Speaker 1: Pushkin from Pushkin Industries. This is Deep Background, the show
Speaker 1: where we explore the stories behind the stories in the news.
Speaker 1: I'm Noah Feldman. Today's conversation on Deep Background grew out
Speaker 1: of an extraordinary new book that I read as part
Speaker 1: of a project of working my way through a whole
Speaker 1: pile of recent books of memoirs and non fiction essays.
Speaker 1: The book is called Unfollow Me Essays on Complicity, and
Speaker 1: it's by a remarkable intellectual called Jill Louise Buzby. Jill
Speaker 1: had worked for years in the nonprofit sector focusing on
Speaker 1: diversity and inclusion when she uploaded a short and powerful
Speaker 1: video in which she called out white liberal progressives and
Speaker 1: the corporate nonprofit machine in which she had been a participant.
Speaker 1: The video went viral, and it helped turn her into
Speaker 1: an Instagram influencer using the screen name Jill is Black.
Speaker 1: In the years that followed, Jill became a widely recognized
Speaker 1: figure on social media, commenting on issues of race and identity.
Speaker 1: In the book, what Jill does is she turns the
Speaker 1: very same sharp knife of her incisive analysis and criticism
Speaker 1: onto herself. The result is a book of searing honesty
Speaker 1: and genuine self reflection about the phenomena of power, identity,
Speaker 1: and race that are occurring in real time today and
Speaker 1: what happens when, through her own success, she starts to
Speaker 1: confront the possibilities of a role of power in an
Speaker 1: infrastructure that she has been deeply committed to criticizing. I'm
Speaker 1: thrilled that Jill agreed to come onto deep background to
Speaker 1: talk about this amazing book, and I know you're going
Speaker 1: to love this conversation as much as I did. Jill,
Speaker 1: thank you so much for being here, and thank you
Speaker 1: for your amazing book, unfollow Me Essays on Complicity, which
Speaker 1: I just had a chance to read. I know it
Speaker 1: just came out and it blew me away. Thank you.
Speaker 1: I want to start by saying something that I felt
Speaker 1: very strongly on reading the book, and that is you
Speaker 1: have an uncanny and exquisitely honed talent for calling bullshit.
Speaker 1: My mother would be so proud. It's definitely a family trait.
Speaker 1: My mother growing up, she could handle almost everything except
Speaker 1: for bullshit, so I knew that that wasn't allowed. One
Speaker 1: of the things I want to try to do in
Speaker 1: this interview is convey to listeners who might not have
Speaker 1: had a chance to read the book yet, and who
Speaker 1: might or might not have known about your online work
Speaker 1: before the book, the layering that's in this amazing book.
Speaker 1: And you know in the book there's this kind of
Speaker 1: subtle process where you start calling bullshit on white people
Speaker 1: with the dear white people mode, then you gradually start
Speaker 1: calling bullshit on black people with the dear Black people mode. Right,
Speaker 1: And then at some point we got to the third level,
Speaker 1: which is in some ways the most fascinating, where you
Speaker 1: start calling bullshit on yourself. Yes, talk a little bit
Speaker 1: about what the experience was like for you intellectually when
Speaker 1: you were discovering that your capacity to call bullshit drew
Speaker 1: an audience. Right. I always think that people want more
Speaker 1: honesty then they say, I think it makes them feel
Speaker 1: seen in a way that is intimate. And I think
Speaker 1: there was intimacy that I had with my audience and
Speaker 1: trust that was built very quickly because all I really
Speaker 1: had to do was stay consistent with saying things that
Speaker 1: they weren't hearing elsewhere. And I think that's still something
Speaker 1: that I get to do. It's not about intellect, I subjective.
Speaker 1: I don't know what that really means anymore. What I
Speaker 1: do promise is that I'm going to always be doing
Speaker 1: the work of being honest about how I actually feel.
