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The World Knows We Are Divided How Can It Be Compared From Colin Woodard · Arroe Collins Like It's Live

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  Speaker 1: How many times have you heard about a podcast and
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  Speaker 1: you can't find it. You'll go to iHeart, You'll go
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  Speaker 1: to Spotify, you'll go to Apple, can't find it. That's
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  Speaker 1: why we created ero dot net. It's all on there,
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  Speaker 1: all twenty podcasts. A r r oe dot Net. One
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  Speaker 1: of the biggest ones. That voice. I've spent the past
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  Speaker 1: ten years with those that have been featured on NBC's
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  Speaker 1: The Voice. Listen to their stories those opening days before
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  Speaker 1: fame stepped onto their path. That voice only on Arrow
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  Speaker 1: dot Net. A r r oe dot Net. Enjoy your exploration.
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  Speaker 2: Hello er, can you hear me?
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  Speaker 1: I can hear you? Man? What a great country hunh
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  Speaker 1: that we can hear each other and it didn't require
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  Speaker 1: a cup and a string.
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  Speaker 2: Amazing technology at work.
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  Speaker 1: You gotta like that kind of stuff. Speaking of technology
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  Speaker 1: at work, the research that you have put into this project,
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  Speaker 1: my god, you really put a lot of time into.
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  Speaker 3: This multiple books, yeah, as the foundation of it, and
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  Speaker 3: then yeah, with expensive.
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  Speaker 2: Research and polling and yeah. But it's fun stuff. Passionate.
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  Speaker 1: See, that's the part of the stuff that the listeners
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  Speaker 1: don't understand is the journey to get there. They always
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  Speaker 1: get the end results, they don't get the journey. And
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  Speaker 1: that's the part that I think is the most fascinating.
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  Speaker 1: It's like the Rodieta concert. I want to see that
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  Speaker 1: stage built, then give me the show, right, Yeah.
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  Speaker 3: And I started in Eastern Europe and the Balkans with
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  Speaker 3: the collapse of communism and watching you know, nation state
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  Speaker 3: structures and people trying to figure out their national stories
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  Speaker 3: and identities under duress.
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  Speaker 2: And yeah, so it's a long backstory in my case.
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  Speaker 1: So when you go into a story like that, though,
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  Speaker 1: and you see things falling apart, how do you stop
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  Speaker 1: people from bending the story so that it best fits
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  Speaker 1: what they think is the actual interpretation?
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  Speaker 2: Yeah? Well, I mean the.
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  Speaker 3: Best you can do is try to bring a fact
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  Speaker 3: based you know, here's what actually happened, and try to
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  Speaker 3: bring it to people in a way that they can
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  Speaker 3: meet them where they are, but with the right information.
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  Speaker 2: So I mean that's.
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  Speaker 3: Essential in a country that you know, what's unusual about
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  Speaker 3: Americans as we don't know our history. We're sort of
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  Speaker 3: an amnisiatic people who've been trained to think, you know,
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  Speaker 3: when our people left the old place wherever that was,
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  Speaker 3: and came here, you know, we became new people. We
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  Speaker 3: could leave the past behind and you know, start our
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  Speaker 3: own destiny as if the past and history doesn't matter,
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  Speaker 3: But it does, and it catches up to you eventually,
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  Speaker 3: and it's definitely caught up the United States.
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  Speaker 1: Oh dude, you're speaking my soul and my street. And
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  Speaker 1: the reason why is because my grandparents both came from Germany.
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  Speaker 1: I have no idea what their story is, but it's
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  Speaker 1: part of the American story because he went on to
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  Speaker 1: fight in World War One and then his kids were
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  Speaker 1: all part of the World War Two as well as
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  Speaker 1: the Korean War. So if this man would not have
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  Speaker 1: come to America and the woman, then my god, we
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  Speaker 1: would have been missing some very important players in.
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  Speaker 2: This Yeah, totally yep.
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  Speaker 3: And the story of our country bringing people from all
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  Speaker 3: over the place to dynamism and you know, electricity that
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  Speaker 3: creates to have people from all over the world showing
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  Speaker 3: up here and you know, oftentimes having a chance to
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  Speaker 3: be Americans or an equal chance to be Americans.
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  Speaker 2: That's kind of been our superpower as a federation.
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  Speaker 1: Well, we need people like yourself to share this openness.
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  Speaker 1: And the reason why is because I'm blessed with the
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  Speaker 1: opportunity to talk to a lot of young adults. And
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  Speaker 1: the thing about it is is that you bring up
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  Speaker 1: that word democracy, they ain't talking. And I think it's
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  Speaker 1: because they don't know the definition or they don't want
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  Speaker 1: to participate with something that might, you know, get you ghosted.
