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Speaker 1: If you've noticed that everyone is a victim nowadays, everyone

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Speaker 1: is a grief. It doesn't matter if it's you know,

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Speaker 1: lgbt Q plus g X, whatever it is. It doesn't

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Speaker 1: matter if it's a sexism thing, a racism thing. Everyone's agrieved,

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Speaker 1: everyone feels insulted. Everyone you know, wants to claim some

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Speaker 1: sort of special status in today's society. So how did

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Speaker 1: that all begin? Why did that all begin? How did

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Speaker 1: we become this nation of victims? We're gonna ask the

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Speaker 1: guy who wrote the book on it, the vague Rama Swamy. Uh,

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Speaker 1: he's at with a new book September thirte. You guys

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Speaker 1: know him, You've seen him on Fox. I've interviewed him

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Speaker 1: as well. Extremely smart, very interesting, very instifle. He wrote

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Speaker 1: this new book, Nation of Victims, Identity Politics, the Death

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Speaker 1: of Merit, and the Path Back to Excellence. Since we

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Speaker 1: last spoke to him, his book woke and crushed it.

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Speaker 1: He became a New York Times bestseller. He also started

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Speaker 1: an asset management fund called Drive, which really serves as

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Speaker 1: sort of this anti awoke asset management fund. And that's

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Speaker 1: crushing it as well. And he's such a smart, successful

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Speaker 1: guy as a first generation American entrepreneur investor. Before he

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Speaker 1: founded Strive, he founded you know, multibillion dollar enterprises, including

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Speaker 1: roy Event Sciences, which he led a CEO. He graduated

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Speaker 1: sumo cum laude from Harvard. He received his law degree

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Speaker 1: from Yale while working as a hedge fund partner. He's

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Speaker 1: not an idiot, Okay, He's a He's a very and

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Speaker 1: he's not one of you know. Sometimes I think nowadays

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Speaker 1: you hear people with all these fancy degrees and you're like,

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Speaker 1: you know, but he really has seen it from the inside,

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Speaker 1: which I think is why he is so much more insightful.

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Speaker 1: You know, he's sort of he sees it from he

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Speaker 1: understands kind of where these different places have gone and

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Speaker 1: why it's bad. Uh. And not only does he call

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Speaker 1: it out as he has in his books, but he's

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Speaker 1: actually taking real steps with Strive to try to address,

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Speaker 1: you know, some of those E. S. G. Issues and

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Speaker 1: all this wokeness both in corporate America but also culturally,

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Speaker 1: which she's done and in this book Nation of Victims.

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Speaker 1: So I hope you enjoyed this conversation. I know I'm

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Speaker 1: looking forward to it. The vag rama swammy, So you've

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Speaker 1: got the vague rama Swammy Vague. Congrats on being a

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Speaker 1: New York Times bestseller. I mean since we last talked,

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Speaker 1: your book Woking crushed it. You've started a new fund

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Speaker 1: and you have another book. So you've been a busy man. Yeah,

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Speaker 1: it's trying to trying to stay busy. Appreciate that. I

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Speaker 1: wish I have accomplished as much in less than years.

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Speaker 1: I don't know about that. Thank you. I appreciate that.

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Speaker 1: Lest Yeah, so I wanted to talk about the Strive

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Speaker 1: asset management and then I want to get into your

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Speaker 1: book as well. You know, what is it and why

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Speaker 1: did you start it? Yeah? So, look, I mean I

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Speaker 1: didn't know that I was going to do this at

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Speaker 1: the time I started writing Woking, but I would say

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Speaker 1: that it was the the accol to action at the

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Speaker 1: end of the book that at the end of the

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Speaker 1: day I was calling on other people to do it,

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Speaker 1: and I decided that it was time to actually where

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Speaker 1: my entrepreneurial had again and do it myself. And so,

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Speaker 1: you know, the point, the problem that I pointed out

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Speaker 1: in my last book was the merger of business and politics,

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Speaker 1: the way in which stakeholder capitalism and the E s

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Speaker 1: G movement had caused companies to advance not just product

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Speaker 1: driven and profit driven agendas, but political and social agendas

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Speaker 1: that many everyday Americans, particular Americans whose money was invested

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Speaker 1: in those very companies, did not agree with. And I

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Speaker 1: said that there's a large scale problem both for the

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Speaker 1: future American capitalism and American democracy. And the simplest root

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Speaker 1: cause of that problem was the asset management industry, the

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Speaker 1: one industry that directed the flow of capital into all

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Speaker 1: of the other ones. Where you had three large firms

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Speaker 1: Black Rock, State Street in Vanguard that together managed more

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Speaker 1: money than the us GDP, that use the money of

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Speaker 1: everyday citizens to advance toxic social and political agendas, and

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Speaker 1: corporate America's boardrooms that most of those everyday citizens actually

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Speaker 1: disagreed with. That was a fiduciary breach. It was a

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Speaker 1: breach of trust, and no one was really doing anything

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Speaker 1: about it. So this is what Woke Ink was about.

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Speaker 1: I tried to do something about it by shining a

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Speaker 1: spotlight on the problem through the book. I wrote, I, um,

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Speaker 1: you know, I think spoke out about the problem. But

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Speaker 1: at the end of the day, the best way to

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Speaker 1: solve a market problem is actually not always through state action.

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Speaker 1: And this is something that I think is a good

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Speaker 1: debate on the right Lisa, and I think at a

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Speaker 1: certain point state action can make a positive difference, that

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Speaker 1: all state actions have unintended consequences. And when I look

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Speaker 1: myself in the mirror, I said, look, if this is

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Speaker 1: a market problem, it actually deserves to be solved through

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Speaker 1: the market. And while I never imagined that I was

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Speaker 1: going to start another business, I thought I was done

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Speaker 1: with that part of my career and moved on to

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Speaker 1: raising kids and writing books and living a more peaceable life.

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Speaker 1: I decided that look, this was this was the opportunity

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Speaker 1: where I could put my skill set best to use,

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Speaker 1: And so I started an asset manager Strive. We're competing

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Speaker 1: with black Rock, and the thing is we're just bringing

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Speaker 1: a different voice and vote to the table, telling companies

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Speaker 1: to focus on products over politics and maximized shareholder value

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Speaker 1: that way without apologizing for it. Well, and I saw

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Speaker 1: an article that the one week after you launch your

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Speaker 1: fund raised over a hundred million dollars. What everyone goes

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Speaker 1: woke it It creates sort of an opportunity, doesn't it.

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Speaker 1: As you've seen I mean it really, I mean it does.

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Speaker 1: I mean, for me, the thing that gets me going

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Speaker 1: in the morning. Is not the business opportunity there and

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Speaker 1: have had fortunate enjoy success in in my prior line

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Speaker 1: of business in the biotech world, etcetera. It is. It

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Speaker 1: is too, I think, speak on behalf of a hundred

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Speaker 1: plus a million people in this country whose money is

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Speaker 1: being abused by someone else to speak in ways that

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Speaker 1: would make their own blood boil if they knew what

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Speaker 1: was going on. But you know what, there was a

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Speaker 1: big business opportunity there, and I think that the irony

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Speaker 1: is many of those hundred million people happened to be

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Speaker 1: some of the best customers that any business could wish

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Speaker 1: for in terms of having net investment power, net savings,

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Speaker 1: the ability to be a sticky, loyal customer, and to

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Speaker 1: be able to say, you know what, let's serve those

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Speaker 1: people by speaking on their behalf and you're right. So

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Speaker 1: we got to over a hundred million a week. One

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Speaker 1: in the first three weeks, we got over three hundred million,

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Speaker 1: and that makes it, I think the fastest non seated

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Speaker 1: e t F launch exchange traded fund launch of the year.

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Speaker 1: That was our first one, and and you know that's

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Speaker 1: going to be the first of many products that Strive launches.

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Speaker 1: But I think that the the bigger point is that

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Speaker 1: nobody was competing with Black Rock and State Student Vanguard

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Speaker 1: on their B s G message. That was an opportunity

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Speaker 1: hiding in plain sight. I kept saying that somebody should

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Speaker 1: do it, not thinking it would be me. I I

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Speaker 1: again dedicating energy to starting something from scratch almost you know,

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Speaker 1: I haven't worked like a hundred twenty hours a week since,

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Speaker 1: like and and I am reminding myself of what that's like,

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Speaker 1: but because I'm doing it again. But at the end

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Speaker 1: of the day, it was it was too necessary of

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Speaker 1: an opportunity for someone not to pursue. So I stepped

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Speaker 1: up and said, we're doing this. What did you is

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Speaker 1: G start rearing its ugly head. Yeah, I mean, look,

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Speaker 1: I think it. You know, it really started in the

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Speaker 1: wake of the o eight financial crisis. I think I

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Speaker 1: talked about this when we spoke about a year ago,

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Speaker 1: but it was when you know, a lot of capitalists

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Speaker 1: on Wall Street wanted to apologize for the two thousand

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Speaker 1: eight financial crisis. And what they said is, okay, don't

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Speaker 1: attack capitalism, just reinvent capitalism to advance the social good

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Speaker 1: and the environmental good and rectify racial injustice and social

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Speaker 1: inequity and climate change. And that created this arranged marriage

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Speaker 1: where the left that usually wanted to go after a

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Speaker 1: big business before came around to saying that, look, we

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Speaker 1: can actually enter a cynical arranged marriage here where it's

