Transcripts For CSPAN2 The New Better Off 20161225

Hudible conversations] hello. I am so happy to be here with Courtney Martin and you can be here with us. One of the cofounders of the project is very sad he cannot be here, he is sick today. Courtney cent and email yesterday we were not looking at the calendar to say what is happening this weekend chief meld yesterdays and said it should redo this . Should be have a book launche to talk about the new better off in the week that it is momentous and the unsettling landscape . And i said absolutely because of what happened andd how unsettled puerto rico it is important we sit together in a room and talk about what matters to us. So i will not do the big introduction you can read her credentials and i love the presence that she brings to our media space on her blog that is eliminating for everybody reading it. Per rigour as a journalist and a thought leader and also a human being. Somehow i want to introduce courtney is i love her. Y. [laughter] she is a journalist, but she is a new journalist. She is one of the people who is modeling and incubatingor new forms of journalism for the 21st century. The old forms are failing us but here we are. S true o this true right now in the early the 21st century of the things that made sense even 10 years ago just dont make sense anymore. With madison and present it is true with religion and it is what we get this week. How we do that . Not clear but you are one of those people who is figuring this out close to thean ground. And today with some of the best journalists are the hysterical apocalyptic analysis of what will happen in the next four years and the end of civilization . E what w and these are people who did not see what was right in front of them last 18 months. That kind of hysteria is not helpful. L. Be of so how can and journalism me of service to common life . Ment e mrs. It is where humility is called for. One of the of things and what i find helpful and to think about this century from now what will they say is really important that is happening right now . Ow say and to say this shapes of world maybe the election of donald trump. Maybe. That it is 70 degrees and sunny in november in minnesota. Maybe millions of human beings right now im as we speak making their wayns across europe with the refugees. How will that shape the world . Of all the world to be loved and inspired, imagine a sixth century rome. Whenever that time was it did not ever carry a headline that says benedict because there was the crazy guy over here who in his lifetime had 12 communitiesco of 12 people one tried to poison him it is not a successful venture. Nobody noticed his startupsno nobody wrote a headline. But what this person with the viet vision of Community Set in motion to shave civilization that kept western literature alive. We dont know what is happening right now that feeds those invisible feeds to set that in motion. However i suspect that and the people that she writes about. [booing] that she writes about, and that we have to continuee are do with what we are doing with passion and shine a light on everything else. That is what we are here to do. T11 i want to read of a little bit of the new better off to give you a flavor want should be cancelled tonight because of what has happened in the world . Resoundingly no. This is from the firstro chapter of the introduction. What you will find i hope is being richer does not mean being numb. To be sure living in america of this moment can break your heart but it doesnt have to break your spirit to. Living in america is so interesting, fertile and up for grabs it is also a disintegrating and reconstituting in three calibrating and up to us to make a life that we can be proud of in communities and systems and policies and to reject tired narratives about success instead of offering new ones in more about creative communities it is up to was to reclaimof the best of a previous generations did that made the country so unique and beautiful as well as to own up to the destructive legacies to expose them to the light and figure how to fix them it is up to us toto be humble and brave and be accountable to our own dreams, no one else to be iconoclastic and to stay awake. Is this a wonderful book. Is an important book. And one thing i have been admiring as you launched it it, you are not just promoting the book but the book is a conversation piece t a conversation starter it take into companies to build a movement or contributing to the movement that wants to form. This seems so gratifying. In many ways i feel that they just try to language of what i am observing so that feels like the role to give language to the yearnings that people have also the things better in the world and to see that power to acknowledge that you are all doing similar stuff so there is something greater than to create more priority in your life that is what will save us all to the earlier points that you are making. It is less than so gratifying that this book plays some role to acknowledge invisible deeply important work which from may gender perspective is womens work and also poor peoples work i am very clear about creating community those have less money so this turns the tables on who really knows how to do things to create happiness sorry efficiency. Had you have explain that connection . Wealth makes us dumb about how vulnerable we are because we think we can buy our way out of the Trump Presidency or for this moment when you find out donald trump is the president doesnt matter how much money is in your bankis account you could fly to the Cayman Islands the radically but if you care of that care about america and doesnt matter of just like every a other person. So i think welfare will fool us wealth will fool us. So how does that create the condition where you get better at community . That is like you have to look to the people around you to get by then it turns out to solve your problemsn to make shoe happier and healthier and there is a real freedom