Kind: captions
Language: en
the war continues after the battle's end
this is something that's hard for
Americans to understand our system is
built with the presumption when War is
Over when we signed a piece of paper
everyone can go home
that's not what happens
the following is a conversation with
Jeremy Surrey a historian a UT Austin
this is the Lex Friedman podcast to
support it please check out our sponsors
in the description and now dear friends
here's Jeremy sorry
what is the main idea the the main case
that you make in your new book Civil War
by other means America's long and
unfinished fight for democracy so our
Democratic institutions in the United
States they are filled with many virtues
and many elements in their design that
improve our society and allow for
Innovation but they also have many flaws
in them as any institutions created by
human beings have and the flaws in our
institutions go back to a number of
judgments and perspectives
that people on the 17th 18th and 19th
centuries had and those flaws have been
built into our institutions and they
continue to hinder Innovation and growth
in our society three of the flaws that I
emphasize in this book are flaws of
exclusion
the ways our institutions exclude people
not just African Americans many
different groups the ways our
institutions also give power to certain
people who have position rather than
skill or intelligence or quality
and third in most of all the ways our
institutions embed certain myths in our
society myths that prevent us from
Gaining the knowledge we need to improve
our world in all of these ways our
democracy is hindered by the false
reverence
for institutions that actually need to
be reformed just as we need to highlight
the good elements of them that's really
what my book is about and then the myth
the the false reverence what are we
talking about that so there's a way in
which uh we believe that if we love our
country it's somehow wrong to criticize
our institutions I believe if you love
your country you want to encourage your
institutions to get better and better I
love my University where I work but I
want it to be better we have many flaws
I love my family but I'm constantly
telling family members how they can be
better that's what true knowledge
leadership is about not just
cheerleading what's the Counterpoint to
that because uh The Other Extreme is a
deep
all-encompassing cynicism towards
institutions
so for me I like the idea of loving
America which seems to be sometimes a
politicized statement these days
that you believe in the ideals of this
country that seems to be uh that seems
to be either a naive or a political
statement the way it's interpreted so
the flip side of that having a healthy
skepticism of Institutions is good but
having a complete paralyzing cynicism
seems to be bad absolutely both are a
historical positions what I try to do as
a historian is work in between those
spaces The Virtue is is in the Middle
Ground For Better or For Worse and uh
what we have to recognize is that our
institutions are necessary there's a
reason government exists there's a
reason uh our Union was created that's
what Abraham Lincoln was heroically
fighting for uh so we have to believe in
our Union we have to believe in our
government and we as business people as
intellectuals we have to be part of the
solution not the problem but that
doesn't mean uh just ignoring the Deep
flaws in our institutions even if we
find personally ways to get around them
what really worries me is that there are
a lot of very intelligent well
well-intentioned people in our society
who are figured out how to live with the
flaws in our institutions rather than
how to use their skills to correct the
flaws in our institutions there's folks
like uh somebody that lives next door to
me Michael malice is an anarchists
um philosophically maybe more than
practically just sort of August of that
position
um it's it's an interesting thought
experiment I would say and
so if you have these flaws as
institutions one thing to do
as the Communists did at the beginning
of the 20th century is to burn the thing
down and start in you and the other is
to fix from within one step one slow
step at a time what's what's the case
for both from a history perspective sure
so historically there has uh always been
an urge to burn down the institutions
and start again start with a blank slate
uh the historical record is that almost
never works because what happens when
you destroy the institutions you gave
the example of the Bolshevik Revolution
when you destroy the institutions all
you do is in the jungle that's left
behind you give advantages to those who
are the most powerful institutions
always Place certain limits upon the
most powerful in the jungle if you go
back to the Jungle the most powerful are
actually going to have the most
influence and most control so the
revolutionaries who are usually the
vulnerable turn out to then be the
victims of the Revolution and this is
exactly what we saw with the French
Revolution with the Russian Revolution
so the record for that is not a great
record there still might be times to do
that but I think we should be very
cautious about that the record for
working through institutions is better
record now what we have to be careful
about is as we're working through
institutions not to become bought into
them not to become of those institutions
so what I've written about in this book
and in other books my book on Henry
Kissinger for example is how it's
important when in an institution to
still bring an outsider perspective I
believe in being an inside Outsider and
I think most of your listeners are
inside Outsiders they're people who care
about what's going on inside but they're
bringing some new ideas from the outside
I think the correct statement to say is
most of the listeners most people aspire
to be inside or Outsiders
but we human nature such that we easily
become Insider Insiders so like uh we
like that idea but the reality is
and I've been
very fortunate because of this podcast
to talk to certain folks that live in
certain bubbles
and
it's very hard to know when you're in a
bubble
that you should get out of the bubble of
thought
and that's a really tricky thing because
