Order of Man - DR. STEVEN PINKER ｜ How Common Knowledge Hurts and Helps Us

00:00:00.120 Why do some men refuse to say what they see and what everyone already knows, whether or not they're willing to acknowledge it?

00:00:08.820 Is there some benefit to keeping quiet or adhering to the quote-unquote unwritten rules?

00:00:15.300 And is there a time and place to break tradition?

00:00:18.860 Today I'm joined by Harvard professor Dr. Steven Pinker to answer these questions.

00:00:23.280 We also discuss the difference between common knowledge and common wisdom.

00:00:27.500 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.

00:00:49.940 You're a man of action. You live life to the fullest. Embrace your fears and boldly chart your own path.

00:00:55.740 When life knocks you down, you get back up one more time, every time.

00:01:00.460 You are not easily deterred or defeated, rugged, resilient, strong.

00:01:05.520 This is your life. This is who you are. This is who you will become.

00:01:09.740 At the end of the day, and after all is said and done, you can call yourself a man.

00:01:14.660 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.

00:01:23.380 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.

00:01:31.220 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.

00:01:37.520 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.

00:01:46.540 And I'm glad that he's able to join us today to talk about some commonly held beliefs, some ideas, some common knowledge,

00:01:55.520 and even some of the unwritten rules that most of us refuse or are unwilling to talk about.

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00:03:31.460 All right, guys, let me introduce you to Dr. Steven Pinker.

00:03:34.980 He is a cognitive psychologist.

00:03:37.120 He's a linguist.

00:03:38.540 He's also a public intellectual.

00:03:41.500 He's known for his work on language and mind and human nature,

00:03:44.880 and he earned his bachelor's in psychology at McGill University,

00:03:49.200 and also a Ph.D. in experimental psychology from Harvard University.

00:03:55.580 Over his career, he has held teaching and research posts at MIT, Stanford, Harvard.

00:04:03.860 And at Harvard, he now serves as the John Stones family professor of psychology.

00:04:09.200 His writings for general audiences include The Language Instinct,

00:04:15.000 How the Mind Works, The Blank Slate,

00:04:17.500 The Better Angels of Our Nature, Enlightenment Now, and Rationality.

00:04:22.340 They all seek to bridge the idea of intellectual and rigorous science with our public discourse.

00:04:30.120 But his most recent book, and this is what we talk about today,

00:04:33.140 When Everyone Knows That Everyone Knows,

00:04:35.080 He explores how humans reason about what others know and know that others know

00:04:43.240 and how this quote-unquote common knowledge shapes our coordination,

00:04:48.960 our political dynamics, our behavior and economics, and just everyday interactions.

00:04:54.400 And he also argues that what one person thinks, another person thinks, and so on,

00:04:59.480 is really embedded in how we make arguments,

00:05:02.920 how we reinforce our norms, and how we maintain our beliefs in society.

00:05:10.920 Enjoy this one, gents.

00:05:13.920 Stephen, thanks for joining me on the Order of Man podcast.

00:05:16.320 Glad to have you here today.

00:05:17.680 Thank you.

00:05:18.120 I have thought that we have done another podcast.

00:05:22.560 I think I must have thought that at some point, maybe six, seven, eight years ago,

00:05:26.740 we had something scheduled and didn't do it.

00:05:29.000 I was doing some research, and I thought for sure you and I had done a podcast,

00:05:33.460 but we have not.

00:05:34.520 So I'm honored to have you on the podcast.

00:05:36.460 Well, me too.

00:05:37.480 Here we are.

00:05:39.060 Here we are.

00:05:40.240 Well, you know, as I was looking through your book,

00:05:42.840 when everyone knows that everyone knows, something came to mind,

00:05:47.780 and it was Socrates who said, and I wrote this down because I wanted to get it right,

00:05:52.640 the beginning of wisdom is the definition of words.

00:05:56.500 And when I hear your subtitle, when it refers to common knowledge,

00:06:00.860 I'm interested in the differentiation between common knowledge and common sense,

00:06:05.180 because I think you make the distinction between the two.

00:06:08.740 Oh, yes.

00:06:09.440 And, in fact, I have to confess that I'm using common knowledge in a technical sense.

00:06:13.940 I didn't invent it, but it's just in the academic literature, so I had no choice.

00:06:20.360 But in that technical sense, it doesn't refer to the way everyone uses the word common knowledge,

00:06:26.020 that is, something that is widely known, conventional wisdom,

00:06:31.280 even things that might be an open secret, like, well, it's kind of common knowledge

00:06:35.780 that you can bribe the police around here.

00:06:37.420 That's not what it means in the sense that I use it.

00:06:40.620 Common knowledge refers to not just everyone knowing something,

00:06:43.300 but everyone knowing that everyone knows it,

00:06:45.360 and everyone knowing that, and everyone knowing that ad infinitum.

00:06:48.820 So what common knowledge means is I know something, you know it,

00:06:51.900 I know that you know it, you know that I know it,

00:06:53.700 I know that you know that I know that you know it, et cetera.

00:06:57.420 So that's the technical definition of common knowledge.

