Conservative Psychology

There's a new study of the psychology behind political conservatism. A quick summary:

Four researchers who culled through 50 years of research literature about the psychology of conservatism report that at the core of political conservatism is the resistance to change and a tolerance for inequality, and that some of the common psychological factors linked to political conservatism include:

• Fear and aggression
• Dogmatism and intolerance of ambiguity
• Uncertainty avoidance
• Need for cognitive closure
• Terror management

It's all very interesting, but really not that earth-shattering. The full study is here (pdf).

This link comes via damnum absque injuria, which also points to comments on the study from The Angry Clam and Instapundit; in fact, you could probably spend all day following links around the right wing of the blogosphere on this study—they don't like it much, it seems. DAI also quotes President Clinton's remarks on the Bush yellowcake/SOTU imbroglio, which Clinton made the other night on Larry King when he was being interviewed about Bob Dole's b-day. Bloggers on the right are also having a field day with this because Clinton
basically said everybody makes mistakes so we can't really hold this against Yubbledew. And he'd probably be right if the Republicans hadn't spent the entire eight years of his own Presidency trying to impeach him for much smaller "mistakes"—like, um, "mistakes" that didn't lead to the deaths of thousands of people. For the record, Clinton also said:

I guess I sound like a card-carrying Republican tonight.

And that's true, which is why it's hard to take seriously the "centrists" at the DNC and the DLC who counseled Democratic candidates to be "Bush-lite," thereby making Democrats big losers in the 2002 election round.

And that's about all I'm going to say about that.

UPDATE: More thoughts on the conservative psychology study at The Yin Blog.

Posted 06:51 AM | Comments (3) | general politics

The Dean Says So

Hey, if you're starting law school in the next month or so, relax. That's the order from an Assistant Dean at GW who recently advised readers of GW's admitted students forum that:

Your final month will be best spent if you do nothing involving law. Most of you will begin reading law consistently for the rest of your lives starting August 18th. It will be hard work. Now is the time to get in a little better shape, visit a friend, read a novel, or go to a museum.

Now who am I to argue with advice like that?

Posted 01:15 PM | Comments (1) | law school

A Bunch of Stuff

Ok. After the interesting comments about various types of stress bombers, I really wanted to say something today about the "zero summers" and other personality types so well described in Brush With the Law. However, the day is slipping away so that'll just have to wait, along with all the other things I'd really like to wax poetic about, including:

"Congress to Bikers: Get a Car: Cutting money for sustainable transportation alternatives to cars is so short-sighted and stupid I just don't know where to begin. This is countered at least a little by "A green revolt against Bush," which I Hate Stupid People calls faith restoring. I don't know if I'd go that far, but it's a start.

Bradley's Almanac points to a frightening account of the FBI investigating what a random person was reading in a coffee shop (the guy was reading an opinion piece called "Weapons of Mass Stupidity"). Any faith previously restored is now gone.

L-Cubed continues its streak of provocative posts with a comparison of the different ways the Democrats and Republicans respond to criticism. Scott reports, you decide.

Dan Gillmore says "Voting machines need paper trails" and I couldn't agree with him more. He also provides some suggestions for action to make sure we can trust our elections in the future.

Unlearned Hand reports that the the pro-life movement has effectively stolen millions of dollars from U.S. charities (most of which have nothing to do with abortion, pro or con) and at least one of its members is fairly gleeful about that. Can you say "forest for the trees"?

Finally, Professor Jeff Cooper has returned from a brief break with a great roundup of the coverage of the Bush administration's alleged attempts to smear "whistleblowers" and some nice thoughts on the Tour de France and Apple's advertising.

So much to read and process, so little time.

