Summary Of Freakonomics Chapter 2

There are three distinct historical interpretations of the Klan as an organization. The first historical interpretations argue that the Klan was established as an organization answering to a society in need of help with maintaining social order and law. Historians within this interpretation emphasize the playfulness and theatrical nature of the Klan which is unique to this particular historical perspective. This era of interpretation focuses very little on the violence that the Klan inflicted on Southern society, often completely eliminating its violent accounts from their historical works. The second historical interpretations argue that the Klan was established as a racially motivated political organization. Historians argued that because of the Klan’s origins as a racially motivated organization, the Klan would go on to establish political dominance and control over much of Southern society. The third and final historical interpretation argues that the Ku Klux Klan was established as a result to a struggling plantation system. Within this historical era of interpretation, Michael W. Fitzgerald describes the Klan as a non-violent enforcer that was created to control petty theft and labor riots. The establishment of the Klan as a political organization with race

Shawn Lay, from “ The Second Invisible Empire and Toward a New Historical Appraisal of the Ku Klux Klan of the 1920s”, rejects the view of the KKK as a radical fringe group comprised of marginal men and instead characterizes the KKK of the 1920s as a

how the KKK brutally and violently show casted their beliefs, which led to the demise of

The various facts, statistics, anecdotes, and studies used in chapter 2 are as follows: the lynching of blacks from 1890-1969 statistic, the outline of Stetson Kennedy’s efforts to take down the KKK, Drew Pearson’s radio report from November 17, 1948, the price of term life insurance falling in the 1990s, David Hillis’ New York Times article, the Weakest Link voting data, commonly used real-estate terms, the dating site data, and the New York 1989 mayoral race. I found the outline of Stetson Kennedy’s efforts to be the most convincing piece of evidence; The anecdote is a primary example of how powerful information can be, how hoarding it is extremely effective for inducing fear, and how revealing it empowers the public. I found the price term of life insurance falling in the 1990s to be the second most

Branches of the Klan were instituted in nearly every Southern state making it difficult for African Americans to maintain their positions of power. In an effort to maintain social order, the Klan made its efforts to stop the assimilation of African Americans into society known. In Chapter 15 of his book, The Tragic Era: The Revolution after Lincoln, Claude G. Bowers argues that the Ku Klux Klan was an organization that used fear and a sense of mystery as a means of controlling African Americans, its sense of mystery being its trademark. The Klan’s mystery was made up of eccentric costumes and code names for members that helped maintain the sense of secrecy. The Klan, adorned in white robes and often referring to themselves as “ghosts”, used the superstitious beliefs of African Americans in an effort to keep the newly freed slaves whom the Klan believed were the primary crime committers out of society. The author states that because the Klan was preventing African Americans from taking a more predominant role in society, their efforts further resulted in a crime free environment. Because it’s systematic tactics were said to be decreasing the rape culture in southern society and increasing the positive attitudes of servants on southern plantations, it appeared to white southerners that the Klan was making an effective and conscious effort to regulate the social caste system of the time. The author argues that it was not until the emergence of the Klan that both white men and women began to feel a sense of security. A crime free environment was essential to Southern society at the time. A society with a distinct social order was one that would produce the most effective economy. The following historians all agree that the maintaining of social order was one of the primary reasons that the Klan was established as an organization. Never

In Document B they tried to bribe a black former slave, whose name was Colby, who was elected to the Georgia State Legislature. “They offended me 5,000 dollars to go with them and said they would pay me 2,500 in cash if I would let another man go to the legislature in my place”. The KKK knew that people in high positions could change the laws so they went after them with threats or money to change their minds. When Colby refused their bribe they took him to the woods and beat him for 2-3 hours. This just shows the amount they're willing to go to keep injustices

In Chapter 2, the authors discuss the economic term known as "information asymmetry." As the book explains, the term information asymmetry refers to when a person uses his information advantage to gain power to the detriment of others. The discussion of information asymmetry begins with a brief history of the Ku Klux Klan. According to the authors, much of the Klan's power in the 1940s lies in the fact that it maintains so much secrecy in everything it does. After World War II, a man named Stetson Kennedy leads to the Klan's ultimate downfall by exposing many of its secrets. Kennedy infiltrates the Klan by becoming a member of a Klan group in Atlanta, where he learns all of the group's secret rituals, names and handshakes, as well as its hierarchy.

