The new normal?

Transcript

Transcribed by machine from the recording.

Scott Chris, my friend, we're back in the saddle. Hey, Scott. Is it?

Chris Oh, my God. It's good to see you. It's late October.

Scott It's late October. It's been a while. I know. So for people that were missing the Atlas Project, we're back in the saddle. And we're going to talk a little bit about, is there a new normal? Well, what was normal? We were going and then we weren't, so now we're the new normal. We're back.

Chris In fairness, the thing that was abnormal for me is I went back to Canada for a couple of months, nine weeks, and the family stuff.

Scott You had to get a visa, right?

Chris I had to get a visa and everything took longer, of course, because of the year that we were in. When I was leaving, I was reflecting. It was probably the longest I've been back. You know, in the city of my birth in 25, 30 years. So it's quite, you know, it was good. And I feel like it was important to, you know, when you go back to a place, you know, where all my family is there, it is really important to leave some stuff behind. Not bring it all back with you, just to kind of create space for the stuff that you can only do when you're physically together with family. So I really appreciate that you gave me the space to step away from the Atlas Project for a while and invest that time in some pretty selfishly private conversations. I didn't record them.

Scott They were good. I mean, the personal is the political and vice versa, right? And I think that's just definitely the case.

Chris It was also, by the way, great being back in North America to enjoy CNN and Fox News and watch late night television in real time as opposed to catching the best bits on rerun in the morning when I woke up here in London. It's a good year.

Scott You're a masochist.

Chris The thing is, and I know you can't fully appreciate this, but because I'm not one of your people, you can watch a lot of the chaos. If I were American, I'm certain that I would be there. Engage somehow in trying to help make sense of it all. But I feel like there is just so much energy in that conversation that it's nice to be able to be one step removed from it. Even though I know that it has profound consequences for me, my family, my country. I mean, no one in the world is disconnected from this, but it's nice nonetheless to feel one step removed so that you don't have to live in the midst of it. I don't know what it's like to be in it and you don't have the choice to step away from it.

Scott It's funny, and a lot of these friends have become relatively new friends through Basecamp. I've been talking and dialoguing a lot with Canadian friends around our political situation, the COVID situation. Canadians are really astute observers of the United States because you have access to our news and yet you're close enough to understand and different enough to be culturally distant to get a different take. I just find I learn a lot about American political and cultural life talking with Canadians. Because you guys, I mean, Canadians have a vested interest in it because we're neighbors and pretty interdependent on each other in many ways. And so, yeah, it's been really interesting. So we're going to talk a little about the new normal. And it's an interesting question because what is normal, right? Like what is... I think because we're in a sort of...

Chris The normal has been under threat all year, it seems, to the point where it starts to feel absurd to talk about going back to it. And that's why I agreed, we should take a moment and reflect on this word that seems so necessary in so many conversations, but isn't... We're just not giving it the thought that it deserves. So we have to understand, what are we saying to ourselves when we think, well, when things go back to normal? And I had a conversation just before I jumped on this call, and we were kind of talking about the imagery of, it's like we've kind of been thrown into the water. And back in February and March, I think that it's like we were holding onto some rope to pull us back into shore. And everything was on pause until we got back to shore. And then at some point, we realized that we're not getting back to shore. And at that point, kind of make a, I don't know, maybe some people have consciously made the choice, maybe many of us have not, but to kind of let the rope go and turn around and start swimming for the other shore.

Not quite knowing how far away it is. But it's kind of like we've been outside of normal for so long that new habits, new ways of thinking have taken hold and the normal is now a land we can never go back to because we've changed.

Scott And isn't that always, I mean, in some level that's always the case in world history, right? I mean, the past, As always, elusive when we're recalling it or whatever. But I mean, I do think, though, there is a difference in late modernity, right? And this is, I mean, any historian specialists that are listening are probably going to say this sounds like an absurd statement. But I think in... Most of your statements are absurd. It's absurd, right. It's part of the course, right? Yeah, that's right.

Chris It's part of the value you bring.

