Parade’s End by Ford Madox Ford w/Libby Unger

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Hello. My name is Jesan Sorrells and this

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is the Leadership Lessons from the Great Books podcast, episode

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number one forty-five.

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In this episode today, we will talk about a book

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that is part and parcel of a larger tetralogy.

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I love that word. That means four books. Right? Not

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just not just a trilogy, a tetralogy. This book,

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stands as a cultural, political, and moral commentary

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on a world that was in the progress of passing away,

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but had not yet been completely swept away by

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war, economic strife, and as we were talking about just

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before, we press the record button today, social

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incoherence. This tetralogy this

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tetralogy is part of a larger narrative describing British and Western

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transitions during a typically unpredictable

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third turning period. And in case you’ve forgotten what a third turning

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is, I’m going to go ahead and pull the definition from William

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Strauss in your Neil Howe’s book, from the nineteen nineties, The

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Fourth Turning, where they describe what a third turning is, and I

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quote, the mood of this era, they say, is in many ways the

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opposite of a high. Institutions are weak and distrusted, while

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individualism is strong and flourishing. The authors say highs come

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after crises when society wants to coalesce and build and

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avoid the death and destruction of the previous crisis. Unravelings come

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after awakenings when society wants to atomize and

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enjoy itself. And the

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period that is described in this book today, in Parade’s End,

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in this novel, is a period of

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unraveling.

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This is a eighty year cycle. Right? The eighty year seculum

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cycle that dominated the West that began at the end of the

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American Civil War and ran all the way to the end of World War two.

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And this book tracks the travails and relationships of men and

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women in a world where colonial assumptions were strong,

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but were beginning to unravel. They were beginning to be

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questioned. By the way, this book,

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this tetralogy, was translated into a five episode show on

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HBO, that showed up about twelve years ago.

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And it features a love triangle, and repressed Victorian,

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Edwardian elements. While reading this

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book, I was reminded of yet another very British show that was popular back

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in the day, that I didn’t watch. It was yet another

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cultural touchstone shared by many that sailed on by me, like a

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cruise ship moving through the North Atlantic.

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Today, we will be summarizing and analyzing the themes and

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larger lessons for leaders from what is probably the consummate narrative

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of the pre World War one world. Harades

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End by Ford, Maddox Ford.

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Leaders, how does one lead in a world that is unraveling

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underfoot faster than you can make decisions about

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what directions or even what answers

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or what actions to take.

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And today, we will be joined, by our guest cohost

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yet again in our now fourth season of

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the Leadership Lessons from the Great Books podcast, regular

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guest cohost Libby Unger. Hello, Libby. How are you doing

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today? Hello, Jesan. I am

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spectacular. So last time we talked,

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it was last year, before the, the

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presidential election in The United States. Now we are in

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2025. The world has not ended,

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dare I say, although some people would claim that it has. And,

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yeah. I don’t know. We’re reading, we’re we’re gonna read, we’re gonna read and look

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at Parade’s End. Even

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before I jump into the book, I know normally we jump into the book, but

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I’m gonna break it up a little bit differently, this time.

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The the copy that I have has a great, Pre Raphaelite, you know,

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cover. It’s an open source copy. You can get, copies of Parades

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Inn floating around everywhere. It’s an open source book, because it’s been in,

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been in the public, public domain for, now a

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hundred years.

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And this book is dense. Right? And it’s a tetralogy. Right? So it’s four books

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in one. I will be honest. I did not read all four books.

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I read the first one and a little bit of the second one, and then

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I I called it good, primarily because the

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type was so tiny in the copy that I’ve got, because they tried to

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cram all four books together. And so they made it, like, eight point type, and

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I have elderly eyes. I finally reached the point where my eyes are

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elderly. Finally reached Switch to the the Kindle.

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Well, this is what this is what all my friends say, but I’m I’m a

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sucker for the physical book. I am I’m a sucker for the physical book still.

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What did you think about this book? I just wanna get that off the table

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right off the bat. If you’re gonna read any excerpts, if you’re gonna read anything,

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what did you think about this book?

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I actually really enjoyed it. But Okay.

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I think I just love being pulled

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in to hearing about the history

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of the time. And,

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World War one, I had a great grandfather who was

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at yeah. Did the trench warfare and came back.

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And the visualization

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and the feel that you get from the book just makes it very

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real. And, I think I

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just am yearning for

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that feeling of tangible life

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that, you know, we’re really devoid of unless you really go

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go searching for it now. Like, living life in a digital

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age, we were talking about, you know, the current is

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it fifth gen warfare that we’re experiencing? And

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then thinking just as recently as, you know, a hundred and

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ten years ago, you know, our grandfathers were

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fighting in the trenches. You know,

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but a hand to hand, you know, warfare. And that’s,

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it’s hard to fathom and imagine, but I enjoyed it.

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I also enjoy seeing and

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reading about how little human nature really changes. Our

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clothes, they change,

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and the way we speak and what we, you know, and how

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we express ourselves may be different, but, fundamentally,

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you know, we still at our essence are the same. And

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so the women coming through like,

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if I didn’t know this book was written in 1919

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or 1920, I would thought that this was a nine

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2020 version Mhmm. Or depiction of

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1919. Yeah.

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It’s so there are some authors,

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and I I was reminded of this when, when I

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read this book of some of the books that I read in my English

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literature class in college. Right? The one English literature

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class that I took. And, and, yes, indeed, I

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yes. For folks who are wondering, yes, I did get an a in that class.

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But, when we would read Victorian literature,

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particularly victor post World War two Victorian literature,

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it was written from a perspective that was very,

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Not triumphant. That’s not the term. Mhmm. The

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it it was very it was written from a perspective that was very

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that was still creating or still insisting

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that the pre World War one world was was a

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paradise. Right? And that the post World War one

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world was where was what you get on

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the other side of losing paradise. Right? There were

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and there were and I was also reminded the second thing that I was reminded

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of when I read this book was of how many authors and

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poets and artists just ground out, just

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died in the song and died in the Western Front.

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You know, how many voices just were clipped like

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roses on a spring day, right, in

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an attempt to get, you know, four yards

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of four yards of dirt. Right? And

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I read a I read a an article or a blog

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post, about the anniversary of World War

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one, sort of as a connect as an anecdotal well, not

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anecdotal, but as an extra add on to this book because, normally, I’ll read, like,

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research around the book, and I’ll try to find out a little bit about the

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author. We’ll talk about Ford Maddox Ford today and his his life.

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But, one of the points that was made in the article that I was

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reading was that World War one is still a war that

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is not yet fully comprehended by Americans,

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because it was probably the last European war,

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genuinely Europeanly European led World

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War. Right? Mhmm. The others argue it’s made that World War two was a

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European led war, but that was much more global in its scope.

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Right? Because all everybody sort of jumped in the pool on that. But

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for World War one, the British, the French, and the Germans really

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did, and the Russians, really did

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bang it out, right, on the Western front. And, yes, there were

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other there were other, fronts that were opened. Like, we’ve

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read DH Lawrence. We’ve read Seven Pillars of Wisdom on this podcast.

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I’m a huge fan of DH Lawrence,

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Lawrence of Arabia. So we read about Lawrence of Arabia. We read

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about his adventures in in in Arabia.

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We I’m aware of Churchill, and his

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his challenges in serving in the British military in,

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in, Greece. Right? And

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in that area of Southern Europe during World War during World War

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one. And then, of course, the Americans

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came over, you know, you know, sort of at the end, and

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were sort of a fresh injection of blood and of bodies

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into something that let’s say

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what you want about pre World War two Germany.

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They did have a point

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that they were never fully defeated on the battlefield.

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They were correct. They weren’t fully defeated on the battlefield until

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the Americans came along and gave the British and French a shot of bodies that

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they needed.

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And so you can see where I can see where German resentment

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around that and the romanticization of the period

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going into World War two from coming out of World War

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one allowed someone like the

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Weimar or allowed the Weimar Republic that allowed Hitler to sort of come along and

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do this thing. Right? And so I tell I say

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all that to say this. This book is about the British

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experience with World War one, both in a pre World War one world

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and then a post World War one world. It had it has that sense

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of Victorian romanticism.

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But for all of the problems that Britain had in World War one in the

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trenches of Western Europe, they didn’t lose one

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colony.

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And no one ever comments on the irony of that. Like, they didn’t stop being

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colonial colonialists. They

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didn’t they didn’t they didn’t lose one colony. They didn’t surrender one colony.

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They saw no need to. They still had the Rudyard Kipling

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white man’s burden attitude. Like, that that didn’t fully get

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beaten out of them until World War two. And then even why did it

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get beaten out of them in World War two? Well, it got beaten out of

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them because they couldn’t Churchill couldn’t figure out a way to

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beat the Germans without the Americans.

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He couldn’t figure out a way to pull it off. And if

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they could have pulled it off, if they had had enough men immaterial to beat

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the Germans, not just to take a pounding in London

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with the blitz, but if during World War two, they had had the men immaterial

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to push the German machine back to

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Berlin, the British would have marched through Northern France

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all the way to Berlin, and they would have wrapped up that war in a

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heartbeat. And the French would have come along, you know, as an

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after thought, that would have made de Gaulle very unhappy. But he

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was in he was unpleasant just in general. So nothing was gonna make

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him happy. But, he was incapable of being

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happy. But, but but I

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think that’s why. I think that’s that was the that was why it got beaten

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out of them because they were so demoralized that they couldn’t they couldn’t do the

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thing that they would have done or would have tried to do historically.

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This is where my, my knowledge of history is

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perhaps a little limited. But so,

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it sounds like because all of the men and materials were

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focused on Europe that weekend, both the

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French and the British, presence in their colonies,

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like in India, for example, or in. Right? And so

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that was the opportunity that, like, India

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took to push the French out. Yep. Yeah. And

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French to or in the French colonies took to

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push the French out as they were in a weakened state,

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men, materials, money, forced by World War two,

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and that’s what’s forced the decolonization.

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Yeah. I mean, the Gandhi

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so Gandhi really didn’t

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and and my timeline’s maybe screwed up, so people can correct me on this.

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But Gandhi really didn’t get on his anti British

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kick until, after World War

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two. Right? And you’re right. Like, the

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British had no and it had no they had nothing

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for that. Right? The French I

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was explaining this to my wife the other day, because she was like, how did

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Pol Pot happen? Because she didn’t understand how Pol Pot happened. And I said

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Pol Pot happened because of the Khmer Rouge

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and because of the Vietnam War. And the reason the Vietnam War happened was

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because Ho Chi Minh, who was educated, if I remember

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correctly, in France in Marxism,

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saw an opportunity post World War two to

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drive the French out of what was formerly known as Indochina,

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and the Americans underneath Eisenhower, after the whole

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Suez Canal disaster, decided, you

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know what? We’re not gonna help the French out.

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We’re just gonna sort of let them flop around there in Southeast Asia. We’ll send

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some advisers, but we’re not sending troops. And the French desperately

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wanted us to send troops in ’57

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to Vietnam. Well, what would later become Vietnam, which was known as French

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Indochina at that point to protect French colonial interests there. Because the

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French were like, we can’t we can’t lose this colony. But by that point, it

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was starting to unravel I think it was starting to unravel anyway. And they were

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about to have a bad problem in Algeria, which they couldn’t get around,

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and that’s it. Like, that began they’ve that began their

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their their beating of their retreat out of Asia and Africa.

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You know, the long sunset of the French empire.

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Which, by the way, interestingly enough, we were talking about geopolitics before we got

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on this. I suspect in the

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next twenty five years, the French will be running the European

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Union, and they will be just as shady gangsters as they

259
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are twenty years from now as they are right now. And they’ll be running it

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for their own interests. Because I don’t see any but I

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don’t see any I don’t see any other in the current geopolitical climate, I

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don’t see any other power on the continent that will be able

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to to push the EU in a particular direction. The germ

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the Germans can’t do it. Why not Germany? Mhmm. Why not Germany? Because

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the Germans are fractured. They’re fractured internally. Their party politics

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are fractured internally. They can’t even agree on

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whether or not to build a coal fire plant.

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Yeah. I mean, they, that is

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true. Over the last ten to fifteen years, France has done

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a pretty good job at building its business base.

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They’ve also using nuclear. You know, you’re wondering

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if they did play five-d chess with Germany because Germany

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fully the, got out of

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manufacturing. They ruined themselves with the climate

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crisis. Yeah. Mhmm. Climate change by, you know, through

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deindustrialization, through getting rid of

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all not allowing nuclear, not allowing their coal plants. I

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mean, it it’s it does feel like self sabotage.

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And, you know, and someone’s benefiting from it. It’s not

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the Germans. And you never you never

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hear, with the exception of a

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few challenges that the French had in the mid

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early two thousands with their ghettos, where

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the Muslim immigrants are all pushed unceremoniously.

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They got a real ghetto problem, like a Cabrini Green level ghetto problem.

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But they don’t ever talk about that, and they don’t ever talk about it. They

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don’t ever talk about dealing with it. They don’t ever talk about fixing it.

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And partially, this is because of the French character, I think,

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where if you don’t speak the language, you’re not French. And even if you do

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speak the language, it doesn’t matter, you’re still not French. Like, they have a real

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00:18:49.945 –> 00:18:53.785
clear idea of what’s French and what’s not. What’s French is anybody who was

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00:18:53.785 –> 00:18:57.110
in France. What’s not is everybody else, period.

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Doesn’t share if we doesn’t matter if we share the same skin color, doesn’t even

294
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matter if we speak the same language. And and, I could

295
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speak with a little bit of authority on this. I had friends who were from

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Liberia who spoke sub Saharan French. Yeah. And then when

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they would go to France, the French people in France would say they weren’t speaking

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French correctly. And it would drive my Liberian

299
00:19:18.785 –> 00:19:21.765
friends crazy. You see the same dynamic with people from Quebec.

300
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Right? Like, the Quebecois, when they go to France, when they

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00:19:25.880 –> 00:19:29.480
go to Paris, the the Parisians have nothing for them. They think they’re

302
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degenerate, you know, savages

303
00:19:34.040 –> 00:19:37.800
because of the language. And so France, even though

304
00:19:37.800 –> 00:19:41.335
no one speaks French globally, it’s not it’s not a global language

305
00:19:41.335 –> 00:19:44.715
anymore. They have a very

306
00:19:44.775 –> 00:19:48.555
strong and definitive idea around their language of who’s in and who’s out,

307
00:19:48.775 –> 00:19:51.050
and they have no problem telling you either. I

308
00:19:53.030 –> 00:19:56.330
gotta pull a Murray on you.

309
00:19:56.950 –> 00:19:59.910
Yeah. Go ahead. Go ahead. Pull a Doug Murray on me. Go right ahead. Go

310
00:19:59.910 –> 00:20:02.895
right ahead. I’ll be whatever that libertarian guy’s name is.

311
00:20:13.935 –> 00:20:16.035
Just from your reading and your conversation.

312
00:20:22.049 –> 00:20:24.870
I’m sorry. I couldn’t help but bring in Charles Murray.

313
00:20:25.809 –> 00:20:29.590
Sure. That being said,

314
00:20:30.765 –> 00:20:34.385
there is something to be said about how the French

315
00:20:34.605 –> 00:20:38.205
play politically, and they always seem their elite,

316
00:20:38.205 –> 00:20:41.885
anyway, always seem to come out unscathed. Like, the way that they

317
00:20:41.885 –> 00:20:45.505
played World War two when they house Mhmm. And they house the,

318
00:20:46.769 –> 00:20:50.289
they supported the Nazis. Mhmm. The way

319
00:20:50.769 –> 00:20:54.309
you know, they there has always been a,

320
00:20:55.009 –> 00:20:58.389
a north an African issue. At least, I remember my friend,

321
00:20:58.585 –> 00:21:02.185
yeah, French literature class when I was actually reading French literature and

322
00:21:02.185 –> 00:21:06.025
French Mhmm. In high school, and we would talk about they would talk

323
00:21:06.025 –> 00:21:09.545
about the. Mhmm. Yeah. And that

324
00:21:09.545 –> 00:21:13.390
was, you know, how they

325
00:21:13.390 –> 00:21:16.909
spoke about the Africans who were in the country, and there was always,

326
00:21:18.190 –> 00:21:22.029
tensions. Mhmm. But they do have a very powerful

327
00:21:22.029 –> 00:21:25.515
narrative that keeps the attention off of them

328
00:21:26.395 –> 00:21:30.015
Mhmm. And on, you know, and on,

329
00:21:30.475 –> 00:21:33.615
you know, UK and German and US.

330
00:21:35.035 –> 00:21:38.710
I don’t know if you’re follow with Kansas. I went

331
00:21:38.710 –> 00:21:40.410
to Macron at all.

332
00:21:42.630 –> 00:21:46.470
But she’s being sued only like,

333
00:21:46.470 –> 00:21:49.910
they can’t find any lack of facts in what she’s

334
00:21:49.910 –> 00:21:53.645
saying. They’re just doing their on

335
00:21:53.645 –> 00:21:57.245
it being inconvenient. And so it

336
00:21:57.245 –> 00:22:01.005
is whether what she’s saying is true or

337
00:22:01.005 –> 00:22:04.525
not, I don’t really care. It’s the drama, and it’s the

338
00:22:04.525 –> 00:22:07.910
legal it’s the when you watch how

339
00:22:07.910 –> 00:22:11.750
laws are used and applied Mhmm. Like, is it on

340
00:22:11.750 –> 00:22:15.510
the facts or is it on the inconvenience? The

341
00:22:15.510 –> 00:22:19.270
inconvenience. Yeah. Right? Right. So the French do have

342
00:22:19.270 –> 00:22:22.935
an interesting way of always coming

343
00:22:22.935 –> 00:22:25.755
out with their institutions intact,

344
00:22:26.775 –> 00:22:30.455
at least in the last hundred and fifty years

345
00:22:30.455 –> 00:22:34.295
in Europe, not Mhmm. Not not with the

346
00:22:34.295 –> 00:22:37.930
colonization. Yeah. No. They they but

347
00:22:38.150 –> 00:22:41.690
they traditionally seem to have struggled with

348
00:22:43.350 –> 00:22:47.030
not seem to have. Traditionally, the French struggled with their

349
00:22:47.030 –> 00:22:50.505
colonies. You can see that in how

350
00:22:50.565 –> 00:22:54.005
they engaged around Haiti, and

351
00:22:54.005 –> 00:22:57.705
also, how they engaged or disengaged

352
00:22:58.245 –> 00:23:02.010
with the Louisiana Purchase, you know, which Napoleon

353
00:23:02.090 –> 00:23:05.690
the only reason Napoleon sold all of that was because he needed money That was

354
00:23:05.690 –> 00:23:09.450
great. To go gallivanting around Europe, and,

355
00:23:09.450 –> 00:23:13.210
you know, drive the, drive the British crazy. And, you know, the old joke

356
00:23:13.210 –> 00:23:17.045
about the European Union is, and I I always remember this, the

357
00:23:17.045 –> 00:23:20.565
French in, the Germans down or no. The the

358
00:23:20.565 –> 00:23:24.325
French up, the Germans down, and the British out or something like that. Like,

359
00:23:24.325 –> 00:23:27.060
that was the old joke about the about the European Union.

