The Third Man by Graham Greene w/Jesan Sorrells & Ryan J. Stout

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Hello, my name is Jesan Sorrells, and

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this is the Leadership Lessons from the Great Books

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podcast, episode number 183.

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From our book today, I’d like to pick up

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and, and maybe make a little bit of a, maybe make a little bit of

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a character introduction.

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Now, when I talk about this character, when

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I introduce this character, you’re going

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to see him in your mind, hopefully,

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cinematically. And I quote,

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one never knows when the blow may fall.

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When I saw Rollo Martins first, I made this note on him for

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my security police files. Quote, “In

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normal circumstances, a cheerful fool drinks too much and may cause a little

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trouble. Whenever a woman passes, raises his eyes

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and makes some comment, but I get the impression that really he’d rather not be

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bothered. He has never really grown up, and perhaps that accounts for the way

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he worshiped Lime,” close quote. I

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wrote there that phrase, quote, “in normal

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circumstances,” unquote, because I met him first at Harry Lime’s

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funeral. It was February, and the gravediggers had been forced

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to use electric drills to open the frozen ground in Vienna’s Central

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Cemetery. It was as if even nature were doing its

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best to reject Lime, but we got him in at last and laid

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the earth back on him like bricks. He was vaulted in,

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and Rollo Martins walked quickly away as though his long gangly legs

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wanted to break into a run, and the tears of a boy ran down his

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35-year-old face. Rollo Martins believed in

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friendship, and that was why what happened later was a worse shock to

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him than it would have been to you or me. You,

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because you would have put it down to an illusion, and me, because

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at once a rational explanation, however wrongly, would have come to

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my mind. If only he had come to tell me then,

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what a lot of trouble would have been

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saved.

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We postmodern people, we believe that we

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invented everything from sexual behaviors to

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ironic detachment, from sincerity

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interpreted as cringe to anger

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interpreted as social reforming passion. We

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believe in our own time, in our own era, that we invented

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nihilism. We believe we invented existential dread and

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that we believe that we are the only folks in history or in the

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history of the world to notice, to

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recognize, right, that there are patent absurdities

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that exist in the realm of human experience.

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The problem with such a belief system, the problem with such a

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worldview, the problem with our us convincing ourselves of

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this so deeply in our own time

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is not that it is so

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fallible and naive, but that it is so

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incorrect. It’s partly incorrect

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because we are not students of history in the same way that people of the

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past were. We don’t believe in the cyclical nature of human

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experience because our technologies, like the one bringing you this podcast

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here, and our propaganda factories from the schools to the

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media, act perpetually and breathlessly surprised

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every time some human being does something somewhere,

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usually in the form or usually in the context of the 24-hour

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news cycle. It’s also

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incorrect because we tend to ignore the evidence presented to our very own

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eyes of the cyclical nature of life, from the

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seasons that we live in to the ways in which the

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homeless man behaves like clockwork on the street corner when

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he’s panhandling. Either way,

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we are constantly fooled by history, constantly mugged

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by reality, perplexed by change, and rendered

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unable to address the deception and manipulation of,

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like, some of the people we’re going to talk about today, like a particular person

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we’re going to talk about today, unreliable narrators,

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or even the behaviors of characters

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that may show up unreliably in

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unreliable narratives.

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Speaking of which, today on the show we

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are going to cover a book whose fictional narrative links the

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books— links the book we covered in episode number 121,

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Lolita by Vladimir Nabokov, with ideas we talked about

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in episode 166, where we discussed the book by the British historian

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B.H. Liddell Hart, Why don’t we learn from history?

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Today we are going to glean what we can and apply it to our real

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lived lives from a great little book,

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The Third Man by Graham

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Greene. Leaders,

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the fact is that when we postmoderns don’t learn from

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history, unreliable narrators and unreliable

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narratives can have their way with us in all

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manner of human endeavors.

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And back for this episode from his most recent

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jog with us in episode number 180,

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where we discuss Thomas Sowell’s thesis

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about the tension, the Hegelian dialectic between the

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constrained and the unconstrained vision

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deeply embedded in the human heart, which, by the way, a little of that shows

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up here. Actually, a lot of that shows up here in The Third

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Man. Is our friend Ryan J. Stout.

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How are you doing today, Ryan? How’s it going?

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I’m doing well. The sun is shining and,

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you know, I woke up, got most of my teeth and

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feeling pretty good. Thank you for having me. It’s a pleasure as always.

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Honor to be here. Absolutely. To talking about

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this to this book

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and the human condition,

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such as it were. Yes. So we talked a little bit

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about Graham Greene, and we talked about the

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literary life of Graham Greene. You should go check out the most recent Shorts

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episode that we released, Shorts number 215,

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on leadership in absurd times. We talked

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in there about the background of Graham Greene, who he was as a

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writer, a journalist, and his

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stature or the way that he was perceived

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by other writers of his time, including William Golding, author

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of Lord of the Flies, as a Catholic writer,

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right? Graham Greene in that space

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is going to act as a precursor to another very Catholic writer we’re going to

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talk about,, later on this month, uh, when we

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cover the book The Man Who Was Thursday by G.K.

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Chesterton, uh, with our good friend Neil Kalachovsky,

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uh, former physics genius

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inventor and current venture capitalist and

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SBIR advocate. Uh, so we’ll have him on the show, um, another couple of

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episodes. You’re going to want to listen to that. But

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Graham Greene, And I made this point in the shorts episode, and

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this sort of leads into my first question to Ryan. As an author, Graham

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Greene was able to observe human behavior, um, not only

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in the character of Rollo Martin as the

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mark, you know, in The Third Man, which is sort of how he’s set up

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there by the narrator just in that first little piece that we read from the

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first chapter, but also the behavior of the British police

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officer narrator, um, a gentleman named

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Calloway. And even in the behavior of— and we’ll talk about this guy quite a

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bit— the grifter, Harry Lime, the hustler,

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the matchstick man, such as it were.

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And the way Graham Greene sort of sets up all these

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characters, he sets them up in

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a way from that open where you get everything right away.

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And this was Graham Greene’s mastery, right? So So we

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have a funeral that’s happened. We know it’s in Vienna. We know

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it’s post-war. We know

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that Rollo’s 35, so too old to

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be a child, but not old enough to be a font

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of wisdom. And we can sense from the

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narrator Calloway that he’s a little bit of a, for lack of a

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better term, a stiff upper lip British police

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man, right, um, in, uh, in this part of,

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uh, in this part of Vienna. And the thing

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is that unlike Nabokov, who I already mentioned, or

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even Liddell Hart, Graham Greene was a writer and

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a thinker and a creator who— and I definitely got this from reading

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The Third Man— um, who saw through the veneer of decency

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that surrounds most human behavior, but he wasn’t dismissive of

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that decency in and of itself. He wanted people,

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and he pushes his character Rollo Martin to behave

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decently, if fallibly, but indeed decently throughout

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the entire narrative, right? He

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believed, as most of our modernist grandfathers and great-grandfathers

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did, that a human being could rise above banality

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and absurdity and even nihilism and

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overcome. And so that sort of opens up, I guess,

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our first question for Ryan, who, by the way, is a big fan

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of absurdity, big fan of absurdist. We’ve had a whole— we’ve had discussions

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about this. We’ve sparred back and forth about this over the course

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of our friendship and our time

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together. I am less of a fan of the absurdist only because I think—

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and I made this point in the shorts episode— I think pointing

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out absurdity doesn’t get you anywhere. I think it’s

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a childish sort of response to absurdity. Like, give

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me the solution for this. And please don’t tell me that the solution is just

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to eat, drink, and be merry, or tomorrow we may die, or just to

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like have fun, or even just to like smoke in a

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French ironic existential way. I need something more than irony

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or cynical detachment. And Graham Greene, to his credit, I was not going into

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The Third Man looking for this. Graham Greene does give you an

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alternative to the, to the Camus, Sartre sort

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of deal with

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absurdity. But it’s an alternative that takes a level of sincerity to pull

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off that I think us postmoderns don’t have because we interpret sincerity

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as cringe these days. So

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I guess maybe the question to open is,

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Ryan, what did you think of the book? What did you think of

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The Third Man? And then I’ll ask maybe a couple of follow-up

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questions as I, as I sort of round the corner here towards a point. So

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what did you think of The Third Man? Let’s start with that. Thank you kindly.

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Great intro. Um,

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I, I like, I like the book. I like the language.

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I like the details

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that at

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times, uh, I mean, could be seen as unnecessary

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because it does not necessarily add to the depth

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of the story. It

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almost seems, um,

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it will— it adds to the depth of the characters, and it also

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gives you more insight into who Calloway

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is. Much like John Denver would, you

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know, would say, you know, when asked why he’s so popular,

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or, you know, he said, I write about the human condition. So the human condition

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is, it will never be out of style. It’s

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something relatable. At some point, I

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can relate to every single character in the story because

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there’s just enough good and just

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enough— what’s the word I’m looking

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for— just enough

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temptation kind of throughout where you can understand where the character is coming

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from, often pushing up to that line very much so with

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the specks of dots and down there. And so, and so where

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is It’s fun to entertain, and that’s probably why we find

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things humorous that are kind of dark at times,

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because, you know, we get to see played out in movies and in

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literature what we’re thinking but we would never

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behave. And so I think Green does a tremendous job

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of doing that with all the characters. You get to see the

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motivation of— I mean, the Schmidt

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character And even I was listening to something

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earlier, and this is in reference to the movie and

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how almost in a Fellini-esque way, I

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believe the person said that in the movie that, you know, everyone is

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kind of grotesque looking, you know, even like the little

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boy. And, and, but Anna’s not. And then, and then, of course,

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Harry Lyman. And so there’s, there’s these, these

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these figures that kind of like, uh, transcend, that add to

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the— this kind of like the sinister nature of,

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of, um, of the, like, the behavioral aspect of, you know, you

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could, uh, like, don’t trust the book, judge a book by its

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cover. Yeah. Um, yeah, I just think, um,

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and, and the language that’s used throughout I think is, is really wonderful

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as well. I just like, you know, in Stephen King’s

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On Writing. He talks about the one when he talks to

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other writers when they do readings

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and what’s a question that they wish they were asked more. And, you

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know, so many writers say, we wish people would ask us about the language. And

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I just think that’s an excellent use of language. There’s not a

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wasted word. It’s a really short,

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compact, delivers on all fronts. And I

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think contributing to that is, you

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know, we see Rolo like right out of the

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gate, like he’s already— all we know him is

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in the act

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of— he’s already in despair and confusion out of the gate. We have no

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pre— there’s no— there’s no— he’s not talking about spaghetti westerns and he’s not

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talking about like his failed writing career or anything. You’re just going right

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to the conflict, and so you open with that. And so,

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right, and even though it opens like

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that, Green does a fantastic idea with filling

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in all those gaps

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pretty quickly. The bar scene with Calloway, the

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caviar sandwiches, the expense account, you know. And

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so, yeah, he drinks a little too much, the blow, you know. And

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yeah, his perception of of how

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Roland Martin perceives

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women. So you’re talking about the underlying— so it’s like, you’re getting like

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the response of a response, right? Perception of a perception, a perception

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00:16:16,820 –> 00:16:20,220
of reception. Yeah. Well, and he also, I

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mean, in the, in the edition that I have, there’s an introduction that was written

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by, by Graham Greene. And he talks about

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how he co-wrote this, co-wrote The Third

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Man, um, with Carol Reed, who directed the film, the 1949 film The

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Third Man, which of course starred Joseph Cotten, um,

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as Holly Martin. They changed the name to Holly

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Martin. Um, Trevor Howard was Major Calloway, and of

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course the great humbug actor of the 20th century,

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Orson Welles, And I’m not saying that as

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a negative either. I think he understood something

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about Hollywood that, and being an actor and being

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a producer and being a writer and being a thespian, that a

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00:17:07,680 –> 00:17:11,160
lot of actors have missed. They miss the entire joke on

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Orson Welles. Like, they miss the entire thing on him.

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But, um, but he was in, uh, he was in, obviously he was in The

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Third Man as, uh, as Harry Lime, right? And

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so in the introduction, Graham

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00:17:24,850 –> 00:17:28,530
Greene talks about or writes about co-writing this with Carol

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Reed, talks about the writing process. And one of the interesting things that he says

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is this, I’ll just read directly

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00:17:35,450 –> 00:17:39,290
from my book. He says this, and I quote, on these treatments, Carol Reed and

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00:17:39,290 –> 00:17:42,970
I worked closely together, covering so many feet of carpet a day,

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00:17:42,970 –> 00:17:46,290
acting scenes at each other. No third ever joined our

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00:17:46,950 –> 00:17:50,630
conferences. So much value lies in the clear cut and thrust of argument between

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00:17:50,630 –> 00:17:54,430
two people. To the novelist, of course, his novel is the

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00:17:54,430 –> 00:17:58,270
best he could do with a particular subject. He cannot help resenting many of the

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00:17:58,270 –> 00:18:01,990
changes necessary for turning it into a film or a play. But The Third

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00:18:01,990 –> 00:18:05,510
Man was never intended to be more than the raw material for a

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00:18:06,150 –> 00:18:09,310
picture. The reader will notice many differences between the story and the film, and he

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00:18:09,310 –> 00:18:12,410
should not imagine these changes were forced on an unwilling

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author. As likely as not, they were suggested by the author. The film,

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00:18:16,760 –> 00:18:20,480
in fact, is better than the story because it is, in this case,

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the finished state of the

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00:18:24,240 –> 00:18:27,040
story. Close quote. So to your

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00:18:30,080 –> 00:18:32,440
point, um, in looking up The Third Man, and this is one of my knocks

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00:18:32,440 –> 00:18:35,760
with like modern movies, particularly in our post-Marvel,

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post-CGI, post-Marvel world, Um,

289
00:18:40,390 –> 00:18:44,110
you know, The Third Man was an hour and 33 minutes.

290
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It was a 93-minute film. They told an entire story in

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00:18:47,950 –> 00:18:51,670
an hour and a half.

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We can’t even get out of the gate in the first act

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under an hour anymore in a movie. And it

294
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has nothing to do with the script because it isn’t

295
00:19:02,630 –> 00:19:06,190
the script’s fault. The script actually The writing is actually

296
00:19:06,350 –> 00:19:09,390
terrible. Writing now is actually worse than it was in

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00:19:09,390 –> 00:19:13,150
the 1940s, even where writing is adapted from a novel.

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So we just, we just talked about our previous episode, episode number

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182. We talked about Oil by, um, by Upton

300
00:19:20,510 –> 00:19:22,510
Sinclair. The first 100 pages of

301
00:19:22,510 –> 00:19:26,230
that 575-page novel, which

302
00:19:26,230 –> 00:19:29,390
was written in the 1920s or 1930s or

303
00:19:30,510 –> 00:19:34,330
whatever, um, the first 100 pages of Oil were the basis for the

304
00:19:34,330 –> 00:19:38,050
2007 film There Will Be Blood. The first 100

305
00:19:38,130 –> 00:19:41,810
pages, that’s all they could adapt. Couldn’t

306
00:19:42,050 –> 00:19:45,810
adapt the rest. It’s like a 2.5-hour-long movie or 2-hour-long movie. It’s a 2.5-hour-long

307
00:19:49,730 –> 00:19:53,530
movie. And Paul Thomas Anderson just won an Oscar for Best Director for One Battle

308
00:19:53,530 –> 00:19:57,250
After Another, a film starring Leonardo DiCaprio that I— and

309
00:19:57,250 –> 00:20:00,770
I like Paul Thomas Anderson as a director, I

310
00:20:00,770 –> 00:20:04,530
watched one trailer for that sucker. I lasted 10 seconds in and I

311
00:20:04,530 –> 00:20:08,330
was out. I was done. I was like, I can’t,

312
00:20:08,330 –> 00:20:12,170
I don’t need to see this. I already know the joke. So what

313
00:20:12,170 –> 00:20:15,930
are you doing to me for 2 and a half hours? Graham Greene and Carol

314
00:20:15,930 –> 00:20:19,170
Reed knew how to structure a story. To your

315
00:20:19,810 –> 00:20:23,650
point, short sentences, really well-developed characters,

316
00:20:23,650 –> 00:20:27,210
start with the conflict, They understood something about writing that I think a lot of

317
00:20:27,210 –> 00:20:30,970
modern film writers— but let’s put that aside for just a second. It’s not

318
00:20:30,970 –> 00:20:33,130
a film show, though we do talk a lot about film on this show, and

319
00:20:33,130 –> 00:20:36,290
we will talk about the Third Man film because we have to talk about Orson

320
00:20:36,290 –> 00:20:38,650
Welles. I mean, we just have to. We don’t have a choice.