00:07:00.080 It's also not the same as common sense,

00:07:03.440 which is just the understanding of the way that the world works,

00:07:10.540 that someone without a lot of formal education or technical training can know.

00:07:16.820 In fact, there's some aspects of common knowledge in the technical sense

00:07:20.640 that kind of fly in the face of common sense.

00:07:23.660 And my second chapter is called Common Knowledge and Common Sense.

00:07:26.660 Just to fend off the accusation,

00:07:30.040 well, everyone knows that there's a difference between something that's public and private.

00:07:34.180 You know, what's the big deal?

00:07:34.960 Why do you have to write a whole book about it?

00:07:36.660 And so in the second chapter, I explain why,

00:07:39.580 no, it's actually way more subtle and non-obvious than you think.

00:07:44.440 There are actually some mathematical theorems about common knowledge

00:07:47.920 and how it differs from widespread private knowledge

00:07:51.840 that I walk the reader through.

00:07:53.920 First, because they're just kind of mind-boggling,

00:07:55.720 but also to defend myself against the idea like, you know, there's a book in that.

00:08:00.340 Yeah.

00:08:01.080 So it's why there is a book in that.

00:08:04.460 So one thing that comes to mind and helped me understand

00:08:07.020 if I'm way off base with this or I'm over target,

00:08:09.800 I remember the military's stance against homosexuality, for example.

00:08:18.320 And the policy was, don't ask, don't tell. 0.98

00:08:22.080 So I know that you're gay. 1.00

00:08:24.440 You know that you're gay. 1.00

00:08:25.560 You know that I know you're gay. 1.00

00:08:26.780 And yet we're still not going to talk about it. 0.96

00:08:28.700 Am I over target or am I missing the boat here?

00:08:30.800 That's a great example.

00:08:32.000 And, you know, now that you mentioned it,

00:08:33.140 it makes me kick myself that I didn't include that in the book.

00:08:36.400 I did include the concept of being in the closet,

00:08:40.620 which is kind of the same idea.

00:08:43.160 Sure.

00:08:43.260 By the way, you know, a lot of common knowledge sounds like impossibly convoluted,

00:08:50.180 abstruse, like, you know, who actually literally thinks,

00:08:53.460 I know that she knows that I know that she knows.

00:08:55.380 But often we don't have to.

00:08:56.740 We have metaphors of something being out there in your face,

00:09:02.020 on the table, out of the closet.

00:09:03.980 That is, whenever we refer metaphorically to something that is publicly visible or audible,

00:09:11.080 that is, I can see it when you can see it and we can see each other seeing it.

00:09:15.560 That's how we talk about common knowledge and ordinary conversation.

00:09:19.300 And out of the closet or living in the closet are good examples.

00:09:23.840 But the don't ask, don't tell is a perfect example of that.

00:09:27.160 Yes. 0.98

00:09:28.360 I know that he's gay. 0.98

00:09:29.940 He knows that he's gay. 0.95

00:09:30.980 He probably knows that I know. 0.59

00:09:32.300 I probably know that he knows.

00:09:34.360 But do we know that the other one knows that we know that we know that we know?

00:09:38.440 There you could start to get some deniability.

00:09:41.600 And that changed the kind of official stance of the U.S. government that we disapprove

00:09:49.100 or we don't reward homosexuality, even though we also want to be fair to people.

00:09:55.460 We want to have the biggest pool of manpower that we can get.

00:09:58.820 So a lot of hypocrisy, and that's a great example, consists of keeping something out of common knowledge that is private knowledge.

00:10:09.720 Well, okay, so with that example, so I take a little bit of issue with that.

00:10:13.460 I'm curious what you say about this because you said we don't reward it.

00:10:16.400 But why would we?

00:10:17.160 We don't reward anybody for being straight.

00:10:19.040 So there's no reason to reward anybody for being gay. 0.91

00:10:23.020 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? 0.80

00:10:32.220 Well, yes, that's the ultimate justification for officially not discriminating against gay people.

00:10:39.060 In that era, though, when the government actually treating gay people equivalently to these straight people was itself controversial,

00:10:49.520 particularly in all-male environments like the armed forces, where there were some people who were just squeamish about the idea.

00:10:58.020 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.

00:11:08.280 So the people, whoever had reservations about them, Clinton himself not being one, but it was a kind of accommodation to them.

00:11:17.400 What do you think makes it hypocrisy, though, in that instance or maybe other instances?

00:11:23.240 And maybe, you know, we're looking at it through the lens of one avenue, right?

00:11:27.160 Maybe there's an infinite number of avenues where this exists.

00:11:31.720 But what makes it not hypocrisy if we're choosing not to acknowledge something that may be an immutable characteristic

00:11:40.700 or a certain behavior that doesn't apply to the meritocracy of the environment that we're dealing?

00:11:48.480 Why would it be hypocrisy? 0.95

00:11:50.480 Oh, well, you know, either gays can serve in the military or they can't. 1.00

00:11:57.620 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.

00:12:08.980 So the hypocrisy is between what you're doing and what can be said about it.

