Why Don’t We Learn From History by B.H. Liddell Hart – Introduction – w/Jesan Sorrells

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Hello, my name is Jesan Sorrells and this is

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the Leadership Lessons from the Great Books podcast, episode

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number 166. 6.

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We open our episode today with a quote.

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The money quote, as the boys in marketing used to

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quip back in the day, that defines the direction

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we will be headed in in the book that we are going to be talking

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about today. But it’s not only the direction in the book that we’re going

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to be talking about today. Not only is it the

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direction of the themes around the book we are going to be talking about today,

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but it is also the direction. It also defines the direction of the next

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few episodes of the podcast that you are going to be

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hearing as we close out this next

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season or this last season of the show.

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By last, I don’t mean final, I just mean the most recent.

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Let’s go to the money quote and I quote when one

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gets a close view of the influential people, their

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bad relations with each other, their conflicting ambitions, all the

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slander and the hatred, one must always bear in

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mind that it is certainly much worse on the other side among the

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French, English and Russians, or one might well be

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nervous. The race for power and personal

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positions seems to destroy men’s characters.

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I believe that the only creature who can keep his honor is a man

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living on his own estate. He has no need for

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intrigue and struggle, for it is no good. Intriguing

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for fine weather. Close

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quote the title

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of our book today asks a truly intriguing question,

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or poses a truly intriguing question that we guests and

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myself alike have struggled to answer definitively when using the

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platform of this show.

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The point of this podcast, of course, is threefold. If you needed a reminder,

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number one, to build a platform to read and analyze books through the lens of

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leadership number two, to build relationships and connections with our

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audience and our guests in order to test and validate the power of

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human wisdom in these algorithmically driven times

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and three to build and maintain a launchpad for human

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solutions to the very human problems that continue to be double

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us in our technologically sophisticated yet

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culturally barbaric age here in the West.

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The author of our book Today was a

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historian of World War I and World War

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II. He was a man who came

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from modest origins, and while, yes, he did

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indeed have an ego, he understood that

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history is the tank. An

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object about which he knew quite a bit is the tank that overruns

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us all he

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personified in many ways the ideas

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of an older world, a more Greek

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philosophical world, a world driven

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not by corporate ambitions or by social

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media likes. A world driven not by financializing

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everything out to its furthest end. A world

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not driven by spectacle and a lack of

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shame. He was the last tie

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to an older aristocracy, a European

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aristocracy that all went to hell

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in the fires of. Of World War I.

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Today, on this episode of the podcast, we will be introducing and

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discussing multiple themes from the book

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titled why Don’t We Learn from History

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by B.H. liddell Hart.

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Leaders. To quote from our author today, and I quote

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in strategy, the longest way round is

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often the shortest way home.

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And so we open today with some of

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BH Liddell Hart’s thoughts on why don’t

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we learn from History. We open with

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his chapter that he begins this book with History and

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truth. Now this book is a.

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Is public domain. You can go and get it anywhere.

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The copy that I get that I have was edited with an

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introduction by Gills Lauren

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and, and the book features. Well, the book is divided into.

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Into three parts. So history and truth, Government and

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freedom and war and peace. And in each area

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he writes or Liddell Hart documents in

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a few essays his thoughts on, well,

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the various areas that he is. He is writing about. Think of it

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like a, like a, like a substack, right, but

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just put into a book form from the, from the

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1970s. And so we open up

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in the volume that I have with the treatment of

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history and I quote directly from

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why Don’t We Learn from History by B.H.

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liddell Hart. An increasing number of modern historians

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such as Veronica Wedgwood have shown that good history and good reading

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can be blended. And thus by displacing the mythologists,

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they are bringing history back to the service of humanity. Even

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so, the academic suspicion of literary style

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still lingers. Such pendants

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may be well reminded of the proverb, hard writing makes easy reading,

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such hard writing makes for hard thinking.

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Far more effort is required to epitomize facts with clarity than

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to express them cloudily. Misstatements can be more easily

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spotted in sentences that are crystal clear than those that are

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cloudy. The writer has to be more

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careful if he is not to be caught out than thus care in writing

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makes for care in treating the material of history to

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evaluate it correctly. The effort

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towards deeper psychological analysis is good so long as

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perspective is kept. It is equally good that the varnish should be scraped off

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so long as the true grain of the character is revealed. It is not

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so good except for selling success. When Victorian varnish is

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replaced by cheap staining colored to suit the taste for

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scandal. Moreover, the study of personality is apt

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to be pressed so far that it throws the performance into the background.

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This certainly simplifies the task of the biographer. Who can dispense with the need

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for a knowledge of the field in which his subject found his

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life’s work. Can we imagine a great statesman without statecraft, A

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great general without war, A great scientist without science, A great writer without

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literature that would look strangely nude and often

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commonplace? A question often

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debated is whether history is a science or an art.

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The true answer would seem to be that history is a science

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and an art. The subject must be approached in a

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scientific spirit of inquiry. Facts must be treated with scientific care, for accuracy.

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But they cannot be interpreted without the aid of imagination and

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intuition. The sheer quantity of evidence is so

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overwhelming that selection is inevitable. Where there is selection,

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there is art. Exploration should be

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objective, but selection is subjective. Its subjectiveness can and

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should be controlled by scientific method and objectiveness. Too many people go

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into history merely in search of texts for their sermons instead

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of facts for analysis. But after analysis

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comes art to bring out the meaning and to ensure it

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becomes known. It was the school

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of German historians headed by Reinke who in the last century

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started the fashion of trying to be purely scientific. That fashion

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spread to our own schools of history. Any conclusions or

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generalizations were shunned and any well written books became

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suspect. What was the result? History became too

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dull to read and devoid of meaning. It became merely

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a subject for study, but by specialists.

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So the void was filled by new myths of exciting

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power but appalling consequences.

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The world has suffered and Germany worst of all for

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the sterilization of history that started

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in Germany. So what are we

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to make of Sir Basil

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Henry Liddell Hart? Well, he was

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born October 31, 1895

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at the close of what had been a very long 19th

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century. And he died January 29,

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1970, close to the end of what was to

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prove to be an equally long 20th century.

