Leadership Lessons From The Great Books

Hello. My name is Jesan Sorrells, and this is the Leadership Lessons

from the Great Books podcast, episode number

85 with

our regular, now regular, I guess. Now I'm no longer

semi regular. You're now the regular cohost,

Tom Libby. How are you doing, Tom? Fantastic as always,

Ehsan. Thanks for asking. He's my Ed McMahon.

We're just talking about this. Except with with less ego

issues or or maybe Less hair too. And less hair.

Or maybe Hank on, on the Larry Sanders which, by the way, is a great

show. You should watch it, also

again with fewer ego ego issues. So

today, We are going to read

selections from the Norton Reader 4th

edition shorter. And I'm gonna kinda go over the conceit of

the Norton Reader here in just a second, but this is copyright

1977. And so We're gonna

read some of the selections from The Norton Reader. There's 3

essays that we are going to cover today. George Orwell's

Politics and the English Language, literature of

knowledge and literature of power by Thomas De Quincey,

and Keys to Dreamland by Northrop Fry. And we're

gonna kinda draw a through line, between those 3

essays around the impact of language,

the impact of elite of, literature

and the impact of knowledge and power and how that can

help leaders become that are leaders.

And so we're going to start off with, of course,

politics in the English language, by George Orwell.

And opened with an assertion that Orwell makes

here, And I quote, most people who

bother with the matter at all would admit that the English language is in a

bad way, but it is generally assumed that we cannot by conscious

action, Do anything about it? Our civilization is

decadent and our language. So the argument runs must inevitably share in

the general collapse. Now I'm gonna, we're gonna do this a little bit differently than

we normally do this. I'm gonna read some stuff, then I'm gonna pause and talk,

and Tom's gonna jump in and talk, and it's gonna be it's gonna be great.

You're gonna have to Gonna have to follow along a little bit. So just that

1 sentence right there, our civilization is decadent and our language. So the

argument runs most inevitably share of the general collapse.

This was written, Politics in the English

Language was written in let's

see. Let me go to the the big page here with all

of the copyright information. And I know some of you who are listening know when

this was written because this is a very famous, essay from

Orwell, was written in, like,

1945. Right? So he's writing this in the 19 forties.

I think Orwell would probably have a problem with our language now.

I think anybody from the 19 forties would have a problem with our language today.

Well, I think I I think he would be shocked that

that we weren't further down the spiral.

Maybe. Maybe, maybe not because, like, you know, we both have kids

in their twenties. Right? So Oh, yeah. I'm always arguing or complaining with my

kids. Like, I I said to one of my sons, I was like, why do

you guys keep trying to shorten words? Like, just say the word. How

lazy can you be? And the word is just

suspect. Why do you have to say sus? Like, I don't even understand, like, what

why what advantage do you have by abbreviating the word? Right? And then his response

to me was, Well, you guys just made up words, like, you know

That's no response. Get back out of town. Yeah. I was like it's

like, But at least our words ended up in the, you

know, when I was a kid, you never you can't say ain't. Ain't isn't a

word. Well, it is now because it's in Webster's. Right? So There you go. Yep.

Made it into Lexicon. Yeah. Exactly. So anyway but I

think it's any I think it's pretty funny that that I agree with you. He

would've thought I don't know about the spiral part. I think I think he he

I think he'd be shocked either way. Well, the entire

Internet would shock him and dismay him just in general. And

then and then after that, social media would just be the cherry on the, the

cherry on top of the on top of the the, the the ice

cream, cake there. Alright. Back to the back to politics

in the English language. So picking up, he says, it follows that any

struggle against the abuse of language It's a sentimental

archaism, like preferring candles to electrical light or handsome

cabs to airplanes. So stop your struggle, Tom. Underneath

this lies, in the half-conscious belief that language is a natural growth and not

an instrument. Which we shape for our own purposes. I agree

with that, by the way, languages and instrument we shape for our own purposes and

for our own time. Now it is clear that the decline of

language must ultimately have political and economic causes. It is

not simply due to the bad influence of this or that individual writer,

but an effect can become a cause, reinforcing the original cause and

producing the same effect in an intensified form and so on

indefinitely. A man may take to drink because he feels himself to

be a failure, and then fail all the more completely because he drinks.

It is rather the same thing that is happening to the English language. It becomes

ugly and inaccurate because our thoughts are foolish, but the

slovenliness of our language makes it easier for us to have foolish thoughts.

My grandma would have agreed with him, by the way. That's number 1. Number

2, my grandma would have used the word slovenly.

So that endears me already to work well, outside of the

whole 1984 Animal Farm thing. But then number 3,

I like it how he he sets up right at the beginning

of this essay, the idea that

an effect can become a cause reinforcing the original cause of producing the

same effect in an intensified form. Basically a spiral, you know,

basically a cul de sac that you can't get out of. And he's about to

point this out with certain pieces of prose that he's

that he's going to select that are twisted,

beyond all recognition, but he's also going to talk about 5 different areas

where where where you can see this.

One of the things that we have never talked about on this podcast is the

use of jargon, particularly

in business. And I remember a few years

ago, there was a consultant that wrote a

book called, No BS or something,

I think. And he might have had a

consulting agency that was, you know, bull, you know.

And and and, basically, his point was I remember him

hearing him interviewed on, on another podcaster

show. It might have been Mitch Mitch Joel's show, Six Pieces of Separation.

But he was talking about how And and this is where I got an

idea. I got the idea from him. He was talking about how

business people, particularly business leaders, use jargon to hide

in a in a political way, and that that jargon

actually warps culture, which I thought was a great point.

Yeah. Well and and I I think there's an I think there's an interesting

dynamic that, or or not that there's some

sort of paradigm shift that happened while I was

asleep, and because I well, quite frankly,

I can't remember when it was. I know it was a while ago. It was

probably 10 years ago or more. But it it there's this that

that theory behind, like, meet them where they are Kinda thing, right, where

leaders in today's workforce will find themselves

bringing their Their own vernacular

down to the level of the people they're talking to rather than trying to

pick them up. Right? Mhmm. Because 50 years ago, if you were at the

low entry level you're working for a Fortune 500 company. You're entry-level.

Your entire career is trying to better yourself to Push yourself up

that ladder. Right? Like, you wanna be a I'm I'm a entry level sales

guy. I wanna be a sales manager. I wanna be a VP of sales. I

want so you have to start talking the talk, walking the walk, and my my

grandmother, as you just said with the lemon, my grandmother used to have a saying

that I I took to heart when I was a kid, which was, Don't dress

for the job you have. Dress for the job you want. Yeah. That same

that same vernacular today doesn't apply because the higher you go

up the ladder, the less You worry about what you wear today. Right? Like

so, like, you see CEOs of huge companies wearing T

shirts and gym shorts to to work where I would

think I'd be wearing a suit it when I when I when I was a

kid as a CEO, right, or as a as a upper-level management person or

whatever. And what I'm I'm boiling down to my point here is back then,

it was that upper level expected you to

educate yourself to speak the way they spoke. And in today's world,

we are taking the upper level and coming down to where our entry-level people

are talking and talking their talk. So all that street slang and all

that stuff that I would have never thought to learn in the 1st place when

I was a kid, now I have to learn to talk to my

Entry level people. The the script was flipped a while

back. Well, it's millennials' fault, but that's alright. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. It's fine.

We'll blame it on the millennials. Yeah. We'll blame them.

But does that make it easier? Do you agree with Orwell that that makes it

easier for us to have foolish thoughts? Yes. I I Okay.

But, again but think of it coming from generational. Right? Like, be

because I was raised in like I said, my grandmother dressed for the job you

want, the job you have. Right? So so now I'm expected if I

want to be that CEO, I'm gonna go to work

wearing a T shirt and gym

shorts? Like, I I I I can't see myself doing that. Right? So Right. To

your point, like, that's how the ridiculousness of it happens, Where I I

gotta I gotta try to find a happy medium where I can't show up to

work in gym shorts and a t shirt, but I also don't wanna be in

suit because I don't want the upper level people thinking that I'm brownnosing

or kissing rear end or whatever. You know what I mean? Well but But that

becomes, like, that self perpetuating thing that he's talking about. Right? Definitely.

So I, as the CEO, If I'm

coming in in gym shorts and a t shirt, right, I'm

setting the tone. Now the tone is set.

Now I'm I'm expecting people to

be serious in their roles, but I'm in gene I

mean, I mean, I'll just go over it. Jean Jean. I'm in

jorts. I'm in no. I'm in jorts. I'm in jean shorts.

And Crocs of all things. What the hell? Crocs.

It looked like what's his name from, oh, what was that

HBO show with the with the comedian who played

the the guy with the mullet? Oh, it'll come to me in a minute.

It'll come to me in a minute.

We thought he was, like, you and he was an ex baseball player. I remember

it anyway. It doesn't matter. But but to your point, like, the CEO now The

CEO now. Back back then, you're talking about a CEO back then trying to set

the tone. The CEO now is saying, look what success looks like. When you're

successful, you can dress like this. Okay. But you're not gonna get any serious

right. But you're not gonna get any but then you want me to think seriously

about solving your problem. Right. Right. Do you want me to deliver, like,

PhD level suit and tie thinking to your

jorts and your your your

Whatever you've got going on on the back of your head that's short in the

back and long in the front or long in the back, short in the front

or party in the back and series of the front or whatever the heck it

is. Like, where where Orwell or Orwell was

was a little bit correct in how lang not a little bit. He was a

lot correct in how language and action to create this

self perpetuating cycle, but then the demands and the expectations that

are then placed upon people don't match that. And now, I mean, there's

and particularly in a remote environment where if you're working

remotely, like and we saw this during 2020, during

during the height of the lockdowns. Like, how many people were at

home, and we haven't talked about this on the podcast ever at all, but we

might as well talk about it right now. How many people at home We're pantsless

on sales calls. For sure. I'm wearing pants right now

just so everybody knows who's watching the video. Okay. So yeah. Well,

like, I believe in pants. Like like like like, if

I wanna be taken seriously, I've gotta show up to

pants on in pants on a Zoom call. Well,

and and I think so I again, I don't I I agree with you to

To a pretty heavy degree, but, like, for me, the mentality

was I still felt like I had to get up and get dressed in the

morning in order to start my day. I couldn't just come

down in my pajama pants or like, to me, I wasn't

mentally ready for work unless I was ready for work. So I

had I never lost the routine of getting up, get

showered, get shaved, get ready, get dressed as I'm getting normally dressed,

and then go down and go to work. Like, I But in fairness,

like, sales and marketing professionals have been working remote for 20 years. Like, this is

not this was not new for us. Right? Like, this was new to the it

was new to the rest of the world, but it wasn't new for us. Like,

so for we it was a little bit different, but but I do I I

I still go back to the the essay. I still think he's right. Like, I

I think it it it it gets us into these It gets us into

these, like, these tug of wars of

expectation and normalcy, right, like of what we expect and what we find

as normal. Because What we find is normal and what we expect are sometimes

very 2 very different things. Well, he's about to address that. So

back to the essay for just a moment. He says the point is that the

process is reversible, so he thinks that all this is reversible. We could we could

rescue this. Right? Remember, he's writing in 1945. You know, again, if he were

around now, I don't know that he would think the process is reversible. I would

love George Orwell today. Like, I I would love to see him.

