The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast

00:00:00.880 Hey everyone, real quick before you skip, I want to talk to you about something serious and important.

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00:00:50.980 Welcome to episode 241 of the JBP podcast.

00:00:58.920 I'm Mikayla Peterson, currently backstage in Indianapolis.

00:01:03.140 Dad is killing this show.

00:01:05.700 In this episode, dad and renowned linguist Dr. John McWhorter exchanged ideas on music,

00:01:13.500 linguistics, virtue signaling, language acquisition, wokeism, race in America,

00:01:18.740 and whether language changes our worldview.

00:01:22.180 John McWhorter is an associate professor of English and comparative literature at Columbia University

00:01:27.020 and the author of over a dozen books, including Losing the Race, Self-Sabotage in Black America,

00:01:33.760 and Our Magnificent Bastard Tongue, The Untold History of English.

00:01:38.680 He's also a regular contributor to The New Republic and The Atlantic.

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00:02:07.360 I hope you enjoy this conversation.

00:02:08.880 Hello, everyone.

00:02:27.880 I'm pleased today to have with me Professor Dr. John McWhorter,

00:02:32.340 who teaches linguistics, American studies, and music history at Columbia University,

00:02:36.940 is contributing editor at The Atlantic Magazine and hosts the language podcast Lexicon Valley.

00:02:43.920 He's the author of over 20 books.

00:02:46.160 That's a lot of books, some on language and some on race.

00:02:49.660 Most recently, the best-selling Nine Nasty Words, which was released in early 2021.

00:02:55.140 And because one book a year isn't enough, he's coming out with a new one called Woke Racism,

00:03:00.480 How a New Religion is Betraying Black America.

00:03:03.680 That should cause a lot of trouble.

00:03:05.300 That's out October 26th.

00:03:07.980 He has produced five courses on language for the Great Courses series

00:03:11.300 and appears regularly with Glenn Lowry in a podcast about race issues, The Glenn Show.

00:03:16.720 I first encountered Dr. McWhorter at an Aspen Ideas Festival gathering in 2018.

00:03:22.400 I was being interviewed with Barry Weiss, and afterwards, he asked me a rather difficult question.

00:03:27.040 I'm very pleased to have you come and agree to talk to me today,

00:03:30.760 and I'm very much looking forward to our conversation.

00:03:33.640 Me too, Jordan.

00:03:35.140 So I'm going to start by revealing my ignorance.

00:03:38.600 What I don't know about linguistics could fill a lot more books than you've written,

00:03:42.480 even though you've written many.

00:03:43.760 And so I'm curious about why,

00:03:45.860 if you could provide the watchers and listeners with a description of the field and its relevance,

00:03:51.600 and also perhaps why you got interested in it, attracted by it, enough to devote your life to it.

00:03:58.280 Linguistics is a cover term for an awful lot of perspectives,

00:04:01.740 but it's not about translation,

00:04:04.100 and it's not about learning how to speak languages.

00:04:07.700 It's about analyzing language as a scientific object.

00:04:11.360 And a lot of it is a lot like biology.

00:04:14.100 And so we analyze how language changes.

00:04:16.800 What are the physiological processes that allow us to produce language and allow us to understand it?

00:04:22.920 How is it that children learn language as a certain magic that anybody can perceive

00:04:27.360 in the way it happens with so little explicit tutelage linguists study that?

00:04:32.720 And there are all sorts of other applications.

00:04:36.060 There is linguistics and how to teach a computer to understand and even produce language.

00:04:42.660 There is language and the social sphere, language as part of a culture's anthropology.

00:04:50.580 What probably would surprise many people for very understandable reasons

00:04:54.140 is that what I just mentioned is not my main focus.

00:04:57.080 I can talk about those things on TV, so to speak,

00:04:59.460 because the general public is very interested in those things.

00:05:02.100 But I'm actually a language change, language contact nerd.

00:05:06.640 What interests me is why a language is different now than it was 500 years ago,

00:05:12.080 and what happens when languages come together and create new languages,

00:05:16.360 and how that process operates.

00:05:19.040 But when you do linguistics in the media,

00:05:21.520 you're expected to be kind of chief cook and bottle washer.

00:05:23.920 And a lot of what is discussed in the media by linguists

00:05:26.680 is what we call sociolinguistics, which is great stuff.

00:05:29.280 There are people who really specialize in it.

00:05:31.600 I'm just a popularizer of that particular subfield.

00:05:34.380 But that's a quick cook's tour of what linguistics is and what in the world I'm doing it is.

00:05:39.780 And so what are your thoughts on that remarkable facility of children to learn language?

00:05:44.440 I read, I think it was Russian psychologist Vygotsky made a claim.

00:05:49.020 He had this hypothesis he called zone of proximal development,

00:05:53.620 which is, I suppose, the psychological place you are when you're learning something new

00:05:58.360 and are engrossed by it, something like the idea of flow.

00:06:01.060 And Vygotsky said that adults naturally speak to their children

00:06:07.280 at a comprehension level that slightly exceeds their current grasp.

00:06:11.840 They seem to do that automatically,

00:06:13.140 even though that's an unbelievably complex thing to do.

00:06:15.560 And that drags children along to further the development of their language.

00:06:19.720 This seems deep and instinctual.

00:06:21.800 And what are your thoughts on propositions like Chomsky's,

00:06:25.580 that there's something like a biological mechanism,

00:06:29.160 a specialized biological mechanism that underlies our ability to learn language and to produce it?

00:06:34.560 Is that also under your purview?

00:06:36.840 I wouldn't call it under my purview,

00:06:38.500 but I find it very interesting to watch,

00:06:40.760 kind of like you rubberneck at a car accident.

00:06:42.960 The idea that there is a universal grammar that we're born with

00:06:47.460 and that underlies all languages is utterly fascinating.

00:06:50.800 Only a true genius such as Chomsky could have come up with it.

00:06:54.220 But the odd thing is that when you actually try to find

00:06:57.060 what these universal grammar specifications are,

00:07:00.320 they could plausibly be encoded in our genes

00:07:03.060 and be subject to natural selection.

00:07:04.960 Frankly, since the 1960s,

00:07:06.520 I think most people who practice that way of looking at things

00:07:09.940 would be hard put to tell those who aren't in the club

00:07:14.460 what has been discovered,

00:07:16.360 what we know now that we didn't know then,

00:07:18.600 what would be useful for people in other fields to know.

00:07:21.120 I find it to be a subfield of true geniuses treading water.

00:07:26.960 And a lot of them would not want to hear that.

00:07:28.820 And they're going to say that I don't know enough about it to say it.

00:07:31.100 But, you know, frankly, I think I do

00:07:33.300 because I pay a lot more attention to what they do

00:07:35.340 than many people might think.

00:07:36.520 And I'm always wishing that more would come out of it than does.

00:07:41.040 And so I don't think it's that there is a grammar tree of some sort,

00:07:45.960 even if encoded in some abstract way,

00:07:47.880 that people are born with.

00:07:49.240 The evidence of that wonderful notion simply hasn't been borne out.

00:07:53.260 But it's obvious that there is some sort of genetic specification

00:07:56.540 for the acquisition of and the use of language,

00:07:59.120 because if there weren't one,

00:08:00.700 we wouldn't be the only species who do it.

00:08:03.500 There's clearly something.

00:08:04.500 But I hate to say whatever it is,

00:08:06.920 is much less interesting than there being this very intricate

00:08:10.520 and suspiciously computer science-like universal grammar in our brains.

00:08:14.620 Now, Vygotsky is always very interesting.

00:08:16.800 And what he's getting at is that humans learn to talk

00:08:19.980 when people around them are chattering away

00:08:21.920 chattering away in such a way that, for example,

00:08:24.440 an adult learner of the language finds absolutely confounding.

00:08:28.120 You just listen to this stream of things going by,

00:08:30.420 even if you've been carefully instructed in the language.

00:08:33.020 It's that grand nexus of frustration.

00:08:35.560 And so certainly acquisition is not teaching children word by word by word,

00:08:40.080 but acquisition is also not children filling out

00:08:43.580 some sort of sentence, parsing, grammar that they were born with.

00:08:47.240 It's something that's much less precise than that.

00:08:51.220 Nevertheless, what's amazing is how universally it works.

00:08:54.460 You know, all cognitively normal human beings learn to speak

00:08:57.700 fluidly, fluently, idiomatically, and without effort.

00:09:02.940 Obviously, that's programmed in some way.

00:09:05.440 Well, you see, one of the things that's quite remarkable,

00:09:07.580 if you look at people who are quite intellectually impaired,

00:09:10.560 so people who suffer from Down syndrome, for example,

00:09:13.200 they also pick up language extraordinarily well,

00:09:15.720 and that's very remarkable.

00:09:17.460 Isn't that neat?

00:09:18.400 It's really something there are.

00:09:20.240 Autistic kids have trouble with language,

00:09:21.900 and autism, especially in its more profound forms,

00:09:24.700 is an extremely serious neurological condition.

00:09:27.020 But it really is remarkable that something as cognitively demanding

00:09:31.680 as language and specialized to human beings as it is,

00:09:34.840 is so deeply embedded in us that even intellectual impairment doesn't,

00:09:39.260 in many cases, doesn't interfere with its acquisition.

00:09:41.660 Yeah, it's amazing.

00:09:42.860 It's clearly localized in certain ways.

00:09:45.120 And the Chomskyans have talked about a language organ,

00:09:48.220 and I don't think they necessarily mean that it's in any one place,

00:09:51.360 but it's clear that there are certain parts of the brain

00:09:53.280 where language is generated, that where language ends up,

00:09:56.540 even if those parts of the brain didn't evolve for that purpose.

00:09:59.600 And yeah, they can be doing their job,

00:10:01.780 even if the person is quite impaired cognitively,

00:10:04.240 which shows that language is a thing in some way.

00:10:07.780 The question is exactly what that thing is.

00:10:09.840 I think linguists are getting closer to that now than they ever have,

00:10:12.100 because we're learning more.

00:10:12.860 I wonder, I have another scientific question, I guess,

00:10:15.760 is essentially is one of the psychologists

00:10:18.340 that I had the good fortune to know at Harvard,

00:10:20.380 whose name I unfortunately forget,

00:10:22.000 was a social psychologist very interested in the idea

00:10:24.360 of basic level categorization,

00:10:26.380 which was a concept I hadn't come across.

00:10:28.740 And one of the things he told me and had worked on

00:10:31.480 was the notion that objects in the world,

00:10:35.020 nameable objects in the world pop out at us

00:10:38.040 at a certain level of resolution.

00:10:40.080 So for example, a child will learn the very short word cat,

00:10:45.620 which is a pointer to an individual animal

00:10:48.140 rather than the more generic species level,

00:10:51.100 what would you say, perception.

00:10:52.780 And I wonder if the grammar of language in some sense

00:10:57.820 is that Chomsky was searching for

00:11:00.200 is some sense a secondary consequence

00:11:02.700 of something more like a perceptual grammar.

00:11:04.920 Because, you know, one of the things AI researchers

00:11:07.620 have been confounded by since the early 60s

00:11:11.340 is the fact that the world is very, very difficult to perceive,

00:11:14.240 much more difficult to perceive than we thought.

00:11:16.260 And yet it arrays itself in front of us

00:11:18.820 in all of these nameable and graspable objects.

00:11:21.900 And so maybe the grammar is embedded,

00:11:26.980 the linguistic grammar is embedded

00:11:28.320 in the act of perception in some sense.

00:11:31.080 And then there's a linguistic scaffold on top of that.

00:11:33.940 I don't know if that's, you know, an absurd idea, but...

00:11:36.660 Of course, there is labeling, for one thing.

00:11:39.620 Just the fact that after a while,

00:11:41.840 a child learns that cat is not just the cat in the house,

00:11:44.700 but has this concept of cat

00:11:46.240 to which you apply the label cat.

00:11:48.420 That's something that human language does to an extent

00:11:50.660 that's unprecedented anywhere in the animal kingdom.

00:11:54.140 There's a quantum leap.

00:11:55.060 But then what you're saying seems to be true.

00:11:56.660 If my money were on it, I would say that one universal perceptual specification

00:12:01.140 that there might actually be genetically set in our brains

00:12:04.660 is a difference between roughly nouns, verbs, and qualities,

00:12:09.220 what we call adjectives.

00:12:10.800 And so there's some things that are more likely

00:12:12.260 to be labeled by a language as nouns, like a cat.

00:12:15.000 There's not going to be a language that has a verb

00:12:17.440 that is to be like a cat or, you know, to purr, et cetera.

00:12:21.120 It's going to be a cat.

00:12:22.380 And there's certain things that are more likely

00:12:24.000 to be encoded as actions.

00:12:25.160 And there's certain things that are more likely

00:12:26.520 to be encoded as qualities, such as colors.

00:12:29.380 Those three things are the bedrocks.

00:12:31.620 Now, once you get to prepositions and adverbs

00:12:35.660 and prefixes versus suffixes, all of that is up for grabs.

00:12:39.280 Those things tend to be epiphenomenal upon the very basics.

00:12:42.860 But yes, a universal grammar probably does entail.

00:12:46.260 I think all linguists think there's a difference

00:12:47.780 between nouns and verbs.

00:12:49.040 Some very few languages seem to contravene that.

00:12:51.460 There are the exceptions to prove the rule.

00:12:52.780 And then there's also qualities.

00:12:54.960 And then beyond that,

00:12:56.120 there are many different schools of thought.

00:12:58.080 And you think that's fundamentally a separation

00:13:00.000 between something like things and actions?

00:13:03.300 Yeah, yeah.

00:13:03.840 That seems to be one of the very basic things,

00:13:06.060 right down to certain brain structures

00:13:08.460 that seem to be sensitive to it.

00:13:11.080 There's a difference between an action and a thing.

00:13:14.080 And the brain seems to be ready for that.

00:13:16.160 That might have something to do

00:13:17.360 with what we might call a U, a UG, a universal grammar.

00:13:20.460 So now, I read, and it was on Wikipedia,

00:13:24.980 so that's another indication of my ignorance,

00:13:27.020 that you're also known...

00:13:28.460 Yeah, well, fair enough.

00:13:29.820 You know, if you need to get informed about something quick,

00:13:31.980 that's a great source.

00:13:33.220 Yes, definitely.

00:13:34.720 And isn't that fantastic for all of us?

00:13:37.900 That you're also known as a critic

00:13:39.920 of the Sapir-Whorf hypothesis,

00:13:42.340 which is really not their hypothesis at all,

00:13:44.540 but it has come to be known by their names nonetheless.

00:13:46.760 And that hypothesis, correct me if I'm wrong,

00:13:49.880 is in its strong form, at least,

00:13:51.780 the notion that language structures thought

00:13:54.500 to such a degree that speakers of different languages

00:13:58.780 have qualitatively different thoughts in some sense.

00:14:01.960 And that isn't something

00:14:03.120 that sits particularly well for you.

00:14:05.000 And I think there are also some political

00:14:06.860 and practical implications of that belief,

00:14:09.760 and also the criticism of it.

00:14:11.320 Is any of that off base?

00:14:12.980 No, that's quite on base.

00:14:15.880 The idea that the language that you speak

00:14:18.460 gives you a certain pair of glasses

00:14:21.120 that you see the world through

00:14:22.600 is very, very attractive.

00:14:25.020 I remember learning it when I was an undergraduate

00:14:26.700 about the Hopi Native Americans.

