WEBVTT - Karol Markowicz Show: Expanding the Conservative Literary Canon with Christopher Scalia 0:00:02.920 --> 0:00:05.360 Hi, and welcome back to the Carol mark Wood Show 0:00:05.400 --> 0:00:10.039 on iHeartRadio. My guest today is Christopher's Kalia. Christopher is 0:00:10.080 --> 0:00:13.200 a senior fellow at the American Enterprise Institute, where he 0:00:13.240 --> 0:00:16.599 writes about arts, culture, and higher education, and he's the 0:00:16.640 --> 0:00:19.880 author of the new book Thirteen Novels Conservatives will Love 0:00:20.000 --> 0:00:21.360 but probably haven't read. 0:00:21.680 --> 0:00:23.439 Hi, Christopher, so nice to have you on. 0:00:23.920 --> 0:00:25.799 Hi, Carol, thank you for having me. It's great to 0:00:25.800 --> 0:00:26.200 talk to you. 0:00:26.480 --> 0:00:26.600 So. 0:00:26.640 --> 0:00:29.159 I'm extremely excited about your new book, which I have 0:00:29.320 --> 0:00:33.320 right here. And I have to say that I immediately thought, oh, 0:00:33.440 --> 0:00:36.640 I will have read these thirteen books. I am really 0:00:36.720 --> 0:00:39.560 smart and I'm a conservative, so. 0:00:39.720 --> 0:00:41.960 I am sure I've read these books. 0:00:42.200 --> 0:00:44.479 And as my daughter pointed out to me, when I 0:00:44.520 --> 0:00:48.120 told her I hadn't read any of the books, none 0:00:48.159 --> 0:00:51.520 of them, she said, well, that's why he wrote the book. Actually, 0:00:51.520 --> 0:00:54.520 that is what she's like, if you'd read them, then 0:00:54.640 --> 0:00:57.280 he wouldn't need the book, which is a solid point. 0:00:57.400 --> 0:01:01.760 I thought, she's fifteen and she knows everything. For what 0:01:01.880 --> 0:01:05.160 made you write this book? Is it that people like 0:01:05.240 --> 0:01:06.600 me actually haven't read them? 0:01:07.640 --> 0:01:10.880 Well, people like you, I think conservatives in general who 0:01:11.040 --> 0:01:14.679 like fiction tend to have a pretty limited range. 0:01:14.720 --> 0:01:16.360 I don't mean that as an insult, but that's. 0:01:16.240 --> 0:01:17.039 Just feel insulted. 0:01:17.120 --> 0:01:19.240 But okay, let. 0:01:19.080 --> 0:01:22.440 Me put it this way. People conservatives who love fiction 0:01:22.560 --> 0:01:25.679 talk about great fiction. They talk about the same handful 0:01:25.720 --> 0:01:27.840 of novels, and most of those books are great. I 0:01:27.880 --> 0:01:31.680 think of like nineteen eighty four Bravey World. Everybody loves 0:01:31.680 --> 0:01:35.000 those novels. Yeah, or if you want to get a 0:01:35.120 --> 0:01:42.440 Catholic about it, Brideshead revisited something by Iron Randy Tom 0:01:42.440 --> 0:01:45.399 Wolfe of course, and these are great novels for the 0:01:45.440 --> 0:01:50.160 most part. But I think we limit ourselves. And by 0:01:50.160 --> 0:01:52.200 the way, those are just the English language original ones. 0:01:52.240 --> 0:01:54.480 I didn't even mention the Russians. But we tend to 0:01:54.520 --> 0:01:59.040 limit ourselves when we talk about that handful of novels. 0:01:59.280 --> 0:02:03.160 Because it's great as they are, they're really just a fraction, 0:02:03.400 --> 0:02:06.960 just the tip of the iceberg of great literature that 0:02:07.040 --> 0:02:11.840 touches on conservative ideas and principles. So this book was 0:02:11.880 --> 0:02:15.440 an attempt to expand, you could say, expand the conservative 0:02:15.480 --> 0:02:19.360 canon a little bit. These are all great novels. I 0:02:19.400 --> 0:02:22.200 think you don't have to be conservative to recognize these 0:02:22.200 --> 0:02:28.480 are great novels. But conservatives will recognize the value of 0:02:28.520 --> 0:02:33.359 the principles and ideals expressed in these works, maybe more 0:02:33.360 --> 0:02:36.280 than they would in other works. So while you didn't 0:02:36.880 --> 0:02:39.880 recognize any of the novels I put in there, hopefully 0:02:39.919 --> 0:02:42.200 you would have recognized at least many of the authors 0:02:42.200 --> 0:02:44.880 and say, oh, yeah, yeah, I know Nathaniel Hawthorne, but 0:02:44.919 --> 0:02:47.840 I've never heard of that novel. Or I love Evelinois, 0:02:48.080 --> 0:02:50.200 but I've never read Scoop exactly. 