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Speaker 1: On this episode of News World. As schools began to

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Speaker 1: reopen around the country, many of America's school children are

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Speaker 1: back to in person learning for the first time since

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Speaker 1: the pandemic began. I wanted to explore the impact of

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Speaker 1: the COVID nineteen shutdowns on our school aged children. In

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Speaker 1: his new book, Hollowed Out, Jeremy Adams reveals how a

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Speaker 1: combination of excess media, isolation, alienation from tradition, and the

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Speaker 1: effects of COVID nineteen shutdowns are creating an avalanche of

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Speaker 1: issues for this new generation. The statistics he points you

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Speaker 1: are alarming. Here's just a few. Between two thousand and

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Speaker 1: seven and two seventeen teen, depression rose by sixty three

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Speaker 1: percent and suicide in children ages ten to twenty four

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Speaker 1: jumped fifty six percent. Under the COVID nineteen lockdowns, it

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Speaker 1: has estimated the young people's screen time increased by five

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Speaker 1: hours a day. In in nineteen eighty, sixty percent of

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Speaker 1: teens read for pleasure every day. By twenty sixteen, that

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Speaker 1: number dropped to sixteen percent. Here to discuss more of

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Speaker 1: what this young generation is now facing, I'm very pleased

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Speaker 1: to welcome my guest, Jeremy Adams his new book, Hollowed Out,

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Speaker 1: a warning about America's next generation is out now. Jeremy,

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Speaker 1: it's great to have you here. Good Daymaster Speaker. Great

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Speaker 1: to be with you. Would you share a little bit

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Speaker 1: of your background as an educator, because you come at

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Speaker 1: this from a very sympathetic pro learning background. Yeah, I do.

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Speaker 1: I am a lifelong teacher. That is the only thing

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Speaker 1: I've ever done with my life. It's the only thing

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Speaker 1: I ever want to do with my life. So I

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Speaker 1: started teaching in nineteen ninety eight, and this is starting yesterday.

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Speaker 1: It was my twenty fourth year as a high school teacher.

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Speaker 1: I'll tell you what's really really interesting is I do feel,

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Speaker 1: mister Speaker, like I do have a bit of a

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Speaker 1: privileged perspective. You know, teachers, we oftentimes, you know, we'll

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Speaker 1: look at the headlines. There'll be some story in the

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Speaker 1: New York Times or The Atlantic or the Wall Street

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Speaker 1: Journal bemoaning some of the things that you just talked about,

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Speaker 1: the suicide rate, the absolute monomaniacal obsession with screens, the loneliness.

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Speaker 1: And it's interesting because we teachers who have kind of

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Speaker 1: been in the trenches for a while, you know, we

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Speaker 1: tend to see this a little bit sooner than everybody else.

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Speaker 1: And so you're right. I'm not a politician, I'm not

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Speaker 1: a pundit, I'm not famous. But what I do have

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Speaker 1: as an absolute front seat. And I wrote this book

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Speaker 1: because I'm telling people it's more terrifying than a Stephen

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Speaker 1: King novel. When did you first notice that things were changing?

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Speaker 1: That's a great question, and five or ten years it

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Speaker 1: really is somewhat recent. I know that you come from

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Speaker 1: an educational background too. I know that you were a

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Speaker 1: college professor. What I love about teaching is the personal relationships,

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Speaker 1: you know, talking to the students, getting to know their backgrounds,

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Speaker 1: and what would happened is, you know, they would start

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Speaker 1: to say things that I found to be kind of odd,

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Speaker 1: kind of alarming. And as time went on, it got

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Speaker 1: weirder and more alarming. Just to give you a few examples,

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Speaker 1: I started to talk to the students about meals, and

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Speaker 1: I found out kids don't eat with their families anymore.

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Speaker 1: We now spend more money on fast food in this

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Speaker 1: country than we do on the groceries. Realize, kids they're

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Speaker 1: not only are they not religious, not only do they

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Speaker 1: not go to church with their parents, they don't really

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Speaker 1: know anything about religion. And then you talk about football

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Speaker 1: games and movies and dating. And then I noticed the

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Speaker 1: kids weren't going. I mean Bakersfield High School, where I teach,

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Speaker 1: mister Speaker, football is the Gospel. It was like everybody

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Speaker 1: goes to a football game on a Friday night. And

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Speaker 1: I started to notice that the stands were empty, and

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Speaker 1: I asked the kids, were are you? And they said, well,

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Speaker 1: I'm at home. I'd rather socialize with my friends at

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Speaker 1: home in my room when I'm by myself. And then

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Speaker 1: most alarming of all, I'm a Civics teacher. I fell

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Speaker 1: in love with America when I was a student at

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Speaker 1: Washington and Lee University. And the way they look at

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Speaker 1: this country, the way they look at the American experiment,

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Speaker 1: they way they look at our history. You know, I've

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Speaker 1: started to notice they wouldn't say the Pledge of Allegiance,

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Speaker 1: they wouldn't stand for the national anthem, and you connect

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Speaker 1: all these things and it really is kind of a

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Speaker 1: hollowed out paradigm of life. I'm curious why did you

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Speaker 1: pick the term hollowed out? Well, because you know, when

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Speaker 1: I think about all the things that fill in my soul,

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Speaker 1: to be honest, all the things that make my life

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Speaker 1: worth living, all the experiences when I was a teenager

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Speaker 1: that gave me joy, those filled in my being, They

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Speaker 1: made me whole. And if you've removed those things, I mean,

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Speaker 1: imagine a childhood where you don't eat with your family,

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Speaker 1: where teachers are kind of seeing more as therapeutic social

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Speaker 1: emotional supporters instead of kind of high academic standards. Imagine

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Speaker 1: a childhood where you spend most of your time alone.

