DR. STEVEN PINKER ｜ How Common Knowledge Hurts and Helps Us
Episode Stats
Length
1 hour and 3 minutes
Words per Minute
173.85794
Summary
Why do some men refuse to say what they see and what everyone already knows, whether or not they re willing to acknowledge it? Is there some benefit to keeping quiet or adhering to the unwritten rules and is there a time and place to break tradition? Today, I m joined by Harvard Professor Steven Pinker to answer these questions. We also discuss the difference between common knowledge and common wisdom, whether it s hypocrisy to stay quiet about these rules, when to be radically honest or complacently quiet, how to judge risk in your honesty, and the importance of male initiation.
Transcript
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Why do some men refuse to say what they see and what everyone already knows, whether or not they're willing to acknowledge it?
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Is there some benefit to keeping quiet or adhering to the quote-unquote unwritten rules?
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And is there a time and place to break tradition?
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Today I'm joined by Harvard professor Dr. Steven Pinker to answer these questions.
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We also discuss the difference between common knowledge and common wisdom.
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Whether or not it's hypocrisy to stay quiet about these unwritten rules, when to be radically honest or complacently quiet, how to judge risk in your honesty, how what he calls the Abilene Paradox will serve you, and also the importance of male initiation.
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You're a man of action. You live life to the fullest. Embrace your fears and boldly chart your own path.
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When life knocks you down, you get back up one more time, every time.
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You are not easily deterred or defeated, rugged, resilient, strong.
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This is your life. This is who you are. This is who you will become.
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At the end of the day, and after all is said and done, you can call yourself a man.
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Gentlemen, welcome to the Order of Men podcast. We've been going for a decade now, and there's not many organizations that can say that.
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I think I can count on one hand the amount of organizations that are serving men exclusively who have been going for as long as we have.
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So, very glad that you're here. Very glad that you've been part of this movement, whether it's a day or a year or 10 years.
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We're glad you're here. Stephen Pinker is somebody that I've been following and have really admired from a distance for a very long time.
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And I'm glad that he's able to join us today to talk about some commonly held beliefs, some ideas, some common knowledge,
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and even some of the unwritten rules that most of us refuse or are unwilling to talk about.
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All right, guys, let me introduce you to Dr. Steven Pinker.
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He's known for his work on language and mind and human nature,
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and he earned his bachelor's in psychology at McGill University,
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and also a Ph.D. in experimental psychology from Harvard University.
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Over his career, he has held teaching and research posts at MIT, Stanford, Harvard.
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And at Harvard, he now serves as the John Stones family professor of psychology.
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His writings for general audiences include The Language Instinct,
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The Better Angels of Our Nature, Enlightenment Now, and Rationality.
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They all seek to bridge the idea of intellectual and rigorous science with our public discourse.
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But his most recent book, and this is what we talk about today,
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He explores how humans reason about what others know and know that others know
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and how this quote-unquote common knowledge shapes our coordination,
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our political dynamics, our behavior and economics, and just everyday interactions.
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And he also argues that what one person thinks, another person thinks, and so on,
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how we reinforce our norms, and how we maintain our beliefs in society.
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Stephen, thanks for joining me on the Order of Man podcast.
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I have thought that we have done another podcast.
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I think I must have thought that at some point, maybe six, seven, eight years ago,
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I was doing some research, and I thought for sure you and I had done a podcast,
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Well, you know, as I was looking through your book,
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when everyone knows that everyone knows, something came to mind,
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and it was Socrates who said, and I wrote this down because I wanted to get it right,
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the beginning of wisdom is the definition of words.
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And when I hear your subtitle, when it refers to common knowledge,
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I'm interested in the differentiation between common knowledge and common sense,
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because I think you make the distinction between the two.
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And, in fact, I have to confess that I'm using common knowledge in a technical sense.
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I didn't invent it, but it's just in the academic literature, so I had no choice.
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But in that technical sense, it doesn't refer to the way everyone uses the word common knowledge,
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that is, something that is widely known, conventional wisdom,
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even things that might be an open secret, like, well, it's kind of common knowledge
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That's not what it means in the sense that I use it.
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Common knowledge refers to not just everyone knowing something,
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and everyone knowing that, and everyone knowing that ad infinitum.
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So what common knowledge means is I know something, you know it,
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I know that you know it, you know that I know it,
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I know that you know that I know that you know it, et cetera.
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So that's the technical definition of common knowledge.
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which is just the understanding of the way that the world works,
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that someone without a lot of formal education or technical training can know.
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In fact, there's some aspects of common knowledge in the technical sense
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And my second chapter is called Common Knowledge and Common Sense.
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well, everyone knows that there's a difference between something that's public and private.
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Why do you have to write a whole book about it?
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no, it's actually way more subtle and non-obvious than you think.
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There are actually some mathematical theorems about common knowledge
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and how it differs from widespread private knowledge
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First, because they're just kind of mind-boggling,
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but also to defend myself against the idea like, you know, there's a book in that.
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So one thing that comes to mind and helped me understand
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if I'm way off base with this or I'm over target,
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I remember the military's stance against homosexuality, for example.
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And yet we're still not going to talk about it.
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Am I over target or am I missing the boat here?
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it makes me kick myself that I didn't include that in the book.
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I did include the concept of being in the closet,
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By the way, you know, a lot of common knowledge sounds like impossibly convoluted,
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abstruse, like, you know, who actually literally thinks,
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I know that she knows that I know that she knows.
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We have metaphors of something being out there in your face,
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That is, whenever we refer metaphorically to something that is publicly visible or audible,
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that is, I can see it when you can see it and we can see each other seeing it.
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That's how we talk about common knowledge and ordinary conversation.