like yeah when you're whether it's
politics whether it's science whether
it's uh
and and any Pursuits in life
because everybody around you all your
friends you have like a little Rat Race
and you're competing with each other and
then you get a promotion you get excited
and you can see how you can get more and
more power it's not it's not like a dark
cynical uh Rat Race it's it's fun that's
the process of life and then you forget
that there you just uh collectively have
created a set of rules for the game that
you're playing you forget that this game
doesn't have to have these rules you can
break them this happens in the uh like
uh in Wall Street like the financial the
financial system everybody starts to
like collectively agree on a set of
rules that they play and they don't
realize like we don't have to be playing
this game it's tough It's really tough
it takes a special kind of human being
as opposed to being a
anti-establishment on everything which
also gets a lot of uh attention
but being just enough anti-establishment
to figure out ideas how to improve the
establishment this is such a tricky
place to operate I agree I I like the
word iconoclastic I think it's important
to be an iconoclast which is to say you
love ideas you're serious about ideas
but you're never comfortable with
consensus
and I write about that in this book I've
written about that actually a lot in the
New York Times too I I think consensus
is overstated
as a as someone who's half Jewish and
have Hindu I don't want to live in a
society where everyone agrees because my
guess is they're going to come after
people like me I want to live in a
society that's pluralistic this is what
Abraham Lincoln was really fighting for
in The Civil Wars but the Civil War was
really about and what my book's about
which is that we need a society where
institutions encourage as you say
different modes of thought and respect
different modes of thought and work
through disagreement so a society should
not be a society where everyone agrees a
Democratic Society should be a society
where people disagree but can still work
together that's the Lincoln vision and
how do you get there I think you get
there by having a historical perspective
always knowing that no matter what
moment you're in and no matter what room
you're in with really smart people there
are always things that are missing we
know that as historians no one is
Clairvoyant and the iconoclast is
looking for the things that have been
forgotten the silence is in the room
and also
I wonder what kind of skill what kind of
process is required for that kind of
class to reveal what is missing to the
rest of the room yeah because it's not
just shouting with a megaphone that
something is missing because nobody will
listen to you
you have to convince them right it's
honestly where I have trouble myself
because I often find myself in that I
kind of classic role and people don't
like to hear it you know I like to
believe that people are acting out of
Goodwill which I think they usually are
and that people are open to new ideas
but you find very quickly even those who
you think are open-minded once they've
committed themselves and put their money
and their reputation on the line they
don't want to hear otherwise so in a
sense what you say is the bigger than
even being an iconoclast that's being
able to persuade and work with people
who are afraid of your ideas yeah I
think the the key is like in
conversations is to get people out of a
defensive position like uh make them
realize we're on the same side we're
brothers and sisters and from that place
I think you just raise the question it's
like a little it's a little a little
thought that just lands and then I've
noticed this time and time again
just a little subtle thing and then
months later it percolates somewhere in
the mind it's like all right well that
little doubt
um because I also realized in these
battles when dip when especially
political battles
people often don't
have folks on their side
like that they can really trust
as a fellow human being to challenge
them that's a very difficult role to be
in and because in these battles you kind
of have a tribe and you have a set of
ideas and there's another tribe you have
a set of ideas and when somebody says
something Conor to your Viewpoint you
almost always want to put them in the
other tribe as opposed to having
truly listening to another person that
takes uh skill But ultimately I think
that's the way to bridge these divides
is having these kinds of conversations
that's why I'm actually
again optimistically believe in the
power of social media to do that if if
you design it well but currently the
battle rages on on Twitter well I think
what you're getting at which is so
important is uh storytelling and uh all
the great leaders that I've studied some
of whom are in this book some of whom
are not right whether they're
politicians social activists technology
technologists
um it's the story that gets people in
people don't respond to an argument
we're trained uh at least in the United
States we're often trained to argue uh
you're you're told in a class okay this
part of the room take this position this
part of the room take this position and
that's helpful because it forces you to
see different sides of the argument but
in fact those on one side never convince
those on the other side through argument
it's through a story that people can
identify with it's when you bring your
argument to life in human terms and
someone again like Abraham Lincoln was a
master at that uh he told stories uh he
found ways to disarm people and to move
them without their even realizing they
were being moved
yeah not make it a debate make it uh
tell a story
that's fascinating because yes one some
of the most convincing politicians I
don't feel like they're arguing a point
they're just telling a story
and it gets in there right
that's right that's right when we look
at what zielinski has done in Ukraine in
response to the Russian invasion and I
know you you were there on the front
lines yourself
um
it's not that he's arguing a position
that persuaded us we already believe
what we believed about Russia
but he's bringing the story of Ukrainian