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Speaker 1: At childhood where you consume nine to ten hours a

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Speaker 1: day of content on your phone which is all about

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Speaker 1: how awful your country is, how we have this sprawling

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Speaker 1: history of oppression. And so the things that make my

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Speaker 1: life good, mister speaker, are my family, it's my faith,

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Speaker 1: it's my community, it's my country, it's my friendships. Now,

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Speaker 1: imagine a childhood where all those things are gone, and

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Speaker 1: you'd be hollowed out too. You have two different things

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Speaker 1: going on here though. You have the indoctrination, if you will,

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Speaker 1: of those in the school system who want to make

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Speaker 1: sure you don't like America, etc. But you also seem

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Speaker 1: to have in the culture, randomly at large, a series

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Speaker 1: of really unhealthy patterns that have grown and gotten even stronger,

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Speaker 1: and then maybe I don't know, do want it to be.

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Speaker 1: They are empowered, for example, by screens, whether it's a

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Speaker 1: smartphone or an iPad or a laptop, or the amount

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Speaker 1: of time spent playing games. But it strikes me that

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Speaker 1: there are these overlapping worlds, if you will, all of

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Speaker 1: which tend to break down the old order and lead

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Speaker 1: towards some kind of chaotic and in a way, the

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Speaker 1: world in which all of my normal social ties have

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Speaker 1: sort of evaporated. You know, I think that that's right,

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Speaker 1: and I think that what's interesting is the way that

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Speaker 1: I phrase it. Is when I listened to my students

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Speaker 1: talk about their values and their morality, the way that

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Speaker 1: they want to move forward in their lives. It's interesting,

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Speaker 1: mister speaker, because it's not that they don't want to

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Speaker 1: find love, but they just don't want to get married.

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Speaker 1: It's not that they don't have attachments to things, but

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Speaker 1: they want to have pets instead of children. There's just

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Speaker 1: a lack of connection to really permanent, meaningful things in

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Speaker 1: their lives. And it's a kind of postmodern radical individualism

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Speaker 1: where you and I think of freedom in terms of

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Speaker 1: what makes my life meaningful is I can freely connect

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Speaker 1: to people and places and ideals and institutions that give

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Speaker 1: my life purpose and order and a sense of structure.

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Speaker 1: Whereas young people interpret freedom very differently. They interpret freedom

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Speaker 1: as the freedom to not connect to anything. And what

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Speaker 1: you were describing was perfect. I'm going to play video

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Speaker 1: games instead of going about I'm going to acquire a

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Speaker 1: value system, you know, not from my mom and my dad,

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Speaker 1: but from celebrities and Instagram influencers. When I first started

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Speaker 1: teaching American government through talk issues, and I remember the

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Speaker 1: students would always talk about my mom, my dad, my

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Speaker 1: pastor my older brother. And it's interesting because nowadays they

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Speaker 1: never talk about their parents. They never talk about those

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Speaker 1: kinds of intimate relationships that kind of give us a

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Speaker 1: sense of normality. I've come to the conclusion in my

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Speaker 1: teaching life that whatever era you grow up in is

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Speaker 1: kind of your normality. And so it's interesting. The reason

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Speaker 1: why it's frankly, sir real talking to you, sir, is

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Speaker 1: because I grew up in the nineties. You know, you

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Speaker 1: were my Speaker of the House, right, and so you

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Speaker 1: know kind of the way I look at politics from

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Speaker 1: the nineties, which is it can be rough, it can

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Speaker 1: be abrasive, but we are Americans first and foremost. We

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Speaker 1: can get meaningful things done that We're not just there

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Speaker 1: to give speeches. We are there to create meaningful accords

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Speaker 1: of compromise and consensus and progress. You know, all those

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Speaker 1: achievements of the nineties that I grew up watching, mister Speaker,

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Speaker 1: My students never saw any of that. They didn't see

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Speaker 1: a Democratic president signing welfare reform with the Republican Congress.

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Speaker 1: They are so cynical about politics, and so it really

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Speaker 1: is hard to teach those kinds of meaningful attachments and

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Speaker 1: affections for our institutions. Is that cynicism, which I assume

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Speaker 1: they carry beyond graduation. Is that part of why California

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Speaker 1: politics now is so totally dysfunctional being in California. Let

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Speaker 1: me just tell you what we have done to young

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Speaker 1: people in the state of California is somewhere along the

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Speaker 1: way we convince them that the measure of a compassionate society,

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Speaker 1: the measure of a civilizations merit, is not on how

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Speaker 1: citizens live their lives, not how they use their freedom

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Speaker 1: and their individual liberty, which is how you and I

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Speaker 1: probably see it. Somewhere along the way, we convinced all

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Speaker 1: of these Californians that the measure of a great civilization

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Speaker 1: is how many services we provide to young people. And

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Speaker 1: if you have that mindframe, that idea that something is

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Speaker 1: owed to me, and that I should feel good about

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Speaker 1: myself before I achieve anything, and that if I don't

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Speaker 1: do well, it's because somebody did harm to me, even

