Be Polite to Your Elders

Janan Ganesh writes a column for the Financial Times. It is consistently interesting and engaging, though seriously underappreciated. I suspect you have never heard of him. More’s the pity.

Anyway, last Saturday Ganesh offered up some reflections on rhetoric, or the lack of same. By his lights, and I would be at pains to disagree, young people today do not know how to express themselves. They speak like vulgar louts and expect everyone to respect them for as much. 

Rhetoric, I am sure you know, is the art of persuasion. Ganesh recommends that we go back to teaching it to children in school. I heartily concur.

Surely, he is correct to say that most young people today do not know how to formulate a letter to improve their chances of receiving a reply, to engage a productive a conversational exchange or even discuss doing business together.

There are good and bad ways of expressing yourself. If you merely imagine that you need but get something off your chest, if you are rude, crude and lewd, your prospects, both personal and professional will be seriously compromised.

One suspects, without having any evidence at hand, that the television series like Downton Abbey was enormously popular because people knew how to converse with each other, with wit, with intelligence and with respect. 

Then Ganesh takes out after the mania over self-help books, which are not a novelty, but differ from the older version in one sense. The older versions of self-help books involved learning good manners, the better to function in society.

Today’s books seem to be all about therapy. As Ganesh astutely notes, they involve pointing you into your mind and away from of social commerce. He writes:

The flaw in most self-help is that it dwells on the interior life, rather than outward technique. To exhort someone into a state — of confidence, of Stoicism, of anything — at least in a lasting way, is hard. But small adjustments in what they do can transform their outcomes. And from those real-life gains comes the gradual change in inner state.

Failing to use proper terms of respect, failing to express yourself intelligently and succinctly will compromise your career prospects.

Ganesh writes:

I have seen enough meetings, parties, job interviews, broadcast slots, panel events and dates to sense which habits of speech harm a person’s standing with others, sometimes without either side quite knowing it. They include the filler words “like” and, in England, “sort of”, often pronounced, with nervous speed, “siddiv”. They include starting a sentence with, “I guess . . . ” and ending it with, “Does that make sense?” They include, above all, the interrogative tone in non-interrogative statements.

What links these familiar but far from exhaustive examples is their disclosure of self-doubt. And not the endearing kind. “Like” stems from a deep fear of pauses, lest the other person stops listening. Upspeak is a constant probing for approval. 

The aesthetic case against a lot of modern speech is easy to mount. The challenge is to convince people of the strategic stakes: that mere avoidance of the glitches above will raise their perceived stature.

In order to get along with other people you need to know how to talk to them, even how to persuade them to do something you want them to do.

In today’s America everyone seems to believe that people refuse to do what they are told, already an insulting, infantilizing approach to persuasion, because they have received misinformation. If you refuse to acknowledge that another person has a right to refuse to take your advice, you are not being very persuasive. And when you are too stupid to be able to persuade them you will be reduced to trying to force people to do what you want them to do.

Another is that a career can hinge on meetings and other “performances” between the actual doing of work. When someone’s added value is so hard to delineate, the spoken word becomes a clue. And this, to stress, is just the professional risk of modern speech habits. It says nothing of the social and romantic costs of sounding like a teenager from Encino.

Ah yes, you do not want to sound like a teenager from Encino. 

I don’t wish I had had, when young, some protein shake-reviewer on YouTube urging me to live in alignment with my values, dude. What I wish I had had was someone to tell me that nothing — not eye-contact, not spread arms — conveys confidence like a mid-sentence pause. Or that a flat, declarative tone in a room full of upspeakers is such an advantage as to be tantamount to cheating. This, which we moderns learn through trial and error, if at all, is what an Athenian would have recognised as rhetoric. It is a life skill, not just or even mainly a political one.

