good evening and thank you everybody for coming. i am a visiting fellow here at the american enterprise institute and commentary editor of the washington examiner and we have a great discussion tonight. we've got here the author of dignity which came out earlier this year. it is an excellent book. i read it and loved it and we will be selling afterwards. you should buy it. it's beautiful. and i say beautiful because it is also a photo book as well as

a great collection of stories that reveal america. this is the first guy that i've had on stage with a phd in physics. he used a phd in physics to go into finance and when he had this job in finance, he started going for walks during the day i will abridge the story because it is in the book. walks got longer and longer and he ended up at hunts point which isn't terribly close to the district. he was exposed to what he called the back row of america. drug addicts, drug dealers, prostitutes. p it convinced him he needed to figure out what was going on in his back row across the country so from lewiston maine to bakersfield california, he traveled the country, talked to people and again he wasn't doing the same sort of going around

the country trip that a lot of people do, he was visiting the back row, drug addicts, dealers, prostitutes, homeless, formerly homeless, veterans, people who hated the immigrants and all that, but then recently if you follow twitter you will know that he has visited the most deplorable groove of all which is conservatives. visited the prostitutes and tax collectors come he's gone far lower visiting the tax cutters. [laughter] i want to start by what hit me most in your discussion here is introspection into the mindset of the front. here we are at aei almost all of us have advanced degrees, here we are in washington, d.c., arguably the wealthiest region in the country, and definitely the most educated region of the

country. i'm a catholic and those i like best are those directed at the audience, the shortcomings. you talk about the denigration by the front row of what you call forms of non- credentialed meaning in other words people finding meaning outside of degrees, outside of jobs and income and outside of a nice house and other things. can you talk about what you found around the country in that regard? >> thank you all for coming and for having me. tim also wrote a book by the w way. to a degree in my book is sociologically and what i will say is i divided the world into front and back row. the people you will be seeing on

the screen here and people i took pictures of, people who live in the bronx and north side of milwaukee and portsmouth, it's not defined by geography or income although it is pretty much income and it's not definee by race. it's people who don't go to college or if they go to college they go to state schools or community college. the contrast of that as i have a phd and i spent 20 years as a bond trader that is what i call the front row which is people who look very different, come from all over the world, although for thallover the u.s.n theme that makes their life pretty much the same institutions, harvard, princeton, yale, postgraduate degrees, internships, moving to new york city or dc but only

certain neighborhoods in new york city and in dc. we run the world. we've run for politics and thinking and the law firms. we run the academies and universities. one of the things we've done is to find the world very narrowly in a bind. the define it in that we only look at material things and in particular how many material things you get, how much will u. get is a function of how big your resume is. it's a credentialed for the economy. the things i found in my journey and the things you will see in the pictures are people who find meaning in more traditional ways in things you don't need a

resume for. the value of living in the same neighborhood, the value of the friendships you form in the neighborhood.th i laughed when i think about -- visiting people into talking i would interview them, mostly at mcdonald's and i remember telling somebody wrapping up an interview they had been born 20 miles down the road. 668, 78, lived their life there and suggest going through my notes, you've lived in this town all your life and he says no. i said what do you mean. he said i was raised 20 miles down the road. [laughter] like she wanted me to get it right or there was the woman in cairo, an african-american town in missouri who i said you are from cairo and she said no, i'm from a mile outside of there.

