WEBVTT 00:00:00.090 --> 00:00:04.504 Hey there, Shankar here. Do you feel like you've lost your ability to focus? 00:00:04.587 --> 00:00:09.237 Do you start a task and then quickly find yourself distracted by something else? 00:00:09.321 --> 00:00:11.510 We explore the research on attention. 00:00:11.940 --> 00:00:16.461 and how you can begin to reclaim your ability to focus in the latest episode 00:00:16.544 --> 00:00:18.180 on our new YouTube channel. 00:00:18.570 --> 00:00:23.824 Go to youtube.com slash at hidden brain or click the link in the show notes 00:00:23.907 --> 00:00:25.330 for today's episode. 00:00:26.070 --> 00:00:27.780 Okay. Here's today's show. 00:00:33.630 --> 00:00:35.890 This is Hidden Brain. I'm Shankar Vedanta. 00:00:36.570 --> 00:00:40.710 When children are very small, their minds are often an open book. 00:00:41.040 --> 00:00:43.900 They say what they mean. They blurt out things. 00:00:46.080 --> 00:00:49.140 This can come across as both cruel and charming. 00:00:50.500 --> 00:00:55.416 The little boy laughs aloud when someone slips on a banana peel and gets hurt. 00:00:55.499 --> 00:00:58.960 The little girl tells her uncle that his face is ugly. 00:00:59.490 --> 00:01:00.323 Thank you. 00:01:01.830 --> 00:01:06.706 In Hans Christian Andersen's famous folktale, The Emperor's New Clothes, 00:01:06.789 --> 00:01:10.150 a child is the only one who speaks truth to power. 00:01:10.234 --> 00:01:15.798 The king has been taken in by con men who pretend to clothe him in marvelous robes 00:01:15.882 --> 00:01:21.516 that are actually non-existent. The king's courtiers marvel at their majesty's fine 00:01:21.599 --> 00:01:24.260 garments even though he is walking around naked. 00:01:26.280 --> 00:01:29.817 Finally, a small child blurts out what everyone can see, 00:01:29.900 --> 00:01:31.840 but no one wants to say aloud. 00:01:33.090 --> 00:01:34.920 the king. is a fool. 00:01:38.680 --> 00:01:42.000 The folktale has many parallels in real life. 00:01:42.650 --> 00:01:47.220 Authoritarian leaders throughout history have surrounded themselves with yes-men 00:01:47.303 --> 00:01:50.270 who tell them their every action is wise and brave. 00:01:51.670 --> 00:01:54.870 When we listen to stories like the emperor's new clothes, 00:01:54.954 --> 00:01:56.947 most of us identify with the child. 00:01:57.030 --> 00:02:01.627 We think that if we were in that situation, we too would be honest. 00:02:01.710 --> 00:02:03.840 We too. would speak truth to power. 00:02:10.740 --> 00:02:16.920 and mean what we say. It turns out most of us are not the kid in the story. 00:02:17.310 --> 00:02:18.360 We are the courtiers. 00:02:20.490 --> 00:02:24.750 The power and the peril of coming clean... 00:02:25.110 --> 00:02:27.330 This week on Hidden Brain. 00:02:31.620 --> 00:02:34.560 Thank you. 00:02:42.750 --> 00:02:46.690 Get to the point. Don't mince your words. Lay it all on me. 00:02:47.220 --> 00:02:51.809 We have countless expressions about the value of being direct with others. 00:02:51.892 --> 00:02:56.880 And yet, as we go through life, we often don't just say what we mean. We hedge. 00:02:57.360 --> 00:02:59.200 We weave. We dodge. 00:03:00.300 --> 00:03:04.639 At Harvard University, psychologist Steven Pinker studies language, 00:03:04.722 --> 00:03:09.721 social relations, and the mind. He has thought deeply about what our evasions 00:03:09.804 --> 00:03:13.087 and euphemisms might reveal about us. Steve Pinker, 00:03:13.170 --> 00:03:15.480 welcome to Hidden Brain. Thank you. 00:03:15.990 --> 00:03:19.259 Steve, as an eminent member of the Harvard faculty, 00:03:19.342 --> 00:03:24.188 you are sometimes called upon to help the university president raise money. 00:03:24.272 --> 00:03:29.017 Tell me what this is like. Do you have to wine and dine potential donors? 00:03:29.100 --> 00:03:32.340 Well, there was one episode that sticks in memory. 00:03:32.423 --> 00:03:37.191 That was when the president of the university recruited me to have dinner 00:03:37.274 --> 00:03:40.447 with a, as they say, a high net worth individual. 00:03:40.531 --> 00:03:45.897 That is a euphemism for filthy rich. This was one of the world's highest net worth 00:03:45.980 --> 00:03:50.748 individuals, as the fundraising office says, or to use another euphemism, 00:03:50.831 --> 00:03:52.360 the development office. 00:03:59.100 --> 00:04:06.100 The goal, of course, was to solicit a very, very, very large donation or, 00:04:06.273 --> 00:04:12.872 again, another euphemism, a gift to Harvard from this high net worth 00:04:12.956 --> 00:04:18.473 individual. And it was at an expensive, quiet restaurant. 00:04:18.557 --> 00:04:25.557 Me and the university president were seated at a quiet remote table waiting 00:04:25.927 --> 00:04:28.580 for our partner to join us. 00:04:29.100 --> 00:04:33.758 And we conferred and the president indicated that we would see how 00:04:33.841 --> 00:04:39.361 the conversation proceeded. We wouldn't bring up the gift, obviously. In fact, 00:04:39.445 --> 00:04:41.600 I wouldn't bring it up at all. 00:04:43.300 --> 00:04:48.020 Establish a warm rapport, a mood of conviviality, of intimacy. 00:04:48.103 --> 00:04:54.218 And as we were having this conversation in this dark corner of a rather romantic 00:04:54.301 --> 00:04:57.400 restaurant, it reminded me of something. 00:04:59.100 --> 00:05:01.200 I was single and I was out on a hot date. 00:05:03.120 --> 00:05:08.083 Because, you know, both parties kind of know what you're there for, 00:05:08.166 --> 00:05:12.903 what issue is kind of hanging over them. But it would be gauche, 00:05:12.987 --> 00:05:18.326 to say the least, to just blurt it out, even though both sides know what 00:05:18.410 --> 00:05:20.820 the evening is ultimately about. 00:05:23.040 --> 00:05:29.960 so i can imagine that one reason the university president wants you by his side 00:05:30.043 --> 00:05:37.043 is because the potential donor this high net worth individual will feel good about 00:05:37.312 --> 00:05:43.877 having dinner with a star member of the faculty so you're not the eye candy 00:05:43.961 --> 00:05:46.567 but you're the the brain candy 00:05:46.650 --> 00:05:51.605 I was the brain candy. You know, on any date, or many dates, 00:05:51.689 --> 00:05:56.812 there's entertainment. You go to a concert, you go to a movie. 00:05:56.895 --> 00:06:00.675 So that's kind of the entertainment. But also, 00:06:00.758 --> 00:06:06.637 I was part of the deal insofar as a lot of tech entrepreneurs are very, 00:06:06.721 --> 00:06:13.104 very smart people who forwent a career in writing or academia or intellectual 00:06:13.187 --> 00:06:16.567 activities in order to pursue their work. 00:06:16.650 --> 00:06:20.785 goal of founding a successful company. But they're very smart. 00:06:20.869 --> 00:06:25.208 They're very curious. They kind of miss the banter, the repartee, 00:06:25.292 --> 00:06:29.971 the intellectual discussion, being close to the cutting edge of ideas. 