34. Book club: The Invention of Nature (Humboldt biography) by Andrea Wulf, parts 1 & 2

This is the first episode of the third edition of the book club. This time, we're reading Andrea Wulf's biography of Alexander von Humboldt, The Invention of Nature. In this episode, we will discuss parts 1 and 2. As always with the book club, in each episode we will talk about whatever happened, so there will be spoilers and it probably makes most sense if you have read as far as we have. 

For this series, I'm joined by Cody Kommers, former guest of the podcast (episode 4), fellow podcaster, and fellow PhD student in cognitive neuroscience. Cody has a particular interest in travel and psychology.

Podcast links

Cody's links

Ben's links


References
Berlin, I. (2013). The roots of romanticism. Princeton University Press.
Fatland, E. (2020). Sovietistan. Simon and Schuster.
Lévi-Strauss, C. (1955). Tristes Tropiques. Librairie Plon.
Wulf, A. (2015). The invention of nature: Alexander von Humboldt's new world. Knopf.

  • [This is an automatic transcript with many errors]

    Benjamin James Kuper-Smith: [00:00:00] So this is the first episode of our discussion of Andrea vus, the Invention of Nature, which is a biography of Alexander from So Cody. As you know, I usually, I usually don't introduce the guests on my podcast because usually the episodes are about the guest. And then I think that's kind of redundant, but I guess this time we're talking about a book and I have a co reader, co-host, whatever you're gonna call it.

    Yeah. And I'm joined by Cody Commerce, who has already been on the podcast as a guest in the fourth episode or something very early on. Anyway, fellow podcaster, fellow PhD student in social slash cognitive neuroscience or something like that. 

    Cody Kommers: Yep. Thanks for having me on, Ben. I'm excited to do this. 

    Benjamin James Kuper-Smith: Yes.

    Well thank you for coming and the reason you know I asked you is because you are very interested in travel and anthropology and these kind of things, and I thought that would be, I dunno whether you are [00:01:00]able to add any kind of specific insight, but at least you'd be interested. 

    Cody Kommers: Absolutely. No. When you, when you sent me a message, uh, offering to, to read this book together, I was super excited.

    So when this book came out, I was like, oh, yeah, this, this sounds right at Mally. Super interesting. And then I got a, uh, I think I downloaded like the e the ebook from the library, uh, Seattle Public Library at the time, and never got around to reading it. So I was really thrilled to be able to read it. And certainly my, I guess my kind of inclination to it is that I love people who combine going out there into the world and their abstract theories and ideas about how that world works and, you know, humble, obviously class a example of that.

    Um, yeah, yeah. Also this book is like, I feel like every German's dream combining like so many great figures of, of German intellectual history. 

    Benjamin James Kuper-Smith: Yeah. 

    Cody Kommers: Uh, and, and uh, every page is sort of like, yeah. Uh, you know, like there's this lot of great, uh. Uh, German figures in it, so, 

    Benjamin James Kuper-Smith: yeah. Yeah, I guess we get a bit more [00:02:00] to that later.

    I mean, for me it's just funny that it's all that they were all in year now, which is such a random place now, nowadays anyway. But, uh, just about the format. So I'm assuming people have read the book, you know, I mean, I guess this is not a book that's gonna have spoilers per se, but it probably makes more sense if people have read the book, but 

    Cody Kommers: like he dies in the end.

    Benjamin James Kuper-Smith: Oh, I haven't read that. No. So today Not Alive Parts one and two. Uh, so I dunno what happens after that. As far as I've read, he's still alive. Do you have a, like a few points or how, I mean, usually we, we do this, like each person has like a few things they found interesting or something and then, you know, it's a very rough structure.

    Cody Kommers: Yeah, I definitely got, um, some notes here and, uh, some overarching themes that I see emerging in, in the book as well as the sort of individual, uh, plot points that happen. So, uh, maybe we could just start off by saying, uh, let's see. I think. [00:03:00] People, uh, probably have heard the name Humboldt. They may not, uh, remember, you know, they might be one that's like, yeah, what, what exactly did that that guy do again?

    And when, when definitely. When exactly was that? Definitely. Uh, so just making sure that basic point is covered. So his birthday was, uh, 14 September, 1769. And a lot of the stuff that we're gonna be talking about in this episode happened to right around that turn of the century, uh, around 1800 is, is, is when he was, uh, doing his big travels to South America, which is.

    What we're gonna be talking about, uh, in the tra in, in his big travels for this section and known as a figure of, of romanticism, uh, which we'll talk about. And then, you know, basically this guy who took a lot of these amazing enlightenment ideas, uh, had cool intellectual friends back home and took these ideas out on the road, uh, and, and, and connected them with, with nature and, and all this stuff.

    So, uh, that's kind of the epicenter around which all of the interesting things that he did and, [00:04:00] and all the stuff we're gonna talk about is, is kind of built. Um, at least that's, that would be my, uh, paragraph summary of it. 

    Benjamin James Kuper-Smith: Okay, good. I'm gonna read a like two, three sentence per chapter for the novels at least I've found it very useful because I dunno about your memory, but mine is, uh.

    Very porous. Uh, so I usually forget most of this stuff anyway, so I just read a brief summary chapter by chapter. So prologue homeboy substantially influenced our views of nature and once was one of the most famous people on the planet. Now he's largely forgotten, but this book kind of tries to bring him back.

    Chapter one, Humbold grew up very privileged in Berlin throughout his studies, his ambitious, restless, and very lonely. Despite his privilege, he doesn't mind spending hours and minds helping improve the working condition of miners and performing experiments about electricity and the nervous system on himself.

    Chapter two, Humbold frequently visits gutter, um, with whom he discusses art and science can and does all sorts of scientific experiments. [00:05:00] Chapter three. Shortly after his mother's death, Humbold decides to explore the world after unsuccessfully trying to get to various places. He convinces the king of Spain to allow him to visit the Spanish, the Spanish colonies in South America in 1799, Humboldt derives in New Andalusia.

    In today's Venezuela, chapter four, Humboldt explores Venezuela and makes huge amounts of measurements, takes plants and animal samples. He also warns of the negative effects of humans on the environment, especially deforestation. Chapter five, still a Venezuela humbold at our travel through the desert, and then about three months through the rainforest by boat.

    The multitude of animals and plants is fascinating, but also tries to kill them regularly. Chapter six Hum. Water Tower traveled to Cuba and sends some of their findings back to Europe. Then on the off chance that one of from what's heroes might be in Lima, a few months later, they return to South America and explore the Andes on the way to Lima.

    Chapter seven, Humbold almost reaches the top of a Kimbo Ratso. Uh, he draws his [00:06:00] Naga Malda and reaches Lima. He leaves the southern hemisphere going to Mexico. And finally, chapter eight, Humbold travels across Mexico and then to the US to visit President Jefferson, who by this account, seems to have been a pretty cool dude.

    If you ignore the whole slavery thing, Humbold provides Jefferson with huge amounts of information about the Americas. Um, yeah. One thing I find interesting in that you, I guess, kind of alluded to is this fact that, and what they also talk about in the prologue is that Humbold is kind of very famous to also not, and I think, you know, I grew up in Germany and what's interesting to me is that, you know, you, you of course know the name Humboldt, but the ironic thing is that probably the most famous thing with the name Humboldt is the university in Berlin, which is named after his brother.

    So the. In a way, I, I, I'm, you know, as you know, someone who grew up in Germany for his entire school life, I don't think I really knew much about him. And it was really interesting to me. When I read the product, I was really surprised by how famous he supposedly was [00:07:00] because, yeah, even in Germany, he's like, yeah, this guy who I don't know, did something a few a hundred years ago or something.

