Transcripts For CSPAN2 Book TV 20150321 : comparemela.com

nonfunction books and authors. -- nonfiction books and authors. television for serious readers. >> you're watching booktv. coming up next, jennifer jacquet says the public shaming of governments and corporations can be a powerful tool in creating social and economic change. this is about an hour, 15 minutes. >> welcome to the brook runs public library -- brooklyn public library. this is usually on when i start. please welcome jennifer jacquet. >> hello. [applause] >> we're here to discuss her first book, is "t is shame necessary,". >> and only book. >> say that again? >> and only book. >> only book so far. many yet to come. let me just give you a sample of joner if's biography. do you want to read a page or two, or do you want to just start right in after i do your biography? >> i'm happy to start right in. >> okay. jennifer jacquet is an assistant professor at new york university. she works at the intersection of conservation and cooperation focusing on the human dimensions of large scale social dilemmas such as overfishing and climate change. she formerly wrote "the guilty" blog at scientific american. so once again, she's crossing the river, and let's just give her one more warm brooklyn welcome. [applause] >> thanks for having me. >> make sure you pull that close, right up to your face so we can all hear you. now, i just noticed that the guilty planet blog -- and this is a book about shame -- so you have a career that draws you to these negative emotions -- [laughter] and creating works around -- is that true? >> i, it is true. i think that there are reasons that continue to draw negative emotions especially for large scale problems, particularly ones that involve the environment or animal welfare labor abuses, anything like that. >> yeah. i mean when i first heard about this book, i was curious because when we think about shaming we think about all these -- i don't want to say evil things but these distasteful things. you get into some of them. you think about the scarlet letter, you think about tarring and feathering, and you think about religious people who are maybe using a model that's pre-democratic. and so i expected to disagree with this bill a little bit more than i ended -- this book a little bit more than i ended up disagreeing with it because you do address those things. explain how you came to this topic and how you ended up writing a book about kind of reclaiming the value of shame? >> well, i was comparing guilt and shame and the way they'd been used especially by the environmental movement over the last 20-30 years and i really think old tools that activists reached for were primarily shaming tools. and now today's movement is much more prone to reaching to guilt and assuaging that guilt with engaging guilty people through consumerism. so you feel guilty for flying or guilty for consuming pesticides or guilty for sporing unfair -- supporting unfair labor, so you buy cruelty-free, carbon-neutral organic-certified, fair trade products. and my interest was in this dynamic, in the way that we were engaging this minority of really concerned people and engaging them as consumers rather than as activists and this tool of guilt then eclipsing what i woulding see as an older -- what i would see as an older and more effective tool, shame. in part because shame can scale to institutional levels even to government levels. and an example i give in the book is cesar chavez who protested, you know, the famous great boycott. and would not have been satisfied if the solution to that problem was industry saying look, we're going to certify part of the grapes that pay immigrant -- migrant workers' fair wages and we're going to allow consumers who want to buy those grapes to purchase them, and those grapes will have a label that say pucked by farm workers that earned a minimum wage and then allow the rest of consumers who go on sort of unconcerned to continue buying the psalm old thing. the same old thing. he was not, would not have been i don't think satisfied withing this something like that because his concern was to change the entire industry, not a very small portion of it. and this is the way now though that we have come to engage with so many other problems. and so i think that this focus has inherently shifted the burden to the demand side of the equation rather than the supply side, and shame really is still one of those tools that focuses on supply. >> so let me open that up a little bit. if you're like me, you go to you know a progressive supermarket, and you think you're doing the right thing because you're buying something with the organic label. now, we know a little bit more about how that organic label gets taken or used or gets in some cases, bought but it still seems like, oh, well, i'm doing this thing and it's a step in the right direction. it's a first step that is certainly better than buying the, maybe the dirtiest of produce. so but you actually flip that around and say that it's really not a great first step. can you unpack that a little bit? >> yeah. i don't argue that it's not better. there's no doubt that it's better than buying the other thing. but if you view it as sort of your primary way of engaging with the issue, that winds up being detrimental. so there are all these issues with that kind of behavior moral licensing. the idea that if you do something good in one domain then you can do something bad in another, and this has been demonstrated as a psychological phenomenon across the board. also again, what had happened historically was that this really concerned minority would make trouble and raise the ire of certain people, and then the majority would sort of step out of the way. and what's happened now instead is that really concerned minority now just goes to whole foods. and that is not sufficient for changing the entire market. so even organic foods. one of the fastest growing sectors, people think it's pretty highly visible. it still only accounts for 4% of the u.s. food market. so that just shows you, you know, it's not leading to a significant decrease in pesticide usage. and if that's our end goal -- because if everyone else is eating non-organic food and it's still getting into our water supply and everything -- then i think we have to consider engaging maybe at a higher level. >> yeah. i want to come back to that but i also want to get into this question of how you came to this. i think you were involved in looking into fisheries? >> yes. >> so could you explain how that all came about and what that led you to understand about this lawning problem? >> yeah. i studies economics, so i was interested in supply and demand and microeconomics, the sort of household consumer. and i got interested in these tools, like wallet cards and ecolabels for seafood. this led me -- i sort of pulled on this thread and this whole thing unraveled to me where it wasn't just fisheries or forests, organic foods, fair trade, you know, the whole works. and they all had similar properties in that this was a tendency to -- there was a tendency to lower the standards of what those things actually meant because that meant more things could be certified. because there's actually more demand than supply can meet. so in the case of pushilies the idea of -- fisheries, the idea of what is sustainable has been that bar has lored and lowered and lowered over time. and also as i was mentioning i don't see any of these products representing more than 10% of the entire marketplace. so in terms of what kind of big solution they offer, it's really the jury is very far from in you know? >> did -- you studied economics you said, for suggestion years? >> yeah. as an undergrad and a master's student, and then i decided to come to my senses and did my ph.d. with biologists. >> i was going to say, i was amazing you speak english so well after all that the study of economics. [laughter] but this all really started when you were a girl and you saw a video of -- or you saw the can first and the labeling? >> yeah. so no. i saw photographs. so i open the book with the case of me and feeling the most -- my first experience with guilt that was not just about something i had done and affected those around me, but actually affecting somebody i'd never met before which was a wild dolphin. i got a photograph in the mail -- because i'd written to this group called the earth island institute when i was 9 years old. opened up the return letter, and it was all about how tuna fishing was killing dolphins, and there was this very, very i would say now scarring image of a dolphin being hoisted and killed onboard this tuna boat. and that was my first and it was a very profound feeling of guilty for something i had done that had affected something i cared about and had never met. and i was not alone in that at all. there were so many millions of school children who insisted that their parents then boycott tuna, and that led to the dolphin-safe logo. and that was one of those logos i was suggesting is one of these red flags about how we engage with the issue. as soon as that logo was reintroduced or introduced, we began buying tuna again. and i thought that the trouble was over. and that's so -- i realize now the fallacy in thinking that way. i was 9. [laughter] >> fair enough. but, so some of this you came to unpack a little bit more later. this was maybe the seed that was planted, but what you end up describing very early in the book is how that shift happens. it sort of puts the onus on consumers rather than on the corporations or -- >> yeah. the dolphin-safe logo was actually the first eco-label of its type. prior to that it had been the organic food label was the earliest, but that actually signaled something about the product itself. it said this straw beforely's actually fundamentally -- strawberry's actually fundamentally different. this said look the tuna's the same but it was caught differently. is so i earmarked this as a big moment in environmental history if you think of that as being a big moment. and i think it does -- for me, it really characterized the shift from distracting us from focusing on supply to changing and focusing on demand. >> right. and you give orr -- other examples of how even economic incentives and disincentives can actually do short-term good maybe butten then have long-term negative -- but then have long-term negative consequences. one that stuck out was the israeli daycare center. >> yes. very famous example. >> can you unpack that one for us? >> yeah. so there was a pretty famous study of daycares in israel where parents were coming too late too often. so the daycare said, you know what? we're tired of the parents coming so late, we're going to introduce a fine. and when they did that, the number of late pickups actually increased significantly because parents thought oh what a relief, all i have to do is pay a fine now. so where they had had this sort of guilt or even shame prior, they replaced that with a market-based punishment, and the daycare realized this pretty quickly and tried to change their policy back, and they never could get the number of late pickups as low again. so they've actually -- and there's been more research subsequently, but showing how markets and yeah the willingness to exchange sort of a behavior for money can actually erode the standard. >> right. so some of this has to do with just to dive in on this guilt versus shame so you describe guilt as an individual feeling that is tethered to maybe a subjective bar that we all have inside us that can vary across people. and i think that's