Ken Burns is a leading documentary filmmaker working in American history today. The subject has expanded from his incredible work Civil war Per Baseball Per Mohammad AliAnd a two-part series titled his latest work Benjamin Franklin Which aired on PBS and their streaming platforms on April 4 and 5.
Timothy Norris | Getty Images
In a Real Job podcast at Burns Gate, the entrepreneur talks about his new work, outlines Franklin’s indomitable influence on the birth of America, and he can teach us about the divisive times we find today. Here are some excerpts from the conversation, edited for length and clarity.
Related: Ken Burns says Entrepreneur is at the heart of the American dream
First American
“He was the first to invent an American concept,” Burns said. “He’s a postmaster. He controls social media, doesn’t he? He was a printer. He was a newspaper publisher. He printed money. He printed government functions and he delivered mails. Did. “
The age of social media and misinformation
“First, not social media [social]”Burns insists.” Full stop 6 It’s not. And if you need proof of that, just go to a room for teens who are together but not together because they are all on their separate devices. And let’s not blame it on teenagers. Let’s go to an adult’s house or walk down a block in town and see how many people are pressed on their phones – including me. In nature, a net is a trap. You get stuck in it and then you get killed. Throughout history, the spread of lies is not uncommon, but the rate at which it spreads is rapidly increasing on the web. There is an old saying that a lie goes around the world three times before the truth begins. This is incredibly frustrating because when we make these movies, we spend a lot of time making sure we get it right in our movies. And none of this bothers any of these malicious gossip mongers on social media. “
Related: Why Burns talks about achieving leadership, productivity and immortality through storytelling
Cancel culture
“The problem with culture is that it makes us feel lonely,” Burns said. “We feel deprived of ideals and heroes. But we must remember that a hero was never perfect. The Greeks told us that there is this imperfect man here. Achilles’ ankle and his hubris match his great power. When you discover, You did it! ‘ It’s much harder to sit down with these conflicts and not accept them, but to try, as Benjamin Franklin would say, to improve them. To get better. “He was completely ignored by the Senate and voted in the House, but he tried. And so this is what we have to do. We are very stable now. Everything is frozen because of this interest in ourselves. We have focused on transactions instead of conversions.” . “
Will America be able to heal its wounds?
“Let’s not throw the baby out with the bath water,” Burns advised. “As Lincoln said, this is the last best hope in the world. I believe it was the greatest country in the world, and I’m tough on it. It’s like a team, isn’t it? If you’re the best team, you’re always about where you still need to improve.” Honestly. And every team has to improve all the time. And that’s why I find Texas compulsory to teach history so crazy. Their religion in Texas is football, and every Friday night in high school and college, every Saturday afternoon, you tell a coach standing there, ‘Look, we’re sucking the special team today.’ Or, ‘We were good at crime, but terrible at defending.’ However, you are honest about it, and the idea that you will limit any aspect of learning history… we must understand that these people are flawed people, and we must also learn about the people who are not brave, the names that are responsible for our republic. What makes our nation strong. “
Why Ben Franklin is important now
“Benjamin Franklin is an amazing personality,” Burns said. “He is as compelling as the subject of my last film, Mohammad Ali; they were both born on the same day. He is the most important diplomat in all American history. He is a world-class scientist at the level of Isaac. Newton, but he does not patent many of his discoveries; he feels That they are gifts to mankind. And he is a man who does not look like our other founding fathers. He has hunger, he has failures – these are great failures. He was the master of other human beings. Defective. ”
Why Metaverse Burns?
“I’ve already said that I thought Zuckerberg should be in jail,” Burns said bluntly. “He’s the enemy of the people. I still believe it, so I don’t think they’ll let me into Metaverse! Maybe I’ll just go into hiding. No. You know? Other people are so compelled ৷ we’ve got as big a job as possible – to surrender ourselves – to literally surrender – to the larger things of creation and to try to behave like other people we want to treat. “
