[Music]

from New York Times opinion this is the

Ezra Klein

[Music]

show sometimes you stumble across a line

in a book and you have this moment of

yeah that's exactly how that feels at

that moment reading the introduction to

Zade Smith's 2018 book of essays feel

free and she's talking about the

political Stakes of that period

particularly 2016 brexit in the UK

Donald Trump in America and the way you

could feel it changing people she writes

quote millions of more or less amorphous

selves will now necessarily find

themselves solidifying into protesters

activists Marchers voters firebrands

impeachers lobbyists soldiers Champions

Defenders historians experts critics You

Can't Fight Fire with air but equally

you can't fight for a freedom you forgot

in how to

identify what Smith is describing there

felt so familiar to me I see it so often

in myself in people around me and you

really actually hear it talked about

that that moment when

politics seems to demand or world events

seem to demand that we put aside our

internal conflicts our

uncertainty our many selves and solidify

into what the cause or the moment needs

us to be as if curiosity were a luxury a

decadence suited only to

peacetime Zade Smith is of course a

novelist an essayist she's been one of

my favorite writers for years if you've

not read her back catalog like white

teeth and on beauty and swing time I

almost Envy you but still I was

surprised when I finally read the fraud

the book she released last year I didn't

expect this novel about a trial in 19th

century London which I knew it to be

about to be so resonant so about 21st

century America but Smitha said that

Trump and populism were front of her

mind when she wrote it and you can feel

it in the book you can feel it as she

explores this weird thing that actually

did happen the tichborne trial this

strange case in which a man who seemed

to be a clear fraud a butcher was

claiming to be the air to a storied

estate and in his claim he built this

huge movement of passionate supporters

who totally flum mixed the day's Elites

and

institutions Smith has moved to another

time and another place to protect the

ability to have that amorphous self to

explore something very current from more

perspectives in the current moment

sometimes allows as always my email as

reclin show at NY

times.com Zade Smith welcome to the show

thanks for having me so in your essay

collection feel free you make this point

that that we have these amorphous

identities that then under political

pressure solidify tell me about that

that experience that Dynamic for me it's

a tension in my thought which I perhaps

extrapolate to others but I guess I

don't often um Define myself but if I

had to I would call myself a radical

humanist a socialist but also an

existentialist and those three things

combined are sometimes hard to think

from the existentialist part means I

guess that I think people are thrown

into life that I don't believe in people

having Essences essentially and that

leads to a certain kind of fiction a

certain kind of thought but it also has

a political angle because if you think

people are thrown into life then the

circumstances they're thrown into are of

absolute significance and I guess in

2016 the circumstances we were all about

to be thrown into were my focus whereas

in quieter or more peaceful times the

idea of what you're thrown into being

the beauty of the world nature itself

your relations with other people this

kind of private domestic World um that

had to be put to one side I find that

interesting and and something you went

on to say in in that introduction was

that you can't fight fire with air I

sort of took you to be saying at least

in part that internal conflict is at

times a luxury or or if not a luxury

something that that at certain moments

you're you're forced to give up in order

to to achieve a goal and and I think

resonated to it I mean we're an election

year and I do find both inside myself

and then in the pressures that are upon

me there are times when people are very

comfortable with you both having and

expressing your doubt your conflict your

on the one hand on the other hand

hashtag Nuance exactly and then and then

there are times when both internally and

externally people view that as kind of

decadence yeah that's absolutely the

case I guess what I feel is that given

that a huge amount of people are very

willing to um suppress or ignore any

kind of contradiction ambivalence in

themselves there should be space

theoretically for one or two people to

remind people of their wholeness and so

I've when I'm writing that's what I'm

thinking about I know I cannot perform

the roles other people play but the role

I play Which is far smaller but makes an

attempt to deal with people in their

their privacy as well as in their public

selves tell me about the tichborne case

which is at the heart of of your book

The fraud how did you get interested in

that I got interested in it through a

strange pathway because the man himself

this uh working-class butcher who

claimed to be an aristocrat is buried in

an unmarked grave right next to my house

and has always been right next door to

me even when I lived in a housing estate

that housing estate looked over the

graveyard where he's buried so he always

been on my

mind and he always interested me as an

example of a kind of the best way to put

it is a kind of leftwing

populism and the first time I started

thinking about him was properly was

during the OJ trial when I was young

that it seemed to me another example of

a case that you know fundamentally is

not true I mean I don't want to no

spoilers to the younger public there but

you know in my view OJ did do it um but

the idea that a court case could express

not a particular Act of Truth or justice

but a more generalized feeling about

Justice really interested me and the

fact that the OJ case even though the

subject of it was a lie there was a

larger truth being told in that case

which was in that the courts were

institutionally racist that America

itself had run a court system that was

institutionally racist that that larger

truth was told around a lie that's what

interested me that's what interests me

about titch born too it's not the

way I personally would ever want Justice

to come about but it's a recognition

sometimes that when all other outlets

seem blocked populism rears its head

give me a a bit more setup of the

tichborne case you have this apparent

butcher who is claiming to be the heir

to a great Noble estate but but give me

a bit more setup I mean it's such a

silly story but basically a a man called

Roger tichborne was a Catholic

french-speaking Anglo French Aristocrat

went off on a boat actually to Jamaica

um and the boat sank he was about

22 and his mother who was completely

obsessed with him refused to believe it

and put ads out all over the world first

in England then Britain then Europe then

as far as Australia offering larger and

larger rewards for the discovery of her

son who she believed had been rescued

from the Shipwreck and was somewhere the

reward got so large that inevitably

Pretenders would turn up and this

particular Pretender was a working-class

man called Arthur Orton he'd been a

butcher he had traveled away from

England ended up in Australia and in

Australia bumped into a black man an

ex-slave a Jamaican who had worked for

this titch born family he's called Bogle

Andrew Bogle and these two men sail to

England and claim that the butcher is is

the long lost son and the mother says

yes you are and then promptly dies and

that started this enormous court case

between the family the titch bonds who

obviously didn't want to give their

property and money and lands to a

stranger and titch born and Bogle who

steadfastly insisted they were telling

the truth one of the core characters of

the book is Sarah answorth yes who who

is she and and why does she care so much

about this trial she's one of my

favorite characters she is the um second

wife of a writer called anworth who's a

character in the book she is a

uneducated woman a workingclass woman a

smart woman and someone who has a great

Instinct for a story and it's a great

soapy tabloid story she's fascinated by

it and I think she sees in it some echo

of her own situation you know as far as

she's concerned there is a conspiracy

against people like her there's a