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00:20:40,010 –> 00:20:43,330
But, um, but putting that aside for just a second, the novel is definitely written

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00:20:43,330 –> 00:20:45,850
in a cinematic form. I agree with

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00:20:49,450 –> 00:20:53,260
that. So In thinking

324
00:20:53,260 –> 00:20:56,300
about Graham Greene as a writer, I don’t know if you did, if you looked

325
00:20:56,300 –> 00:20:59,300
into his background or kind of dug around on him a little

326
00:21:00,980 –> 00:21:04,740
bit. Um, had you ever interacted with any of Graham Greene’s work before this? Did

327
00:21:04,740 –> 00:21:07,940
you have any idea of who he was? He wrote something like 65

328
00:21:08,820 –> 00:21:12,500
novels, um, during the course of the 20th century. He was shortlisted

329
00:21:12,500 –> 00:21:15,940
for the, uh, Pulitzer— no, not the Pulitzer, the Nobel Prize for

330
00:21:16,400 –> 00:21:19,800
Literature a couple of times, never won it. He was considered to be one of

331
00:21:19,800 –> 00:21:22,560
the most prolific writers of

332
00:21:24,320 –> 00:21:27,080
the 20th century actually. Just quoting from

333
00:21:28,040 –> 00:21:31,840
his Wikipedia— oh, no, he didn’t write 65 books, hold

334
00:21:31,840 –> 00:21:35,320
on a second. Through 67 years of writing, which included

335
00:21:35,320 –> 00:21:38,920
over 25 novels, he explored the conflicting moral and

336
00:21:38,920 –> 00:21:42,520
political issues of the modern world. His one novel, The Power and

337
00:21:42,520 –> 00:21:46,330
the Glory, won the 1941 Hawthornden Prize. And The

338
00:21:46,330 –> 00:21:50,170
Heart of the Matter won the 1948 James Tate Black Memorial Prize

339
00:21:50,170 –> 00:21:54,010
and was shortlisted for the best of the James Tate Black. Greene was awarded

340
00:21:54,010 –> 00:21:57,170
the 1968 Shakespeare Prize and the

341
00:21:57,170 –> 00:21:58,290
1981 Jerusalem

342
00:22:00,770 –> 00:22:04,450
Prize. Unfamiliar with his work. Like I said,

343
00:22:06,370 –> 00:22:09,330
the, the most I knew about the movie was that last

344
00:22:10,690 –> 00:22:13,810
scene that I saw 20-some years ago sitting in

345
00:22:14,120 –> 00:22:17,480
my grandmother’s living room. And I just happened upon it,

346
00:22:18,120 –> 00:22:20,680
WHYY Channel 13.

347
00:22:22,280 –> 00:22:25,240
And I just remember Anna Schmidt walking and

348
00:22:26,360 –> 00:22:29,879
then Holly leaning on the car and then just

349
00:22:31,880 –> 00:22:35,600
that, and that row of trees on both sides, and how there was

350
00:22:35,600 –> 00:22:38,280
like an R-esque feel to

351
00:22:40,210 –> 00:22:42,930
it. And picking up a TV

352
00:22:45,810 –> 00:22:49,410
Guide and going, what day is this? What date? And they’re

353
00:22:49,490 –> 00:22:51,890
going, oh wow, The Third Man. Well, I

354
00:22:54,050 –> 00:22:57,730
never, uh, I, this looks like an incredible movie. And I like, that

355
00:22:57,730 –> 00:23:01,250
was kind of the extent of my, uh, my Graham Greene knowledge.

356
00:23:01,490 –> 00:23:04,970
Yeah. And I have the, uh, so this is The Third Man and the Fallen

357
00:23:04,970 –> 00:23:08,250
Idol. And so Uh, I went through the book

358
00:23:09,530 –> 00:23:13,130
twice, um, and I’ll probably, you know, just pick up and, and read

359
00:23:13,130 –> 00:23:16,970
The Fallen Idol as well. Yeah, I believe that was turned into

360
00:23:16,970 –> 00:23:20,010
a film as well, if I remember correctly, um,

361
00:23:20,010 –> 00:23:23,690
in 1948, um, also directed, I believe, by Carol

362
00:23:24,970 –> 00:23:28,570
Reed. So, um, okay,

363
00:23:29,210 –> 00:23:32,570
so Graham Greene. So you’re, you’re, you’ve got a little bit of a window into

364
00:23:32,970 –> 00:23:36,770
him. You’re a writer, you’re a poet. Um, you talked about his

365
00:23:36,770 –> 00:23:40,410
writing style, his language. What were you able to glean maybe

366
00:23:40,410 –> 00:23:44,250
about his psychology a little bit as a writer, just from, just

367
00:23:44,250 –> 00:23:46,410
from the little glimpse you’ve had with the third

368
00:23:47,930 –> 00:23:48,730
man? I would

369
00:23:54,810 –> 00:23:58,620
say, um, the importance of— well, You could

370
00:23:58,620 –> 00:23:59,540
say the importance of

371
00:24:03,140 –> 00:24:06,021
research. Okay. Um, because right out of the gate, so you have a war-torn, post-war-torn,

372
00:24:06,021 –> 00:24:09,460
you know, the four quadrants being

373
00:24:09,700 –> 00:24:13,220
occupied— what, Russia, Great Britain,

374
00:24:13,220 –> 00:24:16,580
uh, Vienna, or it’s post-war of

375
00:24:17,860 –> 00:24:21,260
Vienna. Um, yeah, so the insight that goes in to kind of

376
00:24:21,260 –> 00:24:24,870
like grasping the psyche of who would

377
00:24:24,870 –> 00:24:28,510
be living and what their, uh, what their sort

378
00:24:28,510 –> 00:24:32,350
of attitudes would be. And it goes into the

379
00:24:32,510 –> 00:24:36,350
racketeering, and everyone was into racketeering. So clearly it was not a

380
00:24:36,350 –> 00:24:39,990
wonderful place to live. Uh, it was not

381
00:24:39,990 –> 00:24:43,670
economically this booming thing. There was a lot of people doing a

382
00:24:43,670 –> 00:24:47,350
lot of kind of like black market activities

383
00:24:47,350 –> 00:24:50,670
in order to survive. So it

384
00:24:52,590 –> 00:24:55,870
wasn’t behaving in a sinister way

385
00:24:56,830 –> 00:25:00,230
for evil’s sake, if I could say that, which makes

386
00:25:00,230 –> 00:25:01,470
the lime thing

387
00:25:05,070 –> 00:25:08,790
even more sinister. Because at one point, I believe

388
00:25:08,790 –> 00:25:12,630
he’s asking the neighbor, or if it’s the doctor, and he said, well,

389
00:25:12,630 –> 00:25:15,710
everyone was into trading cigarettes for

390
00:25:16,350 –> 00:25:19,600
buffs. And or I’m trying to think of what

391
00:25:20,560 –> 00:25:24,320
other kind of nefarious activity, but it would be the equivalent

392
00:25:26,160 –> 00:25:29,720
of, I don’t know, like I used to sell chai, like

393
00:25:29,720 –> 00:25:32,800
black market chai, you know what I mean? Or I roast my own coffee and

394
00:25:32,800 –> 00:25:36,520
I’m selling coffee out of my house rather than selling it to the

395
00:25:36,520 –> 00:25:40,320
store. And then so whereas it was stamps, you

396
00:25:40,320 –> 00:25:44,150
know, I think they mentioned stamps. And so

397
00:25:44,150 –> 00:25:47,950
whereas it may not be like legal, those behaviors, but it just seemed like

398
00:25:47,950 –> 00:25:50,910
a fairly destitute economy and a

399
00:25:51,230 –> 00:25:54,990
destitute society where they were able to live and function because

400
00:25:54,990 –> 00:25:58,750
it was governed under these, these four powers.

401
00:25:58,750 –> 00:26:01,150
Um, but also

402
00:26:02,750 –> 00:26:05,230
that the Governing Bodies

403
00:26:07,070 –> 00:26:10,860
understood kind of the, the plight of the area and understood

404
00:26:10,860 –> 00:26:12,780
that everyone was kind of into these

405
00:26:14,700 –> 00:26:17,260
things. It reminds me of, in a

406
00:26:17,740 –> 00:26:21,260
modern, postmodern context, that show from the

407
00:26:21,260 –> 00:26:24,060
early 2000s on HBO, The

408
00:26:26,060 –> 00:26:29,820
Wire, where, you know, yeah, it’s,

409
00:26:29,820 –> 00:26:33,500
it’s drugged out Baltimore, right?

410
00:26:33,500 –> 00:26:37,270
It’s, it’s, it’s, you know, drug violence, all that. But

411
00:26:37,270 –> 00:26:39,470
The Wire never dealt

412
00:26:40,830 –> 00:26:44,510
with the situation that the

413
00:26:44,510 –> 00:26:48,230
drug dealers and the kids and the, and the,

414
00:26:48,230 –> 00:26:51,310
and the mothers and the fathers and the

415
00:26:52,110 –> 00:26:55,230
cops and the command structure, and the command structure

416
00:26:56,030 –> 00:26:59,830
of the drug user— the drug users, yes, but also the command structure of

417
00:26:59,830 –> 00:27:03,540
the drug runners. They never dealt with David Simon on

418
00:27:03,540 –> 00:27:06,980
that show never— and by the way, he was a journalist.

419
00:27:06,980 –> 00:27:10,380
Graham Greene also came from a background in journalism, so there’s

420
00:27:10,700 –> 00:27:14,500
a comparison there. And David Simon never— was

421
00:27:14,500 –> 00:27:17,860
he a former officer also? Yep, he was a former police officer

422
00:27:17,860 –> 00:27:21,380
too. Yep. So Simon never dealt with

423
00:27:21,380 –> 00:27:23,260
the characters in The Wire

424
00:27:24,700 –> 00:27:28,460
as caricatures, right? He didn’t draw them as

425
00:27:28,460 –> 00:27:32,190
caricatures. He drew them as real people. You see the same thing, I

426
00:27:32,190 –> 00:27:35,990
think, from Graham Greene in terms of the racketeering, the scammers, the

427
00:27:35,990 –> 00:27:39,510
hustlers, because everybody in The Third Man, everybody in this book is on the

428
00:27:39,910 –> 00:27:43,670
con. Everybody, everybody’s on the con, from

429
00:27:44,070 –> 00:27:45,590
the, from the, the woman

430
00:27:47,110 –> 00:27:49,990
who allegedly was Harry Lime’s love

431
00:27:50,950 –> 00:27:54,070
lover, all the way to even,

432
00:27:54,710 –> 00:27:58,480
even the mark Who is Rollo Martin? Rollo’s the mark

433
00:27:58,480 –> 00:28:01,960
throughout the entire book. He’s the mark, but even he’s on the

434
00:28:03,400 –> 00:28:06,680
make. He’s trying to hustle something. He’s trying to scam

435
00:28:07,240 –> 00:28:10,960
something. So Graham Greene, just like David Simon, and I think it’s

436
00:28:10,960 –> 00:28:14,520
that journalistic eye that you’re talking about, gets to

437
00:28:14,520 –> 00:28:18,040
something about human nature that I

438
00:28:18,120 –> 00:28:21,950
think a pure novelist might miss. Like,

439
00:28:21,950 –> 00:28:25,630
Like, you, you maybe get, maybe you get close with like someone like David Copperfield,

440
00:28:25,630 –> 00:28:29,390
or not David Copperfield, I’m sorry, Charles Dickens, um, who wrote David

441
00:28:29,390 –> 00:28:32,710
Copperfield. By the way, there’s a great episode of,

442
00:28:32,710 –> 00:28:36,310
um, of, uh, The Wire. I think it’s in the third

443
00:28:37,670 –> 00:28:41,350
season, the Dickensian aspect. Yeah,

444
00:28:41,750 –> 00:28:44,910
yeah. And sort of that deep double inside joke that you’re only gonna get if

445
00:28:44,910 –> 00:28:48,490
you’re a literate person. Um, but

446
00:28:48,490 –> 00:28:51,970
the Dickensian aspect of Vienna

447
00:28:51,970 –> 00:28:55,770
is writ large in this, um, in this book.

448
00:28:55,770 –> 00:28:59,170
And I don’t think we have as moderns, particularly not in America. I

449
00:28:59,970 –> 00:29:03,810
mean, we didn’t experience any, any structural damage

450
00:29:03,810 –> 00:29:07,530
from World War II. I would argue that we, we experienced a

451
00:29:07,530 –> 00:29:10,770
lot of psychological and emotional and,

452
00:29:10,770 –> 00:29:14,050
and spiritual damage from World War II. We sure as hell did

453
00:29:14,830 –> 00:29:18,550
that. But the physical damage, the actual burned out buildings,

454
00:29:18,550 –> 00:29:21,870
the actual husks of whatever, people walking around,

455
00:29:22,310 –> 00:29:26,070
ex-soldiers with nothing to do, we didn’t experience any of that. Um,

456
00:29:26,070 –> 00:29:29,870
one of the miracles that never gets commented on, or one of the, one of

457
00:29:29,870 –> 00:29:33,710
the things of a post-World War America that never, America never gets any

458
00:29:33,710 –> 00:29:37,150
credit for this, but, um, the

459
00:29:37,230 –> 00:29:40,910
American military command structure was really

460
00:29:40,910 –> 00:29:44,730
worried that they were going to bring back 16 million men that had served.

461
00:29:44,730 –> 00:29:48,530
And that these men just weren’t going to disband. They just

462
00:29:48,530 –> 00:29:51,410
weren’t going to disband. They’re going to take over the government because that’s just what

463
00:29:51,410 –> 00:29:55,250
they had seen in Europe and in, and in Asia, in Japan. They were going

464
00:29:55,250 –> 00:29:57,650
to take over and they were just going to come back and they were going

465
00:29:57,650 –> 00:30:01,010
to run the government. And they were really, Ike was worried about

466
00:30:01,330 –> 00:30:04,530
that. Eisenhower was worried about that. The entire command

467
00:30:05,250 –> 00:30:09,050
structure, um, that ran the war was worried about that. And

468
00:30:09,050 –> 00:30:11,660
it didn’t happen. Everybody, all of those

469
00:30:12,940 –> 00:30:16,500
guys got off the boat and all they wanted to do was go back home

470
00:30:16,500 –> 00:30:20,140
and get jobs. And that is, that

471
00:30:20,220 –> 00:30:23,340
is so uncommented on that

472
00:30:23,340 –> 00:30:27,100
it’s unbelievable. And to me, that’s an aspect of leadership. But

473
00:30:28,220 –> 00:30:31,020
anyway, um, I mean, that also, I think, goes to

474
00:30:34,220 –> 00:30:37,940
show, um, the psyche of and the

475
00:30:38,340 –> 00:30:42,020
paranoia of power that is associated with power.

476
00:30:42,020 –> 00:30:45,620
Sure. Because, and there’s, there’s, I mean, to bring the

477
00:30:45,620 –> 00:30:49,340
psychological term narcissism in, to think that 16 million people

478
00:30:49,340 –> 00:30:52,740
are going to think like the people who were pulling the strings of the

479
00:30:52,900 –> 00:30:55,860
American government is, I

480
00:30:56,500 –> 00:30:59,860
think, a bit of a reflection or a bit of a, some insight

481
00:31:01,140 –> 00:31:03,780
onto what these people really thought or how

482
00:31:05,100 –> 00:31:08,820
powerful You know, people think they, uh, well, and you could— I, I sort

483
00:31:08,820 –> 00:31:12,420
of give them a little bit of grace because again, they had just seen that

484
00:31:12,420 –> 00:31:16,180
with— I mean, Nuremberg, the Nuremberg Trials had just wrapped up by the time they

485
00:31:16,180 –> 00:31:20,019
shipped over every, every guy who was serving. Um, they

486
00:31:20,019 –> 00:31:23,660
still had— the United States still had forces in, to

487
00:31:23,660 –> 00:31:26,940
your point, Vienna. They also had forces— I mean, this

488
00:31:26,940 –> 00:31:30,620
is 1949, the Iron Curtain was down across

489
00:31:30,860 –> 00:31:34,630
Europe, so we were already We’d already

490
00:31:34,630 –> 00:31:38,190
divided up Berlin. Berlin was already being contested between us and the

491
00:31:39,070 –> 00:31:42,910
Russians. Stalin was— Stalin was still alive, you know,

492
00:31:42,910 –> 00:31:46,430
still yelling and screaming, you know, still locking up people in gulags

493
00:31:46,510 –> 00:31:50,070
and sending them off to concentration camps like it was a bodily function. So all

494
00:31:50,070 –> 00:31:53,750
of these things were still happening. And by the way, Stalin

495
00:31:53,750 –> 00:31:57,070
hadn’t yet tested the bomb. I think that happened in 1950, if I

496
00:31:57,070 –> 00:32:00,240
remember correctly. And so The

497
00:32:01,440 –> 00:32:05,040
Americans, because, you know, what we did was we got all the Nazi scientists, and

498
00:32:05,120 –> 00:32:08,280
then, you know, the Russians, well, they got all of Eastern Europe. I mean, that

499
00:32:08,280 –> 00:32:12,080
was the, that was the trade, such as it were. Maybe not,

500
00:32:12,080 –> 00:32:15,880
maybe not an on-purpose trade after the Potsdam Conference, but it

501
00:32:15,880 –> 00:32:19,600
was the trade. Um, and so, um,

502
00:32:19,600 –> 00:32:22,920
and, and thus we got to, you know, do the space stuff and do the

503
00:32:22,920 –> 00:32:24,960
nuclear stuff, and the Russians got the

504
00:32:28,140 –> 00:32:31,420
land. Um, my point is that in that sort of

505
00:32:31,780 –> 00:32:35,220
post-war environment, the level of distrust— and I

506
00:32:35,220 –> 00:32:38,940
think Vienna stands in for Germany, it stands in for

507
00:32:39,100 –> 00:32:42,540
Berlin, I think, because Graham Greene couldn’t write that book. It would have been too

508
00:32:42,540 –> 00:32:46,300
hot. That had been too close to the bone for his audience because

509
00:32:46,300 –> 00:32:49,820
they had historical memory of this, right?

