Leadership Lessons From The Great Books

Giddy up. Alright. Leadership lessons from the great books

podcast, episode number

129 in chronological order

with Brian Bagley, the adventures

of Huckleberry Finn in 3,

2, 1.

Hello. My name is Hason Sorrells, and this is

the leadership lessons from the great books podcast episode

number 129. The book that we're going to be covering

today, comes out of a very specific

place. But before we get into that, I'd like to bring up a

point here. There is a comedy award that's

given out every year at the Kennedy center in New York city,

since 1998. This award is designed to

honor, quote, a controversial social commentator and

his, quote, uncompromising perspective of social injustice

and personal folly. The mission of the prize

that's given out at the Kennedy Center in New York City is to, quote,

honor the greatest contributors to American comedy of our time,

close quote, which matches the type of

literary comedy on offer from our author,

today. Now leadership and comedy aren't

often thought to overlap, but on this podcast, we've already

discussed in previous episodes, particularly those focused around totalitarianism,

discussed the necessity of having the court jester on

your team as a leader and the importance of risk taking evident

in thinking about the world through the lens of comedy.

I think often of how the comedian,

and game show host Steve Harvey once quipped that, quote,

every time a disaster happens in the world, every comedian you know

already has a joke crafted about it 5 minutes after the event

happens. But we can't tell that joke 5 minutes

after that tragedy happens.

For Shakespeare, all the way to the author of our book

today, in the West, the incisive value of adopting a

comedic approach to the tragedies of life is of great

value to the leaders of the world and to the leaders of their teams.

Taking your position seriously might be great wisdom, but taking

circumstances, other people, or even yourself unseriously

might not be the worst thing in the world. And by the way, being

humorous and seeing humor in serious situations makes a

leader more authentic, not less.

And we're going to talk about the crisis of authenticity that we have today, which

walks parallel with the crisis of incompetence, which we've also talked

extensively about on this podcast.

And we're going to do that today in light of

the book we will be reading today. And I'm going to, of course, as I

usually do hold up my copy here that I've got, we're going to

be pulling leadership lessons from

the adventures of Huckleberry Finn by Mark

Twain. And we're going to be joined

on our journey through the adventures of Huckleberry Finn,

with my co host today, my co guest host today,

who has been on the show before. You've heard his voice before,

talking about the old testament, talking about leadership, talking

about putting Caesar back in the box in a variety of different other

topics, Brian Bagley. How How are you doing today,

Brian? Man, I'm doing great, Thanks for having

me. So, the

challenge of Huckleberry Finn well, there's several challenges to Huckleberry

Finn, and, this is a book that,

well, it presents several challenges, and we're going to jump right into them.

And we're gonna start right in chapter 1,

discover Moses and the Bullrushers.

And I quote, you don't know about me without you have read a

book by the name of the adventures of Tom Sawyer, but that ain't no matter.

That book was made by mister Mark Twain, and he told the truth mainly. There

was things which he stretched, but mainly he told the truth. That is nothing

I've never seen anybody, but lied one time or another without it. It was aunt

Polly or the widow or maybe Mary on poly Tom's on poly. She is

in Mary and the widow Douglas is all told about in that book, which is

mostly a true book with some stretchers. As I said before,

Now the way to look at that book winds up is this. Tom

and me found the money that the robbers hid in the cave, and it made

us rich. We got $6,000 a piece, all gold. It

was an awful sight of money when it was piled up. Well, judge Thatcher, he

took it and put it out of interest, and it fetched us a dollar a

day apiece all year round, more than a body could tell what to do with.

The widow Douglas, she took me in for her son and allowed she would civilize

me. But it was rough living in the house all the time, considering how dismal,

regular, and decent the widow was in all her ways. So when I couldn't stand

it no longer, I lit out. I got into my old rags and my sugar

hogs head again, and was free and satisfied. But Tom Sawyer, he

hunted me up and said he was going to start a band of robbers and

I might join if I would, go back to the widow and

he be respectable. So I went back

the widow. She cried over me and called me or lost lamb and called me

a lot of other names too, but she never meant no harm by it. She

put me in them new clothes again, and I couldn't do nothing but sweat, sweat,

and feel all cramped up. Well, then the old thing commenced again.

The widow rung a bell for supper, and you had to come on time. When

you got to the table, you couldn't go right to eat. You had to wait

for the widow to tuck down her head and grumble a little over the victors,

though there weren't really anything the matter with them. That is nothing. Only everything was

cooked by itself. In a barrel odds and ends is different. Things get mixed

up, and the juice kinda swaps around, and things go better. After

supper, she got out her book and learned me about Moses and the bullrushes, and

I was in a sweat to find out all about him. But by and by,

she left it out that Moses had been dead a considerable long time, so then

I didn't care no more about him because I don't take no stock in dead

people. Pretty soon, I wanted to

smoke and asked the widow to let me, but she wouldn't. She said it was

a mean practice and wasn't clean, and I must try to not do it anymore.

That is just the way with some people. They get down on a thing when

they don't know nothing about it. Here she was a bothering about Moses, where there's

no kin to her and no use to anybody being gone, you see. You find

it a power fault in me for doing a thing that has some good in

it. And she took stuff too. Of course, that was alright because, you

know, she done it herself. Her sister, miss

Watson, tolerable, slim old maid with goggles on and just come to live with her

and took a set at me now with a spelling book. She worked me midland

hard for about an hour, and then the widow made her ease up. I couldn't

stand it much longer. Then for an hour, it was deadly dull, and I was

fidgety. Miss Watson would say, don't put your feet up there, Huckleberry, and don't scrunch

up like that, Huckleberry. Sit up straight. And pretty soon she would say, don't gap

and stretch like that, Huckleberry. Why don't you try to behave? And she told me

all about the bad place, and I said, I wish I was there. She got

mad then, but I didn't mean no harm. All I wanted was to go somewhere.

All I wanted was to change. I wasn't particular. She said it was a wicked

thing to say when I said it, and and she said she wouldn't say it

for the whole world. She was going to live so as to go to the

good place. Well, I couldn't see no advantage of going where she was

going, so I made up my mind. I wouldn't try for it. But I never

said so because it would only make trouble. It wouldn't do

no good.

So begins the opening of the adventures

of Huckleberry Finn, by Mark Twain.

Now we've covered a couple of books. I'll cover to lose 1 book by

Mark Twain on this podcast before. We we've talked about roughing

it. His

memoir about going down the Mississippi as a young

man on the paddle boats and on the river

boats, that went up and down the

Mississippi during the pre civil war era

of the United States. And, Mark Twain, of

course, is the pen name for Samuel

Langhorne Clemens. Now we've covered a lot of his background on another podcast, but

just to refresh you, he was born November 30th, 18 35

in Florida, Missouri. And his life story and background

is probably the most well known of any man of letters born

and active during the entirety of 19th century. And he was up against

some pretty strong, some pretty strong competition, everybody

from Edgar Allen Poe, all the way to, to

Nathaniel Hawthorne, Charles Dickens, and even Rudyard

Kipling. Clemens was a writer,

humorist, essayist, entrepreneur, publisher, and lecturer.

William Faulkner called him quote unquote the father of all

American literature.

Clemens like the aforementioned Edgar Allen Poe is a person whose avatar

has transcended American literature and he has appeared and

I'm sure he'd be. He would find it absolutely

strange that this has happened, but he has appeared in television shows like

star Trek, and has been portrayed by live events by

actors like Val Kilmer in Branson, Missouri. I think that

one really threw him for a loop, actually.

Curiously enough, Samuel Langer Clemens was born shortly after an appearance of

Halley's comet, and he even predicted that his own death in 1910

would accompany it, coming back. And

he did indeed die a day after the comment was at its

closest to earth. There's

a lot that can be said about Samuel Langhorne Clemens, a lot that can

be said about Mark Twain. And I could say a lot about it on this

podcast today, but that's why we have Brian here. He's going to say some things.

So I'm gonna kick it over to him and start off with this question.

Brian Bagley, in looking at the adventures of Huckleberry Finn

and looking at it from the perspective of 2024,

well over a 100 and probably almost, what, 50

years now since its publication,

Why have we lost the ability to be funny?

Wow. Well, I think there are people who

can be funny. And they

just can't be funny in, approved

channel, just so to speak. And,

so there's there's definitely those that know how to be funny. It's just

where can you be funny and what can you be funny about?

And I think we'll I think we're gonna get into some of the taboo things

here in a little bit, so I won't get into that so much now. But

but I I think one of the one of the big challenges, that's

kind of faces leaders

is, well, you you, I think maybe I read this somewhere.

