The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast - 395. Difficult Conversation as the Precondition to Progress ｜ Adam Smith

00:00:00.960 Hey everyone, real quick before you skip, I want to talk to you about something serious and important.

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00:00:57.420 Hello everyone watching and listening.

00:01:11.260 Today I'm speaking with lawyer, former Washington State Senator, and now Federal Congressman Adam Smith.

00:01:18.600 We discuss the difficulties and promise of genuine political dialogue, practical and psychological, the dangers of a too narrow definition of merit and accomplishment, the difference between negotiating and winning,

00:01:33.500 and topics related to mental health and political action outlined in his new book, Lost and Broken, My Journey Back from Chronic Pain and Crippling Anxiety.

00:01:43.160 I've been attempting to bring Democrats on my podcast for several years.

00:01:47.020 Congressman Smith is the first sitting House member, or Senator for that matter, willing to take the risk and to combat in that manner the dangerous polarization that presently confronts us.

00:01:59.380 All right. Well, Congressman Smith, thank you very much for agreeing to talk to me and to everyone watching and listening today.

00:02:07.040 You and I, you and I have met a couple of times before in Washington in preparation for this.

00:02:14.000 I've met a lot of Democrats in Washington, congressmen and senators.

00:02:19.440 Many of them were willing, if not pleased, to speak with me there, often pleased too, I suppose.

00:02:25.980 It's been somewhat tricky getting Democrats to talk to me on my podcast for a variety of reasons.

00:02:33.540 And so I think that's unfortunate, but I'm pleased that you have decided to do that.

00:02:38.920 And I guess I'm probably curious, to begin with, why you agreed to do this and also what you're hoping to accomplish.

00:02:48.180 And then we'll dive into the political mess a bit.

00:02:51.700 Sure. I mean, it has been my sort of approach to politics from the very start, and I've been doing this a long time.

00:02:58.000 I got elected to the state senate when I was 25 years old.

00:03:01.640 Heck, I started that campaign two years before it ended.

00:03:04.040 So at the age of 23, I decided I wanted to run for office.

00:03:08.220 One of the things I sort of learned as I campaigned back then, doorbelling, basically I knocked on every door in my district,

00:03:15.520 well, every door of a registered voter, to be perfectly honest about it,

00:03:18.680 is the best thing we can do is be open in our conversations.

00:03:22.340 And as a general rule, I'll listen to anybody.

00:03:25.880 You know, I represent 750,000 people, and I represent every single one of them, not just the ones who voted for me.

00:03:31.760 And I have found that I learn a lot if I'm open to listening to people, particularly people that I disagree with.

00:03:39.220 And then also just from a messaging standpoint, I developed a campaign philosophy,

00:03:43.380 which is never let the other side occupy the space.

00:03:47.300 So way back when, when, you know, conservative radio started in the 90s, they wanted me on, I went on, let's talk.

00:03:54.400 I mean, I'm not afraid of the conversation.

00:03:57.140 By coming on someone's show, I am not endorsing everything that they've ever said.

00:04:02.220 I believe that that is the most effective way to represent the district

00:04:06.000 and the most effective way to be a successful politician in general.

00:04:09.900 I'm regular on Fox News.

00:04:11.820 I did Matt Gaetz's podcast just a couple weeks ago.

00:04:14.480 I've been on Tucker Carlson's show and back in the day, Sean Hannity.

00:04:19.320 I just believe that's the right way to engage in general.

00:04:22.780 And in this particular moment, when our country is becoming more and more divided,

00:04:28.100 it seems to me like more and more people are simply deciding, you know, part of their decision is,

00:04:33.020 who am I not going to listen to?

00:04:35.140 Who am I not going to engage with?

00:04:37.720 And I think in a representative democracy, that is an incredibly dangerous thing,

00:04:42.620 to get that divided.

00:04:44.480 So I definitely want to engage.

00:04:46.480 And I, you know, certainly I know a number of people who are big fans of yours.

00:04:51.160 You have a very wide following.

00:04:53.480 You are an influential person when it comes to culture and politics.

00:04:57.360 And for any side of the debate to say, we're just going to try to, like, block that,

00:05:02.040 I think it's incredibly counterproductive.

00:05:04.260 As for what I'm hoping to get out of it, it's just hopefully an informative discussion.

00:05:09.120 Whenever I go into these things, for the most part, I hope to learn something,

00:05:12.700 and I hope to offer something that the other person can learn as well.

00:05:16.460 You know, and one final point on this is,

00:05:19.160 I think too often now when we're getting engaged in debates,

00:05:22.200 the goal is to force the other person to agree with you.

00:05:26.500 And don't get me wrong, there are moments in politics and in life when you're trying to do that.

00:05:31.040 You know, if a bill is finally on the floor of the House and I'm trying to pass it,

00:05:35.360 I'm trying to win an argument.

00:05:37.000 And in that moment, I'm going to try to get as many people as possible to agree with me.

00:05:41.200 But for the most part, when you're engaging with someone,

00:05:43.460 your mission shouldn't be to bludgeon the other side into absolutely agreeing with you on everything.

00:05:48.560 It should be to learn.

00:05:49.640 It should be grow when you're understanding.

00:05:52.240 Maybe you're missing something, first of all.

00:05:54.580 Second of all, maybe if you listen to the other side,

00:05:57.420 you will better understand how to make your own argument.

00:06:00.560 So I always find the most interesting discussions to be with people who I don't agree with on everything.

00:06:06.360 So to me, it's a logical thing.

00:06:08.740 So there's two things there.

00:06:11.000 I mean, the first is part of the reason to talk to people with whom you disagree

00:06:16.140 is that you're going to run into disagreements with what you think in the world

00:06:21.760 from nature and from culture, from other people, from yourself.

00:06:27.200 And if you set yourself up so that you're optimally challenged by resistance in the abstract realm

00:06:33.520 through discussion, then at least in principle,

00:06:36.100 your ideas are going to be a lot more battle-hardened and tested.

00:06:39.040 And there's no real difference between that and thinking.

00:06:42.460 So given that, I'm curious also, given the self-evidence of that

00:06:50.760 and the necessity of that, even in terms of getting your own ideas straight,

00:06:55.580 what do you think it is that's produced these increasingly insuperable barriers to communication?

00:07:04.520 And also, more specifically, why have you got away with talking to the opposition, let's say,

00:07:12.380 when so many other people appear increasingly unwilling to do so?

00:07:17.960 I mean, you said, you know, you've talked to all sorts of reprehensible people on the right-wing side.

00:07:23.460 You didn't say reprehensible.

00:07:25.100 I did not say reprehensible, and I don't believe.

00:07:27.360 No, no, I said that.

00:07:27.960 Yes, I don't believe reprehensible.

00:07:29.700 Yes.

00:07:30.180 I said that, definitely, definitely.

00:07:32.480 And, you know, the walls haven't come tumbling down on you.

00:07:37.880 Now, people are afraid of cancel culture, and they're afraid of being mobbed and alienated,

00:07:42.160 and they're often afraid of that if they step across whatever the divide happens to be at the moment.

00:07:48.700 But, you know, by your own testimony, you've been talking to people across the aisle,

00:07:53.820 and the walls haven't fallen down on you.

00:07:57.640 So why is that?

00:07:58.840 And why, if that's the case, and it can be done, why do you think so many people are loath to do it?

00:08:06.000 Well, I think the biggest reason I'm trying to figure out how to put this, because it's hard, okay?

00:08:12.060 It is difficult.

00:08:13.740 And I will tell you right up front, you know, and it's gotten—and also, I've been doing this for a long time.

00:08:18.980 I think it's one of the benefits.

00:08:19.940 If you take me back in my 20s and everything, I would develop strong opinions about things.

00:08:25.500 I'm a very passionate person.

00:08:27.140 I believe strongly in a number of different things, and I believe in advocating for them.

00:08:31.020 And I would build up to a good belief.

00:08:33.020 And then I'd run into someone who would say a bunch of things that I hadn't thought of.

00:08:37.360 And it's an incredibly unsettling experience, all right?

00:08:41.880 Because, first of all, you're like, oh, my goodness, I just, I put myself out there.

00:08:47.920 And am I wrong?

00:08:49.960 Okay?

00:08:50.540 Am I missing some huge thing?

00:08:52.160 And I sort of run back in my mind, I was just at this event, and I just told these people, this is the way it is.

00:08:57.280 This is the way it has to be.

00:08:58.900 And, oh, my gosh, I've spread this message, and I'm wrong?

00:09:02.640 Yeah.

00:09:03.960 You know, so it's difficult in that regard.

00:09:06.880 And then, whenever that happens, there's, I think, off the top of my head, two possibilities.

00:09:13.360 One, you are, in fact, wrong.

00:09:16.060 You missed something that is crucial to what your position is.

00:09:18.980 Or, two, the argument has come at you that you haven't had the chance to think your way through it, okay?

00:09:25.820 Because I frequently will get hit with things.

00:09:28.340 And this happens a lot when we're debating an issue in the Armed Services Committee.

00:09:31.880 I prepare for a lot of it, but a lot of it, it's happening, okay?

00:09:35.540 And it's always a joke.

00:09:36.720 After the debate, you're like, oh, I should have made that point.

00:09:39.660 You know, that would, that would, you know.

00:09:41.360 So, but that's hard, okay?

00:09:44.820 It's really hard to go back and go, okay, how do I counter that argument?

00:09:48.000 I know what I believe, I believe it, if I can just go out there and say it, but now I've got to counter this.

00:09:52.760 So, I think a lot of people are drawn to the easier thing.

00:09:56.480 And the easier thing is, oh, all these people are preaching to the choir.

00:10:00.880 I mean, pick your favorite cliche at this point.

00:10:03.280 And that's one of the big things.

00:10:04.340 One of the reasons, actually, why, I mean, and certainly there are things you and I disagree on.

00:10:08.000 But from what I've seen of your speeches and from our conversations, you are a believer in doing things that are difficult and the inherent benefit that comes to us as human beings from doing that.

00:10:19.840 And so am I.

00:10:20.760 But by definition, it's not easy, okay?

00:10:25.080 And as human beings, we are, as I said, I think, before we started this, we're incredibly adaptable.

00:10:32.080 And that's what I learned from my own personal experience when I went through my mental health and my, you know, physical health problems is human beings are incredibly capable of getting better, all right?

00:10:42.960 If you work at it, that's number one.

00:10:45.640 But number two, it is rarely our first inclination to do something that's uncomfortable.

00:10:52.460 We are going to look for the more comfortable option just instinctively.

00:10:57.700 So, you have to fight that instinct.

00:10:59.880 It's not easy.

00:11:00.960 It's not easy to do the thing that's uncomfortable that's going to make you better.

00:11:05.240 And I think a lot of people struggle with that.

00:11:07.500 And, of course, modern technology makes it very easy to never have to encounter things that you don't agree with.

00:11:14.180 You can filter every aspect of your life to make sure it stays in the lane you want to stay in.

00:11:20.240 Final point on this, don't want to give a long-winded answer to the second question here, but is, you know, I think it's the reason people say, wow, we never talk about politics and religion.

00:11:29.420 Okay, what's the fun in that?

00:11:31.240 Okay, you know, how do we learn and grow if we don't talk about the things that make us a little bit uncomfortable so that we can better understand each other and not be off in our own little corners thinking all kinds of awful, terrible things about each other and then never trying to bridge that divide?

00:11:50.980 So, by temperament, I'm a very agreeable person, which is a rather feminine trait because women tend to be more agreeable than men. 0.66

00:12:02.760 And agreeable people don't like conflict, and I've been embroiled in a lot of conflict.

00:12:07.400 And there's a very specific reason for that.

00:12:10.060 And the reason is that I learned mostly through clinical experience, although that wasn't all of it, that conflict delayed is conflict multiplied.

00:12:19.600 And, you know, you pointed out that it's challenging to be shown to be wrong.

00:12:27.240 And the reason for that, I've looked at this technically, the reason for that is that our beliefs orient us like a person is oriented with a map.

00:12:36.880 And if you find out that your map is wrong, then you don't know where you are and you don't know where you're going.

00:12:42.620 And that produces anxiety and hopelessness.

00:12:44.900 And the bigger the mistake, the more of the map is invalidated.

00:12:50.420 And that's very disorienting, profoundly disorienting.

00:12:54.880 We don't like to be lost.

00:12:56.940 And so then you might say, well, why would you ever bother challenging your beliefs or engaging in conflict with someone?

00:13:03.480 And the answer to that, this is a bit of a reiteration, but the answer to that is quite clear.

00:13:07.640 It's a lot better to have your ideas tested in the abstract than it is to have your convictions demolished by reality itself.

00:13:16.340 And so you need to, this is partly what I think has gone wrong, for example, in the education system.

00:13:23.480 Lukianoff has written a fair bit about this along with Jonathan Haidt, is that we believe that students, because of the fragility of their mental health,

00:13:31.340 should be shielded from uncomfortable conversations, let's say, or uncomfortable conversations.

00:13:37.980 And the clinical reality is very, very clear.

00:13:42.380 It's very clear.

00:13:43.260 This is one thing that all reliable clinicians have agreed upon over a 50-year period,

00:13:49.720 which is that voluntary encounter with what you're afraid of, and even potentially disgusted by, is clearly salutary and curative.

00:14:01.620 And so you want to give people a hair of the dog that bit them constantly, right, to fortify them against challenge.

00:14:11.180 And the best way to do that is to engage voluntarily in the exchange of ideas, of representations.

00:14:18.100 So, and the reason I'm dwelling on this in part is because people might be listening and thinking,

00:14:23.260 why in the hell should I ever have a difficult conversation?

00:14:26.280 Why should I ever talk to someone who disagrees with me?

00:14:29.560 And the answer is, well, if you're 100% right about everything, and you're currently living in paradise itself,

00:14:37.700 and everything in your life is as good as it can possibly be,

00:14:41.020 then you don't ever have to encounter a negative opinion because you've got everything right.

00:14:45.120 But if there's some unfurrowed corner of your soul that still isn't in the order that it could be,

00:14:52.540 and you're feeling that as a consequence of your own suffering,

00:14:55.740 then you should be out there testing your ideas against everything you possibly can 1.00

00:15:00.140 on the off chance that you might be fortunate enough to learn how you're stupid and wrong, 1.00

00:15:05.880 so you can stop being both of those. 1.00

00:15:07.720 And of course that's painful, but it's not as painful as being stupid and wrong. 0.99

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00:16:49.360 Well, I mean, a couple things about that.

