The Comedy Cellar: Live from the Table - Sean Wilentz and Myq Kaplan

Episode Date: June 3, 2022

Sean Wilentz is a professor of American History at Princeton.  He is the author of numerous books including Bob Dylan in America, a consideration of Dylan's place in American cultural history.  Myq Kaplan is a stand up comic and Comedy Cellar regular. His numerous television appearances include: Tonight Show, Conan, Letterman, James Corden and more. 

This is live from the table recorded at thefamous Comedy Cellar in Greenwich Village, Manhattan. And we're coming at you on Sirius XM 99 Raw Dog. And on the Laugh Button Podcast Network, Dan Natterman here with Noam Dorman, owner of the world-famous Comedy Cellar. And with Perrielle Ashenbrand is with us. She is the show's producer. She is, how do you describe her? She's more than just a producer. She is.

I guess she's Noam's foil would be the best way to phrase it. My foil? Yes. Can you speak into the microphone, please, Noam? My foil? And we have comedy seller, regular and veteran of this podcast, Mike spelled M-Y-Q in stylized fashion. Mike spelled M.Y.Q. in stylized fashion. Mike Kaplan, Black.

He is a comic and a podcaster. You can find his podcast Broccoli and Ice Cream wherever podcasts can be found. What's the significance of broccoli and ice cream? One conversation I have is about the work of people's life, the broccoli, and the other about the joy that they experience when they're not

working, the ice cream. Well, I think I think you make that up. Yeah. I think that for some people, the ice cream and the broccoli is the ice cream. Oh, it very often. If you're lucky. Oh, yeah. All ice cream. Absolutely. I have comedians on all the time who are like, I don't have anything I do when I'm not working. But, you know, I try to get to it. What's your broccoli? I mean, you know, comedy, music, self-work, figuring out your ice cream. That's the, you know, the broccoli, the working, I guess, like right now talking with you is my broccoli, you know, thank you. The challenging work, you know, when I get to leave. Fair enough. It should be ice cream, but. Oh, yeah, it's both. It's you know, this is an ice

cream flavored broccoli or vice versa. Yeah. When I'm when I'm not working, I enjoy, you know, playing music, listening to music, meditating, enjoying time with friends, loved ones. You know, I could go on. Love Groundhog Day. I have a friend, George, in New York who saw he thought he saw Bill Murray on the streets of New York. He was like, Bill Murray. He yelled at him. And so that guy who yelled at looked back and was like nope and my friend george went home all sad he's like i thought it was bill murray next day turns on the tv sees a talk show bill murray's the guest it was that guy it was exactly that guy he's like man so bill murray is such a great actor he was able to convince my friend George that he was not Bill Murray.

Like, unbelievable, Bill Murray. Oh, thank you. Thank you. Thank you guys for clapping for how great an actor I said Bill Murray was. What a great story. What a story about Bill Murray, I just told you. And about my friend George.

Why did I make it about George? It could have been about me. I could have said, I saw him. But I'm not a liar, number one. Number two, I don't want you guys thinking I'm the kind of guy who yells Bill Murray at Bill Murray. Because I don't do that.

I wouldn't do that. If I saw Bill Murray on the street, I would yell like Phil, Phil Connors. And then I'd run around the block and yell it again, run around the block and yell it again and again and again and again. Have somebody film it. Call it Groundhog Day 2. So. Now we have a few minutes before uh sean willens gets here who's uh who's

uh our i guess principal well i guess non-comedian non-comedian guests but uh as far as what to talk about till then i give you a choice of three things oh uh and then you know you can you can you can veto all of them but one is what's up with mike oh hey number two is joe rogan and gun control and number three is dan natterman's latest hypochondriacal scare um i'd like to hear well maybe we could talk about joe rogan and gun control when sean walens gets on because he might be interested i haven't heard oh yeah i'm very curious to know what that's there's something new? But I think Dan Natterman's latest I think it's that thing of your eye.

I mentioned to you yesterday, I have something below my eye. It's a red mark and you can see it. No, you can see this peri-elev. Yeah. Nicole, can we zoom in on this? Okay, go ahead. It's below my left eye.

I discovered it this weekend. I was in Erie, Pennsylvania. Didn't think much of it. But as what happens when you're in a hotel room with little to do, you know, this is art imitating life, because if you read my book, I was before COVID. He was obsessed with skin moles and so forth. And, you know, cancer.

So so anyway, so basal cell cars, I've diagnosed myself with basal cell carcinoma. Wow. Which is a very relatively mild cancer that doesn't really kill anybody. How long you been a dermatologist yourself since Google came out? Can I tell you something? My grandmother was a nurse for a dermatologist office for 37 years and

something that she did when kids would come in with warts that I talk about this on stage a little bit, but this is like just the legit thing. She would tell them that she'd like to purchase their wart. She'd give them a quarter. I don't know if it ever was inflation, but the kid would take the quarter. She's like, go home. When you wake up in the morning, the wart will be gone because I bought it and it would happen. It would just like by the power of positive thinking, like they're like,

oh, my warts going to go away. And so truly you, by obsessing about things being there and going wrong, might in fact be creating a problem. It might or it might be most. Well, I do not believe that you don't think the mind affects the body. Do I have to in order to say call bullshit on that story, I have to think the mind doesn't affect the body. Yeah, I'm just asking your question. I think the mind affects the body.

I don't believe you can buy a wart to disappear in 24 hours with a quarter. Oh, I mean, so you're calling my grandmother a liar. Yes, that's what I'm just asking your question. I think the mind affects the body. I don't believe you can buy a work to disappear in 24 hours with a quarter. Oh, I mean, so you see my grandmother, a liar. Yes, that's what I'm saying. No, first of all, I absolutely believe that story. Calling her a storyteller, a raconteur. So go ahead. Get your thing. So do you have cancer? I don't know. I have to, you know, in this. Let me see. In this town, it's so hard to get to get a doctor's appointment.

I mean, I have a dermatologist, but, you know, you can't get a hold of them. But in any case, they're out sunning themselves. I can send you to a good dermatologist. Well, I have a guy. No, no, no. But she'll see you like tomorrow. OK, OK. I don't think you have cancer. Oh, and how long have you been a dermatologist? Well, I will say my wife, my son, when he was young,

this fucking Mike is going crazy. My son, it's probably your son's find us. Yeah, that's fine. So my son, he meant you. Oh, yeah. My son, when he was young, had a thing like a and it looked like a pimple. And my wife was insisting it wasn't a pimple. She diagnosed it as a vascular blah, blah, blah, blah, blah.

And she went straight to the specialist who handles this thing on the East Coast. And she talked to a department and doctor says, this is amazing. Sometimes people go months without getting to me. Doctors misdiagnosis all the time. So maybe you do have cancer because she she she analyzed it on the Internet. And she was right from pictures. Well, look, it's not like people don't get cancer, especially when you're in your 50s. You know, it's not like I, you know, like I'm 15 years old and then you dismiss it.

But it doesn't just show up like that. Like you don't just go into the Internet. Yes, it does. It can. This particular form can is under your eye. A commonplace. It's a very commonplace for basal cell carcinoma. Yes, it is. I don't like where this is going at all. Where's it going? I'm going to go to dermatologist and we'll figure it out one way or the other, but this

is where my mind is now, and this was Noam's choice of topic. Now, the good news is a particular form of cancer, if that's what it is, is very, very treatable. Well, you called it Dan's hypochondriacal thing, so I thought that meant that you knew it was crazy, but called it Dan's hypochondriacal thing. So I thought I thought that meant that you knew it was good. You're not you're not a hypochondriac. Well, I think you have cancer.

Yeah. Well, we don't know that yet. You intellectually. But but I think the average person, I don't know. Correct me if I'm wrong. He would see this. He would say maybe it is. Maybe it isn't.