suffering to life and making us see the
behavior of the Russians that is moving
opinion
around the world
well the interesting stuff sometimes
it's not actually the story told by the
person but the story told about the
person right and some of that could be
propaganda some of that could be uh
legitimate stories which is the
fascinating thing the power of story is
the very power that's leveraged by
Propaganda to convince the populace but
the idea one of the most powerful ideas
when I traveled in Ukraine and in
general to me personally the idea that
President zielinski stayed in Kiev in in
the early days of War on everybody from
his inner circle to the United States
everybody in the western NATO everybody
was telling him uh and even on the
Russian side I I assumed they thought he
would leave he would Escape right and he
didn't
um from foolishness or from heroism I
don't know but if that's the story that
I think United a country and it's such a
small thing right but it's powerful it's
the most basic of all human Stories the
story of human Courage the courage and I
remember watching uh his social media
feed on that and he was standing outside
not even in a bunker standing outside in
Kiev right as the Russian forces are
attacking and saying I'm here
and this minister is here and this
minister is here we're not corrupt we're
not Stooges of the Americans who told us
to leave we're staying because we care
about Ukraine and the story of Courage I
mean that's the story that you know
babies grow up seeing their parents as
courageous right it's the most natural
of all stories and that's also the
stories for better awards that are told
throughout history yeah uh because
stories of courage and uh stories of
evil those the two extremes are the ones
that are kind of it's a nice mechanism
to tell the stories of Wars
um of conflicts of struggles all of it
yeah yeah the tension between those two
and the reason I believe studying
history and writing about history is so
essential it's because it gives us more
stories
uh the problem with much of our world I
think is that we're confronted by data
we're confronted by information and of
course it's valuable but it's easy to
manipulate or misuse information it's
the stories that give us a structure
it's the stories where we find morality
it's the stories where we find political
value and what do you get from studying
history you learn more stories about
more people
yeah I'm a sucker for courage for
stories of Courage like uh I've I've
been in too many rooms I've often seen
too many people
sort of in subtle ways sacrifice their
integrity and did nothing and people
that step up
uh when uh the opinion is unpopular and
they they do something where they really
put themselves on the line whether it's
their money where their well-being I
don't know that gives me hope about
Humanity
um and of course during the war like
Ukraine you see that more and more now
other people have a very cynical
perspective of it that's saying oh those
are just narratives that are constructed
for propaganda purposes and so on but
I've seen it with my own eyes there's
Heroes out there both small and big so
just regular citizens and leaders one
set of Heroes I learned about writing
this book that I didn't know about that
I should have are uh more than one
hundred thousand uh former slaves who
become Union Soldiers during the Civil
War which is an extraordinary story we
think of it as North versus South white
northern troops versus white Southern
troops there are as I said more than a
hundred thousand slaves no education
never anything other than slaves who
flee their plantations join the Union
Army and what I found in the research
and other historians have written about
this too is they become some of the most
courageous soldiers uh because they know
what they're fighting for but there's
something more to it than that it's it
seems in their stories that there there
is a Humanity a human desire for freedom
and a human desire to improve oneself
even for those who have been denied even
the most basic rights for all of their
lives and I think that story should be
inspiring to all of us as a story of
Courage because we all deal with
difficulties but but none of us are
starting from slavery that's really
powerful that that that flame the
Longing For Freedom can't be
extinguished through the generations of
slavery so that's something you talk
about there's some deep sense in which
uh while the war was about in part about
slavery
it's not
the slaves themselves
fought for their freedom and they won
their freedom I don't think it's a war
about slavery I think it's a war about
freedom because if you say it's a war
about slavery then it sounds like it's
an argument between the slave masters
and the other white guys who didn't want
slavery to exist and of course that
argument did exist but it wasn't it was
an argue it was a war over over Freedom
especially after 1863 into the second
year of the war when Lincoln because of
War pressures
uh signs Emancipation Proclamation which
therefore says that
um the Contraband the property of
Southerners I.E they're slaves will now
be freed and brought into the Union Army
that makes it about about Freedom
already the slaves were leaving the
plantations they knew what was going on
and they were going to get out of
slavery as soon as they could but now it
becomes a war over freeing them over
opening that opportunity for them uh and
and that's how the war ends that's
really important right and that's where
we are in our politics today it's the
same debate it's why I wrote this book
uh the challenge of our time is to
understand how do we make our society
open to more freedom for more people
so let's go to the beginning
how did the American Civil War start and
why so the American Civil War starts
because of our flawed institutions the
founders uh had mixed views of slavery
but they wanted a system that would
eventually work its way toward uh
opening for more people of more kinds
not necessarily equality but they wanted
a more open democratic system but our
institutions were designed in ways that
gave disproportionate power to slave
holders in particular states in the
union through the Senate through the
Electoral College through many of the
