Be in a hurry to read ‘The Anxious Generation’

David Webber, Columbia MISSOURIAN, April 8, 2024

Parents of all ages, teachers, policymakers, and all those concerned about the future of American society should read and heed the message of Jonathan Haidt, “The Anxious Generation: How the great rewiring of childhood is causing an epidemic of mental illness” just published last week.

This social science book develops the arguments that the mental health of Generation Z has changed. He presents lots of data showing that the introduction of social media, such as Instagram and Snapchat, accelerated the decline in young America’s mental health starting in about 2013. At first look, the book might have too many numbers, but Haidt is skilled at summarizing data and drawing its implications. Haidt is widely available on YouTube and podcasts, including “The Prof G Pod with Scott Galloway: Conversation with Jonathan Haidt — The Kids Are Not Alright.”

Haidt presents graph after graph of reputable data usually from pre-2000 to 2020 indicating that measures of depression, anxiety, emergency room visits and suicide rates for younger adolescents while increasing steadily for years, rapidly accelerated between 2010 and 2014. While true for both boys and girls, he explains why the most immediate affects have been worse for girls, as other studies have also found. Whatever the lasting impact of the COVID-19 pandemic might be, Haidt’s data and analysis is pre-pandemic so it’s likely to be consistent, not counter, to the decline in mental health he describes.

Haidt argues that cellphones, more specifically smartphones providing internet access to social media, most notably Instagram, Snapchat, and TikTok, caused children to not only have more contact with their peers but caused more comparisons with them. As we have known for some time, information technology has not been a supplement to ordinary activities and daily live. It has become the major activity of daily life. It is not only that information technology use makes us less active and more isolated, it is that developers of engaging apps got into our heads and provide us attractions we cannot resist. Humans, even well-behaved and well-intentioned adults, find it nearly impossible to resist responding to the ping of a notification.

A one-sentence summary of the book suitable for texting might be “Childhood has gone from play-based to phone-based because of The Great Rewiring” of children’s brains. Just think of childhood experiences before smartphones: Kids were running around the neighborhood or local parks organizing tag and games, getting into arguments and fights, and resolving them without parental supervision. Haidt believes this gave them more independence and developed more social skills by providing opportunities to take social risks and learn to deal with other people.

Phone-based childhood is, of course, less active, but has it also reduces children’s independence, social risk-taking and social problem-solving skills. Haidt identifies what he calls “four foundation harms” of this transition in childhood. These are: social deprivation, sleep deprivation, attention fragmentation and addiction. Adult suffer from these too, but a child’s developing brain is particularly affected.

Haidt is careful to differentiate between effects on boys and girls. Haidt finds that girls have high rates of “internalizing disorders” and boys a higher rate of “externalizing disorders.” Adolescent girls tend to seek more social interactions in developing their identifies and seek affirmation of their peers, while boys use information technology to find independence and isolation. The simplest difference is that girls use social media to engage with other humans while boys play computer games. Girls, therefore, are more likely to be vulnerable to insecurities affiliated with social comparisons of beauty attributes while boys tend toward social isolation and “failure to launch” into relationships and employment.

Haidt proposes four actions to reduce this decline in mental health related to social media. These are: encourage more unsupervised play and childhood independence; ban smartphones until kids are 16; prevent social media use until 16; and establish phone-free schools.

Haidt is a parent of high school students and acknowledges the difficulty of taking these four actions. He correctly identifies them as “collective action” problems, “that is, problems that we all may want to solve but it is too hard for us individually to decide and implement on our own.” All parents dislike hearing their teenagers say “but everyone else is doing it,” for they know they are trapped. The remedies must, therefore, be social and political.

Public policies can be adopted to reduce the ills of “phone-based” childhoods. Students have to be 16, or 15-and-a-half, to obtain a driver’s license. The same should be the social practice for smartphones. In situations, where phone communication might be essential due to family circumstances, flip phones without internet connectivity, are an alternative for students under 16.

Schools should prohibit the use of phones past the school’s front entrance. Allowing students to carry phones while banning their use is not effective in schools.

While it is easier prescribed than implemented, we should encourage alternative activities that reduce smartphone use. Sports are one option, of course, but camping, traveling, playing in a band would all be a distraction from social media and also develop social skills and lifelong interests.

While we shouldn’t be too optimistic that today’s political polarization will adopt sufficient changes to phone-based childhood to improve mental health, American public policy offers some successes in changing individual behaviors once thought as fixed social practices. It is estimated that 90%of drivers wear seatbelts and tobacco smoking has declined to 11.5% of adults. Nowadays we hardly think twice about buckling up and enjoying smoke-free air in public places. Changes in social norms and public policies made that happen.

David Webber joined the MU Political Science Department in 1986 and wrote his first column for the Missourian in 1994. He writes twice monthly.

Taylor Swift, Travis Kelce could reach new heights as power couple

David Webber, Columbia MISSOURIAN, February 10, 2024

Super Bowl LVIII with the Kansas City Chiefs and Taylor Swift would have both been huge in 2024, even if Aphrodite had not brought them together.

I am familiar with the long history of the Super Bowl, with the Kansas City Chiefs losing to the Green Bay Packers in Super Bowl I in 1967, but I did not notice the rise of Taylor Swift.

I was unaware of her music and accomplishments until about five years ago. One of first times I heard her name was when a TV reporter asked a young girl what she was going to do after she completed her cancer chemotherapy treatments, she broke into song with “Shake it Off” “just like Taylor would do,” she said.

I’m sure I noticed her name a few other times and probably dismissed her as another teenage pop star who would fade away without the staying power of a Joni Mitchell, a Bruce Springsteen or a Michael Jackson.

