East of Eden by John Steinbeck w/Tom Libby & Jesan Sorrells

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Hello, my name is Jesan Sorrells, and

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this is the Leadership Lessons from the Great Books podcast,

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episode number 186.

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Opening up from our book today,

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we’re going to pick up in part one,

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chapter one, and it’s going to be part two

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of. Of chapter one. And we’re going to take

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in the setting for today.

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And I quote, and that was the long Salinas

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Valley. Its history was like that of the rest of the state.

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First there were Indians, an inferior breed, without energy,

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inventiveness or culture. A people that lived on grubs and

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grasshoppers and shellfish. Too lazy to hunt or fish, they ate

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what they could pick and planted nothing. They pounded bitter acorns for flour.

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Even their warfare was weary pantomime.

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Then the hard, dry Spaniards came exploring through greedy and

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realistic, and their greed was for gold or for

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God. They collected souls as they collected jewels. They gathered

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mountains and valleys, rivers and whole horizons the way a man might now gain title

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to build lots. These tough, dried up men moved

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restlessly up the coast and down. Some of them stayed on grants as large

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as principalities given to them by the Spanish kings who had not the

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faintest idea of the gift. These first owners

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lived in poor feudal settlements and their cattle ranged freely and multiplied.

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Periodically, the owners killed the cattle for their hides and tallow and left the meat

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to the vultures and coyotes. When the Spaniards

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came, they had to give everything they saw. Name this is the first duty of

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any explorer, a duty and a privilege. You must name a thing

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before you can note it on your hand drawn map. Of course

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they were religious people, and the men who could read and write, who kept

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the records and drew out the maps, were the tough, untiring priests who traveled with

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the soldiers. Thus, the first names of places were

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saints names or religious holidays celebrating

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at stopping places. There are many saints, but

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they are not inexhaustible. So that we find repetitions

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in the first namings. We have San Miguel, St. Michael, San Ardo,

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San Bernardo, San Benito, San Lorenz, San Carlos, San Francisco,

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Ito. And then the holidays. Natividad, the Nativity,

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Nacimiento, the Birth, Soledad, the Solitude.

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But the places were also named from the way the expedition felt at the time.

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A Buena Esperanza, Good Hope, Buena Vista because the view was

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beautiful, and Chihuahuara because it was pretty. The

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descriptive names followed Paso de los Robles because of the oak

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trees. Los Laureles for the laurelsitos

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because of the reeds in the swamp, and Salinas for the

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alkali, which was as white as salt

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Then the places were named for animals and birds seen. Gabalains of

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the hawks which flew in the mountains. Topo for the mole, los gatos for the

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wild cats. The suggestions came from the nature of the place itself.

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Tasara, a cup and a saucer. Laguna Seca, a dry

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lake, Corral de Tierra for offensive earth,

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Parisio, because it was like heaven.

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Then the Americans came, more greedy because there were more of

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them. They took the lands, remade the laws to make their own titles

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good and farmholts spread over the land, first in the valleys and then up the

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foothill slopes. Small wooden houses roofed with redwood shakes,

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corals of split poles. Wherever a trickle of

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water came out of the ground, a house sprang up and a family began to

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grow and multiply. Climbing cuttings of red geraniums and rose bushes were planted in the

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doorways. Wheel tracks of buckboards replaced the trails, and fields of

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corn and barley and wheat squared out the yellow mustard. Every

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10 miles along the travel routes, a general store and blacksmith shop

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happened, and these became the nuclei of little towns. Radley, King

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City, Greenfield. The

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Americans had a greater tendency to name places for people than had the Spanish.

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After the valleys were settled, the names of places refer more to the things which

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happened there. And these to me are the most fascinating of all

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names, because each name suggests a story that has been forgotten.

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I think of Bolsa Nueva, A New Purse, Morocco

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Ho and Lay Moore. Who was he and how did he get there? Wild

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Horse Canyon and Mustang Grade and Shirttail Canyon. The

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names of the places carry a charge of the people who named them,

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reverent or irreverent, descriptive, either poetic or

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disparaging. You can name anything San Lorenzo, but

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Shorttail Canyon or the Lane War is something quite different.

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The wind whistled over the settlements in the afternoon

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and the farmers began to set out mile long windbreaks of eucalyptus to keep

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the plowed topsoil from blowing away. And this

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is about the way the Salinas Valley was when my grandfather

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brought his wife and settled in the foothills to the

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east of King City.

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So Cain went out from the Lord’s presence and lived in the land of

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Nod, east of Eden.

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With this from Genesis 4:16, our author

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today opens up a truly expansive novel

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written in the 1940s, but of course based on a life of

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experiences in the Salinas Valley and first published in

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1952. The novel describes on an epic scale what it

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really means to fall out of the utopian paradise created by a transcendent

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God into the blood, sweat and tears

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of the fallen. World we all now tragically

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inhabit. This book has

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never not been a bestseller since its first publication, and

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this is because it touches on deeply human themes of loss,

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regret, trauma, sexual immorality,

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manipulation, greed, sociopathy, and

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even the honest differences people can experience who grow up in the same family

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raised by two people doing the best that they can.

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For leaders, this novel is a very easy read, but it is unsettling

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in its implications and truly groundbreaking in its assumptions about

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human n. But not because human

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beings have changed between the date of its original publication in

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1952 and now in the year of our Lord

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2026, but because in

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2026 we seem to have lost the plot or at the

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very minimum, the language to address the,

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well, the perplexing and sinful behavior we see in

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the humans around us. For

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all of our technological sophistication, this book proves a

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point we need hammered home to us in a society like

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the one in which we live now. Many of us have

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iPhones, the Internet, and social media, and

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many of us do a lot of things with those things, but we still

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aren’t really sure what any of that actually

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means. Today on

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the show, we are revisiting the

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Salinas Valley of California at the beginning of

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the last century. You know, the one with

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dates that began with 19. And we’re going to try to

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extract lessons for leaders that they can apply in this

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century from John Steinbeck’s

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magnum opus, the second one in his long literary

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life, east of Eden

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Leaders. We’ve said this on the show multiple times

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with my guests today, and we’ll probably say it again

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in this recording today, but the more things change,

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the more they regrettably stay the same.

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And today, of course, I am joined by my fellow traveler

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whose computer has decided that it is going

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to behave as if it’s not

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living its utopian best life, joined

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by my co host and fellow traveler,

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Tom Libby. By the way, if he cuts out, I’m just going to

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keep doing this episode without him. We’re, we’re on a,

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we got to be on a roll here. So how you doing today, Tom?

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Well, I, I think as you’ve just said, I’m, you know,

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the, my, Listen, I, I, I owe the computer nothing,

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okay? It’s, it’s, it, it’s,

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it’s, it’s. Well, I think I bought it years before co even

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happened. So that tells you about how old the computer is. It

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owes me nothing. But I’m getting to the point where now I got to, I

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got to figure out, you Know, do I try to, do I try to

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continue the repairs and kick it down the sidewalk a little bit? Or do I

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just bite the bullet and get a new computer? They seem to be commodity at

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this point, so buying a new computer shouldn’t be all that difficult, you know, etc,

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etc. But I remember to get into the episode

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today, just talk a little bit about your intro and get away from

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my technology troubles.

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I remember the first conversation, I remember the first conversation you and I had about

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this opening. And I remember specifically saying to you

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I was having a good day until I heard that. And like, like in a

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fictional book, my people are still being like dumped

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on because if you look at the natives eating grubs and we’re too lazy. Whatever.

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Like, come on, enough already. Can we figure out, can we just find a

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book that says we’re awesome? I. Just one, just one book that says that native

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people are awesome. I’ll be happy with that. But again, I understand this is a

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classic book. And I, and, and you and I talked about this when we spoke

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before too. I, and I actually love. Steinbeck is one of my favorite authors.

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So it’s, I, I’ll, I’ll give him a pass, I guess.

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It’s, it’s, it’s. The term I believe that he used

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was weary pantomime. I, I, I believe

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that was the, that was the descriptor that, that he used. Yeah,

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he. Okay, so

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just full disclosure to the folks listening today.

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This is our second time around with this book and with this episode.

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So we originally, this is a little bit of inside baseball. We, we

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record, we tend to record on a Monday for a Wednesday release.

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Normally we don’t record on a Wednesday for a Wednesday release,

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but because of, due to, due to operator error

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this week, my operator error, we,

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we had a two, we had almost two hour long conversation about Easter E did

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on Monday and we recorded none

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of it. So we’re back

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to bite the bullet again. And that’s what Tom is referring to. So this is,

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there’s going to be a lot of references to a conversation that you never heard

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but that we recorded. Actually wrote a blog post about this where

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we behaved as if it were being recorded, which is actually the more

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interesting thing to me, just at a sort of psychological level because I was thinking

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about it afterward after I got past the initial sort of frustration and

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anger at myself of my own operator error and again,

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having no one to blame this week but myself.

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And by the way, this has been one more thing in a series of things

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that just have created a series of Mondays for me this week in my life.

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It’s just been Monday all week. It’s always been the first day of the week.

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It’s gonna call you Lemony Snicket over here.

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Oh, my gosh. I will be glad to get out of this week. Like, Friday

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cannot come soon enough. But, but,

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but this was one of those things where, like, the

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fascinating thing to me is again, we, we acted as if we were being

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recorded. We behaved as if, and we kind of had a little bit of a

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disagreement about some of the aspects of the book. And that’s all right. We’re going

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to explore some of that today. But we were, we were on our

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behavior as if we were being recorded. And so, you know, it’s

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one of those chicken and the egg things, like, which came first? You know, the

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good behavior and the respectful dealing with another person or the technology,

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like, which one of those came first? So anyway, I wrote a whole blog post

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about that. If you’re following me on social media on LinkedIn, you should go connect

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with me. I repost my blog posts on, on

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LinkedIn. Lately, I’ve been kind of doing that. I’ll be doing that for the whole.

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All the next quarter. And it’s called hitting the record button, so you should

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go check that out. So anyway,

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Just one of those things. I don’t know. I don’t know why I felt the

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need to bring that up. Probably because, you know what? I want everybody to know

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just how hard it is to put together the show. That’s really, that’s really what.

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Ms. That’s what everybody to, like, know that Tom is not the only

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one having a crap week at this point. Plus,

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today in America is for all those who are international listeners and

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other places, today is tax day in America. This

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is the day when you either pay the government money

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and then there’s no. Or after that. I mean, you might get a refund, but,

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like, those are less and less as time has gone on. So

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I have. I have not received a refund from the tax man in

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15 years. Normally I’m paying in. So

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it’s been a good long time. I don’t even remember what it feels like to

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get a refund.

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Anyway, enough said about that. Back to the book. So John

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Steinbeck, right? I’m gonna let you. I’m gonna let you kind of go off like

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you did last time. So talk to me a little bit about John Steinbeck. Talk

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to me about what you think of him as an author. I know you said

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that he was one of your favorite authors. Why is that?

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I know why. He’s interesting to me. He’s sort of the anti Hemingway

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and he sort of sits in that

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pantheon of social realist writers. Right.

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But he was unlike an Upton Sinclair or William

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Faulkner who could probably be accurately compared with

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his style was more about

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seeing, at least in my opinion, seeing the

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nature of who human beings are and just sort of letting them.

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Letting them be who they were right on the page.

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But. But what did you think of Steinbeck? What did you. What do you think

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of? I know it’s been 30 some odd years since you read east of Eden,

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but what did you think of the book?

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Well, well, to. To answer your question, first about

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my thoughts on Steinbecker. And again as. As I have mentioned, see

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I was just going to continue to say, as I’ve mentioned in the past, I

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wasn’t even going to point out that we had this faux power on Monday. That

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was your fault. I wasn’t even going to go there. But anyway,

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that’s fine. As I mentioned in a previous conversation,

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I think one of the things about Steinbeck that stood out to me as you

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know, and again this is. This was high school reading for me. So as you

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mentioned, it was quite a. Quite a long time ago. But when I think about

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the quote unquote required reading that we had

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back then, the Harbor Lee’s of the World author Millers

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that like. I thought Steinbeck was more of

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a. I thought he was more.

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You even used the word realistic. So I think his characters are relatable.

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I think that you can see either yourself or your fam. You’re a family

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member in that character. I think it was very. He’s very. He’s

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very down to earth, salt of the earth kind of writing where in

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way that he describes things is very

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non whimsical I guess is the word I would. The thing. The way I would

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describe it. Like when he describes the. The valley, like you can

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picture that in your head. You’re not picturing some Lord of the Rings thing

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where it’s like, you know, you know, created in

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his brain. Like you can tell that it’s something real to him. Like I

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think that’s. I think that’s my favorite part. And his characters are

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such. Right. Like whether you talk about east of Eden or the Grapes of Wrath

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or Mice of Men. Mice of Men stands out to me even

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more in that sense too because he didn’t, he

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didn’t dance around the issue that George

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00:16:32,820 –> 00:16:36,620
was not Intelligent. Like, he didn’t dance around the

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issue that he was a special needs. Kind of like what we would consider special

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needs person today or mentally challenged, however you want to word it. But

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I think that he did that better than most of the people that I

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enjoyed reading or I, that I read. And, and I, I do

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think that, like, again, the, the two other authors that I just mentioned,

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Harper Lee and, and, and Arthur Miller, I think they did a pretty good job

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of it too, which is probably why I like them as well. But I thought

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Steinbeck was just a cut above. I really do think that he,

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you, you can truly get

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a mind’s eye because

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you can relate to what he’s writing, to something that you

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yourself have either seen or experienced. Like, again, when he’s writing

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the, the characteristics of a character or the behavioral patterns of a character,

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you’re like, oh, that reminds me of my uncle, so and so. Or when he’s

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describing the, the city surroundings or the country surroundings, like, oh, I

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remember visiting a place like that. Like, you know, he’s very, like, it’s very

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relatable to, to, to people. And it’s, it’s very easy to,

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to see yourself in the settings that he’s describing in, in the environments.

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And again, when I say in the settings of environments, I’m not talking specifically or

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solely about physical environments like the Valley. I’m talking about being in the

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social environments, being in the work. Like, you can see yourself

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in those environments that he describes. And by the way, even reading through some

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of the stuff now, like looking back

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at some of the Cliff Notes, so to speak, or Spark Notes, I guess today

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00:18:05,720 –> 00:18:09,440
is the, the term. But like, even. Even though

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it was written almost 75 years ago, it still

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applies. Like, I’m fascinated by the fact that it still

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applies. So that I think, I think for me,

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I just think Steinbeck was a. I, I just think he would be. He’s a

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regular guy. Like, he just. I think he’s a regular person that got out, that

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had a way with taking what’s in his mind and putting it on paper.

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But if you read it, it’s almost like you’re looking directly into his experience

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and his thought process is directly into his experience. So it’s.

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Again, and I don’t. To me, it doesn’t matter whether you’re talking about E or

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Grips of Wrath or Of Mice and Men or any of the other. What, 50?

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I don’t remember the number, but he wrote dozens and dozens

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of things. So it was something like 50 or 60. Or I

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remember the number being very large of his writing. So I just

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think that most of them were part of his. And you notice,

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00:19:00,220 –> 00:19:03,820
too, and you mentioned Hemingway. We were talking about this, and I don’t know if

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00:19:03,820 –> 00:19:07,060
you want to talk about this now or if. If that came later, later in

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00:19:07,060 –> 00:19:10,740
the show. But, but like Hemingway,

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00:19:10,740 –> 00:19:13,820
Faulkner, these guys, like, kind of traveled the world, right? So a lot of their

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00:19:13,820 –> 00:19:17,460
writings are about their experiences around the world. His

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00:19:17,460 –> 00:19:21,260
writings were all about here. Like, it never. He never wrote anything

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00:19:21,640 –> 00:19:25,440
that I remember seeing anyway. It was explicitly about Europe or

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Asia or any of these other places where some of these guys have written about.

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So again, if you’re an American citizen

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and you’re. You’re here, it’s very relatable. Like, it’s relatable because it’s your. Like everything

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00:19:37,120 –> 00:19:39,800
he wrote about was your country. It was things that were happening in the moment

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00:19:39,800 –> 00:19:43,520
for, for him and, and what was going around the country. And I think some

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of the. And we’ll talk about this a little bit later because you’re going to.

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I know you’re going to ask me, but some of the lessons are still relatable.

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Like some of the things that they talk about under the way that you interact

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with people, the way that you experience. The way that you experience human interaction

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has not changed from the time that he wrote this. Now that’s the part. That’s

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00:19:59,940 –> 00:20:03,580
another part that I found fascinating. But. But it’s like, timeless. His

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00:20:03,580 –> 00:20:07,420
writing seems to be. Seems to be timeless. Well, and this is something

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that we’re going to get into. This ties into something else that we’re going to

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00:20:10,260 –> 00:20:13,220
get into. Because you talk about experience, right? So

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00:20:13,920 –> 00:20:17,520
Steinbeck’s experience was very much a

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00:20:17,680 –> 00:20:21,520
rural experience, right? So, you

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00:20:21,520 –> 00:20:25,200
know, we kind of covered this in. In the shorts episode that precedes this

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episode. We’re at shorts number. I think it’s number 219.

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We talk about the myth of the city, and we’re gonna get into a little

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bit of this today as well, talking about Taylor Sheridan and Yellowstone and

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cultural myths and things like this. Um, but Steinbeck, I

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believe, fundamentally is the last or was

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the. Not last, but he was the. The pinnacle of a breed of

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writers that had no other choice

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00:20:53,060 –> 00:20:56,820
but to write about what they knew. And if what they knew was

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00:20:56,980 –> 00:21:00,700
the land or if what they knew was the rural area they had

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00:21:00,700 –> 00:21:04,060
been surrounded by, they were going to. They were going to

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00:21:04,060 –> 00:21:06,910
ruthlessly mine that.

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00:21:07,710 –> 00:21:11,390
They were going to ruthlessly mine that vein of experience, right? And

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00:21:11,390 –> 00:21:15,230
so, you know, he lived in.

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00:21:15,950 –> 00:21:19,790
He lived in the, you know, in the small rural valley of the Salinas Valley.

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When he was a kid, he spent his summers working on ranches. He

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00:21:24,030 –> 00:21:27,630
labored with migrant workers on sugar beet farms. He

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00:21:27,630 –> 00:21:31,480
graduated from Salinas high school in 1919, literally at the

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00:21:31,480 –> 00:21:34,440
end of World War I, like, literally the year after World War I was over.

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By the way, Hemingway had been in World War I,

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right? And so, so Steinbeck

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00:21:41,920 –> 00:21:45,160
missed, you know, the big war, such as it were, of his

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lifetime. But obviously around

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00:21:48,960 –> 00:21:52,200
for World War II, he reported on his. His son’s,

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00:21:54,280 –> 00:21:57,560
I don’t want to say adventures, but his son’s experience in Vietnam

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00:21:59,610 –> 00:22:03,090
and reported on it not from the sense of, hey, I’m going to go to

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Vietnam and visit him, but I’m going to write about this in a way that

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sort of relates or is relatable to people who are

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still, even in the 1960s, sending their kids

353
00:22:14,010 –> 00:22:17,770
to. 1950s and 60s, sending their kids to this place

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00:22:18,170 –> 00:22:21,610
where they come from, you know, this, this. This rural area.

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He studied English literature at Stanford University and left without a degree. In

356
00:22:27,020 –> 00:22:30,820
1925, he traveled to New York City to try to write. Did

357
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not make it in New York City, unlike Joan

358
00:22:34,340 –> 00:22:38,100
Didion, who I think is his. His generational successor,

359
00:22:38,900 –> 00:22:42,140
who did go from California to New York. And we’ll talk about sort of the

360
00:22:42,140 –> 00:22:45,820
geography of that in a minute. But then he

361
00:22:45,820 –> 00:22:49,610
returned to work in California in 1928, and he began to

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00:22:49,610 –> 00:22:53,370
work as a tour guide and as a caretaker. And he spent a

363
00:22:53,370 –> 00:22:57,210
lot of his time doing, quite frankly, what we would call these days

364
00:22:57,450 –> 00:23:00,970
menial labor, menial manual labor.

365
00:23:01,450 –> 00:23:05,129
His family supported him through the Great Depression so that he didn’t

366
00:23:05,129 –> 00:23:08,850
have to do that labor because the Great Depression happened every. All those jobs dried

367
00:23:08,850 –> 00:23:12,690
up. He, you know, he lived in a cottage

368
00:23:12,690 –> 00:23:16,420
and wrote ruthlessly, but he wrote about the things he saw.

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00:23:16,420 –> 00:23:19,940
And so you can see this in books from Cannery Row to.

