That was a good show. On the question of whether or not the US is unraveling, I always go back to reading Alan Drury’s series of books starting when we read Preserve and Protect during civics class ( we could use that today, I think). I went back and read the whole series after that. While the events in the story thread was different and the existential crisis that set up the last two was unique, what strikes me the most in my memory is that the cast of characters he put into the books is not significantly different in its diversity from the current cast in DC. I really have no idea how things will turn out going forward, but Alan Drury had a good idea of how the country is stitched together that the chaos of the internet culture we have today seems to miss in the bubbles and stovepipes we have created.
Thanks, appreciate — and excellent point about Alan Drury's mainly forgotten (and, when remembered, underappreciated) books from that era.
So much of the pop-culture world of the 1960s has resonance now. The timeless movie of that era is not so much 'Strangelove' as 'Fail-Safe' — and, of course, the parallels of 'Manchurian Candidate' and 'Seven Days in May' (the latter of which I have not watched in a long time).
The turning wheel: everything changes, and everything is the same.
and thanks for sharing your history and insights, history lived
more, please! :)
“Whatever the cost of our libraries, the price is cheap compared to that of an ignorant nation.”
“I think being a liberal, in the true sense, is being nondoctrinaire, nondogmatic, non-committed to a cause - but examining each case on its merits. Being left of center is another thing; it's a political position. I think most newspapermen by definition have to be liberal; if they're not liberal, by my definition of it, then they can hardly be good newspapermen. If they're preordained dogmatists for a cause, then they can't be very good journalists; that is, if they carry it into their journalism."
[Interview with Ron Powers (Chicago Sun Times) for Playboy, 1973]”
“We are not educated well enough to perform the necessary act of intelligently selecting our leaders.”
“Freedom of the press is not just important to democracy, it is democracy.”
Walter Cronkite, goodreads quotes
For how many thousands of years now have we humans been what we insist on calling "civilized?" And yet, in total contradiction, we also persist in the savage belief that we must occasionally, at least, settle our arguments by killing one another. While we spend much of our time and a great deal of our treasure in preparing for war, we see no comparable effort to establish a lasting peace. Meanwhile, emphasizing the sloth in this regard, those advocates who work for world peace by urging a system of world government are called impractical dreamers. Those impractical dreamers are entitled to ask their critics what is so practical about war.
Address on receiving the Norman Cousins Global Governance Award at the UN Delegates Dining Room (19 October 1999)
“I think being a liberal, in the true sense, is being nondoctrinaire, nondogmatic, non-committed to a cause - but examining each case on its merits... I think most newspapermen by definition have to be liberal; if they're not liberal, by my definition of it, then they can hardly be good newspapermen."
I was happy to hear your voice on On the Media. Stopped what I was doing, and sat down to listen to the show.
Sharlet may have traveled a lot to research his book, but I thought--and hope--that your comments in the show's final segment, repeated below, are closer to the truth of the state of our country.
I recently had lunch with an old-school Republican friend who believes that, in the end, Americans won't stand for being told what to do by anyone, including Trumpers. He thinks Gadsden's "Don't Tread on Me" flag symbolizes America's bottom line.
And I'm another reader of yours who is glad finally to learn how to spell Guy Raz's name.
I think Sharlet's book is good and well-presented. And also — as I said on the show, and have written many times — I think it's *part* of the story of this moment. Thus the question is the balance, and the struggle. I like your friend's Gadsden line.
Loved all of this piece, Jim, but none more than your discussion with Brooke Gladstone about the eternal theme of American Life - is America in Trouble. Thank you for your thoughtful words about your"Theory of Life". America is a struggle but an ongoing one that requires us never to coast. It was comforting for those of those of us who sometimes have doubts about the direction in which we are heading.
Recently I was listening to a Paul SImon song that I also found comforting, and echos your perspective. He wrote it in 1973 - An American Tune.. It is a beautiful song worth listening to in 2023.
He ends it by saying....."We come in the age's most uncertain hours, And sing an American tune, Oh and it's all right, it's all right, it's all right, You can't be forever blessed. Still tomorrow is going to be
another working day, And I'm trying to get some rest. That's all I'm trying to get some rest.