In 2022 I saw that Swift was awarded an honorary doctorate degree by New York University. As a sucker for most things academic, I checked it out on YouTube. I was impressed.

She is a captivating storyteller who projects humility, wisdom and political savvy.

In self-deprecating style, she pronounced “I’m pretty sure the only reason I was selected is because I have a song “22” and the NYU graduates went wild — like she was Elvis or the Beatles.

Having not heard of “22,” I checked it out. I can see why the song is so popular — it’s a catchy tune with a good story. It captures the mixed sentiments of generations of college graduates at age 22.

She went on to describe how “we are a patchwork quilt of our experiences” and that “someone read to you, explained things to you, explained why we eat salad but don’t eat grass.

She advised the grads to express their gratitude to those who helped them in “your steps and missteps.”

Swift said, “I won’t give you advice, because no one likes that, but I will give you some life hacks that I wish I knew when I started my out my career about navigating life, love, pressure, choices, shame, hope and friendship.”

That’s a pretty good list of life topics, especially for a 33-year-old. The single most important message she had for recent college grads might be: “Never be ashamed of trying. Effortless is a myth.”

That NYU speech was about the end of my Taylor Swift education until this Travis Kelce thing came along. Something big was growing.

Granted, everyone follows a celebrity romance, but Swift had an army of followers waiting for some drama. Kelce had last year’s Super Bowl against his brother to bolster his image.

Swift’s selection as Time magazine’s “Person of the Year’ on Dec. 6 first struck me as way too much. How could anyone have more impact on America than a political leader, a business tycoon or the creator of artificial intelligence?

Upon closer examination, however, I see that Time made a credible decision. They cite her entertainment successes — most requested song on Spotify, international popularity of her “Eras” tour, and her economic success of becoming a billionaire.

But one sentence in their announcement haunts me.

They rightly proclaim that 2023 was a rather dark year and that she was one of the few lights. They wrote, “In a divided world where too many institutions are failing, Taylor Swift found a way to transcend borders and be a source of light. No one else on the planet today can move so many people so well.”

By golly, I think Time got it.

Swift’s lasting impact may be on the recording industry where she has challenged the practice of artists signing away the rights to a recording company at the infancy of their careers when young artists are full of ambition but short on legal expertise.

Taylor Swift, and now by association, Travis Kelce, may be on the leading edge of an era of niceness and brightness. They are likable, skilled at their professions, comfortable at being in the public eye in the social media age yet aim to protect their privacy.

They appear to be genuinely nice people. One survey found that 70% of Americans like Swift. They may be riding the leading edge of a wave of America’s frustration and “fed-up-ness” with division and negativity.

Kelce has maybe two to three years remaining in his Hall of Fame professional football playing career; Swift has another two or three decades.

I imagine Kelce will maintain his “New Heights” podcast with his brother and expand his public image and community involvement wherever he is. Swift has the opportunity to maintain her musical achievements and visibility.

My hope is that Kelce becomes a bit more serious, and that Swift focuses her song writing increasingly on social issues. I think they will; aging tends to do that.

So how did I miss the rise of Taylor Swift? First, if I had habitually watched the annual Grammy Awards, I would have noticed her repeat performances.

Second, if my playlist was not almost exclusively Bruce Springsteen and 1970s folk music, I would have known that Swift had a lot more to say than just “Shake it Off.”

People like ‘Demon Copperheads’ are easy to find right here in Columbia

David Webber, January 5, 2024

Barbara Kingsolver’s novel “Demon Copperhead” caught my attention about a year ago, but I didn’t get to reading it till last month. Perhaps it was the unique names of the author and the main character that first caught my attention.

“Demon Copperhead” is a retelling of Charles Dicken’s classic “David Copperfield” in the context of Appalachia’s struggle with poverty and opioid addictions. Having taught at West Virginia University from 1982 to 1986, I am familiar with how absentee money exploited the resources and people of the region for a century and how in the past two decades Big Pharma flooded it with addictive pain killers.

I seldom read fiction. I’m not bragging, I’m acknowledging a shortcoming. I prefer the clarity of economics and history to remembering all those characters and twists and turns. Nonetheless, I decided to attempt the 548-page novel when I read how Kingsolver mirrored “David Copperfield” after having an imaginary conversation with Charles Dickens, who advised her to “let the boy tell the story.” Corny, but it captured my attention.

Kingsolver is a well-accomplished writer. She received a Pulitzer Prize for Fiction this year and, of course, was an Oprah Book Club selection.

Demon Copperhead is the main character and narrator who recounts his life born into Appalachia without privilege or good fortune. He never had a chance. The first sentence of the book is: “First, I got myself born. A decent crowd was on hand to watch, and they’ve always given me that much: the worst of the job was up to me, my mother being let’s just say out of it.”

So it was that Copperhead was born to a single, drug-addicted mother on the floor of the kitchen of a trailer home; his father had died of a mysterious heart attack before Demon’s birth. The only encouragement I felt to keep on reading was that Demon was the narrator — so if he made it through the whole book, he must have some good fortune.

Kingsolver recounts Demon’s struggles with a nearly helpless mother, an unaccepting stepfather, the uncaring foster care system, a decade of opioid drug addiction initiated with a medical industry new pain-reducing panacea to cope with recovery from a high school football injury. Demon’s one positive twist of fate is that he escapes into Marvel superheroes that sharpened his drawing skills and eventually allow him to earn some money as a cartoonist.

Kingsolver can flawlessly do a teenage boy becoming a young man. From what I’ve read, and learned on YouTube, a reader more literate than I would appreciate Kingsolver’s clever twists of the dozens of characters’ names and experiences that parallel Dickens. I will just applaud her mastery of teenage boys’ and young men’s language, attitudes and experiences.

