A Nation Divided

Well, here we are again; behavior has consequences. Poor personal behavioral choices grow into societal problems.

 

For four or five years, responsibility for a divided America has been pinned on Donald Trump. The media and the opposition party led the way, giving him no credit and all the blame. Citizens were drawn in and equally divided by the merciless news coverage and personal attacks on one side and by the bombastic self-promotion and polemic tweets on the other. The media expect everyone to agree that he had not one single redeeming quality or made one good policy decision? 

 

There certainly was a middle ground, but no one was interested in finding it. After the 2020 election, those who claimed to be distressed by the Trump-inspired divisiveness did not let up on their mocking, criticism and name-calling, while those backing the president were equally combative. Neither acted as if unity was an important goal. It's like a habit they can’t seem to break. Irreconcilable differences drive the chatter on social media and in the streets. 

 

Looking dispassionately at the record reveals that President Trump made some good decisions and some terrible ones. Employment and the economy improved at a rapid pace. Operation Warp Speed cleared the way for a rapid approval of vaccines. There's more peace in the world with fewer American troops overseas. But frequently his personal behavior was appalling. 

 

No doubt President Biden will likewise make some good decisions and some poor ones. Those on his side will praise the successes; those on other side will heap on the criticism.

"The line separating good and evil passes not through states, nor between classes, nor between political parties either – but right through every human heart -- and through all human hearts.”  – Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn, from The Gulag Archipelago. 

Unfortunately, Americans are not in the mood for a nuanced, nobody's perfect, stance toward our leadership. They are fighting mad and will continue to choose insults over rational debate. The media revels in this attitude, and they will do everything they can to promote and stir it up to keep their ratings high and their audience on edge. By abandoning perspective, discipline and critical thinking, we allow ourselves to be whipped up into these ideological frenzies.

We can choose to be influenced by these one-sided presentations or see them for what they are – blatant manipulation and propaganda. In many cases, journalism has been replaced by editorializing pretending to be reporting along with outright scare tactics. Americans could stop reacting, take control and demand better, but they don't seem interested.

 

Yes, the nation is divided with no end in sight, but it’s no one’s fault but our own.

Manifesting, Really?

About 40 years ago a consultant descended on the company where I was working to meet with all employees (who later magically became associates) to introduce them to the power of what he called “visioning.” According to him, visioning was the key to achieving your goals in life and at work. He had convinced the executive team that harnessing such power would thrust the company forward.

 

Participants need only form a strong vision in their minds and things would turn out favorably. If it didn’t work you weren’t doing it right. As would be expected, employees dutifully attended training, and then returned to their desks to do their jobs in the usual way. Like most business fads, it quickly faded. The only benefit was that someone caught daydreaming could plead visioning as a defense.

 

Until recently, I assumed that fad had died – but no! It merely got rebranded and now is being sold to individuals as manifesting.

 

I found the details on this site from August 2019, “The Do’s and Don’ts of Manifesting.” 

 

“Manifesting is cultivating the experience of what it is that you want to feel — and then living and believing in that experience so that you can allow it to come into form.” It can be used to “attract whatever you want, whether that’s a successful business, good health, a relationship or even a material object.” There’s no limit to the power of manifesting as long as you align with the loving energy of the universe. (It sounds a lot like praying that Notre Dame will win the football game.) 

 

It is further defined as “the process of vibrating at a high frequency so that you become a vibrational match with the Universe and can co-create your world.”

 

According to the site’s own survey, a vast majority are confused about how to do it right. (Maybe they’re wondering why it’s taking so long for their dreams to come true when they are concentrating/vibrating so hard.) 

 

But then come the disclaimers. Practitioners err in thinking that exactly what they want should magically appear. It doesn’t work that way because the Universe is wiser and may have different plans. You may sometimes get what you want, but you don’t have total control.

 

Even though it may initially sound loony and airy-fairy, there are some positive messages. The video on the site emphasizes focusing more on what you have that’s working, being grateful, instead of stressing about what you don’t have or how long it is taking. This is a good message, which I call perspective and have written about here about 150 times.

 

That’s followed by more good advice about not trying to force or control everything. Don’t sweat the small stuff, be aware of your financial situation and be in control your feelings.

 

When I first read all this alignment with the vibrations of the Universe stuff, it seemed laughable. But deeper down it looks more like a religion for the non-religious: “We can trust that an energy beyond our own is working on our behalf and that everything is working out for us — even if we don’t know exactly when or how it will happen.” Readers were advised to be patient and practice manifesting not just on special occasions but every day, the same advice you would hear about prayer in any church, temple or mosque. 

 

The problem is that some people are selling this as a standalone, magic solution to all life’s problems, while the part about taking responsibility is easily overlooked. You can’t just sit down and wish things into existence. The Lord does help those who help themselves.

What Are The Real Solutions?

As the COVID-19 recovery grinds on, it should have become apparent that there are two kinds of epidemics. One is an actual epidemic, like the we are experiencing that spreads from one infected person to the next. The other is a metaphorical epidemic, the kind we have been hearing about from newscasters, bureaucrats and politicians every other week for many years. 

These metaphorical epidemics include teen vaping, obesity, retirement insecurity, texting while driving, gambling, drug abuse, violent videogames, sleep deprivation and any other widespread behavior that can be classified as a public health crisis. One recently pushed out of the headlines was the opioid epidemic.

Authorities bemoan the situation, wringing their hands over each of these problems, hoping to gain support for government policies and regulations to get them under control. 

These epidemics are the result of individual choices and, except for the dynamics of peer pressure, are not spread from person to person. They are behavioral choices freely made. 

