WEBVTT - Turning Points in American History 0:00:00.200 --> 0:00:02.840 History is not about the past, or it's not just 0:00:02.960 --> 0:00:07.120 about the past. History is about us here and now, 0:00:08.039 --> 0:00:11.479 this room, the electricity in this room, the social relations 0:00:11.480 --> 0:00:13.840 we have with each other. Why some people are poor, 0:00:13.840 --> 0:00:16.360 why some people are rich, why some people have all 0:00:16.400 --> 0:00:19.400 the advantages, why some people don't. All of that is 0:00:19.440 --> 0:00:24.200 determined by history. The science of happiness, Appreciating modern painting, 0:00:24.239 --> 0:00:27.600 dilemmas of modern medicine, Abraham Lincoln at the Civil War, 0:00:27.720 --> 0:00:34.239 The artistic genius of Nicole Angelin. When intuition fed American 0:00:34.640 --> 0:00:45.680 The psychology of One Day University. The most acclaimed and 0:00:45.840 --> 0:00:52.680 popular professors from top colleges. They're best lectures, fascinating conversations. Hi, 0:00:52.880 --> 0:00:58.600 I'm Richard Davies. Let's learn. So history is not just 0:00:58.680 --> 0:01:01.880 about the past. History is about now. And the more 0:01:01.960 --> 0:01:04.040 we understand history in that sense, the more it can 0:01:04.040 --> 0:01:05.760 actually work for us. History isn't just supposed to be 0:01:05.760 --> 0:01:08.840 a fun story. History is Edward T. O'Donnell and my 0:01:08.959 --> 0:01:11.640 title of my lectures, turning Points in American newspeople think 0:01:11.640 --> 0:01:15.440 about the the fight over the Confederate flag. You know, 0:01:15.520 --> 0:01:18.840 that's just not some abstract fight. That's a real issue 0:01:19.160 --> 0:01:20.920 that has a lot to do with what's going on 0:01:21.080 --> 0:01:25.200 right now in the United States. So often history is 0:01:25.240 --> 0:01:29.200 thought of as as dates and great leaders, usually men. 0:01:30.480 --> 0:01:34.920 You approach it a different way, Yeah, I mean, I 0:01:34.959 --> 0:01:37.000 think that you can't get past dates. You have to 0:01:37.000 --> 0:01:38.440 know where you are in time and all in certain 0:01:38.480 --> 0:01:41.280 people like Andrew Carnegie, or Abraham Lincoln and George Washington. 0:01:41.319 --> 0:01:45.440 They're all very very important people. But history probably understood, 0:01:45.440 --> 0:01:47.160 you know, it encompasses all of society, and so I 0:01:47.160 --> 0:01:48.920 always say that the people that make history are often 0:01:48.960 --> 0:01:52.240 great leaders, but it's also often legions of nameless, faceless 0:01:52.240 --> 0:01:55.560 people that want to push for change. So millions of 0:01:55.640 --> 0:01:58.280 enslaved people saying we do not want to be slaves anymore, 0:01:58.280 --> 0:02:00.520 millions of workers who say we don't want to work 0:02:00.520 --> 0:02:03.200 sixteen hours a day, millions of women who want the 0:02:03.480 --> 0:02:05.720 right to vote. They you know, we don't know most 0:02:05.760 --> 0:02:08.080 of their names, but they're the ones who organize and 0:02:08.200 --> 0:02:11.480 move history in a different direction. Some of your turning points, 0:02:11.880 --> 0:02:14.560 are they huge events that we all know? Are? Are 0:02:14.600 --> 0:02:17.799 they sometimes a little bit obscure? And then you explain 0:02:18.240 --> 0:02:20.800 why they're so important? Yeah, Well, I try to peg 0:02:20.840 --> 0:02:23.320 them to events. Often I'll start with the Declaration of independence, 0:02:23.360 --> 0:02:26.040 which is not an unknown event obviously. But what I 0:02:26.080 --> 0:02:28.240 do is, I would say it's incumbent upon me to 0:02:28.360 --> 0:02:30.480 make this tell you more than what you know. Not 0:02:30.560 --> 0:02:33.200 just that the Declaration Independence gains us our independence and 0:02:33.240 --> 0:02:36.240 it's this sacred document, but what does it actually means? 