Three big themes will stick with me. First, how our lives are shaped, if not determined, by fate and the unfairness of it all. Demon, whose formal name was Damon Fields, but got the nickname due his red hair, was born into the Appalachian mountains of southern Virginia with its tobacco and coal economy. The only fairness of it is that none of us chose our parents, birth year or birthplace. Some of us are dealt a good hand, some of us aren’t.

American public policy has thrown a few crumbs for economic and social development into Appalachia where 25 million people are trapped, left behind, or chose to stay.

A second theme Kingsolver reveals, chapter after chapter, is that once life is headed downhill, it just keeps on going. The child of a mother with a substance use disorder is rewarded with low-quality housing, schooling, foster care, job opportunities, peer examples, role models and more parental and family poor choices. Trauma is often and consistent. It’s usually hard to tell the difference between good luck and personal resilience among survivors of misfortune.

Third, there are big policy and societal failures and small policy and societal failures throughout Appalachia. Perhaps the highest order is absentee land ownership of coal and land resources that have allowed exploitation and environmental destruction. Next to that would be the historical political manipulation that has allowed the political system to tolerate, and even encouraged, abuse of local citizens for political and economic gain.

I know, I know: Some people look at mountain top removing (strip mining), acid polluted streams and black lung disease and see the free exchange of resources and labor for pay; other people see social injustice. There are everyday policy failures, too, with poorly implemented foster and hospital care.

“Demon Copperhead” deals with dark topics, but I found the book engaging and inspiring: How is it that Demon can take such a kicking and keep on ticking? Moreover, Kingsolver captures the caring community often found in impoverished towns and neighborhoods. Demon is benefited by a caring grandmotherly neighbor and a long-term football coach who sees mutual benefit in helping Demon’s living situation as Demon helps the school’s football performance.

I’ve met several Demon Copperheads on the streets of Columbia. Men and women born into drugs, poverty, family dysfunction and social instability, followed by unsatisfactory schooling, quite often physical and sexual abuse, a health problem or two and some encounters with the criminal justice system.

On a personal, individual level it is not hard to treat them with kindness and respect; on a policy and societal level it is hard to know how “to solve” the problem. Like Demon, local homeless folks have experienced a wide variety of societal and institutional failures, all of which need to be fixed to reduce the incidence of homelessness America is facing.

Demon is able to complete the task of narrating his own story through the miracle of his indomitable human spirit and getting a small lucky break here and there. Whether this conclusion is a mean false or not depends on the reader, I suppose. Kingsolver left me clinging to that hope but knowing that the odds are too often long.

David Webber joined the MU Political Science Department in 1986 and wrote his first column for the Missourian in 1994.

Thinking about banning books with ChatGPT’s help

David Webber, Columbia MISSOURIAN, April 21, 2023

As another salvo in the book ban debate, the Missouri House of Representatives deleted $4.5 million from this year’s budget that had previously been allocated to public libraries around the state. This move is symbolic since public libraries in Missouri are entirely funded by local personal and property taxes sent to independent libraries. This latest round in the book banning wars is related to Senate Bill 775 that went into effect last August. It permits librarians to ban books for sexually explicit material.

I’ve been thinking about the strengths and weakness of book bans so that I can make up my own mind. Book bans in public schools have been a contentious issue for many years. Some argue that book bans are necessary to protect children from harmful or offensive material, while others argue that book bans violate the First Amendment right to freedom of speech and limit students’ exposure to different ideas and perspectives.

I asked ChatGPT about book bans and this is the response I got:

“Schools have the responsibility to provide a safe and respectful learning environment for students, and it’s reasonable for schools to establish guidelines for appropriate materials to be used in classrooms and school libraries. However, banning books outright can be seen as censorship and limit students’ access to important information and diverse perspectives.

It’s important for schools to establish clear guidelines and criteria for evaluating materials and to ensure that any decisions made about banning books are based on valid and reliable information, rather than personal opinions or biases.

One potential approach is to establish a book review committee made up of diverse individuals with different perspectives and expertise, including educators, librarians, parents and community members. This committee can review books that have been challenged or deemed objectionable and make recommendations about whether the book should be banned, restricted or retained.

It’s also important for schools to consider the First Amendment rights of students and to ensure that any decisions about book banning are made in accordance with the law.

Book bans can have a range of effects on children, and the impact may vary depending on the reasons for the ban and the specific books being banned.

In some cases, book bans can limit children’s access to important information and diverse perspectives, which can hinder their intellectual and academic growth. Exposure to different ideas and viewpoints is essential for developing critical thinking skills and for fostering a deeper understanding of the world.

Moreover, banning books can send the message that certain ideas or perspectives are unacceptable or dangerous, which can stifle intellectual curiosity and creativity among children.

On the other hand, some argue that certain books can be harmful or offensive to children, and that banning these books is necessary to protect children from exposure to harmful material.

In some cases, the attempt to ban a book may backfire, as it may actually increase interest in the book among students and the wider community. This phenomenon is sometimes referred to as the “forbidden fruit” effect, where the very act of banning something can make it more desirable.

Moreover, book bans can also create a sense of curiosity and rebellion among students, which may encourage them to seek out the banned book as a way of asserting their independence and challenging authority.

However, while book bans may increase the popularity of banned books, it’s important to remember that this is not the primary reason for banning books. Book bans are typically based on concerns about the appropriateness of the material for the intended audience, and the potential impact of the material on students’ intellectual, social and emotional development.

Overall, while book bans may sometimes result in increased popularity for banned books, this should not be the primary consideration when deciding whether to ban a book. Instead, decisions about book bans should be based on careful consideration of the potential impact on students, as well as the principles of intellectual freedom and the First Amendment

In any case, book bans are a contentious issue and can have significant implications for intellectual freedom and access to information. It’s important for individuals and institutions to carefully consider the potential impact of book bans and to approach these issues with openness; transparency; and a commitment to free expression and diversity of thought.”

