Named as one of the “100 Most Connected Men” by GQ magazine, Andrew Keen is amongst the world’s best known and controversial commentators on the digital revolution. He has written five books including the best-selling Cult of the Amateur, The Internet Is Not The Answer and How To Fix The Future. He directed and wrote the 2020 movie “How To Fix Democracy” and is the host of the popular podcast show “Keen On Capitalism.”
Guests
Andrew KeenEntrepreneur and Author
Hosts
Peniel JosephFounding Director of the LBJ School’s Center for the Study of Race and Democracy at the University of Texas at Austin
[0:00:07 Peniel] Welcome to Race and democracy, a podcast on the intersection between race, democracy, public policy, social justice and citizenship. On today’s podcast, we are pleased to have with us Andrew keene, who is one of the most foremost and best known and controversial commentators on the digital revolution. He has written five books, including the best selling cult of the amateur. The Internet is not the answer and How to fix the future. He directed and wrote the 2020 movie How to fix democracy and is the host of the popular podcast show keen on capitalism. Current interests include the future of work, the future of the earth and the future of humanity. Andrew keen Welcome to Race and democracy.
[0:01:00 Andrew] Well, thank you so much. Panel.
[0:01:03 Peniel] Well, in the context of Covid 19, I’ve been listening to the keen on capitalism and you really have a daily podcast with all these extraordinary guests talking about capitalism, Covid 19 and sort of the future of really the world in a in a very digestible way. What I want
[0:01:20 Andrew] to have with you today is a combat as a
[0:01:22 Peniel] conversation about Covid 19 capitalism and really inequity or inequality um that we’re seeing amidst this pandemic and we’re seeing it in all communities. We’re seeing it disproportionately among african americans, but we’re seeing it visa, the poor whites, native americans, latin, x immigrants, just the whole works. So, I want us to talk about Covid 19 and what can we do in the face of this pandemic to sort of rethink and re imagined the world that we live in?
[0:01:58 Andrew] Excellent. Well, I’m thrilled that you’re listening to my show, the keen on show and there’s a lot there. So ah so so ah it’s a fascinating and I think in many ways depressing subject actually because of the way in which the crisis seems to be compounding so much of the inequality that already existed before the crisis.
[0:02:20 Peniel] And I’m interested really, and what can entrepreneurs do? Because we’ve seen the failures of government. And I know you’ve talked to George packer and others about government, but for people like yourself, people who are big thinkers, visionary thinkers, who also think about social equality, who think about diversity, think about equity. How can entrepreneurs and how can capitalism or really can it can capitalism as a system be something that’s used as an antidote to inequality that has been created in part due to capitalism?
[0:02:53 Andrew] Yeah, it’s it’s it’s a really interesting and complicated question for now. Uh, and I know you have as as as much to say on this, um as as author, you know, as the author on books about Malcolm X and uh, an M L K and and your chair at the University of texas. Uh, so I’m not sure if I have anything particularly original to say. There’s a couple of things I think that worth thinking about and maybe we can tease this out in terms of our conversation. I think the left in America and I’m guessing that you and I are both progressives. I mean, I’m sure we don’t need to turn this into a trump bashing business because nobody, probably not only you and I, but nobody listening to this show is particularly keen on the go. But I think the left is confronted with a problem at the moment in America and perhaps around the world, which may, which may reflect they relative weakness of the left, particularly in the face of people like trump and bolsonaro and Duterte and lots of other sort of right wing autocrats. I think we’re faced with one of one of two choices, not only in terms of the virus crisis, but generally in terms of early 21st century capitalism. The first is the kind of go back to models which had worked in the past. The most obvious is the new deal. A lot of people believe that
[0:04:27 Peniel] there
[0:04:28 Andrew] the solution is simple. We just dial black history. We dial back past the Thatcher Reagan neoliberal revolution. We go back to the new deal of Roosevelt, we go back to the welfare state ideologies developed in europe. And what were
[0:04:50 Peniel] some people Andrew would call the sort of the social democracy
[0:04:54 Andrew] in the 19
[0:04:55 Peniel] thirties and forties.
