WEBVTT 00:00:00.000 --> 00:00:04.599 So I want to start today by having you visualize 00:00:04.599 --> 00:00:08.859 something really mundane. Just picture a standard 00:00:08.859 --> 00:00:11.740 city sidewalk. Okay, a sidewalk. Yeah, just a 00:00:11.740 --> 00:00:14.359 slab of concrete in a downtown area. You know, 00:00:14.380 --> 00:00:16.719 maybe there's a crash can, a fire hydrant, a 00:00:16.719 --> 00:00:18.859 few people rushing past you. Right, I'm picturing 00:00:18.859 --> 00:00:21.059 it. It's noisy, probably a bit dirty. People 00:00:21.059 --> 00:00:23.699 are kind of dodging each other. Exactly. And 00:00:23.699 --> 00:00:26.039 if I asked you to describe the movement of those 00:00:26.039 --> 00:00:28.359 people, what would you say? You'd probably say 00:00:28.359 --> 00:00:31.089 it's random. Right. Oh, absolutely. That it's 00:00:31.089 --> 00:00:33.689 chaos. It's just individuals trying to get from 00:00:33.689 --> 00:00:35.990 point A to point B without dumping into each 00:00:35.990 --> 00:00:38.130 other. Yeah. I mean, it certainly feels like 00:00:38.130 --> 00:00:39.990 chaos when you're, you know, trying to catch 00:00:39.990 --> 00:00:41.929 a train and you're stuck behind a slow walker. 00:00:41.969 --> 00:00:44.770 Oh, man, the worst. But what if I told you that 00:00:44.770 --> 00:00:47.990 it isn't chaos at all? Okay. What if I told you 00:00:47.990 --> 00:00:50.189 that the way you walk down that street, the way 00:00:50.189 --> 00:00:53.890 you pause to check your phone, the specific inch 00:00:53.890 --> 00:00:55.630 of the curb you choose to stand on while you 00:00:55.630 --> 00:00:58.340 wait for the light. What if all of that is actually 00:00:58.340 --> 00:01:01.299 governed by a set of hidden rules? Yeah, rules 00:01:01.299 --> 00:01:04.140 that are just as rigid, just as predictable, 00:01:04.280 --> 00:01:07.140 and just as discoverable as the code running 00:01:07.140 --> 00:01:09.159 a computer program. I mean, I would say that 00:01:09.159 --> 00:01:12.120 sounds a little bit like the matrix, but knowing 00:01:12.120 --> 00:01:14.040 who you're talking about today, I know exactly 00:01:14.040 --> 00:01:16.200 where you're going with this. Yeah, we are doing 00:01:16.200 --> 00:01:19.599 a deep dive today into the mind of a man who 00:01:19.599 --> 00:01:22.540 looked at the world differently than almost anyone 00:01:22.540 --> 00:01:25.329 else in the 20th century. His name was William 00:01:25.329 --> 00:01:28.489 H. White. To his friends, he was Holly. Holly 00:01:28.489 --> 00:01:31.090 White. Right. And this is a guy who pulled off 00:01:31.090 --> 00:01:34.969 one of the strangest, most fascinating career 00:01:34.969 --> 00:01:37.450 pivots in history. It really is a unique trajectory 00:01:37.450 --> 00:01:39.329 because we are talking about a man who went from 00:01:39.329 --> 00:01:42.530 analyzing the stifling gray flannel boardrooms 00:01:42.530 --> 00:01:45.370 of 1950s corporations. Right, the Mad Men era. 00:01:45.450 --> 00:01:49.209 Exactly. From that to analyzing the gritty, chaotic 00:01:49.209 --> 00:01:52.290 streets of 1970s New York City. And the wild 00:01:52.290 --> 00:01:54.909 thing is he used the exact same skill set for 00:01:54.909 --> 00:01:57.049 both. He was a professional people watcher. Yeah. 00:01:57.109 --> 00:01:59.209 But I don't mean that in a casual sitting at 00:01:59.209 --> 00:02:01.629 a cafe kind of way. No, no, not at all. He turned 00:02:01.629 --> 00:02:04.150 observation into a hard science. He turned just 00:02:04.150 --> 00:02:05.909 looking at things into a rigorous methodology. 00:02:06.390 --> 00:02:08.930 And that is really the mission of this deep dive 00:02:08.930 --> 00:02:12.050 for us today. We have his biography, his bibliography, 00:02:12.150 --> 00:02:15.319 and his massive studies on urban planning. right 00:02:15.319 --> 00:02:18.360 in front of us. Piles of it. Piles of data. And 00:02:18.360 --> 00:02:20.500 we really want to understand how this one man 00:02:20.500 --> 00:02:23.300 decoded the secret structures of human behavior. 00:02:23.759 --> 00:02:26.379 Because whether he was looking at a Fortune 500 00:02:26.379 --> 00:02:30.939 CEO... or a street performer in a plaza, he saw 00:02:30.939 --> 00:02:33.340 the exact same thing. He saw a system. He saw 00:02:33.340 --> 00:02:35.199 a system. But before we get into the biography, 00:02:35.419 --> 00:02:37.599 you found a contradiction in the research that 00:02:37.599 --> 00:02:40.659 I think perfectly sets the stage for why this 00:02:40.659 --> 00:02:42.759 guy matters so much. Yeah, it's the hook that 00:02:42.759 --> 00:02:45.419 really pulls you in. Because William H. White 00:02:45.419 --> 00:02:47.740 is famous for two things that, on the surface 00:02:47.740 --> 00:02:49.620 at least, seem totally opposed to each other. 00:02:49.780 --> 00:02:52.240 Okay, lay it out. First, in the 1950s, he wrote 00:02:52.240 --> 00:02:54.539 a book called The Organization Man. It was this 00:02:54.539 --> 00:02:57.199 blistering critique of conformity. He absolutely 00:02:57.319 --> 00:02:59.879 hated how corporations stripped away individuality. 00:02:59.960 --> 00:03:03.120 He was the champion of the lone wolf. OK, so 00:03:03.120 --> 00:03:06.159 he's the anti -rule guy. Yeah, precisely. But 00:03:06.159 --> 00:03:09.219 then 20 years later, he publishes his findings 00:03:09.219 --> 00:03:12.400 on city streets and he argues that jaywalking, 00:03:12.400 --> 00:03:15.180 which is literally breaking the law, crossing 00:03:15.180 --> 00:03:18.500 against the light, is actually a rational, highly 00:03:18.500 --> 00:03:22.060 structured and efficient act. So wait, the expert 00:03:22.060 --> 00:03:24.340 on conformity tells us that breaking the rules 00:03:24.340 --> 00:03:27.740 is the smartest thing you can do. In a way, yes, 00:03:27.979 --> 00:03:30.960 but it's deeper than that. He's showing us that 00:03:30.960 --> 00:03:33.500 humans have their own rules, internal social 00:03:33.500 --> 00:03:36.639 rules, and those often make way more sense than 00:03:36.639 --> 00:03:38.680 the rules the government or the corporation tries 00:03:38.680 --> 00:03:40.439 to force on them. That makes a lot of sense. 00:03:40.580 --> 00:03:42.819 He trusted human nature way more than he trusted 00:03:42.819 --> 00:03:44.860 the rulebook. And somewhere in that tension, 00:03:45.099 --> 00:03:48.139 he actually coined a term that we all use today. 