The State of Our Democracy, featuring Timothy Snyder

- Good afternoon. My name is Page Herrlinger and I am a member of the History Department at Bowdoin. It is a great pleasure to welcome you to the first event in the series, "After the Insurrection." The idea for this series was born with the attack on the United States Capitol on January 6. A stark reminder to all of us that if we take our freedoms and our

democracy

for granted, we do so at our own peril. They require our attention and our commitment. This series of virtual discussions with experts on issues related to the current

state

of American

democracy

and its future is part of a concerted effort toward that attention and engagement.

Throughout the semester, the series will feature discussions focused on online speech, voting rights and elections, the white power movement, our political system, and the role of business in democracy. Today we begin our conversation with our guest speaker Timothy Snyder. Richard C. Levin is Professor of History at Yale University and a permanent member of the Vienna Institute of Human Sciences, where he is currently located. Professor Snyder, a Marshall Scholar at Oxford, where he did his doctoral work, has since received numerous awards and honors for his work, including Carnegie and Guggenheim fellowships. He also holds

state

orders from Estonia, Lithuania and Poland.

Professor Snyder's publications have appeared in 40 languages ​​and have received almost as many awards. His many books include "Lands of Blood: Europe Between Hitler and Stalin," "Black Land: The Holocaust as History and Warning," and two New York Times bestsellers, "The Road to Unfreedom: Russia, Europe, America". and the short but powerful "On Tyranny: Twenty Lessons from the 20th Century," which I understand will soon be out in print, and finally "Our Sickness: Lessons in Freedom from a Hospital Diary." More recently, as many of you are no doubt aware, he published a very popular and important essay in the New York Times titled "The American Abyss." On the sources and meanings of the January 6th insurrection.

In addition to his numerous publications, Professor Snyder has also appeared in documentaries, television networks, and major motion pictures. His books have inspired poster campaigns and exhibitions, films, sculptures, a punk rock song, a rap song, a play and an opera. His words are quoted at political rallies around the world, most recently in Hong Kong. He is currently researching a family history of nationalism and finishing a book on freedom. So I really... I'd like to... With everything you have about Professor Snyder, I think I can say on behalf of all of us that we really appreciate you taking the time to be with us today.

And before we begin, I would like to mention to the audience that if you have questions for Professor Snyder, the Q&A feature is active. And after some brief introductory remarks, we will try to answer as many questions as we can. With that, I'll turn the conversation over to Professor Snyder. - Okay, Professor Herrlinger, thank you very much. Thanks for the kind introduction. Thanks for the invitation. It's a pleasure to be with you and talk to the people at Bowdoin. My understanding is that my job is to lead the discussion with some brief comments about the state of our democracy, around January 6, 2021.

So I'll do that for the next 15 or 20 minutes, and then I'll be at your disposal, all listeners. for the debate that follows. I'm going to make about five points. I'm going to talk about five things. I am going to speak very briefly about a permanent aspect of the human condition, which is epidemics. Second, I will talk about a long-standing aspect of our history, which is race. I am going to talk about a more modern or more recent component of mass politics, which has emerged lately and has become very important for us, which is the big lie.

That's number three. And then, fourth, I'll talk about mob rule. A mafia government that is now an alternative to democracy that has been manifested to us very clearly in recent weeks. And then I'll set aside a couple of moments to talk about the future and some things we could do. That's why I didn't want to ignore the pandemic. It's very easy with the hustle and bustle of the events of January 6th. It is very easy to fall into the temptation of thinking that all political things have immediate political causes and that all ideological expressions have immediate ideological sources.

But I do think that you have to take into account the fact that the United States had been in a terrible state of health for the previous year, that that itself and the falsehoods that were said around it, and the controversies they had caused, had something what to see with the mood at the beginning of 2021. If you construct an alternative history of the year 2020 without the pandemic, many of the things that we feel as crises, as particular crises, probably would not have happened or would have happened in a slightly different way. So I want to make a statement, but with that statement I also want to make a suggestion, that part of the reason America is always more anxious and fearful than necessary is that we have such disastrously poor health care.

So when something like a pandemic happens, the levels of anxiety, fear and disagreement are simply higher than necessary because we have such a disastrous national healthcare system or non-system. And so, although the point may seem very far away when you think, for example, you know some guy in an Auschwitz t-shirt or some other guy with a Confederate flag running through the Capitol... I'm just going to insist from the beginning that they exist background structures that are also very important for our mood and general behavior. And that of those structures is health, okay? So epidemics and health are practically...

As any historian would point out, they are practically permanent aspects of the human condition. Now let me narrow it down a bit and talk about a deep... some universities would probably say, the deep truth of American political history. What is the history of the breed. Now, in relation to the events of January 6, I think the crucial question is: what does democracy mean? Who are the people who govern in that word democracy? Who should really be represented? In American historical terms, I'm sure many of you know more than I do. The turning point here is the reconstruction of the civil war or, for that matter, the failure of reconstruction.

Very often people ask: where can you look in the world to find comparisons and think about what is happening in America now? I'm very happy to do it because I'm a historian of many things, but not of the United States. But I know enough about American history to say it's not necessary to look around the world. That the failure of reconstruction, the so-called compromise of 1877, leads directly to what today we would call a series of authoritarian regimes, you know, non-democratic authoritarian ones. Those are the southern states. Places where voting is ingeniously if possible, and violently if necessary, repressed such that, de facto, for most of the next century, African Americans will not have the right to vote.

So this leads to... And this by the way... Let me step aside for a second. This is very important when we think about these comparisons with other countries. Because there is often this debate among my colleagues about whether to talk about fascism or not. I think it is very important to talk about fascism because every historical point of reference you have, every comparison you can make, enriches your ability to evaluate the present. But what I want to suggest here is that it's not that things like fascism or even National Socialism are so distant from our own history that we can afford to say, "Oh, that's a comparison," right?

It's all part of a story, right? The history of racial discrimination, the history of racial politics, is not limited to one country or another. It's quite a long story. Okay, but bring him back to the United States. So in our political history, since the 1870s there has been basically one party that has been the party of voter suppression. For a long time that was the democratic party. They were the party of voter suppression. For the last 50/60 years, the Republican party has been the party of voter suppression. But we haven't been able to get out of this curse of one of the two major political parties being a voter suppression party.

And when you are a voter suppression party, it is not only that you are committing the evil of suppressing votes, it is not only that you are defending a system that is not completely democratic, but also the habit of suppressing votes leads you in certain directions, that take you to a point that looks a lot like January 6th. And this happens in several ways. Number one, if you're a voter suppression party, you're less and less interested in politics. You're increasingly interested in the kind of ideology or rhetoric that would justify you being in power, right? But you are less and less interested in politics because politics is not what keeps you in power.