Jun 21, 2023·edited Jun 21, 2023Liked by James Fallows
Jim Your insights into boots-on-the-ground journalism is always an inspiration. Charlie Peters was your inspiration and mine. Many years ago I contributed $2,000 to The Washington Monthly for a ‘Charlie Peters What the Hell Fund.’
You might be interested in my perspective as a Foreign Service Officer dealing with American correspondents in Congo/Chile 1960-1969.
In Congo we had an eager, young NYT correspondent with the noble name of Lloyd Garrison. I believe that his French was questionable. I am unaware that he traveled outside the capital. Lloyd was heavily dependent on the American Embassy.
Lloyd had gone to Nigeria before the 1964 Congolese rebellion during which over 3,000 foreign hostages (including the five Americans captured at our Stanleyville consulate) were under rebel death threat. I have no recollection of any significant American reporting from Congo during that time. Certainly nothing related to boots-on-the-ground reporting. In fact our diplomats didn’t do this either. I volunteered, with a White House mandate, to return to Congo and operate alone in rebel-infested provinces. The ambassador sent some of my boots-on-the-ground reports FLASH to Washington.
Back in Washington I was providing Congo Situation Reports every morning to The Secretary and others. With some frequency I wrote classified corrections to the articles that senior officials read from the NYT and Washington Post coming to their offices in limousines.
On occasion reporters would contact me seeking ‘a story.’ Seldom did they have relevant info to trade. For the one who did, I offered him guidance, at times sharing sensitive info.
In Chile as Political Officer I saw a number of American foreign correspondents. They tended to fly in for a few days [Chile was a more pleasant environment than Congo] to write ‘definitive’ dispatches. I recall an English-speaking foreign editor from a Chicago daily who asked me for a scoop during his brief visit. Another visiting journalist obviously was under cover as a CIA operative.
A young Pulitzer Prize.winning (Vietnam) NYT reporter arrived with a clear objective to write favorably about a prominent socialist. First he met with one of my colleagues. Then he violated the ‘no attribution’ condition of his conversation. My ambassador, a marvelous former journalist, was incensed. I offered to take care of this guy.
The socialist was a wind bag who, when briefly in jail, had lobster delivered to him from a fancy restaurant. I led this reporter down a garden path feeding him foo foo dust for his article including giving him lead in paragraphs. What resulted was a nonsense article (of which he was unaware).
In retrospect, there were some excellent foreign correspondents in Vietnam, the Middle East (Iwhen I was writing my book on Egypt, the Financial Times, The Guardian, one of two NYT correspondents, and the Times of India correspondents were excellent. I didn’t encounter the same caliber in Congo or Chile.
Some years later, when I created international bond ratings for Moody’s Investors Service, I wanted a feature article in the Financial Times to highlight this endeavor. Perhaps because of my past experience with journalists, I accomplished this. Was what I provided him truly accurate? At least it was a persuasive article that I used to my advantage.
Thank you. Another fabulous tale. (And would love to know who the undercover-CIA guy was. I *think* I can guess the other NYT correspondent but am not sure.)
Charlie Peters is still reading his emails — this very day...
Jim I still have your NATIONAL DEFENSE. Today such a book might be entitled BATTLESHIPS>AIRCRAFT CARRIERS>????.
I also have Charlie’s book on what Washington is all about next to Hedrick Smith’s THE POWER GAME. I thought his section on the 1986 tax deal was brilliant. I spent some time with Hedrick before his assignment to Moscow. I thought his THE RUSSIANS was excellent, THE NEW RUSSIANS less so.
I don’t have to go back to rereading Plato to discover wisdom and insights.
Jim In Egypt in the 1950s Bob Doty was a fine, seasoned foreign correspondent. A young Ken Love, who had 13 days of page one of Pyramid solar ships, was, in my opinion, a lightweight. James Morris of The Guardian was excellent, as was David Holden of the London Times. They both wrote concisely and were well informed.
Mr. Fallows, I aved that 1993 Atlantic and still have it. I thought then, as I do now, it is important and insightful. Been a fan of yours since the early 1980s.
