The Dish

Craig Lambert considers our propensity to make confidantes of outsiders:

Sociologists call the set of friends and family members people turn to when they want to talk out important matters the “core discussion network.” Its size averages about three people, and for 20 percent of the population, this network, sadly, includes no one. For nearly 30 years, social-network researchers have argued that each person’s closest, strongest ties comprise the core discussion network, but no one has empirically tested that assumption.

[Researcher Mario Luis] Small analyzed data from an online survey of 2,000 adults selected to represent the national U.S. population. Half the respondents were asked to identify their core discussion partners, but the other half were asked to “recall the last time they discussed a matter that was important to them. They were then asked to report on the topic they talked about and the person they talked to,” writes Small. They were also asked to report whom they were close to. These data produced the finding that 45 percent of confidants were people whom the respondents did not consider personally important; they were often not the family and close friends social scientists thought them to be.

Instead, a confidant might well be a barber or beauty-salon employee, a bartender, a therapist (either physical or psychological), or a trainer at the gym; they are priests, rabbis, doctors, and financial advisers. …

“In fact, we often avoid using people who are close to us as confidants,” Small explains, “exactly because they are important to us.” For one thing, a troublesome issue might concern that potential listener directly: one classic case is an extramarital affair. Another obstacle can arise if the discussion would worry the confidant: “A graduate student running short of money might not talk about this with his parents, out of fear of worrying them,” says Small. Third, people have more at stake in how important others see them. “If you are close to your sister, you don’t want to talk with her about some borderline-unethical action you are considering,” he explains. “You care a lot about her opinion of you.” And fourth, people avoid confiding in others because, inevitably, word gets around to someone else: in Small’s formulation, “Amy won’t talk to Bob about this, because then it will get to Charles.”

News broke on Friday that SCOTUS will rule once again on marriage equality. Orin Kerr predicts a historic victory:

The briefing schedule indicates that the Court will hear oral argument and decide the cases by the end of June — this Term rather than next Term. I don’t think there’s a lot of uncertainty as to how the Court will rule. Justice Ginsburg’s extrajudicial statements are usually a reliable guide, and her past comments suggest that there are already five votes for a right to SSM.

Garrett Epps considers the possibility of a mixed decision:

[E]ven if Justice Anthony Kennedy’s vote seems foreordained, he must choose between the rights of gays and lesbians—an issue on which he has fashioned a historic legacy—and the prerogatives of the states, about whose “dignity” and honor he has often rhapsodized. He might be tempted to split the baby by holding for the states on the “celebration” issue but for the challengers on “recognition.” (The Court’s grant of review was careful to split the two questions.) That is, he might say, a state could refuse to perform marriages itself, but could not refuse those legally married out of state the benefits of marriage under state law.

But, in a later post, Epps downplays the chances of such a scenario:

Some justices (I name no names) seem to enjoy writing like patent-medicine pitchmen. But even those most critical of Kennedy must admit that his written opinions are achingly, crushingly sincere. He is never just President of Hair Club for Men; he is always a member too. “Recognition” and “celebration” go together like a horse and carriage. I don’t see a way to split them that would allow the Court—or its key justice—to escape this term’s rendezvous with destiny.

David B. Cruz also imagines possible rulings:

It is unthinkable to me that the Court would now turn around and tell the people who married only after it cleared the way for them to do so that the Court was wrong to do that and their marriages were void.  I suppose the Court could say, okay, couples already married are protected but other couples in any state where marriage equality exists due to court decree would henceforth not be able to marry.  …

Far more likely it is that the Court will issue a decision holding that the Constitution protects same-sex couples’ right to marry – probably by a five-to-four vote judging from the Justices’ positions in the Windsor decision (unless Chief Justice Roberts flip-flops and decides that although his Windsor dissent argued that state marriage exclusions were distinguishable from the federal law partially invalidated in Windsor, on reflection he’s concluded that’s wrong and so, accepting Windsor as precedent, the same-sex couples here win).

Brianne Gorod and Judith E. Schaeffer likewise wonder if Roberts’ vote is gettable:

Roberts has seen what a watershed decision Windsor has been, and he must surely recognize that if the Windsor majority takes the final step to recognize full marriage equality (as it should), that decision will be even more historic and undoubtedly one of the greatest legacies of the Roberts Court. Will Chief Justice Roberts be content to have such a momentous ruling be issued over his dissent, or will John Roberts want to be part of one of the greatest legacies of the Roberts Court?