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And out of the closet or living in the closet are good examples.
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But the don't ask, don't tell is a perfect example of that.
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But do we know that the other one knows that we know that we know that we know?
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And that changed the kind of official stance of the U.S. government that we disapprove
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or we don't reward homosexuality, even though we also want to be fair to people.
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We want to have the biggest pool of manpower that we can get.
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So a lot of hypocrisy, and that's a great example, consists of keeping something out of common knowledge that is private knowledge.
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Well, okay, so with that example, so I take a little bit of issue with that.
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I'm curious what you say about this because you said we don't reward it.
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So there's no reason to reward anybody for being gay.
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And so is that hypocrisy or is it actually just more of a level playing field and we're not going to base merit on your sexual preferences?
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Well, yes, that's the ultimate justification for officially not discriminating against gay people.
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In that era, though, when the government actually treating gay people equivalently to these straight people was itself controversial,
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particularly in all-male environments like the armed forces, where there were some people who were just squeamish about the idea.
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And I think it was Clinton who kind of split the difference by saying we will accept gays into the military as long as they don't acknowledge that they're gay.
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So the people, whoever had reservations about them, Clinton himself not being one, but it was a kind of accommodation to them.
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What do you think makes it hypocrisy, though, in that instance or maybe other instances?
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And maybe, you know, we're looking at it through the lens of one avenue, right?
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Maybe there's an infinite number of avenues where this exists.
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But what makes it not hypocrisy if we're choosing not to acknowledge something that may be an immutable characteristic
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or a certain behavior that doesn't apply to the meritocracy of the environment that we're dealing?
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Oh, well, you know, either gays can serve in the military or they can't.
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And with don't ask, don't tell, you're accepting the idea that gays can serve in the military as long as you don't publicly acknowledge that gays are serving in the military.
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So the hypocrisy is between what you're doing and what can be said about it.
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Are there other avenues where this, I'm just having a hard time wrapping my head around that.
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And I'm just wondering if there's other avenues that we could bring into the conversation that maybe illustrate the idea of hypocrisy.
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Because being homosexual and being straight, to me anyways, doesn't really tell me whether or not a soldier, for example, is capable of performing the duty.
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Well, I agree and probably the vast majority of people agree.
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But you've got to rewind the tape to the early 1990s in which there were –
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And it was in that context that there was the policy.
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So that wouldn't have been on my radar at that point.
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And it seemed kind of silly at the time but better than the alternative, which was keeping gay people out of the military.
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So it was kind of a compromise of you don't make the people on the right, particularly fundamentalists who treated the laws in the Bible as unnecessarily correct, Catholics for whom homosexuality was a sin.
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And so it was a way of saying the U.S. government is not giving you guys the middle finger in doing something – allowing something that you guys think is sinful.
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At the same time, we are doing what's best for the largest number of people, including gay people and for the military.
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But we are not – we're not insulting, defying, flipping you guys off.
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You guys being the people who at the time did care about it, which are a dwindling minority.
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I mean another one that people can't wrap their minds around.
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And a lot of these examples are – become ridiculous when social standards change.
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That's why I'm having such a hard time quantifying it.
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I'm like I don't understand what the problem is here.
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But that might be just because of the era that I live in.
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Well, just imagine – I don't know if you're a fundamentalist Christian, if you think that the laws in the Bible are the unquestionable guides to what is right and what's wrong.
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I'm willing to acknowledge nuance and that other people might believe something different, but I do acknowledge that.
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Well, if the Bible says that homosexuality is a sin, it's a mortal sin, then the Bible also says that murder is a sin and we have laws against murder.
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Why doesn't it have laws against homosexuality?
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Or why can it not – I mean here, I'm putting myself in the shoes of someone who believes that the laws in the Bible are morally correct.
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So they might say it is sinful for the government to pretend that homosexuality is okay.
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And there are fewer people who believe that today.
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But in the 1990s, there were plenty, and the government was trying to acknowledge their sensibilities with this policy.
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So someone sitting on a park bench drinking a bottle of booze out of a bottle of booze in a paper bag.
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Well, you can't even be publicly consuming alcoholic beverage.
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So what's going on – or I'll give you another example.
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It used to be alternative papers would have ads for these things called escort services.
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We know that escort services were not advertising escorts.
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Again, their hypocrisy in that the police will not automatically arrest anyone – everyone
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The police do not try to shut down every escort service.
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Well, the – here's the calculation, which they don't make explicit.
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But it would be too intrusive and expensive for the government to try to crack down on every escort in the country
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or everyone drinking out of a paper – from a paper bag.
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On the other hand, with the fig leaf, with the keeping out of common knowledge that that's what they're doing,
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they are not announcing the law is meaningless.
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It's our policy is to – that the law is the law.
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We're going to pretend that the – these people are not breaking the law and that spares us from the obligation of enforcing it
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without forfeiting the very idea that there are laws, there are police.
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I'll give you – I can give you another example of –
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Is this a way – do you think this is a way to hedge against scrutiny from, let's just hypothetically say, either side of the aisle, right?
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So you have those who believe in law and order and justice, and you might have those who believe on the opposite end of the spectrum, anarchy.
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Is this a way to appease both sides without really having to account for what you actually believe in and what you stand by?
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I don't think that the police are literally worried about real anarchists.
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They could be concerned with people who say prostitution should be legalized, for example, and that it is unjust to arrest people for consensual acts in private.
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So, yes, the thing about common knowledge is it is the nature of your relationships, your official relationships, including who you empower, who you disempower.
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And by – when you make – when something is common knowledge, that is your official policy.
