Tim Shriver: How to Disagree With Dignity
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Speeds slower above 40 gigabytes on unlimited plan and additional taxes, fees and restrictions apply. See Mint Mobile for details. I'll bet in the last month you've been somewhere where you haven't said something you thought. 100 percent. What do you mean? It happens every day. Hey, everybody. Welcome to Literally With Me. Rob Blue. Today's a really good one. We're having Tim Shriver on today. Exactly what the doctor ordered.

not only in terms of navigating this crazy world that we live in, but just really breaking down a way to be happy and a way to treat each other and get through our days feeling better about ourselves. I love Tim. He's a good friend. You know, the Shriver family are very, very important to my family. And it's great to have him on. He's got a new podcast called Need a Lift.

And this is going to be fun. Hey, what's happening? How are you, Tim? How you doing, brother? Nice to see you. You look as good as ever. So do you. You and your brothers, all those Shriver brothers. I saw something in your podcast thing about hair, and I do bring hair to the table. You guys bring hair, you bring teeth.

You bring fitness. Well, the hair and teeth is completely genetic, so we have nothing to threaten ourselves for. A little bit of fitness, that might be something to our credit. Who knows? By the way, my favorite thing ever is to do the Maria Shriver Sunday dinner with all the brothers. That's rare. We haven't done that in a long time. I think I happened to be there for one of them, and it was bedlam. It was the greatest thing ever.

Ever. And Maria, who is, you know, she's Maria Shriver. We all know what that is. But when she gets around the brothers, it's like, it's a whole different, you really see like what that, what you guys were like growing up. It's the best. Well, it's definitely a show.

Maria used to say, this was actually maybe before anybody got married, we'd have family dinner. She's like, this is a reality show. This is a reality show. And the rest of us who don't know anything about television or entertainment or storytelling would be like, what the hell is she talking about? Like, this is a reality show. So I suppose we probably could have done a reality show, but it would have degenerated quickly into nothing but name calling and spite and all that.

All that. So I cannot imagine. Can you imagine? You guys could have been the cart. You could have been the headline of this podcast. No, no, no, no. Don't even go there. Don't even finish the sentence. You could have been, we could have been the Shrivers. That's who we could have been. Maybe. Yeah. Yeah. I guess. Who would be the, who would be the Kim of the Shrivers? Well, Maria is the girl. Maria, obviously singular. That's a singular. It's an easy one to answer that.

That is an easy one to answer. Well, tell me, how are you liking the podcast world? So I just started. I mean, I have a long way to go to catch up to veterans like you. But here's what I love about it. First of all, I love the fact that so many people are in contact. I mean, it's so rich and diverse, and there's so much content, which obviously makes it hard to differentiate. But it also makes it possible to have extraordinary conversations with veterans

People you could never book to a studio or get to a set or schedule a visit with and stuff like that. But I've had Michael and Nicole Phelps were fantastic. And then Min Jin Lee, who's like, I've only read her books, fantastic. And Rainn Wilson.

You know, who I think probably, well, I hope I'll meet him face-to-face sometime. We're in contact now, but just a genius. You probably know all these folks yourself. I do. I know. I do. Yeah, they're great. Just to have conversations with that level of person, you know, and get more wonderful people coming up. Killian Nose, the founder of Recovery Cafes, and Loretta Claiborne, the great Special Olympics athlete, and the list just goes on and on of...

People who will give you an hour. And I think it allows us to put out into the ecosystem, into the universe, really positive and hopeful energy. And sometimes disarmingly wise and thought-provoking visions of who we actually are, which are nowhere near as cynical and skeptical as what we typically hear. And that's one of the reasons I love what you're doing. By the way, the podcast is called Need a Lift.

Um, and what I love is I always, it's hard in a political year. It's, it's, it's hard in any year, but in a political year, it's really hard because everybody's trading in clickbait and, and wedge issues and what divides us. And no one ever talks about what unites us. And, and I, I,

But I guess there has to be a reason for that. There has to be something about the human nature. Are we more receptive to what divides us? Because believe me, if it worked for people to talk about what unites us, they'd be doing it. Well, here's the question, Rob. Right? Am I wrong? Are they doing it? Are they doing it? Or are they not doing it? They, if you think of the partisan media, if you think of politicians themselves, if you think even of the algorithm, they are not doing it.

