Lex Fridman PodcastJeremi Suri: Civil War, Slavery, Freedom, and Democracy | Lex Fridman Podcast #354
EVERY SPOKEN WORD
150 min read · 30,003 words- 0:00 – 0:27
Introduction
- JSJeremi Suri
... the war continues after the battles end. This is something that's hard for Americans to understand. Our system is built with the presumption when war is over, when we s- sign a piece of paper-
- LFLex Fridman
Mm-hmm.
- JSJeremi Suri
... everyone can go home. That's not what happens.
- LFLex Fridman
The following is a conversation with Jeremy Surrey, a historian at UT Austin. This is a Lex Fridman podcast. To support it, please check out our sponsors in the description, and now, dear friends, here's Jeremy Surrey.
- 0:27 – 18:06
Revolutions and governments
- LFLex Fridman
What is the main idea, the- the main case that you make in your new book, Civil War by Other Means: America's Long and Unfinished Fight for Democracy?
- JSJeremi Suri
So our democratic institutions in the United States, they are filled with many virtues and many, uh, elements in their design that improve our society and allow for innovation, but they also have many flaws in them, as any institutions created by human beings have. And the flaws in our institutions go back to a number of judgments and perspectives that people in the 17th, 18th, and 19th centuries had, and those flaws have been built into our institutions and they continue to hinder innovation and growth in our society. Three of the flaws that I emphasize in this, uh, book are flaws of exclusion, the ways our institutions exclude people, not just African-Americans, many different groups, um, the ways our institutions also, uh, give power to certain people who have position rather than skill or intelligence or quality, and third, and most of all, the ways our institutions embed certain myths in our society, myths that prevent us from gaining the knowledge we need to improve our world. In all of these ways, our democracy is hindered by the false reverence for institutions that actually need to be reformed, just as we need to highlight the good elements of them. That's really what my book is about.
- LFLex Fridman
And then the myth, the- the- the false reverence, what are we talking about there?
- JSJeremi Suri
So there's a way in which, uh, we believe that, uh, if we love our country, it's somehow wrong to criticize our institutions. I believe if you love your country, you want to encourage your institutions to get better and better. I love my university where I work, but I want it to be better. We have many flaws. I love my family, but I'm constantly telling family members how they can be better. Uh, that's what true knowledge leadership is about, not just cheerleading.
- LFLex Fridman
What's the counterpoint to that? 'Cause, uh, the other extreme is a- a deep, all-encompassing cynicism towards institutions. So for me, I like the idea of loving America, which seems to be sometimes a politicized statement these days, that you believe in the ideals of this country. That seems to be, um... that seems to be either a naive or a political statement the way it's interpreted. So the flip side of that, having a healthy skepticism of institutions is good, but having a complete paralyzing cynicism seems to be bad.
- JSJeremi Suri
Absolutely. Both are ahistorical positions. What I try to do as a historian is work in between those spaces. The virtue is- is in the middle ground, for better or for worse, and, uh, what we have to recognize is that our institutions are necessary. There's a reason government exists. There's a reason, uh, our union was created. That's what Abraham Lincoln was heroically fighting for. Uh, so we have to believe in our union, we have to believe in our government, and we as businesspeople, as intellectuals, we have to be part of the solution, not the problem. But that doesn't mean, uh, just ignoring the deep flaws in our institutions, even if we find personally ways to get around them. What really worries me is that there are a lot of very intelligent, well- well-intentioned people in our society who have figured out how to live with the flaws in our institutions rather than how to use their skills to correct the flaws in our institutions.
- LFLex Fridman
There's folks, like, uh, somebody that lives next door to me, Michael Malice is an anarchist. Um, philosophically, maybe more than practically, just-
- JSJeremi Suri
(laughs) .
- LFLex Fridman
... sort of argues for that position. Um, it's a- it's a interesting thought experiment, I would say, and so if you have these flaws as institutions, one thing to do, as the communists did at the beginning of the 20th century, is to burn the thing down and start anew, and the other is to fix from within, one- one step, one slow step at a time. What's- what's the case for both from a history perspective?
- JSJeremi Suri
Sure. So historically, there has, uh, always been an urge to burn down the institutions and start again, start with a blank slate. Uh, the historical record is that almost never works, because what happens when you destroy the institutions, you gave the example of, uh, the Bolshevik Revolution. Uh, when you destroy the institutions, all you do is in the jungle that's left behind, you give advantages to those who are the most powerful. Institutions always place certain limits upon the most powerful in the jungle. If you go back to the jungle, the most powerful are actually going to have the most influence and most control, so the revolutionaries who are usually the vulnerable (laughs) turn out to then be the victims of the revolution, and this is exactly what we saw with the French Revolution, with the Russian Revolution. So the record for that is not a great record. There still might be times to do that, but I think we should be very cautious about that. The record for working through institutions is a much better record. Now, what we have to be careful about is as we're working through institutions not to become bought into them, not to become of those institutions. So, uh, what I've written about in this book and in other books, my book on Henry Kissinger, for example, is how it's important when in an institution to still bring an outsider perspective. I believe in being an inside outsider, and I think most of your listeners are inside outsiders. They're people who care about what's going on inside, but they're bringing some new ideas from the outside.
- LFLex Fridman
I think the correct statement to say is most of the listeners, most people aspires to be insider outsiders, but we, human nature is such that we easily become insider insiders. So, like, uh, we like that idea, but the reality is, and I've been very fortunate because of this podcast to talk to certain folks that live in certain bubbles, and it's very hard to know when you're in a bubble...... that you should get out of the bubble of thought. And that, that's a really tricky thing, because, uh, like, yeah, when you're ... Whether it's politics, whether it's science, whether it's, uh, an- any pursuits in life, because everybody around you, all your friends ... You have, you have like a little rat race, and you're competing with each other, and then you get a promotion, you get excited, and you could see how you can get more and more power. It's not, it's not like a dark, cynical, uh, rat race. It's, it's fun. That's the process of life. And then you forget that there ... you just, uh, collectively have created a set of rules for the game that you're playing. You forget that this game doesn't have to have these rules. You can break them. This happens in the, uh, like, uh, in Wall Street, like the financial, the financial system. Everybody starts to like collectively agree on a set of rules that they play, and they don't realize like, "We don't have to be playing this game." It's tough. It's really tough. It takes a special kind of human being as opposed to being a anti-establishment on everything, which also gets a lot of, uh, attention. But being just enough anti-establishment to figure out ideas how to improve the establishment. That's a, such a tricky place to operate.
