This week I spoke to author and journalist Malcolm Gladwell. Malcolm’s book Talking To Strangers: What We Should Know about the People We Don't Know offers a powerful examination of our interactions with strangers - and why they often go wrong. We spoke about many of the misunderstandings we face when interacting with different people, different cultures and facing unusual situations. Malcolm details some of the fascinating case studies he’s researched where a simple lack of understanding has lead to dire consequences. You’ll learn how some of the subtle and nuanced ways we communicate with one another and the effect it has on our relationship
This is an unofficial transcript meant for reference. Accuracy is not guaranteed.
Hello and welcome to under the skin, from luminary media with Russell Brandon Russell brand. I spoke with journalists and author Malcolm Gladwell this week in his new book talking the strangers. What we should know about the people we don't know best. I wish it out this way
september, we get to see a powerful examination of our interactions with strangers and why they often go wrong. I've read some of it is bloody good and you know Malcolm
Well, of course you do in your interested mouth and gravel because he gives you kit bits a conversation in the air
academic insight, in a way that you can appreciate and understand at least that's my relationship with his previous work books like outliers and blink, and all that kind of stuff he's also the host of the reviews,
this tissue pockets and offer the number one new york times. Bestseller book outlaws or tell you whether already thanks for all year
and on last week's podcast with anna,
While I can do this in a moment, but first I'm gonna exhort you silicon my youtube channel subscribe to it click on a thing
eggs. Little bell ring on your phone and also to some
That's my mailing list. I'm gonna, send you some
intimate videos. On there I mean they've, been professional about crossing the boundaries of taste about your cat, stuff or anything's going to show
I queue up. So let's have a look at these anna whitelock comments. Roller coaster said I'd love to see the back of the lot of them.
he's, referring to the royal family, who anna and I were discussing bowing and scraping to someone is just beyond me in the twenty first century. Just because they're born into a particular class britain is still class written because of its archaic, outdated institution. It's interesting.
Opinion, rollercoaster and inclined to agree to appoint or the tune
some might say that boeing and scraping in hierarchies inherent within not just human cultures, but all animal cultures, famously right down to the lowly crustaceans and
I would say that even in republic societies there still is in the still hierarchy, and you know so. Whilst I am inclined to agree with the abolition of horror,
The institutionalized hierarchy is beneficial. Thing would have to be very thorough rollercoaster if we were to make a meaningful social different,
if it williams the grace monaco I've ever had, the queen has done a wonderful job. The queen is much loved by ordinary people. Nor, of course, by these meadowcroft socialists per high, they hate ordinary people. So let me show you some of the diverse
city of views that we get from our listeners and what good job jenny is done. Fidgeting about
forensically through my numerous platforms like twitter, follow me around the rockets or instagram russell brand on there, hey this guy on tick, tock, baby yeah, don't shake your head at tick, tock,
New thing take talk and linked in regatta, I've,
Gary v, I watch the videos like you, don't need a job, yet we want to be on take token linked in. You can find me past a bad boy, ras homesick talk and the ross straight to the top.
In linkedin. These platforms are blowing up bebe below in op. Don't cover your face cause you are in your twenties and you think me has no grandad in a cardigan. I have been watching
mutual videos, and I know, what's going on his another,
comment about. Why look I love the way on its own. She so relaxed, eloquent awaits you see the ici clips relaxed ain't, the word the woman, but not jake, a brief.
monk shoes supine almost in the studio line back to the road to a ridiculous degree. But what a wonderful contribution she gave and I loved learning from a pool holmes goes. The queen is lovely and has done what she said.
The day difficult, keep our level of comment for any person. I really admire her a moment, sir. What I'm Paul I'm appreciate your
but my if you wanna three, I saw herself on Tik tok,
link
Stop already raised platforms, we are on them all, because that's what we gotta be baby as we boost staff.
Into an unknowable future of cucumbers, and for I am but there's get now to the point of all this
zation between may Malcolm bradwell, who came here very, very slow.
Barely any body fat on him varies. Intense person, re guide, say a man with great poison, intelligence and dignity.
gee. That's now enjoy that dignity.
Down area arose in the form of this poor costs, with the wonderful illuminating edifying into
Four malcolm gladwell
trying to achieve equality with the annihilation of calgary nor successful. That's exactly right! We're in this era where it turns out. We were never works beneath the surface of the people. We admire the ideas that the finance on the history and welcome to Russell brand and mountain bubble. I'm so
happy to have you on this podcast because well you know, I'm sure you must be aware that there is so many conversations
that I, but I'm sure many many other people have that are infused with often uncredited references to it will. But one thing we can just blink and light you can tell if someone's going to be a good teacher. I remember that from when I first read blink and reading,
He would even use that method in the in constructing the cover for that book. Also,
lies, oh, my god, you ve never
and tells me after do ten thousand out. As a sum, I can't take it anymore, you of my apologies for how you
I've been here.
The terrorist, your arming, the suits, but I've been I've taken full advantage of that. Artillery
what do you think it is about your work that is grown it this populist success,
I do know is that I mean I'm. I I
and maybe I trying to write it,
simply engagingly, as I can
I've been lucky that I'm? U I shall then he'd africans
a friend of mine who was
screenwriter in hollywood. Actually who wrote for the simpsons one said he
We know the secrecy of your successes. He said your recognisable in profile because our big head a physician
They said the number of
writers in the world who irrecognizable in profile, is very small so and then, if they said, in fact the number of people who are as one
homer simpson is obviously recognizable profile. Elvis you don't owe me to put my,
for the same categories. Homer simpsons nervous, but it does help to be wrecked, does will have profile
could have done a lot less research and a lot more focus on your is of the kind of toe period
of your hair, and I had a great deal more
access for a lot less labour. Yes, that's right, she's record!
as well in silhouette silhouette. That's right here was the writer. Was a canadian for divine named tim? Possessed him?
From tomorrow to monkey circles have uttered the simpsons her for a while he's a very funny person dipping into citizens have an air. I may have been
Reference to further could come and malaysia simpson mentioning malcolm gliding, TIM, probably stuck me at one point got it occupies a kind of
You know we only get in the simpsons. If
You know somebody thereby making an inside joke right. I say as ready, undermined mining
but I think you're, probably gonna pay. Well, ok, then
he's at present. To you remind me of I don't know if you know him, the english filmmaker Adam, courteous users so,
you know that do well. You know that is very, very high. Praise on your part.
