WEBVTT

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Hi, Hi, Hi Hi.
Ask not what your country can do for

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you, ask what you can do
for your country. Mister garbachaw tear down

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this wall. It is the Ricochet
Podcast. I'm Rob Long. Joining me

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today is Peter Robinson. James Lylax
is the travel Our guest today is Glenn

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Lowry. We talk about everything,
including the spirit of Christmas. Stay tuned.

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The right thing for herd to do
is to step down, and I

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hope that the Christian doesn't relent until
she does that, because she's harming academia.

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She's harming black people, She's harming
everyone who had to work and earn

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their way in academia. This is
the Ricochet Podcast. This is number six

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hundred and seventy. I'm Rob Long, one of the co founders of Ricochet

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along with my fellow found under Peter
Robinson in Palo Alto. Peter, how

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are you? I am well,
Rob, I think yet how many?

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What is this? This is number
one, six hundred and seventy. This

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is believeable. I remember I remember
number two so well. So we are

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not joined as usual by James Lylex. He is not here, he's traveling

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today. So this is just what
we call in theater. We called this

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a two hander. Just it's like
the you know, driving this Daisy,

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That's what this is. It's the
you know, the gin game, one

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of those you know, just to
two characters on stage in a long one

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act or is that what a Broadway
puer told me, Yeah, who's more

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who's Morgan Freeman and who's Jessica Tandy. Well, I think that that that

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we'll leave that to the audience of
the side. But I was going to

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say that. A Broadway producer said
to me years ago. He said,

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listen, here's what we need.
Ninety minutes no intermission. And I said,

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okay, well like a comedy.
No, you know, honestly,

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ninety minutes no intermission, Like that's
that's the most important thing if you're a

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theater producer is people come in,
they said, Anne, no intermission,

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see the play, and they go
out and have dinner. It's too late

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because intermission you lose people. So
I, you know, that's what we're

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going to do today. Ninety minutes
no intermission, not ninety Merry Christmas,

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Peter, Merry Christmas. Rob.
It has been a long time since I

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was in New York at Christmas time, but I used to love it for

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all the I think, all the
right reasons, all the childlike reasons.

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The decorations would go up. Yeah, the big public decorations at Rockefeller Center

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the surprising number to me, it
was alwa surprising. How how seriously the

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people on the Upper East Side,
which is where I live for one year,

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took decorating their front doors with wreaths
and red ribbons and so yeah,

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and then of course the shopping,
the window displays. Is it still like

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that? It is, you know, it's still like that, still crowded,

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It's still got like people coming in
on the weekends and walking around,

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which is kind of like, you
know, there's a part of the fun

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to begin New Yorkers. Oh,
people get out of my way. But

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in fact they are the the all
the fuel that keeps the engine running.

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We should be a little nicer to
those people. Decorations everywhere. I mean,

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I think, you know, my
neighborhood people have their you know reads

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out. I have my reads out, and they have their you know,

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their stoops stooned with furs with the
you know, evergreen stuff. So it

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does feel like there's moments where you
you know, you look away from some

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of the other things and you just
focus on the Christmas stuff, and what

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about what do people say to each
other? Is Merry Christmas still permitted or

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is it happy? Yeah? Well, I think it's the problem with Merry

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Christmas now is that the people who
say it tend to say it and then

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like they're mad about like, merry
Christmas. Right, I can say that,

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right, And I was like,
well, yeah, but you know,

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maybe different attitude when you say it. Almost everybody. I mean,

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I don't know. I was seeing
somebody says, can say Merry Christmas,

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and I don't. I mean,
I suspect there was a time when that

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was controversial, although I think now
it's been pretty much debunked. You now

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you're supposed to say Marry Christmas.
Although you know, last week I said

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happy Honkah to people I knew who
celebrated because it was the first day of

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Honakah. I used to love that
about New York, that the population,

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the Jewish population of New York was
about three million, the biggest Jewish population

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of any city in the world,
including Tel Aviv. And it was you'd

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say happy Hanukkah if you knew someone
was Jewish. But it was just a

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kind of active generosity on everybody's part. Atheists, Christians, Jews alike used

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to feel perfectly comfortable, well at
least being greeted by by Merry Christmas.

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Okay, now it's Advent, yes, and I feel that I must do

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my duty and examine It is up
to me to examine your conscience, how

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seriously I am. I am.
I am aware. Rob. We have

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exchanged emails in conversation the odd side
conversation. I am aware that you are.

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I was about to say, returning
to the roots of Episcopalianism, but

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that's a preposterous formulation. But yeah, zachtly have you what are you doing

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for Advent? I know you have, as I seem to recall, you

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have a friendly church that's uptown or
at midtown. Yes, well, I

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mean Advent. The problem with the
Advent is that it's I live. I

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live in between two churches. Here. There's a Presbyterian church that I can

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see from my window, and then
there's an Episcopal church that I can see

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like from the skylight here, which
means that at various times at nude during

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Advent, the bells play Oh Come, Oh comm Emmanuel, right, which

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is really the only Advent carol that
you're allowed to sing, you know allowed.

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I'm not saying any Christmas carols,
even though that's what everybody wants to

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sing, you know, will come
on ye faithful things like that. You're

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not allowed to do that if you're
you know, you're serious about it.

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So Advent is a pain in the
neck. Frankly, I think that we

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should just be seeing Christmas carol.
So the Episcopalians have this thing where they

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go, we'll have lessons in carols, have a special service where you can

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come and get your Christmas carols out
by before the twenty fifth, uh,

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and so there will be that caroling
on the steps of the church next week.

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And then I am I think I'm
ushering on Christmas Eve in the city.

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You're staying in the city, in
the city, staying in the city.

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So I think I'll be an usher, which I think I don't.

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I'm always confused to what they actually
do. You stand there and then you

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sort of let let them let the
rose get in line for the Eucharist.

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So I think that's what I'll be
doing. Excellent, all right, Well,

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Merry Christmas. Is things emerge.
Yeah, we wanted to talk at

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some point I believe you are.
I believe it was not idle conversation,

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although we had had both had a
drink. You're planning to apply to Yale

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Divinity School. Is this? I'm
thinking about it. It's one of these

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things I'm thinking about doing. You
know, it's time for the third act

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to begin. I mean, what
I hope is five acts, obviously,

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I'm I'm hoping for the full Shakespeare, not for the not for the you

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know, ninety minute no intermission life. I'm looking for it. Yeah,

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something something different, something a little
you know, to go and live among

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you. Some people. Some people
do move to Florida. I'm not planning

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to move to Florida. I'm not
crazy about well. I mean, I

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love Florida. Florida is great,
but I don't. I'm not ready for

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that. I'm not ready for the
the endless, endless sunshine. I need

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a little sleep. Speaking of endless
sunshine, we are joined by Glenn Lowry.

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Glenn is a professor of economics at
Brown University. He's hosted The Glenn

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Show, which you can find right
here on the Ricochet Network or at Glenn

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Lowry dot com dot substack dot com. We'll give you all that in the

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show notes. Glenn has been here
before. I've seen him on stage.

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He does this incredibly long, loopy, terrific, funny, thought provoking show

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on stage here in New York about
you know, I guess it says a

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good a good wasp. I'll put
it this way. At about a five

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iron from my apartment, and he
is here to talk about everything, including

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Christmas, but especially about Hey,
how bad is it for the IVY League

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institutions as of Friday, December fifth, twenty twenty three. Glenn, Thanks

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for joining us again. Thanks Rob, that was quite an intro. I

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appreciate it. Hey there, Peter, Glenn, how are you man?

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I'm doing well, doing well,
Thank you, Glenn. I have I

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want to get to this in a
moment. We have to talk about Claudie

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Gay. We have to talk about
Mother Harvard because we just have to.

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But I'm going to put down a
market that I want to return to in

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the converse, and the marker is
this. Some of the ivyes are coming

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out of this looking okay. I
would argue that my alma mater is doing

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fine, but one that is doing, my impression, is doing really pretty

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well is Brown University. And I
am convinced. You can talk me out

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of this if you want to.
But I am convinced that the presence of

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Glenn Lowry, who is rigorous,
who will call out nonsense. The presence

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of Glenn Lowry at Brown University.
I'm sure it has enriched Brown students in

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all kinds of ways. But I
also have the feeling that your mere presence

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stop stops a great deal of nonsense
before it even gets started. You flatter

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me with that I had such power, But I will tell you this.