510
00:32:49,820 –> 00:32:52,470
But Vienna Vienna was

511
00:32:54,150 –> 00:32:57,630
the pre-World War II Vienna in that weird

512
00:32:57,910 –> 00:33:01,670
post-World War I, you know, pre-World War II time

513
00:33:02,230 –> 00:33:05,990
period. Vienna, obviously part of Austria. Vienna was the height of

514
00:33:05,990 –> 00:33:09,790
like classical culture in Europe. It was the place

515
00:33:09,790 –> 00:33:11,830
where the arts were, were

516
00:33:13,110 –> 00:33:16,830
huge. Germany, um, was, uh, was trying

517
00:33:16,830 –> 00:33:19,830
to envelop Austria into its, um, into its

518
00:33:19,990 –> 00:33:23,780
security umbrella., or, or was trying to maintain that

519
00:33:23,780 –> 00:33:27,580
in a post-World War I world. Uh, Hitler

520
00:33:27,580 –> 00:33:31,340
loved the Austrians, loved Vienna. Um,

521
00:33:31,340 –> 00:33:34,820
most of the physicists that helped the Americans build

522
00:33:34,900 –> 00:33:38,740
the bomb were educated in mathematics and physics out

523
00:33:38,740 –> 00:33:42,540
of the University of Vienna. Like, there was— it was

524
00:33:42,540 –> 00:33:44,980
a group of— that was a place where

525
00:33:46,100 –> 00:33:48,350
highly educated,

526
00:33:49,470 –> 00:33:52,270
urbane artistic, culturally

527
00:33:53,790 –> 00:33:57,630
sophisticated people lived. I feel like Nietzsche and, and

528
00:33:57,630 –> 00:34:00,990
even Einstein, right? There’s— yeah, yeah, it was kind of

529
00:34:01,390 –> 00:34:04,910
like the— and they had a long history of, of intellectual,

530
00:34:05,070 –> 00:34:08,790
you know, and then, you know, you bomb the hell out of

531
00:34:08,790 –> 00:34:12,630
it and that’s the end of that and everybody leaves. That’s what

532
00:34:12,630 –> 00:34:16,070
you find a point on it. But I mean, like, that’s,

533
00:34:16,070 –> 00:34:19,830
that’s what happened. And so the Vienna that we

534
00:34:19,830 –> 00:34:21,350
get to see in The

535
00:34:23,430 –> 00:34:27,270
Third Man would have been a Vienna that it would have

536
00:34:27,990 –> 00:34:31,630
been psychically traumatic to be in that Vienna because

537
00:34:31,630 –> 00:34:35,470
the people who were of like Rollo Martin’s 35,

538
00:34:35,470 –> 00:34:39,150
that’s old enough to have heard rumors, not even rumors, but to have been

539
00:34:39,150 –> 00:34:42,790
like, not only heard rumors, but to have been educated by people who came

540
00:34:42,790 –> 00:34:46,490
over to America or came over to Britain from

541
00:34:46,490 –> 00:34:49,250
Vienna and told stories about how much of a jewel

542
00:34:54,610 –> 00:34:58,050
Vienna was. And then what do you do with that? And I think Graham Greene

543
00:34:58,050 –> 00:35:00,930
ties into that the same way that David Simon— just to sort of close this

544
00:35:00,930 –> 00:35:04,730
loop— the way David Simon does in The Wire when he talks about, particularly

545
00:35:04,730 –> 00:35:08,570
in season 2, talks about what Baltimore used to be.

546
00:35:08,570 –> 00:35:11,650
And David Simon’s always said that The Wire was a love letter

547
00:35:12,420 –> 00:35:16,100
to Baltimore. I think of The Third Man as a love letter to

548
00:35:16,100 –> 00:35:19,780
Vienna from Graham Greene. Is—

549
00:35:19,780 –> 00:35:23,260
I really have to use the

550
00:35:23,260 –> 00:35:26,980
restroom. We’ll pause. Let’s pause. I’ll be

551
00:35:29,220 –> 00:35:33,060
back momentarily. All right, we’re back. You good now? You good? Great.

552
00:35:33,220 –> 00:35:35,140
Never better. No, never, never better. All

553
00:35:37,060 –> 00:35:38,700
right, good. Um, so let me take a little bit of a— let me take

554
00:35:38,700 –> 00:35:42,270
a little bit of a turn here. So we’ve been talking a lot about postwar

555
00:35:42,270 –> 00:35:44,150
Vienna and how Graham Greene sort of,

556
00:35:45,750 –> 00:35:49,150
you know, looked at, um, looked at the environment he was in. And he did

557
00:35:49,150 –> 00:35:52,070
do a lot of travel, by the way. That’s another thing that you get from

558
00:35:52,070 –> 00:35:55,670
his, uh, his profile that I was able to find. Um, he did go around

559
00:35:55,670 –> 00:35:59,270
to various places around the world. Matter of fact, he, he globetrotted

560
00:35:59,590 –> 00:36:02,990
so much that there is a belief that Graham Greene, um, worked

561
00:36:03,190 –> 00:36:06,710
for an— worked for intelligence agencies. Um,

562
00:36:06,790 –> 00:36:10,610
uh, MI6. Like, one of his best friends Actually, he did work for MI6, if

563
00:36:10,610 –> 00:36:14,370
I remember correctly. And so one of his best friends

564
00:36:14,370 –> 00:36:17,970
who was his commanding officer in MI6 actually

565
00:36:17,970 –> 00:36:21,370
later on was discovered to be, or

566
00:36:22,250 –> 00:36:25,890
to have gathered intelligence for the Russians through

567
00:36:25,890 –> 00:36:29,610
the British intelligence service and sent it back to

568
00:36:29,690 –> 00:36:33,450
the Russians. So Graham Greene was involved in intelligence. He was a globetrotter. He

569
00:36:33,450 –> 00:36:37,230
saw a lot of places. And every single one of those places influenced

570
00:36:37,230 –> 00:36:38,630
how he wrote and what he

571
00:36:46,390 –> 00:36:49,470
wrote about. I want to talk about Rollo Martin a little bit because he’s the

572
00:36:49,470 –> 00:36:51,430
mark, you know, want to talk a little bit

573
00:36:53,830 –> 00:36:56,950
about him. Rollo takes the position in The

574
00:36:59,510 –> 00:37:02,680
Third Man, you know, against

575
00:37:05,640 –> 00:37:09,480
Calloway. That, um, that he is going to find out

576
00:37:14,120 –> 00:37:17,720
things that, um, that Calloway can’t. Let’s— let me frame it that way. He’s going

577
00:37:17,720 –> 00:37:19,240
to go places that

578
00:37:21,800 –> 00:37:25,320
Calloway can’t, um, and because he received— as

579
00:37:25,320 –> 00:37:28,810
a British subject, he received money

580
00:37:28,810 –> 00:37:31,370
that he basically couldn’t

581
00:37:32,970 –> 00:37:36,650
spend in Vienna, in post-war Vienna. That’s the other thing that would be weird

582
00:37:37,370 –> 00:37:41,050
to people, the idea that you couldn’t spend money in

583
00:37:42,250 –> 00:37:45,850
certain countries because of currency exchanges or to

584
00:37:45,850 –> 00:37:49,210
Ryan’s point, instability in government. That was the other reason why there

585
00:37:49,850 –> 00:37:53,410
was so much racketeering because if you’re a French citizen living

586
00:37:53,410 –> 00:37:56,620
in the French zone, You can’t

587
00:37:56,700 –> 00:38:00,380
spend French francs, right, to get anything that you need. So you

588
00:38:00,380 –> 00:38:03,820
got to figure out how to get what you need. And I’m not talking about

589
00:38:03,820 –> 00:38:07,100
like luxury items. I’m talking about things like bread and milk and gas. You know,

590
00:38:07,100 –> 00:38:10,300
you have to figure it out. You got to be hustling.

591
00:38:11,420 –> 00:38:14,900
And so Martin’s is set up as a, as an

592
00:38:14,900 –> 00:38:18,540
author of spaghetti westerns. He’s also set up as

593
00:38:18,700 –> 00:38:20,460
a person who has

594
00:38:22,410 –> 00:38:23,690
his own sort of

595
00:38:26,410 –> 00:38:29,290
belief that, well, as I already said, that he’s going to figure out what the

596
00:38:29,450 –> 00:38:32,930
cops can’t. He sort of has this arrogance, a sort of chip on his shoulder,

597
00:38:32,930 –> 00:38:36,770
right? The thing about amateur detectives is you

598
00:38:36,770 –> 00:38:40,250
don’t have to work 9 to 5. That’s right. Something along those lines,

599
00:38:40,330 –> 00:38:44,010
you know. That’s right. Yes. And you don’t have to have— I think about

600
00:38:44,010 –> 00:38:47,440
every procedural cop show I’ve ever seen in my life You know, if you’re

601
00:38:47,440 –> 00:38:51,200
an amateur detective, you don’t have to follow rules of evidence. You can

602
00:38:51,200 –> 00:38:54,320
do whatever the heck you want to do that was on Law

603
00:38:55,240 –> 00:38:58,880
Order, whatever the, the latest spinoff of Law Order is that you saw like 10

604
00:38:58,880 –> 00:39:02,640
minutes ago. Like you can do all of that, right? Um, what did

605
00:39:02,640 –> 00:39:06,400
you think of Rolo Martin’s like, and, and I sort of put

606
00:39:06,400 –> 00:39:10,200
myself in this kind of situation. Like if I had been dropped in a

607
00:39:10,200 –> 00:39:13,800
situation like that, how would I have responded or how would I have reacted? And

608
00:39:13,800 –> 00:39:15,860
I can’t say that I would’ve reacted any

609
00:39:18,810 –> 00:39:21,930
differently than Rolo did. The friendship—

610
00:39:22,090 –> 00:39:25,850
I understand the friendship aspect

611
00:39:25,930 –> 00:39:29,690
and holding people who’ve influenced you in

612
00:39:33,690 –> 00:39:34,970
to such high

613
00:39:37,930 –> 00:39:39,450
regard, but there’s also,

614
00:39:43,300 –> 00:39:47,060
uh, there’s a desperation And you could— it

615
00:39:47,060 –> 00:39:50,660
just seems that even as he’s talking about

616
00:39:50,660 –> 00:39:52,500
Lyme and then Calloway

617
00:39:54,500 –> 00:39:58,020
is talking about Lyme,

618
00:39:58,020 –> 00:40:01,780
that, uh, like, the insight I get into Rolo

619
00:40:01,780 –> 00:40:03,860
is that he,

620
00:40:06,180 –> 00:40:08,340
he doesn’t have much going

621
00:40:10,080 –> 00:40:12,560
on in ways of things to

622
00:40:13,600 –> 00:40:17,040
look forward to, or people, or lots of loved

623
00:40:17,680 –> 00:40:21,480
ones in his life, say family, uh, friends.

624
00:40:21,480 –> 00:40:24,240
I mean, if his best

625
00:40:25,520 –> 00:40:26,800
friend is in Vienna and he

626
00:40:29,120 –> 00:40:32,480
came from the States and, and he’s 35, and when’s the last

627
00:40:33,440 –> 00:40:36,480
time he saw him? And so there’s a

628
00:40:39,520 –> 00:40:40,240
lot

629
00:40:42,960 –> 00:40:46,240
of vagueness Um, whereas there’s

630
00:40:46,800 –> 00:40:49,760
this dichotomy between the— I love when Green talks about— these are, these are the

631
00:40:49,760 –> 00:40:52,640
little details that I really, I really enjoy. So he

632
00:40:53,280 –> 00:40:57,000
talks about the toupee, and yes, he adjusted toupee with

633
00:40:57,000 –> 00:41:00,520
one hand and with the other hand seemed to wipe the smile off his face

634
00:41:00,520 –> 00:41:04,250
as if it didn’t exist. Yes, and then he talks

635
00:41:04,250 –> 00:41:08,050
about the horn-rimmed glasses that are too thicker than he’d ever

636
00:41:08,050 –> 00:41:11,610
seen. So little details like that. So you get

637
00:41:11,850 –> 00:41:15,690
into Calloway that Calloway must be a good detective because look at all these

638
00:41:15,690 –> 00:41:19,450
small details that he’s adding to the situation. So

639
00:41:19,450 –> 00:41:22,770
he has a keen eye for

640
00:41:22,770 –> 00:41:26,250
the, the nuance,

641
00:41:29,780 –> 00:41:33,540
whereas Rollo is, is swayed by

642
00:41:34,740 –> 00:41:36,740
the romanticization of, say, uh, the

643
00:41:38,580 –> 00:41:42,340
lifestyle of a writer, uh, falling in love with the woman

644
00:41:42,340 –> 00:41:45,700
immediately. She’s an actress or an aspiring actress, so

645
00:41:46,260 –> 00:41:49,540
he doesn’t know her. She could be acting, so

646
00:41:50,820 –> 00:41:54,080
everyone is acting, right? He’s like

647
00:41:54,560 –> 00:41:58,080
falling for every

648
00:41:59,120 –> 00:42:02,000
single infomercial, right? And with the dichotomy that I mentioned a few moments

649
00:42:03,200 –> 00:42:07,040
ago, it was like the maître d’ or the person— maybe

650
00:42:07,040 –> 00:42:10,680
it was Cribbins, I’m not sure— at

651
00:42:10,880 –> 00:42:14,640
the hotel. Oh, yeah. Says he’s one of

652
00:42:14,960 –> 00:42:16,960
your— my favorite novelist,

653
00:42:18,560 –> 00:42:22,240
right? Yes. Cribbins. Cribbins. Yes. Cribbins. And so Cribbins says, you’re one of my

654
00:42:22,790 –> 00:42:26,510
favorite novelists. And then And then he says something about cheap westerns, and he’s

655
00:42:26,510 –> 00:42:30,150
like, well, I write cheap westerns.

656
00:42:31,510 –> 00:42:35,270
And then he’s also— Lime set him up to speak

657
00:42:35,270 –> 00:42:37,510
at an engagement. Yep.

658
00:42:38,870 –> 00:42:42,590
As an author. And I would think

659
00:42:42,590 –> 00:42:45,910
as an author, I would be over

660
00:42:46,630 –> 00:42:50,360
the moon. Oh yeah. And he has no time for it. And he says,

661
00:42:50,360 –> 00:42:53,920
Well, he’ll do anything for a

662
00:42:54,480 –> 00:42:56,560
drink, and it’s just an

663
00:43:04,320 –> 00:43:06,640
opportunity to really— to, to, to, to, uh, to get as

664
00:43:08,560 –> 00:43:12,160
much dopamine as possible with minimal effort. It’s kind

665
00:43:13,840 –> 00:43:16,400
of like, you know, um, it’s kind of the feeling I got,

666
00:43:18,990 –> 00:43:21,790
you know, just it’s He’s— it’s like Charles

667
00:43:23,870 –> 00:43:27,430
Bukowski without the talent, you know. I’m in it for,

668
00:43:27,430 –> 00:43:30,430
for this. I’m in it. It’s like the, the

669
00:43:31,390 –> 00:43:34,350
path of least resistance to get what he wants,

670
00:43:35,070 –> 00:43:38,750
which is really just, you know, uh, like I

671
00:43:38,750 –> 00:43:42,310
said, hunting dopamine. Hunting dopamine. Well, and, and this is

672
00:43:42,310 –> 00:43:46,050
Green’s— this is Green’s brilliance, because you get the sense that like like there’s

673
00:43:46,050 –> 00:43:49,890
some authors like Charles Portis. So we read True Grit, right? We covered

674
00:43:49,890 –> 00:43:52,890
True Grit. Can’t remember what episode it was, but we’ve covered True

675
00:43:53,690 –> 00:43:57,250
Grit, Charles Portis, right? We also covered— I already mentioned

676
00:43:57,250 –> 00:44:00,730
Nabokov, right? We covered Lolita.

677
00:44:01,050 –> 00:44:04,810
We’re about to cover later on this season, we’re going to cover Invitation to a

678
00:44:04,810 –> 00:44:08,370
Beheading. We’re gonna go back into Nabokov yet again, and see one more shot at

679
00:44:08,370 –> 00:44:12,130
one more crack at that.

680
00:44:12,130 –> 00:44:14,980
Milan Kundera, Unbearable Lightness

681
00:44:15,140 –> 00:44:18,180
of Being. Greene,

682
00:44:20,340 –> 00:44:21,780
Kundera, Nabokov,

683
00:44:24,740 –> 00:44:28,100
these European authors, right? They seem to understand

684
00:44:28,500 –> 00:44:32,220
something about human nature. And they put it in their characters that I think American

685
00:44:32,220 –> 00:44:34,820
authors— I already mentioned Dickens—

686
00:44:35,860 –> 00:44:39,460
I think American authors miss, right?

687
00:44:41,630 –> 00:44:44,830
They have a certain And this is also why I liked Green. So

688
00:44:45,630 –> 00:44:49,230
they have a certain cynicism to

689
00:44:49,230 –> 00:44:52,750
them, obviously, about human nature.

