the sad truth of society essay

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Hannah Arendt On Standing Up to the Banality of Evil

For 20th-century German philosopher Hannah Arendt, most evil is committed by people who never make up their minds to be good or evil.

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W here does evil come from? Are evil acts always committed by evil people? Whose responsibility is it to identify and stamp out evil? These questions concerned 20th-century German philosopher Hannah Arendt throughout her life and work, and in her final (and unfinished) 1977 book The Life of the Mind , she seems to offer a conclusion, writing:

The sad truth is that most evil is done by people who never make up their minds to be good or evil.

Indeed, Arendt was a German philosopher and political theorist who saw the techniques and evil consequences of totalitarian regimes firsthand.

Born into a secular-Jewish family, Arendt fled Nazi Germany in the 1930s, eventually settling in New York, where after the war she covered the trial of Nazi war criminal Adolf Eichmann.

In her report for The New Yorker, and later published in her 1963 book Eichmann in Jerusalem: A Report on the Banality of Evil , Arendt expressed how disturbed she was by Eichmann — but for reasons that might not be expected.

Far from the monster she thought he’d be, Eichmann was instead a rather bland, “terrifyingly normal” bureaucrat. He carried out his murderous role with calm efficiency not due to an abhorrent, warped mindset, but because he’d absorbed the principles of the Nazi regime so unquestioningly — never considering their consequences from anyone’s perspective but his own — that his focus was simply to further his career within the regime and climb its ladders of power.

Eichmann embodied “the dilemma between the unspeakable horror of the deeds and the undeniable ludicrousness of the man who perpetrated them.” His actions were defined not so much by thought, but by the absence of thought — convincing Arendt of the “banality of evil.”

The banality of evil: evil is not monstrous, it takes place under the guise of ‘normality’

T he “banality of evil” is the idea that evil does not have the Satan-like, villainous appearance we might typically associate it with. Rather, evil is perpetuated when immoral principles become normalized over time by people who do not think about things from the standpoint of others. Evil becomes commonplace; it becomes the everyday. Ordinary people — going about their everyday lives — become complicit actors in systems that perpetuate evil.

This idea is best understood within the context of how Arendt viewed our relationship to the world. We live and think not in isolation, Arendt argues, but in an interconnected web of social and cultural relations — a framework of shared languages, behaviors, and conventions that we are conditioned by every single day.

This web of social and cultural relations is so all-encompassing in shaping our thought and behavior we are barely conscious of it. It only becomes noticeable when something or someone doesn’t conform to it.

For example, if you were invited to a formal dinner, and proceeded to forego cutlery and eat your meal with your hands, you’d draw many a strange and disapproving look — perhaps you’d even be asked to leave by the more militant guests, for whom ‘eating with cutlery at formal dinners’ is such a deeply ingrained principle as to be worth defending with vigor.

“The ideal subject of totalitarian rule is not the convinced Nazi or the dedicated Communist, but people for whom the distinction between fact and fiction, true and false, no longer exist” — Hannah Arendt in her 1951 work, The Origins of Totalitarianism.

But do we ever take the time to truly challenge the principles we’ve inherited, to ensure they stand up to our own individual scrutiny? Are we even aware of our biases and learned behaviors? For Arendt, the answer to these questions is largely no — and it is precisely our tendency to adopt judgements without thinking that allows evil's banality to flourish.

For, if we’re not careful, evil principles can gradually emerge to become the new normal, and like the militant cutlery-using guests at the formal dinner party, we’ll defend those principles not necessarily because we’ve independently concluded they’re worth defending, but because they’re ‘normal’.

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In relation to something as heinous as the crimes of Nazi Germany, this uncomfortable conclusion caused quite a stir in Arendt’s day. It implied the crimes of Nazi Germany were not the responsibility of a handful of twisted men. Those men kickstarted it, but society enabled it: a lack of empathetic critical thinking, a desensitization, a human susceptibility to totalitarianism — this is what led to the murder of millions.

Arendt had Nazi Germany as her template, but argued systemic oppression and the gradual normalization of evil can occur anywhere, any time, and at any scale.

Can you think of anything you’re desensitized to today?

Standing up to evil’s banality

A rendt’s 1963 book Eichmann in Jerusalem: A Report on the Banality of Evil remains a fascinatingly relevant read, delving deeply into the systems that drive our moral standards and consequent behavior. Her view on evil’s banality suggests its antidote begins in active, empathetic thinking. By being sensitive to different viewpoints and scrutinizing everything we might otherwise adopt or conform to unconsciously, we can be guided by reason, rather than misled by rhetoric or propaganda.

In other words, it is only through thinking for ourselves that we avoid drowning in the tidal wave of information, custom, and circumstance the world throws at us. It’s not easy, but by practicing philosophy — by actively, carefully considering matters from multiple perspectives — we can weigh things and take responsibility for our judgements and behaviors independently , rather than risk becoming an unthinking enabler of principles we wouldn’t necessarily subscribe to, if only we took the time to think about them.

To ensure your thoughts are always stimulated, and to learn more about the work of brilliant philosopher Hannah Arendt, we’ve put together a reading list of the best six books by and about Arendt . Check it out by hitting the banner below now.

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Hannah Arendt: 'The sad truth is that most evil is done by people who never make up their minds to be good or evil.'

The sad truth is that most evil is done by people who never make up their minds to be good or evil.

The quote by Hannah Arendt, "The sad truth is that most evil is done by people who never make up their minds to be good or evil," encapsulates a profound and often overlooked aspect of human behavior. At first glance, it suggests that evil actions are not necessarily perpetrated by individuals who consciously choose to be evil, but rather by those who remain passive or indifferent in their moral decision-making. This quote highlights the significant role of moral ambiguity and the failure to make a definitive choice between good and evil.While the straightforward interpretation of the quote brings attention to the importance of actively choosing the path of goodness, it also opens the door to a deeper philosophical concept: the banality of evil. In contrast to popular belief, evil is not always carried out by individuals who explicitly desire to cause harm. Instead, it can manifest through the mundane actions of ordinary people who, out of apathy or ignorance, contribute to a harmful outcome. This notion challenges the traditional idea of evil as a conscious and deliberate act.Arendt's observation resonates with the philosophical idea that evil often emerges from a lack of self-awareness and moral autonomy. It suggests that the failure to critically examine one's actions and their consequences can result in unintended harm. In this sense, the quote serves as a stark reminder that evil can thrive in a space of uncertainty and indecisiveness.To understand the significance of Arendt's words, it is crucial to explore the implications they hold in various contexts, including history, politics, and personal morality. Throughout history, many atrocities have been committed not by malicious individuals, but by those who passively followed orders or turned a blind eye to injustice. The quote sheds light on the dangers of complacency and the responsibility we all bear in making conscientious choices.In terms of politics, the quote challenges the notion that evil is solely attributed to corrupt leaders or dictators. It reminds us that evil can exist within systems and structures and can be perpetuated by the inaction or indifference of individuals who enable such systems to persist. It encourages us to question our complicity and the consequences of our choices in the broader societal context.On a personal level, the quote asks us to reflect on our own moral compass. It urges us to avoid the temptation of passivity and reminds us that even seemingly insignificant choices hold the power to shape our character and contribute to the collective good or evil. Arendt's words compel us to engage in critical self-reflection and make conscious decisions that align with our values and principles.In conclusion, Hannah Arendt's quote "The sad truth is that most evil is done by people who never make up their minds to be good or evil" offers a thought-provoking perspective on the nature of evil. It challenges the conventional understanding of evil as a deliberate and intentional act, instead shifting our attention to the moral ambiguity that accompanies the absence of decisive action. By highlighting the connection between passivity, indifference, and the perpetuation of evil, this quote urges us to examine our personal choices, societal structures, and historical events through a more nuanced lens. Ultimately, it calls upon us to strive for self-awareness, moral autonomy, and an unwavering commitment to the path of goodness.

Hannah Arendt: 'Only the mob and the elite can be attracted by the momentum of totalitarianism itself. The masses have to be won by propaganda.'

Hannah arendt: 'this is the precept by which i have lived: prepare for the worst; expect the best; and take what comes.'.

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The sad truth about society, don't let technology change you..

I went out to dinner last night and witnessed something so upsetting and gut-wrenching.

The story begins with a father and his two daughters who were seated at the booth next to me. Both daughters, no more than 12 years old, were furiously tapping away on their own, oversized iPads. Across from them sat their father whose eyes were glued to his cell phone for the entirety of the dinner. The family never spoke to one another. They were engrossed in whatever was going on behind their screens. The daughters were consumed by the games that seemed more important than quality time with their father. The children looked up for a brief period of time to assess the food that was placed in front of them. For the entirety of the dinner, the family ate their meals with the one free hand that was not scrolling on the tablet. No words were changed. No memories were made.

You see, the sad truth about our society is that everyone seems to be caught up in an overly digitized world. People have yet to wake up and realize that the physical world around us is falling apart. We have gotten accustomed to picking out the perfect Emojis instead of telling people how we really feel. We will be the first ones to send passive aggressive text messages instead of talking about or issues because no one likes confrontation. We've spent hours creating lives for ourselves on the internet but we've forgotten about the life we lead on the other side of the screen.

Today's society has become entirely submerged in a world that operates behind phone screens and glowing laptops. We need to wake up and smell the coffee that we've left brewing in the Keurig all day because we're too lazy to get off our couch and unplug the machine.

We are slaves to the technology that separates us from the living. We need to find a way to break free from the chains that we have grown so accustomed to.

Truthfully, I feel sorry for the youth growing up in today's society. They'll never know the joy of running through a bookstore to find a new book to read. They'll never feel the excitement that comes with buying a new box of Crayola Crayons with the built in sharpener behind the box. The only thing that matters today is what kind of iPhone they get for their birthday or what gaming system they want for Christmas.

Society is lacking culture, it is lacking emotion. We are missing out on some of life's greatest moments because we insist on watching them unfold from behind a five-inch screen. The only memories we have are the ones we chose to keep on our photo stream. We've forgotten how to connect with people on a deeper level than a "follow" on Twitter or Instagram. Our lives are not private, yet we refuse to share anything to anyone who asks in person.

It is time we make a change. It is time to shut the laptops and power down the phones. Hide the gaming consoles and give your children a coloring book and take them outside. We must show the youth today the better world we want for them tomorrow. But most importantly, we need to set the example. Put down the phones at the dinner table. Make memories that will last longer than the pictures you post to your Snap Story.

Technology is always changing. Do not let it change you.

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25 beatles lyrics: your go-to guide for every situation, the best lines from the fab four.

For as long as I can remember, I have been listening to The Beatles. Every year, my mom would appropriately blast “Birthday” on anyone’s birthday. I knew all of the words to “Back In The U.S.S.R” by the time I was 5 (Even though I had no idea what or where the U.S.S.R was). I grew up with John, Paul, George, and Ringo instead Justin, JC, Joey, Chris and Lance (I had to google N*SYNC to remember their names). The highlight of my short life was Paul McCartney in concert twice. I’m not someone to “fangirl” but those days I fangirled hard. The music of The Beatles has gotten me through everything. Their songs have brought me more joy, peace, and comfort. I can listen to them in any situation and find what I need. Here are the best lyrics from The Beatles for every and any occasion.

