The Happiness Museum

Rules for happiness: something to do,
someone to love, something to hope for.

— Immanuel Kant

Wonderful Copenhagen has opened a Happiness Museum.

Established by the Happiness Research Institute—I want a job there—the museum comprises eight rooms dedicated to the science of joy.

One room features an atlas of the world’s happiest—and unhappiest—nations. Another explores how money and politics contribute to happiness. And still others examine merriment's connection to comfort, pleasure, laughter, and smiling.

“Our hope is guests will leave a little wiser, a little happier and a little more motivated to make the world a better place,” museum director Meik Wiking told Hyperallergic.

Civil Wars

It is possible for highly intelligent people to have a useful but mistaken theory, and we don't have to pretend otherwise to show respect for these people.

— Daniel Dennett

I've given up arguing with reactionaries; I can hardly anymore argue with liberals.

Mistaken theories abound nowadays. 

If you're struggling like me to stay civil, take the advice of Tufts University philosopher Daniel Dennett.

"Just how charitable are you supposed to be when criticizing the views of an opponent?" he asks in Intuition Pumps.

Dennett offers four rules, based on research in behavioral psychology:

1. Restate your opponent's position clearly, vividly, and fairly—so much so, your opponent thanks you.
   
   
2. List any points of agreement, unless they're points of widespread agreement (such as, "Politicians aren't always candid").
   
   
3. Describe what you've learned from your opponent.
   
   
4. Rebut you opponent only after you've taken Steps 1, 2 and 3.

This four-step process warms your opponent, so she listens to you. You might actually advance your discussion.

And if she doesn't warm to you, remember what Oscar Wilde said: "In all matters of opinion, our adversaries are insane."

The Tent Angel

Navigating the streets of downtown Washington, DC, you might think the Boy Scout Jamboree is in town.

But the hundreds of tents pitched on every square inch of public land house the homeless, pushed out of shelters by Covid-19.

They're the work of one man, nicknamed "The Tent Angel."

Arnold Harvey is a 58-year-old veteran who grew up dirt poor. He promised God that, if his life ever improved, he’d help others.

His life did improve. Today he's a trash truck driver with a pretty home in the Maryland suburbs.

As he makes his nightly rounds of DC in his trash truck, Harvey drops off new camping gear whenever he spots a homeless person.

He started a tiny nonprofit called "God’s Connection Transition" a decade ago, to seek in-kind donations, so he's learned how to acquire things. 

When the pandemic hit in March, Harvey went to his local Costco and struck a deal: he'd take all the tents shoppers returned opened.

Now he delivers them in the dark to DC's homeless.

“When we get someone a tent, everything gets better,” Harvey told The Washington Post.

Suddenly homeless people are visible, and other angels come to their aid.

“I guess people don’t always see them sleeping in the grass,” Harvey said. “But you can’t ignore a tent."

Illogical

The avant-garde and the rearguard, the devout and the secular, the learned elite and the lay public all seem to want to enlist nature on their side, everywhere and always.

— Lorraine Daston

Racist claims offend most 21st century ears, no matter their source. They're not only boorish, but, as Spock would say, most illogical.

So I was surprised to hear a racist claim voiced this week during an interview on NPR.

Brandon Keith Brown, a Black classical conductor, was asked to expand on his recently penned article, "It's Time To Make Orchestras Great Again—By Making Them Blacker."

Brown argued that Whites, by design, exclude Blacks from participation in classical music, because they fear Blacks' innate performative superiority.

Were they included, Blacks would soon "dominate concert halls," as they came to "dominate basketball courts" soon after they were admitted to the NBA, Brown said.

Most illogical.

Also most illogical: the fact that NPR sanctioned Brown's claim by airing it.

The network would never permit, for example, a White biker to claim Blacks purposely exclude Whites from dirt biking the streets because they fear Whites' innate stunt-driving talents.

Racist claims like this ("Whites are better stunt drivers than Blacks") commit what philosophers call the "naturalistic fallacy."

This logical fallacy places races on a par with individuals, attributing their talents to entire races and creating convenient distinctions ("Black," "White," etc.) as if they were established by nature's law. 

