Kelly Corrigan and David Brooks on the Art of Conversation

Smart people know things; wise people know people. For Next Question guest today, David Brooks, knowing people has been a lifelong endeavor. Katie Couric and her + 1 today, Kelly Corrigan, dig deep into David’s new book, How to Know a Person: The Art of Seeing Others Deeply and Being Deeply Seen, which is all about how we connect–empathy, curiosity, vulnerability–and how we can build these skills in ourselves. There’s even an empathy test you can take along with us in the episode! Incisive and wide-ranging, this conversation is one of the funniest episodes Next Question has ever presented. Join Katie, Kelly, and David in asking yourself about the role empathy and connection plays in your life, and discover with them new ways to build and use those skills to have a more “lit up” existence.

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:01):
With no fees er minimums. Banking with Capital one is
the easiest decision in the history of decisions. That's banking
reimagine what's in your wallet. Terms apply see capitolwe dot
com slash bank Capital one NA member FDIC. Hi everyone,
I'm Katie Couric and this is next question. Hi everybody, welcome.

(00:30):
Once again, it's Katie plus one and I'm so thrilled
with my date today. This time it's Kelly Corrigan. She's
an author journalist. She's the host of the podcast Kelly
Corrigan Wonders. She has written four New York Times bestselling
memoirs in the last decade, earning her the title of
the Poet Laureate of the Ordinary from the Huffington Post

(00:53):
and the Voice of a Generation from Oh Magazine.

Speaker 2 (00:56):
Wow.

Speaker 1 (00:57):
Kelly Yeah. She's worked in nonprofits for ten years. That
decade created her worldview, which goes people are struggling, make
yourself useful. She paints almost every day in her garage,
often in her pj's like a crazy person, but a
happy crazy person, and that's what's working, so she keeps
doing it. Kelly, thank you for being my plus one

(01:19):
on this podcast.

Speaker 2 (01:21):
Oh I'm so happy to be with you the last
time you were my interview subject on the PBS Show.

Speaker 1 (01:27):
That's right, that's right, And I actually should have mentioned
the PBS Show, which is wonderful as well. And Kelly,
I think you do have this every woman wisdom that
people just gravitate to, and so that's why I thought
you'd be the perfect partner for me to talk with
David Brooks, who I have long admired, You've long admired.

(01:50):
But before we open up the conversation and let David in,
let's just talk very briefly about how we know each other,
which is kind of a fun story because it dates
back to the Today's Show. Can you tell everyone how
we first connected.

Speaker 2 (02:04):
It's two thousand and four. I had just finished a
year of cancer treatment. My hair was just starting to
grow back. I was thirty seven, two little kids, and
my dad had cancer at the same time I did.
And it was the first day of Breast cancer Awareness Month.
So the Today Show always does a big, full coverage
of that topic, and so I was invited to come

(02:26):
on with my dad. And it was so funny, Katie,
because we were in the green room and we're all
made up and fancy and I and my dad's a
big character, like he really lets it rip. And I
was like, you know that, this is like keep it,
keep it in the pocket at first, like let's just
try to like, you know, play it.

Speaker 3 (02:46):
Tighten it up down, Yeah, tighten it up, brother.

Speaker 2 (02:48):
And we get out there and you came right across
the room like it was your home like that. That
was my immediate sense was like, Oh, you're going to
take care of us, like you're welcoming us into your space.
You came all the way across the studio. You didn't
sit in your chair and look at the teleprompter and
get ready. You came to us, which I just thought
was really lovely and doesn't always happen. And you said Hi,

(03:09):
I'm Katie, and I was like, Hi, I'm Kelly. This
is my dad, George. And my dad instantly said, Katie,
my son went to Washington and Lee, which is where
your husband, your first husband went, And he said, right,
and he played for coach so and so, and you said,
I don't think my husband really, I don't think Jay

(03:30):
really liked him. And my father Zach Emmer right, and
my father said, oh, he's a dick. And I was
like Oh my god, Dad, this is exactly what I
told you not to do, like we're keeping it in
the pocket.

Speaker 3 (03:44):
And then we walked out.

Speaker 2 (03:45):
You'd laughed so hard, and we walked over and sat
on the little sofa. And then you know, when you
go on the Today Show, like they try to get
it organized for you in advance, where they give you
the questions and you practice answering them, and you know,
they give you a little window of content. And the
very first question you went off script, and I was like, Oh,
this is so cool, Like she's just going to talk

(04:07):
to us because you know so much like to me.
I was like, it would be so rude of me
to be nervous right now because I'm talking to someone
who has lost two people, You're two dearest people to cancer,
and so I'm just going to talk to you like
I would if there were no cameras, because heart to heart,
there aren't any cameras, like this is my story, this

(04:29):
is your story, this my dad's story, like and it
was so wonderful, and I think we were on for
like seven minutes or something like I remember after it
was over all my cousins were like, oh my god,
that was insane.

Speaker 1 (04:41):
Uh, and you were brilliant, and I think you know,
your voice maybe emerged that day and led to so
many other wonderful opportunities because of your honesty and your heart.
So I feel like I was there when it all started.
I'm so glad you're doing well and are in good health,

(05:04):
and I'm so proud of what an important person you've
become in the world. So many people, Kelly, Honestly, it's
a wonderful thing to witness. Okay, Kelly, Before we go
on and on, because it's a mutual admiration society, here,
let's bring in David Brooks to talk about his new book,
How to Know a Person, The Art of Seeing Others

(05:27):
Deeply and Being Deeply Seen. David Brooks, Welcome, Kelly, and
I both welcome you to the podcast.

Speaker 4 (05:35):
This is a double barrel of fun and willing and
able look out.

Speaker 3 (05:38):
Mister.

Speaker 1 (05:39):
I'm really excited to talk to you about this, and
I think it's something that interests Kelly a great deal too. Kelly,
when you heard about David's book, How to Know a Person,
The Art of Seeing Others Deeply, Being Deeply Seen, what
interested you about it?

Speaker 2 (05:56):
Well, I'm a little bit curious about David's journey, because
I once heard him say that in his house the
ethos was think Yiddish, act British, and that I know
you to be, you know, a journalist of the highest order,
and a specific kind of journalist, which is to say,
not like Katie, whose job it is to ask questions,

(06:16):
but rather someone who's supposed to summon an opinion and
present it, which is sort of the opposite of what
you're asking people to do in this book. So that
my deepest curiosity was how funny that you should come
to this urgent message after a somewhat aloof life where

(06:38):
you could be in a cerebral space nine days out
of ten and not really have to operate on this level.

Speaker 4 (06:43):
Yeah, and thought about that way. But my whole life
has been a journey to being more like Katie. And
I'm totally cool with that.

Speaker 3 (06:51):
By the way, It's not a bad trajectory.

Speaker 4 (06:55):
Right, because I grew up, as you say, in a
super intellectual world with my family, my answer professors, and
then when I got to be eighteen, the admissions officers
at Columbia, Wesleyan, and Brown decided should go to the
University of Chicago.

Speaker 2 (07:09):
I laughed, at that, Lie David also.

Speaker 4 (07:11):
A super heavy place, and I fit right in.

Speaker 2 (07:14):
My joke is our fun goes to die right right.

Speaker 4 (07:18):
The best saying about Chicago it's a Baptist school where
atheist professors teach Jewish students. Saint Thomas Aquinas so super intellectual,
and I fit right in my joke is I had
a double major in history and celibacy while I was
at Chicago.

Speaker 3 (07:33):
Not a lot of connection, not a.

Speaker 4 (07:35):
Lot of connection going on there, and so I was
cerebral and it, you know, it worked for me. But
at some point you just want to get wise, right, Like,
smart people know about things, but whise people know about
people and life and life and the circumstances we find
ourselves in. And so, you know, whise people have a
sorehouse of knowledge about human nature. They're curious about other people.