- JSJeremi Suri
I agree. I, I, I like the word iconoclastic. I think it's important to be an iconoclast, which is to say you love ideas, you're serious about ideas, uh, but you're never comfortable with consensus.
- LFLex Fridman
Right.
- JSJeremi Suri
And I write about that in this book. I've written about that actually a lot in the New York Times too. I, I think consensus is overstated. As a, as someone who's half Jewish and half Hindu, I don't wanna live in a society where everyone agrees, 'cause my guess is they're gonna come after people like me. (laughs) I wanna live in a society that's pluralistic. This is what Abraham Lincoln was really fighting for in the Civil War. It's what the Civil War was really about, and what my book's about, which is that we need a society where institutions encourage, as you say, different modes of thought, and respect different modes of thought, and work through disagreement. So, a society should not be a society where everyone agrees. A democratic society should be a society where people disagree, but can still work together. That's the Lincoln vision. And how do you get there? I think you get there by having a historical perspective, always knowing that no matter moment you're in, and no matter what room you're in with really smart people, there are always things they're missing. We know that as historians. No one is clairvoyant, and the iconoclast is looking for the things that have been forgotten, the silences in the room.
- LFLex Fridman
And also, I wonder what kind of skill, what kind of process is required for the iconoclast to reveal what is missing to the rest of the room.
- JSJeremi Suri
Yeah.
- LFLex Fridman
Because it's not just shouting with a megaphone that something is missing, 'cause nobody will listen to you.
- JSJeremi Suri
Right.
- LFLex Fridman
You have to convince them.
- JSJeremi Suri
Right. It, it's honestly where I have trouble myself, 'cause I often find myself in that iconoclastic role, and people don't like to hear it. You know, I like to believe that, uh, people are acting out of goodwill, which I think they usually are, and that people are open to new ideas. But you find very quickly, even those who you think are open-minded, once they've committed themselves and put their money and their reputation on the line, they don't wanna hear otherwise. So, i- in a sense, what you say is bigger than even being an iconoclast. It's being able to persuade and work with people who are afraid of your ideas.
- LFLex Fridman
Yeah. I think the, the key is, like in conversations, is to get people out of a defensive position, like, uh, make them realize we're on the same side, we're brothers and sisters. And from that place, I think you just raise the question. It's like a little, it's a little, a little thought that just lands, and then I've noticed this time and time again, j- just a little subtle thing, and then months later-
- JSJeremi Suri
Yeah.
- LFLex Fridman
... it, it percolates. Somewhere in the mind it's like, all right. That little doubt. Um, because I also realize in these battles when d- when, especially political battles, people often don't have folks on their side, like, that, that they can really trust as, as a fellow human being to challenge them. That's a very difficult role to be in. And because it's, in these battles, you kinda have a tribe and you have a set of ideas, and there's another tribe, and you have a set of ideas. And when somebody says something counter to your viewpoint, you almost always wanna put them in the other tribe as opposed to having, h- truly listening to another person. That takes, um, skill. But ultimately, I think that's the way to bridge these divides is having these kinds of conversations. Um, that's why I'm actually, again, optimistically believe in the power of social media to do that, if, if you design it well. But currently, the battle rages on, on Twitter.
- JSJeremi Suri
Well, and I think what you're getting at, uh, which is so important, is, uh, storytelling. And, uh, all the great leaders that I've studied, some of whom are in this book, some of whom are not, right? They, whether they're politicians, social activists, technol- technologists, um, it's the story that gets people in. People don't respond to an argument. We're, we're trained, uh, at least in the United States, we're often trained to argue. Uh, you're, you're, you're told in a class, "Okay, this part of the room, take this position."
- LFLex Fridman
Mm-hmm.
- JSJeremi Suri
"This part of the room, take this position." And that's helpful, because it forces you to see different sides of the argument. But in fact, those on one side never convince those on the other side through argument. It's through a story that people can identify with. It's when you bring your argument to life in human terms. And someone again like Abraham Lincoln was a master at that. Uh, he told stories. Uh, he found ways to disarm people, and to move them without their even realizing they were being moved.
- LFLex Fridman
Yeah, not make it a debate, make it, uh ... tell a story. That's fascinating, 'cause yes, once- some of the most convincing politicians, I don't feel like they're arguing a point. They're just telling a story, and it gets in there, right? (laughs)
- JSJeremi Suri
That's right. That's right. I mean, when we look at what Zelenskyy has done in Ukraine in response to the, uh, Russian invasion, and I know you, you were there on the front lines yourself, um, it's not that he's arguing a position that persuade us. We already believe what we believed about Russia.... but he's bringing the story of Ukrainian suffering to life and making us see the behavior of the Russians that is moving opinion a- around the world.
- LFLex Fridman
Well, the i- interesting stuff, sometimes it's not actually the story told by the person, but the story told about the person.
- JSJeremi Suri
Right.
- 18:06 – 27:18
American Civil War
- LFLex Fridman
So, let's go to the beginning. How did the American Civil War start and why?
- JSJeremi Suri
So, the American Civil War starts because of our flawed institutions. The founders, uh, had mixed views of slavery, but they wanted a system that would eventually work its way toward a opening for more people of more kinds. Uh, not necessarily equality, but they wanted a more open democratic system. But our institutions were designed in ways that gave disproportionate power to slave holders in particular states in the Union, through the Senate, through the electoral college, through many of the institutions we talk about in our politics today. Therefore, that part of the country was, in the words of Abraham Lincoln, "Holding the rest of the country hostage." For a poor white man like Abraham Lincoln, born in Kentucky who makes his way in Illinois, slavery was an evil not just for moral reasons. It was an evil because it de- denied him democratic opportunity. Why would anyone hire poor Abe to do something if they could get a slave to do it for free? And his economy of oppor- of opportunity for him had to be an economy that was open and that did not have slavery, particularly in the new states that were coming into the Union. Lincoln was one of the creators of the Republican Party, which was a party dedicated to making sure all new territory was open to anyone who was willing to work, any male figure, who would be paid for their work. Free labor, free soil, free men, basic capitalism. Southerners, Southern plantation owners were an aristocracy that did not want that. They wanted to use slavery and expand slavery into the new territories. What caused the Civil War? The clash, and our institutions that were unable to adapt and continued to give disproportionate power to these Southern plantation slave owners. The Supreme Court was dominated by them, the Senate was dominated by them, and so the Republican Party came into power as a critique of that, and Southerners unwilling to accept, Southern Confederates unwilling to accept that change, went to war with the Union.