0:02:50.360 --> 0:02:51.720 That's what happened to me. 0:02:54.120 --> 0:02:56.919 Yeah, And it's the idea was not to make people think, 0:02:57.000 --> 0:02:59.880 oh gosh, I really haven't read anything, because I know 0:03:00.040 --> 0:03:05.160 that's not a great feeling. Instead, it's the vibe, as 0:03:05.240 --> 0:03:08.040 the kids say, I'm going for is oh good. There's 0:03:08.080 --> 0:03:11.800 a lot more great books I can read than the 0:03:11.800 --> 0:03:13.000 ones I already knew about. 0:03:13.720 --> 0:03:16.320 What's the most important one on the list? 0:03:18.120 --> 0:03:21.480 That that is a tough question, an unfair question, even, 0:03:21.880 --> 0:03:22.600 I mean, you. 0:03:22.600 --> 0:03:26.120 Made me feel bad for not reading this, get you know, Yeah, 0:03:26.919 --> 0:03:27.359 I think. 0:03:27.240 --> 0:03:30.080 The most important one is probably not going to be 0:03:30.120 --> 0:03:33.120 everybody's favorite, but it is my favorite, and that's Waverley 0:03:33.200 --> 0:03:36.800 by Walter Scott, published in eighteen fourteen. Walter Scott was 0:03:36.840 --> 0:03:40.760 the pre eminent novelist of the Romantic period, one of 0:03:40.800 --> 0:03:46.200 the most really the most popular novelist in Europe and 0:03:46.520 --> 0:03:50.440 in the United States too for a very long time. 0:03:51.400 --> 0:03:53.760 But he's just fallen out of fashion, in large part 0:03:53.800 --> 0:03:56.160 because of what his novels were about. His novels were 0:03:56.200 --> 0:04:03.920 about nobility and honor and the importance of tradition. The 0:04:04.160 --> 0:04:09.160 conservative intellectual Russell Kirk said that what Scott did was 0:04:09.360 --> 0:04:13.120 take Edmund Burke's ideas from the reflections of the revolution 0:04:13.240 --> 0:04:18.640 in France and make them more accessible by telling stories 0:04:18.920 --> 0:04:23.400 that illustrate those ideas. Walter Scott just had an enormous 0:04:23.440 --> 0:04:28.520 influence on all of European and American culture and thought 0:04:28.560 --> 0:04:32.200 for a long time, and he's just kind of fallen 0:04:32.200 --> 0:04:35.120 by the wayside for all sorts of reasons. I think 0:04:35.160 --> 0:04:40.080 he's the person I think it's most important for conservatives 0:04:40.680 --> 0:04:43.760 to return to because of I think the greatness of 0:04:43.800 --> 0:04:46.680 his novels and the significance of his ideas. 0:04:46.960 --> 0:04:49.440 Walter Scott writing it down, going to order all his 0:04:49.520 --> 0:04:50.680 books right after. 0:04:50.440 --> 0:04:53.160 This, Well, don't bother with all of them. They're a lot, 0:04:53.360 --> 0:04:55.440 and they are of varying quality. 0:04:55.720 --> 0:04:58.839 He wrote, I think twenty eight novels over the course 0:04:58.880 --> 0:05:00.560 of sixteen years or so. 0:05:00.880 --> 0:05:05.520 My book's on Evey secondhand, so yeah, like three dollars each. 0:05:05.880 --> 0:05:08.920 Yeah, But Waverley I have here, and then Ivanhoe is 0:05:09.839 --> 0:05:12.440 probably his best known novel that is certainly also worth reading. 0:05:13.200 --> 0:05:18.279 I saw someone yelling at you on X about this book, 0:05:18.520 --> 0:05:23.360 about this is something that's unnecessary right now, and it's 0:05:23.400 --> 0:05:26.119 the last thing conservatives need is to be reading fiction. 