690
00:44:52,750 –> 00:44:56,269
Where Green separates from Kundera and Nabokov and those

691
00:44:56,830 –> 00:44:59,950
kinds of guys is he

692
00:45:00,990 –> 00:45:04,670
doesn’t allow that cynicism to be the primary driver of— again, we’re

693
00:45:04,670 –> 00:45:08,320
going to talk about Harry Lyman in a minute. But Harry Lime’s comeuppance. He doesn’t

694
00:45:08,320 –> 00:45:12,120
allow that to be, because he allows Rolo to

695
00:45:12,120 –> 00:45:15,720
actually, in his character arc, get a—

696
00:45:15,720 –> 00:45:18,920
not get redemption for himself, but

697
00:45:19,960 –> 00:45:23,080
to be the vehicle that redeems Harry Lime, the only way Harry

698
00:45:24,840 –> 00:45:28,360
Lime could be redeemed. And that’s unique to Greene. Nabokov

699
00:45:28,360 –> 00:45:31,320
doesn’t do that in Lolita. There

700
00:45:33,210 –> 00:45:36,770
is no redemption for Humberg, like there’s no redemption for

701
00:45:36,770 –> 00:45:40,170
that guy. There’s no redemption in that arc. There’s just punishment

702
00:45:40,170 –> 00:45:43,610
and then an unreliable narrator. In The

703
00:45:44,890 –> 00:45:48,570
Unbearable Lightness of Being, please. I like Milan Kundera, but he

704
00:45:48,570 –> 00:45:51,810
didn’t believe there was redemption. That’s why he sold out all

705
00:45:51,810 –> 00:45:55,570
of his friends to communists, to the communists, and then ran

706
00:45:55,570 –> 00:45:58,950
to France for the remainder of his career.

707
00:46:00,710 –> 00:46:04,510
And wrote from there. Um, so, but Greene, Greene

708
00:46:04,510 –> 00:46:08,310
took that cynicism that you see in characters like Rollo Martin,

709
00:46:08,310 –> 00:46:12,110
or let’s talk about Anna Schmidt for a minute.

710
00:46:12,110 –> 00:46:15,830
He, I think, and I think this comes from his Catholicism, which I

711
00:46:15,830 –> 00:46:19,670
brought up earlier. I think Christian, his, his Catholicism, his belief in a God.

712
00:46:19,670 –> 00:46:21,830
Well, he called himself an agnostic Catholic at the

713
00:46:23,430 –> 00:46:27,200
end of his life, but I can tell you as a— and

714
00:46:27,200 –> 00:46:30,880
I always say this this way, you’ll appreciate this as someone who has the background

715
00:46:30,880 –> 00:46:34,200
that you have— I am a recovering

716
00:46:35,800 –> 00:46:39,480
Catholic. You’re always recovering. You’re never, you’re never fully

717
00:46:44,040 –> 00:46:47,560
recovered. You’re always recovering. Um, I can tell you that once you get

718
00:46:47,720 –> 00:46:51,250
the Catholic on you, you, you never, you never

719
00:46:51,250 –> 00:46:54,570
get it off. And Green tried to get it off, like he did. He tried

720
00:46:54,570 –> 00:46:58,130
during his career, he tried in his writing, but it’s always

721
00:46:58,210 –> 00:47:02,010
there, sort of like Peter Pan’s shadow, you know? Like, oh, I’m

722
00:47:02,010 –> 00:47:04,490
gonna take my shadow and I’m gonna nail it to the floor and it’ll never

723
00:47:04,490 –> 00:47:07,730
go anywhere. No, you’re gonna take that shadow, it’s gonna nail to you, it’s

724
00:47:08,450 –> 00:47:11,890
gonna follow you around. And that’s the thing I think that you see in

725
00:47:12,930 –> 00:47:15,770
characters like Rollo Martin, um, Anna Schmidt. I want to talk about her. I mean,

726
00:47:15,770 –> 00:47:19,450
she was in love with Harry Lyne. And she’s the only female character that really

727
00:47:22,490 –> 00:47:22,970
shows

728
00:47:26,490 –> 00:47:29,850
up in here. Yeah, and, and, uh, I mean, and, and to backtrack just for

729
00:47:30,410 –> 00:47:34,090
a second, and she changes her name. Yes, yes, she

730
00:47:34,090 –> 00:47:37,930
does. Right, so that just adds

731
00:47:38,880 –> 00:47:42,330
to the facade of, of the, you know, persona

732
00:47:42,640 –> 00:47:46,480
needs mask. So just the personas of these

733
00:47:46,480 –> 00:47:50,040
characters. Yep. I

734
00:47:50,040 –> 00:47:52,640
mean, even, uh, Rolo has

735
00:47:53,920 –> 00:47:57,520
a Dexter. This is his pet. So no one is who they say

736
00:47:59,840 –> 00:48:03,680
they are. They are. Um, and even when you go to the

737
00:48:03,840 –> 00:48:06,800
doctor’s office, and this, like, back to the sort of the language— I know I’m

738
00:48:06,800 –> 00:48:09,460
kind of like jumping around a little bit,

739
00:48:10,500 –> 00:48:14,340
but when he says, uh, cleaner than any doctor he’s ever

740
00:48:14,340 –> 00:48:17,860
met, and he talks about his shirt almost crinkling as if

741
00:48:17,860 –> 00:48:21,060
it were made of celluloid. Yes, it’s just

742
00:48:21,460 –> 00:48:24,820
like these little details that are kind of like thrown in, and

743
00:48:25,300 –> 00:48:27,380
the use of language. And so you

744
00:48:32,260 –> 00:48:35,950
get a sense that, um, that Calloway is observing all

745
00:48:35,950 –> 00:48:39,590
these things, and he’s observing Rollo fall for all of

746
00:48:42,310 –> 00:48:45,990
these things as well. Um, but there is

747
00:48:47,030 –> 00:48:50,389
no— there, there is, you know, to your point, like, there’s no—

748
00:48:50,390 –> 00:48:53,990
there’s no resolution or solution.

749
00:48:54,390 –> 00:48:58,230
And interestingly enough, like, if Rolo

750
00:49:00,080 –> 00:49:03,680
Martin’s is the mark What is being extracted from

751
00:49:04,480 –> 00:49:07,680
him? Is

752
00:49:08,320 –> 00:49:11,840
he there to, to, to,

753
00:49:11,840 –> 00:49:15,280
to be the, to be the

754
00:49:16,000 –> 00:49:19,600
solidifier of the murder? Is—

755
00:49:19,600 –> 00:49:23,360
I think that’s an excellent question. So, because that’s a long game.

756
00:49:23,360 –> 00:49:25,440
That is a long game. Well, well,

757
00:49:27,770 –> 00:49:31,530
well, this is why So here’s everything

758
00:49:32,010 –> 00:49:35,690
I know about cons from my book reading and

759
00:49:36,570 –> 00:49:39,290
from my movie watching and

760
00:49:40,570 –> 00:49:43,610
from, um, and from, um, well, just from everything I’ve been able to observe from

761
00:49:43,610 –> 00:49:47,050
people running cons in my own life. Um, so I put those

762
00:49:47,370 –> 00:49:50,090
things in that order because that’s, that’s the

763
00:49:51,700 –> 00:49:54,260
layer cake right there. Um, So there’s a, there’s

764
00:49:55,380 –> 00:49:59,060
a short con, right? Short-term cons are

765
00:49:59,060 –> 00:50:02,340
always immediacy. They’re always about immediacy. They’re all about, talk about the dopamine hit, right?

766
00:50:02,340 –> 00:50:05,060
They’re always about the dopamine hit. Three-card

767
00:50:06,100 –> 00:50:09,060
monty. Three-card monty. Or, um, I don’t know, get your red tops, get your red

768
00:50:09,060 –> 00:50:12,780
tops, red tops right here. Short con, right? I’ll give you something for

769
00:50:12,780 –> 00:50:16,260
nothing inside of 3 seconds. It’ll cost you nothing, but then I got

770
00:50:17,710 –> 00:50:21,430
you hooked, right? Okay. Medium-range cons are basically what all marketing is. All

771
00:50:21,710 –> 00:50:24,910
marketing is a medium-range con. All of it. All of

772
00:50:25,390 –> 00:50:28,790
it. From Facebook ads all the way to the billboard that you see on the

773
00:50:28,790 –> 00:50:31,790
street. By the way, medium-range has nothing to do with time. It has to do

774
00:50:31,790 –> 00:50:35,550
with the impact of the con, right? So there’s a great marketing story.

775
00:50:35,550 –> 00:50:39,110
I don’t know that I’ve ever told you this. I mentioned it on the podcast

776
00:50:39,110 –> 00:50:42,910
before with another guest, but I’ll tell you this story. Um,

777
00:50:43,070 –> 00:50:46,640
there’s a great story of

778
00:50:46,640 –> 00:50:48,320
a luxury car company executive.

779
00:50:49,440 –> 00:50:52,800
I think it was Mercedes or might have been BMW. I

780
00:50:53,680 –> 00:50:57,200
think it was BMW. And he was interviewed at a

781
00:50:57,200 –> 00:50:59,920
conference years ago and somebody asked him, some

782
00:51:00,800 –> 00:51:03,600
naive person asked him, why do you

783
00:51:05,440 –> 00:51:09,280
spend at that time, $30,000 a month on

784
00:51:09,680 –> 00:51:13,340
billboards in Times Square? And why do you do that continuously? And

785
00:51:13,340 –> 00:51:16,420
he looks at the person who asks him this question as

786
00:51:17,060 –> 00:51:20,860
if they are stupid. And he

787
00:51:20,860 –> 00:51:24,660
says, because the reason I spend $30,000 a month on Mercedes is because I have

788
00:51:26,100 –> 00:51:29,860
to convince a person when they’re 3 years old that by the time they’re

789
00:51:29,860 –> 00:51:31,940
35, they want a Mercedes. It’s

790
00:51:33,860 –> 00:51:35,220
worth it to me.

791
00:51:37,710 –> 00:51:40,790
That’s a medium-range con. And you’re laughing because you know exactly what that means. You

792
00:51:40,790 –> 00:51:44,630
know exactly the psychology of what is that. So the

793
00:51:44,630 –> 00:51:48,430
money is irrelevant. And people who don’t pull cons think the money is the thing

794
00:51:48,590 –> 00:51:52,430
that’s relevant. Money’s— and you, I’m getting to, to answer your question about what he’s

795
00:51:52,750 –> 00:51:54,830
extracting, right? And then to your point, then

796
00:51:56,910 –> 00:51:59,870
there’s the long con. The long con always

797
00:52:00,510 –> 00:52:03,160
extracts from

798
00:52:04,120 –> 00:52:07,960
the mark everything. Everything. It extracts their

799
00:52:07,960 –> 00:52:11,160
belief. It extracts their psychic energy.

800
00:52:11,480 –> 00:52:15,240
It extracts their emotional energy. It’s

801
00:52:15,240 –> 00:52:18,960
about manipulation. It’s about deceit. It’s about

802
00:52:18,960 –> 00:52:22,760
the amusement of the grifter or the hustler or the scammer

803
00:52:22,760 –> 00:52:26,440
doing the thing. So it’s for their entertainment because they’re,

804
00:52:26,440 –> 00:52:29,980
they’re deeply— talk about narcissistic. Not only narcissistic,

805
00:52:29,980 –> 00:52:33,780
in many cases, they’re sociopathic. Sociopathic. Yeah. Yeah.

806
00:52:33,860 –> 00:52:37,220
And so they’re getting actual pleasure

807
00:52:37,300 –> 00:52:40,980
from watching the mark squirm, um,

808
00:52:41,300 –> 00:52:44,940
because they lack empathy, right? It’s about extracting

809
00:52:44,940 –> 00:52:48,780
the material good from the mark repeatedly over and

810
00:52:48,780 –> 00:52:52,140
over again until the mark is dried up.

811
00:52:52,140 –> 00:52:55,860
And then it’s about depersonalizing or taking away the humanity

812
00:52:55,860 –> 00:52:59,630
in a long con from the mark. In my experience

813
00:52:59,630 –> 00:53:02,990
with cons, and again, those of you who are going to be

814
00:53:03,550 –> 00:53:07,230
listening, you will have— your mileage will vary, as someone once said to me

815
00:53:08,670 –> 00:53:12,350
a long time ago. You will have different thoughts on this, and that’s

816
00:53:12,350 –> 00:53:16,030
fine. But in my opinion, the long con is— the point of

817
00:53:16,030 –> 00:53:19,630
the con is to extract everything. And that’s what Harry Lime is

818
00:53:20,750 –> 00:53:23,270
seeking to get from, uh, from Rollo Martin’s. And this is why, by the way,

819
00:53:23,270 –> 00:53:25,710
he doesn’t show up until the beginning of the third— oh, the middle

820
00:53:27,390 –> 00:53:30,830
of the third act. Like, that’s— and that’s a huge play because, like, you’ve built

821
00:53:30,830 –> 00:53:33,190
him up, you built him up, you built him up, you built him up, you

822
00:53:33,190 –> 00:53:35,310
built him up, and he better pay

823
00:53:37,070 –> 00:53:40,840
off. And he does. And to,

824
00:53:40,910 –> 00:53:44,150
to show and prove to him that he is no different

825
00:53:44,150 –> 00:53:47,470
than one of the specs, right,

826
00:53:48,510 –> 00:53:48,990
on

827
00:53:52,520 –> 00:53:55,880
the ground, right? Yeah. Um, I think the challenge of our time as individuals— we

828
00:53:55,880 –> 00:53:58,760
haven’t talked about leadership yet. We’ve sort of done a book report on the book

829
00:53:58,760 –> 00:54:01,440
so far. We’ve admired the book. We’ve loved the book. The book is great, by

830
00:54:01,440 –> 00:54:04,760
the way, folks. Go and get it. If you’re a leader, I absolutely think you

831
00:54:04,760 –> 00:54:08,600
need to read this book. I think you need to put it

832
00:54:08,600 –> 00:54:11,840
on your shelf next to Lolita, next to Unbearable Lightness of

833
00:54:11,840 –> 00:54:15,520
Being. I think it stands alongside

834
00:54:15,520 –> 00:54:19,360
those works as well for leaders because it does

835
00:54:19,360 –> 00:54:22,810
reveal something about human nature. Um, and I think it

836
00:54:22,810 –> 00:54:26,530
reveals something that we’ve forgotten in a world that’s been flattened by the

837
00:54:26,530 –> 00:54:30,210
internet and by social media, right? Where cons

838
00:54:30,210 –> 00:54:34,050
and scams are still being run on us. Um, grifters and hustlers still

839
00:54:34,050 –> 00:54:37,730
want to take our money. Marketers still try to separate

840
00:54:38,090 –> 00:54:41,890
us from our hard-earned dollars. Propagandists and

841
00:54:41,890 –> 00:54:45,370
conspiracy theorists on either end of the spectrum still are trying to convince us to

842
00:54:45,370 –> 00:54:49,050
believe things that may not

843
00:54:49,050 –> 00:54:52,770
necessarily be reliable. We live in a world where the number of

844
00:54:52,770 –> 00:54:56,530
scammers and hustlers and grifters and con men has exploded exponentially.

845
00:54:56,530 –> 00:55:00,330
And some of them are bots out of foreign countries. Matter of fact, most

846
00:55:00,330 –> 00:55:04,170
of them are bots out of foreign countries, and they’re designed to

847
00:55:04,970 –> 00:55:08,690
take advantage of the stupid Americans.

848
00:55:08,690 –> 00:55:12,330
And I think real leadership these days

849
00:55:12,330 –> 00:55:16,180
is teaching the people who we are leading particularly if we’re in a family,

850
00:55:16,180 –> 00:55:19,060
the people that we love, how

851
00:55:20,100 –> 00:55:23,140
to not get fooled by the people or

852
00:55:23,700 –> 00:55:27,260
by the bots online. And this becomes a real challenge

853
00:55:27,260 –> 00:55:30,940
with the rise of AI, being able to make images

854
00:55:30,940 –> 00:55:34,180
that aren’t a thing. I mean, I’m now starting to see ads in

855
00:55:34,740 –> 00:55:38,540
my Facebook Reels feed of AI girlfriends.

856
00:55:38,540 –> 00:55:42,180
I don’t know if you’ve seen those in your Reels feed, but you will see

857
00:55:42,180 –> 00:55:45,990
it. It’s coming to a Reels feed near you. Click on the link here, I

858
00:55:45,990 –> 00:55:47,190
can be your AI

859
00:55:50,150 –> 00:55:53,990
girlfriend. And I’m like, who’s clicking on this? Oh, well, well, the same

860
00:55:53,990 –> 00:55:57,750
people that thought a Nigerian prince was going to give them a letter from some

861
00:55:57,750 –> 00:55:59,991
bank with a billion dollars. Happy.

862
00:56:01,590 –> 00:56:03,350
It’s tapping into the depravity

863
00:56:05,750 –> 00:56:09,230
in a way that’s exploiting the

864
00:56:09,230 –> 00:56:12,840
heck out of people’s loneliness as we grow

865
00:56:12,840 –> 00:56:16,480
more and more disconnected from

866
00:56:17,040 –> 00:56:19,520
interpersonal connectivity

867
00:56:22,000 –> 00:56:25,440
and having tangible experiences. Um, you know, it— I

868
00:56:25,680 –> 00:56:29,520
see those ads and I, I

869
00:56:29,920 –> 00:56:33,600
still think like, like, God, it looks like it’s such a

870
00:56:33,600 –> 00:56:37,240
hassle. Like, that’s still too much. It’s— you want too much.

