Category Archives: pro bono publico

May 5, 2009 · 8:04 pm

"Crime and Punishment"


We’re talking Dostoevsky’s pre-Russian-revolution novel, which has what a Hollywood producer would call a “high-concept title” [like “Snakes on a Plane”]. We’re also talking Kohlberg’s first stage of moral development: “If you can’t do the time, don’t do the crime.” So, that Note to Self takes 22 years of living and learning to develop? [In humans, that is. Still no word on how long it takes in dogs.]

Alas, doing the Right Thing turns out to be a bit more complicated than just following the rules. To begin with, whose rules? In the Royal Navy they have a little [inside] joke: “We have a code. We don’t live by it, but we have a code.” In the 1970s Marvin Harris, an Anthropology prof at Columbia, published an instant cult classic [in my reference group, anyway]: Cows, Pigs, Wars & Witches. His premise was that the Code of Conduct is not universal, but regional, often determined by geographical considerations, such as weather patterns. Thus, in the Subcontinent, where it is very dry except for the monsoon season, if no rains come one year, a farmer might be tempted to eat his draft animal, it being pointless that year to use it to plow the arid soil. Ah! But if he does, then next year when the rains come again, he will be SOL. So this culture devised the no-eating-cattle taboo, to keep the idle beasts off the menu, preserving them to plow another year. Hence, the Sacred Cow.

My generation of social scientists took this model and ran with it, seizing on every cockamamie cultural taboo we could find, and asking: “What’s the local survival payoff? Does it involve the health & safety of the community?” Thou shalt not eat oysters in months without Rs. [Hint, cuz it’s hotter then, at least in the Northern Hemisphere.] Play along at home.

Now comes along another anthropologist, Jonathan Haidt, with his 5 Moral Spheres, the relative importance of which vary by geographical region and [intriguingly] by political leaning. Liberals are all about Do No Harm to Others, and Social Justice for All; whereas Conservatives are all about Be True to Your School [or Tribe, or Reference Group], Respect Authority, and Remain Pure. This is why it takes so long to stock the brain’s Code of Conduct library. Back in the day, when people tended to live their lives where they were born, and didn’t have so much access to information about other places and their exotic folkways, it was easier to know what the Right Thing to Do was. Nowadays, not so much.

Reductionists insist that there are–always were, always will be–absolute commandments, so to speak, concerning the human Code of Conduct. “Thou shalt not kill,” for instance. Do me a favor, guv! What about combat troops? Are they supposed to kill no one? So, why do we spend so much on weapons? “Do unto others as you would have them do unto you.” Oh, so we’re cool with extreme interrogation methods being used against our troops? Once again, I invite you to play along at home. Find me a rule, in any Code of Conduct, that applies to everyone, without exception.

Which brings us back to Dostoevsky’s fictional student, Raskolnikov, a Nihilist [Remember Durkheim’s WTF anomie?], who had just written an article on moral philosophy, justifying the killing of undesirable individuals for the greater good of society. He murders a “disgusting, old, dishonest” pawnbroker, and then has to do away with her friend, who witnessed the incident. The rest of the book is a psychological cat & mouse game between the student and the detective assigned to the murder case, Porfiry Petrovitch.

So, it all depends on “when you come in to the movie,” whether you think a specific act of aggression should be lauded or condemned. In this scene, is Lili in jail for her acts of unjustified aggression, or is she policing other incarcerated individuals? Plot twist: she’s returning to the scene of her two crimes–the Lacrosse field–where the little boy “rattled her cage”and she growled at him, and where she ran up the hill to challenge the out-of-the-blue dog. Spoiler alert: Raskolnikov does, too.

So, the “second of all” thing to do, to promote development of the Pre-frontal cortex, is to learn from our own trespasses [and, far less costly, from those of compelling fictional characters]. As the London cabbie’s brain actually expands when he gains The Knowledge [the cognitive map of the city], so our Pre-frontal cortex grows, as we lay down ever more complex pathways for navigating between Right and Wrong.

Leave a comment

Filed under aggression happens, lesser of two evils, pro bono publico

May 7, 2009 · 5:24 pm

"Yoshi!"


In high school we put on a Sigmund Romberg operetta which included a cynical little ditty about Being Good: “Always do what people say you should. You never can be happy, child, unless you’re good. I did what I was told. I was as good as gold. And I know I shall be happy, cuz I am so good.” If sung sarcastically enough, it always brought the house down.