[0:04:56 Andrew] Right? And it’s in many ways, I mean, look, I if we could do that, I think it’s an amazing idea. I mean, who wouldn’t want to go back to the new deal? Who wouldn’t want to go back to a taxation system, which was more which was fairer, less, less unequal. Who wouldn’t want to go back and in America it’s not really going back but who wouldn’t want to go forward into a health care system where everyone was looked after. Um the pro and you know and and and and this is, I’ll take you, I think Sanders and Corbyn in the UK. Corbyn in the UK, Sanders in the US, ah the sort of the clearest uh articulate ear’s of this. If you want to call it a vision, I wouldn’t say they’re reactionaries because I think that’s being a little unfair. But they’re certainly not very creative in their thinking. Well because I think it’s very hard for better or worse to go back. I don’t think it ever happens in history. I mean, you’re a historian, you you hold your a distinguished famous historian. People always think we can go back and we never can. What we’re experiencing now is different from the middle of the 20th century. The new deal came out of the experience, not only of the Great Depression, but of the Second World War and we haven’t had the experience. So, so that’s one option which can’t be completely discounted. But I think it’s very problematic in some ways. And I think, you know, one way it comes out, for example, is in the New Green Deal. We’ve had shows about that on my show where people say, well, we just need a green new deal, we need a marshall plan. We need to go back to the New Deal Principles, which makes sense when someone comes on a podcast and says them, but in practice is very hard. The other option. But let me just go into the other option, which I think is more challenging, but ultimately more interesting is to rethink uh sort of the progressive agenda in terms of opportunities uh in in an early 21st century society, that’s a lot of it’s around technology. In your original question, you brought up the issue of tech. So, for example, we have someone like Andy Yang, who’s talking about a guaranteed minimum wage. This is a kind of, it’s not an entirely new idea, but it’s a new idea in terms of the way in which artificial intelligence and automated production and and smart machines seems to be doing away with so much of manual labor. We have ideas about the way in which something like Blockchain, for example, and fintech and democratize finance. So I think that those ideas in some ways, while they’re more challenging, a bit more abstract and not proven because they can’t be proven might in the long run be the way we need to go forward. So we need to rethink progress the progressive ideology in in the age of a i in the in the networked age in in our digital revolution. It’s hard to do. And you know, we’re driving in a car and we don’t always see what’s ahead. It’s like a big fog, but at some point we’re going to get out of that fog and we’re gonna see clearly where we need to go. The problem is the other side, the the reaction or is the Racists, the people who have no concern with the suffering of the underclass? They they seem to be moving ahead much more efficiently and successfully.
[0:08:34 Peniel] Well, I want to unpack some of what you said because I think that you’re right that we don’t have a second World War right now and I agree that it’s it’s difficult, if not impossible, to go back, History always moves forward, although there are echoes of the past and we see um both in the President of the United States, his rhetoric, anti government militias, violence against people of color. So they’re definitely echoes. But what about Covid 19 Andrew as this watershed global moment? Because I think what’s interesting about the Second World War and that analogy is that the Second World War was experienced by the entire world. And, you know, this better than most people. When you think about the Second World War, it’s not just the war about europe in the United States, it’s a war that is in the pacific islands in Asia and throughout the entire world, we feel sort of the supply chain, the reactions, the reverberations of that war. I think Covid 19 is the same. So in what ways can we look at this pandemic? We’re seeing tens of millions of people unemployed supply chains that seem some are going to be temporarily disrupted. But I agree with some of the commentary I’ve been reading from people like yourself and people who are futurist and entrepreneurs and and and thinkers, big thinkers that much of what we’ve experience before. Even in the context of 2000 and 2009 recession, there’s going to be a before and after. Covid in terms of international travel, in terms of global supply chains, in terms of international markets, in terms of the meaning of work and leisure, uh, in terms of access to healthcare, education, food. Um, what do we think about that, Covid 19 as this shared experience and this trauma that’s very similar to the Second World War for a whole new generation, who are going to rethink their relationship, the relationship between capitalism, the relationship between work families and this idea of equity and citizenship.
