Week 12: Post your Blog Entries as Comments to my Main Post Each Week

Post by Sunday at midnight.

[1]

1. Mark Whitaker

2. Trends of U.S. inequality and marriage bodes poorly for U.S. quality of life

3. There are some cultural reproduction issues in the USA that could pull the USA apart: massive social reproduction of inequality and poverty for children; many children without the social, emotional, and financial stability of two parents in the USA; and ethnic inequalities tensions with different marriage rates; and women particularly without financial standing outside of marriage, despite gaining independence. Just a few of the trends of the USA that bode poorly I think.

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05-22-2011 15:03
Schwarzenegger just part of story of marriage woes

By Jay Ambrose

...It's now Arnold Schwarzenegger's media moment, something he earned by extra friendliness with household help, having a love child and finally telling Maria Shriver, his wife, about it. She has naturally enough separated from him, and some may think this one more message about an institution in deep trouble, though it is far from the heart of that story.

No, the Schwarzenegger tale mostly symbolizes how ambitious, driven, ego-centered men seem especially given to wandering off the ranch, the examples running the political gamut from John F. Kennedy in the 1960s to Newt Gingrich more recently.

These particular men, however, are upper middle class ― well, upper, upper, upper middle class. It's mostly poorer Americans with scant education who are most abandoning marriage, often not even giving it a whirl, as you can learn from Kay S. Hymowitz, a Manhattan Institute scholar and author of several books and some online writings I recently encountered.

She's full of reason, understanding and facts, and tells us among other things that all the news gab about the marital mayhem of celebrities can be very misleading.

Most educated, better-off folks are in fact growing more in love with marriage. When you catch a story such as a recent one saying three percent more married-couple families are celebrating 10th wedding anniversaries than in the 1980s, you can bet it's the most advantaged taking more advantage of this absolutely crucial institution.

Go back to the 1960s, and we were a marrying, stay-together nation. But then came the birth control pill, something called the sexual revolution and more widely respected rights and opportunities for women. Says Hymowitz, all of this caused many women to reevaluate the old idea that first comes love, marriage, then the baby carriage.

Divorce became a big deal with us, and still is, despite some decline over the past two decades. Very, very scary on top of that is that something more than a third of children are now born out of wedlock, if only a tiny percentage of them to college educated women. They've figured something important out. Marriage matters to children.

They get it that kids with two parents earning money are going to have more money coming in. They get it that having two married-couple parents means more training for the children, more guidance by example toward the kind of life that works best for families, more attention to academics. Those who don't get it are people with the least education ― often less than high school. Here is what single-parent homes give us on average: still no education to speak of in the next generation, still more poverty, still more single-parent moms.

Hymowitz skillfully takes on the people who argue differently, saying that it's the market economy or inadequate social programs that cause these difficulties or that poor women don't marry because there is no one out there for them, no acceptable male. She grants the market is increasingly less friendly to unskilled labor, but notes that marriage tends to engender education and skills in children.

She observes, too, that the women who don't marry often have live-in boyfriends. They have in fact located men they find suitable to have in the home. Hymowitz agrees that marriage may not be a panacea for poverty, but argues something bigger: It is the "sine qua non," that without which you get none of the rest of what it takes to climb out of it.

The percentages of unwed mothers among poor whites, blacks and some other minority groups are over half, and if we are going to fix what ails us, we have to fix this. I am dubious about the role of politics, though some good examples and good preaching might help.

I do believe that cultural values count, as opposed to the politically correct social scientists, some of whom were saying in one news account that talking about wrong values amounts to blaming the victims. No, it's blaming the culture, including the social scientists who help form it. We need a new revolution, and wise thinkers like Hymowitz can help us get there.


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http://koreatimes.co.kr/www/news/opinon/2011/05/160_87418.html


[2]

1. Mark Whitaker

2. Quality of Life Editorial in Korea Times--Mentions Our Course Content!

3. I feel somewhat vindicated to see someone else in Korea discussing the exact same issues I have chosen for my course. Interesting that this person has MET many of the people we are discussing as well.

