Author: Andrew Sullivan

by Conor Friedersdorf

Cletus writes:

What I find most annoying is…envy.

Have you ever spent an evening with the envious type? This is the guy or (or woman) who will bend your ear for hours speculating at great length about what a co-worker or neighbor is earning—usually with an undertone of resentment. Generally, the envious mind tends to focus on the material possessions of other people — the exact amount of Pete's bonus, what Randy paid for his house, the cost of Gretchen's new phone, how Ron was able to afford his vacation to Italy etc. To these people there's no such thing as ability or hard work — other people simply "gamed the system" or "figured out a wrinkle" that allowed them to get ahead. The envious man is the type that will literally froth at the mouth at the sight of a guy with an attractive woman. He'll get visibly angry and repeatedly point out that "he doesn't deserve her." In some instances, It will make him so upset, if he's had a few, he may even invent a fancied grievance and try and start a fight with a complete stranger. 

As a society we've been led to believe that jealousy and envy are interchangeable. They're not. Jealousy actually serves an important social purpose. It typically involves an individual, a cherished relationship, and a fear that the relationship may be in danger. While there is certainly a small minority of  "jealous types" who take this emotion to violent extremes and do great harm, by and large, some sociologists believe a certain amount of low-intensity jealousy is good for society as it helps maintain social stability. 

Envy, on the other hand, is the irrational resentment of another because he or she possesses something you don't have and it can create all sorts of ugliness.

As I wrote long ago in an essay on the topic: "Envy radiates from the literary enemy who obsessively critiques the work of a superior writer, the bungling criminal who informs on a successful rival, the co-worker who vandalizes the property of a gifted colleague, and at its most terrifying, the irrational despot who seeks to execute all men of ability…"

H.L. Mencken once wrote that he could never fully support democracy because he was incapable of envy. While I don't share his opinion about democracy, I'm happy to say I do enjoy his complete disregard for other people's possessions, finances, or abilities. I like to think that each individual should be responsible for setting his or her own standards for success — and my definition of success has more to do with such intangibles as personal or intellectual growth, creativity, dedication, openness to new experiences etc. Unfortunately, I know others who think differently and they can be excruciating to be around.  

by Chris Bodenner

A reader writes:

Whenever anyone mentions religious musicians, my first thought is always Nick Cave. The man's no model Christian; he was in and out of prison for petty crimes when he was young, was a heroin addict for many years, and writes a lot about death and murder. His faith, though, is something that always shines through in its own inimitable way (not unlike Leonard Cohen, actually).

Probably the most blatant instance of this is the song 'There is a Kingdom', off the album The Boatman's Call (the song doesn't appear to be on YouTube, sadly, but it's worth looking up). He's generally rooted in Biblical; he has a song and album called "The Good Son", about the brother of the Prodigal Son in Jesus's parable, while songs like "Tupelo", draw heavily on Old Testament imagery. Probably my favourite example is the brilliant "The Mercy Seat", in which a death row prisoner imagines his impending execution simply as a means of getting to Heaven, comparing the electric chair to God's throne.

Those are just a few examples off the top of my head; he's released a lot of albums in a 30-year career. He's also on record as despising the use of organised religion to score political points, as in the song 'God is in the House' [seen above]. In any case, I would describe him as both "hip" (in his own bizarre way) and religious (again, in his own way).

Another writes:

I haven't yet seen any references to the original and prolific dark angel – Nick Cave. When Johnny Cash covers you ("Mercy Seat"), it doesn't get much hipper than that.

Cave talked about his faith to a University of Vienna audience in 1999:

To write allowed me direct access to my imagination, to inspiration and ultimately to God. I found through the use of language, that I wrote god into existence. Language became the blanket that I threw over the invisible man, that gave him shape and form. Actualising of God through the medium of the love song remains my prime motivation as an artist. The love song is perhaps the truest and most distinctive human gift for recognising God and a gift that God himself needs. God gave us this gift in order that we speak and sing Him alive because God lives within communication. If the world was to suddenly fall silent God would deconstruct and die. Jesus Christ himself said, in one of His most beautiful quotes, "Where ever two or more are gathered together, I am in your midst." He said this because where ever two or more are gathered together there is language. I found that language became a poultice to the wounds incurred by the death of my father. Language became a salve to longing.