00:06:30.055 --> 00:06:33.509 They genuinely are intellectually curious and smart. 00:06:33.593 --> 00:06:38.817 And forging a connection with a university is a way for them to be a member of 00:06:38.900 --> 00:06:41.690 a community that they long to be part of. 00:06:46.650 --> 00:06:51.737 do. But what that evening was all about was, give us, you know, 00:06:51.820 --> 00:06:57.621 hundreds of millions of dollars. We'll name something after you and you'll get 00:06:57.704 --> 00:07:03.353 to hang out with interesting people. That's the quid pro quo. But, you know, 00:07:03.437 --> 00:07:07.653 if when this gentleman sat down, the president said, hey, 00:07:07.736 --> 00:07:12.790 if you give us $150 million, then we'll name the program after you. 00:07:17.370 --> 00:07:20.462 other Harvard faculty as often as you want, 00:07:20.546 --> 00:07:24.893 they would put a kind of pall over the evening. It would be, 00:07:24.977 --> 00:07:30.506 even though it would have cut out a lot of time, these are busy individuals, 00:07:30.589 --> 00:07:36.119 but somehow offering to save that time would be like on a date saying, okay, 00:07:36.202 --> 00:07:40.190 so are we going to have sex at the end of this or not? 00:07:42.470 --> 00:07:46.125 There's a sense of which that would have been a shocking thing to say and a not 00:07:46.209 --> 00:07:49.402 shocking thing to say. at the same time, because both parties know it. 00:07:49.485 --> 00:07:51.472 They kind of know that the other one knows it, 00:07:51.555 --> 00:07:55.072 but they may not know that the other one knows that they know that the other one 00:07:55.155 --> 00:07:56.105 knows they know it. 00:07:56.250 --> 00:08:02.482 Language has to do two things at once. It's a channel of communication. 00:08:02.566 --> 00:08:07.197 Bits and bytes are exchanged for particular purposes, 00:08:07.280 --> 00:08:12.712 sharing information, negotiating agreements. At the same time, 00:08:12.796 --> 00:08:19.796 it establishes a particular kind of social relationship. Are we just transactional 00:08:26.250 --> 00:08:31.720 warm, intimate relationship? Is it a relationship of dominance? That is, 00:08:31.803 --> 00:08:36.733 is one person clearly the dominant and the other the subordinate? 00:08:36.816 --> 00:08:41.592 People care a lot about which of those relationships they have. 00:08:41.675 --> 00:08:47.068 And the way you often cement them is with explicit verbal declarations. 00:08:47.152 --> 00:08:51.387 In the case of a romantic couple, it's like, I love you, 00:08:51.471 --> 00:08:54.710 and then they reciprocate with I love you. 00:08:56.250 --> 00:09:00.114 can be nonverbal cues having a nice dinner together. 00:09:00.198 --> 00:09:03.667 That's often the way a friendship is cemented. 00:09:03.750 --> 00:09:05.370 *music* 00:09:05.970 --> 00:09:07.970 . 00:09:11.190 --> 00:09:14.234 In the course of this dinner that you were having with this high net worth 00:09:14.317 --> 00:09:17.657 individual, how did the conversation go? I'm assuming you didn't start by talking 00:09:17.740 --> 00:09:20.446 about money or perhaps money didn't come up at all through most of 00:09:20.529 --> 00:09:21.429 that conversation. 00:09:21.960 --> 00:09:24.611 Money never came up. It was a lively conversation. 00:09:24.694 --> 00:09:27.509 This was a very smart person, intellectually curious. 00:09:27.592 --> 00:09:31.391 He talked about the Human Genome Project, the development of the brain, 00:09:31.474 --> 00:09:33.060 issues facing the university. 00:09:34.050 --> 00:09:39.837 economics. The actual cold, hard financial transaction was, I think, 00:09:39.921 --> 00:09:44.758 relegated to the "my people will call your people" stage. 00:09:44.842 --> 00:09:51.492 And some of that was out of earshot of me being the, merely the entertainment, 00:09:51.576 --> 00:09:57.967 not one of the partners. But the idea, both on a date and in a solicitation 00:09:58.051 --> 00:10:03.910 for funds, is to avoid the impression that the relationship is transactional. 00:10:04.230 --> 00:10:08.250 The idea is that we are in a relationship of sharing, 00:10:08.490 --> 00:10:11.250 of warmth, of intimacy, of mutual concern. 00:10:11.930 --> 00:10:16.627 And so all the signals have to indicate that. 00:10:16.710 --> 00:10:20.690 Now, in the case of solicitation of a donation, 00:10:20.990 --> 00:10:26.787 as, of course, with sex and romance, there actually often is a genuine relationship 00:10:26.870 --> 00:10:30.850 together with the actual exchange of favors. 00:10:32.470 --> 00:10:39.470 But still, a lot of emotional capital goes into preventing any impression 00:10:40.890 --> 00:10:43.307 that this is a transactional relationship. 00:10:43.390 --> 00:10:48.427 Those do occur, but I suspect that probably the most munificent gifts 00:10:48.510 --> 00:10:53.327 tend to occur when they are considered to be, as they say, a gift, 00:10:53.410 --> 00:10:58.210 something that is layered on top of a communal relationship. 00:11:03.350 --> 00:11:06.312 And this is, in the case of the university, 00:11:06.395 --> 00:11:09.370 the intellectual stimulation and exchange, 00:11:09.710 --> 00:11:15.107 together with the prestige of not being merely a capitalist profit maximizer, 00:11:15.190 --> 00:11:20.130 but also a philanthropist for cultural and educational institutions. 00:11:20.610 --> 00:11:22.450 Those are the ultimate incentives. 00:11:23.410 --> 00:11:30.410 So I'm wondering at a dinner like this, and the analogy to sexual courtship 00:11:38.739 --> 00:11:40.170 is apt, 00:11:40.770 --> 00:11:44.565 there might come a point in the dinner where in some ways something actually has 00:11:44.649 --> 00:11:47.230 to be communicated, that this is not just a dinner. 00:11:47.650 --> 00:11:50.427 In other words, what happens if a high net worth individual says, 00:11:50.510 --> 00:11:53.127 this was a delightful conversation, I really enjoyed meeting Steve Pinker, 00:11:53.210 --> 00:11:57.647 and then goes back to his hedge fund or his tech company to continue to make money 00:11:57.730 --> 00:11:59.827 and has no interest in Harvard going forward. 00:11:59.910 --> 00:12:01.747 That would not be a successful dinner. 00:12:01.830 --> 00:12:02.367 Exactly. 00:12:02.450 --> 00:12:09.450 And this is where a lot of what informally we call social skills, social acumen, 00:12:10.230 --> 00:12:14.047 jargon of psychology is sometimes called theory of mind. 00:12:14.130 --> 00:12:17.327 That is your theory of what's going on in the other person's mind. 00:12:17.410 --> 00:12:19.327 As you say, you don't let the moment slip. 00:12:19.410 --> 00:12:24.950 On the other hand if you make it too overt too early then it feels like 00:12:25.033 --> 00:12:31.524 a transactional relationship as opposed to one of mutual generosity I wondering did 00:12:31.607 --> 00:12:35.330 the donor come through Did you get the big gift 00:12:36.850 --> 00:12:42.900 I think not as big as had been hoped. So maybe I was not charming enough. 