Month: December 2012

Are many, according to The Economist:

The theology of Hell had long strained credulity too far, even in the Middle Ages. It could not be just and right, for example, that all the unbaptised were automatically sent there, though doctrine (and Dante) said they had to be. So Hell had acquired anterooms, in which virtuous pagans from the ancient world walked together in pleasant meadows rather like the Elysian Fields. Limbo, the first circle of Hell, was created for unbaptised infants, and the second circle, the destination of those who had died unwisely for love, contained no pain beyond ceaseless yearning. Lovers were even together there, though not happily.

Popular sentiment also believed that the principal actors of the Old Testament—Adam and Eve, Moses, Noah and the rest—had been swept up out of Hell by Jesus after his crucifixion, just as Hercules had several times harrowed Tartarus and the god Siva, moved by pity and anger, had transported a band of souls out of Yama Pura.

Previous Dish on Hell here, here, here and here.

It's being studied in Japan:

[University of Chiba's Yoshifumi Miyazaki] believes that because humans evolved in nature, it’s where we feel most comfortable, even if we don’t always know it. "Throughout our evolution, we’ve spent 99.9 percent of our time in natural environments," he says. "Our physiological functions are still adapted to it. During everyday life, a feeling of comfort can be achieved if our rhythms are synchronized with those of the environment."

To prove it, Miyazaki has taken more than 600 research subjects into the woods since 2004. He and his colleague Juyoung Lee, also of Chiba University, have found that leisurely forest walks, compared with urban walks, yield a 12.4 percent decrease in the stress hormone cortisol, a seven percent decrease in sympathetic nerve activity, a 1.4 percent decrease in blood pressure, and a 5.8 percent decrease in heart rate. On subjective tests, study participants also report better moods and lower anxiety.

(Photo: "Mononoke forest, Yakushima island" by Casey Yee)

Olivia Laing opens up about her time in New York City:

Something funny happens to people who are lonely. The lonelier they get, the less adept they become at navigating social currents. Loneliness grows around them, like mould or fur, a prophylactic that inhibits contact, no matter how badly contact is desired. Loneliness is accretive, extending and perpetuating itself. Once it becomes impacted, it isn’t easy to dislodge.

People held a candle march at Jantar Mantar to mourn the death of a young female rape victim on December 29, 2012 in New Delhi, India. The girl died of injuries in a Singapore hospital after being brutally gang raped in a moving bus on December 16, in Delhi. By Sunil Saxena/Hindustan Times via Getty Images.

Felix Salmon reviews them: 

[I]f you’re one of those extremely wealthy people who has pledged to give away most of their money, then follow the spirit of the pledge, rather than just the letter. It’s not enough to set up a foundation which will receive most of your wealth when you die: that’s, quite literally, a cop-out. Instead, embrace the concept of front-loading, and give the money away right now, as much as you can. In a world which is getting richer, your money is best put to use now, rather than in the future. And in a world with many vicious cycles, an increase in up-front investment can prevent enormous damage down the road. You’re not building a business with permanent equity capital, you’re trying to make a difference. And if you think that the world would be better off if you invested the money, made a huge return, and then gave away that much larger sum — well, that’s just your hubris at work.

Remember, in philanthropy, you’re meant to be the humble one. The graveyards are full of people who dreamed of giving away hypothetical future riches. Much better to give away real present ones.

Peter Singer argues that "your dollars are likely to do more good if you give to charities helping people living in extreme poverty in developing countries." Norm Geras counters:

Naturally, we should try to ensure that our charitable efforts are more rather than less effective, and poverty of the kind Singer focuses on is a quite proper object of charitable remedial effort. At the same time, I cannot see how to justify a principle which says in effect, 'Do no good for others unless that good is the best possible good you can do'. Not only is this impractical since you won't always know how to optimize your efforts, but it means you must override considerations like love, loyalty, gratitude, the spontaneous impulse to be helpful to proximate others, or others you just happen to know about, or others for whom you have some special sympathy (for whatever reason), and so on.

Mara Hvistendahl argues that China isn't undergoing a sexual revolution; it's rediscovering its past:

Roughly half of the emperors of the Han dynasty (206 BCE–220 AD) kept young male lovers — a fact we know because imperial scribes dutifully recorded their affairs in works like Biographies of the Emperors’ Male Favorites. Such tolerance prevailed up through the Ming dynasty (1368–1644), when artists produced sex scrolls depicting intercourse between men.

What changed?

It was only in the second half of the 19th century, as Western values seeped into China following the Opium Wars, that puritanism became more entrenched.

First, the rulers of the Qing Dynasty (1644–1911) made adultery a serious crime punishable by beating, imprisonment, or exile, and then the early leaders of the new Republic established by the 1911 Revolution continued the repressive trend. Later, in the first half of the 20th century, as Chiang Kai-shek’s Nationalists and Mao Zedong’s Communists battled for control of the country, the two organizations, though diverging on many issues, both conflated modernity and science with bodily restraint. At this time, [Richard Burger, author of Behind the Red Door: Sex in China,] writes: "A stigma emerged against unwholesome behavior — such as homosexual sex, patronage of brothels, or excessive sexual activity — as being backwards and feudal and not appropriate in the new social order." Mao took this notion to a new level after 1949, stamping out prostitution and mandating an androgynous, sexless style of dress, even as he himself maintained stables of mistresses.

(Image: Woman spying on male lovers, Qing-Dynasty, from Wikipedia Commons)

Joanna Baginska, a fourth grade teacher at Odyssey Charter School in American Fork, Utah, is shown how to handle a 40 cal. Sig Sauer by firearm instructor Clark Aposhian at a concealed-weapons training class to 200 Utah teachers on December 27, 2012 in West Valley City, Utah. The Utah Shooting Sports Council said it would waive its $50 fee for concealed-weapons training for Utah teachers. By George Frey/Getty Images.

Jennifer Ouellette finds it throughout history:

In ancient China, most gemstones were said to be drops of divine semen that had hardened after fertilizing the earth. For instance, jade was believed to be the dried semen of celestial dragons. (Note to self: never wear jade again.) In Chi Kung and other forms of Chinese medicine, "jing" is sexual energy, which can also denote "essence" or "spirit.” That’s why masturbation isn’t advised among Chi Kung practitioners: it’s a form of energy suicide. … In ancient Rome, the orchid was believed to derive from the semen of copulating satyrs, just because its twin bulbs reminded the Romans of testicles.

"The Garden of Love" by William Blake (1757-1827):

I went to the Garden of Love,
And saw what I never had seen:
A Chapel was built in the midst,
Where I used to play on the green.

And the gates of this Chapel were shut
And Thou shalt not writ over the door:
So I turn’d to the Garden of Love,
That so many sweet flowers bore,

And I saw it was filled with graves,
And tomb-stones where flowers should be:
And Priests in black gowns, were walking their rounds,
And binding with briars, my joys & desires.

Please consider supporting the Poetry Society of America here.

(Photo by Wesley Norman)

With the premise that books about humor aren't funny, Tim Lewens reviews the latest one, Inside Jokes, whose thesis is that "we find things funny when our expectations are overturned":

Wordplay is amusing because the lead line encourages one understanding of a term, while the punchline shows that we should have had a different meaning in mind. Some of the earliest humour experienced by children can be induced by deliberately singing the wrong words of nursery rhymes that they know well. Conceptually richer humour often involves brief vignettes that invite one understanding of a situation, only to make clear that a very different one was intended all along. One of the few funny jokes mentioned in this book, which we owe to Bob Monkhouse, is of this kind: "I want to die peacefully in my sleep, like my father. Not screaming and terrified like his passengers".