BONUS – The Storyteller – Reflections on the Works of Nikolai Leskov by Walter Benjamin

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Hello. My name is Jesan Sorells and this is the Leadership Lessons

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from the Great Books podcast. Bonus. There’s

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usually no book reading on these bonus episodes.

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These are usually long form rants, raves, or interviews

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with interesting people doing interesting things at the spacious

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intersection of literature and leadership.

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Because listening to me talk with interesting people about interesting projects

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is still better than reading and trying to understand yet

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another business book.

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In the continued spirit of violating our own

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rules and boundaries this year on the show, or at

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least maybe not this year, maybe this quarter, we are introducing to you

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today a short essay that relates to leadership

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even though it happens to be a critique of literature

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and storytelling from the late nineteen thirties.

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I discovered this essay as background to yet another

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essay I was reading that was critiquing the

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postmodern problem, the uniquely postmodern problem

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of providing narrative advice or wisdom in

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a postmodern world of fragmented communications

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to people who are desperately in need of, well,

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wisdom. In reading the essay

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that we are going to cover today on the show which comes in at 14

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pages and is subdivided into 19 different sections,

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it is not an easy one to mentally digest.

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However, on this show we have covered many difficult texts and

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we aren’t going to stop now.

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The author of the essay we are analyzing for leaders

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today would appreciate, I think, the ultimate

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conceit of what we are attempting to achieve on our podcast

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by discussing his work and leveraging insights

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from it to offer solutions to a core problem that

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bedevils us in leadership even almost a

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century later, especially

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at the end of our fourth turning.

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Today, we will be reading excerpts from and

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summarizing some of the interesting ideas within

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the essay, The Storyteller, Reflections on the Work of

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Nikolai Lesko by Walter

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Benjamin. Leaders.

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The communicability of experience is decreasing, which has

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damaging results for the transference of wisdom based on life

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experience and book knowledge across generations.

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And despite our best efforts in the West to locate it, the abyss of

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the problem seems to have

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no bottom.

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And so we’re going to pick up today from The Storyteller,

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Reflections on the Work of Nikolai Leskov by Walter

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Benjamin. You can get a copy of this essay. It is

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open source online. You can actually get it

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from, Stanford University, MIT,

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Cambridge, and a number of other locations

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online. I wouldn’t recommend going and grabbing the

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PDF of it. It’s worth your time as a leader to read.

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Starting at the beginning, we’re gonna read section one paragraph

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one. Familiar though his name may be to us, the

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storyteller in his living immediacy is by no means a present

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force. He has already become something remote from us and something that is

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getting even more distant. To present someone like Lescov as

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a storyteller does not mean bringing him closer to us, but rather increasing

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our distance from him. Viewed from a certain distance, the great simple outlines

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which define the storyteller stand out in him

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or rather they become visible in him just as in a rock a

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human head or an animal’s body may appear to an observer at the proper distance

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and angle of vision. This distance

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and this angle of vision are prescribed for us by

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an experience which we may have almost every day.

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It teaches us that the art of storytelling is coming to

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an end. Less and less frequently do we

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encounter people with the ability to tell a tale properly.

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More and more often there is embarrassment all around when the wish to

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hear a story is expressed. It is as if something that seemed inalienable to

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us, the securest among our possessions were taken from

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us, the ability to exchange

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experiences. One reason for

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this phenomenon is obvious. Experience has fallen in

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value, and it looks as if it is continuing to fall into

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bottomlessness. Every glance at a newspaper demonstrates that it has reached a

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new low, that our picture, not only of the external world, but of the

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moral world as well, overnight has undergone changes which were never

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thought possible. With the first World War, our process

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began to become apparent, which has not halted since then.

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Was it not noticeable at the end of the war that men returned from the

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battlefield grown silent, not richer, but poorer in communicable

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experience? What ten years later was poured

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out in the flood of war books was anything but experience that goes from mouth

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to mouth, and there was nothing remarkable about that. For

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never has experience been contradicted more thoroughly than

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strategic experience by tactical warfare, economic

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experience by inflation, bodily experience by mechanical

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warfare, moral experience by those in power.

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A generation that had gone to school on a horse drawn street car

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now stood under the open sky, a countryside in which nothing

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remained unchanged but the clouds. And beneath these

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clouds, in a field of force, of destructive torrents and

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explosions, was the tiny, fragile

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human body.

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There are several points in that first section of the

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essay that resonate, with me,

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particularly as a person who reads literature looking,

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searching, examining words of the

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past and seeking out wisdom that can be

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applied in the far flung future from when

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those words were originally written.

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I wasn’t the only one looking for wisdom in

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leadership and when you look into and

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explore and learn a little bit about the life of Walter

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Benjamin who is a name that I had

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known, or at least I had recognized floating around

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underneath several other essays that I had read

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over the course of many years. You begin to realize that

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his ideas about the need

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for experience and his philosophy and cultural critique

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of media influenced many many

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folks including Marshall McLuhan and

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many others down through the twentieth century.

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Walter Benjamin was born July 1992

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and died 09/26/1940.

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He was a German philosopher, cultural critique, media

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theorist, and of course an essayist.