    Cody Kommers: Yeah, there's a juxtaposition there between, uh, Wolf's claim that, well, okay, no one really knows who this guy is, kind of forgotten. And yet she goes on for, you know, pages to say, these are all of the things that, uh, you know, sort of, he left as, uh, memorials, like mostly having shit named after him that still exist today.

    And so, yeah, I think there's, uh, it definitely, it definitely gives you a little bit of like, yeah, I do wanna know who this guy is and everything. 

    Benjamin James Kuper-Smith: Yeah. 

    Cody Kommers: Um, let's see. I think for me, uh, the, like, number one point upfront is that there's a very clear reason why the author, why, uh, Andrea Vol thinks that Humboldt is interesting and worth studying today, and this is her sort of main thesis of the book, is that Humboldt was really the first person to see the whole of nature as interconnected.

    [00:08:00] And she, it, it, it's kind of a refrain of the book almost. That, that, um, yeah, definitely Humboldt is seeing the big picture of how ecosystems and people, and animal and plants and all this stuff are connected, uh, in a way that we, uh, are more accustomed to in the natural world or in, in the modern world.

    But before Humboldt's time, uh, no one had ever really thought about in such a manner, and that he was the first person to, to bring this forward. So I have this, this quote from the, the prologue, uh, which starts off him climbing a mountain, doing, you know, crazy, uh, travel adventure things. And so he's, he's on the top of this mountain, well, close to the top of the mountain, I think, no, at the top of the mountain.

    Uh, it's quote, uh, no one had ever come this high before, and no one had ever breathed such thin air as he stood at the top of the world, looking down upon the mountain, ranged, folded beneath him. Humboldt began to see the world differently. He saw the earth as one great living organism where everything was connected.

    Conceiving a bold new vision of nature that still [00:09:00] influences the way we understand the natural world today. And this, this is clearly why Wolf thinks that Humble is this person who we should get into and appreciate, uh, the way he saw things in that, that innovation that he, he brought to things. 

    Benjamin James Kuper-Smith: Yeah, I agree.

    I mean this is, you know, I have a few, yeah, a few times she mentioned something like this, but one thing I wonder is, do you think that's true? That he really was the first person? Because I remember, especially like one of the last kind of big biographies I read was, uh, Walter Isaacson's biography of Leonard Da Vinci, and he basically says the same thing about someone who lived a few years before that.

    I guess I, I mean, I dunno anything about kind of eastern religion and these kind of things, but it's, from what I've heard, that also seemed also that like, you know, everything's connected and these kind of things. And I dunno, maybe Humbolt was more scientific about it. Maybe that was his addition there, but I dunno.

    I was surprised sometimes by some of the claims she made about how yeah, that, that he was supposedly the, the first person to do [00:10:00] that. But then again, I dunno, much like, you know, history of science and those things. Do you have any insights here or, 

    Cody Kommers: so I, I'm also skeptical of this and I've, I've got two things to say on the matter.

    One is. There's a lot of assertion, you know, of, of the kind that I read where it's like, oh yeah, Humboldt came up with this new vision of nature that feels unsupported, both in the passages that she quotes Humboldt by which Humboldt, if you, if you notice in this book, speaks only in half a line at a time.

    She really only quotes fragments of him often placed at the end of the paragraph to sort of summarize what she has, uh, said and everything. So we don't hear a lot from him directly or get a sense for his voice besides a few choice adjectives that he, he, he, he chose So. Uh, she certain that's certainly her reading of, of the way he thought about things and everything like that.

    But that is definitely one of the things that I take issue stylistically and, and that blend between style and content of, of the, of the, the way this book is rendered, uh, that I, I also [00:11:00] don't fully feel, um, that I've been given enough information to really buy into that, to that claim. And I'm excited to see how it unfolds and I definitely am willing to, uh, go with her on that.

    But I, I also am very skeptical of that. So that, that's one thing. 

    Benjamin James Kuper-Smith: Yeah. And just one thing that also occurred to me here is that literally one of the people in the book, gutta, who's I don't know, whatever, 20 years older than, or something like, like a bit older than, um, hobo, 

    Cody Kommers: yeah. About 20 years. 

    Benjamin James Kuper-Smith: He, he also has this whole thing about, you know, doing scientific experiments, but actually being a novelist.

    And I think he worked as a, he studied law first or something, and working at a, I can't remember exactly about what, what go to. His life trajectory Exactly. Was, but he also had all these different influences and tried to kind of put them into one and you, she even mentions fast as this kind of, you know, about a scientist and all this kinda stuff.

    So Yeah, it seems, I dunno, I mean, as I said, like the one thing I can see is that I haven't really heard of many scientists who did that per se. Whereas it was usually maybe people who came more from the arts side, who then also wanted to know a lot about science, [00:12:00] but. Yeah. 

    Cody Kommers: So here, here's what I will say about this in a more, in a more positive light.

    The reason why I do think that there is something true about what she's saying that this is the reason that Humboldt is, is uniquely fascinating, is that he is in a way along with Gutta, but of course Gutta is known as, is a, as a poet. Whereas Humboldt is known as a scientist, uh, is that they were the epic figures of romanticism in science.

    And, um, so the romantic movement, I'm certainly not, uh, an expert in it. It's not, yeah, I'm not a literary histor, uh, historian in that sort of stuff. But it's something I've, I've been interested in recently because I, I really don't know anything about it. It's, it's, it's this, uh, you know, sort of blank spot in, in, you know, my, my understanding of, of intellectual in.

    So, oh yeah. What, what was that? That does sound intriguing. What, what were people up to there? And, uh, I, I put down a couple notes, um, on this, uh, from external sources. Uh, one of [00:13:00] them, uh, Wikipedia, one of them, this book that I mentioned to you, Isaiah Bruin's, uh, roots of Romanticism, uh, which is actually super duper fascinating to give the sort of intellectual context of what was happening around this time.

    And just the, the really quick cliff notes are that. So the romantic period was roughly, uh, 1770 to 1850, depending on, on how you slice it and which, which country's looking at and humboldt's big adventures. And when he was doing his, the, the height of his stuff is, is of course like right smack dab, the middle of that.

    And the basic idea of what romanticism meant, especially from the point of view of, of science, was that the enlightenment was all about. What was common to all humanity, to all planetary bodies, to, to the physical universe as a whole. So it was all about these unifying theories, uh, in the romantic age.

    What one of the, sort of the defining characteristics of it was that people started to take a different relation to, to nature, um, to a person's intimate connection with it. Uh, and then also to the nature of, of singular genius and, and, and that [00:14:00] sort of stuff. And so, uh, one of the things that vol writes is that, um, quote, uh, he, Humboldt wanted to excite a love of nature, uh, humboldt's quote, love of nature.

    And, uh, at a time when other scientists were searching for universal laws, Humboldt wrote that nature had to be experienced through feelings leads from the, the prologue. So that's kind of representative of that. And then also, if you look at the romanticism in science Wikipedia page, the only people who get the only figures, the only individuals who get their own sections in that are Gutta and Humboldt.

    Uh, so. There is something to this claim that what people were doing in this time was essentially like, okay, lots of people have been sitting around Europe for a couple hundred years now and really thinking deeply about what they were seeing around them. And now there is this sort of novel inclination, this novel insight to go out into the world and see what else was happening out there.

    And if the same [00:15:00] concepts that they were building back in Europe also worked in these other places and what they could bring back. Um, you know, and all the measurements we hear about, uh, Humboldt taking and all the, you know, notes that he takes and, and, and plant specimens and that sort of stuff. Uh, it really is this shift about, um, you know, thinking about the world in this on the ground, holistic, uh, very tangible, concrete, and also emotional way.

    Benjamin James Kuper-Smith: Yeah. I found the emotional part also interesting that, I mean, I, I wrote down a similar quote that I guess I don't have to read now, that where he says something like, you have to feel it. It's not just, you know, enough to observe it or whatever. It's interesting, like when you, when you were talking about the romanticism and science, just the, the funny thing is like my entire historical knowledge is based on music, um, 'cause of lots of classical music.