0:02:36.280 --> 0:02:39.000 We delve into that. People are often unaware exactly what 0:02:39.200 --> 0:02:45.400 the document actually was. But the declaration is essentially a 0:02:45.400 --> 0:02:49.200 declaration of war. And the first part that we love, 0:02:49.800 --> 0:02:52.000 you know, the declaration that you know defines all these 0:02:52.040 --> 0:02:55.119 great values that was sort of considered fluff. The key 0:02:55.160 --> 0:02:58.440 part was the last two thirds where we said we 0:02:58.520 --> 0:03:01.079 are breaking away from a great Britain for these reasons. 0:03:01.480 --> 0:03:05.320 He has, he has, he has. The king has done 0:03:05.360 --> 0:03:07.400 all these terrible things to us. He sent troops, he's 0:03:07.680 --> 0:03:10.360 tax us to death, he's dissolved our legislatures. He has, 0:03:10.440 --> 0:03:12.280 he has, he has. That's the key part that we 0:03:12.280 --> 0:03:16.079 need to explain to the world. But Jefferson does put 0:03:16.080 --> 0:03:19.320 that flowery philosophical treatise at the beginning, and that, as 0:03:19.320 --> 0:03:21.639 we'll see, we'll have legs. It's not this great declaration 0:03:21.680 --> 0:03:24.480 of human rights, but it becomes that and it has 0:03:24.520 --> 0:03:28.600 power decades and now centuries beyond its original creation and 0:03:28.600 --> 0:03:30.160 that so we delve into how this, you know, the 0:03:30.200 --> 0:03:32.520 how a document like that can have a life that nobody, 0:03:32.520 --> 0:03:35.760 including Jefferson himself, could have ever expected. Yeah, talk about that, 0:03:35.800 --> 0:03:39.480 because some of that declaration is a litany of somewhat 0:03:39.560 --> 0:03:43.520 grumpy complaints against the boss, right, George the third of England. 0:03:43.560 --> 0:03:45.760 It's kind of interesting. When the declaration was was issued 0:03:45.800 --> 0:03:48.320 in seventeen seventy six, the more important part was the 0:03:48.320 --> 0:03:50.160 back end, the two thirds, where it just says he 0:03:50.200 --> 0:03:52.280 has tax us into starvation, he has sent armies to 0:03:52.360 --> 0:03:55.320 plunder us. Today it's just the opposite. Nobody can really remember, 0:03:55.320 --> 0:03:58.120 other than historians, the back two thirds about he has, 0:03:58.160 --> 0:04:01.280 he has, he has, and they focus primarily on, you know, 0:04:01.320 --> 0:04:03.320 we hold these truths to be self evident and all 0:04:03.360 --> 0:04:06.760 of those beautiful statements of human rights, of universal truths 0:04:06.800 --> 0:04:10.720 and so forth. What fires you up, what keeps you going? 0:04:11.280 --> 0:04:13.600 Why do you do this? Well? I think it has 0:04:13.640 --> 0:04:14.960 to do with the idea that I mean, I find 0:04:15.040 --> 0:04:17.680 history fascinating and interesting in and of itself, but I 0:04:17.680 --> 0:04:20.640 think history also has a way of helping us understand 0:04:20.640 --> 0:04:22.680 the world that we live in. If we look around 0:04:22.760 --> 0:04:24.360 us and think about what do we value in this country. 0:04:24.400 --> 0:04:27.640 We value our democracy, we value our democratic institutions. We 0:04:27.800 --> 0:04:31.480 value certain ideas about human rights and equal protection before 0:04:31.520 --> 0:04:33.480 the law and all that. You know, there's a long 0:04:33.560 --> 0:04:35.920 on list. That's just the beginning. And I always point 0:04:35.960 --> 0:04:38.400 out that these things, it's really history tells us these 0:04:38.440 --> 0:04:41.080 things did not fall from the sky. These things are 0:04:41.120 --> 0:04:43.440 not you know, chiseled on a gold tablet somewhere way 0:04:43.440 --> 0:04:45.800 back when. These are things that are the product of struggle. 0:04:45.839 --> 0:04:48.960 Every generation of Americans said to make their democracy and 0:04:49.000 --> 0:04:52.040 the republic what it is. So these you can't take 0:04:52.080 --> 0:04:54.680 these things for granted, And that prompts one to appreciate 0:04:54.720 --> 0:04:56.880 that struggle, but also to look around and say, what 0:04:56.920 --> 0:04:59.480 are the what are the compelling struggles right now? So 0:04:59.680 --> 0:05:03.480 unless us we're aware of our past, we can't build 0:05:03.480 --> 0:05:06.840 a better present. Right the past tells us that democracy 0:05:06.880 --> 0:05:11.640 requires work, requires attention, requires struggle. And if we get 0:05:11.720 --> 0:05:13.440 