Dwayne Betts on Ellison, Levi, and Human Suffering

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4.7 • 4.3K Ratings

🗓️ 2 May 2022

⏱️ 84 minutes

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Summary

In his memoir of his time in Auschwitz, Primo Levi describes Jewish prisoners bathing in freezing water without soap--not because they thought it would make them cleaner, but because it helped them hold on to their dignity. For poet and author Dwayne Betts, Levi's description of his fellow inmates' suffering, much like the novelist Ralph Ellison's portrayal of early twentieth-century black life in America, is much more than bearing witness to the darkest impulses of mankind. Rather, Betts tells EconTalk host Russ Roberts, both authors' writing turns experiences of inhumanity into lessons on what it means to be a human being.

Transcript

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0:00.0	Welcome to Econ Talk, Conversations for the Curious, part of the Library of Economics and Liberty.
0:07.8	I'm your host, Russ Roberts of Shalem College in Jerusalem and Stanford University's Hoover
0:12.7	Institution.
0:13.7	Go to econtalk.org where you can subscribe, comment on this episode and find links down
0:18.6	the information related to today's conversation.
0:21.4	You'll also find our archives with every episode we've done going back to 2006.
0:26.8	Our email address is mail at econtalk.org.
0:30.3	We'd love to hear from you.
0:37.7	Today is March 23, 2022.
0:39.7	My guest is Dwayne Betts.
0:41.8	His first appearance on econtalk was October 2020.
0:45.0	When he talked about reading, his time in prison, his poetry collection entitled Felen,
0:49.8	and his project, which is now called Freedom Reads, which has the goal of placing a curated
0:54.7	500 book collection in prison housing units so that curious prisoners can have access
1:01.1	to books.
1:02.4	And since he was here the first time, he has won a MacArthur grant.
1:06.0	And although we don't want to believe that correlation is causation, you never know.
1:11.7	Could be true.
1:12.7	Could be.
1:13.7	After econtalk, everything turned around for Dwayne.
1:17.7	Just kidding, but I am thrilled about that project, Freedom Reads.
1:21.6	And if you have not looked into it, we will of course have a link to the website.
	...

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