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It's – so to keep something out of common knowledge is a way sometimes to not make it obvious that there is a particular hierarchy of who's in power, who isn't.
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So I'll give it a personal example and a global example.
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What's the official policy of the United States towards Taiwan?
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If the United States was to extend diplomatic recognition to Taiwan, that would be seen as a slap in the face to the People's Republic of China.
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It would consider it to be a challenge to their dignity, their stature, their reputation.
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We really don't want to – we don't want to say.
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And in a democracy, they kind of have to because they can't make everyone happy.
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And so they'll sometimes – you know, they'll dog whistle.
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I have a chapter called Weasel Words in When Everyone Knows That Everyone Knows.
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And so he resigns to spend more time with his family.
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Now, you know, everyone knows that it's not why he's resigning.
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But maybe people think that other people think that it's plausible, or even if they don't,
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that they think that other people think that other people think they're plausible.
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As long as there isn't the common knowledge, then you can maintain your reputation as a rational,
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So another example, in everyday social circles, we usually – you know, there's a lot of obesity
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Generally, we don't call attention to the fact that one of our friends is fat.
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And so I have an interview with a woman who, a couple of years ago, came out as fat.
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But people pretend – they act as if the person is not fat, even though they can't believe it
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themselves, they can't even believe that other people believe it, but maybe they believe
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that other people believe that they believe that other people believe it, and that's
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enough to keep it – so that it does not affect your social relationships.
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Since being overweight takes someone down a few notches in respect, in esteem, in valuation,
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since among friends or even among polite strangers, there's the fiction that we're all the
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same, that no one's better than anyone else, noting that someone is fat would challenge
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that common knowledge assumption that makes friends friends.
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And so you don't say it out loud, even though you know it privately.
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Now, this woman, her name is Lindy West, thought that this – as with many cases of hypocrisy,
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sometimes you get to the point where you want to say, oh, cut the crap, let's just say
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the attempt to keep the private knowledge private gets to be so much of a burden and an exertion
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that you're willing to pay the price of the – being seen as less desirable, less lower
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in status is worth the price of no longer indulging the hypocrisy.
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And in relationships, in marriages, sometimes you get to that point where there's a kind
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of common understanding that, say, one of them defers to the other because they don't
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They stand their ground because they think the other spouse will give way.
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The other one gives way because they think the first one will stand their ground.
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And that can keep them from bickering and fighting and screaming, but it may come to
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a point where the one who's always getting the short end of the stick says, you know,
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I'm actually going to say, look, you're exploiting me.
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It can lead to awkwardness, even fights, even outrage.
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Sometimes you get to that point, and, you know, maybe we'll get to that point with Taiwan
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at some point, but we're not there yet, and it's probably a good thing that we stay
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Man, I'm just taking a break from the conversation very quickly.
00:24:25.340
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00:25:10.840
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00:25:26.180
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00:25:32.520
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00:25:49.180
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00:26:19.240
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00:26:27.600
We've got a lot of guys interested, and I want you there.
00:26:44.920
You know, the analogy that I would use, and I often cite this as an example, your wife
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comes out, you're going to go on a date this weekend, and she comes out and she's wearing,
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you know, a particular dress or a pair of jeans.
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And she says, does my butt look big in these jeans?
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No sane man would ever say, yeah, your butt looks huge.
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But also, I don't know if that's entirely true.
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Because I think if she came out to me and she was wearing those jeans, and I didn't particularly
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like those or they weren't flattering, that I would say, as the role of my responsibility
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and duty as her partner is to say, hey, you know, those aren't the most flattering.
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Or yes, she is attractive, but not nearly as good looking as you.
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Like, I think there's a way to do this diplomatically.
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And I question whether or not in the micro or the macro, if this is a net benefit or a net loss
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to be willing to be honest, is what I would call it.
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Now, you don't want to be honest about everything all the time.
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What you're talking about that is calibrating, especially since there are conflicting goods
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here, you know, on the one hand, you want to preserve the harmony of your marriage.
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Saying something negative about the other person kind of pollutes that understanding that
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we, each of us wants to make the other one feel good about themselves.
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What's also true is there could be worse consequences if you do something compromising in public and
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your spouse might be able to prevent you from doing that.
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And, you know, we have words for the ability to weigh these things, these trade-offs.
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We call it not being, you know, on the spectrum.
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All those things of, you know, what's, you know, all those things of being kind of a socially
00:29:03.180
skilled grownup are questions often of weighing, should I bring it into common knowledge or are
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we better off keeping it private in the closet?
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So I had a really interesting conversation with my girlfriend last night.
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We had done a ton of work around the house and we were sitting on the couch and just thinking
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And she said, you know, these drapes in this, in this, we were in the basement.
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And I was worried because I thought, well, she picked those drapes out.
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So I was a little worried that maybe I was being insulting, but, uh, not much longer.
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I'm really glad you told me you didn't like those drapes.
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And, and I, that was a good lesson because it is important to be honest with tact, with
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Savoir Faire, like you said, but, but also be honest.
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How do you, how do you develop, and I'm just talking about on the micro personal relationships
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at this point, not macro like politics or foreign affairs or things like that.
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But how do you develop as a man, the ability to navigate the nuances between truth and honesty
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There are, there's always gotta be some filtering.
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Um, someone, you know, who always says what's on their mind, um, is, you know, I don't know
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I don't know what the, the norms are for your show, but we, we, we say it, get after it.
00:30:40.560
You're an asshole says, always says what they think.
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Um, and you know, there's sometimes, uh, uh, situation comedies and movies that actually
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play out a hypothetical world in which someone or everyone has to be honest all the time.
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Like Jim, the Jim Carrey movie, liar, liar, you know, it's often, you know, it's, it's
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kind of funny just cause we know a normal person doesn't do that.
