WEBVTT - Living in an Age of Grievance with Frank Bruni 0:00:04.800 --> 0:00:08.000 Hi everyone, I'm Kitty Kuric and this is next question. 0:00:11.960 --> 0:00:12.559 Next question. 0:00:13.400 --> 0:00:16.279 Okay, you guys, I have a confession to make. I 0:00:16.320 --> 0:00:19.239 have a real thing for Frank Brunie. He's gay, though, 0:00:19.280 --> 0:00:22.439 so don't worry. He has been a prominent journalist for 0:00:22.480 --> 0:00:25.200 over three decades, twenty five of those at the New 0:00:25.239 --> 0:00:28.320 York Times. It was such a huge treat to sit 0:00:28.400 --> 0:00:31.680 down with him at the Temple Emmanuel Striker Center earlier 0:00:31.720 --> 0:00:34.920 this month to talk about his new book. It's called 0:00:34.960 --> 0:00:39.200 The Age of Grievance. Gosh, that title really rings true 0:00:39.320 --> 0:00:42.680 right now. Don't you think it seems like whatever we're 0:00:42.720 --> 0:00:47.040 talking about politics, or the latest movie release or what 0:00:47.120 --> 0:00:51.480 Kim Kardashian was wearing to the met Ball, somebody somewhere 0:00:51.880 --> 0:00:53.840 is going to be upset about it and have their 0:00:53.880 --> 0:00:56.680 knickers in a twist. I think it's important to point 0:00:56.680 --> 0:01:01.320 out that historically, grievance has actually fueled some really important 0:01:01.320 --> 0:01:05.679 social movements, like the Revolutionary War and the Civil rights movement. 0:01:06.280 --> 0:01:10.959 That's when grievance actually has led to something positive. But today, 0:01:11.040 --> 0:01:15.919 Frank argues, this constant bitching is having a very corrosive 0:01:15.959 --> 0:01:20.000 effect not only on public discourse, but who we are 0:01:20.080 --> 0:01:23.360 as a country. Here's our conversation. And by the way, 0:01:23.840 --> 0:01:26.760 I was told the audience noticed we had real chemistry. 0:01:27.120 --> 0:01:33.959 Hashtag just saying hi everyone, good evening. We've got a 0:01:34.080 --> 0:01:37.240 nice crowd this evening. Thank you all so much for coming. 0:01:37.360 --> 0:01:39.959 I am thrilled to be able to be in conversation 0:01:40.280 --> 0:01:43.240 with Frank BRUNEI don't tell anyone, but I have a 0:01:43.240 --> 0:01:48.080 big crush on Frank. There are a lot of Frank 0:01:48.160 --> 0:01:52.640 Brune groupies among my friends. And I couldn't be more 0:01:52.680 --> 0:01:55.360 excited to talk about your new book called The Age 0:01:55.360 --> 0:01:58.520 of Grievance, Frank, and it explores so many of the 0:01:58.720 --> 0:02:02.760 ideas I have been thinking about as I consume media 0:02:03.200 --> 0:02:06.280 and am still a part of media. And I think 0:02:06.320 --> 0:02:10.639 you've really captured the complicated moment we're in in our culture. 0:02:10.720 --> 0:02:14.880 You write the American soundtrack has become a cacophony of 0:02:14.960 --> 0:02:19.200 competing complaints. Nice alliteration, by the way, and. 0:02:19.120 --> 0:02:21.480 I go, I go a little bit of literation crazy. 0:02:21.480 --> 0:02:24.760 I'm just warning you, yeah, no, yeah, my literation is triggering. 0:02:24.840 --> 0:02:25.480 Don't read the book. 0:02:25.800 --> 0:02:29.120 I think this might qualify for the love of sentences 0:02:29.200 --> 0:02:32.679 in your newsletter, Frank. If anyone gets Frank's newsletter. That's 0:02:32.720 --> 0:02:36.080 one of my favorite parts where people write in and 0:02:36.160 --> 0:02:39.720 say when something's been particularly well written. And I love 0:02:39.800 --> 0:02:43.320 reading those in addition to all your insights, But did 0:02:43.360 --> 0:02:45.840 you have a tipping point? Did a light bulb go out, 0:02:46.040 --> 0:02:49.480 Frank when you thought I am going to write about 0:02:49.520 --> 0:02:53.320 this current moment and the fact that we do have 0:02:53.400 --> 0:02:55.760 a cacophony of competing complaints. 