David Brooks

A second category would be somebody that I don't know and you may not know, but the topic is really important, and I wanna talk about the topic.

But then there's that third category where what I want you to do is just kind of to join me in a conversation that I would already be having, and that's kind of, uh, what we do when Beth's on, when David French is on or David Brooks, uh, just conversations that I just have decided I wanna take online.

This is one of those, and it actually has come out of a real conversation that I was having with this friend one night about the death of, uh, Wendell Berry.

And he made a comment that has sort of stuck with me ever since, and the, and the more I kind of dived into that, the deeper it got in my mind.

Now, there's a book that I'm going to throw out to you, too.

It's a number one New York Times bestseller, and it's by the author of The Road to Character, a guy named David Brooks.

I have not met the man.

I have heard him speak.

And so I'm going to do this.

I'm just going to give you the name of the book again.

One of these books is by David Brooks called The Second Mountain.

The website that I'm going to tell you about that you can go to and get more and more information is called childrenandscreens.com. Here's another book.

And we can only do that through conversation.

That's where David Brooks' How to Know a Person is so helpful.

That book is so phenomenal.

I totally agree.

It's like, I don't know.

great short-form journalists, like David Brooks, right? Not every David Brooks is life-changing, but you kind of know when you click on his thing that it's going to be a certain level and a certain format.

And I think in times of uncertainty when we have literally no blueprint, even if you're super familiar with classical literature and history, you don't really know how to deal with AI.

Then it's joint conversation group inquiry is what is going to put you into a more relaxed you know attitude like okay no individual perhaps understand what's going on and no amount of reading autobiographies of warlords of the past will enlighten you about it but You can trust the community, the human community, that there are people working on the big things.

Ask people about their emotional experience.

"How'd you feel about such and so?" Um, or one that David Brooks, uh, taught me is, uh, when you're in kind of...

This can be done with a stranger, uh, but, "How did you come to believe X?"

Hmm.

That's such a good question.

It reminds me of a book by David Brooks called The Second Mountain.

So there's two angles here that I think is really important and such a good question, Adam, because one perspective is akin to this book, The Second Mountain, which is when people have summited the first mountain, which is effectively the mountain of self, Their own self-interest, you know, their life is oriented towards and about them.

And then they get to the peak and it's like, really, this is it? And you actually see a lot of celebrities, Hollywood actresses saying, I earned all the money, I earned all the fame, and it was so empty.

And.

This is I mean, you got David Brooks like writing in The New York Times about how we have to go to war with Iraq and his son is serving in the IDF, you know.

And if you bring that up, that's supposed to be a problem.

Like it's something you're not supposed to talk about it as if it has no as if it has no attachment whatsoever to the discussion.

Nobody was getting deported or losing their citizenship or anything like that.

Those things weren't happening.

It was that you know that bringing this up, even in the most roundabout, kind of civil way, even if it's like the most obvious thing that should be brought up, you know, people should be talking about the fact that David Brooks' son is in the IDF when he's advocating for U.S. to go over there and take out one of Israel's enemies.

That's an obvious thing that people should mention, right? But anything like that is met with just a level of panic.

And.

This is I mean, you got David Brooks like writing in The New York Times about how we have to go to war with Iraq and his son is serving in the IDF, you know.

And if you bring that up, that's supposed to be a problem.

Like it's something you're not supposed to talk about it as if it has no as if it has no attachment whatsoever to the discussion.

Those things weren't happening.

It was that, you know, that every that bringing this up, even in the most roundabout kind of civil way.

even if it's like the most obvious thing that should be brought up, you know, people should be talking about the fact that David Brooks' son is in the IDF when he's advocating for U.S. to go over there and take out one of Israel's enemies.

That's an obvious thing that people should mention, right? But anything like that is met with just a level of panic, you know, that I think most people are just like, I just don't, yeah, okay, okay, okay, fine.