871
00:56:37,240 –> 00:56:40,550
You still want too much. Remember,

872
00:56:41,110 –> 00:56:44,390
remember the line that,

873
00:56:44,710 –> 00:56:48,150
that, um, oh, Lebowski gave to Jackie Treehorn when Jackie Treehorn was talking about how

874
00:56:48,150 –> 00:56:51,910
everything was going to be digital in the future? He’s

875
00:56:51,910 –> 00:56:52,710
like, yeah, I

876
00:56:55,670 –> 00:56:59,510
still do it manually. Yeah, that’s what I always think of every time I

877
00:56:59,510 –> 00:57:02,870
see one of those ads and I crack up. I

878
00:57:03,190 –> 00:57:05,110
do, I crack up. But this is

879
00:57:07,390 –> 00:57:10,830
the thing that’s coming. Careful there. Hey, son,

880
00:57:11,070 –> 00:57:14,870
to, uh, to, uh, to a household near you, to a

881
00:57:14,870 –> 00:57:18,630
room near you. And we worry a lot about like kids

882
00:57:18,630 –> 00:57:22,110
being online and we absolutely should be worried

883
00:57:22,590 –> 00:57:26,430
about kids online. And, you know, I just had a practical level.

884
00:57:26,430 –> 00:57:30,100
Um, we have a rule in our house where my children don’t get a cell

885
00:57:30,160 –> 00:57:33,920
phone until they’re 17, 18 years old. And

886
00:57:33,920 –> 00:57:37,760
if that sounds like restricting and whatever, well, we’re parents. That’s

887
00:57:37,760 –> 00:57:41,160
what we signed up for. We signed up for our lives to be

888
00:57:41,160 –> 00:57:44,680
restricted and be like managed and like, I don’t know, we have

889
00:57:45,160 –> 00:57:48,400
to lead people. So I don’t know, maybe, maybe not having your

890
00:57:48,720 –> 00:57:52,280
kid do every after-school activity is an okay thing.

891
00:57:52,280 –> 00:57:55,800
I don’t know, maybe, maybe not having your kid not get

892
00:57:56,280 –> 00:58:00,120
picked up, maybe actually, maybe actually negotiating with your boss in a way or

893
00:58:00,120 –> 00:58:03,620
negotiating with your wife in a way or your husband in a way where somebody

894
00:58:03,620 –> 00:58:07,460
picks up the kid is actually a better negotiation than having

895
00:58:07,460 –> 00:58:10,820
them the dopamine, handing them the dopamine-filled machine with the

896
00:58:11,140 –> 00:58:14,580
scammers inside of it. Maybe, maybe, but that’s just me. That’s just me.

897
00:58:14,580 –> 00:58:18,420
Again, your mileage may vary.

898
00:58:21,380 –> 00:58:24,740
With that being said, you talk about interpersonal relationships. This is an ethics question. So

899
00:58:24,740 –> 00:58:28,020
I’m going to ask you the ethics question. How can leaders bring

900
00:58:29,070 –> 00:58:32,750
their followers to ethics? In the light of the collapse of ethics that we

901
00:58:32,750 –> 00:58:36,310
have had in American culture? Because I think, I think Greene was on to

902
00:58:36,310 –> 00:58:40,110
something. I think the collapse started in his time. I think

903
00:58:40,590 –> 00:58:44,190
he would be shocked beyond belief. I think all

904
00:58:44,190 –> 00:58:47,710
the guys that I’ve mentioned, all the authors that I’ve mentioned who wrote about the

905
00:58:47,710 –> 00:58:50,990
collapse of narrative in the 20th century, would be surprised at

906
00:58:51,790 –> 00:58:55,430
how far it went. How do we retain ethics in

907
00:58:55,430 –> 00:58:59,270
a place where particularly online, or just even in our own families when we’re

908
00:58:59,270 –> 00:59:03,030
trying to deal with people. Like, I know you don’t

909
00:59:03,030 –> 00:59:06,790
have kids, but you deal with people who do have children. You’ve been

910
00:59:06,790 –> 00:59:09,230
a child. This is why, like, I don’t know, the people who don’t have children,

911
00:59:09,230 –> 00:59:12,750
you do have something to say because you’ve been a child. It’s not

912
00:59:12,830 –> 00:59:16,030
like it’s an unfamiliar, like, you know, kind of thing to you that there might

913
00:59:16,030 –> 00:59:19,510
be, you know, these small people in the world that might want to do things,

914
00:59:19,510 –> 00:59:21,590
right? So, and they might be the future because they’re going to grow up to

915
00:59:21,590 –> 00:59:25,200
be adults that will work in your future coffee

916
00:59:25,200 –> 00:59:28,960
shop., right? So how do

917
00:59:28,960 –> 00:59:32,720
we as leaders bring our followers to

918
00:59:32,800 –> 00:59:35,280
ethics if what they see as examples

919
00:59:36,000 –> 00:59:39,760
everywhere around them is

920
00:59:40,480 –> 00:59:43,600
just pache totalitarianism, but are many

921
00:59:43,600 –> 00:59:47,440
hairy limes everywhere? Not many Eichmanns, we have those

922
00:59:47,440 –> 00:59:48,880
too, but many, many,

923
00:59:53,010 –> 00:59:56,730
many hairy limes just everywhere. Right. And everywhere is Vienna. Everywhere

924
00:59:56,730 –> 01:00:00,410
is post-war Vienna now, just in an online space. Yeah.

925
01:00:00,410 –> 01:00:01,970
I think the

926
01:00:04,410 –> 01:00:08,130
great scam of technology is— this is gonna sound— this may not make

927
01:00:08,130 –> 01:00:11,970
sense, but I will make

928
01:00:13,170 –> 01:00:13,570
it

929
01:00:17,780 –> 01:00:21,020
make sense. Okay. Is technology

930
01:00:21,020 –> 01:00:23,740
think leans

931
01:00:24,700 –> 01:00:27,180
toward convincing the consumer

932
01:00:29,340 –> 01:00:32,540
that only everyone is watching. Say it

933
01:00:33,740 –> 01:00:37,420
again. Only everyone is watching. So I was

934
01:00:37,420 –> 01:00:41,180
working in a restaurant one

935
01:00:41,740 –> 01:00:45,510
time, and, well, many times, but And this

936
01:00:47,110 –> 01:00:50,390
guy Steve I worked with,

937
01:00:51,670 –> 01:00:53,510
he was incredibly loud, tall,

938
01:00:55,350 –> 01:00:57,430
uh, really

939
01:00:58,870 –> 01:00:59,270
well-built,

940
01:01:03,030 –> 01:01:04,070
lifted weights,

941
01:01:06,950 –> 01:01:10,370
blowhard, loud. And the restaurant during high

942
01:01:10,930 –> 01:01:14,730
volume is sounds like a cocktail party of geese at the reservoir.

943
01:01:14,730 –> 01:01:17,410
It’s loud,

944
01:01:20,210 –> 01:01:23,171
there’s things going on. And, uh, the din, as they would say

945
01:01:25,090 –> 01:01:28,610
in the ’50s and ’40s. And so how

946
01:01:29,970 –> 01:01:33,490
to disappear in the din is to raise

947
01:01:33,490 –> 01:01:33,890
your

948
01:01:37,170 –> 01:01:40,290
volume as well. And so Steve

949
01:01:41,570 –> 01:01:43,890
and I would have conversations that would

950
01:01:45,810 –> 01:01:49,650
last 10, 15 minutes long. We’re yelling throughout the

951
01:01:49,650 –> 01:01:53,410
restaurant. He’s waiting tables,

952
01:01:53,410 –> 01:01:57,090
I’m behind the bar. There’s 100 people,

953
01:01:58,850 –> 01:02:01,860
120 people in this building.

954
01:02:02,660 –> 01:02:06,500
We are quite literally yelling the conversation through

955
01:02:06,500 –> 01:02:09,820
the restaurant, talking to each

956
01:02:09,820 –> 01:02:12,660
other, and not once did anyone

957
01:02:15,060 –> 01:02:18,820
say anything about the

958
01:02:18,820 –> 01:02:21,780
volume. Hmm. We disappeared by matching

959
01:02:23,860 –> 01:02:27,060
what the environment was. Okay. Hmm. And so if

960
01:02:28,330 –> 01:02:30,490
only everyone is always watching then in

961
01:02:34,170 –> 01:02:36,810
a way no one’s watching.

962
01:02:38,570 –> 01:02:41,770
If that’s the case, then your behaviors can

963
01:02:45,370 –> 01:02:48,410
get— and I think that’s, that’s, that’s

964
01:02:49,290 –> 01:02:52,970
why I think music and, uh, I mean, music has

965
01:02:53,700 –> 01:02:57,220
always been sexualized. However, yeah. There, there’s gradients and stepping

966
01:02:57,620 –> 01:03:01,380
stones. And I mean, we’re, you know, we’re 6 months

967
01:03:01,620 –> 01:03:05,220
away from watching live sex at the Super

968
01:03:06,020 –> 01:03:07,460
Bowl halftime show. Yeah.

969
01:03:11,140 –> 01:03:14,820
Or 12 months away. Not— and I think

970
01:03:14,820 –> 01:03:18,540
that’s also why, uh, so although I’m not a parent, I, you know, as

971
01:03:18,540 –> 01:03:22,350
you said a

972
01:03:22,350 –> 01:03:26,030
moment ago, you know, How many

973
01:03:26,030 –> 01:03:28,150
people I’ve met,

974
01:03:29,830 –> 01:03:33,390
and people even that I’ve spent a lot of time with, who have been raised

975
01:03:33,390 –> 01:03:37,230
by the television or the

976
01:03:37,230 –> 01:03:40,550
computer. And so in this

977
01:03:42,950 –> 01:03:45,600
way, people have

978
01:03:48,240 –> 01:03:52,040
become depersonalized. And so If that’s the case and

979
01:03:52,040 –> 01:03:55,800
only everyone is watching, then no one is watching, then

980
01:03:55,800 –> 01:03:58,720
you, you become not— I would say not even a cog. You’re

981
01:03:59,840 –> 01:04:03,520
less than a cog. You’re, you’re like a, like

982
01:04:03,520 –> 01:04:06,000
a miasmic vapor that’s just kind of

983
01:04:07,120 –> 01:04:07,920
like floating

984
01:04:17,130 –> 01:04:19,770
through the air. And so It has to happen,

985
01:04:21,130 –> 01:04:24,850
at least in my experience, on a very— and this is like being

986
01:04:24,850 –> 01:04:25,530
in customer service

987
01:04:28,410 –> 01:04:32,090
for such a long time and having people come back to

988
01:04:32,090 –> 01:04:35,370
me and even reading

989
01:04:39,180 –> 01:04:42,780
reviews online of people saying They’re like, the reason they

990
01:04:42,780 –> 01:04:46,460
are over the moon about the experience is because

991
01:04:46,460 –> 01:04:50,060
I treated this person who came to get

992
01:04:50,060 –> 01:04:53,820
something. I made them feel special and like a

993
01:04:53,820 –> 01:04:57,420
human being. They were valued. They were like, like they felt

994
01:04:57,980 –> 01:04:59,100
listened to. They

995
01:05:02,470 –> 01:05:05,990
felt acknowledged and their

996
01:05:06,710 –> 01:05:08,790
existence was somehow validated. Whereas

997
01:05:11,030 –> 01:05:14,390
in all

998
01:05:15,110 –> 01:05:18,070
the noise and how time, popularity,

999
01:05:18,950 –> 01:05:21,830
exposure has become a

1000
01:05:22,710 –> 01:05:25,990
currency, it devalues and depersonalizes. And so it becomes

1001
01:05:26,390 –> 01:05:30,100
about, you know, a like or a hit or,

1002
01:05:31,700 –> 01:05:35,060
you know, chasing the dopamine. And when you’re

1003
01:05:35,380 –> 01:05:39,220
engaged in conversation with someone in a way that they

1004
01:05:39,220 –> 01:05:42,180
feel heard, valued, validated as a,

1005
01:05:46,260 –> 01:05:48,980
a, a, a human being,

1006
01:05:51,060 –> 01:05:54,910
then I think only then can those things

1007
01:05:55,470 –> 01:05:59,110
move past that, because otherwise everything is

1008
01:05:59,110 –> 01:06:02,190
just more propaganda. Although we are not—

1009
01:06:02,750 –> 01:06:06,510
often we are not aware that we’re floating

1010
01:06:08,510 –> 01:06:12,190
in a sea of grifters. And

1011
01:06:13,470 –> 01:06:17,310
so, you know, I, I, you

1012
01:06:17,310 –> 01:06:20,970
know, the— what’s it say— the, the global

1013
01:06:20,970 –> 01:06:24,610
and local Mm-hmm. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. The, uh, think

1014
01:06:25,090 –> 01:06:28,810
global, act local, right? Yeah. So how are you going to— you

1015
01:06:28,810 –> 01:06:32,570
said it doesn’t exist. Well, I, I question in practice

1016
01:06:32,570 –> 01:06:36,250
how do you do that, because there is no citizen of the world,

1017
01:06:36,250 –> 01:06:39,330
right? Like, I’ve never met one. I, I see a lot

1018
01:06:39,970 –> 01:06:42,290
of people who talk about being citizens of the world.

1019
01:06:42,930 –> 01:06:46,530
I see a lot of protesting,

1020
01:06:47,270 –> 01:06:51,030
very idealistic, 18 to like 34-year-old. Yeah,

1021
01:06:51,190 –> 01:06:54,950
34 is right these days. 18 to 34-year-old young people

1022
01:06:54,950 –> 01:06:58,630
who are, who are going to buy fair trade coffee

1023
01:06:58,630 –> 01:07:02,390
and then go put on a kaifa and

1024
01:07:03,590 –> 01:07:07,310
scream about Queers for Palestine, or go

1025
01:07:07,310 –> 01:07:10,990
and post something on some Substack somewhere

1026
01:07:10,990 –> 01:07:14,200
about how the Israelis are really running all

1027
01:07:14,680 –> 01:07:18,520
of our foreign policy. And, you know,

1028
01:07:19,080 –> 01:07:21,960
um, the Holocaust didn’t happen, right?

1029
01:07:22,760 –> 01:07:26,280
Or I’m going to see— who, by the way, then are going to go out

1030
01:07:26,280 –> 01:07:30,039
and, you know, go look smacks, whatever the hell that means, that

1031
01:07:30,120 –> 01:07:33,560
people are doing now, and weightlifting. I don’t know what the kids are doing, but

1032
01:07:33,560 –> 01:07:36,920
they’re doing things, right? All these very idealistic kids

1033
01:07:41,410 –> 01:07:45,090
are doing these things, and There’s no meaning to any

1034
01:07:45,090 –> 01:07:48,810
of it. It’s just a thing we’re doing, to your point,

1035
01:07:48,810 –> 01:07:52,210
to get the likes or to get the attention. But

1036
01:07:53,330 –> 01:07:57,010
we’re not doing it to engage in stickiness. Like, like

1037
01:07:57,010 –> 01:08:00,650
this show, this show is designed for people.

1038
01:08:00,650 –> 01:08:02,610
And I’ve had a couple people, you know, ask

1039
01:08:04,530 –> 01:08:07,450
me about this show recently, um, who, who wanted to, uh, who wanted to subscribe

1040
01:08:07,450 –> 01:08:10,530
to the show, right? And I love having subscribers. I love all my new

1041
01:08:11,320 –> 01:08:15,160
subscribers. Please hit the subscribe button. Subscribe to the show, YouTube, Spotify, Apple.

1042
01:08:15,160 –> 01:08:18,920
I don’t care how you do it. Just subscribe to the show.

1043
01:08:18,920 –> 01:08:22,680
Tell all your friends. But this show is not for

1044
01:08:22,680 –> 01:08:26,280
people who are looking for

1045
01:08:26,720 –> 01:08:29,720
quick dopamine hits. It isn’t for that. I have a

1046
01:08:30,440 –> 01:08:33,240
relationship with all my guests. I have a relationship with Ryan. I have a relationship

1047
01:08:33,240 –> 01:08:36,320
with other guests that I have on. I value their opinions. I want to hear

1048
01:08:36,320 –> 01:08:39,980
what it is they have to say. We’re talking about these books.