00:14:28.800 And it's something that you want to be true,

00:14:31.180 but the evidence just doesn't support it

00:14:33.540 if you look at it in terms of lots of languages

00:14:36.540 and what the implications of this would be.

00:14:38.240 And so certainly,

00:14:39.560 language does influence thought in certain ways.

00:14:42.240 It's been shown, for example, in Russian.

00:14:44.640 It's hard for us to even imagine this

00:14:45.980 unless we're Russian.

00:14:46.900 There's no word for blue.

00:14:48.220 They have a word for dark blue.

00:14:49.900 They have a word for light blue.

00:14:51.340 There is no word for just blue.

00:14:53.140 And it turns out that if you subject them

00:14:55.040 to a highly artificial experiment,

00:14:57.660 you can show that Russians do have a glimmer

00:15:00.520 more sensitivity to the difference

00:15:02.360 between dark and light blue than either you or I do.

00:15:05.340 And the only reason for that would have to be the language.

00:15:08.200 It's not something about Russian culture

00:15:09.480 and the color blue.

00:15:10.560 There are many things like that

00:15:12.040 that are fascinating in themselves,

00:15:13.480 but the way it's shared with the public

00:15:15.260 makes it seem as if if you learn Italian,

00:15:17.980 you're seeing the world in an Italian way

00:15:20.440 because of the way the grammar works,

00:15:22.100 because of the way the vocabulary

00:15:23.360 chops up the world.

00:15:26.100 And the problem with that is that

00:15:27.540 there are many languages that are very, very busy,

00:15:30.140 that mark every little jot and tittle of existence,

00:15:32.380 and they tend to be spoken by small indigenous groups.

00:15:35.600 It's very easy to see those small indigenous groups

00:15:38.280 and to say, look at how sophisticated their language is.

00:15:41.040 They're picking up on every little sparkle of experience

00:15:45.280 in a way that, say, English,

00:15:46.820 which is a relatively telegraphic language

00:15:49.000 compared to those, doesn't.

00:15:50.760 But the problem is then you have to look at languages

00:15:52.680 like Mandarin Chinese,

00:15:54.260 which is much more telegraphic than English in many ways.

00:15:56.980 If you apply the grand old media warfian perspective

00:16:00.820 to a language like Mandarin Chinese,

00:16:02.700 the Chinese end up looking kind of dim

00:16:05.340 because the language marks so little.

00:16:07.980 Nobody wants it to go that way.

00:16:09.420 There was one unfortunate psychologist

00:16:11.120 who actually tried to go that way quite innocently

00:16:13.740 and is still being burned in effigy today.

00:16:17.200 And he wrote the article during the Reagan administration

00:16:19.220 because the truth is that if your language

00:16:21.920 doesn't have a whole lot in it,

00:16:24.020 if your language has a whole lot in it

00:16:26.080 or somewhere in between,

00:16:27.280 the evidence is that all human beings think

00:16:29.460 in basically the same way,

00:16:31.300 except for these tiny shades of difference

00:16:33.520 that a psychology experiment can freeze out.

00:16:37.160 But that's not life itself.

00:16:39.560 And so I think that people end up using warfianism

00:16:42.380 as a way to be a Westerner

00:16:44.320 who shows that they understand

00:16:45.980 that non-Westerners are cognitively sophisticated,

00:16:48.880 which is great.

00:16:49.600 But the problem is the same thing

00:16:51.000 ends up insulting half of the world's people.

00:16:53.900 Okay, so you touched on the political ramifications

00:16:56.260 of the hypothesis.

00:16:57.200 Well, it seems in some sense a biologically naive hypothesis

00:17:01.860 because, I mean, we've only been speaking,

00:17:04.880 evolutionarily speaking,

00:17:06.040 for perhaps a couple of million years,

00:17:07.780 which is a long time,

00:17:08.820 but it's not that long given

00:17:10.300 our 60 million year mammalian heritage, let's say,

00:17:14.500 and everything that came before that

00:17:17.500 upon which our perceptual capabilities

00:17:20.200 have been predicated.

00:17:21.480 And so the idea that language

00:17:23.360 could affect something as basic,

00:17:24.940 let's say, as color perception

00:17:26.620 seems to me to be, on the face of it,

00:17:28.300 quite observed.

00:17:29.040 I mean, I'm pretty convinced by the arguments,

00:17:31.820 for example, that our capacity

00:17:33.080 to distinguish between green and red

00:17:34.700 is a consequence of our ancestry

00:17:36.500 as fruit-eating primates, essentially.

00:17:39.040 You need that, yeah.

00:17:39.840 Yes, exactly.

00:17:40.780 And you can't mess around with something that deep

00:17:43.260 by painting a surface of linguistic ability

00:17:46.580 over the top of it.

00:17:47.720 At least that's how it seems to me.

00:17:49.980 Yeah, I think that's correct.

00:17:51.500 And we all face, in many ways,

00:17:53.500 regardless of where we are,

00:17:54.620 the same sorts of problems.

00:17:55.780 We have to get along with others.

00:17:57.060 We have to eat.

00:17:57.900 We have to quell our territory, let's say.

00:18:01.640 And so there's a lot more that unites us

00:18:04.140 perceptually and cognitively

00:18:06.000 than there is that divides us.

00:18:07.660 There is.

00:18:08.420 And if you really look at different languages,

00:18:10.720 you see that you have to celebrate

00:18:12.980 what unites us rather than what divides us

00:18:15.560 on the pain of being really anti-scientific.

00:18:17.720 There are languages of New Guinea, for example,

00:18:20.360 where there doesn't happen to be a difference

00:18:22.520 between eating, drinking, and smoking

00:18:25.380 in terms of the language.

00:18:26.660 They have a word that we would translate roughly

00:18:28.380 as ingest, and they use it for all those things.

00:18:30.860 Based on the Whorfian analysis,

00:18:32.220 they're not as sensitive to the difference

00:18:34.320 between eating and drinking and smoking something

00:18:36.360 as we are.

00:18:37.420 And so you end up implying that they're kind of coarse

00:18:39.800 or that they're kind of crude.

00:18:41.020 And if you look at the group themselves,

00:18:42.700 they are as interested in food and varieties of foods

00:18:45.580 and ways of cooking as we are.

00:18:47.220 You find that sort of thing over and over.

00:18:49.580 So I wrote The Language Hoax

00:18:51.300 because it really started to stick in my craw

00:18:54.060 that a lot of people end up believing

00:18:56.400 this media kind of Whorfianism

00:18:58.960 as opposed to academic psychological Whorfianism,

00:19:02.140 which is irrefutably true.

00:19:04.860 And I was bemused.

00:19:06.500 I'm glad.

00:19:06.940 That book got around more than I expected.

00:19:09.540 And it seems to now be just contributing

00:19:11.900 a con side to an argument there used to be only pro ones

00:19:16.280 of for the general public.

00:19:17.540 So we'll see how it all pans out.

00:19:19.700 So now when you came to study linguistics,

00:19:22.540 you were also extremely interested in something else

00:19:25.140 you teach, American studies.

00:19:27.060 You also teach music.

00:19:28.540 What element of music?

00:19:31.400 I teach.

00:19:32.700 Columbia has its core curriculum

00:19:34.160 where every student has to take certain courses

00:19:36.260 in the kind of great books tradition.

00:19:38.320 There's a music course for that.

00:19:39.860 Everybody goes through one semester

00:19:41.820 of the masterpieces of Western music.

00:19:45.060 So what it really is,

00:19:45.960 is good old school, quote unquote,

00:19:47.680 great music clapping for credit.

00:19:49.380 It teaches you how to appreciate complex music.

00:19:52.620 And the course, as you might imagine,

00:19:54.280 is undergoing some changes in recent years.

00:19:56.680 But it basically takes you from Gregorian chants

00:19:59.480 through roughly Philip Glass.

00:20:01.860 And many of us would add jazz at the end.

00:20:04.900 So I had been doing that.

00:20:06.200 Yeah.

00:20:06.460 Are you interested in the musical element of language?

00:20:09.220 Because it carries a lot of the emotional weight, right?

00:20:12.400 So there's this, there's the,

00:20:14.480 just the linguistic end, semantic end, let's say.

00:20:17.380 And you know perfectly well

00:20:19.220 that you can structure the same sentence

00:20:20.860 with two different intonations

00:20:22.220 and mean exactly the opposite.

00:20:24.540 You do that when you're being ironic.

00:20:26.080 And so was your love of music,

00:20:30.280 does that, what would you say,

00:20:31.980 color your linguistic theorizing in any sense?

00:20:35.420 Or is that a separate endeavor?

00:20:37.180 No, the music loving me is a different person.

00:20:40.780 And to the extent that there is music,

00:20:43.000 as you're putting it in language,

00:20:44.680 that has not happened to be my area.

00:20:46.340 The best person on that is Ray Jackendorf,

00:20:49.180 who is somebody who actually has very good proposals

00:20:51.700 against the Chomskyan idea too.

00:20:53.780 But no.

00:20:54.040 So I should talk to him.

00:20:55.120 I know about him.

00:20:55.840 I should talk to him.

00:20:56.920 I like his work a lot.

00:20:58.020 You see this sculpture behind me, this thing here?

00:21:00.140 Yes.

00:21:00.720 Yeah.

00:21:00.920 I made that 30 years ago.

00:21:02.400 It's called The Meaning of Music.

00:21:03.740 And it was the consequence of about a year's meditation

00:21:06.260 on what it was that music was doing to us

00:21:08.860 and why we were so attracted.

00:21:10.620 It's such a remarkable phenomenon.

00:21:12.800 It's a weird thing.

00:21:13.440 It is a weird, it's a very weird thing.

00:21:15.560 And I'll just run my initial hypothesis by you.

00:21:18.900 And so music is often regarded

00:21:21.020 as a non-representational art form.

00:21:23.360 I had a great journalist up to my house this week,

00:21:25.780 Rex Murphy, and he said to me,

00:21:27.320 this was a quote,

00:21:28.120 and I don't remember where he derived it from,

00:21:29.900 that all art aspires to the condition of music,

00:21:33.760 which is a lovely phrase.

00:21:35.220 And so when I started to think about music,

00:21:39.440 I was thinking about it because it was essentially,

00:21:42.320 it was an engaging experience

00:21:44.040 that was immune from rational criticism.

00:21:46.980 And that really, so it had this intrinsic meaning

00:21:49.440 that could not be subverted by criticism.

00:21:52.000 And so it struck me as something extraordinarily powerful.

00:21:54.560 And I started to understand at that time

00:21:56.720 that the world in a really deep sense

00:21:59.920 is made out of nested patterns.

00:22:01.620 And those patterns we perceive as objects and actions,

00:22:05.560 but what they are are patterns in space and time.

00:22:08.780 And that music is actually the most representative form of art

00:22:12.620 because it represents the harmonious interplay of patterns.

00:22:16.120 And then we pattern ourself to the music

00:22:18.200 and find that, what would you say,

00:22:20.360 existentially engaging in a very profound sense.

00:22:23.860 Anyways, that's my music theory.

00:22:25.700 Oh, without a doubt.

00:22:27.360 And the easy version of that is a good beat

00:22:30.700 because a good beat implies in a primal sense,

00:22:34.880 a certain predictability and therefore a certain truth.

00:22:38.180 I think you can see in a lot of people,

00:22:39.680 a sense that a good beat

00:22:40.740 in the way you move your body to it

00:22:42.300 equals a kind of truth because of the consistency.

00:22:44.520 And look how it unites us.

00:22:46.240 Yeah. And it brings people together.

00:22:47.700 Classical music is harder because it's longer lined.

00:22:50.820 And so a lot of teaching people to appreciate classical music

00:22:53.180 is to teach them how to hear it

00:22:55.080 as something other than just this endless,

00:22:57.340 desultory string of whatever.

00:22:58.720 There's pattern in it too.

00:23:00.500 And you don't really appreciate it

00:23:01.680 unless you just learn how to breathe

00:23:03.120 and take in the longer pattern.

00:23:04.580 Yeah.

00:23:04.760 So when you listen to a great classical piece,

00:23:08.060 say a Bach concerto or something like that,

00:23:10.960 do you have to listen to it multiple times

00:23:13.300 before you understand it?

00:23:14.740 Definitely.

00:23:15.500 Yes.

00:23:15.920 Okay.

00:23:16.260 Seven.

00:23:16.660 My rule is you don't really know it

00:23:18.420 until you've heard it about seven times.

00:23:20.200 If it's challenging music.

00:23:21.680 Yeah.

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00:25:00.720 Yeah, okay, okay.

00:25:01.840 So I didn't know if that was my,

00:25:03.060 I'm sure there are some musical super geniuses

00:25:05.460 who don't need that length of exposure to get it,

00:25:07.780 but-

00:25:08.040 I don't get it.

00:25:08.760 Well, maybe two or three with some people,

00:25:10.800 but to me, I want to drink it in.

00:25:12.180 You know, I'd sit with headphones and a CD

00:25:15.440 and that's becoming very old fashioned,

00:25:17.420 but that's the only way that I can really do it.

00:25:19.640 Yeah, it's amazing too, Ace,

00:25:21.260 how you expose yourself continually to that pattern

00:25:24.580 and then you need a certain degree of familiarity with it

00:25:28.300 so it still retains some novelty

00:25:30.280 and then you really fall in love with it.

00:25:31.900 And then if you listen to it a tremendous number of times,

00:25:34.740 in some sense, you tend to exhaust it.

00:25:36.720 Although the greater the piece of music,

00:25:38.720 in my experience,

00:25:40.460 and maybe this is a marker for depth and quality in music,

00:25:43.480 the greater the piece of music,

00:25:44.720 the longer it takes to exhaust it.

00:25:47.540 Yeah, and if it's a really great piece of music,

00:25:49.540 it's never exhausted in my experience.

00:25:51.840 But yes, that's true.

00:25:52.860 If it's an okay piece of music on the level of, say, a hot dog,

00:25:56.780 you'll get 20, 21,

00:25:58.220 and then you've kind of gotten past that

00:25:59.860 and you look 20 years later and you realize,

00:26:01.660 wow, that fell out of the rotation

00:26:03.320 and you sort of realize why.

00:26:04.720 As opposed to the things that never fall out of the rotation

00:26:07.800 because it sounds so corny,

00:26:09.340 but you're always finding something different

00:26:11.300 or whatever you initially found,

00:26:13.420 the feeling is such a kick,

00:26:15.220 it's such a mind blow

00:26:16.340 that you want it over and over.

00:26:18.320 It becomes church.

00:26:19.640 There's almost a religious aspect.

00:26:21.480 Yes, there is definitely that

00:26:23.760 and we could talk about that more too.

00:26:25.160 One of the things I also find

00:26:26.280 absolutely staggering about music

00:26:28.440 is how it can have that long-lasting

00:26:31.460 and gripping form

00:26:32.480 in such an endless variety of genres

00:26:35.980 and how that greatness and depth

00:26:38.500 can manifest itself in each of those genres

00:26:40.900 regardless of what the genre is

00:26:43.100 and something that's very difficult to understand.

00:26:46.780 Something as simple often, say,

00:26:48.360 as country and Western music,

00:26:49.740 something like Hank Williams,

00:26:50.820 which is very straightforward in some ways,

00:26:54.220 still, to me,

00:26:55.880 has that quality of inexhaustibility.

