suddenly stops discounting after so many weeks or months or that B&N gives a greater discount for older books.

Although I haven’t the time to track the corresponding figures for other authors, I suspect that from my casual observations the same is generally true for most of them as well.

And, if so, what does it mean?

Put bluntly, it means that Amazon, as the cutting-edge on-line bookseller, appeals to a far larger proportion of readers who are more computer-innovation-invested and more interested in what’s “new” and that older, more stable Barnes and Noble appeals to, if you will, a  clientele somewhat less interested in instant gratification and computer glitz.

As a side note, I used the term “more computer-innovation-invested” advisedly, because there’s a tendency on the part of those who seek the latest computer and communications technology as soon as they become available to view those of us who only adopt new technology when it makes sense for our uses and needs as “out of touch” or “dinosaurs,” yet most of the difference is not whether those like me use newer technology, but when we adopt it and how much of it we find useful… and this is a different mindset that appears to be reflected in book-buying as well.

The problem with the approach taken by Amazon, especially with regard to bookselling, is that the appeal to the “I want it now” crowd tends to hype what is immediately identifiable as “popular,”  not to mention also increasing the sales of electronic books, especially those in Amazon’s Kindle format.  Because Amazon competes on price, this also has other ramifications.

Greater e-books sales at the expense of hardcovers, as I’ve noted previously, reduce hardcover sales, and such reduced sales result in lower hardcover revenues.  For Stephen King and Stephanie Meyer, the lower revenues don’t result in their not writing more books.  For hundreds, if not thousands, of midlist authors, it will and perhaps already has.  According to at least one large independent bookstore, some publishers have indicated that they will no longer even offer the books of some midlist authors in paperback format, only in hardcover, trade paperback, and ebook formats.   Because ebooks are not replacing paperback titles on anywhere close to a one-for-one basis, this will result in fewer and fewer midlist authors being able to support themselves on their writing income.

At the same time, scores of new ebook publishers are rushing titles into “print,” often at significantly lower prices… and I’ve seen enough of the works of these new ebook publishers already to observe that their content and technical presentation are, with very few exceptions, inferior to that of those soon-vanishing midlist authors of large publishers.  At the same time, I’m seeing these cheaper titles popping up on Amazon.

As it is, the electronic “revolution” has resulted in an erosion of grammar and style among supposedly literate individuals, to the point where the majority of graduates with advanced degrees are marginally literate.  The proliferation of lower quality ebooks isn’t going to be any help in improving that situation, to say the least, although it’s certainly likely to continue to swell Amazon’s profits and perhaps, after a suitable delay, those of Barnes & Noble as well.

And, after all, aren’t greater profits always paramount in this land of freedom and opportunity?

Over the past several months, I’ve come across more and more reader comments about my writing along the lines of “I don’t like his writing, but I can’t stop reading him” or “he’s not that good a writer, but there’s something that makes me want to finish the series.”  While I’ll definitely accept such comments over those that begin “What the f—?” the question that comes to mind is, if I’m, such an unlikable writer or storyteller, why do those readers keep reading what I write?

Some might say that it’s to see how things turn out, but that doesn’t make much sense to me, because, while I write long “series,” I’ve never written more than three books about a given character, and these readers write about continuing to read me, as if my work happens to be an addiction that they can’t control.  From the sales point of view, that’s not totally bad, but I have to say that, in a way, it troubles me.

One reason for my unease is that I keep asking what is it about my work that is addictive enough that it compels those readers to continue against their feelings.  Or is it that they somehow feel ashamed to confess that they might actually like what I write?  Is it that I’m somehow unfashionable among certain groups – in the way that many male readers hate to confess they read romances or women that they like macho thrillers?

Then too, if I only knew exactly what it might be…. Why then, I could distill it and make millions in advertising or other fields, as opposed to a merely financially comfortable living as a writer.

Perhaps it’s because my work, especially my fantasy novels, has never been classified as deep, ponderous, and earthshaking [all right, I’ll grudgingly accept “ponderous” for a few], but neither are the books fluff, not even close to it, not if one reads all the words.    And I’d be the first to admit that, for most readers, my books aren’t exactly “light” reading, although there are some readers who clearly skim them and dismiss them as such.  It’s easy enough to tell that they do, because their comments ignore facts, traits, and events in the books in favor of a superficial gloss of the plot, and usually not all of it.  Unhappily, some of those readers are professional or semi-professional reviewers, and, as I’ve noted more than once, I tend to view sloppy and slipshod reviewers with the same distain and disgust as I do of slipshod and sloppy work in any field.