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Speaker 1: if I don't know who they are, even if it's systemic,

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Speaker 1: even if it's impersonal, even if it's implicit. It is

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Speaker 1: what I call in the book American fatalism. And it

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Speaker 1: kills me because this country was found on the idea

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Speaker 1: of agency. That you know, we are not given our

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Speaker 1: rights by altar and throne. We are given our rights

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Speaker 1: by God and nature, and we can live the life

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Speaker 1: that we want to live. Except all these young people

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Speaker 1: are now becoming fatalists. They believe that they are kind

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Speaker 1: of pawned in this oppressive game and that the only

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Speaker 1: correction to that is a big government, and so does

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Speaker 1: it lead them to a kind of passivity, and that

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Speaker 1: there's nothing they can do about it. The government has

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Speaker 1: to step in and do it. It It will won't happen.

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Speaker 1: That's exactly right. So what is the corrective to these

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Speaker 1: kind of impersonal, nimical power structures that are affecting you.

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Speaker 1: The answer is big government, right, The answer is a

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Speaker 1: kind of a therapeutic activist society where only government can

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Speaker 1: be the arbitr. And of course you and I know

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Speaker 1: that the more power you give government, the more corrupt

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Speaker 1: it's going to go. You go, look in all of

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Speaker 1: the socialist governments, the party families and the elites and

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Speaker 1: the bureaucrats always got the money and the power and

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Speaker 1: the prestige. But again, they don't know that. When I

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Speaker 1: was writing the book, one of the things that sometimes

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Speaker 1: you've come across a statistic that really bothers you. And

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Speaker 1: I'm sure you've heard this, but I had to look

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Speaker 1: it up twice that there was a poll that was

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Speaker 1: taken a few years ago for eighteen to twenty nine

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Speaker 1: year olds and they have a more positive view of

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Speaker 1: socialism than they do capitalism. And that literally takes my

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Speaker 1: breath away, because you know, I'm a child of the

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Speaker 1: eighties and nineties. I was in junior high when the

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Speaker 1: Berlin Wall fell. Except you know, a lot of these

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Speaker 1: young people have grown up in the era of burning

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Speaker 1: and they really do believe that when they think of socialism,

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Speaker 1: mister speaker, you know, they're not thinking of Cuba or Czechoslovakia.

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Speaker 1: They're thinking of Finland, even though the Finns would never

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Speaker 1: call themselves socialists. So I just think a real lack

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Speaker 1: of education about the harms of that value system, and

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Speaker 1: really kind of a lack of empowerment and impassionment about

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Speaker 1: the American experiment, not understanding the gift that they have

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Speaker 1: been given. What did the process of closing everything down

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Speaker 1: due to students and the notion that they were going

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Speaker 1: to learn from home, etc. What was the effect of

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Speaker 1: though that. That's a great question. You know. Essentially, what

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Speaker 1: it did was it took these huge problems the students

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Speaker 1: already had and it just simply amplified, accelerated, and put

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Speaker 1: an exclamation point on it. I oftentimes give this statistic

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Speaker 1: that before the pandemic, my students were spending nine or

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Speaker 1: ten hours a day on their devices. And even before,

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Speaker 1: they weren't dating, they weren't going to the movies, not

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Speaker 1: going to football games, like I said before, not reading books,

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Speaker 1: and they were already lonely. In the beginning of the show,

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Speaker 1: you talked about the absolute mental health crisis of these

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Speaker 1: young people. And the word that I would use, and again,

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Speaker 1: if you're not in the classroom, you might not be

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Speaker 1: aware of this, but the word that teachers here all

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Speaker 1: the time now is anxiety. Anxiety, anxiety, anxiety. And really,

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Speaker 1: what these lockdowns have done is it's made the students

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Speaker 1: even more anxious than they were before. You know, they

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Speaker 1: already lived in a world. One of the big ideas

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Speaker 1: of the book is that this generation is unique, not

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Speaker 1: just because they're unhappy, but because they're growing up and

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Speaker 1: they're being socialized in a world without adults. I mean,

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Speaker 1: they literally don't spend times with adults. For a lot

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Speaker 1: of them, the teachers in their lives were the most

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Speaker 1: important adult relationship that they had. Now, of course it

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Speaker 1: shouldn't be that way, but it was. And what this

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Speaker 1: lockdown did was, mister Speaker, is it took that relationship away.

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Speaker 1: I've noticed that a lot of these kids are having

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Speaker 1: trouble coming back to normal life. I find them to

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Speaker 1: be very fearful of the world. I think our capacity

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Speaker 1: to have any kind of risk assessment as a society

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Speaker 1: has completely gone away. We are never going to be

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Speaker 1: completely safe, and the kids they are scared. They're more isolated,

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Speaker 1: and I find that they can't hold a conversation, they

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Speaker 1: don't look me in the eye, they don't want to

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Speaker 1: get involved in the class as much. One of the

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Speaker 1: things I've also noticed is it used to be that

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Speaker 1: if you had time at the end of class and

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Speaker 1: he said, okay, two or three minutes, everybody do what

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Speaker 1: you want. They would chat, they would gossip, they would flirt.

