WEBVTT 00:00:00.000 --> 00:00:04.120 Welcome back. Today, we are diving into a phrase 00:00:04.120 --> 00:00:06.500 that you have almost certainly used yourself. 00:00:06.799 --> 00:00:08.460 Or, you know, at least you've heard it dropped 00:00:08.460 --> 00:00:11.720 by a politician, an author, or maybe just a colleague 00:00:11.720 --> 00:00:13.599 who's trying to sound profound in a meeting. 00:00:13.839 --> 00:00:15.400 Yeah, it's one of those phrases that just kind 00:00:15.400 --> 00:00:17.820 of floats around everywhere. Right. And the phrase 00:00:17.820 --> 00:00:21.960 is, may you live in interesting times. It is 00:00:21.960 --> 00:00:24.280 universally known in the English -speaking world 00:00:24.280 --> 00:00:27.379 as a traditional Chinese curse. But our mission 00:00:27.379 --> 00:00:30.059 today for this deep dive is to look at the source 00:00:30.059 --> 00:00:33.399 material. We've got this deeply researched Wikipedia 00:00:33.399 --> 00:00:35.979 article that documents the entire history of 00:00:35.979 --> 00:00:38.060 the phrase. And we're going to use that to track 00:00:38.060 --> 00:00:41.149 the actual... Philological paper trail. It is 00:00:41.149 --> 00:00:43.810 a really perfect case study in how information 00:00:43.810 --> 00:00:46.649 mutates over time. It really is. We're essentially 00:00:46.649 --> 00:00:49.710 trying to figure out how a Victorian politician's 00:00:49.710 --> 00:00:52.630 diary -esque observation became one of the most 00:00:52.630 --> 00:00:55.329 stubborn pieces of fake lore in modern history. 00:00:55.789 --> 00:00:58.149 Fake lore being the operative word there. Yeah. 00:00:58.210 --> 00:01:00.729 Because we're tracing a lineage that supposedly 00:01:00.729 --> 00:01:03.750 bridges ancient Eastern philosophy in 20th century 00:01:03.750 --> 00:01:08.780 Western geopolitics. As the sources reveal, the 00:01:08.780 --> 00:01:11.219 reality of how this embedded itself into our 00:01:11.219 --> 00:01:14.400 collective consciousness is, well... It's far 00:01:14.400 --> 00:01:16.640 more convoluted than just a simple translation 00:01:16.640 --> 00:01:19.140 error. Okay, let's unpack this. Starting with 00:01:19.140 --> 00:01:21.739 the phrase itself and the inherent irony that 00:01:21.739 --> 00:01:24.319 makes it so sticky in our culture. Because on 00:01:24.319 --> 00:01:26.379 the surface, it doesn't sound like a curse at 00:01:26.379 --> 00:01:28.879 all. Exactly. On the surface, may you live in 00:01:28.879 --> 00:01:31.680 interesting times, sounds like a really pleasant 00:01:31.680 --> 00:01:33.620 wish. Like you're wishing someone a life full 00:01:33.620 --> 00:01:36.120 of adventure and excitement. But the irony, and 00:01:36.120 --> 00:01:38.340 the whole reason it's deployed as a curse, is 00:01:38.340 --> 00:01:40.969 that Interesting here does not mean fun. No, 00:01:41.010 --> 00:01:43.310 not at all. It implies times of trouble, anxiety, 00:01:43.750 --> 00:01:47.609 instability, you know, chaos. It's used as this 00:01:47.609 --> 00:01:49.329 passive -aggressive hex. You are essentially 00:01:49.329 --> 00:01:52.010 wishing perpetual unrest upon your enemy. Which 00:01:52.010 --> 00:01:53.989 brings us to the central revelation of the source 00:01:53.989 --> 00:01:55.810 text and really the crux of this whole myth. 00:01:56.010 --> 00:01:58.890 The phrase is entirely apocryphal. Completely 00:01:58.890 --> 00:02:02.329 made up. Yes. It simply does not exist in the 