I once heard the F-Scale described as a way to see who would kick the person below them while sucking up to the person above them.
Recently i found this intriguing tool from the group that brought us critical theory marked up and available on line.
The goal of the scale was to predict a predilection to acquiescent to authoritarian behaviour. Research from 20-40 years ago suggested thing it really predicts is racism. but it's made a come back as a more valid predictor of authoritarian tendencies - at least in a revised form, the balanced F-scale.
The balanced F-scale attempts to work out the flaws in terms of types of measures in the original F-scale. While a variety of approaches to consider conservatism etc have resulted (listed here), the Balanced F-scale seems popular in the personality/psych literature. This refactored scale changes a hand full of questions from the original.
There's been debate about whether any version shows acquiescence vs cultural traditionalism. In any case, traits associated with its findings aren't nice and apparently are correlated even in decisions in jury trials. Some authors as recently as 2006 argue the validity of the scale has been supported.
In any case, why not give it a go - or better yet, ask your colleagues to give it a go - and see if you're nodding to yourself at their responses - or which ones you think you may just want to fudge.
That local Call that was Free and Normal Service 18 months ago now costs Fifty Thousand Pounds
A few years ago when we arrived from Canada, we went to the bank branch close to where we would live, met with the branch manager and set up various accounts and credit cards. The manager, Simon, kindly gave us his card and said be sure to call anytime. He also told us about places in town for good eats, and places to avoid "Oh yes, that's where i got mugged." Personal service! It was great.
There were very few times we actually had cause to call Simon, but it was lovely to be able to speak with him. We were sad when he moved and wrote the head office a nice letter about how grand he'd been.
That was then. Over the past year or so our branch is no longer a "branch" - it's been re-designated a "service branch" which means it has no manager (if one thinks this downsizing is due to the bank losing money, it's not: they made £11.7BILLION profit last year). If we want to talk with a manager now we cannot call that branch up the road directly; we have to call a call center in India, answer a barrage of security questions ("But i just want a call back; why do you need my date of birth?") and hope that someone local gets back to us.
The main high street banks have now come up with a new Premier Service: they will once again give you a direct local line to your branch manager *if* you have either £50k in savings or make £75k a year AND have a mortgage of 250K or more (see any of the big 4 for their version of same). What was once free, and a default part of banking in England has now become the privilege of the well-heeled few. £50k. For a name and a local phone number.
12 billion in profit and the bank wants 50K for a local phone number. Is that the definition of obscene or have i missed something?
And if you haven't the money reserves to get you into this Premier league of service, count on continuing to be considered suspect each time you pick up the phone and want to ask a question. Your call center will be asking the questions here, bub. And you better be fast with the right answers, or suffer the consequences: getting your call dropped; having your internet access suspended, and/or having a note on your file that you refused to answer security questions.
Don't let anyone tell you there ain't no class system here. As far as UK's big banks are concerned, they've just re-enginered it with a vengeance.
The UK Government wants to push through ID Cards to use biometric data to connect the card, its data ("basic personal information") and its owner. Uh huh. While one can theoretically imagine how such a scheme would work (and the govn't is dealing in theory since its own site says it doesn't know yet what the cards will actually be like), you would be hard pressed to find any technologist (not funded by a biometrics company) who would say that such a scheme is practical at scale. Indeed, the summary of the consultation exercise on ID cards, which found largely against the practicality or efficacy of such a scheme is - no longer to be found on the Govn't web site. You can still find news articles quoting various computer science experts who spoke to the committee on the multiple problems with ID cards.
And you'd think that such concerns might be part of why the house of lords chucked out the ID Card Bill yesterday. Apparently, though, they were worried about costs - the fact that they weren't well enough defined by the government. Who knows, maybe that's a really good first act rejection: because if the government comes back with a better cost breakdown, perhaps the House will get to the gnarly question of "how can we trust those figures."