Not not Not in his nineties or a hundreds or whatever. I'm not him as

him. So I'm saying, like, the just take him out of 1945 at the same

age and Put I'd love to see him our age, like, right now. At, like,

40 just walking around with all of this.

Fascinating. Modern English, especially written

English back to the essay, modern English, especially written English is full of

bad habits. Which spread by imitation and which can be

avoided if one is willing to take the necessary trouble. So if you're willing to

put forth the effort and think a little bit, you can avoid some of these

habits in your language. If one gets rid of these habits, one

can think more clearly, which by the way, I'm a big fan of. And to

think clearly is a necessary first step towards political regeneration.

I did not highlight that, but I'm going to highlight it now. I'm

gonna watch my process happen. Usually folks I go through, I highlight things

that I'm going to read And somehow I missed that.

And then usually, I will read it again in my own mind, but

now I will read it again out loud because

This is a very, very important point.

If one gets rid of these habits, one can think more clearly, and to think

clearly is a necessary first step towards political regeneration.

If we want political regeneration in our country, which almost everybody says they

do, and we're not a political podcast, but we do wade sometimes

into political waters because it's just the nature of, you know, the things that we

cover. And of course, Orwell was a political writer. I already mentioned 1984

and Animal Farm, and he cut his eye teeth on reporting on

communism mean, on fascism when those words actually meant something.

Political political Speech was very important to

him, and the and the freedom to speak politically, particularly in

England in his time, was very, very important to him. I think

it's even more critical now.

I will come back to this presently, back to the essay. I will come back

to this presently, and I hope that By the time the meaning

of what I have said here will become clearer. Meanwhile, here are 5

specimens of English language as is now habitually

written. These 5 passages have not been picked out because they are especially

bad. I could have quoted far worse if I had chosen, but because they illustrate

Various of the mental vices from which we now suffer.

They are a little below the average, but are fairly representative samples. I number

them so I could refer back to them when necessary. Now, if you go pick

up this essay, you could read those 5. I'm going to I'm going to

skip them reading the samples because they are one of them is incredibly

convoluted, but I will tell you the sources. So

One is from an essay written by a professor named Harold

Lasky. Another is, written by a

professor, Lancelot Lancelot Hogben in a a

magazine called Intercolossal, which is kind of amazing. I love that last name,

Hogben. And then there was an essay that he selected, a

piece from On Psychology and Politics that was written in New

York. Then he threw in, much to my surprise,

the language of a communist pamphlet, which

add which add the term petite

bourgeois in it,

which I love. That makes me giggle.

And letter and then then a letter that was written to the New York

Tribune from just some average writer. So those were his 5 his 5

samples. From each one of those

samples, he then says, each of these passages has faults of its own, but quite

apart from avoidable ugliness, Again, I love the way this guy

writes. Two qualities are common to all of them. The first is

staleness of imagery. The other is lack of precision. The

writer either has a meaning and cannot express it, or he inadvertently says

something else, or he is almost indifferent as to whether

his words mean anything or not.

Interesting.

We now live in a world, speaking of Orwell, bringing Orwell to 2023, I

think he would be shocked at the drowning at at how much we

have drowned in words, but words that don't mean anything.

Absolutely. And I run a podcast. I mean, I make

my living from talking. This is what I do.

And I'm not the only one. I mean, Joe Rogan makes his

living from talking, Jordan Peterson makes his living from

talking. Who else?

Anybody that you could name on on, CNN, MSNBC,

Fox News, most of what

you see on social media platforms, Outside

of the meme culture and the visuals and the videos

is written, almost all of Google

search operates through words. I mean, that was Google's great

innovation, those 2 guys. Sergei and Larry's great innovation

was taking the internet

from a page based search system to a word

based search system, which opens up just an infinity

of options. Nobody else saw that, by the way. Not

even Yahoo Saw that back at the nineties, and they didn't even understand how Google

was going to work, but that's genius. It is. And one day on the

podcast, I'll explain exactly how Google makes its

money in the keyword auction process, which most people don't understand how

that works. But the keyword auction process is absolutely genius, and Google

was the first one to come up with it, they just applied it to words

versus other things like cars or land

or something like that. They didn't invent it, but

they perfected it. Oh, they they they got it down to a science. That's

the whole that's the whole, you know, automobile industry with Henry Ford,

Yeah. Right? Like, he didn't invent automobiles, but he certainly invented how we make a

lot of money with them. Yes. He did. So Well or or Hollywood

with cinema. Like, the French created cinema, and they didn't know what to do with

it. Right. Like, oh, we got moving pictures. I don't know. I don't know what

you do with that. New York is like, hold my

beer. We we got this. We

we are we are the BASF of We don't make

the stuff. We just make the stuff that you make better. That's what we do.

So I think Orwell would be Shocked at the

volume of words we produce, but I

think he would be more appalled by the lack of meaning behind all those

words.

I just thought I just thought I was thinking about the conversation we had before

we started the podcast about About my profession. Right?

Like, so I'm I'm a I'm a sales I'm a sales and marketing consultant, and

we were just talking about how much I hate The way that marketing does

exactly what you're talking about. We say they they they put an awful lot

of words on on on screen or on paper or whatever That don't say

anything. And my my claim to fame, I guess,

is I'm the word hacker. Right? Like, I'm the one that goes in, and and

by hacker, I'm not talking about, like, Making it easier, better, faster, whatever.

I'm talking about making it simple. I go and I I hack, literally cut.

I cut words out of the phrases that people write because

I, To to Orwell's point, just get to the point. Like, why are

you putting all these words in here? Well, and this is why I wanted to

read Orwell's essay because I read it, and I thought, oh my gosh. This is

Tom, Tom would love this because this is what this is what

Orwell Orwell and George Orwell and Tom Libby separated

at birth or something more. I would've gone along with

him fabulously.

Well, he says, As soon as certain topics are raised, the concrete melts

into the abstract, and no one seems to be able to think of

terms of speech that are not hackneyed. Rose consist less

and less of words chosen for the sake of their meaning and more and more

of phrases tacked together like the sections of a prefabricated hen

house. Mhmm. I list below

with notes and examples various of the tricks by means of

which the work of prose construction is habitually

Dodge. That's an excellent sentence. Then he goes into all of

them. I'm going to read off some of them for you. Dying metaphors,

A newly invented metaphor assists thought by evoking a visual image, while on the other

hand, a metaphor which is technically dead, for example, iron

resolution, has in effect reverted to being an ordinary word and could

generally be used without loss of vividness. This is one area he

says is overdone. By the way, he also points out that

many of the metaphors, and he lists a whole bunch of them, like ring the

changes on, take up the cudgels for, something that I never heard of, Tow the

line, ride rough shot over, stand shoulder to shoulder with,

play into the hands of, no ax to grind, wrists to the mill, Fishing in

Troubled Waters, Achilles' heel. Some of these we don't even use

anymore. Swan song. Like, when's the last time you heard anybody talk about a swan

song? Like, nobody Also, he uses that term anymore,

hotbed, but I'm sure we could fill up our own modern

era with dying metaphors. And what he says is many of these are used

without knowledge of their meaning. What is a rift, for instance?

And incompatible metaphors are frequently

mixed. A sure sign that the writer is not interested in what he is

saying. David Chase on The Sopranos I'm gonna

pause there. David Chase on The Sopranos took this idea of

mixed metaphors and stuck it in the Italian gangsters'

mouths to make things mean what they didn't

mean. And this is the

province of people who want to be smart or used to be, and this is

where, Like, David Chase was using it in The Sopranos and his writing of The

Sopranos. It used to be that people

mixing metaphors to sound smarter was the province of people who weren't that smart,

But these guys were that smart. And so, like, Tony Soprano was an

intelligent guy, but he just mixed metaphors all the time.

And a mixed metaphor, there's a term for it. It's called malapropisms, and

I I freaking love that term because it's it's

it's literally It's

literally malappropriating a metaphor

and twisting it to get it to do something that you wouldn't you

wouldn't want it to do. Polywallnuts was notorious for this.

Okay. Well, I was thinking more in the lines of, like, so mixed

metaphors, it like, the the one of the smart ways to use them is, like,

in code. Right? Like, Sure. When you're with your friends and you're a kid

and you don't want your parents to know what you're talking about, sometimes you throw

around a couple of mixed metaphors, and the parents are like, the hell is wrong

with these kids? You know exactly what you guys are talking about. That is a

second level intelligence that we don't give good enough to to younger

people for. Right? And again, I I I talk about my kids often, and

we've talked about our kids often together, but they do the same thing.

Like, they'll be they'll talk about something, You know, that they read in

about Ukraine or about Israel or whatever the world politics

are going on. But if they don't want me to know What their side of

the store like, what they what side they land on Mhmm. They'll they'll throw in

these mixed metaphors, and I'll be like, you guys aren't even making any sense. And

they're like, yeah. We are. It's us. Like, yeah. Speak English. Like,

speak speak speak English. Stop it.

Then the other one he gives so that's dying metaphors. The other one he gives

It's operators or verbal false limbs. I love that. He

says these save the trouble of picking out appropriate verbs and nouns, and at the

same time, pad each sentence with extra syllables, which given an appearance

of symmetry. By the way, this is what Tom hates. Characteristic

phrases are render inoperative, militate against, make

contact with, be subjected to give rise to, give grounds for, have the

effect of, play a leading part, role in, make itself felt,

take effect, exhibit a tendency to, serve the purpose of. The keynote

is the elimination of simple verbs. Instead of being a single word, such as break,

stop, spoil, men, kill, a verb becomes a phrase made up of a noun or

adjective have tacked onto some general purpose verb, such as prove, serve,

form, play, render. In addition, the passive voice

is, wherever possible, use your preference to the active, And noun constructions

are used instead of gerunds. By the way, no one remembers gerunds. The

range of verbs is further cut down by means of the is and deformation, and

the banal statements are given an appearance of profundity by means of the

not un formation.

