Facts are nice, but fact-checking is not always relevant or helpful, especially when it misses the point of whatever statements are being corrected.
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Explorations Outside
This post was going to compare police response times (RTs) in the ten most dangerous US cities with the RTs of the safest cities (link). Unfortunately, none of the dangerous cities had decent RT data, except for Oakland, California. But we’re in luck! Oakland has great data, not only for RTs but also for police staffing levels, both across several years.
Around this time, journalists, social scientists, and even philosophers provided helpful lists of expressions associated with gaslighting to help individuals and groups recognize when they’ve been victims. For example….
“Sense of agency refers to the feeling of control over actions and their consequences.” - James W Moore, What Is the Sense of Agency and Why Does it Matter?
Power makes it easier to get what you want. Power gets you even more of what you want. Power gets you things you didn’t know you wanted. Power opens up a world of expanding possibility.
Nibbling at the edge of a mystery, trying to reach the core of some truth. I can taste what seems like progress but can’t see the fruit, so have no idea how much longer it will take.
My distinction between insider and outsider perspectives comes from 20th century anthropology, which used the terms emic and etic to make the same distinction…What I’ve learned from reading about patriotism in America is that emic and etic descriptions tend to be worlds apart.
Surveys often ask about people’s beliefs. But what are the respondents giving them - factual or symbolic beliefs?
The FBI’s crime rates are based on arrests, whereas people in these states’ Criminal Legal System have been convicted of crimes. What I’d like to see is how much arrest rates diverge from conviction rates, and why they diverge, e.g., plea deals, diversion programs, prosecutorial discretion/approach to criminal justice, overzealous police over-arresting without sufficient evidence, etc. I imagine the prevalence of these various factors vary according to state, jurisdiction and local politics.
As for the other countries, I detect themes of historic struggle followed by triumph, of creating something grand out of initially slim pickins; in other words, a feeling of having overcome adversity. Maybe that feeling is essential to pride in general, whether personal or national.
This series of posts will focus on what patriotism means to people who consider themselves patriotic. For example, what beliefs, perceptions, principles, values, ideals, actions and emotions come to mind when they feel the swell of patriotism or explain why they consider themselves patriotic. I will not be defining patriotism, but will approach this project in the spirit of a descriptive dictionary, which…
Use of egalitarian rhetoric may reflect allegiance to a particular set of groups, as opposed to an impartial moral preference that cuts across group identities. If this is the case, then many widely used measures of egalitarianism may be confounded with political and social allegiances.
…There is currently a housing shortage in Israel. Israel will build at least 15,000 dwelling units a year to house returning Palestinians, funded by private developers. Palestinians would not be obligated to live in these units but must submit documentation of suitable housing elsewhere in Israel before being allowed to emigrate.
In prepping for this series on social justice, I came across a great meta-analysis on the research and theory of "relative deprivation", which the authors define as "the judgment that one is worse off compared to some standard accompanied by feelings of anger and resentment" (Smith, Pettigrew et al, 2011, p 203)
It's no accident that political arguments about social justice tend to focus on the role of hard work versus luck. For instance, in a recent Pew Research Survey, 73 % of Solid Liberals agreed that “hard work and determination are no guarantee of success for most people”, compared to 4% of Core Conservatives. That's a huge difference. No wonder the partisan divide has turned into a chasm. The disagreements are on so many levels: bickering turtles all the way down.
So how does this all connect with the psychology of social justice? Mainly to show that there is no "natural" response to status differences and inequality. Whether we respond with resentment, depression, fear, stress, envy, anger, indignation, admiration, aesthetic pleasure, or even happiness at another's good fortune...all depends.
Our brains run simulations, the better to survive and reproduce. Simulations don't have to be rational; they just need to be possible. Or possibly possible…Beliefs aren't either/or propositions; they are points along a continuum of felt credibility.
“It is an increasingly familiar experience. A request for help to a large language model such as OpenAI’s ChatGPT is promptly met by a response that is confident, coherent and just plain wrong. In an AI model, such tendencies are usually described as hallucinations. A more informal word exists, however: these are the qualities of a great bullshitter… The fundamental problem is that language models are probabilistic, while truth is not.” - AI models make stuff up. How can hallucinations be controlled? The Economist February 28, 2024
Mastery is that feeling of riding the wave, of knowing what adjustments to make as it tries to throw you off. You may still lose your balance. The wave may win. But you're not overwhelmed; you’re focused and you keep trying.
“Abstraction is the enemy of personal empathy, but it’s essential for equitable elections. Villages are communal, but they aren’t truly democratic. A level of abstraction is necessary to imagine other citizens as equal agents with rights, not clan histories.” - Adam Gopnik, To Fix Democracy, First Figure Out What’s Broken