Closer Than Ever

The elements that transformed the Spanish Flu, that happened between 1918 and 1920, into a catastrophe, which infected over 500 million people and killed 50 million people were distinctive. The first one was the coincidental ending of the Great War where millions of soldiers lived amassed in narrow trenches with poor hygienic conditions and the second was the movement of these troops returning home at the end of the conflict. Millions of people were moving simultaneously from one nation to the other and even between continents. This was the ideal medium for the spread of the virus. The movement of this many people back then was a rare and exceptional event.

Today, the world is radically different. If the COVID-19 pandemic is teaching us one thing, it’s that the world, now more than ever, is small and interconnected, where frontiers have become a fickle creation of our imagination and of our ideologies and where our relationships with other people within and outside our borders entails dependence on each other and vulnerability. The diffusion of the virus, like a radioactive tracer, is allowing us to see these connections that were before invisible, but nonetheless real and palpable. It should then be of common understanding that to safeguard our health systems we must distance ourselves socially.

Less than a decade after the Spanish flu, Hungarian author Frigyes Karinthy publishes the short story “Chains”. Using fiction he explores the concept of connections. One of the characters, to try and prove how small the world was at that time (population: 1 billion), hypothesizes the connection of two random people through a chain of less than 5 people.

At that time the concept was unusual, and it alluded to the impossibility of proving that every person on earth is connected to one another in this manner.

Milgram studied this possibility in his 1967 “small-world experiment” to try and give a scientific answer to this phenomena. He sent out packages to 296 people living in Omaha, Nebraska, with instructions asking them to bring the package closer to a stockbroker in Boston, Massachusetts. They were only supposed to mail the package to people they knew on a first name basis and also leave their name in the package so that each transaction would be recorded. Out of the 296 letters sent, only 64 letters eventually reached the stockbroker in Boston. The average length of the chain was between 5.5 and 6. Historically, it seems that no one had used the term six degrees of separation before this experiment. Facebook has also given us a number recently, in 2011, where they found that each user on average is related to other by 3.57 degrees of separation. While this may show us that we are more interconnected, it is good to remember that there is a differentiation between knowing someone online and in real life, or on a first name basis as Milgram put it.

Our level of interdependence is higher than ever, it has become the strength of global nations. There are migrants who will endure arduous journeys to be with their loved ones. Perspectives can be changed daily. While Italy had been refusing migrants coming from Africa for years, in a matter of hours emigration from Italy came to a holt. These same nations who were once being rejected had started closing their borders to Italians due to the coronavirus. This happened in the matter hours, a ripple effect, which propagated the number of nations closing their frontiers increased to hundreds in a matter of days. We see the same thing in America, as Mexico closes its borders on American travelers.

This amount of connections has other consequences, our behaviors have started to be defined by what others do, not only because of social media but because the number of people we are in contact with increases continuously. These connections have a much stronger effect on our decisions than we think. We very well know that other people’s behavior can cause people to take up smoking, getting credit card debt and even the decision to take on recycling. Even in financial markets we see this behavior, with the rush to the banks during the Great Depression, which may have well been a cause of the financial crisis. The same thing is happening now with the stock market fluctuating, following the decisions made by big mutual funds or by people stockpiling toilet paper. Two systems are in place here, the biological and the psychological. It is very likely that natural selection has made us so synchronized with one another. We tend to replicate the majority of what other people do, from small hints of smiles all the way to what car we should buy.

So what else can we learn from the 1918 Spanish Flu? Even though the flu produced just as many deaths as the first world war little economic studies have shown consequences of this pandemic. Angus Maddison, a British macro economist specialized in history found that European GDP had fallen by almost 8% in the matter of two years. We must consider that these years were right after the war where European countries like Germany and France had been torn apart. We usually tend to ignore this pandemic when looking at the Great Depression and tend to attribute it to a reorganization of the economy after the war. I have found few studies that isolate the effects of the pandemic versus the war.

There has been one study done in 2013 by Martin Karlsson, Therese Nilsson and Stefan Pichler that tried to identify the influence of the Spanish flu on the “economic performance” of Sweden. Sweden is an interesting case because they remained neutral during the war. Some regions in Sweden had higher mortality rates than others, and these counties experience much slower growth. They found that each deceased person was replaced by 0.45 minors and 0.42 females, whereas the male labor supply was insignificant. Capital incomes were also strongly negatively impacted, with assets owned by people depreciating. Poverty also increased: with every person deceased there were 4 asking to be housed in state housing. This finding seems to be inconsistent with the other finding of the increased scarcity of labor, where you would expect more labor to alleviate financial burdens, but as explained by the authors it may be due to a significant reduction in average worker quality. Another study done in the USA by Brainerd & Siegler, 2006, suggested that states most hit by the pandemic had higher salaries. This is because the lack of labor increased the demand of workers and increased salaries. COVID-19 attacks the majority people who are out of the workforce, so predicting it’s effects on the basis of older pandemics may be much harder than we think.

We could also theorize that because the 1918 pandemic happened during an economic lull, the decisions taken by governments to close down economic activities may not have had that big of an impact as it would now, where people have been working more than ever. Our economic growth is unfortunately substantiated by technological bubbles that are every day more fragile. A single grain of sand could make this house of cards collapse. Governments respond the same way they did in 2008 and 2012 by recurring to monetary policy to avoid these bubbles bursting. A measure that may very well be inefficient. This is exactly the paradox that we are living in: the difference between today and 1918 is that there is no immediate economic chaos but a slow inexorable decline.

The same way behavioral contagion can bring disastrous consequences, it can also be a vehicle for positive changes. We need to promote these good examples, with explicit requests, practice and exemplification. We need to all recognize our interdependence on one another, that no one can save themselves on their own. If there is one thing that this pandemic is telling us, it is, that none of us are actually that far from each other.

Sofia Wolfson
Emory University
University of Miami

An analysis of Color, Race & Gender in West Side Story

 

West Side Story is a play conceived, directed by Robert Wise, choreographed by Jerome Robbins, with music by Leonard Bernstein, lyrics by Stephen Sondheim and based on a book by Arthur Laurents. The original Broadway production debut was in 1957, followed by the release of the movie by the same name in 1961 (West Side Story, 2020). This paper will try to paint a picture of the movie, by providing psychological and sociological explanations for it’s success, popularity and appreciation by the American public to this day. It will focus on the identities of the characters, their relationships and the use of color to exemplify them.