That is the key; they are behavioral. And as it says in the heading above, behavior has consequences. Wise decisions generally lead to favorable outcomes; poor decisions guarantee the opposite. America does not experience metaphorical epidemics because a virus from China got out of control. Americans make choices and watch the bad outcomes spread until too many of us are overweight, struggling to make ends meet, simultaneously parenting grown children and aging parents, stumbling drowsily through each day, while filling garages and rented storage spaces with all the junk we thought we couldn’t live without.

Regulations and restrictions try to solve some behavioral problems by limiting the freedom of everyone, but they are inefficient at best and often totally ineffective with serious unintended consequences, the development of black markets, for example. (Note that teen vaping, though a problem, is much healthier than teen smoking – except if they are forced to buy supplies from street vendors; and no hard evidence exists regarding violent videogames.) 

The only Real American Solutions to these metaphorical epidemics are widespread changes in behavior, changes from destructive choices to wiser choices. What to do is not a mystery. It usually means choosing the opposite: saving instead of spending; resisting drugs and gambling along with the pressure to participate; eating and drinking moderately; going to bed on time; being materially satisfied instead of yearning for more. Either side has consequences: one leads to epidemics, the other to favorable outcomes.

Some will argue that it has always been this way. Society has always had people preaching repentance lest bad things happen. That is true, but as we have moved into a new millennium, consequences have become progressively less forgiving. The speed and reach of communications and transactions make the outcomes swifter and more far-reaching at an increasingly faster pace: computer speed doubling every 18 months allows everyone to find and buy nearly anything and having it delivered to the house the next day using the phone in your pocket – impossible, barely imaginable, 20 years ago! 

Each week I highlight a number of real examples, fitting them into one of five categories. Poor choices in a dimension can predict not only a repeat of that behavior, but also similar behavior in the same dimension. Faulty critical thinking in one area, for example, predicts problematic decisions in many other areas. Classifying behavior into dimensions makes it easier to organize an investigation and recognize trends. Those examples clearly show serious trends in the wrong direction in each of the dimensions listed above (and defined here) that lead directly to unwanted outcomes and metaphorical epidemics. 

Over nine years I have accumulated 940 examples of these trends, including some flashback reviews on recent Fridays. Sometimes I predicted news stories years ahead by just watching for patterns or likely unintended consequences. These examples are all symptoms of deeper behavioral choices.

America doesn’t need more political promises, regulations and miracle cures. Those epidemics are the accumulation of so many individual bad choices in the five key dimensions, compounded by a culture dominated by low expectations and a mood of tolerance for poor decisions. The world is moving faster; we can’t regulate our way out of behavioral problems. The only Real Solution is to set and begin to live by higher societal standards

Flashback - Restaurant Menus

[Last Month I posted a flashback to “Behavior Has Consequences” from September 2011. The following month I used the regulations intended to make restaurant menus more transparent to show problems in each of the behavioral dimensions. Here, from October 2011, is “Restaurant Menus Demonstrate My Point.”]

Last time I reinforced the need for critical thinking by pointing out the dubious value of self-reporting surveys. Whether about politics or personal habits, they tend to be an inaccurate reflection of actual choices and behavior. I wonder why news agencies spend so much time on them. Here is an article from CBS that reinforces the point and gives good examples of conflicts within the other four dimensions as well. It’s about healthier menu choices in restaurants.

The report begins, “while 47 percent of Americans say they'd like restaurants to offer healthier items like salads and baked potatoes, only 23 percent tend to order those foods…” Since the information comes from different surveys, we must be careful, but the general behavior, if not the specific percentages, is confirmed by sales figures presented later in the report. Again there seems to be a significant discrepancy between what people say and how they actually behave.

As we read further, they remind us, “The government has stepped up its oversight — and influence — over the industry that it blames for America's expanding waistline.” This blatant admission that the government does not blame people for eating the wrong foods but blames the restaurant industry, leads the government to seek solutions by regulating restaurants instead of expecting personal responsibility to change behavior. When they find out this requirement of listing calories and offering more healthy choices is not working, what is their next option? How do they escalate when they don’t trust us to do the right thing? Next logical steps might be to increase threats to our personal freedom, perhaps minor at first, but where would it end? As this controlling philosophy remains predominant in the minds of government officials, they will feel justified in regulating many of our other choices.

Later the report cites efforts of a couple of restaurants to conform to the regulations. They don’t mention that in one way or another we are paying for the additional food preparation, research and reprinting of menus; but as we are strong in economic understanding, we are all aware of this. Like any other attempt to solve a behavior problem by attacking symptoms with regulations, it inevitably leads to higher costs for the public – not unlike the additional fees that came on the heels of consumer credit card protection – but it does not solve the problem. Most Americans and the government have yet to learn the main lesson of economic understanding – new regulations create added costs that are not absorbed by the business but are passed along to the customer.

Finally, why don’t people choose the healthy menu items? Examples in the report list as reasons: peer pressure and that “healthier foods also are usually among the most expensive menu items.” Both reasons relate to perspective: overly caring about the opinions of other people and not looking at the effects of today’s decisions on long-term health outcomes. 

All this effort and regulation tries to solve a problem (unhealthy eating) brought on by a behavioral problem (a failure in discipline). 

This single article, read from a behavioral standpoint, reinforces my point that weaknesses in the five key behavioral dimensions are the root cause of most of our contemporary crises, and therein lie the solutions, not in any outside programs or government interventions no matter how well intentioned.

Flashback Fridays

Now that the count of these short essays nears 900, it makes sense to review some of the better examples from the past. I explained on November 15 why the Real American Solutions must come from Americans themselves. Most of the crises we face individually and as a society are the direct result of individual decisions, not government action or inaction.