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05-26-2011 17:28
Measuring happiness

By Shin Hyun-gook

Throughout history, all around the globe, humankind has been on a quest. A quest whose completion is as elusive as the Loch Ness monster, yet as easy to attain as looking in the mirror, that quest being the pursuit of happiness. American novelist, Nathaniel Hawthorne, said, ``Happiness is a butterfly, which, when pursued, is always just beyond your grasp, but which, if you will sit down quietly, may alight upon you."

What is happiness? The term happiness is abstract and means many different things to many different people. According to Miriam-Webster, happiness is ``a state of well-being and contentment." That emotional state the dictionary refers to is arguably different for everyone. Quotes from many saints, religious leaders and philosophers lead us to deal with the idea of happiness in more emotional terms.

But, there are organizations trying to measure happiness by indexing the quality of life. The United Nations annually releases [one version of this idea of Quality of Life, measured in its own way:] what is called the Human Development Index. This statistic ranks countries by their level of development, calculated from data on life expectancy, education and per-capita gross national income. For instance, The 2010 Human Development Report by UNDP lists the Republic of Korea 12th in the category of very highly developed countries.

The same report however, ranks Korea 27th by applying, for the first time, an inequality-adjusted Human Development Index, which factors in inequalities [discussed by Navarro and others] in the three basic categories of human development: income, life expectancy and education. Former U.S. Senator Robert Kennedy said ``GDP measured everything except that which makes life worthwhile." Discrepancies such as this lead to the study and development of other indexes and methods of “measuring happiness.”

For the last two years I have been hosting a weekly television program, ``Diplomacy Lounge” on Arirang Television. On this program I have been meeting with foreign ambassadors and international dignitaries to discuss their country's history, culture, society, economy, scientific development as well as other subject matters in order to provide an arena for exchange and communication.

In two recent interviews, one with the visiting Prime Minister of the Kingdom of Bhutan, His Excellency Lyonchhehn Jigmi Y Thinley on October 26, 2010 and the other with Ambassador Fernando Borbón Arias of Costa Rica to Korea on April 13, 2011, the topic of ``happiness” was discussed.

The prime minister of the Kingdom of Bhutan claimed that Bhutan is one of the happiest nations on Earth and is one of the original promoters of ``Gross National Happiness.” The term was coined in 1972 by Bhutan's former King Jigme Singye Wangchuck. This index measures the usefulness and the rightfulness of a nation's production. Sub-categories are under consideration for this index such as: psychological health, physical health, time management, education, culture, good governance, ecology etc.

And in my interview with the Ambassador of Costa Rica to Korea, Mr. Fernando Borbón Arias, I learned that Costa Rica ranked number one on the 2009 Happy Planet Index. After my discussion with Bhutan’s Prime Minister, this was yet another surprise. I found that the Happy Planet Index was introduced by the New Economics Foundation in 2006, indexing average subjective life satisfaction, life expectancy at birth, and the ecological footprint per capita of each nation. Scholars calculated happiness by determining ``happy life years.” This figure results from merging average self-reported happiness with life expectancy [and divided by material consumption averages in the country, for a measure of 'material efficiency in creating subjective happiness']. The Republic of Korea was listed 68th.

Therefore, it is apparent that things like money and education do not affect happiness the way one might expect. [Easterlin and the ongoing debate with him] There are various factors that have been correlated with happiness. Gross domestic product and the Human Development Index are not taken into account. Being happy and healthy is regarded as the ultimate goal of most people. But without proper income and social infrastructure how can you reach that ultimate goal? Moreover, concepts related to happiness, quality of life and well-being are somewhat subjective. U.K. Prime Minister David Cameron said, ``You cannot capture happiness on a spreadsheet any more than you can bottle it,” which leads some to think there is potential for governments to define GNH in a way that suits their own interests. Therefore, cross-cultural comparisons of happiness are sometimes controversial.