You're not actually competing. You're gaming the system. The second thing that happens if you're a voter suppression party is that your own voters become increasingly racialized, right? Since your whole goal is to win the vote by holding African Americans and other districts so that you can win local elections. Step by step, year by year, as has happened to Republicans and their own voters, their own electorate is becoming more and more racially homogeneous. Of course not perfectly, so there are many Asians and African Americans who are Republicans. But the general trend is clear, right? So you become more and more de facto a racial party.

And then the last thing that happens to you is that if you suppress votes over and over again in a democracy, you stop thinking of democracy as democracy with some exceptions, but you get into the habit of thinking of the system as a game, right? He's just there to win it. That is what it is. And once you get to that vision that the system is there to be won... Let's call it the Mitch McConnell vision. He is not far from the view that the system could be broken. Because after all it's just a game, right?

It is not a system, it is not a moral commitment, it is just a game. Why not change the rules? So that's a logic that pushes you towards what will happen on January 6th. Another logic that comes from the past is the notion of fraud, right? So who is represented? Whose votes really count? When Newt Gingrich, for example, on election night goes on television and says, "There will be fraud in Atlanta, Philadelphia and Milwaukee." What is he saying? He's saying that in cities, meaning where there are black people, votes don't really count. And Trump takes up this language shortly after.

You mentioned cities, right? Lindsey Graham does the same. She says there is a history of fraud in Philadelphia. There is no documentation for those. There is no reason for him to say that. What he is simply trying to suggest is that these people are not really representative. And that's why this whole idea of ​​fraud in our country is deeply racialized. It dates back to after the reconstruction. It deals deeply with the question of what democracy means, who can be represented, right? So when you imagine that scene on January 6, where people flock into the Capitol building and chant whose house is ours, this is what it means.

It's an old... I mean, it may seem shocking, but it's an old American dispute about who is represented and why. Can all citizens vote and be equally represented? Or do certain types of people get to be represented? Only certain types of people. Alright. This brings me to the third point I wanted to make. Which is a more recent part of the international history of this era, which is the big lie. Now, the transition here is the big lie that Trump told, and that many other people told along with him. The big lie that he won the election is identical to the big lie of American history.

The great lie of American history is that black people are not human beings. And that big lie of American history is what makes Trump's big lie possible. Because what he's really saying is that he would have won the election, if all those fraudulent ballots in quotes weren't counted. I mean, he really would have won the election, if you don't count those blacks. He really he would have won the election, if you only counted those whites. And of course, that's true. If we lived in a country where only white votes were counted, he would have won the election.

So when you tell the lie that you won the election, you're basically repeating the great lie of American history: that black people don't matter. Black people are not really people. But the big lie itself has a structure. And I want to stop at that structure because big lies are incompatible with democracy. And once you have onebig lie in the system, you have to surround it, you have to take the air out of it, you have to deflate it, you have to make it disappear because a big lie is incompatible with democracy. . Well, why do I refer to this?

And what is a big lie? Well, a big lie... I mean, first of all it's something that's just not true. Clearly not true, right? In this case, you know, I don't have to recite it all. We know what the institution said, we know what the court said. We know what common sense says: he was just calm... He was only questioning the vote count in the States where he was close and where things could change for him. That part is obvious. But the second characteristic of a big lie is not only that it is not true, it is something that if it were true would change the world, right?

I mean, all politicians tell lies. I mean, controlled mendacity is part of the art of politics. But the lies that politicians tell most of the time do not have the quality that, if they were true, the whole world would change. A big lie, yes. If you believe Trump won the election, you have to believe a lot of other things too, right? You have to believe the judges, the state representatives, the attorneys general, the voting machines and Hugo Chávez. You have to believe a lot of other things to be able to believe that lie. That's what makes the lie a big lie.

It takes up a lot of your reasoning space. It takes over a large part of the world. And if you believe it, and belief is the key word here, you will be led to think that life is divided into groups. Believers, the people who believe in what you believe and those who do not believe in what you believe. And related to this, if you believe a big lie, you have to accept it, you have to believe the conspiracy theory. The two go together, right? Because the only way Mr. Trump could have lost, if he had actually won, is if there was a conspiracy against him, right?

So, de facto, when you believe a big lie, you are also engaging in conspiratorial thinking. So a big lie is incompatible with democracy because a big lie means that you don't trust institutions, you consider many, probably most of your fellow citizens to be evil because they are outside your belief group. And it also means that you are attached to the person who tells the lie. And this is where things get interesting. Because looking into the future... Because the person who tells the lie first is not always the person who brings it to power. So Trump tells this big lie that led to a violent insurrection and storming the Capitol.

He did not keep him in power. However, the lie continues. And not only because he continues to tell it, it continues because other people in his political party continue to tell it. Including 2024 presidential hopefuls like Mr. Cruz and Mr. Holly. And then the interesting thing... I mean, interesting in a dark sense, is that the lie can continue, right? Lies have shaped the way people see the world and create their own alternative reality in which they can continue to live. So here's something to think about. An original big lie in 1918 was that Germany would have won World War I, if it hadn't been for the stab in the back.

If it had not been for the Jews and the left, Germany would have won the First World War. That's a big lie that high-ranking German officers told to explain why they lost World War I, why it was someone else's fault. 15 years later, that lie is told by Adolf Hitler, who did not originate it, but who took it and who developed it. So when we think about the future of a big lie, we have to ask ourselves, well, 15 years from now, what will America be like if people are still saying this? If we are in a country where people believe the 2020 election was stolen, where top politicians still say that, will that country still be a democracy?

Frankly, I think that's very unlikely. The fourth topic I wanted to talk about was the problem of government by the masses. And here... Let me go back to first principles because we're dealing with these things, right? When I say mob rule, you immediately know what I'm talking about. I mean, your mind probably involuntarily sees that crowd of people crowding the Capitol building, breaking police lines, bringing a gallows on the news, talking about killing Mike Pence. Some of those people were actually looking to harm, probably even kill, our elected representatives. When I say mob rule, you think of all that.

And you should, because it's important. But we must take a step back and realize that rule by the masses is actually a form of politics. It's not something that happens once in a while. I mean, it's not like getting drunk, it's like alcoholism. I mean, rule by the masses isn't just a once-in-a-lifetime thing, it's an alternative set of political principles that democracy is designed precisely to oppose. The point of representation is that we vote and then the people who follow the rules represent us so that we don't have to use violence against each other and so we don't have to use violence against them.

Democracy is meant to act against the rule of the masses. Mass rule is incompatible with democracy for a couple of very important reasons. Number one is the rule of law. Democracy depends on the rule of law, and the rule of law depends on the State having a monopoly on the legitimate use of violence. The mob rule says no, any of us has the right to use violence at any time, basically because he wants to. But there is also a deeper, more subtle, but perhaps even more important point being made here. What mob rule does is that our representatives, to the extent they are afraid of us, that's what matters.