0:02:57.919 --> 0:02:59.760 You say that it's like a tongue twister in your 0:02:59.800 --> 0:03:02.560 picked at it. First of all, thank you very much 0:03:02.600 --> 0:03:04.200 for I'm delighted to be here with you, and I 0:03:04.280 --> 0:03:08.000 want to thank everyone at Temple Emmanuel. This community is extraordinary, 0:03:08.080 --> 0:03:10.000 and this is like the fourth or fifth book I 0:03:10.040 --> 0:03:12.280 think I've launched or talked about here. So thank you 0:03:12.320 --> 0:03:14.600 for always being so welcoming. It means the world to me. 0:03:17.600 --> 0:03:19.400 Give yourselves a round of applause. 0:03:21.600 --> 0:03:23.080 I think it was a more gradual thing, and I 0:03:23.120 --> 0:03:24.960 have to give some credit. I think my editor, Ben 0:03:25.040 --> 0:03:28.440 Lunan is in the audience, and the book was actually 0:03:28.440 --> 0:03:31.240 his idea. He had been thinking about this himself. He'd 0:03:31.280 --> 0:03:33.120 been reading things I'd written, and he was sort of 0:03:33.600 --> 0:03:35.400 I think he could speak for himself, but he was 0:03:35.480 --> 0:03:37.960 tying things together and saying, hey, you know, as I 0:03:38.040 --> 0:03:40.520 read you, as I think about stuff, you know, don't 0:03:40.520 --> 0:03:42.120 you think we're living in an age of grievance? And 0:03:42.160 --> 0:03:43.560 what would you think about a book on that? And 0:03:43.600 --> 0:03:45.680 I said, well, let's make sure we're on the same page, 0:03:46.400 --> 0:03:48.240 and so I wrote down some thoughts than we were. 0:03:48.760 --> 0:03:51.720 I've just been noticing for a while I think trump 0:03:51.800 --> 0:03:54.320 selection was a reflection of this, and then it became 0:03:54.320 --> 0:03:57.400 an accelerant of this that our public debate to me 0:03:57.640 --> 0:04:01.119 seemed to be changing and being degraded in a way 0:04:01.120 --> 0:04:04.000 that was new and disturbing in the context of my 0:04:04.040 --> 0:04:07.600 adult lifetime. You know, we've always had polarization, we've always 0:04:07.600 --> 0:04:11.360 had partisanship, but I feel that the temperature of our discussions, 0:04:12.280 --> 0:04:17.120 the combativeness of them, the lack of productivity to them, 0:04:17.240 --> 0:04:19.599 is it a kind of nator And I really wanted 0:04:19.600 --> 0:04:22.920 to spend some time thinking and writing about why that 0:04:23.000 --> 0:04:26.159 may have come to be, what it's costing us. I 0:04:26.200 --> 0:04:27.599 think the parts of the book that mean the most 0:04:27.640 --> 0:04:29.839 to me are the reflections on what we're losing out, 0:04:29.880 --> 0:04:32.599 on what we're doing to ourselves by constantly being in 0:04:32.640 --> 0:04:34.920 these postures of agrievement, and then how we might pivot 0:04:34.920 --> 0:04:35.360 beyond it. 0:04:35.600 --> 0:04:39.520 Did you have any trepidation at all tackling this issue, 0:04:39.560 --> 0:04:42.760 because it seems no matter what you say, things are 0:04:42.760 --> 0:04:49.440 even misconstrued, misrepresented, weaponized. I've had that happen to me personally, 0:04:49.560 --> 0:04:53.600 and I was curious if that was a little frightening 0:04:53.680 --> 0:04:56.320 for you, right to wade into these waters. 0:04:56.880 --> 0:04:59.479 I'm frightened as I sit here tonight. 0:05:00.120 --> 0:05:02.480 Well, isn't that a product and what you're talking? 0:05:02.680 --> 0:05:05.159 Yeah, I'm frightened every time I file a newsletter, you know, 0:05:05.200 --> 0:05:07.240 I just kind of put the finishing touches on tomorrow's 0:05:07.240 --> 0:05:10.000 newsletter today, and I'm frightened when I hit sand I'm 0:05:10.000 --> 0:05:12.520 frightened every time I'm at the keyboard. I'm frightened when 0:05:12.560 --> 0:05:15.000 I'm speaking in a classroom full of students, even though 0:05:15.040 --> 0:05:17.560 I've had a terrific experience at Duke University. And we 0:05:17.560 --> 0:05:20.560 can talk more about that, because I do think a 0:05:20.600 --> 0:05:23.719 lot of the coverage of campuses right now dabbles too 0:05:23.800 --> 0:05:26.480 much in broad generalization and caricature. But yeah, it's a 0:05:26.520 --> 0:05:29.920 really scary time. And to go back to students, I mean, 