The Flat Earth Society and the Art of Conversation

I came across this very strange article today on a meeting of a Flat Earth Society in Fort Collins, CO.

The Fort Collins group — mostly white and mostly male, college-age to septuagenarian — touts itself as the first community of Flat Earthers in the United States. Sister groups have since spawned in Boston, New York, Houston, Philadelphia, Phoenix and Chicago.

Before I knew it I was watching one of their youtube videos. I'll just leave out the substance of their bizarre belief for now. Something else piqued my interest. The video was - as one might imagine - very conscious of the fact that what was being said sounded crazy. And so special attention was given to the notion of civil discourse. You can only imagine how much ridicule these people must face.

“Believe me, there’s only humiliation in this. We do it because we believe it.”

But this stood out to me as a very good point.

I find the notion of a flat Earth ridiculous and disturbing on many levels. But there is no reason I can't also be respectful and kind to people I disagree with. We can never be reminded enough to lead with love. If I've learned anything in the last decade or so of the internet age, it is that changing people's minds is nearly impossible, and that nothing good ever comes from being disrespectful or ungracious.

I've come to be very hesitant in engaging in argument online because I only seem to be the worse for it. When someone types something I find insulting or needlessly offensive towards me or my ideas, my emotions rise. I can either choose to respond, hopefully alleviating the discomfort by delivering a well-placed rejoinder. What sort of relief, I'm not sure. Maybe it is that my words will stand as a corrective, showing the individual and the world that they were wrong and I was right - worthy, respectable, smart, etc. after all. My identity, my pride, was restored. However, this is rarely the case.

The conversation - limited in expression by the nature of the online, text-based format - more often becomes even more heated. My sense of offense increases. And of course, during the time in which I have typed my reply and the response appears (sometimes, minutes, sometimes hours, sometimes days) my discomfort lingers. It gnaws at me. I'm personally offended. I'm offended for my fellow thinkers. I'm offended for the world. This feeling is the product of what people often describe on the internet as toxic.

So what is really the point, then? What are we doing, hammering away at our keyboards?

The New York Times has a great feature in its comments section. You are able to sort the comments into "readers' picks", or "Times Picks". The former distinguished by number of upvotes a comment receives, the latter by having been chosen as interesting by Times staff. I find myself often times spending as much time exploring the comments as the piece itself. The comments give a quick-take on what average readers think of the subject - what stood out to them, what they agree or disagree with. They sometimes share an anecdote that confirms a perspective in the piece. Or they might add a perspective that was missing. The number of votes a comment receives telegraphs how much the point resonates with the public. There is a reply feature, however the design of the comments doesn't really provide for any real back-and forth.  

And I'm fine with that.  There is a special kind of person that enjoys internet bickering.  In theory, the formation of thoughts, the civil exchange and mutual quest for knowledge is a good thing.  But it is so rare.  The anonymity of the internet, even just the constrained nature of the written word, makes friendly, compassionate dialogue difficult.  Tone is lost.  Nuanced inflection is gone.  Uptilted, winking, eyes-rolled, wincing, knowing smirks - all of the saucy, spicy bits in human communication are lost.  In the real world (the "meat world", I've recently heard it put, which I think is brilliant), this is all quickly and deftly added to language as spoken.  Great writers can capture this spirit, but only with difficulty and great labor.  Children learn it before they learn to speak.

So, hamfisted internet commentariate, let that be a thought for thee: no matter the brilliance and depth of your thought, before you click "submit" on that comment, remember that even a 2 year old likely has you beat in nuance of delivery.  Something even a Flat-Earther can teach us.

On Behaving "As If" There Is Free Will

I can't find the quote, but it is as long the lines of "Free will doesn't exist, but we must behave as if it does."

I wonder if this "as if" behavior can be described in a behaviorist account?

In behaviorism, we talk about the concept of stimulus prompts and "rule following". A stimulus prompt is basically a cue for us to engage in certain behavior. Through learning (repeated reinforcement delivered after prompted behavior), the prompt takes on stimulus control: it changes our behavior. Think of a checklist, "wash hands" sign, exit sign, etc. Rule following is much the same, whereas the rule is like a prompt, however the rule doesn't have to have previously been directly reinforced. Rather it can have been inferred, and is generally defined as under stimulus control of previous rule-following behavior. That is, if we have followed similar rules before (and have been reinforced), we will be more likely to follow them in the future.