I'm not your unworthy of lack of that comparison, but I
I am aware of heavy he's genius wicked on file that might finally encourage them to listen to the programme
he's certainly been he's been on it once he was on the first one, actually Adam, but like uh. Oh, I think that
of atoms. Many abilities is he the way that he can construct? Narratives? That's the have
poland, potency and momentum behind them and in semi in Adams, casey covers up gertler court. Quite large time period
and you feel that what this is the only way than that year period of time
can never be understood as a great achieve.
in iowa, he sort of creates. You know- and this is somewhat comparable to what you've said about being recognizable in silhouette- is almost he can construct icons. He can construct idols. He can construct an object so now the objective ten thousand hours or the object
If you know we can blink can tell if someone's a good language teacher or whatever that was and want to particularly resonate of mixup, was a language teacher at the time and a bad one if they blinked at me,
heard. Probably have improved their experience, so
Is it that's a seems to me that you can create objects of voracity? I'm not I'm sure. It's not easy. I'm sure it takes a great deal of work, but that's one of their companions at last year off here yeah. He he could. He constructs he's kind of alternate narratives,
where the were he takes. He he's he takes no
obvious connections and makes them seem obvious, is that which is being each day the its he does? What he's one of those people who the end,
out looks a lot easier than it is because he does it so well. You know you think, o that makes perfect sense and I'm I'm I'm surprised you didn't
Not that way, all of it all the time. But of course you you can't miss turner, it's for
theres many of Adam courtesies narratives now like that
now my opinion on that forever, I'll just ass. Well,
around saying at dinner parties from now on. Although the english tv create good.
so I do say
like they like endowed incur as too.
trend at the side of a mile away with a shopping trolley, full of archive for each
splicing harbour travelling shouting things at passing vehicles. Certainly a post
actually approach in gills deduction there, so I'm ted like just to give people overview. We we'd like her, because maybe some people want to forgive. You can take
Imagine that, but, like so blink was based, I was sort of saying that our intuitive powers, coca, are comparable
all to our rational palace. Well, it was about the issue
but the primacy of our intuitive powers. I wasn't convinced they were necessarily good. I was convinced that they were powerful and in
essential, so I was as they could be. You know if you someone you so this is from your world. Ah, a comic
has been doing stand up for years and years and years nears can have an end
intuition about an audience very early on in the performance which,
is invariably correct. Simply I'm having a conversation got who it was with a talk, show host on this, and I said once when I guess it's down next
you. How long did it take you to know whether the interview will be a disaster or a triumph, and he says oh three seconds four seconds. That was, if you spend a lifetime doing
a particular thing. Your intuition becomes very, very powerful, but out
I those areas where we are experts, are into
She can be more than dangerous, it can be, it can lead us badly astray in that it in blink was or was a kind of,
it was a balance. I wanted to celebrate those instances where it was where intuition was good, but also the second half of the book was all about cases where and where, where where intuition went wildly astray, this
book talking to strangers zero in on a particular category of impression, and that is
way, which we size up a stranger and attempts to kind of talk.
I missed him, I'm really squarely concerned with. How can it go wrong and why does it go wrong so after because
more impressed by what goes wrong
with our interactions with strangers than what can occasional right? This is really interesting, stuff
he let his inner. I was thinking when we found out this might be the era of the blink politics. You know like that where we serve and this guy looks like they should be, the leader of the united states of america go. Do it
I saw a nation operating on hunches globe operate in on hunches. When you took
about your ram or their pr begich, silly bigotry, their presence,
is that we bring to our interaction with strange is what does that tell us about social indoctrination? What is it, what does it tell at how and how much it? How much of it you believed to be cultural, and I do think that there are other influences aside from cultural will. There's it's a mix saw. Give you an example of something I spend a big chunk of the book talking about what
called transparency and transparency is the idea that the feelings you have on your own
inside
reliably and accurately expressed in your demeanor and facial expression and body language. This. If you study this carefully as psychologists have done, you realize it's not true. So actors do this, and in fact I did this refund thing. Where I took a, I took a clip from an episode of the sitcom friends. I gave it to a psychologist. Who was an expert?
in analyzing human expression, and I said how often when someone on friends feels surprised is that surprise registered on her face when there,
angry. Do they look angry when they are. You know in shock to they look shocked
You discover when you do, that is that is
when Joe, he is surprised on friends. Joey's jaw drops his eyes grow wide. His eyebrows shoot up. He looks exactly like a surprise for disposal.
And when ross his angry, Russia's voice goes down.
and his eyebrows, you know
together at his and his you know his his his lips.
Settle into a kind of angry slit they all because they're actors, they all beautifully, represent their internal states and with their expression. In fact, if you say I tried this, and I I encourage everyone to do this with any sitcom, but do it with friends, for example, turn the volume off
watch an episode that you haven't seen before and then see, if you can make sense of the episode without any sound, and the answer is yes, you can.
You miss nuances of plot, but can you track the emotional arc of that episode with the sound of completely one hundred? That's how actors act? No! The real that's transparency,
right now. The question is: do we do that in the real world? And the answer is we do not? We think we do with we import this idea from watching television,
in fact, people who are you know guilty, don't act guilty p
who are deceiving, you don't avert their eyes and get
service and get all shifty. Sometimes they do a lot of times they don't. If I were to reach up right now and punch you you, I'm sure you would be shocked by that action. Your face,
wouldn't you wouldn't do that, you make you make into shock phase right now, you would not make the shocked face. If I, if I punched you right now or do the angry ross at my lips,
setting into a slit of discontent more russian of happy
if this is on my territory, that was an interesting veal it, but whether or not you it was represented on your face would be a mean reaction. There is actually data on this, but highly unlikely that you would make the classic shock face
where did ease archetypes of visage come from them.
The one thing of nice is the father of young children. Is that in a when she's tired, she raw-
her eyes. She they do seem to have some syntax of vital grammar and expression. That seems to be some
universal
could not have been the very beginning. I think that's probably true, but as adults, what happens? Is we quickly those kinds of instinctive reactions? I'm start to kind of I become more complicated and diverged from expectation. We, I think with, I, should think we ve got enough from the movies and from novels. You know. Her face, fell with disappointment when she heard
You know that she hadn't gotten the job. You know his all of that kind of language from from novels about that tries to kind of help. Us understand a characters emotional, today,
tree is arm, is essentially made up. It's a culturally constructed thing and what that does is it you know in what way we were dealing with a friend if you, if you're talking to your best
and you know that your best friend is someone who, when she's angry, she doesn't show it. She holds it in when she's happy. She does this weird thing with her foot that no one else says you know that, because you've interacted with your best friend for years and years and years, but when you
the stranger. This is a significant source of confusion because we don't know their idiosyncrasies, and so when they diverge from our stereo are stereotypes about how this supposed to express emotion. We completely misread them, so you think their research.