0:05:26.320 --> 0:05:28.720 How dare you? What do you say to that? 0:05:29.480 --> 0:05:31.839 Well, I think people like that believe that the only 0:05:32.000 --> 0:05:35.720 real way of knowing anything is to read history or 0:05:36.920 --> 0:05:41.920 political science, or biographies or self improvement books. And I 0:05:41.960 --> 0:05:45.240 think that's a pretty commonly held belief on the left, 0:05:45.279 --> 0:05:48.760 and I think probably especially on the right. And it's 0:05:48.839 --> 0:05:52.640 unfortunate because the value of fiction and of literature in general, 0:05:52.680 --> 0:05:55.400 I would certainly include poetry in this is that it 0:05:56.000 --> 0:06:00.200 offers a different way of knowing. It offers wisdom in 0:06:00.240 --> 0:06:03.280 a way that you can't get through history and nonfiction. 0:06:04.040 --> 0:06:08.000 Most most importantly, or most obviously, it does it with 0:06:08.080 --> 0:06:12.160 beautiful language in a way that most nonfiction writers don't 0:06:12.200 --> 0:06:19.440 really aspire to. And you know, the conservatives especially should 0:06:19.520 --> 0:06:23.080 value the novel because it's not really an old form. 0:06:23.120 --> 0:06:26.960 It's it's only only a few centuries old. But some 0:06:27.000 --> 0:06:32.320 of the greatest creative minds in Western history have expressed 0:06:32.320 --> 0:06:37.760 their ideas and their craft through the novel. So I 0:06:37.760 --> 0:06:41.000 think I think those are important reasons conservatives should should 0:06:41.000 --> 0:06:43.640 read fiction. And certainly I'm not saying you should read 0:06:43.720 --> 0:06:46.600 only fiction, but we need to do a better job 0:06:46.640 --> 0:06:51.200 of recognizing the importance of storytelling. Rodreer a few years 0:06:51.200 --> 0:06:54.640 ago and The American Conservative wrote that, you know, and 0:06:54.960 --> 0:06:58.000 this is a common complaint, conservatives are just bad at storytelling, 0:06:58.040 --> 0:07:01.159 or we don't understand the significant of storytelling. But the 0:07:01.200 --> 0:07:04.840 fact is that myth and stories are how most people 0:07:05.320 --> 0:07:10.920 come to believe things and to cherish ideas. Argument and 0:07:11.040 --> 0:07:14.640 reason and data. Those are obviously important things, but those 0:07:14.640 --> 0:07:16.360 aren't the only way we know things. 0:07:16.760 --> 0:07:17.920 Do you have a favorite book? 0:07:18.160 --> 0:07:20.000 All around you are just. 0:07:21.440 --> 0:07:22.560 I ask her questions. 0:07:23.000 --> 0:07:26.880 That's right, I'm preparing you for your eventual MSNBC with 0:07:27.080 --> 0:07:27.960 John Mica. 0:07:28.240 --> 0:07:31.680 So well, No, my new favorite book is thirteen Novels 0:07:31.720 --> 0:07:34.480 Conservatives will love, But I have it. 0:07:34.640 --> 0:07:35.320 I haven't read. 0:07:36.760 --> 0:07:39.920 My favorite book that I write about, my favorite favorite 0:07:39.960 --> 0:07:43.760 novel I write about, And there is probably my Antonia 0:07:43.880 --> 0:07:47.920 by Willa Cather, and it is just a It is 0:07:48.040 --> 0:07:51.800 a beautiful novel about I guess you could say the 0:07:51.840 --> 0:07:56.280 immigrant experience and more more broadly, the American dream. The 0:07:56.320 --> 0:07:59.800 title character, Antonia, comes from Europe. She and her family 0:08:00.120 --> 0:08:05.480 from Europe in the late nineteenth century and encounter many struggles. 