Having now been out of Christendom for five or six years, I periodically realize that my entire way of thinking about God, Jesus, the Bible, and any number of related issues has either worn away or entirely changed without my conscious attention. I feel like it's that my old (largely taught and pretty thoroughly ingrained) ways of thinking about things have finally eroded and I'm seeing the whole Christianity thing with fresher eyes, more as someone encountering the whole story and mindset for the first time as an adult than as someone who grew up seeped in it all. I just suddenly think of something and realize that a mere six or ten (or really even two or three, after the big deconversion but before all the erosion) years ago I would have been looking at that from an entirely different perspective and wouldn't have thought to ask any of the questions I am at that point.
So the big thing (for today) that I don't get: why does everyone make such a big deal about what a great sacrifice (in the sense of personal sacrifice, not atoning sacrifice) it was for Jesus to come to Earth as a human and to die an agonizing death for our sins? It seems to me that as an eternal and all-powerful being, if he had chosen not to spend thirty-three of his infinite years saving humanity from itself when he knew it was within his power, it would be pretty selfish and immoral of him.
Seriously. Presumably he knew at the very least that this would be a temporary gig, limited to the span of one normal human life or less, and that when it was over, he would resume his limitless, incorporeal existence of sitting at the right hand of God and ruling over the angels or whatever it is he did before. Of course there was a lot of pain involved, what with being beaten and crucified and such, but I don't really buy the idea that the Son of God is such a wuss that he couldn't handle it. Lots of people were crucified. I'm sure most of them didn't sign up for it voluntarily, true, but most of them were also pretty sure their existence ended when the crucifixion ended (and actually, martyrs have always kind of signed up for that sort of thing). I mean, if I had the opportunity to put my normal, expected life on hold for some number of years; live some chunk of time in crappy, uncomfortable conditions being mocked and reviled and fighting uphill battles trying to enlighten everyone to my (the right) way of thought; die a tortuous death; and then resume my normal, everyday existence none the worse for the wear, even I would do that if I thought it would significantly benefit the world.
So options for the Christian Jesus:
One, it's only a sacrifice from our perspective and was unpleasant but no biggie from his.
Two, since his god-existence is obviously so far beyond our comprehension, it was a huge ordeal for reasons we can't imagine to limit himself to human capabilities. We are so horribly slow and limited that it drove him crazy to live among us and talk to us and perhaps even limit his own mind to the constraints of ours. (I mean, I'd still turn into a barnacle for thirty-three years if I thought I could still get across my agenda...but I guess first I'd have to learn how to communicate in greatly limited barnacle-speech that doesn't actually hold my ideas very well or something, right?)
Three, he still had all his god-thoughts and god-capabilities and had to actively keep himself in check every second for thirty-three years. I can see how that could be a pain, if you were an intelligent being in a tree's body and had to actively restrain yourself from just picking up and walking around or crying out in desperation, "Guys, this is what I was trying to say with all that leaf-rubbing and branch-tapping! Just do this!"
Four, dying is the most awful thing every in the entire universe, even if you get to un-die later and then live forever; something about the experience itself is just unspeakably horrible. (Those resuscitated patients who talk about lights in tunnels and floating and peace obviously would disagree...of course, maybe they didn't really die in the same way.)
Five, it wasn't really informed consent: God the Father didn't tell him the whole story about what he would do and that it would all be back to normal (but better, because he just gave billions of as-yet-unborn people the ability to skip out on the lake of eternal fire thing) when he was done, so he thought he was signing up for something worse than he actually was, and he should be celebrated for the sacrifice he was prepared to make.
Six, his experience of turning into a human and living for so long in the human world (or the death part, or the shouldering the sins of the world part) contaminated him and he did not in fact go back to his regularly scheduled life afterward.
Seven, nobody ever said it was a big sacrifice and people who do say that are misinterpreting the message due to their own human conceptions.
Anything else? Any biblical support for any of these or any other interpretations?
Tuesday, January 26, 2010
Wednesday, January 13, 2010
Are We Really Terrified about the Right Things?
After having spent somewhere between three and nine years lamenting the (excessive, to my mind) levels of concern the American populace seems to have about terrorism, I've come to an uncomfortable realization: terrorism is oddly comforting to panic about.
Think about it. Terrorists are usually members of an outside group who are motivated by factors that are easily summarized into nice, neat packages of rationale. You may never actually understand their reasons, but that's kind of the point: as long as you can't understand them, they remain safely the Other. Facing threats from outside forces tends to cause disparate members of a group to band more tightly together, feeling the security in numbers and like attitude concerning at least this one situation.
For some reason, after an attempted or successful terrorist attack, those who generally espouse a limited, hands-off government suddenly start lamenting the failure of the government to know everything that everyone is doing. His dad was worried, but he still had a visa and didn't check luggage and paid in cash—how dare the system not have picked him out of the millions of people flying that day and immediately halted everything to protect us? (This is not to say our cross-checking and red-flagging system couldn't use some work; it seems obvious it was not actually designed as a coherent unit.)
These same people, however, are the ones who decry any attempt at gun control, protective vehicle legislation, or anything that gives the government more knowledge of their whereabouts or behavior. How ironic. What would be the most terror-inducing thing of all? A genuine realization of how little keeps those surrounding us from killing us all.
Think about it. What is actually keeping your coworker, roommate, teacher, doctor, food producer, or random person on the subway/road/sidewalk from killing you or your loved ones? Not a whole lot. I'm sure a considerable portion of the populace has at one point or another had the realization while hurtling down a highway that the only thing keeping them from sudden death or dismemberment is an absurdly insubstantial line of paint on the pavement. You get a queasy feeling, perhaps from the sudden related realization that you could actually kill yourself and others just with a sudden flick of your wrists, and there's absolutely nothing keeping you from doing this...not that you want to or plan to, but if you did, what would stop you? And if nothing's stopping you but your general presumably healthy state of mind and attachment to life and your fellow beings, what's stopping the guy in the next lane?
It's kind of amazing how much faith we're putting in social norms. I suppose some would argue it would take a severe mental illness to cause someone to swerve into another car or pedestrians for absolutely no reason or to jump in front of a train, possibly derailing it and definitely traumatizing everyone around, to deliberately infect our food supply with a contaminant, or certainly to take a gun and open fire on whoever's nearby. I'm not really sure that's the case, though. Especially in the car case, I'm pretty sure it doesn't take a substantial mental illness, just a sudden awareness of how absurd it actually is to drive a two-ton hunk of metal at 60+ miles an hour mere feet from dozens of others doing the same and then a slight twist in whatever brain chemicals are involved in impulse control. Thinking "If I just turned the wheel suddenly, I would go hurtling over there into those cars and we would all die" isn't really all that far removed from doing it, I don't think. Thinking about specific muscle movements like that primes the muscles to do the action being considered, even if it's only being considered in the abstract.
Even with shooting rampages, I think we'd be surprised how little the changes in mental states that are required to do something like that actually are. I'm sure we've all been in blind rages before, our natural senses of what's fair and right and proper temporarily suspended as we indulge in pure anger or hate. If you have a gun in your car when you get unfairly fired, you're much more likely to go back into your office and shoot your jerk of a boss than if you don't, obviously. (I have no real stats to back this up, but I did read something a while back that did have statistics supporting a similar case that those considering suicide actually followed through at much higher rates when they had a gun or a supply of sedatives or a bridge they had to cross on their way home than those who would have had to go out and buy a gun or get a prescription or go seek out a bridge. The combination of a fairly common state of mind that would turn out to be no biggie if the means weren't there with the means actually being there causes people to do things they wouldn't do if they required slightly more thought or effort.)
Anyway, my point is that mental illness or no—and it doesn't really matter, as there are plenty of people running around with mental illnesses, too, and as far as I'm aware, the government doesn't keep terribly close tabs on them either—you probably encounter scores of people every day who have the means to kill you; you're just banking on their not being in the mood to. And what does the government do to keep you safe from your neighbors? Not a whole lot in the grand scheme of things. Yes, we keep felons from (legally) purchasing guns, convicted sex offenders from living too close to potential victims, and those whose mental illnesses make them demonstrably a threat to society from roaming free, but the vast majority of these protections share exactly the problem of the government's approach to terrorism: they're all retroactive. Only after someone uses liquids to try to blow up a plane are liquids banned from carry-ons; only after someone kills someone do we keep them from buying another gun.
Obviously there's no way for the government to actually be big enough, strong enough, and involved enough to actually protect us from a twitch in someone's brain chemistry suddenly causing them to swerve into another car—nor do even the biggest proponents of big government desire such a thing. So why do we expect the government to protect us from religious extremists who want to blow up planes with their shoes but not from teachers who have finally had it up to here potentially killing their idiotic students or the like?
Really, the events of the past few years are slowly making me realize is that it's really quite difficult to figure out in advance what sort of people might be dangerous. The Virginia Tech shooting, the Fort Hood shooting, the underwear bomber—yes, there were "warning signs" visible to anyone paying attention, but really, how happy would we be if the authorities took every single warning sign of the same significance seriously? Does anyone really want to suddenly be an object of scrutiny any time he or she says, "Gah, I'm so mad at X I could kill him/her" or "Ugh, I wish people who believe/do Y would suddenly drop dead"? We've all said it. There are loads of mentally unhealthy people who are romantically spurned, and the vast majority of them don't shoot up classrooms of students—how do you discriminate between the ones who are likely to do so and those who are likely to sit around and write crappy poems and mope about for a year or two, or who might commit suicide but are no danger to others? As far as I'm aware, we don't understand mental processes well enough to do so. If anyone you know committed suicide tomorrow, you would probably suddenly remember something they said or did or that had happened to them in the past month or so that clearly indicated how depressed they were. Does the fact that the other however-many people you know have said or done similar things recently necessarily mean they're going to kill themselves? Obviously not. Let's not forget that the lines between mental health and mental illness are pretty blurry (until something happens), as are the lines between an abnormal but harmless passion for a cause and overzealous devotion to it. There is probably a series of situations that could turn anyone into a killer, so let's not all feel so distinct from and superior to the sorts of people who do.