360
00:23:28.260 –> 00:23:32.020
And, it’s true. You know, the French wanna the French

361
00:23:32.020 –> 00:23:35.620
wanna run things. So They

362
00:23:35.780 –> 00:23:39.380
they’re the I mean, they really are. The joke from World War

363
00:23:39.380 –> 00:23:43.000
two is the ad for the

364
00:23:43.275 –> 00:23:46.955
French army gun. Dropped

365
00:23:46.955 –> 00:23:48.415
once, never used.

366
00:23:53.195 –> 00:23:56.795
I should I should laugh. I should laugh. Anyway okay. That’s

367
00:23:56.795 –> 00:24:00.559
terrible. I should laugh. But it’s true. I know,

368
00:24:00.559 –> 00:24:04.399
but they do. And so I’m thinking about how many like, they were it used

369
00:24:04.399 –> 00:24:08.240
to be the language of diplomacy. Right. How embedded are

370
00:24:08.240 –> 00:24:11.175
they still in UN and, you know, in a lot of these,

371
00:24:12.135 –> 00:24:15.355
international, you know, organizations.

372
00:24:16.215 –> 00:24:19.995
Yeah. The Germans, you don’t have as much of the

373
00:24:20.215 –> 00:24:23.815
diplomacy factor. Right? They just like the brute

374
00:24:23.815 –> 00:24:27.620
brute force. But you gotta wonder. You gotta you gotta

375
00:24:27.620 –> 00:24:31.160
wonder. Well and well, and the British seem to be uninterested

376
00:24:31.540 –> 00:24:34.520
currently, in

377
00:24:36.420 –> 00:24:39.620
asserting asserting themselves in any

378
00:24:39.940 –> 00:24:43.654
well, to go back to the book for just a minute, because we will

379
00:24:43.654 –> 00:24:45.575
get back to the we will get to the book, folks. We will get out

380
00:24:45.575 –> 00:24:48.635
of geopolitics. We’ll get to the book here in a minute. But, the British

381
00:24:50.615 –> 00:24:54.154
seem to have abandoned whatever.

382
00:24:55.400 –> 00:24:59.000
No. Not even abandoned. The British are going through a

383
00:24:59.000 –> 00:25:02.840
process of having to rediscover what it means to be

384
00:25:02.840 –> 00:25:06.520
British. I agree. I don’t know

385
00:25:06.520 –> 00:25:10.005
what’s gonna come out of the other side of that,

386
00:25:10.945 –> 00:25:14.785
when I look at the problems that Kiersten Mar

387
00:25:14.785 –> 00:25:18.465
is having given just talking about. And I’m

388
00:25:18.465 –> 00:25:22.005
gonna say it out loud. You know, gangs of Muslim men

389
00:25:22.530 –> 00:25:26.230
raping women and other pathologies,

390
00:25:28.450 –> 00:25:31.910
and he can’t talk about them as the prime minister

391
00:25:32.930 –> 00:25:36.150
of Britain. And then you have a conservative party

392
00:25:36.530 –> 00:25:40.115
that split, with Nigel Farage doing the best

393
00:25:40.115 –> 00:25:43.895
he doing his best Donald Trump impression, which doesn’t really work there,

394
00:25:44.675 –> 00:25:48.435
because now is probably not the moment for it. But doing his

395
00:25:48.435 –> 00:25:52.170
best Donald Trump impression, And it’s parliamentary politics,

396
00:25:52.170 –> 00:25:55.530
which is also a big mess. I I don’t like parliaments. I don’t like I

397
00:25:55.530 –> 00:25:59.090
don’t want I don’t like countries. I don’t like the parliamentary system of government for

398
00:25:59.090 –> 00:26:02.570
a whole variety of reasons, and this is the big one. You have no

399
00:26:02.570 –> 00:26:06.345
cohesive understanding. At least in United States, you have polarization. You

400
00:26:06.345 –> 00:26:09.965
have a co cohesive understand people people on one side or another have a cohesive,

401
00:26:10.185 –> 00:26:13.965
and they may be maybe ideologically, what do you call it,

402
00:26:14.505 –> 00:26:17.965
floating out to sea, pulling out into the well, yeah, under the Pacific,

403
00:26:18.580 –> 00:26:22.120
the Atlantic, or the Gulf Of America. That’s a little tweak there,

404
00:26:22.420 –> 00:26:26.020
folks. They may be that in America, but at least

405
00:26:26.020 –> 00:26:29.780
you’ve got two poles. In a parliamentary system, everybody’s out

406
00:26:29.780 –> 00:26:33.140
to sea, and you’re trying to make, what do you call

407
00:26:33.140 –> 00:26:35.595
it? You’re trying to make allies and alliances,

408
00:26:37.174 –> 00:26:40.715
and it and it ended it falls apart ten seconds from now. And so

409
00:26:41.015 –> 00:26:44.375
Starmer won because the conservatives couldn’t get their crap

410
00:26:44.375 –> 00:26:48.070
together. And also, let’s be

411
00:26:48.070 –> 00:26:51.769
clear. Boris Johnson wrecked the party

412
00:26:52.470 –> 00:26:55.289
like he did. His behavior wrecked the party. And so what are you gonna do?

413
00:26:55.590 –> 00:26:59.269
But but the British have to

414
00:26:59.269 –> 00:27:02.925
discover what it means to be British if they are going to mount

415
00:27:03.005 –> 00:27:06.625
any sort of resistance to a French led European

416
00:27:06.685 –> 00:27:09.005
Union, and I don’t know that they’re gonna be able to do that in the

417
00:27:09.005 –> 00:27:12.625
next twenty years. Yeah. I think the I think the

418
00:27:13.085 –> 00:27:16.925
takeover by Europe is well, you know, is well underway, and I

419
00:27:16.925 –> 00:27:20.210
know we’ve done that before we started this podcast today.

420
00:27:20.750 –> 00:27:24.430
I do think once Britain, did

421
00:27:24.430 –> 00:27:26.930
Brexit, you know, the attack

422
00:27:27.870 –> 00:27:31.404
Mhmm. Became exponential, and that’s where you’re seeing all the

423
00:27:31.404 –> 00:27:35.184
immigration issues. All their institutions are cracking down

424
00:27:35.565 –> 00:27:39.404
on free speech. You know, the fact that you couldn’t speak about

425
00:27:39.404 –> 00:27:43.190
these rapes, is just, you know, kind

426
00:27:43.730 –> 00:27:46.710
of heartbreaking that the government was, you know,

427
00:27:47.250 –> 00:27:50.770
facilitating it or supporting it by virtue of keeping

428
00:27:50.770 –> 00:27:54.585
it, you know, quiet. Right. Yeah.

429
00:27:54.585 –> 00:27:58.365
With The U US is the last

430
00:27:59.304 –> 00:28:01.804
standing vestige of any sort of,

431
00:28:03.145 –> 00:28:06.985
freedom for the world. And thank god we have the ocean

432
00:28:06.985 –> 00:28:10.680
between us, but I don’t I don’t think

433
00:28:10.680 –> 00:28:13.340
there is coming back for UK anytime soon.

434
00:28:16.200 –> 00:28:19.960
Mhmm. Yeah. I think it’s gonna be really hard. And, I mean,

435
00:28:19.960 –> 00:28:22.060
best case scenario, you wind up as Canada.

436
00:28:24.120 –> 00:28:27.634
And that’s your best case scenario, Canada and Europe. Or worst case

437
00:28:27.634 –> 00:28:31.475
scenario, this is the worst case scenario. Worst case scenario, you wind

438
00:28:31.475 –> 00:28:34.995
up as a vassal state of of of

439
00:28:34.995 –> 00:28:38.755
France. Normally, I would say Spain, but they

440
00:28:38.755 –> 00:28:42.320
haven’t been relevant in a hundred and thirty years, so

441
00:28:42.320 –> 00:28:45.919
forget them. But, yeah, you wind up as a

442
00:28:45.919 –> 00:28:49.299
vassal state. And, you know,

443
00:28:50.559 –> 00:28:54.100
Europe needs a, Europe needs a fortress and a port.

444
00:28:54.784 –> 00:28:57.924
And so, you know, England’s good for something as an island.

445
00:28:58.945 –> 00:29:02.225
Yeah. And it it always was. The only thing that could help them maybe is

446
00:29:02.225 –> 00:29:06.065
William, ascending. Yeah. You know,

447
00:29:06.065 –> 00:29:09.860
and bringing back, you know, some young blood

448
00:29:09.860 –> 00:29:12.840
and some royal legitimacy. I think with the queen

449
00:29:13.220 –> 00:29:16.680
dying, that was the end of that

450
00:29:17.300 –> 00:29:20.820
reign and the traditions, and no one takes trial

451
00:29:20.820 –> 00:29:24.595
seriously. You know? Well, William

452
00:29:24.595 –> 00:29:28.275
does have he does have the William does have the correct looking

453
00:29:28.275 –> 00:29:31.955
wife. I will grant him that. For a man with no hair who

454
00:29:31.955 –> 00:29:35.570
should just go bald, just shave it off, dude.

455
00:29:36.030 –> 00:29:39.169
Stop holding on. You will get so much more respect.

456
00:29:39.950 –> 00:29:43.630
Look at you American. I am an American. You dad gum right. Like an

457
00:29:43.630 –> 00:29:46.220
American and not even Korean.

458
00:29:48.995 –> 00:29:52.615
You’re dad gum right. Look. Look. Look. Alright.

459
00:29:52.675 –> 00:29:55.715
Is that any segue? All I know is you put all you you all y’all

460
00:29:55.715 –> 00:29:58.275
put your old man on the money. That’s all I know. You got an old

461
00:29:58.275 –> 00:30:01.415
man on the money staring at me now. Every time I go to Canada.

462
00:30:04.890 –> 00:30:07.770
And before, it was an old lady staring at me. Come on now. What are

463
00:30:07.770 –> 00:30:11.390
we doing? All I think of, Charles, is his big stubby,

464
00:30:11.450 –> 00:30:15.050
like, bloated sausage fingers. Oh. Oh,

465
00:30:15.050 –> 00:30:17.683
okay. Yeah. That’s the segue. Now we’re gonna go to the book. Thank you. Let’s

466
00:30:17.683 –> 00:30:21.515
go. The book. Let’s go to the book. Go to the book. Let’s start

467
00:30:21.515 –> 00:30:25.355
with the book. Oh, so we’re gonna

468
00:30:25.355 –> 00:30:29.195
pick up with, we’re gonna pick up with, what I’m

469
00:30:29.195 –> 00:30:31.915
picking up with? Look at my script here. Here we go. Okay. So we’re going

470
00:30:31.915 –> 00:30:35.530
to pick up with the first book, some do not from Parade’s End. We’re gonna

471
00:30:35.530 –> 00:30:39.370
start with our first section here. We’re gonna be introduced to a fellow

472
00:30:39.370 –> 00:30:42.250
named Macmaster. Okay? It’s gonna get you a little bit of,

473
00:30:42.810 –> 00:30:46.330
understanding of what we’re doing here and a little bit of understanding of the

474
00:30:46.330 –> 00:30:49.455
voice, the drive, the, the

475
00:30:52.235 –> 00:30:55.055
the tone of Ford Maddux Ford.

476
00:30:56.795 –> 00:31:00.510
In the train from beneath his pile of polish dressing and dispatch

477
00:31:00.570 –> 00:31:04.330
cases, Tiejens had thrown his immense kit bag with his own

478
00:31:04.330 –> 00:31:07.630
hands onto the guard’s van. McMaster’s

479
00:31:08.490 –> 00:31:12.075
McMaster looked across at his friend. It was for him a great day.

480
00:31:12.394 –> 00:31:16.075
Across his face were the proof sheets of his first small delicate looking

481
00:31:16.075 –> 00:31:19.835
volume, a small page, the tight black, and still odorous. He had

482
00:31:19.835 –> 00:31:23.105
the agreeable smell of the printer’s ink in his nostrils. The fresh paper was still

483
00:31:23.105 –> 00:31:26.840
a little damp, and his white rather spatula had always slightly cold

484
00:31:26.840 –> 00:31:30.600
fingers was the pressure of the small flat gold pencil he had purchased especially

485
00:31:30.600 –> 00:31:34.380
for these corrections. He had found none to make.

486
00:31:35.720 –> 00:31:39.565
He had expected a wallowing of pleasure, almost the only sensuous pleasure he had

487
00:31:39.565 –> 00:31:43.345
allowed himself for many months. Keeping up the appearances of an English gentleman

488
00:31:43.565 –> 00:31:47.405
in an exiguous income was no mean task. But to wallow in

489
00:31:47.405 –> 00:31:51.025
your own phrases, to be rejoiced by the savor of your own shrewd aukeness,

490
00:31:51.565 –> 00:31:55.259
to feel your rhythm balanced and get sober, That is a pleasure beyond

491
00:31:55.259 –> 00:31:58.940
most and an inexpensive one at that. He had had it from

492
00:31:58.940 –> 00:32:02.539
mere articles on the philosophies and domestic lives of such great figures as

493
00:32:02.539 –> 00:32:06.320
Carlyle and Mill or on the expansion of intercolonial trade.

494
00:32:06.460 –> 00:32:08.524
This was a book.

495
00:32:10.105 –> 00:32:13.784
He relied upon it to consolidate his position. In the office, they were mostly

496
00:32:13.784 –> 00:32:17.384
they were mostly born and not vastly sympathetic. There was a

497
00:32:17.384 –> 00:32:20.105
sprinkling too. It was beginning to be a large one of young men who had

498
00:32:20.105 –> 00:32:22.924
obtained their entry by merit or by sheer industry.

499
00:32:23.840 –> 00:32:27.140
These watched promotions jealously, discerning nepot

500
00:32:27.480 –> 00:32:30.960
nepot increases of increment and clamoring amongst themselves at

501
00:32:30.960 –> 00:32:34.720
favoritisms. To these, he had been able to turn a cold shoulder.

502
00:32:34.720 –> 00:32:38.544
His intimacy with Tianjin’s permitted him to be rather on the born side

503
00:32:38.544 –> 00:32:42.245
of the institution. His agreeableness, he knew he was agreeable and useful

504
00:32:42.304 –> 00:32:45.745
to sir Reginald Ingleby protecting him from in the main from

505
00:32:45.745 –> 00:32:49.345
unpleasantness. His articles had given him a certain right to an

506
00:32:49.345 –> 00:32:53.059
austerity of demeanor. His book, he trusted to let him adopt

507
00:32:53.059 –> 00:32:56.740
an almost judicial attitude. He would then be the

508
00:32:56.740 –> 00:33:00.580
mister McMaster, the critic, the authority. And the first class departments

509
00:33:00.580 –> 00:33:04.165
are not averse to having distinguished men as ornaments to their company. At any

510
00:33:04.165 –> 00:33:07.385
rate, the promotions of the distinguished are not objected to. So McMaster

511
00:33:08.965 –> 00:33:12.505
saw almost physically, sir Reginald Ingleby perceiving the

512
00:33:13.045 –> 00:33:16.500
with which his valued subordinate was treated in the drawing rooms of missus

513
00:33:16.500 –> 00:33:20.260
Lemington, missus Creasy, the honorable missus Lemus. Sir

514
00:33:20.260 –> 00:33:23.780
Reginald would perceive that for he was not a reader himself of much else other

515
00:33:23.780 –> 00:33:27.380
than government publications, and he would feel fairly safe in making the easy path of

516
00:33:27.380 –> 00:33:31.085
his critically gifted and austere young helper. The son

517
00:33:31.085 –> 00:33:34.925
of a very poor shipping clerk in an obscure Scotch harbor town, McMaster had very

518
00:33:34.925 –> 00:33:38.605
early on decided the career he would make. As

519
00:33:38.605 –> 00:33:42.205
between as between the heroes of mister

520
00:33:42.205 –> 00:33:45.809
Smiles, an author enormously popular in McMaster’s boyhood, and the more

521
00:33:45.809 –> 00:33:49.570
distinctly intellectual achievements open to the very poor Scott, McMaster had

522
00:33:49.570 –> 00:33:53.409
had no difficulty in choosing. A pit lad may rise to

523
00:33:53.409 –> 00:33:57.010
be a mine owner. A hard gifted unsleeping Scott’s youth pursuing

524
00:33:57.010 –> 00:34:00.595
unobtrusively and objectively objectionably a course of

525
00:34:00.595 –> 00:34:04.295
study and of public usefulness will certainly achieve distinction,

526
00:34:04.675 –> 00:34:08.355
security, and the quiet admiration of those around him. It was the

527
00:34:08.355 –> 00:34:12.110
difference between the may and the will, and McMaster

528
00:34:12.110 –> 00:34:15.870
had no difficulty in making this choice. He saw

529
00:34:15.870 –> 00:34:19.070
himself by now almost certain of a career that should give him at 50 a

530
00:34:19.070 –> 00:34:22.910
knighthood, and long before that, a competence, a drawing room

531
00:34:22.910 –> 00:34:26.534
of his own, and a lady who should contribute to his unobtrusive fame. She

532
00:34:26.534 –> 00:34:30.214
moving about in that room amongst the best of the intellects of the day, gracious,

533
00:34:30.214 –> 00:34:33.974
devoted, attributed once to his discernment and his achievements. Without

534
00:34:33.974 –> 00:34:37.574
some disaster, he was sure of himself. Disasters come to men through

535
00:34:37.574 –> 00:34:41.159
drink, bankruptcy, and women. Against the first two, he knew

536
00:34:41.159 –> 00:34:44.760
himself immune, though his expressed expenses had a tendency to outrun his

537
00:34:44.760 –> 00:34:47.420
income, and he was always a little in debt to Tianjin’s.

538
00:34:48.119 –> 00:34:51.880
Tianjin’s fortunately had means. As to the third, he was not so

539
00:34:51.880 –> 00:34:55.625
certain. His life had necessarily been starved of women and arriving at a

540
00:34:55.625 –> 00:34:59.305
stage when the female element might, even with due respect to caution,

541
00:34:59.305 –> 00:35:02.905
be considered as a legitimate feature of his life. He had to fear a rashes

542
00:35:02.905 –> 00:35:06.665
of choice due to that very starvation. The type of woman he

543
00:35:06.665 –> 00:35:10.100
needed, he knew to exactitude. Tall,

544
00:35:10.100 –> 00:35:13.940
graceful, dark, loose gowned, passionate yet circumspect, oval featured,

545
00:35:13.940 –> 00:35:17.300
deliberate, gracious to everyone around her. He could almost

546
00:35:17.300 –> 00:35:20.980
hear the very rustle of

547
00:35:20.980 –> 00:35:21.800
her garments.

548
00:35:31.655 –> 00:35:33.675
Ford Madox Ford,

549
00:35:35.430 –> 00:35:38.810
the son of Joseph Leopold Ford Herman Maddox Hilfer,

550
00:35:40.150 –> 00:35:43.990
was actually, no. I’m sorry. Not the son. Full name,

551
00:35:43.990 –> 00:35:47.664
Joseph Leopold Ford Herman Maddox Hilfer, was

552
00:35:47.664 –> 00:35:51.285
born 12/17/1873 and died

553
00:35:51.345 –> 00:35:55.184
06/26/1939. He was an English

554
00:35:55.184 –> 00:35:59.025
novelist, poet, critic, and editor. Ford is now

555
00:35:59.025 –> 00:36:02.500
remembered primarily for his novels, The Good Soldier,

556
00:36:02.500 –> 00:36:05.799
published in 1915 as we were talking about World War one,

557
00:36:06.579 –> 00:36:10.260
The Parade’s End Tetralogy, which we’re reading today, published between 1924

558
00:36:10.260 –> 00:36:14.020
and 1928, and The Fifth Queen trilogy, published

559
00:36:14.020 –> 00:36:17.865
between nineteen o six and nineteen o eight. Ford was born

560
00:36:17.865 –> 00:36:21.305
in Merton in Surrey to Catherine Maddox Brown and Frances

561
00:36:21.305 –> 00:36:24.825
Hoefer or Hoefer, the eldest of three. His brother was

562
00:36:24.825 –> 00:36:28.585
Oliver Maddox Hoefer, and his sister was Juliette Hoefer, the wife of

563
00:36:28.585 –> 00:36:31.885
David Soskis and mother of Frank Soskis. Soskis.

