Society's Coming Tug of War

Two groups of Americans may be on a collision course -- parents of kids and elders.  By 2025 --if we don't change course -- the American body politic may be embroiled in a titanic, inter-generational struggle over scarce resources: money and talents for the geriatric care of elders and/or for the education of children.

The coming growth in the population of elders has been well publicized, but consider the numbers:

in the next decade, the population of Americans over sixty-five will balloon to 64mm from today's 38mm, an average annual growth of nearly 5%. The population of those over eighty will jump to 15mm from 9mm today, a growth of near 7% per year!  And as you know, the costs of caring for those elders grows exponentially faster.

What you may not appreciate is that at the same time, the population of children under 20 will keep on growing, to 94mm from 80mm, a steady growth year by year.

Where are these kids coming from? The Boomers had kids, who have given us an echo boom, and the echo boomers are now about to give us an echo's echo boom.  Plus the growing cadre of immigrants and recent arrivals to our shores have more kids per family than do we prior arrivals.

Now, what are the needs?  For we elders, as we edge over 75, there is going to be a major need for in-home services such as lawn care, home maintenance and repair, cleaning, shopping, transportation, meal preparation, medication management, and health care navigation. 

And then, for those who no longer can live at home: retirement home services, assisted living, skilled nursing and the most expensive care of all -- dementia care.  While we are learning how to keep the body healthy and alive longer, we haven't yet learned how to keep the brain healthy.

Those over 85 will be getting increasingly whifty.  (That's a word coined by Helen Holmquist, my mother-in-law, and I find it wonderfully useful. I dare say many of us know somebody who is getting whifty.)  Dementia care typically runs over $150 per day, or $56,000 per year, and if coupled with other needs, care can soar into the hundreds of thousands. 

I don't need to remind you that the bulk of these coming elders have not saved anywhere near enough to pay for all the services they will need in their extended years.

Now what of these youngsters? Needs?: schoolrooms, books, teachers, especially those skilled in dealing with English-as-Second Language kids.  Pre-school facilities and teachers.  Parenting and family planning counselors.  These kids are our country's future, and they must be educated. stimulated and developed into capable citizens or America is doomed to second-rate status.  And they ought not to be burdened with student debts!

Note again these growth rates: elders increasing at near 5% per year.  Education and geriatric care costs rising at 6 - 8% per year.  And our economy's growth?  Something like 3% per year.  We are not going to grow our way out of this bind.  At today's per pupil and per elder costs of education and elderly care, it just doesn't compute.

So, how are these needs to be met?  How do we avoid a destructive competition for scarce dollars between the elderly and the parents of the young?  Those two groups in 2025 will make up around 46% of US population, leaving just over half of citizens to work and pay the bills.

Sixty-four millions over 65 vs. about 44million parents of those 90mm kids.  Who's going to win that battle at the polls? School bond issues, teachers' salaries, class sizes; it's the education dollar that will be most in jepardy.

I am not going to get into liberals vs. conservatives, or progressives vs. libertarians.  For this is all of us -- everybody's' problem.  It is our community's problem -- governments, business, not-for-profit social organizations, charities, universities (especially teacher's colleges), foundations, families and individuals -- everyone's.

Starting now, we as a society must devote resources to development of new ways of delivering education and elderly services.  We need research, ingenuity, diligence, imagination and experimentation to find innovative ways to improve the productivity of our education dollar and of our geriatric services dollar.  We need to think outside the box and take risks.

We need the courage to toss out the current structures and processes of our delivery systems where they prove to be inadequate.  For if we fail, there will come an ugly, inter-generational tug of war that might well rend apart this American experiment of building a diverse, open and accessible society

of comity, and justice and opportunity. 

So think: what is each of our role in this? To the younger reader: are you saving enough?  Do you have long-term care insurance?  Are you setting aside funds for your kids education?  Are your parents prepared? 

For us old farts: are we willing to pay a larger share through taxes and donations?  Are we willing to lobby for reduced defense spending to free up discretionary dollars?  Are we willing to buck entrenched teacher and social worker unions?  Are we willing to lobby legislators to increase tuition support and more teacher training?  Are we willing to toss out mossy incumbents committed to defending the status quo and set aside ideologues and reward pragmatic problem solvers?

Are we willing to increase donations to social service organizations and churches and the like, and to make bequests from our estates? Are we willing to fund-raise for colleges and high schools and school foundations and elderly service organizations?  Are we willing to go on boards and help turn these Queen Marys of education and health care systems? 

