OPINION
6A
T HE
D AILY A STORIAN
When cultures shift too far
By DAVID BROOKS
New York Times News Service
Founded in 1873
STEPHEN A. FORRESTER, Editor & Publisher
LAURA SELLERS, Managing Editor
BETTY SMITH, Advertising Manager
CARL EARL, Systems Manager
JOHN D. BRUIJN, Production Manager
DEBRA BLOOM, Business Manager
SAMANTHA MCLAREN, Circulation Manager
Our indexed minimum
wage still makes sense
O
Planning for annual increases
works for business
regon Capital Insider — which our company publishes
in collaboration with Pamplin Media Group — reported
last Friday that mandatory paid sick leave is moving forward
in the Oregon Legislature, in place of the $15 minimum wage.
It is encouraging that
Democratic legislators are step-
ping back from the minimum
wage bill. Moving Oregon’s min-
imum wage abruptly to $15 per
hour would have major effect on
small- and mid-sized businesses.
Oregon voters did a wise
thing in 2002 in passing Measure
25, which raised Oregon’s mini-
mum wage from $6.50 to $6.90.
The most important aspect of
that ballot initiative was to in-
de[ the minimum wage to inÀa-
tion. Today Oregon’s minimum
wage is $9.25. California’s is $9
and Washington’s is $9.47.
Among all the states,
Oregon’s is the third highest
minimum wage.
The wisdom of indexing
the minimum wage is twofold.
It recognizes that the mini-
mum wage should not remain
static, but follow the econo-
my. Secondly, indexing allows
businesses to plan and budget
for that increase. They can see
it coming. There is a huge dif-
ference between planning for
annual payroll increases in the
minimum wage and facing a
sudden leap.
Jumping Oregon’s minimum
wage by $5 in one year would
have different effects throughout
the spectrum of the state’s busi-
nesses. There is gap between
large Oregon employers such
as Nike and Intel and the broad
mass of Oregon businesses.
While metropolitan Portland’s
economy is fueled by those two
global brands, the economy of
towns across Oregon are sus-
tained by small- and mid-sized
businesses. It is those small- and
mid-sized businesses that would
have great dif¿culty absorbing
the sudden jolt of the jump to a
$15 minimum wage
Oregon’s Measure 25 was an
intelligent response to real need.
It still makes sense.
Oil re¿nery in Longview?
D
This project must fully immunize
the Columbia River
oes it make sense to build a new
oil refinery on the banks of the
Columbia River in Longview, Wash.,
especially one that will be supplied
with crude oil via rail? No, but this
answer is not quite so clear cut as en-
vironmental advocates make it seem.
Riverside Energy Inc. indicates
it is looking into several locations
in Oregon and Washington for a
new West Coast re¿nery that would
turn crude oil — likely from the
%akken ¿eld of North Dakota and
Alberta — into gasoline and other
products. The company says it is far
from ¿rmly settled on Longview,
though its very name — Riverside
— suggests that a facility based on
Columbia River transportation and
water may be a fundamental aspect
of its business plan.
This will be anathema to many in
the environmental and ¿shing com-
munities. Even pipelines are sus-
ceptible to spills, but rail-based tank
cars are a particularly potent source
of concern. There is no disputing
that they have suffered derailments,
explosions and other mishaps that
have cost lives and forced expensive
cleanups. Even a relatively minor
spill at the wrong time could wipe
out a critical salmon run, while a
major accident could put an end to
¿shing, clamming and tourism for
years. Lives have been lost under
such circumstances and doubtless
will be again, and we don’t have to
go along with accommodating such
risks in our neighborhood.
However, much as some might
wish to permanently end fossil
fuel exploitation immediately and
forever, economic realities dic-
tate that time is still at least two or
three decades in the future, if we’re
lucky. The vast majority of Paci¿c
Northwest residents continue to
depend on petroleum products for
a broad range of necessities, from
transportation to home heating, plus
many uses that aren’t so immediate-
ly apparent, from tires to fertilizer.
Only about 19.4 gallons in a 42-gal-
lon barrel of oil becomes gasoline.
The entire West Coast is plagued
with gasoline prices that tend to be
significantly higher than those in oth-
er parts of the U.S. In part, this is be-
cause we lack refinery capacity. The
loss of a single refinery for routine
maintenance or to make repairs fol-
lowing an accident causes a month-
long spike in Western fuel prices.
With a growing population, we could
certainly use additional refining.
Technological advances mitigate
some concerns raised by Riverside’s
opponents. For example, existing
re¿neries in highly environmental-
ly conscious Whatcom and Skagit
counties in northwest Washington
state are not permitted to emit “a
toxic soup of carcinogens and neu-
rotoxins” as Columbia Riverkeeper
states is true of re¿neries in general.
Such scare tactics aren’t helpful.
As always with industrial pro-
posals, Riverside’s plans to build a
re¿nery must be forced to fully in-
ternalize costs and risks. Promises of
jobs, taxes and useful products must
not sway communities and regu-
lators from ensuring that wherever
a new re¿nery is eventually built,
neighbors and regional citizens are
in no way left on the hook for cop-
ing with pollution or other costs.
