Scott Hershovitz on Making Philosophy Practical | Assume Everyone Is Lying

Ryan reads today’s daily meditation and talks to Scott Hershovitz about his new book Nasty, Brutish, and Short: Adventures in Philosophy with Kids, the common misconceptions about philosophy, how to apply philosophy to actual life, and more. Scott writes about law and philosophy. His academic work has appeared in the Harvard Law Review, The Yale Law Journal, and Ethics, among other places. He also writes occasional essays about philosophy for the New York Times. Before joining the Michigan faculty, Hershovitz served as a law clerk to Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg of the United States Supreme Court and an attorney-advisor on the appellate staff of the Civil Division of the United States Department of Justice. The book follows an agenda set by Scott’s two sons, Rex and Hank. He takes us on a journey through classic and contemporary philosophy, powered by questions like, Does Hank have the right to drink soda? When is it okay to swear? And, Does the number six exist? Scott and his boys take on more weighty issues too. They explore punishment, authority, sex, gender, race, the nature of truth and knowledge, and the existence of God. Along the way, they get help from professional philosophers, famous and obscure. And they show that all of us have a lot to learn from listening to kids—and thinking with them. Kion Aminos is backed by over 20 years of clinical research, has the highest quality ingredients, no fillers or junk, undergoes rigorous quality testing, and tastes amazing with all-natural flavors. Go to getkion.com/dailystoic to save 20% on subscriptions and 10% on one-time purchases. Go to shopify.com/stoic, all lowercase, for a FREE fourteen-day trial and get full access to Shopify’s entire suite of features. Grow your business with Shopify today - go to shopify.com/stoic right now. MUD WTR is a coffee alternative with 4 adaptogenic mushrooms and ayurvedic herbs with 1/7th the caffeine of a cup of coffee. Go to mudwtr.com/STOIC and use code STOIC to get 15% off your first purchase. Talkspace is an online and mobile therapy company. Visit talkspace.com and get $100 off your first month when you use promo code STOIC at sign-up. That’s $100 off at talkspace.com, promo code STOIC. Sign up for the Daily Stoic email: https://dailystoic.com/dailyemailCheck out the Daily Stoic Store for Stoic inspired products, signed books, and more. Follow us: Instagram, Twitter, YouTube, TikTok, FacebookSee Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

• 0:02Speaker 00

  Welcome to the Daily Stoic Podcast where each weekday we bring you a meditation inspired by the ancient Stoics, a short passage of ancient wisdom designed to help you find strength and insight here in everyday life. And on Wednesdays, we talk to some of our fellow students of ancient philosophy, well-known and obscure, fascinating and powerful. With them, we discuss the strategies and habits that have helped them become who they are, and also to find peace and wisdom in their actual lives. But first, we've got a quick message from one of our sponsors.

• 0:40Speaker 01

  Assume everyone is lying. You've probably caught yourself doing it. Life has been rough or depressing, but your social media feed looks awesome. Someone asks you how much money you make, or how sales on your project were, and you round up quite a bit. Or maybe you're similarly generous when you talk about your sexual conquests, or commensurately stingy with your weight. Obviously, this sort of deceit is not a good thing, and we should all try to stop it. But what's interesting is how when we compare ourselves to other people, we rarely stop to consider that they are probably lying too. You think those Instagram influencers actually live like their photos look? You think it's not in their financial

• 1:24Speaker 01

  interest to make their career seem more lucrative and stable than it actually is? And yet, there we are, feeling envious or insecure. You think it's good business for your competitors to talk about how much trouble they're having lately? You think that athletes and CEOs are actually working that grinding schedule they talk so much about? That it's not just basic myth-making, or a way of psyching out competition? You think that artist or actor in the middle of a whirlwind press junket is going to admit that they're not happy? Or shoot down the wildly inflated rumors of how much they got paid? Of course not. Marcus Aurelius talked about how even though we are all selfish people, we seem to care about other people's opinions more than our own.

• 2:09Speaker 01

  We know that we are prone to exaggeration and posturing, but we seem to have a blind spot for the fact that everyone else is doing this too. It's like the missile gap that John F. Kennedy campaigned on. He just couldn't wrap his head around the fact that the Soviets were lying, that their system was falling apart, that they weren't ahead of the US. They were laughably behind. We'd all do better and be happier if we realized that this kind of deceit is incredibly common. Everyone is lying about what they make, about how confident they feel, about how hard they work, about how well things are going. Stop comparing yourself to these lies. Stop thinking about them at all. Focus on your own truth.

• 2:53Speaker 00

  Hey, it's Ryan Holiday. Welcome to another episode of the Daily Stoic Podcast. Dealing with something over at my house over here. We came home and I don't know if I ever told the story of how we ended up living on a farm, but basically we bought this goat and the goat was the gateway animal that ended up with us living out in the country. And we came home and found our very beloved goats that we've had for almost a decade now. To say they were not alive would be an understatement of the graphic brutality in which they had been dispatched by a pack of wild dogs, which is one of the least pleasant elements of living out here in the country

• 3:37Speaker 00

  and terrible way for them to go. Obviously, we talk about memento mori here at Daily Stoic quite a bit, and it was a gruesome reminder of the fragility of life and how, as Epictetus says, we don't possess our precious possessions or people in this life. Anyways, this sort of reminded me of today's guest in the sense that you can imagine it spurred some sensitive conversations with the kids who've grown up having these goats their whole lives. One of my sons laughed and said, "Why didn't they use their horns?" Which is not a terrible question, but it pulls up today's guest because philosophy,

• 4:17Speaker 00

  although often used to ask interesting provocative questions, I think is best used to ask practical questions to deal with the stuff that happens, the senselessness of a death, the insensitivity or the cruelty of the people who would, you know, mistreat animals in the way that whatever led up to these wild dogs running around. All of that is to bring me to today's guest, Scott Hershovitz, who wrote this amazing new book, Nasty, Brutish, and Short: Adventures in Philosophy with Kids. The book basically follows a series of philosophical conversations that Scott has with his two precocious sons, Rex and Hank, and it takes us on a journey through classic and contemporary philosophy powered

• 5:02Speaker 00

  by questions like, what do we have the right to do? When is it okay to do this or that? They explore punishment and authority and sex and gender and race and the nature of truth and knowledge and the existence of God and the meaning of life. And Scott just does an incredible job writing this book. He's more than qualified to write it. He writes about law and philosophy. His academic work has appeared in the Harvard Law Journal, the Yale Law Journal, among other places. I read a great piece that he wrote in the New York Times. He was a law clerk for Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg on the US Supreme Court and was an attorney advisor on the appellate staff of the Civil Division of the United States Department of Justice. He's a legit philosopher, whereas I just play one on this

• 5:45Speaker 00

  podcast. And I use the, you know, nasty, brutish, and short is of course referencing Hobbes, but having to explain the reality of that to my kids this week was not the most fun, but that's what we practice this philosophy for. You can go to scotthershawitz.com. You can follow him on Twitter, S. Hershovitz, and check out his new book, Nasty, Brutish, and Short: Adventures in Philosophy with Kids. Even if you don't have kids, it's just a great philosophy book. I very much enjoyed it, and I think you're going to enjoy this interview.

• 6:22Speaker 00

  I very much enjoyed the book and I have a six-year-old and a soon-to-be three-year-old. So a lot of the attitude of the nasty, brutish, and short people in your book, it certainly resonated with me.

