Good morning!
Inasmuch as I'm no
longer sending out an annual tome, I want to take this occasion to wish
everyone a convivial and upbeat end of the year and a happy and healthy
2018! I hope your lives, and those of
your families, get better and better.
* * *
Early in
the year Kathy and I went to two operas the same day. Not our choice, but you go when the Met Opera
is doing a simulcast in the afternoon and you go when you have Minnesota Opera
tickets that night that you can't change because you're out of town for all the
other dates. So we were stuck with going
to two. That won't happen again.
Neither of
us was particularly looking forward to the evening opera, but we went. Diana's
Garden turned out to be a delightful piece, funny and lively. I noticed that the lead soprano, Leah
Partridge, was a professor of music at a university in Georgia, so I looked her
up on the institutional website. I
learned on the site that she was an assistant professor of voice, which means
she could have had a probationary appointment, tenure-track (but not
necessarily—it could have been some kind of adjunct appointment not on the
tenure track). I was curious about
whether a performance engagement like that in Minnesota—where she had to be for
a week—contributed to positive reviews for tenure. I emailed her (at her institutional email
address) to ask and told her I'd worked with the U of Minnesota tenure code off
and on for 40 years. Of course I told
her we very much liked the opera and her performance, both of which were true.
Interestingly,
she emailed back to me fairly promptly, said my email could not have come at a
more opportune moment in her life, told me she was indeed on a tenure-track
appointment, and asked if she could call me about tenure. That was a little surprising, but I said
"sure." She did the next day,
and we talked for 45 minutes, mostly about the tenure and promotion process,
what she should be looking for, documents to review, her particular
circumstances, etc. It turns out she was
in year 4 of the probationary period, with either one or two to go, and had
questions about events occurring in her school.
(For those of you outside higher education, the standard probationary
period for faculty members is six years, and then it's either up—tenure is
granted—or it's out—please go work somewhere else. There are a few exceptions to the six-year
rule, such as in medicine and some business schools, but the overwhelming
majority of American faculty members in a tenure-track/tenure system have a
six-year probationary period.)
Yes, performances do count to tenure in music, although the
question of how many does arise. Anyway,
she told me I'd been very helpful and told me she'd keep me posted.
I closed
the conversation by reverting to opera.
I asked her whether a claim I have made in the past is accurate: I maintain that opera singers have by far the
best trained voices in the world (or at least there are none better). Now, I recognize I was asking someone with a
bias, but she said I was right and that there are reasons, such as learning
control, volume, and consistency. She
said that very few popular, rock, gospel, and other singers receive voice
training, or if they do, it's very little compared to opera singers. I told her I'd purchased a Christmas CD a
number of years ago that had Diana Ross and Placido Domingo and Luciano
Pavarotti singing Christmas songs—and that Ross sounded thin and tinny compared
to the two tenors. But Ross, singing
with the Supremes, had never sounded bad to me.
Ms. Partridge told me it's because of lack of training. So I got my money's worth out of the
conversation by having a long-standing opinion confirmed by a biased but
knowledgeable source!
* * *
Can you
measure wisdom? A mitt full of
psychiatrists at the University of California, San Diego (2017) have developed
a "new scale for assessing wisdom based on common domains and a
neurobiological model." It had
never occurred to me that there are psychometric measures for wisdom, but I
came to realize that there is indeed a significant psychological research
literature on wisdom that dates back several decades. There are nine scales in existence, and this
new one, the authors report, correlates well with the older tests. International researchers agree on the
elements of wisdom and those elements appear in the Bhagavad Gita as well as in
books of the Bible and other religious documents.
When I
began to read about measurement of wisdom, I thought of Oscar Wilde: “With age comes wisdom, but sometimes age
comes alone.” I also thought of that
proverb I've heard often, "there's no fool like an old fool" (which
apparently dates from the middle of the 16th century). General social consensus seems to be that you
ought to get wiser as you get older.
So what's
wisdom? The idea has been around since
the dawn of human civilization, but only recently has there been a systematic
and scientific attempt at definition.
It's seen as important for "general physical and mental health,
well-being, happiness, life satisfaction, personal mastery, and
resilience" [citations omitted].
Here's one
definition from a researcher who has studied wisdom for a long time, Jeffrey
Dean Webster:
Wisdom is
the competence in, intention to, and application of, critical life experiences
to facilitate the optimal development of self and others.
[So,] it is
understood that a wise person possesses at least a minimal level of competence
in decision-making, problem-solving, and other forms of intellectual abilities.
. . . Wise persons are also “mindful” in
that they deliberately intend their actions to have wisdom-related
consequences. That is, wisdom is not an accidental by-product of some process.