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He was associated with the Frankfurt school in Germany which

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automatically tags him as a Marxist. However,

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he was a contextual thinker who combined insights from

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German idealism because he was German, Romanticism,

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of course Marxism, Jewish mysticism, we’ll talk a little

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bit more about that later, and Neo Kantianism,

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to understand a post world war one Germany and a

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world in general that was in the

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intergerum between the end of world war one and the beginning of world war

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two consistently and permanently in chaos.

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Sound familiar? He was friends with the

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playwright Berthold Brecht whose plays we will be covering later on this

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year on this podcast so stay tuned for that. He’s

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also related by marriage to Hannah

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Arendt whose book on the trial of Adolf Eichmann,

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we will also talk about on this show in June.

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That’s gonna be a vibrant conversation that you won’t want to miss.

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Benjamin considered his research and writing to be theological in

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focus though he eschewed recourse to understanding the world

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through the lens of either a Christian or the presence of a Jewish

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God. He was much like Kierkegaard

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looking for the transcendent without actually

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wanting to talk about or deal with the

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actual meaning of the transcendent.

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In 1940 to escape the encroaching Third Reich

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who was looking for him desperately as they were for any intellectual Jew

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in Europe, Benjamin committed suicide at the age of

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48 and he had always flirted by the way he’d always

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flirted with suicide, and flirted with thoughts

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of suicide. So he even had friends

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who had committed suicide. So this was not something

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that was sudden or an idea that was

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unknown to Benjamin. Upon his

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death, his work achieved more recognition than in the

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decades than in the decades following his

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death, than it ever did in

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his life. He had the unfortunate

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bad fortune, depending upon your perspective, to be born at

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a time when a man such as him

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was merely seen as a person howling

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impotently at the moon.

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Back to the essay, back to the storyteller reflections on the work of

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Nikolai Lesko by Walter Benjamin.

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By the way, I think Benjamin would be fascinated by the presence of the

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internet. I think he would drown in the deluge

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of social media but I also think that he would

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have severe critiques for a communication

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culture in which instant communication

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that would seem to say nothing actually now

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has fully manifested at scale.

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But don’t let me try to convince you. Let’s

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listen to what Benjamin has to say.

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We’re gonna read section five of his

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essay. And I quote, the earliest

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symptom of a process whose end is the decline of storytelling is the

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rise of the novel at the beginning of modern times. What distinguishes

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the novel from the story and from the epic in a

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narrower sense is its essential dependence on the

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book. The dissemination of the novel becomes possible

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only with the invention of printing. One can be handed on orally. The wealth

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of the epic is of a different kind from what constitutes the stock and

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trade of the novel. What differentiates the novel from all

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of the forms of prose literature, the fairy tale, the legend, even the

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novella is that it neither comes from oral tradition nor goes

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into it. This distinguishes it from storytelling in

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particular. The storyteller takes what he tells from experience,

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his own or that reported by others, and he in turn makes

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it the experience of those who are listening to his tale. The

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novelist has isolated himself. The birthplace of the novel is the

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solitary individual who is no longer able to express himself by giving

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examples of his most important concerns, is himself uncounseled

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and cannot counsel others. To write a novel means

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to carry the incommesurable to extremes in the representation of

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human life. In the midst of life’s fullness and

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through the representation of this fullness, the novel gives evidence

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of the profound perplexity of the living.

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Even the first great book of the genre, Don Quixote,

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teaches how the spiritual greatness, the boldness, the

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helpfulness of one of the noblest of men, Don Quixote, are

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completely devoid of counsel and do not contain the slightest scintilla

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of wisdom. If now and then in the course of the centuries,

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efforts have been made most effectively perhaps in Wilhelm

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Meister’s Wanderer to implant instructions in

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the novel. These attempts have always amounted to a modification of the

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novel form. The Bildungsroman, on the other

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hand, does not deviate in any way from the basic structure of the novel.

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By integrating the social process with the development of a person,

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it bestows the most fragile frangible justification on

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the order determining it. The legitimacy

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it stands it provides stands in direct opposition to

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reality, particularly in the bildungsroman.

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It is the inadequacy that is

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actualized.

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The nature, the true nature of storytelling

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there put forth by Benjamin

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is that of a process

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that should come out of the oral tradition. Right?

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It should somehow deliver

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profundity. It should somehow deliver wisdom.

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The storyteller, to quote from Benjamin, takes what he tells from

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experience, his own or that reported by others, and he in

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turn makes it the experience of those who are listening to his

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tale. The technology of the novel, and we’ll talk

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a little bit about technology not in this section but in the next area, the

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next part, the technology of the novel disrupts

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that just like the technology of the cell phone or the

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technology of the movie camera or the technology of

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the computer or the technology of the Internet or the

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technology of the car. Technology seeks

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ruthlessly to disrupt the

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transference of wisdom via telling of a story

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from one human to another and of course at scale

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this fractures and has terrible consequences

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for all of us. This is because

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storytelling is an artisanal form of communication that

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can be tied deeply to craftsmanship care,

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and the best parts of articulating wisdom from

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contending with the boundaries of material reality.

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By the way, this is reflected in the book that we

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covered last month in our bonus episode, Matthew

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Crawford’s shop class as soul

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craft. Storytelling,

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which again is an extension of the oral tradition

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as Benjamin noted was killed probably five

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eighty five years ago by the gradual grinding forces of the

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technology of the printing press.

