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Malcolm on No Small Endeavor · Revisionist History

0:15
Speaker 1: Bushkin. Hello, Hello, Malcolm. Here today we're sharing something a
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Speaker 1: little different on revisionist history. I'm bringing you back in
0:24
Speaker 1: time to my beginnings. I'm sharing an episode of the
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Speaker 1: acclaim podcast No Small Endeavor, where I sat down with
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Speaker 1: my friend, the host and award winning theologian Lee Camp
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Speaker 1: to discuss some of my most cherished moments in my
0:40
Speaker 1: journey thus far. Produced by Great Fielding Studios and p
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Speaker 1: r X, No Small Endeavor brings you thoughtful conversations with
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Speaker 1: best selling authors, artists, theologians and philosophers like Hollywood legend
0:52
Speaker 1: Rob Reiner and civil rights hero Reverend James Lawson about
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Speaker 1: what it means to live a good life. In my episode,
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Speaker 1: we discuss some of my favorite stories, from receiving permission
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Speaker 1: from my mother to cut class, spending three days a
1:07
Speaker 1: week in Freudian therapy as a young adult, all of
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Speaker 1: which contributed to who I am today. Be sure to
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Speaker 1: check out No Small Endeavor wherever you get podcasts and
1:17
Speaker 1: tell them I say hello, and without further ado, here
1:21
Speaker 1: is the full episode.
1:25
Speaker 2: I'm Lee C. Camp and this is No Small Endeavor
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Speaker 2: exploring what it means to live a good life. You're
1:34
Speaker 2: probably familiar with the work of Malcolm Gladwell. Perhaps you've
1:37
Speaker 2: read one of his New York Times bestselling books like
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Speaker 2: The Tipping Point or Outliers, or maybe you listen to
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Speaker 2: Malcolm's podcast or Visionist History. But how well do you
1:46
Speaker 2: know the man himself?
1:47
Speaker 1: There's a pear in my life where I spent a
1:49
Speaker 1: huge amount of time in Freudian therapy.
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Speaker 2: Today we learn what made Malcolm malcolm like, what pushed
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Speaker 2: him to get really good at explaining things.
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Speaker 1: My father and my brothers were incapable of explaining.
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Speaker 2: Things, or how his dad influenced his curiosity.
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Speaker 1: My whole childhood was spent listening to my father meet
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Speaker 1: random strangers and him asking them questions. He had no
2:14
Speaker 1: insecurities about declaring himself ignorant in.
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Speaker 2: An area all coming right up, I'm leasey camp. This
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Speaker 2: is no small endeavor exploring what it means to live
2:30
Speaker 2: a good life. There's a fascinating scene in the TV
2:36
Speaker 2: show Ted Lasso where Ted makes a huge bet on
2:40
Speaker 2: a game of darts to help out a friend. His
2:42
Speaker 2: opponent assumes Ted knows nothing about the game as Ted
2:46
Speaker 2: makes a few less than excellent throws with his right hand.
2:49
Speaker 2: But that's when Ted reveals that he's not right handed
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Speaker 2: and hits a bull's eye with his left and while
2:54
Speaker 2: Ted is hustling his opponent, he says, guys have been
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Speaker 2: underestimating me my entire life. But he continues that he'd
3:02
Speaker 2: come to realize that they're underestimating him had nothing to
3:05
Speaker 2: do with him, but rather them. They had failed, says Ted,
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Speaker 2: to practice that wisdom be curious, not judgmental, and just
3:14
Speaker 2: before he clinches the wind, Ted says that if they
3:17
Speaker 2: were curious, they would have known that he played darts
3:20
Speaker 2: every Sunday with his father from age ten until he
3:23
Speaker 2: was sixteen, when his father passed away. It's one of
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Speaker 2: the great moments of television, in this poignant moment of
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Speaker 2: character development, granting insight that reveals new depth, new dimensions.
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Speaker 2: This fundamental posture to be curious not judgmental allows us
3:39
Speaker 2: to ask good questions and thereby get a glimpse into
3:41
Speaker 2: the fascinating journeys which have led another to become the
3:45
Speaker 2: person they are. We try to do this in some
3:47
Speaker 2: way with all of our guests, but our interview today
3:50
Speaker 2: is an especially such poignant moment. You may think you
3:53
Speaker 2: know Malcolm Gladwell New York Times bestselling author of Outliers,
3:56
Speaker 2: The Tipping Point Blink, host of the wildly popular podcast
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Speaker 2: Revisionist History, and when I first began to prepare for
4:02
Speaker 2: my time with Malcolm, I was first drawn into curiosity
4:05
Speaker 2: about the stories Malcolm tells so well. But then I
4:08
Speaker 2: began to note the tendencies and habits and traits Malcolm
4:11
Speaker 2: exhibits in his storytelling, and that made me curious about
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Speaker 2: why Malcolm is Malcolm, How his family's inability to explain
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Speaker 2: things made him want to explain things, How his dad
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Speaker 2: taking him to a Mennonite barn raising as a kid
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Speaker 2: influenced what he thought was possible and what regrets he
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Speaker 2: may or may not have, including a year of Freudyent
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Speaker 2: therapy three times a week in New York City. Today,
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Speaker 2: our conversation with Malcolm Gladwell taped in front of a
4:36
Speaker 2: small audience in Nashville, days before our annual Thanksgiving show
4:41
Speaker 2: at Nashville's Skirmerhorn Symphony Hall, where Malcolm headlined Enjoy Malcolm.
4:47
Speaker 2: Timothy Gladwell, Canadian journalist and author's been a staff writer
4:51
Speaker 2: for the New Yorker since nineteen ninety six, wrote for
4:54
Speaker 2: The Washington Post for ten years. Malcolm has published seven
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Speaker 2: books with at least five New York Times bestsellers. Appointed
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Speaker 2: to the Order of Canada in twenty eleven, and he
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Speaker 2: is the host of the podcast Revisionist History. Please make welcome,
5:10
Speaker 2: Malcolm Badwell, Welcome to Nashville again.
5:20
Speaker 1: Thank you.
5:20
Speaker 2: Good to have you back here in music City. I
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Speaker 2: understand that you've at least had a number of entertaining episodes,
5:29
Speaker 2: certainly those of us who've listened to your podcast a
5:32
Speaker 2: good bit, no fascinating conversations with fascinating Nashvillians. But you recently,
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Speaker 2: like today, told me a very entertaining story about a
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Speaker 2: Nashville experience that you once had that seems classic Nashville
5:44
Speaker 2: to me. And you were running.
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Speaker 1: I went running. This is actually now only that I
5:50
Speaker 1: reflect on it after talking to you about it. I
5:52
Speaker 1: think this is the perfect national story. Yes, if that
5:55
Speaker 1: doesn't raise the bar too high.
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Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, I'm.
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Speaker 1: A runner and I everyone tells me I got a
6:00
Speaker 1: run in Percy Warner Park, so make my way out there,
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Speaker 1: get stuck in traffic, get there a little late.
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Speaker 2: So far it is the perfect Nashville story.
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Speaker 1: Yeah, it's I think it's July. It's probably ninety some
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Speaker 1: odd superhuman, still the perfect natural story. And I decide
6:20
Speaker 1: it's too hot to go running with my T shirt,
6:24
Speaker 1: so I just wear a per of shorts, which you
6:27
Speaker 1: could do, right.