- LFLex Fridman
So who was on each side? The Union, Confederates. What are we talking about? What are the states? How many people? Um, what, what's like the- the demographics and the dynamics of- of each side?
- JSJeremi Suri
The Union side is much, much larger, right, in terms of population, I think about 22 million people, uh, and it is, uh, what we would today recognize as all the states, uh, basically, uh, north of Virginia. The South is the states in the S- south of the Mason-Dixon line, so Virginia and thereon south, west through Tennessee. So Texas, for example, is in the Confederacy, Tennessee's in the Confederacy, uh, but other states like Missouri are border, border states. And, um, the- the Confederacy is a much smaller entity. Uh, it's made up of about nine million people, plus about four million slaves, and, uh, it is a agricultural economy, whereas the Northern economy is a more industrializing economy. Interestingly enough, the Confederate states are in some ways more international than the Northern states because they are exporters of cotton, exporters of tobacco, so, uh, they actually have very strong international economic ties, very strong ties to Great Britain. Uh, United States was the largest source of cotton to the world before the Civil War. Egypt replaces that a little bit during the Civil War, uh, but all the m- English textiles were, uh, American cotton from the South. And so, uh, it is the southern half of what we would call the eastern part of the United States today with far fewer people. It's made up, the Confederacy is, of landed families. Wealth in the Confederacy was land and slaves. The Northern United States is made up predominantly of small business owners and then larger financial interests, such as the banks in New York.
- LFLex Fridman
(sighs) And what about the military? Who are the people that picked up guns? What are the numbers there? So the- the- the Union also outnumbered the Confederacy.
- JSJeremi Suri
By far, but it is a really interesting question because there's no conscription in the Constitution. Uh, unlike most other countries, our democracy is formed on the presumption that human beings should not be forced to go into the military if they don't want to. Most democracies in the world today actually still require military service. The United States has very rarely in its history done that. It's not in our Constitution. So, um, during the Civil War, in the first months and years of the Civil War, Abraham Lincoln has to go to, um, the different states, to the governors and ask the governors for volunteers. So the men who take up arms, especially in the first months of the war, are volunteers in the North. In the South, they're actually conscripted. And then as the war goes on, the- uh, Union will, uh, pass the Conscription Acts of 1862 and 1863, which for the first time, and this is really important 'cause it creates new presidential powers, for the first time, Lincoln will have presidential power to force men into the army, which is what leads to all kinds of draft riots in New York, uh, and elsewhere. But suffice it to say, the Union Army throughout the war is often three times the size of the Confederate Army.
- LFLex Fridman
What's the relationship between this, uh, no conscription and people standing up to fight for ideas and the Second Amendment? "A well regulated militia being necessary to the security of a free state, the right of the people to keep and bear arms shall not be infringed." We're in Texas.
- JSJeremi Suri
(laughs) Yeah. Yes. So...
- LFLex Fridman
What's the role of that, um, in- in this story?
- JSJeremi Suri
The American population is already armed before the war, and so even though the Union and the Confederate Armies will manufacture and purchase arms, it is already an armed population. So, uh, the American presumption going into the war is that citizens will not be fr- forced to serve, but they will serve in militias to protect their own property. And so the Second Amendment, the key part of the Second Amendment for me as a historian is the well-regulated militia part, the presumption that citizens, as part of their civic duty, do not have a duty to join a national army, Prussian style (laughs) .... but are supposed to be involved in defending their communities. Uh, and that's, that's the reality. It's also a bit of a myth. Um, and so Americans have, have throughout their history been gun owners. Not AK-47 owners, but gun owners. And gun ownership has been for the purpose of community self-defense. The question coming out of that is, what does that mean in terms of you have a- access to everything? Uh, Antonin Scalia even himself asked this question on the Supreme Court. You know, he said, uh, in one of the gun, gun cases, uh, "You have the right to defend yourself, but you don't have the right to own an Uzi." (laughs) You don't have the right to have a tank. I don't think they'd let you park a tank, Lex, in your parking spot, right? So...
- LFLex Fridman
Actually, I looked into this.
- JSJeremi Suri
(laughs)
- LFLex Fridman
I think, I think there's a gray area around tanks, actually.
- JSJeremi Suri
(laughs)
- LFLex Fridman
I g- (laughs) I think you're legit allowed to own a tank.
- JSJeremi Suri
Oh, you really?
- LFLex Fridman
I think there's, well, somebody look into this 'cause somebody told me, but I could see, like, that... 'Cause it's very difficult for that to get out of hand. (laughs)
- JSJeremi Suri
Right. Right.
- LFLex Fridman
Okay? There may be one guy and a tank. They, you could be breaking laws in terms of the width of the vehicle that you're using to operate. Um, anyway, that's, (laughs) that's a hilarious discussion. But so then to make the case, speaking of AK-47s and rifles and back to Ukraine for a second, one of the fascinating social experiments that happened in Ukraine at the beginning of the war is they handed out guns to everybody, rifles, and crime went down, which I think is really interesting.
- JSJeremi Suri
Yeah.
- LFLex Fridman
I hope somebody does a, a kind of psychological data collection analysis effort here to try to understand why.
- JSJeremi Suri
(laughs)
- LFLex Fridman
Because it's not obvious to me that in a time of war if you give guns to the entire populous, anyone who wants a gun, it's not going to, especially in a country who has historically suffered from corruption-
- JSJeremi Suri
Mm-hmm.
- LFLex Fridman
... not result in robberies and assaults and all that kind of stuff. There's a deep lesson there. Now, I don't know if you can extend that lesson beyond wartime though.
- JSJeremi Suri
Right. That's the question. What happens after the war? I mean, my inclination would be to say that can work during war, but you have to take the guns back after the war.
- LFLex Fridman
(laughs) But th- they might be very upset when you try to take the guns-
- JSJeremi Suri
That's the problem. No, that's precisely the problem. That, that's actually part of the story here. I mean, what happens after the Civil War, after Appomattox in 1865 is that many, uh, Southern soldiers go home with their guns-
- LFLex Fridman
Mm-hmm.
