Ryan Holiday & Why Courage Is The Virtue In Shortest Supply
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All right, boys and girls, I'm Ben Domenech, and we are back with another edition of the Ben Domenech podcast brought to you by Fox News. You can check out all of our podcasts at foxnewspodcast.com. You can also rate and review this one. I hope you will wherever you get your podcasts. You can also subscribe to my daily newsletter, The Transom, at thetransom.org. You can check that out. I've now moved over to Substack for those daily email newsletter offerings. And I'll see you next time.

And today we are going to be discussing the issue of courage with one of my favorite authors, Ryan Holiday. I've talked to him about a number of his books. They're really interesting things, especially because of his focus on stoicism in an era in which stoicism seems to be in short supply. His latest book is Courage is Calling, Fortune Favors the Brave. It's part of a series of books that he is starting up consistently.

concerning the four cardinal virtues. Ryan and I talked about a number of different aspects of courage, examples of it through history, some of the moral questions involved in the context of the pandemic, and his perspective as someone who comes from the world of corporate America but has now been experiencing the pandemic in the context of living near Austin in Texas. Ryan Holiday, coming up next.

Precise, personal, powerful. It's America's weather team in the palm of your hands. Get Fox weather updates throughout your busy day every day. Subscribe and listen now at foxnewspodcast.com or wherever you get your podcasts. Ryan Holiday, thank you so much for taking the time to join me today. Yeah, thanks for having me.

You have been someone who focused on stoicism in previous writings, and now you've taken up a series of books that are going to be on these four different cardinal virtues. Tell me a little bit about why you chose to do that.

And particularly what it meant for you to spend so much time writing about each of them in a moment in American history and world history where relatively few people are interested in looking back at these past types of virtues and applying them to our lives today.

Well, I'm always fascinated when like different philosophical schools or maybe people of different persuasions like agree on something. And obviously, I knew, you know, the sort of stoic virtues of courage, temperance, justice and wisdom. And I was reading C.S. Lewis's Mere Christianity as this great series on the cardinal virtues.

And I had always thought that cardinal had some religious connotation. And it wasn't until I was reading his very fascinating explanation that I was informed that cardinal comes from the Latin word cardos, which just means hinge. So the idea is that these are sort of four pivotal virtues that the good life depends on. And I loved that stoicism and Christianity, enemies in ancient Rome for sure,

were actually in agreement on these sort of core ideas. And I think when you look at today's world, a lot of people are adrift, a lot of people are struggling precisely because they don't have sort of a core set of values or a code.

and, and so I, as I was thinking about what I wanted to write about next, um, it, it really struck me that this sort of core overlap between these ideas would be really interesting. And of course, courage being of the virtues, perhaps the, in the shortest supply these days. I have to ask before we go any further, are you going to spend 300 pages on temperance? So that is the book I am in the middle of right now. And, uh,

I found this on, I did a book on ego several years ago, and that actually began as a book about humility. And what I quickly realized is that you can't write 300 pages about humility because it's really boring and not particularly inspiring, even though we all

admit that it's very important. So as I've been thinking about temperance, I have pivoted towards self-discipline, which I think is the closer sort of stoic interpretation of the idea. Temperance seems like this kind of middle of the road, moderation in all things, like what's the right amount? And that's certainly an element of temperance. But when I think of

That idea, that virtue, I think about it more of the sort of stoic idea of restraint and self-control and, you know, discipline. And so I'm going to I'm going to not make it a boring book about temperance. I'm going to make it about self-discipline.

I was thinking of the scene from Futurama where they're dealing with the planet of neutrals and the leader of the planet learns that they're about to be blown up. And his response is, tell my wife I said hello. So there is kind of a grayness to that that would probably not be the subject of a good 300 page book. But then, you know, you've found a way to turn a lot of these different topics into

you know, really fleshed out an interesting storytelling about different examples through history.

Courage, obviously, being one where I think the examples abound and where you found many of them and highlighted different aspects of it. It's the most demonstratable of the virtues. The thing that I think it has to be a question and I'm sure that I'm sure you've run into before me asking it is.

Talk to me about how courage exists as a virtue if separated from the aspect about which one is being courageous. So essentially...

Imagine, if you want to take an image of courage from the pantheon of world experience, I think that there were a lot of people who would probably pick the images of the man standing in front of the tanks in Tiananmen Square. And that is, of course, an incredibly moving and courageous image of

But part of that, of course, is the cause for which he's standing there. You don't know why he's doing it. You don't know the motivation involved. And imagine a situation in which one is being courageous on behalf of a goal that is ultimately not virtuous, not designed to increase human freedom, not in favor of

of the betterment of man, but is instead

toward a goal that we might find reprehensible. You know, I think a perfect example of this, you know, sort of in the American experience would be you talk about the courage of U.S. Grant. There are many Southerners who would say that, you know, Stonewall Jackson was courageous. Yes. Jeb Seward was courageous. You know, Robert E. Lee was courageous. You know, what –

How do you kind of think about courage as being not just, you know, standing up for something, but standing up for the right thing?

