Clocked in for 35 35 years, rad a good family, you are a hero, too. And i think too often in our society we put certain folks on pedestals as he rose because of something they missed they did for the sacrifices they did, but every day, i mean, i was walking over here just from the hotel looking at people curious about the sacrifices they have made for their own kids or for their marriage or for caring for an ill person. So for me while the veterans and war and Everything Else have become close to my heart, it reaffirmed my belief that everyones got a great story. Everyone should share that story even if you think your story is important, make sure you share it with someone. Make sure you share with your kids. Unfortunately those folks that pass away, when you talk to them right before death, often they will say their biggest regret isnt i didnt write a a book r star in a movie will make more money. Its i wish id spent more time with my kids, or i wish i told my kids a little bit more about my life. So i know that my legacy is going to be carried on. So maybe tonight bow and chris anders who are so kind as my host and sponsors, i hope its okay they will pay for all your dinners tonight. [laughing] if you go to dinner and share with your loved one your story. So thank you very much. Thank you, guys, very much. [applause]. Accept your donations to the savannah book festival. Your generosity that we are able to keep the festival saturday free. Please help us to continue. Thank you for coming. [inaudible conversations] [inaudible conversations] [inaudible conversations] [inaudible conversations] [inaudible conversations] that was for brian curtis on the 1942 rose bowl. In a few minutes we will be back with more live coverage of the savannah book festival. Up next, arthur Scott Schapiro talking about the peace pact that outlawed war around the world. Our live coverage will continue shortly. [inaudible conversations] [inaudible conversations] [inaudible conversations] what i trace in here is what happened to this country in the 1960s. Bobby kennedy was not the same person in 1968 that he was in 1961 and no one in the country was. There were segregationists in 1961 who were not segregationists in 1968. When you look at what happened to peoples opinions and their view of the world, Bobby Kennedy changed an average amount for someone with their eyes open at that time. There were people who went through more dramatic changes, bigger pendulum swings in their lives. And we get into how the 60s changed every one. Jean mccarthy and everyone else except for one senator voted for the gulf of tonkin resolution, that was the resolution them, president johnson used to wage fullfledged war. And Jean Mccarthy ran for president because nick katzen back who had been the hero, the university of alabama when a Deputy Attorney general, and steamrolling over governor george wallace. A couple years later and under secretary of state, and Jean Mccarthy is a member, nick katzen back believes declarations of war are outmoded. And to wage war in vietnam at any level he wants to, there is Nothing Congress can say about it and that was the moment, that was the hearing, that was the statement in the hearing that made Jean Mccarthy walk out of the room too angry to speak and ask a question. And have to run for president , i will. Everyone knows it is more vivid than anyones mind. Conservative or moderate democrat to the liberal democrat and all sorts of questions about what kind of opportunism was that, it was the kind of experience and enlightenment people were going through in the 1960s was before the assassination, summer of 1963, bobby goes to north dakota which jfk lost and had no hope of winning, there was no conceivable political benefit for Bobby Kennedy to go to north dakota for any. To adjust the convention in north dakota. He delivers a speech to them in north dakota that is a breathtaking piece. If you stood up at Standing Rock at the reservation where i was last summer, if you read bobbys speech every word of it would be relevant to what they are doing that day. Chief joseph who gave a speech in 1977 about his hope for a way the United States and everyone here would live together, with that. There is much in his evolution in here that i think clarifies that question which is the central biographical question. You can watch this and other programs online at booktv. Org. Heres a look at books being published this week. Yale Law School Professor examines how parties impact our political system in political tribes. Look for these titles in bookstores this weekend watch for many of the authors in the near future on booktv on cspan2. Bernie and his supporters, i wanted them to be a part of what was going to happen. Hillary won the primary fair and square. She had 4 million more votes than bernie, did not set the primary in florida or alabama or louisiana. She had more pledged delegates and unpledged delegates. Tim kane called for the elimination of unpledged delegates. We need to have this conversation if not now, when. What forms would you like to see at the dnc . The Unity Commission will pick on a lot of electoral firms, pledged versus unpledged delegates, looking at the window, what states in new hampshire, once upon a time they hit here because it is earlier. I am the same donna. Internally party is doing a great job reforming the party, we had so many great victories across the country. Lets be honest. Paula jean was absolutely right. I love you, florida. I love your elect oral votes but no reason why from florida all the way across mexico there is no other state on this side of the line. North carolina gets a few dollars but look across this especially in the south, we missed opportunities for the last we 10 years, all these states and on two states, tom perez, the down ballot race enabling us to have victory after victory. We are now 450 votes short of winning three more streets in virginia. It is important we invest down ballots, put resources across the country, a prescription for all 50 states. The dnc got rid of superdelegates. Somebody who has been a superdelegate for 20 years, no comment. We need a healthy debate. The reason we should have a healthy debate, i dont want voters to think my vote matters more than their vote. As long as you have the perception that im somehow special, i dont want that. I can understand, at the convention we need to run. I dont know, as a volunteer, i still may have something special. Dont take away all my love. The point of the book where you say why wasnt obama talking about the intelligence, where were the intelligence agencies . This was a national emergency. That is a point i heard a lot of republicans make. If this was happening why wasnt resident obama talking about it . My understanding is president obama, the leadership in congress, Mitch Mcconnell said you should not make a big deal of this. And i know leader nancy pelosi went to paul ryan, and chairman lujan, the National Congressional committee, and after our briefing with dhs i went to priebus on october 4th which was the republican place president ial debate. And on those photos here. You know this is happening. This is another revelation. I tried to reach out to sean spicer, not melissa mccarthy, sean spicer. I wanted him to know what was in the hacking and malware in case he opened it. What worried me as if the dnc went down we would corrupt the election system and i wanted to make sure the republican system was protected, two Major Political parties and databases, and i am a little upset the republicans ignored it. And the way Angela Merkel used it, to tip the scale, there is one other reason because the Hillary Clinton campaign, they would win. They were so convinced they would win that i dont think they polled in the last two weeks, she is going to win. Meanwhile i am putting cold water. Not so fast. Who else would know about that . On the day of the election, they are sitting there, president ial inaugural, and the machines are not working and they looked at me like you know there is a line in philadelphia and it looks like it wasnt until 7 00 that night they started i was so angry at this point, a socalled victory party, the first person i ran to, stephen won because i work with them, to make it a national holiday. The victory party, people in that town on the radio like me, they were not panicking, they they were going to win. They kept saying to me have you seen the exit poll. I dont believe exit polls, remember florida. You can watch this and other programs online at booktv. Org. He National Book critics circle comprised of literary critics, and members of the Book Publishing industry, recently announced its finalists for the outstanding books of 2017. Some of the finalists include jack daviss look at the gulf of mexico, Francis Fitzgeralds history of evangelism in america. Russianamerican journalists report on the generation of russians who came of age during the Vladimir Putin regime. And the art of death. Kevin young gaps bunk and roxanne gayes memo hunger. Booktv has covered several of this