David Chalmers has written many books in the political science genre, but Hooded Americanism was the first book that he wrote that was meant to be a reference. Anyone that wants to travel into one of the darkest areas of our nation’s history would enjoy reading this book. Readers that want the facts and truth behind the Klan, and are not satisfied with only seeing the negative image that the media has portrayed of the Klan, should read this book. The book was clearly written for an adult audience. Towards the end of the book, David Chalmers goes into detail when describing various acts of violence that the KKK performed. For example, in chapter forty-five, the author describes floggings of African Americans, and burning of Jewish synagogues. Without these detailed accounts though, the author would have been unsuccessful in his purpose for writing. When reading, it became apparent that Chalmers

The KKK, share cropping, riots, and societal expectations led to escalated racism violence in the 1920’s. The KKK, a popular anti-African American group, had a huge influence on the country with over four million members (Wright 6). The KKK intimidated the black population “with fiery crosses, tar and feathers, and other means [lynchings]. . .” (Kyvig 164) to warn them to not pursue their rights to vote. Another method used by the KKK was rape and torture during ‘kluxing’ raids (Blee 13).

Topic: In 1866, the Ku Klux Klan was founded by many former confederate veterans in retaliation to their current Republican Party’s Reconstruction-era policies aimed at establishing political and economic equality for blacks. The Reconstruction era sparked by President Lincoln’s Emancipation Proclamation clearly defined that the days of white superiority were in dissolution. Through a willful ignorance and an insecurity of what might postlude the civil rights movement, the KKK rose, using terror in pursuit of their white supremacist agenda. Nathan Bedford Forrest, a former Lieutenant general in the Civil war, became the KKK's first Grand Wizard. Now with a steady leader the klan became a persistent political party aimed at dismantling the increasingly

​Freakonomics is a book that explores the many possibilities of why some things are the way they are. Principles of everyday life are examined and explained while Steven Levitt and Stephen Dubner search for logic in statistical economics. This book answers the questions: how can things affect what people do, why are things the way they are, and why experts routinely make up statistics. This book highlights the commonalities between schoolteachers and sumo wrestlers as well as the Ku Klux Klan and real-estate agents, the life of drug dealers, criminals, and the art of parenting.

What they were all responding to was the force of Levitt’s underly- ing belief: that the modern world, despite a surfeit of obfuscation, complication, and downright deceit, is not impenetrable, is not un- knowable, and—if the right questions are asked—is even more in- triguing than we think. All it takes is a new way of looking. - Stephen J. Dubner.

In Levitt and Dubner’s novel, Freakonomics, they deal with the sensitive subject of abortions in chapter four. During this section, Levitt and Dubner are purposing that the drop of crime is not because of the many popular ideas they address but instead because of abortions becoming legalized. Providing proof to their argument, they list out all the popular ideas that many people believe to be the cause of the drop in crime and then one by one explain why these ideas could not fit into the massive crime drop. After explaining the list of popular ideas, they finally come out and state what their take on the crime drop is and explaining why they believe this explanation instead of the ones listed before (115-145). Levitt and Dubner’s flow of writing and logic are shown very strong in this section and provide an easy and understandable read to the audience. Using this form of writing also creates an easier understanding for when they get to their point and distracts the reader into taking account of what they say instead of how offensive it is.

The chapter starts by going into the history of the KKK. At first, the Klan was terminated, but regained their status by the 1920s. They began targeting blacks, Catholics, Jews, immigrants, etc. During this time, a writer named Stetson Kennedy decided to go undercover and join the Klan to end racism. In order to achieve this, he worked his way into their ranks. Once he was in, he learned all about their secret customs and eventually was invited to join the Klan's secret police. By this point, he realized the Klan was a lot less violent than it used to be and realized the best way to take the Klan down was to expose their secret information to everyone. Once the world found out the truth, the Klan membership fell significantly. As you can see,

From all the books I read during the past months Freakonomics was the one which I keep thinking about the most even after having finished reading it. There are a lot of writings provoking life changing decisions. For me, Freakonomics is not one of them. However, even if the book's impact on me was rather subtle, it still influences the way I see things and how I take decisions on an everyday basis.