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He was commonly known throughout most of his

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career, which a bit big chunk of it was spent in the service

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of the British military as Captain BH

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Lidell Hart. Not only was he a British

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soldier, he was also a military historian and a military

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theorist. Lidell Hart was

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born in Paris and was the son of a Methodist

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minister. From these humble origins,

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Liddell Hart matriculated through school. And as a child

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he was fascinated by the field of aviation.

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The budding field of aviation that had begun at

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Kitty with the Wright brothers successful plane flight at

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Kitty Hawk. When World War I began

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in August of 1914, Liddell

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Hart volunteered for the British army where he became

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an officer in the King’s Own Yorkshire Light infantry

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in December. And he served with the regiment on the

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Western Front. As a result of

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his participation at the Battle of the Somme, where The British lost

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60,000 men, still

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the largest one battle loss of British

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soldiers in all of English history.

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He wrote a series of

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histories of major military figures after he

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mustered out of the British military in the mid

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to late 1920s. By the way, he wrote these histories

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by going around and actually talking to the people who were

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involved in World War I, who were involved in the

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battles, who were involved in the maneuvers. And he didn’t just

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limit himself to talking to folks in Europe who had been

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involved in the battles at various Verdun or at the

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Somme or even other places. He also

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traversed the Atlantic and came over and talked to

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American officers and American soldiers

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who had been in the war. He

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advanced his ideas as a result of these kinds of

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conversations that the frontal assault was a

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strategy bound to fail at great cost in lives

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later on. Of course, this would be one of the titular

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lessons learned from the disasters of the Western Front in

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trench warfare and continuous frontal

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assault. By the way, Liddell Hart was.

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Was injured in a poisonous gas attack during a

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frontal assault during World War I. Before he

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participated in the Battle of the Somme.

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Liddell Hart argued throughout his

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histories and throughout the the mid-20s

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and then well after World War I. He argued that the tremendous losses

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British suffered in the Great War, which is what World War I was called

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before World War II came along. He argued that the tremendous losses Britain

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suffered were caused by its commanding officers not

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appreciating certain facts of

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history. And he spent the rest of his career

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trying to correct not only British

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generals, but to correct the military historical record.

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Not about what has his necessity, not necessarily about what happened

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during World War I. But he attempted to correct the.

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The record on what could have been done better,

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what had been done badly and what could.

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What could be gleaned from such

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disasters so that future wars would be run

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differently. By the way, in the mid

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to late 1920s, Lidell Hart

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was an advisor to. To. To

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Chamberlain and he was an advisor to. To Churchill.

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And then later on after the war he became

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much more of a public historian in the British imagination

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and in the British. Among the British populace.

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So this guy was the guy who stood

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next to the guy who made the decisions and impacted a lot of

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people both before World War

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II and after.

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So back to the book. Back to why Don’t We

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Learn From History by B.H. liddell Hart? So we’re going to pick

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up in the section

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labeled or titled not labeled, titled. War

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and Peace. Now this section is really interesting because you would think that he would

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start off with this section in the book, but

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instead he begins with history and truth. He moves into

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government and freedom. A lot of interesting things to note in

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that section including, and you may want to pick this book up

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just for this little essay in here in Government and Freedom

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alone, the Psychology of Dictatorship,

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which has this great quote in it that I underlined. The effect of power on

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the mind of the man who possesses it, especially when he has

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gained it by successful aggression, tends to be remarkably similar

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in every age and in every country. Close quote.

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Now, how aggression is defined, of course, differs from time to

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time. Your. Your definition

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of aggression and my definition of aggression in the pursuit of

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acquiring power will vary.

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Anyway, moving into the section on War and Peace. So it opens up

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with the. With an essay on the desire for

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power. And here Liddell Hart makes

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this. He opens with this point which I think is. Is important to

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reference. Before we get to our main piece here that I want to read. He

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says this history shows that a main hindrance to real progress

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is the ever popular myth of the quote unquote great man.

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While greatness may perhaps be used in a comparative sense, if

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even then referring to. Referring more to particular quality qualities

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than to the embodied some. The quote unquote great man is a

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clay idol whose pedestal has been built up by the natural human desire

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to look up to someone, but whose form has been carved by

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men who have not yet outgrown the desire to be regarded

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or to picture themselves as great men. Close

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quote. When I read that, I was immediately put

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in mind of the Percy Shelley

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poem Ozymandias. He goes

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into a discussion later on in this section on War and Peace,

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where he tries to define real politic. And then

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he talks about in relation to realpolitik and

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the value of patriotism,

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but in contrast to, particularly in a

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diplomatic sense and in a policy sense, the value of decency,

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honesty and thought. He makes this point, which I

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want to read from directly underneath. The

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importance of keeping promises.

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And I quote, civilization is built on the practice of

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keeping promises. It may not sound like a high attainment,

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but if trust in its observance be shaken, the whole

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structure cracks and sinks any

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constructive effort. And all human relations, personal, political and

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commercial, depend on being able to depend on promises.

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This truth has a reflection on the question of collective security among

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nations and on the lessons of history in regard to that subject in the

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years before the war. By the way, Pause. He’s talking about

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World War II here. Back to the book. The charge was

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constantly broken that its supporters were courting the risk of war by their exaggerated

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respect for covenants. Although they may have been fools

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in disregarding the conditions necessary for the effective fulfillment of pledges,

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they at least showed themselves men of honor and in a long view of

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a more fundamental common sense than those who argued that we should give aggressors

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a free hand so long as they left us alone.

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History has shown repeatedly that the hope of

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buying safety in this way is the

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greatest of delusions.

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So here’s a question for you as a leader and we

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as we finally have said enough of

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set enough of a stage to be able to talk coherently

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about BH Ladell Hart’s book why don’t we learn from history

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00:18:26,990 –> 00:18:30,670
and of course relate that to leadership? So

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here’s a leadership question for you. Something to think about.

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Do we continue to live in America?

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Not globally, just in the United States of America? This

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is the United States of America specific question. Do we

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or do we not live in a high trust society?

