1
00:00:00,400 --> 00:00:03,359
Speaker 1: Licee NonStop, so don't let coals and flu stop you.

2
00:00:03,839 --> 00:00:07,679
For over forty years, powerful uniflu has helped clear congestion,

3
00:00:07,960 --> 00:00:12,039
runny noses, reduce aches, pains, fever, and relieve headaches and cough.

4
00:00:12,160 --> 00:00:14,599
And vitam and C is built into boost immune systems.

5
00:00:14,800 --> 00:00:17,440
So give cold and flu the old one two with

6
00:00:17,640 --> 00:00:20,719
uniflu available from local pharmacies. Always read the leaflet.

7
00:00:20,960 --> 00:00:21,679
Speaker 2: Pint of heinegan.

8
00:00:21,719 --> 00:00:25,000
Speaker 3: Please, that's the sound of someone who might be about

9
00:00:25,000 --> 00:00:28,039
to win two tickets to an invest ex Champions Cup games.

10
00:00:28,199 --> 00:00:30,399
Speaker 4: Sorry did you say two tickets?

11
00:00:31,399 --> 00:00:33,439
Speaker 3: Order a pint of heinegan and you get entered into

12
00:00:33,439 --> 00:00:36,280
a draw for two Champions Cup tickets with a guaranteed

13
00:00:36,280 --> 00:00:38,600
winner and two hundred pubs across Ireland.

14
00:00:39,039 --> 00:00:42,159
Speaker 5: If you win, I've got a spare jersey and absolutely

15
00:00:42,280 --> 00:00:43,119
no plants.

16
00:00:43,520 --> 00:00:47,600
Speaker 3: Oh okay, check kine against Instagram for participating pubs. Get

17
00:00:47,640 --> 00:00:51,119
the facts. Be drink aware, Visit Drinkaware, dot e tcencs apply.

18
00:00:52,000 --> 00:00:56,159
Speaker 4: With an ESB network smart meter. You're in control track

19
00:00:56,240 --> 00:00:59,359
your daily, weekly and monthly electricity usage so you can

20
00:00:59,439 --> 00:01:02,840
choose the right plan for your home. Smart measures help

21
00:01:02,880 --> 00:01:06,159
all of us make smarter energy choices so we can

22
00:01:06,200 --> 00:01:10,159
work together for Ireland's cleaner electric future. Sign up to

23
00:01:10,239 --> 00:01:13,760
a free ESB Network's online account today and see how

24
00:01:13,799 --> 00:01:18,920
your smart measure can work for you. ESB Networks energizing

25
00:01:19,000 --> 00:01:19,799
your everything.

26
00:01:22,159 --> 00:01:24,519
Speaker 6: All right, Johan Kers, Welcome to the Jay Burdens Show.

27
00:01:24,519 --> 00:01:25,200
How are you doing, man?

28
00:01:25,840 --> 00:01:27,359
Speaker 7: I'm good. Thank you so much for having me.

29
00:01:28,280 --> 00:01:29,879
Speaker 6: Yeah, I'm glad to have you on. This is our

30
00:01:29,959 --> 00:01:33,439
first face to face conversation, which obviously always makes things

31
00:01:33,439 --> 00:01:35,000
a little bit easier, and I'm really glad to have

32
00:01:35,040 --> 00:01:35,439
you here.

33
00:01:35,280 --> 00:01:37,359
Speaker 7: Man, definitely.

34
00:01:37,400 --> 00:01:37,560
Speaker 8: Yeah.

35
00:01:37,640 --> 00:01:41,120
Speaker 7: No more awkward me staring at you. You wondering who

36
00:01:41,120 --> 00:01:41,959
the elliot's talking to?

37
00:01:43,239 --> 00:01:44,799
Speaker 6: Well, OK, as someone who's on the other side of it,

38
00:01:44,840 --> 00:01:47,879
who was fully anonymized for a very long time, I

39
00:01:47,920 --> 00:01:50,959
one hundred percent get it. But the experience of talking

40
00:01:50,959 --> 00:01:53,480
to someone face to face, even by a camera, is

41
00:01:53,560 --> 00:01:57,840
so much easier than waiting for the soundbar to go flat.

42
00:01:58,079 --> 00:01:59,879
It just makes it much more natural. I can actually

43
00:02:00,200 --> 00:02:02,120
look at you and see if you're done talking, if

44
00:02:02,159 --> 00:02:05,319
you're waiting to finish. A thought point is this doesn't

45
00:02:05,319 --> 00:02:07,599
matter to my audience, but I am glad to be

46
00:02:07,680 --> 00:02:08,639
talking to you face to face.

47
00:02:09,599 --> 00:02:11,680
Speaker 7: No it's it's good for me too. And the funny

48
00:02:11,680 --> 00:02:13,479
thing is I can I can kind of relax as

49
00:02:13,479 --> 00:02:15,639
a bit cagy, like I'm showing my face, you know what,

50
00:02:15,840 --> 00:02:18,000
like what's gonna happen? What's the worst that could happen?

51
00:02:18,199 --> 00:02:22,199
And that announcement post for the book on Twitter for

52
00:02:22,400 --> 00:02:24,520
whatever reason, I mean, we have some very generous friends

53
00:02:24,560 --> 00:02:26,879
with like some retweets got a half a million views

54
00:02:27,240 --> 00:02:31,120
almost and immediately people from my former employer started following

55
00:02:31,120 --> 00:02:33,039
me and messaging me. So I was like, Okay, well,

56
00:02:33,400 --> 00:02:37,319
I'm completely unemployable now, as we'll go all the way

57
00:02:37,360 --> 00:02:40,199
in on the on the J. Burtons show, nothing to worry.

58
00:02:40,280 --> 00:02:42,599
Speaker 6: Well, I'd be as someone who recently went through that

59
00:02:42,879 --> 00:02:45,840
it was sort of freeing because you're waiting for the

60
00:02:45,840 --> 00:02:50,280
hammer to drop and you realize, oh wait, there really

61
00:02:50,400 --> 00:02:52,120
was no hammer at least in that way.

62
00:02:52,360 --> 00:02:52,479
Speaker 9: Right.

63
00:02:52,520 --> 00:02:54,319
Speaker 6: Okay, Sure, you might have a few people calling you

64
00:02:54,400 --> 00:02:56,319
gay and instead of doing it the normal way, they

65
00:02:56,759 --> 00:02:58,759
edit a photo of your face, but I kind of

66
00:02:58,800 --> 00:03:03,599
expected that, Yeah, really was I'm not surprised that it

67
00:03:03,639 --> 00:03:07,039
went well, but I'm glad. Nonetheless, so you were here

68
00:03:07,240 --> 00:03:09,960
not just to talk about your physical appearance, but to

69
00:03:09,960 --> 00:03:13,159
talk about a book you have written, you were generous

70
00:03:13,240 --> 00:03:15,879
enough to send me a review copy, and I really

71
00:03:15,960 --> 00:03:18,599
enjoyed it. I read a lot of books for this channel,

72
00:03:19,080 --> 00:03:22,840
a lot of books written by people with online followings

73
00:03:22,840 --> 00:03:26,039
to one degree or another, and I don't necessarily review

74
00:03:26,080 --> 00:03:29,000
all of them, because if you can't say something nice,

75
00:03:29,000 --> 00:03:31,439
don't say anything at all. As the aphorism goes, your

76
00:03:31,479 --> 00:03:33,680
book was very good. I enjoyed it quite a bit.

77
00:03:33,719 --> 00:03:36,120
I read it in one sort of mad cap sitting,

78
00:03:36,360 --> 00:03:38,319
and there were a lot of things that you mentioned

79
00:03:38,360 --> 00:03:41,960
there that were sorely needed if we're going to make

80
00:03:42,360 --> 00:03:45,960
this project, our project generational. So if you could, Johann,

81
00:03:45,960 --> 00:03:47,479
could you just introduce this book?

82
00:03:48,840 --> 00:03:51,199
Speaker 7: Sure? Yeah, Well the book has got a copy here.

83
00:03:51,319 --> 00:03:53,039
Why don't I show it now that my camera's on.

84
00:03:53,639 --> 00:03:56,520
The book is called there we Go. Yeah, called leaving

85
00:03:56,560 --> 00:04:01,479
a legacy, inheritance charity and thousand year Families. And the

86
00:04:01,560 --> 00:04:04,680
concept is, or at least was quite simple, which is

87
00:04:04,719 --> 00:04:10,080
that increasingly we're seeing various kinds of skepticism from the

88
00:04:10,159 --> 00:04:13,560
wealthy older generation about passing on their wealth. This takes

89
00:04:13,599 --> 00:04:15,919
various forms. Some of it is an entitlement spin that

90
00:04:16,000 --> 00:04:19,160
wealth down some of it is a growing notion that

91
00:04:19,399 --> 00:04:22,120
it's more morally right to give your wealth to charity

92
00:04:22,199 --> 00:04:24,959
rather than to your children, or that you know, giving

93
00:04:25,000 --> 00:04:27,360
wealth to your children just encourages them to be lazy

94
00:04:27,959 --> 00:04:31,480
and robs them of that kind of bootstraps experience. That

95
00:04:31,519 --> 00:04:35,680
the boomer is new and loved. And I thought that

96
00:04:35,720 --> 00:04:39,959
this was a difficult discussion that was worthy of an intervention,

97
00:04:40,240 --> 00:04:43,800
a book length treatment, because there are actually only certain things.

98
00:04:43,839 --> 00:04:46,959
There are certain things which can only be accomplished in

99
00:04:47,000 --> 00:04:53,040
the context of intergenerational collaboration, dynastic efforts, these great projects,

100
00:04:54,360 --> 00:04:56,480
you know, at the sort of maximum scale, this is

101
00:04:56,519 --> 00:04:58,560
the sort of cathedrals of this world. But at a

102
00:04:58,560 --> 00:05:02,519
smaller scale, it's meaningful communities that are built around families.

103
00:05:02,879 --> 00:05:06,120
It's families that are flourishing in multi dimensions and multiple

104
00:05:06,120 --> 00:05:09,000
dimensions of their lives, with you know, having the opportunity

105
00:05:09,000 --> 00:05:12,000
to have children of their own and so forth. And

106
00:05:12,040 --> 00:05:13,360
so I wrote this book, which is sort of a

107
00:05:13,360 --> 00:05:18,399
philosophical defense of inheritance, and it tackles all of these

108
00:05:18,439 --> 00:05:20,480
issues one by one. I thought it would be a

109
00:05:20,519 --> 00:05:22,480
simple book. Actually, it turns out that a lot of

110
00:05:22,480 --> 00:05:26,399
these concepts are far more either complex or misunderstood than

111
00:05:26,439 --> 00:05:29,680
they might appear. So it became necessary to define what

112
00:05:29,759 --> 00:05:34,240
is charity, what is philanthropy, what is meritocracy? What is nepotism?

113
00:05:34,399 --> 00:05:37,279
Like we throw these terms around and people base some

114
00:05:37,360 --> 00:05:40,759
of the most important decisions in their lives around them,

115
00:05:40,800 --> 00:05:44,160
only having the vague sense of what they mean when

116
00:05:44,240 --> 00:05:47,079
situated correctly. Where these terms come from, what they were

117
00:05:47,120 --> 00:05:50,879
intended to do, And so the book is anyway, it

118
00:05:50,920 --> 00:05:57,680
ties all of this together to try and make a compelling, persuasive, kind, approachable,

119
00:05:58,319 --> 00:06:05,040
intuitive argument to an older, non radicalized Christian sort of

120
00:06:05,040 --> 00:06:10,279
boomer patriarch the value of and a guide to building

121
00:06:10,319 --> 00:06:13,839
something dynastic within their own family, either a great wild

122
00:06:13,920 --> 00:06:16,879
or at audest wealth. But basically, I just wanted to

123
00:06:16,879 --> 00:06:20,199
make sure that our guys had the tools to defend

124
00:06:21,000 --> 00:06:24,279
their own position and to claim what I think is

125
00:06:24,360 --> 00:06:24,879
rightfully this.

126
00:06:27,199 --> 00:06:31,920
Speaker 6: So let's start with charity and philanthropy as an example

127
00:06:32,000 --> 00:06:36,240
from my family, not particularly close, but nonetheless someone in

128
00:06:36,279 --> 00:06:40,319
my immediate circle who is you know, aging, has no children,

129
00:06:41,079 --> 00:06:44,600
wealthy and has said I'm leaving it all to the

130
00:06:44,639 --> 00:06:48,360
animal shelter to charity when we're both gone. It all

131
00:06:48,439 --> 00:06:53,759
just disperses will be used for good works. So you

132
00:06:53,879 --> 00:06:58,360
pretty thoroughly, I guess, pull apart that idea. But let's

133
00:06:58,360 --> 00:07:02,319
start at the top, which quite what's wrong with that

134
00:07:02,360 --> 00:07:02,959
line of thinking?

135
00:07:05,000 --> 00:07:09,720
Speaker 7: So great question, I think a good provocation to even

136
00:07:09,759 --> 00:07:14,240
start this discussion is what is charity or what is philanthropy?

137
00:07:14,839 --> 00:07:16,959
You hear these terms, and I've you know, I've spoken

138
00:07:17,000 --> 00:07:18,680
to some in the course of researching this book and

139
00:07:18,759 --> 00:07:22,319
since its publication, I've spoken to some people that do

140
00:07:22,439 --> 00:07:27,120
control significant wealth, and you would think that these basic

141
00:07:27,279 --> 00:07:30,399
building blocks of reasoning were at least clear in their minds.

142
00:07:30,759 --> 00:07:33,000
But if you ask them to define charity in philanthropy

143
00:07:33,040 --> 00:07:35,720
and what's the difference, they're often in a loss like these.

144
00:07:35,839 --> 00:07:39,720
Our culture is really neglected nurturing clarity on these issues.