00:31:07.300
Um, and so how, so how does it, uh, how does a person, how do you learn these skills?
00:31:12.580
So some of it is you, you know, you make mistakes, you learn from your own mistakes.
00:31:17.240
Uh, you try it once, you know, you'll never try that again.
00:31:20.220
Uh, you know, better still to learn from other people's mistakes.
00:31:23.100
So, uh, you know, that's, that's what a lot of, you know, conversation and gossip is, you
00:31:30.160
Oh my God, you won't believe what happened to me.
00:31:33.460
And then you listen to what happened to them and you kind of take mental notes or you talk
00:31:38.360
to, uh, you know, a member of the opposite sex in, you know, and, and you get it from
00:31:44.000
The thing about getting inside someone's head, this is really a book about, it's not only about
00:31:48.780
getting inside someone's head, it's about getting inside someone's head when they're
00:31:52.640
trying to get inside your head or get inside a third person's head.
00:31:56.360
And the thing is that we're, we, every normal human can, does that.
00:32:01.780
Uh, we actually have a word for people who can't do that.
00:32:06.160
An autistic person can't, uh, figure out that other people have thoughts and, and beliefs
00:32:17.460
By the way, have you, have you died into this very much?
00:32:19.940
I'm very curious about this vein of conversation.
00:32:22.900
I haven't done primary research on autism, but I, I, you know, I've certainly followed,
00:32:27.340
followed the literature and we have to keep in mind, by the way, that autism can refer to
00:32:35.060
So there's classical severe autism and these are, are people who, uh, just never, never
00:32:42.580
We'll just always kind of stare into various corners.
00:32:46.000
As if you're a piece of furniture, they never learn to speak.
00:33:01.260
My mom was a, uh, elementary school teacher specifically in, in special education and she has students
00:33:09.100
that she's actually still in contact with who, who, who would be more closely what, what
00:33:16.240
And there, there's a, there's a clear diagnosable difference there.
00:33:22.400
And then you have others who are just socially awkward and I, we just lumped them into autism
00:33:33.220
So it's, people now use the word for a little awkward, a little shy.
00:33:38.080
You know, I have students that come into my office.
00:33:43.820
So like I'm autistic and I'm thinking you are not, no, you're not, but now everyone,
00:33:50.000
so we've got a kind of a culture of, of victimhood and disability where weirdly there's kind of,
00:33:56.240
you can gain in status if you have some diagnosis.
00:34:01.000
Uh, I mean, this is a strange development to the last couple of, a couple of decades and
00:34:05.940
it's responsible for a lot of the so-called autism epidemic, namely people who would not
00:34:15.380
Now, you know, they call themselves or they'll find some counselor who, who's willing to call
00:34:21.040
So that's separate from the kids who just never even learned to talk because they can't even
00:34:27.060
fathom the idea that other people mean something when noises come out of their mouth, as far
00:34:32.340
as they can concern, language is just, you know, I don't know, noises come out of people's
00:34:41.080
But anyway, other than those, um, you know, all of us think about what other people, uh,
00:34:50.460
We also know that they're doing the same thing to us and there's kind of no inherent limit
00:34:56.840
to how many layers of thinking about what the other person thinks about what you think
00:35:01.180
you can get into, which is why, you know, as you and I have been going over examples, you
00:35:06.460
know, there's never a hard and fast answer as to what you should do.
00:35:11.720
And sometimes when I, uh, when I've been interviewed about the book, people say, well, what's the
00:35:15.320
What should people, lesson should people apply in their everyday lives?
00:35:18.720
And it's impossible to answer just because every situation, the other person might know what
00:35:31.220
Uh, and it's like a game of poker where you're thinking about what the other person is.
00:35:35.780
Is the other person bluffing or are they, uh, is this an honest bet?
00:35:41.020
And they're making that choice based on what they think you're thinking about what they're
00:35:47.080
And you don't know whether the other person you're dealing with is doing it to, you know,
00:35:57.200
If your partner knows that you're applying that rule.
00:36:01.120
It's like the, um, the study subject who changes their behavior because they know they're being
00:36:10.420
We all know that the other person is thinking about what we're thinking.
00:36:13.020
Now you can only think so many layers, your head starts to spin and there are, uh, you
00:36:18.760
know, there are, that itself enters into some comedies.
00:36:22.440
Like there's an episode of friends that I quote where, um, Phoebe says to Joey, uh, they don't
00:36:29.100
We know they know, we know Joe, you can't say anything.
00:36:34.300
Or, uh, so there's a famous scene in the princess bride, the battle of wits.
00:36:40.640
I, I didn't, I've forgotten totally about when I wrote the book, so I didn't include
00:36:50.740
Uh, anyway, the guy in the, the, the, the cape and the mask is having a battle of wits with,
00:36:55.820
um, vitsini and he's sure he's in one of two goblets poison the water.
00:37:01.240
And, and vitsini says, well, he's wants me to think that he poisoned mine.
00:37:05.300
So I'm going to pick his, but he knows that I know that he knows that I'm going to poison
00:37:12.260
And it goes back and forth as he keeps outsmarting himself, outsmarting the other guy until
00:37:17.340
Wesley, until, uh, I won't, I won't give the spoiler.
00:37:23.760
So rather than ask, what's the takeaway, let me ask you this.
00:37:27.520
How do you, because I think there is some practicality in analyzing people, right?
00:37:33.400
And so you might analyze your, your wife and she might seem off and it would be a good idea
00:37:41.720
Um, or one of your children, you know, maybe they come home from school and they seem frustrated.