The virtues are inseparable. And it's really important that you bring this up because courage in the pursuit of an unjust aim, it might be courageous, but it's not virtuous. There's a Lord Byron quote that I love that I think captures perfectly what you're saying about the Civil War. I mean, imagine Robert E. Lee, he falls down on his knees and he's like, do I...

choose my state or my country. Imagine how agonizing that decision was. And then imagine being under fire, just stepping foot on a civil war battlefield that obviously that took courage. But Lord Byron says, "'Tis the cause makes all that hallows or degrades courage in its fall."

And so to fight for the worst cause that's probably ever existed is, you know, not what we're talking about when we're talking about courage. I think, you know, in today's world and sort of thrill seeking world, we might think, oh, it's courageous. You know, I love skydiving. And certainly that's not something I would do because I don't enjoy skydiving.

you know, being terrified. But I think we understand that there's a distinction between, you know, jumping out of an airplane on your birthday and jumping behind enemy lines at Normandy. There's sort of courage as a trick, you know, courage as a pursuit. And then there is the courage of like,

really putting it all on the line. And what that line is, is so important. I do tell a story in the book that you probably, I know we've shared a fascination with this. I think about

the editors of Gawker who quit on principle when management unpublished a story where they'd outed a gay executive at Condé Nast. Now, to quit your job on principle is a courageous, scary thing to do, and very few people would do that.

But the principle that they were defending was totally indefensible and they never should have put themselves in that position to begin with. So as we think about like what we're willing to risk or to bet or to, to, to sort of stand on, you know, the validity and the, the, the sincerity of that cause really does matter. And is there any situation that you can think of where people,

perhaps, you know, in a situation involving a lack of moral clarity, a lack of, you know, World War II-esque, you know, are we the baddies sort of moments where courage itself redeems in some way the cause that the person is representing, meaning that while there was no necessarily moral aspect to courage,

what someone is taking a stand for one way or the other, that that courage imbues it with a certain virtue. And the examples that I would think of in this case are,

you know, are, you know, something, something, there, there are many incidents in, in history where, you know, small acts spark, you know, larger events, you know, you know, the Arab spring is a perfect example, you know, for instance, but, but you, you know, the, the idea that the, the suicide of a, of a fruit merchant, you know, would in some way, you know, spark something like that is, is an incredible historical event. And, and, and history abounds with such stories. Um,

But the point being, if there is not such moral clarity, if one side is not battling for the enslavement of humanity or for the power to control the world in the case of the Third Reich, that you have courage kind of imbue the cause that the person represents or the principle that they're standing for with some greater sense of morality. Yeah, I think courage...

The tricky thing about really amazing displays of courage is that there's kind of a majesty to it, right? Again, even if you disagree, there's sort of that gallantry and just sheer bravery of it. I'm fascinated with Tennyson's

poem, The Charge of the Light Brigade, you know, sort of who remembers what the Crimean War was about or who was on the right side of it. And what's fascinating about The Charge of the Light Brigade is that it shouldn't have happened. It was like garbled orders upon garbled orders upon bad judgment, and

And these 600 horsemen run out on this plane, you know, essentially into charging into their deaths, but they do it in this sort of perfect lockstep in perfect discipline. Nobody questions it. Nobody hesitates. And there's a general watching a French general who says something and I don't, I don't speak French, so I won't try to do it. But he says something like,

you know, this is marvelous. This is amazing, but it's also madness, right? And I do think there is that sort of, I'm going to take a stand on this. I don't care. It's just, I'm tired of getting pushed around. There's like that. There's also the, look, my job is not to question the orders. My job is to execute the orders. And there is a kind of greatness to that. But I think when we zoom out, we just go,

OK, you know, pick its charge. What was it about? What was it for? Did it need to happen? Like, how pointless was it? I think there is inherently a kind of majesty and courage when people stand alone, when people risk everything that we do have to respect. But then as individuals, we have to always think about, like, well, why am I doing this? And does it really matter?

Who was the most evil person who showed courage that you considered putting in your book but didn't? Ooh, that is a good question. I mean, I do talk about Erwin Rommel in the book, and he makes this big distinction between sort of –

uh, boldness and gambles, you know, boldness is when there's a, uh, a high probability of success or a probability of success, and also a probability of failure. And you decide to roll the dice anyway, you, you know, it's sort of fortune favors the polls. Then he says, uh,

Often what will happen, though, is that out of a lack of boldness day to day, you find yourself in a position where you have to gamble everything. And ultimately, this is Rommel to a T, right? Rommel is not a Nazi, not a Hitler fan, but sort of.

goes like, it's not my job to do something about this. I'm just a general. And so he delays and delays and enables and enables and is complicit until eventually he sort of realizes and gambles on this assassination attempt that fails and ultimately ends in his own death.

