The Chris Voss Show - The Chris Voss Show Podcast – Seeing Others: How Recognition Works―and How It Can Heal a Divided World by Michèle Lamont

Episode Date: October 14, 2023

Seeing Others: How Recognition Works―and How It Can Heal a Divided World by Michèle Lamont https://amzn.to/3PVRmBB Acclaimed Harvard sociologist makes the case for reexamining what we value to prioritize recognition—the quest for respect—in an age that has been defined by growing inequality and the obsolescence of the American dream. In this capstone work, Michèle Lamont unpacks the power of recognition—rendering others as visible and valued—by drawing on nearly forty years of research and new interviews with young adults, and with cultural icons and change agents who intentionally practice recognition—from Nikole Hannah Jones and Cornel West to Michael Schur and Roxane Gay. She shows how new narratives are essential for everyone to feel respect and assert their dignity. Decades of neoliberalism have negatively impacted our sense of self-worth, up and down the income ladder, just as the American dream has become out of reach for most people. By prioritizing material and professional success, we have judged ourselves and others in terms of self-reliance, competition, and diplomas. The foregrounding of these attributes of the upper-middle class in our values system feeds into the marginalization of workers, people of color, LGBTQIA+ individuals, and minority groups. The solution, Lamont argues, is to shift our focus towards what we have in common while actively working to recognize the diverse ways one can live a life. Building on Lamont’s lifetime of expertise and revelatory connections between broad-ranging issues, Seeing Others delivers realistic sources of hope: By reducing stigma, we put change within reach. Just as Robert Putnam’s Bowling Alone did for a previous generation, Seeing Others strikes at the heart of our modern struggles and illuminates an inclusive path forward with new ways for understanding our world.

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and we'll have them on as AI. That might be an interesting podcast as well. And we have them on the show and they come on, they tell us the stuff and they make you, the audience, smarter, more brilliant, more happy. You know, that's one of the things we get. They call it the Chris Voss Show Glow. And I know I made this up before in previous shows,

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See the big LinkedIn group and LinkedIn newsletter. And Christmas one on the tickety-talky that I guess is popular with the kids. Today, we have an amazing young lady on the show with us today. Her newest book just came out September 12th, 2023 Michelle Lamont is on the show with us today Her book is called Seeing Others How Recognition Works and How It Can Heal a Divided World And if you ain't seen the news lately people

We sure need this book So there you go Let me tell you a little bit about her she is a professor of sociology and of african and african-american studies at harvard university see we we have we have opera people and we have harvard people i mean it doesn't get any more classy than this considering i'm about as white trash as there can be she is also the robert i goldman professor of european studies she served as the 108th president of as there can be. She is also the Robert I. Goldman Professor of European Studies. She served as the 108th President of the American Sociological Association. I flunked second

grade, everyone knows that. And her research has received numerous awards, including honorary doctorates from six countries. She's the author or co-author of over a dozen books, and she joins us on the show today, and she also did not flunk second grade like I did. Welcome to the show, Michelle. Thank you so much for having me. It's a pleasure. Thank you. It's a pleasure to have you

because we need people like you to really take the show up several notches, and congratulations on the dozen books everything you did on your new book give us your dot com so people can find you on the interwebs please it's simply www.michellelamond.org there you go there you go so uh give us a 30,000 overview of this book, Seeing Others. Yeah. Well, it's really about the importance of defining others as worthy and really enlarging the circle of people who matter in our society.

It's a book that I decided to write a few years ago. I felt like many groups were getting more excluded instead of more included. So I felt like the general public really needed tools to understand how we can reduce the stigma that groups face. And that applies to, you know, religious group, ethno-racial, you know, minorities, but also, frankly, to working class people who feel like with the fact that college educated people are really at the center of our society now, many workers feel like with the fact that college educated people are really at the center of our society now, many workers feel like they're at the margin. So the goal is really to bring more people into the center so that everyone feels valuable. And how to do this is the object of the

book. And maybe bring more peace to the world? Yeah, absolutely. Because it's also against this polarization that so many people experience. You know, most of us are going through our business every day being relatively tolerant and also, frankly, being indifferent toward a lot of people. And many people in the media now just talk about polarization as if it was always us and them. Well, in fact, I think there's less us and them than we might think out there. I would hope so.

I mean, we live in a time, people who are listening to this 10 years from now on our YouTube channel, which they tend to do, you know, right now we live in a time where there's the Russia war with the Ukraine. We just had this major terrorist attack on Israel. And so now we have Israel, Hamas, and the Gaza Strip. I mean, politics in our country are very divided.