00:12:45.130 --> 00:12:48.118 Also, donors, you know, donors, well, actually, no, there was a donor. 00:12:48.201 --> 00:12:49.297 Now that I think of it, 00:12:49.380 --> 00:12:54.770 the donor did not have the entity named after himself. So there was a donation. 00:12:55.010 --> 00:12:58.620 but he chose having something named after him at Harvard, 00:12:59.210 --> 00:13:04.330 came second to the various buildings with his own name plastered on them. 00:13:13.710 --> 00:13:17.927 I want to talk about an example of indirect speech in the political arena. 00:13:18.010 --> 00:13:23.187 In 2016, then-presidential candidate Donald Trump insulted Nikki Haley, 00:13:23.270 --> 00:13:25.490 who was the governor of South Carolina. 00:13:25.980 --> 00:13:29.830 Here's how a TV station in South Carolina described the exchange. 00:13:30.570 --> 00:13:34.880 A Twitter battle tonight between Nikki Haley and Donald Trump, of all people. 00:13:35.100 --> 00:13:39.047 The Republican presidential frontrunner tweeted this message earlier today, 00:13:39.130 --> 00:13:43.550 and it said, quote, the people of South Carolina are embarrassed by Nikki Haley. 00:13:44.200 --> 00:13:46.750 Well, the South Carolina governor responded simply, 00:13:47.380 --> 00:13:48.230 bless your heart. 00:13:48.790 --> 00:13:52.267 So, Steve, when hews by Americans from southern states, 00:13:52.350 --> 00:13:54.910 Does bless your heart mean bless your heart? 00:13:55.910 --> 00:13:58.190 It does not mean bless your heart. 00:13:58.930 --> 00:14:03.131 And it was rather clever on her part because he was, obviously, 00:14:03.214 --> 00:14:05.730 they were in a contest for dominance. 00:14:07.210 --> 00:14:10.367 One way to play it is with in-your-face insults. 00:14:10.450 --> 00:14:12.647 That's the kind of playground trash talk. 00:14:12.730 --> 00:14:19.730 Haley, rather than taking the bait and meeting him in the same arena, 00:14:20.525 --> 00:14:22.927 tries to step above it 00:14:23.010 --> 00:14:27.085 with the non sequitur. Bless your heart, doesn't make sense in context, 00:14:27.169 --> 00:14:28.667 because that's not what you 00:14:28.750 --> 00:14:34.250 say to someone who just insulted you. So listeners have to then puzzle, well, geez, 00:14:34.630 --> 00:14:38.257 she's not just saying things at random. She had a reason to say that. 00:14:38.341 --> 00:14:39.387 Why did she say that? 00:14:39.470 --> 00:14:45.690 and to read between the lines, it's this kind of trash talk does not wound me. 00:14:45.950 --> 00:14:52.107 I consider myself to have a strong enough reputation and I have enough confidence 00:14:52.190 --> 00:14:57.743 that I believe that I will not be lowered in status because of the content of 00:14:57.827 --> 00:15:03.599 your insult by not playing that game It is the case also that I think especially 00:15:03.683 --> 00:15:05.220 in the American South 00:15:05.660 --> 00:15:09.637 bless your heart is not just a wish for your continued good health. 00:15:09.720 --> 00:15:14.920 It could also be, you know, another two or three word phrase that might be 00:15:15.003 --> 00:15:18.900 unprintable, but is couched in much more diplomatic language. 00:15:20.140 --> 00:15:24.797 Indeed. And the language of diplomacy, as with all of our speech, 00:15:24.880 --> 00:15:27.060 that is not meant to be taken literally. 00:15:27.180 --> 00:15:28.330 And that's a lot of it. 00:15:28.840 --> 00:15:31.400 There's a lot of interpreting in context. 00:15:31.680 --> 00:15:36.017 And the way that humans do it is by adhering to a principle of relevance 00:15:36.100 --> 00:15:39.077 and of cooperation. That is, the ground rules are 00:15:39.160 --> 00:15:44.777 the listener thinks to himself or to herself, what did they mean 00:15:44.860 --> 00:15:47.340 that would explain what they just said? 00:15:47.980 --> 00:15:52.780 And so any socially competent listener can say she is signaling, 00:15:53.220 --> 00:15:56.520 you have not wounded me. I'm not playing that game. 00:15:56.660 --> 00:16:01.160 I am confident enough that I don't feel the need to reply to that insult. 00:16:08.680 --> 00:16:12.300 So often, what we say aloud doesn't represent what we're thinking. 00:16:12.960 --> 00:16:16.900 When we come back, the many roles that indirect speech plays in our lives. 00:16:17.660 --> 00:16:21.060 Also, when to say what we mean and when this can be a mistake. 00:16:21.580 --> 00:16:22.997 You're listening to Hidden Brain. 00:16:23.080 --> 00:16:24.100 I'm Shankar Vedanta. 00:16:24.880 --> 00:16:31.880 This is Hidden Brain. I'm Shankar Vedantam. 00:16:40.320 --> 00:16:42.737 Steven Pinker is a psychologist at Harvard University 00:16:42.820 --> 00:16:45.940 who studies the nuances of language and social relations. 00:16:46.680 --> 00:16:50.540 Steve, if we were to sketch something of a taxonomy of indirect speech, 00:16:50.720 --> 00:16:54.617 one of the first on the list might be the lies that we tell 00:16:54.700 --> 00:16:58.000 in order to protect the feelings of the people we love. 00:16:58.100 --> 00:17:01.300 Can you talk about this idea, perhaps with some examples, Steve? 00:17:01.400 --> 00:17:02.233 Sure. 00:17:03.600 --> 00:17:06.580 Someone shows up in an outfit, 00:17:06.680 --> 00:17:10.030 you know that they've taken a lot of effort to beautify themselves. 00:17:10.220 --> 00:17:12.317 And even if you think that it might be in ghastly taste, 00:17:12.400 --> 00:17:14.097 you might say, oh, that's beautiful. 00:17:14.180 --> 00:17:15.013 You look great. 00:17:16.580 --> 00:17:22.417 Or even more fraught is often if someone is an artist 00:17:22.500 --> 00:17:29.500 and they show you their objet d and you have to comment on it There so many ways 00:17:30.184 --> 00:17:37.184 for that to go wrong It could be if it a painting of a red barn it could be kitsch 00:17:38.160 --> 00:17:41.020 If it's too abstract, it could be incomprehensible. 00:17:42.120 --> 00:17:47.660 So you have to say, beautiful, striking, powerful, strong, 00:17:48.360 --> 00:17:52.057 even if you may think privately that it's hideous. 00:17:52.140 --> 00:17:57.972 Again, the goal there, again, let's tie it back to the underlying explanation, 00:17:58.055 --> 00:18:01.536 is that there is a relationship to be cemented, 00:18:01.619 --> 00:18:04.880 and each one wishes the best for the other. 00:18:05.540 --> 00:18:07.900 Neither one is superior to the other. 00:18:09.060 --> 00:18:11.060 Each would do anything for the other. 00:18:11.260 --> 00:18:15.857 Those are the fictions that underlie a relationship of friendship. 00:18:15.940 --> 00:18:18.767 I call them fictions because they can't always be true, 00:18:18.850 --> 00:18:22.154 but that's the background assumption that makes friends friends, 00:18:22.237 --> 00:18:23.560 that makes lovers lovers. 00:18:24.620 --> 00:18:27.285 What that means is you don't want to, say, 00:18:27.368 --> 00:18:31.997 blurt out anything that would directly contradict that tacit assumption. 