(07:58):
They're good at having conversations people remember for a long time.
They're good at sitting with someone who's suffering. And so
I just wanted to be more like that. I mean,
one of the dualisms in the book is in every
community there are some people who are diminishers and some
people who are illuminators. And diminishers make you feel small
and unseen and not curious about you. They stereotype you,

(08:19):
and illuminators light you up with their care and they're
just really good at making people feel seen, heard and understood.
And now I'm intimidated. I'm in the presence of two
pretty good illuminators. So that's when my life journey.

Speaker 1 (08:31):
Well, it's interesting, you know, David. I mean, I've so
much to talk to you about. I really enjoyed your book,
and I think you're very funny in it. I like
when you said when it comes to spontaneous displays of emotion,
I had the emotional capacity of a head of cabbage.

Speaker 2 (08:46):
And you really talk about how.

Speaker 1 (08:49):
Closed off you were to feelings, emotions, connections, and it
made me wonder frankly, and I think Kelly and I
both I don't know. I'd love to hear about your childhood, Kelly.
I have been always extremely empathetic and attuned to the
emotional well being of people around me, to a point

(09:12):
where it's a lot. You know, if I see someone
by themselves, I always go and talk to them. When
there was only one African American girl in my piano group,
I said to my teacher, I hope she wins the
prize today because I felt that she felt lonely and different.
So I've always been that way, and it made me

(09:33):
wonder is empathy the result of nurture or nature because
your parents obviously were not particularly touchy feely. But I
feel like it's more than that. It's almost something you're
hardwired to be. And I'm curious what you found out
about that, David.

Speaker 4 (09:54):
Yeah, I think empathy is like it's like athletic ability.
Some people are born with more of it others, but
everybody needs training and everybody does better if they work
on it. And so to me, empathy is three skills.
The first is mirroring, and that's catching the emotion right
in front of you, and that's the natural you're comfortable
with your body, you send somebody else emotions and you

(10:16):
share it, you feel it. That's mirroring. The next one
is mentalizing, and that's the ability to see, Oh, I
had an experience like she's going through, so I sort
of know what she's going through. So like on the
first day of the job, I remember, Oh, on my
first day of the job, I was nervous, I was excited,
I was overwhelmed. I had all these scattering of different emotions,

(10:36):
so I'm mentalizing, I'm projecting what I think. And then
the third thing is caring, the ability to accurately care
and so kids like, if you come home from work crying,
your two year old will hand you a band aid,
which is sweet, but it's not what you want. So
you have to effectively care. And so there's a guy
named Rabbi Elliot Kukla who wrote about a woman who

(10:59):
had a brain injury. So she fell on the floor.
She just fell down sometimes, and she said people are
always rushing to lift me up because they're uncomfortable seeing
an adult on the floor. Sometimes they just need to
get down on the ground with me. And so empathy
is knowing sometimes you just have to get down on
the ground with someone. And I put in the book,
I'm going to read out a little empathy test so

(11:20):
you can tell how naturally talented you are at empathy.
And I'll read you a few statements and see if
you agree with them. First, is I find it hard
to know what to do in social situations. It doesn't
bother me when I show up late, people say I
went too far and driving home. My point, if those
apply to you, you probably you're naturally a little lower

(11:41):
on empathy. Interesting, here's some other statements. Interpersonal conflict is
painful to me. I mimic the mannerisms of those around me.
When I make a social blunder, I'm extremely disturbed. And
so if you say yes, this sort of applas to me,
that's a sign you probably have higher empathy. And so
we have it. We're born with a certain level, but

(12:02):
we on need training to get better at it.

Speaker 3 (12:05):
I have two questions.

Speaker 2 (12:06):
One is do you think that life experiences accelerate change,
Like you had a really hard period in your life,
your marriage fell apart, and you did a little self
evaluation and didn't really like the results. Katie has obviously
been through a terrible loss twice over sister husband. I
had cancer in my thirties. It took two years to

(12:27):
get rid of. So I wonder about those big moments,
and then I want to drill down on mentalizing. But
first I'm curious do you think that if you are
sort of not a great empathizer by nature, do you
think that an ordinary life can get you there or
it takes something extraordinary?

Speaker 4 (12:47):
Well, I have a pretty ordinary life or really a
blessed life. But I've had moments of suffering. I used
to tell my kids, my students, you know, you can
be knowledgeable with other people's knowledge, but you can't be
wise with other people's wisdom. You have to live through it,
and you know, suffering. One of my favorite sayings about suffering,
it's from Paul Tillic in nineteen fifties theologian. He said, suffering,

(13:10):
moments of suffering, phases of suffering interrupt your life and
remind you you're not the person you thought you were,
and that he says, they carved down through the basement
of what you thought was the floor of your soul,
and they carve through that and reveal a cavity below.
Then they carve through that and reveal a cavity below.
So you see, at least I think most people do.
They see into depths of themselves they didn't know existed

(13:31):
in moments of suffering, and they know only spiritual and
relational food will fill those depths. And so people have
a choice, which is they can be broken or broken open.
And some people are broken, they get bitter, they get hard,
they close in on themselves. But some people get broken
open and they feel more, they get more vulnerable, they
have greater empathy. And I do think that after you've

(13:53):
been through suffering, you'd come out of it if you
use those horrible moments well with a certain sort of knowledge.
There's a phrase quotation I left from Thornton Wilder, which is,
without your wound, where would your power be? It's your
very remorse that makes your low voice tremble in the
hearts of men in love service only Wounded Soldiers conserves.

Speaker 2 (14:15):
That Thornton Wilder, he could write that guy.

Speaker 3 (14:18):
You get a nice twist of phrase that one.

Speaker 1 (14:21):
Before you talk about mentalizing, though, I'm curious, David, so
it seems to me this has been a life long
something that you have wanted to improve for some time.
Or was it exacerbated by, as Kelly said, a life event,
the fact that your marriage didn't work out, or was

(14:44):
there an event or a series of events that really
precipitated this longing and this search, or is it just
something that you felt was missing in your being?

Speaker 4 (14:55):
Yeah? I felt something was missing so frankly, and the
story of telling the book Big Baseball Fan, and I
never all the big games I've gone to, I've never
gotten a foul ball, And.

Speaker 2 (15:06):
Oh yeah, right, This is a funny story.

Speaker 4 (15:10):
I go to the game in Baltimore with my youngest
son and the batter loses control of the bat and
it lands at my feet. It flies in the stands,
and I've got a bat, And any normal human being
would be jumping up and down, high fiving, hugging everybody
around me, getting on the JumboTron. But I just put
the bat at my feet and like sit there like inert,
like a turtle.

Speaker 2 (15:30):
That's when you would describe you having the emotional capacity
of ahead of cabbage.

Speaker 4 (15:34):
Yeah, so I'm like show a little joy man. And
so that that's the aloof reticent version of me. And
I did it. I tried to improve myself for change
the universe Chicago way. I write books about it. So
I wrote a book about emotion. Then I wrote a
book about a character formation, and I wrote a book
about suffering. And this book is really about how to

(15:55):
be wise about people and how to make them feel
lit up. And so that's you know, I have, you
know work. Writers are usually working out their stuff in public,
and I'm working on my stuff and I'm trying to
share what I learned with others. One of my favorite
phrases of writing is we're beggars who tell other beggars
where we found bread. And so when I find something
that's useful, I shared, and that's like my highest satisfaction.

(16:18):
And I'm going to name drop to show that I've
made progress in life.

Speaker 2 (16:23):
Oh I know this story?

Speaker 3 (16:25):
Yeah, so Oprah?

Speaker 2 (16:27):
Yeah all right, so you're gonna pull out the big
oh whatever.

Speaker 3 (16:32):
Special to David.

Speaker 4 (16:36):
If you ladies want to praise me, I'm happy to
put your story in place.

Speaker 2 (16:43):
Go ahead, David.

Speaker 4 (16:44):
I didn't know I was going to walk into this
amount of rivalry now.

Speaker 3 (16:48):
Never, you know, just being honest, He goes a thing.

Speaker 4 (16:51):
Okay, So the Oprah story that one, Sorry I missed it.
Maybe I'll tell my Anne Hathaways for instead.

Speaker 2 (17:00):
That's funny.

