Hahaha, that's awesome. A nice adjunct to "Why Don't We Just Kill the Kid In the Omelas Hole" [1] (to take another example of a riff on a classic speculative fiction piece, that exposes the concepts to modern sensibilities).
I remember reading this as a naive 14 yr old, because it was one of “the” classics of American literature apparently. It scarred me for months later. I hated it.
Now looking back, I don’t think this story would scar me as much anymore. But I still don’t see the point it. Is it an allegory for something deeper than what it is. I still don’t like it much anymore!
The point is that you can see this lottery as a cruel horror. You immediately hate it. It's obvious to us as the readers because it's outside our experience. Of course we wouldn't regularly just draw lots to stone someone to death, that's crazy and good people wouldn't put up with it, right?
What are the lotteries you don't see, because you're used to them, and they're just part of how the world works, like this one is to the people in the story?
If you're looking, you can find them. But it's also as uncomfortable to find them in real life as it is to read the story. So, most of us are happy to keep some other ideas between us and these lotteries. Those people just didn't do the right things. They should have been more careful, more prepared, more like the people who didn't get stoned. They should have done it the right way. They should have known their place. And if it's their time, well, what are you gonna do, mondays amirite?
And if that's true, then you can be safe because you will do the right things. And nobody has to go to the bother of persuading a society with any changes at the margins on which it sacrifices random people.
None of your other examples are comparable to the story. They're not deliberate deaths caused by adherence to some tradition. They wouldn't be prevented if people "just stopped doing it". They're accidents and violence, that we've taken reasonable steps to prevent (traffic laws, car safety standards, the criminal justice system, worker safety laws,...), but haven't been 100% successful.
The comment I was responding to asked for examples of “lotteries you don't see, because you're used to them, and they're just part of how the world works, like this one is to the people in the story”. The comment wasn't asking for “deliberate deaths caused by adherence to some tradition”.
Expanding the idea of "lottery" that much makes it meaningless, and useless as social commentary. Sometimes people die of cancer, or lightning, or shark attacks, and eventually of old age. What insight is there in calling them "lotteries you don't see"?
At the time (1948), lynchings of Black people accused of crimes (or just not suitablely "humble") were still practiced in the South and some people seriously defended the practice as part of Southern tradition.
And we treat the 2018 murders you're invoking as crimes. Problems to be solved. Most people do not accept that's just how it should be. Almost everyone believes murder should be illegal, policed, prevented where possible, charged prosecuted and punished where it can't be prevented so that it's discouraged. And done through a court / justice system where the process itself isn't just a lottery (whatever improvements we could make here).
The lynchings? Part of the problem was that enough of the societies where they happened did accept those as part of the social order. And they were undisciplined in a way that allowed them to be esentially lotteries -- no requirement for any kind of hearing, no right to defense or appeal, no right for others to know how well any accusation stands up, no right for anyone to even know who the lynchers are. Supposed offenses could be trivial if not entirely fabricated, to cover nothing more than ugly bullying.
The contrast between the two situations could scarcely be starker.
And that's before we get to the ridiculous racial fearmongering that you're selling. You want to talk about 2018 murders? It doesn't look like you want to do that carefully and honesty. If anything the 2018 data shows white people as the disproportionate threat to white people.
Because of the 3,315 white murder victims where an alleged/established perp has been identified closely enough to talk about their race, it appears that 2,677 were killed by white people.
That's 80% of white murder victims killed by white people. This is above proportion of the population that's white at a level that's beyond noise (about 60% of the US is "non-hispanic white", maybe we move up to 75% if we're lumping in white-alone-identifying hispanics and assume that the criminal justice system also errs on the side of assigning perps "white").
514 murders where the perp is black would mean about 15% of white murder victims were killed by black people. Estimates of the portion of the US that's black run about 12-15%, so this tracks proportion.
2018 statistics make it look like, if anything, whites are in more danger from their fellow white people than from a racially integrated society (and this sure tracks the lived experience of most white guys I know).
And if someone says "well, of course white people are killed by more of their fellow white people because that's where they voluntarily associate" ... that wouldn't change the statistically demonstrated nature of the threat, it would only highlight how limited racial integration actually is (and how much more ridiculous it is to complain it "kills whites").
Perhaps like Jackson, I think it can be useful to prompt people in a way that might nudge them to notice on their own.
Giving examples of specific "lotteries" I see is just as likely to activate those psychological mechanisms I talked about (or a partisan frame) as it is to open anyone's eyes.
If you want hints, though, watch for where you see the psychological mechanisms in yourself or others. "Those people just didn't do the right things. They should have been more careful, more prepared, more like the people who didn't get stoned. They should have done it the right way. They should have known their place. And if it's their time, well, what are you gonna do, mondays amirite?"
If you hear someone saying something like that, if you find yourself saying it... interrogate that. There may sometimes be real truth to it. But ask yourself: is that really all there is to it? Does the world have to be that way? If it were your child who "drew the lot", would you be satisfied?
Some may notice this response is in good company with the other psychological mechanisms we use to avoid confronting "lotteries."
Like "they didn't prepare correctly" or "they didn't do the right things" or "mondays amirite" there may even be cases where it's true, and a robust analysis of lottery situations sometimes reveals local maxima or tradeoffs that are tough to shake.
But they can also be spoken with a post-hoc resignation that discourages the very analysis that might confirm them... because such an analysis might also disaffirm them.
One question to ask is whether a way of addressing a "lottery" encourages you to stop analysis and reflection, or to work your way through analysis and reflection.