You may have mentioned it, Hassan, is so much

of, when we talk about authenticity,

authenticity is sort of,

a life that is that is, up

against a well crafted image.

Okay? And so, so whether it's politics

or religion, kind of the, the old

guard really, really wanted to

present it was very important to present a well

crafted image. And so, you know, you think

about, you know, all the great some of the great political

scandals or religious scandals of the 19

eighties, you know, sort of that unraveling period,

of the of the last century, you know, where you had the

the famous the the, the Baker family, the religious

family that had that big television empire

and, of course, you know, his public scandals and Tammy Faye Baker and

all that. But then he also had,

there was a a Democratic candidate for

president, from Colorado. He's a senator from Colorado.

I believe it was 80 or 84. I cannot remember the guy's name off the

top of my head. It'll come to me here in a minute. But

he had he he was a very prominent

senator, was was definitely on his way to getting the

nomination for the Democratic presidential committee. And then it came out some

photos of him on a yacht with a very young woman.

Probably could have been his daughter. I mean, in terms of how old she was.

And, and his presidential bid was over oh, it was

overnight, and it was over. Same thing with, John Edwards in 2008. He's

challenging Barack Obama. He had scandal came out. Boom. So you

had this this well crafted,

image, and the media was the same way. The media you had

3 channels, ABC, NBC, CBS. They were crafting

and curating certain forms of news.

Johnny Carson curated a certain form of comedy.

All somewhere along the way, all of that

curation became canned, inauthentic,

because people just knew that's just not real. That's not right.

It's not genuine. And,

and so, yeah, you had other forms

of of comedy, news, politics,

some very unconventional things have have sort of percolated in its wake. I I

think that kinda gets to the point you're making. Yeah.

Well and the guy you're talking about, the senator, was Gary Hart. Just a

little bit. Thank you. That's right. Yes. Who

interestingly enough is still alive. He's 87 years old. So there you go.

Yeah. So Gary Hart, John Edwards,

you mentioned Tammy Faye Baker. And, you know,

in in Huckleberry Finn, Ms. Watson

and the entire culture that's not on the river stands in. I

think, I think the, the theologian Doug Wilson would make this point

stands in for all of that.

All of the ways in which Huck Finn is bound down. Right. And I'm not

gonna get too philosophical about this because it is humorous, but it's all the, you

can even see it in the first part there that I just read, which is

in the first chapter. Right. You know, Twain

effectively skewers religion, societal pieties,

the good people who and, of course, women who are

responsible for holding down

boisterous, adventurous young men Right. And

civilizing them. I I mean, that's literally what, you know right. She's gonna

civilize me. Right? Miss Watson's gonna civilize me. And Huck

doesn't wanna be civilized, and humor doesn't want to be

civilized. It it it's it's like that line in Jurassic

Park. Right? It breaks through. It it it it creates new

forms. It has to go outside its own boundaries. Right?

That's right. That's right. I have to be able to make a joke about Gary

Hart being on a boat with a woman that everybody's

thinking of to go back to that Steve Harvey, you know, idea

that I brought up, everybody's thinking this, but the comedian, the

court jester, these are the people that actually open their mouths and

say it. And this is why I'm a

big fan of free speech because without free speech, you stifle all of

that, and then there's no it's not just the stifling of humor that's a

problem underneath an anti free speech regime or cancel culture. It's not

just that. But that's the canary in the coal mine to not solving

a whole bunch of other problems. But there's a sub idea in

here that I want you to flesh out a little bit more. And it's this

idea that and I think

it's been coming for a while, and you mentioned the unraveling. Right? And and we

talk a lot because the other the other book that we cover was the 4th

turning, a book you recommended, and we talked about it on this podcast. And

you and I firmly believe that, we are in the well,

I think we're at the end of the 4th turning. I I think we're close

to the end of of the period of chaos, but there's always 4 turnings.

Right? So, you know, there's a there's a springtime high.

There's a summer, that's sort of, you know,

kind of a summer of love, such as it were, to use a term

from the most recent past. Then there's a fall that that basically is a

societal unraveling. Think of everything that happened in the United States between the

19 seventies and the end of the 19 nineties. And then you have a winter

of chaos. Think about everything that's happened ever since 2001 all the

way to, all the way and and September 11th, all the way to now. Okay.

So those are your 4 cycles of history. And you and I both believe that

we're we're we're walking out these cycles, and they sort

of happened without our permission. Right? Well,

during a time of unraveling, when that authenticity is being

questioned, what do you think happens? No. Not what do you

think happens? Why do leaders who are incumbents? Why do they struggle so

much during that time of unraveling? Why do they because this is something that's even

a little bit this is a little bit deeper in in in the adventures of

Huckleberry Finn because when this book was written, or when this book was

published, and was first published in

18/84. Right? And it was

published during a time after a period of chaos. Right? This

is 20 years after the civil war. Right?

Clemens finally felt like he could, you know, put this out there because there had

been enough time that had passed between that chaotic period and

and when the book was published, and the slavery question had been

solved. So he was writing to a culture where maybe you're not

gonna sell that many books of the south, but they lost the war.

So, you know, reconstruction is going on. We need to have something, you know,

that sort of builds the people up. And the dynamic that was happening in

the United States at that time was there weren't 4 generations. 1 generation had

completely died in the, in the, on the fields of the battle of the civil

war. And so you had an older generation that had driven a

younger generation basically to slaughter, and then a generation that was coming up after

that who were kids when all that was going on, who would literally have

no, as Huck Finn would say, no truck

with anything going on in the past. So Twain is writing this in a very

specific period of time. And so, again, my question is, why do leaders

struggle with times of of unraveling? Not the chaos part.

I understand why that, but why do they struggle in times of unraveling?

Well, the I I think that, when when you're in a period of

unraveling, though, you don't know what

direction the unraveling is going to take. So Right.

To stay ahead of that is is certainly a

challenge. One of the things I think we

we tend to be really hard on in in

and what I encourage a lot of when I talk to leaders,

especially younger guys, that I've mentored through through church

or, maybe on the job, and I

just encourage them, to you

know, anytime that you reflect on history, it's good to

approach history with a good dose of humility

because you don't know how

people are going to judge your actions and your

social mores in a 150 years. And so

we don't know what we're doing today that we think is just

top of the top. I mean, we're we're doing our best, and we're trying to

be as, as moral as we possibly can. And

in a 150 years, what we think is is, is the

very best that we could be doing. You know, our

great great grandkids are just gonna be so offended that we even thought

that that might even be a good deal, a good way to think about things.

And so, so just right off the bat, just whenever

you approach history, or or a a

period of time that wasn't part of your own, it's just

important to understand that that, you know, it we

don't we don't know everything, and we certainly can't know what was going on

in their hearts, in their souls when they were making

decisions or making judgment calls. But to get to your point, why why does

a leader struggle, I think, in a in a period of unraveling to be authentic?

I think there is there's a desire. Every leader there's a

conservative nature in every leader, even progressive leaders. They

have there's something that they have to be holding on to,

in order to have a fixed point of reference that they're

moving everybody toward or or or or past

maybe. And and so there's there's some

level of, conservativeness

that every leader needs to possess in order

to to be,

presentable, I guess, is the right word, and to have gravitas.

And and so, like and and so as the leader is is navigating

through a period of unraveling, There's there's this

struggle to be, to try to maintain this

curated image, I think, of what things were in the

past and try to hold the ship together. Meanwhile, the ship

could just be falling apart. And, and it's just it's

just a really tough thing to to navigate through.

Mhmm. Mhmm. Okay. One last question. I

kinda skipped this one, but I wanna go back to it now.

So what did you like about Huck Finn? Like, I know why I

like the book, but why did you like the book? What what tickled you about

this book? I just I love the,

I I love the characters of everything. I love how

he he was not afraid to,

portray, like, even even the institution of slavery was a caricature

of itself. And the way that, you know, we

they you know, the way that Jim was kinda handled,

throughout the course of the adventure. And, you know,

at one point, we were, you know, he was

running around on the boat with the other guys, you know, butt naked. You know,

they're, you know, sitting on it. And then, oh, well, what what what we gotta

make sure we we you know, we need need him to be tied up during

the day because we're you know, he's he's part of the he's part of the

show, if you will. Right? He's just another character in the play

is what's going on. And so we just Jim, we just need you

to play your part. Okay? That's that's that's sort of the the

vibe of this whole thing. And and I I

I love that caricature because, you know,

so much of reality is,

it's just perception. It's the perception of what is,

what is real and and and the perception of what is right and wrong.