When and why our culture stopped treating it as such, others will know. But the victims are all around us. To speak commandingly does not require a John Updike vocabulary or grammatical exactitude. It does not entail the crushing of regional accents and demotic idioms. I offer Manchester’s own Noel Gallagher as a model to emulate, and legion Sloanes as the inverse. As for America, many decades into upspeak, no one who has that tic of the elite campuses and the modish industries has had a sniff of the White House. The people have, in whatever style, spoken.

Of course, Ganesh is British, but stationed in America. For those who care to have a glimpse at the appalling behavior of British teenagers, I offer up a column by Philippa Perry, advice columnist for the Guardian. If you want to know why young people are not going to get anywhere in this world, why they are incapable of forming relationships or holding down jobs, take a glimpse at this letter:

I am writing to ask your advice about our 22-year-old granddaughter. We house-sit for my daughter and her family when they are away. They have dogs, but don’t like to put them in kennels. We have always got on well with our granddaughter and indulged her, along with her brothers. But she is spoilt. Last month while we were there to house-sit, there was shouting between her and my husband. She didn’t like the fact that my husband had disciplined our dog when we arrived – but our dog was jumping up.

I know my husband has a short temper, but it blows over quickly. Her reaction was over the top. She stormed off and wouldn’t look at him. She asked him to leave the lounge as she wanted to watch a film. She actually arranged for a friend to call every two days to check the dogs were being looked after OK, as if we are untrustworthy. She texted me to say we were not to go into her room and she referred to my husband by his name and not “Grandad”.

My daughter and her husband ignored her behaviour. I think they should at least tell her off. She owes her grandfather an apology.

As you know, such behavior would never have been tolerated in Downton Abbey.

Unfortunately, Perry is purveying therapy culture values and thus is working to destroy this young adult's life, even before it starts. She has no sense of rudeness and believes that granddaughter is merely expressing her feelings. 

Your granddaughter is an adult and she’s allowed to say what she feels.

In truth, the young woman is making a blithering fool of herself, but such behavior, redolent of disrespect will turn her into a useless slug.

Now, Perry joins in the chorus of contempt for the grandfather, calling him the patriarch-- which she clearly is using derisively. Might we suggest that her own rhetorical skills need some serious improvement. How does she imagine that a young worker dealing with her elderly manager or boss is going to advance her career by adopting feminist slang and by looking at her boss with contempt?

Perry even recommends that the “patriarch” apologizes:

And perhaps the patriarch could allow himself to say something like the following to her: “I have been reading about ‘dog whispering’ and tried it out and my dog is behaving much better now. Thank you for showing me there was another way. And I really should not have shouted at the dog and nor should I have shouted you down. I’m used to being in charge and I need to realise that I can have equal relationships where I allow myself to be influenced by others, even if they are decades younger. In my day, dads and granddads knew it all, and yet it was all bluff – I sucked it up, but when I reflect on it I realise I was taking their dominance of me out on you. I really don’t have to carry that on for another generation…”

Or something like that and then I’m sure you will all get on just fine.

If granddaughter expects serious adults to apologize to her, she is headed for oblivion. Perry has disgraced herself and has insulted the intelligence of her readers.

The moral of the story is: be polite to your elders or shut the fuck up.

Kamala's Anti-Semitism Exposed

Everyone understands by now that the singularly inept and incompetent Kamala Harris is Joe Biden’s insurance policy. Every time it crosses anyone’s mind that Joe Biden is not capable of conducting the office of president of the United States, someone remarks that the alternative, Kamala Harris, would be appreciably worse.

Aside from the fact that our current vice president has completely made a hash of her responsibility for the migrant crisis on the Southern border, the White House staff, however controlling it is of Biden’s personal encounters with the press, has kept Kamala away from the media. Because, God knows what she will say when she opens her mouth.

Case in point, last week Harris made a surprise visit to a class at George Mason University. When she elected to take questions, one of the students stated what has now become acceptable thinking on the American left. That would be, an anti-Semitic rant that is fully worthy of Jeremiah Wright and Louis Farrakhan. If you were wondering why this thinking has suddenly become acceptable, look back at the time when Wright’s protege was in the White House. 

