The Phoenix Philosophy: On Challenge, Judaism & How Children Succeed

I read How Children Succeed: Grit, Curiosity and the Hidden Power of Character by Paul Tough over the weekend. It was a good book, even if it occasionally strayed from the topic at hand, and I didn't find it to be as much of an instruction manual or how-to guide as I might have wished. Paul's thesis is that teaching students to have character is actually a better investment than focusing on their cognitive skills, and allows them to be more successful long-term. He gave examples of the research behind this idea, and wrote about programs at various schools that seem to be working to teach character, but didn't really give the lone teacher a great set of strategies for how to implement it on their own. Nevertheless, the book mainly resonated with me for two reasons: it spoke to me as a teacher and also as a Jew.

As a teacher who has the good fortune to work at a wealthy private school, Paul's findings based on the Riverdale Country School in the Bronx resonated with me. Before writing this book, Paul wrote an article in The New York Times called "What if the Secret to Success is Failure?" The article sums up many of the salient points in the book, and the following excerpt speaks to my experience as a teacher.

“Race to Nowhere” has helped to coalesce a growing movement of psychologists and educators who argue that the systems and methods now in place to raise and educate well-off kids in the United States are in fact devastating them. One central figure in the movie is Madeline Levine, a psychologist in Marin County who is the author of a best-selling book, “The Price of Privilege: How Parental Pressure and Material Advantage Are Creating a Generation of Disconnected and Unhappy Kids.” In her book, Levine cites studies and surveys to back up her contention that children of affluent parents now exhibit “unexpectedly high rates of emotional problems beginning in junior high school.” This is no accident of demographics, Levine says, but instead is a direct result of the child-raising practices that prevail in well-off American homes; wealthy parents today, she argues, are more likely to be emotionally distant from their children, and at the same time to insist on high levels of achievement, a potentially toxic blend of influences that can create “intense feelings of shame and hopelessness” in affluent children. 

Cohen and Fierst told me that they also see many Riverdale parents who, while pushing their children to excel, also inadvertently shield them from exactly the kind of experience that can lead to character growth. As Fierst put it: “Our kids don’t put up with a lot of suffering. They don’t have a threshold for it. They’re protected against it quite a bit. And when they do get uncomfortable, we hear from their parents. We try to talk to parents about having to sort of make it O.K. for there to be challenge, because that’s where learning happens.” 

There is no question that some of the most creative experiences anyone can have occur when they are in their phoenix dive- they rise from the ashes of their failure. Unfortunately, many students are afraid to take risks because that might lead to them getting a lesser score on grade on a paper, when of course, taking risks and embracing challenges are what learning is all about.

I was fascinated by the character traits that KIPP (learn more about KIPP by reading 'Work Hard, Be Nice') chose to focus on in their attempt at helping children grow. They came up with seven character traits, and these were:

grit

self-control

zest

social intelligence

gratitude

optimism

curiosity

What intrigued me about these choices is that, of course, all of these are key components of the Jewish tradition. What could possibly read as grittier (excuse my manipulation of the word) than leaders like Moshe and Jonah, consistently getting back on their feet and going out to serve God despite the complaints and unworthiness of their respective constituents? When it comes to self-control, is it not our sages who came up with the adage "איזהו גבור, הכובש את יצרו?" (This translates to: Who is strong? The one who conquers his inclination/desire.) Isn't zest described beautifully in the Gemara when we see how eager and excited our sages were for Shabbat, purchasing different choice items throughout the week in their love for that special day? Social intelligence appears in all the interactions between David and Shaul, gratitude is a theme embodied by Moshe when he is forbidden to strike the land or water since they saved him at birth, and the prophets are filled with optimism at the most (seemingly) inappropriate times. As for curiosity, what is the Talmud if not a demonstration in that ideal? Bizarre hypotheticals that take logical reasoning to their oddest extremes fill the Talmud; the sages were fascinated by how the law would play out, even if there were never to be an actual application for their intellectual striving. 

Of all of these, Paul wrote about self-control in the most detail. Self-control, as I have written about before, is embodied in the Orthodox Jewish approach to life. Rabbi Joseph B. Soloveitchik writes about it beautifully when he addresses the concept of dignity in defeat.

In one of my favorite works, 'Out of the Whirlwind,' he writes:

"I will read for you a midrash (Midrash Rabbah to Shir haShirim 7:3, "Thy belly is like a heap of wheat set about with lilies"), and I believe it speaks for itself. The midrash explains Jewish ritual law pertaining to sexuality. Judaism developed a very strange attitude towards sexual life. On the one hand, it endorsed it, completely rejecting the Aristotelian negative approach which Maimonides had somehow accepted. Sex can be a sacred performance if treated properly, if placed in a worthwhile, dignified perspective. In one's sexual life, the dignity of man is the most important factor. It determines the whole character of the sexual life, whether it is low, primitive, hypnotic and orgiastic, or dignified and sacred.

The Halakha developed a very strange, paradoxical law pertaining to the periods of withdrawal and assosciation. But the strangest of all laws pertaining to sex is one norm which borders almost on the inconsiderate. A young man meets a young woman and falls in love, marries her, and consummates the marriage- the norm is that it is then that a period of withdrawal of almost twelve days begins.

"It often happens that a man takes a wife when he is thirty or forty years old and after going to great expense"- expense not meant in terms of money, but it means he proposed a few times and she rejected him. He was in love and kept on insisting and finally he won out. After going to great expense, he wants to associate with her. His heart is overflowing with love and passion. Yet, if she says to him, 'I have seen a rose red speck,' he immediately recoils. What made him retreat and keep away from her? Was there a wall of iron between them? Did a serpent bite him? Did a scorpion sting him?....It was the words of Torah, which are soft as a lily."

The Midrash gives another example. "A dish of meat is laid before a man and he is told that some forbidden fat has fallen into it; he leaves it alone and will not take it." Hungry as he is, however stong his desire for food, he will not taste it. "Who stops him from tasting it? Did a serpent bite him?....Did a scorpion sting him?...It was the words of the Torah, which are soft as a lily..." Bride and bridegroom are young, physically strong and passionately in love with each other; both have patiently awaited this rendezvous, and they met and the bridegroom stepped backward. Like a knight, he gallantly exhibited superhuman heroism, not in a spectacular but in a quite humble fashion, in the privacy of their home, in the stillness of the night. And what happened? He defeated himself at the height of his triumphant conquest, when all he had to do was to reach out and take possession. The young man overcame himself, the conquerer in his orgiastic hypnotic mood retreated, performed a movement of recoil. He displayed heroism by accepting defeat. And in this act of self-defeat one finds the real dignity of man.  

Dignity in Defeat

If man knows how to take defeat at his own hands in a variety of ways as the Halakha tries to teach us, then he may preserve his dignity even when defeat was not summoned by him, when he faces adversity and disaster and is dislodged from his castles and fortresses......

[Next page]

What I have developed is more a philosophy of the Halakha. How this philosophy could be interpreted in terms of mental health is a separate problem, one that is quite complicated. But I believe that the trouble with modern man and his problems is what the existentialists keep on emphasizing: anxiety, angst. Man is attuned to success. Modern man is a conquerer, but he does not want to see himself defeated. This is the main trouble. Of course, when he encounters evil and the latter triumphs over him and he is defeated, he cannot "take it"; he does not understand it.

However, if man is trained gradually, day by day, to take defeat at his own hands in small matters, in his daily routine, in his habits of eating, in his sex life, in his public life- as a matter of fact, I have developed how this directional movement is applicable to all levels- then, I believe, when faced with evil and adversity and when he finds himself in crisis, he will manage to bear his problems with dignity."

Pages 111-115 

I do find it entertaining (in a positive way) when current psychology accords with what the Torah has said is true. The Torah trains us in the process of self-control, which is why eventually those of us who are open to its teachings become so good at it. The most interesting part is that the Torah begins with rules, but the rules are there to train us so that at the proper time, we can use willpower instead. This exact idea was described in Paul's book:

What MCII amounts to is a way to set rules for yourself. And as David Kessler, the former commissioner of the FDA, notes in his recent book The End of Overeating, there is a neurobiological reason why rules work, whether you're using them to avoid fried foods (as Kessler was) or the lure of American Idol (as our imaginary KIPP math student might have been). When you're making rules for yourself, Kessler writes, you're enlisting the prefrontal cortex as your partner against the more reflexive, appetite-driven parts of your brain. Rules, Kessler points out, are not the same as willpower. They are a metacognitive substitute for willpower. By making yourself a rule ("I never eat fried dumplings"), you can sidestep the painful internal conflict between your desire for fried foods and your willful determination to resist them. Rules, Kessler explains, "provide structure, preparing us for encounters with tempting stimuli and redirecting our attention elsewhere." Before long, the rules have become as automatic as the appetites they are deflecting.  