00:03:48.729 --> 00:03:51.509 But we all use it incorrectly. Groupthink. Oh, 00:03:51.550 --> 00:03:53.110 we definitely need to clear the air on that one 00:03:53.110 --> 00:03:55.569 later. The way we use it on social media or in 00:03:55.569 --> 00:03:58.250 casual conversation is absolutely not how White 00:03:58.250 --> 00:04:00.009 intended it. We will definitely unpack that. 00:04:00.110 --> 00:04:02.349 But let's rewind a bit. Because to understand 00:04:02.349 --> 00:04:04.409 the observer, we really have to look at the lens 00:04:04.409 --> 00:04:06.969 he was looking through. And that lens was ground 00:04:06.969 --> 00:04:10.539 in a very specific, very intense place. Let's 00:04:10.539 --> 00:04:12.259 go back to the beginning. William Hollingsworth 00:04:12.259 --> 00:04:15.659 White Jr., born 1917, Westchester, Pennsylvania. 00:04:15.960 --> 00:04:18.199 Right. And looking at his early biography, you 00:04:18.199 --> 00:04:20.560 really get the sense of a very traditional, perhaps 00:04:20.560 --> 00:04:22.800 even elite, American upbringing. For sure. He 00:04:22.800 --> 00:04:24.720 went to St. Andrew's School in Delaware, and 00:04:24.720 --> 00:04:27.319 then he went to Princeton University. Graduated 00:04:27.319 --> 00:04:31.040 class of 1939. Princeton in the late 30s. I mean, 00:04:31.079 --> 00:04:33.319 that paints a pretty specific picture. That's 00:04:33.319 --> 00:04:35.279 F. Scott Fitzgerald territory. We're talking 00:04:35.279 --> 00:04:38.699 about the absolute elite, the future captains 00:04:38.699 --> 00:04:41.120 of industry. It really does. It places him in 00:04:41.120 --> 00:04:45.300 a very certain social stratum, educated, likely 00:04:45.300 --> 00:04:47.560 surrounded by the kind of people who would eventually 00:04:47.560 --> 00:04:50.680 go on to run the very corporations he would later 00:04:50.680 --> 00:04:53.660 analyze. The ultimate insider. Exactly. But here's 00:04:53.660 --> 00:04:55.819 the thing. If he had just stayed on that track, 00:04:55.980 --> 00:04:58.420 if he had just ridden that Princeton wave, he 00:04:58.420 --> 00:05:00.360 probably would have become just another executive. 00:05:00.480 --> 00:05:02.459 Just another guy in a suit. He would have been 00:05:02.459 --> 00:05:04.560 one of the exact people he later criticized. 00:05:04.839 --> 00:05:07.100 So what changed? What broke the mold for him? 00:05:07.279 --> 00:05:10.209 The pivot point, the trauma. really that created 00:05:10.209 --> 00:05:12.889 hollywhite the observer wasn't princeton it was 00:05:12.889 --> 00:05:15.129 the marine corps see this is a part of his life 00:05:15.129 --> 00:05:17.110 i didn't know much about until we dug into these 00:05:17.110 --> 00:05:20.110 sources for this deep dive i knew he was an urbanist 00:05:20.110 --> 00:05:22.350 i didn't realize he was in the thick of the pacific 00:05:22.350 --> 00:05:25.550 theater oh he was right in it he joined in 1941 00:05:25.550 --> 00:05:29.250 and served until 1944 and he wasn't just pushing 00:05:29.250 --> 00:05:31.730 paper in a warehouse somewhere safe he was the 00:05:31.730 --> 00:05:33.970 battalion intelligence officer with the third 00:05:33.970 --> 00:05:36.750 battalion first marines wow and he was right 00:05:36.750 --> 00:05:39.509 in the thick of the guadal Canal campaign. Guadalcanal. 00:05:39.629 --> 00:05:42.470 I mean, historically speaking, that is some of 00:05:42.470 --> 00:05:45.250 the most brutal, chaotic fighting of the entire 00:05:45.250 --> 00:05:48.600 war. Horrific conditions. Mud. disease, close 00:05:48.600 --> 00:05:51.579 quarters combat, just an absolute nightmare. 00:05:51.759 --> 00:05:53.639 Absolutely. And we have to consider his specific 00:05:53.639 --> 00:05:56.420 role there. He was an intelligence officer. Now 00:05:56.420 --> 00:05:58.959 think about what that job actually entails. You're 00:05:58.959 --> 00:06:01.220 not just shooting. Right. In the middle of absolute 00:06:01.220 --> 00:06:05.459 chaos, mud, malaria, enemy fire, your job isn't 00:06:05.459 --> 00:06:08.360 just to react. Your job is to watch. You're stepping 00:06:08.360 --> 00:06:10.759 back from the immediate emotion of fight or flight 00:06:10.759 --> 00:06:13.800 and trying to see the system at work. Exactly. 00:06:14.019 --> 00:06:16.740 It forces a kind of detached observation. You 00:06:16.740 --> 00:06:19.319 are a participant, your life is in very real 00:06:19.319 --> 00:06:21.779 danger, but your mind has to be somewhere else 00:06:21.779 --> 00:06:24.220 entirely. You have to be analyzing the data. 00:06:24.420 --> 00:06:27.339 Asking the bigger questions. Yes. Why is the 00:06:27.339 --> 00:06:30.000 enemy moving there? What is the pattern in their 00:06:30.000 --> 00:06:32.519 attacks? What is the actual system behind this 00:06:32.519 --> 00:06:35.310 chaos? So he's essentially training his brain 00:06:35.310 --> 00:06:39.410 to suppress the instinct to panic and replace 00:06:39.410 --> 00:06:42.529 it with the instinct to analyze. Yes. And the 00:06:42.529 --> 00:06:44.709 sources mention that he actually left Guadalcanal 00:06:44.709 --> 00:06:47.009 with a serious case of malaria that lingered 00:06:47.009 --> 00:06:49.470 for years. Oh, wow. So he carried the physical 00:06:49.470 --> 00:06:52.209 toll of that observation with him. He was physically 00:06:52.209 --> 00:06:54.870 weakened, which perhaps made him even more reliant 00:06:54.870 --> 00:06:57.269 on his intellect. When you can't physically dominate 00:06:57.269 --> 00:06:59.410 your environment, you have to understand it to 00:06:59.410 --> 00:07:02.230 survive. And interestingly, he didn't stop analyzing 00:07:02.230 --> 00:07:04.769 when he left the front lines. The sources say 00:07:04.769 --> 00:07:07.029 he spent the rest of the war at the Marine Corps 00:07:07.029 --> 00:07:09.170 Staff and Command School in Quantico, Virginia. 00:07:09.410 --> 00:07:11.050 Yes, and look at what he was doing while he was 00:07:11.050 --> 00:07:13.209 there. He was lecturing and writing. Specifically, 00:07:13.509 --> 00:07:15.790 he was writing a monograph on the fighting qualities 00:07:15.790 --> 00:07:18.350 of the Japanese soldier. That is just fascinating. 00:07:18.529 --> 00:07:21.449 He's taking the enemy, the quote -unquote other, 00:07:21.589 --> 00:07:24.089 and trying to systematize their behavior for 00:07:24.089 --> 00:07:26.170 a curriculum. He was taking anecdotal observations 00:07:26.170 --> 00:07:28.329 from the jungle and turning them into hard data. 00:07:28.730 --> 00:07:30.709 He was saying, look, the Japanese soldier is 00:07:30.709 --> 00:07:34.069 not a monster. He is a human operating under 00:07:34.069 --> 00:07:37.110 a specific set of cultural and military rules. 