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Speaker 1: an arranged marriage between two sides that don't really love

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Speaker 1: each other, but it's more like mutual prostitution. Right, each

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Speaker 1: side get something out of the trade. And that was

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Speaker 1: the birth of this new monster that really snowballed into

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Speaker 1: into into where we get today. And that that actually

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Speaker 1: got me to the doorstep of my next book, which

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Speaker 1: is which is the one that's coming out now, which

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Speaker 1: is all about the culture that this new trend has

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Speaker 1: perpetuated in our country, a culture amongst consumers, a culture

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Speaker 1: amongst employees, amongst workers in these businesses that has taught

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Speaker 1: everyone to think of themselves as a victim, as a

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Speaker 1: victim of capitalism, as a victim of the system that

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Speaker 1: gave us the greatest system known to mankind. Well, where

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Speaker 1: which are the people up from poverty? Where the people

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Speaker 1: who ran that system realize that they could still stay

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Speaker 1: on top by perpetuating this philosophy to every other individual

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Speaker 1: from their employees, to their customers, to be able to

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Speaker 1: perpetuate a philosophy that allowed them to keep their power intact,

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Speaker 1: but to do it in a way that had bad

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Speaker 1: externalities for our culture. And you know, part of part

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Speaker 1: of what I'm doing through Strive, and part of what

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Speaker 1: I'm hoping to do through this new book is called

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Speaker 1: for a new movement, not just in corporate America, not

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Speaker 1: just in our economy, but in our culture to revive excellence.

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Speaker 1: The unapologetic pursuit of excellence is the heart of what

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Speaker 1: it means to be American, is the heart of our

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Speaker 1: national identity. To say that if you're a company, if

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Speaker 1: you're in a oil copany, an energy company, a company

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Speaker 1: that makes natural gas, whatever it might be, you don't

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Speaker 1: need to apologize for what you do. You don't need

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Speaker 1: to apologize for the pursuit of excellence. Because the pursuit

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Speaker 1: of excellence and the autopologetic pursuit of excellence, be it

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Speaker 1: through capitalism or be it in other respects of our culture,

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Speaker 1: that's part of what got us this far. It's part

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Speaker 1: of what part of what it means to be American,

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Speaker 1: in my view, and that's what we're missing and I'm

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Speaker 1: hoping through the combination of of both my efforts in

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Speaker 1: the private sector as well as some of the contributions

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Speaker 1: intellectually that I'm making through my book and otherwise, I

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Speaker 1: hope that I hope that that starts this national revival

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Speaker 1: that I think we're long overdue for. Yeah, what point

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Speaker 1: is there going to be an acknowledgement that these things

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Speaker 1: we're talking about is bad business? I mean, you look

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Speaker 1: at the identity politics. All you have to do is

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Speaker 1: look at Biden spokesperson to realize that checking boxes is

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Speaker 1: not always the right route to take, right, I mean,

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Speaker 1: she she might be the dumbest pre sectoria we've ever seen.

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Speaker 1: Or you look at some of this E s G stuff.

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Speaker 1: You know, Europe's facing an energy crisis. California is banning

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Speaker 1: the same of new gas powered cars by two thousand

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Speaker 1: thirty five, but then recently told it cisens not to

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Speaker 1: charge their electric vehicles due to a heat wave. So

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Speaker 1: at what point will there be acknowledgement that, you know,

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Speaker 1: we should just focus on what works and what's best. Yeah,

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Speaker 1: I mean, look, I think it's when when people start

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Speaker 1: to take a hit in their quality of life at

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Speaker 1: the end of the day. And I don't mean to

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Speaker 1: be dire about this prediction, but when I look at

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Speaker 1: what's happening in the field of medicine, for example, and

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Speaker 1: I you know, I'm a first creer in the biotech industry,

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Speaker 1: as trained as a scientist and Harvard and milecrobiology. My

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Speaker 1: my wife, wife's in academic medicine. We have a front

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Speaker 1: row seat here. Look at the end of the day,

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Speaker 1: there's now you pen Met School recently announcing that certain

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Speaker 1: races will no longer have to apply with an m

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Speaker 1: catch school. That's the test that determines whether or not

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Speaker 1: one of the admissions criteria the U S m l E,

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Speaker 1: where after you graduate from medical school you can take

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Speaker 1: as part of your licensing process of becoming a physician

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Speaker 1: to go into residency, has now been step one has

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Speaker 1: been converted into a past fail exam. There are racial

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Speaker 1: quotas applied at every step of the way. And I

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Speaker 1: just ask ourselves, I mean, whether you're talking about protecting

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Speaker 1: black lives, white lives, human lives, we would want to

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Speaker 1: put the best people on the front lines to take

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Speaker 1: care of other human beings in their most vulnerable moments

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Speaker 1: of need, and yet now we're entering a brave new

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Speaker 1: world in which the people who are putting those operating rooms,

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Speaker 1: the people who are put in those emergency rooms, the

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Speaker 1: people who are put on those ambulances are going to

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Speaker 1: be in those positions in part, if not in large part,

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Speaker 1: because of the color of their skin, rather than for

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Speaker 1: the competence of their mental faculties or their skill sets

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Speaker 1: as a physician. I think that's scary. I think at

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Speaker 1: the end of the day, there's even even a news

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Speaker 1: report today about uh an affirmative action program at NASA

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Speaker 1: that had people working on rockets that we had no

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Speaker 1: business working on those rockets, but in part were placed

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Speaker 1: in that position because of the color of their skin.

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Speaker 1: I think it's going to be when we ultimately face

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Speaker 1: I hope not tragedies, but at least probably a decrement

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Speaker 1: in human flourishing, in the human experience in healthcare, that

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Speaker 1: we take a step back and say, Okay, how much

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Speaker 1: damage have we done to the very human beings who

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Speaker 1: we thought we were protecting by adopting these kinds of

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Speaker 1: toxic affirmative action driven policies, and that that's that's a

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Speaker 1: big part of the whole new book is about is

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Speaker 1: about the death of merit in this country. The revival

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Speaker 1: of meritocracy is part of the revival of what it

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Speaker 1: means to be American. It is why most immigrants come

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Speaker 1: to this country. It is when my parents came to

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Speaker 1: this country to a place where they could pursue excellence

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Speaker 1: and pursue merit unapologetically and to be rewarded for it.

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Speaker 1: And once we lose that, I mean, that is one

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Speaker 1: of the things that binds us together across our diverse

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Speaker 1: genetically inherited attributes. If we lose that, not only do

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Speaker 1: we lose the system that gave us all of the

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Speaker 1: great things that we've enjoyed over the last two and

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Speaker 1: centuries as a country, we also lose one of the

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Speaker 1: aspects of our shared national identity itself, which is something

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Speaker 1: that's important in a diverse democracy like ours. And so

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Speaker 1: we lose not just once over materially, but we lose

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Speaker 1: twice over in terms of our shared national identity as well.

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Speaker 1: And all we're left with is the fractious tribes that

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Speaker 1: are then left with tribal identities that fight it out

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Speaker 1: as human beings always have. So so I think it's

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Speaker 1: important for a couple of reasons. Well, and it's concerning

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Speaker 1: to to your point about hopefully no tragedy is happening. Look,

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Speaker 1: there's been articles about trying to diversify pilots and things

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Speaker 1: like that, which obviously is concerning because you just want

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Speaker 1: who's best at the job and who's going to get

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Speaker 1: you safely to point A to point B. Yet that

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Speaker 1: gets under right, Yeah, and so you're right, there's some

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Speaker 1: concern there about what does all this mean for the

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Speaker 1: future of the country. And you, look, I think that

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Speaker 1: I think what's at stake for the future of the

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Speaker 1: country is is Look, I think we have we've got

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Speaker 1: to take the best argument for the other side. Okay,

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Speaker 1: what's what's really going on here? What's driving this obsession

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Speaker 1: over the equity driven agenda, over the anti merit agenda,

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Speaker 1: over the you know, over the pro victim agenda, over

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Speaker 1: the pro excellence agenda. And by the way, he said,

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Speaker 1: I think this is not unique to the left. Okay,

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Speaker 1: I'm increasingly worried about the spread of victimhood culture from

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Speaker 1: the left to the right. I would have seen an

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Speaker 1: opportunity for the conservative movement to step up and say that, look,

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Speaker 1: we're going to be the party that stands for unapologetically

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Speaker 1: pursuing excellence in a way that's contrasted with a party

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Speaker 1: that that defines its identity on perpetuating victimhood. Instead, what

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Speaker 1: I what I'm worried that we might see is actually

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Speaker 1: a shift in the other direction to say that, well,

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Speaker 1: you know what, you're a victim. Guess what, We're a

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Speaker 1: bigger victim too, and we play this victimhood Olympics between

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Speaker 1: the different tribal groups where there is no gold medalist

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Speaker 1: at the end of the day, if anything, part of

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Speaker 1: why I'm worries that that's the direction we're actually heading now.