00:18:32.080 --> 00:18:39.080 I'm thinking of how this is also true at the level of international relationships. 00:18:49.600 --> 00:18:52.160 You know, there is a hierarchy between countries, 00:18:52.280 --> 00:18:54.217 countries that are richer and more powerful, 00:18:54.300 --> 00:18:56.097 and there are countries that are poorer and weaker. 00:18:56.180 --> 00:18:58.557 But very often in international settings, 00:18:58.640 --> 00:19:01.337 when diplomats sit down or the leaders of countries sit down, 00:19:01.420 --> 00:19:03.697 And, you know, they're very complimentary to one another. 00:19:03.780 --> 00:19:05.537 They say nice things about one another. 00:19:05.620 --> 00:19:09.669 So even though, you know, there is some hierarchy between the countries, 00:19:09.752 --> 00:19:10.817 everyone agrees that 00:19:10.900 --> 00:19:15.842 in this public forum, we have to pretend like we are equals or we have to pretend 00:19:15.926 --> 00:19:17.980 like we deeply care about one another. 00:19:18.080 --> 00:19:20.406 Can you talk about the idea that this doesn't just happen at the level 00:19:20.489 --> 00:19:21.557 of interpersonal relationships? 00:19:21.640 --> 00:19:24.160 It happens at the level of diplomacy and nations? 00:19:25.360 --> 00:19:25.997 Oh, absolutely. 00:19:26.080 --> 00:19:30.778 And the perhaps most conspicuous fiction is simply the iconography of the United 00:19:30.862 --> 00:19:31.337 Nations. 00:19:31.420 --> 00:19:38.420 where Vanuatu, a tiny island nation in the South Pacific, and China or Russia are, 00:19:41.300 --> 00:19:43.870 at least in the General Assembly, are treated identically. 00:19:43.953 --> 00:19:45.197 They have the same size desk, 00:19:45.280 --> 00:19:48.946 the same size flag, and the same privileges. In fact, 00:19:49.029 --> 00:19:51.917 the word diplomacy, which we sometimes use 00:19:52.000 --> 00:19:56.217 to refer to our everyday interactions, but technically refers to the relationship 00:19:56.300 --> 00:19:59.940 between nation-states, reminds us that there is 00:20:00.080 --> 00:20:07.080 a lot in international relations that does not consist of actual brawn or brute force 00:20:08.692 --> 00:20:15.692 nor wealth, GDP, but relationships of respect, status, power, dignity, 00:20:15.785 --> 00:20:22.186 and to make things happen and to establish stable relationships. 00:20:22.270 --> 00:20:24.600 There's an awful lot of 00:20:25.070 --> 00:20:29.976 posturing symbolization that goes into international relations. 00:20:30.059 --> 00:20:35.915 There's a famous book by Barry O'Neill that shows that every year there are 00:20:35.998 --> 00:20:41.933 probably a hundred acts between countries that are purely symbolic. That is, 00:20:42.016 --> 00:20:48.110 two leaders have dinner together, or one sends a vice president to the funeral 00:20:48.193 --> 00:20:54.370 of an ex-head of state of the other, or they exchange students or zoo animals, 00:20:55.070 --> 00:21:00.459 or they attend a ceremony in which they raise a flag or formally apologize. 00:21:00.542 --> 00:21:06.150 There's an awful lot of just social relationships that go on between the heads 00:21:06.233 --> 00:21:07.067 of state. 00:21:18.590 --> 00:21:24.190 So in 2011, then President Barack Obama had a hot mic moment 00:21:25.070 --> 00:21:27.811 What happened, Steve? Describe this incident, 00:21:27.894 --> 00:21:33.019 because in some ways it peeled the curtain back on what's actually happening behind 00:21:33.103 --> 00:21:37.370 all of this diplomacy. What happened, Steve? Describe this incident. 00:21:38.060 --> 00:21:43.590 Yes, it was a hot mic moment. I discovered it when I clicked on some bait at 00:21:43.673 --> 00:21:48.612 the bottom of the webpage, the 10 most embarrassing hot mic moments. 00:21:48.696 --> 00:21:54.078 And one of them is when Barack Obama confided to Nicolas Sarkozy that both 00:21:54.161 --> 00:21:58.805 of them knew, namely that Bibi Netanyahu was a pain in the neck. 00:21:58.888 --> 00:22:02.055 I don't think they used that euphemism. Now, 00:22:02.138 --> 00:22:05.240 that was almost an international incident. 00:22:05.390 --> 00:22:11.456 Even though everyone knew that, there's an old saying from the journalist Michael 00:22:11.539 --> 00:22:17.377 Kinsley that the definition of a gaffe in Washington is when a politician says 00:22:17.460 --> 00:22:19.130 something that's true. 00:22:21.950 --> 00:22:27.869 Now, by the way, that has been made somewhat obsolete by Donald Trump, 00:22:27.952 --> 00:22:34.386 who has blurted out what in earlier times would have been considered gaffes. 00:22:34.469 --> 00:22:40.131 That's a whole other story of the different rules that he plays by. 00:22:40.214 --> 00:22:43.707 But the default rules are that leaders... 00:22:43.790 --> 00:22:48.635 of parties within a country, leaders of countries in international relations, 00:22:48.718 --> 00:22:52.110 have a relationship of mutual admiration and respect. 00:22:53.570 --> 00:22:56.746 So in this hot mic moment, Sarkozy apparently told Obama, 00:22:56.830 --> 00:23:01.150 I cannot bear Netanyahu, he's a liar. And Obama says, you're fed up with him, 00:23:01.233 --> 00:23:05.896 but I have to deal with him every day. And it's the kind of thing that people might 00:23:05.979 --> 00:23:10.013 talk about at dinner parties. But to realize the same thing is happening 00:23:10.097 --> 00:23:14.531 probably at the level of international relationships is really striking because 00:23:14.614 --> 00:23:19.106 you hear so little of it when you see the polite diplomacy that happens in these 00:23:19.189 --> 00:23:20.390 international forums. 00:23:21.380 --> 00:23:24.880 And the tension is that for... 00:23:25.370 --> 00:23:31.182 agreements to be negotiated, it helps when two parties consider themselves to be in 00:23:31.265 --> 00:23:35.159 a communal relationship. That lubricates getting to yes. 00:23:35.242 --> 00:23:39.633 But the paradox being that, especially at the level of leaders, 00:23:39.717 --> 00:23:44.960 things that they say in private can then float some norm that characterizes 00:23:45.043 --> 00:23:46.890 their public relationship. 00:23:47.930 --> 00:23:52.771 So in interpersonal settings, it can be a tricky balance to communicate what you 00:23:52.854 --> 00:23:55.848 mean while also trying to hide what you're saying. 00:23:55.931 --> 00:24:00.033 I want to play you a clip from the 1989 comedy When Harry Met Sally. 00:24:00.117 --> 00:24:03.665 Harry has complimented Sally's looks a bit too insistently, 00:24:03.748 --> 00:24:06.210 and she accuses him of coming on to her. 00:24:06.560 --> 00:24:10.732 All right, all right. Let's just say, just for the sake of argument, 00:24:10.815 --> 00:24:15.738 that it was a come on. What do you want me to do about it? I take it back, okay? 00:24:15.821 --> 00:24:18.260 I take it back. You can't take it back. 00:24:18.530 --> 00:24:21.020 Why not? Because it's already out there. 00:24:21.260 --> 00:24:25.060 Oh, geez, what are we supposed to do? Call the cops? It's already out there. 