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Speaker 1: Now they just take out their phones and just scroll

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Speaker 1: and self medicate all day. So this is a generational

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Speaker 1: schism we've created between kind of normal ways of being socialized,

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Speaker 1: normal aspirations, and what we see with this hollowed out

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Speaker 1: in generation. To what he said is that technological and

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Speaker 1: that I mean frankly, even among adults, the number who

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Speaker 1: pull out their smartphone or pull out their iPad. If

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Speaker 1: you look at an airplane, for example, it's the amazing

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Speaker 1: number of people before takeoff who are busily just writing away. Yeah,

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Speaker 1: that's exactly right. My best friend from high school is

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Speaker 1: a pilot for Delta, and he's an interesting guy because

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Speaker 1: he really fell in love with reading and learning in

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Speaker 1: his early thirties, really wasn't particularly academic, and then he

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Speaker 1: discovered one of the great writers of all time, Leo Tolstoy,

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Speaker 1: and he started reading very deeply, and he said, you know,

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Speaker 1: when I'm in the airport, it's just like what you notice.

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Speaker 1: He says, nobody reads. Everybody is on their phone. And

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Speaker 1: I don't know about you, but I find that these

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Speaker 1: devices have kind of ruined my concentration. I used to

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Speaker 1: be able to read for an hour and a half.

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Speaker 1: I remember being in college and reading a little book

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Speaker 1: called to Renew America when I was on vacation and

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Speaker 1: read it in a day or two. It nice, plug.

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Speaker 1: I have to say, I like you dropping that one in.

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Speaker 1: That was good. But you know, though, it is true.

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Speaker 1: That's why that era of my life, when I was

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Speaker 1: reading those books, I could really focus. I remember sitting

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Speaker 1: there reading two books to Renew America, and I also

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Speaker 1: was reading John Jack Rousseau, and I remember spending eight

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Speaker 1: hours a day on that vacation focused reading. And young

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Speaker 1: people just can't do that anymore. So to answer your question,

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Speaker 1: what I would say is kind of this culture of

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Speaker 1: radical individualism that I should not have to attach to

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Speaker 1: anything that requires anything of me, relationships, my country of faith,

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Speaker 1: none of it. That's the broadest problem. But I would

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Speaker 1: say that the technology is essentially kind of the gas

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Speaker 1: on the fire of our culture that already existed. And

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Speaker 1: to me, that's kind of a core conservative principle, is

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Speaker 1: that it's not politics that drives societies, it's really culture

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Speaker 1: first and foremost. And their culture is rotten. It is

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Speaker 1: absolutely individualistic and narcissistic, and the phones feed into that.

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Speaker 1: One of the side of fenilis that I've understood least

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Speaker 1: is the willingness of the younger generation to take the

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Speaker 1: risk with fentanyl. Since it's so clear that fentanyl kills.

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Speaker 1: Do you jump from something like marijuana to take you

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Speaker 1: in fentyl? But what do you think is happening? And

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Speaker 1: it's almost as though as a cycle of nealism where

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Speaker 1: people just don't care. That's exactly right. In public policy,

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Speaker 1: we call this death of despair, right, that's what we

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Speaker 1: call it is you know, drug usage and alcohol. But

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Speaker 1: you know, if you want my view of it, I

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Speaker 1: want you to imagine being a young person and you're

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Speaker 1: not married, right, You don't have a family, you don't

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Speaker 1: have any religious faith, you don't love your country, you

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Speaker 1: don't see any contribution to your community. You don't have

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Speaker 1: close relationships. I mean, one of this toss that always

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Speaker 1: breaks my heart is one out of five millennials say

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Speaker 1: they don't have a good friend. In the entire world,

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Speaker 1: half of all eighteen to thirty four year olds don't

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Speaker 1: have a romantic partner. So you know, if you would

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Speaker 1: have it not a meaningful universe, but like you said,

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Speaker 1: a neolistic one where there is no higher good, there

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Speaker 1: is no greatest good, there is no transcendent truth, there

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Speaker 1: is no absolute justice. You and I live are things

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Speaker 1: in pursuit of ideals. You know, you in the political sphere,

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Speaker 1: me in the educational sphere, because we believe in these

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Speaker 1: transcendent goods, right, And I want you to imagine being

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Speaker 1: a young person, and mister speaker, imagine if you don't

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Speaker 1: have any of those things, how would you look at

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Speaker 1: the world. How would you feel? You might take refuge

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Speaker 1: in fantanal or drugs as well. And that's how I

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Speaker 1: explain it. As you see these patterns building, what are

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Speaker 1: the long term ramifications? It sounds very sobering. Well, there

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Speaker 1: are two. There's an individual ramification and then I think

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Speaker 1: there's also a ramification for the country. So individually it's

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Speaker 1: very simple. We're going to create a generation of young

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Speaker 1: people who cannot find the good life. They cannot find meaning,

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Speaker 1: they cannot find joy, and that breaks my heart. And

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Speaker 1: I see it. I see it, mister speaker, in a

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Speaker 1: lot of my young kind of former students who are

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Speaker 1: in their thirties, their twenties, and they never put the

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Speaker 1: time into connecting the difficult things. And so I mean,

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Speaker 1: I think of my twenties, and you know, I was

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Speaker 1: starting a career, buying a house, getting married, having kids,

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Speaker 1: and it was hard. I mean, I remember how hard

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Speaker 1: it was to start a marriage, start a family, start

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Speaker 1: a career. But eventually, you know, those things become the

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Speaker 1: foundation of my life and my happiness. Two days ago,

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Speaker 1: I just dropped off my daughter to college, which is

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Speaker 1: every bit as awful and emotionally draining as they say

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Speaker 1: it is, but as sad as I was, I can't

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Speaker 1: imagine a life where I didn't have that child's love.