In my case, I work as Trustee of a retirement community, and see these elderly needs met every day, and families stretch to do so.  Ann's and my care will probably be covered by savings and insurance; the uncertainty is that matter of whifty.  I have also been working on new models of elderly services, specifically a new Seattle village -- Wider Horizons. 

But of most importance are our kids: grand-kids Christopher and Ella will be coming out of school a decade from now; Parker, Max and Molly will be in high school; my great-granddaughter Natalie will be in middle school; and Peter and Corriell and Liza may well have kids in pre-school or entering elementary school. All of them benefit from middle and upper middle class family structures; there are other millions who do not have that support and commitment to education, and who need our attention even more.  The education needs of all -- upper, middle and lower class -- that must be uppermost.   

Help alert others to the bind that we must all work to avoid over the next decade -- for the sake of your children and grandchildren -- and mine.   

A World of Weeping

The world is nearly too much...

... nearly too much to bear this summer.

A world of weeping.

Too few children laughing,

certainly not children of color...

Honduran, Syrian, Gazan, Liberian....

Riding north on freight cars, cowering in bunkers, 

huddled in hospitals and mosques, 

squatting in squalid refugee camps 

where no refuge is to be found.

No adult laughs

cringing through today's papers:

monstrous the hatreds, violence, disease and deceit.

Out on the patio

a Pileated Woodpecker feeds its fledgling, 

already as large as he.

A moment of nurture,

a moment of peace... 

my moment of escape

from a world of weeping.

History, Geography, Empathy

My friend Lionel, from the Isle of Wight, passed on this quote from Alan Furst, the American historical novelist:

            (We) aren’t good at understanding history. I know a woman who teaches history in a D.C. high school and she says Americans are ahistorical. They just aren’t taught history. How much we have to pay for that I don’t know, but you do have to pay for that.  …  You shouldn’t have a population that doesn’t understand history, or geography…

Lionel went on to say "This never occurred to me before. Do you think this is perhaps why the US struggles with coherence in its foreign policy ( to put it mildly)? Would a knowledge of history and geography somehow make Americans less fearful of those they do not understand, generate an enhanced tolerance of those who do not think exactly like they do?"

I've been thinking about Lionel's observation while reading -- better yet, wincing through -- the daily papers: we're sending "advisors" to Syria a la Kennedy in '63; we're surprised by Putin, whose ambitions have been as naked as his shirtless PR and as telegraphed as was Hitler's in Mein Kampf; we're bewildered at the unfolding sectarian chaos in Iraq; we have long failed to grasp Afghan's hatred of foreign occupiers; we continue to forge entangling alliances with small Baltic  and SE Asian states -- as short-sighted as was Tsarist Russia's ties with Serbia; we cling to a naive hope that Israel is really willing to give up the west bank; we defend arbitrarily contrived borders separating "nations" that are nations in name only, where nationality is trumped by clans, tribes and families.  Looking back a bit: our disdain for Ho Chi Minh and belief in the myth that Viet Nam was an allay and satellite of China; sending troops to Siberia in 1920 to help restore our autocrat in Russia and displace their autocrat; Bremer and his earnest young, freshly-scrubbed nation builders designing a "democracy" to drop full born onto Baghdad; and on and on.... Yes, our actions certainly do not exhibit lessons learned from history. And to add to our cluelessness, we tend to be a short-memory society; the Arabs, Persians, Greeks, Turks, Irish, Armenians whose passions inflame -- they are long-memory societies.  Perhaps it takes being oppressed for generations to develop and nurture long-memory.

It's not that we don't create historians and experts well versed in other cultures.  We do.  But politicians are mainly interested in managing their stock: herding us, calming us; crooning to us to keep us from stampeding.  (And lobbyists are interested not in policy but in keeping their stock -- the politicians -- well fed and watered and sheared on a regular basis.) One example of how historians and experts are treated in the chambers of policy: Paul Kattenburg, a specialist on Viet Nam since the early '50's, by '63 heading the State Dept.'s Vietnam Task Force.  In a meeting of the National Security Council that fall, after returning from two months in the field, he recommended that we withdraw from Viet Nam.  He was thereafter excluded from all NSC meetings touching on SE Asia, and by '64 had been transferred to a post in Guyana.  Administration politicians do not want to hear that the emperor has no clothes (perhaps fearing that they don't either?)  Journalists and commentators are little better; they find the nuances and complications of experts' knowledge too messy to attract ratings or grow circulation. 

Maybe we're not well educated in history but we are not indifferent.  No.  Histories and historical novels regularly top the best seller lists and history even has its own TV channel.  Sure, we like it simple and dramatic, but we love history and are no less interested in it than other peoples.

