Walker

Walker joined Difficult Run as an editor in August 2013. He graduated from the University of North Texas with an MBA in Strategic Management and a BBA in Organizational Behavior and Human Resource Management. He's currently a grad student in Government at Johns Hopkins University. He has been published in SquareTwo, BYU Studies Quarterly, Dialogue, Graziadio Business Review, and Economic Affairs. He also contributed to Julie Smith's (ed.) 'As Iron Sharpens Iron: Listening to the Various Voices of Scripture'. His other online writing can be found at Worlds Without End and Times & Seasons. He lives in Denton, Texas, with his wife.

NYT: Writing Your Way to Happiness

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There was a fascinating article in The New York Times in January that I just came across that discusses the personal power of writing:

The scientific research on the benefits of so-called expressive writing is surprisingly vast. Studies have shown that writing about oneself and personal experiences can improve mood disorders, help reduce symptoms among cancer patients, improve a person’s health after a heart attack, reduce doctor visits and even boost memory.

Now researchers are studying whether the power of writing — and then rewriting — your personal story can lead to behavioral changes and improve happiness.

The concept is based on the idea that we all have a personal narrative that shapes our view of the world and ourselves. But sometimes our inner voice doesn’t get it completely right. Some researchers believe that by writing and then editing our own stories, we can change our perceptions of ourselves and identify obstacles that stand in the way of better health.

It may sound like self-help nonsense, but research suggests the effects are real.

This reminds me of the research on fiction reading. There are a few examples of this kind of writing here at Difficult Run. Perhaps I should engage in this style of writing more for the sake of my health.

America’s Most Profound Comic Strip

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Calvin and Hobbes were fans of print journalism—or at least the comics.

In 1985, American newspaper readers met an appalling little boy. He taunted his mother (“Prepare for annihilation, pitiful Earth female”), tormented a classmate by telling her he had brought a “thermos full of phlegm” for lunch and kept a sign on his bedroom door that read “Enter and die.” Millions fell in love with him.

Running in hundreds of papers for the following decade, Bill Watterson ’s “Calvin and Hobbes” was not only the strangest American comic strip. It was also the funniest, the most touching and the most profound.

So begins a fantastic article on Calvin & Hobbes in The Wall Street Journal yesterday. The title captures my sentiments exactly: “‘Calvin & Hobbes’: America’s Most Profound Comic Strip.”

Check it out.

Marriage: Safe Haven in Unsafe Neighborhoods

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Research has found that children in two-parent families are less likely to be victims of a crime compared to those in single parent households, but it has been ambiguous as to whether this is due to marriage or the neighborhoods in which married families choose to live. A recent analysis on the 2011-2012 National Survey of Children’s Health, however, “shows that even when their families live in unsafe neighborhoods, children in married two-parent families are less likely to be exposed to violent crime than children of never-married and divorced parents.” Family scholar Nicholas Zill explains,

When I looked at combinations of neighborhood safety and family type in which children lived, those living with never-married mothers in unsafe or unsupportive neighborhoods unsurprisingly had the highest rate of encountering neighborhood violence: 165 children per 1,000. This was five times the rate of violence exposure for children living with both married parents in safe and supportive neighborhoods: 32 children per 1,000. Children living with separated or divorced mothers in unsafe neighborhoods were not far behind their peers with never-married mothers: 153 children per 1,000. While children in intact families who resided in unsafe neighborhoods had a higher risk of encountering violence than similar children in safe neighborhoods, their rate of exposure was lower than that of children of never-married or divorced mothers who lived in safe and supportive neighborhoods.[ref]Of course, “these comparisons are adjusted for differences across family types in the average age, sex, and race/ethnicity of the child; family income and poverty status; and the parent’s education level.”[/ref]

Zill offers three possible explanations for his findings:

First is the stress of conflict between parents and the strain of raising children as a lone parent in reduced financial circumstances. These can lead to a lack of vigilance and the overlooking of simple precautions, such as making sure that doors and windows are locked in houses and vehicles. Second, if they have broken up with their child’s other parent, a single parent will usually begin dating and trying to find a new partner. This process often involves being out of the house at night, sometimes leaving children with no or inadequate supervision. Third, as children become adolescents, the peers they become involved with in their less-than-ideal neighborhoods and schools are often troubled ones, who can lead them into hazardous situations and activities.