As Americans, we're kind of at each other's throats on social media, as it were. We're pretty divided, as you say. One thing you talk about in your book is decades of neoliberalism have negatively impacted our sense of self-worth, the income ladder, and stuff like that. Tell us a little bit about how, is that how we got to this point through this journey? Yeah, it didn't help. 2008, I think a lot of people lost their job, became very insecure, very concerned also about the future of their children. So for the last several decades, there's been like a glorification of people who have a

college degree and are professionals and managers. And these people have been trying to hoard resources to make their kids, you know, as successful as possible, send them to college. They've been very focused on themselves and their family. And this has come hand in hand with, I think, a devaluation of those who don't have a college degree. So a real polarization, which has been feeding the political division that we have in American society right now. So it's tied to the transformation of our economic system where, you know, a celebration of money as the only dimension by which we value people. And the book is really called to adopt a wider range of criteria for us. So people are people, you know,

some people will be valued because they are caring people and they build communities. Others will be valued because they're spiritual people and they give that to society. So it's really a call to move away from a single hierarchy on which our current system is based to try to include as many people as possible. Neoliberalism. Now, so are you saying that Reagan's trickle-down economics didn't work? Is that what you're saying? Oh, yes, that's a big insight.

Is that where neoliberalism started in your mind? Well, it's generally associated with both him and Margaret Thatcher, who was elected roughly at the same time in the UK, and both of them used the state to really maximize competitiveness and profit making for companies. And yeah, this trickle down economics, the idea that we would all benefit from the rich become richer because they would create more jobs. Well, it didn't happen like this at all. And we found ourselves rescuing banks in 2008. And now millennials, part of the story of the book is very much that younger people, millennials and Gen Zs are not buying into the American dream at all because it's too distant for them. not only in these generations, but also I think among professionals and managers, people have been working so hard that they are now depressed and overwhelmed

and their well-being is really at a low point. You know, we know about the opioid epidemic and alcohol abuse and substance abuse as a way for people to medicate themselves because it's not sustainable you know so it's really it's a call for action to really reconsider decisions that the choice we make as a society and how people lead their lives there you go you know um you you bring up some good points i recognize that in the 80s where i started seeing the middle class melting away from neoliberalism and the trickle down economics. I remember in junior high thinking that sounds like the dumbest thing ever.

Um, and, uh, I didn't know anything about economics at then. I was busy flunking second grade, but, uh, um, you know, it's, that's kind of what I've seen. I've seen the whittling away of the middle class. I've seen the whittling away of main street. You know, I came of age when, uh, the Ivan Bioski age of the greed class. I've seen the whittling away of Main Street. You know, I came of age when the Ivan Bioski age of the greed is good era, which was, you know, Reaganism and Margaret Thatcher, as you said. And a lot of people have really documented this

and covered it. And it seems like the further and further people get pushed into this, you know, economy, they don't have enough money, they're at their desperate wits, the more they're likely to embrace things like populism, fascism, and everything else. And if you study fascism and populism and the rise of it, it always comes from this it comes from an economic bottom where people are desperate for anybody and they'll latch on to uh horrible leaders that will end democracies and take us into fascism and uh populism which is being talked about very heavily here in america right now for those listening years from now assuming we're still a republic then yeah um and and so it's important i think like you're talking about to see others how recognition works um what motivated you to write this book what was the catalyst well frankly i was a little depressed i i presume you're on the news were you reading the news

i presume your audiences might be mixed politically but in in my case, you know, I remember I did, I wrote a paper on the electoral speeches of Trump when he was running to be president, 73 electoral speeches. We wrote a content analysis of those speeches and we found that which, you know, at one level, what he did was good. He was talking to the working man and telling them, you're downworldly mobile. It's not your fault. It's because of globalization. I know that you work hard to get your kids to study and to pay your bills and you're a survivor and you're a good, solid person.

You have work ethic. At the same time, he said, if you have problems succeeding, it's because of immigrants. And then he started talking about Latinos, Mexicans being rapists. And that was very, it's very central theme in all of his presidential speeches. So he's really been feeding this anti-immigrant theme that has become so central. And I was very concerned about this. I was listening to NPR in my car two days ago,

and I learned even in this state of Massachusetts where I live, which is a pretty blue state, there's a huge increase in fascist activities. So far-right people standing in front of motels where Latin American immigrants have just moved in and are being placed there temporarily by the government to protest. So you could see like these confrontation in your face, you know. As you said, it's not very good for democracy. So we have to decide where we're going to put the bar.