00:16:54.500 I mean, first of all, I'm with you.

00:16:55.980 I, you know, as I document, I grew up a very anxious person.

00:17:01.500 I did not like conflict either because I had massive insecurities, psychological issues that became significant problems later in life.

00:17:10.700 So, yeah, right there with you, because I think it's worth pointing out that there are some people who like conflict and seek it out, and that's not a good thing.

00:17:21.220 And that sort of brings me to my third point.

00:17:23.380 And dealing with what you're talking about, to me, it's all about balance.

00:17:26.540 And that's something that we've sort of lost.

00:17:28.640 And, again, I think part of the problem is balance is difficult.

00:17:32.440 You tell me that in every situation this is the way it is.

00:17:35.580 All right, I'm good.

00:17:36.220 I know what to do.

00:17:37.300 You tell me in every situation that it's, yeah, great.

00:17:39.180 But if you tell me, well, it depends, okay, you know, what did the person say?

00:17:43.620 What are the circumstances?

00:17:44.680 Well, then you're back into a situation where you've got to work pretty hard to figure out what the right way to be is.

00:17:49.260 And that's hard, but that's life.

00:17:51.020 We need to teach people how to balance that.

00:17:53.240 And I'm completely with you on the fact that in our education system and in many aspects of our life right now, we do not teach resilience, okay?

00:18:02.660 We teach people to be protected.

00:18:04.580 Now, the one caveat I'll throw out there is a lot of these people who like conflict, you know, get to the point where they take a certain amount of joy in putting people in difficult circumstances, which is not for any clinically beneficial person. 0.99

00:18:17.780 It's just because they're being jerks. 0.99

00:18:19.480 So, you can empower a lot of people acting like jerks by saying, well, of course we have to test them. 0.99

00:18:25.660 So, you always have to try to have a balance here. 0.97

00:18:28.460 The purpose of conflict is to help people get better.

00:18:31.960 And you have to understand that.

00:18:33.600 The purpose of conflict is not so that you can attack somebody, right?

00:18:38.140 I see this, frankly, a lot of times in parenting.

00:18:41.760 It's really important.

00:18:42.980 I have a 23- and a 20-year-old child, but my wife and I have raised two children now and have experienced this.

00:18:48.980 And we're human.

00:18:49.820 We're trying to educate our children along the way, teach them how to be better.

00:18:52.760 But then also, we've got our own stuff going on here, okay?

00:18:55.400 So, when you're getting angry at a child, is it because you're trying to make them better or is it because you're trying to score a point?

00:19:02.340 And you really need to try to figure out how to balance that.

00:19:05.240 And I think a lot of people don't.

00:19:06.840 So, if you can balance those two things, it's fine.

00:19:09.300 I mean, I'm completely with you on the resilience thing.

00:19:12.520 But you also have to guard against resilience being just an excuse to abuse somebody.

00:19:18.440 So, with regard to scoring a point, so you imagine that there are two ways of establishing a modicum of psychological and possibly social stability.

00:19:29.740 And one would be to negotiate a settlement voluntarily so that you and I could exchange our opinions and come to a negotiated agreement about the nature of the present and about the nature of the desirable future, right?

00:19:43.960 Now, the advantage to that is that if it's voluntarily negotiated, you can go off on your own and I can go off on my own and we'll walk down the same path without a lot of mutual supervision.

00:19:57.920 So, that's very helpful.

00:19:59.460 Another alternative, though, is to attain a certain degree of comparative status.

00:20:05.460 And so, it turns out that the serotonin system monitors comparative status.

00:20:13.980 And so, if I score a point on you, in principle, that elevates my status above you.

00:20:20.520 And then you might ask, well, what's the advantage to that?

00:20:23.200 And the advantage to status acquisition is a raise in central serotonergic function.

00:20:29.920 And that dampens negative emotion.

00:20:32.220 And so, you can imagine there's two deep places, there's two deep sources of the conflict between two different approaches to problem solving, right?

00:20:43.140 If I can attain comparative status, this is people are trying to obtain comparative status very constantly in our culture, often without doing the requisite effort.

00:20:52.040 But the advantage to that is that the status boost does produce a quelling of negative emotion.

00:20:57.840 Now, it's not as good a solution as a negotiated peace.

00:21:00.640 The problem with a negotiated peace is that you have to wander through the bloody disagreement and sort out all the intervening conflicts in order to establish the peace.

00:21:11.700 If I could try to put it a little bit more simply, when you're having a discussion with somebody, are you trying to solve a problem?

00:21:19.480 Are you trying to get to a fair result?

00:21:22.120 Or are you trying to win?

00:21:24.480 Okay?

00:21:25.200 And there's a big difference.

00:21:26.740 And I think in a lot of the disagreements out there in the world, too often now, people are trying to win, okay?

00:21:32.660 They're trying to own the other side.

00:21:34.700 Me, temperamentally, I don't know why, but I'm a peacemaker.

00:21:38.500 Well, I think it's partially because I grew up anxious and there were, you know, things in my family that were a little disruptive, but I just want peace and stability.

00:21:45.580 And I learned early on.

00:21:46.920 And it's not that I'm not selfish and not passionate and don't have things that I personally want.

00:21:53.360 But as I grew, I realized that above all of those things is I wanted a peaceful environment around me.

00:22:00.440 And if I'm going to achieve a peaceful environment around me, I have to care what other people want and what other people think, too.

00:22:09.560 And you have to work at that.

00:22:11.400 And that's where I think the conflict goes.

00:22:13.080 I think you're right.

00:22:13.680 And you do, you get that initial high.

00:22:15.460 I was right.

00:22:16.660 You know, now I'm going to win the argument.

00:22:17.940 Now everybody has to do what I say from here on out because I've proven that I am the superior intellect in this place.

00:22:22.960 It's like, yeah, that doesn't work too well past a certain point.

00:22:26.920 We all have our ups and downs.

00:22:28.800 And, again, I really want to emphasize this point.

00:22:31.160 You know, I've negotiated a lot of things over, what is it now, 33 years that I've been an elected official.

00:22:37.240 And it's so crucial if you're going to negotiate something.

00:22:41.060 Actually, I'll quote something a good friend of mine who's a very successful businessman told me.

00:22:45.560 If he's involved in a business deal and when it's all over, said and done with, he got everything he wanted, he knows he did it wrong.

00:22:53.080 Okay?

00:22:53.700 Right, right, right.

00:22:54.580 Because it's got to be about how we keep everybody on board.

00:22:58.860 And I worry that as we become more dogmatic in our politics, in our business, in our, my gosh, in Little League, for crying out loud, you know, it's like, no, we have to win.

00:23:08.980 We have to be the one on top.

00:23:10.280 We have to, it's like, okay, but you're in for a whole lot of conflict if you don't care at least a little bit about whether or not the community as a whole is getting to a fair place.

00:23:21.540 Okay, so that's a great segue as far as I'm concerned into a political issue that I've been longing to hash out with the Democrats, for example, who will talk to me.

00:23:32.300 I'd like to explain momentarily why I'm not a fan of identity politics.

00:23:37.100 And it's relevant, I think it's relevant to the concerns that you just laid out.

00:23:41.900 It's incredibly relevant, yes.

00:23:43.380 Okay, so what I see happening in the broad culture, and this is part of the culture war, is this increasing insistence that I can define myself in precisely the terms that I want to define myself.

00:23:57.360 Now, that tends to devolve into something like sexual identification or ethnic identification or some other group identification, which is also something I think is incredibly dangerous.

00:24:08.060 But here's the problem with this, and I've been trying to think it through from the perspective of a psychotherapist.

00:24:15.260 On the one hand, I could claim that one of my clients, for example, has the perfect right to define themselves subjectively.

00:24:23.000 But that runs into a number of problems.

00:24:25.400 And the problems are, for example, that sometimes people's subjective self-identification is clearly counterproductive.

00:24:33.120 So, anorexics, for example, think they're too fat, when in fact they're generally on the verge of absolute starvation.

00:24:39.940 And people who are manic get a very expanded sense of self-confidence and believe that they can do all sorts of things that they can't and that they have resources that they don't, and so forth.

00:24:51.500 Almost everything about psychotherapy is actually about identity.

00:24:54.620 And so, it's clearly the case that you cannot merely identify yourself subjectively and proceed appropriately in the world on that basis.

00:25:04.920 And here's why, I believe, and this is partly, I think, what's tilted me more towards conservatism insofar as I am tilted in that direction.

00:25:13.780 So, psychotherapists, who are inheritors of a kind of a Protestant and humanistic tradition, have presumed that mental health is something that you, that characterizes the structure of your psyche.

00:25:31.100 It's something internal.

00:25:32.620 And I think that that's incorrect.

00:25:34.900 I think that what mental health is, is the net benefit of experiencing a harmonious nested relationship with the broader community.

00:25:46.000 So, it's very difficult to be sane if you're not getting along with your wife.

00:25:50.620 And you and your wife can't be sane if you're not getting along with your children.

00:25:54.180 And your family can't be sane if you're having a scrap with your local community.

00:25:58.920 And the local community can't be sane if it's not well integrated into the town and the state and the nation and then whatever might happen to be above that.

00:26:08.440 And so, the right manner of conceptualizing mental health is that it's the manifestation of the harmony that comes from having the hierarchy of being put in its proper place.

00:26:22.120 Now, when we turn to subjective self-identification on the sexual or ethnic front, for example, the insistence that I am whoever I say I am, the problem with that is, well, what the hell are the other people supposed to do?

00:26:36.640 I mean, you've been married for decades.

00:26:39.200 30 years.

00:26:39.660 You have kids.

00:26:40.040 You know people.

00:26:40.340 Yes.

00:26:40.720 You know 30 years.

00:26:41.860 Congratulations.

00:26:42.780 I just had my 34th this week.

00:26:44.780 You know perfectly well that, and this is germane also to your point about conflict, is that you have to establish a negotiated peace in order for stability to maintain itself.

00:26:56.940 And negotiation, what you're negotiating constantly, as far as I can tell, is your identity.

00:27:04.100 Right?

00:27:04.420 Yes.

00:27:04.860 Absolutely.

00:27:05.200 So, I'm very concerned about, okay, so what, so first of all, do you think that that's, those observations are relevant to the culture war?

00:27:14.560 That's raging now, not least over subjective self-identification.

00:27:18.920 And, and what, what's your opinion about how the political landscape has laid itself out around those issues?

00:27:26.880 Sure.

00:27:27.300 I think it's very relevant.

00:27:28.600 Let me make a couple quick points to walk through this.

00:27:31.060 First of all, yeah, and we haven't talked about it, but I keep making references to physical, mental pain.

00:27:36.440 I went through a severe anxiety problem, severe chronic, I wrote a book about it, which sort of outlined how I got through that.

00:27:42.480 When you started talking about psychotherapy, I went through three and a half years of psychotherapy, that it was enormously helpful.

00:27:48.920 And I think you're right.

00:27:50.160 Your, your, your internal mental health is going to be dictated a lot by your relationships.

00:27:55.260 I would say in defense of the, the psychotherapists out there in the world, your ability to have those positive relationships has a lot to do with your own internal mind and whether or not you are a psychologically stable person, whether or not you've dealt with the issues in your life.

00:28:13.060 So just that little quick shout out to the psychotherapists, I think there is an important component of that.

00:28:18.080 Second, I think you're, you're, you're working your way around the, the, the broader culture issue that, that we have.

00:28:24.380 And I think it is incredibly important.

00:28:25.900 I'll tell you, I, I read Christopher Rufo's book along the lines of me being engaged in that.

00:28:30.880 And I, I spoke to Chris just last week and walked through some of this and you're getting down sort of into the granular level of, okay, what has happened as an outgrowth of our concern about racism, bigotry, and discrimination and the conversations that people have had about how identity factors into that.

00:28:50.420 But I think the big problem, and I think that I hope, and I can try to convince folks on the conservative side of this, that when it comes to the fight and the battle that we have, and certainly I think Christopher Rufo did a pretty good job of outlining some of the more extreme elements of the left approach to this.

00:29:07.240 But what motivates people like me is the fact that racism, bigotry, and discrimination are problems in American society.

00:29:16.260 They are, okay?

00:29:17.920 You can't fairly look at the history of the United States and conclude otherwise.

00:29:22.540 Now, I also think you can't fairly look at the history of the United States and conclude that that's all we've ever been about, okay, is racism, bigotry, and discrimination.

00:29:31.700 I think as with most things, it's a balance and there's a lot of things going on.

00:29:35.360 I think the problem I have with the conservative movement, and I had this conversation with Mr. Rufo, is yes, what the left is doing is problematic, but the right conservatives, Republicans, they don't offer a reasonable alternative because their alternative is racism and bigotry aren't really a problem.

00:29:55.000 Let's just stop worrying about it and move on, okay?

00:29:58.500 And logically, I have all kinds of problems with that approach.

00:30:02.300 So then we get trapped between the far right in terms of how they want to approach that and the far left in their very specific way of approaching it.

00:30:13.120 And to answer one of your earlier questions that I skipped over as to why I can be successful doing this, I think the overwhelming majority of people are in fact looking for what I'm talking about, an open and engaging approach.

00:30:25.500 They're just not offered it altogether that often.

00:30:28.300 And that's where we're trapped in identity politics is these two extremes, okay?

00:30:34.160 You know, racism, bigotry, and discrimination is everything.

00:30:36.880 Every single decision, every single thought you've ever had has to be focused on identity.

00:30:41.020 And then the other side, not a problem that we're thinking about.

00:30:44.700 There's a lot in between there that I think we could work on to build a better society.

00:30:49.280 So when I've gone to Washington and spoken, in this case, primarily to Democrats, I've also worked with the Democrats a lot.

00:31:01.980 I worked with a group of people in California, my friend and former student, Greg Hurwitz, on Democrat messaging for about five years.

00:31:12.460 And I've had a lot of conversation with Democrats, and one of the things I've often asked them, this is a very complicated problem, is when does the left go too far?

00:31:22.960 And it's a complicated problem for a variety of reasons, I would say.

00:31:26.720 The first reason is that most of the excesses on the progressive left make themselves, camouflage themselves in the guise of compassion.

00:31:36.560 Now, I know there are bad actors on both sides of the political spectrum.