We're not doing a whole English lesson here, folks, but it is important to realize

that when you're looking at bad writing,

so when someone says, for instance, I'll use this in a sentence,

we are going to make contact with the Ukrainians today.

You're gonna call them. Just say

we're gonna make a phone call. Now, by the way, Donald Trump is amazing at

this. This was We're talking about the phone

call that he had to

the the Ukrainians or something, and he he says, That was the

cleanest phone call ever in the history of phone calls. That's what that's

what Orwell is talking about. It's that kind of padding of the sentence

when you don't need to pad it, you know? Right. Right. Again, a sign

of foolish thinking. Back to the essay. So

pretentious diction, Words like phenomenon, element, individual

as a noun, objective, categorical, effective, virtual, basic

basic. That's a big one. Primary, promote,

constituent, constitute, exhibit, exploit, utilize.

That's another one. I eliminate, utilize everywhere I see it. Eliminate,

liquidate are used to dress up simple statements and give an air of scientific

impartiality to biased judgments. You see that all over the place.

We're going to utilize x y z or we're going to,

we're going to, objectify or we're going to,

oh, I I love this one. We're we're categorically

We're categorically this or we're categorically that. No. You're you're not. And he makes a

point a little bit further down. Bad writers and especially scientific,

Political and sociological writers are nearly always haunted by the

notion that Latin or Greek words are grander than Saxon

ones. Oh, for sure. I yeah.

That I I I I I I can't say I

hate it. I don't hate it because there are cases where you should use

them. Like, for example and, like, especially if they're in

common theme or common language, like quid pro quo. Right? Like, Sure. If you

know what quid pro quo means, it makes sense to use it.

But there are other circumstances where you're just trying to make you're just trying to

outsmart the other person. I mean, stop it. Like, it's almost it almost

approaches being a malproprism where you're mixing a metaphor almost.

Like, when I hear quid pro quo, I think of Squid Pro Ro.

Like, that's what I that's what that's what I think of, and

that's a ridiculous malproprism from Futurama. But it's

mocking this idea that, yeah, yeah, that, you know, you can use this.

And in and in today's and especially in the corporate world, Quid pro

quo has become something of, like, a negativity. Right? Because they're

thinking it's some sort of, like, like, some sort of,

leadership role or or Superior, you know,

person trying to get somebody to do something that's illegal not illegal, but, like,

out of whack or whatever, and it's Sexual in nature sometimes and, like, all this

stuff. Yeah. And the reality of it is it just means this for that. It's

just a way of doing business. I'm gonna do this for you, you do this

for me, Right. And it's a quid pro quo. It's like it doesn't have to

be negative, but we have turned it into this connotation that just

every time you say, oh, like, their relationship, is there a quid

Quid pro quo, and you're like, no. They just like each other. Like, I don't

understand. Each other. Just say handshake and move

on. Move on. Exactly.

Or oh, okay. Here's back to back to the essay, meaningless words.

In certain kinds of writing, particularly in art criticism and literary

criticism, ism, which by the way, I studied our criticism in school. I ran across

this a lot, this next criticism that he's going to give, and he's correct.

In certain kinds of writing, particularly in our criticism and literary criticism.

It is normal to come across long passages which are almost

completely lacking in meaning.

That is true. Words like romantic,

plastic values, human dead, sentimental, natural vitality

are used As used in our criticism are strictly

meaningless in the sense that they not only do not point to any discoverable

object, but are hardly ever expected to do so by the

reader. When 1 critic writes, quote, the outstanding feature

of mister X's work is its living quality, unquote, while another.

Quote, the immediately striking thing about mister X's work is his peculiar

deadness unquote. The reader accepts this simple, this as a

simple difference of opinion. If words like black and white were involved,

instead of the jargon words, dead and living, he would see a one set language

is being used in an improper way. Many political words are

similarly abused, and this is a knock for our

time. Here we go. And I I I double underline this. The word

fascism has now no meaning except in so far

as it signifies something not

desirable.

I'm now going to get on my hobby horse. He wouldn't like

that metaphor either, I would ride it around the corral a little bit of

my show and say this.

Almost nobody knows what the textbook definition of the word ism is.

Almost nobody knows what the textbook word is because it has come to

mean precisely what Orwell predicted in 1945.

It has come to mean anything that is outside of

what I like and what works for me in my political

schema of reality. And by the way,

since now, and by the way, Orwell's writing this

before feminism, western feminism really kicked off, second wave

feminism really kicked off in the 19, the late '50s and early '60s and

then into the '70s. In the

'60s, feminist Thought and

feminist theory postulated that the personal

was political. Okay, fine. Well, if the personal

is political and I personally don't like fascism, then everything

that I don't like is politically fascist. That's ridiculous,

and that's where we're at now. And Orwell was dead bang on. Yeah. That's

right. I rode my hobby horse around the corral. Tom doesn't have to say anything.

You see him on the video. He's making the face. He doesn't wanna say anything

because he don't wanna get in trouble. I will get in trouble. It's my show.

Look. You if you don't know what the word means, stop using it.

For sure. Stop using it. Just like the word by the way, I'll go on

the other side. Communist. You don't know what the word communist means. They

have no clue. And the other hobby horse word is socialist.

You don't know what that word means either. Well

and I think they get butchered an awful lot by I'm not gonna I'm not

gonna throw the young people under the bus here, but I am because I think

I think they get misused by I think they get misused a lot by the

younger generation, and I'm not talking about Kids, I'm talking about the twenties, right, like

20 somethings that Mhmm. That that think that that this or

that, like socialism or anyway, Communism is evil, and

socialism is wonderful. Like, if you understood the definition

of the 2 of them completely, then you might not be thinking that. I'm I'm

not again, we're I don't need we don't need to get political here, but No.

But to your point, the reality of it is you don't really know what that

means. Like, you don't really know what because if you did,

I I I tell people, communism at its

purest form in a small Scale

is probably not the worst thing in the world. No. It works just fine for

a tribe or a family. Past that, it doesn't work. Right.

Past past that, it doesn't work. And we've had multitude of people try to

make it work on a global scale or a a country wide scale, and it's

proven time and time again that it doesn't. But the younger people just

think communist equals evil, and that's that's not the case. It's

not the case. No. It's really not. No. It's Well, it's it's it's that it's

it goes back to what Orwell was talking about in his setup to the beginning

of this, which is if you If you

don't understand,

that language is a natural growth and not an strument, which we shape for our

own purposes. If you think that language is something that happens naturally versus something you

have control over, you're just gonna use words,

and you're not going to actually think about the precision of

language necessary. And I'll go a step further, I

will say this for leaders. Here's the tip coming out of this because leaders are

listening to this going, why are we talking about this? Well, here's the tip. The

more precise you are in your language, the more you get to win if that's

really what you're looking for. And I'm not just talking about winning a negotiation. I'm

talking about winning and leading your people, winning and establishing a

vision, winning and role modeling, In all these kinds of ways that

we want leaders to win, whether you're in jorts or not,

if you have precise language,

You win. Well, and on top of that,

and something that I've said on this podcast before, and I I don't remember what

episode, but it was quite a while back, but There there's a there's something to

be said about not reacting right away, not

Right. Like he like Orwell talks about. Something like, if you're just so

willing to jump in as soon as somebody I've said on

this podcast before, I was when I went through through my very first

Management training course. I when I the very first management training course, they said something

to me that I never understood until much later in life, which was

Don't just do something, stand there. And they it completely

contradicts what you're told as a kid, right? Like when you're told, don't just don't

just stand there, do something, like You gotta react no, no, no. From a management

and a leadership level, don't just do something, stand there. And what that allows

you to do is take everything in, formulate your thoughts, Make sure,

to your point, your words are crystal clear coming back. So when you're

getting feedback from people or you're listening to, people give

you, You know, counter ideas or whatever the case may be,

just stop. Just sit there and lit like, take it all in. Listen.

To your point, this is here you go, leaders. Like, don't just do something. Stand

there. Stop reacting to things immediately, and start listening and and

Formulating and getting very concise on on what you're how you're going to

respond to those things. Well and Orwell gives practical

advice for how to write even in this. And so he says a little bit

later on in the essay, which we'll pick up here, people who write in this

manner usually have a general emotional meaning, But they dislike

one thing and want to express solidarity with another, which is fine,

but they are not interested in the detail of what they are saying.

So he he's critiquing, people in this

section. He's he's critiquing people,

utilizing words in ways to create images that they

don't understand, basically. He says and then he writes in

opposition to this, a scrupulous writer In every

sentence that he writes, we'll ask himself at least 4 questions.

Thus, what am I trying to say? This is, by the way, this

goes out to Tom Libby. This is the Tom Libby editing, suite right here of

questions, 4 of them. What am I trying to say?

What words will express it? What image or

idiom will make it clearer? Is this image fresh enough

to have an effect? And he will probably ask himself 2

more. Could I put it more shortly? Have I said anything

that is avoidably ugly?

Love it.

I got got nothing else to say. I just think that everybody should copy.

Everybody should cut and paste that and put it right on their computer desk, on

a sticky note, right on their screen. So every time they try to write, just

look at it. Well and I would I would even I would even assert would

assert 1 more, make it 6. I'll make I'll assert 1 more.

Does this thing need to be written by me? Even better.

Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Because the the the I I said this with another guest,

back in episode 51 when we were talking about politeness in the zone

to Toby's The Way of the Samurai. And, we were we

were discussing, with my guest on that show, on that

episode, the nature of polite communication and how

we have had a decline in politeness in our culture overall,

and we mistake rudeness for

transparency and truth, when in reality, rudeness is just

rudeness. Right? And we've we've

negated that because we are looking for people to express their

authentic selves. Well, Natoby would say

being authentic includes being polite because rudeness is,

it's a cudgel rather than a sword. It does

something different. Right? I think Orwell would agree with that by the way. But

the The idea of, does this have to be

said by me even before we go into those other things,

those other elements of writing, which, by the way, I would agree Is can does

this have clear idiom? What am I trying to say? What words

will express it? You know, that Putting a putting

a break on the hot take culture of self that we

are currently in in our communication culture in the west because of

social media, which values the hot take over the slow burn,

or the measured response is

is is critical, I think, for for writing success,

as a leader and, quite frankly, for for everybody. I mean, I think of how

many times I've seen stuff on the Internet, not on the Internet,

on social media. And I'm I'm a huge Twitter guy. I've said this before, but

now x, I'm a huge Twitter guy. Loved Twitter. Right? Or or at least loved

Twitter. It was all those things I had to wean myself away from. And

Twitter exists algorithmically to get you

to respond, to react like that. And

once I realized that, I had to train myself out of

The the quick clap back that gets a lot of likes

and move more into a measured response. And it's interesting. When you give

more measured responses, The algorithm hates you because it doesn't

generate as much heat as the hot

take does, and particularly a well written algorithmic

response with a lot of words in it, everybody runs away from that.