00:26:59.260 And it's so...

00:27:00.220 Yeah, what amazes me,

00:27:02.120 and if I were more profound about these things

00:27:04.960 or more interested in bringing

00:27:06.080 different parts of myself together,

00:27:07.460 I would study it.

00:27:08.220 It's harmony because melody is one thing.

00:27:11.180 You know, melody is a lullaby.

00:27:12.520 Any human being is given that.

00:27:14.420 Rhythm, especially consistent rhythm,

00:27:16.760 I'm sure that we are genetically programmed

00:27:18.860 by accident to appreciate that.

00:27:21.100 Harmony is a funny thing.

00:27:22.600 And I think that people who,

00:27:24.440 for one reason or another,

00:27:25.440 either training or temperament or both,

00:27:27.460 feel harmony and get harmony,

00:27:29.160 think that all human beings hear harmony

00:27:30.940 the way they do, no.

00:27:32.220 It's a very odd kind of ear.

00:27:34.940 And I find myself wondering,

00:27:36.100 what is it about major and minor

00:27:37.920 and then everything else?

00:27:38.920 And the fact that if you're a music listener,

00:27:40.960 you associate those things with certain feelings.

00:27:43.360 You often find that other people

00:27:44.640 don't have the same feelings

00:27:45.620 about the ones that you do.

00:27:46.940 But yeah, it's a weird thing,

00:27:48.980 this thing called music.

00:27:50.040 You associate a certain combination of notes

00:27:53.180 with nostalgia.

00:27:54.360 For me, the flatted sixth means,

00:27:56.020 it reminds me of the past.

00:27:58.000 Why?

00:27:58.860 Very interesting things.

00:27:59.920 Why would it remind you of anything

00:28:01.340 when it's something that didn't exist

00:28:03.340 when Homo sapiens emerged?

00:28:05.380 Fascinating stuff.

00:28:06.500 I had a master's student

00:28:07.820 when I taught at Harvard

00:28:08.760 who did her thesis on the meaning of music

00:28:11.060 from a biological perspective.

00:28:12.600 And one of the things she came across,

00:28:14.320 and I don't remember whose thoughts these were,

00:28:16.100 was that deep bass notes

00:28:18.760 remind us of large animals

00:28:20.940 and high notes remind us of small animals.

00:28:24.400 This is obviously a partial explanation.

00:28:27.760 Right.

00:28:28.500 Obviously.

00:28:29.180 And that more major tones

00:28:31.940 are more maternal and comforting

00:28:33.560 and minor tones

00:28:34.320 are more discordant

00:28:35.300 and reminiscent of emotional upset.

00:28:37.780 Something.

00:28:38.400 That feels right.

00:28:39.660 Exactly.

00:28:40.300 Yeah.

00:28:40.860 And that ties in part

00:28:44.020 into the emotional aspect

00:28:46.520 of language itself

00:28:47.720 and all those things

00:28:50.160 that we pick up

00:28:50.980 and that animals pick.

00:28:52.420 But then the question is,

00:28:54.780 you know,

00:28:55.000 we quote unquote Europeans,

00:28:56.280 I know it's weird for me to say that,

00:28:57.980 but I think people understand.

00:28:59.280 We hear major and minor

00:29:01.120 and low and high that way.

00:29:02.940 I wonder if someone,

00:29:05.100 an indigenous person

00:29:05.980 who had never heard music like that before,

00:29:08.040 let's go to Irian Jaya,

00:29:09.660 it's not called that anymore,

00:29:10.580 but the Western have somebody from there.

00:29:13.060 I wonder if they would hear it that way.

00:29:14.240 And I can make a guess.

00:29:15.420 The low notes being associated

00:29:17.240 with the elephant

00:29:17.880 and the high notes being associated

00:29:19.300 with the hummingbird,

00:29:19.900 that's probably universal

00:29:20.960 because that's true about language.

00:29:22.820 O, ah is big.

00:29:24.820 E is small.

00:29:26.300 That's true.

00:29:27.280 However, the other parts,

00:29:28.340 I wonder if all of that

00:29:29.140 is just arbitrary European stuff

00:29:30.780 that we pick up,

00:29:31.820 you know,

00:29:32.080 from starting from listening

00:29:33.080 to Mother Goose songs

00:29:33.980 and then it going on.

00:29:35.000 I'm sure this has been studied

00:29:36.320 and I have not nosed

00:29:37.260 into what those people were looking at.

00:29:38.860 Yes, probably someone knows this

00:29:40.500 and we're just ignorant about it,

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00:32:11.240 So that's all fascinating.

00:32:15.440 American Studies.

00:32:16.540 Now, you also were educated

00:32:17.940 in American Studies

00:32:18.780 and you teach American Studies.

00:32:20.340 So a very wide range

00:32:22.060 of teaching interests.

00:32:23.100 And so tell me about

00:32:24.960 American Studies

00:32:25.660 and what you're teaching

00:32:26.460 and how you got

00:32:27.040 captivated by it.

00:32:28.720 Well, you know,

00:32:29.440 honestly,

00:32:30.280 American Studies,

00:32:31.240 to me was a backdoor thing

00:32:34.220 that I became

00:32:34.980 passingly interested in

00:32:36.300 in the 80s

00:32:36.980 after I got my B.A.

00:32:38.540 because I thought of it

00:32:39.640 as a way of studying

00:32:41.020 in a systematic way

00:32:42.560 American popular culture

00:32:44.540 of the late 19th

00:32:45.860 through late 20th centuries,

00:32:47.320 which obsesses me

00:32:48.580 to this day.

00:32:49.580 I'm a huge fan

00:32:50.420 of the movies,

00:32:51.420 the radio shows,

00:32:52.280 the comic strips,

00:32:53.000 the cartoons,

00:32:53.760 the music.

00:32:54.180 I, you know,

00:32:55.280 I could get along

00:32:56.700 living in 1936,

00:32:58.280 hopefully, you know,

00:32:59.240 white,

00:32:59.920 but living in 1936

00:33:01.380 and knowing everything

00:33:02.540 that was going on

00:33:03.540 better than I think

00:33:04.280 many people could

00:33:05.360 just because I enjoy it.

00:33:06.420 It's not that I think

00:33:06.880 1936 was better,

00:33:08.180 but I just like that stuff.

00:33:09.920 And if you do

00:33:10.560 American Studies,

00:33:11.340 you get to read books

00:33:12.500 by historians

00:33:13.440 and philosophers

00:33:14.320 and film scholars

00:33:15.640 about those things.

00:33:16.740 I got a master's degree

00:33:18.040 in it at NYU

00:33:19.060 at a time

00:33:19.660 when the program

00:33:20.580 in American Studies

00:33:21.360 for most of the people

00:33:22.300 in it was kind of

00:33:23.600 a night school.

00:33:24.700 And the truth is,

00:33:26.200 I sense where you might

00:33:27.320 very understandably going,

00:33:28.600 which is that I have

00:33:29.240 the master's

00:33:29.800 in American Studies

00:33:30.700 and that informs

00:33:31.900 why I'm a media commentator

00:33:33.440 about race issues

00:33:34.260 these days.

00:33:34.700 But actually,

00:33:35.440 no, the American Studies degree,

00:33:36.800 I wrote a master's thesis

00:33:37.940 on Scott Joplin's opera,

00:33:40.760 Treemann Nisha,

00:33:41.620 and then left that behind

00:33:42.820 and got into linguistics,

00:33:43.840 which had no relationship

00:33:44.740 to any of that at all.

00:33:45.660 Linguistics, I found,

00:33:46.580 was where I needed to live

00:33:48.560 as opposed to American Studies

00:33:49.920 where I got to read

00:33:50.700 an awful lot of great books.

00:33:51.940 And I don't regret it.

00:33:53.300 I really enjoyed it.

00:33:54.340 But it was really

00:33:54.900 just a passing phase

00:33:56.140 when I was in my early 20s.

00:33:58.020 Yeah, I did.

00:33:58.500 I did wonder about that relationship

00:34:00.660 and thought that there might

00:34:01.560 be some connection.

00:34:02.240 What is it about the mid-30s

00:34:03.900 that fascinates you so much?

00:34:06.060 The mid-30s looked good.

00:34:08.580 And it was a terrible,

00:34:10.220 classist, racist, sexist time.

00:34:13.240 Everybody's smoking cigarettes.

00:34:14.580 It's not that I think

00:34:15.320 that it was somehow better.

00:34:16.540 But if you think about it,

00:34:17.440 the 1930s, the fashions,

00:34:19.580 the people looked good.

00:34:20.880 Their hair looked good.

00:34:21.940 The cars looked good.

00:34:23.300 The music hit a really sweet spot

00:34:25.300 in terms of how a swing band sounded

00:34:27.480 or even before that,

00:34:28.900 an early jazz band sounded.

00:34:31.280 And then there was an awful lot

00:34:32.580 of great leftist literature.

00:34:34.800 The 30s jazz.

00:34:35.760 Yeah, 30s jazz is great, man.

00:34:37.440 It's just aesthetically a great era.

00:34:37.780 The 40s, I kind of lose it.

00:34:39.080 But the 30s was just great feeling.

00:34:41.820 I'd just love to walk around in it

00:34:43.100 for seven days and then come back.

00:34:44.420 So, all right,

00:34:47.680 let me ask you some more questions.

00:34:48.960 So as you developed your career

00:34:50.440 as an early professor,

00:34:51.460 you stopped being an assistant professor

00:34:54.740 and you were at,

00:34:56.020 sorry, it's just escaped my mind.

00:34:57.860 Where were you first?

00:34:58.960 Cornell.

00:34:59.160 As a professor.

00:34:59.780 Cornell.

00:35:00.200 Cornell.

00:35:00.360 And then you went to

00:35:01.700 the Manhattan Institute,

00:35:03.100 a conservative think tank.

00:35:05.700 I did.

00:35:06.580 Okay, so obviously

00:35:08.300 that requires some explanation.

00:35:10.300 And so one of the things

00:35:11.820 I kind of wonder about maybe

00:35:13.180 is maybe you could shed some light on

00:35:15.040 is what attracted you to conservatism

00:35:18.960 to the degree that you were attracted?

00:35:20.400 And what is conservatism now?

00:35:23.580 I've been trying to puzzle this out.

00:35:25.940 Psychologically,

00:35:26.420 I'm not thinking about it so much politically

00:35:27.940 because I think there's room

00:35:29.720 for liberal thought

00:35:31.380 and for conservative thought

00:35:32.520 and that the dialogue between those two

00:35:34.040 is absolutely necessary.

00:35:35.280 But what was it about conservatism

00:35:37.780 that attracted you?

00:35:38.680 Because it's not an obvious choice.

00:35:41.340 No, no.

00:35:42.200 It was really a matter of

00:35:44.800 an eccentricity about the way race

00:35:47.360 has been discussed in this country

00:35:48.920 in the mainstream for a very long time.

00:35:51.380 I was raised by a mother

00:35:53.540 who was a teacher of social work

00:35:55.760 in the 1970s

00:35:56.860 who actually taught a course

00:35:58.100 called Racism 101.

00:36:01.140 My mother taught me

00:36:02.440 what is today the woke line

00:36:04.700 on how race works

00:36:05.980 and the things that she taught me

00:36:07.080 were correct.

00:36:08.340 And I have to this day

00:36:09.920 never voted Republican.

00:36:11.660 I am a Democrat.

00:36:12.740 I am a liberal.

00:36:13.520 I always say

00:36:14.160 I am a black liberal

00:36:16.160 of about 1960.

00:36:17.640 But I found

00:36:18.640 as I came of age

00:36:20.840 that as I analyzed

00:36:23.280 the sociopolitical things

00:36:24.420 happening around me

00:36:25.400 that concerned race

00:36:26.860 that I didn't agree

00:36:28.660 with what was supposed to be

00:36:29.940 the default kinds of assumptions.

00:36:31.980 And I found

00:36:33.000 that my assumptions

00:36:34.700 which I think

00:36:35.880 would have endeared me thoroughly

00:36:37.740 to the NAACP in 1960

00:36:39.900 were considered repulsive,

00:36:43.260 inappropriate,

00:36:44.240 naive,

00:36:44.880 or conservative.

00:36:46.220 And so the Manhattan Institute,

00:36:47.500 I didn't choose it.

00:36:49.040 A lot of people think

00:36:50.100 that I'm much more self-directed

00:36:51.660 than I am.

00:36:52.500 A think tank taps you.

00:36:53.720 I barely knew

00:36:54.440 what a think tank was.

00:36:55.340 But they were doing work

00:36:57.140 on race

00:36:58.680 in New York City

00:36:59.560 and beyond

00:37:00.180 that I agreed with.

00:37:02.080 And what they were saying

00:37:02.820 was not black people

00:37:03.960 are all thugs and criminals

00:37:05.120 and they need to shape up.

00:37:06.300 They were working with,

00:37:07.520 for example,

00:37:08.060 Cory Booker,

00:37:08.800 who was the mayor

00:37:09.420 of Newark then,

00:37:10.480 on prisoner re-entry programs.

00:37:12.440 They were really trying

00:37:13.080 to do good work

00:37:13.820 for black people.

00:37:14.900 And I didn't see

00:37:15.760 any other think tank

00:37:16.620 that was doing anything like that.

00:37:17.880 And they summoned me

00:37:18.740 that Manhattan Institute

00:37:19.900 is a conservative think tank,

00:37:21.200 but they've always been hospitable

00:37:22.580 to an extent

00:37:23.320 to Democrats.

00:37:24.200 I was not the only one there.

00:37:26.020 But understandably,

00:37:27.360 while I was there

00:37:28.200 and I was there

00:37:28.740 for a good long time,

00:37:30.040 a lot of people thought

00:37:31.040 that meant

00:37:31.440 that I was a conservative Republican,

00:37:33.120 whereas it's not that.

00:37:34.300 My views,

00:37:35.180 if anybody were,

00:37:36.700 if anybody were to bother

00:37:38.380 to read the work

00:37:39.860 that I've been doing

00:37:40.580 for what I hate to say

00:37:41.760 is 20 years now,

00:37:43.140 they'd see,

00:37:43.620 I don't disagree

00:37:44.160 with any of the things

00:37:45.420 that you would consider

00:37:46.160 to be the liberal orthodoxy,

00:37:47.980 except when it comes

00:37:49.140 to a certain

00:37:49.860 plangent view

00:37:51.820 of race relations

00:37:52.740 where the idea

00:37:53.500 is that the proper

00:37:54.500 black thing to do

00:37:55.580 is decry weakness

00:37:56.840 rather than look

00:37:57.880 for solutions.

00:37:58.720 I don't get that.

00:37:59.880 And I know that

00:38:00.520 my civil rights forebears

00:38:02.020 wouldn't have gotten

00:38:02.600 that either,

00:38:03.260 but that's considered

00:38:04.360 a conservative take

00:38:05.680 only because

00:38:06.520 what's considered

00:38:07.300 the mainstream take

00:38:08.300 on race

00:38:08.700 has moved so far

00:38:09.800 to the radical left.

00:38:11.740 Okay, so let's unpack

00:38:13.160 that a bit.