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Speaker 1: I think that if you take a look at the

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Speaker 1: other side, and you know, sort of see, well, what's

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Speaker 1: what's the basis, what's the account for why we're so

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Speaker 1: obsessed with this apologist narrative that perpetuates victimhood and and

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Speaker 1: results in this cool frontal assault on merit. No, look,

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Speaker 1: I think it's it's a misunderstanding of the kind of

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Speaker 1: equality that we actually hunger for in our country. And

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Speaker 1: I'm a big proponent in the book as well. In

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Speaker 1: the Nation of Victims is in part an indictment of

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Speaker 1: victim and culture, But in part it is a call

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Speaker 1: for a new national identity as well, centered on the

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Speaker 1: pursuit of excellence. But part of that national identity involves

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Speaker 1: restoring civic equality, which is something that we're missing in

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Speaker 1: our country. And so I'm a big proponent of reviving

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Speaker 1: civic equality, reviving the equal voice of every citizen in

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Speaker 1: a democracy to express his or her view on political questions,

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Speaker 1: irrespective of the number of dollars he or she controls

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Speaker 1: in the marketplace. That's where living in a democracy is

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Speaker 1: all about. That's part of what we've lost. That's part

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Speaker 1: of what we've lost as a consequence of the things

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Speaker 1: that I talked about my last book, like stakeholder capitalism

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Speaker 1: or the E s G movement that have appointed a

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Speaker 1: small group of quasi aristocratic monarchs to settle political questions

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Speaker 1: like how we're supposed to address climate change, or how

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Speaker 1: we're supposed address racial and equity. Those are the kinds

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Speaker 1: of questions that in a democratic society with true civic equality,

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Speaker 1: every citizen gets to exercise his voice equally in the

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Speaker 1: public square through free speech and open debate, and settle

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Speaker 1: those disagreements through the political process. That's what we've lost

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Speaker 1: is our sense of civic equality as citizens. But because

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Speaker 1: we've lost that sense of civic equality, we take that impulse,

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Speaker 1: that sense of inequality that many people in this country

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Speaker 1: may feel like we have, which in some sense is

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Speaker 1: correctly placed. We have lost our sense of civic equality,

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Speaker 1: but channel those impulses to then call for material equity.

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Speaker 1: And I think that before makes a lot of people matter.

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Speaker 1: I say it, but I'll say it again. Excellence and

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Speaker 1: equity are fundamentally incompatible with one another. The unapology if

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Speaker 1: you really believe in the unapologetic pursuit of excellence, yes,

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Speaker 1: that's going to mean that we have an inequality of

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Speaker 1: results along a wide range of axes, and some of

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Speaker 1: those could include even axes that map onto different identitarian boundaries.

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Speaker 1: I don't care about that as an American. What I

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Speaker 1: care about is restoring the equality of every human being

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Speaker 1: as a citizen, as a coequal citizen. And if we're

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Speaker 1: able to do that and get that right, we don't

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Speaker 1: need to be so insecure about the inequality of results

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Speaker 1: that might obtain in a wide range of fields. The

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Speaker 1: inequality of results on the basketball court, or inequality of

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Speaker 1: results on your endcat scores it doesn't much matter if

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Speaker 1: we all respect one another co equally at citizens and

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Speaker 1: the irony right now, Lisa is we're missing both of

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Speaker 1: those things at the same time. The good news is,

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Speaker 1: I think the solution to one can actually help deliver

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Speaker 1: the solution to the other. Click commercial break back with

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Speaker 1: the vague Ramaswami on the other side, is that, in

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Speaker 1: part why we're so divided as a country, this focus

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Speaker 1: on identity politics and you know, sort of the death

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Speaker 1: of merit. I think it's a symptom, so I think

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Speaker 1: it is a symptom of the problem. Is is that

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Speaker 1: why I wouldn't assisily that's the cause. It definitely makes

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Speaker 1: things worse. It's a symptom of a deeper problem in

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Speaker 1: our country, which is right now in the year two,

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Speaker 1: the lack of a shared national identity. Okay, ask the

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Speaker 1: question of what it means to be an American in

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Speaker 1: the year two. I don't believe that most citizens can

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Speaker 1: give you a good answer to that question. I'm not

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Speaker 1: sure I could give you a good answer to that question.

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Speaker 1: And I think that's created this black hole of an

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Speaker 1: identity vacuum at the heart of a nation, at the

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Speaker 1: heart of a generation that when you have the vacuum

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Speaker 1: that runs that deep. That's when poison begins to fill

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Speaker 1: the void. That's when identity politics begins to fill the void.

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Speaker 1: That is when scientism, which is a religion that differs

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Speaker 1: from the practice of science, When toxic philosophies like scientism

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Speaker 1: begin to fill the void. When identity politics begins to

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Speaker 1: fill the void, when tribal identities, when victimhood begins to

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Speaker 1: fill the void. It fills a void, a black hole

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Speaker 1: that runs so deep that used to be filled by

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Speaker 1: more rich shared identities, identities like you know, national identity

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Speaker 1: built around patriots as more faith or hard work for

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Speaker 1: that matter, something I talk about extensively in the book

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Speaker 1: of a source of identity that we've lost in our country, family,

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Speaker 1: whatever it may be, the kinds of things that used

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Speaker 1: to fill our void of identity and even purpose and

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Speaker 1: meaning as those as those things have disappeared, that's what

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Speaker 1: allows identity politics or pick your favorite toxic philosophy to

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Speaker 1: fill that identity void instead. And I think the right

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Speaker 1: solution has to be something more than just doing even

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Speaker 1: a lot of what I've done in the last couple

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Speaker 1: of years. Frankly, you know, playing game of whack a mole,

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Speaker 1: you hammering out one of those toxic philosophies and forms

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Speaker 1: of poison one by one, to instead filling that void

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Speaker 1: with something far more meaningful that doesn't stamp out the poison.

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Speaker 1: It dilutes the poison to irrelevance with something that's far

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Speaker 1: more meaningful, far more rich, and far more substantive. And

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Speaker 1: that's what I try to do in the second half

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Speaker 1: of my book. I mean, that's you know, Nation of Victims.

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Speaker 1: I mean, that's that's that that was something I get

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Speaker 1: to at the end of this book that I don't

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Speaker 1: really get two at the end of Woking, which is

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Speaker 1: all about the problem you know here, I think it's

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Speaker 1: it starts about analyzing the cultural problem of even the

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Speaker 1: victimhood culture outside of corporate America. But at the end

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Speaker 1: of the day, all of this is a symptom of

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Speaker 1: that deeper national, cancerous void, that black hole that we

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Speaker 1: need to fill with an affirmative vision of what it

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Speaker 1: means to be an American, what it means to be

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Speaker 1: an agent, a free agent in a world where human

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Speaker 1: beings are free agents whose behavior is not necessarily determined

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Speaker 1: by the tectonic plate of group identity. That you're born on. Well,

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Speaker 1: guess what the right way to get beyond that is

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Speaker 1: to have an affirmative vision of what it means to

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Speaker 1: be an American, what it means to be an agent.

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Speaker 1: And look, those are those are deep iconic question century

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Speaker 1: old age old questions in history. Again't promise to offer

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Speaker 1: all of the answers in this book, but I do

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Speaker 1: offer my perspective on at least with the beginning of

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Speaker 1: an answer could look like in contemporary American Two, you

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Speaker 1: mentioned hard work. It does seem like the idea around

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Speaker 1: work ethic and what a work think is has changed

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Speaker 1: dramatically in the country. When why do you think that happened? Yeah, Look,

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Speaker 1: I think that that this is complicated. I mean, I

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Speaker 1: think that there's a long term answer, and I think

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Speaker 1: there's a there's a shorter term answer. Short term answer

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Speaker 1: is easy. The short term answer is that the government

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Speaker 1: created a lot of the policies that fostered the anti

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Speaker 1: work culture that we now suffer over the last three years.

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Speaker 1: I mean, I think the pandemic supercharged a trend of

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Speaker 1: government spending that said, you know what, We're going to

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Speaker 1: send you money, whether or not you needed. Under the

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Speaker 1: banner of aid, where even when you take that aid away.

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Speaker 1: One of the things the economists learned is that, you

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Speaker 1: know what, you may not actually go back to behaving

431
00:21:42,920 --> 00:21:45,000
Speaker 1: in the same way that you did even when your

432
00:21:45,040 --> 00:21:47,040
Speaker 1: income level drops to what it used to be, because

433
00:21:47,040 --> 00:21:50,119
Speaker 1: you've got accustomed to laziness. You got accustomed to the

434
00:21:50,200 --> 00:21:53,239
Speaker 1: idea that you actually didn't like work nearly as much

435
00:21:53,280 --> 00:21:55,920
Speaker 1: as you thought you did, or a deep percent you actually,

436
00:21:55,960 --> 00:21:57,760
Speaker 1: in a deep percentce you liked the work in the

437
00:21:57,840 --> 00:22:02,080
Speaker 1: sense that you know, you like you like candy in

438
00:22:02,160 --> 00:22:03,760
Speaker 1: the short term if you're a kid, but it doesn't

439
00:22:03,800 --> 00:22:06,480
Speaker 1: really satisfy your deeper hunger. Well, the same way sitting

440
00:22:06,520 --> 00:22:07,800
Speaker 1: on a couch on a given then you have to

441
00:22:07,840 --> 00:22:10,359
Speaker 1: look at half the adult male population. Now, how much

442
00:22:10,440 --> 00:22:13,239
Speaker 1: additional time that they're spending not at work isn't being

443
00:22:13,280 --> 00:22:15,920
Speaker 1: spent even by being industrious at home, It's being spent

444
00:22:16,000 --> 00:22:18,000
Speaker 1: by actually just sitting in front of the screen at home.

