Weekly Reads for 15 October 2014

An early edition of Weekly Reads for the four day weekend, including two views of Columbus Day, an argument against empathy, concerns about online harassment, and more. Enjoy–and have an excellent short break.

Against Empathy | Boston Review – “When asked what I am working on, I often say I am writing a book about empathy. People tend to smile and nod, and then I add, “I’m against it.” This usually gets an uncomfortable laugh. This reaction surprised me at first, but I’ve come to realize that taking a position against empathy is like announcing that you hate kittens—a statement so outlandish it can only be a joke. And so I’ve learned to clarify, to explain that I am not against morality, compassion, kindness, love, being a good neighbor, doing the right thing, and making the world a better place. My claim is actually the opposite: if you want to be good and do good, empathy is a poor guide. This reaction surprised me at first, but I’ve come to realize that taking a position against empathy is like announcing that you hate kittens—a statement so outlandish it can only be a joke. And so I’ve learned to clarify, to explain that I am not against morality, compassion, kindness, love, being a good neighbor, doing the right thing, and making the world a better place. My claim is actually the opposite: if you want to be good and do good, empathy is a poor guide.” Paul Bloom

Jamie Metzl | The Genetics Revolution | – “The rate of recent progress in human genetics has been astounding. It was only 61 short years ago that the DNA helix was uncovered and a mere 50 years later, in 2003, when the human genome was fully sequenced. The cost of sequencing a full human genome was roughly $100 million in 2001 and is under $10,000 today. If even a fraction of this rate of decrease is maintained, as is highly likely, the cost will approach negligibility in under a decade, ushering in a new era of personalized medicine where many treatments will be customized based on each person’s genetic predisposition. Processes like these will only widen and deepen in the future, just at an exponentially accelerated pace.” Foreign Affairs | Foreign Affairs

Where Do Biases Start? A Challenge to Educators – – “Moving forward, the challenge is to utilize contemporary events in popular culture as a canvas to educate preservice teachers about how race, representation, and masculinity in media can affect how we treat others, such as black males in urban education. When we do this cultural work in urban education, perhaps the Trayvon Martins, Jordan Davises, and Michael Browns of the world will not die in vain, and we will keep kids in schools rather than push them out.” Education Week

The Walking Dead in an Age of Anxiety by Michael J. Totten, – “Most of the world may be richer, healthier, freer, and less violent than at any time in history, but the anxiety about social collapse that has made The Walking Dead and other post- apocalyptic stories so popular isn’t absurd. Our unprecedented prosperity is disturbingly vulnerable to systemic shocks. On an increasingly urbanized planet, global pandemics are terrifying. And as my work as a journalist has often shown me, residents of cities like Baghdad and Damascus can relate all too well to the predicaments that characters face in The Walking Dead.” City Journal

There Is No Constitutional Right to Harass Women Online | – “Given the real-world consequences of vicious online attacks on women, it’s time to take the scholar Danielle Keats Citron’s ideas about cyber civil rights seriously. “Our civil rights tradition protects individuals’ right to pursue life’s crucial endeavors free from unjust discrimination,” she writes in her new book, Hate Crimes In Cyberspace. “At its core is safeguarding individuals’ ability to make a living, to obtain an education, to engage in civic activities and to express themselves free from discrimination. Cyber harassment deprives victims of these essential activities. The law should ensure the equal opportunity to engage in life’s important pursuits.”” The Nation

The Origins and Traditions of Columbus Day – “Perhaps somewhere between the false dichotomies of Columbus as either hero or villain, the real Christopher Columbus — human, adventurous, imperfect — can be found. As the historian Felipe Fernández-Armesto notes, the answer to whether Columbus was saint or criminal “is that he was neither but has become both. The real Columbus was a mixture of virtues and vices like the rest of us, not conspicuously good or just, but generally well-intentioned, who grappled creditably with intractable problems.”” The American Magazine

How to Take Your Pet Everywhere – “Take a look around. See the St. Bernard slobbering over the shallots at Whole Foods? Isn’t that a Rottweiler sitting third row, mezzanine, at Carnegie Hall? As you will have observed, an increasing number of your neighbors have been keeping company with their pets in human-only establishments, cohabiting with them in animal-unfriendly apartment buildings and dormitories, and taking them (free!) onto airplanes—simply by claiming that the creatures are their licensed companion animals and are necessary to their mental well-being. No government agency keeps track of such figures, but in 2011 the National Service Animal Registry, a commercial enterprise that sells certificates, vests, and badges for helper animals, signed up twenty-four hundred emotional-support animals. Last year, it registered eleven thousand.” The New Yorker

Columbus Day Discovery: Native American Students Still Lag Behind – – “To be sure, when it comes to addressing issues of student equity, America has pressing concerns beyond renaming the holidays: There’s a sizable, and stubborn, achievement gap for students of American Indian and Alaskan Native (AI/AN) descent, stretching from kindergarten through higher education.” The Atlantic

Lone Geniuses Are Overrated – – “One of the surprising features of Isaacson’s latest book, coming, as it does, after his biography of Steve Jobs—who is generally, though not entirely correctly, understood to be the model of the radical (and congenitally irascible) American —is that it is a paean to cooperation, to the idea of force-multiplication through collective effort and, in particular, to the transformative power of the diamond triangle of industry, academia and government. (In the interview published below, I ask Isaacson why America has traditionally been the seedbed of global innovation, and whether that will continue).” The Atlantic