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I have a student. Her name
is Maya Rakoff. She's Jewish, as

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it happens, and she's my intern
for the podcast The Glen Shaw Right.

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She had a one on one meeting
with President Christina Packson as a student representative

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of the Jewish community, with whom
Paxson wanted to have, you know,

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good offices and an open door right. And she reports that my president,

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Christina Patson, who happens to be
an economist and is a formal member of

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my department, had nothing but good
things to say about Glenn Lowry. Even

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you're slipping no, well, well
no, I tore into her back in

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twenty twenty, during the George Floyd
thing when she issued one of these Dear

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Colleague letters that was basically, you
know, a Black Lives Matter propaganda piece,

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and I said, no, this
is not what a university should be.

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I'm sure it cost no end of
trouble because it got quite a bit

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of attention. My criticism of her
did. But I think, you know,

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I think she heard me a little
bit. And my report that I'm

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just giving you now for my student
I think confirms that. So you know,

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it's it's not all dark and grim
here. Maybe Ivy League college presidents

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can learn a thing or two from
some of their obstreperous faculty members like me.

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So, Glenn, can I ask
you a question if you're Claudine Gay

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and you're asked or any of those
university professor for university presidents and now former

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university professor for presidents, if you
were asked that question at the House Committee

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meeting, if you felt that statements
that were you know, the shouting river

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to see those things calling for genocide
of the end to the state of Israel

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was violence, if you thought that
violated university speech codes, how could how

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how could you possibly have answered that
question yes, because that would mean that

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you'd have to discipline all those students. Isn't that I mean? Isn't I

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mean? I mean, I'm not
trying to like guine up some sympathy for

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people who probably don't deserve it.
But I don't know. I've been thinking

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of that past couple of weeks,
like what are they supposed to say?

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Because the next question would be like, Okay, well, how many of

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those students are going to be suspended
or expelled? Yeah? I see that,

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And I'm not a lawyer. I'm
not sure I've got under my fingers

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every legal you know, nicety that
applies here. It doesn't look like a

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hard question to me, though.
It looks like what you do is you

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distinguish between you know, our bylaws
may say the following with respect to speech,

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but such an act is a you
know, vicious and malicious and unacceptable

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way of behaving in our community.
Just as if someone were to say,

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I think it's time for black people
to go back and chains, and you

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know, presumably that's protected speech technically
speaking, right, if you're not inciting

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and you're not direct threatening, presumably
a person can, under the rules quote,

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depending on the context, close quote, say that, but no university

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president would hesitate in responding to such
a hypothetical with that's an abhorrent way of

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talking. In our community, it
would not be tolerated. We would discourage

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shit in the most strenuous terms,
and whatever legal remedies were available to us,

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we would avail ourselves of them.
That brackets the question of whether or

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not, technically speaking, it's actually
a violation of university rules, but makes

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clear where the values are. You
know that the person who runs the institution

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is standing for so I think they, by repairing to a legalistic posture,

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dug a hole for themselves up there
in front of Congress. That's what it

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seemed like to me. And also, I guess I'm looking for some good

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news here, and I don't think
this is good news. I'm gonna throw

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it at you. See what you
think. For the past on a five

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years, six years, maybe longer
than that, we've been told that speech

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is violence. Words are violence.
What you say you can be You could

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be severely punished for what you say. The former president of Harvard was fired

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for saying that some innate sex differences
may may be the cause of some perceived

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differences in certain performance categories between men
and women. And he was tossed out

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on his ear. Now, two
weeks ago we hear from the from the

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grandees at these institutions that though actually
it's very complicated and the context is important,

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and there's sort of this anguished splitting
of hairs and trying to sort out

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the truth. Have we seen the
end now to kind of crazy crackpots,

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speech codes and wokesm gone amuck?
Or are they just taking a breather?

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Is this halftime? Is this a
time out for them to huddle and drink

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some gatoray and come back on the
field and try again. I think things

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have changed. I said this to
Christina Pason here at Brown, I said,

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if you hadn't come out with a
letter declaring the values of the university

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to be aligned with Black Lives Matter
in twenty twenty, you might not be

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under pressure to come out with a
letter declaring your position on on Gaza.

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And you know the Chicago Principles,
the Calvin Report and all of that.

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Universities are not supposed to be waiving
political banners. They're supposed to be seeking

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the truth and you know, holding
up a higher standard of intellectual properity and

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seriousness. So in a way,
you've kind of dug yourself a hole here.

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I mean, that thing that happened
to Larry Summers was outrageous. You

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were referencing that the former president of
Harvard University was forced out. He lost

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the support of the faculty, there
was a vote of no confidence, the

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trustees decided to not stand with him, and he graciously stepped aside. But

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all he said was the really not
controversial observation that men and women as populations

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different with respect to certain traits that
might bear on the frequency with which women

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end up getting appointed professors of physics
or mathematics or biochemistry at the university.

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I mean, it could be right, it could be wrong, but it

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was certainly not vicious, malicious or
whatever. It was an arguable claim,

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and he said regretfully, he said, we need to do something about this.

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Indeed, that was the context,
all right, So, but I

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would tell you I'm not for forcing
university presidents out based upon the extent to

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which a comment that they might have
made could have landed the wrong way with

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this or that group. That that
doesn't doesn't make me feel all that good

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to see it happening, no matter
who it's happening to. But again,

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the needs are just exquisite. The
University of Pennsylvania is trying to fire Amy

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Wax for having an opinion, yes, for having an opinion and expressing it.

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And there's really no question about whether
or not her academic freedom and free

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speech rights are sufficient to uh inoculate
her against such an attack. And yet

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they are proceeded with a formal uh
uh you know, uh process that could

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theoretically result in in then revoking her
tenure. Uh and uh you know,

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they in a way are digging their
own digging their own grades. With that

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kind of behavior, it seems to
me how much trouble are they in do

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you think, Glenn? I mean, how much? These are the These

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are the some of the most out
I mean the most long lived prestige brands

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in American culture. I mean worldwide
colature, Harvard, Princeton, Yale,

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Brown, I mean, these are
big deal. These are big names.

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People come all over the world to
come here, and it's hard to read

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the news and not think, oh
man, we got to start again.

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We got to just stop it with
this and build some new Harvards and some

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new Yales and some new everything else. We can't keep how much trouble are

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they in? Are they going to
be able? Do you think having been

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an observer of these people for a
long time, you can be able to

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fix this or papered over or I
think they're going to go the American elitees

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just too lazy, and they're like, well, you know what, I'm

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going to spend sixty grand and send
my kid to this stupid school and he's

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not gonna learn a damn thing,
but it'll help him in life. I

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think they're going to try to write
it out. I think they dug in

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very deep. Yeah, you know. I think this DEI stuff, which

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is now getting a lot of critical
review because a lot of the DEI and

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ethnic studies and postcolonial studies types and
whatnot are the places from which some of

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the offensive statements and so forth they're
coming. They still have the upper hand.

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And when I see a board of
trustees or governors as they call them

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at Harvard overseers actually step up,
you know, maybe I'll see it different,

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maybe I'll be singing a different tune. But I think they're dug in.

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I think they're just going to try
to write it out. They're just

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going to try to, you know, make cosmetic adjustments and hope that this

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blows over. Well, let's not
forget that they are in charge of vast

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sums of money. It's not as
if they really need to go around rattling

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their ten cups, even to very
rich donors such as Bill Ackman at Harvard,

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who he gave a hundred pledged one
hundred million. I don't remember the

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details. But when you're sitting on
top of an endowment of fifty billion dollars

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as Harvard is much smaller at Brown
and Dartmouth, but still in the billions,

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you can hunker down and wait for
a lot to happen to pass.

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So, glenn On Claudine, Kay, President of Harvard, you put up

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a tweet. I'm going to paraphrase
it. Correct me if I get it

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wrong. This is I think it
was two days ago. Yeah, that

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the main charge against her was that
she was she was insufficiently anti anti Semitic.