0:08:05.880 --> 0:08:11.720 She eventually finds her footing, raises a huge and happy family, 0:08:12.120 --> 0:08:15.280 and the person telling us all about her, the narrator, 0:08:15.920 --> 0:08:21.000 is not an immigrant, but he is orphaned at a 0:08:21.040 --> 0:08:25.000 young age, moves from Virginia to Nebraska, and grows up 0:08:25.000 --> 0:08:29.400 with Antonia. Is just in love with her and her 0:08:29.520 --> 0:08:32.880 immigrant peers. But he also is a great emblem of 0:08:32.920 --> 0:08:35.800 the American dream because he goes on from these kind 0:08:35.840 --> 0:08:40.880 of unpromising origins to become a very successful businessman, a 0:08:40.960 --> 0:08:45.080 lawyer for a railway, and he helps really shape the 0:08:45.160 --> 0:08:48.240 United States as we know it out of his love 0:08:48.280 --> 0:08:52.120 for the country that has become. I think my favorite 0:08:52.679 --> 0:08:54.480 novel certainly that I wrote about here. 0:08:55.360 --> 0:08:57.360 So you touched on this a little bit, but it 0:08:57.440 --> 0:09:00.240 is sort of the era of learn as much as 0:09:00.240 --> 0:09:02.079 you can, you know, when you're at the gym, listen 0:09:02.160 --> 0:09:06.319 to a podcast, and always be kind of processing information, 0:09:07.000 --> 0:09:10.600 and there is a sense of like it's wasting time 0:09:10.720 --> 0:09:15.640 to read nonfiction. I'm sorry to read fiction, and actually 0:09:15.679 --> 0:09:17.840 the show has I've touched on it a lot on 0:09:17.920 --> 0:09:20.920 this show because it was my New Year's resolution last 0:09:20.960 --> 0:09:22.640 year to read more fiction. I don't get to do 0:09:22.720 --> 0:09:27.920 it enough. What's important about reading fiction? Why does anyone 0:09:27.960 --> 0:09:28.719 really need it? 0:09:31.000 --> 0:09:33.360 First of all, a really funny thing happened to me 0:09:33.360 --> 0:09:36.160 a couple of weeks ago. I was up at one 0:09:36.200 --> 0:09:40.160 of my kids Saturday sporting events and a friend. 0:09:39.880 --> 0:09:43.120 A fellow parent, arrived. She had a book. I said, 0:09:43.480 --> 0:09:45.920 what are you reading? And she said, oh, it's just 0:09:46.000 --> 0:09:46.480 a novel. 0:09:47.000 --> 0:09:49.520 And it's almost kind of like this sense that novels 0:09:49.520 --> 0:09:53.120 can only be guilty pleasures. But you know, it was 0:09:53.280 --> 0:09:56.120 not a trashy novel. It was a pretty serious work 0:09:56.240 --> 0:10:01.040 of literary fiction. I mean, nothing obnoxious, pretentious, but it 0:10:01.160 --> 0:10:06.000 you know, it wasn't fluff. And and I've talked I 0:10:06.080 --> 0:10:08.240 in the ensuing conversation, I learned that this woman knows 0:10:08.280 --> 0:10:11.480 a lot about fiction, a lot about the novel, and 0:10:11.480 --> 0:10:14.440 it was We had a great conversation. But I asked 0:10:14.440 --> 0:10:16.080 her about it later. I said, why did you say 0:10:16.720 --> 0:10:19.880 only a novel, right, And she said because that she 0:10:19.920 --> 0:10:21.760 assumes that's what how most people are going to react. 0:10:21.800 --> 0:10:24.839 I think she's exactly right. As you're explaining, you were 0:10:24.880 --> 0:10:28.880 just explaining something inferior about fiction. And that's not a 0:10:28.920 --> 0:10:30.720 new idea. I mean, it goes back to the very 0:10:30.720 --> 0:10:33.400 origins of the novel in Britain, because there, I mean, 0:10:33.800 --> 0:10:35.840 there are a lot of trashy novels, not not every 0:10:35.840 --> 0:10:39.000 work of fiction is is you know, gonna going to 0:10:39.040 --> 0:10:39.640 offer a ton. 0:10:39.559 --> 0:10:42.800 Of money nonfiction trashy books as well. 0:10:43.240 --> 0:10:44.640 That's exactly right too. 0:10:45.360 --> 0:10:48.960 But I think, as I was suggesting earlier, I just 0:10:49.000 --> 0:10:52.439 think immersing yourself in the language as it is used 0:10:52.480 --> 0:10:57.120 by masters, and encountering beauty, those are important things. We 0:10:57.240 --> 0:10:59.959 I think we understate the significance of beauty in particular, 0:11:00.120 --> 0:11:03.720 or in beauty as can be expressed in language. It 0:11:03.840 --> 0:11:05.839 is okay, I mean that that's the point of art, 0:11:05.960 --> 0:11:10.000 is to be in awe of something beautiful and to 0:11:10.120 --> 0:11:15.840 experience wonder that. You know, sensations and experiences like that 0:11:15.880 --> 0:11:19.680 are certainly worthwhile. And I think you know what you 0:11:19.720 --> 0:11:23.960 were describing that the impulse to always learn more, learn more, 0:11:24.040 --> 0:11:26.800 learn more. I think you obviously you get you learn 0:11:26.840 --> 0:11:30.520 about human nature in novels that in a way that 0:11:30.600 --> 0:11:34.560 you can't through other forms of writing. You develop a 0:11:34.559 --> 0:11:38.040 lot of studies show that you develop sympathetic powers, the 0:11:38.080 --> 0:11:41.360 ability to understand other people, to sympathize with other people. 