[laughter] >> so, those things matter. place matters to people. and there's a lot of value in place. another thing that matters but also doesn't necessarily require credentials as religion and faith and third whic with just dangerous this race, racial identity. these are things where effectively you can block -- things that give you meaning give you value that we can't quantify. we can't measure but also, i think that over time the front row has just assumed don't have value because we can't measure it. so we tell people just move, go from a to b., like that doesn't -- what is the cost of the box so, the way that we think about the world is in a very narrow framework of only one thing matters and the thing that

matters is a resume. it is a measurable and so it's harder to measure where you are from the community bonds, safe etc. and that is actually amething that i've seen admitted. one economist speaking here said that when she saw the book, she really didn't like it and none of her friends did because it was emphasizing the start were so vague and eerie like the communityth bonds, and that they were looking for other ways to measure success or value or anything like that. but also, i think it strikes a lot of people as arbitrary, which is to say that you will see articles. there was an article in the "washington post" recently that had the headline loyalty is done and people will constantly talk about the accident of where you were born, and we can say, you

and i can see it's unfortunate that the accident of where you were born can determine the outcome, but the accident doesn't seem like an accident or something to be slaughtered off like changing the color of your hair or anything. it seems to actually matter to a lot of people but in the front row it seems arbitrary and clinging to it seems imprudent, inefficient. ..

>> having downtown bars. and that rising drug measure is the way of the effects of free trade that have been very fun even not to experience slight decrease but when the factory shut down a lot more happened then less money was flowing in their.

but the reiteration to the solution was just move. so that was so offensive people don't necessarily have the money to move and then you have them selfou assets. here is the number one question. so should these people move? so you spend more time talking tot people. some of these towns you look around and it's hard to see where we have the best job opportunities. it's hard to say that if you cared about the person where there is no jobs and drugs are running rampant, why wouldn't you tell them to move?

>> so what i'm speaking to the policy people who also assume moving has no cost. i reference this all the time this is the perfect example xamexican american american people in mcdonald's they were bypassing the opportunity to go to school because she stayed for her mom's translator. her mom is first-generationhe she does documents for her mother. wide should we think that's the right decision in my mind? why do we expect people to tear family bonds and sell assets at low prices? and also let's have value and it is elitist because they don't require many.

those were things that were gifted at birth and what we take away from people that is extraordinarily elitist. so if i am here and people know me 20 years i put in work and have jobs and have written a book, that helps you get credentials and have meeting if you are still in your hometown and having been around for over 20 years. and one of the words that has become very negative is tribalism. do we know what we mean by that and that politics is what side you are on not thinking

about yourself that how try ballistic fishermen were for wanting to leave and just carry it on - - care about that. and they were all constantly traveling from europe and he's describing a tribe. from europe and he's describing a tribe. taught - - talk about your experience in the rules necessary to succeed and to be dedicated to knowledge. but the community was global. and it seems to try that it is above tribalism so people need to belong to tribes. the way i phrase it that people need to be evaluated.

if that is a church group or a law firm or a bowling league people need to be a valued member. and the front row and we set the rules of what is cool and as such, we don't nobody likes to see they are the in group. i don't have an apartment in mayfair, that is not privileged. when you take things away from people when you make people feel like they are in our rat

race too get money to be moved about that is part of dignity. so dignity is a double-edged sword. that could be positive you could findit dignity and then to be a member of the community but also there are ways we would rather them not try to find dignity part of that goes to race that you could find tribalism or racial identity. so when people are humiliated they search for ways, to find the dignity. there is - - are negative consequences of that. some of that politically these days that trump rallies are a

tribe. they are non- resume to come join the election and let's have fun. >> so a big part of the trump phenomenon is people seeking to belong. meaning and dignity are a part of it but the framework that i use is belonging to someone. my argument is in the suffering parts of america to look at these places that are suffering in a church that had closed down in the factory and then you still get food o stamps and whatever that adds up to to belongos to the workplace and

that daily nation what it leads to are looking for other things to belong to sometimes it is a street gang or white nationalism or wearing the red maga hat but the irony is there are a handful of liberal writers who have written this that i thought we were a more secular country to all get along. but if b you belong to a church for civil society then more people will belong m to things more strife or not lead them to happiness and the good life.