I'll make an appointment. I won't worry about it until then. I don't know how the average person would react. I don't know. Dan, can I ask you a question? But me, I'm the whole time on the Internet all fucking day looking at pictures of basal cell and trying to convince myself that it doesn't look like what I have. Have you ever thought you had an STD? Yeah, I guess so. Have you ever been right about any of your hypochondria?

Yeah, but nothing severe, nothing like I was right when I had frozen shoulder. I was right. Oh, my girlfriend has frozen shoulder right now. It's awful. Well, how old is she? She's just turned thirty nine. Yeah, it's about it's a little little on the young side on the young side. But yeah, my wife claims to have frozen jaw. But I know I'm skeptical. She just has frozen heart. Yeah. How long did your frozen shoulder last? It lasts about nine months. Yeah, she's had it for more than.

And then it just goes away. Like I went to the doctor. I went like they gave me what the insurance gave me a physical therapy session, but the physical therapist says, yeah, this is not going to do that much for you. Yeah. But your insurance pays for it. Sure. Uh, which seems like a scam to me, but, but, you know, um, she said just like nine months.

It'll go. My wife's had it for 17 years. Uh, I, I, these don't look like we're looking at pictures of basil. So, uh, you can see. She said just like nine months. My wife's had it for 17 years. These don't look like we're looking at pictures of basal cell. You can see. Maybe you can pull that up. These do not look like what you have. Well, that's squamous.

Is that squamous? What's squamous? Another kind of carcinoma. All right. So, OK. So now you want to introduce us to the Rogan thing. What time is Sean Wallace coming? Rogan, apparently, you know, after because we had to get another match.

And we talked about Buffalo last time. And then, of course, now there's I don't know how to pronounce a lot of Texas. I've only been reading it. So I don't know. Valdez. Yeah, I also have only been reading it. So there was a far more gas. Well, I don't was more ghastly.

It was kids. So in that sense, much more gas. And it was more numerous, more victims, right? More victims than they were kids. So in that sense, it's much more ghastly. And it was more numerous, more victims, right? More victims than there were kids. So Rogan was on his podcast, you know, saying that they shouldn't take guns away from people because then only criminals will have guns. That's roughly what he said. I mean, you could maybe if you want to watch,

if Nicole can pull it up for the clip or not. But that's essentially what he said. It's an old talking point, obviously. It's nothing that he came up with. There's a lot to that because it's not that anybody's saying we're going to ban guns entirely. I mean, some people are saying that should ban AR-15s entirely full stop. Like, it's not even a question.

Like to be able to better check who's getting them, not taking them away, but not giving them out as freely to people who haven't, you know, for, I know this is an old, old one, but to drive a car, you need to prove that you're capable and you don't need to prove any such thing for guns. Well, the gun people will say that the driving car is not in the constitution. To what extent it's the constitution driving them

or the constitution being used as an excuse, I don't know. Also, I feel like we are now, you know, we're here. We didn't create the Constitution. The somebody pointed me to the old Jim Jeffries bit about gun control in which he talks about how people want. It's an amendment and people want to potentially just make more amendments. Like the amendment is changing of the constitution. Like they wrote the constitution. Then they were like, okay, now here's an amendment to it.

So I feel like talking about what they said years ago compared to what would be, you know, good, healthy, productive and reasonable now. Like it can't just be, well, they said a thing, so we can't do anything. So everybody hold on. As far as I understand it, there has been an assault weapons ban or a semi-assault, whatever they call it, AR-15s. And it was not disqualified constitutionally. It is not handguns are protected by the constitution in your home. I don't know what extent of what was protected, but I do not believe that the reason we don't have a law against AR-15s is the Second Amendment. I think that law was sunsetted,

the sun set on that law. And politically, these laws are not viable in many states. But people don't want to. It's not Constitution. But to what extent is the Second Amendment and the idea that the founding fathers said these things influencing people's view of gun control. In other words, if the Constitution never said anything about guns, would people have views like they have today? Would their views be similar? I think the urge to want a gun in your home to defend yourself is is wholesome. Actually, I don't have a gun to tell myself, but, um, if I, there's plenty of places on planet earth that if I lived, I would think it was very reasonable to have a gun to protect myself and AR

15, maybe not, but can I just say, say one thing, because, you know, I should preface it by, it's so hard for me to imagine even talk about this thing because when I did break and cry a little bit about it when I was talking to Juanita about it because you picture your own children there. And if you have children there, it's just the and this is before I even heard the gruesome details of that story. But having said that and trying not to be just, you know, come to opinions by the fact that something is emotional. It's a minuscule number of people that are killed in mass killings and even more minuscule that are killed where they are. Fifteen is point four percent of all shootings are mass killings and something like 100 people

killed a year where there are 15 and not all not all in mass shootings. And and obviously, for instance, even in this horrible case, he was in there for an hour. So although he used an AR-15, it's not at all any reason to think that he couldn't have killed maybe all the kids or many of the same number with some sort of- We should be grateful for all the kids that he didn't kill.

So wait, wait, let me say But the The fact is that there's 19,000 Homicides every year And Each one of those Homicides or most of them some of them maybe You know contributed to their Fact that they're murdered but

Many many of them Are just as tragic as Any other soul that's lost. And the president doesn't give a speech about those homicides. And you know how many young children are going to be killed in Chicago in the next 12 months? And not in an unpredictable school of thousands of school in 50 states, but in a in a time and place which is very, very predictable, particular neighborhoods, particular areas where where it could be stopped with aggressive policing. Many, many just the defund the police movement alone has a has a death toll to it, empirically proven already, which dwarfs this latest school shooting. So there's something very dangerous about emotional reactions, which can lead you to not the smartest reaction. And I compared this to, you can see Schindler's List, and it can literally reduce you to tears because

there's a narrative and there's pictures and there's all the things that play on the human psychology. And then you could read in a history book about the 6 million Jews that died and you can literally find yourself falling asleep. Like you can't even stay awake because it's so boring, but that's not, but that's, but that's how emotions are. And as much as I am so moved and I want to never have another school shooting, of course, there's something perverse about the way we have so inured to the 19,000 other homicides, the way we take no measures, the way no politician makes that their cause. And as a matter of fact, plenty of politicians line up behind policies that are predictably exacerbating these homicides.

And that makes me very angry. I've said many times on the show, nobody speaks for the thousand people, whatever it is, that are going to die in Chicago over the next 12 months. Nobody. There's not a single politician who makes that their cause. They're very concerned about AR-15s in Texas. There's a fucking Illinois politician concerned about the people that would be murdered in his state.

I don't see that. And that bothers me. But having said that, I'm not a Second Amendment guy. Take the AR-15s away. I don't, I don't, I don't, I don't, I'm not advocating keeping AR-15s. Don't mistake what I'm not a second amendment guy. Take the AR-15s away. I don't, I don't, I don't, I don't not, I'm not advocating keeping AR-15s. Don't mistake what I'm saying, but I feel that we are, we're just reacting viscerally to this horrible thing. And we're putting all our bandwidth into trying to bring down what is already a tiny number of murders. And I, and it's almost as if we care more about the perpetrators.

That's really what's fueling our agenda. It's in the South, it's white people, it's almost as if we care more about the perpetrators. That's really what's fueling our agenda. It's in the South. It's white people. It's whatever it is. That's what really gets our goat. It seems like that's what bothers us more than who gets killed. There was a video today on Twitter

of this Asian guy just getting the shit kicked out of him. Did you see that by these guys who just had him up against the thing and just pummeling him. Nobody cares. Nobody cares because it's not really about the Asian guy getting beaten up. It's about the profile of the person beating him up. That's what,

that's, that's what activates everybody. But this wasn't a white guy beating these Asian everybody. That's what activates the, the critical mass of the media. And and that's what turns something into a into a national story at the front of our mind, as opposed to something which just passes overnight, in my opinion. If this had been if this had been some white thugs beating up this Asian guy, it would be all we'd be talking about

today. But in a healthy world where it was really just about this poor Asian guy who got beaten up, we'd be talking about it doesn't matter who beat him up. But we don't do that. So let's bring on Sean Valence. Sean Valence, are you with us? He's not here yet. Oh, I thought I thought I saw. So you want to answer me? Yeah, a couple of quick things. I've got some numbers for you. So no emotions necessary. Do you know that in 2020, suicides were more than half of the gun deaths?