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That’s actually a really good question. Because if you look around

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at Substack and at Medium, if you look at

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Twitter and Blue sky, if you buy

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00:19:02,840 –> 00:19:06,600
into the ideas that are fomented by folks like

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or not fomented, but that have been researched by folks like Jonathan Haidt

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00:19:10,440 –> 00:19:13,480
and Steven Pinker and many others,

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00:19:14,840 –> 00:19:18,280
you would think that we are at times of great

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political alienation and

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00:19:22,040 –> 00:19:25,760
polarization, not just between

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individuals of different political stripes, but even now,

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00:19:30,440 –> 00:19:33,480
individuals of different genders.

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In the last election, the last presidential election in 2024,

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more men, particularly young men, drifted

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00:19:42,760 –> 00:19:45,970
or directly voted for for the

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00:19:46,290 –> 00:19:49,930
right leaning candidate for President of the

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00:19:49,930 –> 00:19:53,490
United States than ever before. And more

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00:19:53,490 –> 00:19:57,010
women voted for the left leaning presidential candidate

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for the President of the United States of America than ever before.

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Is this a sign of a decline in erosion in trust or is this a

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sign more of the sorting that

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00:20:10,130 –> 00:20:13,790
naturally has occurred in America ever since our

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00:20:13,950 –> 00:20:17,590
founding? Here’s another place where

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00:20:17,590 –> 00:20:21,230
this question becomes interesting. If we are a low trust

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society, or if we are no longer a high trust society, then

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why do services such as Uber

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00:20:29,390 –> 00:20:33,150
and Airbnb, why do those services work?

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00:20:34,030 –> 00:20:37,870
Why do I agree to stay in a stranger’s house in a

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00:20:37,870 –> 00:20:41,150
strange city and I’ve never met that stranger before

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00:20:42,110 –> 00:20:45,710
and I book their house through an app. Or

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why do I agree to get into a stranger’s personal car

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00:20:49,470 –> 00:20:53,230
without a taxicab medallion? That person does not

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00:20:53,230 –> 00:20:56,950
have the imprimatur of the state upon them. They

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00:20:56,950 –> 00:21:00,510
are not licensed to be a taxicab driver and

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00:21:00,510 –> 00:21:03,910
yet I have an app on my phone I

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00:21:03,910 –> 00:21:07,490
ordered from them the their own car

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and they come and pick me up and I anticipate that they will take

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00:21:11,130 –> 00:21:14,930
me safely whether I am a male or a female, it is or

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00:21:14,930 –> 00:21:18,490
child, it doesn’t really matter. I anticipate that they will take me safely

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00:21:19,130 –> 00:21:22,770
to where it is I am supposed to go, drop me off and then in

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00:21:22,770 –> 00:21:24,090
some cases come back and get me.

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00:21:26,410 –> 00:21:30,090
These services exist and they started on the Internet with paypal

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00:21:30,090 –> 00:21:33,850
and and other services and of course auction sites

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00:21:34,250 –> 00:21:37,370
like ebay really were the grandfathers

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00:21:37,930 –> 00:21:41,770
of Uber and Airbnb. But these services

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are could only work in a high trust society.

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If we were a low trust society, a society high in corruption,

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a society high in a lack of government actually

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working, if we were a society that

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was one where tribe mattered more

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than neighborhood or even state or

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community, none of these basic services would work.

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00:22:09,420 –> 00:22:13,180
So how do we square that circle in our modern era with

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00:22:13,259 –> 00:22:16,700
what is seemingly a decline in trust?

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00:22:19,340 –> 00:22:22,860
The decline in trust can be seen in the decline of marital

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commitments foundational to the building and maintaining of a society and

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culture since the advent of no fault divorce in California in the

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1970s all the way through to our current

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era of intergender sniping and fault finding

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00:22:36,730 –> 00:22:38,730
online and in social media.

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This has been marked not only through means of communication, but has also

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00:22:44,290 –> 00:22:47,610
been noted by many professionals in various fields. And this

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00:22:47,610 –> 00:22:51,460
perception of a decline in trust has filtered down

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00:22:51,460 –> 00:22:54,900
to the transactions and services that people provide each other. Not

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00:22:54,900 –> 00:22:58,580
necessarily with the mediator of an app or phone, but

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00:22:59,060 –> 00:23:02,500
with the services we provide where there is no

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00:23:02,500 –> 00:23:05,860
mediator. And now I have to deal with you face to face.

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00:23:07,940 –> 00:23:11,060
This has happened to me recently, by the way. One day on the show

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I will talk about my

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00:23:14,900 –> 00:23:18,750
challenges in the summer of 2025 working with

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00:23:19,070 –> 00:23:22,750
the airlines. Trust me, customer

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service, which used to be the hallmark of a high trust society,

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00:23:26,470 –> 00:23:28,990
or at least the hallmark of our high trust society.

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If my experience is any evidence, customer service

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is on the decline and has been for quite some time.

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This creates a paradox, right where we have more access than

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00:23:42,190 –> 00:23:45,630
ever before to the means of getting a service or obtaining a product

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00:23:46,310 –> 00:23:49,990
from another person we’ve never met and yet we have lower trust

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00:23:49,990 –> 00:23:53,670
in people. Actually behaving like sane human beings than

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00:23:53,670 –> 00:23:57,430
ever before. And we seem more and more eager to outsource

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00:23:57,430 –> 00:24:01,030
more and more of that sanity to screens into algorithms,

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00:24:01,190 –> 00:24:04,310
to have mediators in our phones. And

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00:24:04,790 –> 00:24:08,630
between us, we have no way,

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00:24:08,630 –> 00:24:12,240
of course, to talk about this out loud. And you know,

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00:24:12,480 –> 00:24:16,000
we hide our concerns behind contracts and lawsuits,

383
00:24:16,400 –> 00:24:19,520
behind increasing regulations and ethical compliance schemes.