Hence in cultural from distinction that we are miscommunication an misinterpreting one another continually to tag the friends reference a bit. There
in primary objective is not the you know in this shakespearian terms to hold a mirror up tonight shepherd, but rather to represent a kind of and recognizable archetypes of yes, emotion, and hence you get almost commedia daylights high, the expression,
shocking anger, but to say that there is no universality to human emotion than human communication. Do you think is that sounds to me, like a very
it's an extreme position or e for eggs, like a for example, would get an interest of linguistics that there are sort of deep, embedded grammatical structure,
the replicate through our language touching on
the idea that we may have absorbed our vocabulary of expression in communication from media sounds like us over boatyard partiality, and, if I can take it
I dare say that we are all of our language and references. If from
in culture the suggestion that
there is no essence now you,
versus now
perennial. Does that
that semi would account for love miscommunication in some of the stores. I'm sure in this one excited to read and ensure will be an x x number
but do d is that your end point that that there is that we don't have it.
and common vocabulary of shared human experience, will so
is much commonality theirs.
Commonality is not that we are incapable of understanding miss of understanding people who have a different kind of catalogue of of expression
but there is more difference than we. I think I expect so I'll. Give you an example of a a classic study of this is a bunch of Portugal, a bunch of spanish psychologists and have a series of pictures, so you have a very expressive face. We could do it with you. I say. Show me surprise. I took a picture. Show me
shock I took a picture, show me anger picture yes, you're doing it very well. Actually I do. I do all the show me. Disgust show me you know, so I have
these criticizes game. So I have I have ten pictures in the right or, however many I have all the basic.
Since and then I show them- I take them around the corner to a local elementary
go, and I show thirty english schoolchildren eight years old pictures of russell showing various facial expressions. Can they correctly identifies each expression? The answer is
slowly, a hundred percent. They will look at your angry face and also rustles angry. They will look at your happy face in they'll, say he's too he's a static right now, let's take to say
pictures to the most remote culture in the safest take ticket to a two way, an island in the south seas. Where you know there
still they're still in some pre modern state right there about as far from western society as we can now. This is a an island where this is actually done by me. I'm replicating exact experiment, but
Another where they have an extremely rich culture with the language is complicated by the emotional islamic, their somehow you know not emotionally sophisticated, highly emotional, sophisticated culture.
But it's a pre, modern culture, so they have no very little connection with the west. They ve never seen friends
We showed them the same pictures of Russell and we sit and we test their accuracy and can they how accurate they are identifying Russell's angry face. The answer is not that accurate they'll make really fundamental things. They'll, look at your ah they'll. Look at your angry face and say that you're, frightened and your frightened face and think that you're angry, for example, they'll, look at you're, angry or they'll. Look at your happy face and think that you're kind of in
front or they'll. I mistakes. It makes no sense to us, and that suggests that are notions of the of how emotion ought to be expressed are far more culturally constructed than we imagine
also undermines those charts. The autistic kids, a many use- you know they say like real autistic, his avenue
complications and communicate and emotions. Do you feel like this or like this? Are these
it's believe that they are in some psychological, south, pacific I'll language. A facial expression is distinct from what increasingly seems, according to your analyses, to base a set of social
and struck his air mean. There is no reason why, following the brow should bear, you know why I don't know if they would need to consult a biochemist torn, and now
it is oh no. What happened is some hormones are released? We contract raise muscles too. They must be so or an evolutionary psychologist. I know who we can sell to to underwrite that the the tribe, the one of the funniest things about this tribe and they were in whatever they were in a little island called trabi and islands which are in the an archipelago off indonesia and the researchers who go there. They show them the islanders. You know a picture of a surprised face and they really allowed trouble with surprised. He didn't understand the surprised expression, and so he. Finally, he was like very puzzled by this. How do they register surprise, and he had happened to have this a couple years ago- an ipod with him, and they, of course, have never seen an ipod before he takes out his ipod. They all look at the ipod,
what do they do? They make a clicking sound with their tongue. That's their surprise. Is that fabulous? I just love that and he was like. Oh you know it's a kind of it's it's it's a deeply counterintuitive notion, but to follow up on your point about when we try and teach autistic people expressions. The other points you admit one should make. Is that we're teaching them how to.
I understand western. We don't teach them human universals. We teach them how to thrive in this society in two thousand and nineteen. That's what we're teaching something very specific and local, not something global and universal
which is oh go ahead. Will my understanding, Malcolm is that you started like that? It was a decision. This is no subject but in which aren't by any means an expert, but that
with the limitations of syntax by we say. Do you feel like this and point to a range of expressions now, if that is, if these expressions, as you are saying, have no reason to tune the certificate you're making
This stuff up like that, is that if those expressions are not underwritten by some kind of universality, then prepared
hell are we ever going to reach across the void, and that speaks to us over a deeper point. I suppose that the communicative arts in lesbos as a warlock, are somehow founded on their idea that we can reach across the abyss.
clean us and connect with something that is somehow absolute and total and feel the reassurance of our in your heart? Broken is the same as when my heart is broken and the way it confined commonality in that. If this is the gray variants distinction and in cultural action at the level of what we consider to be the most basic building blocks of communication, then
I suppose there's a viable afraid of ending up in some poach of post structuralist abyss of groping alienation. Is that something that you can have concerns that that's a that a a gloomy way of looking at it another way of looking at it is, and then, when you're not. I don't necessarily disagree with you, but I would also say the more positive way to look at it is that I was
this does is it it is alert us to the extraordinary richness and variation of human cultural experience. You wouldn't you know with underwrite, did Elvis
you know how would you watch a comedy from forty years ago or stand a protein from fifty years ago
and you understand you want
stand at it's funny and their parts it make. You laugh, but you don't laugh the way the people at the time
laughed, and so you are aware that, even in your own, even in the space of forty years, our notion of what
he is, has migrated quite substantially like when I watch the three stooges movie, it's real in a fundamentally I'm. Not that is not good
single belly laugh from for me, but I understand intellectually o in nineteen, whatever thirty five renault and searches were, people found this in credibly hilarious,
on have respect for that, and I marvel at how different the world was, but am also where it does not. It didn't land with me.
might, and islam with many people of this generation and all of us who have any people. Similarly, you know even a tv show from twenty five years ago. Is it. You know you listen to the net watch the narrative and near many parts of it that just seem odd. You know he knows how slow to our narratives are from twenty five years ago, like it's, almost as if they've taken
a tv show, and it is playing at half speed like you to see you like what's happening like. Why is this guy driving in a car for thirty sec?
in the middle of the and nothing, is happening like the expertise to sit there watching driver
with music like this is television. You know, so there's that it's just such an interesting that this I think we tend to underestimate, just how much movement
there is in culture within our own culture and also between from one culture to another and that
really what I'm getting at that's up power,
full source of of arm of confusion when we, when we do this kind of communication, do you think that its forms of imperialism, whether individual,
social that are being practised here. The imposition of all this these are our norms. This is how we respond. How does what you're saying relate to power? I mean it relates a fair amount to power. So the idea that emotional expressions really are universal was an idea that was promulgated by western psychologists in the nineteen
sixties, prep, primarily properly american psychologist, the nineteen sixties now. Is it any surprise that american psychologists cigar disseminating sixties at the height of american cultural dominance,
would go around the world saying you know what.