lulled into thinking that it's a kind of a wind 0:05:13.520 --> 0:05:16.080 up machine that was designed in the seventeen seventies and 0:05:16.120 --> 0:05:18.800 seventeen eighties and then just turned on and that we 0:05:18.880 --> 0:05:21.760 just live in this democracy, that is a dangerous not 0:05:21.839 --> 0:05:24.320 on it's false, but a really dangerous idea about how 0:05:24.320 --> 0:05:29.440 democracy works. Are there any surprising moments in these lectures 0:05:29.480 --> 0:05:32.960 that you've given for one day university? Absolutely? And I 0:05:32.960 --> 0:05:35.000 think a lot of what I'm doing is reminding people 0:05:35.040 --> 0:05:36.680 of stuff they've learned in the past, just sort of 0:05:36.720 --> 0:05:39.880 familiarizing them with things, and then also showing things they 0:05:39.920 --> 0:05:42.640 may not have gotten when they first encountered this history. 0:05:42.720 --> 0:05:45.279 That say, the Declaration of Independence, to see how powerful 0:05:45.320 --> 0:05:48.000 it is, way beyond seventeen seventy six that it has. 0:05:48.040 --> 0:05:50.280 This it's a document invoked over and over again by 0:05:50.360 --> 0:05:54.240 various groups. Here's Elizabeth Katy Stantond. She forms convenes the 0:05:54.279 --> 0:05:57.400 Women's Rights Convention eighteen forty eight Seneca Falls, New York. 0:05:57.760 --> 0:06:00.719 You know, takes the Declaration of Independence kind of heretical 0:06:01.160 --> 0:06:05.240 and rewrites it as a feminist manifesto and writes right 0:06:05.279 --> 0:06:08.320 at the very beginning that all men and women are 0:06:08.360 --> 0:06:12.520 created equal. And then of course labor parties take it 0:06:12.560 --> 0:06:14.919 and use it. You can buy a book of a 0:06:15.040 --> 0:06:18.760 hundred Declarations of Independence that are all rewritten in this manner. 0:06:18.800 --> 0:06:21.039 So this is the Workingmen's Party and Da da da dada, 0:06:21.279 --> 0:06:23.880 for the full benefit of their labor right. They change 0:06:23.920 --> 0:06:27.000 the words where they need the words changed. Martin Luther King, 0:06:27.040 --> 0:06:29.599 and it's famous. I have a dream speech. And of course, 0:06:29.800 --> 0:06:31.760 how many of you've ever read the Declaration of Independence 0:06:31.800 --> 0:06:36.279 of Vietnam written by guy named Ho Chi Minh. It 0:06:36.360 --> 0:06:39.120 starts with these words all men are created equal, They 0:06:39.120 --> 0:06:41.000 are endowed by their creator with certain I mean this 0:06:41.040 --> 0:06:44.800 is a document that has global significance. You make a 0:06:44.960 --> 0:06:49.360 controversial argument that the cause of the Civil War was 0:06:49.520 --> 0:06:54.400 not states rights, it was slavery. Right, that's not controversial. 0:06:54.680 --> 0:06:57.279 It's controversy among people who don't really understand the thing. 0:06:57.320 --> 0:06:59.400 And I don't mean that in a paternalistic way. If 0:06:59.440 --> 0:07:02.360 you took at was in American historians who studied the 0:07:02.440 --> 0:07:04.240 nineteenth century and said what's the cause of the Civil War? 0:07:04.400 --> 0:07:07.280 Nine of them would say slavery was the cause of 0:07:07.279 --> 0:07:10.280 the Civil War. This when people say states rights, it 0:07:10.400 --> 0:07:13.480 drives historians crazy because we've been teaching this for decades now. 0:07:13.480 --> 0:07:15.200 It's in all of the books we write, it's in 0:07:15.240 --> 0:07:17.240 all the lectures we give, it's in all the presentations. 0:07:17.240 --> 0:07:20.080 It's about slavery, or if you want to get particularly 0:07:20.080 --> 0:07:22.080 say it is about states rights. It's about a single 0:07:22.240 --> 0:07:25.840 states right to own people as property. That's what it's 0:07:25.880 --> 0:07:28.480 fundamentally about. If I was a doctor and I was 0:07:28.480 --> 0:07:31.240 talking to a one day university or group and I said, 0:07:31.920 --> 0:07:33.800 you all know what to do when you get the 0:07:33.840 --> 0:07:36.239 flu right, and I turned to the audience and everybody 0:07:36.240 --> 0:07:40.040 says bleeding. You know, we've cut and bleed people. That's 0:07:40.040 --> 0:07:42.120 what that's that's that's the solution to it's It's the 0:07:42.120 --> 0:07:43.840 equivalent where I say to people, you know what the 0:07:43.840 --> 0:07:46.280 cause of the Civil War was, and they say states rights. 