145
00:07:40,959 --> 00:07:46,519
But the history is very interesting. So charity and philanthropy

146
00:07:46,600 --> 00:07:48,639
is necessary to sort of define these things at a

147
00:07:48,639 --> 00:07:50,560
basic level to answer your question, which is, why is

148
00:07:50,560 --> 00:07:53,040
it wrong to leave your wealth to a dog shelter?

149
00:07:54,680 --> 00:07:57,079
Charity is a Christian virtue that's at least originally what

150
00:07:57,120 --> 00:08:00,600
it was. It doesn't mean giving things to people. Charity

151
00:08:00,920 --> 00:08:03,959
comes from the Latin catitas, which comes from the Biblical

152
00:08:03,959 --> 00:08:06,839
coin Greek agape, which is a sort of higher expression

153
00:08:06,879 --> 00:08:10,879
of personal love, and then it a sort of more

154
00:08:10,959 --> 00:08:14,879
rigorous Christian definition would be something like love for your God,

155
00:08:15,600 --> 00:08:17,800
and due to that love for your God, love for

156
00:08:17,839 --> 00:08:22,560
your fellow man, who is a reflection of the Creator.

157
00:08:22,600 --> 00:08:26,560
He's made in the likeness of his Creator. And following

158
00:08:26,600 --> 00:08:29,680
divine law, you should love your brother as well. And

159
00:08:29,720 --> 00:08:33,480
so in the sort of christendom, you know, the tradition

160
00:08:33,519 --> 00:08:36,639
that built the West with its beautiful cathedrals, and are

161
00:08:36,639 --> 00:08:40,279
really the entirety of our patrimony, our history, and everything

162
00:08:40,279 --> 00:08:43,320
we've accomplished. This is what charity was understood as, this

163
00:08:43,399 --> 00:08:47,799
theological virtue that finds a diversity of expressions, whether that

164
00:08:48,080 --> 00:08:51,399
is almsgiving, which is giving to the poor, whether that

165
00:08:51,600 --> 00:08:55,720
is liberality, which is a notion that when you're confronted

166
00:08:55,720 --> 00:08:59,200
with the situation that demands an outlay of wealth to

167
00:08:59,240 --> 00:09:02,960
achieve something important, you're willing to just part with the

168
00:09:03,039 --> 00:09:05,240
wealth because you understand that wealth is a tool to

169
00:09:05,279 --> 00:09:07,120
achieve things in the real world. It's not something to

170
00:09:07,159 --> 00:09:10,600
be hoarded in the abstract and a bank account. But

171
00:09:10,679 --> 00:09:15,120
also things like fraternal correction, really any form of desiring

172
00:09:15,279 --> 00:09:19,440
and acting on what is best for your fellow man.

173
00:09:20,240 --> 00:09:21,600
But the important thing is that all of them are

174
00:09:21,639 --> 00:09:24,399
grounded in love. And indeed, I would argue, as I

175
00:09:24,440 --> 00:09:27,159
do in the book, a sense of personal love that

176
00:09:27,240 --> 00:09:31,399
can only really emerge in personal encounters and personal relationships

177
00:09:31,399 --> 00:09:35,440
and communities and families and so forth. And you know,

178
00:09:35,600 --> 00:09:39,080
all of these ideas my ideas, and really are society's

179
00:09:39,080 --> 00:09:43,080
ideas about charity more generally, basically spring from a small

180
00:09:43,120 --> 00:09:47,320
number of Biblical passengers, arguably chief amongst them are the

181
00:09:47,360 --> 00:09:49,960
parable of the Good Samaritan, which is this very interesting

182
00:09:49,960 --> 00:09:53,879
and complex interaction which results in moral obligations to those

183
00:09:53,919 --> 00:09:59,559
present at the scene, regardless of their backgrounds. Philanthropy is

184
00:09:59,600 --> 00:10:02,960
something differ different. Philanthropy comes much later, and it's a

185
00:10:03,000 --> 00:10:10,519
distinct activity. Philanthropy is something that merges out of this

186
00:10:11,120 --> 00:10:15,399
confluence of events where you have this incredibly wealthy selection

187
00:10:15,440 --> 00:10:19,399
of men in the late nineteenth century, men like Rockefeller

188
00:10:19,639 --> 00:10:24,519
Andrew Carnegie, big industrial magnates and the richest men of

189
00:10:24,519 --> 00:10:28,279
their day, who, especially in the case of Carnegie, has

190
00:10:28,320 --> 00:10:32,039
this very very tenuous relationship with his faith. He attends

191
00:10:32,080 --> 00:10:36,120
church sometimes can't quite justify it, perhaps as a deist

192
00:10:36,519 --> 00:10:39,399
but is certainly fading and definitely doesn't live his life

193
00:10:40,200 --> 00:10:44,639
or conduct his charity according to theological principles. So he

194
00:10:45,080 --> 00:10:48,080
basically is one of the main initiators in this very

195
00:10:48,120 --> 00:10:52,600
famous text called the Gospel of Wealth, of creating this

196
00:10:52,600 --> 00:10:55,399
thing which is called philanthropy, which basically says, like, Okay,

197
00:10:55,440 --> 00:10:59,080
if I'm not going to follow Christian tradition of charity,

198
00:10:59,240 --> 00:11:05,240
which is rooted in particular communities, it's typically palliative, so

199
00:11:05,480 --> 00:11:08,080
it finds people who are suffering and finds ways to

200
00:11:08,120 --> 00:11:10,559
ease their pain and suffering. So it, you know, clothes

201
00:11:10,600 --> 00:11:14,600
the homeless, It feeds the hungry, It gives arms the poor,

202
00:11:14,679 --> 00:11:20,000
It increases the funding hospitals, local hospitals, hospices, you know

203
00:11:20,080 --> 00:11:23,480
these kind of things. He says, well, if I'm not

204
00:11:23,600 --> 00:11:28,279
bound by that entire moral framework, what can I deploy

205
00:11:28,879 --> 00:11:33,240
to maximize the use of this tremendous fortune. And he

206
00:11:33,279 --> 00:11:37,639
turns sort of to the post enlightenment principles science are

207
00:11:37,639 --> 00:11:42,080
the emerging sciences of sociology, psychology, really governance as we

208
00:11:42,120 --> 00:11:45,399
now understand it, And he says, and he condemns people

209
00:11:45,399 --> 00:11:47,559
that give to those who are close to them who

210
00:11:47,600 --> 00:11:52,639
haven't rigorously analyzed that giving in scientific ways, and he

211
00:11:52,679 --> 00:11:56,039
constructs this vision of philanthropy as distinct from charity, which

212
00:11:56,080 --> 00:12:02,240
is basically institutional. It's scientific bureau. It attempts to really

213
00:12:02,320 --> 00:12:06,840
alter the human condition fundamentally, to prevent the things that

214
00:12:06,840 --> 00:12:09,279
we would recognize as the consequences of a fallen world

215
00:12:09,360 --> 00:12:12,720
from ever occurring, so poverty, et cetera. To go to

216
00:12:12,759 --> 00:12:15,799
the source of these problems. The problem there is that

217
00:12:17,559 --> 00:12:20,559
what you're essentially discussing at that point is something It's

218
00:12:20,600 --> 00:12:23,000
a bit like governance, it's a bit like politics. It

219
00:12:23,080 --> 00:12:26,440
certainly has these kind of appearances and logic of macroeconomics.

220
00:12:26,879 --> 00:12:30,399
It's not really charity at all. It demands no personal connection,

221
00:12:30,679 --> 00:12:35,600
no love, and indeed it has all these useful characteristics

222
00:12:35,639 --> 00:12:39,200
like whoever undertakes this activity gets to accrue personal power

223
00:12:39,240 --> 00:12:42,399
to them, They get to lead powerful, well staffed institutions.

224
00:12:42,440 --> 00:12:45,000
They So this I think will be a familiar you know,

225
00:12:45,080 --> 00:12:48,600
you can see where I'm going. Anyway, The fundamental point

226
00:12:48,639 --> 00:12:50,759
is this, and in the second chapter I look at

227
00:12:50,759 --> 00:12:53,679
how disaster some of this is, but perhaps I won't

228
00:12:53,679 --> 00:12:57,639
cover whole chapters at a time. The point essentially is this,

229
00:12:58,120 --> 00:13:00,480
if you're a Christian, and you think that it is

230
00:13:00,559 --> 00:13:04,480
moral incumbent on you to give to a quote unquote

231
00:13:04,519 --> 00:13:10,399
charity so called because of your Christian moral obligations. Giving

232
00:13:10,399 --> 00:13:12,960
to a dog charity after your death does not meaningfully

233
00:13:13,000 --> 00:13:16,879
satisfy that. It certainly wouldn't in a patristic sense according

234
00:13:16,919 --> 00:13:21,279
to the Church Fathers. Sambasil says that wealth given after

235
00:13:21,360 --> 00:13:24,519
death is not charity because you're not releasing money, you're

236
00:13:24,559 --> 00:13:28,000
not sacrificing. You don't know you know the consequences of that.

237
00:13:28,279 --> 00:13:30,799
Speaker 10: There's so much rugby on Sports Extra from Sky they've

238
00:13:30,840 --> 00:13:32,279
asked me to read the whole add at the same

239
00:13:32,320 --> 00:13:34,399
speed I usually use for the legal bit at the end,

240
00:13:34,480 --> 00:13:37,600
here goes this Winter Sports Extra is jampackwards rugby for

241
00:13:37,600 --> 00:13:39,600
the first time we've bet every champion's got much exclusively

242
00:13:39,600 --> 00:13:41,559
live but was actually from the URC, the Challenge Cup

243
00:13:41,559 --> 00:13:43,000
and much more. Does the URC and all the best

244
00:13:43,039 --> 00:13:44,720
European will be all on the same place, get more

245
00:13:44,759 --> 00:13:47,000
exclusively live tournaments than ever before on Sports Extra.

246
00:13:47,159 --> 00:13:48,039
Speaker 11: Jamp back with rugby.

247
00:13:48,240 --> 00:13:50,279
Speaker 3: Phew, that is a lot of rugby.

248
00:13:50,600 --> 00:13:52,720
Speaker 10: Get Sports Extra on Sky for fifteen euro of a

249
00:13:52,759 --> 00:13:55,879
month for twelve months. Search sports extra new sports, extra

250
00:13:55,919 --> 00:13:57,840
customers only stand Persing applies after twelve months for the

251
00:13:57,919 --> 00:13:58,759
terms apply or the.

252
00:13:58,879 --> 00:14:05,159
Speaker 2: Twelve days of Christmas euros far had for me twelve

253
00:14:05,200 --> 00:14:06,919
Christmas buildings, eleven.

254
00:14:06,559 --> 00:14:10,200
Speaker 9: Cakes are baking, ten salmon smoking, nine Christmas.

255
00:14:09,759 --> 00:14:14,519
Speaker 12: Crackers, eight lovely Jesus, eleven sheets of wrappings, six stocking failers.

256
00:14:14,159 --> 00:14:20,840
Speaker 9: Five miss spies for Christmas, case, three Brussels rouse, two

257
00:14:20,879 --> 00:14:24,879
turkey legs, and Christmas Made super Easy.

258
00:14:25,559 --> 00:14:27,639
Speaker 5: You'll spy, You're super easy.

259
00:14:27,679 --> 00:14:31,080
Speaker 7: Supermarket death is releasing your riches. You're just sort of

260
00:14:31,120 --> 00:14:34,759
like directing them with one last gasp and then releasing

261
00:14:34,759 --> 00:14:37,399
them out into the world. So whatever you're doing, it's

262
00:14:37,399 --> 00:14:43,159
an entirely new thing. Now, what I argue in the

263
00:14:43,200 --> 00:14:44,960
book is, and I you know, it might be a

264
00:14:45,000 --> 00:14:46,320
bit of a leap to go straight to the end

265
00:14:46,360 --> 00:14:48,360
of that conclusion, but I sort of look at this

266
00:14:48,399 --> 00:14:51,279
from various angles. When you unte the money and you

267
00:14:51,320 --> 00:14:54,440
send it off into the world untethered from a family

268
00:14:54,759 --> 00:14:57,720
with a mission that's been inculcated with virtue and a

269
00:14:57,759 --> 00:15:01,000
sense of gymnastic purpose, the effects of that are very,

270
00:15:01,120 --> 00:15:05,720
very negative for society as a whole, but especially I mean,

271
00:15:05,720 --> 00:15:08,039
frankly I mean to just cut to the chase. When

272
00:15:08,080 --> 00:15:10,320
you have a civilization which is in the state that

273
00:15:10,360 --> 00:15:12,559
ours are now in, right with our guys struggling to

274
00:15:13,279 --> 00:15:18,200
form families, struggling to form relationship, struggling to buy land

275
00:15:18,240 --> 00:15:21,399
that lews them to get on the property ladder, you know,

276
00:15:21,519 --> 00:15:25,919
dying deaths of despair. There simply are people in all

277
00:15:26,000 --> 00:15:29,440
of our lives whose lives could be improved immeasurably, like

278
00:15:29,480 --> 00:15:32,840
the basic facets of their dignity, by the right intervention

279
00:15:33,000 --> 00:15:35,080
by someone who is prepared to go to them, to

280
00:15:35,159 --> 00:15:39,360
deeply understand their problem, to love them right, to enact

281
00:15:39,360 --> 00:15:43,840
this charity, and to invest in them to improve that situation.

282
00:15:44,000 --> 00:15:47,200
Like I think that that our civilization very clearly needs

283
00:15:47,200 --> 00:15:51,759
that right now. So these like confused, self indulgent moral

284
00:15:51,840 --> 00:15:55,559
loss stands by people that are not willing to embed

285
00:15:55,639 --> 00:15:57,879
themselves in the lives of the needy, whether these are

286
00:15:57,919 --> 00:16:00,960
the local poor or family members or anyone else, and

287
00:16:01,159 --> 00:16:05,240
grapple with the complexity there. I just don't think that's

288
00:16:05,240 --> 00:16:08,200
a morally just what defensible act.