Why would they ask such a question? Because the Government has a lousy track record when it comes to specifying and delivering - no matter what the budget - national IT systems. And if they can't get a national database right on the smaller scale of specialist IT systems like the Magistrates court, Ambulance Services [additional research paper pdf], doctor's surgery systems, the police's IMPACT program or Tax Credits, how on earth can they be trusted to get an even more complex system like an ID registry with databases, specialized hardware for collection of biometric data, specialized hardware and software for matching biometric data, specialized training, and specialized secure documents delivered?
So the question is pretty simple the next time the house of lords gets the ID Card Bill back: even if delivering an excellent ID Card system were possible, and even if there were no questions about the technology, about the biometrics, the database security, the security layers between the system itself and humans accessing it, the hackability of the cards, and never mind the social, moral, or economic issues, or for that matter the political ones about whether or not such a system could even stop a terrorist [look here for a list of all these issues and the organizations that query them], disregarding all that and cutting to the chase, would the UK Government simply have the wherewithall to deliver it?
What would it take to see the New Labour cabinet split? When neither going to war, adding tuition fees, introducing id cards, or holding suspects without charge for up to three months has done nothing to cause New Labour to contemplate just how truly Tory they are? Smoking. Or more particularly a bad on smoking in public places. That's done it. And it's done it in exactly a Tory-esque way: interference, impact on enterprise, can't work. Nanny state, etc etc -
Never mind the fact that apparently 91% of, say, Northern Ireland, supports a total ban, and that Wales, Scotland and Northern Ireland are bringing in or have brought in total bans, or that great swaths of North America have done likewise, with consequent benefits to health and enjoyment. Nope. Doesn't matter. There are principles at stake here - or something.
Or maybe it's just politics - Blair doesn't care that ex health minister John Reid and health minister Patricia Hewitt are going at it publicly about full ban / half ban.
Or maybe, pardon the pun, it's a carefully orchestrated smoke screen to keep public gaze away from the new parts of the "terrorism legislation" (why is it called terrorism legislation rather than anti-terrorism legislation): while the media watches the cabinet bun fight, the home secretary and prime minister can make id cards and prolonged detention without charge a below the fold story.
Meanwhile, the Lords reconsider whether or not evidence produced from torture - as long as the uk was not involved - can be used as evidence in a uk court. Musn't use wiretaps. no no. But third party torture reports? Please feel free to smoke while you read.
What does it say about a nation, a govn't, a party, a leader, that an 82 year old man who raised his voice in critique at a party convention was (a) man handled by volunteer "security" (whether these volunteers wore brown shirts is as yet unclear) and then was (b) held by the state under the terrorism act? The terrorism act? for heckling? a politician?
"At first Sussex police denied that Mr Wolfgang had been detained or searched but a spokesman later admitted that he had been issued with a section 44 stop and search form under the Terrorism Act."
Whatever it says, what is more facinating is who's at least talking about it. The telegraph has covered it. But the Guardian, supposedly the paper of the left, seems to have nothing to say.
It's incidents like the terrible threat posed by Mr Wolfgang that demonstrate the Prime Minister's call to change the law of the land from protection of the individual to protection of the state first. Indeed.
It's the British Elections tomorrow, and thanks to the Iraq War becoming the issue of the election, the Labour Party under Tony Blair is not assured the cake walk into a third term that was anticipated.
So it seems there's a real opportunity to feel one's vote will have an impact. As in the states election, however, it seems that the youth vote is an under tapped resource for any party. In the states, despite major effort by a variety of venues from the parties themselves to MTV, student numbers weren't any higher than the previous election. What's with that? In the UK, there's been no such out reach. Perhaps they feel it's not worth it? It doesn't seem that 20 somthings in or out of university care to "get out the vote." Why not? What's different here? Various programs featuring interviews of 20 somethings in pubs have shown them saying "there's nothing interesting for me" and "i have to go somewhere to vote? i'm not doing that" or "it's the politicians fault: they're not offering me anything." This seems to be a bit of a surprise. For youth contemplating an education, there does seem to be an issue.
The Labour party introduced top up fees for university. The Liberal Democrats have said that they would scrap them. For selfish reasons alone, wouldn't it be worth voting for a group that would kill your major debt burden?