0:11:41.720 --> 0:11:46.880 That doesn't necessarily necessarily make everybody who reads novels good people, 0:11:47.240 --> 0:11:50.839 but it does help us understand each other, and that 0:11:51.080 --> 0:11:53.600 that can be especially important. I think in a democracy, 0:11:53.640 --> 0:11:57.080 when we need we have to engage with other people 0:11:57.880 --> 0:12:00.360 on their level and to sympathize with them than when 0:12:00.360 --> 0:12:02.680 we don't agree with him, I have to we have 0:12:02.720 --> 0:12:07.040 to have good conversations with them. But it's hard to 0:12:07.080 --> 0:12:09.160 read novels. This is really hard to read anything now 0:12:09.800 --> 0:12:12.000 because of all the distractions out there and all of 0:12:12.040 --> 0:12:16.840 the you know you mentioned X earlier or Instagram, Facebook, TikTok, 0:12:16.880 --> 0:12:21.440 you know, you know, the litany and reading or doing it, praying, 0:12:21.600 --> 0:12:27.640 doing anything that it's that takes intense concentration can be difficult. Podcasts, 0:12:27.640 --> 0:12:30.520 for example, are great, great things to listen to when 0:12:30.559 --> 0:12:32.400 you don't really need to concentrate and you want to 0:12:32.480 --> 0:12:34.720 zone out and you know, as you wash the dishes 0:12:34.800 --> 0:12:38.280 or work out, but when you're reading that that really 0:12:38.320 --> 0:12:41.160 needs to be your focus, and we're bad at that. Now. 0:12:41.920 --> 0:12:44.600 It's funny, it's I totally agree with you. When we're 0:12:44.640 --> 0:12:46.800 looking at a piece of art, nobody's like, oh, this 0:12:46.840 --> 0:12:47.760 is a waste of my time. 0:12:47.800 --> 0:12:51.000 I could be learning something, right, Nobody goes to the 0:12:51.080 --> 0:12:54.800 National Gallery of Art and thinks, oh boy, why do we. 0:12:54.760 --> 0:12:57.040 Even do this anymore? When I could be learning stuff 0:12:57.040 --> 0:12:58.000 on the podcasts? 0:12:58.320 --> 0:12:58.440 Right? 0:12:58.520 --> 0:13:01.319 You know what you worry about. 0:13:02.480 --> 0:13:05.880 Well, I worry about I guess along the lines of 0:13:05.880 --> 0:13:08.080 what I was just saying, that we're becoming something approaching 0:13:08.160 --> 0:13:11.360 a postliterate culture. And that doesn't mean we're becoming illiterate, 0:13:11.440 --> 0:13:16.160 but we value we value writing much less. I suspect 0:13:16.320 --> 0:13:19.959 AI is going to present a new kind of threat 0:13:20.000 --> 0:13:23.000 along these lines. I don't think AI is entirely bad, 0:13:23.880 --> 0:13:27.200 but it makes it easier to not write for yourself 0:13:27.320 --> 0:13:31.400 and not really think for yourself. And I worry about that. 0:13:31.480 --> 0:13:34.640 As I was suggesting earlier, if we don't read great 0:13:34.640 --> 0:13:37.559 things from the past, we are cutting ourselves off from 0:13:38.440 --> 0:13:43.120 just an abundance of wisdom and ignorance that is important 0:13:43.120 --> 0:13:49.320 to know too. And the less we read, the poorer 0:13:49.360 --> 0:13:51.360 we will be at reading, and the harder it will 0:13:51.360 --> 0:13:53.920 be for us to be good at it again. And 0:13:54.240 --> 0:13:56.280 it doesn't necessarily keep me up at night. But as 0:13:56.280 --> 0:13:59.040 somebody who really loves reading, I don't want to be 0:13:59.240 --> 0:14:01.760 like then and shaking his fist at the clouds. But 0:14:02.679 --> 0:14:05.360 a lot of the technologies we are gaining are great, 0:14:05.679 --> 0:14:08.240 but we need to be aware of what we may 0:14:08.280 --> 0:14:12.520 be losing if we forget about these older technologies, in 0:14:12.559 --> 0:14:16.040 these older media and these other older forms of entertainment, 0:14:16.520 --> 0:14:17.640 instruction and pleasure. 