November 2020

by Danielle Allen, Jamelle Bouie, Jason Brennan, Sarah Smarsh, Astra Taylor,

[Letter from the Bekaa Valley]

State of Exception

Lebanon’s cruel solution to the refugee crisis

by Alexander Dziadosz,

[Essay]

Making Meaning

Against “relevance” in art

by Garth Greenwell,

Harper’s Magazine welcomes reader response.

Email us about articles in the magazine.

[Harper’s Index]

Portion of local U.S. parks that saw an increase in visitors this spring : 2/3

[Harper’s Index]

Portion of U.S. parks-and-recreation agencies that have been asked to reduce spending this fiscal year : 2/3

[Harper’s Index]

Percentage of dust particles in U.S. national parks that are plastic : 4

[Harper’s Index]

Factor by which the annual amount of plastic pollution accumulating in bodies of water is expected to increase by 2040 : 2.6

[Harper’s Index]

By which the amount accumulating on land is expected to increase : 2.8

[Harper’s Index]

Approximate number of square miles that have been lost from the Louisiana coast in the past one hundred years : 2,000

[Harper’s Index]

Estimated percentage change by 2100 in the mortality rate in Accra, Ghana, as a result of temperature-related deaths : +19

[Harper’s Index]

In Oslo, Norway : -28

[Harper’s Index]

Percentage by which the population of the average wildlife species has declined globally since 1970 : 68

[Harper’s Index]

In Latin America and the Caribbean : 94

[Harper’s Index]

Rank of deforestation among the causes of wildlife decline on land : 1

[Harper’s Index]

Estimated number of animals that have been killed or displaced by Australian wildfires over the past two years : 3,000,000,000

[Harper’s Index]

Estimated percentage of wildland firefighters in California who are prisoners : 14

[Harper’s Index]

Percentage by which the U.S. prison population has dropped since the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic : 8

[Harper’s Index]

Portion of its viewership that the cable channel A&E lost after canceling Live PD in the wake of George Floyd’s killing : 1/2

[Harper’s Index]

Percentage increase in police stops of black drivers in the month after a Trump rally was held in a given area in 2016 : 4.2

[Harper’s Index]

Estimated number of stops for which this accounted : 30,000

[Harper’s Index]

Percentage of black Americans who wish police officers would spend less time in their neighborhoods : 19

[Harper’s Index]

Who wish they would spend more : 20

[Harper’s Index]

Percentage decrease in the length of the average work meeting since the onset of the pandemic : 20

[Harper’s Index]

Percentage by which employees in open-plan offices took more sick leave than those in private offices before COVID-19 : 62

[Harper’s Index]

Percentage by which the unemployment rate of recently graduated U.S. physics majors exceeds that of art history majors : 60

[Harper’s Index]

Estimated amount that South Korea was willing to spend to save a single life in the first phase of the pandemic : $6,682,000

[Harper’s Index]

That the United States was willing to spend : $87,000

[Harper’s Index]

Number of Americans who have become billionaires over the course of the pandemic : 24

[Harper’s Index]

Average factor by which countries led by men have had more COVID-19 deaths than countries led by women : 1.9

[Harper’s Index]

Portion of U.S. adults who think it is probably or definitely true that the outbreak was planned by “powerful people” : 1/4

[Harper’s Index]

Percentage by which women are more likely than men to see some truth in the theory : 38

[Harper’s Index]

Factor by which mainstream newspapers cite organizations that oppose climate action more often than those that support it : 2

[Harper’s Index]

Portion of Americans who admit to not relying on the news sources they regard as the most trustworthy : 1/3

[Harper’s Index]

Percentage by which Republicans are less likely than Democrats to say that health officials are handling the pandemic well : 24

[Harper’s Index]

By which they were more likely than Democrats to say so in March : 14

[Harper’s Index]

Portion of Americans who have yet to complete a census form who say they would refuse to answer the door for a census worker : 2/5

[Harper’s Index]

Percentage of eligible U.S. voters who do not have a government-issued photo ID : 11

[Harper’s Index]

Minimum amount that five states have spent implementing voter-ID laws since 2006 : $36,000,000

[Harper’s Index]

Number of hours that Texas state lawyers have spent litigating voter-ID laws since 2011 : 12,400

[Harper’s Index]

Percentage of Americans who would support testing presidential candidates’ cognitive ability : 67

[Harper’s Index]

Who would support administering drug tests to candidates : 70

[Harper’s Index]

Portion of Americans who think neither Joe Biden nor Donald Trump would make a good president : 1/4