and mental will the sand for the ability. So eveh from folder ability like those that needed to clean house this so they created their own makeshift coopt we one would take care of the kids will take to keep the kids to get there and do it faster was small and invisible that low incomeis people do out of necessity but it turns out now what makes them response of all human being. So wind of the core idea is the you are pursuing and tried to trace the icon locations is the atm of vocation and calling. And i think the 20th century in this country, we have the completed vocation whiff job and title. But it is not bad all about what you do but who you are and how you do it. But it is plural and we have many collings at once. So how would you Start Talking of the ecosystem of the applications . And his start to change the way . What does that mean to you how we define that . I guess 11 start whiff tracing my own relationship of indication that i grew up thinking my dad had the important job because he was a lawyer but came to realize cao everything now is a mirror of what my mom did and she was 10 Different Things nowdi matter which made sense on paper all of us headed deeper influences the kennedy round of social worker, the mom with the condoms in the closet laugh laugh she was this on to produce our before i even knew that was the word but it was a Community Organizer so i grew up thinking i should have a path like my dad to be important person in go to law school and it turns out that my way of being important in the world is exactly what my mom did. Try a writer so that is magnified and a much larger scale than it was for her but liggett the way the work is happening to much looks like many of our mothers who we thought did not have real jobs. And also for men. This isnt just about to win in. And as work becomes decentralize eric is of risk of that social safety net but there is a lot more room for flexibility as parents and workers six cetera so it isnt like you get to one vocation and maybe people are completely singleminded but that is not anybody that i know. If you have a vocation as a worker, parent common neighbor, citizen to say what is our calling as the citizen . It is not like to put it aside. Exactly and the roles are blending which is a good thing. If you like it is important to keep reiterating the system questions that it is up privilege to be every lancer and afford Health Insurance or the bottom will not drop out if you dont get one paycheck so this is well into our capacity to imagine with the new social safety net but having said that, the blending of those worlds and paid work, that is a fairy new way of living. That y and your friends would be totally separate. Even the phrase Work Life Balance makes absolutely no sense to me. Me. Battlefield weird about working with my friends. He was my mentor, friend, i also like your website and your project that does not feel weird to be a sea of other generations there was a separation the issue collaborate professionally and your friends but that is breaking down. Is. And it is messy and challenging. Traditional organizations so what are the boundaries . To talk about that complexity. But for me we can make the work all the of Richard Richard i know as a real textured way but the capacity to rest on the knowing that i need to call her out or support during certain way that it makes it harder but more excellent. Thinking about black lives matter or social movements, often end it is friends. And black lives matterr itself came from three women thw communicating with one another. It shows theres so much being born and professionally have of friendship it is really shifting. There are things of above to read about but i feel that my favorite People Better soso masterful at friendship iti is almost like a new realm of skill. Not new obviously does something about the way people think about friends and work with friends thatti it is a bit different. Something to cultivate. I love that. Thinking about your daughter recent College Graduate dont worry about your resonate. Worry about your friends you have amazing interesting friends you will be okay. I dont just mean after hours but your work will be better because you have amazing friends and you will have more opportunities you dont have to zero network with the intimidating older person. You should do that also laugh laugh but not how to ride the friend that but they grow up to become those people but then you have a relationship with them that 20 then that is in your living room. At all like to generalize bed i dont think he feel that new generation is doing that better . That bet the ecs new generations quick. Certainly experience thatta and i feel amazed the younger people live and in touch with in their early 20s support one another and the way that they think of course, people have their jealousies but it is very generous help people love their friends. Ir like young women burying their friends on facebook they are not in a romantic relationship but if one is getting a tattoo. Of how much they are committed. But something that you do across generational friendship i think i told you one of the pieces of the crisis have been grateful for fillets had friends in my 70s and 80s and one of those older friends said to me i always have had young girlfriends. Ounger buffer some reason i was growing up, icu and you talk about this with the robust web of mentors and especially women of other generations. And like the old mann friend this der mentor of mine from college that a lot of baird dudes in their eighties and women friends of all ages and a love mike older women friends i have learned so much from the mentor that is 10 years older there is something about to see yourself in the near future that is so important to me especially as a new mother with a six yearold that has been so important for me. You said the language of Work Life Balance makes less sense in a the way these generations are navigating life and they think they point out the challenge