Health Care

One of the great things about NZ is that it has universal health care. Now compared to the private, employer-provided health insurance I had in the US, there are some downsides to this. For example, routine visits to a physician are more than a $10 co-pay. You pay about $100. But everyone has the same privileges. And for those who are really concerned about waiting lists and whatnot (more on those in a moment), you can get supplemental private insurance.

Americans, though, are absurdly resistant to the idea of state-provided, universal health insurance. I just finished reading what I consider to be a knock-down argument against that resistance: check out the recent article by Paul Krugman and Robin Wells in the New York Review of Books. It pretty much destroys every argument I've ever heard in favor of the US system.

For those who worry about efficiency, here's one of the money quotes (pardon the pun):

"the available evidence suggests that if the US were to replace its current [system] with standardized, universal coverage, the savings would be so large that we could cover all those currently uninsured, yet end up spending less overall."

For those who worry about waiting lists for critical procedures, note that, here in NZ at least, there are no waiting lists if it's urgent, though there can be for serious but non-life-threatening problems (e.g., cancer treatment). And, just for good measure, note that "the procedures for which these waiting lists exist account for only 3% of US health care spending." Finally, again, if you really want the wealthy to be able to skip ahead of those lines, there's always supplemental private insurance.

Hard to see how American conservatives can continue to rail against universal health care, given that they want their taxes reduced so much.

Of course, the key part in all this is that, in the end, given that citizens all contribute to a cooperative society, in which the wealthy already benefit by having the unmeritably less wealthy do tasks that free the wealthy to accumulate their greater wealth, those with less wealth shouldn't have to expect much less physical well-being than those with great wealth.

Parenting, Part Deux

In the last post on parenting, I noted how young adults are more independent here in NZ than in the US, e.g., by regularly moving out at around 16 or 17 and fending for themselves. But here's a surprisingly different side of things. I'm told that (and I haven't verified this) it's illegal to leave your kids unsupervised at home until they are 14. 14! When I think about the things I was doing at 13, let alone how early I was was the babysitter, rather than the babysittee, that just seems crazy.

Particularly in light of the fact that they're then out on their own just a couple of years later.

Music, part deux

So, after the earlier post on my music, I got two kinds of response to the song:

1) "It's good!"

2) "I liked it, but it's not my favorite one of your songs."

I hope (1) is true, but more importantly, I agree with (2), so I have posted a couple other songs on the music page, both of which, I confess, I like more than "Everything is gonna be alright" (though I'm also always a bit partial to whatever song I wrote most recently, which in this case is that one). Both of the newly posted tracks were written when living in Bakersfield, which turned out to have been a strangely productive place, writing-wise. Again, if you want to have a listen, I recommend the "mp3" and "Stream Hi" options. Again, the usual caveats apply: please excuse the bum vocal notes and other errors.

Hat-tip: Note that "Each Other's Mistake" is significantly enhanced by a Wurlitzer performance by cousin Jordan, a very accomplished musician.

Audiostreet, the hosting service for these songs, is curious. They clearly have a lot of people using them (when I started there, before anyone had visited the site, I was ranked below 18,000). But it doesn't seem like it takes much to work your way to the top of the charts. As I write this, I'm ranked 7,802, and I've gone as high as 265. But I've only had 43 page views and 11 song listenings. That's for my "artist ranking." As for the song ranking, "Everything is gonna be alright" is currently bottoming out at 19,573, but it's been as high as 190, with only those 11 song plays. It's hard to see how there can be so much variation with such little attention, so I'm not sure how their rankings work. Any speculative explanations are welcome in the 'comments' section.

Exoticizing America

Quality of life here is very, very high. But I got into a disagreement today over whether, all things considered, L.A. has a better QOL. I argued that it does. Now, New Zealand certainly has advantages over LA, a few of which are: better public schools, relative racial harmony, and better air quality. But when I presented my list of the pros and cons of each of the two locations, I got a reply that I'd missed something crucial. This answer came from an American who has lived here for about 5 or 6 years and an Australian who lived in the U.S. for about 8 or 9 years. Their answer?