Speaker 3 (17:01):
I know we like that one.

Speaker 4 (17:04):
So the Oprah story is that she interviews me two times,
once in twenty fourteen and once in twenty nineteen, and
after twenty nineteen, after the taping, she pulls me aside
and said, I've rarely seen someone change so much in
middle age. You were so emotionally blocked before. So that
was for me, that was like graduation day. I can
show that, you know, I've made some progress in much.

Speaker 1 (17:24):
That is I all kidding aside I think. I mean,
obviously she's so highly perceptive and intuitive. Just you know
that goes without saying. But I think for her to
recognize it, And did you feel obviously, as you said,
you felt validated. But do you think she was right?
I mean, do you think there's a way you carry
yourself differently, that you talk to people differently, that your

(17:47):
body language, that everything about you has opened in some way.

Speaker 4 (17:53):
I think that's accurate. I do. I hope it's accurate.
I'm still not all the way there. I'm not like
the most since I'm not a naturally gregarious person, as
you know. But if you come up to me with
a problem, I'm comfortable enough with your pain to sit
with you in your pain a little more. And so
I used to like freeze and fear because I didn't
know what to do. And I've learned to storify life

(18:17):
to try to get stories. So there are two ways
of thinking. There's the paradigmatic mode, which is making an argument,
which is what we do if we're making a strategy
memo or writing a newspaper column. And then there's the
narrative mode, which is getting people to tell your stories
and so like, even in political journalism, I'd only ask
people what do you believe about this? I ask people,

(18:39):
how did you come to believe this? And that way
they're telling me about somebody who shape their values or
some experience they have. There we're in story mode.

Speaker 2 (18:46):
I asked Sarah Palin that question, David, and she didn't
have a very getting right.

Speaker 1 (18:52):
I said, what newspapers and magazines do you read? And
actually all of them, honestly, I know all Kitdting decaught.
It was looking for some kind of deep answer that
helped me understand what shaped her, what shaped her values,
what shaped her outlook, her worldview? And you know, it
was an unsuccessful inquiry, but it's interesting because that's really

(19:16):
I was genuinely curious about what leads someone to have
a certain political ideology. You know, sometimes your parents sometimes
I thought she could say William F. Buckley or you know, honestly,
even the Bible. I just was looking for what was
a very formative experience that made her the woman she

(19:37):
is today.

Speaker 4 (19:38):
It's very curious that she couldn't answer that question. Well,
was she genuinely lack a story about the values that
formed her. Did she think, oh, I can't tell that
in public, it might not be helped me politically, or
maybe nobody had ever asked her and so she didn't.
A lot of people no one's ever asked them those
basic questions.

Speaker 1 (19:58):
Well, remember when Roger Mudd asked to Kennedy why he
wanted to be president and Teddy Kennedy was speechless.

Speaker 4 (20:04):
I was just thinking exactly of that episode, Yeah, exactly.

Speaker 1 (20:07):
I think she just didn't read much and had no
intellectual curiosity, honestly, and I think she got tripped up
on naming things and I kind of left it wide open.
But anyway, it's really interesting. I'll be right back with
David Brooks and my special Plus one guest Kelly Corrigan.

(20:32):
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(21:01):
Kelly and I are back with David Brooks.

Speaker 2 (21:05):
So I just wanted to loop back on mentalizing, because
what you were suggesting is that if a person comes
through with a certain shape of a problem that you
could identify and say, oh, I've had something similar, I
know what that might feel like. But that bumps up
against the UT research that you unearthed for the book,

(21:26):
which is pointing us toward this terrible interpersonal arrogance where
we have too much confidence in our ability to read
body language and expression and gesture. And it brings up
one of my all time favorite concepts. We did a
series on it on my pod last year about intellectual humility.

(21:51):
So can you talk about the UT research and what
it points out about our over estimation of our own
perceptive skills.

Speaker 4 (22:01):
Yeah. First, I love that phrase interpersonal arrogance.

Speaker 3 (22:03):
That's that is what were yours. Take it run with it.

Speaker 4 (22:08):
It was stolen about thirty seconds ago. So the research
is guy named William Mikes who's at the University of Texas, Arlington,
and he finds that when we meet a stranger and
have a conversation with him for the first time, we're
accurately reading each other's minds only twenty percent of the time,
and some people when we are with friends and family.

(22:29):
We are accurately reading each other thirty five percent of
the time, and so some people are pretty good at
it fifty five percent they're accurate. Some people are terrible
zero percent and they think they're one hundred percent. But
the point is we're all sort of creative. We all
have our own distinct point of view. We all see
the world in our own way. And while it's important
to mentalize to try to think, well, I've shared this experience,

(22:52):
you probably have to. We have to be humble and
know we probably can't imagine our way into somebody else's mind.
The only way in is ask. And that's why to
me that the central humanistic skill is the ability to
be a great conversationalist, not just a good one, but
a really great one. And this is another area where
we're not as good as we think we are. We

(23:13):
all think we're good conversationalists, but being a conversationalist, I mean,
you guys do it for a living. But it's a
high art form. And I've been in over the last
year I think back, I've been in some phenomenal conversations,
and I've been in some terrible ones that I don't
really remember. And the phenomenal ones invariably revolved around some
big question. Somebody put a big question on the table

(23:35):
and it allowed us to explore it altogether.

Speaker 2 (23:37):
I think about that bringing intellectual humility into our most
important relationships. So I have a twenty year old and
a twenty two year old, and I think my job
is to say, tell me more, what else? Go on
until we unearth the thing behind the thing behind the thing,
because otherwise they're presenting and you're speeding to a point

(24:00):
of view, and you're advising with your clever advice, and
as soon as you start talking, they're tuning out. They're like,
she literally doesn't even know what I'm talking about. I
haven't even told her that the real reason I'm upset
is because parents weekend is coming up and I don't
know who we're having dinner with on Saturday night. But
what I told her is I felt a little anxious

(24:20):
in mad class, and now she's talking to me about caffeine.

Speaker 3 (24:24):
You know what I mean.

Speaker 4 (24:25):
That's fantastic, that's fantastic. Yeah, the rule is asked three times,
like your job is to stand in their standpoint, is
to say, Okay, what was that? And then ask it
the same question different phrasing than the third time. The
third time you actually are beginning to get some answers.

Speaker 1 (24:42):
In many ways, I think this book is a blueprint
for everyone on how to be a better person, how
to be a better partner, how to be a better friend,
how to be a better parent. And I think everybody
wants that. And what do you think are some of
the you know, obviously we can't view the whole book, David,
but what are some of the key things that you

(25:05):
need to do to really know someone to make sure
that person is really seen just parenthetically. I don't know
about you all, but whenever I go to a funeral,
I leave and I think, Gosh, I wish I had
known this person better. I never knew this. I never

(25:26):
asked them about that. A friend of mine recently died,
and I have to say she believed nothing should be
left unsaid. She always told me, we always told each
other how important we were to each other in our lives.
And she saw me and knew me deeply, and I
think I knew her deeply too. I didn't have that

(25:48):
feeling at her service, but so many other times I
feel like Gosh, I had such a superficial relationship with
this person? Why didn't I know them better? And I'm
just curious a if you guys ever feel that way
when you go to funerals And again be David, what

(26:08):
are some of the ways we can we can feel closer,
more connected and see people who are important to us?

Speaker 4 (26:17):
Yeah? I mean the nicely about funerals is they talk
about people talk about what matters. And when I had
this earlier book where I made a distinction between the
resume virtues and the eulogy virtues right right, and the
resume virtues of the things that make you good at
your job, and nobody talks about that at a funeral.
They talk about whether you're a courageous, honest, capable of
great love. And so you know, I think, as I say,

(26:39):
big questions are the way you get to know somebody,
Like you're having coffee with someone, you're at a dinner table, whatever,
And we're shy about asking questions, but there's some questions
you can ask that lift people out of their day
to day life and get them seeing themselves from thirty
thousand feet. So it's like, what crossroads are you at?
Often we're at a moment of transitional life it's interesting
to ask what crossroads you at. Other questions are like,

(27:02):
if this five years is a chapter in your life,
what's the chapter about, what's the commitment you've made that
you no longer really believe in. I was at a
party with a political scientist. He said, I'm eighty, what
do I do with the rest of my life? And
that was a great conversation about his interests or how
you do old age well and what you should do
in the year's approaching death. And so we went on

(27:24):
for like ninety minutes talking about Wow, various things that's
spun off from that, and it's just like you think, oh,
it's just a memorable conversation, But I'll never see him
the same way. I know a lot more about that guy,
and I had the pleasure of really seeing into the
interior of a very wise person's life.