564
00:36:32.529 –> 00:36:35.190
Soskis. British names.

565
00:36:36.450 –> 00:36:39.970
In November of eighteen ninety two, at age 18, he became a

566
00:36:39.970 –> 00:36:43.809
Catholic, quote, very much at the encouragement of some

567
00:36:43.809 –> 00:36:47.595
Hoffer relatives, but partly, he confessed galled by the quote,

568
00:36:47.595 –> 00:36:51.215
unquote, militant atheism and anarchism of his English cousins.

569
00:36:52.875 –> 00:36:56.395
Ford was involved in the British war propaganda at the after the

570
00:36:56.395 –> 00:37:00.015
beginning of World War one and at the beginning of World War one.

571
00:37:00.230 –> 00:37:03.770
He worked for the War Propaganda Bureau managed by CFG

572
00:37:04.069 –> 00:37:07.430
Masterman along with Arnold Bennett, GK

573
00:37:07.430 –> 00:37:10.569
Chesterton, who we’ve read on this podcast, John Galsworthy,

574
00:37:10.950 –> 00:37:14.475
Hilaire Belock, who we’ll be reading next year on the podcast, and

575
00:37:14.475 –> 00:37:18.235
Gilbert Murray. Ford,

576
00:37:18.235 –> 00:37:21.695
Maddox Ford, was a very British writer who,

577
00:37:23.195 –> 00:37:26.495
led a very interesting life. So he got married early

578
00:37:26.635 –> 00:37:30.410
at 19 and then proceeded to basically have

579
00:37:30.410 –> 00:37:34.009
mistresses and lovers the entire course of his marriage. His

580
00:37:34.009 –> 00:37:37.450
wife refused to divorce him, which was

581
00:37:37.450 –> 00:37:40.990
interesting even though he petitioned her for divorce several times.

582
00:37:41.369 –> 00:37:44.349
She refused to grant his petition and just stuck around.

583
00:37:45.375 –> 00:37:48.755
Primarily, it is believed because as a writer herself,

584
00:37:49.055 –> 00:37:51.475
she did not want to lose the

585
00:37:53.295 –> 00:37:56.675
cache of being associated with Ford, Maddox Ford.

586
00:37:57.210 –> 00:38:00.830
The other thing about him, which is interesting, which you can find in his Wikipedia

587
00:38:01.210 –> 00:38:05.050
write up, is that he was a mentor and an

588
00:38:05.050 –> 00:38:08.349
advocate for younger writers who came out of World War one.

589
00:38:08.970 –> 00:38:09.470
Hemingway,

590
00:38:12.585 –> 00:38:15.805
what’s his name? Scott Fitzgerald.

591
00:38:16.265 –> 00:38:19.065
So where I’m reading Tinder is the Night right now. We’ll cover that on the

592
00:38:19.065 –> 00:38:22.665
podcast here in a little bit. That’s coming up. Again, Libby will come

593
00:38:22.665 –> 00:38:26.210
back to to talk with us about that. But he he

594
00:38:26.210 –> 00:38:30.050
helped those those young, writers who

595
00:38:30.050 –> 00:38:33.810
were a generation or generation and a half younger than him and who had been

596
00:38:33.810 –> 00:38:37.490
through the the terrible exigencies of

597
00:38:37.490 –> 00:38:40.965
World War one. He helped many of them become

598
00:38:41.025 –> 00:38:44.785
famous writers. As a matter of fact, he did so much

599
00:38:44.785 –> 00:38:48.145
for these young writers that he has quoted in his Wikipedia article as

600
00:38:48.145 –> 00:38:51.985
complaining one time, that he was not gonna ever get the kind of

601
00:38:51.985 –> 00:38:55.760
credit that he deserved, for the other writers having

602
00:38:55.760 –> 00:38:59.600
the kinds of careers that they wound up having as a

603
00:38:59.600 –> 00:39:02.980
result of his advocacy for them.

604
00:39:04.640 –> 00:39:08.265
Warren Maddox Ford died on the cusp or died at the

605
00:39:08.265 –> 00:39:11.724
cusp of the beginning of World War two and probably saw it coming,

606
00:39:12.585 –> 00:39:15.885
and probably stared in slack jawed horror

607
00:39:16.424 –> 00:39:19.964
at Europe going down, the road of war

608
00:39:20.060 –> 00:39:23.740
again. But he also was a writer like

609
00:39:23.740 –> 00:39:27.500
Hermann Hesse and and others who tried to make sense

610
00:39:27.500 –> 00:39:31.340
of what happened, in the collapse of

611
00:39:31.340 –> 00:39:35.055
the Victorian and Edwardian world from his perspective in

612
00:39:35.055 –> 00:39:38.275
the trenches of World War one.

613
00:39:39.695 –> 00:39:43.535
We already talked a little bit about sort of what we could get from the

614
00:39:43.535 –> 00:39:46.895
book, but what lessons maybe, Libby,

615
00:39:46.895 –> 00:39:50.289
let’s talk specifically a little bit about this. What are some lessons we

616
00:39:50.289 –> 00:39:52.950
can glean from parades and overall,

617
00:39:54.529 –> 00:39:57.990
and maybe even also from the literary life of Ford Maddux Ford?

618
00:40:04.775 –> 00:40:07.835
I like I liked it a lot

619
00:40:08.215 –> 00:40:10.635
again because it revealed

620
00:40:12.855 –> 00:40:16.170
a lot about, like, the human condition that is

621
00:40:16.329 –> 00:40:19.710
timeless. One of the themes

622
00:40:20.329 –> 00:40:24.089
that I’ve had with you in the, you know, in our past

623
00:40:24.089 –> 00:40:27.470
podcast is that you have to stick with your values,

624
00:40:28.985 –> 00:40:32.745
and what’s important to you regardless of

625
00:40:32.745 –> 00:40:35.245
what everyone else is doing.

626
00:40:36.105 –> 00:40:37.725
And, you know, and teachings

627
00:40:40.345 –> 00:40:44.090
is human and did have, you know, did have

628
00:40:44.090 –> 00:40:47.710
out of marital, like, sex. Right? But

629
00:40:47.930 –> 00:40:50.830
he ended up, quote, unquote, doing the right thing.

630
00:40:52.090 –> 00:40:55.370
And throughout the story, he’s

631
00:40:56.010 –> 00:40:59.835
or throughout the story, he instead

632
00:40:59.835 –> 00:41:03.435
of sticking with the commanders back in London

633
00:41:03.435 –> 00:41:07.195
and, putting forth war plans that

634
00:41:07.195 –> 00:41:10.875
he believed to be wrong and, you know, and to purse and,

635
00:41:11.915 –> 00:41:15.610
mediocre, he was he would go to the front lines

636
00:41:15.610 –> 00:41:19.450
and fight there because he did want

637
00:41:19.450 –> 00:41:23.130
to be able to influence them in a direction

638
00:41:23.130 –> 00:41:26.970
that he believed to be the right the right way, and he was willing

639
00:41:26.970 –> 00:41:30.745
to put his life on the line. Yeah. So

640
00:41:30.745 –> 00:41:34.345
what I really you know, and he the the

641
00:41:34.345 –> 00:41:38.105
challenge I had with him was he wouldn’t when people would

642
00:41:38.105 –> 00:41:41.405
try to shame him or lie about him,

643
00:41:41.910 –> 00:41:43.690
He didn’t stand up for himself.

644
00:41:47.030 –> 00:41:50.710
And that to me, I, you know, I

645
00:41:50.710 –> 00:41:53.050
had a bit of a challenge with because,

646
00:41:54.630 –> 00:41:57.751
you know, if you’re gonna stand up for what you believe in, don’t do it

647
00:41:57.751 –> 00:42:01.345
just silently and let others abuse you

648
00:42:01.805 –> 00:42:04.785
through the lies. Like, you do need to stand up for yourself.

649
00:42:05.325 –> 00:42:06.865
Mhmm. But,

650
00:42:09.325 –> 00:42:12.859
as someone who has worked with the c

651
00:42:12.859 –> 00:42:16.559
suite my, yeah, my entire career,

652
00:42:18.539 –> 00:42:22.059
one of the and actually less so over the last five

653
00:42:22.059 –> 00:42:25.795
years because it’s just you know, I don’t really

654
00:42:25.795 –> 00:42:29.595
think you drive much significant change at that level, and

655
00:42:29.595 –> 00:42:33.235
I think it’s become harder and harder as people are more

656
00:42:33.235 –> 00:42:36.995
focused on saying the right things versus doing

657
00:42:36.995 –> 00:42:40.670
the right things. And it’s really just about posturing and

658
00:42:40.670 –> 00:42:44.210
positioning regardless of the outcomes to others

659
00:42:44.430 –> 00:42:47.790
and more just for financial reward to myself and my

660
00:42:47.790 –> 00:42:51.310
peers. Yeah. And so as I watch

661
00:42:51.310 –> 00:42:54.595
someone who he could have stayed,

662
00:42:57.295 –> 00:43:01.055
back and dictated, you know, to

663
00:43:01.055 –> 00:43:04.890
the troops, you know, where what they should do or not, he didn’t believe,

664
00:43:05.450 –> 00:43:08.589
you know, in in endorsing the mediocrity

665
00:43:09.769 –> 00:43:13.529
Mhmm. And ultimately, causing

666
00:43:13.529 –> 00:43:17.289
the death of others unnecessarily. You know, in

667
00:43:17.289 –> 00:43:20.954
modern day, I look at big

668
00:43:20.954 –> 00:43:23.214
businesses and their,

669
00:43:25.115 –> 00:43:28.555
mediocrity and, push for

670
00:43:28.555 –> 00:43:32.174
status quo as actually killing the soul

671
00:43:32.555 –> 00:43:36.250
of of workers. Now I can make the case

672
00:43:36.250 –> 00:43:39.789
for many workers that they don’t have to accept that, that they can

673
00:43:40.250 –> 00:43:43.710
go out and start their own businesses or find other companies. But

674
00:43:44.329 –> 00:43:48.055
when work is a means to make it

675
00:43:48.115 –> 00:43:51.875
living versus, like, some of us who’s lived

676
00:43:51.875 –> 00:43:55.674
for work, you know, that is a risk that many

677
00:43:55.674 –> 00:43:59.015
are don’t feel they can take when, you know, they have to

678
00:43:59.795 –> 00:44:03.570
when when they’re taking care of their family and being

679
00:44:03.570 –> 00:44:06.790
a part of a community or pursuing other interests. So

680
00:44:07.250 –> 00:44:10.710
there is a parallel between the modern big business,

681
00:44:13.745 –> 00:44:17.265
and the pursuit of mediocrity while espousing, you

682
00:44:17.265 –> 00:44:20.805
know, self importance. Mhmm. And,

683
00:44:21.185 –> 00:44:24.785
you know, and how was you know, chose to

684
00:44:24.785 –> 00:44:28.380
fight in the trench war Mhmm. Upfront

685
00:44:28.600 –> 00:44:32.359
versus, you know, accepting mediocrity so that he would be

686
00:44:32.359 –> 00:44:36.040
accepted in society. There’s a great line in a Pink

687
00:44:36.040 –> 00:44:38.920
Floyd song, and I can’t remember the name of the song right now. I should.

688
00:44:38.920 –> 00:44:40.395
But it’s on Dark Side of the Moon,

689
00:44:42.395 –> 00:44:45.855
where, they, the band sings forward they cried

690
00:44:46.155 –> 00:44:49.835
from the rear, and the front rank died. And I always think of

691
00:44:49.835 –> 00:44:53.355
World War one when I hear that line. Right? Because all the generals

692
00:44:53.995 –> 00:44:57.809
well, the second line of the song. The generals sat, and the lines on the

693
00:44:57.809 –> 00:45:01.510
map move from side to side. Right? Now Pink Floyd, of course,

694
00:45:01.650 –> 00:45:05.250
was writing this song about, you know, we’re in the twilight of

695
00:45:05.250 –> 00:45:08.710
Vietnam. And so I’m sure they were thinking about that, but

696
00:45:08.985 –> 00:45:12.365
it applied way the heck more to World War one

697
00:45:12.745 –> 00:45:15.405
and to our conversation,

698
00:45:16.305 –> 00:45:19.485
a little bit ago. The the

699
00:45:21.145 –> 00:45:24.930
the the ways in which and Ford Maddox Ford saw

700
00:45:24.930 –> 00:45:28.390
this in the war propaganda department. So he wrote about this from experience.

701
00:45:28.610 –> 00:45:30.870
Right? The ways in which

702
00:45:34.850 –> 00:45:38.385
the way in which the war was fought, and I’ve often said this about World

703
00:45:38.385 –> 00:45:40.405
War one, it was the first

704
00:45:41.745 –> 00:45:44.565
modern war fought with

705
00:45:45.985 –> 00:45:49.745
modern equipment and modern techniques, but the

706
00:45:49.745 –> 00:45:53.160
people fighting the war had a and the people

707
00:45:53.540 –> 00:45:57.220
prosecuting the war. And you see this in John Keegan’s book,

708
00:45:57.620 –> 00:46:00.820
about the history of World War one. The people fighting the war and the people

709
00:46:00.820 –> 00:46:03.800
prosecuting the war had a pre World War one mindset.

710
00:46:04.580 –> 00:46:08.365
Mhmm. They still had a mindset that was focused on and you could just sort

711
00:46:08.365 –> 00:46:11.185
of sense it. It was an eighteenth century epaulettes

712
00:46:12.445 –> 00:46:15.025
and swords and horses kind of mentality,

713
00:46:16.125 –> 00:46:19.610
but you have tanks and propaganda and

714
00:46:19.610 –> 00:46:22.830
gas and, you know, machine

715
00:46:22.970 –> 00:46:26.570
guns and trenches and barbed wire and

716
00:46:26.570 –> 00:46:29.470
bombs and you you know, like, you’ve got all the modern

717
00:46:29.930 –> 00:46:32.830
things. Right? But you insist

718
00:46:35.105 –> 00:46:38.865
that to your point about Tingyens, you

719
00:46:38.865 –> 00:46:42.705
insist that your mindset still be stiff upper lip

720
00:46:42.705 –> 00:46:46.545
Victorian. Mhmm. And you don’t seem to understand that the

721
00:46:46.545 –> 00:46:49.950
machine gun and the

722
00:46:49.950 –> 00:46:53.410
gas and the biplanes

723
00:46:54.430 –> 00:46:57.890
have all sort of pushed that to a different spot.

724
00:46:59.550 –> 00:47:02.385
And the only way you’re really gonna understand that is if you get out of

725
00:47:02.465 –> 00:47:06.065
the back of the you get out of the rear with the gear and you

726
00:47:06.065 –> 00:47:09.685
get to the front. And too many generals,

727
00:47:09.905 –> 00:47:13.685
heck, too much of the command structure in World War one just wasn’t about that.

728
00:47:14.945 –> 00:47:17.680
It it took me to about

729
00:47:17.680 –> 00:47:21.280
02/2021 to 02/2022 to just

730
00:47:21.280 –> 00:47:25.040
realize that this separation of the

731
00:47:25.040 –> 00:47:28.880
top from the front Mhmm. The bottom

732
00:47:28.880 –> 00:47:32.545
is, like, so great and, you know, a tail,

733
00:47:32.924 –> 00:47:36.305
you know, as long as the test of time, right,

734
00:47:36.365 –> 00:47:37.984
that we have

735
00:47:39.805 –> 00:47:43.345
elites making decisions that are,

736
00:47:44.400 –> 00:47:47.680
well, I don’t know. Maybe in, you know, in the wars, you know, in the

737
00:47:47.680 –> 00:47:51.440
middle ages and such, you know, you did have kings out there fighting with

738
00:47:51.440 –> 00:47:53.300
the troops, and it was much more barbaric.

739
00:47:55.839 –> 00:47:58.980
And so they understood the reality of it a bit more.

740
00:48:00.355 –> 00:48:03.655
But now you you just have

741
00:48:04.515 –> 00:48:08.275
the elite who don’t feel the consequences of any of their

742
00:48:08.275 –> 00:48:11.575
decisions, and the bodies are just

743
00:48:12.115 –> 00:48:15.930
are just, you know, names in a book and not real lives.

744
00:48:16.790 –> 00:48:20.490
They have no idea what’s going on out here. Yeah. And they couldn’t, especially,

745
00:48:20.550 –> 00:48:22.410
yeah, even now technologically,

746
00:48:24.790 –> 00:48:28.565
you know, how even though we know what’s going on, we’re

747
00:48:28.565 –> 00:48:32.405
still divorced from the humanity of it. Right. Right. Well,

748
00:48:32.405 –> 00:48:35.925
and that’s and that gets you. But war is but war is not an easy

749
00:48:35.925 –> 00:48:39.704
thing. Yeah. Right? No. There’s got we can’t,

750
00:48:41.840 –> 00:48:45.460
I I don’t wanna get into moral justification of any war,

751
00:48:45.920 –> 00:48:49.700
because it all depends on the side that you’re sitting on. Right.

752
00:48:51.440 –> 00:48:54.915
You know, but what does

753
00:48:54.915 –> 00:48:58.455
matter is, that

754
00:48:58.515 –> 00:49:01.955
you’re dictating how others should

755
00:49:01.955 –> 00:49:05.655
fight a war and you’re too divorced from the reality

756
00:49:05.795 –> 00:49:09.609
of it. And I personally admire

757
00:49:10.390 –> 00:49:13.750
folks who could Mhmm. Sit in the halls

758
00:49:13.750 –> 00:49:17.049
of, you know, Winnetka or

759
00:49:17.349 –> 00:49:20.815
Princeton, New Jersey or, you know,

760
00:49:21.275 –> 00:49:25.115
Manhattan and say how we should, you know,

761
00:49:25.115 –> 00:49:28.734
fight, you know, fight wars, and they’re completely

762
00:49:29.035 –> 00:49:32.714
devoid from the reality on, you

763
00:49:32.714 –> 00:49:36.490
know, in the war zone. Or it’s not again,

764
00:49:36.490 –> 00:49:40.010
it’s not much different than corporations either. Right. You know,

765
00:49:40.010 –> 00:49:43.849
where executives are real like, they used

766
00:49:43.849 –> 00:49:47.645
to care. Mhmm. If you’re climbing the

767
00:49:47.645 –> 00:49:51.485
ladder, how people were trained, you know, were treated. And then once they’re

768
00:49:51.485 –> 00:49:54.865
at the top, you know, they no

769
00:49:55.245 –> 00:49:58.605
longer care, and they just want people to work harder and longer for lower

770
00:49:58.605 –> 00:50:02.400
wages. Well, in well, in there’s a certain sense

771
00:50:02.460 –> 00:50:05.340
as well, and you see it in and we’re gonna talk about it in this

772
00:50:05.340 –> 00:50:09.180
next section. You see it in the interpersonal relationships between which is one of

773
00:50:09.180 –> 00:50:12.940
the things that struck me about this novel, the interpersonal relationships between men and women

774
00:50:12.940 –> 00:50:16.775
before the war pieces began. Like, that to me is the one of the

775
00:50:16.775 –> 00:50:20.555
three pillars that Arades End is is set up around. Right?