0:05:30.000 --> 0:05:33.279 I've had students tell me and it's so upsetting given 0:05:33.520 --> 0:05:35.440 what an education is supposed to be about in the 0:05:35.480 --> 0:05:37.560 phase of life. Thren, I've had them tell me like, 0:05:38.000 --> 0:05:39.880 it takes a while in a given class and a 0:05:39.920 --> 0:05:42.680 given semester to feel comfortable saying what's on their mind 0:05:42.680 --> 0:05:45.560 because they're so worried that they'll fumble through their words, 0:05:45.600 --> 0:05:48.039 they'll say something they didn't mean to say, somebody will 0:05:48.040 --> 0:05:50.280 take it the wrong way, and the next thing they know, 0:05:50.400 --> 0:05:53.120 I mean to use the vernacular, they're canceled, right right. 0:05:53.640 --> 0:05:56.719 That's a real thing. It's a real fear. And sure 0:05:56.760 --> 0:05:59.320 I worry about it too, but we have to just 0:06:00.120 --> 0:06:02.640 we have to have these discussions. I will do my 0:06:02.760 --> 0:06:05.440 fumbling best to say what I mean. Some people will 0:06:05.480 --> 0:06:08.360 disagree with me, some people will agree with me, and 0:06:08.480 --> 0:06:09.880 you know, that's just the nature of the game. 0:06:10.240 --> 0:06:12.680 It seems to me that we're not only you know, 0:06:13.000 --> 0:06:16.360 participating in grievance culture and we'll talk about that more 0:06:16.400 --> 0:06:19.680 in a moment, but also in binary thinking. To me, 0:06:19.839 --> 0:06:25.360 this idea of dialectical thinking, yes, and has become increasingly 0:06:25.600 --> 0:06:29.479 rare in any kind of discourse, looking at nuanced looking 0:06:29.480 --> 0:06:33.760 at complicated topics, kind of seeing different sides of the issue. 0:06:33.880 --> 0:06:36.279 How do you associate that with grievance. 0:06:36.320 --> 0:06:38.839 Frank, Well, I think we're living in an era where 0:06:38.960 --> 0:06:40.640 and we'll go back to students for a second, because 0:06:40.640 --> 0:06:43.360 I think they're emblematic in this sense where people feel 0:06:43.560 --> 0:06:47.080 anytime something happens, they have to take aside, they have 0:06:47.160 --> 0:06:49.320 to stake their position, and then they have to cling 0:06:49.360 --> 0:06:50.960 to it and defend it. And then, because of the 0:06:51.040 --> 0:06:53.799 nature of the internet right now, because of social media, 0:06:53.880 --> 0:06:56.719 as soon as you have chosen your side, taken your position, 0:06:57.200 --> 0:07:00.000 you begin to filter all the information coming to you 0:07:00.360 --> 0:07:03.600 in a way that validates the decision you've made. And 0:07:03.680 --> 0:07:07.320 it's the quintessence of closed mindedness, right, It's the antithesis 0:07:07.360 --> 0:07:11.720 of genuine inquiry, and it means that nobody ever gets 0:07:11.760 --> 0:07:15.960 to say some really important phrases. It's complicated. Most things 0:07:16.000 --> 0:07:20.640 are complicated. I'm just not sure. I'm still figuring this out. 0:07:20.720 --> 0:07:23.280 Those I think are really virtuous things to say, but 0:07:23.320 --> 0:07:25.000 we're living in an age when those are seen as 0:07:25.000 --> 0:07:27.680 signs of moral and intellectual weakness. Right. 0:07:27.840 --> 0:07:31.360 In fact, I think people are increasingly penalized for not 0:07:31.600 --> 0:07:36.080 taking a position on these issues. When you think about grievance, 0:07:36.120 --> 0:07:37.880 how would you describe grievance? 0:07:38.560 --> 0:07:39.960 Well, I mean the way I think about it, in 0:07:39.960 --> 0:07:41.240 the way I describe it, And well, I mean a 0:07:41.280 --> 0:07:45.680 grievance obviously is a complaint. It is it is, Well, 0:07:45.680 --> 0:07:47.600 it's a complaint, right, I mean grievance, And the word 0:07:47.600 --> 0:07:50.119 didn't used to have such negative connotations. If you go back, 0:07:50.320 --> 0:07:53.640 it's in the First Amendment the word grievance is. But 0:07:53.720 --> 0:07:55.920 if you think about when you see the word grievance 0:07:55.960 --> 0:07:57.600 these days, and if you kind of did your own 0:07:57.600 --> 0:08:00.640 little survey on Google when you went home tonight, you 0:08:00.640 --> 0:08:03.520 would find almost always grievance is used in a negative, 0:08:03.800 --> 0:08:07.520 negative context, with negative connotations. And that's because there are 0:08:07.600 --> 0:08:11.400 so many complaints out there, and the legitimate are mixed 0:08:11.440 --> 0:08:12.920 with the illegitimate. 