Jun 21, 2023·edited Jun 21, 2023Liked by James Fallows
Good to hear you on the radio. You have such a reassuring voice.
Guy Raz's name is spelled just R-A-Z? It's really that simple? I assumed it was some sort of weird French thing with lots of unused vowels at the end.
I do not recall but did I recommend to you "Slouching Towards Utopia: An Economic History of the Twentieth Century" by J. Bradford DeLong? Recently published, Prof. DeLong (UC Berkeley, former Treasury official and recovering neoliberal), makes the case that during the long 20th century (1870-2010) humanity approached utopia with the advent of true globalization, the industrial research laboratory, and the modern corporation. However, the struggle between market worship (which your Atlantic article called out), and the recognition of humanity's sense of fairness and inherent rights (represented in the book by the concepts of economist Karl Polanyi) is a large part of our collective inability to achieve anything like a true utopia. I recommend the book as it may provide a larger perspective for your advocacy of industry policy (which I think is absolutely necessary).
Yes, it's possible that Guy's forebears had some more complicated version of his name, as so many of us do. (By the time Deb was born, her family's name had become only five letters long, Zerad. Her father was born, of Czech immigrant parents, with a slightly longer version, Zderad, and two or three generations before that, it was about twice as long, mostly extra consonants.)
I know Brad DeLong and his work; I have 'Slouching' and have read some of it; and now I'll get more serious about digging in. It is immediately in view as I type, so ... also next on the list.
I think we all benefit now and then from seeing the sausage get made, but I think we also would benefit if more of the media saw where their sausage comes from. As an On the Media fan, I know that Brooke Gladstone gets it, and that one of the problems is assuming the worst about the audience--all they want is the tragedy, and not the details behind it or how to avoid it. "If it bleeds, it leads," as the saying goes in TV. Unfortunately, the major media's solution to this is best expressed by a wonderful media critic, The New York Times Pitchbot, "Whether it's Peter Hotez saving people's lives by promoting vaccination or RFK Jr. killing people by discouraging vaccination, both sides have a vaccination problem."
Yes, well put. And I do agree that the OTM team is much cannier about these issues — or, to be more precise, about *discussing* these issues — than most of the people at the helms of the biggest news organizations. And agree about the brilliant NYT Pitchbot.
Bill, thank you! And while he was of course not a literal family member for us, Mike felt like one, and made a world of difference to Deb and me in our personal and professional lives. He edited and commissioned the very first pieces I did for the Atlantic, before I worked there. We were colleagues in the Carter years, as you know, and then in his time at the Globe and Northwestern and beyond. We think about him all the time.
Have known *about* your book, and now (via Indiebound) the hardcover edition is on its way to me! Thanks for the reminder.
You and Heather Cox Richardson keep me in fighting form with your perspectives on the past, present, and future. Without your respective abilities to recognize trouble -- how what we are experiencing now is like but also unlike the American character landscape of the past, for example, while not giving up on the ideals and intentions that brought us here -- I would surely despair of loving life in 2023. But I don't WANT to despair. By loving what you do, you help me love what I do, too. Thank you!
I was driving with NPR on when you came on the air. I very much enjoyed hearing what you had to say, as well as getting to hear you with Brooke Gladstone.
As far as industrial policy, I think we should start with more humanistic policies in the mould of the Scandinavians: a solid social safety net, so that people don't face the huge stresses that come with a major car repair or a major medical bill--that according to something I heard a handful of years ago, around half of Americans can't afford. There was a wonderful article in Harvard magazine maybe a decade ago about the difficulties the impoverished have with coping with stuff when it takes every neuron they have to figure out how to get themselves to work, and how to get food, when faced with major expenses. We need to finance elementary and secondary education nationally, hiring only good teachers, so that every kid whether they live in Cambridge or Timbuktu, Alabama, can love learning as I did, and everyone who wants to should be able to go to college without mortgaging the next several decades. The justice system should concentrate on rehabilitation rather than punishment, as it does in Norway.
In a country like that, I suspect industrial policy would naturally move in better directions than it often has in the US.