>> so i think both of our books and i'm very much on the left that the loss of all other forms of meeting the original sense that provided people with stability that once we are there to join i am less comfortable talking about cultural issues because it's not my strong point and not where i come from.ot but the right so the loss of

faith has been huge. absolutely huge. but the one place that was contrary was utah. that doesn't have the levels of despair as the other places have. it has them but the church is they are. and to provide a sense of place. so the solution to what we have going on in my mind is the fall of the church is a big loss that held capitalism and check.

as a tug-of-war you don't go too far because we have religious rules. capitalism without religion is a disaster. and the man who didn't know his abcs. and then i got saved and i never felt worthy i was too dumb. nows i understand i am worthy of the lord. that is the most noncredentialed form to become worthy and it does not grant

that and if you have so i wrote to make it uncomfortable for the right will be on the left for a little bit. you and i have the same experience so so you use the phrase that are left behind with dignity there is an interview on fox.com and the interviewer interjects to say they don't have to be left behind they have chosen not to revolve.en - - evolve. that something i like to say before donald trump. so say something about the white working class has

created a situation where a lot of people who are suffering that you are responsible for your own suffering of what we hear about urban blacks. so i believe i'm from the left and one very important way i see a group of people suffering suffering social ills i will never blame the qualities but the politicalur structure. and to look at those political structures.

at a group level and always at urban neighborhoods on the right when they say all those things in laziness and just get a job. they find themselves in the neighborhoods and against obstacles secondary everything. so stop callingg people subhuman. so i think the left would do the same to working-class white neighborhoods and many cases they do but many cases they don't. so the choices made of white working-class neighborhood

neighborhoods, that no, these people have privilege. i started this project 2011 well before any of the trump stuff happened. and west virginia trailer park where a lot of things were going wrong. and with the family that has done a lot of wrong in theirir lives. and with the whitete working-class guy she just moaned as she just looked at me and said what the fuck are

you fucking with me? really quex. [laughter] and the trailer park has privilege and to be told by the sociology student and cornell and its mind-boggling this is where i will criticize the left that there is a belief misunderstanding how much privilege and education. and to have more provision they wanted to admit. so one of the big things that means is connection and and

going to a much better college than i did and so it helped him is that he went to gail. when that education just isn't who you meet but learn the code and how to interact and speakow and not gadi neck tattoo. all these things that are not explicitly taught so a code of behavior and its connection that is the nature of our

privilege and it is uncomfortable. >> both culturally and economically and with any club comes memberships that you don't know you have. and the bigger issue is talk about the issue of african-american gentleman of the projects in cleveland to have full scholarship to vanderbilt back in the seventies. and literally says and coming up with welfare queen and all those things.y i spent so much time to even

have the gravitas or the cultural capital. that he studied and had to make up a gap because he had a lesser education so he spent all the time hitting the books while everybody else is forming friendships. they all came out with a hilodex and i came out with bees. so what is must with the violence of the working class because some of this political correctness to contrary to a lot of people and that

expertise. so you're not allowed to speak on something that has a resume. that comes from the right and from the left unless you know the proper words. that is frustrating that those issues that are topical right now are language sensitive race gender. that the working-class has a lot to say about it. to this new place where the left wants to go and then they use the wrong word they will be pounced on and called

uneducated and dumb and racist. so for me it's very frustrating because education provides use of the language so part of the project was to let people speak on their own and then to let them speak without me to jump in and correct them but does seem like a contradiction and how the areola flexion on the suffering parts of the country to connect to. i don't mean connections but

in that sense of belonging so people were finding and then public study of mcdonald's. and a crack house. and that we belong something to belong to so if we argue it is a lack of things to belong to. and then i go to mcdonald's all the time. is starting to show now physically. but when i started this project i wasn't going into

mcdonald's for the same reason but i started to hang out with homeless addicts and we went there all the time because of free wi-fi, bathrooms that more importantly you can just hang out there. so i spend my time there hanging out to see friendships formed. and people who go there before their wedding. and gary indiana is the town center one of the few places open and operating and then that's it it's like a town square where you know everything is happening people are playing dominoes they are