Now geography?  That's a different story.  Not just maps and boundaries, but how the terroir shapes peoples and cultures -- in that most Americans are ignoramuses.  Teaching geography (and civics and music) have especially suffered in this no-child-left-behind era. But to return to Lionel's question: would knowledge of history or even geography make Hondurans less needy in our eyes, or Somalis less foreign, or Koreans less driven, or the Japanese less ambiguous?  Not likely.

History may provide perspective, geography some understanding, but that is not enough to engender tolerance of foreignness and a willingness to try to understand others.  The necessary ingredient is empathy.  Empathy is the building block of human relationships, the lubricant that allows us to live together in communities.

Empathy is an ability, but subtle to define. My favorite definition, from psychologist D M Berger is The capacity to know emotionally what another is experiencing from within the frame of reference of that other person.  It is the capacity to sample the feeling and grasp the intention of another, to put one's self in another's shoes.

Empathy differs from sympathy or pity.  Sympathy is the feeling of compassion or concern for another, the wish to see them better off or happier. Pity is feeling that another is in trouble and needs help as they cannot fix their problems themselves, often described as "feeling sorry" for someone.  But empathy is entering into the feelings and motives of another without losing your own emotional and cognitive identity. You can be empathetic without pity; you can be sympathetic—feeling for – but not truly empathetic.

Empathy thus involves both an emotional and a cognitive element.  That's where history and geography might help -- the cognitive understanding of others' intentions -- an understanding that others' actions are goal-directed and arise from particular attitudes, desires and background values.

Empathy is a natural ability.  Infants of 8 or 9 months begin to discern that others’ minds are different from their own, to develop what psychologists term a 'theory of mind'.  At one year, infants have some rudiments of empathy, in the sense that they understand that, just like their own actions, other people's actions have goals.  And by the age of two, children normally begin to display the fundamental behaviors of empathy by having an emotional response that corresponds with that of another person. Sometimes, toddlers will comfort others or show concern for them, and show an understanding of the other’s goals or motives – what they want or intend.

Not only is it natural in humans, but it occurs in higher mammals.  Chimpanzees are empathetic.  I asked Jane Goodall – yes, that Jane Goodall –whether chimps empathize with each other and with humans.  She told me that chimps empathize within their families, and sometimes with others among their troop.  But with strangers they do not.  With humans, she said, in captivity or in her case with her troop in Gombe, they will empathize with a keeper they have come to trust or someone they have come to regard as part of their family.  But generally, chimps do not empathize with strangers. Neither do we.

Considerable evidence exists that women have a higher “empathy quotient” or EQ, than do men – but whether that is natural or culturally determined is so far unknown.  Men, conversely, show a higher systematizing quotient (SQ), the categorization and analytic assessment of others. 

In most of us, empathy can be developed – it can be reinforced by practice and positive feedback or suppressed by indoctrination, brain washing and negative feedback.  It is a skill that gradually develops throughout life, and which improves the more contact we have with the person with whom one empathizes.

Empathetic engagement helps one to understand and anticipate the behavior of another. Empathy increases understanding and trust – both ways.  When people empathize with each other, bonding and trust and comfort are created.  Empathy improves relationships.  In fact, I contend, our relational, transactional, communal society is dependent on empathy – shared values, feelings, the ability to walk in each other’s shoes.

Ethics are grounded in empathy. Morality stems from a basis of empathic response.  In situations of frequent and close contact, as with family or friends, our moral obligation seems stronger to us than with strangers at a distance. So our challenge is to extend the limits, to span distance and infrequency with empathy bridges. 

Does this not sound familiar?  Are these not the foundations of all the world’s major religions? Do unto others what you would have them do unto you? Go, and care for one another? 

The United States is an increasingly heterogeneous society.  In one more generation, because of immigration and birth rate differentials, Americans of color – Asians, Latinos, Africans – will make up the majority of our nation. We white Anglos still will be the plurality cohort but I suggest that the strains and potential for conflict that this trend portends can only be relieved by increasing the empathy quotient of our society – not just among families and our “tribes” but across ethnic and color lines. 

Empathy can be encouraged, trained, and strengthened.  Reward children for showing their natural empathy instead of telling them “oh, we don’t associate with those people”, or “those people are not to be trusted.”  Tell young men it’s OK to care, to feel, to be vulnerably sensitive; enough of “man up", "be tough", "walk tall", "be a man.”

So yes for history, yes for geography, but even more yes for engagement and empathy.  Empathy is the lubricant of relationships, an oil we will need ever more of if we want to make this salad bowl of a nation a true community of equity and justice and productivity.  If we become a deeply empathetic society, America can truly be the world’s exceptional nation of the 21^st Century.

