Leadership Lessons From The Great Books

Leadership Lessons From The Great Books #106 - Little Women by Louisa May Alcott.
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00:00 Welcome and Introduction - Little Women by Louisa May Alcott.
05:00 Tom's Birthday and the Passing of a Few Summers.
08:25 Little Women and Bonding with irascible Aunt March.
12:44 Louisa May Alcott: Transcendentalism, poverty, and writing.
28:43 Surprised to enjoy, despite initial reluctance.
40:14 Underlying themes in the Barbie Movie, societal importance discussed.
51:05 Characters express shame and resolve for improvement.
56:01 Generational cycles influenced by American history patterns.
01:06:51 Questioning leadership, seeking cultural connection, avoiding conflict.
01:18:16 Youth protests lack actionable impact - go vote.
01:24:56 Governors must stop Washington, and prevent violence.
01:39:55 Efforts to improve due to post-war challenges.
01:49:26 Shift from in-person to electronic mass communication.
01:57:39 Leaders need to lead by example, sacrificing.
02:08:56 Social media problem needs better parenting solution.
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Opening and closing themes composed by Brian Sanyshyn of Brian Sanyshyn Music.
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Creators & Guests

Host
Jesan Sorrells
CEO of HSCT Publishing, home of Leadership ToolBox and LeadingKeys
Host
Thomas Libby
Producer
Leadership Toolbox
The home of Leadership ToolBox, LeaderBuzz, and LeadingKeys. Leadership Lessons From The Great Books podcast link here: https://t.co/3VmtjgqTUz

What is Leadership Lessons From The Great Books?

Because understanding great literature is better than trying to read and understand (yet) another business book, Leadership Lessons From The Great Books leverages insights from the GREAT BOOKS of the Western canon to explain, dissect, and analyze leadership best practices for the post-modern leader.

Hello. My name is Jesan Sorrells, and this is the

Leadership Lessons from the Great Books podcast, episode

number 106.

With our book today, I'm going to read a little

synopsis here just to start the show with our book

today, a novel that has embedded itself so

deeply into the overall psyche of the United States of

America, that it is confused in the average

readers minds and memories with things that didn't really

historically happen. Books and stories

create cultural memories. And this book that we are going to be covering

today has created more cultural memories in the minds

of Americans from the age of 8 all the way to adulthood

than probably any other book written in the last 100

and 50 years.

The author of this book, developed her approach to writing during

the gilded age of the United States of America,

an era that probably was the last time

that ripening cultural confidence in the American way of life and the

American approach to family and culture was relatively

undisputed. She was also a female

author, just like Baroness Karen Blixen, whose work we covered

in episode number 105. And, she was heavily

influenced just as the Baroness was by her father,

as well as her positions and her

family's positions around the burgeoning feminist

movement in the United States post civil war.

Today, we will be covering the book based on the author's lived

experiences during the American civil war.

Little Women by Louisa May

Alcott. Yeah, that's going to be a risk. It's going to be a real interesting

one today. We're not going to read the whole book. We

can't possibly do that. So we are going to read selections from

it. And of course we are joined by our regular

cohost, Tom Libby. How are you doing, Tom?

I am doing fantastic, Haysan. I can't wait till a couple of,

guys break down literature women, like, the

sisterhood of little women. This is gonna be this is gonna be fascinating. This

is gonna be spectacular. This is going to be spectacular during the

month of May where we are recording this

the day after mother's day. So to all of you mothers who

are listening out there, happy mother's

day. And, well, to all of you mothers

out there, you know who you are. And and and

Tom just had his birthday, so happy birthday to Tom

Libby. I appreciate that. Thank you. Well, I

won't ask how old you are because that would be impolite on the

show. I've had a couple of summers

under my belt.

We're just we were talking about this a little bit because Tom and I

are relatively close in age. We can remember when things happened historically

it's similar similar points in our lives. We have some some overlap in some in

in in a few areas. And, you know, when you get to a

point where you've seen a few summers, then you get to

actually preface that, that your use that as a

preface. That's not what I'm saying. You get to use that as a preface

fourth, for for putting things in a particular context. And so

I I I anticipate that Tom will start doing this fairly soon here on the

show. Yeah. We'll say

this. I'll say this. I I remember the first time I could say,

well, 20 years ago, we did this, this, and this, and I was referencing

my work life. Mhmm. I realized I was getting old. I There

you go. I realized I was getting old.

Well, you shouldn't you shouldn't I don't think you should frame it as getting old.

I think you should frame it as fourth aging, like fine wine.

I I think that'll be out for debate. We'll just leave it at that.

Or or you can say curdling like milk. I mean, either one, Like, either way.

Fourth. All right. Well, leaders, this is a book that,

similar to, I would say, the good

earth probably, is, is going to be

the most interesting. We're gonna have the most interesting conversations,

around this. And we are going to, of course, talk about as we usually do

on the podcast, the literary life of Louisa May Alcott. We're

gonna talk about her background. She is one of the

more interesting, I would say female writers or

female authors, of the, of the 19th

century, particularly the American 19th century.

And she is a, she was a product of.

While she was a product of her age, which is

something that we all are no matter what, how many

summers we have seen. Alright.

I'm gonna go to the book here. We're gonna start off a little bit here.

And, again, we're not gonna read the whole book. We're just going to read selections

from the book. I would encourage you to pick

it up from

Literature Women by Louisa May Alcott.

When mister March lost his property in trying to help an unfortunate friend,

the 2 oldest girls begged to be allowed to do something toward their own support

at least. Believing that they could not begin too early to cultivate energy,

industry, and independence, their parents consented and both fell to work with a

hearty goodwill in spite of all the obstacles is sure

to succeed at last. Margaret

found a place as a nursery governess and felt rich with her small

salary. As she said, she was, quote, fond of luxury, unquote, and her

chief trouble was poverty. She found it harder

to bear than the others because she could remember a time when home was beautiful

life, full of ease and pleasure and want of any kind unknown.

She tried not to be envious or discontented, but it was very natural

that the young girl should long for pretty things, gay friends, accomplishments, and a

happy life. At the Kings, she daily saw all

she wanted, for the children's older sisters were just out and may caught frequent

glimpses of dainty ball dresses and bouquets bouquets.

Her lively gossip about theaters, concert, slang parties, and merry makings of all

kinds and some money lavish on trifles, which would have been so precious to

her. Fourth make seldom complain, but a sense of injustice

made her feel bitter toward everyone sometimes for she had not yet

learned to know how rich she was in the blessings, which alone can make

life happy. Joe happened to suit

aunt March, who was lame and needed an active person to wait upon her. The

childless old lady had offered to adopt one of the girls when the troubles came

and was much offended because her offer was declined. Other friends

told the Marches that they had lost all chance of being remembered in the ritual

leaders will, but the unworldly marches only

said we can't give up our girls for a dozen

fortunes, rich or poor. We will keep together and be happy in one

another. The old lady would speak to them for a time,

but happening to meet Joe at a friend's something in her comical face and blunt

manner struck the old lady's fancy, and she proposed to take her for a companion.

This did not suit Joe at all, but she accepted the place since nothing better

appeared. And Tom everyone's surprise, got on remarkably well with

her irascable relative. There was an occasional

tempest, and once Joe marched home declaring she couldn't bear it longer, but aunt March

always cleared up quickly and sent for her to come back again with such

urgency that she could not refuse for in her heart. She rather liked

the peppery old lady.

I suspect the real attraction was a large library of fine books, which was

left to dust and spiders since Uncle March died. Joe remembered the kind of

gentleman the kind old gentleman who used to let her build

railroads and bridges with his big dictionaries, tell her stories about queer

pictures in his Latin books and buy her cards of gingerbread whenever he met her

on the street. The dim dusty room with the busts

staring down from the tall bookcases, the cozy chairs, the Globes, and best of all,

the wilderness of books in which she could wander where she liked made the

library a region of bliss for her.

The moment Aunt March took her nap, who was busy with company, Joe hurried to

this quiet place and curling herself up in the easy chair, devoured

poetry, romance history, travels, and pictures like a regular bookworm. But like

all happiness, it did not last long for a shoe just fourth as sure as

she had just reached to the heart of the story. The sweetest verse of a

song or the most perilous adventure of her traveler, a shrill voice called

Josephine Josephine, and she had to leave her paradise to

wind yarn, wash the poodle fourth read Belsham's essays

by the hour together. Then I'm going

to skip that paragraph. I'm going to go to this. Beth was too bashful

to go to school if it had been, it had been tried, but she suffered

so much that it was given up. But she did her lessons at home with

her father. Even when he went away, her mother was called to devote her skill

and energy to soldiers aid societies. Beth went faithfully on by herself and

did the best she could. She was a house wifely little creature and helped

Hannah keep home neat and comfortable for the writers. Never thinking of any reward,

but to be loved Long quiet day. She spent not lonely or

idle for her little world was peopled with imaginary friends and she was by

nature, a busy bee. There were 6 dolls to be taken up and dressed every

morning for Beth was a child and still loved her pets as well as.

Not one whole or handsome one among them all were outcasts till Beth took them

in for when her sisters outgrew these idols, they passed to her because

Amy would have nothing older. That's cherished them all the more tenderly

for that reason and set up a hospital for infirm dolls. No pins were ever

stuck into their cotton vitals. No harsh words or blows ever given them. No neglect

ever sat in the heart of the most repulsive, but all were fed and clothed,

nursed, and caressed with an affection which never failed. One

forlorn fragment of the landity had belonged to Joe and having led a

tempestuous life was left a wreck in a rag bag from

which dreary poor house. It was rescued Beth by Beth and

taken to her refuge. I mean, no top to its

head. She tied on a neat little cap and as both arms and legs were

gone, she hid these deficiencies by folding it in a blanket and devoting her best

bed to this chronic invalid. If anyone had known the

care lavished on that Dolly, I think it would have touched their hearts even while

they laughed. She brought books of bouquets. She read to

it, took it out to breathe fresh air, hidden under her coach. Essays saying it

lullabies and never went to bed without kissing its dirty face and whispering tenderly.

I hope you'll have a good night. My poor dear, there

are many Books in the world, shy and quiet sitting in corners

till needed and living for others. So cheerfully that no

one sees the sacrifice to the little cricket on the hearth that stops chirping

and the sweet sunshiny presence humanities, leaving

silence and shadow behind.

So who is this, Louisa May Alcott?

Again, a book so embedded

into the American psyche that we actually don't really think about the

book or the author anymore. We just sort of

take it up whole cloth. We do literature women and the other book she

wrote literature men and we kind of combine it in, in our heads, or at

least I do, combine it in my head with, everything that I ever

used to see on literature house on the prairie. Remember that show from the 19

seventies? Yeah. It kind of all merges together in my head, And

that's because it's part of a collective, conscience

that we all have around a particular era that all of us

were born, At least those of us who were listening to the podcast today, all

of us were born too late to directly experience. And so of course

that era is now fading into,

perhaps is already long faded into myth.

But who created those myths? Right. And we've talked

about whether or not myths are accurate on this podcast,

but myths are necessary for a culture, Well, we have to know who

wrote those myths. Writers. And so Louisa may Alcott was born

November 29th, 18 32, and she died March 6th, 18,

88. She wrote short stories. She wrote poetry and of

course she wrote multiple novels. She

was raised in new England by her transcendentalist parents. And we're going to

talk a little bit about transcendentalism today too, because it relates to this

idea of generational turnings and generational cycles

and religious awakenings that happened in the United States. And

she was part of, well, her, her parents were part of the

backend of the Jesan great awakening in the United States. And so this

great awakening produced well, produced a lot of

different artistic, efforts, particularly in

the literary and novel space. So when Louisa

May Alcott was growing up, she was surrounded by many of the well known

intellectuals of the day that were part of the transcendentalist movement, including

Margaret Fuller, Ralph Waldo Emerson, Nathaniel

Hawthorne, Henry David Thoreau, and Henry Wadsworth

Longfellow. Early in her career, she

sometimes used pen names such as a M bear Bernard Barnard,

under which she wrote Lurie fourth stories and sensation novels for

adults that focused on passion and revenge.

Poverty was a driver as it was mentioned there in that little

piece there for little women. But poverty made it necessary for

Louisa May Alcott to go to work at an early age as a teacher, a

seamstress, a governess, a domestic helper, and of course, a writer.

Her sisters also supported the family turning as seamstresses while their mother

took on social work among the Irish immigrants. Only the

youngest, Abigail, was able to attend public school. Due to all these

pressures, writing became a creative and emotional outlet for Alcott. As a

matter of fact, in the civil war, she served as a nurse in

Washington DC and wrote letters home that inspired her book

Hospital Sketches, which was written in 18/63. And then later on,

she published Literature Women in 18/68. She

banged out, get this, 500 pages of

writing in 3 months. Take that

chat GPT.