I've heard some mature adults here say students will just get used to fees being part of their lives. Ask some North American students how they feel about getting used to student loan debt and how crippling it can be for decades following graduation. It will be interesting to see if students who protested top up fees this past year will take the opportunity to create change here.
[Update: students ARE voting] more...
Perhaps the media has been rather misrepresenting the Youth vote - at least the Student youth vote. I've had the chance to speak with first years, third years, fourth year students and researcher assistants and they've each said, but one, that they're voting, or for that matter have postal voted already. Walking down the hall today, i heard my first political argument: it wasn't about voting or not, but about who these two "youth" had decided to support. Fantastic (the grown ups have seemed far more reluctant to "talk politics:" is that a British cultural thing, this reticence?). One of them was talking about how he's been proselytizing the need to vote to his peer group.
So what's with the media portraying the Youth of the UK as apathetic and uninterested in the election? Perhaps heading to the pubs isn't the best place to ask these probing questions?
Or is there a divide between students and employed 18-21year olds? Dunno. But today i heard if not overflowing joy at the opportunity to vote, at least a commitment among student youth to do so.
The Royal sort-of-Wedding (it was to be Friday, but they decided they'd rather conflict with the start of the racing season than with the Pope's funeral) has been confusing for those not steeped in Anglican tradition. Charles and Camilla can't have a church wedding because both are divorced - in particular, divorced, and Camilla's ex is still alive.
Henry VIII founded the church of England because he was not given a divorce from his first wife, right?. So one would be forgiven for thinking that the church of England was in large part created to support divorce.
Turns out that's not the case.
There is a public perception, especially in the United States, that Henry VIII created the Anglican church in anger over the Pope's refusal to grant his divorce, but the historical record indicates that Henry spent most of his reign challenging the authority of Rome, and that the divorce issue was just one of a series of acts that collectively split the English church from the Roman church in much the same way that the Orthodox church had split off five hundred years before. (The Anglican Domain: Church History)
It seems from more recent reports that the partner still has to die before the other can remary. So even though Charles's first wife is dead, he can't be married in the church because he divorced Diana.
In the case where one or both parties has been divorced and has a surviving former spouse the legal right to a wedding in a church does not apply.
The final decision as to whether to conduct such a wedding lies solely with the parish priest of the church involved. Some will not do so under any circumstances, while others are prepared to do so, often after referring to the Church in Wales' Guidelines on the matter. Many clergy who will conduct such weddings would not do so for parties who have been married more than once before, or in cases where one party was instrumental in the break-up of the previous marriage of the other party. If a priest agrees to a wedding of a person who has been divorced, he or she has the right to inspect the decree absolute before proceeding.
As ever, before making any assumptions on the matter the parish clergy should be consulted.
From Weddings in the Church
In retrospect this does make historical sense: if the church of england supported divorce, why would Henry have had to have most of his wives condemned to death first as traitors (one wasn't executed; the other outlived him)? The quote doesn't explain the theology of the position, but it does suggest that there's a certain flexibility in whether or not that wedding can be held in a church. That flexibility hasn't been noted with respect to Charles and Camila's wedding. And indeed, some have argued that anything BUT a church wedding is out of the question - or at least not legal - for the heir to the throne. And since the archbishop won't marry him in the church, is the wedding "legal"? The UK govn't says it is. Legal, according to the same govn't/attorney general who said the war in Iraq is legal, too.
In two articles, Guardian Unlimited | Special reports | Terry Eagleton: The Pope has blood on his hands, and the follow up obituary of John Paul II by Peter and Margaret Hebblethwaite, and Peter Stanford, we are presented with an effective portrait not only of John Paul II, but of the Church hierarchy which appointed him.
In Eagleton's piece, JPII's background is contextualized with why he would have been picked to be pope: why his background was appropriate and for whose agenda in the church. Eagleton is a literary theorist of the Derridian cast, for whom the question "nothing is innocent; in whose interest is it" is toujours deja a founding question. Eagleton looks at the Pope's appointment as part of the conservative mission of a considerable part of the Church: to redress the liberalism of Paul VI and John Paul I.