Opera or Musical?

West Side Story, by definition, is not an opera, but a musical. However, it has been received by opera houses all over the world, including the Scala of Milano, where Jamie Bernstein, Leonard Bernstein’s daughter, remembers the antithesis between the golden balconettes and the scaffolding on stage (Bernstein, 2020). For Bernstein, West Side Story was supposed to not only respect the conventions of a Broadway musical, but it was also an ambitious attempt to give a higher artistic element to the more popular genre of American Theater. Bernstein had always been convinced that through jazz, American music would have enriched the world with a new form of communication, and only from there a new, autonomous form of American theater could have been born (Bernstein, 2020). In many of popular TV interviews, Bernstein had already traced a parallel between the situation of theaters in America theaters to the ones of Germany prior to the arrival of Mozart’s The Magic Flute (1791; Bernstein, 2006). After this much time we could

consider Bernstein’s statement to be true, he was arguably the American Mozart of the 20th century, even if he may have not been able to create the great American theater he had dreamed of. Nonetheless, he produced a new equilibrium between theatrical action and musical media which he had tried to achieve in previous works such as “Peter Pan” and “Wonderful Town” (Simeone, 2017). It is erroneous to attribute the entire success to only Bernstein’s music, even if profoundly innovative and original, many other components, such as the modernity of Robbin’s choreography, the agile distribution of dynamic dramatic material by Laurents and the explicit and current lyrics of Sondheim.

West Side Story represented a new facet of style within Broadway, it was not usual for musical comedies to represent vulgar or degrading ambiences or even scenes of violence or tragic endings. Furthermore, Bernstein’s music was more complex and difficult than the lighter show audiences expected at that time. Lots of producers denied to provide investments to this musical which seemed doomed to failure. As mentioned, West Side Story turned out to be nothing but a theatrical, cinematic and musical success for Bernstein, possibly due to the reasons above.

There are some aspects that recall to opera music. For example the music is not only there to suggest ornamental expressions to the various situations, but it offers a web of thematic references, connecting each scene to the other and each character to the other. The script and vocals are thought for non-operatic singers, as there are other abilities (such as acting and dancing) that are requested within musicals (Coghlan, 2018). This is the exception for Tony and Maria, who’s songs such as “Maria” or “Somewhere”, require for a the specific tones of a Tenor and a Soprano.

The Zeitgeist

The movie is set in Manhattan during the mid 1950s, depicting the love story between two ethnically different teenagers who fall in love in the midst of their own gang rivalry. It is inspired by Romeo and Juliet, a tragedy that transcends time, revealing the eternal tale of the perils of hatred. While the Shakespearian play is set in palazzo’s, West Side Story brings us to the streets and gutters of a turbulent New York. It is important to note that while the story was inspire by Shakespeare, he himself was inspired by many other works such as Arthur Brooke’s poem The Tragical Historye of Romeus and Juliet (1562, Brooke & Bandello, 1908).
It is important to understand the events surrounding the era of the creation of West Side Story to understand it over fifty years later. The 1960’s saw the presidency of John F. Kennedy, who is remembered for his attenuated international politics favoring American cooperation with other nations of the world. Despite this, there were rising tensions with the Soviets in Cuba and Berlin. The year of 1961 is the same year the first stones were aligned to form the Berlin wall and later the iron curtain. This decade also begins seeing a greater dismantlement of the patriarchy, with women gaining more independence each year. This independence can be seen from the pictures of concerts filled with women infatuated with the new concepts of pop star icons such as Elvis Presley. Overall, Americans had just enjoyed a moment of economic prosperity, as seen by the increasing rise of child birth, now known as the “baby boom”.

New York saw the second wave of immigration after the second world war, starting with Puerto Ricans who began settling in Eastern cities. Between now and then more Puerto Ricans live in New York than on the island. We can see within these neighborhoods, especially the Bronx, communities that could have been seen in the most rural regions of Puerto Rico. This has important

consequences for these migrants as they tended to assimilate less than others due to the strong communities that continued cultural traditions, language and customs of their lands. We get a great picture of the Upper West Side during the Prologue, showing the dynamicity and tensions present on the streets. For the immigrants who had already established their roots in Manhattan the young Puerto Ricans brought fears that their jobs and homes were being taken.

Not only are the characters attached to their ethnicities and nationalities, they are also tithed to their gangs. The “Jet Song” clearly shows that for these kids their life on the streets is delineated by the world of gangs. For them, their gangs are everything, determining their whole identity. This comes at a time when American youth starts breaking from the traditional values and structures of family life. This may be due to the arrival of new migration, which in turn threatens their family values, forcing them to create their own families outside their homes. The rise of street gangs, was then a popular phenomena at that time. While native youth feels threated and decides to polarize their culture to create machoistic gangs, the immigrant youth already has stronger structure thanks to their will to maintain rooted in the customs of their native homes. Take a look at the case of Italian migrants and their roots in strong familiar ties, that give rise to gangsters, mafiosi and racketeers. The Sharks are full of hopes and dreams and seem more positive looking than the Jets, possibly because they have yet to come to the realization that not all their dreams can come true.

Powerful Love

Romeo and Juliet were only separated by their family names. For Tony and Maria it is different, they are born in different countries, have different colored skin and speak different languages. Even if the story had a less tragical ending, their lives in the America of the 1960’s would still have been hard. Maria does not have a family in New York, only her brother. When Tony kills him with blinded rage, he kills her whole family. This dramatic feature is not present in Shakespeare’s tale, proposing a more calamitous event for Maria. While this choice seems to be calculated, it is almost paradoxical for Maria to still love Tony. A study done by Driscoll, Davis & Lipetz (1972) takes from classical literature and group dynamics to support their hypothesis that parental interference in relationships intensifies feelings of romantic love. Maria’s parents are not around to create trust within the new couple. However, an explanation for this discordant behavior could be that while they are not there physically together, they transcend all across Maria’s identity as a Puerto Rican woman. The differences between themselves may very well be the ones fueling this mindless love. The hypothesis that parental interference increases love and commitment is coined by psychologists as the Romeo and Juliet effect. More research has shown that in Western cultures friend opinions are more salient than parental interference (Etcheverry & Agnew, 2004). This is where Anita comes in.