For me, this is just more evidence as to why those who are concerned about social justice should be the biggest advocates of marriage.

Occupational Licensing: Enriching the (Relatively) Few

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A new study from the Mercatus Center at George Mason University explores the growth of optician licensing in the U.S. Though licensing is often advocated for in the name of “public safety,” this study finds that strict licensing laws reduce competition and enrich opticians with no measurable benefits for consumers (such as vision insurance or optician malpractice insurance premiums). A new NBER study found similar results, concluding that those with occupational licenses in the labor market “earn higher pay, are more likely to be employed, and have a higher probability of retirement and pension plan offers.” Writing in The New York Times, the University of Minnesota’s Morris Kleiner explains,

In the 1970s, about 10 percent of individuals who worked had to have licenses, but by 2008, almost 30 percent of the work force needed them. With this explosion of licensing laws has come a national patchwork of stealth regulation that has, among other things, restricted labor markets, innovation and worker mobility…Occupational licensure has a large and growing impact on labor markets and consumers, but has yet to draw significant public attention or scrutiny. The left and right seem to be in agreement that policy makers need to revisit the process for creating licensure regulations and consider amending or rolling back existing laws in favor of lesser forms of regulations such as certification. Ultimately, we all would benefit from wiser, not more, occupational licensing.

Worth thinking about.

Neurologist Oliver Sacks’ Farewell

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The great British-American neurologist Oliver Sacks recently discovered that he has terminal cancer. A rare tumor of the eye that left him blind in one eye metastasized and now occupies a third of his liver. Sacks is the author of several books, including The Man Who Mistook His Wife For A Hat, Musicophilia: Tales of Music and the Brain, and Awakenings (which inspired the moving, Oscar-nominated film of the same name starring Robin Williams and Robert DeNiro). Perhaps as a kind of farewell, he penned a wonderful article in The New York Times. He writes,

It is up to me now to choose how to live out the months that remain to me. I have to live in the richest, deepest, most productive way I can. In this I am encouraged by the words of one of my favorite philosophers, David Hume, who, upon learning that he was mortally ill at age 65, wrote a short autobiography in a single day in April of 1776. He titled it “My Own Life.” …I have been lucky enough to live past 80, and the 15 years allotted to me beyond Hume’s three score and five have been equally rich in work and love. In that time, I have published five books and completed an autobiography (rather longer than Hume’s few pages) to be published this spring; I have several other books nearly finished…I feel intensely alive, and I want and hope in the time that remains to deepen my friendships, to say farewell to those I love, to write more, to travel if I have the strength, to achieve new levels of understanding and insight. This will involve audacity, clarity and plain speaking; trying to straighten my accounts with the world. But there will be time, too, for some fun (and even some silliness, as well). I feel a sudden clear focus and perspective. There is no time for anything inessential. I must focus on myself, my work and my friends…I cannot pretend I am without fear. But my predominant feeling is one of gratitude. I have loved and been loved; I have been given much and I have given something in return; I have read and traveled and thought and written. I have had an intercourse with the world, the special intercourse of writers and readers. Above all, I have been a sentient being, a thinking animal, on this beautiful planet, and that in itself has been an enormous privilege and adventure.

I look forward to his forthcoming work and wish him and his family the best. May his precious few moments be as exciting and joyful as he hopes for above.

Are We Becoming Morally Smarter?

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Science writer Michael Shermer argues that we are in the March 2015 issue of Reason, based on his new book The Moral Arc: How Science and Reason Lead Humanity toward Truth, Justice, and Freedom. He writes,

Since the Enlightenment, humans have demonstrated dramatic moral progress. Almost everyone in the Western world today enjoys rights to life, liberty, property, marriage, reproduction, voting, speech, worship, assembly, protest, autonomy, and the pursuit of happiness. Liberal democracies are now the dominant form of governance, systematically replacing the autocracies and theocracies of centuries past. Slavery and torture are outlawed everywhere in the world (even if occasionally still practiced). The death penalty is on death row and will likely go extinct sometime in the 2020s. Violence and crime are at historic lows, and we have expanded the moral sphere to include more people as members of the human community deserving of rights and respect. Even some animals are now being considered as sentient beings worthy of moral consideration. Abstract reasoning and scientific thinking are the crucial cognitive skills at the foundation of all morality.

