Homecoming and Football

This weekend was homecoming at  my high school and I, of course, skipped the football game, but it did get me thinking about homecoming and its purpose. Wikipedia helpfully informed me that: "Homecoming is an annual tradition of the United States. People, towns, high schools and colleges come together...to welcome back alumni and former residents. It is built around a central event...and, most often, a game of American football." And yes, I know Wikipedia is not a reliable source, but I'm pretty sure this definition is okay. The last part of this definition is perhaps the most interesting part - that the return of previous members of a high school or college is celebrated by a game of football. So much of people's loyalty to their previous high schools or colleges is wrapped up in their sports teams, especially football, and this loyalty can be very strong. My parents both went to University of Iowa, and although they have next to nothing to do with the school anymore, almost every year we've gone to a football game (though usually not around homecoming because it is so crowded). They've even managed to rub off on me enough that I support the Hawkeyes, albeit in a vague, I-don't-really-care-about-sports type way.

It seems to me that after leaving college, many people that come from colleges with good sports teams condense all of their identity with their college into supporting its sports teams, and have little else to do with it, aside from perhaps keeping up with friends. Why is this? I don't really know. I don't really care about sports, so I am perhaps not the best person to ask. Maybe it's because we already love sports, and it's convenient. Maybe it's because the competition gives everyone a common identity and goal, that even people who haven't been to the school for decades can understand and share. Whatever it is, it's only America that does it.

I Know It's Good Because Someone Told Me So

A few days ago I was searching for a poem for a class, and began by flipping through my copy of 100 Essential Modern Poems. Now, I think that I have a fairly good understanding of poetry. Not an exceptional one, by any means, but I read a lot of it and think I have a good grasp of some of the underlying principles and the context of many poems. But as I was searching, it occurred to me that although many or even most of the poems in the book I love and recognize the skill of their authors, there are some poems which I simply deplore, and feel like they took five minutes to write. Yet I know that they are good, because this book said so, and it was written by someone who knows more than I do. This led me to think about how much of our culture, particularly with regards to the arts, we know to be good or high quality simply because someone told us so, and not because we actually understand anything about it.

In music, my knowledge is far more limited than it is in poetry, I can read it and play the clarinet, but beyond that I know nothing. Despite this, I can tell you that Bach, Beethoven, Chopin, Handel, Tchaikovsky, Stravinsky, and Mozart were good composers, and could name a few more. I know most of their most famous pieces, and can even claim a favorite - Stravinsky - though it's based off of nothing more than "sounding cool." But if you played me a piece by Bach I didn't know and a piece by some random other person, I would not be able to tell you which was better, so long as the other piece wasn't absolutely horrible. So why do I say Bach is better? Because someone told me so, and I assume they know more than me.

But this is true of many things. I don't actually know anything about the economy, but I say I know it's bad because someone told me so. Yet it seems more ridiculous when people pay good money to go see operas or orchestras which, I admit, some of them may actually appreciate, but many of them probably just agree are good because that's what they know they should think. I'm not saying they don't enjoy the production, just that they would likely enjoy a production of worse music (say, an orchestra playing the Star Wars soundtrack) just as much, and it would probably cost them much less. Most of us couldn't actually tell a good composition from a mediocre one.

My point is very well proven by an experiment done by some person from the Wall Street Journal and a world-renowned violinist named Joshua Bell, who has won a Grammy and often charges $100 per seat at concerts. In the experiment, Joshua Bell took a Stradivarius violin, worth millions of dollars, and went to a New York subway, where he proceeded to play music such as Bach's "Chaconne" (considered not only one of the greatest musical pieces but also one of the most difficult to play - or so the article tells me, I wouldn't know). The result? Almost no one stopped. No crowd gathered, and Bell made about $32 after 43 minutes of playing. Over one thousand people had passed him, and none noticed that they were listening to one of the greatest musicians alive  playing one of the greatest pieces with one of the greatest violins.

I don't think that it was because those over one thousand people in the subway were uneducated or idiots. I think it's because many of the people who pay $100 to watch Bell play also wouldn't realize how good he was until someone told them. Most of us simply lack the understanding of music to be able to really discern good from bad. Is this a bad thing? I don't know, but it's hardly likely to change. Even though I don't think you'd have to be anything close to an expert to be able to tell Bach from some random guy, it still takes time most of us don't want to invest. And we would also have to invest it in many other areas - painting, sculpture, poetry, prose, ect. It's not impossible, just maybe not worthwhile to most of us.

When You Can't Even Trust Numbers

Click to actually be able to read it.

I really like infographics. I find it interesting to see how the creators choose to represent data in visually interesting ways. So I was looking through infographics when I stumbled upon this one. At first it seemed perfectly harmless, and not too surprising or fascinating, but a stat about Mormons being overrepresented caught my eye so I decided to double-check it. While trying to figure out what number of seats they were using, I stumbled across some interesting inconsistencies.

