Monthly Archives: May 2004

attitudes toward gay rights, by generation

Yesterday, Matt Yglesias wrote on his very popular blog: “Some social conservative types have speculated to me that the overwhelming pro-gay sentiment among young people can be counteracted by the natural conservatizing effects of aging.” In other words, people will “naturally” grow more hostile to gay marriage as they enter adulthood. Yglesias disputed this prediction, and he’s right. Some pretty specific data show that people tend to grow increasingly tolerant toward gays as they age–at least in the current era.

No one conducted surveys on gay marriage until recently. Our own survey found strong support for gay marriage and civil unions, but it was a snapshot of young Americans, with no adult comparison group, and it told us nothing about trends. However, the General Social Survey has consistently asked questions about other gay rights since 1973. For instance, the GSS asks: “what about a man who admits that he is a homosexual? Should such a person be allowed to teach in a college or university, or not?” This is a useful question statistically, because it divides the population into comparable-size groups that are for and against. (The GSS code name for this question, amusingly, is “colhomo.”)

As shown in the following graph (and as one would expect), tolerance for gay college teachers has increased since 1973, when the question was first asked. At any given time, the most tolerant people are the youngest:

However, this first graph doesn’t tell us whether individuals become more or less tolerant over time. Perhaps each new generation starts life more tolerant than the previous ones, and thereby causes the average level of tolerance to rise, yet individuals tend to become more conservative as they age. To see whether that’s true, I looked at cohorts, and graphed their evolution over time. With the possible exception of those born in the 1930s (for whom we don’t have much data), it appears that people grow more tolerant as they age. Each of these lines represents an age cohort (i.e., part of a generation), and seven out of eight lines slope upward:

Social scientists talk about “age effects,” which hit average human beings as we move through the stages of the life-cycle. For instance, becoming more interested in politics is an age effect of early adulthood. They also talk about “cohort effects,” which are qualities that a group of people has permanently, by virtue of what happened to their society when they were young. For example, Baby Boomers were permanently marked by post-War affluence, suburbanization, and Vietnam. Finally, there are historical effects that hit everyone in a society at a given time, regardless of their age. It’s my sense that there may be a small age effect here: people become more tolerant of gays as they mature and get to know openly gay people. (This was a finding of our survey.) However, the biggest effect here is historical. Everyone is becoming more tolerant, regardless of age.

why stories are good for moral thinking

I believe in the moral value of narrative. A story, whether fictional or historical, is a coherent description of a set of events. Its coherence is not simply causal, such that the first event causes the second, which causes the third, etc. Instead, narrative coherence can take many forms, including: unity of character (one agent does a set of things sequentially); unity of community (a set of connected agents do a set of things); teleological unity (a set of events build up to a significant conclusion); or thematic unity (many things with similar meanings are described). Often more than one form of unity applies.

I would like to mention four features of narratives that make them useful for moral reasoning:

1. Narratives enable ?thick descriptions.? In Gilbert Ryle?s famous example, we may either say that someone ?contracted his eyelid? or that he ?winked conspiratorially.? The former is a thin description; the latter, a thick one. Thick descriptions often have moral significance. Contracting an eyelid is neutral, but winking conspiratorially is morally dubious. If it turns out that the contracting eyelid was a signal to commit murder, then that even thicker description marks the act as prima facie immoral.

What justifies a thick description is almost always a story. For example, a video camera would record a wink as a wink, whether it was a signal to commit murder or the result of biting a lemon. We know that it is one thing rather than the other because of what comes before and after it. But we don?t consider every prior and subsequent event, nor do we focus exclusively on actions that cause the wink or are caused by it. Rather, we ?thicken? the description by placing the event within a coherent narrative. This brings me to the second point ?

Continue reading

Leaders for Tomorrow

I’ve agreed to direct a new undergraduate program at the University of Maryland, starting next fall. It’s called Leaders for Tomorrow. Participants will have access to funds to support their own travel, summer internships, and other activities relevant to their work. Everyone in the first batch of admitted LFT students has also received a full scholarship (including room and board) from some other source.

The goals of the program are to attract some of the nation?s best undergraduates, to prepare them to compete for prestigious national scholarships such as the Rhodes and Marshall, and to enhance a campus-wide student culture of scholarship, leadership, and service. I’m particularly interested in helping talented undergraduates to bring some coherence to their various activities inside and beyond the classroom. I’m all for breadth, yet I think our students would benefit from being more strategic and purposive.