00:12:13.120 Are there other avenues where this, I'm just having a hard time wrapping my head around that.

00:12:19.700 And I'm just wondering if there's other avenues that we could bring into the conversation that maybe illustrate the idea of hypocrisy.

00:12:26.980 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.

00:12:39.340 No, of course not.

00:12:40.200 So I would consider that not hypocrisy.

00:12:45.340 Well, I agree and probably the vast majority of people agree.

00:12:50.260 But you've got to rewind the tape to the early 1990s in which there were –

00:12:55.800 Right, sure.

00:12:57.180 And it was in that context that there was the policy.

00:13:00.040 It became ridiculous and so it was rescinded.

00:13:03.520 And it's not even an issue anymore.

00:13:05.000 And I was 10 in the early 90s.

00:13:07.300 So that wouldn't have been on my radar at that point.

00:13:09.980 Right.

00:13:10.580 So I was older than 10. 0.98

00:13:13.020 And it seemed kind of silly at the time but better than the alternative, which was keeping gay people out of the military. 0.99

00:13:19.900 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. 0.79

00:13:39.340 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.

00:13:51.700 At the same time, we are doing what's best for the largest number of people, including gay people and for the military.

00:14:00.760 But we are not – we're not insulting, defying, flipping you guys off.

00:14:08.580 You guys being the people who at the time did care about it, which are a dwindling minority.

00:14:14.340 There are lots of other examples.

00:14:16.000 I mean another one that people can't wrap their minds around.

00:14:18.960 And a lot of these examples are – become ridiculous when social standards change. 0.69

00:14:23.760 Because it is to me.

00:14:24.600 That's why I'm having such a hard time quantifying it.

00:14:27.040 I'm like I don't understand what the problem is here.

00:14:29.040 But that might be just because of the era that I live in.

00:14:31.780 So I'm fully willing to acknowledge that.

00:14:34.340 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.

00:14:45.900 I do believe that.

00:14:47.220 I'm willing to acknowledge nuance and that other people might believe something different, but I do acknowledge that.

00:14:52.560 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. 0.68

00:15:04.340 Why doesn't it have laws against homosexuality? 1.00

00:15:08.500 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.

00:15:18.320 So they might say it is sinful for the government to pretend that homosexuality is okay.

00:15:25.080 And there are fewer people who believe that today.

00:15:28.180 But in the 1990s, there were plenty, and the government was trying to acknowledge their sensibilities with this policy.

00:15:38.300 I'll give you some other examples.

00:15:40.620 I would love to hear it.

00:15:42.760 So someone sitting on a park bench drinking a bottle of booze out of a bottle of booze in a paper bag.

00:15:51.000 Now – and the police don't arrest him.

00:15:54.580 Now, you know, he's not fooling anyone.

00:15:56.700 No one drinks, you know, Diet Coke.

00:15:59.120 We know what it is.

00:16:00.600 We know what it is.

00:16:02.360 Why –

00:16:02.820 But you can't be publicly intoxicated.

00:16:05.240 Yeah.

00:16:05.560 Well, you can't even be publicly consuming alcoholic beverage.

00:16:08.500 I mean, even if you're not literally drunk.

00:16:11.080 So what's going on – or I'll give you another example.

00:16:13.200 You know, you can go on the internet.

00:16:16.560 It used to be alternative papers would have ads for these things called escort services. 0.97

00:16:21.540 So you could pay for female companionship. 1.00

00:16:25.740 Now, you know, we're grownups.

00:16:29.380 We know that escort services were not advertising escorts.

00:16:34.660 It's fancy prostitution is what it is, right? 1.00

00:16:37.200 It's obviously prostitution. 1.00

00:16:39.880 So what is – what's going on with those?

00:16:43.200 Again, their hypocrisy in that the police will not automatically arrest anyone – everyone

00:16:49.900 who's drinking out of a bottle in a paper bag.

00:16:52.760 The police do not try to shut down every escort service.

00:16:58.020 How come?

00:16:59.000 You know, prostitution is illegal. 1.00

00:17:00.320 Public drinking is illegal.

00:17:01.920 Well, the – here's the calculation, which they don't make explicit.

00:17:07.100 But it would be too intrusive and expensive for the government to try to crack down on every escort in the country

00:17:16.620 or everyone drinking out of a paper – from a paper bag.

00:17:19.960 And so they don't arrest them.

00:17:22.920 On the other hand, with the fig leaf, with the keeping out of common knowledge that that's what they're doing,

00:17:30.300 they are not announcing the law is meaningless.

00:17:33.660 We don't enforce the law.

00:17:34.820 It's our policy is to – that the law is the law.

00:17:39.040 We could enforce it.

00:17:41.080 We're going to pretend that the – these people are not breaking the law and that spares us from the obligation of enforcing it

00:17:50.460 without forfeiting the very idea that there are laws, there are police.

00:17:54.940 I'll give you – I can give you another example of –

00:17:58.580 Can I jump in here, Stephen, real quick?

00:18:00.360 Sure.

00:18:01.840 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?

00:18:13.260 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.