370
00:23:20,020 –> 00:23:23,820
Or from Tortilla Flat, actually through Cannery Row all

371
00:23:23,820 –> 00:23:26,580
the way through much later on. His depiction of

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00:23:27,540 –> 00:23:31,100
the Okies coming from the Dust bowl to California and being

373
00:23:31,100 –> 00:23:34,580
discriminated against in the Grapes of Wrath, you know, that was the book that made

374
00:23:34,580 –> 00:23:38,300
him. And then, of course, the book that we are. We’re talking about today, east

375
00:23:38,300 –> 00:23:42,100
of Eden. He defined how rural America in the

376
00:23:42,100 –> 00:23:45,360
early to middle 20th century thought about itself and

377
00:23:45,360 –> 00:23:49,120
specifically how they thought about themselves. And I’m going to say this

378
00:23:49,280 –> 00:23:52,880
directly and up front, thought about themselves in opposition to the city,

379
00:23:53,840 –> 00:23:57,480
not as part of the city, but as a place that

380
00:23:57,480 –> 00:24:01,280
was separate from an urban environment that was distinctly

381
00:24:01,280 –> 00:24:05,040
separate from an urban environment. And Hemingway, not Hemingway,

382
00:24:05,040 –> 00:24:08,680
sorry, Steinbeck leaned into that. Whereas guys like Hemingway, to your point,

383
00:24:08,680 –> 00:24:12,210
Hemingway, Faulkner, John Dos Passos

384
00:24:12,210 –> 00:24:15,290
even, who is probably the most Americanized out of all those guys?

385
00:24:17,690 –> 00:24:21,210
Or not Americanized, but American centric, I should probably say that.

386
00:24:22,570 –> 00:24:26,289
But those folks were, they, they did, they traveled

387
00:24:26,289 –> 00:24:29,810
to Europe after they got out of World War I, you know, they, they were

388
00:24:29,810 –> 00:24:33,210
like, how can I go back, how can I go back to Kansas

389
00:24:33,690 –> 00:24:37,520
after I seen gay Paris? Right. And so I’m going to stay in Europe

390
00:24:37,520 –> 00:24:40,720
and I’m going to sort of become part of that, that lost

391
00:24:40,720 –> 00:24:44,480
generation. Steinbeck

392
00:24:44,480 –> 00:24:48,200
was, was part, was the oldest member of the generation that

393
00:24:48,200 –> 00:24:51,880
came after the lost generation. Right. And so he didn’t have a

394
00:24:51,880 –> 00:24:55,200
connection to any of that World War I experience other than

395
00:24:55,440 –> 00:24:59,080
reading about it in his local newspaper. And for him, in the

396
00:24:59,080 –> 00:25:02,760
Salinas Valley, the killing fields of, of,

397
00:25:02,760 –> 00:25:06,400
of the killing fields and the trench warfare of Europe would have seemed like

398
00:25:06,400 –> 00:25:09,920
10,000 miles away. I can absolutely see that as like a 15 year old, 16

399
00:25:09,920 –> 00:25:13,440
year old reading about it in the newspaper, maybe hearing about it on the radio.

400
00:25:13,440 –> 00:25:16,920
Sometimes, like we just, we underestimate

401
00:25:17,080 –> 00:25:20,840
the distances that people had because everything now, you know, in our time

402
00:25:21,080 –> 00:25:24,840
is so immediate, the impact of everything is so immediate.

403
00:25:25,240 –> 00:25:28,960
And we see the impact of everything on our phones, whether it’s happening

404
00:25:28,960 –> 00:25:32,720
in Paris or Vietnam or Russia or,

405
00:25:32,880 –> 00:25:36,720
you know, downtown in the city that’s

406
00:25:36,720 –> 00:25:39,920
the major metropolis in our state. Like, we can see all of it because of

407
00:25:39,920 –> 00:25:43,760
the phones now. And so the divide between the rural and the urban has

408
00:25:45,600 –> 00:25:49,280
shrunk quite a bit. But Steinbeck was probably,

409
00:25:49,440 –> 00:25:53,160
like I said, the highest pinnacle of that writer who understood how to

410
00:25:53,160 –> 00:25:56,780
write about rural environments and how to give those people pride,

411
00:25:58,060 –> 00:26:01,740
while also, of course showing them being

412
00:26:01,900 –> 00:26:05,620
exactly what they, what they are, which is just,

413
00:26:05,620 –> 00:26:09,180
you know, human beings in another, another environment that’s not an urban environment.

414
00:26:13,580 –> 00:26:17,100
As he got older and his society continued to change well into the

415
00:26:17,500 –> 00:26:21,180
post, post east of Eden as he went into the 50s and 60s,

416
00:26:22,280 –> 00:26:26,120
society continued to change. The rural environment continued

417
00:26:26,120 –> 00:26:29,320
to decline. And as that happened,

418
00:26:29,720 –> 00:26:31,960
Steinbeck became infinitely grumpier.

419
00:26:33,960 –> 00:26:37,800
And even though he won the, the Nobel Prize for literature in 1952

420
00:26:38,920 –> 00:26:42,680
and later on found out that he was

421
00:26:42,680 –> 00:26:45,600
sort of a best of the bad lot pick in the 19 in

422
00:26:45,600 –> 00:26:49,420
1962 for that Nobel Prize for Literature and was kind of

423
00:26:49,420 –> 00:26:51,260
resentful about that. And I can understand why

424
00:26:53,180 –> 00:26:56,460
he, he wrote his travel book Travels with Charlie,

425
00:26:57,100 –> 00:27:00,060
which I do believe we’ve covered on this show. And if we haven’t, we will

426
00:27:00,540 –> 00:27:03,580
because it is one of, one of his better books where he’s just riding around

427
00:27:03,580 –> 00:27:07,380
in this like RV with a dog looking at

428
00:27:07,380 –> 00:27:08,780
the 60s getting ready to happen.

429
00:27:10,860 –> 00:27:14,610
He, he, after he got that Nobel

430
00:27:14,610 –> 00:27:17,370
Prize in, in, in 62,

431
00:27:19,210 –> 00:27:23,010
he, he basically quit writing. He

432
00:27:23,010 –> 00:27:26,770
basically put down his pen and he didn’t write anything for the last remaining six

433
00:27:26,770 –> 00:27:30,170
years of his life. He was, he is sort of one of those things where

434
00:27:30,730 –> 00:27:33,690
like I think of the, I think of the Daniel Day Lewis character at the

435
00:27:33,690 –> 00:27:37,370
end of There Will Be Blood, based on the book Oil, which we’ve

436
00:27:37,370 –> 00:27:40,650
already covered. You should go back and listen to that episode where he sort of

437
00:27:41,770 –> 00:27:45,370
where he, he kills the, the preacher kid,

438
00:27:45,370 –> 00:27:48,970
Paul Dano in the, in the

439
00:27:49,130 –> 00:27:52,970
bowling alley that he has built into his house. And then

440
00:27:52,970 –> 00:27:56,490
he says, you know, come get me, I’m done. And that was basically John

441
00:27:56,490 –> 00:28:00,250
Steinbeck to reality. Come get me, I’m done. I’m, I’m finished.

442
00:28:02,490 –> 00:28:06,090
And it’s sort of a, I think biographically sort of a

443
00:28:06,090 –> 00:28:09,860
tragic end for to your point, a

444
00:28:09,860 –> 00:28:11,980
man who was a towering talent.

445
00:28:14,540 –> 00:28:18,340
Yeah. So I don’t know. I don’t know. That’s

446
00:28:18,340 –> 00:28:21,740
all the background on him. That’s some of my thoughts on

447
00:28:21,740 –> 00:28:25,220
Steinbeck. East of

448
00:28:25,220 –> 00:28:28,380
Eden itself as a book though is.

449
00:28:30,220 –> 00:28:33,860
Well, it’s almost a thousand pages. It is

450
00:28:33,860 –> 00:28:37,540
multi generational. It covers the two families

451
00:28:37,540 –> 00:28:40,620
that have settled in this. That settled in the Salinas Valley, the Hamiltons or the

452
00:28:40,620 –> 00:28:43,660
Trasks, and goes through three generations of their lives

453
00:28:44,140 –> 00:28:47,980
and their interactions with each other,

454
00:28:49,260 –> 00:28:53,100
their bear interactions with each other, but mostly their interactions with other

455
00:28:53,100 –> 00:28:55,980
people, with the families and of course with the land.

456
00:28:58,140 –> 00:29:00,740
Why don’t we talk a little bit about California before I jump back into the

457
00:29:00,740 –> 00:29:04,320
book? So California is a character

458
00:29:04,320 –> 00:29:07,520
in this, in this book. What do you think of

459
00:29:07,520 –> 00:29:08,920
California, Tom?

460
00:29:11,480 –> 00:29:13,840
I’ve been there. It’s a nice place to visit, but I wouldn’t want to live

461
00:29:13,840 –> 00:29:14,120
there,

462
00:29:17,960 –> 00:29:21,480
I think, you know, not for any reason other than I,

463
00:29:21,640 –> 00:29:25,440
I don’t know. Again, it. There, there are some very, very

464
00:29:25,440 –> 00:29:28,980
beautiful areas in California. I mean there’s no doubt that it’s got, that it has

465
00:29:28,980 –> 00:29:32,820
its, it has its attractions.

466
00:29:32,820 –> 00:29:36,620
Right. And we, we kind of talked about this in one of our previous

467
00:29:36,620 –> 00:29:40,380
conversations about how

468
00:29:40,380 –> 00:29:44,180
like. But the, it’s, it’s not so much about the actual

469
00:29:44,259 –> 00:29:47,820
physical land of California than it is about the, the

470
00:29:47,820 –> 00:29:51,060
mentality and the, and the,

471
00:29:51,700 –> 00:29:55,430
the personality of the land which leans itself, lend. Lends

472
00:29:55,430 –> 00:29:59,230
itself to a much more relaxed Environment, a much

473
00:29:59,230 –> 00:29:59,550
more

474
00:30:02,430 –> 00:30:05,630
accepting environment. There, there’s lots of, there’s lots of

475
00:30:06,190 –> 00:30:08,670
adjectives here that you can describe it. And

476
00:30:09,870 –> 00:30:13,390
we had spoken too about, like, you know,

477
00:30:13,710 –> 00:30:17,350
I remember I, I was, I’m trying, I was trying to remember the analogy here

478
00:30:17,350 –> 00:30:20,110
that we were talking about the other day, but when we were talking about how,

479
00:30:20,110 –> 00:30:23,960
like, we’re all Americans here, right. So I live here in the

480
00:30:23,960 –> 00:30:27,800
Northeast. Californians live in California. Somebody from California that

481
00:30:27,800 –> 00:30:31,400
goes to New York doesn’t really do all that well, but somebody from Boston that

482
00:30:31,400 –> 00:30:34,960
goes to New York does just fine. Right. Like, it’s. And it’s not.

483
00:30:34,960 –> 00:30:38,720
And by the way, California has plenty of cities. LA is one of the

484
00:30:38,720 –> 00:30:41,680
biggest cities in the country. But people who live in LA

485
00:30:43,200 –> 00:30:46,910
don’t necessarily like being in Boston and New York. It’s

486
00:30:46,910 –> 00:30:50,550
just the, the, the, the personality of the

487
00:30:50,550 –> 00:30:54,270
cities are different. Right. Like, so it’s so. And, and we talked about this.

488
00:30:54,270 –> 00:30:58,070
Like, even though we’re in the same country, it’s like people from the Northeast

489
00:30:58,070 –> 00:31:01,630
are like, it’s like France and Germany. Like, if you think about the

490
00:31:01,630 –> 00:31:05,230
closeness of France and Germany, but yet somebody from France just

491
00:31:05,230 –> 00:31:08,870
doesn’t understand somebody from Germany. They don’t get it. Like, there’s, there’s lots of

492
00:31:09,030 –> 00:31:10,950
cultural things, language things,

493
00:31:12,680 –> 00:31:16,320
behavioral things that are all different because Germany is Germany and France is

494
00:31:16,320 –> 00:31:19,560
France. Well, within our own country, we have the same

495
00:31:19,560 –> 00:31:23,400
dynamics. Like, think about the people poke fun at

496
00:31:23,400 –> 00:31:27,200
the Boston accent all the time. And I try really hard

497
00:31:27,200 –> 00:31:29,480
not to have one. And hopefully, you know, it’s not

498
00:31:30,520 –> 00:31:33,720
blatantly obvious when I speak that I’m from the Boston area.

499
00:31:34,120 –> 00:31:37,760
But that, but that’s on purpose on my part

500
00:31:37,760 –> 00:31:41,000
because I want to be able to interact with people around the country and then

501
00:31:41,420 –> 00:31:44,620
have them not know where I’m from just because my mouth opens. Like.

502
00:31:45,020 –> 00:31:48,780
Right. But, but California. So that’s this, like, that’s the idea.

503
00:31:48,780 –> 00:31:52,420
Right? Like, so somebody that was born and raised here in the Northeast, again, whether

504
00:31:52,420 –> 00:31:56,060
you’re Boston, New York, and by the way, I kind of wrapped Philadelphia into that

505
00:31:56,060 –> 00:31:59,900
environment as well. When I think of the Northeast, I basically think of like Pennsylvania

506
00:31:59,900 –> 00:32:03,740
up. And then, you know, so we got these sections of the country

507
00:32:03,740 –> 00:32:07,340
that all have these different dynamics. So I get my point to this, I guess.

508
00:32:07,800 –> 00:32:11,440
And the rambling nature of this is, I

509
00:32:11,440 –> 00:32:15,040
think having the landscape as a

510
00:32:15,040 –> 00:32:18,760
character in the books makes sense to me because it would be different if you

511
00:32:18,760 –> 00:32:22,600
lived in different places in, Even in our own country. Yeah, like

512
00:32:23,000 –> 00:32:25,320
you, you, you would have to have.

513
00:32:27,240 –> 00:32:30,760
You would. Because Somebody who lives in the United

514
00:32:30,760 –> 00:32:34,540
States would want to know that, like, what area of the country

515
00:32:34,540 –> 00:32:37,820
is this based on? Like, how do I know that it’s like that it’s

516
00:32:37,820 –> 00:32:41,540
realistic? If you’re taking the same characters from California and they act

517
00:32:41,540 –> 00:32:44,980
the exact same way, and you tell the reader that they’re in New York, it’s

518
00:32:44,980 –> 00:32:48,740
unbelievable from our perspective. I mean, you’re selling it worldwide, like, to other

519
00:32:48,740 –> 00:32:52,180
countries. Sure. They don’t know any different, so it’s fine. But if you’re selling it

520
00:32:52,180 –> 00:32:55,260
within the borders of our country, you need to have. You need to have that.

521
00:32:55,580 –> 00:32:59,380
That landscape as a character kind of situation for people, for the reader,

522
00:32:59,380 –> 00:33:03,210
to make it believable. Well, and I also think that

523
00:33:03,530 –> 00:33:06,930
from Steinbeck’s perspective as a writer and as a

524
00:33:06,930 –> 00:33:10,410
creator, the land itself as a

525
00:33:10,410 –> 00:33:14,170
character has its own personality and it has its own

526
00:33:16,650 –> 00:33:19,250
stuff going on. And we’re going to talk about this when we get to. When

527
00:33:19,250 –> 00:33:22,810
we talk about Kathy Ames later. Later on, we’ll sort of revisit this.

528
00:33:23,130 –> 00:33:26,860
But. But I think. I think a couple of things.

529
00:33:26,860 –> 00:33:30,660
One, I think it’s really interesting

530
00:33:30,820 –> 00:33:34,020
how, because California is at the end of the continent,

531
00:33:35,460 –> 00:33:39,260
that it is perceived as. Even in his description there that we opened up

532
00:33:39,260 –> 00:33:43,100
with, it is perceived as this paradise by

533
00:33:43,100 –> 00:33:46,660
people from back east, right? A place where,

534
00:33:46,980 –> 00:33:50,660
you know, the water is, you know, always

535
00:33:50,740 –> 00:33:54,310
blue. It’s not dirty like the Atlantic. It’s always blue.

536
00:33:55,350 –> 00:33:59,030
The sun is always shining. Even when I’ve been to California. Like, I was in

537
00:33:59,030 –> 00:34:02,750
California last year for. For a training that I had to do with a

538
00:34:02,750 –> 00:34:06,390
client. And I got off the plane and

539
00:34:06,470 –> 00:34:10,270
I. I looked around and even. And my wife says, I always say this

540
00:34:10,270 –> 00:34:14,070
about places, but it’s true. I said, the light even looks different here. The

541
00:34:14,070 –> 00:34:17,750
sunlight looks different here. And of course, the first question that.

542
00:34:17,750 –> 00:34:19,950
The first question that comes out of my mouth was. The same question that comes

543
00:34:19,950 –> 00:34:22,729
out of my mouth when I go to Florida, by the way, is how do

544
00:34:22,729 –> 00:34:25,969
people actually do work here? Like, if I lived here, I would never work.

545
00:34:26,449 –> 00:34:30,249
I wouldn’t. I wouldn’t hustle at all. Like, there’d be no. What is the

546
00:34:30,249 –> 00:34:33,489
reason? But that’s the perspective. That’s an east coast perspective

547
00:34:34,129 –> 00:34:37,888
on. On a West coast sort of posture. And I know

548
00:34:37,888 –> 00:34:40,489
they’re hustling out there. I know all my California listeners, I know y’ all are

549
00:34:40,489 –> 00:34:43,889
hustling the heck off out of it. You hustle. You just hustled Eric

550
00:34:43,889 –> 00:34:47,569
Sowell, you know, out of the Congress. So I know you’re getting after it, like.

551
00:34:48,610 –> 00:34:52,210
And I saw that just happened at the governor’s race in California.

552
00:34:52,450 –> 00:34:56,170
But so I know you could all can get after it, but

553
00:34:56,170 –> 00:34:59,410
the getting after it is at a different speed at a different template.

554
00:34:59,810 –> 00:35:03,650
Because. And I think Steinbeck was. Was be the

555
00:35:03,650 –> 00:35:07,290
beginning of sort of setting the template for this. California is sort of the

556
00:35:07,290 –> 00:35:11,050
last frontier. It’s the last place in America where

557
00:35:11,050 –> 00:35:14,820
you can go. Now, of course, people will say,

558
00:35:14,820 –> 00:35:18,380
well, you can go to Hawaii. Not in 1952.

559
00:35:18,380 –> 00:35:22,140
Now. Yeah, in 1952. That was not. For a lot of Americans, that was

560
00:35:22,140 –> 00:35:25,340
not an option. And for Americans of

561
00:35:25,340 –> 00:35:28,940
Steinbeck, Alaska wasn’t a state until 1959. So.

562
00:35:29,340 –> 00:35:33,060
Right. And for. And for. For. For Americans

563
00:35:33,060 –> 00:35:36,780
of Steinbeck’s generation. I mean, the continent ended at the

564
00:35:36,780 –> 00:35:40,140
coast of California. Like that’s where it ended. Like that was it.

565
00:35:40,790 –> 00:35:44,230
And so it was one of those. It’s one of those places where.

566
00:35:49,590 –> 00:35:52,910
Well, I had a person from California sort of describe it to me recently when

567
00:35:52,910 –> 00:35:56,750
a conversation we were having, he said, you know, Californians both love our state

568
00:35:56,750 –> 00:36:00,510
and we hate our state at the same time. And I never heard

569
00:36:00,510 –> 00:36:04,110
them sort of frame it that way. Somebody like that frame it that way.

570
00:36:04,110 –> 00:36:07,920
He’s like, we’re in love with the natural beauty and the surfing and

571
00:36:07,920 –> 00:36:11,720
the skiing and all of this and this and that, but we also, like,

572
00:36:11,720 –> 00:36:15,480
hate it. And I said, well, how does, how is that possible?

573
00:36:15,480 –> 00:36:19,280
Because I live in Texas now. And I will

574
00:36:19,280 –> 00:36:22,680
tell you right now, people from Texas don’t hate their state.

575
00:36:23,400 –> 00:36:25,960
I can tell you that right now. And by the way, everybody else in America

576
00:36:25,960 –> 00:36:29,680
knows we don’t. The American, the Texans don’t hate their state. Texans will

577
00:36:29,680 –> 00:36:33,360
tell everybody who will listen that they don’t hate their state. Everybody

578
00:36:33,360 –> 00:36:36,980
knows. Nobody’s surprised by this, but

579
00:36:37,940 –> 00:36:41,700
to hear that from a Californian. And I’ve been. I’ve lived other places. I mean,

580
00:36:41,700 –> 00:36:44,980
when I lived in. As an example, when I lived in Minnesota,

581
00:36:45,780 –> 00:36:49,460
almost everybody that I ever met in Minnesota had this fantasy

582
00:36:49,460 –> 00:36:53,260
dream of moving to like, Denver, Colorado. They’re like, Colorado

583
00:36:53,260 –> 00:36:56,980
is the place to be. They all wanted to move to Denver. Right. Or

584
00:36:57,540 –> 00:37:01,380
when I used to go visit people in Colorado, they had this fantasy of living

585
00:37:01,380 –> 00:37:05,160
in like, Idaho or Wyoming. There’s always a place that’s

586
00:37:05,160 –> 00:37:08,880
better. But in Kepler, for Californians, there is no place that’s better

587
00:37:09,040 –> 00:37:12,280
because this is the butt end of. This is the butt end of the continent.

588
00:37:12,280 –> 00:37:16,080
There is no place that’s better. There’s nowhere else to go, unless you’re going to

589
00:37:16,080 –> 00:37:19,600
go in the ocean. And so you sort of have to make it here,

590
00:37:19,680 –> 00:37:23,240
right? But you also have to make it here in what is

591
00:37:23,240 –> 00:37:26,640
perceived by others who are not from here as paradise.

