The Glenn Beck Program - October 04, 2018


Best of the Program with Malcolm Young - 10⧸4⧸18


Episode Stats

Length

52 minutes

Words per Minute

172.12108

Word Count

8,969

Sentence Count

673

Misogynist Sentences

6

Hate Speech Sentences

24


Summary

On today's show, Glenn Beck is joined by Brian in Colorado to discuss the latest in the Brett Kavanugh saga. Also, David Barton joins the show to discuss his new book, "This Precarious Moment," and what's really happening with millennials.


Transcript

00:00:00.000 The Blaze Radio Network, on demand.
00:00:06.120 Hey, welcome to it.
00:00:07.400 It's the Thursday broadcast.
00:00:09.500 Just a note, you do not want to miss tomorrow's radio program because, as you know, Stu, I'm
00:00:16.980 a scientist.
00:00:17.820 Of course.
00:00:18.780 I'm a doctor.
00:00:19.600 I have my doctorate.
00:00:20.280 Do you have your doctorate?
00:00:21.140 I do not.
00:00:21.700 Yeah, I do.
00:00:22.660 So I'm a doctor.
00:00:23.820 So I am I'm going to take something that we talk about in today's podcast and examine
00:00:31.340 the truth of what was said.
00:00:34.060 Barack Obama had some interesting things to say about when he was growing up, that if
00:00:40.160 the press were consistent, would say he's not qualified to be president of the United States.
00:00:45.620 But it's not about truth with the Kavanaugh thing, as we all know.
00:00:49.160 But on tomorrow, tomorrow's broadcast, we're going to take this revelation a little further,
00:00:55.400 taking it to the beakers or to the Bregeers, otherwise known as Stu.
00:01:00.320 I don't feel comfortable with your direction.
00:01:02.560 You're going to like it or not or not.
00:01:06.100 Anyway, so today we're going to talk a little bit about Kavanaugh.
00:01:10.100 We also have a somebody who has done so much on memory.
00:01:15.180 He's done a whole season of his Revisionist History podcast on memory, disconnected from
00:01:22.560 the Kavanaugh thing.
00:01:23.780 But we talked to Malcolm Gladwell about can we trust our own memory?
00:01:28.600 Should we just take somebody's memory and take their word for it?
00:01:33.400 And he gives you a completely airtight answer on that with real evidence and scientific study
00:01:39.760 behind it.
00:01:40.140 But also, like, you're going to hear this and be like, wow.
00:01:42.980 Yeah, that's really going to affect you.
00:01:45.160 Beyond the Kavanaugh thing.
00:01:47.240 It's pretty stunning.
00:01:48.800 Also, David Barton joins us.
00:01:50.160 He has a new book out called This Precarious Moment.
00:01:53.040 And we're talking about millennials.
00:01:54.900 Millennials get a really bad name.
00:01:57.220 And it's it's served.
00:01:59.740 And that's why we're going.
00:02:00.720 I don't think I mean, it kind of is, but it's really not because no one is teaching
00:02:05.980 them anything.
00:02:07.320 He's going to talk to us a little bit about millennials and what's really happening with
00:02:11.260 millennials.
00:02:12.240 And of course, Pat joins us for the podcast.
00:02:15.100 You're listening to the best of the Glenn Beck program.
00:02:24.560 It's Thursday, October 4th.
00:02:26.920 Let's go to Brian in Colorado.
00:02:28.340 Hello, Brian.
00:02:28.880 How are you?
00:02:29.640 Good.
00:02:29.860 How are you doing?
00:02:30.500 Very good.
00:02:31.320 Yeah.
00:02:31.480 So quick question, just kind of going off of your book.
00:02:34.080 Now, with the whole Kavanaugh thing going on, all the attention seems to have turned away
00:02:38.260 from Trump because there's no outrage there.
00:02:40.300 All the outrages with Kavanaugh.
00:02:42.040 I'm just kind of wondering how you see the interplay between that.
00:02:44.560 Um, because Kavanaugh is an easier target because Donald Trump has not responded in the fashion
00:02:53.060 that they probably expected him to respond.
00:02:56.100 And the reason why I would imagine is because, you know, he doesn't have a, you know, a good
00:03:02.040 record on speaking about, you know, moral issues.
00:03:05.560 And so somebody has said, hush up.
00:03:08.980 And he has that has that has given him real power because all the Trump is, uh, is involved
00:03:18.560 on this is, is he going to keep standing?
00:03:22.440 And because he has a spine, yeah, he's standing and that's what the president needs to do at
00:03:30.540 this point.
00:03:31.040 And it is also allowed for the very first time it's given a spine to the Republicans.
00:03:38.140 So they had to go after Kavanaugh.
00:03:40.320 What else are they going to do?
00:03:41.480 He's the, he's the target, but Kavanaugh also has remained cool, um, until it was really
00:03:50.340 appropriate, had he come out and made crazy, you know, angry statements prior to no, but
00:03:58.660 his, his timing of being angry is not a sign that he has a reckless temperament.
00:04:06.120 It was appropriate for the time.
00:04:09.500 If you are a thinking human being and you, you are looking at things for, you're looking
00:04:16.160 at the fact level, you completely connected with Kavanaugh's opening statement where he
00:04:22.120 said, this is ridiculous.
00:04:24.260 You have destroyed me.
00:04:26.040 You've destroyed my family.
00:04:27.600 He made a statement that was full of facts, refuting the things that she had said.
00:04:32.720 It was totally appropriate.
00:04:34.860 What's the result?
00:04:36.700 The result is I think Kavanaugh is going to, uh, win the, uh, nomination.
00:04:42.760 If he doesn't, it will be cause be because a Republican or maybe a couple of Republicans
00:04:50.720 lose their spine because there is, there are no facts on this.
00:04:56.360 So they lose their spine.
00:04:57.920 If they do it, they will be the losers in this.
00:05:02.180 Does that help you, Brian?
00:05:03.360 Is that what you were thinking?
00:05:04.900 Yeah, that doesn't make sense.
00:05:06.400 It's just kind of finding the weak target as opposed to the strong one.
00:05:10.340 And then, cause that's what they do is they exploit the weak and, um, yeah.
00:05:14.200 So I appreciate that.
00:05:15.420 Um, do you want it?
00:05:16.340 Uh, I'm going to send you a book for getting on the air, right?
00:05:19.000 If you get on the air, we're going to start sending you books.
00:05:22.020 Did you want the book or the audio?
00:05:23.820 Yeah.
00:05:24.220 The book, please.
00:05:25.100 I would love it.
00:05:25.780 Okay.
00:05:26.100 And, uh, Brian, B-R-Y-A-N.
00:05:29.160 B-R-I-A-N.
00:05:30.400 Okay.
00:05:31.680 Glad I asked.
00:05:32.380 Thanks, Brian.
00:05:33.360 Appreciate it.
00:05:33.920 It's in the mail.
00:05:35.520 Uh, let me go to a wire.
00:05:37.620 It's still sitting right in front of him, Brian.
00:05:39.220 Don't believe it.
00:05:39.900 It's not in the mail yet.
00:05:41.120 What a liar.
00:05:42.120 Let me go to, uh, let me go to Phyllis.
00:05:44.340 Hello, Phyllis.
00:05:45.960 Good morning, Glenn.
00:05:47.200 How are you?
00:05:47.740 I'm very good.
00:05:49.080 The reason for my call is I wanted to tell you a couple of things.
00:05:52.900 I appreciate you taking my call and, uh, I've learned a lot from you over all these years.
00:06:00.020 So I thank you for that.
00:06:01.520 You're welcome.
00:06:01.980 I was a victim of sexual child abuse.
00:06:05.840 Sorry.
00:06:06.040 My father was a pedophile and I suffered for many, many years until I put an end to it.