Definitely. And maybe we need to do a reset of actually seeing each other as human beings and not labeling each other as Republican, Democrat, immigrant, person who's native to America. We know that the supporters of Trump come from all social class. What's surprising is that many people think what he's proposing in terms of policy is not at the advantage of the working class. And yet he's able to convince a number of them to support him. But when I wrote a book that came out in 2000 called The Dignity of Working working man and one of the central themes in that book as i did you know like 150 interviews with workers in new york and in paris in new york it was african-american and white workers and in paris it was north african-american north african immigrants people who were often illiterate and white workers. And the theme that came out true and true was treat people like people,

recognize what's universal among us as human beings. So that's a very central theme, I think, in working class culture. And it bumps against this exclusive approach that is being promoted in some quarters. And whether it's toward latinos or toward gay people or toward african-american or you know i mean name it you know the idea that we should really reconnect with what we all share as human beings i think is very important and we're all

human beings i mean you know i remember i grew up with the with the USSR and cowering under a desk from the nuclear bombs because anyone knows those old steel case desks from the 70s would deflect a nuclear bomb. And, you know, I remember Sting put out this album, I think it was from the Dream of the Blue Turtles. And he talked about the Russians and he goes, Russians are people to their mothers and fathers. They love their children. They want their children to grow up and and and succeed and live and thrive. And they're just like anyone else in the world for the most part. Maybe the leadership maybe doesn't have those people bought the, the lies of Trump, because this has been going on, this has been going on for eons of time where the politicians play the

game of blaming the immigrant, you know, um, making that third party who's the, when you blame everything on, and you would have thought that after you know a millennia of years of of american uh human uh life and government you know people would have put this thing together and gone i always see what he's doing he's playing that whole uh you know blaming doing that he's doing a whole blamer game you know yeah Everybody knows that what happens is the rich and powerful will tell you, hey, those guys over there are stealing from you. Look over there. And then when they do, they pick your pockets because you're looking over there.

You're like, hey, where'd my wallet go? And they're like, I think the immigrant took it. When you were looking over at them and you're like, I was looking at them. How can they have taken it? You're the one standing behind me. So, and that's the way it rolls. i think exactly the result of that um so getting uh to how we see others and recognize um how do we how do we start looking at each other and seeing uh not with that which divides us but that which uh makes us similar and bridges that gap?

Well, there's some groups that are deeply stigmatized, right? They are viewed as morally corrupt. So one example would be people who are HIV positive. So I'm Canadian. I moved to the US in early 80s from France where I had done my PhD. And I lived in Palo Alto. And it was the beginning of the AIDS crisis. And everyone was absolutely freaked out about AIDS, in part because the media talked about this as the disease that was hitting, you know, gay people who were spending too much time in public bathrooms having sex.

So it was very much viewed as the punishment. You know, people talked about punishment for their sins or whatever. But since in the last 40 years, there's a lot of organization that have joined forces to transform the meaning of being HIV positive. So, of course, there's a lot of social movements that I fought against that. But they worked hand in hand with a lot of social movements that I fought against that, but they worked hand in hand with a lot of knowledge workers. And that includes, you know, journalists, social scientists, legal and medical experts who said, no, actually, that's not the problem with being HIV positive. Anyone can get

it. And it's not a sign of moral turpitude. And you had people like Magic Johnson who came out tall, beautiful, had leads saying, I have AIDS. And then you have Lady Di who came from the UK and removed her gloves and started, you know, shaking hands with people with AIDS. So all these gestures by, you know, important individual that little by little transmitted the message, it's fine. These are human beings. So the book is really about the importance of transforming narratives, transforming the stories we tell about people. And this is really a message of hope because the argument of the book is it's happening and it can happen more and we can all contribute to it. So think about same-sex marriage. This is happening also through individual actions like

the one I just described, but also institutions. So after 32 states passed the same-sex marriage law, the number of attempted suicide among LBGTQ youth in high school declined drastically. And that's because I think the law was telling them, well, you belong, you have access to the most sacred institutions of our society, marriage. So those narratives, these stories we tell about each other really contains important messages

about who matters, who counts, who's important, who we should have a feeling of solidarity toward. So my solution is not at all just take individual responsibility for it. It's much more, let's create together a society that provides a lot of these messages that are much more inclusive. And it's in our power and it's happening already. We just need more of it. Definitely. Definitely. I'm a big believer in this and i kind of recognize in my early age um how we territory we create these territories yeah and we you know you know my flag is better than yours my religion is better than yours my belief system whatever fill in the blank here

uh is better than yours and and i i started recognizing how mobs worked, mob mentality worked, how we use them for eliteness, uh, and to, to give ourselves moral authority or power over others because we see ourselves as, well, I'm, I'm in this group, so I must be better than everyone else. Um, I don't think, I don't think many people have a self-realization that sometimes you know some of the things they're believing in or join they think gives them you know an upper hand of moral authority above others they don't realize how ugly it is um and and it's interesting to me the hypocrisy when they're like well i just want to help you well how to become more like me and you're, I don't know what makes you so great. You look horrible from the outside. Have you seen yourself? Do you have a

mirror up there? Um, fill in your favorite politician here. Um, the, you know, one of the things I started doing recently, cause I've been, I think I've talked about this on the show before I was, uh, I was a republican up until uh george w bush or during george w bush uh otherwise what's known as the dick cheney presidency because you know who's running the country um and i left the republican party over uh some of the religious stuff i'm an atheist and and the guy was an idiot i mean mean, that was his did. He was embarrassing to my vote. I'm talking about W, not President Cheney. And people listening 20 years ago, what? President Cheney?