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But that was the wrong charge.
The real charge against her should be

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that she's a mediocre scholar. Have
I paraphrased you correctly? Yeah, that's

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accurate, I said, intellectually.
Bang well, okay, so there are

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these plagiarism charges floating around now Christopher
Rufo at the City Journal has been making

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a big deal out of this.
I have no information about that other than

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what you know. I've read in
the newspaper. Right. I saw a

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reference to certain sentences extracted from some
of her published work that bore a striking

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resemblance to sentences that someone else had
written. And again, the ironies are

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just exquisite, exquisite. She's accused
of plagiarizing Carol Swain. I don't know

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if anyone knows who Carol Swain is, but she is a fervent Christian Blacks

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for Trump political scientists who had tenure
at Princeton and moved to Vanderbilt. And

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you could go on a long story
about Carol Swayin, but I want you

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to know she's conservative. She's a
conservative black woman who has written about voting

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rights in the spirit of saying,
basically, I don't think you have to

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match the color of the congress person
with the color of the constituent in order

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for black people to have representation in
the Congress. This is Carol's thesis that

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goes back thirty years, and she
makes strong argument to that. I mean,

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she couldn't possibly be further away politically
than Clauding Gay, and Clauding is

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accused of having plagiarized. So I
looked at these examples, and she should

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have Clauding Gay given citations to Carol
Swain when she paraphrased sentences from Swain's work

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by way of summarizing the state of
the literature, because gay rights also on

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race and political representation. But the
plagiarism, such as it is, such

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as I understand the case to this
point isn't nearly as serious as the fact

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that the one is Vita is paper
thin. I mean, I think she's

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got a half dozen articles. There's
no book there, there's no body of

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work. She's got eleven articles.
I can remember when she was first being

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considered for an appointment, there was
a lot of chatter on Twitter because she

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had been out at Stanford and she
got tenured there, and people were saying,

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how did she ever get tenure there? One scholar I can't quote the

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name, I just don't remember,
prominent in the field, said if we

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don't deny her tenure, when will
we ever deny anybody tenure? The record

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was just that then, and yet
she got it, and the next thing,

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you know, she's coming back to
Harvard as a full professor in the

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Government department there, and the next
thing, you know, at a relatively

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younger she's dean of the faculty.
I mean, I knew Henry Rossovski personally.

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Henry Vessovski was a very heavyweight economic
historian, grizzled old dean in the

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faculty back in there. You know, he was you know, he's a

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white guy, but he was a
heavyweight. I know Larry Summers. Summits

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is a heavyweight intellectual. He's a
very serious economist, one of the top

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one hundred, one hundred and fifty
economists of his generation. He's a very

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serious player. And this field clouding
Gay as a scholar with respect was a

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lightweight. So if she had a
record like Larry Summers had of contributing to

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her field, this little peccadillo of
not having put a footnote in because she

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paraphrased somebody's sentence would roll off of
her like water off of the duck's back.

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But she's weak on the chops,
on the issue of academic chops,

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and that makes her vulnerable, it
seems to me, to this kind of

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attack. Glenn, I'm going to
ask questions now that are I feel I

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feel that I have a couple of
questions that I'm going to ask because we're

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friends. But for a white guy
to ask these questions, I also feel

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it might be a little rough.
So you just reach across zoom and slap

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me if I if I need it, or I absolve you of your sins.

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Don't do that yet away now okay, Well, let me wait and

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see how bad you see. I
was gonna say, what's that? Okay,

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So here's the question. Isn't making
Claudine Gay who is a second rate

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academic? Isn't making her president of
Harvard? Simply the logical outcome of affirmative

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action, That is to say,
we make allowances for favored groups to get

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into Harvard, we make allowances in
giving them tenure, and yep, it's

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about time to lower our standards to
permit a member of a favored group to

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become president of the oldest institution in
America. Doesn't it all just sort of

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line up and flow from Once you're
committed to affirmative action, sooner or later

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you'll lend up with a second rate
president of Harvard. Well, there's nothing

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offensive about what you say. It
is it is. I mean I could

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demand it the affirmative action plus the
Peter principal, you know, and you

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get what you get what you get. Here's the counter argument. Someone's going

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to say, well, scholar is
one thing, administrator is another. They're

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going to say Larry Backhau who was
president of Harvard before Claudion Gay. I

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don't know what kind of scholar he
was, but he's not up for a

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Nobel prize. They're going to say
Drew Foulest, who was president of Harvard

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before back how was president of Harvard
and was a literary scholar if I recall

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correctly and with respect. I'm not
going to say she was a bad one,

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but I mean she also wasn't a
Nobel laureate or whatever the equivalent of

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that would be in literary criticism.
And they're going to say Clauding Gay was

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an adequate or more than adequate dean
of the faculty. You know, this

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is not my argument, but this
is the argument that they would make.

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And so you know, it's apples
and oranges. You're asking her to be

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something and that's not what. We
didn't hire a scholar. We hired the

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academic administrator. Beside, she's the
first black woman. Here comes your affirmative

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action to head this great and venerable
institution. And we're in the twenty first

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century, Peter, not the twentieth
century, et cetera. So that would

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be the argument. But it certainly
is easy for me to understand why an

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observer from the outside would come to
the conclusion that you just enunciated affirmative action

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has reached its kind of most fullest
flower. When Harvard, it's Harvard,

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it's venerable, it's the greatest university
on the planet, led by well,

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a black woman, and that's her
main credential. I can see why a

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person would say that, all right, I want to leave Harvard behind.

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All my life, I've wanted to
leave Harvard behind in some way, But

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in this conversation, I'd like to
leave Harvard behind and tell you where I

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was earlier this week and ask a
big question and just drop it in your

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lap and see what you do with
it. I was in Birmingham, Alabama,

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earlier this week to record a couple
of episodes of Uncommon Knowledge, my

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little program here at the Hoover Institution
with Condy Rice on the sixtieth anniversary of

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the Birmingham campaign, of Doctor King's
leading a protest in Birmingham and Bull Connors

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turning the fire hoses and police dogs
on people. That happened six decades ago,

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and Condy was there. She was
a little girl at the time,

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but she could remember it. To
her credit, she said, I won't

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do this alone. People think that
I'm a one off. Let's do it

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with a couple of my childhood friends. And so Mary Bush, who grew

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up in Condy's neighborhood, an all
black neighborhood, and went on to a

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brilliant career in business, joined us, as did Freeman Robowski, who grew

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up as across the street from Mary
Bush. And free Robowski just stepped down

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after thirty years as president of the
University of Maryland, Baltimore County. Three

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really impressive people. I could go
on. I won't. I'll just give

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you my I'll get to the point
as quickly as I can. In preparing

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for the show, my first thought
was these people are just heroic figures,

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and they're impressive people. I don't
retract that. But as I got into

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it, as Kandy walked me around
her old neighborhood, it was just born

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in on me, the achievement,
the achievement of the people who raised them,

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and this lost century. As Tom
Sowell often makes the point that academics

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pay a lot of attention to slavery, then we hear nothing for a century,

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and then we have the Civil Rights
movement. And I was so struck

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that in this neighborhood in segregated Jim
Crow, Alabama, from the century between

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the Emancipation Proclamation and nineteen sixty three
the Birmingham Campaign. In that century,

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African Americans went from nothing. They
were Illiteracy was enforced, they were not

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permitted to learn. Not only did
they hold no property, they were the

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property. In one century, what
four or five generations, perhaps you end

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up with in that neighborhood at least
intact families, total literacy, deep literacy,

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a sense of neighborhood, a deep
understanding of church and community. And

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I thought to myself, now that
the whole country is dissolving, now that

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you have out of wedlock birth rates
over thirty percent among whites, Now that

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we're in the same position. I
had been thinking that we're in the same

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position as the Victorians. Remember Gertrude
Himmelfarb's great work about You get the urban

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poverty of the nineteenth century in England, and they put their society back together.