Any plan that can’t fully immunize
the Columbia River and its creatures
and communities must itself be re-
¿ned or rejected.
THE DAILY ASTORIAN • MONDAY, APRIL 20, 2015
I
n January 1969, two quar-
terbacks played against each
other in Super Bowl III. Johnny
Unitas and Joe Namath were both
superstars.
They were both from western
Pennsylvania, but they came from
different cultural universes.
Unitas was
reticent, work-
manlike
and
deliberately
unglamorous.
AP Photo/JR
Namath
was
Three pro athletes indicate that
Àashy and a
they have overcome knee prob-
playboy.
He
lems by kicking out their right
turned himself
feet with American Airliners stew-
into a marketing
ardess Kathy Dunn at a midtown
brand and wrote
David
restaurant in New York on Tues-
a memoir jok-
Brooks
day, Jan. 19, 1972. Joe Namath
ingly called, “I
Can’t Wait Until Tomorrow ‘Cause I of the New York Jets, left, John-
ny Unitas of the Baltimore Colts,
Get Better Looking Every Day.”
The contrast between these two and Tommie Agee of the New
men symbolizes a broader shift from a York Mets, right, gathered for the
culture of self-effacement, which says, launching of American Airliners-
“I’m no better than anybody else and sixth-annual golf classic in which
nobody is better than me,” to a culture the three athletes competed at
of self-expression, which says, “Look Puerto Rico the next month.
at what I’ve accomplished. I’m spe-
cial.”
Magazines ran articles on the wonder-
The conventional story, beloved ful lifestyle changes that were going to
especially on the right, is that this make lives easier — ultraviolet lights
cultural shift took place in the 1960s. that would sterilize dishes in place of
First there was the
dishwashing.
Greatest Generation,
There was a soft-
What’s lost ening
whose
members
in the moral
were modest and
sphere.
In 1946,
is the more Rabbi Joshua
self-sacri¿cing, but
Li-
then along came the
ebman published a
balanced
baby boomers who
book called Peace
were narcissistic and view, that we of Mind that told ev-
relativistic.
erybody to relax and
As I found are splendidly love themselves. He
while researching a
a new set of
endowed but wrote
book, this storyline
commandments, in-
doesn’t really ¿t the
also broken. cluding “Thou shalt
facts. The big shift
not be afraid of thy
in American culture did not happen hidden impulses;” thou shalt “love
around the time of Woodstock and the thyself.” Liebman’s book touched a
Age of Aquarius. It happened in the nerve. It stayed atop The New York
late 1940s, and it was the members of Times’ best-seller list for 58 weeks.
the Greatest Generation that led the
A few years later, Harry Over-
shift.
street published The Mature Mind,
The real pivot point was the end which similarly advised people to
of World War II. By the fall of 1945, discard the doctrine based on human
Americans had endured 16 years of sinfulness and embrace self af¿rma-
hardship, stretching back through the tion. That book topped the list for 16
Depression. They were ready to let weeks.
loose and say farewell to all that. There
In 1952, Norman Vincent Peale
followed what the historian Alan Peti- came out with The Power of Positive
gny called “the renunciation of renun- Thinking, which rejected a morali-
ciation.” The amount of consumer ty of restraint for an upbeat morality
advertising on the radio exploded. of growth. That book rested atop the
best-seller list for an astounding 98
weeks.
Then along came humanistic psy-
chology, led by people like Carl Rog-
ers, who was the most inÀuential psy-
chologist of the 20th century. Rogers
followed the same basic line: Human
nature is intrinsically good. People
need to love themselves more. They
need to remove external restraints on
their glorious selves.
“Man’s behavior is exquisitely ra-
tional,” Rogers wrote, “moving with
subtle and ordered complexity toward
the goal his organism is endeavoring
to achieve.”
Humanistic psychology led to the
self-esteem movement and much else,
reshaping the atmosphere in schools,
human-resources departments and
across American society.
In short, American popular cul-
ture pivoted. Once the dominant view
was that the self is to be distrusted but
external institutions are to be trusted.
Then the dominant view was that the
self is to be trusted and external con-
straints are to be distrusted.
This more positive view of human
nature produced some very good so-
cial bene¿ts. For centuries people in
certain groups in society had been
taught to think too poorly of them-
selves. Many feminists and civil rights
activists seized on these messages to
help formerly oppressed groups to be-
lieve in themselves, to raise their sights
and aspirations.
But I would say that we have over-
shot the mark. We now live in a world
in which commencement speakers tell
students to trust themselves, listen to
themselves, follow their passions, to
glorify the Golden Figure inside. We
now live in a culture of the Big Me,
a culture of meritocracy where we
promote ourselves and a social me-
dia culture where we broadcast high-
light reels of our lives. What’s lost is
the more balanced view, that we are
splendidly endowed but also broken.
And without that view, the whole logic
of character-building falls apart. You
build your career by building on your
strengths, but you improve your char-
acter by trying to address your weak-
nesses.