And in the end, the love you take is equal to the love you make

The End- Abbey Road, 1969

The sun is up, the sky is blue, it's beautiful and so are you

Dear Prudence- The White Album, 1968

Love is old, love is new, love is all, love is you

Because- Abbey Road, 1969

There's nowhere you can be that isn't where you're meant to be

All You Need Is Love, 1967

Life is very short, and there's no time for fussing and fighting, my friend

We Can Work It Out- Rubber Soul, 1965

He say, "I know you, you know me", One thing I can tell you is you got to be free

Come Together- Abbey Road, 1969

Oh please, say to me, You'll let me be your man. And please say to me, You'll let me hold your hand

I Wanna Hold Your Hand- Meet The Beatles!, 1964

It was twenty years ago today, Sgt. Pepper taught the band to play. They've been going in and out of style, but they're guaranteed to raise a smile

Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band-1967

Living is easy with eyes closed, misunderstanding all you see

Strawberry Fields Forever- Magical Mystery Tour, 1967

Can you hear me? When it rains and shine, it's just a state of mind

Rain- Paperback Writer "B" side, 1966

Little darling, it's been long cold lonely winter. Little darling, it feels like years since it' s been here. Here comes the sun, Here comes the sun, and I say it's alright

Here Comes The Sun- Abbey Road, 1969

We danced through the night and we held each other tight, and before too long I fell in love with her. Now, I'll never dance with another when I saw her standing there

Saw Her Standing There- Please Please Me, 1963

I love you, I love you, I love you, that's all I want to say

Michelle- Rubber Soul, 1965

You say you want a revolution. Well you know, we all want to change the world

Revolution- The Beatles, 1968

All the lonely people, where do they all come from. All the lonely people, where do they all belong

Eleanor Rigby- Revolver, 1966

Oh, I get by with a little help from my friends

With A Little Help From My Friends- Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band, 1967

Hey Jude, don't make it bad. Take a sad song and make it better

Hey Jude, 1968

Yesterday, all my troubles seemed so far away. Now it looks as though they're here to stay. Oh, I believe in yesterday

Yesterday- Help!, 1965

And when the brokenhearted people, living in the world agree, there will be an answer, let it be.

Let It Be- Let It Be, 1970

And anytime you feel the pain, Hey Jude, refrain. Don't carry the world upon your shoulders

I'll give you all i got to give if you say you'll love me too. i may not have a lot to give but what i got i'll give to you. i don't care too much for money. money can't buy me love.

Can't Buy Me Love- A Hard Day's Night, 1964

All you need is love, love is all you need

All You Need Is Love- Magical Mystery Tour, 1967

Whisper words of wisdom, let it be

Blackbird singing in the dead of night, take these broken wings and learn to fly. all your life, you were only waiting for this moment to arise.

Blackbird- The White Album, 1968

Though I know I'll never lose affection, for people and things that went before. I know I'll often stop and think about them. In my life, I love you more

In My Life- Rubber Soul, 1965

While these are my 25 favorites, there are quite literally 1000s that could have been included. The Beatles' body of work is massive and there is something for everyone. If you have been living under a rock and haven't discovered the Fab Four, you have to get musically educated. Stream them on Spotify, find them on iTunes or even buy a CD or record (Yes, those still exist!). I would suggest starting with 1, which is a collection of most of their #1 songs, or the 1968 White Album. Give them chance and you'll never look back.

14 Invisible Activities: Unleash Your Inner Ghost!

Obviously the best superpower..

The best superpower ever? Being invisible of course. Imagine just being able to go from seen to unseen on a dime. Who wouldn't want to have the opportunity to be invisible? Superman and Batman have nothing on being invisible with their superhero abilities. Here are some things that you could do while being invisible, because being invisible can benefit your social life too.

1. "Haunt" your friends.

Follow them into their house and cause a ruckus.

2. Sneak into movie theaters.

Going to the cinema alone is good for your mental health , says science

Considering that the monthly cost of subscribing to a media-streaming service like Netflix is oft...

Free movies...what else to I have to say?

3. Sneak into the pantry and grab a snack without judgment.

Late night snacks all you want? Duh.

4. Reenact "Hollow Man" and play Kevin Bacon.

America's favorite son? And feel what it's like to be in a MTV Movie Award nominated film? Sign me up.

5. Wear a mask and pretend to be a floating head.

Just another way to spook your friends in case you wanted to.

6. Hold objects so they'll "float."

"Oh no! A floating jar of peanut butter."

7. Win every game of hide-and-seek.

Just stand out in the open and you'll win.

8. Eat some food as people will watch it disappear.

Even everyday activities can be funny.

9. Go around pantsing your friends.

Even pranks can be done; not everything can be good.

10. Not have perfect attendance.

You'll say here, but they won't see you...

11. Avoid anyone you don't want to see.

Whether it's an ex or someone you hate, just use your invisibility to slip out of the situation.

12. Avoid responsibilities.

Chores? Invisible. People asking about social life? Invisible. Family being rude? Boom, invisible.

13. Be an expert on ding-dong-ditch.

Never get caught and have the adrenaline rush? I'm down.

14. Brag about being invisible.

Be the envy of the town.

But don't, I repeat, don't go in a locker room. Don't be a pervert with your power. No one likes a Peeping Tom.

Good luck, folks.

19 Lessons I'll Never Forget from Growing Up In a Small Town

There have been many lessons learned..

Small towns certainly have their pros and cons. Many people who grow up in small towns find themselves counting the days until they get to escape their roots and plant new ones in bigger, "better" places. And that's fine. I'd be lying if I said I hadn't thought those same thoughts before too. We all have, but they say it's important to remember where you came from. When I think about where I come from, I can't help having an overwhelming feeling of gratitude for my roots. Being from a small town has taught me so many important lessons that I will carry with me for the rest of my life.

1. The importance of traditions.

Sometimes traditions seem like a silly thing, but the fact of it is that it's part of who you are. You grew up this way and, more than likely, so did your parents. It is something that is part of your family history and that is more important than anything.

2. How to be thankful for family and friends.

No matter how many times they get on your nerves or make you mad, they are the ones who will always be there and you should never take that for granted.

3. How to give back.

When tragedy strikes in a small town, everyone feels obligated to help out because, whether directly or indirectly, it affects you too. It is easy in a bigger city to be able to disconnect from certain problems. But in a small town those problems affect everyone.

4. What the word "community" really means.

Along the same lines as #3, everyone is always ready and willing to lend a helping hand when you need one in a small town and to me that is the true meaning of community. It's working together to build a better atmosphere, being there to raise each other up, build each other up, and pick each other up when someone is in need. A small town community is full of endless support whether it be after a tragedy or at a hometown sports game. Everyone shows up to show their support.

5. That it isn't about the destination, but the journey.

People say this to others all the time, but it takes on a whole new meaning in a small town. It is true that life is about the journey, but when you're from a small town, you know it's about the journey because the journey probably takes longer than you spend at the destination. Everything is so far away that it is totally normal to spend a couple hours in the car on your way to some form of entertainment. And most of the time, you're gonna have as many, if not more, memories and laughs on the journey than at the destination.

6. The consequences of making bad choices.

Word travels fast in a small town, so don't think you're gonna get away with anything. In fact, your parents probably know what you did before you even have a chance to get home and tell them. And forget about being scared of what your teacher, principle, or other authority figure is going to do, you're more afraid of what your parents are gonna do when you get home.

7. To trust people, until you have a reason not to.

Everyone deserves a chance. Most people don't have ill-intentions and you can't live your life guarding against every one else just because a few people in your life have betrayed your trust.

8. To be welcoming and accepting of everyone.

While small towns are not always extremely diverse, they do contain people with a lot of different stories, struggle, and backgrounds. In a small town, it is pretty hard to exclude anyone because of who they are or what they come from because there aren't many people to choose from. A small town teaches you that just because someone isn't the same as you, doesn't mean you can't be great friends.

9. How to be my own, individual person.

In a small town, you learn that it's okay to be who you are and do your own thing. You learn that confidence isn't how beautiful you are or how much money you have, it's who you are on the inside.

10. How to work for what I want.

Nothing comes easy in life. They always say "gardens don't grow overnight" and if you're from a small town you know this both figuratively and literally. You certainly know gardens don't grow overnight because you've worked in a garden or two. But you also know that to get to the place you want to be in life it takes work and effort. It doesn't just happen because you want it to.

11. How to be great at giving directions.

If you're from a small town, you know that you will probably only meet a handful of people in your life who ACTUALLY know where your town is. And forget about the people who accidentally enter into your town because of google maps. You've gotten really good at giving them directions right back to the interstate.

12. How to be humble .

My small town has definitely taught me how to be humble. It isn't always about you, and anyone who grows up in a small town knows that. Everyone gets their moment in the spotlight, and since there's so few of us, we're probably best friends with everyone so we are as excited when they get their moment of fame as we are when we get ours.

13. To be well-rounded.

Going to a small town high school definitely made me well-rounded. There isn't enough kids in the school to fill up all the clubs and sports teams individually so be ready to be a part of them all.

14. How to be great at conflict resolution.

In a small town, good luck holding a grudge. In a bigger city you can just avoid a person you don't like or who you've had problems with. But not in a small town. You better resolve the issue fast because you're bound to see them at least 5 times a week.

15. The beauty of getting outside and exploring.

One of my favorite things about growing up in a rural area was being able to go outside and go exploring and not have to worry about being in danger. There is nothing more exciting then finding a new place somewhere in town or in the woods and just spending time there enjoying the natural beauty around you.

16. To be prepared for anything.

You never know what may happen. If you get a flat tire, you better know how to change it yourself because you never know if you will be able to get ahold of someone else to come fix it. Mechanics might be too busy , or more than likely you won't even have enough cell service to call one.

17. That you don't always have to do it alone.

It's okay to ask for help. One thing I realized when I moved away from my town for college, was how much my town has taught me that I could ask for help is I needed it. I got into a couple situations outside of my town where I couldn't find anyone to help me and found myself thinking, if I was in my town there would be tons of people ready to help me. And even though I couldn't find anyone to help, you better believe I wasn't afraid to ask.

18. How to be creative.

When you're at least an hour away from normal forms of entertainment such as movie theaters and malls, you learn to get real creative in entertaining yourself. Whether it be a night looking at the stars in the bed of a pickup truck or having a movie marathon in a blanket fort at home, you know how to make your own good time.

19. To brush off gossip.

It's all about knowing the person you are and not letting others influence your opinion of yourself. In small towns, there is plenty of gossip. But as long as you know who you really are, it will always blow over.

Grateful Beyond Words: A Letter to My Inspiration

I have never been so thankful to know you..

I can't say "thank you" enough to express how grateful I am for you coming into my life. You have made such a huge impact on my life. I would not be the person I am today without you and I know that you will keep inspiring me to become an even better version of myself.

You have taught me that you don't always have to strong. You are allowed to break down as long as you pick yourself back up and keep moving forward. When life had you at your worst moments, you allowed your friends to be there for you and to help you. You let them in and they helped pick you up. Even in your darkest hour you showed so much strength. I know that you don't believe in yourself as much as you should but you are unbelievably strong and capable of anything you set your mind to.

Your passion to make a difference in the world is unbelievable. You put your heart and soul into your endeavors and surpass any personal goal you could have set. Watching you do what you love and watching you make a difference in the lives of others is an incredible experience. The way your face lights up when you finally realize what you have accomplished is breathtaking and I hope that one day I can have just as much passion you have.

SEE MORE: A Letter To My Best Friend On Her Birthday

The love you have for your family is outstanding. Watching you interact with loved ones just makes me smile . You are so comfortable and you are yourself. I see the way you smile when you are around family and I wish I could see you smile like this everyday. You love with all your heart and this quality is something I wished I possessed.

You inspire me to be the best version of myself. I look up to you. I feel that more people should strive to have the strength and passion that you exemplify in everyday life.You may be stubborn at points but when you really need help you let others in, which shows strength in itself. I have never been more proud to know someone and to call someone my role model. You have taught me so many things and I want to thank you. Thank you for inspiring me in life. Thank you for making me want to be a better person.