00:31:41.900 There's bad actors in the religious domain, there's bad actors in the scientific domain, and these are always people, they have a very identifiable set of personality characteristics, generally bordering on the psychopathic,

00:31:54.160 that will use a moral stance to put forward their own agenda, instrumentally, or to torment other people.

00:32:01.840 And there's a very well-developed psychological literature indicating this.

00:32:05.700 And the problem there is that boundaries have to be drawn to stop those actors, the psychopathic types, from invading the general culture and taking it out.

00:32:20.740 And a small proportion of people like that can do that.

00:32:25.040 Psychopaths in general, by the way, run about 3% of the population.

00:32:28.600 That's about as successful as they ever get, but they're an omnipresent threat to cultural stability.

00:32:33.380 Well, I guess that's a little lower than I thought, so I'll take that as good news.

00:32:38.240 Yeah, yeah, well, it is good news, because it means that 95% of people aren't like that.

00:32:43.400 It's very good news.

00:32:44.520 Now, the bad news is that it doesn't take very many people like that to cause an awful lot of trouble.

00:32:50.300 Now, the other thing that happens on the left, and this is different than the right, is that people on the left do have more difficulty temperamentally drawing boundaries.

00:32:59.400 And you can see this in the rhetoric that right and left use.

00:33:03.180 Well, this isn't a criticism exactly.

00:33:06.320 No, no, I'm just thinking.

00:33:07.860 Because a boundary can keep good things out just as much as it can keep bad things out.

00:33:13.240 And so, the liberal bet, especially the leftist bet, is the more information that flows freely, the better off everyone is.

00:33:22.720 And the conservative rejoinder is, yeah, but not all information, because some things are so toxic they can't be digested.

00:33:31.020 And then the discussion is, well, what should we allow in and what's too toxic to be digested?

00:33:36.400 And that has to be constantly discussed, because it shifts and changes.

00:33:41.960 That's part of the reason why free speech is necessary.

00:33:44.520 But what I've observed, like I've asked, for example, virtually every Democrat I've ever come in contact with, when does the left go too far?

00:33:53.340 I'm going to decorate that with one other observation.

00:33:57.340 So, one of the disciplines I studied, social psychology, the social psychologists insisted for 70 years that there was no such thing as left-wing authoritarianism.

00:34:07.740 That didn't crack until 2016.

00:34:10.760 Yeah, well, right.

00:34:11.420 That's utterly insane.

00:34:13.100 But it is actually troublesome, because it is harder to point to excesses on the left.

00:34:19.700 And to say, well, there's a policy that purports to be put forward in a compassionate manner that's actually not that at all, and that's highly toxic.

00:34:30.720 And so, you've been involved in the scrum of Washington politics for a long time.

00:34:35.900 I asked Robert Kennedy this question, and he said, before bloody YouTube took my conversation with him down,

00:34:42.980 he said, I don't, he said essentially that he didn't want to answer that because he wasn't trying to run a campaign of divisiveness.

00:34:52.480 And, you know, fair enough, but it doesn't get to the heart of it.

00:34:58.560 We have a culture war going on.

00:35:00.660 There's excesses on both sides.

00:35:02.400 A fair bit of it's driven by psychopathy.

00:35:04.960 It isn't obvious to me that the Democrats have done a good job of drawing a dividing line between them and the people who are, you know,

00:35:11.260 the moderate Democrats, who I know are most of them, and the small minority of extreme radicals who have a disproportionate influence.

00:35:19.120 And so, well, I'm curious about what you think about that.

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00:36:29.660 Well, you went in a whole bunch of different directions here, and let me try to make sure I can sift through it.

00:36:37.740 I mean, first of all, you know, on your point about there's no such thing as left-wing authoritarianism,

00:36:41.420 I've stayed in regular contact with some pretty hardcore conservative people over the years,

00:36:45.720 and a number of them have argued with me that there's no such thing as right-wing violence.

00:36:49.700 Okay, so when it comes to that ability to try to, like, I don't know, twist the world to fit your ideology,

00:36:56.420 I haven't noticed any particular difference between the left and the right on that.

00:37:00.000 They both are capable of it.

00:37:02.140 Second, you raise a really interesting point, which I will just mention briefly and not go down that rabbit hole.

00:37:09.280 I won't go down that discussion because I want to get back into that, you know, when does the left go too far question.

00:37:14.300 But, you know, I went to Fordham University, which is a fascinating place to go to.

00:37:18.080 I'm not Catholic.

00:37:20.100 I'm an Episcopalian.

00:37:21.140 I thought about becoming a Catholic after leaving Fordham, and the primary reason that I didn't is because it's too much work.

00:37:27.820 Okay.

00:37:28.400 I was 23 years old.

00:37:29.720 They said, well, you've got to go to classes for six months.

00:37:31.600 And I'm like, I went to classes for, like, a month.

00:37:33.440 I was like, I don't want to do that.

00:37:34.960 Anyway, minor point.

00:37:36.300 But anyway, I took a class.

00:37:37.480 The thing that's interesting about Fordham, particularly Fordham in the 80s, I don't know about now,

00:37:41.300 is, you know, Jesuit schools have both some really, really left-leaning professors and then some hardcore conservative professors as well.

00:37:51.800 And I had this professor.

00:37:53.440 I took a class about Edmund Burke and sort of studying the importance of tradition.

00:38:00.740 And this was a very conservative professor.

00:38:02.720 It was pro-life.

00:38:03.340 And at one point during our discussion, he said, you know, the worst thing our country ever did was to allow people to debate abortion.

00:38:12.040 And at the time, I was 21 years old.

00:38:14.100 I had a very liberal mind.

00:38:15.720 My parents had raised me that, you know, we have open debate.

00:38:18.040 We do all this other stuff.

00:38:19.040 And, you know, and it was just, it struck me as like just who is this guy, you know, saying that we shouldn't even talk about it.

00:38:25.400 But when you stop and think about it from a logical standpoint, he was pro-life.

00:38:29.460 He didn't want any abortion to be legal at all.

00:38:32.260 It was illegal.

00:38:33.420 So if we didn't talk about it, he was going to stay uptown.

00:38:37.240 So that's an interesting little debate about how much freedom of information, you know, depending on what you're trying to accomplish.

00:38:43.480 Personally, I'm with you.

00:38:45.140 The more we talk about it, the more we get to the right answer is what I believe on that front.

00:38:49.680 But on your question, you know, when does the left go too far?

00:38:53.900 When does the right go too far?

00:38:55.700 One of the things I've discovered is it's best not to engage in that type of conversation.

00:39:01.340 I take a vastly more practical approach to it, and I will specifically explain what you mean, and then I will answer that question.

00:39:09.740 So when I look around the Seattle-King County area that I represent, my district's now entirely within King County.

00:39:16.320 It's changed over the course of my 27 years of representing it.

00:39:19.080 We have a significant problem with some very specific issues.

00:39:23.200 We have a problem with homelessness.

00:39:24.560 We have a problem with drug abuse.

00:39:25.820 We have a problem with crime, and we have a problem with affordable housing, all right? 1.00

00:39:29.420 So when I dive into this, I don't dive into it going, okay, who's the moron who let this happen? 0.98

00:39:35.440 I dive into it like, okay, what are we going to do about it, all right? 0.97

00:39:39.300 What's working?

00:39:40.160 What's not working?

00:39:40.960 How do we actually get to the point where we better address those issues?

00:39:45.500 And within that context, the specific answer to your question as to what's problematic is that the left has moved too far in the direction of let's look at the broader societal causes of these things, which, by the way, is important.

00:40:02.600 It is, okay?

00:40:03.700 You know, if you have more economic opportunity, if you have better access to health care, if you have better access to education, all of those things that I just mentioned, with the possible exception of the affordable housing problem, which is complicated, get better.

00:40:17.960 That is true.

00:40:19.320 But if you take individual responsibility completely out of the equation and say, we're just going to look at broader societal problems, that's where you get into trouble.

00:40:30.840 We need to get a balance.

00:40:31.760 And I've had this conversation with a number of different folks, community-based organizations, county government, city government, as I'm trying to sort of work through this.

00:40:40.820 And I ask the question, you know, well, okay, broader societal stuff, I get.

00:40:45.820 But what role does individual choice play in a decision to abuse drugs, in a decision to commit crime?

00:40:54.760 And frequently, the answer I get back is, well, it really doesn't, which is, it's just wrong, okay?

00:41:02.800 I mean, you know, I'm not getting into some broader ideological, oh, my gosh, you've gone too far, and I don't care about that.

00:41:09.000 You're adopting a policy that is going to get more difficult to actually help people.

00:41:14.640 And I'm progressive on this.

00:41:16.600 I believe in alternatives to incarceration, okay?

00:41:19.400 I believe in, you know, getting people into treatment.

00:41:23.500 So, you've got, that's issue one, is, is there any individual responsibility here?

00:41:28.020 Do we set expectations for people?

00:41:31.000 Do we hold them accountable for their actions?

00:41:33.220 And at a small level, okay, you don't take a homeless drug addict with a mental problem and say, okay, you've got to go to work 40 hours a week starting right now.

00:41:41.760 No, okay, I get that, but it could be a little something, okay?

00:41:46.460 Let's do a little something today, we'll do a little more tomorrow, and we'll do a little more the next day.

00:41:50.800 They're rejecting that.

00:41:52.340 And then the second problem is individual agency, okay?

00:41:57.580 And I also, that's what I believe in that, okay?

00:42:00.920 You know, you can't just, again, grab somebody, pull them off the street, throw them in a mental hospital and tell them to get better, okay?

00:42:08.520 You want to work with them to get to the point where they're making individual choices, but they're making the right choices.

00:42:15.280 And I think we've gone too far in the other direction of, look, we can't tell this person what they should do, okay?

00:42:22.140 When they're ready, okay, they'll seek treatment.

00:42:26.020 When they're ready, they'll move on this.

00:42:27.900 It's a lot more of a balance, okay?

00:42:31.180 And I think in our approach, looking at the broader societal issues, also looking at some of the authoritarian problems.

00:42:37.420 I mean, look, we incarcerated too many people in this country over the course of 60 years.

00:42:43.220 It became the easy button for public policy, and it ruined a lot of lives.

00:42:47.460 It absolutely did.

00:42:48.960 And we should fix that.

00:42:50.480 But you don't have to go all the way over to the other side where, okay, we can abolish the whole criminal justice system and everything will be fine.

00:42:57.220 The problem we run into in our community is that we've got a lot of people pushing that further out agenda on those two issues.

00:43:05.060 And then as I keep saying, what's the conservative alternative?

00:43:08.620 The conservative alternative is, well, let's just keep locking them up and let's pretend that racism doesn't exist.

00:43:14.300 Well, my community isn't going to go for that.

00:43:17.560 I'm not going to go for that.

00:43:19.160 You know, I think we need a more balanced approach, but that fundamentally, to answer your question of, it'd be wrong to say, and when we spoke, once you put the question as, well, what is the Democratic Party doing wrong?

00:43:31.720 Democratic Party is a big amorphous thing.

00:43:33.500 You put the question a little differently today.

00:43:35.300 What is the left doing wrong?

00:43:37.140 I would say those are the two issues.

00:43:38.580 We need a better balance that takes into account personal responsibility, individual choice, and the need to help people get to a better place.

00:43:47.440 I've taken to summing it up from a meeting I had a week ago.

00:43:50.380 You know the phrase, meet people where they are?

00:43:52.900 I completely agree with that.

00:43:54.280 It's long been my philosophy.

00:43:55.780 When I'm trying to pass a bill or get a vote, I've got to understand that person before I'm not going to come in and tell them to be something different.

00:44:03.200 So meet people where they are.

00:44:04.820 I amend that to say yes, but don't leave them there.

00:44:09.040 Okay, you know, yes, the person is homeless.

00:44:11.860 They have all these difficulties.

00:44:12.580 Now, what are we going to do to help them get to a better place?

00:44:15.760 That is the way I would describe that challenge.

00:44:19.400 So I agree with you in relationship to the dearth of, let's say, conservative alternative vision.

00:44:27.880 I think that's a real weakness on the conservative side and maybe even more specifically on the Republican side.

00:44:33.840 So we can return to that later.

00:44:35.120 I wanted to embellish your comments about agency and responsibility a bit.

00:44:42.080 So technically, there's not much difference between agency and hope.

00:44:47.440 They run on the same neurological circuit.

00:44:50.220 So if you believe you can do something, well, that's a hopeful vision.

00:44:54.120 And hope is positive emotion, broadly speaking.

00:44:57.240 It's mediated by the systems that produce positive emotion and indicates the probability of successful movement forward.

00:45:03.920 And so by attributing all problems to society, you risk removing individual agency.

00:45:11.140 And the consequence of removing individual agency is you destroy hope.

00:45:15.020 And that's not a positive thing.

00:45:16.980 And then there's another element that plays into that, that I'd be interested.

00:45:21.260 I want your opinions on all of this.

00:45:22.900 But one of the things I've noticed as I've traveled around the world speaking to my audiences, let's say the people who come to listen and to consider, is that if I draw a relationship between responsibility and meaning, the crowd always falls silent.

00:45:42.060 And the reason for that, as far as I can tell, is that the meaning that sustains us in life is actually a consequence, not so much of having the right to do whatever we want.

00:45:53.720 So that would be on the hedonic side, which can lead to a very short-term and impulsive orientation, self-centered orientation.

00:46:00.700 Instead, it's the meaning emerges as a consequence of bearing the responsibility for yourself and for your partner and for your family and for your community.

00:46:12.360 I mean, literally, that's where the meaning comes from.

00:46:14.400 And if that's demolished, and that's on the personal responsibility side, if that's demolished, you leave people bereft of meaning.

00:46:20.620 And that is one of the dangers of abstracting the diagnosis of societal problems all the way up to the highest level of social organization.

00:46:29.440 You know, the pathology of the patriarchy is that you demolish the domain of useful attention and action on the individual side.

00:46:38.800 And I also think that that's one of the cardinal sins, let's say, of the radical left, is that it's that combination of excessive abstraction.

00:46:47.420 And also, now, the leftists, their point fundamentally is, well, how do you discriminate assigning responsibility from laying blame, right?

00:47:00.720 I mean, well, and it's really a good question.

00:47:03.200 It is a good question.

00:47:04.120 You always wrestle with in psychotherapy, you know, if I have a client.

00:47:07.420 I personally don't think it's that hard.

00:47:09.500 I'm with you.

00:47:10.000 Everyone I run into says it is, but having been a parent, the way you do that is, it's almost a matter of tone, okay?