where shame becomes preferable because shame is not as individualistic is that -- >> yeah. i describe guilt as a tool if you want -- there's the emotion right? but then there's also the tool. and it's the tool to regulate your own behavior. it's the -- your internal dialogue between you and your conscience. shame is about the threat of social exposure or exposure to public program. and for that reason it's much more calibrated to the entire group. and the really interesting thing is that for that reason shame can scale up to institutions, to governments, the a marketplace even in a way that guilt really can't. you can't say that google has some sort of internal conscience but you could worry -- google does worry very much about its public reputation. >> right. so that scalability is really interesting. you also talk about some examples that are, you know i mean, i think we've talked about how guilt hasn't worked in some of these cases or how putting it onto the consumer points to the consumer's guilt rather than keeping the onus on the collective principle. you talk about norms. so talk now that we've been into this conversation for a little while, it's a really wonderful read, and it's very scholarly in parts, but it's a very fast read, so i enjoyed it very much. there's just so many examples, but what are some of your favorites of this tool of shame working really well? >> yeah. so again, guilt -- i just want to caveat it by saying guilt is a great regulator, and we should all hope that society could be dealt with so well, because it's the cheapest form. but if it doesn't work and if you're left, you know, wondering why -- and if the government is also failing you in certain ways enforcing rules or failing to pass legislation then you might turn to harsher forms of punishment. so a few examples that i like are the rain forest action network and the sierra club looking at mountaintop removal in appalachia and trying to work with local governments to get it stopped, failing -- that as aspect failed. so instead, and they weren't able to go after really the coal companies because consumers are not familiar with these coal companies. so instead they traced the financing to nine banks, and they published the, these nine banks year after year and how they were financing at what scale. and that started in 2010. last year was the fifth year of their campaign and wells fargo and jpmorgan announced that they were cutting ties with the coal companies. so this is not obviously stopping mountaintop removal entirely but it is halting the progress and making the other banks very afraid about the way the standards are tipping. another example i like is greenpeace. they went after a bunch of big box retailers for selling unsustainable seafood, and they would rank the retailers. and year after year after year trader joe's kept coming up in the bottom thursday -- bottom third of this ranking and they said that's so strange because the consumers at trader joe's really care. so in 2009 they launched the traitor joe's campaign. they took out a full-page ad in "the new york times," they had demonstrations at many trader joe's across the nation. they had a really cool internet platform where their volunteers could use that platform to call managers around the nation, and it sent a singing fish telegram begging to stop selling unsustainable seafood. it was playful, but it was also intense exposure. and as a result, trader joe's moved up -- of that campaign very much, and it's very obvious it was a result from something like 19th on the list to fourth on the list and gave up a lot of their -- now, so did that solve the problem of selling unsustainable seafood? no. are we eventually going to need, i think probably serious legislation in place, yes. but shaming can act as a stopgap in a way that i don't see any evidence of guilt really working at that, at that scale. >> yeah. i want to come back to that because it seems like where we've gone. we started with the consumer looking at labels to sort of more supply, the suppliers. eventually we need probably to get to government, and we can. but before we move on i just want to throw back something you said, guilt is the cheapest form of this tool. >> of punishment. >> punishment. what does that mean? is that economic lingo? [laughter] >> it is not -- if you think about punishment from an evolutionary perspective and sometimes economics and evolutionary line up in their word of, like, cost punishment is costly. that's -- it's very interesting too. punishment -- this is getting really technical, but punishment and reward are really different in the sense that reward is me transferring something great, a nobel prize, to you. but punishment is like me taking a hit of some form some small cost or you can imagine like if it was a physical confrontation potentially a large cost to then deprive you of manager. so we both -- of something. so we both with end up paying a cost. and we can see this punishment at the individual and government level are all costly. prison is a very costly system right? and not -- yes, economic terms but just in terms of resources, effort whatever. so imagine the best form of punishment, right, is where you you know -- >> punish yourself. >> yeah, punish yourself. you bear the cost. >> of changing the behavior. >> exactly. >> and that's what guilt is supposed to do. so it's like when a little kid asks why do i feel pain why does pain exist in the universe that's to keep your body intact and keep you from doing harm, but guilt is maybe aiming more at the individual -- again, just to beat a dead horse -- the self-regulating. >> and that's why there's a debate on whether or not guilt is even a universal emotion and a universal tool. a lot of eastern cultures don't even have a word for guilt. shakespeare used the word "guilt "33 time, he used the word shame 344 times. it's very likely that guilt is a much more recent much-western much more individualistic concept than shame is. >> so if we're in the area of guilt, we're potentially in very subjective territory where i could drink away my guilt and go and hide, and it might not lead to better behavior if i'm a ceo or if i'm a poll constitution or something. >> yeah. and the same is true of shame. if either of these things were perfect, we wouldn't have harsher forms of punishment as well. >> right. so let's look at some bad examples of shame, because that's always fun. >> yeah. >> shaming as i said before, it's something that i have negative connotations toward and you have plenty of examples in the book of the new potentials for use of shame in new media. but at its worst it, too, can lead maybe to things not going well the behavior or the norm not changing. so people hiding from shame, i think, appear in your book. so talk a little bit about the different kinds of results that you can get to with shame. >> yeah. so -- and it's not just at the individual level. i mean corporations and governments all display these similar behaviors and the various ways that you can escape shaming. so the different responses to shame, i open up that chapter with a case -- this is very charming actually -- of the owner of the titanic who happened to be onboard the night that the titanic went down. and he unlike the captain, did manage to escape and survive and he felt a tremendous amount of well, whether or not he felt it we really can't say right? because i don't know what he looked like, i didn't measure his hormones, and that's one of the only ways to know somebody's internal state. but he exhibited a lot of signs of having been shamed because one of the first things he did, for instance, onboard the car path ya, the boat that picked up the survivors is he inverted his name in the cables. so rather than signing ismay, he signed his name yamsi and actually, joseph conrad referred to him as the luckless yamsi. and he also was in hiding, he wouldn't come out and face anyone. these are two of, like, signs that the shaming is really powerful and, you know you may or may not be getting the ideal outcome afterward. >> yeah. i think in literary terms sometimes shame, the cupid of really intense shame that i think we're talking about is equated with sort of like your social persona dying. it's really intense. so he was, he was removing himself from the things that he loved which were society. he was hiding. he said he wasn't going wasn't going out in public -- >> and he was changing his identity because, i moon, shame latches on to -- i mean, shame latches on to reputation. we also see philip morris preferring to be called altria, blackwater changed its name to z academy. you can see all these similar tendencies actually, even among groups. governments it's much harder, right, to change. but it still does happen. >> change parties. >> you change parties. [laughter] or change the name of a technique like, you know torture becomes enhanced interrer the division technique. >> right, right. so online examples appear, and i don't know if you read the new john ronson book with the example of justine sacco, but there were -- there are a lot of examples of maybe shaming going awry with new media and what people have learned there that. maybe it's not always pleasant. and you sort of draw the line between a kind of shaming that changes bad behavior on one hand without ruining a life on the other hand. and that seems to be, i think is that part of what you describe in the chapter called "the sweet spot of shaming." >> yes, that's right. very much like antibiotics depending on the right dose at the right time and you can overdo it, and you can underdo it. one of the issues with the internet generally and, end again, this comes back to individuals and individual behavior, but it is right now what we see as disproportionate punishment. that individuals who are saying something glib are being punished in a much harsher, much more long-lasting form than people who commit actual physical crimes. and this is a strange moment that i actually don't think is going to last that much longer. part of the disproportionate aspect is because there's so much anonymity online. also because it has so far been the sort of wild west and we're seeing all of that reined in at the moment, so -- >> yeah. i'd be remiss during the last day of black history month if i didn't proudly mention your example of rosa parks. how does she fit into this story of using shame well? and martin luther king, of course? >> yeah. well, i mean, it was just a great line of martin luther king's in the book about how -- which i included in the book -- about how the purpose of the monterey bus boycott was to shame and to open up a peeling of shame, moral -- a feeling of shame, moral shame in the oppressors. and so part -- the boycott was so strategic, which is so fascinating, and it was designed to attract attention and to the reputationing that it was attacking was more about the system as a whole than anything to do with month good manically -- montgomery specifically. and this is so what i think is the essence of really smart and strategic shaming, something that goes after a deeper system. and that's why i contrast some of these examples with individuals like you were mentioning justine sacco with somebody like matt binder who has this public shaming site where he -- i'm not comparing him to martin luther king necessarily, but he rather than going after individuals goes after groups, lots of people that say sort of similar things trying to finish and it's not searchable, trying to sort of shame america or get america in general to sort of self-reflect. so racist comments, but