BOSTON MAGAZINE September 1985 Stop! An Analysis of Boston Driving By Alfie Kohn What you’ve always suspected is absolutely true. Boston is the most dangerous U.S. city in which to drive. One in five insured Boston drivers put in a claim for collision in 1983. The runner-up was New York City, where the rate was a paltry one in eight. You can … Read More
Struggling Toward Literacy
BOSTON GLOBE MAGAZINE September 1, 1985 Struggling Toward Literacy By Alfie Kohn Priscilla is buying food without much sugar these days. Neither her tastes nor her attitude has suddenly changed. It’s just that until recently she couldn’t read the labels in the supermarket. Her diet has improved because she is, at the age of 47, finally struggling toward literacy. One … Read More
Dialing for Dollars
NEW ENGLAND MONTHLY July 1985 Dialing for Dollars By Alfie Kohn It was a nice spread of cold cuts and potato salad, and it was meant as a celebration. In a single week, members of the Audubon Society had been persuaded over the telephone to cough up almost $300,000. Now, on a Sunday afternoon, some of the people who had … Read More
What’s Up, Doc?
BOSTON MAGAZINE December 1984 What’s Up, Doc? Real, Live Family Practitioners By Alfie Kohn Dr. Manuel Lowenhaupt strides into the examining room and sticks out his hand. “Nice to meet you. I think I know the rest of your family.” Nineteen-year-old Brenda Wilkins (a pseudonym, as are all patients’ names in this article) gives a perfunctory greeting and launches into … Read More
Existentialism Here and Now
THE GEORGIA REVIEW Summer 1984 Existentialism Here and Now By Alfie Kohn TWENTY-FIVE YEARS ago, existentialism was a hot piece of intellectual property. A wide reading public was buying up such new books as William Barrett’s Irrational Man: A Study in Existential Philosophy and Viktor Frankl’s From Death Camp to Existentialism (later republished under the title Man’s Search for Meaning). American psychologists were being introduced … Read More
B. F. Skinner: Reinforced by Life
BOSTON MAGAZINE July 1984 B. F. Skinner: Reinforced by Life By Alfie Kohn If a dozen people show up for one of these “sandwich seminars” sponsored by Harvard’s Graduate School of Education, it’s a good day. Every Thursday at noon, a different academic comes to talk about his or her latest research, and a few students drop in with lunch in … Read More
Lottery Lies
BOSTON PHOENIX April 10, 1984 Lottery Lies By Alfie Kohn Sure, I support Freedom of the Press, but I’ll tell you what’s at the top of my list when I get to censor newspapers: photographs of grinning lottery winners. Also stories about what they plan to do with their millions and puff pieces about the lottery with headlines like “The … Read More
Rich Man, Poor Man
BOSTON PHOENIX January 17, 1984 Rich Man, Poor Man A Review of Paul Wachtel’s The Poverty of Affluence By Alfie Kohn Psychoanalyst and social critic Erich Fromm had a talent for making other thinkers angry. In part it may have been a function of his personality (B.F. Skinner in his autobiography described Fromm as an irritating know-it-all), but it is … Read More
Growth Potential
BOSTON PHOENIX September 20, 1983 Growth Potential A Review of Robert Kegan’s The Evolving Self By Alfie Kohn Most people would be surprised, and more than a little amused, to learn how faddish intellectual currents are in the academy. When I was in graduate school at the University of Chicago, Lawrence Kohlberg’s theory of moral development was out and Clifford … Read More
Existential Quizzes
BOSTON PHOENIX July 19, 1983 Existential Quizzes A Review of Walker Percy’s Lost in the Cosmos By Alfie Kohn Were it not for his grounding in American culture — specifically, his evident Southern roots — one might think Walker Percy was French. His equal (and superb) facility at writing philosophical essays, social criticism, and fiction; his novels’ status as genuine … Read More