You want the key to driving people away from your, For your Facebook page, you're

reducing drama. Just write well really well written

responses to things,

because no one's looking for that. Nobody wants

that. Nobody wants that. One other point from politics in

the English language, and then will we'll move on to to Thomas DeQuincy.

A speaker who uses that kind of phraseology has gone some distance towards turning

himself into a machine. So here he is talking about how

it's broadly true, and he mentions this at the beginning, that political

writing is bad writing. He says orthodoxy of whatever

color seems to demand a lifeless, imitative style. The

political dialects to be found in pamphlets, leading articles, manifestos, white papers,

and Speeches of undersecretaries do, of course, vary from party to

party, but they are all alike in that one almost never finds

them finds in them a fresh vivid homemade turn of

speech. When one watches some tired hack on the platform

mechanically repeating the familiar phrases,

Bestial Atrocities, Iron Heel, Blood State Tyranny,

Free Peoples of the World, that one's coming back. Stand Shoulder to Shoulder,

that one's coming back. One often has a curious feeling that one is not watching

a live human being, but some kind of dummy, a feeling which suddenly

becomes stronger at moments when the light, This was great. When the

light catches the specter the speakers' spectacles and turns

them into blank discs, which seem to have no eyes behind them.

And this is not altogether fanciful. A speaker who uses that

kind of phraseology has gone some distance towards turning himself into a

machine. The appropriate noises are coming out of his larynx,

but his brain is not involved as it would be if he were choosing his

words for himself. If the speech he is making is one that he is

accustomed to make over and over again, he may be almost unconscious of what he

is saying as 1 as is 1 As is

sorry. As one is when one utters the responses in

a church. And this reduced state of consciousness, If

not indispensable, is it any rate favorable to

political conformity?

It's also favorable to organizational

conformity. I think of how many times Tim Cook's

Spectacles have turned into mirror glasses when he speaks at the New York Stock Exchange

Yeah. Or at an Apple event.

I don't think it's an accident that Steve Jobs, his eyes, you could

always see them at the Apple events. Tim Cooks, you can't see

him. The light catches up just right. Yeah. Half of

that the reading of that last part, I was I was actually thinking more

in the lines of, like, Have you ever noticed, like, somebody who's

uses ChatGPT to write a blog, there's an awful lot of words that say

nothing, and you're supposed to be a thought leader. You're trying to represent yourself

as a thought leader in your industry. You use chat gpt to write a, like,

a that that's what it reminded me of, the

last Part of the you were right you were reading. Well and if you look

at their videos on TikTok, you can't really you probably can't really see their

eyes either. Alright. No. That's terrible. I'm sure you can. I'm sure it's fine. They're

thought leaders. Yeah. Their their thoughts a little little

shaky. In our time, back to the back to the essay, and I'll close

here On this one, in our time, political speech and

writing are largely the the defense of the indefensible,

such as in 1945 as is now. Things

like the continuation of British rule in India, The Russian purges

and deportations, the dropping of the atom bombs on Japan

can indeed be defended, but only by arguments which

are too brutal for most people to face and which do not

square with the professed aims of political parties. Thus,

political language has to consist largely of euphemism, question

begging, and sheer cloudy vagueness.

George Orwell for the win. Well, yeah. I mean, if you

ever listen to a political ad, Again, they say an awful lot of words without

saying much of anything. I mean, I I had to go look online.

There was 1 I'm not gonna Say who it is. This it's irrelevant. But there

was a political ad I saw, and I had to go look up this person's

platform because the The ad didn't tell me what they stood for. Like, the

ad didn't tell me anything. I had no idea what this person was saying that

they were, like so I started reading on their, Like, on their political page

and Mhmm. What they stood for and what they how where they stand on certain

issues. And I was like, oh, Yeah. I couldn't vote

for this person. Like Oh, no. We're all Looking at the

ad, I was like, oh, they seem pretty cool. Like, I I, you know. We'll

just wait till all of their political positions are written by Chad g p t

five. You're gonna love that. It's gonna be great. No, I'm not.

Nobody's gonna love that. Nobody's gonna love it at all. It's gonna be

terrible. And Orwell hits on something

that I think is human. It's the

human tendency, and I don't think it's just in the English language. I think we

could apply this anywhere. Like, if you wrote politics and, the

Russian language or politics and the Hindu language

or politics and the Spanish language. I

think you would probably, with some with

some minor differences based on culture because language

also drives culture, with minor differences in that.

I think you'd run across the same thing. I think there's the human tendency to

hide inside of language, the human tendency to look for, and

we're gonna we're gonna read from, Thomas De Quincey here in a minute,

but the the human tendency to look for power

Inside of words is is is almost yeah. Not

almost. It is a universal. You know, you get more

power out of words than you do, that you do out of images. One other

thought. So

Orwell's writing in 1945 or so, right around there, right around the end of

World War 2. I think that's that's about the time the

Politics of the English Language was published, or at least that's when it's

copyrighted. And one of the points that he makes

is that, In our age, there is no such thing as keeping

out of politics. All issues are political issues. Remember I said the

personal is political, and politics Self is a mass of lies,

evasions, folly, hatred, and schizophrenia.

I mean, that's pretty much the definition. Right? That is that's the whole thing. Yeah.

Yeah. That's the definite that that's that's just described

every politician you've ever met in your in your life.

So okay. So here's the challenge question then.

Should leaders in small and medium sized business entities

I'm not talking about the the places where you get paid $50,000 a month and

you're, like, running a small country. The IBMs and the AT and

Ts of the world forget those folks.

One of the challenges in small and medium sized businesses, particularly in, like, the

the half a1000000 to $50,000,000 range,

The the challenge in those kinds of business organizations is,

for leaders in particular, is how political to be,

particularly now. Right? And

if those leaders are are uninterested or don't have

the stomach, right, to engage in a process

with language that fundamentally is going to be about

lies of Asians, folly, hatred, and schizophrenia. They don't wanna engage in

that. What's their get out of jail free card in

2023 when we're way down the road of

politics being everywhere? We're way down that road, more so than we we were

in 1945.

Because I think that's a real leadership challenge. If I don't wanna be

political, if I want to speak

truth for my local

community or for my region, or for my state,

and I'm not gonna be publicly traded. I don't have ambitions of

being IBM or AT and T or Apple or any of these big companies that

we talk about, they always write the case studies about in Harvard Business Review. If

I don't have any interest in any of that, yet I

live in an environment where one wrong interaction

on social media destroys everything or can

or has the capacity to do so. How do I

engage with with language? How do I

engage with thought?

You know, that's that's an interesting question, actually. That's that's a

I I don't think there's a simple answer for that, Ehsan, honestly, I think there

is either. Yeah. I think I think that question because,

you know, one of the things, you know, we we we grew up We grew

up listening to our our parents say, you know, there are 3 things you never

talk about, you know, with friends, family, or or at work or whatever. Right? It's

sex, religion, politics. Like, you don't talk about that stuff, And in today's day and

age, there's no way you're gonna avoid talking about 1,

if not all of those 3 things, right? But I think

there's something to be said about about a leader

who sticks to factual information and simplicity

in response Versus somebody that gets kinda dragged through the mud or

dragged into the weeds of of a fight. Right? So, and and

I I think there are ways, Like, I I think that's another

podcast, honestly, because I think that that could be a podcast all by itself, right,

where we're talking about actual Tactics and and and and

strategies behind not getting not allowing yourself to get dragged into these

types of things because I I I also think there's, You know,

some compartmentalization that needs to happen and and people need to learn about

how to, like, you know, go to a city hall

meeting and voice their opinion, but not allow that opinion to run their

company if it if it if it's you know, again,

let's we're here in the US. Right? We have Democrat, Republican,

independent Voters, if you have a 100 people in your company

and 30 of them are Democrats, 30 of them are Republican, and 40 of them

are Independent, And you go off and say something about

x topic on a city, at a city,

city hall, like, council meeting or something like that, you're gonna upset At

least half the apple cart, right? Oh, yeah. Mhmm. Something you say is gonna be

upsetting into one of those, but if you go back to work and and you're

sayin', listen, the facts of the matter are this, This is how the, this is

how it impacts our company. You know, I think there's ways to do

that, but I don't think it's as simple as I'm gonna write a I'm gonna

write a statement and call it a day. Right? I don't think that's Well well

and we ran into this with

the, uh-huh, Social Unrest

During the Year 2020, during the summer, right,

during the lockdowns. And

relations in America.

Put that everywhere they could,

And it wasn't just the big boys. Right. It was

all the way down the down the line. And talk about a

subject, by the way, that people said an awful lot of words that meant nothing.

That meant nothing. Correct. Oh my gosh. I I was mortified by half

those statements that Came out, I I didn't even understand it. It was insane. And

and at a certain point, even I

Have to go I have to say

I have to I have to say I already have to paraphrase,

a very important insight that Michael Jordan once had that you I think

you know what I'm about to say.

Even Republicans buy sneakers.

Yeah. The rioters are gonna buy Nikes, And

so were the cops.

So is your job to pick To write is your

job if you're Nike no. Forget Nike. If your

job is is your job as a shoemaker In

a local town who's distributing Nikes,

is your job to put a statement on your website

that says you support 1 or the other, or is your job just

to shell just to sell shoes to both the

rioters and the cops? Right. Exactly.

Kind of what I was saying earlier. Right? Just you can state fact. Right? That

that that's the way that I was I would answer those questions. So stop

writing about all the fluff and stop writing about something that you may or may

you you may not have. If I'm writing that statement, I

have not lived through what that community lived through, so why am I writing a

statement? I'll I'm gonna address, like, it shouldn't be that. Like, it should just be

simply, Well, there's some point. It's okay to

again, because we live in the world of the hot take. Right? The impolite hot

take where we are now and this is we we talked about this a little

bit on a on a shorts episode. I did I I we, we recorded recently.