00:02:02.329 --> 00:02:04.930 Chinese language. And this isn't for lack of 00:02:04.930 --> 00:02:07.890 trying. Researchers, historians, language experts, 00:02:08.009 --> 00:02:10.889 they have all scoured classical texts, digitized 00:02:10.889 --> 00:02:13.469 databases, historical archives. And they aren't 00:02:13.469 --> 00:02:15.610 just looking for a literal word -for -word translation, 00:02:15.969 --> 00:02:17.830 right? Right. They've looked for approximations, 00:02:17.849 --> 00:02:20.969 idioms, colloquialisms that might mirror this 00:02:20.969 --> 00:02:23.889 neat, ironic curse, and they have found absolutely 00:02:23.889 --> 00:02:26.490 nothing. It's just a fascinating void to have 00:02:26.490 --> 00:02:29.330 an entire culture in the West confidently attributing 00:02:29.330 --> 00:02:32.669 this highly specific linguistic corp to another 00:02:32.669 --> 00:02:35.659 culture, only for it to be a total fantasy. Yeah, 00:02:35.800 --> 00:02:38.460 it's wild. But the sources do point out that 00:02:38.460 --> 00:02:41.240 there is a genuine documented Chinese proverb 00:02:41.240 --> 00:02:44.039 that touches on a very similar theme. Right. 00:02:44.120 --> 00:02:46.219 This idea of chaos versus peace. What is that 00:02:46.219 --> 00:02:48.680 actual proverb? The authentic expression is actually 00:02:48.680 --> 00:02:50.979 far more visceral than the polite irony of the 00:02:50.979 --> 00:02:54.139 English version. It translates roughly to. Better 00:02:54.139 --> 00:02:56.939 to be a dog in times of tranquility than a human 00:02:56.939 --> 00:02:59.719 in times of chaos. Better to be a dog in times 00:02:59.719 --> 00:03:01.780 of tranquility than a human in times of chaos. 00:03:02.020 --> 00:03:04.240 Wow, that is a really stark contrast. And it 00:03:04.240 --> 00:03:06.759 strips away all that clever wordplay. Yeah, because 00:03:06.759 --> 00:03:09.020 the fabricated English curse sounds like something 00:03:09.020 --> 00:03:11.840 muttered over tea at a diplomatic summit. But 00:03:11.840 --> 00:03:14.479 the actual Chinese proverb is gritty. It's raw. 00:03:14.740 --> 00:03:17.080 It reflects a brutal assessment of survival. 00:03:17.439 --> 00:03:20.419 And unlike our apocryphal quote, We can firmly 00:03:20.419 --> 00:03:23.080 ground this authentic phrase in the historical 00:03:23.080 --> 00:03:26.539 record. It dates back to the year 1627. Okay, 00:03:26.599 --> 00:03:29.439 so a very specific time frame. Exactly. It appears 00:03:29.439 --> 00:03:32.479 in Volume 3 of a short story collection by the 00:03:32.479 --> 00:03:35.319 Ming Dynasty writer Feng Menglong. The collection 00:03:35.319 --> 00:03:38.259 is titled Stories to Awaken the World. And 1627 00:03:38.259 --> 00:03:41.419 is a highly specific, very volatile moment in 00:03:41.419 --> 00:03:43.909 Chinese history. Which really gives that proverb 00:03:43.909 --> 00:03:46.430 its teeth. Precisely. The Ming Dynasty was approaching 00:03:46.430 --> 00:03:48.849 its collapse, which would eventually happen just 00:03:48.849 --> 00:03:51.330 a few decades later in 1644. So they were living 00:03:51.330 --> 00:03:53.909 in very literally chaotic times. Yes. This was 00:03:53.909 --> 00:03:56.750 a period marked by famine, massive economic crisis, 00:03:56.830 --> 00:03:59.069 and looming rebellions. So when Feng Menglong 00:03:59.069 --> 00:04:01.150 writes about the horrors of human existence during 00:04:01.150 --> 00:04:03.990 times of chaos, he is not being metaphorical. 