Yuval Noah Harari on Why Humans Won’t Dominate Earth in 300 Years. Interviewed by Ezra Klein.

Yuval Noah Harari on why humans won’t dominate Earth in 300 years. Interviewed by Ezra Klein. Vox, March 27, 2017. Audio on Soundcloud.

Rachel Platten: Beating Me Up (Live at New Year’s Eve in Times Square).

Rachel Platten: Beating Me Up (Live at New Year’s Eve in Times Square). Video. Rachel Platten Russia, January 3, 2017. YouTube.

Yuval Noah Harari on the Future of Humanity

The Future of Humanity with Yuval Noah Harari. Video. The Royal Institution, September 28, 2016. YouTube. Q&A.

Yuval Noah Harari: Techno-Religions and Silicon Prophets.

Yuval Noah Harari: Techno-Religions and Silicon Prophets | Talks at Google. Video. Talks at Google, February 8, 2015. YouTube.

Yuval Noah Harari on the Myths We Need to Survive.

Yuval Noah Harari on the Myths We Need to Survive. Video. Intelligence Squared, October 23, 2015. YouTube.

Tom Friedman on Thriving in the Age of Acceleration.

Thomas Friedman on Thriving in the Age of Acceleration. Video. Intelligence Squared, January 24, 2017. YouTube.

Radically open: Tom Friedman on jobs, learning, and the future of work. Interviewed by Cathy Engelbert and John Hagel. Deloitte Review, No. 21 (July 2017).






Thomas L. Friedman: Thank You for Being Late | Talks at Google. Video. Talks at Google, February 22, 2017. YouTube.






Thomas Friedman, Thank You for Being Late. Video. Politics and Prose, December 16, 2016. YouTube.






Thomas Friedman: A Field Guide to the 21st Century. Video. Commonwealth Club, December 8, 2016. YouTube.






Thomas L. Friedman: Thank You for Being Late. Video. Oxford Martin School, February 2, 2017. YouTube.






Thomas L. Friedman: Learning to Live in an Age of Acceleration. Video. TownHallSeattle, December 5, 2016. YouTube.

Donald Trump Pays Tribute to Andrew Jackson on His 250th Birthday.

Remarks by President Trump on the 250th Anniversary of the Birth of President Andrew Jackson. Video. The White House, March 15, 2017. YouTube. Transcript.

Historian Daniel Feller Recaps Trump’s Speech at the Hermitage. The University of Tennessee Knoxville, March 17, 2017.

Like Andrew Jackson, Donald Trump is an intensely American president. By Newt Gingrich. FoxNews.com, March 23, 2017.






Transcript:

The Hermitage

Nashville, Tennessee

4:44 P.M. CDT

THE PRESIDENT:  Thank you very much.  (Applause.)  Wow, what a nice visit this was.  Inspirational visit, I have to tell you. I’m a fan.  I’m a big fan.

I want to thank Howard Kettell, Francis Spradley of the Andrew Jackson Foundation, and all of the foundation’s incredible employees and supporters for preserving this great landmark, which is what it is -- it’s a landmark of our national heritage.

And a special thank you to Governor Bill Haslam and his incredible wife, who -- we just rode over together -- and Senators Lamar Alexander and Bob Corker, two great friends of mine, been a big, big help.  Both incredible guys.

In my address to Congress, I looked forward nine years, to the 250th anniversary of American Independence.  Today, I call attention to another anniversary: the 250th birthday of the very great Andrew Jackson.  (Applause.)  And he loved Tennessee, and so do I -- to tell you that.  (Applause.)

On this day in 1767, Andrew Jackson was born on the backwoods soil of the Carolinas.  From poverty and obscurity, Jackson rose to glory and greatness -- first as a military leader, and then as the seventh President of the United States.

He did it with courage, with grit, and with patriotic heart.  And by the way, he was one of our great Presidents.  (Applause.)

Jackson was the son of the frontier.  His father died before he was born.  His brother died fighting the British in the American Revolution.  And his mother caught a fatal illness while tending to the wounded troops.  At the age of 14, Andrew Jackson was an orphan, and look what he was able to do.  Look what he was able to build.