776
00:50:21.015 –> 00:50:24.075
And you talked you’ve talked about Tijen’s

777
00:50:24.855 –> 00:50:28.170
marriage to, to Sylvia, then, you know,

778
00:50:29.369 –> 00:50:32.809
the one up miss one up, and we’re gonna talk about all of that and

779
00:50:32.809 –> 00:50:36.109
how that sort of began to begin to unwind.

780
00:50:39.530 –> 00:50:42.015
Tigen’s never had an idea. I won’t say never.

781
00:50:43.135 –> 00:50:45.954
So what is interesting to me about the book is that

782
00:50:46.734 –> 00:50:50.275
Ford, Maddox Ford, wrote Teejens as a Teejens

783
00:50:50.375 –> 00:50:54.015
as a real human being with

784
00:50:54.015 –> 00:50:57.790
an internal struggle about whether or not to stay married

785
00:50:57.790 –> 00:51:01.630
to a woman who, quite frankly, was

786
00:51:01.630 –> 00:51:05.390
not the best human specimen. Let’s just let’s just be let’s

787
00:51:05.390 –> 00:51:09.010
just be clear about that. But

788
00:51:10.195 –> 00:51:13.415
but also, he’s he’s trapped

789
00:51:14.994 –> 00:51:18.595
or maybe not trapped. I shouldn’t use that term. That’s a very

790
00:51:18.595 –> 00:51:21.635
postmodern idea. He is bound

791
00:51:21.954 –> 00:51:25.240
well, well, the postmodern man doesn’t want to be

792
00:51:25.620 –> 00:51:29.220
bound by tradition. I was listening to a preacher talk about this on

793
00:51:29.220 –> 00:51:32.680
Sunday. The postmodern man doesn’t wanna be bound by tradition.

794
00:51:33.460 –> 00:51:37.205
The postmodern man believes that he is individual, and that he

795
00:51:37.205 –> 00:51:40.585
is this individual consumer and that he can make individual choices.

796
00:51:42.485 –> 00:51:46.085
The problem is every single individual choice that you make is the same as every

797
00:51:46.085 –> 00:51:49.285
other individual choice that everybody other individual is making. So you’re actually not an individual.

798
00:51:49.285 –> 00:51:52.310
You’re actually not a free thinker. Like, if I see somebody with, like, a free

799
00:51:52.310 –> 00:51:55.990
thinking bumper sticker, I know exactly what kind of things those that person

800
00:51:55.990 –> 00:51:59.830
thinks. Exactly. Yeah. It’s just like the just like when I

801
00:51:59.830 –> 00:52:03.350
see somebody with a coexist bumper sticker on the back of their car. Like, come

802
00:52:03.350 –> 00:52:06.175
on. I I know what you believe. I don’t even need to I don’t need

803
00:52:06.175 –> 00:52:06.994
to ask you.

804
00:52:11.615 –> 00:52:15.375
So for a postmodern person, a postmodern reader, they will

805
00:52:15.375 –> 00:52:19.000
read Parade’s End, and they will not understand why

806
00:52:19.000 –> 00:52:21.960
Tijens just didn’t get divorced from his wife and just go do what he wanted

807
00:52:21.960 –> 00:52:25.180
to do. But he was bound by traditional Victorian

808
00:52:25.559 –> 00:52:29.260
morality. He was bound by being

809
00:52:29.319 –> 00:52:33.075
a man inside of traditional Victorian

810
00:52:33.134 –> 00:52:36.734
morality where the rules for men and women were fundamentally

811
00:52:36.734 –> 00:52:40.174
different. And this is where you get into miss Wannop. I love how how Maddox

812
00:52:40.174 –> 00:52:43.234
Ford introduces her as a

813
00:52:43.775 –> 00:52:47.130
feminist, what we would call progressive. But a feminist

814
00:52:47.130 –> 00:52:50.650
progressive, you know, I just wanna get the vote, and if I just get the

815
00:52:50.650 –> 00:52:54.110
vote, everything will be fine kind of kind of person. And

816
00:52:54.410 –> 00:52:57.290
sitting on the back end of a hundred and twenty years of that, I just

817
00:52:57.290 –> 00:53:00.484
started laughing. I did. I literally started laughing at the way that that that she

818
00:53:00.484 –> 00:53:03.924
was introduced. Because if you could’ve gone back and told her what would happen from

819
00:53:03.924 –> 00:53:07.765
her just getting the the vote in Britain, she would have, like,

820
00:53:07.765 –> 00:53:11.300
quit the whole thing right off the bat. Well, that that

821
00:53:11.300 –> 00:53:15.140
was the others there’s two other storylines in there,

822
00:53:15.140 –> 00:53:18.900
two other takeaways that also to me

823
00:53:18.900 –> 00:53:22.740
say, hey. Fundamentally, human the human condition or

824
00:53:22.740 –> 00:53:26.485
human nature hasn’t changed a whole lot. And the one is with,

825
00:53:27.365 –> 00:53:30.885
Sylvia. Mhmm. You know, she has everything

826
00:53:30.885 –> 00:53:34.565
handed to her. And when life is too easy

827
00:53:34.565 –> 00:53:38.339
and you don’t have something a purpose, Mhmm. You know, far too

828
00:53:38.339 –> 00:53:41.799
many people just like to create chaos and noise and stories.

829
00:53:42.500 –> 00:53:45.940
Mhmm. And so, you know, she she

830
00:53:45.940 –> 00:53:48.680
actually if you think about it, it’s this

831
00:53:48.980 –> 00:53:52.440
7¢ that I, you know, that we’ve seen,

832
00:53:53.085 –> 00:53:56.925
over the last ten years also play out on the left. Like, I never followed

833
00:53:56.925 –> 00:54:00.445
the seven deadly sins. Like, you know, it was a movie seven was about as

834
00:54:00.445 –> 00:54:04.285
close as I understood it, and then I watched what’s happened over the

835
00:54:04.285 –> 00:54:06.930
last, like, you know, five to ten years,

836
00:54:08.110 –> 00:54:11.710
on yeah. In the American progressive, and it’s about, you know,

837
00:54:11.710 –> 00:54:15.250
gluttony and, you know, jealousy

838
00:54:16.110 –> 00:54:19.025
and, you know, all of vanity.

839
00:54:19.484 –> 00:54:23.325
Vanity. You know, you’ve got pride and gluttony and gel all of that.

840
00:54:23.325 –> 00:54:27.165
Right? And, you know, when you when things are easy and you

841
00:54:27.165 –> 00:54:31.000
don’t have a way to direct yourself from a purpose perspective

842
00:54:31.000 –> 00:54:34.760
either, like, you have to work to put food literally put food on

843
00:54:34.760 –> 00:54:38.380
the plate, you know, where people

844
00:54:38.920 –> 00:54:42.680
go. And she she wanted attention. She,

845
00:54:42.680 –> 00:54:46.375
you know, and she did have you know, negative attention is

846
00:54:46.375 –> 00:54:50.135
better than none at all. Right, and so the

847
00:54:50.135 –> 00:54:53.734
way that she acted out is how you see many

848
00:54:53.734 –> 00:54:57.035
people when it’s too easy and they’re bored

849
00:54:58.270 –> 00:55:01.970
without purpose, act out. And then Valentin

850
00:55:02.829 –> 00:55:06.589
is yeah. Again, I think this book was written in

851
00:55:06.589 –> 00:55:08.690
2020, and it was 1919.

852
00:55:10.434 –> 00:55:14.055
Yeah. She’s all about you know, men don’t you know,

853
00:55:14.275 –> 00:55:18.055
you know, men don’t respect women and think we’re so smart,

854
00:55:18.434 –> 00:55:21.234
and we just you know, and we need to get the vote. And once we

855
00:55:21.234 –> 00:55:24.615
get the vote, I’m gonna be happy, and then she gets the vote.

856
00:55:25.650 –> 00:55:29.250
And it’s the classic thing that we all learn is that it’s

857
00:55:29.250 –> 00:55:32.950
not the milestone, it’s the journey. Because that

858
00:55:33.410 –> 00:55:36.930
the joy you have when reaching a milestone is fleeting and

859
00:55:36.930 –> 00:55:40.714
ephemeral, And she realizes it’s

860
00:55:40.714 –> 00:55:44.494
actually the quality of relationships that

861
00:55:44.555 –> 00:55:48.315
would bring her enduring, you know, happiness. And

862
00:55:48.315 –> 00:55:51.550
that’s also what teaching like, institutions

863
00:55:51.930 –> 00:55:55.530
are important, but not blind obedience to

864
00:55:55.530 –> 00:55:59.210
institutions. You need to use the institution that’s

865
00:55:59.210 –> 00:56:02.110
right for you and go into it with the right

866
00:56:02.570 –> 00:56:06.075
intention, and that’s marriage. Right? Like, he ultimately

867
00:56:06.215 –> 00:56:09.975
goes into you know, he, you know, takes

868
00:56:09.975 –> 00:56:13.355
an l, divorces, and then goes into it for love.

869
00:56:13.735 –> 00:56:17.575
But blind obedience to institutions is the lesson,

870
00:56:17.575 –> 00:56:21.260
and that’s what the fourth the fourth four turnings to me are

871
00:56:21.260 –> 00:56:24.800
all about. You know? Yeah. Yeah.

872
00:56:25.260 –> 00:56:28.640
Good intention, then someone comes in. Yeah. It’s kind of like,

873
00:56:29.580 –> 00:56:32.480
what? They say shirt to sleeve to shirt sleeve in three generate.

874
00:56:33.125 –> 00:56:36.964
Right? Yeah. Oh, yeah. Yeah. Yeah. When you’re building something, the intention

875
00:56:36.964 –> 00:56:40.645
and the people that are building it with you because

876
00:56:40.645 –> 00:56:44.405
it’s hard work Mhmm. You know, I think there’s good intention. It’s when you

877
00:56:44.405 –> 00:56:47.730
start to get the administrators and the managers who are leeching off

878
00:56:48.770 –> 00:56:50.869
the work where you start to bring in,

879
00:56:52.450 –> 00:56:55.890
the bad players. And then you get to the third generation, and it’s

880
00:56:55.890 –> 00:56:59.250
mostly bad players because all the meetings been sapped out of it, and it’s

881
00:56:59.250 –> 00:57:01.030
just, you know, financial

882
00:57:04.424 –> 00:57:08.184
financial cow that they use until it’s all depleted,

883
00:57:08.184 –> 00:57:12.025
and then you get into the next cycle where you have to rebuild all the

884
00:57:12.025 –> 00:57:15.720
institutions, tear them down and. Open. Exactly.

885
00:57:16.020 –> 00:57:19.860
Exactly. Well, let’s, no. That’s that’s good analysis.

886
00:57:19.860 –> 00:57:23.380
Yeah. Let’s, let’s get back to the book. Let’s get back to

887
00:57:23.380 –> 00:57:26.820
parades and we’re still in the first this first chapter. Now one of the things

888
00:57:26.820 –> 00:57:30.525
you’ll note as you read parades and, in particular, if you

889
00:57:30.605 –> 00:57:33.984
depending upon the size of the type of the copy that you have,

890
00:57:36.125 –> 00:57:39.885
you will note that the chapters are long. Right? The

891
00:57:39.885 –> 00:57:43.724
chapters are dense. There’s a lot packed into, into each chapter. And

892
00:57:43.724 –> 00:57:47.440
so and and then the books are dense. Right? So it’s

893
00:57:47.440 –> 00:57:51.119
divided up into parts, and then the parts are are collapsed together into books. And

894
00:57:51.119 –> 00:57:54.960
each part is each part is a each part is a

895
00:57:54.960 –> 00:57:58.595
meal. Right? And it comes again. It is

896
00:57:58.595 –> 00:58:02.355
written in a way just from to talk about the writing of it a

897
00:58:02.355 –> 00:58:06.194
little bit. The writing style of Ford Maddox Ford is

898
00:58:06.194 –> 00:58:08.934
very much a pre modern

899
00:58:09.555 –> 00:58:12.790
Victorian style of writing, similar

900
00:58:14.850 –> 00:58:17.430
in similar in-depth of meaning to the Raphaelites,

901
00:58:18.290 –> 00:58:21.970
and to the, into the the

902
00:58:21.970 –> 00:58:24.635
writing efforts of folks like,

903
00:58:25.895 –> 00:58:29.595
Alfred Lord Tennyson, and others, who are writing,

904
00:58:30.455 –> 00:58:33.995
in that long eighteenth century in Europe. Okay.

905
00:58:35.895 –> 00:58:39.255
So back to the book, back to

906
00:58:39.255 –> 00:58:42.990
Parade’s End. I’m gonna pick up with I’m gonna bounce around a

907
00:58:42.990 –> 00:58:45.950
little bit in this section, because this is,

908
00:58:46.910 –> 00:58:50.610
this is Sylvia talking, a little bit

909
00:58:51.070 –> 00:58:54.885
here. There’s Sylvia? No. No. No. No. No. No.

910
00:58:54.885 –> 00:58:58.645
No. No. This is gonna be Tishan’s and miss Wannop. So we already sort

911
00:58:58.645 –> 00:59:02.085
of, you know, brought up, the,

912
00:59:03.525 –> 00:59:07.365
the the young lady. And, well, we’re gonna meet her, we’re gonna meet her

913
00:59:07.365 –> 00:59:09.569
mother. We’re gonna start with that. K?

914
00:59:11.150 –> 00:59:14.190
Being too well brought up to interrupt, she waited till he had said all he

915
00:59:14.190 –> 00:59:17.890
wanted to say. Then she exclaimed,

916
00:59:19.390 –> 00:59:22.990
let’s settle the preliminaries. It’s obvious mother means us to see a great deal of

917
00:59:22.990 –> 00:59:26.704
you. You’re going to be a mascot too like your father. I

918
00:59:26.704 –> 00:59:30.244
suppose you are. You saved me from the police yesterday. So pause.

919
00:59:30.704 –> 00:59:31.525
In the narrative,

920
00:59:34.385 –> 00:59:37.960
the daughter, Valentin, was in a, was

921
00:59:37.960 –> 00:59:38.460
in

922
00:59:42.359 –> 00:59:45.740
a contratomp, for lack of a better term, a protest.

923
00:59:46.359 –> 00:59:50.125
And, she ran across a golf course, Her and another

924
00:59:50.125 –> 00:59:53.904
young lady named Gertie and were being chased by the British constables

925
00:59:54.045 –> 00:59:57.345
across the golf course, a private golf course, and,

926
00:59:57.885 –> 01:00:01.345
Tigin saved her from the police. So that’s what she’s referencing there.

927
01:00:02.125 –> 01:00:05.910
K? So back to the book. I suppose you think you saved me from the

928
01:00:05.910 –> 01:00:09.370
police yesterday. You appear to have saved my mother’s neck today.

929
01:00:09.830 –> 01:00:13.590
You appear too to be going to make £20 profit on a horse deal. You

930
01:00:13.590 –> 01:00:17.030
say you will, and you seem to be that sort of person. £20 is no

931
01:00:17.030 –> 01:00:20.395
end in a family like ours. Well, then you appear to be going,

932
01:00:21.015 –> 01:00:24.155
to be the regular Belle Ami of the Wannop family.

933
01:00:24.855 –> 01:00:28.615
Tijin said, I hope not. Oh, I don’t mean, she said, that you’re going to

934
01:00:28.615 –> 01:00:31.980
rise to fame by making love to all the women of the Wannop family. Besides,

935
01:00:31.980 –> 01:00:35.680
there’s only me. But mother will press you into all sorts of odd jobs.

936
01:00:35.740 –> 01:00:39.260
There will always be a plate for you with a table. Don’t shudder. I’m a

937
01:00:39.260 –> 01:00:42.940
regular good cook. Cuisine bourgeois, of course. I learned

938
01:00:42.940 –> 01:00:46.400
under real a real professed cook, though a drunkard.

939
01:00:47.145 –> 01:00:50.205
That meant I used to do half the cooking, and the family was particular.

940
01:00:50.905 –> 01:00:54.745
Ealing people are. County counselors, half of them, and the like. So

941
01:00:54.745 –> 01:00:58.585
I know what men are. She stopped and said good naturedly, but do for goodness

942
01:00:58.585 –> 01:01:02.260
sakes get over it or get it over. I’m sorry I was rude to you,

943
01:01:02.260 –> 01:01:05.460
but it is irritating to have to stand like a stuffed rabbit while a man

944
01:01:05.460 –> 01:01:09.140
is acting like a regular admiral Crichton and cool and collected with the

945
01:01:09.140 –> 01:01:12.915
English country gentleman air and all. Tietjens winced.

946
01:01:13.155 –> 01:01:16.115
The young woman had come a little too near the knuckle of his wife’s frequent

947
01:01:16.115 –> 01:01:19.575
denunciations of himself. And she exclaimed,

948
01:01:20.275 –> 01:01:24.035
no. That’s not fair. I’m an ungrateful pig. You didn’t show a bit more

949
01:01:24.035 –> 01:01:27.450
side really than a capable workman must who’s doing his job in the midst of

950
01:01:27.450 –> 01:01:31.130
a crowd of incapable duffers. But just get it out, will you? Say

951
01:01:31.130 –> 01:01:34.730
once and for all that, you know the proper pompous manner. You are not

952
01:01:34.730 –> 01:01:38.030
without sympathy with our aims, which you disapprove, oh, immensely

953
01:01:38.090 –> 01:01:41.625
strongly of our methods. It struck

954
01:01:41.625 –> 01:01:45.065
Tianjin that the young woman was a good deal more interested in the cause of

955
01:01:45.065 –> 01:01:48.745
votes for women than he had given her credit for. He wasn’t

956
01:01:48.745 –> 01:01:52.265
much in the mood for talking to young women, but it was with

957
01:01:52.265 –> 01:01:55.910
considerable more than the surface of his mind that he answered.

958
01:01:56.770 –> 01:02:00.210
I don’t. I approve entirely of your methods, but your

959
01:02:00.210 –> 01:02:03.970
aims are idiotic. And then

960
01:02:03.970 –> 01:02:07.815
jumping forward a little bit, they are talking about,

961
01:02:09.015 –> 01:02:12.454
the the laws that they need to change and sort of what the vote will

962
01:02:12.454 –> 01:02:15.835
do. And then, and then here we go. He says,

963
01:02:16.295 –> 01:02:20.055
or she says, look here. Don’t be one of those ignoble triflers who say the

964
01:02:20.055 –> 01:02:23.580
vote won’t do women any good. Women have a rotten time. They do

965
01:02:23.580 –> 01:02:27.340
really. If you’d seen what I’ve seen, I’m not talking through my hat. Her

966
01:02:27.340 –> 01:02:31.020
voice became quite deep. She had tears in her eyes. Poor women

967
01:02:31.020 –> 01:02:34.860
do, she said, little insignificant creatures. We’ve got to change

968
01:02:34.860 –> 01:02:38.240
the divorce laws. We’ve got to get better conditions.