conspiracy against this man who just

wants what's owed to him of course the

central logic of her argument doesn't

quite make sense because if he's a

workingclass man being hard done by the

courts then he can't possibly also be

sir Roger a Catholic Aristocrat so you

know even at the time people like Sarah

there were hundreds of them it was a

huge movement supporting this man's

attempt to get his lands were ridiculed

in the press the obvious illogic of the

argument was displayed but for people

like Sarah it wasn't a matter of logic

it was a matter of emotion and and there

was again a larger truth which is that

these courts do not give us any fair

chance of justice and in the 19th

century in England the court system

explicitly was on the side of the upper

classes it was a genuine truth that to

be a working class person in that cour

system a working-class child for example

you were in serious danger you know if

you stole a sheep if you stole a bag of

sugar you could end up in Australia so I

think by the time the titch born case

comes along there is a great feeling of

this system is as rational as it seems

as liberal as it seems is not intended

for us so to me she is someone who

unlike a lot of the liberal commentators

including her own husband who has lived

this experience of Injustice in the

courts and on the streets of England so

um she's wrong but she's also in some

portion right one of the things that

emerges about her is that she has very

little intellectual status at her own

home as you mentioned she was the maid

now turned wife to this much older

novelist the the home is really run by

Eliza Tue yeah the novelist very

intellectual cousin an abolitionist a

voracious reader someone who can hold

her own at a table of famous

novelists but when Sarah and Eliza began

attending the titch porn trials this

sort of flips and she often understands

what is going on better than Eliza does

in some ways I understood a li is a

little bit more of a standin for people

maybe more in your social class or I

guess in mine and what they get right

and and get wrong so how did writing

these two characters make you think

about your own blind spots or make you

think about the sort of different ways

of understanding the world I mean it's

two things I've been in both classes

right I was born in one and raised in

one and then my education and my job put

me in another and I guess the

fundamental lesson of that kind of

movement is that what we Define as

intelligence we Define it so partially

like I am so aware without trying to

sound falsely humble or that I am a

complete idiot about so many things and

yet I have this particular intelligence

in a very extremely narrow area which

has allowed me to make the life I've

made but if you ask me the most basic

facts of the universe or even the

relationship between the Sun and the

Moon basic math uh geography I mean

there are just Acres of ignorance in my

life no matter practical knowledge to do

things with your hands to make things or

even how to run a group how to uh speak

to people how to relate to other it's

endless the things that I'm not good at

there are many many contexts in the

world that I can go into and be a true

fool truly lost and that's important to

know when you move through the world

that this thing you call intellect this

thing that you value this thing which

may even be the basis of your kind of

meritocratic existence has limited use

and that there are many many ways to be

intelligent in this world I mean the

most obvious that anyone from the class

I was born in will tell you about is

Street smarts which is one of the most

essential values you can have in this

world and gets increasingly lost as you

move out of that class into others so

writing about the two of them I was

writing with respect about two different

kinds of ways of being in the world one

of my favorite lines in the book comes

at one of the s after there's a spray of

conspiracy theories about how the

initial trial was rigged and you write

that quote Mrs T did not recall an

excess of aristocrats or Jesuits at the

first trial and was quite certain she'd

seen many a poor man and what choice the

government have but to accept the cost

of cases imposed upon it but such dry

and inconvenient facts were of no

consequence here in this ocean of

feeling that had the sort of Ring of

recognition in a lot of both like my

reporting and just moments in my own

life where the the sort of dry facts

seem somehow to pale before the

emotional structure of a thing right but

again I'm also not willing to submit

entirely to feeling you know I guess my

my ideal and this is not perfectly

practiced in my own life and certainly

not perfectly practiced in my work but

it's that kind of Aristotelian idea that

you have logic you have P these things

work together and you have your will

that the you have to combine these

things every time you're moving through

the world every time you're making a

decision every time I'm writing

something I'm trying to balance the

claims of those things sometimes the

ethics of a situation or all that

matters sometimes you have to seed to

emotion and sometimes logic is what's

required but the tricky thing about life

is there's no guide book to how exactly

those three things should be balanced

it's something you have to en act every

day of your life it's work you know let

me see if this resonates for you because

something it made me think of was an

experience I had some years ago there

there was a rise of I guess an online

intellectual movement known as the

rationalists I knew a lot of those

people I moved in those circles for a

bit there was a period when I think it

was Ben Shapiro was very associated with

this line facts don't care about your

feelings and I remember that period

trying to think a lot about emotion and

and politics um and recognizing

particular over the the coming couple of

years

that emotion does Point towards things

it doesn't tell you what is true but the

sort of practice that I saw people

trying to do of Walling yourself off

from emotion of in fact

distrusting information that comes

wrapped in Emotion there was something

that clicked for me at a certain point

and like has always been true in me as a

human being that I trust emotion I don't

trust it as the end of the inquiry but

if people feel strongly about something

there is something there there is a deep

intelligence in people's emotional

reactions that if and if you keep it

seeing a point in a direction I feel

like you should bring curiosity to that

where where some people I think bring

mistrust because of the very existence

of the emotion right it's hysterical

it's angry it's outrageous the facts

don't care about my feelings is a truly

fascistic sentence you know to be honest

we are creatures of feeling in part so

to deny that is to I a part of the kind

of animal we are in the world I think

you see plenty of that in paloalto in

many other places but to take it as a

principle is extraordinary to me even in

the hardest Sciences emotion plays some

role Instinct plays some role and it

also dismisses huge areas of people's

Human Experience the entirety of

religious experience almost the entirety

of emotive experience experience of the

natural world philosophical experience

so for me that that movement is um it's

just so distant from the way I I think

about humans and what they

need and I do think some of this

obsession with rational argument like I

I really notice it when people are

arguing about transgender issues or very

intimate and complicated personal

matters sometimes people will argue with

this Fierce logic as if all our

experiences of identity or or personal

experience are run on these logical

terms but of course it's not the case so

why should this particular area be

subjected to Absolute rationality I I

would say that most of our experiences

of ourselves are quite deeply irrational

like if you stop a couple in the street

and say to them why are you married you

are not going to get a rational answer

from them you're going to get some

murmuring sentimental some partially

logical some apologetic some unsure but

there's a large area of our intimate

lives some of our most serious decisions

which can't be presented to logic in

that way I think you have to allow

people an area of self which doesn't

submit to a mathematical program

[Music]