I don't think I ever saw the article you refer to. But I've recently been part of a big study-group commission (which I'll say more about later) that went into a lot of the same phenomena. In short: how *expensive* and time-consuming it is to be poor. So many things take so much more time and red-tape and hassle. Plus the other patterns and problems you mention.
On the public level there are so many things that take all-out, decades-long, down to the last minute trench warfare to accomplish — and yet, once in place, are seen as birthright parts of a decent society. When I was a kid *the* big battle of US policy, apart from the civil rights struggle, was of course the enactment of Medicare. That is where Ronald Reagan got his political start — by opposing 'Socialized Medicine' of course. Now even the GOP tries to shusssh its members who propose re-privatizing it (or Social Security). Same pretty much with Obama care.
Agree with your vision of how things *could* be, and the difficulty of doing so in a country with the scale and internal differences of ours, and of course all the problems we're aware of in our governance systems.
I wish I could remember the title. All I have is a sense that the main source was a Harvard prof of Indian origin. I'll be very interested to hear more about your study group.
Jun 21, 2023·edited Jun 21, 2023Liked by James Fallows
Apropos of Part 3 of your post, the Carter Administration had sort of an Industrial Policy in the late 1970s. I remember taking a look at it when I was at GAO in 1979-80. Of course it was all thrown out when Reagan came in. It would be interesting to take a look at that effort and see how it holds up in the light of subsequent events.
Jack, yes — I remember those days and agree. The most famous part was of course his alternative-energy proposals, stemming from that era's supply shocks and rise of OPEC. But as you know it included more. Will add this to the list.
And, relevant to the David Maier note below, you also remember how the energy strategy was sold with 'Moral Equivalent of War' framing.
I caught your co-host episode on On the Media and loved it; secretly fantasized that you were joining that "little team," since so much of your output of late has been about the media and how it should re-imagine itself. I don't know if this was a one-off; but you couldn't find a better vehicle for your insights.
And with respect to "America is always in trouble", there's an important facet of that that I think is under-noticed: America always seems to need a boogeyman. The Communists, the terrorists, the Jews, the immigrants; now it's the Chinese. And the Republicans are working overtime to generate new and proliferating boogeymen. Woke, socialists, anti-Christmas, anti-Christians, Drag Queens, LGBTQ... The list is ever increasing. Generally, for Republicans, the boogeyman is a Democrat that needs to be owned.
What is it about the American psyche that it needs a boogeyman?
I agree 100% on the bogeyman point. I keep circling back to the famous (but under-appreciated, and probably mis-appreciated) William James essay of 1910, 'The Moral Equivalent of War.' It was a version of the bogeyman question — What it would take to get people to do constructive things, *without* the specter of an external threat, or even warfare. Will be doing more on this theme.
I can't help but feel that this ties into your "Our Towns" theme. There's something in the American psyche that makes the unfamiliar (the out-of-towners) ripe for "othering." I'm not saying it doesn't happen in other cultures- the French have their own unique fondness for their Frenchness. But there's a monster-under-the-bed quality to American skittishness. And there's an underlying inferiority reaction that belies the wild west bravado. Maybe it's more something for a doctoral dissertation that a journalist's reporting. But it's real, and I think it highlights the lack of compassion, and downright cruelty, that we see in things like family separations, demonization of the homeless and the poor, etc. And in politics it's transforming the opponent in an enemy to be feared, demonized, and "owned."
Sorry. One more comment: I think the glaring example is the notion of "wokeness." To me being "woke" has a simple definition: that someone has actually decided to listen, with respect and without judgment, to another person describe their life experience, and to realize (awaken to) a facet of society that is taken as a given, but is not actually true for the other person. A fish doesn't know that it is wet. But if it listens to me, it will understand that my experience of water is very different.
We white fish swim in white water, and I think it's very important that we become aware of all of the facets in which our white water serves to diminish, suppress and inhibit the other "equal" cultures and ethnicities among us.
But instead of listening, we deny, diminish , demonize, and ultimately try to destroy the bogeyman.