It was during the Revolution that Jackson first confronted and defied an arrogant elite.  Does that sound familiar to you?  (Laughter.)  I wonder why they keep talking about Trump and Jackson, Jackson and Trump.  Oh, I know the feeling, Andrew.  (Laughter.)

Captured by the Redcoats and ordered to shine the boots of a British officer, Jackson simply refused.  The officer took his saber and slashed at Jackson, leaving gashes in his head and hand that remained permanent scars for the rest of his life.  These were the first and far from the last blows that Andrew Jackson took for his country that he loved so much.

From that day on, Andrew Jackson rejected authority that looked down on the common people.  First as a boy, when he bravely served the Revolutionary cause.  Next, as the heroic victor at New Orleans where his ragtag -- and it was ragtag -- militia, but they were tough.  And they drove the British imperial forces from America in a triumphant end to the War of 1812.  He was a real general, that one.

And, finally, as President -- when he reclaimed the people’s government from an emerging aristocracy.  Jackson’s victory shook the establishment like an earthquake.  Henry Clay, Secretary of State for the defeated President John Quincy Adams, called Jackson’s victory “mortifying and sickening”.  Oh, boy, does this sound familiar.  (Laughter.)  Have we heard this?  (Laughter.)  This is terrible.  He said there had been “no greater calamity” in the nation’s history.

The political class in Washington had good reason to fear Jackson’s great triumph.  “The rich and powerful,” Jackson said, “too often bend the acts of government to their selfish purposes.”  Jackson warned they had turned government into an “engine for the support of the few at the expense of the many.”

Andrew Jackson was the People’s President, and his election came at a time when the vote was finally being extended to those who did not own property.  To clean out the bureaucracy, Jackson removed 10 percent of the federal workforce.  He launched a campaign to sweep out government corruption.  Totally.  He didn’t want government corruption.  He expanded benefits for veterans.  He battled the centralized financial power that brought influence at our citizens’ expense.  He imposed tariffs on foreign countries to protect American workers.  That sounds very familiar.  Wait till you see what’s going to be happening pretty soon, folks.  (Laughter.)  It’s time.  It’s time. 

Andrew Jackson was called many names, accused of many things, and by fighting for change, earned many, many enemies.  Today the portrait of this orphan son who rose to the presidency hangs proudly in the Oval Office, opposite the portrait of another great American, Thomas Jefferson.  I brought the Andrew Jackson portrait there.  (Applause.)  Right behind me, right -- boom, over my left shoulder. 

Now I’m honored to sit between those two portraits and to use this high office to serve, defend, and protect the citizens of the United States.  It is my great honor.  I will tell you that.

From that desk I can see out the wonderful, beautiful, large great window to an even greater magnolia tree, standing strong and tall across the White House lawn.  That tree was planted there many years ago, when it was just a sprout carried from these very grounds.  Came right from here.  (Applause.)  Beautiful tree.

That spout was nourished, it took root, and on this, his 250th birthday, Andrew Jackson’s magnolia is a sight to behold.  I looked at it actually this morning.  Really beautiful.  (Applause.)  

But the growth of that beautiful tree is nothing compared to growth of our beautiful nation.  That growth has been made possible because more and more of our people have been given their dignity as equals under law and equals in the eyes of God.

Andrew Jackson as a military hero and genius and a beloved President.  But he was also a flawed and imperfect man, a product of his time.  It is the duty of each generation to carry on the fight for justice.  My administration will work night and day to ensure that the sacred rights which God has bestowed on His children are protected for each and every one of you, for each and every American.  (Applause.)

We must all remember Jackson’s words:  that in “the planter, the farmer, the mechanic, and the laborer,” we will find muscle and bone of our country.  So true.  So true. 

Now, we must work in our time to expand -- and we have to do that because we have no choice.  We’re going to make America great again, folks.  We’re going to make America great again -- (applause) -- to expand the blessings of America to every citizen in our land.  And when we do, watch us grow.  Watch what’s happening.  You see it happening already.  You see it with our great military.  You see it with our great markets.  You see it with our incredible business people.  You see it with the level of enthusiasm that they haven’t seen in many years.  People are proud again of our country.  And you're going to get prouder and prouder and prouder, I can promise you that.  (Applause.)

And watch us grow.  We will truly be one nation, with deep roots, a strong core, and a very new springtime of American greatness yet to come.