Waitlisted for a College Class? Here's What to Do!

Dealing with the inevitable realities of college life..

Course registration at college can be a big hassle and is almost never talked about. Classes you want to take fill up before you get a chance to register. You might change your mind about a class you want to take and must struggle to find another class to fit in the same time period. You also have to make sure no classes clash by time. Like I said, it's a big hassle.

This semester, I was waitlisted for two classes. Most people in this situation, especially first years, freak out because they don't know what to do. Here is what you should do when this happens.

Don't freak out

This is a rule you should continue to follow no matter what you do in life, but is especially helpful in this situation.

Email the professor

Around this time, professors are getting flooded with requests from students wanting to get into full classes. This doesn't mean you shouldn't burden them with your email; it means they are expecting interested students to email them. Send a short, concise message telling them that you are interested in the class and ask if there would be any chance for you to get in.

Attend the first class

Often, the advice professors will give you when they reply to your email is to attend the first class. The first class isn't the most important class in terms of what will be taught. However, attending the first class means you are serious about taking the course and aren't going to give up on it.

Keep attending class

Every student is in the same position as you are. They registered for more classes than they want to take and are "shopping." For the first couple of weeks, you can drop or add classes as you please, which means that classes that were once full will have spaces. If you keep attending class and keep up with assignments, odds are that you will have priority. Professors give preference to people who need the class for a major and then from higher to lower class year (senior to freshman).

Have a backup plan

For two weeks, or until I find out whether I get into my waitlisted class, I will be attending more than the usual number of classes. This is so that if I don't get into my waitlisted class, I won't have a credit shortage and I won't have to fall back in my backup class. Chances are that enough people will drop the class, especially if it is very difficult like computer science, and you will have a chance. In popular classes like art and psychology, odds are you probably won't get in, so prepare for that.

Remember that everything works out at the end

Life is full of surprises. So what if you didn't get into the class you wanted? Your life obviously has something else in store for you. It's your job to make sure you make the best out of what you have.

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Hannah Arendt 1906–75 American political philosopher  

• It was as though in those last minutes he was summing up the lessons that this long course in human wickedness had taught us—the lesson of the fearsome, word-and-thought-defying banality of evil . of Adolf Eichmann, responsible for the administration of the Nazi concentration camps Eichmann in Jerusalem (1963) ch. 15
• The sad truth of the matter is that most evil is done by people who never made up their minds to be or do either good or evil. The Life of the Mind (1978)
• Storytelling reveals meaning without committing the error of defining it. Men in Dark Times (1968)
• Only crime and the criminal, it is true, confront us with the perplexity of radical evil; but only the hypocrite is really rotten to the core. On Revolution (1963) ch. 2, pt. 5
• The most radical revolutionary will become a conservative on the day after the revolution. in New Yorker 12 September 1970
• Under conditions of tyranny it is far easier to act than to think. W. H. Auden A Certain World (1970)
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The Dehumanizing Condescension of White Fragility

The popular book aims to combat racism but talks down to Black people.

I must admit that I had not gotten around to actually reading Robin DiAngelo’s White Fragility until recently. But it was time to jump in. DiAngelo is an education professor and—most prominently today—a diversity consultant who argues that whites in America must face the racist bias implanted in them by a racist society. Their resistance to acknowledging this, she maintains, constitutes a “white fragility” that they must overcome in order for meaningful progress on both interpersonal and societal racism to happen.

White Fragility was published in 2018 but jumped to the top of the New York Times best-seller list amid the protests following the death of George Floyd and the ensuing national reckoning about racism. DiAngelo has convinced university administrators, corporate human-resources offices, and no small part of the reading public that white Americans must embark on a self-critical project of looking inward to examine and work against racist biases that many have barely known they had.

I am not convinced. Rather, I have learned that one of America’s favorite advice books of the moment is actually a racist tract. Despite the sincere intentions of its author, the book diminishes Black people in the name of dignifying us. This is unintentional, of course, like the racism DiAngelo sees in all whites. Still, the book is pernicious because of the authority that its author has been granted over the way innocent readers think.

Lawrence Glickman: How white backlash controls American progress

Reading White Fragility is rather like attending a diversity seminar. DiAngelo patiently lays out a rationale for white readers to engage in a self-examination that, she notes, will be awkward and painful. Her chapters are shortish, as if each were a 45-minute session. DiAngelo seeks to instruct.

She operates from the now-familiar concern with white privilege, aware of the unintentional racism ever lurking inside of her that was inculcated from birth by the white supremacy on which America was founded. To atone for this original sin, she is devoted to endlessly exploring, acknowledging, and seeking to undo whites’ “complicity with and investment in” racism. To DiAngelo, any failure to do this “work,” as adherents of this paradigm often put it, renders one racist.

As such, a major bugbear for DiAngelo is the white American, often of modest education, who makes statements like I don’t see color or asks questions like How dare you call me “racist”? Her assumption that all people have a racist bias is reasonable—science has demonstrated it. The problem is what DiAngelo thinks must follow as the result of it.

Ibram X. Kendi: The American nightmare

DiAngelo has spent a very long time conducting diversity seminars in which whites, exposed to her catechism, regularly tell her—many while crying, yelling, or storming toward the exit—that she’s insulting them and being reductionist. Yet none of this seems to have led her to look inward. Rather, she sees herself as the bearer of an exalted wisdom that these objectors fail to perceive, blinded by their inner racism. DiAngelo is less a coach than a proselytizer.

When writers who are this sure of their convictions turn out to make a compelling case, it is genuinely exciting. This is sadly not one of those times, even though white guilt and politesse have apparently distracted many readers from the book’s numerous obvious flaws.

For one, DiAngelo’s book is replete with claims that are either plain wrong or bizarrely disconnected from reality. Exactly who comes away from the saga of Jackie Robinson thinking he was the first Black baseball player good enough to compete with whites? “Imagine if instead the story,” DiAngelo writes, “went something like this: ‘Jackie Robinson, the first black man whites allowed to play major-league baseball.’” But no one need imagine this scenario, as others have pointed out, because it is something every baseball fan already knows. Later in the book, DiAngelo insinuates that, when white women cry upon being called racists, Black people are reminded of white women crying as they lied about being raped by Black men eons ago. But how would she know? Where is the evidence for this presumptuous claim?

An especially weird passage is where DiAngelo breezily decries the American higher-education system, in which, she says, no one ever talks about racism. “I can get through graduate school without ever discussing racism,” she writes. “I can graduate from law school without ever discussing racism. I can get through a teacher-education program without ever discussing racism.” I am mystified that DiAngelo thinks this laughably antique depiction reflects any period after roughly 1985. For example, an education-school curriculum neglecting racism in our times would be about as common as a home unwired for electricity.

John McWhorter: The dictionary definition of racism has to change

DiAngelo’s depiction of white psychology shape-shifts according to what her dogma requires. On the one hand, she argues in Chapter 1 that white people do not see themselves in racial terms; therefore, they must be taught by experts like her of their whiteness. But for individuals who harbor so little sense of themselves as a group, the white people whom DiAngelo describes are oddly tribalist when it suits her narrative. “White solidarity,” she writes in Chapter 4, “requires both silence about anything that exposes the advantages of the white population and tacit agreement to remain racially united in the protection of white supremacy.” But if these people don’t even know whiteness is a category, just what are they now suddenly defending?

DiAngelo also writes as if certain shibboleths of the Black left—for instance, that all disparities between white and Black people are due to racism of some kind—represent the incontestable truth. This ideological bias is hardly unique to DiAngelo, and a reader could look past it, along with the other lapses in argumentation I have noted, if she offered some kind of higher wisdom. The problem is that White Fragility is the prayer book for what can only be described as a cult.

We must consider what is required to pass muster as a non-fragile white person. Refer to a “bad neighborhood,” and you’re using code for Black ; call it a “Black neighborhood,” and you’re a racist; by DiAngelo’s logic, you are not to describe such neighborhoods at all, even in your own head. You must not ask Black people about their experiences and feelings, because it isn’t their responsibility to educate you. Instead, you must consult books and websites. Never mind that upon doing this you will be accused of holding actual Black people at a remove, reading the wrong sources, or drawing the wrong lessons from them. You must never cry in Black people’s presence as you explore racism, not even in sympathy, because then all the attention goes to you instead of Black people. If you object to any of the “feedback” that DiAngelo offers you about your racism, you are engaging in a type of bullying “whose function is to obscure racism, protect white dominance, and regain white equilibrium.”

That is a pretty strong charge to make against people who, according to DiAngelo, don’t even conceive of their own whiteness. But if you are white, make no mistake: You will never succeed in the “work” she demands of you. It is lifelong, and you will die a racist just as you will die a sinner.

Remember also that you are not to express yourself except to say Amen . Namely, thou shalt not utter:

I know people of color.

I marched in the sixties.

You are judging me.

You don’t know me.

You are generalizing.

I disagree.

The real oppression is class.

I just said one little innocent thing.

Some people find offense where there is none.

You hurt my feelings.

I can’t say anything right.

This is an abridgment of a list DiAngelo offers in Chapter 9; its result is to silence people. Whites aren’t even allowed to say, “I don’t feel safe.” Only Black people can say that. If you are white, you are solely to listen as DiAngelo tars you as morally stained. “Now breathe,” she counsels to keep you relaxed as you undergo this. She does stress that she is not dealing with a good/bad dichotomy and that your inner racist does not make you a bad person. But with racism limned as such a gruesome spiritual pollution, harbored by individuals moreover entrapped in a society within which they exert racism merely by getting out of bed, the issue of gray zones seems beside the point. By the end, DiAngelo has white Americans muzzled, straitjacketed, tied down, and chloroformed for good measure—but for what?

And herein is the real problem with White Fragility . DiAngelo does not see fit to address why all of this agonizing soul-searching is necessary to forging change in society. One might ask just how a people can be poised for making change when they have been taught that pretty much anything they say or think is racist and thus antithetical to the good. What end does all this self-mortification serve? Impatient with such questions, DiAngelo insists that “wanting to jump over the hard, personal work and get to ‘solutions’” is a “foundation of white fragility.” In other words, for DiAngelo, the whole point is the suffering. And note the scare quotes around solutions , as if wanting such a thing were somehow ridiculous.

A corollary question is why Black people need to be treated the way DiAngelo assumes we do. The very assumption is deeply condescending to all proud Black people. In my life, racism has affected me now and then at the margins, in very occasional social ways, but has had no effect on my access to societal resources; if anything, it has made them more available to me than they would have been otherwise. Nor should anyone dismiss me as a rara avis. Being middle class, upwardly mobile, and Black has been quite common during my existence since the mid-1960s, and to deny this is to assert that affirmative action for Black people did not work.

In 2020—as opposed to 1920—I neither need nor want anyone to muse on how whiteness privileges them over me. Nor do I need wider society to undergo teachings in how to be exquisitely sensitive about my feelings. I see no connection between DiAngelo’s brand of reeducation and vigorous, constructive activism in the real world on issues of import to the Black community. And I cannot imagine that any Black readers could willingly submit themselves to DiAngelo’s ideas while considering themselves adults of ordinary self-regard and strength. Few books about race have more openly infantilized Black people than this supposedly authoritative tome.

Adam Serwer: ‘Protest is the highest form of patriotism’

Or simply dehumanized us. DiAngelo preaches that Black History Month errs in that it “takes whites out of the equation”—which means that it doesn’t focus enough on racism. Claims like this get a rise out of a certain kind of room, but apparently DiAngelo wants Black History Month to consist of glum recitations of white perfidy. This would surely help assuage DiAngelo’s sense of complicity in our problems, but does she consider what a slog this gloomy, knit-browed Festivus of a holiday would be for actual Black people? Too much of White Fragility has the problem of elevating rhetorical texture over common sense.