445
00:22:18,320 --> 00:22:20,760
Speaker 1: That becomes something you're going become acculturated to such that

446
00:22:20,840 --> 00:22:23,120
Speaker 1: even if that you had an economic incentive for two

447
00:22:23,200 --> 00:22:25,639
Speaker 1: years over the pandemic to be able to adopt that

448
00:22:25,680 --> 00:22:29,080
Speaker 1: seated position on the couch, once those incentives change your behavior,

449
00:22:29,280 --> 00:22:31,600
Speaker 1: doesn't your butt stay is pretty pretty glued to that

450
00:22:31,680 --> 00:22:33,359
Speaker 1: couch at the end of the day. Anyway, So the

451
00:22:33,359 --> 00:22:35,119
Speaker 1: short term answered the question how you got here a less.

452
00:22:35,119 --> 00:22:37,840
Speaker 1: I think part of these are pandemic era policies that

453
00:22:38,320 --> 00:22:41,560
Speaker 1: had the predictable consequences that anyone would predict they would have.

454
00:22:41,560 --> 00:22:43,080
Speaker 1: If you give money people stay at home, They're gonna

455
00:22:43,119 --> 00:22:45,640
Speaker 1: stay at home. And and finally, this is something that's

456
00:22:45,640 --> 00:22:48,119
Speaker 1: I think mostly I pined to, uh, you know, I

457
00:22:48,160 --> 00:22:52,080
Speaker 1: would say liberal policies, but conservatives from Josh Holly to

458
00:22:52,160 --> 00:22:54,840
Speaker 1: Donald Trump I hold partially responsible for to both of

459
00:22:54,880 --> 00:22:57,560
Speaker 1: them said they would not support the aid package as

460
00:22:57,640 --> 00:22:59,639
Speaker 1: one of their final acts before Trump went out of

461
00:22:59,680 --> 00:23:02,560
Speaker 1: office unless it gave two thousand dollars an aid rather

462
00:23:02,600 --> 00:23:04,360
Speaker 1: than six dollars, which is, by the way, the same

463
00:23:04,400 --> 00:23:07,600
Speaker 1: policy adopted by Bernie the same policy position adopted by

464
00:23:07,600 --> 00:23:10,080
Speaker 1: Bernie Sanders and Kamala Harris. And so you know, I

465
00:23:10,119 --> 00:23:12,119
Speaker 1: would have never imagined that artist see Bernie Sanders and

466
00:23:12,160 --> 00:23:14,320
Speaker 1: Kamala Harris and Donald Trump and Josh Holly on the

467
00:23:14,400 --> 00:23:16,960
Speaker 1: same side of this question. But no doubt that very

468
00:23:17,040 --> 00:23:20,880
Speaker 1: bill helped contribute to the short term binge of laziness

469
00:23:20,920 --> 00:23:24,080
Speaker 1: culture that we've seen spread across the country. Now there's

470
00:23:24,080 --> 00:23:25,960
Speaker 1: a bigger question. I mean, this isn't just the last

471
00:23:26,040 --> 00:23:30,280
Speaker 1: few years. I think we are going through the largest

472
00:23:30,359 --> 00:23:33,920
Speaker 1: intergenerational wealth transfer in human history, from baby boomers to

473
00:23:33,960 --> 00:23:36,879
Speaker 1: millennials and Gen Z and being there's something about being

474
00:23:36,920 --> 00:23:39,200
Speaker 1: on the receiving end of that that I mean. I'm

475
00:23:39,240 --> 00:23:41,200
Speaker 1: not personally I'm a millennial. I'm not personally on the

476
00:23:41,240 --> 00:23:42,920
Speaker 1: receiving end of it, but that I'm speaking for my

477
00:23:43,000 --> 00:23:48,040
Speaker 1: generation is um, you know something that inculcates all culture

478
00:23:48,080 --> 00:23:52,879
Speaker 1: of entitlement, a culture of of loss of purpose in

479
00:23:53,040 --> 00:23:55,359
Speaker 1: in sort of having actually self reliant when you know

480
00:23:55,480 --> 00:23:58,639
Speaker 1: that that safety blanket exists, but that taking blanket might

481
00:23:58,680 --> 00:24:00,920
Speaker 1: exist for one generation, it's not exist for the next one.

482
00:24:01,320 --> 00:24:03,000
Speaker 1: And so I think that this is also against a

483
00:24:03,080 --> 00:24:07,080
Speaker 1: broader generational transfer, and they're gonna wealth transferred human history

484
00:24:07,600 --> 00:24:10,919
Speaker 1: that created the backdrop conditions for government policies that been

485
00:24:11,040 --> 00:24:13,840
Speaker 1: fueled that culture of laziness and supercharged it with the

486
00:24:13,880 --> 00:24:17,320
Speaker 1: potency of steroids. Part of the child I agree with you.

487
00:24:17,440 --> 00:24:20,320
Speaker 1: I almost asked you about COVID, but I didn't know

488
00:24:21,000 --> 00:24:23,480
Speaker 1: you know, I thought you would have was interested in

489
00:24:23,560 --> 00:24:25,800
Speaker 1: hearing what you have to say more broadly, um than

490
00:24:25,880 --> 00:24:28,119
Speaker 1: that specifically, which you did, but you know I was

491
00:24:28,119 --> 00:24:30,520
Speaker 1: gonna ask you. So. Part of the challenge with what

492
00:24:30,640 --> 00:24:35,480
Speaker 1: we're facing is this victimhood mentality is being indoctrinated with

493
00:24:35,800 --> 00:24:38,600
Speaker 1: you know, kids with with students, right, It's being indoctrinated

494
00:24:38,680 --> 00:24:41,760
Speaker 1: in school. You know, how do you reshape and break

495
00:24:41,920 --> 00:24:44,919
Speaker 1: that mentality that is being instilled in so many young

496
00:24:45,000 --> 00:24:47,920
Speaker 1: people right now? Yeah? I mean, look, I think that

497
00:24:48,040 --> 00:24:52,640
Speaker 1: it's going to have to involve a bottom up revival

498
00:24:53,200 --> 00:24:57,240
Speaker 1: of the shared cultural identity that means what it means

499
00:24:57,240 --> 00:24:59,920
Speaker 1: to be American to be woven back into our schools

500
00:25:00,080 --> 00:25:02,640
Speaker 1: in a way that it isn't today. So so education

501
00:25:02,720 --> 00:25:05,600
Speaker 1: I think is the most single most important frontier where

502
00:25:05,680 --> 00:25:07,760
Speaker 1: if you teach a kid to think of himself as

503
00:25:07,800 --> 00:25:10,520
Speaker 1: a victim, he will think of himself as a victim. Right.

504
00:25:10,600 --> 00:25:12,879
Speaker 1: This is like what I call kind of a social

505
00:25:13,000 --> 00:25:15,720
Speaker 1: Heisenberg effect, where you know, you see a lot of

506
00:25:15,760 --> 00:25:18,000
Speaker 1: these surveys that schools will do and they'll report back

507
00:25:18,040 --> 00:25:19,919
Speaker 1: and say, interne, this is how the kids are actually

508
00:25:20,000 --> 00:25:21,760
Speaker 1: already feeling, which is why we need to be able

509
00:25:21,760 --> 00:25:23,720
Speaker 1: to address them that's the argument from the other side,

510
00:25:24,280 --> 00:25:25,840
Speaker 1: and the way I sort of bring up the social

511
00:25:25,840 --> 00:25:28,440
Speaker 1: Eisenberg principle as an Heisenberg principle in physics refers to

512
00:25:28,520 --> 00:25:31,920
Speaker 1: the fact that you cannot actually measure the spin of

513
00:25:31,960 --> 00:25:35,640
Speaker 1: an electron. At the same time that you actually find

514
00:25:35,760 --> 00:25:37,879
Speaker 1: what the spin of that electron is, you you affect

515
00:25:37,920 --> 00:25:42,080
Speaker 1: the underlying phenomenon. Well, if you ask kids consistently about

516
00:25:42,119 --> 00:25:44,720
Speaker 1: how they see themselves as victims, you are changing the

517
00:25:44,840 --> 00:25:47,960
Speaker 1: underlying phenomenon itself. You're causing them to see the very

518
00:25:48,000 --> 00:25:50,840
Speaker 1: ways that the so called surveys or questions or assessments

519
00:25:51,200 --> 00:25:55,639
Speaker 1: point them to feel. You see that with respected victimhood, broadly,

520
00:25:55,720 --> 00:25:59,119
Speaker 1: with respected gender identity, with respect to sexual orientation. You

521
00:25:59,200 --> 00:26:01,879
Speaker 1: see it across us the board, and you know, at

522
00:26:01,880 --> 00:26:03,680
Speaker 1: the end of the day, how do we fix that? Look?

523
00:26:03,720 --> 00:26:06,280
Speaker 1: I think that that's a complicated question. What I can

524
00:26:06,320 --> 00:26:08,080
Speaker 1: tell you is the window we're working with is that

525
00:26:08,160 --> 00:26:11,160
Speaker 1: the kids who enter first grade today graduate from twelfth grade.