Andrew Jackson, we thank you for your service.  We honor you for your memory.  We build on your legacy.  And we thank God for the United States of America.

Thank you very much, everybody.  (Applause.) 

END

4:54 P.M. CDT

Death Is Optional. By Yuval Noah Harari and Daniel Kahneman.

Death Is Optional. By Yuval Noah Harari and Daniel Kahneman. Edge, March 4, 2015. Video at YouTube.

The Case for Old Ideas. By Ross Douthat. New York Times, March 7, 2015. Commenting on Harari and Kahneman.

Yuval Noah Harari on Why Humans Run the World.

Yuval Noah Harari: What explains the rise of humans? Video. TED, July 24, 2015. YouTube.

Kenneth Clark’s Civilisation, Part 13: Heroic Materialism.

Kenneth Clark’s Civilisation, Part 13: Heroic Materialism. Video. sanchanran, June 28, 2014.

Pankaj Mishra on the Age of Anger.

The Age of Anger | Pankaj Mishra | RSA Replay. Video. The RSA, February 2, 2017. YouTube.






Age of Anger: Pankaj Mishra. Video. Berkley Center, March 9, 2017. YouTube.

Yuval Noah Harari on Nationalism vs Globalism.

Nationalism vs. Globalism: The New Political Divide | Yuval Noah Harari. Video. TED, February 21, 2017. YouTube. Also at Real Clear Politics.




Transcript excerpt from RCP:

Israeli professor at the Department of History of the Hebrew University of Jerusalem Yuval Noah Harari speaks with TED about the new political divide around the world: nationalism vs. globalism.

Via TED: “How do we make sense of today's political divisions? In a wide-ranging conversation full of insight, historian Yuval Harari places our current turmoil in a broader context, against the ongoing disruption of our technology, climate, media – even our notion of what humanity is for. This is the first of a series of TED Dialogues, seeking a thoughtful response to escalating political divisiveness. Make time (just over an hour) for this fascinating discussion between Harari and TED curator Chris Anderson.”

“I think the basic thing that happened is we have lost our story. Humans think in stories and we try to make sense of the world by telling stories,” the historian said. “And for the last few decades we had a very simple and very attractive story about what was happening in the world. And the story said that the economy is being globalized, politics is being liberalized, and the combination of the two will create paradise on earth. And we just need to keep globalizing the economy and liberalizing the political system, and everything will be wonderful.”

“2016 is when a very large segment of the Western world stopped believing in this story,” he said. “For good or bad reason it doesn’t matter, people stopped believing the story, and when you don'’ have a story it is hard to understand what is happening.”

“The old 20th century political model of left vs. right is now basically irrelevant and the real divide today is between global and national, global or local. All over the world this is not the main struggle.”

Yuval Noah Harari on Homo Deus.

Yuval Noah Harari on the Rise of Homo Deus. Video. iqsquared, September 15, 2016. YouTube.






Yuval Noah Harari: Homo Deus: A Brief History of Tomorrow. Video. Carnegie Council for Ethics in International Affairs, February 28, 2017. YouTube. Transcript.





Yuval Noah Harari with Dan Ariely: Future Think--From Sapiens to Homo Deus. Video. 92nd Street Y, February 22, 2017. YouTube.






A Brief History of Tomorrow | Yuval Noah Harari | RSA Replay. Video. The RSA, September 8, 2016. YouTube.

The Exhaustion of American Liberalism. By Shelby Steele.

The Exhaustion of American Liberalism. By Shelby Steele. Wall Street Journal, March 5, 2017.

Steele:

White guilt gave us a mock politics based on the pretense of moral authority.

The recent flurry of marches, demonstrations and even riots, along with the Democratic Party’s spiteful reaction to the Trump presidency, exposes what modern liberalism has become: a politics shrouded in pathos. Unlike the civil-rights movement of the 1950s and ’60s, when protesters wore their Sunday best and carried themselves with heroic dignity, today’s liberal marches are marked by incoherence and downright lunacy—hats designed to evoke sexual organs, poems that scream in anger yet have no point to make, and an hysterical anti-Americanism.

All this suggests lostness, the end of something rather than the beginning. What is ending?

