Different Differences

Tom Kando 

One of my sociological interests consists of differences between people. Diversity, if you will. People differ in innumerable ways. Some differences are physical, some mental, some are inevitable, some are achieved. Some are due to nature, some to nurture. And then, we often rank people according to a particular variable, for example athletic performance, or wealth. We know who the world champions are in various sports, who the world’s richest people and who the world’s greatest violin players are.

There could be a “Sociology of differentiation and ranking.” This is not necessarily a pretty business. It is also the realm of inequality, racism, winners and losers. And you might wonder whether it makes sense to compare apples and oranges. 

The most striking aspect of “differences” and “inequality” is this: For some variables, the “top dog” is only a couple of times “better” or “higher” than the bottom dog. However, in other respects, some individuals outdo others MILLIONS of times. 

Consider the magnitude of the top-to-bottom range of any variable. The range can be enormous - or not - depending on what it is that we measure. 

People can be compared and ranked on a scale of any attribute - wealth, income, body weight and size, intelligence, strength, how fast you can run, how fast you can put together the rubik cube, etc.. The Guinness Book of World Records lists many world records of facts and achievements. 

Consider three kinds of characteristics for which we often compare and rank people: (1) physical characteristics, (2) technology-assisted records, and (3) acquired characteristics. A few examples: 1. Physical characteristics:

A New Americanism

By Madeleine Kando

I am an immigrant who has turned into an American over the past 50 years.

All my childhood I was a political refugee from the East Block. First, in France, then in Holland. I finally wrote to Queen Juliana of the Netherlands and asked her for Dutch citizenship. She told me to send her a hundred guilders and she sent me back a Dutch passport.

I expected something special to happen, a carillon bursting forth from the ‘Wester Church’, whose steeple I could see from my rear windows. Or confetti raining down on my head, but all that fell was the usual dreary Dutch rain. I didn’t feel more Dutch than before. In fact, I realized at the tender age of 20, that Holland was not going to be my final destination.

I tried London for a while, a beautiful city where I could disappear and become totally anonymous. Then on to Malaga, but the southern European culture did not fit my personality, whatever that was. So instead of trying out different countries, I decided to change continents.

I moved to the US in the late 60s. In those days, moving to America literally felt like moving to the ‘New World’, a world so vast that you were guaranteed to find yourself, if not in New England, then somewhere else.

The thing that attracted me the most, was the knowledge that 15.7% of people here are born somewhere else. That's about 53 million people, more than the entire population of many countries, such as Canada, Poland, or Spain.

But the US has always been a country divided. The South and the North are still almost like two countries. The “tribalism” is not just North vs. South. As Heather Cox Richardson demonstrated in How the South Won the Civil War,  reactionary nationalism is thriving in other regions as well, for example, the West (Cowboy country).

Surprisingly, this division hasn’t caused it to break entirely in two. Maybe because of its size, America can accommodate this division, like two brothers fighting under the protection of their mother’s large hoop skirt.

A Tale of Survival

Tom Kando

Dear Readers:

Here is a trailer for my book: 'A Tale of Survival'. It is available on Amazon. If you are interested in writing a review, it would be greatly appreciated!

 

 

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Ancient Rome lasted nearly Twenty-one Centuries

Tom Kando 

We recently re-watched two magnificent TV miniseries: 

1. The 2005-7 HBO series “ROME,” (Rome).

2. The 1976 series “I, Claudius,”  based on Robert Graves’ 1934 book I, Claudius. 

Rotten Tomatoes and IMDb both give these two series extremely high marks, rightly so. 

The 2005-7 series covers the era lasting from 52 BC to about 30 BC: In 52 BC, Caesar completed Rome’s conquest of Gaul. In 30 BC, Emperor Augustus (Octavian) completed his takeover of absolute power over the entire empire. The series is about Rome’s transition from a republic to an empire. This is the best-known and most frequently described period of Roman history. It lasted from the middle of the first century BC to the beginning of the first century AD. In other words, from Julius Caesar through Octavian Augustus. 

The 1976 series covers the life of Emperor Claudius, from his birth in 24 BC to his death in 54 AD. Therefore, it picks up roughly when Augustus has been in power for about six years, and covers the remainder of that emperor’s reign plus the reigns of his three successors - Emperors Tiberius, Caligula and Claudius. 

Julius Caesar was born in 100 BC. He was elected to Rome’s highest office - Consul - in 59 BC. He spent much of the following decade (from 58 BC to 49 BC) waging war against the Gauls, and conquering much of the territory that is now France. He won his most important victory at the Battle of Alesia in 52 BC, where he defeated the joint Gallic forces led by Vercingetorix. In 49 BC, Caesar and his thirteenth legion crossed the Rubicon river, which constituted the border between Rome and its provinces. By doing so, Caesar invaded Rome and started a civil war which eventually gave him control of the Roman government.