In this way, thoughts can function as either prompts or rules. In our daily life, we behave according to a mixture of external and internal prompts. Behaviorists call these discriminative stimuli, as they have been followed by either punishment or reinforcement, and are thus defined by our discrimination of them as signals for the availability for reinforcement of punishment ("exit" means leaving behavior will be reinforced; "open" means entering behavior will be reinforced; "poison" means eating behavior will be punished, etc.).

Behaviorists also have a way of describing consciousness (which of course can mean many things) One of the meanings of consciousness though, is the behavior of labeling, via verbal behavior. This is described as operant learning in which certain stimuli take on stimulus control for verbal behavior, either spoken or thought, after having been reinforced in a specific verbal community. For instance, when I see a chair, I can say "chair" or think "chair", because as a child I received reinforcement from the community for emitting that behavior. It could have been direct praise, or conditioned praise in the form of a good grade, or simply the ability to communicate which led to some other kind of reward. We call this "tacting". (We have a different way of describing requests, as their reinforcement is defined as coming directly from the obtaining of the request, i.e. "water" means we directly get that thing. A seemingly minor difference but has important implications for the early acquisition of language). The reverse of this, of course, is listening behavior, in which a stimulus controlling for verbal behavior (tact), is reversed. The chair object controls for the word "chair", but then the word "chair" controls for the object chair.

OK, so I have a hard time describing the behaviorist description of these phenomenon because there are just so many basic concepts that need to be understood to truly appreciate the position! But returning to consciousness, what you might call an active consciousness, in which we are aware that we are conscious, is this process of labeling. When I am thinking about thinking, I am "tacting" my thoughts. Likewise when I am thinking about what someone else has said. However, "tacting" only refers to stimuli that are physically present (chair, desk, apple). We have another level of description for things that are under stimulus control of verbal behavior, but are not in the environment - and may have never been physically contacted. We call this "interverbal" behavior. Most of language involves this type of verbal behavior, as well as abstract thought such as mathematics or literature. This is also the kind of thought we need to engage in for complex thought, such as when planning for future events, or recalling an order of events.

So, what is the implication of this for our thoughts? We can have thoughts that are direct responses to our immediate environment, our distant environment, or responses to words. Our fluency in all of these is determined by a number of factors. First, we have to have been reinforced for the response ("knowing" the verbal behavior), but we also need to have the establishing operation in place. What we mean by this is that there must be a basic desire in place that is being satiated by the behavior. For instance, if you have been reading all of this and trying to understand me (and hats off to you!), you will have to have been motivated to do so. The motivation is maybe generalized social reinforcement, in which you have been previously reinforced for the behavior of engaging in verbal behavior with others. You may also have been previously reinforced for acquiring new ideas and achieving constancy in your thoughts and how they align with the world - truth feels good, right? But maybe I haven't been making sense, and therefore the opposite has occurred, and my words have been extra work for you, in which case you aren't receiving reinforcement from them - they are not rewarding.

The establishing operation - how motivated you are - is not verbal behavior, and largely hidden within the skin. You can learn to tact this behavior, by noticing your heart rate, stiffness, or certain negative thoughts that may arise - "This guy is ridiculous!", and therefore tact your motivation as decreasing for continuing to read my writing. Or, maybe you enjoy arguing and my writing is actually reinforcing, because it is stimulating something else in you - maybe your enjoyment of "tearing down" my argument. In which case, the response I get to this might have been evoked by an establishing operation (EO) for argument, followed by my writing, which was a stimulus (SD) for the availability of reinforcement (R+), which in this case was the satiation of that desire for argument (socially reinforced, of course, by the internet community).

Behaviorists see every behavior (thought or action) as taking place within the 4 term contingency (EO - SD - Bx - R+). Further, this can only be understood as "molar", as opposed to "molecular". That is, as taking place in large chunks, over time. We take place in a continuum of phylogenic (genetic organisms) and ontogenic (life history) interaction.