But I think this idea that we can find ourselves in a position where a lack of sort of day-to-day courage puts us in a desperate moment, puts us in a moment where we have to be courageous, that had we just, you know, been a little braver a year earlier, five years earlier, we never would have been in such desperate straits.

In the context of the current pandemic, there is a real dynamic, I feel,

of the language of courage being embraced and afforded to people who are either refusing to follow government orders or who are taking stands against it that are essentially costing them their jobs. We've seen hundreds and hundreds, if not hundreds,

I mean, at this point, it might be more than 10,000 healthcare workers laid off over the past couple of weeks because of refusal to comply with various mandates. We've seen many people who are...

ending their careers, either in academia or in the field of teaching and the like over what they feel to be deeply held principles or their own kind of whatever reason they're picking. They don't want to go along with things. They view that. I would assume that they and their friends view that as an act of courage, meaning that they are willing to sacrifice their

something that might be essential to them living the kind of lives that they want to live in order to abide by their principles. What I have to ask you is, regardless of your opinion of their decision, do we have to give them kind of credit for that to be willing to stand up for something that they believe in and make that choice?

Or, you know, to get back to my earlier question, is this a situation where this is foolhardy, you know, and because this is foolhardy, we shouldn't, you know, either give credit to it or we should say, you know, it's not something that ought to be held up as courageous because it certainly plays that way on social media, right?

And comes across that way when these people do interviews, that they are taking a stand against the man, against the dominant force in their lives and risking a great deal in order to abide by their principles. It's tricky. And I actually think we struggle as a society with these sort of morally complex, you know, ideas.

Keith's talked about negative capability, the ability to have two contradictory ideas in your head at the same time. I do think there's some credit. And I actually wrote a piece that was I was hoping would run in The Times and it hasn't for reasons I think you'll imagine about the sort of perverse courage of an anti-vaxxer or a sort of a covid conspiracy theorist. Right. Right.

Kyrie Irving is willing to give up $400,000 a game to not get vaccinated. That's, you know, that that's a stand. I mean, it's certainly putting his money where his mouth is. Um,

And there is a certain amount of courage in that he's going to lose endorsements, I'm sure he's going to get negative media attention. And imagine the pressure from the league, from society, from his teammates to change. And he's saying, like, no, this is what I think. I'm not going to do it.

And obviously, we need people like that in society, right? We need people who are resistant to the pressures of an overwhelming majority. Think about the first guy who's like, hey, I think we're spreading germs with our hands. And everyone's like, what are you talking about? You're crazy, right? Progress depends on people who do stuff like that. And it depends on people who are not scientists, but just sort of

buck whatever the trend is. There's a famous picture of a, again, we keep talking about the Nazis of a, of like one guy in an enormous crowd, not, not giving the Nazi salute. Right. And so, so on the one hand, I think we can respect that, but we have to go, this is what we're talking about earlier. Like, what is the cause, right? What are you standing for? Um,

And why suddenly did you get this belief? Where did it come from? And so I don't think that courage is just about, you know, is the cause just or not, but also the virtue of wisdom, right? Where did you get this information? What so radicalized you about it, right? What is the principle that you're standing for? And I think when we think about the teacher or the NBA player or whomever who's decided to take, you know, let's say a resistance to a vaccine, right?

Now, what is the principle that you're fighting for? Possibly, you know, sort of autonomy over one's body. But when you really boil it down, it's the...

It's the right to be a vector of a virulent strain of a pandemic. And the United States has always had to figure out the tension between where does your liberty begin to infringe on my liberty? And I think vaccines are right at the intersection of those things. And I think we can both acknowledge the loneliness of the stand and recognize

the validity of the stand. Well, I think that that's an important distinction that you've made there because, you know, from my perspective, you know, the reason that governments...

you know, are instituted among men, if you go back through history, are, you know, to establish law and order, to adjudicate borders and to defend them, and to prevent against the spread of disease, which is part of that border, you know, security. If you go back historically, you know, this was something that cropped up

quite regularly, you know, and and because, you know, you would have diseases that we now treat with a shot that would essentially wipe out a million people back in the day. But but but there's also this tension now.