6:28
Speaker 2: I go running, which you can do, which I can do.
6:31
Speaker 1: So I go off and I climb that big road.
6:33
Speaker 1: I'm going around Percy Water Park and it's a little late.
6:36
Speaker 1: It starts to get a little dark, but I think
6:38
Speaker 1: I'm fine, but I get lost, not just mildly lost,
6:42
Speaker 1: like completely one hundred percent. I have no idea where
6:45
Speaker 1: I am. I can't see any lights. I don't know
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Speaker 1: what am I gonna do. So I'm drenched in sweat
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Speaker 1: and I'm just wearing a pair of shorts, and I
6:54
Speaker 1: stand by the side the road and I hitchhike. Big
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Speaker 1: beefy guys in like four f one fifties, don't stop,
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Speaker 1: take one look at me. There's no part of it. Finally,
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Speaker 1: a girl, and I say a girl, because she was
7:10
Speaker 1: probably in her early twenties, little battered hond Accourt stops
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Speaker 1: rolled down the window. Can I help you, sir? And
7:17
Speaker 1: I said, first of all, you should not be picking
7:20
Speaker 1: me up.
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Speaker 2: You're not.
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Speaker 1: What are you doing that? Strange dude? In the middle
7:26
Speaker 1: of the night, drenched in sweat. But I get in
7:29
Speaker 1: and I said, why did you do that? And she said, well,
7:32
Speaker 1: I was coming from Bible study, and today we studied
7:35
Speaker 1: the story of the Good Smear.
7:41
Speaker 2: As a boy, you lived in like three countries, at
7:44
Speaker 2: least briefly. Is that what I understand?
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Speaker 1: Born in England, spend a lot sometime in Jamaic, my
7:48
Speaker 1: mom's Jamaica, and then we moved to Canada, and then
7:52
Speaker 1: I came down here.
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Speaker 2: So your father's Englishman, My.
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Speaker 1: Dad is an Englishman, my mom's They met in college
8:01
Speaker 1: University College, London in the fifties.
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Speaker 2: You have many memories of Jamaica at all.
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Speaker 1: Well, we would go there regularly when I was growing up,
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Speaker 1: and so eventually most of my family there have moved
8:15
Speaker 1: to Canada and the US. But as a kid, yeah, yeah,
8:19
Speaker 1: we were.
8:20
Speaker 2: Yeah, all of those experiences. What do you think that
8:25
Speaker 2: did for your just sense of self or sense of identity.
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Speaker 1: Well, I'm a strong believer in the idea that we
8:33
Speaker 1: have multiple identities and that we have the right to
8:41
Speaker 1: rank them in the order that we choose. One of
8:45
Speaker 1: the things that irritates me about the world is that
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Speaker 1: the world sometimes chooses for you how to rank your
8:49
Speaker 1: own identities. I always think of my mom, who to
8:52
Speaker 1: give you For example, my mom is a a black woman,
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Speaker 1: a Jamaican, a woman, a Christian, a therapist, a writer,
9:02
Speaker 1: a mother, and a wife, and a Canadian. I mean
9:08
Speaker 1: I going I would say that over the course of
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Speaker 1: her life, the way she ranks all of those identities
9:14
Speaker 1: has changed, and I think it constantly changes. And I
9:18
Speaker 1: think she's ninety two, I think they may change again.
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Speaker 1: But like the world, you know, various people in the
9:24
Speaker 1: world would look at her and say she maybe she's
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Speaker 1: number one a black women, and she would say, I
9:27
Speaker 1: don't know. I might have been number one a black
9:30
Speaker 1: women when I was twenty three and in England for
9:33
Speaker 1: the first time and being treated like, you know, less
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Speaker 1: than a full person, but I don't haven't been treated
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Speaker 1: that way in thirty years. Why should I foreground that
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Speaker 1: identity anyway? That idea that there are many parts of
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Speaker 1: us and we get to choose which part is most
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Speaker 1: important is I think that's what I picked up from
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Speaker 1: all of those kind of shifting situation's environments when I
10:00
Speaker 1: was a kid.
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Speaker 2: So two finow up questions on that one we unpack more.
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Speaker 2: Why that sharply irritates you.
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Speaker 1: Well, because it diminishes. When we do that to people,
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Speaker 1: we diminish their humanity, and we presume to understand them
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Speaker 1: when in fact we don't. And so I had said,
10:27
Speaker 1: did I get in trouble? I have part of a company,
10:29
Speaker 1: and we have these company meetings every now and again.
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Speaker 1: I did it and asked me anything with the staff,
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Speaker 1: and someone's asked, in a relatively hostile way, did I
10:40
Speaker 1: think the company was sufficiently diverse? And I said two
10:46
Speaker 1: things in response. One is, don't I count? And the
10:50
Speaker 1: second thing I said, Well, I said to the whole staff,
10:53
Speaker 1: if any of you is a Republican, raised your hand,
10:55
Speaker 1: and no one did. And I said, well, if we're
10:58
Speaker 1: going to call ourselves a diverse company, shouldn't we have
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Speaker 1: some Republicans. Now this was treated like I had said
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Speaker 1: some terrible thing. I'm serious. I mean, my definition of
11:09
Speaker 1: diversity encompasses a dozen different dimensions of human complexity, and
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Speaker 1: I think I actually value diversity very I take it
11:20
Speaker 1: very seriously. And the book I'm reading right now has
11:22
Speaker 1: a lot about diversity. But my definition of diversity is broad.
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Speaker 1: If I had my way, we would have more of
11:31
Speaker 1: every kind of person, and we would be a richer
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Speaker 1: place for it. And I object to a definition of
11:36
Speaker 1: diversity that's super narrow. And that's why this is a
11:40
Speaker 1: kind of top of mind.
11:41
Speaker 2: Issue for Yeah. So back to your childhood and you
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Speaker 2: said that you think that that experience allows you to
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Speaker 2: begin to pay attention to multiplicity of identities and the
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Speaker 2: possibility of ranking those when you look back at that
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Speaker 2: young Malcolm, what were some of the key identities for
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Speaker 2: him at that time being raised in Canada.
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Speaker 1: Well, so I'll tell you other story. My dad, who
12:12
Speaker 1: passed sadly a few years ago, but who was a
12:15
Speaker 1: marvelously independent minded man, a big beard. He was a mathematician,
12:21
Speaker 1: and he al was dressed in a suit and a
12:22
Speaker 1: tie even when he was gardening, which.
12:24
Speaker 2: Is his favorite thing. But he was an Englishman.
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Speaker 1: He was an Englishman, took it very seriously, but he
12:30
Speaker 1: loved we lived in this Mennonite community. He loved the
12:33
Speaker 1: Mennonites and was sort of thought everything they did was
12:37
Speaker 1: kind of fascinating him. And they used to have barn raisings.
12:40
Speaker 1: When a barn burned down, they would all gather. These
12:42
Speaker 1: are mostly conservative Menonites, so people who drove horses and buggies.
12:46
Speaker 1: They would all gather, they would get together, like the
12:49
Speaker 1: next weekend, hundreds of them. They would descend on that
12:53
Speaker 1: farm and they would rebuild the barn in essentially a
12:56
Speaker 1: day right famous barn raising. My dad decided when I
13:00
Speaker 1: was a kid once that he would attend a barn raising. So,
13:03
Speaker 1: if you can imagine, we drove you off into the
13:07
Speaker 1: middle of the countryside in our.