00:38:14.120 So what I'd like,

00:38:15.020 see, I kind of look

00:38:15.900 at all of the things

00:38:17.400 that you are discussing

00:38:18.500 in some sense

00:38:19.600 as an outsider

00:38:20.740 because these are

00:38:21.980 fundamentally American issues,

00:38:23.760 although not entirely,

00:38:24.920 and I'm a Canadian

00:38:25.960 and we have our problems,

00:38:27.020 but we don't have

00:38:28.340 exactly the same problems

00:38:29.860 that you have

00:38:30.440 in the United States.

00:38:31.220 And so I look,

00:38:32.200 I'm looking at this

00:38:33.220 from the outside

00:38:34.120 to some degree

00:38:34.700 and trying to understand it.

00:38:35.780 What do you,

00:38:37.420 what is this set

00:38:38.500 of assumptions

00:38:39.220 in more detail

00:38:40.680 that perturb you?

00:38:44.680 And why do you,

00:38:45.500 let's start with that.

00:38:46.580 What is this set

00:38:47.540 of assumptions

00:38:48.020 about race relations

00:38:50.040 in the U.S.

00:38:50.720 that perturb you?

00:38:52.640 Well, there's one

00:38:53.100 main assumption,

00:38:54.240 which is that

00:38:55.280 it's the job

00:38:56.300 of the,

00:38:57.820 shall we say,

00:38:58.380 woke black person

00:38:59.860 to focus

00:39:01.120 on racist obstacles

00:39:03.400 to black success

00:39:04.880 and to purport

00:39:05.920 that racism,

00:39:07.740 be it social

00:39:09.100 or systemic,

00:39:10.740 is a conclusive obstacle

00:39:12.540 to general black success

00:39:14.180 rather than an impediment

00:39:16.500 that you can get around.

00:39:18.280 And then there's

00:39:18.740 an extension from that

00:39:19.780 that racism

00:39:20.860 of both of those kinds

00:39:22.320 is so oppressive

00:39:23.780 that it's the defining experience

00:39:26.160 of being a black person.

00:39:28.020 And so it means

00:39:28.700 that if you are

00:39:29.780 a black person

00:39:30.440 and you're writing,

00:39:31.480 you know,

00:39:31.680 be it fiction

00:39:32.380 or nonfiction

00:39:33.520 or opinion,

00:39:34.880 your focus

00:39:35.740 is supposed

00:39:36.220 to be always

00:39:37.240 and forever

00:39:38.160 racist oppression

00:39:39.880 because if you're

00:39:40.580 not doing that,

00:39:41.780 you're not authentic

00:39:43.300 and you're dissociating

00:39:45.080 yourself from blackness

00:39:46.580 in some way.

00:39:47.520 And I find that

00:39:48.180 as a Montessori kid

00:39:50.200 who has a lot

00:39:50.860 of interests,

00:39:51.420 I've always found

00:39:52.280 that extremely confining.

00:39:53.740 As soon as I hit adolescence,

00:39:55.100 I realized,

00:39:55.620 wow,

00:39:55.920 I'm expected

00:39:56.920 to be this

00:39:57.760 racism-focused person

00:40:00.280 maintaining a wariness

00:40:02.060 of white socially

00:40:03.180 that has not been necessary

00:40:05.040 since about,

00:40:06.220 you know,

00:40:06.520 five years before I was born.

00:40:08.900 And I think that

00:40:10.180 it is a cloak

00:40:12.860 that people put on

00:40:14.500 because human beings

00:40:15.840 seek comfortable cloaks

00:40:17.680 to put on.

00:40:18.300 It becomes a sense

00:40:20.020 of being part of a tribe,

00:40:21.660 but it has a way

00:40:22.780 of departing

00:40:23.560 from what reality

00:40:24.440 actually necessitates.

00:40:25.640 And I have just

00:40:26.980 not been able

00:40:28.100 to gracefully

00:40:30.080 allow that sort

00:40:31.360 of thing

00:40:31.840 to define my life

00:40:33.220 or to pretend

00:40:33.760 to believe in those things.

00:40:35.340 And so when I was around,

00:40:37.100 how old am I

00:40:37.740 when I started to pop?

00:40:39.020 In my early 30s,

00:40:40.620 I was at Berkeley.

00:40:41.760 First was Cornell,

00:40:42.580 then was Berkeley,

00:40:43.220 then was the Manhattan Institute.

00:40:44.760 And at UC Berkeley,

00:40:46.500 there was a disc,

00:40:47.520 the racial preferences

00:40:49.140 were discontinued.

00:40:50.340 The idea was that

00:40:51.320 there were no longer

00:40:52.300 going to be different standards

00:40:53.520 for allowing black

00:40:54.500 and Latino students

00:40:55.440 to be admitted

00:40:56.040 than white

00:40:57.280 and Asian students.

00:40:58.740 And the way this was talked about

00:41:00.280 was as if all black people

00:41:02.260 are poor,

00:41:03.300 as if the idea

00:41:04.400 was that you don't

00:41:05.140 change standards

00:41:05.960 even for people

00:41:06.800 who've grown up hard

00:41:07.760 when actually

00:41:08.560 most black students

00:41:09.540 at Berkeley by then

00:41:10.460 were very middle class

00:41:11.540 and the problems

00:41:12.260 were different.

00:41:13.140 And I just couldn't

00:41:14.180 remain silent.

00:41:15.480 I remember the hardest

00:41:16.360 thing for me

00:41:16.980 was that there would

00:41:18.340 be a white professor

00:41:19.260 who would come

00:41:19.780 and lean in my doorway

00:41:20.880 and start,

00:41:21.780 start, you know,

00:41:23.320 saying all of the usual

00:41:25.100 pious sorts of things

00:41:26.580 about race

00:41:27.260 that I don't think

00:41:28.060 truly coheres,

00:41:29.580 such as implying

00:41:30.280 that racism defines

00:41:31.500 my entire existence.

00:41:32.900 And I was expected

00:41:33.660 to just sit there and nod.

00:41:34.660 They really thought

00:41:35.240 that any black person

00:41:36.140 thought that way.

00:41:36.920 And I thought,

00:41:37.760 no, you're missing me

00:41:39.100 completely.

00:41:39.940 Many black people

00:41:40.920 feel misread by whites.

00:41:42.160 Well, I was having

00:41:42.720 a different version of it

00:41:44.040 and I just got weary of it.

00:41:45.520 And so I,

00:41:46.660 very circuitously

00:41:47.740 and not as deliberately

00:41:48.720 as many people think,

00:41:49.700 I started writing

00:41:50.500 about these things.

00:41:51.660 I thought at first

00:41:52.520 I was just going to

00:41:53.520 put out one and a half

00:41:54.920 Yelps so that people

00:41:56.100 would know how I felt

00:41:57.120 and then go on

00:41:57.720 being a linguist only.

00:41:59.140 But for various reasons,

00:42:00.720 that's not what happened.

00:42:02.180 And here I am

00:42:02.660 talking to you about...

00:42:03.600 Well, and you have

00:42:04.180 this new book.

00:42:08.520 Woke Racism.

00:42:09.740 Well, Woke Racism

00:42:11.260 and How a New Religion

00:42:12.840 is Betraying Black America.

00:42:14.880 Okay, so that's

00:42:15.660 quite the title.

00:42:17.040 I mean,

00:42:17.500 I'm sure it was

00:42:18.580 very carefully chosen.

00:42:19.800 And Wikipedia informed me

00:42:22.020 that you're formally atheistic

00:42:23.920 and so,

00:42:25.340 which may or may not

00:42:26.680 be relevant to our discussion.

00:42:28.160 But it's very interesting to me

00:42:29.660 that you picked that

00:42:30.940 as part of the title.

00:42:32.600 Why do you believe that?

00:42:35.040 Why this emphasis

00:42:36.280 on a new religion?

00:42:37.880 And what does that mean exactly?

00:42:41.380 Well, you know,

00:42:41.980 we're at a point

00:42:42.780 where the kinds of beliefs

00:42:45.740 that I'm talking about,

00:42:46.900 about black people,

00:42:47.800 are no longer held

00:42:49.680 as an opinion.

00:42:50.980 It's at the point

00:42:52.040 where a certain kind

00:42:53.260 of person

00:42:53.880 lives these beliefs

00:42:55.920 in a way

00:42:56.520 that is so impervious

00:42:58.020 to any kind

00:42:59.300 of reasonable discussion

00:43:00.680 that you start to notice

00:43:02.400 that it really is

00:43:03.360 a matter of religion

00:43:05.420 in the sense,

00:43:07.020 particularly,

00:43:07.480 of Abrahamic religions

00:43:08.560 rather than opinion.

00:43:10.900 And there are all sorts

00:43:11.540 of things...

00:43:11.620 Okay, so what's the difference

00:43:12.920 between religious belief

00:43:14.240 and mere opinion

00:43:15.360 in your estimation?

00:43:16.300 It is that many religions

00:43:18.680 require that

00:43:20.120 at a certain point

00:43:21.140 you suspend disbelief

00:43:22.680 and stop relying

00:43:24.260 on conventional

00:43:25.700 ratiocination

00:43:26.960 and logic.

00:43:27.820 There's a point

00:43:28.380 at which you're supposed

00:43:29.360 to have faith

00:43:30.220 and believe in miracles

00:43:31.760 of some sort.

00:43:33.340 And it's at the point

00:43:34.160 where when it comes

00:43:34.880 to race,

00:43:35.960 there are things

00:43:37.080 that one is supposed

00:43:37.840 to insist on

00:43:38.740 and believe

00:43:39.300 regardless of whether

00:43:41.180 they correspond

00:43:41.860 to reality

00:43:42.760 or even any sense

00:43:44.060 of justice.

00:43:45.020 One in Christianity

00:43:46.980 is supposed

00:43:47.560 to be dedicated

00:43:48.280 to showing

00:43:48.800 that you have faith

00:43:49.760 in Jesus.

00:43:51.600 Within the religion

00:43:52.240 that I'm talking about,

00:43:53.640 the cardinal point

00:43:54.640 is that you show

00:43:55.440 that you know

00:43:55.960 that racism exists,

00:43:57.360 just that you know

00:43:58.560 that it exists.

00:43:59.800 Now, what you're going

00:44:00.280 to do about it

00:44:01.120 is irrelevant.

00:44:02.780 Whether or not

00:44:03.340 what you're showing

00:44:04.040 actually is racism

00:44:05.160 is irrelevant.

00:44:06.400 The fact is that

00:44:07.160 you knew you were supposed

00:44:07.980 to be looking for it.

00:44:08.920 And only that imperative,

00:44:11.020 as ding-dong as it sounds,

00:44:12.860 explains a lot of the things

00:44:14.600 that we've seen,

00:44:15.840 especially lately.

00:44:16.980 There was a real jump

00:44:17.820 in the rails

00:44:18.300 after summer 2020,

00:44:20.000 but even before that.

00:44:22.140 And it means that

00:44:22.860 a lot of people

00:44:23.420 look at what goes on

00:44:24.420 with the race scene

00:44:25.240 in the United States.

00:44:26.000 And I know to an extent

00:44:27.440 there is that in Canada too.

00:44:29.460 Whenever you see

00:44:30.280 these sorts of things happening

00:44:31.420 and you see brilliant people

00:44:32.920 making arguments

00:44:34.060 that don't make any sense

00:44:35.360 and utterly despising

00:44:37.760 those who disagree with them

00:44:39.020 as if they were heretics,

00:44:40.360 were chosen deliberately,

00:44:42.060 it's because what we're seeing,

00:44:43.460 even though these are people

00:44:44.180 who are usually very secular

00:44:45.260 in their self-conception,

00:44:46.920 it's a religion.

00:44:48.120 This is exactly

00:44:49.400 the kind of person

00:44:50.420 who sent Galileo

00:44:52.860 into exile

00:44:54.140 a very, very long time ago.

00:44:56.040 And the people back then

00:44:57.220 often didn't think

00:44:58.360 of themselves as religious.

00:44:59.800 It was just considered truth.

00:45:01.520 We're faced with

00:45:02.420 that same kind of thought,

00:45:04.220 even if the word

00:45:05.300 isn't applied.

00:45:06.460 And it makes,

00:45:07.120 the reason I'm putting it that way

00:45:08.080 is not just to annoy people

00:45:09.940 by calling them religious,

00:45:11.260 although I think

00:45:11.800 it will annoy them.

00:45:13.220 And it'll also annoy

00:45:14.140 actual religious experts

00:45:15.320 who will say

00:45:15.840 that I'm stepping outside

00:45:16.760 of my lane,

00:45:17.460 which I most definitely am.

00:45:19.080 But all of this stuff

00:45:20.460 only makes sense

00:45:21.800 if you realize

00:45:23.000 that these people

00:45:24.000 are religious

00:45:25.060 and that they have to be treated

00:45:26.520 as parishioners

00:45:27.860 and not as people

00:45:28.680 who are up for an argument.

00:45:30.440 I've had a number of people

00:45:31.980 make the same case

00:45:33.020 to me recently,

00:45:33.980 very profound people

00:45:35.380 in my estimation.

00:45:36.300 So I want to run a few ideas

00:45:37.900 by and see what you think.

00:45:39.580 So I've thought a long time

00:45:41.360 about the religious endeavor,

00:45:44.280 let's say,

00:45:45.200 from the psychological perspective,

00:45:46.920 trying to unpack it.

00:45:48.120 And it's related

00:45:49.380 in some sense

00:45:50.200 to the idea of depth.

00:45:51.820 And so if you think

00:45:53.020 about stories,

00:45:54.700 literary stories,

00:45:56.040 let's say,

00:45:56.580 great works of literature

00:45:57.500 for that matter,

00:45:58.680 and lesser works,

00:45:59.980 we all have this intuition

00:46:01.840 that some stories

00:46:02.840 that some stories are shallow

00:46:03.620 and they might be entertaining,

00:46:05.000 but they're shallow

00:46:05.520 and some stories are deep.

00:46:07.120 And we have the same sense

00:46:08.240 in music for that matter.

00:46:09.620 But so we have

00:46:10.500 this natural sense of depth

00:46:12.160 and part of what that

00:46:14.580 is related to

00:46:15.740 is something like

00:46:17.580 place in the axiomatic structure

00:46:20.540 of propositional thinking.

00:46:22.040 So something is deep

00:46:24.520 if a lot of other things

00:46:26.000 you think depend on it.

00:46:27.500 And it's shallow

00:46:28.160 if you can dispense with that

00:46:29.740 and it doesn't do much

00:46:30.680 to your underlying

00:46:31.420 cognitive architecture.

00:46:33.640 So that seem reasonable so far?

00:46:36.280 Very much, yes.

00:46:37.040 Okay, okay.

00:46:37.820 And then I would say

00:46:39.080 that there's a set of experiences

00:46:40.680 that are universally human,

00:46:42.520 more or less,

00:46:43.040 that occur when

00:46:44.400 our deeper beliefs

00:46:45.860 are challenged,

00:46:47.240 and that threatens

00:46:48.160 the way that we construe

00:46:49.220 the world

00:46:49.640 and our ability to act in it.

00:46:50.940 It threatens us with nihilism.

00:46:52.420 It threatens us with chaos.

00:46:53.840 It's no trivial matter.

00:46:55.520 That happens often

00:46:56.480 when heretofore

00:46:58.100 separated cultures

00:47:00.720 come into contact

00:47:01.720 with one another.

00:47:02.580 Definitely.

00:47:03.280 So worlds can move

00:47:05.480 when that occurs.

