[Vision2020] Film on Inequality at Kenworthy, Sept. 5

[g crabtree]

 Reich with the enthusiastic assistance of Gier humbly submit themselves
for the position of Diana Moon Glampers. You WILL be equal!

g

On Thu, Aug 30, 2018 at 9:54 AM Nicholas Gier <ngier006 at gmail.com> wrote:

> There will be a free showing of Robert Reich’s award-winning film *Inequality
> for All* at the Kenworthy Theatre on September 5 at 7 PM.  It is
> sponsored by the Moscow Human Rights Commission, the UI Faculty Federation
> (AFT), and the Latah Human Rights Task Force. The Task Force has chosen
> inequality as the topic for Human Rights Day at the Market (September 8),
> and before the film there will be a display table of powerful graphics and
> informative hand-outs. Patrons are encourage to come early to check out the
> Task Force’s table.
>
> For those who do not receive the DNews, here is my column on the topic.
>
> *The Effects of Income Inequality on Mental Health*
>
> by Nick Gier, The Palouse Pundit
>
> In 2011 British epidemiologists Richard Wilkinson and Kate Pickett
> released the second edition of their book *The Spirit Level: Why Greater
> Equality Makes Societies Stronger*. The authors studied levels of trust,
> mental illness, life expectancy, infant mortality, educational achievement,
> teen births, homicides, and incarceration rates.
>
> Among selected industrialized countries the authors found that the U.S.
> performed the worst on all nine indicators, and that the most consistent
> predictor was economic inequality. Significantly, the more equal American
> states had better results on these issues.
>
> In their new book *The Inner Level: How More Equal Societies Reduce
> Stress, Restore Sanity, and Improve Everyone’s Wellbeing*, Wilkinson and
> Pickett have gathered more data about inequality’s negative effect on
> mental health.
>
> For example, they found that only 10 percent of Japanese and Germans
> suffered from some form of mental illness, while 20 percent of those in the
> United Kingdom and 25 percent of Americans did so. The Japanese and Germans
> are significantly more equal than Americans, with the British less so.
>
> Our authors cite research that showed that “in 1980, 4 percent of
> Americans suffered a mental disorder associated with anxiety, today half
> do.” Between 2007 and 2017 the number of Americans receiving Social
> Security Disability benefits due to a mental disorder increased 2.5 times.
>
> Young people are also suffering. In Britain, since 2011, there has been a
> 68 percent rise in rates of self-harm among girls aged 13 to 16, and 58
> percent of British teachers believe that there is a mental health crisis in
> their schools. From 2010 to 2015 there was a 36 percent increase in
> depressive episodes among American adolescents. School bullying is also
> much more prevalent in unequal countries.
>
> Research has shown that status anxiety is much higher in unequal
> countries, and one study revealed that “people of lower status in
> hierarchies have higher levels in their blood of a clotting factor called
> fibrinogen, implying that their bodies are constantly on high alert to heal
> potential wounds.”
>
> Anxiety has been found to cause depression, drug addiction, and increases
> in suicidal thoughts, narcissism, and schizophrenia. Excessive drug use
> correlates tightly with economic inequality all over the world.
>
> Most people do not realize that narcissism is categorized as a mental
> illness in psychiatry’s Diagnostic and Statistics Manual. From 1982 to
> 2006, psychologists administered the Narcissistic Personality Inventory to
> thousands of American college students, and they found a 30 percent
> increase in the display of narcissistic symptoms.
>
> Two questions on this survey especially caught my eye: “If I ruled the
> world, it would be a better place,” and “I can live my life any way I want
> to.”
>
> Wilkinson and Pickett report an ever increasing “defensive, narcissistic
> presentation of self” in unequal societies, and a reviewer from *The
> Guardian* newspaper remarks that “we risk creating a society of
> mini-Trumps all clawing at one another’s hairpieces.”
>
> Trump certainly epitomizes this description of narcissistic persons:
> “They tend to lack empathy, react aggressively to criticism and favor
> self-promotion over helping others.” Narcissists undermine the social
> fabric of those around them, but the one in the White House has upset
> economic and diplomatic relations throughout the world.
>
> The most alarming statistic is increased mortality rates for American men
> without a college degree ages 45-54. They are dying prematurely because of
> drug and alcohol abuse, and their suicide rate is eight times the national
> average. From 2000 to 2016, 183,000 Americans died from opioid overdoses.
>
> As one reviewer of Wilkinson and Pickett's book observes: "The world’s
> richest large country, the city on a hill, seems to be coming apart."
>
> A society grows great when old men plant trees whose shade they know they
> shall never sit in.
>
> -Greek proverb
>
> “Enlightenment is man’s emergence from his self-imposed immaturity.
> Immaturity is the inability to use one’s understanding without guidance
> from another. This immaturity is self- imposed when its cause lies not in
> lack of understanding, but in lack of resolve and courage to use it without
> guidance from another. Sapere Aude! ‘Have courage to use your own
> understand-ing!—that is the motto of enlightenment.
>
> --Immanuel Kant
>
>
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