doing everything. so it's really funny when i started the project i could not believe i was seeing so much community. and then to take a photo of them. and then mcdonald's is a story and then i always say it is for entirely transactional in and out but yet it is a community center. that is evidence in need of two things. people are that desperate for community. they will form it in a mcdonald's. so if you give people a world of franchises they will give

meaning in a community. i don't see this different from what you saw but maybe we went to different places where there wasn't anything. it was the last thing standing and going back to the title , but that belonging and a desire for dignity people will have romantic relationships. and big part of suffering is a lack of trust among neighbors. if you go into a town in west virginia whether immigrants or the political class are china

but i also think there is less social trust. some can be different there will still be poor places with their bikes in the front yard but with the streetcorner with guns and guys getting shot. they are not shot by outside loan --dash outsiders even in selma the problem is the police dogs the main threat is not the racist cops are police dogs it will be the fact the social fabric has broken down so much but they are engaging in will be warfare and drugs. >> i have a very different view on this which is and i

spent a lot of time in drug houses and around drug dealers. i saw a lot of bad things go down but i also spent 20 years on wall street and saw a lot of bad things go down ff. [laughter] and then to lawyer up. and it will be all very pleasan pleasant. we don't have that option and they cannot trust the cops because they can't be trusted. they are working in the black economy because the illegal economy because the legal economy is not available to them.

i did spend a lot of time around drug dealers slinging drugs if i grew up like that i would be a drug dealer i think every person on wall street would do the same thing. it is the option you have see you go with the option that you have. i'm just saying that to frame it as a functional system because the system isn't functional for them to create their own functional system. what i find fascinating is the opposite. so people form rules andor order.

you will be in a drug place and there is rules. they are unwritten but they are there. so i find that people self organize and form community. so when people are deprived sometimes it is drugs. sometimes we think it is better for them that i have two more things. >> i want to make onehe more point there's also something called owning the stigma if you are accused of a dirty drug dealer then you say that's me. so that's why addicts do they own the addiction. it doesn't matter if theyic exaggerate. or on the stigma. so something close to race so

the one privilege as the african-american that you are allowed to have racial identity and find i meaning in that. i wonder if that white identity comes from ethnic identity. >> they didn't walk around think of ourselves as white as irish american but to say we had more than the italian kids than black or korean is laughable so what did we have in common with them quex? so if you look at their ethnicity and say i am african-american and not my nationality but for example are you dutch or african-american and they say no i'm just american. that his appellation but white

people mostly and that's where we find a high correlation with high support and that ethnicity. and with the other form of identity. >> so what i would say is how it is flipped on its head in a negative way and then be proud to raised and i'm not. so sitting and on - - in a bar at applebee's you can talk

about privilege and social capital or you could simply say it's the right thing to do. and we still have capabilities to beat up the polish kids and that is to replace other identities specifically religion. in the french-canadian american. they are the most likely to be trumpet voters. so what i will say at this point going back to my non- british of place in race i always say then there is the

resume. so you have to choose one of the four. one of those will be chosen by people because they will choose nothing and then something. and racial identity is the most dangerous for the people to seek for all the obvious reasons. but my warning is stop keep the value in place to up the ante to make the rat race of building the resumes, you will getn a backlash. that will happen very quickly.

so what frustrates me sometimes it is racism is malleable. i don't know if you know lewiston is a town in maine the 30000 people lost textile mills to mexico and others the french-canadian american and then they replaced their family and 98 and others so then i took some time there talking to the professor of anthropology and to study this issue one of the things you see when someone is visually different, you seem to jump the line that's when you get a big swing of racism by the majority.

so speaking of joining there is a members only club that were organized around the mills. so when i went to the snowshoe club around the monthly snowshoe races but all the mills they didn't raise them anymore so i joined for one dollar. [laughter] it if you think it was there to keep african-americans out so i'm talking to the guy next to me who's had a rough life and in his mind alcoholism, section eight housing, in and out of homelessness and drinking and

showing my cigarettes and goes off on a tirade. really nasty. and the bartender actually stops but this interesting thing is this guy when we spoke literally complaining jumping his queue for getting food. but he literally saw these people who were newcomers. were now making the way for free food distribution. while i don't approve what he said at all you might approve of how he gott there.