Posted 09:39 AM | general politics life generally

Day Pop Top 40 Report

DayPop's Top 40 rarely fails to offer links to flabbergasting or otherwise outrageous material, and today is no exception. Did John Gilmore really get ejected from a British Airways flight for wearing a "Suspected Terrorist" button!? Has this been in the news anywhere? I mean, doesn't that sound completely nuts? I agree with the guy—airport security is a farce to make us feel "secure" while adding very little in the way of real additional security. Gilmore has filed a lawsuit against a plethora of parties (FAA, TSA, etc.), specifically the legality of requiring all passengers to show identification before they travel. Reason Magazine ("the monthly print magazine of 'free minds and free markets'") is covering the suit. Why isn't anyone else?

And in a related vein of the insults we suffer under the name of "homeland security," "Bush Suckers the Democrats" argues that the scandal over the African uranium claims in the State of the Union Address is just an empty show to make the Democrats look foolish—planned every step of the way by Yubbledew and Co. (I guess that's why Bush's approval rating is dropping like a stone then, huh?) Whew! That's a relief! Just when I was starting to think the world was a complicated place, The Weekly Standard pulls through to reassure me that everything is, in fact, very simple. You just have to stick with the truth. And we all agree about what that is, don't we?

Also from DayPop: The Dallas Morning News has a blog on which its editors hash out their opinions on various issues. How cool is that? Now if we could just get the Bush administration to do this, we might just have something like a democracy again.

Posted 07:07 AM | general politics life generally

Hey, Me Too! Me Too!

Now that Stephen Hadley has joined George Tenet in taking blame for the whole "Iraq has recently tried to buy significant quantities of Uranium from Africa" lie that Yubbledew told in his State of the Union address, I feel it's time for me to come clean as well.

I admit it. I, too, failed to ensure that the President did not mislead the world about Iraq. I mean, I really tried, but I failed. So blame me, too, ok? Because Yubbledew is responsible for nothing. You got that? Nothing.

Now, please join me in what I'm sure will soon be our required national mantra: "All Hail King George! Hoorah! Long Live King George! Hoorah!"

What? Did you say North Korea may go nuclear? Shaddup and shout, damn you! "All Hail King George! Hoorah!"

Posted 06:02 AM | Comments (1) | general politics

Law School and A Life Worth Living

I was just catching up on some of Jeremy Blachman's brilliance and read his Saturday post about why he might be in law school. Jeremy writes:

Before law school I worked in marketing for a software company in Austin, Texas. I'm from NY, so that was far away. And probably the hardest thing about it was that being on my own, being in a new city, having a job and an apartment -- it all meant I had to really make a life for myself. And that's sort of hard. Because without doing anything pro-active, it's easy to end up going to work, coming home, going to sleep, repeat, sleep and run errands on the weekends, and never really *do* anything, or see other people, or have a life. So it's on your shoulders to make plans, find activities, make friends, do things -- in a way that it's not at school, because you have classes and extracurriculars, and friends, and things to read and write and study, and purpose and meaning, and all that jazz... And I hate thinking that one of the reasons I'm in law school is because I like going to school, and because I like the lifestyle of being a student, and that I find all of this easier than making a life for myself. Because thinking it kind of makes me feel like I'm just postponing the inevitable, or that I'm wasting time and money, or that I'm being sort of stupid. But if it's not one of the reasons I'm in school, it's at least one of the side benefits... .... ...being at school is on the whole nicer -- in my head -- than having to really make a life for yourself, I think.

I'm glad he wrote all that and didn't delete it (as he considered doing) because, well, I worry about the same things. A lot. I mean, law school sure is an expensive way to make sure you have friends and quality stuff to do, isn't it? Plus, this will be my second post-graduate degree; isn't about time I face the music, grow up, and "really make a life for myself"?

And then I remember: Going to school is really making a life for yourself—you can't do the former without at the same time doing the latter. So the question is not one of "school vs. life," but rather different kinds of life, so that perhaps it's safe to say we go to school to make a better life for ourselves. And if that life includes more and better friends, and more and better opportunities to socialize in fulfilling ways, and more and better ways to fill our time, then that's all good, isn't it?