. . . Intentions to act wisely are
nothing but unfulfilled potential unless they are acted upon. Application, therefore, is required if
potentially wise behaviors are to be more than unrealized “New Year’s Eve”
resolutions. Wisdom is forged in the
exigencies of real life and emerges from grappling with critical life events,
not the mundane, trivial minutiae of daily life. Reflections upon such key occurrences enable
wise individuals to set goals in multiple life endeavors (e.g., personal,
career, health, leisure, artistic, spiritual) which contribute to optimal
growth, that is, the realization of full potential. . . . Finally, wise individuals are not sage misers,
hoarding their hard earned secrets of successful life and fulfillment; rather,
they seek to engage others and share these valuable insights within their
broader community.
He identified five aspects of wisdom.
Openness: rigid and inflexible responses
to life’s demands mark an individual as unwise. . . . Emotional Regulation: affect sensitivity or emotional regulation
are key elements of wisdom. . . . Humor: the wise individual recognizes, enjoys, and
uses humor in a variety of contexts and for myriad purposes. “I can’t imagine a
wise old person who can’t laugh. The world is full of ridiculous dichotomies. .
. . Critical Life Experience: the crucible of wisdom consists of the
turmoil and uncertainty inherent in many important life decisions [that are]
morally ambiguous, multifaceted, and fraught with unknown outcomes [that]
pressure individuals to make choices under suboptimal conditions [such as
end-of-life decisions, career choices, and relationship issues]. . . . Reminiscence and Reflectiveness: critical
life events, in and of themselves, do not necessarily contribute to wisdom
unless we reflect upon them [so] we are better prepared to confront similar
issues in the future (emphasis added).
The UC San
Diego group, drawing on the foregoing as well as the broader literature, concluded
that at least in western society, empirically-based wisdom comprises (the
following is a quote):
(1) general knowledge of life and social
decision making - ability to give good advice, life
knowledge, and life skills;
(2) emotional regulation - affect regulation
and self-control;
(3) pro-social behaviors - e.g., empathy,
compassion, altruism, and a sense of fairness;
(4) insight - the ability and desire to
understand oneself and one's actions at a deep level;
(5) value relativism (tolerance for divergent
values) - being nonjudgmental and accepting of other value systems; and
(6) decisiveness - the ability to make quick
and effective decisions.
These attributes, the research suggests, come together in a
way that is greater than any one of them alone in constituting wisdom—the whole
is greater than the sum of the parts.
Personally—and
without any deep dive into the scholarship—I'd go with Webster on including
humor. Someone who's wise but never
laughs is a bore. I'm not sure I agree
with Webster on the claim that wisdom is gained in the caldron of difficult
life events. It seems to me that people
can learn wisdom in the course of daily life, one's own and observation of
others'. Traumatic or ambiguous events
may indeed contribute to wisdom, but it seems to be a stretch to say they are
the primary or only source.
The San
Diego group proposes an interesting set of factors. I'd certainly concede that anyone who had all
six of them to a significant degree would be someone I'd consider
"wise." Most of us—speaking
for myself—probably have a mix of them, stronger on some and less strong on
others. As I do a mental survey of my
good friends, I conclude that they are all wise in varying degrees—but, beyond
doubt, wise.
I
contemplate my two children. Even though
I would give almost anything to have her back, I must concede that Krystin was
not especially wise except perhaps in the last couple of years. She was smart, but not wise for most of her
life; where she failed earlier was on (1), (4), and (6). It does seem to me that strength in (1) can
really only come with age and experience, and Krystin had barely reached the
point where she had the "ability to give good advice, life knowledge, and
life skills." That's not really a
criticism of Krystin; I'd argue there are few among us who would be strong on
(1) at a young age. On the other hand,
Krystin was extraordinarily strong on (2), (3), and (5). The tributes to her on her Facebook page and
in the cards I received attest to those.
(Given her years of medical travails and pain, her strength on (2) is
nothing short of astounding.)
Conversely,
in many ways Elliott has been wise beyond his years for much of his life. (I do not claim he had the wisdom of an adult
when he was, for example, 6 or 12 years old, only that he seems to always have
been wiser than his age would suggest likely.)
Oddly, his strengths are Krystin's weaknesses; he has been exceptionally
strong on (4) and (6) and less so on (2) and (3). Contrary to my assertion in the previous
paragraph about wisdom coming with age on (1), I think Elliott's actually
strong on (1) even at age 27.
And what
about me? Self-assessments are always
tricky and often wrong. But I'll do one
anyway. As with most people, I
suggested, I'm better on (1) than I was 30 years ago. I'm pretty good on (2). I've gotten better at (3), especially empathy
and compassion, as I've gotten older; I was lousy at them for much of my life. (4) I'm probably good at this one (although,
as I think about it, this strikes me as another element that might come with
age and experience, and I have no doubt I've gotten better at this the farther
along in life I've gotten). I'm decent
on (5), although increasingly I have trouble accepting values that I regard as
outright nonsense (such as anti-science views and intolerant views on the part
of others). If you don't count the
bridge table, I'm probably average on (6).