00:04:04.069 --> 00:04:06.930 Right. He is reflecting the very real, terrifying 00:04:06.930 --> 00:04:10.069 social decay of his era. It's a grounded historical 00:04:10.069 --> 00:04:14.560 reality. So we have this stark, documented 17th 00:04:14.560 --> 00:04:17.920 century Chinese proverb that is born out of actual 00:04:17.920 --> 00:04:20.620 societal collabs. And then on the completely 00:04:20.620 --> 00:04:23.279 opposite end of the spectrum, we have this polite, 00:04:23.420 --> 00:04:27.180 ironic Western invention parading around as an 00:04:27.180 --> 00:04:30.160 ancient curse. Which naturally raises the question 00:04:30.160 --> 00:04:32.139 of where the Western invention actually came 00:04:32.139 --> 00:04:34.800 from. Exactly. If the Chinese didn't invent May 00:04:34.800 --> 00:04:37.560 You Live in Interesting Times, who did? And how 00:04:37.560 --> 00:04:39.939 did we all start repeating it? What's fascinating 00:04:39.939 --> 00:04:43.120 here is how we can trace this paper trail backwards. 00:04:43.740 --> 00:04:46.579 We can actually watch the myth solidify in the 00:04:46.579 --> 00:04:48.839 West. Let's follow that trail. Where do we start 00:04:48.839 --> 00:04:51.139 seeing it widely accepted? If we look at the 00:04:51.139 --> 00:04:54.819 mid -century, specifically 1943, we see a huge 00:04:54.819 --> 00:04:57.379 leap. The phrase appears in a publication called 00:04:57.379 --> 00:04:59.459 Child Study. Which was a journal of parent education. 00:04:59.779 --> 00:05:02.300 Yes, and it's presented there. without any question, 00:05:02.399 --> 00:05:04.939 is a Chinese curse. A journal for parenting and 00:05:04.939 --> 00:05:06.800 child rearing, that just shows you how completely 00:05:06.800 --> 00:05:09.180 embedded it had become in everyday domestic life 00:05:09.180 --> 00:05:11.500 by the 1940s. Right, but the sources highlight 00:05:11.500 --> 00:05:14.379 a slightly earlier year as the major flashpoint 00:05:14.379 --> 00:05:18.470 for the phrase's popularity. The year 1936. 1936. 00:05:18.850 --> 00:05:21.529 So right as the shadow of the Second World War 00:05:21.529 --> 00:05:24.089 is starting to loom over Europe. Exactly. And 00:05:24.089 --> 00:05:26.449 the sources give us two very specific historical 00:05:26.449 --> 00:05:29.850 accounts from 1936 that show how this phrase 00:05:29.850 --> 00:05:32.050 was moving through the elite circles. Let's talk 00:05:32.050 --> 00:05:35.389 about the first account. This involves Hugh Natchbull 00:05:35.389 --> 00:05:37.870 Hughes. Yes. Who was appointed as the British 00:05:37.870 --> 00:05:42.000 ambassador to China from 1936 to 1937. He later 00:05:42.000 --> 00:05:45.800 wrote a memoir in 1949 titled Diplomat in Peace 00:05:45.800 --> 00:05:47.839 and War. And what does he say in the memoir? 00:05:48.100 --> 00:05:50.560 He recounts that right before he departed England 00:05:50.560 --> 00:05:54.180 for his post in China in 1936, a friend warned 00:05:54.180 --> 00:05:57.579 him with this exact phrase. And the friend explicitly 00:05:57.579 --> 00:06:00.639 called it A Chinese curse. That detail is just 00:06:00.639 --> 00:06:02.899 staggering to me. You have the incoming British 00:06:02.899 --> 00:06:04.839 ambassador being warned about the country he 00:06:04.839 --> 00:06:07.339 is about to travel to using a fabricated piece 00:06:07.339 --> 00:06:09.699 of folklore invented by his own peers back in 00:06:09.699 --> 00:06:12.259 London. It really shows how insulated that diplomatic 00:06:12.259 --> 00:06:14.480 echo chamber was. Absolutely. They were passing 00:06:14.480 --> 00:06:16.480 their own projected anxieties back and forth 00:06:16.480 --> 00:06:18.660 and accepting them as absolute geopolitical fact. 00:06:18.899 --> 00:06:22.069 What was the second account from 1936? The second 00:06:22.069 --> 00:06:25.170 involves a man named Frederick Rene Cooter Jr., 00:06:25.170 --> 00:06:27.930 who was a prominent legal and political figure. 00:06:28.129 --> 00:06:30.870 He recounted a letter exchange he had that year 00:06:30.870 --> 00:06:33.269 with Sir Austin Chamberlain. And Sir Austin Chamberlain 00:06:33.269 --> 00:06:36.050 was a massive figure. He was a prominent statesman, 00:06:36.170 --> 00:06:38.569 former foreign secretary, and the brother of 00:06:38.569 --> 00:06:40.750 Neville Chamberlain, who would soon become prime 00:06:40.750 --> 00:06:43.529 minister. A very heavy hitter. So Cooter writes 00:06:43.529 --> 00:06:45.769 a letter to Austin Chamberlain, and he ends it 00:06:45.769 --> 00:06:48.240 by noting... somewhat casually, that they were 00:06:48.240 --> 00:06:50.420 living in an interesting age. And Chamberlain's 00:06:50.420 --> 00:06:54.220 reply is incredible. It is the smoking gun of 00:06:54.220 --> 00:06:57.180 this entire myth. Austin Chamberlain writes back 00:06:57.180 --> 00:06:59.899 by return mail. He says, many years ago, I learned 00:06:59.899 --> 00:07:02.120 from one of our diplomats in China that one of 00:07:02.120 --> 00:07:04.680 the principal Chinese curses heaped upon an enemy 00:07:04.680 --> 00:07:07.870 is, may you live in an interesting age. He just 00:07:07.870 --> 00:07:10.689 states it as absolute fact. Yes. And he goes 00:07:10.689 --> 00:07:13.490 on to agree with Couture, adding, surely no age 00:07:13.490 --> 00:07:15.689 has been more fraught with insecurity than our 00:07:15.689 --> 00:07:18.310 own present time. There it is in black and white. 00:07:18.410 --> 00:07:20.949 You have a highly powerful statesman explicitly 00:07:20.949 --> 00:07:23.810 validating this misremembered quote, giving it 00:07:23.810 --> 00:07:26.649 a false origin story and tying it directly to 00:07:26.649 --> 00:07:30.569 the insecurity of the 1930s. Right. Austin Chamberlain 00:07:30.569 --> 00:07:32.870 genuinely believed he heard it from a diplomat, 00:07:32.870 --> 00:07:36.220 but he didn't. Here's where it gets really interesting, 00:07:36.339 --> 00:07:38.500 because if Austin Chamberlain didn't learn it 00:07:38.500 --> 00:07:41.040 from a diplomat in Beijing, where did he hear 00:07:41.040 --> 00:07:44.319 it? To answer that, we have to look at the work 00:07:44.319 --> 00:07:47.199 of a, quote, investigator and philologist named 00:07:47.199 --> 00:07:50.180 Garson O'Toole. And for anyone unfamiliar, a 00:07:50.180 --> 00:07:52.360 philologist essentially studies the historical 00:07:52.360 --> 00:07:54.779 development of languages and texts. They track 00:07:54.779 --> 00:07:57.980 how words and idioms evolve over centuries. Exactly. 