0:08:12.440 --> 0:08:15.400 Because you do write the grievance can be an instrument 0:08:15.600 --> 0:08:17.960 for really positive social change. 0:08:18.360 --> 0:08:20.920 Absolutely, I mean the fight for civil rights that was 0:08:20.920 --> 0:08:23.600 founded on a grievance. We're a nation born of grievance, right. 0:08:24.040 --> 0:08:27.560 But in this moment in time, I feel like so 0:08:27.640 --> 0:08:31.080 many people are complaining about so much at such a 0:08:31.120 --> 0:08:35.520 pitch that what requires attention, what is urgent, and what 0:08:35.600 --> 0:08:39.200 is righteous gets jumbled together with all the other stuff, 0:08:39.640 --> 0:08:43.280 and it's just a kind of din I think of 0:08:43.520 --> 0:08:48.120 grievance in today's culture, in today's world, people they're opening 0:08:48.160 --> 0:08:50.240 the opening part of their political engagement when they go 0:08:50.240 --> 0:08:52.560 into the public square. It's with a position of how 0:08:52.600 --> 0:08:56.360 have I been wronged? Who has wronged me? What am 0:08:56.400 --> 0:08:59.040 I owed? And how do I get back at them? 0:08:59.320 --> 0:09:01.920 Look at our look at our current political campaigns. Pretty 0:09:01.960 --> 0:09:06.760 much at any level, most candidates spend more time telling 0:09:06.800 --> 0:09:10.200 you how awful the alternative is and how you have 0:09:10.280 --> 0:09:12.880 to elect them, you know, as a bulwark against that. 0:09:13.400 --> 0:09:15.280 We're telling you how hard they're going to fight the 0:09:15.679 --> 0:09:18.559 fight against those evil people on the other side. I mean, 0:09:18.600 --> 0:09:21.200 of course, the epitome of this is Donald Trump literally 0:09:21.240 --> 0:09:24.760 saying verbatim when he rolled out his current reelection campaign 0:09:24.840 --> 0:09:28.640 or election campaign, I am your retribution. Vote for me 0:09:29.080 --> 0:09:31.559 as a way of getting back at your enemies. What 0:09:32.679 --> 0:09:36.120 happened to the idealism in politics right well? 0:09:36.640 --> 0:09:39.720 What did happen to the idealism of politics right now? 0:09:39.840 --> 0:09:41.200 Yielded to an age of grievance. 0:09:41.600 --> 0:09:44.360 Let's talk about your book, your previous book, because I 0:09:44.360 --> 0:09:48.200 think it's an interesting juxtaposition to this one. You write 0:09:48.280 --> 0:09:51.440 in the Beauty of Dusk about your experience losing your 0:09:51.480 --> 0:09:55.080 sight in one eye and facing the possibility of losing 0:09:55.120 --> 0:09:57.080 your site in the other eye, by the way, I 0:09:57.120 --> 0:10:00.480 asked Frank, and his vision has stabilized, which is really 0:10:00.520 --> 0:10:03.000 good news. So let's keep our fingers crossed for that. 0:10:04.480 --> 0:10:06.840 But this happened after you suffered a stroke, and you 0:10:06.920 --> 0:10:11.320 say that that experience presented a very clear choice for you. 0:10:11.320 --> 0:10:14.200 You could either focus on what you had lost or 0:10:14.240 --> 0:10:18.120 focus on what remained. So how did that and your 0:10:18.240 --> 0:10:22.520 experience actually inform the writing of this book. 0:10:23.080 --> 0:10:25.000 It informed it in the sense that and I think 0:10:25.040 --> 0:10:27.440 I say this in the book that one of the 0:10:27.440 --> 0:10:31.120 things I realized on a personal level was that stewing 0:10:31.200 --> 0:10:35.000 over and constantly measuring your misfortunes is no way to 0:10:35.040 --> 0:10:39.280 get to contentment. And I think that that personal realization 0:10:39.320 --> 0:10:42.079 applies in the public realm too. That doesn't mean