00:07:37.209 --> 00:07:39.589 Right. If we understand the rules, we understand 00:07:39.589 --> 00:07:42.850 the man. That really sets the template, doesn't 00:07:42.850 --> 00:07:44.829 it? I mean, it's not a huge leap to go from analyzing 00:07:44.829 --> 00:07:47.589 the rituals of the Japanese army to analyzing 00:07:47.589 --> 00:07:50.500 the rituals of. General Electric. It is the exact 00:07:50.500 --> 00:07:53.319 same skill set. You are looking at a tribe, studying 00:07:53.319 --> 00:07:55.759 their hierarchy, their values, and their overall 00:07:55.759 --> 00:07:58.339 effectiveness. And that is exactly what he did 00:07:58.339 --> 00:08:00.540 when he finally came home. Okay, so the war ends. 00:08:00.639 --> 00:08:04.060 It's 1946. White comes home. He has this Ivy 00:08:04.060 --> 00:08:06.600 League background, this intense military training 00:08:06.600 --> 00:08:09.300 and observation. And he lands a job at the absolute 00:08:09.300 --> 00:08:11.839 pinnacle of business journalism, Fortune magazine. 00:08:12.199 --> 00:08:14.439 Which was really the Bible of business at the 00:08:14.439 --> 00:08:18.879 time. And he stays there until 1958. This is 00:08:18.879 --> 00:08:21.259 the golden age of American corporate growth, 00:08:21.439 --> 00:08:25.480 the post -war boom. And Fortune gives him a massive 00:08:25.480 --> 00:08:27.939 assignment. They sponsor him to do extensive 00:08:27.939 --> 00:08:30.459 interviews with the CEOs of major corporations. 00:08:30.819 --> 00:08:34.019 We're talking General Electric, Ford, the absolute 00:08:34.019 --> 00:08:36.759 titans of industry. And this is where he writes 00:08:36.759 --> 00:08:39.220 the book that makes him famous. The Organization 00:08:39.220 --> 00:08:42.720 Man, published in 1956. I feel like we hear this 00:08:42.720 --> 00:08:44.799 title a lot, but maybe we don't realize just 00:08:44.799 --> 00:08:47.259 how big it actually was. The notes say it sold 00:08:47.259 --> 00:08:50.759 over two million copies. Two million copies. 00:08:50.980 --> 00:08:53.559 That is a staggering number for a sociology book. 00:08:53.639 --> 00:08:55.539 It wasn't just a business book. It was a cultural 00:08:55.539 --> 00:08:57.740 phenomenon. Everyone was reading it. So what 00:08:57.740 --> 00:09:00.360 was the core argument? What did he see in those 00:09:00.360 --> 00:09:02.779 CEOs and managers that resonated with two million 00:09:02.779 --> 00:09:05.120 people? Why did it strike such a nerve? While 00:09:05.120 --> 00:09:07.620 he validated a feeling that millions of Americans 00:09:07.620 --> 00:09:09.659 were having but couldn't quite articulate for 00:09:09.659 --> 00:09:11.639 themselves, he argued that there was a fundamental 00:09:11.639 --> 00:09:14.039 shift happening in the American character. He 00:09:14.039 --> 00:09:15.759 said we were moving from the Protestant ethic 00:09:15.759 --> 00:09:18.080 to the social ethic. Okay, let's break those 00:09:18.080 --> 00:09:20.200 down. Protestant ethic, that's the classic American 00:09:20.200 --> 00:09:23.720 dream stuff, right? Max Weber. Right. It's the 00:09:23.720 --> 00:09:26.500 idea of individual salvation through hard work 00:09:26.500 --> 00:09:29.139 and thrift. If you succeed, it's because you 00:09:29.139 --> 00:09:31.740 worked hard. If you fail, it's because you failed. 00:09:32.159 --> 00:09:34.419 It's rugged individualism. Pulling yourself up 00:09:34.419 --> 00:09:37.360 by your bootstraps. Exactly. And the social ethic. 00:09:37.620 --> 00:09:40.080 The social ethic is the belief that the individual 00:09:40.080 --> 00:09:43.039 is basically meaningless and only the group matters. 00:09:43.639 --> 00:09:46.200 White saw that in these massive new corporations, 00:09:46.679 --> 00:09:49.759 the old rules just didn't apply anymore. You 00:09:49.759 --> 00:09:52.460 didn't succeed by being a rugged individualist 00:09:52.460 --> 00:09:55.179 or a lone genius. That would actually get you 00:09:55.179 --> 00:09:57.639 in trouble. Exactly. You succeeded by fitting 00:09:57.639 --> 00:10:00.340 in, by being a good team player, by not rocking 00:10:00.340 --> 00:10:03.620 the boat. The era of the gray flannel suit, the 00:10:03.620 --> 00:10:06.559 suburbs, Levittown, everything looks the same. 00:10:06.600 --> 00:10:09.000 Everyone acts the same. Correct. But White went 00:10:09.000 --> 00:10:11.440 deeper than just saying conformity is boring. 00:10:11.659 --> 00:10:14.100 He argued that the social ethic was actually 00:10:14.100 --> 00:10:15.980 changing how people thought about themselves 00:10:15.980 --> 00:10:20.460 internally. He saw men who were completely surrendering 00:10:20.460 --> 00:10:22.860 their individuality to the corporation. They 00:10:22.860 --> 00:10:24.580 weren't just working for Ford. They were Ford 00:10:24.580 --> 00:10:27.840 men. Right. The company told them where to live, 00:10:27.899 --> 00:10:30.899 how to dress, what clubs to join, even who to 00:10:30.899 --> 00:10:33.580 marry in some cases. They just accepted it. They 00:10:33.580 --> 00:10:35.740 didn't just accept it. They embraced it. They 00:10:35.740 --> 00:10:38.159 believed that this belonging gave their lives 00:10:38.159 --> 00:10:40.659 meaning. And that brings us to the term we mentioned 00:10:40.659 --> 00:10:43.340 earlier, the term he coined, groupthink. Yes. 00:10:44.039 --> 00:10:46.000 Let's really do the deep dive on this because 00:10:46.000 --> 00:10:48.179 it's so important. I think most people today 00:10:48.179 --> 00:10:51.039 use groupthink to mean, oh, we all just agreed 00:10:51.039 --> 00:10:54.240 too quickly because we were lazy. Or I didn't 00:10:54.240 --> 00:10:55.779 want to be the one to raise my hand and disagree. 00:10:56.019 --> 00:10:59.019 That is the common usage, yeah. But White meant 00:10:59.019 --> 00:11:01.779 something much more specific and, frankly, much 00:11:01.779 --> 00:11:05.360 more sinister. He coined the term in a 1952 Fortune 00:11:05.360 --> 00:11:07.620 article four years before the book came out. 00:11:08.440 --> 00:11:11.299 And his definition is critical here. He explicitly 00:11:11.299 --> 00:11:14.620 says he is not talking about instinctive conformity. 00:11:14.620 --> 00:11:16.759 Right, because humans are social animals. We 00:11:16.759 --> 00:11:19.240 instinctively want to fit in. It's just biology. 