    So it is interesting like how I was gonna try, like how does this relate to anything about the romantic period of music, like this unifying or whatever. Like, I'm not sure there was much there and it's, I'm still slightly confused as to how the two really relate, but they didn't even [00:16:00] relate against in terms of time that much because I mean 1770 was still fairly early Morser and birth Beethoven and more or less so like that's, you know, the classical period in music.

    I'm so entirely sure. I mean, do you know whether romanticism in the different arts and sciences, whether they're actually related or it's just, yeah, 

    Cody Kommers: so basically I think so, so no, I wouldn't be comfortable saying, well, this is exactly how all of it, uh, relates. But my basic understanding of it is that there were sort of these.

    Overlapping sections of like, okay, well you've got poetry, you've got, um, uh, literary novels, you've got science. You've got music. Uh, you've got whatever else is is happening. And depending on the country that you're in and the domain, uh, of, you know, creativity that you're studying, this is, you know, sort of when it was, and that there's things that tie them together.

    But certainly the, the very first thing that Berlin says in this book about, uh, romanticism, is [00:17:00] that no one can say exactly what it is or, or when exactly it took place. Yeah. Um, because there is a lot of heterogene in it. And, um, uh, I've no doubt that you've touched on one of the, the, the veins of, uh, heterogeneous creativity that took, took place in in that time.

    Benjamin James Kuper-Smith: Yeah. I mean, especially in music, you have writing romantic music of the like 1940s or whatever, so that's. Yeah. 

    Cody Kommers: I also think part of, uh, I think both vol and, and Berlin would, would say this is that there is a shift here that while you could bound the romantic period and say, oh, you know, here is what they were talking about and interested, then it also is something that's lingered with us in an important way that all of us today have a piece of, of, of that romanticism with it, or at least familiar with it and are in touch with it to, to various extents.

    Yeah. That there, that there was a, a shift here, like a new cognitive innovation, so to speak. Uh, that is one of the things that we've carried with us into the modern world. 

    Benjamin James Kuper-Smith: So which one is [00:18:00] that? The innovation? 

    Cody Kommers: Oh, I mean basically this connectedness to nature, uh, this interest in individual genius and, um, a host of related, related themes and topics.

    Anyway, let's, let's, uh, dive into the specifics of it since in Yeah. So at least I can. Talk about concrete stuff that we actually both read rather than just spouting off about things that don't actually know. 

    Benjamin James Kuper-Smith: I thought that's what podcasts are for. I was talking about things I don't know anything about.

    That's, 

    Cody Kommers: that's why I'm so comfortable doing it, is that this is, this is, this is, this is my safe space. 

    Benjamin James Kuper-Smith: Yeah. Yeah. One thing, I'm just curious what you, what you think of the writing, because one thing I noticed for example is that, so I noticed this when I read the first paragraph of the first chapter, beginnings.

    What I find really, in a way quite cool, but in a way maybe also kind of loses a lot of detail, is just how quickly she goes through stuff. Um, so for example, the first paragraph you go when he was born, the date where he was [00:19:00] born, who his parents were, a brief description of basically his childhood, his father dying, his mother being, um, distant.

    Um, and then that they were cheated by lightman things. That's all in the first paragraph. That's second, the first 150 words or something of, of the, of chapter one. 

    Cody Kommers: Yeah. 

    Benjamin James Kuper-Smith: And I. This kind of continues, right? Like in, in, I mean, chapter two is already the, them going to Yana and meeting GU and Shila and these kind of things.

    And it's, uh, I mean, in a way I really like the, this kind of fast pace that it's not something where you spend 300 pages on someone's childhood. That's in many cases reconstructed from very vague sources. But in a way, I feel like, especially with the traveling, it seems to me sometimes you lose some of the, the, the details of what it was like to be there.

    I guess it's a trade off. Um, 

    Cody Kommers: absolutely. So there you're, I think you're certainly correct that Andrew Wolf is not [00:20:00]invested in the exercise of scene building. 

    Benjamin James Kuper-Smith: Mm-hmm. Yep. 

    Cody Kommers: Definitely. There are scenes and she describes. Things that, you know, are like, oh, you know, here's kind of what was happening in the scene.

    But she's not really doing the thing, uh, that a lot of travel writers do, which is like, okay, we're actually going to try and recreate, uh, this feeling of, of being there. And, um. Certainly a lot of travel writers try to do that. And obviously this book is not a travel book specifically, but you could kind of imagine it going two ways.

    One is we're gonna do the scene building thing, which is kind of a travel writing thing. Or the other thing we're gonna do is a sort of plot summary thing, which is closer to the level of description that we're talking about. It's like, oh, this happened, this happened, this happened, and then we're gonna analyze it, which would be how an intellectual historian does it.

    For example, someone like Louis Manan. And so, uh, a book that I read recently on the, the travel side, which I think there's a very sympathetic author, her name is Erica Fat, and she wrote this great book called Soviet [00:21:00] Stan, and a more recent book. Um, uh, so this is about countries that were in the former Soviet Union and everything like that.

    Uh, and she's not funny at all, but she is, uh, uh, she's not German. Uh, almost worse Norwegian. So, uh. But the scene building is just phenomenal. And so you can imagine something like that, or you can imagine something, um, that's like a little bit more plot summary. It's like, this is what happened. I'll leave it to your imagination to, to build it yourself.

    Uh, but this is sort of what it means. And, you know, kind of, I kind of feel like we're in a little bit of a no man's land where it's not quite the, um, you know, historical exegesis that you, that you'd want from historian. It's not quite the scene building vivid imagery that you'd want from a, a travel book.

    It is very much just a biography. These are the things that happen to 'em and this is the order in which they happen and here's some adjacent facts, um, that are, are relevant, but, but by no means the whole picture, uh, next to it. So that, that was kind of my interpretation of the style. 

    Benjamin James Kuper-Smith: Yeah, I mean I, I quite, I think I quite like it be, I, I'm not, I [00:22:00] don't think I'm someone who likes authors indulging is what maybe you would call it in a negative interpretation in these things.

    I mean, for example, you do get a lot of details, you know, when they go through the by boat when they travel and all the descriptions of the animals that try and kill them and all this kind of stuff and the mosquitoes there. I think you do get a sense of a bit what it was like to be there. Yeah. It's so somehow I didn't expect it.

    I dunno. Why. 

    Cody Kommers: What did you think about Humboldt's early life? Did anything stand out to you in, in his childhood or, um, I guess early career and that sort of stuff where you see the seeds of who he is gonna become, uh, planted there? 

    Benjamin James Kuper-Smith: Um, I mean, I feel like there was quite a, quite a lot of description of him just being, I think what I wrote down the summary was restless and very lonely.

    And that seems to be something that, it seems to me you need that kind of personality. To be with like three other people for months on your own in the rainforest or something. Right. If you, [00:23:00] well, in a way I feel like also being with three people all day is probably a lot of social interaction, but it seemed to me that, I mean, it seemed to me like he was kind of doing the same thing throughout.

    Right? Even when he was studying in this mining thing, when he'd just get up really early and you know, go into the mining shafts and all these kind of things. I mean, that seemed pretty consistent to me. Yeah, but I, I mean that's not, I feel like there's also not that much about the early childhood. I mean, of course they grew up, like everyone you read about in the history book.

    Uh, very privileged. 

    Cody Kommers: Yeah, that's definitely, that's definitely conspicuous in it, is that, well, what supported all this was the large sum of money that he just always had is despoke. 

    Benjamin James Kuper-Smith: Well, that he, uh, inherited from his mom. Yeah. Especially. Yeah, exactly. It was this, I mean, he, he worked and you know, obviously he, 

    Cody Kommers: but I, but I think, you know, you take that, you can take that for granted, it's like, yeah.