00:47:06.540 Okay, so

00:47:06.900 and then I would say

00:47:08.560 that the set of emotions

00:47:09.760 that are associated

00:47:10.880 with the movement

00:47:12.360 of deep beliefs

00:47:13.520 are what we describe

00:47:15.360 when we describe

00:47:16.220 religious experience.

00:47:17.820 And this is part of the reason

00:47:19.200 I've had a number

00:47:20.160 of conversations

00:47:20.900 with famous atheists

00:47:22.860 and very smart people.

00:47:24.640 I mean,

00:47:25.520 Harris, for example,

00:47:27.700 is an extraordinarily smart person.

00:47:29.280 And I'm familiar

00:47:30.160 with Richard Dawkins' work

00:47:31.340 and Daniel Dennett's work.

00:47:32.380 These people

00:47:32.880 are far from foolish.

00:47:34.640 But they miss the point

00:47:36.060 to me

00:47:36.520 to some degree.

00:47:38.460 Speaking,

00:47:39.120 even scientifically speaking,

00:47:40.780 because

00:47:41.200 they treat religion

00:47:43.020 as if it's a set

00:47:43.960 of abstract propositions

00:47:45.440 about the material structure

00:47:46.940 of the world.

00:47:47.720 And that's usually

00:47:49.320 how the argument

00:47:50.280 with religious people

00:47:51.380 is framed.

00:47:52.000 And they're often foolish

00:47:53.200 enough to accept

00:47:54.300 that initial framing.

00:47:55.620 But there's a lot of phenomena

00:47:57.740 that fall into

00:47:58.540 the religious domain

00:47:59.540 that have nothing to do

00:48:00.580 with propositional truth.

00:48:03.680 I mean,

00:48:04.180 we already had a conversation

00:48:05.560 about music.

00:48:06.420 And music

00:48:07.000 has often been used

00:48:08.780 across many cultures

00:48:10.700 for sacred purposes.

00:48:12.620 And part of the reason

00:48:13.680 for that

00:48:14.060 is the emotional state

00:48:15.640 that it's capable

00:48:16.480 of invoking,

00:48:17.700 which is something like awe

00:48:19.080 at the deepest level.

00:48:20.240 And also its ability

00:48:21.480 to unite people

00:48:22.840 in harmony,

00:48:23.680 let's say,

00:48:24.160 and in dance

00:48:24.780 and all of that.

00:48:25.600 And so

00:48:25.880 there's no escaping

00:48:28.060 the reality

00:48:28.920 of the religious instinct.

00:48:30.520 And so,

00:48:30.940 and here's the point

00:48:31.660 I'm trying to make

00:48:32.360 with all that

00:48:33.020 to some degree.

00:48:33.740 So imagine this.

00:48:34.580 Think about this

00:48:35.200 for a second.

00:48:35.840 So there's this statement

00:48:37.040 in the New Testament

00:48:37.960 that

00:48:38.380 we should render

00:48:40.040 unto God

00:48:40.760 what is God's

00:48:41.580 and unto Caesar

00:48:42.580 what is Caesar's.

00:48:43.580 And you couldn't find,

00:48:45.620 you'd be hard-pressed

00:48:46.440 to find a single statement

00:48:47.740 ever uttered by anyone

00:48:48.900 that had a more

00:48:49.940 remarkable effect

00:48:51.500 on the development

00:48:52.300 of political systems.

00:48:53.580 Because in some

00:48:54.740 non-trivial manner,

00:48:56.640 the idea that state

00:48:57.940 and church

00:48:58.720 should be separated

00:48:59.880 is justified

00:49:00.980 by that statement.

00:49:01.960 So it's a deadly statement.

00:49:03.100 But I also think

00:49:03.960 it might be true

00:49:04.620 psychologically.

00:49:06.000 And that if we don't have

00:49:07.400 an explicit territory

00:49:09.580 marked out psychologically

00:49:11.020 and socially

00:49:11.780 for the sacred

00:49:12.640 and so that would be

00:49:13.500 for the deepest things,

00:49:14.780 then what happens

00:49:15.980 is that things

00:49:16.780 that should not be so deep

00:49:18.920 start to take on

00:49:19.920 exactly that aspect.

00:49:21.560 And I'll finish this

00:49:22.460 with one observation.

00:49:25.300 I've been talking

00:49:26.300 with someone

00:49:26.880 I really admire.

00:49:28.040 His name is

00:49:28.520 Jonathan Pagiot

00:49:29.380 and he's one of the

00:49:30.000 deepest thinkers

00:49:30.640 I've ever encountered

00:49:31.560 in the religious domain.

00:49:32.980 And he's well-versed

00:49:34.320 in post-modernism.

00:49:35.020 Can you spell

00:49:35.660 his last name?

00:49:36.760 P-A-G-E-A-U.

00:49:39.600 Got it.

00:49:39.980 Yeah, French-Canadian

00:49:41.500 Catholic

00:49:42.400 turned atheist

00:49:43.980 turned Russian Orthodox

00:49:45.320 icon carver.

00:49:46.260 That's part of his background.

00:49:47.360 Anyways,

00:49:47.880 he made a very interesting

00:49:50.040 comment in a talk

00:49:51.040 I was watching

00:49:51.600 on the weekend

00:49:52.180 about

00:49:52.700 false gods,

00:49:55.460 let's say.

00:49:56.260 And he talked about

00:49:57.400 the danger of the idea

00:49:58.520 of inclusivity

00:49:59.460 when it's elevated

00:50:00.480 to the highest place

00:50:01.680 or put in the deepest place,

00:50:03.440 let's say.

00:50:03.960 And so

00:50:04.320 if the purpose

00:50:06.080 of all organizations

00:50:07.480 becomes radical inclusivity,

00:50:09.700 so that's the uniting factor,

00:50:11.340 then the specific purpose

00:50:13.220 of all those organizations

00:50:14.460 is instantly threatened.

00:50:16.680 And so

00:50:17.220 part of the problem here

00:50:18.460 is that

00:50:18.900 what

00:50:19.980 should be lower

00:50:21.680 in the

00:50:22.520 hierarchy of values

00:50:24.120 is put in the higher place

00:50:26.120 inappropriately.

00:50:27.760 And that produces

00:50:29.040 all sorts of

00:50:29.740 social catastrophe.

00:50:31.680 So

00:50:32.280 Yeah.

00:50:33.780 Yeah.

00:50:34.900 The hard part here

00:50:36.640 is

00:50:37.040 that

00:50:37.980 it makes you

00:50:39.460 feel like

00:50:40.280 Rousseau

00:50:41.080 was correct

00:50:42.840 that we'd be better off

00:50:44.760 as small groups

00:50:45.760 of people,

00:50:46.440 say about 200 people

00:50:47.600 living on the side

00:50:48.380 of a river.

00:50:48.800 And

00:50:49.980 there is

00:50:51.340 some sort of religion,

00:50:52.580 probably animist,

00:50:54.100 but it

00:50:54.660 isn't part of

00:50:55.740 the warp

00:50:56.260 and woof

00:50:56.720 of existence

00:50:57.300 because people

00:50:58.260 have a sense

00:50:58.900 of purpose,

00:50:59.580 people have a sense

00:51:00.240 of warmth,

00:51:01.260 people have a sense

00:51:01.820 of what you might

00:51:02.240 call the sacred

00:51:02.900 in that it's your group

00:51:04.200 and you know everybody

00:51:05.380 and you're a brother

00:51:06.460 and you're an uncle

00:51:07.320 and you're a husband

00:51:08.840 and that's what you are.

00:51:10.660 There's nothing

00:51:11.220 existential

00:51:11.760 that's going to happen

00:51:12.720 to anybody.

00:51:13.660 And I hear

00:51:14.300 from a couple of people

00:51:15.300 who study hunter-gatherer groups

00:51:16.720 that that's true

00:51:17.900 of hunter-gatherers,

00:51:18.880 that there's no such thing

00:51:19.900 as a feeling of anomie

00:51:21.080 when you are,

00:51:22.540 say,

00:51:22.740 living in the Kalahari.

00:51:24.380 But then once you go further,

00:51:25.700 you start to have this need

00:51:27.180 for something larger,

00:51:28.400 which I fully understand

00:51:29.660 and there are many people

00:51:30.480 who have said

00:51:31.180 that this new woke religion,

00:51:33.320 and I think it really is one,

00:51:34.640 is something that comes

00:51:35.900 as a replacement

00:51:36.700 for what would have been

00:51:37.680 ordinary,

00:51:38.440 even if gestural Christianity

00:51:39.860 among the same people

00:51:41.200 in 1955.

00:51:42.640 And I myself,

00:51:43.580 I have religion.

00:51:44.860 For me,

00:51:46.160 what people get

00:51:47.120 out of religion,

00:51:47.900 I get out of,

00:51:49.400 and this is going to be,

00:51:50.340 it's going to be taken wrong,

00:51:51.620 so I have to put it carefully.

00:51:52.760 I get it from musical theater,

00:51:54.180 and I don't mean

00:51:55.000 that I'm really

00:51:55.720 into Liza Minnelli.

00:51:57.020 You know,

00:51:57.160 it's not grand old ladies

00:51:59.220 in dresses

00:51:59.760 and things like that.

00:52:00.780 It's actually

00:52:01.440 the primal thing

00:52:02.500 of life being set

00:52:05.020 to music,

00:52:05.900 including its regularities

00:52:07.340 and its harmonies,

00:52:08.440 and it probably culminating

00:52:10.120 in people all doing

00:52:11.200 things together,

00:52:12.560 partly in rhythm

00:52:13.460 and singing

00:52:14.080 in big harmony.

00:52:14.940 To me,

00:52:16.020 although I know

00:52:16.620 that isn't real,

00:52:17.860 it seems to give life

00:52:19.140 a kind of a transcendental

00:52:20.700 meaning.

00:52:22.220 And to me,

00:52:22.800 that feels like church.

00:52:25.240 Okay,

00:52:25.500 so that's all

00:52:26.640 extremely interesting,

00:52:27.920 but one of the things

00:52:29.280 that's most interesting

00:52:30.220 to me about

00:52:30.780 what you just said

00:52:31.540 is that

00:52:31.880 you also felt compelled

00:52:34.040 to interject

00:52:34.780 that it isn't real.

00:52:36.220 Now,

00:52:36.420 obviously,

00:52:37.140 musical theater

00:52:38.060 is not...

00:52:39.540 Okay,

00:52:39.900 let's talk about that

00:52:40.780 for a sec,

00:52:41.260 because I've gotten

00:52:42.420 trouble with this

00:52:43.560 sort of thing

00:52:44.080 when I've been

00:52:45.200 interrogated,

00:52:46.040 let's say,

00:52:46.380 about my beliefs

00:52:47.080 many times in the past.

00:52:48.240 So when you say

00:52:49.100 something like that,

00:52:50.240 it begs the question,

00:52:51.760 what do you mean

00:52:52.460 by real?

00:52:53.840 Right?

00:52:54.400 It's not real.

00:52:55.180 It's like,

00:52:55.460 well,

00:52:55.580 wait a second,

00:52:56.260 and this is something

00:52:57.000 I talked about

00:52:57.620 with Sam Harris,

00:52:58.420 so here's a weird thing.

00:53:00.940 Are Dostoevsky's novels,

00:53:03.180 despite the fact

00:53:03.960 that they're fictional,

00:53:06.100 more real

00:53:07.100 than a purely

00:53:08.140 objective account

00:53:09.260 of someone's day?

00:53:10.400 Or less real?

00:53:13.120 Because they're definitely...

00:53:14.280 They never happened.

00:53:16.400 But the fact

00:53:17.440 that they never happened

00:53:18.320 doesn't make them

00:53:19.040 not real,

00:53:19.780 and so then we have

00:53:20.520 a problem.

00:53:21.880 You mean because

00:53:22.360 they're channeling

00:53:23.160 something underlying

00:53:24.160 about the human spirit

00:53:25.320 and experience,

00:53:26.240 or do you mean

00:53:26.600 something else?

00:53:27.060 Well,

00:53:27.620 let's look at it this way.

00:53:28.740 So let's say

00:53:29.260 I took four

00:53:30.500 remarkable people

00:53:31.580 and I distilled

00:53:33.300 down their biography,

00:53:34.540 and then I made

00:53:35.900 a meta-biography

00:53:37.160 about one great person

00:53:38.620 that incorporated

00:53:39.660 and united

00:53:40.440 all those biographies.

00:53:42.300 Would I be closer

00:53:43.660 to the reality

00:53:44.900 of greatness?

00:53:47.020 Obviously,

00:53:47.820 we have to decide

00:53:48.800 what reality is.

00:53:50.200 Well,

00:53:50.220 that's the thing.

00:53:51.720 Well,

00:53:51.780 obviously,

00:53:52.820 but the thing is

00:53:53.540 it's so interesting

00:53:54.240 what you said

00:53:54.840 because on one hand,

00:53:56.540 on the one hand,

00:53:57.420 you're deeply gripped

00:53:59.000 by this artistic

00:54:00.760 and theatrical

00:54:02.100 representation,

00:54:02.840 and you're

00:54:04.380 unapologetic

00:54:05.180 about that.

00:54:06.620 And you also

00:54:07.760 think of it

00:54:08.480 as something,

00:54:09.200 at least personally,

00:54:10.160 that's deep

00:54:10.660 and profound

00:54:11.140 and meaningful,

00:54:11.820 enough to describe it

00:54:13.140 in at least

00:54:13.660 quasi-religious terms.

00:54:15.340 And then the critical

00:54:16.320 mind comes up

00:54:16.980 and says,

00:54:17.320 yeah,

00:54:17.520 but that's not real.

00:54:18.680 And I think,

00:54:19.140 well,

00:54:19.240 that's like the guy

00:54:20.000 in the movie

00:54:20.660 tapping the kid

00:54:21.800 on the shoulder

00:54:22.340 who's watching

00:54:22.980 Pinocchio

00:54:23.520 and saying,

00:54:24.060 well,

00:54:24.200 you know,

00:54:24.840 these are just drawings

00:54:25.940 and none of this

00:54:26.600 is real.

00:54:27.400 It's like,

00:54:28.060 well,

00:54:28.700 that's not so obvious

00:54:29.780 that none of it

00:54:30.560 is real

00:54:31.020 because to some degree

00:54:32.320 it depends on

00:54:33.000 what you mean

00:54:33.460 by real.

00:54:34.580 And why are you

00:54:35.580 so sure

00:54:36.120 that the child

00:54:37.100 being gripped

00:54:37.820 by that

00:54:38.400 isn't more aware

00:54:39.180 of reality

00:54:39.720 than your rationality?

00:54:41.880 As in,

00:54:42.940 it might be part

00:54:44.060 of reality

00:54:44.740 to experience

00:54:45.780 and consider

00:54:47.260 and even on a certain

00:54:48.380 level believe in

00:54:49.500 these idealizations,

00:54:51.700 these refractions

00:54:52.760 of what actually

00:54:54.280 happens in real life,

00:54:55.740 that that is something

00:54:57.420 that deserves a place

00:54:59.080 within our cognition

00:55:00.660 as we go through

00:55:01.900 life as people.

00:55:02.860 Something is gripping you,

00:55:04.880 obviously,

00:55:05.500 because you love music

00:55:06.440 and you related this story.