1049
01:08:40,060 –> 01:08:43,660
I believe that the value of what they’re bringing,

1050
01:08:43,660 –> 01:08:47,060
like the value of that insight about being over the din, that’s worth its weight

1051
01:08:47,060 –> 01:08:50,140
in gold when you think about the ethical implications of how

1052
01:08:51,980 –> 01:08:55,820
we live in this world. But this thing is not

1053
01:08:56,860 –> 01:09:00,460
designed to— to your point, this thing is not designed to echo over

1054
01:09:00,460 –> 01:09:04,150
the din. This thing is designed to

1055
01:09:06,630 –> 01:09:10,190
kind of be like the kind of be like the quiet conversation happening

1056
01:09:10,190 –> 01:09:14,030
while you and while you’re yelling at the waiter, you know, from the, you

1057
01:09:14,030 –> 01:09:17,790
know, we’re having a quiet conversation in the corner. And if the people

1058
01:09:17,790 –> 01:09:21,030
around us want to participate in the quiet conversation,

1059
01:09:21,270 –> 01:09:23,430
great. If they don’t,

1060
01:09:24,870 –> 01:09:28,520
well, that’s great too. And it’s not a chip on the

1061
01:09:28,520 –> 01:09:32,080
shoulder kind of thing. It’s an actual making a decision to go against

1062
01:09:32,160 –> 01:09:35,280
the den kind of thing, which I think is, I

1063
01:09:36,320 –> 01:09:39,960
think in an attention-driven, dopamine-driven economy,

1064
01:09:39,960 –> 01:09:42,760
I think that the best way a leader can lead, one of the better ways

1065
01:09:42,760 –> 01:09:45,760
that a leader can lead or one of the other options that a leader has

1066
01:09:45,760 –> 01:09:49,120
if they don’t want to shout over the den, which I think is a great

1067
01:09:49,280 –> 01:09:53,040
option, shout over the den, but just realize you’re making certain decisions with that, like

1068
01:09:53,040 –> 01:09:56,769
certain consequences that come along with that. You could

1069
01:09:56,769 –> 01:09:59,289
lose your voice. The, the volume of the room could

1070
01:10:00,409 –> 01:10:04,049
go up to match you, or, um, the, the party could

1071
01:10:04,049 –> 01:10:07,369
move to a total another restaurant down the block, which it does all the time

1072
01:10:07,369 –> 01:10:10,329
online. And then you’re left just shouting to people shouting inside of a

1073
01:10:12,969 –> 01:10:16,609
room where no one’s there. Um, I like what you said about the

1074
01:10:16,609 –> 01:10:20,370
quiet conversation because how

1075
01:10:20,450 –> 01:10:22,690
many times have people

1076
01:10:24,930 –> 01:10:25,490
been in those

1077
01:10:29,170 –> 01:10:32,850
situations where, uh, you know, this is— it’s funny, this is, uh, D— I was

1078
01:10:32,850 –> 01:10:36,290
gonna say this is a Jimmy Eat World

1079
01:10:36,610 –> 01:10:38,770
song called In the

1080
01:10:40,450 –> 01:10:44,290
Middle. Yes. And the video— so the video is these kids are going to a

1081
01:10:44,290 –> 01:10:47,180
party. They’re probably 18, 19 years old, probably college kids. To

1082
01:10:48,140 –> 01:10:50,780
go to this house party and everyone

1083
01:10:52,220 –> 01:10:55,940
is taking their clothes off. And so it’s just because everyone’s taking

1084
01:10:55,940 –> 01:10:59,740
their clothes off, everyone’s taking their clothes off. And there’s this one boy and

1085
01:10:59,740 –> 01:11:03,380
this one girl who are looking around, they’re like, I don’t want

1086
01:11:03,380 –> 01:11:07,060
to, like, yeah. And so like, they’re like, we don’t want— this is

1087
01:11:07,060 –> 01:11:09,660
making— this makes me wildly uncomfortable. I’m not going to do

1088
01:11:10,700 –> 01:11:14,480
it. So they’re walking around kind of like making the decision

1089
01:11:14,480 –> 01:11:18,280
whether to stay or to leave. And everywhere they look,

1090
01:11:18,280 –> 01:11:21,440
everyone is getting down to the underwear or taking

1091
01:11:22,320 –> 01:11:25,680
all their clothes off. And a guy and a girl, their eyes

1092
01:11:25,680 –> 01:11:29,200
meet and they’re both fully clothed and they like get out

1093
01:11:29,440 –> 01:11:32,760
of there. It’s for the— it’s, it’s to— it’s to have the

1094
01:11:33,240 –> 01:11:35,600
moment of like, oh, well,

1095
01:11:36,800 –> 01:11:38,560
there’s someone who— there’s a— not all

1096
01:11:40,490 –> 01:11:43,930
hope is lost. There is there’s promise of

1097
01:11:44,010 –> 01:11:46,250
relatability. There’s promise of something

1098
01:11:47,850 –> 01:11:48,810
outside of what

1099
01:11:52,010 –> 01:11:53,690
is happening in the

1100
01:11:55,610 –> 01:11:57,930
macro. There’s— there, there, there— we just have to look

1101
01:11:58,810 –> 01:12:02,490
a lot harder these days. Whereas I

1102
01:12:02,650 –> 01:12:05,130
used to have— in my drinking and

1103
01:12:06,550 –> 01:12:09,830
partying days, I used to I mean, that’s probably why

1104
01:12:10,230 –> 01:12:14,030
I went out, was to have to run into

1105
01:12:14,030 –> 01:12:17,750
that one person who I could have

1106
01:12:19,030 –> 01:12:22,790
a conversation with. Yeah. And, um, as

1107
01:12:23,110 –> 01:12:26,810
things have become more

1108
01:12:26,810 –> 01:12:30,470
disjointed, louder, uh, and,

1109
01:12:32,720 –> 01:12:36,480
and more specifically, uh,

1110
01:12:36,640 –> 01:12:40,440
attention-driven than capturing someone’s ear or

1111
01:12:40,440 –> 01:12:44,120
eye in a room full of

1112
01:12:44,120 –> 01:12:47,880
facsimile of a facsimile

1113
01:12:47,880 –> 01:12:51,680
of facsimile, it becomes increasingly more difficult. And so when you have the moment

1114
01:12:51,680 –> 01:12:54,720
or the opportunity to see

1115
01:12:55,520 –> 01:12:59,140
someone who’s kind of like— and I don’t even

1116
01:12:59,860 –> 01:13:03,220
know I’m sure there’s a, there’s a Japanese word that means it,

1117
01:13:04,500 –> 01:13:08,220
but it’s like, you know, when you see someone and like your eyes meet and

1118
01:13:08,220 –> 01:13:11,780
it’s kind of like, oh, this kind of like this kismet,

1119
01:13:12,660 –> 01:13:16,180
this like kindred spirit. Yeah. And so there becomes this sort

1120
01:13:16,260 –> 01:13:19,860
of relatability, and whether you’re— it’s

1121
01:13:20,180 –> 01:13:20,820
for an

1122
01:13:24,610 –> 01:13:28,450
afternoon, 2 weeks, a season, uh or

1123
01:13:28,450 –> 01:13:30,130
a lifetime, those

1124
01:13:32,690 –> 01:13:36,330
individuals do exist. And so, um, and it’s another way of capturing attention, but

1125
01:13:36,330 –> 01:13:40,170
I think in a very different way, in a, in a, in

1126
01:13:40,170 –> 01:13:43,410
a more meaningful way. And dare I say, always come back to

1127
01:13:44,530 –> 01:13:48,130
kind of like some spiritual

1128
01:13:50,220 –> 01:13:53,780
connectivity. Yep. Where there is You know, and I, I, I like the— I like

1129
01:13:53,780 –> 01:13:57,340
the— I don’t know who said this, but, you know, we are

1130
01:13:57,340 –> 01:14:00,940
spiritual beings having a physical existence, or physical— yeah, we’re

1131
01:14:01,020 –> 01:14:03,820
spiritual beings having a physical, physical

1132
01:14:04,460 –> 01:14:08,220
existence. Yeah, physical, uh, experience. Yep. And so

1133
01:14:08,940 –> 01:14:10,460
more along those lines where, you

1134
01:14:13,100 –> 01:14:16,820
know, it has to be, uh— I mean, music does a great— I mean,

1135
01:14:16,820 –> 01:14:20,660
Nick Drake, I say, would be, would be a musical

1136
01:14:20,660 –> 01:14:24,220
artist who embodied that really well, where, uh,

1137
01:14:24,220 –> 01:14:27,780
or Edgar Allan Poe died completely broke,

1138
01:14:28,100 –> 01:14:31,780
uh, and it wasn’t until many years after

1139
01:14:31,780 –> 01:14:35,539
he died that people, oh wow, this guy actually had something to

1140
01:14:35,539 –> 01:14:38,740
say, this is brilliant writing, you know. And, and there’s lots of

1141
01:14:39,380 –> 01:14:42,780
music, there’s lots of literature. I might be one of those people one day, you

1142
01:14:42,780 –> 01:14:46,500
know. That was kind of always the goal, to be honest with you, just because

1143
01:14:46,500 –> 01:14:49,563
that always seem to

1144
01:14:49,563 –> 01:14:51,936
be

1145
01:14:51,936 –> 01:14:55,589
the meatier, uh, uh, uh,

1146
01:14:55,589 –> 01:14:58,940
uh, more in tuned with how I want to

1147
01:14:59,740 –> 01:15:03,580
experience. And, and, and, and, you know, and right now, I

1148
01:15:04,140 –> 01:15:07,740
mean, we’re, we’re talking about the similarities

1149
01:15:07,820 –> 01:15:11,580
of, of the podcast. Yeah, this isn’t for— this

1150
01:15:12,540 –> 01:15:16,220
isn’t for you know, the, you know, the, the

1151
01:15:16,380 –> 01:15:20,100
Metallica ticket buyer who— so at the Sphere in Las Vegas where they’re selling

1152
01:15:20,100 –> 01:15:23,860
Metallica tickets for like 10 grand apiece. Yeah. And you’re like, wait, what

1153
01:15:23,860 –> 01:15:27,700
has happened here? What’s

1154
01:15:27,700 –> 01:15:31,300
happening here? And so, and so I, I think just on a very,

1155
01:15:31,300 –> 01:15:35,140
you know, because you never know who’s going to affect

1156
01:15:35,140 –> 01:15:38,900
your life and in what ways. And

1157
01:15:38,900 –> 01:15:42,660
so I and how the ethics

1158
01:15:47,140 –> 01:15:50,100
of it, it’s, you know, you have no idea how, who you’re going to affect

1159
01:15:50,100 –> 01:15:53,940
or how you’re going to be

1160
01:15:53,940 –> 01:15:57,460
affected by any

1161
01:15:58,100 –> 01:16:01,620
subtlety in verbal exchange

1162
01:16:02,020 –> 01:16:05,060
or behavioral observation. And so I’m not saying you always have

1163
01:16:06,260 –> 01:16:10,100
to be on, Yeah, but you know, a lot of this

1164
01:16:10,100 –> 01:16:13,740
has to do with taking the high

1165
01:16:13,740 –> 01:16:16,980
road and, and kind of

1166
01:16:17,860 –> 01:16:21,620
being as, you know. So do you know the

1167
01:16:21,620 –> 01:16:25,452
show One Piece? No, I don’t know. It’s a manga, right?

1168
01:16:25,452 –> 01:16:29,020
There’s over a thousand, there’s over a thousand episodes. And okay, I’ve been seeing someone

1169
01:16:29,020 –> 01:16:32,820
and they’re huge, they’re, they’re a cosplayer.

1170
01:16:32,820 –> 01:16:36,580
This And so anyway, the live action, they’re like, do you have any

1171
01:16:36,580 –> 01:16:40,380
interest in watching this live action of One Piece?

1172
01:16:40,380 –> 01:16:43,980
And it’s like, live action of

1173
01:16:43,980 –> 01:16:47,379
anything is usually like so bad. Yeah,

1174
01:16:47,940 –> 01:16:50,900
usually it’s not good. And she’s like, no, no,

1175
01:16:51,780 –> 01:16:55,460
no, no, Oda. So it’s, uh, Oda is the, the last name of the creator

1176
01:16:55,460 –> 01:16:59,290
of this. It’s like, no, he’s had his hand in

1177
01:16:59,530 –> 01:17:02,890
every thing. Like, it’s, it’s— and so we’re watching it and

1178
01:17:03,210 –> 01:17:06,730
I’m going, what is the— who is supporting the

1179
01:17:07,130 –> 01:17:10,890
budget for this? This is crazy. It’s— they’re doing things in

1180
01:17:10,890 –> 01:17:14,730
the live action that you can’t do in cartoon, where it’s usually the other

1181
01:17:15,050 –> 01:17:18,890
way around, right? Yeah,

1182
01:17:18,890 –> 01:17:22,090
yeah, yeah, yeah. Unbelievable. Yeah. Um, and, uh,

1183
01:17:22,410 –> 01:17:24,570
and I, I mean, I don’t know why I brought

1184
01:17:30,570 –> 01:17:34,290
up One Piece, but But, well, I think it ties into this

1185
01:17:34,290 –> 01:17:37,650
idea of, to your

1186
01:17:37,650 –> 01:17:41,410
point about having those quiet moments around something that matters

1187
01:17:41,410 –> 01:17:45,210
to a very small number of people, which on the positive end

1188
01:17:45,490 –> 01:17:49,210
is what the internet has done for us. It’s this idea of the long tail,

1189
01:17:49,290 –> 01:17:52,970
right? We can all connect quietly in a room together around something that may

1190
01:17:52,970 –> 01:17:56,560
not be popular or rise above the din

1191
01:17:56,640 –> 01:17:58,320
of the masses. Right now.

1192
01:18:00,480 –> 01:18:04,280
The challenge is, of course, scammers are

1193
01:18:04,280 –> 01:18:08,040
like termites, right? Like they’re always looking for

1194
01:18:08,040 –> 01:18:11,800
wood to eat and they’ll eat the wood of a tree. But if

1195
01:18:11,800 –> 01:18:15,120
a house is there, they’ll move right on to that house. They don’t care. They’ll

1196
01:18:15,120 –> 01:18:18,920
move right along to a shack. They don’t

1197
01:18:18,920 –> 01:18:22,740
care. And that, of course, brings us around. This is my transition. This

1198
01:18:22,740 –> 01:18:26,460
brings us around to

1199
01:18:26,460 –> 01:18:30,300
finally talking about— well, finally talking about

1200
01:18:30,300 –> 01:18:33,540
the gentleman that Orson Welles made such

1201
01:18:35,220 –> 01:18:38,660
a famous character, Harry Lime. Harry Lime doesn’t show up in The

1202
01:18:39,540 –> 01:18:42,020
Third Man until chapter 14, okay, which is in the

1203
01:18:43,380 –> 01:18:47,060
back end of the

1204
01:18:47,060 –> 01:18:50,660
book. And he shows up because Martin

1205
01:18:51,390 –> 01:18:55,230
basically goes to Kurtz, the the doctor’s house, or

1206
01:18:55,350 –> 01:18:58,910
not the doctor’s house, but the gentleman with the toupee’s house, and basically

1207
01:18:59,390 –> 01:19:03,030
says, hey, you know what, make sure

1208
01:19:03,350 –> 01:19:05,710
Harry meets me in a

1209
01:19:06,990 –> 01:19:10,190
popular spot in Vienna. And, and at the time,

1210
01:19:10,510 –> 01:19:13,390
the popular spot at Vienna was

1211
01:19:15,150 –> 01:19:18,780
a, well, it was a,

1212
01:19:18,780 –> 01:19:22,500
a Well, there was

1213
01:19:22,500 –> 01:19:25,900
a canal and then went to a— oh, was it

1214
01:19:27,580 –> 01:19:29,980
a great— the Great Wheel, which was a— what

1215
01:19:30,860 –> 01:19:34,700
do you call it— a Ferris wheel. That’s the term I’m looking for, a

1216
01:19:34,900 –> 01:19:38,460
great Ferris wheel, right? And even in the movie, this film

1217
01:19:38,620 –> 01:19:42,460
is— the scene is filmed in a Ferris wheel.

1218
01:19:42,460 –> 01:19:46,270
And it says here, for an hour, he, meaning Rollo, waited, walking

1219
01:19:46,270 –> 01:19:49,990
up and down to keep warm inside the enclosure of the

1220
01:19:49,990 –> 01:19:52,950
Great Wheel. The smashed freighter with its bones sticking crudely through

1221
01:19:53,670 –> 01:19:57,510
the snow was nearly empty. One stall sold

1222
01:19:57,510 –> 01:20:01,350
thin flat cakes like cartwheels, and the children queued up

1223
01:20:01,350 –> 01:20:04,710
with their coupons. A few courting couples would be packed together in a single car

1224
01:20:04,710 –> 01:20:08,350
of the wheel and revolve slowly above the city, surrounded by

1225
01:20:08,350 –> 01:20:10,990
empty cars. As the car reached the highest point of the wheel, the revolutions would

1226
01:20:10,990 –> 01:20:14,420
stop for a couple of minutes, and far overhead, the tiny faces

1227
01:20:14,580 –> 01:20:18,220
would press against the glass. Martins wondered who would come for him. Was

1228
01:20:18,220 –> 01:20:21,540
there enough friendship left in Harry for him to come alone, or would

1229
01:20:22,500 –> 01:20:26,220
a squad of police arrive? And then he starts, of course,

1230
01:20:26,220 –> 01:20:29,860
asking him questions. And then, of course, Harry

1231
01:20:29,860 –> 01:20:33,620
walks up behind him and he says this: Don’t picture Harry

1232
01:20:33,700 –> 01:20:37,420
Lime as a smooth scoundrel. He wasn’t that. The picture I

1233
01:20:37,420 –> 01:20:41,100
have of him on my files— this is Calloway writing— is an excellent one. He

1234
01:20:41,100 –> 01:20:44,700
is caught by a street photographer with his stocky legs apart, his big

1235
01:20:44,700 –> 01:20:48,020
shoulders a little hunched, a belly that has known too much good food for too

1236
01:20:48,020 –> 01:20:51,860
long on his face, a look of

1237
01:20:51,860 –> 01:20:55,260
cheerful rascality, a geniality, a recognition that his happiness

1238
01:20:56,060 –> 01:20:58,500
will make the world’s day. Now, he didn’t make the mistake of putting out a

1239
01:20:58,500 –> 01:21:01,900
hand that might have been rejected, but instead just patted Martins

1240
01:21:02,220 –> 01:21:05,870
on the elbow and said, “How are

1241
01:21:05,870 –> 01:21:09,510
things?” They get the Ferris wheel, they go to the top of the Ferris

1242
01:21:10,470 –> 01:21:14,310
wheel, they have a conversation. And Graham

1243
01:21:14,310 –> 01:21:17,990
Greene writes about this part of the book as it translates over

1244
01:21:18,470 –> 01:21:20,950
to the Third Man film. He

1245
01:21:22,150 –> 01:21:25,830
says this in the introduction.

