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I&I - Gratitude & civic virtue · A New Angle

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[music]
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SPEAKER_01: This is A New Angle, conversations about how we're doing and where we're going.
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SPEAKER_01: I'm your host, Justin Angle.
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SPEAKER_01: This show is supported by the Headwaters Foundation,
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SPEAKER_01: First Security Bank, and the University of Montana College of Business.
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[music]
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SPEAKER_01: Hey folks, welcome back, and thanks for tuning in.
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SPEAKER_01: Today is our July edition of Incentives and Instincts,
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SPEAKER_01: a recurring series in which I speak with economist and friend,
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SPEAKER_01: Bryce Ward, about some of the broader challenges facing our society.
0:42
SPEAKER_01: Bryce, how are you today?
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SPEAKER_01: I'm good, Justin.
0:44
SPEAKER_01: I'm damp.
0:47
SPEAKER_00: This is two months later- You were damp last time.
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SPEAKER_00: I'm damp this time.
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SPEAKER_01: I was quite damp last time.
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SPEAKER_01: I think we're in the second day of an inch of rain.
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SPEAKER_01: Today's topic is gratitude,
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SPEAKER_01: inspired by an experience you had during a speaking engagement a few weeks ago.
1:01
SPEAKER_01: You want to tell us about that experience?
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SPEAKER_00: It's a little broader than gratitude.
1:06
SPEAKER_00: You wrote a post about gratitude,
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SPEAKER_00: and then I responded to you privately about how I had just given a talk
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SPEAKER_00: where gratitude was a piece.
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SPEAKER_00: The larger point I was making in the talk is,
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SPEAKER_00: if you look at a lot of economic data,
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SPEAKER_00: particularly long-run economic data, These are very good times.
1:24
SPEAKER_00: Now, these exact moments are not great times, right?
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SPEAKER_00: Inflation is high, real wages are declining.
1:30
SPEAKER_00: There's always problems, right?
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SPEAKER_00: But if you look at the long scope,
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SPEAKER_00: particularly in Montana,
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SPEAKER_00: between roughly 1980 and the end of the Great Recession,
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SPEAKER_00: median household income adjusted for inflation, I think increased by 9%.
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SPEAKER_00: Okay.
1:48
SPEAKER_00: Right?
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SPEAKER_00: I mean, that's 30 plus years.
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SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
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SPEAKER_00: And you're basically just treading water.
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SPEAKER_00: In the last 15 years, it's increased by 45%.
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SPEAKER_01: So that's aggregate, mean level.
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SPEAKER_01: How much of it's driven by wealth inequality?
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SPEAKER_01: It's not.
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SPEAKER_00: It's not?
2:05
SPEAKER_00: Okay, good.
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SPEAKER_00: So inequality rose during the period of stagnation.
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SPEAKER_01: Yes.
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SPEAKER_00: But it has not increased at all during the period of growth.
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SPEAKER_01: Okay, so this 15% growth is pretty evenly distributed across the income.
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SPEAKER_01: It's widespread, right?
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SPEAKER_00: A simple way to think about this is the poverty rate has declined by 33%.
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SPEAKER_00: This is widespread growth.
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SPEAKER_00: You know, income growth.
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SPEAKER_00: Same is true with wealth.
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SPEAKER_00: Wealth has grown.
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SPEAKER_00: You know,
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SPEAKER_00: there was a period of stagnation after the Great Recession because,
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SPEAKER_00: you know, again, housing prices had collapsed and so wealth declines with it.
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SPEAKER_00: But, you know, kind of since the pandemic, wealth has returned to growth.
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SPEAKER_00: And so if you take the best data we have on wealth starts in 1989.
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SPEAKER_00: And, you know, I mean,
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SPEAKER_00: over that period, you know, again, adjusted for inflation, wealth is growing.
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SPEAKER_00: There's still lots of people who don't have any wealth.
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SPEAKER_00: I don't want to pretend that that's not the case,
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SPEAKER_00: but wealth has grown a lot and it has grown by more in Montana
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SPEAKER_00: because housing prices in Montana have grown more quickly.
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SPEAKER_00: Again, over the past 20 years, roughly.
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SPEAKER_00: One of my favorite data sources is the 1940 census of housing.
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SPEAKER_01: Okay.
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SPEAKER_01: Because it's the first- How big is that fan club?
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SPEAKER_01: Right.
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SPEAKER_01: Well, it's probably just me.