I did know that. So I feel like you're talking about murders in a way that if you should be talking about let's reduce reducing the number of suicides will reduce the number of gun deaths overall. And the part that I just like to before, you know, I'm less bothered by suicides than I am. Well, most people are less bothered by suicides. And I think that back to the Constitution, like part of the amendment is a well, well regulated is a part of it for sure that and that's what people are talking about. People want more. I think the majority of Americans do instance, in New York and Chicago or I mean, do you do you believe that by outlawing something you can really prevent? Like, is Joe Rogan crazy? Like, I mean, we're trying to get rid of fentanyl, right?

Well, first of all, no one's saying ban guns, but. Well, let's say we did this 400 million guns in the country already. Criminals get like, does the mafia buy their guns legally? Do street thugs buy their guns legally? Do people buy their fentanyl legally? Like like how do you outlaw things, by the way? Oh, just just to go back. More people are killed every year with blunt instruments than AR-15s. Just so you know, that's that's how like just like people get hit over the head with a plate or a frying pan. More people die like that. What about an anvil?

Or an anvil? I mean, it's that's what a minuscule number of murders these AR-15s contribute to. Viscerally, they're impossible to stomach. But just so you know what the problem that we're talking about is, it's actually quite a tiny problem. Okay. I mean, isn't it the number one cause as well for guns are the number one cause of death for children. The fact of the matter is, yes, yes, yes. Yeah. Well, that's because of COVID, but yes, other countries, it's unacceptable that there's so many deaths. I know that we have more stabbings in any other country too. Other countries do seem to have the ability to,

to at least vastly reduce the number of killing. Now, they probably politically we couldn't do this here. But, you know, other countries, you got to register your gun every year. They got to they make sure you still have it. If you if you I'm not sure what kind of this is. I think in Japan, if you don't have. Oh, yeah, we can. If you don't have a gun, if you if you have a gun, you can have a gun. But the government has to know you have the gun. And every year they'll be like, show us your gun.

And if you ain't got it, you go to jail. Right. So why can't we do that? Politically, we can't do that. But the point is, we can't do it. But we don't know what's the chicken and what's the egg. We have a violent culture. If you look like FiveThirtyEight.com did a, you know, broke it down by. You can't even talk about it, but the fact is that.

There are there are there are whole pockets of America that have unlimited access to guns with very, very, very low murder rates. I actually saw the exact opposite in a chart. Well, I can show. I also just read something about how in Canada they're saying we see the same movies that you guys sees we play that you guys see. We play the same video games. We listen to the same music. We don't have the death tolls with guns that you guys have. You know why? Because we don't have fucking guns. That's not the reason they don't have the murderers that we have.

Well, we wouldn't have the murderers that we have either if we didn't have as many means for that. We'd have some some fewer for sure. There's a lot of problems. And so I think it sounds like you're saying there's so many problems. So we might not might as well not in an ideal world. You said you believe guns in the home are wholesome. So in your ideal world, I said the desire to protect yourself with a gun is a wholesome. So when you're OK, well, in your ideal world, what would be the limitations on gun ownership? I mean, it also feels idealistic to say that because the rate of people injuring themselves and their loved ones in a home is much higher than the number of people protecting themselves from outside. So here so here is a chart from five to eight. Now I'm to take the, I'm going to risk actually reading this out loud.

Okay, but no, you have to promise me that you will not back. I will not back it up. So 538.com is a pretty left-wing outfit, right? So I'm just reading. Now, and 538, what I'm going to read to you now, in my opinion.

I mean, it's about statistics. So it's just numerical, empirical, neither left nor right. This is, in my opinion, what I'm reading to to now is a national tragedy that. That a a a progressively minded person would want to attack with all his might. I understand it can be twisted into be something to the opposite, but I'm just telling you from my heart, that's not the way I mean it. Okay? So murders per 100,000 people. Canada

has 1.5 Canada has 1.5 murdered out of 100,000 people. What would you guess the United States white community has? Canada has what? Well, you're 1.5 out of 100,000 people in Canada are

murdered. Every year? I believe it's every year. Yeah. What would you guess the white number is? I'm not even going to guess. With all the guns that we have all through the South and in the lily white states, what do you think their statistic is? Three. Obviously, since you're asking the question, it's about the same.

2.5. Oh, yes. Almost double. With all. Well, it's less than that. But listen, when you start almost double. Right. But when you have minuscule numbers, anybody in statistics will tell you.

But we don't. We have 300 million people. So that's a considerable point. Is that out of 100,000 people? One more person. That's very statistically relevant. It's well out of 100,000. It's not.

So it's like saying cancer went from one breast cancer stroke. One out of 100,000 people now striking 200, 200, 100,000 people. Yes, it's 100 percent increase. However, no one's it's still not enough to make anybody that worried about cancer. If you tell me something happens, what about Dan? If you tell me something happens once out of 100,000 or twice out of 100,000 times, I'm going to like that. I'm not worried about either of those scenarios. OK, but that was just that was just white people in America now. OK, what do you think it is for black people? Higher. Twenty. Twenty.

Nineteen point four. I'm sorry. Nineteen point four. So which brings the United States up to an overall Hispanic is five point three. So what we have here in Asian breakdown? What we have here, Asians don't even make the list. What we have here is... By the way, the lowest country... We need less guns and more Asians. The highest country after the United States

is Lithuania at 7. What we have here is a tragic cultural problem going on here that cannot be explained. Well, I mean, if you were to tell me, well, I guess because, you know, black people can't handle guns and white people can. I mean, that's that would be these are the people being killed, right?

Yes, but we know that virtually everybody, as you don't know anything. Yes, we do. So anybody statistics, I'm not going to take the time now because it's a well worn statistic. Everybody knows this. Everybody doesn't know anything. Yes, we do. Read the statistics. I'm not going to take the time now because it's a well-worn statistic. Everybody knows this. Everybody doesn't know. Well, I will bet you $1,000. That what? That every black person was killed by a black person?

No, that overwhelmingly above 90%. I'd really like for you to get the details. Okay, I will look it up. Well, that is true from everything I've read, that people tend to be murdered. By the people them, by the people that by the people of the same color. Murder, interracial murders far rarer than murder, white on white, black on black, et cetera, et cetera. So this is what I'm saying. So you could talk about gun control. But that's fine. But let's not pretend we don't have deeper problems than gun control.

This is why this is why more people are stabbed in America than other countries, too. Well, certainly there's no argument that you could do far less damage with a knife than with an AR-15 or any other sort of gun. Right. So this seems like great news for all the white people who are terrified very irrationally. I feel like this would be great news. Like the it seems to me that it's mostly the white people that we hear and see that are like we need to keep these guns in our house for our protection. But like objectively speaking, white people are in the least danger. They're the most fearful unreasonably, would you say? Well, if those statistics are correct, then that would be I guess it's hard to argue that point.

Yeah. I mean, I'm wondering how much how much of people's desire to have a gun in the home is to protect themselves and how much of it is just the culture is just steep. I don't know the answer to this. Oh yeah. But I mean, just, I just, I don't understand it myself, but the people just love guns. I think beyond, beyond simply their practical uses. So, so actually it's, it's worse for your case. Okay. 15.8% of white victims were killed by blacks last year. Okay.

