Transcripts For CSPAN2 Book Discussion 20140323

This country for reasons that hope for reasons that help to layout a little bit in my talk, and if youre kind enough to get the book i would be happy to sign it for you afterwards. The notion of success i think lay at the heart of the american dream. And, in fact, the idea of the individual living head in the race of life, pulling yourself up by your own bootstraps as the old of them are saying, i think its embedded in our national dna. All of us avert i think some version of go make something of yourself, go make something out of yourself. Usually from anxious parents during our adolescence when we prepared to go off to college. And actually i think from the founding days of the republic, boosters and moralists, politicians and shysters, although i risk redundancy on those last two i think [laughter] they been instructing people in the best way to improve their social status and increase their material possessions, which are the two big parts of course of the success formula. In the 18th century Benjamin Franklin and actually i have some slides if this works. There we go. Benjamin franklin i think was the first Great Success writer in American History in Poor Richards on mic written in the early part of the 18th century and then, of course, in his autobiography that was eventually published later in the 1700s. Franklin stressed the work ethic and threat, in particular as the ways to success. All the settings im sure most of you have heard, are w early o bed, early to rise makes a man healthy wealthy and wise. A penny saved is a penny earned, and on and on anything but a few decades later in the 19 city, Horatio Alger, he came the great avatar success in the 19th century the great for miller of success. It a series of novels that in all honesty were literary train wrecks, but culturally i think they are gems. Really interesting cultural documents indeed. Many best selling books, strive to succeed, all of them with very similar titles. Essentially he told the same story over and over and over again. You just change the characters a little bit. The story was a virtuous young man often and often came from the countryside to the big city, and he climbed to success. He rose to distinction through upstanding character, selfdenial and unstinting labor. And for victorian individuals up until about the end of the 19th century, algers directors were kind of a cultural gospel. What about the modern era . Who has been the great avatar of success writing in the American Century as it is often termed . Well, it happens to be a missourian from the northwestern part of the state. I was born up near marysville, rose to become i think the greatest purveyor of success principles in modern life. And his efforts inspired a horde of disciples who have followed in his wake. And that is of course a Dale Carnegie, the subject of my talk in the subject of my biography. In one sense this book which is still one of the best selling books in American History, some people rank it among the top three or four best selling nonfiction books still in our collective lives. In a certain sense of carnegie in his book i think operator in the tradition of franklin and alger, but as well see here and a little bit he also recast i think their instructions to reflect many of the issues and conditions that were in modern life. How to win friends and influence people, in fact, i argued is the kind of brilliant reflection of deeper values that americans have come to embrace in the 20th century. But carnegie, i was shocked to discover a few years ago, has never had a fullscale biography. And so explaining his work is sort of a burden of my book trend in which came out last october selfhelp messiah, i would know this book is essential reading for everyone who does not want to be an abject and miserable failure in modern america [laughter] it also along those lines i think makes a wonderful inspirational gift for graduation, bar mitzvahs, wedding showers, christmas, all National Holidays and major world religions, et cetera, et cetera. That paragraph was written by my publisher actually. [laughter] at any rate, carnegie himself i think offers a fascinating story of rags to riches in his own life. He was born, as i noted before, up near marysville missouri into a youth sort of grinding poverty, and he spent a youth i think it would influence on the one hand by his fathers repeated failures as a farmer in the late 19th century, and on the other hand, by his mothers intense protestant schism of 10 that is his older brother behind him, clinton. Young Dale Carnegie was very bright, very intellectually curious and he found a kind of escape from his boyhood and youthful poverty by developing a talent for public speaking. His mother was something of a lay preacher in that part of the state in this period, and dale goes off to college at the State Teachers College at lawrenceburg, it becomes a kind of big man on campus as a public speaker, as an orator. Back in those days he was quite slight and he had big ears. He was sort of selfconscious and she discovered the only way he could compete with Football Players was to be an orator in the late 19th century, and thats sort of what he made his mark. But then things got very interesting. Hes very ambitious, very tired of the midwest, and he was sort of grating against the religious heritage of his family, in particular his mother. And he wanted to make it. He wanted to get ahead. And what he did was he headed off to new york to make good, the old saying of course was the west, young man. Carnegie of course went east, young man to make his fortune. But success did not come immediately with a Dale Carnegie. He went through, as a matter of fact, a kind of lengthy roster that period i guess i would call it where he struggled through a series of jobs. He was a meat salesman, an actor, a car salesman, a magazine journalist, a failed novelist. And he even entered into the kind of partnership. I found this quite interesting, with Lowell Thomas, the famous writer and