The Habblethwaite/Stanford obituary takes a somewhat more even hand to the Pope's extremes, praising his outspokenness for social justice and the poor, while listing in compelling fashion the number of theologians he condemned (one to the point of excommunication) whom he regarded as at best, uncatholic.
Putting both articles together creates a compelling contrast to the current only positive spin on the pope.
The peons to the pope seem strongly similar to the uncritical accolades received by Reagan at his funeral last summer. Eagleton's piece constructs an historically situated rationale for JPII's elevation, and conservative training, (demonstrated, for example, in his canonization of Opus Dei's founder).
Eagleton draws particular attention to the role of the church's anti-condom position in the spread of Aids in africa, where the church effect is strong (it runs many hospitals). Eagleton is not alone in this critique: an American campaign two years ago also pointed to American bishops' complicity in this health crisis. Eagleton goes on to point to places from ecumenism to women where this pope and his hand-picked college of cardinals have pulled away from Vatican II.
Further context is JPII's efforts to pull the plug on liberation theology. He also famously agreed with the condemnation of homosexuality and gay marriage as "evil", and his writings see women in the Marian tradition of genetic role to reproduce, rather than capacity to serve as priest. Since the elevation of JPII, papal direction has only pulled women further away from the altar - a directive that many parishes have been content to ignore.
Some groups are already calling for the deceased pope's canonization, or at least deisgnation as "Great."
But Eagleton's pieces raise the question: is centrist, conservative, regressive, pigheadedness something for which one is to be considered a saint? Or as the Habblethwaite/Stanford obituary puts it:
If his pontificate is to be deemed a failure, it was a very Polish failure, on a vast, magnificent, heroic scale, conducted with zest and panache, comparable to those mythical Polish cavalrymen charging the German tanks in 1939. One admires the dash of it, while wondering whether it was quite the best thing to do.
Dan recently said that maybe it's a quality of "getting older" (22), but that he's noticing he's cynical about "everything" now.
Implicit in his statement is that, formerly, he was not cynical. First off, based on at least the context of Dan's remark (are some of our software ideas as hot as we hope/think they are) i think Dan probably meant "skeptical," in the classical sense, rather than cynical either in its modern meaning, or its classical sense. But perhaps he's actually feeling both increasingly classically skeptical (probably a good thing) and modernly cynical (alas).
More recent events, however, suggest the need for a word that suits the nuances of cynicism which, as per the OED, "shows a disposition to disbelieve in the sincerity or goodness of human motives and actions, and is wont to express this by sneers and sarcasm." but goes beyond the cynical. To be cynical in this sense suggests there is something to be cynical about - that there is doubt that the expressed meanings are the true ones. But what happens when the expressed meaning are not the true ones, and it's simply OBVIOUS that that's the case. What is one's response to this called? Take the govn'ts latest actions in parliament on control orders, as we move from cynical perhaps about any parties' presentation of reasons for or against, to what, for the actual outcome?
It's hard not to feel cynical, for instance, watching the Prime Minister assert the necessity of control orders (the suspension of habeas corpus, of magna carta) as the way to defeat terrorism. Is one skeptical of the PM's statements - that is, not knowing those claims to be true, but wanting to find out? or is one cynical - where we express a sort of jejune snort at the veracity of either the goodness or righteousness of the intent, or the rationale for it? Perhaps both skeptical and cynical?
But what is the state of mind evoked in watching the Govn't insist it will not back down on points from judicial review to sunset clauses, and then concede on each one? As Michael Howard (!) put it, the opposition got everything they wanted "but the name." The govn't insists that this is not the case. If they did not give their actions the signifier "sunset clause" then it is not a sunset clause. Only one sign, it seems, can signify that signified. What is the word for the feeling behind the stunned silence that greets such insistent denials? Is it just Incredible - not to be believed?
This is a different kind of speechlessness than one might have for say, the seventeen liberal democrats not showing up in the house a week ago, when if they had, they would have been defeated the govn't. How could seventeen MPs not show up? - There's yet to be an effective explanation to this. No doubt if the bill had been defeated, the govn't would have introduced another just like it, so perhaps the point is moot.
