Ideas

Our elders in California tell us this state is a global leader in higher education, but kids today can’t find space at public universities, and those who do are running up huge debts

At a moment like this, younger Californians should read Mona Simpson.

The novelist, a UCLA English professor, may be best known as Steve Jobs’ biological sister; she told the world that the Apple chief’s final words were, “Oh wow. Oh wow. Oh wow.” But she first made her reputation with the novel Anywhere But Here, first published in 1986 but still awfully current.

It’s a classic California tale – and a horror story about being young and being the responsibility of someone who is herself irresponsible.

In the novel, a mother, Adele August, relocates with her young daughter, Ann, from Wisconsin to L.A. The mother has dreams of wealth for herself, and Hollywood ambitions for her daughter. But Adele is desperate and delusional. She breaks virtually every promise she makes to her daughter. And so the roles reverse. Adele’s age may make her a grown-up, but she is pure adolescent. Her daughter, even as a child, must be the adult.

I’ve long carried a torch for the daughter, and not just because Natalie Portman played her (alongside Susan Sarandon) in the 1999 movie version. Ann’s exasperation with her mother’s broken promises – and her mother’s inability to acknowledge her own irresponsibility – expresses perfectly the fix that younger Californians find themselves in.

Our elders in California tell us this state is a global leader in higher education, but kids today can’t find space at public universities, and those who do are running up huge debts. We are told California is deeply committed to public education, but our elders fund those schools as if this were a poor Southern state. Our politicians trumpet recent statistics showing California leading the nation in job creation, but our unemployment rate remains well above the national average.

In the face of broken promises, the generations in California have reversed roles: Younger people behave more like grown-ups. Younger generations (I’m a Gen Xer) are driving and smoking less, and committing fewer crimes than our elders did. Our elders got more stable retirement benefits and the big run-up in their real estate values, and protected themselves from higher property taxes. We got bigger college debts and housing debts and tax bills, and are far more likely to be on budgets.

Our leadership reflects this upside-down reality. Elected officials are supposed to be creative and future-oriented, but ours are deeply conservative – in the classic sense of preserving yesterday’s gains for yesterday’s youth. Our governor, who just got reelected without bothering to offer an agenda for his next term, is 76, while our U.S. senators are 81 and 73. Even our rock stars skew older, certainly much older than their critics, slaving away on websites. At protests around the state, you’ll often find the protestors are older than the cops keeping watch.

Is this why California sometimes feels so stuck? While those who are supposed to offer new ideas are too wedded to the past, those charged with imposing new limits are young and ambitious. Voters just confirmed Goodwin Liu, 44, and Tino Cuéllar, 42, to the California Supreme Court. Is this inversion the reason we are so restrained, adopting regulations for almost everything, from grocery bags and watering plants to the hours of high school football practice?

The most frustrating part of this moment is that there’s no escaping it. In Anywhere But Here, Ann would like to run away from her mother, but she can’t. Adele has the keys to the car, literally. After they fight, Adele offers to buy her daughter ice cream. That feels familiar, too. Our elders have accumulated such wealth that we need them – to help us buy houses or fund the educations of our kids (their grandkids).

Adele never really explains herself. Being the mother, the elder, absolves her. Gov. Brown, in a late-campaign appearance, let loose an Adele-like rant after a younger reporter asked why he hadn’t offered a fourth-term agenda. “This is my 12th year” as governor, Brown said. “No one’s ever had 12 years of constant press conferences and discussions and letters and what do they call those things – state of the state speeches. Three separate inaugurations. So what don’t you know? What don’t you know that you think I could tell you now in front of all these people?”

It’s possible to fight this sort of attitude, but have you ever won an argument with an older Californian? As Ann, the daughter, says: ”Strangers almost always love my mother. And even if you hate her, can’t stand her, even if she’s ruining your life, there’s something about her, some romance, some power. She’s absolutely herself. No matter how hard you try, you’ll never get to her.”

When will California’s elders lose their hold over us? Never. “And when she dies,” says Ann of her mother, “the world will be flat, too simple, reasonable, too fair.”

Joe Mathews is California and innovation editor for Zocalo Public Square, for which he writes the Connecting California column.

Eric Barker writes Barking Up the Wrong Tree.

What is love? (Sit down. This might take a minute.)

I’ve posted a lot about the science around love, including how to tell if your spouse is cheating and why high heels are sexy.

But what about the stuff we need to know to be happy? Platitudes don’t cut it and though the poets are often right they’re frequently vague.

Is there an expert who can give us some real answers about love: how to find it, nurture it and maybe even repair it?

You better believe there is. Arthur Aron is one of the world’s top researchers on romantic love.

He is a professor at Stony Brook University and author of a number of key books on the subject of relationships including:

• Handbook of Closeness and Intimacy
• Heart of Social Psychology: A Backstage View of a Passionate Science

I gave Arthur a call and learned what makes us attractive, how to have a great first date, and the things that kill and improve relationships.

Let’s get started.

So What The Heck Is Love Anyway?

Love isn’t an emotion, really. When you look at fMRI studies of the brain it shows up more as a desire. A craving.

And that explains why it feels so good. As far as the ol’ gray matter’s concerned love’s right up there with cocaine and cash.

All three activate the same area of the brain — the dopamine reward system.

Here’s Arthur:

When you’re in love with someone romantically, the areas of the brain that are activated when you think about them are what we call the dopamine reward system. The same system that responds to cocaine and expecting to win a lot of money. Love seems to be more of a desire than an emotion.

So, yeah, even neuroscience agrees that love is intense. But can anything that powerful last? Doesn’t it eventually have to fizzle?

Not necessarily. Research shows some couples are very much in love 40-50 years later.