Readings

Download PDF

[Essay]

Ad Nauseam

by Tim Hwang,

[Complaint]

Mother Knows Best

[X-File]

Deep Space 19

by Edward J. Steele,

[Profile]

Bleat House

by Matthew Hongoltz-Hetling,

[Poem]

Person

by Blanca Varela,Translated by Carlos Lara,

[Property]

Penal Estate

[Offense]

Whine On You Crazy Diamond

by Russ Diamond,

[Blurbs]

Blue Lives Batter

[Adaptation]

Eyes on the Prize

by Cameron Radford,

[Dissent]

Garden-Variety Racism

by Bernette Johnson,

[Grievances]

Grave Concerns

[Fiction]

Fata Morgana

by Wolfgang Koeppen,Translated by Michael Hofmann,

[Drawing]

Fuzzy Math

[Threat]

Militia Intent

by Darryl Daniels,

[Complaints]

A Gobble Without a Cause

The Handshake, a painting by Peter Uka, whose work was on view last month at Galerie Voss, in Düsseldorf, Germany.

“Midwest Materials,” a photograph by Julie Blackmon, whose work was on view last month at Robert Mann Gallery, in New York City.

“Palmistry in the Shadows,” a photograph by Devin Yalkin, from the series Alone Together, which is on view at the Photo Vogue Festival, in Milan.

“Liminal Reflections,” a photograph by Devin Yalkin, from the series Alone Together, which is on view at the Photo Vogue Festival, in Milan.

Portrait of My Anxiety, a painting by Margaret Curtis, whose work was on view in August at Tracey Morgan Gallery, in Asheville, North Carolina.

[Letters]

EEG experts disagreed on whether, in the future, brain waves could be used to read dreams and long-term memories.

[Findings]

Turkish doctors reported a case of penile autoamputation with religious delusion.

[Findings]

AI researchers determined that large language models pose no existential threat to humanity and created an AI algorithm that can detect scientific articles written by other AI algorithms.

[Findings]

Mammoths may have been killed with planted pikes rather than with thrown spears.

[Findings]

The birth of a white buffalo fulfilled a Lakota prophecy portending better times.

[Findings]

Wildfires near Canadian mines were found to have released unprecedented levels of arsenic, and wildfires in Maui were making residents unhappy.

[Findings]

Living near oil and gas development sites depresses people who are trying to get pregnant.

[Findings]

The Journal of Pediatric Genetics retracted a study on Islamic beliefs concerning the possible supernatural causes of birth defects on the grounds that the research lacked a scientific basis.

[Findings]

A researcher noticed that a Tartessian slate tablet depicting battle scenes also contains a previously unknown alphabet.

[Findings]

The royal swan marker reported that the depression of the Thames population, previously noted during the late queen’s reign, continues under the king.

[Findings]

Researchers claimed that researchers have been underreporting same-sex sexual activity among animals.

[Findings]

Cocaine trafficking was found to threaten the golden-cheeked warbler.

[Findings]

A survey of 7 million parliamentary speeches across eight countries and several decades found that politicians use less complex language as it gets hotter.

[Findings]

The diet of Japanese youth is growing more confectionary, and Americans are poisoning themselves more severely.

[Findings]

Unaffiliated voters are growing more spiteful toward both Democrats and Republicans.

[Findings]

Researchers debuted an 88 percent accurate hate-speech detector and a superior sarcasm detector and may be able to send messages back in time.

[Findings]

Increased border-wall height was tentatively linked to a thirtyfold increase in the rate of migrant drowning deaths off San Diego.

[Findings]

Women bond more closely with therapy bulls than men do.

[Findings]

The perceived onset of old age increases by approximately one year for every four to five years a person ages.

[Findings]

A study of brain-injured but not brain-dead patients found that many would have survived had their families not chosen to withdraw life support.

[Findings]

Sets of both fraternal and identical twins exhibit internally similar metacognitive abilities, suggesting that metacognition is environmental rather than heritable.

[Findings]

Southern California beach erosion is expected to increase by 50 percent by 2050.

[Findings]

Archaeologists translated cuneiform tablets recording shareholder agreements for the first company in Anatolia.

[Findings]

The melting of the poles is making Earth’s days longer.

[Findings]

The hatching season of a male spear squid (Heterololigo bleekeri) determines whether he will pursue bold or sneaky mating tactics.

[Findings]

A bionic eye deciphered a scroll carbonized by the eruption of Mount Vesuvius that reveals the burial place of Plato, who was found to have complained about the musical abilities of the enslaved Thracian girl who played the flute for him as he lay dying.