that they just landed in the middle of their lives andn your own background to describe that to people of your generation to figure that out to make that humane there is us chapter on attention when i think about something that could not have been written before how we create the good life. It was not even on their horizon. T even o but now essential to your capacity to create Robust Health elation ships is hollowed you relate or think about when you are online . Of funny thing when it younger people probably havede figured this out so i will do this counter intuitive thing to interview teenagersrs talking to maine neighbors so tell me when you have an important conversation with a friend she said wed never dont let debtor fawns even with those conversations. [laughter] that just ruined my counterintuitive bought copper co that is so frightening to be. I am really worried about that in general. Just like my kids it is the guinea pig generation. Want your daughter told me she was not on facebook. Many people are not. Ac plenty of kids do that. Dicey them working with thisis but they are not the quipped at those ages they are not about self control or self discipline. And we are not. But what worries me is most of the of models that we are wrestling with is about abstinence. So every 24 hours we will look into each others eyes the other six days we are good. I think were still trying to understand the nuances that we treated like alcohol or a drug. It works addictive things end our brain. If you are 21 years old she says you know, you just gotu a jolt of dopamine laugh laugh i want to read that paragraph from the new better off explain what the boredom brilliant challenges a radio show that basically challenged people every day delete your favorite app off of your phone, dont use facebooky for a day suss through these habitual challenges to be somewhere and be bored to let their mind wander. So take your own board and brilliant challenge take a walk without looking at yourself on notice the weird little shit. Love people the way they deserve to be loved without a soul found obstructing your admiration ultimately your attention is spent as one choice at the time that they be flecked your grand ambition as you experience the world. I will ask one more question then be will open up to see what is on your mind. The stuff lafferty equation . Another new balancing act this ecovation is smiling which that i came up with. Please to not let me plagiarize anyone but we have time to understand that consumer is them has a major cost with our e Emotional Energy the more stuff we have the more we have to organize and repair and get new staff and the old stuff b is out of fashion is an endless cycle. S cyc so long with the way that changes faster and faster the way we used to buy stuff to symbolize to be word is changing and all of us, a lot of us think about stuff in a different way to get rid of it and not consume as much in the first place and i profiled an interesting organization to make it that you give away your old stuff to get dollars to buy other peoples stuff. The location was saved the worlds right so i think ive done a lot of sort of work in my life we scaling my expectations. Not only about my own impact on the world but about where i want to spend my energy and my time, that i am more interested in having an incredible local network of community and friends and being famous or even recalibrating all that to think about it in a different way and thats intention of enough stuff and its all finite which is something i think leslie, once you have kids is hard not to realize because your own mortality and their mortality is so inyourface. I feel like having children made me wake up and go. Com its all going to end so this is all ive got and ive got to just do the best i can with every moment that i think before i hadkids it was especially hard to wrap my head around. Class its not really a word we cultivate a relationship with culturally. I think we need to say lower expectations, then its like a fat which is what i wanted to write about in the book. This is the first generation of kids are not thought to be better off than their parents and theres a sadness and that, you are going to be able to afford what you have . Youre not going to be able to afford the fancy job . And i said im not sure thats making people happy. You can be sad for this next generation and where you can look for more ways that they are realizingthe big stuff , the fancy jobs didnt create a lot of wealth anyway and maybe its not so sad to have a smaller life, however we defined small. Its not so sad to spend a lot of time investing in a Smaller Community of people. Maybe thats the root of wellbeing and we have to return to that someday. I think that for many years, ive heard a lot of even before we use the term millennial, ive heard a lot of younger people, one of the worst reviews is ive looked at what they see in their parents generation and people who are running the world now is a loneliness that they dont want for themselves. Would you talk about you and john made a decision to move into a Cohousing Community and was your first daughter born there . So now youve had two children born into this and this is also, you said old model. But we are reinventing it. Right, so with the new model. There is other language you have about, what is it, the lost art ofneighborliness. What have you gotten out of this and what are you learning about the lost art of neighborliness . I dont even know where to start about what ive gotten out of living in cohousing. Theres cohousing, for people who are not familiar, we are a group of 25 people who all have our own homes and everything a typical home would have but we also share an industrial size eating area, kitchen, garden, kids playroom, bike shed, toolshed and we eat together thursday through sunday. And then beyond that have this sort of informal commitments to what we call radical hospitality. The sense that we are there for people in oakland in