His evidence?:

  • “Numerous studies from the 1980s onward, for example, find that intelligence and education are negatively correlated with violent crime. As intelligence and education increase, violence decreases, even when controlled for socioeconomic class, age, sex, and race.”
  • “[N]ewer evidence that shows a positive correlation between literacy and moral reasoning, most particularly between reading fiction and being able to take the perspective of others.”
  • Negative correlation between high cognition and low demands for punitive punishment.
  • Positive correlation between high intelligence and classical liberal views.
  • “Positive correlation between the IQ of British children at the age of 10 and their endorsement of anti-racist, socially liberal, and pro-working women attitudes at the age of 30, holding the usual potentially intervening variables constant.”

And more. Check it out.

Economists on the Welfare State and the Regulatory State Symposium

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The latest issue of Econ Journal Watch has papers from the Mercatus-sponsored symposium “Economists on the Welfare State and the Regulatory State: Why Don’t Any Argue in Favor of One and Against the Other?” The issue features articles from economists like Robert Higgs, Arnold Kling, and Scott Sumner. However, the two that seem the most interesting to me are the articles by Swedish economist Andreas Bergh and social psychologist Jonathan Haidt. I’ve referenced Bergh’s work elsewhere due to his dispelling of several of myths regarding the Swedish welfare state (from both the Right and Left). His symposium contribution argues that a Hayekian welfare state can exist in theory by combining “low regulation with social insurance schemes that are not terribly vulnerable to the knowledge problem.”[ref]This might go well with philosopher Erik Angner’s view on Hayek and redistribution.[/ref]

In Haidt’s paper (with co-author Anthony Randazzo), the two surveyed economists and “found a relationship between views on empirical economic propositions and moral judgments.” Furthermore, in footnote #3, it says that Haidt is working on a book on capitalism and moral psychology. I imagine it will look something like his Zurich.Minds presentation.

Definitely worth checking out.

The Slow Hunch: Monthly Recap

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As all three readers of The Slow Hunch probably know, I have once again failed to link to its latest posts here at Difficult Run. Alas, this is probably one of many reasons that my personal blog tends to be rather lonely.

Therefore, instead of linking to every single TSH post individually whenever it goes live, I will do monthly recaps with links to all the latest write-ups. My posts tend to be short and it seems a bit much (both for readers and my memory, apparently) to dedicate a DR post to a single TSH one. So, without further ado, here’s what you missed at The Slow Hunch this last month or so:

  • Feeling Good About Work – Features a TED talk by behavioral economist Dan Ariely on how meaning, creativity, and challenge can motivate us at work. I briefly connect it to the Mormon concept of eternal progression.
  • 2015 Faith & Knowledge Conference – The abstract for my upcoming presentation at the Faith & Knowledge Conference at the University of Virginia, entitled “”Labour…Is Their Religion”: Toward a Mormon Theology of Work.”
  • Reimagining Business – Features a TED talk by business professor Raj Sisodia on why business is good, ethical, noble, and heroic and how conscious capitalism can keep it that way.
  • Restoring the Mundane: Expanding Joseph’s Project – Borrowing from Terryl Givens’ latest book Wrestling the Angel, I look at Joseph Smith’s eclectic borrowing and reorienting of various traditions and beliefs and expand it to include everyday activities and resources.
  • “…Working With, For, and Through Other People” – Features an interview with Wharton professor Adam Grant on creating a “giver” culture within organizations. I round it out with a quote from Hugh Nibley on consecration and charity.
  • Jonathan Haidt on Dynamism With Decency – Features a Zurich.Minds presentation by social psychologist Jonathan Haidt about capitalism and business ethics. His comments fit comfortably into my version of a Mormon theology of work.
  • Wellbeing: The Dignity of Work – Looks at Gallup research on the impact one’s career (or lack of) has on overall well-being. Long-term unemployment can be surprisingly detrimental. Plus, you get a performance by Irish folk singer Christy Moore.
  • Blessed Are the Laborers? – Draws on Arthur Brooks’ research on work and happiness, eschatological hopes of the Old Testament, and Jesus’ beatitudes to suggest that work has an integral role in the age to come. Plus, Incubus rocking out.