At the bridge table, my skill on this score declines with each passing
year.
I am
curious to know if those of you who have known me for years think I'm even
close to the mark in my self-assessment.
I'm not so
dumb that I'm going to write an assessment of Kathy's strengths and weaknesses.
So with those examples, I support my own hypothesis: we have a mix of strengths and weaknesses.
If I'm
accurate in my analysis of the two children, what a puzzle. How could two children, raised in the same
household in exactly the same way (as much as two kids can be raised in the
same way), turn out so dramatically differently on these measures? I can only conclude that genetics played some
significant role. Elliott inherited the
calm and thoughtful characters of his grandfathers; Krystin did not.
The UC San
Diego psychiatrists' study was focused on linking the attributes of wisdom to
specific parts of the brain to "form the basis of a putative
neurocircuitry model of wisdom."
Their work, detailed at length in the article, was successful on five of
the six elements of wisdom, but not on (1).
I'm not surprised they didn't find any relationship to brain circuitry
and (1) because (1) is a much more generalized understanding of life than the
other five elements. (As good
researchers, they also point out the shortcomings of their findings, including
the fact that they had a disproportionate number of people with higher
education and more Caucasians than are in the general population.)
I find
myself with two questions (off the top of my head) about this research. One of them is whether there is a link
between intelligence and wisdom (granting, as I always do, that we don't have
good measures or definitions of intelligence).
If you weren't born with much brain power to start with, how wise can
you get? For some, it may be impossible
*not* to be an old fool—through no fault of their own.
The other question is whether there's a missing element in
the components of the definition in addition to humor. I give them full credit for careful effort to
draw on the research in identifying the six components that they do, but I
wonder if the ability to delay gratification shouldn't fit in there
somewhere. I don't see how it falls
readily into any of the six that they list, but surely that's an element of
wisdom. It's what Krystin couldn't do
and Elliott can.
While writing this bit on measuring wisdom, I happened on
this news article on Pacific Standard:
University
of Wisconsin–Madison psychology professor Seth Pollak worked with over 50
people around the age of 20, and found that those who had experienced extreme
stress as kids were hampered in their ability to make good decisions as
adults. Simply put, childhood trauma—due
to circumstances like neglect or exposure to violence—created young adults
fundamentally unable to correctly consider risk and make healthy life decisions
[https://psmag.com/social-justice/childhood-trauma-adversely-affects-decision-making]
One tiny example of why wisdom may not come with age and,
again, the individual's not at fault.
It should
be evident, given the two different lists of factors from the 2010s, that
wisdom research isn't a settled field, to say the least. In an annual review article about the
research on wisdom in 2011, the authors identified a similar but not identical
set of attributes of wisdom:
The cognitive-ability
component combines crystallized and fluid aspects of intelligence: Both an experience-based body of broad and
deep life knowledge and the ability to reason well and think logically about
novel problems are associated with wisdom, although the former aspect is viewed
as more central. The second component, searching
for insight, bridges cognition and motivation:
Wise individuals are willing and able to understand complex issues
deeply rather than superficially. If they are lacking sufficient information,
they will search for that information rather than form a premature
judgment. Third, a related, more
motivational-emotional component is wise people's reflective attitude: Rather
than making quick judgments or being guided by strong emotions, they prefer to
think deeply about people, the world, and themselves. Their attitude of looking at all sides of an
issue also implies a willingness to be critical of themselves, a balanced
manner of regulating their own emotions rather than getting carried away by
strong feelings, and an unobtrusive self-presentation. Fourth, wise people also tend to show high
levels of concern for others: In
addition to being cognitively able to see others' perspectives, they transcend
their self-interests and care deeply for the well-being of others. Because this attitude goes beyond one's
family and close friends, wise people often engage in civic activities for the
benefit of others. These four components
manifest themselves in concrete activity rather than only in theory: Wise individuals are assumed to have real-world
problem-solving skills that enable them to apply their knowledge and judgment
to concrete problems faced by themselves and others (emphasis added).
They also observe (a la Wilde) that "Wisdom was also
one of only two positive characteristics that laypeople viewed both as positive
and as specific to old age. On the other
hand, however, older age is viewed as neither necessary nor sufficient for
wisdom: Most people are aware that not
everyone develops wisdom with old age, and that young people can also be quite
wise."
* * *
In response to my
story about visiting the Minnesota state capitol building, my friend Rick Evans
told me a story. (Rick is the one who
gave us the tour; his job takes him to the capitol quite a lot.) Years ago, Rick was chief of staff to
Minnesota Senator David Durenberger. He
wrote to me recalling his experience.