• 6:34Speaker 02

  You were in the sweet spot of my favorite age. I am in some ways jealous. My kids are now nine and 12.

• 6:40Speaker 00

  I just finished a book that I was writing and so I'd been home a little bit more than I usually was. And my son was like, sort of sitting there doing an art project and he just, without looking up, he says, "Dad, I'm sorry you got fired." And I was like, "What?" And he's like, "I'm sorry you got fired from your job writing books." And I was like, "What are you talking about?" And he just assumed that because I'd been home not writing, that it was sort of all over. And he was apologizing, but it didn't seem to bother him. There was no existential worry or dread about it. It was just like the perfunctory apology and then let me get back to my writing.

• 7:13Speaker 02

  That's phenomenal. It's curious, like, what's going on in his head? He's expressing sadness for you, though experiencing none himself.

• 7:20Speaker 00

  That's exactly right. You know, what I loved about the book, and I think the premise is spot on, which is not just that children are naturally a bit philosophical, but I think when I read the ancients, there is a childlikeness to them because, first off, philosophy didn't have 2,000 years to become very pretentious and prestigious and all these things. But also, I feel like since so much of the low-hanging fruit had not yet been picked, I mean, obviously Aristotle and all these people are brilliant, but it's really just like, it's, some of these things are just like shower thoughts. They're just like the things that would occur to a person if they were sitting there thinking, but because no one had written them down,

• 8:04Speaker 00

  it was all virgin territory.

• 8:06Speaker 02

  Yeah, that hits something I find myself saying a ton, because one of the things I do in the book is I show my kids, other kids, kind of recreating these ancient arguments. And I find myself saying all the time, if you don't have any modern science, right, you haven't been tutored in like how these debates have been going, of course, the ideas that you're going to hit on first are the ideas that ancient philosophers had. They're kind of like the first draft thoughts, which doesn't mean to say that their first draft thoughts doesn't mean that they're bad thoughts. Often they're amazing thoughts, but that's why kids are having them. It's like, you know, you're brand new, this is what you're going to think.

• 8:39Speaker 00

  And we don't actually know that Aristotle or whomever was the first one to think of this, because somebody 500 miles over east or west could have had the same thought. And then their papyrus was destroyed and we don't get to credit anyone else.

• 8:53Speaker 02

  Yeah, that's right. And actually, there's a moment in the chapter on infinity where I recount my older son Rex recreating this ancient argument about the size of the universe. And I say it's first credited to Archetas, but I'm guessing some seven year old thought of it first. So it may not even be some adult who wrote it on the papyrus who had it.

• 9:09Speaker 00

  Yeah, that's one of my favorite scenes in the office. Michael Scott goes, you know, when I was five, I imagined there was such a thing as a unicorn. And this is before I'd ever even heard of one. And I drew the picture. And he's like, I was five, five. Like, he's like, I independently created the unicorn. Obviously, I was a genius.

• 9:28Speaker 02

  Yeah, that's awesome. I mean, one thing, I think, actually, I cut this passage in the end, but in an earlier draft of the book, just talking about like kids' ability to recreate these ancient arguments. I think like we get too wrapped up in who gets credit for what ideas, especially in academic philosophy and noticing that like even the tiniest people can come up with some of these famous arguments. I hope for some of my colleagues could be a kind of therapy to release you from your obsession with, do I get credit for being the first person to have said that? You almost surely weren't.

• 9:58Speaker 00

  Well, I remember a couple of years ago, I went and I gave a talk to the Pittsburgh Pirates at their spring training facility in Florida. And they had this quote on the wall in the way that like lots of sports teams have those sort of sports cliches or aphorisms. And it said, it's not things that upset us, it's our opinion about things. And I was there to talk about Stoicism. And I was like, you know, this quote is from Epictetus. Like, this is just a slightly tweaked quote from Epictetus. But it had been passed down to them as some sort of just bit of wisdom that had always existed, which is what I think the really good ideas do. They just become part of the human toolkit.

• 10:38Speaker 00

  It's like, a lot of cliches are cliches for a reason, because they speak to some truth or perennial sort of observation about human beings.

• 10:49Speaker 02

  Yeah, I think that's true. And I don't think it's an idea, like, if you're exploring idea space, chances are, ideas that are good are going to be ideas that people hit on over and over again. And as it turns out, you know, even kids are going to hit on some of those ideas.

• 11:02Speaker 00

  Yeah. The other thing I thought was good about the book is like, it's very funny, obviously, because kids are funny. But like, Philosophy, I think, done well, is also funny. Like, it doesn't have to be this sort of pretentious, self-serious, pondering thing. It's funny.

• 11:18Speaker 02

  Yeah, so I try and teach philosophy in a way that's fun and funny, and I'm hoping to show off that side of the field, side of the field to a broader audience. I mean, these questions about like, what are the limits of being human? And what are the nature of our foibles? They just are like inherently the stuff of humor. So I'm completely in agreement with you. And actually, there's one of my favorite chapters in the book is a chapter on language, which is about bad language and swearing. And it wasn't originally intended to be part of the book. It wasn't in the sort of draft table of contents I had. But my editor was telling me that I was swearing too much. And so the chapter is there as a repost to her of what do you mean too much? What would be too much? Let's think about whether this is really bad and why.

• 12:03Speaker 02

  And again, it was like something that I totally have fun with. And actually, one of my favorite stories about my boys is in that chapter. But it's also just an illustration, like they're philosophical questions about everything, including whether I'm dropping too many F-bombs.

• 12:17Speaker 00

  I joked about this the other day to someone. I accused them of swear shaming me. I was like, you would never make fun of someone's accent, right? And this is just how I learned to talk. It's not a conscious thing that I'm doing. This is culturally where I'm from. This is how I've done it for a long time. It's, I'm not choosing to be profane. It's like, this is just, I just said, like a bunch of times, I'm from Northern California. This is how I learned to talk. Yes, I could unlearn how to do it. But I thought we were getting to a place as a society where we just let people be who they are. And we didn't shame them for things that don't really matter.

• 12:54Speaker 02

  Yeah, I grew up similarly in a household where swear words were just a common form of communication. And they didn't carry the significance that they often carry in the outside world. We just moved past them pretty quickly. But even that said, like, there are places that I do and don't swear just because like, you know, the rest of the world doesn't have your communication, your communication conventions. So I bet you adjust too.

• 13:18Speaker 00

  I adjust, but I do find that often it is in the most sort of prestigious or serious of environments that the well timed swear word has the maximum impact and power. It's weirdly, I use it unconsciously in my daily life and then I consciously use it like when I'm giving a talk or something because I know people are drifting and it it's sort of, it breaks through the noise in a way that almost nothing else does.

• 13:47Speaker 02

  Yeah, absolutely. Like the words carry this like emotional punch that no other form of speech do. It's actually arguing the middle of the book. It's like, I'm not going to prohibit my kids from swearing. I want them to be good at it. And it's not something I can give them rules for, but like they can experiment and they'll learn, they'll learn like when the moment is to do the unexpected thing that as you say, sort of breaks through.

• 14:08Speaker 00

  And I think kids unconsciously pick up on that where they realize that parents, there's almost nothing more funny to a parent than a child appropriately using a curse word in an inappropriate scenario. You know, when you get a, what the fuck was that? From like a three year old, you're just like, and you just can't control yourself.