years finalists. Most of us because it means losing people we love. One of the things i learned, especially the dying writers like Christopher Hitchens writing about their own dead, these incidents with my parents, one thing i realized, tariff is to live. Live the best life you can and dont have many regrets. Host do we the living find that message . Guest living itself is so busy, in the back of our minds, we dont want to concentrate on our mortality but one of the things Christopher Hitchens writes in his book mortality is at the end or before, living and dining and the difference between living and dying and living is you are constantly aware of an expiration date. The possibility is something life ahead but for dying people, they know every single day, normally it would be great if we all lived like that. You can watch these programs in full online at booktv. Org and for the complete list of the National Book critics circle finalists all six categories, head to bookcritics. Org. You are watching booktv on cspan2, live coverage of the savanna book festival. Scott shapiro is about to begin. His book, the internationalists, is about the peace pact that outlawed war around the world. Good morning, booklovers. My name is out styles. I am delighted to welcome you to the 11th annual savanna book festival. The book festival is presented by georgia power, david and nancy cintron, the Sheehan Family foundation and mark and pat. Many thanks to jack and mary, our sponsors for this glorious venue, Trinity United Methodist church. We would also like to extend thanks to our literary members and individual donors who make the saturday off presentations possible. 90 of our revenue comes from donors just like you. We are very excited to have the savanna book festival available for your phone. Look in your program for information on downloading. Immediately following the presentation, Scott Shapiro will be signing festival purchased copies of his book. If you are planning to stay for the next off your presentation we ask that you please move forward so that the issues can count the available seats so we can let in the right amount of people. No flash photography. Now is a good time to set your phone to do not disturb or turn it off. For the question and answer portion please raise your hand and an usher will bring a microphone to you and you need to wait until the microphone gets to you before you ask your question because no one will be able to hear you otherwise. Please limit your self to be fair to one question and no long stories please. Scott shapiro is with us today courtesy of liz and kent ernest. Scott teaches both law and philosophy at Yale Law School where he directs the center for law and philosophy. Here and his bachelors and doctor degrees in philosophy from columbia and jd from Yale Law School. He was the author of legality and jurisprudence and philosophy of law, one of my favorites. Please give a warm welcome to Scott Shapiro. [applause] hello, everyone. Good morning. I have yankee blood. I brought a jacket that is too hot for me. It is snowing in new york. I am enjoying being overheated. Our book, the internationalists, is the story of the modern international order, about the people who helped to build it and why despite its imperfections it is crucial that it be defended now more than ever. The central argument of the book is the origins can be traced to a specific date in history. August 27, 1928, World Leaders gathered together in paris. The treaty was signed on that date goes by the name the kellogg brand pack, kellogg for Frank Kellogg, the american secretary of state and brian, the French Foreign minister, has largely been forgotten. I am just curious, show of hands, who has ever heard of the kellogg brand act . That is a lot of people. That is much more, savanna, very educated. Most people have never heard about it. Actually, most law professors have never heard of it and the people who have heard of it think it is among the most ridiculous things diplomats have ever tried to do. The idea that you could end war by signing a piece of paper strikes many people as the height of foolishness. To tell you the truth, when my colleague and i taught International Law at yale before we wrote the book we also treated it that way, as a laughingstock and obviously a failed experiment in idealism. However, through the course of research on related topic, though at the time we didnt know it was related, the history of economic sanctions, we discovered some didnt expect. Far from being ridiculous, outlying war turned out to be transformative. It represented, if you will, a hinge in history where one world order ended and another began. In short, before 1928, war was the legitimate mechanism of statecraft. It was the way in which states and forced their rights against one another. This is what we found astonishing. Before 1928, war was legal but economic sanctions were illegal. After 1928, this switch is that it switches incredibly quickly. War becomes illegitimate, indeed criminal. Economic sanctions are now the routine way in which International Law is enforced throughout the world. We describe this tectonic shift in World History and ratably through it cast of characters we call the internationalists. Most of these people, in fact, one of the main heroes of the book i will talk about later did not, before the book, have a wikipedia entry, which in the modern world means you dont exist but really taken by her determination, brilliance, vision, doggedness, and to figure out how to take their ideas and turn them into action. At a time when people are thinking about resistance, their story, we found to be inspirational. One of the reasons most people think war i turned on my phone just because i realized i didnt know how long things were going and my sister texted me i am watching you. Hi, melissa. Okay. Yeah. Okay. So i the reason why most people think outlying war is ridiculous sort of thing to do is because they dont appreciate the final war used to play before 1928 in an era which we call the old world order. In the old world order, states had the right of war. Today, we war we think of war is the consummate breakdown of the system. In the old world order, war was the system. If a state had been wronged and made demands of reparation and those demands were ignored, the state who had been injured had the legal right to use force in order to write that wrong. They have that right not just in cases we recognize of selfdefense, invasion, but any kind of legal wrong whatsoever, to collect debtss, recover property, to enforce commercial treaties, any reason you could go to court you could go to war for. This may sound like an absolutely crazy thing to do, barbaric, to go to war to collect debts. But from their perspective in the old world order, it made perfect sense. Of somebody owes you money, what do you do . Go to a lawyer, sue the person, go to court, if the person doesnt pay up, the sheriff, the judgment. If you are a state, you are sovereign so you dont recognize any higher authority, you dont have anyone to go to, there is no Supreme Court of the world, there are no world police. They had many other rights which gave the right of more value. The most important right that they have which supported the right of war was the right of conquest. We know the conquest has happened for millennia. What many people dont realize is that congress was a legal right and it was a legal right because of the law needed to give states away of actually writing the wrongs that they went to war in order to write. When the United States went to war with mexico in 1846 the official legal justification was that mexico owed the United States 2 million. The United States tried for 20 years to get that money back and decided to go to war in 1846, and as compensation, they got compensation for those debts and the name of that compensation is california, utah, nevada, new mexico, part of oklahoma and basically 500,000 square miles of mexican territory. This is not the way, when the United States did this it was not acting as a rogue imperial power. It was acting as what responsible states did. And that is because the old world order give states the right of war and, therefore, the right of conquest. In addition to the right of conquest states had another right. If they had the right to go to war, if they had the right to threaten to go to war, this is incredibly important because this undergirds the practice that we now call gunboat diplomacy. As many of you know, in the 19th century japan was excluded, excuse me, secluded, and excluded with the exception of the dutch twice a year from trading with japan. The United States and other western powers were very upset. They claim that japan was violating its legal obligation to engage in global commerce, and since Matthew Perry and his gunboats into tokyo bay, threatening to destroy the port unless the japanese signed a treaty of friendship. The japanese quickly became friends with the United States and other western countries. These treaties were binding in the old world