I suppose my original point was that it's much more comfortable to panic over extremist Muslim terrorists (Them) who are attacking Us due to a difficult-to-grok-yet-easily-stated reason than it is to think about all the other shades of danger we face from those we think are pretty much like us. It's much more difficult to understand why some disaffected teenage guy would go on a shooting rampage (without suddenly declaring that he must have been mentally ill, thus shoving him nicely back into the camp of Other) than why people from some group that's pretty foreign to us would hate us and want to wipe us out. Us vs. Them, good vs. evil, our god vs. theirs, our worldview vs. theirs—these are all easily understood and surprisingly comforting ways to think about a threat or struggle. Us vs. Us, human nature vs. human nature, very similar worldviews vs. each other—not so much.
I very strongly recommend reading The Banality of Evil to everyone. (This post was not inspired by that, but it's quite relevant.)
Think about it. Terrorists are usually members of an outside group who are motivated by factors that are easily summarized into nice, neat packages of rationale. You may never actually understand their reasons, but that's kind of the point: as long as you can't understand them, they remain safely the Other. Facing threats from outside forces tends to cause disparate members of a group to band more tightly together, feeling the security in numbers and like attitude concerning at least this one situation.
For some reason, after an attempted or successful terrorist attack, those who generally espouse a limited, hands-off government suddenly start lamenting the failure of the government to know everything that everyone is doing. His dad was worried, but he still had a visa and didn't check luggage and paid in cash—how dare the system not have picked him out of the millions of people flying that day and immediately halted everything to protect us? (This is not to say our cross-checking and red-flagging system couldn't use some work; it seems obvious it was not actually designed as a coherent unit.)
These same people, however, are the ones who decry any attempt at gun control, protective vehicle legislation, or anything that gives the government more knowledge of their whereabouts or behavior. How ironic. What would be the most terror-inducing thing of all? A genuine realization of how little keeps those surrounding us from killing us all.
Think about it. What is actually keeping your coworker, roommate, teacher, doctor, food producer, or random person on the subway/road/sidewalk from killing you or your loved ones? Not a whole lot. I'm sure a considerable portion of the populace has at one point or another had the realization while hurtling down a highway that the only thing keeping them from sudden death or dismemberment is an absurdly insubstantial line of paint on the pavement. You get a queasy feeling, perhaps from the sudden related realization that you could actually kill yourself and others just with a sudden flick of your wrists, and there's absolutely nothing keeping you from doing this...not that you want to or plan to, but if you did, what would stop you? And if nothing's stopping you but your general presumably healthy state of mind and attachment to life and your fellow beings, what's stopping the guy in the next lane?
It's kind of amazing how much faith we're putting in social norms. I suppose some would argue it would take a severe mental illness to cause someone to swerve into another car or pedestrians for absolutely no reason or to jump in front of a train, possibly derailing it and definitely traumatizing everyone around, to deliberately infect our food supply with a contaminant, or certainly to take a gun and open fire on whoever's nearby. I'm not really sure that's the case, though. Especially in the car case, I'm pretty sure it doesn't take a substantial mental illness, just a sudden awareness of how absurd it actually is to drive a two-ton hunk of metal at 60+ miles an hour mere feet from dozens of others doing the same and then a slight twist in whatever brain chemicals are involved in impulse control. Thinking "If I just turned the wheel suddenly, I would go hurtling over there into those cars and we would all die" isn't really all that far removed from doing it, I don't think. Thinking about specific muscle movements like that primes the muscles to do the action being considered, even if it's only being considered in the abstract.
Even with shooting rampages, I think we'd be surprised how little the changes in mental states that are required to do something like that actually are. I'm sure we've all been in blind rages before, our natural senses of what's fair and right and proper temporarily suspended as we indulge in pure anger or hate. If you have a gun in your car when you get unfairly fired, you're much more likely to go back into your office and shoot your jerk of a boss than if you don't, obviously. (I have no real stats to back this up, but I did read something a while back that did have statistics supporting a similar case that those considering suicide actually followed through at much higher rates when they had a gun or a supply of sedatives or a bridge they had to cross on their way home than those who would have had to go out and buy a gun or get a prescription or go seek out a bridge. The combination of a fairly common state of mind that would turn out to be no biggie if the means weren't there with the means actually being there causes people to do things they wouldn't do if they required slightly more thought or effort.)
Anyway, my point is that mental illness or no—and it doesn't really matter, as there are plenty of people running around with mental illnesses, too, and as far as I'm aware, the government doesn't keep terribly close tabs on them either—you probably encounter scores of people every day who have the means to kill you; you're just banking on their not being in the mood to. And what does the government do to keep you safe from your neighbors? Not a whole lot in the grand scheme of things. Yes, we keep felons from (legally) purchasing guns, convicted sex offenders from living too close to potential victims, and those whose mental illnesses make them demonstrably a threat to society from roaming free, but the vast majority of these protections share exactly the problem of the government's approach to terrorism: they're all retroactive. Only after someone uses liquids to try to blow up a plane are liquids banned from carry-ons; only after someone kills someone do we keep them from buying another gun.
Obviously there's no way for the government to actually be big enough, strong enough, and involved enough to actually protect us from a twitch in someone's brain chemistry suddenly causing them to swerve into another car—nor do even the biggest proponents of big government desire such a thing. So why do we expect the government to protect us from religious extremists who want to blow up planes with their shoes but not from teachers who have finally had it up to here potentially killing their idiotic students or the like?
Really, the events of the past few years are slowly making me realize is that it's really quite difficult to figure out in advance what sort of people might be dangerous. The Virginia Tech shooting, the Fort Hood shooting, the underwear bomber—yes, there were "warning signs" visible to anyone paying attention, but really, how happy would we be if the authorities took every single warning sign of the same significance seriously? Does anyone really want to suddenly be an object of scrutiny any time he or she says, "Gah, I'm so mad at X I could kill him/her" or "Ugh, I wish people who believe/do Y would suddenly drop dead"? We've all said it. There are loads of mentally unhealthy people who are romantically spurned, and the vast majority of them don't shoot up classrooms of students—how do you discriminate between the ones who are likely to do so and those who are likely to sit around and write crappy poems and mope about for a year or two, or who might commit suicide but are no danger to others? As far as I'm aware, we don't understand mental processes well enough to do so. If anyone you know committed suicide tomorrow, you would probably suddenly remember something they said or did or that had happened to them in the past month or so that clearly indicated how depressed they were. Does the fact that the other however-many people you know have said or done similar things recently necessarily mean they're going to kill themselves? Obviously not. Let's not forget that the lines between mental health and mental illness are pretty blurry (until something happens), as are the lines between an abnormal but harmless passion for a cause and overzealous devotion to it. There is probably a series of situations that could turn anyone into a killer, so let's not all feel so distinct from and superior to the sorts of people who do.
I suppose my original point was that it's much more comfortable to panic over extremist Muslim terrorists (Them) who are attacking Us due to a difficult-to-grok-yet-easily-stated reason than it is to think about all the other shades of danger we face from those we think are pretty much like us. It's much more difficult to understand why some disaffected teenage guy would go on a shooting rampage (without suddenly declaring that he must have been mentally ill, thus shoving him nicely back into the camp of Other) than why people from some group that's pretty foreign to us would hate us and want to wipe us out. Us vs. Them, good vs. evil, our god vs. theirs, our worldview vs. theirs—these are all easily understood and surprisingly comforting ways to think about a threat or struggle. Us vs. Us, human nature vs. human nature, very similar worldviews vs. each other—not so much.
I very strongly recommend reading The Banality of Evil to everyone. (This post was not inspired by that, but it's quite relevant.)
Thursday, December 24, 2009
But Baby, It's Creepy Inside
Thanks to my few weeks working retail again during the holiday season, I've had occasion to think long and hard about what Christmas songs are really saying to us. For example, I had always assumed the moral of "Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer" was that you should be nice to those who are weird or different. But really, if you think about it, the song is basically telling you you shouldn't make fun of weird people (or animals) because they might turn out to be useful someday, and won't you feel stupid then? What about weird people who never turn out to be useful to you—is it still fine to make fun of them?
The song that has caused the most mental turmoil, however, is "Baby, It's Cold Outside" (complete lyrics at end of post). Whether the classic Louis Armstrong / Velma Mittleton or Louis Jordan / Ella Fitzgerald versions, the simpering Jessica Simpson / Nick Lachey version, or the Elf soundtrack Zooey Deschanel / Leon Redbone version, it plays about once an hour in the beloved local bookstore where I've been a captive audience to its increasingly problematic lyrics.
The first time it caught my attention as more than a cheerful winter love song was when I caught the line "Say, what's in this drink?" over ambient noise that had until then kept me from noticing more than the tune. Upon closer listening when it played later, I also noted the line "The answer is no." When taken together, these two almost sound like a real roofie-fueled date rape is going on. Now, obviously I don't actually think that's what's supposed to be happening (if nothing else, Rohypnol didn't exist until 1972...though it seems GHB has been around since 1874), but lyrics that were intended to seem sweet or perhaps slightly risque (at the very least, clever and amusing) in 1944 have quite a different impact on the modern listener, particularly if she's a young woman raised in the modern "no means no" culture. The very occurrence of an explicit "The answer is no" followed by a wheedling "But baby, it's cold outside" can hardly help but activate one's creepometer these days.