And and, so I I just really

appreciated his, 20th approach

to, to all of those American institutions

that were in the process of changing. I mean, like you

said, the American Civil War shattered a lot of

societal paradigms, particularly in the South, but

certainly in the North too. I mean, there were a lot of

I mean, politics was upended. Religion was religion was definitely

upended, particularly in the north, a lot more in the north than it

was in the south. And so,

so I I feel like he did a good job

of of, drawing on

some funnier things and some funnier,

making it, making that change a little

bit easier to swallow and deal with, if that makes sense.

Mhmm. Well and they didn't have TV, obviously. Yeah.

You know That's right. The the the the biggest

mass media that was available

to people in the 19th century,

was newspapers. And most newspapers,

people forget this. I mean, we think social media is

bad, but most newspapers were driven

by what we would call these days,

libel and yellow journalism.

Literal libel. Literal, like, this I

saw this person kill a woman in the street,

and, like, you know, it was it was

a level of free speech radicalism that I don't think we no,

I won't say, I don't think, I think we, we, what we have happening

on various social media platforms,

pales in comparison to what was

going on there when all of that psychic

energy was going to just one medium

rather than being diffused across multiple medias,

and multiple media tools. Right? And I do think

that with the explosion of technology that we had, particularly in the

later part of 20th century, that diffusion

actually has had some societal benefit. But back

in the late 19th century, I mean, you had you had journals.

Those are for the highly read academic folks you had, you

had newspapers, and newspapers, like I said, were mostly

yellow journalism. Yes. There was some reporting, but still it was,

it was a lot of free for all there. And then the last medium that

you had that was the entertainment medium, other than plays and theater,

was books. I mean, people read books out

loud. Books are read were designed to be read in the in the the

form of the novel, while not a new form. Novels have been

around, good Lord, since, like, the Middle Ages at least. A proto novel began

then. But the form of the novel with,

with mass and with the beginning of industrialization really began to come into

the form that we know it in the later part of the 20 we now

know it, in the later part of 20th century. And artists, we've talked about

this on a podcast we did talking about,

Edgar Allan Poe, talking about Nathaniel Hawthorne, and

now with Mark Twain. Those writers in the

19th century got after each other like nobody's

business. They had zero problem

notorious episode. We talked about this on the the fall of the house of the

Usher episode. Edgar Allan Poe wrote critiques of other

artists and other writers' writings that

caused some of those writers to want to shoot him in a duel.

Because this because this was how people solved problems

back then. If you ran your mouth, you're gonna get clapped.

And if you ran your mouth very much verbal it was very much verbal dueling

very much. Well, if you right. If you ran your mouth in print, like there

was no like, oh, it was just some anonymous troll on

Twitter. Yes. It was, oh, no, no, no.

That's Bob across the street. I'm going to go fix that problem, Bob.

And, and by the way, everybody knew what the rules were. Like everybody knew

what the rules were. Everybody knew what the consequences were.

Everybody sort of participated. And as, of course, as you move further west

out of the east, it became even more a space

of even after the civil war, you would think after all that bloodletting,

people would stop shooting each other. No, no, no, no, no, no, no. There's

still matters of, of, of pride and matters of

name. And, and if you're going to caricature

me, if you're going to turn me into an absurdity, you better

be really clever with that to such a way that I laugh at my own

absurdity, and I don't wanna shoot you. And I always think Mark Twain. I whenever

I read adventures of Huckleberry, fan adventures of Tom Sawyer, I always think that Mark

Twain was sort of walking that line all of the time.

Yeah. He was. He really was. And, I

you know, one of the things I really appreciate about

Mark Twain is, you know, it it takes a

lot of courage to do good comedy, I

think. Yeah. Because good comedy it good comedy should cut

both ways. And, I'll I think

one of the big critiques that in in my mind of sort of this comedy

right now is, you know, if if

you're if you're watching late night comedy,

it's generally

left wing. The right has its has

its, comedic influences. You know,

anytime you have a a comedian like,

Dave Chappelle like, Dave is all you know, Dave says some stuff that

irritates both sides, but I find, you know, whenever whenever,

Dave is on Saturday Night Live, I mean, he'll say something. He did this

spiel. I'm sure you saw it on Donald Trump. Oh, yeah. It

was just beautiful. I mean, spot

on. And, it was really, really good comedy.

So, you know, I I don't know. I think, I think

comedy good comedy takes courage and, can get you

in a lot of trouble. Well, Bill Burr, after the most recent,

United States presidential election, you know, comes

on Saturday night live and got you know, he does a whole he

softens it a little bit at the beginning, which is which is not typical for

Bill. Usually, he just goes right into it. He softens it a little bit because

he knows his crowd. He's like, okay. Well, I'm gonna talk what you all I'm

gonna talk about what you all want me to say here today. And he goes

right I mean, he aims right at talk about courage. He aims right at, and

he says, well, ladies, you're down 02 to the orange man.

And to the crowd's credit, New York City

crowd, they laughed. That's right. That's

right. Yeah. And he just makes it easier for them to deal with

reality. You know? Like, it

And then, you know, he goes into a whole bit about pantsuits, and you all

know how to get an extra drink. And, you know, and there's a whole and

you can go YouTube this this this bit. And and it is one of

those where, to your point about courage,

you have to be of a certain and Bilber and

Dave Chappelle are both of that certain

ilk, where

if you're going to come for them, you

better be ready. If you're gonna verbally spar with them, you better be ready to

lose. Like, I watched a whole entire episode of, of, Bill Maher's

podcast club random that had Bill Burr on it, and he spent the entire

time just skewering Bill Maher. Just he just roasted him

the entire interview and then claimed that Bill Maher

couldn't handle it because, like, you know, oh, you're so smart. You just can't handle

it. And that really got under Mars' skin. Like, you could but what was he

gonna do? Like, it's his show. Like, is he gonna walk off his own show?

So he's stuck, and he's squirming, and Bill Burr is loving it. And he

just keeps just driving. And Bill Maher should have expected this as a

fellow comedian. He should have expected it as a fellow comedian. You're right. And he

did not. He did because he's he's Bill Maher. Like, you know,

uh-huh. And he and Bill Barr is just like, I don't who?

And that's and that, of course, is is the whole point of, like I will

tell my kids this. If I wanna dismiss someone or

if I wanna be dismissive of somebody in a funny way

Yeah. I will. I'll say in a very high pitched way. So who? I don't

know who you are. Who are you? What? Go away.

What is that? Dismissedness of this is, it is a sign of comedy. It's a

dismissiveness of status, and I think that's what people really struggle with.

Well and I think to take another comedian who's probably not as political, but

Nate Barguetzky. Oh, yeah. What makes Nate

so funny is his self

deprecating authenticity. Right. Like, he's just

the everyday schmo, who comes home at 5

o'clock, and he gives you every detail about his boring

life, and you laugh hysterically. Okay? There you go.

Between his his him and his relationship with his wife or the way he travels

to an airport, and it's just everybody's been there, and it's

funny. Everybody's been there. Alright. So back to the book. We're gonna pick up,

we're gonna pick up a little later in Huckleberry Finn. But, back to the

book, back to the adventures of Huckleberry Finn.

By the way, this book is open source. You can check it out,

get yourself a free copy. I'm looking at or I'm reading the Bantam classic version,

but it's the same version. You could find open source, everywhere where you download books

on the Internet.

Alright. So we're gonna go directly into chapter 10. We're gonna leapfrog

over a couple of different things because if you know the story or the underpinnings

of Huckleberry Finn, you don't need me to read the whole book. So,

Huck escapes the the

bounds of society, and he goes out on the river, which is the

only place he can be free. By the way, when I first read this book,

I was probably 9 or 10 years old, and I really resonated with that

idea of, you know, going out on the river and just floating

down the river on a raft. It was only as I got older that

I began to resonate with other aspects of, of this story.

But he's on the raft. The escaped slave,

Jim, is is with him. And, well,

he's gonna wind up since he's gonna wind up in some, with a streak of

bad luck here from, from handling, from

handling snake skin. So

what comes from handling snake skin? Chapter 10.