I don't remember that. It's a joke, people. Google it. He really did run the country. And so I left. And then I went to the democratic side and I, I kind of was lost in the woods for a while. And then I came to the Democrat side and, you know, after nine 11, I was going, why

does everyone hate us in the world? And maybe I should find out more about what's going on in the world and what the deal is here. And what do we, what do we, is it us? Is it them? What is it us is them what is it and then uh you know with trump i think a lot of people push far liberal uh and now i find myself kind of in the middle and i've tried to get to a point where i can see both sides um now i can see both sides and and

try and look at them and go okay what, what are they trying to accomplish? Okay, they're about family over here, and they love children, but I'm not sure the way they're applying their interests are working for them or they're giving a good balance or healthy for everybody. And so I try and look at both sides, and now I kind of don't like the extreme of either parties, but I find myself in the middle and on the Democrat side. But I can still look at both sides and see things. And what I'm getting to is what I do now is something I started, I don't know, about three or four months ago. And if I do get into a political talk with people that I feel that we can have an open-minded discussion with. Because, you know, some people are just sealed off.

I say, look, okay, if you want to have this discussion, we'll have this discussion. But we're going to lay a foundation, a floor, an agreement to this conversation. The floor, the foundation is we're all Americans. And it's about the Constitution. And everything else that's built is built on top of this. The Republican Party, the Democrat Party, blah, blah, blah, political issues. All this BS is built on the foundation that we're all Americans. And we have a Constitution.

And we can debate ideas, but we still love each other as Americans. And, boy, laying that foundation for people and setting that boundary, and sometimes you have to return to it and go, whoa, whoa, hey, whoa, whoa, whoa, we're not Republicans. We're not Democrats. We're fucking Americans. I agree with you. On the other hand, we have also to recognize that this is a country

that has been created by immigration. Yeah. You know, the new immigrants are kicking down. The old immigrants are kicking down, the new immigrants, you know, everyone is a newcomer here except for the Native Americans. So, you know, I mean, I appreciate what you're saying, and

by American, I presume what you mean is people who are embracing certain values about democracy and equality, and you know. And that's what this country was founded on, was the melting pot of American people coming. That's what that statue is in the harbor of New York about, the Statue of Liberty.

Exactly. And, and that's what's actually made our country great. If you really study what made our country great is the, is the, just the randomness of where all the great ideas could be centralized in our country. You know, Einstein came from Germany and, and, and some of the rocket people and all those people that helped develop the bomb. Uh, uh, you look at, uh, someone who made major modern changes to our country, like Steve Jobs, his family came from Syria. Uh, my great grandfather came from Germany. Um, which I don't know.

I think they still want me deported over that. The flip side, Chris, is that sometimes by nationalism, like people are also embracing whiteness. They think that being American means being white American. And that is really, you know, putting oil on the fire when it comes to racial tensions within our society, and also defending one group as, you know, lacking self-reliance, as sponges who abuse collective resources. And if you look, I know Israel is such a, you know, difficult topic right now, but, you know, nationalism in Russia or nationalism in Israel,

like people, when they feel threatened, they embrace nationalism. So it's a little bit of a, you know, double sword edge. We have to be careful about it. We want to, part of me feels like even going beyond nationalism, talking about universalism. When I did these interviews with North African immigrants in France, people who are really illiterate. One of the questions I asked is what makes you similar and different from the French? And many of the French people were very racist toward them.

They would say, well, we all spend nine months in our mother's womb. You know, we all have 10 fingers. We all need to get up in the morning to get our bread and go to work. And we all also are children of God or we are all equally insignificant in the cosmos. You know, we're specks of dust. And I felt like in some ways,

this is an even more, you know, embracing version of what we should aspire for society. Otherwise, we get into, like, if you look at the reaction of this, you know, as you said earlier, we're talking when there's just an explosive conflict now in Israel. And I'll just tell you a little story. Over the last two, three days, the president of my university, who's the first woman, black woman to be president, made a statement where some of the faculty felt she had not blamed enough. Well, you know, the question is who's most guilty for what's happening?