1246
01:21:25,830 –> 01:21:29,070
Another minor point. In deference to

1247
01:21:29,070 –> 01:21:32,840
American opinion, a Romanian was substituted for Kuler. Since

1248
01:21:32,840 –> 01:21:36,320
Mr. Orson Welles’s engagement had already supplied us

1249
01:21:36,480 –> 01:21:40,320
with one American villain. Incidentally, the popular line of dialogue concerning Swiss

1250
01:21:40,320 –> 01:21:42,720
cuckoo clocks was written into the

1251
01:21:44,800 –> 01:21:47,920
script by Mr. Welles himself. By the way, Mr. Welles was notorious for

1252
01:21:48,800 –> 01:21:52,160
adding things when he thought— adding a little English, as I’ve been telling my child

1253
01:21:52,160 –> 01:21:55,800
who I’ve been teaching to drive, my 15-year-old daughter, put a

1254
01:21:55,800 –> 01:21:59,000
little English on it. Orson Welles was notorious for doing that. And by the way,

1255
01:21:59,000 –> 01:22:02,830
the cuckoo clock line is the famous line in

1256
01:22:02,830 –> 01:22:06,590
The Third Man. Which usually comes along with whistling a tune and

1257
01:22:06,590 –> 01:22:10,270
a gunshot that comes along behind it. If you’ve ever

1258
01:22:10,270 –> 01:22:13,910
heard the show, the radio show The Adventures of Harry Lime, of which

1259
01:22:14,390 –> 01:22:18,069
I’m a big fan of, it’s an old show from 1951

1260
01:22:18,230 –> 01:22:20,710
to 1952 that was released after

1261
01:22:22,230 –> 01:22:25,990
the movie The Third Man, which of course opens

1262
01:22:27,030 –> 01:22:29,590
up with zither music

1263
01:22:31,350 –> 01:22:33,430
and, and and a

1264
01:22:36,230 –> 01:22:39,950
great voiceover by Orson Welles, which then of

1265
01:22:39,950 –> 01:22:43,710
course sets up the line from the third man that

1266
01:22:43,710 –> 01:22:47,390
he says to Holly Martins in the movie, Rolo Martin in the book. And of

1267
01:22:47,390 –> 01:22:49,910
course, this line is not in the book, but it is in the movie. I

1268
01:22:49,910 –> 01:22:53,510
love this quote. He says, and I quote, don’t be so gloomy. After

1269
01:22:53,830 –> 01:22:57,570
all, it’s not that awful. Like the fella says, In Italy for

1270
01:22:57,570 –> 01:23:01,210
30 years under the Borgias, they had warfare, terror, murder, and

1271
01:23:01,210 –> 01:23:04,930
bloodshed, but they produced Michelangelo, Leonardo da Vinci, and the

1272
01:23:04,930 –> 01:23:08,770
Renaissance. In Switzerland, they had brotherly love. They had 500 years of democracy and

1273
01:23:08,770 –> 01:23:12,330
peace, and what did they produce?

1274
01:23:40,180 –> 01:23:43,860
The cuckoo clock. So long. Presenting

1275
01:23:43,940 –> 01:23:44,340
Orson

1276
01:23:53,230 –> 01:23:56,950
Welles as The Third Man. The Lives of Harry Lyon,

1277
01:23:56,950 –> 01:24:00,510
the fabulous stories of the immortal character originally created in

1278
01:24:00,510 –> 01:24:04,110
the motion picture The Third Man,

1279
01:24:04,110 –> 01:24:04,830
with

1280
01:24:12,680 –> 01:24:16,520
zither music by Anton Karas. That was the shot that killed Harry

1281
01:24:16,520 –> 01:24:20,240
Lime. He died in a sewer beneath Vienna, as those of you know who

1282
01:24:20,240 –> 01:24:23,640
saw the movie The Third Man. Yes, that was

1283
01:24:24,280 –> 01:24:27,839
the end of Harry Lime, but it was not the

1284
01:24:27,839 –> 01:24:31,080
beginning. Harry Lime had many lives, and I

1285
01:24:31,960 –> 01:24:34,760
can recount all of them. How

1286
01:24:35,960 –> 01:24:37,260
do I know? Very simple. Because

1287
01:24:46,850 –> 01:24:50,530
my name is

1288
01:24:50,530 –> 01:24:54,130
Harry Lime. And I would assert that

1289
01:24:54,210 –> 01:24:58,010
Harry Lime is the stand-in in our era, even in

1290
01:24:58,010 –> 01:25:01,810
our era, for all the matchstick men, the

1291
01:25:01,810 –> 01:25:05,090
professional swindlers, all those people who are just too cool to

1292
01:25:05,850 –> 01:25:09,570
be touched emotionally by anything. And you definitely got that sense in

1293
01:25:09,570 –> 01:25:12,970
the book. He’s— he didn’t care about Anna. He didn’t really care

1294
01:25:12,970 –> 01:25:16,810
about the kids that he sold the, uh,

1295
01:25:16,810 –> 01:25:20,610
the fake penicillin to. Um, he didn’t care about even the

1296
01:25:20,610 –> 01:25:24,250
scams he was running in Vienna or the people he

1297
01:25:24,250 –> 01:25:27,610
was running scams with. Uh, Harry Lime

1298
01:25:27,770 –> 01:25:31,490
was the original, the original scoundrel, and

1299
01:25:31,490 –> 01:25:35,070
he’s so tied as a character to

1300
01:25:35,870 –> 01:25:39,670
the visage of Orson Welles. They’ve literally become that person. Like when I was reading

1301
01:25:39,670 –> 01:25:42,990
the book, all I saw was Orson Welles running around in my

1302
01:25:46,430 –> 01:25:50,230
head. That’s all I saw. Um, and so

1303
01:25:50,230 –> 01:25:53,390
the mindset of Harry Lyme and the mindset of guys like Harry Lyme, of

1304
01:25:54,190 –> 01:25:57,630
course, has existed through history. But of course, we’ve taken it to our logical

1305
01:25:57,630 –> 01:26:01,340
conclusion. We already mentioned human scanners. We already mentioned

1306
01:26:03,500 –> 01:26:06,860
AI. That’s the logical conclusion. Um, I think maybe the question for us

1307
01:26:08,060 –> 01:26:11,700
as we round the corner, as we whistle a little tune,

1308
01:26:11,700 –> 01:26:15,420
maybe some zither music by Anton Karas,

1309
01:26:15,420 –> 01:26:16,540
um, I think maybe

1310
01:26:19,260 –> 01:26:22,740
the question for us is, uh, Ryan, how do we,

1311
01:26:22,740 –> 01:26:26,420
how do we recognize the sharks and not get taken in

1312
01:26:26,420 –> 01:26:27,900
by them? How do

1313
01:26:31,020 –> 01:26:31,420
we

1314
01:26:37,980 –> 01:26:40,060
recognize the Henry Limes? So

1315
01:26:43,100 –> 01:26:46,700
very much the same way,

1316
01:26:49,020 –> 01:26:50,780
um, that people, you know,

1317
01:26:54,370 –> 01:26:55,090
uh, get

1318
01:27:00,530 –> 01:27:04,370
sober or change. I’ll expound. Everyone tried to get my

1319
01:27:04,370 –> 01:27:07,250
mother, girlfriends, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. Nothing.

1320
01:27:10,690 –> 01:27:14,290
I mean, it took a fairly drastic act of

1321
01:27:16,940 –> 01:27:18,140
God to

1322
01:27:20,940 –> 01:27:23,501
kind of like wise. Yeah, and, and, uh, some

1323
01:27:24,620 –> 01:27:25,020
luck,

1324
01:27:29,180 –> 01:27:32,780
as the doctor said, to, uh,

1325
01:27:32,780 –> 01:27:34,940
to, to initiate some— a

1326
01:27:39,100 –> 01:27:40,060
desire to change. And

1327
01:27:44,310 –> 01:27:46,070
so it’s kind of a You

1328
01:27:48,070 –> 01:27:51,750
don’t know yourself, then you’re in really

1329
01:27:51,750 –> 01:27:55,350
no position to almost place judgment on anyone

1330
01:27:55,350 –> 01:27:59,030
else. And if you can’t place judgment on anyone else, then you

1331
01:28:05,030 –> 01:28:07,430
lack the discernment to do, um, to lose— like, so critical thinking

1332
01:28:09,260 –> 01:28:13,020
is, is

1333
01:28:13,020 –> 01:28:16,740
enormous in this, um, And kind

1334
01:28:16,740 –> 01:28:19,180
of understanding

1335
01:28:21,100 –> 01:28:24,780
what makes oneself tick, understanding the foibles,

1336
01:28:24,780 –> 01:28:27,420
and dare I say,

1337
01:28:30,780 –> 01:28:32,860
most importantly is, you know, kind of

1338
01:28:37,030 –> 01:28:40,750
learning how to love

1339
01:28:40,750 –> 01:28:44,590
yourself. Um, because otherwise I think people are always going to be searching

1340
01:28:44,590 –> 01:28:47,830
for that solution, for that pill, for

1341
01:28:47,830 –> 01:28:51,670
that panacea, uh,

1342
01:28:51,670 –> 01:28:54,790
for the unconstrained, uh, uh, vision.

1343
01:28:56,870 –> 01:29:00,150
Yeah, yeah, the savior. Yeah. Um, whereas, uh,

1344
01:29:01,740 –> 01:29:05,460
you know, the only one You know, this is— it’s, it’s great. I

1345
01:29:05,460 –> 01:29:09,020
mean, the only one who can

1346
01:29:09,020 –> 01:29:10,380
do it

1347
01:29:13,180 –> 01:29:16,220
is myself, the individual oneself. Um, I mean, it’s, you know, I love the— I

1348
01:29:16,220 –> 01:29:18,940
love the line, uh, you know, God will move

1349
01:29:19,980 –> 01:29:23,580
mountains, but bring a shovel. So you got to be willing

1350
01:29:23,820 –> 01:29:27,340
to do the work. But, you know, I mean, even before that,

1351
01:29:28,230 –> 01:29:31,910
you have to recognize that there’s

1352
01:29:31,910 –> 01:29:35,310
work to be done. Um, and I, I say this all the

1353
01:29:35,310 –> 01:29:39,110
time, several times on this podcast,

1354
01:29:39,350 –> 01:29:42,990
is an old sponsor, and he was a district attorney in New Jersey, and he

1355
01:29:42,990 –> 01:29:46,550
would say, you know, no matter what court case

1356
01:29:46,550 –> 01:29:49,190
I go into,

1357
01:29:51,270 –> 01:29:54,870
I give every one 2%. It’s because I don’t ever— so 98%, he said, I

1358
01:29:54,870 –> 01:29:58,520
don’t ever want to be in a situation where I think

1359
01:29:58,520 –> 01:30:02,000
I know everything. And I think once you start to

1360
01:30:02,320 –> 01:30:06,080
think you know everything, then you’re starting to talk

1361
01:30:06,080 –> 01:30:09,640
about infallibility. And once you think you’re

1362
01:30:09,640 –> 01:30:13,200
infallible, I mean, you open the doors

1363
01:30:13,360 –> 01:30:15,840
to any maelstrom that could

1364
01:30:19,040 –> 01:30:22,320
come through. And so it’s, you know, remain open-minded

1365
01:30:23,930 –> 01:30:27,650
to the fact that you may not know everything, and that there’s

1366
01:30:27,650 –> 01:30:31,250
always something to learn, and that there’s always

1367
01:30:31,250 –> 01:30:35,010
going to be a blind spot. And I

1368
01:30:35,010 –> 01:30:38,730
mean, a lot of this has to

1369
01:30:38,730 –> 01:30:41,050
do with—

1370
01:30:47,290 –> 01:30:50,600
it’s like rigorous self-honesty and staying true

1371
01:30:50,680 –> 01:30:54,320
to oneself. And sort

1372
01:30:54,320 –> 01:30:57,080
of defining what matters. Because otherwise, like I said,

1373
01:30:57,640 –> 01:31:00,920
it’s kind of reaching for external

1374
01:31:01,400 –> 01:31:05,160
solutions to internal problems. And yeah, based on— yeah, so that we were talking

1375
01:31:05,160 –> 01:31:09,000
about before we hit record. Yeah, yeah, yeah, no, that— yeah. Well, and we

1376
01:31:10,920 –> 01:31:14,360
on this show, I mean, we talk a lot from a

1377
01:31:14,850 –> 01:31:17,730
position of certainty, right? So I’ve— we’ve, we’ve

1378
01:31:18,530 –> 01:31:22,330
had— I’ve had— we’ve had, uh, AI examine the transcripts from this show, right?

1379
01:31:22,330 –> 01:31:25,730
And one of the things that AI kicks

1380
01:31:27,730 –> 01:31:31,370
back at us is that, um, we tend to take a position on

1381
01:31:31,370 –> 01:31:34,530
this show and then we tend to find the evidence that we are looking

1382
01:31:37,250 –> 01:31:41,050
for to support that position. Um, and

1383
01:31:41,050 –> 01:31:44,690
this is what everybody does. To wit, to the AI, I say, this is life.

1384
01:31:44,690 –> 01:31:47,550
I mean, like, what do we What are we actually— I mean, is this a

1385
01:31:48,430 –> 01:31:52,270
critique? What are we doing? But the—

1386
01:31:52,270 –> 01:31:55,550
well, no. And what else we do

1387
01:31:57,630 –> 01:32:01,350
on this show is we set the

1388
01:32:01,790 –> 01:32:05,390
space, I think, for self-awareness to grow. And

1389
01:32:05,870 –> 01:32:09,030
we use these books as an entry door into

1390
01:32:09,550 –> 01:32:12,680
that. To your point, self-awareness will show up. You

1391
01:32:13,240 –> 01:32:16,880
have to bring the shovel. The book is

1392
01:32:16,880 –> 01:32:19,800
the shovel, but you have to want it

1393
01:32:22,360 –> 01:32:25,760
before you can start shoveling. When we

1394
01:32:25,760 –> 01:32:29,600
think about someone like Harry

1395
01:32:29,600 –> 01:32:33,080
Lime or anybody else who is cynically detached from

1396
01:32:33,400 –> 01:32:36,920
the work or ironically distanced— and by the way, you and I

1397
01:32:37,080 –> 01:32:40,760
are from the generation that sharpened

1398
01:32:40,760 –> 01:32:44,560
irony place with sharp and ironic detachment to like, we’re

1399
01:32:44,560 –> 01:32:47,120
really good with that weapon. Like it’s, it’s the tip end of the spear and

1400
01:32:47,120 –> 01:32:50,160
we will, we know how to swing it. We’ve been swinging it for a while

1401
01:32:50,160 –> 01:32:52,920
now. We’ve been swinging it. We, as a generation, we swung it on the boomers.

1402
01:32:52,920 –> 01:32:56,680
It didn’t work, but we

1403
01:32:56,680 –> 01:32:59,920
tried our best. Um, we swung it on our little brothers and sisters who turned

1404
01:33:00,080 –> 01:33:03,240
out to be the millennials. Didn’t work there either. And now we’re swinging it on

1405
01:33:03,240 –> 01:33:07,040
Gen Z. Some of us are raising Gen Zers. And

1406
01:33:07,040 –> 01:33:10,400
they’re actually turning out to be a

1407
01:33:10,640 –> 01:33:13,480
little bit more willing to, to pick up the sharp end of that spear and

1408
01:33:13,480 –> 01:33:16,120
kind of swing it right back at us, which is kind of interesting. It only

1409
01:33:16,120 –> 01:33:19,760
took like 2 generations to sort of

1410
01:33:19,760 –> 01:33:23,040
like get there. And I’ve— we’ve come to the conclusion, I’ve come to the

1411
01:33:24,000 –> 01:33:25,680
conclusion on this show that after 3,

1412
01:33:30,250 –> 01:33:33,770
4 years of doing this now, The

1413
01:33:35,370 –> 01:33:39,090
ironic detachment of Harry Lime doesn’t allow you to

1414
01:33:39,090 –> 01:33:42,570
pick up the shovel, and we need a mountain to move. We, we need a

1415
01:33:42,570 –> 01:33:46,090
mountain to move, and in order for a mountain to move, I have—

1416
01:33:46,170 –> 01:33:49,890
we have to care. And Harry Lime is

1417
01:33:49,890 –> 01:33:53,730
fine if the mountain is not

1418
01:33:53,730 –> 01:33:57,500
eroding, if the mountain doesn’t need to be restored.