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They re establish marriage as a worthy
institution. I just thought to myself,

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the example for us to draw on
is this century of Black achievement,

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where these people put a society,
they essentially refounded a kind of their own

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civilization, black family shattered by slavery, and a century later again in that

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neighborhood, at least we have a
deep understanding of family relationships of husbands and

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wives. Anyway, I thought to
myself, Sorry, I'm getting long winded

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here, but I thought, no, you're good, You're good. Okay.

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I thought to myself, why isn't
the history department of every major university

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in the country working on that century. How did those people, in the

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face of Jim Crow of real racism, how did they reconstruct a civilization?

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Because we need to know how to
do it ourselves? Now? Okay?

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Is that just me losing my mind? Or is there something there now that's

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00:31:33.160 --> 00:31:37.799
brilliantly put There's a lot there.
You channel Bob Woodson, the great Robert

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00:31:37.799 --> 00:31:45.039
Woodson in this respect, who's constantly
talking about the vital importance of that historical

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lesson, the lesson of what African
Americans negroes is what we were called accomplished

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in the decades the first couple of
generations, three generations after emancipation. I

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think it's historically unprecedented, to be
honestly, I agree. I can't think

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of another. I don't think you
can find another example anywhere on the planet

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00:32:07.359 --> 00:32:15.880
of an enslaved or inserved population that
at the literacy point is really a vitally

405
00:32:15.880 --> 00:32:20.000
important point. I mean, this
all happened within a relatively few decades by

406
00:32:20.000 --> 00:32:22.799
the time you get to the turn
of the twentieth century. I don't have

407
00:32:22.799 --> 00:32:25.759
the statistics right at hand, but
the literary rate among African Americans is comparable

408
00:32:25.799 --> 00:32:30.799
to that that you see in middle
income countries throughout the world. And they

409
00:32:30.880 --> 00:32:37.039
started from nothing. And the ethoss
the ethos that allowed this population to achieve

410
00:32:37.079 --> 00:32:42.519
what they achieved, and it did
involve religion, and it did involve conservative

411
00:32:42.599 --> 00:32:47.359
cultural values and so on. There's
this wonderful book by Scott Davis, the

412
00:32:47.400 --> 00:32:53.000
author. It's called The World of
Patience Groans, and it tells the story

413
00:32:53.039 --> 00:32:59.319
of a young woman born in Hill
country of Virginia to land owning, free

414
00:32:59.319 --> 00:33:07.920
persons of color, who finds herself
in Richmond and is you know, she's

415
00:33:07.920 --> 00:33:14.319
a princess piano lessons a high standards
religion, raising her kids in the nineteen

416
00:33:14.400 --> 00:33:17.359
teens, the nineteen twenties, and
he follows her into the forties, fifties,

417
00:33:17.400 --> 00:33:25.599
and sixties and chronicles the early stages
of this social implosion among African Americans

418
00:33:25.640 --> 00:33:32.119
that she very much, deeply lamented
and resented as it was happening all around

419
00:33:32.160 --> 00:33:37.079
her. And it just in microcosm. It's just one little narrative, but

420
00:33:37.359 --> 00:33:43.960
it captures the spirit of what's going
on. And I mean it's clear why

421
00:33:44.000 --> 00:33:49.559
it's not taught in history departments because
it gives the lot to the claim that

422
00:33:49.599 --> 00:33:52.400
the country has its nel on our
neck, that it has its boot on

423
00:33:52.519 --> 00:33:57.480
our backs, that we can't accomplish
anything. Well, hell, we can

424
00:33:57.480 --> 00:34:01.599
accomplish a great deal. We did
accomplish a great deal. And it avoids

425
00:34:01.680 --> 00:34:09.079
the chilling implication if this is what
we as African Americans have inherited from our

426
00:34:09.119 --> 00:34:14.719
four beers who suffered so much and
achieved so much, the ball is in

427
00:34:14.760 --> 00:34:17.639
our court? What are we going
to do with this opportunity? You know?

428
00:34:19.280 --> 00:34:25.360
I mean that the specter of failure
or even a betrayal of the legacy

429
00:34:25.360 --> 00:34:30.079
of African Americans of the country in
the current generations. Because you know,

430
00:34:30.159 --> 00:34:34.119
you said thirty percent among whites,
the Ottawhite libraries is seventy percent among blacks,

431
00:34:34.599 --> 00:34:37.079
right, you know, I mean, look at Detroit, look at

432
00:34:37.119 --> 00:34:40.599
Chicago, look at Philadelphia, look
at Baltimore, Look at Southeast Washington,

433
00:34:40.679 --> 00:34:45.000
DC, Look at Oakland, look
at New Orleans, look at Saint Louis.

434
00:34:45.519 --> 00:34:49.639
I could go on, pick up
the newspaper and read the failure is

435
00:34:49.840 --> 00:34:54.519
palpable. Whose fault is that?
Yeah, so white supremacy is one kind

436
00:34:54.519 --> 00:34:59.599
of answer to that question, black
failure, I say it advisedly, and

437
00:34:59.639 --> 00:35:04.559
I said, Peter, not you. It's another kind of answer, and

438
00:35:04.639 --> 00:35:10.679
teaching that history would make that latter
answer much more compelling. Tuesday morning,

439
00:35:10.719 --> 00:35:15.760
This is Tuesday morning. We began
the day Condy and I went out to

440
00:35:15.840 --> 00:35:19.400
the house in which she grew up. And by the way, it was

441
00:35:19.480 --> 00:35:22.760
a pretty nice house. It was
about the same size, well, I

442
00:35:22.800 --> 00:35:28.559
grew up in sort of upper edge
of the lower In any event, it

443
00:35:28.599 --> 00:35:31.760
was maybe nine hundred to one thousand
foot house, same size house I grew

444
00:35:31.840 --> 00:35:36.599
up honestly, And I said,
so what happened here in a school morning?

445
00:35:36.599 --> 00:35:39.599
And she described all the children getting
ready to school, ready for school,

446
00:35:39.679 --> 00:35:44.400
And on a Saturday morning, everybody
went off to lessons. Condy went

447
00:35:44.440 --> 00:35:46.599
to her piano lessons. The little
girl across the street went to French lessons.

448
00:35:46.639 --> 00:35:51.639
Can you matt All Black neighborhood?
And she said, and you see

449
00:35:51.639 --> 00:35:54.000
that little hill there, We could
skate down that hill, and that hill

450
00:35:54.039 --> 00:35:58.880
over there that was wonderful for skating
too. So we have this. She's

451
00:35:58.880 --> 00:36:02.559
painting the picture of a happy,
intact neighborhood where the neighbors know each other.

452
00:36:02.639 --> 00:36:06.679
They all go to church on Wednesday
as well as on Sunday and on

453
00:36:06.760 --> 00:36:09.119
Saturday as the youth fellowship. And
she said, an oh oh, up

454
00:36:09.159 --> 00:36:13.039
at the top of that hill,
and up at the top of that hill.

455
00:36:13.639 --> 00:36:16.840
My father and other fathers in the
neighborhood, when they heard that there

456
00:36:16.880 --> 00:36:20.519
was trouble coming, they'd go up
to those high points in the neighborhood with

457
00:36:20.559 --> 00:36:28.639
their guns to keep the night writers
out. Staggering. The accomplishment against that

458
00:36:28.760 --> 00:36:32.360
kind of outside pressure unbelievable. And
we don't hear about it. It's just

459
00:36:32.800 --> 00:36:37.440
I just don't anyway, So Glenn, I'm giving you another homework lesson get

460
00:36:37.440 --> 00:36:43.719
Brown to establish establish a chair in
the hidden history, the hidden century of

461
00:36:43.760 --> 00:36:46.599
Black accomplishment seems to me anyway.
Well, I don't forget who was we

462
00:36:46.679 --> 00:36:52.880
said. I think some Black American
writer, I forget said, you know,

463
00:36:52.960 --> 00:36:58.519
we didn't have a lot after being
Civil War and civil rights. But

464
00:36:58.719 --> 00:37:01.960
the most important thing that we didn't
have was help. That was the help

465
00:37:02.000 --> 00:37:08.880
that did it. And that sounds
like something. Yeah, but you know

466
00:37:08.960 --> 00:37:13.480
what, I'm I'm not done yet
with Claudine Gay. I'm sorry, I

467
00:37:13.519 --> 00:37:19.840
just want to I've been struck by
something about her. I find I find

468
00:37:19.880 --> 00:37:25.039
the the accusations of affirmative and that
she's affirmative action higher to be really really

469
00:37:25.079 --> 00:37:30.599
interesting because we're talking about a woman. Never met her. I'm sure she's

470
00:37:30.599 --> 00:37:34.320
a nice person, but she's she's
not African American. She's the daughter of

471
00:37:34.320 --> 00:37:42.559
Haitian immigrants. She went to Exeter
and then she went to Princeton, and

472
00:37:42.559 --> 00:37:45.320
then she went to Stanford, and
then she got a PhD from Harvard.