Some things still do defy the algorithm Along with Elizabeth

Stoddard, Rebecca Harding Davis, Anne Moncure

Crane, and others, Alcott was part of a group of female authors during

the Gilded age, which was the age that came right after the civil war.

And she was lauded for addressing women's issues in

a modern and candid manner. Their works

were as one newspaper columnist of the Jesan noted among the

decided fourth, unquote signs of the

times. By the

way, back in the day,

the signs that they were looking at were the signs that,

the feminist movement was gaining traction. Women

were angling for the right to vote and the

abolitionists who had stirred up the civil war had to redirect their

energies. And so they were directing it to social change in

particular Sorrells change with the incoming,

not only Irish, but also Eastern European immigrants

that were showing up in New York Harbor, trying to

escape the revolutions of Europe

as it went through its own convulsions coming out of its

long, long 19th

century. So that's a little background on Louisa May Alcott, this

little background on little women. So I'm gonna switch this over to

Tom now. Cause I've rambled long enough. So Tom

has not read the book as usual, but

he has seen the movie, and he didn't wanna talk about Winona

Ryder. So I'll kick it over to you. Go ahead. Well, I was gonna say

I I I was gonna have a question before before answer here because I

Yeah. I feel like I feel like people don't give enough

credit to some of the information that you just read off. Right?

Mhmm. Because there's, like, there's a sense of, like, was this the

beginning of the end of the women

should be seen and not heard kind of scenarios? Like, I know it might have

taken a 100 years. I get that. And I understand that women still felt that

way in the early 19th, in the early 20th century, probably

right up until the toward the end of 20th century, but but she was

really advanced in in this particular area. She was much

more advanced than people give her credit for, at least I think.

So, a lot of these social

reforming movements that eventually

wound up in the civil rights movements of the latter part of the 20th century

started if you look at history if you if you look at history

in cycles rather than as just a straight line,

began in cycles that started with the 2nd great awakening,

which began in, like, 17

no. Sorry. 18/30,

18/24, somewhere in there, and then slowly

began to wind out. By the way, out of that came

the abolitionist movement, which the abolitionist I mean, yes. People had always been

opposed to slavery in the United States essays, like, since the founding. This is not

that was not anything new. But the level of

the temperature on the pot got turned up,

a lot as the and and the pastors and the

preachers of the day would particularly those in the fourth in your neck of the

woods, would claim that the holy spirit was was

moving through the country and was,

well, was was was was

marching through and and, you know, and, you know,

trampling out the truth. Right? That's what that's what they how they would frame

it. But you also had and you always see this

with religious revivals and the revivalism in the United States.

You see a a a religious revival, and then you see a secular

move as well moving along that with that same energy alongside of it.

And so the abolitionist movement was both religious and secular. We just have to talk

about it in both those cut or you do have to rec re reference it

in both those contexts, but you are correct.

The feminist movement, the proto feminist movement

Jesan right alongside that, that abolitionist movement. And

matter of fact, I've long made the argument that the,

the, middle class and aristocratic,

Caucasian women of the era, WASP women of

the era, once the civil war had been fought and

done, needed somewhere else to put there. Because they were in shell shock just like

the men were. They needed someplace else to put their energies and

feminism kind of over the door. Cause there's a lot, I mean, there was a

lot of space, you know, a lot of dead men. I mean, whole entire

family's taken off. And so who was going to step into those roles? Well, it

was gonna be women. And so they were empowered and thus they could move forward.

And that's what Louisa May Alcott saw as well. Well, especially,

like and and to your point, men would go off to the civil war, die,

and women would run their ranches, run their farms, run, like and

then there was, like, an epiphany almost going, wait. We

can do this. Like Ding.

I I feel like, you know, when you when you talk about, like, when you

talk about, like, I I forget how you worded it a few minutes ago. When

you talk about books like this like the Literature House on the Prairies and

the, you know, things like that, being this, like,

myth you're you're talking about myths. I think it would be almost like,

romanticizing of of what life was like back then as as much

as it is myth. Right? But I it's like it's it's

interesting to me because for all the like,

in in my mind you, people listening here, there's you

couldn't pay me enough to go back to that era and

live a a life. Like, it was a hard life.

But for some reason, when you read these and they romanticize

about it as being like this glorious

and wonderful and look how, like, life is so different, and we can

do and, like, it just it makes me kinda chuckle going,

wait. I I know the actual history about that

timeline, and nobody would want to nobody would volunteer to go back in that time

and and live then. So fourth, Tom volunteer to do it. You have nothing to

worry about because quantum leap told us that you cannot

leap past your time in which you were born. You just can't. So you're stuck

in your own. You're stuck in your own, like, that's it. You're done. You can't

leap past the time you were fourth, that quantum leap set that

Like, that's the rule. That's the rule. That's how physics works.

So to understand, you also need a flux capacitor. I was trying to explain this

to my kid the other day. You need a flux capacitor in order to make

time travel possible. So we don't have a flux capacitor. We haven't even done that

yet. So We haven't even gotten there yet, so we're good. So you don't have

to worry about that. That is the one. But on a more serious note,

I look at I mean, when I read that she

banged out 500 pages in 3 months Incredible.

That's incredible. The only way you get to do that is if you don't have

any of the modern conveniences that we've got. Or

the modern distractions. Bingo. That's right.

Fourth every convenience, there is a distraction. Just like, you

know, for every for every revival, there's a for every religious revival in

America, there's a secular component that goes along with it. For every convenience. There's a

distraction. So for every, every time saving

act of like, okay, I don't have

Tom. You know, I don't have to wash my

clothes down by the river anymore and hang them up and whistle

while I work. I can just shove them into a washing machine.

Yeah, that's great. I can do more at scale, but now I'm going to spend

this time, like doom scrolling on TikTok. Like I'm not gonna, not gonna write,

like, you know, but This is, like, this is one

of my favorite debate. This is one of my It's gonna work. One of my

my classic debates in my house. The whole myth. You talk about

myths. The whole myth of multitasking because it's

a myth. I hate to tell you this people, but it's a myth. There is

no way that you are going to be able and capable of functioning

2 completely separate mental functions at the same time. It just doesn't happen.

Right? Yeah. So but they always throw things at me like that. Like, Oh, well,

I can put the water on for the pasta and go cut the

vegetables. Okay. Are you sitting there boiling the water?

No. You're turning the stone. That's not multitasking. The water the the flame

is cooking the water. I can I can put my load of wash in

the washing machine and I can go cook dinner? That is not multitasking.

The washing machine is washing the dishes. Well Back book in those

days, if you're down by the river washing the clothes, you're not at the house

cooking dinner. Well and here's the other thing that we have to

remember. And I always I always call attention to this.

So, yes, you're correct. Multitasking is a myth. I'm going to settle that in your

house. You just tell them I said so, and it's done. We're finished. Now Okay.

Okay. Alright. You're fit I mean, well, you know, sometimes it has to come from

a stranger. Sometimes you can't hear the truth from, like, people in your own family.

My youngest son will be the biggest wise Wiesenheimer

that there is. Right? He'll be like, yeah, but I can walk and chew gum

at the same time. That's multitasking, dad. And I go, no. That's

subconscious thought. You don't have to think to do that. Don't

don't is this the same person that walks out of your house after you're

done doing the lawn work yard work and looks at you and goes, would you

like to have some help? Oh, yeah. Exactly. Yeah. Oh, well, so see there okay.

Yeah. You got problems up and down the hierarchy.

Alright. No. The other thing that I think about often is

okay. For those people in that

Tom, and we have to really, I think,

regular arms around this idea. So the the

the challenge of history is that we think it's and the way it's taught to

in school, and we've talked about it on the podcast fourth. It's not taught in

cycles as if things, you know, return, which they do.

They just come in different forms. Instead, we teach history as a progressive

arrow that's always moving forward and never moving backward and always better and better.

Okay. Or j curve that goes up into the right. Okay.

The prob one of the other problems psychologically and just,

I think, epistemically, just to use a word that

encompasses, you know, emotions and psychology and religious thinking

together, epistemically,

we lack humility in our current era, which is one of the things that bugs

me because we think just like you said,

oh, well, back then, it's terrible. Okay. But if you go back if

you actually look at how they wrote back Jesan, and and Louisa May

Alcott writes this way in Little Women, they're not writing as if they

think it's terrible. Yeah. They think it's

the height of of, like, civilization as

well. But, okay, in fairness though They don't they don't know that a washing machine

is coming a 100 years later. They have nothing to know about that. Right. At

that Tom, it was. Because think about it. 50 years before

them or a 100 years before fourth, they are turning, I'm not going back book

living back then. Right. Exactly. I'm not They have the

same thought. I could wash my clothes in a tub in my house.

I don't have to walk to the river. To the river. Right. Right. This is

and so the the what happened during the 20th century was

we had explosions that occurred,

in, in the progress of our technological tool making.

I mean, we went from Kitty Hawk in 1906.

Yeah. Somewhere around there Tom, like, going to the moon in 1969.

Right. That's insane. That doesn't happen

in in in general. That doesn't happen in the

history of the world. I mean, we went from we went from being on

farms and understanding everything about

agriculture for 5000 years Tom

in 300 years, 250, really,

industrializing almost everything in the Writers world.

That's just nuts. That's that's a compression of pro

of of of speed of technology based on what we could do,

which, by the way, is what's freaking us all out right now with AI because

we just went through the thing we call AI.

We just went through all of this compression within the industrial revolution,

and then we went through the compression with tech with, the computers and

all of that. And now we're getting ready to go through another compression, and it's

speeding us, speeding us, speed up. That's the at least it feels like to us,

it's speeding up. That's the part that's freaking us out, I think,

which is why leadership is important. I was up to say that at the end,

because that's what'll get you through that. No. Winona Writers, come on now.

Don't don't dodge the question. Talk about the movie. Come on. You like the I

I watched the trailer for the movie before I because I spent all years. It

came out in 1994. fourth movie adaptation of of of little The new one with

Emma Watson came out in, 19, 2019. There was

a newer a newer version. I didn't even know that you could even get

so I was reading this book and I thought they they can't possibly make this

movie today. Like, they couldn't possibly turn this into a film. Like, how would it,

But apparently, I was wrong. So alright. 2019, Emma

Watson. So, no. I

I I think this is the first actual memory I have is, from

Winona Ryder in an actual movie. I don't know if she did the movie before

this, but it's the first memory I have of her in a movie. And I

just remember thinking, she's really cool. And she was, like,

20 something when she did this. Right? Like, 22, 23 years old. Yeah. Something like

that. This movie. Yeah. So I I just thought She's now

seen a few summers herself. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Exactly.

I will I will say, though, if she was 20 3 when she did this

movie, she is a little older than me, so I'll just leave it at that.

Not by a lot, but she's a little older than me. Anyway, but no. But

in again, you're right. I saw the movie. You know, I

I gotta I have to admit when I when I was asked to go watch

the movie by my spouse, I said, are you out of

your mind? What and what what would make you think I would wanna see this

movie? Again, I was

20 some 20 years old, something like that, and a guy,

by the way. So, like, you know, I was thinking to myself,

fine. It was one of those, like, okay. I'm handcuffed, like, take me to the

movie.

I was pleasantly surprised. I thought the movie was good. I thought the

if they now, again, to fourth point, I didn't read the book, so I don't

know how close because that that's the whole book movie turning. Right? Like,

that everyone talks about. The books are the books are always so much better than

the movies well, today anyway. Back back a while back,

the movies and books were pretty darn close. Mhmm. So we didn't have the

same issues where people are writing, you know, 700 page books and

turning it into an hour and 20 minute movie. You know, like Well

well, when you look at Little Women, how it's written, the structure of it, it's

structured at least the first, I would say 10 to 12

chapters are structured based on dialogue alone. Right. Like,

there's very little description. So she wrote it to be

well, they didn't know the word cinematic because they didn't have cinema, but she

wrote it to be and she was driven by thinking

play. Right? Then we could turn this into a play. At the at that time

frame, like, she was turning, I I could see people acting this out. It she

they still had actors back then. They were just Yeah. On stage and not on

screen. So I I agree with you. I think that there was a part of

it that she was thinking, I have to write this in a way that somebody

could act this out. Like, somebody could actually showcase what I'm thinking and

feeling from the writing. So but I think that they did that really well in

the in the 1994 movie. I I think Winona Ryder was awesome,

and, you know, I think it I think it definitely launched her career

for sure. I think she she became more and more popular at that point.

Yeah. She so Reality Bites came out in

92? Yeah. But that wasn't.

Stop it. You be quiet. You you writers, sir. And

then Heather's, which was I'll I'll just

I'll do I'll pull the Joe Rogan. I'm just gonna look it up because I

don't remember when Heather's came out.

Heather's was let's see. I am

this is the sound of me looking this up. 1988.

Yes. 1988. Thank you. Yes.