1419
01:33:57,500 –> 01:34:00,980
If the sediment doesn’t need to be rebuilt, if we’re not eating through the seed

1420
01:34:00,980 –> 01:34:04,780
corn of civilization, if we still have a thick

1421
01:34:04,780 –> 01:34:08,300
basement to go through, fine, be cynically

1422
01:34:08,300 –> 01:34:11,060
detached, be ironic, have ironic

1423
01:34:12,300 –> 01:34:15,180
emotional distance. Cool, fine. When this book

1424
01:34:15,780 –> 01:34:19,180
was written in 1948, ’49, that’s fine. I mean, you just went through a major

1425
01:34:19,180 –> 01:34:22,350
war, as we already said. You went

1426
01:34:23,230 –> 01:34:26,830
through the trauma of of, um, of World War

1427
01:34:26,910 –> 01:34:30,630
II, and, you know, you had done the thing that

1428
01:34:30,630 –> 01:34:34,350
needed to be done. And by the way, none of the folks in the Greatest

1429
01:34:34,350 –> 01:34:38,150
Generation would— I don’t say none. I think

1430
01:34:38,150 –> 01:34:41,630
the level of ironic detachment was

1431
01:34:41,710 –> 01:34:44,990
probably way lower then, probably way lower, just looking

1432
01:34:45,390 –> 01:34:49,070
at the culture, looking at the product that came

1433
01:34:49,350 –> 01:34:52,070
out of those folks. Pre-World War II and then

1434
01:34:54,870 –> 01:34:56,990
post-World War II, right? Okay. But then you get into the boomers, you get into

1435
01:34:56,990 –> 01:34:58,830
a whole bunch of things we talk about on the show all the time. I

1436
01:34:58,830 –> 01:35:02,590
don’t want to get into all that. And now we’re at a space where

1437
01:35:02,590 –> 01:35:06,150
the seed corn has been

1438
01:35:06,870 –> 01:35:08,950
eaten through, to paraphrase from

1439
01:35:12,710 –> 01:35:16,480
Jeremiah, I think it’s

1440
01:35:16,560 –> 01:35:20,300
23:16. What is it? Something— what does he say? What’s the

1441
01:35:20,300 –> 01:35:24,040
line? It’s, um, the, um, the fall is ended— or no, the summer has

1442
01:35:24,040 –> 01:35:27,160
ended and the fall is over, or the harvest has ended and the fall is

1443
01:35:27,160 –> 01:35:29,840
over, and we are

1444
01:35:30,960 –> 01:35:34,080
not saved. Like, there’s nothing— I’ll find the— I’ll find the Jeremiah quote here in

1445
01:35:34,080 –> 01:35:37,640
a minute— but like, there’s nothing there.

1446
01:35:37,640 –> 01:35:40,840
There— we’ve eaten through

1447
01:35:41,480 –> 01:35:45,320
the seed corn and irony isn’t going to get us to pick up the shovel

1448
01:35:45,320 –> 01:35:47,880
or plant the seeds or do the thing.

1449
01:35:48,920 –> 01:35:52,480
We need sincerity for that.

1450
01:35:52,480 –> 01:35:56,199
And our books of the modernist era,

1451
01:35:56,199 –> 01:35:59,720
books that were written before the 1970s, I would say in that modernist era between

1452
01:35:59,720 –> 01:36:03,520
like the ’30s and the ’70s, I think that’s where

1453
01:36:03,520 –> 01:36:05,600
we can go back. And I want to close on this idea. I think that’s

1454
01:36:05,600 –> 01:36:07,960
where we can go back and pull the

1455
01:36:10,450 –> 01:36:14,250
sincerity forward that we need in order to start the

1456
01:36:14,250 –> 01:36:17,650
process of rebuilding, rebuilding the mountain, because it’s going to be a long process. It’s

1457
01:36:17,810 –> 01:36:21,170
going to take a long time, um, and there’s going to

1458
01:36:21,650 –> 01:36:24,690
be a lot of resistance

1459
01:36:25,410 –> 01:36:29,130
and irony and ironic detachment. And my generation, us, we, we are going

1460
01:36:29,130 –> 01:36:31,530
to have to lead. You’re part of it. We’re going to have to lead. We’re

1461
01:36:31,530 –> 01:36:35,180
the ones. We don’t have any choice. There’s nobody else. The boomers

1462
01:36:35,820 –> 01:36:39,500
are out of the game. The millennials will come along once they

1463
01:36:39,740 –> 01:36:43,540
actually see proof of life, because that’s what they’re looking for. There

1464
01:36:43,540 –> 01:36:47,340
aren’t just, there just aren’t enough, the numbers of

1465
01:36:47,340 –> 01:36:50,740
us as Gen Xers, but the numbers of us that there are, are going to

1466
01:36:50,740 –> 01:36:53,660
have to pick up. We’re going to have to pick up the mantle and lead,

1467
01:36:53,660 –> 01:36:57,100
and we’re going to have to do it sincerely.

1468
01:36:57,820 –> 01:37:01,460
Does that make us cringeworthy? Sure. Okay, fine. We’re cringeworthy. I don’t know what the

1469
01:37:01,460 –> 01:37:05,300
kids are calling it when you mean like sincere, but like, sure, we really

1470
01:37:05,300 –> 01:37:09,100
mean it. We really do mean that. Like, like one of the

1471
01:37:09,100 –> 01:37:12,820
things that Graham Greene really comes across in The Third Man, and I think

1472
01:37:12,820 –> 01:37:15,900
it’s his rebuff to Harry Lime, he believes that

1473
01:37:16,700 –> 01:37:20,180
you can know objective truth. There are things, people that are

1474
01:37:20,180 –> 01:37:23,500
objectively bad and they are committing objective evil

1475
01:37:24,220 –> 01:37:27,580
and they should be punished. If that’s cringeworthy,

1476
01:37:27,580 –> 01:37:31,260
Well, okay, fine, call me

1477
01:37:31,260 –> 01:37:34,580
cringe. That’s fine. You call me cringe, I’ll lock up the

1478
01:37:37,540 –> 01:37:41,340
criminal that steals your radio, and I’ll do it sincerely. And when

1479
01:37:41,340 –> 01:37:45,100
you come to me and say, well, that person just hasn’t been hugged enough,

1480
01:37:45,100 –> 01:37:47,620
I’m like, no, they got hugged enough. They

1481
01:37:49,460 –> 01:37:52,140
hugged themselves right into jail. I remember what I was going to say about the

1482
01:37:52,140 –> 01:37:55,990
one piece, and it has to do exactly what you just said. So

1483
01:37:56,870 –> 01:38:00,590
the Admiral of the Marines, this, the head figure of the Marines, gives

1484
01:38:00,590 –> 01:38:04,190
an order, and this one person comes back and thinks they’re going to get punished

1485
01:38:04,190 –> 01:38:07,110
because they didn’t follow the order. And he said,

1486
01:38:09,350 –> 01:38:12,870
you know, there’s a time, uh, where you have to

1487
01:38:13,030 –> 01:38:16,230
make your own decision, and you have to live with that

1488
01:38:16,550 –> 01:38:20,150
decision. And if that decision is in line

1489
01:38:21,800 –> 01:38:25,520
with your, your moral fortitude then that’s

1490
01:38:25,520 –> 01:38:29,000
the right decision, and you’re not going to be

1491
01:38:29,000 –> 01:38:32,760
punished for that because you’re insightful enough and saw all the throughways that

1492
01:38:32,760 –> 01:38:36,440
that was the right decision to

1493
01:38:36,440 –> 01:38:39,920
do. Um, and I was watching a podcast the other day,

1494
01:38:39,920 –> 01:38:42,840
Danny Jones, where a NASA scientist was on, and he said, you know, we can’t

1495
01:38:42,840 –> 01:38:45,960
go back to the moon because we

1496
01:38:46,980 –> 01:38:50,340
don’t know how to, because that

1497
01:38:51,300 –> 01:38:55,060
generation, all those scientists from, uh, that led up to the

1498
01:38:55,060 –> 01:38:58,740
late ’60s going to the moon, the moon landing,

1499
01:38:58,740 –> 01:39:01,860
it’s like that information

1500
01:39:03,940 –> 01:39:07,580
has gotten lost. And

1501
01:39:07,580 –> 01:39:11,220
so quite literally do not know how to get back. And we

1502
01:39:11,380 –> 01:39:14,030
would think where we think, and back to the So,

1503
01:39:16,750 –> 01:39:20,390
and one of my favorite, uh, uh, Picasso quotes— he goes into

1504
01:39:20,390 –> 01:39:24,070
the caves of Lascaux in France and sees

1505
01:39:24,070 –> 01:39:27,470
the cave drawings, and he looks at them

1506
01:39:32,270 –> 01:39:35,790
and says, we’ve invented nothing. But there has to be, like you said,

1507
01:39:36,430 –> 01:39:39,960
someone to carry the torch

1508
01:39:40,920 –> 01:39:42,040
and keep it

1509
01:39:44,520 –> 01:39:48,360
going. We, we have to— yeah, there it is. I found the quote I was

1510
01:39:48,680 –> 01:39:51,400
looking for from Jeremiah. Sorry. By the way,

1511
01:39:53,959 –> 01:39:57,600
a prophet who

1512
01:39:57,600 –> 01:40:00,760
was also— yeah. Yes. But also was

1513
01:40:01,560 –> 01:40:05,390
one who was ignored and led with sincerity. And by the way, got him dropped

1514
01:40:05,390 –> 01:40:08,230
in the bottom of a

1515
01:40:09,430 –> 01:40:13,270
prison cistern, and then he got to stay behind while everybody else went into

1516
01:40:13,270 –> 01:40:17,030
exile. The quote is from Jeremiah 8:20. The

1517
01:40:17,030 –> 01:40:20,750
harvest is past. That’s what it is. The harvest is past, the summer is

1518
01:40:20,750 –> 01:40:21,150
ended,

1519
01:40:25,390 –> 01:40:29,150
and we are not saved. This is the

1520
01:40:29,150 –> 01:40:32,660
situation we’re in. And to your point about the Moon, It’s

1521
01:40:32,660 –> 01:40:36,420
not that we don’t know technically how to get to

1522
01:40:36,420 –> 01:40:40,060
the moon. We

1523
01:40:40,060 –> 01:40:43,660
absolutely know the science. We don’t know the meaning of

1524
01:40:43,660 –> 01:40:46,500
why to go to the

1525
01:40:46,659 –> 01:40:50,420
moon anymore, because we don’t sincerely believe

1526
01:40:50,900 –> 01:40:52,980
that we deserve the why

1527
01:40:54,660 –> 01:40:58,270
of going to the moon. I think

1528
01:41:01,390 –> 01:41:03,550
real leaders in our time? Well, like I said,

1529
01:41:04,830 –> 01:41:08,590
I think it begins with understanding that there is

1530
01:41:08,990 –> 01:41:12,830
objective truth, period, full stop. Your subjective feelings

1531
01:41:12,830 –> 01:41:16,190
about that objective truth might be

1532
01:41:17,630 –> 01:41:20,830
interesting at some level, and there’s objective truth. What

1533
01:41:21,630 –> 01:41:25,090
are you going to do, banish gravity? How about

1534
01:41:25,970 –> 01:41:28,130
air? You gonna fight air? Because if you’re gonna fight air, I

1535
01:41:30,450 –> 01:41:34,250
wanna watch you fight air. You’ll be no better than Odysseus, you know, trying

1536
01:41:34,250 –> 01:41:37,690
to fight the gods in, you know, Greek in, uh, in the, um,

1537
01:41:37,690 –> 01:41:41,450
in the, uh, in the Odyssey. Go ahead, fight,

1538
01:41:41,450 –> 01:41:45,010
fight the air. Go ahead, fight gravity. There

1539
01:41:45,250 –> 01:41:48,530
is objective reality. We can know it.

1540
01:41:49,290 –> 01:41:53,010
We can know objective truth. Capital T objective truth. We can, and

1541
01:41:53,010 –> 01:41:56,730
we can absolutely be sincere in our defense of it. And again,

1542
01:41:57,210 –> 01:42:00,850
if that makes us cringe, if that makes me cringeworthy, whatever the hell that

1543
01:42:00,850 –> 01:42:03,770
means, if that makes me a

1544
01:42:05,050 –> 01:42:08,330
cultural embarrassment as a leader, that’s okay. That’s

1545
01:42:10,090 –> 01:42:13,930
a minor price to pay to go to the moon or to rebuild

1546
01:42:13,930 –> 01:42:16,020
the mount. That’s a minor

1547
01:42:17,860 –> 01:42:21,580
price to pay. That’s nothing. That’s nothing.

1548
01:42:21,580 –> 01:42:25,260
I mean, we already had— we’ve already come through

1549
01:42:25,260 –> 01:42:29,060
the 2010s where people were getting canceled left and right for talking

1550
01:42:29,060 –> 01:42:32,900
about objective truth. We’ve come through the free speech wars of

1551
01:42:33,460 –> 01:42:36,740
who can say what where, and where I don’t think we’re fully even done

1552
01:42:37,220 –> 01:42:40,920
with that yet. I mean, talk about European writers, they’re locking

1553
01:42:41,150 –> 01:42:41,550
up

1554
01:42:44,910 –> 01:42:48,350
people in Europe for tweets. What are we doing? You

1555
01:42:48,350 –> 01:42:52,030
know, so we can know objective truth and we can have

1556
01:42:52,030 –> 01:42:54,590
objective free speech about that truth,

1557
01:42:55,470 –> 01:42:58,350
and that is worth defending. That’s worth rebuilding on.

1558
01:42:59,950 –> 01:43:03,670
That’s part of the American— that’s part of the American project that we’re on

1559
01:43:03,670 –> 01:43:06,910
here. We’re on here on this show. That’s what we’re part of. And the Harry

1560
01:43:07,180 –> 01:43:10,940
Limes of the world, well, quite frankly. Uh, at the end of the day,

1561
01:43:10,940 –> 01:43:13,580
Harry Lime always knew that he was going

1562
01:43:14,540 –> 01:43:17,020
to get— spoiler alert— shot. He always knew. He just didn’t know that was going

1563
01:43:17,020 –> 01:43:20,700
to happen in the sewer underneath Vienna. He just knew that it

1564
01:43:20,700 –> 01:43:24,380
was going to happen because he knew that there would

1565
01:43:24,380 –> 01:43:28,060
be a punishment that was going to

1566
01:43:28,700 –> 01:43:32,140
come, a day of judgment that was going to fall

1567
01:43:34,310 –> 01:43:37,990
on him. He knew this. And again, that’s Graham Greene’s Catholicism coming through. There

1568
01:43:39,030 –> 01:43:42,750
is a day of judgment. Judgment will get meted out. You do—

1569
01:43:42,750 –> 01:43:45,270
my father always used to tell me, you’re going to pay the piper. You’re either

1570
01:43:45,270 –> 01:43:48,550
going to pay now or you’re going to pay later, but you are going to

1571
01:43:50,070 –> 01:43:53,790
pay. Nobody gets away free. Nobody. And I think our

1572
01:43:53,790 –> 01:43:55,190
literature is a

1573
01:44:00,160 –> 01:44:04,000
small microcosm of that fact. Last word. What are some leadership lessons we

1574
01:44:04,000 –> 01:44:06,560
can take from the third man, Ryan, as

1575
01:44:11,440 –> 01:44:15,120
we close out here today? Temptation

1576
01:44:15,120 –> 01:44:18,760
will come in

1577
01:44:18,760 –> 01:44:22,480
all shape and size.

1578
01:44:22,480 –> 01:44:25,690
We can’t always identify

1579
01:44:27,610 –> 01:44:31,370
it as so And as you

1580
01:44:31,370 –> 01:44:34,890
know, if it feels too good too soon, it’s

1581
01:44:40,010 –> 01:44:41,690
probably not

1582
01:44:44,250 –> 01:44:45,290
a good idea.

1583
01:44:48,810 –> 01:44:50,490
Yeah, wait. Find people that— find at

1584
01:44:53,820 –> 01:44:55,260
least one person you trust. Mm-hmm. Uh, if

1585
01:44:59,420 –> 01:45:02,830
you have an idea that it’s a little

1586
01:45:02,830 –> 01:45:05,900
suspicious, or, or you’re, you’re questioning its, its, uh, I

1587
01:45:08,940 –> 01:45:12,700
don’t know, validity or truth, uh, you know, it’s good to

1588
01:45:12,700 –> 01:45:16,500
have sounding board. And remember, no one knows

1589
01:45:16,500 –> 01:45:19,970
everything. If I just say

1590
01:45:20,130 –> 01:45:21,170
that most people,

1591
01:45:24,290 –> 01:45:28,130
myself included, don’t know

1592
01:45:28,130 –> 01:45:31,370
anything. Well, that’s it. I think that’s a good spot for us to end on.

1593
01:45:31,370 –> 01:45:35,210
So with that, I want to thank Ryan Stout for coming

1594
01:45:35,210 –> 01:45:38,690
on our show today. Go pick up your own. Yeah, you’re welcome. Go pick up

1595
01:45:38,690 –> 01:45:42,410
your copy of The Third Man by Graham Greene. You

1596
01:45:42,410 –> 01:45:45,410
will not regret buying and reading this short book, and then go ahead and check

1597
01:45:46,310 –> 01:45:50,110
out the, uh, the movie. The Third Man, 1949, directed

1598
01:45:50,110 –> 01:45:53,950
by Carol Reed. The British version is 104 minutes, the American

1599
01:45:54,190 –> 01:45:57,950
version is 93, so they cut about 10 minutes between the two versions,

1600
01:45:57,950 –> 01:46:01,630
but either way it’s worth your time. And if you have an

1601
01:46:01,630 –> 01:46:04,390
opportunity, go and check out

1602
01:46:04,830 –> 01:46:08,390
the publicly available—it’s public domain—the Adventures of

1603
01:46:10,470 –> 01:46:13,750
Harry Lyme starring Orson Welles. It was

1604
01:46:13,750 –> 01:46:17,190
produced in 1950 51 and 52, I believe. And you can

1605
01:46:17,190 –> 01:46:21,030
go check that out on Spotify, Apple, or everywhere

1606
01:46:21,110 –> 01:46:24,870
where you get publicly available podcasts. I don’t think anybody owns it. And you’ll,

1607
01:46:26,030 –> 01:46:28,710
you’ll get to

1608
01:46:30,150 –> 01:46:33,830
hear the amazing Anton Harris zither music

1609
01:46:33,830 –> 01:46:37,510
that was made popular by Orson Welles in

1610
01:46:37,510 –> 01:46:41,200
that, in that old-time radio show. All

1611
01:46:42,800 –> 01:46:45,170
right, well, with that, well, uh, we’re out. Let’s beat.