Here’s Arthur:

Another thing we’ve learned both from that research and from surveys is passionate romantic love can exist in people that have been together 40 years, 50 years. We don’t know the percentage. But people who claim to be very intensely in love that have been married and are in their 70s show the same patterns of neural response to a large extent as people who have just fallen in love.

Want your marriage to last more than 30 years? Just “being married” often isn’t enough: you also need to be good friends.

Via 100 Simple Secrets of Great Relationships:

In studies of people happily married more than three decades, the quality of friendship between the partners was the single most frequently cited factor in the relationships’ success. – Bachand and Caron 2001

(For more on how to keep love alive and live happily ever after, click here.)

So what do we need to know to have a good relationship that stands the test of time? Let’s start with attractiveness.

This Is What Makes You Attractive

Looking good matters. Duh. But it’s far from the only thing.

Arthur also found that we’re more attracted to people who are attracted to us. So showing interest gets people interested in you.

And believing the two of you are similar is powerful (whether you’re actually similar, well, is another story…)

Here’s Arthur:

You are much more likely to be attracted to someone who you think will be attracted to you, or who has shown they’re attracted to you. And believing the person is similar turns out to matter a lot. Their actually being similar doesn’t matter so much but believing they’re similar does.

Believe it or not, other research shows even having similar fighting styles is a good thing.

It was related to double digit drops in conflict and a double digit increase in satisfaction.

Via 100 Simple Secrets of Great Relationships:

While people may employ many different conflict resolution strategies in a relationship, when both partners use the same strategy they experience 12 percent less conflict and are 31 percent more likely to report their relationship is satisfying. – Pape 2001

And while we’re on the subject of attraction, how about “playing hard to get?” Does it work?

Nope. Pretending you’re not interested in the other person is a terrible strategy.

However, making it look like you’re picky and have high standards but that you are interested in this person, that works very well.

Here’s Arthur:

Playing “hard to get” does not help. It’s good for a person you meet to think you’re being hard for others to get but not hard for them to get. That’s sort of the ideal partner: one that’s hard for everyone else to get but is interested in you.

(For more on how to flirt — scientifically — click here.)

How many internet dates do you need to go on to end up in a relationship? Online dating data says 3.8. But what should you do on that date?

How To Have A Great First Date

So how did Arthur become so well known as the big researcher on romantic love? He did the classic “bridge study.”

It showed that if we feel something, we associate it with who is around us — even if they’re not the cause.

So if our environment makes us feel excited, we can mistake it for feeling in love. Check out a video of the study here:

So what’s that mean practically? Roller coasters, concerts, anything exciting with energy in the air makes for a great date.

Here’s Arthur:

When in the initial stages of dating, you might want to do something physiologically arousing with the person. The classic is to go on a roller coaster ride or do something like that as long as it’s not too scary.

In fact, research shows you might even be attracted to someone trying to kill you. Researchers simulated a torture scenario and found exactly that.

Via The Heart of Social Psychology: A Backstage View of a Passionate Science:

Those in the high-fear condition did show, for example, significantly more desire to kiss my confederate (one of the key questions) and wrote more romantic and sexual content into their stories. Looking at the details of these results, I found that the situation had generated, quite specifically, romantic attraction.

Other than excitement, what else is good to do? Open up. Not too much, too fast, but start sharing. Superficial conversation is boring.

Here’s Arthur:

Another thing is to try to keep the conversation from being too superficial — but you don’t want to move too quickly. You can scare a person away if you right away tell them the deepest things in your life.

Research shows that talking about STD’s and abortion is better than bland topics. Other studies show that discussing travel is good but movies are bad.

But what you say isn’t everything. It’s also how you react to what they say. Be responsive and engaged.

Here’s Arthur:

There’s some wonderful work by Harry Reis and his colleagues on self-disclosure showing it’s not how much is disclosed but how you respond to the other person’s self-disclosure. You want to be very responsive to hear what they’re saying, to show that you understand it, to show that you value what they’re saying and appreciate it.

In fact, the best self-disclosure can produce a bond almost as strong as a lifetime friendship in less than an hour. Seriously.

Arthur ran this test with two graduate students, trying to produce a romantic connection. What happened? They ended up getting married.

Here’s Arthur:

The very first pair we ran, which were a couple of research assistants in our lab who weren’t involved in this study, they actually did fall in love and got married.

(For the list of self-disclosure questions Arthur used in that study, click here.)

So the date goes well and you’re together. What makes relationships go bad? And how can you dodge that?

The Real Reason Why Relationships Fail

Think you two are badly matched? You’re probably wrong. Arthur says this is a common mistake.

Who you are and what you’re like has a much bigger effect than the match between you two.

If you’re insecure, anxious or depressed you’ll have trouble connecting withanyone.

Here’s Arthur:

Most people think that how well a relationship will work has to do with the match between you whereas that only matters a little bit. Much more important is who you are, and then secondly, who the partner is. If you are insecure, anxious, or depressed, you’ll have a hard time with anyone. Who you are and who the other person is matters much more than the match.

Think you two are going through difficult times but you’ll come out stronger? Probably wrong again.

Difficult times don’t usually strengthen a relationship — more often they destroy it.

Here’s Arthur:

Long-term relationships of any kind have a very hard time when there are great stressors on people. If you live in a war zone, or you have a child die, or someone loses their job, it’s really hard for a marriage to survive. When things aren’t going well and we behave badly or our partner behaves badly it’s common to jump to the conclusion that it’s always been this way and that things will always be this way. When something stressful is happening we need to remember it’s not always like this.

Other research has shown that trying to change the other person is a killer as well. Often, you need to accept your partner for who they are.

69% of a couple’s problems are perpetual. These problems don’t go away yet many couples keep arguing about them year after year.