Or perhaps it’s as simple as the fact that readers like to be able to characterize in simple terms what they read and why they do… and the complexity beneath the surface of my books makes that difficult.  In point of fact, that’s always been one reason why I’ve never sent my editor a synopsis of any book before he reads it.  Anything short enough to be called a synopsis would be overly simplistic and misrepresentative and anything long enough to be accurate would scarcely qualify as a synopsis.

Whatever the reason, I have the feeling that such comments will continue and that I’ll continue to puzzle over them in a few of the moments when I’m not writing.

Last week stories appeared across the media citing the facts that not only do 18% of Americans now believe that Barrack Obama is a Muslim, but that the number of such believers has been rising.  Now… I’ll be the first to admit that I haven’t been pleased with some of what he’s done – or failed to do – but the fact that his middle name is of Islamic origin doesn’t make him a Muslim.  Then there are the millions that believe Obama is not a U.S. citizen – except that he was born in Honolulu, Hawaii, on August 4, 1961, of an American mother.  Since Hawaii became a state on August 21, 1959, he was born in a U.S. state, and, again, like it or not, that makes him a U.S. citizen.

Several other areas of “mis-knowledge” that have existed for so long that, while I still shake my head, I now know are a form of “folk stupidity” are the beliefs that “foreign aid” is a huge percentage of the federal budget or that all our deficit problems can be addressed by merely getting rid of the waste in the federal budget.  Or, for that matter, that reducing taxes will solve problems – or, on the other hand, that taxing the rich will immediately balance the federal budget.  Even a cursory look at the federal budget and outlays will show the falsity of these beliefs – beliefs that have existed for more than a generation and continue to persist.

Even supposedly intelligent members of Congress support stupid ideas – such as a fence along the U.S.-Mexico border.  Two years ago, the non-partisan Congressional Research Service completed a cost study – and among other findings, the study showed that (1) a fence along the 700 miles most heavily crossed by illegal immigrants would cost $49 billion to build and maintain for 25 years, and (2) recently built security fences stopped immigrants in those areas, but did not change the total number of illegal border crossings because illegal immigrants simply crossed where there weren’t fences. Since the entire U.S.-Mexico border stretches some 1,952 miles, fencing the entire border would cost close to $150 billion – and wouldn’t stop the flow of illegals, not when the U.S. has over 12,000 miles of ocean coastline borders and almost 4,000 miles of borders with Canada.

History also offers an example.  The ancient Chinese built a massive wall on their northern borders – several times.  It cost tens of thousands of lives and who knows how much over scores of years – and it didn’t work, either, and that was in a time when rulers didn’t have to worry much about laws and civil rights…or immediately executing violators.

Politicians who opposed the health-care law on the grounds that the U.S. has the “best health care in the world” are pandering to another kind of stupidity – the idea that everyone else is “like us.”  Not everyone is – and that’s illustrated by the 44 million Americans without health care… and people do die because of that lack – like the forty-year-old brother of a neighbor who was turned away at the acute care center because he lacked insurance after being laid off, and who died that night of asphyxiation from a strep infection that caused severe swelling in his throat and tonsils.

Then again, most of what I’ve called stupidity isn’t really that at all – it’s a rationalization of what those people holding those beliefs want to believe. Because Obama points out that Americans who are Muslims have the right to built an Islamic cultural center two blocks from the 9/11 World Trade Center ground zero, a right reinforced by a law sponsored by that arch-conservative Orin Hatch, many of those who feel strongly, either about Obama or Islamic believers, insist to themselves that Obama must be a Muslim because they can’t conceive of any other reason for his statement.  Most Americans don’t want to believe that the vast majority of federal spending is actually spent on people here in the USA and with comparatively little outright waste [spending on dubious projects is not “waste,” just foolish].  And even the president is either pandering to that stupidity, or exercising it himself, when he claims that every American family that makes more than $250,000 is rich.  They may be well-off, but they’re certainly not rich, not when it’s difficult, if not impossible, to raise a family in what most Americans, if pressed, would consider middle-class surroundings and schools in the most expensive U.S. cities for less  than $100,000.  Yes… $250,000 is “rich”… in Plano, Texas, or Richfield, Utah, or Nampa, Idaho… but most people today live in bigger cities with higher costs of living because that’s where the jobs are.  Yet all too many Americans still think that a dollar is a dollar in value anywhere in the good old USA.  It’s not… and it hasn’t been for generations.

Stupidity…or self-serving rationalization?  Does it matter when the results lead to self-deception, hatred, pandering politicians, and poor public policies?