- JSJeremi Suri
... and they misuse their weapons, uh, to quite frankly shoot and intimidate, uh, former slaves who are now citizens, and this is a big problem. I talk about this in the book. In Memphis in 1866, uh, it is former Confederate soldiers and police officers and judges who are responsible for hundreds of rapes, uh, within a two-day period and destroying an entire community of African Americans, and they were able to do that because they brought their guns home.
- 27:18 – 31:08
Lincoln and election of 1860
- LFLex Fridman
- JSJeremi Suri
Yeah.
- LFLex Fridman
What was the election of 1860 like that brought, uh, Lincoln to power?
- JSJeremi Suri
So the election of 1860, uh, was a very divisive election. We have divisive contested elections from 1860 really until 1896. The 1860 election is the first election where, uh, a Republican is elected president, that is Lincoln, but he's elected president with less than 40% of the vote because you have, uh, two sets of Democrats running, Democrats who are out to defend the Confederacy and everything, and then de- Democrats who want a compromise but still keep sla- slavery, uh, most famous Stephen Douglas who argues for, um, basically allowing each state to make its own decisions, popular sovereignty as he called it. Um, and then you still have traditional Whigs who are running. That was the party that preceded, uh, the Republican Party. So you have four candidates. Lincoln wins a plurality. Lincoln is elected largely because, uh, the states that are anti-slavery or anti-expansion of slavery are not a majority, but they're a plurality, and the other states have basically, uh, factionalized, and so they're unable to have a united front against him.
- LFLex Fridman
Was the main topic at hand slavery?
- JSJeremi Suri
I think the main topic at hand at that time was the expansion of slavery into new territories.
- LFLex Fridman
Into new territory.
- JSJeremi Suri
Right. It was not whether to abolish slavery or not. Lincoln is very careful, and his correspondence is clear. He wants no one on his side during the election to say that he's arguing for abolitionism even though he p- personally supported that. What he wants to say is, "The Republican Party is for no new slave territories."
- LFLex Fridman
Did he make it clear that he was for abolition?
- JSJeremi Suri
No. He was intentionally unclear about that.
- LFLex Fridman
Well, do you think he was throughout his life? Was there a, a deep... Because that takes quite a vision. Like you look at society today, and you, it takes quite a man to see that there's something deeply broken where a lot of people take for granted. I mean, into modern day you could see factory farming is one of those things that in, in 100 years we might see as, like, the torture, the mass torture of animals could be, uh-
- JSJeremi Suri
Sure.
- LFLex Fridman
... could be seen as evil, but just to look around and wake up to that, especially in a leadership position. Uh, yeah. Was he able to see that?
- JSJeremi Suri
In some ways yes, in some ways no. I mean, th- the premise of your question is really important, that, um, to us it's obvious that slavery is, is a horror. Uh, but to those who had grown up with it, who had grown up seeing that, uh, it, it was hard to imagine a different world. So you're right. Lincoln's imagination, like everyone else's, was limited by his time. I don't think Lincoln imagined a world of equality between the races, but he had come to see that slavery, uh, was horrible. And historians have differed in, in how he came to this. Uh, part of it is that, uh, he had a father who treated him like a slave.
- LFLex Fridman
Hmm.
- JSJeremi Suri
And you can see in his early correspondence how much he hates that his father, who was a struggling farmer, was basically trying to control Lincoln's life. And he came to understand personally, I think, how horrible it is to have someone else tell you what you should do with your labor. Not giving you your own, your own choices. Um, but Lincoln was also a pragmatist. This is what made him a great politician. He wanted to work through institutions, not to burn them down. And he famously said that, uh, if he could preserve the union and stop the spread of slavery by allowing slavery to stay in the South, he would. If he could do it by eliminating slavery in the South, he would. If he could do it by buying the slaves and sending them somewhere else, he would. His main goal, what he ran on, was that the new territories west of Illinois, that they would be areas for free, poor, White men like him, not slavery.
- LFLex Fridman
(inhales deeply)
- 31:08 – 44:17
Slavery
- LFLex Fridman
What do you learn about human nature if we step back and look at the big picture of it, that slavery has been a part of human civilization for thousands of years, that this American slavery is not a new phenomenon?
- JSJeremi Suri
I think history teaches us a very pessimistic and a very optimistic lesson. The pessimistic lesson is that human beings are capable of doing enormous harm and brutality to their fellow man and woman. And we see that with genocide in our world today, that human beings are capable with the right stimuli, the right, um, incentives, of, of, of enslaving others. I mean, genocide is in the same category, right? Uh, the optimistic side is that human beings are also capable, with proper leadership and governance, of resisting those urges, of putting those energies into productive uses for other people. But I don't think that comes naturally. I think that's where leadership and institutions matter. But leadership and institutions can tame us. We can tame, we can civilize ourselves. You know, for a long time, we stopped using that verb, to civilize. I believe in civilization. I believe there's a civilizing role. Lincoln spoke of that, right? So did Franklin Roosevelt. The civilizing role that government plays. Education is only a part of that. It's creating laws, minimal laws, but laws nonetheless, that incentivize and penalize us for going to the dark side. But if we allow that to happen or we have leaders who encourage us to go to the dark side, we can very quickly go down a, a deep, dark tunnel.
- LFLex Fridman
See, I believe that most people want to do good. And the power of institutions, if done well, they encourage and protect you if you want to do good. So if you're just in the jungle, the, so ga- from a game theoretic perspective, you get punished for, for doing good. So being extremely self-centered and greedy and even violent and manipulative can have, from a game theory perspective, uh, benefits. But I don't think that's what most humans want. Uh, institutions allow you to do what you actually want, which is to do good for the world, do good for others, and actually in so doing, do good for yourself. Institutions protect that natural human instinct, I think.
- JSJeremi Suri
And, and what you just articulated, which I think the historical record is very strong on, is the classic liberal position. That's what liberalism means in a 19th century sense, right? That you believe in civilizing human beings through institutions that begins with education. Kindergarten is an institution. Laws, uh, and, and just basic habits that are enforced by society.
- LFLex Fridman
(inhales deeply) How do you think people thought about the idea... How do they square the idea of all men are created equal, those very powerful words, uh, at the founding of this nation? Um, how do they square that with slavery?