00:24:26.330 --> 00:24:28.821 So Steve, there's something very interesting here. 00:24:28.905 --> 00:24:33.230 Once something is out of the box, Sally is saying it can't be put back into the box? 00:24:34.430 --> 00:24:36.904 In that scene in the movie, they had just met. 00:24:36.988 --> 00:24:41.130 They're sharing a ride across country. That's why there was some motor noise 00:24:41.214 --> 00:24:42.270 in that audio clip. 00:24:42.590 --> 00:24:47.003 And, uh, the, they were not in a romantic or sexual relationship, 00:24:47.086 --> 00:24:51.638 even though as with my, my fundraising dinner was, uh, in the back, 00:24:51.721 --> 00:24:57.033 it had to be the back of their minds. Uh, but there's a big difference between 00:24:57.116 --> 00:25:02.913 something being common knowledge, as Sally put it out there and something being known 00:25:02.996 --> 00:25:07.824 privately by each of them. They're, they're, they're grownups. They're, 00:25:07.907 --> 00:25:08.741 you know, 00:25:12.590 --> 00:25:17.030 one has to know that the possibility of a sexual relationship has crossed 00:25:17.114 --> 00:25:20.748 their minds. But each one could think about the other. Well, 00:25:20.831 --> 00:25:24.218 she doesn't know exactly what's running through my mind. 00:25:24.302 --> 00:25:28.742 Maybe she thinks I'm dense, or she could think maybe he thinks I'm naive. 00:25:28.825 --> 00:25:31.700 However, when it is, as she said, Out there. 00:25:32.000 --> 00:25:36.838 That is when it is said in plain language, then the other person knows that you know. 00:25:36.921 --> 00:25:39.440 The common knowledge is no longer deniable. 00:25:47.000 --> 00:25:51.180 Another kind of indirect speech is the humblebrag. 00:25:51.380 --> 00:25:54.690 Describe what this is, Steve. Can you think of some examples that you've come 00:25:54.773 --> 00:25:56.573 by humble bragging in your own life? 00:25:56.960 --> 00:26:02.916 Oh, yes. I once saw a documentary with an eminent British evolutionary biologist, 00:26:02.999 --> 00:26:07.836 John Maynard Smith, be recognizable to any evolutionary biologist. 00:26:07.920 --> 00:26:09.560 And the British are... 00:26:09.740 --> 00:26:15.491 champions, ninjas at Humble Bragging. And he was being interviewed and I asked him 00:26:15.574 --> 00:26:19.617 why he went into the field that he did. And he said, well, 00:26:19.701 --> 00:26:25.451 originally I was interested in physics, but I realized I wasn't smart enough to do 00:26:25.535 --> 00:26:30.432 physics. Any idiot can do biology. Now, this is a truly brilliant man. 00:26:30.515 --> 00:26:35.780 He invented the entire field of evolutionary game theory, a powerful idea. 00:26:39.740 --> 00:26:46.740 doing kind of two things, and this was the genius of the expert Humblebrag. 00:26:47.240 --> 00:26:51.717 He was not saying that he was so coarse as to 00:26:51.800 --> 00:26:57.336 have a boast. I realized I was a smart person and I could make a contribution 00:26:57.419 --> 00:27:02.517 to biology because I was so smart. I was smarter than other biologists. 00:27:02.600 --> 00:27:08.282 But by saying any idiot can do biology, both saying I don't have to worry about 00:27:08.365 --> 00:27:13.974 people thinking that I'm an idiot. If I call myself an idiot or compare myself 00:27:14.057 --> 00:27:17.258 to idiots, people will know to blow that off. 00:27:17.341 --> 00:27:20.260 I have the confidence to do that because 00:27:21.800 --> 00:27:28.377 in doubt. By my lights, biology is hard. If he's saying any idiot can do biology, 00:27:28.460 --> 00:27:34.954 and I'm an idiot, the kind of idiot who can do biology, I'm thinking, well, gee, 00:27:35.038 --> 00:27:39.394 I find biology kind of hard. Does that mean that I am, 00:27:39.478 --> 00:27:45.477 unlike Sir John Maynard Smith, I am not of the caliber that would find it 00:27:45.560 --> 00:27:50.349 easy. I find it hard, and therefore I'm even lower than him in intelligence than 00:27:50.433 --> 00:27:54.369 if you were to say it outright. So it works at multiple levels as, 00:27:54.453 --> 00:27:56.280 in general, wit, charm, charm. 00:27:56.660 --> 00:28:01.835 tact, social skill often refer to cases where the desired message comes not 00:28:01.919 --> 00:28:07.585 from the literal content, but from several layers of thinking about what the other 00:28:07.668 --> 00:28:11.582 person thinks about what you think about what they think. 00:28:11.665 --> 00:28:15.508 That kind of chess game of thinking several moves ahead, 00:28:15.592 --> 00:28:20.500 except instead of on the chessboard, it's in the brains of two people. 00:28:26.660 --> 00:28:28.720 you 00:28:32.770 --> 00:28:37.192 There's a related idea that is beautifully captured in the comedy series Curb 00:28:37.275 --> 00:28:39.883 Your Enthusiasm. Larry David, playing himself, 00:28:39.967 --> 00:28:44.213 has donated money for a wing of a non-profit building which is named after 00:28:44.296 --> 00:28:48.426 him. The other wing displays only the inscription, Donated by Anonymous. 00:28:48.509 --> 00:28:52.814 At the ribbon-cutting ceremony, Larry is talking to his soon-to-be ex-wife, 00:28:52.897 --> 00:28:56.851 Cheryl, when he discovers who the anonymous donor is. It's his rival, 00:28:56.934 --> 00:29:01.030 Ted Danson. He donated the whole wing. He didn't want anybody to know. 00:29:01.970 --> 00:29:06.590 So he apparently wanted somebody to know. He told me, okay? 00:29:06.710 --> 00:29:09.460 Who else did he tell? How do you know he just told you? 00:29:09.740 --> 00:29:13.305 clean is he didn't need on fanfare and didn't need a fanfare what fanfare i don't 00:29:13.388 --> 00:29:16.862 like the fanfare you're saying i like fanfare you can tell a few people he just 00:29:16.946 --> 00:29:20.555 doesn't need the whole world to know that he donated all the money you know what i 00:29:20.639 --> 00:29:22.227 didn't need the world to know either 00:29:22.310 --> 00:29:25.180 Nobody told me that I could be anonymous and tell people. 00:29:25.264 --> 00:29:26.870 I would have taken that option. 00:29:27.440 --> 00:29:33.920 So that's a great line, Steve. Nobody told me I could be anonymous and tell people. 00:29:34.250 --> 00:29:40.796 Oh, it is brilliant, because it strikes to the heart of a very deep paradox about 00:29:40.879 --> 00:29:46.279 altruism. Going back to the medieval Jewish philosopher Maimonides, 00:29:46.362 --> 00:29:53.071 who had a ladder of righteousness, where the size of the gift doesn't determine how 00:29:53.155 --> 00:29:56.510 righteous it is, according to Maimonides. 00:29:56.930 --> 00:29:59.917 If you do it for the glory of God, 00:30:00.000 --> 00:30:05.555 for the recognition, that's considered less indicative of an underlying trait 00:30:05.639 --> 00:30:10.022 of charitability or generosity than if you do it anonymously. 