Ilya Somin thinks the “prospects look good for the pro-same-sex marriage side”:

Thanks to a combination of judicial decisions and legislative changes, there are now 36 states that recognize same-sex marriage. That creates a very different situation than existed even a few years ago, when same-sex marriage was only legal in a small minority of jurisdictions.

Furthermore, both elite and public opinion have moved strongly in a pro-gay marriage direction in recent years. Even some conservative evangelicals have begun to step back from opposing same-sex marriage. The Court certainly does not always follow public opinion. But if a majority of justices are inclined to endorse a constitutional right to same-sex marriage, they are now unlikely to be deterred from doing so by fear of a massive political backlash, of the sort that would have greeted such a ruling a decade ago.

Dale Carpenter agrees that marriage equality is likely to prevail. He emphasizes that “how the Court decides to reach that result is also important”:

Nationwide legalization of same-sex marriage would be a huge victory for gay couples and their children, but it won’t immediately end discrimination against them or against gay people in general. What the Court signals in its decision about the constitutionality of other anti-gay legislation will have substantial legal effects down the road, just as the Court’s decision in Romer v. Evans put an end to growing state-wide efforts to repeal all civil rights law protecting gay people.

One of the court’s options:

The Supreme Court could clear up any remaining doubt by squarely holding that classifications based on sexual orientation are subject to heightened (or close or searching or intermediate) scrutiny. The analysis would be: first, laws denying marriage licenses to same-sex couples are a form of sexual-orientation discrimination because of the close connection between the classification and sexual orientation (like the connection between yarmulke-wearing and Jewishness); second, laws discriminating against gay people raise the usual concerns that justify heightened scrutiny; and third, the state can’t justify the discrimination under the heightened standard.

A suspect-classification decision would logically dispose of proposals like MARFA, the Virginia anti-gay licensing bill, and the anti-gay government-workers bill in Texas. Laws like that would then either be declared unconstitutional as written or would have to be written so as not to target same-sex couples, in which case they might be subject to other constitutional attacks.

Steve Sanders expects that the “question of animus will be prominent – perhaps pivotal – in this final phase of marriage litigation”:

So far, the arguments made by plaintiffs have been remarkably sterile, emphasizing formal equal protection and due process arguments and failing to say much about how the mini-DOMAs actually came into being. But such a picture is incomplete. To fully consider the constitutionality of the remaining anti-marriage laws, we must lift up these proverbial rocks to see what was festering underneath them.

And Richard Socarides looks beyond the ruling:

It’s not unreasonable to expect that the Supreme Court will make same-sex marriage legal in all fifty states. The question, for longtime marriage-equality activists, is what exactly will this achieve, and what will happen next? Will nationwide marriage equality lead in time to full nationwide acceptance, or will they discover, like many civil-rights activists before them, that there is a big gap between legal rights and true equality? This is a big moment for the gay-rights movement, and an important one in which to remember that there is likely more struggle ahead.

(Photo: A same-sex marriage supporter has her forehead painted with rainbow colors as she joins demonstration in front of the Supreme Court on March 27, 2013 in Washington, DC. By Jewel Samad/AFP/Getty Images)

Google expects the public will be using their driverless cars within two to five years. And there appears to be high demand:

According to a study, as many as 12 million driverless cars—that’s 10% of annual sales of new vehicles—could hit the world’s roads just twenty years from now.

But Emily Badger is unsure how driverless technology will change the auto market:

Here are just two competing theories: Autonomous cars will reduce car ownership, because we’ll simply be able to order them when we need them, and they’ll come to function as shared assets akin to public transit. Alternatively: Autonomous cars will increase car ownership because, as the utility of each vehicles rises (now you can send your 7-year-old to ballet alone!), people will want to own even more of them. These hypotheses are equally plausible and mutually exclusive.

So are a lot of other theories around how autonomous cars will change our travel behavior. If they make travel easier, perhaps autonomous cars will induce new trips that we aren’t making today. You’ll never have to say to yourself on a Friday night, “I think I’ll stay home because I can’t find parking/don’t want to deal with traffic/don’t want to drive home drunk.” As a result, the number of trips and the number of miles we collectively travel could increase.

Or, maybe, autonomous cars will create new efficiencies, enabling better carpooling, less idling in traffic, and smarter route-planning. Computers won’t waste gas getting lost or circling for parking spots. And, as a result, total miles traveled and greenhouse gases will decline.