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SPEAKER_00: Because it's the very first big comprehensive data on all the housing stock in America.
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SPEAKER_01: Your assertion a moment ago that a lot of what's driven the increase
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SPEAKER_01: in wealth has been the increase in home values.
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SPEAKER_01: So that leaves out people who are renters, right?
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SPEAKER_01: Who don't own homes.
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SPEAKER_01: And that's been just an issue with increasing salience here in Montana and elsewhere.
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SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
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SPEAKER_00: But again, we give you 401ks now, right?
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SPEAKER_00: So most workers or most workers who are climbing a ladder
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SPEAKER_00: at some place now have 401ks and that offsets some of the loss in housing wealth.
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SPEAKER_00: It's absolutely not true that young people today have less wealth than their parents did.
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SPEAKER_01: Okay.
3:52
SPEAKER_00: Right.
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SPEAKER_00: Now there's some differences in the opportunities that are facing them.
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SPEAKER_00: And, you know, again, there's always people who are at the tail.
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SPEAKER_00: Right.
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SPEAKER_00: But like, no, wealth has compounded over time.
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SPEAKER_00: And yes, it is mostly concentrated in the hands of old people.
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SPEAKER_00: We have more old people than we used to have.
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SPEAKER_00: But like, if you're looking at kind of, you know, people in their mid thirties, right?
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SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
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SPEAKER_00: You're wealthier today than you were.
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SPEAKER_00: 40 years ago.
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SPEAKER_00: Your median household incomes are higher than they were 40 years ago.
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SPEAKER_00: So all of that stuff is true.
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SPEAKER_00: And getting back to the housing stuff, I mean,
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SPEAKER_00: the reason I like the 1940 census of housing is it's a very objective measure
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SPEAKER_00: of what people were living in
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SPEAKER_01: basically when our parents were born.
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SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
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SPEAKER_01: My folks born in 1947.
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SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
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SPEAKER_00: Mine are 46 and 47.
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SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
4:37
SPEAKER_00: So you ready for a pop quiz?
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SPEAKER_00: Sure.
4:39
SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
4:39
SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
4:40
SPEAKER_01: I haven't studied.
4:40
SPEAKER_01: You haven't studied.
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SPEAKER_00: That's why it's a pop quiz, I guess.
4:42
SPEAKER_00: That's why it's a pop quiz, right?
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SPEAKER_00: Okay, in 1940, amongst all Montana dwellings, so homes, what share of them had running water?
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SPEAKER_01: I'm going to say...
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SPEAKER_01: 22%.
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SPEAKER_00: No, so a little better.
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SPEAKER_00: 56% had running water.
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SPEAKER_00: What share of them had a toilet inside the house?
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SPEAKER_00: 65.
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SPEAKER_00: 47.
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SPEAKER_00: Although 6.6 of those were in shared dwellings, right?
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SPEAKER_00: So you're sharing a toilet with other families.
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SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
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SPEAKER_01: What percent had electric lights?
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SPEAKER_01: Probably quite a bit lower.
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SPEAKER_00: 40?
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SPEAKER_00: 71.
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SPEAKER_00: 71.
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SPEAKER_01: Man, my intuitions are in the wrong direction.
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SPEAKER_00: Mechanical refrigeration.
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SPEAKER_01: Yeah, say 65.
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SPEAKER_00: 37?
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SPEAKER_00: 37.
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SPEAKER_00: What share were still using coal or wood to heat their homes?
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SPEAKER_01: Oh man, that's got to be really high.
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SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
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SPEAKER_01: 80%?
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SPEAKER_00: 60%.
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SPEAKER_00: 60%, right?
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SPEAKER_00: Only 28% had central heating.
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SPEAKER_00: A new single family home built in 1949, this is nationally, right?
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SPEAKER_00: Was 909 square feet.
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SPEAKER_00: And in 2015, the average new single family home was nearly 2,700 square feet.
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SPEAKER_00: So three times as big.
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SPEAKER_00: Housing is just one metric of living standards.
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SPEAKER_00: But it's really easy to forget how different life was.
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SPEAKER_00: Again, we're talking about our parents.
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SPEAKER_00: When our parents were born,
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SPEAKER_00: there were significant portions of people who lived in homes without running water
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SPEAKER_00: or electricity or a toilet inside.
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SPEAKER_01: And beyond the material changes in wealth, like the...
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SPEAKER_01: Not everybody could vote then.