00:47:18.640 You know, you can have a conversation with your child when you've done something wrong.

00:47:21.560 And I had one, I'm trying to drag my children too much into this, but I can think of some specific conversations.

00:47:27.080 When you calmly walk through an explanation of, here's what you did, here's the choice you made, here's why it was a problem.

00:47:35.280 Or you just scream at them for being terrible, awful, horrible human beings, okay?

00:47:40.020 To me, that's how you differentiate, okay?

00:47:43.380 Blame is an affirmative, you're a tad, you know, responsibility is just, okay, we're all flawed, we're all humans, you know, we're all going to screw things up. 0.99

00:47:51.980 I'm not saying, because you did that wrong, okay, that that means you're a terrible, awful, horrible human being and I can't stand to look at you, okay?

00:48:00.080 But you did something wrong, so let's not pretend that that didn't happen just because it's going to make you feel bad to realize that you did something wrong.

00:48:08.320 Let's have a professional, grown-up, kind, caring, helpful conversation about how you can do it better.

00:48:15.540 And it just kills me that, on the one hand, we've got all, oh, gosh, no, if you criticize somebody, you know, that makes them feel bad, so we have to make sure that we don't do that.

00:48:24.940 This is harm reduction, okay, which we talk about, which is a major impediment to efficiently running organizations, by the way, if you get to that level.

00:48:35.240 And then you've got the people on the other side who just say, you know, that they ought to be able to yell and abuse whoever they want because they're in charge.

00:48:42.080 Why is it so hard?

00:48:43.020 You delve into the mind a lot more than I do.

00:48:46.760 Why is it so hard to just go, okay, let's just, let's balance that and reasonably and responsibly help people get better instead of trying to tear them down?

00:48:57.760 Well, it's part of the problem that you point to in your book.

00:49:02.760 And your book, I thought I'd just point this out to everyone.

00:49:06.880 Sure.

00:49:07.040 The book is called, I've got it written down here, I want to get it exactly right, Lost and Broken, My Journey Back from Chronic Pain and Crippling Anxiety.

00:49:15.480 One of the things you discuss in that book is the difficulty of diagnosis.

00:49:20.220 And this is relevant with regard to the judicious decisions and conversations that are necessary in assigning responsibility.

00:49:30.140 And you might ask, well, why bother calling your kids out on something they've done wrong if it hurts their feelings?

00:49:36.880 And certainly parents will avoid doing that, especially if they're the kind of parents that foster dependents. 0.97

00:49:42.140 But the answer is, well, if your child did something stupid that hurt them and other people in a manner that's counterproductive if continued, 0.99

00:49:51.300 the price they have to pay to realize that flaw is offset by the advantage of not doing the stupid thing again. 0.98

00:49:59.560 Now, the diagnostic complexity is twofold, right? 0.96

00:50:03.200 One is, first of all, things are complex.

00:50:05.420 And deciding how someone went to hell in a handbasket, parsing that up, the responsibility up there with regard to social contribution, familial contribution, and individual responsibility.

00:50:17.600 I mean, that can take hundreds of hours of dialogue.

00:50:19.800 It's very, very complicated.

00:50:21.300 So complexity is part of it.

00:50:23.080 And then the conflict that might come along with mediating responsibility and blame, that's difficult. 0.99

00:50:31.740 You know, if you're talking to your kids, they might say, well, you know, if you weren't such a son of a bitch, I wouldn't be so rebellious. 0.99

00:50:39.620 And that's, you know, that's a perfectly reasonable potential proposition. 0.99

00:50:43.620 But there's no shortage of conflict that has to be had in sorting that out.

00:50:48.140 And, of course, one other layer on that I just want to throw in is, so I have two children and I'm married.

00:50:54.140 And when you're, like, negotiating between, okay, an argument between, like, my son and my wife or my son and my daughter, then it's like, okay, well, what about what they did?

00:51:02.680 And then that throws in a little bit more complexity as well.

00:51:07.060 Well, personally, I think it's all navigable, I guess.

00:51:11.000 You can work your way through it, let's put it that way.

00:51:13.360 It's not easy for the reasons you described, but I think it is more doable than most people give it credit for.

00:51:18.620 That's all I'm saying.

00:51:19.120 Well, the alternative is to put your head in the sand and continue to get kicked as a consequence or to degenerate into outright conflict.

00:51:27.160 I mean, it's either it's negotiation, slavery or tyranny.

00:51:30.820 Those are the fundamental options.

00:51:32.340 And so, well, on that front, one of the things I've also viewed, and you can help me with this if you would, is I'm watching you guys in the U.S. tear yourselves apart.

00:51:44.480 We're doing it to some degree in Canada with regard to the idea of systemic racism, let's say.

00:51:52.600 Now, you pointed out quite rightly that the proclivity to alienate and manifest prejudice because of innate group differences is pervasive.

00:52:07.400 And I think the anthropological literature suggests that, you know, most tribal groups around the world describe their people as human and everyone else as non-human.

00:52:20.180 It's an extraordinarily common linguistic categorization proclivity.

00:52:25.980 And so, I think you can make a strong Hobbesian case that, although people are cooperative and will reach across the aisle, that generally we tend to think of the people like us as human and the people who aren't like us as not human.

00:52:38.700 And so, out of that comes systemic bias and racism.

00:52:43.080 I don't know that I would go quite that far.

00:52:45.220 I would say we tend to be tribal.

00:52:46.940 We tend to think of the group that we belong to as being somehow better than other groups.

00:52:52.680 I don't know that we necessarily decide that other groups aren't human, just that there's the tendency to think that you're better.

00:52:58.820 And that will vary, obviously, situation to situation.

00:53:01.540 But it is a human tendency.

00:53:03.400 Well, you see, it's complex because, obviously, tribal groups can trade and intermingle.

00:53:09.020 And so, there is a countervailing tendency.

00:53:11.260 But the linguistic tendency is literally to define the non-tribal members as not human.

00:53:18.420 Now, I'm not saying that we necessarily do that fully, but we can easily be tempted in that direction.

00:53:24.600 Now, the radical leftist critique of American society is that the society itself is systemically racist.

00:53:31.460 And this actually really bothers me as an outside observer and an admirer of the American system.

00:53:37.780 Now, the Canadian system is quite similar, although we're doing everything we can to muck it up at the moment.

00:53:42.700 But, you see, my sense is exactly the opposite, which is that the proclivity for systemic bias and racism is deeply rooted in the human soul.

00:53:52.820 And it's a bloody miracle that there was any progress, there's ever been any progress made in that direction at all.

00:54:00.060 And I would say that your society, grounded as it is in a broader UK tradition, is the stellar example of the countervailing tendency,

00:54:11.460 which is to attribute to all human souls something approximating divine value, regardless of the particulars of their group identity.

00:54:19.960 And so then when I see these radical critiques of American society, accusing it of systemic racism and being even founded on those principles,

00:54:28.740 I think this is very counterproductive because not only is it not the case, it's actually the case that the UK slash American tradition that has made of slavery,

00:54:42.000 let's say an absolute moral evil, is rare and most pronounced in the case of, well, the Anglo-American tradition.

00:54:51.520 And so what I see happening with the radical leftists, for example, is they're actually throwing out the very thing that they purport to support.

00:54:59.620 Because, well, and you can tell me what you think about this,

00:55:02.700 the idea that might makes right and that if I can force you into servitude, I have the right to do that, that's pretty damn self-evident.

00:55:12.400 The notion that you have some intrinsic worth, even if you're weak and easily, what would you say, easily manipulated and forced, that you still have some worth,

00:55:21.000 that's a very difficult proposition to put forward.

00:55:23.700 And yet both the UK and the US managed it.

00:55:27.140 And whatever degree of true interracial harmony and freedom has prevailed, particularly in the West, particularly in the US, 0.80

00:55:34.920 is actually a consequence of that countervailing tendency.

00:55:37.780 And I think that's the fundamental forward thrust of the American enterprise.

00:55:43.100 So when I see the leftists go after that, and that's something that's become increasingly dogmatically taught in universities,

00:55:50.280 I think, God, you guys, you know, you're killing the very thing that in principle has been the closest thing to bringing about what you want

00:55:57.320 that's ever made itself manifest in history.

00:56:00.560 Yeah.

00:56:01.240 I mean, I think you've hit upon what is, you know, one of the principal divisive issues in American politics

00:56:06.760 that is making things more difficult to get things done because people are locked into that debate.

00:56:13.480 Which side is going to win that debate?

00:56:15.960 And as I've said a couple of times, and we'll likely say more frequently as this interview progresses,

00:56:20.980 I take a more practical problem-solving approach to things.

00:56:25.760 And it's, you know, what do we need to do to build a better society?

00:56:29.460 Now, when it comes, you know, what is America founded on?

00:56:32.520 It's no one thing, and it's no one thing to one group of people.

00:56:36.680 I tend to agree with you that the principal idea is equality,

00:56:41.900 is the idea that we are not going to be as tribal.

00:56:45.200 That's certainly what the documents said.

00:56:47.960 But I think the thing to remember, you know, for conservatives is this approach to dealing

00:56:53.860 with racism, bigotry, and discrimination didn't come from nowhere, okay?

00:56:59.500 It came from, in addition to all those traditions that you rightly just described,

00:57:04.800 we've had a pretty rich history of also some pretty thorough discrimination.

00:57:09.120 Now, that's changed, gotten better, I confidently assert, over the course of the last 60 years.

00:57:16.160 But for much of America's history, I mean, let's start with, you know,

00:57:19.780 the founding principles of everyone should have a say in how they are governed.

00:57:24.360 Democracy, which was one of the big ideas that we tried to introduce.

00:57:27.660 Well, at the time we introduced it, everyone knows, I mean,

00:57:30.660 it applied to white male property owners.

00:57:33.260 And that was it.

00:57:34.660 Now, my personal take on this is at the time we did that, democracy in its truest sense

00:57:41.120 really didn't exist anywhere on the globe.

00:57:44.240 So to take that step was a significant step.

00:57:47.780 And ever since then, we've been expanding on that, okay?

00:57:51.120 We've been trying to get better at it.

00:57:52.900 But also, along the way, incredible history of, you know, white supremacy, patriarchy,

00:58:01.960 all manner of discrimination that have, in fact, been more locked in

00:58:07.980 to how we've governed ourselves than most people realize.

00:58:11.660 And I'll give you just one example and then expand out on how I think we should handle this.

00:58:17.880 And I agree with you.

00:58:19.160 The way the far left is handling it, I don't agree with, okay?

00:58:22.400 I also don't agree with the way the right is handling it.

00:58:24.920 But, you know, we have this debate, and it's something that I led the fight on in Congress,

00:58:29.140 to rename military bases in our country.

00:58:32.620 We have a lot of military bases and installations and other things,

00:58:36.320 ships that were named after Civil War Southern generals and Southern leaders.

00:58:43.140 And so we've pushed this effort to say we should change those names.

00:58:47.220 And we get into this debate about, you can't, it's our history, it's, you know,

00:58:50.960 blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah.

00:58:52.400 And as I've debated this and I found out what a lot of people don't realize about that stuff,

00:58:57.920 this stuff was not named in 1870 or 1880.

00:59:02.580 The names came about in the early 20th century.

00:59:05.880 After Reconstruction failed, there was a concerted effort in many parts of this country

00:59:11.480 to reestablish white supremacy.

00:59:14.220 You go back and you listen to some of the speeches, I think, I forget the name of it,

00:59:18.240 there's a Stone Mountain, Georgia, which is this etching of, I think, four Confederate generals.

00:59:24.100 Go back to, I think, like 1910 when it opened, and you listen to the speeches to the people commemorating that.

00:59:30.360 It's a lot of white supremacy.

00:59:31.860 All right.

00:59:32.720 And it's the same time that the Ku Klux Klan rose up, at the same time that Jim Crow got put in place.

00:59:37.920 It was actually a pretty interesting book.

00:59:39.600 I forget the name of it.

00:59:40.580 I think it's A Fever in the Heartland by Tim Egan about how the Klan took over Indiana.

00:59:46.000 Okay.

00:59:46.500 I'm not talking Alabama.

00:59:48.180 I'm talking Indiana.

00:59:49.080 Early 20th century in the fight that had to go to move that back.

00:59:54.040 So that history exists, all right?

00:59:57.640 And we have to wrestle with that history and figure, what does it mean?

01:00:01.440 How do we better treat people equal and not fall back into that?

01:00:04.720 Now, I have participated in some DEI trainings, not that many.

01:00:09.340 And there's two parts of it that I really like.

01:00:12.500 And then I think there's an incredible missed opportunity.

01:00:15.540 The part that I like is we talk about this history.

01:00:18.120 Because a lot of people don't understand this history.

01:00:20.320 I mean, they don't know.

01:00:21.760 It's like, well, okay, the Civil War happened, the North won, and there was discrimination in the South.

01:00:26.680 And then everything sort of sorted itself out.

01:00:29.800 Well, no, actually, it didn't.

01:00:32.880 Well into the 70s, 80s, 90s, okay, there were significant problems in all of these areas.

01:00:38.920 And if we educate ourselves about that history, we will better understand our own country.

01:00:42.880 And frankly, I think we'll better understand how difficult it is to achieve the ideals that you talked about.

01:00:49.060 This is what we're trying to do, but it doesn't necessarily come easily.

01:00:52.620 So understand that history.

01:00:54.560 And then the second piece of what they try to do is, and the individual that you're working with, what's their story?

01:01:00.160 Who are they?

01:01:01.080 Okay.

01:01:01.240 You know, if you are a black person growing up in America, you had a different experience than if you were a white person growing up in America.

01:01:07.520 And if you're going to work with somebody, whether it's in an office or a school or wherever, having a conversation and understanding your colleagues, I think, is a very positive thing.

01:01:16.220 Now, where it goes off the beam, in my estimation, is it then sort of talks about how discrimination and bigotry is unique to white Western culture, okay?

01:01:29.360 Yeah, that's pretty, that's, well, to call that wrong is to barely scrape the surface.

01:01:36.200 It's a universal human proclivity.

01:01:38.120 It is, but understand that under the circumstances, and there's a lot of different reasons, but white European culture emerged as the dominant culture, I don't know, 19th century thereabouts.

01:01:50.100 Actually, I'm reading a book called When China Rules the World.

01:01:54.400 It's written in 2009.

01:01:56.020 It's an assumption about how China's coming and what's it going to be like.