13:09
Speaker 2: Involv of course, and he's not a Mennonite, no, he's.
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Speaker 1: A Presbyterian with a big beard, in an English accent
13:15
Speaker 1: and wearing a suit and die. So we get in
13:17
Speaker 1: our volvo and he shows up and everyone else's bandies
13:20
Speaker 1: are clean shaven, and they're all wearing black cloth garments,
13:24
Speaker 1: and they have their horses and buggies out front, and
13:26
Speaker 1: they all go to the same church, and they all
13:28
Speaker 1: know each other. And this englishman with a PhD in
13:32
Speaker 1: advanced mathematics shows up in his volvo with his three
13:36
Speaker 1: sons in tow and announces he'd like to join right now.
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Speaker 1: They were fine with it. They gave him stuff to
13:42
Speaker 1: do and blah blah blah. But my point is my
13:44
Speaker 1: dad was the kind of person who it never occurred
13:47
Speaker 1: to him that that was a socially awkward thing to do.
13:53
Speaker 1: It just didn't occur to him. He was like, I'm
13:56
Speaker 1: your neighbor. I live down the road, I know some
13:59
Speaker 1: of you. I love farming. He wanted to be a farmer.
14:03
Speaker 1: I mean, there was no part of him. You know,
14:06
Speaker 1: he believed in the same god.
14:07
Speaker 2: God.
14:08
Speaker 1: What does the Bible say, It says help your neighbor.
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Speaker 1: So he was there, right, that's the sort of that's
14:13
Speaker 1: what I grew up with. Now would I do that,
14:15
Speaker 1: Probably not. But it's incredibly powerful influence on you to
14:22
Speaker 1: have as a father someone who does that without even
14:25
Speaker 1: thinking about it. I mean he never even discussed it
14:27
Speaker 1: with it. He just like, we're going get in and
14:32
Speaker 1: came back and thought it was like the best experience.
14:35
Speaker 2: So were you bookish as a boy?
14:39
Speaker 1: I was. I would my father would take me, take
14:43
Speaker 1: me out of school and take me to university and
14:46
Speaker 1: just deposit me in the library. And it was the happiest.
14:51
Speaker 1: It was like, those are my happiest child of memories
14:53
Speaker 1: are playing hooky. It wasn't hooky. What do you call it?
14:56
Speaker 1: When you are it's being done with your parents' consent.
14:59
Speaker 1: I don't know what that is. But it was parental
15:01
Speaker 1: hooky that we played. And I would just wander around
15:05
Speaker 1: the university library well you know, be ten or eleven, huh,
15:08
Speaker 1: And and then i'd have, you know, I have lunch
15:10
Speaker 1: with him and have a hamburger in the cafeterias. Fantastic,
15:13
Speaker 1: never had hamburgers at home.
15:14
Speaker 2: I think I heard you saying some interview that maybe
15:16
Speaker 2: your mother would sign.
15:18
Speaker 1: That was later. My mom then became deeply complicit in
15:22
Speaker 1: my truancy. She understood that I was going to seek
15:27
Speaker 1: to rebel as a teenager, and so she decided what
15:31
Speaker 1: she would do is just anticipate it and meet me there.
15:34
Speaker 1: So she at one point, when she saw that I
15:37
Speaker 1: wasn't that interested in going to school, she would write
15:40
Speaker 1: notes Malcolm is sick today, can in school and leave
15:43
Speaker 1: the date blank and just give me a bunch of them.
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Speaker 1: Amazing in retrospect, so genius, Like how do you rebel
15:51
Speaker 1: against that? She's like, she's like already signed off on it,
15:55
Speaker 1: you know, like it's fine.
15:57
Speaker 2: Whatever did you rebel as a teenager? No?
16:00
Speaker 1: How could I? My mother foreclosed out responsibility that avenue I.
16:07
Speaker 2: Were to think of one or two words and thinking
16:09
Speaker 2: about the kind of work you do. I think curiosity
16:11
Speaker 2: would be certainly high on the list. Or do you
16:14
Speaker 2: see that coming from your childhood?
16:18
Speaker 1: Well, I'm going to talk to my dad again. He
16:22
Speaker 1: was deep. I realized. It took me a long time
16:25
Speaker 1: to realize this was unusual in someone. But in his
16:30
Speaker 1: obituary I wrote that he considered him himself an expert
16:35
Speaker 1: in only three things mathematics, gardening, and the Bible, and
16:43
Speaker 1: on everything else he was open to suggestion, and that
16:46
Speaker 1: was really his position. That he just assumed if he
16:50
Speaker 1: met someone that they knew more than he did on
16:53
Speaker 1: their subjects of chosen of choice, and that he should
16:57
Speaker 1: just ask questions and learn. And my whole childhood was
17:02
Speaker 1: spent listening to my father meet random strangers figure out
17:06
Speaker 1: what areas they knew more about than he did, and
17:10
Speaker 1: him asking them questions. I thought that was normal. I
17:13
Speaker 1: discovered later that that's not normal. But so I had
17:16
Speaker 1: a kind of model of this kind of extreme and
17:18
Speaker 1: a lot of it was grounded in He had no
17:21
Speaker 1: insecurities about declaring himself ignorant in an area. I didn't
17:27
Speaker 1: have a problem with that. It's like, oh, I don't
17:28
Speaker 1: want to go with that. Right, even on things he
17:30
Speaker 1: knew a lot about. If he met a theologian, he
17:33
Speaker 1: wouldn't even pretend to know more about them than the
17:35
Speaker 1: Bible or gardening. If he thought that, you know more
17:39
Speaker 1: about Delphinians and he did it all ears, let's go.
17:43
Speaker 1: It's a kind of extreme version of curiosity. Again, I
17:46
Speaker 1: don't think I can match that, but it's a really
17:48
Speaker 1: powerful model to be given as a kid.
17:53
Speaker 2: How do you think the virtue of humility? I mean,
17:56
Speaker 2: I would as sen there's like almost a direct correlation
17:59
Speaker 2: or causative effect between humility and curiosity. But how do
18:02
Speaker 2: you think about that? Oh?
18:04
Speaker 1: I do think I agree, I would agree to that.
18:05
Speaker 1: I would think it's impossible without having It's odd though,
18:09
Speaker 1: So there's two parts of it. One is humility that
18:12
Speaker 1: you don't presume that you know things you don't know.
18:16
Speaker 1: But you also have to have a lot of self
18:18
Speaker 1: confidence because you have to be completely indifferent to the
18:25
Speaker 1: consequences of letting the world know about what you don't know.
18:29
Speaker 1: You do not care, right, And my dad was a
18:31
Speaker 1: supremely self confident person. So that allowed him, I think,
18:35
Speaker 1: to to kind of expose himself in this way. Is
18:39
Speaker 1: as being you know he didn't have any kind of
18:41
Speaker 1: hang up most people. The real reason people aren't curious,
18:45
Speaker 1: I think is not so much that they lack humility,
18:47
Speaker 1: but that they lack confidence and they're not willing to
18:50
Speaker 1: kind of show themselves to the world as not knowing things.