Which, you know, that goober Christian Slater,

who, by the way, he has become a very goobery fellow. He he really has.

Like, I I'm not gonna something happened to him. He became he

just became weird. Anyway, it doesn't matter. Point is, so

Heathers is 88, which Heathers I mean, Winona

Ryder fans will say that that really was the film that

cemented her, the public zeitgeist.

And I think Little Women was one of those scripts that kinda just came to

her because she was the hot it girl, you know, at the at that time

fourth hot it actress. I shouldn't say girl. But the hot yet actress at

that time, just like with, the literature women that came out in

2019, we're looking this up with, yes, you are correct, Emma

Watson,

something Ronan. I don't know. I think I know I can't pronounce her first

name. It doesn't matter. And, Florence Pugh,

who I'm not a giant fan of. And then that fellow

Timothy with 2 e's and a little oom lot over one of his

e's Timothy Charlemagne. Yeah. Charlemagne, Charlemagne,

whatever.

Anyway and then Meryl Streep as aunt March.

Nice to see Meryl Streep getting work. So you can't

have anything against Meryl Streep. Come on, dude. I just

so we just we literally just covered Karen Blix Baroness Jesan Blixson's

work last episode, in in one zero five. You should

go back and listen to that. Jesan gothic tales. Fun fact

about Karen Blixson, she was a Danish

aristocrat, basically, who moved to

Nairobi, Kenya with her first husband, who turned out to be

a philanderer and a, and a cheat

in Africa, which is interesting, during

the colonial period of European expansion.

And she wrote about Wait. What again Hold on. Let me let me get the

surprise. Wait. There there was somebody from Europe that went to

Africa and was disingenuous? No. Let me show you my shocked

face. Oh, oh, I'm about to play something else on you

about the Baroness Jesan Blixit. Go ahead. I'm sorry. So

her husband was not only unfaithful, but her husband also passed on to

her the, the glorious disease

of syphilis, which she had for the re well, she claimed she

had for the remainder of her life, but actually she might have just had an

autoimmune disease that came about because of the mercury they used

to cure her syphilis.

Right. Still a baroness, by the way, still a baroness.

And she wrote about all of her experiences and put it in her second

book, which was called Out of Africa,

which was nominated for best picture

in, like, 1984 and best director.

And the woman who portrayed the Baroness, Karen

Blixson, Ezeac Dennison was her pen

name, was Meryl Streep.

6 pixels of film separation here on the podcast. Right?

Yeah. Africa and Literature Women. We got

it. We got it in there. We got a not 6 pixel. Sorry.

Six degrees of separation. 6 degrees. But yeah. So okay.

So so what about the powers of books and

stories to create cultural memory? Because I we now I mean, yes. I'm doing a

book podcast for a whole because nobody reads. Right? Like,

trying to bring these books to people's attention. Right? That's really the point of this

podcast is to bring these books to people's attention and to encourage literacy

and to encourage literate behavior. Right?

Books were very powerful in creating cultural memory, for a

long stretch of our history, and it is only the United States history. And it

is only within recent times, I would say within the last 25

years, that that that reading has declined,

precipitously. But

books create cultural memories. Like, if you go and look at

you and I were actually talking about this. I was looking at Pauline Kale, the

the writers Paul Pauline Kael's reviews of of films,

that she did. She had a long a long career. And,

you know, in her critique of the film, she would note what the source

material of the writing was. And 90% of the films that she

reviewed that were made before, I would say, because she died in

1992, or in the early nineties. I won't say 19.82, but she died in the

early nineties. 90% of the films that she reviewed

during her career came from a short story or a

novel. They were adapted from some source material. So there

was strong source material underneath that was supporting the

development of this secondary material known

as film. Right? And

we, by the way, we're see this currently today. So the show that's on,

Hulu, and I canceled Hulu, so I haven't seen it, but I've heard

a lot about it. Shogun. Yes. Loved it.

Okay. It's based off the James Clavill book. Clavill. Yeah. Yeah.

Right? Again, strong source material. Right? And then

you're building that secondary thing off of it. And now, of course, you'll probably have

a Shogun podcast, so that's gonna be, like, the third thing out over the over

there. So The Shogun podcast was corresponding with the episodes. Oh, it was

corresponding with the episodes. Okay. They they did a

phenomenal job covering all the bases on this one. Like, they really did a

the articles, there were a lot of there was there was a lot of writing

about it, as it was happening. There was a lot of, like, there was a

lot of information. So, I mean, I remember the first show

that came out in 1980. I mean, I was just a kid at the time,

but I remembered I didn't remember all the details of the actual

show, but I remember that Shogun was a show back

then. Yeah. And now you can't really find the original on it, but from what

I'm from what I'm reading and all the comparing and contrasting, that

this version was enormously better, like,

like, night and day better from Well, that's what happens. You go back to the

source material. Right? We were just saying the book versus the movie kinda debate. Right?

Like, which one's better? Okay. So I don't wanna talk about which one's better,

but I wanna address the power of the book, the power of the book

to create cultural memory.

Is the Internet gonna is the Internet I'll I'll frame it this way. I'll frame

it as a counterfactual question. Is the Internet going to create

any cultural memory, or is it just gonna destroy all of it and

we're just done? Like, we're done creating cultural myths and memories?

I think I think it will I think it will change it

but not eliminate it. And what I mean by that is, like, think about okay.

So Shogun was written in the mid

9 the mid 20th century, about 1600

Japan. Right? So in Little Women, but the here's the

difference. So in in the middle of 20th century, Clavell was

able to do all the research, find all the information, and

write a book based on the information that he found.

Alcott or or Alisa

Books May Alcott lived it. I think that's

gonna be the difference. Right? Like so it's not that we're not gonna be able

to create the cultural memories based on it. It's just the cultural memory is gonna

be based on on research instead of

instead of experience. Writers, and it's interesting that you point this out because

Greta Gerwig I forgot this, and then it clicked over in my head. But Greta

Gerwig directed Literature Women. Greta Gerwig was also the

director of the Barbie movie. Of the Barbie

movie? Okay.

So, anyway, so

but, again but that's but that's my I guess, that's kind of

my point. Right? So people like her, they're gonna they're not they don't need

they don't need to do all this cultural research in order Tom produce cultural

memory, right, which is what she's gonna Barbie's gonna be one of those things.

Little girls watching Barbie today are gonna remember it 50 years from now.

Right? Like, the it's gonna be an impact well, we think. There there's a possibility.

Anyway, the right? If it's on the

stage what do you got? Oscars fourth crying out loud. Right? Anyway but,

sorry. There are some other that I dropped

Greta Gerwig on you, and that just derails your entire thought

process.

There are underlying themes in Barbie that are very important to society. I'm just

there are underlying themes, but you have to look for them and you have to

really you have to it's a reach, but whatever. Right? Anyway,

but, but but I think I think that's where the paradigm

shift is gonna happen. Right? I think it's gonna be less about people writing.

Think about think about who's writing about their experiences right now. It's

the Zuckerbergs and the Elon Musks of the world that

that, writers, that's not so much

like, Louisa May Alcott was talking about her life, and we're looking at that life

romanticizing it about 200 years ago fourth, well, not quite 200, a

150, a 160 years ago. I don't think

a 160 years from now, people are gonna be looking at Elon Musk the same

way or Mark Zuckerberg Zuckerberg the same way or Jeff Bezos the same way as

we look at Louis Malecott. They're not

what what we may see is maybe JK Rowling's,

but the type of writing that she has is not that those aren't gonna be

cultural memories. Those are gonna be, like, those are gonna be

because, like, the kids today who are in their mid to

late twenties who read the Harry Potters of the world growing

up, that's cultural memory. That's fine. But the

the the subject matter of that book is not

gonna create a 150 years from now cultural memories

because these people will be gone. They'll be dead and gone. Right? So it's not

gonna be the same way. Because and and

I think the I think some of those I think some of those days are

gone, I guess, is what I'm getting at. So, like, people I can't remember the

author's name, but the person who wrote, like, The Outsiders. Right? Like, what they grew

up in they grew up in the seventies. The the the gang the

gang environment in the seventies was very different than it is today. But the

but the the book and the movie, The Outsiders,

could potentially be that in a 150 years, where it's cultural

memory where like, that's so sure. Because the guy lived in that era. He like,

he understood that era. Like, whereas Shogun was more research and I

think more of that is gonna start turning. Mhmm. That we're gonna have

research and and and, research and cultural memory based on

on that type of research than it is actual, experience.

Well, the outsiders was directed by Francis Ford Coppola

Coppola. Right. Whose daughter and son,

daughter Sofia Coppola, also worked with Greta

Gerwig and gave her her shot. So now you can go from the

outsiders to little women, to the Barbie movie.

All in one fell swoop. Alright. Here we go.

Read on fearless leader. Read on. By the

way, what lesson should leaders no. This is this is actually a a last legitimate

question because, yeah, we do have to move forward here. We are gonna kinda get

a little bit bogged down here. So gotta rescue the narrative from

itself. What can leaders take from that,

though? Like, if if I'm in an organization, an organization's

do function, institutions do function under cultural

myths. We don't like to talk a lot about it because it kinda makes us

feel icky as Americans, but it's

true. Like, this is why we cover the constitution on our podcast

because it creates not only cultural myths, but it's also

the story. It's part of the the framework of the

story of America. And you have to know what the framework is. That way you

can lead inside of that framework. If you don't wanna lead inside of that

framework, then we have to have a different kind of conversation.

Right? How can leaders, you know, lead in a

place where or lead from a space where those cultural

where the cultural artifacts are built on research, not,

not a not a myth making kind of thing. Because our natural tendency

is to make myths, not to do research. The

the the the way to to to think scientifically, that's a that's

a in the course of human life, that is a human

civilization. That is a radically recent invention. Well,

just remember Tom, it's it's you're thinking scientifically

to be creative. It's it's almost like a cause and effect thing. Right? That's not

Right. It's It's not like you're thinking sign and and, like, readers is

dictating research doesn't tend or doesn't have to dictate

the writing. Creativity can still dictate the writing. So in the same sense,

the you know, research doesn't have to dictate the leadership or the leadership

style. It just has to it has to be there for foundational

purposes, number 1, or number 2. And and and I

I literature yesterday I know it was Sunday. For those of you

listening, we we record this on a Monday. Yesterday was Sunday. You made

reference to mother's day yesterday. So, anyway, I had

a very long conversation with the with

the head of the, the history department at a local university

here. Him and I, we've known each other a long time. I bumped into him

in the supermarket. We were having this very long conversation and I'll circle this back.

The reason why I brought him up was we were talking about

why have we not with all of the research that we have available to us,

with all of the data that we have available to us, why have we not

figured out a way to stop history from repeating

itself over and over and over again? Oh, because

we still have this problem today. We still have

this problem. And by the way, just pick a

facet of life. It it it doesn't even matter. Like, him and I were were

we were literally we're halfway joking and halfway

serious about, like, well, you know, the way that the way that people

view marriage and the way that people view, you know,

war, and the way that people view famine, and the way people these things

have all been cyclical over the course of the 5000 years of history of

humanities written history. But yet, we

how is it how is it even remotely possible that we have not

figured out a way to stop this cycle of happening? It's

fascinating to me. It blows my mind every time I think about

it. And to have somebody of his authoritative value

and I say authoritative value because the university that I'm talking about is a very

big university. Mhmm. And he is the head of the history department. He this is

a man who knows what he's talking about when it comes to history,

and he has not been able to figure it out. So

I might have an answer for him. I might have a thought,

but I'm gonna hold that question for our next segment. So back to the book,

back to little women, back to this cultural artifact.

Well, yes, this cultural myth of little women.

We're gonna, move forward or actually move backward a little bit,

and we're going to talk about

we're gonna talk about a letter that they received because men are not really

other than Lawrence are not featured highly in,

prominently in literature women because it is focused on women, but there

is a man who is missing from the narrative. And

by the way, a book was written about him recently by an author who

looked at this book and said, hey, there's something missing here. And then

she crafted a, crafted a narrative. It's very

interesting. I'm gonna talk a little about that in the next section here. So back

to the book, back to literature women by Louisa May Alcott. I'm

gonna pick up here with this piece here. Well, dearies, how

have you got on today? There was much to do getting the boxes ready to

go tomorrow that I didn't come home to dinner. Has anyone called Beth? How was

your cold Meg? Joe, you book tired to death. Come and kiss me, baby.

While making these maternal inquiries, missus March got her wet things off,

her warm slippers on, and sitting down in the easy chair drew Amy to her

lap, preparing to enjoy the happiest hour of her busy day.

The girls flew about trying to make things comfortable each in her own way.

Meg arranged the tea table. Joe brought the book and set chairs dropping,

overturning, and leaders everything she touched. Beth trotted to and fro

between parlor pitch parlor kitchen, quiet and busy while Amy gave

directions to everyone. As she sat with her hands folded.