That was a good show. On the question of whether or not the US is unraveling, I always go back to reading Alan Drury’s series of books starting when we read Preserve and Protect during civics class ( we could use that today, I think). I went back and read the whole series after that. While the events in the story thread was different and the existential crisis that set up the last two was unique, what strikes me the most in my memory is that the cast of characters he put into the books is not significantly different in its diversity from the current cast in DC. I really have no idea how things will turn out going forward, but Alan Drury had a good idea of how the country is stitched together that the chaos of the internet culture we have today seems to miss in the bubbles and stovepipes we have created.
Thanks, appreciate — and excellent point about Alan Drury's mainly forgotten (and, when remembered, underappreciated) books from that era.
So much of the pop-culture world of the 1960s has resonance now. The timeless movie of that era is not so much 'Strangelove' as 'Fail-Safe' — and, of course, the parallels of 'Manchurian Candidate' and 'Seven Days in May' (the latter of which I have not watched in a long time).
The turning wheel: everything changes, and everything is the same.
very cool to be on the radio!
and thanks for sharing your history and insights, history lived
more, please! :)
“Whatever the cost of our libraries, the price is cheap compared to that of an ignorant nation.”
“I think being a liberal, in the true sense, is being nondoctrinaire, nondogmatic, non-committed to a cause - but examining each case on its merits. Being left of center is another thing; it's a political position. I think most newspapermen by definition have to be liberal; if they're not liberal, by my definition of it, then they can hardly be good newspapermen. If they're preordained dogmatists for a cause, then they can't be very good journalists; that is, if they carry it into their journalism."
[Interview with Ron Powers (Chicago Sun Times) for Playboy, 1973]”
“We are not educated well enough to perform the necessary act of intelligently selecting our leaders.”
“Freedom of the press is not just important to democracy, it is democracy.”
Walter Cronkite, goodreads quotes
For how many thousands of years now have we humans been what we insist on calling "civilized?" And yet, in total contradiction, we also persist in the savage belief that we must occasionally, at least, settle our arguments by killing one another. While we spend much of our time and a great deal of our treasure in preparing for war, we see no comparable effort to establish a lasting peace. Meanwhile, emphasizing the sloth in this regard, those advocates who work for world peace by urging a system of world government are called impractical dreamers. Those impractical dreamers are entitled to ask their critics what is so practical about war.
Address on receiving the Norman Cousins Global Governance Award at the UN Delegates Dining Room (19 October 1999)
Thanks. I do especially love this:
>>
“I think being a liberal, in the true sense, is being nondoctrinaire, nondogmatic, non-committed to a cause - but examining each case on its merits... I think most newspapermen by definition have to be liberal; if they're not liberal, by my definition of it, then they can hardly be good newspapermen."
liberals unite! :)
enjoy your summer day!
I was happy to hear your voice on On the Media. Stopped what I was doing, and sat down to listen to the show.
Sharlet may have traveled a lot to research his book, but I thought--and hope--that your comments in the show's final segment, repeated below, are closer to the truth of the state of our country.
I recently had lunch with an old-school Republican friend who believes that, in the end, Americans won't stand for being told what to do by anyone, including Trumpers. He thinks Gadsden's "Don't Tread on Me" flag symbolizes America's bottom line.
And I'm another reader of yours who is glad finally to learn how to spell Guy Raz's name.
Thank you!
I think Sharlet's book is good and well-presented. And also — as I said on the show, and have written many times — I think it's *part* of the story of this moment. Thus the question is the balance, and the struggle. I like your friend's Gadsden line.
Loved all of this piece, Jim, but none more than your discussion with Brooke Gladstone about the eternal theme of American Life - is America in Trouble. Thank you for your thoughtful words about your"Theory of Life". America is a struggle but an ongoing one that requires us never to coast. It was comforting for those of those of us who sometimes have doubts about the direction in which we are heading.
Recently I was listening to a Paul SImon song that I also found comforting, and echos your perspective. He wrote it in 1973 - An American Tune.. It is a beautiful song worth listening to in 2023.
He ends it by saying....."We come in the age's most uncertain hours, And sing an American tune, Oh and it's all right, it's all right, it's all right, You can't be forever blessed. Still tomorrow is going to be
another working day, And I'm trying to get some rest. That's all I'm trying to get some rest.