I think it was, number 104, I think. Go

back and listen to it. But it's this idea, and I'm concerned about

this, where we've now had almost 5th no. More than

that. We're now approaching 20 years of algorithmically driven

behavior in our communication and social media platforms,

and we have now trained our brains over the core collectively

over the course of 20 years to go into hot

take mode, and that doesn't work outside of a

social media echo chamber. Right. But because we've trained our

brain, my mama used to say back in the day, and the neuroscience just back

this up. Your brain only knows what you tell it.

My brain doesn't know the difference between

My communication, my relationship with my employees if I'm a

leader, and my communication if I'm in a relationship with people on

Reddit, It doesn't know the difference. It's just

communicating. I, to Orwell's point about telling about

about having precise language, I have to tell my brain.

My brain isn't just operating or it shouldn't be anyway, operating on

autopilot. And so if I've been if I've been training myself

algorithmically over the course of time. And now I have

to there's a a term that black people use called code switch, but it works

here too. If I have to task switch or code switch into

another spot. That's gonna be a real challenge for me, and I'm gonna have to

think about that. And it's just gonna be easier for me to put it's gonna

be easier for me to take my Reddit based behavior and put it on the

front of my business. And by the way, those 100 people who work for me,

those 30 democrats, those 30 republicans, and let's just make it

easy, those 30 independents, and then, of course, the 10 people who are just like,

I don't have an opinion. I just wanna, like this is just something I do

in between my hobbies. Why Are You Bothering Me? Because there's those

people are around. Trust the truth. That's true. And there's actually more than 10 of

them, but let's just keep the ratios right. It's probably

2020 and 40 of them. It is, actually.

As a leader of a company, as a leader of an organization,

Jin. Is this something I should be struggling with?

Because the because if you if you if you hang on in the online echo

chambers, you're you're you're not a good human You're not a moral

human being unless you're struggling with this. Well, I wanna be a moral human being.

I don't wanna be a moral, so I need to struggle with this. But, like,

your job is to sell shoes or glasses

or headphones or t shirts or deliver

services to people. I think the other, like I said, my 2nd part of

that, which is like compartmentalization, right, like, so to your point,

You are not your company, right, so your company's job is to sell shoes.

You as a human being, as an individual, go right ahead and struggle with

it. That's perfectly okay, As long as that struggle does

not leak over into your business, because

that's really, the business shouldn't struggle with it, to your point, the business is selling

shoes. So shoes to whoever the hell wants to buy them, but as a as

a human being, I can then I can detach myself from the

company and still struggle with The moral compass of it, like, of

of how of how I'm supposed to react or what it was supposed to do

here. Well, in that that sort of And, again, this is a whole

podcast episode just by itself, so I wanna I wanna reel this in a little

bit. And, by the way, this is something we could discuss next year on the

podcast because next year is 2024. Big election year. Election

year in America. Election year in America. It's gonna be great.

Marty. I'm already dreading it. Are you kidding me? It's

gonna be great for it's gonna be great for the podcast, Tom. Oh, alright. Yeah.

Yeah. High high ratings. High ratings. Lot of downloads.

Fiery hot takes. Don't you know? We're in it for the hot takes. Hot takes.

That's right. I

think the the the challenge for people is, And and Orwell

was writing when the was

writing during a time when the full

comprehension of what the Germans did to the Jews in

World War 2 hadn't quite all landed yet. Like, it was

starting I mean, Nuremberg was starting to happen. The judgments at

Nuremberg were starting to occur. Like, we were starting they were starting to get an

idea, particularly in Europe, of exactly just how

far the third Reich had pushed

the the argument of European

programs that have been happening for a millennia in Europe.

Right? And and and and

Orwell's writing at the beginning of that understanding,

he didn't live, obviously, to see the end of

communism. But even during his time, there

were rumors that Stalin was putting together

the Gulag Archipelago, things Alexander Solzhenitsyn was writing about the move

read on this podcast and Vaclav Havel a lot later,

and that this this idea of an iron curtain coming down across Europe,

That was about 10 years out, but the rumors were

starting to come out that maybe Walter Littmann, who was writing for the for the,

I believe the New York Times back in the day might have gilded the lily

a little bit when he went to Russia. Right? It might not might not have

been exactly what it is that that Stalin was

portraying it to be. And, of course, Orwell didn't survive to see China's

turn and the great famine and the cultural revolution and all of

that, which he would have been shocked by all of that. He was

right at the beginning of all that, and so I think For us, we live

in the backwash of all of that, all that culture and all that

history. The the the The idea that we

always have to be on guard, we always have to be vigilant against,

you know now I'm gonna use the word. Also do vigilant

against fascism that's arising in either our language. Right? But

but it's become so mean the vigilance has become so meaningless, I

think, particularly when the political

law becomes personal. I I I I think we've we've bled over realms.

And and to your point, you used the term compartmentalization. I would use the word

boundaries. We we've we've allowed boundaries to dissolve,

and now everything's sort of mushed to the middle, and that's that's not a good

move for leaders. Well, I think, like, to your point, I think

as I I think those 2 things are are not mutually

exclusive. I think that the compartmentalization of leaders is

starting to fade because the boundaries of the

people that we're leading are fading. Right. Like,

that's it's like if they're not mutually exclusive, they're they're act they're

action reaction type things. Like, we're we're trying to not

compartmentalize as much because our, our subordinates

or the people that we're supposedly leading are starting to blur those lines,

so now we feel like we have to blur those lines with them order to

be an effective leader. Now, I don't I don't believe that. I

don't buy into that. I think that I think that the more the more they

blur the lines, the more We should be putting up the compartmentalization

part of it. I actually think the opposite effect should be happening, and it doesn't

always. It doesn't always. Yeah. That's a that's a that's a tough one,

and that's why or or will kinda trigger that over in my head as I've

been as I've been thinking about it as we've been as we've been reading it.

Alright. We're gonna turn the corner here. We're gonna talk about literature of knowledge

and literature of power. This is Thomas DeQuincy.

Interesting fact about Thomas DeQuincy, Thomas Penson

De Quincey, who was born in August of 17/85

and died in December of 18/59, so he lived He had

a he had a good long good long life. Was an English writer, this is

according to his speaking of words, according to his Wikipedia article,

which Orwell would love his own Wikipedia article, was an English

writer, an essayist, and a literary critic.

De Quincey was best known for his, love this title, folks,

Confessions of an English Opium Eater, written in 18/21.

Many scholars suggested in publishing this work, De Quincey

inaugurated the tradition of addiction literature in the West. By the way, in

case you don't know what addiction literature is, think of the movies Trainspotting and Requiem

for a Dream or any drug movie

or drug film, that you've ever seen in

or heard of in your life.

This guy was the grandfather apparently of all of that. So Would would would the

movie limitless fall into that category? I would think so.

Okay. Just making sure. Just, I mean, you

know. Kinda like that movie. That's funny. Well, but but right. I mean, it

does it does offer a panacea. I will grant you that.

Alright. So, reading from DeQuincy's essay here, literature of

knowledge, literature of power and literature of power.

And by the way, the sentences here are a little bit what Orwell was

railing against just as a warning. In that great

social organ, which collectively we call literature, there may be distinguished

2 separate offices that may blend and often do so,

but capable, severally, of a severe insulation and naturally

fitted for reciprocal repulsion. What that means is that

there's Two aspects inside of literature that are bound

together, but should actually be separated, should actually repulse each other.

Back to the essay. There is, first, the literature of knowledge,

and secondly, the literature of power. The function of

the first, that would be knowledge, is to teach. The

function of the second is to move. That's power. The first is

a rudder, the 2nd an or or a sail. The first speaks to the

mere discursive understanding. The second It speaks ultimately, it may

happen to the higher understanding or reason, but always through

affections of pleasure and sympathy.

Remotely, it may travel towards an object seated in what lord Bacon

calls dry light. Approximately, it does and must operate, else

it ceases to be a literature of power and on through that human light,

which closed itself of the mists and glittering iris of human passions, desires,

and genial emotions. Men have so little reflected on the

higher functionals of literature as to find it a paradox

if one should describe it as a mean or subordinate purpose of books to

give information. Basically what he's saying here is

people haven't thought about literature being a source of power. It said they

merely think about it as a source of information. And by the way, he's writing,

you know, in the early 19th century, where

Again, before you have mass communication, at

scale, before radio, obviously before television and

forget the internet, Right? And so this is a

highly literate culture in comparison to ours, right? A high

literate literate culture, that is looking for or

seeking to merge 2 things together, and he's seeking to

he's seeking to separate them. Whenever we talk In

ordinary language of seeking information or gaining knowledge, we understand the

words as connected with something of absolute novelty, But it is the

grandeur of all truth, which can occupy a very high place in human

interests, that it is never absolutely novel to the meanest of minds.

It exists eternally by way of germ or latent principle in the

lowest to the highest, needing to be developed, but never to be planted.

To be capable of transplantation is the immediate criterion of a truth

that ranges on a lower scale. In

essence, If you have to move an idea from

literature, from a high space down to a lower space,

it's probably not that valuable.

Besides which, there is a rarer thing than truth, namely power,

and this is how he defines power to Quincy, or a deep

sympathy with the truth. What is the effect, for instance, upon

society or children? By the pity, by the

tenderness, and by the peculiar modes of admiration, which connect themselves with the helplessness, with

the innocence, and with the simplicity of children, Not only are the

primal affections strengthened and continually renewed, but the qualities which are

dearest in the sight of heaven, the frailty, for instance, which appeals

forbearance, the innocence were symbolizing the heavenly, and the simplicity

which is most alien to the worldly are kept in perpetual remembrance, and

their ideals are continually refreshed.

A purpose of the same nature is answered by the high literature

vis a vis the literature of power. What did you learn from

Paradise Lost? That's John Milton. Nothing at all. What did you

learn from a cookery book? Something new, something that you did not know before

in every paragraph. But here's the question,

but would you therefore put the Wretched Cookery book on a higher level of

estimation than the divine poem? Is a cookbook more

valuable to you than Milton? And then his

point. Well well, DeQuincy, I got

something for you here. Yes? Yes. The cookbook is more valuable than Milton.

Okay. Hold on a second. Before I before I hit you with his with his

penultimate conclusion there, Why is it a cookbook? Because

we do live at a time. This is one of the questions I have from

I have 1 here for you, or one of the questions I wrote

down. Why do we. Why do we live in such a

utilitarian time? Cause we do, we live in a time of, or not utilitarian, a

utility oriented time, because if it's not useful,

They were like, you know, I don't have time for that.