journalist in the lawrence of arabia showed shows that Lowell Thomas put together after world war i your carnegie became his right hand man and was are involved in putting on these shows both in england and in the united stat states. After all, of this, carnegie comes back to new york and he finally settles into a kind of solid career as an instructor of public speaking. And he began his efforts at the ymca in brooklyn, parttime teaching a small number of students in the late 1900s into the 1920s and he steadily refined his techniques and refined his course and begin to establish a National Reputation but by about 1930 or so, his public speaking course, the leader famous carnegie course is so popular the thousands are attempting it. That sounds fairly well. And then he wrote a very chatty kind of book that encapsulated a lot of radio pieces that is called little known facts about wellknown people. Carnegie is doing pretty well in this. Ive to their early 30s. It is minute 30s however that carnegie in a way gets his big break. And the heart of the great depression, the period when he becomes a cultural icon for the first time. A man named leann chin can, and an Acquisitions Editor at Simon Schuster with her lunch was on a very influential career after this. He takes carnegie scores. He loves it. He decided carnegies ideas need a much broader audience and he convinces carnegie to read about come asserted that his lectures together. Carnegie is reluctant. He had submitted some book manuscripts to Simon Schuster. They turned him down menu is disgruntled about that. He had to document to it, but eventually carnegie bands to the task. In december 1936 he published a book called how to win friend and influence people. When this book came out and asked of us being put together, both carnegie and the press had fairly modest hope for its sales. They hoped it would sell a reasonable amount of copies that everyone with make a little bit of money and go home happy. But the results were astonishing and they quickly sort of overwhelmed the dictations of everyone involved. Copies begin to fly off the shelves everywhere in United States and four months after its release stunned leann chip kidd wrote this letter should carnegie in which he set, and i quote, i found this at the carnegie archives, if one year ago a friend of mine what he told me today i was going to send to an author the 250,000 copy of this book, i wouldve preferred him to the nearest psychiatrist or to Bob Herbert Lee for believe it or not care to. How to win friends would go on to sell a million copies in the first year or year and a half and by the time the dust has settled, it is estimated the book has sold somewhere in the vicinity of 30 million copies in the United States around the globe. As joined a select group of books and American History that have combined enormous popularity with the genuine cultural influence. Books like the bible, uncle toms cabin, gone with the wind, mckinsey report, baby and child care and last but not least, 50 shades of gray. [laughter] that none of you im sure know anything about that last one. The people question i think is why they carnegies book proved to be so enormously popular than 1830s . What happened in the culture that made it so responsive to a carnegie had to say . In the broadest sense, what i argue in this book is carnegie princeton in a formula for success and how to win friend and influence people that was particularly attuned to send key qualities in modern American Life in the 20th century. It was aimed very shrewdly at the legions of new whitecollar workers in modern america. People in the middle class who are working in a hundred Big Companies and complex bureaucracies that had emerged after the beginning of the 20th century in business, and government, and education, and media and entertainment as well over the early decades of the 1900s. There was an america, a very large army of clerks and Office Workers and middle managers come a salesman, advertisers, marketers, and teachers, salary employees of a kind spirit these are people who wanted to succeed, but they are people for the old advice of Benjamin Franklin and Horatio Alger had a very limited appeal in certain limited use in their everyday fives. The franklin and alger advice about hard work, for moral character, credential habits of saving and thrift, all of this site inc. Seemed irrelevant in many ways in this new society where in peoples daily lives, and bureaucratic settings, and they were involved in interactions on a daily basis with dozens and maybe even hundreds of people over and over again. The old standard of hardy individualism just did not do much for them. Carnegies book i think addressed the situation directly and presented an irresistible message that people responded to very enthusiastically. The message is quite simply that one could find success in the modern world by developing attractive personal trade by developing and displaying of confidence, but i develop reading skills in human relations and most simply, as carnegie would put it, by getting people to like you. That was the game in a lot of ways. Carnegie insisted msn if you may know you had this book, he insists on it over and over again that getting ahead in life from securing a better job, make even more money from enjoying the esteem of your coworkers and so on, that all of this was mainly a matter now in the 20th century of enhancing your personal attractiveness. And with perky enthusiasm and carnegie was nothing if not perky i might add, he promised that is the highest book would help any individual, these are his words, to get out of the mental road, to think new thoughts, acquire new visions come up a new impatience, win people to your way of thinking. Influence your prestige coming ability to get things done. The client had no complaints, avoid arguments come at e3 human contacts smooth and pleasant. So what was the significance of this new success created that carnegie shapes in this book . First of all, what i would suggest you admit you this is very