Risk and Worry

December 18, 2015
Posted by Jay Livingston

At age four, my son and his friend at pre-school thought it was great fun after pick-up to run down the sidewalk and hide just around the corner on the stoop at the front of a Japanese restaurant. The other boy’s mother would invariably get upset. “No, Alexander. Stop,” she would shout and then run after them.

“Janet,” I said once, “How many kidnappers are there in New York? And what are the chances that one of them is waiting at 11:47 today at the southeast corner of 69th and Broadway?”

I could tell that this mollified her only slightly. This was before Google. The World Wide Web was in its infancy. I could not easily look up the actual numbers. But I’d read Joel Best on Halloween sadism, and I knew that these numbers had to be small.  Of the tens of millions of kids in the US, maybe 100 abductions by strangers each year.

Alexander’s mother was not so unusual, then or now. A recent Pew survey (here) asked parents about their worries concerning their children.

Even among middle-class parents,* four out of nine worry about kidnapping. I would blame this inflated fear on the media, but the Internet and TV do not bring us daily stories about kidnappings. Besides, if the eleven o’clock news were the source of our perceptions of danger, we’d all be terrified that our homes will be consumed by fire.

But what about the fear that your child will be shot? I was surprised that so many high-income parents – more than one in five – worried about shootings. And among the poor, more parents are worried that their kids will be shot than that they will have problems with drugs or alcohol. The constant stream of stories in both the national and local news media along with the consequent debate over gun control – the frequent mass shootings, the statements from the president; I don’t know the evidence, but I would expect that these elevate parents’ perceptions  and fears.

Pew did not ask about serious or fatal injury from accidents, a much greater risk than either kidnapping or shooting, but I would guess that fewer parents would say that they worry about these. Parents are not actuaries, and in any case worrying is not the same as estimating risk. Parental worry probably involves some combination of probability, seriousness, strangeness, and control. It’s not very likely that your child will be shot, but if it does happen the consequences – physical and perhaps psychological – are far more serious than those of a skateboard accident. In addition, we don’t feel so  threatened by the familiar or by things that we feel we can control even if they are potentially very dangerous, like our cars.

Kidnapping combines the elements of seriousness, lack of control, and the unfamiliar,
at least in our minds. In the real world, abductions by family members far outnumber those by strangers. So if we’re like Alexander’s mom, we worry, even when we know that the probability is so small there’s nothing to worry about.

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* The Pew high-income group starts at $75,000, $20,000 above the national median family income.

Magic Words

December 17, 2015
Posted by Jay Livingston

Voldemort. There, I said it.

I can’t remember why all the characters in Harry Potter are afraid to say “Voldemort” and instead refer allusively to “He Who Must Not Be Named.” But I had the impression that if only someone did speak the name, then Voldemort would be finished. Like the Wicked Witch when Dorothy empties the bucket of water on her, he would dissolve into a harmless puddle. Of course, the person who speaks the name would have to be very powerful and brave. But if only we had such a hero would would dare say the magic word, evil would vanish from our world, and we would no longer live in fear.

Such is the power of language, at least in stories for nine-year olds. Maybe on Fox TV as well, and maybe for Republicans generally.  Here is a tweet last month from their most preferred candidate for president:

Other GOP candidates and right-wing Webistes offer a similar analysis. Only if our leader speaks the magic word will the problem be solved.

Last week, the Wall Street Journal ran this piece by Rudy the Brave.

Giuliani begins:

In 1983 when I was the U.S. attorney in New York, I used the word “Mafia” in describing some people we arrested or indicted. The Italian American Civil Rights League—which was founded by Joe Colombo, one of the heads of New York’s notorious five families—and some other similar groups complained that I was defaming all Italians by using that term.  In fact, I had violated a Justice Department rule prohibiting U.S. attorneys from employing the term Mafia.

See, I told you he was brave – defying the IACR and DoJ by using the forbidden word. He explains why this was both justified and essential in slaying the monster.

This hesitancy to identify the enemy accurately and honestly—“Mafia” was how members described themselves and kept its identity Italian or Italian-American—created the impression that the government was incapable of combating them because it was unable even to describe the enemy correctly.*

He goes on to make the same complaint about Obama that Cruz, Trump, et al. are making. Obama will not say the magic words “Islamic terrorism.”

Obama uses the acronym ISIL or ISIS. The IS stands for Islamic State, a phrase that Obama has no trouble uttering. In this, he is doing what Giuliani says he did with “Mafia” – using the term that they use to describe themselves. 
       
But with “Mafia,” Giuliani has picked the wrong analogy. What if instead of using the term “Mafia,” Giuliani had said “Italian gangsters” or “Italian criminals”? Why did he not use those terms? After all, as he says, the names in the Mafia membership book all ended in a vowel. Non-Italians may have worked with the Mafia, but none were “made men.”

Giuliani didn’t say “Italian gangsters” for the same reason that Obama doesn’t say “Islamic terrorists.” The terms imply something about all Italians or all Muslims. It is no more accurate to suggest that there is something inherently terroristic in Islam than it is to suggest that something about Italians makes them especially prone to become gangsters.Saying “Mafia” draws the distinction between Italian Americans on the one had and Italian-American gangsters on the other. That’s an important distinction.

Aside from the problem of inaccuracy, there’s the practical aspect. Had Giuliani spoken about “Italian mobsters” he might have pissed off lots of Italians, and not just the mobsters, who in any case were not his biggest fans. He would have alienated Italians whose votes and campaign contributions he would someday need. In a similar way, Obama does not want to alienate the billion or more Muslims whose help or at least neutrality the West needs in the fight against ISIS.  And for Obama and the US, the stakes are much higher than they were for Rudy and his political ambitions.