Behavior has consequences. Ill-advised decisions and actions lead to bad outcomes. Individual bad outcomes build on one another combining into what people consider national problems – the country moving in the wrong direction. To turn things around, to mitigate these crises and epidemics that we hear so much about on the news requires better decisions, leading usually to the opposite actions, saving instead of spending, for example, to improve retirement prospects. But that is just a single example. There are so many others.

One way to make sense of the myriad of possible decisions and actions is to categorize similar actions into dimensions, as I have done here. Poor choices in each of the areas of Critical Thinking, Economic Understanding, Perspective, Responsibility and Discipline lead to similar bad outcomes.

The purpose of these essays is to help readers develop two skills: recognizing behavior as the driving force behind consequences either good or bad, and being able to assign problematic behaviors to a dimension to see similarities. The result can be an “ah-ha” moment, identifying and seeing in a new light the errors of our communities and of ourselves. This understanding can lead to better outcomes, less stressful lives and even better voting decisions. 

So, with 900 examples to choose from, it shouldn’t be necessary to provide so many new examples. Some of the older ones will do just as well. It’s not like we’ve seen any significant progress over the past ten years. Americans are still making the same mistakes. The only differences today are that new technologies help to spread bad ideas faster and that almost any current example is far more likely to be politicized, which gives everyone an easy way to place the blame somewhere else and ignore their own contribution to the problem. 

Beginning soon, I will review some of the oldies-but-goodies from these many examples of poor choices and post them as Flashback Friday specials. These are still a relevant starting point to practice the skill of focusing on behavior instead of looking for new policies, promises of miracles and other unrealistic solutions. 

Real American Solutions?

What are the real American solutions; what is real about them, and what are they solving?

First, what needs solving? The problem is that Americans are not satisfied with the direction of the country. This link leads to a graph of weekly Gallup Polls (with the data points below) showing “satisfaction with the way things are going in the U.S.” from 1979 to the present. Unfortunately the graph is split into quintiles and has no 50% line making it hard to see a majority. But it would be reasonable to expect that if at least half the people are satisfied, we are doing OK.

The last time the number on the satisfied column reached even 40% was July 2005. We are going on 15 consecutive years with 60% or more dissatisfied. Herein lies the problem.

Furthermore, what are people dissatisfied with? The list is a familiar one and never seems to change: the obesity epidemic, retirement insecurity, drug and alcohol addiction, teen smoking and vaping, declining educational system and student performance, sleep deprivation, consumer fraud, smartphone addiction, science illiteracy, spiraling healthcare costs, deceptive advertising, media-driven fears and hype, health and financial scams, income inequality, frivolous lawsuits, gun violence, the demonization of big business and many more.

Life continues to grow more complex. Our children must be protected from Internet predators, school shooters, violent videogames, drugs, too much screen time, tobacco, faulty highchairs and car seats, laundry soap and other household chemicals, dangerous toys and insufficiently padded playgrounds. Adults must to be warned about the dangers of ladders, power tools, tobacco, alcohol and texting while driving (or walking). Students’ science and math scores are declining. Americans are eating too much, spending more screen time amusing and competing for attention on social media causing them to become angrier and more isolated and spending more money than they earn. Advertisers seem to invent new problems as quickly as they try to con us into buying their miracle products to cure the old ones.

It’s not just President Trump’s fault. The Gallup graph spans the administrations of eight presidents and 20 congressional elections. We seem to keep asking government to fix it; but if government could fix it, we should see some evidence of at least some progress over the past 40 years. In fact, government has been fighting a “war “on poverty and another on drugs for longer than that with nothing to show for it but a stable poverty level and an opioid epidemic. Government got involved in student loans and mortgages to what end? Government is the wrong American solution!

A careful review of the problems shows that most of them are caused by individual behaviors resulting in poor individual problems. The only reason they become national problems is that they spread and accumulate across society. People eat too much, spend too much and fall for advertising tactics, not because of the government or any other outside agent. They make choices. Make the opposite choice and get the opposite outcome, a favorable outcome.

As evidence of this, twice a week for almost 450 weeks, I have been giving examples of how unwise behavior in one or more of the five key behavioral dimensions leads to unhappy consequences, many of which are listed above. Wiser behavior in those dimensions may not solve everything, but it’s an excellent place to start. We can think and act our way out of most of those bad consequences, which is far superior to sitting back and waiting for someone else to bail us out, especially after seeing few positive results over the last 40 years.

Behavior and Consequences

An article in one of my news feeds caught my eye recently. The title was “How To Predict Your Future.” It was based somewhat on the same premise as this blog, except that it concerns itself with predicting individual futures, whereas I have generalized it to apply to the future of society as a whole. Past behavior predicts future behavior, and those behaviors almost always dictate how satisfactory the results will be.

About individual results he says, “It’s not about what you want — it’s about what you do.” Look at your habits and decide whether they are the ones needed to reach goals. Don’t just set goals and assume the good intentions will see you through. The same can be said of societies. 

Just because a couple of us agree doesn’t convince me, so I dug deeper. 

This Psychology Today article claims the maxim is too simplistic and depends on a lot of factors:

•        High-frequency, habitual behaviors are more predictive than infrequent behaviors.
•        Predictions work best over short time intervals. 
•        The anticipated situation must be essentially the same as the past situation that activated the behavior.
•        The behavior must not have been extinguished by corrective or negative feedback.  
•        The person must remain essentially unchanged. 
•        The person must be fairly consistent in his or her behaviors. 

These are reasonable objections. Of course if a person is not exposed to the same situations or if he has gone through a  change brought about by a personal realization or outside intervention, the same actions will not repeat. People can quit smoking, give up drugs or turn away from a criminal lifestyle.