Via The Seven Principles for Making Marriage Work:

Most marital arguments cannot be resolved. Couples spend year after year trying to change each other’s mind – but it can’t be done. This is because most of their disagreements are rooted in fundamental differences of lifestyle, personality, or values. By fighting over these differences, all they succeed in doing is wasting their time and harming their marriage.

(To learn the four things that most often kill relationships, click here.)

Okay, so maybe things aren’t going so hot. Everybody thinks they know how to make it better. What does the research say really works?

4 Things That Really Improve Relationships

Like Arthur said above: it’s not usually the match, it’s usually one of the people in the relationship.

So if you have personal issues like depression, anger or insecurity, get help.Fixing you is the best step toward a better relationship.

Here’s Arthur:

First, look at your own life. Are you anxious, depressed, or insecure? Did you have a really difficult childhood? If so, do something. That would be number one.

Relationships stop being fun because we stop trying to make them fun.

Early on you did cool things together but now it’s just Netflix and pizza on the couch. Every. Single. Night.

What to do? Just like the recommendation for a good first date: It’s about excitement.

Here’s Arthur:

After a while, things are sort of settled and there isn’t much excitement, so what can you do? Do things that are exciting that you associate with your partner. Reinvigorate that excitement and the main way to make them associated with the partner is to do them with your partner.

What’s the third most important thing for keeping love alive? “Capitalization” is vital. (No, I don’t mean using bigger letters.)

Celebrate your partner’s successes. Be their biggest fan.

How a couple celebrates the good times is more important than how they deal with the bad times.

Not acting impressed by your partner’s achievements? Congratulations, you’re killing your relationship.

Here’s Arthur:

Celebrating your partner’s successes turns out to be pretty important. When things go badly and you provide support, it doesn’t make the relationship good, but it keeps it from getting bad. Whereas if things are going okay and your partner has something good happen and you celebrate it sincerely, you’re doing something that can make a relationship even better.

The fourth thing Arthur mentioned was gratitude. And not only does it help relationships, it’s one of the keys to a happy life.

What’s the research say? Can’t be more clear than this:

…the more a person is inclined to gratitude, the less likely he or she is to be depressed, anxious, lonely, envious, or neurotic.

(To learn the science behind how to be a good kisser, click here.)

So that’s a lot of solid relationship advice. How do we pull all this together and put it to use?

Sum Up

Here’s what Arthur said can help you have a great relationship:

1. According to your own brain, love is right up there with cocaine and cash. And it can last if you treat it right.
2. Want to be attractive? Make yourself look good, emphasize similarities, and let the person know you’re picky — but that you do like them.
3. A great first date is something that creates excitement and energy. Share things about yourself and respond positively when your partner does.
4. Relationships often fail because of individual issues, not because of a bad match. Resolve difficulties as soon as you can; they don’t strengthen relationships, they cripple them.
5. Improve your relationship by dealing with your personal issues, doing exciting things together, celebrating your partner’s successes and showing gratitude.

It’s easy to get lazy when things are going well. But a little effort can go a long way — and not just toward a better relationship.

The research shows love has many positive effects like increasing success, longevity, health and happiness.

Here’s Arthur:

The evidence shows that relationship quality plays a huge role in longevity. The findings are that the importance of being in a good relationship versus being alone is a bigger effect than smoking or obesity on how long we live. And the quality of your relationships is also the biggest factor associated with general life happiness.

If you don’t have someone special in your life, here’s how to find them.

And if you do have someone, make an effort today. Celebrate any good news they have and plan something exciting to do this week.

And then show them a little gratitude. Does anything feel better than hearing how much we mean to someone else?

This piece originally appeared on Barking Up the Wrong Tree.

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Related posts:

How To Be A Good Kisser – 10 Tips From Scientific Research

Recipe For A Happy Marriage: The 7 Scientific Secrets

What 10 things should you do every day to improve your life?

TIME Writer-Reporter focusing on Southeast Asia.

The country's future may depend on it

When U.S. President Barack Obama visited Burma, officially known as Myanmar, in November 2012, he found it abuzz with promise. Sanctions had been eased, political prisoners released and Rangoon hotels were teeming with foreign executives eager to harness the nation’s abundant natural resources, cheap workforce and enviable location between regional titans India and China.

So giddy was the postdictatorship atmosphere that Obama planted an agonizingly inappropriate kiss on Nobel Peace Prize winner Aung San Suu Kyi. Not that any of the traditionally conservative Burmese minded, however, because the democracy icon was finally free after 15 years of house arrest and relishing life as an elected lawmaker.

But on Wednesday, Obama returned to a very different Burma. Economic liberalization has proved woefully inadequate and human-rights abuses continue unabated. Journalists must once again muzzle their criticism or face persecution. The military continues its assaults on ethnic rebels and, as Suu Kyi said last week, the democratic transition is “stalling.”

“Progress has not come as fast as many had hoped when the transition began four years ago,” Obama told the Irrawaddy magazine before his arrival in Naypyidaw for the East Asia Summit, a meeting of the 10 Association of Southeast Asian Nations members plus other world powers including China, Russia, India and the U.S. “In some areas there has been a slowdown in reforms, and even some steps backward.”

Visitors to Burma may find this surprising. Rangoon is a cacophony of building work, and the battered death-trap taxis of yore have been replaced by Japanese and South Korean imports. Illicit money changers have been swapped for ATMs. Cellphone SIM cards are no longer restricted or prohibitively expensive, meaning the once ubiquitous phone kiosks, where ordinary Burmese queued up to pay for a few minutes’ use of a fixed-line handset, lie largely idle — an anachronism for tourist snaps.