• 14:29Speaker 02

  For sure. And actually, that's what the story is in the chapter is, you know, I was telling my kids a story about my grandfather, which required me to use a word that I knew that my youngest one didn't know. And so we told him what it was and we explained it to him and then we invited him to practice using it. And he was like, at first a little shy about it, then seriously into it. And his older brother was horrified because he spent years trying to shield his, shield his younger brother from using this word. I, I won't spoil what's in the book. Uh, but we discovered that evening that the older one was a seriously good swear. And it was both like a source of great humor and a source of great pride.

• 15:04Speaker 00

  Back to the funny thing, I was actually just going through some notes. I was rereading Seneca's On The Shortness Of Life this morning. And he tells this story about this sort of fat Roman who's being carried through Rome on a litter, uh, you know, the other thing. And, and he's sort of so spoiled that he ends up saying to his attendants, he goes, am I sitting down yet? And Seneca says, if you don't know whether you're sitting or standing, how do you know whether you're actually alive or not? Right? And I first read that many years ago and it stuck with me and rereading it again, I was just struck by, there's almost a stand-up comedy level of sort of timing and choice of story.

• 15:43Speaker 00

  I feel like a lot of the best philosophical lessons and stories are told in precisely that, the sort of story with like the perfect punchline that just punctures the pretense of someone, or the way you would think about something, or something you'd ordinarily take for granted. I really feel like the best philosophers are not just funny, but they use humor as a way to teach important things.

• 16:08Speaker 02

  Yeah, so this book came to be partly out of my attempts to do that with my teachings. So I'm a philosopher of law. I teach a lot about authority, punishment, revenge, stuff like that. And I could come in and I could start talking about like the academic philosophy that I designed and get kind of engagement at one level. But if I came in and I said, let me tell you about this crazy thing that one of my kids did, and just how utterly like and completely our attempt to respond failed. And then let's have a conversation about like what I could have done differently and what I should have been trying to accomplish. Then suddenly, like my students are having the exact same conversation that we could have had with academic philosophy, but they're much more engaged. They're in a much better mood because kids are funny and fun.

• 16:52Speaker 02

  Throughout my writing, and especially in this book, it's always like, okay, I can write the dry introduction to this topic, but can I find the story that just makes it come alive and makes everyone want to think about the philosophical issue that's embedded in that story?

• 17:07Speaker 00

  Well, that is kind of a difficult hurdle that I think anyone trying to write philosophy to a large audience is dealing with. And you talk, you open the book with, you know, your kid shouting, I need a philosopher, I need a philosopher. And to spoil the punchline, he actually needs his teeth flossed and doesn't understand exactly what that word means. But I found that like, people don't think they need philosophy. They think, I have problems. I'm confused about this. I want to know what to do in this situation. It just happens. That's actually what philosophy is for and does well. So it's this tension where people don't think they need philosophy and think it's dry and impractical and boring and all these other things.

• 17:52Speaker 00

  And it actually just happens that that all those things presented in a slightly different context or from a slightly different angle, suddenly people are like, yeah, you tell the story about your kids, you're like, oh, that I relate to that, that explains something that gives me some insight. And so I think the tension for philosophers is like, are you speaking to other philosophers? Or are you speaking to real people in the real world? And if you do it right, it can be much more usable than people think.

• 18:20Speaker 02

  I think people actually are doing philosophy all the time, and they just don't realize they're doing philosophy. So there was this video of, I think, Gabe Kepler, like a player for the San Francisco Giants, circulating around Twitter a couple of weeks ago, where he was arguing that if you have a beard, you also have a mustache. And a colleague of mine tweeted out that this is analytic philosophy, like, he's trying to figure out what a mustache is. And, you know, my kid has been having this debate with his friends, I think a lot of people have been having lately about like, whether a hot dog is a sandwich. Those are kind of like low stakes, frivolous, like engagements with philosophy. But a lot of the questions that people struggle with in their daily lives of like, what would a good life look for me? That's just also straightforward philosophy. And it's kind

• 19:05Speaker 02

  of frustrating that people think the philosophy is this like, a topic disengaged from life that couldn't actually be useful when it's often what people most need.

• 19:14Speaker 00

  Well, yeah, I think people think philosophy is like, how do I know if this is a beard or a mustache? Or how do we know if we're living in a computer simulation or not? And not like, what should I do about my temper? Or is it right to do X, Y, or Z? You know, I think we think about it as these abstract questions, because those are the ones that are the most unsolvable. And in fact, philosophy's made a lot of progress on a lot of other questions that you kind of take for granted. Or, by the way, Christianity stole from the philosophers and just made it a religious, you know, like a settled religious question as opposed to a Thing they were talking about centuries before Christ. So people don't think of philosophy

• 19:56Speaker 00

  as this thing that's tackling the serious questions. But I mean, that's what Socrates was doing. He was just going around asking people questions, trying to get to the bottom of stuff.

• 20:04Speaker 02

  Yeah, for sure. And I think I am more sympathetic than you perhaps to the, are we in a computer simulation? Or is a beard a part of a mustache? Because I like these puzzles that would show us like the limits of our knowledge, or the limits of our language. In part, I think I like them because I'm a lawyer, right? So I see those same kinds of disputes, like if you have a beard, do you also have a mustache? Are exactly the kinds of linguistic disputes that'll pop up in legal cases all the time. And so thinking about like, how we might go about answering them, actually does turn out to have practical consequences. But you're right to emphasize that the like, one of the major tasks of philosophy is just to ask, how should you be in the world?

• 20:47Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 20:47Speaker 02

  And people are pervasively interested in that question and not realizing that philosophy is a place you can go for help.

• 20:53Speaker 00

  I find those puzzles are very interesting as well. When you're saying like, people do philosophy all the time and don't know it. Yes, they also ask questions like that. But to go to the sports thing again, it's like, you get that that same player after the game, you know, they're like, what, how do you feel? You guys got blown out? And he's like, I'm just gonna try to focus on what I control. And it's like, that is a central philosophical principle as well. Right? So even these basic, I think people just coping strategies for being a human in the world. A lot of these things also have philosophical precedence as well.

• 21:26Speaker 02

  For sure. Yeah, completely agree.

• 21:28Speaker 00

  So I was thinking about this. So right, I'm right now in the middle of a series on the cardinal virtues. That's what I'm writing. So I just did courage. And then I finished, although it's not out yet, went on self discipline or temperance. But now I'm beginning to think about and prep what I think will probably be the hardest book in the series, which is about justice. So what can your kids tell me and the listeners about justice as a virtue? Because the book is filled with lots of interesting debates about justice. Because I feel like that is the thing kids are most concerned about. Like, is this fair? Like, why does it have to be this way? Who says, you know, what your son kept saying is, I don't have any rights. So we are naturally concerned, if

• 22:12Speaker 00

  not obsessed with the idea of justice. What do you think kids have to teach us in this regard?