you 0:10:42.120 --> 0:10:45.320 accept conditions in the world that are hideously injust and 0:10:45.360 --> 0:10:48.360 it doesn't mean that when you are being genuinely wronged 0:10:48.760 --> 0:10:50.520 and you might be able to find recourse, that you 0:10:50.559 --> 0:10:52.720 just shrug your shoulders and say, no, I'm not going 0:10:52.760 --> 0:10:54.880 to think about that. But it does mean that you 0:10:54.960 --> 0:10:58.040 put things in perspective and you don't get carried away. 0:10:58.120 --> 0:11:00.480 And I had to. I had to realize that in 0:11:00.520 --> 0:11:03.120 a certain sense in my personal life when I lost 0:11:03.120 --> 0:11:06.040 certain abilities and began to struggle with certain things because 0:11:06.080 --> 0:11:08.800 of my compromised eyesight. And I think maybe that did 0:11:08.840 --> 0:11:12.640 give me, if you'll forgive the vision related words, a 0:11:12.679 --> 0:11:14.920 different view of public life as well. 0:11:15.360 --> 0:11:18.360 You know, it's interesting because you write about how a 0:11:18.400 --> 0:11:23.160 lot of readers found hope and solace in your story, 0:11:24.040 --> 0:11:28.600 and others found cruelty and actually tried to shame you 0:11:29.440 --> 0:11:33.000 for your reaction to your circumstances. Can you talk about. 0:11:32.679 --> 0:11:36.520 That, Yeah, this wasn't the majority reaction at all, but 0:11:36.600 --> 0:11:39.960 I got more than a few emails, communications of various 0:11:40.040 --> 0:11:44.040 kinds that said, what you're doing and talking about your 0:11:44.080 --> 0:11:46.319 positive adjustment and how you made the most of this 0:11:46.679 --> 0:11:52.160 is cruel because some of us have anxieties, depressions, you know, 0:11:52.200 --> 0:11:55.040 a kind of mental health where we can't make that adjustment, 0:11:55.400 --> 0:11:58.520 and you're taunting us, and you're holding something up that's 0:11:58.559 --> 0:12:02.160 impossible to us. Now, there's some truth or legitimacy in 0:12:02.200 --> 0:12:05.400 that if you just kind of say buck up, everything 0:12:05.440 --> 0:12:08.280 will be better, you are belittling the sorts of mental 0:12:08.280 --> 0:12:10.800 health challenges that some people deal with, but to me 0:12:10.880 --> 0:12:15.320 it also epitomized this desire to find fault and logic complaint. 0:12:15.760 --> 0:12:18.720 I was just a man who'd had a stroke, who'd 0:12:18.760 --> 0:12:20.120 been told that for the rest of his life he 0:12:20.120 --> 0:12:22.200 would live with the twenty percent chance of going blind, 0:12:22.600 --> 0:12:25.440 and I was trying to describe my own psychological and 0:12:25.480 --> 0:12:28.640 spiritual journey in a way that I hoped would be 0:12:28.640 --> 0:12:31.320 instructive and inspiring to most of the people who read 0:12:31.320 --> 0:12:33.360 about it. And it just seems to me, you have 0:12:33.400 --> 0:12:36.520 to you have to make a decision to take issue 0:12:36.520 --> 0:12:39.280 with that, and you have to be determined to see 0:12:39.320 --> 0:12:41.400 the dark side of everything. And I think a lot 0:12:41.440 --> 0:12:44.120 of us live our political lives that way. 0:12:44.400 --> 0:12:48.240 Historically, I think the idea of victimhood is completely anathetical 0:12:48.280 --> 0:12:51.520 to the idea many conservatives have of themselves as being 0:12:51.559 --> 0:12:56.079 defined by personal responsibility, a stiff upper lip, and traditional values, 0:12:56.120 --> 0:12:59.400 which you were alluding to lately. Though you feel that 0:12:59.480 --> 0:13:05.000 grievance quote transcends partisan affiliation. Talk about this idea and 0:13:05.080 --> 0:13:09.000 how grievance has become universal because you do state that, 0:13:09.080 --> 0:13:11.920 and then you really cite a lot of right wing 0:13:12.080 --> 0:13:15.400 grievance folks you know, the people who are plotting against 0:13:15.520 --> 0:13:19.720 Gretchen Whitmer, Carrie Lake, you talk about Ron DeSantis, you 0:13:19.800 --> 0:13:23.240 talk about Marjorie Taylor Green. So can you talk about 0:13:23.280 --> 0:13:27.360 how this kind of covers the entire political spectrum, because 0:13:27.800 --> 0:13:30.040 I think a lot of people see it more on 0:13:30.040 --> 0:13:31.200 one side than the other. 