institutions we talk about in our
politics today therefore that part of
the country was in the words of Abraham
Lincoln holding the rest of the country
hostage
for a poor white man like Abraham
Lincoln born in Kentucky who makes his
way in Illinois slavery was an evil not
just for moral reasons it was an evil
because it denied him Democratic
opportunity
why would anyone hire poor Abe to do
something if they could get a slave to
do it for free
an economy of effort of opportunity for
him had to be an economy that was open
and that did not have slavery
particularly in the new states that were
coming into the Union
Lincoln was one of the creators of the
Republican party which was a party
dedicated to making sure all new
territory
was open to anyone who was willing to
work any male figure who would be paid
for their work Free Labor Free Soil free
men basic capitalism Southerners
southern plantation owners were an
aristocracy that did not want that they
wanted to use slavery and expand slavery
into the new territories what caused the
Civil War to clash and our institutions
that were unable to adapt and continue
to give disproportionate power
to these southern plantation slave
owners the Supreme Court was dominated
by them Senate was dominated by them and
so the Republican Party
came into power as a critique of that
and Southerners unwilling to accept
Southern Confederates unwilling to
accept that change
went to war with the Union
so who was on each side the union
Confederates
what are we talking about what are the
states how many people
uh what's like the the demographics and
the Dynamics of of each side the union
side is much much larger right in terms
of population I have about 22 million
people uh and it is what we would today
recognize as all the states uh basically
uh north of Virginia the south is the
states in the south of the Mason-Dixon
line so Virginia and there on South West
through Tennessee so Texas for example
is in the Confederacy Tennessee's in the
Confederacy uh but other states like
Missouri are border border states and
um the the Confederacy is a much smaller
entity uh it's made up of about nine
million people plus about 4 million
slaves and it is a agricultural economy
whereas the northern economy is a more
industrializing economy interestingly
enough the Confederate states are in
some ways more International than the
northern states because they are
exporters of cotton exporters of tobacco
so they actually have very strong
International economic ties very strong
ties to Great Britain the United States
was the largest source of cotton to the
world before the Civil War Egypt
replaces that a little bit during the
Civil War but all the English textiles
were American cotton from the south and
so uh it is the southern half of what we
would call the eastern part of the
United States today with far fewer
people it's made up the Confederacy is
of landed families wealth in the
Confederacy was land and slaves the
northern United States is made up
predominantly of small business owners
and then larger Financial interests such
as the banks in New York
and what about the military who are the
people that picked out guns what are the
numbers there so the the union also
outnumbered a Confederate by far but
it's a really interesting question
because there's no conscription in the
Constitution uh unlike most other
countries our democracy is formed on the
presumption that human beings should not
be forced to go into the military if
they don't want to most democracies in
the world today actually still require
military service the United States is
very rarely in its history done that
it's not in our constitution so
um during the Civil War in the first
months and years of the Civil War
Abraham Lincoln has to go to
um the different states to the governors
and ask the governors for volunteers
so the men who take up arms especially
in the first months of the war are
volunteers in the North in the South
they're actually conscripted
and then as the war goes on the union
will pass the conscription acts of 1862
and 1863 which for the first time and
this is really important because it
creates new presidential powers for the
first time Lincoln will have
Presidential Power to force men into the
army which is what leads to all kinds of
draft riots in New York and elsewhere
but suffice it to say the Union Army
throughout the war is often three times
the size of the Confederate Army what's
the relationship
between this uh no conscription and
people standing up to fight for ideas
and the Second Amendment a well
regulated militia being necessary to the
security of a free state the right of
the people to keep and bear arms shall
not be infringed
we're in Texas yeah yes so what's the
role of that uh in in this story the
American population is already armed
before the war
and so even though the union and the
Confederate armies will manufacture and
purchase arms it is already an armed
population so uh the American
presumption going into the war is that
citizens will not be forced to serve but
they will serve in militias to protect
their own property and so the Second
Amendment the key part of the Second
Amendment for me as a historian is the
well-regulated militia part the
presumption that citizens as part of
their civic duty do not have a duty to
join a national Army Prussian style but
are supposed to be involved in defending
their communities
uh and that's that's the reality it's
also a bit of a myth
um and so Americans have have throughout
their history been gun owners
not AK-47 owners but gun owners and gun
ownership has been for the purpose of
community self-defense the question
coming out of that is what does that
mean in terms of do you have access to
everything uh Antonin Scalia even
himself asked this question on the
Supreme Court you know he said in one of
the gun gun cases uh you have the right
to defend yourself but you don't have
the right to own an Uzi
yeah you don't have the right to have a
tank I don't think they'd let you park a
tank Lex in your parking spot right I
looked into this I think I think there's
a gray area around tanks actually I
think you're legit allowed to own a tank
oh you really I think that like somebody