As the student ran on about how the Israelis were committing ethnic genocide-- which means that they are Nazis-- Harris nodded in assent.

Of course, Harris is married to a Jewish man. We can certainly question his judgement, whatever is left of it.

Anyway, the story has been largely ignored by the mainstream media, ever willing to cover up the Democratic Party’s anti-Semitism. So, we find a transcript in The Daily Mail:

As Harris took questions after speaking, one of the female students voiced her concerns about US financial and military support for Israel and Saudi Arabia.

'I see that over the summer there have been, like, protests and demonstrations in astronomical numbers standing with Palestine, but then just a few days ago there were funds allocated to continue backing Israel, which hurts my heart because it's ethnic genocide and displacement of people, the same that happened in America, and I'm sure you're aware of this,' the student said, as Harris nodded.

The student went on to express her belief that the funding would have been better spent helping Americans struggling with housing and health care costs instead 'to inflaming Israel and backing Saudi Arabia and what-not.' 

The student says she felt that she had to raise the issue, saying: 'It affects my life and people I really care about's lives.'

Evidently, the last sentence is borderline illiterate, but that is the least of her sins.

Seriously, how does funding for Israel affect her life? Obviously, America does not fund Saudi Arabia, but you will notice that the Abraham Accords and the diplomatic recognition accorded to Israel by the Gulf Arab states is a blow against those who want to destroy Israel.

To that rant, Harris offered a mindless piece of nonsense, effectively lending credence to the bigotry she had just heard:

'I'm glad you did,' Harris responded. 'And again, this is about the fact that your voice, your perspective, your experience, your truth, should not be suppressed and it must be heard, right? And one of the things we're fighting for in a democracy, right?' 

In what way was this the speaker’s truth? Was she simply repeating talking points to the effect that the piddling amount that America spends on foreign aid was taking money away from the Democratic Party constituents, those who believe that the government should care for them, no matter what.

And, if Israel is committing ethnic genocide, then what should American policy toward it be? Should its leaders be put on trial in Nuremberg-- for defending their country against people who want to destroy it. No one should be surprised at the unimaginable stupidity and bigotry of the statement that Vice President Harris declared to be someone's truth.

Of course, the crack Kamala communications team immediately put out a series of disclaimers, explaining that she did not say what she had said and besides that she was not really countenancing anti-Semitism-- which is an outright lie, but, hey, being a Democratic means you can get away with just about anything.

While the Republican Party still contains a few crackpot anti-Semites, the truth of the matter is that the Democratic Party has cornered the market in anti-Semitism. Major figures in the party now mouth anti-Semitism libels routinely and most people do not even notice. The press does not care. 

Or if it does care, it offers up its own blood libels-- witness the New York Times on 5-28-2021,  during the skirmish between Israel and Hamas, filling its front page with a checkerboard of head shots of Palestinian children who had supposedly been killed by the Jews. Link here.

Let’s not forget that Hamas and the Palestinian cause has friends in the Biden administration. That was the trigger that caused Hamas to fire 4,000 rockets into Israel. 

But, note well, that the bigoted student does not just think that Israeli foreign aid is starving minority children in America. She also blames Saudi Arabia. Evidently, she is aiming her ire at the Abraham Accords, accords to which Saudi Arabia is not a part, but which other states in the region have joined. 

In any event, now we understand why the border crisis, managed by the inept Kamala Harris, has gotten completely out of control. But then again, no one is really going to say anything about it, for fear of being called a bigot. And we now understand why Harris does not do any press briefings. God forbid anyone should discover what she thinks, or even the simple fact that she like her boss, does not think.

In the Wind

 Via Maggie's Farm:

Mental Illness and Progressive Politics

Being a thoroughly rational human creature one feels a special affinity for psychological research studies that demonstrate the correctness of one’s opinions.

Especially these days when those who debate political and social issues seem more prone to defamation and slander than to rational deliberation. 