As they gathered about the table, Ms. March said Mrs. March said with a

particularly happy face, I've got a treat for you after supper.

A quick writers smile went round like a streak of sunshine. Beth clapped her

hands regardless of the biscuit she held, and Joe tossed up her napkin turning,

a letter, a leaders, cheers for father. Yes. A nice

long letter. He is well, and he thinks you you shall get through the cold

season better than we feared. He sends all sorts of loving wishes for Christmas and

in a special message to you girls, said missus March, patting her

pocket as if she had a treasure there. Hurry and get done. Don't

stop to quirk your little finger and simper over your plate, Amy, cried Jo, choking

on her tea and dropping her bread butter side down on the carpet in her

haste to get out to the tree. Beth ate no

more, but crept away to sit in her shadowy corner and book over the

delight to come till others were ready.

I think it's so splendid in father to go as a chaplain When he was

too old to be drafted and not strong enough for a soldier said Meg warmly

don't. I wish I could go as a drummer of Yvonne, what's his name or

nurse so I could help him and be near him, exclaimed Joe with a groan.

It must be very disagreeable to sleep at a tent and eat all sorts of

bad tasting things Tom drink out of a Ted bug site. Amy, When will he

come home? Barney asked Beth with little quiver in her voice. Not for

many months, dear, unless he is sick, he will stay and do his work faithfully

leaders long as he can. Now we won't ask for him back a minute sooner

than he can be spared. Now, come and hear the

leaders. They all drew to the fire, mother in

the big chair with Beth at her feet, Meg and Amy perched on either arm

of the chair, Joe leaning on the back where no one could see any sign

of emotion if the letter should happen to be touching. Very few letters are written

in those hard times that were not touching, especially those which father said

home and this one. Literature was said of the hardships

endured the dangers faced fourth homesickness conquered. It was a cheerful,

hopeful letter full of lively descriptions of camp life marches, and

military news, and only at the end did the writer's heart overflow

with fatherly love and longing for the little girls at home.

Give them all of my dear love and a kiss. Tell them I think of

them by day, pray for them by night and find my best comfort in their

affection at all Tom. A year seems very long to wait before I

see them, but remind them that while we may all work so that these hard

days do not be wasted, I know they will remember all that I

said to them and they will be loving children to you. We'll do their duty

faithfully, fight their bosom enemies bravely and conquer

themselves so beautifully that when I come back to them, I may be fonder and

prouder than ever of my little women. Everyone sniffed

when they came near to that part. Joe was ashamed of the great tear that

dropped off the end of her nose and Amy never minded the rumbling of her

curls as she hid her face on her mother's shoulders and sobbed out. I'm a

selfish girl, but I'll truly try to be better, so he mayn't be disappointed in

me by and by. We all will, cried

Meg. I think too much of my looks and hate to work, but I won't

anymore if I can help it. I'll try and be what

he loves to call me a quote, unquote little woman and not be rough and

wild, but do my duty here instead of wanting to be somewhere else,

said Joe turning that keeping her temper at home was a much harder

task than facing a rebel or 2 down fourth.

Beth said nothing will wipe her tear wiped away her tears as a

blue army sock and Jesan to knit with all her mind losing no time

in doing the duty that lay nearest to her while she

resolved her quiet little soul to be all that father hoped to find her

when the year brought around the happy coming home.

So there's a couple different things going on in here, and there's a reason I

picked that section of the book to read. But I

wanna address a couple of things or set the table for how we're gonna talk

about this, I think. I don't know where

Tom hangs out. He probably hangs out at different places than I do on the

Internet because the Internet is vast and gigantic and we all hang out in different

places. I learned that during COVID. We're all using the internet for different turning, apparently.

And I found out during COVID that I had no idea what people were using

the internet for. They weren't apparently using it for

the same things I was, which is always a fascinating thing to find out

about your neighbor. Anyway, some of the places where I hang

out on the Internet, some of the

more darker corners,

the more doom and gloom corners,

are engaged in a whole lot of and it's been this way for a while,

for at least, I would say, 8 years, maybe

10. A lot of casual talk on both the

political right and the political left in the United States about the

potential for a Jesan world a second civil

war, during our current fourth turning, our current

seculum. A matter of fact, I just read an article the other

day before I wrote this script where a guy who was

a former military guy was speculating on the death toll of a

second civil war in America. And he speculated that

about a 100,000,000 people would have to be carried off in order to make that

work out of a population of 312,000,000.

Right. And I read

articles like that writers by people who do have certain expertise

in certain areas and may have seen different things than what I have seen

and lived a different life than what I've Libby. And I'll give them their druthers

for sure. But I will say this.

We are so far away from the last war on our soil 160

years ago that we have forgotten the real human impacts of war

on family and culture and our casual are

almost too casual conversation reveals this level of unseriousness

in our experience. And that part irks me

greatly. We can it's one thing

to watch it on television or watch it on YouTube and see it happen

someplace else. It's quite another

to have one out of every 3 people

that you know just get carted off. And by the way, he

speculated that that wouldn't just be from bullets. He thought it would be from famine

and disease and everything else that goes along

when you open up a can of well, that

on each other. And by the way, with all this talk,

again, casual conversation, far too casual for my

taste. Anyway, one of the questions that's never asked

or answered is this one.

Why would anybody from one place in this

country march to another place in this

country to do what exactly?

What is the instigating act?

What's the, to use the Latin term causa

bellae? Why are we engaged in this process? And I can't think

of one thing, even with our current

political disagreements that do lead to protests

and sometimes even violence in small levels, that would lead to

catastrophic apocalyptic levels of

violence. But as my wife told me when I brought up this

point to her, she said, I'm sure no one, no

average person in the run up to the civil war thought that that would lead

to anything either. And it's not really there

until it's there. Speaking of the civil

war, the generation that started, which was the transcendental

generation and the generation that fought the civil war, who were later

known as the gilded generation in the 4th turning apocalypse of

that civil war, were totally burned out and rejected. Their

position was totally burned out and rejected on much of anything by

subsequent generations after the war was over. And they

earned their just spiritual and moral and even political

desserts from their material decisions deciding to,

as was said in the song of the time, trample out the vintage where the

grapes of wrath are stored. By the way,

that song came out of Boston. That song came out of the fourth

and the Yankee soldiers sang it as they marched down south.

One of the important things, and this gets to the history idea that Tom was

just bringing up. One of the important things that we forget is

that usually in every, every cycle there's about 4

generations that are usually in the zeitgeist at the same

Tom, With the exception of the civil war cycle, where there were only

3 generations, that has been pretty much the standard in

not only European based cycles, but also American

based cycles, for the last Tom minimum,

now almost 400 years, If you look at history,

it's been pretty consistent in that way. And those 4 generations

typically tend to balance each other out.

And currently, we have 4 generations in our own 4th 30 that we're in right

now, and I think we're getting to the end of, as I've said repeatedly on

this podcast, including the socially, culturally, and perhaps even

spiritually ameliorating presence of the smallest generation, the

generation that Tom and I belong to, the 13th generation.

And, all that crusading talk about war has very

little practical action with us. And maybe we're the

ones fourth small as we are, and we are the smallest of the

4 current generations, the boomers, the gen z ers,

and the millennials, the gen xers, Tom and my generation. We are

the smallest at around, depending upon which number you look at, 25

to 35,000,000 folks. That was the generation that was

missing and died in the trenches, died in the trenches of world war 1,

but many of them died in the fields of the civil war.

And I do believe there's a reason for having 4 generations. Historically, we just

don't understand why, because we're actually not

that smart on some of those things, I think, or we

just, maybe haven't turned our minds to that sort of research.

So I read that letter from father in literature women, and he served

as a chaplain. And you can read his

entire tale of woe. Well, most of his tale of woe in

Little Women, at least from their perspective, you do understand the

human consequences of civil war or you begin to understand the

human consequences of civil war. And there's a little section that we'll read here today

as well, which reflects the, the pathologies of

immigration during the civil war that was also beginning to occur at that

time. So for Tom, so with that ramble laid

down, let's do let's do this.

Like I said, there's a lot of casual civil war talk going on in our

culture. They're going on for about the last 10 years. And by the way, when

I was growing up, like, you whispered that, and now people are

talking about it out loud. I mean, I see articles in the Atlantic and in

the New York Tom about this. This is nuts to me.

How do we Tom this talk down? How do how do we stop

people from even it's like when

every time Russia and the Ukraine gets brought up, nuclear

war starts getting talked about. I'm like, why are we doing this? And I think

we've had this conversation on our on this on this podcast before about that.

Because I'm frustrated with that, but just focus on just America.

Like, we can't come up not we can't.

The consequences of us coming apart would be

apocalyptic. Well, let let me

just clear make one one clarifying statement part of that. Sure. Yeah. The

consequences of us coming apart violently would be apocalyptic.

But if we were to come apart

under, like, clear dividing channels, turning, like, if we

had we're a we're a country of 50 states. If 20 of

those states decided to collectively secede from our union

Mhmm. And it was all agreed upon that it was for the betterment of

both parties, meaning both the new comp

whatever. I'm not so sure it would be apocalyptic. I think it would

be I think it would be world changing. I think things would I think it

would be very weird. I think the world would react to it, but I'm not

sure it'd be apocalyptic depending on how that happens. So to your to your point,

though, if it were to happen violently, I I

really do think I I think it would be

catastrophic cat catastrophic implo implo

implications across the world. I really do feel strongly about that. I do

think that that would be it. Now so how do we get this to stop?

How do we get, like, conversations to stop? Yeah. How do we switch a conversation

from from that to, hey. What's some

ways maybe that we can actually figure out how to work together?

See, I, this this comes this comes at me in about 900 different

essays. Yeah. Really. Because I think I think on the one hand, I

think we don't stop talking about it. I think we I think we talk about

it Tom, but bring the conversation to that

apocalyptic level and then get people to understand that this should not

happen. Like, the more you talk about it and the more you start showing them

all of those detrimental turning, nobody wins in this

case. I don't care. Like, if you wanna talk about our original civil war

fourth south and if you wanna claim the fourth one or whatever,

I don't even care about that because in this case, nobody would win, including the

rest of the world. So Oh, no. There there's a there's a portion of us

that we should not stop the conversation about it and actually

push the envelope of that conversation to force feed people to think

about the the the end result. The other

components of it, like, I think I think there's I think if we

if we point them to the direction of maybe big business, pharma,

like, some of these big because they would be hurt more than anybody if you

think about it. Like, giant companies, General Motors, you

know, Pfizer, all of these giant companies,

they would get hit just as hard, if not worse, than anybody else in the

on the planet. So maybe they take

it at an from a business angle. Instead of looking at it from a social

angle, look at it from a business angle, and look at it from, like, things

like that. Like, again, like I said to to your point, I I think

900 different ways this thing comes at me when I start thinking about this. And

Tom mind mind you, let me just tell you, for the record,

it's utterly ridiculous for us to even

have this as, like, a a a remote possibility. Like, what are we

what what are we thinking here, people? Really? Well, I think I think we're I

think what we're turning, and and I'm glad you asked that. Here's what I think

we're thinking. The leadership over the

last 25 years that we relied on to provide answers to the

most the most the most

problematic, to use a term that's used now that I don't like,

but the most problematic problems, the most, like,

institutionally endemic problems seems to have left

the room. Like, okay, so let's,

I'll make it very blunt. The thing that would take the entire

country down as an entity together

is the debt. All true. Yeah.

Really, we are the most indebted country in the

history of the world. And by the way, we have been under

book, And, again, this is not a republican or democrat problem.

It's not a presidential problem. It's a uni party problem. Yes. I did use

that word, uni party. It's both of them together under

both Trump. Actually, not even Trump. Going back to Barack Obama.

Barack Obama, Donald Trump, and now Joe Biden, and it may be Donald Trump

again fourth Tom not. It may be RFK Junior. I don't know. It doesn't

matter. Point is under the

current presidents that we've had, who we've elected as leaders, and, by

the way, the people in Congress we've elected who have the power of the purse,

the president doesn't have that. Writers our

system, it's the Congress. Just

keep voting to print more money.

What the actual hell. And I and I and I'm

not even talking about the Fed. I haven't even brought in the Federal Reserve. Like,

there seems to be no adults in the room. And then from there Jesan I

mentioned this years ago, a couple of years ago on the podcast. Like, you from

there, you go to any other place in culture, and it seems like

adults have abandoned the room. And that's the

thing we're frustrated by, I think. And so when all the adults abandon

the room and the children are running the the institutions and the

children are running the when the inmates are running the

asylum, all kinds of craziness gets to pop

up. And when no one says no, when no one says no, we're not

doing that, when no one says no, I have a vision for going this way,

when that's not offered,

then people go to the next logical thing, which is, well, why am I hanging

around with these people that I can't get along with? I

need to separate from them. I still I still have a hard time

making the leap from that national debt

piece to civil war. Right? Like Well, the national debt piece will take us

down collectively together. There's no there's no way out of that. Right?