After breakfast, I wanted to talk about the dead man and guess how he came

to be killed, but Jim didn't want to. He said it would fetch bad

luck. And besides, he said he might come at Hans. And he said a man

that weren't buried was more likely to go a hunting around than when it was

planted and comfortable. That sounded pretty reasonable, so I didn't say no more, but I

couldn't keep him studied over and wishing I'd known him shot the man and what

they'd done it for. We bummers the clothes we got and found

$8 in silver, sold him in the line of an old blanket overcoat. Jim said

he reckoned the people in that house stole the coat because if they had to

know the money was there, they would've left it. I said I reckon they killed

him too, but Jim didn't wanna talk about that. I says, now you think it's

bad luck, but what did you say when I fetched the snake skin that I

found on top of the bridge the day before yesterday? You said it was the

worst bad luck in the world to touch the snake skin with my hands. Well,

here's your bad luck. We've raked in with all this truck and $8 besides. I

wish you could have some bad luck like this every day, Jim. Never you

mind, honey. Never you mind. Don't you get too pert. It's a comin'. Mind I

tell you what's comin'? It did come too. It was a

Tuesday that we had that talk. Well, after dinner Friday, we was laying around

on the grass at the upper end of the bridge and out of tobacco. I

went to the cavern to get some and found a rattlesnake in there. I killed

him and curled him up in the foot of Jim's blanket. It was so natural.

Thinking there'd be some fun when Jim found him there. Well, by night, I forgot

all about the snake. And when Jim flung himself down the blanket while I struck

a light, the snake's bait was there, and it bit him. He jumped up

yelling, and the first thing the light showed was a varmint curled up hooray for

another spring. I laid about in a second with a stick, and Jim grabbed Pap's

whiskey jug and began to pour it down. He was barefoot, and the snake bit

him right on the heel. That all comes out of people such a fool as

to not remember that wherever you leave a dead snake, its mate always comes there

and curls around it. Jim told me to chop off the snake's head and throw

it away, and then skin to body roast a piece of it. I'd

done it, and he eat it and said it would help cure him. He made

me take off the rattles and tie them around his waist too. He said that

would help. Then I slid out quiet and throw the snake

clear away amongst the bushes for I won't go let Jim find out it was

all my fault, not if I could help it. Jim sucked and sucked at the

jug, and now and then he got out of his head and pitched around and

yelled. But every time he come to himself when I was sucking at the jug

again, his foot swelled over pretty big, and so did his leg. By and

by, the drunk begun to come, and so I judged he was alright. But I'd

rather been bit with a snake than paps whiskey.

Jim was laid up for 4 days nights, then the swelling was all gone, and

he was all around again. I made up my mind I wouldn't ever take a

hold of snakeskin again with my hands now that I see what had come of

it. Jim said he reckoned I would believe him next time, and he said the

handling of snakeskin was such an awful bad luck that maybe we hadn't got to

the end of it yet. He said he'd rather see the new moon over his

left shadow shoulder as much as a 1000 times to take up a snake skin

in his hand. Well, I was getting to feel that way myself, though I've always

reckoned that looking out the new moon over your left shoulder is one of the

carelessness and the foolishest things a body can do. Old Hank Bunker done it

once and bragged about it, and in less than 2 years, got himself drunk and

fell off a shot tower and spread himself out so he was just kind of

a lair, as you may say. And they slid him edgeways between 2 hard doors

for a coffin and buried him, so they say, but I didn't see it. Pap

told me. But, anyway, it all come a lookin' at the moon that way like

a fool. Well, the days went long, and the river went down between

its banks again. And about the first thing we done was to bait one of

them big hooks with a skinned rabbit and set it to catch catfish. It was

as big as a man, Being 6 foot 2 inches long and weighing over £200.

We couldn't handle, of course. He would have flung us into the Illinois. We just

sat there and watched him rip and tear around till he drowned. We

found a brass button in his stomach and a round ball, lots of other rubbish.

We split the ball open with a hatchet, and there was a spool in

it. Jim said he had it there a long time to coat it over, so

make a ball out of it. It was as big fish he was ever catching

in Mississippi, I reckon. Jim said he couldn't even see a bigger one. He would

have been worth a good deal over at the village. They pet a lot of

such a fish that by the pound in the market house. Everybody buys

some of them. His meat is white as snow. It makes a good fry.

Next morning, I said it was starting to get slow and dull, and I wanted

to get stirring up some anyway. I said I reckon I was slip over the

river and find out what was going on. Jim liked the notion, but he said

I must go in the dark and look sharp. Then he studied it over and

said, couldn't I put on some of them old things that dress up like a

girl? That was a good notion too. So we shortened up one of those calico

gowns. I turned up my trouser legs and went to my legs and and and

got into it. Jim hitched you behind with the hooks, and it was a fair

fit. I put on a sunbonnet, a tie knot to my chin, and then for

a body to look in and see my face, it was like looking down the

joint of a stovepipe. Yeah. Jim said nobody would know me

even in daytime. Hardly. I practice around all day to get the hang of things,

and by and by, I could do pretty well on it by then. Only Jim

said I didn't walk like a girl, and he said I must quit pulling up

my gown to get in my britches pockets. I took notice, and I'd done better.

I started up the Illinois shore in a canoe just after

dark. And then from there,

things get even worse.

What are the challenges that people have with the adventures of

Huckleberry Finn along with the broken

speech patterns, the broken English usage,

the what Zora Neale Hurst would later call the vernacular of

the time, the malapropisms, some of

which we read in that little section there,

and the quote unquote in jokes that have not

stood the test of time because we're just not culturally, contextually aware

of all the tiny things that were going on around this book.

All of these things gather together, but they are dwarfed by the

use 219 times of and I'm

going to say it here. So everybody block your ears if you're worth

listening with your kids. I've give I have yeah. Block

yours if you're in in the in the car with your kids. I'm about to

say the word the use of the

word nigger. 219

times in the adventures of Huckleberry Finn has driven

people in our increasingly sensitive age.

Crazy. This really started back in the

1960s with the civil rights movement and has

continued with increasing sharpness into our own

era. But

here's the thing, people did use that word on the

regular, and people did use the word to refer to

themselves and others. And, yes, word uses has changed

over time. I'm a big fan of linguistics, and the work of

the writer John McWhorter and others in the linguistic space.

And, yes, words do change. They do drop out of

usage, and they come into usage. The words change meaning over the

course of time. And yes, that word,

the in word, such as it were, has

moved and migrated over time and

has changed in meaning as society and context has

shifted around. For many postmodern

readers with delicate sensibilities and political leanings, this

word makes people feel as though they do not want

to touch the book with a 10 foot pole. As a matter of

fact, African American legislatures legislators in New Jersey,

a couple, presented a nonbinding resolution in

the state assembly a couple years ago proposing to remove

Twain's novel from the state curriculum, declaring

that, quote, the novel's use of a racial slur and its

depictions of racist attitudes can cause students to feel

upset, marginalized, or humiliated and can create an

uncomfortable atmosphere in the classroom, close quote.

The inability of postmodern culture to contextualize the past appropriately

and teach the past without emotion sets up a dichotomy where people of

all races miss the essentialism of remembering the grimy

parts of the past that don't fit with our

conception of how the past should work for us right now.

Author Todd Coats, a man who I share

almost no opinion in common with,

except for this one that I was able to find, wrote

in his essay, a nation of cowards that quote

censoring Twain's work was a shocking act of disrespect toward the

writer executed by people who claim to hold up his

legacy because we can't handle the story of who we were and

evidently who we are Twain must be summoned up from the

dead and all against himself submitted before the

edits of amateurs. This is our system of

fast food education laid bare. Let us all live in a

world of warm snuglies. Let the air conditioned anesthesia

sprawl free. May the flowers of happiness

multiply out. May Mark Twain's ghost

haunt us all. Close quote.

I find myself agreeing with mister Coats. Weirdly

enough. We're strange bedfellows on this one, but

bedfellows nonetheless.

So let's talk about the n word.

Let's talk about the grimy parts of

Huck Finn. Brian,

you're a white guy from Texas.

I'm a black guy, not from Texas.

One of the objections that I read to this from one of the legislatures

was or an educator from back in 2019,

was that, they didn't want to have to explain

to their daughter why this word had to be used

219 times in this novel. So it would just be easier to not have

her read it. And I just

thought what a failure of parenting

along with a failure of education.

I've had my kids read this book,

all of them, except for my 7 year old for whom it is not appropriate

yet, just like most things aren't appropriate for a 7 year old.

But my 14 year old has read it. My 19 year old's read

it, and my 27 year old read a long time

ago. We don't

make the grimy parts less grimy by just

ignoring them, but Twain didn't think it was

grimy. So how do we

position this book for our current sensibilities?

Yeah. That's a that's a good question. I think, it's

I think it says less about Twain, and it says more about our

sensibilities, as misguided as I think they

are. And,

you know, there is a,

and I I kind of alluded to this earlier when I was talking about,

you know, when anytime you approach history, you gotta approach it

with some level of, respect

for for the good and the bad. You know, every

period of human history and every person for that matter

is a mixed bag. Okay? Like like, every

single person without exception is a mixed bag. And

just because and and I would say

if if you were looking at Mark

Twain in his context, he would definitely be a

man on the progressive side of things, I

think. And yet, you know, he

he wasn't Antifa. Okay? No. No.