00:30:10.106 --> 00:30:13.903 For the obvious reason that if you do it anonymously, 00:30:13.987 --> 00:30:19.908 there's no ulterior motive of reputation, nor can you call in the favor and expect 00:30:19.991 --> 00:30:24.961 some special treatment or quid pro quo. In experiments that I've done 00:30:25.044 --> 00:30:27.900 in collaboration with some postdocs and 00:30:30.000 --> 00:30:35.447 more moral credit to someone who gives less money anonymously than more money 00:30:35.530 --> 00:30:39.480 publicly, which Larry David used to great comic effect. 00:30:43.140 --> 00:30:45.892 So in some ways in that clip from Curb Your Enthusiasm, 00:30:45.975 --> 00:30:48.057 Ted Danson is trying to have it both ways. 00:30:48.140 --> 00:30:52.026 He's getting the moral benefit of being seen as an anonymous giver while also 00:30:52.109 --> 00:30:54.448 telling people that he was the anonymous giver. 00:30:54.532 --> 00:30:58.140 He's really getting it both ways, and that's what gets Larry so upset. 00:30:58.800 --> 00:31:03.575 Indeed, yes. It underscores the paradox of reputation in altruism, 00:31:03.658 --> 00:31:07.403 that ultimately reputation is a motive for altruism. 00:31:07.486 --> 00:31:12.188 You want other people to think that you're kind, you're generous, 00:31:12.271 --> 00:31:17.709 you're beneficent. On the other hand, if other people perceive that that is 00:31:17.792 --> 00:31:23.892 the motive, they give you less credit as a genuinely altruistic person because maybe 00:31:23.975 --> 00:31:26.920 you're in it for the long-term benefits. 00:31:28.440 --> 00:31:31.724 Another kind of indirect speech is the innuendo. 00:31:31.807 --> 00:31:36.985 I want to play you a clip that captures this from the TV show The Sopranos. 00:31:37.068 --> 00:31:42.596 In this scene, a member of the Soprano mob family accosts an old acquaintance in 00:31:42.680 --> 00:31:47.857 a store and pays for his candy bar. Hey, how you doing? Hey. Listen, Danny, 00:31:47.941 --> 00:31:52.908 we just want you to know how glad we are a guy like he was on that jury. 00:31:52.991 --> 00:31:57.200 That mob thing, that junior soprano trial. Hard-working guy? 00:31:57.720 --> 00:32:02.500 Wife and two kids performing a civic duty we should all take part in? 00:32:02.820 --> 00:32:04.880 We know you do the right thing. 00:32:06.740 --> 00:32:09.640 So what do you hear that's being said and not said, Steve? 00:32:10.650 --> 00:32:15.044 Well, that is an excellent example of a veiled threat. 00:32:15.128 --> 00:32:20.102 What's being veiled is if you vote to convict Junior Soprano, 00:32:20.186 --> 00:32:26.819 we will harm your family. And it can be effective by striking fear into the heart 00:32:26.902 --> 00:32:33.370 of the target without literally exposing themselves to the crime of extortion. 00:32:34.110 --> 00:32:38.517 So what the mobster was doing in that clip from The Sopranos was basically offering 00:32:38.600 --> 00:32:42.303 something that had plausible deniability. If someone came up and said, 00:32:42.386 --> 00:32:45.387 is this what you really meant? The mobster could say, no, 00:32:45.470 --> 00:32:47.850 I'm just wishing this old acquaintance well. 00:32:48.300 --> 00:32:52.879 Exactly. And the question is, how plausible is the deniability? 00:32:52.962 --> 00:32:58.947 And crucially, the level of plausibility for the speaker and the hearer have to be 00:32:59.031 --> 00:33:04.868 different for it to work. So you want it to be not so subtle that it'll fly over 00:33:04.951 --> 00:33:10.492 the head of the hearer, but subtle enough that by higher standards of proof, 00:33:10.576 --> 00:33:15.460 such as in a court of law, it would not meet that higher standard. 00:33:16.080 --> 00:33:19.487 So if a motorist gets pulled over by a cop, telling the cop, you know, 00:33:19.571 --> 00:33:22.330 here's $100, let's make this go away right now, you know, 00:33:22.413 --> 00:33:25.920 that could get you in trouble because you're bribing the police officer. 00:33:26.004 --> 00:33:29.760 But if you say, you know, is there some way we can get this resolved without, 00:33:29.844 --> 00:33:31.855 you know, having to do a lot of paperwork, 00:33:31.938 --> 00:33:34.697 that might send the message of what you're trying to say, 00:33:34.781 --> 00:33:38.831 but give you some plausible deniability if the cop turns out to be an honest cop. 00:33:39.860 --> 00:33:45.047 Yes, enough deniability that it couldn't be the basis of conviction by the standard 00:33:45.130 --> 00:33:49.301 of proof beyond a reasonable doubt, which is a very high threshold. 00:33:49.384 --> 00:33:53.491 But in everyday conversation, we don't need that high a threshold. 00:33:53.574 --> 00:33:56.793 We can take our chances that, you know, oh, come on. 00:33:56.876 --> 00:33:59.967 It's pretty obvious what he said. So in that case, 00:34:00.051 --> 00:34:02.347 plausible deniability in the case of. 00:34:02.430 --> 00:34:07.230 A court case, it's near, it's deniability beyond a reasonable doubt. 00:34:07.380 --> 00:34:08.820 of a much higher standard. 00:34:14.520 --> 00:34:19.635 A few years ago, the writer Bruce Feiler was given an assignment by a magazine. 00:34:19.719 --> 00:34:25.097 He was to try and bribe a series of maitre d's at popular New York City restaurants 00:34:25.181 --> 00:34:30.362 in order to get a good table. What did he imagine would happen when he did this, 00:34:30.445 --> 00:34:31.278 Steve? 00:34:31.470 --> 00:34:37.824 So the assignment filled him with dread. He kept imagining the incensed retorts 00:34:37.907 --> 00:34:42.387 of some outraged maitre d' like, how dare you insult me? 00:34:42.470 --> 00:34:46.543 Or what kind of establishment do you think this is? 00:34:46.626 --> 00:34:50.130 Or do you think you could get in with that? 00:35:01.470 --> 00:35:05.639 of saying, if I give you 20 bucks, would you seat me right away? 00:35:05.722 --> 00:35:11.021 Would you let me jump the queue? He would hold the $20 bill in peripheral vision, 00:35:11.104 --> 00:35:15.606 not look at it, look the maitre d' in the eye and say something like, 00:35:15.689 --> 00:35:21.187 I was wondering if you had a cancellation, or I was hoping maybe you could fit us in, 00:35:21.270 --> 00:35:25.771 or this is a really important night for me. The interesting thing is, 00:35:25.855 --> 00:35:27.250 it worked every time. 00:35:31.470 --> 00:35:36.007 So, despite all our fears, 00:35:36.090 --> 00:35:41.506 all maitre d's in manhattan are bribable or at least they were at the time he wrote 00:35:41.589 --> 00:35:46.740 this article which which leads to the question what was he and by extension all 00:35:46.824 --> 00:35:51.842 of us are are so afraid of um that is what would be so terrible if they uh if 00:35:51.925 --> 00:35:56.612 the maitre d rebuffed the bribe i think the answer is that going back to 00:35:56.696 --> 00:36:00.870 our different kinds of social relationships breaching the tacit 00:36:06.090 --> 00:36:12.626 relationship has emotional costs, which we experience as embarrassment, 00:36:12.710 --> 00:36:17.941 awkwardness, if they are accidental, if they're one time, 00:36:18.024 --> 00:36:24.374 or as disbelief, outrage, shock, if they are intentional or repeated. 