Not because they know what is good for us or because we chose them or by law or anything like that. They are doing things because they are afraid of us. And that's a completely different principle, right? That's a completely different principle. And it's a principle we saw on display on January 6, unfortunately. We saw it on display. We don't want to see this because it's too painful, but that's, of course, what happened. It's not just that on January 6th our elected representatives, some of whom sought to delay or perhaps even destroy, sidelined an American election. It was that our elected representatives, even after the assault on the Capitol, still voted against democracy.

And you know, that's a bad thing. For example, if you owe your job to elections, you should vote against mob rule and not for it. And then what's even worse than that? And I'm going to insist that this is worse. It is the aspect of fear. So, a number... I mean, they're mostly anonymous, and this is reported secondhand and so on. But we know that several Republican representatives and senators are saying, "We will vote the way we voted on January 6, or we will vote the way we voted in the impeachment trial, because we are afraid." We are afraid of our own electorate, we are afraid of violence, we are afraid that Trump will encourage violence." And then we think: "Poor people, they are afraid." And I want to stay here with all my might, that is the wrong reaction.

That It's the wrong reaction because it's giving in to mob rule, okay? Fear, like there are all kinds of women journalists and all kinds of people of color in politics who get threatened all the time. And they keep going. with it, right? When an old white senator feels in some kind of threatened position, then we all say, "Oh, okay, that's really bad, I'm sorry. We have to be careful here, because if that's ours." movement... now I'm noting that it's heavily racialized and sexist because it is. But if that's our movement, then what we're saying is that mob rule is fine.

If we say, if we take this turn in January/February. of 2021, and we say okay, those guys are afraid, therefore it's okay that they don't vote their conscience, they don't vote the law. They simply do the things they should do because they are afraid, and then we are complicit in inviting violence as the final determinant of our own politics. And because the problem here is that this is an old game, right? This is a game that gangsters play. It's a game played by the secret police. Once you admit, "Oh, I'm afraid I'll do whatever you want." Once you do that once, they will keep coming back for you.

And they are going to do it again. Or maybe someone else will come back to you and threaten you another time. So the problem with mob rule is that it's not just that we have a mob, but it also seems like we have elected representatives who are willing to say, "Oh, I'm afraid of that mob." And once you say, oh, I'm afraid of that mob, that's when you have the real problem, right? That's when you move toward something that I really wouldn't want to see in the United States of America, but that history shows us can happen.

Which is a parliament, which is basically a facade. A parliament that is basically there to provide a kind of nice cover for decisions that have actually been made through a competition of violence. Which have actually been made by the people behind the scenes who pose the most credible threat against certain elected representatives. That's where we don't want to go. We do not want to go towards a mafia government. Now, we've taken some steps in that direction because a mob took control of the Capitol, because we had these two votes on January 6 and the impeachment vote that were clearly influenced by the fear of violence.

We've taken steps in that direction because we now have a politician in Florida who is clearly interested in making threats, right? So we have to name this problem for what it is. Recognize that mob rule is not something that happens once in a while, it is not simply a random event, it is an alternative form of politics that you would have to be able to name and avoid. So the last thing I wanted to say is about the future. And I... You know, I have a lot of optimistic things to say about the future, but I don't have enough time to say them here.

But I want to finish with a few words about learning. So on the negative side, people who study hitting will say that the problem with a missed shot is that a missed shot is usually the last thing that happens before the successful shot. So when a coup attempt in his country fails, as it just did in the United States of America, he doesn't come home and say, "Oh, the institutions saved us." I mean, when I hear that... I'm not really scared of that many things in politics, but that reaction in particular scares me. If you say, well, the coup attempt didn't work because the institution saved us, no, that is not the correct reaction.

If you get that close, like you really have armed people and bombs in your parliament. If you actually have a president trying to overturn an election, you can't say the institutions worked. What you have to say is, how can we improve those institutions? Because people who fail in one coup are teaching people who will succeed in the next coup. So if you're not learning from the coup attempt, you'll lose next time. Now, the positive side of this is that what this teaches us, hopefully, is that American democracy has a lot of room for improvement. That position that everyone...

Not everyone. That so many people assumed in 2016, 2017 that the institution... We are an exceptional nation, you know, the greatest democracy in history, etc., our institutions will protect us. That stance didn't work, did it? So what this suggests to us is that democracy is not some kind of machine. It's not some kind of historical inevitability. Democracy needs support. Democracy needs moral support. We have to say that this is a system we want, not another type of system. It needs structural support, which we can talk more about. But one of the structures it needs is health care. Another structure that it needs is the support of factuality and also democracy needs, you know, not a lot, not every day, not all the time, but now, in the end, it also needs a little courage.

Thank you. - So thank you very much. There is already a lot to think about. And we have quite a few questions ahead of us. I guess I'd like to start with one of the first questions that came in. That asks you to explain a little more about this question of where we are as a democracy. And it begins with the house of freedom. This is from... I should have mentioned Dr. David Dixon, Bowdoin Class of 1976. When asked if he agrees with Freedom House's assessment that the United States is no longer a full democracy, and if he agrees that The dominant faction of the Republican Party is authoritarian following its behavior following the 2020 election and its fervent support for voter suppression.

But I want to follow up on that a little bit and ask you for some more structural ideas about how we can, in the future, combat some of these very real problems that you've been mentioning with respect to mass rule, fear, you know, for example with term limits. Would that be something you would consider controlling some ofthis? I think a lot of people have been wondering what the way forward is and what we can do sitting in front of our screens, but what can we do to help pave a better way forward? - Okay, so Page, your expansion of the question is very broad.

I'm going to say a couple of things about that, but I'll wait and let other questioners ask some more specific questions about the future. Because if I try to answer it in its entirety, it's going to take up a lot of our time, which isn't... Okay, I just want to make it clear that this is not me. This is actually coming, people are writing asking, what can we do? So (laughing) I want to echo that. - It's good, awesome. So I'll try it a few times starting with this one. To Dr. Dixon's question the first directly.

Yes, I agree with Freedom House's assessment. I mean, what's interesting about Freedom House and it's actually a positive sign about American civil society is that it's an American organization that breaks down democracies. I know a little about how they do it. And it's a good thing that Freedom House is able to break American democracy. I mean, honestly, it wasn't founded for that, but it's a really good thing. And I agree with your assessment. I mean, I agree with... They've done a good job of pointing out that democracy has been in decline for... It's about the last 15 years, which is good to have that on record because it's only been in the last few years that we've noticed it. .