00:18:22.100 Is this a way to appease both sides without really having to account for what you actually believe in and what you stand by?

00:18:31.160 I don't think that the police are literally worried about real anarchists.

00:18:39.300 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.

00:18:52.100 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.

00:19:08.680 And by – when you make – when something is common knowledge, that is your official policy.

00:19:14.860 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.

00:19:27.100 I can give you some other examples.

00:19:28.420 So I'll give it a personal example and a global example.

00:19:34.500 Here's a global example.

00:19:36.040 So you know there's this place called Taiwan.

00:19:38.580 Here's this island off the coast of China.

00:19:40.620 It's got a government.

00:19:41.840 It's got a capital.

00:19:42.800 It's got its own currency.

00:19:44.080 It's got its own flag.

00:19:45.380 You know, it's a country.

00:19:46.680 What's the official policy of the United States towards Taiwan?

00:19:50.420 It doesn't exist.

00:19:51.980 There's no Taiwan embassy.

00:19:54.280 Under China? 0.70

00:19:55.240 It's – it's part of China.

00:19:57.500 Now, it's not part of China.

00:20:00.280 But – and, you know, everyone knows it.

00:20:02.260 But saying it's not part of China.

00:20:04.720 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.

00:20:15.460 It would consider it to be a challenge to their dignity, their stature, their reputation.

00:20:23.140 And it could trigger a war.

00:20:24.340 That's why they don't do it.

00:20:26.140 So it's a kind of hypocrisy.

00:20:27.740 Does Taiwan – is Taiwan a country or not?

00:20:30.400 We really don't want to – we don't want to say.

00:20:33.300 We're not going to answer that question.

00:20:35.440 We'd rather not answer that question.

00:20:36.820 Exactly.

00:20:37.120 I'll give you another example.

00:20:38.840 Politicians do this all the time, right?

00:20:40.660 They do.

00:20:41.440 We actually know it as politicking.

00:20:44.280 Exactly.

00:20:45.100 And in a democracy, they kind of have to because they can't make everyone happy.

00:20:49.280 And so they'll sometimes – you know, they'll dog whistle.

00:20:52.560 They'll sidestep.

00:20:54.040 I have a chapter called Weasel Words in When Everyone Knows That Everyone Knows.

00:20:59.120 I'll give you another example.

00:21:01.100 The politician is – suffered some setback.

00:21:03.960 And so he resigns to spend more time with his family.

00:21:07.680 Now, you know, everyone knows that it's not why he's resigning.

00:21:12.800 But maybe people think that other people think that it's plausible, or even if they don't,

00:21:17.760 that they think that other people think that other people think they're plausible.

00:21:20.240 As long as there isn't the common knowledge, then you can maintain your reputation as a rational,

00:21:28.140 sane person and let them get away with it.

00:21:32.740 So another example, in everyday social circles, we usually – you know, there's a lot of obesity

00:21:41.020 in this country.

00:21:42.300 Generally, we don't call attention to the fact that one of our friends is fat.

00:21:46.340 You know, we just don't say it.

00:21:47.460 We pretend that they're not.

00:21:48.620 And so I have an interview with a woman who, a couple of years ago, came out as fat. 0.97

00:21:53.700 Now, what does that mean?

00:21:55.380 Everyone can see them.

00:21:57.040 You weren't in the closet.

00:21:58.320 We could all see this.

00:21:59.060 You just cannot be in the closet there.

00:22:01.560 But people pretend – they act as if the person is not fat, even though they can't believe it

00:22:09.000 themselves, they can't even believe that other people believe it, but maybe they believe

00:22:12.420 that other people believe that they believe that other people believe it, and that's

00:22:15.780 enough to keep it – so that it does not affect your social relationships.

00:22:20.500 Since being overweight takes someone down a few notches in respect, in esteem, in valuation,

00:22:28.880 since among friends or even among polite strangers, there's the fiction that we're all the

00:22:34.040 same, that no one's better than anyone else, noting that someone is fat would challenge

00:22:39.680 that common knowledge assumption that makes friends friends.

00:22:43.840 And so you don't say it out loud, even though you know it privately.

00:22:47.980 Now, this woman, her name is Lindy West, thought that this – as with many cases of hypocrisy, 0.99

00:22:54.080 sometimes you get to the point where you want to say, oh, cut the crap, let's just say 0.95

00:22:58.920 the attempt to keep the private knowledge private gets to be so much of a burden and an exertion

00:23:07.520 that you're willing to pay the price of the – being seen as less desirable, less lower

00:23:17.160 in status is worth the price of no longer indulging the hypocrisy.

00:23:22.660 And in relationships, in marriages, sometimes you get to that point where there's a kind

00:23:28.980 of common understanding that, say, one of them defers to the other because they don't

00:23:35.460 want to – they want to avoid a fight.

00:23:37.740 So one spouse just always gets their way. 1.00

00:23:40.820 They stand their ground because they think the other spouse will give way.

00:23:44.500 The other one gives way because they think the first one will stand their ground.