Yet this progress is a mere facade. “Aung San Suu Kyi may say that reform has stalled, but the reality is that it has regressed,” says Khin Ohmar, coordinator of Burma Partnership, a network of civil-society organizations. Like many longtime democracy activists, she still complains of “surveillance, scrutiny, threats and intimidation.”

Burma is unusual amongst authoritarian states embarking on reform, in that the same figures who ran the previous military dictatorship remain in charge today, and so practically all changes have benefited this coterie. Foreign direct investment, for example, has been confined to the extractive industries that are the purview of tycoons with military connections.

“The changes put in place by the [President] Thein Sein administration are not, for the most part, liberal market reforms, but simply expanded permissions and concessions, often given to the crony firms that dominate parts of the economy,” says Sean Turnell, a professor and expert on Burmese economics at Australia’s Macquarie University. In fact, he adds, “protectionist and antireform sentiment is building.”

Certainly, there is no significant economic legislation pending. Foreign banks have been allowed to set up shop, but can only work with other foreigners, using foreign currency and cannot offer retail services. This means the industry remains plagued by crippling inefficiencies.

Meanwhile, some 70% of Burma’s 53 million population toil in agriculture, where there have likewise not been any meaningful reforms. Poverty, exploitation and land grabs are rife. “The economic circumstances of Myanmar’s majority rural population are now marginally worse than before the reforms were launched,” says Turnell.

The media is once again manacled. The death of noted journalist Aung Kyaw Naing in military custody last month has been the nadir of a year that has also seen 10 reporters jailed. “Obama’s got to see it as another indication of sharply deteriorating press freedoms,” says David Mathieson, senior Burma researcher for Human Rights Watch. In fact, of the 11 reformist pledges Thein Sein made to Obama back during his last visit, says Mathieson, “only about half of them have been met.”

Political reform is also backsliding. Suu Kyi will most likely romp home in next year’s national polls, provided they are as unfettered as the by-election that saw her enter the national legislature amid a landslide for her National League for Democracy party in April 2012. However, she remains constitutionally barred from the nation’s highest office. Negotiations to amend these restrictions — owing to her marriage to a Briton and sons who are foreign nationals — have broken down. Asked what the response would be should Obama try to press the issue, a Burmese government spokesman deemed constitutional reform “an internal affair.”

But it is the plight of the locally despised Rohingya Muslim population that is most pressing (not even the 69-year-old Suu Kyi has the moral fortitude to speak up for them). More than 100,000 of this wretched community fester in squalid displacement camps following attacks by radical Buddhists. They suffer restrictions on movement, marriage and education and thousands are planning to flee during the current “sailing season” on rickety boats to perceived safe havens like Malaysia, as thousands have before them. Many die every day.

However, analysts believe there is a political element to this humanitarian catastrophe. Resentment toward Muslims is a relatively recent phenomenon, with sporadic attacks on Muslim communities punctuating the past three years. Some say the unrest is being inculcated and encouraged in order to give the military continued justification for its wide-ranging powers. Government complicity in recent sectarian clashes has been alleged by the U.N. and Human Rights Watch (though furiously denied by Naypyidaw). And the tactic has been used before: anti-Muslim violence also curiously erupted amid the 1988 pro-democracy rallies.

Discontent is also brewing over myriad issues domestically: garment workers strike over pay and conditions; victims of land grabs are descending on the capital; activists protest Chinese-owned mines; farmers rally against dams that ravage the environment. But sectarian violence, or the threat of it, would be the trump card that would allow the army to suspend reforms. Military spending has already increased in absolute terms during Thein Sein’s time in office. Now there are rumors that army chief Min Aung Hlaing is maneuvering for a run at the presidency. If so, there will be precious little hope for reforming the military, which is the single greatest impediment to tackling Burma’s abysmal human-rights record.

The Rohingya crisis is a gift to Burmese generals hoping to shore up their positions and the military’s, and for that reason the Rohingya lie at the core of the Burma’s economic and political transition. Obama “is dealing with a time bomb,” says Khin Ohmar. “He may face resentment for saying something about the Rohingya, but he has to.”

Dr. Kohlstadt is a Faculty Associate at Johns Hopkins University Bloomberg School of Public Health and double-board certified in preventive medicine and nutrition.

Taste and smell can be powerful tools in the classroom

As classrooms “go digital,” educators should consider smell and taste as underutilized teaching tools, especially for teaching kids nutrition.

There’s strong evidence for smell and taste being central to nutrition education dating back a century to the pioneering work of physician Maria Montessori, whose schools worldwide continue to prioritize what Dr. Montessori referred to as the “education of the senses.” There is also recent evidence that multisensory nutrition education reduces classroom absenteeism and improves standardized test scores, according to a report by the Institute of Medicine’s task force on childhood obesity. Changes in health behaviors, such as hand washing, hydration and reducing sugar intake, lead to fewer sick days. And activities such as cooking with recipes, reading nutrition labels and counting calories appear to greatly improve math test scores, possibly because they utilize more senses than does most math classwork.

There’s a biochemical basis for incorporating taste and smell into nutrition education. Taste and smell, which are referred to as the chemosenses because they “talk” to the brain via molecules, guide our behavior and level of motivation. Studies using functional MRI map chemosensory brain activity in the brainstem, a control center for instinctual behaviors like sleeping, eating and the fight-and-flight response. (In contrast, sight and sound are largely registered in the neocortex, the part of the brain used for cognition.) Food scents and taste are powerful influencers because of food’s central role in species survival. The gaming and cosmetic industries use food fragrances to incentivize behavior and purchases. In other words, the nose knows–less in the test-taking way we usually assess knowledge and more through pathways linked closely to behavior change and lifelong learning.