~Page 94

Marc and I were once talking about how halakha can be seen as similar to the ropes with which Ulysses/ Odysseus binds himself when listening to the sirens' song. Our halakha begins with rules, which (at least per Kessler) are a substitute for willpower that helps us learn what our default setting or option should be. But then, as we develop and find ourselves in trickier situations over time, we have become accustomed enough to self-control, to not eating the non-kosher item, to not having sex whenever we want with whomever we want, that we can do the right thing. We have acquired a habit that will help us in life.

Brief Update

Those of you looking for 'Hasidic Worlds in Fiction,' it will be back up in a couple of weeks but for right now, cannot be posted. Stay tuned for when it's back.

love? + a woman without honor

My mother's favorite book is Anna Karenina. Alas, when it comes to the Russian classics, I prefer The Brothers Karamazov. This having been noted, a beautiful adaptation of Anna Karenina is coming to the silver screen and it is starring Kiera Knightley.

Kiera makes a beautiful Anna. But oddly, I was struck by Jude Law's Karenin. "You are depraved," he states, with utter finality. "A woman without honor. And this is what you want. Do you know what you want?" Somehow, the searing passion with which he imbues his words made it feel as though he spoke to me.

When I was younger, of course I loved the doomed Anna and her tragic love story. But now that I am older, I find myself fascinated by Karenin. What, after all, does Karenin want? He wants a woman who at least behaves with propriety. And indeed, in his own way, he does love her. There's a lovely passage where Karenin realizes this.

She looked at him so simply, so brightly, that anyone who did not know her as her husband knew her could not have noticed anything unnatural, either in the sound or the sense of her words. But to him, knowing her, knowing that whenever he went to bed five minutes later than usual, she noticed it, and asked him the reason; to him, knowing that every joy, every pleasure and pain that she felt she communicated to him at once; to him, now to see that she did not care to notice his state of mind, that she did not care to say a word about herself, meant a great deal. He saw that the inmost recesses of her soul, that had always hitherto lain open before him, were closed against him. More than that, he saw from her tone that she was not even perturbed at that, but as it were said straight out to him: "Yes, it's shut up, and so it must be, and will be in future." Now he experienced a feeling such as a man might have, returning home and finding his own house locked up. "But perhaps the key may yet be found," thought Alexey Alexandrovitch.

When one first reads this passage, it appears that Karenin is only upset because that which was open to him is now shut. How dare she take what is mine- that is one interpretation. But the second, simpler, gentler explanation is simply that he feels the pang of loss. She was beautiful, she lay her ideas, heart and soul before me- and now she is hidden from me. She has turned from me, and now I know what I have lost- I wish to find the key to her, to open her again.

The tagline on the Anna Karenina film posters currently reads "You Can't Ask Why About Love." Now, I am aware this is merely a tagline, there to sell tickets, but I was thinking about it and realized that I completely disagree with it. Not only can one ask why about love; one must ask why about love. What if I love the one who harms me? What if my love destroys a marriage? What if my love breaks apart a family? Is all that worth it, simply because I love?

American television says yes. American television says that one need not think about the ethics, morals or other concerns associated with a person, only with one's feelings for that person. So it's okay to love people of the same gender, okay to love murderers (see all the vampire storylines on TV, especially the one featuring Elena/ Damon/ Stefan), okay to love someone else while you are married (see adultery made exciting in the Addison/Mark relationship), okay to be stringing two people along and so on. All of this is okay because of that magic word: Love.

The assumption is that one has no control whatsoever. First, I cannot control my feelings, and second, I cannot control my actions. I can only act on my passions. Of course, Judaism denies this idea wholeheartedly. Regardless of one's feelings, one's actions are always within one's control. It's not only about me, about what makes me happiest. It is also about God. It is also about other people. It is about being noble in love, honorable in love, not only in loving.

Before Anna kills herself, her thoughts are spiraling madly within her. First, she realizes that Vronsky has grown bored with her, that indeed, his only love for her existed when she could serve as a conquest for him and flatter his vanity. Then she realizes that since their love has grown cold, he has begun to hate her. He will only act kindly to her out of a sense of duty- and she cannot bear that. Her love, at the end, is entirely selfish and entirely self-centered. Indeed, when thinking about her son, she says, "I thought, too, that I loved him, and used to be touched by my own tenderness. But I have lived without him, I gave him up for another love, and did not regret the exchange till that love was satisfied."

Indeed, when she conceives of her death, it is still about her and her power over others. "I will punish him and escape from everyone and from myself," she declares. Even her death must be about her impact- it must punish Vronsky and allow her an escape.

So is any of this love? Love as I have learned to conceive of it is a joyous, glorious act, one that empowers the lovers. The two grow together in healthy fashion, like a plant that flowers and gives forth seed. Love is open; it is nurturing; it need not be hidden. Love is not stealthy, a thief in the night, but rather a beacon, shining out from the lighthouse. What Anna experiences is pleasurable, is deep, and wildly excites her emotions, but it is passion, it is desire, it is lust- it is not love. Love occurs when the brain is complicit; Anna's actions and motives take place in her heart alone.

I think it is hard to love truly today. Our literature, magazines and films do not support this kind of love. Love if I were to learn about it from what is portrayed on TV, has everything to do with sex and wildly sparking feelings. Love and stability do not go together except in very rare occurrences, like the marriage of Coach Eric Taylor and Tami Taylor in "Friday  Night Lights." And so the words of Erich Fromm resonate once more in my mind:

In our society, emotions in general are discouraged. While there can be no doubt that any creative thinking—as well as any other creative activity—is inseparably linked with emotion, it has become an ideal to think and to live without emotions. To be “emotional” has become synonymous with being unsound or unbalanced. By the acceptance of this standard the individual has become greatly weakened; his thinking is impoverished and flattened. On the other hand, since emotions cannot be completely killed, they must have their essence totally apart from the intellectual side of the personality; the result is the cheap and insincere sentimentality with which movies and popular songs feed millions of emotion- starved customers. 

~Escape from Freedom, page 270

Sentimentality we have in rich abundance...love, however, has been maligned. She has been slandered and driven out, dressed in rags and replaced with soma-pumped mimicry. With such love, of course one cannot ask why...it would be to discover the deceit, and we must support the cheat at all costs.

cruel laughter, that tears like nails

“Salander had no faith in herself. Blomkvist lived in a world populated by people with respectable jobs, people with orderly lives, and lots of grown-up points. His friends did things, went on TV, and shaped headlines. What do you need me for? Salander’s greatest fear, which was so huge and so black that is was of phobic proportions, was that people would laugh at her feelings. And all of a sudden all her carefully constructed self-confidence seemed to crumble.” 

~Lisbeth Salander

I read some books over Yom Tov that were extremely human in nature. The first was Tinkers by Paul Harding; the second was The Imperfectionists by Tom Rachman. Somehow, in the course of reading the books and thinking about myself, I came to realize that all of us share a common fear: laughter.

It is not just any laughter that we fear. It is the laughter of mockers, of scoffers, the laughter that tears us down and makes us feel small. 

When someone is righteously angry and indignant, we may disagree with them, but in the end of the day they still showed us respect. Whatever it was that we said infuriated them, but they took us seriously. Indeed, the reason they became so upset was because they feel like whatever we said or thought is so very dangerous. But when someone dismisses you out of hand and laughs at your ideas, then that person is saying they don't need to take you seriously at all.

What was interesting to me was the realization that everyone fears this. In fashion magazines, the fashion faux pas section can do a lot of damage. An actress who is otherwise respected who steps outside in an outfit that others find laughable can have her style and fashion sense destroyed. In America, someone who is seen believing in something that is understood to be outmoded, outdated or otherwise uncool is an object of scorn. When children get stage fright, at heart is the fear that they will fail to perform to standard and that everyone will laugh at them. 

In Judaism, we call this harmful laughter and scoffing ליצנות/ Leitzanus. On Yom Kippur, when we say Viddui, one of the sins we mention is this-that we have laughed in this way. This laughter is damaging, because it harms people and people's ability to try harder, to become better, to be someone who they weren't before and who they are trying to be. 

I think part of the reason that it's so hard to be actively religious in America is because there are people we respect and who we wish to respect us in return, and we can't bear the thought that they might secretly laugh at us. Whether it's our garb that they find outdated, or the mechitza in shul, the fact is that they will laugh and take us less seriously, and our fragile, exquisitely human selves find that so hard to bear. It is much easier to debate my ideals if you take them seriously than it is to defend them against someone who says, with a laugh, "But you don't really believe that, now, do you?"

I've been realizing of late that I don't share as much of myself as I did, and that the reason this is so is because I, too, don't wish to be laughed at. I feel like if I were to tell people about what moves me, what troubles me, what makes me feel and think and see the world as a more vibrant place, they would look askance at me. I know that's not the way it should be, but at least for now, that's the way it is. 