473
00:37:49.280 --> 00:37:57.760
What what disadvantage are we trying to
correct here? You're talking to the wrong

474
00:37:57.800 --> 00:38:07.800
guy, I mean, yeah,
Amen, And the documentary filmmaker Rob Mott's

475
00:38:07.840 --> 00:38:14.559
Good Kid Productions has a little short
out about how Roland Fryar the Great Economists

476
00:38:14.639 --> 00:38:17.920
an a formal student of mine,
someone I admire in his late forties now

477
00:38:19.440 --> 00:38:25.559
Clark Medalists, MacArthur genius, half
breaking empirical work in a number of different

478
00:38:25.559 --> 00:38:29.639
fields, and a BS Excuse me? Can I say BS? On your

479
00:38:29.639 --> 00:38:36.480
show? A BS four nine accusation
that Stuart Taylor, the legal journalist whom

480
00:38:36.519 --> 00:38:38.920
I have a great deal of respect
for, has written about and you know

481
00:38:39.000 --> 00:38:43.599
you can look it up, but
it was a BS from a disgruntled employee,

482
00:38:43.840 --> 00:38:49.320
a former employer who an employee who
accused Roland of hostile environment, you

483
00:38:49.320 --> 00:38:52.719
know, making statements that were offensive
and what not to women in his workplace.

484
00:38:53.119 --> 00:38:57.960
Got blown all out of proportion and
clauding. Kate tried to get his

485
00:38:58.159 --> 00:39:00.840
tenure revoked and came down on him
with a ton of bricks from her position

486
00:39:00.920 --> 00:39:06.199
as dean of the faculty at Harvard, sanctioning him, suspending without pay for

487
00:39:06.239 --> 00:39:15.199
two years, closing his research laboratory
which was nine figure funded a massive enterprise

488
00:39:15.280 --> 00:39:22.400
of Roland doing path breaking research and
education, law enforcement and race kind of

489
00:39:22.440 --> 00:39:27.320
thing. And you know, Rob
Mont's the filmmaker. Good Kick Productions,

490
00:39:28.440 --> 00:39:30.639
Harvard canceled Rowland Fry. I can't
remember the title of the short, but

491
00:39:30.679 --> 00:39:37.599
it wouldn't be hard to find.
Tell us the story of how this woman

492
00:39:37.639 --> 00:39:44.159
who was a marginal scholar and was
certainly a child of privilege in the name

493
00:39:44.320 --> 00:39:49.880
of protecting because Roland's findings were sometimes
pushing against the grain. I mean,

494
00:39:49.880 --> 00:39:53.280
he was the one who investigated the
police shootings in Dallas and came to the

495
00:39:53.280 --> 00:39:58.199
conclusion that the use of lethal force
by Dallas police pardon me, Houston,

496
00:39:58.280 --> 00:40:02.280
Houston police officers was no more likely
if the subject was black than if the

497
00:40:02.280 --> 00:40:05.599
subject was white. In fact,
maybe a little bit less likely, and

498
00:40:05.639 --> 00:40:12.199
that was so controversial. Roland is
also a big education reform guy, a

499
00:40:12.239 --> 00:40:15.440
big charter school guy, and uh, you know, he thinks that we're

500
00:40:15.880 --> 00:40:23.239
vastly underperforming with respect to providing opportunities
to youngsters, low income youngsters in cities

501
00:40:23.280 --> 00:40:27.440
around the country and so on.
So he's pushing against the grain. Roland

502
00:40:27.480 --> 00:40:30.800
is and they tried to cancel him, and Plooding Gay was a main instigator

503
00:40:30.840 --> 00:40:37.960
in that, and uh, uh, who's the authentic black at the table.

504
00:40:39.360 --> 00:40:44.239
You know who's the authentic black the
son of Haitian immigrants. Her father

505
00:40:44.360 --> 00:40:47.599
was an engineer, if I recall
correctly, and she grew up in privilege.

506
00:40:47.719 --> 00:40:52.800
Exciter, got any idea what it
costs to go to Exeter? Uh?

507
00:40:52.880 --> 00:40:59.559
Actually sorry? Uh? And here's
Roland, who's you know, his

508
00:40:59.599 --> 00:41:01.880
mother and him as a kid.
His dad is in and out of prison.

509
00:41:02.039 --> 00:41:07.639
He's raised by his grandmother and came
apart. You know, heart scrabble

510
00:41:08.559 --> 00:41:13.800
worked for everything that he ever got. And I had a closer, more

511
00:41:13.920 --> 00:41:19.840
vital and intimate connection with the lives
of everyday African Americans than Clauding Gay would

512
00:41:19.840 --> 00:41:24.119
ever dream of. So the contrast
is hard to miss. And I try

513
00:41:24.159 --> 00:41:30.280
a thought experiment. A former president
of Yale, not this one, I

514
00:41:30.280 --> 00:41:34.960
think maybe the one reply. I
can't remember which one told this story.

515
00:41:35.280 --> 00:41:40.079
He said so off the record,
so you know, keep it. You

516
00:41:40.119 --> 00:41:45.360
can figure it out that in faculty
meetings, when he was something important to

517
00:41:45.440 --> 00:41:52.360
decide some budgetary issues, something that
really mattered, he would make sure or

518
00:41:52.440 --> 00:41:57.840
some crackpot idea that was just crazy, he would make sure to have a

519
00:41:59.000 --> 00:42:07.440
STEM area budget item on the docket. Because what he discovered is science technology

520
00:42:07.760 --> 00:42:10.840
all those people they don't want to
Those pre teachers don't show up to these

521
00:42:10.840 --> 00:42:14.199
stupid things. They don't want to
sit there for a faculty meeting. Here

522
00:42:14.199 --> 00:42:17.480
a bunch of like French whatever,
intersectionals, whatever's talk. They just But

523
00:42:17.519 --> 00:42:21.079
if you put something on there that
they really need to decide to decide,

524
00:42:21.079 --> 00:42:22.800
they're going to show up and then
you'll finally have a meeting in which,

525
00:42:22.880 --> 00:42:29.199
you know, the smart people prevail. So I mean, just a thought

526
00:42:29.239 --> 00:42:39.519
experiment. President of Harvard, Claudine
Gay was a professor of biology, and

527
00:42:39.599 --> 00:42:47.199
she did research into you know,
brain function, and would we be here

528
00:42:47.239 --> 00:42:53.280
now? No, that was my
point in reference to the plagiarism charges.

529
00:42:53.280 --> 00:42:57.559
I don't think they would really stick
because at the end of the day,

530
00:42:59.000 --> 00:43:01.079
you know, with respect to Christopher
Rufo, I mean, you know,

531
00:43:01.719 --> 00:43:07.400
it wasn't real plagiarism. It was
just a lazy writing and borrowing sentences from

532
00:43:07.400 --> 00:43:12.119
people without attribution. I'm not advising
that she should have, you know,

533
00:43:12.719 --> 00:43:16.599
but but if she had a real
research record and had the respect of colleagues

534
00:43:16.639 --> 00:43:22.559
and a serious discipline for her intellectual
half, as Larry Summers did and does,

535
00:43:23.519 --> 00:43:27.079
no, I don't think we would
be here. Hey, Glenn.

