AKA Review– March 17, 2023

From Stanford Social Innovation Review:
Rebuilding Trust in Society
By Jane Wales
Poll after poll shows that Americans’ trust in their government, their communities, and even their neighbors is at an all-time low. To address this, the author argues, America should tap its most powerful asset: our unique form of self-governance in which the public, private, and social sectors collaborate, bringing their respective competencies to our most pressing problems and finding solutions at the intersection of the three. Read this article

From The New Yorker:
The End of the English Major
By Nathan Heller
Perhaps the most referenced article in higher education during the past two weeks, Nathan Heller's piece avoids the usual platitudes and handwringing about his well-worn subject. The author brings together historical data, anecdotes, and an engaging comparison of English majors at ASU and Harvard to create this vivid consideration of the humanities, past and future. Probably many of you have read it. If not, you should. Read this article

From The Atlantic:
The Statistics That Come Out of Nowhere
By Ray Fisman, Andrew Gelman, and Matthew C. Stephenson
The ease with which false, augmented, or generalized statistics spread is alarming—especially when these claims make their way into Vice Presidential speeches and the World Bank’s website. Tracing the origins of some well-known misconceptions, the authors demonstrate how an offhand remark or misreading of a report can take on a life of its own. Concluding with advice on how to do battle with what they call "decorative statistics," they emphasize the particular responsibility of journalists and researchers to do so. Read this article

From The New Yorker:
It’s Time to Rethink the Idea of the "Indigenous"
By Manvir Singh
This thorough, thoughtful history of the concept of indigenousness describes paradoxes, ironies, and unintended consequences implicit in use of the term—among them that many groups who identify as Indigenous do not claim to be first peoples, and many who did come first do not claim to be Indigenous. The persistence of the trope of the "primitive savage," the author argues, reflects its usefulness for both "decrying civilization’s corruption" and for celebrating its achievements. Yet it is one rooted in a darkly colonial past that we must recognize to overcome its inheritance. Read this article

From The New York Times Magazine:
The New World: Envisioning Life After Climate Change
By David Wallace-Wells
With engaging, animated graphics, writer David Wallace-Wells and artist Anuj Shrestha paint a picture of our world’s climate change future, from the microscopic to the global. It is one neither apocalyptic nor placid but instead, and somewhat hopefully, "big enough to terrify and intimidate and yet open-ended enough to be wrangled and managed by politics and human design." Read this article