Scott Exactly. But don't you think for most, for massive chunks, Thank you. Thank you. You're in a particularly mobile kind of fluid culture, like the Roman Empire, where there's just a lot of, there's an intricate infrastructure. Or certain parts of golden ages of China, where there's a lot of infrastructure and there's a lot of movement. But by and large, a lot of people don't live in eras of normative kind of constant change. You think about like the 20th, you just think about World War I. You're beginning this war with guys on horseback with bright uniforms. And you're ending the war in modern camouflage uniforms with machine guns and mustard gas in one war. Over a couple years, stuff radically changes. This is why I feel like you go to the Apple store and you get your iPhone and you have buyer's remorse once you get it because it's like, well, in a year... I'm going to have some new thing that's going to make everything seem like this is passé.

Chris There's three giant themes that you just hit on. Maybe we can pick up a couple of them. One is you talk about historical nostalgia. One of the big threads, I'll just identify a couple of doorways. You pick where you want to go. One of the big doorways is there is something violent In the idea of normal. What do we mean when we say going back to normal? Are we talking about going back to restaurants and concerts or traveling? Are we talking about all the less visible but equally important issues of inequality, stress, money dominating politics? A lot of what is normal, if we're normalizing it, is a terrible violence. So that's a big doorway. The other big doorway, talk about technology. I mean, in the conversations I have and, you know, on the speaking circuit with business leaders and, you know, thought people or whoever they are. But one of the tropes, one of the oft repeated tropes this year has been how, you know, all the trends have been accelerated by this. Right. So people were getting into, you know, home delivery and now it's moved ahead so much faster than we expected.

You know, people were going mobile, and now, you know, the idea of, you know, tiny example somebody was talking about yesterday on a stage, on a virtual stage, was, you know, now, like, buying cosmetics. So you're not gonna go in and try a tester in store. Instead, you download the app, take a photo of yourself, and you touch up the photo, but with, like, real-life cosmetics you can buy, and decide, oh, that's what I wanna wear. So, like, we thought, like, that's gonna come in a few years' time, and then suddenly it had to come this year, because that was the only way. And so I think it's become maybe the most common and it's insightful, but also overused idea that that's what's happened to normal, is the stuff that was changing it is now changing faster.

Scott The slogan theme for both cycles has been Make America Great Again, although they flirted with Make America Great Again Again. But that tends to sort of hit at what you're getting at. At what point was America great? Because we've got a host of imperialistic... Since we've got a history of genocide... You've been talking to Canadians again. It's slavery. I mean, you think about, like, really, I mean, you know, up until 50 years ago, you know, like, really, African-Americans aren't really free. I mean, this is what the whole Civil Rights Movement's about. I mean, we ended slavery, but there was this century there where there's still not real freedom. And even now, they're still systemic. I mean, Philadelphia is literally on fire right now because of another... Really avoidable police shooting. So what's the normal? Is the normalcy normal for me? Or something that's anxiety-reducing, a memory or a nostalgia that's anxiety-reducing for me personally?

Chris So there's something there about, if we go back to the violence of the normal, and there's also a kind of violence in the prevailing myth. Thank you very much. I think it is part of, now I'm speaking, it's not my place to say, but I think there is an important part of the American identity is this belief in the kind of upward economic mobility. If you look at the statistics, and so the last time I heard it, I forget who it was, it must have been somebody on the campaign trail. I turned to my partner, looking at the statistics and the latest report on economic mobility, the United States is 27th or something, you know, behind sort of basically all the Western European countries, and then there's Canada, New Zealand, Australia, and then you get into the mixed cases. So again, it's this... But don't you think we're very much all...

There's no progress unless we can challenge the normal, right? So that's interesting, that there's such an intuitive desire to reclaim the normal. When in fact, you know, kind of one of the fundamental myths of the American dream, if we're sort of still on that topic, is progress, which is a consistent challenge to the normal. It's a myth that says that the normal is not nearly good enough. We are imperfect and we're imperfect people on this journey towards perfection, but we're never going to get there. And so we're always going to be, in theory, improving upon it. But we kind of take away Our habits and suddenly we desperately want them back. Or we used to. I mean, so this is the other thing I think about normal is, you know, I think we have to recognize that our habits change and they don't spring back. Our habits have changed. I was talking to an economist and, you know, economists have a fancy term called hysteresis. And basically refers to how if there's an economic depression and a lot of businesses go bankrupt, those businesses just don't automatically reappear when times are good again. So this up and down, there is a real kind of permanent consequence.