Speaking of
Capitol buildings, when I was in Washington I loved to give tours of the U.S.
Capitol. I also took every tour that was
ever offered by anyone because I could learn from every tour. One fun fact I used to feature on my tours of
the U.S. Capitol:
Unlike the
Minnesota Capitol the U.S. Capitol has the House and one end and the Senate at
the other. These were not the original
chambers of the houses. If you tour the
U.S. Capitol, and are standing in Statuary Hall, you are actually standing in
the original House Chamber. The original
Senate Chamber is preserved as it was and is used for ceremonial
occasions. In the 1850’s, due to the
increasing numbers of states, the new chambers were planned and
constructed. The House is on the south
end of the Capitol and Speaker’s seat faces North. The Senate is on the North end of the Capitol
and the President of the Senate faces South.
When all the doors in between are opened – as they are, more often than
you would think – it is possible for the President of the Senate and the
Speaker to look eye-to-eye down the entire length of the Capitol. The chairs of the respective officers are at
the exact same height. While some people
(and Wikipedia) refer to the House and Senate as the Lower House and the Upper
House, respectively, I was told on one of the tours that I took with the
Capitol Historical Society that the equal height of the chairs was intentional
and symbolic of the fact that the U.S. does not have an upper chamber and a
lower chamber.
Rick gave us one of the U.S. capitol tours when he was in Durenberger's
office and we were visiting Washington, D.C.
We got to go and see places no one on a normal tour gets to go and
see. It was great!
* * *
Another friend,
Professor emeritus John Adams, was reminded of a story when he read about Julie
Belle White and her father's clothing store.
Your item on
Hubert H. White reminded me of the hundreds of times I passed that shop on
Marquette beginning in the 1940s, through high school on the streetcars and
buses.
I wondered
about its clientele, and one time when I was downtown after a meeting at city
hall, I decided to stop on and look over the place. It was about 2:30 p.m. on a weekday in the
fall around 1985. I was dressed in my U
of M professorial tweed jacket, with shirt and tie.
As I walked
in, there were no customers visible but there were three sales guys chatting
and leaning against counters. They
looked me over, none of them moving. I
assumed from my appearance they knew I wasn't a good prospect. As I approached them they greeted me and
asked if they could help me. I replied,
"I'm a U of M professor and have lived in Minneapolis almost all of my
life. I've passed your shop hundreds of
times and the same question always occurs to me, and today I had a minute to
stop in and ask.
"Who are
your customers?" I asked. The
fellows looked at one another. There was a silence of about 15 seconds. Then one of them offered, "We provide
clothing to men who sell things that you can't see."
It was an excellent answer. I've
thought about it many times since.
* * *
It occurred to me
recently that the responsibilities of my job for 28 years led to a (very
modest) education in a wide variety of fields.
Among other things, I worked closely with faculty members who served as
committee chairs. While most of our
interactions were focused on committee and university business, we inevitably
also talked about their work. At a place
like the University of Minnesota (as with other similar colleges and
universities around the world), these faculty members are among the leading
experts in their field; they both teach and do research in it. I was always nosy enough to ask what they
were spending their academic time on, and they were patient enough to explain
their work to me. In some cases, they
had to talk to me like I was a first-year student.
I thus had the benefit
learning from faculty members in (to name only some of the fields) mechanical
engineering, horticulture, public health, physics, political science, law,
dance, physical therapy, chemistry, vet medicine, computer science, forestry,
plant biology, psychology, information and decision science, sociology,
aerospace engineering, geography—the list could go on. I'm not really going anywhere with this
point, other than to muse that it was a superb way to get a really, really,
truly liberal—even if superficial—education!
* * *
The use of a word
struck me in the last few weeks. Many
people were kind enough to send me touching and thoughtful cards and messages
after Krystin's death. I am grateful for
every one of them. A fair number who
contacted me used the word "unbearable" in their condolences. Well, no.
I am aware, from long
personal experience, that one struggles to find words of compassion and
sympathy when a friend has had to deal with the death of a family member. It occurred to me, however, that the term
"unbearable" standing alone isn't right. If the death of a loved one were truly
unbearable, you'd be contemplating suicide.
That act is not part of my life plans (and if it were, Krystin would be
horrified). I am *not* being critical of
those who used the term; I've probably used it myself in the past. But as I say, it dawned on me that however
much you wish to convey support and sharing in grief, the word "unbearable"
by itself isn't the one you ought to use.
"Nearly unbearable"
or "almost unbearable" would work (and, in many cases, would probably
be about as accurate—and poignant—as you could be).
There's my
entirely-made-up etiquette lesson for the day.
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