if you want that not to happen we need to provide someone like him opportunities that are the scapegoats. >> time we have time for a few questions. it will be brought to you. quickly identify yourself. >> so what do you see your n.dgame if you need another journalist? you have done this for eight years. you have met america so what is your end girl quit - - goal?

and secondly where is people's anger directed at critics is anger directed toward the local senator? broad national issues? >> so honestly it was haphazardly done it was not intended as a goal at some point it was motivated by political anger and people for those who are disparaged by the press b or what have you. so part of the project is to

let them tell their stories as worthy as a bond trader. and what was the second questio question? >> sometimes the anger that cannot be fixed sometimes it's anger at immigrants. there is a tendency to want to punch the more frustrated you want to punch the more masculine you are the more you want to punch. so that degree of anger that you are being patronized all the time and being scolded and that you are not worthy or laughed at.

and they know when they are convinced that people made fun of them. and washington post does not get them. and it is hard to know - - hard for me to know who to punch and where to punch. >> i would say i was surprised at how easy it was to get people to talk to me about their life. i am a political reporter and from washingtonnon dc. i should share with them, tell them what i'm coming from and tell them when i amin doing.

they didn't like the word politics but what is it like around here? so then they have their time in rehab. >> the thing i told younger people you have to get them to stop talking. i've been at applebee's at 2:00 a.m. hearing for the fourth time about the wrongs that cause their truck to flip. people want to talk. even if they distrust a guy from brooklyn in the abstract. where i think the narrative, i hate that word but the story is wrong that the poor hate ther rich. they don't hate the rich. they are frustrated that they are not there for go they view that is aspirational but

really the trump form of wealth is understandable. i don't like how trump made the money i can make mocking articles how he didn't beat the s&p and inherited it but he has big buildings in the air and for a lot of people they understand that. that is what moneyt. is. what did i do? i traded bonds. so i get the financial times and it comes with something called how to spend it. so i be in these drug dens and i forget how to spend it is in my car. and people are little one - - literally shooting up how to spend it.

and then to say what do you think about this? and then have them look at it. there wasn't this what you see 0eft wing twitter this is outrageous. is a 50000-dollar rolex watch. so this idea, i don't particularly like the wealthy but it's more i wish i could do that. >>, finance background there used to be a gap in your awareness you should be aware with the broker-dealers and then to relocate out of new york you are actually in this situation you are just more educated in a different bracket but you don't seem to

be aware of that. so for example people working in the coal industry in west virginia they have long-term jobs. if you are a bond trader after a few markets you are out then after 22 years old you don't sue the bank for that. so you can't just lawyer up like you say and they say the same thing that you are the same person. >> i'm not saying that there is a lot ofar problems. so it's very different industry in the back office and theic front office. they treat the back office iclike crap ago it's not a nice industry.

>> i may journalist and that's a perilous industry to be in but but i think the main privileges connection and belonging. and if i got laid off for jobs in journalism there are those who i could turn to at least try to land on my feet. that's a lot harder when everybody knows in that town.. my experience was at the very top with this delete group. >>. >> what most surprised to with your interactions so don't try

and go do what i did necessarily but i spend most of my time with african-american but nobody took me. lnobody has the 5000-dollar camera. se 2then the drug houses at two in the morning. and then just on a lark because somebody said i should go there. nothing bad i happened. so again it's very different foren females.