00:07:58.819 --> 00:08:02.139 O'Toole dug deep into the archives. He bypassed 00:08:02.139 --> 00:08:04.339 all the mythology to find the earliest recorded 00:08:04.339 --> 00:08:07.699 use of this exact sentiment. And his search did 00:08:07.699 --> 00:08:10.300 not lead to an ancient scroll. No, it led straight 00:08:10.300 --> 00:08:12.899 to late Victorian England. Specifically to a 00:08:12.899 --> 00:08:14.899 speech delivered by Joseph Chamberlain in the 00:08:14.899 --> 00:08:18.199 year 1898. Joseph Chamberlain, as in Sir Austin 00:08:18.199 --> 00:08:21.139 Chamberlain's own father. Yes, it is a brilliant 00:08:21.139 --> 00:08:24.100 historical twist. Austin Chamberlain didn't learn 00:08:24.100 --> 00:08:26.100 the quote from a mysterious diplomat in China. 00:08:26.459 --> 00:08:28.639 He likely misremembered a phrase coined by his 00:08:28.639 --> 00:08:31.399 own dad. Let's look at the exact text of Joseph 00:08:31.399 --> 00:08:34.320 Chamberlain's 1898 speech, because the context 00:08:34.320 --> 00:08:36.940 shifts the meaning entirely. He was addressing 00:08:36.940 --> 00:08:39.740 a domestic audience, right? He was. He was reflecting 00:08:39.740 --> 00:08:41.580 on the state of the world at the end of the 19th 00:08:41.580 --> 00:08:43.539 century. And here is what he told his audience. 00:08:44.220 --> 00:08:46.919 I think that you will all agree that we are living 00:08:46.919 --> 00:08:50.500 in most interesting times. I never remember myself. 00:08:51.149 --> 00:08:53.669 a time in which our history was so full. In which 00:08:53.669 --> 00:08:56.470 day by day brought us new objects of interest 00:08:56.470 --> 00:08:59.669 and, let me say also, new objects for anxiety. 00:09:00.350 --> 00:09:03.250 Notice the complete absence of any Eastern mythology 00:09:03.250 --> 00:09:06.370 there. There is zero mention of China. It's not 00:09:06.370 --> 00:09:08.730 framed as a curse. It's not ancient wisdom. No, 00:09:08.730 --> 00:09:11.490 it is a strictly contemporary observation by 00:09:11.490 --> 00:09:14.210 a Victorian statesman who is just trying to articulate 00:09:14.210 --> 00:09:16.850 the overwhelming nature of modernity. The phrase 00:09:16.850 --> 00:09:19.409 new objects for anxiety really anchors it for 00:09:19.409 --> 00:09:21.389 me, because if you look at what was happening 00:09:21.389 --> 00:09:24.990 in 1898, Joseph Chamberlain's unease makes perfect 00:09:24.990 --> 00:09:26.889 sense. Oh, absolutely. The world was changing 00:09:26.889 --> 00:09:29.590 rapidly. Right. The second industrial revolution 00:09:29.590 --> 00:09:32.710 was in full swing. Global empires were clashing. 00:09:32.830 --> 00:09:35.509 You had technological leaps like the telegraph 00:09:35.509 --> 00:09:38.409 literally shrinking the world. News of a crisis 00:09:38.409 --> 00:09:40.769 from across the globe could arrive in hours instead 00:09:40.769 --> 00:09:43.789 of months. It was the birth of the modern information 00:09:43.789 --> 00:09:46.629 cycle. That is a crucial piece of the context. 00:09:47.590 --> 00:09:49.509 Chamberlain was reacting to the acceleration 00:09:49.509 --> 00:09:52.549 of history. The world had suddenly become highly 00:09:52.549 --> 00:09:55.370 interconnected, and that interconnectedness brought 00:09:55.370 --> 00:09:58.190 a profound sense of instability. He was expressing 00:09:58.190 --> 00:10:01.090 a distinctly modern Western geopolitical fatigue. 00:10:01.549 --> 00:10:03.789 Exactly. But then we have to ask, how does a 00:10:03.789 --> 00:10:06.830 Victorian politician's accurate diagnosis of 00:10:06.830 --> 00:10:09.610 modern anxiety turn into a fake Chinese curse? 