[Music]

so fights over identity have been a big

part of our politics in recent years

this all gets called wokeness although I

don't love that term but what sort of

has always shocked me having I guess

lived through this period is how

powerfully that moral wave hit between I

guess I would call 2015 and

2021 and then in the last couple of

years how rapidly it feels like it is f

and I'm not saying that it hasn't left

quite a lot behind or changed us but

there has been this Whiplash for me and

I'm curious what your experience of it

has

been um I

mean so much of it happens at a meta

level in newspapers and think pieces I

can't honestly say in my

classrooms I mean I just don't even

recognize the category really like the

way I teach

I try and teach a Unity so like if I'm

teaching Pride and Prejudice this is not

a battle between woke thought and unwoke

thought I'm only interested in truth so

to me there is no friction and no battle

between teaching the beauty and Artistry

of Austin's novels discussing where

Darcy's money comes from which is most

certainly the Caribbean understanding

the political situation in England in

the 1810s those things happen

simultaneously the workingclass movement

which is off to the side in that novel

The complacency of the middle classes in

that novel The Artistry of Jane Austin I

don't take the bait I don't accept the

argument in the first place that I have

two kinds of students who are in some

kind of football game of ideas and if

one wins the other loses that's not how

I teach literature that's not how I

think of History that's not how I think

of the relationship between black and

white people so I don't engage because I

I I think it's a bait and I think it's a

circle jerk and that what you're meant

to do in response to it is move further

and further to the right in response to

this bogey man but I know a lot of

people teach you on campus and I'm not

I'm not asking you to take the bait of

choosing a side in things that had a a

crudeness to them in a lot of different

directions but I I do know a lot of

people and I think I felt it too and I

don't think it was just at newspapers I

mean I think this was a genuine social

movement and a genuine shift in

ideologies and and things people

believed um and one thing that I the

people who taught have told me is that

they feel like things shifted a lot in

young people for a while and now maybe

they're shifting back or maybe the other

thing I believe is that a lot of the

things got metabolized and so things

that people did not believe in 2012 now

seem so normal in

2024 that we no longer call it something

new so I was going to ask about that

what of that sort of ideological wave

has held right what do you think is now

just common wisdom and we've actually

changed and what kind of left I mean the

thing which is satisfying for me was the

first and initial hierarchical reversal

it's something that I dreamt about all

my life that people who thoughtlessly

consider themselves at the center of

History culture would be made to look at

the world another way that first

hierarchical reversal is a revolution in

thought and it's incredible so I would

not have been able to write this book

without an EXT incredible flowering of

African diasporic thought on the

historical question on the history of

slavery on what happened to the African

diaspora all of that just simply did not

exist when I started writing so I am in

absolute debt to all of those writers

who tried to centralize the idea of

Africa as a

major part of our Ive human history and

of that story as fundamental to Europe

and to the politics we're in now that is

all essential so I'm excited that when I

talk to students now they don't just

know one novel from Africa they don't

have some kind of vague sense of what

happened in African history and in

contemporary history in relation to

Africa but I did not come to create a

hierarchical revolution and then have my

thought suddenly calcify the way the

previous version of thought was

calcified that's not what I believe in

and that's not what I'm here for to

become that person to me would be death

so I can't take any role that's

presented to me as my role I have to

keep thinking every day you were talking

a minute ago about who gets to be seen

as the center of history and also maybe

another way of putting that

is who gets to be seen as not having

identity when we talked about identity

politics in in America at least one of

my sort of endless arguments is that

identity politics was strongest when it

was least visible right when there was

no conflict but that's what it's about

that that's what the hierarchical

reversal was about that everybody had an

identity apart from white people they

had no identity they were the the

universal they were human beings and so

part of that turn is everybody saying

why don't you try having an identity for

once see how you like it and the answer

was nobody liked it they didn't like it

but the lesson from that for me is that

that straight jacket is something that

nobody really wants sometimes it's

needed politically we absolutely need to

gather in our identity group sometimes

for our freedoms for our civil rights

there's absolutely no doubt about that

but for that role to be the thing that

is you existentially all the way

down that is something that I personally

believe all human beings Revolt from at

some

level I think this is one reason for me

that your language about amorphousness

of ourselves and solidity of ourselves

rung so true I I wrote a book a couple

years back about political

polarization and one of the the major

arguments of the book or things I was

writing about and

observing was the way we often have um I

mean our identities are so manif there's

so many things that are true about me if

you ask about you know identities I hold

I'm Californian and I'm a father and I'm

the son of an immigrant and you know you

could just kind of go on and on and on

down this line and then one of the

things that politics or certain kinds of

social dynamics do

is force you to inhabit one or a small

set of them at the end of the day I

always felt this was a thing that was

like the core tension in the politics of

Barack Obama that you know in his big

speech that brought him to prominence in

2004 talks about you know how different

we are in other contexts right you know

that we worship an awesome God in blue

States and we don't like people poking

around our libraries in red States he's

always talking about how people are at

the PTA meeting or on the soccer field

but then it's like the political the

hydraulic Machinery of politics takes

over and people are so complicated with

so much overlap kind of click in to this

final binary choice and it's a it's a

real I I'm not sure there's all that

many other ways to do it but it is a

real violence done to the self I mean I

don't disagree with that of course it's

true but but the greater violence done

to the self is oppression itself

oppression is the thing that boxes you

in that forces you into a certain set of

moves that makes you unable to explore

this possibility of your non-essential

self so I guess that's where I would

differ from the more liberal view that

the boxing in is first done economically

politically structurally that narrows

your conception and and it's not just a

philosophical narring it's practical

like you do not have time to think being

poor is stressful expensive tiring

mentally exhausting it's a denuding of

your self and that to me is the primary

concern the kind of political narrowing

happens later and is partly a

consequence of it but it's those actual

structural things in a person's life

which make their area of movement

sometimes unbearably narrow

this feels to me like something you're

exploring in the way you write about the

Titor case if the claimant wins this

sort of guy claiming to be Roger

tichborne wins in the Titor case this

movement he has behind him Sarah in

particular they they get nothing of his

State I mean later on there's some scams

