A Resurgence of interest in Existential Intelligence: Why now?

By Howard Gardner

Recently, I have noticed an interesting phenomenon: an uptick in the number of inquiries I receive about “existential intelligence” (which I’ve abbreviated as Ex I). I have become intrigued by the reason for this phenomenon and how to respond to it.

Let me explain.

A dozen years after I introduced the theory of multiple intelligences (1983), I speculated about the possibility of a 9th or “existential intelligence.” As I described it at the time, “existential intelligence” is the cognitive capacity to raise and ponder “big questions”—queries about love, about evil, about life and death— indeed, about the nature and quality of existence. I quipped that these are the questions that nearly every child raises—but most young people are more engaged in asking the question than in pondering the possible answers. “Existential questions” are the particular purview of philosophers and religious leaders, but most of us ponder them from time to time, and they are raised regularly in works of art and literature.

At the time I hesitated to anoint this candidate as a “full-fledged intelligence.” I was uncertain about some kind of brain or neurological basis for this capacity (one of the criteria I had proposed for an independent intelligence); whether it was a universal capacity or one that only emerged in a post-Socratic society; and, most fundamentally, whether it might genuinely be considered a separate intelligence, or just an amalgam of several already identified intelligences—perhaps linguistic, logical- mathematical, and the personal intelligences. Also, I insisted that existential intelligence was not in and of itself a religious or spiritual or sacred capacity; as I quipped, “If I announced a spiritual intelligence, it might please some of my friends, but it would also delight my enemies.”

In the intervening period, though much of my correspondence still concerns “MI” theory, I have gone on to other pursuits (see the thegoodproject.org). In particular, I am no longer in the business of announcing or denouncing candidate intelligences. Of course, individuals have always been free to describe other intelligences—and, on the basis of some intriguing evidence from developmental psychology, I myself sometimes speculate about a “pedagogical” or “teaching intelligence.”

Back to the correspondence: some writers want to know whether “Ex I” has passed the test and is now officially an intelligence. (Answer: “Sorry, no, It’s still in limbo.) Some writers want a test for “Ex I,” or claim that they have already created a test. (Answer: “No test from me, but if you send me your sample test, I’ll give you some feedback.”) And whether explicitly or implicitly, some writers assume that existential intelligence has been established—it is a genuine phenomenon—and that it is the same as “spiritual” or “religious” intelligence. (Answer: “the candidate intelligence features the raising and pondering of big questions; these can certainly include spiritual or religious issues thought they need not—pondering the universe or a grain of sand qualify as well. And please do not assume that I am promoting any specific religion, or religion in general—though it’s fine if you do so in your own name.”)

Of course, the raising of questions about existential intelligence might just be a fluke or a coincidence—perhaps next year, it will be bodily intelligence or musical intelligence or computer intelligence (a favorite some years ago). But I suspect that there is another phenomenon at work in others and in myself.

Almost no one in the world was prepared for the COVID-19 pandemic. Suddenly, immediate and long-term plans have had to be scuttled; daily routines have been substantially altered for months, with no end in sight; we need to protect ourselves and others every waking hour; and, alas, many have lost their livelihoods and their security and some have lost their lives. Except for those on the front lines (to whom we will always be indebted) many of us have additional time available. And while we can and of course do while away the time in many ways, some of that time may well be devoted to the pondering of Big Questions—the kinds of questions that many of us pondered as children, or at times of change or crisis—but are now confronting most of the conscious world. I suspect that some of my correspondents may well be devoting significant amounts of time to pondering such life-and-death issues and wondering about the ontological status of this capacity—more concretely, whether it draws on existential intelligence.

As I reflect on my own preoccupations, I find evidence for this trend. In my case, it began in 2016 with the election of Donald Trump and my worries about the threats to democracy, decency, and to other values that I hold dear. I began to read books (e.g. 1984, The Plot Against America, It Can’t happen Here) and watch movies (A Face in the Crowd, All the King’s Men, Casablanca) that deal with the delicate state of democratic institutions and values at a time of nationalism, xenophobia, the rise of fascism, loss of status, and the like.