592
00:37:27,040 –> 00:37:30,300
And the way that Steinbeck describes the Salinas Valley with its

593
00:37:30,530 –> 00:37:33,650
alkali sands, and he describes the wind,

594
00:37:34,770 –> 00:37:38,370
and he describes, like, the. The harshness of the environment

595
00:37:38,610 –> 00:37:42,010
when you’re trying to farm and trying to pull something from it. It’s not

596
00:37:42,010 –> 00:37:45,850
paradise. It’s. It’s just as vicious as any other place where

597
00:37:45,850 –> 00:37:49,370
you could go and try to try to make an agricultural living. And

598
00:37:49,370 –> 00:37:53,210
yet in east of Eden, he describes it with a

599
00:37:53,210 –> 00:37:56,900
certain. I’m going to use the term

600
00:37:56,900 –> 00:38:00,340
here. A certain love, a certain affection for all of the

601
00:38:00,340 –> 00:38:03,420
harshness, a certain affection for all of the

602
00:38:05,180 –> 00:38:08,980
toughness that is required to be there. And it is

603
00:38:08,980 –> 00:38:12,420
a rural toughness. As he presents

604
00:38:12,420 –> 00:38:13,900
California as a character,

605
00:38:17,260 –> 00:38:20,780
I also think that there’s a

606
00:38:20,780 –> 00:38:24,430
dichotomy going on here between the rural area and the

607
00:38:24,430 –> 00:38:28,110
city’s area. And we kind of see it in some of the families that. That

608
00:38:28,110 –> 00:38:31,350
he describes at east of Eden, which. Back to the book,

609
00:38:32,310 –> 00:38:35,990
back to east of Eden, we’re going to read, like, different

610
00:38:36,150 –> 00:38:38,869
pieces of this. We’re not going to obviously read the whole book. It’s a thousand

611
00:38:38,869 –> 00:38:42,710
pages. Can’t do that. Plus it’s copywritten. So we have to be careful

612
00:38:42,710 –> 00:38:46,430
how many pieces we actually read from it. But suffice it

613
00:38:46,430 –> 00:38:50,100
to say, you want to go pick up this book, it’s. It’s worth

614
00:38:50,100 –> 00:38:53,900
your time and you’ll breeze through the almost thousand pages fairly

615
00:38:53,900 –> 00:38:57,420
quickly. So we’re going to pick up here

616
00:38:57,900 –> 00:39:01,660
chapter. Let’s see, part

617
00:39:01,660 –> 00:39:03,580
one, Chapter five, Part one.

618
00:39:05,100 –> 00:39:08,900
Describing one of the families, the Hamiltons, right on

619
00:39:08,900 –> 00:39:12,660
the ranch, the little Hamiltons began to grow up. And every year there was a

620
00:39:12,660 –> 00:39:16,300
new one. George was tall. Was a tall, handsome boy,

621
00:39:16,300 –> 00:39:19,550
gentle and sweet, who had from the first a kind of courtliness.

622
00:39:20,190 –> 00:39:23,150
Even as a little boy, he was polite and what they used to call, quote,

623
00:39:23,150 –> 00:39:26,870
unquote, no trouble from his father. He inherited the neatness of

624
00:39:26,870 –> 00:39:30,670
clothing and body and hair. And he never seemed ill dressed, even when he

625
00:39:30,670 –> 00:39:34,230
was. George was a sinless boy and grew to be a

626
00:39:34,230 –> 00:39:38,070
sinless man. No crime of commission was ever

627
00:39:38,070 –> 00:39:41,550
attributed to him. And his crimes of omission were only misdemeanors,

628
00:39:41,790 –> 00:39:44,440
by the way. Pause. I love that turn of phrase.

629
00:39:45,720 –> 00:39:48,200
His crimes of omission were only misdemeanors.

630
00:39:49,720 –> 00:39:52,960
Back to the book. In his middle life, at about the time such things were

631
00:39:52,960 –> 00:39:56,280
known about, it was discovered that he had pernicious anemia.

632
00:39:56,600 –> 00:39:59,640
It is possible that his virtue lived on a lack of energy.

633
00:40:00,520 –> 00:40:04,280
I love that term phrase too. Behind George Will

634
00:40:04,280 –> 00:40:07,840
grew along, dumpy and stolen. Will had little imagination, but he had great

635
00:40:07,840 –> 00:40:11,640
energy from childhood on. He was a hard worker, if and if anyone

636
00:40:11,640 –> 00:40:15,120
would tell him what to work at. And once told, he was indefatigable.

637
00:40:16,000 –> 00:40:19,800
He was a conservative, not only in politics, but in everything. Ideas

638
00:40:19,800 –> 00:40:23,120
he found revolutionary and he avoided them with suspicion and

639
00:40:23,120 –> 00:40:26,800
distaste. Will liked to live so that no one could

640
00:40:26,800 –> 00:40:30,400
find fault with him. And to do that he had to live as nearly like

641
00:40:30,400 –> 00:40:34,120
other people as possible. Maybe his father had

642
00:40:34,120 –> 00:40:37,950
something to do with. With Will’s distaste for either change or variation, which.

643
00:40:38,100 –> 00:40:41,660
Will was a growing boy. His father had not been long enough in the Salinas

644
00:40:41,660 –> 00:40:44,980
Valley to be thought of as a quote unquote old timer, by the way. Pause.

645
00:40:44,980 –> 00:40:48,740
So the Hamiltons were immigrants to. To California. They

646
00:40:48,740 –> 00:40:52,100
were immigrants to this part of the Salinas Valley as.

647
00:40:52,420 –> 00:40:55,300
As Steinbeck describes them. And they were.

648
00:40:55,940 –> 00:40:59,380
Tom, you’ll appreciate this, being from the Boston area, they were Irish

649
00:40:59,380 –> 00:41:03,480
immigrants

650
00:41:03,630 –> 00:41:07,310
which. Which back in the day meant they were already stamped

651
00:41:08,430 –> 00:41:10,270
with. With the dirty end of the stick.

652
00:41:12,270 –> 00:41:15,630
Back to the book. He was in fact a foreigner and an Irishman

653
00:41:16,350 –> 00:41:19,830
at that time. The Irish were much disliked in America. They were looked upon with

654
00:41:19,830 –> 00:41:22,750
contempt, particularly on the east coast. But a little of it must have seeped out

655
00:41:22,750 –> 00:41:26,550
to the west. And Samuel not only had variability, but was a man of

656
00:41:26,550 –> 00:41:30,390
ideas and innovations in small cut off communities. Such

657
00:41:30,390 –> 00:41:34,040
a man is always regarded with suspicion until he has proved he is no danger

658
00:41:34,040 –> 00:41:37,800
to the others. A shining man like Samuel could and can cause a lot

659
00:41:37,800 –> 00:41:41,360
of trouble. He might, for example, prove too attractive to the wives of men who

660
00:41:41,360 –> 00:41:45,120
knew they were dull. Then there were his education and

661
00:41:45,120 –> 00:41:48,359
his reading, the books he bought and borrowed, his knowledge of things that could not

662
00:41:48,359 –> 00:41:52,160
be eaten or worn or cohabited with his interest in poetry and

663
00:41:52,160 –> 00:41:55,880
his respect for good writing. If Samuel had been a rich

664
00:41:55,880 –> 00:41:59,080
man like the Thorns or the Del Mars with their big houses and wide flat

665
00:41:59,080 –> 00:42:01,940
lands, and he would have had a great library.

666
00:42:02,820 –> 00:42:06,260
The Del Mars had a library, nothing but books in it and paneled in oak.

667
00:42:06,740 –> 00:42:10,020
Samuel, by borrowing had read many more of the Del Mars books than the Del

668
00:42:10,020 –> 00:42:13,700
Mars had themselves. In that day, an educated rich man was acceptable.

669
00:42:13,940 –> 00:42:17,500
He might send his sons to college without comment, might wear a vest and a

670
00:42:17,500 –> 00:42:21,220
white shirt and tie in the daytime of a weekend of the weekday, might wear

671
00:42:21,220 –> 00:42:25,020
gloves and keep his nails clean. And since the Lives and practices of Richmond

672
00:42:25,020 –> 00:42:28,120
were mysterious. Who knows what they could use or not use?

673
00:42:29,320 –> 00:42:33,120
But a poor man, what need had he for poetry or for painting or

674
00:42:33,120 –> 00:42:36,800
for music not fit for singing or dancing? Such things

675
00:42:36,800 –> 00:42:39,760
do not help him bring in a crop or keep a scrap of cloth on

676
00:42:39,760 –> 00:42:43,000
his children’s back. And if, in spite of this, he

677
00:42:43,000 –> 00:42:46,800
persisted, maybe he had reasons which. Which would not

678
00:42:46,800 –> 00:42:50,560
stand to the light of scrutiny. By the way,

679
00:42:50,560 –> 00:42:54,030
I love that. I love that sort of

680
00:42:54,030 –> 00:42:57,230
characterization and the sort of

681
00:42:57,230 –> 00:43:00,950
juxtaposition that Steinbeck does. Again, understanding and

682
00:43:00,950 –> 00:43:02,670
knowing who real people are

683
00:43:05,150 –> 00:43:08,670
and how real people have to engage in the world.

684
00:43:12,910 –> 00:43:16,710
Back to the book, just this last piece here. The first

685
00:43:16,710 –> 00:43:20,390
few years after Samuel came to Salinas Valley, there was a vague distrust of him

686
00:43:20,390 –> 00:43:23,470
and perhaps Will as a little boy. Her talk in the San Lucas store.

687
00:43:24,320 –> 00:43:28,000
Little boys don’t want their fathers to be different from other men. Will

688
00:43:28,000 –> 00:43:31,720
might have picked up his conservativism right then. Later, as the other children

689
00:43:31,720 –> 00:43:34,800
came along and grew. Samuel belonged to the valley and it was proud of him

690
00:43:34,800 –> 00:43:38,000
in a way. A man who owns a peacock is proud.

691
00:43:38,400 –> 00:43:41,760
They weren’t afraid of him anymore for he did not seduce their wives or lure

692
00:43:41,760 –> 00:43:45,240
them out of sweet mediocrity. The

693
00:43:45,240 –> 00:43:48,640
Salinas Valley grew fond of Samuel, but by that time,

694
00:43:48,960 –> 00:43:52,650
Will was formed. Now

695
00:43:52,650 –> 00:43:56,290
there’s other children in. In this family. It’s not just George

696
00:43:56,290 –> 00:43:58,930
and Will. So we.

697
00:44:00,210 –> 00:44:03,890
We also have the third son, Tom, who’s most

698
00:44:03,890 –> 00:44:07,610
like his father. He was born in fury and he lived in lightning. I love

699
00:44:07,610 –> 00:44:11,370
that. I love that phrase. Tom came headlong into life. He was a

700
00:44:11,370 –> 00:44:15,210
giant in joy and enthusiasms. He didn’t discover the world and its people,

701
00:44:15,210 –> 00:44:18,750
he created them. When he read his father’s books, he was the first.

702
00:44:19,150 –> 00:44:22,910
He lived in a world shining and fresh and as uninspected as

703
00:44:22,910 –> 00:44:26,270
Eden on the sixth day. There’s the biblical illusion there again,

704
00:44:26,590 –> 00:44:30,030
right? And then

705
00:44:30,270 –> 00:44:33,790
there were, of course, the little sister, Molly.

706
00:44:34,670 –> 00:44:38,110
And of course, Samuel

707
00:44:39,630 –> 00:44:42,920
had another. Had another child named Joe.

708
00:44:43,720 –> 00:44:47,240
Joe was physically lazy and probably mentally lazy too. He

709
00:44:47,240 –> 00:44:50,240
daydreamed out his life and his mother loved him more than the others because she

710
00:44:50,240 –> 00:44:53,960
thought he was helpless. Actually, he was the

711
00:44:53,960 –> 00:44:57,520
least helpless because he got exactly what he wanted with a

712
00:44:57,520 –> 00:44:58,840
minimum of effort.

713
00:45:01,640 –> 00:45:03,480
I love that from Steinbeck, by the way.

714
00:45:06,440 –> 00:45:10,080
He understood the dynamics of human nature, right? Like, that’s the. That’s. I guess

715
00:45:10,080 –> 00:45:13,570
I. I guess I’m. I kind of was. That’s kind of what I was leading

716
00:45:13,570 –> 00:45:17,330
toward earlier, right. When I was talking about, like, he Just. He just

717
00:45:18,130 –> 00:45:21,890
got it. Like, he just got. He understood that. And by the way, this

718
00:45:21,890 –> 00:45:24,850
is a really, really good example, but

719
00:45:25,490 –> 00:45:28,610
something else that, like, I talk to my daughter about a lot. So my daughter,

720
00:45:28,770 –> 00:45:32,530
for those of you who don’t know, she’s a psychology major, right. So she has.

721
00:45:32,530 –> 00:45:35,970
She. Her and I talk a lot about behavioral. Behavioral patterning,

722
00:45:37,500 –> 00:45:41,220
changing those behaviors and the difficulties behind changing behaviors that have been

723
00:45:41,220 –> 00:45:44,860
around, whatever. Right? But think about this. She’s just gone to school

724
00:45:45,580 –> 00:45:48,900
for a good amount of time, spent a tremendous amount of money at a very

725
00:45:48,900 –> 00:45:51,900
good university to get this insight into human nature.

726
00:45:52,860 –> 00:45:56,620
Steinbeck seemed to have had it naturally that he just

727
00:45:56,620 –> 00:46:00,100
understood people and the dynamics and their

728
00:46:00,100 –> 00:46:03,600
behavioral patterns and what that meant as that behavioral

729
00:46:03,600 –> 00:46:07,440
pattern interacted with society. If you think just the two excerpts that

730
00:46:07,440 –> 00:46:10,840
you read right there, the difference between the two brothers,

731
00:46:10,920 –> 00:46:14,720
Right. He understood that. That dynamic without having a

732
00:46:14,720 –> 00:46:17,920
psychology degree. That’s impressive. I’m sorry, that’s just

733
00:46:17,920 –> 00:46:21,560
impressive. Not only not having a psychology degree,

734
00:46:22,120 –> 00:46:25,840
but going around, I

735
00:46:25,840 –> 00:46:28,440
presume, in his town and in his environment.

736
00:46:29,920 –> 00:46:33,560
And it’s not just one example. He would have seen. Right? He would have seen

737
00:46:33,560 –> 00:46:37,280
a pastiche of examples, and then he was able

738
00:46:37,280 –> 00:46:40,560
to pull together. And this is an issue.

739
00:46:41,360 –> 00:46:44,360
This is one of the reasons why I don’t think AI will ever be the

740
00:46:44,360 –> 00:46:47,920
thing that we think it’s going to be. I think we’ve overblown it massively.

741
00:46:49,520 –> 00:46:53,320
He took the pastiche of patterns, which AI can do, and he

742
00:46:53,320 –> 00:46:56,810
can predict behavior, which AI can also do. But what

743
00:46:56,810 –> 00:47:00,130
AI can’t do is take the pastiche of patterns,

744
00:47:00,610 –> 00:47:04,290
put them together, and then go, this is. What is. This is the

745
00:47:04,290 –> 00:47:08,130
example of a whole human being and then make that whole human being relatable to

746
00:47:08,130 –> 00:47:11,810
other human beings even better. And I don’t remember which. I don’t

747
00:47:11,810 –> 00:47:15,610
remember which character it was, but there was. I remember seeing an article or an

748
00:47:15,610 –> 00:47:19,130
interview written, an interview of

749
00:47:19,130 –> 00:47:22,820
Steinbeck, and he was being interviewed. Sorry, I’m

750
00:47:22,820 –> 00:47:26,540
sorry. An article about an interview of him. That’s

751
00:47:26,540 –> 00:47:30,140
okay. So the article written about an interview of him, and he was talking about

752
00:47:30,140 –> 00:47:33,060
one of his characters, and I don’t remember which book it was, but they asked

753
00:47:33,060 –> 00:47:36,020
him where he got the idea for the character, and he’s like, oh. And he

754
00:47:36,020 –> 00:47:39,860
started explaining, like, these three different people that he grew up

755
00:47:39,860 –> 00:47:43,380
seeing, that he said in his mind, if he could make them one person, they

756
00:47:43,380 –> 00:47:47,180
would be dynamic. Was the. The phrase that he. Right. So to your point about

757
00:47:47,180 –> 00:47:50,780
AI, AI is not doing that either. AI is not Taking three

758
00:47:50,780 –> 00:47:54,580
different people, their, their behavioral patterns, their characteristics,

759
00:47:54,580 –> 00:47:58,060
their actions, their thought processes, and then

760
00:47:58,060 –> 00:48:01,820
blending that into one human being and then writing about them

761
00:48:01,820 –> 00:48:05,460
as if they were that a new person. Like that’s right. So

762
00:48:05,700 –> 00:48:08,900
again, you know it. I, I don’t know

763
00:48:09,460 –> 00:48:12,460
if that’s the only thing that AI is going to struggle with. I’m sure there

764
00:48:12,460 –> 00:48:16,200
are other things. I, trust me, I believe that. To your point, I think

765
00:48:16,200 –> 00:48:19,800
we’ve overblown what AI is going to create.

766
00:48:19,800 –> 00:48:23,640
I literally had a guy tell me that, you know, between five and ten

767
00:48:23,640 –> 00:48:27,280
years from now, not, not the next century, but

768
00:48:27,280 –> 00:48:30,280
between five and ten years from now, no human being is going to work anymore

769
00:48:30,280 –> 00:48:33,640
and we’re going to have an AI avatar that works for us and they’re. The

770
00:48:33,640 –> 00:48:37,200
AI avatar is going to earn our money and we’re just going to be dependent

771
00:48:37,280 –> 00:48:40,980
on how good we can create our AI avatar. Guitar that is one of the

772
00:48:40,980 –> 00:48:43,660
most absurd things I’ve ever heard in my life. That, that we’re going to see

773
00:48:43,660 –> 00:48:47,420
that in the next five years anyway, anyway, but to, to. Back

774
00:48:47,420 –> 00:48:51,100
to Steinbeck, where I think you’re right, but I think, I

775
00:48:51,100 –> 00:48:54,820
think it goes a layer beyond that where like he said about

776
00:48:54,820 –> 00:48:57,860
this one particular character, I wish I could remember which character, what book it was,

777
00:48:57,860 –> 00:49:01,220
but he was like, yeah, I remember this guy in my,

778
00:49:01,540 –> 00:49:04,300
my childhood. And then I met this guy over here and this guy. And he

779
00:49:04,300 –> 00:49:07,460
goes. And I remember thinking to myself, if these three guys could be one person.

780
00:49:08,170 –> 00:49:11,050
And by the way, people, I’m paraphrasing, this is not a quote from the article.

781
00:49:12,250 –> 00:49:15,930
I read this article a long time ago, but, but I

782
00:49:15,930 –> 00:49:18,930
remember if I could ever find it, I would send it to you. I think

783
00:49:18,930 –> 00:49:22,610
you find it fascinating, but just the

784
00:49:22,610 –> 00:49:26,250
way his brain worked, I feel like it was beyond his, his

785
00:49:26,650 –> 00:49:29,810
time. I think, I think he was, if he were alive today, I think he

786
00:49:29,810 –> 00:49:33,570
would still be read, I guess is my point. I think

787
00:49:33,570 –> 00:49:37,220
if he was a brand new writer today, I think people would still read him.

788
00:49:37,620 –> 00:49:41,060
Yes, I actually, I’ll go a step further with you than that. This is actually

789
00:49:41,060 –> 00:49:44,820
one of the conclusions that I sort of

790
00:49:44,820 –> 00:49:48,500
came to not only reading east of Eden and us having a

791
00:49:48,500 –> 00:49:52,260
conversation about it, but then also sort of looking at Steinbeck. And I’ve

792
00:49:52,260 –> 00:49:55,820
read other things from him, obviously. And we’ll bring Grapes of

793
00:49:55,820 –> 00:49:58,820
Wrath. We’re going to talk about that book on this show. I also want to

794
00:49:58,820 –> 00:50:02,620
talk about Cannery Row. It is a fascinating little book. It’s very,

795
00:50:02,620 –> 00:50:04,740
very small, very, very compact,

796
00:50:06,570 –> 00:50:10,290
but it is about. It’s about, you know, these people who live

797
00:50:10,290 –> 00:50:13,930
near and around a canning factory, you know, on the

798
00:50:13,930 –> 00:50:17,730
shore. Well, on the shore on the. Right up. Right up

799
00:50:17,730 –> 00:50:20,610
next to the beach of the water, where they can, like, go get fish. They

800
00:50:20,610 –> 00:50:24,170
bring fish in and other, you know, seafood, and

801
00:50:24,170 –> 00:50:27,650
they’re packing it and canning it and sending it out. And

802
00:50:27,650 –> 00:50:31,500
there’s so much life embedded

803
00:50:31,500 –> 00:50:35,180
in his descriptions of those people. I read that book

804
00:50:35,180 –> 00:50:36,900
when I was probably

805
00:50:39,380 –> 00:50:43,140
the age my youngest son is now, so probably nine years old.

806
00:50:44,340 –> 00:50:47,900
I have not revisited that book since I was nine years old. And that’s

807
00:50:47,900 –> 00:50:51,620
damn near 40 years ago now. And I still

808
00:50:51,620 –> 00:50:55,340
remember it in vivid detail. You know, there’s the.