• 22:16Speaker 02

  One of the triggering episodes for me thinking like, oh, there's like really a way to use these stories about my kids to communicate broader ideas about philosophy was a conversation I had with my younger son Hank when he was three. And he was home from school because school was closed and we were just like hanging out in bed. And he tells me this story about something that happened the day before. He says, this kid, Kayden, called me a fluffer doofer. And then the teacher came to talk to me. And I'm like, well, did you talk to Kayden too? And he says, no. And I was like, well, why did you talk to you not to Kayden? Over the course of like, you know, it's like an interrogation. Eventually, what comes out is, he won't say what he did, but Hank did something mean to Kayden because Kayden said something mean to him. And at some point, I just say to him, Hank, did you think it

• 22:59Speaker 02

  was okay to do something mean to Kayden? Because he said something mean to you. And he looked at me like I was the stupidest person in the world and said, yes, he called me a fluffer doofer. As if it's like that was a complete explanation. And so my academic philosophy is partly about how do we right wrongs? Just how should we think about responding to wrongdoings? And so I got super interested in Hank. And you're like, why does it just, why does it strike him as so obvious that the thing to do is respond to somebody who's done something mean to you by doing something mean back? You know, there's a kind of like a journey over the course of the chapter. I think there's kind of two reasons or two things that Hank is after, even if he's not able fully to articulate them. One is a kind

• 23:44Speaker 02

  of like deterrence. You know, if Kayden gets away with this, he'll think he can do it again. Other people may see him get away with this and they may think he can get away with it. I think that's part of it. I think there's something deeper going on, which is it's about self-respect. That, you know, like you don't want to be the kind of kid that can be called a fluffer doofer or is regarded by others as a fluffer doofer. And so like doing something back is a way of rejecting this message. You know, I think like, one thing we can learn from kids is you try and think like, what's important to him in that situation? What's he after? And then also, like, you can ask, like, well, are there any other ways to get what we're after that don't involve taking revenge? And that's where the chapter ends up with the suggestion that like among adults, legal

• 24:27Speaker 02

  practices like civil lawsuits, practices of punishment are ways of Sort of rejecting the messages that wrongdoing sends, you know, without, you know, individuals having to take, uh, having to take violent revenge.

• 24:39Speaker 00

  Or, or setting in motion a cycle of retribution, right? It's like, it's interesting how quickly we get into these fundamental questions of like civil society, which is like, you know, an eye for an eye. And then, but that makes the whole world blind, right? Like, or, or you get into like the universal imperative. It's like, well, what if everyone did that, right? Like, all of a sudden, I think, and this is what makes the book so interesting is like, these little questions, like a kid just sort of pulls on this little thread. And then all of a sudden they're tapping into like huge philosophical principles that like the smartest people in the world have been wrestling with for hundreds of years.

• 25:16Speaker 02

  Yeah, so I teach this case, my very first day of my tort law class from 1872. One guy spits on another guy in open court. And actually it's like a wealthy guy that spits on a poorer guy. And then the poorer guy sues him for battery. And the court's judgment award was a thousand dollars, which in 1872 was an astronomical sum of money. And in defending the judgment, the Illinois Supreme Court upholds the judgment and they say that we need to have liberal damages available in this case. So as to save the necessity of the resort to private violence, just Hank's view that like, if nothing else is going to happen, right? Then it's not just maybe desirable, but in Hank's view and in the court's view, necessary. Like I've got to take some step to respond.

• 26:01Speaker 02

  And I think like part of parenthood is helping your kids figure out, well, okay, like what is it you were going to get out of that? And then are there any other ways, right? That you can achieve the same aims?

• 26:12Speaker 00

  And don't you feel like we're wrestling with that as a society? Like I heard this expression, again, the cliches, I'm sure some smart person said it, but that traditions are solutions to problems we forgot about.

• 26:23Speaker 02

  Hmm.

• 26:24Speaker 00

  And so like, as a society, as a democratic society, we have certain norms, we have certain precedences, we have certain things that we've done that are probably at their core. About preventing spirals into violence or chaos, or just everyone does whatever they want. And then lately, I feel like, maybe I'm making this up, but it feels like, you know, we have politicians that sort of run through norms, or we have people that are just like, well, why shouldn't you be able to punch a Nazi, right? And it's like, well, there's a reason you're not supposed to punch a Nazi is because then the Nazis use you punching them as a thing. We have these sort of systems that are really at their core about the thin

• 27:04Speaker 00

  line between chaos and disorder. And it can feel arbitrary and made up, but if you question too many of them, you get right back to a bad place that was the norm not that long ago.

• 27:18Speaker 02

  Yes, I think the challenge here, I really like the sentence that like tradition is a solution to a problem that we've forgotten. I think the challenge here is that that's going to sometimes be true. And then sometimes it's going to be that the tradition is a solution to a problem that we don't have anymore. Where the tradition was a solution to something that people saw as a problem.

• 27:37Speaker 00

  Where the solution was based on racist or sexist, or, you know, whatever assumptions, of course.

• 27:43Speaker 02

  Exactly. So like the filibuster has that kind of history.

• 27:46Speaker 00

  Yes.

• 27:46Speaker 02

  And it stands in the way now of solving all sorts of problems. But I think that we have a problem in our political culture of people thinking that they can bust through these norms whenever it's in their short term interest and not realizing that collectively this may be against all of our long term interests.

• 28:06Speaker 00

  Yeah, I mean, I think about this, like with the how one regards the results of elections, right? The idea that like, well, why does the loser have to call the winner and concede, right? Like, I've gotten to know a number of people in, weirdly in Republican politics because of my books. And I remember after the election in 2020, I was texting one of them, I was like, so are you going to congratulate Biden on his victory? And he said something like, why would I do that? I don't congratulate other people on things. And it's like, Well, what happened a few months later is why you do that, right? Like, there's a reason that these sort of performative norms happen and that governments and systems develop that. And then when someone just goes, "Well, I don't want to play by those rules," you realize

• 28:51Speaker 00

  a lot of what we took as being rock solid is actually more fragile. You realize these things kind of exist in this, it is like the legal part, and then there's the extra legal part and the performative part. They all kind of function together.

• 29:05Speaker 02

  Yeah, so actually, I'm working on an academic book, which is about questions in the philosophy of law, and there's a chapter about the rule of law. One thing I'm really concerned to say there is I think that the rule of law rests on a kind of moral foundation, a moral agreement. And actually, kind of the genius of law sometimes is that it can exploit moral agreement to move past moral disagreement. So if we all agree that we should abide by the outcome of the election, or by the law that Congress has recently passed, that's a way of setting aside the disagreements we have about who should have been president or the underlying issue. And we're in a dangerous spot right now because those moral agreements, like we should have fair elections and abide by their outcomes, are fracturing.

• 29:46Speaker 02

  And I think we're going to be in an ugly place if we don't manage to restore that sense in a widespread way.

• 29:52Speaker 00

  And like, it also kind of makes me understand the ancient system, which was not perfect and obviously corrupt and whatever, where they would be like, "You know what? This person just needs to go away." Like, this person needs to be sent away because they're too big to follow the rules. They don't follow the rules. They're generally disruptive to the rules. We need Themistocles to go away for a while because, like, the system is too fragile to have a person like Themistocles around for a while.

• 30:21Speaker 02

  Yeah, you know, I had thought our system was more robust than it seems to turn out to be. It definitely seems like there are people, like, think about, like, Elon Musk, you know, just flagrantly violating the SEC rules about disclosure, and they don't have the tools to respond. They can issue a fine, but it's not a large enough fine for him to care about. And it would be nice if they had the tool to say, "Okay, you have to go away. You can't, you know, this is multiple flagrant..." Violations of securities law, you can't run a public company for a while. And of course, you know, with Trump, we've got a similar set of issues. Seems to have flagrantly violated the law in a variety of ways over the course of his life. And the system hasn't been up to the task of holding him accountable.