Crime. Now, there is undoubtedly more crime in the US, and it's undoubtedly true that it's better to live in a place with less crime. But just in terms of my personal life, I haven't noticed much difference in my attitudes vis-a-vis the place of crime in my life compared to when I was in the US. But the American and Australian reported a much higher degree of fear when spending time in the US than when spending time in NZ.

Now, sure, there are some bad neighborhoods and all, but I have rarely felt this kind of fear, personally. And I don't think that kind of fear is well-founded (exception coming shortly) for the average person walking down the average US street. My general lack of fear can plausibly be explained by some obvious facts: the neighborhoods where you have to really fear random crime are fairly few and far between and the violence in them is actually often non-random (and I've tended to live elsewhere, barring an exception or two), and because otherwise random violence is relatively rare, and finally because I try to avoid hanging out with people who might bring non-random violence upon yours truly. And these things are also true of the two people I was speaking with (relatively similar socio-economic status, similar career paths and interests, etc., and similar neighborhoods, I imagine). But only they feel personally safer here; I don't, at least not by much.

So what explains their higher degrees of fear? A plausible explanation is that this is an unexpected (to me, anyway) way in which the US is exoticized. Just as it is often protrayed in popular culture as a place of ridiculous wealth for everyone, so it is portrayed as a place of ridiculous crime for everyone. Just in ordinary life, you're bound to be car-jacked, kidnapped, mugged, or otherwise subjected to violent crime. (Then you give up your acting career and become Governor of California.) But this is, of course, ridiculous. It's like one aspect of the exoticization of L.A.: it's portrayed as if everyone has plastic surgery, but it's fairly uncommon (a few key locations aside) to just randomly see a bunch of middle-aged men with no facial wrinkles or a bunch of young women with gravity-defying breasts. Even if most Angelenos wanted it, which is doubtful, it's simply not affordable for most of the population.

Here's the exception: violence against women. Arguably worse than the differential wages for equal work aspect of US sexism is the aspect that women are subjected to unique kinds of violence, often random violence, to which men are not subjected. Therefore, to the degree that women have an elevated level of fear of random violence when walking down the average US street, this reaction seems justifiable; whereas, as far as I understand, that fear subsides for many women over here (justifiably).

So if I had that differential experience, I might feel safer here. But that doesn't explain the phenomenon in need of explanation, since my interlocutors in this debate are also men. The best explanation I can think of for their much higher fear-of-crime levels is that they have purchased the exoticized picture of the US as more randomly violent than it actually is.

The End of Summer

Well, summer is over. The first week of the term was last week, and though it promises to be another very productive year (fingers crossed), it's always sad to see the end of summer. At the very least, that antarctic blast we got last week was a chilly reminder of things to come.

But it was a good summer, for the most part. Had a great trip back to the US in November (and a very sad and short one for Aunt Sara's funeral last month). Julie's visit in December was full of good times, chronicled here in these very pages.

In the other months, other than the occasional side trip (e.g, Pinnacles), golf, and the surprisingly rare night out, it was a lot of work, work, work. But that was a good thing. It was the first time in six years that I'd stayed where I lived, so it was really my first maximally productive summer since I became ABD at Memphis. (Count 'em: 2000-Germany, 2001-Seattle and Move To Bakersfield, 2002-New York, 2003-Western States Road Trip, 2004-Move To LA, 2005-Move To NZ. Only the first was relatively short [7 weeks], and '02 and '03 were necessitated by the strong desire to avoid the Bako summer heat.)

Anyway, I've been happy with the progress. Here's a quick run-down, for those who are interested. (1) Julie and I finished the first stage of our empirical research on race thinking, and began the second stage. (2) Wrote a new paper on moral fictionalism. (3) Wrote a new paper on Kantian ethics. (4) Wrote a new paper on race. (5) Wrote a new paper in a totally new area, aesthetics, which I'm calling 'Hi-Fi Aesthetics.' I like that title. (6) Started, and am close to finishing, a new paper with my colleague Stuart Brock called 'The Paradox Paradox.' I like that title, too. (7) Revised several older papers.