19:06
Speaker 2: You're listening to No Small Endeavor in a conversation with
19:09
Speaker 2: Malcolm Gladwell, I love hearing from you. Tell us what
19:12
Speaker 2: you're reading, who you're paying attention to, or send us
19:14
Speaker 2: feedback about today's episode. You can reach me at Lee
19:17
Speaker 2: at No Small Endeavor dot com. Recently, for example, received
19:21
Speaker 2: a lovely email from Anna Wildey, writing in from New
19:24
Speaker 2: Zealand retired teacher of literacy, Miss Wilde, It's so very
19:28
Speaker 2: nice to have you joining us. You can get show
19:30
Speaker 2: notes for this episode in your podcast app or wherever
19:33
Speaker 2: you listen. These notes include links to resources mentioned in
19:36
Speaker 2: this episode, as well as a PDF of my complete
19:39
Speaker 2: interview notes and a full transcript. We would be most
19:42
Speaker 2: delighted if you tell your friends about No Small Endeavor
19:45
Speaker 2: and invite them to join us on the podcast, because
19:47
Speaker 2: it helps extend the reach of the beauty, truth, and
19:50
Speaker 2: goodness we are seeking to sew in the world. Also,
19:54
Speaker 2: Malcolm joined us for our big end of year blowout
19:56
Speaker 2: show at the Skirmmelhorn Symphony Hall. We will be releasing
19:59
Speaker 2: those interview segments on NSC plus. If you're not a
20:02
Speaker 2: subscriber to NSC plus, you can do so by going
20:05
Speaker 2: to our website at No Small Endeavor dot com and
20:08
Speaker 2: click subscribe. Coming up, Malcolm and I discuss tactics for
20:13
Speaker 2: explaining things to people, the moral and practical importance of storytelling,
20:18
Speaker 2: and is rather strong opinions on Ivy League schools.
20:23
Speaker 1: Which I think are completely and utterly morally bankrupt.
20:41
Speaker 2: So fast forward to your vocation. You said at one point,
20:45
Speaker 2: I just want to explain things to people.
20:49
Speaker 1: Yeah, so this we're talking excessively about my family. If
20:52
Speaker 1: that's okay? Is that okay?
20:53
Speaker 2: We're gonna move on in a minute.
20:54
Speaker 1: Okay, there are two things. So my family's divided down
20:58
Speaker 1: the middle. There's my mom and me on one side,
21:01
Speaker 1: and then there's everybody else, my brothers and my father.
21:04
Speaker 1: My father and my brothers were incapable of explaining things,
21:09
Speaker 1: so my father would just go and then my brother Jeff,
21:15
Speaker 1: who I love dearly, just would talk endlessly and not
21:19
Speaker 1: get anywhere. And as a kid. This drove me crazy.
21:23
Speaker 1: So you know how you're constantly playing games as a kid,
21:25
Speaker 1: and there's always a moment where you've got to teach
21:27
Speaker 1: your cousin how to play Hearts, and so my father
21:31
Speaker 1: would be incapable, and my brother would give this incredibly
21:34
Speaker 1: long explanation of a going over, and then finally, in frustration,
21:37
Speaker 1: I would just say, okay, everyone shut up. This is
21:40
Speaker 1: how you play Hearts and the mistakes people make it
21:43
Speaker 1: explaining things just to drive me. As I can remember
21:45
Speaker 1: it as like an eight year old being driven crazy
21:47
Speaker 1: by this. The thing you start with is what is
21:50
Speaker 1: the point of the game. Start with that. The point
21:53
Speaker 1: of monopoly is to amass as many properties as you
21:57
Speaker 1: can and put everyone else bankrupt.
21:58
Speaker 2: Right.
21:59
Speaker 1: You don't explain the game before you explain the point,
22:01
Speaker 1: right like people would start without doing and I would
22:04
Speaker 1: read the Parker Brothers at instructions and I would say,
22:07
Speaker 1: why didn't you tell me what the point.
22:08
Speaker 2: Is in the you were speaking my love language.
22:13
Speaker 1: To drive me to this day, this drives me nuts.
22:16
Speaker 1: Explain it properly, right. So I think that was where
22:22
Speaker 1: my career as a journalist is born.
22:23
Speaker 2: Huh.
22:24
Speaker 1: I was like I grew up in a household where
22:27
Speaker 1: sixty percent of the members of our house, my household,
22:30
Speaker 1: could not explain the simplest thing to anybody else.
22:35
Speaker 2: So before we go on from just a note about
22:38
Speaker 2: your father and higher education, I want to ask one quie.
22:40
Speaker 2: I don't want to talk long about this, but you
22:42
Speaker 2: certainly in your career as a journalists you seem to
22:45
Speaker 2: have a pretty strong love hate relationship with higher education.
22:48
Speaker 1: Oh my god, don't even get me started. Leave you
22:51
Speaker 1: said you only we only have ninety minutes, You're I
22:55
Speaker 1: have just give.
22:56
Speaker 2: Us a three to four minute excursis on that. I mean,
22:59
Speaker 2: I can't, Yeah, you can't.
23:01
Speaker 1: Can't even Okay, I'll ask follow up questions. Okay, I'll
23:04
Speaker 1: tell you. I just wrote I'm writing a see to
23:09
Speaker 1: my first book with Tipping Point. There is literally a
23:11
Speaker 1: chapter called why does Harvard have a women's rugby team?
23:18
Speaker 1: Which is six thousand words of explanation for why the
23:23
Speaker 1: school would do something that otherwise makes no sense. So
23:27
Speaker 1: it's not that I'm fine with them having a club
23:29
Speaker 1: rugby team. They don't have a club. They have a
23:32
Speaker 1: varsity women's rugby team, and they go to like New
23:34
Speaker 1: Zealand to recruit people for it. They got like multiple coaches,
23:38
Speaker 1: They fly around the country. They destroy other teams by
23:40
Speaker 1: the score of like one hundred and five to nothing.
23:43
Speaker 1: They have like a pro rugby team. They introduce this
23:47
Speaker 1: in twenty thirteen, and they already, you know, Harvard already
23:51
Speaker 1: has more varsity sports than any other college in the world.
23:55
Speaker 2: I did not know that.
23:55
Speaker 1: Oh yeah, by far, Ohio State doesn't even come close
23:58
Speaker 1: or Alabama. Harvard's way off there. So I have a
24:01
Speaker 1: whole grand theory about why they're doing it, which I'm
24:03
Speaker 1: not going to go into because we don't have time.
24:05
Speaker 1: But my point is, yes, I am obsessed with even
24:08
Speaker 1: the smallest details. I have read stuff about, particularly Ivy
24:12
Speaker 1: League colleges which I think are completely an utterly morally
24:15
Speaker 1: bankrupt and should be shut down tomorrow. And the idea
24:20
Speaker 1: that Americans stand by.
24:22
Speaker 2: Way, you can't just say that, Well that one's asking
24:24
Speaker 2: to follow up, what's what's the what's the root of
24:31
Speaker 2: the moral bankruptcy?
24:33
Speaker 1: Harvard is a school that educates what ten thousand students
24:37
Speaker 1: maas and has an endowment of forty five billion, which
24:42
Speaker 1: is subsidized by the American taxpayers. Can you think of
24:46
Speaker 1: a more absurd situation where a handful of schools, the
24:49
Speaker 1: total endowment of the Ivy League and Stanford is north
24:52
Speaker 1: of one hundred billion dollars collectively, they educate one hundred
24:58
Speaker 1: thousand students a yere a tiny, tiny drop in a bucket. Meanwhile,
25:02
Speaker 1: they're hoarding one hundred and twenty billion dollars getting tax benefits,
25:08
Speaker 1: all of which is subsized by the American taxpayer. And further,
25:11
Speaker 1: the government's channeling funneling all kinds of cash towards them.