That's a great way of announcing that you didn't read my comment, which actually accounts for the principled version of the point you're ideologically abusing.
Net deaths is what matters here. Obviously they aren’t perfect, but no human system is.
The market for effective drugs is global. FDA regulations have a significant but not that burdensome influence on drug discovery. At the other end, the opioid epidemic is a demonstration of just how many deaths can result from insufficient regulation of just a single drug family.
Which is why FDA regulations vs zero regulation have saved vastly more lives than they cost. Conservative estimates put it somewhere in the 2 orders of magnitude range.
> Which is why FDA regulations vs zero regulation have saved vastly more lives than they cost.
The first book I linked to did the research and showed otherwise. The key aspect usually not admitted is the deaths caused by drugs not developed due to costly regulations.
I hope you can understand why a book with a “Publication date : December 31, 1974” might have some gaps here in terms of relevant research and current regulations.
As to the leaded gas issue, that’s a function of less strict regulations allowing unleaded gas. Many countries have banned it without issue.
Peltzman had 10 years of statistical data to make the case. Any subsequent study that does not take into account lives saved by drugs never developed because of regulation costs is not a useful study.
As for leaded gas, the problem was changing the engine designs would require recertification so expensive that people just keep using 1960s engine designs.
Regulations have an effect of stifling new development - in drugs and airplane engines.
As for drugs, there is a way out. Allow legally consenting adults the right to sign a piece of paper stating that they understand that drug X is not approved by the FDA and they take it at their own risk.
> Peltzman had 10 years of statistical data to make the case. Any subsequent study that does not take into account lives saved by drugs never developed because of regulation costs is not a useful study.
You say that as if no such study exists. They do and the costs are known to reasonable levels of accuracy, what’s generally excluded is the benefit of drug regulations. Regulations on opioids alone (granted there’s a lot of opioids) have saved million of American lives since that book was published, but it’s easy to exclude such numbers if you want to make regulations look bad.
> As for leaded gas, the problem was changing the engine designs would require recertification so expensive that people just keep using 1960s engine designs.
Nope, ~80% of existing light aircraft in the US can 100% legally fly on unleaded gasoline. This isn’t a technical problem or the burden of regulations. This is a group of people that didn’t want to spend money because the transition isn’t free.
> Regulations on opioids alone (granted there’s a lot of opioids) have saved million of American lives since that book was published, but it’s easy to exclude such numbers if you want to make regulations look bad.
Opioids were approved by the FDA, and were by prescription only.
How did your studies account for drugs never developed? The rate of new drug development dropped drastically after the 1962 Amendments.
By prescription only is a regulation. Without that Coca-Cola would still have coca leaves.
> drugs never developed
The way you get good data on that is to look at the actual drug discovery process and how decisions are made.
Automated in vitro testing has been used, but the number of potential compounds make that impractical even with essentially zero regulation at that point. Once you get down to some actual evidence for a drug funding is surprisingly plentiful. The often quoted 2 billion per drug includes all the failures, for any given candidate the cost is low at every individual stage until you have something with significant promise. Which makes sense as the average drug is worth vastly more than 2 billion so at every stage further investment looks viable.
>Regulation of drugs has caused deaths due to high cost of compliance with FDA regulations meaning far fewer drugs get developed that may save lives.
What about the lives saved by crappy unsafe drugs coming to an unregulated market, either because they're snake oil / ineffective but marketed as potent, or because they're actively harmful, or non properly tested?
As for the book suggestions: free market economists in favor of deregulation? Color me surprised!
I think there are a few things that make it "worthy" of literary consideration:
1. Read a straight horror story, it's quite a surprising twist at the end
2. A critique on the senselessness of following tradition just for the sake of it -- the way a society can just go along with something without really understanding why
3. The banality of evil, and how it can often look like something totally ordinary, rather than some nefarious demon
I loved it when I first read it -- it truly shocked it in middle school and I still have a visceral feeling when thinking about it many years later
Usually quotes are used to question something another person or other people say so I would think you’d quote “classics” or “classics of American literature” to question this story actually being a classic as many other people might say.
Putting quotes on the word “the” in this context seems to be for emphasis and I’ve seen this numerous times with non-native speakers.
If you are a native speaker I don’t mean to be rude, I’m just curious.
Quotes are also used to quote something verbatim, which is their more traditional role than "questioning". They're also used to refer to a term in a meta way - like I did with the term questioning just now.
In this case, he uses them for emphasis, like one would write "it's considered one of THE classics".
I’m a native English speaker, my quote was trying to question whether it is really one the classics of American literature or not. Might not be appropriate use though. “The classics of American literature” might have been more appropriate.
The point is any society and micro-society works like that in many cases. Doesn't have to be the specific form in the story (don't want to spoilt it for others).
Can we imagine a world where we can question everything? Where we have the means to do so?
The Lottery parallels plenty of other works - of the banality of evil. Of how we can turn to cruelty through our traditions and patterns. But can we imagine a future where we create space to ask questions? Constantly?
I really liked the audio version. I would never listen to those ai generated ones, but I guess they might be better than the screen reader for blind people.
Reminds me of circumcision. Nobody questioning, just treating it as a standard thing to torture babies.
What stood out to me was how normal everyone acts. No villains or drawn out speeches just people treating something horrifying like it’s another town chore. That’s probably the part that aged the best (or worst).
Why one small American town won’t stop stoning its residents to death -https://archiveofourown.org/works/73396436?view_adult=true