But they, if you think of the rest of us, the people in faith-based institutions and in civic clubs, the people at work and the people at home with their families, they do talk a lot about things that inspire them. And they do hunger for things that give them support. And they do look for communities where they can feel at ease and welcomed and trusted. You just talked about my sister's dinner table. We are—oh, boy. Oh, boy.

Time out. Oh, boy. What you got? What's he got going on here? That's amazing. Did your takeout just arrive? Hope you have an editor. Is that your takeout that just arrived? Yeah. That's amazing. An hour and a half late. Your door dash. That's amazing. So, anyway, I don't know where I was, but I do think the conversations are going on. You were talking about Maria's dinner table. Yeah. I think, look, I think...

I was talking to Steve Hartman, the great CBS reporter who does the segments on On the Road. I said, well, how do you think the country is? He says, at the micro level, the country's in great shape. At the macro level, we're in terrible shape. The story we're telling ourselves in this, what we call this outrage industrial complex is terrible. And it is tearing us apart. But the story that's actually going on in communities and cities and towns around the country is much, much more hopeful.

And I do think that we're starting to recognize that the distortion is in the news and in the political system. That's a distortion of who we are. And, you know, we're not really, our view, Rob, on this is not that we have a problem of differences. We have a problem that we treat each other with contempt when we differ.

And that's a big difference. Like, you and I, I think, are probably not 100%—well, I hope we're not 100% aligned politically. But that doesn't mean I have to treat you with contempt if you have a different view than I do on the border or on reproductive rights or on taxes or you name it, whatever the list is. We don't have to treat each other with contempt. And that—

by itself, isolating this issue of how contempt has come to infect us, I hope will help us to overcome it a little bit. As I was doing my research, I love this. This is the perfect segue into it. I'm going to my notes. The way to communicate, what do you call it? It's amazing that you've come up with. The dignity index. Dude, can I tell you something? The dignity index, when I saw that, I was like, this is amazing.

Just the phrase, the dignity index, I am so in. Let's educate everybody. It's a scorecard. It's a scorecard. You can use it with Cheryl sometime. Just, you know, like when you're having it out, like, you know, if you're normal like any couple does, there are nights or times or days where you're just like, you're not seeing eye to eye. Watch.

Like score yourself. Just don't even tell her you're doing it. You know, just score yourself. How are you dipping down into I'm better than her? She's flawed. She's badly mistaken. She's the problem. Or is she doing the exact same thing? Most of us in our marriages have done that. Okay, we're going to go through it right now. I really want to... Okay. So...

Number one is the worst level, right? Number one. Right. That's the lowest. They're not even human. That is the level one. Level one escalates from violent words to violent actions. It's a combination of feeling the other side is less than human.

and calling for or approving violence. The subtext is they're not human. It's our moral duty to destroy them before they destroy us. That's level one. That's right. And believe it or not, Rob, just to stop you, sadly, when we look at public discourse, we find level one in the United States. Not often, but pretty regularly. The rhetoric of our political leaders, sadly, often dips that low. And I think...

euphemistically, it's, it's, it's more than like when it's literally said, you know, when you see it, but I think that there's, what do they call it? Um, um, signaling, uh, uh, dog whistles. Yeah. Yeah. Well, you get that at level two. Do you want to keep going up? Yeah. Level two accuses the other side of not just doing bad or being bad, uh,

but promoting evil. And the subtext of that is these people are evil and they're going to ruin our country if we let them. So it's us or them. That's level two. And when some people hear level two, they feel level one. For sure. They'll hear someone say, it's us or them. Those people are disgusting. And some people will hear that as fiery rhetoric. Some people will hear it as a call to violence. Right.

And when I ask people, invite your listeners to look at this maybe while they're listening, the index, when I ask people to rate themselves on how they talk about their political opponents, probably about a third of the people, Rob, say that they often are at a level two.

Us or them? Yeah, them, themselves. Not about the others. They say they are, when they talk about Trump voters and when they talk about Harris voters, they're not a majority of people, I wouldn't say, but a significant minority of people, 20, 30% of us, are level two. They're evil. It's us or them. We can't live in... That's where you see, for instance, you see this in other data. For instance...