White Fragility is, in the end, a book about how to make certain educated white readers feel better about themselves. DiAngelo’s outlook rests upon a depiction of Black people as endlessly delicate poster children within this self-gratifying fantasy about how white America needs to think—or, better, stop thinking. Her answer to white fragility, in other words, entails an elaborate and pitilessly dehumanizing condescension toward Black people. The sad truth is that anyone falling under the sway of this blinkered, self-satisfied, punitive stunt of a primer has been taught, by a well-intentioned but tragically misguided pastor, how to be racist in a whole new way.

Ostend, Belgium, 1988. Photo by Harry Gruyaert/Magnum Photos

Depressive realism

We keep chasing happiness, but true clarity comes from depression and existential angst. admit that life is hell, and be free.

by Julie Reshe   + BIO

I remember being depressed. It was a frightening state of mind that seemed to go on indefinitely. The very idea of waking up was riddled with dread. A state of internal turbulence, apprehension and negativity about the future propelled the total collapse of a positive and optimistic attitude. I felt like my mind suddenly became sick and twisted. I didn’t recognise my new self, and wondered what had happened to the cheerful person I used to be.

The reason for my depression was a breakup. But what led to depression was not so much the reaction to our split, but the realisation that the one you believed loved you, who was closest to you and promised to be with you forever, had turned out to be someone else, a stranger indifferent to your pain. I discovered that this loving person was an illusion. The past became meaningless, and the future ceased to exist. The world itself wasn’t credible any more.

In that state of depression, I found the attitude of others changed dramatically. Depression is not particularly tolerated in society, and I realised that those around me were of two persuasions. One group of people wanted to fix me, telling me to pull myself together or recommending professional help. The other group tended to shun me like a leper. In hindsight, I understand this reaction: after all, I had become cynical, agnostic and pessimistic, and I hadn’t bothered to be polite.

On the other hand, I developed a deeper understanding of the genuine suffering of others. In my depression, I learned about the dark side of the world, about which I knew little before. I could no longer ignore suffering and delusion, opening a new window on reality that was unpleasant indeed. My experience is not unique, but it was in some sense heightened because, in addition to being a regular human encountering a pathetic breakup, I’m also a philosopher. As a philosopher, I know that what seems to be obvious is far from always so, and therefore requires rigorous critical analysis. So, in the wake of my experience, I was especially inclined to doubt the equation of positive moods with health, and of negative moods with distortion. Could it be that, in my depression, I was finally seeing the world as it was?

B efore my own descent, I’d been confused when my PhD mentor, the philosopher Alenka Zupančič at the Slovenian Academy of Sciences and Arts, suggested that the common striving for happiness constitutes a repressive ideology. What in the world could be wrong or repressive about the desire to make the world a happier place?

Yet, after observing myself, I came to agree with her. Look around and you’ll notice we demand a state of permanent happiness from ourselves and others. The tendency that goes together with overpromotion of happiness is stigmatisation of the opposite of happiness – emotional suffering, such as depression, anxiety, grief or disappointment. We label emotional suffering a deviation and a problem, a distortion to be eliminated – a pathology in need of treatment. The voice of sadness is censored as sick.

The American Psychological Association defines depression as ‘a common and serious medical illness that negatively affects how you feel, the way you think and how you act’. The very term stigmatises the sufferer and implies the need for her to be cured. It’s hard to say whether therapists and the medical establishment are imposing this attitude or are influenced by the prevailing cultural paradigm. Either way, most therapies today aim to eliminate negative moods.

What if reality truly sucks and, while depressed, we lose the very illusions that help us to not realise this?

The therapy best known for purging negative thoughts is cognitive behavioural therapy (CBT), originally formulated as a treatment for depression and anxiety. It is based on the cognitive model of mental illness, initially developed by the US psychiatrist Aaron Beck in the late 1960s. The premise is that depression is caused by a negative style of thought, called ‘depressogenic thinking’. When depressed, we tend to see ourselves as helpless, doomed, unlovable, deficient, worthless, blameworthy and rejected by others. Examples of this negative worldview can be exemplified by such expressions as ‘I’m worthless and ugly’, ‘No one values me’, ‘I’m hopeless because things will never change’, and ‘Things can only get worse!’ Beck suggests that in this depression we employ ‘distorted’ and unhelpful thinking patterns. CBT practitioners are trained to detect and break distorted thinking in order to set us in flight towards happier outcomes.

During my depression, under the influence of the friends I had left, I went to a CBT therapist. As you can see, I wasn’t completely cured and still find myself full of ‘depressogenic’ thinking. My feelings about the therapy varied, from a desire to trust myself and the care of the therapist to irritation at this very desire. I felt like I was told what I wanted to hear, like a child in need of comfort with a pleasant night-time story to get away from the harsh reality that was surrounding me. Depressogenic thoughts are unpleasant and even unbearable, but this doesn’t necessarily mean that they are distorted representations of reality. What if reality truly sucks and, while depressed, we lose the very illusions that help us to not realise this?

What if, to the contrary, positive thinking represents a biased grasp of reality? What if, when I was depressed, I learned something valuable, that I wouldn’t be able to learn at a lower cost? What if it was a collapse of illusions – the collapse of unrealistic thinking – and the glimpse of a reality that actually caused my anxiety? What if, when depressed, we actually perceive reality more accurately? What if both my need to be happy and the demand of psychotherapy to heal depression are based on the same illusion? What if the so-called gold standard of therapy is just a comforting pseudoscience itself?

M odern psychology recognises everyday thinking as largely biased, based on a number of distortions. But this recognition exists within the framework of positivity. In short, the mainstream embraces commonplace illusions as healthy as long as they don’t disrupt the positive flow.

The current concept of positive illusions first appeared in the 1980s in a paper by the psychologist Shelley Taylor of the University of California, Los Angeles, and Jonathon Brown at Southern Methodist University. Positive illusions are common cognitive biases based on unrealistically favourable ideas about ourselves, others, our situation and the world around us. Types of positive illusions include, among others, unrealistic optimism, the illusion of control, and illusory superiority that makes us overestimate our abilities and qualities in relation to others. Study after study indicates that such illusions are rife. Around 75-80 per cent of people evaluate themselves as being above average in almost all parameters: in academic ability, job performance, immunity to bias, relationship happiness, IQ. However, cruel mathematical laws tell us that this is an illusion – all, by definition, cannot be above average.

The roots of the modern positivity trend can be found in the religious past, which once provided people with guidelines for life and the notion of salvation, offering a solid picture of the world with a happy ending. In our secular world, psychology fills a void left by religion, serving to provide explanations and give hope for a better life. Replacing religion with psychology keeps many features of the Christian tradition, for instance, intact. The role of a counsellor or therapist, and our need to attend them, finds many analogies in the practice of a pastor and the tradition of confession. Both counsellor and pastor are figures with authority to claim what is wrong with you and tell you how to fix it. The French philosopher Michel Foucault (1926-84) traced the origin of psychotherapy to pastorhood, elaborating on the idea that the initial religious goal of pastoral care was to deliver the individual to salvation.

The contemporary Danish scholar Anders Dræby Sørensen points out that our modern aspiration to shed suffering and anxiety and, ultimately, to discover happiness is at least partially based on the religious idea of deliverance from worldly suffering to a heavenly condition. In the secularised world, salvation becomes a task that must be accomplished in our earthly life. Heaven is no longer about the transcendental realm, but about attaining a total state of happiness and transforming Earth itself into Heaven in the now.

Next to religion and its psychotherapeutic counterpart, philosophy could be considered heresy. The most problematic patient might be the German philosopher Arthur Schopenhauer (1788-1860), well known for his contention that suffering is unavoidable and a key part of human existence . Schopenhauer argued that there is no meaning or purpose to existence, and that life is moved by an aimless striving that can never be fulfilled. He turns our positive worldview upside down – the normal basic mode of our existence is not happiness that, from time to time, gets disrupted by suffering. Instead, life is itself a bone-deep suffering and endless mourning. It will never get better, Schopenhauer claimed: ‘It is bad today, and it will be worse tomorrow …’ Schopenhauer posits that consciousness further worsens the human condition, since conscious beings experience pain more acutely and are able to reflect on the absurdity of their existence. ‘I shall be told … that my philosophy is comfortless – because I speak the truth; and people preferred to be assured that everything the Lord has made is good,’ he wrote in the essay ‘On the Sufferings of the World’ (1851). ‘Go to the priests, then, and leave the philosophers in peace.’

For Freud, the goal was helping patients to accept and reflect on the hell that life is

The German philosopher Martin Heidegger (1889-1976) doesn’t provide much reassurance either. He referred to anxiety as a basic mode of human existence and distinguishes between authentic and non-authentic human forms of living. We mostly live inauthentically in our everyday lives, where we are immersed in everyday tasks, troubles and worries, so that our awareness of the futility and meaninglessness of our existence is silenced by everyday noise. We go to work, raise children, work on our relationships, clean the house, go to sleep, and do it all over again. The world around us seems to make sense, and is even richly meaningful. But the authentic life is disclosed only in anxiety. Then we become self-aware and can begin to think freely, rejecting the shared illusion that society has imposed. For Heidegger, anxiety represents a proper philosophical mood.

The Norwegian thinker Peter Wessel Zapffe (1899-1990) took philosophical pessimism even further. Human consciousness is tragically overdeveloped, he said, resulting in existential angst. In his essay ‘The Last Messiah’ (1933), Zapffe referred to it as ‘a biological paradox, an abomination, an absurdity, an exaggeration of disastrous nature’. Humans have developed a need that cannot be fulfilled, since nature itself is meaningless; to survive, he argues, humanity has to repress this damaging surplus of consciousness. This is ‘a requirement of social adaptability and of everything commonly referred to as healthy and normal living’.

Zapffe named four universal defence mechanisms humankind has developed:

• isolation , including repression of disturbing and destructive thoughts and feelings;
• anchoring , the establishment of higher meanings and ideals. The examples of collective anchoring he gives are: ‘God, the Church, the State, morality, fate, the law of life, the people, the future’. Anchoring provides us with illusions that secure psychological comfort. The shortcoming of anchoring is the despair we feel upon discovering that our anchoring mechanism is an illusion;
• distraction , the focusing of our thoughts and energy on a certain idea or task to prevent the mind from self-reflection; and
• sublimation , a type of defence mechanism in which negative urges are transformed into more positive actions. For instance, we distance ourselves from the tragedy of our existence and transform our awareness into philosophy, literature and art.

The father of psychoanalysis Sigmund Freud (1856-1939) was – like the philosophers – against religion, and claimed its purpose is to satisfy our infantile emotional needs. ‘Neurotics are a rabble, good only to support us financially and to allow us to learn from their cases: psychoanalysis as a therapy may be worthless,’ he reportedly told his colleague Sándor Ferenczi. Freud wasn’t optimistic about the outcome of psychotherapeutic treatment, and was reluctant to promise happiness as a result. In Studies on Hysteria (1895), he pledged that psychoanalysis could transform hysterical misery into ‘common unhappiness’. For Freud, the goal was helping patients to accept and reflect on the hell that life is. Not in any beyond, but here on Earth.

D espite its turn toward positivity , psychological theory includes one branch with a focus on the pessimistic philosophical tradition embraced by Freud himself. Called ‘depressive realism’, it was initially suggested by the US psychologists Lauren Alloy and Lyn Yvonne Abramson in a paper subtitled ‘Sadder but Wiser?’ (1979). The authors held that reality is always more transparent through a depressed person’s lens.