order and can violate in fact, to violate them with a been a cause for war. Because war was legal, another consequence followed. Immunity to prosecution. If war is legal, waging war cannot be criminal. And that his wife before 1928 no head of state or military leader was ever prosecuted for waging an aggressive war. Napoleon, the polling goes war with virtually every state in europe. Kills five to 7 million people, and what is his punishment . He gets an island in the mediterranean called alba at which it is the emperor. Of course it is a demotion to go from emperor of france to emperor of alba but hardly the punishment you would give somebody who killed five to 7 million people. At the end of world war i the victors in the treat upper side pledged to indict Kaiser Wilhelm ii for waging an aggressive war. He flees to the netherlands the netherlands will not give up him on the theory that he did nothing wrong. That is, that it is not legal to prosecute somebody for engaging in illegal activity. Finally, because states have the legal right of war, neutral states, that is, states that were not in the war, were under a strict duty of impartiality. Thats what lawyers call it, a strict duty of impartiality. Meaning that if they were to favor one side over another, that would be an act of war. I dont know how many here have seen hamilton or heard the soundtrack to hamilton, the cabinet battle two is all about this duty of neutrality. They are the United States did not want to favor france in its war with Great Britain on the theory that if it favored one side over another it would be an act of war and would draw the United States into a war with the european powers, which it did not want to get drawn into. The thing is i normally give this talk with a powerpoint. And it has pictures and diagrams and cool animation. It is very helpful to see how the old world order changes, but they said if you want to be on tv you couldnt have the powerpoint. And so i was thinking, dont want to give a good talk and not be on tv . [laughing] or a a lousy talk and be on tv . So [laughing] hi, mom. [laughing] anyway, what you wouldve seen, what you would have seen is a slide that has in the center it says right of war, and there would have been for circles emanating from it. When what it said right of conquest. The other one would said right of diplomacy, and below you wouldve seen immunity to prosecution for war. And finally duties of impartiality. The duties of impartiality are really important because that was what prevented new tools from opposing sanctions on illiterates. Things that we do every day now were violations of the laws of war. So thats what you would have seen. Okay. Now ive been describing this very abstracted but the book is called the internationalists and is really about people. One of the most important people in the book, the guy who does not have his own, who did not have his own wikipedia entry is this man named Samuel Levenson, a jewish bankruptcy attorney from chicago. And he was the son of german immigrants. He became a successful lawyer doing corporation reorganization for sears, with Railroad Railroad companies, steel companies. Billy never thought about International Relations at all until world war i happened in the stock market shut down for the first time, for the third time in its history. He also went to fighting aids science, eddie started, he started thinking about the legality of war, thinking how foolish this is that we allow states to resolve the conflicts are essentially getting them to kill each other. I dont know how many lawyers are out there but i think its really significant that Samuel Levenson was a bankruptcy attorney. Because Bankruptcy Attorneys hate litigators. Litigators fight it out. They make a bad situation worse was the bankruptcy attorney tries to make a bad situation better here lets all get in the room, work it out. Lets not fight to the death. And also hes a bankruptcy attorney. Hes not an International Lawyer so he doesnt really appreciate the fact that this is the way the world has always been. He knows it but its not like baked into his dna. And so he imagines a different world. And it turns out that through his wife he was Close Friends with the Great American philosopher john dewey. And do we help them develop his thoughts on the outlaw of work on how to make law illegal, and he, levinson, starts to make contacts with important politicians and in particular the chair of the Foreign Relations committee. Its a long story from 1917 to 1928 which we tell in the book, and i wont go into it now, but through incredible dogged determination, levinson was able to bootstrap a Global Social organization which pays off on august 27, 1928, when the kind of 15 most powerful nations, United States, germany, italy, france, japan, china, they need in paris to outlaw war. And right after that within the year virtually every state in the world signed onto it renouncing war. And it was at the time the most subscribed to treaty in history. So it was really an amazing achievement. He didnt work alone. He worked with other characters that we describe in the book, and he got the will to do something momentous. It was so momentous that it was dangerous. Why . What that pack did, remember just spent the first 12 minutes or so of this talk describing how the world operator according to the rules that presupposed the legality of war. All of a sudden, like they had taken out the linchpin of that system. They taken out to center. They have had now said that ale rules that states, that you followed, which is been on the right of war, you no longer have that right. And this caused an enormous problem. The first problem that arises, but falls the successor to Frank Kellogg of the kellogg grandma pact, the secretary of state henry stimson. September 1931 japan invades manchuria. And eventually congress manchuria. Manchuria is enormous. Its one point 1. 5 million sque kilometers. Its like this enormous piece of the earth. Japan had just signed the Kellogg Briand pact three years earlier. Why they did that is a whole other story which we talk about in the book. Its a really interesting story like a thought they were allowed to do that. But they did it. And that caused an enormous problem for the world, which was what do we do about this . Like how do we enforce the prohibition against war . We just renounced war. It would be absurd to use war to enforce the prohibition on war. Its like a Homer Simpson moment where they go like doh. They throughout the one tool they had and then they had to think, well, what tools do we have in order to discipline states who do go to war and violate their commitments . Henry stimson went to yale college and it just so happens he was a classmate of salmon levinson. And levinson had wrote, had written an article in 1929 which he sent to stimson. And in that article which was entitled the sanctions of peace, he proposed that now that war was illegal, state should no longer have the right of conquest. If whole idea of conquest was to further the states right of war, it states that dont have the right of work that should no longer have the right of conquest. Of course people would engage in conquest, levinson recognized, but what other state should not do is recognize that conquest. They should not trade with them. They should not accorded any sovereign rights to the conqueror, as levinson said, somebody might take a city but that city would no longer be his. Stimson takes up this idea and then writes the famous stimson note which became the famous stimson doctrine. And in the stimson doctrine he said he was now the policy of the United States that they would no longer recognize conquest in fact, they would no longer recognize treaties that were coerced. Now, and then the league of nations, all the members of the league of nations also adopted this. This is an unbelievable revolution in the way the world works. Within four years that signing this piece of paper, virtually the entire world renounces what hitherto had been one of the most ancient rights of sovereignty. That is, conquest. Suggest you read you the stimson note. It says, a u. S. Does not intend to recognize any situation, treaty or agreement which may be brought about by means contrary to the covenants and obligations of the pact of paris, of august 27, 1920. That pact of paris is the kelloggbriand pact. And league of nations agreed that signing the pact of paris means states cannot conquer one another. So if you ever wonder why, like nobody recognizes russias invasion of crimea, is of this, is this. It begins in 1932 right after 1928. And the reason that is given is because of the outlaw of war. This not only gets rid of the right of conquest but also the right of diplomacy. Because if you cant go to war, you cant threaten to go to war and get the agreement you want. Next order of business is this neutrality think that i talked about, that is the duties of impartiality. In the runup to world war ii and when world war ii begins the for the United States is in the war, before. A big problem