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The nature of the technology that underlies the

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novel itself resists the transmission of

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wisdom in a way that the oral tradition does not.

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There’s an example that Benjamin points to, in

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his essay, and it’s in section

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six seven, section seven, in the second paragraph.

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It’s a it’s a story, that he relates

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from, the Greeks, and I’m gonna read you the story.

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He says this and I quote, the first storyteller of the Greeks was Herodotus.

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In the fourteenth chapter of the third book of his histories, there is a story

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from which much can be learned. It deals with, Semonites.

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When the Egyptian king Semonites had been beaten and captured by the Persian king

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Cambyses, Cambyses was bent on humbling his prisoner.

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He gave orders to place Semoniteis on the road along which the

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Persian triumphal procession was to pass, and he further

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arranged that the prisoner should see his daughter pass by as a

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maid going to the well with her pitcher. While

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all the Egyptians were lamenting and bewailing the spectacle,

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Pasa Minaitis, sorry, stood alone, mute and

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motionless, his eyes fixed on the ground. And when

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presently he saw his son who was being taken along in the procession to be

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executed, he likewise remained unmoved.

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But when afterwards he recognized one of his servants, an old

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impoverished man in the ranks of the prisoners, he

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beat his fists against his head and gave all the signs

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of deepest mourning.

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Make from that what you will in our modern

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time, But that’s a story,

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not a novel, not a novella, not a movie,

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not a TikTok, not a Facebook post, not a tweet,

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not a YouTube video. That

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is a document. That is

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a set of information, right, that does more than

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just give us facts. It gives

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us a feeling. It might be a feeling we don’t like. It might be a

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feeling we have to struggle with. It might be a feeling that causes us psychic

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trauma, but it is a feeling that comes

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directly out of the oral tradition nonetheless.

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The preference of people for consuming information via new technologies,

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which are many of which I’ve already mentioned like the printing press, novels, newspapers,

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magazines, cell phones, even social media versus accepting received

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wisdom via an oral tradition has a psychological

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basis. People like

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the new. That’s why people read the

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news. Heck, this goes back even

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further than Walter Benjamin if we want to get

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real. When the Apostle Paul was going

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to speak to folks in Athens,

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the men of Athens were curious to hear from him. You can

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read about this in Acts seventeen and and eighteen. They were curious to

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hear from him because, and I quote, they always

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wanted to hear about new things.

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Back to the essay, back to the storyteller, reflections on the work of

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Nikolai Lesko by Walter Benjamin.

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By the way, in this, essay, he does, in

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his attempt to analyze storytelling

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wisdom and the transfer the psychological transfer of

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wisdom from one generation and even from one

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society to another. Benjamin does critique

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the work of the Russian writer Nikolai Lesko. And I’ll say a

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little bit about him. Lesko was a contemporary

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of Tolstoy and even Dostoyevsky,

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but he was less read than both Tolstoy and

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Dostoyevsky. As a matter of fact,

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in the essay, Benjamin has this

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has this quote when he talks about craftsmanship

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and he says and I quote, This craftsmanship storytelling was actually

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regarded as a craft by Lascaux himself. Writing he says

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in one of his letters is to me no liberal art but a craft it

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cannot come as a surprise that he felt bonds with craftsmanship but

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faced industrial technology as a stranger

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Tolstoy must have understood this occasionally touches this nerve of

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Lescov storytelling tap to sorry. Tolstoy who must

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have understood this occasionally touches this nerve of

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Lescov’s storytelling talent when he calls him the first

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man who, quote, pointed out the inadequacy of economic

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progress. It is strange that Dostoevsky is so widely read,

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but I simply cannot comprehend why Lescov is not

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read. He is a truthful writer,

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Close quote. That’s from Tolstoy. Right?

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And I think the reason why Leskov was not

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read and Dostoevsky was is because of the impact of

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nihilism. A craftsman attempting

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to deal with the bonds of material reality without

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being nihilistic or defeatist

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particularly in the early days of the Industrial Revolution

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when no one knew anything and the industrial revolution in

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a Russia that had just come out of serfdom,

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well, that writer was going to be seen as naive

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at best and uninteresting at worst.

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Particularly as a formerly oppressed people. We’re in

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a rush to consume the new.

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So we’re gonna pick up with section eight.

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I’m gonna read this paragraph from Walter Benjamin,

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and I quote, there is nothing

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that commends a story to memory more effectively than the

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chaste compactness, which precludes psychological

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analysis. And the more natural the process by which the

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storyteller foregoes psychological shading, the greater becomes the

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story’s claim to a place in the memory of the listener. The more completely

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00:23:51,390 –> 00:23:55,230
it is integrated into his own experience, the greater will be his inclination

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to repeat it to someone else someday, sooner or

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later. This process of assimilation,

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which takes place in-depth, requires a state of relaxation, which is

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00:24:06,024 –> 00:24:09,705
becoming rarer and rarer. If sleep is the apogee of physical

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relaxation, boredom is the apogee of mental relaxation.

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Boredom is the dream bird that hatches the egg of experience.

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A rustling in the leaves drives him away. His

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nesting places, the activities that are intimately associated with boredom

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are already extinct in the cities and are declining in the country as well.

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With this is the gift of listening is lost,

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and the community of listeners disappears.