So that, and 8.6% of black people were killed by whites. So it actually skewers. It actually, if you want to figure that out, it actually skews, skews the, the, the deficit even more greatly. So that's, that's the statistics. So this is a natural and that is what bothers me. So like, like to me as a rational person, if I'm going to honestly talk about murder in America and guns and all of it and try to and try to hammer out a strategy to save lives. of what's going on, what neighborhoods is happening, what programs need to address cultural problems, what more policing can do.

I mean, these are complex issues, right? Or we can just reduce it to AR-15s. Or we can do both. We can try to have- But you can't really do both. That's the thing. Like, it's hard. There's only limited bandwidth.

You're not going to get Congress to get all up and put all the energy into getting rid of AR-15s and and then also figure out what's happening in Chicago. It's going to be one or the other. And it's just and it really just rubs me the wrong way at the same time that we know this defund the police movement has contributed to so many other people being killed. But also, don't you think murder spiking in New York City now? Right. Yeah. Are there more guns than there used to be? Probably. No, they're not. Murder went down with a fewer guns and murder went down. OK, I don't know, but I do know this. You do know. I do know that the laws and the check marks and the checks and the balances and the things that are in place for somebody to be able to gain access to these guns is deeply, deeply flawed. And there is absolutely no good reason for it is

inexcusable that an 18 year old should be able to walk in and buy a fucking AR-15 and go into a school and murder 10, 19, 20, even one child. There's, I mean, Chicago, I agree that that is a catastrophic failure on the part of the government and that something needs to be done urgently. That's just Chicago. OK, but you were talking. Yeah, 19000 homicide. But you were talking about Chicago. Yes, I agree with that.

But I do not think that these things are mutually exclusive. You can't buy Sudafed, Noam. Question is, if somebody gets it in their head that they want to go commit murder. Yes, some of these things are spur of the moment and impulsive and they run into the gun store. And if only the gun store had been closed, you know, if there was a two day period, which I think is what people are at. They call it would and it would have a two day waiting or whatever they're advocating or a background check or this and that. But you would reduce some murders.

You can move it inches and moving it inches is certainly worthwhile because that would be life saving. Unless you believe that there's positive benefits to AR-57s. AR-15s. But no, what I believe is that there is a

you can't do everything at once. I mean, but the gun people will No, what I believe is that there is a. And we can't you can't do everything at once. I mean, but the gun people will say, yes, maybe we can save a few lives from mass murders, but the the the the right of the citizens to own these these weapons has advantages. You know, if God forbid the government becomes tyrannical, whatever they'll say, I can I thought to me, there's something sick. I don't know how to put it. We see, Mike,

we see non-white people, forget about these kids, non-white people dropping like flies. I mean, a lot of the kids that were killed was... Well, they were... I'm talking about every day,

every day. And there's just something deeply wrong killed was what they were talking about every day, every day. And. And there's just something. Deeply wrong. With the way we don't want to confront this problem for fear. Of. Being called politically, you know, of saying something wrong or being, God forbid, having your motives impugned. I was critical of Mayor Bloomberg for stop and frisk because I thought he

carried it well beyond the law of diminishing returns, you know, triple or quadruple what Giuliani did with relatively few additional lives saved. But there was always something about him I did respect because I did feel like his attitude was, I don't give a shit what you say. I'm saving lives. I know I'm saving lives. And that's the highest calling. Call me whatever you want. But I know in was true, that 7000 murders had been avoided in New York City, something like that, after stop because of stop and frisk 7000 lives saved. I'm like, no, get rid of that. Get rid of that, because, you know, that's problematic. 7000 lives. We don't even we don't even have the debate. Like, where do you draw the line between what is clearly unacceptable? You're an innocent, wholesome black guy and you're and you're being harassed by the police.

This is this is no way to live. We can't have a country like that. I get that. You know, I've always said that every black friend I had had a story of being humiliated by the cops. I never take that lightly. And yet 7,000 lives, mostly black, saved. And the way we handle it is let's not even talk about it. Let's just pretend it's not even happening. And let's just concentrate on the next headline about an AR-15. And I agree with you. We need to address it.

But there's something deeply wrong, I think, with the fact that we don't react. The 19,000 lives is like reading the Holocaust book about the six million. It does not activate us. And it puts us to sleep. This Uvalde tragedy is Schindler's List. It's a real tragedy, but there has to be something more than simply the emotional reaction to the viscerally difficult

story to take. There also has to be an objective reaction to wait a second. That's a tiny number. And there's 19,000 that we're not reacting.. I just want to say that I disagree with the analogy because since when is a book about the Holocaust boring? Certainly Diary of Anne Frank wasn't boring or Ila Wiesel's Night wasn't boring. No, they're not boring when you can personalize it into a narrative with a picture and a story. Anne Frank is a compelling story.

Six million died. That's just, it's just a history book. It's dull. The 19000 homicides. It's dull. These poor children, the story, the killer went in. He shot them one by one. There was a 911 call. The murder. The mother went in. I mean, he's literally choked up thinking about it. This is this is real stuff. What about putting money into cops at schools, guards? I'm for everything that would save lives, including the school shootings. I hope nobody misunderstands.

But I feel like there are so many poor children. And again, let me say, I said it before, there's, I don't know, thousands of schools in the country in this, in the country. It's very difficult to predict which school is the most likely to be hit next. But in other places, this does not happen.

But every day, no, it actually does happen. Not even remotely. No, that's not true. Talking about other countries. Yeah. No, in other countries it does happen, but it happens once here, once there, once there. Europe, Europe stats are, Europe take it as a whole,

I think are exceed America, I believe per capita in terms of mass shootings over a certain period of time. We divide the countries individually. Then what's the population of Europe as a whole? It's comparable to. Is it the same as the United States? I think probably, probably much more.

I did a lot of research. I'm going to guess that you talk about Western Europe or Europe, the entire. I'm going to guess the continent of Europe has a has a has a population of six hundred twenty five million. And no, no, no. I'm going to amend that five hundred and thirty two million people on the continent of Europe. This includes Eastern Europe. The U.S. is uniquely terrible at protecting children from. You have a guess, Mike Kaplan.

Oh, population of Europe. I don't. Are you looking that up now? No, but I'm going to read you the stat. I'm going to have to look that up. I thought it was an interesting talking point, because if you're going to compare Europe to America, you have to get the population

I remember from comparing COVID I was right the first time 747 million people probably Western Europe is what they talk about I don't think so it's more than double the population in the United States sure

so if it has the same amount of mass shootings then you would have to say it has half the rate. So where is the article? Does the United States have more mass shootings in other countries? It depends on the data. Average mean annual death rates per million people from mass shootings 2009 to 2015. Norway is number one, Serbia, France, Macedonia, Albania, Slovakia, Switzerland, Finland, Belgium, Czech Republic, then the United States. That's if you take the average of these countries. But there's different statistical ways. That's a mean number.

If you use the median. And that's also mass only murders, right? Yeah. So there's different statistical ways to analyze this. And depending on how you analyze it, you can put America as number one. So I read some convincing refutations of doing it that way. But having said that, even at its worst, it's not quite our perception of it. We kind of perceive that this doesn't even exist elsewhere in the world.

Well, what's the list where it doesn't divide them into mass murders and less than that? Oh, no. America's homicide rate is way, way, way more. But this is what I'm saying. Yeah. We need to address that. Sure. I agree with you. There is a cultural shift that is necessary. We need to. I mean, would. I mean, like, would white people. Permit their children to be victims of murders the way the way we allow other colored people like we would flood the we we demand that they flood our neighborhoods with cops i think and our neighborhood neighborhoods basically are flooded with cops i don't know i don't know listen nobody knows what the answer is i don't claim to know

what the answer is i don't even know what your question is well the question is how this all started with joe rogan's statement that how do you how do you bring murders down and how and they seem to be ticking up? How do you act? Rationally, listen, after this perfect example, after 9-11. We we demanded action. And as we know, in retrospect, a lot of that emotional reaction was not smart. It was not effective. It got us into situations. You could make the argument now that maybe even going to Afghanistan was a bad idea. But the but the urge to do something was so overwhelming. I mean, whose urge are you talking about? I feel like you're talking about in very specific generalities when it serves you. And I'm not sure when you say everyone, everything like the urge of almost any normal person who saw those people burn to death. But it wasn't the emotional reaction of the average citizen that led George W. Bush to invade Iraq. Well, I don't know if that's right. I mean, it certainly sounds like you're saying that it definitely is.