Everyone in the world and expresses our emotions just like us right? So if you are
strongly motivated to see their own particular culture as universal, because that was
that was the age we wherein when american power was seemed universal, so they would be,
surprising to me they would have been a kind of enthusiasm
for the idea that the rest of the world is simply doing versions of american cultural practice or western cultural practice, and it's taken
I take it took a long time for the end, and to this day there are many are not just general public, but many academics who resists the notion that there is this level of of cultural variation, but the evidence is pretty overwhelming that and that the world does the world does not see
this kind of stuff all the same way. Yes and the the yeah the there were various cultural inflections that are informed by environment and condition. Not that sort of seems you know like how can it be disputed when spoken, language has so much variation within an accepted grammatical framework, but to me that would
suggested is at least possible that about these very either learn apple might be called it
word in a variety of language they that Dave miracle. If I came to deep into derrida that the the of an app
well remains the same and that the that we still are expressing from the same palette by special, took it out misinterpretation in this book talking to strangers the older person smirked or sneered or wherever it was like that
recent case that caused much controversy in the united states that
teams in the mega hat the areas
smoked and what that men and what I implied and how that was weapon eyes by various sides of the argument,
Sorry, I understand what you're saying: how do you do? How do you deploy that in this? I noticed that one of the cases that
it uses the Amanda knox case: how how does that work now? This is a classic example of what we're talking about here. We have a case where an outsider cultural outsider and an awkward adolescent middle class american goes to italy and is somehow in in the middle of this horrendous crime and her reactions and strike people not from her culture as strange, so both the italian police and the english tabloid.
Ass. Look at her and say she doesn't behave the way we think distraught roommates ought to behave upon hearing of the death of their the murder of their roommate, and so they take. That is evidence of something nefarious on her part guilt and she goes to jail, even though the whole thing
bostra has, though, on there's no evidence linking it to the crime and crime itself makes no sense that some teenaged at an immature,
He nature would somehow engage in a murderous, satanic, sexual ritual with a drifter and her boyfriend
two weeks and her remy rudiment? Who does this is crazy, like it just describing, but somehow this fantasy was perpetuated because of this very thing I've been talking about because of an
speculation that, if you were truly this rod, that meant you had to bay of a certain way now was interesting about this. Is I think that this happens? This is a hugely crucial thing when it comes to things like the way that law enforcement interacts with awe disadvantaged communities. You have a white middle class police officer who was asked to make sense of an immigrant or some one of a different economic class, or some of them are very different social background and, if they're not alert to the,
excuse the cultural cues they're, going to make substantial errors in how they make sense of this person you're talking to- and that's really what I'm getting at in the book, that these kinds of errors are not trivial there. They they are they and they can be extraordinary corrosive to the to to this of social
break into society. What worthy assumptions and which cues were miss, read in their amanda knox case that yeah, you think, are helpful to illustrate this. So you, as you know there have been there- is a library of books on the man, s case and elsewhere, library of documentaries, and I have.
I have had the misfortune of bidding them on almost all of them, they're all the same
And they all, and if you re no all of the tablet coverage, it also has the same. What they were doing is there, as they were a series of incidents that
seized upon that was seen as characteristic of Amanda knox's, true feelings. So, for example, she's meeting with meredith courteous friends in the immediate aftermath of the
murder and they're all weeping and hugging, each other and amanda is stand off fish and instead of being distraught in reserved is angry,
She's with her or she goes with a boyfriend of two weeks to the police station
while there waiting to be interrogated by the police should sit on his lap and they hugging kiss or she spotted across the street.
The next day buying underwear at a lingerie shop, red underwear- in fact, when everyone assume that she should be home sobbing quietly now amend an ox, would say well the whole. The house was sealed: it's a murder
instigation I have no access to my underwear. I need to buy some underwear right. She would say why is
anger in response to the brutal murder of your remit, inappropriate that seems to be entirely appropriate this this,
Someone some evil person has could has has just committed an appalling
act in my house, killing a friend of mine. Why
is the only proper response to weep quietly in the corner, or here
am, I may teen em all alone in a foreign culture, the only prisoner, really postal, my boyfriend, of course, I'm gonna huggin kiss him during one of the most stressful
there is a these,
very good explanations for
so a more more importantly, she's. A little weird she's
sure she's a cheese wherever she is? Eighteen, nineteen she's an awkward
it's always been an ok. She describes in her autobiography she was the girl in high school, who would hang out with the kind of marginalized. You are the kids who are in do you know japanese comic books and
weird cipher things and she would sing loudly to herself ass. She walked down the hall or she would you know she's that kind of person. She
she followed her own and that in a
it is the people who know her like a man is weird, but no one in italy knew that demand is weird days.
as well as being a misinterpretation of social, cues or behaviors, their kotlin and their purchase. If underwear there,
there is also cause. I can speak with some experience on the troops and appetites of the british tabloid press that it's not from up is a neutral
They should, with a set of analytics sign, hold on a minute you're the grieving house. My we'd like to see a bit more weeping that the the interpretative device, in this case the tabloid press they have particular
stereotypes and needs that they project
young women is a really rich, seem for them.
And the sexual exploitation of young women and the idea of a kind of fame for tat. The more need only six, our member, that being a big part of the stories about time. So as well as
I like that there is a preexisting appetite to reach a particular conclusion in addition to one on a minute: you're not crying, it's also you're, not crying and by jove you're sexy. Wouldn't it be cool if this was a graphic sex, murder, yeah. We can report on here and with that play into also such as
oh police officer of some years standing talks to member of immigrant community persian,
it really brings that particular set of prejudices, also to back relationship. Absolutely so what's interesting about the there is a deeply period and also puritanical strain in tabloid journalism, right they are explicitly or implicitly enforcing a very kind of conservative set of social and sexual moors, and you know with her remember her nickname. There was great to do about it. The fact her nickname was foxy knoxy, which was supposed to be
sexual eyes thing about how she was sure she was quite attractive, very attractive. In fact, she's called foxy nazi because when she played football is a child, she was as elusive as a fox. She was a very good pop up,
and she could move the ball. You know an ogre catch her, and so it dates back to when she was before.
Puberty when she was so like a classic case of
It didn't occurred to anyone to wonder whether that word had more than one meaning right.
Necessarily mean you. This hyper sexual ized found peter.
I could also mean that when you were eleven,
you were a particularly be no deadly striker for europe for hook school socrates,
This is a lot of that kind of a rush, tipp painters, specific way,
and you know the other about that. I don't mean to make this all about that's right, but it's such a fascinating story in retrospect, because it so ludicrous in retrospect that
but you know what they ask her, they they day at one point that could have trick or into thinking tat. She might be have some communicable disease. I get ivy until they ask for a list of oliver sexual partners which she makes and then they release the list.