536
00:43:27.320 --> 00:43:29.840
I'd like to ask a closing question, because I just got a note from

537
00:43:29.880 --> 00:43:35.480
our producer that Glenn has other commitments. Imagine that he doesn't for the rest

538
00:43:35.519 --> 00:43:42.440
of the day. Glenn observation,
and then the question. The observation is

539
00:43:44.400 --> 00:43:51.280
that it takes. It takes in
some way, very little, in my

540
00:43:51.440 --> 00:43:59.039
experience or my observation, to give
kids at these elite campuses an alternative Robbie

541
00:43:59.079 --> 00:44:01.480
George and really Robbie George alone.
He's built a number of people around him.

542
00:44:01.480 --> 00:44:07.719
But Robbie George alone did it at
Princeton and has built up almost an

543
00:44:07.760 --> 00:44:13.519
alternative university, or at least an
alternative course curriculum within Princeton. I am

544
00:44:13.599 --> 00:44:21.199
convinced that you, by your presence, make Brown a better place. Just

545
00:44:21.280 --> 00:44:25.679
make it better, smarter, more
rigorous, less self indulgent. All kinds

546
00:44:25.679 --> 00:44:31.039
of people who might engage in public
nonsense don't, frankly, because they don't

547
00:44:31.039 --> 00:44:36.559
want to be attacked. They don't
want to be made made to look the

548
00:44:36.559 --> 00:44:40.639
fools they are, and you would
do that. Okay, So it seems

549
00:44:40.679 --> 00:44:46.880
to me that you don't have to
turn Harvard University entirely upside down. You

550
00:44:46.960 --> 00:44:52.960
need to find a few good scholars. You need Roland to be left alone

551
00:44:52.000 --> 00:44:57.880
and permitted to do his work.
Perhaps you even need Roland to be celebrated.

552
00:44:59.199 --> 00:45:02.079
Is that a chie Are you hopeful
that we can at least do that

553
00:45:02.440 --> 00:45:09.119
much? The institutions will now feel
that it is necessary. I don't want

554
00:45:09.159 --> 00:45:14.360
to see conservatives, but well,
I'll say that they need a few conservative

555
00:45:14.440 --> 00:45:16.639
role ins. No conservative exactly.
I don't know how we'd vote, but

556
00:45:19.760 --> 00:45:23.280
that it can be done. Are
you hopeful? Yeah? This is I

557
00:45:23.320 --> 00:45:28.719
think the viewpoint diversity, you know, ideological diversity. I mean, we

558
00:45:29.360 --> 00:45:32.559
don't have to have a fifty to
fifty. You could have a eighty twenty.

559
00:45:34.239 --> 00:45:38.679
And if you had twenty people who
were heterodots in their orientation, conservative

560
00:45:38.679 --> 00:45:45.159
perhaps in their instincts. We loved
their country and we're not ashamed to say

561
00:45:45.199 --> 00:45:51.960
so, revered the standards of excellence
and meritocratic achievement within their disciplines and were

562
00:45:52.039 --> 00:45:57.800
unwilling to compromise them. Took the
idea that students are it's the erro points

563
00:45:57.840 --> 00:46:00.840
forward, not backwards. It's not
what they are when they walk in front

564
00:46:00.840 --> 00:46:05.199
of me, it's what they've become
after we acquaint them with the greatest things

565
00:46:05.199 --> 00:46:09.280
that have been written and thought in
the intellectual traditions that we inherit a few

566
00:46:09.320 --> 00:46:15.880
people whinny out of one hundred,
Sure it could make a difference. As

567
00:46:15.920 --> 00:46:17.480
I say, I think the other
side is dug in. They're dug in,

568
00:46:17.519 --> 00:46:21.920
and they have anthropology department. They're
dug in, and the after Studies

569
00:46:21.960 --> 00:46:24.360
department and so more and so on, and you know ten years what it

570
00:46:24.440 --> 00:46:30.119
is. So I don't think they're
going anywhere. But you know, you're

571
00:46:30.199 --> 00:46:34.960
very generous in your estimation of the
impact that I'm having. I can tell

572
00:46:35.000 --> 00:46:39.400
you that I hear that kind of
report from my students who do take my

573
00:46:39.480 --> 00:46:44.400
courses. And I have one hundred
signed up for my Race and Inequality course

574
00:46:44.679 --> 00:46:51.679
intelecture course that I co teach with
my wonderful colleague of classical liberal and then

575
00:46:51.719 --> 00:46:54.440
Eminily Scarbeck. I want to name
her because she and I are partners now

576
00:46:54.440 --> 00:47:00.239
in this enterprise teaching about race here. But they come in, uh,

577
00:47:00.480 --> 00:47:02.079
and you know, I got the
black kid over there, who's a typical

578
00:47:02.119 --> 00:47:06.480
woke kind of kid, but he
respects Professor Lowry because I come and I

579
00:47:06.480 --> 00:47:07.840
don't pull punches, and I tell
him what I really think. And we

580
00:47:07.960 --> 00:47:10.599
argue back and forth, and then
I got the Jewish kid over here,

581
00:47:10.639 --> 00:47:15.559
who's you know in the mix?
And there you know, and and uh

582
00:47:15.840 --> 00:47:21.840
the Chinese kid who says I never
thought we could talk honestly about these matters.

583
00:47:21.840 --> 00:47:23.960
I've been keeping my mouth shut all
these months because I was afraid of

584
00:47:23.960 --> 00:47:28.480
offending anybody. Thank you, Professor
Lowery for allowing there to be a conversation.

585
00:47:29.400 --> 00:47:31.880
So I think there's a hunger amongst
students for this, and uh,

586
00:47:32.719 --> 00:47:37.920
you know, one step at a
time, another Robbin George here, and

587
00:47:38.639 --> 00:47:44.039
another Glenn Lowry there, forgive the
self aggrandizement. We might just get there.

588
00:47:44.519 --> 00:47:47.400
Let's hope. I got one question
for you, and I got a

589
00:47:47.480 --> 00:47:52.639
leap. And this is really more
of a maybe it's a personal temperament question.

590
00:47:55.079 --> 00:48:04.199
Why aren't you more pissed? You
don't seem pissed. You seem well.

591
00:48:04.599 --> 00:48:07.360
I invite you to when it comes
out. May fourteen, twenty twenty

592
00:48:07.400 --> 00:48:14.320
four, Late Admissions Confessions of a
Black Conservative published by W. W.

593
00:48:14.559 --> 00:48:17.920
Norton. It's in production, the
book is done, and it comes out.

594
00:48:19.119 --> 00:48:22.079
I try to give an account.
I used to be really pissed,

595
00:48:23.960 --> 00:48:30.719
I mean furious at the negro COCHNACENTI
that's what I called them, who smugly

596
00:48:30.880 --> 00:48:36.440
appropriated to themselves the right to speak
to all things black, and who,

597
00:48:36.880 --> 00:48:40.599
as our former president Barack Hussein Obama, did, look the other way when

598
00:48:40.679 --> 00:48:47.840
demagogues and ambulance chasers like Al Sharpton
define the voice of Black America for the

599
00:48:47.880 --> 00:48:54.320
American public. I was furious with
them. I think my fury was doing

600
00:48:54.360 --> 00:49:00.360
more harm to me than it was
to them. You know. So I've

601
00:49:00.679 --> 00:49:02.639
you know, I'm seventy five years
old, man, I mean, I

602
00:49:02.719 --> 00:49:09.000
you know, I gotta I gotta
give myself a stress relief opportunity, you

603
00:49:09.000 --> 00:49:14.719
know. So I've become a little
bit more you know, philosophical about it,

604
00:49:15.000 --> 00:49:16.559
a little bit more trying to take
the long view and just try to

605
00:49:16.599 --> 00:49:21.840
tell the truth and you know,
try not to let it eat me away

606
00:49:21.920 --> 00:49:24.119
on the inside. You know,
Glenn is good news. You have a

607
00:49:24.159 --> 00:49:27.920
pub date. If you have a
pub date, we need to schedule an

608
00:49:27.920 --> 00:49:31.760
interview for about this book for ununcomming
knowledge. Absolutely, I have a pub

609
00:49:31.840 --> 00:49:35.480
date. I have a publicist.
If you drop me an email, I'll

610
00:49:35.519 --> 00:49:39.159
put you in touch with my team. And absolutely we need to do this.

611
00:49:39.280 --> 00:49:44.119
May fourteen, twenty twenty four is
the pub date and let it down.