Even then, I just thought there were a few unfortunate lines that had aged poorly and didn't really see the whole song as problematic. By now, though, I've heard it forty or fifty times this season and am thoroughly creeped out by the entire thing. Now, I don't know if this is supposed to be the case, but to me it seems like the guy (who apparently is identified as "The Wolf" to the girl's "The Mouse"—talk about creepy!) is older, while the girl seems younger, an ingenue overpowered by his suavity. (It seems he has his own place, while the girl lives with her family: "My mother will start to worry / my father will be pacing the floor / ... / My sister will be suspicious / my brother will be there at the door / my maiden aunt's mind is vicious...", so I envision him as an older, established man and her as some fresh-out-of-high-school stenographer or something.)
Nowadays I wouldn't be too concerned by an exchange like this because I would assume the two parties actually had equal power in the situation and the woman was just proffering excuses to seem like a nice girl while fully expecting to let herself be convinced and not actually caring what her parents or neighbors thought (not that this isn't a problematic exchange in itself), but since the song was written over six decades ago, it's hard to read it any way other than with all the power in the man's hands. The woman (The Mouse!) is scrambling for excuses, almost panicking in some versions, as she's overcome by the Wolf's wheedling ways. It's as if she's watching herself succumb while being unable to keep it from happening: "I wish I knew how / to break the spell..." Then either her will breaks or she rationalizes to herself: "I ought to say no, no, no sir / at least I'm gonna say that I tried..."
Even if you don't buy the power imbalance and prefer to think of the two on more equal footing, it's just plain aggravating. If I had decided not to stay over and was presenting my reasons, to have each one completely ignored as the guy attempted to flatter me ("Your hair looks swell"; "Gosh, your lips are delicious") or countered with a never-ending and irrelevant refrain of "It's cold outside" that completely disregarded everything I was saying, I would get more annoyed and considerably less likely to stay because I wouldn't feel like he was listening to anything I was saying and obviously didn't respect me as a person. At that point it becomes less about whether or not she actually wants to stay over (or just stay later; that's not really explicitly stated) and more about teaching this jerk a lesson for thinking her decisions are irrelevant and he can just unmake them. Nobody wants to be badgered into a romantic evening; that kind of kills the mood.
One of the last lines he sings, "Get over that hold-out," demonstrates just how little he's paying attention to what she's saying. Now, maybe she is being stupid for caring what everyone will think, but instead of answering that concern in a reasonable manner, trying to convince her she's old enough to make her own decisions and shouldn't care what people think about them, but as the lines "What's the sense of hurting my pride?" and the lamenting "Why would you do this thing to me?" make oh-so-clear, he doesn't really care about the reasons she's giving—what anyone thinks of her, any problems she'll have with her family the next day, or anything else; he thinks her holding out is just to torment him and ruin his evening. Get over yourself, forties creep! Seriously, "What's the sense of hurting my pride?"? That's like admitting he had already planned to crow over his conquest to his friends the next day and is upset she's taking that from him. Heaven forbid a woman take her own thoughts and feelings into account when she makes a decision instead of worrying what the guy is supposed to tell his friends in the morning. I guess they're both picturing the next morning and the people they have to confront, and she doesn't like that picture if she stays and he doesn't like it if she doesn't.
I really can't stay (But baby, it's cold outside)
I've got to go 'way (Baby, it's cold outside)
The evening has been (I've been hoping that you'd drop in)
So very nice (I'll hold your hands, they're just like ice)
My mother will start to worry (Hey beautiful, what's your hurry?)
And father will be pacing the floor (Listen to that fireplace roar)
So really, I'd better scurry (Beautiful, please don't hurry)
Well, maybe just a half a drink more (Put a record on while I pour)
The neighbors might think (Baby, it's bad out there)
Say, what's in this drink (No cabs to be had out there)
I wish I knew how (Your eyes are like starlight now)
To break this spell (I'll take your hat, your hair looks swell)
I ought to say no, no, no sir (You mind if I move in closer?)
At least I'm gonna say that I tried (And what's the sense in hurting my pride?)
I really can't stay (Oh baby, don't hold out)
Oh, but it's cold outside
I simply must go (It's cold outside)
The answer is no (Baby, it's cold outside)
The welcome has been (So lucky that you dropped in)
So nice and warm (Look out the window at that storm)
My sister will be suspicious (Your lips look delicious)
My brother will be there at the door (Waves upon a tropical shore)
My maiden aunt's mind is vicious (Gosh, your lips are delicious)
Well maybe just a cigarette more (Never such a blizzard before)
I've got to get home (Baby, you'll freeze out there)
Say, lend me a coat (It's up to your knees out there)
You've really been grand (I thrill when you touch my hand)
Oh, but don't you see (How can you do this thing to me?)
There's bound to be talk tomorrow (Well, think of my lifelong sorrow)
At least there will be plenty implied (If you caught pneumonia and died)
I really can't stay (Get over that hold-out)
Ah, but it's cold outside.
And then some versions end with the super-creepy:
Brr, its cold...
It's cold out there.
Cant you stay a while longer, baby?
Well... I really shouldn't... all right.
Make it worth your while baby
Ahh, do that again...
The song that has caused the most mental turmoil, however, is "Baby, It's Cold Outside" (complete lyrics at end of post). Whether the classic Louis Armstrong / Velma Mittleton or Louis Jordan / Ella Fitzgerald versions, the simpering Jessica Simpson / Nick Lachey version, or the Elf soundtrack Zooey Deschanel / Leon Redbone version, it plays about once an hour in the beloved local bookstore where I've been a captive audience to its increasingly problematic lyrics.
The first time it caught my attention as more than a cheerful winter love song was when I caught the line "Say, what's in this drink?" over ambient noise that had until then kept me from noticing more than the tune. Upon closer listening when it played later, I also noted the line "The answer is no." When taken together, these two almost sound like a real roofie-fueled date rape is going on. Now, obviously I don't actually think that's what's supposed to be happening (if nothing else, Rohypnol didn't exist until 1972...though it seems GHB has been around since 1874), but lyrics that were intended to seem sweet or perhaps slightly risque (at the very least, clever and amusing) in 1944 have quite a different impact on the modern listener, particularly if she's a young woman raised in the modern "no means no" culture. The very occurrence of an explicit "The answer is no" followed by a wheedling "But baby, it's cold outside" can hardly help but activate one's creepometer these days.
Even then, I just thought there were a few unfortunate lines that had aged poorly and didn't really see the whole song as problematic. By now, though, I've heard it forty or fifty times this season and am thoroughly creeped out by the entire thing. Now, I don't know if this is supposed to be the case, but to me it seems like the guy (who apparently is identified as "The Wolf" to the girl's "The Mouse"—talk about creepy!) is older, while the girl seems younger, an ingenue overpowered by his suavity. (It seems he has his own place, while the girl lives with her family: "My mother will start to worry / my father will be pacing the floor / ... / My sister will be suspicious / my brother will be there at the door / my maiden aunt's mind is vicious...", so I envision him as an older, established man and her as some fresh-out-of-high-school stenographer or something.)
Nowadays I wouldn't be too concerned by an exchange like this because I would assume the two parties actually had equal power in the situation and the woman was just proffering excuses to seem like a nice girl while fully expecting to let herself be convinced and not actually caring what her parents or neighbors thought (not that this isn't a problematic exchange in itself), but since the song was written over six decades ago, it's hard to read it any way other than with all the power in the man's hands. The woman (The Mouse!) is scrambling for excuses, almost panicking in some versions, as she's overcome by the Wolf's wheedling ways. It's as if she's watching herself succumb while being unable to keep it from happening: "I wish I knew how / to break the spell..." Then either her will breaks or she rationalizes to herself: "I ought to say no, no, no sir / at least I'm gonna say that I tried..."
Even if you don't buy the power imbalance and prefer to think of the two on more equal footing, it's just plain aggravating. If I had decided not to stay over and was presenting my reasons, to have each one completely ignored as the guy attempted to flatter me ("Your hair looks swell"; "Gosh, your lips are delicious") or countered with a never-ending and irrelevant refrain of "It's cold outside" that completely disregarded everything I was saying, I would get more annoyed and considerably less likely to stay because I wouldn't feel like he was listening to anything I was saying and obviously didn't respect me as a person. At that point it becomes less about whether or not she actually wants to stay over (or just stay later; that's not really explicitly stated) and more about teaching this jerk a lesson for thinking her decisions are irrelevant and he can just unmake them. Nobody wants to be badgered into a romantic evening; that kind of kills the mood.
One of the last lines he sings, "Get over that hold-out," demonstrates just how little he's paying attention to what she's saying. Now, maybe she is being stupid for caring what everyone will think, but instead of answering that concern in a reasonable manner, trying to convince her she's old enough to make her own decisions and shouldn't care what people think about them, but as the lines "What's the sense of hurting my pride?" and the lamenting "Why would you do this thing to me?" make oh-so-clear, he doesn't really care about the reasons she's giving—what anyone thinks of her, any problems she'll have with her family the next day, or anything else; he thinks her holding out is just to torment him and ruin his evening. Get over yourself, forties creep! Seriously, "What's the sense of hurting my pride?"? That's like admitting he had already planned to crow over his conquest to his friends the next day and is upset she's taking that from him. Heaven forbid a woman take her own thoughts and feelings into account when she makes a decision instead of worrying what the guy is supposed to tell his friends in the morning. I guess they're both picturing the next morning and the people they have to confront, and she doesn't like that picture if she stays and he doesn't like it if she doesn't.