Naturally, the current research does not prove much of anything. And yet, it does provide a certain comfort level to those who believe that the American left has lost its fucking mind. Apparently, previous studies had demonstrated, beyond any doubt, that conservatives were more prone to anxiety disorders than were leftist radicals. The new studies demonstrate just the opposite. They show that leftists are more likely to suffer from emotional distress than conservatives.

In one sense, it’s intuitively obvious. Which group is more likely to suffer fits of apocalyptic hysteria over the pending climate calamities?

This tells us, at the least, why we should always take social psychological studies with a bucket of salt. 

Anyway, the studies are based on sensitivity to threat. One feels compelled to notice that the American left is up in arms about the threat posed by the American right, especially a certain former president and his followers. Apparently, people who have better family values, who are less worried about the environment, and who, the study does not mention it, are more patriotic-- suffer less anxiety disorders. Who would have thought it?

After all, anyone who imagines that the January 6 storming of the capital was more of a danger than months worth of BLM riots must be suffering from an anxiety disorder. Moreover, such a sufferer must also be more detached from reality and must be lacking in sound judgment. The following comes to us from Psychology Today:

Based on this theory, a recent study (Helminen et al., 2021) tested whether conservative political views were related to having an anxiety disorder, as people with such disorders naturally tend to be sensitive to feelings of threat. Additionally, the study aimed to test how sensitivity to threat might be related to various aspects of political beliefs, such as social attitudes (e.g., family values, abortion, etc.) and economic views (e.g., concern for inequality, environmentalism). Contrary to expectations, the study largely found that people with liberal economic views were more likely to suffer from anxiety disorders than their conservative counterparts. Hence, it appears that the theory of motivated social cognition might have things back-to-front.

An interesting sidelight, especially in regard to the previous post, suggests that conservatives have a better work ethic. This means, they feel less dependent on others, especially the government,  for their livelihood, and have more confidence in their ability to provide for themselves. Moreover, they gain confidence for earning what they have and for not being on the public dole. It translates into fewer anxiety disorders:

People with left-wing economic-political beliefs had higher rates of anxiety disorder symptoms.

Results showed that higher overall anxiety symptoms at age 44 predicted concerns about inequality and the environment, distrust in politics, and lower work ethic at age 50. Similarly, concerns about inequality and the environment at ages 33 and 42 predicted higher overall anxiety symptoms at age 44.

Regarding more specific disorders, symptoms of generalized anxiety disorder and phobia, but not panic disorder, at age 44 predicted higher concerns about inequality and the environment at age 50. Additionally, phobia symptoms predicted greater distrust in politics and lower work ethic at age 50.

As for worries about the environment, I would simply note the name of Greta Thunberg. Need I say more.

Anxiety disorders seem also to be associated with worries about inequality. In truth, those who believe in equality, who believe that everyone is equal in all ways, must be seriously detached from reality. Aspiring to impossible results will certainly gin up your anxiety.

Similarly, concern about inequality at ages 33 and 42 predicted generalized anxiety disorder, panic (although this was significant at 42 only), and phobia at age 44. The importance of family values had a less consistent effect: people with lower importance of family values at age 42 had higher overall anxiety and generalized anxiety disorder symptoms at age 44 only.

In summary, having an anxiety disorder was associated with some political views but not others. Specifically, over the long term, anxiety disorders symptoms were most consistently associated with higher concerns about inequality in particular and to a lesser extent with the environment, as well as political distrust and with having a lower work ethic. These views were more often associated with generalized anxiety disorder and phobia rather than panic disorder.

These findings run counter to what would be expected from the theory of motivated social cognition because concerns for inequality and the environment are associated with the political left, while an emphasis on work ethic is associated more with the right. Distrust in politics is not clearly left-wing or right-wing as this was measured with items such as “None of the political parties would do anything to benefit me.”