It's pseudo-science to claim, "Whites are better stunt drivers than Blacks." A scientific statement would never encompass an entire class, but would be empirically about individuals and attribute a range of talents to some Whites and some Blacks.

Considering the network insists its mission is to "create a more informed public," I find NPR's willingness to broadcast eristic, disrespectful and toxic claims simply, well, fascinating.

The Mike and Joe Show

News policy is a weapon of war.
It's purpose is to wage war and not to give out information.

— Joseph Goebbels

For 40 years, the scientists at CDC have issued a weekly "morbidity report" to help doctors combat disease. Since April, the weekly report itself has been doctored by a Trump lackey named Michael Caputo.

A GOP flack at war with the "deep state," Caputo has no science creds; he's merely a low-end buildup boy—and an unseemly one, at that. 

After leaving a PR job in the army, Caputo linked up with Ollie North, helping spread American lies in Central America. He then studied advanced propaganda under Roger Stone and packed off to Moscow for six years to aid Vladmir Putin and his crooked friends. Caputo has spent the past 20 years peddling Tea Party candidates and staging paltry stunts designed to help Trump buy the Buffalo Bills at a rock-bottom price.

Now, as Trump's assistant secretary of public affairs for Health & Human Services, he's again doing the Emperor's bidding by cooking the books on Covid-19.

By way of self-justification, Caputo told Politico last week, “Our intention is to make sure that evidence, science-based data drives policy through this pandemic—not ulterior deep state motives in the bowels of CDC."

Critics attribute Caputo's propagandist style to his mentor, but it owes more to Joseph Goebbels than Roger Stone.

While Hitler waged war, his propaganda minister kept a 20-volume diary in which he formulated his playbook. 

Among the proverbs therein:

"Not every item of news should be published; rather must those who control news policies endeavor to make every item of news serve a certain purpose."

"I regard myself as responsible for the morale of the German people. From that fact I derive the right to keep out of the German press everything that is harmful or even fails to be useful."

"The Minister formulates the principle for the immediate future that in enemy reports anything that could be dangerous to us must be immediately denied. There is no need at all to examine whether a report is factually correct or not."

Unless Caputo is fired for doctoring the CDC's reports—an unlikely event—it's certain he will next turn to publicizing "alternative facts" about the virus, using $300 million of taxpayers' money he has appropriated from the CDC's operating budget.

You might call these alternative facts "bald-faced lies." 

Caputo prefers to call them "best practices." 

Goebbels would have called them "poetic facts."

In November 1944, as Germany's defeat began to look certain, Goebbels' assistant Rudolph Semmler observed that his boss "has introduced a new expression into the vocabulary of propaganda. 

"He is now using the phrase 'poetic truth' in contrast to—or rather in amplification of—the 'concrete truth.' We should describe things as they might have happened.

"Many events, he said, could not be understood unless we embroidered them a little with the 'poetic truth' and so made them understandable to the German people."

So stay tuned for The Mike and Joe Show.  

Gaslighting you with best practices.

UPDATE, SEPTEMBER 15,2020: According to breaking news reports, Michael Caputo went off his rocker yesterday. Rumors had it that Goebbels also suffered a nervous breakdown in December 1938, while writing a book he planned to title, Adolph Hitler—A Man Who Is Making History. 

UPDATE, SEPTEMBER 16, 2020: Michael Caputo left HHS today on extended medical leave. Congress is investigating his abuse of power.

UPDATE, SEPTEMBER 26, 2020: Michael Caputo has been diagnosed with Stage IV cancer. While Goebbels never suffered cancer, he loved to discuss the subject with Hitler.

UPDATE, NOVEMBER 18, 2020: Michael Caputo's dream has been smashed by Congress.

UPDATE, DECEMBER 16, 2020: Emails reveal Caputo had been pushing the herd immunity theory on CDC officials. Journalists uniformly react with scorn.

UPDATE, MARCH 19, 2021: A federal investigation has revealed that, before joining HHS as assistant secretary of public affairs, Caputo had been working for Russian state propagandists on Trump's behalf.

UPDATE, APRIL 9, 2021: Congressional investigators have released emails proving Caputo altered data from the CDC to conform with Trump's claims that Covid-19 was harmless.