• 31:00Speaker 00

  I was at this dinner with a number of Republican folks who were sort of talking about, it's interesting how myopically we can get focused on one thing and sort of miss the point. But they were sort of talking, they're like, I think it's just so alarming that a private social media company can just ban someone like the president. And I was like, yeah, you know what? I agree. I mean, that is kind of alarming. But Facebook and Twitter, they didn't want to do this. If they wanted to do it, they could have done it at literally any point in the last five years. The reason they had to do it is not just because the person kept escalating their violations of propriety and the law, et cetera, but also because there was an institutional failure

• 31:42Speaker 00

  in every preceding institution up until social media, right? It's like the party didn't do its job, the Congress didn't do its job, the judiciary didn't do its job, et cetera, right? So, so people will sometimes get caught up in these philosophical principles of like, whether this thing is right or wrong and ignore the larger context in which this last ditch attempt had to be made. Do you know what I mean?

• 32:09Speaker 02

  Yeah, I mean, the institutional failure is extreme and pervasive in lots of places. I also, like, I'm not sure, I'm just bothered by the thought that Twitter has this power to say, hey, you can't be here on Twitter.

• 32:19Speaker 00

  I'm not either, yes.

• 32:21Speaker 02

  Yeah, Donald Trump doesn't still have ways of communicating what he thinks about things.

• 32:24Speaker 00

  I don't know why Twitter doesn't do that right now. Twitter's like, oh, Elon Musk is negotiating in bad faith this agreement that we had and doing it on our very platform. It seems like they could very quickly releverage the situation by a very simple pull of the switch. So I think this is also where, you know, the virtue of courage comes in, which is like, I think a lot of times people know what the right thing to do is, but people hope or expect someone higher up in the chain will ultimately do that. And they don't really realize or understand that particularly our system.

• 33:03Speaker 00

  It's kind of a distributed system. There is no last ditch person, right? There is no real person with veto power. So if everyone is ceding their responsibility, eventually it gets to a point where it's just no one's going to do anything about it.

• 33:18Speaker 02

  Yeah, you know, there's this constant reporting that says, oh, like behind closed doors, members of Congress are critical of Trump and appalled by Trump and think he's supported an election, but none of them will do anything about it. And actually, like, it relates to a conversation in the book about moral courage and how one might cultivate that in one's kids. There's a suggestion that one of my Michigan colleagues, Sarah Bus, makes that at least one way of having moral courage is to see what happens to yourself as insignificant, while nevertheless seeing what happens to other people as very important. So you kind of see yourself from the perspective of the universe, small to the point of insignificant, but you let others like bloom really large. And I think that too many people in our society haven't absorbed a message like that, which is to say like they're out to preserve their

• 34:03Speaker 02

  own career. If I'm the person who criticizes Donald Trump, I'm going to lose the primary, and that's true. But they're regarding their own future as much more important than what happens to our country's future and hoping I can raise kids that flip that around.

• 34:17Speaker 00

  Well, isn't that, again, you bump into these fundamental philosophical questions, which is, I think what you just described is a collective action problem.

• 34:26Speaker 02

  Yeah, I mean, that's, that's an aspect of it, which is to say, if they thought they had safety in numbers, then a lot of them would feel more courageous. But I think we should be celebrating right now, Liz Cheney is a hero and Mitt Romney is a hero, even if we deeply disagree with lots of their other politics. They are not waiting for safety in numbers before saying what they think about what's happening in the Republican Party. And so I think that even if you can't solve the collective action problem, there's often something to be said for speaking truthfully, even if the consequences for you personally aren't going to be great.

• 35:03Speaker 00

  Yeah, isn't this, I guess this probably goes to Aristotle, which is like, should one do the right thing, even if the right thing has no impact, right? I think a lot of people who don't do the right thing, and we can step aside from politics, it could be anything, right? It could be an industry that's corrupt, it could be... Whatever. People go, well, why should I stick my neck out? It's not going to make a difference, right? And I guess the great philosophers would say, no, you do the right thing because it's the right thing. You don't think about doing the right thing, only being valid if it is a means to an end.

• 35:38Speaker 02

  Yeah. And I think this gets back to like the conversation we're having at the start of like, what kind of person do you want to be in the world, right? The person who does the right thing when it happens to align with your self-interest, or just a person who actually rightly. And I think most people, if you put the question to them that way, they want to be the second thing, but are too often the first thing.

• 35:57Speaker 00

  And don't you think part of the reason, it's funny, like, we'll be like, why won't these bums in Washington stick their neck out and stand up to the president or whatever? And then, then you're home at the dinner table just complaining about your jerk boss, but never actually doing anything about it, right? I think when we think about this with kids, it's not just, how do we talk about these sort of big, extreme issues? Like, I think about, I go, well, whenever, or how regularly do I make decisions as an artist or as a creator or writer that is not in my financial interest? And when you look at it, very, more often than not, magically, the decisions you make line up in what is good for you.

• 36:40Speaker 02

  Yeah, I love that way of thinking of it, especially in relation to your kids, right? Because you can have a conversation with them about what they're seeing in the news, but then bringing it down to their level and asking them other occasions in your life, when you've done the right thing, even if you thought you'd get criticized for it. Actually, one of like, the moments we were most proud of, one of our kids was the little one. Hank told us in first grade that he'd stopped playing with some of his friends because they were being mean to another kid and he didn't want to be a part of it. And we thought it was great that he didn't want to be a part of it. And we also thought it was great that he knew that he needed to ask for help. Like, how can I help stop them from being mean to those other kids? But yeah, if like, if you're trying to cultivate this as a habit in your kids, you want it not just to be criticism of other people,

• 37:23Speaker 02

  but to ask them, like, is there a place in your life where you have done this or where you could do this?

• 37:27Speaker 00

  Well, and to on a as regular a basis as possible. Demonstrate or embody that idea. So we're like, we want our kids to follow their dreams and like, not value like money over impact. And then there's like, but of course me, I show up every day as an insurance salesman, which I hate. We often say something very different than what we do because we have reasons.

• 37:55Speaker 02

  Yeah. And I want my kids to know that I struggle with questions like these, not that I'm always getting the right answers. You're like, I had a conversation with my older one who thinks that, that I'm working too much. Oh, like, let me tell you, here are the things that I spend my time on and why I choose to spend my time on them. Some are financial, some of them are like, I'm really invested in these institutions. They were valuable to me when I was sort of coming along in this business. I want to keep this conference going, or I want to keep that journal going. And, you know, like, the point is not that I've sorted this out and that I'm, you know, spending the optimal amount of time working, but I want him to get in the habit of like, thinking through these sets of considerations. What do I value and why? When I'm say, like, deciding how to spend my time.