Chemosensory learning does not stop in elementary school. In fact, taste acquisition and adult food preferences are honed during early adolescence.

The case for incorporating chemosensory learning into middle and high school curricula has never been stronger. The sophistication of fast food marketing requires today’s youth to be especially discerning. Children and teens also have more discretionary spending and a wider array of food choices. Given the epidemic of nutrition-related chronic diseases, we need an all-hands-on-deck approach to equipping our nation’s youth.

A rise in chronic diseases in youth has led to a rise in the use of prescription medications to treat them. One in 4 insured American youth takes a prescription medication on a regular basis, according to the Medco 2010 Drug Trend Report. Many of these medications have not been studied in youth, and those that have been studied exhibit nuanced, individualized and sometimes adverse effects on food selection and appetite. Appetite-related side effects are not limited to the medication’s duration and can be long-lasting. However, teaching kids to fine-tune their senses of smell and taste can minimize these side effects by helping people realize when they’re full, and is also key to mindful eating.

The digital age makes new and innovative ways of incorporating the chemosenses possible. One example is “flipped classrooms,” where technology-driven learning can be used at home or in during extracurricular activities, which then frees up class time for student discussion and presentations. The flipped classroom approach makes it possible to use smell and taste in virtual classrooms as well, and in settings where food allergies may limit such experiences in the classroom. Encouraging students to engage in nutrition activities in the home has long been used in public health interventions known as a “child-as-change-agent approach.”

Community partnerships have long been a way for public health nutritionists and educators to work together to achieve sustainable behavior change among youth. The web has also become a catalyst for more diverse stakeholders in nutrition education: STEM programs using nutrition as a gateway science, athletic groups seeking to improve the sports performance of youth, agriculture programs such as 4-H and Future Farmers of America, and the National Park Service linking healthy parks with healthy people for their upcoming centennial.

Peer leadership is another well-established method for engaging adolescents in positive health behaviors. The web and social media have allowed youth peer leaders to expand beyond traditional roles such as camp leaders, afterschool tutors and buddy program participants. In NutriBee, an early adolescent nutrition intervention I researched and developed at Johns Hopkins, high school students come up with projects relating their personal interests to nutrition, which then comprise the online component of NutriBee’s curriculum. The curriculum, aimed at slightly younger kids, incorporates the chemosenses, touch and social interaction.

The chemosenses can help translate nutrition education into healthful behavior changes and positive actions. Getting taste and smell back into the teaching toolbox can therefore impact public health. And the digital age is fertile soil for sprouting the innovation necessary to do that.

Ingrid Kohlstadt, MD, MPH, is a physician graduate of Johns Hopkins School of Medicine. Dr. Kohlstadt is a Faculty Associate at Johns Hopkins University Bloomberg School of Public Health and double-board certified in preventive medicine and nutrition. She edited textbooks Food and Nutrients in Disease Management and Advancing Medicine with Food and Nutrients, Second Edition. Dr. Kohlstadt has worked for the CDC, the FDA, the USDA, the Indian Health Service and the Johns Hopkins Weight Management Center, and serves on the review board of Nutrition Journal.

Throughout history, disease has been considered an unwanted import

“Health consists of having the same diseases as one’s neighbors,” the English writer Quentin Crisp once quipped. He was right: when a disparity occurs, the sense of threat to our health inevitably increases. And what is true of the individual seems to be true of societies as a whole. “Parasite stress,” as scientists term it, has long been a factor in human relations, intensifying the fear and loathing of other peoples, as well as marginal groups within our own societies.

For a while, it seemed that we had transcended all that. In the wake of AIDS, a real effort was made to raise awareness of the link between health and civil rights. A more cosmopolitan sensibility emerged, encapsulated in the noble ideal of global health. Money poured into Africa in an effort to reduce the crippling burden of malaria and HIV. But, as Ebola reminds us, fundamental problems remain. No longer confined to remote rural locations, Ebola has become an urban disease and has spread uncontrollably in some western African nations, in the absence of effective healthcare.

The sheer scale of the present outbreak has brought these problems forcibly to our attention, but it has also revived the Victorian image of Africa as a dark continent teeming with disease. Pity and horror mingle with irrational fear, and have led some governments to introduce illiberal measures that have little or no basis in science. And the dread of Ebola is no longer confined to the West. Indeed, it tends to be more apparent throughout Asia than among Americans and Europeans. In August, Korean Air terminated its only direct flight to Africa due to Ebola concerns, never mind that the destination was nowhere near the affected region of the continent, but thousands of miles to the east in Nairobi! North Korea has also recently suspended visits from all foreign visitors – regardless of origin.

Anxiety about Ebola is more acute in Asia because epidemics, poverty, and famine are well within living memory. Hence, the eagerness to disengage from countries afflicted with infectious disease. But this divisive tendency stems largely from ignorance. As shown in the case of HIV/AIDS, we can find ways of dealing with new infections that are both effective and humane. To do so requires leadership and determination, both of which have been lacking.

The slowness of the international community to respond to the problem of Ebola, and the willingness of some to sever ties with the continent, is a legacy of centuries of conditioning in which health, politics, and prejudice intertwine. The roots of this mentality lie deep in our history. After humans mastered the rudiments of agriculture 12,000 years ago, they began to domesticate a greater variety of animals and came into contact with a wider range of infections. But this happened at different times in different places, and the resulting imbalance gave rise to the notion that some places were more dangerous than others. Persons who moved between settlements were regarded with suspicion in a world in which the vast majority were sedentary.