important, what carnegies message of body was a very significant shift in American Culture from character to personality. As i often tell my students in my various courses, and the victorian age in the 1800s, the standard was one of stern morality, selfcontrol, the character ethic is the victorians like to call it. And that is a regulated individual contact. What you have in the 20th century and recently is this fast socioeconomic change they really remade american society, the American Economy and American Culture and significant and. What you have is a new kind of america that takes shape that is increasingly devoted to consumer abundance, to bureaucratic definitions of work, to leisure and entertainment as keith to the peace lives. And in this world coming to your legs via private taurean selfdenial seemed antiquated completely out of touch. I think you see a quite clearly in carnegies own life is that the old hide down structures of character began to recede into the background and instead new sparkling images of personality began to take its place and it becomes central to a new code of individualism. What you have to say new notion out work character shaping of the healthy, magnetic, charismatic personal image rather than the old internalized the date of old fogies. The new charismatic personality is an crucial to your access in the new world selffulfillment and bureaucracy and the consumer economy. And how to win friend and influence people, kerrmcgee captured all of this beautifully and in the book is a set these new principles of personality and what would become his trademark breathless panic total spyro. He makes this book really the type book for success in modern america, in modern American Culture. And worse, im pretty convinced wouldve horrified the victorian audience only 20, 30, 40 years before coming he declares in this book, and i quote, one could no longer put much faith in the old adage that hard work alone is the magic key that will unlock the door to our desires. Instead, he insists that its the ability to handle people with your personality. And he repeats this over and over again in the book that is the key to achieve that, material prosperity in modern society. Success in america, kerrmcgee tells his reader over and over again, depends on getting along with other people, working smoothly with others in a kind of bureaucratic mill you and subtly maneuvering to assume leadership in groups of people. And he tailors this advice in the book to those kinds of principles. These are all his principles and his praises and im just going to recite a few of them. I think you see exactly what i mean. Make the other person feel important. Dont criticize others. Establish a positive atmosphere and avoid hard events. Be hardy and approbation and lavish praise. But the other fallowfield that the idea is his. And finally, the icing on the cake, make people like you. To this end, he incurred just success speakers i think in the book to engage in selfexamination. Its an old habit of course in American Culture at the victorians did this. The puritans even before then. You always need to look inward to be sure youre on the straight and narrow path. But what is different with carnegies injunctions along these lines if they change shape vary dramatically. The puritan scum of the victorians said looking to yourself to examine your character flaws, too mixing them in feelings, your feelings and morality the human being. Carnegie has a very different idea. He tells readers to keep a file the one he did in his right there in the carnegie archive sale and its called ken and i quote, dm for things i have done. What is fascinating about it is sonys injunctions to selfexamination, theres nary a weird about spiritual feelings, falling back, anything of the kind. Instead, but will focus is on social errors. And carnegies rendering of this is to forget peoples names, to blurt out negative comments, to talk too much around other people, to fail to make other people feel comfortable, to argue with people instead of tactfully suggesting new ways thinking about the, to overlook other peoples viewpoints and not listen to them and to make sweeping statements that other people found irritable. Those were awful things ive done and kerrmcgee urged people to sort of like the side of ones personality. Pardon me. Heres where the frog part comes and i think. With carnegie in other words, what i would suggest is you can see American Values shifting from the old notion of entry moral error to shaping ones advantage in the impressions you make upon other people in a kind of modern setting. So character personality is one big source of its significance. Secondly, in addition to that shed, what youve all see and how to win friend and influence people is a new emphasis historically on psychology as the key dynamic in modern American Life. As a number of critics and historians has observed in the last 30 or 40 years and probably most famous date, philip rieff and a brilliant book called tribe as a therapeutic, dave suggested in the modern world the kind of slow erosion of connections among people, community ties, religious obligations and so on, whats been produced in the modern west, particularly in america is this ideal type of psychological man, this minor character type is preoccupied with selfawareness, preoccupied with selfesteem, is engaged in a kind of unceasing quest for fulfillment in one way or another for emotional wellbeing. Psychological man in sure it has jettison morality for a repeat as a way to be in the world. I think it is quite clear that these new therapeutic sensibility began spreading in American Culture by the middle decades of the 20th century and it has become i think an enormous influence in our modern values as it has spread into her thinking about education, childbearing, family life, religion, even political ideology as well. Carnegie i think was at the absolute part of this process of the kind of psychologizing of modern American Culture. He liked to present himself as an expert, in his