![]() It was then independent colleges in the boroughs – Ira Glasser: I went to what's now CUNY in New York. Nico Perrino: And where did you go to college? Ira Glasser: Yes, I was, and it wasn't my passion, it was never my passion, but I was just always an honor student, a straight A student in high school, phi beta kappa in college. ![]() On the other hand, this was the 1950s and, and because of Sputnik and the increasing cold war competition, there was beginning to be tremendous emphasis in school on science and mathematics and physics and if you were good at it, it was very hard to avoid being trapped into it. I was – I sort of had – I wanted to change the world, I mean, I was just, if anything, I thought of social criticism, I thought of, I thought of dissenting from this or that or the other thing, and I'm taking about from the time I had any consciousness at all, from 14, 15, 16, and throughout college, but there was – you were enormously discouraged by vocational considerations by any adult that you talked to, and so you had to really be driven and be willing to look at a bleak future if you wanted to pursue that. You can't – things like, oh, I want to be a jazz musician, right, and so, so there was, there was – or else you could go teach, and I wasn't particularly interested in teaching. It was, it was, well, most people who try to do that don't succeed. Well, the only way to earn a living is to be a writer, and nobody really knew what that meant and it was sort of like deciding to become an actor or something. Ira Glasser: I would have called them probably social issues, I would have called them philosophical issues, I would have called them political issues, but the kinds of things that I was mostly interested in you would find in – if you found it all in school, you would find it in courses, in sociology courses or literature courses or philosophy courses or history courses, but nobody knew what that was, and when I was a kid, if you ever said that's what you were interested in, the response you got from any adult you said it to, your parents, your uncles, your aunts, your guidance counselors, anybody, was, well, yeah, but you can't – what are you – how are you gonna earn a living? Nico Perrino: What would you have called them? I didn't – I wouldn't have called them civil liberties when I was 15 or 16 or 18 or 19 – Ira Glasser: Well, that's a very long story actually, but in the sum of it, those were the issues that I was interested in. Nico Perrino: So, I want to ask you, you have a background in mathematics, why civil liberties work then? Nico Perrino: Ira, thanks for coming on the show. Update: This transcript has been edited for errors and accuracy. Please check any quotations against the audio recording. Note: This is a unedited rush transcript.
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