289
00:16:08,759 --> 00:16:11,879
Speaker 6: Several things there. One It reminds me very much of

290
00:16:12,320 --> 00:16:16,440
the the the kind of early you know, moral problem

291
00:16:16,799 --> 00:16:19,639
you hear repeated in The Church Fathers, which the idea

292
00:16:19,679 --> 00:16:23,200
of should you sell your children into slavery to feed

293
00:16:23,240 --> 00:16:26,720
the poor? And the counter that is, obviously no, you

294
00:16:26,759 --> 00:16:29,840
should not. You were giving something that is not yours away,

295
00:16:30,159 --> 00:16:33,279
right you were? You were you were selling someone else short,

296
00:16:33,320 --> 00:16:38,080
I guess literally in this case, so violating your primary

297
00:16:38,120 --> 00:16:42,000
obligations those close around you for the benefit of sort

298
00:16:42,000 --> 00:16:46,960
of aggregate humanity. It's the sort of Benthamite idea of

299
00:16:47,039 --> 00:16:52,200
kind of maximizing utils, you know, maximizing the scientifically derived

300
00:16:52,279 --> 00:16:56,759
amount of human flourishing. I'm using that term somewhat ironically right,

301
00:16:56,879 --> 00:17:00,200
kind of poking fun at Harris. But nonetheless it is

302
00:17:00,240 --> 00:17:04,119
sort of an interesting deferral of responsibility. And that's a

303
00:17:04,160 --> 00:17:08,640
point that you make that you are effectively accruing the

304
00:17:08,680 --> 00:17:13,039
benefits of charity without the hard work or the responsibility,

305
00:17:13,480 --> 00:17:16,640
while also, as you've said, you know, leaving a certain

306
00:17:16,680 --> 00:17:20,480
moral obligation. I think that the example you go into

307
00:17:20,559 --> 00:17:23,400
examining the Ford Foundation, which is something that will be

308
00:17:23,440 --> 00:17:26,440
familiar to I hope all my listeners, is sort of

309
00:17:26,680 --> 00:17:29,920
a primary example of that of one, you know, this

310
00:17:31,319 --> 00:17:35,119
sensibly very successful version of philanthropy, one of the richest

311
00:17:35,160 --> 00:17:37,559
men in the world, you know, creating this sort of

312
00:17:37,559 --> 00:17:41,400
eternal pot of money to do good, and not only

313
00:17:41,440 --> 00:17:44,759
does know he and his progeny lose control of it,

314
00:17:44,799 --> 00:17:47,039
which is very important, right, it sort of becomes part

315
00:17:47,119 --> 00:17:51,720
of the managerial regime and used for and directly opposed

316
00:17:51,759 --> 00:17:55,119
to those for which it was set up. But also

317
00:17:55,599 --> 00:17:58,279
so I mean, looking at it that way, even if

318
00:17:58,519 --> 00:18:01,839
that sort of posthumous don't even if that hands off

319
00:18:01,920 --> 00:18:05,880
charity is maximally successful if you were able to start

320
00:18:05,880 --> 00:18:10,920
your own foundation, I think it's important to acknowledge the

321
00:18:11,000 --> 00:18:13,480
fact that even if you were able to do that,

322
00:18:15,200 --> 00:18:17,200
it does not accomplish the sort of good you would

323
00:18:17,240 --> 00:18:19,839
want it to. You ultimately lose the authority over it,

324
00:18:19,880 --> 00:18:23,519
and someone else will be making those decisions. And particularly

325
00:18:23,599 --> 00:18:27,400
if you are religious, if you are in some ways

326
00:18:27,400 --> 00:18:31,319
a dissident, you must understand that the managers selected on

327
00:18:31,440 --> 00:18:34,559
the open market will not share your values. They will

328
00:18:34,599 --> 00:18:37,839
take that elsewhere. We see that already in charities, right,

329
00:18:37,880 --> 00:18:41,279
the meme of Catholic charities in the EUS, which are

330
00:18:41,279 --> 00:18:44,960
ostensibly Catholic organizations headed up by people who do not

331
00:18:45,079 --> 00:18:50,400
seem to be Catholic, you know, based on it either

332
00:18:50,440 --> 00:18:53,079
their heritage or their actions, and you can see that

333
00:18:53,160 --> 00:18:55,839
what may have been started with noble intentions has been

334
00:18:55,920 --> 00:19:01,160
perverted to completely different ends. You mentioned you actually quote

335
00:19:01,200 --> 00:19:04,519
from Calvin right to support this, but there's a piece

336
00:19:04,920 --> 00:19:06,599
your own writing. I would have quote sa that it

337
00:19:06,599 --> 00:19:09,519
was quite well stated. We cannot truly love who we

338
00:19:09,559 --> 00:19:11,559
do not know, who we do not see, and who

339
00:19:11,599 --> 00:19:15,880
we do not understand. Can you explore the relationship between

340
00:19:16,720 --> 00:19:22,400
knowing and sort of performing charity? Why does that kind

341
00:19:22,400 --> 00:19:26,200
of heat map meme matter with regards to charity. I

342
00:19:26,279 --> 00:19:28,079
know you've mentioned that for many of us there are

343
00:19:28,079 --> 00:19:31,880
people immediately in our lives who need charity. But wouldn't

344
00:19:31,920 --> 00:19:34,079
the counter argument be, well, what does it matter if

345
00:19:34,119 --> 00:19:36,960
it's this drug addict I know or some drug addict

346
00:19:37,039 --> 00:19:39,519
somewhere in the world. Clearly I can just give my

347
00:19:39,599 --> 00:19:43,480
money and accomplish the same net amount of good.

348
00:19:44,640 --> 00:19:48,720
Speaker 7: Yeah, it's a good question. I think there's two ways

349
00:19:48,799 --> 00:19:51,200
to approach this. One is a practical sense, and then

350
00:19:51,359 --> 00:19:54,599
another is a sort of more metaphysical sense. I'll start

351
00:19:54,599 --> 00:19:57,480
with the metaphysical sense because I think probably people will

352
00:19:57,759 --> 00:20:01,640
intuitively understand what I'm trying to communicate, and then I

353
00:20:01,680 --> 00:20:06,720
can move to the practical in the metaphysical sense. The

354
00:20:06,759 --> 00:20:09,839
problem with what's called telescopic charity, which is this notion

355
00:20:10,039 --> 00:20:13,400
that you know you're called to love every man in

356
00:20:13,440 --> 00:20:16,519
the world, but no man in particular, right just identify

357
00:20:16,599 --> 00:20:20,559
the however far off, however distant, some kind of mathematical

358
00:20:20,599 --> 00:20:24,279
abstraction of the most efficient use of your money, your

359
00:20:24,359 --> 00:20:29,440
charitable dollars. The problem is is that very very often,

360
00:20:29,559 --> 00:20:34,079
I think subconsciously that is chosen as a trade off

361
00:20:34,119 --> 00:20:36,279
is made, which in my mind is an unacceptable one.

362
00:20:38,039 --> 00:20:41,359
The trade off is this, On the one hand, I

363
00:20:41,640 --> 00:20:46,559
concede that I will not personally understand what my money

364
00:20:46,599 --> 00:20:50,279
is doing very well. For example, even if I'm given

365
00:20:50,359 --> 00:20:54,799
something like them. The best effective altruist case, it's buying

366
00:20:55,079 --> 00:20:57,839
mosquito nets are the most efficient price to be deployed

367
00:20:57,880 --> 00:21:03,119
in Kenya, which is like mathematically proven, save the most

368
00:21:03,200 --> 00:21:07,960
number of lives. I still understand nothing about the community

369
00:21:08,000 --> 00:21:10,279
that those nets are going into. I don't know what's

370
00:21:10,279 --> 00:21:12,640
going to happen to those children. I don't know why

371
00:21:12,640 --> 00:21:16,359
that community can't produce something as inexpensive as mosquito nets.

372
00:21:16,799 --> 00:21:19,359
I don't know ultimately whether this will lead to a

373
00:21:19,400 --> 00:21:21,839
virtuous outcome, because I don't know anything about the trajectory

374
00:21:21,920 --> 00:21:26,039
of that society, Like am I accelerating a trend in

375
00:21:26,079 --> 00:21:29,000
which more and more mouths to feed are being born

376
00:21:29,079 --> 00:21:32,759
every year due to this ill informed money pumping into

377
00:21:32,759 --> 00:21:35,720
the system. Is their corruption in the area, like the

378
00:21:35,759 --> 00:21:37,799
list goes on basically because I've never been there, because

379
00:21:37,839 --> 00:21:40,839
I understand nothing about the society, the cause of the problems,

380
00:21:41,240 --> 00:21:44,279
the long term solutions, how multi layered those solutions have

381
00:21:44,359 --> 00:21:47,240
to be. Who are good actors, who are bad actors,

382
00:21:47,559 --> 00:21:49,319
How we came to be at this place. I understand

383
00:21:49,359 --> 00:21:52,519
nothing about it. So the trade off is something like

384
00:21:53,799 --> 00:21:55,880
I can see that I'm not going to understand any

385
00:21:55,920 --> 00:22:00,680
of this. On the other hand, what I gain is ease.

386
00:22:01,400 --> 00:22:03,400
It's just a bank transfer, right, I can go on

387
00:22:03,720 --> 00:22:06,799
whatever effective altruist listing website.

388
00:22:06,839 --> 00:22:09,039
Speaker 6: But steeling in the position, you could also make the

389
00:22:09,160 --> 00:22:12,680
argument for economies of scale, it is simply more efficient

390
00:22:13,720 --> 00:22:16,039
division of labor. Simply it is more efficient to have

391
00:22:16,839 --> 00:22:20,240
someone whose whole job is charity then to have me

392
00:22:20,359 --> 00:22:23,240
be a act as a part time philanthropist.

393
00:22:23,400 --> 00:22:28,480
Speaker 7: Sorry that yeah, But the counterpoint to that argument of

394
00:22:28,559 --> 00:22:34,880
scale is institutions which are supposed to change people's lives

395
00:22:34,920 --> 00:22:37,599
for the better. As they scale up, as they become

396
00:22:37,680 --> 00:22:42,519
more bureaucratized and abstract and separated from particular or lived communities,

397
00:22:43,240 --> 00:22:46,599
become more and more crude instruments for improving people's lives.

398
00:22:47,119 --> 00:22:49,480
The Gates Foundation, for example, throws around a huge amount

399
00:22:49,480 --> 00:22:51,160
of money and lots of different domains, but if you

400
00:22:51,160 --> 00:22:53,680
actually dig into the actual effects in those domains even more,

401
00:22:53,720 --> 00:22:55,400
on the surface it would appear to someone like you

402
00:22:55,480 --> 00:22:57,359
or me to be like a defensible line of effort.

403
00:22:58,079 --> 00:23:00,440
It's pretty questionable how well it's doing compare to local

404
00:23:00,519 --> 00:23:03,279
charities on the ground, local government, the natural trend of

405
00:23:03,519 --> 00:23:07,880
scientific development, and so forth. And then if you look

406
00:23:07,880 --> 00:23:10,799
at somewhere like New York, there's this crazy statistic that

407
00:23:10,960 --> 00:23:14,720
north of twenty percent of private workers and New York

408
00:23:14,759 --> 00:23:17,559
are now employed by nonprofits. But it's just like transparently

409
00:23:17,599 --> 00:23:20,319
not making New York a better place, because it's just

410
00:23:20,359 --> 00:23:25,119
like money and organizations, bureaucracies, different legal entities thrashing around

411
00:23:25,119 --> 00:23:30,240
a system without any kind of personal moral structure or obligations.

412
00:23:31,039 --> 00:23:34,440
So that's the kind of like argument against telescopic charity.

413
00:23:34,839 --> 00:23:37,319
It's like, well, that's the argument for telescopic charity. It's

414
00:23:37,359 --> 00:23:40,079
convenient although you acknowledge that you're making something of a

415
00:23:40,119 --> 00:23:44,960
trade off. The problem is is that like people delude

416
00:23:45,000 --> 00:23:47,079
themselves as to the nature of the trade off they're making.

417
00:23:48,359 --> 00:23:52,799
What they're actually doing is they're avoiding the difficult, tedious,

418
00:23:53,200 --> 00:24:00,400
sometimes risky, often painful, often quite boring act of like

419
00:24:01,319 --> 00:24:04,480
meeting the people who are struggling in your own life

420
00:24:04,480 --> 00:24:07,880
and community, in your family and going through the deep

421
00:24:08,160 --> 00:24:11,359
like process of understanding them deeply what's you know, how

422
00:24:11,359 --> 00:24:15,200
can I actually help you? And that's uncomfortable, Like that's

423
00:24:15,240 --> 00:24:19,400
a huge investment that transcends, you know, bank transfer to

424
00:24:19,880 --> 00:24:24,319
Oxfam or whatever, and people just use the excuse of

425
00:24:24,319 --> 00:24:27,240
these people in Africa are like objectively more needy as

426
00:24:27,279 --> 00:24:29,680
a kind of like consolation for themselves, and they're like

427
00:24:30,079 --> 00:24:33,839
sub conscious that that ares of them, that they're not

428
00:24:33,880 --> 00:24:36,240
really being nice people to the people who really depend

429
00:24:36,279 --> 00:24:38,519
on them, the people who they you have a unique bond.