A character figure like Anita is not present in Romeo and Juliet, but her invention is the one to create all the motion of the second act. Anita is the oldest girl, who has always protected Maria. After the killing of Bernardo Anita becomes firm towards Maria, she distorts her anger towards her. In the song “A Boy Like That” Anita reveals her anger and distrust towards the other kind. However, Maria sings the words “I have a love, and it’s all that I have, right or wrong, what else can I do?”. They are simple, but perfect in combatting Anita. Anita learns from Maria,

changing her views to fit the overarching good. As she accepts her love by the end of the song, the story shifts from the likes of Jets versus Sharks and America versus Puerto Rico. This superficial dichotomy is not the true essence of the play, the dichotomy is that between those who accept love and those who do not. It took these two powerful women to understand the true force of this sentiment, despite the men who are trying to control them. West Side Story is indeed a tale about the strength of women and the power of friendship.

The majority of West Side Story is homosocial, meaning that the majority of the scenes involve relationships, including non-romantic ones, between two people of the same gender. It seems that the majority of heterosocial relationships (such as Tony and Maria) exacerbate the homosocial ones. Stacy Wolf, in her book Changed for Good: A Feminist History of the Broadway Musical (2011) argues for a overlooked queer narrative to the story. She asserts that while in most musicals second acts tie up the heterosexual narratives of couples, West Side Story instead proposes the pedagogical duet of Anita and Maria previously mentioned. Wolf argues that this duet itself makes the heterosexual romance weak and unconvincing. This is true even regards to the end of the narrative where both Maria and Anita become widows, supporting a more racially harmonious environment. It is only through death that they seem to be at peace with those of the other kind. Heterosexual love becomes death, and gang life compared to marriage, is seen as more desirable.

Gender

The character of Anybodys is importantly placed in the beginning of the movie, when they try to be a part of the Jets. Anybodys is a woman without a real name and therefore has little

recognition as a subject, they are probably called Anybody because they are on the fringe of binary sexuality. While their persona is less feminine than the other female characters, they are still unable to be a part of the “boys”. They are cleverly placed in the introduction to show the audience that there are clear gender distinctions, that females are excluded from doing business on the streets and that no matter how masculine they are they will never be accepted. Even if Anybodys seems to be able to redeem themselves at the end by helping Tony evade the police, they are still unable to find that love that they are seeking. Anybody uses their racial privilege to cover the gender oppression that they experienced. Instead of accepting or diverting their anger towards the men who are stopping her from being with them, they decide to divert it onto the Puerto Ricans, to which they rank themselves above. Anybody’s, along with the other women in the story, finds hostility and violence outside threatening them to go home. This is due to the aforementioned disruption to the nuclear family, where private conflicts become public on the street.

Negròn-Muntaner (2000) proposes another character that disrupts the heteronormic figures of men, Baby John. Baby John is the “weakest” Jet, as he is always mocked by not only by his gang members but by Lieutenant Schrank for reading books and comics. Negròn-Muntaner claims this character to be the site of white Jewish gay subjectivity. This is due to the superhero identification, which is seen in the literature to be distinctly Jewish since the creation of Superman was by Jewish artists. When comparing to Anybodys, this character shows a man who is willing to escape their male narrative rather than embrace it like Anybodys. The juxtaposition of the two provides an explicit argument for the differences between men and women, providing the melting of the two in these two characters.

Identities and Color

Having read Shakespeare, one may expect the ending to be with Maria’s death. The fact that Tony is not able to conquer Maria, and she does not take her life, the authors propose a new non-traditional narrative. The norm is for the white man to conquer the minority, but in this case Maria gains agency by losing the two men who controlled her life: her brother and her lover. Sondheim, the author, had other plans as well. As he tried to explore feminism through this musical he decided that “Maria was too strong to die. She’s not an ingénue. She is a passionate woman girl − and death is maker of a young woman ... ” (Wells, 2011). These views of Sondheim explain a clever use of color through out the film. Specifically, I would like to talk about the color red. There is a fervent use of it implicitly through out, but the most explicit moment is when Maria complains about her newly acquired white dress, she asks “Could we not dye it red, at least?”, after Anita’s denial, Maria rebottles “White is for babies, I will be the only one (at the dance) in a white dress”. The night she meets Tony she is wearing the white dress and on the night of his death she is wearing a red one. The obvious symbolism is that with tragedy she is no longer a baby, she has received Anita’s approval, survived tragedy and is now a grown woman.

It is important to understand the fashion at the time of West Side Story to truly appreciate the choices by the authors. Fashion had mainly used muted colors following the war time efforts of the earlier half of the century. As the world entered a new era of fashion, Americans started wearing different colors from lilac to dark blues, which were much brighter than their European rivals and in line with the costume design of the movie. The attire is historically accurate with the costume designer, Irene Sharaff, taking notes on gang members attire in the Bronx during the 50s

(Secade, 2018). Sharaff herself admitted to being biased when it came to choosing colors that symbolized aggression and strength for the Sharks.

Regarding Maria’s red dress, there is again more contradiction of the use of the color red. Not only does Maria want to be more grown-up, she is also trying to be more American. The scenes between the Bridal Shop and the dance are filled with red, further symbolizing that she is not only transitioning into womanhood but into an American. The symbolism tied to her white dress also expresses naivety and innocence on her part, further complemented by the cross around her neck and her words to Tony “I have not learned to joke that way”. It is contradicting then for her pureness to be related to a white dress when she is in reality not pure in the eyes of the Jets because of her skin color. It is in these details that lies the beauty of the miscegenation narrative.

There is undoubtedly heavy symbolism associated with the color red in the west: blood, flesh, fire, violence, menstruation and love, to name a few (Morton, 1997). The basic contrast between red and white is beknown to literature, three drops of blood on snow and Perceval remembers his lover in Troyes namesake Romance or more recently the brothers Grimm’s tale “Snow White” where the Queen wishes her daughter to be “as white as snow, as red as blood”. Author Vaz da Silva (2007) reminds us in his book about chromatic symbolism of womanhood, that for many centuries Europeans used red (one of the least expensive colors) to contrast the pale colors of wool and hemp, carrying the importance of it’s use throughout daily life. Red and white are part of a basic color trio, along with black, that has been proved by Kay and Berlin (1991), two linguists, to be part of a pan-human perceptual universal inventory of basic color categories. Black is also used in the play, Anita foreshadows the death at the rumble when she decides to bathe in Black Orchids.