00:37:47.100
And so I think it would be a good idea to figure out what in the world they're frustrated
00:37:55.440
So, so what I'm saying is there's powerful uses for this to be able to analyze what other
00:38:00.560
people are thinking, but how do you do it without taking it to the extreme and without
00:38:06.320
getting into your own head as you're trying to get into theirs?
00:38:12.580
So, um, so part of it is, uh, and the book talks a lot about this is that a lot of human
00:38:23.700
The other is the level of the nature of your relationship.
00:38:29.520
Why do you say, uh, in a restaurant, if you could pass the salt, that would be awesome.
00:38:33.120
Uh, you know, it's kind of a weird thing when you think about it, uh, if you could pass the
00:38:40.500
So it's a weird way to say, please pass the salt to me.
00:38:45.720
Well, do you think you might be able to pass the salt again?
00:38:48.820
If you take that literally, it's kind of a kind of roundabout way to do it, but there's
00:38:54.920
The answer is yes, I could possibly do it, but I'm not going to.
00:38:58.860
By the way, that's what a person with autism would say.
00:39:04.160
And they just not do anything because they aren't getting into your head and realizing,
00:39:11.940
Um, so, uh, the, um, why don't we just say pass the salt?
00:39:17.460
Oh, because we don't want to treat someone like a servant, like a butler.
00:39:20.060
Uh, we want to treat them with respect, especially if they're strangers or if they're friends.
00:39:28.180
Um, we, we, um, avoid some, sometimes, um, fighting with someone because we want to preserve
00:39:36.620
the relationship, even though there is something that we want.
00:39:41.740
I'll let it, I'll let her have her way or I'll let him have his way.
00:39:47.460
And one has to just keep in mind, when is the value of preserving the relationship
00:39:52.400
outweighed by the value of actually getting the message across?
00:39:59.380
It's been several years and you always get your way.
00:40:04.020
Yeah, we're going to have to fight, but you know, we really are going to have to fight
00:40:08.000
Uh, you're making it common knowledge, um, that there's a reason for discontent that prior,
00:40:13.720
uh, to that point, you may have kept private knowledge in order to preserve the relationship.
00:40:19.720
The content, the relationship, we use euphemism, innuendo, um, subtext, reading between the lines,
00:40:28.100
catching your drift when we want to avoid challenging the nature of a relationship.
00:40:39.800
I really do wish more men would understand this, you know, and, and maybe we do need to
00:40:44.560
take a page out of the book of autism at the risk of sounding, um, insensitive.
00:40:50.480
But I wish more people were just honest, you know, so a small example, I'm driving over
00:41:00.860
And as I was driving over, I felt like I wanted BLTs for lunch.
00:41:07.320
So I called her up and I said, Hey, can we have BLTs for lunch?
00:41:18.060
And she said, well, yeah, we, we can definitely do that.
00:41:28.460
And I know the stakes are low in a situation like that, but I do wish that more men were
00:41:36.180
And I think that's one of the greatest things that I see men struggling with is they're so
00:41:42.620
You know, like for example, somebody at, um, at work might say, Hey, we're going to go out
00:41:47.260
to eat with the, with the coworkers at lunch today.
00:41:54.640
Even though they have, maybe they want to go for sushi, but they won't say it.
00:42:05.960
So in the case of just, you know, two people, you know, there is, you know, again, there's,
00:42:11.960
You want the BLT, but you know, uh, it may be that if, you know, if she didn't want to
00:42:17.380
BLT and every single time you ended up with a BLT, because you're going to make a fuss and
00:42:26.560
Then, you know, you might win because it's common knowledge that you get your way.
00:42:31.380
She doesn't, you know, you stand your ground because you know, she's going to give way.
00:42:35.520
She gives way because she knows you're going to stand your ground.
00:42:38.700
Better to come up with some solution than to constantly be fighting.
00:42:43.800
So a lot of couples do that until, uh, because the equilibrium of one always deferring to the
00:42:55.860
She walks out the door because there's, if there's no way that she can, um, ever get her
00:43:01.240
way, then she has no choice, but to find another partner.
00:43:03.900
That's what happens when you're in an equilibrium where one person is dominant, the other is
00:43:14.440
It can, there, it can be pathological in cases where I'm going to use a fancy word now.
00:43:20.780
So, uh, the, the fancy word is pluralistic ignorance.
00:43:25.340
Uh, that's when everyone thinks that everyone believes something and no one actually believes
00:43:33.020
And this is, this gets to your, your, your sushi example, sometimes called the Abilene paradox.
00:43:41.600
That's actually what it's called in the technical literature in economics.
00:43:48.160
So an economist remembers a time in his childhood, he grew up in Kansas and it was a hot summer
00:43:58.660
They were in a small town, miles from anything.
00:44:00.580
They're sitting around the porch and so, and someone says, well, I don't know, maybe, you
00:44:04.900
know, we could go to Abilene, drive to Abilene.
00:44:06.940
So they get in the car and they go on this long, bumpy, dusty, hot ride to Abilene.
00:44:18.420
And someone says, well, you know, I don't know if it was such a good idea of, you know,
00:44:23.180
They said, I didn't have the idea of going to Abilene.
00:44:25.380
I thought you had the idea of going to Abilene.
00:44:27.680
Everyone thought that everyone else wanted to go to Abilene.
00:44:41.080
Everyone hates the government, but no one is, everyone's afraid to be the only one who
00:44:48.520
And so everyone, because no one is willing to say they hate the government, everyone
00:44:52.940
thinks that everyone else likes the government and no one does.
00:44:56.480
And that's why you can get regime change when people show up in a public square, everyone
00:45:03.880
Or if there's a public article in the press, suddenly that can generate the common knowledge.