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SPEAKER_01: Not everybody can vote now,
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SPEAKER_01: but like the restrictions on voting,
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SPEAKER_01: the restrictions on where you could go,
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SPEAKER_01: segregation, gender discrimination, all these things have improved.
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SPEAKER_00: And again,
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SPEAKER_00: we're going to talk about lots of stuff that hasn't,
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SPEAKER_00: and we have over the course of this entire series,
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SPEAKER_00: lots of stuff that's a problem or hasn't improved.
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SPEAKER_00: Not everything gets better.
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SPEAKER_00: But when you don't have a good intuition for how good things are,
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SPEAKER_00: my concern is it's hard to maintain civic virtue.
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SPEAKER_00: Hmm.
6:46
SPEAKER_00: Okay.
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SPEAKER_00: Let's connect those dots.
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SPEAKER_01: We talked about, you started this off, we're talking about gratitude, right?
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SPEAKER_00: If I look around at a world of, again,
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SPEAKER_00: relative to our ancestors or relative, I mean,
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SPEAKER_00: right now we're dealing with the World Cup,
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SPEAKER_00: which is the World Cup of Europeans discovering the abundance that exists
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SPEAKER_00: in America, right?
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SPEAKER_00: When you don't have a good perspective of how good you have it,
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SPEAKER_00: it's hard to cultivate Gratitude.
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SPEAKER_00: And then all of the other virtues that go into making sure that we keep
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SPEAKER_00: the society going along at a good clip, right?
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SPEAKER_00: Because if you don't appreciate that things are good,
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SPEAKER_00: if you think really that things are catastrophic,
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SPEAKER_00: of course I'm not going to cooperate with you.
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SPEAKER_01: I want to distinguish between two sort of flavors of what you're describing,
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SPEAKER_01: at least the way I think about it myself.
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SPEAKER_01: So there's the...
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SPEAKER_01: We sometimes get it around here during budget crunches where they sort
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SPEAKER_01: of imply you're lucky to have a job.
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SPEAKER_01: I mean, that is sort of a forced kind of gratitude that I don't quite appreciate.
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SPEAKER_01: Or when you're – as a kid,
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SPEAKER_01: you were struggling to finish the food on your plate and somebody would say,
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SPEAKER_01: oh, there's starving kids in Africa.
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SPEAKER_01: You should appreciate the food.
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SPEAKER_01: That's not incorrect in the sense that, yes,
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SPEAKER_01: you appreciate what you have,
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SPEAKER_01: but it feels a little – Forced and contrived,
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SPEAKER_01: whereas gratitude,
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SPEAKER_01: as I think about it in the way that I feel it,
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SPEAKER_01: is more just like you're having an experience, right?
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SPEAKER_01: And the things that had to come together for you to be having an experience are vast
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SPEAKER_01: and incalculable.
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SPEAKER_01: And so that's a different, sort of more of an energetic form of gratitude.
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SPEAKER_01: Resist the interpretation that the frame you're bringing to this conversation is,
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SPEAKER_01: hey, people, you should be thankful for that.
8:44
SPEAKER_00: No, no.
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SPEAKER_00: There was a lovely post on smarm and snark recently, right?
8:48
SPEAKER_01: I'm not trying to be smarmy.
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SPEAKER_01: I'm just trying to give context.
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SPEAKER_01: Gratitude is part of expectation.
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SPEAKER_00: What happens and why I'm trying to remind people of where we've come
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SPEAKER_00: from is our expectations change both slowly and quickly.
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SPEAKER_00: We adapt at some pace to certain things.
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SPEAKER_00: And as you go through that adaptation, your expectations can get kind of out of whack.
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SPEAKER_00: And so the point is just to try and help people.
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SPEAKER_00: Maybe every once in a while, we need to just press reset and go, oh, wait, let's look around.
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SPEAKER_00: And that's what hopefully those moments of gratitude,
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SPEAKER_00: a lot of the lightning strikes of gratitude really are.
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SPEAKER_00: It's like somehow your brain resets and goes, oh, wow.
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SPEAKER_00: I should be grateful for this, right?
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SPEAKER_00: You nearly get hit by a car, you know, you see somebody you know whose health fails them, right?
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SPEAKER_00: You kind of have this, oh crap, I should appreciate what I have.
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SPEAKER_00: All I'm trying to do here is say,
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SPEAKER_00: look, from an economic perspective, we have a ton to be grateful for.
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SPEAKER_01: So yeah, what's the mechanism here?
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SPEAKER_01: Have we gotten worse at gratitude?