For God's Sake -- that's a blasphemy, not a claim -- stay out of it!

1400 years after the founding of Christianity, sectarian war broke out across Europe and raged on for 125 years.  In the Wars of Religion millions died, roughly a third of the population, from war, famine, atrocities all carried out in the name of Truth and God.  Sure, power and hegemony over land and treasure were  at issue, as was the venality of religious authorities, but religious belief was the rallying cry; the certainty that my sect has the true interpretation fuels my hatred of the heretic and justifies his or her destruction.

Imagine that an America existed in 1550 relatively as powerful then as we are today, able to project its power and intervene in Europe.  Imagine what might have happened if that hypothetical America had thrown its lot to the Protestants or to the Catholics.  What if it had to choose between Lutherans and Calvinists, or behind this and that splinter sect?  What added horrors would it have sown -- and reaped eventually upon itself?  Sectarian war among true believers can only burn itself out; "reason" cannot be imposed by outsiders, for the combatants "know they know the truth" until they confront their folly.

    

Fast forward to today: Islam was founded some 1400 years ago.  It now is becoming embroiled in sectarian civil war -- Sunnis and Shiites; Wahabis, Salafis, Alewites, Assassins, Pashtuns; Turks, Kurds, Arabs and Persians.  True believers all, and ready to kill Islamic heretics amongst them -- and yes, heathens amongst them as well, like Christians, Jews, Hindus....  True, the 1400 years is more coincidence than meaningful parallel, but maybe all religions have to go through upheavals to mature to mutual tolerance.

Does our America of today dare risk being perceived as supporting any side in this Islamic blood-bathing?  Some say yes, let's support a Shiite dictator against Sunnis and join Iran on that side; wait a minute, maybe we should support Sunni opponents of an Alawite Shiite and thus be on the opposite side from  Iran;  wait a minute,  let's support Jews who both Sunnis and Shiites hate; wait a minute, how about supporting Palestinians, half of whom are terrorists aimed at Israel, half feared by Egyptian, Jordanian and Saudi sheikhs as ready to turn on them, both halves supported by Arabs and Persians, who incidentally, distrust each other; or how about supporting Kurds, and have both Arabs and Turks in opposition?  Wait a minute ..! Wait just a damn minute!

What the hell are we doing?  What is our goal? Aren't they so busy killing each other and struggling for power and hegemony over deserts -- and yes, oil -- that these Islamic madmen aren't about to invade us or launch an attack on Americans?  Possibly, but can't we monitor that and be forewarned?  Can't we quietly threaten any sectarian leader with absolute destruction of what they hold dear?  Do we have to take sides or even risk being perceived as taking sides in fights among families, tribes, clans and sects we don't begin to understand, folks driven by hatred, folks whose values are alien to our own?  

Malaki does not merit our support, nor does Sisi, nor Rouhani, nor Karzai, nor Mashal nor Nasrallah nor Abbas  -- nor even Netanyahu in my humble, minority opinion.   We Westerners, mainly the European colonialists, thank goodness, created these unnatural nations with artificial borders.  It's Muhammad and Allah and their desert they are fighting over.  It's the "amongst us" that inflames them.  For God's sake -- that is a blasphemy, not a claim -- stay out of it!  As horrific as the bloodletting and inhumanity will be, let's stand aside holding our nose, offer humanitarian aid to any and all, and let the furor burn itself out.  

In Memoriam...

In Memoriam...

"In memoriam" is a preposition phrase requiring a following "of."  Whom are we remembering today?  Our focus is rightly on those who risked and gave their lives in answer to the our nation's call.  Families review photos and memorabilia, visit grave sites, pause and reflect and remember.

What of families in other lands?  Millions more.... Many have no grave stones to decorate, nor even know where to direct their thoughts.  But they  who suffered grievous loss do remember.  Let us be in memoriam of their soldiers, sailors, flyers, and marines-- enemies and allies alike -- as well as of our own:

                WWII    (000)                               Korea (000)                     Vietnam (000)                  

        Russian         8,700                    Chinese             ~600              North Vietnamese/VC     ~1,100

        Chinese       ~4,000                    North Korean      ~400              South Vietnamese             ~260

        German         3,900                    South Korean       217              US                                       58

        Japanese       2,100                    US                        36               South Korean                         5

        US                    407                   Turkish                    1

        British              383

        Yugoslavian     ~375

        Italian             ~300                                     Iraq(000)

        Hungarian       ~300                      Iraqi                         ~24

        French              200                      US                               5

        Canadian            45                      Coalition Allies           0.3

        Australian           40

An Open Letter to my Graduating Grandson

My Dear Peter:

I am writing this on a Saturday night, having relished a wonderful dinner of acorn squash, asparagus, and  a well seared, marinated sirloin accompanied by a 2006 Syrah and Rousanne blend, and now sipping a 1978 Sauternes I have had with me since the early 1980's, going back to Washington, D.C.  Which all means that I am very mellow and therefore likely to be very verbose and very boring.