faces the United States which is how do we aid Great Britain and not germany and not commit an act of war . Because remember, too up one belligerent over another was illegal, and that would be creating, that would be committing an act of war. Many isolationists in the United States did not want america drawn into the war. It was then in the beginning of 1941, six months before pearl harbor, at the United States adopted the position that the pact of paris and that kelloggbriand pact change the strict duties of neutrality. Meaning that now because states dont have the right of war, neutral states are not anything with the rights by siding with their opponents over them. Because they are not trampling on the right of or because they dont have the right of four. No one has the right or of war anymore except in cases of selfdefense. Now, this is incredible, i think, because first of all its the beginning of this practice of economic sanctions that we just take for granted and it happens now because of the kelloggbriand pact. I did also happened six months before pearl harbor. The reason that the japanese attacked the United States and pearl harbor was because we impose economic sanctions on them. Which by the old rules would have been a reason to attack the United States. Now, the United States only changed its mind about what neutral states were about to do six months before the attack. So really what you have here, what world war ii becomes is a clash over world orders. Its a war over war. Now, after the allies win the war the question becomes what do we do about it . What do we do with the nazis and Imperial Japan who waged this aggressive war . Can we prosecute them . Now, the claim became, and its a long story which we tell in the book, nuremberg is the trial in which the main charge is the charge of violating the kelloggbriand pact. We think of nuremberg as the trial in which, or trials, in which the nazi leaders were convicted, prosecuted and then convicted of perpetrating the holocaust. That was not the reason why these trials were put, were, i dont want to say staged, but were established, okay . They were established to try the nazis for waging aggressive war, and the american officials were able to shoehorn charges of the holocaust into nuremberg simply by saying that the holocaust was related to aggressive war. So the crimes against humanity, the real legal, the real legal reason for that is the kelloggbriand pact. If you google it youll see its in the indictment. Its talked about extensively in the trial transcripts. What we see, and if i had the power point, the animation have been [laughing] would have blown you away. [laughing] so youre just going to have to believe me on this one. [laughing] so remember i had said that there was this slide we have in the middle the right of four and then conquest, gunboat diplomacy, immunity, prosecution and new economic sanctions, and then the animation would have gone you wouldve seen this new slide which we call the new world order of what you have a prohibition on war, no conquest, no gunboat diplomacy, prime of aggression and then finally the possibility of economic sanctions. What you do is you see an entire International System flipped on its ear in a very, very short time. Because of this piece of paper signed in 1928. Again, it doesnt happen all t once. I really dont know what when they sign in 1928 day dont know what they are doing. Its like, to give the obamacare analogy, what if congress had repealed obamacare but not replaced it, right . There would have been chaos and it would have taken a long time to put this thing together. This is not just the Healthcare System of the United States. This is the International System involving all the states of the world. This is a really complex, messy process but which is precipitated on that day august 27, 1928. The last part of the book that we map out the new world order, im going to talk about it very briefly, but one of the things we wanted to do is we want to see whether the change in the rules matters. A con the ground. And so theres a lot of statistical evidence in the book, a lot of quantitative evidence. What we did was we went through all the territorial acquisitions data from the data site which is the largest and most comprehensive data set involving war. And we tracked basically the practice of conquest from 1816 2014. And this is what we found. Much too, i mean, luckily, it turns out this way but were kind of shocked at the magnitude of the effect both in terms of size, frequency and size. So it turns out that from 1816 to 1928, 1816 pitches with the data starts so thats why we started there, from 1816 to 1928 the average state could expect to suffer a conquest once in 40 years. After 19, afterwards a state could expect, the average state could expect to suffer a conquest once or twice in 1000 your spirit to put that in human terms that means italy before 1928, the odds that you live in the state that would be conquered would be once in your lifetime. And now its once or twice a millennium it so an enormous change in terms of the frequency. But in terms of the extent which was striking is the average before 1928 was per year amount of territory conquered is roughly 11 crimea spirit like if you take crimea and you multiply it by 11, you get the average amount conquered per year. Now, after 1945 you get roughly one crimea every four years. You come from 11 to one every four years, which, in the last crimea was crimea. This is, thats why crimea matters a great deal. Because if you will, its the exception that proves the rule. Its such a rarity now. Basically conquests has fallen off in terms of extent 96 , and it needs to stay that way. It needs to stay that way, and the way in which it stays that way is that the acquisition by russian of crimea cannot be recognized. The sanctions cannot be dropped. It is horrible for people of crimea, but it is really important for the health of the International System. Because states cannot be conquered we see a proliferation of state pics after 1945 you have about 60 states. Now theres roughly 193 193 st, and the reason is is that states can be small and weak. South sudan broke away from sudan, even though it makes it more vulnerable in one sense, but not vulnerable in another way. It doesnt really have to worry about being conquered and have its oil deposits taken because nobody will recognize that conquest. Now, this is wonderful on one hand, weak states can survive, but it has its downside. Theres a downside which we talk about which is it weak states can survive, so can failed states. And failed states are breeding grounds for terrorism and for insurgencies that dont respect national borders. So on the one hand, he outlaw of war between states has as virt, not completely, virtually eliminated interstate war. But if anything it has created pressures towards intrastate wars, and the wars that we are seeing nowadays are largely civil wars brought about by the fact that states dont need to be strong in order to survive. Now, im going to include just by saying, theres a lot of data in the book. There is a lot of ideas in the book, philosophical ideas, but at the end its a book about people. Its about people who most of us have never heard of, who were courageous. They were ordinary people with extraordinary ideas, and they were able to change the world, and that i hope is an inspiration for all of us that its possible for us to have agency in the world as well. Thank you. [applause] that was wonderful. Thank you. The timing of this obviously is striking between world war i and world war ii, but im also curious whether technology, how much it had to do with it. So we went from hand to hand combat, soldiers just stabbed each other one at a time, to shooting at each other. And we are at this point acquiring the ability to wipe out thousands of people at a go. We have airplanes. Weve got bombs. Were moving toward the atomic bomb. So did that factor into their thinking and the urgency with which they wanted to do this . Thats a great question. Let me say, so a lot, so sometimes, you know, you think the outlaw of war was the result of world war i, which if there was, i mean, most wars are stupid, to tell you the truth. World war i was a particularly stupid war, a terrible, terrible waste of life. But it wasnt merely the fact that so many people died. Its how they died. You know, the invention of poison gas, earlier the gatling gun which enabled her to be automatic fire, the increase in tonnage of armament made for even more ghastly than it had been before. But, and heres what i find amazing. The response after world war i in the league of nations was not to outlaw war. The league of nations in the covenant of the league of nations allowed states to go to war. It just says that if youre going to go to war, come to us first. If you come to us first, let us adjudicate your dispute. But you dont actually have to listen to us. You just have to wait 60 days in thing you can go to war, even if you lose. So it is actually amazing to me that after the