384
00:24:20,480 –> 00:24:23,120
And none of these things reflect a common

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00:24:23,840 –> 00:24:27,080
shared sense of social solidarity. None of these

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00:24:27,080 –> 00:24:30,600
tools really go to what

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00:24:30,600 –> 00:24:34,120
Liddell Hart pointed out here, which

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00:24:34,120 –> 00:24:37,920
is the fact that any constructive

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00:24:37,920 –> 00:24:41,600
effort in all human relations, personal, political and commercial,

390
00:24:41,760 –> 00:24:45,040
depend on being able to depend on

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00:24:45,040 –> 00:24:48,560
promises, leaders.

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00:24:48,800 –> 00:24:51,680
One of the things we have to do is we have to get back to

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00:24:51,920 –> 00:24:55,200
promises and actually fulfilling those

394
00:24:55,759 –> 00:24:59,200
all the way down to the granular

395
00:24:59,760 –> 00:25:00,160
level.

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00:25:04,000 –> 00:25:07,720
All right, back to the book. Back to why don’t we learn from History

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00:25:07,880 –> 00:25:11,640
by B H Liddell Hart? We pick up in

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00:25:11,640 –> 00:25:15,440
Government and Freedom with the

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00:25:15,440 –> 00:25:18,840
continuation of his conversation, which

400
00:25:18,840 –> 00:25:22,440
precedes the conversation that we just read from

401
00:25:23,800 –> 00:25:26,680
around. Government and Freedom talks about authority,

402
00:25:27,400 –> 00:25:31,040
the men behind the scenes, the restraints of democracy and how power

403
00:25:31,040 –> 00:25:34,420
politics works in relation to history in a

404
00:25:34,420 –> 00:25:38,140
democracy. And then he, then he

405
00:25:38,140 –> 00:25:41,780
gets into the idea of what advisors

406
00:25:41,780 –> 00:25:45,500
look like and, and, well, he.

407
00:25:45,580 –> 00:25:48,300
He talks about self made despotic rulers

408
00:25:49,340 –> 00:25:52,900
in pattern of dictatorship. And I

409
00:25:52,900 –> 00:25:56,540
quote, we learn from history that self made

410
00:25:56,540 –> 00:25:59,690
despotic rulers fall follow a standard pattern

411
00:26:00,570 –> 00:26:04,370
in gaining power. They exploit, consciously or unconsciously, a

412
00:26:04,370 –> 00:26:08,010
state of popular dissatisfaction with the existing regime or of hostility

413
00:26:08,410 –> 00:26:12,250
between different sections of people. They attack the existing

414
00:26:12,250 –> 00:26:15,970
regime violently and combine their appeal to discontent with unlimited

415
00:26:15,970 –> 00:26:19,290
promises which, if successful, they fulfill only to a limited

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00:26:19,290 –> 00:26:23,010
extent. They claim that they want absolute power for only a short

417
00:26:23,010 –> 00:26:26,440
time, but quote, unquote, find subsequently that the time to

418
00:26:26,440 –> 00:26:29,960
relinquish it never comes. They excite

419
00:26:29,960 –> 00:26:33,800
popular sympathy by presenting the picture of a conspiracy against them. And

420
00:26:33,800 –> 00:26:37,520
use this as a lever to gain a firmer hold at some crucial stage

421
00:26:39,360 –> 00:26:42,800
on gaining power. They soon begin to rid themselves of their chief helpers,

422
00:26:43,280 –> 00:26:46,680
discovering that those who brought about the new order have suddenly become

423
00:26:46,680 –> 00:26:50,440
traitors to it. They suppress criticism on one pretext or

424
00:26:50,440 –> 00:26:53,970
another. And punish anyone who mentions facts which, however true, are

425
00:26:53,970 –> 00:26:57,610
unfavorable to their policy. They enlist

426
00:26:57,610 –> 00:27:01,130
religion on their side if possible, or if its leaders are not compliant, foster a

427
00:27:01,130 –> 00:27:04,010
new kind of religion subservient to their ends.

428
00:27:05,690 –> 00:27:09,290
They spend public money lavishly on material works of a striking kind.

429
00:27:09,529 –> 00:27:12,810
In compensation for the freedom of spirit and thought of which they have robbed the

430
00:27:12,810 –> 00:27:16,570
public. They manipulate the currency to make the economic

431
00:27:16,570 –> 00:27:19,050
position of the state appear better than it is in reality.

432
00:27:20,380 –> 00:27:23,860
They ultimately make war on some other state as a means of diverting attention from

433
00:27:23,860 –> 00:27:27,180
internal conditions and allowing discontent to explode outward.

434
00:27:28,780 –> 00:27:32,620
They use the rallying cry of patriotism as a means of riveting

435
00:27:32,620 –> 00:27:35,740
the chains of their personal authority more firmly to the people.

436
00:27:37,020 –> 00:27:40,660
They expand the superstructure of the state while undermining its foundations by breeding

437
00:27:40,660 –> 00:27:43,980
sycophants at the expense of self respecting collaborators,

438
00:27:44,220 –> 00:27:47,530
by appealing to the popular taste for the grandiose and sensational and

439
00:27:47,920 –> 00:27:51,720
instead of true values, and by fostering a romantic instead of a realistic

440
00:27:51,720 –> 00:27:55,240
view, thus ensuring the ultimate collapse under their

441
00:27:55,240 –> 00:27:58,880
successors, if not themselves, of what they have created.

442
00:28:00,480 –> 00:28:04,040
This political confidence trick itself, a familiar string of

443
00:28:04,040 –> 00:28:06,560
tricks, has been repeated all down the ages,

444
00:28:07,680 –> 00:28:11,120
yet it rarely fails to take in

445
00:28:11,840 –> 00:28:14,410
a fresh generation.

446
00:28:24,250 –> 00:28:26,330
So I read that for a reason.

447
00:28:28,490 –> 00:28:30,650
In our current era, words

448
00:28:32,970 –> 00:28:36,250
we are struggling with words having meanings.

449
00:28:38,820 –> 00:28:42,500
Words, terms, phrases are thrown around in the general

450
00:28:42,500 –> 00:28:46,260
communication culture of the United States in the year of our Lord

451
00:28:46,260 –> 00:28:48,980
2025, and have been for about the last 20 years.