0:14:18.000 --> 0:14:19.920 We're going to take a quick break and be right 0:14:19.960 --> 0:14:21.480 back on the Carol Marcoit Show. 0:14:21.960 --> 0:14:26.200 But first most of us go to bed, not thinking 0:14:26.240 --> 0:14:30.280 about what goes bump in the night. We climb into bed, 0:14:30.760 --> 0:14:33.800 turn off the lights and sleep in relative safety. 0:14:34.960 --> 0:14:36.520 But the people of Israel. 0:14:36.320 --> 0:14:41.480 Face NonStop threats on seven different fronts. They do have 0:14:41.520 --> 0:14:45.040 a red alert system to warn of incoming attacks, and 0:14:45.200 --> 0:14:50.040 last month red alerts blared nearly fifty times every single day. 0:14:50.840 --> 0:14:55.120 Can't imagine it. The toll on families and first responders 0:14:55.240 --> 0:15:01.160 is brutal. Right now, Israeli first responders face urgent need. 0:15:01.920 --> 0:15:06.160 Life saving supplies are running low. That's why the work 0:15:06.200 --> 0:15:10.280 of the international Fellowship of Christians and Jews is so critical. 0:15:11.120 --> 0:15:14.480 Your gift of only one hundred and fifty dollars will 0:15:14.520 --> 0:15:20.400 help provide first responders with helmets, black jackets, medical rescue bags, 0:15:20.440 --> 0:15:25.000 and armored service vehicles to keep people alive. Your gift 0:15:25.080 --> 0:15:26.160 is urgently needed. 0:15:26.720 --> 0:15:31.880 Call eight eight eight for eight eight IFCJ that's eight 0:15:31.880 --> 0:15:36.160 eight eight four eight eight four three two five, or 0:15:36.240 --> 0:15:42.320 go online to give at IFCJ dot org. That's IFCJ 0:15:42.880 --> 0:15:43.560 dot org. 0:15:47.160 --> 0:15:50.240 There's always these stories now where kids get to college 0:15:50.480 --> 0:15:54.040 and the professors are shocked at how they've never read 0:15:54.040 --> 0:15:56.840 a book for pleasure, or they don't know how to 0:15:56.880 --> 0:15:58.480 read a full book. They never had to do that, 0:15:58.600 --> 0:16:01.280 never in high school anymore. How do we work around that? 0:16:01.440 --> 0:16:04.400 How do we bring back reading as something people do? 0:16:04.560 --> 0:16:04.640 Like? 0:16:04.680 --> 0:16:07.840 I have three kids, two of them natural readers, carry 0:16:07.840 --> 0:16:11.080 books around with them. The third one super into sports, 0:16:11.120 --> 0:16:13.280 not really that as interested in reading. How do you 0:16:14.000 --> 0:16:16.000 kind of move that kid towards reading. 0:16:16.800 --> 0:16:17.400 I'm strung me. 0:16:17.520 --> 0:16:18.120 I need to know. 0:16:18.360 --> 0:16:19.200 I need to know too. 0:16:19.200 --> 0:16:22.520 If you figured out parenting advice, I think. 0:16:22.320 --> 0:16:28.480 For parents, it's important to remember that children appreciate reading 0:16:28.480 --> 0:16:31.600 at different ages. I read quite a bit but I 0:16:31.600 --> 0:16:35.280 didn't really love reading until probably when I got to college. 0:16:36.000 --> 0:16:38.360 I read when I was growing up. I read Encyclopedia 0:16:38.440 --> 0:16:41.400 Brown and John Belair's stories, and I enjoyed it, but 0:16:41.880 --> 0:16:44.200 it wasn't necessarily my favorite thing to do. And I 0:16:44.240 --> 0:16:46.800 see the same thing with my kids. There's so many 0:16:46.840 --> 0:16:49.640 other things for them to do. They like reading, but 0:16:49.680 --> 0:16:52.480 it's not their it's not their fault mode. And I 0:16:52.480 --> 0:16:55.400 think that parents just need to be patient and keep 0:16:55.480 --> 0:16:57.760 kind of reminding them that that's an option. 