LOL of course christians would hate systems that don't promote top down control.

Great interview Thanks

A lot of the goofy racial categories in the US exist because of civil rights era laws, affirmative action, etc. Not because of "one drop rules" or anything like that.

The US certainly needs some class consciousness i would say. I think ill pass on it being to the level of the UK though.

Great interview!

Glad to hear that you gentlemen are good friends. In connection to area of Living in .

I can say the same about this interview as you complimented Joe at the end about balance & aplomb. Very well done and thank you!

But you're not the elite you're a bunch of clowns with money who act like little children when you don't get your way that's not elite

Hello Professor Reeves, enjoy your work. I've got one question. When does the frontal cortex for men reaches parity to that of women?

My daughter is a an Gen Z Ivy Leaguer with an interest in philosophy that is concerning to me. She read "The Coddling..." by choice. I will admit to not having read it yet, but I'm incredibly interested in the issues Haidt and Lukianoff raise. My daughter (very privileged) and I (a lot less privileged) have frequent discussions about these topics (privilege, coddling, neoliberalism, cults, religion, narcissism, higher ed, philosophy, hypocrisy, oppression, bullying...). She sent me the link to this podcast yesterday because it was assigned in a public policy class she just started. Oh my! She and I haven't had a chance to discuss it yet. But this is my response to her after just having listened to the podcast (side note: I was recently bullied out of a second job in less than a year as a psychiatric nurse - for Medicaid patients - for standing up for myself, my coworkers and my patients by reporting grave safety concerns. I am now struggling to find work because I have been labeled a "troublemaker" by the healthcare system in my area): "Thanks so much for sharing the podcast. I have so many thoughts about it. I’d love, love, love to have a conversation with these guys! My 2 biggest concerns. 1) Haidt's talk of God is very disturbing. I get the impression that he’s “a believer” - which is fine, but he doesn’t seem to realize his own implicit biases as a believer. Super, super hypocritical. 2) The way he demonizes Gen Z and blames the coddling on helicopter parenting and the rise of social media feels like he’s missing a major component of WHY Gen Z is so “different”… the rise of neoliberalism / covert narcissism / charming bullies / toxic positivity / exceptionalism = The Cult of Bill Clinton! I’m now really curious to read the book. I think I will disagree with him but not for the reasons you expected me too. His views feel very privileged and yet he doesn’t seem to recognize that - which is a major problem with privilege. Privilege kills critical thinking skills. College seems to be teaching you to argue better, but I don’t think it’s benefitting your critical thinking skills. Why is that? Listening to two privileged, white guys discuss these issues is incredibly frustrating. They come across as totally clueless to the plight of those who are oppressed. Like them, college appears to be training you to be a bystander instead of an Upstander. I just had to pay out of pocket to have my tooth fixed. I can afford it, for now… but I’m scared about not being able to find work if I don’t start playing by the rules of the oppressors. I have enough privilege to stand up for myself (and pay for the dentist), for now… The vast majority of Americans have no choice but to put up with the abuse. Is it any wonder poor people often have bad teeth? Almost half a million dollars for 4 years of education… That would cover a lot of dentist appointments… It’s NO WONDER oppressed people get pissed off by the disparities. College isn’t teaching you to come up with solutions. They are teaching you to maintain the status quo. I dare you to show this thread to your policy professor…"

Anti-abortion, not pro-life. As a trans woman, she should not speak for women.

David has eschewed economic inequality since forever. It's destroyed countries in the past and sometimes contributed to destroying whole civilizations.

She trivializes a bit her sexual assault by Ralph Waite but wants other women to come forward. I would understand that 1968 was a different time but she back pedals about how serious it was for her.

No amnesty is needed unless you’ve committed a crime. One wonders what crimes were committed, maybe the one calling for the amnesty needs it the the most. Nothing you’ve done can be forgiven and nothing I’ve done requires it.

You want to be Harriet Taylor Mill?

Typical leftwing progressive, appeal to sentiments over reason.