But in reality the trend is much longer than that. And yes, I mean it would be difficult to characterize the United States as a fully functioning democracy given the inappropriate role that money plays in our elections, given how difficult it is to vote for such a large portion of our citizenry. I mean, given that we just had a non-peaceful transition of power, there are all kinds of things that might seem secondary. We have a very poor information environment. We have an educational system that is getting worse. So yeah, I think it's good. It would be great if Americans thought of democracy in terms of fixable pieces instead of saying, yes, we're a democracy or a boom, but we're not.

Because often what we do is just say, yeah, we've been a great democracy up until now, but suddenly things went wrong. Oh well, what a shame. But that's not how it works. The way it works is that you already have these problems and if you can fix them, you can make things better. Now let me try to address Page's summary question a little bit. The really important and smart part of this question or these questions is the emphasis on the future. So democracy can only function, so to speak, in the future. It can't work in the past.

And this is a key part of the way authoritarianism works now. And you can also see it in the example of Mr. Trump. You cancel the future, right? You cancel the future. We're in the year 21... we're in the year 2021... Sorry, I'm a century ahead of myself. Where are we in the year 2021. That's a science fiction year, right? If you're like me and grew up in the '70s and '80s of the last century, the year 2021 as if it were the title of a book, I mean, would be heralding some kind of year as a fantastic possibility.

But that kind of future, like that sense of future, will be much better or very different, at least for all of us. That already happened. And that is crucial to understanding current authoritarian trends. Because if... You know, what has happened is that many people's futures have disappeared because... And this is something that Mr. Trump is right about: actually, the American dream is dead. Social advancement is much more difficult in America than it used to be. And there are things we can do about it. We can facilitate the functioning of unions. We could work on wealth and income inequality, which basically equates to a lack of social mobility.

We could build the welfare state so that people have more predictable lives and greater possibilities to change their lives, because some things are more predictable. You have to give people an idea of ​​the future. If people have no individual sense of the future, then there is no collective sense of the future. And democracy depends on the meaning of the future because democracy depends on... It's in this little element of faith in him, right? This idea that if we roll the dice this time, vote this time, things might be better than the last time. Therefore, it depends on our own ability to think about the future, to learn to think that this choice could be better than the last one.

And then my two big personal ones. And again, keep in mind that these things are about the future. My number one would be factuality. I mean, behind a lot of these things that are happening, like the possibility of the big lie, the wrath of the mob. Behind all this, even racism, which is worse than conspiratorial thinking. Behind all of this is the reality of social media that we have allowed to emerge in this country. And when I say this... I mean, I already said this today on a TV show. People say, oh, but that's part of nature, you can't change that.

That's nature. But no, I mean, social media in the United States works differently than in other countries. I'm in another country right now and I can say it's true. And all of these things are historically contingent and can be changed. At the end of the 19th century and the beginning of the 20th century there were also many great concerns. Like big companies. Trusts, that's what they were called then. When people said, oh, these are big, it's nature, you can't do anything about it. And you couldn't until you did. I mean, there's a reason we have antitrust laws.

Antitrust laws are there to create competition. We have a situation where too few companies are in charge of too much information flow and perform too well in the sense that they are too good at making money. And the way they make money is by leveraging the things you already believe. In other words, I'm simplifying a little but not that much. Social media is basically a scam game. It's a scam game and gains your trust by telling you the things it's discovered you already want to hear, and then luring you further there to keep your eyes on the screen so advertisers can make money.

Which is the opposite of being informed. I mean, hearing what you want to hear and monetizing it is the opposite of reading the newspaper and finding out things you didn't know, and maybe surprised you, but really should know, like that your kids are drinking. You already know mercury in water. I think it's a classic example. One of the most important is that we have to have local news. We can't do without local news. That has to be a project, because local news creates... It allows conversations about the things that really matter to people and prevents us from jumping to Washington in the media.

Because of course we have different ideological values, that's fine. But we have to have a common set of facts, without that, you really can't have a democracy. And then climate change. I mean, climate change seems kind of connected to all of this. A bit like health, but it is directly related. The feeling that... If you don't believe in climate change, this may not affect you, but it will affect the vast majority of Americans who do. The fact that there is climate change and we are not doing anything about it, or not doing everything we should, also compresses the future and makes people feel desperate.

It makes us feel: well, what's the point of acting now? As if we really don't have such a long time horizon anywhere. Increases anxiety and fear. If we could fix climate change, I mean, this is what it means we could do it. It's no more difficult than shooting the moon. It's no more difficult than many other things we've done. We could do it. We could turn it around, you know? And if we were solving climate change, we would be pushing the future outward and we would feel a lot less fear. And we would begin to have a future we could look toward.

Those are some of my big ideas about it. - Wow, yeah, I mean, I'm glad you brought this up. You continue to emphasize the fear that I believe... Many of us share although in different things, but that fear is not a strategy. It is not a starting point for healthy decision making. And put it aside. I also think that the pace of change that we're facing on all the fronts that you just mentioned is really overwhelming for many of us, right? I mean, not only are we talking about big problems, but we're talking about feeling the pressure to solve these big problems yesterday.

And that only increases our anxiety and our fear. So it's a cycle. Many questions have come. I think I'm going to use my moderator privilege to bring up one from one of my former students, Alex Kogan, who is asking a little more about the big lie. And he specifically asks what historical examples there are of honest democracy overcoming the big lie. Mention that in Nazi Germany, the alternate reality of the Big Lie did not completely unravel until the latter stages of the war. That is after the genocide and brutal war. I think the biggest question here is, obviously, are there real things we can do to combat it right now?

Like you said, 15 years from now, if it still exists, our democracy will be in trouble. So do you have any suggestions on how we could start combating it? - Yes, it is a great comment that Alex Kogan makes about the big lie. And that is something that also has me very worried because unfortunately he is right. You don't usually get out of a big lie unless something surprises you. Because it's like any other form of addiction, let's call it. I mean, it's really hard... The point is that once you're in a big lie, you can't reason your way out of it because it's internally consistent for you.

It does not depend on external evidence. It is internally consistent. And so anything or anyone that seems to be against it, somehow confirms it, because you already know that the world is divided between us and them, you already know that there is a conspiracy against you. So it's difficult to penetrate it that way. And unfortunately, the sociological reality is that this is often the case, depending on some kind of shock. So in the case of Germany, I'm afraid Alex Kogan was absolutely right. Until the end of the war, if you read like Victor Klemperer, for example, about examples of crippled German soldiers who returned in April 1945, you still think that the Führer is telling the truth.

I still think there is a miracle weapon somehow. And what I want to avoid is an America where we have a deep lie that's been so ingrained in us for so long, that we have to be this shocked to get out of it. Eventually we will be, because I mean, among other things, believing a big lie like this, well, that will... I mean a lot of our... You know, we're not trinded. We want to be trinded, that's what. a different story. But if America is going to work, it depends on its trusting partnership. And trusting societies depend on habits of truth and veracity, at least within some kind of limit.