0:13:31.640 --> 0:13:33.880 Well, it's interesting because you just alluded to the way 0:13:33.960 --> 0:13:35.280 we used to look at in the past or whatever. 0:13:35.280 --> 0:13:37.080 But if you go back to the late eighties in 0:13:37.120 --> 0:13:39.640 the early nineties, and I did, and I went back 0:13:39.640 --> 0:13:42.160 and down magazine covers and all that, it's astonishing how 0:13:42.200 --> 0:13:44.600 similar the conversation feels to today when it comes to 0:13:44.679 --> 0:13:48.000 wokeness right. I was just somewhere else today and someone 0:13:48.000 --> 0:13:50.720 played a clip of Robert Bork from back in those days, 0:13:50.880 --> 0:13:54.480 and he was talking about the left and its radical egalitarianism, 0:13:54.800 --> 0:13:58.040 and I realized, that's just more syllables to say wokeness. Right. 0:13:58.880 --> 0:14:01.559 But at that point in time time, Robert Bork, other 0:14:01.640 --> 0:14:04.120 people on the right, they saw this as a phenomenon 0:14:04.120 --> 0:14:07.080 of the left. They thought this was just the multiculturalists 0:14:07.080 --> 0:14:12.640 at universities. Charlie Sykes, a very prominent conservative commentator, brilliant writer, 0:14:13.000 --> 0:14:14.319 and a never Trumper. 0:14:14.000 --> 0:14:15.120 Now, I mean yeah, right. 0:14:16.000 --> 0:14:18.040 He wrote a book that came out in nineteen ninety 0:14:18.040 --> 0:14:19.960 two or nineteen ninety three, I forget the exact year, 0:14:20.000 --> 0:14:22.000 and it was called A Nation of Victims, and it 0:14:22.120 --> 0:14:24.440 was someone on the right side of the political spectrum 0:14:24.480 --> 0:14:28.600 mocking this behavior on the left, mocking frivolous lawsuits, mocking 0:14:29.520 --> 0:14:33.520 you know, glossaries of words you shouldn't use, et cetera. 0:14:34.320 --> 0:14:37.200 I interviewed him for the book and he's quoted in it, 0:14:37.360 --> 0:14:39.680 and he said, what was so interesting between then and 0:14:39.760 --> 0:14:42.960 now is all of this sort of victim mentality and 0:14:43.040 --> 0:14:44.800 woe is me, and this is what you owe me 0:14:45.160 --> 0:14:47.440 that the right used to mock the left for is 0:14:47.480 --> 0:14:51.479 the quintessence of the MAGA movement. Right. It's what January 0:14:51.520 --> 0:14:53.880 sixth was in part about. 0:14:53.680 --> 0:14:57.600 Are you saying there snowflakes? Are you saying they're snowflakes? 0:14:57.680 --> 0:14:59.120 I'm saying they're a damn blizzard. 0:15:05.400 --> 0:15:08.440 When we come back, Frank will address some criticism he 0:15:08.560 --> 0:15:15.440 received from his own newspaper. If you want to get 0:15:15.440 --> 0:15:18.120 smarter every morning with a breakdown of the news and 0:15:18.320 --> 0:15:22.200 fascinating takes on health and wellness and pop culture, sign 0:15:22.320 --> 0:15:24.880 up for our daily newsletter Wake Up Call by going 0:15:24.880 --> 0:15:37.560 to Katiecuric dot com. There are still those who insist, 0:15:37.680 --> 0:15:40.480 Frank and I'm sure you've read this review, or maybe 0:15:40.480 --> 0:15:42.960 you haven't, that you had a partisan agenda with this book. 0:15:43.000 --> 0:15:45.920 I'm going to read a short excerpt from the Recent Times. 0:15:46.480 --> 0:15:51.320 Thank you, bye, Lionel Schreiber, and let you respond to it, 0:15:51.360 --> 0:15:54.800 says Nevertheless, since Bruni has made his political views public 0:15:54.880 --> 0:15:58.560 for years, he's assuming the role of neutral arbiter, maybe 0:15:58.600 --> 0:16:02.320 a better word, as referee, seems like an artifice. The 0:16:02.400 --> 0:16:07.080 Age of Grievance is appealingly moderate in tone, positively beseeching 0:16:07.160 --> 0:16:11.600 in fact, but also unabashedly partisan. The book is pitched 0:16:11.640 --> 0:16:14.680 at the so called classical liberal who believes the progressive 0:16:14.760 --> 0:16:18.360 left sometimes goes too far, but that the real danger 0:16:18.400 --> 0:16:21.720 to the country's well being comes from the trumpy and right. 