look into somebody told me but I could
see like that because it's very
difficult for that to get out of hand
right right okay there may be one guy in
a tank that you could be breaking laws
in terms of the width of the vehicle
that you're using to operate
um anyway that's that's a hilarious
discussion but starting to make the case
speaking of AK-47s and rifles and back
to Ukraine for a second one of the
fascinating social experiments that
happened in Ukraine at the beginning of
the war is they handed out guns to
everybody rifles and crime went down
which I think is really interesting
yeah
I hope somebody does a kind of
psychological data collection analysis
effort here to try to understand why
because it's not obvious to me that in a
time of War if you give guns to the
entire populace anyone who wants a gun
it's not going to especially in a
country who has historically suffered
from corruption not result in robberies
and assaults and all that kind of stuff
there's a deep lesson there now I don't
know if you can extend that lesson
Beyond wartime though right that's the
question what happens after the war I
mean my inclination would be to say that
can work during war but you have to take
the guns back after the war
but they might be very upset when you
try that's the problem no that's
precisely the problem that that's
actually part of the story here I mean
what happens after the Civil War after
Appomattox in 1865 is that many uh
Southern soldiers go home with their
guns and they misuse their weapons uh to
quite frankly shoot and intimidate uh
former slaves who are now citizens this
is a big problem I talk about this in
the book in Memphis in 1866 it is former
Confederate soldiers and police officers
and judges who are responsible for
hundreds of rapes uh within a two-day
period and destroying an entire
community of African Americans and
they're able to do that because they
brought their guns home but underneath
underneath the issue of guns there is
just the fundamental issue of
hatred and inability to see uh other
humans in this in this world as having
equal value is another human being what
was the election of 1860 like that
brought Lincoln to power so the election
of 1860 uh was a very divisive election
we have divisive contested elections
from 1860 really until 1896. the 1860
election is the first election where a
republican is elected president that is
Lincoln but he's elected president with
less than 40 percent of the vote because
you have two sets of Democrats running
Democrats who are out to defend the
Confederacy and everything and then
Democrats who want to compromise but
still keep saying slavery uh most famous
Stephen Douglas who argues for
um basically allowing each state to make
its own decisions popular sovereignty as
he called it um and then you still have
traditional Whigs who are running that
was the party that preceded uh the
Republican party so you're four
candidates Lincoln wins a plurality
Lincoln is elected largely because uh
the states that are anti-slavery or
anti-expansion of slavery are not a
majority but they're a plurality and the
other states have basically uh
factionalized and so they're unable to
have a united front against him was the
main topic a hand slavery I think the
main topic at hand at that time was the
expansion of slavery into new
territories into new territory right it
was not whether to abolish slavery or
not Lincoln is very careful and its
correspondence is clear he wants no one
on his side during the election to say
that he's arguing for abolitionism even
though he personally supported that what
he wants to say is the Republican party
is for no new slave territories did he
make it clear
that he was for abolition no he was
intentionally unclear about that
what do you think he was throughout his
life was there a deep
because that takes quite a vision like
you look at society today
and you it takes quite a man
to see that there's something deeply
broken where a lot of people take for
granted I mean in modern day you could
see factory farming
is one of those things that in a hundred
years we might see is like the torture
of the mass torture of animals could be
uh could be seen as evil but just to
look around and wake up to that
especially in a leadership position uh
yeah was he able to see that in some
ways yes in some ways no I mean the
premise of your question is really
important that
um to us it's obvious that slavery is is
a horror but to those who had grown up
with it who had grown up seeing that it
was hard to imagine a different world so
you're right Lincoln's imagination like
everyone else's was limited by his time
I don't think Lincoln imagined a world
of equality between the races but he had
come to see that slavery uh was horrible
and historians have differed in in how
he came to this uh part of it is that uh
he had a father who treated him like a
slave
and you can see in his early
correspondence how much he hates that
his father who is a struggling farmer
was basically trying to control
Lincoln's life
and he came to understand personally I
think how horrible it is to have someone
else tell you what you should do with
your labor not giving you your own your
own choices but Lincoln was also a
pragmatist this is what made him a great
politician he wanted to work through
institutions not to burn them down
and he famously said that uh if he could
preserve the union and stop the spread
of slavery by allowing slavery to stay
in the South he would if he could do it
by eliminating slavery in the South he
would if he could do it by buying the
slaves and sending them somewhere else
he would his main goal what he ran on
was that the new territories west of
Illinois that they would be areas for
free poor white men like him not slavery
what do you learn about human nature if
you step back and look at the big
picture of it that slavey has been a
part of human civilization for thousands
of years that this American slavery is
not a new phenomenon
I think history teaches us a very
pessimistic and a very optimistic lesson
the pessimistic lesson is that human
beings are capable of doing enormous
harm and brutality to their fellow man
and woman and we see that with genocide
in our world today
dead human beings are capable with the
