Men and women: Mars and Venus all right

Those were the days! In grandma's time, cute images such as these were standard, and no one bothered to denounce them as stereotypes. Offended by the view? According to PDC (Politically Correct Dogma), you should. According to 2012 science, you shouldn't. 

As everybody knows —child, adolescent, adult, male or female— men and women are very different creatures. Modern negationism claims that the differences observed are mainly due to society (Western society in the first place), which forces girls and boys into a behaviour which is by no means innate. Many academics prosper on gathering evidence for this view, and nowadays no decent university can afford not to have a Women's Studies department. (I remember I couldn't make sense of that word when I first heard it. What on earth were Women's Studies?)

In short, differences between men and women are lies to be exposed. No, wait! Everybody seems to agree that in matters of sexuality and aggression, men and women are different, men being the bad guys. That women are sensitive and warm, men emotionally stable and conscious of rules, these are lies to be exposed. Well, a broad study, published in 2012, found otherwise. Not to burn myself on this sensible topic, let me quote from the summary given by Skeptical Inquirer (Kenneth W. Krause, Gender Personality Differences: Planets or P.O. Boxes, Evidence or Ideology? vol. 36 no. 3, May/June 2012, 26-28.)

Having subjected a sample of 10,261 American men and women between age fifteen and ninety-two to an assessment of multiple personality variables, Del Giudice [the paper's main author] obtained results he and his team described as "striking." The "true extent of sex differences in human personality," he argued, "has been consistently underestimated." (...) When properly measured, he reports, gender personality differences are "large" and "robust." Indeed, roughly 82 percent of his cohort delivered personality profiles that could not be matched with any member of the opposite sex. (p.26)

Needless to say, these findings were not universally acclaimed. Janet Hyde, professor of psychology and women's studies, compared the gender gap to nothing more than "the distance between North Dakota and South Dakota". She's best known for her Gender Similarities Hypothesis:

males and females are similar on most, but not all, psychological variables. 

(Skeptical Inquirer p.26)

(The "exceptional differences" are sexuality and aggression, mentioned above.) Her own methods, so I understand, are coarser than the new ones. According to psychology professor Richard Lippa, her (averaging) method would probably lead to the conclusion that men and women have similar bodies, while Del Giudice's method would probably generate the much more intuitive conclusion that "sex differences in human body shape are quite large, with men and women having distinct multivariate distributions that overlap very little." (Skeptical Inquirer p.27)

If you are into statistics and/or psychology, you can read all of Del Giudice e.a. here. For the others, a few quotes will have to do.

Finding large overall differences [as is the case] would tell us that the sexes differ broadly in their emotional and behavioral patterns, rather than just in a few (and comparatively narrow) motivational domains such as aggression and sexuality. (p.1)

In univariate terms, the largest differences between the sexes were found in Sensitivity, Warmth, and Apprehension (higher in females), and Emotional stability, Dominance, Rule-consciousness, and Vigilance (higher in males).

The multivariate effect for latent variables (...) is an extremely large effect, corresponding to an overlap of only 10% between the male and female distributions (assuming normality). (p.4)

P.S. As statistical truths go: for an individual quantum particle or for an individual man or woman, they imply nothing.

De omgekeerde transfers, een mythe?

Vlaanderen ziet al vele decenniën lang een flink deel van zijn spaarcenten verdwijnen richting het armlastige Franstalië. Veel lijkt dat niet uit te halen, en van enige inspraak, laat staan erkentelijkheid, is evenmin sprake. Aan de ontvangende kant lijkt men die toestand dus normaal te vinden. Het fenomeen is zich op Europese schaal eveneens aan het installeren, en het zal nog moeten blijken of dàt even lang zal duren als de Vlaams-Waalse geldstroom. Afwachten dus of de molenwiekende Toscaanse staatsman GV ook daar zijn slag thuishaalt.

Om de nationale 'opgedrongen-solidariteit-zonder-inspraak' recht te praten wordt vaak verwezen naar de 'omgekeerde transfers' uit vroegere tijden: toen Vlaanderen aan de grond zat zou het overeind gehouden zijn door de gulheid van het welvarende Wallonië. Maar is dat wel zo? De Gentse prof. Hannes noemt die omgekeerde transfers ronduit een mythe, en baseert zich daarvoor op een gedetailleerde studie van de fiscaliteit in de periode 1832-1912.

Roularta Books, 2007

Hier enkele afgeronde cijfers voor de bestudeerde periode:

Vlaanderen: 44% van de bevolking, 44% van de belastingen

Brabant:  18% van de bevolking, 25% van de belastingen

Wallonië: 38% van de bevolking, 30% van de belastingen.