So, for any given behavior, there is no room for "free will". We are constrained by our past and environment. We will go on behaving no matter what. Even if we were to protest and lay down motionless on the floor, that behavior will have had to have been the function of the four-term contingency.

If we then throw up our hands and say, I must behave "as if" I have free choice, we are basically tacting our behavior, or examining it interverbally, and establishing a rule, or prompt for ourselves. However, as for its effect on our behavior, it will only function as an SD for future behavior's possible reinforcement. That is, the way we behave following having this thought will encounter a consequence in the environment. So it can effect behavior change - you can effect behavior change, but the SD will always be a part of the environment.

In terms of this larger discussion, the way I relate what Garfield is saying about Buddhism and "awareness of the self" and behaviorism, is that the "self" as free actor does not exist, but rather refers to an organism existing within its environment. However the way that we often use the term "self" is as an efficacious agent somehow acting out of time. That incorrect narrative leads both to inaccurate narratives of others, as well as ourselves. How this inaccurate narrative causes problems is interesting, but that it is an incorrect narrative, as a behaviorist, I would say is established science.

My Favorite Albums of the Last 17 Years

I've been toying with an idea to see what I can come up with as my favorite songs for every year, going back fifty years, to 1967.  It's somewhat daunting.  You can't pick just one, of course.  Or can you?  Different genres mean different things.

Different songs have different resonances.  It's one thing to take a song on its own, by its own merits.  It's another to add one's own response, which then must incorporate space and time, one's own history.  When I heard Corey Hart talk about wearing his sunglasses at night, I felt some serious emotions at the age of 8.  There were certainly many more interesting things going on in 1986.  I say now.

But I'll get my feet wet here.  A friend recently lamented that nothing good is being made anymore.  Now, that's just cranky.  So I figured I'd make him a list.

My favorite albums since 2000.  With a favorite track from each.

1. Split: Rumah Sakit - Self-Titled / Faraquet - The View From This Tower (2000)
The first, well, what happens when your favorite people make your favorite music?  And you are way too picky about both? ... The second, Ryan Jones turned me on to this.  I still swear the singer is channeling someone.  But I can't figure out who.  Maybe firehose, but that can't be it.  Math + emotion doesn't happen often enough.  runners-up: Radiohead - Kid A; PJ Harvey - Stories From the City, Stories From the Sea


2. Pinback - Blue Screen Life (2001)
I first heard Pinback on John Baez' answering machine.  It doesn't get any more pop than that.  runner-up: Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds - No More Shall We Part; Califone - Roomsound
 3. Hella - Hold Your Horse Is (2002)
OK, I'll admit that I didn't like Hella when I first heard them.  It was through Ryan Jones' (again) tinny computer speakers and sounded like some kind of malfunction.  But when it clicks, and you realize there's method to the madness, your head kind of explodes.  Seeing them live with Quasi at the Khyber Pass in Philadelphia was a highlight of that particular misadventure in residential planning. runners-up: Mum - Finally We Are No One; Baxter Dury - Len Parrot's Memorial Lift; +/-: Self-Titled Long-Playing Debut Album; Dilute - Grape Blueprints Pour Spinach Olive Grape; Howard Hello - Self-Titled

4. The Notwist - Neon Golden (2003)
When I first put this on I was put off by the unabashed electronic instrumentation.  But it quickly grew on me, bowling me over with hook after hook, as well as the rich, earnest German accented vocals.  runner-up: Sun Kil Moon - Ghosts of the Great Highway; Frog Eyes - The Golden River; Jaylib -Champion Sound; A Perfect Circle - Thirteenth Step; TV On the Radio - Young Liars

5. John Vanderslice - Cellar Door (2004)
There are a lot of interesting touchstones in this album.  Overwrought narratives somehow hang around like overstayed guests who just won't leave, but somehow possess key information.  Runner-up Fiery Furnaces - Blueberry Boat; Madvillain - Madvillainy; Arcade Fire - Funeral; Joanna Newsom - Milk-Eyed Mender; Mastodon - Leviathan