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SPEAKER_01: Have we lost sight of it?
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SPEAKER_01: I mean, there's this adjacent concept we haven't quite surfaced,
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SPEAKER_01: the vibe session idea that economic numbers are good,
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SPEAKER_01: but people think the economy's bad.
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SPEAKER_00: There's things that are bad.
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SPEAKER_00: Yes.
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SPEAKER_00: And part of it may be that people are picking up on the fact that The whole point of
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SPEAKER_00: the talk that led to this
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SPEAKER_01: is to say, look, there's all these things.
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SPEAKER_01: Part of it was just descriptive.
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SPEAKER_01: This is just how the world is.
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SPEAKER_00: But then it was kind of getting to the point of,
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SPEAKER_00: do we think we have what it takes to preserve this?
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SPEAKER_00: Not just preserve it, but to expand it.
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SPEAKER_00: If problems come our way,
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SPEAKER_00: are we going to be able to address them in a way that is maximally beneficial?
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SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
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SPEAKER_00: My concern is that we are not, right?
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SPEAKER_00: We have broken down the institutions and not just, you know, society, there's two parts, right?
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SPEAKER_00: There's the institutional structure of it, but then there's the people, right?
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SPEAKER_00: And yeah,
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SPEAKER_00: our institutions,
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SPEAKER_00: we don't seem to have a lot of faith in,
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SPEAKER_00: but we also are losing faith in the people,
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SPEAKER_00: the decline in trust, our belief in the trustworthiness of people.
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SPEAKER_01: Closeness with neighbors, a lot of the data that you're closely in touch with.
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SPEAKER_00: The fact that young people are massively,
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SPEAKER_00: have much, much, much higher zero-sum mindsets than older people do.
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SPEAKER_00: I need good institutions, but I also need virtuous people, right?
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SPEAKER_00: You know, to make it all work.
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SPEAKER_00: I'm concerned about that particular track.
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SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
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SPEAKER_00: Because I don't think the visions that people are outlining are realistic versions
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SPEAKER_00: of a better world, right?
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SPEAKER_00: And, you know,
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SPEAKER_00: And in particular,
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SPEAKER_00: it's not being done through some kind of,
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SPEAKER_00: hey, we're getting people on board and we're going to move.
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SPEAKER_00: It's we're going to fight for power and give a small group of people the switches
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SPEAKER_00: to try and steer whatever direction they want to go.
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SPEAKER_00: But those people that are rising to power, many are lacking in virtue.
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SPEAKER_00: I mean, they do not check any of the boxes of civic virtue.
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SPEAKER_01: Yeah, we don't seem to have a system that identifies and rewards civic virtue.
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SPEAKER_00: It's probably worth talking about what is virtue?
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SPEAKER_00: What is civic virtue, right?
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SPEAKER_00: So virtue, you know, it's an Aristotelian concept.
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SPEAKER_00: There's two types of vice.
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SPEAKER_00: There's extremes and the lack of, right?
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SPEAKER_00: So vice can be the lack of something or vice can be taking something to excess, right?
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SPEAKER_01: And virtue is supposed to begin this golden mean that sits in between
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SPEAKER_00: them, right?
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SPEAKER_00: And, you know,
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SPEAKER_00: there were the classical virtues,
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SPEAKER_00: there's Christian, you know, there's all this kind of stuff.
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SPEAKER_00: But, you know, when it comes to civic virtue, you know, we're talking about stuff like be civil.
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SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
12:30
SPEAKER_01: I mean, the golden rule is kind of a nice virtue frame.
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SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
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SPEAKER_00: Respect.
12:35
SPEAKER_01: Yes.
12:36
SPEAKER_00: Civility,
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SPEAKER_00: responsibility,
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SPEAKER_00: justice, fairness, tolerance, honesty, courage, cooperation, humility, right?
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SPEAKER_00: These are the types of things that we want in the public.
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SPEAKER_00: Again, going back to the Greek view of virtue, right?
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SPEAKER_00: It's something you have to cultivate, right?
12:52
SPEAKER_00: I can't instruct you in it.
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SPEAKER_00: You just have to practice it constantly.
12:56
SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
12:57
SPEAKER_00: I think part of the problem that we have- In our modern information environment,
13:03
SPEAKER_00: and part of why we've kind of are struggling is no one is perfect.
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SPEAKER_00: No one is virtuous at all points in time.
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SPEAKER_00: And now we leave a trail of all of our failed virtues,
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SPEAKER_00: which then just mean that, well, why should I be virtuous?