969
01:02:38.625 –> 01:02:42.225
You you couldn’t stand it if you know what I know. Her

970
01:02:42.225 –> 01:02:46.065
emotion vexed him for it seemed to establish a sort of fraternal intimacy that he

971
01:02:46.065 –> 01:02:49.445
didn’t, at the moment, want. Women do not show emotion

972
01:02:49.505 –> 01:02:53.280
except before their families. He said dryly, I dare

973
01:02:53.280 –> 01:02:56.420
say I shouldn’t, but I don’t know, so I can’t.

974
01:02:57.040 –> 01:03:00.800
She said with deep disappointment, oh, you are a beast, and I shall never beg

975
01:03:00.800 –> 01:03:04.080
your pardon for saying that. I don’t believe you mean what you say, but merely

976
01:03:04.080 –> 01:03:07.895
to say it is is heartless. This was another one of the counts

977
01:03:07.895 –> 01:03:11.675
of Sylvia’s indictment, and Tensions winced again. She explained,

978
01:03:11.895 –> 01:03:15.415
you don’t know the the case of the Pimlico army clothing factory

979
01:03:15.415 –> 01:03:19.195
workers, or you wouldn’t say the vote wouldn’t would be of no use to women.

980
01:03:20.130 –> 01:03:23.809
I know the case perfectly well, Tisha said. It came under my official notice, and

981
01:03:23.809 –> 01:03:27.490
I remember thinking there never was more signal instance of the

982
01:03:27.490 –> 01:03:31.170
uselessness of the vote to anyone. We can’t be thinking of the same

983
01:03:31.170 –> 01:03:34.615
case, she said. We are, he answered. The Pimlico

984
01:03:34.755 –> 01:03:38.215
Army Clothing Factory is in the constituency of Westminster.

985
01:03:38.515 –> 01:03:42.355
The undersecretary for war is a member for Westminster. His

986
01:03:42.355 –> 01:03:45.875
majority at the last election was 600. The clothing factory employed

987
01:03:45.875 –> 01:03:48.280
700 men at £1,

988
01:03:49.480 –> 01:03:53.020
6 an hour, and all these men having their votes in Westminster.

989
01:03:53.400 –> 01:03:57.160
The 700 men wrote to the undersecretary to say that if their screw

990
01:03:57.160 –> 01:04:00.735
wasn’t raised to Bob, they vote solid against him at the next

991
01:04:01.695 –> 01:04:05.215
election. Miss Wannop said, well then. So, Tijen said, the

992
01:04:05.215 –> 01:04:09.055
undersecretary had the 700 men at 18 fired and took

993
01:04:09.055 –> 01:04:12.335
on 700 women at 10p. What good did the vote do the

994
01:04:12.335 –> 01:04:15.330
700 men? What good did a vote ever do anyone?

995
01:04:19.170 –> 01:04:22.690
Miss Wannop checked at that, and Tijen’s prevented her exposure of his

996
01:04:22.690 –> 01:04:26.530
fallacy by saying quickly, now if the 700 women, backed

997
01:04:26.530 –> 01:04:30.174
by all the other ill used, sweated women of the country, had threatened the

998
01:04:30.174 –> 01:04:33.855
undersecretary, burned the pillar boxes, and cut up all the golf guard greens

999
01:04:33.855 –> 01:04:37.535
around his country house. They’d have had their wages raised to half a crown next

1000
01:04:37.535 –> 01:04:41.234
week. That’s the only straight method. It’s the feudal system

1001
01:04:42.095 –> 01:04:43.260
at work.

1002
01:04:46.380 –> 01:04:50.220
They go on and on around this area, and

1003
01:04:50.220 –> 01:04:53.440
this is sort of the way in which

1004
01:04:53.820 –> 01:04:57.595
Tijins and miss Wannop are, engaged

1005
01:04:57.595 –> 01:05:01.375
with each other at least initially. And I I point that out because

1006
01:05:01.835 –> 01:05:05.674
well, for a couple of different reasons. One of the things

1007
01:05:05.674 –> 01:05:09.515
that you see in, Parade’s End is the

1008
01:05:09.515 –> 01:05:13.280
relationships, as they are between men

1009
01:05:13.280 –> 01:05:16.580
and women. And they are fractured or fracturing

1010
01:05:17.280 –> 01:05:21.060
during that time that Ford Maddox Ford is writing about,

1011
01:05:21.760 –> 01:05:25.395
in the ’19, well, in the pre World War pre

1012
01:05:25.395 –> 01:05:28.915
World War one world, and then they would fracture even more when fewer

1013
01:05:28.915 –> 01:05:32.595
men came back home from the trenches of World War

1014
01:05:32.595 –> 01:05:36.275
one. And so where there is a

1015
01:05:36.275 –> 01:05:39.990
vacuum, nature will fill it. And nature did fill that

1016
01:05:39.990 –> 01:05:43.690
vacuum, and women did get the vote in

1017
01:05:43.830 –> 01:05:47.370
Britain. Later

1018
01:05:47.430 –> 01:05:50.950
on, hundred years or so down the road, we now live in an era

1019
01:05:50.950 –> 01:05:54.355
where more women than men publish and read fiction.

1020
01:05:55.135 –> 01:05:58.735
We’ve also wound up in a spot where the promises of early twentieth century

1021
01:05:58.735 –> 01:06:02.575
feminism have been fully realize have been as fully realized as they are

1022
01:06:02.575 –> 01:06:06.175
probably ever going to be. Yes, we talk a lot in our

1023
01:06:06.175 –> 01:06:09.520
country, a lot about glass ceilings and,

1024
01:06:10.960 –> 01:06:14.400
and pay inequalities between men and women. But the

1025
01:06:14.400 –> 01:06:18.099
statistics, do show, and this has been shown repeatedly,

1026
01:06:18.400 –> 01:06:21.920
that when men and women do the exact same job at the

1027
01:06:21.920 –> 01:06:25.515
exact same educational level with the exact

1028
01:06:25.575 –> 01:06:29.415
same institution, well,

1029
01:06:29.415 –> 01:06:33.095
men and women’s salaries are on par with each other and have

1030
01:06:33.095 –> 01:06:36.935
been for quite some time. Where they are not on par, and I’m

1031
01:06:36.935 –> 01:06:40.280
going to check everybody who’s gonna send me an email on this, where they are

1032
01:06:40.280 –> 01:06:44.120
not on par are in the dirty jobs that men will do that

1033
01:06:44.120 –> 01:06:47.800
women never will. I can

1034
01:06:47.800 –> 01:06:51.240
count on my number of no hands how many

1035
01:06:51.240 –> 01:06:53.494
female garbage men I’ve ever

1036
01:06:56.755 –> 01:06:58.694
met. Okay.

1037
01:07:00.755 –> 01:07:04.135
These two facts, where the promises of early twentieth century feminism

1038
01:07:04.755 –> 01:07:08.289
and the reading of fiction intersect, among

1039
01:07:08.289 –> 01:07:12.049
others, have caused interpersonal relationships between men and women in

1040
01:07:12.049 –> 01:07:15.809
2025 to be at an all time low if you read the

1041
01:07:15.809 –> 01:07:17.990
reports from the ever online Intelligentsia.

1042
01:07:19.809 –> 01:07:23.325
I don’t date. I’m married quite

1043
01:07:23.325 –> 01:07:26.925
happily, and I cannot imagine being out

1044
01:07:26.925 –> 01:07:29.905
there now. It’s got to be

1045
01:07:30.845 –> 01:07:34.205
just incredibly difficult to

1046
01:07:34.205 –> 01:07:36.950
connect, with people.

1047
01:07:40.609 –> 01:07:43.750
And it is more made more incredibly difficult

1048
01:07:44.849 –> 01:07:47.910
by not only the facts of the last hundred years,

1049
01:07:48.530 –> 01:07:52.265
around feminism and around interpersonal relationships, but also by the

1050
01:07:52.265 –> 01:07:55.785
facts of technology. Technology impacted war, but it also impacted

1051
01:07:55.785 –> 01:07:58.525
interpersonal relationships, and it continues to do so, by the way.

1052
01:07:59.705 –> 01:08:03.545
And the fact is, in real life, men and women are failing as they

1053
01:08:03.545 –> 01:08:07.270
always have, and we see this actually, exemplified in

1054
01:08:07.270 –> 01:08:10.869
that little section of parades in that I read. Men and women are failing at

1055
01:08:10.869 –> 01:08:14.569
the most basic skill that everyone needs to be successful at in the world,

1056
01:08:14.869 –> 01:08:17.050
and that is the skill of negotiation.

1057
01:08:18.594 –> 01:08:22.194
But you cannot negotiate with somebody if you do not understand or are

1058
01:08:22.194 –> 01:08:25.875
not curious about how their brain works. And that

1059
01:08:25.875 –> 01:08:28.135
lack of curiosity between men and women,

1060
01:08:29.635 –> 01:08:33.179
the seeds for some of that were laid almost a

1061
01:08:33.179 –> 01:08:37.020
hundred years ago. So the question

1062
01:08:37.020 –> 01:08:40.139
that I have so we’re gonna make this personal a little bit not personal to

1063
01:08:40.139 –> 01:08:43.979
Libby or personal to myself, but personal to us as readers, is I think

1064
01:08:43.979 –> 01:08:47.715
you can I think you could find out about people’s mindset from reading

1065
01:08:47.715 –> 01:08:50.534
fiction? That’s why we’re reading this this very dense book.

1066
01:08:51.635 –> 01:08:55.395
This book is identified as literary fiction. So how can

1067
01:08:55.395 –> 01:08:59.069
reading literary or highbrow fiction help men and women

1068
01:08:59.310 –> 01:09:03.149
in navigating their interpersonal interactions now in the

1069
01:09:03.149 –> 01:09:06.909
year that we live in now, Libby? How can that how

1070
01:09:06.909 –> 01:09:10.590
can that help? Or can it help? Or are we too far

1071
01:09:10.590 –> 01:09:14.355
gone for it to help? By the way, men don’t don’t nearly read as

1072
01:09:14.355 –> 01:09:18.195
much fiction as women do. And the idea is

1073
01:09:18.195 –> 01:09:21.635
that and I I listened to an author talk about this. He said that,

1074
01:09:21.795 –> 01:09:25.475
what’s interesting is not only are men not reading literary

1075
01:09:25.475 –> 01:09:28.929
fiction, there isn’t nearly as much published

1076
01:09:28.929 –> 01:09:32.689
literary fiction by men in the market today. And

1077
01:09:32.689 –> 01:09:35.750
he said that book publishers made an intentional

1078
01:09:36.770 –> 01:09:40.595
decision in the early two thousands to

1079
01:09:40.595 –> 01:09:43.814
abandon the male market. And now

1080
01:09:44.755 –> 01:09:48.435
boys and men who were formally pushed into

1081
01:09:48.435 –> 01:09:50.935
video games and into Netflix and all of that,

1082
01:09:53.010 –> 01:09:56.850
are now even dropping out of those spaces. So what can we

1083
01:09:56.850 –> 01:10:00.690
learn what can men and women learn from literary fiction about how to deal

1084
01:10:00.690 –> 01:10:03.750
with interpersonal their interpersonal relationships?

1085
01:10:06.210 –> 01:10:09.935
One, I it’s I’m surprised that there’s

1086
01:10:09.935 –> 01:10:13.135
been such a big decline from men reading litter

1087
01:10:13.375 –> 01:10:15.315
literary fiction. Mhmm.

1088
01:10:18.735 –> 01:10:22.380
It has always surprised me how much

1089
01:10:22.380 –> 01:10:24.960
women will read fiction and they don’t read,

1090
01:10:26.220 –> 01:10:29.600
nonfiction. And I specifically look at that from,

1091
01:10:30.460 –> 01:10:33.440
you know, a a professional perspective

1092
01:10:34.300 –> 01:10:38.065
as well as just understanding history and our

1093
01:10:38.065 –> 01:10:41.585
place in history. Mhmm. I find that it

1094
01:10:41.585 –> 01:10:44.725
kinda speaks to this need to escape,

1095
01:10:45.425 –> 01:10:48.485
and live in fantasy. I don’t know. But,

1096
01:10:50.170 –> 01:10:53.770
it has always struck me as a bit odd, how few

1097
01:10:53.770 –> 01:10:56.909
women will actually read nonfiction. Mhmm.

1098
01:10:59.130 –> 01:11:02.270
But I do think there’s a lot of men who will read

1099
01:11:02.969 –> 01:11:06.745
fiction, like short stories and, you know, and that type of thing, but they

1100
01:11:06.745 –> 01:11:10.205
must be getting it through other other means and mechanisms.

1101
01:11:12.345 –> 01:11:15.545
Well, apparently and in the interview that I was listening to that covered this or

1102
01:11:15.545 –> 01:11:19.225
where the guy talked about this, the author talked about

1103
01:11:19.225 –> 01:11:23.020
it. He’s been writing books for twenty years now,

1104
01:11:23.320 –> 01:11:27.080
and he said that even twenty years ago when he was first entering

1105
01:11:27.080 –> 01:11:30.920
the publishing world Yeah. They were talking about or

1106
01:11:30.920 –> 01:11:34.705
publishers were talking about how to get the mail market. Right? How

1107
01:11:34.705 –> 01:11:36.785
do we get the mail market? How do we get the mail market? But he

1108
01:11:36.785 –> 01:11:40.625
said over the course of the last twenty years, what’s happened is there was

1109
01:11:40.625 –> 01:11:44.465
a wholesale abandonment of that market. And now, weirdly enough, in

1110
01:11:44.465 –> 01:11:48.120
2025, he’s now getting called back into conversations about how

1111
01:11:48.120 –> 01:11:51.340
to get the mail market. Yeah. But

1112
01:11:51.880 –> 01:11:55.340
it’s it’s these conversations are being driven by people who

1113
01:11:56.280 –> 01:11:59.800
don’t fundamentally understand the mail mind and don’t have a curiosity about

1114
01:11:59.800 –> 01:12:03.414
it, or just think that you could just, like, to your point,

1115
01:12:03.414 –> 01:12:06.614
layer some nonfiction over it, and it’ll be good. Like, we’ll call it a good

1116
01:12:06.614 –> 01:12:10.375
thing. You know? Yeah. And he he

1117
01:12:10.375 –> 01:12:13.570
he the interview that I was listening to, the individual was talking about this or

1118
01:12:13.570 –> 01:12:17.410
the perspective of, of boys reading. So there’s

1119
01:12:17.410 –> 01:12:21.170
a massive drop off with boys reading starting around the ages of between 10

1120
01:12:21.170 –> 01:12:24.949
and 13. Boys just stop reading. Now formally,

1121
01:12:25.010 –> 01:12:28.855
they were going into video games or into, like, or into,

1122
01:12:29.095 –> 01:12:32.615
like, Netflix shows. But he’s like he said, if you look at the statistics on

1123
01:12:32.615 –> 01:12:36.215
that, even Netflix consumption and video game consumption is

1124
01:12:36.215 –> 01:12:39.995
starting to decline among the 10 to 13 year old male group.

1125
01:12:40.220 –> 01:12:43.500
And he said most he said what most people are doing is they’re doom scrolling

1126
01:12:43.500 –> 01:12:47.340
on their phones, and they’re either if they’re young boys, they’re looking

1127
01:12:47.340 –> 01:12:50.780
at pornography. And if they’re young women, they’re engaged with,

1128
01:12:51.180 –> 01:12:54.560
they’re engaged with simping, basically, for pornography

1129
01:12:55.255 –> 01:12:59.095
through OnlyFans. And he said, that’s it. That’s what everybody’s doing. That’s

1130
01:12:59.095 –> 01:13:01.675
what I wondered as if it was the porn. Yeah.

1131
01:13:02.855 –> 01:13:06.295
Yeah. And they’re getting yeah. Yeah. The

1132
01:13:06.295 –> 01:13:10.130
combination of porn versus video streaming and, and all

1133
01:13:10.130 –> 01:13:13.910
that, but my guess was it was porn, which is unfortunate.

1134
01:13:14.050 –> 01:13:14.550
But,

1135
01:13:17.810 –> 01:13:21.190
the I find fiction is just

1136
01:13:21.250 –> 01:13:24.695
valuable. Is a a val a valuable

1137
01:13:24.835 –> 01:13:28.614
vehicle to learn in an unthreatened and unverifiable

1138
01:13:29.074 –> 01:13:31.735
way. Mhmm. Right. Yeah. Right?

1139
01:13:32.515 –> 01:13:35.940
And, you know, through stories, you get to learn about

1140
01:13:35.940 –> 01:13:38.680
different lives and ways of thinking,

1141
01:13:40.100 –> 01:13:43.160
that you can’t like, that unlike nonfiction,

1142
01:13:44.020 –> 01:13:47.700
like, it’s debatable, and fiction is just one per yeah.

1143
01:13:47.700 –> 01:13:51.335
It’s just a story. Right. And what I

1144
01:13:51.335 –> 01:13:55.095
like about this you asked

1145
01:13:55.095 –> 01:13:58.695
is, for me, you’re

1146
01:13:58.695 –> 01:14:02.235
learning that there is no one simple answer and what’s,

1147
01:14:02.295 –> 01:14:04.700
you know, what one,

1148
01:14:06.280 –> 01:14:09.720
marriage or being single or, you

1149
01:14:09.720 –> 01:14:13.240
know, you know, professing a

1150
01:14:13.240 –> 01:14:17.074
different gender or sexual orientation. Like, none

1151
01:14:17.074 –> 01:14:20.135
of those things are necessarily going to be answers.

1152
01:14:21.074 –> 01:14:24.835
There’s complexity with every one of those situations. Mhmm.

1153
01:14:24.835 –> 01:14:26.135
You know? And so,

1154
01:14:28.275 –> 01:14:31.890
the answer to feminism like, when I was

1155
01:14:31.890 –> 01:14:34.790
growing up in the seventies, it was just about being professional

1156
01:14:35.890 –> 01:14:39.730
and being able to, like, learn and grow to the top of a

1157
01:14:39.730 –> 01:14:43.355
company, but still are interested

1158
01:14:43.355 –> 01:14:47.195
in family. Yeah. It it wasn’t about a negative perspective on

1159
01:14:47.195 –> 01:14:50.495
family. It wasn’t a negative perspective on having children.

1160
01:14:51.515 –> 01:14:54.815
And feminism has been taken to such an extreme

1161
01:14:54.955 –> 01:14:58.790
now that it’s all

1162
01:14:58.790 –> 01:15:02.090
about just being individual and not needing someone

1163
01:15:03.110 –> 01:15:05.929
else. You don’t even hear it about career aspiration.

1164
01:15:06.869 –> 01:15:10.284
It’s it’s just about me, me, me, me, me.

1165
01:15:12.045 –> 01:15:15.824
And so the it has been taken to the ultimate

1166
01:15:15.885 –> 01:15:19.105
extreme. And I think women are finding

1167
01:15:19.724 –> 01:15:23.485
that the me, me, me isn’t satisfying, especially when

1168
01:15:23.485 –> 01:15:27.230
you don’t balance it with anything that is of meaning.