If we stop being a society of trust and start becoming a society of beliefs, then we will divide into clans where one clan believes this and the other clan believes that, and it's not just that politics doesn't work, so does the market. Then it won't work as well either. Many things we take... The laws are not going to work as well, civil society is not going to work as well. Many things we take for granted will stop working if we live in this big lie. Okay, enough of the dark stuff. I think some things can now be done about this particular big lie.

I mean, number one. Politicians in Washington had... As of November 3, better late than never. The obligation to simply talk about what the election results were. And to the extent that they don't, they participate in this big lie. Number two. And now there's talk... I mean, this is something I've been talking about for seven weeks, but I think Congress will actually do it. There has to be some kind of blue tape panel. Some kind of commission to contribute... And by the way, if you like this idea, please tell your elected representatives because I think it's much more important than they think.

There has to be some kind of condition, which includes forensics, digital forensics, lawyers, security experts, historians and academics who work on racial issues. A total vision, which tries to make us reflect on what happened on January 6. How was it possible, institutionally and historically, from every possible angle, to produce a report on the record for any judge in the future who needs it. For any future historian who needs it. For any school, any university in the future that wants to teach it, you know, in a hundred page report. It may have 10,000 pages of appendices, but in a hundred-page report, it is clear what happened and how it could have happened.

It seems like a simple step, not very dramatic but that would make a big difference.difference. I hope that happens. And then the third thing I would say is what I already said. That the big lie works in a certain type of media environment. And then you don't address it directly but you address it effectively. If you can fill the world with more facts, give people other things to worry about, things in their own lives to worry about. That too... It won't eliminate it, but it will change the atmosphere. -Great, Joe Leghorn has raised a question about whether or not he believes Americans still share a set of common values.

And if not, (laughter) how can we as Americans try to recover a set of common values? So, in other... And I think when I talked to my class earlier today, I think this speaks to the question of not only values, but also when we are so polarized in our kind of core beliefs or at least we imagine that We are, how do we start a conversation in which we use, I don't know, even the same vocabulary? How do we start that? I think we're all struggling to figure it out. You know, even within our own families, I think many of us saw the letter that Adam Kinzinger, the Illinois congressman's family, sent him when he voted his conscience and voted to impeach.

And his family... Yes there was a kind of tribalism, but it was infused with a set of shared beliefs that they felt he had betrayed. And if that happens at the family level, how can we, as a society, find that space for real dialogue about the issues? Not even the issues that divide us, although there are common values. So this is a two part question. Are there common values? And then how can we start a productive and healthier conversation about them again? - It's a wonderful question. Because I think you really can't do without values ​​and that will be the beginning of my answer.

I think one thing that conservatives have got right and liberals have basically got wrong is the need for values ​​for democracy. I mean, a democracy is not just about my individual preferences, or your individual preferences. It's not just about my individual interests or yours. A democracy depends on valuation. And I'm not saying, by the way, that conservatives always have the right values. I'm just saying that I think they were right on the issue of values. A democracy also depends on values. It depends, for example, on the value of pacifism that you are not going to fight violently over the outcome of an election.

It depends on the value of tolerance whether your neighbor has the right to vote differently than you. And I think it depends on the value of truth that democracy is an enlightened project that assumes that we, as creatures, can do better than simply respond to our immediate impulses and impulses. That we are also capable of learning and making judgments. And I think that value commitment to the truth is part of what I think people on the left or liberals should consider or, since I'm not being very direct, I think they should embrace it. Because what happened with...

I want to say simplify a little bit, but what happened is that the acceptance by the left of the idea that there really isn't much point in seeking the truth because each experience is individual and subjective, is then, of course, put together by the people who actually have the wealth and ability to project subjectivity. And that is Mr. Trump. I mean, that's Mr. Trump's story in a nutshell. He weaponizes the idea that there is no objective truth and that there is no moral value in pursuing it and that all that matters are feelings. And it turns out that when all that matters are feelings, what really matters are the feelings of the powerful, not in vain.

So the way to reach the powerful is not through feelings. The way to reach the powerful is with facts. But you can only have facts if you have decided, our priority is that the facts are valued, that feasibility is a value. And by the way, when I say that, I don't mean to dismiss the different experiences of people in America at all. Instead, I mean accepting the factual means, for example, knowing how many people are incarcerated in the United States. It means knowing how much more likely an African American is to get COVID in the United States.

It means knowing how likely it is that an African American woman will die in childbirth in the United States. All of those are facts. And based on the facts. I mean, wealth inequality is a classic example. I think wealth inequality is probably the biggest problem in this country. But wealth inequality is a matter of numbers. And if you don't see the numbers, if you don't see the numbers, you can't really appreciate the qualitative reality of it. So I think the value commitment we should have is the value commitment to factuality. And then the last thing I want to say about this is that there is a value that I think a lot of people...

Not all, but a lot of people in the United States, probably most people in the United States would say to accept, that It is freedom. And here I think our big problem is that when we say the word, we don't know what we are talking about. Or are we talking about... I mean, sometimes it's hard to say that we're not talking about anything. We're talking about what I feel like doing right now. And what I feel like doing right now is what I feel like doing right now, but it's not freedom. I mean, what I feel like doing right now, there's a lot of things that go into that.

So many humans, machines, causes and accidents that influence how I feel right now. My freedom is something else. My freedom comes from my ability to decide who I am and how I am going to project myself in the world and how I want to change the world. And so, I mean, what worries me personally now, and you mentioned it very well, is that I'm trying to write a little book about freedom. I still have to try to put some flesh and blood on this idea of ​​freedom, because I think that, in some ways, freedom is a special part of this problem, which Joe has identified, and it's that we all talk about it, but it's not there.

Of course what we mean by this. And I'm hoping that if we had a discussion about what we mean by this, we could get a little bit closer that we don't all have a common set of values, I don't really believe in that. But come at least closer to having some of these fundamental values ​​that democracy depends on. - Some questions have come in to invite you to talk a little more about the question of the role that healthcare plays in democracy. And as part of a broader question about our well-being and, I suppose, our role as citizens in a democracy.

Both our physical well-being and our material well-being are related in many ways. So I for one would like to hear a little more about your opinion on our healthcare or lack thereof. - Yeah, I mean, there's a big follow-up to the last question because I think health care is one way Americans get freedom wrong. And we line up the health debate as if on one side there are people talking about freedom and on the other side, there are people talking about health and then we shake our heads and say, oh yeah, there's something terrible, You know the clash between freedom and Cheers, you have to choose.

Americans like to do this, it's a way we deny ourselves freedom. We constantly pose these false dilemmas. And then we say, well, we have to choose between freedom and security. You know, these people say we have to be safer, so I guess we have to be less free. When, even in that classic example, very often there are things that you can do where you can be freer and safer at the same time. As if that were possible. But we have... I mean, and this is a classic way of thinking about freedom that I think we should stop doing.