often along the same lines. so i think this is a more interesting form of shaming than just sort of attacking an individual like, relentlessly. >> right. it seems like there's a huge element of shame in all of the -- whether it's television i guess a lot of the examples you looked at were colbert jon stewart. where satire and shame sort of blend together. obviously, it's popular. jon stewart and colbert are hugely popular, and i think you've cited the idea that stewart was listed as the most popular news anchor? >> mouth trusted -- most trusted which is a big -- >> when most trusted. o'reilly's the most popular although he's not an anchor. but most trusted news anchor who happens to be doing the news on a comedy channel. >> right. so one of -- if you think about ridicule and satire these are very cheap forms of punishment when we talk about expense right? they allow you to say what you think really bluntly, allow people to laugh at it and allow the transgressor to easily sort of change their behavior in response without some big like apology or -- >> it's, is it -- it's not as confrontational because of the element of laughter, is that the idea? >> i don't know if it's the element of laughter, but it's definitely not as confrontational. you see this as sort of the first form of punishment in momentummer-gatherer -- hunter-gatherer societies ridicule and just. because that's the lowest cheapest, sort of least harsh form of punishment there is. and yet in some ways i think jon stewart is just so clever. again, not just for the ridicule but for pitting our passenger -- pivoting our attention and refocusing it on those bigger systems issues taking, you know the brian williams case and pivoting it more about weapons of mass destruction in iraq and the veracity in that argument. and -- if shifting it back up to the government. >> shifting it -- >> potentially. >> often to the government or to if the media's so interested in the truth, where were they, you know -- >> right. >> -- then? so -- >> you always talk about gossip and how did -- >> another cheap form yes. >> another cheap form but this is related to jon stewart and stephen colbert. because a lot of gossip p is sort of maybe a more primitive way of tearing people down or bad mouthing people which is our punishing them for things that we don't like about them which is sort of a round about way of shaming them. >> yeah. i mean, so you can have a really cynical view of humanity once you look at some of the data and you say, wow, two-thirds of what we do when we talk is gossip about other people. and about 90% of that is negative. at least in surgeon studies. i mean -- in certain studies. it'd be interesting to look at sort of subcultures. but when you think deeply about that, i think it makes sense in the sense that, you know, think about your relationship. you often don't talk about the really great things, you talk about the bad things in the hopes of improving them. and also if you think about society at large, people that are doing a great job while we should certainly applaud them and thank them, they're not the people that concern us most. and that is, i think, just a fundamental aspect. and this is why in delinquent taxpayers, for instance, there are about 20 states now that shame delinquent taxpayers online. and you could say, well, why not reach for something more positive? why do we have of to expose the people who don't do it? should we expose the people who pay their taxes? you know, this is absurd, an absurd idea. we expect people to pay their taxes. 90% of people do pay their taxes. so it would be strange to have a system of positive reinforcement more that. >> yeah. that's what i was thinking about because with i think one of the first things you learn in psychology 101 classes as a parent maybe positive reinforcement is preferable to negative, but maybe in group situations that doesn't bear out in the studies you're looking at. >> well, i i think that is absolutely true that positive reinforcement is a better tool and, certainly, for parenting. but in threshold cooperation dilemmas where we need a certain amount of people to cooperate or the whole system falls apart it's probably not going to be the first thing we reach to or we're not going to say who are the people that matter to us most. we're interested in the people who are ruining it for everyone else. >> yeah. so let's talk about how this book is very unique, because most of us would try to write a book about shame and we would look at it through literature maybe some books on economics and things, but you were able to do some of your own experiments is that right? >> uh-huh. >> could you describe some of those that have given new, new data and new impetus to this -- >> yeah, sure. >> -- to this idea about shaming as a ool? >> well, so one of the interesting things about shame when we're talking about the market as well is a lot of experiments on punishment in the lab use monetary forms of punishment. so i introduced, along with my colleagues the concept of let's just have it be reputational. we'll play these games cooperative games in which students can earn real money, and at the end of the game -- and we told them at the beginning this would be the case -- we'll expose the two least cooperative out of the six players. and in another treatment, we did the two most cooperative. what i love about this is it's something, it predate cans capitalism -- predates capitalism predates money, predates barter and trade, right? this is just about reputation. this is getting to something that's very fundamentally human. and that net and the promise of -- that threat and the promise of honor, actually both led to an increase in cooperation and the basis of, again, no cost other than what you're getting in terms of reputation. >> wait, so take us through this. you do most of these at nyu? >> i was actually at ubc when i did this one yeah. >> so you have students? >> yep. they come to the lab and then they have of choice to give or to not give at over the course of ten rounds to what we call public good. and they get they each get $10 at the start of the game. they can give a dollar or not at each round and then whatever's given to the public good is doubled and redistributed evenly among all players even those that didn't cooperate. and this is very much like a school project in the seasons that there's an incentive -- in the sense that there's an incentive for individuals to free ride, but if everyone free rides, everyone fails, right? so you need some people doing some work. and that -- these games are so interesting because some people do give, some people don't. there's often very low levels of overall cooperation. and this is what we saw, that this threat of just exposing at the end of the game the two least or the two most did increase their willingness to give. >> uh-huh. so that was, that was the main one you did. did you do orrs? did you look at other experiments? >> i did, and i mention a couple in the book on like, asking people in certain other games what types of -- if they could know the identity of certain players, who would they want to know and overwhelmingly people want to know the least cooperative player, and they are less interested in the most. kind of confirming what i was just telling you about. and some things i also talk about in the book that i think you wouldn't find necessarily in a normal book about shame is animal edges peoplers that i myself -- experiments, that i myself don't run but are really fascinating in terms of their -- animals that have highly social lives wind up showing a lot of the same behaviors and manipulation that we to. so i was really interested in finding some of those analogs. >> the one that comes to mind are the sparrows. >> yes. the sparrows are a good example. that was a key study one of the first to show the power of deception in animal societies. but what's interesting is i could explain the experiment in full, but what it really got at was that even sparrows little birds use ostracism. they don't have shaming. it's very hard for them to expose an individual to the group, but they would use ostracism against individuals that they thought were trying to deceive the flock. >> you know, talking about all of this i'm sure there's possibly some activists in the audience here and it would just be really nice if we could come up with, say, seven habits of highly effective shaming. do you know of anything like that? [laughter] >> i do, i do know something like that, yes. that was one of the chapters in the book, is the seven habits of highly effective shaming. again, not the same as, like -- it can be used for anything, right? this is the whole soft power thing we were talking about. but it really could. >> in other words shame itself we're trying to say is kind of -- has a bad reputation but it can be a neutral tool for good or ill. >> yes, exactly. >> so what are the best, i mean what are the seven or what what are some of those most important seven habits? >> one of the ways i wanted to really focus on our attention, so let me start by saying attention is the bedrock of shaming because the audience is so much a part of the tool. and our attention is finite, and we're all being asked to be part of the audience for some sort of shaming technique every single day. so where should you either focus your shaming or just focus your attention on somebody else doing the shaming and what should you worry about as an individual for potentially being shamed? these were sort of my main drivers in outlining these seven habits. and the first one which i think is the most important actually is that the audience should be fundamentally concerned with the transgression. and there are just certain things where we are really not interested in exposure. so i cite an app that is very popular where you can expose companies or restaurants for doing the wrong thing. i mean there's a case where this guy exposed a thai restaurant for delivering his food 30 minutes late. [laughter] i don't care. like i'm sorry your food was late but -- and the restaurant does care, of course, because this is attacking their reputation, and they do respond to these sites. but i think it's a misuse of the audience's attention for things like this. and finish. >> because it only affected this one person. >> exactly. hi it's between them and the -- i think it's between them and the thai company. and you could argue, oh we'd all get better service in this regard. what i would say is, yeah, but we wind up losing the power of shame for another harmful activity that did affect all of us. another good example of a trivial one is this app that tells all of your friends if you push the snooze button. and, i mean, again i just really don't care if my friends oversleep, you know? so this is not finish. >> but the idea is i'll get up the first time because people are going to see how many times they hit snooze? >> yeah. >> okay. >> i'm not con vupsed that's effective because we are not the victims of that transgression, right? >> right. conceivably my boss follows it or something. >> exactly. somebody who would be. maybe if it went straight to your boss, this would be a better tool. >> right. >> but i think that gets exactly to my point which is whoever's asking, you know, to be part of the audience, they should in some ways be a victim or really fundamentally concerned with that transgression. so that's my, you know, of all the accept, i think that's the sort of most important, it's the most social. and shaming is really a very social tool that does rely on the audience. so