Yet, while I believe that's all true, I still have this fear that I'm just "postponing the inevitable." I worry that I'll end up with a J.D. and be right back where I am right now—looking at a job market that seems to hold very few really worthwhile and fulfilling ways to spend my time and still make enough money to live comfortably. I think it's safe to say that this is a fairly common fear among grad students in many fields; it's the fear of wasting effort, time, money, to get a degree that turns out to not really change your prospects in the world. I don't think there's really any good answer to those fears—there are no guarantees in life—but I'm thinking the odds are good that having a J.D. will allow me to do much more with my life, but in ways I can't predict precisely at this point. Again, I'm reminded of "Charles," the pseudonymous law student whom I quoted a few months ago:

The point of a J.D. is the sudden power it brings you. I have to work from the inside. … It doesn't matter whether I'll feel satisfaction or believe in what I'm doing. Don't you see? It's war. War.

So while having a J.D. won't necessarily make it any easier to do the things Jeremy's thinking about—the need "to make plans, find activities, make friends, do things"—I have high hopes that a J.D. will increase the value of those things because it should allow me to plan and do things I simply could not have done if I hadn't gone to law school, and to know and befriend people I couldn't have otherwise known. Therefore, even if I am just postponing the inevitable, I'm confident that I'm doing it for good reasons and that, in a way, I'm making an "investment" that will pay off later when that "inevitable" eventually comes.

In other words: Going to law school is a potential way to make your life more meaningful and less alienated. Working many 8-5 jobs (like it sounds like Jeremy had in Austin) is an alienating experience. It demands a lot of your time, but it gives you close to nothing in return except for cash. Many jobs don't give you a sense of accomplishment, a sense of doing something worthwhile, a sense of spending your time in a way that will make you feel satisfied with your life when you lay down to die. So spending 40 hours a week at a job like that can be a sort of soul-killing experience. On top of that empty work there's all that business about finding friends and activities, which, as Jeremy says, can be difficult. Some people are so tired out by their jobs (if not physically, then emotionally and psychologically) that by the time they come home in the evening they can't face much more than finding dinner and watching tv, leaving weekends for laundry and the other general life maintenance tasks that accumulate when you spend the majority of your productive waking hours chained to a money-making proposition. So all jobs take your time, some take your physical strength, and many take your emotional and psychological energy as well, leaving you very few resources (besides the money you make at work) with which to "build a life."

Enter school. School is stimulating, not draining. People are in school because they're interested in something (at least some of them are interested in something; others are just about the money and they'll probably never ponder the kinds of questions Jeremy's pondering). School rewards the effort and the time you give it in ways that are infinitely more satisfying than a paycheck. Obviously, you get grades, but that's like a paycheck—empty. Going to school and working hard at it for grades is like getting a job and working hard at it for money—you're missing the point. The real rewards of school are what you learn about the topics you study, about the world you live in, and about yourself as a person, a thinker, a citizen, a friend. The rewards of school are also your interactions with other intelligent people who are interested in things you're interested in, and most of all the rewards of school are what your education and the work you invest in it allow you to do, which is to give something more to the world than you could have given without that education. A side benefit is that the work you eventually do when you have to start your postponed "real life" will be more rewarding to you, as well, because you'll be in a position to do something you find meaningful and worthwhile.

So yes, one way to look at this issue is that some people probably do go to school because it seems easier than trying to "make a real life" on their own. But it should also help them build a better life eventually—better in lots of ways—and that's a good thing.

Posted 11:37 AM | Comments (3) | law school

Aiding the Enemy?

In "Who's Unpatriotic Now?" Paul Krugman turns the tables on the war-hawks who have spent the last year saying that anyone who opposes the war in Iraq is only aiding Saddam Hussein and Al Qaeda. Krugman writes:

Well, if we're going to talk about aiding the enemy: By cooking intelligence to promote a war that wasn't urgent, the administration has squandered our military strength. This provides a lot of aid and comfort to Osama bin Laden — who really did attack America — and Kim Jong Il — who really is building nukes.