Speaker 1 (27:42):
You know, it would be fun to do a game.
I think they have this like conversation starters or something.
I don't know. I never I've been given it and
I've never used it, which may be part of the problem.
But maybe do a list of big questions that will
open up a conversation. So actually, when you're at a
dinner party, it becomes much more meaningful and worth your

(28:06):
time than a bunch of small talk with the person
to your right.

Speaker 2 (28:10):
I think it's almost like there's an awkwardness. You feel
like a goon. Like we used to do those conversation
cards and put one under each plate, and then at
any point during dinner you could lift your plate and
take the card and ask somebody next to you, like
what's your biggest fear? Or if your high school did superlatives,
what would yours have been? Or if your mother wrote
a book about you, what would it be called? Is

(28:33):
there anyone you would like to apologize too? Like there's
so many juicy questions, and most people have like a
little bit of a guard up and they feel goofy
trying to take it from like you know, the kid's
soccer game or your Christmas plans to something much deeper. Well, David,
I think David writes Kelly that we're not taught how

(28:57):
to do this, and I think that they're in life
the rub right totally. And there's whole generations who think
asking these types of questions is completely rude. Like my
mother would say, oh, for God's sake, like, you know
you know how every now and then on Instagram or TikTok,
it's like, ask your mother these seven questions before she dies. Like,
I can't even I sent that to my daughter recently.

(29:20):
I couldn't even ask one question before my mom's cut
me off and said, oh, for god.

Speaker 3 (29:24):
Sake, Kelly, who wants to talk about that?

Speaker 2 (29:26):
So, like, not everybody's playing the same game here, and
not every generation is used to operating on this level.
But we do have this million dollar opportunity where many
many more people have read many many more of these
types of books, have been to therapy, have sat on
dorm room floors like bearing their Soul. We're just more

(29:47):
practiced in it, and hopefully it will lead to like
a different kind of societal conversation, although it sure doesn't
seem to be trending that way.

Speaker 4 (29:56):
David Brooks, Yeah, well I do agree with you and
I you know, obviously you've got to pace it so
you don't want to walk in meet somebody, you know,
how do your ancestor show up in your life?

Speaker 3 (30:05):
Like, Hi, I'm David. When was the last time you cried?

Speaker 4 (30:10):
You know? I start just with like, uh, where'd you
grow up? And we just want to get people talking
about their childhood. People are fantastic talking about their childhood.
And so I travel a lot, so I've probably have
been to the place and we can have a conversation
or even like where'd you get your name? Like gets
people talking about their family and stuff like that, and
then you know the shallow conversations like I once asked

(30:33):
a group of people, tell me about your most enjoyable,
unimportant thing about yourself. And so I learned this austere
academic guy loves trashy reality TV. So it was like
a window into them, and I got to talk about
my obsession with early Taylor Swift's albums.

Speaker 2 (30:48):
Really wait, slow down, mister, give us a leerless, give
us a lyric or two.

Speaker 4 (30:55):
Hey, you're cheercime. I'm on the bleachers. You're the cheer captain.

Speaker 2 (30:58):
Did you relate? Did you meet that?

Speaker 4 (31:00):
That's so you know I'm a what's her lyric? I'm
your nightmare dressed as a day dreams?

Speaker 2 (31:07):
I so relate, I thought, so, well, my god, it
all goes back to Taylor Swift. Here's what David Brooks
is a swifty like just yeah, let's stop the presses.

Speaker 3 (31:16):
We're breaking news. David Brooks is a.

Speaker 1 (31:18):
Swifty A good friend of mine today said Taylor Swift
isn't a singer, she's a lifestyle.

Speaker 3 (31:23):
Yeah, she's a religion at this point she is.

Speaker 4 (31:27):
She has a lyric that from her new album Let's
See if I can redress it. That's it's narcissism dressed
up like altruism, like some sort of congressman. I think
that's a fantastic, pretty good.

Speaker 2 (31:39):
Yeah, she's brilliant.

Speaker 1 (31:40):
Well wait, so so you're talking about interesting ways in
to get to know people, and I love it. And Kelly,
I imagine you and I probably do stuff like that
because we are just naturally curious and interested in other people.
But I feel like you could always I could always
hone those skills even more. And to pick up on

(32:03):
Kelly's last point, David, I think you know when she
said things aren't trending this way. Society is not making
this easy, these deep connections, meaningful relationships. And you talk
a lot about that, how the way we live is
almost antithetical to creating these deep friendships where people feel seen.

Speaker 4 (32:25):
Yeah, I mean that was in some ways they impetus
by the book. Not only might desire to personally grow
but looking at society around me, and we're in the
middle of some sort of social and emotional and relational crisis,
and so you know, rising mental health problems, rising suicide rates.
Fifty four percent of Americans say that no one knows
them well. The number of people who say they have
no close personal friends is up by four times in

(32:47):
the last twenty years. Thirty six percent of Americans say
they feel persistently lonely. Forty five percent of teenagers say
they feel persistently hopeless and despondent. The number of people
that are not in a romantic relationship is up by
a third. It's just like one statistic after another where
we're just in an emotional and relational recession. And I
think it's caused by this rising cycle of distrust, and

(33:11):
distrust has caused because people haven't been trustworthy, and especially
young people feel that others have betrayed them. And I
used to talk about the levels of distrust with my students,
my college students, and one woman said to me, well,
have you seen our social life like you can imagine
you go through life, you're getting ghosted by somebody who
thought was your boyfriend or your girlfriend, you're getting savaged

(33:31):
on social media. People are cruel to you, and so
you have this rising level of distrust and to me,
the only way to fight it is with the skills
I'm talking about in the book. And some people think,
like the stuff we're talking about is like woo woo
and squishy, but to me, it's the only practical way out. Like,
it's not woo woo to like, lead with curiosity, it's

(33:52):
not woo woo to lead with respect. And the only
way you get out of our social mess is by
acting in this way.

Speaker 1 (34:00):
Can you talk about I guess you were giving a talk, David,
and you've got a question on an index card that
you said has haunted you for a very long time.
Can you tell us about that?

Speaker 4 (34:12):
Yeah, I was in Oklahoma and it's one of those
talks where at the end of the talk they don't
ask questions face to face, they just give you index cards.
So I'm running through the cards and most of the
questions are like politics or something, and then I turned
to one card and says, what do you do if
you no longer want to be alive? And that to
me was like a window into a lot of the

(34:32):
pain that's out there in America, and at the moment,
I didn't know what to say, and so I let
it go without even answering or without even acknowledging it.
And I think if I could go back, I would say,
first of all, I want to salute you for your
courage and your endurance, because you are still here, and
you're in a lot of pain, but you're still here.

(34:53):
And then I would like to repeat to you something
Victor Frankel said in Man Search for Meeting, which is
that life is not stopped expecting things of you, and
that there are still many good things you can do
in the world. And then I would say, and I
mentioned I have a chapter in the book about losing
my oldest friend to depression. And you know, I would say, listen,

(35:16):
there's no words I can utter that can heal your pain,
but I can assure you that we're never leaving. We're
here for you. And I think when you're dealing with
someone who's suffering from that much pain and depression, all
you can say is I acknowledge the reality of the situation.
I'm here for you. I'm not leaving. I'm just here.

Speaker 2 (35:35):
When you described your embarrassment at a dinner the very
next night. What happened.