452
00:28:49,940 –> 00:28:53,620
And instead of being used to actually educate the public on

453
00:28:53,700 –> 00:28:57,380
history or entertain us with myth, instead words

454
00:28:57,380 –> 00:29:00,940
are used to run psychological operations on the

455
00:29:00,940 –> 00:29:04,300
culture and to propagandize and manipulate

456
00:29:04,300 –> 00:29:07,680
listeners. In our current

457
00:29:07,760 –> 00:29:11,280
era, at least since the bad Orange

458
00:29:11,280 –> 00:29:14,080
man came down the escalator in 2015,

459
00:29:15,120 –> 00:29:18,240
words such as fascist, socialist,

460
00:29:18,400 –> 00:29:22,000
authoritarianism, and other lightning

461
00:29:22,000 –> 00:29:25,800
rod terms that have meaning in the context of a

462
00:29:25,800 –> 00:29:29,480
post World War II time that Liddell Hart was

463
00:29:29,480 –> 00:29:33,150
writing about, but that have zero meaning 80 years later, words

464
00:29:33,150 –> 00:29:36,750
such as these and other terms are used either to create an

465
00:29:36,750 –> 00:29:40,230
environment of political and social action, or

466
00:29:40,230 –> 00:29:43,790
they’re used insidiously to suppress or socially

467
00:29:43,790 –> 00:29:46,990
sanction political or social action.

468
00:29:49,310 –> 00:29:53,070
This is not good. As a

469
00:29:53,070 –> 00:29:56,750
person who understands that words have meaning, as a person who reads books,

470
00:29:57,550 –> 00:30:01,240
it is the responsibility, at least I believe it is the responsibility of leaders and

471
00:30:01,630 –> 00:30:05,310
to examine the words that they are using and

472
00:30:05,470 –> 00:30:09,310
to hesitate to use words and to speak

473
00:30:09,310 –> 00:30:12,990
succinctly, yes, of course, but also to speak accurately.

474
00:30:14,830 –> 00:30:17,950
And using such terms casually

475
00:30:18,510 –> 00:30:21,470
as fascist or socialist or

476
00:30:21,470 –> 00:30:24,550
authoritarianism or even, or even

477
00:30:24,550 –> 00:30:28,290
dictatorship, or the pejorative term which used to be the

478
00:30:28,290 –> 00:30:31,930
name of a man, and you know which man I’m talking

479
00:30:31,930 –> 00:30:34,890
about, utilizing these terms

480
00:30:35,450 –> 00:30:39,210
casually in terms of or in, in the space of

481
00:30:39,210 –> 00:30:42,410
Internet memes or tweets or messages or

482
00:30:43,050 –> 00:30:46,570
appeals to action, this indicates

483
00:30:46,650 –> 00:30:50,410
a laziness not only of thought, as George Orwell would say,

484
00:30:51,050 –> 00:30:54,410
but a laziness of consideration

485
00:30:55,570 –> 00:30:59,170
for the trust placed in each other by our fellow

486
00:30:59,170 –> 00:31:02,850
man. It indicates a sense that we just believe

487
00:31:03,010 –> 00:31:06,690
society and culture will somehow miraculously just keep going,

488
00:31:07,410 –> 00:31:11,090
even if we behave like totally depraved

489
00:31:11,730 –> 00:31:13,650
fools with our language.

490
00:31:15,650 –> 00:31:18,690
This is what I mean by cultural barbarity, by the way.

491
00:31:19,330 –> 00:31:23,090
Technological sophistication and yet extreme

492
00:31:24,130 –> 00:31:27,930
cultural barbarity. It isn’t just

493
00:31:27,930 –> 00:31:31,010
the abortions and the birth control, the

494
00:31:31,170 –> 00:31:34,530
pornography and the

495
00:31:34,850 –> 00:31:38,210
gender transitions that

496
00:31:39,010 –> 00:31:42,730
are messing us up. It’s

497
00:31:42,730 –> 00:31:46,490
primarily our inability to speak

498
00:31:46,490 –> 00:31:50,290
about these things clearly in

499
00:31:50,290 –> 00:31:53,770
order to weave back together the social fabric.

500
00:31:54,890 –> 00:31:58,490
Instead, we use these words, we use these inaccurate terms,

501
00:31:59,050 –> 00:32:02,410
or we use accurate terms inaccurately and lazily

502
00:32:02,730 –> 00:32:05,530
in order to tear the social fabric apart.

503
00:32:07,450 –> 00:32:11,290
Historians, educators and others have always leveraged words,

504
00:32:11,290 –> 00:32:15,100
terms and phrases in order to create and shape and change

505
00:32:15,180 –> 00:32:18,820
cultural myths. And they have done this in

506
00:32:18,820 –> 00:32:22,620
order to uplift a culture and to push

507
00:32:22,620 –> 00:32:25,980
it to higher levels of confidence. Or they have done it

508
00:32:25,980 –> 00:32:29,820
insidiously and intentionally to

509
00:32:29,980 –> 00:32:33,100
suppress confidence and repress people’s ability

510
00:32:33,740 –> 00:32:37,500
to either act in a crisis or to

511
00:32:37,980 –> 00:32:41,750
plan with calm. One of the things

512
00:32:41,910 –> 00:32:45,270
that technologists such as Peter Thiel

513
00:32:46,070 –> 00:32:49,590
and Sam Altman and others point out is that

514
00:32:49,750 –> 00:32:53,350
and it’s equipped. But it’s true. In our time,

515
00:32:53,430 –> 00:32:57,070
we were promised by the visionary builders

516
00:32:57,070 –> 00:33:00,790
of the post World War II era that we would have

517
00:33:01,110 –> 00:33:04,750
vacations to the moon and settlements on Mars by this

518
00:33:04,750 –> 00:33:08,430
point in the 21st century. And instead all we

519
00:33:08,430 –> 00:33:11,950
got was 140 to 240 characters

520
00:33:13,150 –> 00:33:16,750
and DoorDash seems like a

521
00:33:16,750 –> 00:33:20,150
comedown, right? But you can’t have

522
00:33:20,150 –> 00:33:23,750
innovative technology if you don’t have

523
00:33:23,750 –> 00:33:27,470
innovative thought. And you can’t have innovative thought

524
00:33:28,270 –> 00:33:31,470
if you possess lazy and degraded language.