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  Speaker 2: Yeah.
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  Speaker 3: Well, if I think a lot of people say, hey,
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  Speaker 3: if this is a democracy, well you know, everything's kind
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  Speaker 3: of crappy right now.
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  Speaker 2: You know, I vote against this.
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  Speaker 3: Right it's a vote against that rome And if the
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  Speaker 3: status post called democracy, they're voting maybe rightly against that word.
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  Speaker 3: But when you really talk to young people, I find
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  Speaker 3: like the things they're angry about, you know, America is
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  Speaker 3: not a democracy because of exce and a why it's
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  Speaker 3: almost always because America is not achieving the ideals in
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  Speaker 3: the Declaration of Independence. And when when you really talk
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  Speaker 3: to them, they're angry about that, they're not they don't
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  Speaker 3: disagree with the ideals, they disagree, they're upset that we're
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  Speaker 3: not achieving them. Once you say, hey, but do you
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  Speaker 3: agree that these are the ideals we should be trying
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  Speaker 3: to describe for they're like, well, yes, you know so
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  Speaker 3: that once you get around that nihilism, the notion that
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  Speaker 3: there is something that.
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  Speaker 2: We agree we're for.
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  Speaker 3: They're usually pretty on board, maybe not with the word democracy,
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  Speaker 3: but with the you know, the natural rights promises of
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  Speaker 3: trying to create a liberal democratic society small L, small
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  Speaker 3: B where all humans can be free and have people
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  Speaker 3: opportunities to be free.
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  Speaker 2: And free over time. Right.
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  Speaker 3: You don't just let freedom, you know, concentrate in the
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  Speaker 3: hands of a group of families that share the benefits
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  Speaker 3: of themselves.
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  Speaker 2: That's an aristocracy.
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  Speaker 3: You know. Those are things that people pretty rapidly agree with,
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  Speaker 3: but you got to unpack it for them because unfortuately,
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  Speaker 3: the word democracy is sort of you know, tainted by
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  Speaker 3: its association with you know, all this.
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  Speaker 1: Hey, please don't move. There's more with Colin Woodard coming
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  Speaker 1: up next. There is your vision, but what are you
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  Speaker 1: going to do about it? Let's check back in with
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  Speaker 1: Colin wood Yeah. One of the biggest talks is that
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  Speaker 1: there's a division in this country. I think one a
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  Speaker 1: division that we're not talking about is the division between
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  Speaker 1: the younger, younger generation and the older generation like myself,
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  Speaker 1: because the thing I keep hearing is why didn't you
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  Speaker 1: do something about it? And it's like, oh god, oh god,
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  Speaker 1: that really is on my generation isn't it. Why didn't
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  Speaker 1: we do something about it? Because the younger generations are
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  Speaker 1: saying you should have stepped up.
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  Speaker 2: Well, I don't know. I mean, like, I'm a gen
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  Speaker 2: F sir.
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  Speaker 3: My answer is always like, you know, to millennials, they're like,
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  Speaker 3: I'm a gen xer. We were a tiny generation in
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  Speaker 3: the shadow of the Baby Boomer's controlled everything. Nobody wrote
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  Speaker 3: articles about what's gen X thinking, right, They nobody cared
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  Speaker 3: what we were thinking.
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  Speaker 2: We were just like, you know, as a generation, you're like,
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  Speaker 2: you know, even if we wanted to change things, no
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  Speaker 2: one was listening. So I mean, we didn't have a chance.
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  Speaker 3: The millennials everyone paid attention to, and they're rightly, you know,
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  Speaker 3: upset with the way things have turned out. And you
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  Speaker 3: get to Gen Z and even Jen l Fi. I've
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  Speaker 3: got one of each as kids, so I kind of
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  Speaker 3: followed that generation pretty closely. I don't know, I sort
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  Speaker 3: of feel like the kids are all right. I mean
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  Speaker 3: people write about it, but you know, their level and
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  Speaker 3: their friends level of understanding about how the world works
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  Speaker 3: and it's deficiencies and stuff. Our way ahead of what
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  Speaker 3: I could have had as a young person as a
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  Speaker 3: gen xer, just because technology and stuff is enabling them
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  Speaker 3: to pay attention, and I think in general they're you know,
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  Speaker 3: criticisms of the way things are are pretty valid criticisms.
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  Speaker 3: And they're much larger generations unlike Gen X, so maybe,
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  Speaker 3: you know, as they become more influential, I feel like
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  Speaker 3: they're going to be a net, you know, force pushing
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  Speaker 3: in the right direction.