    It's like, okay. Especially during this time. That was, that was, that was, uh, a point for, for a lot of people. So, 

    Benjamin James Kuper-Smith: I mean, that's always my, my minor frustration when I read [00:24:00]biographies of musicians or composers I really liked, like Yeah, of course. If you, of course they're very privileged. It was 18, 10. Yeah.

    And they got piano lessons, like what you expect. 

    Cody Kommers: So one thing that I was interested to look for in reading the early childhood stuff is that I'm always very interested in people who have this deeply, deeply seated desire to be somewhere other than they currently are, and especially somewhere other than where they're from.

    And, uh, I think a lot of good can come from this inclination. Uh, but I also think that if you're on the road, as much as Humboldt was like, clearly he had this just insatiable desire to. Keep going somewhere. And I think, you know, you can see that on, on the maps, uh, that we like the, when she draws the lines, it's crazy covered some serious ground.

    Um, and at some point you gotta ask like, what was the sky running from? Uh, I think there's, there's a, there's a sub, like, like that's, that's a question that like needs to be posed at least at some point. And she clearly, she says as much that as his childhood was [00:25:00] unhappy that his father died, uh, when he was dying.

    Yeah. Um, and there's, and that 

    Benjamin James Kuper-Smith: his mom wasn't really what you call 

    Cody Kommers: the mom and very cold, very, very, uh, emotionally distant and that sort of stuff. 

    Benjamin James Kuper-Smith: Yeah. Yeah. 

    Cody Kommers: And yeah, I, I, I don't know that I got a full insight into it, but there's this passage that she wrote that I think really sums up, uh, so you said restlessness and loneliness in this passage?

    I think it was. Quote from his youth, Alexander seemed to have been torn between this vanity and his loneliness between a craving for praise and his yearning for independence, insecure, yet believing in his intellectual prowess, he seesaw between his need for approval and his sense of superiority. I think that that, um, wherever those, those things come from, that vanity, uh, and that independence, that, that, that sort of fierce independence, those, that, that kind of juxtaposition of that creates a, a kind of engine that propels him forward between wanting to connect with significance to do something great with the capital G.[00:26:00] 

    Um, yeah. And also to do, uh, never quite feeling at home in the places where he actually is from where he is, is strictly speaking comfortable. Yeah. And I, and I find that a very fascinating and in many ways, uh, an inclination that I'm, that I'm sympathetic to. 

    Benjamin James Kuper-Smith: Yeah. I mean, what I find also interesting is that he seems to.

    What I find so weird, and that's, you know, the first page of chapter two is how much him and his brother changed their life or restricted their life while their mother was still alive. That's something I found really weird. Mm-hmm. That, that both of them, you know, were in Berlin and int, or I can't remember exactly.

    I know, I think he had already gone to somewhere near Italy and to do the mining thing. Right. But that was because his mom told him to go there. But then as soon as the mum was gone, it seems like the shackles sort of just gone and they could just both be whoever they wanted to be almost. So it, it seems to me, I mean, in some, yeah, maybe in some sense his voyage is a bit of a reaction to [00:27:00] him being allowed to do what it, like no one's there to tell him what.

    What to do or what not to do, but maybe he is overcompensating a little bit on that front by going to South America for five years. 

    Cody Kommers: Yeah. And I, I can't remember, I don't have any notes on the exact passage, but I do recall him going, maybe this was even after, um, the Jefferson thing, but he definitely does go back to, to Germany, I think to Berlin specifically.

    And it's sort of like, oh man, like when do I get to get outta here? When do I, when do I get on the road again? So clearly there's something about, yeah, the, his natural milieu that he finds Dissatisfactory, that these, he's got this clear inclination to transcend it and to, to go out there and see, see what else is.

    So, 

    Benjamin James Kuper-Smith: yeah. 

    Cody Kommers: Yeah, I think that that, that's just a really fascinating character trait for me. 

    Benjamin James Kuper-Smith: What's funny to me though is that that is to me almost something that's. Not, I mean, I didn't have an un unhappy child or anything like this at all. But, uh, that's to me something that's very natural. It's kind like, well, I know what that's like.[00:28:00] 

    I'm going somewhere else now. I mean, I basically, as soon as I, you know, as soon as I graduated school, I left. And I mean, I've, you know, I've been back many times and, uh, as I said, like I, I don't think, I hope in my case it's not some sort of unhappiness that I'm trying to run away from. I don't think it is.

    But yeah, I kind of, I have to admit, I kind of skipped over that almost a little bit. The fact, you know, this, like, well, what is he running away from? Because to me it was more like, well, he had a shit ton of money. What else are you gonna do? 

    Cody Kommers: Yeah, 

    Benjamin James Kuper-Smith: you might as well just do something that no one else could afford to do.

    Cody Kommers: And I, I think it is complicated. I don't think all that inclination always has to come from a bad place. I think you have to ask that question. What are you running from? I think you can also equally, uh, as well ask the question, what are you, what are you going towards? And clearly both things were, were at play for him is that he obviously felt.

    Uh, encumbered by his home and he obviously felt that there was something out there that he wanted to be a part of. And I don't think you need full, unhappy childhood, uh, or, you know, some, some great [00:29:00]affliction that you, that you wanna overcome to, to go out there into the world. I think it can be, uh, derived from, from a lot of different kinds of circumstances.

    But I do think it, yeah, definitely. It's, it's very interesting to just kind of contextualize him as a person in, in that inclination. 

    Benjamin James Kuper-Smith: And I guess his, for example, his brother, you know, went to Yerena, which is, don't exactly know where Yna is, but it's let's say three oh kilometers from Berlin or something.

    Um, you know, it's, it's reasonably closed still. It's not, you go to basically a planet that's not been explored by Europeans. So yeah, different levels of moving somewhere. But it was weird to me, like just how much though the loneliness seemed to be a part of it. I mean, in part it seemed to be, I mean, I wonder like later on she also discussed that he was probably gay, right?

    Yeah, it seemed pretty obvious that he was, that he was gay, but it doesn't seem like he actually engaged that much. And I don't know at the time, like how fr frowned, frowned upon that was, um, whether this was, [00:30:00] 'cause you know, his brother had his family and then his children and he, uh, Alexander was then this younger brother Right.

    Who kept writing about him being lonely or something. I wonder whether to some extent that had something to do with it. 

    Cody Kommers: Yeah. 

    Benjamin James Kuper-Smith: But, uh, 

    Cody Kommers: so yeah, vol definitely implies that the evidence suggests that he was gay and lots of people, uh, who are close to him felt that perhaps this was the case. So there's a couple quotes.

    She, she, she pulls from his friends, which was quote, lack of true love for women and quote, sexual irregularities. And then she also quotes Humboldt himself, uh, I don't know, sensual needs. So Humboldt evidently sort of claimed the kind of asexuality in, in a way, which, um, 

    Benjamin James Kuper-Smith: yeah, but I wondered to some extent, like, I dunno if it, you know, if it, if it was socially seen as very bad to be homosexual at the time, then of course he would just say, oh, I don't care about this.

    He wouldn't say, 

    Cody Kommers: like, I think it's probably safe to assume that it was, it was, it was highly frowned upon. I don't know [00:31:00] specifically about Germany in, in 1800, but, um, for the most part 

    Benjamin James Kuper-Smith: it doesn't sound like it would be, 

    Cody Kommers: you know, if, if England was still, uh, legally persecuting people for homosexuality into the 1950s and sixties, I'm pretty sure Germany in, in 1800 would.

    Benjamin James Kuper-Smith: Yeah. So, so in that, from that perspective, I think him saying I don't have any essential needs, might just be his way of explaining this question that people might have asked him a few times without getting, I don't know, murdered or something. 