I really can't stay (But baby, it's cold outside)
I've got to go 'way (Baby, it's cold outside)
The evening has been (I've been hoping that you'd drop in)
So very nice (I'll hold your hands, they're just like ice)
My mother will start to worry (Hey beautiful, what's your hurry?)
And father will be pacing the floor (Listen to that fireplace roar)
So really, I'd better scurry (Beautiful, please don't hurry)
Well, maybe just a half a drink more (Put a record on while I pour)
The neighbors might think (Baby, it's bad out there)
Say, what's in this drink (No cabs to be had out there)
I wish I knew how (Your eyes are like starlight now)
To break this spell (I'll take your hat, your hair looks swell)
I ought to say no, no, no sir (You mind if I move in closer?)
At least I'm gonna say that I tried (And what's the sense in hurting my pride?)
I really can't stay (Oh baby, don't hold out)
Oh, but it's cold outside
I simply must go (It's cold outside)
The answer is no (Baby, it's cold outside)
The welcome has been (So lucky that you dropped in)
So nice and warm (Look out the window at that storm)
My sister will be suspicious (Your lips look delicious)
My brother will be there at the door (Waves upon a tropical shore)
My maiden aunt's mind is vicious (Gosh, your lips are delicious)
Well maybe just a cigarette more (Never such a blizzard before)
I've got to get home (Baby, you'll freeze out there)
Say, lend me a coat (It's up to your knees out there)
You've really been grand (I thrill when you touch my hand)
Oh, but don't you see (How can you do this thing to me?)
There's bound to be talk tomorrow (Well, think of my lifelong sorrow)
At least there will be plenty implied (If you caught pneumonia and died)
I really can't stay (Get over that hold-out)
Ah, but it's cold outside.
And then some versions end with the super-creepy:
Brr, its cold...
It's cold out there.
Cant you stay a while longer, baby?
Well... I really shouldn't... all right.
Make it worth your while baby
Ahh, do that again...
Thursday, November 12, 2009
Gladsgiving
It's that time of year when everyone starts declaring things they feel thankful for. They're thankful for their loving spouses, their beautiful children, their good health, their still-extant job, and a million small 'blessings' throughout the year. They're thankful that certain friends came into their lives, that they were given the opportunity to move somewhere great, etc.
What am I thankful for? Nothing.
That's right.
Not that I'm necessarily a Grinch, to mix holiday references, (though perhaps that is also the case). I do think it's a good thing to take stock every so often of the good things that have happened to you and the things in life that make you happy. But as I tried to think of things I was thankful for, I ran into trouble. Nothing quite seemed to fit.
My issue is primarily a semantic one. As someone who doesn't believe in a God who has a plan for our lives and acts in the world to bring us these people, those jobs, those opportunities, that good health, I can't in good conscience say I'm "thankful" for any of these things. Giving thanks requires an object; you thank someone for something. Both those parts are necessary. Feeling thankful implies a Giver who gave that for which you are thankful. Since I don't think God (or even Providence or Luck in any sort of deliberate way) has anything to do with what happens in my life, is it even possible for me to be thankful?
Probably not. And yet I do feel thankful, or at least I feel happy about things similar to the kind of things that other people feel thankful about. Is my feeling actually different from theirs? (There's obviously no way to know that.)
So instead, I say I'm "glad." This alleviates the problem of thanking divine Providence for things that just happened or for things that I myself am actually responsible for. I'm glad I live in a nice, liberal state. Obviously it wasn't an accident that I ended up here; I purposely moved here for that very reason. It seems silly to feel "thankful" for something that I did. "Self, I'm so thankful that you were smart enough to make such a good decision"? Ridiculous. I'm glad it hasn't snowed yet this year, not thankful that God has restrained the snow because he know it makes me depressed. I'm glad I don't have melanoma in my eye (yes, I've been rather terrified of this ever since I learned such a thing existed...and actually, I guess I don't actually know whether I do or not, but at any rate, I have no reason to think I do), but I'm not thankful that God kept my melanocytes in check. (How would that even work? Maybe I'll reconsider if I'm still melanoma free when I'm 60.) I'm glad we've had such a pretty fall, but not thankful that God has carefully timed the release of plant chemicals to create such nicely timed vibrant leaf colors to make me mildly happy each morning as I shuffle through varicolored leaves.
"Thankfulness" seems rather self-centered, actually. It seems to assume that everything pleasing that's happened in your life was orchestrated just for you by some superior power who cares about your life.
But then there's an even darker side to thankfulness. People say they're thankful they were born into a rich, developed nation to educated parents with enough money to provide for them, with the opportunities for higher education and fulfilling careers, where they have the freedom to choose their own life paths and mates. Now, it's probably better to feel thankful for these things than to take them for granted, of course...but it almost seems that thanking God for these 'blessings' is taking them for granted (at least in the literal sense: God granted them to you). If God 'blessed' you by giving you all these things, doesn't it necessarily follow that he's cursing everyone else with lives of poverty and lack of rights and choice? Presumably he had some sort of systematic way of deciding who deserved to be born into happy middle-class American families and who deserved to be born into the middle of civil wars in Africa, right? I don't think anyone really thinks that (and if you do, you're basically saying you deserve it, and why bother being thankful for your just deserts?), and if not, then it had to have been entirely arbitrary and having nothing to do with the actual people concerned...in which case, again, what is there to be thanking him about? He didn't do it for you; he just did it.
I think all too often, people who say they're thankful that God did X in their lives or gave them Y either simply mean that they're glad it happened, just like me, and are dressing it up in God language because that's how they look at the world or haven't really thought through the implications of what they're saying. Being thankful that you have it better than someone else seems terribly insulting. Not only are you judging their lives as too horrifying to contemplate, but you're putting yourself above them. It all seems rather fastidious and smug: Oh, I'm so delicate I couldn't possibly withstand such horrible circumstances. I'm so glad God knew that and saved me from such a fate. It almost seems that people who profess their thanks (or relief?) for their current station in life are half afraid God will take it away if they aren't properly appreciative. That hardly counts as true thankfulness.
I just got it: what it really sounds like to me is the subliminal socialization tapes used in Brave New World. "I'm really awfully glad I'm a Beta[...W]e are so much better than the Gammas and Deltas. Gammas are stupid[....]And Epsilons are still worse. They're too stupid to be able to read or write. Besides, they wear black, which is such a beastly colour. I'm so glad I'm a Beta."
Thanking God for one's blessings all too often comes off like smug self-congratulation. I'd rather just smugly congratulate myself in full knowledge that that's what I'm doing. I'll be "glad" for things, whether things that just happened to work out the way they did or things I had a hand in, but I won't be "thankful" for anything that wasn't done for me by a particular flesh-and-blood person.
Happy Gladsgiving.
What am I thankful for? Nothing.
That's right.
Not that I'm necessarily a Grinch, to mix holiday references, (though perhaps that is also the case). I do think it's a good thing to take stock every so often of the good things that have happened to you and the things in life that make you happy. But as I tried to think of things I was thankful for, I ran into trouble. Nothing quite seemed to fit.
My issue is primarily a semantic one. As someone who doesn't believe in a God who has a plan for our lives and acts in the world to bring us these people, those jobs, those opportunities, that good health, I can't in good conscience say I'm "thankful" for any of these things. Giving thanks requires an object; you thank someone for something. Both those parts are necessary. Feeling thankful implies a Giver who gave that for which you are thankful. Since I don't think God (or even Providence or Luck in any sort of deliberate way) has anything to do with what happens in my life, is it even possible for me to be thankful?
Probably not. And yet I do feel thankful, or at least I feel happy about things similar to the kind of things that other people feel thankful about. Is my feeling actually different from theirs? (There's obviously no way to know that.)
So instead, I say I'm "glad." This alleviates the problem of thanking divine Providence for things that just happened or for things that I myself am actually responsible for. I'm glad I live in a nice, liberal state. Obviously it wasn't an accident that I ended up here; I purposely moved here for that very reason. It seems silly to feel "thankful" for something that I did. "Self, I'm so thankful that you were smart enough to make such a good decision"? Ridiculous. I'm glad it hasn't snowed yet this year, not thankful that God has restrained the snow because he know it makes me depressed. I'm glad I don't have melanoma in my eye (yes, I've been rather terrified of this ever since I learned such a thing existed...and actually, I guess I don't actually know whether I do or not, but at any rate, I have no reason to think I do), but I'm not thankful that God kept my melanocytes in check. (How would that even work? Maybe I'll reconsider if I'm still melanoma free when I'm 60.) I'm glad we've had such a pretty fall, but not thankful that God has carefully timed the release of plant chemicals to create such nicely timed vibrant leaf colors to make me mildly happy each morning as I shuffle through varicolored leaves.
"Thankfulness" seems rather self-centered, actually. It seems to assume that everything pleasing that's happened in your life was orchestrated just for you by some superior power who cares about your life.