phrase, practical psychology. He emerged as really the first great popularizer at this newfound stress on Mental Health and selfesteem. The carnegie course that he presented all the way up to his death in the mid1950s try to eradicate with carnegie called the inferiority complex that people would read into these courses. He advertised the course for its reliance on the significant discoveries of modern psychology and how to win friend and influence people come you may know if youve read the book, he instructed readers that when you are dealing with people, and this is his first, we are not dealing with creatures of logic. We are dealing with creatures of emotion. Throughout that book, littered in each and every chapter are the psychological ideas, sort of popularized by William James adler, Sigmund Freud and a whole host of lesser figures. And using them, carnegie uses his readers over and over again to continuously gauge the psychological needs of people involved with. Coworkers, families, associate and so on and society clients to try to meet those needs with psychological sensitivity. He advocated, for example, positive thinking and the art appreciation, which he described as the easiest of a psychological techniques to help people feel comfortable, to win friends. In his book, how to win friend and influence people. The principles of psychology easy for you to apply in your daily contacts and it would create among readers a new way of life he says that will pave the way to success. So, from this collection of cultural ingredients, success, ideology, these notions of charismatic personality, positive thinking, human relations cannot repeat the quote being, carnegie created but i think was his ultimate legacy in American Culture. That is the establishment of a robust selfhelp movement that is shaped modern American Culture in fundamental ways indeed. In the wake of his stunning success, a host of dazzling popular selfhelp gurus have spread out over the american landscape. In an intensive peel, tony bobbins, robert schuller, mary ann williamson, m. Scott peck, deepak shope, stephen covey, the one mentioned earlier in the introduction, oprah winfrey, countless others. Those are the allstar things. They have seen mandatory daily lives, presenting messages from a personal improvement, human relations, or punic adjustment as techniques for getting ahead and prospering in achieving selffulfillment in our modern life. But carnegies asic notion i think embodied in how to win friend and influence people, that the individual who learns carnegies words to fine arts of getting along with people in everyday business and social contact will ensure a more profit, morally share and what is infinitely more important, more happiness and business and in home life. This book, i aimed became the text of this modern access create. I think Dale Carnegie asserted the godfather of selfhelp in modern American Life. Carnegie went on to a rich and full life after the publication of this book in the 1930s. He flourished as a beloved teacher, who in the carnegie course of the her the 40s and 50s still spend really the great majority of his time with carnegie course around the country, franchised out over the United States and eventually around the globe and still graduates hundreds of people every year from the course, which is the floor shame. He became a best selling author once again in 1948, with a boat called how to stop worrying and start living, which was a kind of guide book for stressedout suburbanites after world war ii who had become prosperous, but they still werent happy. Carnegie sort of wrote this book as a way to ease them towards happiness. I might also note after finally marrying at a fairly advanced stage, he became a father for the first time at the fairly advanced age of 63, something i can identify with. I didnt quite make that mark, but i did my part here pictured here at the younger woman he married, his daughter, donna who was born in the early 50s. So he does become a father in this period. At least officially. I also feel obligated to note that actually one of the most interesting things about this book i stumbled across whether i would describe this curious letters that were in the carnegie archives and neither carnegie family made their carnegie people knew anything about them. I played Sherlock Holmes a little bit and ended up discovering the secret life till carnegie had that he had a long loving relationship with a married woman and a child resulted from this the carnegie believed with his and with absolutely no one knowing about it in his family up to about one year ago, he supported this grow financially and emotionally as well. He became good friends not only with his mistress, but with his mistress husband, who is a blind man who had studied to be a rabbi. One never knows what youre going to run across in research. Actually, its a fascinating story about sort of a larger context i suppose of winning friends and influencing people. If you want to know if thats all about coming to to buy the book. So to bring all of this to a close, i think in an overarching sense, what i would like to leave you with is the idea i guess they go carnegies impact as an historical figure was really profound. I think is the greatest popular spokesman for modern ideas about success in the culture that we still inhabit today. I think whatever you make of the modern era peter culture of personality and self is deemed, you have to knowledge the crucial offers of an ambitious farmboy from missouri in shaping his powerful role. Long ago of course it was Thomas Jefferson who coined the most american phrases, the pursuit of happiness, but he still carnegie i would suggest you defined the modern meaning of that phrase. The end. [applause] [applause] [inaudible] thanks for your talk. Just a quick question. In view of the fact that Dale Carnegie had such an impact on multiple generations, and also considering that Rush Limbaugh is in the missouri hall of fame, i couldnt help but wonder if indeed go carnegie is in the missouri