• 38:38Speaker 00

  Here's a funny story. So I had Tobias Nukle on the podcast several months ago. He's the founder of Shopify. And he's also a fan of Stoicism. And he was trying to buy our Marcus Aurelius bust that we sell in the Daily Stoic store with Shopify. But he had a problem and he was like, hey, I want to buy this. I can't figure it out. And this is why I love Shopify. First off, because the founders actually use it. I use it because it makes my life better. But it turned out there was some problem with like shipping something that heavy internationally. So we plugged in an app on Shopify's backend. Shopify is a platform, but there's all these apps that add on it that make it super easy to use and allow you to do all sorts of cool things. And there we had it. He could buy it. We can now ship it across the borders because Shopify is based in

• 39:20Speaker 00

  Canada. And that's life with Shopify. When I had Tobias on the podcast, it was clear he's actually really interested in Stoicism. He was teaching it to his kids. Should listen to the episode. It's great. But if you're a small business, if you're an artist, if you run a startup, if you do anything that sells things to people, I don't think you can do any better than Shopify. Shopify is fantastic. Shopify gives entrepreneurs the resources once reserved for big businesses, upstarts, startups, established businesses that can sell anywhere, synchronized online and in-person sales. Stay informed. You got access to awesome data, conversion rates, profit margins. There's all these cool apps from first sale to full scale Shopify is there. Can't recommend it enough. I use it. That should be the ultimate recommendation. So check it out.

• 40:07Speaker 00

  I was just talking to someone about this on the podcast a couple of weeks ago. I don't know what order they'll come out in, but was the amount of times that I ever remember my parents being like, I screwed up or I got mad at you, not because of what you did, but because I was stressed or anxious or worried. And I do think that's a, you're not supposed to present the image to your kids as the parental sage or the parental tyrant who cannot be questioned, but a person in the world struggling with these perennial human issues and trying to do the best you can, and hopefully getting better the longer you do it.

• 40:46Speaker 02

  Yeah, I have apologized to my kids on many occasions or shown up in their room a while later and said, Hey, I'm sorry. I lost my temper and here's what's making me anxious. Like why I think, and I probably don't do that enough, but I do think that that's, you know, as you say, you're just trying to model the kind of person you want to be in the world, which is reflective and self critical. A lot of people I think are concerned to appear vulnerable in front of their kids or to appear like they don't know the answers, but that's not going to help them grow into the kind of adults you want them to be.

• 41:16Speaker 00

  Yeah. The idea that your kid isn't already aware of all of your vulnerabilities and flaws is just a preposterously conceded notion.

• 41:24Speaker 02

  That's right.

• 41:25Speaker 00

  Like they're, they don't, they're not looking up to you. They think you're a weirdo who lives in your house. Like,

• 41:30Speaker 02

  My 12 year old, for sure. He is, he's got a rapier wit and is not afraid to use it at my expense now.

• 41:37Speaker 00

  No, I was thinking about that where it's like your son, I guess, describes philosophy in the book as the art of thinking. Right? And it's also thinking about what you think and why you think it. So to, to be like, oh no, I'm experiencing X because of this condition or factor that's going on in the world. And therefore I'm going to acknowledge it and deal with it. Just the idea that like, you're not this rational, perfect being, but you have anxieties and worries and. Fears and frustrations. Again, like, how are your kids supposed to figure out that, oh, I was misbehaving because I was hungry if dad only loses his temper because someone

• 42:18Speaker 00

  caused him to lose his temper? No, we're responsible for our own emotions and we have to explain and articulate, most of all, model that we understand where ours came from and which of those sources are valid and which are invalid.

• 42:31Speaker 02

  Yeah, and I think there's like a fine line to walk here. So like, describing the, I think it's the chapter on punishment in the book, how, you know, like, kids are tired and hungry, especially when they're little, their kind of self-control breaks down and their behavior gets bad. And my wife, who's a therapist, was often like, let's just get them to bed, you know, seeing the cause of the behavior. And I would think, no, it still needs to be some accountability here. And I think like, ultimately, the right answer is kind of like a mixture of both, which is to say, well, if you did the thing, then there is going to be accountability for it. But also, I want you to have to be self-reflective enough to realize that you did that because you were tired, or you were hungry, or you were frustrated or anxious, so that you become kind of more self-regulating in the future.

• 43:15Speaker 00

  Well, I think also developing the ability to look at each case individually and not extrapolate out, like, you're like, well, my two-year-old just got upset and he threw this thing and it hit me in the head and that hurt. And I have to tell him that that's not acceptable. It's like, he's two. So chances are, oh, he's actually going to take from this encounter is that, like, I was a jerk, right? And that I should be able to say, I can talk about this thing individually and not extrapolate out, well, if I don't condemn this right now, when he's 14, he's going to get upset with someone and do something at school and then be expelled and then go to jail and then end up under a bridge somewhere, right? Like, the ability to be present with the individual situation and not extrapolate

• 44:00Speaker 00

  out all this stuff, which as a parent, I think you're especially primed to do is also really helpful.

• 44:05Speaker 02

  Yeah, for sure. Every moment has the significance, seems to have a significance in the moment when actually like life is full of so many moments. The individual one probably wasn't that significant. One thing I think is super interesting about these situations is just how they change over time. So you're like, he's two. There's no moral responsibility at two. I agree with that entirely, actually. The suggestion I make is like, look, little kids are just, you know, animals and you're kind of training them in relation to sort of right and wrong. By the time they're five or certainly like seven, nine, they do become capable of appreciating reasons not to act in certain ways, even when they have emotions that lead them to want to act those ways. And so I think there's a constant tension between recognizing who they are, but having to treat them like they're at the next stage.

• 44:50Speaker 02

  So that they develop the capacities you want them to have at that stage.

• 44:54Speaker 00

  You're sort of onboarding them to the next, to the soon to be entered phase of moral culpability.

• 45:01Speaker 02

  Exactly. So it's not that I like, you shouldn't be genuinely angry at your two-year-old who probably isn't capable of doing better. But you need to express disappointment and say, hey, you're like, you're a really kind person and that was not a kind way to act. So that they become attuned to kindness and the way their behavior affects others. Like if you, if you don't sort of treat them like they're, they're at the next level, they're not going to get to that level.

• 45:25Speaker 00

  I think one thing that kids has helped me with is it's like, okay, since I know this person and I care about this person and it's not possible for me to separate from this person, right? Like we, we have a lifetime contract for better, for worse. It's like you start to understand, you're like, okay, it's because we skipped nap. That's why you're being a jerk. Or we blew like I, for something I needed to do disrupted the routine for the day. And now it's stressful and weird to you. And that's why your behavior, like you get to these root causes. And then I try to go, as I'm out in the world, understanding that almost everyone is operating as a result of some root cause. I think it was Socrates who said, no one does wrong on purpose.

• 46:07Speaker 00

  The idea that it's like, oh yeah, this person's routine might have been disrupted. They might be tired or hangry or whatever. And that I don't have to, it's not that I don't have, it's not even my spot to hold them morally accountable. But like, I can look for that reason to be patient or understanding in the same way that I would for my kids. And this, this isn't just a gift to them, but it also makes me less angry as a person, because I don't take this stuff as personally.