- JSJeremi Suri
For many Americans, saying all men were created equal required slavery because it meant that, uh, the equality of White people was dependent upon others doing the work for us, i- in the way some people view animal labor today. And maybe in 50 years, we'll see that as a contradiction. But the notion among many Americans in the 17th, 18th century, and this would also be true for those in other societies, was that equality for White men meant that you had access to the labor of others that would allow you to equalize other differences. So, uh, you could produce enough food so your family could live equally well-nourished as other families because you had slaves on the land doing the farming for you. This is Thomas Jefferson's world. (laughs)
- LFLex Fridman
So it's, uh, like Animal Farm, uh, all animals are equal, but some are more equal than others.
- JSJeremi Suri
That's right. And I think that's, that's still the way people view things.
- LFLex Fridman
Yeah.
- JSJeremi Suri
Right?
- LFLex Fridman
I don't know if that's a, a liberal position or it's just a human position that, um, that all humans have equal value, just on the basic level of like o- of humanity.
- JSJeremi Suri
But do we really believe that? I, uh, we want to. I, I don't know our so- I don't know if our society really believes that yet.
- LFLex Fridman
And I don't know exactly. I mean, it's su- it's super complicated, of course, um, when you realize the amount of suffering that's going on in the world, where there's, uh, children dying from starvation in Africa, and to say that all humans are equal while a few dollars can save their life. And, and instead we buy a Starbucks coffee and w- are willing to pay 10, 50, $100,000 to save a child, our child, like a, a somebody from our family, and don't want to spend $2 to save a child over in Africa.
- JSJeremi Suri
Right.
- LFLex Fridman
So there's... And, uh, I think Sam Harris or others have talked about like, "Well, I w- I don't want to live in a world where we'd rather send $2 to Africa." There's something deeply human about saving those that are really close to you, the ones we love. So the, that like hypocrisy that seems to go at tension with the basic ethics of alleviating suffering in the world, that's also really human. That's also part of this ideal w-... of all men are created equal. It's a complicated, messy world, ethically. (laughs)
- JSJeremi Suri
It, it, it is, but I mean, I think, uh, at least the way I think about it is, so what are the things even within our own society where we choose to do something with our resources that actually doesn't help the lives of many people?
- LFLex Fridman
Yeah.
- JSJeremi Suri
So, we, we invest in all kinds of things that are often because someone is lobbying for them. This happens on both sides of the aisle. This is not a political statement, right? Rather than saying, "You know, if we invested a little more of our money, really a little more, we could make sure every child in this country had decent healthcare. We can make sure every child in this country had what they need, uh, needed to start life healthy. Uh, and that would not require us to sacrifice a lot, but it would require us to sacrifice a few things."
- LFLex Fridman
Yeah, so there, there's a balance there. And I, and I also noticed the passive-aggressive statement you're making about how I'm spending my money.
- JSJeremi Suri
(laughs)
- LFLex Fridman
And I, and I should actually be-
- JSJeremi Suri
Well, me too. (laughs)
- LFLex Fridman
... spending it a little more wisely.
- JSJeremi Suri
(laughs)
- LFLex Fridman
(laughs)
- JSJeremi Suri
I, I, you know, I like to eat nice meals at nice restaurants. Uh, so I'm, I'm as guilty of this as you are. (laughs)
- LFLex Fridman
(laughs) I got a couch, and that couch serves no purpose.
- JSJeremi Suri
It looks nice though. No, it's a nice-looking couch.
- LFLex Fridman
Oh, does it? Thank you.
- JSJeremi Suri
It's a nice-looking couch.
- 44:17 – 56:00
Freedom of speech
- LFLex Fridman
Well, let me go then to one of the other three principles of freedom, because one of the ways to keep government accountable is the freedom of the press. So there's, uh, the internet, and on the internet there's social networks and one of them is called Twitter.
- JSJeremi Suri
Mm-hmm.
- LFLex Fridman
I think you have an account there. People should follow you. And, uh, you know, recently people have been throwing around recently, for a while, the words of freedom of speech. Uh, just out of curiosity, uh, for a tangent upon a tangent, uh, w- what do you think of freedom of speech as it is today and as it was at that time during the Civil War, after the Civil War, and throughout the history of- of America?
- JSJeremi Suri
So, freedom of speech has always been one of the core tenets of American democracy, and I'm near absolutist on it, uh, because I- I think that people should have the right to speak. Uh, what- what makes our democracy function is that there is always room for, quite frankly, people like you and me who, uh, like to disagree (laughs) and have reasons to disagree. So I am against almost all forms of censorship. The only time I believe in censorship is if somehow, uh, an individual or a newspaper has stolen, uh, the Ukrainian plans for their next military movements in the next week.
- LFLex Fridman
Yeah.
- JSJeremi Suri
You should not be able to publish that right now. Maybe after they act, but-
- LFLex Fridman
Yeah.
- JSJeremi Suri
... criticism, opinion, interpretation, should be wide open. Now, that doesn't mean though that, um, you have the right to come to my classroom-
- LFLex Fridman
Mm-hmm.
- JSJeremi Suri
... and start shouting and saying whatever you want.
- LFLex Fridman
Yeah.
- JSJeremi Suri
You have the right on the street corner to do that. But my classroom is a classroom for my students with a particular purpose.
- LFLex Fridman
Yeah, sorry about that from last week. I'll never do it again.
- JSJeremi Suri
(laughs)
- LFLex Fridman
My apologies. I'm, uh, really sorry.
- JSJeremi Suri
It's okay. It's okay.
- LFLex Fridman
Never happening again.
- JSJeremi Suri
You know, we- we-
- LFLex Fridman
I get drunk and I get-
- JSJeremi Suri
(laughs)
- LFLex Fridman
To the people who don't know, you're- you're a professor at UT Austin. It's just, it's nearby, so sometimes I- I get a little drunk and wander in there. I apologize.
- JSJeremi Suri
You're not the only one. Was that you?
- LFLex Fridman
(laughs)
- JSJeremi Suri
I didn't even know it was you. (laughs)
- LFLex Fridman
I'm sorry. Okay.
- JSJeremi Suri
Um, so the- the point is that free speech is not license to invade someone else's space. And- and I also believe in private enterprise. So I think that, um, you know, if- if- if I owned a social media network, I don't, it would be up to me to decide who gets to speak on that network and who doesn't. And then people could decide not to use it if they don't wanna use it.