809
00:50:55,340 –> 00:50:59,140
You know, the fishmonger wife, and then there’s like, the guy who’s. Who’s

810
00:50:59,140 –> 00:51:02,950
quite frankly lazy, but then there’s the other guy who’s really industrious. And then

811
00:51:02,950 –> 00:51:05,030
we got. We got all this cast of characters.

812
00:51:06,950 –> 00:51:10,230
And to your point about being able to combine things together,

813
00:51:10,710 –> 00:51:14,550
you’re right. That was his creative genius. I think that

814
00:51:14,550 –> 00:51:18,070
creative genius still exists. The problem,

815
00:51:18,150 –> 00:51:21,110
I think, in our time and the reason why so many

816
00:51:21,910 –> 00:51:25,430
modern books, particularly postmodern

817
00:51:25,430 –> 00:51:27,470
books, are

818
00:51:29,630 –> 00:51:33,430
currently struggling against AI I think

819
00:51:33,430 –> 00:51:36,910
the reason for that is the kind of

820
00:51:36,910 –> 00:51:40,350
creative dynamism that is required to

821
00:51:42,350 –> 00:51:45,950
pull a relatable care, a psychologically

822
00:51:46,190 –> 00:51:49,750
and culturally relatable character together. That sort of

823
00:51:49,750 –> 00:51:53,540
dynamism requires, number one, a lack of distraction, which means you got to put

824
00:51:53,540 –> 00:51:56,500
down your phone, you got to get off the Internet, you got to stop the

825
00:51:56,500 –> 00:52:00,060
dopamine stuff. Number two, I think it

826
00:52:00,060 –> 00:52:03,780
requires time to write and to think and to engage

827
00:52:03,780 –> 00:52:07,540
in critical thinking, which when you’re distracted, you don’t have that time because

828
00:52:07,540 –> 00:52:11,220
you always feel crowded. And then there are the practical distractions of life as

829
00:52:11,220 –> 00:52:13,820
well. But then the third thing, and I think this is huge,

830
00:52:15,580 –> 00:52:19,270
we’ve made writing as a culture, and this is a cultural

831
00:52:19,270 –> 00:52:22,750
thing, not an individual writer thing. We’ve made writing an act of

832
00:52:22,750 –> 00:52:26,550
status. Look at the MFA programs and look at the writers workshops. We’ve

833
00:52:26,550 –> 00:52:29,790
made it an act of status to be a writer, particularly a literary writer, like

834
00:52:29,790 –> 00:52:33,310
what Steinbeck would be considered to be in our time. We’ve made that an act

835
00:52:33,310 –> 00:52:37,150
of status rather than an act of, quite

836
00:52:37,150 –> 00:52:40,590
frankly, the way Steinbeck was an act of grind and

837
00:52:40,590 –> 00:52:43,910
hardscrabble struggle. Yeah. You know,

838
00:52:44,890 –> 00:52:48,690
and I don’t think we value that hardscrabble struggle as much as we. We

839
00:52:48,690 –> 00:52:52,410
say we do, you know, and this gets back to.

840
00:52:52,410 –> 00:52:56,050
To dynamics again, between the city and the country and a lot of other things

841
00:52:56,050 –> 00:52:59,770
that tied together that, that Steinbeck was, was sort of sitting at the, at the

842
00:52:59,770 –> 00:53:03,450
pinnacle of one other thing. I think that’s interesting.

843
00:53:03,690 –> 00:53:07,330
And we haven’t really gone into this, but maybe this is the place to go

844
00:53:07,330 –> 00:53:11,140
to if you read this book as a leader. There are biblical

845
00:53:11,140 –> 00:53:14,020
illusions shot through this book.

846
00:53:14,820 –> 00:53:18,020
And we talked a little bit about this in our conversation on Monday. Like to

847
00:53:18,020 –> 00:53:21,860
re, Bring, bring this back up the Bible, right?

848
00:53:22,580 –> 00:53:25,659
We did like maybe a five minute jog on the Bible, right. I was, I

849
00:53:25,659 –> 00:53:28,420
was wondering, I was wondering if we’re gonna, if we were gonna inject this because

850
00:53:28,420 –> 00:53:32,020
on Monday it seemed to be a very lengthy conversation about it and we didn’t

851
00:53:32,020 –> 00:53:35,180
seem to get there today. But, but anyway, go ahead, Go ahead. No, we’re there

852
00:53:35,180 –> 00:53:37,970
now. No, we’re there now. We’re there now. So,

853
00:53:38,930 –> 00:53:42,770
you know, the title of this book is, you know, it comes from the

854
00:53:42,770 –> 00:53:46,290
idea in Genesis 4 that after Cain,

855
00:53:46,770 –> 00:53:50,410
you know, kills Abel and, you know, the blood of Abel

856
00:53:50,410 –> 00:53:54,170
cries out to, from the ground to God, or transcendence, however you want

857
00:53:54,170 –> 00:53:57,850
to think of this. You know, Cain is of course

858
00:53:57,850 –> 00:54:01,650
cursed and, and he. By the

859
00:54:01,650 –> 00:54:04,770
way, there’s a great line from Cain, number of great lines from Cain, but

860
00:54:06,040 –> 00:54:08,840
one of the ones that I’m going to focus on this piece anyway,

861
00:54:09,640 –> 00:54:13,360
he says to God, my punishment is too great for

862
00:54:13,360 –> 00:54:16,360
me. If you cast me out into the world,

863
00:54:17,480 –> 00:54:21,040
basically I’ll be hunted and killed. And transcendence

864
00:54:21,040 –> 00:54:24,800
agrees with him and puts a mark on him and basically says, if

865
00:54:24,800 –> 00:54:28,600
anyone touches Cain, I’m going to do to you what Cain

866
00:54:28,600 –> 00:54:32,050
just did to Abel, which is a weird sort of

867
00:54:32,050 –> 00:54:35,730
armor and protection, at least weird

868
00:54:35,730 –> 00:54:37,010
from our perspective.

869
00:54:39,490 –> 00:54:43,250
And then he is cast out into the land of Nod.

870
00:54:43,330 –> 00:54:46,370
Now when we think about the land of Nod, we tend to think of sleeping.

871
00:54:46,770 –> 00:54:50,610
But the original translation of the word Nod, if I remember

872
00:54:50,610 –> 00:54:54,330
correctly, I read this somewhere is wandering. It’s a land of

873
00:54:54,330 –> 00:54:57,380
wandering east of Eden. Well,

874
00:54:57,860 –> 00:55:00,740
if Eden in Steinbeck’s mind,

875
00:55:01,620 –> 00:55:05,340
in a Californian’s mind, if Eden is the east coast, you

876
00:55:05,340 –> 00:55:09,100
know, what’s east of Eden? Or if Eden is the west coast, what’s east

877
00:55:09,100 –> 00:55:12,900
of Eden, right? This. He would have juxtaposed this with geography,

878
00:55:13,380 –> 00:55:16,820
even the way in which Steinbeck put together this book. So

879
00:55:17,460 –> 00:55:21,220
the, the book ends with the last line from,

880
00:55:22,140 –> 00:55:24,940
from Adam Trask, right? Who,

881
00:55:25,740 –> 00:55:28,140
who, who, who dies? And

882
00:55:29,660 –> 00:55:32,620
at the end of it to his, to his, his

883
00:55:33,100 –> 00:55:35,660
Chinese American servant, right,

884
00:55:36,700 –> 00:55:40,420
Named Lee. Lee, right. He says the

885
00:55:40,420 –> 00:55:43,660
last word, his last Word. The last word of the book is Timshaw

886
00:55:43,980 –> 00:55:47,660
T I M S H E L Now

887
00:55:48,190 –> 00:55:51,150
if you go and you Google this word, you’re going to see a whole bunch

888
00:55:51,150 –> 00:55:54,110
of stuff about Tim Schultz. This has been pulled apart by a whole bunch of

889
00:55:54,110 –> 00:55:57,230
different. You’ll see a couple of different spellings of it as well. There’s a couple

890
00:55:57,230 –> 00:56:00,430
of different spellings of it that you know. Etc. But go ahead. Yeah,

891
00:56:00,510 –> 00:56:04,190
exactly. And Tim Shell comes from the idea that

892
00:56:04,190 –> 00:56:07,870
exists in. Also in the. In.

893
00:56:08,030 –> 00:56:11,630
In Genesis 4. Let me go ahead and pull this up directly because I don’t

894
00:56:11,630 –> 00:56:15,480
want to, I don’t want to miss this. But it

895
00:56:15,480 –> 00:56:18,360
says. Or not. But it says, let me see.

896
00:56:19,080 –> 00:56:21,080
So Genesis 4.

897
00:56:23,400 –> 00:56:26,600
Here we go. Genesis 4, chapter 6.

898
00:56:27,080 –> 00:56:30,480
So the Lord said to Cain, why are you angry? And why has your face

899
00:56:30,480 –> 00:56:34,160
fallen? Verse verse 7. If you do

900
00:56:34,160 –> 00:56:37,320
well, will you not be accepted? Then verse.

901
00:56:38,360 –> 00:56:41,200
And this is. Continue on at verse seven. And if you do not do well,

902
00:56:42,000 –> 00:56:45,760
sin is crouching at the door. Its desire is for

903
00:56:45,760 –> 00:56:49,520
you. And you must rule over it. That line right there at

904
00:56:49,520 –> 00:56:53,120
the end, you must rule over it. That’s the trans. The American.

905
00:56:53,120 –> 00:56:56,960
Well, not the American. That’s the ESV translation of this

906
00:56:56,960 –> 00:57:00,800
word. Tim Shaw but if you go and look at some of the research

907
00:57:00,880 –> 00:57:04,560
around it, the Hebrew, the definition

908
00:57:04,560 –> 00:57:08,080
that’s closer to the Hebrew is more of a thou

909
00:57:08,080 –> 00:57:11,480
mayest rule over it, which indicates

910
00:57:12,120 –> 00:57:13,640
a certain degree of.

911
00:57:16,040 –> 00:57:19,400
And this is really interesting, a certain degree of autonomy in

912
00:57:19,400 –> 00:57:23,160
creation and free will. It’s not that

913
00:57:23,160 –> 00:57:26,480
sin is going to have its way with you, although with that term, when he,

914
00:57:26,480 –> 00:57:29,080
when he, when it’s framed in that way, it is almost a.

915
00:57:30,280 –> 00:57:33,090
And, and I’m not the first person to come across this term or not to

916
00:57:33,090 –> 00:57:36,530
come across which is state this, this interpretation

917
00:57:37,090 –> 00:57:40,650
of sin will have its way with you. You can find this a lot of

918
00:57:40,650 –> 00:57:44,050
different places. But the way that is interpreted in the original

919
00:57:44,050 –> 00:57:47,810
Hebrew is that sin will basically have sexual relations with you. It will

920
00:57:47,810 –> 00:57:51,370
possess you right in that sort of meaningful way that we get

921
00:57:51,370 –> 00:57:55,010
from. That we get when we think of sexual relations between two people. Okay?

922
00:57:55,570 –> 00:57:59,420
But then it switches and it says you’ll have.

923
00:57:59,580 –> 00:58:03,260
Or transcendence says to Cain, if you

924
00:58:03,260 –> 00:58:07,100
resist, you’ll have the ability to have free will over that. You’ll have

925
00:58:07,100 –> 00:58:10,940
the ability to control yourself and have a certain amount of autonomy in

926
00:58:10,940 –> 00:58:14,220
sp and a certain amount of choice right there.

927
00:58:15,900 –> 00:58:19,660
And so it’s interesting that that is the word Timshel. That is the word

928
00:58:19,900 –> 00:58:23,460
that east of Eden ends on. And Steinbeck was

929
00:58:23,460 –> 00:58:26,680
obsessed with this idea. He was so obsessed with it

930
00:58:27,560 –> 00:58:31,240
that he carved a wooden box to

931
00:58:31,240 –> 00:58:35,040
send to his publisher that had the manuscript, the original manuscript for east

932
00:58:35,040 –> 00:58:38,880
of Eden inside the wooden box. And on the outside of the box, he carved

933
00:58:38,880 –> 00:58:42,680
the Hebrew. The Hebrew sign for Tim Shull and

934
00:58:42,680 –> 00:58:46,440
sent it to his. Sent it to his publisher. So I’m saying all of that

935
00:58:46,440 –> 00:58:50,040
to say that when you read this book, there are biblical illusions

936
00:58:50,040 –> 00:58:53,760
shot through it. There

937
00:58:53,760 –> 00:58:57,520
are some subtle differences, though, too, right? Like. Yeah, you know, in the.

938
00:58:57,520 –> 00:59:00,960
In the. In the Bible, Cain and Abel Kane kills Abel. In the book, you

939
00:59:00,960 –> 00:59:04,640
have the two brothers Adam, and it’s

940
00:59:04,640 –> 00:59:08,440
Adam and I’ll pull it up. Go ahead. It starts

941
00:59:08,440 –> 00:59:11,880
with a. Starts with S. Yes. It was Adam and Charles.

942
00:59:12,440 –> 00:59:16,040
Charles, Yep. Adam and Charles. Yep. Charles and. And Adam

943
00:59:16,040 –> 00:59:19,260
dies, but Charles isn’t the one that kills him. He dies in the war. Right.

944
00:59:19,260 –> 00:59:22,540
And then. But. But the sin part, this is the part that I find interesting

945
00:59:22,540 –> 00:59:25,980
about the book. I think the. The. The

946
00:59:25,980 –> 00:59:29,620
metaphoric sin part was Charles going and

947
00:59:29,620 –> 00:59:32,940
trying to kind of cozy up to Adam’s wife.

948
00:59:33,340 –> 00:59:37,180
Yes, right. Like, so, like, to your point, there’s all. There’s a lot,

949
00:59:37,580 –> 00:59:41,100
but you need to interpret it like, there’s some things in there that you like.

950
00:59:41,180 –> 00:59:44,820
If I’m a. If I am a. A

951
00:59:44,820 –> 00:59:48,620
true reader of the Bible, like, and I. And I know the Bible like the

952
00:59:48,620 –> 00:59:51,500
back of my hand, I’m going to read this book and go, what are you

953
00:59:51,500 –> 00:59:55,340
talking about? It’s not the same. Right. But people like you and I

954
00:59:55,340 –> 00:59:59,060
who read the Bible because we believe in a higher power, but we.

955
00:59:59,860 –> 01:00:01,140
We don’t necessarily.

956
01:00:04,260 –> 01:00:06,980
I got to be very careful how I word this, because I’m. I want to

957
01:00:06,980 –> 01:00:10,740
make sure that I’m respectful, because now anybody who has heard me

958
01:00:10,740 –> 01:00:14,500
on this show knows that I’m not Catholic or Christian. I’m native, but I have

959
01:00:14,500 –> 01:00:18,140
a lot of respect for other religions. So I try to choose my words

960
01:00:18,140 –> 01:00:21,700
carefully when I’m gonna. When I say things, but, like, but to me,

961
01:00:21,700 –> 01:00:25,380
this. The Bible is a collection of stories that

962
01:00:25,380 –> 01:00:29,180
are both mythical and truthful in nature, and

963
01:00:29,740 –> 01:00:33,460
human beings have kind of filled in the gaps where the. Where

964
01:00:33,460 –> 01:00:36,540
the gaps needed to be filled. Right? So it’s. It’s not

965
01:00:37,100 –> 01:00:40,670
verbatim, in my opinion. It’s not verbatim the. The

966
01:00:40,910 –> 01:00:44,350
literal words of God, but it. The purpose behind it is

967
01:00:44,830 –> 01:00:48,590
the purpose of God. So again, I’m trying to be respectful here. I’m not saying

968
01:00:48,590 –> 01:00:51,550
the Bible’s a bunch of garbage. That’s not my. I I would never in a

969
01:00:51,550 –> 01:00:55,270
million years say that. But I want to be clear because when I read the

970
01:00:55,270 –> 01:00:59,110
Bible, I was reading it like a story. Like, I read it as

971
01:00:59,110 –> 01:01:02,950
if it was any other kind of literary story. And I found it fascinating

972
01:01:02,950 –> 01:01:06,710
to read. And so, like, between Genesis, I always

973
01:01:06,710 –> 01:01:09,900
tell people my Genesis and Revelations are my two favorite books.

974
01:01:10,530 –> 01:01:13,490
Books in the Bible, right? Like, it’s the beginning and the end, all the stuff

975
01:01:13,490 –> 01:01:17,330
that happens in the middle. It’s not, it’s not important.

976
01:01:17,410 –> 01:01:20,610
It’s very important to Christians and Catholics. I believe that, but I. Believe me, I

977
01:01:20,610 –> 01:01:24,370
believe that it’s important, but to me, yes, I’m good with the

978
01:01:24,370 –> 01:01:28,090
bookends. Like, I, like, I, like I, I found, I found

979
01:01:28,090 –> 01:01:31,930
those two books in the Bible the most fascinating, I guess. Not

980
01:01:31,930 –> 01:01:35,210
that they were the best to learn morals, not that they were the best for

981
01:01:35,210 –> 01:01:38,850
the, you know, know, the, the moral compass perspective. Trust me,

982
01:01:39,090 –> 01:01:41,970
there’s plenty of Luke and John, like, there’s plenty of

983
01:01:42,450 –> 01:01:45,490
moral compass stuff that goes in the, the body of the Bible.

984
01:01:46,050 –> 01:01:49,810
But when you look. But if you’re all this to say if you are

985
01:01:49,810 –> 01:01:53,130
real, if you love the Bible, you’re going to think this book is, you could

986
01:01:53,130 –> 01:01:56,610
put, you could potentially think of this book as blasphemy, right? Like,

987
01:01:56,850 –> 01:02:00,690
because it basically, it turns, it turns, it turns biblical things

988
01:02:00,690 –> 01:02:04,110
into like this, this thing that is not

989
01:02:05,150 –> 01:02:08,990
directed to be a moral compass and not directed to teach you the right,

990
01:02:08,990 –> 01:02:12,310
the difference between right and wrong and not to teach you what sin is. It’s

991
01:02:12,310 –> 01:02:15,630
just for fun. Like, you basically turn the Bible, you turn the

992
01:02:15,870 –> 01:02:19,630
Genesis into a book about. I’m just gonna write this for fun

993
01:02:19,710 –> 01:02:22,230
now. If you don’t look at it that way and you look at it as

994
01:02:22,230 –> 01:02:25,670
an interpretation, I think it’s very, very well done. Right. Like, like

995
01:02:25,670 –> 01:02:29,230
it’s. But again, you have to be okay with it being an interpretation.

996
01:02:29,940 –> 01:02:33,740
Yeah, I would agree with that. I mean, as a person who does

997
01:02:33,740 –> 01:02:37,380
believe the Bible is true. And we can

998
01:02:37,380 –> 01:02:41,140
discuss. This is not a topic for today, nor is a topic for

999
01:02:41,140 –> 01:02:44,460
Tom and I. And folks can, can come at me about this if they, if

1000
01:02:44,460 –> 01:02:47,300
they’ve, if they’ve made it this far into the show now, we’re into some other

1001
01:02:47,300 –> 01:02:50,420
things because this is deep in the show now. But,

1002
01:02:51,060 –> 01:02:54,740
but I mean, like, I, we can have a conversation about what true

1003
01:02:54,740 –> 01:02:58,510
means because. Correct. That there’s a whole bunch

1004
01:02:58,510 –> 01:03:02,230
of different things involved in true and true, in

1005
01:03:02,230 –> 01:03:05,710
my opinion, and I’m just one person with an opinion,

1006
01:03:05,870 –> 01:03:09,710
I want to be very clear on that. True, in my opinion, cannot be,

1007
01:03:10,270 –> 01:03:13,910
cannot be purely and ultimately

1008
01:03:13,910 –> 01:03:17,550
measured in a reductionist, Darwinist sort of

1009
01:03:17,870 –> 01:03:20,670
way. You just. You can’t get there from here.

1010
01:03:21,720 –> 01:03:25,320
It minimizes reality too much and it

1011
01:03:25,320 –> 01:03:29,160
distills out to the point of

1012
01:03:29,240 –> 01:03:33,080
myopia, in many cases, important

1013
01:03:33,640 –> 01:03:37,239
truths and the important truth

1014
01:03:38,040 –> 01:03:41,480
that overwhelms and girds and

1015
01:03:41,640 –> 01:03:45,160
undercuts and covers our entire reality.

1016
01:03:45,400 –> 01:03:49,000
With that being said, I read east of Eden as the person

1017
01:03:49,000 –> 01:03:52,480
who’s coming from that perspective. I read east of either. Not looking for

1018
01:03:52,480 –> 01:03:56,000
parallel allusions to Genesis 4 and everything else that happens after

1019
01:03:56,000 –> 01:03:59,840
Genesis, I read it for. Because

1020
01:03:59,840 –> 01:04:03,320
it comes from a time where

1021
01:04:03,800 –> 01:04:07,400
the audience that Steinbeck would have been writing to would have

1022
01:04:07,400 –> 01:04:11,080
caught on to the illusions and the parallels immediately because they were

1023
01:04:11,080 –> 01:04:14,470
much more biblically literate in the 1920s,

1024
01:04:14,610 –> 01:04:17,920
1930s, 1940s, 1950s than

1025
01:04:18,080 –> 01:04:21,840
folks are right now. Matter of fact, I’ll go a step further and I

1026
01:04:21,840 –> 01:04:24,880
will say the rural people he was describing

1027
01:04:25,440 –> 01:04:29,280
were hyper biblically literate. And that’s, by the way, been a trend in the United

1028
01:04:29,360 –> 01:04:33,080
States for, please, centuries. Since day one.