the more it gets at fundamentally social questions, i think the more effective it would be. >> yeah. i was thinking about how you said the body or person being shamed has to care about the audience that is participating in the shaming. and i thought of something that somebody once said to me about the u.s. sanctions against burma. which was that it worked better, the sanctions worked better in south africa against apartheid because that regime considered itself more part of a european-american kind of community whereas the burmese generals, some of the hardliners didn't, and some of the softer liners did. so it was slowly working its way towards possibly working, but part of the reason it didn't was those hardliners didn't care what europe or america thought about them. they did care about the money part. so that was what i thought of in terms of the audience doing the shaming. >> yeah. i think that's -- it also gets back to my trader joe's example a little bit because, for instance other retailers are obviously low on that list, and a retailer like winn-dixie, in fact, was much lower than trader joe's, but greenpeace would have had a much harder time going after winn-dixie pause its consumers and its managers are less aligned with the greenpeace agenda. and so it had that mismatch between the people actually trying to do shaming and the people who were asked to be part of the audience. >> we're in a moment now where i feel like you're sort of, you're expert on this moment that we're in in a way that maybe, you know, we could benefit from. out seems like a lot of emphasis now even under obama is how afraid we should be of terrorism which affects relatively few people. whereas it seems like the big impetus behind this book is climate change which could conceivably escalate and do so very rapidly into affecting and even killing a lot more people than terrorism has. it seems like the agenda behind this book -- although that's another negative word perhaps -- the impetus maybe heart of this book is climate change. is that true? >> it's certainly one of the many yes. climate change and overfishing are sort of my two big research agendas. and, but i would also say something like animal welfare and, you know labor rights those are all part. >> yes. so when you say that shame can be a tool for all kinds of different things, you wanted this book to be out there for potentially for fellow activists, is that right? >> yeah. i mean, i could have just as easily written the exact same book and taken all the examples from things like stopping abortion or stopping any controls on gun sales and used all examples like that. i chose examples that fit sort of my agenda, if you will. on the other hand, i would argue my concerns are a bit more social in nature. it depends on your constituency, right? if your constituency are unborn children, then certainly abortion is your key issue. but i, and this is one of the sort of subtle messages in the book and kind of gets at your terrorism versus climate change b issue which is who do we really consider part of the group, who are we acting on behalf of? when we say "social,"s who is our society, who is the audience? and so i'm interested in, you know, with climate how it's so disproportionately affects poorer countries, poorer people generally, also certainly certain animals marine calcifying organize anymores -- organisms, you know? this is a group that i would consider myself closely aligned with. >> yeah. you also mention early, i think it's just a passing example, of how the american system of slavery showed how the laws often need to do a lot of work to catch up with morality or with social. you call them norms. so it seems to me like one of the big emotional impetuses behind this book is that there's not a lot of accountability in surgeon spheres right now -- in certain spheres right now whether it's the environment. i mean we didn't sign the kyoto protocol. there's a lot of terrible things happening by omission, and it seems like maybe the impetus behind this book and the impetus behind shaming is you're dealing with kinds of corruption by omission, and you need to change the norms and you need to get the laws to happen. it seems like that's what's -- i was, you know when you come to shame, you're so put off by the word, and then you get to the end of the book, and you're like yeah we really need this because there's so much that's not happening. >> yeah. so if you think about the democratic justice system which i happen to be a big fan of -- [laughter] like due process is something i think we're all thankful for. but if you think about the deprivations, again, this evolutionary perspective. you have life -- again only in the hands of the state. only the state can deprive someone of life, and a lot of states can't even do that. liberty, that's a new thing right? prison actually is relatively new on the whole scene of punishment compared to the others. physical safety so you could actually break somebody's arm. again, not available to you or me for very good and reasons that i'm very thankful for. and then there are two others. resources. so, you know two-thirds of americans reporting that they've experienced the silent treatment at some point in the last year. you're actuallying denying somebody -- >> your voice. >> language. yeah. but also money. anything can fall into that category. and then reputation. so what's interesting to me is only resources and reputation are available to us as is citizens, as civilians. and those two things are also on the available to us at the international level, because there is no democratic justice system. there's no wounding treaty yet -- binding treaty yet internationally for climate. and so what do we have? what do we really have that we can deny people or institutions or governments of if they don't behave how we, society, civil society, wants them to? and in a way shaming is as you point out, this sort of indicator, the rise of it, the need for it that other systems are failing us. but it also means that the way we use it and when we reach for it should be really strategic and really sort of as i was saying with antibiotics sparing, i think. to keep it a powerful tool. >> yeah. because you can lose the audience's attention, it can be like the little boy who cries wolf. >> yeah. >> so it has to match the offense, let's say. >> and just an example of that that's quite compelling in 2004 there was a decision, amnesty international and several other human rights groups would go after with a concerted shaming campaign the united states for being one of seven countries in the world that had still executed juvenile offenders since 1990. the others were yemenen, nigeria, iran iraq. and they used a map of the world to demonstrate this. and there were other things as well, some interesting science and a lawsuit. but the supreme court overruled that decision then in 2005, and the question was what other tool could have been used? many again, there is no prison. we couldn't put america in jail. we couldn't kill america. maybe this would happen, you know, at some longer time scale. but this reputation really is one of those things that we can use against an entire country entire systems. >> well, i think maybe we could open it up to questions here but before we do let's hear it one more time for our visitor jennifer jacquet. [applause] >> thanks for having me. >> now, if you want to ask a question, there's a microphone right over here, and i'm just going to ask you to be brave enough to stand up and get in line and come over there because otherwise we might not hear you, and we're here with our friends from c-span. also after the q&a part, if you're not too shy to ask a question, we have our friends from community books who are going to be selling the book and if we're so lucky, jennifer will stay and sign your book. will you do that? yeah. great. so any questions? if you're too shy to stand up, you can shout them out, and i'll just repeat them into the microphone. any questions? oh, good. we've got someone going to the microphone now. and -- >> okay, can you hear me? good. okay. so i have a question. i think -- i have not read the book, so i'll just -- >> sure. >> just get right up to the microphone, if you can. >> oh, sorry. >> it's a little high. you can turn it down a little. >> perfect. so thinking -- listening to what you were saying and the examples that you were giving and it seems extremely compelling, the power of shame to make social changes. and in particular the effect that it has on reputation and how people take it personally and how they try to adjust their behaviors to match the reputation they tend to have or something like that. that's really remarkable. but i was thinking like haven't we been exposed to exactly these kind of tools for exactly the opposite that we are now -- you think kind of similar tools rerevertmented -- reverted. i feel, for example, it's very powerful shaming so -- in the u.s. in particular very clear what is the brand that you should buy and what are the products that you should be obtaining. it's very clear what is the not good anymore, and they use exactly that social pressure the fact that if you have some friends over and if they don't go to your bedroom, let's say, maybe can have very old fashion last season whatever. but if they will come to your backyard where you're having a party, then you're supposed to have -- so you take the -- [inaudible] wherever your reputation will be exposed. it's a technique that we've seen used in lots of ways, and we see it, and we see advertisements to use it for companies beautifully, i would say. and it's just, i think, the problem's not so much the tool the tool is not there, it's more how do you, how do you bring it to the causes that interest you without exactly the amount of money or resources? so how would you do it? i understand like you're talking a few big organizations that have the nonprofit aspect to be able to do it. >> p yeah. >> how could one do it more individually? because i think that some of these would require a lot of individual individuals taking small actions next to other individuals and hopefully have a wave of that to promote behavioral changes. >> great question. >> [inaudible] >> is shame possible to use as ap individual? i know that wasn't the whole question, but i thought that was really compelling. >> you mean, um, individualing against -- >> well i think that was the end of the question was --? >> [inaudible] >> yeah. whether shame, whether individuals can use shame. i mean, i think the point to have book is you kind of need an audience. >> yeah. don't all of you have mothers? i mean, i have a lot of, i've had to see a lot of individualing uses of shame in individuals in my day. and it does work, it can backfire. it has all those options, those characteristics. the way i would say advertising is a bit different is i've defined shame very specifically in the book as there's behavior, that behavior is not uniform because that's important right? if behavior was uniform across everyone, like imagine trying to shame people for, i don't know, something like -- i'm trying to even think of a good example. finish. >> something petty, are you looking for? enter i'm looking for something where -- >> i'm looking for something like three meals a day when we all do similar things -- >> shame is unnecessary. >> unnecessary if the behavior's uniform. so you need some variance in the behavior. and then -- i'll think of a good example, but shame is the way i've defined it then is exposing a minority who are exhibiting the worst