Yeah, let's talk about that, why don't we? How about we start with some good answers to the sixteen questions Howard Dean is asking about the whole line of "we gotta go to war immediately" products that Yubbledew and Co. were pushing so hard for so long. (I guess most of those goods have passed their expiration date, huh?)

On the other hand, it appears some people continue to defend the "technically, it wasn't a lie" story. Hmm. Ok, but as a former English teacher I feel compelled to submit that willful suspension of disbelief is really probably best reserved for movies, novels, short stories, plays, and other works of fiction; when real lives (not to mention historical precedent and the friendship, trust, and goodwill of nearly the entire world) are on the line it's probably better to, um, I dunno, be a teensy bit more critical. But hey, what do I know?

UPDATE: Oct. Report Said Defeated Hussein Would Be Threat [link via Joe Conason's Journal]

Posted 10:30 AM | general politics

What, Me Worry?

The summer is flying and participants on the GW admitted students discussion board are exchanging vital info about where to live, what cell phone service to get, and how much they love their shiny new Dells. Good for them, I say. I'm just bitter because the one thing everyone on the board seems to agree on is that Sprint's cell service sucks, and they're absolutely right, but that's what I'm stuck with for the next 8 months. Where were these people in March when I got my phone!?

But in addition to confirming that I have the sorriest excuse for cell phone service in the universe, the posters at the GW discussion board (which I'm not linking to because it's all password-protected and whatnot) also introduced me to Law Nerds.com, which offers a "free, 6-step workshop" to help prepare you for law school. It's basic, but hey, so am I, plus it's short, which means I may even read it all. In addition to the vitals like explaining IRAC and how to brief a case, the Law Nerds advice includes more subtle gems like daily affirmations (!?) and staying away from the "stress bombs":

Some people purposefully create stress as a motivator for themselves. They freak out at the workload and use it as a way to bond with other students. Stay away from the people who are stressing out. Stress creates stress, and you want to focus your energies on studying, not stressing out.

I saw this in my English grad program all the time. There were some people who couldn't seem to have a single conversation—or even exchange greetings in the hallway—without reference to their workload, lack of sleep, problem students in the classes they were teaching, or other stress factors. In my first year, every time I'd talk with one of these people I'd walk away thinking there must be something wrong with me because I didn't feel nearly as behind as they did (even if I had more work I needed to catch up on), and I certainly didn't feel stressed about any of it. By the second year I'd spent enough time with people like this that I started to be like them. They taught me what should stress me out and how to magnify those things (and my stress from those things) into conversation pieces and life-dominating albatrosses. It got to the point where every gathering of grad students was just a big exchange of what we were stressed out about. It was pretty sick. And it's a self-perpetuating cycle. As the Law Nerds say, unless you're one of these people who can only function if you're stressed to the verge of exploding: Stay away from people like this. Far away. If you walk away from a conversation with someone in your first few weeks and you feel more stressed than you did when you began the conversation, think really hard about whether you really need to talk to them again. Of course, a certain amount of stress is probably a healthy motivator for all of us, so a good strategy may be to try to find friends and study partners who are a good mix of more and less stressed than you are. The more-stressed people can help keep you (and your group) on your toes, while the less stressed people can be a voice of sanity, reminding you (and your group) when the stress is going beyond the healthy point.

I'm just thinking out loud here.

This whole avoiding stress thing has a corollary, which the Law Nerds put this way:

Putting in more hours doesn't necessarily lead to more knowledge.

This will be vital to remember if you find yourself surrounded by stress bombs. They'll be talking about how many all-nighters they've already pulled and about how they've read three extra books that weren't even assigned and yadda yadda yadda, and you'll be going, "um, I've been sleeping 8 hours a night and I haven't even done half the assigned reading, let alone anything extra." At first you'll be ok with this, but beware! The stress bombs have planted seed of doubt in your mind, and if you're not careful, before you know it you'll be panicked and paranoid that you're not working hard enough and will be doomed to failure if you don't also read many extra books and stay up all night doing it. And of course you know if you go that route you'll just get strung out and more paranoid and worried, rather than less, so you don't want to go there, right? Right?

