Random impressions -- not entirely topicalOne of m...

2007-08-18T10:53:00.000-07:00

Random impressions -- not entirely topical

One of my history teachers called it "the mighty triumverant" -- race, class, and gender. His point was that studies that try to differentiate along just one of those axes (man vs. woman, rich vs. poor, black white, etc) are much less convincing, and yet adding other measures (urban vs. rural, for example) seldom adds quite so much to the picture.

That being said, it often amazes me how much plain old seventies-vintage feminism has to say. I'm not saying that I want to go preaching the gospel of Dworkin, but some pretty fundamental inequalities are often ignored. Another thing that might interest you -- on bloggingheads tv (a Robert Wright project) there are periodic discussions of why there aren't more women bloggers.

That Pascal quote is one of my favorites.

We aren't good at calculating risk. We get more worried about terrorism than car accidents. We think of cities as dangerous, and yet New Yorkers tend to live longer than most Americans. On cars, my best guess is that we feel we have control (or responsibility), and so they are less scary than terrorists. But with a number of medical issues, I don't understand why we aren't better informed. In the U.S. (I'm assuming you're from the Great White North) at least, maybe it has to do with science education, or lack thereof.

Visigoths -- they are always around. It's actually not so much a separate group, as a set of behaviors that each of us sink into (often exacerbated by failure to go for a walk). I think the upside is worth the occasional barbarian invasion. Sooner or later, if you hang around, you will channel your inner Visigoth. It's unpleasant at the time, but, I don't know, I guess educational.

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Random impressions -- not entirely topicalOne of m...