The stuff that's lost just doesn't return. And I think in hindsight, we're going to see from this time This period of time is sort of human hysteresis. Our habits have changed, and even when it becomes possible to reclaim them, we might not. I'm not actively dating at the moment, but I imagine if you're in your 20s, if you're going to university now and you're getting into relationships with people, the whole way of getting into relationship with someone has been remade. Well, and this is the interesting thing too. I think before the pandemic,

Scott People would say, well, online relationships aren't real relationships. But I think we've experienced now, like, just through Basecamp, like, I've met people through the couple virtual Basecamps we've done who've become close friends. And, you know, there's a church in Phoenix that I've done some stuff with, and I've done some, like, you know, talks and things for them, and I've developed relationships with people I've never met in person. But there is deeply... They're real, and they're real connections. You and I, we've met in person one time in our lives. That's true. One time, right? We've met one time in person, and yet we've spent hours and hours in conversation. You're one of my favorite conversation partners. I don't think there's anything... I think there's just kind of in the kind of technophobe sort of or culture reactionary kind of thing. It's like, well, these aren't real relationships. Well... I mean, of course they're different, but who's to say what's real? And I've talked to some people, actually some incredibly brilliant people who have been guests on the podcast who are in their, my guess is like 50s, and two of them said the same thing to me. They both said, and they don't know each other, they both said the exact same thing. They both each said they're reconciled to the fact that they may never go to a restaurant again.

And I thought, wow, I mean, that's, that's, right? And they both live, I mean, they both do, I think, live, they live in different states, but they both live in the Northeast. But I thought, wow, I mean, that's remarkable that they're both thinking the same thing. And that, so what you're talking about, the hysteresis, like, things like restaurants, I mean, this is, I mean, this is going to really change things for lots of economic models, lots of relational models.

Chris We've lost, we're just not going to pick it up again. Because maybe we were doing it and it wasn't a strong, compelling driver. It was just kind of the done thing. And once that is broken, then to recover it requires a real desire. And I think there are a lot of activities for which that desire doesn't exist. And you're right, I see it everywhere. So friends in the kind of big music festival business, And the prevailing wisdom there is that there were a lot of marginal festivals that are just never going to come back. And the good ones will. And so it's kind of like a culling of the dead wood sort of thing that's happening. Briefly, I should give a shameless plug for... The next virtual Basecamp, which is going to be November the 7th. It's a free global gathering place for us to have impactful conversations with improbable people. And I really think that, to your point, we have to seize the moment to create some of these new habits, which are really healthy for us. You know, around expanding the diversity and just the breadth of people that we can really connect with. While we're still in this moment where we're all kind of connected by the same event, if we don't come out of this moment having taken advantage of that, I think we've really missed just something of profound importance for the rest of our lives. I think there's really gonna be a kind of A slice of the world that comes out of this in relationship poverty and a slice of the world that comes out of this in relationship abundance.

And Basecamp is this free space where we try to enable anyone and everyone to achieve that abundance. I really feel like it's the most important thing that we're doing right now. So anyway, November 7th, journeytobasecamp.com. There's still spots available. Sorry, shameless plug done.

Scott No, I want to echo the shameless plug because I'll be there. And I had an experience the other day. This is kind of a roundabout way to say something about Basecamp. I participated in a COVID-19 vaccine trial that was going on here. Oh, yeah. Yeah, I filled out something on Facebook, and they called me a couple weeks later, like, are you still interested? Sure. I go, and I never felt such togetherness. The people that were conducting the trial, the medical professionals, the social workers, the technicians, they were so encouraging and grateful to me that I'd volunteer. I mean, they give you 50 bucks for your time or something, but you're there for like four hours. And I learned a lot about... The vaccine process, their work. I mean, I was grateful to them and we had this great... And then it was a gorgeous day and I walked to this place called Rittenhouse Square and just sat and ordered a little appetizer and sat there watching everybody in the city of Philadelphia with masks on and really...