430
00:24:38,960 --> 00:24:42,680
And I would argue metaphysical responsibility too, but it's really

431
00:24:42,720 --> 00:24:46,079
only that latter form, these like deep investments and bonds

432
00:24:46,079 --> 00:24:49,640
of understanding, they can really produce transformative change. And I

433
00:24:49,640 --> 00:24:53,720
think that's that's true growth in the charitable sector. There's

434
00:24:53,720 --> 00:24:56,480
a very good book called Toxic Charity by this ve

435
00:24:57,079 --> 00:25:00,799
veteran charity industry leader, Robert Loupton, who looks at all

436
00:25:00,799 --> 00:25:03,680
these different projects and basically says, like a lot of

437
00:25:03,680 --> 00:25:07,359
these charities have been coasting for decades based on the

438
00:25:07,400 --> 00:25:09,759
presumption that they must be doing good because they have

439
00:25:09,759 --> 00:25:12,240
a noble mission and a lot of funding, and they

440
00:25:12,400 --> 00:25:15,400
like are active in areas with a lot of need

441
00:25:15,440 --> 00:25:17,799
in them. But if you actually look at their effects,

442
00:25:17,880 --> 00:25:23,640
they basically just generate massive dependencies on structures that actors,

443
00:25:23,759 --> 00:25:26,160
like handout institutions. They just create a whole class of

444
00:25:26,200 --> 00:25:30,400
dependence and prevent anyone from engaging in like transformative change

445
00:25:30,440 --> 00:25:33,880
or industry within the communities. On the other hand, like

446
00:25:34,680 --> 00:25:38,680
if you think about how really transformative effects on society

447
00:25:38,759 --> 00:25:43,319
or families are actually achieved, it's a sustained multilateral effort

448
00:25:43,359 --> 00:25:49,160
that leverages relationships, love, care resources. But also like you know,

449
00:25:49,319 --> 00:25:52,839
it's people facilitating introductions, it's people checking in on people.

450
00:25:53,359 --> 00:25:55,960
Even though something is like abstractors as venture capsule, which

451
00:25:56,000 --> 00:25:57,319
is the thing I talk about in the book, like

452
00:25:57,359 --> 00:26:01,079
top VC firms are incredibly involved are you know, in

453
00:26:01,440 --> 00:26:04,920
getting their team on the boards of companies, making sure

454
00:26:04,920 --> 00:26:07,880
that the companies are receiving the right advice, guidance, connections,

455
00:26:07,920 --> 00:26:10,359
facilitations as well as funding. It's not just like a

456
00:26:11,039 --> 00:26:12,880
he's a check, I never want to hear from you again.

457
00:26:13,039 --> 00:26:14,240
I know you're going to go off and do good

458
00:26:14,240 --> 00:26:16,799
things with it. Goodbye. That's just not how the world

459
00:26:16,960 --> 00:26:20,000
of actual effects work. So there's this whole fake industry

460
00:26:20,480 --> 00:26:23,279
which has grown up around accepting people's checks to make

461
00:26:23,319 --> 00:26:25,640
them feel good, and its effects on the world, like

462
00:26:25,799 --> 00:26:27,960
the best, deeply questionable, and in the case of something

463
00:26:28,000 --> 00:26:30,039
like the Ford Foundation, it's just complete chaos.

464
00:26:30,880 --> 00:26:34,039
Speaker 8: Ready to switch your play. Live Score Vegas is your

465
00:26:34,119 --> 00:26:38,079
go to destination. Explore a huge selection of top tier

466
00:26:38,119 --> 00:26:41,519
slots and live casino games, and for new players, there's

467
00:26:41,559 --> 00:26:45,039
a special welcome play ten euros on slots and unlock

468
00:26:45,160 --> 00:26:49,160
three hundred free spins on Big Bass Bonanza. Step straight

469
00:26:49,200 --> 00:26:53,200
into the action and search Live Score Vegas today. New

470
00:26:53,240 --> 00:26:55,400
customers only wager in seven days of sign up ten

471
00:26:55,440 --> 00:26:58,720
cent spin value, tcenc's and deposit exclusions apply. Eighteen plus

472
00:26:58,759 --> 00:27:02,000
debt responsibly gambling doe at Central.

473
00:27:02,039 --> 00:27:04,559
Speaker 12: We've got amazing Santa Savors from now until the Big

474
00:27:04,599 --> 00:27:07,319
Mamma arrives like Coca Cola zero and die Coke twelve

475
00:27:07,359 --> 00:27:10,640
Compact six you're a weach plus deposit selected O'donnald's Chris

476
00:27:10,759 --> 00:27:13,440
Sharing bags. Two you're a weech and oyster based seven

477
00:27:13,599 --> 00:27:17,359
Blanc ten year oh stuck up at CenTra this Christmas CenTra,

478
00:27:17,720 --> 00:27:20,319
live every day, enjoyl call sensibly.

479
00:27:21,680 --> 00:27:24,960
Speaker 6: But one of the other, shall we say oft repeated ideas,

480
00:27:25,200 --> 00:27:27,599
is the fact that you know, even if it's not

481
00:27:27,799 --> 00:27:29,960
directly towards charity, it's the idea that I will spin

482
00:27:30,119 --> 00:27:33,200
down my wealth before I die, I will die with nothing.

483
00:27:33,519 --> 00:27:37,680
You mentioned Bill perkins book Die with Zero, and in

484
00:27:38,119 --> 00:27:42,039
the section of the book you surmise the three basic claims.

485
00:27:42,279 --> 00:27:44,960
So I'll quote you from your own writing, and then

486
00:27:45,000 --> 00:27:46,799
I'll let you respond to that claim.

487
00:27:46,839 --> 00:27:47,160
Speaker 13: One.

488
00:27:47,519 --> 00:27:50,920
Speaker 6: One's hard earned wealth is your own to spend. Two,

489
00:27:51,279 --> 00:27:53,680
the pursuit of pleasure is a legitimate way to spend it.

490
00:27:53,799 --> 00:27:56,759
And three this is an entirely reasonable way to spend

491
00:27:56,799 --> 00:28:00,480
your older years. So given those three claims, what is

492
00:28:00,519 --> 00:28:04,200
your response? Why should you not simply spend all your

493
00:28:04,240 --> 00:28:07,440
wealth down and let your children claw their way up

494
00:28:07,559 --> 00:28:08,240
the way you did.

495
00:28:10,039 --> 00:28:14,200
Speaker 7: It's a good question. Forgive me for answering the first

496
00:28:14,200 --> 00:28:17,039
point theologically, but I think even if you're not Christian like,

497
00:28:17,200 --> 00:28:19,440
you'll follow the moral logic and be able to transpose

498
00:28:19,480 --> 00:28:23,240
it onto whatever your own system of belief is. The

499
00:28:23,319 --> 00:28:28,640
session that what we have earned is ours is one

500
00:28:28,680 --> 00:28:33,039
that has to be approached seriously but also carefully from

501
00:28:33,039 --> 00:28:35,680
a Christian perspective. On the one hand, there is a

502
00:28:35,759 --> 00:28:39,519
very strong theology and tradition of private property in Christianity,

503
00:28:40,119 --> 00:28:42,119
one of the reasons the Catholic Church came out incredibly

504
00:28:42,160 --> 00:28:45,240
strongly against communism. If you read an in typlical like

505
00:28:46,240 --> 00:28:50,480
rerem enviroum, it becomes obvious why that is. On the

506
00:28:50,480 --> 00:28:55,119
other hand, there is a tendency in the opposite direction,

507
00:28:56,160 --> 00:28:59,720
which is very much a sort of recent post Enlightenment

508
00:29:00,400 --> 00:29:03,519
Western idea, which is this notion of it's a it's

509
00:29:03,559 --> 00:29:07,119
a kind of maximalist notion of private property, which says

510
00:29:07,160 --> 00:29:10,559
something like that which I own, I alone own, and

511
00:29:10,599 --> 00:29:14,160
I have there are no natural duties which attached to

512
00:29:14,200 --> 00:29:17,480
that property or my stewardship my ownership of it. So

513
00:29:17,559 --> 00:29:20,759
it's something like property means that which I control and

514
00:29:20,799 --> 00:29:23,960
that worth which I can do whatever I want, and

515
00:29:25,000 --> 00:29:28,920
there's a there's sort of no moral obligation inherent to

516
00:29:28,960 --> 00:29:31,519
the fact that I've become wealthy or powerful through control

517
00:29:31,559 --> 00:29:35,640
of this asset. That is, that would be an alien

518
00:29:35,759 --> 00:29:41,039
concept to basically the Christians of high Christendom. There's something

519
00:29:41,079 --> 00:29:43,720
that is now sort of called the dominion mandate, which

520
00:29:43,759 --> 00:29:47,000
I think is a reasonable term. It's this notion that

521
00:29:47,960 --> 00:29:52,000
the sort of cut further back in time than our

522
00:29:52,640 --> 00:29:55,440
sort of post John Locke conception of and it might

523
00:29:55,480 --> 00:29:58,559
even be like a like a parody almost that we've

524
00:29:58,599 --> 00:30:03,400
inherited of John Locke's more subtle thought. But before that,

525
00:30:03,480 --> 00:30:05,920
if you go back to like what is property, there's

526
00:30:05,960 --> 00:30:10,519
this very intimate relationship between an asset and stewardship of it,

527
00:30:11,119 --> 00:30:14,359
and that really is is built of the recognition that

528
00:30:14,440 --> 00:30:17,359
everything we have. It is true that we have mixed

529
00:30:17,359 --> 00:30:20,319
our labor with the wonderful natural resources of the world

530
00:30:20,799 --> 00:30:23,640
and have created something that we can rightfully call ours.

531
00:30:24,000 --> 00:30:25,920
But at the same time it has to be recognized

532
00:30:25,960 --> 00:30:29,440
that even our labor and the world as natural resources

533
00:30:29,519 --> 00:30:32,759
are in some sense of gift. Existence itself is a

534
00:30:32,799 --> 00:30:36,720
gift right, So did we create our particular talents. Do

535
00:30:36,799 --> 00:30:39,640
we create our geniuses? Do we create the men who

536
00:30:39,640 --> 00:30:41,960
we have to collaborate with to be productive, the men

537
00:30:42,039 --> 00:30:45,079
we learn from our fathers? Did we create the systems

538
00:30:45,079 --> 00:30:47,240
that we were brought into? And the world? I mean

539
00:30:47,240 --> 00:30:50,440
the world itself. There's a wonderful passage from Montaigne, you know,

540
00:30:50,519 --> 00:30:54,400
do we create you know, the horror moving vaults of

541
00:30:54,440 --> 00:30:57,799
the heavens and so forth. It's the point is that

542
00:30:57,839 --> 00:31:01,599
we have to approach like great wealth with a perspective

543
00:31:01,599 --> 00:31:06,839
of stewardship rather than sort of flippancy. Like it's a

544
00:31:06,880 --> 00:31:10,680
position of humility that even the wealthy and powerful must

545
00:31:10,680 --> 00:31:14,319
have to the world. And there's this there's there's a

546
00:31:14,400 --> 00:31:16,519
very good sort of Christian tradition there, and I think

547
00:31:16,559 --> 00:31:22,839
there's a lot of interesting argumentation to pull from. So

548
00:31:22,839 --> 00:31:24,799
so that's that's the kind of starting point, which is

549
00:31:24,799 --> 00:31:27,599
that like, yes, you are the rightful steward of these assets.

550
00:31:27,680 --> 00:31:31,440
The key word they're being steward, Like this is something

551
00:31:31,480 --> 00:31:33,920
that you must nurture and nourish as part of the

552
00:31:33,920 --> 00:31:37,480
gratitude for the privilege of living this life of wealth

553
00:31:37,480 --> 00:31:44,039
and power. The second point is what was it like pleasure?

554
00:31:44,119 --> 00:31:45,720
Is it remind me of my own writing.

555
00:31:45,480 --> 00:31:49,839
Speaker 6: Here the pursuit of pleasure is a legitimate way to

556
00:31:49,880 --> 00:31:50,720
spend your wealth.

557
00:31:52,400 --> 00:31:55,920
Speaker 7: Yeah, So what I look at in the book is,

558
00:31:56,039 --> 00:31:58,240
again there's there's a kind of reasonable position in a

559
00:31:58,279 --> 00:32:02,200
maximalist position, which I think is to the reasonable position

560
00:32:02,240 --> 00:32:06,759
would be something like part of glorifying God and enjoying

561
00:32:06,759 --> 00:32:09,519
the gifts he has given us, is enjoying life, is

562
00:32:09,559 --> 00:32:13,720
appreciating beautiful things, is building beautiful things, commissioning beautiful things,

563
00:32:14,079 --> 00:32:18,839
treating people to beautiful things. It's a life of our appreciation.

564
00:32:19,079 --> 00:32:21,880
It's a life of richness, it's a life of beauty.

565
00:32:22,000 --> 00:32:25,160
This is all true. On the other hand, the nihilistic

566
00:32:25,160 --> 00:32:29,359
extreme version of this is something like hedonism, whereby one's

567
00:32:29,480 --> 00:32:31,920
entire life and life plans are sort of oriented to

568
00:32:32,000 --> 00:32:35,319
this kind of question of how do I derive maximal

569
00:32:35,400 --> 00:32:40,880
pleasure from rearranging reality around me? The problem there, and

570
00:32:41,000 --> 00:32:43,720
I look at the work of Robert Nozick, who is

571
00:32:43,720 --> 00:32:48,200
an influential twentieth century philosopher on hedonism, and makes this

572
00:32:48,279 --> 00:32:50,920
compelling case, which again is it's a secular argument, but

573
00:32:50,960 --> 00:32:55,680
I think it aligns fine with a Christian tradition. The

574
00:32:55,759 --> 00:32:59,960
question of why Nosa gives this example of an experience machine,

575
00:33:00,000 --> 00:33:03,000
which is like, you can create any experience you want.