I believe this is also part of the reason that I get on so well with children, especially bright children- because they haven't learned to laugh yet. If I am excited about a book, or animated about a cause, or believe in fairy tales and magic, they have that wonder in their eyes as well. And when I see their eyes darken with that hard sheen that tells me that they too, have learned to laugh, I retreat, because I have no weapon against that. You can hurt me- I cannot hurt you- all I can do is fall back.

This is why I trust God more than I trust people. I know that God loves me and I know that He appreciates my wonder. He knows my many loves and He knows the small things that touch me and He knows my motives. I am afraid of the world because it can hurt me, but I am not afraid of God, because even when He hurts me, I know He will show me one day that it was an important step on my journey. I know He sheds tears for me. I know He never laughs.

god who lives forever in my heart

The following is a poem by Rilke that I love. It is about God. It reminds me of the way the prophets feel and think.

~

Put out my eyes, and I can see you still;
slam my ears to, and I can hear you yet;
and without any feet can go to you;
and tongueless, I can conjure you at will.
Break off my arms, I shall take hold of you
and grasp you with my heart as with a hand;
arrest my heart, my brain will beat as true;
and if you set this brain of mine afire,
upon my blood I then will carry you.

God's Script

I read a piece by Rabbi Jonathan Sacks in his book 'Celebrating Life' that really resonated with me. It's called 'God's Script.' I've written it up below.

~

It was one of those moments that make you feel part of something so much larger than yourself. It was the summer of 1999. I had been invited to open an international sports competition. The participants were Jewish, part of a global network of youth clubs called Maccabi. For the first time their European gathering was taking place in Scotland. There were well over 1,000 young people from 27 different countries. We began, not with the games themselves, but by celebrating the Sabbath together. It was thrilling to pray, make the blessings and sing the traditional songs in the company of so many- especially given all that has happened to European Jewry this century. For the first time we were joined by participants from East Europe, places like Lithuania, Latvia, Georgia and the Ukraine, where Jewish life was being rekindled after 70 years of suppression under communist rule. This was the Jewish phoenix, communities long dormant coming to life again.

We were in the old town of Stirling with its ancient castle, the place where 'bravehearts' William Wallace and Robert the Bruce fought their famous battles against the English. Along with most of the participants of the sports competition, Elaine and I were staying at the university, one of the loveliest campuses in Britain. I had been there once before, under different circumstances. As the Sabbath began, I told the story.

'Almost exactly 30 years ago, I had just finished university and was applying for my first job. There was a vacancy in the Philosophy Department of Stirling University, and I applied. It was my first job application. I was invited for interview and I came to this building where we are now. I didn't get the job. I was disappointed, but I went elsewhere and did other things.

'What would have happened if I'd been successful? I wouldn't have become a rabbi. I wouldn't have become Chief Rabbi. And I wouldn't be here now, because the university is on holiday. I would have missed one of the largest gatherings of Jews ever to have come together in Scotland and the privilege of being here with you now. What made it possible for me to be here in Stirling today? the fact that 30 years ago I came to Stirling and was turned down for a job. Until now, that rejection hurt. Now I understand that I was part of a different story. Once in a while God lets us see the script.' It was a moment of closure and disclosure.

There are times when the veil that covers the surface of events lifts,a nd we catch a glimpses of the larger pattern of which, unknowingly, we have been a part. Tradition calls this Divine providence, and I believe in it. Later events make sense of earlier ones. Bad things turn out to have been necessary steps in an important journey. It may take a long time before we see why and how. In some cases we may never understand, but we do so often enough to have the feeling that we are only co-authors of our story. Another hand is at work, and a larger narrative is taking shape. As Isaac Bashevis Singer put it, 'God is a writer and we are both the heroes and the readers.'

Is this fanciful thinking? It has happened too often for me to doubt. I once wanted to become a Fellow of my college in Cambridge. I had dreams of becoming a university professor. Both these things happened. The strange thing is that they happened years after I had given up academic life, while I was travelling in the opposite direction. I have discovered that God often chooses circuitous routes, but it helps to know that where we are, here, now is where we need to be.

~pages 40-43

Support Team Jaimin!

In these few days before Yom Kippur, do you want to give some tzedaka?

Donate to the Childhood Brain Tumor Foundation and support my student, Jaimin! 

You can donate at this link: http://www.active.com/donate/cbtf2012/OFriedm1

Market Values: Are We Today's Fausts?

Over Rosh Hashana, I read, in addition to other things, the book What Money Can't Buy: The Moral Limits of Markets by Michael J. Sandel. Aside from being amused by how much of the book reads like a religious Jew's argument against encroaching consumerism as a lifestyle and value system, I found it to be eminently readable and I liked the interesting points it raised. The main cons were that he didn't define what he meant by 'moral' or what philosophical or religious system he was using when he talked about actions being 'moral' or not, and also that he was extremely redundant. Some pros were that his examples were diverse and very interesting- ranging from nuclear reactors to prisons to baseball teams to educational institutions to viaticals (which I had never heard of before, and found fascinating).

An excerpt follows below:

~

Two Objections to Markets 

These two kinds of arguments reverberate through debates about what money should and should not buy. The fairness objection asks about the inequality that market choices may reflect; the corruption objection asks about the attitudes and norms that market relations may damage or dissolve.

Consider kidneys. It's true that money can buy one without ruining its value. But should kidneys be bought and sold? Those who say no typically object on one of two grounds: They argue that such markets prey upon the poor, whose choice to sell their kidneys may not be truly voluntary (the fairness argument). Or they argue that such markets promote a degrading, objectifying view of the human person, as a collection of spare parts (the corruption argument).

Or consider children. It would be possible to create a market in babies up for adoption. But should we? Those who object offer two reasons: One is that putting children up for sale would price less affluent parents out of the market, or leave them with the cheapest, least desirable children (the fairness argument). The other is that putting a price tag on children would corrupt the norm of unconditional parental love; the inevitable price differences would reinforce the notion that the value of a child depends on his or her race, sex, intellectual promise, physical abilities or disabilities, and other traits (the corruption argument).

It's worth taking a moment to clarify these two arguments for the moral limits of markets. The fairness objection points to the injustice that can arise when people buy and sell things under conditions of inequality or dire economic necessity. According to this objection, market exchanges are not always as voluntary as market enthusiasts suggest. A peasant may agree to sell his kidney or cornea to feed his starving family, but his agreement may not really be voluntary. He may be unfairly coerced, in effect, by the necessities of his situation.

The corruption objection is different. It points to the degrading effect of market valuation and exchange on certain goods and practices. According to this objection, certain moral and civic goods are diminished or corrupted if bought and sold. The argument from corruption cannot be met by establishing fair bargaining conditions. It applies under conditions of equality and inequality alike.

The long-standing debate about prostitution illustrates the difference. Some people oppose prostitution on the grounds that it is rarely, if ever, truly voluntary. They argue that those who sell their bodies for sex are typically coerced, whether by poverty, drug addiction, or the threat of violence. This is a version of the fairness objection. But others object to prostitution on the grounds that it is degrading to women, whether or not they are forced into it. According to this argument, prostitution is a form of corruption that demeans women and promotes bad attitudes towards sex. The degradation objection doesn't depend on tainted consent; it would condemn prostitution even in a society without poverty, even in cases of upscale prostitutes who liked the work and freely chose it.

Each objection draws on a different moral ideal. The fairness argument draws on the ideal of consent, or, more precisely, the ideal of consent carried out under fair background conditions. One of the main arguments for using markets to allocate goods is that markets respect freedom of choice. They allow people eto choose for themselves whether to sell this or that good at  a given price.

But the fairness objection points out that some such choices are not truly voluntary. Market choices are not free choices if some people are desperately poor or lack the ability to bargain on fair terms. So in order to know whether a market choice is a free choice, we have to ask what inequalities in the background conditions of society undermine meaningful consent. At what point do inequalities of bargaining power coerce the disadvantaged and undermine the fairness of the deals they make?

The corruption argument points to a different set of moral ideals. It appeals not to consent but to the moral importance of the goods at stake, the ones said to be degraded by market valuation and exchange. So to decide whether college admission should be bought and sold, we have to debate the moral and civic goods that colleges should pursue, and ask whether selling admission would damage those goods. To decide whether to establish a market in babies up for adoption, we need to ask what norms should govern the parent-child relationship, and ask whether buying and selling children would undermine those norms.

The fairness and corruption objections differ in their implications for markets: The fairness argument does not object to marketizing certain goods on the grounds that they are precious or sacred or priceless; it objects to buying and selling goods against a background of inequality severe enough to create unfair bargaining conditions. It offers no basis for objecting to the commodification of goods (whether sex or kidneys or college admission) in a society whose background conditions are fair.