But these arguments apply more to an outside authority or counselor using records to judge whether someone needs professional help (or incarceration). In daily life though, there are people who almost always drive too fast regardless of the number of tickets issued and people who don't pass up the snack food aisle or the corner coffee shop. It's not the big things that catch up to people in the long run; it's the accumulation of small habits with unnoticeable consequences the lead to obesity, retirement insecurity and car crashes.

An example comes from the medical field.  A study to determine which was a better predictor of statin patients’ adherence to their prescriptions found that attitudes about taking medicine as directed were not as strong as past medication-refill behavior. The conclusion was “that past prescription-refill behavior is a better predictor of medication adherence,” which is fortunate since the refills can be tracked electronically.

In academics a 2018 article states, “Your behavior in high school could predict your income.” The study began in 1960 with 345,000 American high school students, following up with “about 80,000 of them 11 years later and another [follow up] for nearly 2,000 of them 50 years later.” Those who performed well “were all associated with career prestige at the 11-year mark and higher income at the 50-year mark.”

Of course past behavior is not a perfect predictor of future behavior (and the consequent future outcomes), but we don’t usually need to be perfect when dealing with individuals or groups. General trends are enough to predict whether America will continue to head in what most consider to be the wrong direction. Several times in the past eight years I have written about predicting outcomes months in advance. Here is just one called "How to Predict the Future." 

In another case I criticized the panic resulting from an investigative report dubbing lean beef trimmings as pink slime. Anyone with a trace of critical thinking would have passed it off as ridiculous; but people did react, and a few years later ABC News settled a defamation case with the meat processor for $177 million.

Last spring I argued that constantly telling children scary lies is a form of abuse. One example I used was the story about the dwindling polar bear population. This week news broke with the headline: Canadian “University dumps professor who found polar bears thriving despite climate change.” (The university apparently favors such abuse.)

Likewise, I wrote in early 2015 that we must deal with our own problems by choosing healthier behavior and not “wait for the next election” to solve everything.  How right I was!

There are far too many examples bearing out the behavior/consequences link for it to be ignored or dismissed.

Rewards for Not Paying Attention

Should people be rewarded for not paying attention or for pretending they didn’t know about dangers that have been well publicized to the point that they are common knowledge? 

First, a less dire example of well-known information: a study hitting the Internet and the airways recently revealed that “Washing your hands under running water may be a better way to stop the spread of infections than using a hand sanitizer.” The hand sanitizer can be nearly as effective as washing hands for removing flu viruses, provided both are done properly. It just takes longer.

In laboratory experiments “it took about 30 seconds for the sanitizer to eliminate all the flu virus in the saline samples, but more than 4 minutes for the sanitizer to get rid of flu in the mucus samples.” From the lab tests they moved to a more real-life situation by putting mucus directly on people’s fingertips. When it was given time to dry (for 40 minutes), the hand sanitizer killed the flu virus within 30 seconds. But in a more realistic situation where the mucus was still moist, it took about 4 minutes of rubbing for the flu virus to be completely eliminated.

Proper hand washing removed traces of the virus in both cases in about 30 seconds, whether the participants used soap or not. The benefit is not from the soap, but from the rubbing under running water. 

No one is likely to rub the hand sanitizer for 4 minutes or alternatively to let their hands dry after sneezing for 40 minutes, but neither do many people spend half a minute scrubbing under running water. When a sink is not available the alcohol is a good option. 

That’s what we know today, but we had substantially the same information 10 years ago. From Live Science in October 2009: “Hand washing with ordinary soap and water is the most effective way to remove germs. But when you're on the go, alcohol-based hand sanitizers are tremendously effective in preventing the spread of the seasonal flu.” They gave 20 seconds for washing and 15 for the sanitizer, so the latest study just worked a little on the details. It wasn’t really news.

This is just one everyday example of how the media likes to present old news as some brand new revelation wrapped in the cloak of the latest study.

In light of that consider the opioid epidemic. Within the last two weeks, “OxyContin maker Purdue Pharma LP filed for bankruptcy protection…succumbing to pressure from more than 2,600 lawsuits alleging the company helped fuel the deadly U.S. opioid epidemic.” Nearly every state, numerous cities and counties and many others insist that the company “aggressively marketed prescription painkillers while misleading doctors and patients about their addiction and overdose risks.”

Any money awarded will not bring back even one of the 400,000 lives lost between 1999 and 2017, but the various levels of government hope to be able to confiscate money from drug company profits to remedy the situation rather than taking from tax payers.

My question is: what are they going to do with this money? Treatment is no doubt an option. Perhaps they will fund stocks of Naloxone (sometimes sold under the brand name Narcan). 

Of course, awareness will surely be part of the plan. But with the opioid epidemic in the news daily, with current Public Service Announcements and with the subject sure to come up in the upcoming presidential campaigns, what more can they do to get the word out? The company may have been playing fast and loose with the truth in the past, but now their website clearly states, “OXYCONTIN® exposes patients and other users to the risks of opioid addiction, abuse, and misuse, which can lead to overdose and death.” 

With so much information available, should compensation be available to everyone who becomes addicted from now on? At what point does society expect people to recognize and deal with the danger? In the case of cigarettes it has taken decades – people are still suing tobacco companies over risks that have been widely known for 50 years or more, but they claim to be victims. 

If risky or irresponsible behavior continues to be rewarded even well after the risks are known, problems will never be solved.

Treating Symptoms

Driving around in the car listening to the radio the other day, I heard back-to-back public service announcements. 

The first was the sad story of the kid sitting in the corner of the playground without enough energy to play because he was hungry. It told me that one out of six kids in America is hungry and there is no reason for it. Donations would presumably help get food to the kid and solve the problem.