00:55:09.480 And so,

00:55:10.100 on the stage

00:55:11.620 is being portrayed

00:55:13.100 various modes of being

00:55:14.980 in some compelling way

00:55:16.140 and music accompanies that

00:55:17.640 to fill in the context

00:55:18.960 in some sense

00:55:19.640 that's lacking

00:55:20.320 in the fictional.

00:55:21.540 Yes,

00:55:21.860 yes,

00:55:22.240 yes,

00:55:22.840 yes.

00:55:23.300 And so,

00:55:23.740 I'm not so sure

00:55:24.960 that it seems to me

00:55:26.580 that there's more reality

00:55:28.700 in literature

00:55:29.440 in a very profound sense

00:55:31.580 than there is

00:55:32.660 in the fractionated view

00:55:34.660 of much of

00:55:35.400 the scientific enterprise.

00:55:37.300 And for a bunch of reasons,

00:55:38.860 I mean,

00:55:39.480 it isn't obvious to me

00:55:40.820 at all

00:55:41.120 that science

00:55:42.060 can truly guide

00:55:43.420 our actions

00:55:44.300 because we have to

00:55:45.260 make value judgments.

00:55:46.300 But when you watch

00:55:47.020 a great theatrical performance,

00:55:49.320 a gripping theatrical performance,

00:55:50.940 you're being informed

00:55:52.320 as to how to perceive

00:55:53.700 an act,

00:55:54.600 which is a vital thing

00:55:55.800 to be informed about,

00:55:56.680 and you're doing it collectively,

00:55:58.620 you're doing it to music.

00:56:00.640 And,

00:56:00.760 you know,

00:56:01.420 I've watched many

00:56:02.260 rational cognitive psychologists,

00:56:05.320 essentially,

00:56:06.120 especially,

00:56:07.460 kind of dismiss

00:56:08.220 the whole creative

00:56:10.140 entertainment enterprise,

00:56:12.320 which also gripped you

00:56:13.660 with regard to the 30s,

00:56:15.520 as sort of

00:56:16.500 cognitive epiphenomenon.

00:56:18.640 It's an accident,

00:56:19.600 right.

00:56:19.840 Yes,

00:56:20.180 and it's,

00:56:20.680 that's not right.

00:56:22.060 That's not only wrong,

00:56:23.380 that's really deeply

00:56:24.820 backwards.

00:56:26.460 It's way,

00:56:27.440 way more important

00:56:28.380 than we think it is.

00:56:29.360 And it's more real than,

00:56:31.000 how else could it unite us

00:56:32.380 if it isn't real?

00:56:34.160 Well,

00:56:34.340 then it's what you mean

00:56:35.080 by real,

00:56:35.680 you know?

00:56:36.160 Yeah,

00:56:36.340 and I would extend it

00:56:37.100 to the rock concert,

00:56:38.040 which I think probably

00:56:38.800 more people could relate to.

00:56:40.500 And I,

00:56:40.880 I stand outside of that

00:56:42.200 because the music form

00:56:43.120 doesn't grab me as much,

00:56:44.220 but it's clear that people

00:56:45.140 are feeling the same thing

00:56:46.660 that I'm talking about.

00:56:47.880 And it seems to be

00:56:48.640 almost a human universal

00:56:49.800 to the point that,

00:56:51.140 to the extent that

00:56:51.760 they're human groups

00:56:52.500 where music plays

00:56:53.700 very little role,

00:56:54.700 and I hear that there's some,

00:56:56.360 and they don't have anything

00:56:57.120 that you would call theater.

00:56:58.200 It's just some.

00:56:59.280 It's not the human norm.

00:57:01.160 Most human beings

00:57:01.960 have something along these lines.

00:57:03.800 I bet they have stories.

00:57:04.980 They're bigger groups.

00:57:05.520 They have stories.

00:57:06.940 And once you have enough people,

00:57:07.980 you have something

00:57:08.640 that we would call performance.

00:57:10.260 Even if,

00:57:11.260 in smaller groups,

00:57:11.980 everybody participates

00:57:13.260 in the performance,

00:57:14.040 but that's even more

00:57:14.960 the same thing

00:57:15.520 that we're talking about.

00:57:16.180 The idea that

00:57:16.700 you're a passive audience

00:57:18.060 is something that happens,

00:57:19.620 particularly in the West,

00:57:21.360 rather late in the game

00:57:22.480 that you sit and clap.

00:57:23.980 Usually people are more involved.

00:57:26.020 Everybody is.

00:57:26.760 But that is even more

00:57:27.860 of what you're talking about.

00:57:28.940 Yeah, I would say

00:57:29.880 that those things are real.

00:57:32.120 And in a sense,

00:57:32.940 and I'm not just trying

00:57:33.520 to yank it back

00:57:34.160 to woke racism

00:57:34.920 to push the book,

00:57:35.720 but I'm really thinking about this.

00:57:37.060 My book is about people.

00:57:38.340 It's actually,

00:57:38.920 I'm known for saying things

00:57:40.000 Black people don't like.

00:57:41.360 A lot of Black people

00:57:42.240 aren't going to like woke racism,

00:57:43.440 but woke racism

00:57:44.020 is going to be hated

00:57:44.660 by a lot of white people too.

00:57:45.880 The woke person

00:57:46.580 I'm really thinking about

00:57:47.780 in that book

00:57:48.360 is a white guy.

00:57:50.020 And the white guy

00:57:51.420 in that case

00:57:52.260 is not somebody

00:57:53.060 who I can hate

00:57:54.020 because I do see

00:57:55.280 that there is a benefit

00:57:57.320 that a person gets

00:57:58.160 to this religion,

00:57:58.880 even when it doesn't

00:58:00.140 necessarily make,

00:58:01.480 if we may pardon the term,

00:58:03.220 sense.

00:58:03.820 The person can't help it.

00:58:05.700 I see where they're coming from

00:58:06.940 and they frustrate me often,

00:58:08.300 but it worries me

00:58:09.220 that because religion

00:58:10.660 is, let's call it

00:58:12.580 for our purposes here,

00:58:13.480 a different kind of reality,

00:58:14.660 it can conflict

00:58:15.780 with what an oppressed group

00:58:18.020 needs in order to be

00:58:19.320 most comfortable

00:58:20.300 and happy

00:58:20.880 in a complex society.

00:58:22.720 Well, you, okay,

00:58:23.860 so let's talk about that

00:58:25.000 for a minute.

00:58:25.800 Now, one of the things

00:58:26.480 you told me earlier on

00:58:27.960 was that I think,

00:58:29.400 and I don't want to put

00:58:30.540 words in your mouth,

00:58:31.480 absolutely,

00:58:32.120 so if I've got this wrong,

00:58:33.300 please correct me.

00:58:35.300 It seemed to me

00:58:36.620 that you were implying,

00:58:38.420 if not outright stating,

00:58:40.380 that the collectivist ethos

00:58:44.880 of much of that discourse

00:58:46.600 was interfering

00:58:48.360 with your self-regard

00:58:50.120 as an individual,

00:58:50.880 but even more importantly,

00:58:52.020 your ability to,

00:58:53.160 like, manifest yourself,

00:58:54.500 appear as,

00:58:55.300 and be treated

00:58:55.880 as an individual.

00:58:57.820 And so,

00:58:58.300 we're looking here

00:58:59.620 at least to some degree

00:59:00.720 for what might constitute

00:59:01.840 a reasonable uniting principle.

00:59:03.580 And one of the reasons

00:59:04.620 that I've been opposing

00:59:05.960 the collectivist thought

00:59:07.700 that's characteristic

00:59:08.620 of the insistence

00:59:10.360 that group identity

00:59:11.580 is the primary phenomenon,

00:59:14.660 say, socially,

00:59:15.580 and morally,

00:59:17.100 more importantly,

00:59:18.180 is that it's the wrong

00:59:20.260 uniting principle.

00:59:21.360 The right uniting principle

00:59:23.120 is the divinity

00:59:24.640 of the individual,

00:59:25.760 to speak in religious terms.

00:59:27.120 And we can strip that

00:59:28.420 of its religious significance

00:59:29.540 and say,

00:59:30.500 well, part of it is that

00:59:31.780 the proper level of analysis

00:59:33.780 for political discourse

00:59:35.100 is predicated on the sanctity

00:59:37.860 of the individual.

00:59:38.620 And so,

00:59:40.440 we need to get serious

00:59:41.880 as a culture

00:59:42.520 about whether or not

00:59:43.120 we actually believe this

00:59:44.600 and what the relationship

00:59:46.580 between that belief

00:59:47.620 and reality actually is.

00:59:50.080 So...

00:59:50.340 That's hard.

00:59:52.080 Because, as you know,

00:59:53.260 you're far ahead of this.

00:59:55.240 Far ahead of me on this.

00:59:57.000 It's hard to be an individual.

00:59:58.500 It's not natural.

00:59:59.280 It's not...

00:59:59.980 I don't think it's

01:00:00.580 what we're required for.

01:00:02.040 It's a rather new concept.

01:00:04.120 And many people spontaneously

01:00:05.440 will say they want

01:00:06.380 to be an individual.

01:00:07.080 I think to an extent,

01:00:08.240 though, that's fashion.

01:00:09.700 And to most people,

01:00:11.420 group identity

01:00:12.240 is what gives them

01:00:13.960 a sense of purpose.

01:00:15.820 And that's the way

01:00:16.660 human beings have always been.

01:00:18.600 And it's hard

01:00:19.540 to really make a person realize

01:00:21.840 being an individual

01:00:22.740 means that it's really just you.

01:00:24.760 For example,

01:00:25.520 many very smart black people,

01:00:27.060 I think,

01:00:27.900 are under the impression

01:00:28.700 that being an individual

01:00:29.620 means that you have the bravery

01:00:31.600 to stick your fist up

01:00:32.960 and battle racist attitudes.

01:00:34.080 But the problem is

01:00:35.660 that is now a group activity.

01:00:38.000 That's something

01:00:38.380 that lots and lots

01:00:39.220 of other people are doing.

01:00:40.920 It only may seem

01:00:41.580 a little bit unusual

01:00:42.360 to a very naive white person

01:00:44.040 looking on or subject to it.

01:00:45.780 And so the question is,

01:00:46.820 how do you really feel

01:00:48.100 about these things?

01:00:48.860 If you want to battle racism,

01:00:50.320 how would you like to do it

01:00:51.600 as opposed to adopting

01:00:52.880 certain mantras

01:00:53.740 and battle cries?

01:00:54.500 But mantras and battle cries

01:00:56.100 are what we human beings do.

01:00:57.620 We do it together.

01:00:58.620 That's hard.

01:00:59.680 That's a tough thing

01:01:00.860 because individualism

01:01:02.260 might not be the way

01:01:04.200 that humanity needs to go.

01:01:05.980 I personally would prefer it.

01:01:07.480 That's my sense.

01:01:09.160 And that's your sense, I think.

01:01:11.060 But I think a very coherent case

01:01:12.500 could be made

01:01:13.180 that that particular conception

01:01:14.920 of marching to the beat

01:01:16.100 of your own drummer

01:01:16.880 is an eccentricity

01:01:19.100 that certain solitary-minded people

01:01:22.040 came to cherish

01:01:23.320 amidst industrialization

01:01:24.600 over a certain

01:01:25.200 two or three hundred years.

01:01:26.360 I don't know

01:01:26.780 if I could refute that.

01:01:28.100 Okay, so I think

01:01:30.440 that's an extremely

01:01:31.580 astute objection,

01:01:33.640 let's say,

01:01:34.220 especially the observation

01:01:35.440 that,

01:01:37.020 and you touched on this earlier,

01:01:38.640 that that requirement

01:01:40.240 for group identification

01:01:41.440 is deeply embedded

01:01:42.860 in the substructure

01:01:45.480 of human consciousness.

01:01:46.520 So let's say,

01:01:47.380 well, we want to have friends,

01:01:49.180 we want to have a family,

01:01:50.300 we want to have a town

01:01:51.300 or something like that,

01:01:52.520 a community of 200

01:01:53.760 embedded in a town.

01:01:55.520 I think the question isn't,

01:01:58.180 or the issue isn't so much

01:01:59.380 the fact that

01:02:00.000 the idea that the individual

01:02:02.280 is the uniting principle

01:02:03.720 should supplant that.

01:02:05.720 It's that that should be

01:02:07.080 organized underneath that

01:02:09.040 in some,

01:02:09.460 because it isn't,

01:02:10.920 it isn't an issue

01:02:11.820 of the absence

01:02:12.580 of the necessity

01:02:13.460 for group identity

01:02:14.360 because without that

01:02:15.240 we couldn't do anything together

01:02:16.460 and wouldn't that be

01:02:17.520 a catastrophe?

01:02:18.400 Right, yeah.

01:02:18.760 Right, right.

01:02:19.360 And so that has to be recognized

01:02:21.820 and I do think

01:02:22.740 to give the woke types

01:02:23.880 and even if it's

01:02:25.440 a religious manifestation

01:02:26.620 they're due,

01:02:27.480 if that does produce

01:02:28.580 a sense of cohesive

01:02:29.660 group identity

01:02:30.480 then you can understand

01:02:31.880 the longing for that

01:02:32.920 in a fractionated community

01:02:34.660 that in some sense

01:02:35.720 has got too psychologically large.

01:02:37.880 So that has to be contended with.

01:02:39.740 But I do really,

01:02:40.860 see, because I viewed

01:02:41.840 the culture wars

01:02:43.620 in the university,

01:02:44.600 I really believe

01:02:45.440 they're battling out

01:02:46.420 something extraordinarily deep.

01:02:48.080 It's not,

01:02:48.760 this isn't a surface issue.

01:02:51.040 Part of the debate,

01:02:52.860 and this emerged

01:02:54.420 out of France,

01:02:55.640 the French intellectual tradition

01:02:57.340 fundamentally as far

01:02:58.460 as I'm concerned,

01:02:59.200 is the question of

01:03:00.320 what level of conception

01:03:03.220 should be primary

01:03:04.400 and the assault

01:03:05.320 on the patriarchy

01:03:06.540 and on,

01:03:08.540 there's more to it

01:03:09.760 than that,

01:03:10.440 is part of an assault

01:03:11.600 on the idea

01:03:12.400 of individuality

01:03:16.240 and the truth

01:03:18.260 that individuals

01:03:18.820 hold in their language.

01:03:20.140 It's an assault

01:03:20.580 on all of that.

01:03:21.200 It's deep, deep criticism.

01:03:23.480 And I think it's

01:03:23.980 incredibly dangerous,

01:03:26.020 but I understand

01:03:26.840 why it arose.

01:03:29.060 Definitely.

01:03:30.260 And I was curious

01:03:31.500 about you

01:03:31.940 because you said

01:03:32.720 at the beginning

01:03:33.280 that even though

01:03:33.960 your mother had taught you

01:03:35.060 in some sense

01:03:35.920 these woke precepts,

01:03:37.300 there was something

01:03:38.080 in you that rebelled

01:03:39.000 against it.

01:03:40.100 Yeah, it's interesting.

01:03:41.040 What was that?

01:03:42.000 Yeah, it's not,

01:03:43.400 I don't rebel

01:03:44.820 against the idea

01:03:45.740 that, for example,

01:03:47.060 there is

01:03:47.980 institutional racism.

01:03:49.600 I don't think

01:03:50.120 it should be called that,

01:03:51.380 but there are inequities

01:03:52.440 in society

01:03:53.080 between, say,

01:03:53.800 black and white

01:03:54.580 that are due

01:03:55.720 to racist attitudes

01:03:57.020 usually in the past

01:03:58.360 and racist biases

01:04:01.640 and racist lookings past.