These controversies and discrepancies guide me to the teachings of saints and philosophers. ``The Art of Happiness” a book by the Dalai Lama and Howard Cutler, a psychiatrist who posed questions to the Dalai Lama, stated that “Happiness is determined more by the [subjective] state of one’s mind than by one’s external conditions, circumstances, or events ― at least once one’s basic survival needs are met.” [With 97% of Bhutan subjectively happy, this is worth considering, though there is data as well showing that happiness is correlated with objective measures as well, up to a basic material satisfaction point and without going beyond that (i.e., more material fails to equal more happiness).] Prior to this statement, Bengali Ramakrishna Paramhansa had asked, ``What do a house, money and honor mean to you if you are not happy? If you think you are already happy what do those things mean to you?”

So, what really is happiness and are you happy? Only you know the answers.

The writer is a chair professor of the Catholic University of Daegu and a show host of Arirang TV. He headed the Foreign News Division of the Korea Overseas Information Service. He can be reached at shinhyungook@hotmail.com.

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http://koreatimes.co.kr/www/news/opinon/2011/05/137_87732.html

Week 11: Post your Blog Entries as Comments to my Main Post Each Week

Post by Sunday at midnight.



Some films about quality of life--or lack thereof--in the "Bottom Billion." Films about the Central African Republic, Madagascar, and Bolivia follow.

Watch them and think about the four internal traps Collier mentions--and the fifth external trap, 'missing the boat'.

1. CENTRAL AFRICAN REPUBLIC

Guns in All Hands -Central African Republic
10:00 min.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=htv0ydlBOgw

"January 2009 - The Central African Republic has been wracked by violence for years. Now villagers, with the support of the government, are forming militias to defend themselves against the Zaraguinas and rebels."

2a. MADAGASCAR

Crippled by Power - Madagascar
22:01 min.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=y8f1QU34yRo&feature=fvwrel

"July 2002 - Self-made millionaire Ravalomanana [claimed to have] won elections last December on an anti-corruption ticket. But after two counts and two inaugurations he was recognised neither by his defeated opponent, nor, crucially, by ex-colonial power France. We chart the dispute as it descended into near civil-war, with ex-government employees dragged from their desks and bridges blown up by the retreating President. Trains stopped running, the port was blockaded, and food and petrol became scarce. Ratsiraka still calls it a "coup d'etat," but whilst he laid siege to the capital, children began dying of hunger. Care International says living standards have regressed by ten years. Even Western businesses have gone bust, like the Floreal clothes manufacturer, which employed tens of thousands of people. Now its factories stand empty. France finally recognised the new government this month, long after the damage has been done."

2b.

Diary of a Coup - Madagascar
25:40 min.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3FLpxZt-m78

"April 2009 - [Now it is time for] President Ravalomanana [to be] scared. [Unlike how he was supported in 2002 [in his own coup and civil war],...[h]is people are protesting and former DJ Rajoelina has declared himself President. Yet with so much bloodshed and rioting can media shy Rajoelinas coup ever succeed?"

3a. BOLIVIA

Bolivian Blues
22:40 min.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YbT75DRfayU&feature=relmfu

"February 2000 - Bolivia is at the heart of South America. It extends from the high Andes to tropical jungle. It's culturally, ethnically and geographically very diverse and potentially rich. Yet it ranks lowest of all South American countries in the UN's Human Development Index. Twenty per cent of children are undernourished. Average school attendance is less than seven years. Entrenched vested interests hamper foreign investment in the economy, while the landlocked geography of the country itself limits access to export markets. But there are signs of change. Annual inflation fell from a peak of 23,500 per cent in 1985 to less than 4.5 per cent by the close of 1998, and Bolivia's huge external debt burden has been substantially eased under new debt redemption programmes."

3b.
Coca or Death - Bolivia
26:50 min.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=E-B-fGT8l-Q

"10 October 2001 - Sandra Jordan delves into Bolivia -- a country torn apart by the demands of the West [and the world] for the coca plant."