about investing in him but for the most

part he wins and they get nothing yeah

but but there's some kind of

transference and this happens a lot in

movements and and Sarah says in this in

this great quote we all feel for poor

sir Roger and and vice versa he's for us

and we're for him I think a lot of

liberals in America at least find the

Trump movement both sort of

disconcerting and confusing because many

ways it's like what is he going to give

you this is a guy who if he had his way

you know would have taken away your

health care would cut Medicaid you know

I mean he wasn't able to do all the

things he tried to do but a lot of them

would have been very bad for many of the

people who support him but what he has

promising to do and I think actually

does do in a much more true way than

than people sometimes give him credit

for is his victory is a loss in status

and power for many institutions so for

Sarah what kind of Oppression is being

combed here and what kind of Victory

does she win if the claimant wins I

think that's absolutely the problem with

this populism that she has no personal

gain though in the case of a titch

bornes and I would say it's similar in

O.J actually the court system itself was

shamed by this public movement so you

could call that a symbolic Victory but

it was important and maybe that's

something that populist movies can do

this kind of very slight turning round

of a large ship that's been pointing in

a particular direction but for someone

like Bogle you know this is a novel in

which there are many many different

versions of being boxed in some of them

are slight you know about class or very

minor gradations of class or about

careers or egos some of them are larger

like Mrs touche is boxed in pretty much

by her gender and her class she finds it

really hard to live the kind of life she

wants to live in 1830s in England but

all of this Pals in comparison to the

reality of being a slave which is the

absolute Nader of no movement no Freedom

no choice no self so to me it's not

about choosing one particular oppression

or playing them off against each other

but it's also being aware that there are

gradations of these things you have a

fascinating line on this where you say

that very stable Notions of identity can

create a kind of quote containment

around people what do you mean by

containment I mean I when I think of my

identity I think of myself as a black

British woman I think of myself as a

writer

a mother

friend occasional drug taker dancer

clubber many things those things are all

me that probably best describe by your

name so what I'm trying to do when I'm

writing is to try and defend that

fundamental sense that we are in the end

this person I am a zi you are an Ezra I

really think there's a way that you can

acknowledge that truth about yourself

and still do your political work and

still particip at in struggle but still

know that humans are essentially

uncontainable by these terms entirely

there's some connection here with

language and I I was always struck how

many fights it could have been

materialist end up langu ended up being

about language right right like the

often times the demands were were about

how we spoke about each other right the

backlash ended up being um termed Free

Speech which I always thought was not

accurate but nevertheless and I I guess

the question is what do you win and and

what do you

lose when you sort of wrap yourself in

in language I heard you say on a podcast

that it's possible there are wild

freedoms sexual personal and existential

that come with having no language at all

for what you feel and and and what you

do and so it struck me that you maybe

have some ambivalence there I don't

blame anyone for the linguistic turn it

was a linguistic turn mostly on the part

of young people

but how can you blame them given that

they had no money really no tools very

little physical material freedoms in the

world it seems natural to me that they

fought in the only place they knew where

to fight which was language the actual

means of production are out of their

hands they were enveloped by this like

technological Revolution which basically

kind of owned them it doesn't surprise

me that it the Battleground ended up

being language because language is that

it's it's right in front of you you can

do something about it you can't really

do anything about late capitalism or you

didn't feel like you could in 2012 you

felt trapped so it doesn't surprise me

but yeah it's worldly inefficient it's

not good enough I'm always happy that

people use quote unquote right words

around me and others but it's nothing

compared to decent wages decent housing

Health Care human rights it's nothing

compared to that so it's it's not that I

think it's worthless but I to have it so

wildly over overburdened with meaning

and power is seems to me a kind of trick

that was that was played on us I guess I

also wonder though or I guess something

I have been struggling with

myself is what happens when you have the

words and and I guess I'll be honest

about what's on my mind here which is I

was saying earlier that in different

periods different identities come to the

four and for sort of obvious reasons in

the last year I've been thinking a lot

about Jewish identity and feeling a lot

of conflict around Jewish identity

certainly feeling a lot of conflict

around what the word Zionism means right

there there's a a weird term for people

who support that state that hearkens

back to a very particular ideology and

like do I include myself in in that or

not and on the one hand there's all this

clear language and on the other hand for

one of the first times for me I've

actually felt the strictures of that as

the reality has become so much more comp

Lex and so much more painful I think

than what some of the the language

allows and so I guess it's made me think

a little bit about that that idea of

containment that identities can be

containing but the identities end up

instantiated in in these couple of words

and it's like my identity as a Jewish

person is very vast but what somebody

else hears in that is not that that way

and so it's like that translation of

like an amorphous identity to use that

term again to language is tough it's

incredibly

painful and I I mean I think of my

mother recently there's been new

language for her in this country so Bame

is a new term and my mom who's just

turned 70 was like personally I don't

need anym I don't need any more words

she's had a lot of words you know she

grew up in Jamaica in the 50s she's had

a lot of words applied to her some

absolutely offensive some more

mollifying but each time at a certain

point you get tired of being presented

with this new IDE of yourself you know

as for narratives of national or ethn

religious or personal identity sometimes

you really have to step back and look at

the story that you've told yourself

about your people and it's one of the

hardest things to do in the world and

what I spoke about earlier in my view

about staying open listening to people

having to take on your self-conception

and how the way others have conceived

you or experienced you are not the same

that's the most painful thing in the

world I don't know how that's done but

sometimes it has to be done sometimes at

the intimate personal level and

sometimes at the world historical level

that's as tough as it comes you justed

something a minute ago that I also think

is important here which is that all the

things we're talking about have happened

in a in a new and digital context and

it's a new and digital context that is

largely instantiated in in words and

images I mean we Define and describe

ourselves in many more places through a

couple words or an image right an Avatar

Photo a bio on our Facebook or X or Tik

Tok or whatever page and I don't think

you have much presence on social media

um my understand you don't even have a a

smartphone how do you see the way that

using language to Define ourselves

online constantly has changed the

self-de of the people around you or the