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SPEAKER_00: You're not virtuous.
13:26
SPEAKER_00: The problem is where we're struggling is how do we maintain an equilibrium of virtue
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SPEAKER_00: in a political system that is binary?
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SPEAKER_01: In a binary frame.
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SPEAKER_01: People are often choosing the lesser of two evils.
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SPEAKER_01: We hear that statement often,
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SPEAKER_01: but it gets operationalized as just being able to forgive any number of sins
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SPEAKER_01: of your chosen tribal leader versus saying,
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SPEAKER_01: however bad this person is, it's going to be better than the other.
13:57
SPEAKER_01: We have to win this election because if we don't win this election, so yep,
14:01
SPEAKER_01: we have to tolerate senators and
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SPEAKER_00: representatives who,
14:04
SPEAKER_00: when we were kids, would have been run out of public office.
14:07
SPEAKER_01: We'll be back to my conversation with Bryce Ward after this short break.
14:15
SPEAKER_01: A New Angle would not be possible without the generous support of
14:18
SPEAKER_01: the Headwaters Foundation,
14:20
SPEAKER_01: working side by side with Western Montanans to improve the health
14:23
SPEAKER_01: of our communities.
14:25
SPEAKER_01: And you can't do that sort of work without access to capital and education.
14:30
SPEAKER_01: Two critical catalysts offered by First Security Bank and the University
14:33
SPEAKER_01: of Montana College of Business.
14:36
SPEAKER_01: This is John Twiggs with Montana PBS, and you're listening to A New Angle.
14:44
SPEAKER_01: Welcome back to A New Angle.
14:45
SPEAKER_01: I'm here with Bryce Ward talking about gratitude and civic virtue.
14:49
SPEAKER_01: I think just like last week, J.D.
14:51
SPEAKER_01: Vance made some comment about sort of minimizing Watergate.
14:54
SPEAKER_01: And I think he's probably correct in the sense that the Watergate break-in in and
14:59
SPEAKER_01: of itself seems like it would have been a speed bump for any candidate
15:03
SPEAKER_01: in current political times.
15:04
SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
15:05
SPEAKER_00: Part of it's the closest of elections,
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SPEAKER_00: but how good people rationalize tolerating people who they wouldn't,
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SPEAKER_00: they don't admire.
15:13
SPEAKER_00: I think in some kind of ideal sense, again,
15:16
SPEAKER_00: and it's an imagined ideal,
15:17
SPEAKER_00: right, is we kind of want to look up to our political leaders, right?
15:22
SPEAKER_00: We want them to be representations of civic virtue.
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SPEAKER_01: I mean, is that true?
15:27
SPEAKER_01: I think we do.
15:28
SPEAKER_01: I mean, that's part of the story that we tell ourselves.
15:31
SPEAKER_01: I think you and I do.
15:32
SPEAKER_01: And a lot of people I talk to do.
15:34
SPEAKER_01: But I think at the end of the day, it might be a preference falsification.
15:39
SPEAKER_01: Maybe.
15:39
SPEAKER_01: You want somebody who wins or is different or is not a politician or something.
15:43
SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
15:44
SPEAKER_00: I mean, obviously winning is important, right?
15:46
SPEAKER_00: But in some dream ideal sense, what we want is the people running to all be...
15:53
SPEAKER_00: They are virtuous,
15:55
SPEAKER_00: but they differ only in their stances on how they view solving society's problems.
16:03
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, like what's the marginal tax rate?
16:05
SPEAKER_00: Again, what are the biggest problems we face?
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SPEAKER_00: What priorities should be?
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SPEAKER_00: What policy?
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SPEAKER_00: Because if we can keep it there, that's very easy to have civil disagreement about.
16:15
SPEAKER_00: Of course.
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SPEAKER_00: It's not always civil, but it's easy to keep it at the end of the day.
16:19
SPEAKER_00: Yes, we don't know the fact.
16:21
SPEAKER_00: These are hypotheses that we can only test through trying them out.
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SPEAKER_00: And some of us are going to be wrong.
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SPEAKER_00: Some of us will be right.
16:27
SPEAKER_00: Or sometimes we'll both be right and wrong for different reasons.
16:29
SPEAKER_00: But once you get into a world where we think of,
16:34
SPEAKER_00: if we don't win the election, then it's the end of the world.