that neighborhood but also for each other. And im just, i mean, as ive lived there for about four years and it gets more complex as these relationships deepen but it continues to just move me to know and what it means to live and in particular getting back to my earlier point, and intergenerational community. Last night, when i was morning and grieving and trying to figure out about the election, i found an email saying okay, should we gather people . What should we do . So myself, my threeyearold daughter maia and my 78yearold neighbor luis and i ended up walking to the park to join this vigil and we were just walking down the sidewalk and louise and i are talking about the carrots they planted in the garden and how excited they are about how the flowers are growing and louise has her walking sticks in the middle of the urban oakland and mine is about to trip every 10 steps because shes this erratic toddler and i with them thinking this is what matters. The fact that i get to live with these incredible human beings that teaches me about the vastness of all this. Luis is constantly reminding me that life is long and vast and shes been through so much and shes devastated to but in a way that can hold that devastation in the light of such a vastness so shes reminding me of that and she being enriched by this threeyearold that got energy that is overwhelming but invigorating and so thats what its been for me is this constant thing of life, being in generational friendships and service to each other and in particular having kids in my community, i was just mentioning that having sons that are 10 years older, i have two mothers, one lives across the street and i dont have any control groups to compare it to but im positive has made my journey in motherhood just so much easier because i can run into him in the courtyard and say is this diaper rash going to kill my baby . And theyre like no. Its that simple. They have teenagers so their life, all you want to do is get away from your kids, all i want is for my kids to play. I can look at that and go okay britney, take a deep breath and enjoy this moment. And it just gives me that perspective. You say that it is something you wrote, i think depending on the Nuclear Family to meet all your needs is unhealthy. And i agree with that. I dont think weve really gotten a critique of the Nuclear Family that we will, its kind of unraveling. Ive always heard from people who lived in, because it turns everything, you are not held by anything larger. And you have no one to work out your fears on, just these people who you love so much. Ive always heard from people who live in cohousing arrangements that there are people in the community who they work out theirissues with. Like, that they have a guy who drives them crazy and they dont have to be, they are not as driven crazy by their husband. Because you have all these different people that transfer your pathologies onto. I love that. Now im doing a very sad analysis on cohousing and whos giving me a better marriage. No, i think thats very true. And just postelection im thinking a lot about who are we in conversation and who are we not in conversation with and i live in this Interfaith Community which was founded as a Christian Community which is important for me because i grew up in Colorado Springs which gave us a very bad case of christianity, avery hateful , narrow sense of who was an acceptable person. My High School Newspaper when i was a teenager i almost got shut down by folks because we wrote about what it was like to be a queer, questioning and published it through ace hotline and so that was what i experienced in christianity when i was young and its been this deeply redemptive thing to live with christians were just so loving and we do disagree aboutthings. And so that an important practice for me beyond just the Nuclear Family pieces. I was forced to do the work of having conversations with people i disagree with and im so grateful cause otherwise we can live in such rubble, especially if you are on the coast, as evidenced by this election. But yes, i think theres this , there are people to work out pathologies but its hard to be one persons rock all the time. So to have other people that my husband can bump into and expresses grief over the election or expressed some frustration that im not fully responsible to be the midwife of his emotional life , thats really important. And vice versa but we know this often happens more for women in service of mens emotional lives, i think. That i think is really important. I dont have control group i only know what ive experienced but i feel and given my having grown up not in a Cohousing Community, i have this sense that this is a year and so many other ways. The other interesting thing is the first generation of kids did grow up in cohousing has been about a 25 Year Movement in america are now 25 and its so interesting to talk to those kids. Did you talk to some of them for the book . Not for the book but i did this piece in the New York Times talking to some of them after the book and it was fascinating the way they talked about, they are very realistic. Some of them said president trump, they were being pollyanna about it but theres a capacity to understand having complex and work through it. There way of relating to adults in particular, its new perceptually advantaged to a lot of them because they know how to conversations with adults that are not their parents and they rely on uncles and have this broader sense of who they would relate to and talk to and generationally they are more fluid and so i think its really good for kids. So im going to read another passage and ill open it up and do you mind if i read this . I think its great to have somebody else read your words. When i was in crisis about the election yesterday my sisterinlaw who is maybe here or maybe keeping her baby quiet, she texted me a sentence of my own book and i didnt even recognize it was mine. I was like, thats really good shes like, you wrote