It certainly has something to do with the fact that the country overwhelmingly supported him. I don't think that's right. It definitely had to do with evading Afghanistan. It definitely had to do with the Patriot Act. It definitely had to do with a decrease in civil liberties. All things that I supported and some of them I still support. I'm not even necessarily saying that they were all wrong. I'm not even saying invading Iraq was wrong. I'm just saying that a lot of that George W. Bush is saying it, though. He said that by accident. Yeah,

because he's been thinking about it for 20 years. You don't know that. I mean, you I know it more than you know, whatever you're saying. How could you say such a thing? Because I'm basing it on what he said. And you're saying you don't know what he was thinking. All we know is what he said. He missed. He was talking about Ukraine. And the whole the whole speech was about Ukraine.

And then he said he misspoke and said Iraq. Joe Biden has misspoken and said a million dumb things. I've never claimed that. Was it a Freudian slip? It could have been a Freudian slip. You don't know that. It's very poignant. By the way, is our guest Steve Wilentz coming or is he

Sean Wilentz? He is. He lost track of time. I just spoke. Well, he's an historian. He's living in the past. Is he coming now? Yeah, he's going upstairs. But of course, the first thing I was thinking of is, oh, my God, this is the second time we've had him booked and he's not coming in.

How is this going to become my fault somehow? Well, you know, historians repeat themselves. Right. But but so just to recap, I am not I hope they outlaw AR-15s. They're not going to. Why are you saying that? Because the states are fucking criminal. The states that have these AR-15s legal culturally do not want them outlawed.

They just don't. All of these people should go to jail, by the way, on the record. I see everybody who thinks that an AR-15 should be by the way. By the way, that's an intelligent argument. I'm not it is an intelligent. I'm not a gun person, to say the least. But from from what I've read, the AR-15 looks mean and looks like a military weapon, but there's many other weapons that look like hunting rifles I've read the AR-15 looks mean and looks like a military weapon. But there's many other weapons that look like hunting rifles that can do the same job.

The AR-15. Get rid of all of them. Any rapid fire weapon. Get rid of it. In my idea of a sane world, we would make it almost impossible for for we don't want everyday people to get them. We've been. So you're agreeing with me. I'm agreeing with you, but I'm saying that it is not like you. I'm saying it is not going to move the needle much on what to really be

disturbing us, which is disturbing us, which is. The thousands and thousands and thousands, including children, people being murdered every year, I don't hear anybody really caring about that. I don't hear it. Is it because you're yelling so much that you're not listening? Am I yelling? OK, can we let him Steve Willens? Sean, if you say that again, get your 15 on Sean Willens. Are you with us? He's joining. Sean Valence, whilst he's logging in, I'll do his introduction. There he is. Sean Valence. Hi.

Sean Valence is professor of American history. But we can't hear you. You've got to unmute your mic, sir, if you can. Well, I'll do the intro whilst he's taking care of that. He is a professor of American history at Princeton University, or in the Flintstones, they called it Princeton U. Fred's alma mater, I believe. Am I unmuted now?

You're unmuted. Thank you, sir. You're out. There used to be a comedy club in Princeton. And the first time I went there, I thought it was going to be all professors and students. I expected Tweed, Jaggis. Not a single person from the town of Princeton was at that comedy club. Which club was it? What was the name of the club? It was the Catch a Rising Star from the town of Princeton was at that comedy club. Which club was it?

What was the name of the club? Catch a Rising Star in the Hyatt Hotel in Princeton. No kidding. Wow, that went by me. I would have been there to watch you. I think that it's still there. Anyway, Sean Willant's author of numerous books, including, well, this is interesting, he's a history professor, Bob Dylan in America.

Yes, indeed. Dylan's place in American cultural history. And he's currently at work on the Triumph of American Anti-Slavery, a companion volume to the Rise of American Democracy, which will offer a comprehensive political history of the anti-slavery movement from the 17th century to 1865, the year of emancipation. Welcome, Sean Wilentz, to our podcast. I am delighted to be here. So let's start with Dylan. Since we actually, my father owned the place called

the Cafe Finjan in 1960 where Dylan... No kidding! Do you know that place? Did I know that place? First of all, it was the only place to hear Israeli folk music. And the Finjan was just around the block from everything else. The Finjan was great.

So Dylan was great. Yeah. So Dylan was a regular guy. My father knew him and my father didn't admire his talent. I can remember as a little boy when I would try to tell my father that Dylan was good. I'd say, what about Blowing in the Wind? Blowing in the Wind is a good song, right? And my father would say, I just don't believe he wrote it. Wow.

Like father, like son. I will say that my father was a very fine musician, but I guess he'd only heard Dylan like he wasn't a good harmonica player and he didn't get Dylan. A lot of people don't. They still don't. But, you know, we do. Now, when you say that there was only one

place to see Israeli folk music, it sounds like XX Supply to me. No, the Fijian, you know, they showed everybody. I mean, look, it was near Bleecker and McDougal. There were a whole bunch of clubs there, and the clubs were very eclectic. They had a lot of different things. They had comedy acts.

They had, you know, you name it. But Israeli folk music was not a big deal in New York City, except in certain neighborhoods. Certainly not in Greenwich Village. So but no, it was great. It was it was lots of good stuff. I mean, there was a traditional stuff that, you know, that the likes of Theo Bacall would play. But they were younger kids. It was just hitting everywhere, the folk music business, and it was going to hit there too. Well, actually, you might be interested in this. There was also an overlap because Felix Pappalardi, you know who he was?

He was the producer for Cream and a great bass player. I've been waiting. He played in my father's band for a short time. Whoa, whoa, whoa. Your father's band? What was your father's band? Finjan Group. Oh, that was your father's? Oh, wow.

And Pappalardi? Yeah, well, he played with everybody. I mean, he got around. band what was your father's being john group oh that was your father's oh wow and papa lord yeah well he played with everybody i mean when you know he got around and then he stole some of my father's musicians for a project called the devil's anvil which was supposed to be uh uh a middle eastern rock band whatever so there was a lot of cross-pollinate steve knight who was the keyboard player from mountain also you're gonna write you're gonna write this book man this is your book to write if i may interject gnome doesn't want to work that hard he's got enough money and he wants to stay home with his he's got young kids he was a late in life father and that's his priority my father used to take long uh high uh marijuana fueled road trips with le Cohen. He did? Yeah, yeah. My father knew Leonard Cohen very well.

But that was the 60s at that time. Forbid me, what was your dad's name? What is your dad's name? Manny Dwarman, Menachem Dwarman. Oh, yeah, I've heard of him. That's your dad, huh? That's my dad, yeah. Very cool. So there's actually an uninterrupted line from that first Fien John

all the way to the comedy seller today yeah uh so that's where so tell us tell us about dylan what do you want to know well what's what's the what's the thrust of your book about dylan well it's to try to put dylan's work his career his music into the context of american culture right and uh there are lots of books about bob dylan there are lots of biographies about Bob Dylan. I started writing actually for him back around 2001. I was actually a little bit earlier. I was writing his liner notes and stuff for reasons we go into, if you'd like. It was a lot of fun and or one set of liner notes and then another set of liner notes and another set of liner notes. But anyway, I had all these essays I'd written about him and his music. And I finished one book and I thought, you know, why don't I figure out a way to put all these books together or put all these essays together in a book?