3c.
Two Bolivias - Bolivia
23:17 min.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5NycGsSKgoY

"August 2007 - Bolivia's [tiny] white elite claim they're tired of propping up the nation's economy [when they are only propping up themselves]. They're demanding political autonomy for their city [from the national distribution for the massive poverty in this country] and say they're ready to fight for it."

3d.
Bolivia transfers land from rich to poor - 16 March 2008
2:55 min.
http://youtu.be/s9XjiqFMAGA

Evo Morales, Bolivia's [first indigenous] present, has handed over thousands of hectares of land taken from large-scale owners to indigenous farmers and the country's ethnic Guarani Indians. Al Jazeera's Teresa Bo reports from southern Bolivia in Tarabuco where residents are celebrating their leader's generous acquisition.

3e.
Bolivian Doctrine - Bolivia
5:18 min.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xKX_m04fRCQ

December 2009

Week 10: Post your Blog Entries as Comments to my Main Post Each Week

Post by Sunday at midnight.


1. Mark Whitaker

2. statistics on elderly pensions and elderly poverty in Korea

3. Since we're discussing the unique features of the "East Asian" welfare state this week and next..., here's something to think about: elderly suicide and its sociological contexts as caused by the Korean welfare state choices. The 'national pension' is nothing of the sort--it's for full time workers (similar to a corporatist model, instead of citizens), and this means it is hardly a universal system. It leaves many elderly in Korea poor and contemplating suicide. Certainly "Confucian ethics" (as Kim argued) are little applied in the Korean welfare state given the complete disregard for the elderly in the Korean system. Korea has the highest elderly suicide rate in the world by many times over, and its partially an issue of the welfare state organization.

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[Editorial] Older generation’s suicide epidemic

A very troubling incident occurred on Sunday during the Parents’ Day holiday. In the city of Yongin in Gyeonggi Province, a chronically ill husband and wife in their sixties hanged themselves, unable to bear being a burden to their children. They sent their son and his wife, who had been caring for them, off on a trip with their children, and they proceeded to take their own lives. It is heart wrenching to imagine the pain that couple must have felt, and the grief of the children who read the note they left saying, “Sorry and thank you.”

As South Korea rapidly proceeds toward a graying society, suicide among the elderly has gone well into the danger zone. According to figures released recently by the Hallym University Institute for Aging Studies, some 77 out of every 100 thousand South Koreans above the age of 65 or old took his or her life in 2009. The number has risen sharply, with an increase of more than fivefold in the twenty years since 1990, when it stood at 14.3. In 2007, Japan, which at one point earned the nickname “suicide kingdom,” had an elderly suicide rate of just 23.8 per 100 thousand people.

In spite of this, the issue has not received much attention in society [by the welfare state]. Instead, it has been written off as an issue of the individual’s psychological health, a family issue, or something along similar lines. The situation is that the very people who overcame suffering and achieved development over the turbulence of the Korean War, industrialization, and democratization are now ending their own solitary lives, abandoned to a blind spot in society.

On New Year’s Eve last year, a couple in their sixties took their lives after leaving a note that read, “We are leaving this world because we are not able to live anymore.” They had been scraping by on the money left over after paying 300 thousand won rent ($277) out of the 430 thousand won basic livelihood allowance they received each month.

Their suicide cannot be separate from a reality where, amid a failure by the social and health care systems to accept responsibility for diseases afflicting them, the majority of senior citizens do not have any income preservation system such as the National Pension. Last year, the poverty rate among South Korean senior citizens was among the world’s highest at 48.5 percent !!! ALMOST HALF ELDERLY IN POVERTY, in a 'developed' country, is a political and developmental CHOICE, instead of an accident], far in excess of the OECD average of 13.3 percent.

[And even if you get a pension, it a liberal style welfare state pushing you back into the market:] The basic old age pension received in 2010 by 3.73 million of the nation’s 5.5 million elderly amounted to just 90 thousand won a month for a single household.