hall of fame. Thank you. Is that youre going to ask something different. I believe he is coming at us as a of fact. I also just found out the warrensburg folks called me a few weeks ago when i think they are creating a hall of fame at the Central Missouri university it is called now and they will have a ceremony in the fall for carnegie. Theyve commissioned him and so on. So yes, he is gaining recognition. Thank you. So you mentioned the fool things ive done. They are kind of nonspecific or did they mention who they happen with or what was the context with all those clicks the private writing this much like his public writing. He is sort of lashing his elves. Joe schmoe another people coming in now, he cast us a little bit. They couldnt get a word on a choice. Theres all kinds of examples that encounter since basic ones where you have the man who wrote the book, never to apply sound principles themselves. Sometimes he met them, sometimes he fell short. Very specific. I was wondering how much you felt these principles apply in 24 at team and that the things that come to my mind in terms of influence in people, i think we probably want a Koch Brothers may be to write a book. And the internet, for example, as the source of information and the source of influence seems to overshadow a great deal and individual personality and their agreeableness for their ability to get along. Thats a very good question i think. I think my answer to that would be kind of complex. As far as the internet goes, i am sent to the internet is changing our life and our culture in ways that we are only dimly beginning to appreciate. The honest answer to that is i dont know because the students that i teach these days, every year they seem a little more air land to name because they are coming out of this kind of social media interconnected culture where they had a very different way of link, literally from those of us and a slightly earlier period. In that sense, i am not sure. In a broader sense, i think its principles are very applicable as far as interacting with other people because i still think it is a fact that economically and socially and culturally among kinds of ways this big or craddick institutions that still structure a good deal of what we do and the worklife many of us have this and that adding. Those principles still work. The example that keeps to mind is a personal one that is mentioned in the introduction. The chairman of the History Department for about five years. I used to have a full head of hair before that. And that will drive you to distraction or drink, one of the other. I found myself in as the chair of an organization of big ego type people that i began relying on the principles of Dale Carnegie without even needing about it, that instead of arguing and fighting and trying to impose things, it works a lot better if you sort of slide around the average pages entry people in in a positive light, let other people think its their idea, if human life works better that way. They are still a potent ons. Ive heard that its called Carnegie Hall in new york. My impression is maybe it is first theatrical . Right, right. Shannon is with the name [inaudible] thats a good question, too. Actually Carnegie Hall is named after the steel magnate industrialist. There is an interesting story that connects into Dale Carnegie. Kim monkey originally spelled his name carnegie. That was the way you spelled his name until he is in his 20th and he went to his new york his new york city and got an office in Carnegie Hall. Being a shrewd boy he was, he decided he should change the name of the spelling of his last name because he said his explanation was everybody pronounced it that way anyway. So there is a little bit more to it. The other thing i found fascinating when he changed the spelling of his name, and hubert moved the day from his name. [laughter] carnegies advisors uniquely american. I wonder if this book had worldwide expect dans and in what culture is was it very much accepted in . That is a good question, too. It is my impression from doing some reading i guess about sort of the aftermath of carnegie after his dad at the internationalization of the carnegie course in the carnegie principles sort of followed the trail of westernization and western expansion of the American Economy after world war ii. I think particularly western ideas have to do with bureaucratic capitalism and the way things work in a think that begins to infiltrate markets around the world, that is for the action is. I believe someone at the Carnegie Companies told me increasingly first survey gaffer was in a big effort was immunized, but increasingly in recent years it has been in asia. The logic of that becomes a little clearer as markets begin to permeate in asian economies as well. So i think that is the general trigger areas that. Can i ask the last question quite absolutely. You sort of mentioned in passing a religious up bringing. Dh lawrence writing about Benjamin Franklin and other parts of American Literature very critically that American Literature is a part of the sort of civic religion and misses the tragic elements and life. How would you describe carnegie . Was a silly religious man later in life . It clearly was when he was younger and influenced by his mother in particular. Thats a good question. What popped into my mind with the other dh Lawrence Taylors never trust the tailor, trust detail. Detail of carnegie is this, carnegie overthrew religion in his life as a young and. He became sort of a nonstick and revolted against his mothers stern protestantism. Interestingly in his late eyes, i was say about mid40s, the last decade or so of his life, he returned to religion, but in a very peculiar sort of way. He did not return in terms of theology or denomination, but he returned to religion almost as a kind of meditation. In the last book, he talks a lot about the usefulness of religion. Its very much in a therapeutic setting. He says you now, and traveling around the country. I often every day take 10 annutes and i find it church