And as we've moved everything towards usefulness, I I think

De Quincey would argue we've moved away from beauty and power. We've actually

reduced things. We've reduced Milton to

a cookbook. I

mean, I don't know. I I think

I think I think part of it is, like, we we get so wrapped up,

How do I word this? So, like,

time, you time Is the only thing that you

can spend and not earn, right? Yes. You can spend

time, you can never get time back. Like, you can't earn more

time. You can't say That I'm gonna I'm gonna, you know, live

till I'm 75. Let's just say we have predictive analytics that say I'm

gonna die at 75. I can't go, Nah, I'm gonna wait till

I'm 80. Like, I'm gonna die when I'm 80, so I get 5 years back.

I'm gonna go it doesn't work that way, right? So like, so

if I'm There, for me, and I

was, everybody listening to this, when I answered that I was

talking about me, myself, and I, not In general,

because I love to cook. I love to cook. I it's a

passion of mine, and if if I think we've talked about it once twice on

these podcasts. I went to culinary school, I cook every Sunday for my

entire family. There's 12, 15 people that come to my house for dinner every Sunday

because I cook Random stuff that they think that is

unique and amazing and whatever. Right? So for me Do you cook, by the way

pause one second. Do you cook the last Thursday in November?

No. No. The the the the the the the

that day that you're talking about for us, That that's

football day. It's football okay. Football day. Okay. Alright. I cook I cook all football

foods on that day. Fine. That's I was just curious. After the

Wounded Knee episode, I was just curious. Go ahead. Keep going. Don't let me stop

you. The the so so the so the point for me is,

And I think, to what he's thinking about, it's really about

reading what's gonna move you forward as a person. I don't think it, like,

so The the the the utilitarian

piece of this, it for me, it seems like it Utility piece.

It seems like the It seems like the cookbook is more utility, but it for

me, it's not about utility. For me, it's more the love of cooking that

leans me more toward the cookbook. Right? Okay. So if Milton if Milton wrote a

cookbook, you'd be all over it. You'd be all over it. Right. I would wanna

read it because I wanna see now, again, so My son and I, by the

way, have this discussion all the time because for some strange reason, I

can't bring myself to read fiction. I I just don't like fake

stuff. I don't like fantasy stuff. I don't like I don't I don't

thrive. I thrive more on factual information and

That Wait a minute. Wait a minute. Wait a minute. Wait a minute. You and

I have read Shakespeare. Yes. And Jane Austen.

Yes. That doesn't mean I love it. The

fact that I understand it and I could speak on it doesn't mean I love

it. Wow. Very My Heart entire

podcaster. Very My Heart Wounded Knee is one of my favorite

books. It's one of my all time favorite books. It's factual. It's

data driven, there's information in there, there's not a lot of story behind it, there's

not a lot of fake stuff in there, right? Like it's, those are the types

of books That I will read in my spare time

for leisure, for me to enjoy the book it needs to be that, right? It

needs to be something like that. I don't really get

How, like I don't get lost in a book like people do. Like my son,

he makes fun of me all the time, he's like, when you read, when he

read, You know, Game of Thrones and 1984 and, you know,

The Great Gatsby, all the great books, right? He's like, but dad, you can get

lost in these books, and I go, I need a map. I don't get lost

anywhere. I don't I I don't wanna be lost. I don't wanna be lost. I

wanna be able to find my way in and out. Wanna be able to drive

down the road and take a left hand turn, and I know where I'm go

I know what's at the end of the street. Right? I think I think you

should give Orwell a shot then. After politics in the English

language, now we've covered this, I think you should give Orwell a shot. I think

you should give 1984 animal farm. Start with animal farm.

It's it's it's like 80 pages. It's dead. And and and just, again, for the

reader's sake, don't get me wrong, it's not like I've never I I've read

Steinbeck. I've read Arthur Miller. I've read I've read all these books. Death of a

Salesman, that's appropriate. That's appropriate. Yeah. So exactly. I've read I've read

a lot of these books Mostly because I've had

to. It was it was it was required reading when you're

in the advanced English Classes that I was taking.

So it's not that I didn't read them. What I'm getting at, and and to

to go back to your your essay here, When you asked the question, would

you rather read the cookbook than than, I forget the author now. Than

Milton. Milton. Yes. Thank you. Paradise Lost. Yeah. Paradise Lost. Very

It's it's would you rather read it, and and for me, I would rather read

the cookbook because that's where I I love that. I love reading

it. You know what we're doing next year? We're doing we're doing poetry next year

because it's taken me 3 years to kind of work into poetry. I'm signing oh

oh, you're You're cohosting. You're cohosting with me on poetry. Oh, yeah. Yeah.

Yeah. I'm changing schedule right now. Tennyson. You're

gonna meet Tennyson. Yeah. Oh

my god. Well, back to the essay

because what DeQuincy would say to you is this. What you owe to

Milton is not any knowledge of which a 1000000 separate

items are still, but a 1000000 advancing steps on the same earthly

level. What you owe is power that is

exercise and expansion to your own latent capacity of sympathy with

the infinite, where every pulse and each separate influx is a

step upwards, a step ascending as upon a Jacob's

ladder from earth to mysterious altitudes above the earth.

All the steps of knowledge from first to last carry you further on the

same plane, but can never raise you 1 foot above your ancient level of earth.

Whereas the very first step in power is a flight, is an

ascending movement into another element where earth

is forgotten. By the way, that's a fancy way of saying you'll get lost in

a book. I know. That's what I'm saying. So what he doesn't

understand about guys like me is that's not happening.

I will when I read I'll give you an example. When I when

I read, Of Mice and Men, right? Yes.

Okay. No. No. No. I, a better one. 12

Angry Men. I read 12 Angry Men, okay? And this is

a fictitional book, It's a fictitional story about 1

juror in a room full of jurors that changes the mind of every juror

1 at a time. Mhmm. I read that book and I was like, this could

really happen. The I understand it's fiction, the characters are fake, but I could

I could see this actually happening in in a courtroom. Like, so

for me to read, for for me to read that stuff, I have to be

able to translate it into real world experience because if I can't Translated?

It doesn't work. Like, what was what was the what was the

Steinbeck, what was the Steinbeck no. For oh, To Kill a Mockingbird, same thing. To

Kill a Mockingbird. Yeah. Harper Lee. To Kill a Mockingbird, one of my time favorite

books when it comes to fiction stuff. Why? Because I could see that happening. It

might have been a fictitious book, but when it was, at the time it was

written, and I also, by the way, at the same time, I was I

I was doing a report. I had to build I had to build a a

report on Brown versus Board of Education of Topeka, Kansas

Okay. At the at that time frame. So, again, that book

was like, oh my god. I could just use the book for the translation of

this this this thing I have to do on an actual

Court case, like, it was like a So you found the

utility in it. Right, exactly. Even in the fiction, I found the

utility of, like, being able to, It has to do something for me,

and and for me, it can't be getting lost. For me, it has to be,

you know, again,

I'm a I'm not I've got something for you. I've got a Northrop Fry for

you because actually, weirdly enough, he agrees with you.

See? I love that guy. I don't even know who I don't remember. Who did

you say? He's Canadian, Northrop Frye. Northrop Frye. Canadian.

Canadian essayist. We're gonna move on to him because, Apparently,

DeQuincy, we're gonna bump him. No. Herman Northrop

Fry, he was born in 1912, July

1912 and died, in January of 1991.

So, he lived throughout the the majority, actually, all

of the 20th century. Wait, wait. Before we get into this, can I

just say one thing? Yeah. Go ahead. The name of your podcast is Leadership

Lessons in the Great, Of the great books. From the great books. Yes.

You're taking utility out of the great books. I am. I did not say that

I did not say that I was above it. I just wanted to make sure

we were clear on here for you all. I did not explain I did not

claim moral high ground here.

I haven't said anything at all. It felt that way. It felt like you were

implying more on high ground. I

I think I think that we all have to own our own feelings.

We all have to be big boys and girls and, compartmentalize. No.

No. I agree with you. Yeah. No. I agree with you. It's it's

I think I think we we have an age where

we've done. I think we've gone too far into utility. I, I, I would say

that I think we've probably pushed, and I think the internet, As we've

mentioned again today, like with language, I think the internet has driven a lot of

this because that's what it does. You know, it drives, I mean, we're just talking

about marketing tech versus marketing creative, you know, before we

started this episode. Right? And where has creative

gone? Right in the toilet. Because creative doesn't serve

any utilitarian or, sorry, utilitarian.

It doesn't serve any useful purpose. If

you're creating a pharmaceutical ad, right, it really

doesn't. Like, that's why you have a Cialis commercial

with 2 people in 2 tubs holding hands, and then they

just run the contra indicators and tell you that it's going to give you a

heart attack, and now go back to your show.

That's why. And so

When you overemphasize usefulness, you de emphasize

beauty, and and I think DeQuincy was searching

for truth and beauty, which is something that artists have been looking for

for for for years, and searching for beauty and truth. And

I think that that is a worthwhile pursuit that maybe some of us in the

west have forgotten. Even look at the style of our buildings. I mean, even the

physical spaces that we're in, they're not beautiful anymore. They're brutalist,

and they just they serve a purpose, and then they're done.

Yeah. And that's a real and I'm not the

1st person to say this. That's a real problem. It shows

a real cultural poverty, because,

yeah, I mean, we can Exchange dollars and more

people are wealthier than ever have been in the history of the world,

and yet, You know, you

have brutalist concrete architecture, and you can't get something nice.

Well, one of my other sons talks about it from an,

It's industrial looking versus There you go. Yeah. Versus creative. Right?

So, however, I will tell you, if anybody watching this pod or listening to this

or watching this has an opportunity to Google the new

building that State Street Bank just built in Boston, in downtown Boston, the financial

district. Okay. The building's beautiful. They they they did Actually, a nice

job doing the exact opposite. They were looking for that

sleekness, that modern look, that stylistic look

versus Institutional and, you know, and that

kinda they wanted the building to be creative. And I thought they they actually did

an alright job. So Well, I no. I think and I think I mean, not

I think. I know. I mean, you know, I I've mentioned this

before on the podcast, but, you know, I have a background as

an art major. I I was in art. I was in the visual arts, you

know, painting, printmaking, all of that, drawing, and so

I'm also an intellectual guy who likes the utility part 2. I like

usefulness just as much as anybody else, but I would

like it to be at least attractive. I

would like an object to sit on my desk

that has usefulness and is beautiful,

and I think that there is a place for that. Now

if we're at the end of and and you can't really talk about beauty and

usefulness without talking about being at the end of mass consumer culture. And so we're

at the end of mass consumer culture, and we have been at the end of

it for the last 30 years. It's just the backwash of it because we produce

so much, it's still just flowing out to us. But mass consumer culture doesn't

allow for it only allows for industrialization to your son's point. It doesn't

allow for beauty. And DeQuincy was writing during a

time when,

Industrialization hadn't quite yet begun, but it was starting, and it

was the attitude that was shifting towards that. I was just about to say that.