Turner (1970) in his book about symbolism in rituals of the Ndembu people of northwestern Zambia finds cross-cultural meaning of color. He finds that the colors red and white are paired in action contexts, explicitly, black, on the other hand, is never “directly expressed”. Black seems to represent what is hidden, whereas white stands for life. This directly fits with the West Side Story narrative, these colors are semantic values that cross these cultural barriers both within the story and out.

Then there is the issue of “chromophobia” as discussed by Davine (2016) in the Western world. Their belief is that Western culture tends to “purge color from culture” leading to a common aversion towards color, as it is not only seen to be foreign but also superficial and not important enough to be considered by the mind. This purging of color also related to stripping and defaming immigrants who wear such strong colors. Americans and Europeans have a history appropriating colors and patterns as their own, without providing gratitude and appropriate credit to indigenous or native tribes. There is no doubt that West Side Story has a very strong color palette, as seen from the different hues of color of the city skyline. Since color is seen as exotic we can then make the association of its use to be surrounding scenes where the Puerto Ricans are present, for example, in the scene of America. When contextualizing the use of color, then we can clearly see that red does not only represent blood shedding through battle, but the color of blood and the protection of the blood line. The Jets then seem to be protecting their whiteness from the blood of the migrants. Not only this, but red stops being the color of passion, but under this analysis, that of Devil, in the eyes of the Christians. Red goes from showing “action” in the prologue, to being something of discomfort. For example, following the Jet Song sequence Red permeates the scene of Tony at the Candy Store, subconsciously predicting action both to be positive and negative.

Color also then represents Maria’s journey of assimilation, as shown by her increasingly more colored, but calculated, wardrobe. Acevedo-Munoz (2013) points out that before the scene of “I Feel Pretty” she uses a lilac scarf, typical of the clothing of white women at the time. As the scene unfolds we see her wearing a crown and raising a bouquet of flowers, reminiscent of the figure of the Statue of Liberty. While this similitude makes her become the symbol of freedom and hope of the American migrant, it furthers the extensive theme of assimilation that is present through out the movie.

Furthermore, we can see that in the scenes where Maria is present with the other Puerto Rican girls, she stands out. The other Sharks’ girls wear lots of frills and strong colors, she dresses more like a Jet’s girl, with more muted and conservative colors. This distinction shows that the girls, unlike her, are more loyal to their native lands and their men. Another implication is that only Maria, who dresses like an American woman and is therefore not as exotic as her friends is able to gain the attention of someone who is not of her own. This brings us back to the view that she is more pure than her friends who are associated to the color red of passion, sexuality and even, indecency.

Conclusions

There is great importance in analyzing color in film. As humans we are affected by our perceptions in ways that are outside of our consciousness and identifying these mechanisms can help stop perpetrating erroneous biases in our works of art. West Side Story is a tale of miscegenation, something that will permeate humanity as long as we have groups and differences within people. It is important for artists then to accurately portray cultures and people for who they

are, limiting the projection of one’s beliefs, especially if trying to tell a tale of kinship rather than contrast. When it is in regards to other cultures, artists must consult and learn their symbols before using them. As Rudolf Arnheim, a scholar in perceptual psychology, remarks that we must identify form not with the lines within an image but with the very declaration that something has imagistic status. It is important then to not simply look at color as we perceive it but looking at what is unseen. West Side Story has become the success that it is to this day because it has been able to saturate our perception, both explicitly and implicitly creating a dialogue and discussion of what has been an eternal conundrum.

Works Cited

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J. Bernstein (2020). Official West Side Story Website. The Leonard Bernstein Office, INC, 2020. Retrieved from https://www.westsidestory.com/articles-and-reviews

L. Bernstein Office (2020). Leonard Bernstein and Jazz. The Leonard Bernstein Office, INC, 2020. Retrieved from https://leonardbernstein.com/about/composer/bernstein-and-jazz

L. Bernstein (October 10th, 2006). Bernstein: Candide / Hadley, Anderson, Ludwig. ArkivMusic: The Source for Classical Music. Retrieved from http://www.arkivmusic.com/classical/album.jsp?album_id=144807

Simeone, N. (2017). Leonard Bernstein: West Side Story. Routledge.
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Shakespeare's' Romeo and Juliet' (Vol. 3). Chatto and Windus.
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Romeo & Julieteffect. Journal of Personality and SocialPsychology, 24,1–10. Etcheverry, P.E. , Agnew, C. R. (2004). Subjective norms and the prediction of romanticrelationship state and fate. PersonalRelationships, 11,409–428.

Wolf, S. (2011). Changed for good: a feminist history of the Broadway musical. Oxford University Press.

Negrón-Muntaner, F. (2000). Feeling Pretty: West Side Story and Puerto Rican Identity Discourses. Social Text, 18(2), 83-106.

Wells, E. A. (2011). West Side Story: Cultural Perspectives on an American Musical. Rowman & Littlefield.

Morton, J. (1997). A guide to color symbolism (Vol. 28). Colorcom.
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womanhood in fairy tales. Marvels & Tales, 240-252.
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California Press.
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Sofia Wolfson
Emory University
University of Miami

A Skeptics Approach to the Lion Diet

The Peterson’s “Lion Diet”

Introduction

Our globalized, post-modern society is gradually losing trust in the medical field, as shown by an increasing amount of lawsuits and litigations against health professionals (Choy & Ismail, 2017). This can be seen by a rising amount of people turning to complementary and alternative medicine to alleviate distress from ineffective medical treatments and to feel that they are in control of their disease (Ernst, 2001). Along with CAM, there has been a rise of vegetarian and vegan diets, and many other questionable diets (Riley, 2004). One of these diets, the carnivore diet, (aka the “lion diet”) is the polar opposite of veganism, where people only eat meat, eggs and small amounts of low-lactose dairy products and drastically avoid other foods, especially carbohydrates, fruits and vegetables (Streit, 2019). People who follow this diet often consider themselves “anti-fiber” and “cholesterol deniers”, claiming that LDL cholesterol levels do not increase the risk for cardiovascular diseases. The less extreme version of this diet is the popular ketogenetic diet, where people eat only meat and animal products high in fat, some vegetables and avoid carbohydrates at all costs. Proponents of the keto diet hinge on the fact that this diet puts the body in a state of ketosis, a metabolic process that burns fat because there are no carbohydrates to burn (Likhodii et al., 2005). There are also claims that it reduces the amount of seizures in epileptic individuals, which has been found to be true in randomized controlled trials in children (Neal et al., 2008).