But in the case of health, it is a good example that there is no clash of values, right? It is not that freedom must be sacrificed for health care. On the contrary, if you have healthcare, you are a freer person. I mean, in "Our Sickness," which is the book I wrote basically after I came off what could very well be my deathbed. I make a couple of arguments about this. One is that... Only the most basic one, which is that when you are sick, you are not free. I mean, there are too many Americans who are too sick most of the time, and those people are less free.

I mean, when you can't walk, you're less free. When you are faced with a physical or mental illness, especially if it could be cured or cared for, you are less free, as a human being. And saying this is taboo in the United States. I mean, America likes us to be free all the time and happy until we die. But there is that area where we are sick. And many of us are tired of so many things, you know, so many things that are also avoidable all the time. And that means we are less free. But also, when you don't have reliable access to health care, you are also less free.

Because when your mind is full of avoidable anxiety, you are less free, right? As if there was a demon that had the power to put... I'm looking at Professor Herrlinger, so I'm going to talk to her. She's the only face I see. If there was a pixie that could put anxiety in Professor Herrlinger's mind, we would say, well, she's less free because she's all that anxiety that she's there. She didn't have to be there. Such is the absence of predictable healthcare. It means that Americans basically live in this completely artificial environment of anxiety. If you don't know if you can go to a doctor or if you can afford it, right?

And we are faced with tens of millions of people who de facto cannot afford to go to a doctor. And even if you have insurance, you're still rolling the dice. You know, when you go to the hospital, it's sad to say. Maybe you have better insurance, but if you have worse insurance, who knows. And even if it's okay, and this is the tragic part, you're still thinking about it all the time, right? I mean, this is another taboo topic in the US, so I'll just leave it out. But when you're in the hospital, you think about money all the time.

And you wonder, don't even you have enough money, but the doctor makes the decision based on money? And you're right to be worried about that. Is the thing. And all those levels of anxiety make you less free. If you could get that anxiety out of your mind, you would be freer. And this is... I mean, it pains me to say this is American, but this is one of the things I noticed in Europe. This is one of the ways in which Europeans are freer than us. Because they don't have that artificial anxiety in their lives. They are calmer and have more mental space, more emotional space to think about other things.

And that is freedom. If you have more mental and emotional space to think about other things, that means you are free, I mean you are freer. So all of these things explain why I think health care is an important part of our free society and an important part of democracy. And now I'm just making an empirical observation about this. If we look at the countries on the Freedom House list mentioned above, let's think about the health systems of countries that are doing better than us. There are people in this country who, for some reason, seem to think that if you have a healthcare system it means you are less free.

But look at the countries on the list that are doing better than us and ask yourself: do they have healthcare systems like ours? Or do they have healthcare systems that mean everyone is insured? - Thanks for that. He inadvertently answered one of the next questions, which was to compare our system to other functioning democracies and what makes the difference. And, of course, that was the answer he just gave about the right to health care. I think this is actually a related question, but it takes the problem in a slightly different direction. It is by a recent Bowdoin alumnus, Arthur Kalendoff.

To the questioner, I wonder if Professor Snyder knows of any historical parallels or can offer perspective on politicians' enthusiastic support and rhetoric that clearly runs counter to his own interests. For example, there is a lot of demonization of immigrants by other immigrants, and polls from the 2020 election show that many people of color voted for President Trump. How do we understand individuals who adopt ideologies from politicians who do not represent them? - Yeah, I mean, that's a great question. Can I talk about other democracies for a second? - Yes Yes of course. - There is hope that healthcare is one of them, but there are also much more superficial differences that are really important.

Other countries don't allow dark money like we do. Other countries have publicly funded political campaigns that have a beginning and an end, as opposed to obscurely funded political campaigns that have no beginning and no end. Other countries do not allow, you know, all dark parties or companies to intervene in elections in States with which they have nothing to do. Do you know why Ohio has gambling?Because people far, far away intervene with a lot of money and television ads. Most other countries that are democracies don't think it's particularly democratic that people who have disposable wealth can frame the entire conversation.

That's a difference. Citizens United, in the 2010 Supreme Court case, basically ruled that money talks. As if money were a person. I don't believe that money is a person. I believe that money is money and people are people. I believe that people have a voice and money does not. But that is an opinion that must be defended. And in America we've let ourselves fall to this point where we accept that if you have a lot of money, that means you can frame the conversation. Other democracies do not accept that view. And I think that makes a big difference.

Other countries are doing it too... I mean, the European Union in general is doing a much better job handling the big social media platforms. Okay, but I'm not going to dodge Arthur's question. He just wanted to get some things in there. However, I want to take Arthur's question to the next level, because it's not just about immigrants or black people, I would say it's their own interests. Most white people knew that it is not black people who vote against their own interests, but white people who vote against their own interests, in America. I mean, if you use interest in the more academic and less controversial sense, which is economic interest, right?

It's not black people who do that, it's white people. White people are the great practitioners of identity politics in this country. I mean, if you mean... So I'm getting interested in a very narrow sense, like you should vote with your pocketbook. Those are the targets, I mean, that's us. It's the white people who are doing that. Whites are involved in tribal politics. Because if you vote against the welfare state, if you vote against taxing the rich, then you are voting against your own interests. And voting against taxing the rich and voting against the welfare state, that's what white people do.

I mean, again there are exceptions, right? I mean, I get it, but most white people in most elections vote against their own interests. Or if you want to make a red state, a blue state, red states, almost all of them are net recipients of federal money. And most blue states are net contributors to the federal government. So, you know, Senator McConnell, for example, complains a lot about the federal government, but Kentucky receives about three times as much money from the federal government as it contributes. That's typical, right? I mean, in very red states that's generally the case.

And so, every time a red state votes red, it always does so against its own interests. If we are only talking about narrow financial interests. So I just want to expand the question and ask why? I agree with you, why? And then just posing the question that way, realizing that most people vote against their interests most of the time makes it seem less normal. It makes it less abnormal and makes you think: what really motivates people to vote? And I mean, I guess the way I think about it is that there are two different political balances.

And you have to fight to get from one to the other. And a political balance that is good for democracy is that people generally are not racist. There have been historical debates about the difference. There is a healthy information environment in which you can more or less make decisions about your interest by having accurate information. That's a kind of idealized balance point for democracy. For authoritarianism, the ideal balance point is that there is no really good information environment. Historical differences are magnified rather than resolved, politics becomes a matter of us and them. So your own personal interests don't matter as much because it's all about us and them, it's about the leader telling you about us and them.