Speaker 4 (35:40):
Yeah, the woman who was at our house for dinner said, well,
my brother committed suicide a few months ago, and then
I mentioned it. I have my bunch of buddies and
I get on a zoom call every Thursday, and I
mentioned it to that group, and like half the people
had some sort of suicide in their family and their life.
And then, you know, as I mentioned later, I lost

(36:01):
my best friend to it. And it just feels like
the pain in society is something pervasive that it's touched
everyone who has lost someone to addiction, to suicide, someone
who has a kid who's suffering with mental health issues.
It's just like rivers of pain in society. And it's
hard to have a healthy democracy when your society is

(36:23):
rotting from the foundation. And this is what I worry
about most, this social fragmentation.

Speaker 2 (36:29):
I think about sometimes the increase in therapy and antidepressant
medications and the decrease in mental health, like those two
lines are not working together to take us to a
better place.

Speaker 1 (36:43):
I think David talks about that Kelly, because he says
looking within can lead people to become vulnerable narcissists and
I've wondered about that too, because when you look at
surveys about happiness, it's really and I've interviewed people about this,
so I'm sure all of us have. It's really about
service to others and not being so self absorbed and

(37:07):
self focused that leads you to happiness. And I thought,
you know, David, you could talk about what happened after
World War Two and how sort of the focus on
the individual and now the uber focus on our own
quote unquote well being has impacted our ability to form
deep relationships.

Speaker 2 (37:28):
Yeah.

Speaker 4 (37:28):
I mean, I think we've just got a much more
individualistic culture. I mean when America was founded, that the
founding fathers had a pretty realistic view of human nature
that we're generous, well, we're also self centered, and so
they had the idea that if we're going to build
a country, a democracy out of these people, we need
to do moral formation. And moral formation is a pretentious word,
but it's really three basic things. One is it gives

(37:51):
you tips for how to control your natural selfishness. Two,
it helps you find a purpose in life and ideal
to organize your life around. And three it teaches you
the skills of being considered in the complex circumstances of life,
and so how do you ask for an offer forgiveness?
How do you break up with someone without crushing their heart?
These are basic social skills, and I think we've forgotten

(38:14):
how to teach them, how to pass them along to generations.
And then we just live in a much more individualistic
culture where people decide I don't need to pay attention
to some external morality. I just need to get in
touch with myself. And my basic rule is you're happier
when you're thinking about other people, and you're less happy
when you're thinking about yourself. It's just like that simple.

(38:34):
And a lot of our happiness industrial complex gets people
thinking about themselves, and I think it's self destructive. And
there is research that show that people who spend their
most time thinking about happiness are least happy.

Speaker 3 (38:47):
Yeah, yeah, I know.

Speaker 2 (38:49):
And so this is my mom's whole opinions. So my
dad sold ad space in women's magazines, and so we
had women's magazines in our house, going back to like
McCall's and then Get how Keeping whatever, and she would
look at them, and even though her whole life was
being underwritten by these magazines, they drove her bananas, because
she was like, the answer is go to church and volunteer.

(39:12):
That's the answer. Like what is all this nonsense, all
this lumination, all this self focus, all this me me me,
and I need a bath every day and I need
to have my massage massageer for my shoulders. She's like,
that is nonsense, Like, get your ass in church and
go help somebody.

Speaker 1 (39:30):
Well, I do think there's a happy medium, you know.
I do think kind of quote unquote self care. You know,
the idea of putting your oxygen mask on first so
you can be a better person to those you love.
I do think there's some legitimacy to that, but I
do think the pendulum has swung a little too far,

(39:51):
and I think it's honestly, I think it's kind of
a modern day medicine for loneliness that if you can
spend your time worrying about your pores, then it's actually
just taking time that it makes you feel better because
you're thinking about something other than your own misery.

Speaker 4 (40:10):
Right, Yeah, No, it's just loneliness is a perversity because
no one wants to be lonely. And yet now, as
I said, thirty six percent are persistently lonely. Why don't
they just get together with the other loner people. But
one of the problems is loneliness distorts your view of
reality and it makes you suspicious of other people. So
you begin to fear what you long for most, which

(40:32):
is human connection.

Speaker 1 (40:33):
But also our sense of community has unraveled, David. I
know with your Whole Weave project, you're looking at people
who are developing a sense of community. But you think
about church attendance and religious services. The attendance has declined
a lot, and there aren't like rotary clubs and Kuwanas clubs,

(40:54):
and you know, people don't seem to get together as much.
So these things that gave us a sense of community.
Of course, it was exacerbated by the pandemic. So I
think bringing some of those institutional structures back is really
important too, Because you say, I'm curious, you say loneliness

(41:14):
leads to meanness, so you know it's not only distrust,
but it's actually meanness.

Speaker 4 (41:20):
How So, well, if you feel invisible to the world,
there's nothing crueler than indifference, and so if you feel
you're not seen by the world, you regard that as
an injustice, which it is, and so you want to
lash out. You decide the world's a very dangerous place,
and you want to lash out. And I think what
a lot of people have done is they've taken loneliness
and they've taken really a moral vacuum they find themselves in,

(41:42):
and they've tried to fill it with politics. And so,
in a healthy society, we have the politics of distribution,
like where should we put the resources of money, how
hi shad taxes be, what should we spend money on?
That's a healthy society. We have the politics of recognition,
where we want to have a politics where my side
is elevated and respected and your side is shamed and destroyed.

(42:03):
And so politics gives you the illusion that you are
living in a moral landscape. There's us good guys and
those bad guys. Gives you the illusion you're doing moral action.
I'm getting indignant about those people who are ruining the country.
It gives you the illusion of community, like you're in
a party. But these are just illusions, like you're not
really in the community. You're not getting to know somebody,

(42:25):
you're just hating the same people together, and you're not
really in a moral landscape, which is about the line
between good and evil runs through every human heart, not
between groups, and so you've traded your moral vacuum for
sort of culture war and moral war. And I think
that's one of the reasons why everything in society has
gotten so politicized.

Speaker 1 (42:44):
But also so black and white and so lacking of nuance.
You quote a researcher named Ryan Streeter, he's director of
Domestic Policy Studies at the AI American Enterprise Institute that
lonely young people are seven times more likely to say
they are active in politics and young people who aren't lonely.

(43:05):
And I think this is elaborating on what you just said.
It gives them some sense of community to be with
like minded people. It's almost their little tribe of people
who they can feel connected to. But what you're saying
is they're not really connected to them.

Speaker 4 (43:22):
They're just sharing their Twitter feeds, and you know, they're
not really doing good. They're not sitting with the poor,
serving a widow. They're just registering their feelings or their
emotions about some political issue. And so to me, it's
like a very impoverished way to live. Cover politics. We
care about politics, but politics is not more important than family.

(43:44):
Politics not more important than your friendships and your relationships.
And when I look at the rise of misery in
this country, I could tell a lot of stories, Like Katie,
you told the sociology story, we just aren't active in
civic life. I could tell the social media story, which is,
you know, social media's driving us all crazy, which I
was also a true story. I could tell economic inequality story,

(44:05):
we're just more separated from one another. I can even
tell the coddling story, where overprotective parenting leads to kids
who are not resilient in the face of challenge. But
to me, the core story, and the one I addressed
in the book, is we're just not treating each other well.
I mean, we're just at a basic human level. We
find ourselves in the world that's distrustful and brutal, and

(44:26):
the meanness comes up. You know. I was at a
restaurant in New York a couple months ago, and I
happened to be chatting with the owner and he said,
I have to throw people out of this restaurant every
week now for rude behavior. A friend who's a nurse,
and she said, I have trouble keeping staff because the
patients have gotten so abusive, that the nurses want to
leave the profession, and so there's just been this rising

(44:47):
tide of hate crimes. You know, the incidents on airplanes.
COVID made it all worse. But loneliness leads to meanness.