[0:10:38 Andrew] Yeah. You know, I I wish I agreed with you, but I’m not convinced. I think the reality of the Covid 19 crisis is it’s being played out in two fundamentally different ways. There are the poor on the front lines who are continuing to work, who were being really decimated by the virus. I think, you know, for the first maybe month of the virus, it was a kind of lottery, whether you were rich or poor, East or west coast, big city or small city, everyone was just as likely to get it. But I think as this virus has played out, it’s the poor, It’s the underclass who are experiencing, you know, way worse plague experience than than than than the wealthy, the wealthier and the sort of the new, I wouldn’t call them the leisure class, the bit the uh, you know, the, the smart class, the people who manage and that includes myself and probably you manage and benefit from our knowledge economy. You know, we’re fine. Most of us have savings. Most of us have kept our jobs, were working from home, were able to work from home. You and I can sit on our on our computers and talk about this stuff and be paid for it and build new value. But for the guy who works in the meat packing plant, the policeman, the janitor, the the trash collector, they still have to go out and they’re on the frontlines. Um, so I think
[0:12:09 Peniel] that this is where
[0:12:11 Andrew] as the Second World War was different. Everyone had the same experience. You know, if you were in France or holland, you were invaded by the Germans didn’t matter whether you were rich or poor and I’m sure if you had a lot of money might have been easier to leave an escape. But mostly everyone had the same experience. Um, so that’s what I’m, I’m not convinced that I am convinced that Covid 19 is is a very significant historical event, but I think it might reflect the fact that we live in two quite different worlds at the moment. And what we’re missing most of all is is this quote unquote middle class experience. I think this is most manifested in the experience of the stock market. You know, you and I don’t know when this interview is going to come out, but we’re talking on friday. Um, May the eighth and there were two headlines in the newspapers this morning. The first is that America has more unemployed than any other time since the Great Depression. The other is that the stock market went up another point and a half, and the stock market is actually doing very well, which again probably benefits guys like you and I with our retirement funds, it certainly benefits the Ridge and the powerful. Um, so I’m not for better or worse. I’m not convinced that the pain being felt by the, the working poor, but particularly people of black and brown skin, they they’re not, it’s not being experienced in the same way by uh, if you like. I don’t want to sound like a Marxist here because I’m not, but the dominant white elites that run this society.
[0:13:55 Peniel] Well, what do you think when we think about entrepreneurs and entrepreneurs like yourself, who are interested in furthering and amplifying social equity and democracy? What are, what are steps that this crisis can represent an opportunity? Because all crisis, the flip side of it is an opportunity I
[0:14:16 Andrew] think there are. Yeah, well, I think one area that’s really interesting is pioneering this notion of the guaranteed minimum wage that Andrew Yang has champion. He was the guy who, who’s really brought this to the fore. I may not have been successful in, you know, in in in in the primaries, but he’s done a very good job bringing this idea that everyone should get 1000 or $2000 a month um guaranteed whether or not they’re working now, you know,
[0:14:46 Peniel] that’s that’s something that dr martin Luther king JR advocated as
[0:14:50 Andrew] well, where you that’s your field. So yeah, that’s interesting. Um the only thing about that that worries me is obviously if you’re unemployed 1000 or $2000 a month, seems okay money, but for most people it’s still condemns you, especially if you live in a big city to a life of relative poverty. I know now I live in Berkeley California. It’s hard to find a room here to live in for less than about $1500 a month, so God knows how you live on $2000
[0:15:16 Andrew] But I think that’s an interesting idea. I think they’re going to be really interesting ideas in terms of democratizing the digital economy. One of the other very worrying consequences of the Covid 19 crisis I think is the I think it’s the victory of the digital economy but it’s a victory of a certain kind of monopolistic digital economy. Uh apples google apple, yeah I mean they’re not the apples, there’s apple google Microsoft um uh face facebook uh those five companies now make up 20% of the wealth of this country. The problem of that is is because they’re really eliminating innovation. It’s very hard now to be a startup entrepreneur and be able to compete with these companies which are increasingly defensive and protective. Also, these companies aren’t behaving themselves. Look at amazon, I mean, in some ways, amazon is a remarkably innovative company and Jeff Bezos’s is, you know, he has both the strengths and weaknesses of the greatest americans. He’s the Andrew Carnegie of the early part of the 21st century. He’s the Henry ford, he’s both a very good and a very bad guy. The darkness of bazaars is his treatment of labor, his disregard, it would seem for labor practices, his tendency, I think, towards embracing surveillance capitalism, his disregard for the state, his indifference, I think too universal health care and many of the other foundations of a kind of a fairer society. So that worries me. I think entrepreneurs have to be innovative. I mean, some of the people controlling these companies, I think a decent, I think MArc Benioff, who runs Salesforce is a very good man. I mean, he’s a he’s a good multi billionaire and I think it’s possible to have good multi billionaires, whatever, whatever Bernie Sanders might say. On the other hand, it’s all very well for Marc Benioff to give lots of money to hospitals or uh people on the front lines of the virus. But I don’t really see much evidence that he’s changing the very architecture of american capitalism. I know, I think we’re gonna need a new generation of entrepreneurs of technology entrepreneurs in particular, who rethink american capitalism and bake that into their products