The advent of COVID-19 constituted an additional whammy. I should say, at the start, that my wife and my immediate family are fortunate—far more fortunate than most—in that we have been safe and secure to this point. And I have been able to continue much of my work in my home and in daily—sometimes hourly—online conversations with colleagues. But of course, much of the world is not in that protected situation. Moreover, I’ve been personally shocked by the number of individuals, particularly in the United States, who do not take the pandemic seriously and openly defy advice and even mandates to protect themselves and—more importantly—to protect others.

The combination of threats, on the one hand, and time to think, on the other, has also affected the timing of my thinking and what I think and read about. Each morning, at the crack of dawn, I walk around the neighborhood for the better part of an hour—and each evening before I go to sleep—I recline in bed for a comparable length of time—and simply think about things—including the themes of this blog post. I had never engaged in either of these activities before. And much of the unstructured time is spent pondering big questions—including ones that deserve to be called existential. Of course, some of this cognitive wandering may simply reflect my age and point in the life cycle—I am 77 years old and have had significant health challenges. As my mentor the psychoanalyst Erik Erikson put it, this last stage of life is a time to weigh feelings of integrity versus feelings of despair. But some of this mental meandering seems to be tied more closely to the events in the world. I’ve been reading “big books” about Western and Eastern philosophy and watching many American and British movies from the 1930s and 1940s, a time similar to ours in some ways.

Most directly related to the topic of this blog, recently my wife and I have been re-reading Albert Camus’ famous novel La Peste (usually translated as The Plague). Camus describes the sudden eruption of a plague in a North African city and the way in which this epidemic disrupts all the lives of the city’s inhabitants and causes many deaths. The novel can be read simply as the account of a terrible disease and its expected as well as its surprising sequelae.

But in my view The Plague is fundamentally an essay on the essential meaninglessness of life and the need, accordingly, for all of us to seek to make meaning. The plague itself has no meaning. This message comes out most dramatically in the vignette of the Jesuit priest, Paneloux, who castigates his congregation for not behaving well enough and having been accordingly punished by God with the deadly disease. But before he himself succumbs to the plague, as he watches the cruel suffering of a young boy, the priest comes to realize that there is no hidden message of reward or revenge in the plague—as we might say today, “it is what it is.” Camus’ message: plagues never go away. They erupt, then hide, and can fester and reappear at any time in our lives. Hence, our only choice is to make meaning out of the brief time we have on earth. Perhaps the most important meaning is decency towards our fellow humans.

There is a name for this perspective—existential philosophy. Though one can find roots of existentialism in the Greeks, particularly the Stoics, it is generally attributed to the Danish philosopher Soren Kierkegaard, and to the 20th century French writers Jean-Paul Sartre and Albert Camus. And while many other writers (and other artists and even, occasionally, political leaders) across the world and across topics now reflect an existential perspective, I find it best captured in Camus’ brief novel.

And so even if I had not noticed an uptick in my mailbox, I would still have been engaged in using (and pondering the nature of) my existential intelligence. I thank my correspondents for bringing this latent motive into my consciousness—and I am pleased to have the opportunity to share it with you.

© Howard Gardner 2020

Drawing the Line: Dealing with Difficult Dilemmas

By Howard Gardner

By definition, dilemmas are difficult situations where the optimal course of action is unclear. Recently, two dilemmas facing our society have emerged with considerable force. Not only do they call for resolution, they encourage us to reflect on how best to anticipate, think about, and resolve a range of difficult choices.

Dilemma # 1­   Retaining or Expurgating Names, Monuments, Flags  

In appreciation of their accomplishments or gifts, certain persons or acts have been singled out for recognition.  We name entities after presidents and kings; we mount statues that glorify personalities or actions; we display or give special status to flags, or pennants.  Under what conditions should these forms of recognition be withdrawn and how should that de-valuation be carried out?

Dilemma #2 How Professionals Should Conduct Themselves:  The Case of Journalism

In the wake of the progressive era in the early years of the 20th century, news reporters in the United States were expected to be as objective and disinterested as possible:  just report the facts and leave interpretations and personal views to the side (or, at any rate, to the editorial columns).  This commitment has gradually eroded. Nowadays, reporters frequently have their own twitter accounts in which they do not hesitate to express their own views and attitudes on matters of consequence—and even if these views are not explicitly interwoven into their news reports, the attentive reader knows what the reporter “really” thinks about the personalities and issues being covered.  Should reporters be encouraged, allowed, or prohibited from tweeting on anything related to their day job? And if allowed, should any constraints be placed on these forms of expression?