16:38
SPEAKER_00: Then yeah,
16:38
SPEAKER_00: we just like,
16:39
SPEAKER_00: I guess it's all,
16:41
SPEAKER_00: I'll tolerate all sorts of vices,
16:43
SPEAKER_00: but once I start tolerating vices, now the equilibrium can't hold, right?
16:47
SPEAKER_00: Because part of what we then fight about is your tolerance of the vice, right?
16:51
SPEAKER_00: And so you just end up in this, well,
16:53
SPEAKER_00: you're kind of,
16:53
SPEAKER_00: you know, again,
16:54
SPEAKER_00: in that winning elections you just talked about, well, yeah,
16:57
SPEAKER_00: why should we Drum out people from our party who might win elections
17:03
SPEAKER_00: if they have exhibited things which are not virtuous.
17:08
SPEAKER_00: Well, they're going to win.
17:09
SPEAKER_00: Who cares?
17:11
SPEAKER_00: But then the other side is, well, you're not virtuous and you're hypocritical.
17:15
SPEAKER_00: And you're just in a bad equilibrium.
17:17
SPEAKER_00: And I don't know how to get out of the bad equilibrium.
17:21
SPEAKER_00: I do know what it takes to preserve the good equilibrium.
17:26
SPEAKER_00: But once you're on the path in the bad equilibrium,
17:29
SPEAKER_00: I don't know what you do, but I do know I think people are hungry for virtue.
17:35
SPEAKER_00: The talk that I gave last year, it was at a Rotary Club.
17:39
SPEAKER_00: The Rotary Club, they start with the four-way test.
17:41
SPEAKER_00: And I was like, huh, that's interesting.
17:43
SPEAKER_01: So what is the four-way test, right?
17:44
SPEAKER_00: So of the things we think, say, or do, number one, is it the truth?
17:48
SPEAKER_00: Number two, is it fair to all concerned?
17:51
SPEAKER_00: Number three, will it build goodwill and better friendships?
17:54
SPEAKER_01: And four, will it be beneficial to all concerned?
17:56
SPEAKER_00: The four-way test is the embodiment of a positive sum mindset.
18:02
SPEAKER_00: It's very much like, okay, it's not what's good for me.
18:06
SPEAKER_00: It's what's good for everyone.
18:07
SPEAKER_00: And that's really what civic virtue is about.
18:09
SPEAKER_00: It's really what my big concern is about the loss of virtue civically.
18:14
SPEAKER_00: When we cooperate, we can produce a...
18:18
SPEAKER_00: Relative abundance.
18:19
SPEAKER_00: It's not to say there is not scarcity.
18:21
SPEAKER_00: Those are the people that suffer from scarcity, but we can produce relative abundance, right?
18:26
SPEAKER_00: Which isn't the end all be all, but certainly helps, right?
18:33
SPEAKER_00: But that requires cooperation and trust.
18:37
SPEAKER_00: It requires a positive sum mindset.
18:39
SPEAKER_00: All those things.
18:40
SPEAKER_00: Where we start to break down,
18:42
SPEAKER_00: if we don't maintain that,
18:45
SPEAKER_00: Well, then we're not going to produce the levels of prosperity that we can produce.
18:49
SPEAKER_00: And we're not going to produce the levels of material well-being that we can produce.
18:53
SPEAKER_00: And then without that material well-being,
18:55
SPEAKER_00: it's harder to produce the other types of well-being that we all strive for.
19:00
SPEAKER_00: We're struggling is how do we create a new equilibrium of virtue in a world
19:06
SPEAKER_00: of massive information abundance where we know that everybody's not going
19:09
SPEAKER_00: to be perfect,
19:11
SPEAKER_00: where there's going to be some breakdowns,
19:14
SPEAKER_00: and where sometimes things are in fact zero sum.
19:16
SPEAKER_00: What are our modern civic virtues?
19:18
SPEAKER_00: What are the practices that we need to cultivate that would help do that, right?
19:26
SPEAKER_00: What coaching do we need to do?
19:27
SPEAKER_00: I mean, you've wrote something recently on masculinity, right?
19:29
SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
19:29
SPEAKER_00: Which gets to part of this.
19:31
SPEAKER_00: I will let you describe it and not have me summarize your own words, but- Sure.
19:34
SPEAKER_01: Just for listeners.
19:35
SPEAKER_01: So, you know,
19:36
SPEAKER_01: this program is hosted on a website,
19:41
SPEAKER_01: anewanglepodcast.com, where we also publish writing.
19:43
SPEAKER_01: And I've been writing, you know, weekly essay all summer.