0:16:58.320 --> 0:16:59.120 Give them books. 0:16:59.360 --> 0:17:02.360 Talk about one way I really got my daughter into 0:17:02.440 --> 0:17:05.520 reading was by having her read to me, and her 0:17:05.560 --> 0:17:08.320 reading got so much better over the course of a 0:17:08.359 --> 0:17:12.320 few weeks. And my knowledge of Ramona Quimby really is 0:17:12.840 --> 0:17:19.040 quite aggressive. For yeah, a man approaching fifty. I think teachers. 0:17:19.240 --> 0:17:21.560 I talk to a lot of college professors who say 0:17:21.600 --> 0:17:24.040 the same thing, and I don't blame them for scaling 0:17:24.080 --> 0:17:24.879 back on the reading. 0:17:25.760 --> 0:17:26.680 I kind of blame them. 0:17:26.680 --> 0:17:28.399 I don't know, I blame them a little. 0:17:28.720 --> 0:17:31.880 It is I guess the path of less resistance anyway, 0:17:33.359 --> 0:17:36.720 but especially for lower level classes, I get it. For 0:17:36.840 --> 0:17:39.320 upper level classes, I have much less patience for it, 0:17:39.359 --> 0:17:41.719 but I guess it would a lot of it just 0:17:41.760 --> 0:17:45.879 begins with or maybe begins in high schools or junior highs, 0:17:46.560 --> 0:17:50.080 and policies we're seeing going around the country about cracking 0:17:50.119 --> 0:17:54.119 down on cell phones and schools. I think that that 0:17:54.160 --> 0:17:57.679 would be a big help. But I do think, you know, 0:17:57.760 --> 0:18:01.200 my hunches as a conservative, my my instinct is that 0:18:01.560 --> 0:18:04.960 things like this begin with the family, and it is 0:18:05.040 --> 0:18:05.840 a that's not. 0:18:05.800 --> 0:18:06.840 The answer I was looking for. 0:18:07.000 --> 0:18:09.960 Yeah, sorry, you know, but again, I'm struggling with the 0:18:10.000 --> 0:18:10.440 same thing. 0:18:10.480 --> 0:18:12.720 And that's why that's why I'm trying to stick to 0:18:12.760 --> 0:18:14.679 it and trying not to get too frustrated, because you 0:18:14.720 --> 0:18:17.200 never you never really know what's going to hit with 0:18:17.280 --> 0:18:19.560 the with the child, when when they're reading, and what's 0:18:19.600 --> 0:18:22.879 going to take And it is also possible that you know, 0:18:23.240 --> 0:18:25.640 a kid just doesn't isn't going to like reading very much. 0:18:26.480 --> 0:18:29.240 That that's unfortunate. I can deal with it. That's unfortunate, 0:18:29.280 --> 0:18:32.720 But I hope, I hope the child is still possibly 0:18:32.720 --> 0:18:36.840 capable capable of reading something complex, even if it's not, 0:18:37.920 --> 0:18:39.439 but they enjoy what he or she wants to do. 0:18:39.480 --> 0:18:43.720 For funnel right, what advice would you give your sixteen 0:18:43.760 --> 0:18:46.640 year old self, what a sixteen year old Christopher. 0:18:46.200 --> 0:18:46.600 Need to know. 0:18:46.960 --> 0:18:52.399 Well, this advice might sound contradictory, but I think I 0:18:52.400 --> 0:18:55.440 would give two related lessons. 0:18:55.760 --> 0:18:57.400 One is that. 0:18:59.000 --> 0:19:02.240 What sixteen year old Chris is doing as a sixteen 0:19:02.320 --> 0:19:07.080 year old is a foundation for sixty year old Chris, 0:19:08.359 --> 0:19:10.680 and that it's a good time to plant the seeds 0:19:10.880 --> 0:19:14.480 for later in life. And that doesn't mean to take 0:19:14.520 --> 0:19:19.879 everything completely seriously, but to understand the habits I'm developing 0:19:20.080 --> 0:19:23.320 as a sixteen year old will pay dividends down the road, 0:19:24.320 --> 0:19:29.760 and that things like self control, discipline, focus, things that 0:19:29.800 --> 0:19:32.720 I do think I did work on as a sixteen 0:19:32.800 --> 0:19:36.040 year old in school and athletics and things like that. 0:19:37.400 --> 0:19:40.399 They they paid off, and if anything, I could have 0:19:40.400 --> 0:19:45.040 done them a little bit more, but they were worthwhile. 