with viewing people as individuals, with rights, you know, the post-enlightenment view of them as having those rights at the center of our existence and particularly their religious rights and, you know, their ability to decide and determine their treatment and the treatment of their children, the upbringing of them. That's all things that we, you know, certainly, you know, in America,

believe are incredibly important. I am disappointed with the absence of one thing from your book. And I have to admit, I have to admit, I was really hoping it would be in there, but it isn't in there. And so this knocks your, I know you're this wonderful combination of nerd jock,

But this knocks your nerd cred down a bit. You don't have the Captain America quote in there from Civil War, the comic book, not the movie. Okay.

which is about, you know, the, the, the nation was, this nation was founded on one principle above all else, the requirement that we stand up for what we believe no matter the odds or the consequences when the mob and the press and the whole world tell you to move, your job is to plant yourself like a tree by the river of truth and tell the whole world, no, you move. And

And that to me is, yeah. So that, that to me is, is a wonderful example of this because in the context, of course, and you, you've probably seen the movie or if you haven't, you know, but the dispute, the inherent dispute there is a, is a very Patriot act sort of level dispute about, you know, the, the ability of the government to take over and control, um,

superheroes and manage their identities and be aware of where they are and caps on one side and Iron Man's on the other. And it's, it's kind of a, you know, it's a, it's an ideological dispute that takes place within the comics.

And to me, one of the things that made that story arc so interesting was just this is a valid dispute. One of them is about individual liberty and the other is about an interest in protecting national security. And that that's something that's at the core of so many of our disputes in America and around the world in this age. And that is something that I think you can understand

honor and respect the courage on making the argument on both sides of that, which is to say, you know, one side saying we have to sacrifice some degree of individual freedom in order to, you know, seek out the benefit of humanity and to protect the people of the nations. And then on the other side saying, you know, I don't believe that I have to go along with that and I'm willing to take a stand against it.

To me, that's an element of this that receives very little respect in today's media, where basically the cause that you're arguing for determines whether the act is courageous or whether it's terroristic and destructive and something that goes against the goodness of humanity. And I feel like that plays out in an ongoing drama in our media with regularity.

I think you're right. And look, perhaps a more, a less morally fraught area to look at this is art, right? It's like part of what makes it art is that the artist decides that it's art, right? And they have the courage to be like, this is my vision. This is what I think. I don't really care if you agree with it or not. And in fact, the fact that you disagree with it makes me more committed to it, right? And I think

We do need those people. The idea that everyone should go along with everything and be on the same side of everything and there should never be any disagreement. We don't actually want to live in that world either. I think as Americans, we're really struggling and I've been thinking a lot about this during the pandemic. Viktor Frankl, the Holocaust survivor, said that he thought that

On the other side, on the other coast, we needed a counterpart to the Statue of Liberty as a statue of responsibility. And I think we have struggled in the pandemic to balance these two ideas between liberty and and responsibility. And sometimes we've gone too far in one direction and sometimes too far in the other direction. But I think primarily, yes.

You know, a lot of people are making very strong arguments about liberty, are sort of assuming that we're all on the same page as far as the obligation of responsibility.

And I just haven't seen that. I would love to live in a world where the government doesn't tell you that you have to get this shot or, you know, take this test or whatever. But the way to do that would be, you know, to have sort of voluntary unsolicited compliance at such a level that, you know, there's not the danger of letting it go unchecked. And I think we have...

We have not done ourselves any favors. As you well know, the founders believed that the system was dependent on the ultimate check of virtue in the people. And if you don't have that, you find yourself in these massive collective action problems like we're in the middle of. Well, but part of this too, though, and we have to keep this in mind, is that

the distance that has emerged between America's leadership class and the people who are supposed to listen to them or that we expected. I mean, this weekend, yesterday, in fact, Anthony Fauci went on TV and was asked a question on CBS about whether Christmas gatherings would be allowed this year. And he said it was too soon to say. And two hours after he said that on CBS, he

CBS was showing NFL football games where you had 70,000 people gathered in stadiums cheering together and having a great time. And my response to that would be, does Anthony Fauci not have a television, which I'm

Sure, is not the case. Or does he realize how absurd this is in the sense that, like, you're saying I may not be able to get together with some of my family members for Christmas, even as, you know, you know, yesterday, 120,000 people or whatever are at Penn State jumping up and down together.

And so the point is like, you know, you've lost, you've lost the chain. So instead, you know, let's, let's maybe focus on things where we can alter human behavior and the like. It just seems to me that we have a leadership class that has, has taken upon itself

uh this this idea of the way they frame leadership that is divorced in significant ways from the reality of the way that people behave and live and ought to adjust itself accordingly in order to try to

do things that are more achievable. And that, you know, it may sound courageous to say, you know, well, you're not going to be able to do this thing or to take some kind of firm stand on principle. But if everybody's just rushing through pell-mell and they're not going to listen to you anyway, perhaps you ought to adjust the message that you're trying to send.

