The Coddling of the American Mind

The cover story in the September issue of The Atlantic is titled "The Coddling of the American Mind." The opening sentences:

"Something strange is happening at America’s colleges and universities. A movement is arising, undirected and driven largely by students, to scrub campuses clean of words, ideas, and subjects that might cause discomfort or give offense."

The article explains microaggressions and trigger warnings – two concepts now common on campus.

Here is another article on this topic from The Atlantic, by a different author:

The Rise of Victimhood Culture

Here are some thoughts on this topic by Megan McArdle, whom I've quoted on this blog before:

How Grown-Ups Deal With 'Microaggressions'

And here is a local Vermont story about trigger warnings on campus:

Public reading of a fictional description of a rape sparks debate over freedom of expression at arts college

Our world is changing. I'm not sure for the better.

UPDATE: Although the Atlantic article does not mention this, the title of the article must be a reference to this 1987 book by Allan Bloom: The Closing of the American Mind: How Higher Education Has Failed Democracy and Impoverished the Souls of Today's Students.

More about "The Year Without A Summer"

The Economist has a long and interesting article about the eruption 200 years ago of Mount Tambora, and the resulting climate effects the following year, 1816 – "The Year Without A Summer":

After Tambora

Two hundred years ago the most powerful eruption in modern history made itself felt around the world. It could happen again at almost any time.

For a different view on the effects of volcanic eruptions on climate, see this post on "Watts Up With That?" from 2012:

Missing the Missing Summer

The author makes the case that average temperatures were not noticeably affected by the eruption of Mount Tambora.

There is a lot of interesting discussion in the comments about volcanoes, average temperatures, crop yields, etc. Many of the commenters provided links to additional information.

See also my earlier posts on this subject:

Mount Tambora - 200 Years Ago
1800 and Froze to Death

Mount Tambora - 200 Years Ago

The most significant volcanic eruption observed and recorded by humans was 200 years ago yesterday – April 10, 1815 – on Mount Tambora in Indonesia. This led to global cooling and widespread misery in 1816 – The Year Without a Summer.

There is an excellent post about this event here, with links to more information:

200 Years Ago This Week: Tambora's Eruption Causes a Planet-Wide Climate Emergency

Something I learned from this post: Frankenstein by Mary Shelley was written in the cold, dreary summer of 1816 and was likely influenced by the weather. Here is the story from Wikipedia:

During the rainy summer of 1816, the "Year Without a Summer", the world was locked in a long cold volcanic winter caused by the eruption of Mount Tambora in 1815. Mary Shelley, aged 18, and her lover (and later husband) Percy Bysshe Shelley, visited Lord Byron at the Villa Diodati by Lake Geneva in Switzerland. The weather was consistently too cold and dreary that summer to enjoy the outdoor holiday activities they had planned, so the group retired indoors until dawn.

Sitting around a log fire at Byron's villa, the company amused themselves by reading German ghost stories translated into French from the book Fantasmagoriana, then Byron proposed that they "each write a ghost story".

Mary Shelley's Frankenstein grew out of that exercise.

The gloomy weather in the summer of 1816 also inspired Lord Byron's poem "Darkness." From Wikipedia:

Darkness is a poem written by Lord Byron in July 1816. That year was known as the Year Without a Summer, because Mount Tambora had erupted in the Dutch East Indies the previous year, casting enough ash into the atmosphere to block out the sun and cause abnormal weather across much of north-east America and northern Europe. This pall of darkness inspired Byron to write his poem.

Last fall Nancy, Emily and I saw the Tom Stoppard play Arcadia. One of the characters in the play quotes the first five lines of "Darkness":

I had a dream, which was not all a dream.
The bright sun was extinguished, and the stars
Did wander darkling in the eternal space,
Rayless, and pathless, and the icy earth
Swung blind and blackening in the moonless air;

For more links about the weird weather in 1816 see my earlier post: 1800 and Froze to Death.