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Speaker 1: And so we are creating a generation that's not going

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Speaker 1: to know what that feels like. But the second thing,

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Speaker 1: and now I'm going to put on my Civics teacher

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Speaker 1: had is you and I both know that democracy is

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Speaker 1: more than just a form of government. It requires a

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Speaker 1: certain kind of disposition in our young people. I have

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Speaker 1: a theory about why our politics has become so toxic

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Speaker 1: on the left and the right, by the way, is

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Speaker 1: because if you don't have anything else in your life,

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Speaker 1: politics is being asked to fill the void. And so

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Speaker 1: more and more of my former students will say things

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Speaker 1: like if you don't agree with me, we cannot be friends.

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Speaker 1: Like if you don't agree with this policy, not only

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Speaker 1: do we disagree, but you are personally against me because

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Speaker 1: my politics is who I am. Now you see things

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Speaker 1: like weird things like parents who say I don't want

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Speaker 1: my child to date somebody who's the opposite political party.

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Speaker 1: There's an interesting article I came across where there's a

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Speaker 1: lady who matches people. She was a matchmaker, and she

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Speaker 1: said usually it was religion. You know, an evangelical Christian

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Speaker 1: and an atheist are not going to date. She says,

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Speaker 1: Now it's all politics. So if we approach politics in

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Speaker 1: that kind of way, where it's like the essence of

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Speaker 1: our being the core of our identity, we are not

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Speaker 1: going to be able to kind of do the Madisonian

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Speaker 1: work of building consensus, building, compromise creating coalitions, which you

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Speaker 1: have to do in a pluralistic society. These kids have

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Speaker 1: no love of pluralism, zilch zero. They're kind of all Wilsonian,

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Speaker 1: to be honest, which I think is a road to

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Speaker 1: ruin to what extent is the problem with gun people?

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Speaker 1: Really the problem with parents. The parents just don't do parenting.

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Speaker 1: That's exactly right. The book is critical of the adults

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Speaker 1: in our society who literally have stepped back and stopped adulting.

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Speaker 1: Let me explain it this way. So these digital spaces,

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Speaker 1: every single generation of kids would love to have a

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Speaker 1: room in their house where the parents can't go in,

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Speaker 1: the door is locked, and the kids can say or

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Speaker 1: do whatever they want to do. And what I would

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Speaker 1: say is, and my students and my children would agree

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Speaker 1: with me on this, this is the first generation in

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Speaker 1: history that has actually successfully done it. They spend nine

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Speaker 1: to ten to fifteen hours a day in a digital ecosystem,

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Speaker 1: in a kind of space that is so vulgar, so violent,

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Speaker 1: so pornographic, so anti American, and the adults don't even

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Speaker 1: see it. And so you are absolutely right. We have

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Speaker 1: literally outsourced the socialization of our children to this impersonal

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Speaker 1: space that we can't even monitor you and I I

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Speaker 1: think I'm pretty intelligent. I know you're intelligent, but we

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Speaker 1: can't keep up with the kids and their technology. They

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Speaker 1: are light years ahead of us. They know how to hide,

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Speaker 1: they know how to delete, they know how to create secondary,

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Speaker 1: third level accounts, and so the adults have absolutely forfeited

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Speaker 1: that moral and political and intellectual space to social media

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Speaker 1: and to a digital fortress that we can't seem to

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Speaker 1: intrude upon. So to me, that's the problem is the

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Speaker 1: adults have stopped adulting. There's a challenge in that left

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Speaker 1: to themselves. There was some deep truth in Golden's The

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Speaker 1: Lord of the Flies and the degree to which you

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Speaker 1: really can't recreate civilization in one generation. I mean, you

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Speaker 1: have to inherit it, you have to learn about it.

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Speaker 1: You're dealing with thousands of years of human effort. And

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Speaker 1: to try to think that nine year olds left to

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Speaker 1: themselves without parents are somehow going to magically achieve all

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Speaker 1: this is really being totally out of touch with the

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Speaker 1: real world. I'm curious. I noticed that you use the

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Speaker 1: seventeen seventy six commission. Why was that? I referenced it

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Speaker 1: in the book and my last chapter is called hollowed

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Speaker 1: out democracy because what I'm trying to explain to older Americans.

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Speaker 1: I have all these friends who are about my age

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Speaker 1: on forty five, and they're not teachers, and they look

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Speaker 1: at the athletes, and they look at the Olympians and

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Speaker 1: they're like, what in the world is going on? Why

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Speaker 1: do one out of five millennials see the flag as

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Speaker 1: a symbol of hate? Explain this? So I really try

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Speaker 1: and take a deep dive and explain the perspective that

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Speaker 1: young people have and why they have this really different

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Speaker 1: view of America, really cynical view of America that old

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Speaker 1: Americans just simply don't understand, and the way that they

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Speaker 1: see it. And keep in mind, I'm going to temper

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Speaker 1: this by saying young Americans are the least educated Americans

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Speaker 1: in our history. I mean their level of civic ignorance.

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Speaker 1: I'm sure you've read all the studies where one out

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Speaker 1: of ten Americans thinks Judge Judy's on the Supreme Court, right,

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Speaker 1: No more than thirty three percent of the country can

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Speaker 1: name all three branches. I mean, it's awful. So part

428
00:23:44,840 --> 00:23:47,680
Speaker 1: of it is they just don't know much about American history.