0:07:46.320 --> 0:07:49.280 It's like, no, that's oversimplified. And it's also a self 0:07:49.320 --> 0:07:52.240 serving story that we know. The reason that is a 0:07:52.280 --> 0:07:55.640 popular idea is that it was made popular after the 0:07:55.680 --> 0:07:57.720 Civil War by people who wanted to change the meaning 0:07:57.760 --> 0:07:59.360 of the Civil War and change what it was all about. 0:07:59.440 --> 0:08:01.280 So it's not as an accident that people say it. 0:08:01.280 --> 0:08:04.440 It's actually in a successful job done by people in 0:08:04.480 --> 0:08:06.679 the decades after the Civil War to changed the narrative. 0:08:07.640 --> 0:08:11.960 Another thing which is far from obvious and fascinating in 0:08:12.040 --> 0:08:16.760 your lecture is when you talk about America's attitude towards 0:08:16.840 --> 0:08:22.040 the military, which has changed hugely um or even in 0:08:22.080 --> 0:08:24.920 recent decades. Yeah, I think that's there is another good 0:08:24.960 --> 0:08:26.800 example of the surprises when you tell people. So you know, 0:08:26.880 --> 0:08:30.440 up until the nineteen fifties, it was absolutely understood that 0:08:30.520 --> 0:08:33.160 we had to have a tiny military. The Founding Fathers 0:08:33.160 --> 0:08:35.719 did not believe in a strong military. What did the 0:08:35.760 --> 0:08:40.160 Founding fathers believe in? Almost no military? Because they understood 0:08:40.280 --> 0:08:43.480 things very clearly. They said, looking at world history, how 0:08:43.520 --> 0:08:45.800 do you get a Caesar? Later on, how do you 0:08:45.840 --> 0:08:49.760 get a Napoleon? Their generals they have an army. And 0:08:49.800 --> 0:08:52.600 when you have a huge army, you have a huge 0:08:52.679 --> 0:08:56.320 base of power that is going to be abused. So 0:08:56.400 --> 0:09:00.760 in our Republican playbook, we always said small, small, small military, 0:09:00.840 --> 0:09:03.000 build it up, tear it down, build it up, tear 0:09:03.000 --> 0:09:05.480 it down, build it up. World War Two we begin 0:09:05.640 --> 0:09:08.840 tearing it down, the biggest war ever. And in nineteen 0:09:08.920 --> 0:09:12.160 fifty five years after the war, the Korean War begins, 0:09:12.800 --> 0:09:15.560 we re engage and we never stop. That's when we 0:09:15.600 --> 0:09:18.439 get two million soldiers and six hundred ships. That's that's 0:09:18.480 --> 0:09:21.439 only seven years ago. That's a new thing. And they 0:09:21.440 --> 0:09:24.120 looked back to Roman history that they had clear, vivid 0:09:24.120 --> 0:09:26.319 examples in their minds of that's what it's supposed to be. 0:09:26.360 --> 0:09:29.160 And think about when George Washington, his his ideal that 0:09:29.200 --> 0:09:31.800 he followed was of Cincinnatis the citizen soldier. He was 0:09:32.040 --> 0:09:34.360 put down his plow, go off and fight a war, 0:09:34.400 --> 0:09:37.040 and immediately leave back to civilian life. And then he 0:09:37.040 --> 0:09:39.440 gets called into the presidency and he serves two terms 0:09:39.440 --> 0:09:41.920 and he says, I'm out of here because we can't have, 0:09:42.080 --> 0:09:45.520 you know, perpetual government by one person, particularly one person 0:09:45.559 --> 0:09:49.920 with the military background. What is the single biggest misconception 0:09:50.480 --> 0:09:55.520 that people have about American history or about a moment 0:09:55.559 --> 0:09:59.760 in American history which in their view is completely different 0:10:00.040 --> 0:10:04.240 from the reality. This is a big, big question. So 0:10:04.640 --> 0:10:08.839 I think probably the notion that the founders created something 0:10:08.880 --> 0:10:12.400 that was perfect and that it we just need to 0:10:12.440 --> 0:10:14.480 figure out what they had in mind. And that's a 0:10:14.559 --> 0:10:18.839 really comforting idea. Originalism is a really comforting, wonderful idea, 0:10:18.880 --> 0:10:22.760 but it's