Speaker 1: So I was already doing it personally with my family
Speaker 1: or with myself. It was interesting to me and I
Speaker 1: was very curious about myself. But then really all that
Speaker 1: happened was I began to say it in public, and
Speaker 1: especially as we become again more scripted and people are
Speaker 1: scared to be themselves online. I think, you know, the
Speaker 1: messages that I get now are like, oh, thanks for
Speaker 1: saying the stuff that we're all thinking, and well, that
Speaker 1: means that there is something that is happening where people
Speaker 1: are thinking things and they are scared to show up
Speaker 1: as themselves. And I don't think that's going to push
Speaker 1: us towards more honesty and diversity and inclusion or anti
Speaker 1: racism work to say, Oh, I know what to say now,
Speaker 1: but did we really fix anything with all of these words,
Speaker 1: all of this rhetoric. To me, No, and especially in
Speaker 1: the style in which I was doing it, which was
Speaker 1: one minute monologuing around. You know, I didn't really react
Speaker 1: to headlines because that felt like it was going to
Speaker 1: date my material. So I wasn't doing that. But I
Speaker 1: just I got tired of it, and I started answering
Speaker 1: my own questions, such as, if I were a white
Speaker 1: liberal person and a scary and chaotic society where I
Speaker 1: don't feel like I have a lot of control outside
Speaker 1: of my identity and the idea of privilege, would I
Speaker 1: give that up? Would I genuinely give that up? I mean,
Speaker 1: I don't know. I see people of all identities not
Speaker 1: giving up what they have all the time, including me,
Speaker 1: And we were entertaining this conversation that we didn't understand
Speaker 1: how white people could go and do all of these things,
Speaker 1: but we do them all the time. I pick up
Speaker 1: my phone. I don't know who that affects. I ordered
Speaker 1: from this company. I try not to think about. We
Speaker 1: were all doing this. So eventually it felt silly to
Speaker 1: single out. It could be true, but it felt silly
Speaker 1: in the work that I was doing to keep singling
Speaker 1: out when I was doing some of the same things
Speaker 1: without the same level of power history. Sure, but I
Speaker 1: understood what we were doing, which is trying to be safe,
Speaker 1: trying to avoid being the other group of people. You
Speaker 1: can say that you want to help them, but you
Speaker 1: never want to be them, right, and in fact, to
Speaker 1: say you want to help somebody is to self define
Speaker 1: as not that right to exactly. You know, one of
Speaker 1: the things that kind I found inspiring and that I
Speaker 1: have myself struggled with is and you just mentioned privilege,
Speaker 1: which is what put it into my mind. And I
Speaker 1: also was thinking this when I was reading your book.
Speaker 1: The formulation check your privilege often translates into acknowledge your privilege.
Speaker 1: And I happen to be someone who's had a lot
Speaker 1: of privilege in my life on pretty much every possible dimension,
Speaker 1: and I have noticed that when I acknowledge and speak
Speaker 1: about those facts, it sounds like to me, at least,
Speaker 1: I'm doubling down on reinforcing my privilege. Like I do
Speaker 1: it because there's a value in being honest about these things.
Speaker 1: And that was the part which I found inspiring. You know,
Speaker 1: you're sort of view of like, just say the truth regardless,
Speaker 1: but sometimes if you say a truth in the context
Speaker 1: where people want you to say, it actually a little bit,
Speaker 1: and then you listen to yourself, you can realize I'm
Speaker 1: actually doing the exact opposite of what the whole check
Speaker 1: your privilege is supposed to do, because in principle, it's
Speaker 1: supposed to be somewhat equalizing, and in fact, I experience
Speaker 1: it is having the opposite effect, Like I think I'm
Speaker 1: making myself less equal. When I start, you know, listening
Speaker 1: the ways in which I've been fortunate in privilege, I start,
Speaker 1: I'm like, Wow, that guy really sounds horrible, Like he
Speaker 1: sounds like he's really trying to like beat it into
Speaker 1: your head. Yeah. I said recently that it feels like
Speaker 1: its own status symbol, like I do this, and I
Speaker 1: do this, and I have a lot of privilege, and like,
Speaker 1: the more you say it, the more you're kind of emphasizing,
Speaker 1: let see what I got that you don't have. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I agree with you. It's not a phrase that I used.
Speaker 1: And even our idea of using privilege is the way
Speaker 1: that we solve this is silly because we know that
Speaker 1: in a few years we're throwing this away. It's going
Speaker 1: to be the next thing that we say, Oh wait,
Speaker 1: actually privilege was a problematic word, and so we'll move
Speaker 1: on to this one. It's it's an evolution, and we
Speaker 1: want the words and the ideas to fix everything right
Speaker 1: now so that we can really go back to our privilege.
Speaker 1: So I try not to get too deeply invested in
Speaker 1: the language that we're using, stating what you are is
Speaker 1: not working on it even when I do it. When
Speaker 1: you started writing the book and you hit on at
Speaker 1: some point presumably in the writing process, that you were
Speaker 1: going to do to yourself as it were what you
Speaker 1: had done onto others. Yes, you know that's in some
Speaker 1: way what this book is an exercise in. You've mentioned
Speaker 1: a few times that you thought of it as engaging
Speaker 1: with the ego. I've also heard you say this in
Speaker 1: a few other interviews that you've given that I've listened to.