00:45:12.700
And then it's game over for the government because no government can control millions of
00:45:21.720
That's why repressive governments don't allow freedom of the press or freedom of speech or
00:45:28.600
They're afraid of everyone blurting out what they all privately thought.
00:45:33.520
Once it's common knowledge, they can challenge the government.
00:45:36.040
Now, you're talking about a much smaller scale, of course.
00:45:39.900
Where if you, if people feel, here's the key ingredient.
00:45:44.500
If you feel that you'll be punished for speaking out, then you don't speak out.
00:45:49.860
Then other people don't know what you're thinking.
00:45:55.120
I'm going to give you a third term, a spiral of silence.
00:45:58.100
The more people are silent, the more other people think that they're the weirdos.
00:46:12.480
This is the whole thing behind the emperor with no clothes.
00:46:17.940
Um, the other one that comes to mind is I saw a study.
00:46:23.240
I'm using that term liberally, a study where, uh, an individual walks into a health clinic,
00:46:30.300
uh, and there's two or three people sitting in the waiting room.
00:46:34.480
And, uh, every five minutes or so, the individuals, the two that are already sitting there, they're
00:46:39.740
part of the study stand up and they start clapping or whatever.
00:46:43.000
I can't remember exactly what they do, but let's just say they stand up and start clapping.
00:46:46.980
The individual who's not part of the study comes in and sees this for three or four or
00:46:53.160
And then by the fourth or fifth iteration, they start standing up with the other individuals
00:47:01.860
The two people eventually get called, called into the waiting or called into the doctor's
00:47:07.920
Those are the two people who are part of the study.
00:47:09.560
The other individual who is not part of the study continues the behavior so much so that
00:47:16.400
new people who are coming into the office that are not part of the study continue to
00:47:21.300
stand up every five minutes and clap or do whatever it is they were conditioned to do.
00:47:25.300
It's such a fascinating thing about human behavior.
00:47:29.520
So I had not heard of that study, but I totally believe it because there are lots like it.
00:47:33.500
In fact, there used to be a television program.
00:47:35.380
I think it was when I was a child called Candid Camera.
00:47:40.600
I think it's been revived every once in a while, but there was a classic show that ran
00:47:45.040
where they would stage the Candid Camera would be a hidden camera, which wasn't so trivial
00:47:52.840
So they had to go through a lot of work to hide it.
00:47:55.900
But they would hire some Confederates, some Stooges to do something.
00:47:59.580
And they'd watch the behavior of the unsuspecting innocent person.
00:48:04.800
And it was made into some of the highlights were made into a film called What Do You Say
00:48:10.780
Where in one of the episodes, they had a woman and you couldn't get away with this today,
00:48:16.120
but they did it in the 60s where a naked woman would just appear somewhere and they just
00:48:21.740
But in this one episode that I remember, like your experiment, someone applied, they posted
00:48:29.500
a job ad and the applicant came into the third floor of an office building in the waiting
00:48:35.460
All the other applicants were there filling out questionnaire on clipboards.
00:48:39.160
Then all of a sudden, all of the other job applicants who were in reality hired by the
00:48:47.840
And what would happen is the real job applicant, he would strip down to his underwear, didn't
00:49:00.920
And again, we take our cues from what people around us are doing.
00:49:06.780
No one's smart enough to figure everything out by themselves.
00:49:10.760
And it can lead to, as we've been talking about, a pluralistic ignorance.
00:49:15.640
So that's not common knowledge, it's common misconception with private knowledge.
00:49:22.420
So in fraternities, we interview every frat bro and he'll say, I think it's really stupid
00:49:30.240
that people drink until they puke and pass out.
00:49:39.240
Not a single one thinks that this is a good thing to do, but each one of them mistakenly
00:49:48.000
In Saudi Arabia, this repressive regime, you interview men individually and they say it's
00:49:55.760
kind of ridiculous that women can't work, that men won't let their wives drive or have
00:50:03.360
I live in a society where everyone thinks that that's the right way of doing things.
00:50:06.640
It turns out the vast majority of men think that it's archaic and primitive and barbaric,
00:50:11.900
but they think that everyone else thinks that that's morally correct.
00:50:18.960
So I'm writing some notes here because a few things come to mind and I want to take this
00:50:23.220
conversation maybe down a little bit of a darker path.
00:50:26.960
So if we know that that's human behavior, and I really believe that we as men and as
00:50:33.020
leaders of our families and our businesses and communities, that we have a mandate to
00:50:38.400
Now I'm making the assumption and I hope you understand that our job is to be virtuously
00:50:44.020
influential, that we do good by those individuals we're leading and by society as a whole.
00:50:50.840
But how do you take these principles and build influence to, well, influence individuals to
00:51:04.560
And again, I'm saying that with, I want to reiterate that we have to have virtuous and
00:51:10.220
noble intentions, but how do you get people to move in the direction that's going to be
00:51:16.360
Yeah, it's a, it's a big challenge and it's an important challenge.
00:51:25.640
Men as leaders, but you might be working with your children.
00:51:28.840
You might be working with your, your wife or your significant other.
00:51:32.060
You might be working with women who are coworkers of yours.
00:51:36.920
No, I think, I think it's a, it's a central question and I'm often compared to, or to my
00:51:43.720
fellow Canadian and fellow heart, former Harvard professor of psychology, Jordan Peterson, who
00:51:50.360
has been an influence to lots of, lots of men, you know, bestselling author.
00:51:55.400
And, uh, I, I, uh, one time my, my, my, uh, 18 year old nephew said, you know, Jordan
00:52:01.620
Peterson, the most impressed the hell out of him that I knew Jordan Peterson.