Let the browsing begin.

More on the Minimum Wage: Recession Edition

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Nathaniel recently pointed to a new study that reported the drop in unemployment benefit duration in 2014 led to an increase in job creation.[ref]This type of evidence goes hand-in-hand with the research from the University of Chicago’s Casey Mulligan.[/ref] An NBER study[ref]New version found here.[/ref] toward the end of 2014 on minimum wage hikes complements this research.

The abstract reads as follows.

We estimate the minimum wage’s effects on low-skilled workers’ employment and income trajectories. Our approach exploits two dimensions of the data we analyze. First, we compare workers in states that were bound by recent increases in the federal minimum wage to workers in states that were not. Second, we use 12 months of baseline data to divide low-skilled workers into a “target” group, whose baseline wage rates were directly affected, and a “within-state control” group with slightly higher baseline wage rates. Over three subsequent years, we find that binding minimum wage increases had significant, negative effects on the employment and income growth of targeted workers. Lost income reflects contributions from employment declines, increased probabilities of working without pay (i.e., an “internship” effect), and lost wage growth associated with reductions in experience accumulation. Methodologically, we show that our approach identifies targeted workers more precisely than the demographic and industrial proxies used regularly in the literature. Additionally, because we identify targeted workers on a population-wide basis, our approach is relatively well suited for extrapolating to estimates of the minimum wage’s effects on aggregate employment. Over the late 2000s, the average effective minimum wage rose by 30 percent across the United States. We estimate that these minimum wage increases reduced the national employment-to-population ratio by 0.7 percentage point.

As shown above, the study found that minimum wage hikes “significantly reduced the employment of low-skill workers” as well as their “average monthly incomes.” Furthermore, low-skilled workers (especially those without a college degree) experienced “significant declines in economic mobility” over time. As entry-level jobs decreased, so did the chance for low-skill workers to gain the work experience and skills to move up the economic ladder. As economist Arthur Brooks put it, there are no dead-end jobs: each one brings more experience, more skills, and consequently, more economic mobility. We should stop promoting policies that make entry into the job market that much harder.

 

Liberal Theologian Marcus Borg: 1942-2015

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marcus-borg-2New Testament scholar, Jesus Seminar fellow, and liberal theologian Marcus Borg passed away this last month. He authored many books[ref]For example, see his Jesus: Uncovering the Life, Teachings, and Relevance of a Religious Revolutionary (New York: HarperOne, 2006); The Last Week: What the Gospels Really Teach About Jesus’ Final Days in Jerusalem (New York: HarperCollins, 2006) w/ John Dominic Crossan; The First Christmas: What the Gospels Really Teach About Jesus’s Birth (New York: HarperOne, 2007) w/ John Dominic Crossan; The Meaning of Jesus: Two Visions (New York: HarperCollins, 1999) w/ N.T. Wright.[/ref] and studies. A number of thoughtful, admiring posts have been written in his memory. While I don’t always share Borg’s interpretations,[ref]I think his preferred anti-imperial, even post-colonial view of the New Testament ignores the explanatory power of its Second Temple Jewish theological context, including its apocalyptic literature. For criticisms of this fairly new imperial approach, see Jesus Is Lord, Caesar Is Not: Evaluating Empire in New Testament Studies, ed. Scot McKnight, Joseph B. Modica (Downers Grove: InterVarsity Press, 2013).[/ref] his strong emphasis on the political nature of Jesus’ ministry can be a much-needed breath of fresh air in the midst of today’s hyper-individualized, over-spiritualized Christianity.[ref]I’ve quoted him in a sacrament talk before to make this point.[/ref] For example, he explains that the cross in the first century “represented execution by the empire; only the empire crucified, and then for only one crime: denial of imperial authority…It meant risking imperial retribution.” By the time Mark’s gospel was written, first-century Christians saw the cross as “the ‘way’…the path of personal transformation.”[ref]Borg, Crossan, The Last Week, 28.[/ref] Though talk of redemption and the Atonement often start at Gethsemane and end (sometimes) after the Resurrection, we cannot and should not separate these things from the life of Jesus.

I’m thankful to Borg for helping Christians remember this.