America, since the ’60s, has lived through what might be called an age of white guilt. We may still be in this age, but the Trump election suggests an exhaustion with the idea of white guilt, and with the drama of culpability, innocence and correctness in which it mires us.

White guilt is not actual guilt. Surely most whites are not assailed in the night by feelings of responsibility for America’s historical mistreatment of minorities. Moreover, all the actual guilt in the world would never be enough to support the hegemonic power that the mere pretense of guilt has exercised in American life for the last half-century.

White guilt is not angst over injustices suffered by others; it is the terror of being stigmatized with America’s old bigotries—racism, sexism, homophobia and xenophobia. To be stigmatized as a fellow traveler with any of these bigotries is to be utterly stripped of moral authority and made into a pariah. The terror of this, of having “no name in the street” as the Bible puts it, pressures whites to act guiltily even when they feel no actual guilt. White guilt is a mock guilt, a pretense of real guilt, a shallow etiquette of empathy, pity and regret.

It is also the heart and soul of contemporary liberalism. This liberalism is the politics given to us by white guilt, and it shares white guilt’s central corruption. It is not real liberalism, in the classic sense. It is a mock liberalism. Freedom is not its raison d’être; moral authority is.

When America became stigmatized in the ’60s as racist, sexist and militaristic, it wanted moral authority above all else. Subsequently the American left reconstituted itself as the keeper of America’s moral legitimacy. (Conservatism, focused on freedom and wealth, had little moral clout.) From that followed today’s markers of white guilt—political correctness, identity politics, environmental orthodoxy, the diversity cult and so on.

This was the circumstance in which innocence of America’s bigotries and dissociation from the American past became a currency of hardcore political power. Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton, good liberals both, pursued power by offering their candidacies as opportunities for Americans to document their innocence of the nation’s past. “I had to vote for Obama,” a rock-ribbed Republican said to me. “I couldn’t tell my grandson that I didn’t vote for the first black president.”

For this man liberalism was a moral vaccine that immunized him against stigmatization. For Mr. Obama it was raw political power in the real world, enough to lift him—unknown and untested—into the presidency. But for Mrs. Clinton, liberalism was not enough. The white guilt that lifted Mr. Obama did not carry her into office—even though her opponent was soundly stigmatized as an iconic racist and sexist.

Perhaps the Obama presidency was the culmination of the age of white guilt, so that this guiltiness has entered its denouement. There are so many public moments now in which liberalism’s old weapon of stigmatization shoots blanks—Elizabeth Warren in the Senate reading a 30-year-old letter by Coretta Scott King, hoping to stop Jeff Sessions’s appointment as attorney general. There it was with deadly predictability: a white liberal stealing moral authority from a black heroine in order to stigmatize a white male as racist. When Ms. Warren was finally told to sit, there was real mortification behind her glaring eyes.

This liberalism evolved within a society shamed by its past. But that shame has weakened now. Our new conservative president rolls his eyes when he is called a racist, and we all—liberal and conservative alike—know that he isn’t one. The jig is up. Bigotry exists, but it is far down on the list of problems that minorities now face. I grew up black in segregated America, where it was hard to find an open door. It’s harder now for young blacks to find a closed one.

This is the reality that made Ms. Warren’s attack on Mr. Sessions so tiresome. And it is what caused so many Democrats at President Trump’s address to Congress to look a little mortified, defiantly proud but dark with doubt. The sight of them was a profound moment in American political history.

Today’s liberalism is an anachronism. It has no understanding, really, of what poverty is and how it has to be overcome. It has no grip whatever on what American exceptionalism is and what it means at home and especially abroad. Instead it remains defined by an America of 1965—an America newly opening itself to its sins, an America of genuine goodwill, yet lacking in self-knowledge.

This liberalism came into being not as an ideology but as an identity. It offered Americans moral esteem against the specter of American shame. This made for a liberalism devoted to the idea of American shamefulness. Without an ugly America to loathe, there is no automatic esteem to receive. Thus liberalism’s unrelenting current of anti-Americanism.

Let’s stipulate that, given our history, this liberalism is understandable. But American liberalism never acknowledged that it was about white esteem rather than minority accomplishment. Four thousand shootings in Chicago last year, and the mayor announces that his will be a sanctuary city. This is moral esteem over reality; the self-congratulation of idealism. Liberalism is exhausted because it has become a corruption.