Money and Religion

What is money? I am coming to realize what a complicated question this is.

Somehow money is intertwined with debt. Through the magic (or black magic) of fractional-reserve banking, the act of making a loan creates money. Since I am an executive at a financial institution that makes loans, that is a sobering thought. I appear to be involved in the creation of money without fully understanding what I am doing. (I wonder if anyone fully understands it.) On my list of books to read someday is Debt: The First 5000 Years by David Graeber. Perhaps that will help me understand.

Somehow debt is intertwined with how countries govern themselves. Democracies issue debt which becomes money. That is a sobering thought, too. As citizens in a democracy, do we have any idea how our government's debt affects money, the economy, and the sustainability of our society? Also on my list of books to read someday is A Free Nation Deep in Debt: The Financial Roots of Democracy by James Mcdonald. Perhaps that will help me understand.

The subject of today's post, however, is money and religion, prompted by this column by Spengler (aka David P. Goldman):

Why Jews are good at money

His thesis is that the value of money depends on debt; that the value of debt depends on trust; that trust depends not only on a government that enforces contracts but also on something broader and deeper - an underlying faith; and that the Jews were the first to develop religious faith.

It's an interesting thesis. I recommend reading the whole column. It's not long.

So money and religion have something in common: they both depend on faith. That's an interesting thought. Douglas Adams said something similar. I'm not sure, however, that this is the lesson one gets out of Matthew 21:12-13. The story of the moneychangers in the temple does not seem to indicate that Jesus thought that money and religion had much in common.

Islam has some ideas about money, too. I need to learn more about that someday.

And what about bitcoin? The idea of the block chain seems to be a new concept in the world, made possible by the computing power of today's information networks. Perhaps the block chain will provide the faith that is needed to sustain the concept of money.

But returning to the ideas of money, religion, and faith - what about doubt? Can we live without doubt? It is a basic principle of science that we must always leave room for doubt. On my work blog, I once wrote about the tension between belief (another word for faith) and doubt: Two Greek Maxims.

Coincidentally, my favorite source on the essential role of doubt in science is Richard Feynman, who was born a Jew.

Oh, the world is so complicated! Someday I'll figure it all out.

Tip o' the hat to Maggie's Farm for the link to Spengler's column.

Supreme Court takes up ACA again

The Affordable Care Act (aka Obamacare) is headed to the U.S. Supreme Court again. This is a little complicated, but potentially significant. Megan McArdle explains:

http://www.bloombergview.com/articles/2014-11-07/obamacare-courts-death-yet-again

See this earlier post for how I discovered Megan McArdle in 2002. She is a graduate of the University of Chicago Booth School of Business.

UPDATE 6/25/15: The U.S. Supreme Court upheld the Affordable Care Act in a vote of 6 to 3. Click here for a Wall Street Journal article.

Adam Smith on Happiness

If you have 12 minutes, this is an interesting interview of Russ Roberts about his book How Adam Smith Can Change Your Life: An Unexpected Guide to Human Nature and Happiness:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JlUHoKEBMrU&feature=youtu.be

Prof. Roberts' book is about Adam Smith's book The Theory of Moral Sentiments, which preceded his more famous book The Wealth of Nations. Interesting stuff. Click here for the Amazon entry about Russ Roberts' book.

Russ Roberts is an interesting guy himself. I have blogged about him on my work blog here and here.

UPDATE 1/01/16: I bought and read Russ Roberts' book. Good book. It's about Adam Smith's ideas about how we seek the approval of, and seek to avoid the disapproval of, the people around us.

Also, Russ Roberts' podcasts at EconTalk are interesting. He has done weekly interviews since 2006. In 2009 he did a series of six interviews with Dan Klein on The Theory of Moral Sentiments. Click here for part 1.

Remembering Pager

We lost my father a few days ago. The memorial service was yesterday.