UPDATE, APRIL 12, 2021: Forensic News has revealed Caputo failed to disclose to the Justice Department a lavish gift he had accepted from Russian agents just weeks before he was appointed to his role at HHS. "The failure to report his gift to the Justice Department has raised numerous questions about the true purpose of Caputo’s work, given his concurrent work with Russian spies."

The Unbearable Power of Stupid

Stupid is a great force in human affairs.

— P. J. O'Rourke

Human history is rife with stupid. 

Stupid's sway is sometimes unbearable.

In warfare, medicine, governance, engineering and product design, stupid can be tragic; but in big business the sway of stupid can be the stuff of comedy, as these four Hollywood tales make clear:

Too slow

In 1939, Eddie Mannix, an executive at MGM, insisted "Somewhere over the Rainbow" slowed the opening of The Wizard of Oz and offered a brilliant idea during the edit: cut the song. But the film's two producers threatened to quit, if the three-minute song were removed, and Mannix relented.

"Somewhere Over the Rainbow" won that year's Oscar for best original song and became Judy Garland's signature tune.

Too long

In 1961, Martin Rankin, an executive at Paramount, insisted Breakfast at Tiffany's was running too long during the edit, and offered a brilliant idea: cut "Moon River." But the director, actor, and composers objected so strenuously, Rankin relented.

The two-and-one-half minute "Moon River" earned the composers the Oscar for best original song that year and ranks today as Number 4 in the American Film Institute's list of top film songs.

Too weird

In 1985, a cadre of Columbia executives signed a 35-page memo insisting the title of director Joel Schumacher's new film was weird, and offered a brilliant idea: change St. Elmo's Fire to The Real World. Schumacher, uncertain he'd win his way, in turn instructed the film's composers to omit from the theme song's lyrics any reference to the movie's title. But the composers ignored him.

"I thought the title fit in the song," lyricist John Parr said. "In the movie, St. Elmo's is a bar. But to me St. Elmo's Fire is a magical thing glowing in the sky that holds destiny to someone. It's mystical and sacred. It's where paradise lies, like the end of the rainbow."

"St. Elmo's Fire" hit Number 1 on Billboard's Hot 100 Chart after the film's release, and remains a favorite 35 years later.

Too boring

In 1989, Disney chairman Jeffery Katzenberg insisted the three-minute ballad "Part of Your World" was "boring," and offered a brilliant idea: cut the song from The Little Mermaid. But Katzenberg relented when the two directors, the lyricist, and the animator hit the ceiling.

"Part of Your World" is today considered a classic Disney tune and the film's hallmark song. It's also thought to have inaugurated the "Disney Renaissance" and Disney's "Broadway Age."

P. J. O'Rourke is right.

Stupid is indeed a great force—maybe the greatest—in human affairs.

Decade

Goodly is 10 years old.

What began as a meager stab at search engine optimization a decade ago has become a vocation—you might say, a compulsion—of mine.

With nearly 400 thousand readers, Goodly no longer serves as a device for driving website traffic, but as a way of shouting, Hey, I'm still here.

I recently launched Blog, a new venture that's going to consume my time if it's to succeed—as, I hope, it will.

Meanwhile, God willing, Goodly will continue, pandemic or no, recession or no, civil war or no, global warming or no. 

I'm still here.

The Pleasure of Hating

Love turns, with a little indulgence, to indifference and disgust; hatred alone is immortal.

— William Hazlitt

The genteel among us can't help but see vigilantes as living symbols of Hate. But we don't always call them for what they are: sadists.

Americans didn't invent Hate; it's bred in our bones.

Wracked by civil wars, the Ancient Greeks understood Hate to represent Love's equally passionate opposite—and a source of tremendous pleasure to men who nurse it within.

But it took another 2,500 years for anyone in the West to realize how Hate is baked into our species.

Sigmund Freud—borrowing a theory from his disciple Sabina Spielrein—called Love the "self-preservative instinct" and Hate the drive that compels us to "lead organic life back into the inanimate state." 

In other words, Hate manifests our species' self-destructive "death instinct."