This resoluteness. And I told some people, we're all sitting outside and they've got the tables distance, but I got in a conversation with a few people. We were talking about one guy was buying his first house in the city. He's been here for a decade and finally buying a home. And I told them about the vaccine trial and they were so encouraging, like, yeah, this is amazing that you're doing this. And I had this sense of solidarity that day, like, oh my gosh, even if the federal government is kind of abandoning us right now or seems inept, we're this sense in the city, we're making through this together, right? Like, we're together in this. I feel the same way at Basecamp. Like, it's this interesting group. Of global thinkers, artists, activists, entrepreneurs, creatives. But there's this sense of weird solidarity. It's hard to put your finger on the pulse. It's a lot about seeking questions more than answers and doing it together. And you come away in a time of incredible isolation. For me, Basecamp has been a node, a hub of solidarity.

Hey, here's a community we're journeying together. And it just makes the world a lot less of a lonely place. And it makes it a little less scary in the sense of you've got a bunch of people that are trying to summit the existential, intellectual kind of mountain with you. And it's great to not feel alone in that.

Chris It'll be great to have you there because what I love is to get your... Your thoughts and reflections on the improvements we've made and if there are improvements. So really exciting stuff happening at Basecamp. We've brought in a US theater director to help us just elevate the experience. And he's done some incredible work creating live Zoom theater performances with whole troops over the pandemic. So he's come in and helped and done so much great work.

Scott I did play Horace Vandergelder my senior year in high school in Hello Dolly, so I could be like, Hello Dolly, well, hello, hey, look, there's Dolly.

Chris I'll connect you to him and I'll see if he can use you in one of his upcoming... But yeah, we've just made an incredible investment into making something free better, which you don't see a lot of. But in part because we've been doing some private Basecamps for different organizations. We've been doing it for a national association of American school teachers and school administrators. Had a Basecamp last month, which was a great experience for them. Been doing it for public libraries. I mean, there's a lot of organizations who are asking themselves, how do we How do we help? How do we bring our community together in a time when we physically can't? What's a good way to doing that? And so that's given us some resources to make the free public base camps that much, just burn that much brighter. It also, as I think about it, and back to the... The topic of what is normal and what kind of normal do we want to leave this into? And I'm sure it's in the background of all your political conversations in the US right now. It's just the role of the big tech companies. We wouldn't be able to do the conversation we're having right now. We wouldn't be able to do Basecamps without the tech industry. And I think that this moment has really just demonstrated clearly to society that tech is not an industry anymore. It's something more pervasive than an economic sector. And it's troubling because These giant tech companies have become even more influential through this global experience and even more essential.

So how to kind of shape the role of technology and the power of tech companies Is that in the one sense become more urgent and important and the other sense been kind of more difficult because of how influential and essential they've become as just an element.

Scott And they occupy a unique place in the political and cultural landscape in that most of the tech companies are generally, the people that run them are generally kind of cultural liberals, progressives on one level, and yet are also almost sort of laissez-faire capitalists on the other level. So there are a lot of people that are like, look, they're identifying exactly what you're saying and thinking, Thank you so much for having me. It would be like living without power or water. And yet, big tech... And the same thing also with media distribution. Are you a platform or are you a publisher? And these are things we just don't know because these companies are relatively new. And they're so integrated into our existence, and yet we haven't gotten around to a way to culturally figure out what their place is in society. We know how to regulate... A power company or water company. We know how to regulate and deal with newspapers or magazines.

We don't know how to get the handle on this. And I don't think we're anywhere close to... I mean, when Mark Zuckerberg was first in front of the US Senate, and I think it was Orrin Hatch... You provide all these free services for all your users and you don't charge anything. How do you do this? And Zuckerberg looks at him and just goes, we sell ads.

Chris Not a complicated business model.

Scott You're just like, the politics is not ready to figure this out. Yeah.