And that's that's how it came about. So it was really this funny mixture of fandom and criticism. I mean, like your dad, my dad had a bookshop on the corner of McDougal and Eighth Street. So I grew up not one of the Eighth Street Bookshop, it was called a street bookshop on the corner of McDougal and eighth street. So I grew up, not the eighth street bookshop. It was called a street bookshop. Yeah. And it was, they call it that. Not, not, not hard. It was better than grants too. Yeah, right. Exactly. So I was, I grew up in that milieu much as, as you did. And so I was always attracted to it. I, I, I, I loved Dylan's music, but then I got this call to do these do this work for him. And then things

kind of developed from there. How did that happen? You know, I've never really asked. I mean, I got a phone call from a guy and he said, I want to, you know, you want to write this thing? I said, who are you? And he told me who he was. And I said, well, I never heard of you. And I hung up. And then he called me back saying no I'm for real and he gave me reason to believe that he was for real and I said well I'll do it but you got to send me the record first because you know it was a record I'd never heard and if I didn't like it it was going to be embarrassing right um but it was the it was the album Love and Theft which came out actually on September 11th 2001 wow yeah, which is weird in itself, but, um, but I read, I, you know,

they, I, they sent it to me. I listened to it. I loved it. So I wrote this, this thing that they were not going to do liner notes for that record. They were going to put them online. That was, you know, very early on in on liner notes. Yeah. Yeah. On liner notes. Exactly. Very good. And, uh, so that's where they appeared. And, um, but then I kept kept on going so it was a lot of fun but but I had all of this I don't know childhood memories were coming to the fore as I was doing this the book in many ways is about my father as much as it is about about Bob Dylan in a sort of you know subterranean way it's about growing up around that music but it was also to try and put his entire career not just the early days blown in wind, the things that people know about mostly, but to put his entire career in the context of this very, very what a complicated connection he has to all sorts of American culture.

And I look at various points along the way in his career and try to delve into those as a way to try to excavate some of those connections. Can you explain to me? Cause I always wondered about Dylan. What is he saying? It's hard to understand. There was always something that seemed so for lack of a better word, crazy about the guy, the way he would turn his back to the audience, the way he would just do his songs in ways that were unrecognizable, perform songs in a way, which he would almost know the audience wouldn't enjoy. Yeah. How do you explain all that?

Well, I mean, you know, that isn't the way he always is. Sometimes he's very engaged. So it depends on what night you're getting a Bob Dylan concert these days. But, you know, over the course of his career, his connection to the audience has changed a lot. And that was one of the reasons I wanted to get into the whole career in the book. I mean, when he starts out, if you listen to recordings of him either very, very early at places like the Fiend John and places like the Gaslight, he's very connected to the audience. I mean, he's doing a kind of Charlie Chaplin act on stage and he's making jokes and he's doing all kinds of stuff. And then later on, you know, when he became a kind of cult figure in that scene before he became a real pop star, but, you know, 1963, 64, you know, he talks to the audience all the time. He'll call out,

you know, what do you want me to play or I won't play that or what have you. He'll go back and forth with the audience. It was pretty intimate. It was a bit more like a club than like a concert hall in that stage. And then something changed. And what changed in part was his view of himself as an artist. He was not just a folk singer singing in the club. He was doing something that was bigger than that. And he was not going to just, he was going to perform it. And that was going to be that. He also got burned a lot. I mean, there were a lot of nasty things written about him. And I think he just wanted to have a kind of detachment from the audience. He didn't want to be, you know, feel as vulnerable in some ways to the audience as, as he might've been. So yeah, yeah. Right. But you know, but that, and that would continue because he kept, you know, he kept changing. He kept, you know, ticking off his own people, his own audience.

I mean, you know, when he went gospel in the late 70s, a lot of people hated it, hated it. But he wasn't going to be stopped. So in many ways, it's just him being, you know, the absolute individualist that he is. He is the artist that is not going to compromise with anybody or anything. And that shows up in his, in his, in his performances on stage. Yeah. I was just wondering what, what impact, you know, we talk a lot about the Beatles here and, and Noam's always talking about how his kids love the Beatles. They're young kids. Yeah. Is Dylan touching the, the, the, the, the younger generations? I, in my mind, Dylan's like,

you know, he doesn't have that. He he's not. Yeah. The young people like yourself love him. Yeah. I don't know if you have children or grandchildren or. Well, I do like him. They like him, but you're right. I mean, you know, he's a harder act than the Beatles. The Beatles are, you know, sweet, wonderful music that transcends time. Dylan's a different kind of artist. And it's not going to be, you know, liked by, you know, have that kind of pop, you know, popularity.

That said, I mean, when I go to the concerts these days, there are a lot of younger people there. People even younger than you guys are there. I saw him in college, yeah. Yeah, and they're not dragged there by their parents, you know, as you might expect. I mean, so there is a younger audience that that one way to measure music almost like in a laboratory sense is how it plays in countries that don't understand the lyrics. Yes. So like people love Bob Marley everywhere in the world.

They have no idea what he's saying, right? They know he's talking about pot. And, and, and there's an interesting, they love rap music, even in other countries. They don't understand the music at all, the lyrical there, but the, but the music and the attitude, whatever it is still comes through. How does Dylan play in areas where they don't speak English? He's all over the world.

There are probably, he's played everywhere. He's very big in Europe. I mean, that's obvious that he's very, very big in Europe, England. Sure. But, but, but in, in countries, France, but they probably speak English huge he's even bigger in japan and they probably speak english in japan as well um um around people oh no um you know but he just played china and i don't think that necessarily there's a big chinese you know english-speaking community maybe there is bob dylan more than other artists the lyrics count i mean the times they are a changing,

the lyrics are everything in that song. I think that's right. No, I think that's right. And I think enough people can speak the language of the English language. They can get, you know, connect with it. So, yeah, I can't see going to Bob Dylan just for the, just for the, what the rhythm. Well, let me, let me just, you know, disagree with that for a second, only to say that when i was a young kid i loved those dylan melodies times that are changing oh yeah when whatever it is and although i spoke the language i had no idea of what he was talking about i did

not care a hoot about what the lyrics were yeah you might be right about that i guess that's right because i thought a bad melody the times they changing, but the lyrics are so profound. Yeah, it's definitely another level of appreciation. But yes, I put simple melodies in a Hank Williams sort of sense. You know, you got a point there. And also, it's Dylan's sound. I mean, Dylan doesn't sound like anybody else. And it's the combination of the harp, which he plays less and less.

But he used to play it a lot. And his voice, the whole thing. I mean, he is aware of that as an artist. He's not just, he's not, he's not writing poetry on paper and giving it to you. He's singing a song and that's a total performance. And that's about the sound as much as anything else. And a lot of people like the sound of like a Rolling Stone, whether they can understand the words or not. Yeah, that's true.

Yeah. I think it's complex. All right. What's the can you tell us a little bit about the exhibit in oklahoma change no it's not okay no it's by bob dylan uh yeah well the bob dylan center opened earlier this month um in tulsa oklahoma which is a story in itself and um it has two it's a very big place it has two levels to it one is the downstairs which is a kind of revolving exhibition but dedicated to him and his life and his career which i had a lot to do with designing and so forth which was a lot of fun for me um and then concentrating on six songs that they've picked out where they have a lot of stuff from the archive um and then upstairs is a different level which which is dedicated to creativity,

kind of something that the entire museum is dedicated to, the Kairos Center is dedicated to, but they do a lot of different ways to try to have you think about what creativity is. And then behind all of that is the archive, which is 100,000 items of Bob Dylan's stuff. Wow, 100,000. So that's the part that I find the most, you know, thrilling.