0:19:45.400 --> 0:19:50.280 And then conversely, to also remember that you're only sixteen 0:19:50.480 --> 0:19:53.800 and you've got decades ahead of you, god willing, and 0:19:53.840 --> 0:19:56.840 that the things that seem like really big deals are 0:19:56.840 --> 0:20:02.639 not big deals. That's I think everybody, everybody who everybody 0:20:03.080 --> 0:20:05.200 probably in their twenties realizes this. 0:20:05.600 --> 0:20:07.240 But the things. 0:20:06.640 --> 0:20:10.560 That seem like crises, the things, the huge embarrassments that 0:20:10.640 --> 0:20:14.800 seem like things people will will remember forever, really aren't. 0:20:15.080 --> 0:20:19.200 And you can overcome falling flat on your face and 0:20:20.359 --> 0:20:23.359 having things that you thought would happen not happening. You 0:20:23.760 --> 0:20:27.879 just have to learn how to adjust, pivot, you know, 0:20:27.920 --> 0:20:30.679 whatever term you want to use, and look forward to 0:20:30.680 --> 0:20:32.480 the next challenger or ambition. 0:20:33.440 --> 0:20:35.359 I love that. I've loved this conversation. 0:20:35.560 --> 0:20:37.880 It did make me feel bad that I don't read enough, 0:20:37.880 --> 0:20:40.080 but I'm going to try to rectify it right away. 0:20:41.280 --> 0:20:43.800 And here, Kerl, I don't think you should feel guilty, 0:20:43.840 --> 0:20:45.280 by the way, because you do. I do feel guil 0:20:45.400 --> 0:20:47.200 You have a lot of on your plate. I don't 0:20:47.240 --> 0:20:47.920 feel guilty. 0:20:48.040 --> 0:20:50.080 I you know, I swear. 0:20:50.119 --> 0:20:53.400 It actually is a theme on here where I talk 0:20:53.440 --> 0:20:55.919 a lot about how I don't read enough fiction and 0:20:55.960 --> 0:20:57.440 how that makes me feel bad. 0:20:57.600 --> 0:20:59.320 And I read a lot of nonfiction. I read a 0:20:59.359 --> 0:21:02.040 lot of nonfiction, you know, just for our work. 0:21:02.119 --> 0:21:06.879 And but fiction makes me feel good and it makes 0:21:06.880 --> 0:21:09.159 me a better person, more interesting person. 0:21:09.359 --> 0:21:09.919 I love it. 0:21:09.960 --> 0:21:13.200 That's why I really I saw this book. I saw 0:21:13.240 --> 0:21:16.159 that you wrote thirteen novels Conservatives of Love, and I 0:21:16.200 --> 0:21:19.760 couldn't wait to read it because I absolutely relate to 0:21:19.840 --> 0:21:25.119 the message that fiction improves so much about our experience 0:21:25.320 --> 0:21:25.919 in this world. 0:21:26.040 --> 0:21:28.600 And again that comparison to art. Was it for me? 0:21:28.720 --> 0:21:31.920 You know, no one's mad at themselves for going to 0:21:31.960 --> 0:21:34.520 the museum. We're mad at ourselves for reading a book 0:21:34.520 --> 0:21:35.399 on a beach. You know. 0:21:36.680 --> 0:21:38.080 Can I ask you a question? Can I se on 0:21:38.119 --> 0:21:42.360 the table? What is your favorite novel? Man or one 0:21:42.359 --> 0:21:42.680 of them? 0:21:42.920 --> 0:21:47.040 Just so it's funny, you said nineteen eighty four and 0:21:47.119 --> 0:21:51.600 you said Brave New World where the Russian third the 0:21:51.800 --> 0:21:56.240 kind of what I consider the trio the zemyatins we 0:21:56.240 --> 0:22:03.160 we in Russian, I think is like the undervalued triplet. 0:22:02.800 --> 0:22:06.200 In that container. So I love that book. 0:22:07.480 --> 0:22:08.479 I need to check that one out. 0:22:08.560 --> 0:22:12.320 Yeah, definitely, I think it could have easily made your list. 0:22:12.440 --> 0:22:13.840 I'll tell you that check. 0:22:14.960 --> 0:22:18.280 They stay on the lookout for thirteen more novels conservatives 0:22:18.280 --> 0:22:18.600