429
00:23:47,960 --> 00:23:50,920
Speaker 1: But I think what they would say, is that they

430
00:23:51,000 --> 00:23:53,800
Speaker 1: look back on history and say, look, we don't talk

431
00:23:53,840 --> 00:23:57,120
Speaker 1: about all these episodes. We don't talk about the Tulsa massacre.

432
00:23:57,320 --> 00:24:00,639
Speaker 1: We didn't learn anything about Juneteenth. We didn't realize the

433
00:24:00,880 --> 00:24:04,119
Speaker 1: level of oppression, we didn't realize just how bad it was.

434
00:24:04,440 --> 00:24:06,640
Speaker 1: And I think that young people look at those episodes

435
00:24:06,640 --> 00:24:10,840
Speaker 1: and say, those episodes, that's the real America that I

436
00:24:10,920 --> 00:24:14,359
Speaker 1: wasn't shown. And now I see the truth and I

437
00:24:14,480 --> 00:24:17,320
Speaker 1: realize how bad our country is. Whereas you and I

438
00:24:17,359 --> 00:24:21,520
Speaker 1: would say, hold on a minute, kids, we are not

439
00:24:21,600 --> 00:24:24,080
Speaker 1: our original sin. We are not where we started, We

440
00:24:24,119 --> 00:24:26,639
Speaker 1: are not who we were at eighteen years old. We

441
00:24:26,760 --> 00:24:29,280
Speaker 1: take great pride in this country because look at where

442
00:24:29,320 --> 00:24:32,600
Speaker 1: we went right. America is not slavery. It's the Civil

443
00:24:32,600 --> 00:24:36,120
Speaker 1: War and the thirteenth Amendment and the Emancipation Proclamation. America

444
00:24:36,240 --> 00:24:39,600
Speaker 1: is not segregation in the KKK, it's Martin Luther King's

445
00:24:39,640 --> 00:24:42,240
Speaker 1: letter from a Birmingham jail and the twenty fourth Amendment

446
00:24:42,240 --> 00:24:45,160
Speaker 1: and the Civil Rights Act. And so they don't make

447
00:24:45,200 --> 00:24:47,560
Speaker 1: that pivot the way that you and I do. And

448
00:24:47,640 --> 00:24:49,520
Speaker 1: so the publisher and I thought it would be a

449
00:24:49,560 --> 00:24:53,159
Speaker 1: good idea to say, look, this is conventional curriculum that

450
00:24:53,240 --> 00:24:56,320
Speaker 1: would not have been controversial five or teen years ago,

451
00:24:56,880 --> 00:25:00,320
Speaker 1: but now we're in this era of really wanting to

452
00:25:00,320 --> 00:25:03,640
Speaker 1: point out the flaws of the country without showing what

453
00:25:03,680 --> 00:25:07,000
Speaker 1: we did about those flaws. That's the reason for including it.

454
00:25:07,440 --> 00:25:10,240
Speaker 1: If you had a chance to talk to every American

455
00:25:10,320 --> 00:25:14,320
Speaker 1: grandparents and parents, what would you say to the grandparents first?

456
00:25:14,560 --> 00:25:18,600
Speaker 1: That's sort of my generation. It's interesting, the grandparents are

457
00:25:18,600 --> 00:25:23,080
Speaker 1: the most patriotic generation alive today, the silent generation. Ninety

458
00:25:23,119 --> 00:25:25,679
Speaker 1: four percent of them say that we have a history

459
00:25:25,680 --> 00:25:27,840
Speaker 1: to be proud of. And I think the best thing

460
00:25:27,840 --> 00:25:31,320
Speaker 1: that grandparents can do is to really explain to young

461
00:25:31,359 --> 00:25:34,719
Speaker 1: people the kinds of sacrifices that were made for the

462
00:25:34,760 --> 00:25:37,800
Speaker 1: life that they have today in a way that my generation,

463
00:25:37,920 --> 00:25:41,320
Speaker 1: yes we had nine to eleven, but grandparents who lived

464
00:25:41,320 --> 00:25:44,919
Speaker 1: through World War Two, who lived through Vietnam. One of

465
00:25:44,920 --> 00:25:47,840
Speaker 1: the things that just drives me looney, like it makes

466
00:25:47,880 --> 00:25:50,639
Speaker 1: me so crazy, is I think that the young people

467
00:25:50,720 --> 00:25:53,399
Speaker 1: alive today very easily. You can make the argument are

468
00:25:53,440 --> 00:25:57,000
Speaker 1: the luckiest people in history. I mean, the opportunities, the freedom.

469
00:25:57,280 --> 00:25:58,959
Speaker 1: They're not going to die in a war, They're not

470
00:25:59,000 --> 00:26:01,760
Speaker 1: going to die of a disease, They have a free education,

471
00:26:01,880 --> 00:26:05,199
Speaker 1: Their technology is the stuff of science fiction. And what

472
00:26:05,280 --> 00:26:08,359
Speaker 1: I would love grandparents to say is, look, you guys,

473
00:26:08,480 --> 00:26:12,960
Speaker 1: this didn't happen on accident. Their generation, we literally stormed beaches.