behavior. so that, i had to take a very specific way of defining it, so i didn't wind up going down every single track because what shaming is doing is like all these other tools, competing for our attention. so that was my definition. i think that is quite different than a burberry ad which, you know, is competing for our attention and encouraging certain functions but it's not exactly shaming. that shaming is secondary or much further down the road in a sort of social system that is very class based or consumer based. >> that might be anxiety as much as -- maybe more than shame. it's that the advertisements are peddling. i thought of how the book really goes in and out of shame into other emotions, and like, when you get into the martin luther king examples, there's also element of, like, your opponent that you're maybe trying to shame also has to potentially have some maybe choice to maybe have compassion towards your campaign in some cases. not in all causes. but shame in the book clearly butts up against many other emotions and many other tools. >> yeah. and one of those, i think advertising likes inadequacy as well making you feel sort of less about yourself. there is, i mean, they are tapping into these things. i don't think -- i guess i wouldn't define it specifically as shaming. and i see your point. all i'll say is that -- which is kind of how i end the book -- is right now we are at a real crossroads for creating some really big new, important standards of behavior in terms of climate, in terms of welfare justice. and i don't think, um, we're going to get there without something like shame being involved. >> i see we have another question. >> thank you so much for the conversation today. i have one comment and then one question. the comment i would have is in "freakonomics" they talk about three areas of incentive economic, social and moral. and so when i heard your comment about shame, i figure it fits more in the social realm whereas guilt would pit in the moral -- would pit in the moral one. and they too sort of suggest that moral is the more effective one versus creating financial incentives. >> yeah. >> aka like the daycare center that you explained. the question on, as regard to shame is who's qualified either as an individual or an entity to bring about the shaming of let's say, the other party? >> who is what? >> who's authorized? or who's qualified right? and i think we heard a little bit about as long as we're all participants of a society that you can quickly gather that the easiest way to eradicate that is to say that you're not part of the society. >> sure. >> and an example which i don't know if it's in your book would be the recent things that you hear about hackers. and them going after government -- >> yeah. >> and corporate institutions about customer privacy. and the whole irony of that is both the consumer becoming aware of something abouts government institutions -- about themselves government and institutions losing reputation and feeling either fuzzy about this notion of a hacker and what they can do to infiltrate my privacy which was intended to be private in the first place but have to expose it to show the shame and, therefore, tape one problem to a second problem. >> yeah. >> so just if you can comment about regimes going after other regimes, and is that the right sort of example of shame? >> yeah, the hacker case is really interesting. anonymous, of course being one of the most visible groups of hackers. i just went to a great talk about them. so a few things. i mean, hacking -- like shame -- can be used by weak against the strong. it can also be used by the strong against the weak, of course. when we tend to be more sympathetic to it is when it's the weak against the strong. we are less cool with, you know, the government or google going in than we are with anonymous for some reason. unless it's like some major breach of security that makes us all feel uncomfortable or whatever. so that's already an interesting kind of aspect i mentioned at the end which is what kind of makes shaming more acceptable rather than effective which is the version 2.0 kind of effective. in terms of the hacking structure more generally, i think hacking offends us or worries us for those exact reasons that shaming worries us, because of the lack of due process, the lack of the democratic justice system that we've all sort of gotten used to. and it makes us feel like we're back in the wild west days right, where we are experiencing some vigilantism and your neighbors, you know could come into your house and enforce their own rules on you. a lot of us are hesitant to return to a system like that. on the other hand there's the counterargument that the other side has gotten too strong, right? so there's reasons to expose them for that. i just will say that, yeah i'm a fan of the democratic justice system, and i think it's one of those things that doesn't seem to matter as much until it happens to you, and then you're really, you know left wondering if it was a really good decision to allow these things to happen. so yeah i think in order they share those two properties very much, and for that reason make us all a little nervous. >> and i think there's another question. >> hi, thank you. very interesting talk that you've been giving. my interest in this subject is a particular one which is whether the people who support the palestinians are using shame effectively or as effectively as they could against the israeli. now, rather than go into that subject which is probably fraught with controversy, i think of south africa and whether shame was used effectively in south africa and whether -- i think you had suggested that nobody is shameless. but i wonder whether, for example, putin could be shamed into changing his behavior in the ukraine. so i guess just generally how is it -- you talked a little, i mean, it's permeated, but how is shame used against repressive or governments that you don't agree with? >> yeah those are really big questions for someone more qualified on probably the political spectrum than i am. the only thing i'll say is that most of the time if you have somebody with power, there's ab audience -- an audience they care about somewhere. and so there's an example i crate in the book about russian ceos, how they don't respond to negative press in russian newspapers but they do respond to negative press in anglo newspapers, especially the "wall street journal" and have been noted to resign in the face of that kind of scrutiny. which is just interesting that the audience that matters to them is not their in group, per se. .. and they didn't -- they are part of the global larue. and backlash during the world cup, and they are not part of the world cup. this is the question. how do we balance? to meet a are such fascinating questions because it is not about individuals psychology. it is about these scaling features and do we treat north korea like we would be ostracized kid on the playground. is not clear to me that these of the perfect metaphor is. i think it will be an interesting challenge but one thing is for certain. we are moving toward a global eyes structure in which we are all interconnected and we feel as a tight global group and this is inevitably going to mean some standards butting up against one another in figuring out who wins and how. >> you responded to that question by pointing out people with political backgrounds and your economic background, you have examples like human rights watch, he admits that one of his greatest tools is shaming these regimes that fail on human rights. >> he for instance had better luck with the united states than with p.m. and. >> they have to feel they are part of a community that is shaming them. >> or they have something to lose. a legal scholar i quote says the ultra rich and all from 4 insulated the power of wealth and the other has nothing to lose. this is also true even at the global scale. you have to have something to lose for it to matter. >> you want to shout your question from your seat? i will repeat it? did everyone here that? are whistle-blowers chambers? >> i think so. they are exposing transgression especially with some of the techniques like video and i guess i am thinking, my mind goes to animal rights work because of all the counter legislation that has been proposed recently. you have other cases in mind? i define it as anyone exposing a transgression to disapproval, anyone in that position whistleblowing, and one of the ways to make shame more powerful is to present a bunch of irrefutable evidence and that makes the information hard, because one of the counter strategies is to say the source of the shaming had no credibility, to undermine it. the fact there so prevailing in the face of that fact, it may not matter at that reputation has been destroyed. >> dimension wiki leaks of few times and you talk about counter strategies and both of those counter strategy is, one of the ones you focus on, what is hiding which we talked about, the other is destroying the reputation of the messenger and that was the case with ed snowden and julian assange. whistle-blower protection laws are the result of earlier generations, realizing through trial and error that we sometimes have a situation where the powerful can be confronted with a round transgressions. we protect whistle-blowers so it becomes very pretentious to unravel that and you get into that ended is wonderful. you don't have to get up, everyone will raise their hand and shout out their question. look at the time so we have a little time for the signing. i saw three hand. can we did three questions? >> maybe if we do the mall idol lancer the mall. >> i saw that hand in the back. [inaudible question] >> two people being added. you hear all the questions at once? i saw another hand over here. >> i was wondering if you could define your definition of shame for us and i am thinking -- that made me think about different things. [inaudible] >> i am curious about your definition as opposed to that. >> why do i say shame instead of guilt? >> i think i saw that hand. do you remember? i will try to help you. >> related to the last one. setting them up. [inaudible] [inaudible question] [inaudible question] [inaudible question] >> is there someone, your work directed against to you like? >> i will start the last one first. >> the reward for that. >> okay, great. i will start with that one than. michael sandal has written about this and others. market society more generally rather than a market economy. it is a close friend of the market than shame is because it is assuaged by decisions about certain things. that is my sort of what i point in my main argument anyway and there may be others including but sort of normal we have in the u.s. about the individual over the group and guilt beyond much more individualistic than shame and that all fits in nicely. my freedom to choose. it is a perfect form that allows guilt to take off. when you tend to look at the shift from focusing on supply to demand as the last environmental legislation in the 70s, it feels like i consider -- i was born in 1980, reagan baby, i consider that to be the moment but there are other scholars, it is happening sooner. as for the kind of work that i do, i'd do theoretical work on shaming so it is not -- it is the premise is cooperation and has to do with money so it is not really -- some of the games are framed around climate change the decisions are about behavioral economics, how they make decisions in the lab. and have not taken any ems or targets and work on individuals which is frustrating