1169
01:15:27.230 –> 01:15:30.590
Like, at least from a career perspective, I knew where I was going and what

1170
01:15:30.590 –> 01:15:34.429
I was trying to accomplish. And there was some goal at

1171
01:15:34.429 –> 01:15:37.635
the end of it, and I didn’t I pursued it because it felt good.

1172
01:15:38.034 –> 01:15:41.255
Mhmm. Right. Right? Yeah. Yeah. And,

1173
01:15:42.994 –> 01:15:46.835
and I grew up with a divorce in a divorced household, and I

1174
01:15:46.835 –> 01:15:50.594
did want to have kids. But my parents had me when they were 23 and

1175
01:15:50.594 –> 01:15:54.080
far too young, in my view, for ambitious

1176
01:15:54.219 –> 01:15:58.060
parents to have kids. So I wanted to wait until I was in my, you

1177
01:15:58.060 –> 01:16:01.659
know, into my late thirties or forties so I could actually spend time with them.

1178
01:16:01.659 –> 01:16:05.199
So, you know, for me, the feminism

1179
01:16:05.420 –> 01:16:09.245
wasn’t about not needing anyone or

1180
01:16:09.245 –> 01:16:12.385
not having kids. It was about the freedom to pursue

1181
01:16:13.165 –> 01:16:15.985
the same things that men are able to pursue,

1182
01:16:17.405 –> 01:16:20.845
but not demonizing the other, yeah, the other

1183
01:16:20.845 –> 01:16:24.690
sex, or institutions. Like,

1184
01:16:24.750 –> 01:16:27.890
I didn’t understand marriage, but that’s me.

1185
01:16:29.310 –> 01:16:32.850
Like, I wanted Kurt Russell fully gone. You know, I still wanted

1186
01:16:33.070 –> 01:16:36.375
a partnership, but I just had a different definition of it.

1187
01:16:37.415 –> 01:16:40.055
And I didn’t look at my friends who were getting married and go, oh my

1188
01:16:40.055 –> 01:16:43.755
god. You’re losing yourself. You know? Right. Now

1189
01:16:44.615 –> 01:16:48.215
yeah. But the lesson to me is

1190
01:16:48.215 –> 01:16:51.570
that there is no one right model, and to

1191
01:16:51.570 –> 01:16:54.710
pursue one with certainty about what

1192
01:16:55.409 –> 01:16:59.010
it will mean to you, is

1193
01:16:59.010 –> 01:17:02.550
about is a bit scary. And you can learn through fiction,

1194
01:17:03.795 –> 01:17:07.315
like, the pros and cons of a lot of different lifestyles. Right?

1195
01:17:07.315 –> 01:17:10.915
Like, the woman who doesn’t Yeah. You know, so

1196
01:17:10.915 –> 01:17:14.675
for the suffragette, you know, who realized just the

1197
01:17:14.675 –> 01:17:18.340
boat wasn’t up. Or and she

1198
01:17:18.340 –> 01:17:22.020
could find happiness. Or, like, Megyn Kelly

1199
01:17:22.020 –> 01:17:25.700
is like, you can’t have it all. It’s just you know?

1200
01:17:25.700 –> 01:17:29.300
And you can have it all at once. So stop believing people who say you

1201
01:17:29.300 –> 01:17:33.055
can’t have it all at once. I do. But, yeah, there are other

1202
01:17:33.055 –> 01:17:36.815
people who choose to have it all at once throughout their

1203
01:17:36.815 –> 01:17:40.495
life. You know? Like, I’ll focus on work now. Right.

1204
01:17:40.655 –> 01:17:44.415
And then family, can’t go back to work. But there’s not one right

1205
01:17:44.415 –> 01:17:48.080
model. The reality is life is complex. People

1206
01:17:48.080 –> 01:17:51.920
are complex, and you’re gonna have to learn from your for

1207
01:17:51.920 –> 01:17:55.440
yourself what fits for you. The challenge with

1208
01:17:55.440 –> 01:17:59.285
modern relationships right now is women freaking demonized

1209
01:17:59.585 –> 01:18:03.205
men and told them that they were worthless. You know?

1210
01:18:03.345 –> 01:18:06.865
So it wasn’t just that I wanna be independent. It’s

1211
01:18:06.865 –> 01:18:10.465
that you stuck, and I’m gonna push you down to

1212
01:18:10.465 –> 01:18:14.119
elevate me as opposed, you know, with all of these

1213
01:18:14.119 –> 01:18:17.800
identity type politics and societal games. It’s

1214
01:18:17.800 –> 01:18:21.560
only, you know, at when it only when you can rise only by

1215
01:18:21.560 –> 01:18:25.020
pushing someone else down, it’s not gonna successful.

1216
01:18:25.545 –> 01:18:28.985
And that’s what the western western civilization has

1217
01:18:28.985 –> 01:18:32.825
promoted for the last thirty years is that women can only

1218
01:18:32.825 –> 01:18:36.445
elevate by pushing others, you know, by pushing others down.

1219
01:18:36.745 –> 01:18:40.550
And once they get there, they realize that

1220
01:18:40.550 –> 01:18:44.390
it sucks to just be me without, like,

1221
01:18:44.390 –> 01:18:47.990
a family and men around. And this and it does

1222
01:18:47.990 –> 01:18:51.770
actually having strong men and a partner

1223
01:18:52.310 –> 01:18:56.025
is really meaningful and valuable. But they’ve they’ve

1224
01:18:56.025 –> 01:18:59.625
created conditions where men are going to Europe yeah. Or going to Asia to get

1225
01:18:59.625 –> 01:19:03.325
wives because I wouldn’t marry I wouldn’t marry an American

1226
01:19:03.385 –> 01:19:07.225
woman. I’ll tell you that much. I wouldn’t

1227
01:19:07.225 –> 01:19:08.045
marry a woman.

1228
01:19:11.409 –> 01:19:14.790
And I wouldn’t marry, but that’s

1229
01:19:14.850 –> 01:19:17.830
me. But I can understand.

1230
01:19:19.330 –> 01:19:23.094
Mhmm. You’re like, I’m just Asian. Because women here

1231
01:19:23.094 –> 01:19:26.775
suck. They don’t know what they want. Well, the

1232
01:19:27.014 –> 01:19:30.695
and the the thing is and I don’t I think Tien

1233
01:19:30.695 –> 01:19:34.534
Ts is sort of trying to be gentle about it as most men

1234
01:19:34.534 –> 01:19:36.955
usually do try to be gentle with women.

1235
01:19:38.560 –> 01:19:42.320
Yeah. And and and and one of the ways that men

1236
01:19:42.320 –> 01:19:46.080
try to be gentle with women is is is trying to be verbally gentle

1237
01:19:46.080 –> 01:19:49.695
with them because, like, if you well well, there’s good

1238
01:19:49.695 –> 01:19:52.974
reason for that. One of the things that one of the things that I that

1239
01:19:52.974 –> 01:19:55.955
I note consistently is that

1240
01:19:56.974 –> 01:20:00.755
and I do say consistently is that men spend a lot of time

1241
01:20:01.534 –> 01:20:05.199
mediating conflict between other men. You

1242
01:20:05.199 –> 01:20:08.719
just you just do. Like, that’s because because here’s the thing. Here’s the thing.

1243
01:20:08.719 –> 01:20:12.500
If I am in a, you know, in a discussion

1244
01:20:12.560 –> 01:20:14.900
or something with another man, right,

1245
01:20:16.080 –> 01:20:18.735
and it escalates to a certain point,

1246
01:20:19.775 –> 01:20:23.135
like, we can always go outside and fix it. Like, we have that

1247
01:20:23.135 –> 01:20:26.415
physical thing that we can do. That that’s always the cul de sac at the

1248
01:20:26.415 –> 01:20:29.875
end of the at the end of the at the end of the road. Right?

1249
01:20:31.455 –> 01:20:35.240
I don’t have that so you avoid it. Oh, we do everything

1250
01:20:35.240 –> 01:20:38.920
we possibly can to avoid that. Everything we possibly can. Because if I’m

1251
01:20:38.920 –> 01:20:42.600
spending half my time just getting in and out of fist fights, like, that’s Yeah.

1252
01:20:42.600 –> 01:20:46.360
It’s just not it’s not productive. Right? Okay. And by the way, it takes us

1253
01:20:46.360 –> 01:20:50.175
between the ages of 10 and, like, 18 to sort of

1254
01:20:50.175 –> 01:20:53.715
figure that out. That’s usually where that learning occurs.

1255
01:20:53.855 –> 01:20:57.695
Okay. But with women, you’re not gonna

1256
01:20:57.695 –> 01:21:01.215
go out and and, you know, you’re not gonna fist fight a woman. Like, come

1257
01:21:01.215 –> 01:21:05.000
on. Like, even even in our degraded era, you’re still not going

1258
01:21:05.160 –> 01:21:08.920
and I’m I’m I’m I’m looking with a cocked eye. I am. I’m

1259
01:21:08.920 –> 01:21:12.600
keeping a cocked eye on all the transgender stuff,

1260
01:21:12.600 –> 01:21:15.239
but I’ll leave that aside. That’s another that’s a different kind of thing for a

1261
01:21:15.239 –> 01:21:18.955
different kind of day. That’s not part of this conversation. In interactions between men and

1262
01:21:18.955 –> 01:21:22.715
women, pure classical interactions between men and women, men do spend a

1263
01:21:22.715 –> 01:21:26.475
lot of time being verbally gentle with women because we don’t

1264
01:21:26.475 –> 01:21:30.235
want to escalate to a particular spot. Now the reason and

1265
01:21:30.235 –> 01:21:33.740
you see that in Ting Jin’s engagement with, with miss

1266
01:21:33.740 –> 01:21:36.720
Wannop. Right? Like, he was going to give her the facts about

1267
01:21:37.260 –> 01:21:41.100
the the army factory fire, but

1268
01:21:41.100 –> 01:21:44.555
he was trying to give them to her in the in the

1269
01:21:44.555 –> 01:21:46.735
gentlest, most judicious way possible,

1270
01:21:48.875 –> 01:21:52.555
in order to encourage understanding and in and in

1271
01:21:52.555 –> 01:21:55.995
order to reduce or minimize the opportunity for

1272
01:21:55.995 –> 01:21:59.829
conflict. Okay. Fast

1273
01:21:59.829 –> 01:22:03.590
forward all of that to a hundred years to where we are

1274
01:22:03.590 –> 01:22:06.650
at now, and

1275
01:22:10.845 –> 01:22:13.785
think that

1276
01:22:15.725 –> 01:22:18.665
there are

1277
01:22:20.605 –> 01:22:24.390
some optimum traditional ways to do that? For sure. And am I

1278
01:22:24.390 –> 01:22:27.910
a proponent of those optimal traditional ways? For sure. Because I think they hold the

1279
01:22:27.910 –> 01:22:31.510
society together. Yep. But it’s only be by having those

1280
01:22:31.510 –> 01:22:34.730
optimal traditional ways of holding things together that you get to have the outliers.

1281
01:22:35.910 –> 01:22:38.225
Okay. Now

1282
01:22:40.445 –> 01:22:44.125
where we are at, from my perspective, as a person

1283
01:22:44.125 –> 01:22:46.625
who’s standing outside of all this, right,

1284
01:22:48.205 –> 01:22:48.945
is that

1285
01:22:53.290 –> 01:22:57.130
if you if you fundamentally to to to the point earlier, you

1286
01:22:57.130 –> 01:23:00.889
fundamentally lack curiosity about how another

1287
01:23:00.889 –> 01:23:04.724
person thinks, then you are then you are automatically

1288
01:23:04.945 –> 01:23:08.385
putting yourself into a world of trade offs. And this is what men don’t tell

1289
01:23:08.385 –> 01:23:11.905
women, by the way, but every man knows this. The world is

1290
01:23:11.905 –> 01:23:15.045
a vicious series of trade offs.

1291
01:23:15.824 –> 01:23:19.470
Yes. It’s a brutal series of trade offs. And every man knows this

1292
01:23:19.470 –> 01:23:23.230
starting around six or seven, actually. We don’t know the

1293
01:23:23.230 –> 01:23:26.910
term trade off, but that’s what we know. We know that there’s there’s certain things

1294
01:23:26.910 –> 01:23:30.195
you can do, and there’s and and this the level of brutalness of those trade

1295
01:23:30.195 –> 01:23:33.635
offs just continues to escalate throughout your entire life until you hit a certain

1296
01:23:33.635 –> 01:23:37.395
point where you’re like, okay, I don’t wanna make any more of

1297
01:23:37.395 –> 01:23:40.115
those trade offs. I’m gonna go do this thing in the other direction, and here’s

1298
01:23:40.115 –> 01:23:43.719
what you find out as a man. Everywhere you go, there are trade offs.

1299
01:23:44.020 –> 01:23:47.719
Everywhere. So for instance, I’ll use myself as an example.

1300
01:23:48.340 –> 01:23:51.880
I played rugby for many years. Rugby is a brutally hard sport.

1301
01:23:52.180 –> 01:23:53.895
Great, but brutally hard. Right?

1302
01:23:55.735 –> 01:23:59.255
And I played late in my twenties and into my

1303
01:23:59.255 –> 01:24:02.855
thirties, and I messed up my body, messed up my

1304
01:24:02.855 –> 01:24:06.375
knees, whatever. I’ve I’ve you know, I was never gonna be a pro rugby player

1305
01:24:06.375 –> 01:24:10.080
going to Europe and playing rugby. It wasn’t gonna happen. Right? And that’s

1306
01:24:10.080 –> 01:24:13.920
a trade off. So why would I do something that’s hard in breaking

1307
01:24:13.920 –> 01:24:17.520
down my body? Right? Well, because I enjoyed it. Right? But I

1308
01:24:17.520 –> 01:24:20.960
knew I was trading off something in the future, and I was willing to make

1309
01:24:20.960 –> 01:24:24.275
that trade off. Right? I was willing to live with that negotiation.

1310
01:24:27.215 –> 01:24:30.975
And there were the movie

1311
01:24:30.975 –> 01:24:34.415
Invictus sticks with me. Right? With Matt Damon. Right? There were

1312
01:24:34.415 –> 01:24:38.190
movies that demonstrated fiction, that demonstrated those

1313
01:24:38.190 –> 01:24:41.869
trade offs in a really interesting way. There were books

1314
01:24:41.869 –> 01:24:45.329
that illustrated that trade off in a really interesting way around rugby.

1315
01:24:46.030 –> 01:24:49.570
What fiction does is it demonstrates those trade offs

1316
01:24:49.949 –> 01:24:53.655
in a way that allows people to not have to go out and

1317
01:24:53.655 –> 01:24:57.195
experience the thing. And you need trade offs,

1318
01:24:57.575 –> 01:25:01.255
and you need trade offs for both men. So men understand that the

1319
01:25:01.255 –> 01:25:04.935
trade offs that men make. For women, so the women understand the trade offs, that

1320
01:25:04.935 –> 01:25:07.255
they are going to have to make it. By the way, I’m not a proponent

1321
01:25:07.255 –> 01:25:11.040
of women quote, unquote, having it all because, quote, unquote, frankly, no one can

1322
01:25:11.040 –> 01:25:14.800
have it all. That’s talk about seven deadly sins.

1323
01:25:14.800 –> 01:25:17.920
That’s one of those, let me be even more old school. That’s one of those

1324
01:25:17.920 –> 01:25:21.540
lies from the pit of hell. Let me be even more old school.

1325
01:25:22.515 –> 01:25:26.275
There are always inherently trade offs that you’re making. Always. You’ve

1326
01:25:26.275 –> 01:25:29.895
just accept you’ve just accepted when you say that you have it all,

1327
01:25:31.155 –> 01:25:34.995
like, Megan Kelly says she has it all. It’s the trade offs were worth it

1328
01:25:34.995 –> 01:25:38.810
for what she’s defining as it all. As it all. Right. Exactly. Yeah. And

1329
01:25:38.890 –> 01:25:42.670
trade offs. And, I would agree

1330
01:25:42.730 –> 01:25:46.430
that in this in the feminized society that we now

1331
01:25:47.050 –> 01:25:50.510
are living under, there is not a desire

1332
01:25:51.050 –> 01:25:54.815
to recognize trade offs and or that things

1333
01:25:54.815 –> 01:25:57.955
need to be negotiated. Like, shoulds,

1334
01:25:59.295 –> 01:26:02.595
when you do everything based on should or feels

1335
01:26:03.135 –> 01:26:06.950
Mhmm. You’re inherently accepting trade offs without

1336
01:26:06.950 –> 01:26:10.390
talking about them. Right. Yep. You

1337
01:26:10.390 –> 01:26:14.070
ultimately have to wait until you reach a

1338
01:26:14.070 –> 01:26:17.770
catastrophe before something is done

1339
01:26:18.150 –> 01:26:21.485
about it. And so the field should rolled,

1340
01:26:22.825 –> 01:26:26.425
almost leads to an asymmetric decline and

1341
01:26:26.425 –> 01:26:30.105
event, whereas, you

1342
01:26:30.105 –> 01:26:33.849
know, you and I are both are in business. Mhmm. And

1343
01:26:34.150 –> 01:26:37.909
in business, you’re always if if you’re running a good business,

1344
01:26:37.909 –> 01:26:41.429
you’re always having to make hard trade offs. Mhmm.

1345
01:26:42.070 –> 01:26:45.050
And one of the things that I’ve observed

1346
01:26:45.670 –> 01:26:47.765
as women become,

1347
01:26:49.505 –> 01:26:52.885
almost a majority in the workplace versus

1348
01:26:53.265 –> 01:26:56.865
a minority, that when

1349
01:26:56.865 –> 01:27:00.560
someone is wanting to discuss trade offs and or

1350
01:27:00.780 –> 01:27:04.540
scenarios, and it’s a male, that

1351
01:27:04.540 –> 01:27:07.900
women will feel that’s threatening and

1352
01:27:07.900 –> 01:27:11.500
mansplaining. And so you’re

1353
01:27:11.500 –> 01:27:14.880
bringing in kind of this should feels role

1354
01:27:15.390 –> 01:27:19.140
in a world where you need to be able to

1355
01:27:19.140 –> 01:27:22.890
have conversations about trade offs. And this is where the

1356
01:27:22.890 –> 01:27:26.640
negotiations aren’t you know, I see it manifest in

1357
01:27:26.640 –> 01:27:30.350
the workplace, and it it moves into the you’re

1358
01:27:30.350 –> 01:27:34.030
bringing in household dynamics almost into the work. Right? Yeah.

1359
01:27:34.030 –> 01:27:37.710
Yeah. And I don’t wanna bring household dynamics into the workplace. Like, when I’m at

1360
01:27:37.710 –> 01:27:40.610
the work when I’m at work, I wanna make great product

1361
01:27:42.415 –> 01:27:46.175
that people are willing to pay for, that we have

1362
01:27:46.175 –> 01:27:49.555
partners that wanna work with us. We have employees

1363
01:27:49.855 –> 01:27:53.535
that know that they’re valued and, you know, and thriving. They’re

1364
01:27:53.535 –> 01:27:57.179
not coddled, but they’re challenged and excited about being

1365
01:27:57.179 –> 01:28:00.860
at work. And it’s an economically viable business that doesn’t

1366
01:28:00.860 –> 01:28:04.619
require external investment in order to survive. Mhmm.