6. Sleater Kinney - The Woods (2005)
The weird thing about that record is that, despite not really liking much at all of the band's previous or subsequent work, this album stuns from start to finish.  The constant clipping is beastly, a bold move that only puts the whole thing over the edge as epic.  runners-up: The Walkmen - Bows + Arrows; Bloc Party - Silent Alarm; Wilderness - Self-Titled; 

7. Mew - And the Glass Handed Kites (2006)
Umm, I'm not sure I even want to listen to their latest album.  Which is really too bad, because this may be the greatest album ever recorded.  It's complex, sublime, bizarre, cheesy, sentimental, and pushes about the most ambitious hooks I've ever heard.  The melodic choices are consistently odd and inventive, but completely directional. runner-up: Destroyer - Destroyer's Rubies; Beirut - Gulag Orkestar; Tool - 10,000 Days; Lavender Diamond - Imagine Our Love


8.  Shugo Takemaru - Exit (2007)
A post-punk Legend of Zelda.  Your welcome.  runners-up: St. Vincent - Marry Me; Band of Horses - Cease to Begin; Deerhunter - Cryptograms; Dinosaur Jr. - Beyond; PJ Harvey - White Chalk

 9. Fucked Up - The Chemistry of Modern Life (2008)
Somehow I manage to embrace the constipated Fear-core vocals as the guitars slowly build their sweet machinery.  This is an example of synthesizers being our friend. runners up: Atlas Sound - Let the Blind Lead Those Who Can See But Cannot Feel; Crystal Castles - Self-Titled; Frightened Rabbit - Midnight Organ Flight; Gnarls Barkley - The Odd Couple

 10.  The Joy Formidable - A Balloon Called Moaning (2009)
More math in service of sweet tension and release.  Many of these songs were redone on their following release, but it was kind of downhill from there.  A brilliant moment in time though, methinks.  So much delicious noise.  Grizzly Bear - Veckatimest; Dirty Projectors - Bitte Orca; St. Vincent - Actor; Real Estate - Self-Titled; Beirut - March of the Zopotec/Realpeople Holland; BLK JKS - After Robots

 13. Ariel Pink's Haunted Graffiti - Before Today (2010)
So, maybe don't go and see this band.  Some things might be better behind the veil.  But that said, imagine if you took Karen and Richard Carpenter, sent them to a seance with Bootsy Collins, and had them all channel Lou Reed.  runners-up: Sufjan Stevens - The Age of Adz; Twin Shadow - Forget; Wild Nothing - Gemini; Baths - Curulean

 12.  The Pains of Being Pure at Heart - Belong (2011)
OK, my Smashing Pumpkins weakness is showing here.  It isn't done as well, but that's also part of what makes it so good.  If you know what I mean. runners up - runners-up: Cut Copy - Zonoscope; Girls - Father, Son, Holy Ghost; Kate Bush - 50 Words for Snow

 13. Beach House - Bloom (2012)
Something weird to note about the LP: it's 2 discs and played at 45rpm, which is totally annoying.  But also totally worth it because everything about this album is honey.  Victoria Legrand finally decides she isn't fucking around. runners-up: Frankie Rose - Interstellar; Lotus Plaza - Spooky Action at A Distance; Grizzly Bear - Shields; Joyce Manor - Of All Things I Will Soon Grow Tired
14. These New Puritans - Field of Reeds (2013)
Fun fact, the drummer is a former (?) male model.  Which makes perfect sense somehow.  When you listen to the record, you'll have no idea what I mean.  But then you will.  This is the kind of music that needs to get made.  Neither fancy rock, nor dorky classical.  Just good, tasteful, serious music.  runners up - Bombino - Nomad;

 15. Cloud Nothings - Here and Nowhere Else (2014)
The nice thing about punk rock is just how good it can be, how much it can do with so little.  runners-up: Real Estate - Atlas; TV On the Radio - Seeds

 16. Car Seat Headrest - Teens of Style (2015)
This is still new to me.  In time, things may change.  There's just so much music, and I'll admit I probably haven't listened to this enough.  But it's one of those things where you can just tell.  runners-up: Mew + -; Angel Olsen - My Woman; Tame Impala - Currents


17. Mitsky - Puberty 2 (2016)
There's something about this kind of woman that frightens me.  In a good way.  It's probably some kind of weird statement about my male ego.  But PJ Harvey and Cat Power would I think also agree that I need to just shut up and listen.  runners-up: Blood Orange - Freetown Sound; Case/Lang/Veirs - Self-Titled
Well, until next time.  I'm going to see if I can add some runners-up.  And look for my more ambitious 50 year list of songs.  It isn't fair, of course.  But why not?