At the PGA golf championship earlier this month Dustin Johnson failed to read and heed the directions the PGA had posted.  That simple failure cost him between $640,000 and $1,080,000.  The “directions” were PGA instructions to all golfers that any sandy area on the course was considered a bunker or sand trap.  Letting a club touch the sand before making the shot is called grounding the club, and grounding results in a two stroke penalty.  Johnson grounded his club in a sandy area that didn’t “look like” a bunker, and the penalty took him from a tie for first to fifth place.  He might have been PGA champion, with all the extra endorsements and money that go with a win of a major championship.  Instead, he’s an also-ran.

While I’m certain Johnson regrets his failure to read and follow directions, there’s a bigger message here… and one that all too many people, students, in particular, fail to grasp.  Directions are there for a reason.  Students often ignore directions or deadlines because they “don’t see the point.”  While some directions are probably excessive and even unnecessary, the vast majority are issued for a reason, and, even if the reasons may seem stupid, often the penalty for violating the directions is severe, and certainly not worth saving a few moments by not reading those directions or ignoring them because you “know better.”

Sometimes, failure to read and heed results in significant financial loss – and Johnson’s example is just one of thousands, ranging from sports to finance, even to the terms of an ATM card, or credit card terms, or the instructions on a tax form. Or perhaps it might be students who illegally download music or copy copyrighted material.  Admittedly, many get away with it – but those who don’t face legal action and, often, financial burdens that will effectively destroy their future.  Others may get away with plagiarism through creative use of the internet – for a while – until it comes back to bite them, such as the case of former congressman Scott McInnis of Colorado who was discovered raking in hundreds of thousands of dollars in fees for writing columns that he plagiarized.

At other times, the penalties are even more severe – such as death, if one fails to heed warnings about everything from trespassing to electrocution.  Earlier this month, I was in Boise, and all the news was about a couple who had drowned while tubing because they’d ignored the warning signs posted above a seemingly gentle river spillway.  Both had been caught in a circular undertow, and neither had been wearing a life jacket.  They’d looked at the apparently gentle current swirls and ignored the warnings and the directions to leave the river and walk around the low dam that “only” dropped a few feet.  They either ignored the warnings, or they “knew better.”  They’re dead.  So are the two men who attempted to float through the slot canyons of Zion National Park on a homemade log raft without any safety gear and against posted warnings. So are… but the list is truly endless.

Think about it… especially when you “know better.”

Last Sunday, I made a trip to the local KFC outlet for our annual fast-food fried chicken fix.  When I arrived inside, I was greeted by an enthusiastic server – male, twentyish, Caucasian, speaking unaccented Utah American, asking for my order. I told him, very distinctly, that I wanted, “Two two-piece meals, extra-crispy, each one with a wing and a breast, one with coblet and wedges, the other with wedges and macaroni and cheese.”

He immediately told me that it would be a ten minute wait for the original recipe thighs and wings.  I pointed out that I’d ordered wings and breasts.  He said that I’d still have to wait for the wings.  I pointed out that I’d ordered extra crispy, not original recipe.

All I’d said to him was my order.  I was the only customer. I was polite.  I didn’t whisper, and I didn’t yell. Why wasn’t he listening?  He wasn’t wearing IPod earphones.

One of the reasons I carry a list of my books in print with me to signings and conventions is because I’ve learned that even many readers can’t remember what I said a few minutes before.  I don’t remind them of this, not when my objective is to sell more books. I just circle the book in question on the list and hand them the paper.

My wife had to tell a clerk at a local store three times what pieces of dinnerware she wanted ordered, and then had to call back three times because the order had somehow been forgotten.

I’d like to think that these are unusual occurrences.  Unhappily, they’re not.  Every teacher in my wife’s department reports happenings like this, day after day. Students ask, “When was that due?” not three minutes after they’ve been told, sometimes when the date is also on the assignment sheet right in front of them.

On a related note, I’ve also seen at least five different reports in the media stating that rates of criminality don’t differ at all between American citizens and illegal immigrants. Yet, time and time again, I see anti-immigrant rhetoric deploring the higher crime rates of immigrants… or claims of higher crime rates in Arizona at the same time that the FBI has listed Phoenix as one of the five safest cities in the United States.  Yes… I know that certain border communities have higher crime rates… but that’s like claiming American citizens are more prone to crime because certain sections of New York City or any other large American city have high crime rates.

Has the proliferation of blackberries, Iphones, and the like resulted in acute hearing loss, or accelerated attention deficit disorder?  Impaired short-term memory loss?

Or is it because, with modern communications, we can increasingly tune out anything we don’t want to hear, immerse ourselves only in the music and news that suits us, and refuse to talk to anyone except those on our personal e-communications net?