612
00:49:44.639 --> 00:49:46.960
You will have an email for me
this day, my friend. Okay,

613
00:49:47.000 --> 00:49:52.559
Peter Glenn, thank you for joining
us Rasmus. Mary adds to YouTube,

614
00:49:52.800 --> 00:49:58.119
thank you, thank you Mary.
Christmas politically incorrect and revolutionary statement.

615
00:49:58.199 --> 00:50:05.719
Merry Christmas. So long, guys, take care. You know it's like

616
00:50:05.760 --> 00:50:09.440
a cockail hour and not now,
I just mean like, it's that's what

617
00:50:09.480 --> 00:50:12.920
I feel like when the holidays.
You know, it's cocktail hour always.

618
00:50:13.000 --> 00:50:15.559
You know, it starts early,
starts around four o'clock. And let's face

619
00:50:15.559 --> 00:50:20.480
it, Peter, after night with
drinks, you and I don't bounce back

620
00:50:20.599 --> 00:50:23.239
the next day like we used to. So I have to make a choice.

621
00:50:23.239 --> 00:50:25.599
I can either have a great night
or a great next day. And

622
00:50:25.679 --> 00:50:31.119
that that was the way I lived
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623
00:50:31.159 --> 00:50:37.679
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624
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625
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626
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627
00:50:49.400 --> 00:50:52.519
but it's not it's this byproduct that's
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628
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629
00:50:57.480 --> 00:51:00.159
to work like your liver, but
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630
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631
00:51:05.159 --> 00:51:07.559
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632
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636
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640
00:51:40.679 --> 00:51:46.360
thank you z biotics for sponsoring this
episode, and we also think it's timely

641
00:51:46.440 --> 00:51:52.639
here during the holidays to think a
little bit about zbiotics, and the day

642
00:51:52.639 --> 00:52:00.440
after that said man in Glenn Rowy, Glenn Glenn Land is fantastic. Yeah,

643
00:52:00.480 --> 00:52:05.480
I love that man. I just
love him. He is fantastic and

644
00:52:05.559 --> 00:52:09.480
so so courageous and so rigorous and
so productive. He's the one who made

645
00:52:09.480 --> 00:52:14.440
mend himself that he's seventy five,
He's got his own podcast. He makes

646
00:52:14.480 --> 00:52:17.239
time to talk to us, he
has carries a full teaching load, and

647
00:52:17.280 --> 00:52:21.480
he's got a book coming out next
spring. Yeah, and you know,

648
00:52:21.719 --> 00:52:23.559
what the hell have you done?
Not much? Right? But if you're

649
00:52:23.639 --> 00:52:27.559
if you're in the New York City
area or you're I think they do it.

650
00:52:27.599 --> 00:52:29.960
I mean now they do it elsewhere
he used to do it. I

651
00:52:30.000 --> 00:52:34.039
think he still does it a little
kind of a I don't know, like

652
00:52:35.039 --> 00:52:38.639
it did it in a comedy club. This like a conversation with John mcwarter.

653
00:52:39.239 --> 00:52:42.599
And they would sit and they would
talk and then they would yeah,

654
00:52:42.599 --> 00:52:45.440
and then they bring some comedians on
and the comedians would do some jokes and

655
00:52:45.480 --> 00:52:46.639
they would four of them sit,
five of them to sit there and have

656
00:52:46.679 --> 00:52:51.599
a conversation that was just absolutely riveting
and it you know, I was trying

657
00:52:51.599 --> 00:52:52.760
to describe it as somebody said,
well, what is it a panel?

658
00:52:53.000 --> 00:52:55.559
Like? No? Is it a
comedy show? Kind of, it's kind

659
00:52:55.559 --> 00:52:59.599
of a little bit of everything,
and it's fantastic. It's ribbting, and

660
00:52:59.639 --> 00:53:07.440
it's all because I think his general
personality and John McWorter two is, you

661
00:53:07.440 --> 00:53:08.360
know, it's a little weary,
world weary. You know, you can

662
00:53:08.400 --> 00:53:16.639
see glancing you know this again.
But it's optimistic. And I guess that's

663
00:53:16.639 --> 00:53:20.000
why I asked him for a question
about anger, like it isn't curdled,

664
00:53:21.039 --> 00:53:24.320
you know, is something about the
I think, especially the progressive left that's

665
00:53:24.360 --> 00:53:32.079
so embittered and curdled, and I
think probably the far right too, that

666
00:53:32.199 --> 00:53:38.840
is kind of just I think it's
missing the point. M m okay,

667
00:53:38.920 --> 00:53:42.920
listen, could I a slightly different
topic, but one that is far more

668
00:53:42.960 --> 00:53:47.440
important than I think we've discussed so
far, far more important? Eggnog bourbon

669
00:53:47.639 --> 00:53:55.519
or rum? Oh, that's a
really good question. I prefer bourbon just

670
00:53:55.599 --> 00:54:01.239
in general because I'm an American and
I like bourbon, but rum eggnog is

671
00:54:01.280 --> 00:54:13.840
delicious too, but a super super
cheat for eggnog, Yes, get yourself

672
00:54:14.559 --> 00:54:20.239
some really good not the best,
not in the little pints but like you

673
00:54:20.280 --> 00:54:24.239
know, good vanilla ice cream,
frinch ranill ice cream and let it melt

674
00:54:24.840 --> 00:54:28.800
oh real, and then thin it
out to the extent that you want.

675
00:54:28.840 --> 00:54:32.800
And if you use with milk or
heavy, well with milk or cabin half,

676
00:54:34.199 --> 00:54:37.639
however have do you want it?
And if you if you use rum,

677
00:54:38.159 --> 00:54:43.679
put in a little coconut milk,
oh real, and a little rum,

678
00:54:43.719 --> 00:54:45.199
not a lot, so it's not
so much. It kind of gives

679
00:54:45.239 --> 00:54:46.320
a little good, but it doesn't
really work with bourbon. The coconut and

680
00:54:46.360 --> 00:54:52.719
rum for some reason. Just go
just great together, uh and tell everybody

681
00:54:52.719 --> 00:54:59.639
you made it from scratch, okay, and that, ladies and gentlemen,

682
00:54:59.719 --> 00:55:01.880
is why you listen to the Ricochet
podcast. Yes, and they will say

683
00:55:01.960 --> 00:55:04.960
this is really good. How'd you
do it? Well? You know,

684
00:55:05.119 --> 00:55:07.480
and then they'll kind of you kind
of look like wearied and tired from it.

685
00:55:07.599 --> 00:55:13.719
And then people say, did you
actually make a custard temper the egg

686
00:55:13.800 --> 00:55:15.880
yolks? Did you do that?
And then you kind of shrug like you

687
00:55:15.920 --> 00:55:19.639
don't want to take credit for it
because you didn't, but you just you

688
00:55:19.639 --> 00:55:22.280
know, let the lie just sit
there. It's not a lie if you

689
00:55:22.320 --> 00:55:25.679
don't say it. It's only a
you know, Oh, that's the episcopalian

690
00:55:25.840 --> 00:55:31.679
division. You're basically plagiarizing egg.
Yeah, exactly, yes, yes,

691
00:55:31.880 --> 00:55:37.320
I can't wait for you to get
this degree underway, because that's exactly I

692
00:55:37.360 --> 00:55:40.320
can't wait for your book on moral
theology, which will be entitled the Eight

693
00:55:40.400 --> 00:55:45.480
Commandments. Well I had to yes, the eight, well, the two,

694
00:55:45.360 --> 00:55:50.519
the ten commandments, choose any seven? Yeah, but the seven suggestions,

695
00:55:51.480 --> 00:55:55.800
the seven, the seven guidelines I
did. I had dinner on Tuesday

696
00:55:55.840 --> 00:56:02.199
night or Monday night camera Tuesday night
with our old friend John O'Sullivan and Jerry

697
00:56:02.239 --> 00:56:07.480
Baker from the Westy Journal. Oh
wow, And I told I said to

698
00:56:07.559 --> 00:56:08.360
John, you know, I'm thinking
about this. I'm thinking about this.