this. How honest that i wrote this and you sent it to me so i am getting a lot of solace in thinking i havesaid something that might be useful. And this is about what makes a healthy home and a key feature of this is completely unrealistic American Dream that came out of the g. I. Bill and this very unusual momentin history where actually for generations if you are the right color and right class, things did get better. Justthe laws of physics were defeated or some. Because it always went up and up and up. And part of that is owning a home. , the white fence and then of course homeownership has been at the center of the trauma of this century and a lot of the pain i think in the devastation that fueled a lot of the surprising things about this election but anyway, heres what you said. A deed doesnt make a house a home. The people who gather there too. The best homes i know are not owneroccupied, they are joy occupied. There are places known for comfortable, engaging dinner parties where people linger so long at the table that they link nibble at all the remaining food until there are wineglasses without asking. There are laces you can safely be vulnerable and where you can heal from physical and emotional malaise. There are places that inspire their inhabitants to express their history and personality, perhaps with a close line of chapbooks strode up across the living room, shelf lined with old photographs, a painstakingly arranged train set, a closet door painted with favorite rappers. These are the sort of things that make a house a home, and existence of life. It is the size of our psyches that determines the amount of accumulation that healthiest area what matters is the amount of time we have to appreciate what we possess. Time that is inherently limited when we have to work so hard to earn the money to acquire those possessions. We are wise to have less and give away more, to pursue experiences over objects and memories over status symbols. We are wise to let go of the century old methodology that would have us believe that we havent made it until weve got it, whether it is it is a designer bag or a suburban home. The new better off mindset is vested in pursuing the most permanent pleasures which strangely turned out to be the fleeting experiences we have and the intangible stories we tell about them. So lets open this up for a few minutes. If anybody wants to be in conversation with courtney. Is it on, okay. Im jane. This is one of my loveliest readers on being whom ive never met, the most generous woman i think courtney, honestly. Really, shes helped me. Anyway, it is an honor to meet you finally. My question is, i come from a people who elected donald trump. Im like the black sheep of the family, my husband is the black sheep of the family. We moved away for five years, came back, coming back has been brutal w. So much so that were in the process of moving back out west where we were. So much so that my husbands family is now completely divided and we are on the outs. To the point that my motherinlaw and fatherinlaw had a 60th anniversary and the two of us didnt get invited area so that how far the gap is. And i thought if i just studied enough, if i read enough, if i read courtney parkers columns enough, i could look at myself and said okay, yes, you were this hardcore evangelical that was black, white but if you learn this, you can change this. You can change this. I started to watch my religion become republican and i grew up a republican and, but i didnt ever think god was one. So i guess my question if it is a question is how do you get what you guys know and what you taught me, because courtney has taught me a ton and christie, youve taught me a lot as well but how do we get this message of compassion and community to a populace that really doesnt want to hear it . I dont know. I mean, ive just been broken in 1 million pieces over this election because i mean, gosh. Do the men now have permission to call me names when i walked down the street . Do they have permission to just grab me without asking, not that im as hot as, whatever. They probably arent going to be grabbing me i guess but my daughter. Dont underestimateyour hotness, jane. [laughter] but my niece lexi is eight and her parents wereall dressed in red white and blue and they are like, we are voting for our kids future. They live in this huge mansion, they have more money than they will ever need in five lifetimes. And grandma is like, i went by the grand canyon and i thought for 10 minutes and it was like, i did that. You did that . Who does that. And its this total unconsciousness and so im just like, maybe the next book will be how do we do that . I dont know. Because wehave to figure it out. We dont have an option. They just told us, they dont give anything about us, they dont. When your own family is willing to let you go because you are one of those liberal people that steal all their money, i dont know what to do. I dont even know how to be a family right now, sorry. I dont want to give you any trite responses because that a deeply personal, the suffering you are experiencing in family, but i will say youre in very good company if you are a black sheep. I know some amazing black sheeps in this room and all over who similarly feel alone and their families but think of all the black sheep is one big heard of upraised people. I would offer you one thing ive been thinking about a lot and i tried to white borrow, i have to produce something and this is a hard moment to do that but ive been thinking about belongings and i was reading toddler discipline books which i read and my will have a total tantrum, flipping through the book, whats the answer . Theres not a way to read these books but i did read something in a book called positive discipline that said at the root of all tantrums is a quest for belonging and significance. Only those two things, the longing and significance so ive been thinking about that weirdly as ive been trying to process this election. What is it about