As evidence of her promiscuity- and there was a misunderstanding- this she was making
if everyone she'd ever said have been romantically involved in
hurry entire life, and they made
I like it was a list of people that she been above is just said: she'd been in ITALY. I says like.
you know on every at every turn. There is this kind of systematic attempt to missing to misinterpret her guilelessness and make it seem. Evidence of
we're kind of malice, and I wanted us and that's you know that I do see everytime. You read things like that. You wonder: how often does this happen that were and were not aware of it? How many times have we closed? The book on someone, without realizing that we have been engaging in a version of this game, yes cause in less vivid and lurid examples. There would be no cause for this degree of analysis. What day in talking
changes. What what? What is it? What are you conclude about the way that we should promote approach interactions with strangers? And what more broadly can we learn from this analysis? Well,
you know, I have a. I have a very
conclusion is that we need to be civil. It's sort of is to to be more cautious in more humble meaning, slowdown in our attempts to make sense of strain,
yours and understand a real limits in how well we can know someone
you know, I can come away from this encounter with you being him.
Haven't might have an array of emotion responses. I can
come away saying I know Russell, but I can even begin to pretend
that I know you or you know me right. We
be very aware going into this conversation of how little can
reliably be gleaned from the efforts of it. What we can say is we've enjoyed it or we haven't enjoyed it. It was interesting. It was not interesting. We found each other clever or not clever,
but I can't claim to have any deep insight into your it's eight. This came up once I remember this. I once gave a talk before a group of journalists and it was a it was a convention devoted to the art of profile. Writing and I got up. They were all talking about all the things you can do to kind of tools. For being writing effective.
files of famous figures celebrities. What have you and I gave a talk where I said well, you know, I think the profile is impossible and probably a bad idea and
the only real the only way to write them is to make it absolutely claim clear in when you're writing it that you don't know this person at all and have no way of getting to know them and someone this course cause create great consternation among journalists, and someone said yeah, but you know how do you feel then about therapy? I mean the therapists, I said well, the therapy first of all there, but you go every day every week or twice a week for years
as to the therapist is trained and three a is not publishing the results of their encounter with you on the front page of a magazine or a newspaper. So you
to be honest with your therapists, because there's a hemisphere, trust you dont, when you're talking to a journalist either
like trusting that they will be thoughtful end,
given how they represent, what you say you know they'll run with whatever you give them so it's
lately, not analogous so that even the conceit of journalism along these lines is fundamentally flawed?
like you can't write a profile, unless you say I am, I am just
no luminary, one small part of someone's life for
lens of my prejudices. Armed are my understanding and over them might
in the days when writing about great athletes and the things I continually look for and represent an misrepresent.
quite right that really. That really makes that really makes a lot of sense to me and with with
outliers what was your, what we
what was your a point of initial interest? Their greatness yeah and I got sick of successful people and taking credit for their own success and being oblivious to all of the sort of hidden ways in which they had been helped along, and I just found it if you live in new york as I do theirs and theirs up your alley same as london, a large body of
successful people who are deeply deluded about the reasons for their success and who will claim they did it all themselves. Even
As you know, they had
hundreds of millions of dollars from their father, like the american president, for example, and so at this after the one hundredth time, you sit at a dinner party and some kid tells you about how brilliant they are and how they graduated. You know from
average university, and then you discover that almost certainly none we did their father go to hurry risky, but their father almost certainly donated
story sum of money there which made it. You know, of course, that made them a virtual lock for admission. You begin to get to lose patience, and so that book was born out of my impatience with this particular delusion- and I wanted to say, look. Success is a very complicated story that requires,
the contributions of many and let's be honest about it. Why notices, then that in your own words
is subject to the phenomena that you frequently right about in that much of your people. Cherry pick
de I am speaking for myself and also the white I encounter you work outside of the original material. A take one thing like you can trust your instincts when, across that book, your sang in
things while powerful can be unreliable and can be a cane almost superstition, their outlines book
which is you know, a crow, almost a critique on greatness and show that greatness is a construct on the written by means of municipal facilitation and privilege or wherever people to
I now bill gates. I mean I've read that look of course, and I feel like I took flight from myself was he was had that copyright?
go and beat was locked away in hamburg and, above all, to get to be kind of a protestant. You know,
raft toil taught it as opposed to the tendrils of success, reach out in thousands of directions. Yeah yeah, but you can't you know you can't control the way. People read your work and have a book. A complicated book by definition is going to be interpreted many different ways, and you have to be prepared for that. So I don't get overly and I don't get overly frustrated when I feel like my work has been misinterpreted. I feel like that's just the price you pay for and for for tackling an ambitious topic,
Do you meditate, do I meditate? I don't, but I I'm a runner and I feel like there is a significant overlap between running long distances. Particulars you don't put things in your ears and I don't and meditating, and it's a you know it's a methodical, rhythmic activity done in privacy. That allows your mind, gives your mind time to
to be free of its incumbrances. So it's not dissimilar early morning no ma am- and I m an evening afternoon, runner ike
can imagine the whole idea of doing anything vigorous in the morning so distasteful to what end like just wherever you are, do you prefer night? Shell? Caesar I mean if to run in the countryside is the,
of all things here. I ran more than I do for a while. Now
and mostly with my dog but the one of the first runs I went on was in fairfield iowa, curiously, where they are transcendental, meditation folk have sat there, be no center and community and earth.
One of the first ones I went on. It was like snubbing an affirmative deep in these beautifully bucolic and frosty sand, and so on.
Eagle landed on a bale of high like this ridiculously large bird of prey, and I felt like I'm in concert with this nature, I'm in concert with it, and I enjoy that, as you say, this or being unencumbered in this worthless, serena
hey that, can care about you, meditate yeah, yeah, I'm I meditate a lot is without it without that, as well as a good many other systems and methods I find Serena a difficult to achieve, I don't tend towards pace. I note that I become kind of agita
it and stuff. What are yours, spiritual police? Why? What? What have these extensive studied it into?
these various phenomena, these constructions of interesting narratives, about how these things may come about lead you to believe about the nature of consciousness, stir nature.
God, what were how way where you land on these things, yeah malcolm lima
I am not an atheist. I do, I believe, very strongly in the existence of god in some kind of spiritual dimension to life, and but more importantly than that, I am someone who is deeply respectful of religious practice. So I think that there is something very beautiful that emerges from a from a kind of considered and and ritualized attempt to
I have to reach outside yourself, which I think is you know I I think of the the, and there is nothing more are a few things more corrosive and pernicious in the long term.
and people who never have an opportunity to reflect on something other than their own particular condition, and that I think we should
In some sense, I think we're seeing the consequences of a little of that now that we've now gone
rather along. You know he's a very concrete example that, whatever you think about going to church on Sunday morning, the thing that that accomplished for years and years and years.