00:23:47.940 And that can keep them from bickering and fighting and screaming, but it may come to

00:23:53.340 a point where the one who's always getting the short end of the stick says, you know,

00:23:57.640 enough is enough.

00:23:59.060 I'm actually going to say, look, you're exploiting me.

00:24:02.700 I'm doing all the giving.

00:24:04.740 You're doing all the taking.

00:24:06.100 Now, that can be unpleasant.

00:24:07.280 It can lead to awkwardness, even fights, even outrage.

00:24:12.400 Sometimes you get to that point, and, you know, maybe we'll get to that point with Taiwan 0.97

00:24:16.020 at some point, but we're not there yet, and it's probably a good thing that we stay 0.84

00:24:19.840 hypocritical.

00:24:21.900 Man, I'm just taking a break from the conversation very quickly. 0.80

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00:24:34.580 It's the end of their marriage.

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00:24:42.300 figuratively, it is not the end of your story.

00:24:44.400 It's really a chance to rebuild and to reclaim and to make yourself stronger.

00:24:50.040 One example that we have is a gentleman named Mark.

00:24:52.860 I'm using a different name for privacy, but he's a 38-year-old father of two.

00:24:59.160 He basically watched his marriage of 12 years collapse.

00:25:03.160 You know, one day he's tucking his kids into bed, and the next he's packing up boxes, and

00:25:07.620 he's trying to split weekends with his kids, but he's got a lot of guilt.

00:25:10.840 The loneliness hits harder for him at night, which it did for me when I went through my

00:25:15.340 divorce.

00:25:16.720 And he starts numbing himself with late nights, junk food, scrolling on the gram, alcohol.

00:25:26.180 But he has realized that if he doesn't fight for his future and for his kids, that nobody

00:25:31.460 else is really going to do this.

00:25:32.520 And that's when he came to us for divorce, not death.

00:25:36.180 But he starts small.

00:25:37.460 You know, he starts hitting the gym again, starts journaling his thoughts.

00:25:40.500 He reconnects with his brothers instead of just isolating and wallowing in his own self

00:25:44.620 pity.

00:25:44.840 And he starts to show up for his kids.

00:25:48.400 He's not bitter.

00:25:49.180 He's strong, and he's trying to be steadfast in this new venture that he's on, so to speak.

00:25:58.440 But little by little, he's rebuilding his confidence and his faith and what he wants

00:26:02.620 to accomplish as a man.

00:26:04.000 But divorce didn't destroy him.

00:26:06.300 I think in a way it woke him up.

00:26:08.520 And that's what this course is about.

00:26:10.320 It's called Divorce, Not Death.

00:26:12.280 And it is the wake-up call that every man going through this hard, hard time needs so

00:26:19.240 he can rise from the ashes, so to speak, and begin to lead again.

00:26:24.240 Check it out.

00:26:24.920 It's going now.

00:26:26.320 We've got a lot of guys joining.

00:26:27.600 We've got a lot of guys interested, and I want you there.

00:26:30.740 DivorceNotDeath.com.

00:26:32.060 Again, DivorceNotDeath.com.

00:26:34.280 Do that right after the conversation.

00:26:36.020 For now, let's get back to it with Stephen.

00:26:39.140 Okay, so that's what I was going to ask you.

00:26:40.660 So you said it's a good thing.

00:26:41.700 And I would agree with that to an extent.

00:26:44.920 You know, the analogy that I would use, and I often cite this as an example, your wife

00:26:50.260 comes out, you're going to go on a date this weekend, and she comes out and she's wearing,

00:26:54.020 you know, a particular dress or a pair of jeans. 0.93

00:26:57.040 And she says, does my butt look big in these jeans? 0.99

00:27:00.020 No sane man would ever say, yeah, your butt looks huge. 1.00

00:27:04.680 You should not wear those. 0.98

00:27:06.740 But that said, I do think-

00:27:08.560 How about this one?

00:27:09.760 Do you think she's pretty? 0.70

00:27:11.700 Do you think she's beautiful?

00:27:13.200 Oh, that's a good one.

00:27:14.540 Right.

00:27:14.860 Another good one.

00:27:16.720 Better to avoid that, right?

00:27:18.500 But also, I don't know if that's entirely true.

00:27:23.380 Because I think if she came out to me and she was wearing those jeans, and I didn't particularly

00:27:27.700 like those or they weren't flattering, that I would say, as the role of my responsibility

00:27:34.840 and duty as her partner is to say, hey, you know, those aren't the most flattering.

00:27:40.820 Or yes, she is attractive, but not nearly as good looking as you.

00:27:45.400 Like, I think there's a way to do this diplomatically.

00:27:49.280 And I question whether or not in the micro or the macro, if this is a net benefit or a net loss

00:27:56.540 to be willing to be honest, is what I would call it.

00:28:00.600 No, you're dead on.

00:28:02.280 Now, you don't want to be honest about everything all the time.

00:28:05.920 Fair enough.

00:28:06.380 What you're talking about that is calibrating, especially since there are conflicting goods

00:28:12.100 here, you know, on the one hand, you want to preserve the harmony of your marriage.