The most recent data we have is almost 30% of Americans want to secede from the union because they have concluded that they can no longer tolerate living in the same country with the other party. That's two. That's the most concrete example I think you could come up with, really. Level three, attacks the other side's moral character.

not just their capabilities or competence. And the subject to that is, we're the good people, they're the bad people, it's us or them. Yeah. I mean, the problem, of course, as we all know, is them. All their ideas are terrible. They've become controlled by malevolent interests. They're so misguided as to be dangerous. That's level three.

Level four is, and obviously now we're getting to more nuanced, more subtle things.

variations of the kind of damaging communication. Level four is mocks or attacks the other side's background, beliefs, their commitment, their competence, their performance in the subjects. Again, it's now getting a little bit, you know, a little bit warm and fuzzier. We're better than these people. They don't really belong. They're not one of us. That you see all the time. That you see all the time, but it is still a

Deep separation. It's a sense of superiority. We're better than them. It's a sense in which we have nothing in common. We don't share things. Yeah.

They're different. They don't belong to our club. I'd prefer not to have them around. I wouldn't want my child to go out with that kind of a person. That would be really uncomfortable if they came to my house. And that kind of person, fill in the blank. So it's a lot less toxic than the calls to hatred and violence that are at the lower levels of

But it's not a lot to be proud of, honestly. I mean, I've got to tell you, the more I've spent time learning and

working with this index with my colleagues, the more I'm like, ooh, man, I was, geez, I did that again. I dropped to a four. And even when I don't say it now, I notice when I think it. So it's pretty, it's eye-opening to see yourself in this index. Keep going. All right, level five listens to this side's point of view and respectfully explains their own goals, views, and plans. And that subject is, the other side has a right to be here.

and a right to be heard. They're country too. Now we're into proper communication. Now we're into equal time. Yeah, okay. All right. Okay, so, okay, Rob, I know what you think. Go ahead, state your opinion.

You have a right to have an opinion. I have a right to have an opinion. We should each have five minutes, and then we'll see, you know, that kind of thing. Which is, again, now we're at least what we would call on the dignity side of the scale. I'm no longer dehumanizing you. I'm actually showing that you also have some dignity. And in this case, I'm going to give it at least equal access to...

to being expressed. Do you remember the cartoon when we were kids? There was like a gigantic dog and then there was a gigantic coyote.

And they used to like drink and hang out together. And then they would go in and punch a time clock. And then the coyote would try to take the dog sheep and they would fight and beat the living crap out of each other. And then the whistle, and then, and then the whistle would blow. And like one would have like a sledgehammer ready to just beat the crap out of it. And the whistle would blow and they'd freeze, drop it. And then they'd go and talk and hang out together. And they repeated it. And it always reminds me of like, you know, uh, president Reagan and Tip O'Neill, where,

Where they would disagree vehemently. I mean, you don't get any farther apart than, and then they would go as two Irish dudes and go have a drink and talk and go out to eat. And, you know, those days are over. Where else can you go surfing and skiing alone?

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More and more companies are building their businesses in Ohio or relocating because they see the opportunity to pioneer innovation in a place their people and their families will love to live. The cost of living in Ohio is 11% less than the national average, which means your paycheck goes further for all the things you love to do. Not only will you save money, but you'll save a much more precious resource.

time. The average commute in Ohio is just 24 minutes, meaning you get home quicker to be with people you love. I'm from Ohio. I don't need an advertisement to tell me how great Ohio is. My whole family is from Ohio. My grandpa ran the Spot Restaurant in Sydney, Ohio. Greatest hamburgers and pies in the world. Thank you very much. It's still there. Started in 1911. Lots of great stuff. It's

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Yeah, at their best, they'd be one notch higher. The next one up. You want to go to six. We hear a lot about President Reagan and Tip O'Neill. We hear about my uncle Ted Kennedy and Orrin Hatch. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Similar kind of. We'd put them a little bit higher. Go to six. Okay, so six sees it as a welcome duty to work with the other side.

and to find common ground and act on it. What's the great Reagan quote? Show me my enemy and I'll show you somebody that I have 30% in common with or something like that. What is that? Yeah, it's beautiful. I don't know that particular quote, but there's a sense here in which

Okay, Rob, you and I, we do share things in common right now. I know that you and I agree on whatever, you know, fill in the blank. Sure. Yep. Let's at least have a have a talk about that. Let's see if we can develop some common. Maybe we can solve the problem of the border. If I know that you want more law enforcement and I want more compassion or you want more compassion, I want more.