[Findings]

Humans are losing their ability to digest cellulose.

[Findings]

Toxicity has remained a consistent feature of online interactions since 1989.

[Findings]

Microplastics were found in sixty-two of sixty-two human placentas from a biobank in Texas.

[Findings]

A metal scar on the surface of the white dwarf WD 0816-310 indicated that it has cannibalized other bodies in its orbit.

[Findings]

An orca acting alone killed a great white shark and ate its liver.

[Findings]

Genomic analysis indicated that psychedelic mushrooms emerged around the time of the Mesozoic–Cenozoic mass extinction.

[Findings]

The playing speed of a metal guitarist directly correlates with his intrasexual competitiveness but not his mating success.

[Findings]

Depression in humans is correlated with higher body temperature, and cold-water swimming mitigates menopause symptoms.

[Findings]

Researchers warned that, as temperatures rise, humans should prepare for more diarrhea.

[Findings]

A mother is 4.6 percent more likely to give birth in the same month she was born, and adjacent siblings are 12.1 percent more likely to be born in the same month as one another.

[Findings]

Electric eel discharge transforms the DNA of zebrafish larvae.

[Findings]

An AI that was fed the employment and health data of six million Danes turned out to be more accurate than existing sociological methods at predicting if a given person was about to die.

[Findings]

Onshore wind turbines severely deter German bats from foraging.

[Findings]

Astrophysicists argued that the development of advanced alien technology requires an atmosphere composed of at least 18 percent oxygen.

[Findings]

Off the Five Finger Islands, a team of cetologists aboard the Glacier Seal conducted an extended conversation with a female humpback named Twain.

[Findings]

True crabs independently evolved to live out of the ocean up to seventeen times.

[Findings]

The average American girl born in 2019 will take prescription drugs for more than half her life.

[Findings]

The U.S. municipal bond market penalizes communities in proportion to the percentage of their population that is black but generally ignores their vulnerability to climate change.

[Findings]

Somalis, surveyed as proxies for earlier inhabitants of the Cradle of Humankind, were found to fear spiders less than scorpions but snakes to the expected degree.

[Findings]

The collapse of the Qing Dynasty was driven by the quadrupling of its population and consequent rural impoverishment, an overabundance of qualified applicants for elite academic degrees, rising costs and trade deficits, and falling productivity, which were variously associated with internal unrest, opium imports, and the depletion of silver reserves.

[Findings]

Geoscientists were confident that, given access to the oldest barnacles on the flaperon of Malaysia Airlines Flight 370, they could help pinpoint its crash site.

[Findings]

Scientists were not certain whether the globally synchronized waves observed in the brains of wakeful rats on ketamine or LSD were a cause or a symptom of hallucinations.

[Findings]

Neuropsychologists developed a shorter IQ test for children with shorter attention spans.

[Findings]

The depression-prone are less attracted to the political right.

[Findings]

The nocturnal heart rate of young men can be predicted by their female partners’ daytime feelings of intimacy or annoyance.

[Findings]

Men who pose for photos with cats are seen as less datable.

[Findings]

Men can rate the facial attractiveness of women without paying attention, but women cannot do the same for men; gay men find the faces of purportedly fertile women and men more attractive; adolescents and adults both rate the faces of children younger than 4.6 years old as more appealing than those of older children; and body odors associated with fear quicken the visual processing of others’ facial expressions of fear.

[Findings]

Beak covering and nape-feather ruffling indicate calmness in sulfur-crested cockatoos.

[Findings]

Repetitive negative thinking was associated with an increased risk of dementia, and self-harm in female adolescents may prevent suicide.

[Findings]

Psychopaths recommend harsher punishments for homicides, whether accidental or motivated by profit, but exhibit relatively low concern about killing in general.

[Findings]

Online murder-for-hire advertisements seek to convey professionalism yet tend not to provide references up front.

[Findings]

Convalescent plasma helps Syrian hamsters fight SARS-CoV-2.

[Findings]

Plastic surgeons suggested that Botox could reduce the expression of negative emotions by masked faces.

[Findings]

The presence of a professional sports team increases a city’s seasonal flu deaths.

[Findings]

A psycholinguistic analysis of posts on Twitter and Weibo during COVID-19 lockdowns found that residents of Lombardy grew increasingly focused on leisure and residents of Wuhan grew increasingly focused on religion.

[Findings]

Recent toilet-paper hoarding was more prevalent among Americans than Europeans and more prevalent among the old than the young.