    Cody Kommers: Right. I think, I think that that's, um, vols. Implication is that I think she thinks that, that he was gay, but we have very scant evidence.

    'cause everyone was pretty, pretty happy. Be like, oh yeah, no, there's something, a alt there, but whatever. Let's talk, go back, talk, talk about the science. 

    Benjamin James Kuper-Smith: Yeah, exactly. 

    Cody Kommers: And the other, the other piece of evidence she mar Marshalls for this is that he was very drawn to strong male figures in his life. Part of it's probably a father thing because his father died, uh, so young.

    So Gutta, as you mentioned earlier, was about 20 years older than him. And I'm excited [00:32:00] to talk about that relationship, uh, in a second. But also all the dudes that he traveled with, so that's the other thing. He talked about him being, you know, stuck for three dudes in the wilderness for, for a odd period of time.

    He clearly was infatuated with a, a couple of the, the people he was in, uh, he was child with. And it's entirely plausible that that was an intellectual and just you sort of a natural. Heterosexual, you know, kind of thing. But there's also a, perhaps equally plausible that, uh, there was, there was potentially more going on there that, you know, it just would not have been recorded as a part of history.

    Benjamin James Kuper-Smith: Yeah, exactly. But yeah, I mean, that, that's, you know, also, I don't really care about that, but it, I did wonder whether this whole loneliness he kept talking about had in part maybe something to do with the fact that he, that maybe the way he naturally felt wasn't something that would've been acceptable.

    Cody Kommers: Yeah. And I, I think that vol would agree with you on that. It seems to me that she, that's how she feels about it. It's like, ah, he might have been gay. Not really that, uh, yeah, 

    Benjamin James Kuper-Smith: exactly. 

    Cody Kommers: We can't really say for sure, [00:33:00] um, not ultimately that important and, and, and not part of the story that I'm trying to tell, but definitely that I think is, I think that's, that's an important, uh, piece to have a part of the puzzle of, of, of who he is.

    Uh, though we don't have decisive evidence on, on exactly what, what all that was like for him. 

    Benjamin James Kuper-Smith: Yeah. Okay. Shall we talk about Yna and, and she 

    Cody Kommers: Yeah. Yeah. Really like, oh my God. Like what a what a what a glorious, uh, you know, relationship. These two had incredible. Also, let, let's just say, um, so Gutta probably Germany's greatest poet, sort of, uh, similar to like Pushkin in, in, in Russia, that sort of stuff.

    I'm sure many more biographies been written about. Him than, uh, than than Humboldt's. 

    Benjamin James Kuper-Smith: Yeah. And actually I'm not, I don't wanna promise too much, but I basically have a plan with someone to read. There's a good biography by Rudy Lansky that we're probably gonna read at some point on the podcast, 

    Cody Kommers: and I'm sure it's gonna be absolutely amazing.

    Uh, and then I guess his most [00:34:00] famous work, he'd probably say is, is the play, uh, Faust. 

    Benjamin James Kuper-Smith: Yeah. Which I haven't read. Um, 

    Cody Kommers: um, I tried reading it, it was way over my head at the time. Uh, I, it was, uh, it must have been in 20, 20 17, uh, that I tried. Uh, but like, it was, it was not nearly as seriously enough attempt to, to, to, to truly, truly get at it.

    It was more like, oh yeah, everyone talks about this. I wanna at least have like, looked the, the words. Yeah. Um, but yeah, so, so this is like, this is this mega, just like two of the big intellectual figures of this place and this era just like happened to be, uh, homies is the, is the upshot of this. 

    Benjamin James Kuper-Smith: Although, to be honest, I think.

    At the time, at least when it was happening, Shila was more the big guy than 

    Cody Kommers: mm-hmm. Yeah. 

    Benjamin James Kuper-Smith: You know, ward was just a young guy at the time. Like, that's, that's what's so crazy to me. And what I don't know, maybe this is what just happens when you grow up Rich. Uh, you just know all these people. Yeah. 

    Cody Kommers: Yeah. 

    Benjamin James Kuper-Smith: I dunno, I did grow up Rich.

    You know, there's this whole thing of, I guess, I mean, to be fair, if you have a place of 4,000 people, of course everyone knows everyone. [00:35:00] Um, I grew up in a place with like 6,000 people and you feel like, you know, everyone there that was half the, uh, two third size. But just this weird thing of like his brother moving to Yna and suddenly being best friends with shit, I'm good.

    Just such a, I, I guess that's how you can meet famous people just moving to the neighborhood. 

    Cody Kommers: It's, it's totally, it's totally bonkers. It's like, so I, I, uh, I looked at the passage, I'm pretty sure what happened was that Humboldt was his brother Humboldt, not, uh, Alexander Humbolt, uh, it was Brother Humboldt and his, uh, wife Caroline Ena, 50 miles from Weimar, where go good to live.

    And they just jot off a note to go to be like, Hey, you wanna start by? And Gutta, who is in his forties and is the most prominent, prominent literary figure, uh, potentially at at least one of 'em. In, in, in, you know, that, that area. I was like, yeah, sure. I'll come by. And that's, that's how, uh, that's how they met.

    Uh, that's totally bonkers. 

    Benjamin James Kuper-Smith: Yeah. I mean that's, I mean, I guess we, you know, we can get to Jefferson later, but I had the same kind of inclination there when there was this [00:36:00] one sentence where it was something like, and then homeboy traveled to the Yes. And he wrote a letter to Jefferson to ask whether he wanted to meet up.

    I was like, what? Like if I go to America, I don't say, yo Biden, you got a minute? 

    Cody Kommers: Yeah. Be like, uh, send a, send a, a handwritten letter to, uh, Mar-a-Lago or whatever. So I, uh, president Trump, uh, no. Uh, so let's see. I think the thing that struck me about their relationship is that, from what I could tell in involves description, gutta was at a point where he felt kind of conversationally.

    He didn't have, he didn't, it wasn't connected to people in the way that he, he wanted to be found, you know, sort of, uh, the people around him lacking to some extent, and particularly in the area of science. So it, I think Gutta and Humble both seemed to find most people, most people they interacted with dull, um, but found in each other great inspiration.

    And so Gutta, I think, had been evidently [00:37:00] musing on science for a while, but really didn't have the right person to discuss it because you really do need this expansive mind to both, you know, be. At his level in poetry and also be able to opine about, about the scientific frontier. And that's where Alexander Von Humbolt comes along and they really just hit it off in terms of, uh, it sounds a lot like GoTo was sort of the, the leader of the two.

    And of course, uh, so he, him being in his mid forties and, and Humboldt being in his early twenties, it was sort of him displaying this is what it looks like to be a massive intellect and to sort of model that for him and to, to say this is what it, what it, what it, what it looks like. And there's, there's a few interesting things that that, that I, that I marked that I thought were really cool in that relationship that we can, we can touch on.

    But I think that was the, that was the sort of the arc of it in, in, in my reading of it. 

    Benjamin James Kuper-Smith: Yeah. I agree. And one thing that I find, I mean, so there's this one passage that I find interesting for a few reasons. And it's basically where [00:38:00] Bol and. Go to go, like they get up at like really early hours and then like trek through the snow to go to this lecture on anatomy.

    And that was really fascinating to me. It's number one that people who both were so well off, uh, or I dunno how well off Gutta was per se, but you know, people who, you know, who grew up in this privilege didn't mind, you know, getting up at like whatever 6:00 AM in the dark and checking through the snow to get to this lecture.

    But also what's interesting to me is that Gur, you know, he was in his mid forties or whatever and was already famous and all these kind of things, but he. I, I imagine like if, if, if GTO was a kind of a, a model for BOL as what it means to be like a famous intellectual, that's probably a really cool thing to show.

    Like even in your forties, like, yeah, I'm gonna get up early and I'm gonna go to the lecture. 'cause I wanna know about anatomy even though I'm a writer. 