Well into the 20th century, diseases tended to be associated with other peoples and places. Thus, when the disease we call syphilis was first encountered in Europe in the late 1490s, it was labelled the Neapolitan or French disease, depending on where one happened to live. And, when the same disease arrived in India, with Portuguese sailors, it was called firangi roga, or the disease of the Franks (a term synonymous with “European”). The influenza that spread around the world from 1889 to 90 was dubbed the “Russian Flu” (for no good reason) and the same was true of the “Spanish Flu” of 1918 to 19. It is safe to assume they were not called these names in Russia or Spain.

We are still inclined to think of epidemic disease as coming from somewhere else, brought to our doorstep by outsiders. Moreover, notions of infection first developed within a religious framework – pestilence came to be associated with vengeful deities who sought to punish transgressors or unbelievers. In the European plagues of 1347 to 51 (the “Black Death”), Jews were made scapegoats and killed in substantial numbers. It was said that their presence was an abomination to the Christian god. In later centuries, gypsies, merchants, and practitioners of “unwholesome” trades were added to the ranks of scapegoats.

Remnants of such beliefs endure, as we have seen in claims that Ebola has been sent to rid the world of gays, atheists, and others of whom God apparently disapproves. But the Black Death began a process whereby disease was gradually, albeit partially, secularized. With nearly half the population dead from plague, manpower was precious and many rulers attempted to preserve it, as well as to reduce the disorder which usually accompanied an epidemic. Disease became the trigger for new forms of intervention and social separation. Within states, it was the poor who came to be stigmatized as carriers of infection, on account of their supposedly unhygienic and ungodly habits. They were the object of measures to contain the spread of infection and also to some extent of charitable provision. But the threat of disease, at least in the first instance, appeared to come from without. States used diplomatic intelligence to assess the risks posed by communication with other cities or states. Sometimes an embargo was imposed on all movement from infected places or ships and their crews were placed in isolation, usually for 40 days. This practice was known as “quarantine.” Originating in Italian and Adriatic cities in the 1470s, it gradually spread throughout Europe and large facilities known as “lazarettos” were constructed to house people and merchandise from places suspected of infection.

These precautions flowed from recognition of the fact that disease followed trading routes and that plague emanated from countries in Asia, where it appeared to be endemic. But they were reinforced by a heavy blanket of prejudice, sometimes against the poor, sometimes against “the Turk,” a term which embraced the inhabitants of the Ottoman Empire and the Islamic peoples of Central Asia. The Ottoman lands were the gateway through which plague spread from the east and its rulers were seen as corrupt and fatalistic.

In Europe, too, plague became intimately associated with misgovernment. Countries began to use the accusation of disease to blacken the reputation of rival nations and damage their trade. Quarantines and embargoes became a form of war by other means and were manipulated cynically, often pandering to popular prejudice. The threat of disease was frequently used to stigmatise immigrants and contain marginalized peoples, especially as populations became more mobile during the nineteenth century. The actual numbers of immigrants turned away at inspection stations such as Ellis Island was relatively small but the emphasis placed on screening certain minorities helped shape public perceptions. During an epidemic of cholera in 1892, President Benjamin Harrison notoriously referred to immigrants as a “direct menace to public health,” singling out Russian Jews as a special danger. Chinese migrants were similarly branded when they arrived in California.

The 1800s were an unusually volatile period. Industrialization and urbanization strained social relations and brought enormous sanitary problems. Seemingly new diseases – like cholera – emerged out of nowhere. Ancient ones – like plague, which had been confined for many years to isolated pockets in Asia – returned with a vengeance. The appearance of both these diseases was regarded by some as a form of divine judgment. Others blamed ignorance, squalor, and superstition in their places of origin (India for cholera and China for plague). These prejudices were based partly only older ideas about the dangers of the orient but also reflected a new disdain for non-Western cultures, borne of the age of empire. These “Asiatic” diseases followed the contours of the new global economy, eased by modern technologies such as steamships and railways. They were the consequence not of oriental corruption but of the transformative powers of commerce, science and industry.

The response of Western nations to this maelstrom of disease was to erect barriers to infection. They tried to create a kind of sanitary “buffer zone” in the Middle East and imposed strict quarantines against ports in Africa and Latin American which were regularly infected with yellow fever. But as the global economy matured constraints such as quarantine and embargoes became cumbersome. The panicky response to the re-emergence of plague in the 1890s, in cities such as Hong Kong, Bombay, Sydney and San Francisco, created enormous disruption. Trade came to a standstill and many businesses were destroyed. Great Britain and the U.S. proposed a different way of dealing with disease based less on stoppages and more on surveillance and selective intervention. Combined with sanitary reform in the world’s greatest ports, these measures were able to arrest epidemic diseases without disrupting commerce. The international sanitary agreements of the early 1900s marked a rare example of cooperation in a world otherwise fractured by imperial and national rivalries.

In a globalized world, it is simply not feasible to isolate places which appear to present a higher risk of infection. To do so would devastate their economies and detrimentally affect ours. The spill over of refugees and political instability from imploding states likewise has ramifications far beyond the afflicted countries themselves. We should also remember that an effective response to plague and cholera depends not only on the containment of these diseases, but also on environmental and social improvements. The West was able rid itself of epidemic disease in precisely this way. The European powers also began to clean up their colonies, while the U.S. and the Rockefeller Foundation took similar measures in Latin America and the Philippines. Few would advocate a return to “sanitary imperialism,” but the risk of disease is heightened by a laissez-faire attitude to the welfare of other countries.

The present effort to contain Ebola will probably succeed now that more personnel and resources have been sent to the afflicted countries. But our long-term security depends on the development of a more robust global health infrastructure capable of pre-emptive strikes against emerging infections. If there is one positive thing to note about the reaction to Ebola it is that governments have responded, albeit belatedly, to growing public demand. A more inclusive, global identity appears to be emerging, with a substantially recalibrated understanding of our cross-border responsibilities in the realm of health. Whether this awareness and improvised crisis management translates into a long-lasting shift in how we tackle fast-spreading contagions remains an open question – a life-and-death one.