If you attend an Ivy-size college (about 6,000 undergraduates), it needs an endowment of $276 million to generate $2,300 worth of special extracurricular programs for each student. My university is much bigger than that, but it has a much smaller endowment. However, we’re earmarking something like $2,300 in cash to benefit each LFT student. I think you can make a pretty good case that Maryland (which has enormous shared assets) is a better place for these students to attend than some of the top colleges in America.

I’m imagining that most of the LFT students will work independently on extracurricular activities and courses, and we will convene regularly to discuss our separate experiences and to participate in special programs such as “field trips” and service opportunities. However, I’ll be especially excited if the LFT students do projects together. I have all kinds of ideas (creating a venue for publishing student research, organizing after-school classes in the County schools, etc. etc.); but I’m hoping that the LFT students can generate ideas of their own. They will have four years ahead of them when they arrive in September, so I’ll be patient and let them consider alternatives for a year, if necessary.

Abu Ghraib

We like to bomb from 30,000 feet,
fly back to Whiteman, MO after the run,
then drive to the mall for something to eat,
Or wire funds to the guys who buy the guns
that jab into the backs of old women
who stagger away from burning homes.
We don’t do firing squads, rape rooms, mass graves,
midnight arrests; we think we don’t know how.
A GI is a big buzz-cut guy who saves
The cowering victims of a foreign war,
or despotism, or incompetence.
We can even oust regimes from afar.
Dick and Lynne, in the VP’s residence,
once more shoulder the burden to maintain
security, order, and common sense.
They’re grandparents with degrees, guardians
of churches, agencies, and industries:
they know just how to handle ruffians.
Saddam built his own Lubyanka, grim and dank.
Isaiah asked: “How hath the oppressor ceased?”
The new commandant of Abu Ghraib’s a Yank.
And Babylon shall be as Sodom and
Gomorrah; by her shall we sit and weep.

John Kerry in London (a fantasy)

London, May 17–Senator John Kerry returned to London this morning after two days at Chequers, the Prime Minister’s private retreat. Standing with Mr. Blair outside 10 Downing Street, Senator Kerry said, “We have agreed on a range of very promising options for managing the crisis in Iraq.”

The police closed Whitehall, a broad street near the Prime Minister’s residence, to accommodate a crowd that was estimated at over 20,000. There were some hecklers, but Senator Kerry drew a roar of support when he waved through the iron gates.

The two leaders refused to elaborate on their plans, saying that the situation in Iraq was changing quickly. However, Senator Kerry’s entourage included Peter W. Galbraith, a former US Ambassador to Croatia who advocates dividing Iraq into three semi-autonomous constituent republics. Mr. Galbraith refused to comment.

Mr. Blair, pressed to say whether he was endorsing the Democratic nominee, replied repeatedly that British governments “never pick sides” in U.S. Presidential campaigns. “The choice belongs to the American people, and our government will work effectively with either party,” he said. “This was simply an opportunity for us to exchange ideas with another American political leader.”

Nevertheless, British commentators unanimously detect political advantage for Mr. Blair. Polls last week showed only 19 percent of respondents were satisfied with the Labour government, and Mr. Blair’s personal loyalty to U.S. President George W. Bush has been a major liability. While most foreign leaders would hesitate to cross the President, Mr. Blair has kept 12,000 troops in Iraq and is immune to punishment. Any criticism from Washington would be a political gift. The Sun, a conservative tabloid, declared: “Bush’s ‘Poodle’ Bites.”

For his part, Senator Kerry gains stature and offers a sense that the Iraq crisis may be solvable. Bush Administration officials scrambled to counter any advantage. Bush campaign spokesman Steve Schmidt said, “Senator Kerry is desperate to show that he is qualified to lead America. After more than 20 years of voting against a strong defense, he has to cross the ocean in search of supporters.” On the Senate floor, Senator John Cornyn (R-TX) challenged Senator Kerry to reveal his “secret plan” for Iraq. However, another Republican Senator who asked not to be named said, “This hurts, because Blair is not some foreigner meddling in American politics. He used to be George Bush’s best friend.”