Tea, Drugs, And Jesus Episodes

Benjamin Franklin got China wrong, and America still does today! Marshall leads the discussion in the “Tea, Drugs, and Jesus” series, dissecting the complex relationship and persistent misunderstanding between the United States and China over the last few hundred years.

We discuss how the United States continues to misunderstand China today, and how it similarly misjudges the motivations, behaviors, and actions of many other countries, leading to mistakes and failure. This can be traced all the way back to America's incuriosity about the world, its resulting lack of cultural literacy, and its propensity to ignore or terminate experts who tell American leaders (and often the American public) things they do not want to hear about the world around them.

This is a lesson to be more open-minded regarding other countries and cultures, and how ignoring facts because you don't like them doesn't make them change or go away; it only hinders progress.