When I see vigilantes, I think of Freud, grappling as he was with the horrors of World War I. And I see vigilantes' conspicuous Hate—their vivid displays of anger and aggression—as open expressions of a narcissistic neurosis; as the "dark side of love" on parade for all to watch.

Their conspicuous kind of Hate—Hate, American Style—reveals that Americans crave discord, division, destruction, and death.

It shows Americans love to hate.

Can a second civil war be far away?

Rich People

Rich people in cars never look at people on the street. Poor ones always do.

― Lucia Berlin

 

The rich can't empathize, according to a new study appearing in the Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin.

Researchers at New York University and the University of California, Irvine asked subjects from various economic classes to examine photos of other people and describe the others' emotional states. The poor scored much higher than the rich in the test.

The researchers concluded that, while poor folks can read others' emotions accurately, the rich lack empathy. 

"Lower-class individuals—owing to their greater levels of cultural interdependence—may appraise other human beings as more relevant to their goals and well-being than do higher-class individuals,” the researchers wrote. 

In other words, the rich have little use for the poor—so objectify them—while the poor folks are "people who need people."

Another new study published in the Journal of Personality and Social Psychology found that the rich often deny class privilege "by increasing their claims of personal hardships and hard work." 

The rich "cover privilege in a veneer of meritocracy,” the researchers wrote, because "evidence of privilege threatens recipients’ self-regard by calling into question whether they deserve their successes."

Gasbagging

The fewer the words, the truer the words.

— Robert Brault

Logorrhea, the gasbag's debility, eventually becomes our affliction as well.

That's because, through his torrent of words, the gasbag seeks to divert us from the inconvenient truth.

We often hear, in regard to politicians, talk about gaslighting; we hear much less about gasbagging.

Gasbagging—bloviating to distract and cover up—has become the weapon of choice for many politicos, especially ones on the right. Personally speaking, I can't stomach the tactic. I associate it with bullies and con men.

George Orwell warned against gasbagging in his essay Politics and the English Language. 

"The great enemy of clear language is insincerity," Orwell said. 

When confronted by an inconvenient truth, the insincere gasbag—then deny they're "playing politics" when that's precisely what they're doing.

"In our age there is no such thing as ‘keeping out of politics,’" Orwell says. "All issues are political issues, and politics itself is a mass of lies, evasions, folly, hatred, and schizophrenia."

"The fewer the words, the better the prayer," Martin Luther said. I like that formula.

So, let us pray: 

Lord, make them SHUT UP.

Amen.

When's the Last Time You Got Laid?

"Off," I mean. Laid off.

I cringe each time a connection on LinkedIn opens his or her post, "After X years, I'm leaving my position at..."

As someone who was once laid off, I know how deeply anxious you feel. What's going to happen to me?

Much of the advice given to the laid-off, though well meaning, is shallow. It comes from Hallmark cards and self-published self-help books. 

Here's mine, take it or leave it. It comes from experience.

• Don't surrender to depression and fear. That's easy to do, I know, but don't do it.
  
  
• Don't self-medicate. 
  
  
• Don't spend money you don't have.
  
  
• Don't take advice from idiots (they're legion).
  
  
• Don't rely on a dusty old resume. Study state-of-the-art resumes and get outside help with yours, if you need it. 
  
  
• Don't spend hours applying for jobs on line. Work your network. And build on it as you do. 
  
  
• Don't jump at low-level sales opportunities you're offered (those businesses merely want to exploit you).
  
  
• Don't posture. Your usual baloney isn't welcome in a pandemic.
  
  
• Don't volunteer, unless your heart is in it and your efforts are valued (rare).
  
  
• Don't waste time. Spend four hours of every business day networking and four hours exercising. In the early mornings and evenings, read and participate in online workshops. Take the late evenings and weekends off.
  
  
• Don't surrender to "monkey mind." Try mindfulness mediation. Be patient with it.
  
  
• Don't bank on the "geographic cure." Moving to Austin or Atlanta or Anchorage won't land you a new job.    
  
  
• Don't fantasize a new life. If you think it's time for a self "reinvention," realize it will take years, not weeks, to pay off.

What's your advice to the laid-off?

They need sage advice.