The corruption argument, by contrast, focuses on the character of the goods themselves and the norms that should govern them. So it cannot be met simply by establishing fair bargaining conditions. Even in a society without unjust differences of power and wealth, there would still be things that money should not buy. This is because markets are not mere mechanisms; they embody certain values. And sometimes, market values crowd out nonmarket norms worth caring about.

(Pages 110-113)

Cruelty On The Bus

I was riding the bus in Maryland along with a friend of mine today. He was wearing a colorful knit kippah, swan earrings, a t-shirt and Arabian-style flowing pants with crystal beading. I was wearing a cowboy hat studded with white flowers, a Batman t-shirt and a black skirt.

A man at the back of the bus looked at us and said, "Why are you dressed like that?"

I looked down at my clothes, confused about what was upsetting the man. Did he dislike Batman? Or was my cowboy hat putting him off?

"Why are you dressed like that?" he repeated. "You look disgusting. A man should dress like a man. I don't want to see that."

"Close your eyes, then" my friend sang out, unfazed. I was still processing what was happening, trying to figure out why this person was being so hateful.

The man then got up and actually moved so as not to look at us. Many thoughts ran through my mind. Mostly, I wanted to tell the man off. I wanted to say that the way he was behaving was vulgar, crude and offensive. Also, that it's a crime to verbally harass others. But I knew that doing that would mean the man would just continue to insult us, so I felt it was best to let it go. Instead, I turned to my friend.

"Does this happen a lot?" I asked.

He said that yeah, it happened reasonably often. I was shocked.

I've heard of harassment before. I've had people whistle or shout at me and once someone even propositioned me. But it's never felt like an attack against me as a person, against my very personhood. It's never been specific to me as a person- just me as a woman, and for some reason, that feels different.

It really bothered me that the bus, which for me is a fun place where bus drivers are kind and sweet to me and random men are usually chivalrous, has the potential to be scary for my friend. I don't think that should happen. And I'm an Orthodox Jew who believes that God is displeased when people act on their homosexuality or when men dress in women's clothes. But in the end of the day, that isn't a visceral emotional response for me. It's not about me hating someone else. Instead, it's about me feeling that God would desire something else. But in the end of the day, I love the person, whether or not they're doing what I believe God wants them to do. I believe that God loves all His creations, too, and even if they veer from the path that He wants them on, he doesn't want them to be hated.

It reminded me of the Gemara where R' Meir says to Beruriah that he wishes all sinners would die. Beruria replies that instead, he ought to pray that they repent. It's the difference between believing that people have irrevocably stained souls and believing that they are more than just one part of themselves. My friend's a good person and he should be able to ride the bus in peace.

I'm still not sure about what I should have done differently. I don't know if I should have gotten up and  told off the man who was saying these cruel things. But I just feel like something really bad happened, that I was a witness to it, and that it shouldn't happen. And that we should make sure to do what we can so it doesn't continue to happen.

The Unbecoming of Mara Dyer

(This review contains spoilers.) 

I bought and read The Unbecoming of Mara Dyer today. The cover art was so very beautiful and I had heard good things about the book. I was incalculably, unutterably disappointed.

The story is cliche, vapid and boring. Noah is the male love interest- and of course, he's British, sexy, speaks several languages and is loaded. He's been wanted by all the girls in the school but he falls for Mara. Mara has problems (due to having an abandoned sanitarium cave in on her and her three friends; they all died and she survived) and she's trying to deal with her issues (unsuccessfully). Her problems are supposed to be real and explain what it's like dealing with PTSD and hallucinations, but all they succeed in doing is painting a bizarre, offensive and insulting caricature of the real pain felt by those who have actually dealt with issues like these. (Compare, if you will, to a book like The Quiet Room- and weep).

Mara eventually discovers that she appears to possess the ability to kill people with her thoughts, whereas Noah, as yin to her yang, has the ability to heal people with his touch. After lots of disturbing possessive scenes in which Noah informs Mara that he wants her and she wants him, whether she verbally agrees with this or not, there's a scene in which Mara almost kills Noah (accidentally) and therefore decides she can't be with him. After this, her little brother is randomly kidnapped and Mara decides she needs to kill the kidnapper so that justice is served. Another woman shooting Mara's father (who was the kidnapper's lawyer) means that she is unable to complete the murder.

There is one twist in this otherwise unbelievably contrived, poorly written paranormal story. Mara's first boyfriend, Jude, was abusive and he almost, but not quite, raped her. (That's when her first episode happened- she caused a building to fall down on top of him and two of her friends; supposedly they all died, but she survived.) She keeps having visions of Jude and assumes that he is the trigger for the thoughts that cause her to kill people. Little does she know that in fact it may just be him (because somehow he survived the cave-in) and his presence that kills people, not her at all. This is ironic since Mara has decided to turn herself in to the authorities.

The story is a clear ripoff of teen sensations like 'Twilight,' 'The Vampire Diaries' and (oddly) '50 Shades of Grey.' There are lines in the book (such as the one regarding the blonde cheerleader dancing in Mara's head) that are definitely out of 50 Shades, Noah's ability to heal in the hospital is a cross between Dr. Cullen and the fact that vampire blood heals in 'The Vampire Diaries' TV show. Mara's struggle between good and evil is laughable (tinged as it is with melodrama and breathy, unbelievable concern for her cold-until-he-met-her boyfriend). And Noah really doesn't come off as a white knight (he's more like the creepy Edward Cullen, dismantling Bella's truck so that she can't leave) unless you pair him up against Jude, who was even worse.

This book is also hard to read due to the really ridiculous, gratuitous amount of profanity. One of my favorite books is the perks of being a wallflower by Stephen Chbosky, and he uses profanity, but his usage makes sense. So does the usage by Wally Lamb in 'I Know This Much is True.' But the profanity in this book (especially the many uses for the inappropriate word for 'posterior') is just jarring, grating and makes you want to rinse out Mara's mouth with soap.

Rating: 0 out of 5

Humans Excused: All Crimes Are Due To Faulty Brains

I'm in the middle of reading the book Incognito: The Secret Lives of the Brain by David Eaglemen. I've come to a part of the book where he makes a bizarre argument. Here's how his argument goes:

1. Currently, "when a criminal stands in front of the judge's bench having recently committed a crime, the legal system wants to know whether he is blameworthy. After all, whether he is fundamentally responsible for his actions navigates the way we punish" (169).

2. There are situations in which someone performs a guilty act but they are still not responsible. In the legal system this is called "automatism. This is pled when the person performs an automated act- say, if an epileptic seizure causes a driver to steer into a crowd." There "was a guilty act, but there was not a choice behind it" (170).

3. We know of many situations where the problem is not someone's choices but their brain. Take schizophrenics, epileptics, those suffering from mania and so forth: give them the proper medication and their actions can be controlled while all the tough love or attempts at self control in the world wouldn't stop them. We know that Tourette's patients suffer from "involuntary movements and vocalizations" (163). A Tourette's patient "cannot not do it" where 'it' refers to their motor tics and inappropriate exclamations. We know about cases like that of Kenneth Parks, who murdered his mother-in-law and tried to kill his father-in-law while he was sleepwalking. We know that certain people with Parkinson's on certain medications become compulsive gamblers (and when the dosage is lowered, this goes away). We know that certain brain tumors can cause a man to suddenly exhibit pedophilic tendencies. Therefore, "high level behaviors can happen in the absence of free will" (166). In fact, "free will, if it exists, is only a small factor riding on top of enormous automated machinery. So small that we may be able to think about bad decision making in the same way we think about any other physical process, such as diabetes or lung disease" (170).

4. Therefore, "[t]he bottom line of the argument is that criminals should always be treated as incapable of having acted otherwise. The criminal activity itself should be taken as evidence of brain abnormality, regardless whether currently measurable problems can be pinpointed. This means that the burden of neuroscientific expert witnesses should be left out of the loop: their testimony reflects only whether we currently have names and measurements for problems, not whether the problem exists" (177).

5. Thus, we should punish based on a system of how the person is "likely to behave in the future," not based on what he has done, since though a guilty act was performed, he did not have a choice in the matter.

~

Problems with this argument:

1. There are numerous theories of how our system of punishment functions. Not all of them have to do with assigning blame. One major theory focuses on deterrence, where one could argue that even if someone did not intend to do the crime they committed, or did not have free will, still they must be punished in order to deter others from performing that crime. (Of course, it is likely the author of this book would argue that whether another does the crime has nothing to do with deterrence, as whether or not they will commit the crime is in their biochemistry to begin with.)

2. One could argue that there is still an issue of precautions that must be taken. We see this in the Talmud regarding an owner's obligation to cage in an animal that has gored once so that it may not gore again. If someone clogs their arteries with lots of fast food knowingly, perhaps they should be accountable for having gotten the heart attack while driving. Or at the very least, perhaps they should have known not to drive when at high risk for heart attack. What if the epileptic hadn't taken their medicine? Some of these guilty acts might be preventable. (Obviously, of course, others might not be.)