because i uninterested in the group level but it is hard to do that experimentally. most of the experiments are on individuals. that is a problem. as for groups i like i can still like groups-are less that are less in bed with the corporations because they are more interested in society than the interests of the market. the names that kept popping up, greenpeace friends of the earth because these i groups with strong policies against taking corporate money and i think that is financial distance to -- humanwriteswatch, they are not beholden to the ceo of bp who to rescind an e-mail. is there a, the titanic of litter, i don't know whether he felt guilt. what i can say is i uninterested in experimentally do people change their behavior in the face of public exposure or the threat of public exposure and what it seems about ismay is behavior fundamentally changed after the titanic went down. not only in those few days but for life in general he lived out his days alone in ireland. so i say he was shamed and how he reconciled that in his own mind we will never know because he didn't write about it. whether or not you want to call that guilt or shame internally i am not sure it matters especially because things like survivor guilt in general sometimes manifest in the same exact ways the piece a shame does. finally, i am not very familiar with the two case is you mentioned so i am sure you would have more to say on vans and i would. i have a google alert for shame and i try to read them every day but there is more than you could ever consumed. >> that last part was fun to watch. we are going to end it there and we will have us signing with jennifer jacquet's book. thank you for coming once again i am joel whitney and let's hear it for our guests. >> thanks for your attention. >> if you want a book i suggest going up around that way and getting in line in back and coming down here to get it signed. [inaudible conversations] >> this is booktv on c-span2 television for serious readers. here is our prime-time lineup. tonight at 7:00 eastern princeton university professor robert george talks about his book conscience and its enemies. that all happens tonight on c-span2's booktv. >> this weekend the seas can see store has partnered to learn about the history and literary life of columbus, georgia. >> right here inside the museum is remains of the confederate ironclad the jackson. this was an ironclad built in columbus during the war. there are oval shapes, the gun ports of the jackson. the jackson is armed with six rifles the particular rifle today is one that was built specifically for the jackson. it was cast at the still not naval works and completed in january of 1865. the real claim to fame is directly connected to the fact that there are only four ironclads from the civil war the beacon study right now and the jackson is right here and this is why this facility is here. forced and foremost to tell the story about this particular ironclad and show people there are more than one or two ironclads. there were many. >> watch all of our events from columbus today at noon eastern on c-span2's booktv and sunday afternoon at 2:00 on american history tv on c-span2. >> next on booktv former navy seal sniper and iraq war veteran scott taylor argues president obama and his administration are hurting u.s. national security and should be held accountable. this is about 45 minutes. [applause] >> thank you so much for that wonderful introduction. good afternoon. that was pretty weak and unacceptable. good afternoon. all right, that is a little bit better. i appreciate that introduction. i was going into a little of that but i will shift gears a little bit. i had the pleasure of going to the branch today. it was as humble as it was beautiful. i really enjoyed it and it is an honor and pleasure to be with you today and the americans as well. i was walking through with andrew upstairs and one of these things at the ranch i saw his books, looking at it, he has a lot of different topics. i have maia and in satiable curiosity. i was drawn to and like it and i was walking with and through upstairs and we looked at his book and there was one book that really stood out and was louis l'amour. how many of you know who that is? as a young man i was 13 years old reading comic books. how many of you know what big brothers and big sisters is? i am able brother. my big brother is now 75. he is more like a father of course but when i was 13 while you're reading these comic books? let me give you some real books to read. i was always getting in trouble at school because i was getting my work done quickly and i would be spitting spitballs and the things that ornery kids do. why don't you read real books? that will help you. so he gives me this bag of louis l'amour books, 25 of the man that was addicted to them. i read every one of them in this library and i read every one in the county library. i think i read 65 louis l'amour books and if you haven't read and you know they are all the same story. they just have different characters. louis l'amour change the trajectory of my life. once i got done with steel training and at the time each sealed team was a different area of operation in the world and we were complete training in the instructor is traded in from different teams and the bridge describing those areas of operation. when a seal team 4 came up, he said south america is like the wild wild west. that is where i am going because of louis l'amour. i want to open the speech with a simple declaration. i love this country and i would do anything humanly possible to defend her from enemies foreign or domestic. i know that is not complicated and not that flashy but i guarantee everyone in this room agrees with that sentiment but i also believe that now more than ever it needs to be said out loud, to let women like all of us by men and women like all-around nation, i spent a decent part of my life serving in defense of the country and those experiences taught me a lot. challenged me greatly and scared me more than enough. that is what has motivated me to stand up at this pivotal time in history to say that we need to change the way we look at ourselves the way we interact within the world and how we lead our fellow freedom based democratic nations in the decades ahead. speaking out is a next step in my personal journey and it is a journey that has taken me from freezing in the rolling surf of the pacific ocean in steel frame to buildings behind iraqi lines, to mr. jefferson's capitol in richmond, va. as a state delegate and that journey began on maryland's quiet eastern shore. i was raised by a single mother and didn't have much focus on academics and the family at lack of money and good grades made the military the best chance to get out of that small town. i know it sounds trite but i wanted to see the world. in my book i right the fact is i really did not have a strong opinion of the service aspect of joining the military. that would come later. for me it was all about the challenge. i wanted to tackle the hardest thing that anyone could throw at me and i am pretty sure there are a lot of seals who would say the same thing. i found myself at 18 years old the youngest guy in sealed training and by involved a long way from maryland. i spent two years training reconnaissance from our fellow seals and preparing them for war. in dog is a slight in iraq. i learned more there than i have ever before. i probably learned most on a dark night in rum body, iraq. we were a group of navy seals neighbors residing in this house on the quarter of the euphrates river. right next to us was a house full of army rangers. next to them a house full of delta force operators and finally a house full of c isa officers. not dead neighbors to have each you found yourself in that part of the world. we were given a mission one night to go into the city, we would be inserted in the middle of the night, make our way to this vacant building where they were supposed to the insurgents who were launching attacks on coalition forces. we stayed there for a few days and observed that intersection and before we would leave we would go to the roof of our makeshift house where we had a small shooting range to make sure sniper rifles were dialed in. you couldn't stand straight up on the roof because guys had been shot at from across the river before so after we got our rifles in wheat joined the marines who drove us in and dropped us off in the middle of the city. probably 3:00 a.m.. night vision goggles, head on a swivel because you never know where bullets might come from and made our way to this vacant buildings. we entered it very quietly because we didn't want anyone to know the we rather. we were going to be there for a few days. we cleared it room by room floor by floor. when we got to the second level like turned security on the stairways leading up and i fell through 20 to 25 feet to the concrete below. i was instantly unconscious, had a torn pcl tendon, a bruised lung and six broken ribs down my spine. the team continued to clear the building because that is what you are supposed to do, you have to win the fight first before you tend to the wounded but our neck petty officer stout, rushed over to me and realize he could hardly hear me everything. he would tell me years later when i first saw him that he stabilized buyback, inserted in a tube into my throat, cleared my air way and probably saved my life. he didn't stop there. he called the marines and helicopters and he rode with the marines to take me to the helicopter. this was not an ordinary road in front of us it was filled with improvised explosive devices. when we lost 11 marines that year alone on that stretch that he did not care. he was going to make sure i arrived safely and rejoin the team and the mission. stout put his life on the line to save my life. i am only you today because i stand on the shoulders of those brave to do that i had the pleasure and honor of serving with. better men than me. men like petty officer stout. i and learned so much from my seals bravery courage, dedication, character, i learned that nation that produces these noble humane warriors is an indispensable one in the life of the world. this is the greatest nation world has ever known. that truth is reflected in the actions of the men and women of our armed services. we cannot let them down. we cannot let this nation down. that is why today i am here to speak out about policies in the country that i believe are unfortunately taking us in the wrong direction in a pivotal moment in our history. when you are a soldier, you take your orders and serve and do your duty but now as a citizen i want to use what i have seen and learned to speak out in defense of liberty and freedom given to us by god and defended by the government and the military. i refuse to be part of a generation that went abroad to defeat the evils of terrorism to come home to see washington lose that fight through misguided national security and foreign policies. i cannot remain silent as our beaters fails to speak openly and truthfully about the spreading cancer of islamic extremism. i will not simply sit back and watch as we turn our backs on our allies and appease those who are not our friends. too much of both our foreign and national security policy in recent years have been made for a desire to produce short-term political goals to gain political territory and informed by unrealistic view of the world. wishing the world to be something other than it is does nothing for american security war american interests. we can all learn a lot about foreign policy