Let's find that there's something we have in common here that maybe you also share my view and I also share yours. We can craft a strategy. That's a sort of a sick level person. He's not just or she's not just saying, okay, state your piece and be done. And then I'm going to say state mine. It's now a slightly deeper exploration of where we find ourselves aligned. And then level seven is,

Wants to fully engage the other side, discussing the deepest disagreements they have to see what breakthroughs they might find. So that you're going right at what divides you in a positive way. Right. With an openness to...

The toughest thing here at Seven, which Seven speech does beautifully, is is open to acknowledging their own mistakes. I might have this wrong. So Rob, tell me more deeply where you're coming from on this, because I have strong opinions, but I might be wrong. And your opinion, which is different from mine, might help me, and maybe mine might help you. So I'm no longer just like

or about something we agree with and let's stick to that, right? That's sometimes what happens at dining room tables like at Thanksgiving, right? Like, don't bring up that thing that separates us. Just bring up the fact that we all love, you know, bridge or whatever it is or tennis or chocolate cake and don't talk about, but a seven is no, no, no, no, no, no. I'm not afraid.

I'm not afraid of where we're different. In fact, I want to explore where we're different. And I want to be open to hearing the difference. And I want to be open to expressing my own capacity to change. And then eight is I can see myself in every human being. I refuse to hate anyone. And I offer dignity to everyone.

And many of us live there more than we think. No one, by the way, this is not a scale of people. This is a scale of speech or of interactions. So I wouldn't say that Rob is a six or Rob is an eight or Rob is a two. I would say that in this moment, the way in which Rob treated me was an eight. We couldn't have been further apart. In fact, maybe we were even enemies on this issue. But he didn't dehumanize me.

He saw something in me that was even in the face of steep and maybe heartfelt differences was deserving of respect and almost sacredness. So you see this and people say, well, that's outrageous. How could you treat someone with dignity if they think X? And I often say, particularly to my more progressive friends, do you think someone in prison should be treated with dignity?

Oh, yeah, yes, of course, of course. Well, they've done things to, you know, again, if the system has worked, they've often done things that are abhorrent, hurt people, maybe killed people, damaged people's property. That's why they're in prison, but they still deserve to be treated with dignity.

Right. And even, you know, I was up at West Point a couple of weeks ago and I was thinking, oh, my God, these guys are going to hate me because I'm coming up there to talk about dignity instead of contempt. And they're training as as, you know, as as leaders in in conflict and war. And they were like, oh, no, we believe deeply in this work. The point of the Defense Department is to find and isolate as much as possible to narrow the scope.

of attack so that we damage as few people as possible so that we hurt as little as we can so that we respect and treat as many people as possible with dignity. That's the goal. So these young cadets and their professors, by the way, the...

their commanding officers and so on, felt like this was the curriculum at West Point. It shocked me. I mean, honestly, I was prepared for a little bit of a battle, but I was stunned by how even people who are trained in military and in defense and in weapons understand the importance of treating people with dignity, even under conditions of war. What would it take to get

Can you imagine a world where social media, where the talking heads on both sides of the shows, the morning shows, use this scale? Well, the shows would be over because the shows are not predicated on this at all. They would be over. Yeah.

Yeah. I mean, the view would be over and the five. Yeah, but people say it doesn't sell, but look at your body of work. I mean, I can go through it, but there's a lot of feel-good content in your body of work that people love. You ask people, like, what's your favorite streaming show of the last two years? A lot of people say Ted Lasso. Yeah. I mean, Ted Lasso is...

They beautifully are. I mean, I wish I someday maybe, you know, them, the writers of that show. They have so many scenes in which they took conflict, in which they took dehumanization. And they just did these masterful twists through that character of taking all the kind of humiliating ways in which we tend to treat each other and converting it into.

Lessons for life, lessons for healing, lessons for forgiveness, lessons for hope, lessons for self-deprecating and self-awareness. I mean, so, you know, I don't buy the idea it doesn't sell.