One of the major proponents of the lion diet is Canadian psychologist Jordan Peterson along with his daughter Mikhaila Peterson. Peterson is a famous and controversial psychologist with a huge online fanbase and is considered to be one of the most-read Canadian authors. Mikhaila, frontwoman for this fad, says she is in remission from juvenile rheumatoid arthritis and depression all thanks to the “lion diet”. She claims that “many (if not most) health problems are treatable with diet alone” on her blog called “Don’t Eat That” (Peterson, 2016). Jordan Peterson was trained as a clinical psychologist with Jungian and Nietzschean influences, but he often dabbles with philosophical and political claims. This led to a rise of fans who come from the alt-right who champion his arguably anti-politically correctness, sexist and transphobic remarks. As seen in today’s political climate, people on the extremes of the political compass, are very prone to partisan bias, advocating for everything their party stands for. This environment of political tribalism creates the perfect internet groupthink barrier protecting this pseudoscientific diet from any attacks.

The carnivore diet in the media

There is a lot more media coverage of this diet when compared to actual scientific reviews about it. While the science is little, there are multiple websites such as Healthline, Women’s Health, Daily Mail that indicate the diet’s anti-inflammatory properties, as well as their effects on weight loss, depression, anxiety, arthritis, diabetes and obesity (Streit, 2019). Very few of these news outlets cite articles from proper journals, and when they do, the interpretations of the findings are exaggerated or completely distorted. This can be seen in a Healthline article (Mammoser, 2013), where the author claims that the less extreme keto diet “had reduced both anxious and depressive behavior”. However, the paper they cite is a review of 15 studies which says: (a) studies were done on animals and therefore had limited generalizability, (b) there were issues of compliance of the rigid diet in humans, (c) small sample sizes, (d) no control groups for placebo effects, (e) adverse consequences such as kidney stones and (f) insufficient evidence that the diet had any effects on anxiety, depression, autism spectrum disorder, bipolar disorder, schizophrenia and attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (Bostock, Kirkby & Taylor, 2017). Interestingly, the carnivore diet is so far removed from the average person’s diet that only its name can be used as a click bait from websites. The word carnivore brings lots of pictures to mind such as images of predators, bloody steaks and of nature. This triggers our emotions kicking in our affect heuristic where consumers will either feel disgusted or intrigued by this diet, quickly coming to conclusions about it. The amount that media covers people who claim a meat-only diet changes their lives or cured their diseases is worrisome. However, as per the media paradox (Ruscio, 2000), the media loves to portray rare and attention grabbing stories, when in reality they are not as common as how often they are represented. It is important to note that a possible reason for the popularity and acceptance of extreme diets like these could be the advent of social media and people’s attack to their self-image, where they will take drastic measures to improve their appearance.

The Petersons

The role of the Peterson family in the promulgation of this diet is crucial. Due to Peterson’s very confined group of fans with interknitting ideals, any attempts to disconfirm this diet would be ineffective. This is because it is seen as a threat to their identity rather than just one of their own beliefs. An explanation for their exponential reaction to attacks can be explained by identity- protective cognition (Kahan et al., 2007), a form of motivated reasoning that protects pieces that comprise our identity. This also accounts for the “white male effect” (which happens to be the demographic of the majority of Peterson’s fans), where white males are more likely to perceive risk than females and minorities. This type of cognition alleviates the cognitive dissonance that would be felt if they were to challenge something that Peterson said. Accepting the ambiguousness of this diet would dismantle their vision of Peterson as an all-knowing agent and destroy their use of the confidence heuristic, as he would not be seen as being confidently correct about everything. This is part of their blind conformity to extreme ideals, where dissent is suppressed and their inherent morality is upheld. Another effect in action here is the “hostile media effect” (Vallone & Lepper, 1985), where partisans believe that media is biased against their side, when in reality they are not. Arguments for the carnivore diet

The carnivore diet worked very well with the Peterson’s; Jordan and Mikhaila both overcame depression solely thanks to their food. There are very few success stories like theirs and none of them have been corroborated by science. As per the law of small numbers, a small sample is not more representative than a larger sample (Tversky & Kahneman, 1971).

It is very hard to find medical articles praising the meat-only diet so in the next paragraph I will talk about benefits from the ketogenetic diet. Keto diets have been found to be very effective for rapid weight loss (Masood & Uppaluri, 2019), as an antiepileptic in randomized controlled trials (Neal et al., 2008) and as treatment for some inflammation-induced encephalopathies (Dupuis, Curatolo, Benoist & Auvin, 2015). Interestingly, it has been found that keto diets offer neuroprotection for Parkinson’s disease, Alzheimer’s and amyotrophic lateral sclerosis in mice (Yang & Cheng, 2010). A lot of carnivore diet proponents say that humans are apex predators, meaning that we have always been primary consumers of meat. It has also been found that high- protein diets improve reaction time versus usual diets (Jakobsen et al., 2011). Archeology and evolutionary biology have shown that we have been eating meat for the past two million years, slowly adapting our genome and physiology to diets high in lean meat (Mann, 2000).

A very interesting study done by F. Leroy and colleagues showed the impact of media discourse on the role of meat in the 21st century (Leroy, Brengman, Ryckbosch & Scholliers, 2018). They used The Daily Mail as a case study and found that during moments of crisis (such as mad cow disease or the avian flu) there were conflicting news items sometimes reassuring the public with the benefits of a meat-rich diet for weight control. They also found that most of the narratives displayed contradictions and the majority of the times meat’s positive connotations of strength, vitality and fertility were often confirmed or disconfirmed through medicalization using studies. The discourse was primarily controlled by dieticians, the food industry, vegetarian movements and celebrities. This shows how easily the media can control the narrative in moments of crisis and when fad diets appear.
There are various fallacies and biases that should be taken into account when looking at the Peterson’s public involvement with the diet. Firstly, we must never diminish the veracity of an argument because of the attributes of a person’s nature, this is known as the ad hominem fallacy. It should not matter what we think about Jordan Peterson when assessing the veracity of his claims. Secondly, we must not make the mistake to believe that the carnivore diet is associated with cardio vascular diseases and cancer just because red meat is (Pan et al., 2012). When looking at this without evidence this can lead us to misuse the representativeness heuristic. Even if the carnivore diet did have harmful results, we must not make the logical fallacy of creating an argument from adverse consequences.