David, at about 23 minutes in you mentioned a restaurant you frequented prior to COVID-19 where you wanted to ask the server about the soil in which their produce was grown. I immediately flashed back to this scene from an older show called, "Portlandia," where the young couple in the restaurant asked all about how the chicken they were about to order was raised. Here is the scene on KZbin. Please enjoy... as I have! kzbin.info/www/bejne/fZDCgYmCd52Bo5Y

From 1990 the UK was sold off for private gain. It destroyed communities. Natural resources like water and fuel and transport industry were sold off, suddenly had to pay VAT on fuel, Council houses without building new, gold reserves sold, mines closed. In the EU there seemed progress, but what became ever more terrible was the rise of bureaucracy and administration. Unaccountable clueless managers. Tick box society with no quality or content. Worse still, having to pay useless Councils undeserved taxes for their ever more perfected pensions. Final nail in the coffin are perverse incentives - politicians making private gain, NHS doctors doing private work, limited liability companies moving risk to the public while paying governments through lobbying. It’s sick and corrupt. It was better than communism and we need to get rid of bureaucracy and perverse incentives and change the private corporate legal structure of limited liability.

Insightful and much appreciated. "Volcano" (1997) with Tommy Lee Jones is one of those rare films without a major human bad guy. If only we could create stories with climate change as the villain and humans subduing it (since we can't conquer it) as the heroes.

This is a man. She will never have a uterus. This seems like a long way to go to pass.

Enjoyed convo… I hope she writes part 2 to her book

At the same time that the elites were becoming unequally wealthy, the working class was devastated by the collapse of the Rust Belt. David Brooks blames all of the inequality on the evil elites, but that is only half of the story.

Yeah David's really changed I mean considering that all of my life I watched him cheer these elites on defend Wall Street and its Outsourcing defend the wars

Never any self - insight. It’s all about ‘them, out there’ because Dave’s not part of the DC / NYC elite .. JHC gimmie 2000 breaks. He’s got a direct conduit to the Almighty I guess. How can he know what’s in people’s hearts & minds spiritually. People think Dave is deep, in my estimation he’s as shallow as a saucer. He’s just like the rest of us … I’m done listening to him pontificate about how the left sucks. As if the past five years have nothing to do with the downward spiral. Beware of those who can’t see how they contributed to the fall. Even Bill Krystal & George Will understand what they did. It’s a constant pivot to the ‘decadent left’ with this guy, find him a mirror someone please…

😍 𝚙𝚛𝚘𝚖𝚘𝚜𝚖

Finally. The last ten minutes neared the necessary connections for revealing healing.

here in a rural county in northern california we have been invaded by .. the wendys .. the wealthy trendy .. who now clutter the roads with mercedes and porsch suv's .. drive like maniacs .. and have driven the price of everything up up up so that now it's almost impossible to buy local or attend an event .. forget about buying a home .. what once felt like a small town community is now a dim memory .. and am sure that too many other places are or have faced the same sad fate ..

yes sir .. your carrot was grown in a silty clay loam enhanced by mycorrhiza and fertilized by chicken droppings from hormone free cageless poultry .. and picked by vegans with advanced degrees in agronomy .. and transported in trucks fueled by recycled organic cooking oil ..

Well, I've always suspected the Elites were Morons. This self important nonsense has verified that opinion. Destroying these Elites is going to be much easier than I thought. We're going to burn your world to the ground. Why? Because you're EVIL.

Haha apple polisher ayaan hirsi

Bless Julian.

Cats.