[0:17:45 Peniel] And so on that notion. We talked, you talked loosely about Bernie Sanders and I could also add Elizabeth Warren in the democratic primaries of 2020 Especially pre covid. Um what, what’s the role of government in terms of um, rethinking capitalism? This idea, Bernie Sanders talks about Medicare for all. Obviously, Elizabeth Warren was talking about a new deal more progressive tax legislation, taxes, companies paying taxes, and not just being allowed to repatriate, um, the outsourcing of american labor. That might sound protectionist at times, too. But what, what can be done on the political side to make those five companies that you talked about better actors and to end this kind of monopoly capital Theodore Roosevelt called them big combinations and trusts, uh, in the, in the late 19th, early 20th century. And he was known as the trustbuster, uh, Roosevelt. Um, what can we do in this new age of really, monopoly capital and oligarchy? What what what could be done?
[0:19:00 Andrew] I mean, as you were kind enough at the beginning of this conversation to mention some of my books, I’ve written a whole book really about what government can do in terms of these monopolies, How to fix the future, which was my last full book, which came out about two or three years ago. And there’s a lot the government can do. Um, antitrust is obviously one area taxing these companies more aggressively, not allowing them to be these offshore entities which don’t pay any american tax, force them to be accountable for their products like facebook, treat them as the media companies that they actually are. Um rethink the nature of labor. So that the so called sharing companies like Uber and Airbnb are accountable for the people they employ. So a lot of this requires the rethinking of labor. I think there’s a lot that can be done, although I don’t, as I argue in the how to fix the future. I don’t think we can just rely on government. I think that’s problematic and it’s not realistic, particularly in America in my how to fix the future. I come up with five areas, five buckets if you like. Where we can change things. First is government. The second is the entrepreneurs who you asked me about earlier. The third is citizens, guys like you and I, people listening to this. Everyone can change the world. The fourth is uh education where we need to rethink how people are educated. So I mean there are lots of ways we can do it. What I would say about America is that coming back to your question is America is different from the rest of the world. The model, the anglo Saxon and particularly the american model clearly doesn’t work now. And I think that’s what the covid 19 crisis seems to have manifested. You mentioned George packer on my show. He he argues in his atlantic cover story for june 2020 that americans like belarus in terms of its inefficiency and corruption and dysfunctionality of its state. And there are countries now that are dealing quite successfully with the crisis or relatively successfully in the models, Germany and Germany. Yeah. Denmark and then in asia Korea Singapore, which isn’t really a democracy. Um, Taiwan.
[0:21:17 Paniel] Can you unpack what you mean by the american model, the american model of capitalism?
[0:21:23 Andrew] Well, the american model is a sort of a neo liberal, radical free market one where people fundamentally distrust or disregard the state. The american model is one. Michael Lewis writes about this in the fifth Risk. His last book, uh the american model is one where a president can come in and essentially destroy the bureaucracy. A willful, willfully destructive President can do that. The american model is one where healthcare is privatised, the core of a social system so that you have these often dishonest and I think sometimes even criminally dishonest healthcare companies that are exploiting again the poor. Uh The american model is one which compounds inequality through the market. So there are models out there that work. There are, the other thing I think is really important to bear in mind is the american strength of America and I can say this is an outsider. The strength of America is the individual freedom here, the entrepreneurial spirit. The fact that someone like me can come here and fail and fail and fail again and still get away with it. Um so there is a lot of value in the american model but where it really is deeply problematic, I think is in the way in which smart people aren’t committed to, to the state, they don’t work in the bureaucracy. So the problem with the american model and it’s a kind of kind of chicken and egg problem. I don’t know where it starts, but smart people, you know, end up at Harvard or Stanford business school or get taught by guys like you, they go into business, they go into law, they go into medicine, they don’t work for the government, which only compounds the inefficiencies in government. And people say, oh they go, you know, it’s the old Reagan remarks, you know, what is, what, what is, what what does he most fear the knock on the door and the guy saying, I’m from the government, I’m here to help you now. Obviously that’s absurd and reactionary. But in the american context, I think if we’re to begin trying to re architect a society which is fairer and more efficient in the context of this crisis, um we need to figure out how to get smart people committed to civic careers, how to get them working in government, how to get them thinking about their responsibility as citizens. And that’s really hard to do. I don’t know how you do it, really. I mean, you you probably got better ideas on this than I do.