Many commentators have been saying that this past week has, if nothing else, been a victory for parliament.
In her novel Middlemarch, set at the time of the First Reform Act George Eliot has her honest, unpretentious, definitely uncynical, hard working man of business, Caleb Garth, have an encounter with Mr. Bulstrode. Bulstrode is a man who has presented a sort of righteousness that covers a questionable previous life with some significant wrong acts. Caleb does not condemn or judge the man, but also declines involvement with him. He says "it hurts my mind." (CHAPTER LXIX)
Perhaps Garth's poignant expression is apt for this beyond cynical context, if it could also be expressed credibly by characters not quite as untouched by cynicism as he. For the rest of us, the word for that condition awaits. Proposals?
Our grad advisor once told us we should live our lives backwards: think of what we did in terms of how it would look on our CV. This was supposed to motivate us as we prepared for getting a faculty job in a university. Perhaps we should have done more to consider the source.
In the Seven Habits of Highly Effective People, Steven Covey characterizes one of the seven habits as "start with the end in mind" - and here the end is not one's CV, but what one wants others to think of them at the real END. What do you want people to say of you? what do you think they'd say of you now? do they match?
It's challenging to think at the end of the day if that day was lived in such a way as to contribute to the sense of self one would hope to hear reflected by others.
Part of the Seven Habits approach is learning ways (habits) to connect daily life with such a reflection. Three of those habits stick out for me: first things first, be proactive, win win
First things First
Covey divides things we do into four quarters - from the little things that suck time and don't particularly need doing, to things that aren't so important but need doing, to things that need doing - that are important - but not urgently, finally, to things that need doing and are urgent.
He says the goal of this habit is to learn increasingly about doing the things that are important, which contribute to that sense of self and mission one wants to achieve, that are not urgent: the result is spending less time on crap or in crisis. Covey has a whole lexicon about trust, emotional bank accounts, and interdependency that makes sense in the context of a personal mission. It's an approach that addresses procrastination without once saying the word (he doesn't): is what i'm doing right now contributing to my mission? my living with the end in mind? Am i farting around with stuff that isn't important and doesn't need to be done? am i spending most of my time in crisis mode? If i focus on first things first, will i spend more time in that quadrant where what i'm doing is important (contributes to that end i want) but isn't in crisis? Where what i'm doing has value and worth?
Be Proactive
Covey also talks about building a circle of influence by being proactive. By owning an issue rather than moaning about a problem. Find the solution, put forward the idea, take the initiative and deliver it. This comes back to trust: saying i'll do something and not doing it or moaning about something rather than finding solutions - unasked for - is not helpful. It does not build up trust, it does not influence. Covey is also big on leading rather than managing people: lead people; manage things. Being proactive is a challenge when feeling worn down. Why didn't i get that opportunity? why wasn't i included in that? can be first reactions. The challenge is to say how can i turn this around by proposing a solution?
Win Win
Related to being proactive, is the notion of "win win" - engaging with people so that both parties feel like the solution they've found together is a better one than the solution they'd proposed alone.
This approach relates to Covey's other arguments about listening: seek first to understand. Be able to reflect back the other person's position, better than they could themselves.
In win win, the desire is to come up with a solution where both parties (let's say there's two parties) feel like they have a stronger solution than they would have without that exchange. One of the attributes of engaging this way is also to say sometimes there's no solution, and to agree to walk away from the matter.
The win win approach is one that Covey says he gets the most grief about as being the least realistic in "real world" settings, but he gives working examples of how this approach can succeed.
It's a life changing thing to think about embodying the habits Covey articulates. The emphasis on building trust underlying communication with others, of building any project from a collaboratively developed mission, is inspiring as well as challenging.
to start with the end in mind, to put first things first, to seek first to understand, to build trust, to develop a shared mission, to be proactive, to go for win win - these are just the highlights - it's worth listening to (or reading ) Covey to get the richer context of this approach. As he puts it, these are not quick fixes. In other contexts he uses the concept of natural laws: it takes time to get to harvest; seeds need to be planted, tended, etc. Trust relationships take time to be built. They take time but promote real change.