and crisis management and international relations from academics but you can also learn quite a bit from real-world experience. is dangerous, changing, seemingly chaotic world in which we live, i would argue we need more folks in positions of leadership and have experience in the more dangerous and sensitive regions of this globe. in making national security decisions local culture matters. after my time in the navy i served in a private capacity as a security consultant manager for a u.s. oil company in yemen and ultimately would deploy ten times over four years. nothing that i could have been tossed on these shores would have prepared me for what i learned. one day i got a call in the arabian desert and got a call the labor had stopped on a project we've working on. there was a guy who was frightening to shoot anyone in the field that continued to work. in yemen that sort of thing is kind of ordinary. so i didn't think much of it at first, then i went to my tribal gods and none of them would go with me outside the wires. i went to their barracks, tried to find out what was going on and they said to me look, we can't go out there. they have hired then send one of his guys shot his own brother in the head. i am like really? you guys are supposed to be tough tribal gods. these guys were armed but were not hard men like i had served with. so i called in the army and sent our yemeni army detachments out there to find out what was going on. i could always tell how strong the tribal shakes were based on the army's reaction to them or lack thereof. so they go out there and nothing is happening and i am getting frustrated because we are losing a lot of money and i get a call on the radio. it is my interpreter and he says to me they are all out there but is the stalemate going on right now. i had to do something so i grabbed an ak-47, and convinced and will bedouin to go out with me and an interpreter. we go out there to meet the army and the scene was fascinating. we get up there and there are about 15 bedouin tribal guys who are all in firing position, they have automatic weapons, not just ak-47s on one side of the road. on the other side we have less yemeni army contingent who were also in firing position and a gun truck there. in the middle of the road were a few guys sitting down including this not the character. we pull up on top of this engine. i remember getting out and thinking this. who in a world right now is doing this? probably nobody. i get out there and go sit down with the group that is in the middle. i was surprisingly calm but i knew i would have to take a hard stance. naji was hot on cotton. they shoot this narcotics, their cheeks are this big with it. it was very nervous and he gets up and walks away. in the wrong move by the army with the bedouins could result in a disaster. you cannot call 911 in the arabian desert. that is something that may be a little foreign to modern americans but that is one of the reasons local culture is as it is there. the guy that was most rational and reasonable was the guy who shot his brother in the head. he was just a little different, he had all black on and he was a dangerous guy. he relayed to me the demands of naji through an interpreter and what they wanted was a fuel contract to deliver fuel between facilities. we had already given that contract to one of its piers and tribe. there could probably be something that could be worked out that didn't hurt us financially or contractually. it happens all the time over there so i looked him right in the eyes very confident we have and i said listen, i don't care if you stay here with your guys and threaten our folks for three weeks in this desert. i will not help you. in fact, i was completely bluffing here, i will make sure that you never worked in this field again. but if you take your guys, take your guns and leave and allow work to continue and come to my office in three days with no guns than we will work something out and i will help you. so he stopped, completely surprised and paused and looked at me and he says -- hands me his ak-47 which is a culturally signify a gesture that i mean you no harm and he says we respect the fact the you came up here. we did not expect it. naji will come to your office in three days as you asked. no, i interrupted him. i wanted to make sure i was setting the conditions. isis two days, come in two days litter and he agreed. they left and they allowed work to continue and a couple days later they came and naji got his contract. his peter never complained at all. [laughter] >> i would totally use naji in other negotiations later on, totally. some guys were holding stock up one time and i get a call leather stopping work and i am like you know who naji is? because if you continue to stop working and making him lose money. you should call him. problem solved. so i share this experience with you to make a simple point. in a radio power is the one thing. the only thing that brings true respect. it helped me avoid what i wanted to awful. frank is respected in that part of the world and in the tribal world is practically suicidal to make unilateral concessions, to a view we go weaken your allies's position. the only way to establish police or commanding respect to retain any influence is to demonstrate our. now as a nation confronting threat emanating from that part of the world from russia or north korea we need leaders who deal in strength leaders like ronald reagan who understands that the world is not a classroom on a college campus the world is very dangerous and full of people who respect only strength and power. if we went to expand our cherished values of liberty and freedom and personal responsibility and free market tolerance, that can only successfully happen, a projection of spraying for and confidence. we are increasingly risking our leadership position and paying the price. the men and women in uniform in harm's way with cuts to the military through sequestration, social experiments on a body that has remain disciplined, and sending folks overseas, grave mistakes. they are leading to grave consequences. ladies and gentlemen. there is no greater fringe to free men and women than the united states military and no greater enemy to terrorists and oppressors than the united states military. our military is an overwhelming force for good in this world and what the u.s. has done over the past century has few counterparts in world history. we are not empire building, do not seek to expand a footprint or takeover nations, but we keep the peace. protect innocent people and make the world safer for our fellowman. former secretary of state colin powell once noted we have gone forth from our shores repeatedly over the last hundred years and put in wonderful young men and women, many of whom lost their lives and we have asked for nothing except enough ground to bury them in. that work of preserving and expanding liberty and freedom is only growing more important, to successfully continue that work we need leaders whose policies aimed at the root cause and not just addressing symptoms as they appear. and every expanding kill list and a skillful drone strikes make a terrorist here and there and that is the good thing, but they also serve as better recruitment than guantanamo bay ever did. we cannot little war on terror with tactics alone. we have to have a strategy of overpowering strength, physically mentally and virtually. what america needs is leadership with the courage to call islamic terrorism what it is, pure evil. [applause] >> leadership matters. we must be clear, principled and consistent. this will emboldened our allies to be the same including our islamic allies who have been burned by the flames of terrorism. they are looking to us for guidance and readership, that only comes through strength. we need leaders who understand that our interests of line with other common minded nations and not those who seek to under fund terrorism or seek to create regional unrest worse seek nuclear weapons. we need leaders who understand what it means to be on the team, leaders who truly believe in america and our greatness and what we can achieve in tandem with our national partners, international partners. of course we haven't had that kind of leadership in the past six for seven years. and that fact has helped remind americans, war-weary as we may be, that these qualities do matter. we cannot turn our back on the world and hope these problems simply go away. the world is too small. the geographic boundaries of volts are not really relevant in the modern age and we have to confront the world as it is. these are challenging times. but the thing about america is we are never out of the fight. we fall down but we always rise up again, we just ourselves off and press ahead. this is who we are. this is how we started and this is how we will be moving forward. now it is time to demand the leadership the lead deserve, optimistic leader should that no matter what the challenge will stand shoulder to shoulder with you and i and everyone as americans advancing our interests and convincing our friends they can have a better friend to convince the this they can have the worst enemy. they can use of power and hard hard to achieve this in a push pull policy with robust leadership but we give foreign aid to many countries and that forms part of our power. i am sad to say with all the money we get around the world we are not taking advantage of what we give. i find this fact amazing. the u.s. is home to the best marketers the world has ever known. is why people wear michael jordan t-shirts in the condo drink pepsi in paraglider, dance hip-hop like andrew in haiti but none of these professional efforts, none of them have been employed and demonstrated to the people how we are helping them around the world. it seems absurd to me that we would give these foreign aid packages without making them aware of whom to thank. let's use those talents that are arguably the most american of industries to help do that as well as combat basis as brent. that is a better strategy for winning the hearts and minds and broadcasting yourself aggrandizing leaks to the new york times that our president is personally approving every single drones strike in their country. when it comes to our power we should immediately rescind sequestration, the draconian and then targeted cuts made to our military in 2013 congress that failed to reach an agreement in cutting the budget in a more rational and responsible and sustainable way. if you were a runner and i know you are you know that it is easier to keep the ban catch up. same with military spending. we can definitely find savings, the sequestration cut their indiscriminate and we need leaders to roll up their sleeves and not take the easy way out and put more of a burden on the already loaded backs of our men and women in uniform. our way of life and currently locked in a role in the world ultimately rest upon them. that is the reality and we owe them the best. when and if we decide people will go and fight and we have folks that will go forward and engage our enemies we must do so wholeheartedly and like him out. unbelievably small is not a phrase that any american leader should ever about a military operation. that is assigned the we are not serious. all starts with having the resources in place prior to any operation so if we decide to go in, we go all in. ladies and gentlemen, a vice served on the battlefield and intellect office and i have learned a lot from both places but what i'm primarily learned is this:it is time again for america to see the world as it truly is. there can be no intentional confusing of the nature of these direct threats to our well-being and our way of life. there are evil people in the world that we want to rate the advances of the last centuries and subjugate men and women through the ignorance of their misguided and wrong beliefs and they present us with the greatest challenges of our lifetimes. that challenge calls for an americas that knows its place as the ultimate defender of liberty and freedom for all, that backs away from those threats, this is prepared, clear eyed and always vigilant. and that like my old friend petty officer stopped from run body -- ramadi, leave no friend behind on the field of battle. 