At the risk of sounding like a curmudgeon, I recommend Romberg to modern fMRI researchers on altruism. The most frequently cited study involves 19 graduate students [in good health], who voluntarily participated in a study in which a radio-active isotope was “introduced” into their bloodstream. They were given a starting “float” of $128 each, which they could opt to keep or to donate [some of] “anonymously” to various charitable causes. The headline finding of the study was that [gasp!] the same part of the brain lit up when a participant gave away money, as when they received it. I call “Sampling Error!” I would like to see this result replicated, using 19 [or 190] randomly selected people, from all walks of life, including, oh, for instance, the have-nots. I put it to you, that these volunteers were no more “a cross-section of humanity,” than the folks who answer the phones for a PBS pledge drive. It takes a certain level of altruism to agree to go radio-active, not to diagnose or treat a serious health problem of one’s own, but simply to “further theoretical knowledge about in-born altruism.” Don’t you think?

More to the point, these volunteers were all 20-Somethings, already “in the zone” for having an up-and-running Pre-frontal cortex, as well as millions of stored memories associating Being Good with Getting a Reward. Why does Lili shut open doors? Out of save-the-earth’s-resources Green-ness? To make herself feel like a [very specialized] service dog? I believe she does it because I took the time [10 minutes] to lay down neural pathways in her brain between the command “Shimaru,” her shutting the door, the praise word “Yoshi!” (Good job!), and a small ort of dried lamb lung. Now, she need only be intermittently reinforced with the morsel of food [or even just with praise] to keep the behavior in her repertoire. Mostly, we mark and reinforce all kinds of pro-social behavior, simply by telling her “Yoshi!” And, folks, she’s just a dog, not a graduate student.

I’m saying, I think the 19 so-frequently-cited subjects [just listen for it, next pledge week] were all sub-vocalizing their personalized version of Romberg’s “So Good” song, right up there in their cerebral cortex; and the reason their Reward Center lit up when they were Being Good was because of a conditioned response. Yikes! That makes me sound like a Behaviorist! [Which I’m not. Well, only on the weekends.]

This stuff matters, because the ugly step-sister of fMRI research on Being Good is research on what used to be called psychopaths, suggesting that there are neuro-anatomical [perhaps even genetic] differences in their brains, that predispose them to anti-social behavior. This is chillingly reminiscent of eugenics, if you ask me; and much of it is based on the same methodologically flawed research design as the 19 Altruists study.

I believe that experience is at least as important a determinant of behavior as DNA. If it isn’t, why even bother to lay down neural pathways rewarding Good Deeds? Why ever say “Yoshi”?

Leave a comment

Filed under murky research, pro bono publico

May 19, 2009 · 2:44 pm

Dog Eat Dog


Lili is “on vacation” this week, chillaxing at the Ashram while we visit our “other” daughters in Chicago and SoCal. She’ll be back next week. Meanwhile, meet Napster and Zanzibar, both rescue cats–as different as night & day, in nature and life experience. Napster came to us as a kitten 9 years ago, joining two old biddie female cats, and immediately assumed the omega position in the “pack.” [He’s a ‘fraidy cat.] Six years later, after the passing of one of the old cats, young Zanzibar came out of the West, fresh from a gig in Chino, California–charismatic, affable, and totally alpha.

Our topic today is zero-sum-gaming: the perception that all endeavors in life–not just hockey and beauty pageants–yield one winner [and a bunch of losers]. The amygdala is a big player here, ever on the alert for the Big Four threats to our sense of well-being. Let’s visit the luxurious Fitness Center at the Drake Hotel at dawn, shall we? Spoiled by two decades of in-home exercise equipment, where the dress code is casual [no threat of humiliation] and long-established family schedules assure no waiting [intrusion] for one’s machine of choice, when staying at a hotel I always try to beat the crowd by being the early bird. So, at 0-dark-hundred I am alone, halfway through my usual routine, grooving to an eclectic [some would say eccentric] set of songs on my iPod, eyes shut, when I sense the body heat of another, on the nearest elliptical [there being no less than 7 others he could have chosen]. I have no fear, except for his welfare, given the audible signs of his pain & suffering. [Will I have to administer CPR?] I try to imagine his motives in choosing that particular machine. [“Of all the ginjoints in all the world…”] Need for affiliation? For affection? For affirmation? As I finish, so does he, whistling his way into the elevator, then remarking, “That’s not even half of what I usually do. I had a late night. I’ll come back this afternoon and do a real workout.” Of course! It is a zero-sum game! Although I am probably 20 years his senior–and female–I am the only game in town; and he is playing to win. So, trying for the unilateral disarmament [“Why can’t we all just get along?”] option, I reply, “Hey! At least you showed up and showed willing. We are both to be commended for our efforts, at this early hour, don’t you think?” [No, he does not.] “I’ll do better this afternoon,” says he. [Subtext: I’m guessing he does not mean “better than I did this morning,” he means “better than you.”]