cataclysm of world war i the response was, well, lets just have war but just wait 60 days, which is an enormous failure of imagination but it also shows how deeply ingrained the idea of the right to wage war was among diplomats. Outlying war is an opportunity but the problem. How do we solve problems if states dont have the right to use force against one another . We have gotten really good at that. The Iran Nuclear Deal is an example of avoiding war but i am sad to say the Current Administration seems to be forgetting this lesson and his backsliding and the message of the book is to backslide. With context of the pact, what was the us justification for the gulf war, the war against iraq and afghanistan . Those are great questions. The pact is two paragraphs but it is one awkward paragraph that doesnt say much. It fits on the back of the postcard and i have one of those. Basically the high contracting parties hereby renounce a solution to international controversies. It doesnt say anything about self defense, it doesnt say anything about anything. It is very vague. The person who wrote the brand pact a medieval historian named James Shotwell at Columbia University wrote the first draft of the United Nations charter. The un charter begins, survives in the form of the un charter. The un charter due to an armed attack which the second thing is the consent, the state allows you to go to war with it, the Security Council authorizes these. In the case of afghanistan and the first gulf war there was Security Council authorization, in the case of the first gulf war was a contrast which the Security Council, was tried to reverse. Patella been supported out qaeda and that was a selfdefense justification that was ratified by the Security Council. The iraq war, an illegal war, justification given by the United States which in my own view is laughable, and when you of it one of the worst things that happened since world war ii. And the United States which was so pivotal in constructing the pact and the in the 21st centu. You may ignore Everything Else i have said. The 21st century, the United States which is undermining the thing that it helped to build. What changes do you see or predict will happen in the world order moving forward . Wow. In the 21st century. I could give you an unbelievably good answer about the 20th century. Okay. None of us knows. I feel like we are at this in flexion point. That is, we dont know what is happening with the international order. It could go one of two ways. Certainly the rhetoric of the Trump Administration has been very disheartening. Take the oil, secretary tillerson has said we will now, the United States military will not only fight in syria but we will stay in syria. I dont even know what to say about that. What would be the legal justification for that . Fired cruise missiles last april after chemical weapons attack which was blatantly illegal and in fact the government is not even trying to justify it. It has withdrawn from tpp, it is trying to withdraw from nafta, threatened to withdraw from nato. All of these things are extremely worrying. And then we have the rise of nationalism in europe, brexit, the rise of white winged populism, China Growing by leaps and bounds and it is not clear what kind of rules it wants. We are not doing anything to stop its expansion in the south china sea. Since we withdrew from tpp, the rest of the world moved on and created its own tpp without the United States and therefore any type of environmental regulation we want to put in, we had no influence over. I dont know, things depend on the midterm elections, robert mueller, the Immigration Crisis in europe. I wish i knew. Once i do know is that if you are complacent about it, i would like to have what you are having. Because i am very worried. As a followup to that it is apparent to all of us the scope of what you are writing about can be huge, tremendous. As an author how did you come to a Decision Point or realization that you would limit your book to less than 5000 pages . We use an ageold theoretical metric which was the publisher said no more than 150,000 words, so that was the principal decision that we made. There was so much left on the cutting room floor and in fact it is too that my colleague is not here because she is much more articulate than i am but we had such a Good Relationship that we would write something, give it to the other person, they would to just edit it ruthlessly and she had a chapter, i put the cursor at the beginning and went in, 10,000 words, put it at the end and hit just because we had to aluminate 50,000 words. So the thing is it is a paradox in writing, less is more. You have to make hard choices. It is great, we had a great editor in the editor said 150,000 words and the manuscript is 150,310 words. We are also lawyers. Got to give it to them. I am sure he just picked that number out of a hat so it was an enormous thing because we start with hugo process defending his pirate, in the course of defending his cousin, the pirate, developed the classical laws of the old world order and ended up with isis. A lot of stuff we covered and a lot of stuff we didnt. So yes. This is in two parts. What about vietnam . Have we ever been sanctioned for anything . And if you want to be an activist which i do, you have any suggestions for how to do that . First of all lets point out we lost vietnam, that was a big sanction in and of itself. Vietnam and korea, we talk about this in the book, are really tricky cases, really tricky cases because both in vietnam and korea what happened was there was a vacuum created after world war ii when the japanese withdrew from these regions and left no sovereign in its place. They created if you will a legal black hole. The korean and vietnamese war was a world in which who was the new sovereign . There was no way to establish with the new sovereign was because the sovereign, the japanese, just left. It was like an abandoned house where nobody had title. From a Strategic Point of view it was a foolish thing, from a humanitarian point of view it was a foolish thing that the United States engaged in this activity. As an activist i will tell you these the state of the Antiwar Movement in this country is not healthy. There are many organizations, i have worked with them, love them, they are courageous, but they are, they are underpopulated, underfunded and there are lots of reasons for that. One of the organizations we write about in the book, the Womens International league for peace and freedom, they still exist today, we have spoken to them, they are and make an organization. There are all these organizations to work with but, if i want to be really honest here, the midterms, as a shortterm goal and as a longerterm goal, both parties, both parties, the democrats and the republicans, are addicted to war. That is the sad truth. The book is a nonpartisan book. It is not a pox on the republicans house because democrats are at i dont know as bad but pretty bad in this respect. As activists, we ought to be out there pointing out the real damage the forever wars are creating to the world, to our domestic politics, to humanity. Is there any academic, Legal Research going on now toward a new pact . One of the organizations which i greatly admire, World Without a war run by david swanson, he has been trying to get other countries to adopt the pact. There have been attempts to get states to adopt the pact. My own thought is we dont need some. We just need to Pay Attention to the thing we already have. What is happening now is we are overturning the applecart which millions of people died to create, which has made the world more prosperous and safer as a result and the goal for the future is we want to build on what we have but we really want to preserve the gift of the greatest generation. People talk about it for cyberwar and that is something im working on. In terms of other things, no. [applause] thank you. Dont forget the yellow buckets as you go out which if you have extra jewelry, pocket change, that will be great, thank you. Well done. [inaudible conversations] [inaudible conversations] that was a look at the 1928 peace pact outlined war around the world. We are live from savannah book festival. In a few minutes the next author, Celeste Headley, will begin. In her book, we need to talk, she describes the importance of civil communication. Booktv live from savannah continues in a few minutes. Often in our lives the illusion of information is more dangerous than ignorance. This is a gentleman named diego who says trust has two enemies, not one. The first is bad character. The second is for information. The question i started to ask in my research was how could technology address these problems . Is technology making us smarter about who we trust or is it encouraging us to place our trust in the wrong people at the wrong places. Are we in fact giving our trust away to the wrong things . Is technology play a role in the that . Why is this such an important question . Lets do a quick exercise, you can see where this is going. I