 First, I would like to say that the infographic is from April 2011, and the 112th Congress convened in January of 2011, so this graphic should reflect the current group.There are  435 seats in the House and 100 in the Senate. Two of the house seats are currently vacant, so all the numbers on the graphic should add up to 533. However, if you add the number of men they say are in Congress (448) and the number of women (91) you get 539. According to the Senate's own publication, there are 91 women (in the Senate and House), so they got that right, but somehow managed to subtract 91 from 533 incorrectly, in a way that helps make their point. And then, to even further screw up their chances at credibility, they suggest that the demographically representative number would be to have 218 women and 218 men - which adds up to 436, 103 fewer people than the total on the left side.

There are many more inaccuracies I discovered, but the important part is that this source was just flat out lying, in an incredibly obvious way. Yet it took me some time to realize it, and I can easily see myself completely missing it if that one stat hadn't caught my eye. Although I expect bias and inaccuracy in statistics or analysis, and especially the internet, I was rather shocked to find such blatant numerical contradictions within one source, and I expect raw data to lie to me - because I figure that people would catch that almost immediately so no one would bother trying to lie. But I was obviously wrong, and will now be looking at information with an even more skeptical eye.

I'm not sure, though, how effective this blatant lying would be. Were creators of this just extremely incompetent? Or were their glaring errors still subtle enough that most people would take the information as true? Also, how badly were they lying? All the demographic groups they said were under or overrepresented are in fact under or overrepresented, just in many cases not as much as they said. Because no one will actually remember the specific numbers used, was their exaggeration in some ways less bad than it could have been because it did show a correct point?

Why Americans Research Genealogy

Family "tree" of 12 generations. Sadly, not mine. Source

Genealogical research is a huge new hobby in the United States. Experts estimate that 19 million Americans are currently researching genealogy, and 88 more are interested in doing so. One of the largest sites, ancestry.com, has 1.6 million paying subscribers, and many more non-paying members. This increased interest is mostly due to the internet, which made searching through census and other records much easier and more accessible.

But even if the internet has made genealogy easier, it's hardly easy, especially once you get more than a couple of generations back. It requires a sizable amount of time, but millions of Americans find it worth it. Why is this?

For some, there are religious motivations. In The Jesus Christ Church of Latter-day Saints, living ancestors of deceased people can stand in for their relatives to perform baptisms on the dead, which offers the dead a chance at salvation. The about 14 million Mormons (even though not all or even most are probably doing research) therefore make up a pretty big chunk of those 19 million researchers, and the LDS Church runs one of the major genealogy research websites.

But there are still a lot of people doing research for entirely personal reasons. In a nation of immigrants, many people have little or no sense of cultural heritage. I am one of those people. Other than documents I've found through researching genealogy, there is nothing in my life that would indicate my heritage. Researching my ancestry has neither changed nor made me want to change that fact. I guess it might for some people, but I doubt it. If cultural traditions aren’t something you’re raised with, they are unlikely to mean much to you, and adults (the most common researchers) are unlikely to make even relatively minor lifestyle changes based off on information about their great great great grandparents. For people who already have these traditions, however, genealogy might offer a chance to validate the stories they’ve been told.

I know that I certainly get a sort of perverse enjoyment out of debunking family myths, such as my father’s belief he was related to Thomas Paine and Narcissa Whitman, or my mother’s belief (more of a firm conviction, really) she was Austrian. My mother's response to the last was particularly entertaining. And confirming our “direct descendant” status from Governor Bradford wasn’t half bad either. And there are millions more stories to be had, about war criminals and war heroes and people who founded towns or had eight of ten children die before age five. The stories are fun. Really fun.

And they create one of the reasons I think I enjoy it, and a lot of others do too – it links you with history. I spent hours researching the Bataan Death March after I learned my great-uncle was in it. The Civil War was a lot more interesting once I could name a couple important generals I was related to, and I now know who the second governor of Plymouth was, because he’s my 11^th great grandfather.

It’s also a very satisfying puzzle. Filling in the names and dates is an addicting challenge that provides plenty motivation for people like me.

There is also the possibility of connecting yourself, even distantly, to someone famous. I, for example, have taken great joy in connecting myself to characters such as General George McClellan, Governor Bradford, Clint Eastwood, and Noah Webster.

So that leaves me with seven reasons: being Mormon, debunking family myths, validating family myths, finding new family stories, connecting yourself to history, solving a puzzle, and connecting yourself to someone famous. But all of these reasons can and do apply to people outside of America, and yet Americans make up the majority of those doing research. So why are Americans so interested in this? I think it has something to do with what I brought up earlier, that many of us overly diluted mixbreeds lack a sense of culture. I, as one of these, have not gained one through research, but I've at least gotten an awareness of my ancestors and where they came from and how they lived, that can take the place of traditions. In this way, it can fill a hole for us. The varied ethnicities that many of us come from also provides an interest: if all you are is English, and your family has lived in one village for three hundred years, genealogy probably won't tell you anything interesting.

I think, though, that the most important aspect of our interest in genealogy is our intense sense of individual importance. I am not satisfied by knowledge of national heroes, or ethnic mythology. I cannot gain a sense of identity from the fact that my country or ethnic group once did something. But if my ancestor was in the Bataan death march, then it means something to me. Our individuality drives us to discover our own historical identity, what role our ancestors played. And this is why I will continue to pour through Czech church records day in and day out, searching from my elusive great great grandfather. Because I don't care what the Czechs did, I care what my  great great grandfather did.