0:16:22.560 --> 0:16:25.360 I think the gravest. I don't think the book is partisan. 0:16:25.760 --> 0:16:29.960 Am I constitutionally and by nature essentially a center left person? Yes, 0:16:30.280 --> 0:16:33.720 so obviously I can't write as much as I try 0:16:33.720 --> 0:16:35.760 to see things in the most open minded way. We 0:16:36.840 --> 0:16:39.160 all have our tropisms, our leanings, and I'm sure I 0:16:39.160 --> 0:16:41.520 have my own. I think the book is very even handed, 0:16:41.560 --> 0:16:45.040 but it's even handed without indulging in false equivalences, and 0:16:45.080 --> 0:16:48.920 they kind of fascle both siderism. I think this is 0:16:48.960 --> 0:16:52.240 a very difficult subject to talk and write about because 0:16:52.320 --> 0:16:55.640 there is a grievance mentality, a corrosive grievance mentality, that 0:16:55.760 --> 0:16:57.800 exists on the right and left both that exists, as 0:16:57.840 --> 0:17:00.720 you said, across the political spectrum. Don't think that's the 0:17:00.720 --> 0:17:03.000 same as saying the threat of it is equivalent on 0:17:03.000 --> 0:17:05.600 the right and the left. Where do we have, by 0:17:05.680 --> 0:17:09.560 far more organized political violence on the right, who came 0:17:09.640 --> 0:17:12.760 up with a plot luckily foiled to kidnap a governor 0:17:12.800 --> 0:17:15.919 Gretchen Whitmer the right? Where do you see paramilitary groups 0:17:15.960 --> 0:17:20.920 the right? Where do we have pervasive, profound election denialism? 0:17:21.359 --> 0:17:23.880 We have that much more so on the right. Yes, 0:17:23.920 --> 0:17:25.960 you can find some of these things or analogs to 0:17:26.000 --> 0:17:28.760 them on the left, But I was just some of those. 0:17:29.280 --> 0:17:30.880 I was just calling things as I saw them. 0:17:30.960 --> 0:17:33.840 Yeah, tell me to describe some of those analogs on 0:17:33.920 --> 0:17:36.800 the left that you would say that this is the 0:17:36.880 --> 0:17:40.359 manifestation of grievances by liberals. 0:17:40.000 --> 0:17:41.760 Well, I mean, I don't know if it's a grievance 0:17:41.760 --> 0:17:44.400 per se. But if we're talking about being totally fair, 0:17:44.560 --> 0:17:48.760 one of the I don't actually read many reviews just 0:17:48.800 --> 0:17:52.320 because I'm an extraordinarily thin skinned person and the way 0:17:52.359 --> 0:17:54.800 I manage my psychological health is not to look at 0:17:54.800 --> 0:17:57.479 my Twitter. I'm sorry X mentions not to look at 0:17:57.480 --> 0:17:58.159 any of that. 0:17:58.160 --> 0:17:59.119 That's very wise. 0:17:59.240 --> 0:18:02.080 But like three or four people emailed me about that, 0:18:02.119 --> 0:18:03.520 and I thought, shit, I've got to read it just 0:18:03.520 --> 0:18:07.480 so I can intelligently respond. I thought, I thought Lionel Shriver, 0:18:07.560 --> 0:18:10.399 whom I don't know, and they try to give reviews 0:18:10.400 --> 0:18:12.200 to people who don't know you, I thought she made 0:18:12.200 --> 0:18:15.800 a really really legitimate complaint about me not making any 0:18:15.880 --> 0:18:19.280 mention of the violence associated with the George Floyd protest 0:18:19.320 --> 0:18:22.000 with you know, after the George Floyd murder and all 0:18:22.040 --> 0:18:24.800 of that. I think I probably didn't mention it because 0:18:24.800 --> 0:18:27.320 it didn't feel organized and sustained to me in the 0:18:27.359 --> 0:18:30.120 same way as you know paramilitary groups on the right. 