01:04:05.140 All of those things

01:04:05.880 are definitely true.

01:04:07.800 There are all sorts

01:04:08.420 of things

01:04:08.900 in black history

01:04:10.140 that have helped

01:04:10.900 to set us back

01:04:12.320 that one should

01:04:13.000 certainly know about.

01:04:14.620 One should know

01:04:15.180 about the redlining

01:04:16.300 of neighborhoods

01:04:17.660 where in many cities

01:04:19.120 most black people

01:04:20.220 lived in neighborhoods

01:04:21.100 where banks

01:04:21.700 would not give you a loan.

01:04:23.860 All of these things

01:04:24.720 are very real.

01:04:25.980 I never felt like

01:04:26.800 I rebelled against that.

01:04:29.020 What I rebelled against

01:04:29.980 was the idea

01:04:30.760 that you base

01:04:31.460 your whole sense

01:04:32.300 of identity

01:04:32.980 upon those things

01:04:34.320 such that you live a life

01:04:35.640 that's abbreviated

01:04:37.480 because you're exaggerating

01:04:39.580 how bad it still is

01:04:41.180 and you're distorting

01:04:42.740 what's necessary

01:04:43.560 to create dignified lives

01:04:45.140 for black people.

01:04:46.220 And my feeling

01:04:46.960 has always been

01:04:47.460 you probably have

01:04:48.260 about 80 years.

01:04:49.560 You know,

01:04:49.700 you're lucky

01:04:50.260 if you've got 80 years

01:04:51.760 and if you spend

01:04:52.440 your whole life

01:04:53.380 maintaining

01:04:54.700 in my time period

01:04:55.960 the same battle poses

01:04:57.080 in the 80s and 90s

01:04:58.320 that people needed

01:04:59.000 in the 50s and 60s.

01:05:00.360 After a while

01:05:01.320 you've spent your life

01:05:02.680 play acting

01:05:03.360 and then you die

01:05:04.780 and the world goes on.

01:05:06.320 What I rejected

01:05:07.040 was the exaggeration.

01:05:09.000 And so for example

01:05:09.680 I remember what really

01:05:11.160 if there was one moment

01:05:12.160 where I realized

01:05:12.860 there was something

01:05:13.320 wrong with me

01:05:13.920 it was in the wake

01:05:15.340 of the Rodney King trial

01:05:16.740 in 1991

01:05:17.740 and a lot of

01:05:18.640 a lot of black people

01:05:19.760 I liked very much

01:05:21.060 were united

01:05:21.920 in saying

01:05:22.840 what happened

01:05:23.620 to Rodney King

01:05:24.360 shows that a black man

01:05:25.440 can't get justice

01:05:26.320 in this country.

01:05:27.480 And I remember thinking

01:05:28.080 no, no

01:05:29.380 that statement

01:05:30.340 would have made sense

01:05:31.300 in about 1965

01:05:32.380 and in many American cities

01:05:34.480 1975

01:05:35.220 and there were islands

01:05:36.920 of it

01:05:37.300 even in 1991

01:05:38.260 but the idea

01:05:39.260 that as a 20-something

01:05:41.120 black person

01:05:41.800 you were living

01:05:42.360 in a country

01:05:42.820 where you just

01:05:43.480 couldn't get justice

01:05:44.400 it struck me

01:05:45.180 as beyond rhetoric

01:05:46.160 especially given

01:05:47.000 the general attitude

01:05:48.220 they had towards

01:05:49.100 what being black

01:05:49.880 meant then

01:05:50.480 as we were standing

01:05:51.460 around at Stanford

01:05:52.780 University

01:05:53.480 a campus where

01:05:54.440 all of us

01:05:54.960 had been evaluated

01:05:55.760 according to

01:05:56.400 adjusted standards

01:05:57.360 out of the idea

01:05:58.060 that we were really

01:05:58.740 wanted on that campus

01:05:59.840 etc.