This time, I was amused; but how many times a day do I–do you–engage in equally petty zero-sum-gamesmanship? Everything can become a contest: “I am a nicer person than you.” “Oh, yeah? Well, I am more aware of my inner wolf than you.” What contests of “wonderfulness” do you enter, on a regular basis? [We can’t all be Miss Congeniality.] I’m not saying, don’t enter. Just notice that you’re in, and ask yourself, “What do I win, if I win?”

Zanzibar has been a tonic for Napster. They happily play-fight all the time, and sometimes double-team old Ruth, who is pushing 20, and not amused. However, they must be fed in separate rooms, or Zanzibar would leave the other two starving. He is also Lili’s best friend, licking her ears when she is asleep and allowing himself to be herded when she is awake. They seem to have devised a fragile non-aggression pact. If a cat and a dog can do it, folks, can’t we?

1 Comment

Filed under pro bono publico, semiotics, zero-sum-gaming

May 25, 2009 · 7:01 pm

Albert Ellis Knew, Too


I promise, we’ll get to the permissible aggression–just not yet. First, we should exhaust [or at least explore] all alternative responses. Albert Ellis, who died on 24 July 2007 at the age of 93, was annoying as hell. Ask anyone who knew him, including the woman he lived with for 37 years, Janet Wolfe. Because he was a graduate of our program @ Columbia, he used to drop by and try to incite us to fury, mostly succeeding. Even so, I feel lucky to have sat in his presence. He is known as the father of Rational-Emotive Therapy, which [I now realize, having come to Epictetus via Tom Wolfe] is based almost entirely on Stoic philosophy. I shall paraphrase him closely [but you must imagination his whiny, nasal voice]: “We talk to ourselves in short, declarative sentences. We say, ‘I am a cat in a sack; and that is awful!’ That is not awful–it is only highly inconvenient.“

As it happens, we were weighing Zanzibar, to calculate his proper dosage of flea & tick meds. He wasn’t in the sack 30 seconds. Also, despite the expression on his face in this picture, out of the 16 cats I have owned, he is the most laid-back, seemingly oblivious to the notion of humiliation. When Napster’s turn in the “sack-scale” came, he was, as usual, overcome with fear. Ruth–the 19-year-old, 5-pound Maine Coon–was soaking up BTUs under one of our few remaining incandescent lights; and because her weight has remained constant for almost two decades, she was spared the intrusion into her nap time. Now, be honest with yourself. Do you enjoy public weigh-ins? What gets up your nose about them? Realistically, only jockeys, pugillists and military personnel are likely to face the pain & suffering of job loss, in connection with avoirdupois. Let’s say your doctor hectors you, “If you don’t lose some weight, you’re going to die!” You can reply with the words of Epictetus: “When did I ever say I was immortal?” So good old Dr. Ellis would have you reason with your aroused amygdala, in the face of an impending weigh-in, “I may have put on a couple pounds; but that is not awful. It is only highly inconvenient.” Thus, you should experience less anger, dump less cortisol, and spare your body additional adipose deposits. [I must say, Albert was a trim fellow.]

As with this trivial example, so with much of life: the Stoics and their modern descendants, the Cognitive-Behavioral Theorists, would have us believe that the acting out of aggressive impulses can–and should–be avoided in most instances. We cannot control other people’s actions; but we can strive to control our own emotional reactions to them. My favorite adjunct professor would ask rhetorically, after making a seemingly absolute pronouncement, “Always?” and then answer his own question, either “Always,” or “Not always.” So, Epictetus, Tom Wolfe, and I would answer, as to whether we should always maintain our equanimity, “Not always.”