But then there's an even darker side to thankfulness. People say they're thankful they were born into a rich, developed nation to educated parents with enough money to provide for them, with the opportunities for higher education and fulfilling careers, where they have the freedom to choose their own life paths and mates. Now, it's probably better to feel thankful for these things than to take them for granted, of course...but it almost seems that thanking God for these 'blessings' is taking them for granted (at least in the literal sense: God granted them to you). If God 'blessed' you by giving you all these things, doesn't it necessarily follow that he's cursing everyone else with lives of poverty and lack of rights and choice? Presumably he had some sort of systematic way of deciding who deserved to be born into happy middle-class American families and who deserved to be born into the middle of civil wars in Africa, right? I don't think anyone really thinks that (and if you do, you're basically saying you deserve it, and why bother being thankful for your just deserts?), and if not, then it had to have been entirely arbitrary and having nothing to do with the actual people concerned...in which case, again, what is there to be thanking him about? He didn't do it for you; he just did it.
I think all too often, people who say they're thankful that God did X in their lives or gave them Y either simply mean that they're glad it happened, just like me, and are dressing it up in God language because that's how they look at the world or haven't really thought through the implications of what they're saying. Being thankful that you have it better than someone else seems terribly insulting. Not only are you judging their lives as too horrifying to contemplate, but you're putting yourself above them. It all seems rather fastidious and smug: Oh, I'm so delicate I couldn't possibly withstand such horrible circumstances. I'm so glad God knew that and saved me from such a fate. It almost seems that people who profess their thanks (or relief?) for their current station in life are half afraid God will take it away if they aren't properly appreciative. That hardly counts as true thankfulness.
I just got it: what it really sounds like to me is the subliminal socialization tapes used in Brave New World. "I'm really awfully glad I'm a Beta[...W]e are so much better than the Gammas and Deltas. Gammas are stupid[....]And Epsilons are still worse. They're too stupid to be able to read or write. Besides, they wear black, which is such a beastly colour. I'm so glad I'm a Beta."
Thanking God for one's blessings all too often comes off like smug self-congratulation. I'd rather just smugly congratulate myself in full knowledge that that's what I'm doing. I'll be "glad" for things, whether things that just happened to work out the way they did or things I had a hand in, but I won't be "thankful" for anything that wasn't done for me by a particular flesh-and-blood person.
Happy Gladsgiving.
Sunday, November 8, 2009
"Life's Not Fair"
Maybe I'm just still six years old at heart (unlikely), but I really don't understand the attitude adults, particularly parents, take toward fairness. Fairness is obviously a fundamental part of human nature. From a very early age, kids understand the concept of fairness and will point out at any give opportunity, "That's not fair!" They're usually right. So why, then, do their parents inevitably respond, "Life's not fair," as though that's reason enough to quit expecting fairness in any situation? Parents invoke fairness when teaching their children to equitably divide dessert or toys or take turns, but the second their kid notices that someone else gets to stay up later or go on better vacations or get more Christmas presents or go to PG-13 movies and invoke the fairness principle, parents parrot, "Life's not fair" like it's an extremely clever and discussion-ending retort (hint: it's not) taught in parenting guides (if it is, it shouldn't be).
It's true, life isn't fair. Some people have more stuff than others, some people get better breaks than others, some people are taller or smarter or skinnier or better looking or more athletic or more musical than others, some people are born into families with more money and connections than others. But isn't it one of the main principles of progressive society that people are all inherently worth the same and thus the more the playing field can be leveled, the better? Don't we all want life to be as fair as we can make it? Isn't fairness the goal? Of course life isn't fair, but it should be. We should do everything we can to make it be. Simply citing life's unfairness as an unchangeable fact and going from there is so depressing. It's really frustrating for children: "It's not fair." "Life's not fair." "I know, that's what I'm complaining about!"
Maybe parents are just trying to teach their children not to expect life always to treat them fairly. If so, though, they're not doing a very good job of articulating their lesson. There's a big difference between, "Oh, sweetie, I'm sorry you didn't [do/get whatever]. Sometimes life just isn't fair and you don't get things even if you deserve them. That sucks, and I'm sorry it happened to you" and, "Life's not fair!" said in a tone that's half "So shut up already" and half "Whyever would you expect it to be, dummy?" It doesn't help that "Life's not fair" is generally used when a child is complaining about something unfair the parent him/herself is doing. It's an implied, Oh, life's not fair, so it doesn't matter that I let your younger sister stay up just as late as you, or, Life's not fair, so I don't have to make sure all siblings have the same level of awesomeness at their birthday parties, or, Life's not fair, so it doesn't matter that everyone else your age gets to do X and you don't. Simply citing the unfairness of the rest of life shouldn't get parents off the hook for not being as fair as possible. The rest of life isn't under their control, but bedtimes, presents, privileges, chores, and most of the other things children whine about the unfairness of are.
Or maybe I'm missing some important principle about justice and I'm stuck with an immature idea of justice as fairness...but I kind of doubt it. Is this one of those things that gets squeezed out of you as you age along with liberalism and thinking you can change the world? Doesn't it seem horribly like giving up everything good and right in the world to jadedly tell your small, pure, idealistic children the harsh truth of the unfairness of life, the universe, and everything and expect them to accept it? What's so wrong with fairness?
It's true, life isn't fair. Some people have more stuff than others, some people get better breaks than others, some people are taller or smarter or skinnier or better looking or more athletic or more musical than others, some people are born into families with more money and connections than others. But isn't it one of the main principles of progressive society that people are all inherently worth the same and thus the more the playing field can be leveled, the better? Don't we all want life to be as fair as we can make it? Isn't fairness the goal? Of course life isn't fair, but it should be. We should do everything we can to make it be. Simply citing life's unfairness as an unchangeable fact and going from there is so depressing. It's really frustrating for children: "It's not fair." "Life's not fair." "I know, that's what I'm complaining about!"
Maybe parents are just trying to teach their children not to expect life always to treat them fairly. If so, though, they're not doing a very good job of articulating their lesson. There's a big difference between, "Oh, sweetie, I'm sorry you didn't [do/get whatever]. Sometimes life just isn't fair and you don't get things even if you deserve them. That sucks, and I'm sorry it happened to you" and, "Life's not fair!" said in a tone that's half "So shut up already" and half "Whyever would you expect it to be, dummy?" It doesn't help that "Life's not fair" is generally used when a child is complaining about something unfair the parent him/herself is doing. It's an implied, Oh, life's not fair, so it doesn't matter that I let your younger sister stay up just as late as you, or, Life's not fair, so I don't have to make sure all siblings have the same level of awesomeness at their birthday parties, or, Life's not fair, so it doesn't matter that everyone else your age gets to do X and you don't. Simply citing the unfairness of the rest of life shouldn't get parents off the hook for not being as fair as possible. The rest of life isn't under their control, but bedtimes, presents, privileges, chores, and most of the other things children whine about the unfairness of are.
Or maybe I'm missing some important principle about justice and I'm stuck with an immature idea of justice as fairness...but I kind of doubt it. Is this one of those things that gets squeezed out of you as you age along with liberalism and thinking you can change the world? Doesn't it seem horribly like giving up everything good and right in the world to jadedly tell your small, pure, idealistic children the harsh truth of the unfairness of life, the universe, and everything and expect them to accept it? What's so wrong with fairness?
Tuesday, October 20, 2009
This is Your Planet...This is Your Planet on Trash
Recently I visualized the problem with the environment (landfills particularly) in an entirely different way that kind of traumatizes me. I've been feeling a push lately to simplify my life and get rid of tons of junk that's just cluttering my space, but I feel guilty throwing things away because I know they'll sit in landfills for millennia. But then I realized that if they'll survive for millennia, they'll survive for millennia whether they're actually in a landfill or not. As far as the earth is concerned, our houses might as well be mini-landfills. Once stuff enters the world, it's there, and it doesn't really matter what you do with it afterward (unless it's recycled, but even that isn't entirely a pollutant-free process), it's trash. It's not like something magically happens to your junk when it enters your trash can that converts it into this mysterious "garbage" thing; it is what it is, and that thing is likely polluting the earth, or at least taking up space on it.
Once you remove the human angle of looking at things and ascribing worth to them and just try to look at it all from a purely physical point of view, it's pretty depressing. Our factories work day and night to pump stuff into our landfills with brief pauses in our houses. My mental image is of a planet (like when they show Earth on kids' TV shows with obviously too-big houses and proportionally giant people and such as a dramatization) devoid of people but with big buildings sticking up off of it filled with stuff, stuff, stuff. So really, the point isn't even what to do with all our stuff when it comes time to dispose of it, as if that's when it enters the waste stream, but whether to bring it into existence in the first place, since once it's here, it's part of the waste stream. (This is why "reduce" comes first in the "reduce, reuse, recycle" mantra, something that people too often forget.)
Once you remove the human angle of looking at things and ascribing worth to them and just try to look at it all from a purely physical point of view, it's pretty depressing. Our factories work day and night to pump stuff into our landfills with brief pauses in our houses. My mental image is of a planet (like when they show Earth on kids' TV shows with obviously too-big houses and proportionally giant people and such as a dramatization) devoid of people but with big buildings sticking up off of it filled with stuff, stuff, stuff. So really, the point isn't even what to do with all our stuff when it comes time to dispose of it, as if that's when it enters the waste stream, but whether to bring it into existence in the first place, since once it's here, it's part of the waste stream. (This is why "reduce" comes first in the "reduce, reuse, recycle" mantra, something that people too often forget.)
Tuesday, September 29, 2009
Statistical Ephiphanies: My Favorite
I've been thinking about statistics lately, and I'm having one of those probably-obvious epiphanies. So in statistics, you generally measure whatever you're interested in on what you hope is a representative sample, then you generalize to the population as a whole. The more representative your sample is, the more accurate your statistics are for the population as a whole. Assuming you are truly randomly selecting your sample, the best way to increase the ability of your statistic to generalize to the population is to increase your sample size. The bigger the sample, the more people there are to neutralize any weird flukes, the less noise there is, and the more accurate your statistic is.