It was right at the beginning of it. Right at the beginning of all of

it. Right at the beginning of all of it. Yeah. Yep. Alright. So Northrop Fry,

we're gonna read the keys to dreamland from chapter 4 of The

Educated Imagination published in 1964. As I said, Fry

was born in July of 18/12, and he died in January of

1991. He was a Canadian literary critic and

literary theorist, considered one of the more influential folks of the

20th century. Influence, I already mentioned

this guy on the podcast already this episode, but I'll mention it again. Jordan

Peterson talks about Northrop Fry all of the time, as well

as other Lex Fridman, as well as other,

folks you may have heard of.

So he begins with an idea or a thought process,

and, I'm not gonna bring I'm not gonna read the higher chapter because it's

way too long. But he makes a point here that I think is

is going to be something that's gonna resonate with Tom and resonate with leaders who

are listening to us. So let's start off with, with the premise.

Suppose you're walking down the street of a North American city.

All around you is a highly artificial society, but you don't think of it as

artificial. You're so accustomed to it that you think of it as natural. But

suppose your imagination plays a little trick on you, kind of, that it often does

play, and you suddenly feel like a complete outsider, someone who's just blown in from

Mars on a flying saucer. Instantly, you see how conventionalized

everything is. The clothes, the shop windows, the movement of

the cars in traffic, the cropped hair, the shaved faces of the men, the red

lips blue eyelids of blue of that woman that women put on because they want

to conventionalize their faces or look nice as they say, which means the same

thing. To be outside the convention

makes a person look queer, or if he's driving a car, a menace to life

and limb. The only exceptions are people who have decided to conform To different

conventions like nuns or beatniks, there's clearly a strong

force making toward conformity in society, So strong,

it seems to have something to do with the stability of society

itself. So he opens up with this idea about

conformity, right, and convention. When

we move to literature back to North of Fry, when we move on to

literature, we again find conventions, but This time, we noticed that they are

conventions because we're not so used to them. These conventions seem to have something to

do with making literature, And this is to Tom's point,

as unlike life as possible. Chaucer

represents people as making up stories in 10 syllable couplets. Shakespeare

uses dramatic conventions, which means, for instance, that Iago has to

smash Othello's marriage and dreams of future happiness, and get him ready

to murder his wife in a few minutes. Milton, speaking of

Milton again, Milton has 2 nudes in a garden

harangue each other in set speeches Beginning with such lines as daughter of god

and man, and more to Eve, Eve being Adam's daughter because she's just been

extracted from his rib case. Almost every story we read

demands that we accept as fact, something that we know to be nonsense,

that good people always win, especially in love, that

murders are complicated and ingenious puzzles to be solved by logic and so

on. It isn't only popular literature that demands this, More

highbrow stories are apt to be more ironic, but irony has its conventions

too. If we go further back into literature, we run into such conventions as

the king's rash promise, The enraged cuckold, the cruel mistress of

love poetry, never anything that we or any

other time would recognize, and again, this is to

Tom's point, would recognize as the normal behavior of adult

people, only the maddening ethics of fairyland.

I don't even think I have to say anything here.

This one's for Tom.

Yes. I I get it. Now

He he takes this premise, so this is his premise, right, but the

maddening ethics of fairyland is what literature is all about. And

he says, Even the details of literature are equally

perverse. Literature is a world where phoenixes and

unicorns are quite as important as horses and dogs, And in literature, some of the

horses talk, like the ones that Gulliver's Travels.

And then he talks about the swan of the Avon by Ben Johnson and Shakespeare

and singing and swans, how swans can't sing and

birds and da da da. He's like, this is all ridiculous. Yeah.

And then he ends this this this when he goes on about Shakespeare for a

paragraph, then he sends he ends by saying, Shakespeare didn't burst into

song before his death. He wrote 2 plays a year until he made enough money

to retire and spent the last 5 years of his life counting his take.

So so however useful literature may be in

improving one's imagination or vocabulary, It would be the

wildest kind of pedantry to use it directly as a

guide to life. Now I got to admit,

I read this and I thought, as I was with him all the way up

to that, and then he said that and I went, well,

I might as well just burn the whole podcast down.

I mean Yes, no, it's fine. You can say it out loud. It's

okay. Because he, he, he pushes the argument and then he takes a weird turn,

which I'm not gonna get to today, but he takes a weird turn in the

middle of it where he basically undercuts his entire argument that you just set up

to make a defensive literature. And I and I thought because at first, right,

at first, I was like, oh, this is oh, this guy oh, who is this

guy? Who's Who is this Northrop Fry who is speaking to me as if I

needed his opinion? Canadian,

nonetheless. Right, and a Canadian. What's going on

in my attic up there?

But he, but I stuck with it and I read through it and I

I I because that's what you do. You stick with hard things.

You read them. You read people who disagree with you. And he does

make several Excellent points. And and a good one is this one,

back to the essay. Life and literature then are both

conventionalized, which is actually true. And of the conventions of

literature about all we can say is that they don't much resemble the conditions of

life. It's when 2 sets of conventions collide that we realize

how different they are. Then he goes into h g Wells. He talks a little

bit about Dickens. What we never see

except in a book is often what we go to books to find. And I

think that that's very, very important, an important point that he

makes. And he says, If we're writing to convey

information or for any practical reason, going to

cookbook here for just a moment, our writing is an act of will and

intention. We mean what we say and the words we use represent that

meaning directly. It's different in literature. Not because the

poet doesn't mean what he says too, because his real effort is one of putting

words together. What's important is not what he may have

meant to say, but what the words themselves say, when they get fitted

together. I think that's an important that's an

important distinction for leaders. That's that's something that we can take from from

Fry and apply it to and this is where this now

dovetails with what Orwell was talking about in politics of language.

We can dovetail this with,

avoiding jargon in your memos. How

many memos that just get released on

the regular don't mean what they say.

Or you can't tell what they mean.

You know? Again, to the point where, like, you just you use an awful lot

of words to say Very little mean like, they have very little meaning,

like, behind behind Not at all. Yeah. He said is

well and and and, you know, the the The writer Joan

Gideon, she she wrote in Slouching Towards Bethlehem about

herself that, but she's always selling somebody

out. And that's what people forget. A writer is always selling somebody out. And

Northam Fry makes that point here when he talks about DH

Lawrence. With a novelist, it's rather the incidents in the

story he tells that gets fitted together. As DH Lawrence says, don't trust

the novelist, trust his story. That's why so much of a writer's best

writing is, or seems to be involuntary. It's involuntary because the

forms of literature itself are taking control of it. And these forms are

what are, what are embodied in the conventions of literature

conventions. We see have the same role in literature they have in life. They

impose certain patterns of order and stability on the writer

only if there's such different conventions, it seems clear that the order of words or

the structure of literature is different from the social order.

The question here for leadership is this, What are the

conventions of leadership, and can you break them? Like we're

breaking the conventions of leadership just by doing this podcast, because the hell puts

literature and leadership together. That's breaking a convention. That's where real

creativity is. I see a lack of creativity in

leadership because many leaders are just doing conventional things. So what are some of

the conventions of leadership?

So that's a good question. I mean, are you are

you are you talking about, like, the, So are

you talking about, like, the the directives and, like, being

able to you know, you're you're gonna write Policy, and everything's gonna be

written in an employee handbook, and all the all of your decision making processes are

gonna be essentially the first one. Yeah. I mean, that's that's a big

one for sure, but then there's other conventions such as we were

talking about the clothes that people wear. Right? That's a convention that's now gotten broken.

Right? Or here's another convention that got broken during COVID,

the convention of going heading in your car and driving 2 hours

across Boston to go to an office, that's a convention. Yeah.

Many of the conventions of work are being broken, and the

conventions of interactions with people are being broken,

but leaders are still saying many of the same

things based on conventions that no

longer work. It

it's interesting it's interesting that you say that. Like, I I'll give you a I'll

give you an example of, like, an interaction I had with a with a a

salesperson that worked for me at one point. And this this might this might kinda

give you an idea of where I'm coming like, or what what my train of

thought was. So In sales, we always have these quotas.

Right? We always have numbers we have to hit, and That's a by the way,

that's a convention. Having a known number you have to hit, that's a convention. Something

that everybody agrees upon and this is the way we do things. Right, and that's

a convention that might not ever be,

Well, no. I think that convention because there's a couple of companies that I can

think of that have broken you still have a number, but the way they view

the number is very different than what our Our typical sales

number is, which is basically driven by revenue and, either month over month

or year over year, whatever the the case may be. But anyway, the interaction I

had with them was, was was about quota, and I

said, I don't care how you get there. I don't care how long it takes

you. I don't care if you work 5 hours a day, Work 20 hours a

day, I want you to hit your quota. And he

sarcastically said, so if I can hit my quota in 2 hours a day, you're

not gonna make me work the other 6? And I went, what did I just

say? I said all I care about is your quota.

You hit that quota, I don't care how many hours a day you work, I

don't. So he tested it on me. So he was

right he was actually slightly over quota. He was probably about 102,

103, A 103% of quota, right? So it was well within

his right to take the rest of the day off.

And he came to me and he said, hey, I'm at 103%. I'm gonna take

the rest of the the rest of the month off, which was, by the way,

like, a day and a half. Yeah. He's like Which I said to him, okay.

Anyway, wait, you were serious about that? I said, hey. I I

told you, all I care about is your quote. Now You can choose to take

the next day and a half, 2 days off, or you can choose to

spend and invest the next 2 days in hitting

your quota for next month, But that's entirely up to you because I gave you

my word that if you hit your quote, I don't care what you do with

your time. And he took the rest of that day off, but came in the

Day. It became the next day. Yeah. He spent the next day spent the next

day getting ready for the next month, and and but he under but he tested

me on it, and he he He saw that I went through with it. Like,

I was not lying. When I said to him, I go, oh, and by the

way, next month, if you hit your quota in the middle of the month and

you wanna take the next week off, Go right ahead. I'm not gonna give you

grief over it because the conventional wisdom says that

the quota is just there to make you do your job. You don't get to

take the time off, you don't get to do this, so I broke the

convention by saying work 2 hours a day, work 4 hours a day,

I don't care, hit the quota and you're good. And they and they tested me

on it, and they they saw the success of that test. Well, one of

the stupidest things about conventional wisdom is that it's conventional.