25:15
Speaker 1: And it's absurd. And at the other end of the equation,
25:18
Speaker 1: there are hundreds of thousands, if not millions, of students
25:22
Speaker 1: in this country who are holding enormous amounts of debt
25:26
Speaker 1: because the schools that they went to couldn't afford to
25:29
Speaker 1: give them financial aid. Who would construct such a system?
25:34
Speaker 1: It makes no sense. If you're going to have forty
25:37
Speaker 1: five billion dollars in the bank, the very least you
25:39
Speaker 1: should do is educate one hundred thousand students a year.
25:42
Speaker 1: At minimum, you should educate ten times as many students
25:45
Speaker 1: as you do. In Canada, where I come from the
25:48
Speaker 1: most prestigious school in Canada's University of Toronto. It is
25:51
Speaker 1: an undergraduate population of seventy thousand students, as it should.
25:56
Speaker 1: Your most prestigious school should be your biggest school, right Like,
26:01
Speaker 1: if you really do have the best faculty, in the
26:03
Speaker 1: best facilities, and the most money and the greatest reputation,
26:07
Speaker 1: you should try and help them some number of students.
26:10
Speaker 1: This is like saying if I were to build the
26:13
Speaker 1: greatest hospital in the South, and I said, Lee, I'm
26:17
Speaker 1: going to open it in Nashville, It's going to be
26:20
Speaker 1: the greatest hospital in the world. And here's what I'm
26:21
Speaker 1: going to do. I'm going to let in one hundred
26:23
Speaker 1: patients a year. You can bring in people on a
26:26
Speaker 1: stretcher and fifty a day, have the ambulances line up,
26:32
Speaker 1: and then I will spend the next two weeks assessing them,
26:35
Speaker 1: and I will choose one for admittance to my elite
26:39
Speaker 1: cardiac center and one for the dinner I'll take in one.
26:43
Speaker 1: I'll have a neurosurgeon and he'll do one operation a day,
26:47
Speaker 1: just to make sure it's the absolute top night. If
26:50
Speaker 1: they did that, we would think that's bananas, right, Yep,
26:53
Speaker 1: That's exactly the system we tolerate in American higher ch
26:58
Speaker 1: It's preposterous. By the way, I'm not done. What do
27:05
Speaker 1: rich people in this country do? They look at that
27:07
Speaker 1: state of affairs, and they may they increasing large checks
27:11
Speaker 1: to the schools that already have the most money. It's
27:14
Speaker 1: even crazier, right, the marginal value of a dollar given
27:18
Speaker 1: to Harvard University is zero. There's literally nothing they can
27:22
Speaker 1: do with that, Like they're already every base is already covered.
27:26
Speaker 1: If you gave a million dollars to this college, I mean,
27:30
Speaker 1: we could talk all day about what that could do,
27:31
Speaker 1: what you would do with that. If you give a
27:33
Speaker 1: million dollars to Harvard, you might as well just burn
27:36
Speaker 1: it in front of Harvard in Harvard Square. It's just crazy.
27:41
Speaker 1: And literally not a week goes past when some hedge
27:45
Speaker 1: fun guy doesn't a matter a check for two hundred
27:47
Speaker 1: million dollars to Harvard University. And every time I see that,
27:49
Speaker 1: I just think you are a moron.
27:53
Speaker 2: Right, Well, I'm glad that we found something that you're passionate. Yeah,
27:59
Speaker 2: I want to move to a moral philosophy just a second,
28:02
Speaker 2: And actually i'll do a quick callback to something you
28:04
Speaker 2: said a moment ago about rolls and multiplicity of identities,
28:08
Speaker 2: which is something that narrative theology and moral philosophy that
28:12
Speaker 2: takes narrative and story seriously talks about that a lot.
28:16
Speaker 2: But it strikes me that since the Enlightenment, moral philosophy
28:23
Speaker 2: typically has much more focused on rules and principles, just
28:25
Speaker 2: tell us the right thing to do, rules and principles.
28:28
Speaker 2: But prior to the Enlightenment, a lot of ancient moral
28:31
Speaker 2: traditions they focus very much more on story because storytelling
28:37
Speaker 2: was fundamentally a morally formative practice in helping people think
28:42
Speaker 2: about their sense of self, about what they saw as
28:44
Speaker 2: beautiful and true and good. And obviously this wasn't moralistic storytelling,
28:51
Speaker 2: but it was story as a moral practice. And it
28:55
Speaker 2: seems to me that that's the kind of storytelling you
28:59
Speaker 2: like to do. That is that you're trying to tell
29:01
Speaker 2: stories that invite us to a different sense of self
29:06
Speaker 2: or a different way of seeing the world that is
29:09
Speaker 2: then an invitation to be changed in some way. Do
29:12
Speaker 2: you resonate with that or does that seem to be yeah?
29:15
Speaker 1: Right, So going back to that story I told about
29:18
Speaker 1: my national story, So does the girl stop if at
29:23
Speaker 1: her Bible study they talked about how we have a
29:27
Speaker 1: moral obligation to help those less fortunate than us. Right,
29:31
Speaker 1: that's one option. That's what they could have studied if
29:34
Speaker 1: they were just interested in rules and principles. But they didn't.
29:37
Speaker 1: They studied a story, a very concrete story about, you know,
29:42
Speaker 1: a member of a despised minority who goes out of
29:47
Speaker 1: his way. He disrupts his routine and puts himself to
29:52
Speaker 1: a lot of trouble to help somebody doesn't know, right,
29:55
Speaker 1: very concrete story that's in her head. She's driving down
29:59
Speaker 1: a road and what does she see someone in distress
30:01
Speaker 1: by the side of the road, and she has to
30:03
Speaker 1: put herself in some kind of jeopardy to stop and help.
30:08
Speaker 1: And she has that the story in her head, so
30:10
Speaker 1: she does it right, Like that's what a story can do.
30:13
Speaker 1: I don't think she stops if it's just an abstract thing,
30:17
Speaker 1: But there was some kind of in the specifics of
30:21
Speaker 1: the story of the Good Samaritan. There is something really
30:25
Speaker 1: powerful that moves people in a way that the abstract
30:29
Speaker 1: discussion is not, Which is not to say the abstract
30:31
Speaker 1: discussion is without value, sure, but there's a particular power
30:35
Speaker 1: attached to the story that and I've always loved that.
30:37
Speaker 1: And I did the six part series on guns this
30:40
Speaker 1: for the Revision's history this year. In the last episode,
30:43
Speaker 1: I went to the University of Chicago and I was
30:46
Speaker 1: interviewing someone there for while I was there, she said, Oh,
30:48
Speaker 1: you should really talk to my colleague Abdullah, and so
30:52
Speaker 1: this is totally random thing, and I went, okay, and
30:55
Speaker 1: I go and meet this guy who's a er doc
30:59
Speaker 1: at the University of Chicago. Grew up in the South
31:01
Speaker 1: Side of Chicago, black guy who chose to practice emergency
31:06
Speaker 1: medicine in the same neighborhood he grew up, which is
31:10
Speaker 1: one of the most dangerous neighborhoods in the country. And
31:13
Speaker 1: he was describing the experience of on any given day
31:17
Speaker 1: he will see someone brought in on a stretcher who's
31:19
Speaker 1: been shot, who's someone he knew. And there's a moment
31:23
Speaker 1: in a conversation where he talks about I asked him
31:25
Speaker 1: how many friends he's had who have been killed, and
31:32
Speaker 1: he actually has this He's a, you mean like people
31:34
Speaker 1: I was close enough too that they were in my phone,
31:36
Speaker 1: like I've been texting with him. I go yeah, he
31:38
Speaker 1: goes fifteen, Oh right, And the whole conversation is I
31:43
Speaker 1: had framed it in the episode is framed by this
31:46
Speaker 1: comment that this I had done a couple of seasons ago.