Right. Right. But the other things that come off of

the lack of leadership on the national debt piece translate to a lack of

leadership other places. So fourth instance,

If if I can't even get get a person in Congress

to propose a budget, instead, they just continue to pass

resolutions to continue to fund the government, but they don't

come to me and say, this is why we're passing the resolution.

Instead, they just do it at midnight on December 31st, as they have

traditionally done with no budget. I look at that as the

average Jesan, and then I'm told that we are 7,000,000,000,000 or 8,000,000,000,000 or

23,000,000,000,000 in debt. And I go, what, what are we doing

here? Where's the leadership? And by the way, most average people just go,

where's the leadership? And then they apply that question to everywhere,

which is why we do this podcast. If there's no leadership,

why am I hanging around? Why why am I hanging around?

Why why do I need to hang hang out here? Now there may be parts

in and I will admit. There may be parts of this explanation that I'm filling

in with things that I know, that I'm that you don't know and so whatever.

And then this is not a political podcast. I'm just using this as a as

an example. We could even go to cultural stuff.

Okay. If I can't figure out a way

to culturally get along with the

person next door to me or whatever or

if it's just easier to engage in a flame war on Facebook or

whatever than it is for me to like my neighbor. And no one's coming down

saying, hey. Don't do a flame war on Facebook. No one's come down saying that.

Or I I shouldn't say no one. It has taken almost 15

almost 20 years of Facebook for for people to finally wake up and go,

oh, hey, Jonathan Haidt. Oh, hey. This might be a bad thing.

We might wanna, like, not do this.

And even then, it's sort of lukewarm leadership. Instead of someone saying,

no, you can't have this, or no,

you shouldn't be doing this. Yeah.

Which by the way, people who want it are, of course, gonna reject that. They're

gonna rebel against it. But, you know, people have always

rebelled. Like, my kids rebel when I tell them no. Don't put a stick in

your mouth. Like but it it doesn't mean I'm not gonna tell him to put

a stick. I mean, come on. Like, I'm not gonna let my 7 year old

just eat a stick. Oh, it hurts his feelings. Well but,

yeah, it's gonna hurt the roof of his mouth more, and then I gotta go

to the hospital.

Like, there's

so many of these different areas in the country. I think that people get

frustrated and they just go, well, separation is the best way to go, which by

the way, I don't agree with that from a whole bunch of other different areas.

I don't agree with that. I don't think that's where you should go. And I

think that a lot of people have gone to a lot of governors in

particular. I find it interesting that politically,

when the party shift in Washington, DC, all of a sudden,

the opposite political party in individual states, all of a sudden discovered that there's a

10th amendment in the constitution and the states have rights and could do

stuff. And then they start, like, doing stuff. Like, well, we'll have this again. Like,

if Donald Trump gets elected, we'll have Fourth will all of a sudden discover that

there's a 10th amendment. Oh, Massachusetts too. Yeah. For sure. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. They'll be

like, oh my god. There's this amendment, and we didn't know that. And that's what

frustrates people. I don't need you to discover it when the opposite political

party is in power. I need you to discover it when your political party is

in power. Right. Right. That's when I need you to discover

it. I need you to discover it when it's, quote, unquote, working for

you, but it's exploding the national debt.

Yeah. I I don't know.

I I I'm not really sure how to respond to this one.

Just because, you know listen. I I've

said a 1,000 times. Right? Like and and so to your point about

having no adults in the room, I see the I see

weird things, like, in the political landscape where

the younger generation who has to to your point,

we're the smallest generation. Right? So Oh, yeah. The younger generation has

the the highest voting power Mhmm. Or, like,

the, like, the the strongest voting power, but yet votes the

least. Right. They have the ability to

literally change the dynamics on the landscape of our entire country,

but they don't. I don't understand that part of it. They do all

of the almost a 100% of the complaining. Right. But

none of 0% of the action. Right. They don't

find their voting let's say, like, their

voting feet, they don't find their voting

appetite until they're in their thirties. Right. And then they're no

longer that youngest generation. Right. But now now they're a generation that

has kids and jobs and tax, and they they care about all this stuff. So

now they're now they're trying to weigh the balances of, do I

want higher taxes and more government involvement, or do I want lower

taxes, less government involvement? Do I want social reform? Do I not

care about so, like, it doesn't come book like, it doesn't really truly hit you

until you're, like, in your thirties. Well, this is why we should raise the voting

age and lower the drinking age. Yes. I'm good with that.

Yeah. Actually, I'm actually good with that. And I'm not saying lower the

drinking age to, like, whatever. No. Lower the drinking age like 18. Right? I'm

not we're not Europeans. You don't need to be drinking wine when you're 14. Like

okay. Like, no. 18, lower the drinking age, but raise the

voting age. No. I 30. I would raise the

voting age to 30. I I say 30 is the goal, but you hit

25 first to test the waters to see how it goes. Okay. Yeah. Okay. I

I I'll go halfway with you on that. Take them one step at

a time. But but to your point, I had somebody tell me once when I

was young that if you are if you are

old, older and liberal

no. Sorry. If you are young and con the the I there was a way

he phrased it to make it make sense. If you are young and conservative.

You have no heart. If you are old and liberal, you have no

brain. Yep. That was Winston Churchill. But that's because

well, he was quoting him then. Yeah. Yeah. It was not Winston Churchill said it

to me, and that that's the only time I remember it was this one particular

guy saying it to me. And, at the time, I was about I was

probably about 26 or 27 years old, and he was probably about 55.

Mhmm. I was at the very beginning of my sales career, and he was at

the end toward the end of his sales career. He said that to me, and

I was like, it didn't hit me until maybe 10 years ago when I

was like, oh, damn. He that makes sense. Like and and I'm not talking about,

like, when he says if you're old and liberal, you have no brain, he's

not talking about not caring about social reform or not care

Right. He's talking about if you go so far to the left that you don't

care about your own money, then you're crazy. And the government should feel the

same way. That was basically what I was thinking. So to your point,

I'm not suggesting and again, this is not a I don't even know how. God.

I don't even I'm not sure how this readers to literature women. But, anyway, we'll

get back to that. Well, it's a civil war thing. So yeah. Civil

war. Yeah. But, like, but but it it it does get to a point

where you wonder, does the government care so much about one

particular topic? I don't care if it's social reform, military, whatever.

Pick your poison. But does the government care too much about one particular

topic that they're overspending without thinking?

Right? Writers, that that to your point about the debt, like like, it's

and then I I don't know. I I remember Well well, and not

only not only with the debt, but also with how do,

how do we get out of it? This is the question that everybody how do

we get out of the and actually, I won't even make it about the debt.

I'm gonna make it way larger. I'm gonna bring the bring the the

microscope back into a telescope. Right? How do we get out

of the problems we're in right now? Because we've got problems everywhere. So we've got

we've got challenges between people of different races. You know? We've

got on the cultural level. We've got,

social media that's being used not only to,

not only to spread propaganda and, as the

government says, disinformation, but also

is not allowed to be a wild west where everybody can just say anything

short of crying fire in a crowded theater because it

benefits the big corporations, and Facebook and Google and Microsoft are big

corporations that wanna make money off of, you know,

outrage and clicks and ads. Okay. Then we've that that

by the way, those are just two problems right there. And those those problems in

mold into each other. Then we've got the problem of not all forget

forget national debt. Personal credit card debt is the highest it's ever been

because inflation is through the roof, because we printed a bunch of money during COVID

to pay people to stay at home and to shelter in place. And we can

argue about whether or not that was good or bad or whatever, but that's what

we did. Then number 4, we've got we've still got

people running around in masks. We've still got people who are afraid of

COVID, and no one's calmed their fears. I just think

fourth big things right there. COVID,

personal debt, credit card debt inflation, social

media outrage machines, and a diversity, equity, and

inclusion, or just issues of race between people

of different races versus people of different classes Fourth things. No. I don't

I don't hear any leadership talking about it. We're gonna talk about this today because

I want our podcast to be about that. How do we get out of any

of those? What's the way fourth? Don't just tell me,

oh, well, we just have to get through it. What's the vision of the future.

What does America look like in 2030? Describe

that so that the average plumber who's got

$16,000 in debt and feels like he will never be able to work his way

out of it on his Discover card cause he's just trying to make groceries every

week. He understands it. Explain it,

and that's what I think people are missing. Yeah. We know what the problems

are, but we have 0 people proposing solutions.

That well, that I can't even argue with that. I agree with that a 100%.

Have you ever seen the movie wag the dog? Oh, yeah. Mhmm. Because I think

that's half of what our problem is, by the way. Yeah. I really do. If

you think about this, what the the the

hot spot or the hot topic

changes based on the pulse of the country. Right? Like, so Right.

We're we're the we're the dog being wagged by our tails

here. Mhmm. So, like, we're if if we get enough

people to be worried and wanna focus on

My daughter just brought this up to me yesterday, as a matter of fact. We

were talking about, like, the Black Lives Matter movement and stuff like that and how

you haven't heard anything from it. Nothing. Where where is the momentum

that that that that group like, there was really and I mean,

I I was actually hopeful that this

was the time. Mhmm. The Rodney King stuff, all that

stuff was the precursor to what the BLM Movement was going to be

able to accomplish that none of the rest of them were. And now

nobody nothing happened. And I think I I think this is

kind of par and parcel for the course here where the

powers that be do a really good job keeping us distracted with what they

they want us to think is important at the time. Right now, it's all

these right now, we're we're talking about these protests on

college campuses, but what we're not talking about is what the

actual problem is over in Gaza and and Israel. Oh, yeah. No.

Nobody's trying to solve actually solve that problem. The

the the real the real problem is these kids protesting on the campuses.

Come on. Like, why are we being distracted with this

this this is a simple this is a simple thing. This is, like, these

and then, by the way, in but a year ago,

to your point a little while ago, it was Ukraine and the possibility

of nuclear war, but nobody's talking about Ukraine right now.

And they're still at war, by the way. Like, they're still turning

stuff up over there. And we keep voting to send them more

money. Right. But nobody's talking about it. And why

this is my this is my like, what I one of the the most

fundamental things I don't understand, and this is where I was I I started heading

this way a little while ago when I said, when when I was starting to

talk about all these young kids that are protesting on these college

campuses, how many of them actually went out and vote? How many of them are

going to vote in the in the in the next election? They're they

protest, but they don't I'm not suggesting that

protesting is not a good action, because god Martin Luther King would raise out

of his grave and smack me right in the head. I I'm not suggesting protests

are are not a path, but what I am suggesting is

that these groups of protests are not doing

anything. These guys are not marching on Washington. They're not mark they're

they're not it it's so fourth type of

protest is not actionable. Go vote

fourth Christ's sakes. Like, go vote. Right? Like, you're gonna you're gonna do

this. You're gonna complain that the the the the police are are removing you from

a peaceful protest. You're gonna complain that the police are arresting people. You're gonna complain

you're gonna complain and complain, complain, complain, complain, but not actually

do the function that makes a difference, which is at the ballot

box. Right? Like

Right. So it it frustrates the hell out of me, number 1. So but my

my my point to all of that rant was the fact that we're we're we're

we're so focused on the whatever

the fourth you just talked about. Mhmm. DEI was huge a year and a half

ago, 2 years ago. No one's really talking about it anymore.

All the the national debt only comes up when we talk about the budget.

Like, when the the the we have to pass that that, you know, that

resolution real quick because we're gonna shut down the government. You know what? Shut

down the government. Shut down the government. Shut it down. That happens. The

state governments operate independently. I know the state of Massachusetts where I

live is going to be fine if you shut down the federal government. We're we're

not gonna lose any sleep over this. Like, which

by the way, Charlie Baker, who was our just just left

our governorship has been begged to run for president, and

he refuses because he does not want any of that shit show. Like so

now mind you, between between Charlie Baker and the

3 governors before him Mhmm. They have done a phenomenal Massachusetts

podcast year, every resident who paid taxes last year,

every single resident got money back outside of

their tax writers. Wow. Because because we had a surplus

of tax money, and that was one of Charlie Baker's promises. If we get

to a point of surplus, I'm gonna give the money back to you. Wow.

Wow. You did. Every taxpayer and it was based on a percentage of whatever money

you paid, whatever. But I did an extra I forget. It was like $500. It's

not gonna make or break me, but Sure. That's not the point. It was the

principle of it. Right? Yeah. It was the principle of it. He made a promise

to his Tom his writers. He ran the state government well enough that we had

a surplus of money, and he gave back the money because that was what he

what he promised to do. And, by the way, he also mat

Massachusetts, by the way, which we're everybody knows our

nickname. Right? Taxachusetts? He actually he was

actually able to lower 2 of our main

taxes because of this surplus. He took the tax

rate and lowered it. May I may I also point out that Charlie

Baker is currently the president of

the NCAA. So, actually, I now know who to blame about that. But,

anyway, I now know who to have a conversation with about that. But but but

he's also a Republican. A Republican in Massachusetts. Running

a Democratic state. Writers. A Republican. Now think about this.