it's divorced from reality. The founders themselves always 0:10:22.840 --> 0:10:26.120 used My favorite expression in studying history, in American history 0:10:26.200 --> 0:10:29.120 is they always said this republican experiment. They say this 0:10:29.240 --> 0:10:31.479 over and over again. When you read the speeches of Jefferson, 0:10:31.520 --> 0:10:35.400 of Madison, of Lincoln, they keep saying this Republican experiment 0:10:35.440 --> 0:10:37.600 will rise or fall on the basis of this. You know, 0:10:37.640 --> 0:10:39.240 they invoke this idea, and but what do they mean 0:10:39.240 --> 0:10:41.760 by experiment? They mean it wasn't perfect. It was a 0:10:42.120 --> 0:10:44.600 It was a thing that's set in motion by brilliant 0:10:44.679 --> 0:10:48.960 but fallible people, knowing that it was not perfect and 0:10:48.960 --> 0:10:50.439 that it would have to be adjusted, and that it 0:10:50.480 --> 0:10:52.960 would move through time. You know, the founders could never 0:10:53.000 --> 0:10:55.480 conceive of the Industrial revolution, just to give you one example, 0:10:55.920 --> 0:10:59.120 and so that there's an understanding that through time we 0:10:59.160 --> 0:11:00.880 are going to have to make adjustments, have to figure 0:11:00.880 --> 0:11:03.280 out what is it? What does free speech mean in 0:11:03.280 --> 0:11:05.600 a in an era of mass media, which simply didn't 0:11:05.600 --> 0:11:07.920 exist in the in the founding period? What does the 0:11:07.920 --> 0:11:10.600 Second Amendment mean in an era of mass production of 0:11:10.600 --> 0:11:13.720 firearms and much more powerful firearms? What does you know? 0:11:13.760 --> 0:11:16.640 Freedom of assembly? What do all these things mean? Uh? 0:11:17.000 --> 0:11:19.480 In our you know, in the future. So the idea 0:11:19.520 --> 0:11:22.560 that the Founder has created something that was perfect and 0:11:22.880 --> 0:11:25.520 unchangeable and that all we need to do is figure 0:11:25.520 --> 0:11:28.319 out what that is. That's a great fallacy. When you're 0:11:28.400 --> 0:11:32.640 up on that stage firing people up, what's your favorite 0:11:32.679 --> 0:11:37.240 turning point to tell? Ah, that's a good question. The 0:11:37.280 --> 0:11:39.360 one that gets I think people scratching their head the most. 0:11:39.440 --> 0:11:42.959 Just when I talk about what I call the reformulation 0:11:43.240 --> 0:11:45.120 in the in the late nineteenth century, we see all 0:11:45.120 --> 0:11:48.280 the tremendous benefits of the Industrial Revolution, but we don't 0:11:48.320 --> 0:11:51.200 have any institutions and any ways of dealing with all 0:11:51.240 --> 0:11:53.040 the downside of it and all the turmoil that this 0:11:53.080 --> 0:11:54.920 is creating. So it's creating a lot of gold and 0:11:54.960 --> 0:11:56.560 a lot of wealth, and a lot of new technology, 0:11:56.600 --> 0:12:00.280 but it's also creating mass poverty and huge strikes and 0:12:00.320 --> 0:12:02.679 all kinds of problems and great concerns about the you know, 0:12:02.720 --> 0:12:05.640 the fate of the republic. And the founders didn't didn't 0:12:05.640 --> 0:12:07.320 give us a plan for it because they couldn't have 0:12:07.320 --> 0:12:10.600 even imagined you know, us steel. They couldn't have imagined 0:12:10.679 --> 0:12:13.040 John D. Rockefeller and these in this kind of world 0:12:13.080 --> 0:12:16.360 that they're building, Jefferson, Madison, Franklin. All their traditional notion 0:12:16.400 --> 0:12:19.280 of the way the politics worked was that power is 0:12:19.320 --> 0:12:21.800 the great threat to liberty. So that's why power is 0:12:21.920 --> 0:12:25.000 inherently evil. People possess it, they'll abuse it. The biggest 0:12:25.040 --> 0:12:28.520 power in the world in seventeen eighty is the state. 0:12:28.559 --> 0:12:31.240 Any government is always big so we as self conscious 0:12:31.280 --> 0:12:35.640 Republican citizens, will keep our state, our our governments small. 