3. While it is true that there are instances where we know that someone's choices come about due to something that we can see as being wrong or wired differently in their brain, does it thereby follow that EVERY CRIME that occurs happens solely because something is wrong or wired differently in someone's brain? Take this quote:

"But it's like when my doctor told me the story of these two brothers whose dad was a bad alcoholic. One brother grew up to be a successful carpenter who never drank. The other brother ended up being a drinker as bad as his dad was. When they asked the first brother why he didn't drink, he said that after he saw what it did to his father, he could never bring himself to even try it. When they asked the other brother, he said that he guessed he learned how to drink on his father's knee. So, I guess we are who we are for a lot of reasons. And maybe we'll never know most of them. But even if we don't have the power to choose where we came from, we can still choose where we go from there. We can still do things. And we can try to feel okay about them."

~the perks of being a wallflower, 211

Eagleman certainly could argue that every single child has different brain-chemistry and that's why some people become alcoholics and others don't, and that's why certain alcoholics are able to quit drinking and other's won't and so forth- but it seems remarkably limiting when it comes to all our American ideas about the power of the human spirit. It also seems like you could never hold someone responsible for anything, as all they have to do is reply 'My genes made me do it' (we're already seeing this argument re: gayness, see Lady Gaga song for details.) 

4. This is where he jumps to conclusions. He says: "Some crimes or inappropriate social behavior clearly occur due to issues with the brain that we can measure. Therefore, ALL crimes or inappropriate social behavior clearly occur due to issues with the brain, but we lack the proper tools to measure those issues." This could be a GRE argument question, the logic is so poor.

5. And what would determine that? The person's genes and DNA? Whatever the current science is saying about the rate of recidivism (what if that science isn't up to date, just like Eagleman thinks that the ability to measure issues in the brain isn't?) Isn't he concerned about our world becoming exactly like Gattaca and Minority Report? People would be arrested and held based on what their genes predict that they would do or how likely they are to repeat it, not what they would actually do...what a world to live in.

My thought was that this once again affirms religion in its most positive sense. Religion believes in the spirit of a person, his nobility, his ability to choose who he is, how he wishes to live and what he desires to do or not do. Science (or at least this man's science) argues for an impoverished human whose every move is scripted in his brain. Should he have been the recipient of a faulty one, he is doomed and there is nothing and no one- except perhaps the creation of robot brains that could serve as transplants- that might be able to save him. Obviously, at the core of the matter is which of these renditions of a human is true, not merely palatable, but it is ironic that as a race we should be willing to assert that in sum our lives are utterly meaningless. If I were such a scientist, the only logical thing to do would be to commit suicide immediately. (And of course, even that would doubtless have been scripted into my brain!)

---

Addendum (hat-tip to Tzila): This New York Times article shows that judges will sentence people who they believe had a genetic component behind their actions more lightly because they feel sympathetic towards them.

Addendum 2: One of my friends wrote me back and says that I am misunderstanding Eaglemen's point regarding crimes (where I said that he is employing faulty logic). Eaglemen is saying that one ought to look at this as a doctor would. If you were experiencing heart pains, it could be a blood clot and it could be a heart attack, but what is obvious is that something is *wrong*. It is not normal to be experiencing pain that severe. We may or may not have the science to find and stop what is hurting you, but the fact is that it is still there. So too, when the 'symptoms' of criminal activity manifest, that is a red flag that something is wrong in the biochemistry as a person. Thus, criminal activity should be viewed as a symptom not unlike heart pain that suggests that something is wrong- we simply may not yet have the tools to locate what that is.

Thoughts on the Sherlock Finale

(Contains spoilers)

Things of note that are worth thinking about (especially since apparently everyone has missed a clue as to how Sherlock can still be alive):

-Sherlock gets the paramedics to call Watson to tell him that Mrs. Hudson has been shot. He does this to get Watson out of the area so that Sherlock is able to meet with Jim Moriarty alone. Obviously, it wasn't really the paramedics and Mrs. Hudson wasn't really shot, so who helped him coordinate this? Was it Molly? Was that what he needed from her?

-Sherlock specifically chooses the rooftop of a hospital for his potential suicide (this is assuming he knows from the beginning that he'll have to commit fake suicide, which raises other questions- at what point in the episode is he aware he will have to fake his death?). He's the one to tell Moriarty 'Come and play. Bart's Hospital rooftop. SH. P.S. Got something of yours that you might want back.'

-When it comes to the 'Got something of yours that you might want back,' is that simply the code that doesn't actually exist, or could it have to do with the fact that the little girl screamed? Is it the 'fake Sherlock' or the Sherlock mask/ whatever it was that Moriarty showed the girl to make her scream that Holmes is actually alluding to here?

-Why does Sherlock ask for the moment of privacy and then laugh? He clearly doesn't really need a moment of privacy unless he does something during that moment to prepare for his fake death.

-Why does Sherlock start out by falling backwards but then propels himself forwards? Is the falling backwards bit important?

-Sherlock's goodbye note to John is totally out of character. Sherlock doesn't believe in goodbye notes. (It also echoes their first case together 'A Study in Pink' where only one character leaves a note, it says 'Rache' which the police misunderstand as 'Revenge' which really alludes to 'Rachel' and it's the password to her phone.) The note to me seemed to be Sherlock trying to tell Watson something else (which is why at first I thought there might actually be a code to break). Here's what he says to Watson:

'John, turn around and walk back to where you came from. Just do as I ask.  Please. Stop there. Okay look up- I’m on the rooftop. I I I can’t come down so we’ll just have to do it like this. An apology. It’s all true. Everything they said about me. I invented Moriarty. I’m a fake. The newspapers were right all along. I want you to tell Lestrade, I want you to tell Mrs. Hudson and Molly, in fact tell anyone who will listen to you that I created Moriarty for my own purposes. Nobody could be that clever. I researched you. Before we met, I discovered everything that I could to impress you. It’s a trick – just a magic trick. No, stay exactly where you are. Don’t move. Keep your eyes fixed on me. Please, will you do this for me? This phone call – is- it’s my note. It’s what people do, don’t they? Leave a note? Goodbye John.'


To me, what the note is actually meant to be conveying (rather than what he's saying) is that Holmes' death is 'a trick-just a magic trick.' The 'please, will you do this for me?' is that Watson should not come looking for him. And the fact that he's giving Watson a note at all is as a lead (just like the note in their first case was a lead) so that all should not be lost. Even the 'Goodbye John' reminds me of the 'Goodbye Mr. Holmes' with which Irene concludes her texts to Holmes, and of course she's still alive (although Watson wouldn't be aware of that). Of course, Watson doesn't understand any of the information that Holmes is trying to give him (at least not yet) which is why he's still all torn up about the death. 

The Dark Knight Plummets

(Warning: This post contains spoilers for "The Dark Knight Rises")

Unfortunately, I was disappointed by "The Dark Knight Rises." Christopher Nolan hit a high point with "The Dark Knight" and sadly, "Dark Knight Rises" failed to live up to the hype.

The greatest departure from the former Batman movies lay in the lack of critical character development. In contrast to "The Dark Knight," which engages in moral and ethical dilemmas that face the people of Gotham, Batman, Commissioner Gordon and Harvey Dent, this film contains lots of action sequences. And more action sequences. You could rename DKR as 'The Nolans Blow Things Up.'

In addition, many odd things happen. Alfred decides that Bruce Wayne is suicidal and therefore decides to abandon him. He hies off to who knows where while everything goes down in Gotham city. Bane, a man who is wearing a less-audible version of the Darth Vader mask, is certainly intimidating, but he seems far less able to play mind games than the Joker was. (And it's really quite annoying that you cannot understand every third word that comes out of his mouth due to the shoddy manufacturing of his raspy breathing device).

The plot meanders. Rather than the rising action you got with the second movie, where you are always wondering how the Joker is going to raise the stakes next, here, you get thirty different narratives punched into one film. A pretty lady with an accent has commissioned Wayne Industries to build a nuclear fission sustainable energy pump, which they do. However, the pump then gets coopted by Bane and turned into a nuclear bomb. Bane decides to give the city back to the people by blowing stuff up and promoting anarchy. It's clearly a scene based on the Hurricane Katrina New Orleans looting and violence- and it resonates. Things that don't make sense here include that some random guy with glasses (it is eerily like a Kafkaesque trial, except with a cartoon character flinging around the gavel) is sentencing people to death by exile onto ice patches where they fall through and drown or to death by rifle. Why would the people follow this random glasses guy?