Chris So interestingly, and maybe bring it full circle, I think you've just described kind of what I think we hope on its best day, Basecamp is a good space for, is exploring these problems that we don't know the answers, but we know the problem. And actually, back at the original Basecamp, one of the big conversations was around the role of technology platforms. And it was really interesting because it kind of bifurcated. There's a group of people who were We're convinced that private companies cannot be trusted to own and run and control these platforms. And so it had to be turned into like a public utility owned by government. And then there was a group of people who were convinced that government should not be running these technology platforms. What they shared in the larger umbrella that they became a unity of purpose is that they need to be improved. And they need to serve society. And they need to serve society better. And that's kind of the level of...

When you're looking for a solution, then the fact that I don't trust government and the fact that you don't trust business frustrates us from agreeing. When you're looking for a shared purpose, you can come together and you can continue a rich and important conversation and dialogue that needs to happen but can't happen if you rush to solution. Because that's what simplifies the world down into I see it my way and you see it yours and we just can't connect on this. So that was a profound insight for me, kind of like one of the original insights of why it's important to create spaces that aren't about answers, but are about questions, that aren't about solutions, but are about... I think it was Dwight Eisenhower who said, when I can't find a solution, I go back and I enlarge the problem. And the thinking of that is, yeah, because the solution tends to be a very reductive way. of looking at the world and the complexity of the world today means that we need to be expansive. Maybe that's my summary and my last word and then I'll leave you the final word on this question of, you know, what is normal?

I think, you know, intuitively what we both want to do is challenge the ease with which the idea of normal can really get reductive in a hurry. That this is what should be, and you just miss out on so much more that is. And so normal, as a concept, leaves out a lot. And that stuff that leaves out, I think, is really important.

Scott Yeah, and also I think it's oftentimes the thing... So everybody in the United States right now, and again, the world watches our elections because we're the last sort of big superpower and kind of thing. But everybody's convinced that everything's going to change after Tuesday. And I tend to think that the things that are going to change Like a fiasco so he could kind of raise his negotiating rates with NBC. Okay, I do decent in the presidential primary and then I can get more money out of NBC. I mean, we never thought, like, Trump wasn't going to be the new normal, right? So, I mean, I just think, like, yeah, just keep your eyes wide open and your ears close to the ground because the stuff that is really going to be... Disruptive, and also probably offers some unique opportunities. It's gonna be the stuff where oftentimes we're not seeing it or expecting it.

Chris That's a, okay, so I lied, I'm gonna take a last word, but then you can have the last word again. Because, like, yeah, maybe the meta-insight about Donald Trump was there was, you know, four years ago, there was this instinctive desire to kind of See it as abnormal, as an error, and therefore something that we got to kind of put it behind us, and then we can revert to normal. And what four years has forced people to confront and explore, and I think now people understand it much better, is that He is part of the reality. And just in anything, instead of kind of saying, oh, that's abnormal, to just shift our whole frame and say, that is part of the reality. And if it feels strange to me, that's because my mindset isn't paying attention to a lot of things. And I would hope, let's say the election goes the Democrats' way, I think there will be such a strong desire by so many people to kind of close the book on that abnormality, say, okay, we can stop taking all of that stuff as part of the reality that we're in.

I think that would be, just like if we exit this pandemic, say, okay, we just close the book on that and go back to normal. I don't know, stunts our own exploration and discovery of so much more we haven't been paying attention to.

Scott Yeah, I agree. So Trump's got 40% of the country behind him. And some of those people are pretty intense. Everyone's not going to go, OK, Biden won. We got to find a new passion. That's going to be there. And you have to figure out the new normal is not just going to... We're still going to have these tensions and battles and struggles. And it's just like, are there constructive new ways to engage them? That'll be the kind of thing. Can we reimagine New ways forward that don't ask people to just be canceled, but try to figure out ways to expand the conversation. I don't know if that's possible, but it seems like the only way out of the cul-de-sac and gridlock that, at least in the US, we're in, which would be helpful to get out of it.

Chris On that note, expand the conversation. All right, my friend. Stay safe. See you at Basecamp, November 7th.

Scott See you at Basecamp. This was great.