525
00:33:33,080 –> 00:33:36,840
And you cannot have innovative actions and

526
00:33:36,840 –> 00:33:40,440
innovative objects with lazy integrated thinking

527
00:33:40,920 –> 00:33:43,640
that is expressed in lazy integrated language.

528
00:33:45,480 –> 00:33:48,920
This is why on this show I am careful with the words that I pick,

529
00:33:49,000 –> 00:33:51,320
even the words that are pejorative words.

530
00:33:52,600 –> 00:33:55,320
I know that many of you may not agree with me. You’re going to look

531
00:33:55,320 –> 00:33:58,660
for other places where

532
00:33:58,980 –> 00:34:02,500
the erosion is occurring. And don’t get me wrong, there are plenty of other

533
00:34:03,060 –> 00:34:06,780
places where cultural erosion is occurring. And there are

534
00:34:06,780 –> 00:34:10,620
plenty of fingers to point at plenty of different folks for our current state of

535
00:34:10,620 –> 00:34:14,139
cultural barbarity. But I

536
00:34:14,139 –> 00:34:17,700
believe fundamentally that when we throw

537
00:34:17,700 –> 00:34:20,900
around terms like Chiclets

538
00:34:21,700 –> 00:34:25,260
that we really don’t understand, not only do we

539
00:34:25,260 –> 00:34:27,780
degrade the term itself and its power,

540
00:34:29,339 –> 00:34:33,179
but we also degrade the person using it, and we degrade our neighbor,

541
00:34:34,059 –> 00:34:37,739
and we degrade our ability to innovate past

542
00:34:37,819 –> 00:34:41,619
the problems that we have because we are reflecting

543
00:34:41,619 –> 00:34:45,019
a degraded ability to even think clearly

544
00:34:46,059 –> 00:34:49,899
and cohesively and cogently about

545
00:34:50,139 –> 00:34:52,059
the problems that we have.

546
00:34:54,150 –> 00:34:57,750
This is a real problem for leaders. And so I encourage

547
00:34:57,750 –> 00:35:01,110
leaders to understand that words have meanings

548
00:35:01,830 –> 00:35:05,630
despite our feelings about those words, and to

549
00:35:05,630 –> 00:35:09,030
be careful, clear and concise in what words

550
00:35:09,190 –> 00:35:11,910
we use to lead others.

551
00:35:14,310 –> 00:35:17,670
As we close out our show today, I have a few final

552
00:35:17,910 –> 00:35:21,590
thoughts and I’m going to start with maybe a basic observation here.

553
00:35:22,520 –> 00:35:25,880
First off, we are going to talk about why don’t we learn from History

554
00:35:26,680 –> 00:35:30,520
with Tom Libby coming up on our next episode of this show. So

555
00:35:30,520 –> 00:35:34,360
I would encourage you to, to listen to that episode

556
00:35:34,360 –> 00:35:37,800
and I anticipate we’re going to have a great conversation. Tom always brings

557
00:35:38,520 –> 00:35:42,280
more to the table than I can in these, in these introductory solo

558
00:35:42,280 –> 00:35:46,080
episodes. But these introductory solo episodes are important as a way

559
00:35:46,080 –> 00:35:49,730
of anchoring my

560
00:35:49,730 –> 00:35:53,490
thoughts for you around the books that we cover on

561
00:35:53,490 –> 00:35:56,770
this show. And we’re going to continue this next next year

562
00:35:57,170 –> 00:36:00,690
starting in January 2026, we’re going to probably go to

563
00:36:00,930 –> 00:36:04,650
covering about two to three books a month and with a couple of

564
00:36:04,650 –> 00:36:08,290
bonus episodes thrown in there, we’re going to keep the mash up episodes that we’ve

565
00:36:08,290 –> 00:36:11,810
been doing this year. We’ve done two of them so far. We’re going to keep

566
00:36:11,810 –> 00:36:15,540
those maybe one every every four months. But we

567
00:36:15,540 –> 00:36:18,820
are going to keep this pattern of an introductory episode, then the main book with

568
00:36:18,820 –> 00:36:22,060
the guests and another director episode and then a second main book with the guest.

569
00:36:22,460 –> 00:36:25,780
And and while that will spread out the number of books that we will be

570
00:36:25,780 –> 00:36:29,179
covering in toto on this show,

571
00:36:29,500 –> 00:36:33,300
ultimately I think we’ll be able to go deeper in each book that we

572
00:36:33,300 –> 00:36:36,940
cover. And why don’t we Learn from History is

573
00:36:36,940 –> 00:36:40,670
a, it’s a small book. It’s only, only 126 pages so you

574
00:36:40,670 –> 00:36:44,030
could get through it. It’s a quick read. You can get through it in a,

575
00:36:44,030 –> 00:36:47,870
in a, in an afternoon probably. And it’s probably

576
00:36:47,870 –> 00:36:51,630
better than watching whatever it is you may have in

577
00:36:51,630 –> 00:36:55,030
your Amazon prime and or Netflix queue

578
00:36:56,950 –> 00:36:59,910
or better than doom scrolling through Tick Tock or Instagram reels.

579
00:37:01,110 –> 00:37:04,920
Now to my point. Point. So

580
00:37:06,920 –> 00:37:10,680
I often think of in these times in which I live as I get

581
00:37:10,680 –> 00:37:13,640
older I think of or I wonder

582
00:37:14,280 –> 00:37:17,800
what my father would have said about times

583
00:37:17,960 –> 00:37:21,760
such as these. My father

584
00:37:21,760 –> 00:37:24,920
was a veteran of the Vietnam War. He was

585
00:37:25,160 –> 00:37:28,520
born in the late 1940s

586
00:37:28,680 –> 00:37:32,450
in in northern Kentucky slash southern

587
00:37:32,450 –> 00:37:36,170
Ohio and and

588
00:37:36,170 –> 00:37:39,450
he was a man who was a hard working blue collar guy most of his

589
00:37:39,450 –> 00:37:43,170
life. He valued education. He valued the written

590
00:37:43,170 –> 00:37:45,889
word. He valued

591
00:37:46,690 –> 00:37:50,490
getting knowledge and understanding because that was the way out of the

592
00:37:50,490 –> 00:37:53,170
rural situation into which he was born.