576
00:33:03,079 --> 00:33:06,000
It can be the most pleasurable thing to you. And like, frankly,

577
00:33:06,200 --> 00:33:09,200
like I think in the age of the computer, we

578
00:33:09,599 --> 00:33:12,640
can all kind of the experience machine has really come

579
00:33:12,680 --> 00:33:16,160
to life. Why is that wrong? If that's giving you pleasure,

580
00:33:16,200 --> 00:33:20,039
if you're enjoying it. And the answer is something like yes,

581
00:33:20,400 --> 00:33:25,640
there is moral import attached to the world of experience

582
00:33:26,920 --> 00:33:31,440
and pleasure, even aesthetics. But equally there is moral import

583
00:33:31,519 --> 00:33:33,960
attached to the world of being and this question of

584
00:33:34,279 --> 00:33:37,319
what are you? You know, what have you become? And

585
00:33:37,400 --> 00:33:43,119
any moral system in which someone that is just despicable,

586
00:33:43,680 --> 00:33:49,799
that is ugly disgusting, corrupted, feted can participate as fully

587
00:33:50,039 --> 00:33:54,799
as a sort of stalwart good man is one that

588
00:33:54,880 --> 00:33:58,720
is clearly morally bankrupt. And so the problem with adopting

589
00:33:58,720 --> 00:34:01,599
this fully headonous position is that it's sort of like

590
00:34:02,160 --> 00:34:03,880
it implicates you your being.

591
00:34:03,920 --> 00:34:04,359
Speaker 6: What are you?

592
00:34:04,400 --> 00:34:06,160
Speaker 7: Do you really want to spend your final years on

593
00:34:06,160 --> 00:34:09,920
this earth in this act of like cheap lukewarm hedonism

594
00:34:10,039 --> 00:34:13,119
on pi Ando cruises or whatever. It's just like, this

595
00:34:13,159 --> 00:34:16,039
is your chance at existence. I really like that section.

596
00:34:16,079 --> 00:34:20,639
There's a quote from some Alphonsi's Legori that that that

597
00:34:20,760 --> 00:34:24,480
chapter ends with, and he says something like in the

598
00:34:24,519 --> 00:34:26,639
heavens there will be no tears, but if the blessed

599
00:34:26,679 --> 00:34:29,599
could weep, they would only do so because they now

600
00:34:29,639 --> 00:34:31,880
have no more time to achieve glory on this earth,

601
00:34:32,480 --> 00:34:35,000
which is like, this is it. This is how you

602
00:34:35,079 --> 00:34:37,679
define your legacy, this is what you define you will

603
00:34:37,719 --> 00:34:42,320
be for eternity, just wasting it. So really it's the

604
00:34:42,360 --> 00:34:44,920
synthesis of those two things, which is I think is

605
00:34:44,960 --> 00:34:50,000
an inspiring reality, which is that no, your duty to

606
00:34:50,719 --> 00:34:55,119
those you love, your community, your posterity, your generations, your legacy,

607
00:34:55,159 --> 00:34:58,159
and your forefathers for that matter, does not end when

608
00:34:58,159 --> 00:35:01,320
you legally retire and start collecting pension checks. Like those

609
00:35:01,320 --> 00:35:06,880
are two entirely different systems. Your command to dominate the

610
00:35:06,920 --> 00:35:11,199
world in the best sense, in the sort of kingly sense,

611
00:35:11,599 --> 00:35:14,079
continues and it will continue. That's a Christian virtue that

612
00:35:14,079 --> 00:35:16,119
will continue until the end of your days, until you

613
00:35:16,199 --> 00:35:18,679
draw your last breath. And that means you still have

614
00:35:19,159 --> 00:35:23,159
duty purpose. You have to be involved deeply in the

615
00:35:23,199 --> 00:35:26,159
lives of those who depend on you, and be asking

616
00:35:26,280 --> 00:35:28,960
very deeply how can you place a marker in the

617
00:35:28,960 --> 00:35:31,880
ground which will sort of stretch forth throughout the history

618
00:35:31,880 --> 00:35:37,840
that follows, so you know there's nothing there are redeemable

619
00:35:37,920 --> 00:35:42,360
qualities to Bill perkins book, it's a sort of useful

620
00:35:42,360 --> 00:35:45,679
illustration what I've talking about. I like that he challenges

621
00:35:46,119 --> 00:35:48,719
people who are very flippant about their money to like

622
00:35:48,800 --> 00:35:50,760
confront Okay, this is how long I have left on

623
00:35:50,760 --> 00:35:53,079
this earth, and this is how much I have in

624
00:35:53,119 --> 00:35:54,760
my control. How am I going to use it? I

625
00:35:54,760 --> 00:35:57,760
think that's a useful challenge. I think unfortunately Bill Perkins

626
00:35:57,800 --> 00:36:01,119
does not have the metaphysical law, feel logical framework and

627
00:36:01,320 --> 00:36:03,440
depths necessary to answer that question properly.

628
00:36:04,760 --> 00:36:08,559
Speaker 6: So one more hypothetical, and then I really want to

629
00:36:08,599 --> 00:36:10,800
spend the majority of what time we have left talking

630
00:36:10,840 --> 00:36:13,519
about the mechanics of how to do this, because I

631
00:36:13,519 --> 00:36:15,679
think this is if I could be so bold, I

632
00:36:15,679 --> 00:36:17,480
think this is the best part of your book. But

633
00:36:17,559 --> 00:36:21,519
one more that's worth talking about is then off repeated

634
00:36:21,559 --> 00:36:24,840
idea that well, if I ask my wealth on to

635
00:36:25,280 --> 00:36:31,360
my family, I will create layabouts useless adult children who

636
00:36:31,400 --> 00:36:35,360
have access to too much money and they will squander

637
00:36:35,400 --> 00:36:37,920
it all or alternately, in the case of a business.

638
00:36:38,440 --> 00:36:41,920
If I pass my business to my son or my nephew,

639
00:36:43,360 --> 00:36:46,239
I would be better served by finding a manager, right,

640
00:36:46,280 --> 00:36:48,719
finding someone who has a degree who's better trained to

641
00:36:48,760 --> 00:36:51,920
do that. Surely a family business in that sense must

642
00:36:51,960 --> 00:36:54,880
be less efficient. So if you could address those kind

643
00:36:54,880 --> 00:36:56,880
of two common critiques there.

644
00:36:58,880 --> 00:37:02,199
Speaker 7: Yeah, they're both quite complex questions. I'll answer the second

645
00:37:02,239 --> 00:37:05,920
one first. This is a really complex area, like why

646
00:37:06,519 --> 00:37:09,480
there are people who have very legitimate objections to their

647
00:37:09,519 --> 00:37:12,199
ability to pass on their wealth to their children. There's

648
00:37:12,199 --> 00:37:17,400
actually a whole industry of professional succession planning. In my

649
00:37:17,599 --> 00:37:21,360
estimation to oversimplify a complex issue. A lot of this

650
00:37:21,440 --> 00:37:23,800
has to do with starting the process far too late,

651
00:37:24,119 --> 00:37:26,760
because people regard a career as just like it's a career,

652
00:37:26,840 --> 00:37:28,440
like I'll just offer him a good job when I'm

653
00:37:28,480 --> 00:37:31,239
about to retire, and I'm sure he'll take it. But actually,

654
00:37:31,239 --> 00:37:33,599
a career is an expression of one's purpose in life.

655
00:37:33,639 --> 00:37:36,679
It's an expression of one's identity. It implicates where you

656
00:37:36,719 --> 00:37:39,079
want to live, who you want to socialize with, which

657
00:37:39,119 --> 00:37:41,119
status networks you want to be a part of, what

658
00:37:41,199 --> 00:37:43,159
you want to project out into the world, what you

659
00:37:43,199 --> 00:37:46,119
want your legacy to be. And that has to be aligned.

660
00:37:46,119 --> 00:37:48,719
There has to be some facilitation of identity integration from

661
00:37:48,760 --> 00:37:52,599
a very young age in life. Aristocratic families who obviously

662
00:37:52,679 --> 00:37:55,800
have to achieve this successfully generation after generation. They're all

663
00:37:55,840 --> 00:38:00,360
in the same family business, which is power rule for

664
00:38:00,880 --> 00:38:04,400
hundreds or thousands of years. The ones who have done

665
00:38:04,400 --> 00:38:07,280
this successfully understand that this has to start at birth,

666
00:38:07,559 --> 00:38:10,480
and if you start too late, you're inevitably going to

667
00:38:10,840 --> 00:38:12,679
be playing catch up. You might be able to save it,

668
00:38:12,719 --> 00:38:15,199
but it's going to be very difficult. And the common

669
00:38:15,239 --> 00:38:21,360
paradigm is there's like a one common failure mode is

670
00:38:22,519 --> 00:38:24,639
this person needs to learn to stand on their own

671
00:38:24,679 --> 00:38:27,119
two feet before they come and work for the family business.

672
00:38:28,480 --> 00:38:29,519
So what I'm going to do is I'm going to

673
00:38:29,559 --> 00:38:31,199
send them off to a generic college on the other

674
00:38:31,239 --> 00:38:34,079
side of the country. I'm then going to get them,

675
00:38:34,159 --> 00:38:36,679
encourage them to start work in a field. But they've

676
00:38:36,679 --> 00:38:39,320
got to prove themselves. They've got to learn how life

677
00:38:39,400 --> 00:38:41,079
is with no leg ups. They've got to work a

678
00:38:41,119 --> 00:38:43,519
few layers up. Maybe they've got to meet and impress

679
00:38:43,519 --> 00:38:45,840
a woman. And then you know, when they've proven themselves,

680
00:38:45,880 --> 00:38:47,280
when they know the value of hard work, they can

681
00:38:47,320 --> 00:38:50,199
come in and work for the family business, if they're

682
00:38:50,239 --> 00:38:52,840
even interested in doing that. After they've charted out an

683
00:38:52,960 --> 00:38:56,079
entirely separate life path, they will then come back into

684
00:38:56,280 --> 00:39:00,119
their industry be surrounded by people who have been work

685
00:39:00,159 --> 00:39:03,039
in that industry for ten plus years, already know everything

686
00:39:03,039 --> 00:39:06,280
about it no more than them. They will feel what

687
00:39:06,440 --> 00:39:09,760
is called commonly imposter syndrome, although in this case it's

688
00:39:09,800 --> 00:39:12,079
largely just being an impost You actually just don't know

689
00:39:12,159 --> 00:39:13,880
as much as all these people. You're not supposed to

690
00:39:13,880 --> 00:39:16,840
be leading, and they'll retreat in embarrassment, and that the

691
00:39:16,880 --> 00:39:19,039
thing falls apart, and you hear that time and time again.

692
00:39:21,239 --> 00:39:23,199
Speaker 2: The body is that of a thirty five year old.

693
00:39:23,599 --> 00:39:27,719
Significant lesions to the face, particularly the right temple correlating

694
00:39:27,800 --> 00:39:32,280
to the intracranial hemorrhaging, observed, seat belt oprations clear across

695
00:39:32,400 --> 00:39:37,400
chest and abdomen, broken femer antibor right leg. Blood alcohol

696
00:39:37,639 --> 00:39:41,960
is over at the legal limit. Cause of death drink driving,

697
00:39:42,880 --> 00:39:45,199
drink and drive and it could be you on the

698
00:39:45,239 --> 00:39:48,480
mortuary slab a message from the Road Safety Authority visit

699
00:39:48,639 --> 00:39:49,440
ORSA dot Ie.

700
00:39:50,119 --> 00:39:52,920
Speaker 14: The black Tag event is now on it curries get

701
00:39:52,920 --> 00:39:56,239
the Sony PlayStation five Digital Edition now only three four

702
00:39:56,400 --> 00:39:59,639
nine save one hundred and fifty euro or save sixty

703
00:39:59,679 --> 00:40:02,760
euro and then Ninja Creamy Deloks ice cream and Frozen

704
00:40:02,760 --> 00:40:06,159
dessert Maker now two hundred and forty year old curries

705
00:40:06,519 --> 00:40:09,000
for the tech you love at prices you'll adore.

706
00:40:10,719 --> 00:40:13,719
Speaker 7: Done correctly, though it absolutely doesn't have to be this way.

707
00:40:13,719 --> 00:40:16,599
So an interesting finding, well established by the way in

708
00:40:16,599 --> 00:40:19,719
the business literature is that family firms, certainly top family

709
00:40:19,760 --> 00:40:25,719
firms outcompete and outperform publicly traded firms. And the reasons

710
00:40:25,719 --> 00:40:28,599
for this are multifaceted, but it has to do with

711
00:40:29,159 --> 00:40:34,000
family firms being uniquely positioned to overcome the perpetual ultra

712
00:40:34,039 --> 00:40:38,559
short term planning that besets publicly traded companies pursuing specific

713
00:40:38,639 --> 00:40:41,559
quarters with a rotating cast of you know, sort of

714
00:40:41,559 --> 00:40:44,599
mercenary managers who have to hit specific KPIs on a

715
00:40:44,639 --> 00:40:49,639
specific schedule. The incentives will work much better for family businesses.

716
00:40:49,679 --> 00:40:53,280
They can think on time horizons, they can start succession

717
00:40:53,320 --> 00:40:56,639
planning very early, they have a natural loyalty to the company,

718
00:40:56,920 --> 00:41:01,599
they have assets other than purely financial and mercenary ones,

719
00:41:01,639 --> 00:41:03,800
and so forth. So there's an established and break good

720
00:41:03,800 --> 00:41:07,400
literature on this front. Professor John A. Davis, formerly of

721
00:41:07,400 --> 00:41:10,639
have A Business School and MIT Slain School of Managements

722
00:41:10,880 --> 00:41:14,599
is the place to start for that about it's widely discussed.

723
00:41:17,039 --> 00:41:18,360
Remind me what your first question was.