31:50
Speaker 1: This whole thing about the Jesuits thinking like a Jesuit,
31:56
Speaker 1: and that's one Jesuit has said to me. Sin is
31:58
Speaker 1: the failure to bother to care. And the whole episode
32:01
Speaker 1: is all about what does it mean to bother to care? Now?
32:06
Speaker 1: Sin is the failure to bother to care? Is the
32:08
Speaker 1: abstract rule. This guy, Abdolah Price's decision to forego a
32:14
Speaker 1: much easier, more lucrative life practice is an ear doc
32:18
Speaker 1: in a suburb someplace to go back and practice in
32:21
Speaker 1: his own neighborhood and run the risk of this traumatic
32:27
Speaker 1: thing where it's kids he knows coming in right, that's
32:31
Speaker 1: a story, it's real about his choices, and it's just
32:35
Speaker 1: emotionally moving in the and it makes that principle come
32:38
Speaker 1: to life. Right suddenly you get what suggests what mean
32:43
Speaker 1: when he's saying sin is defailure to bother the care?
32:46
Speaker 1: He means that he means, he means you have to
32:50
Speaker 1: make the same kind of choice that that guy made.
33:04
Speaker 2: We're going to take a short break, but coming right up,
33:06
Speaker 2: Malcolm's definition of happiness and what quality he values the
33:10
Speaker 2: most in people. I want to talk about happiness a second.
33:23
Speaker 2: So in this kind of school of moral theory that
33:29
Speaker 2: I've raised her, happiness defined a particular way is seen
33:36
Speaker 2: as the point of life. And I wanted to do
33:41
Speaker 2: a little short experiment here, and I wanted to read
33:44
Speaker 2: you a short passage from a Catholic theologian whose work
33:47
Speaker 2: I like, Paul Waddell, and I've used his book in
33:50
Speaker 2: a number of my ethics classes. It's a book called
33:52
Speaker 2: Happiness and the Christian Moral Life, And I want to
33:54
Speaker 2: see what you make of it. So what Ell says this,
33:57
Speaker 2: the trajectory of our lives can be read as an
34:01
Speaker 2: endless pursuit of whatever we think will satisfy us, content us,
34:05
Speaker 2: and fulfill us. All of that reveals what we believe
34:09
Speaker 2: will bring us happiness and satisfaction. The trouble, however, is
34:14
Speaker 2: that we are often confused and easily misled about what
34:18
Speaker 2: will really fulfill us. Then he's talking about Aquinas in Aristotle.
34:22
Speaker 2: He says, for Aquinas in Aristotle, happiness does not reside
34:27
Speaker 2: in having my wants and desire satisfied unless I have
34:32
Speaker 2: learned to want and desire what is.
34:35
Speaker 1: Best that's lovely, lovely.
34:40
Speaker 2: I think it's lovely. Yeah, why do you find it lovely? Well?
34:44
Speaker 1: First of all, I like it gives us a definition
34:47
Speaker 1: of the purpose of a religious life that's different, that
34:54
Speaker 1: it adds to our understanding of that. And I like
34:57
Speaker 1: the idea that I love any kind of notion that
34:59
Speaker 1: says that are that left to our own devices, we
35:02
Speaker 1: often get things wrong. I like that that's an important
35:05
Speaker 1: reminder we just willly nearly follow what's in our gut
35:11
Speaker 1: as often as not screw up right. I My book Blink,
35:14
Speaker 1: which was misinterpreted as a book celebrating gut instincts when
35:17
Speaker 1: in fact it was the opposite, was about this, like,
35:20
Speaker 1: unless you're an expert, your instincts lead you astray. You
35:23
Speaker 1: need to educate them in some way. And the idea
35:25
Speaker 1: that one of those civilizing institutions in life is the
35:30
Speaker 1: church is a really good one. That's like a life love.
35:34
Speaker 1: The way he phrased it, you're sixty, don't remind me.
35:42
Speaker 2: Are you happy?
35:43
Speaker 1: Yeah? I mean I don't, Yes, I do think I'm happy.
35:47
Speaker 1: It's funny, I never asked myself that question that comes
35:50
Speaker 1: to mind in very very discreet moments, so I'm much
35:53
Speaker 1: more comfortable saying I was happy doing X, Or I
35:57
Speaker 1: was happy when do you know what I mean? I
36:00
Speaker 1: fixed a problem in a chapter I was working on
36:03
Speaker 1: this morning in a little coffee shop in Nashville. I
36:08
Speaker 1: was happy when I realized that fixed it. Or I
36:10
Speaker 1: will go running this afternoon afterward it be this, I
36:12
Speaker 1: will be happy in the middle of that running. That's
36:14
Speaker 1: how I like to think about happiness.
36:15
Speaker 2: Yeah, what about when you think about being sixty? What
36:23
Speaker 2: regrets or hardest lessons learned? To whatever degree you want
36:29
Speaker 2: to talk about those?
36:31
Speaker 1: I don't do I have. I must have regrets. I've
36:34
Speaker 1: a ton of it. I suppose I have a lot, but
36:36
Speaker 1: they're not like. The problem is that very often the
36:40
Speaker 1: mistakes you made or the failures you have, turn out
36:43
Speaker 1: to be so important in educating you, and that in
36:50
Speaker 1: the end you don't think of them as mistakes anymore,
36:52
Speaker 1: you know, I mean like, Yeah, So I do firmly
36:54
Speaker 1: believe that you learn way more from your failures than
36:57
Speaker 1: you do from your successes. I don't think success teaches
37:00
Speaker 1: you much at all. The only thing that prods you
37:03
Speaker 1: to dig deeper is when something doesn't work or when
37:07
Speaker 1: something fails. And now, so after a lifetime of that,
37:12
Speaker 1: can you really look on your failures as being can
37:16
Speaker 1: you classify them as as regrettable? They're not regrettable because
37:21
Speaker 1: I came out different than I get confused by that
37:25
Speaker 1: question because I don't know how to categorize. Like, there's
37:29
Speaker 1: a period of my life where I spent a huge
37:31
Speaker 1: amount of time in Freudian therapy.
37:34
Speaker 2: Right, three days a week, you were receiving therapy.
37:38
Speaker 1: I was receiving it. I was in Manhattan. I was
37:40
Speaker 1: new to Manhattan. I was like, all right, that's what
37:44
Speaker 1: they do here. So and I had a job that
37:48
Speaker 1: wasn't that demanding. You can't have a demanding job, and
37:50
Speaker 1: you can't have a demanding job and be in three
37:53
Speaker 1: days a week Freudian therapy because it just wipes out
37:55
Speaker 1: the whole day. Right, there's something that happens, by the way.