I think that's right. And I mean, certainly we've also seen leaders struggle to just actually follow the advice and demands that they are so sort of flippantly expecting everyone else to follow. So, you know, General Mattis says, you know, the perk of leadership is not a bigger tent, right? It's that you actually hold yourself to a higher standard. And I'm not sure...

I would be hard pressed to think of leaders in America or elsewhere who have held themselves to a higher standard than the population that they have so often lectured about COVID and safety and protocols and all of that. We'll have more with Ryan Holiday right after this.

I'm going to dispute something that you write in your book. Okay. And, and I, I honestly, I, I gather no pleasure from this, but it's only, it's only because I have immediate knowledge of the actual incident. Okay. You, you write of, of my father-in-law's vote against the,

uh, the repeal of the affordable care act or actually a vote, uh, to, uh, advance that to what would have gone to a conference. Uh, and you say in part, he was not conflicted at all, nor did he waver or question himself. Um,

i know that okay i know that i had multiple arguments with him literally on the plane to go and do that vote that that was really i would say qualified it's wavering so interesting so but but but i would say uh what what did become what was very evident um

with Senator McCain's approach to politics, which I do think that you grasped correctly, is that he didn't particularly care what people around him thought of him. And this was an incredibly freeing element for a politician, meaning that if you go into politics, most people who do care deeply about what those who are around them think of them.

It's, you know, I mean, it's second only to the industry of acting or something like that. You know, you really do care. But if you arrive with the kind of attitude that, like,

Like, there's a bunch of different ways I should have died before I got here. Then it's actually incredibly freeing. And it gives you a persnickety nature, to put it kindly, that is very difficult for other politicians to understand. And I do think that one of the things that goes into that is.

you have less of a feeling of negativity around the idea of, well, if I do this thing or take this stand, other people who I have to associate with will strongly dislike me for it. And to me, that's actually something that we would be really benefited by in politics today. If there were more people who had the attitude coming in,

of I don't particularly care what anybody in this town thinks of me, that that would actually end up with better policy outcomes and perhaps more representative policy outcomes than one where people are deathly afraid of not being invited to the right parties, not being included in the right events and that type of thing going forward.

No, it's, it's fascinating to hear that. And, and, and I, I almost, I'm almost more encouraged by it because if the, if the decisions are easy and straightforward, they almost seem God-like, but I guess I was more talking as you walked up there, you know, he wasn't hemming and hawing. He sort of did it with that sort of McCain-esque, like, this is who I am deal with it. And I love that. And, and I love the fact that, that,

you know, people who celebrated it sort of think that he was on their side. And I almost like that he wasn't right. If he could have repealed ACA under, under the conditions. Well, what's even funnier is that people thought that he was being rushed back to vote in the opposite direction.

So they had this sort of whipsaw effect of everyone saying, you know, no delay or do this or do that, you know, and then he votes that way. And then they all cheer and it's like, yeah, but he's not even actually that way for the reason that you want him to vote that way. So it's just I don't know.

But continue. I interrupted. Yeah, no, no. When you've pissed off both sides, it probably means you've taken at least a relatively unique and almost certainly lonely stand. And I just love that. And I agree. What's so fascinating to me about, you know, our politicians these days, particularly the Senate. I mean, what other profession gives you guaranteed job security for six years? And then what other profession has the opportunity

the people least willing to use that freedom in any substantive way. I, it's so interesting to me that, that they get elected and then they're obsessed with,

with what people think. And it's like, you have five years to work on that, right? Why don't you, why don't you take the stand that you think is important and trust that you'll, you'll work it out. And, and I'm, I'm also baffled when I do talk to, to politicians that I know, most of them hate the job that they are so desperate not to lose. You know, that's, well, it's very true. And keep in mind, you know, when you're talking about the Senate, I mean, this is the, you know,

politically speaking, not real in terms of compared to the billionaires and the like of leaders of industry and big tech and such. But you're one of the 110 most important people in the country along with the Supreme Court and the president. And so the idea that you are in a position of weakness to advance anything or to put anything in front of people, that you are essentially...

bouncing around cable news guests, you know, trying to basically do a bad version of PR is pretty ridiculous. I know you're someone who has studied the way that politicians have worked through the centuries and political courage and the ability to put significant issues in front of

of the, of the people who can make significant decisions for the countries that they represent, you know, is something that you have to be aware of what can be done to try to get through the, the skulls of these senators. The idea is,

That you are in a position of great importance. You have significant power and the people want you to use it and they want you to use it for more than simply, you know, whether the neighborhood bridge gets renamed or not.