724
00:41:18,519 --> 00:41:20,960
Speaker 6: Sorry, oh well, I can't remember, so it must not

725
00:41:20,960 --> 00:41:24,159
have been important. What I want to move on to next,

726
00:41:24,159 --> 00:41:27,000
because I think, like I said, this is perhaps in

727
00:41:27,000 --> 00:41:30,400
my mind, the most important part is, well, how do

728
00:41:30,480 --> 00:41:34,079
you build a dynastic family? And assuming that you are

729
00:41:34,280 --> 00:41:36,519
and look, I don't have a lot of insight into

730
00:41:36,519 --> 00:41:40,719
my podcast demographics, but I have at least rough age estimates.

731
00:41:41,320 --> 00:41:44,960
Assuming you are a guy starting out right, you've got

732
00:41:45,280 --> 00:41:48,440
young children you're looking to, you know, kind of copy

733
00:41:48,480 --> 00:41:51,599
this model in your own life. What are the first steps?

734
00:41:51,639 --> 00:41:55,119
What should you prioritize? What are the things that enable

735
00:41:55,239 --> 00:41:58,559
a family to create a culture that can be passed

736
00:41:58,599 --> 00:41:59,199
down through time.

737
00:42:01,639 --> 00:42:05,480
Speaker 7: It's a great question. So the first thing to say

738
00:42:05,519 --> 00:42:07,840
is that the book is written from the perspective of

739
00:42:07,960 --> 00:42:10,800
wealthy and aristocratic families. There's a few reasons for this,

740
00:42:11,000 --> 00:42:14,079
but I would argue that a happy finding is that

741
00:42:14,119 --> 00:42:17,639
most of these are practicable at a more modest level

742
00:42:17,760 --> 00:42:20,039
for families that are not ultra wealthy, which is a

743
00:42:20,079 --> 00:42:23,360
happy finding. For me because I am not ultra wealthy,

744
00:42:23,920 --> 00:42:26,239
although I did grow up I mean it's not entirely

745
00:42:26,360 --> 00:42:29,480
Internet based. I grew up around some wealthy families, so

746
00:42:29,519 --> 00:42:32,239
I do have some personal experience of life in these communities.

747
00:42:34,880 --> 00:42:40,800
The first thing is is like, there's this concept that

748
00:42:40,840 --> 00:42:42,880
I talk about in the book, which I like very

749
00:42:42,960 --> 00:42:46,039
much as sort of my personal favorite aspect of the book,

750
00:42:46,079 --> 00:42:49,719
which is this concept of kind of eternal time, that

751
00:42:50,320 --> 00:42:57,159
the individual family member is situated within a community of

752
00:42:57,159 --> 00:43:00,039
those who went before, of those who went before, and

753
00:43:00,079 --> 00:43:02,159
those who will come after in a very intense and

754
00:43:02,159 --> 00:43:06,639
lived way. Alexis to Tokville has this wonderful passage about

755
00:43:07,800 --> 00:43:11,000
the importance of a landed family estate passing from generation

756
00:43:11,119 --> 00:43:16,559
to generation, and he says all generations are as it were, contemporaneous.

757
00:43:16,800 --> 00:43:18,519
It's this notion that you actually grow up in the

758
00:43:18,519 --> 00:43:23,039
felt presence of your forefathers, and as such you feel

759
00:43:23,039 --> 00:43:28,440
their moral expectations to be incumbent upon you. You feel that

760
00:43:28,480 --> 00:43:33,119
your family name in its very essence bears a sense

761
00:43:33,440 --> 00:43:36,800
of moral expectation. But more than that, you feel empowered

762
00:43:36,840 --> 00:43:39,840
by the sense that their blood runs in your veins

763
00:43:39,840 --> 00:43:44,199
and you're capable of what they achieved. So there are

764
00:43:44,239 --> 00:43:46,000
a lot of things you can do to move your

765
00:43:46,039 --> 00:43:49,880
family from the kind of contingent moment into a more

766
00:43:49,920 --> 00:43:53,440
felt sense of this eternal time. The thing that a

767
00:43:53,480 --> 00:43:56,760
lot of aristocratic families do but is difficult in the contemporary,

768
00:43:56,760 --> 00:44:01,079
certainly in America, is this multi generational property where quite

769
00:44:01,079 --> 00:44:03,679
literally you are building on the same foundation as your

770
00:44:03,719 --> 00:44:09,800
forefathers built, and that bears brings other advantages too, because

771
00:44:11,119 --> 00:44:14,519
you're inheriting the estate, which is something that is theoretically

772
00:44:14,599 --> 00:44:18,400
very valuable, but it brings these intense obligations of stewardship

773
00:44:18,440 --> 00:44:22,239
in a very direct way, rather than being kind of

774
00:44:22,920 --> 00:44:26,480
liquid capital that's easy to squander. So it sort of

775
00:44:26,519 --> 00:44:30,920
trains you and demands of you as the air to

776
00:44:31,000 --> 00:44:33,679
pursue the best things in life, the most beautiful things

777
00:44:33,760 --> 00:44:41,039
community building, estate management, patronizing artwork, sustaining the entire economy

778
00:44:41,039 --> 00:44:46,960
of individuals that revolve around that family and community. But

779
00:44:47,000 --> 00:44:52,800
more modestly, it's this whole sense of like participation in rituals,

780
00:44:53,079 --> 00:44:56,840
certainly in a religious life. One of the funny things

781
00:44:56,960 --> 00:45:02,320
that I guess it's December, so I can speak fairly

782
00:45:02,840 --> 00:45:07,119
unassumedly about Christmas but there's this funny thing about Christmas,

783
00:45:07,159 --> 00:45:10,519
which is kind of everyone returns to the faith just

784
00:45:10,559 --> 00:45:13,159
a little bit on Christmas. You know, everyone wants to

785
00:45:13,159 --> 00:45:17,360
get a mass for Christmas. Things aren't quite felt proper,

786
00:45:18,079 --> 00:45:22,280
things don't have their phenomenological richness in them. If Jesus

787
00:45:22,320 --> 00:45:24,679
isn't present, if there isn't you know, if you don't

788
00:45:24,679 --> 00:45:31,559
hear the carols being sung. And there's something about the

789
00:45:31,880 --> 00:45:34,079
ritual of Christmas that is a good illustration of the

790
00:45:34,079 --> 00:45:36,639
broader principle that I talk about in the book, which

791
00:45:36,679 --> 00:45:39,440
is the kind of ritualized family, the ritual protected family,

792
00:45:39,480 --> 00:45:44,280
which is, you know, I like that quote from Bungchulhan,

793
00:45:44,360 --> 00:45:47,960
the Korean German philosopher, who says that while houses are

794
00:45:48,000 --> 00:45:51,480
homes in space, rituals are homes and time. They're this

795
00:45:51,519 --> 00:45:54,360
thing that we can return to and find identity and

796
00:45:54,400 --> 00:46:00,920
constellation in that are deeply affirming of a particular continued identity,

797
00:46:01,320 --> 00:46:05,760
the sort of historical continuity. But in Christmas, I think

798
00:46:05,760 --> 00:46:08,400
it's in large part because Christmas is such a ritualized

799
00:46:08,480 --> 00:46:13,519
day that the practices of five hundred years ago are

800
00:46:13,559 --> 00:46:16,599
still totally legible to us. On that day, we still

801
00:46:16,639 --> 00:46:19,679
act out the same functions. We still believe the same things.

802
00:46:21,119 --> 00:46:23,159
Maybe there have been subtle changes, but the music is

803
00:46:23,199 --> 00:46:25,920
similar that you know, you still go to the same churches,

804
00:46:26,000 --> 00:46:29,519
midnight Mass, and the same sets of foods and so forth.

805
00:46:29,519 --> 00:46:32,440
These things, of course gradually evolve, but especially with this

806
00:46:32,519 --> 00:46:35,400
kind of eternal religious component, it's the same themes. The

807
00:46:35,440 --> 00:46:43,679
sermons are on the same moral dimensions, and that ritual

808
00:46:43,880 --> 00:46:50,760
dimension which ties together moral assertion, tradition, belief, action, and

809
00:46:50,800 --> 00:46:55,960
then expectation all in a single day. There's no reason

810
00:46:55,960 --> 00:47:00,760
why that principle should extend only to Christmas, right. So, actually,

811
00:47:00,840 --> 00:47:04,360
it turns out if you look at the literature, the

812
00:47:04,400 --> 00:47:07,320
families who best pass on the faith throughout the year

813
00:47:08,039 --> 00:47:12,360
lead these incredibly ritualized existences which sort of ties the faith.

814
00:47:12,719 --> 00:47:14,519
And here, if you're not a Christian, you know you

815
00:47:14,559 --> 00:47:17,800
can substitute in the values that you hold dear, the

816
00:47:17,880 --> 00:47:23,679
kind of children that you want to raise. They substitute

817
00:47:23,679 --> 00:47:27,800
in those beliefs at every element. They tie them into

818
00:47:27,960 --> 00:47:31,480
rituals all through the calendar in a way that evokes

819
00:47:31,519 --> 00:47:35,719
a sense of warmth and comfort, of medial solidarity, even

820
00:47:35,719 --> 00:47:40,360
nostalgia for a warm childhood full of fun. The classic

821
00:47:40,480 --> 00:47:42,960
Christian expression of this is the liturgical calendar, and then

822
00:47:43,199 --> 00:47:45,400
the calendar of like kind of fun and festive events,

823
00:47:45,400 --> 00:47:48,920
which was sort of parallel to the liturgical calendar, so

824
00:47:49,199 --> 00:47:52,000
like all the year around you had different festivals. What

825
00:47:52,039 --> 00:47:54,360
we think of now is Christmas is kind of like

826
00:47:54,840 --> 00:47:58,360
the last pillar still standing of an ancient ruin which

827
00:47:58,400 --> 00:48:00,760
was once majestic in its glory, you know, full of

828
00:48:00,840 --> 00:48:07,719
pageantry and strange myths and expressions of belief and identity

829
00:48:07,719 --> 00:48:11,159
and community. And there's many reasons why that's gone, but

830
00:48:12,920 --> 00:48:15,719
that the kind of thousand year family. The great aristocratic

831
00:48:15,760 --> 00:48:19,519
families are highly ritualized to this day. If you look

832
00:48:19,519 --> 00:48:21,599
at the British Royal family, and you know, there's a

833
00:48:21,639 --> 00:48:23,719
lot of issues with the British Royal family, but people

834
00:48:23,719 --> 00:48:25,239
are familiar with them, so I'll use them for the

835
00:48:25,239 --> 00:48:28,400
ease of convenience. They have this very specific calendar that

836
00:48:28,440 --> 00:48:31,679
comes with obligations the children are involved with from very

837
00:48:31,719 --> 00:48:38,599
young Monday Thursday traditions and so forth. That I think

838
00:48:38,679 --> 00:48:41,360
is this kind of well spring of perpetual identity and

839
00:48:41,679 --> 00:48:45,199
actually strengthens through time as opposed to becomes dissipated through time.

840
00:48:47,559 --> 00:48:52,960
Speaker 6: Yeah, so you use this term ritual protected families. I

841
00:48:53,000 --> 00:49:00,199
think it's quite interesting you in sort of the last third,

842
00:49:02,000 --> 00:49:10,079
you describe effectively four common themes throughout generationally successful families.

843
00:49:10,559 --> 00:49:13,400
One of the things you get into is that you

844
00:49:13,440 --> 00:49:16,719
can actually track the success of these sort of families

845
00:49:16,760 --> 00:49:20,480
in highly diverse circumstances. So stands to reason and in

846
00:49:20,480 --> 00:49:23,480
the feudal system such families would do well. But those

847
00:49:23,519 --> 00:49:28,000
same names, even into the twenty first century, continue to overperform.

848
00:49:28,679 --> 00:49:33,239
So these four points are never forget the normal practices

849
00:49:33,239 --> 00:49:36,440
and rituals of raising healthy children. Ensure that your family

850
00:49:36,480 --> 00:49:39,119
has a strong faith and knows duties as well as privileges.

851
00:49:39,480 --> 00:49:42,760
Impress upon your children your family's identity, mission and values.

852
00:49:43,159 --> 00:49:47,599
And initiate children into structures beyond the atomic family. So

853
00:49:47,880 --> 00:49:50,400
two things I want to bring up there, because several

854
00:49:50,440 --> 00:49:54,320
of them are I would consider them to be widely

855
00:49:54,400 --> 00:49:58,559
accepted among conservative circles rit large. But there are two

856
00:49:58,760 --> 00:50:02,559
that are I think would raise hackles. Which is one

857
00:50:03,239 --> 00:50:06,679
the idea of noting duties as well as privileges, and

858
00:50:06,719 --> 00:50:10,920
then also initiating children into structures beyond the atomic family.

859
00:50:11,480 --> 00:50:12,800
Do you want to speak about that a little bit?

860
00:50:15,000 --> 00:50:20,519
Speaker 7: Sure? Well, let me take the initiation one first, but

861
00:50:20,639 --> 00:50:22,679
let me remember your first question this time, which is

862
00:50:22,719 --> 00:50:31,400
the duties as well. So man has this deep psychological

863
00:50:31,480 --> 00:50:36,760
need to know who he is, to subsume his identity

864
00:50:37,400 --> 00:50:43,039
into wider and established structures as a source of self ratification,

865
00:50:44,199 --> 00:50:48,400
and to be accepted by his community of peers as

866
00:50:49,000 --> 00:50:52,320
that thing that he strives to be. The simplest example

867
00:50:52,320 --> 00:50:57,079
of this is like if you think about a soldier,

868
00:50:57,159 --> 00:50:59,920
especially in the US context, where soldiers are very revered,

869
00:51:01,800 --> 00:51:06,760
it's considered a privilege to wear the uniform to graduate.