00:06:12.420 And unfortunately, Glenn, no one believed me.
00:06:15.480 No one.
00:06:17.120 So, you know, I just kind of felt, uh, I have to deal with this.
00:06:21.000 I have to get over it.
00:06:22.260 It's, it's not easy to do that, but I knew that blaming my, you know, what happened was
00:06:28.320 not going to get me anywhere in life.
00:06:29.800 So I understand in a way why no one, you know, talked up in those days, you know, 20, 30 years
00:06:36.740 ago.
00:06:37.240 It was not, it was, it was, it was not, we weren't, we didn't think people were like that
00:06:43.900 and we didn't want to look at it.
00:06:45.680 If it was, it's horrible that we've made good progress on that.
00:06:50.560 Yes, we have.
00:06:51.620 However, we've swung from one end all the way to the other with no middle ground.
00:06:56.300 So what I'm upset about is that everyone believes this, this doctor, okay, just on her testimony,
00:07:06.400 which wasn't even, you know, significant.
00:07:11.100 And, uh, there, they, they just believe it because of the hell they went through.
00:07:15.780 And to me, I don't understand why they don't listen to the facts.
00:07:20.800 And this is one of the things that's so disturbing about this.
00:07:23.180 Obviously the me too concept is really, really important and really, and important.
00:07:28.680 Like it really, it could make a real difference.
00:07:30.980 And instead what it's turning into is here's a tool for Democrats to use to destroy people's
00:07:36.020 lives, which is an awful outcome or what a great outcome would be out of this, in my
00:07:40.600 opinion, is that going forward, uh, people like Phyllis would, would be believed, would
00:07:47.100 at least be taken seriously.
00:07:48.360 Yeah, not believed, taken seriously.
00:07:50.380 Believed if they have the evidence, right?
00:07:51.580 Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.
00:07:52.020 But taken seriously and, and, and, and would not fear coming out because if you had, uh,
00:07:57.840 evidence and you had a real story to tell, it would be believed.
00:08:02.560 Correct.
00:08:03.420 And that's, that's, that is the outcome that I think rational Americans are looking for.
00:08:09.220 They want this to end.
00:08:10.940 They think this is horrible, but they don't want to go the other way.
00:08:16.580 This is to become, um, a vendetta, you know, Phyllis, as you said, you knew that the anger
00:08:23.060 wasn't going to get you anywhere in life.
00:08:24.680 So you had to deal with it.
00:08:26.040 If you deal with the, the situation, um, you have a chance to grow.
00:08:32.000 It is much better if the person who has done it to you has, um, has, you know, reaped its,
00:08:38.520 uh, consequences, uh, or has, has, you know, admitted it at least or something.
00:08:45.020 It's hard when people don't apologize or don't admit it and they just get away with it is
00:08:49.140 really, really hard, but that's sometimes what happens, but by, by moving on with your
00:08:56.980 life, you're not trying to convict every man.
00:09:01.180 And that's what's happening right now.
00:09:03.100 There are these women who have suffered this and have not healed.
00:09:08.780 And so they want everybody to be believed because no one would believe theirs.
00:09:13.740 And so they don't, they don't, you know, they don't know if it's true or not, but nobody
00:09:19.080 believed me and this woman's going to be railroaded.
00:09:21.760 Well, no, your situation is not their situation and we have to base it on facts.
00:09:29.420 Phyllis, thanks for your call.
00:09:30.820 AJ in Oregon.
00:09:32.000 Hello, AJ.
00:09:32.600 You're on the Glenn Beck program.
00:09:34.100 Hi, Glenn.
00:09:34.680 Hi, Stu.
00:09:35.400 I'm a recovering addict of outrage.
00:09:38.580 Okay.
00:09:39.820 So, uh, what I want to call and talk about is I've been listening to the audio book.
00:09:43.740 It's great.
00:09:44.720 And I kind of, my wife and I kind of had like pivot points and I, and I, and it really
00:09:49.360 hit me when I was listening yesterday is the social media outrage is, was driving this country
00:09:55.640 more than anything.
00:09:56.620 Like you say in the book, you know, Tommy 36, Becky, whatever.
00:10:02.080 Right.
00:10:02.880 And it's got to the point where we've just, our life is so much happier by not engaging with
00:10:09.360 politics online.
00:10:10.920 Yeah.
00:10:11.340 And part of that social media mob, it's, it's, it got to the point where my wife and
00:10:16.740 I just were like looking at each other.
00:10:18.200 Oh my gosh, I can't handle this.
00:10:21.060 And I, I even took on more volunteer opportunities to help with youth basketball, different things
00:10:26.340 like that.
00:10:26.740 And I feel so fulfilled now.
00:10:29.780 You get, did you give up social media or did you, did you just cut down on it?
00:10:35.040 I cut down on the, uh, outrage, the absolute engaging with some family members that were
00:10:42.920 progressive where you could, you couldn't even talk to them.
00:10:47.000 It was like beating your head against a brick wall.
00:10:50.200 It was so frustrating.
00:10:52.340 I mean, we don't even, when we go to family dinners, we don't even talk about politics and
00:10:57.860 we're all, you know, a lot of us are constitutional conservatives, but we don't even talk about it
00:11:02.180 because it's so bad right now.
00:11:05.040 It's, it's, it's, what's it, this book is perfect.
00:11:08.460 It's perfectly titled.
00:11:10.280 It's perfect for, I think everybody should be reading it.
00:11:13.520 Thanks a lot, AJ.
00:11:14.220 I appreciate it.
00:11:14.640 I'm going to send you a copy of the book.
00:11:16.400 Uh, do you want the book since you were listening to it?
00:11:18.360 Yes.
00:11:18.900 Autograph to you.
00:11:19.580 Yes, absolutely.
00:11:20.100 I would like a, uh, a hard copy and God bless you guys.
00:11:23.100 Thank you very much.
00:11:24.520 It is, uh, you know, the, the next step is once you have, once you have calmly done this,
00:11:32.180 and you have backed up, the next step is to re-engage with your relatives, but on bigger
00:11:38.720 principles, don't talk to them about Kavanaugh because they'll immediately go to the talking
00:11:43.980 points.
00:11:44.460 Don't talk to them about that.
00:11:46.160 Talk to them about the bigger issues.
00:11:49.620 Everything that we need, our unum is the Declaration of Independence and the Bill of Rights.
00:11:57.060 E pluribus unum.
00:11:58.700 I've spent a lot of time thinking, okay, so what, what brings us together?
00:12:02.740 What is the uniting thing?
00:12:04.200 What can we all agree on?
00:12:06.020 Well, not all of us, but a grand majority of us should be able to agree on all men are
00:12:12.660 created equal, life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness and the, the, the 10 amendments
00:12:17.600 to the constitution.
00:12:18.740 Okay, let's start there.
00:12:22.540 That's what brought people here.
00:12:25.100 And that's what's being lost in the conversation.
00:12:27.860 We're arguing over parties and personalities.
00:12:31.120 That's not what Kavanaugh is really about.
00:12:33.280 It's not about, did he do it or did he not do it?
00:12:36.040 Is she lying?
00:12:36.820 Is she telling the truth?
00:12:37.840 It is about, are you innocent until proven guilty?
00:12:43.760 Do we presume innocence?
00:12:45.960 Do we look for facts?