Oh, yay! We sometimes get to resort to violence! [“Cry ‘Havoc!’ and let slip the dogs of war.”] When? Epictetus offers one specific circumstance: one must never “ignore cries for help from a friend under assault from robbers.” Less specifically, he opines, “Just as a target is not set up in order to be missed, so evil is no natural part of the world’s design.” Hmm. That seems to cover alot of territory. Since we’re supposed to love and accept the “Natural,” but hate the “Unnatural,” anything any one of us finds “unnatural” could be considered “evil”; and we’re allowed to oppose it, with violence, if necessary. This is where Cows, Pigs, Wars & Witches would point out to our ancient Greco-Roman philosopher, that what is “unnatural” is largely a matter of geography. There is–and has been, since way before Epictetus was teaching–a variance in climates, native flora & fauna, and resulting folkways, that inform one’s beliefs as to what is “natural” and “unnatural.” We can’t all be Mediterraneans, ya know.

So, alas, we are back to “When in Rome, do as the Romans…unless you are Greek, and despise the Romans…” This is where ethologists point out, we evolved with an amygdala for a reason–to help us [and those within our reference group] survive. Sometimes, the amygdala is not simply “barking mad”–to be overruled by reason, cognitive reframing and Stoicism. Sometimes, the right thing to do is cry “Havoc!”

Leave a comment

Filed under body image, Epictetus said..., pro bono publico, reference group, stress and cortisol

June 15, 2009 · 4:38 pm

Risky Menschlichkeit


Sounds like the wheelman for Meyer Lansky, no? Mensch is a Metalingual minefield, having come full circle, to mean its exact opposite, even after you tiptoe through the “Man/Mankind” lunar dust. In German, it originally meant “a man,” whereas in Yiddish it means “a standup guy” [a unisex term]. Nowadays, Menschlich has come to mean either “humane” or “all-too-human, warts and all.” A vignette from my 1988 visit to Vienna: I was walking through a U-Bahn station when I saw a young woman with a baby buggy, poised at the top of a flight of stairs, like the opening scene from Battleship Potemkin. I rushed up to help her carry the buggy down the stairs, when an old woman began shrieking, “Schade! Schade!” [“Shame! Shame!”] Who the hell was she angry at? Did she think I was trying to kidnap the baby? “Wo sind die Menschen?” she asked, rhetorically. [“Where are the men?” or possibly, “Where are the standup guys?”] “Wir sind die Menschen!” I quipped [“We are the standup ‘guys.'”]; and the young woman shook my hand, in the formal manner of pre-millienal Viennese young people, before high-fiving went global.

Although it all ended with smiles, it could have been just another instance of “No good deed goes unpunished.” As a Social Science major in the 1960s, I was familiar with the admonitory tale [perhaps urban legend, if you read modern critiques] of Kitty Genovese, who was mortally attacked over a 3-hour period outside her apartment complex in Queens, NY, while 38 of her neighbors [allegedly] “did nothing.” Even if the real story is less black & white, it became the anecdotal evidence for the theory of Diffusion of Responsibility: the more onlookers to a calamity, the less likely any one of them is, to do the standup thing and try to help. Phil Ochs even wrote a song about it, Outside of a Small Circle of Friends, with the tag line, “Maybe we should call the cops and try to stop the pain; but Monopoly is so much fun, I’d hate to blow the game.”

So, what prompts anyone to perform an act of Menschlichkeit, like Wesley Autrey, the subway hero, who jumped to the aid of a stranger who had fallen onto the tracks as a train approached, and covered the stranger’s body with his own, as the train passed over them both? Did Wesley just have a broader definition of who was in his “Small Circle of Friends,” than the other folks on the platform? Some put it down to his Naval service, that he had been trained to [override his amygdalar freeze mode, let his hippocampus problem-solve, and so…] “act bravely and quickly.” I’ll go for that; but I know lots of fellow Naval veterans who would have averted their gaze and stayed on the platform [the other definition of Menschlichkeit]. If it hadn’t worked out so well for Wesley and the stranger, I bet it would have been reported as a double suicide.