What happens if you keep expanding your sample size? Eventually the sample you are polling/measuring/whatever is your entire population. If you're measuring the entire population, your statistic is entirely accurate. There isn't a margin of error. You have attained absolute truth. (Congrats.)
But wait. How much does measuring whatever quality of everyone on the planet actually tell you about humanity in any true sense? Can't the entire population be seen sort of as a sample of all possible human beings? (I would hazard a guess that it's not a very random one at all, but that's beside my point.)
Let's take my favorite example, gender differences in math. Now, I assume we have not tested the mathematical skills of every single human on the planet, but let's pretend we had and that the numbers were similar to those I've seen for various samples in the U.S. The median math score for males is about five percentage points higher than the median math score for females.
(The distributions are pretty wide and overlap almost entirely; only the very, very, very tip (a fraction of one percent) in either direction is occupied solely by males or females. This basically just means that yeah, maybe the top however-many math people are male and the bottom however-many are female, but since every single person I know is almost assuredly in the overlapping spots, there's not really much that can be said for any given man or woman about their relative abilities. For example, I am a girl; supposedly I am worse at math than boys. No randomly chosen guy should assume that means he is better at math than me, a (not-so-randomly-selected) girl. Assuming elementary-school scores on the ITBS and the percentiles they provide are accurate (probably not, but just for the sake of illustration), the fact that eight-year-old me was in the 99th percentile on math obviously means that eight-year-old me was better at math than a lot of eight-year-old boys. Even if the entire top 1% was boys (doubtful), that would still put eight-year-old me above 98% of eight-year-old boys taking the ITBS. (I feel like the math I just did was questionable, particularly since there's no guarantee that eight-year-old ITBS-takers were half boys and half girls, but, hey, there's a reason I'm not using more recent math scores...))
Anyway... So say we'd tested everyone on the planet and gotten a similar distribution. Hey, we all say, look, boys are indeed better at math! But what does that actually mean about masculinity making one good at math? Not necessarily anything. For one thing, correlation does not equal causation. Correlation on a planetary scale still does not imply causation. It would be rather impossible, not to mention highly unethical, to randomly assign people to a gender to see how that affected their math scores later in life.
And here's where my epiphany comes in. By sheer virtue of there being two groups, one of them basically has to be better and one worse on any given thing, be it math, communication, parking ability, cooking, singing, tennis, Tetris...whatever. Since there is a lot of variability in mathematical ability, like everything else, it is necessarily unevenly distributed regardless of how you divide the groups. It would actually be weirder if every division of humanity we could think of, whether by gender, race, religion, height, eye color, alphabetical order by middle initial, etc., scored exactly the same on every measure. It's like if you flipped a coin 100 times and got exactly 50 heads and 50 tails, and then did it again and got 50 and 50 again, just in a different order, then again, then again. Maybe if everyone on the earth vanished suddenly and God replaced them with six billion other random people, this time, girls would end up by a few percentage points just by virtue of which actual people were part of our group and this hypothetical group.
Of course, that's not to say that mathematical abilities don't actually have their basis in anything vaguely gender related. Obviously there are all sorts of things that influence mathematical ability, like what kind of society you're born into, what kinds of things your parents find important, how good your school was, whether anyone told you as a child that your group wasn't supposed to be as good at math as the other one, your specific math teachers, how good your parents were at math, what language you speak (yes, that's one reason Chinese kids are better at math than Americans, is because the words for numbers in Chinese make it easier to think about them and do things with them), whether your friends think math is cool, what else you're interested in, etc., etc., etc. Sure, gender might be one of them. Maybe testosterone is a math booster. (This might be slightly less unethical to test...) But I think it's important to realize that just because a majority of humanity is better at something than another group doesn't necessarily mean it's related to whatever the dividing characteristic is. Numbers are like that. There's variation. And most importantly, it's pretty obvious that all members of group X aren't better than all members of group Y at anything that I'm aware of, whether it's races and sports or genders and school subjects or species and some cognitive task.
What happens if you keep expanding your sample size? Eventually the sample you are polling/measuring/whatever is your entire population. If you're measuring the entire population, your statistic is entirely accurate. There isn't a margin of error. You have attained absolute truth. (Congrats.)
But wait. How much does measuring whatever quality of everyone on the planet actually tell you about humanity in any true sense? Can't the entire population be seen sort of as a sample of all possible human beings? (I would hazard a guess that it's not a very random one at all, but that's beside my point.)
Let's take my favorite example, gender differences in math. Now, I assume we have not tested the mathematical skills of every single human on the planet, but let's pretend we had and that the numbers were similar to those I've seen for various samples in the U.S. The median math score for males is about five percentage points higher than the median math score for females.
(The distributions are pretty wide and overlap almost entirely; only the very, very, very tip (a fraction of one percent) in either direction is occupied solely by males or females. This basically just means that yeah, maybe the top however-many math people are male and the bottom however-many are female, but since every single person I know is almost assuredly in the overlapping spots, there's not really much that can be said for any given man or woman about their relative abilities. For example, I am a girl; supposedly I am worse at math than boys. No randomly chosen guy should assume that means he is better at math than me, a (not-so-randomly-selected) girl. Assuming elementary-school scores on the ITBS and the percentiles they provide are accurate (probably not, but just for the sake of illustration), the fact that eight-year-old me was in the 99th percentile on math obviously means that eight-year-old me was better at math than a lot of eight-year-old boys. Even if the entire top 1% was boys (doubtful), that would still put eight-year-old me above 98% of eight-year-old boys taking the ITBS. (I feel like the math I just did was questionable, particularly since there's no guarantee that eight-year-old ITBS-takers were half boys and half girls, but, hey, there's a reason I'm not using more recent math scores...))
Anyway... So say we'd tested everyone on the planet and gotten a similar distribution. Hey, we all say, look, boys are indeed better at math! But what does that actually mean about masculinity making one good at math? Not necessarily anything. For one thing, correlation does not equal causation. Correlation on a planetary scale still does not imply causation. It would be rather impossible, not to mention highly unethical, to randomly assign people to a gender to see how that affected their math scores later in life.
And here's where my epiphany comes in. By sheer virtue of there being two groups, one of them basically has to be better and one worse on any given thing, be it math, communication, parking ability, cooking, singing, tennis, Tetris...whatever. Since there is a lot of variability in mathematical ability, like everything else, it is necessarily unevenly distributed regardless of how you divide the groups. It would actually be weirder if every division of humanity we could think of, whether by gender, race, religion, height, eye color, alphabetical order by middle initial, etc., scored exactly the same on every measure. It's like if you flipped a coin 100 times and got exactly 50 heads and 50 tails, and then did it again and got 50 and 50 again, just in a different order, then again, then again. Maybe if everyone on the earth vanished suddenly and God replaced them with six billion other random people, this time, girls would end up by a few percentage points just by virtue of which actual people were part of our group and this hypothetical group.
Of course, that's not to say that mathematical abilities don't actually have their basis in anything vaguely gender related. Obviously there are all sorts of things that influence mathematical ability, like what kind of society you're born into, what kinds of things your parents find important, how good your school was, whether anyone told you as a child that your group wasn't supposed to be as good at math as the other one, your specific math teachers, how good your parents were at math, what language you speak (yes, that's one reason Chinese kids are better at math than Americans, is because the words for numbers in Chinese make it easier to think about them and do things with them), whether your friends think math is cool, what else you're interested in, etc., etc., etc. Sure, gender might be one of them. Maybe testosterone is a math booster. (This might be slightly less unethical to test...) But I think it's important to realize that just because a majority of humanity is better at something than another group doesn't necessarily mean it's related to whatever the dividing characteristic is. Numbers are like that. There's variation. And most importantly, it's pretty obvious that all members of group X aren't better than all members of group Y at anything that I'm aware of, whether it's races and sports or genders and school subjects or species and some cognitive task.
Tuesday, August 25, 2009
Nothing to Fear but Fear Itself?
What's your favorite color? Who's your role model? If you could have a superpower, what would it be? What are you most afraid of?
Everything from first-day-of-school icebreakers to internet quizzes ask these sorts of questions in an attempt to have you reveal something about yourself so others can get to know you better. Left for another day is what exactly green or Shaquille O'Neal or invisibility reveals about your personality; today I'm thinking about fears.
Most people when asked to name their greatest fear say something like snakes or spiders: very specific, tangible things which probably do give them the shivers when they encounter them. But very rare are the people who actually have crippling fears of spiders, who spend their nights quaking with fear that tonight will be the night they'll swallow one of the seven spiders the average human apparently unwittingly consumes in his or her sleep.
No offense, but creepy-crawlies and other animals are kind of an immature fear. They prompt basically gut-level evolutionary responses. Very few people honestly have no reaction to snakes, spiders, bees, wasps, mice, rats, sharks, and the like, but most of us don't actually experience real, true, soul-crushing horror at the thought of such things or spend large chunks of our lives in mortal dread of possible stings or bites. Citing a fear of bees, though, is an easy way to admit to a fear without embarrassment. Bugs and such are socially acceptable fears.
Nobody ever mentions the things of which they are really and truly terrified, about which they stay up at night worrying, the thought of which is accompanied by a feeling in the pit of the stomach: the discovery their partner doesn't love them or has never loved them, the death of a child, dementia, nonexistence, humiliation in front of people whose opinion matters, poverty, debilitating illness, running out of money before running out of life, being friendless, failing at something important to them, completely screwing up the raising of their children, being stupid or inadequate...