00:28:19.620 And so-

00:28:20.340 Correct.

00:28:20.660 Saying something negative about the other person kind of pollutes that understanding that

00:28:27.040 we, each of us wants to make the other one feel good about themselves.

00:28:30.440 That isn't true.

00:28:31.820 What's also true is there could be worse consequences if you do something compromising in public and

00:28:38.300 your spouse might be able to prevent you from doing that.

00:28:41.000 So what is the right thing to do?

00:28:42.880 Well, you know, there's no single answer.

00:28:44.660 And, you know, we have words for the ability to weigh these things, these trade-offs.

00:28:50.060 We call it tact.

00:28:51.480 We call it savoir-faire.

00:28:53.420 We call it social skills.

00:28:54.980 We call it not being, you know, on the spectrum.

00:28:58.260 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

00:29:10.320 we better off keeping it private in the closet?

00:29:14.120 That's it.

00:29:14.800 So, okay.

00:29:15.220 So I had a really interesting conversation with my girlfriend last night.

00:29:18.220 We had done a ton of work around the house and we were sitting on the couch and just thinking

00:29:22.960 about what we needed to do next.

00:29:24.340 And she said, you know, these drapes in this, in this, we were in the basement.

00:29:27.640 She said, these drapes in here are horrible.

00:29:29.440 And I said, yeah, they're grotesque.

00:29:31.540 Like I don't, they are bad.

00:29:33.300 I don't like them.

00:29:34.720 And I was worried because I thought, well, she picked those drapes out.

00:29:37.720 So I was a little worried that maybe I was being insulting, but, uh, not much longer.

00:29:43.180 She said, you know what?

00:29:44.020 I'm really glad you told me you didn't like those drapes.

00:29:45.900 Now I know I can trust you.

00:29:47.780 Oh yes.

00:29:49.400 Right.

00:29:49.920 And, and I, that was a good lesson because it is important to be honest with tact, with

00:29:55.880 Savoir Faire, like you said, but, but also be honest.

00:30:02.180 How do you, how do you develop, and I'm just talking about on the micro personal relationships

00:30:07.380 at this point, not macro like politics or foreign affairs or things like that.

00:30:11.920 But how do you develop as a man, the ability to navigate the nuances between truth and honesty

00:30:19.600 unbridled or with a little bit of filtering?

00:30:24.120 No, it's a great question.

00:30:25.620 There are, there's always gotta be some filtering.

00:30:27.320 Um, someone, you know, who always says what's on their mind, um, is, you know, I don't know

00:30:34.040 if you could, I won't use the word.

00:30:35.660 I don't know what the, the norms are for your show, but we, we, we say it, get after it. 1.00

00:30:40.560 You're an asshole says, always says what they think. 0.99

00:30:44.900 Um, and you know, there's sometimes, uh, uh, situation comedies and movies that actually 1.00

00:30:51.700 play out a hypothetical world in which someone or everyone has to be honest all the time.

00:30:57.320 Like Jim, the Jim Carrey movie, liar, liar, you know, it's often, you know, it's, it's

00:31:03.380 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

00:31:28.600 know, some friends get together.

00:31:30.160 Oh my God, you won't believe what happened to me.

00:31:32.140 I'm really in the dog house.

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 0.86

00:31:43.040 their point of view.

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.

00:32:04.900 That's what autism is.

00:32:06.160 An autistic person can't, uh, figure out that other people have thoughts and, and beliefs 1.00

00:32:13.140 that are different from, from their own.

00:32:15.140 But how much have you studied autism?

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

00:32:30.920 two very different things.

00:32:33.000 There's explain that.

00:32:34.380 Oh yeah.

00:32:35.060 So there's classical severe autism and these are, are people who, uh, just never, never

00:32:41.920 look at you.

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.

00:32:49.480 They will sometimes scream for no reason.

00:32:53.240 They will, uh, mutilate themselves.

00:32:55.640 They can be aggressive.

00:32:57.140 These are deeply, deeply disordered people.

00:33:00.560 Then there's...

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

00:33:15.640 you're defining.

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

00:33:27.940 and I'm not sure that really is autism.

00:33:31.100 What you said is completely true.

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.

00:33:39.820 You know, I teach at Harvard university.

00:33:41.940 So you come to the high professor Pinker.

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 0.87

00:34:12.420 up in categorized as autism 30 years ago.

00:34:15.380 Now, you know, they call themselves or they'll find some counselor who, who's willing to call

00:34:19.700 them, uh, autistic. 0.57

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

00:34:37.140 mouths.

00:34:37.660 I don't know what they are.

00:34:38.680 That that's classic severe autism.

00:34:41.080 But anyway, other than those, um, you know, all of us think about what other people, uh,

00:34:48.260 mean, want, believe.

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

00:35:14.860 takeaway?

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

00:35:26.300 you're thinking about what they're thinking.

00:35:28.780 They might take that into account.

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

00:35:46.300 thinking.

00:35:47.080 And you don't know whether the other person you're dealing with is doing it to, you know,

00:35:50.900 two levels or three levels or four levels.