    Cody Kommers: Yeah. 

    Benjamin James Kuper-Smith: And that was really cool to me to, yeah. 

    Cody Kommers: Yeah. There's one passage that I known her down from Vol, uh, where she says, GTA's descriptions of nature in his plays, novels, and poems were [00:39:00] truthful, humble, believed as the discoveries of the best scientists.

    He humble would never forget that GTA encouraged him to combine nature and art, facts and imagination. Uh, and I think that kind of puts it on there, is that like, yeah, so good to fundamentally about the, the plays, uh, the novels, the poems, all that sort of stuff on the humanity side, but clearly very interested in in science.

    And of course, Humboldt went on to. Work on the scientific side of things, but between the two of them, they found that intersection of them in this, that, that connects back to that sort of movement of romanticism in, in science, uh, that I was talking about at the beginning. And, um, certainly it, it, it, it seems to me like, yeah, Humboldt was able to attain the heights that he did, in part because he saw Gutta and how he did it, both in, uh, his skill and, and his just, you know, uh, how good [00:40:00] he was at thinking and creating things.

    And also in the like, oh, this is what it looks like to be a famous intellectual, an intellectual figure. And, um, I think it's difficult to underestimate how much a seeing that that's possible. 'cause I feel like, you know, if you don't know someone who is. Like that, it's really difficult to imagine what it's like to become like that or what it, what it like to, to have that feel like a concrete thing.

    I totally imagine that even independence of just being wealthy and privileged, having that model, um, to aspire to, to, to, to use as a template. I can only imagine, uh, how formative that was. 

    Benjamin James Kuper-Smith: Yeah. And yeah, just while you said that, it occurred to me that this was also, it seems to me basically the first time he met someone who had a lot of standing.

    Right. I mean, I don't remember from his, I mean, sure his parents had money, but I don't remember there being much of a talk about, or was there about them having like, people around or whatever. I don't remember at least that happening. So it seems to me like Gutta might [00:41:00] have been like the first actual, you know, he, I'm sure he had like the people who taught him his courses for the mining thing, but the first actual like, yeah, intellectual giant, let's say he ever met.

    And for some, yeah. I mean, that must have been great for him also to realize like, oh, that guy actually likes hanging out with me. 

    Cody Kommers: Yeah. 

    Benjamin James Kuper-Smith: That must have been, after all that loneliness in his childhood. Probably quite a lot of, uh, giving him quite a lot of confidence and confirmation. 

    Cody Kommers: Uh, there's also this passage that, that I love here.

    Um, it is, it is a, a, a a, a nice scene building passage, uh, that I'd like to read because I think it, it, it just gives, um, a little bit of insight into. Kind of what you're talking about, of that enthusiasm, that alacrity that they both have, they're both excited about this shit, and they're both kind of weird guys who find on each other this, this, this, this sympathy.

    And so, uh, quote, it was during this period that Gutta began to fling both his arms around whenever he went for a while. Oh, yeah, 

    Benjamin James Kuper-Smith: yeah. I wrote that 

    down 

    Cody Kommers: provoking alarm to glances from his neighbors he had discovered. Uh, he finally explained to a friend that this [00:42:00] exaggerated swinging of one's arms was a remnant from the four-legged animal, and therefore, one of the proofs that animals and humans had a common ancestor quote.

    That's how I walk more naturally, he said, and couldn't have cared less if Weimar society regarded this rather strange behavior as unrefined. Uh, and so I feel like that just gives a flavor of like, if you from afar happen to like be walking through your like field or in town or like, whatever, and you see like, okay, there's a couple guys over there and it's Humboldt and, and like one of 'em is like, you know, got this crazy thing going on.

    They're both going off about these things. I, I, I really loved the, the vividness of that, that image and kind of gives you, I think it it's about that like, gosh, they were just driven by enthusiasm. They didn't really care whether or not they seemed, um, legitimate, but they were just, they wanted, they wanted to be in touch with these things in a meaningful way.

    Benjamin James Kuper-Smith: Yeah. And I mean, I guess good also then seemed, I mean, I think this is a great example of people. How should we say you take an idea that's just, I don't know, like there's some truth [00:43:00] in, maybe in what he says, but it's just basically completely silly and then he arranges his life according to that, uh, or at least a small part of it.

    So that's kind of funny to me. But what's, what's also interesting is just that he, he seemed convinced that this was a good thing to do, so he just did it even though he looked like a complete moron to everyone who saw him. 

    Cody Kommers: And I, and I love that. That's, that's my favorite thing in, in an intellect, is that I think being right, especially for these interesting historical, um, characters is way overrated.

    Um, why they, the, the far more engaging and interesting thing is, is where they came up with these crackpot theories, that their mind was just going off in all these different directions and making connections between all of these things that no one else thought to connect. And a lot of 'em were heinously, like ludicrous, like swinging your arms around like a four-legged animal.

    Um, clearly a like ridiculous notion, but also part and parcel to the ability to create these amazing, uh, and profound synthesis [00:44:00] when they actually did hit the nail on the head. Yeah, exactly. Uh, they were able to connect things that were profoundly. Connected in, in, in this meaningful way that no one else had had hit upon because they weren't willing to go to these kind of sometimes crazy and, and ridiculous lengths to, to try and do that.

    Benjamin James Kuper-Smith: Yeah. Yeah. I, yeah, I found that really fascinating too. Uh, shall we talk about the actual travels? 

    Cody Kommers: Absolutely. 

    Benjamin James Kuper-Smith: We don't have that much time today left, but yes, 

    Cody Kommers: absolutely. 

    Benjamin James Kuper-Smith: Um, 

    Cody Kommers: no, I think we've covered about 30 pages so far, and so there's 70 pages of, of travel. But, um, I also, I I, I, I find it hard to talk about travel, um, in terms of like talking about what people have done, because I think one of the easiest ways to get someone to say something boring is to ask them about a travel experience.

    Because when you describe like a travel experience in summary, it's like, oh, we went here, we saw this, we ate this. There's really nothing for the listener to, to grab onto, uh, in terms of that. [00:45:00] And that's why it's so hard to do good travel writing and, and, and all this sort of stuff. Um, because it's 

    Benjamin James Kuper-Smith: just for the people who, dunno, Cody has a second podcast if I travel already, 

    Cody Kommers: which may or may not be be any good, but it's, no, 

    Benjamin James Kuper-Smith: I find it interesting.

    But it's, uh, I guess you set yourself a challenge there. 

    Cody Kommers: Yeah, it's sort of, um, so there's this famous book, uh, tree Tro Peak by the anthropologist, uh, club Levy Straus, which essentially opens with this, uh, tree tro peak. 

    Benjamin James Kuper-Smith: Oh, okay. 

    Cody Kommers: And it's this really super impactful book in anthropology in, in which he, uh, partially develops the idea of structural anthropology and everything like that.

    And it's this super weird book because it's basically just a piece of travel writing. But since it was written by an anthropologist that, and, and one of the most influe influential ones of the 20th century, uh, it, it, it. Has this, you know, impactful, insightful, quality to it. And it's an incredible book and it opens with this line that's essentially like, I hate when people talk about travel stories and when [00:46:00] people come back from traveling Yeah.

    Uh, with, with, you know, all these things. And yet this is what I purport to do. It's 

    Benjamin James Kuper-Smith: 300 pages of it. Yeah. 

    Cody Kommers: Oh, I, at, at the very least. Much. But, but yeah, so I, I always kind of think about that quote, um, is that, uh, yeah. I, I hate when people talk about their travel thing, and yet that's exactly what I'm, what I'm gonna do.

    Benjamin James Kuper-Smith: Exactly. 