Thank you Rita! I had not thought about or remembered that song, but now I will. (Your close friend) Deb and I will play it this evening.
Jim Your insights into boots-on-the-ground journalism is always an inspiration. Charlie Peters was your inspiration and mine. Many years ago I contributed $2,000 to The Washington Monthly for a ‘Charlie Peters What the Hell Fund.’
You might be interested in my perspective as a Foreign Service Officer dealing with American correspondents in Congo/Chile 1960-1969.
In Congo we had an eager, young NYT correspondent with the noble name of Lloyd Garrison. I believe that his French was questionable. I am unaware that he traveled outside the capital. Lloyd was heavily dependent on the American Embassy.
Lloyd had gone to Nigeria before the 1964 Congolese rebellion during which over 3,000 foreign hostages (including the five Americans captured at our Stanleyville consulate) were under rebel death threat. I have no recollection of any significant American reporting from Congo during that time. Certainly nothing related to boots-on-the-ground reporting. In fact our diplomats didn’t do this either. I volunteered, with a White House mandate, to return to Congo and operate alone in rebel-infested provinces. The ambassador sent some of my boots-on-the-ground reports FLASH to Washington.
Back in Washington I was providing Congo Situation Reports every morning to The Secretary and others. With some frequency I wrote classified corrections to the articles that senior officials read from the NYT and Washington Post coming to their offices in limousines.
On occasion reporters would contact me seeking ‘a story.’ Seldom did they have relevant info to trade. For the one who did, I offered him guidance, at times sharing sensitive info.
In Chile as Political Officer I saw a number of American foreign correspondents. They tended to fly in for a few days [Chile was a more pleasant environment than Congo] to write ‘definitive’ dispatches. I recall an English-speaking foreign editor from a Chicago daily who asked me for a scoop during his brief visit. Another visiting journalist obviously was under cover as a CIA operative.
A young Pulitzer Prize.winning (Vietnam) NYT reporter arrived with a clear objective to write favorably about a prominent socialist. First he met with one of my colleagues. Then he violated the ‘no attribution’ condition of his conversation. My ambassador, a marvelous former journalist, was incensed. I offered to take care of this guy.
The socialist was a wind bag who, when briefly in jail, had lobster delivered to him from a fancy restaurant. I led this reporter down a garden path feeding him foo foo dust for his article including giving him lead in paragraphs. What resulted was a nonsense article (of which he was unaware).
In retrospect, there were some excellent foreign correspondents in Vietnam, the Middle East (Iwhen I was writing my book on Egypt, the Financial Times, The Guardian, one of two NYT correspondents, and the Times of India correspondents were excellent. I didn’t encounter the same caliber in Congo or Chile.
Some years later, when I created international bond ratings for Moody’s Investors Service, I wanted a feature article in the Financial Times to highlight this endeavor. Perhaps because of my past experience with journalists, I accomplished this. Was what I provided him truly accurate? At least it was a persuasive article that I used to my advantage.
Thank you. Another fabulous tale. (And would love to know who the undercover-CIA guy was. I *think* I can guess the other NYT correspondent but am not sure.)
Charlie Peters is still reading his emails — this very day...
Jim I still have your NATIONAL DEFENSE. Today such a book might be entitled BATTLESHIPS>AIRCRAFT CARRIERS>????.
I also have Charlie’s book on what Washington is all about next to Hedrick Smith’s THE POWER GAME. I thought his section on the 1986 tax deal was brilliant. I spent some time with Hedrick before his assignment to Moscow. I thought his THE RUSSIANS was excellent, THE NEW RUSSIANS less so.
I don’t have to go back to rereading Plato to discover wisdom and insights.
Thanks to The Washington Monthly alumni!
Jim In Egypt in the 1950s Bob Doty was a fine, seasoned foreign correspondent. A young Ken Love, who had 13 days of page one of Pyramid solar ships, was, in my opinion, a lightweight. James Morris of The Guardian was excellent, as was David Holden of the London Times. They both wrote concisely and were well informed.
You are most very welcome!
Mr. Fallows, I aved that 1993 Atlantic and still have it. I thought then, as I do now, it is important and insightful. Been a fan of yours since the early 1980s.