1367
01:28:04.619 –> 01:28:07.840
In order to have that end to end

1368
01:28:08.895 –> 01:28:12.675
optimal excellent scenario, you’re making trade offs

1369
01:28:12.735 –> 01:28:16.175
across about what matters from a product

1370
01:28:16.175 –> 01:28:19.935
design perspective, what matters with respect to the partners

1371
01:28:19.935 –> 01:28:23.770
you choose and how you support them. Yeah. Everything is about

1372
01:28:23.770 –> 01:28:27.449
hard trade offs. And we’ve

1373
01:28:27.530 –> 01:28:31.310
in this world where we’ve had too much capital free flowing,

1374
01:28:32.410 –> 01:28:36.015
not a lot of accountability, The

1375
01:28:36.015 –> 01:28:39.475
absence of trade offs being made constantly

1376
01:28:39.935 –> 01:28:43.635
in the business is being shown as mediocrity

1377
01:28:43.855 –> 01:28:47.630
everywhere. I mean, you can’t buy anything that will last, you know, longer

1378
01:28:47.630 –> 01:28:51.469
than it takes to walk out a store. Right. Right. Well

1379
01:28:51.630 –> 01:28:54.989
and and and you I love it how you said you don’t wanna bring

1380
01:28:54.989 –> 01:28:58.830
home dynamic or not you don’t, but we are bringing home

1381
01:28:58.830 –> 01:29:02.485
dynamics into the workplace. I’ve been I I’ve I’ve been

1382
01:29:02.545 –> 01:29:05.685
struck by an idea over the last, I would say, maybe

1383
01:29:08.304 –> 01:29:11.844
four to six months that I’ve had. It’s sort of a recent revelation,

1384
01:29:12.625 –> 01:29:16.380
or maybe it’s just me finally coalescing a bunch of ideas in my head that

1385
01:29:16.380 –> 01:29:19.100
it feels like a revelation, but it’s really not. I’ve just been having these random

1386
01:29:19.100 –> 01:29:22.780
ideas through these random conversations on this podcast. But it’s this

1387
01:29:22.780 –> 01:29:26.300
idea that we’re asking certain institutions to carry more

1388
01:29:26.300 –> 01:29:30.105
weight than they were designed to carry. So the workplace

1389
01:29:30.105 –> 01:29:32.985
was not designed to carry the weight of the home, and the home was not

1390
01:29:32.985 –> 01:29:36.345
designed to carry the weight of the workplace, by the way, just as

1391
01:29:36.585 –> 01:29:40.105
and and communities and churches aren’t designed to

1392
01:29:40.105 –> 01:29:43.849
carry the weight of the workplace. They’re designed to be a

1393
01:29:43.849 –> 01:29:47.290
partner with that, but they’re not designed to carry the weight of

1394
01:29:47.290 –> 01:29:50.750
that. Right? And so the decline

1395
01:29:50.889 –> 01:29:53.949
of institutions

1396
01:29:55.284 –> 01:29:59.045
hasn’t caused people to need those institutions less. It’s just caused

1397
01:29:59.045 –> 01:30:02.724
individuals, and and enough individuals get together and it’s

1398
01:30:02.724 –> 01:30:06.565
collective at that point. But it’s caused individuals to move the

1399
01:30:06.565 –> 01:30:08.824
the emotional and psychological weight

1400
01:30:10.220 –> 01:30:13.580
to places where it wasn’t meant to carry that

1401
01:30:13.580 –> 01:30:17.260
weight. And you see this in, like, the institution of marriage, for instance. Like, you

1402
01:30:17.260 –> 01:30:20.620
see that there where, you know, men and

1403
01:30:20.620 –> 01:30:23.600
women used to have separate

1404
01:30:24.140 –> 01:30:27.465
spheres spheres spheres spheres spheres of friends.

1405
01:30:28.005 –> 01:30:31.525
And that was fine because the marriage has a

1406
01:30:31.525 –> 01:30:35.144
relationship and to be the container for everything

1407
01:30:35.364 –> 01:30:39.190
to everybody or to those two people inside of that container. But

1408
01:30:39.190 –> 01:30:42.710
in our modern world, you know, you and I’ll put this on

1409
01:30:42.710 –> 01:30:46.389
men. I I work with men, and I have I have

1410
01:30:46.389 –> 01:30:50.070
worked with men in the past who will literally say, my wife

1411
01:30:50.070 –> 01:30:53.610
is my best friend. And I’m like,

1412
01:30:55.365 –> 01:30:57.925
that’s a lot of weight to put on your wife. That’s a lot of weight

1413
01:30:57.925 –> 01:31:01.625
to put on the institution of marriage there. And what if she can’t handle that?

1414
01:31:02.005 –> 01:31:05.445
And I presume the same thing happens with women. You

1415
01:31:05.445 –> 01:31:09.150
know? And so so I think we’ve gotta have a

1416
01:31:09.150 –> 01:31:12.590
reordering because we’re at the end of the fourth turning, and now is the time

1417
01:31:12.590 –> 01:31:16.190
for reordering. I think we have to have a reordering of how we

1418
01:31:16.190 –> 01:31:20.030
think about these institutions. And, yes, maybe a return to

1419
01:31:20.030 –> 01:31:23.435
old things. But if you don’t wanna return to old things, then a renegotiation

1420
01:31:24.535 –> 01:31:28.135
to something new. And that renegotiation, I think fiction has to be a part of

1421
01:31:28.135 –> 01:31:31.735
that renegotiation. Yeah. I mean, there’s there’s no doubt that the

1422
01:31:31.735 –> 01:31:35.415
breakdown of the family structure well, first is women going

1423
01:31:35.415 –> 01:31:39.250
into the workforce. Yeah. I’m I’m the product of, you

1424
01:31:39.250 –> 01:31:43.090
know, the lock yeah. The what is it? They they

1425
01:31:43.250 –> 01:31:46.930
Oh, the latch key kids? The latch key kids. Yeah. And it you know, in

1426
01:31:46.930 –> 01:31:50.610
some way, it was fabulous because we had to be self sufficient. Right? Mhmm.

1427
01:31:50.610 –> 01:31:52.155
Yeah. Because our parents weren’t

1428
01:31:55.495 –> 01:31:58.955
home. A good model of what

1429
01:31:59.175 –> 01:32:02.074
being a responsible citizen was too.

1430
01:32:02.775 –> 01:32:04.875
Mhmm. But you had

1431
01:32:06.830 –> 01:32:10.430
the raising of children move to schools, and

1432
01:32:10.430 –> 01:32:14.190
schools have to take over that burden. Mhmm. But

1433
01:32:14.190 –> 01:32:17.950
the family structure no no longer was. And then it’s just

1434
01:32:17.950 –> 01:32:21.705
natural that folks who rely on

1435
01:32:21.705 –> 01:32:25.065
the schools will not expect the next institution being

1436
01:32:25.065 –> 01:32:28.905
work Right. To carry forward. I will say that

1437
01:32:28.905 –> 01:32:32.745
one of the reasons, like, marriage never quite appealed to me

1438
01:32:32.745 –> 01:32:36.050
is because it wasn’t business enough. Right? It’s like

1439
01:32:36.590 –> 01:32:40.110
because it was too emotional. It was just too emotional. Yeah. Right? I’m

1440
01:32:40.110 –> 01:32:43.869
like, no. This is a partnership. We can

1441
01:32:43.869 –> 01:32:47.489
discuss the different like, I’m fine. I we might decide

1442
01:32:47.630 –> 01:32:51.324
through negotiation that I carry more like, I

1443
01:32:51.324 –> 01:32:55.085
do more of the traditional feminine things, and he does more of

1444
01:32:55.085 –> 01:32:58.864
the traditional male. But to me, it was like

1445
01:32:59.244 –> 01:33:01.985
I’m not an emotional I’m not an emotional,

1446
01:33:03.000 –> 01:33:06.780
like, woman, and I don’t want a man who expects me to

1447
01:33:07.000 –> 01:33:10.760
be, like, an emotional woman that you can’t

1448
01:33:10.760 –> 01:33:14.219
talk to. Like Right. I watch all of my friends,

1449
01:33:14.360 –> 01:33:17.994
male friends, walk on, eggshells around their wives. I

1450
01:33:17.994 –> 01:33:20.735
was like, what?

1451
01:33:23.994 –> 01:33:27.594
You know? And then I hear women say that they’re men things that I would

1452
01:33:27.594 –> 01:33:31.275
never dream of saying to someone

1453
01:33:31.275 –> 01:33:35.110
I loved. Right. My observations

1454
01:33:35.409 –> 01:33:38.389
are clearly, you know, biased in my my observations.

1455
01:33:39.090 –> 01:33:42.389
But that’s why I always liked work

1456
01:33:42.850 –> 01:33:46.675
is because, you know, you knew what each other’s agenda was, you

1457
01:33:46.675 –> 01:33:49.735
knew what the goal was, and you’re willing to have tough conversations.

1458
01:33:50.595 –> 01:33:54.275
Mhmm. And now the workplace isn’t a place where you can

1459
01:33:54.275 –> 01:33:57.895
have tough conversations because it’s become too

1460
01:33:58.630 –> 01:34:02.470
feminized not I feminized doesn’t mean it’s because

1461
01:34:02.470 –> 01:34:06.150
women are there. It’s become feminized. Right? Because you could have

1462
01:34:06.150 –> 01:34:08.330
men who have feminine and

1463
01:34:10.565 –> 01:34:14.165
heterosexual men who have feminine energy. It’s

1464
01:34:14.165 –> 01:34:17.304
like, no. No. No. It feels good. It feels right.

1465
01:34:18.005 –> 01:34:21.844
You know, move on. But, there’s a

1466
01:34:21.844 –> 01:34:24.300
lot. Technology is a piece of it.

1467
01:34:25.560 –> 01:34:29.240
Social is a piece of it. But, yeah, the

1468
01:34:29.720 –> 01:34:33.160
we need a we need a correction, and moving to the family

1469
01:34:33.160 –> 01:34:35.175
structure is Yeah. Is an element

1470
01:34:37.574 –> 01:34:40.614
Well, we we need a we need a correction. We need a re we need

1471
01:34:40.614 –> 01:34:44.054
a renegotiation of the weight. You know? We just we just do. We need a

1472
01:34:44.054 –> 01:34:47.895
renegotiation of the weight. And maybe Anything. Maybe that will happen.

1473
01:34:47.895 –> 01:34:51.650
You know? Anything that starts out with condemning the other

1474
01:34:51.710 –> 01:34:55.390
is not gonna work. Right. Yeah. No. Exactly. Yeah. No.

1475
01:34:55.390 –> 01:34:59.150
Exactly right. Something positive that we’re working towards, and that’s

1476
01:34:59.150 –> 01:35:01.890
what otherwise, I’m gonna be black pilled.

1477
01:35:03.905 –> 01:35:07.744
Well, well, back to the book. Back, well, back to the book.

1478
01:35:07.744 –> 01:35:11.505
Back to Parade’s End. So we’re going to pick up with,

1479
01:35:11.985 –> 01:35:15.684
we’re gonna pick up with, father Consett, Sylvia,

1480
01:35:16.065 –> 01:35:19.610
and Sylvia’s mother. So Sylvia is

1481
01:35:19.610 –> 01:35:23.290
Tianjin’s wife. I’m going to

1482
01:35:23.290 –> 01:35:26.330
use a particular word here to describe Sylvia. She is,

1483
01:35:27.210 –> 01:35:30.985
estranged. I love that word. That is

1484
01:35:30.985 –> 01:35:34.425
very much a Caucasian American English

1485
01:35:34.425 –> 01:35:37.725
word. I have never heard a minority

1486
01:35:38.025 –> 01:35:41.785
person in America use the word estranged. I’ve never heard that. I only ever hear

1487
01:35:41.785 –> 01:35:45.570
Caucasians use that term, or use that word. And I don’t

1488
01:35:45.570 –> 01:35:48.770
know why that is, by the way, but I just it’s something that I’ve noted

1489
01:35:48.770 –> 01:35:52.450
in my own very talking about sample sizes, Libby, my own very small

1490
01:35:52.450 –> 01:35:56.290
sample size. Go ahead. They’re like that seems

1491
01:35:56.290 –> 01:36:00.085
like pretty normal word to me. I know. Right. It seems exactly. But I’ve never

1492
01:36:00.245 –> 01:36:01.865
I only ever hear

1493
01:36:04.005 –> 01:36:07.065
I do. The word I’m sorry. Nowadays is utilize.

1494
01:36:08.325 –> 01:36:11.910
Everyone’s using utilize instead of use. I was like.

1495
01:36:12.310 –> 01:36:15.130
Oh, yeah. That’s another don’t get me started on that. That’s

1496
01:36:16.630 –> 01:36:20.470
one battle at a time, Libby. Absolutely. I can’t be fighting I can’t be fighting

1497
01:36:20.470 –> 01:36:24.070
everywhere all at once. We try. I

1498
01:36:24.070 –> 01:36:27.685
tried, but I can’t. I have only so many troops. It’s okay to

1499
01:36:27.685 –> 01:36:31.205
demand. You know, I I played risk with my children this

1500
01:36:31.205 –> 01:36:35.045
weekend. Found out that my middle daughter apparently is a ruthless military

1501
01:36:35.045 –> 01:36:38.165
tactician. I did not know that. But now I know. So now I now I

1502
01:36:38.165 –> 01:36:41.780
know what I’m getting into. But, I did wind up in a spot

1503
01:36:41.840 –> 01:36:45.520
where I was literally fighting her on every front, everywhere, all at one

1504
01:36:45.520 –> 01:36:48.500
time. Ace.

1505
01:36:49.760 –> 01:36:52.560
And this is the first time she’d ever played risk. I was like, oh, wow.

1506
01:36:52.560 –> 01:36:55.195
I guess we’re I I guess this is the thing we’re doing now. I guess

1507
01:36:55.195 –> 01:36:58.875
we’re doing this. Oh, boy. Now you wonder what what game

1508
01:36:58.875 –> 01:37:02.255
she’s been playing with you. Yeah. Right. Exactly.

1509
01:37:02.715 –> 01:37:06.555
Exactly. Guess I said at the end. I thought I was

1510
01:37:06.555 –> 01:37:09.940
on to you. So

1511
01:37:09.940 –> 01:37:13.620
sure. I’m not so sure. The entire fifth last fifteen years have to

1512
01:37:13.620 –> 01:37:17.460
be, reexamined. We gotta reexam. We gotta reexam. We gotta reexam the

1513
01:37:17.460 –> 01:37:21.094
whole thing. Alright. So we are going to pick up

1514
01:37:21.094 –> 01:37:24.455
with a long conversation. I’m gonna read bits and pieces of it that I think

1515
01:37:24.455 –> 01:37:28.155
are relevant for our conversation today. So Sylvia

1516
01:37:28.215 –> 01:37:31.995
is, like I said, Tingen’s, estranged wife.

1517
01:37:32.135 –> 01:37:35.960
Then you have missus Satherweight, who is Sylvia’s mother, and

1518
01:37:35.960 –> 01:37:37.980
father Conset, who is their

1519
01:37:41.080 –> 01:37:44.440
religious adviser, a good old

1520
01:37:44.440 –> 01:37:48.280
fashioned well, I believe he would be

1521
01:37:48.280 –> 01:37:51.945
Anglican if I’m not mistaken, because they are

1522
01:37:51.945 –> 01:37:55.405
English. Alright. So let’s pick up in some do not.

1523
01:37:55.945 –> 01:37:59.645
Father Constance, Sylvia said to her mother, has been renewing his social circle.

1524
01:38:00.344 –> 01:38:03.785
It’s not, father Constance said, amongst the dregs of the people that you must

1525
01:38:03.785 –> 01:38:07.000
live if you don’t want to hear of the dregs of society.

1526
01:38:08.820 –> 01:38:12.659
Sylvia stood up. She said, you’ll keep your tongue off my best friends if

1527
01:38:12.659 –> 01:38:16.500
you want me if you want me to stop and be lectured. But

1528
01:38:16.500 –> 01:38:20.185
for mister Vanderveck for missus Vandervecken, I should not be here. I

1529
01:38:20.185 –> 01:38:23.945
return to the fold. Father Constance exclaimed, don’t say it,

1530
01:38:23.945 –> 01:38:27.645
child. I’d rather have help me. You had gone on living in open sin.

1531
01:38:29.145 –> 01:38:32.505
Sylvia sat down again, her hand listlessly on her lap. Have it your own way,

1532
01:38:32.505 –> 01:38:35.820
she said, and the father returned to the fourth sheet of the telegram.

1533
01:38:36.440 –> 01:38:39.660
What does this mean? He asked. He returned to the first sheet. This here,

1534
01:38:40.280 –> 01:38:43.500
accept resumption yoke, he read breathlessly.

1535
01:38:44.760 –> 01:38:48.585
Sylvia, missus Satterwhite said, go and light the spirit lamp for some

1536
01:38:48.585 –> 01:38:52.285
tea. We shall want it. You’d think I was

1537
01:38:52.345 –> 01:38:56.185
a district messenger boy, Sylvia said as she rose. Why don’t you keep

1538
01:38:56.185 –> 01:38:59.850
your maid up? It’s a way we have of referring to out, to

1539
01:38:59.850 –> 01:39:02.989
our union, she explained to the father.

1540
01:39:04.250 –> 01:39:08.010
There was sympathy enough between you and him then, he said, to have bywords

1541
01:39:08.010 –> 01:39:11.449
for things. It was that I wanted to know. I

1542
01:39:11.449 –> 01:39:15.235
understood the words. They were pretty bitter by

1543
01:39:15.235 –> 01:39:18.775
words as you called them, Sylvia said. More like curses than kisses.

1544
01:39:19.555 –> 01:39:23.395
It was you who used them, missus Satterwhite said. Christopher never said a bitter

1545
01:39:23.395 –> 01:39:26.835
thing to you. An expression like a grin came slowly

1546
01:39:26.835 –> 01:39:30.579
over Sylvia’s face as she turned back to the priest. That’s mother’s tragedy,

1547
01:39:30.579 –> 01:39:34.340
she said. My husband’s one of her best boys. She adores him, and he

1548
01:39:34.340 –> 01:39:38.099
can’t bear her. She drifted behind the wall of the next room, and they

1549
01:39:38.099 –> 01:39:41.795
heard her tinkling the tea things as the father read on again, beside

1550
01:39:41.795 –> 01:39:45.475
the candle. His immense shadow began at the center and ran along the pitch

1551
01:39:45.475 –> 01:39:48.995
pine ceiling down the wall across the floor to join his splay feet in their

1552
01:39:48.995 –> 01:39:52.514
clumsy boots. It’s bad, he muttered. He made a sound

1553
01:39:52.514 –> 01:39:55.495
like, worse than I feared,

1554
01:39:56.780 –> 01:40:00.220
Except resumption yoke, but on one rigid conditions. What’s

1555
01:40:00.220 –> 01:40:03.580
this? Socially, it ought to be a p, especially

1556
01:40:03.580 –> 01:40:07.340
regards child, reduce establishment, ridiculous. Our position,

1557
01:40:07.340 –> 01:40:11.120
remake settlements and child’s sole interests, flat knot house, entertaining

1558
01:40:11.180 –> 01:40:14.805
minimum, and prepared resign office, settle Yorkshire. But imagine

1559
01:40:14.805 –> 01:40:18.165
this not suit you child. Remain sister

1560
01:40:18.165 –> 01:40:21.705
Effie. Open visits both wire of this rough outline.