Your generation has cheapened the word 'awesome', making a mockery of a very wonderful emotion felt by saints and sinners alike when confronting the ineffable.  A chipper and charming young junior at Hamilton College called recently to solicit an annual fund contribution.  She asked if my address was still 6240 89th SE.   "Awesome"  she enthused when I confirmed that I still lived where I had last year.  I then played the grandfather: "Jenny, are you really struck with awe that I haven't moved in the last 12 months?   Let me give you a piece of advice.  When you interview next year for a job or entry into grad school,  for God's sake, don't sound like an over-eager, ignorant chipmunk, brightly parroting  "awesome" every time the interviewer relates some pedestrian fact about the job or school.  Sound like the educated and thoughtful young woman that I am certain you are."  She thanked me... and undoubtedly told her telephone bank compatriots about the old fart she just had on the line..

All leading to what I wish to say, Peter.   I am in awe of your academic accomplishments: a BS in Chemistry with highest honors; a BS in mathematics with highest honors; publication in a peer-reviewed journal as an undergrad; and offers of fellowships from Berkeley, MIT, Michigan, Illinois, CalTech, Wisconsin and Scripps.  And I know you are no drudge, but have a social life as well as an academic one.  Your St. Olaf's career is awesome.

Hamilton is not unlike St. Olaf.   Our motto was "Know Thyself" -- not nearly as stirring as "Fram! Fram!" perhaps (Norwegian: "Forward! Forward!") and not followed by "Christmen" for our founders were non-denominational deists striving to educate the (First Nation) Indians.   But otherwise, not dissimilar.  My pre-med academics foundered on the rocks of organic chemistry and anatomy movies at which I passed out, having PTSD from stabbing my mother the summer after my freshman year -- but that's a separate story. 

At any rate, I did go on to HBS, which in those days, more than half a century ago, was for men with gentlemen C's who could not get into Law or Medical or Divinity schools and paid through the nose for the privilege.  No fellowships for us.

So here we are half a century later.  A grandfather upon graduation of a grandson -- regardless of how accomplished the latter might be and how much in awe the former might be -- is expected to pass on some advice.  Hmm....  

Well, one: choose to associate with good people.  I made the mistake of ignoring that advice from my first boss.  Bill Anklam said "it doesn't matter how you are organized" as we argued about centralized vs. de-centralized product development, "the most important decision in business [life?] is whom you choose to associate with."  Three times I ignored his credo and arrogantly presumed that I could rise above and overcome less than good people, and three times came a cropper. 

Second: teach and coach.  I know you were tempted by Scripps because they would have required no teaching duties and left you to wallow in your research.  But I hope Berkeley makes you teach, for teaching is the best learning there is.  I have learned so much more from my "students" here in the US, in Switzerland, in China, and from those I have coached, than I ever imparted to them.  I am in their debt.  Be a teacher regardless of what you choose to do.

Lastly: enjoy and thrive.  The Waller clock is ticking away in the background, 207 years now steadily marking the passing of time.  You will likely have children in 2020 or '25.  You may be a grandfather in 2045 or '50.  Those grandchildren will be coming out of college by around 2065 or so, assuming you and your peers muddle through and mitigate all the awesome grieves we are capable of inflicting on ourselves.  And the Waller clock, God willing, will still be ticking away, merely some 260 years old. 

You thanked Ann and me for contributing to your education.  You're welcome.  But we did little -- your parents and others did so much more -- you did most of all.  Give back by continuing to accomplish, by being a good person with whom to associate, by teaching and coaching, by enjoying and thriving.  Fram! Fram!  

A Day To Quaff

The rain left last week.  Sunny-bright-but-cool has kept the blossoms going -- on and on.  

From the lake, pink cherry against new lime green takes your breath;
impossible to keep your head in the boat.
Tulips abound.

Today, warmth flooded in to lift the soul.
Washed cars, like any red-blooded American teen;
washed winter off skylights,
lived with doors agape.

First patio dinner -- a lovely, summer caprese salad,
a good chardonnay, children's shouts of outdoor joy
carrying in clear evening air. 

We savored, pretending not to know inconstant May yet lurks,
waiting to tease.