00:11:19.480 --> 00:11:20.960 We don't want to be kicked out of the tribe. 00:11:21.360 --> 00:11:24.299 Exactly. White called that a perennial failing 00:11:24.299 --> 00:11:28.740 of mankind. We all do that. Groupthink, as he 00:11:28.740 --> 00:11:32.179 defined it, was what he called rationalized conformity. 00:11:32.580 --> 00:11:34.440 Rationalized conformity. What does that actually 00:11:34.440 --> 00:11:37.299 mean in practice? It means you don't just conform 00:11:37.299 --> 00:11:40.080 because it's easy or safe. You conform because 00:11:40.080 --> 00:11:41.980 you have constructed an articulate philosophy 00:11:41.980 --> 00:11:45.159 that says conforming is the right and moral thing 00:11:45.159 --> 00:11:48.240 to do. Oh, that is dangerous. Yeah. So it's not 00:11:48.240 --> 00:11:50.159 just I'll agree with the boss. I don't get fired. 00:11:50.340 --> 00:11:53.139 It's the group's decision is inherently superior 00:11:53.139 --> 00:11:56.360 to my own. So is my moral duty to suppress my 00:11:56.360 --> 00:11:58.700 own doubt. Yes, he called it an open, articulate 00:11:58.700 --> 00:12:00.779 philosophy, which holds that group values are 00:12:00.779 --> 00:12:03.200 not only expedient, but right and good as well. 00:12:03.559 --> 00:12:06.179 It's the fundamental belief that the we is always 00:12:06.179 --> 00:12:08.480 wiser than the I. That puts a whole new spin 00:12:08.480 --> 00:12:10.559 on it. Because if you truly believe the group 00:12:10.559 --> 00:12:13.159 is morally right, you stop critically thinking 00:12:13.159 --> 00:12:16.220 altogether. You outsource your conscience to 00:12:16.220 --> 00:12:18.519 the committee. And that is what terrified White. 00:12:19.149 --> 00:12:22.190 He saw these brilliant men at GE and Fordmen 00:12:22.190 --> 00:12:25.950 who were capable of great things, basically lobotomizing 00:12:25.950 --> 00:12:29.190 themselves in the name of harmony. In the 1950s 00:12:29.190 --> 00:12:31.370 corporate world, if you disagreed with the group, 00:12:31.570 --> 00:12:33.850 you weren't just being difficult. You were being 00:12:33.850 --> 00:12:36.850 wrong. You were maladjusted. Maladjusted. That's 00:12:36.850 --> 00:12:39.789 a heavy word. It implies mental illness. It really 00:12:39.789 --> 00:12:42.169 does. And companies actually used personality 00:12:42.169 --> 00:12:44.789 tests to screen for this maladjustment. They 00:12:44.789 --> 00:12:47.070 wanted people who were perfectly average, perfectly 00:12:47.070 --> 00:12:50.090 pliable. All sharp edges. Right. And White hated 00:12:50.090 --> 00:12:52.529 these tests. He actually included an appendix 00:12:52.529 --> 00:12:54.669 in the organization man called How to Cheat on 00:12:54.669 --> 00:12:57.519 Personality Tests. No way. He taught his... readers 00:12:57.519 --> 00:12:59.779 how to beat the system he did he gave specific 00:12:59.779 --> 00:13:02.139 advice like when asked if you love your father 00:13:02.139 --> 00:13:04.639 and mother say yes but don't be too enthusiastic 00:13:04.639 --> 00:13:08.039 that is hilarious or if asked if you like to 00:13:08.039 --> 00:13:11.279 read books say yes but nothing too intellectual 00:13:11.279 --> 00:13:14.399 he wanted people to actively sabotage the machine 00:13:14.399 --> 00:13:16.759 that was trying to standardize them i love that 00:13:16.759 --> 00:13:19.440 yeah he's like a spy in the house of conformity 00:13:19.440 --> 00:13:21.440 he's teaching the prisoners how to pick the lock 00:13:21.870 --> 00:13:24.169 He really was. He was holding up a mirror to 00:13:24.169 --> 00:13:26.730 the entire American middle class and saying, 00:13:26.809 --> 00:13:29.110 look at what you're doing to yourselves. You 00:13:29.110 --> 00:13:32.210 are trading your soul for safety. Okay, so he 00:13:32.210 --> 00:13:36.769 spends the 50s diagnosing this sickness in the 00:13:36.769 --> 00:13:39.490 American workplace. He's a bestseller, a public 00:13:39.490 --> 00:13:41.750 intellectual. He could have stayed in that lane 00:13:41.750 --> 00:13:44.200 forever. He could have just kept writing about 00:13:44.200 --> 00:13:46.700 business psychology and retired wealthy. He absolutely 00:13:46.700 --> 00:13:49.080 could have. But then we see this fascinating 00:13:49.080 --> 00:13:51.159 pivot. And this is where the story gets really 00:13:51.159 --> 00:13:56.559 fun. The pivot. It's 1969. White leaves the world 00:13:56.559 --> 00:13:59.480 of corporate psychology entirely and moves into 00:13:59.480 --> 00:14:02.100 urban sociology. He starts working with the New 00:14:02.100 --> 00:14:04.049 York City Planning Commission. Now, think about 00:14:04.049 --> 00:14:07.289 the context here. 1969, New York City is entering 00:14:07.289 --> 00:14:09.529 a very rough period. Yeah, it wasn't the Disney 00:14:09.529 --> 00:14:11.610 -fied Times Square we know today. Far from it. 00:14:11.649 --> 00:14:13.830 Urban decay was really setting in. Crime was 00:14:13.830 --> 00:14:16.029 rising. The middle class was fleeing to the suburbs. 00:14:16.210 --> 00:14:18.190 Ironically, the same suburbs filled with those 00:14:18.190 --> 00:14:20.389 organization men he wrote about. Exactly. Full 00:14:20.389 --> 00:14:22.549 circle. And the conventional wisdom of urban 00:14:22.549 --> 00:14:24.850 planning at the time was all about urban renewal. 00:14:25.029 --> 00:14:28.070 Urban renewal. Now, that usually meant bulldozing 00:14:28.070 --> 00:14:30.860 neighborhoods, didn't it? It did. The planners, 00:14:31.019 --> 00:14:33.639 led by figures like Robert Moses, looked at the 00:14:33.639 --> 00:14:36.360 messy, chaotic city street and saw a problem. 00:14:36.539 --> 00:14:39.179 They wanted order. They wanted to separate things 00:14:39.179 --> 00:14:41.980 cleanly, put the cars on highways, put the people 00:14:41.980 --> 00:14:44.659 on elevated walkways, put the housing in massive 00:14:44.659 --> 00:14:47.100 towers, just get rid of all the friction. They 00:14:47.100 --> 00:14:49.440 wanted to turn the city into a machine. Exactly. 