Alloy, of Temple University in Pennsylvania, and Abramson, of the University of Wisconsin-Madison, tested the hypothesis by measuring the illusion of control. After interviews with a set of undergraduates, they divided the students into depressed and nondepressed groups. Each student had a choice of either pressing or not pressing a button, and received one of two outcomes: a green light or no green light. Experimental settings presented the students with various degrees of control over the button, from 0 to 100 per cent. Upon completing the tests, they were asked to analyse the degree of control their responses exerted over outcome – that is, how many times the green light came on as a result of their actions. It turned out that, the sadder but wiser students were more accurate in judging the degree of control they exerted. Alloy and Abramson concluded that depressed students were less prone to illusions of control, and therefore showed greater realism. The nondepressed students, on the other hand, overestimated the degree of their control, and therefore were engaged in self-deception in favour of enhancing self-esteem.

The ‘depressive realism’ hypothesis remains controversial because it calls into question the tenets of CBT, which assert that the depressed individual has more thought biases and hence has to be healed in order to become more realistic. But subsequent studies have bolstered the idea. For instance, the Australian social psychologist Joseph Forgas and colleagues showed that sadness reinforces critical thinking: it helps people reduce judgmental bias, improve attention, increase perseverance, and generally promotes a more skeptical, detailed and attentive thinking style. On the other hand, positive moods can lead to a less effortful and systematic thinking style. Happy people are more prone to stereotypical thinking and rely on simple cliché. They are more likely to ‘go with the flow’ and are prone to making more social misjudgments on account of their biases.

Depressive rumination is a problemsolving mechanism that promotes analysis

Other researchers have looked at the evolutionary advantage of depression. For instance, Paul Andrews at Virginia Commonwealth University and J Anderson Thomson at the University of Virginia challenge the predominant medical view on depression as a disorder and biological dysfunction, and contend that it is, rather, an evolved adaptation. The evolutionary function of depression is to develop analytical thinking mechanisms and to assist in solving complex mental problems. Depressive rumination helps us to concentrate and solve the problems we are ruminating about.

Like a fever that can be scary in the moment but isn’t inherently bad, depression causes a decrease in functional wellbeing, impairing many domains of life, such as work, social relations and sexual life. However, though unpleasant, fever is not the product of biological malfunction. Rather, it is an important infection-fighting mechanism. The impairments that fever causes are the adaptive outcome of trade-offs in body systems needed to fight the infection. Similarly, depressive rumination is a problemsolving mechanism that draws attention to and promotes analysis of certain problems.

In her book Daseinsanalysis (2008), Alice Holzhey-Kunz, a modern, existentially oriented Swiss psychoanalyst, turns to Heidegger’s distinction between authentic and non-authentic forms of living. She claims that mental suffering signifies a disillusioning confrontation with the reality of existence. In that sense, depression is not so much a disorder as a disillusioning explosion of the nothingness of human existence. In this context, a cheerier form of what we might call ‘inauthentic living’ would hardly be a pathology since it counters acute existential awareness with everyday tasks and oblivion in the commonness.

A lthough the depression following my breakup doesn’t rise to the level of existential angst, it was the strongest perspective-shifting experience of my life. It irreversibly changed and traumatised me at the core of my being, and I am now generally sadder and more withdrawn than I used to be.

Alas, what if this is the cost of losing our illusions and learning infinitely more about reality itself? We might be getting there. Some studies suggest that existential suffering and mental distress is rising worldwide, but particularly in modern Western culture. Perhaps we chase happiness precisely because it is no longer attainable?

The vicious cycle in which we find ourselves – the endless pursuit of happiness and the impossibility of its attainment – hurts us only more. Perhaps the way out is actually accepting our raised level of consciousness. In our melancholy depths, we find that superficial states of happiness are largely a way not to be alive. Mental health, positive psychology and dominant therapy modalities such as CBT all require that we remain silent and succumb to our illusions until we die.

In closing, I must address you, my dear reader. I realise that, as you were reading this essay, you must have experienced a ‘yes, but…’ reaction. (‘Yes, life is horrible, but there are so many good things too.’) This ‘but’ is an automatic response to negative, horrifying insights. Once exposed to these forces, our positive defence mechanisms kick in. I myself was caught in the drill while writing this essay (and pretty much during the rest of my life). Without this protective measure, we would all probably be dead already, having most likely succumbed to suicide for relief.

A small proposal of mine would be to explore disillusionment and refuge from positivity as a new space to experience life, hopefully before a suicidal reaction follows. Next time, before you plunge into alcohol, or make appeals to loved ones, friends, psychotherapists or to any other of the many life-affirming practices, remember that almost all constructions of meaning – from work to sport to opening our hearts to Jesus – are inherently illusory. An alternative to running away from life through illusion is to explore an illusion-free space for as long as possible, so as to become more capable of bearing the reality of a disillusioned and concrete life. If successful, you’ll free yourself from your faux-positivity and your chains.

In the end, of course, we might not be able to liberate ourselves, either from suffering or from illusions. Life is hell, and it looks as though no heaven awaits us, to top it off. This, in itself, might be a path to liberation since, after all, we have nothing to lose.

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I Used to Insist I Didn’t Get Angry. Not Anymore.

On female rage.

Credit... Photo illustration by Matthieu Bourel. Source photograph of model: Igor Ustynskyy/Getty Images.

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By Leslie Jamison

• Jan. 17, 2018

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F or years, I described myself as someone who wasn’t prone to anger. “I don’t get angry,” I said. “I get sad.” I believed this inclination was mainly about my personality — that sadness was a more natural emotion for me than anger, that I was somehow built this way. It’s easy to misunderstand the self as private, when it’s rarely private at all: It’s always a public artifact, never fixed, perpetually sculpted by social forces. In truth, I was proud to describe myself in terms of sadness rather than anger. Why? Sadness seemed more refined and also more selfless — as if you were holding the pain inside yourself, rather than making someone else deal with its blunt-force trauma.

But a few years ago, I started to get a knot in my gut at the canned cadences of my own refrain: I don’t get angry. I get sad. At the shrillest moments of our own self-declarations — I am X, I am not Y — we often hear in that tinny register another truth, lurking expectantly, and begin to realize there are things about ourselves we don’t yet know. By which I mean that at a certain point, I started to suspect I was angrier than I thought.

Of course it wasn’t anger when I was 4 years old and took a pair of scissors to my parents’ couch — wanting so badly to destroy something, whatever I could. Of course it wasn’t anger when I was 16 and my boyfriend broke up with me, and I cut up the inside of my own ankle — wanting so badly to destroy something, whatever I could. Of course it wasn’t anger when I was 34 and fighting with my husband, when I screamed into a pillow after he left the house so our daughter wouldn’t hear, then threw my cellphone across the room and spent the next 10 minutes searching for it under the bed, and finally found it in a small pile of cat vomit. Of course it wasn’t anger when, during a faculty meeting early in my teaching days, I distributed statistics about how many female students in our department had reported instances of sexual harassment the year before: more than half of them.

A faculty member grew indignant and insisted that most of those claims probably didn’t have any basis at all. I clenched my fists. I struggled to speak. It wasn’t that I could say for sure what had happened in each of those cases — of course I couldn’t, they were just anonymous numbers on the page — but their sheer volume seemed horrifying. It demanded attention. I honestly hadn’t expected that anyone would resist these numbers or force me to account for why it was important to look at them. The scrutiny of the room made me struggle for words just when I needed them most. It made me dig my nails into my palm. What was that emotion? It was not sadness. It was rage.

The phenomenon of female anger has often been turned against itself, the figure of the angry woman reframed as threat — not the one who has been harmed, but the one bent on harming. She conjures a lineage of threatening archetypes: the harpy and her talons, the witch and her spells, the medusa and her writhing locks. The notion that female anger is unnatural or destructive is learned young; children report perceiving displays of anger as more acceptable from boys than from girls. According to a review of studies of gender and anger written in 2000 by Ann M. Kring, a psychology professor at the University of California, Berkeley, men and women self-report “anger episodes” with comparable degrees of frequency, but women report experiencing more shame and embarrassment in their aftermath. People are more likely to use words like “bitchy” and “hostile” to describe female anger, while male anger is more likely to be described as “strong.” Kring reported that men are more likely to express their anger by physically assaulting objects or verbally attacking other people, while women are more likely to cry when they get angry, as if their bodies are forcibly returning them to the appearance of the emotion — sadness — with which they are most commonly associated.

A 2016 study found that it took longer for people to correctly identify the gender of female faces displaying an angry expression, as if the emotion had wandered out of its natural habitat by finding its way to their features. A 1990 study conducted by the psychologists Ulf Dimberg and L.O. Lundquist found that when female faces are recognized as angry, their expressions are rated as more hostile than comparable expressions on the faces of men — as if their violation of social expectations had already made their anger seem more extreme, increasing its volume beyond what could be tolerated.

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Women Vs. Society: The Sad Truth

I came home for dinner one night to find the most adorable red-headed little girl sitting at the kitchen table. She was all alone, so I went to talk to her. I made a point to tell her how cute she was.

All girls should be told they are beautiful.

Her response took me aback.

“No, I’m not cute,” she said.

Her shirt said, “Dance” in bright pink, sparkly letters. I asked if she liked to dance.

“No,” the girl said. “I’m too big.”

It broke my heart to hear a little girl, not even 7-years-old yet, tell me that she thought she was “too big” and “not cute.”

Society has seriously altered the way women are viewed and has effected how we feel about our bodies. Whether we realize it or not, the media has a major impact on how we act, feel and define beauty.

How often do you see a magazine cover with a strong, hardworking woman living paycheck-to-paycheck trying to support her children? Not often. 

Instead, we showcase women in minimal clothing that have been Photoshopped so much that the woman on the cover doesn’t even look like the woman in real life.

Cindy Crawford, one of the most famous models of our generation, had said upon seeing her own magazine cover, “I wish I looked like Cindy Crawford.”  

The media has been telling women that to be beautiful, we need to have a thin waist, large chest and a flawless complexion.

Marilyn Monroe was one of the most famous women of her time, and she was a size 16. In the world we live in today, she would be considered overweight. It’s interesting to think that back then she was considered the sexiest woman alive. So where and why do girls think that being so thin is a necessity?

This recent phenomenon has led to the increase in eating disorders and body image issues in young girls. I discovered some shocking statistics from the National Association of Anorexia Nervosa and Associated Disorders:

1)    47% of girls in 5th-12th grade reported wanting to lose weight because of magazine pictures.

2)    95% of those who have eating disorders are between the ages of 12 and 25.8

3)    81% of 10 year olds are afraid of being fat (Mellin et al., 1991).

4)    Eating disorders have the highest mortality rate of any mental illness.

As women today, men view us as sex objects. No matter how much we fight for respect and power, we will always be competing against the opposite sex for respect.

Ladies, we have amazing traits that men don’t have. We could rule the world if we stood strong against the media’s portrayals of women and sexual discrimination, but instead, we let these stereotypes consume us.

When I read Cosmo, I can’t help but wish I looked like the women in the pictures. It is something we do subconsciously. We see skinny, scandalous women everywhere and it has been branded into our brains with a hot iron whether we realize it or not.

I went into the girl’s bathroom one day and covering the walls were quotes, notes and messages.

Before my eyes I saw messages from women who were crying for help, saying they hated themselves, were too fat, or wanted to die. These were the outcries of young, insecure women who had no one to turn to, other than a sharpie and the bathroom wall. 

Each outcry for help had a note written below it. Women had commented on these tragic notes with inspiration and encouragement.

