February 15, 2018--Gilded Age

A friend who seems to know about almost everything that's on TV--knowing her is better than subscribing to TV Guide--recommend that we watch "The Gilded Age," part of the American Experience series broadcast on PBS.

I confess that I rarely (that means never) watch PBS. I like my TV at its raw, unrefined worst (when I can't stand any more Morning Joe, for example, I switch over to reruns of Married With Children)--television for me is for escape or to keep up to the minute about the latest high school shooting massacre (yesterday, therefore, involved switching back and forth between Olympic figure skating and the horrendous story of mass murder in a high school in South Florida not too far from where we used to winter.

But before that, we watched about half of "Gilded Age" (I kept nodding off since I'm not that good at taking in information other than by reading or talking).

What I saw of it was OK, full of well chosen photographs of the then vulgarians who made up the conspicuous worst of that era. The point, in part, was to remind us that we're living in a similar age and that we need to protect ourselves if we want to preserve what's left of our democracy. 

Dealing with gross inequality must become our highest priority. It was good, though, to be reminded that no matter how bad we think things are today they could be worse. Like during the Gilded Age of 1880 to 1920.

You know how these documentaries work--they depend mainly on vintage photos, film from back then, and talking-head historians who set the context. The ones who get me snoozing.

Last night, one of the historian experts who wrote definitive books about John D. Rockefeller, Sr., Cornelius Vanderbilt, Andrew Carnegie, and William Randolph Hearst (all Gilded Agers), was David Nasaw, an old friend. I hired him for his first academic job in 1978 at Staten Island Community College. Some years before he had produced a neat book, Starting Your Own High School, derived from his experiences teaching at the Elizabeth Cleaners Street School. It was written by the kids and edited by David. He was just the kind of "radical" educator we were eager to bring on board at SICC for our "experimental college," which I directed.

He turned out to be the great teacher we were hoping for and after Staten Island went on to bigger but not necessarily better things. He's now a distinguished professor at the City University of New York's Graduate Center, where, after serving in President Kennedy's administration, Arthur Schlesinger, Jr. was affiliated. So David is doing very well as a cultural and social historian and was perfect for setting context for "The Gilded Age."

He and it were good enough so the next time my friend recommends something serious to watch on TV, I'll think about giving it a try.

December 28, 2015--Social-Desirability Bias

Over coffee at Balthazar, a friend looked around furtively, leaned close, and whispered, "You promise not to tell anyone?"

"Of course. Always. About what?"

"I can't believe I'm about to say this." She was unusually agitated.

I wondered what might be on her mind. "It's OK," I tried to assure her.

"But I think I'm going to vote for," she lowered her voice still further, "Him."

Now I knew where this was headed. It was not the first time I heard similar things from some of my most liberal friends. Including, most surprisingly, middle-age women.

"Trump."

"This surprises me, but . . ."

"Me too. I'm the most surprised of all. I should hate him. And in many ways I do. I'm a women, a feminist, and Hillary has the best chance to become the first female president during whatever is left of my lifetime. But . . ."

She trailed off, looking blankly across the banquette where we had so often met for breakfast.

"To balance things a bit," I said, "I know lifelong Republicans of the old, now-almost-obsolete moderate kind--the ones who voted for Javits and Eisenhower--who tell me that if he is nominated they're going to vote for Hillary. They can't stand her but hate her less than him."

"That's no comfort to me."

"So why are you thinking about abandoning Clinton?"

"I'm not thinking of it that way. So here's the thing I want to confess and ask you to not pass along to anyone we know."

"Again, I promise."

"I think he'd make a better president." She said that so softly I could barely follow her.

"I've heard this from others who one would think would be enthusiastic about Hillary."

"I don't know anyone who feels enthusiastic about her," she said, "And for the most part they're lifelong Democrats, always vote that way, and though they too don't like her that much or think she'd make a very good president--too much personal and ideological baggage--they're resigned to vote for her. Above all, to tell the truth, because she's a woman. That should be enough for me too, especially the woman part, but it isn't. Like I just confessed, I think he'd . . ."

It was as if she couldn't utter those words again.

Trying to shift the subject somewhat from what was clearly painful for her, I asked, "Did you see the piece the other day on the Internet about social-desirability bias?"

"Not really." She sighed, collapsing in her seat, but seemed pleased that I had changed the subject.

"You remember in the old days when they gathered TV ratings by asking people directly what they watched or asked their sample viewers to record their viewing habits in a diary? They still use diaries to a certain extent, but more-and-more they're doing it directly via electronic boxes attached to people's sets that automatically record what's being watched. No way too lie that way."

"I remember that. I remember being called once or twice and being interviewed."

"Well, the problem with gathering data that way was it was easy not to tell the truth. For example, Public Broadcasting always was over-represented because some people didn't want to fess up that they were really not watching Alistair Cooke but Uncle Miltie They didn't want to appear to be lowbrow."

"This is interesting--sort of--but what does it have to do with what we were talking about?"

"The same thing appears to be happening now in the political campaigns. Especially the Republican one. At the moment, he is leading in the polls with about 34 percent or so saying they support him."

So?"

"So a research organization called Morning Consult just did an interesting triple-blind experiment. They surveyed voters three ways--the traditional way by interviewing people over the phone, another sample group via interactive dialing where potential GOP voters were surveyed via an automated program, and  a statistically-equivalent group on line where those being questioned were not asked to identify or in other ways describe themselves."

"And," my friend said, "they got the Masterpiece Theater response."

"Now I'm not following you."

"The percentage of the people who plan to vote for him was higher when people were surveyed anonymously and lowest when interviewed by a live person."

"Correct. Across the board by as much as 6 percent. But he did much better among college-educated Republicans with whom it is said he is not polling well. From them he got 9 percent more confessing that they, like you, plan to vote for him."

"Wow. But I need to correct one thing--I'm not planning to do so but, in the way pollsters describe people, I'm leaning that way."

"Gotcha.

"How do they explain this disparity--between what people tell interviewers and those who respond on line?"

"They refer to it as social-desirability bias, the tendency of people to hesitate to confess unpopular views to a pollster. If, I may say so, sort of like you."

"Interesting. But it is still making me crazy that after all the stupid and offensive and bigoted things he's said, at the moment I'm even leaning . . ." She trailed off again.

"There are clearly quite a few people like you."

"As I said, I think he'll do a better job. Like with Russia. She, when Secretary of State, hit the reset button and what do we have? Cold War II. I think we need a deal maker. I hate to say this--a larger-than-life figure for our larger-than-life problems. A . . ."

"I think I understand."

"I wish I did," my friend said, shrugging and finally smiling.

"Have you talked to your therapist about this?"

"I plan to. But in the meantime do you think it's too early to move on from coffee to Jack Daniels?"

Uncle Miltie