01:01:59.420 And it sort of walks through this history of, you know, how, and it to some degree was an accident of history, you know, guns, germs, and steel, right?

01:02:07.440 You know, whatever played out, this particular group of people became dominant.

01:02:12.280 It was white men, so therefore that discrimination was the discrimination that dominated a significant chunk of the globe.

01:02:18.760 It's not irrelevant, all right, to point out that that came to pass.

01:02:22.880 I think it is more helpful, and going all the way back, and I'll close with this, to your identity comment,

01:02:28.340 what I find most useful is when we talk about things that talk about our shared humanity, as opposed to the things that make us different.

01:02:38.260 And, of course, we're different.

01:02:39.420 Of course, men are different from women. 1.00

01:02:40.880 Of course, whatever your cultural background is, it's going to make you a little bit different from somebody else.

01:02:46.240 It's so much better when we talk about the things that we have in common.

01:02:49.860 And I think one of the things we have in common, no matter who you are, is a feeling that other people don't understand you, okay?

01:02:58.320 I mean, that's a pretty universal thing in my experience.

01:03:01.620 So if you want to get together and talk about, well, here's my experience, but we shouldn't segregate it based on race or anything like that.

01:03:07.960 We should put humans together and say, discrimination, bigotry, bias, these can be problems.

01:03:13.480 You know, let's talk about how we have things in common instead of how we're different.

01:03:17.080 So I think we could do a lot better, but again, the problem is, and we had this debate in the House Armed Services Committee on this year's defense bill, now that the Republicans have retaken the House.

01:03:27.240 I was the chairman of the committee for four years when Democrats were in charge.

01:03:30.560 Now I'm the ranking member.

01:03:32.060 Diversity, equity, and inclusion was a huge part of the debate.

01:03:34.980 And the debate on the right was, we've got to get rid of it.

01:03:37.900 Lock, stock, and barrel.

01:03:38.920 We've just got to get rid of it.

01:03:41.240 I just think there's got to be a better answer.

01:03:43.180 I don't necessarily, not necessarily, I don't like the way the far left does diversity, equity, and inclusion.

01:03:50.520 But the idea that we can just say, it's all good, no racism here, no bigotry, let's just move forward and not talk about it, I am at least equally troubled by.

01:04:00.620 Yeah, well, what seems to have happened to me on the DEI front, especially, is that, and this has been partly abetted by psychologists who put forward the implicit association test, for example, which purports to indicate that the standard psyche is wired up, rife with implicit biases of sufficient magnitude to warp the entire social enterprise.

01:04:28.540 These are very weak tests, by the way, they're not very valid, they're nowhere near valid enough to be used for clinical diagnosis, because there are very stringent criteria established to allow a test to be used for clinical diagnosis.

01:04:42.820 And the accusation of racism is a kind of diagnosis, and you cannot do that with implicit association tests, period.

01:04:51.540 Two of the people who made the tests, there are three, have already disavowed their use for such purposes.

01:04:56.740 And so, what I see happening with the DEI movement, at least in some not small part, is that people who are advancing a particular view of their own moral virtue and who are misusing the science in an, what would you, unforgivable manner, are elevating their status in the public domain by purporting to be compassionate,

01:05:22.520 when in fact all they're doing, most of what they're doing, is feathering their own nests at the expense of broader social harmony.

01:05:31.440 I see very little good in the...

01:05:32.840 Yeah, and I hear that.

01:05:34.780 And certainly, you know, people will always try to, you know, push the debates, you know, in their favor.

01:05:41.240 And I'm, as I said, I go to great lengths to avoid those sorts of traps and get back to sort of just practically, what are we trying to accomplish here?

01:05:48.660 I'm thinking, as we're talking about this, about the question that was popular, you know, and may still be, you know, do you think healthcare is a privilege or a right?

01:05:56.620 They'll ask that question as if the answer has some sort of significant impact on the quality of your healthcare system.

01:06:02.780 You know, I mean, call it what you want to call it.

01:06:04.420 It's a public good that we need to figure out how to deliver in the most efficient and effective way possible.

01:06:08.980 Let's work on that.

01:06:10.600 But people are always trying to position themselves.

01:06:13.080 If I can get people to use the right language, I win, okay?

01:06:17.080 And the thing is, that's not entirely wrong, okay?

01:06:20.460 But it also distracts from the practical problem-solving of how do we actually improve things.

01:06:25.960 So more so than just about anybody you're ever going to come across, I will fight against that.

01:06:30.940 I will not answer those sort of, well, do you believe it?

01:06:33.160 It's like, let's talk about what we want to do with the policy.

01:06:35.660 I'll talk about that.

01:06:36.500 I'm not going to pick your word or her word or his word.

01:06:40.180 Let's just work on solving the problem.

01:06:42.580 But I'll give you one of the examples that I give a lot of times about why I think DEI is important.

01:06:47.000 And my district is kind of fascinating.

01:06:49.280 I graduated from Taiyi High School, which is right by SeaTac Airport.

01:06:53.260 My father was a baggage handler for United at SeaTac.

01:06:56.500 That's why I grew up there.

01:06:57.580 And when I graduated, South King County, which is south of Seattle, was a white, blue-collar suburb.

01:07:04.120 It's what it was.

01:07:05.920 It has diversified massively in the 40 years since I graduated from high school.

01:07:11.060 And one of the things that I've noticed in the community, I'll talk about me first of all, is I don't know, I was like 10, 15 years into my career in Congress when I looked around and noticed that most of the people who were working in my office were white.

01:07:22.720 You know, there was no problem between men and women.

01:07:26.880 But the reason for that, most of the time, the first job that you're going to get is going to be because you know somebody.

01:07:33.240 I mean, it does happen that someone just answers a want ad and they get a job.

01:07:36.740 But for the most part, it's connections that help move you forward.

01:07:40.000 I grew up in an entirely white community.

01:07:42.260 I came from an entirely white family.

01:07:43.900 The people I knew, by and large, were white.

01:07:46.980 The people who I knew, knew were, by and large, white.

01:07:50.420 You know, I wasn't biased against anybody.

01:07:52.800 I just, well, I was biased in the sense that I wanted to hire people who I knew.

01:07:56.700 And I looked at this and I said, okay, this is a problem.

01:07:59.920 Now, I think a lot of people would say, well, no, it's not a problem.

01:08:02.840 Do you think you're hiring bad people?

01:08:04.640 No, I don't think I'm hiring bad people.

01:08:06.360 Are you not having a rigor, you know?

01:08:07.980 No, I think we're doing a decent job.

01:08:10.220 It's still a problem because you're not reaching out to a broader community.

01:08:15.040 So what my office did is, well, let's work with some community groups.

01:08:19.400 And there's a variety of different, you know, there's a thing called Tabor 100 that tries

01:08:23.140 to help African-American business people.

01:08:25.720 And I'd worked with them a lot.

01:08:26.900 There's the Black Collective in Tacoma.

01:08:28.880 There's El Centro de la Raza that works with the Hispanic community.

01:08:32.160 A variety of different groups.

01:08:33.680 And I said, when we have a job opening, now what I'm going to do is I'm going to reach

01:08:37.480 out to them.

01:08:38.120 I'm going to say, I got this position.

01:08:40.180 Who you got?

01:08:41.220 And it diversified my workforce.

01:08:43.580 It ebbs and flows for a whole bunch of different reasons.

01:08:46.580 I think it's really important that you, and I'm going to go ahead and use a left-wing

01:08:50.600 word here.

01:08:51.620 It's about the only one that I like.

01:08:54.800 You have to be intentional.

01:08:56.480 And I believe in that.

01:08:57.780 You know, if you're trying to get something done, it doesn't happen by accident.

01:09:01.880 So you have to affirmatively reach out in that way.

01:09:04.720 And I think we need to have those types of programs.

01:09:07.540 And a lot of times people, yeah.

01:09:10.240 Well, you're, I would say just on technical grounds, your argument is correct in relationship

01:09:18.880 to competence.

01:09:19.600 Because the case you're laying out essentially is that because of the ethnocentric structure

01:09:26.460 of your connection network, there were potentially qualified candidates that you are unlikely to

01:09:33.240 come into contact with.

01:09:34.420 And so by diversifying your outreach in relationship to candidate selection, you were able to, in

01:09:42.600 principle, find more qualified people because it's a broader pool and with a subsidiary benefit

01:09:49.160 of potentially providing a workforce that was more representative of the community.

01:09:53.600 But it seems to me that all of that can be accomplished by the mere, mere observation that a broader

01:10:02.220 and more differentiated candidate pool, all things considered, is technically preferable rather

01:10:07.280 than concentrating particularly on equity issues.

01:10:11.680 And equity, this is another thing that I've talked to Democrats across the country about,

01:10:17.240 and most particularly in Washington.

01:10:18.780 equity is a word that really disturbs me because equity fundamentally means equality of outcome.

01:10:26.120 And equality of outcome is a very bad idea because there's no difference between inequality

01:10:31.340 of outcome and ownership.

01:10:33.280 Like if you own something, that means that you have an unequal access to it in relationship

01:10:39.240 to someone else.

01:10:40.200 And there's no way of eradicating inequality without eradicating ownership per se. 0.76

01:10:47.600 And the notion that we can calculate the fairness of our society by it dividing people, subdividing

01:10:53.700 people into their group identities and checking every single enterprise to make sure that proportionality

01:10:59.480 exists, which would be impossible in any case, definitely puts the cart before the horse.

01:11:04.720 And I also see in the term equity, and of course, Christopher Rufo is concentrated on this too.

01:11:11.380 That's the place that I see the most radical form of quasi-Marxist ideation invading the democratic

01:11:20.100 discussion.

01:11:22.080 So that's a concern.

01:11:23.860 I both agree with you and disagree with you on this point.

01:11:27.960 I think if you, well, the way I disagree with you is equity, equality, they mean a lot of

01:11:35.340 different things, okay?

01:11:36.840 Back to my, whenever, well, ask me, are you a socialist?

01:11:40.640 I don't know.

01:11:41.180 What do you mean?

01:11:41.900 Okay.

01:11:42.500 You know, equity and equality are the same, kind of the same way.

01:11:46.620 They can mean a lot of different things.

01:11:48.100 If you just say I'm for equity or I'm against equity, you haven't added anything to the

01:11:52.280 conversation whatsoever.

01:11:53.240 Now, where it is true is what you've said, there is a certain segment of the left-wing

01:12:00.160 political world that has defined equity in a very specific way that has sort of got them

01:12:05.740 wrapped up in a lot of confusion.

01:12:07.180 Because when you get past the point where it's okay, you can certainly focus, I mean, okay,

01:12:12.260 I'm going to get myself in trouble here.

01:12:14.300 But the two most discriminated groups in America, broadly speaking, are black people and Native

01:12:21.220 Americans, okay?

01:12:22.340 You know, if you wanted to start somewhere in terms of who America has treated poorly,

01:12:26.560 that's a pretty good place to start.

01:12:29.180 But it goes beyond that.

01:12:30.740 Okay.

01:12:31.040 Well, what about, you know, recent immigrants?

01:12:34.900 How do you salami slice it past a certain point?

01:12:37.980 Let's say, okay, you've improved equity, you have more people of color in your office,

01:12:43.220 but you don't have any Asian Americans, okay?

01:12:46.360 Or you could go right down further.

01:12:48.180 Okay, you've got a bunch of people from India, but you don't have many people from South India.

01:12:52.620 I mean, you can go down that road to the point where it's impossible to achieve that.

01:12:57.360 And I think that has, in many instances, happened.

01:13:00.400 And that is a challenge.

01:13:02.440 However, I don't think equity and equality are, well, irrelevant as well.

01:13:09.060 I think equity and equality are things that we need to work towards, okay?

01:13:13.600 Not in the sense that you just described, where equity means absolutely everybody,

01:13:18.200 regardless of anything, has everything the same. 0.89

01:13:20.580 That's ridiculous, okay?

01:13:22.200 But if you simply go the equality of outcome route, then you're leaving out a whole bunch

01:13:28.900 of stuff that comes before you get a chance to have that outcome.

01:13:32.180 Yeah, well, that's for sure.

01:13:33.320 So we need to think about that.

01:13:35.880 And we need to think about, in that case, historical racism, historical discrimination,

01:13:40.840 redlining, okay?

01:13:42.240 A whole bunch of different things do factor into what the outcome is today.

01:13:47.280 And this is very difficult because there's no simple way to do this.

01:13:49.460 There's no formula that you're going to come up with.

01:13:51.320 In fact, one of the big things that I frequently say, a problem we have in the world,

01:13:56.780 if you are after perfect justice, then you are going to be in a permanent state of war.

01:14:02.260 I have this vivid image in my mind of Milosevic back in 1988, when, you know, on what I think

01:14:09.240 was the 600th anniversary of the Battle of Kosovo, where, long story short, the Serbs got their 0.83

01:14:17.340 asses kicked by somebody, and they've been bitter about it ever since, and they were going 0.85

01:14:22.160 to, they were going to right that wrong 600 years later.

01:14:26.620 And a number of people got slaughtered over the course of, you know, because of that fight.

01:14:31.860 All right?

01:14:32.320 If you're constantly focused on everything has to be equitable, then you're in a bad place.

01:14:37.860 If, on the other hand, you just sort of shrug and go, well, you know, not anything we need

01:14:42.380 to worry about, you're also going to be in trouble. And I just think that the human mind

01:14:47.220 is, in fact, capable of striking that balance without having to choose one side or the other.

01:14:53.380 Okay? We can work and say, okay, here's a group of people that don't seem to be

01:14:57.540 achieving. Is it the case that they're somehow just inferior? No. Okay? So, let's think creatively.

01:15:03.460 How can we be more inclusive? How can we help them get to a better outcome,

01:15:07.620 knowing that it's never going to be perfectly equal? It seems to me, certainly in American

01:15:12.460 politics, I don't know anything about Canadian politics, so I will not speak to that, that we've

01:15:16.380 just set up this false choice. You know, either you have to be, like, full-on equity, identity

01:15:22.320 politics, far-left person, or you have to be on the right and not care about it at all. You know?