Recently I have been drawn into discussions of both dilemmas. To be sure, these dilemmas are quite distinct from one another.  And yet, despite such differences, I suggest that they raise similar issues about whether, and, if so, where to draw the line.  Indeed, insights with respect to this pair of dilemmas may prove more useful generally.

In each of the cases, it is straight-forward to delineate the extreme positions: 

With respect to Dilemma #1

Extreme Position A  

The individuals who created the commemoration did so in good faith and, in fact, in most cases, the commemoration has stood the test of time. It is unfair to the originators, and a disservice to history, to attempt to erase the deeds (or, even, the misdeeds) of the past.

Extreme Position B

Any person or entity that is connected to slavery (or criminal activity, racism, misogyny, or some other disreputable act or viewpoint) should not be honored in any public way.  

With respect to Dilemma #2

Extreme Position A

Journalists, like professionals, have been afforded status and a sacred trust to report the news objectively.  Their first and most important obligation is to do everything in their powers to earn and retain that trust. While it is never possible to be confident that one has been completely objective, journalists should strive for this ideal.

Extreme Position B

The vaunted objectivity of journalism has co-occurred with enormous imbalances of power, coverage, and accuracy—some intentional, some incidental.  Journalists have the most detailed knowledge of what has happened and why.  Accordingly, they have the right—even the obligation—to call it as they see it via whatever media are at their disposal. It is never possible to be completely objective.  Thus, journalists should make clear their positions on matters where they are convinced that one party is right, and the other wrong—and equally, with respect to public personalities whose behavior they value or disdain.

With respect to both dilemmas, certain factors may predict the stance that individuals will take.

Extreme position A tends to be taken by older persons, often from the ranks of the better treated demographies.  Extreme position B tends to be taken by younger persons, and particularly those from groups that have not been well treated.  Of course, the generations are just a rough rule of thumb—there will always be other factors that contribute to one’ s stance on vexing issues.

Further, with respect to both dilemmas, some of us are more likely to be absolutists.  Others of us will search for common ground (or compromise or intermediate position) and are more prepared to change our minds.

Speaking for myself, probably reflecting my age, background, and societal niche, I have found myself closer to position A—quite publicly with respect to Dilemma #2. I believe that professions (law, medicine, journalism) represent a formidable human invention over the centuries:  they should be defended as vigorously as possible.  And with respect to Dilemma #1, as a person who is historically-minded, I am doubtful about attempts to re-write history, which we associate with fiction like Orwell’s 1984, and with actual events and periods, such as those of Stalinist Russia and Maoist China (and, alas, more current examples leap to mind).

At the same time, as someone who aspires to think of himself as open-minded—as prepared to change his mind—I have read and listened carefully to those who have put forth alternative perspectives. As I like to put it—on very few matters am I a fundamentalist:  A person with a commitment not to change my mind.  Indeed, with respect to this pair of dilemmas, I am eager to formulate an approach—process—that moves toward a cogent and defensible middle ground.

To achieve this ambitious goal, we should take three steps:

1. A clear delineation of the pros and cons—the rewards and the costs-- of each extreme position

2. An in-depth discussion of what might constitute one or more viable intermediate positions

3. A process for arriving at and adopting that middle ground, giving it a try, and determining whether it has been successful and which significant alterations tweaks might be indicated---including, when necessary, a return to the ‘drawing boards”

Needless to say, as always characterizes issues of consequence, “the devil is in the details.”

To start this process off, here are some consideration:

With respect to the dilemma of commemoration:

• Names, banners/flags/ monuments are not the same; different processes might be appropriate for each form of commemoration; these processes should be spelled out and followed carefully;

• A decision to remove some form of commemoration should not be an attempt to erase it from history; at times  when such a removal is made,  a documentation of the process should be carried out, the reasons for it delineated, and the preservation of that record ensured;

• A decision to retain some form of commemoration does not imply endorsement; indeed, some form of discussion, history, pros and cons should be encouraged, displayed, and periodically revisited;

With respect to the dilemma of the profession of journalism:

• It should be recognized that objectivity/disinterestedness is at most an aspiration, no one can be fully objective or dis-interested;

• Inequities over time in power and influence should be recognized and addressed: If, as an example, editors and reporters have not been representative of the diversity and the demographics of a society, that imbalance should be addressed directly;