Better yet, the studies suggest that liberals are generally more neurotic. Think AOC:

Liberals Are Higher in Average Neuroticism Than Conservatives

The results are also consistent with another study using American data (and which I discussed in an earlier blog post) that found that people on the extreme political left reported higher rates of having mental disorders than people on the right. As I noted, research on the “Big Five” traits of extraversion, agreeableness, conscientiousness, neuroticism, and openness to experience has found that people identifying as politically liberal tend to be higher on openness to experience and neuroticism and lower on conscientiousness than their conservative counterparts (Fatke, 2017; Gerber et al., 2011). Additionally, surveys find that neuroticism is more strongly related to economic than social liberalism (Gerber et al., 2009).

Furthermore, people with mental disorders tend to be highly elevated in neuroticism and are often low in conscientiousness (Malouff et al., 2005). 

Generalized anxiety disorder in particular, which is characterized by pervasive worry about nearly everything, has been considered one of the purest clinical manifestations of neuroticism (Hale et al., 2010). Hence, it is not surprising that since people with liberal views tend to be higher in neuroticism and lower in conscientiousness than conservatives, they would also be at more risk of mental problems, including anxiety disorders such as generalized anxiety disorder.

Which is what we expected anyway….

Sen. Susan Collins Opposes the Biden Agenda

This morning’s Wall Street Journal shares an excerpt from a speech Sen. Susan Collins delivered in the Senate on Sept. 28.

She rose to explain her opposition to the Biden legislative agenda. At a time when more and more people believe that shouting and preening constitutes politics, it is good to hear a senator offer a cogent analysis of the problems with the Biden agenda:

Rather, it is creating entitlement programs untethered to work that would fundamentally change incentives for our families, our communities, our society, and our economy, depriving people of their dignity and eroding their ability to provide for themselves and their families. Absent a pandemic or other crisis, Washington should not simply write monthly checks, creating dependency among those who could have a better life. The federal government’s obligation is not fulfilled by simply sending a check, washing its hands of any responsibility to actually help people achieve self-sufficiency.

She continued:

It appears that this Administration is moving toward the left’s proposal for a guaranteed minimum income regardless of one’s ability to work. Never forget that the first version of the Green New Deal included a guaranteed income for those “unable or unwilling to work.” Mr. President, we must not go down that path.

We will not build a more prosperous, just, and equitable society characterized by opportunity, dignity, and meaning just by issuing government checks. The time-tested way to achieve those goals for American families is by supporting and rewarding work. It is by recognizing the dignity of work. And that is the tradition that we must continue to embrace.

Cue the applause.

New York City's Comeback in Doubt

Is New York City really coming back? From a cursory glance at press coverage you would think so. After all, residential real estate seems mostly to be strong. Apartments are being rented at exorbitant rates. Condos and Coops are selling. On the commercial front, Google just bought a West Side building for $2 billion or so.

Moreover, the reign of Comrade Bill de Blasio is mercifully coming to an end. The presumptive new mayor, one Eric Adams, will certainly be an improvement-- how could he not. But Adams is making all the right noises now, so there is some cause for optimism on the political front. 

And yet, the news from the non-tech commercial real estate world is not quite as encouraging. 

Zero Hedge reports:

A year and a half, or approximately 18 months, into what the World Health Organization formally declared a virus pandemic in early March 2020, the remote work trend is still holding strong and pressuring commercial real estate in NYC. 

By their calculations it will take four more years for things to return to normal. Of course, that does not just involve real estate developers. It involves the banks who hold them mortgages, the shops and restaurants that dot the business district streets, even the push cart vendors.

Goldfarb wrote that Class A rents have fallen, and there is an expectation for further declines. He doesn't see a full rent recovery until 2025 as vacancies will remain stubbornly high due to increasing supply. 

Technology has made virtual conference calls possible from remote areas. The emergence of new COVID variants and breakthrough infections are keeping people out of the office and remote working until at least early 2022. Without workers returning to offices, the economic rebound in the metro area will remain lackluster compared to the rest of the country. 

So, that’s bringing you up to date on the state of New York City. 

The Trouble with Trigger Warnings

We have been reporting for some time about the trouble with trigger warnings. Link here. The notion that we must announce to students or the general public that an upcoming image or thought might hurt their feelings by triggering traumatic memories belongs to the era of hurt feelings.