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For storytelling is always the art of repeating stories, and this art is lost

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when the stories are no longer retained. It It is lost because there is no

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more weaving and spinning to go on while they are being listened to.

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The more self forgetful the listener is, the more deeply is what

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00:24:52,920 –> 00:24:55,740
he listens to impressed upon his memory.

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When the rhythm of work has seized him, he listens to the tale in such

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00:24:59,965 –> 00:25:03,725
a way that the gift of retelling them comes to him all by

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itself. This then is the nature of the

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web in which the gift of storytelling is cradled.

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This is how today it is becoming unraveled at all its

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ends after being woven thousands of years ago in the

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ambiance of the oldest forms of craftsmanship.

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Matthew b

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Arnold would agree, the author of shop class as soul

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craft. He would agree that

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this process of assimilation, which takes place in-depth, requires a state of

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00:25:56,790 –> 00:25:59,825
relaxation, which is becoming rarer and rarer.

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There are authors, some of whom will remain

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00:26:04,445 –> 00:26:08,125
unnamed, who have said and who have agreed

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00:26:08,125 –> 00:26:11,910
with Benjamin on this one as well, and I quote, if sleep

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00:26:11,910 –> 00:26:15,610
is the apogee of physical relaxation, boredom is the apogee of mental

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00:26:15,670 –> 00:26:19,270
relaxation. Boredom is the dream bird that hatches the egg

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00:26:19,270 –> 00:26:22,790
of experience. Well, what is the thing we

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00:26:22,790 –> 00:26:26,310
demand from our technologies today? What is the thing we demand

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00:26:26,310 –> 00:26:28,545
from even our stories?

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00:26:29,885 –> 00:26:33,725
Well, we demand that we never be relaxed because we live in a

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00:26:33,725 –> 00:26:37,085
world of anxiety which is the obverse of

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00:26:37,085 –> 00:26:40,545
depression. We demand that we never be bored.

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00:26:41,245 –> 00:26:44,850
I think of the titular line from

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00:26:44,850 –> 00:26:47,830
Smells Like Teen Spirit by Nirvana.

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00:26:49,169 –> 00:26:53,009
Oh well, whatever, nevermind. Yeah, okay. That’s not

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00:26:53,009 –> 00:26:56,389
the titular line. The titular line is here we are now.

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00:26:57,235 –> 00:27:00,914
Entertain us. The

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00:27:00,914 –> 00:27:04,695
yapping cry of the twentieth century was to be

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00:27:04,835 –> 00:27:08,595
entertained particularly after the horrors of both World War one

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00:27:08,595 –> 00:27:11,335
and World War two. I mean the Harlem Renaissance

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00:27:13,270 –> 00:27:17,030
and the jitterbugging of jazz of folks in jazz clubs occurred at the

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00:27:17,030 –> 00:27:20,550
exact same time in New York City as the

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00:27:20,550 –> 00:27:24,310
jitterbugging and entertaining of folks in the Weimar Republic occurred

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00:27:24,310 –> 00:27:27,575
in Germany at the exact same time that

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00:27:28,595 –> 00:27:32,215
f Scott Fitzgerald was noting

400
00:27:32,835 –> 00:27:36,595
that Gatsby couldn’t find himself no matter how

401
00:27:36,595 –> 00:27:40,290
much booze and how much dancing and how many

402
00:27:40,290 –> 00:27:42,070
women he bedded

403
00:27:45,410 –> 00:27:47,830
spastic activity does not bring wisdom

404
00:27:48,930 –> 00:27:52,530
medicating for anxiety and for depression does not

405
00:27:52,530 –> 00:27:55,655
bring wisdom being

406
00:27:56,515 –> 00:28:00,215
entertained constantly either by

407
00:28:00,595 –> 00:28:04,035
a supercomputer in your pocket or by other people at a

408
00:28:04,035 –> 00:28:06,934
party does not bring wisdom

409
00:28:08,920 –> 00:28:12,140
boredom silence sleep

410
00:28:13,960 –> 00:28:16,860
these things allow us to integrate

411
00:28:17,880 –> 00:28:21,640
all of the wide variety of experiences that we have in

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00:28:21,640 –> 00:28:25,355
our lives that we seem

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00:28:25,495 –> 00:28:29,195
to take for granted and they allow us to

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00:28:29,335 –> 00:28:33,095
use our brains which by the way we talk a lot about evolution in

415
00:28:33,095 –> 00:28:36,310
our society and cultures this is just a side thought we talk a lot about

416
00:28:36,310 –> 00:28:39,990
evolution in terms of natural selection but we don’t talk

417
00:28:39,990 –> 00:28:43,690
about evolution in terms of the evolution of silence

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00:28:45,590 –> 00:28:49,304
when the Egyptian king who beat

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00:28:49,304 –> 00:28:52,205
his head upon seeing his

420
00:28:52,865 –> 00:28:56,445
house servant in a Persian procession

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00:28:57,705 –> 00:29:01,304
when he beat his head with frustration he did

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00:29:01,304 –> 00:29:04,445
so in a world where noise did not

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00:29:04,690 –> 00:29:08,210
abound he actually had to think about

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00:29:08,210 –> 00:29:11,910
it unfettered

425
00:29:12,050 –> 00:29:15,750
capitalism progressive socialism authoritarian marxism

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00:29:16,705 –> 00:29:20,485
quote, unquote our democracy or constitutional republicanism

427
00:29:22,225 –> 00:29:25,605
can’t provide wisdom to the postmodern

428
00:29:26,385 –> 00:29:30,090
western man. A man drowning in

429
00:29:30,090 –> 00:29:33,850
noise so loud he can’t even get bored enough

430
00:29:33,850 –> 00:29:37,450
to relax, much less to hear

431
00:29:37,450 –> 00:29:39,310
himself think.

