betweeness

Yesterday in the New York Times there was an article about a new book by Dr. Tomasello who "believes children develop what he calls "shared intentionality," a notion of what others expect to happen and hence a sense of a group "we." It is from this shared intentionality that children derive their sense of norms and of expecting others to obey them." The article, called "We may be born with the urge to help," describes the study of 12-24 month old subjects who exhibit helping behavior before parents actually teach manners.

"Drop something in front of a two-year-old, and she's likely to pick it up for you. This is not a learned behavior, psychologist Michael Tomasello argues. Through observations of young children in experiments he himself has designed, Tomasello shows that children are naturally—and uniquely—cooperative."

Even the selfish and independent people have to work with others to reach their goals and this may have been learned in childhood, Tomasello claims. Cooperation is one of the least understood attributes of nature and as research continues the focus on the benefits of cooperation and cultural norms becomes more apparent.

Yesterday i was also reading about yeast proteins in biomolecular interaction networks. Scientists use a term called high betweeness proteins when describing a relationship with low connectivity protein modules. While reading an abstract that is much more in depth than the above sentence i was struck by the need for high betweeness in human relationships.

Being between is not necessarily reflective of connectivity or cooperation but "being between" still has a role to play by creating a linkage of interactions. The linkage of interactions by humans not accustomed to relating with each other can occur through the random use of the betweener. The betweener can or cannot signal any diverse groups by using key commonalities.

Barbara Ehrenreich has a new book out(Bright-Sided: How the Relentless Promotion of Positive Thinking Has Undermined America,) that questions the mammoth business of "positive thinking". Apparently after a diagnosis of breast cancer she became caught up in the cult of the pink ribbons. Those ribbon wearing ladies who were not allowed to express anger, fear, or distress by doctors, families and other pink ribbon wearing "cancer survivors." This immersion in "happiness" in the face of death lead her to research the American obsession with optimism. She wanted to know if poverty, obesity, unemployment and relationship troubles could be overcome with a positive mind set. Later, after much research, she came to the conclusion that the bungled invasion of Iraq and the current economic mess may be intricately tied to this reckless national penchant for self-delusion and a lack of anxious vigilance, necessary to societal survival.

Which leads me back to the betweener. The betweener can create a shorter path to understanding and may directly or indirectly influence later outcomes. There is no recognizable category of people that represent betweener's for they are not easily identified. i absconded with a scientific term(high betweeness) to create a different verbal usage of connecting humans together even when they may not view it as a connection or as being necessary to their survival or existence.

Historically negotiators or mediators played a type of betweener when parties to a dispute reached an impasse and discussions broke down. This is not the definition of a betweener that i'm trying to develop, for a betweener's role is purely linkage and not final resolution. Sometimes the linkage may happen without any of the parties recognizing the importance or change in behavior that happened as a result of "betweeness."

It is a slow process that occurs over time as the betweeners sweeten the pot with unusual connections or insights.

As most of you know i was adamantly against the Iraq invasion. Today i'm adding that i'm against the increase of troops by President Obama in Afghanistan.

Our military is composed of men and women who are trained to kill. That is their job.

As Juan Cole says on his blog today:

The biggest threat of derailment comes from an American public facing 17 percent true unemployment and a collapsing economy who are being told we need to spend an extra $30 billion to fight less than 100 al-Qaeda guys in the mountains of Afghanistan, even after the National Security Adviser admitted that they are not a security threat to the US.

We are increasing our forces to kill more Afghanistan people...we are not going in to make peace. Warriors don't make peace, they kill. Peace only happens after they start to withdraw.
i rest my case.