Pager's Obituary
Pager's Memorial Service
George's Comments at Pager's Memorial Service
Rebecca's Comments at Pager's Memorial Service

My comments at the memorial service yesterday included an explanation of the origin of the name "Pager" (rhymes with logger), the story of how my parents met, and the story of "Put's Palace." Rebecca's comments started out with a story about the famous breakfasts with grandchildren.

The photo above was taken in 1990 at Put's Palace. I wasn't blogging in 1999 when my mother died, but earlier this morning I put up a blog post about her:

Remembering Mother

Following are some of my favorite posts on the blog about Pager, newest on top:

100 Years Ago and Today (Christmas 2011)
Christmas 2009
Boulder Hi and Boulder Lo
A Man and His Horse
Changes in Pager's Lifetime
George's 2nd Birthday
Pager and Cat
Christmas 2008
Westview Farm
Pager's 93rd Birthday

Rebecca's Comments at Pager's Memorial Service

Click here for Rebecca's comments at Pager's memorial service

The photo above was taken at Christmas 1978.

George's Comments at Pager's Memorial Service

Click here for George's comments at Pager's Memorial Service

Above is the photo of Pager and Beth that I talked about. For more information about Boots, including photos, see this earlier blog post:

A Man and His Horse

Pager's Memorial Service

Click here for the full program from Pager's Memorial Service

Rev. Elizabeth Griffin is the retired minister of the United Church of Fairfax.

Rev. Robert Boutwell is also a retired minister. Florence Boutwell is Rev. Boutwell's wife. Her harp was made by their son, Bruce Boutwell. The Boutwells and the Putnams have been good friends since Rev. Boutwell was the minister in Cambridge and Jeffersonville in the 1960s.

Lorraine Wood is from Fairfax.

All of the above also did Grandma's memorial service at the United Church of Fairfax on July 26, 1999.

Courtney (Howard) Leitz is Barbara Howard's granddaughter.

Pager's Obituary

Harold Butler Putnam, 99, of Cambridge, Vermont, passed away on Tuesday, December 24, 2013 with family by his side. He was born on September 8, 1914 in the farmhouse at the Putnam Family Farm in Cambridge. His parents were the late J. Kinsley Putnam and Mabelle (Butler) Putnam.

Traveling by horse and buggy, Harold attended and graduated from Cambridge High School in Jeffersonville as the class Valedictorian in 1931. He attended the Vermont School of Agriculture, now Vermont Technical College, graduating in 1932. Following graduation he had a job with the Agricultural Conservation Program for a few years. Many years the farm hosted sugar-on-snow parties for the ACP staff.

On June 16, 1946 Harold married Lois Gould and together they ran the farm and raised four children. They were married for 53 years.

Harold was a lifelong dairy farmer, the 4th generation of Putnams on his dairy farm. He was innovative for his time, embracing change and adopting new technology. Electricity came to the farm in 1941. Harold was instrumental in getting it to this area by helping to secure right-of-ways from multiple landowners. Before baled hay he installed in his barn a hay dryer for drying hay faster. He later built a milking parlor and converted his tie stall barn to loose housing, both very uncommon at that time. Many years later he built a new modern design barn with a larger milking parlor and continued the loose housing concept for the cows.

Before the era of home freezers, he was a founding member and eventually President of Cambridge Cooperative Lockers, Inc., a village store that housed freezer space for food locker rental to community members. He was a trustee of the Cambridge Cemetery Association at the Mountain View Cemetery in Cambridge for 50 years. He was on the board of directors for Richmond Cooperative Association, Inc., a milk marketing co-op. He was active in many other farm organizations, including the Farm Bureau Co-op (a maple syrup co-op) and the United Farmers Cooperative Creamery Association. He was a deacon at the Cambridge United Church for many years. As a youth Harold was very active in the local 4-H and as an adult he was a 4-H leader for the children in the area.

Before the advent of the modern bulk tanks, milk was stored and kept cool in milk cans bathed in cool spring water. In 1950 Harold purchased a local milk route and picked up milk cans from the coolers at area farms for several years. For many years, he also drove a station wagon school bus to pick up school children from some of the back roads around Cambridge.