A lot of toothpicks. Yeah. Right. All of that. Oh, old, you know, the guy's a pack rat. So, you know, like old match sticks with, or not match sticks. He didn't keep Joan Baez around. No people in his, in his archive, no people, but a lot of stuff. And some of it's, you know, just junk, but a lot of it isn't. You see how he writes. This goes to the creativity point.

You see how he wrote his songs, you know, and there was this kind of thing about him being an artist who went into the studio, sang, performed very quickly and got out again. And there was a feeling that he was a very spontaneous kind of writer, but he's not at all. He's a very, very careful writer. And you see that in the manuscripts, and a lot of the manuscripts are there. So that, you know, I mean, the guy's a Nobel laureate. There will be people studying his words, his music for a long time, I would imagine. You can really see, as I've never seen before, the creative process of this kind of artist laid out on paper. It's extraordinary. It's really nice that a historian living today

thinks that there'll be a lot of time in the future for people to look back at. Yeah, right. You're an optimist. This is a talk about history, not politics. I mean, if you want to talk about politics, we'll go there too. But yeah, I'm being hopeful.

So Mr. Wilentz, Professor Wilentz. I think Sean is fine. Sean is fine. Absolutely. I could tell almost without getting into the specifics of it but i would like to get just a little bit specifics of it you were quite brave i thought in um the the letter that you wrote uh pouring cold water on the 1619 right why was i brave because um we're living at a time when people will call for your head.

Yes. And heads have and heads have been served up for less. Yes. Well, go ahead. OK, go ahead. No. So first of all, has it settled down for you? Settled down. I mean, you know, the controversy settled down, so there's not much of a controversy left, but I think that there's still a lot to be said about how do you go about writing history, and I'm still, you know, writing about that on the subjects that the project covered, but also other subjects, and, you know, so in a sense, I'm still on that beat, if you will, and, you know, and I'm writing about anti-slavery. Right. So, you know, it's still part of what I'm thinking about.

I don't know what the outcome was. I mean, you know, the thing was so damn politicized right away. And, you know, a lot of right wing opportunists came in and tried to attack it for good enough reasons. But they had political agenda behind it. My agenda was not political, particularly was purely historical. And I just wanted to make sure that the stuff got projected, you know, got told right. I mean, I was going to see history so poorly presented in a place like the New York Times, which is why we asked for corrections. You know, we figured we figured they were going to make the corrections, but they did not want to make the corrections. What kinds of corrections were you asking for?

Oh, I mean, they had a couple of three sentences that are just false about the American Revolution and slavery. And you say three sentences, okay, that's true. But if you get the American Revolution wrong, in a fundamental way, you're getting a lot wrong, right? It was a big deal. And they didn't want to correct them, even though they were- What was wrong about what they- They said the American Revolution was fought, a primary cause of the American Revolution was the desire to preserve slavery, which is just not true. Secondly, they said that the reason that was the case was because there was a great anti-slave trade movement in England before

the revolution, which was scaring a lot of American slaveholders. There was no such movement in England before the first anti-slavery movement was actually started in America, not in England. And then there was another thing about how getting rid of the slave trade would screw up the entire colonial economy. So north and the south, they wanted to keep slavery because they didn't want to screw up the economy. Totally wrong, just factually wrong. So these are mistakes that are not just mistakes. They misstate a, shall we say, very important event in American history, indeed in world history, the American Revolution, tying it to the preservation of slavery. Now, there's a lot you can say about

slavery in the American Revolution, and it's a complicated story. But to say that is to mistake both the history of slavery and the history of the american revolution you get them both wrong in one go um so that that was one thing that was particularly one minor detail but there were sentences that they got right like more than three probably yeah probably but that's not the point the point is if you're going to get the big stuff wrong if you get the other stuff right you know so what how does something like the new york times get so sloppy with something like that you know that's a question you'll really have to ask them i mean enough they they they um they did have fact checkers and there was one fact checker who wrote in some months later saying that she had been consulted by the times on this very subject of

the slavery in the american revolution and she told them they were full of it. This is terrible. They had to change it. And they didn't listen to it. So what does that tell you? What does that tell you? That tells you that there was an agenda, I think, and that they wanted to get a certain way of thinking about American history down. And they were not going to take no for an answer, even before they got published. I mean, one thing I can see why they might have been a little embarrassed, you know, to correct themselves. You know, they have the Pulitzer Prizes to think about all the rest of it. Maybe they didn't want to respond. But before the fact, that's not good. That's not good. already with being taught certain terrible things about American history. And often from a point of view where the agenda is to try to really convince her that, that America has a lot to be ashamed of, which it does. Right.

What do I, what do I, what is the wisest way that I can explain to her how to put horrible things from the past in a fair perspective, both in terms of comparative history of other nations and, you know, how to judge people from a previous time and place. What you must have thought a lot about that question. Yeah. Well, there are two. What do I tell her? Yeah, there are two points to be made. The one is an historical point, which is that everything that's bad about America, there's always been a struggle over in America. Right. We had slavery, but we also had anti-slavery. Right. We had nativism, but we also had anti-nativism.

There are times when one side wins and another side is not prevalent, but it's always been a struggle. And that's the thing that I find so disturbing about the sort of 1619-ish or similar kinds of ways of looking at history. There's never a struggle. It's just one thing. America's bad or America's good. You know, you could do it either way. There's always been a fight. There's always been a conflict about all of these things that we take so seriously. So I would tell young people, look to the other side and see which Americans are also fighting the thing that you, you know, that we're saying is so terrible. You're always going to find it. And, and, and it's not simply racialized either. I mean,

there are white people who are anti-slavery that, you know, it's much more complicated, but there's always a struggle. There's always John. I was reading recently, somebody tweeted about John Brown. I read a little bit about him. Should he be celebrated as an American hero or is he rightfully kind of... But get to the second part of your point first. Yeah. Well, I mean, John Brown's an interesting character. We can talk about it in a sec. But the second point that I wanted to make, and I can't remember what my second point was, is always to remember a certain amount of humility. Now, it's very hard to teach young

people humility. It's hard to teach old people humility, right? But you have to understand that a hundred years from now, someone is going to be writing about you. Well, my cabin doesn't think there's going to be anybody here in a hundred. I didn't say that. If it's disastrous to say, but let's, let's be, let's be optimistic for a second. Right. And let's assume that there is going to be somebody around. They're going to be writing about you in a hundred years, right?

They're not going to, you may not like what they're going to write and judging you for things that you don't feel particularly guilty about. Let's suppose, suppose for example how many of you got you for how many of you eat hamburgers no i do not eat hamburgers cheeseburgers only cheeseburgers only fine do you want to be known you know a hundred years from now as a complete you know horror you know right up there with hitler right that could happen I'm not saying it's going to happen, but I'm saying is the posterity always makes. I've thought about that very question.

And I'm going to say that that's not going to happen, but I hear what you're saying. And I'm optimistic that it will. The future is always going to judge us by standards that are not our own. Is there anything else besides vegetarianism that you think we might be judged negatively for? I mean, all the clothes we're wearing that are made by in sweatshops in China, that's actually a bad thing, right? But you know, but we're not thinking

about that as a great moral crisis. 100 years from now, they're going to be judging us on that basis. Be careful. Be careful what you say about the past, because somebody is going to be saying it about you. And that's a kind of humility in the face of the past and the future that I think everybody has to inculcate now has to cultivate. You know, it's hard to teach a young. It's hard. I try to teach my graduate students that it's difficult, but I think it's an important lesson in life. Can we get to John Brown? I'd say like, I don't I want them to teach my children everything true about American history. But boy, would I also like it if they would give my daughter an assignment to say, imagine yourself born in Virginia during the colonial times.

Do you think you would know that slavery was wrong? Exactly. To start thinking what it means to be a total victim of being born into a particular system. I mean, the greatest geniuses in my opinion can see just above the heads of their peers. That's what makes them. They don't see down from a thousand feet. They they're great because they see a little bit above the shoulders of their peers. Which brings us to John, the average person can't.