One of my favorite aphorisms is “It’s not ‘brave,’ unless you’re scared.” [It’s just bad judgment.] There was a time 1970s Manhattan when there had been so many murders of taxi drivers [who knows why], that a cabbie put a now-famous sign on the passenger side of his plexiglass barrier saying “Though thou shalt kill me…” It made New Yorkers–even those of us who rarely had the price of cabfare–realize what Menschen [the unisex, heroic term] cab drivers were, years before the hit TV series.

So, how Menschlich are you? Would you be willing, like Zanzibar the cat, to take a good, close look at “the wolf”? It might not be the “comforting presence” it seems to be for Zanzibar; but it’s still worth getting to know.

Leave a comment

Filed under pro bono publico, reference group, sharks and jets

June 20, 2009 · 8:21 pm

Drunkard’s Fallacy


Two lads are making their way home, after some jars at the bar: “Seamus, would you give over circlin’ round that lamppost? You’re makin’ me head spin!” “Ahh, but Desmond, I’m tryin’ to find me feckin’ keys.” “Oh, now, Seamus, I t’ink I heard a ‘clink’ when we was coming t’rough de alley, back dere.” “Yeah, me an’ all, Desmond; but de light’s better under dis lamp.”

This shocking stereotype of Irish inebriation and false logic was offered to us in graduate school, in a course on research design, to illustrate the “Drunkard’s Fallacy” [the tendency for researchers to “search where the light is better,” and thereby overlook the “keys in the alley”]. Sir Francis Galton, for instance, believed that intelligence was highly correlated with head circumference [which is easily and cheaply measured]; and he tried to encourage fatheads to marry other fatheads, for the improvement of Mankind. Later, Dr. William Sheldon put forth the theory that one’s body type–fat, muscular, or thin [which is evident, even to the casual observer]–was highly correlated with 3 distinct sets of personality traits. All of which would be highly amusing, except that their “scientific evidence” has been used as the rationale for eugenics–most notoriously, but not exclusively, by The Third Reich.

These days in neuropsychological research, there is often a generous sponsor “paying the light bill,” who then–sometimes blatantly, but other times subtly–sets the agenda for “where to search.” Senator Charles Grassley has done Menschlich work, in my opinion, by doggedly insisting that medical researchers disclose the source of their funding, so that consumers can then take their “findings” with a grain of salt. But what if the funding source is Uncle Sam? Could there still be a tendency to “circle the lamppost,” rather than “go down the dark alley,” in search of scientific “truth”?

In 2005 the journal Nature Neuroscience published the results of an NIMH-funded study, which followed over 200 individuals from birth to 26 years, to assess their risk of becoming “depressed” by Stressful Life Events, and its correlation to the presence or absence of “the Serotonin Transporter Gene (5-HTTLPR)” in each individual’s DNA. Don’t you just know, the researchers found the two factors–“depression” in response to bummer events, and the presence of that specific gene–to be highly correlated. Well, the media was all over it like a cheap suit. Cute articles about “Blue Genes” came out like a rash. And the always-only-sleeping-not-dead eugenics lobby began to bang on about genetic screening for 5-HTTLPR, rationalizing that the opposite of bumming out at bad news was Being Resilient; and who wouldn’t want to breed Resilient kids, in these troubled times?

Also–and here’s the Beauty Part, if you’re a government agency, trying to contain costs for Mental Health treatment–if bumming out is “all in your genes,” no need to wander down that dark [time-consuming] alley of “trying to understand what got up your nose, which made you angry, which then made you depressed.” That’s like fiddling while Rome burns. Like trying to understand why your body has become insulin-resistant, or why your arteries are clogged. What you need is a chemical–not an insight. Faster, cheaper, better for Mankind [and the bottom line].

So, here’s the thing. In this week’s issue of the Journal of the American Medical Association: a meta-analysis of all studies which could possibly have replicated the ballyhoo’d NIMH results found no correlation between the two factors. Bupkes, nowt, Nichts. [Incidentally, their n = 14,250, of whom 1,769 were classified as having “depression.”] Do you know what was significantly correlated with “depression” in all the studies these researchers meta-analyzed? Stressful Life Events.