Maple sugaring was always a large part of Harold’s annual adventures. He witnessed many changes as he began the early years with buckets and gathering sap by horse and sled. Over the years this evolved through experimental trials using plastic tubing to collect the sap and then progressed to using vacuum to help increase sap yields. He then was able to witness the building of the 5th sugarhouse on the farm with the latest hi-tech tools for collecting sap and making syrup.

One of Harold’s hobbies was the growing and preservation of an old Vermont heritage flint corn. He grew and harvested this special variety for many years, marketing his corn meal from “Pager’s Gristmill” to local residents and area food establishments.

He was considered a local historian and often sought after by those with questions of how things used to be. He was instrumental in helping to establish the Cambridge Historical Society.

Harold is survived by three children: Beth (Putnam) Cole of Cambridge and her husband Jerome Cole; William H. Putnam of Cambridge and his wife Donna (Wilkinson) Putnam; and George S. Putnam of Jeffersonville and his wife Nancy (Carpenter) Putnam. Their families include 13 grandchildren and nine great grandchildren: Jennifer (Cole) Patterson, her husband Andrew Patterson and children Lillian and Rachel; Rebecca (Cole) Towne, her husband Steven Towne and daughter Anna; Geoffrey Cole, his wife Katie (Morrow) Cole and son Hunter; Deborah (Cole) Governale, her husband Nicholas Governale and son Evan; Jason Putnam; Travis Putnam and his wife Hollie Putnam; Carrie (Wilkinson) LaFountain, her husband David LaFountain and children Devin and Shyanne; Sarah (Wilkinson) Bradshaw, her husband Jeremy Bradshaw and children Haylee and Bryce; James Wilkinson; Craig Wilkinson; Brian Putnam; Emily Putnam; Laura Putnam. He also leaves a sister-in-law, Harriet (Gould) Karr Burnham, a special friend Barbara (Brewster) Howard, and several nieces, nephews and cousins.

Harold was predeceased by his wife in 1999, his son John K. Putnam in 1971, and his sister Elizabeth (Putnam) Taylor in 1997.

The family wishes to express their thanks to Lamoille Home Health & Hospice, Franklin County Rehab Center, and the many caregivers who helped with Harold’s care in recent years. Special thanks to Nancy Knapp, Theresa Wilcox, Patty Wells, Mary Skog, Sue McAdoo, Lorinda Smith, Betsy MaGee and the many volunteers for their caring devotion to Harold’s care.

Visiting hours will be held on Friday, December 27, 2013 from 3:00 – 6:00 p.m. at A. W. Rich Funeral Home – Fairfax Chapel, 1176 Main St., Fairfax, VT 05454. Funeral services will be held on Saturday, December 28, 2013 at 11:00 a.m. at United Church of Fairfax. Memorial donations in Harold’s memory may be made to the Cambridge Historical Society, P.O. Box 16, Jeffersonville, VT 05464. Inurnment will be private and at the convenience of the family.

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A short obituary appeared in the Burlington Free Press on 12/26/13 here. The long obituary above was published online on 12/26/13 here. Bill took the photo above on 12/14/03 at Put's Palace. I think the shirt Pager is wearing is the shirt discussed in the Putnam family history on p. 47, photo on p. 48.

Remembering Mother

Mother was born on March 17, 1916 and died on July 21, 1999. Her nickname was "Pat" because she was born on St. Patrick's Day.

I didn't start blogging until 2007 and so there isn't much on the blog about Mother. Above is a favorite wedding photo taken on June 16, 1946 at the Cambridge Community Church.

From 1999:

Mother's Obituary (3 MB PDF)
Mother's Memorial Service (1 MB PDF)

Later today I will publish several posts about Pager which will include information about Mother, including how they met. Following are older posts on the blog related to Mother:

What is a boy?
Clayton Burnham
Rural Uplook Service (about both the Gould and Putnam families)