Speaker 1: You've referred to the online persona, the Jilli's Black persona
Speaker 1: as having a lot of quote unquote ego in it.
Speaker 1: Your word, and it made me wonder, do you mean
Speaker 1: to hint sort of that the persona in the book
Speaker 1: is sort of the super ego, you know? And then
Speaker 1: I don't know where the it fits into this exactly,
Speaker 1: but you know it is playing a big role because
Speaker 1: the way that the your persona in a way was
Speaker 1: able to succeed just by saying stuff that everyone thinks
Speaker 1: that no one says. And that's what it is all about, right,
Speaker 1: It is all about doing the thing that you kind
Speaker 1: of want to do. That everyone's telling you not to
Speaker 1: do and then you just do it and it works.
Speaker 1: So I was wondering if any of that was in play,
Speaker 1: that kind of psychoanalytic troika was in play, or whether
Speaker 1: you were using you go in a different, maybe more
Speaker 1: vernacular way. I am using it in a more vernacular way.
Speaker 1: But I think the way that you've described it as
Speaker 1: also true. I think it's not just what I was saying.
Speaker 1: I think it was also the way that I was
Speaker 1: saying it, which was self righteously, which was doing it,
Speaker 1: you know, in a way that the drama that I
Speaker 1: had taken for many years allowed me to do it.
Speaker 1: There was I was sort of I mean, I knew
Speaker 1: that it could work, you know. So it's not like
Speaker 1: I just fell into it and I hoped that it
Speaker 1: would because I'm so noble. I also felt like if
Speaker 1: I were at that time smart enough to get this
Speaker 1: stuff out, it would be so universal that everybody would
Speaker 1: love it. That also wasn't true. But yeah, the super
Speaker 1: ego there, setting out to write this book and doing
Speaker 1: unto myself is as I was doing on others, is
Speaker 1: a great description of it. And I don't I don't
Speaker 1: know that I need to label it anything other than
Speaker 1: the attempt to do that that seems beautiful enough for me.
Speaker 1: Why does nobody do this? I mean, why does nobody
Speaker 1: do unto themselves what they do unto others. It's so
Speaker 1: powerful and it's so honest, and it must, in some
Speaker 1: ways feel like incredibly liberating, self liberating. Is it just
Speaker 1: that we're all scared of what will happen of, you know,
Speaker 1: like laying ourselves bear? What enabled you to do it?
Speaker 1: What enabled me to do it was an accountability from
Speaker 1: people that I trusted, who saw me as unhappy and
Speaker 1: we're willing to disagree with me. People that I really
Speaker 1: cared about, like my mother, who eventually was like, how
Speaker 1: do you feel saying all of the stuff about white
Speaker 1: people online? And you know, and of course it comes
Speaker 1: with like blocking people, ignoring people, telling them all all
Speaker 1: of the things that go along with social media. It's again,
Speaker 1: I just I got exhausted, you know, and I couldn't
Speaker 1: be myself, which is also exhausting. So I was hiding
Speaker 1: all of this other stuff about myself, identity wise, maybe
Speaker 1: even privilege wise, things that were really happening in the
Speaker 1: rooms that I described. I was hiding all of it,
Speaker 1: and that is very tiring, and so I derive a
Speaker 1: lot of pleasure from getting to finally say, Okay, here's
Speaker 1: what was going on behind the scene. So it's not
Speaker 1: that it doesn't come with benefits. But I also I
Speaker 1: don't think that most people have to I think we're
Speaker 1: fine with the persona, so you know, all right, maybe
Speaker 1: it's it's waiting for somebody to go first. And I
Speaker 1: don't think I'm the first one to do this kind
Speaker 1: of work. I think I'm amongst the first to do
Speaker 1: it from the position that I held on the Internet.
Speaker 1: I want to ask you about blocking, which I've heard
Speaker 1: you referred to just now and other times. And I
Speaker 1: was actually listening to in preparation for our conversation, I
Speaker 1: was listening to a podcast interview that you had given,
Speaker 1: and you talked about how you had a tendency, you know,
Speaker 1: if someone was questioning what you were doing, you blocked them,
Speaker 1: and it made me immediately want to ask you. Blocking
Speaker 1: is like some new thing, right, it's a product of
Speaker 1: social media. Before social media, we didn't have even the
Speaker 1: concept really of blocking in this way. Is there a
Speaker 1: special pleasure, human pleasure in the act of blocking, Like
Speaker 1: did we like, do we need a German word to
Speaker 1: describe that you need human pleasure? I think we always
Speaker 1: need a German word to describe anything, first of all.