Well, Seamus, I guess it’s back to the dark alley, if we ever want to find those feckin’ keys…

Leave a comment

Filed under confounds, murky research, pro bono publico

September 17, 2009 · 2:45 pm

Attractive Nuisance Doctrine


First let me make a cheap pun at Zanzibar’s expense, and say that because he is usually purring at my elbow when I’m writing this blog, it is his fault that I don’t catch all the typos before hitting “publish.” Like typing “Packer Leader,” when I meant, of course, “Pack Leader,” in the previous post. “If only his eyes weren’t so adorably blue…”

As those of you who have a swimming pool on your property know [and we learned, when we bought Dusk the QuarterHorse], an “Attractive Nuisance” is a term of art in tort law, referring to any animate or inanimate object which poses a threat, “because of its attraction, to children who will be unlikely to recognize its dangerous quality.” [Webster’s 1988 ed.] In Michigan [where tort lawyers abound] we had to buy Attractive Nuisance liability insurance on Dusk, even though she lived at a private riding stable, across town from our home. [In fact, she lived in Sterling Heights, whence cometh Marshall Mathers III. Check it.]

Now let us consider the External/Internal Locus of Control doctrine, which the UK researchers tried to measure in 10-year-olds, with a self-report questionnaire. A girl with a high level of External Locus of Control will tell her parents, “The horse whinnied at me, so I knew it was hungry, so I gave it my Ice Lolly to lick [remember, we’re in the UK], and it bit my hand!” [In Michigan, that would be a Popcicle.] Was a sign posted on the stall door, saying “Do not feed this horse without owner’s permission”? Not good enough. What if the child is too young to read? Tell you what the management at the London Zoo do. They post this surreal but high concept sign with a human hand, out of which a cookie-cutter-[or, biscuit-cutter]-shaped chunk is missing, near the cages of animals whom it is dangerous to feed. Next time I own a horse, I’m posting that sign on the stall door.

What if the horse spared the child, but ate the rod [in this case, the Ice Lolly/Popcicle stick]? Would the family of the young doner of the ill-advised confection be liable for the vet bill, to remove the wood splinters from the horse’s throat? Not bloody likely! The horse would be diagnosed with “Dietary Indiscretion,” and its owner would be charged for its treatment.

So, you see where I’m going with this, right? Up to a certain age, the law attributes External Locus of Control to young ones, and blames bad outcome on others [man & beast]. After that age, though, all bets are off. If, as a teenager, you schmize my horse into eating a dangerous stick [and I catch you at it], you’re guilty of animal abuse. An adult caught feeding a zoo animal will be prosecuted [right after being discharged from the ER]. So, how is this shift from External to Internal Locus of Control supposed to happen? Passage of time? Trial and error? Fairy dust?

I happen to believe it happens by grown-up Pack Leaders [there!] keeping an eye on young ones, and issuing Conative commands to them [such as “Don’t feed the animals, unless you ask first.”], along with a Sound-Bite-on-Why-Not. [“Cuz I say so,” does not count as a Sound-Bite-on-Why-Not, incidentally.] So, here’s what I’m saying, grown-ups. Man up, and risk the humiliation of a hissy fit from the thwarted young person [or their doting parents], in the name of animal welfare, of child welfare, of public order. Think of these Sound-Bites-of-Why-Not as your own, award winning Public Service Announcements. The more novel and amusing [usually], the more effective they are.

The alternative is the intrusive mission creep of increasingly silly tort avoidance notices from which we now suffer, warning us that a cup of Hot Chocolate “might be hot.” That raw eggs may contain salmonella. That roads may be slippery when wet.

Get working on those PSAs, folks.

Leave a comment

Filed under leading a pack, locus of control, pro bono publico, semiotics

November 14, 2009 · 9:12 pm

Man’s Rage for Chaos


Morse Peckham’s argument, in his 1969 book by this title, is that artists periodically save [their particular] civilization, by introducing chaos into a culture that has become too rule-bound and brittle to survive. To use my current parlance, every now and then, the Kangaroos [with their iconoclastic, outside-the-box, zigging & zagging] save the lock-stepping Clydesdales from collapsing under the burden of their hide-bound rules.