Someone at the station may not have been paying attention because the second PSA had the same theme, except this time it said that one out of five kids in America is hungry. I didn’t pay close enough attention to tell if this was a solicitation from the same charitable organization. I was too busy thinking about the underlying messages.

These PSAs actually led me to wonder about two questions. First, where did those seemingly iffy statistics come from? With about 74 million children in America, the difference between one in five and one in six is about 2.5 million kids. Are they hungry or not? But that’s just nitpicking.

The more important question is why are we only treating the symptoms? Hungry kids on the playground are the result of kids not being fed at home. Why are around 30 million families not feeding their kids? This is not a question anyone seems interested in answering – not these organizations and not the government. We just hear lamentations about how unfair it is that the food is not distributed more justly.

It’s hard to believe, especially at a time of full employment and help-wanted signs up everywhere, that all those families have just fallen on hard times. There must be a sizable percentage where people just plain didn’t acknowledge that it was an important enough consideration to be able to feed their kids before having them. In some cases she may have thought about how cute babies are and how having one would make her happier. In other cases he may have thought how cute she was and how getting her into bed would make him happier. When the consequences of those behaviors come calling, he may or may not even stick around and she can always look to the government to help bail her out.

Meanwhile the government has programs to feed the family while those other programs from the PSAs try to find ways to move the food around so the kid gets a good breakfast or a sandwich for lunch. Such systems are treating the kids almost as hostages. They are hungry and need to eat, so no one addresses the underlying issue of parental responsibility! Over and over we treat the symptoms and never dig any deeper to solve the core problem.

What’s worse is that by treating the symptoms, nothing was being done to discourage the same behavior by this generation or to discourage the same in the next. Whenever society decides to shelter people from consequences of their actions, they have less motivation to change, and others that observe this dynamic are less inclined to view those same decisions as problematic.  Of course, society can't let the kids go hungry and to confront irresponsible parents is branded as lacking compassion. Later everyone sits around wringing hands and wondering why the War on Poverty has not reduced the poverty rate after 50+ years in operation; but few understand why we will probably be hearing the same statistics 50 years from now unless something changes.

An Invitation to Read Them All!

As the latest poll shows 63% of Americans think the country is headed in the wrong direction, here is the 800^th in a series of messages that began in 2011. Most contain examples of failures in the five behavioral dimensions listed above. The purpose is not to “beat a dead horse,” but to show readers how to identify similar examples in their own lives and be able to classify them into the dimensions.

The title is Real American Solutions, because I believe that the future of America lies not in more government programs but in a nationwide effort to improve in these five key areas. 

Behavior has consequences, and consequences are predictable. Wise choices usually lead to happy outcomes; careless behavior leads to problems. As individuals make unwise choices in five key areas, trends develop across the entire society leading to unwanted outcomes.

These outcomes are expressed on the television and Internet news as the crises and epidemics of the day. But these societal problems don’t emerge from nowhere. They can, in very many cases, be traced back to individual choices. The government did not cause the obesity epidemic and retirement insecurity, for example, so why do we expect government to solve them? Critical thinking aligned with basic economic understanding can help people avoid many of the consumer fraud and deceptive/questionable advertising traps better than some distant, slow moving, bureaucratic protection agency. The same is true in so many other areas; wise behavior in the dimensions leads to individual happiness, which compounds into positive societal outcomes. 

So the many examples given are really practice exercises to spread the word that what we need is better choices and actions, not more ineffective programs. As more people become versed in the behavioral model, they will begin to question and challenge some of their own actions and those they observe. Well meaning politicians and advocates will not be able to get away with their faulty logic and top-down solutions, imposed through legal force or false guilt. (The ocean is not full of plastic because we use too many straws or drink too much soda!)

The hidden benefit is that behavior can be observed and described. It moves us out of the realm of blaming and assigning dastardly motives to everything we disagree with. A person’s motive or attitude is irrelevant as long as they do the right thing. If they do or say the wrong thing, it is easy to point that out without calling them evil, stupid or hateful. 

But being easy doesn’t mean it happens very often. These are habits to break.

Think of it as behavioral capitalism. Adam Smith wrote that if each person worked in his own best interest (economically), the outcome for the whole would improve. Likewise, if everyone makes a determined effort to be fitter and healthier, to have a more secure retirement, to get enough sleep, not to be lured in by ads for phony remedies or by empty promises about superficial happiness, and not to become stressed out by the constant litany of negative news coverage, the crises and epidemics go away.

There are 799 other entries and more to come – with a continued emphasis on behavior and not politics. I never seem to run out of material. Some from years ago pop up on the favorites list occasionally. The only difference between the early ones and the more recent ones are the examples. There should be something for everyone. So I encourage readers to “read ‘em all” (and let me know where I might have missed the point – my words are my behavior and open to critique; just don’t call me names!)

Power of the Behavioral Model

I have mentioned before how correctly using the behavioral model eliminates the kind of name-calling and attribution of negative motives that are so common. Using the model requires a little skill and practice, but mostly paying attention.

It’s based on the old adage of punish the behavior and not the child. Good parents don’t call their children bad; they ask for better behavior.

As an easy example, take the spouse (or teen) coming home later than expected. The other party is waiting up, feeling worried and upset, ready to pounce when the door opens. “You promised to be home by X! Don’t you care about my feelings? You are so inconsiderate! You don’t care about me (or your family)!” And on it goes. The other person gets defensive, possibly angry, especially if there is a good explanation – some accident or emergency.

The behavior is coming home late. Both can agree. Even if there is not a good reason, there may still be a solution that both can agree on without antagonistic remarks. But in the heat of the moment, it’s hard to discuss only behavior without affixing blame and bad intentions.

