The Exchanges

Q But I know he's an amazing man. So he, he, uh, my, my mentor of mine, Milton Friedman was a mentor of his as well. So I, I met him very briefly, but I was a kid. He don't remember me. Um, but he wrote the real history of slavery. Like what was Thomas Sowell's conjecture here?

A So Thomas Sowell's point in writing the real history of slavery was as follows. He said, if you want to use history as a cudgel and as a way of Of undermining and lowering the status of your modern day political opponents. What you would basically do is focus on American slavery and pretend slavery wasn't a worldwide phenomenon everywhere, and also pretend or omit the fact that Britain in particular, but also America to some extent, are a huge part of the reason why slavery ended all around the world, right? What you do is you put the microscope on, on slavery in one country for a few centuries, and the subconscious lesson That, that, that, um, leads to is that white people are evil, black people are noble victims, and that psychology hardens in the modern day and benefits some people politically, right? Now, if you were being objective and you didn't have a political axe to grind, Sowell says, you would tell a more global history of slavery wherein you would be sure to include Certain facts, such as slavery was endemic to Africa before the first Europeans arrived there, had been thriving for thousands of years since time immemorial. The, the slave trade was not forced on Africans. It was absolutely part and parcel of the way in life, of the way of life, as it was not just in Africa, but pretty much everywhere for, for most of human history, most recorded history. 90% of the sl…

AI assessment note: “So Thomas Sowell's point in writing the real history of slavery was as follows.”

Q slavery is why white people are richer, or black people are poorer. I mean, obviously there must be something from a 150 years ago where black people would be poorer, and then therefore they wouldn't be quite as rich today, but how should we think about our national wealth tied to slavery overall? Like, how, how, and it's obviously tied to reparations. Like, how do you think about this issue?

A There's a whole school called the New History of Capitalism that was popularized like 10 years ago. And the way they argued was basically they would look at how terrible slavery was, um, hit you with a bunch of mostly true facts about how bad it was for slaves, and then pepper in statistics like at one point half of American exports in the early 19th century were of slave-picked cotton. It's like, whoa, half of American exports, that sounds huge, right? And then would jump from that Kind of, after that mood had been set, would say things like, America's national wealth is derived from slavery. And that sort of, if you read it all in sequence, it all kind of makes emotional sense. Then when you go back and unpack it, you say, well, hold on. Are, were America's exports the reason we became rich? Right? American ex, half of what? American exports peaked at six percent in In the 19th century. So it was half of six percent, meaning three percent. Three percent of our, of our economy was due to slave picked cotton. Now that's not nothing. Is that the basis of our national wealth? And then you, furthermore, you ask the counterfactual question, well, where would the American economy have gone if we hadn't have slavery? If we didn't have slavery, right? You look at the fact that Egypt had slavery and slave picked cotton at the same time we did. India had cotton that was picked even more…

AI assessment note: “Three percent of our, of our economy was due to slave picked cotton.”

Q What is this tied to? Where's that coming from?

A Well, presumably there has to be a kind of unified cause of it all. I think, I think Gene Twenge and Jonathan Haidt persuasively argue that it's social media and smartphones. Just the more time teens spend on those, um, products, the less, by default, the less time they spend doing everything else, uh, doing anything in person, including just hanging out with friends at the mall, like American teenagers used to do, um, going to parties and You know, by default, having sex, having relationships, just all of it, they're doing less of. So I think that the eighteen-year-olds of today are considerably less experienced and mature, frankly, than the eighteen-year-olds of a prior generation, because there's only, I mean, I think we all know this, like, there's only one way to really become an adult. Like, you have to do stupid stuff. You have to make mistakes, and that's how you learn about yourself.

AI assessment note: “persuasively argue that it's social media and smartphones”

Q So I enjoy the part of the book where you highlight some platitudes about race to permeate our society. And one of them is like diversity is our strength. Like, why is that a dumb thing to say? And how should we be talking about it instead?

A Yeah, I think this is something a lot of people say, a lot of people want to believe, though I'm not sure if they deeply believe it in every sense. So for example, I've never heard anyone say that Earth, Wind & Fire was great, but they really needed a white guy to round out their sound, or that like the Beatles were an excellent band. They would have been perfect if they had a Mexican guy. And so I don't think that, at the end of the day, I don't think diversity always makes everything stronger necessarily. Um, and I don't think other people believe that either. My view is that diversity inherently is neutral in most cases. It's neither good nor bad. Um, I know certainly, you know, for my podcast, if, if I'm looking to hire someone to do a task, I don't care what they look like. I want to see how good at the task they are and how much they charge. And so, um, I would make an exception, however, for certain professions where racial diversity might contribute to your ability to do the job. So for example, If the NYPD for some reason were 99% white.

AI assessment note: “My view is that diversity inherently is neutral in most cases.”

Q own history and to dismiss it in order to overturn the entire society. So I think a lot of it, they're not actually even themselves believing that they're helping race relations, but they are believing that they're teaching kids to hate the U.S. and hate our past, which they can then use to transform the future. Is that something you see at all or what do you think of that?

A It's a good question. I don't know exactly what the agenda is, but I do, I do know that academics, um, academic institutions have a point of view on American history that is, um, absolutely strange, uh, totally lopsided. So for instance, the number of people that come out of high school, not knowing that slavery was An institution that obtained almost everywhere on earth. Yeah. And that actually thinks slavery was unique or mostly unique to America or even the Western hemisphere or even, uh, the few hundred years between say the 16th century and the, and the 19th century. The number of students that actually believe that that's somehow unique when slavery is, is, is an institution that's been, that's been practiced on every inhabited continent, For about 10,000 years.

AI assessment note: “I don't know exactly what the agenda is, but I do, I do know”

Q My instinct just like in general in life is a dialectic where there's like truth on both extremes. Like there must still be some things from slavery that are having impact today. Is it, but it doesn't seem like it explains everything. Like, like, like where do you come down on, on this?

A I try to take it on a case by case basis. Because my view is each, each topic should be treated independently and in an evidence-based, in an evidence-based way. So if we're talking about the prison system, like that's a case where I genuinely don't think the legacy of slavery has much to do with it, because if you look at when mass incarceration starts, it starts in the seventies. It starts for reasons that have very little to do with slavery. Um, but you know, we can get into these topics one by one, but my view is like, As a professor, I try to present each reading in its strongest version for about 10 minutes at the beginning of class. They've already read it, and I make sure of that because I quiz them on it for two minutes at the beginning of each class. Um, and then the rest of the class can be devoted to the strengths and weaknesses in the argument, and the goal is really not to impart to them, like, my personal view as a professor, um, although sometimes they, they'll ask for it. My, my goal is for them to develop the tools To successfully critique arguments that they see, no matter how those arguments are presented.

AI assessment note: “I try to take it on a case by case basis.”