And at that point of political balance you suffer, right? You're supposed to suffer. In other words, you suffer and it shows, you don't wear that mask, you don't take care of yourself. You suffer and you believe that suffering has meaning. And that's... I mean, there's a sadism and a masochism that turns into authoritarianism. You must put direct labels on it. People like to suffer. They like... In this world, right? They like to be lied to. It's not just that they lie to them, it's that they like to be lied to. It's not just that they suffer, it's that they like to suffer because they believe it serves a purpose, right?

And that's how human beings could be. And that is why democracy is a struggle. Because if you say to people, "Hey, don't you want to be free?" That's not really enough, is it? That will not give them democracy like we are seeing now in the United States. I mean, we are oscillating between these two points of political equilibrium, and people are very capable of both, but it is democracy that requires more effort. And it is a structural effort. It is not just a moral effort. It is a structural effort to build structures such that people have access to information, so that they learn to think in terms of interests and not in terms of tribes, etc. - I thought you were going to connect that to your argument about the politics of eternity.

Because I definitely see some connections there. Isn't that... you don't see them as connected or? - Of course, yes, I was trying to stay off my own terms but... - It's okay. - In a way... That is, at the authoritarian point of political balance, there is no future, right? So if there is no future, then the whole notion of interests doesn't really exist, because an interest can only exist in the future. An interest is something where you make some kind of commitment or decision now and it pays off in the future. Because you have interest. But interest only exists on a time scale in which there is a future.

If you can take the future out of politics and make politics focus solely on making America great again, for example. If you can only do politics on the vision of the time when America was great, then what you've accomplished is taking interests out of the center of politics and replacing politics with identity, basically. Like, let's relate to that moment when we were at the top, right? Let's not do anything to have a better opportunity in the future. Let's just identify with that moment when we were at the top. And so time is very, very important here, you know?

And that's why politicians like Trump and Putin are also very good at this. Politicians who are able to rule out the future are also eliminating the question of interests. And then suddenly the question is not why people don't vote for their interests, because there is no future in which you can't really have an interest. The only thing you can have is an ID. And identification does not require politics. Identification only requires peace of mind. Identification requires a clear definition of the enemy. Identification requires a story. But it does not require politics. It does not demand a policy that affects its interests. - True, and when you were talking about suffering before, I thought the word sacrifice could also be appropriate, right?

That (confusing discourse) arises through that sacrifice for this identity cause, basically. That's one way to connect. So we have another question from... I'm probably going to mispronounce the name here, so I apologize for that. But Ryan Kovarovic, who asks what his opinion is on the idea of ​​toxic freedom, quote, quote. As in the ideal that some people in America have... They think they have the right to do whatever they want because America is based on freedom, in contrast to Europe, where unconditional freedom is not part of their identity. Do you think this issue of toxic freedom has an effect on the current state of our democracy? - I mean, I can't answer that question directly because I'm hearing the phrase for the first time.

So I don't really know how to judge it in space, but I think I agree with the spirit of the question. Freedom doesn't mean doing the things you want to do. I mean, that's what a two-year-old thinks freedom is. You know, I say this as a father. But that's not really what freedom is. That is, if freedom is something that and here as in people, then I have rights but my partner also has rights, my friends also have rights, and my co-workers also have rights and everyone has rights. And those rights collide and that is what democracy is for.

And that's what the law is for. And that is what civil society institutions are for. It is necessary to regulate this necessary clash of values. So, you know, if I believe that my freedom means that I do what I want, that means that I can point at someone else and make them a slave, right? That's what he wanted, he wanted to turn them into slaves, why not? That was my thing, you know? Or he wanted to kill them. But that's what I felt. I felt like taking out my gun and shooting them. That's what I... You know, freedom.

But, obviously, the first step that every serious thinker about freedom must take, even since the founding fathers, is that every serious thinker about freedom understands that if it is a human value, it is reciprocal. And therefore the first problem of politics is the fact that more than one of us is free. I mean, if I'm allowed to do everything I want, then I'm an absolute Monarch. And the goal of the republic is not to have a monarchy. The point of a republic is that a republic means the common good, a republic means something that is shared.

And then freedom has to be shared, or it does not exist. If a person creates a situation in which he can do whatever he wants, then that is, by definition, tyranny. Actually, that is not freedom. So I think I agree with the asker. The second point I would like to make in this regard is that freedom requires a lot of work. So people... You know, it's... I mean, Rousseau who says, "We are born free but we are not free." I mean if you have never given birth or never seen a birth. I mean, the idea that you're born free is pretty absurd.

You were born helpless. You are born dependent on other people. You won't make it without other people. The idea that you are born free is simply absurd. For there to be free people, there must be institutions that help us to be free. Because freedom involves having a notion of who you are in comparison to others. It involves having your own ideas. And that means being able to discover what is true for yourself. And we can do those things. But in order to do all those things we need a lot of help along the way. Therefore, the American idea that freedom simply means leaving people alone cannot be correct.

It can't be right. Because if you leave babies alone, they will not grow up and be free people. If you leave five-year-olds alone, they're not going to look up... I think raising free people is a wonderful national project. But forming free people actually implies... And this may seem paradoxical at first. But in reality it involves a lot of social and political cooperation to form free people. I want there to be free people. Because I want there to be free people, that means I know there has to be a lot of cooperation. There has to be a lot of investment in children, for example. - Thank you.

So another question. And here we are reaching the end of the hour. This comes from Joe Gordon and he asks: Hindsight is brilliant, but foresight is still the challenge. How do we anticipate such a catastrophe and not take steps to address it before it becomes a tragedy? I hope this is a time when you can not only do what you do best, which is help us use our past to make sense of our future, but also give us something that many people have been asking for. There are some things we hope we can actually think about and maybe even do.

I should know, you actually wrote your article about the American abyss before it happened, right? Before January 6th. Although historians are reluctant to predict the future, you seem to be particularly adept at at least understanding what is possible. You have the imagination. So whatever thoughts you may leave us today, we look forward to them. - Yes, thank you for saying that. So I don't have to say it. I mean, I actually wrote in two or three different places that there would be violence around this election. And I got a lot of pressure for it. But I felt comfortable doing that precisely because in the spirit of this question, if you don't think about what is most likely to happen, you are living in this kind of unreality, the bad guys win.

And then once they win, you normalize it and the whole process starts again. And that's why part of my answer is history. You know, history is not about hindsight. History is about things that can happen because they happened. So the richer your background and the things that happened, the richer your background and the things that can happen. I mean there's this cliché that a historian shouldn't predict the future. But frankly, as far as I know, they do a better job than other people. I mean, one of the funny things I've noticed in public life is that everyone is expected to predict wrong.Public commentators predict things wrong all the time, but that doesn't stop them from reappearing in public life.

However, people who predict things correctly don't get a lot of credit (clears throat) because it's a little annoying when people (laughs) predict things correctly. But my intuition here is that the story is not about being a Monday morning quarterback, the story is more about situating yourself with the flow of things. So it may seem too easy or too boring for some people, but knowing more about the story makes it easier to figure out things that could happen. I mean, even if you only pay attention to American history, the kinds of things that happened in the last few weeks will seem less surprising to you.