00:12:48.840 Is there a system in society outside of the legal standards?
00:12:54.640 Where did the legal standards come from?
00:12:56.640 The legal standards came from a group of people, our founders.
00:13:01.680 And prior to that here in America, they came here and said, you know what?
00:13:05.160 I can just be taken off the streets.
00:13:06.580 I can be destroyed.
00:13:07.620 If somebody just says, Hey, I'm, I'm, I'm the King or I'm a, I'm a Lord or I'm a Duke.
00:13:12.340 And this person did that they're believed.
00:13:14.380 And I'm not, no matter what the evidence is, that's not right.
00:13:17.600 I don't want that.
00:13:19.480 Those are the big principles.
00:13:21.680 And those are the things that we need to slowly start to re-engage our loved ones with
00:13:26.440 because that's where you find unity.
00:13:31.880 The best of the Glenn Beck program.
00:13:35.240 I mean, they are so desperate to get this guy off the Supreme Court that they will do
00:13:41.140 anything.
00:13:41.880 Ronan Farrow is burning, is lighting his career on fire right now to try to stop this.
00:13:47.120 Here is the best thing Donald Trump has done during this whole thing.
00:13:50.600 He has allowed the press without mucking it up.
00:13:56.640 Generally speaking, he's been pretty good.
00:13:58.000 Yes.
00:13:58.220 Without, without tweeting stuff and, and becoming the story himself, he has allowed the press
00:14:05.600 to prove everything that he says about the press is true.
00:14:11.660 That is the way to fight.
00:14:18.020 This is the way.
00:14:19.360 And it's outlined in Addicted to Outrage doesn't mean surrender.
00:14:24.780 It means change the way you're fighting and don't surrender unless the facts change.
00:14:34.080 You're listening to the best of the Glenn Beck program.
00:14:43.440 Like listening to this podcast?
00:14:45.500 If you're not a subscriber, become one now on iTunes.
00:14:48.520 And while you're there, do us a favor and rate the show.
00:14:50.880 David Barton is here and David is a friend of mine who was for Donald Trump because he
00:14:58.840 kept saying in my ear, Glenn, he is going to be really good on judges.
00:15:03.260 And I kept saying, David, you're an idiot.
00:15:05.040 He's not going to do any of that.
00:15:07.100 And you were exactly right.
00:15:08.760 And I was wrong.
00:15:09.980 Welcome to the program, David.
00:15:11.160 How are you?
00:15:11.720 Good to be with you, bro.
00:15:13.220 So your guess on Kavanaugh.
00:15:16.500 It's going to go down.
00:15:17.620 I think it'll happen.
00:15:18.720 I think the ones that are sitting on the fence will go the right direction.
00:15:21.680 The one that makes me the most nervous is Flake because he's retiring.
00:15:25.320 Yeah.
00:15:25.580 Everybody else is going to face the voters and be accountable.
00:15:28.440 But Flake has been his own guy since he was in the house.
00:15:31.520 Yeah.
00:15:31.680 So he's the biggest issue, biggest problem.
00:15:34.580 But that would make you 50-50 and then Pence goes for it.
00:15:36.720 What did you think about Ben Sasse's comments yesterday?
00:15:41.080 You know, Sasse, it's like he's like Mike Lee, but he's a lot more vocal than Mike is.
00:15:47.720 He's a lot like an adult in this thing that every once in a while gets you a reality check.
00:15:51.840 Yeah.
00:15:52.380 He goes off and has these great speeches every once in a while like he's teaching a bunch of
00:15:56.880 kindergarten kids.
00:15:57.920 Yeah, yeah.
00:15:58.420 Well, he is.
00:15:59.080 He is.
00:15:59.600 That's right.
00:15:59.860 He is.
00:16:00.280 And I love him.
00:16:01.600 I mean, I did not see that in him before he got there.
00:16:04.600 Yeah.
00:16:04.760 And he's been an independent guy that's been an independent thinker.
00:16:08.420 I really like him.
00:16:09.060 He is positioned for, I think, 2024.
00:16:11.980 Yeah.
00:16:12.100 He's positioning himself in a really, in a good place as being a reasoned, likable, calm individual.
00:16:19.740 A thinking individual.
00:16:20.860 Yeah.
00:16:21.040 He's, you know, he's, he's very reasonable in the way he goes, he does his stuff.
00:16:24.780 He teaches.
00:16:25.480 He's great.
00:16:26.400 So David is, David has written a new book with another friend of mine, James Garlow.
00:16:30.820 Uh, this precarious moment, six urgent steps that will save you, your family and our country.
00:16:36.280 And, uh, David, it's great book and everybody should, everybody should read it again.
00:16:41.920 It's a book that is talking about the steps that you take right now.
00:16:47.720 And what I love about this, David, is, uh, let's just start on the millennial step.
00:16:53.440 Um, I have seen this work, you know, it's kind of, my book is, uh, I put it into action myself in my own life and I've seen it work.
00:17:05.000 You've done the same thing and you've seen this work with millennials.
00:17:08.640 Talk about the millennials a bit.
00:17:10.200 Millennials right now are one of the reasons we have a precarious or a dangerous moment.
00:17:14.300 Because we have 242 years of being an American nation under the Declaration 231 under the Constitution.
00:17:22.320 No nation's ever survived that long.
00:17:24.400 And so we just kind of think we'll always be here.
00:17:26.820 And yet at the same time, you have 5,500 years of recorded history and there's never been a socialist nation that's increased freedom or increased prosperity.
00:17:35.980 And yet right now, 75% of students in college support socialism above all forms of government.
00:17:41.460 We cannot survive if that becomes the belief when they become leaders.
00:17:45.900 Uh, and in the same way, four out of five millennials believe there is no absolute moral truth.
00:17:51.020 Man, if we can't agree that things like rape and murder are wrong, you've got no chance for having a nation in the future.
00:17:56.600 You got 53% of millennials who believe that free speech should be limited.
00:18:00.860 19% who believe that violence is the right response to free speech you don't like.
00:18:05.560 You can't survive as a nation.
00:18:07.340 So that's why we call it a precarious moment.
00:18:09.000 But when you look at millennials, they are really, um, easy to change relationally.
00:18:15.280 They are hungry.
00:18:16.160 If you, if you create a relation, a one-on-one relationship, they really don't care about your age.
00:18:20.900 They don't care about how you look.
00:18:22.280 They care about whether you're sincere.
00:18:23.960 And if you are sincere and say, and what we have found works so well is just asking questions because they really have had a load dumped on them by their professors and by the culture.
00:18:34.020 And they've not thought it through.
00:18:35.640 And when you start asking them questions and, and, and not trying to win.
00:18:40.640 That's right.
00:18:40.920 Not trying to win.
00:18:41.680 Just, just think about it.
00:18:42.700 I just, I just, that's an interesting thing.
00:18:45.120 Let me ask you a question.
00:18:46.340 How does whatever fill in the blank, they start to engage and, and they, I find that they actually, they actually, um, begin to move toward you faster and not, not just blindly accepting things, but because you're engaging them and asking them to think as long as you're not trying to win.
00:19:10.500 That's right.
00:19:10.880 Nobody does that in college.