    Cody Kommers: Um, anyway. Yeah. I'm curious to hear, uh, what some of the things that stood out to you in those, um, and some of his early travel stuff was, 

    Benjamin James Kuper-Smith: I have to admit, this is not the most important point at all, but this is what stands out to me most. I hate anything that flies around me. Small insects. 

    Cody Kommers: Oh yeah.

    Benjamin James Kuper-Smith: So I would, I mean at felt, because you go like, oh, this sounds so cool. I mean, of course, you know, it's difficult, you know, it's rough and all these kind of things. But then I read this pastor that mosquitoes like, yeah, I'm not doing that. I like, I don't care how much I'm gonna find out. I'm not gonna get bitten by mosquitoes all day.

    Like not happening. 

    Cody Kommers: That definitely is one of those things that it's the disconnect between, like you say, like, oh yeah, he took a ship to Venezuela and then he went through the jungle and [00:47:00] everything's like, oh my God, that's so cool. And then you find out that the entire time he was basically just battling, he was just swatting mosquitoes off his face and covered head to toe and bug bites.

    I was like, yeah, I like that. 

    Benjamin James Kuper-Smith: I mean, it wasn't even swatting the way where it was. They could sometimes not talk because they'd fly in their mouth and nose. 

    Cody Kommers: Oh my God. 

    Benjamin James Kuper-Smith: Um, like it just sounds Yeah, it's, it's this thing where like, I mean, I guess it's the thing with most things where the, the idea of it sounds amazing, but the practicalities of it sounds awful.

    I mean, here also like mean, I mean, in a way, this whole book, what we've read so far, should basically never have been told in a book because it should have just died. He should have been eaten by a crocodile or by a snake, or been, you know, when he like almost poisoned himself by getting that poison. 

    Cody Kommers: Yeah.

    Benjamin James Kuper-Smith: Um, I mean, it's a miracle that he didn't die multiple times along this route. 

    Cody Kommers: So let's see that, um, the plot. Summary of this is that he inherits all this money from his [00:48:00] mom. And he is what, still in his early twenties? Um, 

    Benjamin James Kuper-Smith: yeah, mid, late twenties, I think. 

    Cody Kommers: Yeah. Something, something around there. And he's like, okay, I know that I want to go somewhere, but he totally is, uh, he, he does, he doesn't know where, and he doesn't really seem to care just as long as it's somewhere far away and kind of extravagant and exotic and everything like that.

    And so I don't remember all the details of it, but the, the basic thing that happened was somehow he got the King of Spain to agree to allow him to go to the Spanish colonies in South America, which was pretty much unprecedented for a non-Spanish person to have the King's permission to go undertake such an endeavor.

    Benjamin James Kuper-Smith: So, and if you look at what. Then when he went to meet Jefferson, you know why? Because immediately as, as soon as hobo met someone outside of the Spanish colonies, he told them everything about the Spanish colonies and about all this [00:49:00] intelligence that Jefferson wanted. So, you know why the king didn't usually out this?

    Cody Kommers: Yeah. Yeah. Let's, uh, let's talk about that relationship with Jefferson a little bit. So there's one thing that I wanted to sort of bring up and see, see what you felt about this. Mm-hmm. But another thing that, that vol does is that she seems to really. Paint humble as always on the side of the angels. So for example, yeah, that's 

    Benjamin James Kuper-Smith: one of the points I wrote down.

    Cody Kommers: Yeah. You know, like, okay, so there's this one thing, this is before the, before the Jefferson thing, but she credits him with quotes, the first insight about human induced climate change, which seems a little generous because what she really is describing is that yeah, there's human degradation of an ecosystem, which is not the same thing as climate change.

    Uh, and she calls him, uh, the quote unwitting. 

    Benjamin James Kuper-Smith: Well, did I think, I mean he did, I think link it to larger thing. Like it wasn't just like, Hey, look, this, this river's breaking down or whatever. I think there was a point where he says, there's something known that if you get rid of the trees it gets hotter and all this kind of things.

    So I think, [00:50:00] I dunno. Yeah. But anyway, 

    Cody Kommers: fair enough. Um, I certainly, she does marshal evidence, uh, she does try and convince us this is the case, but. So there's like that sort of thing where she calls him the unwitting father of the environmental movement. And then with the whole slavery thing, it's very clear to Humboldt, according to, to Wolf, that slavery is just this, you know, complete atrocity, uh, that we should not stomach in, in, in any way.

    And so, uh, like the way she tells it, you've got this entirely morally modern person and humbled who just happened to be operating in the 18 hundreds. And I guess I'm just skeptical of that. Like, I just, I, I don't know that I, I buy that and I feel like, you know, uh, that's a little bit of like post ho, you know, like her being like, yeah, this guy was so great.

    Um, which maybe it's true and very cool if true. Um, but certainly doesn't, yeah. It's, it's, it's hard to believe, you [00:51:00] know? 

    Benjamin James Kuper-Smith: Yeah. No, I mean, this is one of the big points I wrote down and I also wanted to discuss is that, I think I wrote my point is something like. Um, BOL seems a bit too good to be true. Is there actually anything negative about him in the entire book and in the first few parts?

    I, I, I don't know. I haven't thought about this for too much, but I spontaneously can't think of anything negative in it. I mean, there's something that's not good, like when he's lonely or something like that, or as a such, but there's not of his fault, right? Like, there's nothing here where he really does anything bad.

    He helps the miners, right? He, he stands in for the, the rights of the miners and tries to improve their working conditions. He, um, constantly talks about how the indigenous people are really good and they're not being treated well. And I really also had the thought like he's, he really seems like someone who would be, who could live now and not change any of his beliefs, at least the way it's written.

    And that also makes me quite skeptical. With slavery. I think there were a lot of people at the time who didn't like it. Right. It wasn't as if everyone was [00:52:00] like, yeah, slaves is a really great idea. So I don't, I mean, I dunno what the proportions of people would be, but I'd, I'd imagine maybe he was unusual because he came from money and thought slaves were bad.

    But I imagine most people who didn't come from money probably didn't think slavery was the, the best idea. So it's not that unusual. And also with the environment, I guess if he really sees how it's being ruined on a, like, yeah, like he's just in the place and sees like just how the place is ruined if you deforest it or something.

    Like, it all makes sense, right? None of this is something where you'd, where it's unbelievable, but just the accumulation of. Things where he was ahead of his time also struck me as slightly unbelievable. Some of them, yes. But all of them, 

    Cody Kommers: that is exactly how I feel about it. Is that anyone, any one case, it's like, oh wow, that's great.

    Good for him. What a great guy. And then like after, uh, you know, we got the a hundred pages where it was just, you know, kind of, uh, point after point like that, I was like, is that really, was that really how it was in, in the actual moment? And not just the post ho looking back, it's like, oh yeah, he was a [00:53:00] champion of all these things.

    We just happened to believe now that, uh, were much more fringe beliefs back then, or less. Yeah. 

    Benjamin James Kuper-Smith: I'm waiting for story of him helping an old lady with a ver across the street or something. 

    Cody Kommers: Yeah. 

    Benjamin James Kuper-Smith: Like it's, but is there anything negative in there? Do you know? 

    Cody Kommers: Uh, the vanity thing, uh, is, is what I would say is the main thing that Volf looks at and, and says, well, the guy was clearly.

    Part of his motivation was his own, the, the accumulation of his own stature. But I don't think she thinks that that's that bad. It's a 

    Benjamin James Kuper-Smith: huge part. 

    Cody Kommers: It's, no, it's because it's like, okay, well he did do it and it's sort of like, uh, you know, like, uh, yeah, he was this great figure. Part of what explains, you know, him becoming a great figure is that he was just so ambitious and everything like that.

    And so I don't think she holds that against him ultimately. But I would say that that is the thing that comes off is, is the thing that she, um, takes the most to task for. 