• Reporters should have the option of declaring that they will not text or tweet on any public matter, editors should respect that decision, and such reporters should be publicly identified as non-tweeters, just as those who tweet or text already identify themselves in that way;

• Publications should also clarify their position on such extra forms of publicity;

• If, going forth, reporters and editors observe these new guidelines, they should not be sanctioned or fired for earlier violations;

• Across the professions (e.g. law, education, journalism), the same kinds of guidelines should be encouraged and observed.  Indeed, such publicly articulated and carefully executed processes constitute the essence of a profession;

Concluding notes

I would be pleased—but also astonished—if most persons who read these proposals would simply endorse them.  But the point is less to prescribe than propose a process whereby the extreme positions can be bridged.  Extreme absolutist positions rarely make sense in the long run; indeed, they often result in a lurch, an over-reaction in the diametrically opposite direction.

More important, the process of negotiating, of searching for middle ground, may be salutary in itself.  It may be comfortable to be surrounded by people who agree completely with oneself; but it’s preferable to encounter people with whom one may disagree but who seek to find a common ground and to lay out the principles  and the processes that have proved efficacious 

The stance that I am recommending lies at the heart of a broad education—an education in the liberal arts. And while such an education does not always yield individuals who can listen carefully, reflect clearly, and search for a reasonable middle ground, its absence makes such aspirations difficult to achieve.

That is the kind of education that I favor—and the kind of society I would like to live in.

Note: I thank my colleagues on the Good Project for their comments on earlier drafts

© Howard Gardner 2020

Teaching “Good Work” in the Law

A guest post, by John Bliss , Assistant Professor at Sturm College of Law

Imagine you have just graduated from college and that you are deeply concerned about racial justice, pandemics, climate change, global inequality, or other major public policy challenges. Given these concerns, how do you shape an impactful career of meaningful work?

For many, the answer is: Attend law school. As a law professor, I am perhaps a little biased when I say that this is a pretty good answer. Law schools produce a wide range of graduates at the front lines of social justice and other important causes, including the day-to-day work of proficiently helping clients understand and navigate the law. But legal education also has enormous room for improvement, which has been the focus of my empirical research over the past twelve years.

Using a variety of methods and comparing over time and across national contexts, I have been studying how initially idealistic law students tend to drift away from the public-interest values and career aspirations that drew them to law school. This drift appears to be influenced by a range of factors—among them, financial considerations, law school peer culture, traditional legal pedagogy, the law-firm recruiting process, and the limited availability of jobs in full-time public interest legal practice. Law schools cannot easily control all of these factors, but I do believe that we can develop curriculum to help reduce this drift effect.

Working with The Good Project and law faculty colleagues, I have recently been developing such curriculum in the hope that our students will sustain public-interest values, whether those values lead to careers in the non-profit or private sector. I began these efforts in 2017 while a resident fellow at the Harvard Law School Center on the Legal Profession. During my fellowship, I became acquainted with Professor Howard Gardner and was introduced to the Good Project team that he leads. With support and collaboration from the Good Project, I piloted workshops at Harvard Law School with first-year students focusing on professional identity and public-interest commitments. In my current position at the University of Denver Sturm College of Law, I have been expanding this curriculum in collaboration with Professor Alexi Freeman. Professor Freeman is experienced in activist lawyering, writes extensively about how law curriculum can better address social justice causes, and runs the public interest and externship programs at Denver Law. In the past academic year, we recruited 32 public-interest-oriented students into what we call the “1L Public Good Program.” In addition to community building and professional identity workshops, we required our students to engage in 20 hours of pro bono fieldwork in public service settings.