I mean, look at Disney. Disney's made a pretty good business out of selling people who rise above contempt, who triumph over toxic situations, little characters that may look like they're just for kids, but they're for all of us who end up in a place where they envision a world where there's more dignity. So I don't buy it. Now, you're right.

that a lot of the partisan news is selling toxic contempt. But I don't think that means that's the only thing that'll sell. I just think that means that's the easier thing to sell. Let me ask you this. Some of our, also our favorite artists, and by that I mean actual artists or stand-up comedians, you know, it's more, are provocateurs, right? And so how do you reconcile that?

That was somebody who's a professional provocateur. Like that's, they're there to, that's their bread and butter. And I think we need those people.

Yeah, I think we need people, and comedians maybe are a great example of this, who kind of stir us and jar us and find something that we sort of had hidden a little bit and reveal it to kind of, in a way, mock our own weaknesses and flaws and stuff like that. I think that's great, honestly. I think that's great. But you know the difference between a comedian who is just...

denigrating people. Yes. And we know the difference between a comedian who's doing a bit and someone who's not. You listen to a comedian, you might laugh when the person just humiliates people. Like we've seen this a lot with people with intellectual disabilities. I've given, as you know, a good percentage of my life to the Special Olympics movement. And there's a lot of people who do bits and they make fun of people who have intellectual disabilities. It's not funny. I mean, people laugh. But deep down inside, I think they're thinking, hey, wait a minute.

That's not really, that's not that funny. You know, or making fun of women or men or making fun of short people or tall people. You know, just like a cheap laugh. I don't think it's that funny. Great comedians laugh

Make us laugh not only at others, but at ourselves. Make us grow and change. Make us relax in a place where there's less contempt, where we can kind of see something that might have made us uncomfortable with a new light. I mean, look, that's fantastic. And...

And I think a lot of entertainment. I mean, people love to watch action films where there's sadly quite a lot of violence, but we all watch it. So it's not that we have no appetite for the other side of the scale. It's just that when the culture has become normatively rewarding of hatred and contempt, you know, I've talked to a lot of politicians. One guy said, you know, said the obvious thing, look,

nobody can, you know, make the country better by losing. I don't want to lose. And if I need to go negative, I'll lose. And I'm like, I get it. You want to win. But you also can't,

lose the entire country if you win. I mean, people, we're destroying ourselves. We're destroying the fabric of our country. You know, the data that's most painful to me on this, and it's personal, is that, you know, almost 100 million Americans have broken off a relationship with someone they love because of politics and culture. A third of us. Now, that's a recipe for disaster. That's a recipe for broken families.

for loneliness, for increases in anxiety. We've seen this both in our generation and in children's generation, this intensely increasing sense of anxiety about the future. That's partly us calling each other names, demonizing, dehumanizing, attacking each other. And what are young people coming to the conclusion, wait a minute, this is not safe out there. It's not a safe country. So the toll of this

vitriol is no longer innocent. It's not like we can just get a cheap laugh or run a mean-spirited ad and be done with it. We got to recognize that there's a new issue, and I think we got to take it seriously. Comedians, entertainers, journalists, politicians, teachers, law enforcement people, people, we all have to take it seriously because I think it's...

I think we're in trouble. Well, you guys have been through it as a family with RFK Jr., you know, ostensibly leaving the Democratic Party and addressing trouble. And from my sense of it, from a thousand feet, although knowing a lot of the family pretty closely, it feels like as painful as it's been, everybody has been using the dignity scale for as far as I can tell and talking about it. I think we're trying really hard. It's not easy.

Because politics has become so inflammatory that a change of heart on a political party feels like a betrayal of your poor, of your values, of your identity, of your tribe. It doesn't have to be those things. This is the other hidden secret that our politics doesn't want us to know. The majority of Americans agree on even the most divisive issues.

I mean, 60 to 70% of Americans agree on what? Guns, on the border, on reproductive rights, on education, all these things that we think, my God, those people have become horrible. Most of that is an inflamed version of a small minority position. That's right. The majority of Americans don't actually even differ that much.

So we're fighting like if you were, let's just say you were a Democrat and I were a Republican and I was an avid gun rights person and you were an avid gun safety person, we meet each other with hostility, assuming that we don't agree on anything. The truth is most people who are gun rights and gun safety people largely agree.

What to do about guns? No, 100% because I'm very much in that world. And you're absolutely right. There is so much more common ground, but there's the powers that be lose their power when they're not inflaming the fringe. And it's not, see, this is where the system is bad.