You're making my point better than I just did. I mean, that's right. And I bring this to John Brown, who saw who who was fanatically abolitionist to the point where he tried to start a slave rebellion and several people ended up dying. And then then he ended up being, I guess, executed for treason against the state of Virginia. He is not considered a great hero. He's not on our money. We seldom talk about him. And yet in a world where slavery is thought of as the ultimate sin in American history, why is he not an American hero? Well, I mean, at a certain level, he was on the right side, let's put it that way. I mean, even Abraham Lincoln said that, you know, he stood up against slavery. We're for that. But in 1859, when he did his raid, there was a political movement, a large political movement called the Republican Party that was about to try to, you know, stop the extension of slavery. It was going to do it politically within the country, but it was an anti-slavery movement. Right.

That was there that was political, was going to get something done. Right. All he did was make that movement, you know, make things more difficult for that movement, much more difficult for that movement. Now, it prevailed in the end, and it prevailed for all kinds of reasons that are complicated. But Brown is a kind of, you know, example, I think, of a person who was so driven by his own righteous thought that he forgot about politics altogether. And if you forget about politics altogether, you're probably going to do more damage than you are going to do good. So that's my take on it. I'm not going to condemn as a, you know,

as a, as a crazy man, or, you know, he did what he did. He's like Bob Dylan. Didn't think about what the audience, I'm going to run that one by his people. See what they, the John Brown, Bob Dylan connection. I heard somebody on the radio that they make a point. I, I, I wonder if it's correct because I, it was an impressive point to me. He said that, look, all the European nations had slaves, but they kept their slaves in their colonial possessions. Well, we were the colony. We were the colony. That's right.

So when they separated from their possessions, it was easy. The slaves went with it, and it was a clean break. So we shouldn't be too highfalutin. They shouldn't be too highfalutin in judging us. Look, here's another way of looking at it. Suppose the British had won the American Revolution, right? Or suppose there had never been an American Revolution, right?

Do you think for one minute the British would have abolished slavery in 1833 when they did? They would have had the biggest cotton kingdoms, you know, they would have been making money like crazy. They would have been a leviathan of slavery. Do you think they would have given that up? The American Revolution allowed them to become abolitionists in some ways. So, yeah, I don't think the British have anything to be proud of vis-a-vis us. And as I say, the very first anti-slavery movement in the world was founded in Philadelphia in 1775. So we were, if anything, ahead of the game on all of that. Is there ever been anything like, I know people say all the time, well, slavery has existed throughout history and in all countries,

but it seems that American slavery is anything ever been like it in terms of first of all, it was strict racial. It was along strictly racial lines and you had slaves living in cabins on plantations. And is there anything ever been anywhere like quite like American slavery anywhere? I would say Anglolo-american slavery because the conditions in barbados you know were were worse um than anything in the don't forget

on the american side there was a the population reproduced itself whereas in the tropics the real tropics where the sugar is being you know bring men in work them to death and you know throw them in the ocean and that's the end of it so So, you know, was it the most brutal form of slavery in terms of just physical brutality? Probably not. There were, yeah, but the slave codes are very harsh. I don't in any way want to minimize that. And the racial aspects of it were different compared to, say, Brazil. Portuguese slavery was different and historians have written about, you know, why that's different. If you go to Portugal today, the race relations are very different than they are in the United States because you have a sort of middle you know what stratum of the population which is you know

neither black nor white so yeah I mean American slavery was a terrible terrible thing it was not the only terrible, terrible thing. And I think that to, how to put it, American slavery was reinvented at the beginning of the 19th century. It was reinvented because they discovered how you could cultivate cotton really cheaply thanks to the cotton shit. And all of a sudden, the United States, with slave labor, was in charge of the most, what's the word, in charge of the most money giving, money making. Lucrative. Thank you. The most lucrative agricultural commodity in the world, right, at the forefront of the Industrial revolution with cotton so they were going to be so it was reborn and it was reborn in a very weird nutty crazy let alone cruel way um and racialized completely racialized that is american slavery and you know you have to take it for what it is it's a terrible stain on in in in uh on world history um that's it just tell your daughter that yeah i will tell my daughter that but i i

want all that verbatim i mean i'm i want to tell my daughter like i said everything that's true and i also want to tell her that she has very good reason to be very proud not proud because you happen to be born here but proud objectively of the history of the united states of america which is uniquely in my opinion uniquely good as well to the world. And people fought it. You know, it's not as if slavery came and everybody went, hooray, hooray, we're all going to make a lot of money. You know, there was an anti-slavery movement and it was strong. It was power. Blacks and whites working together, all of that stuff. And I think that you can point with pride to the fact that the United States, even though it had this incredibly lucrative slavery, had, you know, built a movement that the United States, even though it had this incredibly lucrative slavery,

had, you know, built a movement that the first mass political party against slavery was formed in the United States. So, you know, there's always good and bad and everything. And I think you have to, you know, convey that to your daughter as well. I mean, there's nothing pure. I had made the point to somebody that if the if the history of the Germans in the in the 30s and 40s was that the Nazis took over. Yeah. And then the German people rose up and defeated Nazism and hundreds of thousands of Germans died to defeat it. I don't think they'd be quite as ashamed of themselves. That's exactly right. And we did that. And we don't and you can't say that we we have to be ashamed of the slavery and proud of the fact that we threw it off. We never talk about the fact.

We threw it off. That's why I'm writing the book I'm writing. That's the point. And you can't do one without the other. Art, sir, you're a fantastic guest. We're out of time. Oh, no. I'd love to have you on again now that you had, hopefully, a pleasant experience.

I had a wonderful time. Have me back again. I'd love to have you on again now that you had a hopefully a pleasant experience. I had a wonderful time. Have me back again. I loved it. You look a little, you look, you don't sound like, but you look a little bit like Shelby Foote. Oh no. Oh gee. I haven't got that. I'm from Brooklyn. I don't talk like him. I didn't say talk. Like I said, you look a little bit. Okay. All right. Fair enough. Fair enough. It's purely unintentional. It may be the beard and it's the beard thing, you know, for the younger listeners. Shelby Foote is a Civil War historian who gained prominence in Ken Burns Civil War series, which was 30 years ago. Hard to believe. But Civil War, a documentary. But then Shelby and Shelby Foote was a great narrative historian.

You know, he really wrote well. I mean, I don't agree with half of what he had to say, but, you know, you can put that aside. He was a really good writer. I wish I wrote as well as he did. Do you believe, as I do, that the best hope for America is as much interracial mating as possible? Absolutely. You do. Are you doing it at the moment? No. Well, there's always. Well, I mean i mean noam god bless him he is putting his money where his mouth is and his wife is puerto rican slash east indian i think it's look i'm with walt whitman on this i think the future of america is eros it's sex it's love that's what's going to redeem this country if anything's going to redeem this country. If anything's going to redeem this country. Were you at Woodstock? Were you at Woodstock?

I actually was at Woodstock, but I left early because I thought Woodstock was a dirty lie. I have a whole story about Woodstock. Woodstock sucked. It was a lie from top to bottom. Well, as long as you didn't take the brown acid. I'm the only guy. I'm the only guy who went to Woodstock. Right. And paid for a ticket. Didn't get didn't get high and didn't get late. I agree. It was a disaster. How can we trust anything this man says? Right. I was really stupid when I was 18, 17 years old. All right. So I have a hard out at nine o'clock and I have to say it's been it's been a pleasure.

This is really I think it might be one of my favorite podcasts we've done in a very long time. Thank you. I'm very sorry I was so late. It's okay. Thank you. I'm just glad it wasn't my fault. John Willens, ladies and gentlemen. Stop living in the past. John Willens, thank you very much.

Thank you. And thank you, Mike Kaplan. Good night, everybody. Good night, everybody. Thank you.