0:12:35.800 --> 0:12:38.400 That's why Jefferson says, the government that governs least governs best. 0:12:39.000 --> 0:12:41.160 That's the idea, right, it's a it's a it's not 0:12:41.240 --> 0:12:43.280 about low taxes. I mean, it is about that to 0:12:43.360 --> 0:12:46.400 some of you, But it's about power. Power is inherently dangerous, 0:12:46.520 --> 0:12:48.360 So we need to keep governments small so that we 0:12:48.400 --> 0:12:52.880 don't have tyranny. Well, in the progressive notion around nineteen hundred, 0:12:53.280 --> 0:12:55.840 people are beginning to rethink this because where is the power? 0:12:56.280 --> 0:12:59.240 Power is still the number one threat to Republican government, 0:12:59.600 --> 0:13:02.840 So that part's true, But where is the power? The 0:13:02.880 --> 0:13:06.199 President United States? Is this big compared to John D. Rockefeller, 0:13:06.840 --> 0:13:12.200 And Rockefeller is not an elected official. Rockefeller is separate 0:13:12.520 --> 0:13:16.920 from democracy, separate from our Republican institutions. And so that's 0:13:16.920 --> 0:13:20.360 the essence of it saying power is a problem and 0:13:20.600 --> 0:13:24.000 we need to reign in that power to save liberty. Right, So, 0:13:24.040 --> 0:13:27.120 the state, which we've used to fear is actually now, 0:13:27.480 --> 0:13:29.280 you know, the lesser of two evils. We need to 0:13:29.320 --> 0:13:31.400 build up the state, build up the government to give 0:13:31.440 --> 0:13:34.400 it some powers to protect us, to protect against abuse, 0:13:34.440 --> 0:13:37.440 to protect and also to work on benefiting the common good. 0:13:38.000 --> 0:13:40.320 And so people in the progressive era, but as people 0:13:40.320 --> 0:13:43.040 in the Gilded Age, and these are labor leaders, these 0:13:43.040 --> 0:13:46.400 are intellectuals, these are politicians, and they're coming out from 0:13:46.400 --> 0:13:48.640 many different angles. But by the early twentieth century, there's 0:13:48.679 --> 0:13:52.000 an emerging consensus that the founders didn't give us ways 0:13:52.000 --> 0:13:54.120 of dealing this or specific ways, but they gave us 0:13:54.160 --> 0:13:56.200 the tools. They gave us our democracy, they gave us 0:13:56.200 --> 0:13:59.440 an amendment process, they gave us ways of thinking about 0:13:59.760 --> 0:14:03.800 what is most important. And the progressive air sees this 0:14:03.880 --> 0:14:07.440 great advance of policies that greatly enhanced the common good, 0:14:07.440 --> 0:14:10.000 greatly enhanced the well being of the average citizen. And 0:14:10.240 --> 0:14:13.880 they don't undo, they don't destroy industrial capitalism. They don't 0:14:14.280 --> 0:14:16.320 nationalize our steel industry, but they just rein it in 0:14:16.360 --> 0:14:18.319 a little bit, you know, put up some guardrails so 0:14:18.360 --> 0:14:21.760 that the capitalist engine can roar and do all the 0:14:21.920 --> 0:14:23.960 things that does for us, but with some boundaries in 0:14:24.000 --> 0:14:26.800 some ways, which so that workers in a steel mill 0:14:27.080 --> 0:14:29.520 work eight to ten hours, not sixteen hours. They work 0:14:29.600 --> 0:14:33.200 and they earn a reasonable wage that means they can 0:14:33.240 --> 0:14:35.320 feed their family and not going to get rich. So 0:14:35.400 --> 0:14:37.720 there's ways in which we can do this while keeping 0:14:38.600 --> 0:14:40.760 the benefits of that kind of an economy, but also 0:14:41.280 --> 0:14:45.360 creating systems and creating institutions and practices that benefit the whole. 0:14:46.200 --> 0:14:49.920 We're living in a time of great change now, much 0:14:49.960 --> 0:14:54.880 of which has been brought about by the revolution in technology. 0:14:55.120 --> 0:14:57.880 I know your lecture is called the five turning Points, 0:14:58.160 --> 0:15:02.000 but do you feel there's a sixth unfolding right now? Well, 0:15:02.040 --> 0:15:03.920 when I do the five turning points, a fifth one 0:15:03.960 --> 0:15:05.600 is the invention of the person computer, the dawn of 0:15:05.640 --> 0:15:08.200 the digital age. So I do emphasize this idea that 0:15:08.240 --> 0:15:10.680 we are living in a dramatic turning point moment and 0:15:10.840 --> 0:15:12.960 we can't exactly figure out what it is, but it's 0:15:13.000 --> 0:15:16.640 clear by any measure the unleashing of digital technology