00:35:53.140 And so sometimes a rule can be defeat itself.

00:35:57.200 If your partner knows that you're applying that rule.

00:36:00.260 All right.

00:36:01.120 It's like the, um, the study subject who changes their behavior because they know they're being

00:36:06.120 studied.

00:36:07.220 Yeah.

00:36:07.940 And, and that, that's, that's social life.

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

00:36:28.780 know.

00:36:29.100 We know they know, we know Joe, you can't say anything.

00:36:31.960 And he says, I couldn't even if I wanted to.

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

00:36:44.060 it where, um, uh, the, uh, what's his name?

00:36:49.720 Uh, not Whitney.

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.

00:37:00.280 Yeah.

00:37:00.400 Right.

00:37:00.760 That's right.

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

00:37:10.240 mine.

00:37:10.680 So I'm going to pick mine after all.

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.

00:37:22.040 We won't, we won't.

00:37:23.180 Okay.

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 1.00

00:37:39.580 to figure out what's going on.

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

00:37:51.460 with.

00:37:51.740 So you can help navigate through that.

00:37:53.180 How do you attempt?

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?

00:38:11.080 Yeah.

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

00:38:18.400 communication works at two levels.

00:38:21.200 One is the level of the actual message.

00:38:23.700 The other is the level of the nature of your relationship.

00:38:27.020 So just like a really simple example.

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

00:38:38.960 salt and awesome.

00:38:40.500 So it's a weird way to say, please pass the salt to me.

00:38:42.860 It's a weird way to say it.

00:38:44.020 Um, but we do it all the time.

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

00:38:54.520 a reason.

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.

00:39:01.840 Uh, they might just say, yes, I can do that.

00:39:04.160 And they just not do anything because they aren't getting into your head and realizing,

00:39:08.460 oh, that's not what he means.

00:39:09.560 What he means is he wants me to pass the salt.

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.

00:39:25.480 And we do that at every level.

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.

00:39:38.780 So we say, oh, screw it.

00:39:40.660 It's not worth fighting over.

00:39:41.740 I'll let it, I'll let her have her way or I'll let him have his way.

00:39:44.820 So there are always these two levels.

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?

00:39:57.140 Like it's enough, enough.

00:39:58.400 It's been enough is enough.

00:39:59.380 It's been several years and you always get your way.

00:40:02.300 I never get my way.

00:40:04.020 Yeah, we're going to have to fight, but you know, we really are going to have to fight

00:40:07.000 this time.

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.

00:40:18.300 So that's the trade-off.

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.

00:40:32.860 But sometimes we do have to challenge it.

00:40:36.400 So I think this is a bit of a false dichotomy.

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

00:40:58.440 to my girlfriend's house yesterday.

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?

00:41:11.240 That's what I want for lunch.

00:41:12.240 I didn't ask her.

00:41:13.560 I didn't ask what she wanted or how she felt.

00:41:16.060 I didn't even ask if she was hungry.

00:41:17.220 That's just what I wanted.

00:41:18.060 And she said, well, yeah, we, we can definitely do that.

00:41:21.960 I don't have these few items.

00:41:23.780 And I said, great.

00:41:24.500 I'll stop by the store on the way over.

00:41:25.820 I'll get those few items and we'll have BLTs. 0.87

00:41:28.460 And I know the stakes are low in a situation like that, but I do wish that more men were

00:41:34.080 more decisive.

00:41:36.180 And I think that's one of the greatest things that I see men struggling with is they're so

00:41:40.240 worried about other people's feelings.

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.

00:41:50.240 Where do you want to go?

00:41:51.140 And they're like, I don't know.

00:41:53.080 What do you think?

00:41:54.640 Even though they have, maybe they want to go for sushi, but they won't say it.

00:41:58.900 It's like, just say it.

00:42:00.900 Okay.

00:42:01.260 So let me tell you a story about that.

00:42:03.320 No, no, you're right.

00:42:04.440 There can be a, there can even be.

00:42:05.960 So in the case of just, you know, two people, you know, there is, you know, again, there's,

00:42:10.820 there's a trade-off.

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 0.82

00:42:17.380 BLT and every single time you ended up with a BLT, because you're going to make a fuss and 0.52

00:42:22.680 you're going to be high maintenance.

00:42:23.660 And she's always compromising.

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. 0.98

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

00:42:50.780 other, uh, prevents the fight.

00:42:52.720 But then one day she just, uh, ups and leaves.

00:42:55.860 She walks out the door because there's, if there's no way that she can, um, ever get her 0.92

00:43:01.240 way, then she has no choice, but to find another partner. 0.82

00:43:03.900 That's what happens when you're in an equilibrium where one person is dominant, the other is

00:43:08.000 subordinate.

00:43:08.760 So that's not one thing.

00:43:09.480 Okay.

00:43:09.780 That's, but you're right.

00:43:11.500 So you bring up a really interesting case.

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

00:43:30.480 it, but another term for it.

00:43:33.020 And this is, this gets to your, your, your sushi example, sometimes called the Abilene paradox.

00:43:38.560 You can even look it up in Wikipedia.