(De provincie Brabant was fiscaal blijkbaar niet op te splitsen. Haar bevolkingsaandeel heb ik maar zelf afgeleid uit het rekensommetje 100-44-38=18. De andere cijfers staan op blz. 113.)

Brabanders hebben dus te veel belastingen betaald, Walen veel te weinig. Vooral dat laatste is zeer  eigenaardig, want men verwacht toch dat een welvarend gebied verhoudingsgewijs meer in de schatkist stort dan een arm gebied, en hier is het omgekeerd.

De cijfers zijn leerzaam, maar over transfers leren ze ons niets. In het Belgisch betekent 'transfer' toch: overdracht, en dat is niet wat men in een gemeenschappelijke pot stort, maar het verschil tussen wat men daarin stort en wat men daaruit terugkrijgt. De studie van prof. Hannes zegt wel alles over het eerste, maar niets over het tweede.

Tolkien's "Book of the Century"

In 1997, Tolkien's The Lord of the Rings was elected Book of the Century, beating Orwell and Joyce. I agree. What Tolkien managed to put together is simply gigantic. A thrilling story, involving humans and many other intelligent species, set in a framework spanning eons, with peoples, civilizations and languages rising and decaying. This whole universe conceived by Tolkien is consistent up to perfection. To grasp it, one should read all of Tolkien, not just stick to —impressive as it is— the Ring, as I did. The Ring's appendices give a glimpse of the all-embracing vision of Tolkien's, though. I also agree with Tolkien himself, who acknowledged the book's major defect: with its 600,000 words it is too short. [R xxiii]

My English edition was

[R] The Lord of the Rings. J.R.R. Tolkien, HarperCollinsPublishers 2007, based on the 50^th Anniversary Edition published 2004. One volume, 1178 pages.

Also shown are the two beautiful additions 

[C] The Lord of the Rings. A reader’s companion. Wayne G. Hammond and Christina Scull. HarperCollinsPublishers 2005. 894 pages.

[J] Journeys of Frodo. An Atlas of JRR Tolkien's The Lord of the Rings. Barbara Strachey. HarperCollinsPublishers 1998. 

The latter contains 50 detailed maps in two colours, and the phases of the moon along the journey. This relates to my topic, which deals with a few astronomical issues I stumbled upon. Given the scholarly scrutiny devoted to LOTR, I can hardly imagine that they were not noted and dealt with before. If so, I will be happy to hear, but so far I haven't. 

It's very hard to find any inconsistencies in Tolkien, astronomical or other. In a way, it's utterly impossible, because strictly speaking Tolkien is not the author of LOTR, but merely the translator. The book itself, informally called the Red Book, is composed by Bilbo, Frodo and Samwise, and Tolkien poses as the interpreter translating it into English. Hence, errors may be due to the authors proper or to difficulties arising from mixing languages and civilizations (different calendars, for instance) of different eras. But there is no doubt that Tolkien the Oxford professor was very much aware of all astronomical matters involved in his work. 

An astronomical problem

 About mid-day they came to a hill. (...) All those hills were crowned with green mounds, and on some there were standing stones, pointing upwards like jagged teeth out of green gums. That view was somehow disquieting; so they turned from the sight and went down  into the hollow circle. In the midst of it there stood a single stone, standing tall under the sun above, and at this hour casting no shadow. (...) The sun was still at the fearless noon. (...)

They woke suddenly and uncomfortably from a sleep they had never meant to take. The standing stone was cold, and it cast a long  pale shadow that stretched eastward over them. [R 137]

So here we have a vertical stone casting no shadow at noon and a long shadow in late afternoon. We are on (translated) "28 September" of the Shire calendar [C 142]. As our January 1 "corresponds more or less to the Shire January 9" [R 1109] we are "more or less" on our September 20. (Backstage, Tolkien-the-author, keeping track of astronomy, identified "Shire September 28" with "22 September AD 1941" [C xlviii].) Anyway, we are very close to the equinox of autumn. If, on that day, the sun at noon is right above your head, you are on the equator. Yet, seasons in the Shire are those of the Northern hemisphere. On that particular day, for instance, morning had been "cool, bright, under a washed autumn sky" [R 135].

To solve this apparent inconsistency, easy science fiction solutions are unavailable because LOTR is no science fiction. "Middle Earth" is not a strange spot in some distant galaxy, but right here on planet Earth, and events happened in times "not very remote according to the memory of the Earth" [R 1107]. In particular, the very existence of seasons proves that the earth's axis was tilted as it still is, and the year had the same length as today, "365 days, 5 hours, 48 minutes, 46 seconds" as Tolkien specifies [R 1107].
   