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  Speaker 1: Here's one of the reasons why I'm so inspired by you.
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  Speaker 1: It's because I did some research for iHeartRadio about where
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  Speaker 1: are the activators, where are the rebels today like they
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  Speaker 1: once had in the fifties and sixties. And what they're
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  Speaker 1: doing is they said, they're there. They are the writers,
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  Speaker 1: they are the authors. They don't have to be in
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  Speaker 1: the protest out there chanting and things. Just get yourself
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  Speaker 1: actively involved and get yourself into the community, because I mean,
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  Speaker 1: you even talked about it, protecting your community, life, liberty,
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  Speaker 1: the pursuit of happiness. We it's there, we just have
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  Speaker 1: to have someone like you to step forward saying come on,
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  Speaker 1: let's go, let's make it happen.
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  Speaker 3: Yeah, well, you need to be you know, you know,
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  Speaker 3: there's a lot of people are against the way things
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  Speaker 3: are now, and one way or another.
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  Speaker 2: But the trick is you also have to be.
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  Speaker 3: For something as well, and that's been a trickier thing
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  Speaker 3: for the you know, criticism of the status quo what
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  Speaker 3: are you for?
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  Speaker 2: And I think, you know the Declaration.
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  Speaker 3: We're lucky in this legacy document which sounds kind of cheesy,
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  Speaker 3: you know, the values in the Declaration, but they're really
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  Speaker 3: good ideals. I mean, it's just like what Lincoln was
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  Speaker 3: talking about at Gettysburg, pledging the country too, that this
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  Speaker 3: dream shouldn't perish from the earth. It's what Frederick Douglass
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  Speaker 3: was saying and arguing for in every single speech. It's like,
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  Speaker 3: these are good ideals. You Americans ought to try them, right.
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  Speaker 3: It's Martin Luther King Junior at the moment it rights itself.
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  Speaker 2: It's inspiring.
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  Speaker 3: The ideals and values and the Declaration if you actually
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  Speaker 3: implement them and follow them, lead to a good place.
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  Speaker 3: And they happen to be you know, written into our
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  Speaker 3: psyche as Americans going back.
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  Speaker 2: Two hundred and fifty years.
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  Speaker 3: So we're really lucky in that our inherited legacy story
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  Speaker 3: is actually a good story that leads to good places.
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  Speaker 3: We just you know, have forgotten how to use it.
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  Speaker 3: So it's we've got a big advantage. It's just a
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  Speaker 3: matter of like utilizing a powerful tool we.
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  Speaker 2: Have and figuring out how to do that. So my
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  Speaker 2: project's doing a lot of that kind of stuff.
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  Speaker 3: We're we're pulling and message testing to figure out ways
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  Speaker 3: to describe to people, to show people how you talk
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  Speaker 3: about this vision we know is super popular, what the
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  Speaker 3: states should be.
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  Speaker 1: Well, you're playing the game exactly the way that I
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  Speaker 1: like it. You ask the questions, you question the answers,
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  Speaker 1: and I find that to be very inspiring from you.
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  Speaker 2: Thank you, thank you. I mean with objective methodology.
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  Speaker 3: Had a career in both scholarship and journalism and investigative journalism,
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  Speaker 3: and it's all about you know, here's the.
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  Speaker 2: Research question, trying to figure out what's true.
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  Speaker 3: And once you actually can establish what's true, safe's rightly
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  Speaker 3: what it is? Wow?
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  Speaker 1: Where can people go to find out more about you?
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  Speaker 1: Because ten minutes with you is not enough nowhere near it.
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  Speaker 1: I need them to go to your website or where
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  Speaker 1: you are so they can learn more about you and
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  Speaker 1: everything that you're growing forward.
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  Speaker 3: For sure, a nation ode lab where we have all
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  Speaker 3: this wealth of stuff on polling, on regional divides and
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  Speaker 3: all of the rest is at Salve dot Edu. That's
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  Speaker 3: s Alve slash Pell Center p E l L. And
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  Speaker 3: there's a wealth of stuff at Nationhood Lab. On all
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  Speaker 3: of this you can dig deep and maps, graphics and
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  Speaker 3: all kinds of neat stuff that will help flush this
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  Speaker 3: out in greater detail.
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  Speaker 1: Please come back to this show anytime in the future.
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  Speaker 1: The door is always going to be open for you,
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  Speaker 1: mister Colin.
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  Speaker 2: Thank you to be happy to do that.
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  Speaker 1: Excellent, be brilliant today.
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  Speaker 2: Okay, we'll do into