the way we vote, whether we voted for, whoever we voted for, then its about our own relationship to that and i just offer you that because i think its alienated that you feel from your family, its something about how they relate to their own belongings and significance. Its at the root of why they are making the choices they are making and rejecting it in a way that feels personal but its about their relationship to that if it makes. I think its a great analogy because the way in which we structure our political dialogue, like political speech, political format and media echoes those things and thats what has been covered is infantile. I mean, its like it actually appeals to our most primitive brains. I was going to say its adolescence but it is infantile. It actually draws for our kind of worst instincts and thats part of why then we get polarized, it creates these conditionsfor that. So i think thats a great analogy and yes, its a curious world reliving with. Somebody else . Courtney, i heard you yesterday on twitter, progressive organizing not being in places and doing so. Not being what . Patronizing, is that what you are saying . Patronizing to and ive been thinking about how i have advocated for things i believe to be right, justice, inequity and how at times it has been quoted as being patronizing and condescending and it distances us from the belonging and the connection and i want to hear more about that. Thank you. I didnt know people actually read twitter, i like im twittering off into my own blackhole. Yes, so one of the things i tweeted yesterday was that i feel like in these days and weeks after the election, its on progresses to take check their own intellectualism and i was speaking in large part to myself , to my peers also but i just feel like art of whats happened in this country is that you know, those of us who say that we value social justice had intellectualized it in a way that makes it very alienating for people. The language we use, just our whole posture around it is just this kind of elite, and im not saying anything other people havent said butim feeling very visibly these days. This kind of elite distancing , know it all suffering so no wonder a lot of people are hearing our message in the way we think they should be hearing it, right . On the other hand, i took a walk with my brother and sisterinlaw today around the beautiful lakes here and we were talking about this paradox of, how do we hope that we cant, we were talking about white men especially, how do we hold that we dont want to be this kind of intellectual, patronizing people and or sort of these classy, compassionate, anything is good, if you voted for trump , i can understand that, thats where youre coming from. How do we hold that we need to be thinking about that but also we need to call people on their stuff. We need to say there are just basic ways in which we cannot have president of the united states, someone who has said the things he said about muslim people, about black people, about women. Its just wrong. There has to be someground we can stand on , holding our humility and not going into this intellectual place but where we can have a righteousness thats more about just deeply held values and especially white people calling other white people out on that in some effective way and i havent figure that out. That was what we were all hashing out as we were marching around the lake but im hungry to learn how to do that better. I dont know if you have thoughts about that. Men tell me lies, sister. Again, we have to find new ways to approach each other and so if, theres this culture of what we talk about and how we talk about it. That by its very nature pits us against each other. It actually welcomes what is inflammatory and how we distinguish ourselves over against others and it actually is very cerebral, even people who may not think they are cerebral, its all about positions and its about abstractions and the other is such an abstraction in all of this and whatever the other, whoever the other is we are talking about, whether its rust belt workers or lgbt or immigrants or africanamericans, its all people in inner cities, its all objectified and abstract and i think if we really want to have a different kind of discussion, completely pulled back from what weve been talking about and just create a whole new, lets just meet each other. You know, ruby sales sat right here and said. Thank you so much for that interview. Everyone who has not listened to it, you have to listen to it. Met so much to me and every person who is listen to it it felt like it was a spiritual moment for them which of course all your shows have that to some degree oranother for different people that show in particular was just a huge gift. And shes a wise elder and she, one of the things she says talking about white people with other white people. She said it isnt or fashionable for white people, what are you doing about these white people in pain . Is it more fashionable to care about black people and care about white people . Are they the wrong kind of white people . But focusing on the pain and the questions she said she learned to ask and that opens up new possibilities that she can get into the space and these creepy spaces where we dont have trustworthyspaces now but the safe where does it hurt . Obviously, you cant start there because you have to establish a little bit of trust to ask somebody that can expect an honest answer so how do we find new ways to walk towards each other and its a process, right . This is now our work. This is a longterm project area if we were we really care about relieving our common life. Its a longterm project and yet its so very impatient about life, white people have had a long time to think about our own history of enslavement and discrimination and we havent thought about it as much as we need to and theres something about really reimagining white men itself. What does it mean to be a white person nwith a deep social justice part but not spend