You know, the three actors are basically Hamas, which is a terrorist government that has, you know, represents the Gaza Strip. And they're terrorists. They're the one who went into Israel and attacked people randomly and kidnapped people. And some people are blaming all of Palestinians for that. Well, in fact, it's a very small group that doesn't have the support from Palestinians is tiny. And the faculty, the students and the president at my university were all attacking each other about who was expressing too much support toward Israel or too much support toward Palestinians.

And some people wanted everyone to only blame only the Palestinians. And a lot of people say, well, listen, Israel has been treating Palestinians like dirt ever since the country was created. So this Olympic of suffering, whose suffering matters most is always producing conflict. And I kind of think it's important to really acknowledge that everyone's suffering matters, you know,

that we all need dignity as human beings. And at the end of the day, that's a better starting point than trying to compete about who deserves most to be supported, because I think this generally leads us nowhere. Yeah. And I think it's even more interesting. I think it's Harvard that's getting this from some of the Wall Street people. I guess some of the folks at Harvard, you know, they blamed Israel and supported Palestine, and they're calling out to have the names of them released so that they won't ever hire them. I mean, talk about a divided world. Yeah, and Larry Summers, who was a former president of the U.S., who's always been quite pro-Israeli,

condemns the new president who was just inaugurated two months ago for being not pro-Israeli enough. And a lot of people resist being pro-Israeli because they think it means being pro-Zionist. And this is a guy who used to be the head of the treasury in the country. He's very influential. But he's also very close to a number of Zionists. So no one has a neutral position in this conflict.

But it's a good illustration of what we're talking about, treating everyone as human beings or creating like picking orders and who's suffering matters most. And I think that's often just a dead end you know we have to recognize one in terms of the next election that are coming i think one of the big challenges is as i said earlier a lot of gen z's don't believe in the american dream and they find hope not in the idea that they will get the white picket fence house one day but in the hope of living today a life that's very inclusive and where other people are not badly treated.

So for some of them who might define themselves as non-binary sexually, the use of pronouns like the them pronoun is really important or the unisex bathroom. But for a lot of people who don't experience their life, they think this is BS. It's like snowflake politics, that it's not worth their time. So how do we bridge the gap between those Gen Zs who take very seriously these questions because it's reflexive of their own identity? And let's say working class men who just think, oh, these are indulged over spoiled brats, middle class kids, or just so self-centered on themselves that they don't understand what really is important in the world. So that really requires for both groups to put themselves in the shoes of the other and to truly like, I think, understanding where other people come from

is really, really important if we want to improve this problem of polarization. Definitely. And seeing each other as human beings, you know, there's this, one of the things that happens with, you know, these economic trends that we're going through right now where people lost so much, the middle class has faded away. It seems like, you know, it just seems to get worse and worse and worse. You know, we have staggering inflation now. We have, you know, these wars create immigrants that are coming and testing resources. But the problem is we get in this mindset, I think, of instead of seeing things from an aspect of the word was right there on my brain and escaped me.

But it's basically where we see things in abundance. So, you know, this country was built on an abundant mentality. That's what we're looking for. Or scarcity mentality. That's the word that escaped me. And we built this country on abundant mentality. So we're like, hey hey if we bring a bunch of people in here uh from all walks of life they're going to contribute in so many different

ways they're going to build industry and so many different industries and so many different stuff and and the more people the better you know and that makes all the difference because we were for the longest time what made america great is being the largest marketplace in the world and the most successful how we put society together through that melting of pots. And now we, instead of having this abundance mentality, we live in the scarcity mentality. Exactly. You know what else has made things much worse? Something that many Americans don't know, the extent to which classes live separate from each other has increased enormously in the last decade, which means that there's many more middle class people or upper middle class people who never have relationships with working class people or the poor, which means that then they really cannot understand the life of low income people. What does it mean to live on $10 a day?

You know, and then it's much easier to blame other people for their fate. Yeah. It's almost a, there's no bread, let them eat cake sort of mentality. Exactly. So this really goes to your question about, you know, abundance versus scarcity. Because on the one hand, if you don't have contact, you don't understand the other people. And, you know, psychologists who study those things say contact theory, the more groups are in contact with each other,

the more the conflicts are likely to go down. I mean, it's more complicated than that, but that's basically the theory. And more is more, like the same holds with dignity, I think. It's not like if I get dignity, you lose it. I mean, this is something that we can all have together. It's not like I have a pie and what I eat, you don't eat. And dignity is the one thing that we can really give each other. If you think of people who work in AI, who spend their life on computers,

the computers will never give them recognition and dignity. We really depend on each other to get it. You know, it's like seeing others, I mean, making them feel worthy. And it's not zero-sum. So really pushing this, I think, is crucial now. And as you say, it's not zero-sum. What goes around comes around. You know, the thing about abundance is a rising tide lifts all boats and so if i share my pie if i help you and and

lift you up then i'll lift myself up and you'll hopefully go lift some other people up and as bobby kennedy said in his uh ripple host speech in south africa and i think it was 65 you know uh each of us can contribute to tides that can change the world just by doing good works and lifting each other up. And I think, you know, we've kind of come to the scarcity mindset. And so we're fighting over what little resources we feel we have. And it's just a downward spiral right down the drain of where things just keep getting worse. And then it even gets worse when you start adopting, you know, populism and fascism. And that just goes bad for another 10 or 20 years until somebody wakes up and says enough of this stuff.

