Fascinating Facts and Trivia.

Fine Line Between Good and Evil

The idea that an unbridgeable chasm separates good people from bad people is a source of comfort for at least two reasons. First, it creates a binary logic, in which Evil is essentialized. Most of us perceive Evil as an entity, a quality that is inherent in some people and not in others. Bad seeds ultimately produce bad fruits as their destinies unfold. We define evil by pointing to the really bad tyrants in our era, such as Hitler, Stalin, Pol Pot, Idi Amin, Saddam Hussein, and other political leaders who have orchestrated mass murders. We must also acknowledge the more ordinary, lesser evils of drug dealers, rapists, sex-trade traffickers, perpetrators of fraudulent scams on the elderly, and those whose bullying destroys the well-being of our children. Upholding a Good–Evil dichotomy also takes “good people” off the responsibility hook. They are freed from even considering their possible role in creating, sustaining, perpetuating, or conceding to the conditions that contribute to delinquency, crime, vandalism, teasing, bullying, rape, torture, terror, and violence. “It’s the way of the world, and there’s not much that can be done to change it, certainly not by me.”

—The Lucifer Effect: Understanding How Good People Turn Evil by Philip Zimbardo

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Ostalgie for the Wall?

A survey in 2007 showed that more than one in five Germans would like to see the Berlin Wall put back up. A remarkable 97 percent of East Germans reported being dissatisfied with German democracy and more than 90 percent believed socialism was a good idea in principle, one that had just been poorly implemented in the past. This longing for the Communist era is so widespread that there’s a German word for it: Ostalgie, a portmanteau of Ost (east) and Nostalgie (nostalgia). How is it possible that Berliners went from that wild celebration of November 1989 to wanting to return to the very system they had longed to dismantle?

—The Art of Choosing by Sheena Iyengar

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Just How Smart Are You?

We try and try again to convince ourselves and others around us that we’re clearly different from the rest. The aptly named “better-than-average effect” describes the tendency of most people to judge themselves to be harder workers, smarter investors, better lovers, cleverer storytellers, kinder friends, and more competent parents. A wide variety of studies have shown that across the board, no matter what the ability in question, only the most minute fraction of people are willing to describe themselves as “below average.” Ninety percent of us believe ourselves to be in the top 10 percent in terms of overall intelligence and ability. At the very least, we have to congratulate ourselves on our creative statistics. This phenomenon is also sometimes known as the “Lake Wobegon effect,” after the fictional town described by radio show host Garrison Keillor as a place where “all the women are strong, all the men are good-looking, and all the children are above average.” In our minds, it seems, we are all proud citizens of Lake Wobegon.

—The Art of Choosing by Sheena Iyengar

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Lack of Health Care and Death

Later in this book, we’ll take a detailed look at Nikki White’s tragic encounter with America’s health care system. But the larger tragedy is that Ms. White is not alone. Government and academic studies report that more than twenty thousand Americans die in the prime of life each year from medical problems that could be treated, because they can’t afford to see a doctor. On September 11, 2001, some three thousand Americans were killed by terrorists; our country has spent hundreds of billions of dollars to make sure it doesn’t happen again. But that same year, and every year since then, some twenty thousand Americans died because they couldn’t get health care. That doesn’t happen in any other developed country. Hundreds of thousands of Americans go bankrupt every year because of medical bills. That doesn’t happen in any other developed country either.

—The Healing of America by T.R. Reid

 

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Wasteland Detroit

Like many of Detroit’s abandoned buildings, though, it’s anything but deserted. Rather, it’s a hive of activity, buzzing with scavengers, vandals, late-night revelers, arsonists, photographers and urban explorers who brave the crumbling buildings’ many hazards and create a good number of their own. The complex remains unguarded.
“Mayhem. That’s what they should call the place,” says John, a 36-year-old telephone-line repairman who spends his spare time exploring Detroit’s legendary industrial ruins. “If you decide you want to push a dump truck out of a window, this is the place to do it.”

Detroit has 80,000 abandoned lots and buildings, according to the city’s planning department. Old housing projects, homes, strip malls and even high-rise buildings sit empty across much of the city. Motown has more vacant office, retail and industrial space than nearly every other big city in the country.
Like many of Detroit’s abandoned buildings, though, it’s anything but deserted. Rather, it’s a hive of activity, buzzing with scavengers, vandals, late-night revelers, arsonists, photographers and urban explorers who brave the crumbling buildings’ many hazards and create a good number of their own. The complex remains unguarded.
“Mayhem. That’s what they should call the place,” says John, a 36-year-old telephone-line repairman who spends his spare time exploring Detroit’s legendary industrial ruins. “If you decide you want to push a dump truck out of a window, this is the place to do it.”

 

Images of Detroit

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