You know, going back to the Romans, I think they had this idea of like a sort of a revolving door of public service. And I know that that has a negative connotation today because it implies corruption. But the idea that, you know, back all the way to like Cincinnatus, that you were called upon by destiny or duty or a specific issue to come and do something, to do that specific thing. And then

hand the power over to someone else, right? I think we have lost a sense of what the job is. And so people have defaulted to the job is to continue to have the job.

Right. Like the job is to be more famous as a senator, as opposed to the job is to legislate. You know, the Senate of, say, Lyndon Johnson's time or specifically in Johnson's view, you know, the job of the Senate was to pass legislation to move the levers of power. We kind of have this deferential idea now of the legislative body as not being elected.

not only not co-equal, but somehow being sort of inferior or reactionary. And as you said, it sort of primarily makes itself felt on cable news shows and on Twitter, or as one recent congressman said, you know, via the comms department. What is the point of being one of 500 or one of 100 if the platform you use that to...

is to be an influencer. We don't need more social media influencers or authors. And I'm saying that as an author, anyone can do my job. Only 100 people can pass legislation. And so if you're not going to do that job, and if you're not willing to take

you know, sort of public stands or risk the job to pass certain legislation. This is just not the job for you. It's not you're a bad person, but it's just this isn't the job for you. You know, one of the aspects that I think we have to talk about regarding courage

is the institution of cancel culture, which I hope you will not deny in American society today, which is

You know, you you mentioned earlier kind of not caring about what the audience thinks. We lost Norm MacDonald recently, and he's a perfect example of someone who didn't particularly care if the if the audience laughed at the joke or not, if he thought it was a good joke. You know, and I think that one of the things that we've seen within comedy and within other aspects of society is the rise of a cancel culture where.

Typically, a small number of people, but ones whose ideas can be amplified via social media, is used as a weapon against people who say things that are intemperate or that offend people.

whether they're true or not, whether it's a joke, whether it's something that they've said in the past. And I'd like, you know, for you to tell me a little bit about the courage that it takes to stand up against that mob, because that's not something that I feel like we have had historically to the degree that we have it today because of the immediacy and the audience involved with social media, that you can essentially have someone

go from

making a mistake, saying something intemperate, doing something that's stupid, or even doing something that isn't stupid, but simply people dislike to being fired by the end of the day. Talk to me about the degree to which that has changed the demands on courage for the average American citizen who, you know, typically in the past could have made a hundred different mistakes in a day without it getting that kind of popular awareness. Yeah.

I actually think cancel culture goes way back. I mean, and it's probably worse in the ancient world in the sense that, you know, today, maybe you lose your job. But in the past, you got exiled, executed. You lose your head. There was a quip from one of the early Stokes, Chrysippus. He said, you know, if I cared about the mob, I wouldn't have become a philosopher.

And so by the same token that these politicians owe a certain duty to the office to be sort of above wanting to be liked, I also think as creators and as artists and as thinkers, we have a similar obligation.

To me, the flip side of cancel culture is what they're calling audience capture, where the person is so obsessed with what the audience thinks that they just tell them what they want to hear all the time, even if that thing is controversial or politically incorrect. I

You and I don't agree on a lot of political issues, I'm sure, but I'm always interested when I'll write something and I'll get a nasty letter from some fan and they go, didn't you know you would lose fans because of this? And I go like, look, I didn't build a platform to then be owned by the platform. Like my job is to say what I think, what I think is true, what I believe to be important, what I think people need to hear. And that to a certain degree, you have to say sort of consequences be damned.

And that's hard for people to do because that comes at the expense of the bottom line. So I think cancel culture is real. I think it's certainly alarming. I think as individuals, the idea of participating and calling for people's jobs or piling on is sort of shameful and embarrassing. I also think that as creators or as thought leaders or whatever you want to call it, like this is, that is a...

what's the word that, that, that's a reality of the profession and you have to proceed despite it because if you're not willing to, again, you've, you've chosen the wrong line of work. Is there a lot of courage in Silicon Valley today?

Well, I think, is there courage in starting a business from nothing? Leave it like, you know, you think about your average founder, you know, they probably quite easily could have had a very comfortable, very lucrative job inside the bowels of Google or Apple or Twitter or Facebook, right? So is there courage in the sense of like,

These are people who are, you know, eating what they kill, betting on themselves. Yes. Is there some sort of ideological conformity that probably hints at a lack of courage? Yeah, probably. And I also think, you know, if you're going to take a bet on yourself, why don't you do something that really matters instead of, you know, like creating another app, you know, that just sucks up people's time. So, yeah.

I don't know. I mean, I think Silicon Valley is a place whose ethos is now spread throughout the country. So it's hard to like really say this is what Silicon Valley is. But if there was a place that I would put this statue of responsibility that we're talking about, I think Viktor Frankl is right that San Francisco Bay would be a nice place to have a visible reminder of what our obligations to each other and the common good are. Yeah.