Speaker 1: But I'd only blocked in the beginning. It was what
Speaker 1: people did, and I did what people did, but I
Speaker 1: didn't get enough pleasure out of that because then they
Speaker 1: were gone. So eventually what I like to do is engage.
Speaker 1: I'd like to screenshot it for my audience. So that
Speaker 1: was step two, which was a lot of fun. Then
Speaker 1: I was like, hey, chill, this is ridiculous and why
Speaker 1: are you doing this and who are you performing for?
Speaker 1: And so then I started engaging in the direct messages
Speaker 1: with people. Again I derived pleasure from that also because
Speaker 1: I got to use my brain to figure out why
Speaker 1: they were the way that they were. So, you know, blocking, Yeah,
Speaker 1: it's new, and these days I find it to be
Speaker 1: very performative because people don't block in silence. They tell
Speaker 1: us that they're going to do it, or they warn
Speaker 1: us that they will. You know, I've seen a lot
Speaker 1: of things go online where here's an example of who
Speaker 1: you don't want to be. Don't be this guy because
Speaker 1: I told him off and then I blocked him. So
Speaker 1: you know, it seems pretty performative, and I think it's
Speaker 1: something we wish that we could do in real life.
Speaker 1: But we only wish that we could do it in
Speaker 1: real life because we've been doing it on social media. Probably,
Speaker 1: But you've just say super suggestive, and it's something I've
Speaker 1: actually wondered about. Whether our impulse to block people in
Speaker 1: other formats in life might be derivative of the technology
Speaker 1: in a way, right, Like, until arguably, until you could
Speaker 1: block somebody as a technological matter, yes, you wouldn't think
Speaker 1: of trying to block them at a that's a grander level.
Speaker 1: You might think other things, I want to boycott them,
Speaker 1: or you know, I don't want to ever hear their
Speaker 1: names again. But then I wonder if you think that
Speaker 1: there is some connection between our impulse collective impulse it's
Speaker 1: right left center, it's everybody to sort of, you know,
Speaker 1: silence people who are different from from we are in
Speaker 1: this moment, and the actually technological capacity to block somebody,
Speaker 1: Like did the person who invented the blocking button actually
Speaker 1: have a bigger social impact than the person who invented
Speaker 1: the like button? Oh? Great, I can't answer this question,
Speaker 1: but I hope that you find a guest who can't
Speaker 1: because I'm going to be listening. It seems impactful, and
Speaker 1: of course you know it's hard to remove it from
Speaker 1: cancer culture or whatever we're calling it today. That feels
Speaker 1: better for us, but I think that it does feel
Speaker 1: increasingly more threatening that we can block people in this way.
Speaker 1: And I will not say threatening in my identities or
Speaker 1: the society and how I'm treated. I just mean me
Speaker 1: the human who showed up to this planet to do
Speaker 1: some work and is now like, do I get to
Speaker 1: do that within the confines of these rules of the
Speaker 1: inorganic society? And I think we all have that human desire.
Speaker 1: So when people say they're scared of cancel culture, maybe
Speaker 1: we should get more specific and say, do I get
Speaker 1: to be a full human here as long as this
Speaker 1: thing exists? Not to say that I didn't make a
Speaker 1: mistake or do something wrong, but do I get to recover,
Speaker 1: bounce back? Do I continue having, you know, a human experience?
Speaker 1: Do I get to learn? I don't know. So it
Speaker 1: does seem to be intensifying. We'll be right back. One
Speaker 1: of the phrases, Jill, that you use a lot that
Speaker 1: I'm really interested in is being in the rooms or
Speaker 1: in these rooms. And actually, the first time I heard
Speaker 1: you say it, I was like, huh, Like, isn't that
Speaker 1: an AA phrase? You know, the A people talk about
Speaker 1: the rooms as sort of you know, the places where
Speaker 1: the conversation happens. You're not using it that way. You're
Speaker 1: more using it in the like lin Manuel Miranda, you
Speaker 1: know the room where it happens kind of a space
Speaker 1: where certain elites have a certain kind of conversation and
Speaker 1: engage in a certain kind of social performance with each other. First,
Speaker 1: I guess I want to know if I am hearing
Speaker 1: you correctly when you use that formulation, and then I'm
Speaker 1: really curious about why that is a subject of interest
Speaker 1: to you you. It's a subject of total fascination to me
Speaker 1: and it always has been, although I've never used that
Speaker 1: particular phrase for it. It's sort of why this podcast
Speaker 1: is called Deep Background, because I was interested in trying
Speaker 1: to ask people about what happens in spaces of power
Speaker 1: where the general public isn't allowed in, and then asking
Speaker 1: people to say something about what's going on behind there.