526
00:26:11,160 --> 00:26:14,119
Speaker 1: Before we've gotten that right, we've lost a generation. And

527
00:26:14,160 --> 00:26:15,639
Speaker 1: if we lose a generation, I don't think we have

528
00:26:15,680 --> 00:26:19,520
Speaker 1: a generation of of margin left in this country before

529
00:26:19,560 --> 00:26:22,800
Speaker 1: we clean that up. I think they are more promising

530
00:26:22,840 --> 00:26:26,240
Speaker 1: place to start than fixing the institution of the school

531
00:26:26,359 --> 00:26:29,320
Speaker 1: is at least to compete with the school in the

532
00:26:29,400 --> 00:26:32,879
Speaker 1: institution of the family, to be able to, you know,

533
00:26:33,200 --> 00:26:36,159
Speaker 1: both have the family as the place where we inculcate

534
00:26:36,240 --> 00:26:41,520
Speaker 1: actually the values of self reliance, of industriousness, of pursuing

535
00:26:41,600 --> 00:26:46,520
Speaker 1: excellence on apologetically, of actually having a competing voice on

536
00:26:46,640 --> 00:26:48,920
Speaker 1: at least the moral upbringing of a kid in the

537
00:26:49,119 --> 00:26:51,440
Speaker 1: in the household, and the family to at least leave

538
00:26:51,480 --> 00:26:52,919
Speaker 1: it to school to teach them how to add up

539
00:26:52,960 --> 00:26:55,200
Speaker 1: numbers and teach them how to how to you know,

540
00:26:55,280 --> 00:26:58,640
Speaker 1: put commas in the right places in teaching them grammar great,

541
00:26:59,240 --> 00:27:01,639
Speaker 1: make that the ad that schools are responsible for, but

542
00:27:01,840 --> 00:27:04,720
Speaker 1: actively compete with the schools in the short term. I'm

543
00:27:04,720 --> 00:27:06,880
Speaker 1: sorry to say that's probably gonna be the best short

544
00:27:07,000 --> 00:27:08,960
Speaker 1: term option. And I do think time is scared, so

545
00:27:09,000 --> 00:27:10,360
Speaker 1: we need to be thinking about how to be able

546
00:27:10,400 --> 00:27:12,240
Speaker 1: to address this in the very near term. Is going

547
00:27:12,280 --> 00:27:15,920
Speaker 1: to have to involve families and parents even more consciously

548
00:27:15,960 --> 00:27:18,439
Speaker 1: stepping up to the plate than they have in the past.

549
00:27:19,240 --> 00:27:21,760
Speaker 1: And I don't mean to turn everything into a business opportunity.

550
00:27:21,800 --> 00:27:23,399
Speaker 1: I mean this one won't be one that I'm pursuing.

551
00:27:23,480 --> 00:27:25,640
Speaker 1: But I do think that I hope someone else does

552
00:27:25,720 --> 00:27:28,960
Speaker 1: think about competing with respect to you know, it's funny

553
00:27:29,000 --> 00:27:32,000
Speaker 1: when you you grow up in a first generation Indian

554
00:27:32,040 --> 00:27:36,000
Speaker 1: American and re Asian American household, you unfortunately have to

555
00:27:36,040 --> 00:27:39,000
Speaker 1: do your tour of duty through like something like a Kuman.

556
00:27:39,359 --> 00:27:40,879
Speaker 1: I don't know, do you know what Kuman is? I

557
00:27:40,960 --> 00:27:44,080
Speaker 1: don't think. So okay, all right, yeah, well good for you.

558
00:27:45,400 --> 00:27:49,720
Speaker 1: It's just like it's a supplemental like math and you know,

559
00:27:49,920 --> 00:27:53,120
Speaker 1: math and training that you know, kids will go through

560
00:27:53,119 --> 00:27:55,760
Speaker 1: an elementary school where uh, you know a lot of

561
00:27:55,960 --> 00:27:59,880
Speaker 1: Asian immigrants will feel like their kids uh didn't really

562
00:28:00,040 --> 00:28:02,320
Speaker 1: get what they needed to out of the school day,

563
00:28:02,480 --> 00:28:05,440
Speaker 1: and so they would give them the added map tutorials

564
00:28:05,560 --> 00:28:08,119
Speaker 1: that came on weekends and in the evenings through Uh.

565
00:28:08,160 --> 00:28:10,320
Speaker 1: I think a rather big business built across the country

566
00:28:10,359 --> 00:28:14,200
Speaker 1: called Kuman. And so mark my words, any East Asian

567
00:28:14,280 --> 00:28:16,679
Speaker 1: or in An American immigrants to this country ask them

568
00:28:16,680 --> 00:28:18,560
Speaker 1: what Kuman is. They're gonna know what it is. But

569
00:28:18,920 --> 00:28:21,240
Speaker 1: I use that as an analogy to say that, you know, what,

570
00:28:21,640 --> 00:28:23,680
Speaker 1: as sad as it may be, every American maybe to

571
00:28:23,720 --> 00:28:27,359
Speaker 1: think about outlets for civic education and the revival of

572
00:28:28,040 --> 00:28:31,520
Speaker 1: civic identity and self reliance and the cultivation of character

573
00:28:31,720 --> 00:28:35,119
Speaker 1: that you would have hoped came from the teaching of

574
00:28:35,240 --> 00:28:37,800
Speaker 1: history and the teaching of literature and the teaching of

575
00:28:38,080 --> 00:28:41,200
Speaker 1: American ideas in our schools. To find other ways to

576
00:28:41,320 --> 00:28:43,560
Speaker 1: make sure that our next generation is at least inculcated

577
00:28:43,560 --> 00:28:45,040
Speaker 1: with those values. And is everyone's going to do that.

578
00:28:45,240 --> 00:28:48,480
Speaker 1: Absolutely not. In fact, it's part of the problem actually

579
00:28:48,520 --> 00:28:50,720
Speaker 1: rests at the level of family formation and you know,

580
00:28:50,760 --> 00:28:54,000
Speaker 1: cities across this country. But if enough people take it

581
00:28:54,120 --> 00:28:55,760
Speaker 1: up as a cause, then I don't think will be

582
00:28:55,800 --> 00:28:58,240
Speaker 1: at the stage where we've lost a generation, but have

583
00:28:58,320 --> 00:29:02,080
Speaker 1: taken their responsibilities as parents seriously enough that we at

584
00:29:02,120 --> 00:29:04,680
Speaker 1: least have enough of a foundation to work from to

585
00:29:04,840 --> 00:29:07,720
Speaker 1: also then play the longer game of reviving our educational

586
00:29:07,760 --> 00:29:11,000
Speaker 1: system itself, because that's not gonna happen overnight. Quick break

587
00:29:11,120 --> 00:29:18,120
Speaker 1: more in the nation of victims, I agree with you

588
00:29:18,240 --> 00:29:21,240
Speaker 1: that the family and parents are are largely responsible to

589
00:29:21,280 --> 00:29:23,360
Speaker 1: try to guide their kids through some of this mess.

590
00:29:23,360 --> 00:29:25,240
Speaker 1: I don't know why this came to my mind sort

591
00:29:25,280 --> 00:29:29,360
Speaker 1: of off color, but the lips of TikTok had posted

592
00:29:29,400 --> 00:29:32,840
Speaker 1: this video of a teacher asking her students what they're

593
00:29:32,880 --> 00:29:35,120
Speaker 1: pronouns what they what are their pronouns to be? And

594
00:29:35,240 --> 00:29:37,640
Speaker 1: one student said banana and the other said rock. So

595
00:29:37,800 --> 00:29:43,000
Speaker 1: they made her call them banana and rocks a joke.

596
00:29:43,760 --> 00:29:46,320
Speaker 1: They are joking there in fifth grade. I think it's

597
00:29:46,400 --> 00:29:49,000
Speaker 1: kind of genius. Clearly their their parents, uh you know,

598
00:29:49,120 --> 00:29:52,040
Speaker 1: taught them right. But well, I like, I literally don't

599
00:29:52,040 --> 00:29:54,480
Speaker 1: know whether a joke because I because actually, um so so,

600
00:29:54,640 --> 00:29:57,080
Speaker 1: I had my my cousin and her husband were over

601
00:29:57,280 --> 00:29:59,120
Speaker 1: over the weekend and they said one of the things

602
00:29:59,120 --> 00:30:01,720
Speaker 1: they were struggling with it with their kids schools was

603
00:30:01,840 --> 00:30:05,320
Speaker 1: that actually, and they they're pretty left of center as

604
00:30:05,320 --> 00:30:07,000
Speaker 1: a as a side note, but just to give you

605
00:30:07,080 --> 00:30:09,680
Speaker 1: the context here, we're pretty upset that actually their school

606
00:30:09,840 --> 00:30:12,200
Speaker 1: has uh bent over backward to make sure the kids

607
00:30:12,200 --> 00:30:13,920
Speaker 1: are identified as whatever they want to be identified as,

608
00:30:13,960 --> 00:30:16,360
Speaker 1: including kids we've been actually wanted to identify as furries.