But things can get really dark. And we're kind of almost repeating history from 100 years ago. Exactly. You know, we saw the rise of Mussolini and Hitler and fascism, you know, which really came, uh, I think that was kind of where it first came to the point was it with Mussolini and people were like,

Hey, what the hell is this? And, you know, people that, you know, Hey, we were economically deficient.

So let's select some guy who, uh, you know, promise he's going to fix everything if we just give up our freedoms. And, uh, I'm sure everything will work out fine. As long as he makes those buses run on time,

things will be good. So I think it's important what you're writing and talking about that we need to see each other as human beings. We need to see each other as, um, universally, um, you know, every, every, whether you're Chinese, American, Syrian, Russian, as human beings. We need to see each other as universally.

You know, every, whether you're Chinese, American, Syrian, Russian, wherever you are in the world, unless you're one of these evil dictators or evil power brokers, you know, you're a human being who's trying to, and even some people that are evil maybe don't sometimes realize they're being evil. They're just trying to do their objectives and they haven't really awakened sometimes realize they're being evil. They're just trying to do their objectives and they haven't really awakened to how they're taking from others. But recognizing that they're parents too. They have children too.

They love their children. They want their children to succeed. It's like I talked about politics. Sometimes both ends of our parties, you can see what they want to try and do, but sometimes application is doesn't work or sometimes you've got to bridge the gap of you know give and take and we still live in a politics world of give and take where you would say okay well let's try and meet somewhere in the middle as opposed to this this this highly polarized point the rat we're like i get everything or else

and screw you you you get nothing. Exactly. And at the same time, both parties are kind of wrapping themselves, as you said earlier, in the flag of family in America. You know, like around abortion, for instance, both groups are saying that they are doing what is most pro-family, either by preventing people who are poor to have children if they cannot afford them,

and the idea that parents should not raise their kids in misery if they cannot afford to have children, which is a very pro-family thing to do. And on this other side, Catholics who don't believe in abortion think that they're protecting the family. So these things are so fluid. The argument can be made for both sides.

I should add that concerning we should all treat ourselves as human. One of the things the book does that I really like is we interviewed 75 stand-up comics and also people who work in entertainment in Hollywood. And we look very closely at their humor and what they're doing to promote inclusion, you know, and what we find is we identify a number of strategies that

they develop. And a lot of them are pushing exactly that notion that humans are humans by promoting inclusion. So they will say, you cannot force your audience to eat their vegetables. So we're not going to lecture them on inclusion. But as they are telling their jokes, they're planting a lot of little messages about, you know, maybe criticizing people who are racist or classist or homophobic. And some people criticize those comics for being, you know, going after clafter.

They get clapping by using politics. But in fact, in the 75 people we interviewed, only a few denounced that. But these people say we should not be using politics. But some of these guys make really sexist jokes all the time. And they're not aware that that's also politics, to put down women and to have this kind of very macho attitude is another way of being political. So the point is, in the book, there's a lot of groups whose true their work are really committed to promoting exactly what you and I are talking about, which is, you know, the being able to see each other as human beings and how it's crucial changing society.

And comedy is such a great way to hold a mirror to ourselves without being so much as, I don't know, it gets, it comedy gets over the, it gets past the barriers. And, and some of the greatest comics,

they're able to take and present both sides of the picture. Exactly. Yeah. Here's some jokes about this side. Here's some jokes about that side. And they can do the whole circumference of the issue. And they can show, you know, the nuances. And they can show the fallacies of both those.

But do it in a comedy way to where people i think people learn the most through comedy that's kind of why we try and do it helps a lot because they don't feel yeah they don't feel lectured at you know it's more digestible and also it creates relatability you know when you see a comic who says things that you can connect with it makes a huge difference and we should laugh at ourselves more because a lot of what we do is really stupid. When you look at it on, you know, you kind of step outside and you look at it and go,

we do some really dumb stuff. And sometimes what we do is, and comics are great at exposing the hypocrisy because they'll be like, this doesn't make any sense. And people laugh and then they, but you're right. They think subconsciously in their mind. Yeah.