(Hat tip: Patrik Hagman)

by Patrick Appel

A reader writes:

I work for a law enforcement agency.  I want to add to your previous reader’s statement “This isn't comparing apples and oranges as much as it is comparing apples and filet mignon” but not just because of the cost of pensions.  Compensation numbers include regular benefits not unlike those associated with any other job – for example employer cost of health insurance, worker’s comp, and employer matching 401K.  If that $47,000 figure reflects only average wages and we assume that at least most of the wages that were averaged were from full time jobs with benefits, adding in the cost of those benefits that number would be higher.   
 
Also not included is the fact that if you average police or fire compensation in a given department, you’re not talking about what the front line officer or fire fighter earns, you’re talking about an average that includes all the higher ranks and their commensurately higher salaries.  So depending on how ‘top heavy’ the command structure that could significantly skew that average compensation number.  

I also take issue with the reader who mentioned the 500 applicants for every one firefighter position “20 years ago”.  First of all, the number of applicants per position naturally fluctuates with the local economy and unemployment rates.  Low unemployment means fewer applicants.  In our area, there are multiple agencies that must compete to fill their academies when jobs are plentiful, and pay has to be competitive.  Second, out of a pool of applicants, only a small percentage are going to qualify.  To be a police officer (at least in our department), a candidate must pass extensive background checks, a tough interview board, a polygraph, and psychological evaluations, plus attend 6 months of intensive training and pass a licensing exam before we give her/him a gun and authority to use it, and a full time job with benefits. There are similarly stringent requirements for firefighters.  I think that’s quite a bit more than most non police/firefighter jobs require.

Another reader:

My significant other is a NYC fireman.  He barely makes enough to live in a lower middle class neighborhood in Brooklyn.  Every month is a financial struggle.  He could not support a family on his salary.  Many of his colleagues live in far-flung suburbs — not because they choose to, but because they cannot afford to live in the city they protect.  They risk their lives on a daily basis to protect every citizen of this city — rich and poor alike — and they don't deserve their hard-won pensions?  Most of them cannot physically work after their 40s.  It is a tough demanding physical job.  This is one place our tax dollars should, and must, be spent.  Especially in cities like New York and DC where our firefighters are really on the front lines — they are trained to deal with chemical, biological, and nuclear attacks.  Of course we want 500 applicants for every job!  Of course we want the best of the best!  I can't believe this is a serious debate in today's world.

by Chris Bodenner

A reader writes:

Your reader wrote, "What I do know is that isn't what I think of as a sincere apology. When one is sorry, they realize the error in their way." Right there is an encapsulation of everything that infuriates me about this debate. I'm what most would consider a fairly conservative Evangelical Christian pastor. And I firmly believe in the right of homosexuals to have every civic right that any other citizen of this nation enjoys. I believe that gays and lesbians should be able to marry, to pass on benefits to their partners, and so on. If they are Americans, then they should enjoy the same rights as every American, regardless of what I think of their lifestyle.

But I do believe that homosexual behavior is sinful, and I do believe the Bible when Paul reaffirms the sinful nature of homosexual activity. I believe that some activities are not God-pleasing and yet can still be a "right" in our civic understanding. A good number of Christians in my generation (Gen X) believe similarly.

For the past several years, we've been hearing more and more from the gay community that they don't care what we think of their sexual practices, as long as we agree that they should have the same rights as everyone else. That sounds great, and like a goal I can work towards. But then, we catch glimpses like this commenter. And Andrew slips into this kind of talk sometimes as well. And it begins to cast real doubt on how much I can trust the rhetoric coming from the gay community. Here is an evangelical saying basically what I have encapsulated, that while he disagrees with the lifestyle he realizes he has been unloving in his attitude. That while he can disagree with the sin that someone commits, perhaps the best tactic is to try and accept them on the basis of their humanity and express kindness, despite the differences.