Arguments against the carnivore diet

As mentioned before, red meat consumption is associated with cardiovascular diseases and cancer mortality (Pan et al., 2012). Studies have found that meat intake can interact with genetic susceptibility to colorectal cancer, increasing incidence from 0.15 to 0.48 (Ognjanovic, Yamamoto, Maskarinec & Marchand, 2006). The evidence for the adverse effect of excessive meat consumption is clear, maintaining a normal intake of meat along with a high consumption of vegetables, fruits and antioxidant foods seems to be the best for health and longevity (Trichopoulou & Vasilopoulou, 2000).

The claims that the Peterson’s make that their diet is what cured their pathologies needs more evidence to be convincing. This is in line with Hume’s Maxim: that extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence. Their gullibility to their own claims, might be explained by naïve realism, where an individual believes that what they perceive corresponds to their accurate reality. Many diseases get better over time, as they regress back to the mean, without any outside intervention. Certain changes in mental health due to ineffective diets could also be explained by novelty effects, placebo effects and the need to justify all the effort needed to follow a diet.

Conclusion

Mikhaila Peterson’s claims that “many (if not most) health problems are treatable with diet alone” and that you can “heal yourself with diet” are pseudoscientific. Not only is the claim that many health problems are treatable with diets unfalsifiable because it is too broad, but it lacks any boundary conditions. Most carnivore diet emphasize “success stories”, or anecdotal evidence, disregarding any refuting evidence such as failure stories. These are all signs of pseudoscience. Pseudoscience can trick anyone, from bodybuilders to successful psychologists like Jordan Peterson. While it is one thing to partake in diets privately, it is another to promote detrimental diets that have not been corroborated by science to thousands of people. Nevertheless, we must never attribute to malice that which is adequately explained by stupidity (Bloch, 1986).

References

Hei, C. H., Ismail, A., & Ismail, A. (2017). Indicators for Medical Mistrust in Healthcare–A Review and Standpoint from Southeast Asia. Malaysian Journal of Medical Sciences, 24(6), 5–20. doi: 10.21315/mjms2017.24.6.2
Ernst, E. (2001). Rise in popularity of complementary and alternative medicine: reasons and consequences for vaccination. Vaccine, 20. doi: 10.1016/s0264-410x(01)00290-0
Riley, M. (2004). The Rise of Vegetarianism. Nutrition & Dietetics: The Journal of the Dietitians Association of Australia, 61(1), 9. doi: GALE|A116924433
Streit, L. (2019, August 26). Carnivore (All-Meat) Diet. Retrieved December 11, 2019, from https://www.healthline.com/nutrition/carnivore-diet.
Likhodii, S. S., Musa, K., Mendonca, A., Dell, C., Burnham, W. M. I., & Cunnane, S. C. (2005, August 2). Dietary Fat, Ketosis, and Seizure Resistance in Rats on the Ketogenic Diet. Retrieved from https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/j.1528-1157.2000.tb00115.x.
Neal, E. G., Chaffe, H., Schwartz, R. H., Lawson, M. S., Edwards, N., Fitzsimmons, G., ... Cross, J. H. (2008, May 2). The ketogenic diet for the treatment of childhood epilepsy: a randomised controlled trial. Retrieved from https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S1474442208700929.
Peterson, M. (2016, December 7). Don’t Eat That. Retrieved from https://mikhailapeterson.com/about-me/
Mammoser, G. (2018, June 3). Autoimmune Diseases and Meat-Only Diet. Retrieved October 29, 2019, from https://www.healthline.com/health-news/meat-only-diet-eased-autoimmune- disease-symptoms#1.
Bostock, E. C. S., Kirkby, K. C., & Taylor, B. V. M. (2017, March 20). The Current Status of the Ketogenic Diet in Psychiatry. Retrieved December 11, 2019, from https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5357645/.
Ruscio, J. (2000). Risky business: Vividness, availability, and the media paradox. Skeptical Inquirer, 24(2), 22-26. [Reprinted in Nisbet, L. (Ed.) (2001). The gun control debate: You decide (pp. 167-174). Amherst, NY: Prometheus Books.]
Kahan, D. M., Braman, D., Gastil, J., Slovic, P., & Mertz, C. K. (2007). Culture and Identity- Protective Cognition: Explaining the White-Male Effect in Risk Perception. Journal of Empirical Legal Studies, 4(3), 465–505. doi: 10.1111/j.1740-1461.2007.00097.x
Vallone, R. P., Ross, L., & Lepper, M. R. (1985). The hostile media phenomenon: Biased perception and perceptions of media bias in coverage of the Beirut massacre. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 49(3), 577–585. https://doi- org.proxy.library.emory.edu/10.1037/0022-3514.49.3.577
Masood, W., & Uppaluri, K. (2019). Ketogenetic Diet. StatPearls Publishing LLC. Retrieved from https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/books/NBK499830/
Dupuis, N., Curatolo, N., Benoist, J.-F., & Auvin, S. (2015). Ketogenic diet exhibits anti- inflammatory properties. Epilepsia, 56(7). doi: 10.1111/epi.13038
Yang, X., & Cheng, B. (2010, October). Neuroprotective and anti-inflammatory activities of ketogenic diet on MPTP-induced neurotoxicity. Retrieved from https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/20333481.
Mann, N. (2000, April). Dietary lean red meat and human evolution. Retrieved from https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/10918988.
Leroy, F., Brengman, M., Ryckbosch, W., & Scholliers, P. (2018). Meat in the post-truth era: Mass media discourses on health and disease in the attention economy. Appetite, 125, 345–355. https://doi-org.proxy.library.emory.edu/10.1016/j.appet.2018.02.028
Pan A, Sun Q, Bernstein AM, et al. (2012). Red Meat Consumption and Mortality: Results From 2 Prospective Cohort Studies. Arch Intern Med. 2012;172(7):555–563. doi:https://doi.org/10.1001/archinternmed.2011.2287
Ognjanovic, S., Yamamoto, J., Maskarinec, G., & Marchand, L. L. (2006). NAT2, meat consumption and colorectal cancer incidence: an ecological study among 27 countries. Cancer Causes & Control, 17(9), 1175–1182. doi: 10.1007/s10552-006-0061-3
Jakobsen, L. H., Kondrup, J., Zellner, M., Tetens, I., & Roth, E. (2011). Effect of a high protein meat diet on muscle and cognitive functions: A randomised controlled dietary intervention trial in healthy men. Clinical Nutrition, 30(3), 303–311. doi: 10.1016/j.clnu.2010.12.010
Trichopoulou, A., & Vasilopoulou, E. (2000). Mediterranean diet and longevity. British Journal of Nutrition, 84(S2), S205-S209. doi:10.1079/09658219738855
Bloch, A. (1986). Murphys law, book two ; more reasons why things go wrong! Price/Stern/Sloan.