699
00:56:08.400 --> 00:56:10.239
And he looked at me and he
said, oh my god. Those are

700
00:56:10.280 --> 00:56:13.599
both Catholics. By the way,
I mean, you're insufferable. Yeah,

701
00:56:13.679 --> 00:56:19.599
you're insufferable. Now, what's going
to be like when he's absolutely right?

702
00:56:21.679 --> 00:56:24.679
Correct? Uh, if you don't
get a book out of this, I

703
00:56:24.719 --> 00:56:30.440
will be just so cross. So
give me too. But I'm going to

704
00:56:30.480 --> 00:56:31.960
say this publicly because I've said it
to you a couple of times, and

705
00:56:32.000 --> 00:56:36.119
I'm going to say it publicly because
I want other people to pile on.

706
00:56:36.639 --> 00:56:39.159
You've written two books. You've written
two books, well three if you count

707
00:56:39.159 --> 00:56:43.639
the one that nobody bought. Wait, really right, that one that was

708
00:56:43.679 --> 00:56:46.559
called Bigley, That the book that
trump Yes, yes, yes, I

709
00:56:46.599 --> 00:56:54.800
mean that was a clever idea.
But two books that were autobiographical Conversations with

710
00:56:54.880 --> 00:56:59.679
my agent and set up joke,
set up joke, And both of those

711
00:56:59.679 --> 00:57:06.360
books were brilliant, really brilliant,
brilliant, pros funny, kind jammed with

712
00:57:06.400 --> 00:57:09.480
information. And that's not just my
opinion. Andy Ferguson, who does not

713
00:57:09.800 --> 00:57:14.840
toss compliments around, gave you a
rave review in the Weekly Standard. He

714
00:57:14.920 --> 00:57:17.039
did it was very kind, a
magazine that no longer exists, which is

715
00:57:19.320 --> 00:57:23.119
which is my point. Why haven't
you written? The time has come for

716
00:57:23.159 --> 00:57:29.039
you to write a new book,
Journeys in Divinity, Journeys in Holiness,

717
00:57:30.280 --> 00:57:35.400
a comedy by Rob long conversations with
my divine Yeah. Well okay, so

718
00:57:36.360 --> 00:57:38.920
start taking notes immediately. I will
do it. I will do it.

719
00:57:39.199 --> 00:57:43.679
Speaking of selling me, Yes,
we would love for you, if you

720
00:57:43.840 --> 00:57:45.440
enjoyed this podcast, to go to
Rickchett dot com and join. If you

721
00:57:45.519 --> 00:57:49.480
join, you get to do a
lot of cool stuff, plus Ricochet members

722
00:57:49.519 --> 00:57:52.000
like to get together. There will
be a meetup in Chattanooga, Tennessee,

723
00:57:52.679 --> 00:57:58.079
January fourteenth. That's a long weekend, holiday weekend. And if you not

724
00:57:58.199 --> 00:58:00.880
have you not been to Chattanooga.
I got in try bowl by saying,

725
00:58:02.239 --> 00:58:07.000
you know, Tennessee has all these
great cities, and then I kind of

726
00:58:07.039 --> 00:58:08.920
made a joke about Memphis not being
one of the Memphis is a great city,

727
00:58:09.760 --> 00:58:13.400
but Memphis is already on the map. He everbody knows that Memphis.

728
00:58:13.920 --> 00:58:16.519
Places like Chattanooga and Knoxville, they're
a little less known. Those are great

729
00:58:16.559 --> 00:58:21.760
cities, really, you know,
incredibly, We're great, great places to

730
00:58:21.760 --> 00:58:23.400
eat, great places to see.
You know, really, those are amazing.

731
00:58:23.400 --> 00:58:27.239
Tennessee is one of the states that
I think people just forget how big

732
00:58:27.239 --> 00:58:29.280
it is, Like it just goes
on forever, you know, It's like

733
00:58:29.559 --> 00:58:35.400
a big rectangle, very thin rectangle. So Chattanooga, Tennessee. That'll be

734
00:58:35.480 --> 00:58:40.880
Sunday, January fourteenth, that is
a holiday weekend. And before we close,

735
00:58:43.039 --> 00:58:46.440
we'd like to thank Zibiotics. You
can support us by supporting them.

736
00:58:46.679 --> 00:58:52.679
They are fine and very loyal advertisers
at a great product. If you have

737
00:58:52.760 --> 00:58:54.280
a minute, we would love for
you to give us this birthday, this

738
00:58:54.360 --> 00:58:58.760
Christmas gift. You go to Apple
Podcast give us a five star review.

739
00:58:59.360 --> 00:59:01.360
I know we keep saying it actually
really does matter. It's one of those

740
00:59:01.480 --> 00:59:07.880
stupid algorithm things that matters a great
deal. Peter, what are your Christmas

741
00:59:07.880 --> 00:59:13.119
plans? Uh? We're staying right
here because all five children are coming to

742
00:59:13.480 --> 00:59:20.000
us for Christmas, and getting that
arranged is a moonshot elon Musk's plan to

743
00:59:20.039 --> 00:59:22.960
colonize Mars. Cannot be more complicated
than the arrangements that had to be made

744
00:59:22.960 --> 00:59:28.800
to get all five children inbound.
So we're staying here through Christmas, and

745
00:59:28.840 --> 00:59:31.440
then the plan is to go up
to Tahoe for a couple of days in

746
00:59:31.480 --> 00:59:35.199
the first few days, first couple
of days of the new year. What

747
00:59:35.239 --> 00:59:37.360
about you? Where are you going
to be? I'm going to be right

748
00:59:37.400 --> 00:59:40.960
here in New York City, Right
here in New York City. I've never

749
00:59:42.000 --> 00:59:43.800
done that. I've never been here
for Christmas. So I'll be here for

750
00:59:43.840 --> 00:59:47.559
Christmas. Amazing, amazing. But
but then we'll be going out to Connecticut.

751
00:59:47.559 --> 00:59:50.800
You've got to meet up with your
mother and brother at some point,

752
00:59:50.880 --> 00:59:52.599
right or no? Well, yeah, but that's there. They're gonna You're

753
00:59:52.719 --> 00:59:57.280
all going to gather. Oh they're
coming, are They're coming Everyston. So

754
00:59:57.320 --> 01:00:00.480
it's going to be kind of a
it's going to be an old movie New

755
01:00:00.559 --> 01:00:06.639
York City Christmas and Christmas Day.
Saint Bartholomew's or what's the Saint James.

756
01:00:06.840 --> 01:00:13.599
Saint James James that means seventy first
and Madison, So that makes depending on

757
01:00:13.880 --> 01:00:16.440
you know, Saint James obviously is
my church. But if you want you

758
01:00:16.480 --> 01:00:22.199
know, pageantry and uh and you
know you want the full, the full

759
01:00:22.239 --> 01:00:27.639
experience, you could go to the
cathedral or Saint Thomas on Fifth Avenue was

760
01:00:27.679 --> 01:00:30.199
sort of giant, amazing. But
the cathedral it means Saint John, the

761
01:00:30.199 --> 01:00:34.480
Divine Way way, Saint John Devine
way up there right right where where the

762
01:00:34.519 --> 01:00:37.960
Christmas pageant doesn't it used to include
horses in the sort of in the in

763
01:00:38.039 --> 01:00:43.000
the church, didn't it the christ
You I think it might. I mean

764
01:00:43.039 --> 01:00:45.559
I don't think it's this still does. But all right, because as you

765
01:00:45.559 --> 01:00:50.559
know, I'm sure Pete has gotten
involved. But but I mean, yeah,

766
01:00:50.599 --> 01:00:52.519
it's big enough you could have you
could have a whole thing. But

767
01:00:52.559 --> 01:00:58.599
also the city's beautiful, it's at
its best in the Christmas everything's all decorated

768
01:00:58.599 --> 01:01:01.400
and looks beautiful. Right, well
done, well, but I think we

769
01:01:01.519 --> 01:01:07.119
might see I might see you next
week and in between, have a great

770
01:01:07.119 --> 01:01:12.079
week and see you in seven days. Merry Christmas. I'm off to Merry

771
01:01:12.199 --> 01:01:20.000
Christmas. Yeah, make it easy. Way Ricochet Join the conversation.