[Findings]

Gerontologists cautioned that it would be difficult to predict individual Holocaust survivors’ trauma or resilience in response to the pandemic, which was expected to strengthen the market for laboratory mouse-suffocation chambers.

[Findings]

Researchers proposed replacing the paradigm of extinction with that of evanescence.

[Findings]

Climate change was expected to drive American lobsters to seek deeper waters, beavers to colonize new parts of Canada, and wolf spiders in the high Arctic to produce a second annual brood.

[Findings]

Humboldt penguins who nest in the open have more pollutant metabolites in their blood than do penguins who nest in guano-rich burrows.

[Findings]

The tiger snakes of Perth have heavy metals in their livers.

[Findings]

Satellite imagery captured ecosystem damage from fog loss, and aerial photography confirmed the existence of Roman military camps revealed by the 2018 Welsh drought.

[Findings]

A young woman in a Vilnius plague pit was found to have been coinfected with yaws.

[Findings]

A man buried at Newgrange passage tomb was found to be the product of first-degree incest, indicating that he was a member of the elite.

[Findings]

Scientists trained subjects to exercise control over a single neuron, linked the hippocampus to regret, and concluded that humans smell in stereo.

[Findings]

Straight Slovakians assume that a woman in high heels will inspire more intense mate-guarding.

[Findings]

Women who receive continuous rather than interrupted sutures for perineal repair after vaginal delivery report higher sexual levels of arousal and orgasmic function.

[Findings]

Pinkness predicts aggression in flamingos.

[Findings]

Chimpanzees have a bone in their hearts.

[Findings]

Rising population density, poor hygiene, and cold, moist weather led to a spike in ear infections in the Levant around 4000 bc, and postwar atmospheric nuclear testing led to increased cloud thickness and rainfall in the Shetland Islands.

[Findings]

A period of global coolness 4,200 years ago accelerated the diversification of japonica rice.

[Findings]

Ostrich-shell beads indicating the onset of the Initial Upper Paleolithic were found to have reached Shuidonggou by 39000 bc, and strontium isotope levels revealed the social exchange of ostrich-shell beads during the Late Quaternary in the Karoo Supergroup.

[Findings]

Interviews with reptile poachers in southwestern Balochistan indicated that the Caspian cobra, the desert monitor, the Iranian mastigure, Maynard’s longnose sand snake, the Persian spider gecko, and the Tartar sand boa were being captured for use by snake charmers.

[Findings]

The mating calls of male Panama cross-banded tree frogs are synchronized to confuse bats and midges.

[Findings]

Arson dogs’ noses remain better than lab equipment at detecting certain accelerants.

[Findings]

CBD improves quality of life in arthritic elderly dogs.

[Findings]

Finnish scientists identified the genomic region associated with fearfulness in Great Danes.

[Findings]

The decreasing transpiration of plants, a result of rising carbon dioxide levels, was partly to blame for recent heat waves in northern latitudes.

[Findings]

Peatlands, which now store roughly as much carbon as Earth’s forests or its atmosphere, can hold more carbon if exposed to low-intensity fires.

[Findings]

Inland waters are emitting previously unaccounted-for levels of carbon dioxide, and freshwater insects are flourishing even as terrestrial insects are dying off.

[Findings]

Ocean acidity can now be predicted five years ahead of time.

[Findings]

Green snow is spreading across Antarctica.

[Findings]

The deepest octopus observed to date was photographed in the Java Trench.

[Findings]

Terrestrial bacteria can grow on extraterrestrial nutrients; the black hole nearest Earth was discovered in the constellation Telescopium; and X-ray experiments conducted at the European Synchrotron indicated that moisture is destroying The Scream.

[Findings]

A fungal parasite that afflicts the reproductive organs of millipedes was named in honor of Twitter.

[Findings]

In Maine, a loon stabbed a bald eagle through the heart.

[Findings]

Six new coronaviruses were discovered in bats.

[Findings]

Falling levels of tourist trash during pandemic lockdowns was found to have caused rat infighting, and macaques were reported to have attacked a lab assistant in Delhi and stolen vials of COVID-19-infected blood, which at least one monkey then tried to eat.

[Findings]

Vampire bats who are strangers will groom one another before sharing blood via regurgitation.

[Findings]

Skin swabs are three times as accurate as fecal samples at predicting a person’s age.

[Findings]

Young burglars are driven first by thrills, then by skills.

Cover design by Tina Smith Microfiche

November 2020

What’s in a Vote?