[0:24:11 Peniel] Well, I want to ask you about your your notion of education and how to fix fix democracy. What’s the role of education? Because obviously, you’re not thinking about just educating everybody at Harvard and these elite institutions, because not everybody can go there anyway. But what’s the role of education in both fixing democracy? And you wrote this book a couple of years before the covid crisis? But now in the context of the pandemic, what’s the role that education will take place to try to reimagine capitalism?
[0:24:42 Andrew] Well, in my book How to fix the future, I talk about education in terms of how to produce kids who will be able to compete with smart machines. We know that there, you know, it’s all very well in, in in in our covid infested world, we can only think of the virus and and that’s unavoidable for the moment. But there will be a time probably this time next year when it will be in the past. We have come up with a vaccine and we’ll go back to, I think the two biggest issues confronting us in the early part of the 21st century. You know, the second quarter of the 21st century, the first is the environment and the second is, uh, the impact of smart machines on work on labor. I’m less of an expert on the environment I’m interested in, and I’m starting a show about it, but it’s not something I’ve written about when it comes to smart machines. I think the education system needs to create kids suited for a world where machines do the things that historically we’ve always done. The machines are mostly accountants and lawyers and doctors, as well as flipping hamburgers and driving cars. Um, so, so how can humans compete with machines? In the 20th century? In the old industrial world, we had an education system designed to turn kids into many computers, which was fine when you didn’t have supercomputers that we could carry around in our pockets. Now we do. So those smartphones we carry around in our pockets are very convenient, are actually extremely addictive, dangerously addictive, but they’re also replacing us. How do we compete with that? We need to think creatively, as I argue in my book, how to fix the future. The one thing that our iphones can’t do is think creatively. They’re always they can only do what we tell them to do, they can’t think for themselves, they don’t have agency, they don’t have goals. So our education system needs to focus on bringing out the creativity, the agency of human beings and in the book, in the chapter on education, I focus on, quote unquote new kinds of education. They’re not that new, but they’re relatively new. The Waldorf and Montessori models, which are really focused on developing the muscle of creativity in Children. By the time they get to the University of Texas and sit in your lectures, I think it’s a bit late. I don’t know whether you can bring it out, but I certainly think five and six and seven year olds can have that muscle developed. Uh So I think that that is fundamental in our age of the smart machine. Um you know, creativity is ultimately what creates value. Um doesn’t mean everyone becomes entrepreneurs, not everyone can be Steve jobs, not everyone can be Jeff Bezos or even Elon musk, but the future of the 21st century, I think is one where most people won’t work in large organizations, most people will have many different kinds of careers. Many careers, many traditional careers of the 20th century are going to be made redundant by the digital revolution. Driving is a classic example are on the verge in the next 10 or 15 years of smart cars. I think the number is something like 60% of male jobs are somehow involved either with driving cabs or driving vans. Now they’re not all going to go away, but many of them will, it’s the equivalent of the horse and cart in the old world. Unfortunately, we put the car that the horse out to pasture today, we’re putting working people and particularly the working male out to pasture, which has obviously very profound and chilling implications both culturally in terms of justice and also politically, because often it’s these people who are most attracted to the rage centric movements, particularly of the right, but also of the left.
[0:28:56 Peniel] That’s a good springboard for my last question. And this connects um, to what you were talking about citizens. Uh, when I think about citizenship and active citizenship with the work that I do on the 1960s and the civil rights period and social justice movements, I think of civil rights, women’s marches, uh, in a contemporary context, I think of Black Lives Matter, I think of March for our lives. You think of me too, what can citizens do two impact what we’ve been discussing? You know, both capitalism, the state, the relationship between work um and and capitalism in society, but also inequity that is flourishing in the United States and globally because of this wealth gap and because of the american style of capitalism as you put it. So what can what can citizens do?