Oh yeah, then there's my little album from 2016. I have to say it's my favorite, but I'm biased. It exists secretly on my tiny planet. Eli Rector - Summer

Confirmation Bias as Ratio Strain

A Witch Surfing on A Sieve (Turner ,1807)

I wonder how much the notion of confirmation bias can be thought of in terms of what in behaviorism is called "Ratio Strain".

A reduction in the rate of a target behavior and an increase in emotional behavior resulting from an increase in the ratio of behavior to reinforcement.

In order to understand ratio strain, it is important to understand a basic principle of behavior, the Matching Law.

A description of a phenomenon according to which  organisms tend proportionally to match their responses during choice situations to the rates of reinforcement for each choice (i.e., if a behavior is reinforced about 60% of the time in one situation and 40% in another, that behavior tends to occur about 60% of the time in the first situation, and 40% in the second)

Behaviorists talk about how we all live in something you might call a "sea of reinforcement and punishment". That is, our behavior is a product of a countless number of contingencies that have and are currently operating on us, either reinforcing (increasing) or punishing (decreasing) our behavior.

At this moment, for example, I am experiencing various reinforcements, a "schedule" if you will, in my environment. There is a constant ebb and flow, or push and pull between reinforcement and punishment. Every time I sip my coffee, that behavior is reinforced - it will be more likely to occur. However, as my bladder is filled, drinking is being punished.

As I type, when I come up with a good, satisfying sentence, my typing is reinforced - I will continue. But if I struggle, I will encounter less reinforcement.

My chair is comfortable at first, which is reinforcing, but after a while it might become punishing, and I will get up, which removes the stiffness, and is reinforcing (next time I will "know" to get up. I put "know" in quotes because usually I won't even be conscious of it, and thus "unknowing").

The Pink Floyd song playing makes me feel good, and so is reinforcing. I will put it on again! But not too frequently, as like food, I become satiated, and so engage in the behavior of eating and listening according to my biological needs - whether dietary or sonory.

So, back to what is called "confirmation bias".

The seeking or interpreting of evidence in ways that are partial to existing beliefs, expectations or a hypothesis at hand.

It occurred to me this morning that confirmation bias could be explained in terms of ratio strain: the reduction of behavior according to a ratio of decrease in reinforcement. I had been reading a comment thread. Someone posted an argument I disagreed with. Someone else then posted a response which I agreed with. The original poster then rebutted... and I realized that I was skimming - barely reading - the response. I didn't feel like reading it. Reading it seemed a chore.

The behavior of reading verbal behavior we agree with is much "easier", as it involves relations that have already been reinforced. However, verbal behavior that challenges us in some way, is much more aversive. It requires engaging in behaviors (types of thinking - recalling, classifying, comparing, interpreting, etc.) that can be quite effortful. Not do these behaviors require work, but the greater the ratio strain, the more likely are they to evoke "emotional behavior", that is, uncomfortable feelings such as anger, fear, etc. And that is aside from the content! If, as we further understand the content of an argument we disagree with, it may challenge our preconceptions - our expectations of the world, which had been reinforced. The fact that they are suddenly no longer being reinforced - a process referred to in behaviorism as "extinction" - can produce uncomfortable side-effects.

Findings from basic and applied research suggest that treatment with operant extinction may produce adverse side effects; two of these commonly noted are an increase in the frequency of the target response (extinction burst) and an increase in aggression (extinction-induced aggression).

Noticing this, much of our tendency towards "group-think" and ideological rigidity would seem to be explained. It is simply easier and more enjoyable to read what has been previously reinforcing. Encountering contradictory views is more effortful, fundamentally less reinforcing, and possibly uncomfortable and anger-inducing.