 “You’re beautiful,” one note read, and another, “Keep your head up.”

It is amazing to see such support between women. These girls hadn’t even known who wrote these things, yet they still took the time to tell these women how important they were on the stall of a bathroom. The message within this is unexplainable.

Women are strong, independent and beautiful creatures. We can’t let media and men bring us down. We can do anything a man can do if we sent our minds to it. Take change and stand against the stereotypes. Beauty comes from within and we have to let that shine.

So, when you talk to any little girl like the one I met earlier, tell her she’s beautiful. Tell your friends you appreciate them. Remind your sisters, mothers and grandmothers you love them.

“Here is to STONG women.

May we know them,

May we be them,

May we raise them.”

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Life Amidst Poverty

I have lived in poverty both as a child and as an adult, and I can say with full confidence that it is a life-crushing force. I hated it. “Poverty” is also one of the most misunderstood labels that gets slapped onto individuals without their approval—cast upon them simultaneously by both unseen and more visible forces of society.

Poverty is a word loaded with preconceived notions, common misperceptions, and seemingly innocuous assumptions. What the word does not do is delve below its surface meaning, into the reality of poverty—a world that no one wants to live in.

Poverty is exhausting. Poverty is despair and desperation-inducing. Poverty is soul, dream and hope crushing. Poverty is like being enclosed in a prison cell with no doors or windows. It feels claustrophobic, as if there is no way out. Only the most resilient do not give up. Still, there is no guarantee that life will get better—and those in poverty know this all too well. They either become hardened or submit to fate. You don’t live life, you don’t thrive—you survive. You wonder if you are predestined, like a caste in another country, to live out a life destitute of fulfillment—whether financial, professional or just having a better life.

These are the very thoughts that consumed me in times of poverty. And yet, I never stopped believing that there must be a way out. The “how” and the “why” of my situation—resounding questions that were never sated—eventually fell by the wayside as I pushed towards hope. The very thing that brought despair and darkness motivated me to dig out of that prison, to fight with everything within me, to find that light that must exist outside of the walls.

In America, there is this prevalent belief that if someone just pulls herself up by her bootstraps, she can succeed. And yet, as I have learned, it is entirely possible to work your ass off and still struggle . Whether I had boots or not, whether I was barefoot, in heels, what I really learned is that resources and access to them —a network of support, and awareness of available choices—are the most influential factors in the “making it or breaking it” of life in the US. So much of this became clear to me only later—when I had the opportunity to see outside of the tiny, claustrophobic room that I had been in for years.

Living in poverty need not be a death sentence. I decided when I was 5 years old that I wanted to secure a bachelor’s degree before I was married (which I did). Throughout my childhood, I had a voracious appetite for knowledge: I was constantly hungry to learn more. In high school, I decided that upon graduation I would leave the state and my family to start a new life for myself, even though it was extremely hard and I worked three jobs at one point. In college, I knew that I wanted to live and work overseas, to expand my perspective and learn more about the world. And when life challenges blindsided me as an adult (now with two degrees under my belt), I continued to learn what my options were, what resources were available to me, and to fight hard to provide the best opportunities that I can for my own children, so that they may never see themselves as “living in poverty” or not having a shot at a better life.

Enduring poverty is not the end of hope or life. The key things needed to break down the walls that imprison those within poverty are: outside influences, support networks such as friends or family, awareness of other opportunities, and access to resources.

With this combination, a new life is possible.

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Restoring Hope to Baltimore Requires Making College Affordable

“I’ve always wanted to go to college. I’ve wanted to be an orthodontist since I was seven,” said 16-year-old Kayla, not realizing that because she grew up in West Baltimore the odds of her dreams coming true were very slim.

There’s a long shadow cast over Baltimore’s children. Like young people across America, they know that the ability to get a good-paying job depends on college. As teens, many of them finish high school, fill out college applications, and complete financial aid forms.  But then they find out the truth: college is unaffordable.

There is a lot of talk about elite universities offering “no loans” promises and sending letters to low-income families across the country urging their children to apply.  But that effort is relevant to a tiny few. Most people who attend college go to institutions that are far from free.

Despite massive public investment in financial aid, students from families like Kayla’s who earn less than $20,000 a year are now required to pay at least $8,000 for a year of community college and more than $12,000 a year at a public university. That “net price” is what researchers like me have found to be the real bill that students and their families face after all grants (including the federal Pell and state and institutional grants) are subtracted from the sticker price of attending college. This price has gone up substantially over time, particularly since the Great Recession.  It’s climbed as real family income for most has fallen. Worse, it may well be under-stated .

College education is central to the American Dream. But the ladder people must climb to get there has eroded, and a critical rung fell off.  After a semester or two, even the most talented students from the bottom half of the income distribution find that the price of college is more than they can afford.  They have enough money to register for classes, but they cannot pay the bills long enough to graduate .  

The young people of Baltimore know this.  Researchers tracked a set of the city’s children beginning in 1982 , when the kids were in 1 st grade.  A decade and a half later, almost two-thirds enrolled in college. But by age 28, just 17 percent had earned an associates or bachelor’s degree, with another 13 percent earning a certificate.  Nearly half who grew up poor, ended up poor, especially if they were black.

It wasn’t for lack of trying. Researchers like Stefanie DeLuca, who met Kayla while doing research on young people from Baltimore’s highest poverty neighborhoods, confirm that a strong work ethic is omnipresent there. But enrolling in college exacerbates their poverty: working two or three jobs while also taking on federal and private loans takes a heavy toll. Growing numbers of undergraduates find themselves living without sufficient food or adequate housing even as they try and focus on school.

When college is unaffordable, hope is lost.  Without degrees, young people are returning to the streets with debt, disillusioned and fearful for their futures.

Today colleges and state governments set most college prices. They are failing at this job. The opportunity to get a college education is distributed in highly inequitable ways.  Rather than promoting mobility, the broken college financing system is ensuring that economic and racial inequality gets passed down – and worsened – from one generation to the next.  Americans deserve better.

Last year, Republican Governor Bill Haslam began to restore hope in Tennessee by offering tuition-free community college.  The predecessor to the Tennessee Promise, Knox Achieves, is proving effective at helping young people who would have otherwise never experienced even a 13 th year of education earn college credits.  Helping those students complete a 14 th year, and attain a credential, may require more investment, along the lines of America’s College Promise proposed by President Barack Obama.

The initiatives of Haslam and Obama were preceded by wisdom and a smart initiative in New York. In 1969, large numbers of African Americans and Puerto Ricans demanded that the City University of New York become a place that they could enter to pursue better lives.  University administrators responded by instituting an open admissions policy to complement a very low price.  An evaluation conducted over the next 30 years revealed that while the new policy did not wipe out disadvantages due to race or class (or high school academic record), it more than doubled the proportion of black women who would attain degrees. That finding is consistent with more recent studies that raise sharp questions about the contention that “college isn’t for everyone.”

National leaders need to provide hope to young adults in Baltimore and cities like it.  Federal policy must change. Simply providing financial aid isn’t getting the job done, as it requires too little from those who establish college costs.  Instead, we need a national conversation about what it means to provide a high-quality 13 th and 14 th year of public education to everyone, and then we need to pay for it. New taxes are an option – but we can also simply stop spending where investments aren’t pay off. Ending subsidies to for-profit universities is a good place to start.

There is much to do to provide hope, dignity, and a chance at a better life to America’s poor urban youth. Part of the solution must include making college affordable.

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To Combat For-Profit Schools, Provide Free Community College

Although it is widely documented that for-profit colleges routinely prey on low-income students , these schools have proven adept at beating back regulations that would curb their abuses. To decrease the attractiveness of for-profit schools, and their power to exploit students with low incomes, progressives should rally around President Obama’s proposal to provide free community college .

Over the last few years, for-profit colleges have come under fire from the Senate HELP committee, several federal agencies, and 37 state attorneys, with good reason . The for-profit education business model provides no incentive for schools to produce successful, educated college graduates. As a result, over half of the students who attend these schools fail to obtain a degree and struggle with mounting student loan debt. Those students fortunate enough to graduate have a hard time securing employment, as employers increasingly turn away candidates with degrees from for-profit schools.

For-profit colleges use a variety of unethical and sometimes illegal practices to persuade students to attend their schools. Some schools get leads on potential students through fake job postings on websites like craigslist or monster.com. Recent reports show a few top for-profit colleges utilize fake online health insurance and food stamp applications to collect information on potential students. Individuals who fall victim to phishing schemes like these are subsequently harassed with calls from for-profit schools until they speak with admissions representatives. Students report being called up to twenty times in a single morning, or as late as 11 p.m. When students finally succumb to the pressure and speak with a representative, they are subjected to recruitment tactics that are far more abusive.

  An example of training materials for recruiters at a for-profit college

Admissions representatives at several large for-profit schools say management promotes a variety of exploitative practices to secure enrollment. These tactics include asking callers— many of whom are low-income or people of color— to imagine what they will buy when they make six-figures, or how their family will feel when they no longer rely on a minimum wage job. Many representatives go as far as telling callers how worthless they are with just a high school diploma. Many students who were actively recruited in this manner were unable to afford—or clearly incapable of completing—the program. Some students even struggled with a range of disabilities such as brain damage and learning disorders . In one particularly high profile case , a Corporal for the U.S. Marines was enrolled at a large for-profit college, but was so severely impaired by a traumatic brain injury that he could not remember what classes he was taking.

Students who enroll as a result of this kind of manipulation often sign themselves into financial ruin. However, as long as the students attend classes, the school turns a profit. The entire business model of for-profit schools relies on cheating victims out of their dollars and dreams, which ultimately increases their reliance on safety net programs.

In contrast, community college provides crucial alternatives for those most frequently victimized by for-profit schools—people with low-incomes and people of color. Students with low-incomes are disproportionately affected by social factors (financial instability, health issues, transportation issues) that discourage investing financial resources in brick-and-mortar schools, in deference to online education. For-profit schools take advantage of this instability, promising increased upward mobility coupled with the flexibility of online schooling. As a result, low-income students enroll in for-profit schools at nearly four times the rate of other students.

  An example of student “profiles” targeted by recruiters at a for-profit college

By providing low-income students with the opportunity to attend community college at no cost, President Obama’s plan virtually eliminates the consumer base of these profit-seeking colleges, ending their large-scale fraud. Under President Obama’s plan , students receive full tuition funding if they are enrolled at least half-time at community college and are earning above a 2.5 GPA. The proposal is also beneficial because it permits students to receive Pell grants while they are at community college; this policy would help families afford living expenses while the primary caretaker focuses on school.

Obama’s initiative encourages low-income, at-risk students to consider local community colleges before for-profit schools, thereby increasing their potential economic mobility and financial wellbeing. Current estimates suggest that as many as 9 million students would benefit from the initiative.

While Obama’s proposal is not a blank check, it provides much more flexibility for students with low-incomes. More importantly, the plan could prevent millions of our country’s most disadvantaged people from enrolling in schools that prove far better at exploiting students than educating them.

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New York City Limits the Use of Credit Checks in Hiring

One of the recurring—and troubling—themes of TalkPoverty posts has been the overwhelming number of misguided policies that kick people while they’re down: from asset limits that tell poor people not to save, to employers’ use of criminal records that make it hard for people to find a job even decades after an infraction.

In a rare moment of good news, New York City has decided to remove one of these barriers by limiting the use of credit checks for employment screening . Last month, the City Council voted overwhelmingly to pass the strongest measure in the country on this issue, joining ten states . This measure, which Mayor DeBlasio is expected to sign on Wednesday, is a major step forward to rein in a practice that does little for employers while filtering out good employees who run into financial trouble.