So perhaps the culture needs a
rebalance. The romantic culture of
self-glori¿cation has to be balanced
with an older philosophic tradition,
based on the realistic acknowledgment
that we are all made of crooked tim-
ber and that we need help to cope with
our own tendency to screw things up.
That great tradition and body of wis-
dom was accidentally tossed aside in
the late 1940s. It’s worth reviving and
modernizing it.
Starving for wisdom in information sea
highest return now goes to
In The Odyssey, the
those who combine soft
beautiful nymph Calyp-
skills — excellence at
so offers immortality to
Odysseus if he will stay
e are drowning in infor- communicating and work-
ing
with
people
—
with
on her island. After a
mation, while starving
technical skills.
Àing with her, Odysseus
for wisdom.”
“So I think a human-
ultimately rejects the of-
That epigram from E.O. Wilson ities major who also did
fer because he misses his
captures the dilemma of our era. Yet a lot of computer science,
wife, Penelope. He turns
down godlike immortality
the solution of some folks is to dis- economics, psychology, or
other sciences can be quite
to embrace suffering and
Nicholas
dain wisdom.
death
that are essential to
valuable and have great
Kristof
“Is it a vital interest of the state career Àexibility,” Katz
the human condition.
to have more anthropologists?” Rick said. “But you need both,
Likewise, when the
Scott, the Florida governor, once in my view, to maximize your po- President’s Council on Bioethics
asked. A leader of a prominent Inter- tential. And an economics major or issued its report in 2002, Human
net company once told me that the computer science major or biology Cloning and Human Dignity, it cit-
¿rm regards admission to Harvard as or engineering or physics major who ed scienti¿c journals but also Ernest
a useful heuristic of talent, but a col- takes serious courses in the human- Hemingway’s The Old Man and the
lege education itself as useless.
ities and history also will be a much Sea. Even science depends upon the
Parents and students themselves more valuable scientist, ¿nancial humanities to shape judgments about
are acting on these principles, re- professional, economist or entrepre- ethics, limits and values.
Third, wherever our careers lie,
treating from the humanities. Among neur.”
college graduates in 1971, there
My second reason: We need peo- much of our happiness depends upon
were about two business majors for ple conversant with the humanities our interactions with those around
each English major. Now there are to help reach wise public policy us, and there’s some evidence that
seven times as many. (I was a polit- decisions, even about the scienc- literature nurtures a richer emotional
ical science major; if I were doing it es. Technology companies must intelligence.
Science magazine published ¿ve
over, I’d be an economics major with constantly weigh ethical decisions:
a foot in the humanities.)
Where should Facebook set its pri- studies indicating that research sub-
I’ve been thinking about this af- vacy defaults, and should it tolerate jects who read literary ¿ction did
ter reading Fareed Zakaria’s smart glimpses of nudity? Should Twitter better at assessing the feelings of a
new book, In Defense of a Liberal close accounts that seem sympathet- person in a photo than those who read
Education. Like Zakaria, I think that ic to terrorists? How should Google non¿ction or popular ¿ction. Litera-
the liberal arts teach critical think- handle sex and violence, or defama- ture seems to offer lessons in human
nature that help us decode the world
ing (not to mention nifty words like tory articles?
“heuristic”).
In the policy realm, one of the around us and be better friends.
Literature also builds bridges of
So, to answer the skeptics, here most important decisions we hu-
are my three reasons
mans will have to understanding. Toni Morrison has
the humanities enrich
make is whether to helped all America understand Afri-
our souls and some-
Regulators allow germline gene can-American life. Jhumpa Lahiri il-
times even our pock-
modi¿cation. This luminated immigrant contradictions.
should be
etbooks as well.
might eliminate cer- Khaled Hosseini opened windows
First, liberal arts
tain diseases, ease on Afghanistan.
informed
In short, it makes eminent sense
equip students with
suffering, make our
communications and by first-rate
offspring
smarter to study coding and statistics today,
interpersonal skills
and more beautiful. but also history and literature.
science,
John Adams had it right when he
that are valuable and
But it would also
genuinely rewarded
change our species. wrote to his wife, Abigail, in 1780:
in the labor force, but also by
It would enable the “I must study Politicks and War that
especially when ac-
wealthy to concoct my sons may have liberty to study
first-rate
companied by tech-
superchildren. It’s Mathematicks and Philosophy. My
nical abilities.
humanism. exhilarating and ter- sons ought to study Mathematicks
and Philosophy, Geography, natural
“A broad liberal
rifying.
arts education is a key
To weigh these is- History and Naval Architecture, nav-
pathway to success in the 21st-cen- sues, regulators should be informed igation, Commerce and Agriculture,
tury economy,” says Lawrence Katz, by ¿rst-rate science, but also by ¿rst- in order to give their Children a right
a labor economist at Harvard. Katz rate humanism. After all, Homer ad- to study Painting, Poetry, Musick,
says that the economic return to pure dressed similar issues three millenni- Architecture, Statuary, Tapestry and
Porcelaine.”
technical skills has Àattened, and the ums ago.
By NICHOLAS KRISTOF
New York Times News Service
‘W