00:19:13.860 They're being told what to think, join in, chant this.
00:19:18.640 And, and if you have any other thoughts, so when you challenge them, they actually like that.
00:19:24.720 It's the first time anyone has done it.
00:19:27.240 They, they really do respond to thinking well.
00:19:30.260 And once it gets going, they are killer with thinking.
00:19:32.920 They are really, I'm sorry.
00:19:34.680 That's an old school.
00:19:36.420 I'm sorry.
00:19:37.260 Trigger warning.
00:19:37.860 That's right.
00:19:38.060 I can't say that.
00:19:38.800 Trigger warning stations, edit that out.
00:19:40.260 Yeah, that's right.
00:19:41.240 But they really are.
00:19:42.780 And they're the most, uh, of all groups in polling for the hundred years we've been in polling.
00:19:47.300 They're the most relational group in American history.
00:19:50.200 What does that mean?
00:19:50.980 They, they respond more to relationships.
00:19:53.780 For example, they're the only group in polling that wants to spend more time with their boss.
00:19:58.980 Everybody else wants to spend time with employees or get away from the boss or whatever.
00:20:01.820 They want time.
00:20:02.920 They want to be mentored.
00:20:03.820 I mean, they, they, they have a desire to spend one-on-one time with people who can influence them and help them and thank them.
00:20:10.640 Now that's not necessarily their motivation, but what is interesting is they respond really, really well to that.
00:20:16.700 And so when you create a relationship that is a genuine, as you said, not trying to win, just a genuine relationship, you can make so much progress in turning them in a different direction.
00:20:26.340 And we've seen it ourself.
00:20:28.400 Things are not as bad as you think they are.
00:20:32.200 Uh, they are bad.
00:20:33.520 This is a bad, this is a pivot point for our country.
00:20:36.320 And if we fall down on our job, it will change and it will go away.
00:20:41.560 And I think it will become very bad.
00:20:43.820 However, it's not the battle that you think it is.
00:20:47.800 You've been convinced by media and social media that everybody is thinking this way.
00:20:53.780 They're not.
00:20:54.960 David has a, David Barton is with us.
00:20:56.660 He has a book out called this precarious moment.
00:20:59.380 Uh, he's written it with, uh, James Garlow, who's a, just a great, great guy and good thinker.
00:21:04.720 Um, and they have the stats in the book and they have different things.
00:21:08.840 We've con we were concentrating just for a second on millennials because I know David has seen it and I've seen it because we're doing it with Mercury one.
00:21:17.180 And when you present the facts to millennials, if you're not trying to win, they say, wait a minute, what?
00:21:28.800 David, talk about a few of the millennials that we have had in for our two week, you know, training course.
00:21:34.640 And they have actually come a little hostile.
00:21:37.720 So that's right.
00:21:38.400 Yeah.
00:21:38.660 We have a number that have come as skeptics and they're here to disprove us and show that we're all wrong.
00:21:43.100 And it's all right.
00:21:44.500 You know, we don't, we don't run from that situation.
00:21:47.020 We just embrace them and say, let's have a conversation as long as you'll engage in the conversation.
00:21:51.700 And so we start asking them questions and, you know, they have their opinions, but we just ask them questions and it's kind of like they sit back and, uh, I don't know.
00:22:01.300 And so once you ask the questions that lead them to the information, it's amazing to see that they then take those questions and go back to those that taught them and change them.
00:22:10.760 We literally, we have a girl that came in that, you know, learned all sorts of stuff.
00:22:16.380 She went back to her professor, started asking her professor questions.
00:22:19.700 He got all befuddled because he didn't know the answers.
00:22:22.440 He now has asked her to meet with him once a week and teach her, teach him what she learned in all these classes.
00:22:29.620 It's amazing.
00:22:30.580 It's amazing.
00:22:31.060 And, and he said, she wrote a report and he said, you are either a liar and you're going to get an F or this is the best paper.
00:22:40.580 See me in my office.
00:22:41.720 That's right.
00:22:42.260 And she, he said, okay, I want to talk to you about your sources.
00:22:46.600 And she had them nailed down and he had never, here's a professor that didn't know this stuff.
00:22:52.240 An economics professor.
00:22:54.100 And he found out that founding father, John Witherspoon had the greatest impact of any person in American history on American economics.
00:23:01.380 And he didn't know that.
00:23:02.640 And she showed him that and then showed him the documentation.
00:23:05.460 And he said, okay, I want more because I clearly didn't.
00:23:09.000 But that's the thing of asking questions with the relationships.
00:23:11.520 And we take these, these guys that come in hostile or otherwise, and just because of relationships, but, and as we tell them, we have a lot of fun with them.
00:23:20.380 I mean, quite frankly, we tell them that sarcasm is our love language.
00:23:23.220 If we don't make fun of you, it's because we don't like you.
00:23:25.460 So, so, you know, we, we, we kid and joke and have a great, great time, but they come out transformed and they are some of the most mature individuals.
00:23:34.480 And these, these guys are all, it's in their mind to become leaders.
00:23:38.620 And I tell you, they are so, so good.
00:23:41.860 It is just amazing.
00:23:42.960 We were in a meeting in February.
00:23:45.120 We, I don't think I've announced this formally.
00:23:48.140 May I, David?
00:23:49.480 Go for it.
00:23:50.300 We are going to do Black History Month, a museum here at our studios in February.
00:23:57.800 If you don't think that's a little controversial, but we have worked on this and we're working on it with the Lincoln Museum.
00:24:06.100 And it's going to be a little mind-blowing and really, really eye-opening to a lot of people on both sides.
00:24:15.360 And it's Black History, but, you know, not all the Black History that everybody knows.
00:24:19.680 Let's tell the Black History that really nobody knows.
00:24:22.800 And that's going to be here at our studios in the month of February.
00:24:28.000 And yesterday we decided that because they're, they're going to, we're going to have docents.
00:24:31.800 We're going to have people that are going to tell these individual stories about these people in here on stage 19 as you come through.
00:24:40.960 And they're all going to be, I said yesterday, let's get some of the kids that we've met that are even 15 years old that just will learn it and really know it.
00:24:51.600 It's really quite exciting to see millennials what happens when they're unleashed and told the truth.
00:24:57.400 David's new book, David Barton and James Garlow's new book, This Precarious Moment, The Six Urgent Steps That Will Save You, Your Family, and Your Country.
00:25:08.520 Grab a copy of it.
00:25:09.880 It is really, really good.
00:25:12.120 And I agree with the steps and all the way through it.
00:25:16.140 You are making the case using facts.
00:25:19.800 This is, this is a book that you can take and read and learn all kinds of facts about the country that you didn't know.