8 you very much. [applause] >> thank you, thank you. i would like to open up for question and answer. i like long walks on the beach, we run the seinfeld and hershey's kisses. >> we are going to be taking questions. please wait for the microphone to get to you and say your name before you ask your question. >> 9 name is him. i read senator tom cotton said with obama's telling the military plans for mosul given the time line, how many are going in, ball thing has come out and said aiding and abetting the enemy. and lieutenant-general mack and many said the same thing. i am wondering what we as a nation do with the president that is aiding and abetting the enemy. >> what i first want to say, what do you guys think? should we ever say how we are doing and what we are bringing to bear? never? just makes no sense. this administration has a history they would argue different, they are not aiding and abetting the enemy but they have a history of national security secrets, doing things that give them the attention to show that they are doing something about the problem even if it is pinprick air strikes and military people help again, can we win a war with airstrikes alone? no. you need human intelligence, folks on the ground, boot on the ground. the first and foremost thing everyone in this room should be doing is working for 2016. and switching in the direction and switching the past that this administration is taking which i personally believe is completely wrong for our position in the world american interests and folks that go overseas to fight for us. i won't go as far as to say abetting the enemy but indirectly at least of course it is. when the operation is going down the iraqis are there, what america how america will support them and we are doing to do that. what would you be doing if you had that information preparing. it is tragic end there will be nothing more that we should be focused on right now it's than changing this direction and changing of the party in the white house in 2016. thank you. [applause] >> thank you for coming today, thank you for your service. i understand there are problems with moving kate winslet can you address that? the senate has some control over that. can you address that? >> i remember in 2009 when the president first came in. they were worried about the rules of engagement that they would have to be shot at first to be able to engage. we were speaking out harshly about that. that hasn't changed. you heard me saying this, generally speaking we can send people overseas with one hand tied behind their back. my own foreign policy i talk about in the book like a bar fight for foreign policy. you go to the bar, can start trouble can't take on anybody. somebody starts messing with you you defuse the situation no problem but their hands on new you beat them into submission. that is the way it works. if you are going to send our men and women overseas to fight on behalf you are going to let them do it with both hands. [applause] >> thank you for coming to santa barbara. >> beautiful of course. >> since we live in such a different america now, what are the consequences that you have had for speaking out and writing your book? positive or negative? >> excellent question, thank you so much. back to 2012 and i will address it specifically. in 2012 when the osama bin laden raid happened and you knew who it was and how they got there and what detectives were and what they found, the actual intelligence, would you ever say what stuff you found there? no. once that happened then you had the other leaks and i speak about this in the book and really making folks in special forces and intelligence communities made us upset because our folks are on the front lines and it hinders future operations and their ability to conduct operations the we came together and formed a pact and we were critical of the president. for release of national security secrets for its own political game to get reelected. we did speak out and we were criticized, even the president himself was very dismissive of us. we took some heavys which is fine. i don't care about that. the book itself has come out on monday. most of the feedback i have gotten was overwhelmingly positive but then again, i have not been speaking with democrats. most of them have been on radio and tv interviews but any e-mails have been overwhelmingly positive. a few focus a what about bush, the go to line when they're being critical about something. so far so good. yes, ma'am. >> my name is harriet carol. i am 91. i have seen a lot. also in our family we have some ideas of somebody that designed the escalator and i didn't know i was touched with that until recently. and i am the one that got the idea is that slowed and stopped the war in iraq. when you say how did you do that? i didn't have any training but if somebody's son is anywhere in the service of this country i pray for them every night. [applause] >> one morning i got up and said oh my god, did i dream this or not? that is the way to stop the war in iraq. what it was, and i called it in to the pentagon and i said you have to get someone this has to be called in to the president as soon as i hang up, you would like to know when i have a new idea. which is sort of -- was president george bush. so i said, i want somebody like the colonel with a couple people army people on either side of him. and to meet with the mullahs fast, get as many together as you can. at that meeting, you say that -- i have the senior moment. >> in america, 25 and holding. >> the fact is what did i do? no, no. also with general franks i talked-about leaflets i told him about leaflets. we had that in world bore ii and general frank when he took the army he spoke about dropping leaflets for three days and when they went through with the army not one bullet was shot. from the enemy. >> do you have a question? >> yes. anyway, i warned them -- oh that is what it was. i warned them that if the mullahs start to worry about themselves because iraq iran would come into iraq and the first one they are going to look for is a mama because they have 100 soldiers under them an edge air head will be on the right side, the body will be on his left side and turn the around in a military term, no questions, no answers and walk out. it was in the wall street journal. >> thank you. you can never get enough prayers over is there so thank you, appreciate it. >> my name is john mckenzie. we have yet another secretary of state. what is the take on the latest secretary of state? >> john kerry? [laughter] >> did that answer your question? it is the same thing. the same world view. get there and things he will visit the middle east and negotiate all these things alienate our allies in egypt and israel and accommodate our enemies in iran. their goal is to get some kind of deal with iran to say they got a deal but when new listen to benjamin netanyahu who just talks like it is because they live in that part of the world it contradicts our policies and how they are approaching. i am just -- i don't think he can advance anything. i don't think he is strong enough. i don't think the administration is serious enough to allow him to be strong and get something done. to help american interests and prevent iran from getting a bomb. i thought you said secretary of state. i am looking forward to 2016. [applause] >> thank you so much for being here. i am curious about something. there have been a number of books out. we have the american snipers center. it seems the seal community comes out against them after the books are written and i was wondering if you had any feedback from your brother? >> excellent question. let me take us back a couple years, leadership matters, the osama bin laden raid probably prompt a lot of books coming out except loans survivor, that had nothing to do with the osama bin laden raid. is a story that i think is a historic one. inspirational one the whole nation mission no. i had a lot of buddies in a helicopter during that time. one i was in iraq it was three days before that so they were sending e-mails, making fun of me. that happened. what i will say is when you have the highest levels of government, even admirals to our complicity with the unaided security staff releasing national security secrets to the new york times and collaborating with hollywood bringing people in for a top-secret information giving access to mission planners and stuff like that. just because you have top-secret clearances not mean you are privy to all top-secret information. it is very compartmentalized, need to know basis homely. when you have that and movies are created, $100 million made in profits to a movie that was originally supposed to come out before the president was reelected so of course it was to help his reelection campaign. it is hard to tell people who were action will be there that they can say anything. leadership matters. if they wanted them to be quiet they should have been quiet at the highest levels as well. that being said i don't agree with a couple of my brothers how they did it but at the same time they were in there. robert o'neill, you saw his book, he was an excellent seals. i don't agree with how he did it but when i look at what the leadership did it is hard to tell somebody not to do what you just did as a leader. that is what i would say. but rightfully so in the active-duty command now you have the upper echelons, not involved with the other higher ups at the time to get the discipline back and they have to do that. it is an unfortunate situation that came about first because of lack of leadership. thank you. one more question. yes sir. >> first of all i would like to thank you for being here and for your service. my name is litter. my question is based on your early sealed team experience the have any insights as to the policies that has been developing for its cuba? >> i don't have specific -- i would say no. i would be disingenuous. we went down through cuba lot of times but it was never talked about until recently. personally there's a lot of economic potential because they do open up relations in cuba who will provide them with everything? could be america. at the same time we have to make sure human-rights make sure the castro regime reduces their human rights violations and lets people be free and give them more liberty. i did not give any personal experience from cuba in my seal time. he said one more. if you approved it. the boss says no, yes, you got it. >> tell us. thank you for being here. really appreciate all you have done for our country. i want to ask your view on benghazi. [laughter] >> i will try to generally make a -- i talk about it a lot in the book, but i think there were failures and mistakes of leadership before, during and after. .. >> would be chomping at the bit to get in there into the fight to save americans. i've personal

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