It kind of has a point. Well, should yeah we don't want to suffer fools and another point of the book that i think might interest your listeners as well is the conflict between boomers and uh young people you know like i don't think many boomers understand the depth of anger of Gen Z's toward the fact that my generation, you know, we were buying cars and we were putting lawns that are very bad for the environment. And we were drinking a lot of Diet Coke, which I do, and big plastic bottle, you know. They're mad as hell because they feel like we have, I mean, especially we're talking here in the fall of 23, right? We just had the summer with tons of forest fires and enormous heat and disasters upon disasters. The environment has never been as upside down as it was this summer. And their anger is tied to them saying, okay, you guys move over.

We're this change now and you guys have screwed up so badly. Now it's our turn, you know, it's our turn to try to create a different society. And they're doing it in part by really pushing inclusion. Like, I'll tell you a story. When I was this summer at the American Sociological Association, we all have, you know, little labels with our name and our institution. So in my case, Michel Lamont Harvard University, and a lot of young people felt like, we're over with this, let's remove the name of the institutions and then put instead put the pronouns. And, you know, you could have seen the boomers, they were so pissed that their institutions were not there anymore but the young people they felt like absolutely we need the pronouns instead as a symbol

of anti-hierarchy to say we're all beings and we're going to listen to each other and instead of people just looking at your your your sign and thinking oh i'm not going to talk to you because you teach at podunk university in fact these pronouns was sending kind of a message of equality that created a very different mood so these things i view them as positive you know because precisely they are oriented toward breaking down the hierarchies a little bit and creating more people being able to communicate as people you know yeah we need to see each other's people that's so important and that's why you know i i i people need to get away from scarcity

rising tide lifts all boats so let's start trying to lift each other let's start trying to help each other recognize we're all humans we're all trying to do this and if we all roll the boat together we can save the ship i mean we're all we're on this little tiny earth ship going through space and we got asteroids hurling at us and aliens coming at us evidently and you know god knows what else and uh we're just on this uh it's not flat it's not round it's a square globe by the way don't start new stuff on don't start a new cult over that. It's a square globe. Don't start new stuff on. Don't start a new cult over that, people. That's a joke.

It's world of square. It's very funny. I'm just waiting for somebody to write me. We've been using that as a callback joke for years. Your scarcity line, you know, at the same time, Bidenomics is really being put down. Well, in fact, like in the last month, he's created a lot of jobs. Personally, I'm very puzzled about the fact that people remain so committed being put down while in fact like in the last month he's created a lot of jobs personally i'm

very puzzled about the fact that people remain so committed to thinking the uh the economy is a mess while in fact it's really been growing a lot over the last two years that's a huge puzzle you know that people are not perceiving that i don't know what they're reading i don't know where they're getting i think it's the channel they're watching. Exactly. Which faux news channel that is, where the owners and people on the channel have testified in court that they lie to people and they just do entertainment TV. Exactly. So that is a fact, folks. Please Google it. you know people live in these bubbles of their scarcity like we've been talking about where they just they just want news that self-acknowledges their biases and what they believe instead of looking at other people and being curious and i imagine curiosity is one of the things that

trying to be curious about each other is one way to uh help bridge that gap of you know i could not i could not agree with you more each time, you know, since I've been promoting the book for the last month, the publicists are trying to get me to write little pieces for various management journal. And they want me to get like three concrete points that the managers could use to improve their workplace.

And I'm saying, you know, for me, the solution you're saying, be curious. My solution is we need to understand each other better. We really need to take the time to put ourselves in other people's shoes. There's no management book that tells managers

that this is what they should do, you know? But I think if managers did that more, they would have far more loyalty from their employers. Like giving recognition to people in the workplace is also something that is enormously needed. There's a study that shows that if employers give the workers time to, for instance, bring their mom to the doctor or taking of their kids early, you know, these are the things that foster loyalty and at work. And these are things that have to do with recognition to see your employees as as people, you know, as people who have other needs. And we're both workers and employees and people at once and parents.

So these rules are not their roles are not exclusive of each other. And they should be supported, you know know by by the way the there's now a big movement of unionization right and you think amazon workers who were on strike they wanted to have access to the bathroom when they needed they needed to be able to go to the restroom isn't that a big claim about dignity yeah i mean like don't push the the the speed of our work if it means we don't have to go we don't have time to go to the bathroom. And the people at Starbucks, they wanted, some of them were trans or gay, they wanted to be able to put the rainbow flags inside the shop. And they went on strike, they felt like using AI was just

cheating them from their individual creativity. So I think a lot of the revival of the unionization movement now has to do with people seeking dignity. You know, it's not only about the paycheck is super important, of course, but I think the revival of the unionization movement really has to do with people having learned something from maybe Black Lives Matter and transposing it to their lives and saying, we don't have to put up with, you know, the UAW is very much saying,

you know, the automakers have made a fortune. They've been saved. The government has given them a lot of money. And now they're trying to not pay us. So there's an element of anger that is so healthy, I think, because people are not ready to put up anymore with such unequal treatment. And they affirm their dignity. It's not only that they want more money.