Um, did I mention I was just thinking out loud here?

And while I'm at it, let me just say that signing the promissory notes for the $36,330 I'm borrowing to pay for the next 9 months of my life was, well, a sobering experience. Suddenly firms look very different to me, as in, well, maybe not so bad. I mean, it's good experience to work in a firm for a year or two, right? It doesn't have to be awful, right? And as L. pointed out, some top law students are lucky enough to get great paying gigs during their 1-L and 2-L summers; we've known people who made close to $70k total in just two summers "interning" for firms. So forget what I said about not wanting anything to do with firms. Where do I apply?

Which reminds me: Just about every law school advice book (and someone from the PR boards a while back) tells you to get your resume polished up before law school starts so you'll be ready to send off applications for summer work when the application process begins on Dec. 1. Just FYI.

Posted 11:36 AM | Comments (2) | law school

Old Rag Mountain

It was a beautiful weekend in the DC region, so on the spur of the moment Saturday night, I decided to take a little hike. I'd previously searched for recommended hikes in the area, and found Local Hike's list of 5-star hikes , and of course I wanted to do the one billed as the "best hike in VA!" L. and I did the Bull Run "hike" a few weeks ago and found it to be less hike than walk, except for the low spots, which at the time were filled with water, making the "hike" more like a "swalk"—a swap walk. We also picked up some friendly tics there, as did our favorite dumb animal (our dog), so all in all Bull Run was nice, but I hoped that Old Rag Mountain would offer more climbing, varied terrain, and better views.

Old Rag did not disappoint. As the picture below should suggest, aside from the "smokiness" of the mountains, the views were pretty darned good.

And if you want climbing, you'd probably be hard-pressed to find more of it in the DC area than you'll find on Old Rag. As the Local Hikes description indicates, you climb over 2000 feet in around 4 miles. The "rock scramble" is also no joke; there were places where the rocks were so vertical I had to stop and examine them pretty closely to find a way up. However, since Old Rag is such a popular hike those few tough spots aren't really so tough—all the likely hand holds (including nearby trees and branches) are worn smooth from all the hands that have grabbed them over the years, and all the good toe holds are blackened by the scrapes of shoe rubber. So although it's a pretty challenging hike, it's well-traveled so you can hike in the knowledge that if you get in any kind of trouble someone will likely be along shortly to help you out.

If you want a great hike in the D.C. area, I highly recommend Old Rag. However, I'd add a couple of things to what the Local Hikes page says about it. First, it took almost exactly 2 hours to reach the trail parking lot from the Bethesda, MD area—follow directions to Nethers, VA if you want to look it up on Yahoo maps or something. Also, since you have to park 0.8 miles from the trailhead, this is really an 8.8 mile round-trip, not 7 miles. Finally, the 4-hour pace is a pretty brisk one. I did it, but it was kind of a forced march and I only spent about 10-15 minutes at the top. I imagine most hikers will want to take a more leisurely pace, so plan for 5-6 hours, at least. Other than that, take lots of water and have a great hike.

So what's next? If you have recommendations for hiking or biking (mt. or road) in the DC area, the comments link is calling your name!

Posted 11:07 AM | Comments (5) | life generally

Really Good Wretchedness

Kick off your week with some award-winning wretchedness! Feast your eyes on this:

They had but one last remaining night together, so they embraced each other as tightly as that two-flavor entwined string cheese that is orange and yellowish-white...

So begins the winning entry of the Bulwer-Lytton Fiction Contest ("where WWW means Wretched Writers Welcome"). The BLFC is "a whimsical literary competition that challenges entrants to compose the opening sentence to the worst of all possible novels."

But what if you like string cheese?

[Link via Random Neural Misfirings which is definitely random and includes this nice little roundup of recent events.]

Posted 07:16 AM | life generally