It’s important that we all make up our own minds about book bans by doing careful research and investigation, as I started to do in paragraph two above. But in between that paragraph and this one every word was generated by ChatGPT, an interactive artificial intelligence platform, so I didn’t really have to think very hard. All I did was to delete some sentences to shorten it. I repeat: Most of this column was generated by ChatGPT, a free application. The GPT stands for “generative pre-trained transformer.”

We need to learn about artificial intelligence (AI) applications because they may revolutionize education and society.

Protecting young readers from sexually- and violently-explicit materials is a challenge for parents. My personal views are more restrictive, more conservative, than most readers expect of me. But, I am dubious about public policy restrictions on libraries, primarily, because all the banned material is available online and at commercial bookstores. So, while there are symbolic wins and loses there is no real impact on the young readers in whose names the bans have been adopted.

AI applications like ChatGPT are likely a larger threat to the intellectual development of young readers than are books explaining how it feels to be gay. Rather than banning books of unpopular topics, we could prepare them more for the future if we taught all readers to carefully consider the source of what they are reading. Otherwise, they could be tricked by thoughtfully sounding, but lukewarm and sometimes erroneous, arguments by politicians and teachers — and even media columnists.

The cost and value of a Bruce Springsteen concert

David Webber, February 24, 2023

I attended the Bruce Springsteen and E Street Band concert in Kansas City last weekend. It was the eleventh time I’ve seen them since 2009. Back in 2018 I wrote about enjoying his Broadway show. I would have gone to his concerts in my earlier days had I known I would enjoy them so much.

Because of COVID-19, it was big news that he would tour in 2023. This tour is pricey. I know. I am a bit sheepish to say that I paid more for a ticket than I thought any right-thinking person would. I paid $570.48 — $435 for the ticket and $135.48 for the service charge. If you had asked me how much I would have been willing to pay, I would have said something like $250. How did this happen? The best I understand is that it was a combination of impulse buying, the fear of missing out and the panic of auction buying.

When I heard last summer that Springsteen would be in Kansas City, I immediately got online and registered for a lottery that would make me eligible to purchase tickets. I had plenty of time to repeat “your limit is $250.” Advertising for the lottery stated tickets were as low as $75. I received an email that I won the lottery and would be eligible to purchase a ticket. I assumed this meant that a ticket spot had my name on it and that all I had to do was to logon, select a ticket, give my financial information and wait for Bruce to get to KC.

On July 12, I logged on and immediately saw all the ticket prices that were already marked off. I started to scout around for the lowest price and the instant I selected one, I received a notification “Sorry. Another concertgoer bought that ticket.” So, I searched on. Higher and higher I went. I clicked faster and faster. There were some tickets for $800 and more that disappeared as soon as I accessed them. I wanted to see Bruce. I clicked faster. Up over $1,000.

Finally, my good judgment kicked it and I thought I should check the secondary market. Within minutes, with my pulse still elevated, I found two tickets for $435 each. Forgetting my self-imposed ceiling of $250, I felt like I was a winner. What a deal — only $435 compared to the official site that now had tickets going for $1,000. I was in.

I wanted to see Bruce. I provided the necessary credit card data. I impatiently clicked on the service charge in information, in small print and signed off. Two tickets for $1,140.95. I put the date into my phone. I didn’t look at the transaction again until last week when I almost passed out. What? Who would spend $570 on a concert ticket — even for Springsteen?

Evidently, I did.

Buying the tickets seven months ahead of time apparently reduced the sticker shock. I never would have walked in on concert day and charged more than $500 a ticket. Fortunately, I had a week to forget how much I paid for the tickets and just reviewed some of the E Street’s music and recollected how awesome, inspiring, overwhelming a Springsteen concert is.

Last week’s concert matched my memories of the 10 previous concerts. T Mobile Center was rocking with 19,000 fans of all ages, but mostly people who probably used their Social Security check to purchase a ticket. The rolling energy of a Springsteen concert is an experience. Pumped up by a band of 20 musicians and singers, and plenty of amplifiers that hit 100 decibels much of the night, the music reverberates in your chest.

The setlist was a good balance of old and new. Springsteen’s concerts are like a stimulating seminar, listening to his songs at home, or with headphones waiting for a bus, are like reading the class assignment alone beforehand. Knowing I was going to hear him, I re-read Louis Mazur’s “Runaway Dream: Born to Run and Bruce Springsteen’s American Vision.”

Listening to the Kansas City concert, I realized how Springsteen’s recordings follow a life cycle of a young rebel to a senior citizen. Springsteen’s work is now less political, more reflective of a man who is “The Last Man Standing,” the last survivor of his first teenage band. He appreciates the meaning other’s have created for him in “I’ll See You in My Dreams.” That’s nice; that’s how it should be.

So, did I pay too much? Oh, it was a great concert. Compared to the current average ticket price for “Hamilton” and knowing that a Taylor Swift concert ticket is about $225, my first instinct not to pay more than $250 was on target.

Was $570 a ticket a wise investment? No. It was about half a typical mortgage payment for one-night’s entertainment. I figure the $435 base ticket price was near the average ticket price for that concert, the $135 service change seems exploitive. When I think about it, twice the price of a Broadway play doesn’t seem unreasonable for a Springsteen concert — a limited experience of a musical genius who won’t always be with us. If I have the chance, I will attend another Springsteen concert, but I hope I don’t use the secondary market with a steep service charge.