And what do we get for it? "Sorry, that's not good enough. Not only must you allow us to live as every other citizen, but you must also believe in your heart that homosexuality isn't a sin." Really? What happened to all the talk of

tolerance?

After all, isn't tolerance a two-way street? Doesn't tolerance have to also mean that the homosexual community must accept the fact that I might disagree with their lifestyle? They will have to tolerate the fact that I disagree with them, even as I argue for equal civic rights. Apparently not. Instead, I read something like this poster's (and many others who have responded on this site) opinion and apparently I'm not allowed to have a belief that s/he finds unfashionable.

So I must bend my personal held beliefs to the will of others who find my thoughts judgmental or condemning. This attitude is repulsive and does nothing to benefit the cause of gay rights or to build bridges between communities. It is a selfishness that only causes many of my Christian friends to shake their heads. And it places little seeds of doubt in our minds about how wise it is to continually put ourselves out in front of our Christian peers as apologists for the gay community.

Another writes:

Seriously? We're going to police other people's beliefs now? We're going to tell people what they should and shouldn't think of as wrong, even when they're actively attempting not to hurt others with those beliefs? There's a term for that. It's called "religious intolerance".  Oh, no doubt somebody will think it offensive or whatever that I would invoke that for one of the world's most dominant and frequently-dogmatic religions, but it's true. Tolerance goes in every direction.

It may well be that Marin is being deceptive, in that he's trying to get queerfolk to lower their guard so his allies can better attack us. If he is, well, tough beans – life sucks. But I don't know that for certain, and somehow I don't think most of your readers do, either. What I think is that people are taking a traditional Christian message – dealing with the log in one's own eye before worrying about the speck in your brother's – and reading treachery into it. If he's willing to leave me alone about my sins, and focus instead on dealing with his own, I don't care what he thinks of me. That's not him lying, that's him being … Christian.

FWIW, I'm queer with Catholic parents. Traditional Catholic parents, whom I'm not out to and may never be able to come out to. I have my problems with Christians. Still, I find this whole thing ridiculous and, worse, hypocritical.

by Chris Bodenner

From France to Israel to Turkey:

by Patrick Appel

Steve Clowney defends rental inspections. So does a reader:

I work for a local government in Maryland. We also have regular inspections of rental properties — mostly when the landlord is applying to renew his/her license, but at other times as well. These inspections are never used to investigate illegal activities on the part of the renters, as your scary post seems to imply. Rather, the inspections are almost always for the sake of the renters — that is, to ensure landlords are properly maintaining their homes to the standards of our rental housing code (it should be noted, there are no such standards for owner-occupied homes). Renters in our county can demand inspections at any time, and if any code violations are found, the landlord must address by a certain deadline or face daily, compounding fines.

Maybe this is too heavy-handed (tyrannical?) towards landlords. Although some landlords are great, there are many that will take advantage of renters, especially those families with few other housing options. Indeed, while in college several years back, I moved into a rental house with a deck that was in danger of collapsing, stairs were rotting, a basement that leaked with even the most minor rain shower, and a massive infestation of fleas. I fought the landlord for a month over these issues, until one day when I came home to find a pamphlet on my door from a rental inspector asking if I was having any problems with the house. I called the number and scheduled an inspection the next day. A few days after that, contractors started showing up at my house and I got a refund for my first month's rent.

Another reader:

Rental safety inspections serve a legitimate public interest, and as a renter I am grateful for them.  They help ensure that landlords maintain their properties.  Mandatory annual inspections in my municipality were on the books, but not conducted very frequently, until two pretty outrageous violations a few years back.  In one case, raw sewage was leaking into a woman's apartment from upstairs, and her landlord (a slumlord) was unresponsive in addressing the issue.  In another, tenants had installed an electric space heater within the wooden kitchen cabinets.  Both situations resulted in building fires (due to an electrical short in the case of the sewage leak).  Thankfully, nobody died, but the resulting public outcry led code enforcement officials to reinstate the practice of conducting the inspections annually. 