I like them, find them effective because they aren't things like "be sure to right down all your to do's" "draw up a budget" Making a to-do list won't work, if you don't have a reason for doing what you do. Covey talks this way about excersise: you do it because it's important to stay healthy for yourself, for your loved ones, not because you feel like it or don't feel like it: we're not run by feelings. We do it because it's the right thing to do. Likewise, if you take a first things first approach, you don't need a calendar to keep you on track (just remind you of where you have to be next). If you don't have a first things first or end in mind paradigm, devices like calendars are just that: devices that don't (at least in my experience) stay stuck.
It's worth checking out Covey's definition of habit, too. And paradigm shift. The Seven Habits of Highly Effective People - is available in print, as an ebook and as an audio book which covey himself presents. Great to listen to on your personal stereo device...highly recommended
In the event of an emergency, you would have been notified of what? i don't remember.
Do you?
Some set of instructions would have been given.
These tests used to be regular occurrences on the TV - least ways in North America, accompanied by an irritating (perhaps the point) sin wave tone.
A little googling shows that this system was instigated by Kennedy in 63.
It's an icon of cold war. Another shared cultural marker of a particular time and community. It's been how long? a generation? since the wall fell? young adults in their late 20s, born after the fall of the Berlin Wall, have no direct knowledge of the culture of fear over global nuclear devastation.
What does a film like War Games look like to a post Wall Fall person, where wee border towns like Grand Forks North Dakota are pictured on a direct nuclear flight path for anihilation? For Canadians on the other side of the border, Grand Forks of that time (and slightly more south, Fargo (same as the movie)) were Mall Stops for weekend cross border shopping sprees, where the goal was to hit Target, Kmart and find deals and products only available south of the 49th and CHEAP. Now there's walmart in Canada, so not so much incentive. but that's another story. But there they were. In holiwood and russia: strategically significant malls. The fall out would hit home. We were in the flight path of global nuclear annihilation. This is a test. This is only a test. It's a bonding thing.
What are the icons of cultural communion in the post cold-war error. It took a generation to develop it - the War on Drugs perhaps a pilot test for the globalization of "evil." But now, an icon of globalized engagement, in the era of the internet, is the "war on terror," where there are no walls to fall, where borders are irrelevant, where communication is networked, elusive.
Ideology on fire. Secret. Peer to peer. Distributed. privileged.
is there more to be wrought from the analogy of P2P, globalization and that the cultural divider of our time would be "terror" of the fleeting, unpredictable, rather than the identifiable, vast, specific arsenals and silos of hardware?
The UK Government is in the throes of wrestling with
"control orders" as a way to manage terrorist suspects it can't just bring to trial because that might expose sensitive somethings or someones. So what can you do?
The govn't has been saying that it will use control orders to send these untriable, wicked, terrorist suspects to their living rooms. Of course it's not that these bad people will be subject to chintz prints and overstuffed furniture without the benefit of cell phone or internet that is at issue.
No longer at Belmarsh (what's been called the UK's Guantanamo), these "terrorist suspects" (so far, men only, foreign nationals only) will be sent to their UK homes.
The concerns expressed about control orders is that they can be invoked by the Home Secretary alone. As proposed, this means that up to 7 days after these orders have been put in place, a judge can review them and recind them (set the people free?).
Many MP's are calling for only a judge to be allowed to make such an order - no politician should have the privilege of recinding the rights of the magna carta (no house arrest without judicial process).
Other MP's and legal experts (as interviewed on Broadcasting House, BBC, Radio 4 Sunday Feb 27 05) point to the fact that such orders, which can now be applied to British citizens as well, might be used against political disidents, animal welfare activists, or anyone who could be, for the benefit of the govn't of the day, construed as a "terrorist suspect."
One MP, speaking from personal experience, said that this proposed legislation was reminiscent of house arrest in South Africa in 1968 to control people who spoke against the Government.
A responding MP said that the comparison could not be made fairly. Of course. It's always different when you're the one doing it, isn't it?
There's a
List of links covering the topic at the Guardian newspaper's site.