Speaker 2 (44:55):
Yeah, an accompaniment like in the Pote Francis way, is
a very advanced move, like for a human being to
be able to do that, because accompaniment is sort of
antithetical to the fix. What do you mean by accompaniment?
It's just like, I'm just gonna sit with you. Like
you can just tell me your weirdest, hardest thing. You

(45:16):
can say I think my marriage is ending. You can
say I don't. I'm as much money as I pretend
like I have. You can say I think that my
daughter is suicidal. You can say these horribly difficult things,
and I will not dive in with my smarty pants solution.
I'll just sit with you. I'll just sit right down
with you in it. But that is like very advanced,

(45:40):
Like not that many people I know in my life
are that good at biting their tongue because it's so uncomfortable.

Speaker 1 (45:48):
Yeah, I'm not. I always try to fix things, yes, people,
or that's my immediate impulse. How can I fix this
problem for you? Yeah, and I think you're right.

Speaker 3 (46:00):
Let's tell me more. What else go on?

Speaker 2 (46:01):
Like those seven words will take you so far, And
it's so relaxing to be like, I'm actually not formulating,
we're not taking turns talking. I'm actually just absorbing and
I'm gonna let Like I remember talking to Claire, my daughter,
during the pandemic, and she was such a she was
so bright eyed the whole time she was baking and
learning Spanish and like doing the pandemic, like getting an

(46:24):
a and pandemic. And then she cracked one day and
I said, what else? And she said lacrosse? Like we
can't play lacrosse, which means I'm not getting any exercise,
which means like I'm sluggish all day. I'm like, what else?
She's like, there are no parties, like I just watched
fash times at Ridgemont High. None of that is like
my high school experience. My high school experience is sitting
in my bedroom. What else go on? Everybody's fighting over

(46:46):
who can go to parties and who can't?

Speaker 3 (46:48):
What else? I mean?

Speaker 2 (46:49):
She must have had twenty five things and all we
did was let them surface and I had no answers
at all. It was just like let the river run
and Claire like say it all. I don't care. I'm
not going to stop you. We need to talk to
Kelly Moore. David.

Speaker 4 (47:05):
I know, I know there's a thing called the midwife
model that your job in some conversations when somebody's hurting
is your job is not to be the You're not
giving birth, You're just the midwife. You're helping the person
give birth.

Speaker 3 (47:17):
Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Speaker 2 (47:18):
Accompanyment is a noble aspiration person to person. I've never
even heard of that, so I'm going to think about that.

Speaker 4 (47:26):
Yeah, it's like a pianist accompanying a singer, Like the
pianist is paying attention to the singer and he knows
he's not the star, but he's doing what he can
to make her shiney.

Speaker 2 (47:36):
Like coming up underneath.

Speaker 3 (47:37):
It's so beautiful.

Speaker 4 (47:38):
Yeah.

Speaker 1 (47:41):
After this shortbreak, David, Kelly and I get very pragmatic
when it comes to having a good conversation about thorny
tough subjects, including current events. With no fees or minimums.
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(48:02):
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Capital one NA member fdic Kelly and I are back

(48:24):
with David Brooks. I wanted to ask you, I just
you know, everything you've talked about, of course, is surfacing
in the aftermath of those horrific barbarian attacks in Israel
that were just honestly so unspeak I don't even I
think words failed to even describe what happened in Israel,

(48:48):
and now of course the humanitarian crisis that is unfolding
and Gaza. I think words failed there as well. But
the reaction, David has been so intense, so angry, so
lacking in humility. You know that maybe you don't have

(49:08):
all the answers, And I'm curious how you've seen that
in light of writing this book and are afraid social relationships,
how you've used your lens to watch this and analyze it.

Speaker 4 (49:24):
Thank you for asking that. It's obviously been a very
intense period. I guess at first I've sometimes had the
thought that we're in this epic battle between the forces
of dehumanization and the forces of humanization. And if you
want to know dehumanization, the ultimate form is somebody who
can go to a music festival and murder and rape

(49:44):
innocent teenager, very young people. I mean, that is the
essence of dehumanization.

Speaker 2 (49:49):
It's like they were characters in a video game or something, right.

Speaker 4 (49:53):
It's the failure recognized the humanity of the people right
in front of you, and to cackle while you're killing them.
And then, Frank, I saw the Israeli defense ministers say
we're going to war against animals, and I think Hamas
is evil, but they are human beings and we just
shouldn't call human beings animals. First of all, it's not
fair to the animals. They're not going around committing genocide.

(50:16):
But also it's just we should always respect there's another
human being on the side here.

Speaker 1 (50:21):
Well, I think more importantly is that Palestinians are you know,
Hamas doesn't represent all Palestinians. I mean, honestly, the way
they behaved, and maybe this is wrong. I had no
issue with him calling the people who committed these crimes
animals because they were subhuman. To your point, David, But
I think the mistake is tarrying all Palestinians living in

(50:45):
Gaza as such.

Speaker 4 (50:48):
Yeah, and some people, you know, you have to fight
iron with iron. You can't like reason with hamas like,
you just have to fight them. And that's the grim reality.
But you know, I was late at night one night,
I was doom scrolling through Twitter or whatever whatever's left
of it, and I was seeing all the videos of
the kids were killed in Israel, the bombings and Gaza,

(51:08):
just ream of dehumanization. And then I scroll and somehow
in my Twitter feed there I come across a video
of a short interview with James Baldwin, the great novelist
from the fifties and sixties, and he's saying, there's not
as much humanity in the world as one would like,
but there's more than you think there's enough. And you
have to remember when you walk down the street and

(51:29):
you look at the other people, you have to remember
you're looking at you. That could be you. You could
be the cop, you could be the monster, you could
be the cruel person. And you just have to make
a conscious choice to decide not to be that. And
so in the midst of all this dehumanization. When you
see Baldwin, you see a defiant humanist, a person who's

(51:52):
not going to put away as humanity in the midst
of conflict, in the midst of racism, which is dehumanization,
who's going to try to extend end up for the
human dignity in the human mind. And I just found
that defiant humanism in the face of dehumanizing circumstances is
so inspiring. It's like Mendela coming out of prison in
South Africa. It's like gold in my ear in Israel,

(52:13):
in the Middle East, it's like Gandhi in India, like
in brutal circumstances, discovering your humanity. And I'm a big
fan of a woman named Eddie Hillissom who was a
Jewish woman and grew up in Amsterdam the thirties and forties,
and when the Nazis occupied Germany. At that point she
was twenty five and frankly self indulgent and a little spoiled.

(52:35):
But over the next few years she was transformed into
someone who was basically a human saint who spent her
time caring for those other Jews in Amsterdam who are
in danger of getting shipped to Auschwitz, and she was
remembered as this warm, glowing, other centered person, and her
biographer wrote of her, she changed by paying attention. She

(52:58):
paid close attention to the people who were suffering, and
by power of that attention, she sort of grew by looking.
And so she understood the anxiety in some of these voice,
the fear in somebody else's, and in that way she
was transformed. And I've always found her example of somebody
who refused to get numb by bitterness, and who insisted

(53:18):
on being open and available and giving and accompanying people
even in the most brutal time.

Speaker 2 (53:25):
I actually think that goes to the single most important
line in your book, which is that our greatest moral
act is the quality of our attention.

Speaker 1 (53:34):
You also quote Peggy Noonan saying people are proud of
their bitterness.

Speaker 4 (53:39):
Now, yeah, in every one of Peggy's columns there are
like three or four sentences you want to clip out
and say forever.

Speaker 1 (53:46):
Yeah, it's true, isn't it? But it is depressing. And
you know, I have been chagrined that this whole idea
of practicing dialectical thinking holding two opposing views at once. Yes,
the Israeli policies towards Gaza have been in some cases inhumane,

(54:09):
and this attack was unconscionable and deserves universal condemnation. And
it just doesn't seem like people can hold those two
thoughts at once. Some people can, but they're even being
accused of being complicit if they're holding these two thoughts.
And for me as a journalist, honestly, it's been very,

(54:33):
very difficult to cover this because I get angry DMS
twenty four to seven from both sides. And do you
think they're people who are able to try to look
at to have empathy for both places or are those
people in the minority?