870
00:51:07,880 --> 00:51:10,480
At that point, people will recognize you as a serviceman

871
00:51:10,760 --> 00:51:14,800
of a particular branch, and you will become, as it were,

872
00:51:15,719 --> 00:51:17,880
a contemporary of all the great men who wore that

873
00:51:18,039 --> 00:51:20,679
uniform before you. You will share in their identity. You

874
00:51:20,679 --> 00:51:27,960
will find a foundation of the self there. You will

875
00:51:27,960 --> 00:51:34,880
be respected as such by others. And that's a kind

876
00:51:34,920 --> 00:51:38,039
of heightened example of something that we all need, Like

877
00:51:38,559 --> 00:51:42,079
initiation in its most abstract form, as a human universal

878
00:51:42,599 --> 00:51:45,920
there are life stages that we expect people to go through,

879
00:51:46,320 --> 00:51:49,679
and then we recognize that they have been tested and

880
00:51:49,719 --> 00:51:52,039
that they have passed the test, and that they have

881
00:51:52,119 --> 00:51:58,079
therefore been assumed into a particular body within society. In

882
00:51:58,239 --> 00:52:01,159
pre in the pre modern West, this was very very universal,

883
00:52:01,320 --> 00:52:03,519
so you didn't just have the kind of last one

884
00:52:03,599 --> 00:52:09,599
standing now is university like graduates are epistemically distinct from

885
00:52:09,639 --> 00:52:12,199
non graduates. Like we think of graduates and non graduates

886
00:52:12,239 --> 00:52:14,480
as two different things, like did you go to college?

887
00:52:14,519 --> 00:52:16,280
Where did you go to college? You know, a you,

888
00:52:16,360 --> 00:52:20,480
a Yale man, whatever, you know? It's this, it's this

889
00:52:20,599 --> 00:52:23,880
kind of like series of tests which results in something

890
00:52:23,960 --> 00:52:26,719
given to you. You are now recognized as something else,

891
00:52:27,079 --> 00:52:29,360
which affords you status in society.

892
00:52:31,000 --> 00:52:33,880
Speaker 15: This is the sound of a superpower we all have

893
00:52:36,280 --> 00:52:39,400
sending Christmas cards to our family and friends and making

894
00:52:39,440 --> 00:52:40,360
them feel loved.

895
00:52:40,920 --> 00:52:41,559
Speaker 12: Who will you.

896
00:52:41,480 --> 00:52:45,000
Speaker 15: Send magic to your auntie, your brother, your best you

897
00:52:45,079 --> 00:52:49,079
living abroad? You can buy Christmas stamp booklets in your

898
00:52:49,119 --> 00:52:52,360
local post office or online with free next day Deliverery

899
00:52:54,039 --> 00:52:59,320
Send Christmas Love from the Heart today on post Send Love.

900
00:53:00,320 --> 00:53:02,880
Speaker 16: The weeks before Christmas, I just take time to enjoy

901
00:53:02,920 --> 00:53:03,480
the present.

902
00:53:03,960 --> 00:53:05,679
Speaker 7: Oh present shocker.

903
00:53:06,440 --> 00:53:08,840
Speaker 16: This week at London's It's any three for five year

904
00:53:09,000 --> 00:53:11,800
across our pringles range gets selected seven Up Club or

905
00:53:11,800 --> 00:53:14,599
Pepsi eight Pac can range just four ninety nine plus

906
00:53:14,599 --> 00:53:17,679
deposit and enjoy Guinness twelve pack cans just nineteen eighty

907
00:53:17,719 --> 00:53:20,800
eight and Carlsburg twelve pack cans just twenty thirty six

908
00:53:20,840 --> 00:53:23,599
plus deposit at London's. We know what locals want because

909
00:53:23,639 --> 00:53:27,440
we're local. Like you, enjoy alcohol responsibly offers end seventh

910
00:53:27,480 --> 00:53:29,840
of December in participating stores while stocks last.

911
00:53:32,239 --> 00:53:38,320
Speaker 7: And that's not just practically useful, it's like psychologically important.

912
00:53:38,760 --> 00:53:42,280
Like some people I've met who didn't go to university

913
00:53:42,280 --> 00:53:44,519
but wish they did kind of have a complex about it.

914
00:53:44,559 --> 00:53:46,400
And I'm not saying at all you should have a

915
00:53:46,400 --> 00:53:49,360
complex about it. Well, that's right, but like in their

916
00:53:49,400 --> 00:53:53,199
particular example, they clearly felt that that process of initiation,

917
00:53:53,280 --> 00:53:55,719
that particular expression of initiation was an important one that

918
00:53:55,760 --> 00:53:57,599
they never got the chance to prove themselves to be

919
00:53:57,679 --> 00:54:01,199
something that they felt they were. But in older times,

920
00:54:01,440 --> 00:54:04,320
you know, in the West, you had guilds, you had

921
00:54:05,320 --> 00:54:08,679
I mean, you had families, chaval re orders, monastic orders.

922
00:54:08,840 --> 00:54:12,800
I mean there's a very diverse expression of a tradesman

923
00:54:13,280 --> 00:54:16,960
in a particular domain recognizes himself in a particular way

924
00:54:17,400 --> 00:54:20,159
and wants to be recognized as that by a community.

925
00:54:20,239 --> 00:54:22,719
Of his peers as someone who has a dignified calling

926
00:54:22,760 --> 00:54:25,519
in life and who has taken on a difficult profession

927
00:54:26,079 --> 00:54:29,400
and risen to it. And then if you go back further,

928
00:54:29,719 --> 00:54:31,119
you know, if you look at the work of Arnold

929
00:54:31,159 --> 00:54:33,679
van Ganev and Merchieri, are they and so forth, they

930
00:54:33,760 --> 00:54:37,400
kind of find that this is a universal amongst pre

931
00:54:37,519 --> 00:54:42,159
modern human communities, especially for young boys. Boys need to

932
00:54:42,199 --> 00:54:45,760
go through this transition where when they're very young, they

933
00:54:45,800 --> 00:54:48,440
sort of like, you know, they cling to their mothers.

934
00:54:49,000 --> 00:54:51,920
They form under their mother's protection, and that's useful for

935
00:54:52,000 --> 00:54:55,639
them to like physically mature in a dangerous world, to

936
00:54:55,639 --> 00:54:58,920
have that sense of comfort. But to be recognized as

937
00:54:58,920 --> 00:55:02,920
a man in all pre modern societies, there has to

938
00:55:02,960 --> 00:55:05,679
be a decisive moment where the boy is separated from

939
00:55:05,679 --> 00:55:08,079
the mother. He's presented with a test which he must

940
00:55:08,119 --> 00:55:11,679
perform in front of the community. The community must recognize

941
00:55:12,000 --> 00:55:14,199
that he passed the test and is therefore he is

942
00:55:14,239 --> 00:55:17,440
recognized as a man, depending on the configuration, as a

943
00:55:17,480 --> 00:55:20,760
warrior or whatever else, and he has therefore accorded a

944
00:55:20,760 --> 00:55:25,119
certain respect identity in society which bonds beautifully with his

945
00:55:25,199 --> 00:55:28,280
own identity, his individuation. But it Also it's this process

946
00:55:28,280 --> 00:55:30,760
of fight integration with a community those who went before

947
00:55:30,800 --> 00:55:33,360
him that will come after. That is a very long

948
00:55:33,400 --> 00:55:36,599
way of explaining initiation, and I apologize for it, but

949
00:55:36,639 --> 00:55:41,800
the point is this, we've really gone through a process

950
00:55:41,840 --> 00:55:44,719
of weakening in this regard, and which I regard as

951
00:55:45,079 --> 00:55:48,440
like a major psychological challenge to the man of the West,

952
00:55:48,480 --> 00:55:53,079
psychological and spiritual challenge. They don't have any sense of

953
00:55:53,920 --> 00:55:56,480
who they are, what uniform they're supposed to be wearing,

954
00:55:56,519 --> 00:55:59,960
which men they are like, which men of history they

955
00:56:00,039 --> 00:56:03,000
are supposed to be, the equals of, whose standards they're

956
00:56:03,000 --> 00:56:05,119
supposed to live up to, what it means to express

957
00:56:05,119 --> 00:56:07,599
those standards, which stories from history and most relevant to

958
00:56:07,599 --> 00:56:10,639
their own struggles. Like they're just totally untalthered because they've

959
00:56:10,719 --> 00:56:14,719
never had any of this. One of the things I

960
00:56:14,760 --> 00:56:17,760
note is that aristocratic families, and they by no means

961
00:56:17,800 --> 00:56:19,559
do this perfectly to this day, but there are certain

962
00:56:19,599 --> 00:56:24,719
families that do it well. They have initiatory bodies which

963
00:56:24,800 --> 00:56:28,280
continue deep into adult life, that have privileged and status

964
00:56:28,320 --> 00:56:32,159
accorded to them. These can be knightly orders, Order of

965
00:56:32,159 --> 00:56:34,639
the Golden Fleece, you know, Order the gartera in the UK.

966
00:56:36,199 --> 00:56:38,679
But they can also be fraternal societies, they can be

967
00:56:38,719 --> 00:56:42,159
private members clubs. There are all these different kinds of association,

968
00:56:42,599 --> 00:56:47,320
various titles that make demands of the moral character of

969
00:56:47,360 --> 00:56:50,039
the individual and then recognize them and initiate them into

970
00:56:50,039 --> 00:56:52,920
a privileged network should they be completed, and at that

971
00:56:53,000 --> 00:56:57,199
point they can sort of represent themselves. And you know,

972
00:56:57,920 --> 00:57:01,360
this isn't, This isn't doesn't really live on strongly to

973
00:57:01,400 --> 00:57:03,360
this day. But still in London you still get a

974
00:57:03,440 --> 00:57:06,599
bit of the old boys club. I belong to this club.

975
00:57:06,639 --> 00:57:08,480
I belong to that club. Like there's a sense of

976
00:57:08,480 --> 00:57:11,000
solidarity with other people in the same situation as you,

977
00:57:12,199 --> 00:57:16,960
which I think is very useful. So in so doing

978
00:57:17,039 --> 00:57:19,880
you initiate yourself again into this community of peers with

979
00:57:19,960 --> 00:57:23,000
moral expectations which are incumbent upon you, and that is

980
00:57:23,079 --> 00:57:27,119
very necessary, along with faith and so forth, to feel

981
00:57:27,280 --> 00:57:30,719
that your privilege comes with this sense of duty. And

982
00:57:30,719 --> 00:57:34,159
if you fail in that duty, there are real penalties.

983
00:57:36,440 --> 00:57:39,400
Speaker 6: We're fast coming up on time you're hunt. But I

984
00:57:39,440 --> 00:57:42,239
feel like it's worth discussing s a through line through

985
00:57:42,239 --> 00:57:46,639
almost everything you've mentioned. What about the dangers of nepotism?

986
00:57:46,960 --> 00:57:52,119
Surely we don't want to again have anyone other than

987
00:57:52,519 --> 00:57:56,800
the perfect person for any given role, as chosen by

988
00:57:58,239 --> 00:58:01,719
a sort of vaguely defined meritocracy. Is your what is

989
00:58:01,760 --> 00:58:05,639
your I guess rebuttal to objections based off of nepotism.

990
00:58:07,000 --> 00:58:10,280
Speaker 7: Yeah, something very weird is happening with this concept of nepotism.

991
00:58:11,360 --> 00:58:12,920
Like I'll look at the history of the term in

992
00:58:12,920 --> 00:58:14,800
the second, but just like to start with a very

993
00:58:14,800 --> 00:58:18,519
basic observation. If you look at the like textbook nepo

994
00:58:18,639 --> 00:58:23,239
baby quote unquote controversy industry at the moment, it's acting, right,

995
00:58:23,920 --> 00:58:26,719
But like acting has always been a family business. There

996
00:58:26,719 --> 00:58:30,719
are like generations of families who act, and you know

997
00:58:30,800 --> 00:58:33,840
who like higher within the family, who initiate themselves into

998
00:58:33,840 --> 00:58:36,920
the industry, who like the same is true in music.

999
00:58:37,039 --> 00:58:38,400
I wish I could remember who it was. I was

1000
00:58:38,400 --> 00:58:41,039
listening to an interesting discussion the other day. It might

1001
00:58:41,079 --> 00:58:42,719
have even been on your show, told me if it was.

1002
00:58:42,719 --> 00:58:45,199
But it was about Bach and how Barr came from

1003
00:58:45,239 --> 00:58:49,679
an extended and broad family of musicians, of even genius musicians,

1004
00:58:49,679 --> 00:58:51,119
and there was there appeared to be even some kind

1005
00:58:51,119 --> 00:58:53,159
of like level of selective breeding going on that which

1006
00:58:53,159 --> 00:58:57,400
inevitably resulted in the genius. But the point is that

1007
00:58:57,440 --> 00:59:01,599
like family business is completely normal with Western history, are

1008
00:59:01,639 --> 00:59:04,320
obviously going to arise. It doesn't make sense. It is

1009
00:59:04,400 --> 00:59:07,519
completely illogical to assume that someone who has spent a

1010
00:59:07,639 --> 00:59:12,519
life accruing experience and knowledge and mastery and relationships within

1011
00:59:12,559 --> 00:59:15,199
an industry makes no attempt to pass that on to

1012
00:59:15,199 --> 00:59:17,320
their children and just expects their children to go and

1013
00:59:17,360 --> 00:59:20,599
work at law firm or whatever. Like. That's insane. So

1014
00:59:20,639 --> 00:59:23,119
the West is always operated in this way instead. I

1015
00:59:23,119 --> 00:59:26,360
think what is pathological about nepo babies is the level

1016
00:59:26,400 --> 00:59:30,920
of like celebrity and societal leadership that the actor class

1017
00:59:30,960 --> 00:59:33,599
now has. That's the real problem. And then so it's

1018
00:59:33,639 --> 00:59:36,599
like there's such wealth and status and riches and everything

1019
00:59:36,599 --> 00:59:40,599
else that accrues to these people who are might be

1020
00:59:40,679 --> 00:59:43,760
very talented actors, but are clearly unworthy of like wielding

1021
00:59:43,760 --> 00:59:46,679
that level of societal influence and being the stars of society.