00:25:26.900 For instance, let's talk about immigration, David.
00:25:30.820 Immigration.
00:25:31.480 A fact we didn't know is until 1875, 1876, the federal government had no part in immigration.
00:25:39.340 Immigration belongs solely to the states.
00:25:41.560 When you came to America, you didn't move into the United States.
00:25:44.520 You moved into Texas or Maryland or Virginia or wherever.
00:25:47.340 And it was the states that controlled immigration.
00:25:49.800 The U.S. Supreme Court in 1875, 1876, two decisions said, hey, we think we'll take this over now.
00:25:56.620 And so the first time we have federal immigration is in 1892 when Ellis Island opens.
00:26:02.500 That's the first federal immigration facility.
00:26:05.100 Everything before that was the states.
00:26:07.280 We have no clue.
00:26:08.660 And then when you look now, the founding fathers were very good because Article I, Section 8 of the Constitution says they can establish a uniform rule of naturalization.
00:26:16.440 So they did.
00:26:17.000 They passed three laws, 1790, 1795, and 1798, said, okay, we can set the rule of naturalization.
00:26:23.900 Here's what you got to do to come to the United States.
00:26:25.820 And let's go through first what they set forward.
00:26:30.400 The immigrant must have good moral character.
00:26:33.320 Are we doing anything to check on good moral character?
00:26:35.240 Oh, no, background check.
00:26:36.600 And by the way, Ben Franklin said that when you came, you needed to have a certificate from a religious society attesting to your good moral character from the country from which you left.
00:26:44.720 The immigrant must not only support the Constitution and our government of laws, but renounce allegiance to any other nation or loyalty to any other system.
00:26:55.180 Sharia.
00:26:55.900 Sharia.
00:26:56.600 And by the way, we had Muslims in America since 1619.
00:27:00.080 But to be part of the country, you had to agree to the Constitution, not come here to overturn it.
00:27:04.980 The immigrant must believe in the equality of all Americans to renounce and renounce any title of nobility.
00:27:11.940 So would I have to if I was coming in, would I have to declare that I was not a member of the press title of nobility or a professor or a professor?
00:27:22.920 Yeah, OK.
00:27:23.620 There must be residency requirement of five years in the United States before citizenship.
00:27:29.520 Now, let me hit that one, because I was really shocked about that.
00:27:32.700 In the Constitutional Convention, seven of the 39 guys who signed the Constitution were immigrants.
00:27:38.280 They were themselves immigrants.
00:27:40.100 And so Alexander Hamilton was one.
00:27:42.140 He came from West Indies.
00:27:43.160 Pierce Butler was another.
00:27:44.740 And these guys said and I mean, the debates are great.
00:27:47.680 They said, look, when we got here, if we had voted, we would have voted the way that we were thinking from the West Indies and Ireland and elsewhere.
00:27:55.120 And Pierce Butler said, you should not be allowed to vote until 14 years here because you need to learn to think like an American.
00:28:01.740 Oh, my gosh.
00:28:02.380 Would that Texas needs to do that with Californians?
00:28:05.620 Oh, you're right.
00:28:06.960 Oh, Texans.
00:28:07.640 Texans.
00:28:08.160 I'm telling you, we're going to lose Texas because of the Californians.
00:28:11.420 They are just going to vote the way they voted.
00:28:13.560 And we are not the same place.
00:28:16.120 We're not the same place.
00:28:17.960 And they think like Californians.
00:28:19.720 Right.
00:28:19.920 It takes a while.
00:28:20.800 So Alexander Hamilton said five years.
00:28:22.760 And that's what they went with was five years.
00:28:24.540 But you could not vote in America till you've been here five years.
00:28:27.700 Otherwise, you would turn this place into wherever you just left.
00:28:30.980 No anchor babies.
00:28:32.900 Citizenship goes from parents to child, not child to parent.
00:28:38.780 Wow.
00:28:39.820 Security risk can be deported and permanently banned from the United States.
00:28:43.780 The government must protect the borders during times of war.
00:28:47.260 States will have a definite role in immigration.
00:28:50.720 So that is what they that's what that's the original immigration law.
00:28:53.900 OK.
00:28:54.900 Now, I found it fascinating in the book that we have argued as if these things were not settled long ago.
00:29:04.060 We have argued common language.
00:29:08.360 How dare you insist as if this was just some idea that a bunch of racists had.
00:29:14.520 Yeah.
00:29:15.160 Ben Franklin is a great example because Ben Franklin talked about how so many Germans were moving into Pennsylvania.
00:29:20.120 And they were.
00:29:21.480 And he said the problem is they're speaking their own language.
00:29:24.560 They're starting to create signs in German.
00:29:26.700 They're starting to create documents in German.
00:29:29.480 You can't have a nation if you don't speak the same language.
00:29:32.260 So Franklin was one of the first ones out.
00:29:34.020 Then Thomas Jefferson, the same thing.
00:29:35.880 He said we have immigrants coming in, which is great.
00:29:38.000 And by the way, they were so pro-immigration that in the Declaration of Independence, one of the 27 grievances was we're separating from Great Britain because he's trying to stop immigration.
00:29:47.780 We want immigration.
00:29:49.180 It's just we wanted assimilation with immigration.
00:29:51.480 They were huge pro-immigration.
00:29:52.800 Yeah, assimilation.
00:29:53.660 I mean, let's.
00:29:54.540 Here's Thomas Jefferson.
00:29:55.780 They will bring with them the principles of the government.
00:29:57.980 They leave imbibed with their own early inbibed in their early youth.
00:30:01.580 These old principles with their language they will transmit to their children in proportion to their numbers they will share with us in legislation.
00:30:09.380 They will infuse it into their old spirit, warp and bias its directions, and render it as heterogeneous, incoherent, and distracted mass.
00:30:19.860 He says the solution.
00:30:21.020 It is thought better to discourage their settling together in large masses, and they should distribute themselves sparsely among the native for quicker assimilation.
00:30:32.420 This goes right with with this.
00:30:34.820 It seems to me necessary.
00:30:36.380 This is Franklin.
00:30:37.620 It seems to me necessary to distribute the Germans, the Germans more equally, mix them in with English, establish English schools that are now where they are now too thickly settled.
00:30:51.320 I am against the I am not against the admission of Germans in general, for they have virtues, their industry, frugality, blah, blah, blah.
00:30:58.280 They're great farmers.
00:30:59.340 He's just saying we have to get them to be Americans.
00:31:03.760 This is the opposite of what we're doing now.
00:31:06.420 No Dearborn, Michigans.
00:31:07.820 I mean, we want people assimilating.
00:31:09.640 We don't want them creating a parallel culture where it's almost a no-gozo now for police.
00:31:14.880 Somalians in Minnesota.
00:31:17.020 Exactly.
00:31:17.460 And we've got groups in West Texas creating their own separate communities, and that's not it.
00:31:21.640 It's assimilation.
00:31:22.800 You want to become an American.