people you teach you know I don't want

to talk uh through

hysteria I just talk about the facts and

and the facts of this technology is that

it was designed as and is intended to be

a behavior modification

system that is the right term for it

when you wake up in the morning and you

turn to your social app you are being

instructed on what the issue of the day

is what to be interested in the news has

always played some element in doing that

but this is total so I might wake up in

the morning and what interests me is an

idea I've had or what I see out of my

window or what's happening locally in

front of me what's happening in my

country but the phone tells me exactly

what to think about where to think about

it and often how to think about it and

it's not even to me the content of those

thoughts like there's a lot of emphasis

put on the kind of politics they're

expressed on these platforms to the

right or to the left to me it's the

structure it's not the content of what's

on them it's that it's structured in a

certain way that an argument is this

long that there are two sides to every

debate that they must be in Fierce

contest with each other is actually

structuring the way you think about

thought and I don't think anyone of my

age who knows anyone they knew in 2008

thinks that that person has not been

seriously modified in many different

directions but the fundamental

modification is the

same and that's okay all media modify

you books modify you TV modifies you

radio modifies you the social life of a

16th Century Village modifies you but

the question becomes who do you want to

be modified by and to what degree that's

my only question and when I look at the

people who have designed these

things what they want what their aims

are what they think a human being is or

should be the humans I know and love

this Machinery is not worthy of them

that's the best way I can put it and I

speak as someone who grew up as a

entirely TV addicted human I love TV I

love reading modification is my bread

and butter and when the internet came I

was like

Hallelujah finally we've got a medium

which isn't made by the man or

centralized we're just going to be like

talking to each other hang out with each

other peer- to peer it's going to be

amazing that is not the internet that we

have that is not what occurred

a couple years back I got very into

reading the media theorists from the

rise of the the television age like

Marshall mclan Neil Postman and there's

these books on like the you know four

Arguments for the elimination of

television when I would critique what

the internet and social media were

feeling like to me people say oh

everybody said this about television and

so I went back and I read these books

and I had this sort of shock where I was

like oh and they were right they were

right like the things they were saying

television would do to us and do to our

culture are right just a straightforward

argument in in Neil postman's great book

amusing ourselves to death where he says

that the thing television is going to do

to politics is make us believe politics

should always be entertaining and that's

going to make politics a space dominated

by

entertainers and like here we literally

are right with a reality television

Superstar you know running for president

having already been president once

before with his his primary capacity

being his Mastery of the the sort of

television and attentional

sphere it's just this wild thing to real

oh yeah I mean yeah Society kept

spinning on I mean TV did not yet lead

to everything collapsing in on itself

but the things people said would happen

actually happen for better and for worse

and they saw it all coming and they

described a world way less warped and

deranged by all this than the one we

actually live in I mean if you went back

and told them what happened I think they

would look at you with their their their

mouth hori I mean I I think NE Postman

is a a prophet and a genius and I give

that book to everybody all the time it

blew my mind um yeah we are we are

further along that path

but I I just it's about capture like I

think the thing with TV when I look at

it now is that every

medium captures people all mediums in

the past have had partial capture what

blows my mind and what I think is the

paradigm shift is this is total this is

total so when I get on a train in the

morning and I look down a carriage and I

can look down half a mile of carriage

there isn't a single person who is

looking up from their phones it's total

so that was my question like what

happens when it's everybody and it's not

just the medium but it's also the way

you work live pay for the like what

happens when you enter into the medium

and that's how your life is structured

and I have total faith that people can

metabolize technology and I also know

that technology is a culture and though

I've missed most of it I know that the

internet is a culture and it's joyful to

so many people and it's been nothing but

LOLs and pleasure and there's been

Delight all over it just as there was

Delight in television for me but um yeah

the political consequences are clear and

the effect on I mean it's so boring to

say but just the effect on people's

ability to attend has been radical you

don't have a smartphone which is uh a

potent Choice how would you be different

or how do you believe you would be

different like what modification of

yourself are you trying to protect

against if you did I I just it's

sometimes funny to think about I mean I

cannot imagine I am so have you ever had

one I had one for three months in 2008

when it when it came out I am so um

influenced so uh other people's opinions

matter to me as I'm sure they matter to

everybody the thought of being exposed

to those opinions every second of every

day of having to present my crumbling

halfast life to other people in some

other form than it exists every day like

a TV show like a media presentation

every single day I cannot imagine I

cannot imagine what my mind would be

what my books would be what my

relationships would be what my

relationship with my children would be

I mean apart from anything else I am an

addictive person so I would be on that

thing 9 hours a day easy I watch TV 9

hours a day throughout the whole of the

80s like I would be what my kids call

Brain

rot I I would be that person

entirely the thing that I I always

wonder about W with this so I I have a

smartphone but I don't have any social

media apps or um I don't really go on my

social media but but I do look at it a

lot um the phone and the thing that I

has always kept me there is the ability

to get directions and to to order a car

I can't need to that curious yeah this

is the thing this is like somehow Steve

Jobs sold everybody an iPhone and then

like uber and GPS systems made a lot of

us feel like we would die cold and

hungry on a street corner someday if we

didn't keep it in our pocket that that

is actually how I feel about the phone

so I'm curious I get it I'm going to

leral how do you move through the world

until until last year my husband also

didn't have a smartphone and so so we

were 47 or whatever we've been doing

this for a while about once a year there

would be an

absolute travel disaster like just we're

at a party at 3: in the morning there's

no way to get home forget about it walk

five like disaster once a year and every

time it happened I would think that was

bad but is it as bad as having my very

Consciousness colonized every moment of

the day and I'd be like no definitely no

competition but travel-wise like we all

traveled before these things I have an a

to zed which is the little guide to

London I plan where I'm going before I

go and then I just kind of go there and

that's kind of it so sometimes when I

open an A toz on a train I see people

literally laughing at me yeah that

happens the other thing that when you

were saying this you made me think about

was not the the modification of itself

self but the modification of the way you

see others sort of one of the only