593
00:37:54,610 –> 00:37:58,260
And the black rural underclass in the American

594
00:37:58,500 –> 00:38:02,260
south in the mid 20th century did not

595
00:38:02,260 –> 00:38:04,740
have it easy by any stretch of the imagination.

596
00:38:06,500 –> 00:38:10,300
And so my father, who did towards the end of

597
00:38:10,300 –> 00:38:13,220
his life use the Internet for

598
00:38:13,700 –> 00:38:17,380
genealogical research purposes, he was fascinated by finding

599
00:38:17,380 –> 00:38:21,040
out more about where his relatives came from from

600
00:38:21,040 –> 00:38:24,680
and who they were and, and ultimately, I guess, why they

601
00:38:24,680 –> 00:38:28,520
came here. He was fascinated by history. He was

602
00:38:28,520 –> 00:38:32,360
also, as most baby boomer generation folks are,

603
00:38:32,360 –> 00:38:35,160
he was fascinated by the Internet.

604
00:38:36,839 –> 00:38:40,360
I am less fascinated by the Internet.

605
00:38:41,480 –> 00:38:45,120
I’ve been through four revolutions. They feel like four

606
00:38:45,120 –> 00:38:48,800
wars. And I’ve said this before on this show with guests, but I’ve been

607
00:38:48,800 –> 00:38:52,000
through four revolutions. And most folks who were born in between

608
00:38:52,000 –> 00:38:53,960
1960 and

609
00:38:53,960 –> 00:38:57,680
1979 or 1965 and

610
00:38:57,680 –> 00:39:01,320
1979, depending upon sort of where you, where you hit Gen X at.

611
00:39:01,720 –> 00:39:05,120
Most of us have been through four or some cases five

612
00:39:05,120 –> 00:39:08,440
revolutions. First it started with the Internet

613
00:39:09,160 –> 00:39:12,760
and dial up. Then we all went through the, the dot com

614
00:39:12,760 –> 00:39:16,360
revolution. Then we went through social media and

615
00:39:16,360 –> 00:39:20,080
the rise of the promise of virtual reality and

616
00:39:20,080 –> 00:39:23,360
then cryptocurrencies, most notoriously

617
00:39:23,360 –> 00:39:26,720
blockchain and bitcoin powered by

618
00:39:26,720 –> 00:39:30,440
blockchain. And then we got to the promise of,

619
00:39:30,680 –> 00:39:34,200
and we are at the dawn of the cusp of the promise of

620
00:39:34,600 –> 00:39:37,800
algorithmic power delivered to us through the

621
00:39:37,800 –> 00:39:41,650
LLMs. But what does all this have to do with my father? What

622
00:39:41,650 –> 00:39:43,770
does this have to do with BH Liddell Hart? What does this have to do

623
00:39:43,770 –> 00:39:47,610
with? Why don’t we learn from history? Well, here’s what this all

624
00:39:47,610 –> 00:39:51,410
has to do. I’m going to tie everything together for leaders here at the end.

625
00:39:55,090 –> 00:39:58,610
The question for leaders, the question for my father. Question for me, the question for

626
00:39:58,610 –> 00:40:02,410
you. No matter what historical time in which we live, the question for

627
00:40:02,410 –> 00:40:06,260
us is why don’t we learn from history? Why do we

628
00:40:06,260 –> 00:40:09,580
insist on believing that somehow

629
00:40:10,620 –> 00:40:13,820
we’re better or smarter, more

630
00:40:13,820 –> 00:40:17,660
intelligent than those who came before us? Why

631
00:40:17,660 –> 00:40:21,340
do we confuse our technological prowess

632
00:40:21,740 –> 00:40:25,180
with actual hard earned wisdom? The

633
00:40:25,180 –> 00:40:28,980
21st century is already shaping up to be a

634
00:40:28,980 –> 00:40:32,810
time of technological wonder. I don’t doubt that

635
00:40:32,810 –> 00:40:36,490
the next 50 years are going to deliver some of the most

636
00:40:36,490 –> 00:40:40,050
gee whiz, technological advancements

637
00:40:40,370 –> 00:40:42,930
ever imagined. And yet,

638
00:40:44,450 –> 00:40:48,130
and yet the human heart won’t change, which means

639
00:40:48,530 –> 00:40:51,890
culture will continue to go through polarizations and

640
00:40:51,890 –> 00:40:55,090
splits, unitings and mergings,

641
00:40:55,810 –> 00:40:58,810
coming apart and moving togethers.

642
00:41:00,410 –> 00:41:03,810
If we are to avoid and by we, I mean us in the United States

643
00:41:03,810 –> 00:41:07,610
of America. But I also mean we as in humanity, and of course we

644
00:41:07,610 –> 00:41:11,450
more generally in the West. If we are to avoid committing the same mistakes

645
00:41:11,610 –> 00:41:15,210
that our forefathers committed, only with greater levels of death,

646
00:41:15,290 –> 00:41:18,730
misery, loss, degradation and cultural

647
00:41:18,730 –> 00:41:22,490
stagnation than before, then we need to cling to the raft of history

648
00:41:23,780 –> 00:41:26,740
or we will find ourselves flung ashore

649
00:41:28,020 –> 00:41:30,420
and washed up on strange lands.

650
00:41:32,500 –> 00:41:35,540
The farmer, the factory worker, the plumber and the PhD

651
00:41:37,380 –> 00:41:41,220
all need to put down their arrogance and their pride

652
00:41:41,220 –> 00:41:44,340
and their hubris, which our

653
00:41:44,340 –> 00:41:48,140
Internet searches have infected us with, and learn the hard

654
00:41:48,140 –> 00:41:51,860
lessons from history and then apply those hard

655
00:41:51,860 –> 00:41:55,260
lessons to fundamental problems that we have now.