The past year has been a banner one for hate-mongering.  We’ve had Proposition 8 in California and all the money and rhetoric on both sides of the issue of various gay rights in California and elsewhere.  We’ve had the vitriolic debate over healthcare, and the increasingly bitter strife and arguments over immigration and illegal aliens.  We’ve had the TEA Party explosion over taxation, which has been so irrational that at times [as I’ve noted] the TEA Partiers have sunk some of their strongest and most effective legislative allies. Lurking in the background remains the bitter and often violent controversy between “pro-choice” and “right-to-life” factions over abortion.

In all of these instances, parties on all sides assert that  they’re asserting their first amendment rights of freedom of speech.  Such assertions seem to be accepted without reservation, as if this right is unlimited.  In fact, it is not.  In 1919, in Schenck v. United States, the U.S. Supreme Court upheld a lower court decision affirming federal law limiting freedom of speech.  In that opinion, Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes, Jr., held that in wartime, conditions are such that greater restrictions on free speech are indeed constitutional, and that:

“The question in every case is whether the words used are used in such circumstances and are of such a nature as to create a clear and present danger that they will bring about the  substantive evils that Congress has a right to prevent.”

Although the Congress has not declared war in the conflicts in either Iraq or Afghanistan, the United States is still engaged in the longest war in its history, and many other freedoms have been effectively curtailed.  Air travel requires in-depth search of self and belongings without any criminal intent on the part of the passenger and certainly no probable cause. Yet we not only allow, but actually support and pay for virtually unlimited hate-mongering by media personalities.  That hate-mongering stirs up civil unrest, state legislation that is most likely unconstitutional, uncivil behavior, and discrimination… and all in a time of war.

Why is this occurring? Because it’s profitable for the media outlets.  The more conflict that’s generated, the more the number of listeners increases, and the more advertising rates and revenues increase.  In effect, the media has succeeded in successfully turning hate into a paying commodity – and all too many Americans are buying it… and effectively working to destroy many of the very principles on which the nation was founded.

As I have stated before, every single person in the United States is either an immigrant or a descendent of immigrants.  Exactly what is the difference between those seeking to live in the United States and our forebears?  Some will claim that our ancestors came legally.  Some doubtless did, but many were convicts and criminals.  Others were fleeing chaos and war – just like the majority of those trying to reach the USA today.  The hate-mongers claim that the “illegal” immigrants bring more crime.  Statistics show that the rates of crime between “legal” Americans and “illegals” are almost identical.  Such facts tend to get buried in the hate-filled rhetoric.

Interestingly enough, given the magnitude of the financial melt-down and the subsequent Great Recession, we’ve had comparatively little hate-mongering against Wall Street and the financial types who perpetrated it.  Even Bernie Madoff got off comparatively lightly in the media.  Why might that be?  Could it just possibly be because the media pundits who stir up all this hate don’t want to bite [at least not too hard] the hands that pay them for all this hate-mongering?

But, of course, any suggestion that Congress consider restrictions on broadcasting hate and inciting civil unrest will immediately draw cries about how free speech can never be infringed.  Except that the Supreme Court already ruled that in times of war… it can.

We have laws against other toxic substances.  What about toxic speech?

One of the problems that the “social” scientists have historically had is the lack of empirical evidence and data necessary either to support, reject, or modify their theories of human behavior. The July 24^th issue of New Scientist contains a story reporting a source of such data – the internet and the world electronic communications net, both of which track large numbers of people and their behavior.

In one on-line tracking experiment involving 14,000 people, dealing with the popularity of music downloads, the researchers investigated the influence of excellence and of “popularity.”  Their results showed, unsurprisingly to me, at least, that recordings that listeners rated as good in terms of quality rarely did poorly and those rated as poor seldom did well.  But… when listeners were able to see how others rated a recording, termed “social influence,” the popularity of some “good” recordings soared, often wildly, and the popularity of “poor” recordings declined even more.  In addition, the researchers concluded that, when social influence is a factor, accidents as much as true quality determined which songs were at the top of the chart… and that herd instinct played a significant factor in amplifying the effect of those accidents.

While no research to date has apparently been published focusing on book sales, this early research on social influence tends to support my own observations – that the bottom-line requirement for success as a writer is to be able to write well.  Beyond that, how popular a writer is depends largely on crowd dynamics and social influence.

Certain writers have been able to create some of that influence through blogs and Twitter, but those who have are [sorry to say, for all their efforts] the beneficiaries of luck and timing as much as anything else, because for every writer who has been able to generate such “social influence” there are scores who’ve gone through the same steps, some offering better “quality” and some offering less, who’ve not been anywhere near as successful.  In short, “wild” success still remains a crap-shoot, but pretty much any sort of success remains dependent on at least competency in writing and story-telling.