social media sites I'll occasion waste

some time on is is Instagram because um

I don't know because it doesn't stress

me out yeah it's for the most part I

think that's fair and but I saw somebody

who posts a lot of stories and I thought

I sort of like knew what was up with

them to a degree or at least like knew

the vibe of the life they're living

which looks great and they were having

such a hard time when I saw them and I

realized that my sense of them had

diverged like I I had this sort of

feeling that I was keeping up with him

my sense of them had diverged so totally

from their experience it's not only that

I didn't know them anymore or at least

didn't know them in that moment but I

anti- knew them I didn't even have the

truth that I didn't know what was going

on and it struck me as really sad it

made me think about how much time I

spend I mean one reason I've left a lot

of other platforms I realized they were

changing my how I felt about other

people I was being exposed to parts of

them that I don't like or or didn't want

but I think it's important to be a bit

more forgiving like when there're being

those people online I see that too

people I love and I see them online I'm

like who are you this is not the same

person I hang out with this is a

different person but it's really

important to take the responsibility and

the blame off individuals it's a

behavior modification system it's meant

to do that it's really welld designed

people aren't terrible the system is

terrible you want to lift that off

people that sense of guilt or shame or

and make it more about anger like anger

towards the people who created this you

wrote something about this that I really

liked in this older essay about the film

The Social Network you said quote I'm

dreaming of a web that caters to a kind

of person who no longer exists uh a

private person a person who is a mystery

to the world and which is more important

to herself and for some reason that

really connected for me that idea of of

of mystery that idea of mystery is

something we actually might want

to cultivate um like I'm curious to you

unpack that word like not just like what

is unknown but like what what space is

offered by mystery Technologies aren't

neutral right they are a philosophy and

an ideology they're not a neutral thing

so the the technology of these

algorithms is the idea that everything

in the world can get classified and

that's not just a practical matter

that's a philosophy that there's nothing

in the world that cannot be organized

classified and labeled and I don't

believe that I just don't believe that

but but I also I still dream of a peerto

peer into and and there are interesting

like Clues as to the parts of the

internet which are genuinely joyful and

fantastic of how we might go forward

like I really

notice that music thrives on the

internet I don't mean economically I

know that musicians are suffering

everywhere but in terms of the actual

music that is being made by young people

who are completely as online as you can

be to me the music is Sensational like

I've never heard such great hip-hop pop

all of it I Absol absolutely love it so

there's an interesting question like why

would one medium be really energized by

this these algorithms and other mediums

like my medium really struggle right so

it because it really makes it hard to

read the habit of reading starts to die

more and more and if you're not reading

you're not really writing at the level

you need to be writing at because

reading is what makes writers there's

not really any way around that so I I've

thought a lot about that like why is

contemporary music music so

excellent I have never had a better life

in music than I have over the past four

or five years exactly the music

Sensational the music is amazing but the

ability

to stumble into something

wonderful and then begin to daisy chain

off of that is there's a stereotype that

you don't keep finding new music as you

get older and I know that's true for a

lot of people and I have never found as

much amazing new music as I have over

these past couple years and and I do

think it's the internet the this ability

the algorithms are actually pretty good

if you get if you let them get to know

you so yeah and I have the same thing

you do because I know a lot of these

sites are bad for the musicians I go to

a lot of live shows so I feel like I'm

supporting the the economy that way and

I sometimes will buy people stuff on

band camp or something um listen I'm the

only person still paying for music I I'm

a straight up I buy it but I think what

it might be is that most other art forms

need uh comprehension on the part of the

artist of a kind of chronological

history like if you're going to write it

really really helps to understand the

development of the novel from you know

the 1300s of creative right till now

it's like eating a good diet just

creates interesting work as you kind of

digest all this stuff in order music it

really doesn't matter and in fact the

more the hierarchy of years is just

completely smashed apart the more

interesting the music gets it's like the

algorithm just produces weirder and

weirder collections of

influences you're saying that all these

are behavioral modification devices and

they're also aspiration devices right

they're sort of telling you what you

should value in life and I think one of

the things they're saying is you value

having like a lot of connections and you

write about something that happens in in

Liza's thinking at the end of her life

and you say Well when she was young she

had wanted to know everyone touch

everyone be everyone go everywhere

now she thought that if you truly loved

and were truly loved by two people in

your lifetime you had every right to

think yourself aidas I've kind of felt

that happen in my own life as I've

gotten older right the the sort of

broadness of what I cared about socially

has collapsed into a depth of what I

care about socially but I'm I'm curious

where that that thought came from for

you and how you've experienced it it's

absolutely personal it's like one of the

most personal lines in the book I I am

I believe it I I think that's what a

radical humanism means it means you

genuinely you don't ever dismiss people

you don't ever think call them trash you

don't ever think that they are boring or

limited you think that they are infinite

they may not be to your taste fair

play but as I heard Elizabeth Stout

saying somewhere recently you know every

person is a world but the flip side of

it is I also know that a good friend is

a rare rare thing that we don't get many

in our lives you can have acquaintances

you'll have a lot of them but friendship

is something else and I mean even today

it's just maybe a silly example but I

was just going to the shops in my

neighborhood and I saw the father of an

old school friend who is suddenly quite

old and incapacitated he's been put in a

wheelchair for the first time being

pushed down the street by another school

friend like the younger sister of a

friend of mine so the younger sister is

about in her late 30s and this man is 80

and I just saw it and I thought

wow wow these bonds right these are not

two people who are good friends but

there people who lived in the same

neighborhood the whole lives and she has

come to his service she's not a relative

she's not the daughter and I looked at

both these people and thought this is

the kind of bind I want with people and

how do you get to that kind of

connection with another person is

willing to sacrifice their time their

day to do this thing it's it's rare I

think it can be cultivated but the way I

used to conduct my life when I was young

which was just running around talking

for 5 minutes to a thousand people at a

party that is not something that I want

to do anymore I think it's wild fun and

I loved I enjoyed it so much and I love

a party I still love a party but I've

just become more aware of how difficult

it is to to have genuine relations with

other humans it's really hard and it

takes time

[Music]