656
00:41:56,220 –> 00:41:59,900
And understanding all the while that while technology may change,

657
00:42:00,860 –> 00:42:04,420
and while those wonders I do believe will occur, that’s also not

658
00:42:04,420 –> 00:42:07,860
assured. While technology may change, human nature

659
00:42:07,860 –> 00:42:11,420
fundamentally does not. We

660
00:42:12,380 –> 00:42:15,870
can do nothing or very little, little to change human

661
00:42:15,870 –> 00:42:19,110
nature. Human power can’t do it.

662
00:42:20,790 –> 00:42:24,310
Mark Zuckerberg is still going to be greedy and Sam

663
00:42:24,310 –> 00:42:26,390
Altman is still going to have a lust for power.

664
00:42:27,910 –> 00:42:30,709
The bad orange man is still going to be bad

665
00:42:32,470 –> 00:42:36,230
and the lady who ran for president is still

666
00:42:36,230 –> 00:42:39,670
going to be power hungry. Those

667
00:42:40,590 –> 00:42:42,910
problems of power, of greed

668
00:42:44,110 –> 00:42:47,870
or desire for power, lust for power, avarice, greed,

669
00:42:49,470 –> 00:42:52,190
self deception, these problems

670
00:42:53,150 –> 00:42:56,190
can only be resolved by changing the human heart.

671
00:42:56,910 –> 00:42:59,950
And the changes of the human heart are reflected in how

672
00:43:00,510 –> 00:43:02,110
we study history.

673
00:43:04,910 –> 00:43:08,650
I am going to advocate here, here at the end of this show today

674
00:43:08,970 –> 00:43:12,570
and for the remainder of our time for a more

675
00:43:12,570 –> 00:43:16,330
conservative reading of history. And I don’t mean conservative

676
00:43:16,330 –> 00:43:20,010
as in politically conservative, although these days everything is political.

677
00:43:20,170 –> 00:43:23,930
Am I right? A more conservative reading of history

678
00:43:23,930 –> 00:43:27,570
would look at history as a struggle not between the forces of

679
00:43:27,570 –> 00:43:31,330
progress and the forces of stagnation, but instead it

680
00:43:31,330 –> 00:43:34,900
would look at history as a struggle, an endless struggle, a

681
00:43:34,900 –> 00:43:38,500
as Superman might say, a never ending battle of men,

682
00:43:39,700 –> 00:43:43,500
and I mean women and men of humans to overcome

683
00:43:43,500 –> 00:43:46,980
themselves and to overcome their base instincts

684
00:43:47,380 –> 00:43:51,220
more often rather than less often. And to do so,

685
00:43:51,940 –> 00:43:55,740
not to become great. I actually kind of agree with what

686
00:43:55,740 –> 00:43:58,020
BH Ladell Hart said there about great men.

687
00:43:59,830 –> 00:44:03,350
Not to become great, but merely to be

688
00:44:03,350 –> 00:44:06,870
better than those who came before

689
00:44:06,870 –> 00:44:10,550
them and better just meaning

690
00:44:11,910 –> 00:44:15,110
making all new mistakes with all different sins.

691
00:44:18,550 –> 00:44:22,070
A more conservative reading of history is what we require as a nation state.

692
00:44:22,230 –> 00:44:25,970
It’s what we require as individuals. It’s what we require in our educational

693
00:44:25,970 –> 00:44:29,770
systems. It’s what we require in our TikTok videos. It’s what we require

694
00:44:29,770 –> 00:44:33,490
in our houses, around our dinner tables. It’s what we require in the conversations we

695
00:44:33,490 –> 00:44:37,330
have with our kids. It’s what we require in the conversations we have with

696
00:44:37,330 –> 00:44:40,490
ourselves after we put down our books and we

697
00:44:40,490 –> 00:44:44,130
reflect, sitting quietly on a park bench like

698
00:44:44,130 –> 00:44:47,290
Keanu Reeves in that meme, just eating lunch.

699
00:44:49,780 –> 00:44:53,540
It’s also what we require in order to avoid the exegesis,

700
00:44:54,580 –> 00:44:58,340
the exegesis of war and

701
00:44:58,340 –> 00:45:02,100
conflict. Is it

702
00:45:02,100 –> 00:45:05,300
better to have fights on social media than it is to shoot your neighbor?

703
00:45:06,500 –> 00:45:10,260
I don’t know. Is it better to outsource your base

704
00:45:10,260 –> 00:45:13,780
desires to objects and to animals that cannot reciprocate

705
00:45:15,230 –> 00:45:18,430
than to try to unite and connect with human beings

706
00:45:18,990 –> 00:45:22,350
that are flawed and angry and probably don’t want to connect with you

707
00:45:22,590 –> 00:45:25,470
or are going to have their own problems? Maybe.

708
00:45:26,590 –> 00:45:30,030
Is it better to sever connections from people and families

709
00:45:30,350 –> 00:45:34,030
who disrespect you and deny whatever you may believe your core

710
00:45:34,030 –> 00:45:37,630
identity is? Maybe. Maybe

711
00:45:37,630 –> 00:45:41,440
not. These are questions, among many,

712
00:45:41,440 –> 00:45:45,080
many others that history and literature

713
00:45:46,200 –> 00:45:48,680
can answer more definitively for us

714
00:45:49,960 –> 00:45:53,560
than any business book, politician, economic

715
00:45:53,720 –> 00:45:57,400
theory, or social theory of ordering people ever could.

716
00:45:59,880 –> 00:46:03,520
Why don’t we study history? I don’t

717
00:46:03,520 –> 00:46:06,850
really. But

718
00:46:07,970 –> 00:46:09,330
we’re gonna find out, right?

719
00:46:13,170 –> 00:46:13,810
And. Well,

720
00:46:16,930 –> 00:46:17,970
that’s it for me.