    Benjamin James Kuper-Smith: But again, it's, uh, it's, uh, in terms [00:54:00] of negative attributes, it's not as if he, at least from what I can tell, it's not as if he's using that.

    Should we say His vantage seems to me more that he wants to be great rather than he wants to be better than others. Right. He doesn't like put other people down because of it or something like, like all of the, maybe It seems to me almost the, the, the, the negative parts of him are all personal and the great things are all about how he affects other people.

    Cody Kommers: Yeah. 

    Benjamin James Kuper-Smith: Which again, is like a pretty minor negative thing. If he's a bit vain and a bit sad sometimes 

    Cody Kommers: it's a little bit like, oh, what's your greatest weakness? Well, sometimes I just care too much. You know? Exactly. 

    Benjamin James Kuper-Smith: It's a bit 

    Cody Kommers: like that. Uh, it's one of those like non weakness weaknesses. Anyway, this was, this was most of the stuff that I had.

    I honestly did not have a ton of notes on the, the travel, um, like the, the travel stuff. And maybe we can talk a little bit more about, about it directly, uh, in the next section. Because I imagine there'll be primarily travel less 

    Benjamin James Kuper-Smith: well through Russia or the thing, right. That should come up soon. No, that was [00:55:00] 20 years later or something.

    B. 

    Cody Kommers: Like, I, I definitely thought the, the, the gutta part was, that's, that's such a huge part of the, the book and obviously upbringing and, and sort of context of, of the times. I, I, those are the things that stood out to me this passage. And maybe, maybe in the next passage we'll talk a little more about the specifics of the, the travel stuff.

    Benjamin James Kuper-Smith: So one thing I wanted to ask is, uh, where maybe you just being American is more insight than me and not being American. And that's just about Jefferson because I, I mean, I know that Jefferson was the president and that's the end of my knowledge about Jefferson outside of what's in this book. And I have to say like, he also seemed like a really cool guy.

    I don't know. He seemed like, especially when you think about presidents, I mean, he seemed like the kind of guy who. I mean, first of all, he was, first of all, he didn't really want to be a president per se. Um, I mean, he was maybe a bit too much into agriculture and farming. He seemed slightly obsessed with that.

    Um, 

    Cody Kommers: and answering letters from strange German men. 

    Benjamin James Kuper-Smith: Yeah, exactly. Um, 

    Cody Kommers: [00:56:00] should he have something better to do? 

    Benjamin James Kuper-Smith: What I found really, I mean, I was actually one thing I wrote down, I also love the fact that when Humbard arrived, there's a solid chance he saw Jefferson's laundry outside his house. That 

    Cody Kommers: was really funny.

    Yeah. 

    Benjamin James Kuper-Smith: Um, but anyway, but what I found really interesting is that he seemed like a really down to earth guy who, who knew how, you know, normal people lived, who, you know, was building like all these manual things, was really interested in all the science, was, you know, a farmer himself and that kind of stuff.

    And he just seemed like a really great, you know, minus the slavery thing. He seemed like a really great guy. Um, I'm just curious, like what's the general impression of Jefferson? Like, this is literally the first thing I've read about Jefferson basically. 

    Cody Kommers: I, I'd say that, that that's, uh, an accurate representation of what people generally say about him.

    I mean, so it's, it's tough for me to say because, you know, growing up in the American education system as I did, um, at the time that I did, which would be really anything up until relatively recently, there's a lot of veneration of, of the founding fathers and everything. There's not a lot of criticality about it.[00:57:00] 

    Um, besides, you know, certain asterisk about like, well, you know, 

    Benjamin James Kuper-Smith: there was 

    Cody Kommers: that, you know, all the, the, the obvious, the obvious, uh, stuff, stuff, a lot of that. And so I don't, I, it's not something that I've looked into. It's not something that has occurred to me very recently. Like, you know, I really wanna get to know the, the, the, the initial American, uh, president, that sort of stuff.

    So I'm very skeptical of my own understanding of them, uh, because I think there's been a lot more change and, uh, contextualization and, and more nuance and like, well, let's actually go back and revisit, revisit it without the whole mythology around it. 

    Benjamin James Kuper-Smith: Yeah. 

    Cody Kommers: So, I, I, I, I'm not. Going to go on record as saying, oh, and I, I know exactly how it is, but certainly my understanding of him is as a genuine intellectual in many ways, uh, that, that he really did understand a lot about political philosophy, uh, that he really was interested in, uh, the natural world, for example, in, you know, his gardening and in agriculture and all that sort of stuff.

    I've also heard [00:58:00] people say that Jefferson is one of the most overrated, uh, figures of, of all time, um, because he is this really big, really eminent, very venerable figure in American history slash mythology. Um, so I don't really know, but I think your description of it is like, yeah, he was awesome. Minus the slavery thing, uh, was approximately how people, uh, talk about it.

    Benjamin James Kuper-Smith: Yeah, I mean, obviously in this part there's no. Uh, you don't get an idea of whether he actually achieved anything as a politician or whether he was a good politician. But I just, I mean, you know, I guess especially today, you have lots of politicians who are career politicians to do nothing else. And that's something, I mean, in some sense I understand it, but it also seems, I dunno whether that's a great idea.

    Cody Kommers: I mean, he was the primary drafter of the Declaration of Independence. Uh, feel free to fact check me on that after, after the, the show, but 

    Benjamin James Kuper-Smith: I won't, I'll trust you. 

    Cody Kommers: Um, uh, definitely Wikipedia, Jefferson's accomplishments, but I, I do think that he's credited with some stuff maybe [00:59:00] prior to him becoming president.

    Um, but certainly he was there in the whole 1776 revolution, chilling around in Philadelphia. Uh, you know, doing the things that everyone was doing around that time. And I think as a writer and that sort of stuff, he was very. Well respected and, and, and everything like that. That's my understanding. Again, not gonna claim to be a, a Jefferson authority.

    Okay. I'm drawing on uncritical acceptance of, of facts from, you know. 

    Benjamin James Kuper-Smith: Yeah. But that's 

    Cody Kommers: kind of 

    Benjamin James Kuper-Smith: what I was also interested in, kind of what the general, 

    Cody Kommers: which I think is what you were probing for, is what do, what do, what's the temperature? Uh, but I, again, all that stuff's changed in the past, really, you know, uh, since whatever, 2015 on, let's say.

    I think the way we talk about American history in, in the mainstream has changed a lot very quickly. Okay. And I, I think that's, that's an important change. And one that since, you know, I haven't been in America for part of that time and I certainly haven't been in the, you [01:00:00] know, sort of, uh, education system, the primary and secondary schooling system.

    I don't know how people talk if they still talk about the way that, uh, I grew up with it. Or if all of the stuff that we talk about now in the mainstream of sort of intellectual discourse has. Already trickled down and, and it influenced the way that schooling occurs. I imagine It has. I imagine, my, my impression is, is that it has, 

    Benjamin James Kuper-Smith: yeah.

    Okay. Yeah. I mean, it's just, yeah. After reading that part, I thought like, maybe I should read a biography of Jefferson. He seems interesting. 

    Cody Kommers: I think at a first approximation he was a badass. I think he, I think, I think there is a lot there. And, um, if I were going to pick someone from that time, he would probably be the first person to, to come to mind for the, for, uh, for me to look into.

    Benjamin James Kuper-Smith: Yeah. Okay. Cool. I think that's the end then for today. But, uh, so this time we read parts one and two. I guess next time we're gonna read or have read parts three and four. 

    Cody Kommers: Mm-hmm. 

    Benjamin James Kuper-Smith: So, yeah, I guess if anyone wants to join again, feel free, feel free 

    Cody Kommers: to, uh, send in [01:01:00] reader comments, uh, fact checks, et cetera.

    Benjamin James Kuper-Smith: Yeah. If not, then thank you for listening to us. Well, 

    Cody Kommers: awesome.