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00:29:44,085 –> 00:29:47,385
The essay that drove me in the direction

433
00:29:47,684 –> 00:29:51,365
of this particular essay and got me thinking about this, which I

434
00:29:51,365 –> 00:29:55,044
think is relevant for our podcast and for the leaders

435
00:29:55,044 –> 00:29:58,725
listening to it, the essay that drove me here was out of the

436
00:29:58,725 –> 00:30:02,159
Hedgehog Review by a fellow named Alexander

437
00:30:02,779 –> 00:30:06,159
Stern, published this year,

438
00:30:06,620 –> 00:30:09,279
in 2025 in late January.

439
00:30:10,860 –> 00:30:14,385
And the title of the essay is, the story of advice,

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00:30:14,625 –> 00:30:17,285
Narrative Wisdom in a Fragmented World.

441
00:30:18,625 –> 00:30:22,405
And, in the essay right at the beginning, he relates

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00:30:22,625 –> 00:30:26,385
this, and I quote, in a column for The Point

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00:30:26,385 –> 00:30:30,160
magazine, Agnes Callard, a philosopher and professor at the

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00:30:30,160 –> 00:30:33,540
University of Chicago, comes out against advice.

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00:30:34,720 –> 00:30:38,320
She makes her case using an anecdote involving the novelist Margaret Atwood.

446
00:30:38,320 –> 00:30:41,940
Asks about her advice for a group of aspiring writers, Atwood is stumped

447
00:30:42,274 –> 00:30:46,034
and ends up offering little more than bromides, encouraging them to write every day and

448
00:30:46,034 –> 00:30:49,335
to try not to be inhibited. Callard excuses

449
00:30:49,554 –> 00:30:53,315
Atwood’s banality, blaming it on the fundamental incoherence of the

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00:30:53,315 –> 00:30:54,855
thing she was asked to produce.

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00:30:56,900 –> 00:31:00,440
Advice for Callard occupies a nebulous terrain between what she terms,

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00:31:00,820 –> 00:31:04,600
quote, instructions and, quote, coaching. You give someone instructions,

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00:31:04,659 –> 00:31:08,340
she writes, as to how to achieve a goal that is itself instrumental to

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00:31:08,340 –> 00:31:12,045
some further goal, Whereas coaching affects in someone

455
00:31:12,045 –> 00:31:15,505
a transformative orientation towards something of intrinsic value

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00:31:15,725 –> 00:31:18,545
and athletic or intellectual or even social triumph.

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00:31:19,485 –> 00:31:23,039
The problem with advice, according to Callard, is that it tries to reduce and

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00:31:23,039 –> 00:31:26,179
condense the time intensive personal work of coaching into

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00:31:26,799 –> 00:31:30,480
instructions. The young person is not approaching

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00:31:30,480 –> 00:31:34,100
Atwood for instructions on how to operate Microsoft Word. This is from

461
00:31:34,635 –> 00:31:38,475
Callard’s writing that Stern is quoting. Nor

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00:31:38,475 –> 00:31:42,315
is she making the unreasonable demand that Atwood become her writing

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00:31:42,315 –> 00:31:45,995
coach. She wants the kind of value she would get from the second, but she

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00:31:45,995 –> 00:31:49,620
wants it given to her in the manner of the first, but there

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00:31:49,620 –> 00:31:50,920
is no there.

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00:31:55,060 –> 00:31:58,600
There. Close quote. I agree

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00:31:58,740 –> 00:32:02,440
with mister Stern. There is no there. There.

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00:32:03,865 –> 00:32:07,304
And in his critique of instructions in his critique of

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00:32:07,304 –> 00:32:10,924
coaching and advice he mentioned

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00:32:11,065 –> 00:32:13,804
benjamin essay and thus got us here.

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00:32:15,160 –> 00:32:18,380
By the way, other writers have commented

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00:32:18,520 –> 00:32:21,900
on this problem of there being no there there.

473
00:32:22,520 –> 00:32:26,360
Steven Pressfield talks about it in his book, The War of

474
00:32:26,360 –> 00:32:29,975
Art, and Seth Godin talks about it

475
00:32:29,975 –> 00:32:32,955
in his great non business business book

476
00:32:33,415 –> 00:32:37,195
linchpin. One of the ways I think to overcome

477
00:32:37,895 –> 00:32:41,429
this problem of a lack of boredom are our

478
00:32:41,429 –> 00:32:44,970
confusion with instructions and coaching with wisdom.

479
00:32:45,990 –> 00:32:48,490
One of the ways to overcome this postmodern

480
00:32:49,590 –> 00:32:53,290
deeply fragmented incoherence we have in the world.