It is a very maternal instinct, one that makes everyone a mother protecting a bunch of big babies from the least discouraging word. As I have noted, people get over traumas by gradual exposure and desensitization. Such has been the cognitive and behavioral approach; it has been shown to be effective. 

Anyway, law professor Jeannie Suk Gerson has brought us up to date on the research, much of which I have already reported on. (via Maggie’s Farm) She reports the conclusion that trigger warnings are not merely useless. They actively cause harm. I am impressed to see that being a law professor qualifies one to report on psychological trauma.

But, you suspected that trigger warnings were, as Gerson says, a hoax. Every time our degenerate culture gloms on to a panacea for psychological damage, you can be fairly confident that the cure will worsen the disease.

Gerson summarizes some research:

Because trigger warnings involve assumptions about emotional reactions, particularly with respect to P.T.S.D., psychology researchers have begun to study whether trigger warnings are in fact beneficial. The results of around a dozen psychological studies, published between 2018 and 2021, are remarkably consistent, and they differ from conventional wisdom: they find that trigger warnings do not seem to lessen negative reactions to disturbing material in students, trauma survivors, or those diagnosed with P.T.S.D. Indeed, some studies suggest that the opposite may be true.

The first one, conducted at Harvard by Benjamin Bellet, a Ph.D. candidate, Payton Jones, who completed his Ph.D. in 2021, and Richard McNally, a psychology professor and the author of “Remembering Trauma,” found that, among people who said they believe that words can cause harm, those who received trigger warnings reported greater anxiety in response to disturbing literary passages than those who did not. (The study found that, among those who do not strongly believe words can cause harm, trigger warnings did not significantly increase anxiety.) Most of the flurry of studies that followed found that trigger warnings had no meaningful effect, but two of them found that individuals who received trigger warnings experienced more distress than those who did not. Yet another study suggested that trigger warnings may prolong the distress of negative memories. 

Most importantly is this observation:

A large study by Jones, Bellet, and McNally found that trigger warnings reinforced the belief on the part of trauma survivors that trauma was central (rather than incidental or peripheral) to their identity. The reason that effect may be concerning is that trauma researchers have previously established that a belief that trauma is central to one’s identity predicts more severe P.T.S.D.; Bellet called this “one of the most well documented relationships in traumatology.” The perverse consequence of trigger warnings, then, may be to harm the people they are intended to protect.

The more you focus on trauma the more you persuade people that they are defined by their traumas. That is, that they are suffering victims, weak and ineffectual, incapable of doing anything to resolve their problems.

The same is true about people who make a public confession of their trauma-induced pain. When you plant the image of you being abused or harassed or assaulted in many minds, these people are going to see you as a victim. The more people treat you as a victim the more you will see yourself as a victim.

It’s one thing to deal with what happened. It’s quite another to deal with the fact that large numbers of people see you as a victim. Once that happens the trauma is much closer to defining you. 

As noted in previous posts, avoiding triggering content does not heal. It aggravates the problem:

If those suffering from P.T.S.D. were responding to trigger warnings by opting out of reading or discussing the flagged content, then, as McNally has pointed out, that would be concerning from a mental-health point of view, because the clinical consensus is that avoiding triggers worsens P.T.S.D. As McNally has written, treatment of P.T.S.D. patients involves “systematic exposure to traumatic memories until their capacity to trigger distress diminishes.” But, of course, teachers should not undertake to therapize or treat their students—nor should they act in ways that are known to be counter-therapeutic if they can avoid it. Since there isn’t evidence that trigger warnings help, and there is now some evidence that they might even increase anxiety, McNally, Jones, and Bellet do not recommend the use of trigger warnings. As Jones put it, “From a clinical lens, you should never do anything that doesn’t work, period, even if it doesn’t do harm. If it’s not actively helping, encouraging its use would essentially be engaging in clinical pseudoscience.”