00:31:24.420 You don't come to America to take over and move it to whatever your country was.
00:31:28.480 You come here to be an American.
00:31:30.300 Now, that's where the professors, the elite groups really are into, well, America is really bad.
00:31:34.960 You know, we need to be like Europe or whatever.
00:31:37.860 One way to lose it is to not pay attention to what they did.
00:31:40.920 And one of the things we try to do in the book is we don't – we're not into government solutions.
00:31:44.840 We try to give things that every single individual can do because America gets healthy from the bottom up, not the top down.
00:31:51.900 You say that racial healing is fairly easy.
00:31:56.340 All we have to do is do it.
00:31:58.120 What is the plan for racial healing?
00:32:00.800 You know, there's several things.
00:32:02.000 One is you've got to change some of your knowledge base.
00:32:03.980 This is what we find with millennials.
00:32:05.420 They are taught about race from the way their professors see it.
00:32:08.420 And we show them seven things that everyone needs to know about race.
00:32:11.640 And generally, they don't.
00:32:12.760 They're historical.
00:32:13.320 Do you remember off the top of your head what those are?
00:32:15.580 Oh, yeah.
00:32:15.900 There's several things.
00:32:17.200 The first permanent slavery was introduced in America by a black man, Anthony Johnson, who sued to own other black men.
00:32:24.940 We show the fact that 43 percent of free blacks in South Carolina owned black slaves.
00:32:31.640 Wow.
00:32:32.620 Yeah, nearly half.
00:32:34.480 One out of eight Native Americans owned black slaves in major tribes.
00:32:39.480 And that didn't stop with the Emancipation Proclamation.
00:32:43.340 When did slavery stop?
00:32:44.180 Well, it didn't even stop with the 13th Amendment when we abolished slavery because we only abolished slavery in the United States.
00:32:48.860 But Indian nations are their own nations.
00:32:50.900 They're not bound by American law.
00:32:51.520 So when did they stop slavery?
00:32:52.760 It was years later.
00:32:53.920 It was probably a decade later before slavery stopped in Indian nations.
00:32:58.180 Wow.
00:32:58.300 And so what we do is show slavery is a human problem.
00:33:01.420 It is not a black-white problem, despite what your professors say.
00:33:04.800 It is a problem in the way you view humankind.
00:33:07.380 So we go through and show, for example, Tim Scott and James Lankford in the U.S. Senate have come up with this thing where you invite other people from other races to come eat a meal with you on Sunday.
00:33:18.600 Come into your house and, you know, learn and touch.
00:33:21.400 You don't solve racism institutionally.
00:33:23.220 You solve it one person at a time, changing a heart at a time, seeing people different, and not having this black-white polarization that we often try to make today.
00:33:31.120 How worried are you, David, about the level of anger now?
00:33:40.600 Level of anger is a real problem, but what it's derived from is the bigger problem.
00:33:46.420 And there's stereotypes and all these things where we really don't know each other.
00:33:51.680 And once you get to know each other and once you do this interrelational stuff, like with millennials and like with folks of other races and other groups, once you start doing individual stuff, that's where it breaks down.
00:34:01.120 And that's where you're able to demonstrate that, you know, what you thought about me or what you thought about this group is not accurate.
00:34:07.360 We're individuals.
00:34:08.380 We're made in God's image.
00:34:09.820 We have equality.
00:34:10.880 And we can get along great if we'll sit down and talk.
00:34:13.180 It's what you're doing to your book, Glenn.
00:34:14.860 I mean, addicted to outrage.
00:34:16.360 That's exactly it.
00:34:17.980 You sit down and have conversations on bigger things.
00:34:20.880 So real quick, just one last.
00:34:22.820 Give me the six things that you say are these are the six urgent steps.
00:34:28.260 There are actually six urgent areas.
00:34:29.820 What we've got to do in immigration, what we have to do in our relationship with Israel, what we have to do with millennials, what we have to do with people of faith doing a terrible job right now as people of faith.
00:34:43.120 So we go through those six areas.
00:34:45.200 And let me just touch on Israel.
00:34:47.080 Our relationship with Israel is pretty good.
00:34:49.020 It is right now.
00:34:49.780 You're concerned in the book about Christians are starting to become anti-Semitic.
00:34:55.200 They are becoming anti-Semitic.
00:34:56.880 What has changed?
00:34:57.920 Well, we don't know the scriptures well anymore.
00:35:00.900 And we have the highest level of biblical literacy of any generation in American history.
00:35:05.940 And so we're seeing 1,600 anti-Israel events a year on college campuses.
00:35:12.200 People don't know much about the Palestinians, but they're told they're oppressed people and Israel's doing it.
00:35:16.680 And so we have a real individual turn against Israel.
00:35:21.280 And a lot of denominations are coming out against Israel, denominations that used to be very pro-Israel now.
00:35:26.600 Really?
00:35:26.780 Yes, absolutely.
00:35:27.980 Absolutely.
00:35:28.900 Yeah.
00:35:29.160 These are the more liberal churches, though?
00:35:31.540 They're what are called mainstream denominations.
00:35:34.040 Okay.
00:35:34.140 So, you know, it's kind of like the United Methodist Church, PCUSA, those guys.
00:35:38.920 So they had never been anti-Israel before, but now they are.
00:35:42.020 They're coming out and they're wanting to do the BDS kind of stuff, the boycott, divestiture, and sanctions.
00:35:47.620 So there is a growing anti-Semitic movement among people of faith in America, which is certainly a problem.
00:35:53.540 Now, this administration has done a great job on restoring things.
00:35:57.380 It's just been absolutely amazing.
00:35:59.500 But that doesn't solve the individual problems we have at college campuses and at churches and people of faith.
00:36:06.340 David Barton and James Garlow.
00:36:08.460 The name of the book is This Precarious Moment, Six Urgent Steps That Will Save You, Your Family, and Our Country.
00:36:15.440 We are at the edge of the cliff, and as the Righteous Among the Nations woman that I met in Poland told me,
00:36:28.480 Were you there, David?
00:36:29.640 You weren't there, were you?
00:36:30.560 I don't think on that trip I was with you.
00:36:32.280 And she said, The righteous didn't suddenly become righteous.
00:36:36.260 They just refused to go over the cliff with the rest of humanity.
00:36:39.600 We are at that cliff.
00:36:42.360 Learn to stand.
00:36:43.740 And teach your family to stand.
00:36:49.260 I'm thrilled to have Malcolm Gladwell on with us.
00:36:51.700 I'm a big fan of his.
00:36:52.920 His writing also, Revisionist History is fantastic.
00:36:57.100 I think I started listening to the last season on a Friday.
00:37:01.180 I consumed everything.
00:37:02.100 It was like, you know, hey, the kids are throwing up.
00:37:04.340 They're sick.
00:37:04.860 They're on fire.
00:37:05.460 And I'm like, shut up.
00:37:06.320 I'm listening to Malcolm.
00:37:08.300 It's unbelievable.
00:37:09.820 For example, his latest season on Revisionist History, you don't really know until kind of, you know, towards the end of it that, oh, wow, this is all about memory.