Farland. You know, he was now he might you know, who

knows? Maybe inwardly, he was a fan of of, the

abolitionist, you know, the hardcore John Brown or

somebody. I don't know that, you know. But, but he was

more self aware for sure. And,

and he definitely had his his leanings and his opinions on

things. But but I think, you know,

when when it comes to navigating our

sensibilities, especially for the next generation I mean, so you

brought up this this, these people past trying to pass a law that they were

trying to protect kids, quote, unquote. The one thing that a

parent has to do is, the

parents have to help their kids understand the difference between beliefs and

convictions. And, a belief is something you're

willing to argue over. A conviction is something you're willing to die over.

Mhmm. And and so, like, kids are

gonna pick up beliefs and convictions. Like, that's gonna happen.

The question is from who?

And if you're a parent and you feel strongly about

something, I don't know why you would shy away from

having to explain anything to your children, especially in a world

that is gonna tell them all kinds of

nonsense. Some some good, some bad, but,

but I I certainly wouldn't leave it up to chance. So it's just, you know,

regard just set aside the argument, of

whether or not the the legislation was a good or a bad thing. I think

it's just profoundly,

shortsighted to take that approach, just to even take that approach.

Well, it's the it's the ultimate example of we live in a fallen world,

but our technology has progressed on a j curve up

into the right. So so human beings should change as fast as

our iPhones. And because they don't, let's pass this piece of legislation.

Yeah. Right. That's sort of the ultimate, like,

you know, let's use government power to

remake society. I mean, it's it's the argue it's

the argument that the conservatives have against progressives. Why are you using government power

for social engineering? And progressives could ever explain that with going and by

the way, they don't feel they need to. Going back to Woodrow Wilson,

interestingly enough, who was a child during the civil war and

was the last president born during the civil war and who was a

scientific progressive, his words, not mine,

and believed we could use science to remake the world because we were

better than people in the past. Because we had Darwin, so we knew

more stuff. Yeah. And,

I I hope Darwin is on his way to the dustbin of

history. I have my doubts. But, I definitely

have a lot of

disagreements with Darwin's understanding of,

of well, his the application of his understanding to the,

anthropology of of the human race.

That's just not the way that a Christian can think

about, you know, the the nature of man and

and how evil entered the world and how it will be

addressed. So Well, one of the things

that I think Twain really got on to not to interrupt

you, but I think one of the things that Twain that Twain really got on

to was this idea that no. Not this idea. That the

scientific materialist progressives miss all the way from Woodrow

Wilson to Richard Dawkins. Here's what they miss.

And I listened to Dawkins' most recent interview with Jordan Peterson,

where he got really frustrated with doctor

Peterson. And his critique of the

entire conversation, which I later read, was that

Peterson is drunk on ideas, and ideas

don't matter to Dawkins. All that matters to Dawkins is material

fact of the material fact of being able to put a rocket on

the moon. That's the only thing that matters to him. Everything else is

kids stories and superstition. Didn't care about any of that. Here's

what the material fact. He cares about the things that lead to that material fact

to be able to put a rocket on the moon. Except what Dawkins misses is

the reason, the meaning behind putting that rocket on

the moon is not scientific materially based. And this is

what Twain got. You need to have a reason,

a story, a story that drives

Huck out of civilization into the river. You have to have

a story that causes Huck to have genuine

torn feelings about whether to work for Jim's

escape as a slave or to engage in

continuing the societal process during his time

of selling this guy as flesh to people,

as a tool. There's there's a story there, and

the scientific materialistic people miss the story

all the time. And it's kind of amazing because,

again, they have little interest, as they seem, this is my critique, They seem to

have little interest in understanding the nature of

man. They claim very much to understand the nature of man, Marxist

progressives, Darwinists, all claim to understand the nature of man better than

conservatives do. And yet they seem to have very little interest in

individual well, they seem to have very little interest in individual humans.

Yeah. Yeah. We we like to say, in our house that

the world is not just stuff. The the world is

also composed of nonmaterial things,

ideas, even nonmaterial

beings, that we can't see, don't have access

to, but very much exist and influence

our world in very profound ways.

And so, you know, if you're coming if if that

whole line of possibilities is off limits to

you, then you're gonna come to very different conclusions

about the reality of the world in which we exist. So,

yeah, I I I think

for for Mark Twain's part,

you know, he, I think at one point, he talks

about the, the angel that, you know, the the good the good

angel and the bad angel that can get a hold of a man and, causes,

you know, cause him to pick right or wrong. He's

he's, while this book is a caricature,

you know, he's he's not, he's not wrong about

that. Mhmm. K? And

and so that's, that that that's very much part

of part of the the reality. And even when Jim is

talking about some of the, you know, the hairball and some of

the the witchcraft type things that that he's been exposed

to, again, that's an illusion to, other

forces outside of the material world that are influencing

what's happening in the on the book. So

anyway. Well, I think leaders

like, I'm sure the legislators who proposed

the banning of the book in New Jersey.

And and and saying this from my location in Texas abuses me for

a whole variety of reasons. But

the legislators that were

proposing banning Twain's book in New Jersey, in the

New Jersey school system, for very self serving

reasons seem to not

understand caricature because they don't understand human

nature. And

I just think people who are more,

temperamentally oriented towards conservativism,

just understand human nature better.

They just, they just do they're they de complicate human

nature and they don't live

in, I won't say they don't live. They can't live in their own ivory towers.

I won't, I won't make that claim, but they D yeah,

they de complicate human nature. And I think

and this is sort of my last idea. Maybe I'll bounce this off you. So

I think not, I think I know Mark Twain has changed over the

course of time. Again, he would be shocked at how much

his, his image maybe

has changed and probably become a caricature of who he actually was.

Mhmm. And he might find that he might he may I think he

would probably find I think he would probably find that to be ironic, actually.

I think the irony of that would would strike him as humorous.

Do we need a Mark Twain for our

time? I'm not meeting somebody who steps in, like, in the Kennedy Center Honors and

gets a prize. That's not what I'm talking about. Kevin Hart most recently

received, the Kennedy prize, the Mark Twain prize. Right? Most recently,

Bill Cosby had his prize stripped from him.

Richard Pryor got one even though Bill Cosby wouldn't show up and give it to

him because he said Richard Pryor cursed too much.

You know? So, I mean, Jerry Seinfeld's never received one, which I find to be

incredibly interesting. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. And

and very very interesting. Very funny Jewish man. Very funny Jewish

man, who has not received one even though another

very funny Jewish man. What's his name?

Did history of the world part 1. Oh, you know who

I'm talking? Mel Brooks. Yeah. Mel Brooks. Yeah. Mel Brooks. Mel

Brooks turned down the award. He was offered it.

Robin Williams turned down the award. Didn't want it. Right?

So this award is very interesting. It's malleable.

Do we need a Mark Twain?

Not do we need. Are we going to be able to mold successfully a

Mark Twain for the time on the

other side of the well, in the spring high that we're

coming into as a society, or will Mark Twain be one of those folks that

will just sort of fade to the background until the next unraveling

shows up, like, 60 years from now? Well, I hope

so. I mean, I think it would it it would be helpful to

have someone like that. I I I do think that

that person is gonna have to come from the right. I I mean, I could

be wrong about that. I'm they do left. But but I do

think based on, you know, I because I do agree with you. I I

think about, you know, like,

you you were talking about just having a the right perspective on

human history and, being more comfortable

with things. You know, I was I got to thinking about the obsession

in our culture over the last few years over

justice, You know? Mhmm. Justice justice just you know, Black

Lives Matter, all this other. And and I was

thinking about, you know, as, you know, as a

person on the right, it's not that you know, and I

don't I can't speak for everybody, but I I think I can speak in general

terms and certainly for myself. It's you know, it's not it's not that

I think conservatives are against justice at

all. It's an understanding though that

ultimate justice cannot be achieved in

a fallen world. In other

words, it doesn't matter if someone

the whole point of forgiveness of the concept

of forgiveness. Okay? As a as a

pastor, I preached extensively on forgiveness

for a long time, in a lot of different context, whether

it's counseling or marriage ministry or recovery

ministry. The the purpose of

of forgiveness is the person you're

forgiving is not competent to

pay back what they took from you. Completely

incompetent. They can't do it. They cannot rewind the clock. They can't

take back the words. Even if they say I'm sorry, the words were still said.

The action was still taken. The you know, and they and they

can't rewind history and take all that back. So so there is

no undoing. It's not going to be undone.