The dynamic that we've seen in recent years in corporate America has been one where many people, certainly people on the right, feel that HR departments have been taken over by a lot of woke members of cancel culture and that this has fueled the actions of a lot of corporations that have not traditionally really weighed in on masterminds.

matters of societal or culture war issues or the like, that they were content to sort of say, hey, Republicans buy sneakers too. We're not going to take sides in one way or the other. Many people feel that that's changed and that that's led to a higher level of division, but also a higher level of people internal to these large firms, large businesses who feel that they're

Views have to take a back seat or that they should remain silent about them, lest they risk losing their job is talk to me about the courage dynamic in that context. It's I mean, your books obviously have a huge appeal to the type of people who are.

and CEOs and creators and people who are, you know, at the tops of their profession. I mean, I can't think of another author who I would name before you in terms of, you know, recommending you to people who are starting and leading businesses and the like. And I think that that view is shared and is to your credit. But what about the people who are lower down the chain, who feel that the action of courage in their respect is

is, you know, whether or not they have, you know, heck, a cartoon up, you know, pinned up in their cubicle, you know, or something that they might say, you know, to a fellow colleague or something along those lines that might let that, you know, historically would not have let them to have any problem with it. But within the last couple of years would mean, you know, oh, this is going to get me an HR complaint, something along those lines. Yeah. What do you say to them?

Well, I have a sort of maybe a slightly different take on woke capital, which is that I think a lot of this energy, it's typically coming from inside the company, then forcing the company to act publicly, is a result of the failures of political courage that we were talking about. So it's like the system is so...

Unresponsive, so jammed. So many obvious things that need to be done or not being done that people are like, well, if my elected representatives won't do it, where do I have leverage? And in a time where talent gets to name its price, talent has a lot of leverage on their companies and the owners of those companies. And I think that's where that energy is going.

Now, does this require some courage on the part of the CEOs and the leadership of those companies to be like, hey, this is misplaced energy or there is some validity in this energy and some not, and that I am going to be the sort of tough boss who says, hey-

I'm okay with this. I'm not okay with that, right? Like I'm to, I think we've seen this in some companies, whether it's Coinbase or Basecamp, where they just sort of said, hey, look, we appreciate all the things that you guys are very passionate about, but here's our focus as a business. Everything outside of that, you know, please do at home. We're going to focus on this or that. I found those to be courageous, if again, not lonely and controversial stands. I think

Leaders have to make hard decisions and just going along with what everyone is yelling at you about because it's easier than sort of keeping your own house in order. I don't find that to be particularly courageous. And I would say, yeah,

There's something empty about telling other people how to do what they do. Meanwhile, you've got massive ethical issues in your supply chain and your investors and your partners. So it's sort of it's like you can decry the the the the the sliver in your neighbor's eye. But but why don't you focus on the log in your own? I was watching the podcast.

Lula Rowe documentary provided by Amazon the other day. And I was thinking to myself, you know, is the fact that these leggings are coming apart, does that really equate to the situation in most Amazon workshops today? You know, it just didn't equate quite for me. Let's go out on this. I've found your work to be so interesting,

Because you have a unique perspective and because you're someone who doesn't who no longer exists within this this corporate world that you once inhabited. What has your experience been in terms of living in Texas during this pandemic?

of seeing the reaction to what's been going on in the country, and particularly in being in a place that so many people have flocked to, many of them from California or from other blue states, because they wanted to escape the type of regulations and requirements that were being placed upon them.

Yeah, it's lovely. I live out in rural Texas, about 30, 45 minutes from Austin, and it's on some land. And the wonderfulness of Texas is that you can do whatever you want. And the frustration of Texas is that other people can do whatever they want, right? Whether that's shooting a...

a semi-automatic rifle at three in the morning or, you know, uh, coughing all over you, you know, there, there, there is this sort of tension between, uh, why are we providing certain freedoms and are people responsibly sort of, uh,

handling the freedoms that they have been given. I love Texas. I love the tension of being in a blue city, in a red state. I think that gives you most of what you want and sort of operates within the framers concept of sort of checks and balances. But I do think

Texas is struggling. I mean, why is Texas attracted so many people? Low taxes, low costs of living, live and let live, all of that. And I would say above that,

competence, right? Part of the frustration in California is not the onerousness of the regulations, but this sense that it's not working, that the government officials have grown sort of fat and entitled and ultimately not able to execute at the level that a tech business needs its government to execute. Right.

And so to me, the sort of canary in the coal mine for Texas is not some of this culture war stuff, but just like,

hey, why am I sleeping in my son's room in February so he doesn't freeze to death at night because we've lost power, right? So I think Texas is, it can be so easy to get caught up in these culture war things and this sort of almost governance by spite and lose track of what really matters to people, which is

Can can you do your job? And frankly, if you're running a limited government, you should be better at it because you have less to be responsible for. And that that is my sort of take on Texas.