This is hard even for journalists who we expect to be objective. This Atlantic article published a few days after the Lincoln Memorial incident is instructive. By then several videos had become available showing different sides of the story, but people still couldn’t stick to the facts – they couldn’t report the behavior without assigning motives.

In the original picture, a student, “wearing a ‘Make America Great Again’ hat, smiles before an Omaha tribal elder, a confrontation viewers took as an act of aggression by a group of white youths against an indigenous community – and by extension, people of color more broadly.” The behavior was standing, wearing a certain hat and smiling. It was automatically racist. He didn’t just hate the individual; he hated all Native Americans as well as every other minority. The smile was called a smirk, when it could have meant he felt nervous having an adult in his personal space beating on a drum.

Later video showed that the tribal elder moved toward the student (not the other way around). Which was the act of aggression? Possibly neither. We don’t know what they were thinking. Neither said anything to indicate what they were thinking, but observers on both sides were sure they knew. The tribal elder later said it felt hostile “and caused him and his companions to fear for their safety.” In that case why did he move forward? What behavior gave him that impression? Follow-up questions are called for.

The explosion of emotion led to condemnation on social media of the student, and by extension, other students at his school, the school itself and even Catholic education! No behavior to support any of this – but let’s throw in some death threats.

The story was much more complex, but most people made up their minds and moved on. The article even says about the students, “their actual intentions and motivations seem vital to any account of what took place. But not only can we never really know what those were, they also don’t matter once the original video has been shot and shared.”

Had this happened only 15 years ago, the incident would have gone unnoticed except for the people involved. Those heckling the students would have felt satisfied that they stood up for their beliefs. The students would have gone home with a story of an unexpected confrontation with a tribal elder. He, in turn, may have felt proud of his role.

But thanks to new technology, national news got to broadcast erroneous first impressions. Even with new evidence, the New York Times tried to soften their original take by reporting a revised opinion “that an explosive convergence of race, religion and ideological beliefs – against a national backdrop of political tension – set the stage for the viral moment.” Of course uninvolved citizens across the country got to express outrage for or against the student(s) complete with name-calling and insults. It’s mob mentality carried out on smart phones.

It’s easy to look at behavior and jump to conclusions. It’s also gratifying, if we can uncover a conclusion that satisfies our own preconceived prejudices. The article itself even calls a MAGA hat “an almost perfect avatar for apparent white nationalism.” It’s a sad state when a hat can set off such an emotional firestorm! Behavior like this does not lead to a happy ending, and it's time we all stopped jumping to a favored conclusion and blaming the other side long enough to figure that out.

Behavior Matters More Than Politics

Tomorrow is Election Day and many people will be going to the polls hoping to send their candidates to Washington or to the state capital to solve all our problems, or at least the most pressing ones.

The problem is, as I have written so many times here, the solutions to most of those problems lie not in Washington but with individuals choosing better behaviors. More evidence of this came last week in an article from CNN with the headline: “How to evade the leading cause of death in the United States.” 

The biggest killer of Americans between the ages of 1 and 44 in 2016 (the last year with available data) was unintentional injury. The detailed explanation shows that these are directly related to behavior, actions and decisions of the victims or of those close to them.

The first category is basic home safety. The main problem here is fires, which killed 2,775 people and injured 11,025 more. Most fires started when someone was cooking. Experts recommend simple things like having working smoke alarms and carbon monoxide detectors along with a fire extinguisher in every house. Many cities have volunteer programs to inspect and install smoke alarms for people who cannot afford them. Other home accidents are falls and drownings.

Next comes basic road safety. Here CNN reviews the requirements for children’s car seats and booster seats. But a huge problem is distracted driving, especially cellphone use while driving. Do we really need more laws to fix this?

Third on the list is basic bicycle safety. After checking the bike itself to make sure it is in good working order, it’s important to make sure others easily see you. Reflectors, bright clothing and a light at night are critical accessories. The article reminds bikers to ride on the right side of the road, with the traffic, obey other traffic laws and watch the road ahead for obstacles. “Cyclists also suggest tucking your right pant leg into your sock and your shoelaces into your shoe, so they don’t get caught in your bike chain.” And most important, always wear a helmet.

This is only a short list of direct causes of death, but add as indirect causes: smoking, eating and drinking to excess. These are related to the top three causes of death in the country overall: heart disease, cancer and lower respiratory diseases. They are also descriptions of problematic behavior.

And notice the use of the word basic in all the safety advice above. All these life-saving suggestions relate to behavior. They are precautions everyone can take to make life safer for themselves and their loved ones. Collective action in these areas alone could raise life expectancy in America significantly (without a single new law to protect us).

None of these precautions needs any government action, although the government is always happy to intervene where we fail to take responsibility for ourselves and our loved ones or show we don't have the discipline to kick destructive habits. (Look at the opioid epidemic.) So as you vote tomorrow, don’t expect miracles. Your future life and happiness are, for the most part, really in your own hands. That is true of every one of us.

A More Complex World Requires A Wiser Approach

A couple of years ago, CNN began an investigation based on a government mail fraud case against a Canadian company accused of processing payments for many rip-off artists from around the world with millions of victims in the US. “Many of the schemes are remarkably similar. They prey on the desperate, sick and elderly -- sending out letters that trick people into thinking they've won the lottery or found a psychic adviser who will turn their lives around.” Every year the scammers stole millions and laundered it through that company.

As follow up and as research for a book on the subject, they wanted to meet and interview a famous French psychic whose name is at the bottom of letters that appeared to be handwritten and personally signed. Addressed to the elderly, sick and lonely, "the letters promised that Maria Duval would use her powers as a world-renowned psychic to help solve their problems. They could recover from ailments, avoid terrible misfortune, win the lottery.” They only needed to send her money first. “At least 1.4 million Americans fell for the scam.”