And and so even if they paid a paid a price, like

what? Like, you know, go to jail or something else,

whatever that is, it's still not going to make up for what happened

because that can't be undone. And so we

believe, you know, as a as a Christian, you know, I believe that there will

be a day when all wrongs are made right. There will be a

day of ultimate justice. It just won't be in this life.

And so with that as a context, right, and as

I as I live out my Christian faith,

as I impart forgiveness to someone,

I do it in the way in the in the context of how would I

would I want to receive forgiveness. So Jesus says,

or in the model prayer, you know, forgive us our debt as we forgive others.

Right? So so at just the way I forgive other people, god, that's

how I want you to treat me. And so so it

with with my own sinfulness, with my own brokenness, my own

patterns of of of,

unhealth and sin in my life, you know, just the the the level

of forgiveness that I want for that, that's the level that I

wanna try to present to other people. So, again, that's not to say we don't

want justice. We don't you know, criminals don't go to jail. People don't aren't tried

for crimes. None of that. But just but just knowing that

a society that says ultimate

justice must be achieved is a society that can't

function, because there is there is no

way to achieve ultimate justice without, without someone paying

the ultimate price, by dying, really, at the end of the

day. So that's why you see a lot of violence in a

lot of these social justice causes because in

order to achieve ultimate justice, somebody does have to die. They really do.

With that, we're gonna go back to the book, back to Huckleberry Finn.

We're gonna pick up in chapter 16,

following up with the rattlesnake skin. The rattlesnake

skin does its work.

We slept most all day and started out at night, a little ways behind a

monstrous long raft that was as long going by as a procession.

She had 4 long sweeps at each end. So we judge, she carried as many

as 30 men likely. She had 5 big wigwams aboard wide apart and an

open campfire in the middle, the tall flagpole. Each end,

there was a power of style about her. It amounted to something

being a raft man on such a craft is that we

were drifting down into a big bend and the night clouded up and got hot.

The river was very wide and it was wall with solid timber on both sides.

So you couldn't see a break in it hardly ever, or light. We talked

about Cairo and wondered whether we would know it when we got to it. I

said likely we wouldn't because I heard say there weren't, but about a

dozen houses there. And even if they did happen to have them lit up, how

was it gonna know who was passing the town? Jim said if the 2

big rivers joined together there, that would show. I said, maybe we might think we

was passing the foot of an island and coming into the same old river again.

That disturbed Jim and me too. So the question was what to

do. I said, paddle ashore the first time a light showed and tell them Pat

was behind, come along with the trading scout and was a green hand at the

business. He wanted to know how far it was to Cairo. Jim thought it was

a good idea. So we took a smoke on it and waited.

There's nothing to do now, but to look out sharp for the town, not pass

by without seeing it. He said he'd be mighty sure to see it because he'd

be a free man the minute he seen it. But if he missed it, he'd

be in a slave country again, and no more show for freedom.

Every little while, he jumps up and says, dash he is. What a worm. He

was jack o'-lantern as a lightning bug, so he sit down again and went to

watch the same as before. Jim said it made him all over trembling and feverish

to be so close to freedom. Well, I could tell you it made me all

over trembling and feverish too to hear him because I began to get it through

my head that he was most free and who to blame for it.

Why me? I couldn't get that out of my conscience. No how, Norway.

It got to trouble with me so I couldn't rest. I couldn't stay still in

one place. I had never come home to me before, what this thing was that

I was doing. But now it didn't. It stayed with me. It scorched

me more and more. I tried to make my make out to myself I weren't

a plane because I didn't run Jibar from his rifle owner. There were no use.

Conscience up and says every time. But you know that he was run away for

his freedom, and you could have paddled a short and told somebody. That was so.

I couldn't get around that no way. That was where it pinched. The conscience says

to me, what a poor miss Watson done to you that you could never see

her nigga go off right underneath your eyes and never say one single word? What

did that poor woman do to you that you could treat her so mean? Why

she tried to learn your book, and she tried to learn your manners, and she

tried good to you every way she know and how. That's what she's done.

I got to feel it so mean and so miserable. I almost wish I was

dead. I fidgeted it up and down the raft, musing myself to myself, and Jim

was fidgeting up and down past me. We neither of us could keep still.

Every time he danced around, it says, Dave's Cairo. It went through me like a

shot, and I thought if it was Cairo, I reckon I would die of miserableness.

Jim talked out loud the whole time I was talking to myself. He was saying

how the first thing he would do when he got up to a free state,

he would go to save up money and never spend a single cent. And when

he got enough, he would buy his wife, which is owned on a farm close

to where miss Watson lived. And then they would both work to buy 2 children.

And and if their master wouldn't sell them, they get a abolitionist to go and

steal them. Most froze me to hear such talk.

He would never dare to talk like such talk in his life before. Just see

what a difference it made in him the minute he judged he was about to

be free. Was according to the old saying saying,

give a nigger an inch and he'll take an l. Thinks I this

is what comes with my not thinking. Here was this nigga, which I had just

as good as helped to run away, come right out flat footed, saying he would

steal his children. Children that belong to a man I didn't even know. A man

that that had never done me no harm. I was sorry

to hear Jim say that it was such a low run of him. My conscience

got to stirring up me hotter than ever then until last I says to it,

let me up on it. It ain't too late yet. I'll paddle ashore at the

first light and tell. I felt easy and happy and light as a feather

right off. All my troubles was gone. I went out to look for a

sharp for a light, sort of singing to myself. I am

by 1 showed. Jim sings out, we safe. Fuck. We safe.

Don't ever crack your heels. That's good o'chiro at last. I just knows

it. I says, I'll take a canoe and go see Jim. It mightn't be. You

know? He jumped up and got the canoe ready and put his old coat in

the bottom for me to sit on and give me the paddle, and I shoved

off. And he says, pretty soon, I'll be shot for joy. And I say it's

all accounts of old Huck. I was a free man, and I could have ever

been freer than I had been for Huck. Huck done it. Jim won't ever forget

you, Huck. You've been the best friend Jim's ever had, as you was the only

friend Jim's got now. I was

paddling off all in a sweat to tell on him. But when he says

this, it sounded it seemed to kinda take the

tuck all out of me.

That's what you teach to kids in

school. That right there.

That's what you teach to your kid in your house.

That right there. Yeah. That's the conversation you

have with your child, white or Hispanic

or black or Asian or I don't

care. That's native American. One of our co hosts on

the show, Tom Libby, he's a part, native

American, very proud of his native American heritage. And we've read

hard books on this podcast, bury my heart at wounded

knee, and, the story of, the

Native American tribes and the and the things that happened to them in the

course of westward expansion. And you know what? Tom

talks openly about all of that stuff. And do you know where he first started

talking about all of that history with when he found out about it when he

was a kid? He started with his children to

rebuild his culture. Yeah.

Tom doesn't celebrate Thanksgiving. Why would he?

Doesn't have any meaning for him, but he's not going out

advocating that other people don't celebrate Thanksgiving. He's just saying,

don't do it for me. I'm not doing it in my house. And

my kids will go do something else because I read the book and I

taught it to my kids. This is what I, I

am stunned by people's failure and inability

to think that critically about a

book that quite frankly forces you

to engage with the dichotomies of living in a fallen world.

Yeah. It also

engages with you at a level of authenticity that I

think puts us in our time close to the

bone. The challenge of our

time is that courage, which has always been in short supply, is

now no longer connected to critical thinking and analysis of best practices, which

I think we've already mentioned that. When original thinking is on life

support, leaders should encourage courage.

Making other people uncomfortable in the pursuit of being authentic used to be looked

at as an iconoclastic act because so many people seem to

be just going along with the flow. What our time has shown is that

people still follow the crowd. It's just that the size of the crowds has gotten

smaller and narrower in the social media driven ghettos

full of all these right thinking people. By the way, I'm looking at

all of you who are running to Blue Sky from Twitter right about now.

Leaders pursue authenticity above all else while also being aware of what

social they need to preserve. Like in that piece that

I read there, they need to ignore, like in that piece I just read

there, and they need to break, like in that piece I just read there.

And they have clear, intentional, and well rationalized reasons

for their authentic responses. So this is going to

be something that we are gonna wrap up with as we close today.

Brian, the writer Ted Goya, I put a link in the

script that I sent you, to the, to the article. He wrote

a, an article that I found to be very interesting about a

crisis of authenticity in our era. And

Ted makes the point, and he's, he writes a substat called the honest

broker. He's a tech guy from way back in the day.