LOL

Much Good here in Insights and Opinion, but econ still trumps culture, and culture is lavishly used to stall efforts at redressing inequality, which in many years has been rising exponentially ... When New York City had a bunch of free commuter colleges, beginning in the 1850s and ending in the early seventies. Poor, working class and some middle class students in hundreds of thousands received free excellent educations. I was one of the poor among those who became engineers, college professors,etc. I became a professor, co-authored an important book and worked in eight countries. At 84, tomorrow, I've been running a nonprofit I created 17 years ago. All of us have been its volunteers since the get-go... My Alma Mater, City College, was dubbed the Proletarian Harvard. Another, the Cooper Union, was a college for Engineering and Art, beginning in the 1850s! Who knew such a jump in thinking so boldly was a huge leap in what wold be considered cool "innovation" today. Lincoln was President. The Cooper Union is now trying to recapture it's free tuition status. It was the last to lose it about a decade ago. The only one of the free colleges that stayed free in the City after the early seventies. Were America's values different until the early seventies when it was perhaps greater than today?

She is an under qualified, overconfident, right wing apple polish-up, academic charlatan and obsequious woman who just spews hate against Islam by spreading lies and wrong information. She is just a monstrous islamophobe. Her only achievement is being ex-muslim.

Great dialogue, Richard and David. I have followed (and have deep respect and admiration for) David Brooks for many years now. My parents as well. I took many notes.

They would all be fine with the India caste system for the whole globe then like India for thousands of years there will be no progress, only stagnation and chaos.. But the elite will have lots of servants and everyone else will be in a state of constant insecurity and insufficiency of necessities.

Thank you for a good conversation. I found the first 2/3 really interesting, but it was the latter third where you went more philosophical, about human empathy, connection and love that really hit me. I wrote down some quotes to take with me.

cats dont do talkshows

I notice that a lot of the people who fit this category are more familiar with the Syrian refugee crisis or the Haitian earthquake or the status of women under the Taliban than they are with people living in a trailer 2 miles away from where they live or people shot down in the street 2 miles from where they work. I giggled when you talked about the carrot thing!! Were the carrots organically grown in happy soil? Are the table cloths hypo-allergenic? Is the furniture arranged by feng shui? To hell with the truck driver who brought the box of carrots to the wholesaler or the cook making $10 an hour candying them in the kitchen. I grew up in a blue collar neighborhood, was the first child and second grandchild to graduate from a state college. I now live in a blue collar urban neighborhood for a bunch of reasons but I attend a church populated half by highly educated boomers and half by bobos. It feels weird. yes.

Very smart, very well read, very travel David Brooks talks and talks and never mentions the libertarian billionaires who have been guiding tax and spending policies on the Right since Kirk. I don't get it.

Thank you for this conversation. Do people experience anxiety whenever they do not feel a sense of ‘ease’ within a particular group? It seems to me that Humans can only exist in relation to each other. However, I understood from this video that Western society has developed abusive, harmful, and dehumanising strategies to achieve group belonging, and at any cost to others when needed. Surely we can learn from ancient Aboriginal cultures that were based on inclusion, connection to each other and maintaining the earth so it is sustainable for all.

Bo-bos... Is this a reference to our more free-loving, egalitarian primate cousins Bonobos?

Max Stirner was a cat.

Also immigrants are here in unprecedented numbers, much more than the Irish, or Estern European countries of previous centuries. This matters because the elites have no connection to them linguistically, culturally or politically.

Brook's understanding develops slowly like a fine wine. Ten years more and he'll be drinkable!

While I think its noble to strive for an egalitarian society, I often wonder if there has ever been a society free of class distinctions or, more generally, free of hierarchal distinction between its members. It seems to me we're striving (virtuously) for a societal structure that has never existed in the history of human societies. Before some one gets the impression that I'm painting a completely bleak picture, consider that there was once a time before society arranged itself in a democratic republic. Currently there are many democratic republics around the world. So its not impossible to bring about radical change. I just think people who believe we need a few tweaks on our current society before we transform to an egalitarian wonderland are delusional.

Richard V. Reeves

Nixon took the U.S. off the gold stand, August 15, 1971. He started price and wage control with china and to top it off, he enacted the war on drugs. I blame Americans! They continue to vote for a two party corporatized plutocracy that not only shipped all the jobs away, but also civil liberties and circumvented the constitution and the Bill of rights for over 50 years! ~The government you elect is the government you deserve. ~Thomas Jefferson