Bruce Wayne meets Selina Kyle/ Catwoman and is interested in her, but instead decides to sleep with the pretty lady with the accent. We're not sure why, but it will serve as a plot-point for later in the movie. Anyway, long story short, Bane sticks Bruce Wayne down a pit (a la Joseph or Moshe, take your pick) and forces him to watch live feeds of everything that Bane is doing to destroy Gotham. Ra's al Ghul, who had formerly founded the League of Shadows, shows up in a hallucination to inform Bruce Wayne that Gotham deserves to be demolished for its decadence, which seems to echo Sodom and Gomorrah from the Bible. In this Old Testament remake, Batman plays Abraham, with a little bit of God thrown in for good measure.

Bruce hears a tale of one child who escaped from this pit, and he assumes this child is Bane. Eventually, he too is able to escape from the pit and make his way back to Gotham, where he faces off with Bane and tells Joseph Gordon Levitt to save the children (this is the Moshe scene with the typical 'Let my people go' except that bureaucracy and 'I was only following orders' gets in the way), only to discover that in fact the pretty lady with the accent is the child that escaped and his arch-nemesis. She stabs him and explains that Bane was the man who saved her back in the day and that is why she loves him. Her father (Ra's al Ghul) excommunicates Bane because he cannot bear to be reminded of what happened to his wife and daughter because of his actions. That's when Bane and Ra's' daughter meet up and become the dynamic duo. We in the audience don't really understand why the man who would risk his life to save a child's life (aka pretty woman with accent) in the name of innocence would then decide to blow up an entire city, but this is left unexplained.

Enter a convoluted scene in which several people try to stop the nuclear bomb from detonating, but in the end of the day, Batman flies his Bat airplane, picks up the bomb and drops it in the middle of the ocean. Never mind the logic that says that everyone would still be sick due to radiation poisoning- according to the cheers and hurrahs, he saved the city. And that there's a major plot point missing here- WHY THE HELL DIDN'T HE DO THAT IN THE FIRST PLACE? If all he needed to do is take the Bat airplane, pick up the bomb and throw it in the sea, couldn't he have done that before all the craziness with Commissioner Gordon/ Bane/ Pretty Woman with Accent went down? Why didn't he do that the second he got back from pit-in-the-middle-of-the-desert?

In a scene that echoes that of the season finale of "House," but with less finesse, we discover that Batman has faked his own death and actually he is living happily with Catwoman. Authors need to learn to be crueler. Harry Potter should have died when he walked into Voldemort's arms and Batman should have died in the fallout of a massive nuclear explosion. This ending just feels fake where the ending of the second movie (with Batman nobly taking the blame for Harvey's actions) was heroic.

In short: watch this movie, then be sad that the clarity, intensity and brilliance of the second movie is utterly lacking.

Meat & (Jewish) Ethics: Would You Like Some Feces With Your Water?

I went to the public library before Shabbat and when wandering through the Reading List aisles (always my favorite section), happened across And The Waters Turned to Blood by Rodney Barker. It seemed to be a science fiction novel about the discovery of a deadly organism that was killing fish, could affect short-term memory (causing its loss and lack of comprehension) and that enjoyed eating human blood. I like a good thriller, so I picked it up.

Imagine my surprise when I learned that the content of the book was actually real.

Pfiesteria piscida is a dinoflagellate that attacks fish but enjoys human blood as well (and perhaps blood of all mammals). It has a very complex life cycle. In its simple form, it kills fish. However, a microfaunal predator eats this dinoflagellate. Therefore, the dinoflagellate in its sexual stage undergoes an amazing transformation where it morphs into a "bizarre, bristly amoeba" (76) that eats the microfaunal predator that kills it in its smaller form. Thus, "the dinoflagellate actually appeared to be acting in a somewhat protective role toward the smaller stages in the life cycle, coming to the rescue of its little brothers and sisters."

The reason the discovery of pfiesteria piscida was so important is because it explained one of the reasons for fish kills that were going on in North Carolina and eventually Maryland in the late 1980s and 1990s. Pfiesteria can also cause adverse effects in humans who were directly exposed, such as lesions, sores, short-term memory loss and confusion.

Barker's book is fascinating in that it shows the lengths to which North Carolina's Department of Health was willing to go to try to pretend that there was nothing to the pfiesteria issue- to the point that they were lax about putting up signs advising beachgoers, waders, swimmers or others out and about on the water that there had been fish kills caused by pfiesteria.

Anyway, the point that I found most interesting was that pfiesteria thrives in "nutrient-rich" waters, which can also refer to polluted or soiled water. Well, guess what can create nutrient-rich waters? Factory farming. Here's the excerpt straight out of the book:

Although there were some who refused to abandon the belief that Texasgulf was to blame, Burkholder did not consider a single industry responsible for Pfiesteria. She was unable even to point to a particular factor, over and above the other contributors, that might have pushed the state over the brink- until the spring of 1995, when she read a series of investigative articles in the News & Observer. In a matter of just a few years, it was revealed, a virtual hog revolution had taken place in North Carolina. 

She would never forget, and could recite from memory a year later, the opening paragraphs of the first article she read: 

"Imagine a city as big as New York suddenly grafted onto North Carolina's coastal plain. Double it. 

"Now imagine that this city has no sewage treatment plants. All the wastes from 15 million people are simply flushed into open pits and sprayed onto fields. 

"Turn these humans into hogs and you don't have to imagine at all. It's here." 

The series made a devastating case that North Carolina had sold its soul and sacrificed its environment to corporate hog farming. It reported how the state, committed to maintaining a semblance of an agriculture industry and seeking alternatives to tobacco, had courted the swine industry with tax breaks, protection from local zoning, and exemptions from tough environmental regulations. It described how an alliance between pork producers and elected officials had transformed the political landscape, allowing laws to be passed that gave hog farms the preferential treatment traditionally extended to family farmers, when the reality was that hog operations were more like factories, with climate-controlled confinement barns and automated feeding equipment that produced hogs in numbers that had attracted international markets and was generating $1 billion a year, propelling North Carolina to the nations' number two spot in hog production behind Iowa. 

The news that a major industry that depended upon lax state laws to maximize its profits had snuck through the back door was sobering to Burkholder, as it was to a lot of readers. But what really got to her were the articles that dealt with the waste generated by these large farms. This vast swine city, as it turned out, was essentially allowed to use the equivalent of outhouses for disposing of ten million tons of waste each year. 

According to the wisdom advocated by the industry, hog manure could be handled satisfactorily by flushing it into clay-lined holes in the ground called lagoons, where bacteria were supposed to biodegrade the sewage, which would then be sprayed on nearby croplands as fertilizer. But it was an approach to waste disposal that critics called inadequate and environmentally foolhardy, in light of eastern North Carolina's sandy soils and its shallow water table, which was especially vulnerable to groundwater pollution. Making matters worse, most of the lagoons were conveniently located near waterways; these received the runoff when the surrounding lands couldn't abosrb the fertilizer sprayed on them, not to mention the documented cases of farmers deliberately discharging lagoon waste into ditches that led to streams. 

The water-quality implications for coastal North Carolina were monumental: Manure that was rich in nitrogen and phosphorus was finding its way into already overloaded "nutrient sensitive" waters. And as if that weren't enough, the series went on to point out that this expansion had been aided by state agencies that ahd been slow to act on the growing range of problems resulting from the earlier increase. While state law required all new livestock operations to have certified waste management plans, government officials were leaving certification up to the hog farmers, nor were they sending out inspectors to make sure the plans were being fulfilled or to check for violations. Echoing Burkholder's own conclusions about DEM, the articles declared: "the state's anti-pollution cop has neither the staff nor the will to get the job done." 

When the series, which would eventually win a Pulitzer Prize for the News & Observer, finished its run, Burkholder was more cynical than ever about the way business was conducted in North Carolina. It was a miserable situation, she thought; one primed to get worse, because leakage from lagoons and intentional releases weren't the only way harmful animal waste could enter the waterways. Sooner or later, she knew, an accident resulting in a major spill was bound to happen.  

~pages 233-235

In June 1995, there was a huge hog manure lagoon spill that released "twenty-five million gallons of hog feces and urine: that was twice the size of the Valdez oil spill and by far the largest such spill in state history" (236).

I'm not a tree-hugging environmentalist, but after reading this book, it came to me that all of this is related. When we treat the environment badly (say, by deciding to create factory farms and use manure lagoons to store the hog waste), we end up the losers (say, because the manure lagoons overflow into our water and we end up with water that is full of feces, and that also makes it easier for fish-killing dinoflagellates, amidst other bacteria, to exist and cause problems for the fish and for us). There's a reason that God developed the world in the way that He did, and that Adam and Eve were to care for all the trees and crops (and not a monoculture like corn). We create what we get, and right now what we've created with factory farming (at least per the books I've read so far) is a monstrosity- the animals are treated cruelly, the waste is deposited in an absymally poor way, and should the waste flow into our water, we help to kill our fish and destroy the ability of the water to nurture healthy creatures.