Thank you!
Good to hear you on the radio. You have such a reassuring voice.
Guy Raz's name is spelled just R-A-Z? It's really that simple? I assumed it was some sort of weird French thing with lots of unused vowels at the end.
I do not recall but did I recommend to you "Slouching Towards Utopia: An Economic History of the Twentieth Century" by J. Bradford DeLong? Recently published, Prof. DeLong (UC Berkeley, former Treasury official and recovering neoliberal), makes the case that during the long 20th century (1870-2010) humanity approached utopia with the advent of true globalization, the industrial research laboratory, and the modern corporation. However, the struggle between market worship (which your Atlantic article called out), and the recognition of humanity's sense of fairness and inherent rights (represented in the book by the concepts of economist Karl Polanyi) is a large part of our collective inability to achieve anything like a true utopia. I recommend the book as it may provide a larger perspective for your advocacy of industry policy (which I think is absolutely necessary).
Thanks!
Yes, it's possible that Guy's forebears had some more complicated version of his name, as so many of us do. (By the time Deb was born, her family's name had become only five letters long, Zerad. Her father was born, of Czech immigrant parents, with a slightly longer version, Zderad, and two or three generations before that, it was about twice as long, mostly extra consonants.)
I know Brad DeLong and his work; I have 'Slouching' and have read some of it; and now I'll get more serious about digging in. It is immediately in view as I type, so ... also next on the list.
I think we all benefit now and then from seeing the sausage get made, but I think we also would benefit if more of the media saw where their sausage comes from. As an On the Media fan, I know that Brooke Gladstone gets it, and that one of the problems is assuming the worst about the audience--all they want is the tragedy, and not the details behind it or how to avoid it. "If it bleeds, it leads," as the saying goes in TV. Unfortunately, the major media's solution to this is best expressed by a wonderful media critic, The New York Times Pitchbot, "Whether it's Peter Hotez saving people's lives by promoting vaccination or RFK Jr. killing people by discouraging vaccination, both sides have a vaccination problem."
Yes, well put. And I do agree that the OTM team is much cannier about these issues — or, to be more precise, about *discussing* these issues — than most of the people at the helms of the biggest news organizations. And agree about the brilliant NYT Pitchbot.
Doing Capitalism, Bill Janeway
Dear Jim, My late brother Mike might have suggested you would find retrospective affirmation from my book _
Bill, thank you! And while he was of course not a literal family member for us, Mike felt like one, and made a world of difference to Deb and me in our personal and professional lives. He edited and commissioned the very first pieces I did for the Atlantic, before I worked there. We were colleagues in the Carter years, as you know, and then in his time at the Globe and Northwestern and beyond. We think about him all the time.
Have known *about* your book, and now (via Indiebound) the hardcover edition is on its way to me! Thanks for the reminder.
You and Heather Cox Richardson keep me in fighting form with your perspectives on the past, present, and future. Without your respective abilities to recognize trouble -- how what we are experiencing now is like but also unlike the American character landscape of the past, for example, while not giving up on the ideals and intentions that brought us here -- I would surely despair of loving life in 2023. But I don't WANT to despair. By loving what you do, you help me love what I do, too. Thank you!
That is extremely gracious. Thank you very much.
I was driving with NPR on when you came on the air. I very much enjoyed hearing what you had to say, as well as getting to hear you with Brooke Gladstone.
As far as industrial policy, I think we should start with more humanistic policies in the mould of the Scandinavians: a solid social safety net, so that people don't face the huge stresses that come with a major car repair or a major medical bill--that according to something I heard a handful of years ago, around half of Americans can't afford. There was a wonderful article in Harvard magazine maybe a decade ago about the difficulties the impoverished have with coping with stuff when it takes every neuron they have to figure out how to get themselves to work, and how to get food, when faced with major expenses. We need to finance elementary and secondary education nationally, hiring only good teachers, so that every kid whether they live in Cambridge or Timbuktu, Alabama, can love learning as I did, and everyone who wants to should be able to go to college without mortgaging the next several decades. The justice system should concentrate on rehabilitation rather than punishment, as it does in Norway.