To be convincing, the “letters contained personal details, like a recipient’s name, age or hometown” but this information is easily obtained on line. They bought mailing lists of people who would likely fall for such a scam. These people would then send in about $40 for each letter giving them guidance from the psychic along with lucky numbers and magic charms. The total collected in this one operation is estimated at over $200 million.

This continued for more than 20 years, but was only the tip of the iceberg. When they got an interview with the psychic, they found that she sold the rights to her name for a fraction of the proceeds. The psychic letter ploy along with other similar scams had become big business with professional copywriters and marketers scattered around the world and linked together by the Canadian payment processors.

It’s true that not enough Americans understand that psychic powers don’t exist. Those that can’t distinguish coincidence from the universe sending messages (or some such nonsense) are easily taken in. It’s true that some Americans don’t understand that you can never win a lottery that you haven’t bought a ticket for. But that’s not the main point.

There is a broader issue here. More sophisticated Americans, who scoff at the victims of these scams, follow fads and trends, are taken in by advertising for products of dubious value and respond with fear to manufactured crises. 

Their lack of critical thinking is evident and somewhat frightening. On one hand, they argue that climate change is real, based on the testimony of so many scientists. On the other, they will reject scientific consensus on many other subjects like the safety of genetic engineering, glyphosate (brand name Roundup) and irradiation of food. They will buy into the concept that locally grown and organic produce is always superior. They put their families on a gluten-free diet when there is no medical reason to do so. They believe there is something magical about sea salt. They put their faith in all sorts of untested dietary supplements. Experts warning against these actions are considered corporate shills or just mistaken. They buy products based on nothing more than endorsements from friends, strangers or celebrity spokespersons. They flock to purveyors of “secrets” that drug companies, doctors, credit card companies, Wall Street and the government “don’t want you to know.”

All this goes on as the world gets more complex every day. Incredibly fast communications bring real and false offers and threats. Advanced robots, AI and autonomous vehicles lurk in the near future, while hackers try to steal our identities and influence votes. Are Americans ready for the future? Behavior shows that today far too many are struggling, victims of scams and their own poor decisions.

The Importance of Behavior

Why all this talk about behavior?

A few days ago as I was out for the evening, I overheard a conversation at another table.  A small group was having a discussion about another member of their team or club.  The problem was that several members had complained that they were put off by the bossiness of this individual, and the group was discussing how to remedy the situation. 

Finally one of them bravely volunteered to address the problem. She said, “I will take her aside and tell her that several of us have a problem with her attitude, and that she should make a change or stop volunteering on the project.”

I wanted to jump up and yell, “No! It has nothing to do with attitude; the problem is behavior.”  You never tell someone to change their attitude. Attitude is something between the person and herself; it’s inside her head. What counts, in this case, is the assertive, bordering on aggressive behavior.

So you take the person aside and say instead, “We seem to have a problem. You have behaved in a way that makes some of the people you are working with uncomfortable and here are some examples.” The examples are very important. It focuses the conversation on something concrete, like words and actions.  (A good friend of mine who was well versed in this feedback process would say “DQ”, short for direct quote, and repeat exactly what the person said.  It left little room for argument.)

After the person hears the examples, admits they are valid and expresses an understanding of how that behavior could have a negative impact on the situation, it’s OK to name it – “overly assertive,” or something like that.  (The categorization becomes a shortcut in case further conversations are needed.) 

This can work. Talking about attitude is doomed to fail as the discussion shifts from a problematic behavior to an argument over who has a bad attitude. It puts opinions in place of observations.

This also works within families (parenting), in work situations and, as I am showing here, with a society where the majority has been telling pollsters for at least the last two decades that the country is headed in the wrong direction.

I have spent over seven years, laying out more than 700 examples – categorized by dimension to tie many similar behaviors together. 

The conclusions at this point are obvious. First, we must admit that most of the problems in America are generated by poor individual choices that pile up to become trends (some encouraged by the press and pop-culture). Second, we must solve them not by pointing to attitudes and characteristics but by talking about the behavior.  There are certainly a very few truly evil people in this country, but the prevailing opinion seems to be that about half the country is evil or stupid based on who they voted for, but who anyone voted for is not what is important.  It’s not going to fix the obesity epidemic or the retirement insecurity crisis or the stress based on economic misunderstanding or the poor buying decisions driven by obviously deceptive advertising or money wasted on junk-science cures and magical thinking or the inability to separate wants from needs or the sense of victimhood that paralyses Americans from trying to fix any problems.  

Not all my examples may be defensible, but when a dispute comes up, at least the conversation will be about examples of behavior and not about who is an idiot or a devil.

Why We Get The Government We Deserve

It’s OK to go to the library just to browse.  Taking your time, going through the stacks to see what catches your eye is often a rewarding experience.  You may see a title that rings a bell or an author you have heard of or are familiar with.  It may just be the appearance of the cover that attracts attention.  Perhaps the library has a bulletin board near the entrance, as mine does, showing new arrivals or recommended reading.  All these methods are excellent ways to find some entertainment or broaden your horizons.

In some activities this approach works; in others it’s a recipe for disaster.

Last Monday the U.S. Supreme Court agreed to hear a case challenging a law in Minnesota that prohibits voters from wearing inside polling stations T-shirts or other apparel with slogans or other messages regarded as overtly political.  They will decide if a law, which “forbids political badges, buttons or other insignia inside polling places during primary or general elections” applies to such apparel.  Officials have already extended the law to include all campaign literature and material.