00:10:10.039 --> 00:10:13.080 Right. How do we get from Joseph in 1898 to Austin 00:10:13.080 --> 00:10:15.779 in 1936? It's essentially a multigenerational 00:10:15.779 --> 00:10:18.169 game of telephone. driven by cognitive bias. 00:10:18.409 --> 00:10:21.210 As the decades passed, Austin retained the core 00:10:21.210 --> 00:10:23.690 sentiment of his father's observation that modern 00:10:23.690 --> 00:10:26.450 times are overwhelmingly interesting and therefore 00:10:26.450 --> 00:10:29.649 anxiety -inducing. But human memory is notoriously 00:10:29.649 --> 00:10:31.809 fallible. Over the course of almost 40 years, 00:10:31.929 --> 00:10:34.389 Austin detached the quote from his father. He 00:10:34.389 --> 00:10:37.509 didn't just detach it. He actively, though unconscious 00:10:37.509 --> 00:10:40.779 as it may have been, reattributed it. And this 00:10:40.779 --> 00:10:44.059 reveals a deeply ingrained psychological crutch 00:10:44.059 --> 00:10:46.720 that we all have. Oh, definitely. When we face 00:10:46.720 --> 00:10:50.440 modern unprecedented dread, we seek out ancient 00:10:50.440 --> 00:10:53.919 wisdom to reassure ourselves. Yes. We want the 00:10:53.919 --> 00:10:56.240 comfort of knowing that past generations understood 00:10:56.240 --> 00:11:00.299 and survived this exact type of chaos. So instead 00:11:00.299 --> 00:11:02.360 of simply remembering that his Victorian dad 00:11:02.360 --> 00:11:06.240 had geopolitical anxiety, Austin's brain categorized 00:11:06.240 --> 00:11:08.740 the thought as an ancient, exotic curse that 00:11:08.740 --> 00:11:10.720 he assumed he must have heard from a worldly 00:11:10.720 --> 00:11:14.059 diplomat. It is a textbook example of Orientalism, 00:11:14.159 --> 00:11:17.120 projecting an aura of mystical, timeless wisdom 00:11:17.120 --> 00:11:20.019 onto Eastern cultures to validate our own Western 00:11:20.019 --> 00:11:22.279 narratives. Austin Chamberlain took a domestic 00:11:22.279 --> 00:11:24.700 familial observation and he literally dressed 00:11:24.700 --> 00:11:26.980 it up in the costume of another culture to give 00:11:26.980 --> 00:11:29.159 it more gravitas. And because he was so highly 00:11:29.259 --> 00:11:31.539 connected when he started repeating this flawed 00:11:31.539 --> 00:11:34.559 memory, it carried immense authority. If we connect 00:11:34.559 --> 00:11:36.779 this to the bigger picture, we see that once 00:11:36.779 --> 00:11:38.519 it had the stamp of approval from the highest 00:11:38.519 --> 00:11:41.340 levels of British diplomacy, the phrase didn't 00:11:41.340 --> 00:11:43.799 stay confined to elite circles for long. No. 00:11:43.919 --> 00:11:46.460 As we discussed, it trickled down into parenting 00:11:46.460 --> 00:11:50.919 magazines by 1943. And from there, it just achieved 00:11:50.919 --> 00:11:53.559 the highest levels of cultural permanence. It 00:11:53.559 --> 00:11:56.419 really did. Fake lore is incredibly enduring. 00:11:56.659 --> 00:11:58.759 It didn't fade away after the Second World War. 00:11:59.039 --> 00:12:01.500 If you look at the modern legacy of this phrase, 00:12:01.639 --> 00:12:04.620 it is literally everywhere. It completely transcends 00:12:04.620 --> 00:12:07.299 politics now. It bleeds into mainstream pop culture. 00:12:07.379 --> 00:12:09.799 Oh, definitely. The legendary fantasy author 00:12:09.799 --> 00:12:12.850 Terry Pratchett. titled one of his beloved Discworld 00:12:12.850 --> 00:12:15.769 novels, Interesting Times. Right, relying on 00:12:15.769 --> 00:12:18.169 the audience's immediate recognition of the underlying 00:12:18.169 --> 00:12:20.929 curse. And its reach extends well beyond pop 00:12:20.929 --> 00:12:24.210 culture into the realm of high art and intellectualism. 