00:14:49.620 --> 00:14:52.200 They were applying that exact same corporate 00:14:52.200 --> 00:14:55.460 desire for order to the organic mess of the city. 00:14:55.679 --> 00:14:58.889 And here comes White. And he doesn't bring a 00:14:58.889 --> 00:15:00.769 textbook with him. He brings a camera. This is 00:15:00.769 --> 00:15:02.870 the Street Life Project. And the methodology 00:15:02.870 --> 00:15:05.389 is just pure white. He didn't want to rely on 00:15:05.389 --> 00:15:07.610 abstract theories about what people do. He wanted 00:15:07.610 --> 00:15:09.190 to know what they actually did. Right, because 00:15:09.190 --> 00:15:10.830 he realized that most architects and planners 00:15:10.830 --> 00:15:12.889 never actually watched people using their buildings. 00:15:12.929 --> 00:15:15.409 They designed for how people should act, not 00:15:15.409 --> 00:15:18.590 how they do act. Big difference. Huge. So White 00:15:18.590 --> 00:15:21.350 hired a team of research assistants, mostly students, 00:15:21.549 --> 00:15:23.990 and gave them tools. And these weren't just clipboards. 00:15:24.460 --> 00:15:26.960 The source says they were wielding still cameras, 00:15:27.240 --> 00:15:29.779 movie cameras, telephoto lenses, and notebooks. 00:15:30.179 --> 00:15:33.679 They were doing surveillance, but for a benevolent 00:15:33.679 --> 00:15:36.179 purpose. They would set up time -lapse cameras 00:15:36.179 --> 00:15:39.840 overlooking plazas, street corners, parks, and 00:15:39.840 --> 00:15:43.320 they would just film for hours, days, weeks. 00:15:43.799 --> 00:15:45.720 It reminds me of those nature documentaries where 00:15:45.720 --> 00:15:48.080 they film a watering hole in the Serengeti just 00:15:48.080 --> 00:15:49.879 to see which animals come to drink. That is the 00:15:49.879 --> 00:15:52.320 perfect analogy. White treated New York City 00:15:52.320 --> 00:15:55.519 like an ecosystem. He wanted to describe urban 00:15:55.519 --> 00:15:58.299 public life in an objective and measurable way. 00:15:58.519 --> 00:16:00.639 Measurable is the key word there. He wasn't just 00:16:00.639 --> 00:16:02.919 saying, hey, I feel like this park is busy today. 00:16:03.039 --> 00:16:06.080 He was counting. Exactly. He was completely obsessive 00:16:06.080 --> 00:16:08.639 about the data. How many people sat on this specific 00:16:08.639 --> 00:16:11.419 ledge? How long did they stay? Did they sit alone 00:16:11.419 --> 00:16:13.759 or in groups? What happened when the sun went 00:16:13.759 --> 00:16:16.399 behind a cloud? How many men versus women? Really 00:16:16.399 --> 00:16:18.879 granular stuff. He was collecting hard data on 00:16:18.879 --> 00:16:20.779 things that everyone else just took completely 00:16:20.779 --> 00:16:23.250 for granted. And this work culminated in two 00:16:23.250 --> 00:16:26.809 major works. The Social Life of Small Urban Spaces 00:16:26.809 --> 00:16:29.950 in 1980, which was both a book and a film, and 00:16:29.950 --> 00:16:34.009 City, rediscovering the center in 1988. And The 00:16:34.009 --> 00:16:36.289 Social Life of Small Urban Spaces is really the 00:16:36.289 --> 00:16:38.490 bible of this new way of thinking. If you watch 00:16:38.490 --> 00:16:41.539 the film... And it is a total delight, by the 00:16:41.539 --> 00:16:44.580 way. You see White's voiceover analyzing footage 00:16:44.580 --> 00:16:47.019 of people just existing. Right. But he makes 00:16:47.019 --> 00:16:49.740 it riveting. He treats a couple saying goodbye 00:16:49.740 --> 00:16:52.740 on a street corner like a complex ballet. So 00:16:52.740 --> 00:16:55.259 let's get into what he actually found. The science 00:16:55.259 --> 00:16:58.080 of the city. The nuggets, as we call them. This 00:16:58.080 --> 00:16:59.899 is where he really starts breaking conventional 00:16:59.899 --> 00:17:02.759 wisdom. Remember, the planners of the time thought 00:17:02.759 --> 00:17:04.819 they knew how cities worked. They thought, for 00:17:04.819 --> 00:17:07.220 example, that density was bad, that people wanted 00:17:07.220 --> 00:17:09.589 to escape the crowd. I mean, that seems intuitive. 00:17:09.630 --> 00:17:11.809 If I'm in a crowded city, I want a quiet, empty 00:17:11.809 --> 00:17:13.670 space to relax, right? That's what we say we 00:17:13.670 --> 00:17:16.450 want. But White's cameras showed the exact opposite. 00:17:16.829 --> 00:17:18.769 He found that people are naturally attracted 00:17:18.769 --> 00:17:21.289 to other people. He called it self -congestion. 00:17:21.450 --> 00:17:24.130 Self -congestion. Yes. When he filmed a large 00:17:24.130 --> 00:17:26.630 plaza, he found that people didn't spread out 00:17:26.630 --> 00:17:29.750 evenly like gas molecules in a jar. They clumped 00:17:29.750 --> 00:17:31.710 together. They sat near the flow of traffic. 00:17:31.990 --> 00:17:34.410 And empty space actually made people nervous. 00:17:35.099 --> 00:17:37.319 A space with people in it attracted more people. 00:17:37.539 --> 00:17:40.579 So we complain about the crowd, but we subconsciously 00:17:40.579 --> 00:17:43.180 seek it out. Exactly. We are social animals. 00:17:43.240 --> 00:17:45.799 We want to be where the action is. One of my 00:17:45.799 --> 00:17:49.019 absolute favorite findings of his is about jaywalking. 00:17:49.579 --> 00:17:52.420 Now, usually we think of jaywalking as a nuisance 00:17:52.420 --> 00:17:56.859 or dangerous or a literal crime. The city planners 00:17:56.859 --> 00:17:59.160 certainly did. They wanted to put up fences to 00:17:59.160 --> 00:18:01.200 force people to use the crosswalks. They saw 00:18:01.200 --> 00:18:03.640 the jaywalker as an agent of chaos. But White 00:18:03.640 --> 00:18:06.000 actually studied them. And what did he find? 00:18:06.180 --> 00:18:08.240 He found that jaywalking is actually a highly 00:18:08.240 --> 00:18:10.400 rational behavior pattern. People aren't just 00:18:10.400 --> 00:18:12.700 running into traffic like maniacs. They are calculating. 