00:52:07.140
So he's sold, you know, millions of books, you know, with sometimes kind of banal messages
00:52:13.800
like clean your room and, uh, you know, be on time and stand up straight.
00:52:18.120
And I do think that young men are, are today are, are kind of desperate for some positive,
00:52:24.940
um, model that a lot of kind of female dominated spaces, uh, think of malehood masculinity as
00:52:36.660
On the other hand, a lot of the models that they get from politicians, from athletes, from
00:52:41.800
popular musicians, uh, from, uh, from, from TV are not particularly, um, admirable.
00:52:49.680
And so there's, there is a hunger, which I think Jordan fills for the, how do you be in
00:52:55.700
the 21st century, uh, the kind of man that you respect and that deserves respect, not just
00:53:01.820
that you're, you're not a bully. Um, and we needed notions of, uh, there was a, there's a notion of
00:53:09.600
a gentleman in, you know, when I was a kid or to use, there's a Yiddish word, mensch. A mensch
00:53:16.580
is a man, but a man who is, uh, dignified in control of himself, consider, uh, consider it toward
00:53:25.100
others, respectful of her, toward others, respectful toward women, worthy of admiration. It's a real
00:53:31.240
compliment to be a mensch. If you call someone a mensch, that's the best thing you can say about
00:53:35.480
them. You know, I think we need to, to reinforce the notion of a mensch. And, uh, and that is a, um,
00:53:42.080
for men to cultivate traditional masculine virtues, like courage, like dignity, like self-control,
00:53:52.980
like, um, self-reliance, strength in the presence of adversity and, and, and, and threats,
00:53:59.580
ability to control your emotions, respect for women. Um, these sound a little old-fashioned,
00:54:07.240
uh, and, and to connect them with, you know, being male is a, you know, itself almost considered,
00:54:15.260
you know, sexist or misogynist in some circles, but you can't, I think we can't leave young men
00:54:21.080
with like just nothing to strive for, no positive role model to, to, uh, to, to achieve. The great,
00:54:29.560
there's a great anthropologist named Margaret Mead, famous person in the 20th century. She was way ahead
00:54:36.080
of her time, just in being a woman who would go out into Samoa and New Guinea and Borneo by herself
00:54:41.740
to study these people. She, she wrote a call. One of the things she said, and a great feminist in her
00:54:47.120
era, but she said, every civil, every society faces the challenge of civilizing their young men.
00:54:54.220
And she noted how some of the tribes that she studied would have these ordeals where men would
00:55:00.000
be thrown out into the woods with nothing, but they had to fend for themselves, or they'd be in
00:55:05.560
ordeals where they'd be, you know, tortured and have to withstand the pain. She wasn't suggesting we do
00:55:10.280
that, but she said that young men can be a real force for destruction, especially when they get
00:55:16.020
together in, you know, gangs or, or armies. And that every society has to figure out how do you
00:55:21.620
channel male energy, ambition, uh, sexuality to constructive ends. And I think in our, our efforts
00:55:33.100
to empower women, which I think has been a great thing, but, you know, we've kind of forgotten young
00:55:38.160
men. They need, we don't got to figure out how to inspire them to be both have masculine virtues,
00:55:44.900
but respecting women, respecting themselves, being positive forces in society.
00:55:52.640
Yeah. I mean, I hope that little speech was relevant to your question.
00:55:58.200
No, it was, it was, I think it's important. You know, I'm going to, I'm going to go back to, uh,
00:56:03.620
something I heard when I was little, cause I watched this movie and I can't even remember what it,
00:56:06.820
what it was, or maybe it wasn't even a movie, but a quote by John Wayne. And it said, you have to be
00:56:10.560
a man before you're a gentleman. And I think that's the point, you know? So Margaret Mead,
00:56:17.060
as you were talking about, I don't, I don't know anything about her, but I think when you had said
00:56:22.120
that young men are thrown out to fend for themselves, I, I, I don't know what she said.
00:56:29.640
So I'm not going to say that she said this, but that isn't accurate. When you look at, um, the way
00:56:35.380
young men historically have been initiated into manhood, it's not that they were thrown
00:56:41.000
into the lion's den by themselves is that they were pulled from the village. They were pulled
00:56:46.260
from the women and they were given instruction under the guidance of the elders, under the
00:56:50.500
guidance of men. There's another quote that says, um, every child must be embraced by the
00:56:56.320
village or he'll burn it down just to feel its warmth. And I, and I wish that more of us
00:57:01.740
understood that we need to take the unbridled energy and masculinity in our men and not tamp
00:57:13.420
it out, but refine it, hone it, use it for productive outcomes. Like you said, I wish more
00:57:19.160
people understood that. I think the world would be a better place if we did that and stopped
00:57:23.440
focusing on toxic masculinity and asked ourselves, how do we harness that for productive outcomes?
00:57:28.700
Not just do away with it completely. Yeah. I'm sympathetic. And wait, by the way, what you said
00:57:33.080
is right. It's not that that is that there are particular rituals in which young men achieve
00:57:38.720
manhood, which ordeals can be one of them, but different, and different societies do it in
00:57:43.160
different ways. The thing is that the young men themselves know I am now being challenged to meet
00:57:48.540
the standards of masculinity in my culture. Now, some of those, we don't want to copy. There are
00:57:53.500
cultures where to be a man, you got to kill a member of some other tribe. And until you kill them,
00:57:57.660
Right. And then you're usually tattooed or scarred or circumcised, like these things that are,
00:58:02.320
might be outdated, obviously. Right? Yeah, exactly. But the challenge remains because
00:58:06.840
young men can do a lot of damage. They commit the lion's share of the violent crimes. Uh, they,
00:58:12.340
you know, they can, they can raise hell and, and, uh, but, and pretending that they're the same
00:58:17.280
as girls is not the answer because, you know, there's a lot of variation, but on average,
00:58:23.400
they're not. Uh, but how do we speak to what's, uh, distinctive about men and, and, uh, channel it
00:58:32.040
in a productive direction is something that, uh, because, you know, young men are not doing well.