00:37:22.840 And I've learned that everything I thought about memory is probably wrong.
00:37:27.700 I'd like to tell you what it was, but I don't trust my memory anymore.
00:37:31.960 So Malcolm Gladwell is here.
00:37:33.480 Hello, Malcolm.
00:37:34.000 How are you?
00:37:35.180 Hey, Glenn.
00:37:36.000 I'm doing very well.
00:37:37.160 I thank you for your podcast.
00:37:38.960 There's just so great.
00:37:40.360 Oh, thank you.
00:37:41.260 That's very kind of you.
00:37:42.140 I wanted to I've been thinking about you a lot lately because of the Kavanaugh hearings and everything else.
00:37:48.260 And I don't want to get into the Kavanaugh hearings.
00:37:50.320 What I do want to talk about is our memory and how it can be changed, manipulated, how it's natural for these things to happen.
00:38:01.520 I mean, you explained the Brian Williams story in in such a different way because you didn't condemn him and you didn't exonerate him.
00:38:14.840 You just said, let's look at the facts on memory.
00:38:18.200 Yeah.
00:38:19.000 Can you take us through it?
00:38:21.260 Yeah.
00:38:21.540 The memory is something that in the last generation, psychologists have spent an enormous and neurologists have spent an enormous time.
00:38:31.520 Amount of work and effort trying to understand how it works.
00:38:35.600 And the more we learn about memory, the more we realize how fallible it is.
00:38:40.220 And we more and when we systematically go back and we test our memories, we find they don't do very well.
00:38:47.540 So there's a famous set of studies that are called flashbulb studies where a famous event happens, 9-11, the Challenger explosion.
00:38:56.380 And you go to a large group of people, the incident happens and you say, tell me everything you were doing, thinking on the moment when you heard that news.
00:39:06.240 Where were you?
00:39:07.020 Who did you talk to first?
00:39:08.060 How did you feel?
00:39:09.540 You know, what happened that day?
00:39:10.600 And then they go back to the same group of people a year later, five years later, 10 years later, and they ask them the same set of questions and they compare their answers.
00:39:20.480 And lo and behold, what you discover is that not everyone, but many of the people substantially alter their memories of the event without realizing it.
00:39:30.840 In other words, they are, the first time they'll say, when I heard, when I saw the towers fall, I was standing in the streets of Manhattan with my best friend, Jim, tears streaming down my face.
00:39:41.420 And then 10 years later, they'll say, when I first heard the towers fall, I was watching it on television in my dorm room.
00:39:49.360 And I ran out, you know, and then I ran and called my friend, Jim, who was in Boston.
00:39:53.700 And they're as convinced 10 years later that's what their memory was as they were the first time they relented their memories on the day of 9-11.
00:40:06.420 And so that kind of stuff, my point in doing the Brian Williams thing was, when you understand how fallible memory is, you are a lot more forgiving of what he did.
00:40:16.140 And he did something which it turns out a lot of us do all the time, which is we make what's called a time slice error.
00:40:23.640 We confuse the timeline in our minds and we think we're one place when something happens and we're in another place.
00:40:32.160 Or some, we've heard a story been told so many times that we slowly incorporate ourselves into the story without realizing that we're doing it.
00:40:40.760 And my point was that these are not sins of character.
00:40:44.020 These are just facts of human memory.
00:40:48.940 And we so often want to make someone's faulty memory into a test of their character.
00:40:55.500 And I think that's a mistake.
00:40:57.220 You know, there are people who deliberately lie, absolutely.
00:41:00.540 But a lot of what we think might be deliberate lying is just a manifestation of the frailty of human memory.
00:41:08.660 So I really don't want to get into politics on this, but I do want to ask you this question to see if the way I'm when I when I finished with the hearings last week, I felt, OK, I think she believes that.
00:41:24.180 And it may have happened that way.
00:41:26.040 I don't know.
00:41:27.200 And I felt Brett Kavanaugh, I believe he believes that they both could be telling the absolute truth.
00:41:36.160 Correct.
00:41:37.140 Yeah.
00:41:37.900 Yeah.
00:41:38.480 Yes.
00:41:39.320 They both.
00:41:39.960 I don't think either of them are deliberately lying.
00:41:43.820 I think, I mean, the thing about memory is that we may honestly believe that this is what happened, even though it isn't.
00:41:54.920 You know, my best friend, Bruce, I honestly believe I met him on the first day of first grade.
00:42:00.220 I can picture it in my mind.
00:42:02.680 He honestly believes that we met in the principal's office at the end of first grade.
00:42:07.100 And we didn't we didn't even meet throughout that entire year.
00:42:10.880 Right.
00:42:11.160 This is one of the most important events of my life, my best friend.
00:42:14.440 And we are off by eight months.
00:42:16.520 Right.
00:42:17.000 And he thinks we met because we we had got into a fight.
00:42:20.600 And I think he came up to me and introduced himself.
00:42:23.900 And we were best friends, you know, from the beginning.
00:42:26.040 Like, I, you know, I am.
00:42:27.580 I'm not lying about it.
00:42:29.180 It's what I remember.
00:42:30.440 But one of us completely made up that memory from whole class.
00:42:34.360 In fact, when you were talking about the 9-11 study, there were people who came back
00:42:41.000 10 years later, they wrote out, you know, within a few days, if I'm not mistaken, was
00:42:48.400 it a few days or was it a year after 9-11?
00:42:51.420 The original writing.
00:42:52.340 Well, the original time they went to the next day.
00:42:54.600 OK, so the next day they asked them to write out exactly where they were.
00:42:59.260 10 years later, some of them said, I don't know why I even wrote that.
00:43:05.060 This is a lie.
00:43:05.920 This is not what happened.
00:43:07.060 I don't know why I was lying then.
00:43:09.640 And they were convinced somehow or another they made something up that was different
00:43:15.080 than what they knew to be true now.
00:43:17.200 Yeah, people, one of the most important things that memory researchers will tell you is you
00:43:24.420 cannot confuse confidence with accuracy.
00:43:27.720 In other words, the fact that I am absolutely certain that what happened happened is not a
00:43:35.840 reliable guide to its accuracy.
00:43:39.180 So you can't, like, so I am convinced I met my friend Bruce on the first day.
00:43:44.260 That should, that does not mean it's more likely to be true than if I said, you know,
00:43:49.400 if I expressed it with more doubt.
00:43:52.620 So I think what it, a lot of what this, the lesson of all this is, is that we just need
00:43:57.360 to approach our memories, and not just our memories, our entire lives, with a lot more
00:44:03.500 humility.
00:44:05.700 You can't, we're not, our brains are not Superman.
00:44:11.120 They don't, they're not, we don't have a video recorder up there.
00:44:14.580 Taking down everything perfectly, you know, and we need to, when I say I remembered something