609
00:30:16,920 --> 00:30:18,800
Speaker 1: And and so furries was the word the use. I

610
00:30:18,800 --> 00:30:21,360
Speaker 1: don't even know what that means, but but I thought

611
00:30:21,400 --> 00:30:23,000
Speaker 1: that was a joke actually at that time, but it

612
00:30:23,080 --> 00:30:24,760
Speaker 1: turned out that was actually a very serious issue for

613
00:30:24,800 --> 00:30:27,120
Speaker 1: the kids who did want to identify as furries, and

614
00:30:27,200 --> 00:30:28,880
Speaker 1: so literally, when you were saying that, I wasn't sure

615
00:30:28,920 --> 00:30:31,880
Speaker 1: whether you were actually talking about a smart response that

616
00:30:31,960 --> 00:30:33,800
Speaker 1: their parents actually had given them, or whether this is

617
00:30:33,800 --> 00:30:36,680
Speaker 1: actually a serious identity crisis. But at the end of

618
00:30:36,720 --> 00:30:39,760
Speaker 1: the day, we laugh about it, but it's not it's

619
00:30:39,760 --> 00:30:41,880
Speaker 1: not a laughing matter. More broadly, where even if we

620
00:30:41,880 --> 00:30:45,040
Speaker 1: get past the gender identity fixation, it's all just a

621
00:30:46,000 --> 00:30:50,360
Speaker 1: symptom of a deeper search for purpose and meaning that

622
00:30:50,560 --> 00:30:54,360
Speaker 1: is completely missing in an entire generation. And until we

623
00:30:54,520 --> 00:30:57,400
Speaker 1: fill that void, we're gonna be keep facing this problem.

624
00:30:57,440 --> 00:31:00,880
Speaker 1: It's going to surface and rear its head in one

625
00:31:00,960 --> 00:31:04,320
Speaker 1: new form after another. And look, I think that this

626
00:31:04,440 --> 00:31:06,360
Speaker 1: is where I think, you know, all Americans, but but

627
00:31:06,480 --> 00:31:10,720
Speaker 1: I you know, particularly am am interested in calling on

628
00:31:10,800 --> 00:31:13,640
Speaker 1: the conservative movement to do better. Uh you know, you know,

629
00:31:13,840 --> 00:31:16,920
Speaker 1: if you're trying gonna call out someone, I'm gonna hopefully

630
00:31:17,000 --> 00:31:19,160
Speaker 1: call out the camp that I think is more likelihood

631
00:31:19,160 --> 00:31:22,080
Speaker 1: of of delivering success here to step up to the

632
00:31:22,160 --> 00:31:25,680
Speaker 1: plate and offer that affirmative, alternative vision. And it was

633
00:31:25,760 --> 00:31:27,479
Speaker 1: it was kind of a dilemma that I even went

634
00:31:27,560 --> 00:31:29,360
Speaker 1: through in writing the book, Like one of the One

635
00:31:29,360 --> 00:31:31,400
Speaker 1: of the cases that I repeatedly made in the book

636
00:31:31,440 --> 00:31:34,800
Speaker 1: in my early drafts of it, was calling for the

637
00:31:34,920 --> 00:31:39,440
Speaker 1: revival of teaching our history, of remembering our history. And

638
00:31:39,520 --> 00:31:41,240
Speaker 1: at a certain point I kind of looked at myself, Okay,

639
00:31:41,280 --> 00:31:43,880
Speaker 1: like I'm saying that so much in my book, that

640
00:31:45,320 --> 00:31:47,040
Speaker 1: how much history am I telling in this book? And

641
00:31:47,040 --> 00:31:48,200
Speaker 1: at the end of day I was actually kind of

642
00:31:48,200 --> 00:31:49,320
Speaker 1: a wake up call to say, Okay, you know what,

643
00:31:49,600 --> 00:31:52,440
Speaker 1: let me just scrap half of that and stop talking

644
00:31:52,480 --> 00:31:56,200
Speaker 1: about remembering our history and let's actually remember our history.

645
00:31:56,480 --> 00:31:58,040
Speaker 1: And and I gave rise to a couple of chapters.

646
00:31:58,080 --> 00:32:00,480
Speaker 1: I mean, you know, one, you know, you'll plate you

647
00:32:00,600 --> 00:32:03,480
Speaker 1: enjoy reading about the history of the Civil War, tracing

648
00:32:03,720 --> 00:32:06,480
Speaker 1: actually a lot of the victimhood culture that we experienced

649
00:32:06,480 --> 00:32:09,040
Speaker 1: today to a victim and culture that began in the

650
00:32:09,120 --> 00:32:11,960
Speaker 1: reconstruction era in the wake of our Civil War, and

651
00:32:12,040 --> 00:32:14,120
Speaker 1: then asking ourselves whether this is actually even unique to

652
00:32:14,200 --> 00:32:16,400
Speaker 1: this moment in American history. I mean, other cultures find

653
00:32:16,520 --> 00:32:18,800
Speaker 1: dealt with this, you know, and it's it's it's not

654
00:32:18,920 --> 00:32:22,560
Speaker 1: unique to our culture. Actually, it's actually staggering how much

655
00:32:22,800 --> 00:32:26,200
Speaker 1: the modern American moment, down to the victimhood culture, down

656
00:32:26,280 --> 00:32:28,880
Speaker 1: to even inflation, down to even policies that that incentivized

657
00:32:28,920 --> 00:32:31,160
Speaker 1: people to stay at home. We're replicated in one of

658
00:32:31,200 --> 00:32:32,680
Speaker 1: the many falls of Rome and the fall of the

659
00:32:32,760 --> 00:32:34,480
Speaker 1: Roman Empire, which is what led to actually much of

660
00:32:34,520 --> 00:32:37,160
Speaker 1: this book, containing and tracing, for a couple of chapters

661
00:32:37,400 --> 00:32:39,040
Speaker 1: a lot of Roman history. And one of the things

662
00:32:39,080 --> 00:32:41,880
Speaker 1: I learned, at least it was that we frequently talked

663
00:32:41,880 --> 00:32:45,480
Speaker 1: about the rise in the fall of Rome. The most

664
00:32:45,520 --> 00:32:47,920
Speaker 1: obvious to the point I would make is that actually,

665
00:32:48,120 --> 00:32:50,440
Speaker 1: after refreshing myself on it in preparation for this book

666
00:32:50,440 --> 00:32:52,520
Speaker 1: and writing about it, was that there was no one

667
00:32:52,640 --> 00:32:55,840
Speaker 1: fall of Rome. There were many rises and many falls

668
00:32:55,920 --> 00:32:57,880
Speaker 1: of Rome. And I think that that study of history

669
00:32:58,600 --> 00:33:01,200
Speaker 1: gives gives me some hope, hopefully gives us some hope

670
00:33:01,680 --> 00:33:03,120
Speaker 1: that there is going to be no such thing, I

671
00:33:03,200 --> 00:33:06,240
Speaker 1: hope as a rise and fall of the American experiment,

672
00:33:06,400 --> 00:33:08,520
Speaker 1: but many rises in many falls, and we may be

673
00:33:08,600 --> 00:33:11,160
Speaker 1: at a at a relatively lower point, but we can

674
00:33:11,200 --> 00:33:15,000
Speaker 1: still be reborn ineratively many times over as Rome was.

675
00:33:15,680 --> 00:33:18,440
Speaker 1: And you know, it's funny, I mean it's staggering, actually,

676
00:33:18,600 --> 00:33:23,200
Speaker 1: how it's it's chilling, almost eerie, how similar. Many of

677
00:33:23,280 --> 00:33:26,040
Speaker 1: the travels we face today in our country are just

678
00:33:26,280 --> 00:33:29,240
Speaker 1: reminiscent of what Rome went through during many many of

679
00:33:29,520 --> 00:33:33,000
Speaker 1: of its of its rises and falls, and um. You know,

680
00:33:33,040 --> 00:33:35,840
Speaker 1: at the end of the day, I think studying history,

681
00:33:35,920 --> 00:33:38,960
Speaker 1: not just talking about studying history, but actually remembering our history,

682
00:33:39,080 --> 00:33:41,680
Speaker 1: and our history mean American history, but I mean our history,

683
00:33:41,760 --> 00:33:45,840
Speaker 1: meaning human history even more broadly, is a good way

684
00:33:45,880 --> 00:33:49,640
Speaker 1: of of potentially reviving our own identity by by taking

685
00:33:49,720 --> 00:33:52,240
Speaker 1: some of these debates out of their modern politically fraught

686
00:33:52,320 --> 00:33:55,600
Speaker 1: balances and to actually just cast them in historical context

687
00:33:55,680 --> 00:33:57,840
Speaker 1: where we can go back to actually debating the ideas honestly,

688
00:33:58,760 --> 00:34:00,360
Speaker 1: and and some of it leads you to some maybe

689
00:34:00,440 --> 00:34:03,720
Speaker 1: some sentimental places on the happy places, I mean, look

690
00:34:03,760 --> 00:34:05,520
Speaker 1: at the trade. The end of my section of the

691
00:34:05,560 --> 00:34:08,799
Speaker 1: book talking about Roman history ends with a question it's

692
00:34:08,800 --> 00:34:11,520
Speaker 1: a hard question to answer, which is how long the

693
00:34:11,600 --> 00:34:14,760
Speaker 1: Roman Empire even lasted? I mean, the Eastern Roman Empire

694
00:34:14,840 --> 00:34:19,520
Speaker 1: actually lasted a thousand years before falling to the Ottomans

695
00:34:19,560 --> 00:34:24,600
Speaker 1: in in who hundreds, whereas the actual conventional fall of Rome,

696
00:34:24,680 --> 00:34:27,760
Speaker 1: the western fall of Western Roman Empire was was around

697
00:34:27,840 --> 00:34:31,640
Speaker 1: the second or third century a d. And so whether

698
00:34:31,760 --> 00:34:35,400
Speaker 1: or not Rome itself lasted hundreds of years or thousands

699
00:34:36,560 --> 00:34:39,920
Speaker 1: was simply a matter of definition, depending on whether you

700
00:34:40,040 --> 00:34:43,080
Speaker 1: counted the Eastern Roman Empire going on to out last

701
00:34:43,160 --> 00:34:46,560
Speaker 1: the West or not. And you know, it paid me

702
00:34:46,600 --> 00:34:48,160
Speaker 1: to write it. As I wrote this part of the book,

703
00:34:48,200 --> 00:34:49,640
Speaker 1: it was the last line of one of the chapters.