There have been violent riots in the United States before over voter turnout. There have been stormings of US Capitols before. And this question of who can vote is perhaps the hottest question in American political history. So I'm not saying that as a cop-out, I'm very serious about it. I think one of the things you can do to look forward is to pay more attention to the past. And this also... I mean, part of our authoritarian problem in this country is the crushing of the humanities, right? Because I mean, I have nothing against science, I love science, my kids love science, I love science.

I was champion of the math team, everything is great. But the thing about those things is that they don't really prepare you for the values ​​of the future, right? I mean, it helps you prepare... Especially the way it's taught now. It prepares you to be a functional person, a problem solver, etc. But only the humanities create the possibility of thinking about what the future should be like, and only the humanities create the imagination that allows us to expand the possibilities, right? Because the real possibilities for good and evil are always much greater than we think. So one thing...

And again, it seems indirect but it's not. I mean, there's a reason why the same people who don't like democracy are the ones trying to crush college campuses, and particularly the humanities. And that's because the humanities are what give us some imagination about the future, both in terms of what should be and what can be done. I mean, there are a lot of smaller things that people could do. If each of you goes home after this election... This is a sermon, it is not an election. He's going home (laughs). It's later. He goes home after this seminar and subscribes to a newspaper.

You have done something good. Because journalists are the people who really make a difference. Especially if you subscribe to a print newspaper, you are doing a lot of good. Run for local office. You know, there's this kind of terrible gravity in America, where all we talk about is national politics, and that's one of our syndromes. In reality, democracy will be decided by the States. And that's where you're really most at risk. And that is the story of the United States too. Democracy is at greater risk at the state level. So, run for office. Like, we need good people to run for Attorney General.

We need good people to run for local offices that involve elections. Those are things people can do. And then their value commitments. I mean, I don't expect you to agree with me right away, but I'd like you to at least think about the value commitment to factuality. I don't think we can do without that. Because if we have... You know, people who want change are unsure of the existence of facts, and people who want authoritarianism are confident in their beliefs. So you're doomed, right? If it comes down to false convictions versus uncertainty about the existence of truth, false convictions will always win.

So here are some valuable things worth thinking about. And for me the most important value is factuality. - We have taken more than enough time from you, but if you have 30 more seconds for our students to be out there, above all. How do you consume your own news? Are there any places you would recommend you go to? - That's a great question, because again, I'm going to sound like a therapist, but I mean, a lot of what went wrong boils down to how we spend our time and where we put our eyes. And we can't fix that for other people, it's hard, but the way to fix it for other people is to pass laws.

I mean, but there should be laws that force social platforms to pay taxes to support local news, that would change the country. But for the moment, what we do is really important. And the mood is really important. Like that word, fear, that you used earlier on Page, it's really important because fear is managed by us. You know, American politics creates reserves of fear about things that we shouldn't fear, or that we shouldn't fear as much as we do. We should not be afraid of our own health, just as we are. We shouldn't have to worry so much about our children's education.

All these things are artificially produced for us. And then when you add to that the anxiety caused by screens, then you're in real trouble. Because I mean I hate being like an old man. Well, now I used to be a computer programmer. Like when I was a kid I could program computers, that's what I did, it was my thing. I'm not against all this. You know, I was a science fiction fan, I love computers. But what happened is that that computer... The idea was that the man plus the machine would be God. And what turned out is that man plus machine are beasts.

And you know, that's something that's a simplification, but social media is basically designed to bring out our impulsive side. And that exhausts us and also makes us less capable of making good decisions. And this is... I'm trying to answer the question about how I get the news. I try to get news in print. I try to walk somewhere where there is a newspaper, buy it, and then read it. And if I find anything, it's that... It's not a boast, but in general I think I retain the news better, and studies also show it. For example, you don't really retain what you read on the screen very well, but you retain it much better on paper.

And besides, if you read newspapers, newspapers aren't algorithmic for the things you want to hear anyway. And then even things surprise you and you learn more because the arrangement of articles on a page is not... You know, there are reasons for it, but it's not personalized for you. And you don't want things personalized for you because, frankly, you're enough, right? You are already enough, you are fine being you, you don't need to be you anymore. You need to be challenged by things. And so... I mean, I try to read... There are newsstands in Vienna. I go to the newsstands, buy newspapers and put them under my arm.

And then I enjoy reading them. When... In the old world, when there were cafes and things like that, I liked to read them outside. As if it were part of my habit. In terms of places and things. Again, I think it's better to subscribe to things and be a day or two late, than to just watch and let the machine choose what comes to your eye. I do that too, everyone does it, but it's a kind of passive anti-human posture to let the screen decide... Let the machine decide what is going to appear in your eyes and let the machine decide what aspects of your personality want. you will develop, and so on.

There's something creepy about that. So subscribe, right? So it's good to subscribe to The Week. The Week condenses the news of the week. It has right-wing publications, it has left-wing publications. It has all kinds of publications. Gives good summaries of what happens. You can tell, if you're on the right, you can tell what people on the left are reading and vice versa, but it also gives a good summary of all kinds of news. You know, it's great to subscribe to The Guardian Weekly. They have the American edition. And you get a slightly different perspective because it's The Guardian, rather than the American newspaper.

I think Sunday newspapers are a good idea. For example, if you can subscribe to the Washington Post on Sunday or the New York Times on Sunday, you know, you don't have to be... Then you'll run into mid-year story reading on Wednesday because it's so dense, but discover that you are learning more. I mean, in terms of... I read a lot of foreign news because I'm pro-European, but in terms of American stuff, I think Vox does a good job of explaining... Like things that are online now. I think Vox does a good job of explaining, and explaining is good.

That's one I would recommend if we're going to be online. Yes, the rest of what I read online is pretty niche. So maybe I should leave it at that. - Good thank you. Those are great suggestions. Alright. Well again it has been a pleasure. There are still many questions out there. I'm afraid we couldn't reach all of them, but I hope their comments were extensive. I think you actually touched on a lot of the things that people were interested in, so thank you for that. Thank you for joining us, for enlightening us on how our collective present can be explained or at least understood a little better from your own knowledge, deep knowledge, I should say of the past.

I also want to thank the Donald M Zuckert, Bowdoin Class of 1956 Fund for supporting this series, and last but not least, I want to invite you all to join us at our next event on Monday, March 1, where Suzanne will participate. Nossel talking about expression, the Internet and democracy. With Katie Benner, Class of 99, US Department of Justice correspondence for the New York Times. So thanks again to our guest and to all of you for joining the conversation. I hope it's the first of many more good conversations to come. - Thank you so much.