01:15:27.900 And, you know, that dynamic is something that I'm trying to fight, is to get to people and say,

01:15:33.040 no, we can find a more reasonable place in between here. It doesn't have to be this death

01:15:39.140 match between two extreme ideologies. Yeah, well, you make a constant case in your

01:15:45.140 conversation with me today for differentiation and diagnosis. I mean, one of the problems is that

01:15:51.280 it's easy for us, for everyone, to abstract a problem way too far up the abstraction hierarchy

01:15:58.280 and to talk about such things, for example, as health care, when in fact there's no such

01:16:03.620 thing as health care. There's 10,000 different variants of caring for people, each of which is

01:16:10.460 a complex problem on its own. And you can understand why people would rather have a one-size-fits-all

01:16:15.900 solution because, well, if you could have that, it would be wonderful, and it certainly decreases

01:16:20.680 the cognitive complexity. But it is necessary and challenging to differentiate. I wanted to turn to

01:16:27.420 something. Can I ask you one quick question before we move off? Because I'm interested in your cognitive

01:16:32.480 take on this because, you know, my shorthand to all of this, you know, that's a quote that I quote in

01:16:38.580 my book. I always misquote it because I prefer it this way. But Sue Grafton, who was a mystery writer,

01:16:44.460 she wrote the A to Z, the Kinsey Mahone mysteries. She won one of her books. She said,

01:16:50.460 thinking's hard work. That's why most people don't do it. You know, I'm sort of torn between that

01:16:56.480 and also a passionate belief that if we engage and take on difficult problems, we get more joy out of

01:17:04.700 it, okay? That we don't have to accept the fact, well, let's dumb everything down because nobody wants

01:17:11.460 to work hard. I just don't, I don't, I don't really believe that. And actually, there's a professor at

01:17:17.500 Yale University, I think it's Dr. Santos, who teaches a class on happiness. It's the most highly

01:17:24.620 subscribed class, apparently in the history of Yale. And her big point is what makes us happy

01:17:30.460 is to be productive. But our basic instinct is to not be productive. So we have, we have to work,

01:17:37.400 work through that. And I just, from a, you know, someone like yourself who, you know, has much more

01:17:42.340 medical background than I do, you know, why can't we get the human brain to embrace that a little bit

01:17:48.840 more? Well, you take on, to see complexity as a good thing, not a bad thing. That's what I'm trying

01:17:54.240 to say. Well, you, you put, well, you, you, you put your finger on a fundamental problem, the problem

01:17:59.800 of complexity. The problem of complexity is essentially that there's, there's far more entropy

01:18:06.680 in the cosmos, in the world, than there is organizational capacity in the psyche, right? Because

01:18:14.260 things overwhelm us. And that's actually a technical problem. Because if you're exposed

01:18:20.740 involuntarily to a situation that's complex, you will manifest a stress response. And that's

01:18:29.820 accompanied by an increase, for example, in the production of cortisol. And what that does is start

01:18:36.040 to have you burn up resources that you could be saving for future use now. And if, if you're

01:18:43.800 chronically stressed, you will age. There's very little difference between those two things. And

01:18:48.900 so if you're exposed to too much complexity, especially involuntarily, it will, it will take

01:18:55.820 you out physiologically, psychophysiologically. And so people are very motivated to avoid it.

01:19:02.440 Now then, well, let me add one more detail to that because it's, well, it's the rest of the answer

01:19:08.220 to your question. So then you might ask yourself, well, how do you calibrate the optimal amount of

01:19:14.580 exposure to complexity? And the answer to that technically seems to be by moving towards something

01:19:21.820 approximating the spirit of voluntary play. So now you and I, like we have agreements and

01:19:28.360 disagreements in the way that we map the world. And what we're doing, and I think we've done this

01:19:33.280 successfully so far in this conversation, is to push each other in an optimized manner that enables

01:19:41.240 something approximating the spirit of cooperative and competitive play to emerge, right? And you can

01:19:47.360 tell that's happening because to the degree that we're successful at it, we're deeply engrossed in the

01:19:52.560 conversation and we're developing as a consequence of doing that. And so I believe, and that the instinct

01:20:00.560 of meaning, and it manifests itself, for example, in play, the instinct of meaning is exactly the

01:20:05.860 instinct that tells you when you're optimizing your confrontation with complexity.

01:20:11.840 Yeah. Here's the interesting thing about that to me, going back to my psychological problems and my

01:20:17.780 anxiety and what psychotherapy ultimately did for me. I believe that you can train the brain to better

01:20:24.620 deal with complexity. Something somebody said to me, and I mentioned this in my book early on,

01:20:29.120 was that it's not the amount of stress in your life, it's how you process it. Now, at the time she

01:20:34.040 told me that, I was in the early stages of my second bout with crippling anxiety, and I completely

01:20:39.600 rejected what she said. My whole life had been a combination between, on the one hand, I was

01:20:44.720 incredibly ambitious. I wanted a lot out of my life. So I had to push myself to get there, and I

01:20:50.180 understood that. But even as I was doing that, I sort of thought of it as, I've got a tank here,

01:20:56.060 all right? And I'm going to use it up, and then I'm done, okay? And then I got to retreat,

01:21:01.220 and I got to, and so in my early battles to deal with anxiety, I was focused on, okay, what can I

01:21:06.800 sort of declutter my life, right? How can I do, how can I change things so I don't have as much

01:21:11.660 stress? But the central insight, she gave me that insight, it took me several years, three and a half

01:21:16.200 years worth of psychotherapy to understand it, is she's right. It is not the amount of complexity in

01:21:23.000 your life, it is how you process it. And that's the basics, to my mind, of simple meditation. I say

01:21:29.180 simple meditation because complex meditation is something I've never been able to do. Meditation

01:21:33.700 is not about eliminating every thought in your head, okay? I thought that for the longest time.

01:21:39.040 It's a very, that's a very difficult thing to do, and it will drive you crazy. You know, I'm

01:21:43.380 meditating, I meditate, oh my gosh, I had a thought, I failed. Not the way to do it. The point is,

01:21:47.860 a whole lot of stuff's going to come at you. Every single day, it's coming at you, all right?

01:21:52.420 Thoughts, feelings, sounds. You have to teach yourself to be able to, from time to time,

01:21:57.480 just sort of let it bounce off, okay? Notice it and move on. So, you know, we could walk down a road

01:22:05.240 here. I know you wanted to go in a different direction, but that's what I found most interesting

01:22:08.620 about the brain is I think you can teach it. It's not just, okay, here's my complexity jar.

01:22:14.740 Once it hits here, I'm out, okay? I think you can train your brain to better process complexity,

01:22:20.820 and in that sense, I think basic mental health has a lot to do with some of our broader societal

01:22:26.260 problems. Well, you made a case there that you could imagine that you could protect yourself against

01:22:33.740 being swamped by entropy. You could protect yourself against complexity by defensively armoring

01:22:40.520 yourself, for example, and by walling yourself off from complex problems. That idea goes along with

01:22:48.020 the kind of zero-sum mentality that you also described, which is, well, I have a limited

01:22:53.740 amount of resource, and when that's exhausted, I'm done, and so I better be careful. Now,

01:23:00.540 we know that's not true, for example, and I think this is best illustrated when you think about

01:23:06.960 people playing a game. If you are playing one-on-one basketball with someone, you're going

01:23:15.020 to want to find somebody who's about as good as you are or slightly better, and the reason

01:23:21.240 for that is because you might want to win, but actually what you want to do is get better

01:23:27.400 at playing basketball, and the same is true of the proper attitude towards complexity.

01:23:33.300 Like, people often wall themselves off and defend themselves and retreat because they're afraid

01:23:38.780 they'll be overwhelmed, but you can teach people, and you do this through graduated exposure and

01:23:44.060 incremental improvement, you can teach people to stay on the edge, an edge they define, right,

01:23:49.280 an edge of competence, and in consequence, what happens is that their capacity to deal with

01:23:54.080 complexity continues to expand, and that's really a process of optimized maturation, and what's fun

01:24:00.460 about that, I love this being a clinician, is that there's nothing more engrossing and entertaining

01:24:06.500 than helping someone negotiate to a point where they can discover that it's the edge between chaos

01:24:12.840 and order, by the way, the developmental edge, it's the zone of proximal development, to help people

01:24:17.520 discover that and learn to stay there. There isn't anything more rewarding than that, and there isn't

01:24:22.200 anything that expands people's competence and social competence more than having that occur.

01:24:27.820 This is also part of the problem with such things as trigger warnings and the protection of students,

01:24:33.860 say, in the university environment, because you don't want protection and safety, you want

01:24:38.840 optimized challenge, because that increases your competence.

01:24:43.420 Yeah, no, I think that makes a great deal of sense, but you were going somewhere else before

01:24:48.000 I took us in this direction.

01:24:49.880 Why do you think you were resistant to that, or why do you think that hadn't occurred to you,

01:24:54.440 because you intimated that much, when you were dealing with the anxiety problems that you had,

01:24:59.680 where do you think the inculcation of that idea that you had, in some ways, limited zero-sum

01:25:05.780 resources, where do you think that came from, that assumption, and how did you successfully

01:25:09.940 challenge it?

01:25:11.420 Well, I literally think that the reason I had that outlook is because the other thing hadn't

01:25:16.540 occurred to me, okay, you know, and so, and that's why, again, why I enjoy having these

01:25:22.300 conversations.

01:25:23.080 It frequently happens in my life that I will have a very strong opinion about something.

01:25:27.460 Maybe I've thought about it for years, decades, and then someone will say something that it's

01:25:31.720 like, huh, hadn't thought of that before.

01:25:34.540 Let's sort of play that out.

01:25:35.660 So I think that was a big part of it.

01:25:37.860 And I just think it was just sort of my mentality, because stress and anxiety, that was who I

01:25:45.240 was, okay?

01:25:46.760 You know, I was not walking into a stressful event, you know?

01:25:50.780 It was just, it was part of me.

01:25:52.100 I would think about it, worry about it.

01:25:53.620 And so when I outlined this in the book, the strategy that I came up with, and actually

01:25:58.540 there's one other reason why I felt this, the strategy I came up with that I describe

01:26:02.040 as think, think, think, worry, worry, worry, work, work, work.

01:26:06.820 That basically that was my approach.

01:26:08.960 If I wanted to get somewhere and there was a problem, I had to go after it, okay?

01:26:15.100 And I was supposed to be stressed.

01:26:17.700 I was supposed to be worried.

01:26:19.340 If I wasn't stressed, if I wasn't worried, then I wasn't doing something important, all

01:26:25.520 right?

01:26:25.740 And that became mentality.

01:26:27.560 And I think the biggest reason why I struggled to let go of that is, aside from the mental

01:26:32.900 problems, I was spectacularly successful, okay?

01:26:36.820 I won a number of campaigns that were, a number, let's be fair, I won three campaigns

01:26:43.420 that were extraordinarily difficult, but changed my life, all right?

01:26:46.680 And I was able to succeed, you know?

01:26:48.900 I have a happy marriage.

01:26:50.480 I have a good relationship with my children.

01:26:53.960 Knock on wood if you say that.

01:26:56.440 Everything, you know, everything's good.

01:26:57.640 And I thought, this is how I succeed.

01:27:00.700 And if you're going to come along and tell me that I got to do something different, I

01:27:05.340 really felt like, you know, that would make it less likely that I would be successful.

01:27:09.960 That, you know, yes, okay, maybe I wouldn't be crazy.

01:27:13.180 But I also, sorry, that's a pejorative term.

01:27:15.620 But maybe I wouldn't have the anxiety problem.

01:27:19.100 But I'd also wouldn't.

01:27:20.800 And I was so wrong about that.

01:27:23.900 So it sounds to me like you had fallen into the presumption, and correct me if I've got

01:27:32.400 this wrong, that there was no difference between your laudable moral striving and being stressed.

01:27:40.400 That stress was a marker that, right, right.

01:27:42.640 And so you had presumed that in order to actively cope and be successful, there was no respite

01:27:50.440 from being overwhelmed by complexity and being stressed.

01:27:54.840 And what the therapist did for you, at least in part, was to lay out for you the fact that

01:28:00.600 you could progress forward effectively without having to bear the burden of constant crippling

01:28:08.080 stress.

01:28:09.480 Is that about right?

01:28:10.480 Yeah, that's the biggest message I want to try to get to people.

01:28:13.060 Because I used to say, it's the stuff I don't worry about that gets me in trouble.

01:28:17.020 And I also used to like to say, I believe in the power of negative thinking, which was,

01:28:21.740 you know, if I worry, oh my gosh, what can go wrong?

01:28:23.920 What can go wrong?

01:28:25.080 You know, and, you know, and so that's what I believed I had to do.

01:28:29.100 When in fact, there, you can be every little bit as intense, every little bit as focused on

01:28:34.740 getting a task done without having to feel physically stressed out.

01:28:40.480 So what did you do specifically to start making changes in that direction?

01:28:46.600 We talked a little bit about the utility of incremental progress.

01:28:49.560 And this is obviously tied in to our broader discussion about facing ideas, say, on the

01:28:56.240 political and conceptual front that challenge you.

01:28:58.620 There is a very tight relationship between these things.

01:29:00.880 But I'm very curious, you report in your book that you had an anxious temperament, were somewhat

01:29:08.240 shy and introverted from a very early age.

01:29:10.740 So it's a deeply, it's a, it's deeply ingrained inside you that, that propensity for negative

01:29:17.000 emotional response.

01:29:18.460 How concretely, how was it that you changed the way you were approaching things that actually

01:29:24.320 made a difference?

01:29:25.140 And why do you think those changes were what made the difference?

01:29:29.100 Yeah, it was ultimately a couple of things.

01:29:32.160 Three and a half years worth of psychotherapy, which I'll get into in a minute.

01:29:35.780 Second, it was getting off of the various forms of medication that I had been on.

01:29:40.760 But most importantly, the problem that I'd had is sort of a baseline.

01:29:45.080 And this is incredibly important for psychology and psychiatry.

01:29:49.180 There are three basic steps, in my view, to getting to good mental health.

01:29:54.980 Number one was the one that I completely missed, and that is to have an inherent sense of your

01:29:59.840 own self-worth.

01:30:01.460 This is what I didn't grasp.

01:30:03.440 I thought my self-worth was a measurable thing on a day in and day out basis, all right?

01:30:09.240 And by whatever measurement you want to come by, you know, was I doing my job well, okay?

01:30:14.160 Was I a good husband?

01:30:15.040 Was I a good father?

01:30:16.100 You know, was I being responsible?

01:30:17.360 Did I make a smart decision here?

01:30:18.700 Did I do that?

01:30:19.540 So every day, I was trying to judge, okay, how am I doing, all right?