704
00:34:49,680 --> 00:34:51,359
Speaker 1: But I said, maybe America will be the same way.

705
00:34:52,080 --> 00:34:54,239
Speaker 1: And you know, America is an idea. America is an

706
00:34:54,280 --> 00:34:57,279
Speaker 1: idea more than a place. America is a vision of

707
00:34:57,360 --> 00:35:00,160
Speaker 1: what a place can be. But you know what or

708
00:35:00,239 --> 00:35:03,680
Speaker 1: not Rome lasted hundreds hundreds of years or thousands depended

709
00:35:03,680 --> 00:35:06,160
Speaker 1: on whether or not you counted it as outliving the

710
00:35:06,840 --> 00:35:11,280
Speaker 1: cleavage of the Western and Eastern Roman empires. Maybe America

711
00:35:11,719 --> 00:35:13,720
Speaker 1: will be the same way. I don't know what avatar

712
00:35:13,960 --> 00:35:18,239
Speaker 1: this idea will take, but im I say that not

713
00:35:18,480 --> 00:35:22,440
Speaker 1: to be foreboding, but to actually be honest about the

714
00:35:22,480 --> 00:35:25,359
Speaker 1: possibilities of where we could go. But what I call

715
00:35:25,440 --> 00:35:27,160
Speaker 1: for the end of the book, I hope is a

716
00:35:27,239 --> 00:35:30,840
Speaker 1: reincarnation of the core idea that animated the birth of

717
00:35:30,880 --> 00:35:33,520
Speaker 1: this nation two or fifty years ago, something we've forgotten

718
00:35:33,520 --> 00:35:35,880
Speaker 1: and something we would have to revive, not just in

719
00:35:35,920 --> 00:35:38,400
Speaker 1: our economy, which is the sphere that I happen to

720
00:35:38,440 --> 00:35:39,960
Speaker 1: be working on in my day job, but in every

721
00:35:40,000 --> 00:35:42,600
Speaker 1: sphere of our lives, from from our educational system to

722
00:35:42,640 --> 00:35:46,759
Speaker 1: our politics. I certainly believe or on the decline. I

723
00:35:46,840 --> 00:35:50,000
Speaker 1: don't think it's over, but you know, potentially, I don't know.

724
00:35:50,000 --> 00:35:51,520
Speaker 1: I mean I read the section of the book with

725
00:35:51,600 --> 00:35:53,680
Speaker 1: the you know, going to tracing the rise and fall

726
00:35:53,760 --> 00:35:55,680
Speaker 1: of Rome, and I actually took some inspiration from it.

727
00:35:55,719 --> 00:35:58,040
Speaker 1: There are there were many rises in the I think

728
00:35:58,080 --> 00:36:01,160
Speaker 1: we need some inspiration. We might we might be in

729
00:36:01,200 --> 00:36:02,520
Speaker 1: the middle. We might just be in the middle of

730
00:36:02,560 --> 00:36:05,000
Speaker 1: the story and not the end. So that's that's that's

731
00:36:05,040 --> 00:36:07,120
Speaker 1: how I felt about it, at least. Well, it's good

732
00:36:07,160 --> 00:36:09,399
Speaker 1: to know what was your favorite part about the book?

733
00:36:11,000 --> 00:36:12,920
Speaker 1: But I favorite part about the book was was the

734
00:36:14,480 --> 00:36:17,480
Speaker 1: the challenge of taking on the best articulation of the

735
00:36:17,560 --> 00:36:21,680
Speaker 1: other side. Um, you know, I really um. He actually

736
00:36:21,840 --> 00:36:24,759
Speaker 1: actually worked with a friend of mine on it. He

737
00:36:24,880 --> 00:36:27,960
Speaker 1: was a former classmate of mine in law school. Uh,

738
00:36:28,080 --> 00:36:30,800
Speaker 1: you know, these philosopher you know, and on to a

739
00:36:30,840 --> 00:36:33,919
Speaker 1: philosophy PhD. I think he considers himself left of center,

740
00:36:33,960 --> 00:36:36,520
Speaker 1: but he was kind of my uh, partner in actually

741
00:36:36,560 --> 00:36:38,600
Speaker 1: putting this book together. He helped me a little bit,

742
00:36:39,000 --> 00:36:41,680
Speaker 1: you know, along the way, even in honing my thinking.

743
00:36:41,719 --> 00:36:43,840
Speaker 1: But in terms of actually putting the book together, you know,

744
00:36:43,920 --> 00:36:47,280
Speaker 1: it was actually very interesting to do it with somebody

745
00:36:47,320 --> 00:36:49,600
Speaker 1: who's views on many of the underlying political questions are

746
00:36:49,640 --> 00:36:51,920
Speaker 1: even different than mine, which gave me an opportunity to

747
00:36:52,000 --> 00:36:56,120
Speaker 1: really examine the best arguments from the other side. And

748
00:36:57,120 --> 00:37:00,200
Speaker 1: you know, I think that it's easy to you know,

749
00:37:00,280 --> 00:37:03,560
Speaker 1: preach to you an echo chamber. That wasn't my intention

750
00:37:03,840 --> 00:37:06,680
Speaker 1: with Woking, certainly, And I've been pleased with how the book,

751
00:37:06,680 --> 00:37:08,520
Speaker 1: at least more recently has been reaching a wider range

752
00:37:08,560 --> 00:37:10,800
Speaker 1: of audiences. But you know, no doubt, you know a

753
00:37:10,840 --> 00:37:13,520
Speaker 1: lot of conservatives loved the book. But I think in

754
00:37:13,640 --> 00:37:17,279
Speaker 1: this book, my my goal was certainly to take on

755
00:37:19,000 --> 00:37:23,560
Speaker 1: the best articulation of woke rationale, the best articulation of

756
00:37:24,239 --> 00:37:27,560
Speaker 1: what failures needed were in need of recompense. And it

757
00:37:27,640 --> 00:37:29,920
Speaker 1: was fun to almost try on a different set of clothes.

758
00:37:30,640 --> 00:37:32,600
Speaker 1: And you know what, you're you're shopping at the store

759
00:37:32,600 --> 00:37:34,600
Speaker 1: and you see an ugly set of clothes. You know,

760
00:37:34,640 --> 00:37:36,200
Speaker 1: one versions you don't pick up off the rack. The

761
00:37:36,239 --> 00:37:37,640
Speaker 1: other version is you pick it up off the ract,

762
00:37:37,680 --> 00:37:40,000
Speaker 1: you try it on, see how it fits, and then

763
00:37:40,080 --> 00:37:41,560
Speaker 1: put it back on the rack. But then you really

764
00:37:41,640 --> 00:37:44,600
Speaker 1: understood why why you found it ugly, and maybe, you know,

765
00:37:45,000 --> 00:37:46,680
Speaker 1: one out of a hundred times, you might even change

766
00:37:46,680 --> 00:37:49,040
Speaker 1: your mind for outlook. In the end, that was that

767
00:37:49,120 --> 00:37:51,040
Speaker 1: was what I enjoyed doing most with this book. And

768
00:37:51,200 --> 00:37:55,680
Speaker 1: so you know, I'm told that that's not, Um, that's

769
00:37:55,680 --> 00:37:58,319
Speaker 1: not the best tactic for selling books. The good news

770
00:37:58,400 --> 00:38:00,719
Speaker 1: is that wasn't necessarily my goal with this one. The

771
00:38:00,800 --> 00:38:04,440
Speaker 1: last one was smashing success. Uh that's great in terms of,

772
00:38:04,640 --> 00:38:06,560
Speaker 1: you know, how many people have reached during copies sold

773
00:38:06,600 --> 00:38:10,840
Speaker 1: and whatever. But um, you know, I I I'm interested

774
00:38:10,880 --> 00:38:12,640
Speaker 1: to see how this one plays out, because it will

775
00:38:12,760 --> 00:38:15,960
Speaker 1: be I mean, there's an entire chapter on on you know,

776
00:38:16,200 --> 00:38:19,560
Speaker 1: conservative victimhood. I think there's an entire chapter on aspects

777
00:38:19,600 --> 00:38:21,600
Speaker 1: of our victimhood culture that I don't think have been

778
00:38:21,760 --> 00:38:24,200
Speaker 1: discussed on. Just don't mention me in that section. No,

779
00:38:24,360 --> 00:38:28,680
Speaker 1: I don't. It's an idea. So I think I think

780
00:38:28,680 --> 00:38:30,560
Speaker 1: it's a little bit of Yeah. I mean, I mean,

781
00:38:30,600 --> 00:38:32,080
Speaker 1: to be honest with you, it was mostly look in

782
00:38:32,120 --> 00:38:35,520
Speaker 1: the mirror. Actually at least, so I think that. I

783
00:38:35,560 --> 00:38:37,279
Speaker 1: think that was actually the part I enjoyed most about

784
00:38:37,280 --> 00:38:39,320
Speaker 1: this book was was trying on the set of clothes

785
00:38:39,440 --> 00:38:42,600
Speaker 1: and having an even better understanding of why I still

786
00:38:42,640 --> 00:38:44,640
Speaker 1: put them back on the rack. Did you change your

787
00:38:44,680 --> 00:38:48,960
Speaker 1: mind on anything? You know, I did, But it wasn't

788
00:38:49,000 --> 00:38:52,120
Speaker 1: a political question. It was it was something that I

789
00:38:52,200 --> 00:38:55,400
Speaker 1: did change my perspective on. And so I tell a

790
00:38:55,480 --> 00:38:58,760
Speaker 1: story of a neighbor of my aunt in the Midwest

791
00:38:58,800 --> 00:39:01,000
Speaker 1: who we visited, and it was it was it was

792
00:39:01,000 --> 00:39:04,640
Speaker 1: an interesting story, but you know, he had a long story.