Hopefully I can keep up the pace. Again, for those who are interested, I've finally got my (relatively bare-bones) professional Web site up and running. The pages are proliferating these days, between that, this blog, and the philosophy blog (PEA Soup). The professional page has updates of my research, and it also has copies of some papers, if you're looking for something to read that's good for putting you to sleep at night. Just kidding. Hopefully.

Lastly, I also finally got a chance to get the home music studio up and running again. And I got to record the one song I've written since I've been here (a pathetically low number). I'm fairly confident I'll come to regret this, but--again, for those who are interested--I've uploaded it to the Web if you want to have a listen.

The track, called "Everything Is Gonna Be Alright," can be found on my new page at AudioStreet.net. (Like I said, the pages are proliferating.) The production quality isn't as high as I'd like, so I recommend either the "Stream Hi" option or the download "MP3" option. And the usual caveat applies: please forgive some of the mistakes (e.g., flat vocal notes).

Somehow, even though nobody has visited the page yet, my ranking on AudioStreet's charts has vascillated between 18,203 and 12,825. The higher present ranking puts me smack dab between Jay Mark, an "ambient" music act from Miami, and Pajavasara, an alternative music act from Finland. Anyway, I don't know how anyone is ranked lower than me, given that no one's heard the song yet, but it's nice to know that even at my highest, I'm wildly unpopular!

If I'm not totally embarrassed by putting this song on the Web, maybe I'll upload a couple more in the coming weeks. In the meantime, it's back to school here in New Zealand.

Parenting

I grew up in a community where there was a default presumption that parents would help their kids pay for college expenses, if they could afford it. Now, of course, many can't afford it, and many could afford only part of it, and many could afford all of it but also decide that there's value--some important lesson learned--in having the child work or even take on debt of their own to help pay for college. And there are some exceptions to this--parents who can afford to pay and realize that it's in the child's interests if the parents pay, but who don't want to pay anyway. Or they will pay, but only for the least-expensive option (e.g., the local public university). But the point remains that in general there appears to be a presumption in my community--and, I would generalize, in most of the US--that if you can afford to pay for your kid's college education, or part of it, you will do so.

Here, there is no such presumption, apparently. Kids move out of the house very young. It's not uncommon to have them move out at about 16, in fact. And they are expected to pay the costs of university.

That's not as bad as it would be in the US, because the financial burden isn't as significant. First, tuition is much cheaper (and there are no private universities, and the most recent election featured a proposal to make all student loans interest-free); second, the norm is just to go to university in your hometown, rather than to travel to where you might get the best education; and, third, students often--though certainly not always--live at home (rent-free) during one or more of their years at university.

So I tried testing the intuition of locals (one Aussie parent and one childless Kiwi) regarding what I take to be the most compelling case for the way things are done back home. The argument was this: the parent's responsibility is to give the child the (available) toolkit they will need for a flourishing life; that toolkit is not complete until after higher education; thus, the parent's responsibility is to give the child a higher education (when the means to do so are available).

I also ran a secondary argument that the maturity to fend for yourself in a fully adequate way doesn't come until after university.

I buy my friends' reaction to the secondary argument: the only reason US students aren't fully mature in terms of fending for themselves until after (well after?!) university is because they aren't forced to. That is, if they were on their own at an earlier age, they'd be more mature at an earlier age. This strikes me as plausible, in the same way that it's plausible that the French don't have a higher proportion of winos simply because kids drink wine at a relatively early age.

But I didn't get what I thought was good response to the main argument. Of course, it might be rare that the burden of paying for university, living at home during university here, or going to a local university has resulted in a stunted toolkit, but I can't help thinking that there's at least a little bit of parental responsibility being shirked in not accepting the presumption that you'll help with your child's higher education if you have the available means.

One side-note: my interlocutors in this conversation did concede that they would try to help if their child got into Oxford or Princeton or some such, but they also noted that they'd basically have no means for doing so, and that the child would have to get some other form of financial aid. But our conversation was mostly confined to domestic university opportunities. The move to international education, for those Kiwis who pursue it, usually happens at the post-graduate level, not at the undergraduate level.

Another side-note: attending university isn't as financially important as it is in the US. Here, for instance, farming is a very lucrative and high-prestige industry. Much more lucrative than a career in higher education!