[Music]

this felt to me um or at least one one

thread of it like a book about aging as

much as it was about anything else one

of the things you're you're tracking in

in some of these parts of the book is

this relationship between aging and and

loneliness which is deeply true for a

lot of people I always think that I fear

Aging for sort of obvious health reasons

but I don't feared for other reasons

except for how often I see aging become

loneliness and I was wondering if you

could read a passage from the book um

this passage of like in the silence to

the what strange lives women lead in The

Silence Eliza was pricked on the sudden

by an overwhelming and acute sense of

loneliness a severe revisionist feeling

it worked upon her cruy making her feel

that loneliness was all she'd ever

known a consequence perhaps of what old

women call the

change a special feminine form of

delusion not to be trusted and yet

apparently impossible to

avoid the change marked in the mind of

Mrs touche the final hurdle in the

lady's steeple

chase the humiliations of

girlhood the separating of the Beautiful

from the plain and the

Ugly the terror of

maidenhood the trials of marriage or

childbirth or their

absence the loss of that same Beauty

around which the whole system appears to

evolve the change of life what strange

lives women

lead tell me why the the connection for

you in that that's sequence that steeple

chase was with

loneliness I think it is hard to go

through these stages of life you do you

do feel lonely and you know on the

surface I have the thing which is meant

to not make you feel lonely a family but

I think there is a deep isolation in

people I think you can have 20 kids and

you get married four times or you can be

part of a great massive chosen family of

wonderful club kids or whatever it is um

and there will be moments when you will

feel this isolation I think it's

existential I think it's a feeling of

being lost in the world sometimes I

think people are super frightened of it

and anything to avoid feeling it the

phone is obviously one of the great

Comforts in that moment you can pick it

up pick it up pick it up pick it up pick

it up and I use I would say books in

exactly that way my family will often

say to me you know even if I have a 30C

waiting period for something the train's

coming down the track I've still got a

book open so that kind of avoidance I'm

absolutely a part of you know and I I

wish I could meditate and I wish I could

be present in the way that people are

always recommending particularly in New

York um but I am also someone who needs

constant mediation so yeah that I know

all about that that loneliness on the

other side of it h i meditate I wouldn't

say it solves this problem I I assume it

does I like to think it does and that

one day I might get there well maybe if

I were better at it the inquiry in the

book is more around the Aging of Mrs T

in it do you think aging is a different

process for men from what you see in

your own

generation uh I mean yeah I I yeah I

mean the difference is so Monumental

it's hard to kind of you might have

actually rendered me speechless which is

kind of a hard thing usually well you

have to ask the questions in a naive

open way it's so um it's so

fundamentally

different but these things there's no

again because I don't think in Essences

I'm always aware of it changing somewhat

so the physical pressure on men boys

even to in the realm of the physical of

the beautiful has like transformed from

when I was young so it may well be that

they will be subject to what were

traditionally coded as feminine

anxieties around age that could totally

happen like maybe it's already happening

but for

me absolutely the loss of whatever

Beauty you had whether it's small or

large has to be conceived of in some way

it has to be dealt with because I'm a

writer it's kind of always interesting

process to watch it's interesting to

watch in myself but it doesn't mean I

don't feel it you know and maybe even

more than that just I don't know

physical capacity like I I love to run I

love to swim knowing that you'll never

or it's very unlikely I don't like to

say this in New York CU I know New York

has a very permanent belief that you can

get faster forever but watching these

things slow down down and it it's it's

strange but I am trying to find the

beauty in it as far as I can find it and

and I think it's only recently that if

you said to me do you want to be 27

again I think on balance I think I would

say no but that's very

recent what about in terms of of

loneliness I I very much take your point

in in terms of the physical expectations

and you have an amazing passage in the

book about the way mirrors operate on a

time delay for women oh yeah it's wild

always telling you how much how

beautiful you were 5 years ago yeah

making you realize that I cannot believe

yeah sorry go on but the loneliness I

was thinking about because one of the

things that I want to say scares me

about aging but I think about with aging

is how lonely many of the older men I

know are in general I find that uh the

older women in my life were more just

connected to other people and I think

that had to do with generational things

I think a lot has to do with child care

how much you did of it when you were

young so there's how much you can do of

it when you are older and that also

decides like the kinds of relationships

you'll have with you know your grandkids

or or other children around you but but

there is something that it seems to me

the scourge of Aging for for men is also

a kind of deep loneliness that there

also isn't much in the way of I don't

want to say sympathy for but but ways to

talk about it just sort of happens and

you bear it I have always felt sorry for

men the lack of social networks the you

know when you have small children the

kind of men who don't look after their

small children or or maybe don't get the

opportunity to that also does happen

never know what it is to walk into a

playground and have literally no choice

but to talk to a load of strangers

because your child is talking to another

child it's like having a dog but those

kind of networks that traditionally

women have been heavily involved with

are are an absolute Advantage you know

later in life but but again there's no

essential truth here because it seems to

me that younger men are having different

friendships with each other which

hopefully will pay off later down the

line more intimate relationships perhaps

but even when all those networks are in

place I still feel maybe I'm just a

terrible pessimist and also uh maybe I'm

not good at making friends that is a

possibility but I do often feel

sometimes even when I'm in great company

how unbelievable

difficult it is to know another human

being it's just so hard and I I think

the the one thing you know nobody ever

has a good word to say about marriage

and I I get it but one thing marriage

has offered me at least is this place of

intimacy where sometimes when you're out

in the world you can feel that like a

lot of your life is a performance even

friendships that seem intimate sometimes

have this performative aspect when I

Retreat to the privacy of my marriage I

I don't mean marriage has to be the form

in which you do this but just any social

thing that you have that is essentially

private and intimate that all goes away

and and I am myself I am absolutely

myself I'm sure Nick would say in a

basically grotesque way terribly dressed

not washed and but I'm myself I'm free

and I

think that's another way sometimes the

discourse is a bit banale you know it's

got this kind of liberalized idea of

freedom so freedom is only getting to do

whatever you want and there's no

conception of that sometimes there might

be things that provide a different form

of Freedom that is actually quite

valuable and for me privacy anywhere

where you can go where you're not on

stage but you're not having to keep up

some kind of idea of yourself where you

can just be that is freedom and any form

that gives you that is really valuable

to

me do you think you've gotten better at

knowing people deeply over

time

um I mean I talk too much I've always

talked too much and to know people you

need to

listen I think I have the gift of a

comic novelist which is a problematic

gift where you you see someone in the

street and you can guess a lot about

them almost immediately right the paper

they read the ideas they hold and and

you can write novels that way and you

can also go through your life that way

making those smart ass guesses and and

being right in some broad way but it's

just not the whole story and it's not

sufficient El Stouts in my mind today

for some I was just reading an interview