19:46
SPEAKER_01: So I think I've got like seven of them out there.
19:48
SPEAKER_01: And last week was a post about masculinity.
19:52
SPEAKER_01: I often get asked what I think masculinity is or isn't,
19:55
SPEAKER_01: and there's a lot of opinions floating around out there.
20:00
SPEAKER_01: And the frame that I've been working on is to the extent there exists
20:06
SPEAKER_01: a social hierarchy,
20:07
SPEAKER_01: and for whatever reason that hierarchy exists,
20:10
SPEAKER_01: as you move up it, the obligation to seek positive sum outcomes grows.
20:17
SPEAKER_01: So masculinity in that frame would be the obligation to Search
20:22
SPEAKER_01: for positive sum outcomes for as many people as possible,
20:25
SPEAKER_01: especially anyone less fortunate.
20:27
SPEAKER_01: So that positive sum being win-win, thinking about expanding the pie, not just dividing it up.
20:34
SPEAKER_01: And I think these things are connected.
20:36
SPEAKER_01: I mean, you're talking about civic virtue,
20:38
SPEAKER_01: we're talking about gratitude,
20:39
SPEAKER_01: this idea of positive sum thinking flows right into that.
20:45
SPEAKER_01: You have to sort of take stock of your position relative to others.
20:50
SPEAKER_01: And I think,
20:51
SPEAKER_01: like I just said,
20:53
SPEAKER_01: as you move up in whatever,
20:56
SPEAKER_01: your access to abundance, you're obligated to think more about positive sum.
21:03
SPEAKER_01: And the inverse is that if you're somebody struggling,
21:06
SPEAKER_01: now we're all struggling to some degree,
21:07
SPEAKER_01: but if you're like objectively struggling to meet your basic needs,
21:13
SPEAKER_01: Or you've lived under oppression for a long time
21:16
SPEAKER_01: or you have some systemic disadvantages or whatever the case may be,
21:19
SPEAKER_01: then that can excuse some zero-sum thinking or approach.
21:24
SPEAKER_01: I don't want to give too much of a hall pass,
21:26
SPEAKER_01: but I think the point being is that I think the obligation shifts.
21:31
SPEAKER_01: Certainly, yeah.
21:33
SPEAKER_00: So certainly I will agree with that to some degree.
21:35
SPEAKER_00: I don't believe in giving hall passes.
21:37
SPEAKER_00: I think virtue is required of everybody.
21:39
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, I agree.
21:40
SPEAKER_00: I think that part of the problem that we have right now is because we said,
21:43
SPEAKER_00: oh, you've struggled.
21:44
SPEAKER_00: You're exempt from stuff.
21:46
SPEAKER_00: When you're grateful, you're not concerned as much about re-dividing the pie.
21:52
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, yeah.
21:54
SPEAKER_00: It's one of the preconditions for that, right?
21:56
SPEAKER_00: If I'm grateful for what I have, I'm not sitting there going, I need a bigger slice.
22:01
SPEAKER_00: Right.
22:02
SPEAKER_00: But I'm happy to create a bigger pie.
22:04
SPEAKER_00: Right.
22:05
SPEAKER_00: You know, and I'm happy to work with you to create a bigger pie.
22:07
SPEAKER_00: This is the link between it.
22:08
SPEAKER_00: Right.
22:09
SPEAKER_00: Is when I'm grateful,
22:11
SPEAKER_00: when I'm looking at the pie or cake or whatever it is you want,
22:15
SPEAKER_00: whatever thing you want to think about, I'm happy with the slice that I have.
22:19
SPEAKER_01: When I'm ungrateful, I'm envious of the size of your slice
22:23
SPEAKER_01: and I want to redivide it.
22:24
SPEAKER_01: Yeah, you're having social comparison
22:26
SPEAKER_00: at its peak.
22:27
SPEAKER_00: And that's a zero sum.
22:29
SPEAKER_00: I want your slice of the pie.
22:30
SPEAKER_00: Yep.
22:31
SPEAKER_00: Right?
22:31
SPEAKER_00: And that doesn't work for cooperation.
22:36
SPEAKER_00: Gratitude is kind of foundational to cooperation and trust.
22:39
SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
22:40
SPEAKER_00: It's not the only thing.
22:42
SPEAKER_00: That goes into those things, but I think it really helps, right?
22:44
SPEAKER_00: Which is kind of why we started where we started with,
22:47
SPEAKER_00: yes, we have lots of problems, but in terms of creating material wellbeing, right?