In our workshops, we introduced The Good Project’s “Good Work” perspective and toolkit as we discussed identity, values, theories of justice and social change, and pathways into public-regarding legal careers. We devoted one session entirely to the “triple helix” or “three Es” of Good Work, which is Excellent, Engaged, and Ethical. Because this session was offered remotely via Zoom in the spring 2020 pandemic context, we developed some interactive online tools, including having students collaborate on a Google spreadsheet to list and categorize the traits of Good Work. Students were quick to recognize interrelationships among the three Es. For example, the Excellence category covered technical proficiency but also passion, dedication, inclusiveness, and responsibility to broader communities. We also had students create a “Mentimeter” word map to describe what Good Work would look like for a lawyer. Some of the largest (most frequently cited) terms in the word map were “moral,” “empathetic,” “altruistic,” and “activist.” This exercise revealed students shared values and aspirations for impactful practice. Students also included the term “innovative,” which sparked a discussion of the need to think proactively and outside the box when seeking to address systemic causes of injustice. Finally, we discussed the long-term challenge of seeking “flow” and the integration of personal and professional identities within legal practice. We reminded students that, as Gardner, Csikszentmihalyi, and Damon put it in Good Work: When Excellent and Ethics Meet, “rich lives include continuing internal conversations about who we are, what we want to achieve, where we are successful, and where we are falling short. … It takes a lifetime to achieve such an integration.”

Student feedback about our pilot run of the 1L Public Good Program has been overwhelmingly positive. They appreciated the community of like-minded peers and faculty, and the opportunity to start mentorship relationships with Professor Freeman and myself rooted in conversations about public service, social change, and Good Work. The students emphasized that this programming helped them stay focused on public interest goals and values during a stressful first year of law school.

We are in the early stages of developing assessment tools that we will use in the coming years to empirically examine how the Program is impacting students. At this point, I am confident in saying that the Program and the application of Good Work in legal education show great promise. Law is a field with enormous potential to promote Good Work, as it draws students who seek careers of intrinsic motivation (Engagement), professional skill (Excellence), and public service impact (Ethics). As a legal educator, I believe it is my job to foster these commitments and help students reflect on what kind of lawyers they want to be and what kind of impacts they want to have. I would be more than happy to be contacted by anyone in professional schools or higher education more generally who is seeking to integrate The Good Project materials into their teaching and curriculum.

June Wrap Up: 5 Articles Worth Sharing

By Danny Mucinskas

National discourse in the United States has been absolutely dominated by two topics this month:

• The continuing COVID-19 pandemic, which has put into stark relief the many inequalities in our society and resulted in systemic failures from the government and healthcare system alike; and

• The murder of George Floyd and the subsequent outpouring of protest, activism, and commitment to change as the country again grapples with persistent entrenched racism and inequity.

This is a time of intense anguish, trepidation, and anxiety for many people, particularly communities of color and the poor and working classes. The moment also presents many opportunities and possibilities, including collective action, reconciliation, and reparation, deep listening, learning, and understanding, and commitment to do better.

In addition to the posts The Good Project has already authored related to the pandemic and Black Lives Matter movement, we are sharing several recent articles that we found to be informative and thought-provoking.

As we end this month and look to the period ahead, we know that the injustices present in the United States will require people in positions of power (especially white people) to do “good work,” particularly ethical work, to re-shape American society to be fairer and more just, not just for some but for all.

“How Did We Get Here?”

Gillian B. White collects a series of articles from The Atlantic spanning over 150 years, all of which deal with race in the United States. Touching on topics from the abolition of slavery to the civil rights movement to police violence and COVID-19, the readings in this rich collection are useful for anyone who is asking how we got here and can help start the conversation of what can be done.

The Struggle to Teach from Afar

This episode of “The Daily” podcast from The New York Times follows one teacher, Ronda McIntyre of Ohio, as she describes the transition of her elementary school classroom to remote instruction. McIntyre wonders what the future holds for her teaching in the midst of a pandemic and shares the sobering reality that much has been lost for her without face-to-face interaction with her students, making her question her very profession.

When SEL is Used as Another Form of Policing

Cierra Kaler-Jones, a scholar in urban education, writes in Medium with a warning that social-emotional learning curricula must not become another “tool of oppression” that is wielded against Black and Brown students. She makes the case that SEL curricula in schools across the country should be rooted in culturally-affirming practice and should not silence expressions of justified emotions, including anger at historical and present trauma.

Academia Isn’t a Safe Haven for Conversations About Race and Racism

Colleges and universities have a reputation for being bastions of liberalism, yet research and personal testimony reported in Harvard Business Review by Tsedale M. Melaku and Angie Beeman demonstrates that academic environments are still not accepting and in fact, are often hostile to racial minorities. Faced with denial, pressure to conform, and overtly racist comments, Melaku and Beeman question whether their white, purportedly progressive colleagues are willing to put in the work to change their behaviors and the status quo.