 (Granted: Hopefully there have been updates to hog farming since the time this book was published in 1997, and hopefully manure lagoons, if they are still being used, are being created in a more mindful way. But it's still pretty disturbing that something like this happened, even if it's hopefully not happening anymore.)

Friday Night Lights

Usually, when people watch TV, they watch it for its entertainment value. But when I watch TV, I watch it because I want it to stir me up, to shake me up inside. I want it to make me feel. I want to connect to the characters; I want to fall in love with them. I want to care about them so desperately that I can't wait till the next episode comes out. Sure, I sometimes watch silly or stupid shows just to put my brain on autopilot, but generally I like to be challenged by the TV I watch.

People have told me how much they like "Friday Night Lights" in the past but I never thought it would be the show for me. A show about football? For me? Seriously?

But then I watched it. And it shook me up inside. It was powerful and moving and raw and gritty and real. It had so much heart. It held so much meaning. And the characters just tore you up and touched you. You wanted them to succeed. You felt their highs and lows; you saw their weaknesses and flaws.

Football is as much of a character in this TV show as any of the people speaking. This show is about the way that football touches the lives of all the players. There's the kid who is desperate to go pro and get a scholarship to a good college. There's the kid who just wants to stand out in some way. There's the kid who was in juvie who has gotten a second chance. There's the partying kid who is always drunk who has got a heart of gold. And there's the coach and his wife and their incredible, impressively strong marriage.

There are some really memorable scenes. For me, those are the scenes between Tim Riggins and Jason Street where Tim tells Jason how much he loves him. The scene where he hands him the football and the other scene where they're on the booze cruise and he tells him he will do whatever it takes to get him back home to Texas safe and sound. But it's also the scenes where Tim Riggins is noble (whether it's with Lyla or Bo or his brother Billy or anybody else). It's the scene where Matt Saracen is in the shower with the water raining down on his face and he's saying how everyone has left him. It's the locker room after the Panthers lose State. There are the good times and the bad times, the high points and the low ones, and it's beautiful because it's real and it's the story of life and why life matters. It's a life-affirming story. And that's why that show makes me feel so much.

It's also why Season 1 of that show is probably some of the best TV I've ever seen. So if you have nothing else to do...and you want a show that makes you think and makes you smile and makes you cry...watch this one.

Meat & (Jewish) Ethics: Foer's 'Eating Animal's & A Defense of Factory Farming

Jonathan Safran Foer has published a screed in his book Eating Animals. More than that, it's an angry screed. His alarmist, overly emotional, hyperbolic, intense, indignant and adjective-strewn work is one of the the last pieces on earth that would convince me to care about the issues raised within it (factory farming, aquaculture and hog farms to name a few).

He begins the work by stating:

To be perfectly honest (and to risk losing my credibility on page 13), I assumed, before beginning my research, that I knew what I would find- not the details, but the general picture. Others made the same assumption. Almost always, when I told someone I was writing a book about 'eating animals,' they assumed, even without knowing anything about my views, that it was a case for vegetarianism. It's a telling assumption, one that implies not only that a thorough inquiry into animal agriculture would lead one away from eating meat, but that most people already know that to be the case. (What assumptions did you make upon seeing the title of this book?) 

I, too, assumed that my book about eating animals would become a straightforward case for vegetarianism. It didn't. A straightforward defense for vegetarianism is worth writing, but it's not what I've written here.  

-page 13

This sounds promising. Well, until you get to page 195, where Jonathan launches his full-scale attack against any form of meat eating. He starts off by stating "It seems to me that it's plainly wrong to eat factory-farmed pork or to feed it to one's family," continues with "for similar reasons, I wouldn't eat poultry or sea animals produced by factory methods," and then raises the question with the following given: since eating animals is "in absolutely no way absolutely necessary for my family- unlike some in the world, we have easy access to a wide variety of other foods- should we eat animals?" He decides that he can't, and goes on to explain why he won't even eat animals on farms like Paul Willis' pig farm or Frank Reese's poultry ranch. Here's Jonathan's reasoning:

Even though he does everything he can, Paul's pigs are still castrated, and still transported long distances to slaughter. And before Willis met Diane Halverson, the animal welfare expert who assisted his work with Niman Ranch from the beginning, he docked (cut off) pigs' tails, which shows that even the kindest farmers sometimes fail to think of their animals' well-being as much as they can. 

And then there's the slaughterhouse. Frank is quite candid about the problems he has getting his turkeys slaughtered in a manner that he finds acceptable, and an optimal slaughterhouse for his birds remains a work in progress for him. As far as pig slaughter goes, Paradise Locker Meats really is a kind of paradise. Because of the structuring of the meat industry, and USDA regulations, both Paul and Frank are forced to send their animals to slaughterhouses that they have only partial control over. 

Every farm, like every everything, has flaws, is subject to accidents, sometimes doesn't work as it should. Life overflows with imperfections, but some matter more than others. How imperfect must animal farming and slaughter be before they are too imperfect? Different people will draw the line in different places with regard to farms like Paul's and Frank's. People I respect draw it differently. But for me, for now- for my family now- my concerns about the reality of what meat is and has become are enough to make me give it up altogether. 

~pages 196-197

Granted, he isn't directly telling you what to do, only what he has decided to do. On the other hand, it's pretty disingenuous. After all, he's the author, and you've been following his footsteps the entire time, so if this is the conclusion he comes to, it's pretty clearly the conclusion he wants you to come to as well.

My main contention with the book, however, other than its incredibly emotional portrayal- see his statement about 'Kosher' slaughter that ends with the direful sentence 'We have no reason to believe that the kind of cruelty that was documented at Agriprocessors has been eliminated from the kosher industry. It can't be, so long as factory farming dominates' (page 69)- is that he consistently conflates humans with animals in a way that is completely different from Pollan's relatively reasoned, measured approach (granted, he is at times given to florid phrases as well). Where Pollan writes

Watching a steer force-marched up the ramp to the kill-floor door, as I have done, I have to forcibly remind myself that this is not Sean Penn in Dead Men Walking, that the scene is playing very differently in a bovine brain, from which the concept of nonexistence is thankfully absent.

Foer deliberately invites the comparison and has us imagine ourselves in the chicken's situation- to great, if misrepresented, effect. When talking about the battery cage, he writes:

Step your mind into a crowded elevator, an elevator so crowded you cannot turn around without bumping into (and aggravating) your neighbor. The elevator is so crowded you are often held aloft. This is a kind of blessing, as the slanted floor is made of wire, which cuts into your feet. 

After some time, those in the elevator will lose their ability to work in the interest of the group. Some will become violent; others will go mad. A few, deprived of food and hope, will become cannibalistic. 

There is no respite, no relief. No elevator repairmen is coming. The doors will open once, at the end of your life, for your journey to the only place worse (see: processing). 

~page 47

This comparison is useful in that it shows us the conditions under which these chickens live, but it is not useful in that it assumes that our human desires for freedom, not to have our bare feet against wire etc are the same as the chicken's desires. And while that may be true, it is not necessarily true, and thus is really not the best way of proving a point. You must explore the animal's needs based on what you know of them, not based on what you know of humans.

The only saving grace of Jonathan's book consists of the letters he published within it showcasing different viewpoints across various people- a factory farmer, an animal rights activist, a vegan who builds slaughterhouses etc. I found the defense of factory farming very interesting- and did not feel like Jonathan adequately answered the questions raised in this letter. I'm publishing the letter below. It can be found on pages 94-97 of the book.

~

I Am a Factory Farmer

"When people ask me what I do, I tell them I'm a retired farmer. I started milking cows when I was six. We lived in Wisconsin. My daddy had a small herd - fifty, give or take - which back then was pretty typical. I worked everyday until I left home, worked hard. I thought I'd had enough of it at that point, thought there must be a better way.  

After high school I got a degree in animal science and went to work for a poultry company. I helped service, manage, and design turkey breeder farms. Bounced around some integrated companies after that. I managed large farms, a million birds. Did disease management, flock management. Problem solving, you could say. Farming is a lot of problem solving. Now I specialize in chicken nutrition and health. I'm in agribusiness. Factory farming, some people might say, but I don't care for the term. 

It's a different world from the one I grew up in. The price of food hasn't increased in the past thirty years. In relation to all other expenses, the price of protein stayed put. In order to survive - I don't mean get rich, I men put food on your table, send your kids to school, get a new car as needed - the farmer had to produce more and more. Simple math. Like I said my daddy had fifty cows. The model now for a viable dairy farm is twelve hundred cows. That's the smallest that can stay in business. Well, a family can't milk twelve hundred cows, so you gotta get four or five employees, and each of them will have a specialized job: milking, managing illness, tending the crops. It's efficient, yeah, and you can squeeze out a living, but a lot of people became farmers because of the diversity of farm life. And that's been lost. 