Was several things one. Is it allowed you to see people that you disagreed with in a different context, so I could be violently opposed your politics
monday, tuesday, wednesday, thursday friday, but on sunday I would see you in church, and I would really be reminded that we have something we have in common there. You know
something we both believe in, which is probably more important
things we disagree with monday to friday, so that's actually a hugely important,
The second important thing is is important for people to place for people to mix not just the people who people different classes,
x? You may be driving. You know about
I may be driving a mini, but in the church we're both in the same place. Doing the same thing. That's also incredibly use
foreign divided time and those kinds of regular rituals of inclusion and the kid you mean you could replace it with something else. If you want, but you have to have
you have some form of it to have some way to make sense of someone outside of
very, very narrow definitions of of kind of person, and that's that's the thing that I think is incredibly,
while I agree that if there is no iteration of community, if we didn't have a sense of our shared values, requirements and conditions that tendencies towards
individualism? I've been thinking some more about the release,
between individualism.
rationalism and materialism, and the post enlightenment
journalism leading to a kind of an individualistic materialist, normally consumerist culture. I do feel that he can add something to that and it fill out something I should continue to think about and explore. Yeah we'll give you a a and a possibly a bad example and possibly a far fetched example. But it's a version of this. I am a rut like I say, I'm a rudder and a once a week I gathered with my track up and we do a workout together, and so several things.
Interesting about that one is that when you go to track practice you you get rid of everything except your running shorts or t shirt and your running shoes when it's something he has done completely apart from all of the accoutrements of
modern life, it is exactly the same as the ritual, the people
do when they ran out hundred years ago. Right, that's interesting. The second thing is that it's an identity that exists apart from all other identities.
so I don't even know the last names of most of the people in my club. I don't know what they do for a living. I dunno how much money they make
all I know, is he like running like me right, so it's like all of a sudden. We ve invented ride a form of collective identity that sits, above all, the other ones or sis. Apart from all the elements, and the third thing is, it involves
This kind of union of a physical exertion ends will psychological will, and that's really
trusting to were testing ourselves in a way that
The modern world doesn't make us test ourselves, but that's all those things are kind of fascinating and that the idea that I would happily run with someone who has who has married hasn't may not may have no possessions or no
may not make a lot of money made. I have any education and I would have nobody. Would I be
billy running with that person, I would have no
idea about that death difference.
It wouldn't even remotely concern. Can
It occur to either of us to explore that dimension of our difference. That is interesting right and that, I think, is something when we talk about this, the the connection between individualism and materialism, the architect, because the minute we start to define ourselves entirely by
alone autonomously. Then then, what you ve accomplish, what you accumulated matters it you know. I parted
if I, as it is, I drive X, number of car and I live in this right, but
that environment of collective activity matter anymore, but just running here and I set of which makes me one, makes me wasted. Everyone had some form of that experience. Yes, yes, you're able to experience. I type of truth there that is midst the clock, redundant, discarded and perhaps somehow not even present comparison from
life is. I go to brazilian jiu jitsu and you have the same thing you put on a uniform together. You line up in order of the belts. This is ritualized running around this of spice this. These exercises that everyone can dox you at the end. You will shake hands in the midst of bow to one another, it's loaded with ritual that, whilst it has hierarchy it's kind of I heard I went, I attended a grading recently and one of the black belts who would have achieved a certain degree of accreditation said we all come through that door with different needs and different lives at once. We're in here we all want the same thing, we're all the same, and what something that is achieved incarnate in under the auspices of progressive liberalism,
was achieved quite unconsciously there, because the cheers that went out for the people with eastern european surnames and muslim sounding surnames were this was uniform. It was uniform in their dead man, agendas, rice, everybody mixed together, according to that in the vienna like it, like you say, with the running, there's something to be said by this should share.
of purpose this over evade their willingness and also the exertion of thing.
Then you know I had this experience once ones
well, a leapt into like a very cold poland. Unlike those when there is of europe,
I'm out of me of lightly and have hit in the cold. You d stuff like that pre regular. These days I felt like
what I didn't know, my body could make that noise and make that sound, and I recognise, then I've been incubating the kind of soft pudgy comfort.
I never push beyond the paramo as if this so of them said it didn't trees.
Slavery. He took my own comfort in the service of outside the EU and that's interesting that that is part of the condition of the type of lives we leave these urban modern western lives. Here with this must be a there has to be a you, have to pay a price
for this, otherwise, the x, the there the whole exercise is meaningless. There must be some sacrifice as why there ass with a death with a joy comes from. If, if you
all got together and no no part of it involved, exertion or difficulty that I think would cease to have. It wouldn't have the same, meaning might and that's certainly true of of running. There is not just getting together. Instead, we get together and then we exhaust each other selling selling very, have kind of a nineteenth century, or you know victorian. I, in my outlook, bright there's something to that is very romantic. I like it- and I like this idea of sacrifice, an idea that somehow seemed to be a drift. It is difficult to access that idea, perhaps without a theological underpinning that we give something up. We give something or
and perhaps you know, sort of athletic context you can for her. I remember listening to a lance armstrong. The cyclist has a podcast which is quite fascinating in many ways. I remember listening to him once and he was chatting with one of his former teammates from his tour de france days and they were reminiscing about cycling and they were talking with their children,
How do they? What lessons from their own athletic career? Do they want to pass onto their children? And you thought they would talk about teamwork and the joy of this and Iraq needed of both of them, but they got the
I care about is we're really really worried our our children and I won't know what it means to experience pain. We want them to learn how to suffer and the thing that they got from it
hilarious because it was like their their interpretation of you know, ten years out of what was
Valuable about climbing a mountain. All day was just how much self
we get was and how like in retrospect, meaningful. I was to them and they were desperately afraid. Their kids would never suffered the same way.
Retirement ever heard. Parents say they want to kiss the supper. Was lance armstrong?
in his body on this package with dignity. The same point there that do something
you know if you can learn how to productively suffer you? U emerge with that. From that experience, with some kind of strength that you would have had before, not right, you know would like to see. Those guys really did suffer mean
the tour de France is. The most bananas exercise in masochism, perhaps ever conceived, I would rather climb MT everest in
bike, the tour de france. I mean, I can't imagine anything harder, it's crazy. He I mean I, I can't conceptualize it, but this idea of mortification is there it's interesting to me, because I suppose it is
its praxis, is the idea of a separation from the experience and bodily sensation. Now I can come
new. I can t I am not this. I am not on the basis of a tree.
sending yes. Yes, that's it yeah yeah that you glimpse something saving them. Don't you bleed something outside of there have been
Current brazilian jujitsu, I've been like I've noticed that I got injury recently and have noticed them
my willingness to go through that, like the cut the discomfort, the? U s virgin brazilian jujitsu cause it sort of mostly grappling is the issue the white of some
on you and when you say on top of your game, you have it it's the ability to find a willingness to sort of transcend that have tolerated to injury,
currently when it happens. I feel someone on my face of a oh god. I feel the summer like, I feel panic and
in tat. Let go away, and one or two to end too much combining with my
in it with my body with the bodily experience of discomfort
Well, have you here please, because I'm assuming just because of your of diligent expertise, I can ask about anything in your combat with some
I've been thinking about the corollary between of posts, structuralist analyses particular in terms of deconstructing abiding narrow.