Scott Galloway and his 100 charts about America

David Webber, Columbia MISSOURIAN, December 3, 2022

“Adrift: America in 100 Charts” by Scott Galloway caught my attention by chance at the Columbia Public Library. I should have known about him before. This book debuted in October as a New York Times best-seller. He has three previous books and a popular podcast and has become a social media star.

“Adrift” is Galloway’s fourth book. His first, “The Four: The Hidden DNA of Amazon, Apple, Facebook, and Google” put him on the media map. He also has a podcast, is a tech industry critic, a financial entrepreneur and a marketing professor at New York University.

A few months ago, an article in the New York Times asked, “Is Scott Galloway the Howard Stern of the Business World?” His firm Prof G Media employs 11 writers, researchers and marketers.

Galloway aspires to be “the most influential thought leader in the history of business” and has the opinionated personality to achieve it. He doesn’t appear to be pushing a particular ideological or partisan point of view, but I’m sure particular charts could up particular reactions.

I didn’t know all this when I read “Adrift.” I like graphics, and I especially like people who attempt to use facts to figure out where we have been and where we might be going. I just soak up his data and short commentary and appreciate his common sense recommendations for what the U.S. needs to do to take get back on track.

“Adrift” is divided into 10 parts, with 100 charts, and a total of about 252 pages. The charts are simple, straightforward and clear. There are bar charts, line charts and neat concentric circles with the later time period shaded to highlight change over time. Each has a short narrative interpreting the charts. Additionally, Galloway clearly states the source of each chart.

To make them more memorable, I reorganized about 20 of the charts most closely relating to issues that fit into four categories to assist my remembering them: social ties; higher education; inequality; and health and welfare indicators. There are another 80 charts dealing with topics such as corporate profits, international trade and media transformation that are equally interesting.

Galloway observes that social ties among Americans have declined with 15% of men and 10% of women saying they have no close friends. As recently as 2008, 71% of Americans reported they talk to neighbors, in 2017 it was 54%. Marriage rates are about one-half of what they were in 1970. That may be related to the 45% of Democrats and 35% of Republicans who have concerns about a child marrying someone from the opposite party. The figure was 4% for each party in 1960.

Higher education has not kept up with social change. A college degree has become an entry requirement to the middle class with one-third of jobs requiring college or master’s degrees in 2020 compared with 16% in 1973.

The U.S. has many fewer apprenticeships, an alternative path to the middle class, compared with other several European countries. The demographics of college has changed with 60% of college enrollment in 1970 being men, in 2021 it’s 40.4%. Universities’ endowments increased 44% between 2020 and 2019 but their enrollments only increased 6.5%. Galloway argues elite universities have become more like hedge funds as a place for the wealthy to store their wealth.

Galloway presents several indicators of increasing economic inequality. CEO-to-worker compensation increased to 351 in 2020 from 21 in 1965. Wage earners have not received their fair share of productivity increases. Converted to 2021 dollars, the minimum wage was $10 in 1970 and declined to $7.25 in 2021. If the minimum wage had kept pace with productivity increases, it would now be $22.18. Stated another way, productivity increased 72%, but hourly wages increased 9%.

And middle-class income isn’t going as far. In 1970, it took 2.3 years of median household income to cover the median home sale price; in 2020, it takes 4.3 years.

Several health and welfare indicators deserve attention. The U.S. life expectancy has increased from 70 years in 1960 to 79 in 2019 — and, while not mentioned by Galloway, has declined the past three years. The rest of the world has almost caught up with the U.S. where their life expectancy increased from 53 to 73 years over the same time period.

We have reduced capacity for mental health care as indicated by the number of psychiatric inpatient beds decreasing from almost a half million in 1970 to less than 200,000 in 2014. The U.S. in 2021 had 629 inmates per 100,000 people, compared to 132 in the U.K., 103 in France, and 71 in Germany and 37 in Japan. Incarceration is expensive and re-entry into society has proven difficult and costly. Overall U.S. population growth is slowing to about 7.4% each year in the past decade, about half of what it was in the 1970s. Slower growth is due to a lower birth rate and an increase in drug overdoses and suicides.

Galloway offers several recommendations, among them are simplifying the tax code to reduce hiding non-wage income, restoring the child tax credit adopted during COVID-19 but recently allowed to expire because it reduces childhood poverty and establishing national service programs because it will restore our sense of national purpose.

Galloway is cautiously optimistic about America’s future, seeming to abide by President Bill Clinton’s “There is nothing wrong with America that what is right about America can’t fix.”

We are “adrift” he argues, not because we don’t have the resources or the know-how, but because we don’t have the political leadership. What’s missing in “Adrift” is a chart identifying what will it take for Americans to prepare, select and hold accountable future political leaders so America is no longer adrift.

David Webber joined the MU Political Science Department in 1986 and wrote his first column for the Missourian in 1994.

Selecting six songs to take along if stranded on an island might save family gatherings

David Webber, Columbia MISSOURIAN, November 18, 2022

Aaron Krawitz, local actor and retired MU professor, opened a door of opportunity for me with his invitation to be a castaway on his monthly KOPN program “Marooned.” The central premise of the program is that you are stranded alone on a desert island for the rest of your life when all you can take are six pieces of music. I could handle that solitude for a while, but not forever.

KOPN’s “Marooned” is modeled after a popular BBC radio broadcast called “Desert Island Discs,” which first aired in January 1942 and continues to this day. Krawitz first heard the BBC program as a graduate student in England in the 1960s. To date, there have been more than 3,000 guests on the popular BBC show including the individual Beatles, many American and British celebrities, doctors, sport stars, business officials, some common people, and lots of unknowns. A recent guest on BBC was American musician John Legend.