with her but her last novel is called

tell me anything and there's a line or

tell me everything maybe and there's a

line in the fraud which is basically the

same sentence tell me everything and

that to me is the key being able to sit

in front of another human being and just

listening not projecting not trying to

make them agree with you not trying to

make them say what you want them to say

just listening to them and that is so

hard I was just thinking about that

question of of listening

um

and I do think listening is really

really hard and I think getting other

people to talk honestly is really really

hard um I'm GNA ask you to read one more

passage because it it connected to this

one for me and and was one of the ones

it was a bit of a a gut punch um this

one's on page 395 and it's the sort of

Passage like Mrs touche to

decorative Mrs touche had been a third

wheel for so much of her

life this was

different this was a desolate and almost

dizzying feeling of

exclusion she felt an acute awareness of

every part of her face and body as if

her own person had suddenly become a

strange from her as if she herself were

the Exotic item burst so suddenly onto

the scene oh but what nonsense it was

simply too hot she was not as young as

she once had been her thoughts were

confused when young she had never

understood why old women dithered so why

they LED conversations down dead ends

and almost always overstayed their

welcome she did not know then what it

was to have no definition in the world

no role and no reason to be no longer

even

decorative a lot of the book is about

forms of exclusion of of judgment that I

think we recognize pretty well that feel

like they have a a sort of a political

veilance I sort of in many cases knew

what sort of conversation to put them in

and towards the end of the book you

began talking about the the sort of

exclusion of aging and the way that it

leads to a like a a psychic feeling of

being lost in the world and and we don't

have good not just politics for that but

language for that I think because for

young people we fear it it's like to

look at it too closely in the face is um

to to admit it will come for you too but

I'm curious to hear you say a little bit

more about that that idea of losing

definition and and losing then the

ability to to be included to to be on

the inside of something rather than the

outside of it um that paragraph is one

of my favorite paragraphs I thank you

for choosing it it's partly because

what's happening there is that Mrs

touche as a white lady is for the first

time in her life in a social situation

with only black people and she

experiences

herself as the Exotic person and I I

know from talking to white people that

this sometimes happens right if they go

to China or if they go to West Africa

they suddenly for the first time in

their lives are like oh I'm the other in

this context suddenly and I I think that

feeling is so interesting like

experientially you need to hold on to it

and know it and track all the feelings

that it brings up in you what I think

about those kind of binary debates and

arguments black white young old when it

comes to black and white it makes

complete sense to me because a black

person is not in their lifetime going to

become a white person the white person

is not going to become a black person

there's this gap of experience history

sometimes Social Power all of those

things so it makes sense as a political

dialectic old young is crazy it's crazy

the kind of discourse a violent

discourse that goes between old and

young people is one of the most

delusional things in contemporary

discourse you are literally fighting the

person you're about to become you're

covering in contempt when you say okay

Boomer or whatever it is do not imagine

that there will be a phrase for you very

very soon it's such a strange War to

begin because you're about to enter it

as the victim of it like so soon like

sooner than you can even begin to

imagine

I I think you're totally right that the

discourse of age has gotten very weird

and I I also noticed it in the other

direction I mean I'm a I'm like the most

elder Millennial basically I'm a very

Elder Millennial and one thing I I find

so funny about my own

generation or at least it's online

discourse I should say is this

desperation to be liked by the younger

Generations right you get all these oh

God they hate you so much it's so

embarrassing and they should like I I

actually sometimes I'll see these like

uh articles going on it's like you're

not supposed to use a crying face emoji

anymore like jenz doesn't do that they

use a tombstone it's like I'm not

they're supposed to have different

things than me it's so important leave

them alone we're not supposed to be the

same leave them like they need to be

able to create their own space but there

is this something about uh online

discourse and maybe it's a fear of the

okay Boomer thing happening but made I

would say specifically Millennials gave

him this sort of like panting desire for

acceptance of like young Generations

which I felt like are we this are we

this fragile and insecure but to be fair

to them I think it was been the same for

every generation since the war you know

once you get this level of mediation

youth is a a premium and everybody who

becomes young who comes into their youth

thinks they're doing it in the ultimate

way I I totally believe that Gen X

thought oh well this is it this is how

you be young and we've solved it like

what is wrong with those sentimental

68 peace and love like we we know what

we're doing problem of men and women is

solved we we're down like we're done

here we absolutely believe that and the

Millennials absolutely believe they had

solved sex everything they've solved

everything and the I'm raising two kids

of the younger generation and I mean you

know it's been wildly reported

everywhere but yes the Generation Z find

the Millennials literally excruciating

even perhaps more excruciating than they

find us which is

amazing but to me it doesn't have to be

this kind of violent battle like I the

thing I'm so moved by is my generation

because they're my time cohorts they're

my people like I I love everybody else

and and good luck to you but I'm talking

when I'm writing foremost to the people

I came up with when going through this

life thing together and I'm like well

how you doing this how I'm doing how's

this striking you this is how I'm

talking to them and and I'm delighted if

anyone younger or older listens in but I

am explicitly talking to my people and

those are the people who came through

these years with me they're meaningful

to me and then always our final question

what are three books you'd recommend to

the

audience well right now I'm reading the

director which is by my Austrian friend

Daniel

kilman It's a Wonderful book about uh

the filmmaker WG Pabst who went back to

Germany in the middle of the war and

made movies all the way through the war

it's very like the fraud like he read

the fraud first cuz I hadn't read his in

Translation yet and it's and he said

these books are the same and reading it

I realized they are the same they're

about complicity and the complicity of

art particularly in horror in his case

the Holocaust in my case slavery and

it's also funny and it's just a

brilliant book so I would recommend that

I am

reading another friend's book Adam shatz

on Fanon

who was the radical socialist

psychiatrist and that's a really really

great book about F on I'm only halfway

through but um it kind of rescues him

from various like people who have

claimed him or factions and kind of

gives you the whole man like the hero

and also the human being and I I found

it really

moving and the other thing I've read

recently which I keep on banging on

about is all of Virginia wolfes Diaries

um there's five volumes I know that

sounds like a lot of work but honestly

that woman is just a pleasure to be

around like just her mind is something I

want to be around so that's like my

Twitter I guess from September to very

recently I'd spend an hour or so a day

just hanging out listening to her burble

about whatever she was burbling about

and it was just

Joy Z Smith thank you very much thank

you

[Music]

this episode of the as Klein show was

produced by Annie Galvin factchecking by

Michelle Harris with Kate Sinclair our

senior engineer is Jeff geld with

additional mixing by almond sahota and

aim Shapiro our senior editor is Claire

Gordon the show's production team also

includes Roland who Elias isi and

Christen Lynn original music by Isaac

Jones audience strategy by Christina

Sami and Shannon Busta the executive

producer of New York Times pinan audio

is Annie Rose ster

[Music]