These are real fears, and so naturally nobody's ever going to mention them as part of a getting-to-know-you exercise. Before you know someone, there's no way you're going to let yourself feel that vulnerable. I'm guessing either these are the sorts of things that just make everyone feel uncomfortable because nobody wants to think about them or that the sharer would fear looking stupid for sounding neurotic. Animal bites and stings are nonthreatening as a fear; nobody mocks you for being scared of wasps because everybody's scared of wasps...and why not? They sting! It hurts! Well, everyone's scared of being unloved and alone, of failure, of death and nonexistence and the unknown, too.
Everything from first-day-of-school icebreakers to internet quizzes ask these sorts of questions in an attempt to have you reveal something about yourself so others can get to know you better. Left for another day is what exactly green or Shaquille O'Neal or invisibility reveals about your personality; today I'm thinking about fears.
Most people when asked to name their greatest fear say something like snakes or spiders: very specific, tangible things which probably do give them the shivers when they encounter them. But very rare are the people who actually have crippling fears of spiders, who spend their nights quaking with fear that tonight will be the night they'll swallow one of the seven spiders the average human apparently unwittingly consumes in his or her sleep.
No offense, but creepy-crawlies and other animals are kind of an immature fear. They prompt basically gut-level evolutionary responses. Very few people honestly have no reaction to snakes, spiders, bees, wasps, mice, rats, sharks, and the like, but most of us don't actually experience real, true, soul-crushing horror at the thought of such things or spend large chunks of our lives in mortal dread of possible stings or bites. Citing a fear of bees, though, is an easy way to admit to a fear without embarrassment. Bugs and such are socially acceptable fears.
Nobody ever mentions the things of which they are really and truly terrified, about which they stay up at night worrying, the thought of which is accompanied by a feeling in the pit of the stomach: the discovery their partner doesn't love them or has never loved them, the death of a child, dementia, nonexistence, humiliation in front of people whose opinion matters, poverty, debilitating illness, running out of money before running out of life, being friendless, failing at something important to them, completely screwing up the raising of their children, being stupid or inadequate...
These are real fears, and so naturally nobody's ever going to mention them as part of a getting-to-know-you exercise. Before you know someone, there's no way you're going to let yourself feel that vulnerable. I'm guessing either these are the sorts of things that just make everyone feel uncomfortable because nobody wants to think about them or that the sharer would fear looking stupid for sounding neurotic. Animal bites and stings are nonthreatening as a fear; nobody mocks you for being scared of wasps because everybody's scared of wasps...and why not? They sting! It hurts! Well, everyone's scared of being unloved and alone, of failure, of death and nonexistence and the unknown, too.
Saturday, August 22, 2009
Health Insurance Reform
Well, it seems that the White House is indeed calling it "health insurance reform." So much for that brilliant idea. (I get the feeling this is kind of recent, though, when they backed down from reforming as much as they wanted to.)
I realized shortly after writing my last post that in my search for the eight principles, I did not actually find the ones I had intended to (which might explain why my post didn't make as much sense as it did in my head). I think I might be excused for this mistake, as I didn't realize Barack Obama came from an alien race with a base eight counting system: everything the White House has published about health care has been in groups of eight. There's the "eight ways reform provides security and stability for those with or without coverage," the "eight common myths about health insurance reform," the "eight reasons we need health insurance reform now," the "set of eight principles for transforming and modernizing America's health care system," and last (at least that I've seen) but not least, those eight I actually intended to post: "health insurance consumer protections: the security you get from health insurance reform":
I realized shortly after writing my last post that in my search for the eight principles, I did not actually find the ones I had intended to (which might explain why my post didn't make as much sense as it did in my head). I think I might be excused for this mistake, as I didn't realize Barack Obama came from an alien race with a base eight counting system: everything the White House has published about health care has been in groups of eight. There's the "eight ways reform provides security and stability for those with or without coverage," the "eight common myths about health insurance reform," the "eight reasons we need health insurance reform now," the "set of eight principles for transforming and modernizing America's health care system," and last (at least that I've seen) but not least, those eight I actually intended to post: "health insurance consumer protections: the security you get from health insurance reform":
- No Discrimination for Pre-Existing Conditions. Insurance companies will be prohibited from refusing you coverage because of your medical history.
- No Exorbitant Out-of-Pocket Expenses, Deductibles or Co-Pays. Insurance companies will have to abide by yearly caps on how much they can charge for out-of-pocket expenses.
- No Cost-Sharing for Preventive Care. Insurance companies must fully cover, without charge, regular checkups and tests that help you prevent illness, such as mammograms or eye and foot exams for diabetics.
- No Dropping of Coverage for Seriously Ill. Insurance companies will be prohibited from dropping or watering down insurance coverage for those who become seriously ill.
- No Gender Discrimination. Insurance companies will be prohibited from charging you more because of your gender.
- No Annual or Lifetime Caps on Coverage. Insurance companies will be prevented from placing annual or lifetime caps on the coverage you receive.
- Extended Coverage for Young Adults. Children would continue to be eligible for family coverage through the age of 26.
- Guaranteed Insurance Renewal. Insurance companies will be required to renew any policy as long as the policyholder pays their premium in full. Insurance companies won't be allowed to refuse renewal because someone became sick.
Monday, August 17, 2009
Obsessed with Health Care Before It was Cool
I feel like if it were referred to as "health insurance reform" rather than "health care reform," a lot of our problems would go away. "Health care reform" sounds like it could lead to (heaven forbid!) the British National Health Service and all sorts of strange, foreign-sounding, and potentially very unpleasant things. It seems like everything is on the table. "Health insurance reform," on the other hand, sounds like we're reforming a sector of our economy that most people admit the bureaucratic evilness of and cherish a hatred for that is second only to the too-overcompensated CEOs of bailed-out banks.
Seriously, does anyone like health insurance companies? They're just unpleasant to deal with. It's like dealing with your computer manufacturer or your cable provider except they're sneakier, they're more bureaucratic, and (most importantly) health is much more important than your failing laptop battery or the stealthy post–special introductory offer increase in your cable bill. I remember Mom spending hours on the phone trying to force our insurance company (Aetna is evil incarnate, by the way) to cover what it was supposed to, which in retrospect blows my mind, since at that point, we were all perfectly healthy. What were they trying to refuse to pay? A annual physical? A Pap smear? It's not like we were costing them a fortune in radiation treatments or dialysis or anything. We didn't even have broken bones or anything—nothing other than routine care.
I feel like most of the people who are yelling don't even know what they're yelling about. To hear them, you'd think Obama was going to go on a killing spree to take out Trig Palin, Ted Kennedy, and Stephen Hawking after converting our health care system into a socialized, bureaucratic system of meting out health care to those young and healthy citizens who were most likely to contribute to the economy (but who still might have to wait months for any treatments). Obama doesn't want any of that. I won't speak for anyone else, especially as I haven't read any of the proposed bills (hey, don't judge me; nobody else has either), but as far as Obama goes, it's pretty mainstream and reasonalble. How can you really disagree with this?
Obama's stated eight principles for successful and meaningful health care reform:
But the big one for me is number four: portability of coverage. The absolute stupidest part of our health care system in my mind is that it is currently almost entirely linked to one's employer. I assume this will erode, regardless of what happens with this current attempt at reform, as Gen Y ages, since nobody is doing the work-your-whole-life-at-General-Motors kind of thing anymore. We're all changing jobs every year or two or four. (Seriously, who do you know who's working for the same company they plan to be with in five years? I may never get to that point.) If we're all going to be changing jobs every couple of years, especially if there are going to be any gaps between one job and another, the current system simply sucks. Yeah, there's COBRA to cover the gaps, but it's prohibitively expensive. And what about families? Within a period of four years or so (late high school and early college), I changed health insurance plans a ridiculous number of times: from Dad's to the COBRA Dad got after losing his job at the Federal Reserve to Mom's when she started working for the school system to Dad's when he got his new job to Mom's with Grady when Dad got called back to active duty...or something. Dental also changed, but not always in tandem with medical, so I lived in a permanent state of confusion. This is bad because even if people are on top of things and do arrange to have seamless medical coverage, there's only a certain period of time they can actually be covered. When you switch, it takes like a month to get your new card and all your information, and then you have to find a new doctor because your old one isn't covered with this plan, and then you have to wait a month or more for your appointment because new patients always seem to get screwed... So even if you've technically been covered for six months, only half of that time is time that you could actually be seeing a doctor, and that's only if you're on top of things (not like me) in making appointments before you switch insurance again.
And then there's the rest of number four: "No American should be denied coverage because of preexisting conditions." I can understand why health insurance companies developed this rule. Obviously it's not fair for someone to smoke for forty years and never have health insurance, but then when they find out they have lung cancer, the treatment of which is going to be quite expensive, to take out a health insurance policy so they only have to pay the few hundred dollars' of deductible plus a few $20 copays. (Of course, if we require everyone be covered, this can't happen...)
What's even less fair, though, is that people can be booted out of their health insurance when they turn out to have, say, breast cancer, because they didn't report it when they applied for insurance...if they didn't know it themselves at the time. Or that people who develop one of these dreaded conditions must then either stay at that job or find another with similar coverage forever, else they be left unable to purchase insurance on the private market because of this now-preexisting condition.