The central and local governments need to step up their sense of alarm about senior citizen suicides and begin work on investigating the situation and developing prevention measures.

In addition, the public support system needs to be strengthened, for example by including among the recipients the more than one million people who are ineligible according to the National Basic Livelihood Security Act due to factors such as having children earning a certain income level. [So the elderly parents impoverish the family and the elderly feel guilty and kill themselves--due to the structure of the welfare state being based on family welfare means-tested criteria instead of individual welfare rights. The Korean system set up on private family based support mostly, and a small, unacceptable basis for those without it: a liberal welfare state idea, there]

Judging from the government’s plan for national finances, however, the percentage of the welfare budget out of gross domestic product is set to continue its decline from 7.5 percent in 2009 to 6.9 percent this year and 6.6 percent in 2014. As long as this continues, we will be unable to erase the shame of having the highest suicide rate among our senior citizens. [and the rate will only go higher by plan--by callous disregard.]

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http://english.hani.co.kr/arti/english_edition/e_editorial/477164.html

Week 9: Post your Blog Entries as Comments to my Main Post Each Week

Post by Sunday at midnight.


1. Mark Whitaker

2. Study of Subjective Quality of Life/Happiness in 23 OECD Nations' Children: Korean Children lowest happiness, by a large margin

3. Korean youth that subjectively value money most are the most unhappy; Korean youth cite after school academies as contributing most to stress; Korea dead last in childhood happiness by 20 points to the next unhappy youth country, Hungary; Korea 34 points lower than the average of other OECD countries' youth happiness; Korean youth felt these subjective anxieties despite objectively placing in the top in OECD in many youth categories like [1] educational opportunity and attainment, [2] material conditions, [3] health, and [4] safety. This reminds me of the nebulous category of subjective happpiness and reminds me of Veenhoven's earlier article about the potential concern of 'unconnectedness' of subjective happiness with material indicators.


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[Editorial] Our unhappy children

It is uncomfortable to ask our children whether they are happy. There is no way we can expect happiness from our children when they are being trained to compete with and defeat their friends almost as soon as they are out of the crib. Yet the Korea Pang Jung-hwan Foundation and Yonsei University Institute for Social Development Studies posed just this question to 6,410 young people. The results were as expected. Compared to the findings of surveys on children in 23 OECD member nations, their subjective happiness ratings put them at dead last by a substantial margin.

South Korea placed a full 34 points lower than the OECD average of 100, with a difference of more than 20 points from the next country up, Hungary.

Given that this is the third straight year, it now seems that psychological anxieties and discontentment are becoming part of the constitution of this country’s children. In particular, children felt these anxieties despite placing among the very top in objective indicators such as educational opportunity and attainment, material conditions, health, and safety.

This can only be the outcome of lives spent being driven around like racehorses. It stems from a structure that is rigidly organized with competition.

In other countries, there has generally been a proportional relationship between educational indices examining things like academic achievement and subjective happiness indices measuring satisfaction with school and home life. In the case of South Korea’s children, however, the relationship between the two has been precisely the inverse. This is almost certainly the result of their being driven to abandon things like human relationships and enter a murderous race for the best grades.

The results also tally with the findings of a study by the Korean Teachers’ and Education Workers’ Union (KTU, Jeon Gyo Jo), which found that 80 percent of children’s stress comes from attending afterschool academies and worries about grades. In addition, children selected money as the most important element in happiness the higher their grade level.

And the children who selected money placed lower on happiness ratings.

This means that as they get older, children are suffering from a severe sense of burden over grades, success, and money.

The problem is apparent. So, too, is the path toward a solution. The first step is to break away from the jungle-like competitiveness of education. The next is to reestablish the framework of education and life to promote family bonds and friendship and cooperation with friends. If the children who carry the future of South Korean society on their shoulders are unhappy, that society cannot be happy. There needs to be a profound awakening from adults.

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http://english.hani.co.kr/arti/english_edition/e_editorial/476506.html