And, and, he makes a point

in this article that Susan Sontag, back

in the 19 nineties, the, feminist and cultural critic,

she believed that seriousness is a function of art and

entertainment and culture had collapsed in the west in the mid

19 nineties. And Ted

asserts that after 30 years after this collapse, we're no

closer to authenticity now than we were in the mid 19

nineties. And he asserts

also that these platforms that we

exist on allow us to be fake entertainers,

putting out avatars of ourselves that protect

us from having to really deal with real things in a

real way. And we

are we are rewarded for behaving

and thinking correctly, but not critically.

He says, and I quote, I love this quote, lifestyles are increasingly about

pretending. Your real self stays in hiding while your fake self gets

presented on the most in the most spectacular way on social

media and other digital platforms. Now

this ties into something that we've talked about on the podcast too, which is the

crisis of competence, which is where I think we're at, where

the small things are done poorly, the middle thing things are done on average

or done in an average manner, and the large responsibilities are bungling

are bungled entirely.

And Ted, another quote from his article here from The Honest Broker,

is there a crisis of seriousness never before in history has

authenticity been in such short supply? That's so much the case at the

very word authenticity is mocked. I know people who

get angry just from hearing the word authenticity. They

insist it doesn't exist. It never existed and it

can't possibly exist

here at the end of the 4th turning.

How do we ensure authenticity?

Oh, hold on one second. I'm going to kill a wasp. Hold

on one second. Alright. Was there a murder?

Was the murder off screen just now? There was a murder off screen.

I, I slayed that sucker. And now back

to our show.

I really do. I don't I do not like wasps. Oh my gosh. And I

do not know how it got in. That's kind of weird because this is an

interior room. I don't know where it came from. Yeah.

Alright. Well, that's gonna bother me for the next

week. Alright. Alright. So the crisis of authenticity, how do

we deal with this? Yeah.

Well, I think there are

a couple of I mean, I I I think I agree largely with what he

says. I do think though there are some pockets of authenticity

that are starting to emerge, in certain places. I

mean, and and again, probably, are they genuine, like,

100% authentic authentic? I mean, you know, how authentic are they?

I don't really know. But, but I do think that, like,

long form podcasts, I think, are

are are a start, they're a place for that. I mean, when you look at

kind of what what Joe Rogan did I mean, just think about the

last election. What Joe Rogan did in 3 hours or 2 and a half hours

or whatever with Trump and then JD

Vance. I mean, you can't fake I mean,

you can only say so many platitudes. Over the course of 3 hours, you're gonna

cover a lot of ground. There's gonna be a lot that comes out. You're gonna

say things in a certain way. If you're faking it, it is

really hard to fake it for a really long

time. And so I I do think that those

I mean, I think that's why Kamala never went on one of those, you know,

long form podcasts. I think there was she was trying to have a curated

image. And, so I I think

there are pockets. I think there's that. I think there are in some

I've been a part of some churches that

have, made a really big effort

to to try to live an authentic Christian

life, not one that's carefully curated.

And so so I do think there are pockets emerging.

How will it end up? I I don't know. But but

I think, you know, how your your question was how do we how do we

deal with, you know, inauthenticities? I think I think we

just we approach life honestly.

We we we speak candidly

about challenges that we're facing. And, and

I think if if we're able to,

you know, you it's fine to have a conviction, but sometimes, you

know, we talked earlier about beliefs and convictions. Sometimes those things, you think you

have a belief and it it winds up with the conviction.

And then you have a conviction and after some thought and debate and, you know,

you're right. You you come to the conclusion. Maybe that's just a belief, you

know. And so I think there has to be and and in the course of

the this 4th turning, I think there there's a

lot of changing of that. The things that you held as a belief

now have become a conviction and vice versa. And so I think

giving people room to work that out and maybe say

something and then in 6 months realize, oh, I I didn't mean

that actually now that now that I understand a little bit more about

it. I I I think

being the the hard part about cancel culture is it doesn't give

anybody room to make a mistake and then admit they made a

mistake. Like, you're done. It's okay. Right.

So so I think cancel culture exacerbates,

this authenticity authenticity crisis that we have.

So so but I but I think just at the end of the day,

just just being honest, when you have a mistake when you make a mistake,

owning that mistake and and being willing to to acknowledge that

and talk about it openly, I think, goes a really long way with

people. At least that's what that's been my experience.

Well, what do you what do you say? I'd be curious to know what your

what your thoughts are on the idea that Ted

puts forth. And I and I do think it is an idea that is unique

to our time only because we have the So we have people who have grown

up. We now have 2 generations of people getting ready to be 3 who have

grown up inside of, for lack of a better term, the matrix.

They're in there. And you and I are part

of the, the, the tail end of the last generation

to not fully be engaged in matrix. Mhmm.

I think that gives us as leaders a certain

amount of power. It also gives us a certain amount of responsibility,

to preserve authenticity, to preserve competency. And I think, by the

way, those of us who are in the, like,

46 to, like, 52 year old age range, I

think the light went on, earlier this year with a lot

of us, and we finally realized that,

you know, the sort of Gen x Slacker pose

we've all been taking since 1992 is probably

done. It's finally, probably done.

And I don't think that's a bad thing because typically the nomad

generation, if you're looking at turnings, the nomad generation always shows up

late, has to make up, has to make

up for the, the, the, the, the, the

problems and the, mistakes of the older

generation who was thought to be so wise. And then much like

Harry Truman, you know, gets back in their car after they're no

longer president, no secret service or no nothing. I love

this. And just drives back to Missouri and dies in obscurity. Like,

that's that's the that's the clearing at the end of the path for for gen

x. I'm sorry. Like, that's I keep saying this on my security. Like, that's that's

right. And for many of us, that'll be like, that's actually that tracks.

That's okay with that. That's fine. That's fine. That tracks.

We're not a generation that gets a thank you. Right? But we're the generation that

preserves the authenticity because if we don't do it, then the

generations that are coming behind us to Ted Goya's

point ins will insist that it, that authenticity does

not exist. They will insist that it never, that's a huge

word, existed, and they will insist that it can't possibly

exist. Mhmm. How do

you lead people who believe that? Because they're so deep in the

matrix, they wouldn't recognize off not even they wouldn't recognize auth. You see,

that's even that They look at authenticity as being

inauthentic. Like, there's nothing I hate to pick on her, but

I'm going to anyway. There's nothing authentic about Taylor Swift.

Literally nothing. She is not real. She

is a creation of herself and her agents and her

managers and her albums and all of that. She's

a she's a creation who has come into the

media, but there's no knowledge about who the real Taylor

Swift is. Now people would say, particularly 18,

19 year old people would say, oh, yeah. Of course. Like, of course, she's

inauthentic. They just sort of take it as de rigueur. It's it's just

part of the the fabric of their lives.

And, and as I said there in my piece a little bit before, we

used to call people who stepped out of that inauthenticity and showed us something

authentic iconoclasts. Right? But we've lost the use of that

term. We don't even recognize those people if they showed up. So

how can leaders show authenticity to people who

don't even believe it can exist?

Because there's a level of lack of trust there, I think, fundamentally, that we're also

chasing. Yeah. I think when it comes to

leaders, one of the most authentic things

you can do as a leader is to take responsibility.

Take responsibility for, first off, for yourself, but also

for others. So, we you

know, you you talk about the the managerial class and

the, you know, they are professionals

at avoiding responsibility. Right? So there's always some study.

There's always some form to fill out. There's

always some committee. There's always some

peer review article. There's something that you can hide

behind and avoid responsibility,

for whatever the challenges that's being faced. I

think I think leaders who want to demonstrate

authenticity are going to be leaders that are willing to take

responsibility for for things.

Whether or not they're guilty of it or not is beside the point.

That, you know, guilt somebody who's guilty and someone

who's responsible are not necessarily the same things. I mean,

when I was, I was in the military, okay, and

so so, you know, as a as

a commander as a battery commander, I was

responsible for what happened or didn't happen in my in my unit. Now

I may have had a soldier who was guilty of negligence

and got himself or somebody else killed. I'm not guilty of that

negligence, but I'm responsible for it. Right. So I would be held

responsible for something that happened. Right? And as I should be.

And so I think as leaders, you know, if if you

wanna if you wanna be an authentic leader, if you wanna be

someone who is,

listened to with gravitas, some,

a a person, there there used to be an old

commercial. When EF Hutton speaks, people listen. Yep. If

you wanna be that guy, take responsibility.