am going to give you a boo that will sound loud in this church and you can use it for the person you think is the least trustworthy. When i say the name you blue and you only get one. If you think Harvey Weinstein is the least trustworthy person on this slide say boo now. One. If you think donald trump is the least trustworthy person on this slide say now. Okay. Now i dont know if you know who this is, sophia the robot and she is the first robot that has citizenship, to be made a citizen of saudi arabia. If you think sophia is the least trustworthy person on this slide say who now. The robot is more trustworthy than the president of the United States but we dont need to worry about that right now. You can clap. I would like you to clap for the company you think is the most trustworthy. If you think google is the most Trustworthy Company on this slide clap now. I describe that as tepid to. Facebook. Who thinks facebook is the most Trustworthy Company on this slide . No one. Amazon. I think amazon and google, maybe amazon was slightly ahead, but essentially a rubbish exercise but i thought one of you might say to me rachel, trust them to to what . A really important point and something i find very hard when i open up the newspapers or listen to the media. The way we are talking about trust is in very general terms, very dangerous because we can trust that donald trump will tweet something ridiculous at 3 00 am but we dont trust him to negotiate with north korea. We can trust Harvey Weinstein to make great movies but dont trust his behavior necessarily around women. Amazon is really interesting. When people say they trust amazon they are saying they have confidence those parcels will show up. They dont trust them to pay taxes or treat their employees well, this is the first thing i would like you to think about, when we talk about trust, keep in mind in our own lives, leaders and individuals, the trust is highly contextual. You can trust me to write an article or teach students, do not get in the car with me because im a terrible driver. You can watch this and other programs online at booktv. Org. Heres a look at upcoming book fairs and festivals happening around the country. March 10th at 11 live from the university of arizona for the tucson festival of books without her talks and colins. This festival features msnbcs katie turner and charles sykes, military historian max, investigative journalist David Johnston and many other authors. Later in march, the virginia festival of the book in charlottesville, the National Black writers conference in brooklyn, new york. In april we are headed to texas for the san antonio book festival and we will be live at the Los Angeles Times festival of books. For more information about applying book fairs and festivals and to watch previous festival coverage clip the book fairs tab on our website, booktv. Org. Now we understand how it is that you were able to get waived into the white house to basically become a potted plant in the west wing lobby. Most of your meetings at the white house were with steve bannon, or you were scheduled to meet with steve bannon and then what would happen . I was scheduled had a lot of meetings with steve, steve was one of the pillars, everybody was under the impression they were supposed to meet with me. Did that impression come from the president or you were talking to steve bannon. I was introduced around by various people, hope hicks, the president s personal pr person, kelly and conway, sean spicer, this was not a mystery here. I think on one level nobody quite new how this came about and everybody looked a little puzzled. There was no friction here. There was no friction. No friction. Nobody was saying what are you doing here . They would see you sitting in the west wing lobby and you would say steve bannon and they would chuckle and say that is not going to happen, come back and talk to me. I became a familiar presence around the white house and also very much a nonthreatening presence. I was not, the press corps was over there, not far away. I was careful not to come in as a member of the press and not to act the press, they want something. I literally didnt even have come on. I didnt want anything. Im just sitting in the west wing lobby talking to one of these folks. I just wanted someone to talk to me. And this is an important thing because you go in there and you get a 10 00 appointment, you go in and then you would sit there and he would sit there sometimes for hours and sometimes hours and hours and it was a kind of humiliating, actually, and you had the feeling that people regarded me as a kind of a pitiable creature. I am not important for anyone to keep their appointment with me. Everyone there having appointments, their people come out and im still just waiting there and the hours are passing. And i did feel humiliated. But then it became a kind of thing that people it began to work. People would stop and try to take care of me. One of the neediest cases. Come back, talk to me. The other thing, this was an important thing. I basically didnt ask questions. All reporters what do we do . We ask questions. I go in and i sit there and people just talk. What are the reasons people start to talk, what you are saying of the key in that in terms of what you said, the initial part of your answer where you said hope hicks, the president s personal pr person. When you read fire and fury you find out that everybody in this book has his or her own pr person. Bannon ends up building his own pr team. Is one of the reasons the press secretary, 40 people, conducting his own freelance operation. One of the reasons people took pity on you as you set there humiliated in the west wing lobby, they knew you were talking to steve bannon. Is it that they realize he is talking to steve bannon, i need to talk to him to find out what he said. That happened later on, when they realized steve bannon was monopolizing me. Everybody was confused about why they were talking but they were talking. It has come on high, nobody knew from where it came but there was a general feeling that you were supposed to talk to me. Were people and burdening themselves . Eventually. What i saw, this book is really about, there is a plot line, the transformation that took place, people in the beginning, donald trump line, that began to degrade, they could give you the trump line, it became very clear that they wanted someone else to know they had to give this line, they didnt believe it. Then after moving even further on it started to fall apart entirely and they would tell you this is really a mess here. You can watch this and other programs online at booktv. Org. You are watching booktv on cspan2, where live from Trinity United Methodist church, one of the sites of the savanna book festival. Starting now is offer Celeste Headley talking about the importance of civil communication. Good afternoon. Hope you are enjoying the book festival. My name is our styles and im delighted to have you join me in the 11th annual savanna book 1st. The festival is presented by georgia power. David and nancy cintron, she and family foundation, and mark and pat, many thanks to jack and mary romanos come our sponsors for this glorious venue Trinity United Methodist church. We would like to extend special thanks to our individual donors who have made and continue to make Saturdays Free festival events possible. 90 of our revenue comes from donors just like you. We are very excited to have savanna book festival apps available for your phones, just look in your program for instructions for how to download it. Immediately following the presentation, celeste will sign copies of her book out here and if you are planning to stay for the following either presentation we ask that you move forward so the measures can get a good count of available seats so we let everybody and that we can. Take a moment now to set your phone to do not disturb. If you dont know how to do it you can also turn it off. No flash photography. Same thing if you dont know how to not use the flash dont take the picture. For the question and answer portion, we need you to raise your hand and an usher will ring a microphone to you. Here is the hard part. Dont start asking your question until the microphone gets there because we cant hear you. In the interest of time and to be fair to everyone we ask that you keep your questions short and no long stories. Celeste headley is with us courtesy of Savannah State university, bob and linda, celeste is the host of the georgia Public Broadcasting Program on second thought, as well as a previous cohost of the takeaway, midwest correspondent for National Public radios daytoday and classically trained soprano. In between all of this she has written a book called we need to talk. A very good book about communications, one that i will have my wife read very soon. Please give me a warm welcome to Celeste Headley. [applause] im a buddhist, so this feels a little uncomfortable. We tried it the other way for a really long time. Generation after generation we have taught our children