Krawitz has recorded 21 ”Marooned” programs with Columbians since his first interview with David Wilson in 2021. The local castaways include a radio personality, at least four guests with MU connections, several local public officials, a couple musicians and authors and a few entrepreneurs. In total, they selected about 120 songs of wide diversity. Of the 20 interviews, almost all of them included at least one piece of classical music; most had songs that were very popular, and a few included religious songs. I was surprised that the Beatles, Elton John, Bob Dylan, or Elvis Presley did not dominate and in fact were seldom mentioned. Listening to “Marooned” introduced me to some new music, but more importantly re-acquainted me with music, like that of Aaron Copland and some show tunes, I had forgotten.

My approach was not methodical. I just made a list of songs I like, probably because they are comforting in some way. Looking back, I see that I have several genres covered, but it was not by design. It was rather easy to make an initial list of about 20 songs, but trimming my song list to six songs was challenging. It must be like dieting — the closer you get to your goal, the tougher it gets.

I finally decided on nine songs that included three pairs of songs from which I would select one each to get me to six. I arranged them, mostly in the chronological order with which I had become familiar with them.

First is “This Land is your Land,” written by Woody Guthrie, but I selected the popular version song by Peter, Paul, and Mary. It is an anthem from the folk era that reminds me that we all must contribute to creating a community and keeping a beautiful nation.

Next was Simon and Garfunkel’s “Homeward Bound,” because it reminds me of my wandering by hitchhiking in the late 1960s and early 1970s and captures the solitary excitement of the adventure with the security of knowing I had someplace to return to.

My third selection is Sam Cooke’s, “A Change is Gonna Come,” which I remember from the radio in 1964 to 1965, the key years of the civil rights movement. The song provoked a lot of family and school discussion about social change. Now, I like it because of its hope and optimism that emanates from hard times.

Fourth is Steve Winwood’s “While you See a Chance” that was popular in 1981, probably the key year of my graduate education journey to becoming a professor. I may have rewound this song on my car’s tape cassette more than any other song. It was while I was writing my dissertation, a notoriously solitary undertaking. I must have found the directive “it depends on you” to be very encouraging.

I could have chosen any of at least a dozen Bruce Springsteen songs, but his “Land of Hopes and Dreams” is my No. 5. It is the story of a train going across our land picking up all kinds of people who jump on board. Springsteen says it is about the journey to heaven. I like the power of the music and the unifying theme.

No. 6 is the “Hallelujah Chorus” from the “Messiah” by George Frideric Handel, first performed in 1741. It was written for Easter but now is a popular song for choruses during the Christmas season. Now it is almost a secular tradition. For me, it competes with Beethoven’s ninth “Ode to Joy” in capturing what I hope is a triumphant journey of humanity.

I thought hard about moving up my No. 7 selection “Streets of London” by Ralph McTell that captures my observations and feelings about homeless men and women. I finally decided I preferred a more uplifting, and less sentimental, song if it was to be one of six songs I would be limited to the rest of my life.

For reassurance, and out of curiosity, I asked my six siblings and a couple friends what songs they would select. While they reinforced my selection of several artists from our generation, what I noticed was their enthusiasm for the challenge and how accepting we were for each other’s selection.

After much thought, I cannot identify another theme or topic, except perhaps choice of ice cream, about which we are so accepting of individual preferences. Instead of the stereotypic family arguments that disrupt Thanksgiving dinner maybe we should play “Marooned” and all compose lists of six songs we would like to hear the rest of our lives. We would find we have more in common than we expect and that most differences are interesting and perfectly acceptable. Regardless, we all would respect each other’s choices.

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David Webber joined the MU Political Science Department in 1986 and wrote his first column for the Missourian in 1994. webberd@missoui.edu

A clear-eyed look at the past half-century of American life

David Webber ,Columbia MISSOURIAN, August 13, 2022

“The Flag, the Cross and the Station Wagon: A Graying American Looks Back at his Suburban Boyhood and Wonders What the Hell Happened,” by accomplished environmentalist author Bill McKibben is a thought-provoking overview of 60-years of America’s declining patriotism, faith and economic prosperity told through the nostalgic lens of a Baby Boomer.

McKibben was born a month after John F. Kennedy was elected in 1960. He is about a decade younger than I am.

He spent his childhood in Lexington, Massachusetts, and received his college degree from a Harvard University that was less challenging than his demanding high school teachers.

He lived on Middle Street in a $30,000 house, which would now be valued at nearly $1 million, but it was a re-build as a McMansion. He does an artful job of integrating his white privileged middle-class life with recent American history.

As a country, we certainly have problems, but most Americans are better off than they were, or would have been, in 1960. We certainly have better housing, more mobility and more opportunity than we did 60 years ago. But something is different. It’s not just a dimming American Dream for our children but a loss of civic sentiment today.

McKibben recounts two Lexington incidents that he viewed up close and personal in 1971 — an anti-Vietnam War protest that got his father and 457 other locals arrested and a citizen petition drive a few months later that overrode the town council’s decision to build low-income housing.

McKibben sees these two events as reflections of two alternative forms of citizen participation — peaceful protests and individual self-interested voting. He conjectures that the latter is winning and sees the growth and dominance of individual self-interest as the biggest change in American political politics.

McKibben’s biggest surprise is that several historic patriots and preachers of Lexington at the time of America’s Revolution were slaveholders. McKibben provides a disturbing story of Mark Godman, a slave charged with murdering a brutal owner, not in hopes of gaining his freedom but of getting a kinder master.

Godman was hanged and then gibbeted. That’s when a body, dead or alive, is locked in a human-shaped cage and left to starve and rot and to remain on display forever.

Paul Revere rode past the cage on a pole 20 years later to warn that the British were coming. McKibben, who served as a tour guide in Lexington, was unaware of Revere’s admission until recently.