Politics now rewards contempt over problem solving. That's right. And I could give you real life examples, many of them from people who've served in Congress and where problems are there. You know, people have solutions and people agree on both sides to the solution. And then people say, we don't want to do the solution because we can't run on it if we do the solution. That's so depressing. That's so infuriating. I mean, that should make us angry.

that we have political leaders who know they can solve a problem, who have the constituencies to mobilize around solving a problem and don't do it because it doesn't serve them in the next election. We know you have a lot on your holiday to-do list.

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So if you're looking for a gift for the food lover in your life, head to goldbelly.com and get 20% off your first order with promo code gift. You know, the other thing I think about too is, by the way, that's so depressing. I just don't even know. I have no comment. It's so bad. But the other thing I think about is in a world where everybody is so afraid to say the wrong thing to somebody,

In fact, the public tenor is worse than it's ever been. I mean, it's so bizarre. Yeah, everybody's afraid to say the wrong thing, and everybody's worried about free speech too. But here's the thing. The biggest threat to free speech is contempt.

Now, I'll bet, I'm going to make a wager because I've made it a lot with different groups and I'll pretty much get 100% of this. I'll bet in the last month you've been somewhere where you haven't said something you thought. 100%. What do you mean? It happens every day. So every day. And you don't say it, not because you don't believe it, but because you're afraid, maybe fear is not the right term, of the contempt you'll get from other people if you say what you think. So the threat to free speech is not, you know, Uncle Sam.

The threat to free speech is the contempt with which we treat each other. So your idea, let's just say whatever it is, that you don't share, you're bottling up, right? You say, oh, it's no big deal. I'm just not going to bring it up right here because these people, oh my God, if I say this here, that's just going to be a disaster. You bottle it up.

You unconsciously or consciously feel that those people don't respect or understand or value your opinion because they're going to yell at you or scream at you or call you a name if you say it. And meanwhile, they're doing the same thing.

We're all going back into our little foreigners at the end of the day and trying to find someone who will listen to us, who will do what? Repeat back to us exactly what we think. Well, it's funny. I was casting a project and I was working with one of the great casting directors, one of the number one, and an actor's name came up and we're kind of talking about him and the casting director said, oh, that person is a terrible, and then

mentioned what party they were, they, they thought. Yeah. And I was like, and I, and I go, oh, okay. So that person just lost the ability to be in the mix on this part because this casting person perceived their political party as, uh,

one of the parties. It's destructive. Yeah. Yeah. And, and so it's, it's real. I mean, it's, it's, it's a, it's a, there's a reason why people shut up. Yeah. No, no, it's, it's, oh, it's terrifying.

And one misstep and you're going to be destroyed by the other party. What happened? Where did that... Because I feel like I didn't grow up with... We know we didn't grow up with it. We know we didn't. So is it just... Well, there's a lot of people on causes. You can say the social media is a big factor. It is. The algorithm is a factor. Big factor in our view. I'll tell you what I think it is. I think it's when the news departments...

became beholden to rate it. When the news departments became under the umbrella of entertainment. Right. That was the very first, because it used to be just, we're giving you the news. The news is the news. Don't look at us. This is the news. The minute it becomes, we're selling you the news, we're watching the ratings, this story rates, this news rates, this news, nobody's interested in. I think the news, well, the news has always been a business, but

what happened, I think, was the partisan making of news. When we were kids, there was something called the Fairness Doctrine. It's an obscure piece of legislation. But back in the day when people used the airwaves to transmit news, the government owned the airwaves and the government made a rule that said you have to have both sides of an issue presented if you present a partisan point. If you present a point of view of Democrats, you have to have a Republican point of view and vice versa. So that was called the Fairness Doctrine. Now, we're,

Those days are gone. They're never coming back. But what replaced the fairness doctrine was the partisan doctrine. The more partisan I can make my news, the more likely I am to get an audience. So many people have become addicted. They become devotionally angry and addicted to their source of news almost as a way of appeasing and controlling their anger. So if I'm a Fox News person or an MSNBC person, I often go back almost...

like an addict to get a fix. Wait a second. Now, what did happen today? I wonder if today they, and I wonder how my, Rachel would explain this because she's going to make a really good point that I'm going to use against my fill in the blank, my husband or my friend or my colleague at work. He's going to tell me exactly how to say this. And he's going to give me the data that makes it clear that they're horrible, that they're terrible. So it becomes like a cycle.