00:58:36.780
It's, you know, ironically, uh, it used to be that, you know, how do we get women in school? How do we
00:58:41.840
get women in the professions and so on? Now the problem is the men are dropping out of school.
00:58:46.040
The men are unemployed. The men are smoking weed and watching video games and getting into trouble.
00:58:51.560
Um, it's a, it's a challenge that our society really has to take seriously. There's no easy
00:58:57.300
answer, but we've got to, I think we do need to think about it. Yeah. Douglas Wilson won't say
00:59:03.020
if boys don't, excuse me, if boy, yes, if boys don't learn, men won't know. And I'm afraid that our
00:59:10.640
young boys aren't learning. And now we're going to have a generation of young boys, millions,
00:59:16.520
literally tens, if not hundreds of millions of young boys across the planet who don't know what
00:59:21.000
it means to be a man. And therefore we're, we're, we're scratching the surface on the dangerous and
00:59:27.820
dire times that we will be facing if we can't turn this tight around. Yeah. It's a question of not
00:59:32.000
turning back the clock because you can't turn back the clock. And we're, we're living in a,
00:59:36.920
in a world in which women are rightly empowered and they, uh, uh, have to be respected, which I
00:59:43.520
think past generations did not do, but still there can be a vision of modern 21st century masculinity
00:59:51.060
that's perfectly respectful of, of women that, uh, that acknowledges them as, uh, peers in any sphere
00:59:59.040
of life in which a woman wants to excel, where women being different from men have, uh, different
01:00:05.600
emotions, different expectations that a competent man has to take into account. Women's sexuality
01:00:11.260
and men's sexuality aren't the same. It's, it's amazing that we get together, uh, but they're not
01:00:15.840
the same. And that's something that any grownup should be aware of. Um, and the, the idea that we
01:00:23.040
should, that being a man means disrespecting a woman, uh, demeaning, uh, dominating, you know,
01:00:29.700
that's not going to work in the 21st century either. So it's something that we need a version of
01:00:34.280
masculinity, as you put it, that will cultivate, grow, nurture the traditional masculine strengths
01:00:40.920
in a world in which women are going to have and ought to have, uh, you know, political and economic
01:00:46.700
equality. Yeah, man, it's such an interesting subject. And I'm really glad that we could have
01:00:52.980
an honest discussion where we could hash some of this out. Obviously we're just, we're not even
01:00:56.840
scratching the surface. I don't think on what is possible with this discussion, but can you let
01:01:01.380
everybody know how to connect more with you and learn more about the work that you're doing?
01:01:05.380
I'm very fascinated with this dichotomy between being ruthlessly honest and
01:01:14.940
compassionately tactful. I, that's the best I can come up with right now.
01:01:20.920
You put your finger on it. That's exactly right. That's what the book is about. So the book is when
01:01:24.420
everyone knows that everyone knows common knowledge and the mysteries of money, power,
01:01:28.800
and everyday life. Uh, I'm a, I'm a, I'm a psychology professor at Harvard. I have a website,
01:01:34.660
stephenpinker.com. I've got, I do, uh, X formerly Twitter, essay Pinker. Um, I'm, I'm all over YouTube.
01:01:42.680
Uh, so I've, I've done a lot of talks, a lot of interviews. Um, I'm happy to have done this one with
01:01:49.060
you. Um, but, uh, you know, I, I'm not hard to find. Great. Well, we'll sync everything up. So the guys
01:01:56.360
know where to go, Stephen, thank you for joining me and sharing some of your wisdom today. I'm
01:01:59.980
looking forward to some follow-up conversations with you. It's been a pleasure. Thanks for having
01:02:03.720
me, Ryan. All right, gentlemen, there you go. My conversation with Dr. Steven Pinker. I hope you
01:02:10.340
enjoyed it. Very interesting. Um, fascinating. I love talking with intellectuals. Um, I'm not much of
01:02:15.920
an intellectual myself, but I do hope that I can hold my own and ask thoughtful questions. And I hope I
01:02:20.820
asked some of the questions that if you were sitting down with Dr. Pinker, that you would have asked
01:02:25.660
yourself. Um, if you have any questions, thoughts, ideas, concepts, uh, concerns, whatever it might
01:02:31.880
be, hit me up on the gram at Ryan Mickler. Um, also connect with Dr. Pinker. He's most active over on
01:02:38.480
X. You can connect with him there at S A Pinker, S A Pinker. And you can connect with me at Ryan
01:02:47.420
Mickler on X. Also make sure you check out YouTube doing a big push over there. If you want to
01:02:53.580
see my ugly mug and my guests as well, um, not sure why you'd want to do that, but plenty of men do
01:03:00.600
a third of a million of men want to do that. You can go over to youtube.com slash order of man. I'm
01:03:07.200
trying to grow that to half a million, uh, subscribers and connections between now and
01:03:11.720
the end of the year. So youtube.com slash order of man, and then check out our divorce, not death
01:03:18.540
course. All right, guys, you have got your marching orders. We will be back for our ask
01:03:23.760
me anything until then go out there, take action and become the man you are meant to be. Thank you
01:03:29.340
for listening to the order of man podcast. You're ready to take charge of your life and be more of
01:03:34.260
the man you were meant to be. We invite you to join the order at order of man.com.