Things Glen Found Interesting, Volume 156

On Fridays I share articles/resources about broad cultural, societal and theological issues. Be sure to see the explanation and disclaimers at the bottom. I welcome your suggestions. If you read something fascinating please pass it my way.

Also, 156 is three sets of 52, which means I’ve been doing this for a little over three years now (I sometimes take a week or two off). Yay!

Things Glen Found Interesting

  1. Mr. Rogers Had a Simple Set of Rules for Talking to Children (Maxwell King, The Atlantic): “1. ‘State the idea you wish to express as clearly as possible, and in terms preschoolers can understand.’ Example: It is dangerous to play in the street. 2. “Rephrase in a positive manner,” as in It is good to play where it is safe. 3. “Rephrase the idea, bearing in mind that preschoolers cannot yet make subtle distinctions and need to be redirected to authorities they trust.” As in, Ask your parents where it is safe to play.” There are several more rules, most equally good for talking to adults.
  2. The Lifespan of a Lie (Ben Blum, Medium): “The appeal of the Stanford prison experiment seems to go deeper than its scientific validity, perhaps because it tells us a story about ourselves that we desperately want to believe: that we, as individuals, cannot really be held accountable for the sometimes reprehensible things we do.” The article claims, convincingly, that the Stanford Prison Experiment did not happen at all the way we have been taught. Wow.
  3. When Diversity Means Uniformity (Lionel Shriver, The Spectator): “Will Norman, London’s ‘walking and cycling commissioner’, bemoaned the fact that too many cyclists in the city are white, male and middle-class. ‘The real challenge for London cycling,’ he declared, ‘is diversity.’ As opposed to building more cycle lanes for everybody, or fixing potholes lethal to everybody’s wheel rims, Norman regards his principal function as increasing black and minority ethnic ridership.” This anecdote is not the focus of the article.
  4. Of Boys and Toys (Leonard Sax, Institute For Family Studies): “…they found that little children—boys especially—had barely a clue which gender they belonged to, even when the psychologists used the simplest nonverbal prompts. Kids under two years of age score only slightly above chance in assigning themselves or other kids to the correct gender. Nevertheless, Serbin’s group found that children’s toy preferences are firmly in place by this age, especially among boys. When the experimenters offered boys a truck or a doll, most boys chose the truck. In fact, boys preferred trucks over dolls more strongly than girls preferred dolls over trucks. That ought to be surprising if you buy into gender schema theory because 18-month-old girls were more likely than boys to be able to classify themselves and other children by gender. If gender schema theory is correct, the girls should show a stronger preference for gender-typical toys because girls this age are more likely to know that they are, in fact, girls. But the reality is just the opposite.”
  5. Harvard Rated Asian-American Applicants Lower on Personality Traits, Lawsuit Says (Hadley Green, New York Times): “They compare Harvard’s treatment of Asian-Americans with its well-documented campaign to reduce the growing number of Jews being admitted to Harvard in the 1920s. Until then, applicants had been admitted on academic merit. To avoid adopting a blatant quota system, Harvard introduced subjective criteria like character, personality and promise. The plaintiffs call this the ‘original sin of holistic admissions.’” What are the odds they are the only highly-selective university to do this?
  6. Conservative Religious Leaders Are Denouncing Trump Immigration Policies (Laurie Goodstein, New York Times): “A coalition of evangelical groups, including the National Association of Evangelicals and the Council for Christian Colleges and Universities, sent a letter to President Trump on June 1 pleading with him to protect the unity of families and not to close off all avenues to asylum for immigrants and refugees fleeing danger.” 
    • Related: World Refugee Day 2018: ‘Welcoming the Stranger’ Meets ‘Zero Tolerance’ (Kate Shellnut, Christianity Today): “For Christians, the issue of family unity for immigrants shows signs of transcending partisan lines. Franklin Graham, an evangelical adviser to President Trump, recently spoke against family separation on CBN News, encouraging legislative reform to remedy the new guidelines for migrants at the border.”
    • Related: She says federal officials took her daughter while she breastfed the child in a detention center (Ed Lavandera, Jason Morris and Darran Simon, CNN): “The undocumented immigrant from Honduras sobbed as she told an attorney Tuesday how federal authorities took her daughter while she breastfed the child in a detention center, where she was awaiting prosecution for entering the country illegally. When the woman resisted, she was handcuffed…” Bear in the mind that this is an allegation, not a substantiated event. I find it plausible.
  7. A compelling series of articles on China by a history professor at Johns Hopkins (who also happens to be a Stanford grad): China’s Master Plan: A Global Military Threat, China’s Master Plan: Exporting an Ideology, China’s Master Plan: A Worldwide Web of Institutions and China’s Master Plan: How The West Can Fight Back (Hal Brand, Bloomberg). The money quote from the second article: “If the U.S. has long sought to make the world safe for democracy, China’s leaders crave a world that is safe for authoritarianism.”

Less Serious Things Which Also Interested/Amused Glen

Things Glen Found Interesting A While Ago

Every week I’ll highlight an older link still worth your consideration. This week we have On Obstinacy In Belief (C.S. Lewis, The Sewanee Review): this is a rewarding essay from way back in 1955. (first shared in volume 6)

Why Do You Send This Email?

In the time of King David, the tribe of Issachar produced shrewd warriors “who understood the times and knew what Israel should do” (1 Chron 12:32). In a similar way, we need to become wise people whose faith interacts with the world. I pray this email gives you greater insight, so that you may continue the tradition of Issachar.

Disclaimer

Chi Alpha is not a partisan organization. To paraphrase another minister: we are not about the donkey’s agenda and we are not about the elephant’s agenda — we are about the Lamb’s agenda. Having said that, I read widely (in part because I believe we should aspire to pass the ideological Turing test and in part because I do not believe I can fairly say “I agree” or “I disagree” until I can say “I understand”) and may at times share articles that have a strong partisan bias simply because I find the article stimulating. The upshot: you should not assume I agree with everything an author says in an article I mention, much less things the author has said in other articles (although if I strongly disagree with something in the article I’ll usually mention it).

Also, remember that I’m not reporting news — I’m giving you a selection of things I found interesting. There’s a lot happening in the world that’s not making an appearance here because I haven’t found stimulating articles written about it.

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