793
00:39:04,719 --> 00:39:07,000
Speaker 1: Short is that we had had a sort of a

794
00:39:07,040 --> 00:39:12,480
Speaker 1: disagreement where my my aunt's house, you know, had they

795
00:39:12,600 --> 00:39:14,239
Speaker 1: lived there for years. They had this new neighbor who

796
00:39:14,320 --> 00:39:16,080
Speaker 1: came and mowed the lawn in a way that had

797
00:39:16,120 --> 00:39:20,360
Speaker 1: a bunch of grass spill over onto the driveway and

798
00:39:21,360 --> 00:39:25,520
Speaker 1: um and and this bothered my my aunt and uncle.

799
00:39:25,600 --> 00:39:27,360
Speaker 1: They're immigrant family, but they don't say anything about it.

800
00:39:27,360 --> 00:39:28,800
Speaker 1: They keep their head, they keep their head down and

801
00:39:28,920 --> 00:39:31,040
Speaker 1: keep plowing on. And we visited them. There was the

802
00:39:31,080 --> 00:39:32,759
Speaker 1: guy mowing the lawn. They had made clear that they

803
00:39:32,760 --> 00:39:35,480
Speaker 1: didn't like it, but he thrust the lawn under their driveways.

804
00:39:35,520 --> 00:39:38,560
Speaker 1: Trivial point. Okay, so so I I, you know, wave

805
00:39:38,640 --> 00:39:42,000
Speaker 1: them down and say, hey, look, you know it would

806
00:39:42,000 --> 00:39:46,160
Speaker 1: appreciate it if you didn't your lawn in this direction,

807
00:39:46,200 --> 00:39:48,759
Speaker 1: but have it flow fall on your driveway instead. And

808
00:39:49,160 --> 00:39:51,840
Speaker 1: you know I will I won't. I won't spoil. I

809
00:39:51,880 --> 00:39:54,920
Speaker 1: won't spoil the book. But the long story short is

810
00:39:55,000 --> 00:39:59,880
Speaker 1: that resulted in an accusation of my being a racist,

811
00:40:00,280 --> 00:40:04,200
Speaker 1: having profiled him and being reminded by him that my

812
00:40:04,400 --> 00:40:08,000
Speaker 1: skin tone was four shades darker than his and that

813
00:40:08,360 --> 00:40:11,680
Speaker 1: I shouldn't forget that, and you know, it even ended

814
00:40:11,719 --> 00:40:14,799
Speaker 1: with a with a death threat. And what happened in between,

815
00:40:14,840 --> 00:40:17,759
Speaker 1: I'll leave it to the book to to reveal. But

816
00:40:17,880 --> 00:40:21,040
Speaker 1: to me that was that was a startling episode. I mean,

817
00:40:21,160 --> 00:40:22,800
Speaker 1: that was an episode from a few years ago that

818
00:40:22,840 --> 00:40:27,719
Speaker 1: I won't forget. But I guess, I guess. The thing

819
00:40:27,760 --> 00:40:32,520
Speaker 1: I changed my mind on was whether or not this

820
00:40:32,680 --> 00:40:34,920
Speaker 1: was a guy who actually just needed to be somebody

821
00:40:34,960 --> 00:40:37,279
Speaker 1: who I needed to be, you know, stay away from

822
00:40:37,360 --> 00:40:39,760
Speaker 1: and view as part of the part of the problem

823
00:40:40,000 --> 00:40:45,799
Speaker 1: in our country, versus somebody who on a given day, ah,

824
00:40:46,280 --> 00:40:47,920
Speaker 1: you know, happened to have not behaved as the best

825
00:40:48,000 --> 00:40:51,000
Speaker 1: version of himself, and it's something that happened during the

826
00:40:51,080 --> 00:40:54,600
Speaker 1: course of my writing the book. Was actually his wife,

827
00:40:55,200 --> 00:40:57,719
Speaker 1: months later, you know, came back and was trying to

828
00:40:57,840 --> 00:41:00,160
Speaker 1: make conversation with my aunt and she reported this act

829
00:41:00,200 --> 00:41:03,680
Speaker 1: to me. Um, you know, God, God got a sort

830
00:41:03,719 --> 00:41:09,520
Speaker 1: of meek and earnest apology from from the lady, from

831
00:41:09,600 --> 00:41:12,160
Speaker 1: from from his wife, and that began sort of a

832
00:41:12,239 --> 00:41:15,280
Speaker 1: friendship between the two families that I think otherwise wouldn't

833
00:41:15,320 --> 00:41:17,920
Speaker 1: have wouldn't have played out. And so, you know, I

834
00:41:17,960 --> 00:41:20,920
Speaker 1: think that there there viewser political views are different from

835
00:41:20,920 --> 00:41:23,279
Speaker 1: one another. Um. You know, at the end of the day,

836
00:41:23,880 --> 00:41:26,640
Speaker 1: the you know, the guy, you know, maybe maybe I

837
00:41:26,640 --> 00:41:29,200
Speaker 1: handled the situation. I'm told him often rude in situations

838
00:41:29,239 --> 00:41:31,680
Speaker 1: like that. I've no doubt that I was. I wasn't racist.

839
00:41:31,719 --> 00:41:33,960
Speaker 1: I didn't even know. I didn't even know he was black. Uh,

840
00:41:34,160 --> 00:41:36,239
Speaker 1: as he reminded me correctly, he was many shades lighter

841
00:41:36,280 --> 00:41:39,080
Speaker 1: than I am. But but you know, was I as

842
00:41:39,360 --> 00:41:41,840
Speaker 1: polite as I possibly could have been? Probably not. But

843
00:41:42,200 --> 00:41:43,800
Speaker 1: the thing that it caused me to add to the

844
00:41:43,880 --> 00:41:47,000
Speaker 1: book was not only a telling of that story, but

845
00:41:47,080 --> 00:41:48,919
Speaker 1: the chapter right in the middle of the book, which

846
00:41:49,000 --> 00:41:51,440
Speaker 1: is about the title of the chapter I think is

847
00:41:51,440 --> 00:41:54,359
Speaker 1: actually called the need to Forgive. And you know, if

848
00:41:54,360 --> 00:41:55,840
Speaker 1: the pieces of the book is that we need to

849
00:41:56,120 --> 00:42:00,000
Speaker 1: move from a culture victimhood to a culture of revolve

850
00:42:00,160 --> 00:42:03,040
Speaker 1: being a shared pursuit of excellence, that's a that's a

851
00:42:03,080 --> 00:42:06,360
Speaker 1: one eight degree move, And the path from victimhood to

852
00:42:06,480 --> 00:42:11,640
Speaker 1: excellence I think actually runs through this quaint idea that

853
00:42:11,760 --> 00:42:14,680
Speaker 1: we've forgotten in our country called forgiveness. And I think

854
00:42:14,719 --> 00:42:18,040
Speaker 1: it's a tough place to go, but I um, you know,

855
00:42:18,080 --> 00:42:22,000
Speaker 1: I think I went from and remain in making my

856
00:42:22,120 --> 00:42:24,560
Speaker 1: heart of hearts a warrior for the principles I care about,

857
00:42:25,160 --> 00:42:27,600
Speaker 1: but acknowledging that the bridge to the place we need

858
00:42:27,680 --> 00:42:29,840
Speaker 1: to go may run through an uncomfortable place that we

859
00:42:29,920 --> 00:42:32,640
Speaker 1: call forgiveness, and that might be the most important chapter

860
00:42:32,680 --> 00:42:37,080
Speaker 1: of the book. The Vague Rama Swamy always insightful, always interesting.

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Speaker 1: New book out September, Nation of Victims, Identity, Politics, the

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Speaker 1: Death of Maryor and the Path Back to Excellence. Everyone

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Speaker 1: go get it. The Vague Thank you so much for

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Speaker 1: joining the show and give me your time. I really

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Speaker 1: appreciate it. Appreciate its good talking to you. So that

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Speaker 1: was interesting. The Vague Rama Swamy I've had in my

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Speaker 1: previous slee Uh. He's such an interesting guy, always very insightful,

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Speaker 1: so I wanted to hear from him. I hope his

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Speaker 1: book is a huge success. The first one was UH,

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Speaker 1: and I'm always interested in what he what he has

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Speaker 1: to say. I appreciate you guys for listening. Thanks for

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Speaker 1: Drew Steele for pitching in to help put together the show.

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Speaker 1: Truth oft Lisaboo thinks