Sofia Wolfson
Emory University
University of Miami

False Confessions

A false confession is the act of admitting to a crime that the accused is not guilty of.

They are one of the leading causes for wrongful convictions in America. In fact, 20 to 25% of people exonerated by DNA analysis had admitted to a crime they did not commit (White, 2003). It is important to note the taxonomy proposed by Kassin & Wrightsman, that puts forward three types of confessions: voluntary, where a person confesses under no influence of external pressures, coerced-compliant, where the subject confesses only to escape an aversive interrogation, to avoid threat or harm, or to perceive benefits and finally coerced-internalized, where the subject genuinely believes they are guilty of the offense (Kassin & Wrightsman 1985). Rogers and Mitchell (1991) noted that one who gives a voluntary confession must have an operating mind that appreciates the consequences of their act, only in cases where they do not have an operating mind then the statement is inadmissible in court.

A confession is, if not the most, powerful weapon for the prosecution. In criminal law, the exoneree falsely confesses if (1) he or she made a false statement to authorities which was treated as a confession, (2) the authorities claimed that the exoneree made such a statement but the exoneree denied it, or (3) the exoneree made a statement that was not an admission of guilt, but was misinterpreted as such by the authorities. The first instance of false confessions can be traced back to the 1936 case of Brown v. Mississippi. This rule created the law that an involuntary confession coerced by police hostility cannot be admissible as evidence. A coerced confession violates the Due Process Clause, which says the state must respect all legal rights of a person, of the 14th amendment.

In psychology the first mention of false confessions was in Munsterberg’s (1908) classical book “On the Witness Stand”, even though this problem has long been recognized the mechanisms and the extent of the problem were unclear. Philip Zimbardo (1967) was one of the first to provide a social psychological perspective, stating that a false confession mitigated by police is nothing more than a result of police incompetence and police viciousness. According to Kassin (2008) there are three processes that lead to false confessions. Firstly police tend to target innocent people due to judgement errors of truth and deception. Secondly, innocent people confess as a result of aggressive interrogation tactics. Thirdly, jurors tend to discredit confessions even if they appear to be coerced. The last point is fundamental as it is directly linked to the evaluation process that determines whether a confession is forced or not.

Kassin (2014) found that the risk of a false confession is higher for impressionable subjects such as juveniles or people with cognitive impairments. Through the use of lawful interrogation tactics such as lengthy isolation, lies about evidence and minimization tactics that imply leniency.

Research

Whereas in high profile cases people tend to falsely confess without coercion (voluntary false confessions) in order to receive attention, self-punishment, to protect another person or for tangible gain (Kassim, 2008), people are usually coerced during an interrogation leading to a coerced compliant confession. It is counter intuitive for a person to falsely confess to a crime, but this discrepancy can be explained by conformity and obedience studies, such as the Milgram (1967) studies where social influence was high enough for people to inflict 400v shocks to others. According to the Criminal Interrogations and Confessions there are specific techniques taught to enforcement agencies for interrogation to obtain confessions (Inbau, 2013). This manual excessively tells readers to rely on the understanding behavioral attitudes, verbal and non-verbal cues. In a study performed by Kassin & Fong (1999) they found that students could not distinguish between videos of innocent and guilty defendants, and when they repeated the study with detectives once again they found similar results as they were also influenced by first impressions and were seen making incorrect prejudgments of guilt.

So why are innocent people targeted? Innocence in itself can be an important cause as a genuine suspect will waive their Miranda rights and talk to the officer, believing that nothing can be used against them because they are innocent. The common thought process that happens here is that the suspect truly believes that truth and justice will prevail and that no matter what they say it will not be used against them because they know that they are innocent. In some cases the presumption of guilt is made when a suspect under investigation flees, even if they are innocent, creating this presumption.

Other systems such as effects of reward and punishment, human decision making, memory and forgetting, self-regulation, social influence, social perception, childhood and adolescence, personality and psychopathology (Kassin, 2014). Even the definition of guilt canbe linked to obedience and power dynamics as it is the “guilt-presumptive social interaction led by an authority figure” (Eades, 2010).

The psychoanalytical perspective suggests that false confessions are made due to the unconscious, compulsive need to confess, where the confession itself gratifies the need for punishment (Reik, 1959). Other needs that can be fulfilled by falsely confessing are those for attention, which Note (1953) coined as a “morbid desire for notoriety”.

Kassin (1997) found that coerced-internalized confessions strongly depend on the preying of a suspect who is vulnerable and highly suggestible. Such individuals are triggered by the presentation of false evidence. People who are more susceptible to suggestions from police tend to have lower intelligence, poor memories, low self-esteem and high anxiety. (Gudjonsson, 1991).

Some groups of people have been shown to confess more commonly than others: youth, intellectually disabled and people with disorders such as autism, attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder, anxiety, depression or are delusional (Gudjonsson, 2003) Although studies showing incidence between juvenile trials and confessions have not been made, many researchers have assumed these two come hand in hand. This can be due to the immaturity of judgement that they show and can be seen in the way that they lack impulse control, delaying gratification and discounting methods for delaying these rewards.

Suggestions on which personalities are most likely to confess have been made focusing on the personality traits that would make them more likely to comply under this kind of pressure. In fact it has been shown that males and Asians have higher levels of the compliance trait and therefore are more likely to confess to crimes they did not commit (Klaver, 2008).