474
00:26:13,320 --> 00:26:16,960
Speaker 1: Our way of life is not natural. America is the

475
00:26:17,000 --> 00:26:20,160
Speaker 1: exception to the rule of history. Freedom is not the rule,

476
00:26:20,400 --> 00:26:24,360
Speaker 1: enslavement and oppression is the rule. Prosperity is not the rule,

477
00:26:24,520 --> 00:26:27,640
Speaker 1: poverty is. And so we're living in this really special

478
00:26:27,720 --> 00:26:31,360
Speaker 1: moment in human history that other people who came before

479
00:26:31,440 --> 00:26:34,520
Speaker 1: this generation of young people built and gave to them.

480
00:26:34,720 --> 00:26:37,320
Speaker 1: And I would hope that old Americans would say, it's

481
00:26:37,400 --> 00:26:39,919
Speaker 1: up to you. You have to renew the values and

482
00:26:39,960 --> 00:26:43,800
Speaker 1: the institutions that created your prosperity, rather than wanting to

483
00:26:43,800 --> 00:26:47,080
Speaker 1: tear it all down. It's easy to destroy civilization, it's

484
00:26:47,200 --> 00:26:51,200
Speaker 1: ridiculously hard to build one. From your standpoint, are you

485
00:26:51,480 --> 00:26:56,640
Speaker 1: optimistic that people can be recruited to in fact, sort

486
00:26:56,680 --> 00:27:02,000
Speaker 1: of restart American civilization? To be honest with you, I

487
00:27:02,040 --> 00:27:04,680
Speaker 1: don't know. I mean, I look at the rates of

488
00:27:05,240 --> 00:27:08,600
Speaker 1: children who are not living in a stable household. I

489
00:27:08,720 --> 00:27:12,119
Speaker 1: look at what's happening in education, where there's this trend

490
00:27:12,160 --> 00:27:14,600
Speaker 1: going on that. I just can't wrap my brain around

491
00:27:14,600 --> 00:27:18,199
Speaker 1: where we somehow think that if we decriminalize everything, that

492
00:27:18,280 --> 00:27:19,879
Speaker 1: crime is going to go away, right, or if we

493
00:27:19,960 --> 00:27:23,760
Speaker 1: give everybody a trophy, that everybody's excellent. And the version

494
00:27:23,840 --> 00:27:25,960
Speaker 1: of that in education that makes me kind of cynical,

495
00:27:25,960 --> 00:27:28,159
Speaker 1: to be honest, is I don't know if you've seen this,

496
00:27:28,160 --> 00:27:31,560
Speaker 1: but in Oregon, in New York City, we've taken away

497
00:27:31,600 --> 00:27:34,480
Speaker 1: all of these standards. Kids don't have to pass tests anymore.

498
00:27:34,680 --> 00:27:37,920
Speaker 1: We just pass everybody through because somewhere along the way,

499
00:27:37,920 --> 00:27:41,720
Speaker 1: we convinced ourselves that it's oppressive to have standards. And

500
00:27:41,800 --> 00:27:44,480
Speaker 1: it drives me up the wall because I have seen

501
00:27:44,600 --> 00:27:46,879
Speaker 1: so much magic in my life, mister speaker, being an

502
00:27:46,920 --> 00:27:49,479
Speaker 1: inner city high school teacher, I have seen kids do

503
00:27:49,680 --> 00:27:53,719
Speaker 1: amazing things with their lives because they believed in themselves,

504
00:27:54,119 --> 00:27:56,880
Speaker 1: They believed in this country. But they understood that they

505
00:27:56,880 --> 00:28:00,760
Speaker 1: had to have deep knowledge, they had to acquire real skills,

506
00:28:01,080 --> 00:28:03,240
Speaker 1: and they understood that an education was the way to

507
00:28:03,320 --> 00:28:06,520
Speaker 1: do that, and so it really empowered and impassioned them.

508
00:28:06,800 --> 00:28:09,600
Speaker 1: And I look at education today and it's like we're

509
00:28:09,640 --> 00:28:11,720
Speaker 1: just going to push everybody through and act as if

510
00:28:11,880 --> 00:28:15,600
Speaker 1: there's real achievement taking place, and it is the opposite

511
00:28:15,640 --> 00:28:18,280
Speaker 1: of giving people the skills. To the American drink, we

512
00:28:18,320 --> 00:28:20,760
Speaker 1: say that we're being compassionate to the least fortunate among us.

513
00:28:21,040 --> 00:28:24,000
Speaker 1: It's the cruelest thing you can do, because you're not

514
00:28:24,080 --> 00:28:26,760
Speaker 1: giving them the education. It's what George W. Bush called

515
00:28:26,880 --> 00:28:29,520
Speaker 1: the soft bigotry of low expectation. I wish I could

516
00:28:29,520 --> 00:28:33,200
Speaker 1: say I'm particularly hopeful, but from my advantage point, things

517
00:28:33,240 --> 00:28:36,879
Speaker 1: aren't getting better anytime soon. The Oregon decision that there

518
00:28:36,920 --> 00:28:40,280
Speaker 1: would be no standards for reading, writing, or math, for

519
00:28:40,440 --> 00:28:42,920
Speaker 1: sure makes you wonder, so why are they paying for

520
00:28:43,000 --> 00:28:47,680
Speaker 1: the schools. I did some stuff on the Baltimore City Schools,

521
00:28:47,720 --> 00:28:52,280
Speaker 1: which had I think nine buildings in which nobody had

522
00:28:52,280 --> 00:28:57,040
Speaker 1: been able to pass a single state exam, and you wondered,

523
00:28:57,120 --> 00:29:00,720
Speaker 1: I mean, if there was no teaching going on, why

524
00:29:00,720 --> 00:29:03,400
Speaker 1: are we paying? Because these are expensive schools. I think

525
00:29:03,400 --> 00:29:06,960
Speaker 1: it's the third most expensive school per capita in the country.