beginning 0:15:16.640 --> 0:15:19.120 with the personal computer in the seventies, and what's that 0:15:19.200 --> 0:15:22.160 opened up, and how it's dramatically transformed our world in 0:15:22.200 --> 0:15:25.200 ways it's almost impossible to enumerate them. Your cell phones 0:15:25.240 --> 0:15:28.000 and computer, your your refrigerator is now a computer, your 0:15:28.040 --> 0:15:30.080 car has a computer. I mean it's hard to even imagine, 0:15:30.280 --> 0:15:32.600 hard to even see what that definition is. And so 0:15:32.680 --> 0:15:35.840 this digital revolution, not just the computer but then when 0:15:35.880 --> 0:15:39.160 you think about expensively out into the whole universe of 0:15:39.200 --> 0:15:43.240 digital technology, the Internet and all of that, when you 0:15:43.240 --> 0:15:46.760 start stitching all that together, this is a true revolution. 0:15:47.000 --> 0:15:51.560 Computer technology changes absolutely everything because it's in everything. It 0:15:51.640 --> 0:15:56.080 changes communications. If you have a children or grandchildren, you 0:15:56.080 --> 0:15:57.680 have a fourteen year old, how often does a fourteen 0:15:57.720 --> 0:16:01.040 year old talk on the phone. They don't talk on 0:16:01.080 --> 0:16:03.920 the phone. They think of talking on the phone as 0:16:04.720 --> 0:16:07.280 like writing on with a piece of chalk on a slate. 0:16:07.760 --> 0:16:09.720 They think. They literally will tell you it's weird. I 0:16:09.720 --> 0:16:11.240 don't want to say, Well, what are you going to 0:16:11.320 --> 0:16:13.680 meet up with Julie? I don't know. She hasn't answered 0:16:13.680 --> 0:16:16.360 my text. Well, you know, there's another button on that phone. 0:16:16.400 --> 0:16:18.840 You can just like push it and and Julie's voice 0:16:18.840 --> 0:16:20.640 will come out of the end of that thing, and um, 0:16:20.720 --> 0:16:22.920 you could say, speak to her, and then she can 0:16:22.960 --> 0:16:25.040 speak back to you. In like fourteen seconds, we can 0:16:25.040 --> 0:16:28.080 solve this whole thing. So it's changed the way we 0:16:28.120 --> 0:16:31.280 relate to each other. And and also hard to know 0:16:31.680 --> 0:16:34.520 what the impact is going to be fifty years from now, 0:16:34.520 --> 0:16:37.000 what we're gonna look back and say about it exactly. 0:16:37.040 --> 0:16:38.680 I mean, if you and this is true of most 0:16:38.760 --> 0:16:42.360 breakthrough technologies. When the telegraph was was created back in 0:16:42.400 --> 0:16:44.840 the eighteen forties and then spread nationally, people said, this 0:16:44.840 --> 0:16:46.560 is great. We can get we can get crop prices 0:16:46.600 --> 0:16:48.320 and a little bit of news back and forth and 0:16:48.760 --> 0:16:51.480 low and behold it. You know, it dramatically transforms our 0:16:51.520 --> 0:16:53.960 economy and our way of understanding each other. It shrinks 0:16:53.960 --> 0:16:56.160 the country in our conception of ourselves. We can find 0:16:56.200 --> 0:16:58.960 out about outbreak of cholera in New Orleans in a 0:16:59.120 --> 0:17:01.480 in a matter of minute, and we can eventually send 0:17:01.560 --> 0:17:04.240 signals under the water of the Atlantic Ocean when we 0:17:04.280 --> 0:17:06.280 get a you know, a telegraph cable across there in 0:17:06.280 --> 0:17:09.040 the eighteen sixties. So it has, I mean one a 0:17:09.080 --> 0:17:11.960 great example of just to give you all human history, 0:17:12.240 --> 0:17:14.920 up to the invention of the telegraph, the fastest way 0:17:14.960 --> 0:17:17.040 to deliver a message was a galloping horse. That's true 0:17:17.080 --> 0:17:18.760 in the days of Alexander, it's two in the days 0:17:18.800 --> 0:17:21.280 of George Washington and everything in between. And then the 0:17:21.359 --> 0:17:24.120 along comes the telegraph and you can send something instantly, 0:17:24.600 --> 0:17:26.720 you know, through time. And if you think about the 0:17:26.720 --> 0:17:29.680 War of eighteen twelve, we were trying to get stay 0:17:29.720 --> 0:17:32.119 out of war in eighteen twelve and finally decided that 0:17:32.200 --> 0:17:35.640 British depredations against our shipping