all my time trying to be the good white person which i think is the first step in a lot of ways. Theres all these versions of why i think we need to do that weve been trying to do and all of them are very humbling and very any and so its like im grappling with what is a way to feel the kind of depth and spiritual drive that this dorothy day, whose birthday versus a couple daysago. Like, what would dorothy say about whiteness . I imagine shed Say Something i havent read but im really craving that and i think a lot of people out of this selection are craving more of what ruby sales was calling us. But we dont know how to do it. I interviewed last week someone who wrote this great piece on white debt and we talked about whiteness, we are at some point very uncomfortable. She said in the middle of this, this is mortifying. But it is, it is mortifying. This is also, theres a show coming up next week with Isabel Wilkerson and i mean, she wrote the warmth of other sons. She really does something that feels important to me that we take seriously what we are learning about our brains and our bodies. There was a color line in our heads, she says the heart is the last frontier. Weve changed a lot of laws with good intentions. We have to talk about it. But because we didnt actually understand that we walk around, all of us and this mother who created a science that says our minds are different seeking machines because wehavent been aware of that. We thought about it and had intentions. We havent actually created the structures to go along with those intentions. But we have knowledge now to work differently with ourselves. Also if im getting back to friendship again because as stupid as the old like, i have black friends. We make fun of people who do that. But friendship, for me has been the place where interracial friendships, interfaith friendships as i was talking about earlier has the place where this feels most alive. I feel closest when im trying to talking about witches that i have this fear friend in oakland was an incredible poverty advocate was working on this idea of families but she, i can have these real conversations where i will say i dont want to be in a room with white people proving theres a good white people and she said, thats your job courtney. I need you in those rooms talking to those white people even if you hate it and that friendship is where its like, i can wrestle with. I think theres something in the power of friendship in this moment and the ways in which maybe our families arguments sometimes are dividing and alienating but what about our friendships . Is that where this moment is. Family is the hardest space to make progress. Its an irony but in those intimate spaces are probably the last space that we can break out. So we should close this down and youre going to sign up some books i think . I wonder how you think about, understanding that vocation as youre defining it is something that constantly going to be evolving in the life but right now your vocation, your calling or callings at this moment . I think you are such an interesting example of what we are talking about with vocation. You are a journalist and yet youve created this thing that some people dont recognize asjournalism. Even though it is. So for me you are such a model of that. It feels like you searched for this kind of core understanding of what your distance is and you apply it to the world over and over again and see these new spaces so im so grateful for your model. I think, lets see. What am i thinking . I know im obsessed with storing and solutions so i keep gravitating the tour those two things although i am also interested in the limitations of storytelling lately which is a whole other conversation but storytelling and Solutions Area i think my gift is this kind of pattern keeping and emotional, intellectual coupling. Its like how i see the world. I dont know how to be totally articulate about this but as i walk around, im very interested in connecting dots and trying to Say Something about broader patterns and trends and moments, trends not likingthe Super Service , remake the trends, downplay that the media talks about but the deeper rumblings which is like this election, i feel like the conversation underneath the election was what i was trying to write about witches what is success to people andwhat do we want from one another and from our leaders . So i think thats my gift is sort of this pattern keeping, thought connecting and i can use words pretty well because ive obsessively readand written my whole life so thats usually how it gets out into the world. And what are the other parts of your vocation, how do you talk about how that fits together which with the other things, wow. Pretty dramatic. You as also as a human and as a person in relationships . My life is a material which im using to connect those dots which is inherently limited because its my life so that i hall have all these blind spots but its also rich. So the fact that im a mother, thats making it into the column all the time whether i like it or not because thats what im experiencing all the time and thats where someone might see these challenges and kind of , i felt useful pennies are coming through at this moment because im writing about mothering a lot. So its just anywhere that i can be the person in the room whose pattern keeping, whos listening and really seeing people and im trying to do that again from this emotional intellectual place which i feel really committed to and part of it is this earlier conversation about procrastination, intellectualism , that its so easy to write that way especially an oped or a regular basis, just to go into your head and sit stuff out and i tried to pause and especially because i want to honor the space that im being in and not go the easy places intellectually and try to bring mass confusion and my vulnerability and my spiritual quest to that as opposed to always sounding like somebody who has the perfect thing to say that feels safe to say