Speaker 2 (54:54):
And could we potentially gin up some empathy for the
people who are so drawn to certainty, Like could we
say to all the people in your DMS, of course
you want it to be black and white. Of course
you want it to be clear as day. Of course
you want it to be unequivocal, Like we want that
every time everything comes across our transom, that's what we do.

(55:18):
We're sorting as fast as we can good or bad,
good or bad, good or bad.

Speaker 1 (55:21):
But things aren't good or bad. I mean, I think
you're talking about factor fiction, but things are messy right,
they're nuanced, They're complicated totally. And people are so righteous, yes,
and you can understand that. And I want to be empathetic,
as you say, Kelly, to those who are righteous, because
I think they are bearing the burden of, you know,

(55:45):
decades of oppression or decades of fear, decades of anti Semitism,
or decades of being thought you're less than because of
your circumstances. So I get it. It's just so hard
to navigate.

Speaker 2 (56:02):
David.

Speaker 4 (56:02):
Yeah, you know, I covered it for twenty years or so,
and it was the hardest thing to write about because
people are so polarized about that as issue. But I
remember once I was at a dinner at when Shimo
and Peiz was president of Israel. Heated dinner with like
forty or fifty people, and he invited the Palestinian leadership
was there. I remember Abu Allah, who was a lead
Palestinian negotiator, and then the Israeli people who had been

(56:26):
in the peace process for all their lives. It was
a un named Dan Meridor and others, and a bunch
of journalists were invited, and there was such a warmth
in the room that it was as if everybody in
the room was like a bunch of old guys who
were in the peace process business, and they had been
through crises, they'd been through years and decades of negotiation,
and I remember that warmth and there. This was back

(56:48):
in the nineties when it really did seem like peace
was at hand, and those were people who were just
dealing with the complexities of the situation, like how do
we have a settlement where the Palestine get sovereignty over
the Aluxeamosque and the Jews get sovereignty over the Western Wall?
How do you do that? How practicality is how you
do it? Now, nobody's talking about practicalities. Frankly, it's all theater.

(57:12):
It's all terror theater, and people are just trying to
get their message and their narrative across without just the
elements of like how actually would you have a two
state solution? And I think what's happened is that both
sides have given up on practical thinking. They just have decided, well,
we'll postpone when we get but we're going to get

(57:34):
it all. Someday we're going to get it all. We're
going to wish that the other side didn't exist. And
that's just not true, and the other side is going
to be there forever and ever, and yet we're into
the just I want to make a statement on Instagram
and that's how I wage my politics these days.

Speaker 2 (57:48):
And that's what wins. I mean nobody. I have this
scientist friend, Lisa Feldman Barrett, who I think you know, David,
and she's often quoted. She's like one of the top
one percent of scientists quoted in other people's reach, but
she's never in the paper. And I said, why aren't
you in the paper? And she said, because I won't
say unequivocal things. And that's not what anyone wants to hear.
So the journalists hang up and they call another scientist

(58:10):
who will say, oh, yes, it's always this or it's
always that, like black and white cells, and nuance is exhausting,
like vitriol is very energizing. Righteousness you talk faster, you
sit up higher, you draw people to you. It's like
a total ego buzz and like sitting around saying like, Eh,

(58:31):
this is really complicated. Look what are you going to
do about that?

Speaker 1 (58:34):
Well, it's an engagement through enragement, right, I mean exactly
the whole name of the game. These days, you know,
David Kelly, and I I think could talk to you
all day. But I'm curious as you look to the
future because i hate to say it, but I'm very pessimistic.
I mean, I guess, you know, in terms of solving

(58:56):
these issues and changing it on a macro level. So
when all is said and done, is the best thing
you can say to people is change your life on
a personal level. That developing these bonds and these friendships
will somehow bubble up and make the world a kinder,

(59:17):
gentler place. To paraphrase George Bush Senior.

Speaker 4 (59:22):
You know, I think we need top down change, Like
it's very hard to have a calm society when your
political leaders are ripping it apart, ripping it to shreds
from the top. But we also need bottom up And
when you look at moments in world history where in
societies have really turned themselves around, and there are examples
of this and written in the between eighteen thirty and
eighteen forty eight. In eighteen thirty, it was like a

(59:42):
totally screwed up society where alcoholism was rampant, domestic violence
was rampant, poverty and cruelty, and by eighteen forty eight,
you know, it was suddenly no longer acceptable to get
drunk and beat your wife the way it was acceptable
thirty years before that, And so you had the beginnings
of Victorian morality. And this country between eighteen ninety and
nineteen twenty or so, we took a society that was

(01:00:05):
pretty brutal, filled with economic uncertainty, and we became a
much more trusting society. And so you need top down
political change, like in the our case, the progressive movement
in nineteen tens, but you also need bottom up civic
and relational change and cultural change. And so to me,
you can't have a society at the top with democracy

(01:00:26):
if you don't have trust at the bottom. And two
generations ago, if you ask people do you trust your neighbors,
it's sixty percent say yeah, people my Neighborho's are pretty trustworthy.
Now that's down to thirty percent and nineteen percent of
millennials and Gen Z. And so the only way to
fix that is trustworthy behavior, showing up for each other,

(01:00:47):
having a sense that as I go through my life
in the casual encounters of life at grocery store, at
a coffee shop with somebody buying a cash register. There's
a little hint of recognition with each other, and then
better relationships with my neighbors, better still relationships with my
close friends. And so I'm enmeshed in this dance, this
dance of people who are looking at me and are

(01:01:09):
hearing me in big ways in little ways, and then
you begin to feel calm. Then you really kind of
establish a trusting work relationship. But it requires those minute,
daily interactions of life.

Speaker 1 (01:01:20):
When I ask the barista, how are you, she says,
I'm good, Thank you for asking. I mean, it really
only takes very simple interactions to have an open heart
and to actually care in big ways but small ways
as well, you know, to smile at the person on

(01:01:41):
the street, or I don't know, I've always been that person.
I don't know what it is about me, but I
see part of my job is to make somebody's day
a little bit better. And I sound like Shirley Temple
right now.

Speaker 4 (01:01:55):
No, that's why we love you.

Speaker 2 (01:01:56):
Kaddun with you and you are making so many people.

Speaker 1 (01:02:00):
But Kelly, you too, and now David you too. I
think it takes a little bit of effort. It takes
a second, you know, And John gets mad at me
sometimes when people occasionally approach me or they want a
selfie or whatever. He says, exit question exit questions, because
I do end up sort of hearing their life story
in some cases. But I think, you know, if I

(01:02:22):
can make someone happy or feel seen coming back to
the book and feel important and they are by the way,
I feel like that small amount of effort is so
worth it. Plus I don't want them telling their friends
I was a real bitch.

Speaker 2 (01:02:39):
They're sad as well. All altruism is self servey.

Speaker 3 (01:02:44):
You see, Taylor was riped. It all goes back to swift.

Speaker 2 (01:02:48):
Isn't there some great social science around the value of
weak ties?

Speaker 4 (01:02:53):
Yeah, there's. First, as Katie was talking, when my youngest
son was nine, somebody came up to me on the
street to say that my work whatever. And my son
looks at me afterwards and said, you know, they come
for you, but they stay for.

Speaker 3 (01:03:05):
Me, so right, So right? Is he a stand up?

Speaker 4 (01:03:11):
He wanted to be at that age he wanted to
be a stand up.

Speaker 2 (01:03:13):
Yeah, that's funny.

Speaker 4 (01:03:15):
There is. Yeah, the strength of weak ties is like
if you want a job or you want an opportunity,
the people you know well know all the things you know,
but the people you don't know well know things you
don't know, and so it's it's those weak connections. And conversely,
you were talking about being nice to the barista. If
if somebody at a cash register is cruel to me
or aloof or cold and clearly pissed off at the world,

(01:03:38):
it dampens your day. I mean, these these minute interactions
are weirdly powerful and shaping how you go through, you know, life.