- LFLex Fridman
But there's, uh... so yes, that's one of the founding principles, so oftentimes when you talk about censorship, that's government, uh, censorship. So social media, if you run a social media company, you should be able to decide from a technical perspective what freedom of speech means. But there's some deeper ethical, philosophical sense of, um, how do you create a world where every voice is heard, of the people, by the people, for the people? That's not a... that's a complicated technical problem. When you have a public square, how do you have a productive conversation where critics aren't silenced, but at the same time, whoever has the bigger megaphone is not gonna crowd out everybody else?
- JSJeremi Suri
So I think it's very important to, uh, create rules of the game that give everyone a chance to get started and that, um, allow for guideposts to be created from the will of the community, which is to say that, uh, we as a community can say... uh, we can't stop people from speaking, but we as a community can say that in certain forums we're gonna create certain rules for who gets to speak and who doesn't, under what terms, but they can still have somewhere else to go. So I'm- I believe in opening space for everyone, but creating certain spaces within those spaces that are designed for certain purposes. That's what a school does.
- LFLex Fridman
Mm-hmm.
- JSJeremi Suri
So I will not bring someone to speak to my students who is unqualified (laughs) . It's not a political judgment. The rules at a university are, we're an educational institution, you need to have the educational credentials to come speak about artificial intelligence. I'm not gonna bring some bum off the street, uh, to do that, right? We have certain rules. But that bum on the street can still, in his own space or her own space, can still say what he or she wants to say about artificial intelligence. This is how newspapers work. Uh, when I write for the New York Times, they have an editorial...... team. The editorial team, uh, makes certain decisions, they check facts, uh, and there's certain points of view, they don't allow anti-Semitic comments. Right? You're, you're not gonna be able to publish, uh, an anti-Semitic screed, whether you think it's true or not true, in the New York Times but that doesn't prevent you from finding somewhere else. So we allow entities to create certain rules of the game. We trans- we, we make transparent what those rules are, and then we as citizens know where to go to get our information. What's, what's been a problem the last few decades, I think, is it hasn't been clear what the rules are in different places and what are the legitimate places to get information and what are not.
- 56:00 – 59:19
Death toll of the Civil War
- JSJeremi Suri
- LFLex Fridman
Several hundred thousand people died. Uh, what made this war such a deadly war?
- JSJeremi Suri
It's extraordinary how many people died, more than, more than half a million. And this was without a single automatic rifle, without a single bomb. It was mostly in hand-to-hand combat, which is to say that these 600,000 or so people who died, they died where the person who killed them was standing within a few feet of them. Uh, and that's really hard. Most of the killing that happens in wars today is actually from a distance. It's by a drone, it's by a bomb, it's by a rocket, or by an, you know, an automatic, uh, weapon. Uh, and just to make this even more focused, uh, to this day, the deadliest day in American history was during the Civil War. September 1862 in Antietam, more than 22,000 Americans, uh, killed one another, uh, hand-to-hand. Uh, there hasn't been a day that deadly in American history since then. That's amazing considering the technological changes.
- LFLex Fridman
What was in the mind of those soldiers on each side? Was there conviction for ideas? Was it... Did they hate the other side?
- JSJeremi Suri
I think actually they were fighting out of fear. What we, what we know from reading their letters, what we know from the accounts is that yes, their, their ideas that are promoted to them to get them to the battlefield, they believe in what they're doing, but here it's the same as World War I. And I think the Civil War and World War I are very similar as wars. You are in these horrible conditions, you're attacked, and you have the chance to either kill the other side and live or die. And you fight to live, and you fight to save the people next to you. Uh, what is true about war, what is both good and dangerous about it, is you form an almost unparalleled bond with those on your side. This is, uh, the men under arms scenario, right? And, and that's where the killing goes. And it's a civil war, which means sometimes it's brother against brother, uh, quite literally. And what it teaches us is how human beings can be put into fighting and will commit enormous damage. And, and that's why this happens. It goes on for four years.
- LFLex Fridman
And just the extensive research you've done on this war for this book, uh, what are some, some of the worst and some of the best aspects of human nature that you, you, you found? Like you said brother against brother. That's pretty powerful.
- JSJeremi Suri
They're both, right? So the level of violence that human beings are capable of, how long they're able to sustain it. Uh, the South should not have, the Confederacy should not have lasted in this war as long as it did. By the end, I mean, they're, they're starving and they keep fighting. So the resilience in war of societies and, um, the power of hate to move people. What are the bright sides? Uh, you see in Lincoln and Grant, who I talk about a lot in the book as well, Ulysses Grant, you see the ability of empathetic figures to still rise above this in spite of all the horror. Lincoln went to visit more soldiers in war than any president ever has. Often at personal peril 'cause he was close to the lines, and he connected. It wasn't propaganda. There weren't always reporters following him. He was able to build empathy in this context. And I think,
- 59:19 – 1:01:27
Ulysses S. Grant
- JSJeremi Suri
as I said, war, as horrible as it is, often gives opportunities to certain groups. So African Americans, former slaves, are able to prove themselves as citizens. Jews did this an enormous number in World War II. Henry Kissinger, who I wrote about before, he really only gets recognized as an American... He's a German Jewish immigrant. He's seen as an American because of his service in World War II. So the bright side of this is that often, in the case of war, on your own side, you will let go of some of your prejudices (laughs) . Ulysses Grant has a total transformation. He goes into the Civil War an anti-Semite and a racist. He comes out with actually very enlightened views 'cause he sees what Jewish soldiers and what African American soldiers did.
- LFLex Fridman
What's Ulysses S. Grant's story? What, uh, what do you learn from him? Was he a hero or a villain of this war?