1029
01:04:33,080 –> 01:04:36,800
Yeah, since day one. And I think that’s

1030
01:04:36,800 –> 01:04:40,580
a fundamental difference between folks who.

1031
01:04:41,140 –> 01:04:44,900
And I’ve lived in the city. But when you live in the city,

1032
01:04:46,260 –> 01:04:49,700
you get drawn into different distractions. Like I was just saying about writers.

1033
01:04:49,700 –> 01:04:53,460
Writers and creatives. You get drawn into different distractions and you get drawn

1034
01:04:53,460 –> 01:04:57,060
away in different directions. And you are drawn away from

1035
01:04:58,660 –> 01:05:02,220
the type of engagement with transcendence that a

1036
01:05:02,220 –> 01:05:05,930
biblical worldview provides you if you

1037
01:05:05,930 –> 01:05:09,570
are not drawn away from those things in a rural environment. Case in point,

1038
01:05:10,530 –> 01:05:13,850
there is a whole section in the book of

1039
01:05:13,850 –> 01:05:17,690
Genesis. It’s Genesis 13, if I remember correctly, where

1040
01:05:17,690 –> 01:05:21,490
Abram, before he’s Abraham, Abram and Lot are journeying

1041
01:05:21,490 –> 01:05:25,250
right in the. In the plane. And.

1042
01:05:26,290 –> 01:05:29,930
And they had just come out of Egypt, right? And Sodom and

1043
01:05:29,930 –> 01:05:33,390
Gomorrah hadn’t yet been destroyed. And Lot and

1044
01:05:33,390 –> 01:05:37,230
Abram are having a. They’re having a disagreement, right?

1045
01:05:37,630 –> 01:05:41,390
They’re having a fight, and their herdsmen and the farmers

1046
01:05:41,390 –> 01:05:45,070
are having a fight. And finally Abram gets with Lot, who’s his nephew,

1047
01:05:45,310 –> 01:05:49,150
who he took out of the land. Of the land that he came out of.

1048
01:05:50,910 –> 01:05:54,750
And when he was called by. Called by God takes

1049
01:05:54,750 –> 01:05:58,580
him out of the land with him and goes journeying off, you know, to. To

1050
01:05:58,580 –> 01:06:02,140
go on the adventure of his life at the age, by the way, of 75.

1051
01:06:02,140 –> 01:06:05,500
I always have to bring that up because. Proves that, you know,

1052
01:06:05,820 –> 01:06:08,540
the door ain’t closed until the door is closed. You can Always go on the

1053
01:06:08,540 –> 01:06:12,340
journey of your life. It’s just, you

1054
01:06:12,340 –> 01:06:15,020
know, your hips might be a little stiffer than they were when you were 20.

1055
01:06:15,020 –> 01:06:18,860
That’s all. When I’m

1056
01:06:18,860 –> 01:06:21,740
75, I’m not walking across the desert. I’m just letting you know that. Right. Well,

1057
01:06:21,740 –> 01:06:25,500
well, well, well. If transcendence calls you, Tom, you might want to answer

1058
01:06:25,500 –> 01:06:29,350
the call. That’s true. That is true. That is true.

1059
01:06:31,110 –> 01:06:34,310
The Creator gives me direction. I’m going to take it. But I’m. I just can’t

1060
01:06:34,310 –> 01:06:36,950
see him asking me to walk across the desert.

1061
01:06:38,230 –> 01:06:40,470
He knows me better than that. Hasan. I’m just saying.

1062
01:06:43,030 –> 01:06:44,950
Well, he may ask. He may ask you to go on a different kind of

1063
01:06:44,950 –> 01:06:47,750
adventure. Maybe not walk across the desert. Right, exactly.

1064
01:06:48,870 –> 01:06:52,670
But. But when. When Abram gets this call, he

1065
01:06:52,670 –> 01:06:56,330
takes his nephew because he wanted friends and his wife and his stuff, and he

1066
01:06:56,330 –> 01:06:59,930
goes, right, okay, so they wandered. They’ve done the thing. They’re getting ready to settle

1067
01:06:59,930 –> 01:07:03,290
down. And there’s this massive plain, right? It’s

1068
01:07:03,290 –> 01:07:06,850
described in the biblical account as the Plain of Jordan.

1069
01:07:06,850 –> 01:07:10,650
Right? And in the biblical account, it says it was

1070
01:07:10,650 –> 01:07:14,490
well watered everywhere. And by the way, the biblical account makes a

1071
01:07:14,490 –> 01:07:17,890
point of this. Before the Lord destroyed Sodom and Gomorrah,

1072
01:07:18,130 –> 01:07:21,750
even as the garden of the Lord, like the land of Egypt, as thou comest

1073
01:07:21,750 –> 01:07:25,550
up to Zoar, then Lot chose him. This is. This is the

1074
01:07:25,550 –> 01:07:29,270
thing. All the plane of Jordan. So Abram got one

1075
01:07:29,270 –> 01:07:32,310
spot, and Lot looked at all the plane of Jordan and was like, I’m going

1076
01:07:32,310 –> 01:07:36,150
to take all of this now. Lot was. This is

1077
01:07:36,150 –> 01:07:39,950
an interesting point. This is the interesting point I’m going to

1078
01:07:39,950 –> 01:07:43,790
about cities. And Lot journeyed east, and

1079
01:07:43,790 –> 01:07:47,550
they separated themselves one from another. Abram dwelled in the land

1080
01:07:47,550 –> 01:07:51,320
of Canaan, and. And Lot dwelled not in the land of

1081
01:07:51,320 –> 01:07:55,080
Canaan, in the cities of the plain, and pitched his

1082
01:07:55,080 –> 01:07:58,760
tent towards Sodom. But the men of Sodom were wicked

1083
01:07:58,760 –> 01:08:01,760
and sinners before the Lord exceedingly.

1084
01:08:04,080 –> 01:08:07,760
That’s also something that I think Steinbeck is trying to get to

1085
01:08:07,760 –> 01:08:11,360
in here. Not necessarily that living in

1086
01:08:11,360 –> 01:08:14,960
LA is wicked or living in San Francisco or whatever. No,

1087
01:08:14,960 –> 01:08:18,800
there’s righteous people there. This is the whole point of Abraham, you

1088
01:08:18,800 –> 01:08:22,240
know, bargaining with God about the destruction of Sodom and

1089
01:08:22,240 –> 01:08:26,080
Gomorrah. Of course, there’s 50 righteous people. And

1090
01:08:26,080 –> 01:08:29,760
if there aren’t lots. Or Abraham’s great question

1091
01:08:29,760 –> 01:08:33,440
to. To God, if there’s not, shall not the judge of all the

1092
01:08:33,440 –> 01:08:37,240
earth do right? Shall we not have a. Shall we not have

1093
01:08:37,240 –> 01:08:40,960
a negotiation? Shall we not have an agreement to save the righteous? Shall the righteous

1094
01:08:40,960 –> 01:08:43,790
be destroyed along with the wicked? Right. Okay.

1095
01:08:44,830 –> 01:08:47,430
I don’t think Steinbeck was saying that living in a city is a place of

1096
01:08:47,430 –> 01:08:51,270
wickedness, but I think he was addressing in east

1097
01:08:51,270 –> 01:08:55,070
of Eden the tension. And he was making a choice, by the way, the

1098
01:08:55,070 –> 01:08:58,870
tension between the rural and the urban. He was addressing

1099
01:08:58,870 –> 01:09:02,430
that tension because in 1952, post World War II America,

1100
01:09:02,590 –> 01:09:06,190
he could see that coming with the building of the suburbs,

1101
01:09:06,510 –> 01:09:10,110
people pushing out from the cities, but not quite going back to the country,

1102
01:09:10,870 –> 01:09:14,550
cities expanding. And by the way, there’s something to this. So if you look up

1103
01:09:14,550 –> 01:09:18,150
the statistics going into 2050,

1104
01:09:19,110 –> 01:09:22,630
about, you know, 25 years from now, when,

1105
01:09:22,870 –> 01:09:26,430
when, when, when I will be still around, hopefully, good Lord

1106
01:09:26,430 –> 01:09:29,408
willing, and the creek don’t rise by 2050,

1107
01:09:29,652 –> 01:09:32,870
89% of the US population and

1108
01:09:32,870 –> 01:09:36,430
68% of the world population is projected to live in

1109
01:09:36,430 –> 01:09:39,350
urban areas in 25 years.

1110
01:09:42,710 –> 01:09:44,950
That’s a lot of people crammed into cities.

1111
01:09:46,070 –> 01:09:49,590
Yeah, and there’s something that you lose

1112
01:09:49,670 –> 01:09:53,389
there. I’m not saying you become Sodom, but I’m saying there’s something that you

1113
01:09:53,389 –> 01:09:57,150
lose. And Steinbeck understood that tension. And he was writing to an audience that

1114
01:09:57,150 –> 01:10:00,710
understood that tension and was on the other side of that tension

1115
01:10:01,110 –> 01:10:04,550
culturally and also psychologically.

1116
01:10:05,060 –> 01:10:08,740
And he was trying to appeal to them with, you know, appeal to them

1117
01:10:08,740 –> 01:10:12,460
in biblical terms. And so they would have gotten in terms they would

1118
01:10:12,460 –> 01:10:16,220
understand. He was giving them an opportunity to. Again, like I

1119
01:10:16,220 –> 01:10:19,940
said a second ago, he was giving them opportunity to interpret this in

1120
01:10:19,940 –> 01:10:22,900
their brain in a way that would, that made sense to them.

1121
01:10:23,860 –> 01:10:26,820
Right. And, and part of the reason why this book has never not been a

1122
01:10:26,820 –> 01:10:30,660
bestseller is because if you go past the rural urban divide,

1123
01:10:30,660 –> 01:10:33,480
part art, and you go up a scale level,

1124
01:10:34,600 –> 01:10:38,320
it’s, it’s, it’s for everyone, regardless of where

1125
01:10:38,320 –> 01:10:41,680
you live, you’re going to find something in this book that you’re going to relate

1126
01:10:41,680 –> 01:10:45,240
to. Speaking of never been not a bestseller, did

1127
01:10:45,240 –> 01:10:49,000
you end up looking up any of that information about.

1128
01:10:49,560 –> 01:10:52,840
I saw somewhere, at least I, I’m pretty sure I read somewhere that

1129
01:10:52,840 –> 01:10:56,560
literally Every single year, 50,000 copies of this book

1130
01:10:56,560 –> 01:10:59,840
are sold worldwide. Like, did you actually look that up? Is that

1131
01:10:59,840 –> 01:11:03,160
accurate? Yes, that’s accurate. Somewhere around, Somewhere around that number.

1132
01:11:03,320 –> 01:11:07,160
That’s. That, to me, that, that is, that is just simply incredible that,

1133
01:11:07,160 –> 01:11:10,920
like, to have that kind of staying power is insane to

1134
01:11:10,920 –> 01:11:14,760
me. Well, and it was also resurrected. Gosh,

1135
01:11:14,760 –> 01:11:18,480
what is it, like, 15 years ago now? Might have been

1136
01:11:18,480 –> 01:11:22,240
15 years ago. Now, remember when Oprah was doing her book club? She

1137
01:11:22,240 –> 01:11:25,980
had a book club? Yeah, yeah. I was hesitant to mention this, but

1138
01:11:26,460 –> 01:11:29,020
she, she glommed onto Easter beat. Right.

1139
01:11:30,060 –> 01:11:32,860
And, you know, there were a lot of people at the time who.

1140
01:11:34,460 –> 01:11:38,220
Jonathan Franzen was one of them, who, you know, didn’t want,

1141
01:11:38,300 –> 01:11:42,020
you know, Oprah to even touch his book, which I’m sure

1142
01:11:42,020 –> 01:11:45,460
he’s kicking himself now about that, but in some room

1143
01:11:45,460 –> 01:11:47,820
somewhere where no one’s reading his books, but

1144
01:11:49,880 –> 01:11:53,720
poor bastard anyway. And actually, Jonathan Franz is a

1145
01:11:53,720 –> 01:11:56,840
good writer. Like I like. I like his books. I think that he’s a good

1146
01:11:56,840 –> 01:11:59,560
magnum opus writer. But I also think that

1147
01:12:00,600 –> 01:12:04,080
you have to kind of understand the time in which you’re in and sort of

1148
01:12:04,080 –> 01:12:07,840
really make some, Some cognizant decisions as a. As a writer and a

1149
01:12:07,840 –> 01:12:11,400
creator, sort of on. Not sort of, but on purpose and intentionally.

1150
01:12:11,720 –> 01:12:15,200
And I think he was a little too casual with the, with the anti Oprah

1151
01:12:15,200 –> 01:12:17,890
thing. I don’t. I don’t think he sort of understood sort of where the, where

1152
01:12:17,890 –> 01:12:21,170
that was going to go. But anyway, one of the points that folks like him

1153
01:12:21,170 –> 01:12:24,730
made was that if Steinbeck had been alive and

1154
01:12:24,730 –> 01:12:28,530
Oprah’s book club had been stamped on the COVID of east of Eden, he

1155
01:12:28,530 –> 01:12:30,170
would have objected to that as well.

1156
01:12:32,010 –> 01:12:35,810
And I don’t think they’re correct on that. I. I

1157
01:12:35,810 –> 01:12:39,130
don’t think that’s true. I think Steinbeck would have said,

1158
01:12:39,690 –> 01:12:43,060
this black lady could. Has gotten enough cachet

1159
01:12:43,780 –> 01:12:47,420
to be able to bring my book forward. Okay,

1160
01:12:47,420 –> 01:12:51,180
that’s fine. What’s the problem? No, I agree with

1161
01:12:51,180 –> 01:12:53,660
that. I don’t think he would have cared. I don’t. Not that he would not

1162
01:12:53,660 –> 01:12:56,820
have cared. I. Quite the opposite. I think he might have even leaned into it,

1163
01:12:56,820 –> 01:13:00,580
to be honest, again, as we talked, as we talked before, about how

1164
01:13:01,620 –> 01:13:05,340
he saw the value in people for what their value, what they brought

1165
01:13:05,340 –> 01:13:08,930
to the table, not what he wanted them to bring to the table, not to

1166
01:13:09,410 –> 01:13:13,130
what he hoped they brought to the table. He saw value in people

1167
01:13:13,130 –> 01:13:16,850
for what they actually brought to the table. So I think if that. If

1168
01:13:16,850 –> 01:13:20,650
that is true in that entire conversation that

1169
01:13:20,650 –> 01:13:24,450
we had about that the other day is true, then you’re right.

1170
01:13:24,450 –> 01:13:28,170
He would have saw Oprah and the value that she brought and just ran

1171
01:13:28,170 –> 01:13:30,650
with it. I don’t think he would have questioned it. I don’t think he would

1172
01:13:30,650 –> 01:13:34,300
have bucked it. I don’t think. I think he would have just been perfectly

1173
01:13:34,300 –> 01:13:37,860
okay with it. And, And I think he would have. Again, he was such a

1174
01:13:37,860 –> 01:13:41,300
Good observer of people. I think he would have predicted that.

1175
01:13:41,620 –> 01:13:45,140
I think he would have started coming, so to speak. Yeah, before. Yeah, I, I,

1176
01:13:45,140 –> 01:13:48,460
my gut tells me that Steinbeck would have seen Oprah become Oprah before she even

1177
01:13:48,460 –> 01:13:51,780
knew what was, what she was doing. Like that she was Oprah, perhaps.

1178
01:13:52,900 –> 01:13:54,820
I think he would have seen it and I think he would have been okay

1179
01:13:54,820 –> 01:13:57,100
with it. I think it would have been more than okay with it. I think

1180
01:13:57,100 –> 01:14:00,460
he would have leaned into it. Well, and he, you know, he died before civil

1181
01:14:00,460 –> 01:14:03,490
rights really became, you know, sort of a thing. And,

1182
01:14:04,370 –> 01:14:07,810
and we didn’t sort of mention this previously, but I’ll mention it now.

1183
01:14:08,130 –> 01:14:11,650
He was fundamentally, at the end of the day, not just a person from

1184
01:14:11,650 –> 01:14:14,450
California, but he was a man of the west,

1185
01:14:15,410 –> 01:14:18,930
capital W, Regional west, like American West.

1186
01:14:19,170 –> 01:14:22,850
And in race relations in this country, we

1187
01:14:22,850 –> 01:14:26,290
never talk about regionality unless it’s the south versus

1188
01:14:26,290 –> 01:14:29,980
everybody else. Right. But let me tell you something. I’ve lived in the west

1189
01:14:30,780 –> 01:14:34,580
and currently in Texas. I live in the western part of Texas, not the

1190
01:14:34,580 –> 01:14:38,180
southern part of Texas. That’s east Texas. That’s over there with those

1191
01:14:38,180 –> 01:14:39,660
people, and that’s fine.

1192
01:14:42,300 –> 01:14:46,060
West Texas and the west in general. I mean,

1193
01:14:46,300 –> 01:14:48,940
first 12 years of my life, I spent in New Mexico,

1194
01:14:50,940 –> 01:14:54,690
the West. In the west, race relations are fundamentally different.

1195
01:14:55,000 –> 01:14:58,360
The battles are different than they are other

1196
01:14:58,440 –> 01:15:01,720
places because of the nature of,

1197
01:15:02,040 –> 01:15:05,560
as we opened up with, with east of Eden, the nature of who

1198
01:15:05,560 –> 01:15:09,400
settled that place and what their, what their, what their

1199
01:15:09,400 –> 01:15:13,000
posture was towards all of those kinds of issues.

1200
01:15:13,160 –> 01:15:16,960
You know, so he was a man of that, of

1201
01:15:16,960 –> 01:15:19,800
that time. And so I don’t think he would have been to your point. I

1202
01:15:19,800 –> 01:15:22,860
think that’s another reason why he would not have been opposed to

1203
01:15:23,660 –> 01:15:27,180
Oprah basically putting the, putting a stamp on his,

1204
01:15:27,340 –> 01:15:30,620
on his book. Okay,

1205
01:15:31,820 –> 01:15:35,660
let’s talk about meaning. Let’s talk about, we talked a lot

1206
01:15:35,660 –> 01:15:39,460
about this book. We’ve read some pieces from it. Talked about the influences.

1207
01:15:39,460 –> 01:15:43,300
We talked about Steinbeck coming all the way as part of that sort of mid

1208
01:15:43,300 –> 01:15:47,020
20th century pinnacle of

1209
01:15:48,180 –> 01:15:51,940
human nate, of understanding human nature. Being able to sort of bring everybody, to bring

1210
01:15:52,020 –> 01:15:55,220
dynamic personalities together and really make them creatively

1211
01:15:55,300 –> 01:15:58,820
interesting. Talked about the biblical illusions in this book and of course,

1212
01:16:00,100 –> 01:16:03,900
you know, the nature of the Trasks and the Hamiltons and the, the people that

1213
01:16:03,900 –> 01:16:06,580
are winding together through this multi generational narrative.

1214
01:16:07,700 –> 01:16:11,500
What can leaders take from all of this? If

1215
01:16:11,500 –> 01:16:15,230
I’m a leader and I’m listening to this podcast, what do I get from

1216
01:16:15,230 –> 01:16:18,350
east of Eden? What do I take why is it worth my while to read

1217
01:16:18,350 –> 01:16:22,110
this thousand page book? Well, I think,

1218
01:16:22,510 –> 01:16:26,310
honestly, I think I just, I just, I think I just said it. I’m

1219
01:16:26,310 –> 01:16:29,750
just like. Because I think from a leadership

1220
01:16:29,750 –> 01:16:33,550
perspective, I think that we as leaders have

1221
01:16:33,630 –> 01:16:37,310
got to stop trying to fit square pegs into round

1222
01:16:37,310 –> 01:16:40,750
holes and start leveraging the talents

1223
01:16:41,760 –> 01:16:45,480
and the, and the people that we, that we

1224
01:16:45,480 –> 01:16:48,400
have. Right? Meaning like, like I just said a second ago,

1225
01:16:48,880 –> 01:16:52,520
Steinbeck found value in people at

1226
01:16:52,520 –> 01:16:56,240
its face. He wasn’t looking to change somebody into

1227
01:16:56,240 –> 01:16:59,880
something they weren’t or move somebody from point A to point B because that’s where

1228
01:16:59,880 –> 01:17:03,600
he thought they should be. He just didn’t do that. He was able

1229
01:17:03,600 –> 01:17:06,640
to take people and

1230
01:17:07,430 –> 01:17:11,270
understand their value and then turn that value intrinsically

1231
01:17:11,270 –> 01:17:14,950
into active activity, into the, in the book. Right?

