“Why We’re Divided” with Jon Yates

Uncomfortable Conversations with Josh Szeps

Josh Szeps

Comedy Interviews, Self-improvement, Society & Culture, Education, Comedy

4.6 • 863 Ratings

🗓️ 5 September 2024

⏱️ 61 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

Our societies are more diverse than ever, yet we spend more of our time with people just like us. Are we losing a sense of common life? Maybe the far left and the far right aren't the cause of our division, but a consequence of it?

Jon Yates is an entertaining, whip smart writer and activist who studies how to build a more united society. He says the problem is not that we're different from each other, but that we're distant from the other. We are not fractured because of Trump or Fox News or MSNBC - those are consequences, not the cause, of our fracturing. Our divisions create the space for demagogues, he argues, not the other way around.

Is he right? If so, what can we do? Jon has a few ideas. Many of them you won't like, especially the "Hitler-y" ones (we hope). But you definitely want to hear them.

Jon's book is called "Fractured". To hear more from clever bunnies like him, get our newsletter at https://uncomfortableconversations.substack.com/subscribe

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Transcript

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0:00.0	Goody, humans. Welcome to the safe space for dangerous ideas. Why are we all coming apart at the seams?
0:09.0	Why does it seem like politics is getting more fractious? The media is getting more hostile.
0:14.0	More and more little tribes and fiefdoms are becoming more out of touch with each other in these big societies of ours. Is that just an
0:21.1	illusion or is it actually happening? Today's guest understands more about this than most people do.
0:26.3	He's written a book about it and he'll explain what's happening to us, how we can fix it,
0:30.7	what it all has to do with President Eisenhower and the Battle of the Bulge, what it has to do
0:35.3	with Sri Lanka's civil war, what it has to do with
0:38.1	the founder of Singapore. It's a fascinating conversation. John Yates is a delightful intellectual,
0:43.5	a sometimes stand-up comic, therefore he's a very funny and interesting and entertaining person
0:48.7	to talk to as well as being insightful. He's the co-founder of several charities. He was the lead
0:53.6	policy advisor to the British Education
0:56.3	Secretary. He now leads the Youth Endowment Fund, which is a charity that studies how to reduce
1:01.8	violence. But really his main sphere of interest is writing about the divisions between us and
1:08.1	how we build a more united society.
1:13.7	His new book, his first book, is called Fractured.
1:16.1	Enjoying, the one and only, John Yates.
1:25.6	Epsom is the, uh, Epism's claim to fame is what?
1:28.1	A suffragist got run over by a horse?
1:30.6	A suffragist, yes, the King's horse, not just any horse.
1:32.7	We don't mess about when it comes to horses.
1:33.7	Don't want to shortchange, Epsom.
1:34.9	Exactly.
	...

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