I don't want strangers poking into my business any more than the next guy, but letting inspectors visit my apartment once a year to make sure the place has a working smoke detector, a fire extinguisher in the kitchen, and secondary means of escape if on an upper floor is a small price to pay for the community's peace of mind that local rental properties are safe and livable. 

Another reader:

Condominium owners are also subject to the same requirements as renters as far as regular safety inspections (Usually a fire inspector. They look at smoke detectors, alarms, fire sprinklers, etc.). I think it is less about taking Fourth Amendment rights away from the "rental class" as it is about an interest in public safety in conditions where people are living in close proximity, and at risk of their downstairs neighbor's meth lab exploding at any time.

Another:

I am baffled why your reader would assume housing inspectors are looking for some illegal activity on the part of the renters.  Housing inspectors are not police and their authority is limited to issues related to the condition of the property. Besides, renters are given advance notice before inspectors can enter a unit (same as any time a landlord wants to enter a property in a non-emergency situation).  Having said that, conducting illegal activities probably violates the lease, so you'd think a prudent renter would (say) remove the pot plants from the living room on the day an inspection is scheduled.

by Patrick Appel

Pivoting off the experience of this Cal State professor, a reader writes:

Years ago (in about '81 and '82) I tutored introductory physics to engineering students in the "women and minorities" program at UC Berkeley.  Many of these young people came from backgrounds I can't even imagine, and had to show a level of grit and perseverance that still astonishes me.  I remember two of my students who came from very tough areas – one in Richmond and one in Oakland.  They would often fail classes and have to retake them.  I can remember seeing the look on the face of the young man from Richmond when he would get the report that he failed a class.  Crestfallen doesn't begin to cover it – my heart still aches from the memory.  But then he would summon up all of the courage that took him out of the environment he grew up in and I would watch his face transform as he girded himself for taking the class again.

The young man from Oakland had gone to Castlemont High, which was not on anybody's list of top-performing college prep schools.  He told me about going back along with a classmate to visit.  They were the first people from the school to go to college in a long, long time and they were invited to come talk to the students.  He had graduated from Castlemont with straight-A's, and so had naturally assumed that he was ready to go on to college.  Then he arrived at Cal and took his first freshman math courses, and discovered that he didn't know things that were just assumed to be standard knowledge – he used quadratic equations as an example.  Something that the rest of us routinely learned in 9th grade and he'd never heard of.

So on that visit back to Castlemont he talked to his math teacher and asked her why she had given him those A's without him learning something so basic.  He told me her answer was that it should have been his responsibility to find that information and learn it.

by Patrick Appel

Surowiecki studies it:

The real problem may be that companies have a roving eye: they’re always more interested in the customers they don’t have. So they pour money into sales and marketing to lure new customers while giving their existing ones short shrift, in an effort to minimize costs and maximize revenue. The consultant Lior Arussy calls this the “efficient relationship paradox”: it’s only once you’ve actually become a customer that companies put efficiency ahead of attention, with the result that a company’s current customers are often the ones who experience its worst service. Economically, this makes little sense; it’s more expensive to acquire a new customer than to hold on to an old one, and, these days, annoyed customers are quick to take their business elsewhere. But, because most companies are set up to focus on the first sale rather than on all the ones that might follow, they end up devoting all their energies to courting us, promising wonderful products and excellent service. Then, once they’ve got us, their attention wanders—and Dave Carroll’s guitar gets tossed across the tarmac.

by Conor Friedersdorf

Jonah Weiner has managed to make the magazine celebrity profile interesting again. If you don't get why, this should help.

The headline in Mr. Weiner's effort is an allusion to the famous Gay Talese piece "Frank Sinatra Has a Cold." It's taught in journalism schools as an early example of New Journalism, and a demonstration of what can be produced when a profile subject refuses to cooperate. This celebrity profile of Val Kilmer is my favorite ever, largely due to the exchange between subject and writer on method acting, which is the most hilarious example of Socratic interviewing in the history of the craft. 

Quintessential example of a celebrity profile here.