01:30:24.160 When in fact, an incredibly important concept in our psychology is, it's a Buddhist thing

01:30:29.680 for the most part, we're all worthy of love.

01:30:32.580 We all have self-worth, and that self-worth is not dependent upon our deeds.

01:30:37.240 And the three and a half years worth of psychotherapy was me arguing with my psychologist on this

01:30:41.720 point, because the biggest sticking point for me on this was, wait a second, you're telling

01:30:45.380 me it doesn't matter what we do, okay?

01:30:48.440 That, you know, somebody who's completely irresponsible, I'm a very responsible person.

01:30:52.600 My wife and I have this in common.

01:30:54.640 She's the eldest of five children, and she fits that oldest child measurement quite, quite well.

01:30:59.760 We believe in meeting our responsibilities.

01:31:02.280 So you're telling me that if I don't meet my responsibilities, if I don't follow the rule,

01:31:05.840 then I'm just as good as if I don't.

01:31:08.480 And of course, that's not actually what they're telling you, all right?

01:31:12.720 You should always, you can work to be better at things, but it's not an existential threat,

01:31:18.320 all right?

01:31:19.000 Just because you make a mistake or do something wrong doesn't mean that your basic self-worth

01:31:23.500 as a human being is out the window.

01:31:25.380 I didn't understand that, okay?

01:31:27.060 I was working my whole life every day to prove that I was worthy.

01:31:31.580 So having someone walk me through that and explain to me was the number one biggest thing.

01:31:35.780 And then the second biggest thing in psychiatry is to really understand who you are.

01:31:41.460 And I love this quote about psychotherapy, which I quote in my book, which is that the

01:31:45.660 purpose of psychotherapy is not to correct the past.

01:31:49.540 It is to help the patient understand his history and to grieve for what he has lost.

01:31:55.220 I wanted to correct the past.

01:31:58.060 And the very specific past I wanted to correct was my screwed up family, okay? 0.90

01:32:02.980 And there are families that are more screwed up than others, but I don't walk through the 0.95

01:32:06.820 whole story.

01:32:07.400 I was adopted, you know, in my, and it just fell apart by the time I was like 12 or 14.

01:32:13.840 My older brother, you know, became, he had criminal problems, he had drug problems, he

01:32:18.820 was off control.

01:32:19.760 My parents were stressed out and or depressed.

01:32:21.980 My father died when I was 19.

01:32:24.320 My mother died, you know, a few years after that.

01:32:26.800 It just felt like this complete epic failure.

01:32:28.800 And then after all of that happened, my life, you know, I got elected to the state Senate.

01:32:35.120 I met my wife, everything went fine.

01:32:36.620 Now it's like, okay, don't have to worry about that anymore.

01:32:39.660 When in fact, it was still bugging me, okay?

01:32:41.800 It was bugging me both in terms of, you know, well, why didn't my family do a better job of

01:32:46.700 handling this?

01:32:47.420 And then crucially, it was also bugging me from the standpoint of if I'm holding myself

01:32:52.200 out as a leader in the community, you know, as someone who gets things done and all these

01:32:57.460 other positive things, you know, about my career, the hell did I do about that?

01:33:01.660 The whole thing fell apart while I was there, okay?

01:33:04.420 And I never really resolved that.

01:33:06.280 So we talked through that and that helped resolve that.

01:33:08.900 That's a big thing now in, well, with PTSD and other things.

01:33:14.400 Um, you have to be able to resolve issues in your past and some of it is traumatic.

01:33:20.600 I mean, we're talking real trauma, but even if it's not trauma in the classic sense of the

01:33:24.640 word, things that have really bugged you, bring them out in the open, deal with them.

01:33:28.940 And that can dramatically reduce anxiety and depression.

01:33:32.100 And there's a variety of different therapies now, EMDR.

01:33:35.720 Um, there's a new thing that they're working with, um, in the military in particular, and I

01:33:40.300 hope I get the initials right.

01:33:41.760 Um, ETM, um, which is another way of sort of rewiring your brain through conversation

01:33:49.320 to look at these events in your life in a different way.

01:33:53.500 So those are the two big things.

01:33:55.240 The biggest problem we have in psychology in America, um, and I don't want to take us

01:34:00.260 too far down this road.

01:34:01.360 If you have political things you want to talk about and happen to answer them is we start

01:34:05.140 with cognitive behavioral therapy.

01:34:07.400 And to my mind, probably 90% of the time, that's a mistake.

01:34:12.180 That's what they did with me.

01:34:13.580 That's why I cycled through so many psychiatrists and psychologists and cognitive behavioral therapy

01:34:17.780 is important.

01:34:18.820 You need to figure out how to better process things coming in and, you know, understand

01:34:22.400 exactly what it is you're worried about or depressed about how to handle it.

01:34:26.440 But if you don't deal with those two baseline things first, cognitive behavioral therapy is

01:34:31.740 just going to piss you off. 0.97

01:34:33.380 All right.

01:34:33.720 Cause it's not going to seem like it's working.

01:34:35.360 I, the analogy I came up with just a couple of days ago, it's like, if you break your

01:34:39.780 leg, you can say physical therapy is important and it's going to be important, but if you

01:34:44.120 don't set the leg first, okay.

01:34:46.260 And then tell someone, okay, start doing these exercises, it's not going to work very well.

01:34:50.680 So I just don't think we have that order correct.

01:34:54.040 So, so you were, you were suffering by your own admission from a very fundamental theological

01:35:02.660 dilemma, I would say.

01:35:03.960 And so you could imagine that there are ways of justifying your miserable existence, so

01:35:09.780 to speak, and one would be justification through works.

01:35:12.840 And that is the proclivity that conscientious people have conscientious and responsible people,

01:35:18.540 which is that they derive their sense of worse worth from an evaluation of their continued

01:35:25.360 contributions.

01:35:26.060 And as you said, there's some real utility in that because you should be responsible and

01:35:31.560 generous productivity is laudable and it's reasonable to observe how you're doing in

01:35:39.500 that regard and to evaluate yourself to some degree on that basis.

01:35:43.360 But if that's all there is, then you are missing another important theological presupposition.

01:35:51.360 And I'm speaking about those as fundamental presuppositions akin to setting your leg before you start

01:35:57.580 worrying about physiotherapy is that, you know, there is an axiomatic presupposition.

01:36:01.560 That underlies the ethical corpus of the West that every person is made in the image of God and

01:36:07.320 has intrinsic worth.

01:36:08.520 And that means that, you know, if you think about those as balanced, you could say, well, of course I

01:36:13.560 should strive forward and make the appropriate sacrifices and be useful to myself and my

01:36:18.160 community.

01:36:18.660 But underneath that, this is probably what's provided by the way in the final analysis by

01:36:23.920 the proper kind of maternal love, you know, that kind of all-encompassing love is that

01:36:28.440 regardless of your flaws, you have an intrinsic worth that's inviolable that you can always

01:36:35.220 return to as a source of what replenishment and self-confidence, right?

01:36:41.360 That sense of intrinsic worth.

01:36:42.980 And, you know, if you don't, the interesting thing too is that if you don't apply that to

01:36:48.520 yourself, it's also very difficult to apply it to other people.

01:36:52.340 You know, and so, yeah, yeah.

01:36:55.120 And that's where I cross over into public policy, okay?

01:36:59.740 That's, you know, and I make that point at the end of my book exactly is, you know, what

01:37:05.060 really helps cure you as well as everyone else.

01:37:08.220 Yes, you have self-worth.

01:37:10.280 But think about that.

01:37:11.300 That means everybody else does too.

01:37:14.340 Even the person who's from the different political party, if you're pro-choice, even the person

01:37:19.260 who's pro-life, okay?

01:37:20.980 Whatever the issue, and if you believe that, it makes our society get together better.

01:37:25.100 And frankly, that's, you know, you asked why I wanted to do this interview.

01:37:28.320 Certainly, I find you very smart.

01:37:30.600 I love intellectual conversation just in general.

01:37:33.060 You have a good following.

01:37:34.060 It gives me an opportunity to get an audience.

01:37:35.740 But I think one thing in particular about what you teach that I think is so important that

01:37:40.860 really has come to me as I've looked at the broader mental health issues is the idea of

01:37:46.920 getting better and that that needs to be the focus.

01:37:50.720 Because a lot of people talk about the stigma around mental health, and I've had a lot of

01:37:54.740 interviews about that, and I think that is important.

01:37:57.160 We're getting better on that.

01:37:58.140 We're more willing to talk about it, but there still is a stigma that will stop people from

01:38:02.680 wanting to seek treatment.

01:38:03.680 But the other piece of it is, if all we're doing is talking about mental health problems,

01:38:08.520 if all we're doing in essence is wallowing in it and saying, okay, now I have something

01:38:12.960 identifiable for why I'm so hopelessly screwed up, or just sort of voyeuristically looking

01:38:18.160 at it, what really gets me going, as you can see, is what I learned throughout this process

01:38:23.300 about how you can get better.

01:38:25.240 And I think your basic point, I watched a video, I can't remember what it was in title,

01:38:29.560 but anyways, the basic point of every day, try to make yourself better, and that will make

01:38:33.480 you happier, and you will get better.

01:38:35.020 And there's a bunch of different ways to balance it, but I worry that in America, a lot of

01:38:40.400 it on mental health has become, like I said, this is why I messed up.

01:38:44.800 Okay, so no, this is a diagnosis so that you can get better.

01:38:49.820 And I think a lot of the messages you talk about start small, okay?

01:38:54.020 You know, you're not going to solve the world's problems.

01:38:55.440 Don't compare yourself to other people.

01:38:57.640 Compare yourself to yourself and to what you want to be and what you want to do.

01:39:00.800 But work to get better, I think it's such a crucial message for the mental health of society.

01:39:07.680 Well, it's especially, one of the things that was really, really gratifying about working

01:39:12.360 as a psychotherapist was watching what happened when people did begin to take incremental steps

01:39:19.580 forward.

01:39:19.940 And it was often an exercise in, like, a painful humility, you know, because if you're weak in

01:39:27.860 an area, when you start moving forward, you have to take very small steps.

01:39:33.360 And it's a humbling experience, often, to grapple with the fact that the only thing you're capable

01:39:40.260 of doing is that tiny step forward.

01:39:42.520 You know, something absurd, if I counseled my clients, for example, to work on, maybe

01:39:47.900 I'd have a client who was 30 and still lived in his parents' in the bedroom he was in in

01:39:53.460 high school.

01:39:54.180 And it was a complete bloody mess because he'd never done anything to keep it orderly in

01:39:57.780 his whole life. 0.99

01:39:58.880 And he's 30, you know, and so there's an element of that that's pretty damn pathetic. 0.98

01:40:03.060 And we'd have to struggle to find the level at which he could grapple with that problem. 0.94

01:40:09.640 And so the injunction, go clean up your room and come back next week to the therapy session 0.99

01:40:14.860 and tell me it's done, was completely useless.

01:40:16.900 Because it might have been that he was only capable, because there was a big problem of

01:40:23.700 lurking dependency there, of cleaning up half his sock drawer.

01:40:27.820 And to realize that that's the best you can do is pretty damn humbling.

01:40:31.780 But the upside, and this is what's so cool, this is part of the Matthew principle, right?

01:40:37.540 To those who have everything, more will be given, is that once you start improving, that

01:40:43.580 improvement accelerates geometrically, not linearly.

01:40:47.680 And so even if you have to start with virtually nothing, that doesn't mean that you won't

01:40:52.300 accelerate extraordinarily rapidly.

01:40:54.560 And that's so fun.

01:40:55.500 It's so fun to help people do that, because they take these tiny steps forward in humility,

01:41:00.440 let's say, and then very rapidly, the length of step they can take lengthens remarkably.

01:41:11.300 Well, and that's, you know, going back to our equity and equality conversation.

01:41:15.740 That's something that I've always passionately believed in.

01:41:18.200 And this is one of the downsides of sort of the American meritocracy thing.

01:41:23.480 Okay, and we're wrestling this with this now is, you know, we've gotten rid of affirmative 0.92

01:41:28.840 action or any sort of race-based stuff in colleges based on the Supreme Court.

01:41:32.220 And now everyone's looking at, well, what about legacies?

01:41:34.720 You know, what about the guy who plays badminton and now he gets in?

01:41:38.460 Is I do think in America, you can go too far in this whole meritocracy thing.

01:41:43.420 You know, if you have stuff, that means you're better.

01:41:45.940 Okay, well, maybe, and maybe not, number one.

01:41:49.620 Number two, and I believe this, everybody is capable of doing better.

01:41:56.400 Okay, and throughout my life, you know, I didn't go to Ivy League school.

01:41:59.760 I grew up in a very blue-collar neighborhood.

01:42:02.260 Those, you know, and I see my friends from that neighborhood who have gone on and done

01:42:06.020 some pretty cool things with their life.

01:42:07.640 All right?

01:42:08.160 And I think too often in America, we're like, we're trying, constantly trying to call the

01:42:12.680 top.

01:42:13.420 Okay, you know, it's like, oh, this guy's the best.

01:42:15.480 You know, he got 1600 in the SAT.

01:42:17.000 And it's like, and I think one of the things that motivated me, I had a 3.2 in high school.

01:42:21.220 I had an 11.90 on the SAT, as a matter of fact.

01:42:24.920 Figuring out how to beat those people who got a 1600 in the SAT brings me an enormous

01:42:29.380 amount of joy.

01:42:30.480 Okay?

01:42:31.480 And I've done it throughout my life, you know?

01:42:33.840 And so when I see other people, people, oh, gosh, you know, he's not that smart.

01:42:37.840 You know, he's going, didn't even go to college, whatever.

01:42:39.840 It's like, no.

01:42:41.340 If you really see people, all right, and work with them, what they're capable of,

01:42:47.380 is incredible.

01:42:48.360 And so I get frustrated with both the right and the left on this.

01:42:51.940 I get frustrated with the left that sees people like this and says, oh, you know, you have to

01:42:57.360 really care of this person.

01:42:58.480 They can't really do anything.

01:42:59.840 You know, you can't put any pressure on them.

01:43:01.760 You know, I just, that's not my experience.

01:43:05.720 And then on the right, when it's like, well, that person doesn't deserve to be here.

01:43:09.100 You know, they haven't done this.

01:43:10.500 They haven't done that.

01:43:11.320 They haven't gotten the scores.

01:43:12.220 They're saying, well, let's just give a little bit here and we'll see what folks are capable

01:43:17.640 of.