Which seems to talk to this stuff around talking a strange as we bring these,
sometimes. This is what your nor more, when this is, how the swap the standard to five year on how we can deconstruct paid
okey, a nation and various ideas, Barbara, using the two tools of say, foucault, I'm
eastern
mysticism the idea
The self is constructs that you are not the pine
but you are not the memory that you are not the biochemical, dr D,
see anything in these ideas or do you do? Would you agree with this corolla or is it something that you feel qualified to speak about? We can't be less qualified than me and is it something that's interesting to you huh, it's true you're, not something that I've devoted a great deal of thought to not because I'm hostile to those ideas, but just because I haven't gotten to it yet I suppose
The m: are you interested in light poster tourism, for example, or independently in those two fields like them, easter?
MR theology, at least in restructuring. Yes, I guess what I was about. This is that there is a kind of coral
to this. What you're talking about in a very institutional academic world which has been this attempt to understand, and it goes back to what we we're talking about earlier.
When you begin to understand the that there aren't these very simple human, universal, zero universals, but we have to
character, notion about how we were all the same and that was really fed by by as much as we were talking about. You know. The most powerful country on earth sent its academics into the world, who came back with a conclusion like they're all like us. Worse,
the standard, a sense and there has been no retreat from that part of the retreat from that has been put up a lot of really fastening work, trying to understand turnover,
whilst noting and then trying to understand the profound difference,
in the way you know, east and west, take a look at ordinary experience so that some of these experiments are so much
fasting. Like I show you an aquarium in the aquarium, there are big fish, little fish rocks trees. I say look at the aquarium and then I come back to you.
Think leave the room and then write down your memories of what you saw. So we do this with a randomly selected group of americans and then we do it with a bunch of chinese or japanese, say. Japanese people have this image. What you discover is, if you compare the two groups recollections, they are completely different. Complete.
The americans will say would mentioned is a really big there, be one really big fish go discard the really big fish and then leave it all the details like there is a really big fish was egg purple
and had denote below a green com on it. It was I going around and the japanese will say the wearing of four small rocks at the bottom,
the school I saw scolding over here, it'll be all about their they'll, see the context and the americans will look focus on the most important person in the thing. In the accounts
I am now these are ones not wrong and the other right. These are two different ways of organizing experience that are stressing different aspects of experience that profoundly shaped away. Those two communities makes sense of the world,
and I think alerting ourselves to the idea that
There really are many different ways to read a situation I'm depending on where you sit is incredibly important. It really you know if I could ask for one thing,
from the educational system. It is that when you graduate, you should be aware of that fact
your way of seeing the world is not the only way. Yes, and
Yet it seems that we are
witnessing a rise in hand.
too many and how marginalization this doesn't seem like a time where we afford more diversity of experience. So when you apply that relief to politics, what does that? What do you hope for
a politically. Do you hope for more devolution, more centralization, more progressivism or what? Where or how do you translate that into your now substantial body of work into a political understanding, or is that even is
Having that you do well, I
think I would say I would ask for more devolution. I I think the problem now is that we are trying to to go.
burn highly diverse societies and with one set of ideologies and beliefs and and sketches too hard. Now it's one thing: if it's eighteen, twenty and everyone comes from the same place in worship to the same church, and it's really hard when
it's twenty nineteen and, and so in a mere you know. I think america is the real lesson of the american situation. The moment is that america, as president structured his ungovernable eyes just dishes too much difference between you, know, california and nebraska, and and instead of you know, you could either ah be deeply respectful of those differences at the national level, which seems really hard to do, or you can say it's actually. Four countries is not one, and that is there a graceful way for us to kind of do or not. You'll have to say
break formerly, but a graceful wait for us to acknowledge that in the way that we allow people to govern themselves hush too hard. Otherwise, is surprisingly infrequent that you hear there
reverso of national sovereignty discuss days is days war its? We do take that as an app
in the same way as we would assume everyone sees the aquarium in pretty much the same way. We assume no nationhood. That's you know we're gonna, take democracy
that nation, assuming that, where the people to do it, that is a nation where they should all
these things? I'm question that there is one
progressive lineage, along which we were all we're or travelling
and let it people, I suppose, that the sense,
people. Would it
we see that somehow lost out, not an astounding disease retroactive tests to deconstruct decide holder. They can never be
a single governing force of three hundred million in this country. Sixty position
in its the site of the fund? As you have diagnosed it
american politics, or american political or social. Political life seems the same here that for me I feel,
how will these people with all of these diverse requirements ever again be umbrella under somewhat we are england and and forebore end, who benefits
From there being one centralized identity, s particular
institutions is a slow leak, deconstructed around bath and dissolved and privatized and monetized and sold off what who's benefitting from there being a centralized american yeah yeah. I know there is a kind of it's clear that a border doesn't mean today what it meant in the past, so maybe it's time to kind of be thoughtful about what a modern border and means what sort of symbolic value is. What is practical values, and I always think you know as an as a someone who lives in the united states when I come to england, the the kind of the continuing debate about whether what the status of say, scotland, is
with respect to the rest of the uk, I always find sort of weird like it's, not as if the scottish aren't going to pack their bags and physically move their island to some distant part of the world. They're always going to be there you're always going to be able to go there make friends with scottish people. It's not that far away, you could still drink scotch and
eat haggis. I mean it's not like it's just a symbolic thing, so maybe they want their quoting. Could independence
aroused- and why is that a huge deal is like? Do you still gotta be frank?
scots distillery, friends. I mean it's like that. There's a kind of weird sense in which people get
worked up about these arrangements here. It's not it's gotta, it's fine, romantic notions of nation and domain
nation, but in relation to england and scotland presumed dominance in it like a great history of war on rivalry and eventual subjugation of scotland under
I and I envy one could argue the same thing for Britain's relationship with the european union. These economic,
trade relationships, these administrative bureaucratic relationships that are ultimately related domination. These are what I feel like you, malcolm that the the direction that that from ordinary people, to feel a sense of shared purpose and shared values such as as described in,
being poverty track, clobbered or jujitsu club day? How does that exist on a national?
or international scale, and why should it? What why? Why would we bring the abstraction into our lives when it can do nothing but create opposition conflict? I guess to link the things I ve been talking about, I'm far more interested in having courage, uniform mason of these sort of informal.
deeply personal, collective identities, then I am in propping up these kinds of formal, impersonal, grand collective identities.
that we wouldn't be so worked up about the state of
nation. If we had meaningful personal ties with social
It's on our in our immediate world. So it's like I, you know I sort of feel like we could solve. We can solve this need in a different way. If we're purposeful about it.