• 46:36Speaker 02

  Yeah. So one of the things the punishment chapter talks about is this tension between what philosophers call reactive attitudes. So your anger, your resentment, your indignation at bad behavior. And then a kind of like more objective frame in which we view people, where we see them as objects to the world, subjects to the laws of cause and effect. And we, we say things like, oh, look, that person was really tired or stressed out because of things going on at work. And it's hard to control your behavior when you're feeling that way. And I think like, as people, we're constantly caught between these two ways of looking at each other. And actually, one of them was like, I was a law clerk for Justice Ginsburg. One of the best lessons, life lessons that I learned from her is she had this line when people would ask her,

• 47:19Speaker 02

  like why her marriage was so successful, she'd pass on advice her mother-in-law gave her. She'd say, in every marriage, it helps to be a little deaf. And she went like, you know, like that person may have said something nasty or mean, but you don't have to hear everything. You don't have to respond to it as a slight. You can just dismiss it and overlook it. And I think there's a ton of wisdom in realizing that I have a choice here. I can respond to this in the kind of moral accountability way. I can go the direction of anger and resentment, and there are definitely occasions for that. Or I can shift over to the more objective perspective and I can say, ah, you know, I know you're having a rough time at work. I'm just gonna ignore that you said that mean thing to me.

• 47:58Speaker 00

  I've heard that quote before. I've always liked it. I've got to imagine it explains her ability to not just work with, but be lifelong friends with someone she's as different as Justice Scalia, right? They're diametrically opposed politically, they're size different, experience, every way they're different, and yet they have this intimate friendship because she probably focuses on where they have common ground and common humanity and a common love of things and is deaf to not just the things they disagree with, but what I'm sure were also a number of provocations and offenses and frustrations. You have to be a little deaf to those things while still holding your ground and not compromising

• 48:43Speaker 00

  on the principles that matter.

• 48:45Speaker 02

  For sure. That's how she saw things. And sometimes the draft would come in from Justice Scalia to her chambers and it would contain what you call a provocation and her clerks would want to respond. And she was always restrained. She'd say, oh, that's just Nino being Nino. And it was partly because she had a clear sense of who she was and how she wanted to be in the world, right? She wanted to be straight ahead with her job. Here are my best legal arguments, delivered in a tone that's consistently respectful. She also had a kind of strategic view of, I'm part of this institution for a long time. It was like a lifelong contract, as you said a moment ago. And my effectiveness

• 49:26Speaker 02

  within it probably depends on having good relationships with my colleagues. I'm not going to step back from saying they're wrong when I think they're wrong. And sometimes she said that very forcefully, but she wasn't going to take the provocation as a reason to respond indignantly.

• 49:43Speaker 00

  So this is a little far afield from what the book is, but it was something when I was thinking about reading it. So you're talking about these philosophical concepts in the book and how kids think about them. Like a lot of people, I read Ayn Rand when I was just, I think, just in college. It sort of hits, it is this strong set of moral, philosophical and legal arguments about the world.

• 50:07Speaker 00

  That I don't want to say arrests certain people's development, but it's always struck me as a very teenagey, early twenties sort of philosophical viewpoint. Do you know what I mean?

• 50:19Speaker 02

  I know exactly what you mean. Yeah. No, I think it's a Paul Krugman who has this line about Atlas Shrugged and Lord of the Rings. You know, like, I can't remember exactly how you put it, but like, one of them is a book that people read as teenagers and they get totally sucked into the world and upends their, like, upends their view of life and the other involves orcs.

• 50:40Speaker 02

  But I think that's fine because it's, you know, there's a line in Nasty, Brutish and Short where I'm thinking through the possibility that other people are zombies, that maybe I'm the only person in the world who's conscious. And I say like, that would be really weird. You know, I'm just some schmuck who was born in suburban Atlanta in 1976. The idea that the world was created for me and just me is not something I've thought since I was a teenager. But Ayn Rand captures people at a certain age when they're disposed to be self-interested. And she gives them a justification for it and some people never, never leave it behind.

• 51:13Speaker 00

  Yeah, maybe it was Christopher Hitchens. Someone was talking about Ayn Rand and the virtue of selfishness. And he said something like, that's not something people need a lot of help with, is it?

• 51:23Speaker 02

  Right. That's a great line. Yeah, you know, I don't quite understand why people get stuck there. It feels like there's something, you know, like if you think you matter, right? Other people have the same features that you do. You think like, eventually you should realize, well, other people would matter for just the same reason that I would and equally so. And I'm not quite sure why people never get to that realization, but a significant fraction don't.

• 51:50Speaker 00

  Well, we were talking about earlier about saying things that are not in your financial interest. And I can already hear people being very pissed off that we're saying this about Ayn Rand amongst my listeners. But I think what it is, is it's very rarely this philosophy, with a few exceptions, maybe Nietzsche does this, does this pretty well. I think great philosophy challenges the ego, right? And it forces you to question things. It forces you to see your insignificance. It forces you to see your duties, obligations, the nuances of things. What Ayn Rand sort of does, I would say quite skillfully, both from a philosophical standpoint, but also from an artistic entertainment sort of captivating, is the exact opposite, right? It's one of the few philosophies that says like, you are special. You have these things.

• 52:33Speaker 00

  Other people are trying to drag you down and take from you. And that, I mean, to me, the inherent pettiness of Atlas Shrugged is, is like, you know, Plato has his cave, right? You go into the cave, you get truth. You are obligated to come back and inform the other people of the shadows. Ayn Rand says, if you get out of the cave, if people aren't respecting you, loving you, whatever, you should be able to flee to Goltz Gulch and take your ball and go home. Right? So I think at 17, 18, 25, or wherever you are emotionally, that can be a very potent message to a person.

• 53:08Speaker 02

  Yeah, you know, as you're talking, I wonder if there's something about American culture that also is encouraging of this attitude. So we constantly contribute to our, communicate to our children just how special they are.

• 53:19Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 53:20Speaker 02

  And actually, I think one way in which I was really lucky is, as my mother was very concerned that we know that we weren't special. So if we came home from school and we were bored because they were talking about something she already knew, she was like, she was a teacher once. She's like, I bet other kids didn't know that yet. Or they needed some more time to spend on that. And that school was not made for you. It's fine for you to sit there and be bored.

• 53:45Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 53:45Speaker 02

  And that's something we try to carry forward in our parenting. There are, of course, ways in which my kids are special. They're special to me, but I want them to know that in some deep sense, they're not special. The world was not made for you. Not everything is going to be exciting or to your liking. And that's fine because there's lots of people in the world.

• 54:01Speaker 00

  Or it's that it's actually the opposite of all those things, right? I remember I had a high school English teacher and I was, you know, like, let's say relatively advanced in the class. And I remember like, we'd do these little group things and I would say my thing in the group thing, and then someone would like steal my idea. Like they would raise their hand and say, then get credit for what I had done. And I remember I went to her and again, in a very sort of Atlas Shrug-y way. And I was like, these kids are stealing my ideas. You know, they're stealing my ideas and getting credit for them. And I remember she just looked at me and she said, yeah, that's your job. And which is the the exact opposite. It's it's not that you're worthless. You don't have anything to offer. It's I think the distinction Ayn Rand is like, you're special, you're important. Get away from the bloodsuckers who want to take from you.

• 54:46Speaker 00

  Right. And I think the other philosophical tradition, which I like better is like, yes, you've been given these gifts. You have this special ability, whatever it is, and that obligates you, right? To who much is given, much is expected. Right. And so I think when you can read, it's also weird just to think like this book was, it's not like Atlas Shrugged was written like 500 years ago. It's like this is not some lady in the 50s. Right.

• 55:09Speaker 02

  Right.

• 55:09Speaker 00

  But that when someone can, and I guess this is what demagogues do well. When someone can tell you the thing that you most don't want to have to do, you don't have to do, and it's not your fault, and it's actually these other people's fault. That's one of the most seductive arguments there is, especially if you're immature.