1561
01:40:21.845 –> 01:40:25.650
Provisionally acceptable in the case. We’ll express draft general position Monday for you

1562
01:40:25.650 –> 01:40:28.950
and mother reflect upon follow self Tuesday. Arrive Thursday.

1563
01:40:29.170 –> 01:40:32.850
Lobscheid go wipe shot fortnight on social task discussion Thursday limited

1564
01:40:32.850 –> 01:40:36.210
solely, comma, emphasized, comma, to affairs. That means, missus

1565
01:40:36.210 –> 01:40:39.705
Satterwhite said, missus Satterwhite said, that he doesn’t mean to reproach

1566
01:40:39.705 –> 01:40:43.385
her. Emphasized applies to the word solely. Why’d you take

1567
01:40:43.385 –> 01:40:46.985
it? Father Consett asked. Did he spend an

1568
01:40:46.985 –> 01:40:50.205
immense lot of money on this telegram? Did he imagine you were in such trepidation?

1569
01:40:50.665 –> 01:40:54.460
He broke off. Walking slowly, her long arms extended carrying the

1570
01:40:54.460 –> 01:40:58.300
tea tray to carry the tea tray, over which her wonderfully moving face

1571
01:40:58.300 –> 01:41:02.060
had a rapt expression of indescribable mystery. Sylvia was

1572
01:41:02.060 –> 01:41:05.745
coming through the door. So he’s reading the telegram that,

1573
01:41:06.385 –> 01:41:08.725
the Tizjens, sent to Sylvia.

1574
01:41:10.945 –> 01:41:14.245
She serves the tea. They go back and forth a little bit. And then

1575
01:41:14.305 –> 01:41:18.139
Sylvia start missus Satterwhite starts here. Have a cup of tea, father, while

1576
01:41:18.139 –> 01:41:21.260
it’s just right. I believe Sylvia is the only person in Germany who knows how

1577
01:41:21.260 –> 01:41:25.100
to make tea. There’s always behind him the Roman collar and the

1578
01:41:25.100 –> 01:41:28.139
silk bib if you don’t believe in him, while the concert went on. Yet he

1579
01:41:28.139 –> 01:41:31.840
knows 10, a thousand times more of the human nature than ever you can.

1580
01:41:32.485 –> 01:41:36.245
I don’t see, Sylvia said placably, how you can learn in your slums anything about

1581
01:41:36.245 –> 01:41:40.005
the nature of Eunice van der Wijken or Elizabeth b or Queenie James or

1582
01:41:40.005 –> 01:41:43.605
any of my set. She was on her feet pouring cream to the father’s

1583
01:41:43.605 –> 01:41:46.710
tea. I’ll admit for the moment that you aren’t giving me high jaw.

1584
01:41:47.910 –> 01:41:51.430
I’m glad, the priest said, that you remember enough of your school days to use

1585
01:41:51.430 –> 01:41:55.110
the old term. Sylvia wavered backwards to her sofa and sank

1586
01:41:55.110 –> 01:41:58.870
down again. There you are, she said. You can’t really get away from preachments. Me,

1587
01:41:58.870 –> 01:42:02.665
for the pure young girl, is always at the back of it. It isn’t, fa

1588
01:42:02.745 –> 01:42:06.425
the father said. I’m not one to cry for the moon. You don’t want me

1589
01:42:06.425 –> 01:42:09.485
to be a pure young girl? Sylvia asked with lazy incredulity.

1590
01:42:10.344 –> 01:42:14.010
I do not, father said, but I wish that at times you remember

1591
01:42:14.090 –> 01:42:17.849
you once were. I don’t believe I ever was, Sylvia said, if the

1592
01:42:17.849 –> 01:42:21.610
nuns had known I’d have been expelled from the holy child. You would

1593
01:42:21.610 –> 01:42:25.449
not, the father said. Do stop your boasting. The nuns have too much sense. Anyhow,

1594
01:42:25.449 –> 01:42:29.195
it isn’t a pure young girl. I’d have you behaving like a Protestant deaconess

1595
01:42:29.195 –> 01:42:32.955
for the craven fear of hell. I’d have you be physically healthy,

1596
01:42:32.955 –> 01:42:36.315
decently honest with yourself, young devil of a married

1597
01:42:36.315 –> 01:42:40.140
woman. It’s them that are the plague and the salvation of the world.

1598
01:42:41.340 –> 01:42:44.780
You admire mother? Missus Tigeons asked suddenly. She added in

1599
01:42:44.780 –> 01:42:48.620
parenthesis, you see you can’t get away from salvation. I mean, keeping

1600
01:42:48.620 –> 01:42:51.820
bread and butter in their husband’s stomachs, the priest said. Of course, I admire your

1601
01:42:51.820 –> 01:42:55.145
mother. Missus Satterwhite moved a hand slightly.

1602
01:42:55.764 –> 01:42:58.885
You’re at any rate a league with her against me, Sylvia said. She asked with

1603
01:42:58.885 –> 01:43:02.725
more interest. Then would you have me model myself on her and do good works

1604
01:43:02.725 –> 01:43:05.670
to escape hellfire? She wears a hair shirt on lent.

1605
01:43:06.710 –> 01:43:10.230
Missus Satterwhite started from her doze on the edge of her chair. She had been

1606
01:43:10.230 –> 01:43:14.070
trusting the father’s wit to give her daughter’s insolence a run for its money, and

1607
01:43:14.070 –> 01:43:17.590
she imagined that if the priest hit hard enough, he might at least make

1608
01:43:17.590 –> 01:43:21.415
Sylvia think a little bit about some of her

1609
01:43:21.415 –> 01:43:21.915
ways.

1610
01:43:27.975 –> 01:43:31.355
Sylvia Satterwhite is

1611
01:43:32.550 –> 01:43:35.210
part of the same way that, Valentine,

1612
01:43:36.230 –> 01:43:39.929
is on the other end, and so is Tensions

1613
01:43:40.070 –> 01:43:43.725
and McMaster and the priest. All these characters

1614
01:43:44.205 –> 01:43:47.825
are all part of the unraveling of social structure

1615
01:43:48.045 –> 01:43:51.585
in Victorian England in

1616
01:43:51.645 –> 01:43:55.105
the late, eighteenth century.

1617
01:43:56.285 –> 01:43:59.520
One of the challenges of understanding

1618
01:43:59.900 –> 01:44:03.679
and unraveling is looking at it through a lens of fact.

1619
01:44:03.820 –> 01:44:06.460
And we have talked a lot about the facts of World War one, the facts

1620
01:44:06.460 –> 01:44:10.159
of feminism, the facts of business. We talked a lot about that. But it’s also,

1621
01:44:11.260 –> 01:44:15.014
showing it through works of fiction, and and works of fiction show the unraveling really,

1622
01:44:15.014 –> 01:44:18.534
really well. Matter of fact, for my money, and one day we’ll do a whole

1623
01:44:18.534 –> 01:44:22.135
podcast on this show, for my money, the best show

1624
01:44:22.135 –> 01:44:25.894
that demonstrates the unraveling of America at the later

1625
01:44:25.894 –> 01:44:29.180
end of the twentieth century was NYPD

1626
01:44:29.320 –> 01:44:33.160
Blue. Sing Me a Song, O Muse, Spin Me a Tale of

1627
01:44:33.160 –> 01:44:36.700
Andy Sipowicz, was a great show.

1628
01:44:36.760 –> 01:44:40.600
And television and movies took over from novels

1629
01:44:40.600 –> 01:44:44.415
and plays to explain culturally the shared sense of imbalance

1630
01:44:45.035 –> 01:44:48.475
during that last unraveling as

1631
01:44:48.475 –> 01:44:51.695
they did during the unraveling described

1632
01:44:52.075 –> 01:44:55.830
in Parade’s End. Cultural unravelings

1633
01:44:55.830 –> 01:44:59.670
are always confused with cultural chaos of attorney that comes after them, but that’s

1634
01:44:59.670 –> 01:45:03.510
because human beings don’t like uncertainty, and they seek to make sense of, adapt

1635
01:45:03.510 –> 01:45:07.190
to, and to change the world as quickly as

1636
01:45:07.190 –> 01:45:10.915
possible. Even Ford Maddox

1637
01:45:10.915 –> 01:45:14.355
Ford knew this. He actually stated that his purpose in

1638
01:45:14.355 –> 01:45:17.815
creating the parades and tetralogy was, quote,

1639
01:45:17.955 –> 01:45:21.095
the obliviating of all future wars, unquote.

1640
01:45:22.470 –> 01:45:26.150
He saw the world unraveling into World War one, and he wanted to stop

1641
01:45:26.150 –> 01:45:29.990
it from happening ever again. He wanted to use the

1642
01:45:29.990 –> 01:45:33.350
novel as a tool to be able to do that. Not

1643
01:45:33.350 –> 01:45:37.165
nonfiction, not essays, not poems, but the novel is a form to

1644
01:45:37.165 –> 01:45:40.925
do that. Now you could reasonably say that he had a hammer

1645
01:45:40.925 –> 01:45:44.685
and everything you saw was a nail, but a lot of us do

1646
01:45:44.685 –> 01:45:48.365
that. We’re wrapping up. We’re

1647
01:45:48.365 –> 01:45:52.170
coming around the corner here. We’ve talked a long time with Libby about this

1648
01:45:52.250 –> 01:45:55.770
book, and I wanna thank her for being on the podcast. I’m gonna combine a

1649
01:45:55.770 –> 01:45:59.469
couple of different things together that we have here today, and we’re gonna

1650
01:45:59.530 –> 01:46:01.949
close out in the next few minutes.

1651
01:46:05.305 –> 01:46:08.505
This is an important question, I think, for our time as well. We just talked

1652
01:46:08.505 –> 01:46:11.805
about the rebuilding of institutions, and Libby is a a big

1653
01:46:11.865 –> 01:46:15.085
proponent on this show of building for the good.

1654
01:46:15.705 –> 01:46:19.465
She loves that. You know, building for the good thing. Right? Building for the the

1655
01:46:19.465 –> 01:46:22.020
good ending or the good institution.

1656
01:46:24.719 –> 01:46:28.480
But here’s a question for us to sort of end. How

1657
01:46:28.480 –> 01:46:32.239
can a leader lead their people when the traditions and the institutions and

1658
01:46:32.239 –> 01:46:35.864
the social structures around them seem to be falling apart? How

1659
01:46:35.864 –> 01:46:39.545
how can they actually what’s the actual practical thing that a leader

1660
01:46:39.545 –> 01:46:42.764
can do to guide people through the morass?

1661
01:46:44.264 –> 01:46:46.985
You know, part of this part of the question then part of the answer to

1662
01:46:46.985 –> 01:46:50.699
that question that I found anyway from my part is the leader has to

1663
01:46:50.699 –> 01:46:54.380
have a vision of some sort. Pick a North Star and

1664
01:46:54.380 –> 01:46:58.159
just go with it. And sometimes you gotta be ruthlessly

1665
01:46:59.099 –> 01:47:01.840
inflexible in order to make that happen.

1666
01:47:04.125 –> 01:47:06.765
But I don’t know. Maybe Libby has maybe Libby, maybe you have a better idea

1667
01:47:06.765 –> 01:47:10.445
than I do. So how do you lead, you know, when things are unraveling, when

1668
01:47:10.445 –> 01:47:11.585
things are falling apart?

1669
01:47:14.525 –> 01:47:17.665
It does it does start with a solid vision,

1670
01:47:18.719 –> 01:47:22.079
and building towards the future. But you also have to be

1671
01:47:22.079 –> 01:47:25.679
comfortable, kind of applying, like,

1672
01:47:25.679 –> 01:47:27.539
agile practices to,

1673
01:47:29.679 –> 01:47:33.335
building, you know, near term and delivering mentally,

1674
01:47:33.635 –> 01:47:37.335
allowing yourself flexibility, to adjust

1675
01:47:37.395 –> 01:47:40.995
based on a changing landscape, but enough direction so

1676
01:47:40.995 –> 01:47:44.615
that, you know, teams know where you’re heading. So

1677
01:47:44.720 –> 01:47:48.400
that vision for the future, continue to run the business as you know

1678
01:47:48.400 –> 01:47:52.160
it, tweaking around the edges, and then iterating towards

1679
01:47:52.160 –> 01:47:55.300
that future. Businesses always

1680
01:47:55.760 –> 01:47:59.540
have to deal with ambiguity, around

1681
01:47:59.955 –> 01:48:02.614
your customer preferences, the, you know,

1682
01:48:04.514 –> 01:48:06.295
macroeconomics, microeconomics.

1683
01:48:08.275 –> 01:48:12.034
You know, there’s always a lot of different factors. But as long as

1684
01:48:12.034 –> 01:48:13.974
you have a strong vision,

1685
01:48:15.460 –> 01:48:18.680
and flexibility in how you’re delivering

1686
01:48:18.820 –> 01:48:22.660
incrementally while continuing to run the business and

1687
01:48:22.660 –> 01:48:25.560
deliver great things, I think you’re in a good position.

1688
01:48:26.995 –> 01:48:30.515
Scenario planning. Hey. I’m a strategist. I

1689
01:48:30.515 –> 01:48:34.275
also started in investment banking. So you always have a

1690
01:48:34.275 –> 01:48:37.255
good financial model to run scenarios,

1691
01:48:38.035 –> 01:48:41.790
and you, like, you’re always measuring how

1692
01:48:41.790 –> 01:48:45.170
you’re doing against, you know, those three different outcomes

1693
01:48:45.790 –> 01:48:49.170
and how you need to adjust operations and investments accordingly.

1694
01:48:52.085 –> 01:48:55.844
But to me, by having that strong vision as well as the

1695
01:48:55.844 –> 01:48:59.685
ability to adapt proactively and not

1696
01:48:59.685 –> 01:49:02.425
reactively, you’re well positioned

1697
01:49:03.700 –> 01:49:05.880
to navigate navigate change.

1698
01:49:07.540 –> 01:49:11.000
So which temperament you’re a strategist,

1699
01:49:11.460 –> 01:49:15.300
financial strategist, which temperament would you bet on for the

1700
01:49:15.300 –> 01:49:18.825
next twenty five years in America as we turn out of our fourth

1701
01:49:18.825 –> 01:49:22.425
turning and go into a dawn? Donald Trump calls it a gold

1702
01:49:22.505 –> 01:49:26.025
golden age. Right? And maybe it will be, maybe it won’t be. I don’t

1703
01:49:26.025 –> 01:49:29.545
know. None of us have lived in that

1704
01:49:29.545 –> 01:49:33.380
time yet. In twenty five

1705
01:49:33.380 –> 01:49:36.840
years, I’ll be, if the good Lord allows it, I’ll be 70.

1706
01:49:40.660 –> 01:49:44.420
What kind of temperament wins the next twenty five years in America? Is it

1707
01:49:44.420 –> 01:49:47.885
more like miss Wannop? Is it Sylvia? Is it Tijen’s?

1708
01:49:48.585 –> 01:49:51.945
Is it the groveling the

1709
01:49:51.945 –> 01:49:55.704
groveling Mc McMaster? Like, who who wins the future?

1710
01:49:55.704 –> 01:49:59.545
Who wins the future to build those institutions with that vision? Who sets

1711
01:49:59.545 –> 01:50:03.190
that? It’s with, like, you know,

1712
01:50:03.190 –> 01:50:06.489
some, you know, some modifying of the edges.

1713
01:50:09.429 –> 01:50:13.130
Okay. Why why him? Why does that temperament win?

1714
01:50:14.790 –> 01:50:16.155
I said, why does that temperament?

1715
01:50:18.715 –> 01:50:22.155
Because he’s the he has a vision for what he

1716
01:50:22.155 –> 01:50:25.514
believes things should be, and he’s willing to

1717
01:50:25.514 –> 01:50:29.100
work, you know, towards them kind of

1718
01:50:29.400 –> 01:50:31.580
without letting the noise,

1719
01:50:33.240 –> 01:50:36.460
you know, too much read too much direct him.

1720
01:50:37.080 –> 01:50:40.060
If it if you McMasters hadn’t been a snake,

1721
01:50:40.920 –> 01:50:44.175
I actually probably think McMasters is

1722
01:50:44.494 –> 01:50:48.114
more aligned because he’s, like, trying to

1723
01:50:48.415 –> 01:50:52.114
trying to build towards the future, and he sees, you know, the value

1724
01:50:52.335 –> 01:50:56.034
of his leadership, you know, from a society

1725
01:50:56.094 –> 01:50:59.790
perspective, but he sells his soul along the way. So that’s not right. Like,

1726
01:50:59.790 –> 01:51:03.630
so I don’t really see any of these characters. Yeah. To me,

1727
01:51:03.630 –> 01:51:06.849
it’s a hero and builder mentality. So,

1728
01:51:08.670 –> 01:51:12.510
not right now, we have cosplay of

1729
01:51:12.510 –> 01:51:15.329
heroics that we’ve seen for the last, like, ten years.

1730
01:51:16.305 –> 01:51:20.145
But we’re moving towards what a true hero is who’s coming in and

1731
01:51:20.145 –> 01:51:23.985
building the institutions that we need in order to be

1732
01:51:23.985 –> 01:51:27.585
successful. When I say building for the

1733
01:51:27.585 –> 01:51:30.240
good, you know, a lot of people have

1734
01:51:31.740 –> 01:51:35.340
words and meaning assigned to good Mhmm. That I

1735
01:51:35.340 –> 01:51:37.840
wanna be very explicit about. It’s not about,

1736
01:51:39.580 –> 01:51:43.344
it’s about making hard trade offs about what you can and

1737
01:51:43.344 –> 01:51:46.725
can’t do that will provide

1738
01:51:47.264 –> 01:51:50.485
good institutions, that provide goods and services

1739
01:51:50.705 –> 01:51:54.165
that, you know, people need and are willing to pay

1740
01:51:54.625 –> 01:51:58.280
for. It’s providing a work environment that enables

1741
01:51:58.280 –> 01:52:01.420
people to thrive and not just settle.

1742
01:52:03.079 –> 01:52:05.980
You know, these are about institutions of excellence

1743
01:52:07.000 –> 01:52:10.755
where they’re economically sustainable and viable on their own merit,

1744
01:52:12.514 –> 01:52:16.114
and they grow on their own merit, and

1745
01:52:16.114 –> 01:52:19.895
not out of just perceived polish and virtue.

1746
01:52:20.915 –> 01:52:24.755
Mhmm. Mhmm. I

1747
01:52:24.755 –> 01:52:28.510
think you got something there. I think I think that’s

1748
01:52:29.290 –> 01:52:32.970
a good spot to stop, so I think I’m gonna stop there. Thank

1749
01:52:32.970 –> 01:52:36.810
you, Libby, for coming on the podcast today. Thank you for taking the time

1750
01:52:36.810 –> 01:52:40.410
to read Parade’s End. I would encourage everyone to go out and pick it

1751
01:52:40.410 –> 01:52:44.045
up, and to kinda make your own decisions about

1752
01:52:44.905 –> 01:52:48.265
who gets to win the future. And with that,

1753
01:52:48.265 –> 01:52:51.805
well, we’re out.

1754
01:52:53.545 –> 01:52:54.285
Well, hello.