right stimuli the right incentives
of of enslaving others I mean genocide
is in the same category right
uh the optimistic side
is that human beings are also capable
with proper leadership and governance of
resisting those urges
of putting those energies into
productive uses for other people but I
don't think that comes naturally I think
that's where leadership and institutions
matter but leadership and institutions
can tame us we contain we can civilize
ourselves you know for a long time we
stopped using that verb to civilize I
believe in Civilization I believe
there's a civilizing role Lincoln spoke
of that right so did Franklin Roosevelt
the civilizing role that government
plays education is only a part of that
it's creating laws minimal laws but laws
nonetheless that incentivize and
penalize us for going to the dark side
but if we allow that to happen or we
have leaders who encourage us to go to
the dark side we can very quickly go
down a deep dark tunnel see I believe
that most people want to do good and the
power of Institutions if done well
they encourage and protect you if you
want to do good
so if you're just in the jungle
the so from a game theoretic perspective
you get punished for for doing good
so being extremely self-centered and
greedy and even violent and manipulative
can have from a game theory perspective
uh benefits but I don't think that's
what most humans want institutions allow
you to do what you actually want which
is to do good for the world do good for
others and actually in so doing do good
for yourself
institutions protect that natural human
instinct I think and what you just
articulated which I think the historical
record is very strong on is the classic
liberal position that's what liberalism
means in a 19th century sense right that
you believe in civilizing human beings
through institutions that begins with
education kindergarten is an institution
laws uh and and just basic habits that
are enforced by Society
how do you think people thought about
the idea
how do they Square the idea of all men
are created equal those very powerful
words uh at the founding of this nation
how do they square that with slavery
for many Americans saying all men were
created equal required slavery because
it meant that uh the equality of white
people was dependent upon others doing
the work for us in the way some people
View Animal labor today and maybe in 50
years we'll see that as a contradiction
but the notion among many Americans in
the 17th 18th century and this would
also be true for those in other
societies was that equality for white
men
meant that you had access to the labor
of others that would allow you to
equalize other differences
so uh you could produce enough food so
your family could live equally well
nourished as other families because you
had slaves on the land doing the farming
for you this is Thomas Jefferson's world
so it's like animal farm all animals are
equal but some are more equal than
others that's right and I think that's
that's still the way people view things
yeah right I don't know if that's a
that's a liberal position or it's just a
human position that um
that all humans have equal value
just on the basic level of like of
humanity
but do we really believe that I we want
to I don't know ourselves I don't know
if our society really believes that yet
and I don't know exactly I mean it's
super complicated of course
um when you realize the amount of
suffering that's going on in the world
where there's children dying from
starvation in Africa and to say that all
humans are equal well a few dollars can
save that life and and instead we buy a
Starbucks coffee and we are willing to
pay 10 50 100 000 to save a child our
child like uh somebody from our family
and don't want to spend two dollars to
save a child over in Africa right so
there's and uh I think Sam Harris or
others have talked about like well I
want I don't want to live in a world
where we'd rather send two dollars to
Africa there's something deeply human
about saving those that are really close
to you the ones we love so that like
hypocrisy
that seems to go attention with the
basic ethics of alleviating suffering in
the world that's also really human
that's also part of this ideal
of all men are created equal it's a
complicated messy World ethically it it
is but I mean I think at least the way I
think about it is so what are the things
even within our own Society
where we choose to do something with our
resources that actually doesn't help the
lives of many people so we we invest in
all kinds of things that are often
because someone is lobbying for them
this happens on both sides of the aisle
this is not a political statement right
rather than saying you know if we
invested a little more of our money
really a little more we can make sure
every child in this country had decent
Health Care
we can make sure every child in this
country had what they need needed to
start life healthy
and that would not require us to
sacrifice a lot but it would require us
to sacrifice a few things
yeah there's a balance there and I also
noticed the passive aggressive statement
you're making about how I'm spending my
money you know me too spending it a
little more wisely
I I you know I like to eat nice meals at
nice restaurants uh so I'm I'm as guilty
of this as you are
I got a couch and that couch serves no
purpose it looks nice though no it's so
nice it's a nice looking cow so it's
actually very clean I got it for
occasional Instagram photos to look like
an adult okay
because everything else in my life is a
giant mess
what role did the ideas of the founding
documents of this country play in this
war the war between the union and the
Confederate States
and the founding ideas that were
supposed to be unifying to this country
is there is there interesting tensions
there well there were certainly tensions
because built into the founding
documents of course is slavery and
inequality and women's exclusion from
voting and things of that sort uh but
the real Brilliance of Abraham Lincoln
is to build on the Brilliance of the
founders and turn the union position
into this into the defense of the core
ideas of the country so the Confederacy
is defending one idea the idea of