1022
00:59:46,800 --> 00:59:50,119
That so that's anyway, that's a much more complex issue.

1023
00:59:50,159 --> 00:59:53,960
But nepotism can be very productive. Like the best athletes

1024
00:59:54,400 --> 00:59:57,920
of all time most come from like families where their

1025
00:59:57,960 --> 01:00:02,440
fathers were professional coaches or players, you know, like Williams Sisters,

1026
01:00:02,480 --> 01:00:07,199
Tiger Woods. You know, basically you name it floy May

1027
01:00:07,239 --> 01:00:10,079
with a bunch of people in football, Maxi staff and

1028
01:00:10,079 --> 01:00:13,840
in Formula one. Like, it's just like growing up around

1029
01:00:13,880 --> 01:00:17,199
geniuses within a particular domain and being introduced to that

1030
01:00:17,280 --> 01:00:19,960
domain at a very young age because the genius is

1031
01:00:20,000 --> 01:00:22,400
already like invested in it. It's just a recipe for

1032
01:00:22,440 --> 01:00:26,280
creating genius. So the idea that nepotism is like has

1033
01:00:26,320 --> 01:00:29,239
this antithetical effect on quality is tenuous. I mean, there

1034
01:00:29,239 --> 01:00:32,559
are examples of it becoming pathological where people that clearly

1035
01:00:32,599 --> 01:00:34,559
deserve to be in an industry are shut out because

1036
01:00:34,559 --> 01:00:36,880
they're not part of like a clan. But there are

1037
01:00:36,920 --> 01:00:39,280
compromises which allow for the best of both worlds. In

1038
01:00:39,280 --> 01:00:41,440
the West, there's a long history in that regard, but

1039
01:00:41,840 --> 01:00:44,239
to very quickly examine the term itself, because I think

1040
01:00:44,239 --> 01:00:48,559
it's clarifying. Nepotism as we now understand it sort of

1041
01:00:48,639 --> 01:00:50,480
gained its meaning in the West from this book. It's

1042
01:00:50,559 --> 01:00:55,199
Gregorio Letti's work in the seventeenth Centurytismo di Roma, and

1043
01:00:55,239 --> 01:00:58,480
it's a history of the Pope's nephews. Pope's nephews were

1044
01:00:58,639 --> 01:01:02,920
a particular role within a papal court, which stretches back

1045
01:01:02,920 --> 01:01:07,000
a very long way, totally unquestioned at the time, probably

1046
01:01:07,000 --> 01:01:09,639
a little bit odd by now, but it survived for millennia.

1047
01:01:10,599 --> 01:01:12,960
The notion was simply that the pope had a right

1048
01:01:13,000 --> 01:01:14,719
to bring someone into the papal court that was a

1049
01:01:14,760 --> 01:01:17,159
blood relative, but since popes did not have children of

1050
01:01:17,199 --> 01:01:20,519
their own, they typically bought in a nephew. Now this

1051
01:01:20,679 --> 01:01:23,519
was for two reasons. The first is that, like family

1052
01:01:23,559 --> 01:01:27,440
businesses of all kinds in the ancient and medieval world,

1053
01:01:27,679 --> 01:01:29,800
you know, there's this concept of pietass which is like

1054
01:01:29,800 --> 01:01:33,679
special moral obligations to your family which extend outwards from

1055
01:01:33,719 --> 01:01:36,880
the divine commandment and the Decalogue to especially honor your

1056
01:01:36,880 --> 01:01:40,320
father and mother. So you have a particular obligation to

1057
01:01:40,360 --> 01:01:43,400
your own and indeed, in the context of the papal court,

1058
01:01:43,440 --> 01:01:46,320
with its intrigue, its diverse responsibilities, and so forth, it's

1059
01:01:46,400 --> 01:01:50,000
very useful to have an associate of unquestioned personal loyalty

1060
01:01:50,519 --> 01:01:55,760
to help you in your most sort of trying enterprises.

1061
01:01:57,239 --> 01:02:01,199
Nepotism refers to a single well, a single period of

1062
01:02:01,239 --> 01:02:04,920
corruption of that specific office in which, in the context

1063
01:02:04,920 --> 01:02:08,559
of a broader moral decline, of the papency. There were

1064
01:02:08,559 --> 01:02:12,119
a series of popes with illegitimate children and other relatives

1065
01:02:12,159 --> 01:02:14,519
who were brought in under the pretext, under this title

1066
01:02:14,559 --> 01:02:17,800
of the pope's nephew who basically just ransacked the church.

1067
01:02:17,920 --> 01:02:21,800
And so there was this whole and this lasted for

1068
01:02:21,800 --> 01:02:26,760
like one hundred years. There's this whole broad breakdown of

1069
01:02:26,800 --> 01:02:31,679
the function of the office that resulted in something that

1070
01:02:31,760 --> 01:02:35,360
everyone everywhere would recognize as sinful and wrong, which was

1071
01:02:35,400 --> 01:02:40,719
like corruption, looting, lying, et cetera. All of that is

1072
01:02:40,719 --> 01:02:43,599
what the original conception of nepotism was. It's like gaining

1073
01:02:44,039 --> 01:02:46,519
entry to a public institution which is meant for a

1074
01:02:46,559 --> 01:02:50,360
particular purpose, ransacking that institution from the inside while lying

1075
01:02:50,360 --> 01:02:55,440
to people extracting that as personal family wealth. And it's

1076
01:02:55,480 --> 01:02:57,440
like the same you see this in politics, Like this

1077
01:02:57,559 --> 01:03:00,440
has contemporary parallels, But what it doesn't mean. It's just

1078
01:03:00,480 --> 01:03:04,480
like I've spent my whole life working in an industry

1079
01:03:04,519 --> 01:03:06,559
I love, I want to help my children get into it.

1080
01:03:07,039 --> 01:03:10,239
That is simply not the same thing. Like the moral

1081
01:03:10,280 --> 01:03:13,440
dimensions of that are completely different. And unlike ransacking the

1082
01:03:13,519 --> 01:03:18,920
church that like obviously has strong societal benefits, personal benefits

1083
01:03:18,960 --> 01:03:21,679
that allows a family to continue in the same tradition,

1084
01:03:22,360 --> 01:03:26,960
maintain family businesses, maintain intergenerational relationships between networks of families,

1085
01:03:27,280 --> 01:03:29,320
to live in the same place, to pass on rich

1086
01:03:29,440 --> 01:03:32,079
knowledge to each other that would otherwise die this kind

1087
01:03:32,079 --> 01:03:35,679
of embodied knowledge, to feel the sense of affinity between generations,

1088
01:03:35,679 --> 01:03:37,840
and indeed to produce mastery. And the examples of the

1089
01:03:37,880 --> 01:03:42,280
sports and family businesses which we gave earlier. So feeling

1090
01:03:42,280 --> 01:03:45,400
that you shouldn't, like specially help out your children because

1091
01:03:45,599 --> 01:03:48,360
nepotism is bad is just one of the most confused

1092
01:03:48,400 --> 01:03:50,679
aspects of our contemporary moral discourse.

1093
01:03:50,840 --> 01:03:55,360
Speaker 6: In my mind, I think that was well answered. We're

1094
01:03:55,440 --> 01:03:58,159
unfortunately nearing the end of our time. But I just

1095
01:03:58,199 --> 01:04:02,760
want to say is very good. We didn't touch on

1096
01:04:02,800 --> 01:04:05,840
a tenth of it, double negative, but there's much more

1097
01:04:05,880 --> 01:04:10,960
material material here. I highly recommend it, both as because

1098
01:04:11,199 --> 01:04:13,719
Johann is a friend and I think he should be supported,

1099
01:04:14,079 --> 01:04:17,800
but also because it's a very good book. It addresses

1100
01:04:18,679 --> 01:04:23,440
common problems for both younger and older men. What is

1101
01:04:23,480 --> 01:04:26,239
the purpose of you know, what I have collected over

1102
01:04:26,239 --> 01:04:28,199
the course of my life, How ought I to act

1103
01:04:28,199 --> 01:04:32,400
as a patriarch? But also for those kind of aspiring patriarchs,

1104
01:04:32,800 --> 01:04:35,519
How ought I to raise my children? How ought I

1105
01:04:35,599 --> 01:04:39,000
to direct them through life? And you know, as someone

1106
01:04:39,039 --> 01:04:42,480
who's at the very early stages of that, it was

1107
01:04:42,559 --> 01:04:45,840
very interesting. I got a lot from it. In addition

1108
01:04:45,920 --> 01:04:47,440
to I think I told you, I made my best

1109
01:04:47,440 --> 01:04:49,000
friend buy a copy of it, and I've sent a

1110
01:04:49,000 --> 01:04:51,079
few to people around me. I like it enough to

1111
01:04:51,079 --> 01:04:54,079
recommend it to people who don't care about my podcast,

1112
01:04:54,559 --> 01:04:58,519
so through endorsement, there be a link down in the description. Johan, again,

1113
01:04:58,559 --> 01:04:59,880
thank you so much for your time. Man, this was

1114
01:04:59,880 --> 01:05:01,119
a fascinating discussion.

1115
01:05:02,440 --> 01:05:04,519
Speaker 7: It's been brinant. Thank you for having me, and I

1116
01:05:04,599 --> 01:05:06,480
expect see you wearing a suit next time. By the way,

1117
01:05:06,519 --> 01:05:08,599
this is a pull showing fair enough.

1118
01:05:08,599 --> 01:05:13,039
Speaker 6: I will obviously I will link to your book as

1119
01:05:13,079 --> 01:05:15,960
well as your substack, which I highly recommend, as well

1120
01:05:16,159 --> 01:05:19,199
as far as my stuff. Jay Burdens Show, Apple, Spotify, YouTube,

1121
01:05:19,440 --> 01:05:21,480
anywhere you want to listen to podcasts. If you want

1122
01:05:21,480 --> 01:05:23,280
to support this show, you can throw me a few

1123
01:05:23,320 --> 01:05:27,320
bucks on Patreon, gum Road, or substack. Get the episodes

1124
01:05:27,320 --> 01:05:29,920
early in ad free or check out our sponsor, Axious

1125
01:05:29,960 --> 01:05:33,079
Remote Fitness and Coaching. Again, johann I appreciate it. Never

1126
01:05:33,119 --> 01:05:34,559
run at home, keep your head off.

1127
01:05:34,679 --> 01:05:35,119
Speaker 13: Good night.

1128
01:05:38,639 --> 01:05:43,239
Speaker 9: I'm singing in the rain, typical Irish rain because I

1129
01:05:43,360 --> 01:05:45,159
rent that go car.

1130
01:05:45,199 --> 01:05:49,000
Speaker 7: I'm dry all over again on lock with my phone.

1131
01:05:49,519 --> 01:05:53,880
The freedom to Rome, go cars or go bands. The

1132
01:05:54,119 --> 01:05:58,159
wheel is in your hands, just singing and driving in

1133
01:05:58,400 --> 01:06:02,880
the rain. Download the go car up today or visit

1134
01:06:02,920 --> 01:06:03,519
go car dot.

1135
01:06:03,599 --> 01:06:09,079
Speaker 13: I at Christmas visit to Dondrum with Mam with stuff

1136
01:06:09,119 --> 01:06:11,599
fuller than Santa Sac. On the twenty fourth at the

1137
01:06:11,599 --> 01:06:13,880
ice rink, she's clutching the edge while my little one

1138
01:06:13,880 --> 01:06:16,920
is lapping us and Brown Thomas's spraying the perfumes around

1139
01:06:17,000 --> 01:06:20,000
like air fresheners. We do Harvey Nichols and always Reese

1140
01:06:20,159 --> 01:06:22,440
m Ands. She gets her browsed done at Edvard and

1141
01:06:22,519 --> 01:06:25,199
pink talk about a new face. Then it's Katsus and

1142
01:06:25,199 --> 01:06:28,039
Wagamamma and a Hansol and Gretel Panto at the Mill Theater.

1143
01:06:28,400 --> 01:06:31,119
Later I drop her home and Mom says, thank you, pet.

1144
01:06:31,480 --> 01:06:34,920
Best day out in ages, search Dundrum Town Center and

1145
01:06:34,960 --> 01:06:36,599
make a day of it this Christmas.

1146
01:06:36,960 --> 01:06:40,239
Speaker 5: What's brought me into therapy? Phone watch alarms. They're ruining

1147
01:06:40,239 --> 01:06:42,920
my life. I can't enjoy listening to music or podcasts

1148
01:06:42,920 --> 01:06:45,719
anymore like normal people, because that dreadful sound is ringing in.

1149
01:06:45,639 --> 01:06:46,559
Speaker 14: My head day and night.

1150
01:06:46,639 --> 01:06:47,719
Speaker 1: Woo woo woo.

1151
01:06:47,920 --> 01:06:50,760
Speaker 11: With their damn fifteen seconds response time, I'd never get

1152
01:06:50,760 --> 01:06:53,400
away with us. Plus they're twenty four to seven monitoring

1153
01:06:53,480 --> 01:06:57,360
the app Camera Motion Detector's wireless video door bell. I

1154
01:06:57,480 --> 01:06:59,199
might never be able to burgle again.

1155
01:06:59,480 --> 01:07:01,800
Speaker 5: Get the alarm Arm Burglars Fear for just ninety nine

1156
01:07:01,840 --> 01:07:04,760
euro Don't be alarmed, be phone Watched. Offer ends December

1157
01:07:04,800 --> 01:07:06,559
thirty first monitoring fees in terms apply