A somewhat astronomical problem

Southward he looked, and below his very feet the Great River curled like a toppling wave and plunged over the falls of Rauros into a foaming pit; a glimmering rainbow played upon the fume. [R 400]

If you see a rainbow, the sun is in your back. Hence, if  Frodo sees a rainbow in the South, the sun must be in the North. Of course, this is impossible in the Northern hemisphere. But what Frodo experiences here is not a view of reality, but an imaginary vision of things to come, and an inversion of reality is quite compatible with a dreamlike state.

Oxford versus Shire astronomy

The Hunter's Moon waxed round in the night sky, and put to flight all the lesser stars. But low in the South one star shone red. Every night, as the Moon waned again, it shone brighter and brighter. [R 274] 

It has been established that Tolkien  regarded the full moon of  Shire November 11 as this Hunter's Moon [C 261]. Also, it is well known that the moon data in LOTR are those from he lunar calendar of AD 1941-1942, with a varying adjustment of some 5-6 days to make things consistent [C xlv]. In particular, this Hunter's Moon must have been the full moon of 4 November AD 1941. If, on that day, at 22:00, Tolkien had looked at the night sky above Oxford —which perhaps he did— this is what he saw (courtesy of Sky View Café):

  A full moon all right, and Mars shining in the South (though an altitude of some 40 degrees is not particularly low). Fine. But the following days, Oxford Mars was not becoming brighter, but fainter:

Recall that greater brightness is expressed in smaller magnitude numbers. The sun's magnitude, for instance, is around -27 and the full moon's -13. I wonder why Tolkien, if it's a deliberate choice, made his Shire Mars grow brighter. To convey a threat of violence to come? It's possible, but stooping to cheap symbolism is unlike Tolkien, who was (let me remind you) a great writer. 

Speaking of which: LOTR contains but very few literary weaknesses. Here is the only one that I found. 

And Frodo when he saw her come glimmering in the evening, with stars on her brow and a sweet fragrance about her, was moved with great wonder. [R.  972]

How does one see a fragrance? (And who is to blame? Frodo-the-author or Tolkien-the-translator? Frodo may be a little in love, hence more than a little confused.)

P.S. It is regrettable that Nobel Prizes are also given in non-quantifiable and highly subjective fields such as Literature and Peace. Many of the Writers Laureate are completely forgotten by now and some were already in their lifetime. Tolstoy, Joyce, Tolkien, Proust and Céline did not get it. Q.E.D.

Poëtisch vademecum

Als je de kostprijs per woord uitrekent is poëzie de duurste vorm van literatuur. Bovendien verwachten dichters overdreven veel van de bladschikking, die zeer veel wit bevat. Als je de kwistige typografie van de makers een beetje comprimeert krijg je honderden van hun voortbrengselen in een klein boekje. Zelf loop ik met  honderdzesenzestig gedichten op zak, geperst in een boekje van A6-formaat dat minder plaats inneemt dan mijn agenda:

Dit is versie 3, en met zijn plastic schutblad van net de juiste stijfheid is het handzamer dan zijn voorgangers. Waar ik ook ga, ik zit dus nooit zonder lectuur, en wat ik te voorschijn haal op een terras of in een wachtzaal is bovendien gegarandeerd lievelingslectuur, want de selectie is geheel de mijne. Hier de inhoud van editie 2010 op normale grootte afgedrukt. Wat duidelijk grappig bedoeld is staat in het zwart,  de rest rood. Bij sommige gedichten —bijvoorbeeld die van Jules Deelder— is overigens niet duidelijk in welke categorie ze vallen. Mijn vorige edities stonden alfabetisch per dichter, maar de huidige ordening is volgens de beginregel. De Latijnse titel betekent 'Houd de woorden vast', wat op dit boekje letterlijk van toepassing is. Er is ook een diepere betekenis aan, die hier toegelicht staat.

In de tekst veroorloof ik mij ingrepen die verder gaan dan het rechtzetten van de occasionele dt-fout. Soms heb ik er één strofe uitgeknipt, en een lelijke regel van Slauerhoff heb ik naar eigen inzicht 'verbeterd'. De ingrepen zijn wel aangegeven. Ik heb overigens over poëzie, zoals over alle andere kunsten, een uitgesproken ouderwetse opvatting, die perfect verwoord wordt door de onvolprezen 'plezierdichter' Drs. P. (H.H. Polzer).

P.S. In Rijmwijzer (Bert Bakker 1990, blz. 12) geeft Jaap Bakker de volgende definitie:

Poëzie is iedere taaluiting waarvan, in geschreven vorm, 

de regels niet tot de rechterkantlijn doorlopen.