00:18:13.019 --> 00:18:15.779 How so? A pedestrian crossing mid -block is processing 00:18:15.779 --> 00:18:18.900 a tremendous amount of data in real time. They 00:18:18.900 --> 00:18:21.019 are judging the speed of oncoming cars, the size 00:18:21.019 --> 00:18:23.220 of the gap in traffic, the timing of the light 00:18:23.220 --> 00:18:25.500 up the street, and the shortest geometric distance 00:18:25.500 --> 00:18:27.960 to their destination. They are doing instantaneous 00:18:27.960 --> 00:18:30.670 physics. And they're good at it. surprisingly 00:18:30.670 --> 00:18:33.589 good white found that accidents were extremely 00:18:33.589 --> 00:18:36.230 rare among jaywalkers because they were hyper 00:18:36.230 --> 00:18:39.150 alert wow it goes back to that organization man 00:18:39.150 --> 00:18:42.049 idea doesn't it the planners want everyone to 00:18:42.049 --> 00:18:44.190 cross at the crosswalk because that's the rule 00:18:44.190 --> 00:18:47.049 that's the conformity but the individual the 00:18:47.049 --> 00:18:49.799 jaywalker looks at the situation and says, no, 00:18:49.920 --> 00:18:52.200 it makes more sense to cross here. And White 00:18:52.200 --> 00:18:54.700 sides with the jaywalker. He always sides with 00:18:54.700 --> 00:18:57.539 the human over the system. No. Every single time. 00:18:57.539 --> 00:19:01.079 He does. He realized the pedestrian is an expert 00:19:01.079 --> 00:19:03.460 navigator. You don't need to corral them. You 00:19:03.460 --> 00:19:05.579 just need to get out of their way. Another great 00:19:05.579 --> 00:19:09.579 term he used was schmoozing patterns. Yes. This 00:19:09.579 --> 00:19:11.720 is a classic White observation. He wanted to 00:19:11.720 --> 00:19:13.900 know exactly where people stop to talk when they 00:19:13.900 --> 00:19:15.819 bump into each other on the street. Common sense 00:19:15.819 --> 00:19:17.599 would say you move out of the way, right? Step 00:19:17.599 --> 00:19:19.660 to the side so you don't block the sidewalk. 00:19:19.940 --> 00:19:22.279 That's just basic politeness. That's what we 00:19:22.279 --> 00:19:24.579 think we do. But White's camera showed the exact 00:19:24.579 --> 00:19:27.220 opposite. He found that people stop right in 00:19:27.220 --> 00:19:31.140 the middle of the traffic flow. The 100 % location, 00:19:31.319 --> 00:19:34.089 he called it. The 100 % location. The busiest 00:19:34.089 --> 00:19:36.049 point of the intersection, the place where the 00:19:36.049 --> 00:19:39.029 most people are walking. That is exactly where 00:19:39.029 --> 00:19:41.670 the conversation happens. Why? Are we all just 00:19:41.670 --> 00:19:46.390 jerks? No, we are social anchors. Subconsciously, 00:19:46.390 --> 00:19:48.769 we want to be in the stream. We want to see and 00:19:48.769 --> 00:19:51.589 be seen. The conversation is an event and you 00:19:51.589 --> 00:19:53.650 want that event to happen on the main stage, 00:19:53.890 --> 00:19:56.309 not hidden in the wings. That is fascinating. 00:19:56.470 --> 00:19:58.720 It's like a rock in a river. The water flows 00:19:58.720 --> 00:20:00.819 around it, but the rock stays right in the current. 00:20:01.119 --> 00:20:03.940 Exactly. And if you are an urban planner and 00:20:03.940 --> 00:20:05.980 you don't know that, you design the space wrong. 00:20:06.019 --> 00:20:08.319 You try to push people to the edges, but they 00:20:08.319 --> 00:20:10.359 simply won't go there. They want to be in the 00:20:10.359 --> 00:20:12.579 center. He also got really technical with things 00:20:12.579 --> 00:20:15.099 like sitting. Sitting was his absolute obsession. 00:20:15.240 --> 00:20:17.960 In the 70s, New York had all these bleak concrete 00:20:17.960 --> 00:20:20.140 plazas in front of office buildings that were 00:20:20.140 --> 00:20:22.339 completely empty and the architects couldn't 00:20:22.339 --> 00:20:23.799 figure out why. They probably thought it was 00:20:23.799 --> 00:20:26.039 the aesthetics, like maybe the concrete is the 00:20:26.039 --> 00:20:28.500 wrong color. Right. Or, oh, it's the wind patterns. 00:20:28.759 --> 00:20:32.319 But White watched and he found the simplest, 00:20:32.339 --> 00:20:36.140 most profound rule of urban life. People sit 00:20:36.140 --> 00:20:39.049 where there are places to sit. It sounds so obvious 00:20:39.049 --> 00:20:41.809 when you say it out loud. It does. But these 00:20:41.809 --> 00:20:43.609 architects had designed ledges that were too 00:20:43.609 --> 00:20:46.670 high or too narrow, or they literally put spikes 00:20:46.670 --> 00:20:49.329 on them to keep vagrants away, or the benches 00:20:49.329 --> 00:20:52.029 were set completely in the shade. White showed 00:20:52.029 --> 00:20:54.470 that if you provide a sittable surface, about 00:20:54.470 --> 00:20:57.869 17 inches high good sunlight, and a view of other 00:20:57.869 --> 00:21:00.789 people, the plaza will fill up immediately. And 00:21:00.789 --> 00:21:03.869 then there is the movable chair. This is a huge 00:21:03.869 --> 00:21:06.900 one for him. This is perhaps his greatest contribution 00:21:06.900 --> 00:21:09.299 to plaza design. He argued that you shouldn't 00:21:09.299 --> 00:21:11.559 bolt benches to the ground. You should give people 00:21:11.559 --> 00:21:14.720 loose chairs. Why? Isn't that messy? Won't people 00:21:14.720 --> 00:21:17.240 just steal them? That was the big fear. But White 00:21:17.240 --> 00:21:19.059 observed that when people approach a movable 00:21:19.059 --> 00:21:21.359 chair, almost everyone does the exact same thing. 00:21:21.420 --> 00:21:24.200 They move it, even if it's just an inch. They 00:21:24.200 --> 00:21:26.539 twist it slightly. They drag it into the sun. 00:21:26.640 --> 00:21:28.839 They drag it into the shade. It's a claim of 00:21:28.839 --> 00:21:32.589 ownership. Exactly. In a giant, overwhelming 00:21:32.589 --> 00:21:36.109 city where you have zero control over the noise, 00:21:36.230 --> 00:21:39.130 the traffic, or the architecture, moving that 00:21:39.130 --> 00:21:41.690 chair says, this little square footage is mine. 00:21:42.369 --> 00:21:45.950 I decided how to sit. It's the anti -groupthink. 00:21:46.170 --> 00:21:49.730 It's individual agency in a public space. I really 00:21:49.730 --> 00:21:52.690 love that. The freedom to scoot your chair two 00:21:52.690 --> 00:21:55.329 inches to the left is the essence of a free city. 00:21:55.470 --> 00:21:58.579 In White's world, yes. It turns the passive user 00:21:58.579 --> 00:22:00.839 into an active participant. And we can't talk 00:22:00.839 --> 00:22:02.579 about his findings without talking about the 00:22:02.579 --> 00:22:05.750 crown jewel of his work, Bryant Park. This is 00:22:05.750 --> 00:22:07.829 the practical application of everything we've 00:22:07.829 --> 00:22:09.569 been discussing. If you go to Bryant Park in 00:22:09.569 --> 00:22:11.430 New York today, right behind the public library 00:22:11.430 --> 00:22:14.349 on 42nd Street, it is an absolute jewel. It's 00:22:14.349 --> 00:22:16.289 lush. It's full of people. There are thousands 00:22:16.289 --> 00:22:18.109 of movable chairs. People are playing chess, 00:22:18.210 --> 00:22:20.869 having lunch. It is arguably the most successful 00:22:20.869 --> 00:22:22.950 public space in the world. But it definitely 00:22:22.950 --> 00:22:25.430 wasn't always like that. No. In the 70s and early 00:22:25.430 --> 00:22:28.460 80s, it was known as Needle Park. That paints 00:22:28.460 --> 00:22:30.859 a picture. It was dangerous. Drug dealers completely 00:22:30.859 --> 00:22:33.599 controlled it. The average New Yorker avoided 00:22:33.599 --> 00:22:35.319 it like the plague. It was a place you walked 00:22:35.319 --> 00:22:37.660 around, never through. So the instinct of the 00:22:37.660 --> 00:22:39.480 city was probably to lock it down even more. 00:22:39.660 --> 00:22:42.160 Exactly. High fences, more police, keep people 00:22:42.160 --> 00:22:45.119 out. But White argued for the exact opposite 00:22:45.119 --> 00:22:47.359 approach. He worked with the Project for Public 00:22:47.359 --> 00:22:50.240 Spaces and the Bryant Park Corporation. He told 00:22:50.240 --> 00:22:52.799 them, look, the problem isn't that you have bad 00:22:52.799 --> 00:22:55.039 people here. The problem is that you don't have 00:22:55.039 --> 00:22:57.259 enough good people here. So how did they actually 00:22:57.259 --> 00:23:00.039 fix it? They applied his observations directly. 00:23:00.299 --> 00:23:03.039 They lowered the stone walls and added entrances 00:23:03.039 --> 00:23:04.819 so you could see into the park from the street. 00:23:05.380 --> 00:23:07.859 Visibility makes people feel safe. They added 00:23:07.859 --> 00:23:10.759 food kiosks because food attracts people. They 00:23:10.759 --> 00:23:12.920 added the movable chairs. And what happened? 00:23:13.339 --> 00:23:16.029 Normal people started coming back. Office workers 00:23:16.029 --> 00:23:18.970 came for lunch. Tourists came to sit. And as 00:23:18.970 --> 00:23:20.970 the park filled up with thousands of regular 00:23:20.970 --> 00:23:23.630 people, the drug dealers were pushed out. They 00:23:23.630 --> 00:23:25.890 lost their cover. He proved that a vibrant space 00:23:25.890 --> 00:23:29.210 is inherently a safe space. Precisely. It's the 00:23:29.210 --> 00:23:31.710 theory of inducted flow. You flood the zone with 00:23:31.710 --> 00:23:34.269 positive activity. It wasn't about aggressive 00:23:34.269 --> 00:23:37.509 policing at all. It was about presence. As his 00:23:37.509 --> 00:23:40.589 mentee Jane Jacobs would say, the best police 00:23:40.589 --> 00:23:43.529 force is a thousand eyes on the street. Speaking 00:23:43.529 --> 00:23:46.089 of mentees, that brings us nicely to his legacy. 00:23:46.430 --> 00:23:48.410 Because White wasn't just a lone wolf with a 00:23:48.410 --> 00:23:52.029 camera. He spawned an entire generation of urban 00:23:52.029 --> 00:23:55.170 thinkers. He really is the patriarch of a certain 00:23:55.170 --> 00:23:57.769 school of urbanism. You mentioned Jane Jacobs. 00:23:57.930 --> 00:24:01.170 Now, she is famous in her own right for the death 00:24:01.170 --> 00:24:03.750 and life of great American cities. But people 00:24:03.750 --> 00:24:06.329 forget that White was actually her editor at 00:24:06.329 --> 00:24:08.769 Fortune. Oh, I didn't know that. Yeah, he was 00:24:08.769 --> 00:24:10.769 the one who encouraged her to write about the 00:24:10.769 --> 00:24:13.009 city in the first place. They shared that fundamental 00:24:13.009 --> 00:24:15.390 belief in the ballet of the sidewalk. And then 00:24:15.390 --> 00:24:17.940 there's Paco Underhill. Paco Underhill is fascinating 00:24:17.940 --> 00:24:21.700 because he took White's methods, the tracking, 00:24:21.900 --> 00:24:24.660 the observation, and applied them to the private 00:24:24.660 --> 00:24:27.319 sector, to retail environments. Right. He wrote 00:24:27.319 --> 00:24:30.220 the book Why We Buy. Exactly. He studied how 00:24:30.220 --> 00:24:32.539 people move through a store. Why do they turn 00:24:32.539 --> 00:24:34.920 right when they enter? Which, by the way, they 00:24:34.920 --> 00:24:37.019 almost always do. How long do they look at a 00:24:37.019 --> 00:24:39.519 shelf? He realized that a shopping mall is really 00:24:39.519 --> 00:24:42.599 just a privatized city street. He is doing for 00:24:42.599 --> 00:24:45.319 retail what White did for Bryant Park. And Dan 00:24:45.319 --> 00:24:48.109 Biederman. Dan Biederman is the guy who executed 00:24:48.109 --> 00:24:50.569 the Bryant Park renovation. He runs the Bryant 00:24:50.569 --> 00:24:53.890 Park Corporation. He took White's theories and 00:24:53.890 --> 00:24:56.789 made them truly operational. He proved that you 00:24:56.789 --> 00:24:59.150 can manage a public space almost like a business, 00:24:59.430 --> 00:25:02.450 but in a good way, keeping it clean, safe, and 00:25:02.450 --> 00:25:05.269 highly active. We have to mention Fred Kent, 00:25:05.369 --> 00:25:08.009 too. Fred Kent worked directly with White before 00:25:08.009 --> 00:25:10.950 founding the Project for Public Spaces. That 00:25:10.950 --> 00:25:13.029 organization is still out there today, fixing 00:25:13.029 --> 00:25:15.369 cities all over the world using White's exact 00:25:15.369 --> 00:25:18.390 methodology. And Amanda Byrd. a future new york 00:25:18.390 --> 00:25:21.170 city planning commissioner she's described in 00:25:21.170 --> 00:25:23.410 the source material as a socialite an heiress 00:25:23.410 --> 00:25:26.509 but under white's tutelage she became a serious 00:25:26.509 --> 00:25:30.069 highly influential urban planner she shaped the 00:25:30.069 --> 00:25:33.029 modern skyline of new york and she credits white 00:25:33.029 --> 00:25:36.130 with teaching her how to really see it's an incredible 00:25:36.130 --> 00:25:38.509 family tree and it all stems from that one guy 00:25:38.509 --> 00:25:41.009 the former marine looking for patterns in the 00:25:41.009 --> 00:25:42.970 mud at guadalcanal and we should touch on his 00:25:42.970 --> 00:25:44.809 personal life just briefly just to round out 00:25:44.809 --> 00:25:46.940 the full picture of the man right It wasn't just 00:25:46.940 --> 00:25:49.640 a brain in a jar. He married Jenny Bell Bechtel, 00:25:49.740 --> 00:25:53.319 a fashion designer, in 1964. A very creative 00:25:53.319 --> 00:25:55.200 match. And they had one daughter together, Alexandra 00:25:55.200 --> 00:25:57.859 White. And he lived a long life of observation. 00:25:57.880 --> 00:26:01.519 He died on July 11th, 1999. Which was his 82nd 00:26:01.519 --> 00:26:04.640 birthday. That is such a poetic detail. Born 00:26:04.640 --> 00:26:07.539 and died on the exact same date. A perfect circle. 