01:43:18.120 And that's what I really, really want to deliver.

01:43:20.780 And it's been my experience in life is, you know, help people.

01:43:24.540 It's funny, you know, that in some ways it was your proclivity to engage in that kind

01:43:32.660 of, let's say, right-wing meritocratic thinking that was actually contributing in no small

01:43:38.720 part to the acceleration of your anxiety.

01:43:41.460 It's so interesting to see that given that, you know, you are a figure.

01:43:44.500 I hadn't thought of that before, but yes.

01:43:45.600 Well, yeah, well, and I mean, that is the problem with a strict and narrowly defined

01:43:55.040 meritocracy is that it privileges being over becoming.

01:43:59.180 That's a good way of thinking about it.

01:44:00.680 And, you know, when you were talking about the 1190 SAT, you know, one of the things,

01:44:07.200 there's no doubt that intellectual prowess as measured by such tests is a deadly accurate

01:44:12.380 predictor of long-term success.

01:44:14.260 It leaves about three quarters of the success domain unaccounted for, by the way.

01:44:19.380 But it is also the case that vision and hard work can go an awful long way to redressing

01:44:24.940 that difference in, say, initial starting point.

01:44:29.080 And so, and that is something.

01:44:30.800 I do want to give you what, I happen to be reading a Malcolm Gladwell article, and this

01:44:34.880 was probably, it's his book of essays, so it was probably 20 years ago when he wrote

01:44:39.440 it.

01:44:40.160 But, and this gets back into some of the racial issues that we face.

01:44:43.160 He was attempting to explain the difference between panicking and choking, which is not

01:44:47.800 terribly relevant here.

01:44:49.460 But one of the things he analyzed was Stanford did a study, I forget when it was that they

01:44:54.220 did this, where they gave the same test with two different explanations.

01:44:58.900 The first time they gave the test, they said, this is an IQ test.

01:45:02.020 This is to measure, you know, how smart you are, basically, how capable you are.

01:45:06.580 And when they gave that test, they gave it to black students and white students.

01:45:10.220 The white students performed significantly better than the black students.

01:45:14.120 But when they gave the same test and said, this is a survey, it isn't measuring anything.

01:45:19.500 We just want to know how you respond to these questions.

01:45:22.140 They performed at the exact same level.

01:45:24.860 And the reason, they surmised, was because of a lot of the stigma in society, the reputation,

01:45:31.860 oh, you know, black students can't do well on standardized tests, that the black students 1.00

01:45:37.020 felt a lot more pressure, okay? 0.96

01:45:38.960 They're like, oh my gosh, this is something I'm not good at, so, you know, I better figure

01:45:42.760 this out.

01:45:43.500 And they, and I always get the panicking, choking thing mixed up there.

01:45:47.820 One of them is thinking too much.

01:45:49.260 The other one is just, ah, choking.

01:45:51.180 Choking is when you think too much.

01:45:52.540 Panicking is when you stop thinking altogether.

01:45:55.660 And they kind of, kind of choked because they're like, okay, I got to think through this.

01:45:58.360 I got to be, you know, and that's just not the right way to take that test.

01:46:02.000 And it shows both that, you know, this notion of inherent, you know, capability one way or 0.62

01:46:07.220 the other is ridiculous. 0.89

01:46:08.460 Number one. 0.96

01:46:08.920 And number two, we have a long way to go to overcome some of the racial stereotypes in

01:46:14.980 both directions to move towards a more equitable society, if you'll forgive me using that

01:46:21.300 word.

01:46:22.540 Well, your, your criticisms earlier about the conservative side of things, I think are

01:46:27.300 apropos there too, is that one of the ways that we overcome the built-in inadequacies of

01:46:37.680 the current system is to provide people with a vision.

01:46:41.080 And one of the things that the left has done much more effectively than the right is to

01:46:47.440 provide a vision, you know, of equality and harmony and, and movement towards something

01:46:52.440 approximating a utopia.

01:46:54.040 Whereas the right's vision is generally something like less of, less interference is better.

01:47:01.580 And there's some truth in that, but it's not a vision, right?

01:47:04.820 It's, it's the, it's the absence of a set of constraints.

01:47:08.140 And, um, it would be lovely to see the left and the right engage in the kind of dialogue

01:47:13.740 that would, uh, produce a compelling vision that both sides could, could engage in.

01:47:20.480 I want to close because we have to close this side of the conversation fairly soon.

01:47:25.140 And I want to close with one more political question, if you don't mind.

01:47:28.600 Sure.

01:47:29.120 It's been very interesting to me to see the response by the two front runners in the 2024

01:47:35.240 presidential campaign respond to the, the possibility of engaging in debate.

01:47:43.740 I mean, Biden has, as far as I know, has indicated quite clearly that he's not going

01:47:48.740 to participate in any primary debates.

01:47:50.720 And now we have Trump making exactly the same statement on the Republican side.

01:47:55.780 And to me, first of all, this, I think this is very bad.

01:47:59.980 I think it's cowardly on both their parts.

01:48:02.640 And I think it's also a huge mistake because leaders should model that, right?

01:48:09.620 If you're a leader, if you're a genuine leader and you can listen and you can negotiate, you

01:48:14.340 should model that for your people on the stage.

01:48:16.660 And so I'm, I'm, I think it's a missed opportunity and a, and I think it's a form of instrumental

01:48:23.840 behavior as well, because both Biden and Trump are assuming, well, we're the front runners

01:48:28.900 and we have, we have, we have nothing except loss on the debate side.

01:48:34.040 And, you know, that's, that's not a position that's associated in my estimation with confidence

01:48:39.580 and authority because the proper attitude should be, well, number one, the people deserve to

01:48:45.540 hear us put our ideas forward and to have them challenged, period.

01:48:49.760 And number two, well, if you're the guy, well, why not take the opportunity to indicate that?

01:48:56.800 And so what do you think about the fact that, you know, the two front runners have dropped

01:49:01.160 out of the debate?

01:49:01.980 They're out of the, they've, they've foregone the debate opportunities.

01:49:06.820 Well, I have multiple thoughts about that.

01:49:08.680 As I alluded to earlier, it's always been my philosophy.

01:49:11.800 Let's engage.

01:49:12.780 And I'm never afraid of engaging anywhere, anytime, asking what, whatever question comes,

01:49:18.240 comes at me.

01:49:18.960 I mean, I was, I was doing a forum at the Brookings Institute talking about, um, I think it was

01:49:24.440 Ukraine specifically and the code pink people stormed the stage and tried to shut it down. 0.63

01:49:29.680 This woman's yelling and asking a question. 1.00

01:49:31.780 And I, and I just said, I said, you know, actually, I think that's a really good question.

01:49:34.500 I'd love to have the conversation, which of course she did not want to have.

01:49:38.320 Um, but so I think in general, engage, all right, as much as you possibly can.

01:49:45.000 And then number two, from a political standpoint, I'm a huge sports fan.

01:49:47.880 So I tend to use sports analogies, but we've gotten almost through this entire interview

01:49:50.760 without me using one.

01:49:51.600 But, you know, if you're ahead and you're playing not to lose, you're losing.

01:49:56.680 That's always been my philosophy.

01:49:58.180 You know, you got to play to win every second, every play.

01:50:02.080 It's funny.

01:50:02.780 I think, I think my wife could hear this, but it's the way I watch baseball.

01:50:05.860 And she's like, my gosh, you would think this was the world series.

01:50:09.000 It's one inning and one game.

01:50:10.840 And I'm like, you know, and I'm focused on it.

01:50:13.140 All right.

01:50:13.720 Because I just think, you know, you got to try to be doing your best at every second.

01:50:18.220 You get ahead and think you're going to hold on.

01:50:20.480 And I can't exactly explain it, but I've played enough, you know, games in my life to know

01:50:25.780 psychologically, once you get to that place where you're trying to hold on instead of

01:50:29.860 trying to win, you're vulnerable.

01:50:32.600 So you don't want to be there.

01:50:33.700 Yeah, or trying to improve or trying to improve, right?

01:50:36.340 Because, well, the thing is, you think about what's happened psychologically.

01:50:40.340 Here's what's happened is you shifted into a defensive stance.

01:50:44.600 Exactly.

01:50:45.060 And that means all challenge will now be experienced as stress.

01:50:48.720 Now, if you reverse that and say, of course, I'll take the opportunity to debate, then you're

01:50:53.540 taking on the challenge voluntarily.

01:50:55.580 And that produces an entirely different set of not only psychophysiological responses, because

01:51:01.960 it's a challenge rather than a threat, but it also broadcasts a kind of confidence in your

01:51:06.780 own ability to progress that's part and parcel of being willing to engage.

01:51:12.080 It's a much better measure.

01:51:13.960 It's a much better indication of leadership concretely, right?

01:51:17.940 Merely the willingness to get into the fray, which we did today.

01:51:22.440 Yes, exactly.

01:51:23.040 So I agree with you as a mistake.

01:51:23.940 The other part of it, though, that I spent a lot of time wondering about, try to be careful

01:51:27.880 about this, but, you know, speaking is something that I'm good at.

01:51:33.420 It's, you know, my whole life, I've been able to articulate ideas in a comfortable and

01:51:38.340 effective way.

01:51:39.080 And I think that is an important part of leadership.

01:51:43.000 But then, you know, and this is my egalitarian side, I guess, what makes me more on the left

01:51:47.920 side of the political spectrum.

01:51:49.040 I'm like, well, is it really the case if you just happen to not be that articulate that

01:51:53.980 you're necessarily a worse leader?

01:51:56.300 Okay, is that the case?

01:51:57.820 You know, maybe you've got the ideas, maybe you're good in a crisis, you work with a team

01:52:02.020 and do all that, but standing up and giving a speech, not the thing you're best at.

01:52:05.720 And I've certainly worked with colleagues, by the way, who in a million years, I wouldn't

01:52:10.360 want to be sitting on the floor listening to them give a speech, but I know they're someone

01:52:14.020 that I can count on.

01:52:15.160 I know that they're going to do the work, they know the issues, they'll work together.

01:52:18.900 So is a public debate really the one way to figure out who's going to best lead a community?

01:52:26.480 I think we fall a little bit in love with that idea.

01:52:28.980 I always think of a quote that Dennis Miller had about Michael Dukakis, about how Michael

01:52:34.220 Dukakis never really had a chance because he lacked that superficial charisma that we

01:52:38.440 seem to look for in our leaders.

01:52:41.060 You know, so I'm mindful of that as well.

01:52:44.060 I think people place too much emphasis on the debates.

01:52:49.740 So all that said, I still think they should do it.

01:52:53.200 I guess the final criticism I have is the debate formats are difficult.

01:52:57.800 This conversation between you and I is dependent upon both of us being reasonable with the other

01:53:03.580 person.

01:53:04.380 You know, yeah, I'm not going to talk over you.

01:53:06.420 You're not going to talk.

01:53:06.960 If you have a question, you'll interject it, but you do it in a polite and respectful way.

01:53:10.820 You know, you look at the debate that Trump and Biden had, the first one, when, yeah,

01:53:15.720 I mean, is that really useful when there's no construct?

01:53:19.760 And then they said, well, you got one minute, one minute, and then you're done.

01:53:22.860 Well, okay, how informative is that?

01:53:25.360 All right.

01:53:25.760 When, when I, I love chairing the armed services committee because I tried to run it in a fair

01:53:31.240 way.

01:53:31.880 All right.

01:53:32.400 I would include people in the conversation and not everyone got the same amount of time

01:53:36.920 all the time because that's, that's not how you have a good conversation.

01:53:40.620 You need a moderator who's honestly trying to make sure that we get the issues out in

01:53:45.900 a fair and balanced way.

01:53:47.040 And I guess I would, is that possible in today's era?

01:53:50.340 Is it possible to do that in a way that the two candidates aren't just going to be shouting

01:53:54.360 over each other in an unproductive way?

01:53:56.620 I don't know.

01:53:57.320 Well, you know, I'm really, I'm really hopeful with regards to political communication on

01:54:04.120 the long form, with regards to long-term format podcasts, because they give people the opportunity

01:54:11.280 to speak in an unscripted manner, relatively deeply, spontaneously, right?

01:54:16.860 Which, which is a good way of detecting both ability and the proclivity to, to deceive and

01:54:23.240 to deepen the political conversation.

01:54:25.060 And, you know, we had these terrible restrictions on broadcast accessibility that were part and

01:54:30.120 parcel of the legacy TV environment, but that's all gone.

01:54:33.460 And so now there's no reason, even for debates, you know, there's, there would be no reason

01:54:37.840 whatsoever not to hold a forum of this sort with a variety of different candidates and

01:54:42.680 actually have a conversation.

01:54:43.920 Because you don't have to, the thing about debates is they're very time limited and structured

01:54:48.960 and you can see why that's necessary when television bandwidth is hyper expensive, but

01:54:53.200 in some ways there's no reason for that anymore.

01:54:55.800 Anyways, we should stop.

01:54:58.000 I'm going to, for everybody watching and listening, I'm going to continue talking to Congressman

01:55:03.160 Smith on the Daily Wire side and we'll do what I usually do there and delve into issues

01:55:09.000 that are more autobiographical.

01:55:10.400 I think that's particularly germane in this case because of Congressman Smith's new book,

01:55:17.220 Lost and Broken, My Journey Back from Chronic Pain and Crippling Anxiety.

01:55:21.040 We're going to talk about that in some more detail on the Daily Wire Plus side.

01:55:24.800 Thank you very much for agreeing to talk to me.

01:55:27.680 Hopefully that'll set a trend on the Democrat side.

01:55:30.140 I guess we'll find out, or at least somewhat of a trend, because it would be lovely to be

01:55:33.860 able to have discussions that reach across the aisle and to attempt to reverse some of

01:55:41.520 this terrible proclivity towards polarization that really threatens the integrity, I would

01:55:46.260 say, of the West, the integrity of the U.S., the integrity of the West more broadly.

01:55:49.760 So it's much appreciated.

01:55:51.640 For everyone watching and listening, please join us on the Daily Wire Plus side for an

01:55:55.780 additional half an hour.

01:55:57.020 And thank you to the Daily Wire Plus for making this conversation possible.

01:56:01.760 Pleasure to talk to you, sir.

01:56:02.860 Likewise, I appreciate the chance.

01:56:05.020 Thank you.

The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast - November 09, 2023

395. Difficult Conversation as the Precondition to Progress ｜ Adam Smith

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