481
00:32:54,135 –> 00:32:57,755
One of the ways leaders I think can be helpful to have the positional

482
00:32:57,895 –> 00:33:01,735
authority and the status to be able to insist

483
00:33:01,735 –> 00:33:05,415
on a certain standard. One of the things that we need to do, one of

484
00:33:05,415 –> 00:33:09,130
the things I think that would that would benefit us one of

485
00:33:09,130 –> 00:33:12,970
the pieces of well advice I would give

486
00:33:12,970 –> 00:33:15,950
leaders is that the reprioritization of memory

487
00:33:16,810 –> 00:33:20,250
has to occur and it has to occur as a way to deal with the

488
00:33:20,250 –> 00:33:24,025
death of the past But it also has to occur

489
00:33:24,165 –> 00:33:28,005
as a tool, designed to create epistemic meaning for

490
00:33:28,005 –> 00:33:31,845
the future. Because this is the thing that we have been

491
00:33:31,845 –> 00:33:34,745
robbed of as leaders in our postmodern era,

492
00:33:35,830 –> 00:33:39,510
which makes us open to all kinds of information, but

493
00:33:39,510 –> 00:33:42,410
not real wisdom based on promises

494
00:33:43,350 –> 00:33:46,490
delivered by split tongued technologists.

495
00:34:01,725 –> 00:34:05,345
So you may say that I don’t,

496
00:34:05,740 –> 00:34:09,099
I’m a I’m a little bit of a split tongue hypocrite myself. You might say

497
00:34:09,099 –> 00:34:12,540
that. You might say, hey. You have a podcast and you offer

498
00:34:12,540 –> 00:34:16,380
advice and you offer instruction and you read these pieces

499
00:34:16,380 –> 00:34:20,135
of literature and you you read these essays, and

500
00:34:20,135 –> 00:34:23,895
you read these nonfiction books, you assiduously try

501
00:34:23,895 –> 00:34:27,574
to avoid business books, but you go into

502
00:34:27,574 –> 00:34:29,915
places, novels included,

503
00:34:30,935 –> 00:34:34,600
where, you know, everything that Benjamin talks

504
00:34:34,900 –> 00:34:38,739
about the novel itself is guilty of. And so what are you

505
00:34:38,739 –> 00:34:42,580
doing? Are you undercutting your own project? I

506
00:34:42,580 –> 00:34:46,100
don’t think so. I don’t think I’m undercutting my own project by talking about what

507
00:34:46,100 –> 00:34:49,855
Benjamin or by addressing Benjamin here and introducing Tim to

508
00:34:49,855 –> 00:34:53,694
you in this episode today. I don’t think I’m undercutting myself

509
00:34:53,694 –> 00:34:57,474
at all. Matter of fact, I think I’m I’m I’m shoring up

510
00:34:58,734 –> 00:35:01,740
the eroding beachhead

511
00:35:03,240 –> 00:35:07,020
of this podcast. So podcasting

512
00:35:07,080 –> 00:35:10,860
technology in and of itself is designed to tell stories.

513
00:35:11,400 –> 00:35:15,080
Think about maybe the true crime podcasts that you listen to

514
00:35:15,080 –> 00:35:18,735
or think about a really really good Joe Rogan

515
00:35:18,795 –> 00:35:22,555
interview or Theo Vaughn or

516
00:35:22,555 –> 00:35:25,615
whoever. When you listen to those people

517
00:35:25,915 –> 00:35:29,755
they, yes, are seeking to pull information out of their guest or

518
00:35:29,755 –> 00:35:33,460
out of the topic but at a certain point a switch happens

519
00:35:34,000 –> 00:35:37,440
and people start telling the host, telling

520
00:35:37,440 –> 00:35:39,780
themselves, telling the listeners

521
00:35:40,880 –> 00:35:44,485
stories. Storytelling,

522
00:35:44,785 –> 00:35:48,625
and this is where I separate from Benjamin, is going

523
00:35:48,625 –> 00:35:52,305
to be consistent in our lives. It’s gonna be something

524
00:35:52,305 –> 00:35:55,905
that we as human beings can’t abandon, but we

525
00:35:55,905 –> 00:35:59,260
will, and this is the hard part, we will

526
00:35:59,260 –> 00:36:03,040
abandon the the transmission

527
00:36:03,100 –> 00:36:06,400
of wisdom through that storytelling

528
00:36:07,020 –> 00:36:10,400
medium because we actually don’t have any wisdom

529
00:36:11,435 –> 00:36:15,275
to give. The piece

530
00:36:15,275 –> 00:36:18,495
that sent me off on thinking about this the critique

531
00:36:19,115 –> 00:36:22,575
of fragmented a fragmented

532
00:36:23,450 –> 00:36:26,190
fragmented communication world.

533
00:36:27,930 –> 00:36:30,990
The piece that set me off on this critiqued Margaret Atwood.

534
00:36:31,690 –> 00:36:35,369
Now I got to admit I don’t think much of Margaret Atwood as

535
00:36:35,369 –> 00:36:39,164
a novelist. I don’t think The Handmaid’s Tale was

536
00:36:39,164 –> 00:36:42,224
that brilliant. I’ve tried to read a couple of her other books.

537
00:36:42,845 –> 00:36:45,904
I just can’t get in to Margaret Atwood.