00:36:24.457 --> 00:36:30.890 In the case of a maitre d', you know, a maitre d', they're dressed in 00:36:36.090 --> 00:36:41.046 They carry themselves with the authority that this is their kingdom. 00:36:41.129 --> 00:36:44.825 They get to seat people when and where they choose. 00:36:44.908 --> 00:36:48.382 That's part of the dignity of being a maitre d'. 00:36:48.465 --> 00:36:52.161 If you're tendering an outright quid pro quo bribe, 00:36:52.245 --> 00:36:55.718 you're kind of treating them like a sales clerk, 00:36:55.802 --> 00:37:01.730 like a transactional partner, undermining that aura of authority that they have. 00:37:06.090 --> 00:37:10.500 leads to that emotion of on the part of the speaker, it would be awkwardness. 00:37:10.583 --> 00:37:14.176 On the part of the recipient of the bribe, it would be outrage, 00:37:14.259 --> 00:37:16.710 at least in the imagination of the writer. 00:37:17.040 --> 00:37:22.534 And even in the case where it did succeed, which it did at every time, 00:37:22.617 --> 00:37:28.589 it may not have succeeded had he tendered the bribe as a naked quid pro quo. 00:37:28.673 --> 00:37:31.780 He did do it indirectly, and it worked. 00:37:35.780 --> 00:37:37.777 Music Thank you. 00:37:37.860 --> 00:37:41.894 You know, it's interesting. We talked earlier about the challenge of sexual 00:37:41.977 --> 00:37:46.066 courtship in the clip that I played you from when Harry met Sally. You know, 00:37:46.150 --> 00:37:50.184 if Harry had shown his hand, but it turns out that Sally was completely not 00:37:50.267 --> 00:37:52.599 interested, maybe Sally was married already, 00:37:52.683 --> 00:37:56.800 and maybe Sally has no interest in Harry, that would be a slap in the face. 00:38:07.860 --> 00:38:10.639 face that's lost. There's no humiliation that is meted out, 00:38:10.723 --> 00:38:13.173 even as both parties make clear where they stand. 00:38:14.040 --> 00:38:18.427 Indeed. And in fact, in the studies that I have done, 00:38:18.510 --> 00:38:22.897 that is one of the motives for using indirect speech, 00:38:22.980 --> 00:38:29.139 that it avoids the change in relationship from one in which one person has 00:38:29.222 --> 00:38:34.620 the authority, the superiority of striking down another's offer. 00:38:44.040 --> 00:38:50.627 warmth and communal sharing. So you don't want to spoil the relationship with one 00:38:50.711 --> 00:38:57.051 person kind of holds the prerogative of sexual consent and can blatantly imply 00:38:57.134 --> 00:39:00.839 that the other is not worthy of it. Obviously, 00:39:00.922 --> 00:39:06.192 the time comes when there's no choice. We'll just have to say no. 00:39:06.275 --> 00:39:07.840 And what part of no 00:39:14.040 --> 00:39:17.729 fiction of a completely platonic friendship, 00:39:17.812 --> 00:39:21.758 or in more dangerous and fraught circumstances, 00:39:21.842 --> 00:39:27.417 such as a supervisor and an employee or a professor and a student, 00:39:27.500 --> 00:39:33.332 it would be not just breaching a norm, but breaching a law or a rule. 00:39:33.416 --> 00:39:40.360 And they may not want to go through the trouble of making a court case out of it. 00:39:44.040 --> 00:39:44.873 you 00:39:47.070 --> 00:39:51.427 Indirect speech can be a useful lubricant greasing the wheels of social interaction. 00:39:51.510 --> 00:39:55.199 But it's not always what is called for. When we come back, 00:39:55.282 --> 00:39:59.250 when it's good to be coy and when it's necessary to be blunt. 00:40:00.010 --> 00:40:03.310 You're listening to Hidden Brain. I'm Shankar Vedanta. 00:40:06.850 --> 00:40:07.683 you 00:40:13.930 --> 00:40:17.770 This is Hidden Brain. I'm Shankar Vedantam. 00:40:19.110 --> 00:40:23.609 Steven Pinker is a psychologist at Harvard University. He's the author, 00:40:23.692 --> 00:40:27.933 most recently, of the book When Everyone Knows That Everyone Knows, 00:40:28.017 --> 00:40:32.470 Common Knowledge and the Mysteries of Money, Power and Everyday Life. 00:40:33.040 --> 00:40:38.826 Steve, there are many vivid examples of the importance of using direct speech. 00:40:38.909 --> 00:40:45.080 You talk about the crash of Korean Air 801 in 1997. What happened in that tragedy? 00:40:46.090 --> 00:40:51.687 This is a case in which the pilot in a social setting in which there was a clear 00:40:51.771 --> 00:40:57.652 hierarchy and he was the authority and the other pilots and technicians had to defer 00:40:57.736 --> 00:41:02.907 to him. In this case, it was clear to the second and third in command that 00:41:02.990 --> 00:41:07.167 a disaster was possible, that the plane was losing altitude. 00:41:07.251 --> 00:41:09.310 It was on a collision course. 00:41:16.090 --> 00:41:21.590 crash, wake up, do something, or let us take over the controls, 00:41:21.673 --> 00:41:27.793 resulting in tragedy. It's one of the cases where for all the socially 00:41:27.876 --> 00:41:32.224 lubricating benefits of indirectness and innuendo, 00:41:32.307 --> 00:41:36.301 there are times when it becomes cruel, tragic, 00:41:36.384 --> 00:41:42.410 unjust to persist in failing to describe something in so many words. 00:41:43.270 --> 00:41:46.241 So there's a trend out there known as radical honesty, 00:41:46.324 --> 00:41:50.766 which holds that we should all be saying exactly what's on our minds without any 00:41:50.849 --> 00:41:55.121 indirection or euphemism. One of the leading proponents of radical honesty is 00:41:55.204 --> 00:41:59.390 a psychotherapist named Brad Blanton. Here's how he makes the case for it. 00:41:59.560 --> 00:42:04.414 So the idea is being able to be happy and be related to people and not be guarded 00:42:04.497 --> 00:42:07.828 and careful and protected and afraid of being found out. 00:42:07.911 --> 00:42:12.216 That's a lousy way to live. It's a better way to live, to live out loud, 00:42:12.300 --> 00:42:16.483 let the chips fall where they may, have a few hard times now and then, 00:42:16.567 --> 00:42:18.677 but still, they get all cleaned up. 00:42:18.760 --> 00:42:20.460 Because everybody tells the truth. 00:42:21.520 --> 00:42:25.270 That does sound appealing, Steve. Do you think it always works in practice? 00:42:25.780 --> 00:42:30.718 To put it mildly, no, that it is often a hellscape when everyone is honest 00:42:30.801 --> 00:42:35.671 with everyone else. And there are some comedies and science fiction plots 00:42:35.754 --> 00:42:40.624 that actually play that out for the amusement and sometimes the horror of 00:42:40.707 --> 00:42:45.780 an audience. But the reason that it doesn't is that this is a world in which 00:42:45.864 --> 00:42:50.055 there are no social relationships. Everything is transactional. 00:42:50.138 --> 00:42:52.920 There's no warmth. There's no friendship. 