1232
01:17:14,950 –> 01:17:18,310
Like a character in the book or whatever. So if we’re looking at, from a

1233
01:17:18,310 –> 01:17:21,910
leadership perspective and we’re reading this book and we’re truly understanding that

1234
01:17:21,910 –> 01:17:25,710
dynamic that he’s talking about, then we can look at our teams, whether you have

1235
01:17:25,710 –> 01:17:29,390
one team or 10 teams, and start really identifying the

1236
01:17:29,390 –> 01:17:33,070
people in those teams and whether or not they bring value

1237
01:17:33,070 –> 01:17:36,880
to that team, team based on just who they are and not

1238
01:17:36,880 –> 01:17:40,720
trying to change them into something that we want. By the way, guys, that doesn’t

1239
01:17:40,720 –> 01:17:43,600
mean that you have to keep everybody on your team. If they don’t fit, fire

1240
01:17:43,600 –> 01:17:46,680
them and find, find somebody else. I’m not suggesting that you have to work with

1241
01:17:46,680 –> 01:17:50,320
what you got and you can never change it. But I’m saying that that

1242
01:17:51,040 –> 01:17:54,640
learning from Steinbeck’s ability to, to

1243
01:17:54,640 –> 01:17:58,360
find value in every single person that he was able to encounter and

1244
01:17:58,360 –> 01:18:01,900
then turn that value into, to something amazing like that book.

1245
01:18:02,460 –> 01:18:05,620
We have that ability, we have that ability to look at the people that work

1246
01:18:05,620 –> 01:18:09,020
for us, the people that work with us and the people that we work for

1247
01:18:10,860 –> 01:18:14,620
understand who they are as people, their values, their morals, their.

1248
01:18:15,420 –> 01:18:19,220
Go back to the biblical sense. Whether you are Catholic or Christian or not.

1249
01:18:19,220 –> 01:18:22,980
That does not mean that you don’t value a moral compass. Like,

1250
01:18:22,980 –> 01:18:26,660
I mean, you, whether I don’t care what religion or what faith you, you, you

1251
01:18:26,660 –> 01:18:30,460
support. Support. I would imagine having a moral compass is going to be

1252
01:18:30,460 –> 01:18:33,900
important to you. Do people understand the difference between right and wrong? Are you going

1253
01:18:33,900 –> 01:18:37,500
to have that like, and making sure that those, the right people

1254
01:18:37,500 –> 01:18:41,300
fit the right circumstances for us? I, I just think

1255
01:18:41,300 –> 01:18:43,460
all of that is in there, right? Like that’s,

1256
01:18:46,100 –> 01:18:48,700
I think all of it is in there and you can learn from it. If

1257
01:18:48,700 –> 01:18:52,440
you’re looking to Learn from it. I think that’s, you know, that’s the,

1258
01:18:52,510 –> 01:18:56,030
the, that’s the thing that, that I think people, I think people sometimes forget that

1259
01:18:56,190 –> 01:18:59,790
like if you, and again, you’re probably one of the few people

1260
01:18:59,790 –> 01:19:03,470
that, and I know I, I try

1261
01:19:03,470 –> 01:19:05,870
to do this. I don’t know if I do it really well, but you’re one

1262
01:19:05,870 –> 01:19:08,750
of the few people that I know that will read a book and

1263
01:19:09,710 –> 01:19:13,390
not just read it simply for pleasure. You’re

1264
01:19:13,390 –> 01:19:17,230
always looking at it from an angle perspective. Or maybe you have certain books you

1265
01:19:17,230 –> 01:19:20,100
do this with or certain books you don’t. But I, from the, from what I’ve

1266
01:19:20,100 –> 01:19:23,940
learned from you, it’s, there’s always underlying tones

1267
01:19:23,940 –> 01:19:27,780
and underlying lessons to be, to be learned from these books and these authors that

1268
01:19:27,780 –> 01:19:31,580
you’re reading. So to just simply read something because you just want to

1269
01:19:31,580 –> 01:19:34,700
have a mind numbing experience, to me, doesn’t exist.

1270
01:19:36,060 –> 01:19:39,740
So. Yeah, yeah, I think, I think if you’re, if you’re taking

1271
01:19:39,740 –> 01:19:42,860
your time to read something, you should have some sort of

1272
01:19:43,820 –> 01:19:47,420
benefit from it, whether it’s personal, professional,

1273
01:19:47,660 –> 01:19:51,260
whatever that is. And I think in east of Eden especially, and

1274
01:19:51,260 –> 01:19:54,820
Steinbeck in general, and I know we talked about this on Monday because quite

1275
01:19:54,820 –> 01:19:58,340
honestly, I don’t care whether you’re reading east of Eden or Mice of Men

1276
01:19:58,340 –> 01:20:01,700
or Grapes of Wrath or the Cannery, I don’t care what any of those

1277
01:20:01,700 –> 01:20:05,100
Steinbeck books are going to tell you. That he

1278
01:20:05,100 –> 01:20:08,820
values people for what they are and who they are and what

1279
01:20:08,820 –> 01:20:12,470
they bring to the table. Naturally. And I think that if we can

1280
01:20:12,470 –> 01:20:14,950
learn from that, then we, we will become better leaders.

1281
01:20:16,070 –> 01:20:19,790
He even values people who we don’t understand because you

1282
01:20:19,790 –> 01:20:23,550
can learn something from everything and something from

1283
01:20:23,550 –> 01:20:27,270
everyone. Let me pick this up here. This is a good segue into this.

1284
01:20:28,070 –> 01:20:31,030
East of Eden, Part two,

1285
01:20:31,990 –> 01:20:35,590
Chapter eight, Part one. He opens up with this line. I love this

1286
01:20:35,590 –> 01:20:39,080
line. I believe there are monsters born in the world to human

1287
01:20:39,080 –> 01:20:42,680
parents. Some you can see misshapen and horrible, with huge

1288
01:20:42,680 –> 01:20:46,240
heads or tiny bodies. Some are born with no arms, no legs, some with three

1289
01:20:46,240 –> 01:20:50,040
arms, some with tails or mouths. In odd places they are accidents and no

1290
01:20:50,040 –> 01:20:53,640
one’s fault, as used to be thought. Once they were

1291
01:20:53,640 –> 01:20:57,120
considered the visible punishments for concealed sins.

1292
01:20:57,280 –> 01:21:01,000
There’s that biblical illusion again, folks. And just as there are

1293
01:21:01,000 –> 01:21:04,720
physical monsters, can there not be mental or psychic monsters born?

1294
01:21:05,380 –> 01:21:08,380
The face and body may be perfect, but if a twisted gene or a malformed

1295
01:21:08,380 –> 01:21:11,660
egg can produce physical monsters, may not the same process produce a

1296
01:21:11,660 –> 01:21:15,180
malformed soul? By the way? Pause. Clearly

1297
01:21:15,180 –> 01:21:19,020
Steinbeck was asking the question about do we have souls

1298
01:21:19,020 –> 01:21:22,660
or not? Which, by the way, is a worthwhile question for our

1299
01:21:22,740 –> 01:21:26,500
time right now. And we better get

1300
01:21:26,580 –> 01:21:30,020
real quick. We better get real clear on this one

1301
01:21:30,590 –> 01:21:33,950
real quick, because otherwise we’re going to outsource

1302
01:21:34,190 –> 01:21:37,550
the best stuff from our souls to mechanical men.

1303
01:21:37,790 –> 01:21:41,550
We’re already starting to see that happening. Back to

1304
01:21:41,550 –> 01:21:45,110
the book. Monsters are variations from the accepted normal to a greater or

1305
01:21:45,110 –> 01:21:48,830
lesser degree. As a child may be born without an arm, so one

1306
01:21:48,830 –> 01:21:52,430
may be born without kindness or the potential of conscience.

1307
01:21:53,070 –> 01:21:56,070
A man who loses his arms in an accident has a great struggle to adjust

1308
01:21:56,070 –> 01:21:59,110
himself to the lack. But one born without arms suffers only from the people who

1309
01:21:59,110 –> 01:22:02,350
find him strange. Having never had arms, he cannot miss them.

1310
01:22:02,670 –> 01:22:05,470
Sometimes when we are little, we imagine how it would be to have wings. But

1311
01:22:05,470 –> 01:22:09,070
there is no reason to suppose is the same feeling birds have. No,

1312
01:22:09,710 –> 01:22:13,070
to a monster, the norm must seem

1313
01:22:13,150 –> 01:22:16,190
monstrous since everyone is normal to himself.

1314
01:22:17,070 –> 01:22:20,830
That is a huge insight, by the way. Everyone is normal to himself.

1315
01:22:22,270 –> 01:22:26,030
To the inner monster, it must be even more obscure since he has no visible

1316
01:22:26,030 –> 01:22:29,530
thing to compare with others. To a man born without conscience, a soul

1317
01:22:29,530 –> 01:22:33,250
stricken man must seem ridiculous. To a criminal, honesty is

1318
01:22:33,250 –> 01:22:36,770
foolish. You must not forget that a monster is only a

1319
01:22:36,770 –> 01:22:40,530
variation and that to a monster, the norm

1320
01:22:40,610 –> 01:22:44,250
is monstrous. And this

1321
01:22:44,250 –> 01:22:45,810
is his introduction.

1322
01:22:48,610 –> 01:22:51,490
And I wrote at the beginning of this chapter because I make notes in all

1323
01:22:51,490 –> 01:22:54,880
my books that I read for this podcast and books that I read just for

1324
01:22:54,880 –> 01:22:56,840
my own to Tom’s void pleasure.

1325
01:23:00,440 –> 01:23:04,280
The note that I made was the making of a sociopath.

1326
01:23:04,840 –> 01:23:07,000
This is what he is describing here,

1327
01:23:09,080 –> 01:23:12,440
which I think is also fascinating. You think about like

1328
01:23:13,160 –> 01:23:16,960
Freud. Freud, the, the father of modern psychology, died in

1329
01:23:16,960 –> 01:23:20,460
1939. 38, 39, 40. Somewhere around there. Yeah.

1330
01:23:21,010 –> 01:23:24,570
So like, so Steinbeck’s writing, when all this stuff is coming out

1331
01:23:24,570 –> 01:23:28,170
new, like, this is all new to them about like the. What, what a sociopath

1332
01:23:28,170 –> 01:23:31,770
is like psychology. And like, I think

1333
01:23:31,770 –> 01:23:35,530
this is his inner turmoil about like science. And I think

1334
01:23:35,530 –> 01:23:38,690
this is where he starts going down the, the, the other side of the slope.

1335
01:23:38,690 –> 01:23:42,490
Because you talk about how, you know, when he was growing up, he was, he

1336
01:23:42,490 –> 01:23:45,970
was Christian growing up and he became agnostic later in life.

1337
01:23:46,680 –> 01:23:50,480
I think this is part of it because seeing what Freud

1338
01:23:50,480 –> 01:23:53,720
was doing and then being able to word what you just read,

1339
01:23:54,280 –> 01:23:57,880
that’s his, that’s his brain saying like,

1340
01:23:58,520 –> 01:24:01,840
like, do we. Should we be leaning more toward biblical or should we lean more

1341
01:24:01,840 –> 01:24:05,440
towards science? Right, right. How do we. Like, how do we. How do we square

1342
01:24:05,440 –> 01:24:09,160
this circle? Yeah. Yeah. How do we square this circle? How do

1343
01:24:09,160 –> 01:24:12,890
we. How do we make, as the kids say these days, make

1344
01:24:12,890 –> 01:24:16,210
it make sense. Right? Exactly. Exactly. Yeah.

1345
01:24:17,730 –> 01:24:20,810
Back to the book for just a moment. He says, it is my belief that

1346
01:24:20,810 –> 01:24:24,490
Kathy Ames was born with the tendencies, or lack of them, which drove and

1347
01:24:24,490 –> 01:24:28,210
forced her all of her life. Some balance

1348
01:24:28,210 –> 01:24:32,050
wheel was misweighted, some gear out of ratio. She was not like other people, never

1349
01:24:32,050 –> 01:24:35,810
was from birth. And just as a cripple may learn to utilize his

1350
01:24:35,810 –> 01:24:39,170
lack so that he becomes more effective in a limited field than the uncrippled,

1351
01:24:39,550 –> 01:24:42,870
so did Kathy, using her difference, make a painful and

1352
01:24:42,870 –> 01:24:46,590
bewildering stir in her world. There was a

1353
01:24:46,590 –> 01:24:50,070
time when a girl like Kathy would have been called possessed by the devil. She

1354
01:24:50,070 –> 01:24:53,510
would have been exercised to cast out the evil spirit. And if after many trials

1355
01:24:53,510 –> 01:24:57,230
that did not work to Tom’s point, she

1356
01:24:57,230 –> 01:24:59,630
would have been burned as a witch for the good of the community.

1357
01:25:04,920 –> 01:25:07,800
I’m going to go back to that in a second. Just keep going with the

1358
01:25:07,800 –> 01:25:11,560
book. The one thing that may not be forgiven a witch is her ability

1359
01:25:11,560 –> 01:25:15,240
to distress people, to make them restless and uneasy

1360
01:25:15,240 –> 01:25:19,000
and even envious. Then it goes

1361
01:25:19,000 –> 01:25:22,560
into a description of her and her. Her. Her body and her

1362
01:25:22,560 –> 01:25:26,200
hands. And it’s. It’s. It’s a very graphic description, folks.

1363
01:25:26,200 –> 01:25:30,040
Just going to keep that in mind. And then.

1364
01:25:30,510 –> 01:25:31,870
And then we go to this.

1365
01:25:35,070 –> 01:25:38,350
Kathy was a liar, but did not lie the way most children do.

1366
01:25:39,310 –> 01:25:43,110
Hers was no daydream lying. When the thing imagined is told and to

1367
01:25:43,110 –> 01:25:46,790
make it seem more real, told as real, that’s just an ordinary

1368
01:25:46,790 –> 01:25:50,630
deviation from external reality. I think the difference between a lie

1369
01:25:50,630 –> 01:25:54,070
and a story is that a story utilizes the trappings and appearance of

1370
01:25:54,070 –> 01:25:57,390
truth for the interest of the listener as well as of the teller.

1371
01:25:58,000 –> 01:26:00,880
That is a great description, by the way, of what an author actually does.

1372
01:26:01,840 –> 01:26:05,440
A story. Back to the book. A story has in it neither gain

1373
01:26:05,600 –> 01:26:09,440
nor loss, but a lie is a device for profit or

1374
01:26:09,440 –> 01:26:13,120
escape. I suppose if that definition is strictly held to,

1375
01:26:13,280 –> 01:26:16,960
then a writer of stories is a liar if he is financially

1376
01:26:16,960 –> 01:26:20,440
fortunate. Kathy’s lies were never

1377
01:26:20,440 –> 01:26:24,280
innocent. Their purpose was to escape punishment or work or responsibility, and they

1378
01:26:24,280 –> 01:26:28,050
were used for profit. Most liars are tripped up either because they forget what they

1379
01:26:28,050 –> 01:26:31,850
have told or because a lie is suddenly faced with an incontrovertible truth. But

1380
01:26:31,850 –> 01:26:35,450
Kathy did not forget her lies, and she developed the most effective method of

1381
01:26:35,450 –> 01:26:39,170
lying. She stayed close enough to the truth so that no one. So that

1382
01:26:39,170 –> 01:26:42,490
one could never be sure. She knew two other methods also.

1383
01:26:42,890 –> 01:26:46,690
Either to interland her lies with truth or to tell the truth as though

1384
01:26:46,690 –> 01:26:50,490
it were a lie. If one is accused of a lie and it turns out

1385
01:26:50,490 –> 01:26:54,250
to be the truth, there is a backlog that will last a long time

1386
01:26:54,730 –> 01:26:57,050
and protect a number of other

1387
01:26:57,530 –> 01:27:00,890
untruths. Talk about

1388
01:27:01,610 –> 01:27:04,570
the psychology of a sociopath,

1389
01:27:05,210 –> 01:27:08,850
the making of a monster. And then the very

1390
01:27:08,850 –> 01:27:12,570
next chapter is the making of a. Not a sociopath, but a psychopath,

1391
01:27:12,570 –> 01:27:16,330
because she eventually runs into a psychopath and which of

1392
01:27:16,330 –> 01:27:20,050
course answers the question what happens with a psychopath and a sociopath meet. It’s

1393
01:27:20,050 –> 01:27:23,770
not good. Let’s just frame it that way. Somebody has to lose. It’s like, like

1394
01:27:23,770 –> 01:27:27,370
George. Like Henry Kissinger’s quip

1395
01:27:27,610 –> 01:27:30,250
during the. The Iran Iraq War.

1396
01:27:31,290 –> 01:27:34,730
He said infamously back in the 1980s. Infamously.

1397
01:27:35,690 –> 01:27:37,770
It’s a pity that both sides couldn’t lose,

1398
01:27:40,970 –> 01:27:44,330
which has always sort of amused me in a geopolitical level.

1399
01:27:44,490 –> 01:27:48,300
And Kissinger, I have my own concerns about his mental health,

1400
01:27:48,940 –> 01:27:52,500
but anyway. Or had about his

1401
01:27:52,500 –> 01:27:54,700
mental health. But anyway,

1402
01:27:57,260 –> 01:28:00,980
the, the thing about Kathy, and this is why I

1403
01:28:00,980 –> 01:28:03,740
wanted to bring it up even close to the close here of our show today.

1404
01:28:04,140 –> 01:28:07,460
Kathy is on the one hand, yes, she’s

1405
01:28:07,460 –> 01:28:11,260
clearly, I’m going to use the term here, demonically evil.

1406
01:28:11,670 –> 01:28:15,430
She is seeking to manipulate and gain power. She commits murder.

1407
01:28:16,470 –> 01:28:19,710
She is out for money and for greed. And she ruins a whole bunch of

1408
01:28:19,710 –> 01:28:23,550
people, including her own kids. She train wrecks a whole bunch of people.

1409
01:28:23,550 –> 01:28:26,870
And by the way, Steinbeck, basing this on people he saw,

1410
01:28:27,349 –> 01:28:31,110
right, and behaviors he actually saw, was trying to make

1411
01:28:31,110 –> 01:28:33,590
sense of this. But Kathy is also

1412
01:28:35,350 –> 01:28:37,750
just like all of the other characters in the book,

1413
01:28:39,130 –> 01:28:42,890
from the Hamiltons to the Trasks and their entire family and all the dynamics

1414
01:28:42,890 –> 01:28:45,930
that happen in there, including like deaths that just come out of nowhere,

1415
01:28:46,970 –> 01:28:50,650
failures of the land, failures of farming, failures of animals.

1416
01:28:51,530 –> 01:28:55,250
She’s a tragic figure. And this is the part that I

1417
01:28:55,250 –> 01:28:59,010
think we’ve. In our current era, we have

1418
01:28:59,010 –> 01:29:02,490
a lot of movies that try to make the villain relatable

1419
01:29:03,210 –> 01:29:06,770
or even try to weirdly enough turn the villain into a hero. And I, I

1420
01:29:06,770 –> 01:29:10,500
have a problem with that as a storytelling trope because sometimes people are just evil

1421
01:29:10,500 –> 01:29:13,580
and you don’t need to know that. Daddy didn’t hug them. Like, it doesn’t matter.

1422
01:29:14,060 –> 01:29:17,780
People are just evil. And that’s okay to say. It’s

1423
01:29:17,780 –> 01:29:20,780
fine. Now the reason we don’t say that is because we want to have it

1424
01:29:20,780 –> 01:29:24,620
both ways. Because if there’s Gray area then kind of

1425
01:29:24,620 –> 01:29:27,540
the things that I do well that I can’t be judged. And it goes to

1426
01:29:27,540 –> 01:29:30,940
this whole like, you know, or, or, or we want the, we want the Deadpools

1427
01:29:30,940 –> 01:29:34,660
of the world. Right? Do bad things for the right reason or whatever. Right. Is

1428
01:29:34,660 –> 01:29:38,330
that really that much better? Is that better? I don’t think so.

1429
01:29:38,570 –> 01:29:42,370
I don’t think so. Yeah. No. We need

1430
01:29:42,370 –> 01:29:46,130
to get back to yes, you can know evil. Yes, there is

1431
01:29:46,130 –> 01:29:49,970
objective evil, just like there’s objective good. And there’s no

1432
01:29:49,970 –> 01:29:53,770
confusion about this. We actually know. And we, by the way,

1433
01:29:53,770 –> 01:29:57,530
you know how we know in our lives when objective evil is done

1434
01:29:57,530 –> 01:30:01,010
to us, we cry out for justice. That’s how we know there’s

1435
01:30:01,010 –> 01:30:04,260
objective evil. That’s how we know anyway

1436
01:30:05,060 –> 01:30:08,820
and that’s how we know we can identify it. But the

1437
01:30:08,820 –> 01:30:11,980
other, but the piece of it that we’re missing, the part that we confuse with

1438
01:30:11,980 –> 01:30:15,780
the gray area in our time is the tragedy of evil,

1439
01:30:15,780 –> 01:30:19,580
the tragic nature of it. And not just the outcomes

1440
01:30:19,580 –> 01:30:23,380
of evil, but also the environment that

1441
01:30:23,380 –> 01:30:27,220
produces that evil. Because Kathy is not described as,

1442
01:30:27,530 –> 01:30:31,210
as learning how to be evil. She’s described as being evil from

1443
01:30:31,210 –> 01:30:34,890
birth. That’s why he opens up with the whole like comparison

1444
01:30:34,890 –> 01:30:38,730
to a malformed body. Right. Can you have a

1445
01:30:38,730 –> 01:30:41,690
malformed soul? Soul.