slavery
Lincoln takes the basket of all the
deeper ideas and puts them together
three things the war is about for
Lincoln and this is why his speeches
still resonate with us today you know
every time I'm in Washington I go to the
Lincoln Memorial
it's the best Memorial the best Monument
I think in the world actually and
um there are always people there
reading Gettysburg address and the
second inaugural Lincoln had two years
of education yet he found the words to
describe what our country was about
better than anyone and it's because he
went back to these founding values three
values we already talked about one
freedom
that uh and freedom is is actually
complex but it's also simple
uh the simple Lincoln definition is that
freedom is the right of each person to
work for himself
or herself which is to say it doesn't
mean you own your own company but it
means you control your labor
and no one can tell you you have to work
for a certain wage
you might not have a job but you decide
you decide right you can see where that
comes from his own background as a poor
man right so freedom is control of your
own labor
second democracy government of the
People by the people for the people the
government is to serve the peoples to
come from the people
and then the third Point Justice and
helping all human beings
he at the end of his life as the Civil
War is ending he never declares that the
South should be punished his argument is
that we shouldn't apologize for their
misdeeds but that all should be part of
this future he's not arguing for
consensus he's arguing for a society
where everyone has a stake going forward
so Justice democracy Freedom those are
those those are the gifts I talked about
the flaws in our system those are the
the virtues in our system that our
Founders coming out of the Enlightenment
planted and and Lincoln carries them
forward he gives us the 2.0 version of
them
so a few uh tangent questions about each
of those so one on democracy
um people often bring up the United
States as a democracy it's a republic
um that it's representative is there
some interesting tensions there in
terminology or is
um yeah can you maybe kind of expand on
the different versions of democracy
um so the philosophy of democracy but
also the Practical implementations of it
sure the founders intended for us to be
a democracy this argument that they
wanted us to be a republican sort of a
democracy is one of these made up myths
um they believed that fundamentally what
they were creating was a society very
few of which had existed before a
society where the government would be of
the People by the people for the people
that's what they expected right that's
what I meant so the legitimacy of our
government was not going to be that the
person in charge was of Royal Blood
that's the way the Europeans did it or
did the person in charge had killed
enough people Allah gang is gone or that
the person in charge uh was serving a
particular class it was that the person
in charge the institutions were to serve
Serve the People they adopted Republican
tools to get there
because they were fearful appropriately
of Simply throwing every issue up to the
masses democracy is not mob rule
democracy is where you create procedures
to assess the public will
and to act in ways that serve the public
without harming other elements of the
public that are not in the majority
that's why we have a constitution and a
Bill of Rights and at that for their
time the founders did not believe that
women should be part of this discussion
that they were not capable they were
wrong about that in their time that's
how they thought we've of course changed
that they believed you had to have
property to have a stake we don't
believe that anymore so we can argue
over the details and and those 50 years
from now will criticize us right for the
way we think about these things but it
was fundamentally about this is the
radicalism of the American experiment
that government should Serve the People
all people so democracy means of the
People by the people for the people and
then it doesn't actually
give any details of how you implement
that because you could Implement all
kinds of voice and I think what we've
learned as historians I think what the
founders knew because they were very
well read in the history of Rome and
Greece was that democracy will always
have unique characteristics for the
culture that it's in
um
if coming out of the war against Russia
Ukraine is able to build a better
democracy than it had before it's never
going to look like the United States
is I'm not saying it's gonna be worse or
better a culture matters the particular
history of societies uh matters uh Japan
is a vibrant democracy I've been there
many times uh it it does not look at all
like the American democracy so so
democracy is a set of values the
implementation of those values is a set
of practical institutional decisions one
makes based in one's cultural position
so just the link on that topic is there
if you do representative you said like
you know democracy should not one
failure mode is Mob rule
so you should not descend into that not
every issue should be up to everybody
correct okay so you have a
representation but you know uh
Stalin
similarly felt that he could represent
the interests of the public he was also
helping represent the interests of the
public so that's a failure mode too the
if if the people representing the public
become more and more powerful they start
becoming detached from uh from actually
being able to represent or having just a
basic human sense of what the public
wants I I think being of the People by
the people for the people means you are
in some way accountable to the people
and the problem with the Communist Party
of the Soviet Union this was already
evident before Stalin came into power is
the same problem the Communist Party of
China has today which is that you have
leadership that's non-accountable
well let me go then to one of the other
three principles of freedom because one
of the ways to keep government
accountable is the freedom of the press
so there's a the internet and on the
internet there's social networks and one
of them is called Twitter I think you
have an account there people should