00:12:24.509 --> 00:12:27.009 Consider the Venice Biennale. Which is arguably 00:12:27.009 --> 00:12:29.409 the most prestigious contemporary art exhibition 00:12:29.409 --> 00:12:31.929 globally. It's an event that prides itself on 00:12:31.929 --> 00:12:34.450 deep, rigorous cultural commentary. And what 00:12:34.450 --> 00:12:37.009 was the official title chosen for the 2019 edition 00:12:37.009 --> 00:12:38.909 of the Biennale? May You Live in Interesting 00:12:38.909 --> 00:12:43.940 Times. Exactly. A premier global art event intending 00:12:43.940 --> 00:12:46.379 to reflect deeply on the fractured state of modern 00:12:46.379 --> 00:12:49.220 human existence anchored its entire thematic 00:12:49.220 --> 00:12:52.379 identity on a misremembered diary entry from 00:12:52.379 --> 00:12:55.580 a Victorian politician. And they were still operating 00:12:55.580 --> 00:12:57.940 under the illusion that they were invoking profound 00:12:57.940 --> 00:13:00.860 ancient cultural wisdom. It is a testament to 00:13:00.860 --> 00:13:03.340 how comfortably we settle into established narratives. 00:13:03.419 --> 00:13:06.240 We really do. Once a concept is widely accepted, 00:13:06.440 --> 00:13:09.879 the burden of proof just vanishes. No one stops 00:13:09.879 --> 00:13:11.759 to check the receipts on a phrase that feels 00:13:11.759 --> 00:13:14.519 that universally true. Which brings us to why 00:13:14.519 --> 00:13:16.659 this matters for you, the listener. Right, because 00:13:16.659 --> 00:13:19.340 this is not an isolated linguistic quirk. This 00:13:19.340 --> 00:13:21.940 habit of Western cultures projecting convenient 00:13:21.940 --> 00:13:24.679 frameworks onto Easter languages happens repeatedly. 00:13:25.000 --> 00:13:27.840 The sources explicitly link the Interesting Times 00:13:27.840 --> 00:13:30.659 phenomenon to another pervasive piece of modern 00:13:30.659 --> 00:13:33.519 fake lore. Yes, the myth surrounding the Chinese 00:13:33.710 --> 00:13:36.149 word for crisis oh this is the classic motivational 00:13:36.149 --> 00:13:38.509 speaker trope you hear this in corporate boardrooms 00:13:38.509 --> 00:13:40.789 constantly the claim is that the chinese word 00:13:40.789 --> 00:13:43.149 for crisis is composed of two characters one 00:13:43.149 --> 00:13:45.210 representing danger and the other representing 00:13:45.210 --> 00:13:48.370 opportunity it is the exact same mechanism at 00:13:48.370 --> 00:13:51.389 play it is a fundamental linguistic misunderstanding 00:13:51.389 --> 00:13:53.970 philologists and translators have debunked this 00:13:53.970 --> 00:13:56.610 repeatedly haven't they countless times they've 00:13:56.610 --> 00:13:58.309 explained that the characters do not translate 00:13:58.309 --> 00:14:01.820 to a neat philosophical duality of danger plus 00:14:01.820 --> 00:14:04.700 opportunity. But the myth survives because it 00:14:04.700 --> 00:14:07.340 serves a Western modern self -help narrative. 00:14:07.700 --> 00:14:09.940 Just as Austin Chamberlain needed a mystical 00:14:09.940 --> 00:14:13.480 curse to validate his 1930s geopolitical dread, 00:14:13.740 --> 00:14:16.500 modern corporate culture needs a mystical linguistic 00:14:16.500 --> 00:14:19.559 silver lining to validate the stress of a crisis. 