A Sociological Eye

This is a chart showing you the number of babies given a certain name over time in the USA—the name my father was in fact given. His name was Dick. Ok, that was the name he always used, but his actual given name was Richard. That Dick is a nickname for Richard seems peculiar to many Americans today, but here’s how that emerged: a classic Medieval nickname for Richard was Rick (as it remains today!). Rick was a shortened version of the name, which at the time was pronounced rather like “Rick-hart.” And in Medieval England, new nicknames were coined via rhyming—hence Rick became Dick.  In the 1930s when my father was born, Richard was the fifth most popular name for children designated male at birth. But plenty of parents skipped the formality of naming their kid Richard before calling him Dick. They just named their children what they intended to call them. And you can see in the graph that Dick (as a given name) peaked in popularity in 1934. You can see similar patterns with other ...

  I want to talk to you about eros and thanatos, and the way they cause us to dance. A century ago, in the 1920s, three forces came together. One was industrialization, allowing an explosion of manufactured goods to enter the marketplace. The second was the surge in popular media, with radio and cinema expanding on print media—something manufacturing companies wanted to exploit with a flood of advertising so they could sell their products. And the third was Freudian psychology, especially the belief in the power of the libido, of desire, of eros, in driving human activity. The result? Something that came to be experienced as inevitable: a world in which people became immersed in advertising constantly seeking to stoke their desires. That could be direct: ads pictured luscious, dripping desserts, or displayed advertised clothing on beautiful, nubile bodies. Or it could be indirect: buy our pimple cream or automobile and you will be pursued by enraptured, aroused, sexy potent...

  We really need to talk about the concept of neurodiversity. Current events make that very clear. As you are likely aware, if you were in contact with media at all this week, President Trump has announced that there has been a terrible rise in autism, and that it has two causes. One, everyone expected him to name, because it is the fixation of his Secretary of Health and Human Services, RFK Jr.—childhood vaccines. But nobody except for thrilled antivaxxers paid much attention to that same old discredited claim. The other was the surprise, intended to draw headlines and furor: acetaminophen, generally referred to in the US by the brand name Tylenol. In particular, Trump claimed that autism results in children whose pregnant mothers took Tyelnol. This isn’t actually a new claim, and those at the core of the MAHA movement, seeking to “Make America Healthy Again” through actions ranging from sensible to bizarre, were probably familiar with this particular belief. But as most peopl...