22:54
SPEAKER_00: Like we're doing great.
22:56
SPEAKER_00: And particularly because we're solving all sorts of health problems now, right?
23:00
SPEAKER_00: And again, how are we able to solve those health problems?
23:03
SPEAKER_00: Cooperation.
23:04
SPEAKER_00: Cooperation.
23:05
SPEAKER_00: By having enough resources that we can basically say to somebody, yeah,
23:09
SPEAKER_00: why don't you go off and spend your entire life just thinking about how
23:13
SPEAKER_00: to solve this problem?
23:14
SPEAKER_00: Right?
23:14
SPEAKER_00: That's what prosperity means.
23:16
SPEAKER_00: Specialization.
23:17
SPEAKER_00: It's Wealth of Nations.
23:18
SPEAKER_00: Back to Adam Smith.
23:19
SPEAKER_00: Right?
23:19
SPEAKER_00: You know,
23:20
SPEAKER_00: when I can create so much prosperity that people can go off and pay people and say,
23:24
SPEAKER_00: you know,
23:25
SPEAKER_00: I want you to spend your entire life thinking about ways to solve obesity or cancer
23:31
SPEAKER_00: or heart disease or whatever it is and try a million different things
23:34
SPEAKER_00: that don't work.
23:35
SPEAKER_00: Right?
23:36
SPEAKER_00: In fact, we don't have one people.
23:38
SPEAKER_00: We have armies of people.
23:40
SPEAKER_00: Right?
23:41
SPEAKER_00: That's how much prosperity we've created in the world.
23:44
SPEAKER_00: We have armies of people who are dedicated to solving random problems
23:49
SPEAKER_00: that will make us all better off if we can figure them out.
23:52
SPEAKER_00: If we lose sight of the fact that we have created this engine of prosperity
23:57
SPEAKER_00: and become too concerned with zero-sum thinking,
23:59
SPEAKER_00: we're going to tear it down because the lack of virtue makes it hard
24:04
SPEAKER_00: to create prosperity.
24:05
SPEAKER_00: We have tons of evidence for this.
24:07
SPEAKER_00: Societies that You know,
24:09
SPEAKER_00: fall into corruption or,
24:12
SPEAKER_00: you know, are taken over by, you know, people that are extractive and zero-sum.
24:17
SPEAKER_00: They don't grow as quickly, right?
24:19
SPEAKER_00: You know,
24:19
SPEAKER_00: you get yourself into a much slower trajectory of material prosperity and,
24:24
SPEAKER_00: you know, that's
24:24
SPEAKER_01: not good.
24:25
SPEAKER_01: So correct me here if I have the references incorrect or
24:29
SPEAKER_01: the interpretation incorrect,
24:30
SPEAKER_01: but wasn't it de Tocqueville who made the observation that trouble happened
24:35
SPEAKER_01: in What was the Young American Society?
24:38
SPEAKER_01: But don't expect trouble when things are objectively bad.
24:42
SPEAKER_01: Expect trouble when things are actually good
24:45
SPEAKER_01: because small differences become much more meaningful.
24:50
SPEAKER_01: And that will give rise to factions and fighting amongst people
24:55
SPEAKER_01: that already have some degree of advantage.
24:57
SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
24:58
SPEAKER_00: No, I don't know if that's Tocqueville or not.
25:01
SPEAKER_00: But part of what Tocqueville saw as the beauty of America was virtue, civic virtue, right?
25:06
SPEAKER_00: That's my memory of Tocqueville, right?
25:08
SPEAKER_00: Sure.
25:08
SPEAKER_00: Is you travel a country and there's all these small communities
25:11
SPEAKER_00: that each have their own kind of self-organized system,
25:14
SPEAKER_00: which allows it to cooperate and prosper,
25:17
SPEAKER_00: whether it's Tocqueville or somebody else,
25:18
SPEAKER_00: that it's- It's easy when things are good to start,
25:23
SPEAKER_00: you know,
25:24
SPEAKER_00: fighting over,
25:24
SPEAKER_00: you know,
25:25
SPEAKER_00: it's the story of downfalls throughout history of corporations and countries, right?
25:31
SPEAKER_01: That's all the time we have for this episode.
25:33
SPEAKER_01: Stay tuned for part two of this conversation of Incentives and Instincts next month.
25:41
SPEAKER_01: Thanks for listening to A New Angle.
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26:00
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26:20
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26:24
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