Nearly half of employers check credit histories for at least some positions, according to the Society for Human Resource Management . This means that before receiving a job offer, the employer has the ability to comb through your financial history to see if you’ve paid your bills on time, and can choose not to offer you a job if you haven’t. Of course, if you’re having trouble paying your bills—because of a job loss, an illness, an irregular work schedule, or other risks that working families face—being turned down for a job isn’t going to make it easier to pay your bills or improve your credit. And so the cycle continues.

Meanwhile, credit reporting itself has its limitations. Roughly one in five credit reports contains errors , according to an analysis by the Federal Trade Commission. And the information in credit reports only reflects part of a family’s financial situation—the part that tends to reflect better on upper-income folks. Mortgage payments count toward a positive credit history—very significantly—but on-time rent payments don’t. And when low-income families pay their regular bills on time—such as rent and utilities—this positive information generally doesn’t go on credit reports, even though negative information such as late payments, nonpayments, and collections ultimately does get reported. So even when families are trying hard to pay bills on time, these bills don’t count in the same way credit cards and loan payments do.

That’s slowly starting to change. There are efforts underway to improve credit reporting to more accurately reflect credit risk and help more deserving borrowers get affordable loans, including a recent pilot where thousands of low-income families living in affordable housing were able to have their rental payments applied to their credit reports and scores. But in the meantime, families are needlessly hurt by a system that misuses financial information to make hiring decisions that hurt those who are already struggling.

To be sure, New York City’s law does have some exceptions for jobs in government, law enforcement, certain finance and tech jobs, and jobs where the employee is in charge of major financial decisions. For these jobs, one can argue that the fears of theft cited when credit screening tools are pitched to companies are more legitimate. (When I worked at the Treasury Department, for example, a credit check was required.) But the City’s new law goes well beyond other states where, for example, handling a certain amount of cash could be considered an exception. And it comes close to two bills introduced in the last Congress: one bill by Senator Elizabeth Warren (D-MA) limiting credit checks to jobs requiring a security clearance, and a bill by Rep. Steve Cohen (D-TN) with added exemptions for some government and banking jobs.

The federal government has been catching on as well. Last fall, the US Department of Labor issued new guidance warning employers that the use of credit reports may be discriminatory. Policies designed to screen for people working in high-level positions shouldn’t apply to most jobs, never mind that even Bernie Madoff probably had a stellar credit history for most of his career.

We should follow New York’s example to keep credit reports where they belong—in the financial marketplace—and not as another barrier to hold people back from jobs and financial security because of past decisions or financial distress.

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Temporary Assistance Doesn’t Help Impoverished Married Parents

Marital poverty is a serious, widespread, but mostly unacknowledged problem in the United States. Just over 9.3 million people in married-parent families live below our extremely low official poverty line . Another 6 million people live between the official poverty threshold and 130 percent of the poverty line, which is the income limit for the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) and only about $26,000 for a married couple with one child.

Despite these staggering numbers, there is widespread denial of the reality of marital poverty. Senator Rand Paul (R-KY) has gone so far to claim that being “married with kids versus unmarried with kids is the difference between living in poverty and not.” It appears he is unaware there are more married parents living in poverty in his state than never married parents living in poverty.

We know from a vast body of research that poverty and related financial stressors are risk factors for marital conflict, domestic violence, and divorce. And notable recent research by Laura Tach and Kathryn Edin found that economic factors are a more important predictor of dissolution for married parents than for cohabiting ones.

The Temporary Assistance (TANF) program should be playing a central role in helping married families overcome the kinds of economic hardship and other factors that contribute to the high divorce rate among working class families . Under the Temporary Assistance program, states receive funds to provide means-tested, re-employment assistance and other services to struggling unemployed and underemployed parents with low incomes. One of the four purposes of Temporary Assistance is to “encourage the maintenance of two-parent families.”

Despite this mandate, Temporary Assistance is failing struggling, married families. The extent of TANF’s failure is shown in the chart below. Between 2000 and 2012, the number of married parents living in poverty increased 39 percent, but the already extremely low number of married parents being helped by TANF plummeted by 54 percent . In the majority of states today, fewer than 1000 married parents receive Temporary Assistance. In Louisiana, for example, over 50,000 married parents live in poverty, but only about 50 of them receive Temporary Assistance.

Where Temporary Assistance has failed, other better-designed programs have stepped up. In 2014, the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) helped 5.2 million low-income children who lived with both of their married parents, and another 1.2 million children who lived with both of their unmarried parents. Unlike Temporary Assistance, SNAP actually responded to the increase in married-parent unemployment and hardship during the Great Recession. Similarly, early evidence suggests that the Affordable Care Act—including Medicaid expansion and the Premium Tax Credit—has increased health insurance coverage among working-class married families.

How can we fix Temporary Assistance so that it doesn’t effectively exclude millions of struggling, married parents from getting the temporary financial help – as well as employment and other services – that could make the difference between staying together and splitting up?

The first and arguably most important step is to acknowledge the extent of the problem of marital poverty and hardship in the United States, and the destructive impact it has on family life.

Then we need to look at models for reforming Temporary Assistance. Most notably, the original version of the Minnesota Family Investment Program (MFIP) that was evaluated in the mid-1990s reduced divorce among participating disadvantaged, two-parent families. The reductions in divorce were particularly large—70 percent—among black married couples. In addition, both MFIP and Milwaukee’s New Hope Project increased rates of marriage among disadvantaged single mothers.

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These progressive demonstration projects ensured that low-income married- and cohabiting-couple families had an adequate income to support themselves while searching for work or addressing issues that limited their work capacity, including through transitional jobs, re-employment, and other services. Unlike the current Temporary Assistance program, these programs did not utilize unreasonably restrictive participation rates or harshly punitive measures that are mostly aimed at reducing the number of people who receive help; instead, these programs emphasized helping parents obtain and maintain stable employment, while meeting their basic needs.

Unfortunately, the current financial structure of Temporary Assistance and the federal law that governs it makes operating rigorously tested programs like the original MFIP or New Hope all but impossible for states. Fixing this should be at the top of the list of reforms that would help struggling, two-parent families. At the very least, the federal government should establish a national Temporary Assistance demonstration project for married and unmarried two-parent families based on the original MFIP program and New Hope. Of course, some policymakers would prefer to just talk about family values, but even in today’s polarized political environment it should be possible to move forward on a concrete initiative like this one that actually values working-class families by helping them stay together.

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Why Divorce Is So Common In Today’s Society (The Sad Truth)

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Why divorce is so common in today's society (the sad truth).

Unfortunately, divorce is a common aspect of today’s society. Every day, people file for divorce at their local courthouse but why? Why do people divorce? Can it be avoided? There is an overwhelming amount of research on why people file for divorce and the Scottsdale divorce lawyers have seen many of those reasons.

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Why is Divorce So Common in Today’s Society

In my opinion, one reason that divorce is so common is exactly that, divorce is so common. Divorce no longer carries the stigma that is used to. You likely know plenty of people that have had at least one divorce or you yourself may be a child of divorce. It’s almost the “everyone does it” mentality that makes it this “popular thing.” You see it daily in the news and it is present in most TV shows and movies.

I do not like referring to divorce as a “popular” thing to do because it almost diminishes its impact on people and families and makes divorce sound trendy. That is not how I perceive divorce. Divorce obviously has a significant impact on spouses, the children, and their extended families. However, divorce is not always a bad thing and, if approached properly , the impact of families can be reduced. Also, see Starting a Divorce Not a War – Amicable Divorce  for additional information on how to properly approach divorce.

Historically, it was more difficult to obtain a divorce both from a legal standpoint as well as divorce carried a significant social stigma. People were then essentially stuck in unhealthy relationships regardless of their own personal happiness . Being in an unhealthy relationship is no way to live, if someone finds themselves wanting to get out of the relationship, they should have the ability to do so.

Why Do People Divorce

There is plenty of research on the internet about why people divorce. According to an article on HuffPost , in a survey conducted by the author, “communication problems came out on top as the number one reason marriages fail.” The article further identifies other reasons why people file for divorce such as:

• getting in for the wrong reasons
• lack of individual identity
• becoming lost in roles
• not having a shared vision of success
• the intimacy disappears
• unmet expectations
• being out of touch
• different priorities and interests
• inability to resolve conflicts

In my practice, I have seen many people choose to divorce for the reasons identified in the article. Many people list several of the above reasons for why they divorce as where a complaint arises in one area, it often causes issues in another. In our practice, there are a couple of other reasons not identified in the article that I believe are worth mentioning.

Perhaps the most egregious reason people divorce is one spouse is the victim of abuse in one form or another. Abuse can mean domestic violence occurred during the relationship or substance abuse. Our office represents many clients of domestic violence. Domestic violence goes beyond bruises and broken bones. Many victims of domestic violence do not experience, at least at first, physical violence from their spouse. Often, it starts with some form of control over the spouse such as financial control or control over who the spouse spends time with.

Perpetrators of domestic violence often hold the purse strings and limit the other spouse’s access to financial resources. Perpetrators of domestic violence also commonly control who the other spouse has access to or spends time with. They will limit the spouses time with their families or friends. Domestic violence, no matter the form it takes, is unacceptable and victims need a way out. Divorce provides one way out for the victim.

Although getting out of the relationship is often easier said than done. If you are the victim of domestic violence, consult with an experienced attorney that is aware of the challenges victims face when leaving the relationship. At BTL Family Law, we are experienced in representing victims of domestic violence. If you are in this situation, contact us  today to schedule a consultation.

Substance abuse is another reason people seek divorce. Commonly, substance abuse is not present or known at the beginning of the relationship, but gets worse over time. A spouse who suffers from substance dependency issues can jeopardize the couple’s financial resources as well as the safety of the children.

Once the substance abuse is discovered, some people file for divorce immediately. Other people do not file for divorce right away and instead attempt to work through the problem with their spouse. Appropriate treatment is often successful, and people have no need to file for divorce. But, when treatment is unsuccessful, eventually people get tired of the emotional strain associated with having a spouse who has a dependency issue. When they reach their limit on the stress they can take, they often choose to file for divorce.

Going With the Flow

Sometimes, people find themselves married because that is what they were “supposed” to do. I see this “it was what I was supposed to do” mentality often in today’s society. You grow up, you find a significant other, you go to college, you get married. In today’s society, this is what people are expected to do as they grow up. Unfortunately, sometimes it leads to people getting into marriages without really realizing what exactly marriage entails and the challenges associated with marriage.

Impulsive Marriages

When people first start dating and falling in love, there is a state of euphoria. Sometimes people get married in this phase of their relationship before they really learn about the other person. I see this often with younger people as well as people who are on their second or third marriages. People are in love and want to solidify their relationship.

Sometimes these impulsive marriages work out and sometimes they don’t. When they do not work out, typically people learn things about their spouse that they do not like or find that their personalities do not actually work well together which is why they file for divorce. Fortunately, these marriages are usually of short duration and less complicated to dissolve as there are not usually significant debts or assets to divide. In some cases, an annulment may even be appropriate if they can meet the requirements under the law .

Filing for Divorce in Arizona

For whatever reason you are considering divorce, it is important to have a clear understanding of the process and how to best approach the situation. At BTL Family Law, we focus our practice on family law. Contact us today to schedule a consultation with a BTL family law attorney and learn how to approach the divorce properly. If your case involves child support or child custody, reach out to our team of Scottsdale child custody lawyers for help.

Schedule a Consultation with a Scottsdale Divorce Lawyer Today

Take control and protect your future.