Take responsibility even if it wasn't your fault. You just you say, hey. I

don't know how I I don't know I don't know what my part was

in the in the guilt hierarchy of things, but I wanna be

responsible to fix it. I wanna take that on. And if you

can be that guy regardless of whether or not you were guilty, but if you

could be that guy or that girl and and say, hey. I'll I'll be

responsible for fixing this. You know, regardless of who caused it,

I'm I'm responsible here. I'll take the I'll take the blame. I'll take the fall.

People are drawn to that person. They're just drawn to

them. They, it's it's almost like that's

a safe person for me to live out my

calling underneath. Right? Right. And and that's

that's, I think, where things start to heal and kinda

come together is when is when we have leaders who can who

can take responsibility regardless of whether or not they're guilty

of of the current situation. Yeah.

Yeah. There's a great line in, the movie,

oh, directed by Snatch.

Yes. The it's it's Irish boxing.

Brad Pitt plays a bumbling Irish boxer in it.

And there's a character in there named Rick Top. And,

basically, there was a fight that

was supposed to happen in a particular way. It doesn't happen

in that way. Guy Ritchie directed this. It's a British film.

The fight doesn't happen in that particular way. Bricktop is then

confronted by the people because he runs an underground boxing

underground boxing and and and illegal betting. And the people who

bet on, you know, the the fight come to him,

and there are people with more money and more power than him. And they're like,

why didn't the fight go the way that you wanted it to go or that

we wanted it to go. Right? Because we paid for this person, the Brad Pitt

character to take a dive basically. And Brad Pitt doesn't do that.

And, Bricktop gives a great line, which backs up what Brian is saying

here. He says, stand on me. I will make it

right. And then he just walks away. Well, there's some other things that happen

after that. You know, there's an entire sequence because it's all supposed to be a

comedy. So there's an entire sequence of things that happen after that. But

that's the line. Stand on me. Stand on my

shoulders. I will take you to the promised land. Doesn't matter if you can't see

it. Doesn't matter if you are ambivalent about my

ability to do that. Stand on me.

I will take responsibility.

You gotta fire somebody. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. If you're gonna fire

somebody, fire me. It's fine.

There's another idea I wanna run past you, and it does jump out to me

from the Ted Goya piece, and we'll close with this idea. I don't wanna run

past you. I think people

who wanna be authentic have to decline to participate

in unseriousness. Doesn't mean they can't laugh at

themselves. Doesn't mean they can't be humorous. Like we started off. I mean, this book

is a comedy. I mean, come on. It's a, it's a, it's a comedy. It's

a parody. It's absurdity. Rush Limbaugh back in the day

used to say, illustrating absurdity by being absurd, you

know, it's all of those things.

Right. But at the same time,

it doesn't descend into being unserious.

And that's, that's a heck of a tight

rope to walk. But I think leaders, I wanted

I I wanna know what your your thoughts are on that. Do leaders have to

frame this question? Do leaders have to walk that tightrope

between or how do they not do they? How do they walk that tightrope

between being authentic

but not participating in unseriousness?

Like, how do they how do you do that? Because these days, participating in

unseriousness is thought of as being funny. They thought of it as being self

deprecating. And yet

I don't I don't know where the line is. Right? But I do think that

that's part of the I do think that's part of the equation, but I

don't know I don't know how you click those things together.

Yeah. I

think, some of the most effective leaders

that I saw, that I've seen,

were able to just laugh at themselves. They didn't participate

in unseriousness, but they were able to laugh at unserious

they were they were able to laugh at it. And, I'm trying I'm thinking

of, you know,

whether I you know, I've been in military ministry. I've been in,

I've I've worked in oil and gas. And

those leaders who, you know because inevitably,

if you are in charge Mhmm. Okay, people

who are under you are going to make fun of you. Oh, invariably.

Yeah. I mean and so and so you just know that's

part of it. That's just part of being a leader

is that people are gonna make fun of you. And,

and so I think being able to laugh at that

and and to laugh with those people that you

are leading, when

they a, it makes you it makes them,

it's safe for them to criticize you. Okay? Now

it's criticism in a way that,

is you know, it it's, you know, it's it's a it's a fine line in

and of itself. Right? Right. And, and so but if you

can laugh at that, if you can laugh at their

their caricatures, their criticisms of you that right? They're

trying to be funny, make fun of you, poke fun of you. If you can

laugh at that, to me, that makes you more serious. To me, that

as a leader. That means you acknowledge your

shortcomings. You know that they're there. You're not unaware of them.

And you can appreciate the fact that someone else can find humor

in that. Yeah. And so

so I think, but I've also

known leaders, you know, that were, that, you know but

that but that's not to say that she would be the one writing the script

for those things, right, and participate. To me, that would be unserious, I think. If

you're Yeah. If if you're the one that's, like,

you know, somehow trying to curate the the the the

comedy show that's making fun of you, I think that's totally

serious. And so I I I to me, I think that I don't know if

that answers your question. I just I think being able to to laugh at yourself,

to know that you have shortcomings, to laugh with the people that are

making fun of you, I

I just I I I that's that's that's that's not come up with at

the moment. In in popular culture, I think of the, the

show, and you may have seen it or you may not have, Brian,

but, Brooklyn 99, comedy show

from years ago. It's on Netflix now. It's streaming now. That's how I found it.

But it's got a Andre Brauer in it who was a very serious

Shakespearean actor. He was on that show

homicide life on the streets. Very serious Emmy

winning, very serious actor. And he's on this

comedy show with Andy Sandberg from

Saturday night live. And there's a bunch of other characters in on

there. The guy from the old spice commercials, Ted Terry

Cruz and idiocracy is also on the show,

And he plays a police captain,

obviously, in New York City for the 99th precinct. And so he's

surrounded by all these goofballs. It's a serious very serious guy, serious

about his role, serious about who he is as a captain, serious about

what he does, and he's literally surrounded by and this is the only way I

can think to describe it. He's surrounded by morons and people who

are just stumbling all over themselves and, you know, solving

cases by accident and total complete goofballs.

And you could watch over the course of 3 or 4 seasons how they

loosen his character up very gradually, very

gradually. Matter of fact, the last episode that I watched, there was some reference to

the the old tone, loke, song from the 19 nineties, funky cold

Medina. And Andre

Prower, like, deadpanses. And he does. Throughout the year, he he just he

deadpans all of his lines. He's taking it absolutely deadly

seriously as a leader, but you could

tell he cares about his people. Right? And they all make fun of him.

And the Andy Samberg character who's, like, his his his protege or

he adopts as his protege, really looks up to him and

really admires him, but he's trying to constantly try to get him to crack his

serious demeanor. And and then he'll say something totally, literally

out of left field, and you'll be like, oh, wait. He's just as much as

a goofball as the rest of these people are. He's just serious.

And so I'm I've got that thing rattling around in my head head right now,

with your as you're talking. And that's a good and a

comedic level, which kinda goes along with the book that we're reading today.

He declines that that that is. He the Andre Brauer character in there, captain

Holt. He declines to participate in unserious nonsense. Like, he

doesn't do pranks or anything like that, but he will do

the, like, you know, once a year, we're going to

steal the Halloween something or other from somebody or

other. Like, he just outrageous, outlandish stuff that you wouldn't

and he deadpans the whole thing. And, like, this guy's dead serious. He's an

Emmy winning actor surrounded by

these morons with Saturday Night Live. And that's how that show

works. That's how it works.

And I think it's very I think it's a an example of what you're talking

about there where the, the leader

doesn't participate in the clowning of himself or

herself, but they understand to your point that the clowning is

going to happen at some point. And the only job for you as a leader

is to just to tell everybody when it crosses the line.

Yeah. And to be sure to hold that line fairly consistently,

and then let every the the chips fall where they may at that point.

Yeah. Oh, yeah. Yeah. Okay. Yeah.

Yeah. Awesome. Wow. Look at that.

I think we've, we've covered a lot in from the adventures of Huckleberry

Finn. I think you you ought to go out and you ought to get this

book if you have not read it. Or if the last time you read it

was maybe in high school and you've forgotten things about it, you should probably go

back and read it again as a leader. There's a lot of

areas in this book that we did not cover. We just

barely scraped the surface of the challenges between

or the challenges between abolition and slavery,

that that, Mark Twain, looks at quite baldly,

but also the challenges between being on the river and being in civilization and

being in culture, and, of course, the challenges of being

a rebellious young man, in a

world where rebellion is being tampered down,

where the west is being wrestled to the ground

and tamed. All of these themes resonate and are

resonant inside of The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn written

by Mark Twain. And, I would encourage you to read it yourself,

and don't you dare let a legislator or somebody

else determine who the Twain for your time and

for your understanding can be.

I'd like to thank Brian Bagley for coming on the leadership lessons from the

great books podcast today. And with that, well,

as usual, we're out.