follow you and uh you know recently
people have been throwing around
recently for a while the words of
freedom of speech uh just out of
curiosity uh for tangent upon a tangent
uh what do you think of freedom of
speech as it is today and as it was at
that time during the Civil War after the
Civil War throughout the history of of
America so freedom of speech has always
been one of the core tenets of American
democracy and I'm near absolutist on it
uh because I I think that people should
have the right to speak uh what what
makes our democracy function is that
there is always room for quite frankly
people like you and me who uh like to
disagree and have reasons to disagree so
I am against almost all forms of
censorship the only time I believe in
censorship is if somehow an individual
or a new newspaper has stolen the
Ukrainian plans for their next military
movements in the next week you should
not be able to publish that right now
maybe after they act but criticism
opinion interpretation should be wide
open now that doesn't mean though that
um you have the right to come to my
classroom and start shouting and saying
whatever you want yeah you have the
right on the street corner to do that
but my classroom is a classroom for my
students with a particular purpose sorry
about that from last week I'll never do
it again
I'm really sorry it's okay it never
happened you know we get drunk so the
people who don't know your your
professor UT Austin is just it's nearby
so sometimes I I get a little drunk and
wander in there I'm not the only one is
that you I didn't even know it was you
okay
um so the point is that free speech is
not licensed to invade someone else's
space and and I also believe in private
Enterprise so I think that um
you know if if if I owned a social media
Network I don't
it would be up to me to decide
who gets to speak on that Network and
who doesn't and then people could decide
not to use it
if they don't want to use it but there's
uh so yes that's one of the founding
principles so oftentimes when you talk
about censorship that's government uh
censorship so social media if you run a
social media company you should be able
to decide from a technical perspective
of what freedom of speech means but
there's some deeper ethical
philosophical
sense of
how do you create a world where
every voice is heard of the People by
the people for the people that's not a
that's a complicated technical problem
when you have a Public Square how do you
have a productive conversation where
critics aren't silenced but the same
time Whoever has the bigger megaphone is
not going to crowd out everybody else so
I think it's very important to uh create
rules of the game that'll give everyone
a chance to get started and that allow
for guideposts to be created from the
will of the community which is to say
that we as a community can say We Can't
Stop people from speaking but we as a
community can say that in certain forms
we're going to create certain rules for
who gets to speak and who doesn't under
what terms but they can still have
somewhere else to go so I'm I believe in
Opening space for everyone but creating
certain spaces within those spaces that
are designed for certain purposes that's
what a school does so I will not bring
someone to speak to my students who is
unqualified it's not a political
judgment the rules at a university are
where an educational institution you
need to have the educational credentials
to come speak about artificial
intelligence I'm not going to bring some
bum off the street to do that right we
have certain rules but that bomb on the
street can still in his own space or her
own space can still say what he or she
wants to say about artificial
intelligence this is how newspapers work
when I write for the New York Times They
have an editorial team the editorial
team make certain decisions they check
facts and there's certain points of view
they don't allow anti-submitted comments
right you're not going to be able to
publish an anti-semitic screed whether
you think it's true or not true in the
New York Times but that doesn't prevent
you from finding somewhere else so we
allow entities to create certain rules
of the game we trans we make transparent
what those rules are and then we as
Citizens know where to go to get our
information what's what's been a problem
the last few decades I think is it
hasn't been clear what the rules are in
different places and what are the
legitimate places to get information and
what are not yeah the transparency seems
to be very critical there even from the
New York Times I think there's a lot of
skepticism about which way the editorial
processes lean I mean there's a public
perception that it's especially for
opinions it's going to be very
left-leaning in the New York Times and
without transparency
about what the process is like about the
people involved you all you do like
conspiracy theories and and the general
public opinion about that is going to go
go wild
and uh I think that's okay for the New
York Times people can in a collective
way figure stuff out like they could say
okay New York Times uh 73 of the time is
gonna lean left in their head they have
like a loose estimation or whatever uh
but for a platform like Twitter it seems
like they're it's more complicated now
of course there should be rules of the
game but I think there's um
maybe I want to say a responsibility to
also create incentives for people to do
High effort empathetic debate
versus throwing poop at each other yeah
I think those are two slightly different
things so I agree
I think that my view is that the failure
of Facebook and Twitter and others and
in recent years has been that they have
been completely untransparent about
their rules so what I would think would
make would Advance us
is if they had a set of rules that were
clear that were consistently followed
and we understood what they were
that would also tell us as consumers
how much what the biases are how to
understand what's going on it seems like
I might say that since Elon Musk is
taken over Twitter it's been arbitrary
and who's thrown off and who's not
thrown off who's and that's that's a
real problem arbitrariness is in some
ways the opposite of dem