Now, the nice thing about behavior is that we can change it by altering the contingencies in our environment. We can learn to tolerate delays our reinforcement, as well as create rules to help us along the way, as sort of mental prompts. We can learn to find enjoyment in difference, and even come to be reinforced by the process of having our beliefs changed and enjoying the benefits of expanded knowledge and, ultimately, closer synchronicity with reality.

How to go about doing this, of course, isn't simple or easy. In this post, I'm merely laying out a behavioral case for noticing the process. Who knows, maybe it will allow me to more easily notice (or "tact" as behaviorists call it), and become aware of a trap I might be falling into, and to this make choices that might be more rewarding in the long run.

Maybe I'll go back to that comment thread and spend more time reading that comment with an open mind....

A related paper:
A Behavioral Analytical Account of Cognitive BIas in Clinical Populations

Whose Property?

Samir Chopra, professor of philosophy at the Brooklyn College of the City University of New York, reminds us that property is a social and legal construct.

Property is not discovered; it is made, not by the act of mixing labor with supposedly ‘fallow land,’ as Locke would have had it, but by the scaffolding provided by the surrounding legal system.

So an agreement, designed according to what makes sense.  Of course, this "sense" gets rather complicated.

The simple story is that property should be fair, distributed according to one's desert.  However, how to establish desert?  If I inherit a million dollars, I certainly did nothing to deserve it, in that I played no part in its creation.  But maybe it is fair to respect the wishes of the deceased.  But what if they inherited it, and so on?

Let me toss another piece of wood into the fire: as a behaviorist, I can make a rather solid case that all of our actions in life are in a sense "inherited", in that they are entirely a function of our genes and our environment.  As such, any action we take to create wealth is inherited.

This may seem a fanciful stretch, even if you accept the premise that our actions are not our own.  Surely we must act as if they are.  As a practical matter, maybe this is true.  However, we certainly don't act this way at a societal level.  In criminal justice, people are judged to be responsible for their actions, and thus deserving of a range of punitive measures.  In our economic system, people are assumed to have "earned" their fortunes - or lack thereof.  As such, property is hardly given a second thought as the direct result of personal action.

If our actions are inherited, then all forms of property inequality (not to mention other forms of capital) are injust.  As a practical matter, remedying this injustice in a complex society is obviously no easy task.  History is riddled with horrific results of experimentations in equality.  However, it is also filled with examples of successes (public schools, libraries, parks, social security, medicaid, etc.).

Many of our political arguments are over the practical effects of social responses to equality - whether or not they would work, whether we can afford them, whether they have secondary negative effects and so on.  Yet, first we must establish whether or not there is a moral imperative, a problem to address.  And at this point, a good-as majority of the country simply disagrees with the premise that we inherit our actions, much less that social interventions might be effective.

(A strange irony is that many of these very same people view social interventions as having negative effects on motivation, which is a completely behavioral analysis, and would as such seem to agree with the premise they deny in the first place!)

A Couple of Bold Ideas for Education Reform

Unite States Housing Authority poster, 1940

Keith Humphreys has an important piece in the WaPo today highlighting the nuance of poor black communities with regard to violence and incarceration.

In his new book, Locking Up Our Own, Yale University Law School Professor James Forman Jr. points out that in national surveys conducted over the past 40 years, African Americans have consistently described the criminal justice system as too lenient. Even in the 2000s, after a large and sustained drop in the crime rate and hundreds of thousands of African Americans being imprisoned, almost two-thirds of African Americans maintained that courts were “not harsh enough” with criminals.....Through a compelling mixture of personal stories and wonky data analysis, Fortner and Forman document how African Americans have grappled with an anguished choice. On the one hand they want to protect themselves from crime, on the other hand they know that the more active and powerful the criminal justice system grows, the more African Americans will be caught up in it, some of whom will be subjected to grossly racist treatment.

As for Forman's policy recommendations - "expanded employment opportunities, improved housing options and better schools" - I'm not sure how far they will get into the problem.  Even if you had all of these things, the black community would still have a lot of difficult contingencies to reckon with.