The voting booth is not the library.  You don’t go there to browse or to pick up new ideas on the way in.  The right to vote should be taken more seriously than picking out a book for a couple of weeks.  Voters should know the issues and what candidates stand for, with the act of voting merely a confirmation of a set decision.  Apparently the lawmakers of Minnesota (and several other states) either don’t understand this or don’t give their citizens credit for taking the right to vote seriously.

There is ample evidence that they are right to assume the latter, that many voters don’t take it seriously.  Why else would political parties organize bus or van trips to the polls on Election Day?  It’s not like Election Day comes as a surprise to anyone who is paying attention.  Even housebound people serious about voting have sufficient time to arrange for their own transportation or apply for an absentee ballot.  But who in their position would pass up such a field trip, a social opportunity – and, by the way, get to vote.

Talk of making Election Day a holiday, because voters can’t find the time to vote when they are working, also reinforces this idea that they don’t care enough to make an effort.  In third-world countries, voters walk for miles to vote.  Here the polls are generally open at least 12 hours, and again, if someone has a valid reason, absentee ballots are usually available.

Another difference between the library and the voting booth is that the library requires a card to check out a book.  But to have identification to vote is considered a burden.

If Americans are so easily swayed in their political beliefs that t-shirts and buttons must be banned, so lackadaisical about voting that other commitments and conflicts win out, must be herded to the polling place for lack of planning and can’t be asked to present valid identification, it’s no wonder we get the choices and results we do.  It’s also no wonder that most political parties appeal to anger, fear, hype and other emotional manipulation rather than factual arguments.  It’s a failure of responsibility and critical thinking that leaves us with a bloated and ineffective government wavering from one special interest to another without regard for the greater good.  Rights carry with them responsibilities.

The government we have is the one we deserve due to a cumulative failure in the five key dimensions.  Better behaviors lead to better outcomes.  Otherwise, we have no right to complain.

Compassion and Tolerance (continued)

Last time I wrote about how the terms compassion and tolerance are often used, even in academic circles, without sufficient regard for clear definitions.  It’s the old “I know it when I see it” approach.  I explained how compassion is a tricky concept.  Just seeing someone with difficulty and automatically lending assistance may provide satisfaction to the helper while being a disservice to the one with the problem.

Now I will look at tolerance the same way.  Again, it’s impossible to see into the mind, so the only evidence we have of another’s tolerance is observed behaviors that fit a clear definition.  Tolerance is usually defined as a willingness to tolerate opinions or behaviors one does not necessarily agree with.

Ideally, everyone would be tolerant of any opinion or action that does not cause a direct threat to one’s personal safety and wellbeing.  Let speakers speak on any subject to anyone interested in listening.  Let demonstrators demonstrate peacefully without disrupting the lives of others.  Let people marry anyone they want to.  Let people take the drugs to cure disease or just to feel better, e.g. pain relievers, caffeine, heroin.

The only exception should be for direct responsibility:  parents for children, teachers for students, military leaders for their troops, etc.  But this gets tricky in a couple of ways.  In a society where everyone’s medical costs become everyone else’s responsibility because of insurance, perhaps your health habits should be everyone else’s business.  But in this area we tend to pick and choose.  Smokers are shunned, but to scorn or shame the overweight is seen as rude and insensitive.  Alcohol is acceptable in moderation, but recreational drugs are illegal.

Also, for Christians, Jews and even Muslims there is that pesky chapter in the Old Testament book of Ezekiel where the Lord orders everyone to step in to keep your neighbor from sinning or you will suffer the same punishment.  It concludes in Chapter 3, verse 21:  “But if you do warn the righteous person not to sin and they do not sin, they will surely live because they took warning, and you will have saved yourself.”  Based on that premise, some opposed to same-sex marriage, for example, are not haters at all.  They genuinely care about the salvation of others and themselves.  (I warned it would get tricky.)

It seems tolerance must be narrowed down to make any sense.  A reasonable starting place is the current commotion over freedom of speech where college students and others on both political extremes heckle, shout down and even riot to keep speakers from delivering their message.  It’s a safe bet that these people have not been inspired by reading Ezekiel nor are they doing it out of concern about their health insurance premiums.  Instead they seem to feel that allowing contrary opinions is immoral, dangerous, or offensive.  They imply by their actions that everyone else is too stupid or ignorant to resist the lure of a faulty or insidious argument, so they must step in to silence the messenger.  Apparently, the alternative of answering ideas with ideas is passé.  The default becomes shouting accusations of being evil – either fascist or communist.  If anyone needs an example of a critical thinking disaster, this is it.

A more passive way to shut people up is to claim their opinions are offensive.  It’s more acceptable to say, “I’m offended” than to admit, “I’m intolerant,” but it boils down to the same thing.

If we can’t even agree on something as basic as freedom of speech, that tolerance we all seem to cherish ends up in practice being tolerance only for what we deem appropriate.  We have little tolerance for those intolerant people who don’t agree.

When concepts like compassion and tolerance are promoted as worthy goals, people tend to nod in agreement.  Deeper thought shows that the two are not as straightforward as they appear.  There is a lot of room for discussion and many instances for honest disagreement.  When clearly defined, compassion and tolerance are probably good things, but both require a degree of moderation and a less cavalier acceptance of vague, unexamined notions.

Whenever we try to peer into the minds of others to find compassion or tolerance, or for that matter, economic understanding, discipline, responsibility, critical thinking, and perspective, the only way to get there is through observation and interpretation of behavior based on clear definitions or examples.  That is why I have posted 670 (and counting) explanations and examples to foster agreement about what we are looking for in the five key dimensions and the dangerous consequences of not finding it.