538
00:36:46,444 –> 00:36:49,825
For me personally with Atwood as an author

539
00:36:50,045 –> 00:36:51,184
there’s no there

540
00:36:54,440 –> 00:36:57,260
there. But that doesn’t mean that there’s no there there for others.

541
00:36:57,880 –> 00:37:01,339
Right? And so what may not be for me

542
00:37:01,640 –> 00:37:05,480
might be for someone else. By the way, that’s wisdom. That’s

543
00:37:05,480 –> 00:37:08,924
not instruction. But how do I get to there? How do

544
00:37:08,924 –> 00:37:12,065
I how do I make that determination?

545
00:37:13,565 –> 00:37:17,244
How do I wind up lapping up on the shores where it’s

546
00:37:17,244 –> 00:37:19,897
okay for me to dislike Margaret Atwood and use the technology of the podcast or

547
00:37:19,897 –> 00:37:22,310
dislike Margaret Atwood? I don’t know her. Dislike her writing. Podcast or dislike Margaret Atwood.

548
00:37:22,310 –> 00:37:26,050
I don’t dislike her. I don’t know her. Dislike her writing. Right? And for me

549
00:37:26,050 –> 00:37:29,810
to say that on the technology of a podcast, utilizing the technology of a

550
00:37:29,810 –> 00:37:33,410
podcast, imagining myself talking to someone who is sitting

551
00:37:33,410 –> 00:37:36,585
across from me today, even though no one is is sitting across from me today

552
00:37:36,585 –> 00:37:40,415
this is a solo show and to do it in a way that hopefully

553
00:37:42,235 –> 00:37:45,855
gives some sort of wisdom to leaders who might be listening

554
00:37:45,994 –> 00:37:48,415
and might be along this journey with me.

555
00:37:50,580 –> 00:37:54,200
How do I get there from here? Well, Benjamin, of course,

556
00:37:54,420 –> 00:37:58,020
gives me an idea. In section nine, he says

557
00:37:58,020 –> 00:38:01,800
this of his essay, and I quote,

558
00:38:01,860 –> 00:38:05,565
the storytelling that thrives for a long time in the middle of work,

559
00:38:06,125 –> 00:38:09,565
the rural the maritime and the urban is itself an

560
00:38:09,565 –> 00:38:13,405
artisan form of communication as it were. It does not aim to

561
00:38:13,405 –> 00:38:16,865
convey the pure essence of the thing like information or a report.

562
00:38:17,565 –> 00:38:21,359
It sinks the thing into the life of the storyteller in order to

563
00:38:21,359 –> 00:38:25,119
bring it out of him again. Thus traces

564
00:38:25,119 –> 00:38:28,880
of the storyteller cling to the story the way the handprints of

565
00:38:28,880 –> 00:38:31,619
the potter cling to the clay vessel.

566
00:38:34,934 –> 00:38:38,775
Close quote I love that when you

567
00:38:38,775 –> 00:38:41,994
tell a story you’re bringing a piece of yourself to it

568
00:38:43,174 –> 00:38:46,315
and in the best forms of human communication human interaction

569
00:38:48,050 –> 00:38:51,590
I can see people still insisting

570
00:38:53,090 –> 00:38:56,690
that the clay pot they are getting, yes, it must contain

571
00:38:56,690 –> 00:39:00,494
something in it. But even more importantly even more

572
00:39:00,494 –> 00:39:04,174
importantly, it must have the it must have the

573
00:39:04,174 –> 00:39:07,795
handprints of the potter embedded in it.

574
00:39:10,575 –> 00:39:14,250
What does this mean for us

575
00:39:14,250 –> 00:39:18,010
here at the end of the fourth turning as leaders? Well I think it

576
00:39:18,010 –> 00:39:21,770
means a few things. Number one: every generation has to relearn the wisdom that

577
00:39:21,770 –> 00:39:25,610
the previous generation considered to be table stakes for existing

578
00:39:25,610 –> 00:39:29,345
in the world, for understanding reality and for preserving

579
00:39:29,345 –> 00:39:32,945
the gift of feedback which is also a story by the way to the

580
00:39:32,945 –> 00:39:36,785
future. There is wisdom that

581
00:39:36,785 –> 00:39:40,560
defies the technologies used to transmit it. Some of

582
00:39:40,560 –> 00:39:44,100
that wisdom comes out of some of our oldest books like the bible,

583
00:39:45,040 –> 00:39:48,720
the Torah, the Quran, Benjamin

584
00:39:48,720 –> 00:39:52,464
even brings up Herodotus those things

585
00:39:52,464 –> 00:39:56,065
will survive regardless of what technological form they

586
00:39:56,065 –> 00:39:59,765
are put in and they may even outlast

587
00:39:59,825 –> 00:40:03,505
the earth itself these

588
00:40:03,505 –> 00:40:07,269
forms of wisdom ancient and deep encompass

589
00:40:07,269 –> 00:40:11,049
the oral tradition but the oral tradition then leverages

590
00:40:11,269 –> 00:40:14,890
the technology to avoid being rendered extinct

591
00:40:15,109 –> 00:40:18,170
by it and if you are a leader

592
00:40:18,805 –> 00:40:22,485
that’s really the wisdom there not the tip

593
00:40:22,485 –> 00:40:26,165
such as it were that’s the wisdom leverage technology to