Peckham traces the progression of stylistic changes in music, poetry, painting & architecture; but [for reasons to be revealed in a future post], I’ll just recap his musical musings. Let’s use J.S. Bach as our exemplar of the Baroque era [1600-1750]. Are ya bored yet? Hang on, there are going to be wild dogs later. Mozart will be our guy from the Classical era [1740-1810]; and Beethoven will represent the Romantic era [1810-1910]. So, Peckham opines that each of these guys broke [some of the] the rules of the preceding era [as did their fellow poets, painters & architects], in ways that helped the people of their era(s) to roll with the changes [brought about by scientific discoveries, political unrest, and such like]. Nar’mean? The melodic line of their tunes got progressively smoother, from Bach, to Mozart, to Beethoven; and the rules of society got progressively looser. [To quote Cole Porter, “In olden days, a glimpse of stocking was looked on as something shocking. Now, heaven knows, anything goes!”]

And now to the subway-riding wild dogs of Moscow. Seriously, you owe it to yourself to look up this story, which appeared in [shock!] the online version of the UK tabloid, The Sun, this week. Under the Soviet system, ownerless dogs sought shelter at factory sites in Moscow, and mooched their food from sentimental Muscovites. After the fall [of the wall, ya know], the factories were relocated to the suburbs; and the dogs trotted after them, for a warm place to sleep. But the food source was still downtown, so the dogs learned to ride the Metro to their old pan-handling spots, like Gorky Park. According to Dr. Andrei Poiarkov, of the Moscow Ecology & Evolution Institute, the dogs travel in packs, and amuse themselves by waiting until the subway doors are just about to close, to jump on. [“Last one in is a sore-tailed mutt.”] Now here is the Peckham part of the story. In the still photos and the video, it is apparent [to me, at least] that the human commuters enjoy their canine fellow travelers. They are standing, smiling indulgently, while the dogs sleep on the seats. In the video an old Russian Wolfhound is walking down the escalator, weaving among the standees on the stairs; and someone whistles to him softly, all on one note. Nothing. Then [as I do, to give Lili the “jump” command], he whistles a 3-note melody; and the dog sits down on the escalator stair. [He gets up again pretty quickly, mind you, and resumes his walking.]

So here’s my point. Many Russians are having a stressful time, post-wall-fall, especially economically. The old rules of “obey & survive” don’t apply anymore, and the new rules are…as yet, unwritten. That’s a source of fear for some. The wild dogs provide comic relief. [That old juxtaposition of an animal in an unexpected venue, gets us every time.] Their presence on the Metro seems random [chaotic], yet they move with the precision of a drill team [order]. In fact, thinking back on all the animals in my past and present, I think what they always bring is the gift of chaos.

Here are our 3 cats, in harmonious repose, not in one of our daughters’ [frequently] disheveled rooms, but in the Master Suite. [Napster, the black cat, is trying to use a dark pillow as camouflage. Don’t be alarmed at his apparent size & shape.] Who cares if it looks like a New Yorker cartoon from the 1920s? It’s not a photo shoot for Architectural Digest. Loosen up, will ya?

Leave a comment

Filed under comic relief, ethology, non-linear thinking, pro bono publico

November 30, 2010 · 10:01 pm

"Dig it"


“…like the FBI, and the CIA, and the BBC.” So goes the Beatles’ shortest song, from the 1970 Let It Be album (now available for legal download on iTunes). Beat musicians had been saying “Can you dig it?” or “Ya dig?” for decades [the American version of “nar’mean?”], to ask “Do you understand what I just said?” but by the time the Beatles used it, the phrase had morphed from the Metalingual [message clarification] speech function to the Phatic. It had come to mean “Listen” [as in “do you want to know a secret?”]

Well, do ya? [Want to know a secret, that is.] In the 60s, Daniel Ellsberg was convinced that we all wanted to know the contents of secret briefing papers on strategies for vanquishing North Vietnam [thereafter known as The Pentagon Papers]. So he dug up some classified information and gave it to the press, for all us quidnuncs to read.

La plus ca change, la plus ca meme chose. Nar’mean? Julian Assange? WikiLeaks? Ya dig?

Guess who thinks Mr. Assange is a swell guy for sharing with the whole [cyber-linked] world the classified information he was able to dig up? Why, Mr. Ellsberg, of course.

Whether you do, too, depends on your reference group. Are you more “The truth will set you free”; or more “Loose lips sink ships”? Far be it from me, to try to get you to switch groups. None of us can predict the effect of the WikiLeaks disclosures on global security. I’m more curious about the precursors. [As in, what got up Assange’s nose, that he decided to crack the code of encrypted websites and report his findings?] Mind you, that’s the basic mission statement of those who work for the FBI, and the CIA, and the BBC.