And anger is a self-perpetuating cycle sometimes. And it's – so the news media has responsibility. I'm not going to exonerate politicians. They also have a responsibility for this because –

They feed the media the news they want, and the media feeds them the fame and attention they want. So, you know, if you talk to an average United States senator and say, how does it work when you treat the other side with dignities? He says, I get no attention. But if I hit him with a zinger, I'm all over the news. So they're in this kind of unholy marriage that prizes contempt at the expense of the country.

That's the only way to put it. Where do you see it heading? Well, I think we're at a point where more and more Americans are pushing back. The ratings for most of the media, most of the news media are down because people like, I'll give you me. I haven't watched a cable news show. I shouldn't say this because I'm trying to get on some of them in like two years.

I just stopped. It was making me sick. I know it was making me sick. You turn it on. If you, if you don't like, don't watch for a month and then turn it on for 10 minutes and see if you don't realize how toxic it is. It's unreal. Yeah. It gives you anxiety for sure. It gives you anxiety. And you know, people are worried about what they pour into their bodies. Is this toxic? Is that toxic? Does this have a chemical? Does this have too much sugar? They should be worrying about what they're pouring into their heart too.

Because that stuff is just as dangerous, just as poisonous. And it infects your whole system just as badly as bad food or bad drink or whatever. Where do you get your news from? You know, I pick up my phone. I have a few legacy media newspapers. But here's the thing.

You're going to get your news. It's not like you're going to miss it if you want it. You can find an update as to what happened at the presidential debate or the hurricane or a bill that's moving in Congress that's about something you care about. Let's say you care about funding for education or you care about the environment or you care about lowering taxes. You can keep up.

with what's going on on the bill, if that's what you really care about. If you want to find out how horrible people are on the other side of the bill, then tune into the Nightly, tune into the cable news. So I, you know, I read a couple of newspapers on my phone. I try to limit it. It's the...

best advice we've been able to find that people really respond to per tailings. It's just like, you know, people's, they, they're thinking they're drinking too much. They try to cut back to one drink instead of two, or they think they're eating too much dessert. They try to cut back their calories from, I don't know, 2,500 to 2000. So even cutting back helps. Uh, and then, you know, also I think calling, this is the one we really love. Like,

Let's say you're on a mailing list. Are you on a mailing list for any political? You can't not be if you're American. They find you and they write you, right? And they say, please give $25 today because, and then they'll fill in the blank with some threat that is existential if you don't give $25. The other side is going to. So what we're saying to folks is, look, that's your side. Write back.

and say, I'm for, let's say I'm for President Trump or I'm for Vice President Harris. I'm for you, but I will not give to this appeal because it has dehumanizing contempt in it. Write me again when you've got something positive to say about your candidate or about the other side, and I'll write a check. I'm not writing a check for this.

That by itself, to your own team, not to the other team, don't go catching the other team. Don't go saying, oh, look at Trump's emails are horrible, or look at her, she's spreading these lies. Write your own team when you see contempt. And I think, look, you know, culture changes, Rob. We've seen this in our lives. Culture changes a lot, and sometimes it changes fast. This problem is not inevitable.

We can change it. Americans can change it. The 100 million Americans who have ended a relationship, the 60, maybe 70% of us who are exhausted and worn out by the culture, there's hundreds of millions of us who want a different tone.

We've got to organize. We've got to build grassroots leverage. We've got to get people to resist the contempt and challenge their own leaders to do better. We've got to teach our children how to disagree without being disagreeable. We've got to make our places of business safe for differences. We've got to make that casting director aware that treating that person with contempt because of their political views just isn't cool with me. Let's treat them according to their talent.

That doesn't exonerate people from challenging on principle. We always say, don't change your principles. Fight for your principles. Work for your principles. Be passionate about your principles. But add one principle. Treat other people with dignity who disagree with you. That's all.