In a country like that, I suspect industrial policy would naturally move in better directions than it often has in the US.
Thank you.
I don't think I ever saw the article you refer to. But I've recently been part of a big study-group commission (which I'll say more about later) that went into a lot of the same phenomena. In short: how *expensive* and time-consuming it is to be poor. So many things take so much more time and red-tape and hassle. Plus the other patterns and problems you mention.
On the public level there are so many things that take all-out, decades-long, down to the last minute trench warfare to accomplish — and yet, once in place, are seen as birthright parts of a decent society. When I was a kid *the* big battle of US policy, apart from the civil rights struggle, was of course the enactment of Medicare. That is where Ronald Reagan got his political start — by opposing 'Socialized Medicine' of course. Now even the GOP tries to shusssh its members who propose re-privatizing it (or Social Security). Same pretty much with Obama care.
Agree with your vision of how things *could* be, and the difficulty of doing so in a country with the scale and internal differences of ours, and of course all the problems we're aware of in our governance systems.
I wish I could remember the title. All I have is a sense that the main source was a Harvard prof of Indian origin. I'll be very interested to hear more about your study group.
Apropos of Part 3 of your post, the Carter Administration had sort of an Industrial Policy in the late 1970s. I remember taking a look at it when I was at GAO in 1979-80. Of course it was all thrown out when Reagan came in. It would be interesting to take a look at that effort and see how it holds up in the light of subsequent events.
Jack, yes — I remember those days and agree. The most famous part was of course his alternative-energy proposals, stemming from that era's supply shocks and rise of OPEC. But as you know it included more. Will add this to the list.
And, relevant to the David Maier note below, you also remember how the energy strategy was sold with 'Moral Equivalent of War' framing.
I caught your co-host episode on On the Media and loved it; secretly fantasized that you were joining that "little team," since so much of your output of late has been about the media and how it should re-imagine itself. I don't know if this was a one-off; but you couldn't find a better vehicle for your insights.
And with respect to "America is always in trouble", there's an important facet of that that I think is under-noticed: America always seems to need a boogeyman. The Communists, the terrorists, the Jews, the immigrants; now it's the Chinese. And the Republicans are working overtime to generate new and proliferating boogeymen. Woke, socialists, anti-Christmas, anti-Christians, Drag Queens, LGBTQ... The list is ever increasing. Generally, for Republicans, the boogeyman is a Democrat that needs to be owned.
What is it about the American psyche that it needs a boogeyman?
Thanks for listening and for your kind words.
I agree 100% on the bogeyman point. I keep circling back to the famous (but under-appreciated, and probably mis-appreciated) William James essay of 1910, 'The Moral Equivalent of War.' It was a version of the bogeyman question — What it would take to get people to do constructive things, *without* the specter of an external threat, or even warfare. Will be doing more on this theme.
I can't help but feel that this ties into your "Our Towns" theme. There's something in the American psyche that makes the unfamiliar (the out-of-towners) ripe for "othering." I'm not saying it doesn't happen in other cultures- the French have their own unique fondness for their Frenchness. But there's a monster-under-the-bed quality to American skittishness. And there's an underlying inferiority reaction that belies the wild west bravado. Maybe it's more something for a doctoral dissertation that a journalist's reporting. But it's real, and I think it highlights the lack of compassion, and downright cruelty, that we see in things like family separations, demonization of the homeless and the poor, etc. And in politics it's transforming the opponent in an enemy to be feared, demonized, and "owned."
Sorry. One more comment: I think the glaring example is the notion of "wokeness." To me being "woke" has a simple definition: that someone has actually decided to listen, with respect and without judgment, to another person describe their life experience, and to realize (awaken to) a facet of society that is taken as a given, but is not actually true for the other person. A fish doesn't know that it is wet. But if it listens to me, it will understand that my experience of water is very different.
We white fish swim in white water, and I think it's very important that we become aware of all of the facets in which our white water serves to diminish, suppress and inhibit the other "equal" cultures and ethnicities among us.
But instead of listening, we deny, diminish , demonize, and ultimately try to destroy the bogeyman.