Electoral politics in an ailing democracy

State of Exception

Lebanon’s cruel solution to the refugee crisis

Making Meaning

Against “relevance” in art

Portion of local U.S. parks that saw an increase in visitors this spring : 2/3

Portion of U.S. parks-and-recreation agencies that have been asked to reduce spending this fiscal year : 2/3

Percentage of dust particles in U.S. national parks that are plastic : 4

Factor by which the annual amount of plastic pollution accumulating in bodies of water is expected to increase by 2040 : 2.6

By which the amount accumulating on land is expected to increase : 2.8

Approximate number of square miles that have been lost from the Louisiana coast in the past one hundred years : 2,000

Estimated percentage change by 2100 in the mortality rate in Accra, Ghana, as a result of temperature-related deaths : +19

In Oslo, Norway : -28

Percentage by which the population of the average wildlife species has declined globally since 1970 : 68

In Latin America and the Caribbean : 94

Rank of deforestation among the causes of wildlife decline on land : 1

Estimated number of animals that have been killed or displaced by Australian wildfires over the past two years : 3,000,000,000

Estimated percentage of wildland firefighters in California who are prisoners : 14

Percentage by which the U.S. prison population has dropped since the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic : 8

Portion of its viewership that the cable channel A&E lost after canceling Live PD in the wake of George Floyd’s killing : 1/2

Percentage increase in police stops of black drivers in the month after a Trump rally was held in a given area in 2016 : 4.2

Estimated number of stops for which this accounted : 30,000

Percentage of black Americans who wish police officers would spend less time in their neighborhoods : 19

Who wish they would spend more : 20

Percentage decrease in the length of the average work meeting since the onset of the pandemic : 20

Percentage by which employees in open-plan offices took more sick leave than those in private offices before COVID-19 : 62

Percentage by which the unemployment rate of recently graduated U.S. physics majors exceeds that of art history majors : 60

Estimated amount that South Korea was willing to spend to save a single life in the first phase of the pandemic : $6,682,000

That the United States was willing to spend : $87,000

Number of Americans who have become billionaires over the course of the pandemic : 24

Average factor by which countries led by men have had more COVID-19 deaths than countries led by women : 1.9

Portion of U.S. adults who think it is probably or definitely true that the outbreak was planned by “powerful people” : 1/4

Percentage by which women are more likely than men to see some truth in the theory : 38

Factor by which mainstream newspapers cite organizations that oppose climate action more often than those that support it : 2

Portion of Americans who admit to not relying on the news sources they regard as the most trustworthy : 1/3

Percentage by which Republicans are less likely than Democrats to say that health officials are handling the pandemic well : 24

By which they were more likely than Democrats to say so in March : 14

Portion of Americans who have yet to complete a census form who say they would refuse to answer the door for a census worker : 2/5

Percentage of eligible U.S. voters who do not have a government-issued photo ID : 11

Minimum amount that five states have spent implementing voter-ID laws since 2006 : $36,000,000

Number of hours that Texas state lawyers have spent litigating voter-ID laws since 2011 : 12,400

Percentage of Americans who would support testing presidential candidates’ cognitive ability : 67

Who would support administering drug tests to candidates : 70

Portion of Americans who think neither Joe Biden nor Donald Trump would make a good president : 1/4

Readings

Ad Nauseam

Mother Knows Best

Deep Space 19

Bleat House

Person

Penal Estate

Whine On You Crazy Diamond

Blue Lives Batter

Eyes on the Prize

Garden-Variety Racism

Grave Concerns

Fata Morgana

Fuzzy Math

Militia Intent

A Gobble Without a Cause

Letters

You Say You Want a Revolution

Harper’s Index

What’s in a Vote?

Electoral politics in an ailing democracy

The Sultan of Sewers

State of Exception

Lebanon’s cruel solution to the refugee crisis

The Grove

The Enemies Briefcase

Secret powers and the presidency

Three Poems

Making Meaning

Against “relevance” in art

Is America Ungovernable?

The difference between protest and reform

New Poets

New Books

EEG experts disagreed on whether, in the future, brain waves could be used to read dreams and long-term memories.

Researchers claimed that researchers have been underreporting same-sex sexual activity among animals.

Cocaine trafficking was found to threaten the golden-cheeked warbler.

Researchers debuted an 88 percent accurate hate-speech detector and a superior sarcasm detector and may be able to send messages back in time.

Increased border-wall height was tentatively linked to a thirtyfold increase in the rate of migrant drowning deaths off San Diego.

A study of brain-injured but not brain-dead patients found that many would have survived had their families not chosen to withdraw life support.