37:58
Speaker 1: So I have this whole Manu book. It's a top
38:00
Speaker 1: of mind. I have a whole thing on the magic
38:02
Speaker 1: number three, three years a magic number. So you do
38:05
Speaker 1: one day a week, it's like, fine, whatever lots of
38:07
Speaker 1: people do one day week, you do two, it's like
38:09
Speaker 1: a lot. You do three, it completely takes over your life.
38:13
Speaker 1: Nothing everything else fades into insignificance. You are someone who
38:17
Speaker 1: does therapy. That's what your self definition is is, by
38:21
Speaker 1: the way, astounding how it takes over your life. I've
38:24
Speaker 1: never been through anything equivalent to this.
38:26
Speaker 2: How long a period of your life was this?
38:28
Speaker 1: I probably wasn't three days a week for I don't
38:30
Speaker 1: even remember. Probably was a year. It was traumatic. It
38:35
Speaker 1: was like, couldn't function, stop being productive at work, had
38:40
Speaker 1: the most horrendous nightmares. Everything I was my unconscious because
38:45
Speaker 1: all the Freudians cary about is you're unconscious. My unconscious
38:47
Speaker 1: basically took over my life for a year. We see
38:51
Speaker 1: a massive amount of time and a massive amount of
38:53
Speaker 1: money was spent on this. It's the last year in
38:59
Speaker 1: so you I say it was that a regret? I know,
39:03
Speaker 1: because actually I didn't. It didn't solve any of my problems,
39:07
Speaker 1: but it was, in retrospect a failure that was deeply fascinating. Yeah,
39:12
Speaker 1: that taught me something really extraordinary about not really my mind,
39:16
Speaker 1: but about the human mind. Man. There is a thing
39:20
Speaker 1: called you're unconscious, and it is ginormous. It sits in
39:25
Speaker 1: your brain wanting to get out, and if you even
39:28
Speaker 1: so much as crack the door, it will rush out
39:32
Speaker 1: a tick of your life it says we are scary, right,
39:35
Speaker 1: human beings. That was a really interesting to learn, right,
39:38
Speaker 1: I mean, a very costly lesson. But you know, who
39:42
Speaker 1: knows what book I could have written in that year,
39:44
Speaker 1: that last year. But I'm I'm glad I did it.
39:48
Speaker 2: Yeah, well, and that reminds me of you reframing the
39:52
Speaker 2: notion of the regrettable. That another theologian I've learned a
39:55
Speaker 2: lot from and has now a friend, Stanley Harrawass, And
39:58
Speaker 2: when he talks about this way of thinking about our lives.
40:01
Speaker 2: I once heard him to a lecture where he was talking.
40:03
Speaker 2: I don't remember who it was, but it was a
40:05
Speaker 2: man who went to Oxford, got trained in literature, was
40:09
Speaker 2: a poet. But then after some time he decided he
40:13
Speaker 2: wanted to go back home and be a shepherd. And
40:16
Speaker 2: so he was a shepherd, and he was a shepherd
40:18
Speaker 2: who would write poetry. And at some point on into
40:22
Speaker 2: his life, near the end of his life, he wrote
40:24
Speaker 2: this essay in which he examined the ups and downs
40:29
Speaker 2: of his life and then he came to the conclusion
40:33
Speaker 2: this is my life. I want no other. And then
40:37
Speaker 2: Harawa said, that's the meaning of a happy life is
40:41
Speaker 2: that you can look back on your life, whatever has happened,
40:45
Speaker 2: and say I want this life.
40:49
Speaker 1: My friend Bruce has this wonderful corollary to that. He
40:52
Speaker 1: had problems with jealousy. He was open about and he
40:56
Speaker 1: cured his problems with jealousy by saying, you can no
40:59
Speaker 1: longer be envious of a piece of someone's life. You
41:05
Speaker 1: have to want the whole life. So you say, Okay,
41:08
Speaker 1: I wish I looked like Brad It you're lendious of
41:11
Speaker 1: Brad Pitt. He's handsome dude. Then you have to say, no,
41:14
Speaker 1: you can't just have his looks. Gotta have his whole life.
41:16
Speaker 1: You really want his whole life. No, you don't want
41:17
Speaker 1: his whole life. You want Angeline and Jolie like you know,
41:20
Speaker 1: like filing suits against you, and like you can't you
41:24
Speaker 1: can't get you can't go to the store and get
41:26
Speaker 1: like a pint of milk because you'll be mommed. I mean,
41:29
Speaker 1: you're a prisoner, right. It's a horrendous life, right, and
41:32
Speaker 1: you think about it, You're living in some grotesque house
41:37
Speaker 1: in la and you can't go out with that. Some
41:39
Speaker 1: guy's gonna pull up in a suburban to take you in.
41:41
Speaker 1: You know, a black suburban with tinted windows, so you can,
41:44
Speaker 1: you know, go to the movie. I mean, you don't
41:45
Speaker 1: want it, right, and if you go down the list,
41:48
Speaker 1: you realize you actually don't want anyone's life except your own.
41:50
Speaker 1: It's really really a useful Uh, that.
41:52
Speaker 2: Is very useful. Yeah, it's striking how timid you are
41:55
Speaker 2: about saying what you think. Okay, I want to shift.
42:00
Speaker 2: I want to shift the conversation. Another another phrase that
42:03
Speaker 2: I know I've heard you say repeatedly is a weeper.
42:10
Speaker 2: He'll say, this is a real weeper. Yeah, So getting
42:15
Speaker 2: ready for you coming to Nashville. I was listening to
42:17
Speaker 2: your episode The King of Tears, which I would imagine
42:20
Speaker 2: a lot of people in Nashville listen to Rob volves
42:23
Speaker 2: around Nashville and country music, and it's woven together with
42:26
Speaker 2: all these beautiful layers of storytelling about Bobby Braddock, famed
42:31
Speaker 2: Nashville songwriter who you're calling the King of Tears because
42:34
Speaker 2: he's written all of these amazing songs that are just weepers,
42:37
Speaker 2: and you're especially weaving it together around his song he
42:42
Speaker 2: Stopped Loving Her Today, which George Stones made famous. Yeah,
42:47
Speaker 2: and so while listening to this episode, I was down
42:51
Speaker 2: on the floor in my house, scraping baseboards, getting ready
42:54
Speaker 2: for the painters to come.
42:55
Speaker 1: Did you start crying?
42:57
Speaker 2: Don't get asked my story. I can't believe you did that.
43:04
Speaker 2: I would never do that to one of your stories.
43:10
Speaker 2: So I'm down on the floor scraping basseboards, getting ready
43:14
Speaker 2: vas and you come to this climactic moment of you know,
43:18
Speaker 2: recounting George Jones' funeral, and then you weave into Vince
43:22
Speaker 2: Gill singing his own weeper Go Rest High. And there
43:26
Speaker 2: I am down on my hands and knees, sobbing as
43:30
Speaker 2: Vince gil himself breaks down at George Jones' funeral and
43:34
Speaker 2: cannot get himself through his own song, Go Rest High.
43:37
Speaker 2: And so I'm in there file, you know, sobbing, tears
43:39
Speaker 2: running in my face, and then you say something like
43:44
Speaker 2: and if you're not crying, there's nothing I can do
43:46
Speaker 2: for you.
43:47
Speaker 1: I can't help you.
43:48
Speaker 2: I can't help you.