What the research doesn’t address to date, and probably never will be able to address, even with the wealth of information on the internet, is how closely reader or listener perceptions of how good something is tracks actual excellence, given the subjectivity involved in assessing such excellence.  I’ve noticed, for example, that there’s a definite difference in reader perceptions of my books, as manifested in reader reviews, between the reviews on the Amazon Canada, the Amazon UK, and the Amazon.com sites.

The other question, given the growing role of “social influence” created by on-line social communities, Twitter, and by reader reviews on sites such as Amazon.com and BarnesandNoble.com, is how long excellence, as opposed to being “not terrible,” will even matter.  Certainly, in popular vocal music the overall technical quality of singers is on average far lower than it was sixty years ago, and back then the singers didn’t have the electronic “correction” technologies now available in every recording studio.  Admittedly, the performance spectacle element of pop music concerts and music videos can be awesome, and that’s not surprising, not with the ever-greater emphasis on the visual, but does this mean that manga and anime will continue to elbow out “real” books in bookstores and other book outlets?

Given the factors of excellence, visual appeal, and social influence, I’m getting the feeling that quality [not even excellence] is coming in last in determining what books are published and how well they sell.  But then, excellence has always tended to be last.  It just wasn’t that far back a century ago.

At one point, I wondered why the United States has less overt “corruption” and bribery than most other nations, but that was before I analyzed what corruption is and the different forms that it takes.  Although recent usage of the verb “to corrupt” tends to emphasize terms like “to pervert” or “to destroy morality” or “to debase or ruin,” the original meaning of the Latin roots means “to break thoroughly or completely.”

Governments are the institutional means by which societies accomplish common social goals and keep the peace.  In the original sense of the word, a government that cannot do either or both is thoroughly broken, i.e., corrupt.  What lies behind a society’s ability to function, as well as a government’s effectiveness, is the simple matter of trust.  If a government official cannot be trusted to do his or her job without a bribe, or in the worst cases, even after a bribe is paid, then that official is corrupt.  There’s an old definition about an “honest politician” – he’s the one who stays bribed, and there’s an element of truth to that, because that sort of “honest politician” can be trusted to carry out whatever the bribe was for.

In the United States, in this context, how much is “broken” by corruption and in what fashion is it broken?  Commentators, particularly on the left, claim that the political system has been “corrupted” by the power of special and moneyed interests, and that the recent Supreme Court decision affirming the right of corporations to spend unlimited amounts of money in “public interest” campaign spending symbolizes that corruption.  Yet… is that corruption, when it is accomplished through the workings of the system society has set up?  It may not be “good,” according to those who oppose the unchecked power of money, but is it corrupt?  On the other hand, by any definition, politicians who take cash, either under or over the table, are corrupt… but what about those whose votes are determined by whose legal campaign contributions are the largest and most faithful?  Yet, compared to most countries, the U.S. has a comparatively low percentage of politicians who take bribes or illegal cash.  Does the “legal” granting of favors amount to corruption?

I’d have to say it does not, because, under the terms of that argument, answering to voters becomes a form of corruption, since the politician is taking the favor of votes in return for providing various goods to his constituents.  In essence, any legal trade-off could be called corruption.  In fact, the system works.  We may not like the results, but we have the right, and the power, to change it. In a truly corrupt nation or municipality, the people, by majority vote or act, do not have such a choice.

Why has it worked out this way in the USA? I wouldn’t claim to have all the answers to this, but I suspect it’s because our terribly convoluted and complex system offers many avenues for people to influence the outcomes of governmental decisions and because the government has historically been generally trustworthy. I would note that “trustworthy” does not necessarily mean “excellent”; it means that the government and its officials keep their word and carry out policies and rules generally as they’re laid out.  You and I may not like those laws and policies, but they carry them out.

That issue, in another sense, is what lies behind the Arizona immigration law and furor.  The people of Arizona don’t believe that the U.S. federal government can be trusted to carry out what they believe are federal responsibilities.  The problem there is that the government believes it is carrying out its responsibilities under the law. Technically, I doubt there’s much question about that, but there is an implied contract involved, which, although unwritten in more than general terms of “enemies foreign and domestic,” implies that government needs to protect people against “invasion” and loss, and the people of Arizona believe that contract is being broken.

But… is it?  And if it is, who is breaking that contract?  The government… or all those who hire illegal aliens and all those who buy the illegal drugs of the illegals’s gangs?  Is it the government that is broken. i.e., corrupt?  Or is the government taking the brunt of the blame for not addressing the “corruption” of others in the way that large segments of the population would like?