Mark Harrison is Professor of the History of Medicine and Director of the Wellcome Unit for the History of Medicine, Oxford University. He is author of Contagion: How Commerce has Spread Disease (Yale University Press, 2013). He wrote this for Zocalo Public Square.

Brian Moylan is a writer and pop culture junkie.

The celebutante's exaggerated behind on the cover of a magazine offers no truth or insight. It only makes us think about how it looks like a glazed Krispy Kreme donut

Last night Paper magazine released two of their latest covers, one featuring Kim Kardashian and the other one featuring an even more famous celebrity: Kim Kardashian’s butt. They were emblazoned with the words “Break the Internet,” and they certainly did. The images instantly shot to the highest currency in today’s media: they were trending. But that’s pretty much all they were. There is nothing behind that butt other than it being a really nice butt. That is the end–pun intended–of it.

This is not the first time that we have seen Kim Kardashian’s posterior. And it is not the first time that we have seen Kim Kardashian naked on the cover of a magazine. Strangely enough, she suggested back in 2010, the last time she was naked on a cover, that she wouldn’t pose nude again. She already broke that promise once this year, baring it all for British GQ. We had to know that it wouldn’t be true in hind sight (get it?).

The funny thing about Kim’s latest butt-shot is that all it is intended to do is create a frenzy, much like her famous “belfie” (which is a butt selfie for those of you at home who have better things to pay attention to). There is no reason Kim Kardashian wants to show off her ass or #BreakTheInternet other than because she can, she is expected to, and we fall for the trap every damn time.

It’s really provocation for provocation’s sake, the cheapest kind of stunt. Miley Cyrus, pop music’s current firebrand, was naked on the cover of Rolling Stone licking her shoulder. She revealed less physically, but more intellectually. It was that tongue hanging out, a pose she has repeated again and again while twerking. These moves, and, of course her memorable VMA performance with Robin Thicke, made us all think about cultural appropriation, female sexuality, third wave feminism, and what is appropriate behavior for a celebrity with such a large fan base of young women. Kim Kardashian’s butt on Paper magazine only makes us think about how it looks like a glazed Krispy Kreme donut.

Speaking of pop music provocation, this is nothing that Madonna didn’t do better, first, or smarter several decades ago. Everything from writhing around in her wedding dress on the first ever VMAs to her book Sex was pushing the envelope, but it was always with a purpose. It was about freeing herself from the shackles of the Catholic Church and conventional morality and showing the world that women can own their sexuality without being exploited.

And these aren’t the only women. Joan Rivers (RIP) was telling jokes that often raised controversy to show that if we can laugh at the Holocaust or 9/11, we can ease the pain we still feel about it. Sarah Silverman, another brilliant comic whose mouth frequently gets her in trouble, uses her jokes about racism, sexism, and homophobia to show the world how absurd all of those things really are when you examine them closely.

These are all people that think about what effect their actions are going to cause and see some sort of greater good by causing controversy. Kim Kardashian shows off her butt because she knows that people are going to freak out about it. Maybe it’s because Miley grew up forced into a sort of bright-eyed decorum by the suits at Disney that she knows how to rebel against something. Madonna had the Church and Rivers and Silverman have the male-centric world of standup comedy. They all have a barrier that they’re butting (ha!) up against and trying to tear down. What sort of obstacles did Kim, a pretty, rich girl from Beverly Hills, ever have to fight against?

Seriously, though, this is the only social currency she has in the world. I’m not going to break out that old saw that Kim Kardashian has no talent, but she has no occupation like Miley, Madonna, Joan, or Sarah. She has no outlet to express herself and keep herself relevant other than a highly scripted reality show with sinking ratings and her image. Remember, she is a celebrity whose initial fame, after being Paris Hilton’s closet organizer, was predicated on her having a sex tape. Kim Kardashian can only peddle in her body, and her ass is the most valuable part of that body.

Still, we follow it because that is what she does. It’s perfect that she’s married to Kanye West, whose hyperbole are so outrageous that we now just roll our eyes at them. It’s just Kanye being Kanye, much like Kim applying a liberal coat of oil to her derriere and slapping it on a magazine cover is just Kim being Kim. These two are all just provocation and bluster, repeated images that seem to offer us some sort of truth or insight but are really just self serving.

Kim Kardashian’s butt is the biological equivalent of click-bait. We can’t help but pay attention to it, but we’re always upset by the lack of substance. We want there to be something more, some reason or context, some great explanation that tells us what it is like to live in this very day and age, but there is not. Kim Kardashian’s ass is nothing but an empty promise.

Brian Moylan is a writer and pop culture junkie who lives in New York. His work has appeared in Gawker, VICE, New York magazine, and a few other safe-for-work publications.

Read next: Kim Kardashian’s Butt Might Just Break the Internet Today

Mexicans stand by their missing students, refusing to move on and look away this time

Forty three students from a small rural teachers’ college in Mexico’s mountainous southern backwater have jolted this nation out of its decade-long immunity to a proper outrage to mass violence, and threatened to hijack President Enrique Peña Nieto’s triumphant narrative that Mexico was back on track, destined for First Worldliness. These poor students did this, tragically, by disappearing, at the hands of local security forces that seem to operate as a public-private partnership between government and organized crime.