43:48
Speaker 1: I can't help you.
43:49
Speaker 2: I can't help you. So what's behind your fascination with weepers?
43:55
Speaker 1: Well, it's too easy to make someone laugh. People were
44:00
Speaker 1: just laughing now, right, super easy making someone cry. So
44:05
Speaker 1: under what circumstances could I make some portion of you
44:09
Speaker 1: right now cry really hard. Right, So I'm naturally attracted
44:16
Speaker 1: to the more difficult of the narrative tasks.
44:19
Speaker 2: So what do you think is the line between kind
44:22
Speaker 2: of manipulative or mawkish sentimentality on one side and emotion
44:30
Speaker 2: that somehow is speaking to the fullness or the richness
44:34
Speaker 2: of life for the possibilities of living life. Well, what's
44:36
Speaker 2: what's it's like?
44:38
Speaker 1: And simple? It's whether it's you know, there are hall
44:40
Speaker 1: there are Hallmark commercials that can get you a little weepy,
44:44
Speaker 1: but that's not real, you know that, And then you
44:47
Speaker 1: then you stop, and then I remember there was a
44:50
Speaker 1: famous I say famous famous to me. It was a
44:54
Speaker 1: Google an ad for Google for Google Chat or something.
44:57
Speaker 1: It was a TV commercial and it's you see the
45:01
Speaker 1: daughter who's just gone off to college, and you see
45:03
Speaker 1: the dad who's chatting with her, and it's like the
45:08
Speaker 1: dad's type being in the chat line, I miss you
45:11
Speaker 1: so much, you know it's been And then you really,
45:15
Speaker 1: you know, it's been so long since mom left us
45:19
Speaker 1: or something, and you realize she's his only daughter, his wife,
45:23
Speaker 1: the mom has died, and as he's typing that thing
45:27
Speaker 1: about mom to her on Google chat, the cursor slows
45:30
Speaker 1: down so you realize he's choking up. Right, It's insanely manipulative.
45:35
Speaker 1: If I showed it to you right now, we're all
45:37
Speaker 1: in tears. But that's not real, right, I want it real.
45:42
Speaker 1: They're like you think about them, and you you ask
45:46
Speaker 1: questions about your own life, like would I've done that?
45:49
Speaker 1: Should I be doing that? Why am I not doing that?
45:52
Speaker 2: Right?
45:53
Speaker 1: Why am I not the good Samaritan? Like? That's that's
45:56
Speaker 1: the kind of story that's important and powerful.
46:00
Speaker 2: I got one last question. It may be one that's
46:02
Speaker 2: easy for you to dismiss, but let me ask you
46:05
Speaker 2: to dig for a potential answer to it. What is
46:12
Speaker 2: there about Malcolm Gladwell that you've not given us any
46:18
Speaker 2: glimpse of that you would be happy for people to
46:23
Speaker 2: get a glimpse of.
46:25
Speaker 1: That's a good question. I think a lot about work
46:31
Speaker 1: and effort and how important effort is to me in
46:37
Speaker 1: my own life and in my estimations of others. That
46:41
Speaker 1: what I want to see from myself and from the
46:44
Speaker 1: people around me is I want to see some level
46:49
Speaker 1: of commitment and that what I as I get older,
46:53
Speaker 1: what I'm I'm going to sound very very nineteenth century.
46:56
Speaker 1: When I say this, I've become less and less tolerant
47:02
Speaker 1: of idleness. I mean that in a very, very kind
47:05
Speaker 1: of specific way, and that is, you have have to
47:09
Speaker 1: care about something. I don't care what it is. You
47:12
Speaker 1: have to care about something, and you have to make
47:15
Speaker 1: a sacrifice in pursuit of that thing you care about,
47:18
Speaker 1: and you have to try, right And if you're not caring,
47:24
Speaker 1: putting some effort towards something and making a commitment to it,
47:28
Speaker 1: then I, honestly I don't have any way to relate
47:31
Speaker 1: to you anymore. I don't, I can't. I don't have
47:35
Speaker 1: room in my life for people who aren't who don't
47:37
Speaker 1: have a connection to whatever it is. I don't, like
47:39
Speaker 1: I said, I don't care. I don't really care what
47:41
Speaker 1: it is. I want someone to find something that they
47:44
Speaker 1: apply themselves to, because if you're not doing that, I
47:47
Speaker 1: don't understand why you're here, right. I don't think we
47:51
Speaker 1: were put here to twiddle our thumbs. I just don't.
47:55
Speaker 1: I wouldn't have said that at twenty five, because at
47:58
Speaker 1: twenty five I think I was, in some sense twiddling
48:01
Speaker 1: my thumbs. I look back on that with a little
48:04
Speaker 1: bit of horror. You know, in my twenties. I did
48:06
Speaker 1: what people in the twenties do. I partied a lot,
48:08
Speaker 1: and I would sleep in until one o'clock on a Sunday,
48:12
Speaker 1: and I would I don't understand that anymore. I don't know.
48:16
Speaker 1: I'm not sure this is I'm not sure this feeling
48:19
Speaker 1: I have is correct. I worry that it's ungenerous and whatever,
48:23
Speaker 1: and but it just is. It's just like, that's what
48:27
Speaker 1: I when I think about the people I surround myself with. Now,
48:31
Speaker 1: I've kept the people who care about something, and I
48:35
Speaker 1: have not kept the people who I think don't Like
48:38
Speaker 1: I said, I don't know whether that's fair, but it
48:40
Speaker 1: just is. You know.
48:42
Speaker 2: Well, we thank you for the way that you have
48:44
Speaker 2: cared and that you have sought to make a contribution.
48:49
Speaker 2: And we're grateful for that and grateful for your presence today,
48:53
Speaker 2: thankful for your sharing your real self with us today.
48:55
Speaker 2: Please show your thanks to Malcolm Wadwell, You've been listening
49:26
Speaker 2: to no small endeavor. In our interview with Malcolm Gladwell, journalist,
49:29
Speaker 2: New York Times bestselling author of multiple books, and hosts
49:32
Speaker 2: of the podcast of Visionist History, we gratefully acknowledge the
49:36
Speaker 2: support of Lily Endowment Incorporated, a private philanthropic foundation supporting
49:41
Speaker 2: the causes of community development, education and religion, and the
49:45
Speaker 2: support of the John Templeton Foundation, whose vision is to
49:47
Speaker 2: become a global catalyst for discoveries that contribute to human flourishing.
50:02
Speaker 2: All right, thanks to all the stellar team that makes
50:03
Speaker 2: this show possible. Christy Bragg, Jacob Lewis, Sophie Byrd, Tom Anderson,
50:08
Speaker 2: Kate Hayes, Mary ebel and Brown, Carriet Herman, Jason Cheesley,
50:12
Speaker 2: Ellis Osborn and Tim Lower. Thanks for listening and let's
50:16
Speaker 2: keep exploring what it means to live a good life together.
50:19
Speaker 2: No Small Endeavor is a production of pr X Tokens Media,
50:23
Speaker 2: LLC and Great Feeling Studio.
50:29
Speaker 1: If you enjoyed this episode of No Small Endeavor, there
50:32
Speaker 1: are plenty more where that came from. No Small Endeavor
50:35
Speaker 1: releases new episodes every Thursday. Follow No Small Endeavor on
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Speaker 1: Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or wherever you're listening now.