[0:29:50 Andrew] Well, of course, they need to read my books and I’m joking. Um, listen to your podcasts come to your classes. It’s a really good question because I think one of the problems with the Digital revolution is it certainly created and you probably know this better than I do from your classes and your encounters with students. It’s created a generation of activists. So we’ve had coming out of the Internet, the Me Too movement, The Black Lives Matter Movement, the problem we had occupied, but no one ever talks about occupy anymore occupied. Didn’t develop any routes we had, you know, if we were talking 10 years ago, we would be talking about the arab spring and the way in which twitter and facebook is generating and a new wave of democracies around the world that didn’t happen. The arab spring was replaced by the catastrophe of civil war and even more repression civil war in Syria, a terrible regime in Egypt, the murderous regime in Libya and so on. I think what we need to figure out is it’s all very well, you know, being on facebook and being in favor of me to or being in favor of Black Lives Matter that goes without saying who would be against those movements. But we need to figure out ways in which we can build longer more lasting political structures from these online movements. Because so far, I mean maybe Black Lives Matter and Me certainly the Me Too movement has resulted. It you know it it was I guess triggered by the Weinstein thing and it’s reverberating in in many ways but politics hasn’t changed you know in spite of Black Lives Matter, in spite of Me Too, in spite of occupy we still have joe biden as the as the as a result. Yeah. And uh you know I’m not a Bernie person either. I mean maybe I was voting probably would have been for warren although the ceasefire from ideal either. But we need to figure out ways to bottle the energy and excitement of the Me to Black Lives Matter occupy culture and direct it and develop it into political structures. Because so far it’s been very it’s been very disappointing I think now maybe AOC and this new generation of politicians in Washington, D. C. Maybe that will change something. But I still don’t see ways in which politics is changing. Political parties organizations. Um you know, maybe there is no change. Maybe, you know, your icons Malcolm X and MLK. They got it. And ultimately it comes down to two political activism. I don’t know. But I’m hoping that alongside all this new economic organization, you know, we’re changing how we bank, we’re changing how we consume media. We’re changing how we travel or don’t travel during the crisis. We’re changing how we’re being educated. I think we’ve got to figure out ways to change politics. One thing and you mentioned at the beginning, I did this film how to fix democracy. One I think ironic consequence of the digital age is it’s really added enormous value to the physical experience. Digital has commodified uh the virtual and it doesn’t have a lot of value. You see it with music and and content, that’s why it’s so hard to build now content businesses online. And one of the ironies of our so called digital age is the most innovative thing I think happening politically is with citizen assemblies. I don’t know if you you or your listeners are familiar with that, but what some governments have done on one of the most pioneering one is in Ireland has gone back to the ancient model of Greece of having lottery systems which um which which select by chance, a small group of citizens to address complicated issues. So what the irish did was had a Citizen assembly to address the issue of abortion, which as you can guess in Ireland is has historically been an incredibly divisive and controversial issue given its history of Catholicism. And actually, this small group of citizens met regularly and they gave advice to politicians to change the law on abortion, which was accepted by the political class. And you’re seeing these citizen assemblies now being reproduced around the world, even in the United States and Canada and Belgium in Germany and Spain. I think what we need to do is figure out ways to reconnect expertise and citizenship and direct political engagement.
[0:34:58 Peniel] So we’ll end it on that expertise and citizenship and service of public engagement. Uh It’s been a great, great conversation. Uh I’ve been speaking to Andrew Keene, who’s a writer, filmmaker and podcaster. Uh Andrew was named as one of the 100 most connected men by GQ magazine. He’s written five books, including the best selling How To Fix the Future. Uh and he’s directed and written 2020 movie, How to fix democracy that’s going to be out very soon. And is the host of the popular podcast show keen on capitalism, which is really wonderful. And I encourage everybody to listen to that. And we’ve been talking and discussing really the future of capitalism and equity and democracy amid the Covid 19 crisis Andrew. Thank you for joining us on race and democracy. Thanks for listening to this episode. And you can check out related content on twitter at Peniel joseph, That’s Peniel Joseph and our website CSRD.LBJ.utexas.edu. And the Center for Study of Race and Democracy is on facebook as well. This podcast was recorded at the Liberal arts development studio, at the College of Liberal Arts, at the University of texas at Austin. Thank you.