Speaker 2 (01:03:46):
Sometimes I have to nudge myself to look someone right
in the eyes, Like I just did it yesterday, taking
this oil painting class, and it was the last class,
and I wanted to thank the instructor, and rather than
I put a lot of words on it and do
a big show, I just made sure that I had
her eyes, you know, for two or three seconds, and

(01:04:08):
I just said thank you so much. I've loved this
and it was like a thing like eye contact, like
real eye contact. Iyebought eyeball is more rare than I
wish it was, because it's way more impactful than a
whole bunch of words.

Speaker 1 (01:04:26):
Well, I love this book, and David, you know, I'm
a huge fan.

Speaker 2 (01:04:32):
And I always have been.

Speaker 1 (01:04:34):
I find you're writing more often than not, Like Peggy
Noonan's more than a phrase. I find the things you
say really profound and really influenced me in a positive way.
So I would like to say thank you for all
your writing, thank you for being so vulnerable and honest
about your desire to grow as a person, because I

(01:04:57):
think all of us want that despite all the societal
things that are swirling around us that are actually working
against that. And you know, all I can say is
I'm going to try to see people even more because
I think we can always do better at that. And
I think I'm also going to focus on my really

(01:05:19):
deep relationships because I think for me, I have so
many friends and so many acquaintances, and because I'm interested
in everyone, sometimes I'm spread too thin and I can't
be a good friend to the people who really really matter.
So I think that's important too, because there just aren't
enough hours in the day to have this kind of

(01:05:42):
relationship with people.

Speaker 4 (01:05:44):
Yeah, that things were of being spread too thin. I
was just talking to my wife about this, Like, we
have a friend who her marriage split up, and we
learned about it a couple weeks so, and we like,
you should break everything and be there for her at
that moment. But then we got this obligation in that obligation,
and so I think we were thinking, you just have
to be ruthless. Like whatever obligation we're going to have
to break, we won't remember it, but we will remember

(01:06:06):
being there for her at that moment, and I will say,
it's just such a pleasure to be with you. Guys.
You guys are the superstars of this skill I'm trying
to learn. And Katie, where you just did there? Like
one way one of the things I learned is how
to end a conversation is you thank somebody for their time,
but then you specify something you really appreciated they told you,

(01:06:27):
and then you say it thanks, it's been great to
be with you. And when they end the conversation gracefully
in that way, it's like they put a cherry on
top you feel. You feel, oh yeah, what they liked
about me is when I said that interesting thing about
or told that interesting story and you think, wow, that
person's a great listener. So another discreete tip on how
to end conversations gracefully.

Speaker 2 (01:06:47):
All right, so here's my ending for you. I was
gonna say, I don't want it to end go ahead, Kelly.

Speaker 3 (01:06:52):
I like that you've been willing to.

Speaker 2 (01:06:55):
Modulate in public, Like I think that there's real fear
of people public figures saying I was wrong or I
changed my mind, and I think it's to the great
detriment of society. Like people should change their mind as
new information becomes available, as new evidence surfaces, we should
adjust accordingly, of course, And for some reason, it's sort

(01:07:17):
of not done with public figures. And the way that
your feelings about your party, the Republican Party have evolved
over time for all of us to see, I think
is a model for other people whose feelings might similarly
be evolving over time. And it's essential that we set

(01:07:38):
each other free in this way.

Speaker 3 (01:07:41):
So thanks, thank you.

Speaker 4 (01:07:43):
You know, I've always thought politics is a competition between
partial truths, that in most issues both sides have something right,
and the key is to try to find the balance
in that circumstance. And you never, I found you never
want to be too especially as a journalist, to be
too associated with one party or not. And so I
was conservative. I was never really Republican because I didn't

(01:08:06):
want to be part of a team, because that like
limits your thinking. And now one of my heroes is
this guy at Philosopher, Isaiah Eberlyn. He said, I'm on
the right word edge of the left word tendency, and
so that's where I am these days. I'm on the
right word edge of the left wore tendency. So happy
to be there.

Speaker 1 (01:08:22):
Oh my god, a whole other podcast about what the
hell is happening with the GOP, David, But that'll have
to be for your next book or your next column,
because what a mess. But we'll lend on a happier note.
Good luck with the book, David. I really hope people
will read it because I do think it'll improve their lives.
And are you doing a big book tour? Are you

(01:08:44):
talking to a lot of people? How are you getting
the word out?

Speaker 4 (01:08:47):
Yeah? I get to go on a tour of America.
I tell my musician friends, imagine a rock tour with
all the fun taken out, and so it's like, I mean,
the fun part is I get to meet people and
give talks and you know, do signings.

Speaker 2 (01:09:00):
Thank you so much, and Kelly, what a treat to
have you with me anytime.

Speaker 1 (01:09:05):
David, You're the best. My love to Anne and thank
you for writing this book.

Speaker 4 (01:09:10):
Thank you for doing this. Of course, deeply appreciate both
of you, LEAs.

Speaker 2 (01:09:20):
So Kelly, that was so fun. That was so fun.
I know, I loved it. It was great.

Speaker 1 (01:09:26):
Thank you for doing this with me. I loved that conversation,
and I honestly I loved having it with you.

Speaker 2 (01:09:31):
Well, I'll do it anytime. I loved it too, and
I love seeing your little face. I was just thinking
that the one question that we didn't get to fall
into was the male female side of this, which is
to say, it's really quite different in terms of potential
impact for this kind of content to be coming from
a conservative male columnist rather than say, a female psychologist, right.

(01:10:00):
And I was also laughing sometimes when I was reading it.
I was thinking, Oh, this is going to be so
funny for Katie and I to be talking to him
about this, because you and I are like holding people
in the supermarket checkout line, you know, because they're telling
us things on a street corner that he is just
now learning how to elicit from a person. And I

(01:10:22):
just wonder if many female listeners will agree that we
have a tremendous amount of practice in this kind of conversation.

Speaker 1 (01:10:34):
Yeah, and a distinct advantage yeah, and well, I think
men are conditioned to keep a type less emotionally attuned
to people. So I think I hope men read this book.
And although I really think everyone could use it, I
think yes, women are I think more emotionally available. Although

(01:10:55):
you can't generalize too much, but I think all of
us could learn. I mean, I feel like I could
be better. And I also think the bottom line of
what David talked about, which is kind of captain obvious here,
but I'm going to say it anyway, is is ask questions.
You know, if you're in a social situation, or you

(01:11:17):
are out on a date or with people. If you
ask questions, if you are interested, people love to tell
you their story. They love to talk about themselves. And conversely,
if somebody doesn't ask you a question, you know, if
you're out on a date or something, you know, I

(01:11:37):
say this to people I know who are single and
the person doesn't ask you a question, check please, because bbye,
you know no kind of empathy or interest or curiosity
about you. So I think whenever you find yourself in
a sticky situation or you're at a party, just ask

(01:11:58):
questions and everything else will follow. It's so simple. But
something that I think people are not necessarily taught. So
that would be my closing observation and instruction to everyone listening,
be interested, be curious, and ask questions.

Speaker 2 (01:12:20):
Yeah, I mean, I think I would double down on that,
which is is you're you're like one great question away
from something new, Like you're one question away from learning
something that you don't understand right now, or from a
feeling that you haven't had in a while, or the
beginning of a friendship like it's you're literally.

Speaker 3 (01:12:41):
One question away.

Speaker 2 (01:12:42):
It couldn't be simpler or cheaper, and it couldn't be
more impactful.

Speaker 1 (01:12:55):
Thanks for listening everyone. If you have a question for me,
a subject you want us to cover, or you want
to share your thoughts about how you navigate this crazy world,
reach out. You can leave a short message at six
oh nine five point two five five five, or you
can send me a DM on Instagram. I would love
to hear from you. Next Question is a production of

(01:13:18):
iHeartMedia and Katie Kuric Media. The executive producers are Me,
Katie Kuric, and Courtney Ltz. Our supervising producer is Ryan Marx,
and our producers are Adriana Fazzio and Meredith Barnes. Julian
Weller composed our theme music. For more information about today's episode,

(01:13:38):
or to sign up for my newsletter, wake Up Call,
go to the description in the podcast app, or visit
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