0:18:30.160 --> 0:18:33.680 But it is an example of people taking their complaints 0:18:33.720 --> 0:18:38.120 their grievances to extreme and extremely dangerous length. So that's 0:18:38.160 --> 0:18:40.159 something you see on the left, you also see on 0:18:40.200 --> 0:18:43.840 the left. You know, the MAGA movement. It's all about 0:18:44.359 --> 0:18:48.160 the government is oppressing me. All of these condescending elites 0:18:48.200 --> 0:18:51.040 in places like the Upper East Side of Manhattan don't 0:18:51.040 --> 0:18:53.879 care about my life, you know, et cetera. But on 0:18:53.920 --> 0:18:58.320 the left, I mean, you see people applying the prisms 0:18:58.400 --> 0:19:03.359 of racism, of sex, of homophobia to situations where that 0:19:03.400 --> 0:19:06.800 prism is absolutely appropriate and to situations where it's not appropriate. 0:19:07.080 --> 0:19:11.639 And you see people defining them themselves by minority groups 0:19:11.640 --> 0:19:15.160 are in categories, and it's all about how wrong they've 0:19:15.160 --> 0:19:17.600 been by the world. So yeah, you see that on 0:19:17.680 --> 0:19:18.680 both sides for sure. 0:19:19.080 --> 0:19:21.400 You know, we talked about go ahead, can. 0:19:21.320 --> 0:19:23.000 I Actually I want to just because I want to 0:19:23.040 --> 0:19:25.359 make clear what I'm talking about in terms of this 0:19:25.520 --> 0:19:29.000 indiscriminate application of prisms and lenses. And it's an example 0:19:29.000 --> 0:19:30.679 I use in the book, but I don't think it's 0:19:30.720 --> 0:19:35.240 the only one. So when Britney Griner was jailed in Russia, 0:19:35.720 --> 0:19:40.719 horrifying situation and you know, languished there for months, I 0:19:40.800 --> 0:19:44.800 saw a commentary on the left. I saw columns written, 0:19:45.000 --> 0:19:48.040 you know, by people on the left that she was 0:19:48.119 --> 0:19:51.879 being forgotten and stranded and no one cared, and the 0:19:51.880 --> 0:19:55.920 government didn't care because she was a black, lesbian woman. 0:19:56.800 --> 0:20:00.639 We heard more about Britney Griner as a political prisoner 0:20:00.680 --> 0:20:02.800 than any other political prisoner I can remember in the 0:20:02.880 --> 0:20:06.040 last decade now, and we should have been hearing a 0:20:06.040 --> 0:20:08.679 lot about her, because that was a horrifying situation and 0:20:08.720 --> 0:20:11.119 she did not deserve, by any stretch of the imagination, 0:20:11.160 --> 0:20:12.960 to be there, and we had to get her out. 0:20:13.280 --> 0:20:16.320 But this notion that she was languishing or that she 0:20:16.400 --> 0:20:20.919 was somehow getting inadequate attention because of racism, sexism, and 0:20:21.119 --> 0:20:24.720 homophobia is ridiculous. And the problem is when you make 0:20:24.760 --> 0:20:29.400 those claims in situations where they're patently ridiculous, you undermine 0:20:29.440 --> 0:20:31.639 your credibility. When you need to make those claims and 0:20:31.720 --> 0:20:35.479 situations where it's urgent, you actually do a disservice to 0:20:35.520 --> 0:20:37.800 your cause rather than a service to it. And we 0:20:37.880 --> 0:20:40.199 live in this era where there are all sorts of 0:20:40.240 --> 0:20:43.520 right and left, both grievance entrepreneurs who go out there 0:20:43.760 --> 0:20:47.439 and just say the same thing regardless of circumstances and 0:20:47.640 --> 0:20:50.439 end up giving the people who disagree with them a 0:20:50.600 --> 0:20:55.240 reason to tune out and pay no attention. 0:20:55.720 --> 0:20:57.560 I'm going to talk to you about social media in 0:20:57.600 --> 0:21:01.080 a moment, but first the impact that Trump presidency and 0:21:01.119 --> 0:21:06.160 now election efforts are having on this. You say that 0:21:06.240 --> 0:21:10.880 this age of grievance actually predates Donald Trump. We saw 0:21:11.000 --> 0:21:15.000 seedlings of it in Sarah Palin. And by the way, 0:21:15.200 --> 0:21:20.439 you're welcome, right, I mean, so. 0:21:26.240 --> 0:21:32.840 You conducted one of history's great interviews. You know, thank you? 0:21:32.600 --> 0:21:34.119 Do you can I ask you a question? 0:21:34.320 --> 0:21:34.560 Yeah? 0:21:34.600 --> 0:21:36.920 Sure, as long as we've known each other, do you 0:21:37.680 --> 0:21:39.280 remember that particular interview? 0:21:39.280 --> 0:21:43.520 Well, I, oh, we have largerieree second of it. I 0:21:43.600 --> 0:21:47.920