1446
01:30:43,209 –> 01:30:46,810
And that is a, I think

1447
01:30:46,810 –> 01:30:49,930
a extremely challenging question

1448
01:30:51,130 –> 01:30:54,890
specifically for our time because we don’t even believe in the soul, much less

1449
01:30:54,890 –> 01:30:58,740
that it could be malfunction formed. Or we struggle with that belief and

1450
01:30:58,740 –> 01:31:02,500
then when evil happens to us or when there are genuinely evil people in

1451
01:31:02,500 –> 01:31:06,300
the world, we have no answer for them. We have no answer for their behavior

1452
01:31:06,460 –> 01:31:09,860
other than, and this is the failure of

1453
01:31:09,860 –> 01:31:13,580
Nuremberg, other than to appeal to some sort of morality

1454
01:31:13,580 –> 01:31:17,340
that comes from nowhere. And basically just to like, just

1455
01:31:17,340 –> 01:31:21,020
to like say, well, this morality that comes from nowhere, we’re going to put upon

1456
01:31:21,020 –> 01:31:24,310
you and we’re going to lock you up in jail. And of course the evil

1457
01:31:24,310 –> 01:31:28,070
person looks at that decision not

1458
01:31:28,070 –> 01:31:30,350
as justice but as the,

1459
01:31:32,030 –> 01:31:35,870
the, the, the leveraging

1460
01:31:35,870 –> 01:31:39,390
of power over them and thus learns nothing and changes

1461
01:31:39,390 –> 01:31:43,070
nothing. You have to have a moral element. You have to admit,

1462
01:31:44,110 –> 01:31:46,710
you have to admit that there’s objective truth. You have to admit that there’s objective

1463
01:31:46,710 –> 01:31:49,920
evil. You have to admit that there’s objective good. And you have to say,

1464
01:31:52,160 –> 01:31:55,880
as Steinbeck struggled with, and it’s okay to struggle with this question, but

1465
01:31:55,880 –> 01:31:59,280
you have to at least admit that this is the question by whose authority

1466
01:32:00,240 –> 01:32:04,080
are we determining these objectives? And we have to name that authority.

1467
01:32:04,639 –> 01:32:08,480
And in A book that has biblical illusions. Steinbeck was, was

1468
01:32:08,480 –> 01:32:12,160
clearly saying that that authority is a transcendent God. And

1469
01:32:12,160 –> 01:32:15,970
we can still wrestle with that. That’s okay. And we

1470
01:32:15,970 –> 01:32:19,210
should. For leaders.

1471
01:32:20,010 –> 01:32:23,130
Thoughts on. Huh? What do you do,

1472
01:32:24,410 –> 01:32:28,170
what do you do if you have a narcissist? Because that’s a term that’s

1473
01:32:28,170 –> 01:32:31,930
thrown around quite a bit. Everybody’s a narcissist these days. You know, if you

1474
01:32:31,930 –> 01:32:35,770
have a narcissist in your, in your organization, or maybe even you have

1475
01:32:35,770 –> 01:32:39,370
a sociopath or a psychopathic behaving person

1476
01:32:40,100 –> 01:32:42,420
without a clinic. And these are not clinical definitions, by the way. I want to

1477
01:32:42,420 –> 01:32:45,900
be very clear. These are not clinical definitions. We want to get a clinical definition

1478
01:32:45,900 –> 01:32:48,020
of one of my guests. I could bring on and give a clinical definition of

1479
01:32:48,020 –> 01:32:50,780
all this, but this is not what we’re talking about Last, last time I checked.

1480
01:32:50,780 –> 01:32:54,500
Hey, son and I are not psychologists, psychiatrist or any of the like.

1481
01:32:54,500 –> 01:32:58,020
So. Right. Like, I have no degrees, no certifications.

1482
01:32:58,900 –> 01:33:02,700
Yeah. This is pure conjecture. Right. But if you’re, but if

1483
01:33:02,700 –> 01:33:06,030
you’re a leader and you’re seeing behavior that’s objectively

1484
01:33:07,310 –> 01:33:11,150
bad, objectively not good, how

1485
01:33:11,150 –> 01:33:13,990
do you deal with that on your team? How do you deal with that in

1486
01:33:13,990 –> 01:33:17,470
a world where, well, you know, Johnny just didn’t get hugged.

1487
01:33:18,270 –> 01:33:20,790
Let me add, let me add to your question and see what you, how you

1488
01:33:20,790 –> 01:33:24,350
answer to this one as well. Because not only like, okay, so observationally,

1489
01:33:24,350 –> 01:33:28,110
watching somebody do things that are not bad. What? Fine. Okay, I get that. That’s

1490
01:33:28,110 –> 01:33:31,320
bad inherently evil. We don’t want people doing that. But what happens if you trust,

1491
01:33:31,390 –> 01:33:35,230
try to redirect them, you try to give

1492
01:33:35,230 –> 01:33:38,110
them corrective actions, you try to give them

1493
01:33:38,670 –> 01:33:41,470
opportunity to do the right thing and they choose not to.

1494
01:33:42,750 –> 01:33:46,550
Like how? Like, I mean, I, I, I, I know what I would do. I

1495
01:33:46,550 –> 01:33:49,790
think for me, the answer is very simple. That person’s not on my team anymore.

1496
01:33:49,790 –> 01:33:53,390
I’m. See you later. You’re no, you’re no longer my problem. You’re

1497
01:33:53,390 –> 01:33:57,040
somebody else’s problem at this point. At that point. But should

1498
01:33:57,040 –> 01:34:00,280
I, am I wrong in doing that? Like, should I be thinking about ways to

1499
01:34:00,920 –> 01:34:03,960
be more lenient, to be more

1500
01:34:04,200 –> 01:34:07,680
inclusive, be more willing, be more

1501
01:34:07,680 –> 01:34:11,520
willing to be patient with those corrections? I, I, I don’t know. But

1502
01:34:11,520 –> 01:34:14,920
I will tell you, I only have a certain tolerance level for that stuff. So

1503
01:34:14,920 –> 01:34:18,040
it’s it, you know, and if I point it out to you and you have

1504
01:34:18,040 –> 01:34:21,840
no interest in correcting your behavior, then I have no interest in having

1505
01:34:21,840 –> 01:34:24,210
you on my team. Team. So

1506
01:34:27,250 –> 01:34:31,050
for me, because you’re asking me this question, for me, if I’m

1507
01:34:31,050 –> 01:34:34,530
leading a team of folks and someone is doing something that’s objectively bad,

1508
01:34:34,690 –> 01:34:38,489
right? For the team, I’m going to ask. There’s

1509
01:34:38,489 –> 01:34:41,490
a series of cascading sort of questions I’m going to ask,

1510
01:34:42,450 –> 01:34:45,450
but I am going to see that as objectively bad and I’m going to confront

1511
01:34:45,450 –> 01:34:48,290
that person. That’s one of the first things that I’m going to do because I’ve

1512
01:34:48,290 –> 01:34:52,140
learned that if you confront a person who is

1513
01:34:52,140 –> 01:34:55,860
a. Let’s just start with the lying part, okay? If you confront a

1514
01:34:55,860 –> 01:34:58,780
person who’s a liar with objective truth,

1515
01:34:59,580 –> 01:35:03,260
and by the way, a liar relies on everybody

1516
01:35:03,260 –> 01:35:06,660
going along with the lie, that’s where they get the power because

1517
01:35:06,660 –> 01:35:09,660
everybody just goes along with the lie.

1518
01:35:10,780 –> 01:35:14,620
Well, the most dangerous person on any team and it doesn’t

1519
01:35:14,620 –> 01:35:17,840
have to be the leader, the, the designated leader or the positional leader,

1520
01:35:18,240 –> 01:35:22,080
it can be anybody on the team. The most dangerous person on

1521
01:35:22,080 –> 01:35:25,120
that team is going to be the person who doesn’t go along with the objective

1522
01:35:25,120 –> 01:35:28,520
lie. It doesn’t go along with the, with the lack of

1523
01:35:28,520 –> 01:35:32,320
objective truth, that’s going to be the most dangerous person. This is why

1524
01:35:32,320 –> 01:35:35,920
we have protections for whistleblowers and things like that. Because that person

1525
01:35:36,480 –> 01:35:40,240
not only is dangerous, but is in danger,

1526
01:35:40,400 –> 01:35:44,250
but is also in danger. Okay? So for me, what I’m

1527
01:35:44,250 –> 01:35:47,970
going to do is I’m going to confront that person first. Then the second

1528
01:35:47,970 –> 01:35:50,890
thing I’m going to do is I’m going to

1529
01:35:52,330 –> 01:35:55,650
not try to save that person, but I’m going to sort of take the

1530
01:35:55,650 –> 01:35:56,810
attitude of,

1531
01:36:00,010 –> 01:36:03,610
well, you know my favorite superhero, Batman. I don’t have to save

1532
01:36:03,610 –> 01:36:07,450
you, okay? I’m not obliged

1533
01:36:07,450 –> 01:36:10,760
to rescue you and I’m not going to get out of the way of your

1534
01:36:10,760 –> 01:36:14,280
consequence. So as long as consequences are clear,

1535
01:36:17,080 –> 01:36:20,840
all I am is the deliverer of consequences. That’s all. At the end

1536
01:36:20,840 –> 01:36:24,599
of the day, I’m not the boss, I’m not the leader. I am

1537
01:36:24,599 –> 01:36:28,200
the deliverer of consequences. That’s the other

1538
01:36:28,200 –> 01:36:31,160
thing that people sometimes get caught up on.

1539
01:36:32,600 –> 01:36:36,400
They get caught up on do I have the power to deliver the consequence or

1540
01:36:36,400 –> 01:36:40,110
do I have the power to accept accountability if the consequence doesn’t work and

1541
01:36:40,110 –> 01:36:43,430
it becomes a very power oriented mini

1542
01:36:43,910 –> 01:36:47,030
Nuremberg trial sort of weird,

1543
01:36:47,670 –> 01:36:50,870
sort of we’re going to have the morality without the appeal to the objective sort

1544
01:36:50,870 –> 01:36:53,590
of kind of moment. And people don’t use those terms, but that’s basically what they’re

1545
01:36:53,590 –> 01:36:57,350
doing. Right. At a psychological level, that’s what they’re doing. And

1546
01:36:58,310 –> 01:37:01,030
I think you have to. Think you have to let go of all of that.

1547
01:37:01,110 –> 01:37:04,950
I think you have to say no. You know what? It’s tragic. This

1548
01:37:04,950 –> 01:37:08,470
is the tragic part. Part. It’s tragic that you lied. It’s

1549
01:37:08,470 –> 01:37:10,270
tragic that these are the consequences.

1550
01:37:12,670 –> 01:37:16,270
Have a good day. Goodbye. And by the way,

1551
01:37:16,670 –> 01:37:20,350
when your. Your future employer calls me

1552
01:37:21,549 –> 01:37:25,350
and asks me questions, and the final question, of course, will be, would

1553
01:37:25,350 –> 01:37:29,110
you rehire this person? I’m going to be honest, because

1554
01:37:29,110 –> 01:37:32,410
I’m not going to lie and I’m going to say, no, I’m not going to

1555
01:37:32,410 –> 01:37:36,210
rehire that person. And when they ask me why, because of course, none of

1556
01:37:36,210 –> 01:37:39,090
those. None of those interview questions. I’ve been through a few of those interviews for

1557
01:37:39,090 –> 01:37:42,890
former employees, and none of my former employees let me go on record. None of

1558
01:37:42,890 –> 01:37:46,170
my former employees have I ever had to have this sort of. Sort of

1559
01:37:46,170 –> 01:37:48,970
hypothetical conversation about. I never had any of these kinds of

1560
01:37:49,370 –> 01:37:53,050
problems. Right. I ran into people in other venues that have lied to me, but

1561
01:37:53,050 –> 01:37:56,330
not. Not who I was leading or teams that I was on.

1562
01:37:58,550 –> 01:38:02,390
But. But if, if I had, you know, those series

1563
01:38:02,390 –> 01:38:06,190
of questions they don’t typically ask, did this person lie about XYZ

1564
01:38:06,190 –> 01:38:09,750
or abc? That’s not typically something HR is looking for, but it’s in that

1565
01:38:09,750 –> 01:38:13,510
rehire question. Would you rehire this person? And the answer, of course, is no.

1566
01:38:13,590 –> 01:38:17,270
No, I wouldn’t hire. Rehire a liar. Well, why wouldn’t you rehire this person?

1567
01:38:17,670 –> 01:38:21,350
Well, let me tell you a story, man. Not what I thought about

1568
01:38:21,350 –> 01:38:24,150
it, not what I felt about it, but here’s what practically happened.

1569
01:38:25,910 –> 01:38:28,870
Here’s a fun fact, though. In the state of Massachusetts, you’re not allowed to answer

1570
01:38:28,870 –> 01:38:32,670
that question. Really? You

1571
01:38:32,670 –> 01:38:36,350
can answer, wow, would you rehire this person? And they can

1572
01:38:36,350 –> 01:38:39,990
say, no, I would not rehire this person. And you’re. You. If they say

1573
01:38:40,150 –> 01:38:43,910
why and you answer it, you can get sued

1574
01:38:44,150 –> 01:38:47,510
very, very deeply in the state of Massachusetts, because that really,

1575
01:38:48,150 –> 01:38:51,950
that could be. It could be considered defamation. That could be considered, like, all

1576
01:38:51,950 –> 01:38:55,680
kinds of stuff, because if. If the

1577
01:38:55,680 –> 01:38:59,400
words that come out of your mouth next are closer

1578
01:38:59,400 –> 01:39:02,840
to opinion than fact, then

1579
01:39:03,000 –> 01:39:05,880
it opens up that company to a lot of liability.

1580
01:39:06,520 –> 01:39:10,360
Interesting. In the state of Massachusetts, they will tell you you are

1581
01:39:10,360 –> 01:39:13,720
allowed to answer three questions on a referral or on a

1582
01:39:13,720 –> 01:39:17,520
reference. Yeah. Did they work for you, yes or no. What was the

1583
01:39:17,520 –> 01:39:20,960
time frame that they worked for you? Can you vet and can you

1584
01:39:20,960 –> 01:39:24,680
verify their position? Like, what was their role and

1585
01:39:24,680 –> 01:39:28,400
would you rehire them? That’s it. That’s

1586
01:39:28,400 –> 01:39:31,920
it. That’s. That is a reference in the state of Massachusetts.

1587
01:39:32,400 –> 01:39:35,200
Well, I guess in the state of Massachusetts even liars got to eat.

1588
01:39:36,320 –> 01:39:39,240
And I guess the state of Massachusetts is going to, is going to protect the,

1589
01:39:39,240 –> 01:39:43,000
is going to protect the liars because God forbid the liars don’t

1590
01:39:43,000 –> 01:39:46,170
eat. But maybe if,

1591
01:39:46,570 –> 01:39:50,330
maybe my, my pushback on that and this is my only pushback thought

1592
01:39:50,410 –> 01:39:52,690
and the state of Massachusetts is going to do whatever the state of Massachusetts does

1593
01:39:52,690 –> 01:39:56,010
is well and I can tell you the theory behind it is. The theory behind

1594
01:39:56,010 –> 01:39:59,650
it is just simply if you and I are working together, you’re my boss and

1595
01:39:59,650 –> 01:40:03,010
we just don’t get along. You could and like I didn’t

1596
01:40:03,010 –> 01:40:06,410
technically do anything wrong, but you, you replaced me because

1597
01:40:06,650 –> 01:40:10,330
we just weren’t a good personality fit. Then you could go and then

1598
01:40:10,330 –> 01:40:14,170
vilify that person on, on the reference. Right. And the kinds of things

1599
01:40:14,170 –> 01:40:17,650
we’re talking about, the Kathy Ames of the world are edge cases.

1600
01:40:17,730 –> 01:40:21,570
Right. I, I, I genuinely think there are exact. Yeah. At least in,

1601
01:40:21,570 –> 01:40:24,490
in the state of Massachusetts. In, and I’m not trying to defend them here, but

1602
01:40:24,490 –> 01:40:28,330
in, in their defense, they’re thinking that those are outliers, that those

1603
01:40:28,330 –> 01:40:32,130
are statistical anomalies, that generally people will leave a job because

1604
01:40:32,130 –> 01:40:35,610
they weren’t a good fit and you don’t want to then penalize them and not

1605
01:40:35,610 –> 01:40:38,860
be to your point. They have to, they still have to feed their families. So.

1606
01:40:38,940 –> 01:40:41,580
Right. And if they’re really not that good of a person, you’re going to see

1607
01:40:41,580 –> 01:40:44,620
it on their resume anyway because they’ve had eight jobs in the last five years.

1608
01:40:44,620 –> 01:40:48,060
Right. Like you, you don’t have to be a rocket scientist to figure out that

1609
01:40:48,060 –> 01:40:51,740
there’s a problem there. But, but from a

1610
01:40:52,140 –> 01:40:55,220
But they, they just don’t want to add fuel. They don’t want to allow people

1611
01:40:55,220 –> 01:40:58,100
to add fuel to the fire, I guess is the, is the point to your

1612
01:40:58,100 –> 01:41:01,900
point A few minutes ago it’s like, it’s like working through Dragnet.

1613
01:41:01,980 –> 01:41:04,990
State the fact. Just the facts, ma’. Am. Just, just give me the facts. I

1614
01:41:04,990 –> 01:41:08,550
do not want to hear your opinion as to why that person doesn’t work there

1615
01:41:08,550 –> 01:41:12,390
anymore. Right. I want to hear facts. Fact. Did they

1616
01:41:12,390 –> 01:41:16,230
work there? Yes. Fact is this how much money they made. Fact is this

1617
01:41:16,230 –> 01:41:19,990
the dates and times they work there. And would you rehire them? Should tell

1618
01:41:19,990 –> 01:41:23,710
you everything you need to know. If they say no,

1619
01:41:23,710 –> 01:41:27,310
I would not rehire them. Why it doesn’t. What is the Reasoning does not,

1620
01:41:27,310 –> 01:41:31,120
does not matter. Who the hell cares? That is a red

1621
01:41:31,120 –> 01:41:34,760
flag to me that I’m not overcoming with a simple, well, but

1622
01:41:34,760 –> 01:41:38,040
why was it your fault or theirs? Like, who the hell cares? I don’t care

1623
01:41:38,040 –> 01:41:41,840
if. Right. If they say no. If they say no, I move

1624
01:41:41,840 –> 01:41:45,560
on to the next candidate. Well, and I’m sure there’s also some sort

1625
01:41:45,560 –> 01:41:49,080
of Title seven, Title nine.

1626
01:41:50,120 –> 01:41:53,520
Yeah. Some sort of Civil Rights act sort of

1627
01:41:53,520 –> 01:41:56,280
interpretation underneath,

1628
01:41:56,760 –> 01:42:00,410
underneath this as well, which, which I’m

1629
01:42:00,410 –> 01:42:04,170
sure is again, again, appealing to

1630
01:42:04,170 –> 01:42:07,890
what, like what are we appealing to here? And again, this is my, this is

1631
01:42:07,890 –> 01:42:11,530
my philosophical sort of perspective on this At a

1632
01:42:11,530 –> 01:42:14,690
practical level, again, I am

1633
01:42:15,009 –> 01:42:17,890
practically, I have not experienced an edge case like that.

1634
01:42:19,490 –> 01:42:22,930
Practically speaking, if I were, pragmatically speaking,

1635
01:42:23,170 –> 01:42:26,750
if I were to face an edge case like that, yeah,

1636
01:42:26,750 –> 01:42:30,190
I, I, I’d get rid of that person because that person has to go

1637
01:42:31,710 –> 01:42:35,150
now. Also, let’s, let’s be very clear. The

1638
01:42:35,150 –> 01:42:38,590
likelihood that that person is going to put me down as a reference where I’m

1639
01:42:38,590 –> 01:42:42,349
even going to get that call is probably going to be minimal

1640
01:42:42,349 –> 01:42:46,110
at best. At best. Which is so way when I

1641
01:42:46,110 –> 01:42:48,950
hire people, that’s why I don’t ask them for references. I just go straight off

1642
01:42:48,950 –> 01:42:51,840
their resume and just call random people on their resume. I don’t even ask them.

1643
01:42:52,710 –> 01:42:56,550
Right. Yeah. I just want to know. And by the way, I, I don’t

1644
01:42:56,550 –> 01:43:00,190
even care if like, so again, at our age,

1645
01:43:00,190 –> 01:43:03,910
can you remember the dates and times of all the places that you worked?