My mom, for example, would now be unable to purchase insurance on her own because she had a melanoma a few years back. It was entirely isolated, entirely removed, and has nothing to do with anything else that may happen in the future. It was stage zero, entirely contained, and it's been years since then, demonstrating that even if these facts were somehow mistaken, it hasn't spread. Regardless, Mom is now a cancer patient and thus anathema to all insurance providers. I mean, good thing it's something that was simple and self-contained and doesn't affect her ability to work (unlike the chronic diseases that make up most preexisting conditions), so she doesn't really have to worry that much; as long as she has a job, she'll be OK as far as health insurance goes. But for people whose illnesses preclude remaining at work? Sucks to be them.
The worst? That insurers can simply drop people from their plan if their health care becomes too expensive, regardless of whether or not it was a preexisting condition. I didn't even know this was possible until recently (thank you, plethora of indignant health care–related articles), and I am appalled. That's cheating! The whole reason people buy insurance is because they're afraid they'll develop a devastating disease that will bankrupt them. It's not fair to quit covering them when they do after having accepted their premiums for however long. If AIDS is too expensive for you to want to have to worry about, just state straight out that you don't cover AIDS, so then if anyone's worried about it, they can just go to another insurer rather than paying you for years until it becomes an issue and you announce you don't want to deal with it.
Seriously, I don't understand why this is so hard. People shouldn't be bankrupted because they develop a chronic disease. We should help people avoid avoidable chronic diseases. We shouldn't spend money to do stuff that doesn't work or spend money when it's irrelevant (most back MRIs—back surgery is way more of a pain than it's worth in most conditions, so all an MRI does is tell you, "Yep, your back is messed up"...which you knew anyway), spend more money for stuff that doesn't work any better (the new name-brand cholesterol drugs that aren't any more effective than the decades-old ones have been in the news lately), and we should do the cheap things we know do work (like washing hands and following other hygeinic procedures to reduce/eliminate hospital-acquired infections like MRSA). We should all have insurance so taxpayers don't get stuck with the uninsured poor's emergency room visits for what should be primary care issues (or, for that matter, the uninsured poor's bona fide emergencies). Insurance companies should do the duties they ostensibly exist to perform without being evil in order to discourage people and increase their profit margins.
Insurance as it is now sucks. Health care, if not a right (people keep arguing that; I'm not taking a side in this post at least), is certainly one of the more important creature comforts and something any reasonable and humane person or society wouldn't want to be caught denying anyone else. So let's suck it up and be mature grown-ups about this already.
Seriously, does anyone like health insurance companies? They're just unpleasant to deal with. It's like dealing with your computer manufacturer or your cable provider except they're sneakier, they're more bureaucratic, and (most importantly) health is much more important than your failing laptop battery or the stealthy post–special introductory offer increase in your cable bill. I remember Mom spending hours on the phone trying to force our insurance company (Aetna is evil incarnate, by the way) to cover what it was supposed to, which in retrospect blows my mind, since at that point, we were all perfectly healthy. What were they trying to refuse to pay? A annual physical? A Pap smear? It's not like we were costing them a fortune in radiation treatments or dialysis or anything. We didn't even have broken bones or anything—nothing other than routine care.
I feel like most of the people who are yelling don't even know what they're yelling about. To hear them, you'd think Obama was going to go on a killing spree to take out Trig Palin, Ted Kennedy, and Stephen Hawking after converting our health care system into a socialized, bureaucratic system of meting out health care to those young and healthy citizens who were most likely to contribute to the economy (but who still might have to wait months for any treatments). Obama doesn't want any of that. I won't speak for anyone else, especially as I haven't read any of the proposed bills (hey, don't judge me; nobody else has either), but as far as Obama goes, it's pretty mainstream and reasonalble. How can you really disagree with this?
Obama's stated eight principles for successful and meaningful health care reform:
- Protect Families’ Financial Health. The plan must reduce the growing premiums and other costs American citizens and businesses pay for health care. People must be protected from bankruptcy due to catastrophic illness.
- Make Health Coverage Affordable. The plan must reduce high administrative costs, unnecessary tests and services, waste, and other inefficiencies that consume money with no added health benefits.
- Aim for Universality. The plan must put the United States on a clear path to cover all Americans.
- Provide Portability of Coverage. People should not be locked into their job just to secure health coverage, and no American should be denied coverage because of preexisting conditions.
- Guarantee Choice. The plan should provide Americans a choice of health plans and physicians. They should have the option of keeping their employer-based health plan.
- Invest in Prevention and Wellness. The plan must invest in public health measures proven to reduce cost drivers in our system—such as obesity, sedentary lifestyles, and smoking — as well as guarantee access to proven preventive treatments.
- Improve Patient Safety and Quality Care. The plan must ensure the implementation of proven patient safety measures and provide incentives for changes in the delivery system to reduce unnecessary variability in patient care. It must support the widespread use of health information technology and the development of data on the effectiveness of medical interventions to improve the quality of care delivered.
- Maintain Long-Term Fiscal Sustainability. The plan must pay for itself by reducing the level of cost growth, improving productivity, and dedicating additional sources of revenue.
But the big one for me is number four: portability of coverage. The absolute stupidest part of our health care system in my mind is that it is currently almost entirely linked to one's employer. I assume this will erode, regardless of what happens with this current attempt at reform, as Gen Y ages, since nobody is doing the work-your-whole-life-at-General-Motors kind of thing anymore. We're all changing jobs every year or two or four. (Seriously, who do you know who's working for the same company they plan to be with in five years? I may never get to that point.) If we're all going to be changing jobs every couple of years, especially if there are going to be any gaps between one job and another, the current system simply sucks. Yeah, there's COBRA to cover the gaps, but it's prohibitively expensive. And what about families? Within a period of four years or so (late high school and early college), I changed health insurance plans a ridiculous number of times: from Dad's to the COBRA Dad got after losing his job at the Federal Reserve to Mom's when she started working for the school system to Dad's when he got his new job to Mom's with Grady when Dad got called back to active duty...or something. Dental also changed, but not always in tandem with medical, so I lived in a permanent state of confusion. This is bad because even if people are on top of things and do arrange to have seamless medical coverage, there's only a certain period of time they can actually be covered. When you switch, it takes like a month to get your new card and all your information, and then you have to find a new doctor because your old one isn't covered with this plan, and then you have to wait a month or more for your appointment because new patients always seem to get screwed... So even if you've technically been covered for six months, only half of that time is time that you could actually be seeing a doctor, and that's only if you're on top of things (not like me) in making appointments before you switch insurance again.
And then there's the rest of number four: "No American should be denied coverage because of preexisting conditions." I can understand why health insurance companies developed this rule. Obviously it's not fair for someone to smoke for forty years and never have health insurance, but then when they find out they have lung cancer, the treatment of which is going to be quite expensive, to take out a health insurance policy so they only have to pay the few hundred dollars' of deductible plus a few $20 copays. (Of course, if we require everyone be covered, this can't happen...)
What's even less fair, though, is that people can be booted out of their health insurance when they turn out to have, say, breast cancer, because they didn't report it when they applied for insurance...if they didn't know it themselves at the time. Or that people who develop one of these dreaded conditions must then either stay at that job or find another with similar coverage forever, else they be left unable to purchase insurance on the private market because of this now-preexisting condition.
My mom, for example, would now be unable to purchase insurance on her own because she had a melanoma a few years back. It was entirely isolated, entirely removed, and has nothing to do with anything else that may happen in the future. It was stage zero, entirely contained, and it's been years since then, demonstrating that even if these facts were somehow mistaken, it hasn't spread. Regardless, Mom is now a cancer patient and thus anathema to all insurance providers. I mean, good thing it's something that was simple and self-contained and doesn't affect her ability to work (unlike the chronic diseases that make up most preexisting conditions), so she doesn't really have to worry that much; as long as she has a job, she'll be OK as far as health insurance goes. But for people whose illnesses preclude remaining at work? Sucks to be them.
The worst? That insurers can simply drop people from their plan if their health care becomes too expensive, regardless of whether or not it was a preexisting condition. I didn't even know this was possible until recently (thank you, plethora of indignant health care–related articles), and I am appalled. That's cheating! The whole reason people buy insurance is because they're afraid they'll develop a devastating disease that will bankrupt them. It's not fair to quit covering them when they do after having accepted their premiums for however long. If AIDS is too expensive for you to want to have to worry about, just state straight out that you don't cover AIDS, so then if anyone's worried about it, they can just go to another insurer rather than paying you for years until it becomes an issue and you announce you don't want to deal with it.
Seriously, I don't understand why this is so hard. People shouldn't be bankrupted because they develop a chronic disease. We should help people avoid avoidable chronic diseases. We shouldn't spend money to do stuff that doesn't work or spend money when it's irrelevant (most back MRIs—back surgery is way more of a pain than it's worth in most conditions, so all an MRI does is tell you, "Yep, your back is messed up"...which you knew anyway), spend more money for stuff that doesn't work any better (the new name-brand cholesterol drugs that aren't any more effective than the decades-old ones have been in the news lately), and we should do the cheap things we know do work (like washing hands and following other hygeinic procedures to reduce/eliminate hospital-acquired infections like MRSA). We should all have insurance so taxpayers don't get stuck with the uninsured poor's emergency room visits for what should be primary care issues (or, for that matter, the uninsured poor's bona fide emergencies). Insurance companies should do the duties they ostensibly exist to perform without being evil in order to discourage people and increase their profit margins.
Insurance as it is now sucks. Health care, if not a right (people keep arguing that; I'm not taking a side in this post at least), is certainly one of the more important creature comforts and something any reasonable and humane person or society wouldn't want to be caught denying anyone else. So let's suck it up and be mature grown-ups about this already.
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