The lynching is not recent, but our awareness of it is. Certainly, increased awareness of our racial history and racist practices are a gigantic change in the last 60 years. Going from darkness into light is often called progress, although it seems mighty slow.

McKibben reviews the decline in church attendance from the 1970s with established surveys that track a general decline more pronounced among younger generations.

A simple fact to remember is that in 1958, 52 out of 100 Americans belonged to a mainline Protestant denomination; in 2006 it was 13 out of 100.

The growth of Evangelicals is the major explanation, but there has also been an increase in Catholics and non-identifiers. He believes the loss of mainstream Christianity’s power and authority in American life is the biggest change of our generation.

“I’m spiritual but not religious” is a now a well-worn cliché. McKibben, while seeing there are pluses and minuses to such decline, wonders how far values like concern about environmental decline can go without some religious foundation.

The newest and least discussed of McKibben’s three contributors to American decline is the station wagon in the suburbs. He sees suburban housing as the lynchpin to understanding the past half century’s economic and political transformation.

With the decline of American manufacturing of steel and automobiles in the 1970s, housing construction and the stuff we put in our homes has become the major component of American economy and lives.

Housing is our social identity, the vault of family life, determiner of our kids’ public schools and a major consideration of our politics. If you tell me where you live, I will tell you about your politics.

Our single-family homes have become bigger and more expensive as we become more isolated, due to TV, air conditioning, acreage and now the internet. Suburbs, protected by zoning and lot size requirements, often prohibit multi-family dwellings thus, preventing low-income citizens from moving in next door.

Suburbs have favored private automobiles over public transportation, private swimming pools over public pools, private green space over public parks.

Organizing the suburbs was one of Newt Gingrich’s political insights in 1994 to enable Republicans to become the congressional majority. Home ownership motivates citizens to become more conservative and more economically focused, rather than social and environmental, voters. We saw that with Proposition 13 in California in 1978 and the 1980 election of Ronald Reagan.

McKibben’s recommendations for getting out of this mess are disappointing. He is counting on aging and retiring Baby Boomers to wake up and see the light and take corrective action to mitigate climate change and economic inequality.

I doubt it. If Baby Boomers don’t see pitfalls in our social, economic and political lives by the time they receive Social Security, it is too late.

America must repair the loss of public spirit and belief in the common good by renewing calls for national service, military or otherwise; by generating new ideas for housing, energy use, and infrastructure replacement and, of course, by finding leaders and citizens who have convictions.

We need charismatic, revolutionary leaders in this era of hyper-independence. We need policy straight talkers who can communicate to citizens other than their base.

Even if we agree on what needs to be done, it’s hard to imagine how the American political system will get there. It’s hard not to look back to moon dreamers like John F. Kennedy and justice crusaders like Martin Luther King, Jr. Maybe that’s what generational change is for.

David Webber joined the MU Political Science Department in 1986 and wrote his first column for the Missourian in 1994. He can be reached at Webberd@missouri.edu.

‘Fiddler on the roof’ is vantage point to see social change

David Webber, Columbia MISSOURIAN, March 25, 2022

“The Fiddler on the Roof” was performed at MU Jesse Concert Series last week as a live production by a traveling professional theatre company. It was dedicated by the cast to the people of Ukraine suffering from the Russian invasion this past month. Their dedication is more appropriate than I realized that evening, for there is a village named Anatevka in Ukraine on the outskirts of Kyiv named after the village from the musical. It was founded in 2015 by Rabbi Moshe Reuven Azman, primarily as a refuge for Jewish families displaced by Russia’s five-year war against Ukraine that has killed more than 13,000 people and displaced even more in the country’s eastern region.

The 1964 Broadway musical and the 1971 film are set in antisemitic pre-revolutionary Russia in the fictional village of Anatevka, Ukraine, in 1905. The central theme is shown through the poor milkman Tevye’s struggle to accept his rapidly changing world, which includes having five daughters leave home one by one. The 1964 musical was well received,  nominated for 10 Tony Awards, nine of which it won, and was the first musical to achieve 3000 performances. The 1971 movie won Oscars for best song, sound and cinematography.

“Fiddler on the Roof” is a somber but delightful portrayal of an Orthodox Jewish family living in a small community as Russian authorities are moving them out. The father, Tevye, aims to be true to his religious traditions by asking God for personal direction when the village matchmaker suggests his eldest daughter marries the older, wealthier town butcher, whom she rejects. Tevye supports his daughter’s wishes and, resisting tradition, helps his daughter marry a man she prefers.

Social change has a way of speeding up and Tevye is next confronted with his second daughter’s marriage to a man that she arranged all by herself. His third daughter marries a man he disapproves of because the man is of a different faith. The family’s story ends tragically as the Czar’s troops evict the Jewish community from Anatevka and they emigrate to Poland or the United States. History repeats itself.

The timeless popularity of “Fiddler on the Roof” stems from the universal struggle to adopt and accept social change. While the 1960s and ‘70s in America were full of such struggles because of the Vietnam War, rock music and newly discovered social freedoms, all generations deal with social, economic, and technological changes. Smartphones have affected matchmaking, family dinners, and parental authority. “Fiddler” is very popular in Japan, where social change seems to be particularly hard.

Last week’s performance was practically sold out. To be sure, it was an older audience but there were lots of multi-generational families and a few groups of Mizzou students. It was my first live production, but I remember the 1971 movie and the popularity of many of the songs. “Sunrise, Sunset” must have been played at practically every wedding in the 1970s and ‘80s. I was surprised by the number of specific demonstrations of religious faith in “Fiddler.” Tevye routinely asked God for personal direction and the community song “Sabbath Prayer” is a moving request for God’s protection and blessings, including biblical references that my baby-boom generation would probably recognize. That got me thinking about the decline of public, cultural, and social displays of religion in America today.