00:44:20.360 one way, I need to be, I need to check it, I need to talk to others, I need to be open
00:44:25.100 to the possibility I might be wrong, I need to, that's why we have legal systems and investigators
00:44:31.140 and, right, to compensate for the fact that our memories are not what we would like them
00:44:37.240 to be.
00:44:37.740 Everyone outside, let's take it outside of this political nightmare.
00:44:43.260 This Me Too movement, I think, has been very good.
00:44:45.840 On whole, it's been very good.
00:44:48.020 I am concerned about the, the women need to be believed.
00:44:55.260 I don't care if it's a man or a woman.
00:44:56.840 No, they need to be heard and taken seriously, but we can't just believe what someone says
00:45:05.440 for a myriad of reasons.
00:45:07.780 And I fear it's dangerous, this road that we're going down, because we need more than just
00:45:15.900 your word and your memory.
00:45:18.160 Because you might believe that's true, but it might not be.
00:45:22.960 Yeah.
00:45:24.340 Well, so it's funny, this is exactly the point that Ronan Farrell, you know, the journalist
00:45:31.360 who has been responsible, more as well as anyone else, for breaking these Me Too stories.
00:45:35.800 I went to see him give a public interview, and he was interviewing the actress who was
00:45:43.680 the source, I've forgotten her name, of course, because my memory is very faulty, who was the
00:45:47.700 source of many of the Me Too allegations.
00:45:49.580 And they were talking about this very point, and he very explicitly said, my job as a journalist
00:45:56.000 is not to believe the women.
00:45:58.940 It is to listen to them and then try and corroborate through careful reporting those aspects of
00:46:05.940 their story that are, corroborate their stories through careful reporting.
00:46:09.880 And if I can't corroborate them, then I can't write the story, right?
00:46:15.080 My job as a reporter is to compensate for the frailty of human memory.
00:46:18.800 And that is a beautiful way of expressing what the responsibility of media investigators
00:46:27.200 is in these cases, is, okay, someone has gone, clearly believed they've gone through something
00:46:33.020 very traumatic.
00:46:34.400 Let's systematically try and figure out, did it happen that way?
00:46:40.020 And if it didn't happen that way, let us not then judge the person and say they're a liar.
00:46:46.600 Right?
00:46:47.120 That's the crucial part.
00:46:49.000 When it's like, it is, we can't lose our humanity over this.
00:46:53.820 We have to say, we have to say if we do an investigation, and it's not the way that person
00:46:58.580 says, we have to very respectfully say, you have, you, like all of us, have a memory that
00:47:05.420 is imperfect.
00:47:05.980 That would be wonderful if we lived in that world.
00:47:12.960 But Malcolm, I am, I'm so concerned that, and you've said it now twice, and it is, it's
00:47:20.460 what made me successful in the first place.
00:47:23.220 And I am so glad that I have discovered how dangerous it is.
00:47:28.620 That's certitude.
00:47:31.140 We are a population that is certain about everything.
00:47:36.340 And it's good to have a core set of beliefs and principles, but you must be open to hear
00:47:42.540 new information, and on other information that doesn't give you, what is it, cognitive
00:47:52.400 dissidence is good it's good that's a sign that something in you isn't isn't quite right don't
00:48:00.440 shout your way through it stop back come step back and go okay which one of these two don't
00:48:06.420 fit with the principle i believe do i need to change the principle or do i need to throw out
00:48:13.120 that that information that i'm that i'm now acting on right yeah but that's scary people don't want
00:48:18.960 to do that yeah i i thought you know it's funny i had a conversation last night with a friend of mine
00:48:24.520 who was a mormon and who was talking about the tradition in the among mormons of keeping journals
00:48:30.140 which i had not known about um and she had years and years and years of journals and she was talking
00:48:36.640 about what that means for when you have a contemporaneous account of of your life your
00:48:43.960 feelings your actions your interpretations of what you've done you can go back and you know it
00:48:50.700 obviously serves a function far greater than simply checking your memory yeah but it's a way of keeping
00:48:55.280 yourself honest and what i loved about that was that that notion of if we live in such a kind of
00:49:02.420 difficult and flawed world then we have to take responsibility for our own stories and that to me
00:49:09.760 what is what the um what what that tradition of keeping a journal is about it says as a human being
00:49:16.540 you have a responsibility to yourself and to others to to understand the road that you have taken
00:49:23.560 right and write it down so that when you 20 years later you can look back and you say i'd
00:49:29.480 i i had forgotten i did this then you know maybe i regret it now or maybe i've learned from it
00:49:34.840 but that that to me i just thought that was lovely i really did i thought that was a as an example of
00:49:41.380 uh a kind of uh uh a practice um and you or you know obviously know much more about this than i do but
00:49:49.240 the the idea that that is part of what it means to be a righteous actor in the world is to take your
00:49:55.480 history seriously have you heard from brian williams since your podcast
00:50:01.180 no i have i sure one day i will run into him and i mean he he can he can't be he can't publicly say
00:50:12.660 that's true that's great right you know poor man i i think he was like part of him i'm sure was like
00:50:17.560 i can't believe he's bringing this up again
00:50:19.160 malcolm thank you so much for being on the program i really appreciate it you bet malcolm gladwell uh you
00:50:27.680 follow him on twitter at gladwell and also if you have not heard this podcast it is so relevant
00:50:33.240 for what we're going through right now uh it and especially listen to uh wish i would have asked him
00:50:40.220 about the german uh the spies oh my gosh that's a great story um but listen to the one it's a two-part
00:50:47.540 about the german spies listen just even start with the the brian williams and you will see wait a
00:50:53.600 wait a minute wait a minute no do not believe people on their memory alone take them seriously
00:51:00.920 season three episode three and four are the two that you're talking about it really is and the
00:51:05.520 brian williams thing was incredible because it i 100 just thought he was just trying to lie to make
00:51:10.500 himself look better and when you look at like the way he did it and all the details around it is it
00:51:16.020 will at least make you uneasy about that conclusion yeah he will he you know what i always say do
00:51:20.600 something this week that makes you uncomfortable listen to this because it will if especially if
00:51:25.600 you think that brian williams absolutely he's just a pig listen to this because it will challenge you
00:51:30.720 and you if you're honest with yourself will go well wait a minute i'm not quite sure and if you're
00:51:37.440 really honest you'll go gee i wonder how much of that has happened with me the blaze radio network
00:51:42.920 on demand
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