Speaker 1: But I want to know sort of am I getting you,
Speaker 1: and also why you're so interested in that. Then we
Speaker 1: can talk about what happens in the rooms. Yes, you
Speaker 1: are getting me. However, you and I go into different rooms,
Speaker 1: and we go into them differently. So as a black
Speaker 1: queer woman going into the room, I have a lot
Speaker 1: more on the line than you do, and my conversations
Speaker 1: are different because I should know better. And the truth
Speaker 1: is is if your group got to the place where
Speaker 1: you keep saying you hope they get you wouldn't be
Speaker 1: in the room anymore. And I don't see anybody giving
Speaker 1: up any money, any vacations, any magazine covers anything, any homes.
Speaker 1: But you should know better because you're part of the
Speaker 1: group that you're saying is experiencing the greatest harm that's
Speaker 1: out there. And so the steaks aren't as high, you know,
Speaker 1: But if you had those steaks on your shoulders going
Speaker 1: into the room, how could you ever forget It's not
Speaker 1: just you know, toasting with whoever else is there. But
Speaker 1: I do see that there is a conflict. There is
Speaker 1: some kind of conflict, and we at least need to
Speaker 1: talk about the conflict of But how could you be
Speaker 1: you without them? So what I hear you saying, and
Speaker 1: I'm fascinated by this and I'm learning a lot from it,
Speaker 1: sounds like it imposes an incredibly high standard on yourself
Speaker 1: and anyone else who would say, look, because of who
Speaker 1: I am, I am supposed to be, and I am
Speaker 1: profoundly aware of the demand for equality, the problematics of privilege. Right.
Speaker 1: I'm in the room, as you're saying, as a black
Speaker 1: queer woman. And yet if I really took that seriously,
Speaker 1: there would be no rooms. Right, And I hear you
Speaker 1: loud and clear and as a kind of calling bullshit.
Speaker 1: It's incredibly powerful. But it also imposes, by implication, like
Speaker 1: a higher standard on the intersectional representative person that it
Speaker 1: imposes on anybody else. But I'm talking about the people
Speaker 1: who are like me. Is it a high standard? I
Speaker 1: do have a high standard now in my real life.
Speaker 1: What I'm going to say is I just wish we
Speaker 1: would say the truth if you want to be in there.
Speaker 1: Because I wrote the book. I wrote the book, I
Speaker 1: wrote the book proposal, I have an editor and agent.
Speaker 1: All of that. I'm trying to sell it right now.
Speaker 1: So all of that is me. Okay, that is happening
Speaker 1: to me. I'm doing this interview right now. This to me,
Speaker 1: I thought of that before I said I want to evolue.
Speaker 1: It's like, you know, now I'm clearly part of the
Speaker 1: system too. And I was like, all right, well that's true.
Speaker 1: It's hard to avoid that, right, that would be bullshit.
Speaker 1: But I think what I'm seeing is I find that
Speaker 1: it's dangerous for us to not say that this is
Speaker 1: what's happening, because then it imposes the higher standard on
Speaker 1: people where it's like, oh, but keep lying and saying
Speaker 1: that we're this moral and this nobel whatever, And I'm
Speaker 1: looking to free people from the idea that you aren't
Speaker 1: more complex than this, that it's just like we're going
Speaker 1: to save the world. And also I'm in this room
Speaker 1: just so lie about it. I just don't want you
Speaker 1: to lie about it, because then we keep trying for
Speaker 1: something that doesn't really exist as opposed to something that does.
Speaker 1: Will be complicit. You will, if you want these things here,
Speaker 1: you will be complicit. What does that look like for you?