Yes, words are important, and a phrase that others find insulting can be especially effective in turning them into enemies. But ISIS is already a sworn enemy, and no phrases that we could come up with will change their willingness or ability to continue their war and terrorism.

Conversely, choosing the wrong words could make things even harder for us, and not just over there.  After all, when it comes to letting just about anybody get very deadly weapons, U.S.A., we’re number one. The shootings in San Bernardino showed us just how easy it is for an alienated, radicalized person to get a couple of assault rifles and then do what assault rifles are designed to do – kill a lot of people.

Shouting “Islamic terrorism” may be personally satisfying, even cathartic. It may play very well to the home crowd during its two minutes of hate. But for the president of the United States – the leader of the free world and the leader in the war against ISIS – maybe it’s not such a great idea.

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*Giuliani does not explain why using the magic word “Mafia” made his prosecution successful or why the same evidence without the magic word would not have persuaded juries to convict. He says only that his predecessors’ avoidance of the word “created the impression” that they couldn’t get convictions.

Trump – Not Here to Make Friends

December 14, 2015
Posted by Jay Livingston

I’ve revised my theory of Trump. My old version was based on the idea that what motivated Donald Trump was the profound fear that somewhere in the world there was someone who had not heard of him. (This assessment was not original with me. I can’t remember who I’m stealing it from – Gail Collins probably) The corollary is that Trump does not really want to be president. Being president is hard work, and of the sort that Trump has little talent or taste for. But running for president could bring untold publicity, most of it free.

That explains the outrageous statements – about Obama, about McCain, about Mexicans, about Megyn Kelly, et al. This kind of talk guarantees the attention of the media and therefore the public. Everybody’s going to be talking about Trump. But ultimately these calumnies also assure that he will not win the presidency and probably not even the GOP nomination. For the Donald it’s win-win. He gets tons of publicity, and he doesn’t have to worry about being president. It’s also much easier than running to win since you don’t have to worry about how every word you say might affect your ratings with the electorate.

Now comes Ezra Klein with a variant explanation. Ezra takes the candidacy at face value and assumes that Trump is in it to win it. But the model for the Trump campaign is not traditional politics, where he has no experience. Nor is it the real estate business. Instead, it is the area of Trump’s greatest success – reality television.*

Donald Trump is what would happen if you took the skills of a reality television star and put them in a presidential campaign.

In reality TV, the goal is to become famous. You become famous by getting air time, and one of the ways to get air time is to be outrageous even if that means being offensive. As the famous trope goes, “I’m not here to make friends.” (A video montage of this phrase from dozens of reality TV shows is here.)

In politics – unfortunately for Ezra’s take on Trump, though fortunately for the country – winning and getting publicity are not the same thing. In reality TV, you can win even if you lose. Everyone who watched Season One of The Apprentice remembers Omorosa, the villain of the show, even though she was fired in Week 9. Does anyone remember those who outlasted her including the winner, someone named Bill Rancic? By TV criteria, Omorsa was the winner. She was the one invited back for two other editions of the show. (Of the original cast of Season One, she is the only contestant to have a Wikipedia entry. She is also the first one shown in the clip linked to in the previous paragraph.)

One other difference between reality TV and politics (and real business as well): in politics, having friends and being able to make friends are great assets.

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* You can hear this discussion on the latest episode of The Weeds (here starting at about 49:00), a podcast from Vox.

Short Con, Long Gain

December 7, 2015
Posted by Jay Livingston

Erving Goffman wasn’t much of a football fan, but he would have loved this play that the Patriots pulled off against the Eagles yesterday. It’s all about self-presentation.

(If YouTube prevents the embedded video from running, click here and watch it there.)

It’s a con basically, and Goffman loved con games. The con man:

• makes a presentation of self that . . .
• projects a definition of the situation. . . .
• so that others will act on that definition. . . .
• and behave towards him the way he wants them to.

Why do the Eagles leave Brady uncovered?  A guy I know who saw the play said, “At that point, Brady looks just like a running back in the slot position (in fact, that’s what he is), so there should have been a linebacker covering him.”

But  “what he is” is what people define him to be, and at first, he projects the definition of himself as the quarterback. He goes down the line yelling at the linemen as though he is calling an audible or shouting instructions. That’s what quarterbacks do, and there is no information to suggest that he is not the quarterback. Then he stops for at most a second. The announcer says that he looked confused. The ball is snapped, and even then Brady just stands there. He is no longer projecting a definition of himself as quarterback, but he is not acting like a slot receiver either. The Eagle defenders cover the usual suspects, a list which does not include Tom Brady the famous quarterback.

Finally, he runs his pass route without an Eagle anywhere near.*

Goffman liked con artists because they provide a clear example of what we all do. The main difference is that the con man is doing deliberately and consciously what the rest of us do unawares. In fact, most of us would deny that we are trying to manipulate others’ impressions of us. It’s only when some mistake happens and we fear that others might get the wrong impression that we can see how much work goes into making sure that they get the right impression.
                       
[A similarly Goffmanesque football deception, though at a less professional level (middle school), was the subject of this blogpost  of five years ago.]

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*This sneaky stratagem, unlike others in the Belichick-Brady book, has the virtue of not violating any NFL rules. With this reception Brady was making a good gain but not smashing any records, not even those on his cell phone.