By now you’ve probably heard the basic outlines of the story: On September 26th, 43 students from Ayotzinapa, a teacher’s school well known for its political activism in the southern state of Guerrero, vanished after participating in a political protest in the city of Iguala, some 150 miles from their school. The mayor of Iguala and his wife—who were on the run until being apprehended by federal authorities this week—apparently ordered that the students “be taught a lesson.” Before the 43 students disappeared that night, six people were killed in an open clash—students and civilians who were just passing by—and 20 more were wounded. Some students had the chance to phone their parents while being attacked.

What’s followed since that day must have shocked the powers that be, so accustomed to acting with impunity. Instead of shrugging the news away as something to be expected in a place like Guerrero (which is scary to people in other parts of Mexico the way all of Mexico is scary to Americans unfamiliar with our country), Mexican society has become thoroughly outraged by the kids’ fate. Instead of seeing what happened as something to be expected when leftist students go seeking trouble, people are angry about the initially lethargic official response.

It’s one heartening aspect to the tragedy. Even in a country that has witnessed more than 22,000 people go missing in the past eight years (and that’s the official estimate), we’ve found the humanity to identify with these students of Ayotzinapa. Their stories—the heartbreaking accounts of the survivors, the humble origin of their families—have all had a powerful impact on Mexican society. And so the question that remains to be answered is: Will their story, with all of its horror, mark a “before and after” for Mexico? Is this it? And if this is it, what does it mean?

In recent years, violence fueled by organized crime has transformed Mexico profoundly, from the way we live our daily lives, to our future expectations and the ways we engage in public issues, demand change or perceive our political elites. Nothing, or almost nothing, has remained untouched by violence and its pervasive effects.

This is not the first time that public forces have been involved in the kidnapping and murder of civilians in Mexico. Sadly, there are a number of documented cases in the past few years. What in particular about Ayotzinapa has caused such a strong reaction? It’s hard to figure out, given all the previous victims, but three factors seemed to conspire to make this atrocity a watershed in public opinion: the victims’ status as students, the fact that the crime, and the botched response, took place on President Peña Nieto’s watch, and, well, the fact that at some point our society was going to have to answer the “How many are too many?” question.

The fact that these victims were students, like many of the victims of the 1968 Tlatelolco massacre, has resonated powerfully across the country, triggering a welcome and all-too rare shared emotional reaction: empathy. The media and several human rights organizations have done an admirable job of revealing who these 43 students are: Luis is quiet and reserved; Marco loves rock music and is hardly ever in a bad mood; Saul is just plain fun; Adan loves soccer…” All of them are humble, country people studying to become teachers. All of them are leftist and combative and strong opponents of the local, state, and federal authorities—but they are not criminals. These were young students attacked and kidnapped by the same people who were supposed to look after them. It could happen to anyone.

The Peña Nieto factor is about holding a president accountable to his own marketing. Part of Mexicans’ immunity to outrage under the previous administration was a sinking sense that competence was not the federal government’s strong point under Felipe Calderón, least of all competence in overseeing corrupt local and state governments governed by other parties. The appeal of bringing back the tough PRI bosses in 2012 was that they knew how to run the place, including its most unsavory elements, and would allow us to move on to other things. Peña Nieto’s entire pitch could have been summed up in a pithy bumper sticker slogan: “Let’s Change the Subject.” And sure enough, he did. Once in office, he exuded confidence that his security people could handle all the recent unpleasantness so that he, and the rest of us, could focus on education, the economy, energy reforms, and all the other things that were in his triumphalist script.

But the Peña Nieto administration’s failure to find the missing students, not to mention its failure to prevent such atrocities in the first place, is undermining its entire reason for being. All the hype about Mexico’s future, the government’s vaunted reforms applauded in the international press, the talk of a prosperous, secure country “on the move”—all of it is threatened by the stark tragedy of Ayotzinapa.

In the search for the 43 missing students, concealed graves full of human remains have appeared all around Iguala. The sad truth is that they must be all around Mexico. “We have been witnessing people’s disappearance for years, and they had to be somewhere,” Mario Campos, a well-known journalist wrote some days ago. Mexico’s thousands of victims are slowly emerging from their macabre resting places. Most of them are still unnamed and unidentifiable, but they are not longer hard cold numbers.

Huge demonstrations are being organized across the country, and the issue is only gaining steam on social media. The number of people taking to the streets, tweeting and reposting messages on social networks in coming days will reveal a lot about the future of the movement and its potential consequences. Judging by the intensity of what is going on, the issue won’t fade away.

Ayotzinapa has also revealed in all its crudeness the precarious state of municipalities all around Mexico. In Iguala, as in many other places, authorities and criminals are now indistinguishable. According to Guillermo Trejo, a professor from CIDE, a top research institution in Mexico City, in the past few years—years in which disappearances have increased—criminal organizations have also changed their goals and tactics. Before, their priority was to “keep business as usual,” which basically meant to corrupt a few members of the local authorities to guarantee the status quo. Now, criminal organizations have literally seized the local power structures and resources. This is true in states such as Guerrero and Tamaulipas. In Michoacán, Tejo argues, criminals take as much as 30 percent of the municipalities’ budgets, 20 percent of the local salaries, and regularly demand to be given public contracts (which of course are never fulfilled). In this context, it should come as no surprise that so many civilian self-defense groups have emerged across the country.

And so it isn’t clear where we go from here. There is no easy way out of this situation, as much as we tried the “change the subject” tactic. We’re now confronting reality in all its bleakness, with no trusted institutions to turn to. Ayotzinapa has revealed so many rotten things about Mexico’s political structures that it has finally convinced thousands—if not millions—of people, that our only chance to save us, to save our country, begins with standing by those 43 kids, and willing their return. It’s a first step.

Ana Francisca Vega is a journalist based in Mexico City, who has co-founded the website “Codigo Espagueti” and hosts a daily TV technology show at Foro TV. She wrote this for Zocalo Public Square.