All the Massachusetts is 88% Democrat.

Register voters. 88%. And a Republican won the governorship. By the

way, he was reelected. So he was reelected by by

a Democratic state. Now everybody in this we're like, we need this guy to

run for president because he's he's a

good balance of Republican financial responsibility

and Democratic social mindedness.

Okay. He doesn't wanna change everything socially. He doesn't think everything that

we throw at him from LGBTQ to DEI to all the he

doesn't think all of it is worth it, but he's at least willing to listen.

So and and,

yeah. And so I and this goes but this goes back to my this goes

back to my assertion about adults in the room. Right. Like He refuses to

run because he wants no part of that shit show in in in DC. Right.

And so this is the thing. So one of the

fundamental pieces and he was born at Elmira. That's

amazing. Okay. Elmira, New York. That's astonishing.

I used to drive through Elmira, New York. I had clients in Elmira, New York.

That's wow. Okay.

You point out guys like this. So Charlie Baker fourth

say what you want about him, Ron DeSantis in Florida. Like, he's doing what what

people in Florida think is best for people in Florida

fourth, Greg Abbott in, in

Texas or Gavin Newsom as much as I am not a

gigantic fan of Gavin Newsom. He's doing what people in California

people in California like him. He's he's clearly working for the people of California,

which is the point of what you're supposed to be doing. And if I don't

like him, I don't have to live in California. That's the glory of the

republic. I know that there is

I know that there is leadership at the local level or or even at the

small business level. I know there is. I know this exists. I

know that there are competent, qualified leaders who can

tamp down ridiculous talk and unite people together

regardless of whether they have an r fourth d next to their name. I

I I I know this. I know it exists.

What gets pushed is Tom your point. Maybe I can

summarize it a little bit better. What gets pushed is chaos.

Yes. Chaos gets pushed. And I've had about

enough of that because when you push chaos,

people who are, I'm just going to

be blunt about it. People who are psychologically weak minded

begin to coalesce together. And again,

certain dark spots of the internet and start having

conversations they shouldn't be having,

that, yeah, it may be a place where

you can let off steam because maybe those conversations need to happen to your point.

But also someone needs to come along and say to those

people, stop. This is the thing that needs

to happen, or this is the thing that is happening by the way.

I do agree with you that because of governors like Charlie Book or,

what's his name down in Virginia, or the governor,

even Kathy Hochul, you know, the governor of New York. Governors will

always be the backstop on a lot of this nonsense from Washington

DC because governors have to get reelected in

their own state. And the the the the

cobblers together of our constitution do something fundamental about human

nature. They knew that the government which governs best

is the one that governs the most locally, not nationally,

locally. And so if the republic were to come apart, it

would come apart in localities that would be self serving

for their own state, which that might create friction

and problems. But I don't know that it would create

friction and problems to the point of,

to the point of violence. I'm I'm not convinced. I'm just still not convinced of

that. I'm not I'm not convinced of that either. I'm not convinced of that

in in the in the at the at the not I'm just not. I'm just

not. So it doesn't,

but I don't think we're there yet. But can we say for the record that

we have 300 and whatever? Let's just say I I thought it was

350, 312, whatever. Let's just say we have

300,000,000 people in this country and these are the 2 best people

that we can find to run for president?

I I find that is an absolute atrocity. But

we've been saying that same line

going all the way back to

Herbert Walker Bush.

Yeah. Yeah. We've been we've been we we we've come to that same

conclusion collectively, left, right, and center. I'm not sure. When when when

Barack Obama ran against Mitt Romney, that was probably the first time

in a long time that we had 2 candidates that were probably both worth it

on their respective parties. Well, what about John McCain?

I see. I still he's like the old regime kinda Jesan, though. That

that's what I was turning. Like Okay. I I'll grant you that. I'll grant you

that. And by the way, I I was I was no fan of John McCain.

I'll grant you that. But, no one would say

that he was unqualified. People just said it just like they did with Hillary

Clinton. They said it's his turn. Right. Right. Right. Right. Right.

Yeah. I know. Yeah. And that's we don't want somebody that it's it's their

turn. We want somebody we want to be there. Right. Right. And this

is so I I this is why I

think we're on the backside of our secular cycle. I

think we're on the backside of the cycle because the kinds of

conversation that you and I are having and that are that folks are listening to

indicates that we are at an end of an era, not an end of a

civilization. And I think that that's where people who are talking about the

civil war talk or who were releasing movies called civil

war, Like, come on. Let's

stop people. Like, those kinds

of of of those kinds of cultural

whack a mole things that are popping up, I think people are confused.

It's the end of an era of a certain type of

competence, an end of an era of a

certain type of leadership, the end of an era of a

certain type of bigness or a certain type of smallness.

The parties are shifting around. Most people don't know

this, but for better or worse,

Donald Trump got more of the black vote in both 2016 and the

2020 election than any Republican at a national level in the

history of the Republican party going all the way back to, like, the pre civil

rights era. That's insane. No one ever talks about it out loud

because it's just too insane to to even contemplate. And by the way,

he actually successfully did something that no other Republican has ever done before.

He split the black vote. More black

males voted for Donald Trump and more black females voted

for Joe Biden. Interesting. And voted

for Hillary Clinton. That tells

you that the electorate is shifting around,

down in the state where I live. So I live in Texas. Yeah. The state

where I live, Hispanics, particularly

Hispanics that are, you talk about younger, younger

Hispanics that are 2nd and third generation

from immigration that occurred in 19 eighties

overwhelmingly are breaking for Trump right now. Overwhelmingly.

Yep. Overwhelmingly. It has the Texas Democrat party in

a in a cold panic.

Interesting. This is unprecedented

because we're at the end of an era of competency. We're at the

end of an era of political parties. When you tell me that a Republican

governor just got I mean, not only got elected

twice in deep blue Massachusetts, Massachusetts where there's 3 Republicans huddled

in a room together somewhere in, like,

fourth northwestern part of the state up near Rhode Island where they can all

hide or something. I don't know. Like, they're all in a quarter somewhere. You're telling

me that a Republican twice convinced Democrats to vote

for him? Well, don't forget that Mitt Romney was our governor

before that, So that's another Republican. Yeah. Right. Tom Mitt Romney's from

a different era. I mean, that's baked capital. That's a little bit of different era.

That's a little bit better. Yeah. You're talking about and and and this guy, Charlie

Baker's only 67. That's insane.

Yeah. That tells you that things are shifting around. And

it's not just at the political level. It's also the social level, which is also

part of the chaos. It's at the cultural level that's also part of the chaos.

It's at the spiritual level, which is also part of the chaos. No one ever

talks about it, but massive evangelical

churches are beginning to break apart and have been for the last 10 years For

sure. To to break it. And COVID actually accelerated a lot of that. And none

of those people that are leaving those churches are going to even bigger churches and

nor are they creating bigger churches. What they're doing is they're creating much smaller churches

in much more concentrated ways. So you talk about, particularly in the context of

Little Women, you know, Louisa May Alcott wrote this,

wrote this underneath the spiritual aegis of the 2nd great awakening.

I'm of a con I'm convinced that there is another awakening coming

down the pipeline, but it's not going to look like the

awakening we previously had, which

occurred in the 19 late 19 sixties and 19 seventies in America. That was

the 3rd great awakening in America. You're not gonna have

something that's gonna look like that. It's going to look radically different because we're at

the end of an era, not the end of a civilization. And I think

we have to shift our thinking in order to talk about leadership differently

in a different kind of era. Well, I mean,

I'm certainly not gonna argue with that because we've already seen

how you talked about the 4 generations living at the same time

and all this stuff. Like like, there there's 3 of those generations

are in the workforce. Right? So you have, like Right. You have, like,

the the Gen Xers trying to manage and lead Gen Zers

coming out of college right now. Mhmm. That Tom me is a recipe for

disaster. Like Well, it's a it's what you got.

But we've already but we've already faced this. We've already faced this with the

boomers trying to run the millennials Right. And the Gen Xers trying to

run interference. Right. Right? So this is basically

again, this whole cyclical thing. Right? So we're gonna have, like, these these Gen

Xers trying to run these Gen Zers, but the millennials are gonna run interference.

Oh, yeah. They're they're gonna be the ones that's that that's that, like,

that missing link generation gap thing that we that we have going on here. But

this has happened throughout history. We've seen this happen so many times. But I think

that I think the learning curves are getting shorter. Right? So when the Gen

Xers had to deal with the millennials coming in and the the

look at me, look at me, you know, I win a trophy every time I

play a sport, so you're gonna have to deal with this. Like and

then, of course, I'm the one looking at all of our peers going, hey.

You created this monster. You were Yeah. It's it's a new problem.

Complain about it. Right? You gotta figure out a way to how to help these

guys realize like, I was the one I was sitting in there

Anyway but so now, like like, we're we're looking

at this going, like, these Gen Zers are

they it's it's almost like the Gen x looks at them

like they have zero work ethic. They don't know and

understand. They'll start a job and then and quit in a month because they don't

like the way their boss spoke to them one day. Right? Like, they don't have

this and I said I book at them and I went, just wait until they

have real bills. Right. They're doing that now

because they can. And you know what? Let them. Okay. Let

them. I don't understand why you're fighting this. Let them.

Because you're you're gonna go to the next one. At some point, you're

you're gonna hire the right Jesan, and it's gonna be great and grand and

whatever. But you can't hire a

22, 23 year old right out of college, expect them to have the same work

ethic that you had when you left. It's not the same time. We don't we

don't think like that anymore. Like but So I I do I do think they

will. They they'll get there. Like I said, when they have real bill these 22

year olds are coming home, and they're living at home for the next 4 years

because they have astronomical student debt and all this other stuff that they have to

deal with. Mhmm. Once they figure out how to get that under wraps, then

they start figuring out they wanna go out on their own. Well, we need a

leader to explain to them how they're gonna get it out of this is, again,

this is a leadership problem. I need a leader to

rise and explain to me how you're going to walk out of that

debt in real ways

without appealing to the government to forgive it.

Yeah. I mean, I have like I said earlier, I I have one. My daughter

graduates college next week, and her and I have already sat down with

with, you know, her short term goals,

long term goals. What is she gonna do with this this her student debt isn't

outrageous. It it's more than I would like it to be, but it's not like

it's not 100 it's not 100 it's not 6 figures. Yeah. Yeah.

So so but expect her to pay it. I ain't paying

it. She's paying it. Right. Right. So it's but we've we've already sat

down fourth than once. We sat down. We're talking about this. What

is your like, so for the next she she's gonna come home. For

the next x amount of years, she's gonna do this. This is how you knock

down that debt. Once you get to this point, you start looking to move on

and move out. Right? Like, move on into your own stuff. We are

basically we we are forcing this generation to delay

their actual lives because of the student debt. If you do it

right, you basically you just come home, you pay it off, you move on.

Like, you if if you do it right. The problem is nobody's doing that. Nobody's

and nobody's advising kids to do that. They're basically saying you're 22, you're on your

own, go do your turning, and and that's why they're not being able to pay

these debts. They're not nobody's nobody's teaching them financial

literature, and they're not getting it from school. And I

don't know why their parents aren't teaching them, but me and my kids sit and

talk about finances all the time. So

As do I in my house

and back to the book. Back to Little Women.

We've kinda gone a little bit far field, but that's okay because I'd recommend you

go out and pick up the book. By the way, the copy that I have

is a lovely open source version of, of

Little Women. And so you can find Little Women

on, the Internet book archive. You

could find it in a bunch of different other open source spots.

And so, yeah, I'd recommend you go and pick it up. It

has entered the, again, entered the public zeitgeist,

and has created, gosh, just a whole lot of

different bill a call of different places for us to have conversation and

have chats. By the way, that

father's the the the so the father in Literature Women,

look this up on Google. Hold on a second.

Who was the chaplain? There was a book written about him. I

did reference this earlier, Robert March,

And the, the father

was played by

No. Which is interesting. Bob Odenkirk in the 2019

version of Literature Women. He was played by, by

Bob Odenkirk. And, after the

war, he became a minister, to, to a

small congregation because that's it's basically, you know, what he

was. And there was a book written about

him, and I'm looking through the

Wikipedia currently by

Can't find it right now, but I'm going to look it up. I did see

it actually when I was researching, Little Women,

and researching this book for the podcast, but there was a book written about him

by a contemporary author, I think a couple of years ago who kind of fleshed

out his backstory. Because his backstory is not really, not

really gone into deeply here. Okay. Back to the book, back to a

little women, we're going to pick up, where

they are.