That's, in our view, it's my view, at least it's kind of a little bit of a summary of almost every single religious tradition. Almost every single religious tradition. Yeah, religions have a lot of other things in them too, I get it. But if you had to summarize the golden rule, the Sermon on the Mount, the Ten Commandments, where do they start? With love your creator, love your neighbor, love yourself. If you had to say just those things, add that to your politics,

That's it. Don't stop working on the environment. Don't start working on, but, but add that I think we'd be a lot better. Well, I, I hope everybody listening takes a minute to think about this and to think about what we can all do to, to lower the temperature. And it's not that hard. It really isn't that hard. And we're doing it most of the time. I think, I think, I think we're doing it in our daily lives, almost everywhere, except very specific places.

times and on very specific subjects. And if we just are cognizant of it, I think, I think it's like you said, society can change in a flash. It's shocking sometimes how quickly the, what, what is acceptable changes. That's right.

It can happen overnight sometimes. That's right. That's right. 10 years ago, we had a bunch of kids, including my son, who said in the Special Olympics movement, we ought to attack, challenge, invite people to stop using the word retard. Yep. Make fun of them. You and I grew up in a world where that was a common language. We just, you know, don't be such a retard. That was normal. Yep. And then we started listening to people with intellectual disabilities, and we found out how painful that was, how just overreacting.

overwhelmingly crushing it was to hear that language. So we launched a little campaign. And when we started it, Rob, we polled people, how open are you to changing your language around the use of the word retard? And it was like 75 or 80% said, leave me alone. That's thought police and political correctness. And that's ridiculous. Within five years, it was the opposite. 80% said I would never use that word.

That's not 100%, but it was a fast shift, generally speaking, of the tone and treatment of people with intellectual... Now, you can say that's a small deal. It is a small deal in the larger scheme of things. I'm not saying it's a massive change, but it's an important change for a community of people who have suffered and been struggling a long, long time for decency and dignity.

We can do that. You know, it's not that hard to treat a Republican. I can tell you, it's not that hard to treat a Republican with dignity. It's not that hard. I've seen you do it. I've seen you do it at the dinner table. It's just not that hard. You know, I can disagree with you. You know, it's not that hard to treat a Democrat with dignity. Really, guys, if you're listening to this and you're Republican, you don't have to agree with me on stuff. Treat me as a fellow human being.

And catch yourself. I try to do the same thing. I try to catch myself and I'm like, oh, God, I can't believe that son of a... Did that. I'm like, wait a minute, wait a minute. Focus on the policy, focus on the program, focus on the outcome. Do not focus on dehumanizing the other person. It just doesn't work. This has been great. This has just been a lot to think about and makes me feel that there's...

Hope, we need guys like you out there. Thank you, Rob. Thank you. And I hope people will join me at Needle Lift. It's really fun having these conversations. The one criteria for people on Needle Lift is you're someone who lives in the no hate zone and who tries from the inside out to make the world a little better. And human beings are beautiful. Yeah, we're broken. Yeah, we're flawed. Yeah, we make huge mistakes. But if we tap into the beauty in each other...

It's an unstoppable force. And I just feel like you're in this, I'm in this. There's a lot of us. Millions of us are in this same work. The more we can amplify it, that's what I'm trying to do with our podcast. So I hope people will join me and we'll go back and forth with our listeners and our audiences and maybe create a real community. Well, I'm in. Count me in.

double and triple. Thank you, Rob. I will see you next time you're out here in LA. I hope so. And you're looking good, brother, and you're sounding good. Thank you. You are too, brother. I'm so happy for you and for the podcast and for people to tune in. Thank you. I love your family. Same to you. I don't know about you, but I'm feeling much more positive, and I'm feeling like I have some takeaways, some actual takeaway messages

to implement moving forward. And I love when we do episodes of Literally that are like this, where there's something actionable that we've hopefully put out there for you guys to use in your own lives. And I hope that you do. And I will see you next week right here when you come back on Literally.

You've been listening to Literally with Rob Lowe, produced by me, Sean Doherty, with help from associate producer Sarah Begar and research by Alyssa Grau. Engineering and mixing by Joanna Samuel. Our executive producers are Rob Lowe for Low Profile, Nick Liao, Adam Sachs, and Jeff Ross for Team Coco, and Colin Anderson for Stitcher. Booking by Deirdre Dodd. Music by Devin Bryant.

Special thanks to Hidden City Studios. Thanks for listening. We'll see you next time on Literally. We know you have a lot on your holiday to-do list.

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