• 55:26Speaker 02

  Yeah, for sure. And actually, that that line, you know, to who much is given, much is expected, was constantly repeated in my house, in my house, growing up, too. You know, I hope that, you know, there may be something you can do before kids get to the teenage years that would inoculate against them. You know, it's still an experiment. My house will see if it, see if it works. But the kind of constant questioning of philosophy. And, you know, like one thing, you know, I say around here is like you're not entitled to your opinion. Your opinion is something that you've got to defend with evidence and arguments. And I put my kids to that task over and over again. And I hope that cultivating those habits of mine before they get to Ayn Rand or Fox News or whatever it is, will be a little bit protective.

• 56:09Speaker 00

  That was something I liked in the book, which is kids are always hitting you with why. You know, they're always forcing you, but that you can also force, you can also flip that on your children. So when they give you these sort of statements about the world, like, I should be able to watch TV whenever I want, instead of you just telling them, this is what you're saying, instead of you telling them, no, that's not true. Here's why. Force them to be like, why is that the case? And then force them to argue for their position.

• 56:36Speaker 02

  You know, I tell the story of doing this one night at a taqueria and my youngest son Hank says that he has a right to drink whatever he wants. He wants a soda. And I was like, "Well, why?" He's like, "I just do." And I'm like, "No, buddy, that doesn't work. If you say you have a right, you better have reasons that you have that right." And so I made him make arguments. And unsurprisingly, they weren't super persuasive arguments. But I do think this is like one of my favorite parenting tricks is just put them on the other end of the "why" that you're getting constantly. Make them make the argument.

• 57:05Speaker 00

  Yes. And that way, it's not coming from force, from you or Fiat. They're having to, not only are they getting the brain power of exploring their own ideas, but they're ultimately struggling with the fact that their argument's not super persuasive either, as opposed to you just saying, "Because I said so."

• 57:25Speaker 02

  Exactly. Yeah, right. And so this is just back to the idea that philosophy is the art of thinking. And so it's less important to me that my kids think the way I do than that they think well and think clearly and earn a habit of questioning their own ideas. And asking them questions and then questioning their answers is the best way I know how to make that happen.

• 57:43Speaker 00

  Yeah, I think that makes sense. Any other advice you've got for parents as your kids have gotten older or about the study of philosophy?

• 57:51Speaker 02

  So, part of what I want, you know, we've been having this conversation, you know, sort of like thinking about bringing up kids and raising kids that are going to be the kind of adults we would like them to be. I think part of what I want to communicate through the book is your kids are not just projects, right? It's not just a question of like, "How do I raise this child and get them to be the adult that I'd like them to be?" That they're also these complete people who are worth appreciating for what they are, even though they're going to be something different. And I think people are just really missing this curiosity and inquisitiveness and willing to think big thoughts and ask big questions that kids naturally have. And it's something you can sustain, and I want to encourage people to sustain it, but it's inevitably going to fall away a little bit.

• 58:36Speaker 02

  Like, when they start to hit middle school age and they're worried about what others think of them and they've got different interests in the world, they're not going to be as deeply engaged philosophically. So like, part of what I want to say to parents is just, you know, your kids are fun and they're creative and enjoy them the way they are because you are going to lose a little bit of that.

• 58:56Speaker 00

  Yeah, it's, um, I think it's Alison Gopnik. She makes this distinction between being a carpenter or a gardener. Right? Like, are you cultivating and helping your kids grow? Or are you building them? And one is a much more egocentric, probably a delusional sense of control to it. And the other, I think, is more humble and more the role of a facilitator, which is what I feel like you're closer towards talking about.

• 59:21Speaker 02

  She's also got this metaphor that I just love where she says, you know, that kids' minds, they're not just like primitive versions of adults' minds, that they're equally powerful, but different. And she says, like, growing older is like a metamorphosis. You know, you're going from caterpillar to butterfly. But she actually wants to invert it. She says, like, the little kids are the butterflies, and then they become the caterpillars inching along the adult path. And I think that there's something deeply true about that, that kids are just much more vibrant, engaged, alive thinkers often than adults are. And so I want people to appreciate that. And then for themselves, try and recapture some of the kid that they once were, that's willing to ask these big, deep questions. And one way to do that is to ask them with kids.

• 1:00:05Speaker 00

  Last question, and this is not that much to do with philosophy, but I guess it goes to the idea of education and what is knowledge. So you went to like the best schools in the world. You have a law degree from Yale. You went, you have a PhD from Oxford. How do you think about it with your kids as far as that like education goes, but specifically higher education? How is your experience shaped what you are either building or gardening your kids towards?

• 1:00:32Speaker 02

  Well, so really interesting. So I do have those two degrees, but you left out actually my undergraduate degree, which is from the University of Georgia.

• 1:00:38Speaker 00

  Sure. And the full spectrum.

• 1:00:40Speaker 02

  That's right. So I sometimes say I've got degrees from the fanciest schools, but I actually got my education at the University of Georgia.

• 1:00:48Speaker 02

  And I think actually that's part of what I want people to know about higher education. I do think like there's something to be said for a place like Yale Law School, but it's actually mostly social networking connections that are like the main advantage of those institutions. You can get an extraordinary education. It's so many places, so many institutions in our country, especially in so many state institutions. If you're there and you're engaged and you're hungry for it. So I don't think of myself as trying to like push my child along a path where they create the resume that gets them into the fanciest place, in part because I know from experience that that may not be where the best education is.

• 1:01:28Speaker 00

  Sure.

• 1:01:29Speaker 02

  That it may be somewhere else, but I'll say maybe this is more what you're getting at. I hope that my kids, like if I, if there's something I can cultivate from them and their attitude towards education, it's just not to be relentlessly instrumental about it. Not to think I should major in business or engineering because that yields the highest salary, but to think that like the point of an education is like to build you as a person. And that requires some reflection on the kinds of conversations that we've been talking about, whether you do it in philosophy classes or in English classes or in psychology classes, just like the things that are happening in the humanities are every bit as important to your future as the stuff that you might learn in an engineering class or an accounting class.

• 1:02:11Speaker 00

  And I think that age old distinction between school and education, which is that they are related, but not quite the same thing.

• 1:02:19Speaker 02

  For sure. Yeah. If I had like a particular aspiration for my kids that I'm uncompromising about, it's that they be readers.

• 1:02:26Speaker 00

  Yes.

• 1:02:26Speaker 02

  And not all of that, but part of that is if you read, then you're not going to stop learning just because you stop going to school.

• 1:02:33Speaker 00

  Yes. Yeah. You want an educated child, not a well schooled child.

• 1:02:38Speaker 02

  For sure. Yeah.

• 1:02:39Speaker 00

  Well, this was lovely. I really enjoyed the book and I loved our conversation. This was really fun. Thanks for taking the time.

• 1:02:45Speaker 02

  Well, this is such a, was a huge pleasure for me. Thank you for having me on. I love the work you do to make philosophy fun and engaging and accessible for people. And I appreciate you helping me getting worried out about the book.

• 1:02:55Speaker 00

  Thanks.

• 1:02:59Speaker 00

  Thanks so much for listening. If you could rate this podcast and leave a review on iTunes, that would mean so much to us and it would really help the show. We appreciate it and I'll see you next episode.