Oh, yeah. They're at a party. So gonna pick that up.

Alright.

Down they went, feeling a trifle timid, for they seldom went to parties.

And informal as this little gathering was, it was an event for them.

Missus Gardner, a stately old lady, greeted them kindly and handed them over to the

eldest of her 6 daughters. Meg knew Sally and was at ease very

soon, but Joe, who didn't much care for girls or girlish

gossip, stood about with her back carefully against the wall and felt as much

out of place as a cult in a flower garden. By the way,

before they go to this party, just as an interjection fourth they go to this

party, Louisa May Alcott describes their

clothing, and, the, the back of one of

the dresses is actually burned. And so they're wearing secondhand clothing. They're

wearing damaged clothing. They're trying to make it as good as they possibly can because

they're coming out of a place of need because, you know, you have a civil

war, your supply chains, are disrupted. And these, I mean,

this is during a time when, you know, you could raise everything literally on

your own fourth, and people were a lot more self sufficient than they

are than they are now. That's sort of the reason why the

descriptions are structured in the way they are in this particular piece of the

book. All right. Back to the book. Half a dozen

Jovial lads were talking about skates in another part of the room, and she longed

to go and join them for skating was one of the joys of her life.

She, telegraphed her wish to Meg, but the eyebrows went up so alarmingly that

she dared not stir. No one came to talk to her, and 1 by 1,

the group dwindled away until she was left alone. She could not roam about and

amuse herself fourth the burned breath would show. So she stared at people rather

for lonely till the dancing Jesan. Meg was

asked at once and the tight slippers tripped about so briskly that none would have

guessed the pain. Their wearer suffered smiling late. Joe saw a

big red headed youth approaching her corner, and fearing he meant to engage her, she

slipped into a curtained recess, intending to peep and enjoy herself in

peace. Unfortunately, another bashful person had chosen the same refuge

Sorrells the curtain fell behind her, she found herself face to face with the quote

unquote Lawrence book. Dear me. I didn't know

anyone was here. Stammer Joe preparing to back out as speedily as she had bounced

in, but the boy laughed and said, pleasantly though, he looked a little startled.

Don't mind me essays if you like Shanti disturb you?

Not a bit. I only came here because I don't know many people and felt

rather strange at first, you know? So did I. Don't go away, please, unless you'd

rather. The boy sat down again and looked at his pumps till

Joe said, trying to be polite and easy. I think I've had the pleasure

of seeing you before you live near us. Don't you Next door.

Now you looked up and laughed outright fourth Joe's prim manner was rather funny, but

you remembered how they had chatted about cricket when he brought the cat home. That

put Joe at ease as she laughed Tom, when she said in her heartiest way,

we did have such a good time over your nice Christmas present. Grandpa sent

it, but you put it into his head, didn't you now? How was your Tom?

Miss March asked the boy turning to look sober while his black eyes shown with

fun. Nicely. Thank you, mr. Lawrence, but I am not miss March. I'm

only Joe returned the young lady. I'm not mister Lawrence. I'm only

Fourth. Laurie Lawrence. What an odd name. My first name

is Theodore, but I don't like it for the fellows. Call me Dora. I made

them essays Fourth instead. I hate my name too. So sentimental. I

wish everyone would say Joe instead of Josephine. How did you make the books stop

calling you Dora? I thrashed him.

I can't really pause for just a moment.

That's I mean, turns out the male and female

sexual politics are pretty much the same throughout throughout

Tom. Back to the book. I can't thrash on March, so I suppose I

shall have to bear it. And Joe resigned herself with a sigh. Now would you

like to dance, miss Joe? Asked Laurie book as if he thought the name suited

her. I like it well enough if there's plenty of room and everyone is lively.

In a place like this, I'm sure to upset something, tread on people's toes, or

do something dreadful. So I keep out of mischief and let Meg bail about.

Don't you dance? Sometimes you see I've been abroad a good many

years and haven't been into company enough yet to know how you do things here.

Abroad cried a Joe. Oh, tell me about it. I love Tom dearly to hear

people describe their travels. Laurie didn't seem to know where to begin, but

Joe's eager questions soon sent him going, and he told her how he had been

to school in Vive, where the boys never wore hats and had a fleet

of boats on the lake and for holiday fun, went on walking trips about Switzerland

with their teachers. Don't I wish I'd been there, cried Joe. Did you go to

Paris? We spent last winter there. Can you talk French?

We were not allowed to speak anything else at Vivek. You say some, I can

read it, but I can't pronounce it. I can't read

it either, but he's going to say something about something. How nicely you do

it. Let me see. You said, who was the young lady of the pretty

slippers? Didn't you this? I can essays though, we

mad Mozilla. It's my sister, Margaret, and you knew it was. Don't you think she's

pretty? Yeah. She makes me think of the German girl. She looks so fresh and

quiet and dances like a lady. Joe glowed with

pleasure at this boyish praise of her sister and stored it up to repeat to

Meg. Both peeped and criticized and chatted till they felt like old

acquaintances. Laurie's bashfulness soon wore off for Joe's gentlemanly

demeanor, amused and set him at his ease. And Joe

was her Mary self again, because her dress was forgotten and nobody lifted their eyebrows

at her. She liked the Lawrence boy better than ever and took several good looks

at him so that she might describe him to the girls, for they had no

brothers, very few male cousins, and boys were almost unknown creatures to

them. Curly black hair, brown skin, big black eyes, hands and

nose, fine teeth, small hands and feet taller than I am very polite for a

boy and altogether jolly wonder how old he is by the way. Pause.

That's an Instagram description.

Again, nothing's changed. Our technology is just better.

Back to the book. It was on the tip of Joe's tongue to ask, but

she checked herself in Tom. It was unusual tact, tried to find out in a

roundabout way. I suppose you're going to college soon. I see

you pegging away at your books. No, I mean turning hard. And Joe blushed at

the dreadful pegging which had escaped her. Laurie smiled, but he didn't seem

shocked and answered with a shrug, not for a year or 2. I won't go

before 17 anyway. Aren't you but 15? Asked Joe, looking at the tall

lad whom she imagined 17 already. 16 next

month. How I wish I was going to college. You don't look as if you

liked it. I hate it. Nothing but grinding or skylarking, and

I don't like the way fellows do either in this country. What do you

like? To live in Italy and to enjoy myself

in my own way?

I was gonna talk about one thing, but I'm gonna talk about something else. So

It turns out that men and women still meet each other the exact same way

even in our era. It also

turns out that the conversation is probably the most important part

of the mating ritual. And,

yes, we do it on Tinder and grinder and

only fans and Instagram reels and all this other

nonsense these days. But if you took away all of that stuff,

the much talked about gen Zers who by the way,

are apparently engaged according to statistics in the least

amount of sexual behavior, both men and women of any generation

in the last fourth generations of American history,

apparently are struggling with, and we need to teach them how to talk to each

other. So, I know that Tom has

young people in his home. I have had and

do have young people in my home. And one of the things that I do

is I take away the phones and force them to go talk to other people.

Makes for exciting times. I fourth them to speak in double.

No. No. No. No joke. We so as Hae san knows, we have

a very deep rooted cultural, you know, background,

and we are invited to do these guest lectures all the time

at either colleges, universities, religious,

environments, whether it be, you know, UU what is it called?

U, yeah, UU churches or something like that. United. No. No.

Universal Oh, the Unitarians. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

But anyway Yeah. Nice. But, you know, come all you faithful. Right? Anyway

Mhmm. I'm sorry. I don't mean to make fun if any of you are. You

you I I don't mean that as a as a dig. Anyway

but but we get invited to all these things, and I I go and I

do a lot of speaking engagements. And one of the ways that I I kinda

get I force them to the front of the line. I say, well, I

wanna talk about a particular topic. You're gonna talk about it

because the age you are, it comes differently from you

than it does fourth me. Right? So, like, certain things are

just, you know so so to your point, you get rid of the

phones. Well, you know, when we're in those environments you

can. We're in those environments. We don't have our phones anyway, so I can't take

the phone. They don't have the phone, but I fourth them to speak in public.

None of my kids are afraid of public speaking, by the way. Okay. They're

not afraid of public speaking, but are they afraid of approaching someone

1 on 1 and having a conversation with them? Because I noticed this starting to

happen probably book 10 years ago. What happens at the end of

these at the end of these lectures is we end up sitting on

the side and people come up to them all the time to ask additional

questions fourth, like so they are forced to

to speak 1 on 1 with them. Now, it is a little different to

your point. They're not they're the ones being come up to. They're

not usually they're not going out and seeking these people after these events and

saying, hey. Do you have any additional questions? I'd like to, you know, ask me

this, ask me that, whatever. But it still forces a 1 on 1

conversation after the fact. Right. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Okay.

No. That's good. I when I read this whole entire section with,

you know, with Lawrence and Joe, and they're running around, and then there's other aspects

of that in the book as well, A little bit of talking and

the book does sort of address their not really courtship,

but they're sort of in the 19th century way, kinda going around and around,

just like in war and peace, which we talked about.

I know how that opened with a party.

I I think we

again, it's the end of an era, right, not the end of a civilization.

So I think part of the end of an era of mass

communication or putting

people in situations where, are not

putting people. We we we are at

an end of a of an era when

the ability to engage with people

in mass 1 on 1 in person

is less useful for getting the message out, whatever your message may happen to

be, than, you know, engaging with someone

electronically or engaging with people electronically and hoping that

you're blasting into this, you know, void of people who are going

to engage with you, which of course is what the internet has taught us. It's

taught us how to do that. So, you know, I'm sure.

Your kids know just as well as mine, do that, you know,

if they have 11,000 followers on Instagram, you know, they can

go talk to all 11,000 of those people, which is way more than the

100 people or 200 people that may walk up to them. You

know, 10% of who may actually have a question for them at the end of

a particular speaking engagement. You know, if the percentages are the same with

your engagements as they have been with mine in the past, it's usually under 10%.

Yeah. You know, and so where the

value is, I think also is, is something that's shifting around and we don't really

know how to effectively articulate that to people. And so I try to

articulate to my kids that the value of

engagement is in that interaction with that human being,

not in the technological objects you have in your hand.

Sure. And that's a very, that's a difficult lesson to kind of get across.

Sometimes you gotta be, well, sometimes it's like taking away the stick from my

7 year old old who wants to put in his mouth. So Well

and I think there's something to be said too. So I the whole taking away

the phone thing, I I I don't quote, unquote take it from

them. But we've had a we've had a long standing tradition in my house where

we don't bring the cell phones to the dinner table. So, like Yeah.

No. We don't sit down and eat dinner every day at 5 o'clock. Like, we're

not that kind of family. And and if if everyone's schedule is all over the

place and, you know, and you're sitting down at the dinner table by yourself and

eating to have your phone. Who cares? But the second an additional

person sits down there with you, the both of you put your phone aside. Yeah.

Like, that's kind of been a rule of thumb. Now that goes to before my

kids even had cell phones and I was my my wife and I were the

only ones in the house that had cell phones. Yeah. We we wouldn't bring

our cell phones to the table. So we Yeah. It just became a habit that

and because mom and dad did it when our kids were teenagers and started getting

cell phones, they just followed suit. So they Right. And now my kids are

all even though they are young, they're still young adults. So my again, my

my youngest is graduating college next week. But as

even as adults, they still come to the dinner table with no cell phone. Like,

that's just it's been a habit of ours. So and to your point, it's just

because you wanna be in the moment. It's not about like, for us,

it's not about we don't use that

scenario to justify the quality interaction with human to

human interaction. We justify getting rid of the

cell phones in that environment about being in the moment. In the moment. Yep.

Because it's not about 1 on 1 interaction at that point. We have very

typically, just to give you an idea, we don't eat every day dinner. We don't

eat dinner every day as a family, but on Sunday, we do. Sunday's our day.

Everybody comes to the table. There's usually 10, 12 of us that sit at the

table depending on who's coming over for dinner. Like, my nephew will come, my aunt

you know, whatever. So we'll have additional family members. But you're

not getting 1 on 1 interaction at that point, but it's still not any less

valuable to have that collective of human

interaction and the different varying degrees of generations at the table

and Yeah. You know, like, we have, my nephew has a daughter who's only

2a half years old. It's important for her to see a 2a half that we're

all talking to each other and not looking at our phones. Right? So

There's there's an important piece in a little bit which we're not gonna get to

today because we gotta wrap this up. But,

there's an important piece where they sacrifice, the the March

family does. They sacrifice their, their Christmas, right.

For a family that's down the street. Right. Who's, you

know, they're they're immigrants, and they're poverty stricken.