594
00:40:26,165 –> 00:40:28,265
avoid being rendered extinct by it

595
00:40:30,245 –> 00:40:33,625
we are coming up at the end of the fourth turning

596
00:40:34,080 –> 00:40:37,680
we are turning into a high into a first

597
00:40:37,680 –> 00:40:40,980
turning and the wisdom

598
00:40:41,920 –> 00:40:45,440
achieved and attained the hard won wisdom achieved and

599
00:40:45,440 –> 00:40:48,500
attained in a previous chaotic fourth turning

600
00:40:49,015 –> 00:40:52,615
during a first turning, during a high, when the

601
00:40:52,615 –> 00:40:56,375
jitterbugging is going on, the alcohol is flowing, the

602
00:40:56,375 –> 00:40:59,815
jazz is thumping, and everyone’s feeling pretty good. The

603
00:40:59,815 –> 00:41:03,599
wisdom that was attained in the

604
00:41:03,599 –> 00:41:06,819
past chaos, no matter how it’s transmitted

605
00:41:07,839 –> 00:41:11,299
or what technology is used to transmit it, is typically

606
00:41:11,359 –> 00:41:15,165
ignored, dismissed, or shuffled away. And this is

607
00:41:15,165 –> 00:41:18,685
because of the principles of the first turning the

608
00:41:18,685 –> 00:41:22,225
ideas and the psychological posture that underlie

609
00:41:22,525 –> 00:41:26,285
the people who are living through it and I

610
00:41:26,285 –> 00:41:29,645
quote from the wikipedia article about the first

611
00:41:29,645 –> 00:41:33,360
turning according to Strauss and Howe the first turning is a high

612
00:41:33,500 –> 00:41:37,120
which occurs after a crisis during the high institutions

613
00:41:37,260 –> 00:41:40,940
are strong and individualism is weak society is

614
00:41:40,940 –> 00:41:43,600
confident about where it wants to go collectively

615
00:41:44,675 –> 00:41:47,815
though those outside the majoritarian center

616
00:41:48,275 –> 00:41:50,935
often feel stifled by conformity.

617
00:41:52,035 –> 00:41:55,875
Close quote. The next generation

618
00:41:55,875 –> 00:41:59,335
of folks we have coming up, generation alpha

619
00:41:59,475 –> 00:42:03,290
and behind them generation beta, I

620
00:42:03,290 –> 00:42:07,050
guess we’re gonna start with the alphabet again, are

621
00:42:07,050 –> 00:42:10,730
going to be profit idealists in the mold of

622
00:42:10,730 –> 00:42:14,204
folks who, well the mold of

623
00:42:14,204 –> 00:42:17,805
folks who in the last great turning in

624
00:42:17,805 –> 00:42:21,404
America were either very very

625
00:42:21,404 –> 00:42:25,005
hyper confident GIs coming out of World

626
00:42:25,005 –> 00:42:28,550
War II or if you go back a little bit further

627
00:42:29,170 –> 00:42:32,930
were the folks that were very very confident going into the

628
00:42:32,930 –> 00:42:36,610
civil war profit

629
00:42:36,610 –> 00:42:39,990
idealist types always exist in a high

630
00:42:40,755 –> 00:42:44,535
and folks like myself nomads the thirteenth

631
00:42:44,755 –> 00:42:48,295
generation such as it were we always get dismissed

632
00:42:48,515 –> 00:42:52,035
in a high our wisdom gets shuffled

633
00:42:52,035 –> 00:42:55,480
away all the way to the edges outside

634
00:42:55,700 –> 00:42:58,760
the majoritarian center.

635
00:43:00,180 –> 00:43:03,940
This time will be a little bit different though because of technology, because

636
00:43:03,940 –> 00:43:07,380
of our insistence on the internet, because of social media. It will be a little

637
00:43:07,380 –> 00:43:11,155
bit different this time, but I don’t know that it’s going to

638
00:43:11,155 –> 00:43:14,695
be that much different. I think our technologies

639
00:43:14,915 –> 00:43:18,295
that I think I know our technologies serve us

640
00:43:18,994 –> 00:43:22,640
and increasingly we serve them But it’s a

641
00:43:22,640 –> 00:43:26,420
weird symbiotic story that we tell each other.

642
00:43:28,640 –> 00:43:31,360
What I do know is this this is a piece of wisdom at the close

643
00:43:31,360 –> 00:43:35,200
here leadership will still be necessary even in the first turning. As a matter of

644
00:43:35,200 –> 00:43:38,975
fact leadership will probably be even more critical in the

645
00:43:38,975 –> 00:43:41,475
first turning because the naive,

646
00:43:43,295 –> 00:43:46,895
the ingenues, and the people

647
00:43:46,895 –> 00:43:50,680
just not paying attention will need

648
00:43:50,680 –> 00:43:54,360
all of the wisdom they can get from

649
00:43:54,360 –> 00:43:58,060
wherever they can get it because wars

650
00:43:58,520 –> 00:44:01,020
strife depression and upheavals

651
00:44:02,040 –> 00:44:05,525
insist on happening in

652
00:44:05,525 –> 00:44:06,985
every turning.

653
00:44:11,525 –> 00:44:15,285
And, well, that’s it

654
00:44:15,285 –> 00:44:16,025
for me.