but in terms of the safety issue and the trust, there is a woman by the name of millie i met on the street who was a sex worker. back when people tell you the master story. fit three years later she passed away and i located her body. if you die in new york without papers you are put into hart island it's one of the worst things in the world. a lot of irish are there by the way i think 1 million people are buried there. it's been there since 1865 and in the trench so she died in

over six months i located she was vx 66 and through the whole process of getting her exhumed and properly buried i learned a lot about her past and just to get the paperwork done to get the body so three years later telling me at two in the morning everything she said about her life was right. tspot on the whole story she did not lie or exaggerate. but again the honesty of telling a stranger and it wasn't a w good life or to be proud of. >> added an individual level

so that has been the us paradox as an aggregate friendly. [laughter] >> is another question. are you still traveling to interview people? and my second question is have you ever found the one in the community who found a way out? i'm really curious about what you said about not having the right language to fit in with the front row. >> those who play the long odds and succeeded but on the

streets. when we were just focus their the lesson learned that nobody got out. nobody died shelley is in jail now i just got text messages from her. maybe not. shelley and ramon are still living in a van somewhere. so that the lowest of the low i found no success stories. but then again it was the lowest of the low. but one of the things that is uncomfortable to me to think about is why do some people succeed in some don't?

and there is a young girl i met at the church that you could just tell at seven or eight she would leap every hurdle and do what she needed to do to getct ou out. and when i met people like that on wall street who came from nothing and succeeded they themselves cannot say. so i don't know what that is. but to the question if i'm still doing it but i have been taking a break so i've been doing this in foreign countries but without a camera. but no goal other than just to see intellectually.

so the conversation with a pastor from prince georges county said to have a horrible almost self-contradiction of people who are showing up in this community to be the most engaged and to actively love their neighbor and care about their place. and to some extent getting out so imagine that perspective from the parent. he is there for life. he doesn't want the brightest girl tout get out he wants her to be a leader in the community. but if he cares about her individually he does want her to get out. isn't that a horrible paradox we are in?

so in 1960 that girl was more likelysa to stay there add now if she will do anything worth her talent and energy it will be getting up. people do ask advice when i'm out talking to people. i always tell people if you want to leave, leave. go to college if you want to go to college although i don't necessarily believe that it's not my place to tell them what to do. but i do tell them don't get into debt. do it on the cheap do pell grants and scholarships. >> people don't want to leave and then you can't stop them.

>> we are selling copies of the book but thank you very much for doing this work that changes the way we see things. i'm a christian and a catholic and our duty to love our neighbors and care for with the work you have done that's a great example of that. thank you. [applause] [inaudible conversations] porn has become the de facto sex educator for a whole

generation because we don't talk to them. would talk to them as parents or at school so curiosity is natural and for that matter masturbation is natural and important to. but with the rise of internet and smart phone and dropping on a website on a smart phone they can get anything they want in a whole lot of things that nobody wants at their fingertips on their phone. >> we will talk about an emotional day. i think today in a countr

country, rational people argue this point irrationally. my wife and i went down to watch a child or spouse and not one of them said guns have to go. all they said is we need to find reasonable gun reform so that doesn't happen to anybody else. that actually gave me some hope i can get some stuff done in washington. because if there was ever a group of people who are rational people who have the right to argue this fish on - - position irrationally it was this group of people and they did not do that.

congressmen, senators, to talk about rational people arguing irrationally? it was so disappointin disappointing, surprising and maddening that we cannot get anything done on this particular issue. they should talk to the woman that i talk to have breakfast with the woman we sat with. if you are a parent you cannot even imagine what this has to be like. she looked at me and said it's been a month since my son was killed for going go in his room every night and sit on his bed and talk to him. imagine that. and washington doesn't even do

background checks even washington agrees there should be background checks since we tried to talk to congress about the inconsistencies of the gun laws so i told them these inconsistencies are you sure? yes, i'm sure you have to be 21 years old to be a handgun for a dealer like us you can buy that assault style weapon at 18 years old. that makes no sense and a background check so if i want to buy from 70 who lives in new york you have to have a background check but if i live in pittsburgh over the internet from someone who lives in philadelphia no

background check and off you go. we need to change some of these inconsistencies. . . . . r conversation with an interesting theme that i kept coming back around to in your book, which i think eliminates a lot