Speaker 1: It's the same as starting this off by saying I
Speaker 1: engage with a million things every day that make me
Speaker 1: just as complicit as anybody else. But if I get
Speaker 1: a get out of jail free card for myself based
Speaker 1: on identities, when I know that I know better that
Speaker 1: doesn't make any sense. If you're just giving that to
Speaker 1: me because you feel sorry that I have identities that
Speaker 1: are harmed in again, inorganic society, then don't give it
Speaker 1: to me at all. I am a human being. I
Speaker 1: have enough intellect to say, oh, I'm being indulgent, or
Speaker 1: oh I don't care about anybody else. So it's like
Speaker 1: I do know better sometimes, and I trust that other
Speaker 1: people know better more than they're saying, because I'm also
Speaker 1: having those private conversations with them. You can go and
Speaker 1: talk about this person who doesn't agree with you politically,
Speaker 1: but you don't agree with you politically, so you know,
Speaker 1: I think there is a self righteousness that I practice
Speaker 1: online that yes, I am trying to remedy in society
Speaker 1: because I contribute it to that. And so this first
Speaker 1: book is really undoing part of what I have done,
Speaker 1: which is create a harder world for people to be
Speaker 1: honest about what they feel and think. There's a chapter
Speaker 1: in the book which walks through like a DM based
Speaker 1: conversation that you have with someone who's self presenting as
Speaker 1: a proud boy so a white supremacist, and not only
Speaker 1: do you give us an account of the conversation, you're like,
Speaker 1: totally empathetically engaged with him, and you make some degree
Speaker 1: of humanizing progress in which somehow it seems as though
Speaker 1: it's at least possible that the two of you are
Speaker 1: having some form of communication. Yet it also connects up
Speaker 1: to this question of is it okay to be empathetic
Speaker 1: to people who, at least by their persona, are reprehensible
Speaker 1: and repugnant? Reprehensible or repugnant. Wow, when you have to
Speaker 1: come back from that, that is really really hard. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I am aligned with people that are reprehensible and repugnant.
Speaker 1: So we find out about people that we believed in
Speaker 1: every day now and we thought we were aligned with them,
Speaker 1: and then they do this big, horrible thing and suddenly
Speaker 1: we have to act like we were never in agreement
Speaker 1: with it, where we never knew who they were, and
Speaker 1: that's not working either. The truth of the matter is
Speaker 1: is we had a conversation. It is a civil conversation.
Speaker 1: In the chapter, by saying nope doesn't mean you can
Speaker 1: do it all the time with everybody, or that I
Speaker 1: have some special skill with this person the things that
Speaker 1: are said to me reprehensible and repugnant. Sure, and he
Speaker 1: believed them, and I believe what I believe, and there's
Speaker 1: some stuff that I've believed that has been pretty horrible,
Speaker 1: not as extreme, definitely, And well, I guess it's not
Speaker 1: my job to say is dangerous, but I've believed things,
Speaker 1: and I don't understand why we keep talking to people
Speaker 1: who believe what they believe, Like he's going off of
Speaker 1: his own belief system, and so all I can really
Speaker 1: do is talk to him in a way where I
Speaker 1: gain information. I'm obsessed with this idea of how one
Speaker 1: talks to people who really really believe something when that
Speaker 1: thing is wrong on some dimension, you know, factually wrong,
Speaker 1: then how do you get people to not think of
Speaker 1: the thing is factually wrong, morally or ethically wrong, even
Speaker 1: esthetically wrong, like someone just has terrible taste in something
Speaker 1: and you want to talk them out of it. And
Speaker 1: I'm totally obsessed with this question. And I always say
Speaker 1: when people ask me, like, well, how do you try
Speaker 1: to do that? And I do try to do it,
Speaker 1: I always say, well, I start by trying to figure
Speaker 1: out what that person believes his or her big picture
Speaker 1: values are, and then try to suggest that it maybe
Speaker 1: would be more consistent with their beliefs or values to
Speaker 1: think some other thing. And I think the whole thing
Speaker 1: is like trying on clothes, you know, in a mall
Speaker 1: or something like that, back when people did that, right,
Speaker 1: you know, all you can ever really do is try
Speaker 1: on a garment and say to a person, hey, try
Speaker 1: this on, look in the marri and see if you
Speaker 1: like who you are in this garment. And if you do, hey, man,
Speaker 1: you might want to buy it. And if not, fair
Speaker 1: enough like walk away. And I have this, I guess
Speaker 1: naive fantasy that by doing that sometimes you can get
Speaker 1: people to re examine. And I have the feeling that
Speaker 1: if I ask you that you would say, yeah, that's
Speaker 1: really that's very naive or that's not like the right
Speaker 1: way to go about it. But maybe I'm misreading that
Speaker 1: the way you related to your own conversation in that chapter.
Speaker 1: I actually do have genuine hope, and that it's just
Speaker 1: scary to say, I feel like I am, you know,
Speaker 1: saying something that could get me canceled to say that
Speaker 1: I have hope almost in a group of people, but
Speaker 1: I do. That's the genuine answer, is that I felt
Speaker 1: better even though he was saying things that I imagined
Speaker 1: he would say to me that we're terrible. I still
Speaker 1: felt better afterwards. First of all, I had a firsthand count.