A majority of American high school students cannot name the 10 Commandments with only 45% recalling the commandment “Honor thy father and thy mother.” Belief in God declined from 90 percent in 2001 to 79% in 2017. A 2022 Marist Poll asked the question differently and found that overall 54% “believe in God as described in the Bible” differing a great deal by generation. The poll also found that 69% of respondents over 60 believe in God as described in the Bible with percentages declining in younger generations. Forty percent report attending church services at least once or twice a month, down from 52% in 2011.

The implications of changing religious beliefs for the future of our society are mixed. Across all demographic groups, 87% of Americans think it is important to be part of a close-knit community. About half of the country say their religion plays a role in their personal relationships, with Republicans twice as likely to say so as Democrats. However, 54% report that religion plays no part in their political identification. About 70% of Americans think the nation’s moral compass is pointed in the wrong direction, regardless if they practice a religion or not. Overall about two-thirds of Americans do not think being religious is necessary in order to live a good life.

The durability of “Fiddler on the Roof” may be due to the long menu of memorable songs, but the struggle to hold on to traditions in a challenging world is universally gripping and heroic.

David Webber joined the MU Political Science Department in 1986 and wrote his first column for the Missourian in 1994. He can be reached at Webberd@missouri.edu.

Amanda Gorman’s new book of poetry is engaging, hopeful

David Webber, Columbia Missourian, February 4, 2022

Amanda Gorman caught America’s attention reciting poems at President Joe Biden’s Inauguration and at the 2021 Super Bowl. Her full-length book of poems, “Call Us What We Carry,” has just been published. It is an engaging collection of a wide variety of topics and formats.

I am no expert about poetry, but I enjoy her verbal creativity and appreciate her generational and racial insights. I remember my high school English teacher lecturing that “you shouldn’t speed read a poem, you should wade through it, letting the words roll around.” Gorman’s words flow so fluidly and usually so simply. For example, she writes, “It’s easy to harp, harder to hope.” Isn’t that the truth?

Like presidential oratory, public poetry has a lower place in American public discourse than it once did. I do remember two other presidential poets — Robert Frost reading “The Gift Outright” at John F. Kennedy’s 1961 inauguration and Maya Angelou reading “On the Pulse of Morning” at Bill Clinton’s 1993 swearing-in, but Gorman feels different.

Frost and Angelou were well-established, recognized senior poets at the top of their craft who brought gravitas to two young, boyish incoming presidents. On the other hand, Gorman was a little-known representative of Generation Z who stole the show on a day of great uncertainty, attempting to connect today’s youth with a very old incoming president.

Gorman was an up-and-comer before Biden’s inauguration by virtue of her Fourth of July appearance on “CBS This Morning” in 2019 reciting her “Believer’s Hymn for the Republic,” a delightful mix of history and hope that characterizes many of her poems. “CBS This Morning” featured her again in April 2020 to perform “The Miracle of Morning,” which is in her new book about our collective and individual efforts to deal with the pandemic.

“Call Us What We Carry” includes 73 poems, most I understood, some I don’t. It is divided into seven sections representing different aspects of our history. My first interpretation of “what we carry” imagined physical loads like supplies and passengers, boxes and bundles, but I quickly realized Gorman means memories, experiences, trauma, lessons, historical interpretations, accomplishments and failures are “what we carry.”

Many Americans recall Gorman reciting “The Hill We Climb” at the Biden inauguration. That poem is included in her new book, allowing the reader to reread and savor her words that captured the historical significance of that day. She began: “When day comes, we ask ourselves, ‘Where we can find light in this never-ending shade?’” She acknowledged that America is “far from polished, far from pristine,” but ended with her pronouncing hope in the closing lines:

“The new dawn blooms as we free it,

For there is always light,

If only we’re brave enough to see it,

If only we’re brave enough to be it.”

Gorman uses several different formats to present her poems. Some are written in traditional form, some are diagrams and dialogues. Two that caught my eye are concrete poems, or visual poems, where the arrangement of words suggests the meaning of the poem.

Gorman’s “America,” presented in the shape of our flag, and “Masks,” with words arranged in the form of a mask, ask “who were we beneath our masks?” Three other concrete poems are formatted as a text message, the U.S. Capitol and an eyeball.

Her book is also unusual in that it has 12 pages of notes explaining many of the historical references in the poems.

Perhaps the most timely, most powerful of her poems is “Fury and Faith,” about present day race-related protests often portrayed by images of Black Lives Matter. Two stanzas stopped my reading as I dwelled on her succinct insights. The first memorable stanza is:

“But the point of protest is not winning.

It’s holding to the promise of freedom,

Even when fast victory is not promised.”

The second is:

“Our Goal is never revenge, just restoration,

Not dominance, just dignity,

Not fear, just freedom,

Just justice”

Gorman’s Super Bowl poem, “Chorus of Captains,” is not in her new book but should have been. In it, she celebrates three ordinary citizens: one a wounded vet, one an educator, one an ICU nurse, whom she refers to as the three captains for the day. It’s about three normal people on a normal day. Her poem ends:

“Let us walk with these warriors,

Charge on with these champions,

And carry forth the call of our captains!

We celebrate them by acting

With courage and compassion,

By doing what is right and just.

For while we honor them today,

It is they who every day honor us.”

Gorman reads and sounds like her times. Her poems are not stuffy and elitist, but clear and common. She recognizes historical hurt and pain, but sees the promise of a greater, more noble future. She recites like rap, but fits well with a symphony. She combines the many voices of America’s past into one clear voice for a better future. That’s something we need right now.

David Webber joined the MU Political Science Department in 1986 and wrote his first column for the Missourian in 1994. He can be reached at Webberd@missouri.edu.