and ourselves that if something is going to cause an argument we dont talk about it. It used to be we didnt talk about politics and religion. Now we have added race, we have added climate change, we have added guns. Eventually we are just going to add everything into we are just not talking about anything difficult anymore. We dont talk to people unless they agree with you. You dont talk to people if you are never going to be challenged. That means you are not learning anything new about the subject. Forgive me if i get a little bit emotional because after the shooting in florida last week i keep seeing headlines, quotes from people saying it was an unspeakable tragedy. It is not unspeakable. It has to be spoken of. We have to speak about it. [applause] i honestly could not care less what your views are. We, all of us, most of us have people in our families that disagree with us, right . That is what makes holidays so awkward. You can get along with people who dont agree with you. You can talk to them. Instead of avoiding these subjects that leads to an argument, you have to learn to talk about them without arguing. It is much easier than you think. I just want to start with telling you exactly how to do that and there are a number of steps that will help you but theres really only one. That is stop trying to change peoples minds. Stop trying to convince them that you are right and they are wrong. When was the last time you had a disagreement with someone and at some point in the conversation they went you know what . I am completely wrong, you are right . I have totally changed my mind. It doesnt happen. Science can tell you that but that is another one of those studies, i can go into research after research that tells you we dont change our minds over the course of the conversation but we already know that. I have been talking a lot over the last week. The attempt to change peoples minds is making us all frustrated and miserable. Part of the reason we arguing about it is because we are trying to change peoples minds and it is not going to happen. You are basically beating your head against the wall repeatedly and repeatedly and repeatedly and then thinking im never going to do that again. It is not the exercise, it is the beating of the head against the wall that is making you upset, dont do it anymore. You have 0 control over what someone else thinks, the way they view things, that is 100 not in your control but guess what is in your control . You. What you think, what you hear, what you listen to. If instead of going into these conversations saying i will have it out, i will score points, when this debate, that will make you upset. Instead of doing that, going to every conversation saying i wont leave this conversation until i have learned some, you can accomplish that 100 of the time. Guns at this point is more divisive as a voting issue than race, abortion, samesex marriage, marijuana. Really . Really . We cant talk about firearms . I dont care if you are a member of the nra, i can talk to you about it. How many of you know everything you need to know about guns, and you dont need to listen to anybody else ever because you have nothing to learn about it . I dont care if you are a gun owner. You think you know everything about guns . I own a smart phone, i dont know anything about the phone. Theres lots of stuff i own i dont know anything about. There is no issue on which you can tell me you are the ultimate expert and you have nothing to learn about it. That is not true. That means you are going to have to change your habits. I am tired of trying entire society doing the same thing over and over and over again and throwing up our hands and going they called me an idiot. Of course they did. They didnt listen to you. It is possible you didnt listen to them. If we plan to progress you cant stand on principle. It is literally in the phrase. You are just standing. You are not going anywhere. How many of you made promises at some point about the things you were going to do or not do . I am never going to, and then end up when i had a kid when i was pregnant i swore i was never going to raise my voice to my child in anger. Yeah. We all make principles in our heads. It is ridiculous to think you are going to stand by the man never going to change. They are going to change. But the way they change is by realizing you dont know everything. What i didnt realize was my son was going to be a huge pain in the butt. You have to evolve. Right now we are not evolving of the reason we are not evolving as we put our own comfort above Everything Else and heres the thing about being comfortable. Comfort is the enemy of innovation. Have created bubbles around ourselves and we have done a great job of it. I could point to you all the research from pew. They have incredible othership, telling us the same thing over and over. One of the reports is called the spiral of silence because social media, which we dreamed was going to open up conversation, we social media was going to make people nervous about raising their voice and stating there opinion was going to embolden them and opened the conversation and make it more free and tolerance. It did the opposite. It turns out that people who get shut down on social media are less likely to have a facetoface conversation. Social media is shutting down conversation, the opposite of what was that is why they call it a spiral of silence. We thought the smart phones in our hands which at their heart are a phone, we thought they would increase the number of conversations we have. At this point the average american, this research is three years old so i bet it is worse. At this point the average american adult spend 30 minutes a day texting and six minutes or less on the phone. Companies like cocacola, cisco, jpmorgan, Goldman Sachs have used their phones so little they eliminated voicemail systems. They dont pay for it anymore because it is not used. But heres the thing. Your smart phone is a crappy replacement for conversation. I do not know why we keep inventing new replacements for the thing that human beings do better than any other species. It is probably the only thing we do better than other species. I am not even trying to be funny here. We all know in a 1to1 fight we lose out with a mosquito. We are not impressive. But the one thing we do well, the reason we have dominated on the planet is because we collaborate. When you mess with one human you are usually messing with bunch of other humans. That is why we have succeeded. That is a formula we are messing with. We are breaking it. Because we think each and every one of us, google makes us think we are a few clicks from being an expert in every. We are beginning to think we are in and of ourselves enough for our family unit, our small little tribe and it is not true. There is no replacement for the human voice, none. It is so complex. In many ways magical, science cannot explain how it works. Theres research at princeton into what is called neural coupling. What they did was they had one person coming to an fmri, functional wont resonance imaging machine that allows us to watch the brain thinking while the person is conscious. It took someone up to an f mri and had us tell them the story from their life, in one case she told the story of a disastrous prom. A bunch of other people came in and listens to her telling the story. They found something really miraculous. They found out that when these people were listening in an engaged way to the other woman talking they their brains synced up. They moved in perfect sync. In fact it was so inexact at times that the listeners brain would anticipate changes in the speakers brain by a fraction of a second. That his mind meld. If we saw it in star trek we wouldnt think it was realistic. That is what happens when a pair of human ears listens to a human voice. We cant explain it, we dont know how it works, we dont know why it works, but we know that is something humans do that other species cant. We can bond with one another. We can reach one another on a level beyond what science can track. That is what we are trying to replace with emojis. Seriously. You cant. There is all kinds of Ways Technology just cant replace what you can do with your voice. Apologies. The process that begins with an apology and leads eventually to forgiveness and moving on is a relatively complicated physiological and neurological process. Take your finger and put it to the top of your right here, move it up 1 inch and move it back 1 inch. That is the Compassion Center of your brain. When the process of forgiveness begins you have to get an apology of some form in your Compassion Center goes on and leave through the rest of the process that makes you able to forgive that person and forget about it. If someone reads an apology in any form, nothing happens here. If you send an apology by email or, god forbid, text, nothing. Crickets. Why do we avoid calling the person or seeing them to apologize anyway . Why do we do that . It is easier. It is tough to say you are sorry to somebody. It is