Yeah. That is I mean, it it it is. Right? And

creativity lives in the breaking of convention, which is what Dorothy Fry is getting to

In his essay, he's talking about how

literature allows the breaking of conventions without the breaking of

social order. That's the higher thing that he's that he's aiming at.

And it is, it is fundamentally a defense. This is why I said at first

I was like, you know, gimme a break. But

yeah, since I framed it before, as he undercuts his argument,

he doesn't undercut it. He, he gets to where he's going, but

he goes with via the minor which I should appreciate, actually, because this is sometimes

how I do it. He goes via the minority report versus the majority report. Right?

He's he's going at from the weak side. If you were playing rugby, it's

a weak side score versus a strong side score. Okay.

And for those of you who've never played rugby, It's fine. I know

what I'm talking about. Point is

point is He's, he's, he's addressing the

idea that literature is important for social

order. I think also literature is important for leaders. Otherwise

I wouldn't be doing this podcast, but it's important for leaders to be able to

understand what the social conventions are and then to be

able to see how to break them. And some of the social conventions in

leadership include, I think,

well, it's beyond just clothes and norms and culture, but it's,

it's, it's going to certain conferences, right? It's, it's

attending or even the act of attending conference. Just that act right

there is a convention. Like my title says blah, blah, blah, blah. My

title says senior VP of sales. I'm gonna go to a sales conference. Why?

Are you actually going to get something out of it, or are you just going

to have a vacation and, you know, fill yourself with, you

know, 20 year old Scotch? Single

malt. Right. Always. Always.

So I mean, And I I by the way, by the way,

and I expect to learn something when I go. So Right. Well, you're going you're

going there not to break the convention. You're going there

to support the convention, but also to gain something from it. But you're going

there with precision of, of understanding and action, which is what Orwell would

talk about, which I think fundamentally to tie it also back into DeQuincy a little

bit, I think that gives you power. I think that moves it beyond utility. It

moves into creativeness. I think you're I think you're a deeply creative guy, Tom, just

not in the conventional kind of way. Oh god.

That was that was a reach. Are you like that was, like, finishing minority report.

The minority report. Force stretch reach, like It's the minority

report. It's what I do. It's what I do. I get it.

No. But I think for leaders okay. So how can leaders stay on the path?

Let me read Orwell, read De Quixote, read a little bit of Northrop Fry. How

can leaders use any of this to stay on the path? What's our what's our

final word today as we round the horn

here? I I I think I think one thing that that we always

and That we're always told, right, but I don't think we ever

really understand the the impact of

it is that literature in general gives us Roundedness.

Right? Like, when you when you read literature and you're and you whether

you agree with them or disagree with them, whether whether it's fiction or nonfiction or

whether it like, you're reading somebody else's is words from a particular

time period that is is not yours. Right? Mhmm. Or I mean, maybe you are

reading modern or contemporary literature as well, but All of us

grew up reading the classics and the I mean, if you went to high

school in America, you read half the books we've talked about, you know, in

these in these, sessions. So I I think I think

part of it is that it it

it It goes beyond just, like, what am I

looking at right in front of me and what if I'm looking at something right

in front of me, how do I pull From knowledge of other

areas of my life in order to make a decision based on what's in front

of me, right? Like that well roundedness of being

a person Helps leaders

essentially stay close to it versus giving

yourselves the distance or trying to distance yourself, but

I that the the the the the show Undercover

Boss comes to mind. Right? Mhmm. If if you've never seen the show Undercover Boss,

It's these big companies, you know, in in the United States, the trash removal

company Waste Management was one of the first ones on the on the show, and

it's this giant Company that is 100 and 100 of

1,000,000 of dollars per year, and the CEO went to work on a trash truck

one day and nobody knew who he was So that he could get back in

touch with the common employee, with the with the entry level

employee. I think I think if we look at and not

just literature, but Music can do this. Right? Like, if you listen to

music from the fifties and sixties and just the vibe and the feeling is

so different, if you can understand where that music is coming from, And you can

understand that generation, that generation of people. You can it helps you

understand working with them. Right? If you're If so

I I think all of it in general, not just classic literature or

it's I think anything that makes you a well rounded person

Makes you a better leader. So I think I think that's really where I

one of the reasons I love being on this podcast is because I seem to

always Find something or you drag something out of me that I

wasn't thinking of or, and and I realize that,

Like, I don't I don't think I in in my family will tell you this.

If somebody were to ask me, like, what kinda leader I am, what kinda person

I am, whatever, Half the time I don't know how to answer them. Right? Mhmm.

And but I think what I've heard from

in the past is, like, Being well rounded

in what your conversation topics can be can make you a good

x, fill in the blank. Like, it doesn't matter, not not just leadership,

but It also can make you a good subordinate, to be honest. Like, if you

and again, I I heard something very young in life, which was be

nice to them on the way up because gonna see them again on your way

down. Right? So when you are that person that is in your late fifties

and you're not looking to climb the corporate ladder anymore, you just wanna go do

your job and go home, It gives you being a well

rounded person also allows you to be a good

employee Because you're you're now understanding where these people are coming from and

why they're coming at you with things and why they're asking you to do things

that are outside your scope of work or whatever that is. So I I

think All of the things that

that that that you, all of the classic arts, I think going to the Museum

of Fine Arts and looking at Picassos and looking at Those types of things,

going to to theater and going to operas and going and reading classic

literature, I think all of that, if you can

If you can consume pieces of that along your lifetime, it's

going to make you a better person, it's going to make you a better leader,

it's gonna make you a better husband, Better son, better father, because you're

gonna you're not gonna you're gonna stop looking at things through isolated lenses,

and you're gonna start looking at things through very broad spectrum lenses, And

be able to take bits and pieces of your life to make your decision and

your and and take your course of action versus just a simplistic view

of it. So I I I don't know if that makes sense to you, but

I Absolutely. That is a that is a robust defense

of the humanities, which is

something that has long been in decline in our culture and

long been devalued in our culture, not not starting about 5 minutes ago. I

mean, We've been devaluing the humanities for at least 50

years, in, in the United States,

and we see that in higher education. And

we see that in the universities and in the college systems. And what has happened

is the value of the humanities, and the humanities includes

the arts. It includes, philosophy.

It includes theology, some of the things that

even even politics, and the, and literature.

The things that we talk about on this podcast are the writers that we talk

about here, particularly as we go into

an election year, those writers and

those topics in those spaces make

you as a listener and as a reader, a better

leader. And a defense of the

humanities is something that has to be remounted every

generation because every generation, particularly every generation in

the west, but we're seeing now this increasingly happen globally.

As they become more industrialized and as they Go into a

post industrial posture, moves closer and

closer to utility. And Utility

is necessary. Don't get me wrong. I don't need a shovel to be beautiful,

but wouldn't it be cool if it had a really nice handle?

I gotta tell you, so what's funny that you said, like, I was I was

sitting here thinking as you're talking, like, some of the most impactful

It those experiences in my life. Right? Like, I remember,

the first time I saw Andrew Lloyd Webber's Phantom of the Opera on Broadway.

Like, first time I saw that I was like, oh my good lord, how this

is it's awesome. Like, it's just awesome, right? 1st time I first

time I heard the Boston Symphony Orchestra. And now, mind you, I I gotta tell

this is a bet this is a better story. This is a better better story.

I was an inner city kid. I I grew up, that,

All the bad things you think of with inner city kids, I

hate to admit, but most of them, just think of those when you think of

what I'm telling you. Okay. I I was a young I was a young,

or pew, like, preteen, preteen ish, I think I was like 11 or 12 years

old, and I got an opportunity to meet Sijio Ozawi. Oh.

And For those who don't know for those who don't

know, because I know, but for those who don't know who are listening, who is

Who is Sijio Azzawi? So Sijio Azzawi was the conductor of the Boston

Symphony Orchestra and probably one of the best that ever touched the conductor

wand by a lot of people's opinions. Not mine, because he's the only conductor

I know. So I'm not gonna suggest that I know a lot about symphonies and

orchestras and all that, but if you ask around that world, he was

awesome. Like just Awe inspiring and awesome from what

I gathered. And when I got a chance to meet him, as

a kid, I was like, this

man was

godlike. He was amazing, amazing to talk to.

And and he opened up a part of my brain that I did not know

existed because I thought classical music was just

noise. I mean, think about it. An inner city kid that grew

up listening to Beastie Boys and Run DMC. Yeah. Like Well, yeah. I

mean, Run Run DMC and and those types of that type of music

was, like that's all I cared about. Like, that was, like, that was music to

me. Anything else was noise to me, and when he started talking

to to to the group of us, there was a there was a group of

us, and he started talking to the group of us about Where the instruments came

from, why they were used, what instruments

influenced Run DMC, by the way. He knew that, and I

was like, Wait, what? Like, this guy knew

more about music in the 20 minutes I talked to him than any single human

being I've met since. Mhmm. Like, Nobody,

and maybe Keith Lockhart, but whatever, well, whatever. But

like, Amazing. It may

absolutely amaze me and and completely flipped my mind

on what classical music should be in somebody's

world. And I and I and I've since been to the BSO quite a

few times, I've so the Boston Symphony Orchestra also has a side shoot called the

Boston Pops, which I've also seen a handful of times.

Just amazing. And I I grew up thinking classical music was just noise.

Right? So and and, it's just an interaction with 1 person.

The interaction with 1 person, and it just changed my opinion of it forever.

And that is the point, fundamentally of this, of this podcast. You

know, that's the the point of of conversations like the kind that we had today

and the point of us bringing essays and ideas and insights

fundamentally because if you can take one thing from this

episode as a leader, whether it's one thing about

language, whether it's one thing about convention,

whether it's one thing about the nature of

utility, and where we get our power from in literature.

You could take one thing from this episode today and apply it to your

real lived leadership life. I guarantee you, and I don't

often make guarantees, matter of fact, I almost never make guarantees, but I'll be

willing to be able to guarantee on this. I guarantee you that, To Tom's point,

you will have a more

enriched and a more valuable life, and that will

make you a better and a more valuable leader to the people that you are

leading. So with that, I'd

like to thank Tom Libby for coming on the podcast today, as usual. Always a

pleasure. Always my pleasure. And with that,

well,

We're