Stephen L. Carter dismisses some common concerns about the cars:

The most common worry seems to be that the computers that run the cars might be hacked. And there are larger fears. Last summer, the Guardian quoted a restricted report from the Federal Bureau of Investigation warning that criminals or terrorists might use driverless cars to their advantage. Imagine a car bomb whose builder doesn’t need to go to the trouble of recruiting a sufficiently fanatical driver.

These warnings, however, may be less dire than they seem. Yes, there might be harm if the cars were hacked, but that risk would likely be offset by a sharp reduction in drivers operating under the influence of drugs or alcohol. And, yes, terrorists would most certainly find a way to turn autonomous cars to their advantage. But terrorists will find a way to turn every new technology to their advantage. That’s a reason to fight a war on terror, not a war on technology.

On a trip to Japan’s Hanegi Playpark, or “Savage Park,” Amy Fusselman found herself surrounded by “structures that looked like what remained when my sons decided to build an airport out of Legos and then abandoned the project halfway through.” She reflects on the history of such free-wheeling “adventure parks”:

A very good resource for someone who is interested in going to a playpark and picking up a hammer and nails and pounding away at scraps of crap to make something is the work of the 19th-century British writer John Ruskin. In Ruskin’s On Art andLife, a contemporary repackaging of two of his essays, “The Nature of Gothic” and “The Work of Iron, in Nature, Art, and Policy,” he offers a moving plea for allowing men—in particular, the men who built the Gothic cathedrals of the age—to be, as he says, “fully men” and not mere tools of the architect; to be allowed to use their imaginations in their work, to be allowed to make mistakes.

Let him but begin to imagine, to think, to try and do anything worth doing; and the engine-turned precision is lost at once. Out come all his roughness, all his dullness, all his incapability; shame upon shame, failure upon failure, pause after pause: But out comes the whole majesty of him also; and we know the height of it only when we see the clouds settling upon him. And whether the clouds be bright or dark, there will be transfiguration behind and within them.

In this, written more than a 150 years ago, he articulated why my modern-day love of Savage Park was so immediate. It wasn’t just that the children were flying in the air there, it wasn’t just that they were making insanely great structures, it wasn’t just that the playpark hut was a junk lover’s dream. It was because the place existed at all for just this reason: the full and complete allowance of a self, including all the ineptness, failure, and possibility of death—because it is understood that only with this allowance do we have the capacity to be great.

(Photo of Hanegi Park’s “Play at your own risk” area by Driscoll Reid & Bonnie McElfresh)

In a review of Eric Foner’s new history of the Underground Railroad, Gateway to Freedom, Jennifer Schuessler reflects on the various ways scholars have understood the way slaves escaped north to freedom:

The first scholarly study of the Underground Railroad, published by Wilbur Siebert in 1898, named some 3,200 “agents,” virtually all of them white men, who presided over an elaborate network of fixed routes, illustrated with maps that looked much like those of an ordinary railroad. That view largely held among scholars until 1961, when the historian Larry Gara published “The Liberty Line,” a slashing revisionist study that dismissed the Underground Railroad as a myth and argued that most fugitive slaves escaped at their own initiative, with little help from organized abolitionists. Scholarship on the topic all but dried up, as historians more generally emphasized the agency of African-Americans in claiming their own freedom.

But over the past 15 years, aided by newly digitized records of obscure abolitionist newspapers and local archives, scholars have constructed a new picture of the Underground Railroad as a collection of loosely interlocking local networks of activists, both black and white, that waxed and waned over time but nevertheless helped a significant number reach freedom.

Wendy Smith notes that Foner “gets his detailed information about the workings of the underground railroad during this fraught period from two invaluable contemporary documents”:

The first is a Record of Fugitives compiled in 1855-56 by Sydney Howard Gay, white editor of the National Anti-Slavery Standard, who recounted the journeys of more than 200 runaways who passed through his Manhattan offices. The second is the journal of William Still, son of a fugitive slave and leader of the Philadelphia Vigilance Committee, which played a vital role because of southern Pennsylvania’s proximity to Delaware, Virginia and Maryland, sources of most fugitive slaves.

Using these documents and others, Foner puts names and faces to activists less famous than Harriet Tubman (who makes a brief appearance) but more important to the functioning of the underground railroad. While Tubman rescued some 70 slaves, Jermain W. Loguen of Syracuse was credited with assisting 1,500 fugitives; Thomas Garrett, one of the many Quakers active in the underground railroad, helped more than 2,200 people cross the Delaware border to freedom.

(Image courtesy of Jeanine Michna-Bales, whose photography project Through Darkness to Light retraces the Underground Railroad)