00:42:55.780 --> 00:43:00.648 have compromising thoughts about even our closest friends. Oh, 00:43:00.732 --> 00:43:07.038 that was a stupid comment. But blurting those things out just corrodes the tacit 00:43:07.121 --> 00:43:13.267 assumptions that make a friendship or a romantic relationship or even a stable 00:43:13.351 --> 00:43:19.740 relationship of respect of a supervisor and a supervisee stable and sustainable. 00:43:25.780 --> 00:43:30.600 There would be no... long-term stable relationships of cooperation. 00:43:38.650 --> 00:43:44.456 You cite a French essayist and philosopher from the 17th century who wrote about what 00:43:44.539 --> 00:43:49.250 would happen if we were all open books. What does Blaise Pascal say? 00:43:49.360 --> 00:43:52.672 you He said that if everyone said what was on their minds, 00:43:52.755 --> 00:43:55.005 there would not be four friends in the world. 00:43:56.230 --> 00:44:00.480 And indeed, if there was a hidden microphone in my dining room, 00:44:00.563 --> 00:44:05.157 in the unbuttoned conversations that I have with my wife, my family, 00:44:05.241 --> 00:44:10.110 my close friends, and that was published tomorrow in the New York Times, 00:44:10.193 --> 00:44:12.050 I would be in deep trouble. 00:44:20.170 --> 00:44:26.073 honest comments that you make about other people, if voiced, 00:44:26.157 --> 00:44:29.087 would negate the assumption of 00:44:29.170 --> 00:44:35.009 infinite mutual respect and generosity that are the basis of friendships and 00:44:35.092 --> 00:44:40.074 of other relationships, relationships of decorum and cooperation. 00:44:40.158 --> 00:44:44.983 My favorite example, I don't know if you have a clip from this, 00:44:45.067 --> 00:44:51.295 was in the romantic comedy movie Tootsie, where in a scene in which the disguised 00:44:51.379 --> 00:44:57.140 Dustin Hoffman portraying an actress becomes intimate with a fellow actress 00:44:57.223 --> 00:44:58.470 on a soap opera, 00:44:59.170 --> 00:45:04.163 played by Jessica Lange, and she confesses to the disguised Dustin Hoffman. 00:45:04.246 --> 00:45:06.750 You know what I wish just once? What? 00:45:08.190 --> 00:45:12.326 That a guy could be honest enough just to walk right up to me and say, Hey, 00:45:12.410 --> 00:45:16.715 listen, you know, I'm confused about this, too. I could lay a big line on you. 00:45:16.798 --> 00:45:20.177 We could do a lot of role-playing. But the simple truth is... 00:45:20.260 --> 00:45:24.100 I find you very interesting, and I'd really like to make love with you. 00:45:25.240 --> 00:45:29.037 And then in a clever twist of fate, later in the movie, 00:45:29.120 --> 00:45:34.187 an undisguised and unrecognized Dustin Hoffman does meet Jessica Lange at 00:45:34.270 --> 00:45:37.150 a cocktail party, goes up to her and says, 00:45:37.233 --> 00:45:41.947 I could lay a big wine on you and we could do a lot of role playing. 00:45:42.030 --> 00:45:47.590 But the simple truth is, is that I find you very interesting and I'd really like 00:45:47.674 --> 00:45:51.823 to make love to you. You know, it's a system. And of course, 00:45:51.907 --> 00:45:54.940 she throws him a glass of wine in his face. 00:45:55.240 --> 00:46:02.240 showing our hypocrisy about our hypocrisy. Namely, we long for honesty, candor, 00:46:03.132 --> 00:46:10.132 not role-playing and beating around the bush, just saying what we mean, 00:46:10.224 --> 00:46:13.820 but really we would not tolerate it. 00:46:24.670 --> 00:46:29.234 So you've thought deeply about the costs and the benefits of indirect speech. 00:46:29.318 --> 00:46:33.761 I understand your wife recently challenged you to act on your own theories, 00:46:33.844 --> 00:46:38.529 and she took a leaf out of that story you told me about the magazine writer who 00:46:38.613 --> 00:46:41.510 managed to score great restaurant tables with a… 00:46:41.620 --> 00:46:45.160 $50 bribe. What was the challenge you laid down on the table, Steve? 00:46:46.240 --> 00:46:51.738 So we were having a lovely stroll in the Brooklyn waterfront late summer night 00:46:51.822 --> 00:46:56.676 and there was a River Cafe and lovely restaurant with a gorgeous view 00:46:56.759 --> 00:47:01.787 of Manhattan and we hadn't made a reservation and we're getting hungry. 00:47:01.870 --> 00:47:06.022 And I had a $50 bill in my pocket, which is a rare occasion. 00:47:06.105 --> 00:47:10.468 And so she's saying, well, look, you've explained how it works. 00:47:10.552 --> 00:47:14.010 It would be really good if we could get in there. 00:47:15.410 --> 00:47:18.570 You're the guy with the theory. Let's see if your theory works. 00:47:20.980 --> 00:47:24.147 And, you know, like the writer for Gourmet Magazine, 00:47:24.231 --> 00:47:28.273 I got to say it was terrifying. I don't know what I was afraid of, 00:47:28.357 --> 00:47:31.420 but it did require screwing up a lot of gumption. 00:47:33.280 --> 00:47:39.169 But I did. And I said, you know, if I have the courage of my convictions, 00:47:39.253 --> 00:47:40.427 I got to do it. 00:47:40.510 --> 00:47:46.263 And so I went in, but I was defeated by the sight that greeted me at the hostess 00:47:46.346 --> 00:47:51.807 station. There were two maitre d's, two elegantly attired, attractive women, 00:47:51.890 --> 00:47:57.715 both of whom smiled at me. And I realized that any innuendo that I tried with one 00:47:57.799 --> 00:48:00.779 would be immediately spotted by the other. 00:48:00.863 --> 00:48:04.510 Perhaps that's why they hired maitre d's in Paris. 00:48:10.510 --> 00:48:13.377 is eminently possible. Now, of course, restaurants, 00:48:13.460 --> 00:48:17.716 the owner of the restaurant has an incentive that his or her maitre d's not 00:48:17.799 --> 00:48:22.402 be bribable because then people would be loath to make reservations if they could 00:48:22.485 --> 00:48:27.204 just be delayed and delayed and delayed by people jumping the queue with $50 bills. 00:48:27.287 --> 00:48:31.196 So there's some conflict there between the interests of the maitre d, 00:48:31.279 --> 00:48:35.650 which is to accept a little tip on the side, allow their palms to be greased, 00:48:35.734 --> 00:48:37.990 and the interests of the owner. And I'm 00:48:40.510 --> 00:48:44.657 major deeds there just for that reason. So what happened? 00:48:44.741 --> 00:48:50.150 You had the $50 bill in your hand and you just put it back in your pocket? 00:48:50.233 --> 00:48:56.162 What did you do? I skulked away, yes, and we had a long walk to find a restaurant 00:48:56.245 --> 00:48:57.210 with a table. 00:49:10.510 --> 00:49:13.453 Steven Pinker is a psychologist at Harvard University. 00:49:13.536 --> 00:49:17.376 He is the author of the book, When Everyone Knows That Everyone Knows, 00:49:17.459 --> 00:49:21.243 Common Knowledge and the Mysteries of Money, Power and Everyday Life. 00:49:21.326 --> 00:49:24.717 Steve, thank you so much for joining me today on Hidden Brain. 00:49:24.800 --> 00:49:26.930 It's a pleasure. Thanks for having me. 00:49:30.090 --> 00:49:33.190 Hidden Brain is produced by Hidden Brain Media. 00:49:40.510 --> 00:49:47.510 I'm Shankar Vedantam. See you soon.