526
00:29:07,520 --> 00:29:10,720
Speaker 1: The reason is because we now see education as therapeutic.

527
00:29:11,000 --> 00:29:12,880
Speaker 1: And I have no problem with this, but schools are

528
00:29:12,960 --> 00:29:15,959
Speaker 1: seen as there to provide social services. We're gonna give

529
00:29:15,960 --> 00:29:17,560
Speaker 1: you three meals a day, We're going to give you

530
00:29:17,640 --> 00:29:20,400
Speaker 1: counseling services. We're going to deal with your social emotional issues,

531
00:29:20,680 --> 00:29:24,000
Speaker 1: and it's seemed less and less as an academic institution.

532
00:29:24,280 --> 00:29:25,680
Speaker 1: One of the things that I want to see is,

533
00:29:25,880 --> 00:29:28,160
Speaker 1: you know, fine, let's do all of this critical race

534
00:29:28,200 --> 00:29:31,120
Speaker 1: theory stuff. Let's go ahead and just do this for

535
00:29:31,160 --> 00:29:33,320
Speaker 1: ten years and let's see if it works. Because I've

536
00:29:33,320 --> 00:29:36,400
Speaker 1: always noticed that the school district's like Baltimore you mentioned,

537
00:29:36,720 --> 00:29:38,560
Speaker 1: did you see last year San Francisco was going to

538
00:29:38,640 --> 00:29:41,440
Speaker 1: rename like eighty schools, And I just want to know,

539
00:29:41,680 --> 00:29:43,320
Speaker 1: how is that going to work out in ten years?

540
00:29:43,400 --> 00:29:45,800
Speaker 1: You know, when we teach all the CRT, we rename

541
00:29:45,840 --> 00:29:48,600
Speaker 1: all the schools, we take away the standards, you're hurting

542
00:29:48,600 --> 00:29:50,160
Speaker 1: the very people you say you want to help, and

543
00:29:50,200 --> 00:29:53,520
Speaker 1: so I'm skeptical. Yeah, I think that's probably right. Jeremy.

544
00:29:53,560 --> 00:29:55,920
Speaker 1: I really want to thank you. This has been a

545
00:29:56,120 --> 00:30:00,600
Speaker 1: very stimulating conversation, and your new book called out a

546
00:30:00,760 --> 00:30:03,840
Speaker 1: warning about America's next generation. I think it's a really

547
00:30:03,840 --> 00:30:07,280
Speaker 1: important contribution to helping us understand what our children and

548
00:30:07,360 --> 00:30:10,600
Speaker 1: grandchildren are facing and what we got to do about it.

549
00:30:10,760 --> 00:30:13,200
Speaker 1: We're going to have it on our show page and

550
00:30:13,280 --> 00:30:15,920
Speaker 1: a link so people can buy it. I really really

551
00:30:15,960 --> 00:30:19,360
Speaker 1: appreciate you taking the time and having the courage to

552
00:30:19,400 --> 00:30:23,240
Speaker 1: write it and to start this conversation, and I look

553
00:30:23,280 --> 00:30:26,440
Speaker 1: forward to stay in touch with you as things evolved.

554
00:30:27,160 --> 00:30:29,080
Speaker 1: Thank you so much, mister speaker. It really wasn't honored

555
00:30:29,080 --> 00:30:33,400
Speaker 1: to be here. Thank you again. Thank you to my guests,

556
00:30:33,600 --> 00:30:36,320
Speaker 1: Jeremy Adams. You can get a link to his new book,

557
00:30:36,640 --> 00:30:40,960
Speaker 1: Hollowed Out a warning about America's next generation on our

558
00:30:41,000 --> 00:30:45,280
Speaker 1: show page at newsworld dot com. News World is produced

559
00:30:45,280 --> 00:30:50,320
Speaker 1: by Gingwich three sixty and iHeartMedia. Our executive producer is

560
00:30:50,400 --> 00:30:55,360
Speaker 1: Debbie Myers, our producer is Guarnsey Sloan, and our researcher

561
00:30:55,800 --> 00:30:59,680
Speaker 1: is Rachel Peterson. Our work for the show was created

562
00:30:59,680 --> 00:31:03,760
Speaker 1: by ve Penley. Special thanks to the team at Gingwish

563
00:31:03,800 --> 00:31:07,080
Speaker 1: three sixty. If you've been enjoying news World, I hope

564
00:31:07,080 --> 00:31:10,240
Speaker 1: you'll go to Apple Podcasts and both rate us with

565
00:31:10,360 --> 00:31:13,760
Speaker 1: five stars and give us a review so others can

566
00:31:13,880 --> 00:31:17,880
Speaker 1: learn what it's all about. Right now, listeners of news

567
00:31:17,960 --> 00:31:21,880
Speaker 1: World can sign up from my three free weekly columns

568
00:31:22,240 --> 00:31:27,120
Speaker 1: at Gingwish three sixty dot com slash newsletter. I'm new Gingrish.

569
00:31:27,560 --> 00:31:28,640
Speaker 1: This is news World