The lawyers at BTL Family Law know that choosing the right divorce attorney is a personal matter. This is why you will never feel any pressure during your consultation. We are here to answer your questions, discuss your options, help you understand your rights, and, if we represent you in your divorce, our lawyers will guide you through every step of the process as efficiently as possible. We work to keep costs low so that you can start this new chapter of your life in the best position possible.

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The Myth of Sustainable Fashion

• Kenneth P. Pucker

Despite high-profile attempts at innovation, the industry has failed to reduce its environmental impact so far.

Few industries tout their sustainability credentials more forcefully than the fashion industry. But the sad truth is that despite high-profile attempts at innovation, it’s failed to reduce its planetary impact in the past 25 years.  Most items are still produced using non-biodegradable petroleum-based synthetics and end up in a landfill. So what can be done? New ESG strategies such as the use of bio-based materials, recycling, and “rent-the-runway” concepts have failed. Instead, we must stop thinking about sustainability as existing on a spectrum. Less unstainable is not sustainable. And governments need to step in to force companies to pay for their negative impact on the planet. The idea of “win-win” and market-based solutions has failed even in one of the most “progressive” industries.

Few industries tout their sustainability credentials more forcefully than the fashion industry. Products ranging from  swimsuits  to  wedding dresses  are marketed as carbon positive, organic, or vegan while  yoga mats made from mushrooms  and  sneakers from sugar cane  dot retail shelves. New business models including recycling, resale, rental, reuse, and repair are sold as environmental life savers.

• Kenneth P. Pucker is a professor of practice at The Fletcher School at Tufts University and was formerly the chief operating officer of Timberland. kpucker31

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The Sad Truth About Happiness Scales: Empirical Results

We replicate nine key results from the happiness literature: the Easterlin Paradox, the ‘U-shaped’ relation between happiness and age, the happiness trade-off between inflation and unemployment, cross-country comparisons of happiness, the impact of the Moving to Opportunity program on happiness, the impact of marriage and children on happiness, the ‘paradox’ of declining female happiness, and the effect of disability on happiness. We show that none of the findings can be obtained relying only on nonparametric identification. The findings in the literature are highly dependent on one's beliefs about the underlying distribution of happiness in society, or the social welfare function one chooses to adopt. Furthermore, any conclusions reached from these parametric approaches rely on the assumption that all individuals report their happiness in the same way. When the data permit, we test for equal reporting functions, conditional on the existence of a common cardinalization from the normal family. We reject this assumption in all cases in which we test it.

This is the on-line empirical appendix to Bond, Timothy N. and Kevin Lang, “The Sad Truth about Happiness Scales,” Journal of Political Economy (forthcoming). We are grateful to Christopher Barrington-Leigh, Larry Katz, Jeff Liebman, Jens Ludwig, Andy Oswald, Daniel Sacks, Miguel Sarzosa, Justin Wolfers, and participants in seminars and sessions at the American Economic Association, Boston University, Indiana University-Purdue University Indianapolis, the Federal Reserve Bank of New York, Georgetown University, McGill University, the University of Michigan and the University of Waterloo, an informal brownbag lunch at Purdue University and the referees and editor for their helpful feedback and comments. We thank Brian Towell and Wanling Zou for their excellent research assistance. The usual caveat applies, perhaps more strongly than in most cases. The views expressed herein are those of the authors and do not necessarily reflect the views of the National Bureau of Economic Research.

MARC RIS BibTeΧ

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Sad Truth Quotes

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You never know what you can do until you have to do it.

The sad truth is that most evil is done by people who never make up their minds to be good or evil.

The sad truth is the truth is sad.

The sad truth is that opportunity doesn't knock twice.

All truth passes through three stages. First, it is ridiculed. Second, it is violently opposed. Third, it is accepted as being self-evident.

The sad truth is that man's real life consists of a complex of inexorable opposites - day and night, birth and death, happiness and misery, good and evil. We are not even sure that one will prevail against the other, that good will overcome evil, or joy defeat pain. Life is a battleground. It always has been and always will be; and if it were not so, existence would come to an end.

The sad truth is that certain types of things can't go backward. Once they start going forward, no matter what you do, they can't go back the way they were. If even one little thing goes awry, then that's how it will stay forever.

The sad truth is that without complex business partnerships between African elites and European traders and commercial agents, the slave trade to the New World would have been impossible, at least on the scale it occurred.

The sad truth is that the civil rights movement cannot be reborn until we identify the causes of black suffering, some of them self-inflicted. Why can't black leaders organize rallies around responsible sexuality, birth within marriage, parents reading to their children and students staying in school and doing homework?

The sad truth is that excellence makes people nervous.

And the sad truth is that nobody wants me to write comedy. The Exorcist not only ended that career, it expunged all memory of its existence.

There's one sad truth in life I've found While journeying east and west - The only folks we really wound Are those we love the best. We flatter those we scarcely know, We please the fleeting guest, And deal full many a thoughtless blow To those who love us best.

You don't know what you can do until you try.

If there is one sound the follows the march of humanity, it is the scream.

The sad truth is that truth is almost irrelevant in a court of law.

I've even had people tell me that I must not be a Christian because I think climate change is real. But you know, there's nothing in the Bible that says that. The sad truth is that our thought leaders - many of them in the conservative media and politics - are the ones telling us this isn't real, and we are believing them.

I grew up in Venezuela, and when I was 14-years-old, my parents decided to sell everything and come to America. Five of us lived in a two bedroom house. It wasn't a sad truth, it was just the way it was [at the time]. That feeling is so universal for every immigrant.

The sad truth is that it is precisely those who disagree most with the hypothesis of efficient market pricing of stocks, those who pooh-pooh beta analysis and all that, who are least able to understand the analysis needed to test that hypothesis.

It is a sad truth, but we have lost the faculty of giving lovely names to things. Names are everything. I never quarrel with actions. My one quarrel is with words. The man who could call a spade a spade should be compelled to use one. It is the only thing he is fit for.

Evil is nothing but a word, an objectification where no objectification is necessary. Cast aside this notion of some external agency as the source of inconceivable inhumanity - the sad truth is our possession of an innate proclivity towards indifference, towards deliberate denial of mercy, towards disengaging all that is moral within us. But if that is too dire , let's call it evil. And paint it with fire and venom.

It's a strange thing, you have said it thousands of times I am sure...you will never know what you can do until you try. However the sad truth is, that most people never try anything until they know they can do it.

The sad truth is, they should never trust me.

It is a sad truth, but we have lost the faculty of giving lovely names to things.

It's better to live with a sad truth than with all the happy progress talk you get up here in the North.

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The sad reality of our world.

Go anywhere around the world we will not find a single person who doesn’t love being rich, or having luxurious cars and houses, being glamorous and famous. Everyone desires to be rich, to have comfort and sparks of happiness in their life. It is a fact that no one can deny.

It may sound exciting, but the fact is that people have made this world a worthless place to live. People are running after fame, glamour and money, leaving behind all the happiness and care for the world. That is the sad reality of our world.

In the world today, the reality is what we say, what we see through our eyes, what we believe, and what we feed the system in order to survive.

There are so many issues going around the world including woman rights, poverty, pollution and many more. If we watch the news or read the newspaper, we will find out that today world has become an unsafe and unstable place to live.

But the sad reality is that people do not realize what problem these issues can cause to the world. They are busy with their own mindset of surviving in the competition.

So, let’s pinpoint some of the major issues happening around the world:

We don’t go online, we live online

These days humans are very much busy in social media birds that they tend to ignore the natural birds. Social media addiction has been a much-flouted term lately because people are spending most of their time wasting on it rather than doing something productive.

It is a fact that if we can’t imagine our life without social media that is definitely a sign that we have fallen as a victim to the evil power of social networking and that has been completely normal nowadays. We spend so much time in social media that we have become less capable of distinguishing emotions, less creative and more often ignoring the people around.

Want to breathe fresh air, but don’t plant a tree

This is the most common problem faced everywhere around the world. None of us enjoy choking on smog, none of us enjoy putting our health and well-being at risk because of pollution. All of us wish to have air pollution free environment. If it doesn’t, we complain to the nature, the government and so on.

But the thing is, that we never try making an effort to solve this problem by ourselves. We always want the others to find the solution for our comfort. We cut down the plants and trees for our use but we never plant any so that the air can be pollution free. Ultimately, everything in today’s world has become a concern of selfishness. Until and unless we suffer from a chronic disease, we never take any actions.

More charity, more fame

Performing acts of charity is something that we have been taught from the younger age. It is always been thought as a good gesture or behavior when we donate something we have to the poor people. However, some people do not give from their heart. Sometimes, we see certain posts on social media about people giving charity or donations and their followers would naturally like their posts.

In this way, charity has become a medium to bring fame and inspire others to do the same, thought it does not come from the heart. We often forget how important it is to give respect to the one who needs or receives the help in the name of fame.

Lots of humans, less humanity

We live in a fast paced society where life is mechanical. Earning more money than we already have does matter the most. Today, world has started to become very competitive, and humans have started acting like robot. In this rush, we have started to lack humanity.

Very little do we see people helping each other, be it on the roads, at the workplace or anywhere else. We do not have enough time for anyone except ourselves. We take pride in a false image that we create of ourselves before people. Our ego, competition among each other, limited time and selfishness has made us more like a robot rather than a true human being.

More degrees, less common sense

The people with a dozen of degrees and alphabets hanging behind their name have spent a great deal of time in an academic environment. In our society, education is highly valued than smartness or common sense. It is really sad that most of the parents today, tend to pressurize their children to excel academically rather than gaining knowledge and becoming successful.

This is the sad reality faced by almost everyone because we have been raised with this mentality. People who are smarter enough are not treated the same way the people holding many degrees are treated. This scenario is seen in almost everywhere including the offices, schools, colleges and even at our homes.

High income, less peace of mind

Happiness doesn’t come from material things like money. It generally comes from deep fulfillment. But the sad reality of our world is that we run so much for money that we forget all our happiness and peace of mind.

It seems natural to assume that rich people will be happier than others. With this misconception, people often put their life endlessly after money. This is the reason people have started to get more depressed and suffer from lots of diseases.

Touched moon, yet neighbors unknown

This is the common proverb used by many of us, when it comes to pinpointing something sad happening in our world. It means that the more we are developing within ourselves, the farther we are going from each other.

It exactly doesn’t mean touching the moon. Yet, it means that we have been so busy doing our things and fighting to be on the top that we often forget the people who have helped us in need. We try to achieve the peak of the success and in that process we forget the ones who have been supporting.

Costly watches, no time

We often believe buying a luxurious car or watch make them feel rich and superior. Somehow, it does a physiological effect on us, but we have started to misuse it in a negative way.

People buy expensive watches so that it shows accurate time and it doesn’t has to be repaired time and again. But the reality is that, those people who do not have enough time to balance their personal and professional life are the ones who use it the most. What’s the use of wearing those expensive watches, if we are not able to balance our lives with the help of it?

The more attractive, the more popular

Today, everyone wants to be popular, pretty, and beloved. We are inherently social creatures, who need social contact. But nowadays, the concept of being attractive is misused so much by people that they use it everywhere.

We do not admire the talent or the personality one has, rather we admire someone who is beautiful or handsome. This is all because of pride of ownership and self-worth. When someone attractive expresses interest on us, we feel sense of worth. So, we automatically start parsing them no matter how much common sense they lack.

Speaks about feminism, but no knowledge about it

Women empowerment, equality, and feminism, these words are the most commonly used words these days. Whenever some issues arises regarding a woman, people start talking about feminism and their rights.

The sad reality is that most of the people do not know what feminism exactly is. They try to address this issue just for the sake of being intelligent and famous in front of their colleagues. But when it actually comes to taking action for feminism, people do not confront a word.

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