- JSJeremi Suri
I think he's a hero, uh, though he's a flawed hero as, as all heroes are. Um, he's a, a man from, uh, Ohio and Illinois who, uh, was a, really a failed businessman time and again (laughs) , um, and, uh, had an ability to command people in war. Uh, where did this come from? He was a clear communicator and an empathetic figure. He tended to drink too much, but he was the kind of person people wanted to follow. They trusted him. And so in battle, that became very important. And the second thing is he did his homework.... and he had a sense of the terrain, he had a sense of the environment he was operating in, and he was ruthless in pursuing what he had studied. So, he turns out at battles as, like Vicksburg and elsewhere, to actually undertake some pretty revolutionary maneuvers. Uh, and then he figures out that the advantage now is on his side in numbers, and he just pounds Lee. Pounds him to death. Similar what the United States does at the end of World War II with Germany and Japan. He comes out of the war, Grant does, he's a believer in union, he wants to protect, um, former slaves and other groups, and he tries to use the military for that purpose. He's limited. And then as president, he tries to do that as well. Uh, right now,
- 1:01:27 – 1:13:10
Ku Klux Klan
- JSJeremi Suri
uh, we still use many of the laws that were passed during Grant's presidency to prosecute insurrectionists. So the 900 or so people who have been prosecuted for breaking into the Capitol and attacking police on January 6th, those insurrectionists, they've been prosecuted under the 1871 anti-Ku Klux Klan law. So that's a big accomplishment by Grant, and we still benefit from it. The problem is, Grant was not a great politician. Unlike Lincoln, he didn't give good speeches. He wasn't a persuasive figure in a political space. And so he had trouble building support for what he was doing, uh, even though he was trying to do what in the end I think were the right things.
- LFLex Fridman
What was the role of the KKK at that time?
- JSJeremi Suri
So the Ku Klux Klan is formed at the end of the Civil War by Confederate veterans, first in Tennessee, in Pulaski, Tennessee, and then it spreads elsewhere, and there are other groups that are similar. The Red Shirts and various others. These are veterans of the Confederate Army who come home and are committed to continuing the war. They are gonna use their power at home, and their weapons, to intimidate, and if necessary, kill people who challenge their authority. Not just African-Americans. Jews, Catholics, uh, various others. They are going to basically protect the continued rule of the same families who owned the slaves before in post-slavery Tennessee and post-slavery, uh, South Carolina. And when we get to voting, they're often the groups that are preventing people from voting. The white sheets and the ritual around that was all an effort to, uh, provide a certain ritualistic legitimacy-
- LFLex Fridman
Mm-hmm.
- JSJeremi Suri
... and hide identity, though everyone knew who they were.
- LFLex Fridman
Oh, so that, that whole brand, that whole practice was there from, from the beginning?
- JSJeremi Suri
From the very beginning.
- LFLex Fridman
Have you studied the KKK, its history a little bit?
- JSJeremi Suri
I have, and there are a number of other historians who have too, so I've used their research as well.
- LFLex Fridman
I'm kinda curious. I, I have, I have to admit that my knowledge of it is very kinda caricature knowledge. I'm sure there's interesting stories and threads, because I, I think there's different competing organizations or something like that-
- JSJeremi Suri
Of course, a-
- LFLex Fridman
... within the United States. And I feel like they, through that lens, you can tell a story of the United States also, of these different groups.
- JSJeremi Suri
They're often business associations. I mean, there's a lot of work showing that they actually, people joined the KKK for the reasons I just laid out, but also because it was networking for your business. You gained legitimacy in the area that you, that you were in. So this, these were community groups that were formed to help white businesspeople. They helped white sheriffs get elected. Uh, what, what we have to understand, understand today is when we're debating policing, this history matters enormously, right? I, I have nothing against the police. Uh, my cousin, one of my closest relatives, just retired from 25 years in the New York Police Department. Thank God he survived. I have deep respect. He's one of the best public servants I know. But what we also have to recognize as we respect police officers is that for many communities in our country, they know this history, and the KKK in the 1870s and in the 1930s, you look at any KKK organization, as I have in my research, and you find the police chiefs are the KKK members. The local police officers, local judges, because it was how you became police chief.
- LFLex Fridman
So the, these groups infiltrated some of the main institutions in our, in, in our nation?
- JSJeremi Suri
I don't even think they infiltrated. I think they were part of those institutions.
- LFLex Fridman
The deeper question today in the 21st century is, uh, one, how much of that is still there, and how much of the history of that reverberates through the institutions?
- JSJeremi Suri
And I'm making the latter point, that, uh, it's not there that much now, but people remember it.
- NANarrator
That sense-
- LFLex Fridman
Well, and, and some people would even say it's not there at all. That there is not institutional racism in policing. Uh, but if, if that's the case, then you can also say that if there is not direct institutional racism, there... What is it? The echoes of history still have effects.
- JSJeremi Suri
Of course. And that, and that's, and that's really important, and that we have to take that seriously. That's not an excuse for people then saying nasty things about the police.
- LFLex Fridman
Yeah.
- JSJeremi Suri
But it is what we have to recognize. Look, I'm Jewish, and there are certain, um, elements of Russian behavior today I see in Ukraine that reverberate with the history of how my grandparents dealt with pogroms in Russia, right? Even though what Putin is doing in Ukraine might not technically be a pogrom, that history matters in how I view these issues. And, and that's a reality.
- LFLex Fridman
Yeah, I had... I went to 7-Eleven recently. And, uh, uh, what did I eat? I ate one of their salads. I'm sorry, I love 7-Eleven. I'm sorry. Ate one of the salads and got, like, terrible food poisoning.
- JSJeremi Suri
Ugh.
- LFLex Fridman
I was suffering for, like, four days. And now I can't... I love 7-Eleven. I love going to 7-Eleven late at night in sweatpants, and just, I escape the world. I'm listening to an audiobook. And now every time I pass that salad, for the rest of my life, I would have hate for that salad. So history matters. (laughs)
- JSJeremi Suri
Yeah.
- LFLex Fridman
Even if the salad is no longer have any bad stuff in it. It's probably the lettuce or something, whatever. Um, mostly for humor's sake, but I'm also giving a, a, a k- a kinda metaphor that, um, history can have an individual and a large case society effect on, on human interactions. Both the good and the bad.If you actually recommend to me offline, uh, books on the KKK, they'll be real-
- JSJeremi Suri
I would be happy to. There were a few mentioned in, in the, in the footnotes of my book here.
- LFLex Fridman
And also, in part, because I also want to understand the white nationalism, white supremacist, uh, Christian supremacists or Christian nationalism, all those different subgroups in the United States and elsewhere in the world. I'm a bit, my mind has been focused on some of the better aspects of human nature that it's nice to also understand, uh, some of the darker aspects. Um, let me ask you sort of a personal question for, for me. Uh, do you think it's possible, do you think it's useful to, uh, do a podcast conversation with somebody like David Duke or somebody... This was somebody that everybody knows, so it's not like you're giving a platform to, to somebody that's a hidden, um, member of the KKK or like a... It's sort of putting a, a, a pretty face on some dark ideas, but everybody knows. And so now you're just exploring, you're sitting across the table, maybe not in his case, um, maybe somebody who's an active KKK member, sitting across from a person that literally hates me-
- JSJeremi Suri
(laughs) Mm-hmm.