00:43:39.840 There's an entry for Abilene paradox.

00:43:41.600 That's actually what it's called in the technical literature in economics.

00:43:45.280 And here's where it comes from.

00:43:46.740 It's almost like your sushi story.

00:43:48.160 So an economist remembers a time in his childhood, he grew up in Kansas and it was a hot summer

00:43:55.600 day.

00:43:56.060 They didn't have air conditioning.

00:43:57.720 Uh, they were bored.

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.

00:44:13.460 No one has a good time.

00:44:15.160 And they slept all the way home.

00:44:16.960 You know, everyone's miserable.

00:44:18.420 And someone says, well, you know, I don't know if it was such a good idea of, you know,

00:44:21.640 your idea of going to Abilene.

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.

00:44:30.040 No one wanted to go to Abilene.

00:44:31.200 So that's the Abilene paradox.

00:44:33.720 And that can happen in an entire society.

00:44:37.260 And that's how dictatorships work.

00:44:38.980 They force an Abilene paradox.

00:44:41.080 Everyone hates the government, but no one is, everyone's afraid to be the only one who

00:44:46.360 stands up and says they hate the government.

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

00:45:01.900 now sees everyone else.

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

00:45:19.480 people if the people all act together.

00:45:21.720 That's why repressive governments don't allow freedom of the press or freedom of speech or

00:45:25.920 freedom of assembly.

00:45:27.020 They're afraid of common knowledge.

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.

00:45:38.280 Sure, of course.

00:45:38.480 But that can happen.

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.

00:45:52.220 And so they don't speak out.

00:45:53.300 And that's, it's also another word for it.

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.

00:46:02.140 And so they're silent.

00:46:03.360 And so everyone else is silent.

00:46:05.620 Anyway, that's why we have freedom of speech.

00:46:07.520 That's why we have freedom of the press.

00:46:10.440 Okay.

00:46:10.980 So I, so a couple of things come to mind.

00:46:12.480 This is the whole thing behind the emperor with no clothes.

00:46:15.420 I mean, this is obviously the story.

00:46:17.640 Perfect.

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.

00:46:33.320 Tell me if you've seen this.

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

00:46:52.480 five iterations.

00:46:53.160 And then by the fourth or fifth iteration, they start standing up with the other individuals

00:46:57.800 and clapping for no good reason.

00:46:59.580 Now, here's the interesting thing.

00:47:01.860 The two people eventually get called, called into the waiting or called into the doctor's

00:47:06.800 office and they leave.

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.

00:47:28.780 It is.

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

00:47:50.580 in the 1960s when cameras were that big.

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. 0.53

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

00:48:08.480 to a Naked Lady? 1.00

00:48:10.780 Where in one of the episodes, they had a woman and you couldn't get away with this today, 1.00

00:48:16.120 but they did it in the 60s where a naked woman would just appear somewhere and they just

00:48:20.500 film everyone's reaction.

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

00:48:34.860 room.

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

00:48:44.900 crew stripped down to their underwear.

00:48:47.840 And what would happen is the real job applicant, he would strip down to his underwear, didn't

00:48:55.920 need an explanation.

00:48:57.140 Whoa, really?

00:48:58.260 He'd just do what everyone was doing.

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.

00:49:20.580 And there are a lot of real life cases. 0.99

00:49:22.420 So in fraternities, we interview every frat bro and he'll say, I think it's really stupid 1.00

00:49:30.240 that people drink until they puke and pass out. 0.99

00:49:33.980 But what can I do?

00:49:35.120 All the other bros think it's cool.

00:49:37.360 Then you interview every single one of them.

00:49:39.240 Not a single one thinks that this is a good thing to do, but each one of them mistakenly

00:49:43.100 thinks that all the others think it's cool.

00:49:46.600 I'll give you one other example.

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 0.99

00:50:00.900 a job. 0.94

00:50:02.000 But I have no choice.

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.

00:50:26.840 Sure.

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

00:50:37.580 be influential.

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.

00:50:49.480 So I'll just throw that out there.

00:50:50.840 But how do you take these principles and build influence to, well, influence individuals to

00:51:01.180 move in certain directions?

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

00:51:14.920 good for them and others?

00:51:16.360 Yeah, it's a, it's a big challenge and it's an important challenge.

00:51:21.080 Are you referring specifically to males, men?

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. 0.95

00:51:36.200 Yeah.

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.

00:52:06.380 I'm sure it did.

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 1.00

00:52:33.860 some kind of pathology, toxic masculinity.

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 1.00

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, 0.82

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, 0.99

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 1.00

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, 1.00

00:57:57.660 Right. And then you're usually tattooed or scarred or circumcised, like these things that are, 1.00

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, 0.99

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 1.00

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 0.58

00:59:59.040 of life in which a woman wants to excel, where women being different from men have, uh, different 0.92

01:00:05.600 emotions, different expectations that a competent man has to take into account. Women's sexuality 1.00

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 0.82

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 1.00

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.

Order of Man - October 21, 2025

DR. STEVEN PINKER ｜ How Common Knowledge Hurts and Helps Us

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