because its intellectual because i guess im doing all this and im constantly creating community which to bring it back to my mom, was related. I had these women in oakland that meets once a month and hangs out and has potlucks and drinks and talks about life. Everywhere i go i accidentally create these awesome communities which i understood through the research is a skill but before i just bought this is what people do. Oh no, this may be what im most proud of and i want to honor that. Would you read this, as we finish, i marked the page. This is from the end of the book. I was thinking maybe, i cant read my writing. So i was thinking. Baby, i dont know. Maybe stop here. Its very good. In truth, the village is not defined by architecture but my mentality. If you want to live like this with other people, you need not move somewhere special. You need only to be intentional about asking them to embrace interdependence with you. We fantasize about the village growing up around us spontaneously as it regret reciprocity will magically appear in the cracks of our overscheduled lives but when we moved so fast, we dont see one another well enough to see where the needs are and when. We struggle to ask for help rather than wishing for intentional community, we have to doggedly pursue it, make it concrete, make a shared google calendar. Just make it real, even if you feel earnest and vulnerable. Reading communities like these are all requires shared space and time, requires a commitment to slowing down, listening to those around you and yourself. Thats where our rediscovery of the local comes in. We might feel fancy jet setting bar encounters with people on the go can only add up to so much whereas our encounters with people who live near us and our interest and investment in then can be edifying. It may not earnest frequent flyer miles but they can be earning us being on the place even when it is complicated and it is always complicated. Finally, when the blur of life is clarified by a lifechanging transition, a new birth, a new death, we are learning how to pause and experience the moment together in a way that feels both intertwined with the past and authentic to the one we are just now experiencing. We are realizing because some of the institutions are doctrines that ritual has declined, only full would forgo the vital meaning of witnessing these moments. Its the honoring and not the authority that matters. This requires a tremendous amount of creativity and fortitude, examination and coordinationbut its worth it. This one chance to live lives that give us pleasure, that make us proud. Some of those and dying questions that humans ask of themselves and each otherwhen they are muddling through, what am i for . Why am i here , what matters . Thank you. [applause] so has bethany or, what happens next . Yes. [inaudible] great. Okay. Thank you. Heres a look at authors of recently featured on book db after words, our Author Interview program. University philosophy professor Jason Brennan critiques flaws in the democratic system. A Harvard Business School Professor eugene solstice talks about the motivations of whitecollar criminals and former Senate Majority leader George Mitchell explores the potential for peace between israel and palestine. In the coming weeks on the after words, wall street journal news editor looks at women who have successfully climb the corporate ladder. Doctor sylvia rowe will research on how our bodies react to fat and new York Magazine Jonathan Wade weighs in on the legacy of president barack obama and john hopkins Environmental Health Sciences Professor Ellen Silverdale will report on meat production. As with anything. What are the good things . The good things are that we have a reliable, accessible food supply and just as you said, that the cost of food in real dollars is significantly less then animalbased protein particularly but also wheat and milk as you know sothats a good thing. The bad things are that this is an industry that has not come under the appropriate purview and thats because. The purview of whom . Of any regulatory or even a consumer intention afterwards, it airs on book tv and sundays at 9 pm eastern and you can watch all previous after words programs on our website, booktv. Org. The tone of things happening constantly that are affecting our politics and you know, the ways that things get changed in this country, there are many ways that things get changed. My favorite answer is that we are in new york, everybody here is familiar with Governor Andrew Cuomo and how hard he fought against raising the minimum wage until the moment he decided he wanted to take credit for it. Wasnt in his idea . No, it wasnt his idea. You have a confluence of factors, a movement that started in new york , the first protest i went to was just down the street here. And you also had, we should be real, he was under investigation but these things work and we now have an increased minimum wage that will eventually get to 15 an hour for new york city and most of the downstate. Something that was unthinkable two years ago. Right and i think that when we look at, yesterday was the fifth anniversary of occupy wall street and people were like where those people go . They are all over the place. I just saw five people i met from wall street at Standing Rock pipeline blockade in north dakota where i was earlier this week so that also manage to push the administration to at least ask for a temporary halt on construction, part of construction, they are still constructing parts of it but meanwhile the protesters, they are still going, still locking down the equipment and its a temporary halt, its not a win completely. You can watch this and other programs online at booktv. Org. Thank you all of you for coming here tonight and it really truly is a privilege for me to introduce medea to all of you. Shes the reason that im on all of these committees, on all of these, and the reason that i am a part of the Peace Movement in grove mill because in 2012, when she