meant we need to declare 0:17:35.680 --> 0:17:37.600 war against them, So we send a declaration of war 0:17:37.600 --> 0:17:40.680 across the Atlantic Ocean to them. They have already dispatched 0:17:40.680 --> 0:17:42.960 a ship with a list of concessions that they're going 0:17:43.000 --> 0:17:45.640 to make about scaling back their problem. So these two 0:17:45.640 --> 0:17:48.520 ships pass each other, one saying we're going to back off. 0:17:48.560 --> 0:17:50.159 You don't need to declare war. The other ship has 0:17:50.160 --> 0:17:53.120 already literally already sailed as far as that goes, saying 0:17:53.160 --> 0:17:55.399 we've declared war. Yeah, And at the back end of 0:17:55.400 --> 0:17:57.760 the War of eighteen twelve, the same thing happens. Dandrew 0:17:57.840 --> 0:17:59.959 Jackson wins the Battle of New Orleans after the war 0:18:00.080 --> 0:18:01.760 or is literally over, but he hasn't been notified that 0:18:01.800 --> 0:18:04.399 it's over. So it's an interesting thing to see how 0:18:04.400 --> 0:18:07.560 technology has impacts and implications way beyond what we think 0:18:07.560 --> 0:18:09.879 it's going to be useful for. So what do you 0:18:09.920 --> 0:18:14.240 think people get from a live lecture that they don't 0:18:14.320 --> 0:18:18.200 get perhaps by watching a video or reading a book 0:18:18.560 --> 0:18:21.640 or looking at a website. Well, I mean, certainly there's 0:18:21.680 --> 0:18:24.320 something about the live presentation that's different from others where 0:18:24.520 --> 0:18:27.760 they can just even how you use pauses, how you 0:18:27.760 --> 0:18:29.920 you leave people hanging, or you have ways of double 0:18:30.000 --> 0:18:32.800 reversing on something like if I'm talking about, you know, 0:18:32.840 --> 0:18:34.640 the eighteen fifties and the coming of the Civil War, 0:18:35.000 --> 0:18:36.800 and I say, you know what States writes the cause 0:18:36.840 --> 0:18:38.280 of the Civil War, and I've always causes a bit 0:18:38.280 --> 0:18:40.280 of a you know, ruffle in the crowd, and I say, 0:18:40.320 --> 0:18:42.159 don't answer that, because you're not gonna upset me. And 0:18:42.240 --> 0:18:44.640 ultimately we point out that, you know, the Fugitive Slave 0:18:44.680 --> 0:18:48.000 Act of eighteen fifty was the single greatest invocation of 0:18:48.040 --> 0:18:52.960 federal power over state power to enforced slavery, to uphold 0:18:52.960 --> 0:18:55.840 and protect slavery, and saying, so Southerners, you know, like 0:18:56.320 --> 0:18:58.520 states rights, but they only liked it some of the time. 0:18:58.560 --> 0:19:00.480 They liked federal power a lot of the time when 0:19:00.480 --> 0:19:02.400 it served their interests. So ways you can kind of 0:19:02.720 --> 0:19:04.920 you know, you always you literally see people almost scratching 0:19:04.920 --> 0:19:06.360 their head, you know, when they when they say, oh 0:19:06.359 --> 0:19:08.399 my gosh, I hadn't I hadn't thought of that. You know, 0:19:08.840 --> 0:19:13.080 what do you hope that people will take away as 0:19:13.080 --> 0:19:16.760 a result of being at your lecture? A lot of 0:19:16.760 --> 0:19:20.000 things I think the operative thing is that history isn't 0:19:20.080 --> 0:19:23.639 just some interesting stuff from the past, interesting people, interesting events, 0:19:24.040 --> 0:19:26.960 properly understood and properly taught. You know, the power of 0:19:27.000 --> 0:19:29.840 history gives us insights into how we can understand our 0:19:29.840 --> 0:19:31.560 own problems in our own world. History doesn't give us 0:19:31.600 --> 0:19:34.520 lessons per se or a script to follow, but it 0:19:34.600 --> 0:19:36.760 does tell us how we got to where we are. 0:19:37.000 --> 0:19:39.080 You know, there's that famous quotation by James Baldwin that 0:19:39.280 --> 0:19:41.800 you know, history isn't merely about the past. It's actually 0:19:41.840 --> 0:19:44.040 the great force of history is that it's you know, 0:19:44.200 --> 0:19:46.720 it's with us now. We all carry history with us, 0:19:46.720 --> 0:19:50.040 and so with that insight, history is incredibly beneficial. It 0:19:50.119 --> 0:19:52.680