It is very important to understand the coercion that is used to extract a confession and how it influences a suspect’s behavior. Kassin et al. (2007) found that the top interrogation techniques used by North American detectives are (in descending order): isolation from family and friends, doing the interrogation in a small room, finding contradictions in their story, gaining the subject’s trust or using evidence of guilt. Other techniques that may be used are sleep and food deprivation, sensory discomfort and threats. The Supreme Court determined in the Chambers v Florida (1940) that physical violence can even include five days of prolonged questioning and that this would lead to the confessions being unreliable.

According to the manual of interrogations used by police (Inbau & Reid, 1967) the subject must be confined to an unfamiliar room, with no windows, noise or things (except for two chairs and a table). The officer should create a sense of friendship even by minimizing the crime. The difference between minimization and maximization techniques is very important and its effects are well understood by interrogators.

Maximization techniques involve making all kinds of accusations such as interpreting denials, overriding objections and using misleading evidence (Kassin, 2014) This tactic is all used to remind the suspect that his denial is superfluous and that he is unquestionably guilty. Minimization techniques are the complete opposite as they provide a safety net for the accused. The officer might try to suggest justifications for the act (such as outside pressure, mitigating circumstances, provocations), or they might also provide compassion and understanding. This causes the suspect to lower his guard and to minimize the situation in relation to its actual seriousness making a confession seem less important/ justified than it actually is. Finally the officer may ask the suspect to repeat the story over and over again until the “suspect may come to believe that he was the central actor in the crime” (Driver, 1968).

The courts in America are based on an adversarial system, prosecutors are not searching for truth but looking to win their case. Because of this they are more likely to use deceiving techniques or even produce false new evidence. This type of deceit can alter people’s perceptions, beliefs, memories and behaviors (Kassin, 2014).

A final key aspect of false confessions, is how people tend to not discredit them. This is due to the false attribution error. This is the tendency to attribute someone’s behavior to internal causes, rather than external (situational) causes. This can be seen in trials, because as soon as a litigator adds a confession, the jury will be overwhelmed and will see this as the most powerful piece of evidence. For the majority of the population, which we can see represented in jurors, a false confessions seems impossible improbable due to common sense.

Summary

A confession is the most powerful tool that the litigator can have against someone. This is because of the fundamental attribution error. The three types of confessions, voluntary, coerced- compliant and coerced-internalized usually all have different explanations behind them. Whereas voluntary confessions are usually given by an operating mind without any coercion, coerced confessions are a product of external factors. These factors are usually caused by incompetent and vicious law enforcement. Innocent people are often targets because they believe that the truth will prevail. Power dynamics have an important part in extracting a confession, especially when the subject is much more vulnerable.

There are many risk factors such as age, intelligence, personality types and people with psychological disorders such as autism, ADHD, anxiety, depression or that experience delusions.

There are many strategies and manuals regarding how to extract a confession that involve sensory deprivation, isolation, false evidence and maximization and minimization techniques. The use of these, sometimes unethical tactics, is only exacerbated by the adversarial nature of the American judicial system which encourages people to use all possible means to win.

Recommendations

One of the first things that comes to mind is that there should be more experts involved in evaluating these confessions, the law should require them to be the deciding voice on evaluations and the veracity of the confession. More should be done other than just testifying in courts, such as assisting law makers in changing interrogation tactics (possibly making certain ones illegal) as well as the way that they influence the legal process.

There are many other parts of the interrogation process that are legal today that should be banned. This would help reduce the amount of false confessions. For example police officers should limit the duration of interrogations or provide substantial breaks during the process. Secondly, there should be no promises of leniency, such as if the subject confesses they will not be charged. This brings me to the third point which is lying and deceit.
Police officers can lie about many things such as leniency, who they are (in set-up confessions with actors) and what evidence they have. This is especially important in cases where the accused is more fragile and susceptible and just hinting that there is in confoundable evidence against them that would lead to a false coerced-internalized confession. For example cases where the suspect was induced to think that they had had amnesia during the act. Instances of this kind of deceit should be made illegal as they are going to target mostly fragile people who, in my opinion, are even less likely to have committed the crime and more likely to give a coerced-internalized confession. Finally, judges should ask for support from legal and forensic experts when deciding whether to admit a confession as evidence. These hearings should be as common as pretrial hearings for admitting informant testimonies and new forensic evidence.

There are easier ways that interrogators can be controlled and that is through cameras in the interrogation room. This will hold police responsible if they do decide to use coercive techniques solely for extracting a confession and will show the actual confession for other people to judge. The judges and jury should be informed by experts of what a false confession may be, what subjects are at risk and the mechanism behind coercive interrogation techniques.

Works Cited

White, W.S. (2003). Confessions in capital cases. University of Illinois Law Review, 2003, 979–1036. Volume 17—Number 4 253
Kassin, S.M., & Wrightsman, L.S. (1985). Confession evidence. In S. Kassin & L.
Wrightsman (Eds.), The psychology of evidence and trial procedure (pp. 67–94). Beverly Hills, CA: Sage
Brown, et al. v. State of Mississippi (1936).
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Münsterberg, H. (1909).. New York: Doubleday, Page.
Zimbardo,P. G. (1967). The psychology of police confessions. Psychology Today, 1 (2), 17- 20, 25-27.
Rogers, R., & Mitchell, C.N. (1991). Mental health experts and the criminal courts. Ontario, Canada: Thomson Professional.
Kassin, S. M. (2008). False confessions: Causes, consequences, and implications for reform. Current Directions in Psychological Science, 17(4), 249-253.
Inbau, F. E., Reid, J. E., Buckley, J. P., & Jayne, B. C. (2013). Criminal interrogation and confessions (5th ed.). Burlington, MA: Jones & Bartlett Learning
Eades, D. (2010). Sociolinguistics and the legal process. Bristol: Multilingual Matters.
Milgram, S. (1963). Behavioral study of obedience. Journal of Abnormal and Social Psychology, 67, 371-378
Reik, T. (1959). The compulsion to confess. New York: Farrar, Straus, and Cudahy. Chambers v Florida (1940) Note (1953). Voluntary false confessions: A neglected area in criminal administration. Indiana Law Journal, 28, 374-392.
Kassin, S. M. (1997). The psychology of confession evidence. American Psychologist, 52, 221- 233.
Gudjonsson, G. H. (1991). The application of interrogative suggestibility to police

Sofia Wolfson
Emory University
University of Miami