really tough and painful and guess what. When you are apologizing to someone and they either hear or see that it is tough for you Compassion Center lights up and then the process begins. The apology is effective because it is hard. If it is not hard, there is no point. This is another way in which you cannot replace human communication between one voice and one pair of ears. And listen, there are tons of things humans do terribly. There are lots of ways that our smart phone can fill in for things we are not great at. Our brains are not computers. Our memories are bad. We are bad at storing information and recalling it when we want to. That is what a computer is for. That is great, that is awesome. Like it or not, even though most people cant find their way home from their Grocery Store with with other phones anymore gps is pretty awesome. We used to have to rely on people to give us directions to our houses and some people are terrible at it. After falling their crappy directions and getting lost you get to their house and they are like high. That doesnt happen anymore. You dont have to get angry at friends and family members for giving you terrible, terrible directions. You have a gps. That is fantastic. Mind tells me if there is a traffic jam which is always because i live in atlanta. There are plenty of things for us to use technology for. Not conversation. There is no replacement. It cant be improved upon at this point. And the other part of that is the adoption of Smart Phone Technology has been so rapid. As of 2003, only maybe 10 of American Adults in the United States raise your hand if you own a smart phone . Over 90 . In the world today according to the United Nations more people have access to a cell phone then a working toilet. That is incredibly rapid growth. It has outpaced our ability to understand the effect. Because clinical studies take years and they have to be peerreviewed and replicated. We are only now beginning to see some of the effects smart phones are having on our brains and it is not great. For example they did a study in the uk in which they had hundreds of people sit down and have a conversation with strangers and afterwards they would ask them okay, tell us about the other person, what were they like, where is a friendly . In half of those conversations they were come and place a cell phone down on the table. It belonged to neither person, never made a noise but in those conversations in which there was a cell phone present and visible they were 62 more likely to say the end other person was unfriendly, and trustworthy and unlikable. I want you to about how many times youve gone to lunch with somebody and just set your cell phone on the table and felt good because you didnt look at it. The thing is it is having an effect on their brain because they can see it. The other side of that is having an effect on your brain because part of your brain may 10 of your brain is thinking about that cell phone. It is basically insight or flight mode, ready for it to make a noise. Which means if you sit at your desk and you are one of the people who habitually keeps your email open all the time like always have that outlook open, your iq drops by ten points. Because part of your brain is about the email. It is occupied in wondering, making sure it is ready for that notification to come in. So again, i am not telling you to get rid of your cell phone, im just saying put it away. It is not about getting rid of technology and becoming the unit bomber in a shack. It is about being aware of the power of that technology and being smart about it. It is not about not letting technology do the things we are bad at but reclaiming things we do better than anybody else. Reclaiming what is basically our humanity. There is more really mind blowing research. My favorite researcher who will tell you what a dork i am because i have a favorite researcher, is nicholas epperly. He has been researching these intangibles of human nature for years. Just recently, a few months ago, he did this very long study, a whole crew of people, when we read an opinion we disagree with in any form, doesnt matter if it is printed in a newspaper, book, and email, facebook, if we read it we are much more likely to think we disagree because that person is stupid and ignorant of the real issues. If we hear someone telling us the same opinion, whether it is recorded coming in a podcast, telling us that opinion, we are much more likely to they will disagree with us because they have a different experience and perspective. What that means is the human voice is literally humanizing. It is the voice itself, some quality of the human voice that helps us to recognize each other as human beings deserving of respect. And we do deserve respect. Every person deserves respect. Not every opinion, but every person. And it also means this process we are going through right now of transferring all of our communication to the Digital World is dehumanizing us. Of course we hate each other, we dont see each other as human beings deserving of respect. This is not a partisan issue, if you are thinking absolutely, those liberals are always jerks, or the other way, doesnt matter, what you are thinking, it is not partisan. Every Single Person is equally prone to do this to the other side. Every person is equally prone to confirmation bias. Do you know what confirmation bias is . It is where you believe something and then someone gives you evidence proving that belief is wrong and it makes you believe it harder. We are the only species that suffers from confirmation bias and that is because confirmation bias is not helpful. It is not really helpful. If you have a cat and the cat truly believes there are in the next room, a mouse, if you have a mouse and the mouse totally believes there is no cat in the next room and you show them evidence of cat in the next room, lots of cats and that makes the mouse believe harder there are no cat in the next room ice would basically be wiped off the face of the planet. So you have to ask yourself, why do we have confirmation bias . Why do all of us have confirmation bias . How does it help us . Because frankly, why would it survive through millennia of evolution if it did not in some way help . Bible tell you what i believe even though we dont fully understand it yet. I confirmation bias is actually a strength. I what it does is prove to us constantly that we need each other, that we need to talk to each other. Because we are our own checks and balances. I need you guys to tell me when i said something that balls. And i need to believe you. We need each other. All of us. There is no virtue in the saying i dont talk to people like that. It is not a virgin no matter how vile you think their opinion is. That is not something to brag about. You can talk to everybody. I will give you two examples. One of them is georgias own. Do you know who arizona clayton is . One person. There is a street named after her in atlanta. Clayton was a good friend of the kings, doctor king and his wife, coretta. When they decided to create the great neighborhoods initiative, Great Society initiative to strengthen neighborhoods in atlanta, she was appointed as head of that program and had a bunch of different neighborhood captains at the neighbor came to her and said listen, when ono was an africanamerican, still is an africanamerican women and changed, i have to warn you one of them is a grand dragon in the kkk just so you know and she described that first meeting where all the captains came in and one refused to touch her or shake her hand. He written come in from time to time incident or Office Downtown and she would talk to him. About whatever. And she said doctor king told her you dont try to change hearts. Leave that to god. You have no control over whether a heart is changed. You dont have that power. But you can be a human being and respectful. And they would talk to each other. He ended up coming sometimes two or three times a week and sat down and it wonder she asked him why do you keep coming here . You dont even like me. He says i know but i like to talk to you. And about a year later after all this, he held a press conference and renounced his membership in the kkk. And he said because this woman you probably never heard of his when ono clayton, because i was wrong. I will give you one more example. And other black guy, africanamerican, a jazz pianist named darrell davis. There is a pbs documentary called accidental courtesy. What he does is convince people to leave the kkk. He is so successful that he almost singlehandedly dismantled the kkk operation in the state of maryland. People ask him what do you say . What is it you are saying to convince them . He says i dont say anything. This is really important. By actively listening to them i am teaching them about myself. And sometimes people just need to be heard. This is what i would say to you. After saying you cant change peoples minds, after doctor kings that you cant change hearts and that is true, sometimes. Sometimes the act of listening can be such a gift