And so so they literally pick up their entire Christmas and they take it

down the street, you know, and they're stuffing, you know,

cloths and holes in windows and they're feeding like little sickly, the little

sickly kid and, you know, they're giving up their, their Christmas,

breakfast, which is like milk and bread. Like it wasn't anything

huge, but those people had nothing. Right. And so they're taking that down the

street to those folks. And it's a, it's a touching moment. And I think it's

in like chapter 3 or 4 of, of literature women.

And that ties into what you're talking

about here. Because one of the, one of the thread lines through

the book is, traditions,

writers? And the power of traditions, right? Even in the midst of an

apocalyptic civil war where everything's falling apart, you can't get anything more than bread and

milk on Christmas. There are still traditions

that matter to engage with folks around.

And one of the things that is interesting to me is

as society gets redefined

in a, in a, in a seculum at the end of a

seculum cycle, right? At the end of a historical cycle, traditions

get redefined as well, but

the core of what people require Has it

changed for 5000 years? How

we do that may change, writers? Or the

manner, even the tools we use maybe might change,

but we still require Tom your point.

1 on 1 engagement with a real human being without technological

or, or object interference, you know,

you still require that because how else are you going to learn about community

at 2 other than experiencing community at 2.

Right. And the families that do that,

are the ones that are going to,

make sure the republic stays together. And I don't care what color they are. I

don't care what class group they come from. I don't care about any of that

crap that all becomes nonsense after at a certain point, or maybe I should say

nonsense sauce for the goose. Writers. It's about, do you have those

traditions? So I know many people who come out of,

and we're talking about, you know, talking at, at, at like a Unitarian

church. I know many people who come out of specific religious traditions that's

and that's what they do on Saturdays or Sundays or Fridays, you know? And so

they have those traditions, in my household. You

know, we do try not try. We do as many days of the week

as we can to eat together, period. So younger when

my kids were younger, we did too. It's just, as they got older, it's just

got impossible. Yeah. It becomes more of a challenge, to your point,

it becomes more of a challenge. But even my wife and I were talking about

that because we're not quite there yet, but it's coming. We're

like, you know, it's just gonna be her and me.

That's it. Just the 2 of you. Just the 2 of you. Just the 2

of us, like it says in that song.

And so, you know, one of the things we were joking about was,

you know, we have to eat at least 1 meal a day together just

to see each other. Right. That's tradition.

That matters even at the end of an era that

matters. Okay. Solutions to problems.

Let's talk about solutions. I don't know if we've resolved anything.

This is like the 3rd or 4th episode we've done. We haven't resolved anything. We

just talked a little bit about the book and then we brought up a bunch

of things. There's a little there's a little thing here, though. There's a there's a

little thing that just to wrap up what you and I were just talking about

Yeah. With the traditions and the cell phone thing and the dinner and all that

stuff. There's a little thing there that leaders, in my opinion,

can take and a small solution to the problem that

kinda went away a little bit if you think about it in, like, the early

2000, which was leaders, they need to lead by

example. Right? Like and and I don't see a lot of

leaders going out of their way to sacrifice,

as you just mentioned about in the book. Do you make

sacrifices? Do your employees see you make sacrifices for the betterment of the

company? Do fourth employees see you making sacrifices

for the betterment of them? Like, are you willing to

take a to Tom sacrifice certain things? I'll give you

an example. I was I I I have a client of obviously no

names mentioned. I have a client that was struggling through COVID.

He eliminated his own salary so that he did not lay anybody

off. And and they were still doing business. They just wasn't

busy enough for Mhmm. He he had he had to make a decision. Do

I lay off whatever it was? I don't remember the equivalent. It was 2 or

3 people, whatever, in order for me to not to take a

hit. And he decided not to he elected to eliminate hit.

What do you think that does for him in the emotional

equity of his people? Right?

No. They're they're not quitting. I'm sorry. I hate to tell you this. They're never

quitting that job. That guy probably just kept 20 people for

the rest of his life as as a leader. If he decides to close-up

his company and start working for somebody else, all 20 of those people are gonna

go work. But but we don't see enough of that kind of,

like, the solution. It's so simple.

Like, are you making sacrifice? No. He didn't have to he probably didn't

have to take the hit on his whole salary. He could've taken half and laid

off 1 person or 2 people instead of 4. He probably would've

got similar results from the from the

emotional response from his people, but he felt

compelled to save all of them. I don't think we see that,

and we certainly don't see that in bigger companies. Are you kidding me? Don't even

get me started. The, you know, inflated bonuses and

all this other BS when it comes to, like, big companies that that just

take and take and take. But to your point earlier about local government

and local small businesses, I do find there's real leadership

there. I do find that that some of those solutions

I think one of our bigger problems, we don't allow those solutions

to be the answer above, like, to to to push the to push it up

Yes. And say, you know I I

don't know. I I I just I don't know a salespeople or fourth fortune 500

company that would have done what that guy did. So there's a there's a

biblical admonition here that I wrote in my notes. Love your neighbor as

yourself, you know, which is what we always think of, but,

actually, Jesus starts with this one. He says, love the lord fourth

god with all of your heart, all fourth mind, and all of your your your

soul. In some translations, it's all of your spirit, but whatever. I'm not gonna get

into theological Disney just to give you the whole turning. Right? Right writers. Right there.

And then he does, and love your neighbor as

yourself. And then he follows up with, and the entire

law and the commandments rest on these two ideas. That's the

whole structure of reality. So love the thing

that you have above you, the hierarchy. Right? And

in order Tom your point about the boss, in order to serve that hierarchy,

sacrifice and love your neighbor as you would love yourself. Because what would you

want your neighbor to do for you? Yeah. You would want your neighbor

to sacrifice what they had for

you if you were in that situation. And you're right. If we

saw that at scale, like I, there was a local election. I'm not

going to get into the specifics of it, obviously for, fourth a local municipality that

I live in and they are asking

the people of the municipality to

vote for a tax increase in Jesan.

And the people who are the people who are going to

benefit from that are not setting down their salaries at

all. And it keeps getting

voted down and they can't understand why.

And I I I literature go, it's because you're not making

the appropriate sacrifice in the direct in the correct direction. And

so I think one of the major solutions to our problems

is leaders just gotta start making appropriate

sacrifices fourth to your point, leading by example. Absolutely

right. Again, you know, it it it's funny. I I saw within

1 generation turning about, you know, love thy neighbor. Right?

Yeah. And I saw it never mind

never mind love your neighbor. Yeah. No. Do you actually do you actually know

your neighbor? Because I saw Right. I've seen I've seen in one generation

that the neighbors across the street from us, my my kids don't

even know them. They they have no idea who they are. They don't like,

that Tom me is even weird. Like, I grew up in a neighborhood where I

literally could throw a rock and

I'll say it this way. I could be I could be down

3 streets away, throw a rock and break a car

window and say, oh, crap. I'm out of here. Run home. By the time I

got to my house, my mother would know about it. Mhmm. Yeah. They're like, oh

my god. Missus Libby, did you know that your son broke the window? Blah blah

blah. I'd walk in the house, and my mother was like, what are you thinking?

And I'm like, oh, crap. I forgot. You already knew. Like, because all the neighbors

knew each other. They would Right. They would talk to that it takes a village

thing is gone, and I don't understand why. I don't understand why. I

think I think we're losing I I guess it goes back to what

you were talking about, getting rid of the cell phone. The distraction caused different

problems. The more technology we get, the more problem. We're we're

losing sight of, like, the

I I'll go one step further here because I I never bought

into the whole, you know, treat someone

like, I the phrase. Right? Treat somebody the way that you wanna be treated. Mhmm.

Yep. I think that's crap. I always tell my kids,

treat somebody the way they wanna be treated because it might not be the way

that you wanna be treated. Mhmm. Learn and understand them. Talk to

them. Find out what what how do you would how would you like me

to to to treat you? Because sometimes, I don't care if you're

blunt and direct with me, but if you're blunt and direct with somebody who doesn't

like that, you could offend them. So you can't treat somebody the way you wanted

it. You have treat them the way they wanna be treated. Now that all being

said, it goes to leadership and understanding your people, learning their

habit, learning their motivations, learning you gotta be involved.

You gotta lead by that example. So

leaders and not leaders. This is

the last thing I'll say that we can close podcast thing I'll point I'll break

up, but then we can we can close.

There's endless talk about problems. Yeah.

Endless. One of my

massive frustrations and and one of the core reasons I do this podcast

is because I'm tired of talking about problems.

I named off 4 of them today, right, that have

been well documented. Both sides of the problems have

been documented. All aspects of the problems have been

documented. And for those of you who didn't hear that part or maybe skipped over

it, the fourth problems are, you know, diversity,

personal debt, okay, personal credit card debt,

COVID. Okay. And, the 4th one was,

I can't remember what the 4th was. It doesn't matter. Those goes, oh, yeah. Social

media fragmentation. That's right. Social media fragmentation. Those fourth

problems, we have had volume after volume,

after volume, after And

what was the root? We've had the exploration. And what was the root. We've had

the exploration. Give me

a solution

problem. Because once you give me a

solution, then I have a direction. And once

I have a direction that I'm no longer seeing something through, like it's a

transparent piece of glass, now it becomes opaque.

It becomes solid. It becomes,

solvable. All fourth those

problems have solutions. We may

not like the solution. It may not make us comfortable. It

may be hard to implement. I'll grant you all of that. It

may gore some people's sacred cows,

but it is a solution. Can't get away from that. It may

not be one you like might not make you feel comfortable. It might gore your

sacred cow, but it is, it is a solution.

And when we start going to a solution based conversation,

fundamentally, now we can actually start

moving towards a goal, towards a direction.

Now we are now we are at a way out of chaos

rather than just continually

wandering around in a cul de sac of chaos all the time.

I'm tired of being in the cul de sac. I want out.

Well, and and and the the the positive the really

the super positive piece of this is as soon as you hear one

solution, it should open up a floodgate. Right? Like, because that's

typically what happens. Somebody comes up with a solution. Somebody else says, oh,

I like that, but I think we should add this, or I like that, but

I don't think it fixes this component of it. So we should figure out like,

it it all of a sudden opens up a different kind of dialogue.

Mhmm. That that that now all of a sudden, okay,

it may skew your pathway. Like, you know, you just said that at least you

at least you have a direction. At least you have a it might skew that

a little bit and open up the road a little bit.

But would it be a terrible thing if we found 2 or 3

solutions that actually would book? And now we're trying to figure

out, so what gives us the best outcome of these 3 solutions? Which one

gives us the bet? It's a different conversation at that point. Right. I agree with

you. I think a lot of the, a lot of the I I I think

at least 2 of the 4 that you just named, we're not gonna

see solutions come for a long time. Yeah. I mean, honestly I mean, the

social media thing, I think we're just creating more and more because the more every

time we turn around, there's a new one. They're you know, TikTok has,

opened up a completely different door of challenges that Facebook didn't have.

And now Facebook saw that, and they said we can do that. And

social media, I think, is going to be I think we're the solution to the

social media dilemma is better parenting. And I think

until somebody tells parents that they need to be better

parents, that's not gonna fix itself. Social media's never gonna

fix itself. And we're certainly not gonna police it because you got all the people

complaining about the first amendment first amendment infringement and all this other stuff that happens.

So people are afraid. They're afraid to fix the social media problem, but

but I think we can if we get better parenting out of it. So, like,

if we get if we can get these younger parents to understand

that that social media is

a problem and that you need to help your kids solve it,

I I don't I think that's gonna be the that that's the only solution I

can see forward from it, from this at least the social media part. There's another

one in there that there's another one in there that I thought I I think

very similarly Tom we don't have to go into all of them, but but there

but there's there's another one in there at the at the very least 2 of

the 4 that you mentioned. I think that's I think that

parenting is the problem there. Yeah. Not the government, not

leadership. The leadership comes from within at that point. It's the who's

what's the leadership structure look like within the home? How do you start

teaching your kids to be just human beings and better

people? Like How very pre modern of you,

Tom. I don't know. Maybe I'm

You know what? You know what? Well, you know what? You know what? What can

I say? Do you see the gray hair?

You've you've you've seen a few sunsets and a few surprises.

New summers. New summers.

I often say this and I'll close with this. I've been saying this a

lot lately. Postmodern problems require pre modern

solutions And

we, we ignore those pre modern

solutions because we think we're more sophisticated and there's

nothing fourth, there's nothing harder to break than the iron

triangle of like arrogance deceit, and then just like

resentment. And but you but you've gotta break that iron

triangle if you wanna actually get to a solution to a problem.

Listen, Occam's razor has been around for eon. Right?

Oh, gotcha. Yes. Yep. And it still applies today.

Most Tom, the simplest answer is probably the right one. Probably the

right one. So why are we trying to overcomplicate and over sophisticate

every single problem we encounter? Sometimes it really is simple.

And with that, I'd like to thank you for listening to the

Leadership Lessons from The Great Books podcast today,

And, well, Tom and I are out.