John Prideaux
speaker
643 appearances
3 recordings
1 series
first heard Jun 2026
last heard 19 Jun
John Prideaux’s voice in public audio — every appearance, attributed to the second.
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recordings per month · last 12 monthsRecordings per month over the last 12 months — 3 in all, peaking in Jun 2026 with 3.
Appearances
The Intelligence from The Economist · Tocqueville Road Trip: 2. Against all obstacles · 13 Jun 2026
podcast
Almost all of them had tough childhoods.
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This kind of story is not unexpected from people who've wound up here.
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The American dream was distant.
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Drugs and crime seemed like a shortcut.
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But then someone says something that gives me pause.
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None of us have a reliable way to distinguish the things we do from the things that are done to us.
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To distinguish between what happens because of good or bad luck and what happens because of our talent or effort.
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Usually the answer is a mix of the two in unquantifiable proportions.
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Compared with Europeans, Americans are much less likely to believe in luck.
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Even though American society is more unequal than Europe is, Americans are much more likely to say that people get what they deserve.
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This helps to explain lots of things about America.
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Tocville noticed the same thing.
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He reckoned Europeans were more fatalistic because they were descended from a feudal society where everyone had their place, whereas Americans were not.
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The tendency to downplay luck, whether it's good or bad, may also explain why American society is more punitive.
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If you don't believe in luck, then wrongdoing is a choice and should be punished accordingly.
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As the men talk, the choices they made come up a lot, and a pattern starts to emerge.
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None of them shirk responsibility for what they've done.
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Someone at the Prison Association told me that you'll find more accountability in this place than you will on Wall Street.
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The group I'm talking to are self-selecting.
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No one's forcing them to be part of the education programs, and they've chosen to come here today because they've got something to say about democracy in America to a foreign journalist.
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Showing 121–140 of 643 · page 7 of 33
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