I agree, and most much of our conversation has being predicated on the net
a that the many
things that we seem to be universal, maybe cultural! Do you feel
there are anthropological routes that, if somehow honoured, might create
Ferreira and
The more reach systems I e for
If they're running, when there is a tribe that have a shared purpose in a shared vision and a shared experience where there is mutual suffering and respect and a degree of equality here that that, for me I sense that that problem
Each resin nice, with with something in somewhat inherent who do agree. Yes, I do think I dont think that that civil society,
can function without new without numerous forms of collective identity? That
Was that idea that you must so I've, often the thought about this as a kind of an abstract
size. If you meet someone, you say what are all the ways in which you would describe yourself and what you find, of course, is that.
people the minute they're even remotely reflective. They can come up with multiple descriptors. I could be. You know I could be a woman. I can be greek, I could be gay, I could be a mother, a daughter. I could be a physician. I could you know you can imac I've described someone for you who has, she could also be a say, she's, a
an athlete she's, a basketball player she's, a all those things are deeply important. Her maybe she's religious make that eight I've now described eight ways in which eight identities possible days for her and then you say
ok, let's give everyone ada say everyone has eight identities. Each person will rank them differently. For some people, the identity of position will be one mother to greek. Third, somebody will be greek one mother, five athlete too. You know everyone's got their own way of kind of organizing and when use of take a step back and make every one direction,
as you realize, good lord, there are, there is in it. There is an enormous variety in the way we make sense of each other, so you have to be good to have a country. You have to be deeply respectful of that variety than now
everyone, just because I Malcolm global, put my identity of writer first and canadian. Fifth,
does not mean that I can look down my nose up as someone who puts canadian first ends their profession at the bottom of the list, right that that's what to my mind, what I was asked to do when my interviews for this for turkish urges someone got was problem
and the conservative side of things was asking can have leading questions about my attitude towards identity politics, but, to my mind, all
didn t politics is his people making this argument there just sing for me my sexual identity- or
ethnic identity is at the top of the list what's wrong with that
it just being you're just saying my orders, gonna be different in your order. Am I
by the way is different from the order that society permitted through most of its history, really useful to know right, not threatening wiser.
I think it's just there just saying this
What matters for me in this moment in my life, and that is what everyone
as always been doing for as long as people have been and have have have been human. Why is it threatening? Do you think cause like you know you you, as you've said it's not
my assumption. Mobility is certainly because its publication and acknowledged
this process of diffusion and an inability to contain you, the seizure, wherever you that this for me speaks to power.
relationships dissemblers, I'm no longer a member of this nation, I'm a member
new nation? This issue I am this is how identify is a challenge to the very most dolly
is by which we measure and appoint paypal. It requires an adjustment on the part of the person who is in a position of power. That's what it means
right? So I can no longer assume the world. Those who work
for me or who are under me and I iraqi organs
as their identities. In the same way that I do, and that means I have to kind of have to think about them, just them
pathetic see the world through their eyes, do all kinds of things which are pino may be difficult,
and time consuming and costly emotionally in all kinds of things, but at a relatively
small price to pay for respecting someone's dignity this, but it still its if youth, if you're accustomed to being
top and assuming everyone, organizes your life. The way you do it's an imposition
power is about. If I want to do something
I'm gonna do it and I want to deal with all this complexity in potential opposition, because your world view differs with impossibly opposes minds her here. That makes sense to me, while Malcolm's
fantastic conversation we ve been talking to seventeen minutes. I really am excite eighty two
I read your I'm excited to read your new book. I'm glad we had the chance to get into that that political areas
within the area, what do you feel about say the
new, emerging up deployment of tech and analytics,
minute potentially manipulate elections is innocent? Is an annex
translation extension of some of your work. If we look at all this data in the basic rights,
signal, obviously about? Let you
Well your opinion about this bit of that kind of profiling and the utilization of asia to potentially manipulate.
I would only say I remain a little bit dubious about that. That kind of manipulation and analytical application is as effective as its practitioners
out to be so. You know, let's be clear. This is these: are services
being sold by companies hoping to profit from this
those services and it's in their interests to make it to kind of make it to make the claim that this is super
and by manipulating the ads on rustles facebook page, I can turn
so from acts to. Why really not sure about that? I could. If I am a little bit I cut, I save think people's motivations are a lot more
complex and I and changing their minds a lot more difficult than some of these techie people. I will care to admit so
Perhaps there is a sort of an unconscious or unspoken collusion between their visa. The technocrats
a service
liberal left unwilling to accept responsibility for a few decades of negligence to ordinary people
or I thought you could say that the critics of this practice unwittingly encourage the proponents of this practice, because a critic
by the assumption this is very, very powerful and then
and in so doing make the practice.
Of all the more alluring to those who want to who want a monopoly.
so in everyone's propping up. What I think is largely untested assumption about. Like I understand it, the russians tried to manipulate the election in america. Would I dont believe, is they succeeded
the difference is wrong if they tried and they should be snapped and hand it. We should be worried about them. Trying but
need to be shown evidence that it worked. I really
living in moscow is paying a couple million bucks to a bunch of walk sitting it up
rule of computer somewhere, and they can change americans minds about who negative affords that sums to be so ridiculous on its face we
we either apparatus in society is trying very hard to change their minds and failing, but somehow the russian brilliant speaks english and he was like put.
on facebook pages they're, the ones who control the history seems seems preposterous to think it over
like worthy man did not story. There's an appetite to believe in the motif of the firm fatigue that perhaps in american political culture which semi the level of media, could broadly be described, ass of a liberal democrat
left wants to believe that the only way that donald trump could come to power is not because of some sort:
Mary? Had Williams had dark psychic foresees being unleashed by the cause of some skulduggery
an electoral manipulation, evading responsibilities. It isn't it you, as you put it
It is a way of evading responsibility for the conditions for their role in the conditions that led to this man's rise. I think that as well, without really got to talk to you, I'd like to
just regularly interview. Is it like it? If I reminded of one inadvertently acquired the phone number of eckart tall,
see mrs of samaritan like us, or a car, I'm depressed? Who are you
Would you used to continually underwrite theories that I make up while on strolls with agenda
academic information. I would be delighted. Thank you. So much for a privileged totally fires, malcolm think, is well that was mouth and gradual. I hope you like,
it remember to. Let me know before we're on instagram that that's a tag me at Russell brand or tweet me at rush. The rookies will get onto linkedin and check me out there or a minute tick. Tock platforms robbed took an away at you or subscribe to you,
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probing videos for yourself, no intimate in that way. I just mean you know authentic jenny, don't pull those faces, intimate doesn't just mean sex. Gen is emotional, intimacy, there's warmth their kindness, there's human togetherness coming at you from
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Transcript generated on 2023-10-27.