01:06:00.540 That we were supposed

01:06:01.260 to still be speaking

01:06:02.220 that language

01:06:02.800 that the Black Panthers

01:06:03.720 had spoken

01:06:04.200 it struck me

01:06:05.640 as a pose

01:06:06.560 and there was a part

01:06:07.840 of me that was

01:06:08.420 deeply disturbed

01:06:09.300 by the artificiality

01:06:10.880 of it

01:06:11.240 and that you were

01:06:12.000 actually expected

01:06:13.140 to live it

01:06:14.240 Why the artificial

01:06:15.560 okay so you

01:06:16.360 again you use

01:06:17.760 very specific words

01:06:19.060 a pose

01:06:20.140 artificial

01:06:21.340 as opposed to what

01:06:22.780 like on what

01:06:24.220 like you're comparing

01:06:25.320 it to something

01:06:26.200 and it sounds

01:06:27.480 it sounds like

01:06:28.380 you're comparing it

01:06:29.220 and you don't

01:06:30.300 just regard it

01:06:31.000 as an exaggeration

01:06:32.100 your criticism

01:06:33.420 has gone farther

01:06:34.280 than that in the past

01:06:35.140 I mean

01:06:35.380 you've also

01:06:36.720 directly stated

01:06:39.300 that conceptualization

01:06:41.540 of the problem

01:06:42.500 in this form

01:06:43.280 is actually

01:06:44.360 interfering with

01:06:45.440 the solutions

01:06:45.980 that we still

01:06:46.560 need to generate

01:06:47.420 so it's not just

01:06:48.880 it's not just

01:06:49.940 an exaggeration

01:06:50.660 it's a problem

01:06:51.260 in and of itself

01:06:52.120 and that's a deeper

01:06:52.920 criticism

01:06:53.500 so what's the

01:06:56.080 artificiality

01:06:56.900 as far as you're

01:06:57.540 concerned

01:06:57.840 and compared

01:06:59.040 to what

01:06:59.580 what you're trying

01:07:00.980 to live

01:07:01.460 apparently

01:07:02.100 but what is

01:07:03.120 that exactly

01:07:03.880 the question is

01:07:05.520 how much of an

01:07:06.540 obstacle is racism

01:07:07.740 after formal

01:07:09.560 segregation

01:07:10.320 has been battled

01:07:11.880 after racial

01:07:12.860 attitudes change

01:07:13.840 profoundly

01:07:14.540 in the 1970s

01:07:16.160 and I'm just

01:07:16.580 old enough

01:07:16.960 to have watched

01:07:17.620 that happen

01:07:18.460 just it gets

01:07:19.540 to the point

01:07:20.080 where okay

01:07:21.100 racism does exist

01:07:22.320 both social

01:07:22.960 and institutional

01:07:23.620 but how much

01:07:25.100 of an obstacle

01:07:26.000 is it to doing

01:07:27.080 pragmatic things

01:07:28.060 that will make

01:07:28.640 poor black people

01:07:29.580 less poor

01:07:30.240 and all black

01:07:31.420 people happier

01:07:32.060 so quick example

01:07:32.940 would be that

01:07:34.020 these days

01:07:34.620 you can look

01:07:35.160 at the fact

01:07:35.620 that black kids

01:07:36.500 tend not to do

01:07:37.260 as well

01:07:37.600 on standardized

01:07:38.200 tests

01:07:38.780 as other kids

01:07:39.880 it's there

01:07:40.340 now you can

01:07:41.900 look at that

01:07:42.340 and you can say

01:07:42.900 well if black

01:07:43.780 kids don't do

01:07:44.400 as well

01:07:44.700 on the test

01:07:45.280 that's because

01:07:45.900 of racism

01:07:46.480 and so we need

01:07:47.200 to eliminate

01:07:47.740 the test

01:07:48.720 because the test

01:07:49.680 is racist

01:07:51.020 now in what

01:07:52.680 way is the test

01:07:53.600 racist

01:07:54.040 40 years ago

01:07:54.940 maybe those tests

01:07:55.780 asked you

01:07:56.300 what wine

01:07:56.820 goes with chicken

01:07:57.500 that hasn't been

01:07:58.480 true for generations

01:07:59.380 now so it's not

01:08:00.100 about asking people

01:08:01.140 things that they

01:08:01.860 have no reason

01:08:02.440 to know

01:08:02.920 how is it

01:08:03.760 how is it

01:08:04.320 racist

01:08:04.700 and there are

01:08:05.500 people today

01:08:06.120 who even

01:08:06.640 will imply

01:08:07.420 that black

01:08:08.760 thought is

01:08:09.480 somehow incompatible

01:08:10.960 with tests

01:08:11.820 like that

01:08:12.300 which is very

01:08:13.000 close to saying

01:08:13.800 that black

01:08:14.440 people are

01:08:14.920 incapable of

01:08:15.780 disembodied

01:08:16.440 abstract thought

01:08:17.360 and many

01:08:18.280 whites will chime

01:08:19.240 in

01:08:19.380 it's probably

01:08:19.680 identical with that

01:08:20.780 claim

01:08:21.060 yeah it's

01:08:21.680 it's very

01:08:22.080 unfortunate

01:08:22.580 especially given

01:08:23.500 that the people

01:08:24.000 who are saying

01:08:24.600 it know very

01:08:25.320 well the history

01:08:26.020 of that being

01:08:26.580 said about black

01:08:27.260 people and so

01:08:28.440 you look at the

01:08:29.140 test and you say

01:08:29.940 that because black

01:08:30.600 kids don't do

01:08:31.500 well on them

01:08:32.100 they are examples

01:08:33.180 of systemic

01:08:33.780 racism

01:08:34.260 well you have

01:08:34.860 to get rid

01:08:35.200 of racism

01:08:35.680 so you have

01:08:36.160 to get rid

01:08:36.500 of the tests

01:08:37.020 which means

01:08:37.640 that you tell

01:08:38.100 america that

01:08:39.040 black kids can't

01:08:39.940 have their

01:08:40.360 abstract reasoning

01:08:41.320 measured without

01:08:41.960 it being racist

01:08:42.800 and then when you

01:08:44.000 get somebody

01:08:44.480 saying well then

01:08:45.100 black kids just

01:08:45.760 must not be as

01:08:46.480 quick on the

01:08:46.940 uptake you call

01:08:48.040 them a racist

01:08:48.860 and in the

01:08:49.260 meantime it's

01:08:50.460 ignored that you

01:08:51.660 consider helping

01:08:52.960 black kids get

01:08:53.940 better at the

01:08:54.500 test helping

01:08:55.260 black kids

01:08:55.780 parents realize

01:08:56.760 what free test

01:08:57.780 prep programs

01:08:58.580 there are in

01:08:59.480 those neighborhoods

01:09:00.020 the tests just

01:09:00.840 take a little bit

01:09:01.420 of practice but

01:09:02.320 you're not

01:09:02.800 supposed to talk

01:09:03.660 about it because

01:09:04.680 the tests quote

01:09:06.520 unquote are

01:09:07.620 racist that's a

01:09:09.120 it's an abuse of

01:09:09.960 language and it's

01:09:11.380 abuse of the very

01:09:12.640 conception of what

01:09:13.560 racism is that's

01:09:14.820 not what my mother

01:09:15.840 raised me in that's

01:09:17.320 not your

01:09:18.140 grandmother's racism

01:09:19.360 that's something

01:09:20.040 that comes from a

01:09:21.480 way of thinking

01:09:22.160 that was marginal

01:09:24.080 in 1955 became

01:09:26.200 sexy in about

01:09:27.280 1966 and here in

01:09:29.420 2021 is being

01:09:30.880 treated as

01:09:31.500 impregnable wisdom

01:09:32.820 someone black has

01:09:34.220 to speak out

01:09:34.880 against that so

01:09:35.500 that's what I

01:09:35.920 mean by the

01:09:36.340 exaggeration and

01:09:37.540 the artificiality and

01:09:38.840 the outright harm

01:09:39.820 that comes from

01:09:40.720 these sorts of

01:09:41.240 things well and

01:09:43.260 it and with

01:09:44.080 regard to it being

01:09:45.100 a pose so is

01:09:47.420 it is it is it

01:09:48.420 a pose of so I

01:09:50.900 could say well is

01:09:51.680 it a pose of

01:09:52.340 unearned virtue I

01:09:53.800 mean virtue is not

01:09:54.620 easy to earn true

01:09:55.960 virtue you have to

01:09:57.400 establish let's

01:09:58.200 say we'll see we

01:09:58.940 see where we go

01:09:59.540 with this maybe you

01:10:00.520 have to establish a

01:10:01.520 relationship with

01:10:02.180 beauty and beauty

01:10:03.260 is real you have to

01:10:04.700 establish a relationship

01:10:05.640 with truth and

01:10:07.300 truth is real and

01:10:09.000 so to earn virtue is

01:10:10.240 difficult because

01:10:11.200 beauty and truth are

01:10:12.380 imposing and and

01:10:14.200 and formidable if you

01:10:16.400 have any sense at all

01:10:17.420 you see that and so

01:10:19.200 that's a daunting task

01:10:20.700 to establish genuine

01:10:22.080 virtue and a

01:10:22.920 terrifying task and

01:10:24.100 is the pose the the

01:10:25.800 the willingness to

01:10:27.400 adopt see because

01:10:28.560 when I talk to the

01:10:29.400 ideologue types and

01:10:30.480 maybe that happened

01:10:31.280 most famously with an

01:10:32.300 interview I had with

01:10:33.140 I think I was just

01:10:34.100 thinking about it

01:10:34.980 you mean Michael

01:10:37.020 Eric Dyson right

01:10:37.900 yeah oh I would no

01:10:39.520 I wasn't thinking

01:10:40.200 about Dyson I was

01:10:41.040 thinking about GQ

01:10:42.320 interviewer and that

01:10:43.280 interview has been

01:10:44.100 watched like 40

01:10:44.840 million times now it's

01:10:46.120 this this ideological

01:10:47.800 pose is it is the

01:10:50.320 aping of virtue as far

01:10:52.320 as I can tell and I

01:10:53.340 mean that and it's

01:10:54.540 it's sort of a

01:10:55.160 technical sense is

01:10:56.340 that you master this

01:10:57.400 language and it

01:10:58.720 contains the

01:10:59.700 expressions of true

01:11:01.120 virtue but you know

01:11:02.380 the kind of problems

01:11:03.300 that you were talking

01:11:04.100 about and I see this

01:11:05.000 on the environmentalist

01:11:05.960 side of things too

01:11:06.780 well how do you get

01:11:08.480 black kids to do

01:11:09.380 better in elementary

01:11:10.460 school let's say

01:11:11.360 well that's a more

01:11:12.580 manageable problem

01:11:13.740 it's a problem that

01:11:14.740 would take a little

01:11:15.340 bit more humility to

01:11:16.680 conceptualize and it's

01:11:17.500 also a really really

01:11:19.380 hard problem and so

01:11:21.520 to be virtuous in your

01:11:23.760 attempts to solve that

01:11:24.860 would require it

01:11:25.680 probably require the

01:11:26.500 dedication of your

01:11:27.280 entire life really to

01:11:28.620 to take a good crack at

01:11:30.160 that problem right

01:11:30.980 because that's a tough

01:11:32.400 problem man and so

01:11:34.080 maybe you don't want to

01:11:34.720 do that because it's

01:11:35.660 and then you're enticed

01:11:37.420 and you're enticed by

01:11:38.560 your educators into

01:11:40.420 this alternative

01:11:42.000 possibility where all

01:11:44.900 you really have to do

01:11:45.840 is master a set of

01:11:47.020 propositions and you're

01:11:48.600 on the winning side and

01:11:50.080 that also gives you some

01:11:51.100 convenient enemies and

01:11:52.200 maybe it fulfills to

01:11:53.280 some degree the

01:11:53.960 religious instinct and

01:11:55.020 and it appalls me to

01:11:56.540 see the universities

01:11:57.400 complicit in this and

01:11:59.460 that they've come to

01:12:00.480 see that and I think

01:12:02.060 part of that falseness

01:12:03.560 and artificiality that

01:12:04.720 you described I think

01:12:06.980 the fact that that

01:12:08.200 exists is part of the

01:12:09.460 like overbearing

01:12:11.980 insistence that the

01:12:14.840 veil not be lifted and

01:12:16.120 that no one question

01:12:17.000 this because what is

01:12:18.100 underneath it is so

01:12:19.060 damn ugly

01:12:19.820 yeah yeah yeah Jordan

01:12:22.180 you actually you are

01:12:24.420 you have nailed

01:12:26.040 something I would be

01:12:28.360 loath to go so near

01:12:29.640 that word virtue because

01:12:30.960 the last thing I want to

01:12:31.800 do is imply that

01:12:32.540 somebody isn't

01:12:33.640 virtuous nevertheless

01:12:34.500 you're getting it in

01:12:36.480 that it's an unearned

01:12:38.920 virtue which people are

01:12:40.160 settling for not

01:12:41.080 because they're so

01:12:41.980 callow as to wish to

01:12:43.940 be virtuous without

01:12:44.740 earning their stripes but

01:12:45.820 because religion is

01:12:46.820 attractive and so if you

01:12:48.580 are surrounded by people

01:12:49.900 who are brandishing this

01:12:51.420 message that everything

01:12:52.680 that you don't like is

01:12:53.900 racist and you can get

01:12:55.240 beyond it that way it's

01:12:56.500 not that you're lazy it's

01:12:57.340 not that you're trying to

01:12:58.360 get stripes that you

01:12:59.560 didn't earn but it's

01:13:00.480 comfortable because part

01:13:02.260 of being in that

01:13:02.940 religion is that there's

01:13:04.400 an us versus them

01:13:05.600 conception which is very

01:13:06.820 comforting you're part

01:13:08.240 of a mission of uplift

01:13:10.300 which is very comforting

01:13:11.320 and in a university that

01:13:12.980 religion is there it's as

01:13:14.040 if they're you know

01:13:14.960 people from a church who

01:13:16.040 are behind tables out

01:13:17.560 in the plaza who are

01:13:18.580 waiting to recruit

01:13:19.260 people that's there as

01:13:20.380 soon as you hit campus

01:13:21.280 and so that's why so

01:13:23.820 many people and now it's

01:13:24.920 not just black kids it's

01:13:26.180 also white kids fall for

01:13:28.520 this way of looking at

01:13:29.580 things where what it is

01:13:30.900 is you become virtuous

01:13:32.980 without having done the

01:13:34.900 sorts of things that

01:13:35.920 ideally one might have

01:13:38.160 you can your virtue

01:13:39.600 signaling and it is

01:13:41.300 unearned virtue but it's

01:13:42.360 because you wish to have

01:13:44.680 a cloak you're seeking

01:13:46.060 a comfort zone I can't

01:13:47.620 hate anybody for that

01:13:48.340 but it does mean an

01:13:49.120 awful lot of mendacity

01:13:50.100 that's the problem

01:13:51.040 so I wasn't trying to

01:13:53.740 imply too that all

01:13:55.180 objections to that

01:13:56.220 process are in and of

01:13:57.240 themselves virtuous and

01:13:58.340 I'm also not trying to

01:13:59.480 imply that I'm somehow

01:14:00.680 especially virtuous I'm

01:14:02.200 actually quite terrified

01:14:03.600 by the proposition that

01:14:05.000 virtue virtue is

01:14:06.440 something real and

01:14:07.780 something necessary and

01:14:09.480 that falling short of

01:14:10.460 it is cataclysmic in

01:14:12.020 some sense existentially and

01:14:13.600 so anyone who doesn't

01:14:15.000 tremble at such a

01:14:16.940 thought hasn't thought

01:14:17.740 about it very deeply

01:14:18.720 and I want to have as

01:14:20.340 much sympathy as

01:14:21.040 possible especially for

01:14:22.080 young people who are

01:14:22.920 enticed into this

01:14:23.780 ideological identification

01:14:24.960 because you could look I

01:14:26.640 was a committed socialist

01:14:27.800 when I was 16 you know

01:14:30.160 and and on intellectual

01:14:31.560 grounds I mean talent is

01:14:33.640 distributed equally amongst

01:14:34.860 the human population yet

01:14:36.060 there are inequities in

01:14:36.920 society so how can that be

01:14:38.180 anything but unfair well

01:14:40.600 fair enough it's called the

01:14:42.900 answer to that is

01:14:43.600 extremely complicated but

01:14:46.000 the problem announces

01:14:47.300 itself and you can

01:14:48.380 certainly see how someone

01:14:51.040 with a somewhat

01:14:51.920 compassionate bent and and

01:14:53.620 even with an intellectual

01:14:54.880 bent of sorts would be

01:14:56.020 deeply attracted by the

01:14:57.920 the extremely well honed

01:14:59.520 arguments that have been

01:15:00.460 put forward in favor of all

01:15:01.980 those propositions so but

01:15:04.360 it's or it can be even more

01:15:06.080 primitive than that I think

01:15:07.440 that tribalism in and of

01:15:09.840 itself is deeply attractive

01:15:12.740 and that this is something

01:15:14.180 that can happen regardless

01:15:15.200 of intelligence level I

01:15:16.860 remember in college I

01:15:17.760 wasn't a socialist but I

01:15:19.420 definitely hated Republicans

01:15:21.300 until I met met some and

01:15:23.560 you know I couldn't have

01:15:24.680 told you during most of the

01:15:25.700 time when I was in college

01:15:26.700 what the difference between

01:15:27.580 a Republican and a

01:15:28.400 Democrat even was I was

01:15:29.600 busy doing other things and

01:15:31.260 it was easier not to know

01:15:32.120 there was no internet but I

01:15:33.560 knew that those Republicans

01:15:34.880 who were usually guys it was

01:15:36.620 usually a few guys with

01:15:37.860 their own corner room down

01:15:38.960 the hall you didn't like

01:15:40.340 them because they were

01:15:41.520 Republicans and Ronald

01:15:42.560 Reagan was bad because he

01:15:43.740 was white and he dyed his

01:15:44.740 hair or something like

01:15:45.480 that that was enough even

01:15:47.100 for the smarter kids who

01:15:48.240 were smoking cigarettes out

01:15:49.360 in front of the dorm that

01:15:50.580 would do I met Republicans

01:15:52.780 as time went on and

01:15:53.720 realized that wait a minute

01:15:54.580 I'm not one of them but I

01:15:56.040 can't see them as insane but

01:15:57.820 before that had happened I

01:15:59.600 was very happily against a

01:16:01.960 whole group of people who I

01:16:03.200 knew nothing about I don't

01:16:04.400 think I was unique in that

01:16:05.300 no not at all that okay so

01:16:07.500 maybe if you don't mind

01:16:08.620 maybe we could close with

01:16:09.640 this because I'm starting to

01:16:10.800 get tired and I'm not going

01:16:11.680 to make much sense soon so

01:16:13.400 so if assuming I have so

01:16:15.260 far so I've been considering

01:16:16.640 this proposition that that's

01:16:18.240 emerged from the woke end of

01:16:19.680 the of the of the political

01:16:21.480 spectrum let's say that all

01:16:23.060 white people are racist and I

01:16:25.260 think okay are all white

01:16:27.940 people racist what's the

01:16:29.240 answer to that and the

01:16:30.600 answer is yes and no and how

01:16:36.520 dare you frame the question

01:16:37.840 like that that's the three

01:16:39.480 answers so yes let's look at

01:16:41.040 yes first well are all people

01:16:44.500 racist probably probably

01:16:47.140 probably like we have really

01:16:48.880 really intense in group

01:16:50.560 affiliative tendencies and yet

01:16:52.240 we're supposed to suppose that

01:16:54.020 maybe especially North American

01:16:55.760 white people can learn to not be

01:16:57.300 racist unlike all other people in

01:16:58.800 the world that's a tough

01:16:59.580 proposition well all of us it's

01:17:01.020 very difficult for all of us to

01:17:02.540 overcome our in-group biases and

01:17:04.360 we and we never even want to do

01:17:05.980 it completely because we want to

01:17:07.460 love our family especially and we

01:17:09.860 also only have a limited amount of

01:17:11.580 time and attention so we have to

01:17:13.060 love some people especially or do

01:17:15.200 nothing at all for anyone so so

01:17:17.800 this is a huge problem so by

01:17:20.180 stating it that way that all white

01:17:22.280 people are racist you make racism a

01:17:24.940 subcategory of white and you

01:17:26.780 actually underplay that terrible

01:17:28.580 catastrophe and significance of the

01:17:30.500 problem and that's very dangerous

01:17:32.400 because we all have to contend with

01:17:34.360 this in-group preference and our

01:17:36.420 proclivity to demonize anyone we put

01:17:39.080 in the out group and now that's a

01:17:41.200 it's a terrible tendency yeah and that

01:17:44.520 particular that question is one of

01:17:46.620 them where I depart from what I wish

01:17:50.160 were my comrades in that are all white

01:17:52.640 people racist you know what probably to

01:17:54.880 some extent the white person who

01:17:56.780 couldn't have an ounce of racism

01:17:58.420 identified in them even with

01:18:00.180 sophisticated psychological testing is

01:18:02.160 probably vanishingly rare sure and my

01:18:04.960 sense of it is when it's gotten to the

01:18:06.820 point that it has who cares and I've

01:18:10.180 often said to audiences and I've watched

01:18:11.840 some black people in audiences having

01:18:13.780 not heard this understand what I mean if

01:18:16.300 you really do have a basic self-love then

01:18:19.140 the fact that the whites around you have

01:18:20.960 various degrees of racism really just

01:18:22.860 shouldn't matter because life consists of

01:18:25.380 about a thousand things other than

01:18:26.940 whatever that residual racism is in that

01:18:28.860 white person across the room who is you

01:18:31.220 know married to a black person and you

01:18:33.080 know does all the sorts of things that

01:18:34.460 these supposedly racist but hyper woke

01:18:37.040 white people do it's just why does it

01:18:39.060 matter so much now it's one thing for

01:18:40.380 somebody in 1925 to talk about white

01:18:43.060 racism 1955 65 but today my feeling about

01:18:47.640 it is with most of the white people that a

01:18:50.260 black person who talks about that sort of

01:18:52.460 thing most knows the answer is yes most

01:18:55.600 of the white people you know are

01:18:56.820 probably very slightly racist but not in

01:18:59.280 any way that will remotely matter in

01:19:01.340 your life even including being friends

01:19:03.280 with them and sometimes close friends

01:19:04.760 why are we so obsessed with that and I

01:19:07.260 think that's a very legitimate question

01:19:08.800 life is about so much more than

01:19:11.460 obsessing over something like that except

01:19:13.240 that when you obsess over something like

01:19:14.840 that you're part of a group it's us

01:19:16.820 versus them and you have a sense of

01:19:18.800 purpose and a sense of virtue because

01:19:20.440 you're the person who's being racist but

01:19:22.580 I find that a rather feeble way of going

01:19:25.260 about an existence with true virtue I've

01:19:28.200 never used that word so much as today it

01:19:29.620 might also indicate interference with the

01:19:33.300 process of coming to terms with your own

01:19:35.320 in-group preference and tendency to

01:19:37.960 derogate whatever out-group you happen to

01:19:40.000 be surrounded by I mean I do see this as a

01:19:42.540 terribly deep human problem you know I

01:19:45.000 presume that in the 1970s that Jane Goodall

01:19:49.000 found that chimps go on raiding parties

01:19:51.180 right and that that was a major league

01:19:53.280 discovery it shows how that that

01:19:55.140 proclivity to demonize the out-group is

01:19:57.980 at least six million years old right it's

01:20:01.320 deep and it's in us and so and we all have

01:20:04.040 to contend with it and so to make now we

01:20:06.360 could have an intelligent conversation

01:20:08.200 nonetheless about the manner in which the

01:20:11.200 predominance of one ethnic group in a given

01:20:13.600 society might exacerbate those tendencies

01:20:16.760 of course but that's it that's that's

01:20:19.140 something that's certainly independent of

01:20:21.300 the notion that all white people are

01:20:23.740 racist and then you can also see that you

01:20:25.960 know it's easy to believe that progress

01:20:27.420 doesn't happen then to admit that it

01:20:29.120 happens slowly the degree to which most

01:20:31.900 white Americans are racist in 2021 not to

01:20:34.800 mention white Canadians from what I've seen

01:20:36.860 is much much smaller than anybody would have

01:20:40.220 expected about 30 years ago so the question

01:20:43.760 is also just extent and yet virtue is

01:20:46.680 excellence in my mind if we're talking

01:20:48.160 about Aristotle virtue was not moral you

01:20:52.400 know moral upstandingness it's excellence

01:20:54.500 you can't be excellent you can't live an

01:20:57.920 excellent life if you're hobbled in

01:21:00.600 distorted views of what racism is and how

01:21:04.320 much it matters these particular things

01:21:06.700 will not allow you to be the best that you

01:21:08.620 can be unless you think that the best that

01:21:10.220 you can be is somebody who is hyper articulate

01:21:13.000 about discussing bias against other people

01:21:15.980 and what a narrow topic there's so much to

01:21:18.820 do and so I just chafe against it I think

01:21:22.280 that's an excellent place to close if you

01:21:24.460 don't mind and I really enjoyed our

01:21:27.740 conversation it flew by as far as I was

01:21:29.980 concerned and I I hope you have for having

01:21:32.220 me I hope I hope you have the success that

01:21:34.480 you deserve with your new book woke racism

01:21:36.860 how a new religion is betraying black

01:21:38.800 America and I I wish you well in the future

01:21:42.060 and hope perhaps that we're we meet again and

01:21:44.660 at least we're able to talk again certainly

01:21:47.760 anything else I think we hit it all I think

01:21:52.020 I liked ending on the virtue and the book will

01:21:55.260 be coming out and we'll see how it does but I'm

01:21:58.740 glad that we had a chance to talk I think

01:22:01.320 that you and I are best known if we're

01:22:03.160 talked about in the same sentences based on

01:22:05.020 that exchange at Aspen and I would venture

01:22:07.980 to say that although that's really gotten

01:22:10.460 around it meant more to the audience of

01:22:12.780 people who've been watching it than it meant

01:22:14.180 to either one of us and so I'm happy to have

01:22:16.100 actually had a one-on-one with you yes I'm

01:22:18.560 very glad that that was superseded by this

01:22:20.840 definitely thank you very much for talking

01:22:23.940 with me today I appreciate it and thank you

01:22:25.960 for having me Jordan and as I said best of

01:22:27.880 luck with your book and and in general

01:22:29.820 many thanks

241. How Anti-Racism Is Hurting Black America ｜ John McWhorter

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