00:14:19.899 --> 00:14:21.980 We curate these myths because they are useful 00:14:21.980 --> 00:14:24.580 to us. We bend the reality of other cultures 00:14:24.580 --> 00:14:26.860 to fit the shape of our own specific anxieties 00:14:26.860 --> 00:14:29.629 and ambitions. So what does this all mean? Tracking 00:14:29.629 --> 00:14:31.570 the full life cycle of this quote gives us an 00:14:31.570 --> 00:14:33.950 incredible masterclass in how human memory and 00:14:33.950 --> 00:14:36.710 cultural consensus actually work. We start in 00:14:36.710 --> 00:14:39.529 1898 with Joseph Chamberlain, a Victorian politician 00:14:39.529 --> 00:14:42.529 articulating the very real stress of a rapidly 00:14:42.529 --> 00:14:45.009 industrializing, hyper -connected world bringing 00:14:45.009 --> 00:14:47.389 new objects for anxiety. And then we fast forward 00:14:47.389 --> 00:14:50.830 to the 1930s. Right. His own son, Sir Austin 00:14:50.830 --> 00:14:53.409 Chamberlain, inadvertently strips away the original 00:14:53.409 --> 00:14:56.529 context. In an attempt to make sense of the looming 00:14:56.529 --> 00:14:59.669 threat of global war, his memory repackages his 00:14:59.669 --> 00:15:02.309 father's observation as an ancient Chinese curse. 00:15:02.769 --> 00:15:05.929 That misattributed quote bounces around an echo 00:15:05.929 --> 00:15:08.750 chamber of anxious British diplomats, validates 00:15:08.750 --> 00:15:11.129 their geopolitical dread, and then escapes into 00:15:11.129 --> 00:15:14.049 the wild. It trickles down into 1940s parenting 00:15:14.049 --> 00:15:17.009 journals, inspires fantasy novels, and ultimately 00:15:17.009 --> 00:15:21.240 headlines the 2019 Venice Biennale. It is a brilliant, 00:15:21.440 --> 00:15:24.139 slightly unsettling reminder that sometimes the 00:15:24.139 --> 00:15:27.600 most profound ancient wisdom we cling to is just 00:15:27.600 --> 00:15:29.860 a reflection of our own modern panic bouncing 00:15:29.860 --> 00:15:31.559 back at us from a mirror we built ourselves. 00:15:32.019 --> 00:15:34.340 We're living in an age of total information overload, 00:15:34.539 --> 00:15:36.399 and this story is the ultimate reminder to always 00:15:36.399 --> 00:15:38.240 check your receipts. It really is a striking 00:15:38.240 --> 00:15:41.059 timeline. And tracing that lineage from 1898 00:15:41.059 --> 00:15:43.279 to today, well, this raises an important question, 00:15:43.340 --> 00:15:45.120 one worth dwelling on after we wrap up here. 00:15:45.279 --> 00:15:47.360 What's that? If a casual domestic observation 00:15:47.360 --> 00:15:50.789 by a British politician can... successfully masquerade 00:15:50.789 --> 00:15:53.690 as ancient Eastern philosophy for over a century. 00:15:54.039 --> 00:15:55.779 To the point where it shapes international art 00:15:55.779 --> 00:15:58.580 exhibitions and everyday conversation, what other 00:15:58.580 --> 00:16:01.080 foundational pieces of ancient wisdom that currently 00:16:01.080 --> 00:16:04.019 shape your worldview are actually just historical 00:16:04.019 --> 00:16:07.620 misquotations? Just quietly waiting for a philologist 00:16:07.620 --> 00:16:10.460 to dig up the original entirely mundane source. 00:16:10.820 --> 00:16:13.240 That is a slightly unsettling thought to end 00:16:13.240 --> 00:16:15.879 on, but a highly necessary one. Thank you for 00:16:15.879 --> 00:16:18.120 joining us for this deep dive. Keep questioning 00:16:18.120 --> 00:16:20.179 the origins of the narratives around you, and 00:16:20.179 --> 00:16:21.720 we will see you on the next deep dive.