How to Support the People You Lead in Times of Uncertainty

Many team and organizational leaders are wondering how best to support their co-workers in a time of stress without the benefits of in-person interaction. Greater Good spotlights the book Helping People Change by Ellen Van Oosten, Melvin L. Smith, and Richard E. Boyatzis, which outlines a model of “coaching with compassion” according to a framework of principles: resonance, empathy, awareness, compassion, hope, and humor.

Considering the role of the 3Es in promoting racial justice

by Shelby Clark, Lynn Barendsen, and Daniel Mucinskas

To our readers: The Good Project has, for the past 25 years, been interested in finding ways to help individuals reflect on how to do “good work”—work that is excellent, ethical, and engaging. In light of the recent deaths of George Floyd, Rayshard Brooks, and other Black people in America, we feel that one contribution we can make to the ongoing conversations regarding how to bring about racial justice is to help people think about and reflect upon the connections between what it means to do “good work” and racial justice. In this blog, we discuss some of our current thoughts regarding how The Good Project’s ideas might further issues of equity and racial justice in the world.

However, as we wrote this blog about how to think through the 3Es of good work and businesses' performative virtue signaling of support of the Black Lives Matter movement, we thought about whether this blog is a similar form of virtue signaling; is this an easy way for us, a predominantly white research group, to ease our guilt? We discussed the pros and cons of posting this blog, and ultimately, given our commitment to promoting reflection, felt that encouraging reflective practices towards promoting racial justice was better than remaining silent at this time. We know, though, that this blog is just a beginning in our own work towards supporting racial equity and that we have more work to do. We welcome your feedback, and are here to learn.

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In a recent blogpost, the researchers of The Good Project noted our unequivocal belief that Black Lives Matter.

The recent death of George Floyd has made apparent our own need to continually review our roles in promoting structural racism. Moreover, as we seek to encourage reflection and introspection as strategies to help people to do good in the world, we need to think about how these methods can be used to bring about a more racially just future.

As you consider your own work or profession, think of the 3Es of Good Work-- excellence, ethics, and engagement. How can excellent, ethical, and engaging work facilitate just, equitable, and humane work?

For example, some companies, such as Zillow, Amazon, and Nordstrom, have recently been posting on social media in solidarity with the Black Lives Matter (BLM) movement. Yet now several big name companies have been called out by former employees for using such maneuvers as public relations stunts rather than true indications of company values. 

You might ask yourself whether your own company or workplace is fulfilling the 3Es in an effort to promote racial justice. For example:

Ethics: How can a company best fulfill its responsibilities in this situation? Is signalling support for the Black Lives Matter movement online an important step in the fulfillment of professional responsibility, even if it is not echoed elsewhere in an institution’s values? What are the other important ethical steps a company should take to demonstrate support of this movement, either via its mission, the impact of its work, or beyond? Should individual workers be held responsible/accountable, and if so, how? As one example, was it right for Amy Cooper to be fired from her job for calling the police on a Black man, Christian Cooper, bird watching in New York’s Central Park?

Excellence: Do you consider posting support for BLM online excellent work, done to the best of a company’s ability? If not, how might an organization more excellently signal their support for BLM? What is the relationship between excellence in business and racial justice?

Engagement: Does posting support online for BLM indicate engagement with this issue, or that this is a meaningful area of work for an organization? If not, how might engagement be better expressed? Consider the individual workers in a company and how they may or may not find personal meaning in the company’s actions. How should a business give voice to all of its workers, and if there are dissenting opinions - for example, voices that are skeptical for whatever reason about racial justice - what are the company’s responsibilities?

Certainly many other organizations and workers are encountering questions of how to best fulfill their roles justly and ethically during this moment. For example, some small business owners have had to weigh whether to continue protesting when their own businesses are being looted.

As you think about ways to move forward as a worker or company, consider these suggestions from the Harvard Business Review about how to create inclusivity in the workplace:

• Make sure diversity and inclusion are core values of your institution and hold leaders accountable to these values;

• Hire people of color and provide them with mentors in the workplace who will help advocate for their voices and advancement;

• Create safe workplaces for people of color;

• Recognize bias and have all staff participate in de-biasing trainings; and

• Emphasize the business case for diversity and inclusion.

What are other questions and actions you think are important for you and for companies and organizations to be asking and doing to promote racial justice and equity in the world?