Ryan Holiday's book is Courage is Calling. Fortune favors the brave. Ryan, thanks so much for taking the time to join me today. It was an honor. I appreciate it. So this week I'm going to be hosting the 7 p.m. hour of the Fox News primetime show. It's been a number of weeks that I've had a shot at doing that. I believe this is going to be my fifth week doing it.

And it's always an interesting experience. The theme for this week is going to focus on the issue of things that used to bring us together that now divide us and why. One of the aspects of this that I think we have to pay attention to

is the degree to which Americans are increasingly of a mind on having essentially a national divorce, some kind of secession, some kind of split that would allow blue and red to go separate ways. As we've had this kind of national sort where people are moving and living around their ideological interests,

Friends and neighbors in ways that they haven't necessarily historically. That's obviously fueled a great deal of this. Stephen Malenga writes about it in a piece at City Journal that I think is worth your time concerning a new poll from the University of Virginia Center for Politics.

He writes,

But the schism was already evident in the increasing number of state and local officials enacting laws and policies that ban travel and restrict commerce with other American places with governments they object to, a trend that the COVID-19 emergency has only deepened.

In everything from tax policy to travel to contracting rules, a secession movement within the states has been building for years. California recently banned any state-sponsored travel by its employees to Ohio based on a 2016 law that imposes penalties on states that California officials deem to be discriminating against lesbian, gay, bisexual, or transgender residents.

The Golden State originally passed the 2016 legislation.

After North Carolina enacted a bill requiring people to use public bathrooms based on their birth gender, five other states, Washington, Minnesota, New York, Vermont, and Connecticut, joined California in restricting commerce with North Carolina. Since then, the number of laws that allegedly run afoul of California's 2016 measure have proliferated, and so have the bans.

California now restricts government finance travel in 18 other U.S. states and containing 116 million people, including both Carolinas, both Dakotas, Texas, and Florida.

Most recently, California applied its restrictions to states that require transgender athletes to participate in high school sports based on their birth gender, even though prominent LGBTQ athletes such as Martina Navratilova have endorsed a similar policy. Once states and cities embark on these kind of prohibitions, there's nothing to stop them from spreading, and they have.

A decade ago, for instance, Los Angeles restricted travel by city employees to Arizona because of its immigration policy and urged city departments not to do business with firms in the state. Among other things, city police refused to send helicopter pilots to training sessions taking place in Phoenix. City council members refused to attend a National League of Cities conference in Arizona. A few years later, LA added its own restriction on travel to North Carolina and Mississippi over their transgender bathroom laws. A

Abortion restrictions are the next target of such bans. Officials in Portland, Oregon are contemplating boycotts against Texas over its new abortion law. This could put at risk some $35 million in business with Texas suppliers, as well as extensive travel by city officials. Plans for the ban ignited a war of words, with Texas Lieutenant Governor Dan Patrick tweeting, a boycott will hurt them, not us, and adding, Texas's economy is stronger than ever.

COVID-related state travel restrictions have raised tensions. At the height of the pandemic, 27 states enacted travel bans or quarantine requirements for residents of other states. Though the policies were ostensibly based on infection levels in other places, the travel restrictions were often arbitrary, with politically aligning neighboring states like New Jersey, New York, and Connecticut allowing travel and commerce with one another despite high infection rates. This, to me, is a development that I think we're only going to see continue.

And it's going to require a resurgence of appreciation for the model of federalism that our founders came up with and created, one that allows states to govern themselves differently and that understands that these states can make bad and stupid decisions, such as preventing officials from traveling to another state out of a fit of pique.

To me, this is going to be something that is a small aspect of the upcoming splits that are happening within the country, but it is no less significant in terms of an indication of the direction that we are heading. The country is coming apart in so many different ways. Now, that doesn't mean that we're about to have secessionist movements. It doesn't mean that we are on the cusp of a civil war. Such talk is foolishness, and anyone who says it is exaggerating things.

But what we are seeing is an increase in willingness to defy the normal and appropriate aspects of treatment of travel and commerce between states, something that is only going to increase the tensions and is going to ultimately lead to a situation where the products and the commerce that we have traditionally seen as being just a normal aspect of doing business in America now come into question.

I'm Ben Domenech. You've been listening to another edition of the Ben Domenech Podcast. We'll be back next week with more. Until then, be lovers of freedom and anxious for the fray. Put the power of over 100 meteorologists and the worldwide resources of Fox in your hands with the Fox Weather Podcast. Precise, personal, powerful. Subscribe and listen now at foxnewspodcast.com or wherever you get your podcasts.