1646
01:43:04,070 –> 01:43:07,550
Probably not. I, I can give my best guess. So I don’t even double check

1647
01:43:07,550 –> 01:43:10,230
that, to be honest with you. If somebody says they work there for two years,

1648
01:43:10,790 –> 01:43:13,590
I, that’s usually the question I have. I don’t say did they work there from

1649
01:43:13,590 –> 01:43:16,950
this date to this date. I would just say they worked there for about two

1650
01:43:16,950 –> 01:43:20,030
years. Yeah, something like that sounds about right. Okay. And then I move on. Like

1651
01:43:20,030 –> 01:43:23,230
I don’t, I don’t care what the actual dates are. But like, well, because again,

1652
01:43:23,230 –> 01:43:26,950
I, and it’s not that I think they’re lying. I just think sometimes your, your

1653
01:43:26,950 –> 01:43:30,390
memory fails you in, in remembering the actual

1654
01:43:30,550 –> 01:43:34,230
dates and time. So my only question I really want to know is

1655
01:43:34,230 –> 01:43:37,870
would you rehire them? If given the opportunity and the, and the

1656
01:43:37,870 –> 01:43:41,510
circumstances were, were right for you, would you rehire

1657
01:43:41,510 –> 01:43:45,030
them? And if they probably. Or

1658
01:43:45,110 –> 01:43:48,890
maybe that’s good enough for me too. Like if I just

1659
01:43:48,890 –> 01:43:52,090
don’t want to hear no. I just don’t want to hear no. No, I absolutely

1660
01:43:52,090 –> 01:43:54,610
would not Hire them again. Okay. Thank you very much. I appreciate it. Have a

1661
01:43:54,610 –> 01:43:57,730
nice day. Right, right. You know what I mean? Like,

1662
01:43:58,210 –> 01:44:02,050
anyway, I know we’re, we’re a little off track here, but. No, no, it’s okay.

1663
01:44:02,050 –> 01:44:05,370
It’s okay because, because this gets into. So, okay, so that’s the extreme edge case,

1664
01:44:05,370 –> 01:44:08,890
right? We’re talking about the liar who’s clearly lying. That, that’s

1665
01:44:08,890 –> 01:44:12,120
Kathy Ames type. Let’s go down the, the, the.

1666
01:44:12,760 –> 01:44:16,360
Let’s go down the, the register of sociopathic. Sociopathic scale.

1667
01:44:17,000 –> 01:44:20,720
Sure. Let’s go down the sociopathic scale to your garden variety

1668
01:44:20,720 –> 01:44:24,120
narcissist who takes credit for projects that aren’t theirs,

1669
01:44:24,840 –> 01:44:28,520
talks over other people in the meeting, you

1670
01:44:28,520 –> 01:44:32,000
know, stays within the boundaries of whatever is approved in

1671
01:44:32,000 –> 01:44:35,160
HR language, of behavior, whatever,

1672
01:44:35,640 –> 01:44:38,680
but is always kind of riding the edge kind of slightly,

1673
01:44:40,490 –> 01:44:44,130
and also is loved by a certain cadre of

1674
01:44:44,130 –> 01:44:47,650
people. And thus. And by the way, those cadre of people are

1675
01:44:47,650 –> 01:44:51,370
influential. One of those cadre of people might be your boss and thus

1676
01:44:51,370 –> 01:44:55,169
feels as though they protected themselves from being fired. This

1677
01:44:55,169 –> 01:44:58,970
kind of person is rife in our organizations. Right.

1678
01:44:59,210 –> 01:45:02,890
And the term, of course, it’s thrown around for this person is narcissist all of

1679
01:45:02,890 –> 01:45:06,570
the time. How does a leader do we deal with the narcissists? Because we

1680
01:45:06,570 –> 01:45:09,570
do see a lot of this. And I, by the way, I think we’re seeing

1681
01:45:09,570 –> 01:45:13,170
more narcissists because of social media and because of the

1682
01:45:13,170 –> 01:45:16,810
impact of the Internet plus social media and the performative nature

1683
01:45:17,530 –> 01:45:21,210
of the way we live our lives out online that has now

1684
01:45:21,210 –> 01:45:24,970
spilled out into the real world. I think that’s

1685
01:45:24,970 –> 01:45:28,490
the reason behind it. I think this is a relatively new thing.

1686
01:45:30,730 –> 01:45:34,490
And by new, I mean within the last 15 or 20 years of work culture.

1687
01:45:35,130 –> 01:45:38,330
I don’t think. I think people were just as narcissistic in the 1980s, in the

1688
01:45:38,330 –> 01:45:42,090
1970s, 1950s, 1960s. Hell, they were just as narcissistic when they

1689
01:45:42,090 –> 01:45:45,690
were making straw without bricks

1690
01:45:46,970 –> 01:45:50,090
at the end of Genesis or at the beginning, actually, at the beginning of Exodus.

1691
01:45:50,090 –> 01:45:53,810
Sorry, they were just as narcissistic then. They just didn’t

1692
01:45:53,810 –> 01:45:57,530
have as many outlets for their narcissism. We’ve given people

1693
01:45:57,530 –> 01:46:01,210
more outlets for narcissism. Thus the number of

1694
01:46:01,210 –> 01:46:04,900
times we see that behavior and can recognize it in real life and other

1695
01:46:04,900 –> 01:46:08,660
people has increased, particularly in our workplaces. What,

1696
01:46:08,660 –> 01:46:12,340
as leaders, do we do with the garden variety narcissist who we can’t quite fire,

1697
01:46:12,660 –> 01:46:16,460
but we know they’re going to be a problem at every meeting? I

1698
01:46:16,460 –> 01:46:20,180
Wonder also, like before I answer that, I wonder also if we sometimes

1699
01:46:20,820 –> 01:46:24,460
confuse narcissist with self

1700
01:46:24,460 –> 01:46:28,220
preservation. Right? Like, so you, if you, that’s

1701
01:46:28,220 –> 01:46:31,780
good, you could come across as a narcissist if you are in

1702
01:46:31,780 –> 01:46:34,220
defense mode all the time or if you are in,

1703
01:46:35,740 –> 01:46:39,580
you know, you know, fight like that. If you’re, if your

1704
01:46:39,740 –> 01:46:43,260
fight or flight is invoked and you decide to fight, sometimes you look like a

1705
01:46:43,260 –> 01:46:46,340
narcissist and you’re just defending your position on something or. You know what I mean?

1706
01:46:46,340 –> 01:46:49,940
Like, I think sometimes we. To your point a second ago, I

1707
01:46:49,940 –> 01:46:53,740
don’t know if we’re truly seeing more narcissistic behavior or

1708
01:46:53,740 –> 01:46:55,750
if we’re seeing more

1709
01:46:57,030 –> 01:46:59,590
behavior that feels like they need to be

1710
01:47:01,990 –> 01:47:05,430
that they’re defending themselves or that they have to put themselves in a position of

1711
01:47:07,110 –> 01:47:10,830
detraction of attention, so to speak. Right? Like the boss is coming down on a

1712
01:47:10,830 –> 01:47:14,590
project. This isn’t getting done. It’s not my fault. I did this, this

1713
01:47:14,590 –> 01:47:17,630
and this. So don’t look at me like it’s, it’s self preservation more than it

1714
01:47:17,630 –> 01:47:21,470
is narcissism. Now again, is that true or not? I don’t know. I’m just, I,

1715
01:47:21,470 –> 01:47:25,060
I wonder about that though, if that, that is the case. Case. And in those

1716
01:47:25,060 –> 01:47:28,620
environments. I feel like that

1717
01:47:29,420 –> 01:47:32,900
because like again, the, the, the situation I just gave you, like if you have

1718
01:47:32,900 –> 01:47:36,620
a project going as a team, then you are

1719
01:47:36,620 –> 01:47:40,220
successful or you fail as that team. Stop singling people out.

1720
01:47:40,780 –> 01:47:44,580
Like, stop, stop allowing your team to say, well, I did my part, so

1721
01:47:44,580 –> 01:47:48,220
and so didn’t do theirs. That’s not relevant. If you are going to be

1722
01:47:48,220 –> 01:47:51,750
successful or failed and if you’re going to be judged success or

1723
01:47:51,750 –> 01:47:55,390
failure by the team, then start allowing, start

1724
01:47:55,390 –> 01:47:58,550
forcing the team to view it that way. I think that’s number one.

1725
01:47:59,190 –> 01:48:03,030
If it’s not a team event and it’s, if it’s not a team activity

1726
01:48:03,270 –> 01:48:06,950
and you are simply judging people based on their own

1727
01:48:06,950 –> 01:48:10,710
merit, then it’s not narcissism.

1728
01:48:10,870 –> 01:48:14,390
That like you’re asking them, did you do this? Did you do it well enough

1729
01:48:14,390 –> 01:48:18,240
for me to recognize you? And if the answer is yes, then it’s not narcissism.

1730
01:48:18,240 –> 01:48:21,480
It’s a matter of fact, right? I think where we get, I think where we

1731
01:48:21,480 –> 01:48:25,320
get really caught up in the, in the jacks of narcissism is when we

1732
01:48:25,320 –> 01:48:28,880
look at a team and we are judging that team

1733
01:48:29,120 –> 01:48:32,880
as individuals and not as a team. Well then stop

1734
01:48:32,880 –> 01:48:35,760
calling them the team. Like, you know what I mean? Like

1735
01:48:36,880 –> 01:48:39,840
if it’s not a team event, then stop calling it a team event. Maybe some

1736
01:48:39,840 –> 01:48:43,450
of that narcissism goes away. Yeah, maybe it does.

1737
01:48:43,450 –> 01:48:47,290
And you know what? And, and this is. We’ll close out with this.

1738
01:48:48,570 –> 01:48:52,250
I think we have to be careful about language, right?

1739
01:48:52,570 –> 01:48:55,690
So words have power, people.

1740
01:48:56,330 –> 01:48:58,850
It may be the only. It may be only. It may only be the power

1741
01:48:58,850 –> 01:49:01,850
that we give it, but it’s still we. We give words power. So words have

1742
01:49:01,850 –> 01:49:03,290
power. Words have power.

1743
01:49:03,690 –> 01:49:06,750
Yeah.

1744
01:49:09,700 –> 01:49:13,300
What can we take from east of Eden into

1745
01:49:15,140 –> 01:49:16,820
well into the next

1746
01:49:18,580 –> 01:49:22,380
25 years of growth in America? I mean, the vast majority of our

1747
01:49:22,380 –> 01:49:26,100
population is going to live in cities. If the, if the census

1748
01:49:26,100 –> 01:49:29,620
numbers are to be believed, if the trend lines, the demographic lines continue to go

1749
01:49:29,620 –> 01:49:32,420
in the same direction that they are predicted to go in.

1750
01:49:34,710 –> 01:49:38,230
We are going to have a culture, and I’m talking about a cultural level.

1751
01:49:38,390 –> 01:49:41,910
We’re going to have a culture that is going to want to see and read

1752
01:49:43,190 –> 01:49:46,310
when they do read more stories

1753
01:49:47,190 –> 01:49:50,990
that are. That relate to the. The environments they

1754
01:49:50,990 –> 01:49:54,470
are in which is natural for human beings. And if you’re in a city environment

1755
01:49:54,630 –> 01:49:57,030
or a suburban environment, you’re going to want to see

1756
01:49:59,120 –> 01:50:02,760
stories, read stories, consume culture that reflects

1757
01:50:02,760 –> 01:50:06,560
that reality back to you. That way you feel like you have agency over

1758
01:50:06,560 –> 01:50:10,240
that reality. A

1759
01:50:10,240 –> 01:50:14,000
minority of people are going to live in rural areas, and

1760
01:50:14,480 –> 01:50:18,080
while they may be underserved in those areas,

1761
01:50:18,160 –> 01:50:21,960
they’re of course going to have iPhones or whatever the phone is of the

1762
01:50:21,960 –> 01:50:25,500
day. They’re going to be able to consume that content coming from,

1763
01:50:25,650 –> 01:50:29,410
from those city areas and those city creators.

1764
01:50:29,410 –> 01:50:33,050
I think of the writer Taylor Sheridan, the writer of Yellowstone, right.

1765
01:50:33,050 –> 01:50:36,770
Who, you know, infamously was, in his

1766
01:50:36,930 –> 01:50:40,730
hagiographic story of building Yellowstone, he was told that, you

1767
01:50:40,730 –> 01:50:44,450
know, we don’t. We don’t. You told by a Hollywood executive that, you know,

1768
01:50:45,090 –> 01:50:48,810
we don’t accept stories that are set in rural areas because we can’t

1769
01:50:48,810 –> 01:50:51,650
market them to an urban audience. And we’ve been doing that at least since the

1770
01:50:51,650 –> 01:50:55,420
1970s. So go back and try again and again how

1771
01:50:55,420 –> 01:50:59,260
much truth there is to that story. Who knows, right? It may just

1772
01:50:59,260 –> 01:51:02,940
be part of the hagiography of Taylor Sheridan, right? The

1773
01:51:02,940 –> 01:51:05,380
myth of Taylor Sheridan that he’s building, right?

1774
01:51:07,460 –> 01:51:11,300
And because two things can be true at once, I do think that there

1775
01:51:11,300 –> 01:51:15,140
is a hunger or a thirst or a need for stories that

1776
01:51:15,140 –> 01:51:18,260
are set in rural areas like east of Eden that do

1777
01:51:19,790 –> 01:51:23,350
show nature and do show the land and

1778
01:51:23,350 –> 01:51:27,030
do show the struggles of the struggling against

1779
01:51:27,030 –> 01:51:30,870
the ruthlessness of the natural world to Remind people

1780
01:51:30,870 –> 01:51:34,670
who live in the cities that it’s not all just smooth and

1781
01:51:34,670 –> 01:51:38,030
easy and all you got to deal with is these wackadoo other human beings

1782
01:51:38,910 –> 01:51:42,630
of which there are a lot of. There’s also this other world that lives

1783
01:51:42,630 –> 01:51:46,190
out here that we’re actually a part of.

1784
01:51:46,800 –> 01:51:50,480
We’re just sort of cut off from it because of our technology and our

1785
01:51:50,480 –> 01:51:53,600
concrete and our buildings. And we need to.

1786
01:51:54,720 –> 01:51:58,160
As the. As the. Again, as the kids would say these days, we need to

1787
01:51:58,160 –> 01:52:01,880
touch grass. We need to get outside and like, get connected

1788
01:52:01,880 –> 01:52:05,720
back with that. So final thoughts on that. Do

1789
01:52:05,720 –> 01:52:09,280
we. Where. Where do we go with east of Eden? Will it still be a

1790
01:52:09,280 –> 01:52:11,920
bestseller in 25 years, do we think? I mean, I think it will because it

1791
01:52:11,920 –> 01:52:15,030
addresses human nature, but I wonder if there will be.

1792
01:52:15,750 –> 01:52:19,310
I wonder if the interest will wane. Maybe it won’t sell 50,000

1793
01:52:19,310 –> 01:52:23,110
copies. Maybe it only sell 15,000. Right. Because there just

1794
01:52:23,110 –> 01:52:26,270
won’t be a way for us to sort of relate to that anymore based on

1795
01:52:26,270 –> 01:52:27,030
our lived experience.

1796
01:52:30,230 –> 01:52:33,990
Well, I can’t. I won’t predict it. All I

1797
01:52:33,990 –> 01:52:37,470
can say is I hope that writers like

1798
01:52:37,470 –> 01:52:40,410
Steinbeck are still being read in 20, 20, 50,

1799
01:52:41,050 –> 01:52:44,410
because I think to. To what we talked about earlier, I.

1800
01:52:44,650 –> 01:52:48,410
I think his observation of human nature is

1801
01:52:49,210 –> 01:52:53,050
worth it. And I don’t think I. I don’t think human nature is going to

1802
01:52:53,050 –> 01:52:56,850
change all that dramatically in the next 25 years. I think, you

1803
01:52:56,850 –> 01:52:59,770
know, I think. I think so. I think it’s going to be. I think it’s

1804
01:52:59,770 –> 01:53:03,370
going to be relevant for a long time. And I think I.

1805
01:53:03,370 –> 01:53:07,060
Again, I’m not predicting this, but I’m fine. I’m saying this is a hopefulness.

1806
01:53:07,620 –> 01:53:11,420
Like I. Like I said, probably. Probably more than once already in this

1807
01:53:11,420 –> 01:53:15,220
episode here. I

1808
01:53:15,220 –> 01:53:17,860
think his magic power comes from being able to.

1809
01:53:19,460 –> 01:53:23,060
To find value in people

1810
01:53:25,060 –> 01:53:28,580
or, or. Or to find the value in people

1811
01:53:29,780 –> 01:53:33,340
and then lean into that value instead of trying to change people and

1812
01:53:33,340 –> 01:53:36,610
mood, people, motivate people. He doesn’t try to do any of that. That he just

1813
01:53:36,610 –> 01:53:39,690
sees who they are and leans into it. And I think that.

1814
01:53:40,410 –> 01:53:43,930
I think that as the, the, as a society, if we can do a little

1815
01:53:43,930 –> 01:53:47,170
bit more of that and stop trying to mold people into who we want them

1816
01:53:47,170 –> 01:53:50,810
to be, we’re going to be better off for it. So

1817
01:53:50,890 –> 01:53:54,250
hopefully, and again, I’m not saying this as a prediction, but hopefully,

1818
01:53:54,490 –> 01:53:58,210
writers like Steinbeck don’t go away at all. And people just start, you know,

1819
01:53:58,210 –> 01:54:01,770
to your point about, you know, sometimes things

1820
01:54:01,770 –> 01:54:05,430
circle back, right. And sometimes Sometimes we, we, we

1821
01:54:05,430 –> 01:54:09,270
lose sight of something and somebody like Oprah comes along and says,

1822
01:54:09,270 –> 01:54:11,790
hey, by the way, if you’ve seen this classic book, you should read it. And

1823
01:54:11,790 –> 01:54:15,630
all of a sudden it’s back in the bestseller, right? Maybe the next

1824
01:54:15,630 –> 01:54:19,149
Oprah does the same thing. I don’t know who that’s going to be, but you

1825
01:54:19,149 –> 01:54:22,830
never know. Maybe it’s, maybe it’s the, the writer or

1826
01:54:22,830 –> 01:54:26,470
the creative person that takes east of Eden and finally turns it into a

1827
01:54:26,630 –> 01:54:30,110
on screen event. Whether it’s a miniseries or a movie or

1828
01:54:30,110 –> 01:54:33,580
whatever. I feel like we’re,

1829
01:54:33,660 –> 01:54:37,500
I, I think Hollywood’s doing us a disservice by not putting this on, on film.

1830
01:54:37,740 –> 01:54:41,180
And again, whether, again, maybe it’s a miniseries, maybe it’s not a movie in a

1831
01:54:41,180 –> 01:54:44,980
theater, but maybe Netflix grabbed a hold of it and turns it

1832
01:54:44,980 –> 01:54:48,700
into an eight episode series. Yeah, I would

1833
01:54:48,700 –> 01:54:52,220
watch that. Well, I would watch that more than once, I think, because

1834
01:54:52,380 –> 01:54:55,500
Grapes of Wrath was turned into a movie. It was fantastic. Mice of Men was

1835
01:54:55,500 –> 01:54:58,980
turned into a movie that was fantastic. I don’t understand why this has not been

1836
01:54:58,980 –> 01:55:02,300
yet, but I think it should be. And I think that may be the

1837
01:55:02,540 –> 01:55:06,180
way that we get Steinbeck to be a little bit more sticky for the

1838
01:55:06,180 –> 01:55:09,300
next 25 years is to take east of Me and turn it into a film.

1839
01:55:09,300 –> 01:55:13,139
So if anyone’s listening to this that has access to Hollywood, get this

1840
01:55:13,139 –> 01:55:13,740
on film.

1841
01:55:17,580 –> 01:55:21,340
You’ve got two viewers here. I’ll watch it too. I will be,

1842
01:55:21,340 –> 01:55:24,900
I will be on that. I will be on that. And get a good writer.

1843
01:55:24,900 –> 01:55:27,900
Get a writer who actually like, loves,

1844
01:55:28,620 –> 01:55:32,220
not just California, I would say, but a writer who

1845
01:55:32,220 –> 01:55:35,660
loves the dichotomy, the tension

1846
01:55:35,980 –> 01:55:39,740
between the rural and the urban and understands that,

1847
01:55:41,500 –> 01:55:45,140
and understands the nature not only of the biblical illusions, but also

1848
01:55:45,140 –> 01:55:48,620
can fall in love with them. I’m not saying they have to believe in them,

1849
01:55:48,760 –> 01:55:52,520
but can fall in love with them and really do, do honor

1850
01:55:52,520 –> 01:55:56,200
to really do honor to Steinbeck’s work and Steinbeck’s efforts. All right,

1851
01:55:57,080 –> 01:56:00,920
that’s all we got for today. I think we’re good here. We’ve

1852
01:56:00,920 –> 01:56:04,520
now talked for four hours. This is the longest we’ve talked about one book. Four

1853
01:56:04,520 –> 01:56:07,960
hours total beating

1854
01:56:08,280 –> 01:56:12,080
Miyamoto Musashi’s A Book of Five Rings where

1855
01:56:12,080 –> 01:56:15,810
I talked with John Hill, AKA Small Mountain. Four hours about the

1856
01:56:15,810 –> 01:56:19,130
book, about, about the Book of Five Rings. Most

1857
01:56:19,130 –> 01:56:22,970
downloaded episode the first two years of this podcast, but we’ve talked for

1858
01:56:22,970 –> 01:56:25,770
a total of four hours about east of Eden. So go out, grab east of

1859
01:56:25,770 –> 01:56:29,610
Eden by John Steinbeck. You will not regret it. I’d like to thank

1860
01:56:29,610 –> 01:56:33,250
Tom Libby for coming on our recorded podcast today.

1861
01:56:35,010 –> 01:56:38,690
Always my pleasure. It was so. It was so. It was so pleasurable for me.

1862
01:56:38,690 –> 01:56:42,370
I did it twice. There you go. And with that, I’m out.