Speaker 1: And you know, in the book, I say that we
Speaker 1: sort of thank each other after this, and we're very
Speaker 1: like polite with each other. And I see some hope
Speaker 1: in it. I see some hope in that because I've changed.
Speaker 1: I've changed that I have to believe in that for
Speaker 1: someone else or else, I think that I'm bigger than
Speaker 1: someone else, or that I have more awareness than someone else,
Speaker 1: and I don't think that's true, or else I'm setting
Speaker 1: myself up for another ego battle. But if I change,
Speaker 1: then yeah, he can, and I can change from that
Speaker 1: conversation too. I can learn to talk to people differently.
Speaker 1: So it was reciprocal and we both got something. And
Speaker 1: maybe we don't get the nice shiny bow on it
Speaker 1: that people would like to say that we got we
Speaker 1: solved racism, but we got something, and these days, why not.
Speaker 1: It's getting so out of control you might as well try.
Speaker 1: And I think a lot of this is that I
Speaker 1: might as well try while I'm here because the other
Speaker 1: isn't working. Being negative about everything that I see out there,
Speaker 1: calling everything problematic, or saying that everybody is evil except
Speaker 1: for me, seems like I think I live a really big, important,
Speaker 1: magic life, and I don't. I think I'm here with
Speaker 1: other people who are in all of their own stuff
Speaker 1: and all of their own trauma, and all of their
Speaker 1: own belief systems, and we're doing it together, whether we
Speaker 1: like it or not. I absolutely have that hope. It
Speaker 1: is scary, but I'd like to have it anyway. I
Speaker 1: find that profoundly moving. In at the same time that
Speaker 1: I say that, I'm afraid that if I say it's
Speaker 1: profoundly moving, like I screw it up for you. I
Speaker 1: want to close by asking you about so far what
Speaker 1: you've experienced as the downsides of honesty relative to the
Speaker 1: upsides you write in the book about being aware that
Speaker 1: there could be a lot of downsides to talking in
Speaker 1: the honest way that you're doing it now. Book's been
Speaker 1: out for a bit more than a month. Seems to
Speaker 1: be in my world, at least the people who read
Speaker 1: it love it and are really interested in it. Have
Speaker 1: you been experiencing any of the downsides of this kind
Speaker 1: of honesty yet or is it sort of like its
Speaker 1: own reward to be honest like this so far it's
Speaker 1: its own reward. I think that the people who don't
Speaker 1: love it I expected wouldn't love it, and so that
Speaker 1: makes sense to me. But for the most part, it's
Speaker 1: been well received. At least the people who are reaching
Speaker 1: out to me have received it well. And yeah, that
Speaker 1: gives me some hope. First of all, I finally get
Speaker 1: to go out into the world with vulnerability, like the
Speaker 1: vulnerability that's present in this book. That's new for me.
Speaker 1: I've been hiding behind us smug persona for a very
Speaker 1: long time, and now I feel very exposed in a way.
Speaker 1: That is a relief. But also when I meet people
Speaker 1: and we connect around this book, it feels like a
Speaker 1: real connection. It doesn't feel like that same thing where
Speaker 1: we believe the same six things and now you love me. No,
Speaker 1: it feels like we're connecting around something deeper. It's been
Speaker 1: kind of amazing, actually better than I thought it would
Speaker 1: have gone. And so I guess that's the part of
Speaker 1: the book that I got wrong is all of my
Speaker 1: I doubt that it was going to be such a
Speaker 1: I don't know something that turned people against me, and
Speaker 1: that wasn't true, and so I would say, well great
Speaker 1: to everybody else. I think that this could bring us
Speaker 1: closer or whatever your honesty is, I think there's the
Speaker 1: chance that could bring you closer to people, not further away.
Speaker 1: And I didn't believe that going in. So that's a
Speaker 1: huge lesson for me. Some humility in like, no, what
Speaker 1: you're saying is also not so big, and you know
Speaker 1: knew that it's going to create the splash you thought
Speaker 1: it would either maybe it'll be just a soft sort
Speaker 1: of hug of a book. So yeah, I feel very hopeful.
Speaker 1: Thank you for writing a book that is unflinchingly honest.
Speaker 1: And if it is a soft hug of a book,
Speaker 1: it's a soft hug from someone who knows how to
Speaker 1: call bullshit. But I really want to I want to
Speaker 1: thank you. I want to recommend the book to listeners.