Our [often fear-based] Need to Know What’s Happening is the key to our individual and collective survival. Curiosity saved the cat, the dog, and us. We all “want to know a secret,” but we don’t all “promise not to tell.”

Leave a comment

Filed under phatic communication, pro bono publico, reference group

February 28, 2011 · 8:52 pm

Big Love & Other Oxytocin Myths


My husband snapped this photo of me & our firstborn enjoying a stroll through the Muir Woods redwood park this Valentine’s weekend, exactly 30 years after he & I walked the same path. Everybody say, “Aww,” cuz that’s the last sentimental sentence in this pseudo-science-debunking post.

In 1953 Vincent du Vigneaud synthesized the so-called “pro-social” neuropeptide, Oxytocin (OT), for which he won a Nobel Prize in 1956 [but not for Peace]. Until the 21st century, researchers mostly studied the effects of this hormone in nonhuman mammals, concluding that it facilitates labor and lactation. From whence, it was only a short anthropomorphic leap of logic, to conclude that OT acts like a maternal love potion, cementing the mother-offspring bond, at least until the young can fend for themselves. Having witnessed at an impressionable age my cousin’s pet mouse giving birth and then eating all of her young that we were not quick enough to rescue from her, I can tell you [as they say Up North in England], “It don’t necessarily follow.” Apparently, the amount of OT sufficient to induce labor & delivery is not always sufficient to guarantee maternal feelings [let’s say, behavior] towards her progeny. Anyone who raises livestock is aware of this, and has one or two “foster mothers” on hand, to “adopt” the rejected newborns. Those who work in neonatology or “foundling” rescue have seen this occasional failure of Oxytocin to vincit omnia in humans, as well.

Nevertheless, OT has lately been hailed by [mostly European] neuroscientists, as the “Love Hormone” for shy, fearful and/or autistic humans, now available as a nasal spray [talk about “Gets Right Up Your Nose”], at least for research purposes. In April ’05, Kosfeld et al. [from Zurich] proclaimed “Oxytocin increases trust in humans.” In December ’05, Kirsch et al. [from Germany] reported “Oxytocin modulates neural circuity for social cognition and fear in humans.” By April ’10 Hurlemann et al. [from Bonn], in the article “Oxytocin enhances amygdala-dependent, socially reinforced learning and emotional empathy in humans,” began, “OT is becoming increasingly established as a prosocial neuropeptide in humans with therapeutic potential in treatment of social, cognitive, and mood disorders.”

Oh, yeah? Show me the data. More to the point, show me the methodology. The slender bough from which all these “findings” hang, is the Multifaceted Empathy Test: a self-administered computer instrument, on which a subject first categorizes a series of photos [happy, sad, or angry], and then rates [0 to 10] “how much you feel for the person in the photo.” With and without OT up your nose, double-blind. Seriously? Why not just ask subjects to rate Facebook pictures? “Would you ‘friend’ this person? Now, with OT up your nose, would you?”

Did I mention that trans-nasal Oxytocin is chemically similar to MDMA? [Google it.]

Let’s hear it for the Dutch [Carsten De Dreu et al., June ’10, Amsterdam], who used a slightly more real-world scenario, involving a game of strategy, allocating wealth [10 Euros] to Self, the In-Group, and/or the Out-Group. [Not unlike the contentious bail-out of debtor EU nations by (ahem) the Germans, nicht wahr?] They use wonderfully evocative terms, like “in-group love” and “out-group hate.” Here’s what they found: “The Neuropeptide Oxytocin Regulates Parochial Altruism in Intergroup Conflict Among Humans.” Absent OT up their nose(s) the (male) subjects mostly opted to keep their Euros to themselves. With a snootfull, though, they would sacrifice their Euros for the good of their in-group, especially if it “hurt” the out-group. Conclusion: OT “drives a ‘tend and defend’ response in that it promoted in-group trust and cooperation, and defensive aggression (including protectionism and preemptive strike) against perceived out-group threat.”

Sound familiar? Sounds like Circle-the-Wagons, Jets-versus-Sharks, Small Love [not Big Love] to me. Next time, a discussion of how OT gets into the bloodstream [other than via a nasal spray].

Hint: Consider the old English expression, “to curry favour.”

Leave a comment

Filed under murky research, pro bono publico, sharks and jets