00:26:07.740 --> 00:26:10.380 He is buried at Oakland Cemetery in Westchester, 00:26:10.500 --> 00:26:12.880 Pennsylvania, right back where he started. So 00:26:12.880 --> 00:26:15.039 we've gone from the muddy trenches of Guadalcanal 00:26:15.039 --> 00:26:17.680 to the boardrooms of General Electric, all the 00:26:17.680 --> 00:26:19.519 way to the sidewalks of Fifth Avenue. It's a 00:26:19.519 --> 00:26:22.059 wild ride. It really is. So let's synthesize 00:26:22.059 --> 00:26:24.380 all of this. What is the common thread here? 00:26:24.500 --> 00:26:26.779 What truly connects the intelligence officer, 00:26:27.019 --> 00:26:30.299 the fortune writer, and the urban sociologist? 00:26:30.809 --> 00:26:33.190 I think it ultimately comes down to a relentless 00:26:33.190 --> 00:26:36.150 desire to see the world as it actually is rather 00:26:36.150 --> 00:26:38.910 than how we pretend it is. Yeah. In the Marines, 00:26:39.109 --> 00:26:40.990 he couldn't afford to underestimate the enemy 00:26:40.990 --> 00:26:43.630 or rely on comforting myths. In the boardroom, 00:26:43.710 --> 00:26:45.650 he completely refused to accept the corporate 00:26:45.650 --> 00:26:48.029 PR that said conformity was good for the soul. 00:26:48.369 --> 00:26:51.170 And on the street, he refused to accept the planner's 00:26:51.170 --> 00:26:53.009 blueprints that said people act like robots. 00:26:53.369 --> 00:26:56.609 He was a truth teller. But his truth wasn't found 00:26:56.609 --> 00:26:59.630 in philosophy books. It was found in the data. 00:27:00.160 --> 00:27:03.440 In watching. Exactly. And deeper than that, I 00:27:03.440 --> 00:27:05.680 think he was a champion of the fundamental dignity 00:27:05.680 --> 00:27:08.380 of the individual. Say more about that. Think 00:27:08.380 --> 00:27:10.880 about it. In The Organization Man, who is he 00:27:10.880 --> 00:27:13.680 fighting for? He's fighting for the employee 00:27:13.680 --> 00:27:16.619 who wants to have their own thoughts, who doesn't 00:27:16.619 --> 00:27:19.500 want to be entirely swallowed by the group. And 00:27:19.500 --> 00:27:21.619 in his urban work, who is he fighting for? He's 00:27:21.619 --> 00:27:24.259 fighting for the pedestrian who wants to cross 00:27:24.259 --> 00:27:26.240 the street where they want to cross or sit where 00:27:26.240 --> 00:27:28.279 they want to sit. He's fighting against the system, 00:27:28.319 --> 00:27:30.859 whether the system is a massive corporation or 00:27:30.859 --> 00:27:33.880 a rigid city grid. Yes. He believed that if you 00:27:33.880 --> 00:27:36.299 strip away the top -down rules and just look 00:27:36.299 --> 00:27:38.740 at human nature, you find something messy, yes, 00:27:38.940 --> 00:27:41.759 but also incredibly efficient, creative, and 00:27:41.759 --> 00:27:44.920 beautiful. He trusted people more than he trusted 00:27:44.920 --> 00:27:46.960 plants. That is a really beautiful way to put 00:27:46.960 --> 00:27:49.059 it. The guy who wrote the definitive book on 00:27:49.059 --> 00:27:51.460 conformity ended up being the ultimate defender 00:27:51.460 --> 00:27:54.109 of free will. He really did. And that brings 00:27:54.109 --> 00:27:56.890 us to our final thought for today. I think this 00:27:56.890 --> 00:27:58.490 is a big one. This is something I was thinking 00:27:58.490 --> 00:28:00.130 about while reading the notes on groupthink. 00:28:00.289 --> 00:28:03.549 Go on. So White defined groupthink as believing 00:28:03.549 --> 00:28:06.089 that group values are inherently right and good. 00:28:06.890 --> 00:28:09.670 Now, he was writing in the 1950s, the age of 00:28:09.670 --> 00:28:12.190 three TV channels and the office water cooler. 00:28:12.799 --> 00:28:15.359 The consensus back then was manufactured by a 00:28:15.359 --> 00:28:18.200 few very big institutions. Right. You watched 00:28:18.200 --> 00:28:20.460 Cronkite. You went to work at GM. You lived in 00:28:20.460 --> 00:28:22.960 Levittown. The options were limited. But look 00:28:22.960 --> 00:28:26.259 at us now. We were in the 2020s. We have social 00:28:26.259 --> 00:28:29.079 media. We have hyper -specific algorithms that 00:28:29.079 --> 00:28:31.420 feed us exactly what we want to hear. We live 00:28:31.420 --> 00:28:33.740 in these isolated digital bubbles. It raises 00:28:33.740 --> 00:28:35.940 a very provocative question. Are we living in 00:28:35.940 --> 00:28:37.940 the ultimate version of the world White warned 00:28:37.940 --> 00:28:40.730 us about? Think about it. Instead of one big 00:28:40.730 --> 00:28:43.150 corporate groupthink, we have fractured into 00:28:43.150 --> 00:28:46.130 thousands of little tribal groupthinks. If you 00:28:46.130 --> 00:28:48.690 go on social media today, do you see independent 00:28:48.690 --> 00:28:51.950 thought? Or do you just see rationalized conformity? 00:28:52.130 --> 00:28:55.269 That is chilling. Do you see people signaling 00:28:55.269 --> 00:28:58.410 their virtue to their specific group just to 00:28:58.410 --> 00:29:01.589 prove they belong? Saying, I agree with the group, 00:29:01.609 --> 00:29:05.190 therefore I am moral. That is the exact definition 00:29:05.190 --> 00:29:08.710 White gave us in 1952. If Holly White were alive 00:29:08.710 --> 00:29:11.089 today, I honestly don't think he'd be filming 00:29:11.089 --> 00:29:13.170 plazas. I think he'd be screen recording our 00:29:13.170 --> 00:29:15.750 social media feeds. And he'd be asking, what 00:29:15.750 --> 00:29:17.670 are the schmoozing patterns of the Internet? 00:29:17.789 --> 00:29:20.170 Where do we gather? And are we actually moving 00:29:20.170 --> 00:29:22.829 our own chairs or is the algorithm bolting them 00:29:22.829 --> 00:29:25.069 to the floor for us? Are we free to move the 00:29:25.069 --> 00:29:27.730 chair or are we just sitting exactly where we're 00:29:27.730 --> 00:29:30.009 told? That is the real question. I think that's 00:29:30.009 --> 00:29:31.869 exactly the question he'd want us to leave with. 00:29:31.970 --> 00:29:33.650 Well, on that note, I'm going to go find a park 00:29:33.650 --> 00:29:36.069 bench. Ideally one I could move a few inches 00:29:36.069 --> 00:29:38.289 to the left. Good plan. Thank you to everyone 00:29:38.289 --> 00:29:40.390 out there for joining us on this deep dive into 00:29:40.390 --> 00:29:42.950 the life and mind of William H. White. If you 00:29:42.950 --> 00:29:44.890 want to see the world differently, put down the 00:29:44.890 --> 00:29:48.250 phone, go outside, and just watch. You might 00:29:48.250 --> 00:29:50.609 be surprised by what you see. We'll see you next 00:29:50.609 --> 00:29:50.809 time.