Another part of what's happened in response to the economic squeeze is that you gotta make an animal that produces more of the product at a lower cost. So you breed for faster growth and improved feed conversion. As long as food continues to get cheaper and cheaper relative to everything else, the farmer has no choice but to produce food at a lower production cost, and genetically he's going to move toward an animal that accomplishes that task, which can be counter productive to its welfare. The loss is built into the system. It's assumed if you have fifty thousand broilers in a shed, thousands are going to die in the first weeks. My daddy couldn't afford to lose an animal. Now you begin by assuming you'll lose 4 percent right off the bat. 

I've told you the drawbacks because I'm trying to be up-front with you. But in fact, we've got a tremendous system. Is it perfect? No. No system is perfect. And if you find someone who tells you he has a perfect way to feed billions and billions of people, well, you should take a careful look. You hear about free range-eggs and grass-fed cattle, and all that's good. I think it's a good direction. But it ain't gonna feed the world. Never. You simply can't feed billions of people free-range eggs. And when you hear people talking about small farming as a model, I call that the Marie Antoinette syndrome: if they can't afford bread, let them eat cake. High-yield farming has allowed everyone to eat. Think about that. If we go away from it, it may improve the welfare of the animal, it may even be better for the environment, but I don't want to go back to China in 1918. I'm talking about starving people. 

Sure, you could say people should just eat less meat, but I've got news for you: people don't want to eat less meat. You can be like PETA and pretend that the world is going to wake up tomorrow and realize that they love animals and don't want to eat them anymore, but history has shown that people are perfectly capable of loving animals and eating them. It's childish, and I would even say immoral, to fantasize about a vegetarian world when were having such a hard time making this one work. 

Look, the American farmer has fed the world. He was asked to do it after World War II, and he did it. People have never had the ability to eat like they can now. Protein has been never been more affordable. My animals are protected from the elements, get all the food they need, and grow well. Animals get sick. Animals die. But what do you think happens to animals in nature? You think they die of natural causes? You think they're stunned before they're killed? Animals in nature starve to death or are ripped apart by other animals. That's how they die. 

People have no idea where food comes from anymore. It's not synthetic, it's not created in a lab, it actually has to be grown. What I hate is when consumers act as if farmers want these things, when it's consumers who tell farmers what to grow. They've wanted cheap food. We've grown it. If they want cage-free eggs, they have to pay a lot more money for them. Period. It's cheaper to produce an egg in a massive laying barn with caged hens. It's more efficient and that means it's more sustainable. Yes, I'm saying that factory farming can be more sustainable, though I know that word is often used against the industry. From China to India to Brazil, the demand for animal products is growing - and fast. Do you think family farms are going to sustain a world of ten billion? 

A friend of mine had an experiece a few years ago where two young guys came and asked if they could take some footage for a documentary about farm life. Seemed like nice guys, so he said sure. But they edited it to make it look like the birds were being abused. They said the turkeys were being raped. I know that farm. I've visited it many times, and I can tell you those turkeys were being cared for as well as they needed to survive and be productive. Things can be taken out of context. And novices don't always know what they're looking at. This business isn't always pretty, but it's a bad mistake to confuse something unpleasant with something wrong. Every kid with a video camera thinks he's a veterinary scientist, thinks he was born knowing what takes years and years to learn. I know there's a necessity to sensationalize stuff in order to motivate people, but I prefer the truth. 

In the eighties, the industry tried to communicate with animal groups, and we got burned real bad. So the turkey community decided there would be no more of it. We put up a wall, and that was the end. We don't talk, don't let people onto the farms. Standard operating procedure. PETA doesn't want to talk about farming. They want to end farming. They have absolutely no idea how the world actually works. For all I know, I'm talking to the enemy right now. 

But I believe in what I'm telling you. And it's an important story to tell, a story that's getting drowned out by the hollering of extremists. I asked you not to use my name, but I have nothing to be ashamed of. Nothing. You just have to understand there's a bigger picture here. And I've got bosses. I've gotta put food on the table, too. 

Can I make a suggestion to you? Before you rush off trying to see everything you can, educate yourself. Don't trust your eyes. Trust your head. Learn about animals, learn about farming and the economics of food, learn the history. Start at the beginning."

~

I found the factory farmer's letter compelling and am curious to know whether there are any books out that address the points he makes in greater depth. Does anyone know of any sources?

Meat & (Jewish) Ethics: Animal Welfare vs. Animal Rights

I was struck by a a section of Michael Pollan's book 'The Omnivore's Dilemma' and planned to type it up for your reading pleasure. Happily, I decided to google it first, which led to my discovering that in fact, the whole piece I wanted you to read had already been published in The New York Times Magazine in 2002.

Here's the link to the full article, entitled "An Animal's Place."

The part that I found most instructive was the distinction Pollan made between the ubiquitous 'animal rights' and what he is advocating, 'animal welfare.'

The vegetarian utopia would make us even more dependent than we already are on an industrialized national food chain. That food chain would in turn be even more dependent than it already is on fossil fuels and chemical fertilizer, since food would need to travel farther and manure would be in short supply. Indeed, it is doubtful that you can build a more sustainable agriculture without animals to cycle nutrients and support local food production. If our concern is for the health of nature–rather than, say, the internal consistency of our moral code or the condition of our souls–then eating animals may sometimes be the most ethical thing to do. 

There is, too, the fact that we humans have been eating animals as long as we have lived on this earth. Humans may not need to eat meat in order to survive, yet doing so is part of our evolutionary heritage, reflected in the design of our teeth and the structure of our digestion. Eating meat helped make us what we are, in a social and biological sense. Under the pressure of the hunt, the human brain grew in size and complexity, and around the fire where the meat was cooked, human culture first flourished. Granting rights to animals may lift us up from the brutal world of predation, but it will entail the sacrifice of part of our identity–our own animality. 

Surely this is one of the odder paradoxes of animal rights doctrine. It asks us to recognize all that we share with animals and then demands that we act toward them in a most unanimalistic way. Whether or not this is a good idea, we should at least acknowledge that our desire to eat meat is not a trivial matter, no mere “gastronomic preference.” We might as well call sex–also now technically unnecessary–a mere “recreational preference.” Whatever else it is, our meat eating is something very deep indeed. 

Are any of these good enough reasons to eat animals? I’m mindful of Ben Franklin’s definition of the reasonable creature as one who can come up with reasons for whatever he wants to do. So I decided I would track down Peter Singer and ask him what he thought. In an e-mail message, I described Polyface and asked him about the implications for his position of the Good Farm–one where animals got to live according to their nature and to all appearances did not suffer. 

“I agree with you that it is better for these animals to have lived and died than not to have lived at all,” Singer wrote back. Since the utilitarian is concerned exclusively with the sum of happiness and suffering and the slaughter of an animal that doesn’t comprehend that death need not involve suffering, the Good Farm adds to the total of animal happiness, provided you replace the slaughtered animal with a new one. However, he added, this line of thinking doesn’t obviate the wrongness of killing an animal that “has a sense of its own existence over time and can have preferences for its own future.” In other words, it’s O.K. to eat the chicken, but he’s not so sure about the pig. Yet, he wrote, “I would not be sufficiently confident of my arguments to condemn someone who purchased meat from one of these farms.” 

Singer went on to express serious doubts that such farms could be practical on a large scale, since the pressures of the marketplace will lead their owners to cut costs and corners at the expense of the animals. He suggested, too, that killing animals is not conducive to treating them with respect. Also, since humanely raised food will be more expensive, only the well-to-do can afford morally defensible animal protein. These are important considerations, but they don’t alter my essential point: what’s wrong with animal agriculture–with eating animals–is the practice, not the principle. 

What this suggests to me is that people who care should be working not for animal rights but animal welfare–to ensure that farm animals don’t suffer and that their deaths are swift and painless. In fact, the decent-life-merciful-death line is how Jeremy Bentham justified his own meat eating. Yes, the philosophical father of animal rights was himself a carnivore. In a passage rather less frequently quoted by animal rightists, Bentham defended eating animals on the grounds that “we are the better for it, and they are never the worse. . . . The death they suffer in our hands commonly is, and always may be, a speedier and, by that means, a less painful one than that which would await them in the inevitable course of nature.”

So that's what I wanted to clarify for readers of this blog. I think that we should be focusing on animal welfare. I am a meat-eater and I will remain a meat-eater. I just want to be an ethical meat-eater. And I think the best way to accomplish that goal is to ensure that I do not eat animals that were tortured until the time that they were killed.

In other news, this Shabbat Heshy and I ate our first sandwich steaks produced by Grow & Behold. They were delicious! What astonished me is that there really was a difference in flavor. If I simply licked a piece of the meat, I could taste flavor, in the same way that if you were to lick ice cream in a cone, you would get that delicious creamy cold enjoyment on your tongue. Normally, when I simply lick a piece of meat, I don't get that kind of flavor- I would have to bite into it first.