They also want to be treated fairly. And you bring up a great point. It's about dignity. Yeah. Because also want to be treated fairly. Yeah. And you bring up a great point. It's about dignity. Yeah. Because everyone wants to raise their kids. They want to have enough money to have a life. They're not looking to get the Jeff Bezos yacht. They just want to be able to have that.

Go to space with Elon Musk. Or go to space. They want the picket fence. They want the two-car garage. Maybe take their kids to Disneyland once a year or something like that. They want their spouses to be happy, their kids to be happy. They want their kids to have a future. And, you know, it's not asking a whole lot.

And that used to be kind of what this country seemed to have hit for a moment after World War. And there was some things that actually contributed to that, you know, people saving their money from world war two, the, you know, and, and,

uh, kind of the rise of the Levittown of building across America and the growth of it. And the people that had, you know, it was a lot of, it was saved money from saved up money from the GI bills and stuff like that.

And that kind of short spurt there, but, um, you know, like i said scarcity and abundance mindset rising tide lifts all boats and if we look at it from that aspect of how can we lift everyone's boats the world just gets better and the boat's going to rise and we're not going to sink because if we keep punching holes in the floor exactly we're going to sink and also if you help others when they need it they'll be there when you need it too.

What we've seen in 2009 is in 2008, a lot of people who thought they would never need welfare needed welfare. A lot of the need for social support comes from the fact that the economy is not fair. There's a lot of people who are hardworking who end up needing it. Yeah. COVID taught us that as well. Yeah. Yeah,

exactly. Well, thank you very much, Michelle, for coming on the show. We really appreciate it. I got the French version in there for you. Oh,

you're very good, Chris. I'm working on it. I'm working on it. I don't know French yet, but I'm working on it. You're very good. I know how to say espresso and c'est la vie.

Well, you're set. I think you're ready to go. I'm working on it. I know how to say espresso and c'est la vie. Well, you're set. I think you're ready to go. I'm working on it. I'm working on it. I don't know if the French will accept me because I'm American. Well, come to Quebec. People in Quebec are really more welcoming and they speak French too.

And Canadians are wonderful people. We love them. And congratulations, you didn't say about any time during the show. You know, French andadian don't do that. Oh! You guys are more astute than those other Canadians. I see how it is. But we love the Canadians.

Always such wonderful people up there. Big Rush fan. But could you take Justin Bieber back, please? For the love of God. I don't consume Justin Bieber myself. There's a few of them that I'd be happy to leave with you guys. There you go. So final thoughts, Michelle, pitch everyone on your book as we go out. Well, I mean, I think it's a book that should really be of interest to a lot of people. It's really, I went out of my way to speak to a wide range of people and to try to create

bridges between groups, you know, and have them think about things that are important given this moment of division that we live in. So please go ahead, read it. Borrow it from the library. You don't have to buy it. Just read it. Read the damn thing, people, already. Yeah, I don't care if you buy it or not. I just want you to read it just just read it and read the damn thing people already yeah i don't care if you buy it or not i just want you to read it okay the more we can see each other's human beings it used to be

when i grew up in in my world in the 70s you know we we would go eat dinner with our neighbors we knew our neighbor's name we knew kind of you know probably more about their lives than we wanted to know, which was good for the wives. We knew who everyone was and we interact with it. If you need to go next door and borrow some salt, you did. Your mom's like, hey, go get sugar from Brenda next door.

But now we live in such these tunnel sort of things. We don't even know who our neighbors are. I don't, but I do that on purpose. Have you seen my neighbors? No, I'm just kidding. The book is so much about hope because the message is it's in our hands.

We create the world we want to live in, you know, every day. There you go. So let's recreate a better world, folks. Let's live in a from abundant mindset. Order up her book, wherever fine books are sold. The book is entitled, Seeing Others, How Recognition Works and How It Can Heal a Divided World, September 12th, 2023. And folks, if you haven't seen this lately or followed the news, we need this more than ever. So it's very important.

Thanks to Manas for tuning in. Thanks to Michelle for being on the show. We really appreciate it and uh go to goodreads.com fortress chris foss linkedin.com fortress chris foss youtube.com fortress chris foss and the chris foss one at the tickety-tockety over there i think that's what the kids call it thanks for tuning in be good to each other stay safe and we'll see you guys next time thank you