Speaker 1: De Louis buzbys unfollow me Essays on Complicity, which is
Speaker 1: the most honest book that you will read this year,
Speaker 1: and I think of genuine value to all of us
Speaker 1: in a moment where little self reflection can go a
Speaker 1: long way. Thank you very much, and I hope when
Speaker 1: you have your ethic of Postcomplicity ready book form or otherwise,
Speaker 1: you'll come back and we can talk more about it.
Speaker 1: I appreciate it and thank you for reading and sharing
Speaker 1: this book. We'll be right back. As I listened to
Speaker 1: Jill Louise Busby, I had the constant feeling that you
Speaker 1: get when you're listening to a genuine intellectual working out
Speaker 1: a very complex set of issues. In Jill's case, the
Speaker 1: format in which she's been working on fundamental questions of
Speaker 1: human connection, honesty, authenticity, race, and bullshit is the format
Speaker 1: of our contemporary lives, the world of diversity and inclusion,
Speaker 1: the persona that we produce on social media, and now
Speaker 1: the literary reflection on all of that, complete with calling
Speaker 1: attention to the honesties and dishonesties of the self. In
Speaker 1: a way, almost all great essayists all the way back
Speaker 1: to Montaigne have been interested in exactly this phenomenon. Where
Speaker 1: is the truth as I depict it about myself? Where
Speaker 1: is the truth as I try to depict it with
Speaker 1: reference to the rest of the world. What Jill is
Speaker 1: profoundly adding to that frame is her searing willingness to
Speaker 1: be honest and to call bullshit on every institutional actor
Speaker 1: in our current world who is trying to make sense
Speaker 1: of things and, at least in principle, to make the
Speaker 1: world a better place. Her standard is high, so high
Speaker 1: that I could certainly never survive it, and so high
Speaker 1: that she herself, subjecting herself to that level of scrutiny,
Speaker 1: finds herself wanting as well. And yet from this analysis
Speaker 1: comes not a throw your hands up in the air
Speaker 1: and give up, but rather a radically reformulated possibility of
Speaker 1: communication and connection and something that Jill herself was not
Speaker 1: afraid to call hope. All of that in a moment.
Speaker 1: Where As Jill herself suggests, just saying that you might
Speaker 1: be hopeful is itself an invitation for somebody to be
Speaker 1: very frustrated with you. They say that every society gets
Speaker 1: the government that it deserves, well, it may also be
Speaker 1: true that every historical moment gets the intellectual life that
Speaker 1: it deserves. Measured by that criterion, I don't always think
Speaker 1: that our current era is doing that well, but hearing
Speaker 1: Jill gives me some hope. Genuine thinkers with genuinely remarkable
Speaker 1: ideas have the capacity to shape the way we are
Speaker 1: thinking about some of the hard problems that face us.
Speaker 1: All until the next time I speak to you, breathe deep, think,
Speaker 1: deep thoughts, and if it gives you some hope, have
Speaker 1: a little fun. If you're a regular listener, you know
Speaker 1: I love communicating with you here on Deep Background. I
Speaker 1: also really want that communication to run both ways. I
Speaker 1: want to know what you think are the most important
Speaker 1: stories of the moment and what kinds of guests you
Speaker 1: think you would be useful to hear from. More So,
Speaker 1: I'm opening a new channel of communication. To access it,
Speaker 1: just go to my website Noah Dashfelman dot com. You
Speaker 1: can sign up from my newsletter and you can tell
Speaker 1: me exactly what's on your mind, something that would be
Speaker 1: really valuable to me and I hope to you too.
Speaker 1: Deep Background is brought to you by Pushkin Industries. Our
Speaker 1: producer is mo La Board, our engineer is Bentaladay, and
Speaker 1: our showrunner is Sophie Crane mckibbn. Editorial support from noahm Osband.
Speaker 1: Theme music by Luis Garat at Pushkin. Thanks to Mia Lobell,
Speaker 1: Julia Barton, Lydia Jane Cott, Heather Faine, Carlie mcgliori, Maggie
Speaker 1: Taylor Xandler, and Jacob Weisberg. You can find me on
Speaker 1: Twitter at Noah R. Feldman. I also write a column
Speaker 1: for Bloomberg Opinion, which you can find at bloomberg dot
Speaker 1: com slash Feldman. To discover Bloomberg's original slate of podcasts,
Speaker 1: go to bloomberg dot com slash podcasts and if you
Speaker 1: liked what you've heard today, please write a review or
Speaker 1: tell a friend. This is deep background