- 1:13:10 – 1:20:53
Robert E. Lee
- LFLex Fridman
Uh, what about Robert E. Lee? So, he's the Confederate general that you mentioned. Uh-
- JSJeremi Suri
Yeah.
- LFLex Fridman
Uh, was he a hero or a villain?
- JSJeremi Suri
To me, he's a villain. Many people treat Robert E. Lee as a hero, and one of the points I make in the book is we have to rethink that. And it's very important for our society because Robert E. Lee pops up all over our society, names of schools, names of streets, and he also embeds and justifies certain behaviors that I think are really bad. Lee was a, was a tremendous general. He had the weaker side and he managed to use maneuver, secrecy, and circumstance to give himself so many advantages and win so many battles he should have lost. So, in terms of the technical generalship, uh, he's a great general. Uh, but Lee at the end of the war never wants to really acknowledge defeat. What he acknowledges at Appomattox is that his soldiers will have to leave the battlefield because they have not won on the battlefield.
- LFLex Fridman
Mm-hmm.
- JSJeremi Suri
But he refuses to do what Grant asks him, which is to help sell his side on the fact that we're going into a post-war moment-
- LFLex Fridman
Mm-hmm.
- JSJeremi Suri
... where they don't have to see themselves as losers, but they have to get on board with change. Real leadership is convincing people who follow you that they have to change when they don't wanna change. Lee refuses to do that. He says to Grant, I quote this in the book, he says to Grant at Appomattox, "If you want to change the South, you have to run your army over the South three or four times." He's not gonna do anything. He's not gonna help. And, uh, he becomes a figure who people rally around in the rest of his life and even after he dies. So, it is as if at the end of World War II Hitler had been allowed to just retire and he didn't go back into politics, but yet he was there and he st- continued to have meetings with former Nazis and people would rally around the idea of bringing back or going back to Hitler's ideas. Think of how harmful that would be. Lee played that kind of, of role after the war, and I think it's one of the problems we have now. I don't think we should continue to revere him because it justifies too much of what the Confederates stood for.
- LFLex Fridman
And that's the difference that you highlight between World War II and the Civil War, that in the case of Hitler, there was, there was a s- there was an end to that war. There's a very distinctive, clear end to that war. And you also, uh, make the case that World War II is not a good example, not a good model of a war to help us analyze history.
- JSJeremi Suri
It's given Americans the wrong idea of what war is because World War II ends as most wars don't end. World War II ends with a complete defeat of the German army and the German society, and the near complete defeat of Japan, and where both sides, in different ways, accept defeat. Uh, what I'm pointing out in the book is that most wars don't accept with one side, don't end with one side accepting defeat, and, uh, generally the war continues after the battles end. This is something that's hard for Americans to understand. Our system is built with the presumption when war is over, when we s- sign a piece of paper-
- LFLex Fridman
Mm-hmm.
- JSJeremi Suri
... everyone can go home. That's not what happens.
- LFLex Fridman
I mean, civil war is a special case, es- especially, um, strong case of that because the people that fought the war are still living in that land.
- JSJeremi Suri
That's exactly right.
- LFLex Fridman
T- And in this case, some of them are leaders also.
- JSJeremi Suri
Many of them become the leaders of the very areas that they were leading before, uh, and I think that's another lesson here too, uh, that we did undertake after World War II, though in a flawed way.
- LFLex Fridman
Mm-hmm.
- JSJeremi Suri
We had a Nuremberg system. We did prohibit at least Nazi leaders from coming back into power. We made an exception for the emperor in Japan, but we generally followed the same rule, uh, in Japan, whereas in the United States, as I point out, many of the leaders of the Confederacy, first of all, don't surrender. They flee to Mexico, then they come back, after they lose in Mexico a second time, (laughs) they come back to the United States and they get elected to office. Uh, the guy who writes the election laws in Texas, Alexander Watkins Terrell, most people don't know this even in Texas, he was a Confederate general, fled to Mexico, so he committed treason by joining the army of Maximilian, Emperor of New Mexico, who was put in power by Louis Napoleon. After Maximilian's defeated, Alexander Watkins Terrell comes back to Texas, runs for the state legislature, and then writes the election laws. It's crazy.
- LFLex Fridman
Can you make the case for that, that that, uh, that's a feature of the American system, not a bug, that that is an implementation of justice, that you forgive, that you don't persecute everybody on the other side of the war?
- JSJeremi Suri
Maybe, and I think that's a good feature in terms of lower level individuals, but I think a bad feature of our system is we do, uh, allow elite figures who have committed wrongdoing, we give them many ways to get out of punishment. You are more likely to be punished in this society if you do something wrong and you're not an elite figure than if you are an elite figure.
- LFLex Fridman
That's true. There should be a proportional, like forgiveness should be equally distributed across the board.
- JSJeremi Suri
And it's not.
- LFLex Fridman
Yeah.
- JSJeremi Suri
And it's not. But we could change that. We could fix that.
- LFLex Fridman
How do we fix that? (laughs) How do-
- JSJeremi Suri
What-
- LFLex Fridman
How do we fix that?
- JSJeremi Suri
What I think was argued at the end, this is one of the really important things about studying history, you learn about ideas that were not pursued that could be pursued today. Uh, at the end of the Civil War, there was, th- there was an effort to ban anyone who was in a leadership position in the Confederacy from ever serving in federal office again. That's the third, uh, element of the 14th Amendment. It's in the 14th Amendment. The 14th Amendment Clause III says that if you took an oath of office-
- LFLex Fridman
Mm-hmm.
- JSJeremi Suri
... meaning you were elected to office, you're an elite figure, and you violated that oath, you can still live in the country, you can still get rich, but you can't run for elected office again.
Episode duration: 2:59:52
Install uListen for AI-powered chat & search across the full episode — Get Full Transcript
Transcript of episode GvX-heRWFfA
Get more out of YouTube videos.
High quality summaries for YouTube videos. Accurate transcripts to search & find moments. Powered by ChatGPT & Claude AI.
Add to Chrome