Education always seems most meaningful to me, as you're getting kids while they're young.  But without a solid home, you're going to be spending a ton of money chasing maladaptive behaviors.  A lot of the so-called innovation we see in creating "good schools" is really about selectivity, as the parents who go the extra mile for their kids are exactly *not* the problem.  Instead, we want to target the overworked, stressed, dead-beat, angry, confused, overwhelmed, etc. parents.  These parents are not in a position to make good choices, they are barely able to keep it together as it is.  They won't be signing up for special charters, enforcing homework, looking out for their children.  And these kids are the ones who are the dirty little secret behind "bad" schools.

Traditional schools continue to fail them, with neither the funding nor comprehensive strategy to deal with them.  Charters just plain avoid them.

But they are the result of a larger economic system which segregates by property value.  Middle class neighborhoods populate schools with children of middle class parents and all the stability that represents.  Poor neighborhoods populate schools with children of poor parents and all the lack of stability that represents.

I have two ideas for intervention.  The first is to simply implement economic integration.  Each school must have a certain percentage from different socio-economic levels.  If you really wanted to get creative, you could create an SES scale that goes beyond mere income, and takes into account things like education, health, family support, issues, etc. (all of the the contingencies that go into supporting the development of a child).  Families would be assigned a score based on filling out a new card each year.  This would require a certain level of busing, which has its downsides.  But it would "spread the hardship" across our neighborhood schools.  There would likely be some downwards pressure from these struggling kids on the rest of the student body.  But there would likewise be upwards pressure from the rest of the students.  However, with this method, you're still not directly addressing the particular need of the student.  With a 30:1 ratio, and few other interventions, stressed out kids in stressed families who don't do their homework or get read to at night will still be highly at-risk.  The other way of going at this would be to incentivize economic desegregation by offering tax rewards to poor families who move out of poor communities and wealthier families who move in.  This brings up a gentrification worries for many, as ethnicity is so tied to income.  Personally, I wonder if actual economic desegregation wouldn't make the notion of gentrification irrelevant though.

A second option would be to forget busing, and focus on interventions at the local level instead.  Poor schools would get 10x the funds, the ability to cut class sizes by a half or even two-thirds.  Instruction and support would be much more differentiated to the needs of the individual student.  Similar to the IEP model for students with physical disabilities, every child would get an academic, "wrap-around" team to monitor performance both at school - and as would be central in this case - home.  On the television show The Wire, a so-called "Hamsterdam" experiment was invented, in which the police created a decriminalization block where drug users could freely use and pushers to sell their wares.  The idea was to end the violence of the trade, and allow the users to come out of the shadows where they would be able to be targeted by social service workers.  While poor, struggling families aren't quite drug addicts, I'm struck by the similarities, as well as our social response to their plight - which is a muddled mix of disdain, pity and victim-blaming.  Rather, these are fellow humans who need all of our help.  The bonus being, of course, eradication of a major source of social ill.


Both of these ideas are radical, but in my view more directly align with our values, and support fundamental notions of fairness in public education.  If we must have economic segregation in our capitalist economic system, then we must also reckon with the fact that we are going to be creating segregated economic ghettos, defined by their lack of resources and societal capital.

Revisiting Societal Capital

An article in the Root today on White Privilege put me in mind to revisit my thoughts on what in the past I have termed "societal capital".

I like to think of privilege as a form of capital, and capital as: that which can be leveraged to gain advantage in society. There are many forms of capital - financial (cash), emotional (regulation), cognitive (learning, vocabulary), neighborhood (safety, networking), educational (classmates, teachers), community (stores, libraries, services, parks), parental (this one is huge, maybe most important as it affects all others: family dynamics, stress, relational development, cognitive enrichment, vocabulary spoken), racial/ethnic (treatment and assumptions in society).

These are all interwoven and dynamically linked, interacting in non-linear ways. In combination they open up new avenues of privilege. However, when subtracted and de-linked, they do the opposite. They cut off avenues of opportunity and actively place in the individual at risk for further devaluation of capital. For instance, having a car opens up new job opportunities. But living in a poor neighborhood and having a car stolen can make traveling to work more difficult, which increases stress, increases costs if car payments are still due, limits family engagement, lowers status, etc.