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May 22, 2021

#42 Benjamin Boyce- Evergreen College, Higher Education, and Cancel Culture

Benjamin Boyce is the host of the Boyce of Reason podcast. He is most known for being a vocal critic of the Evergreen protests, having witnessed it firsthand as a student. His in-depth documentary and series of videos expose the chaotic behaviors that took place during the week-long incident in 2017. The event has been a result of the Evergreen College’s over emphasis on inclusivity and equality. In its attempt to promote progressive values, it has inadvertently fostered a cult-like mindset that demands conformity at all costs. In this episode, I talk to Benjamin about his experience during the Evergreen protests, the future of higher education, and the dangers of wokeism and cancel culture. 

Links and Resources

Boyce of Reason Podcast

Benjamin’s YouTube

Benjamin’s Twitter

Support the show (http://patreon.com/candicehorbacz)

Transcript

0 (0s): And then they do a lot of patronizing with regards to race that you see specifically in evergreen than the black student is living in a very dangerous world is very fragile. And so it needs all these extra resources and all this extra attention and all these eggshells, we're going to scatter around the entire campus so that you don't upset this person that can barely even go to college, barely even step out their door without being shot, which is rhetoric. That's actually pushed out by faculty at evergreen. So with regards to college, broadly speaking, there's a lot of different aspects or kind of factors that are creating the situation where now I can't remember what college, I should be better with facts and names and stuff, but just this past fall, even though it was COVID time and everybody was remote, the students staged this grand protest over something. 0 (58s): I can't remember it. Wow. Bryn Mawr. I think it was, they staged this grand protest and they shut down classes for two weeks. And it was all about this racist incident. It was like an email or somebody drew a poop swastika on the wall. It happens over and over and over again where this one little incident that could be interpreted as racist is then used as proof that the entire institution needs to be shut down so that we can demand non-racist safe space. 1 (1m 28s): Hello, everybody. You're listening to Chatting with Candice, I'm your host, Candice Horbacz before we get started on this week's episode, if you want to support the podcast, you can go to Chatting with Candice dot com. From there, you can either sign up for our Patrion account where you get early access to episodes and occasional bonus content. Or you can click that little link that says, buy me, copy. Both things, helped me out a ton. Another simple way to support the podcast is simply by leaving a five star review and a comment or sharing it with the buddy. So that's all I have to plug today. I hope you enjoy this week's episode. Help me welcome Benjamin Boyce. So I was looking 2 (2m 9s): At a bunch of your videos this weekend, and it's funny because you know how sometimes you never know how you get introduced to somebody like you just start following them and you can't really recall how that happened and they followed you and you don't really know when that transaction happened. So I don't know how I was introduced to you, but I had no idea of your origin story and talking to like, are you in his Zealand? And I feel like you have no idea where it came from. And so it was watching the series and I'm not that far into, I actually had to stop because I got a lot of anxiety. I was like, I can't believe this is where I like where this, this real life. So for the listeners, I would love, I mean, as detailed as you want to be, or not be, or as brief as you want to be, but just kind of your experience at the Evergreen College, like I said, you have an amazing series that I encourage people to check out the, they want the full to fully immerse themselves into it. 2 (3m 9s): But were you there for, for that? Were you in any of those rooms? Okay. 0 (3m 14s): Yeah, a lot of the rooms I wasn't. And so what happened was that in the spring of 2017, the evergreen state college underwent a wild week of protest having to do with accusations that the institution was irredeemably racist and white supremacist and a bedrock of all the evils of Western society. And the students in this state of high agitation went to a number of different authority figures and protested them. And live-streamed all of that on to the internet. And it, they took over to the campus. There was blockading and there was a hostage taking maybe a mild form of hostage taking, but definitely people were blockaded and the room's and not allowed to leave or even to urinate without oversight of the students, including the president of the college. 0 (4m 11s): And yeah, it w it was really, really ridiculous during that time. So I was on campus for the second day of protest, the first day of protest, which most people probably know of because it involved a public figure that was able to pinpoint the problems that were going on and articulate them and a very fine Manor named Brett Weinstein. He was the first person that they protested and the reasons why they protested him are because of some emails that he wrote protesting politely, or at least, yeah, I know he said he he's protesting this thing called the day of absence where traditionally black students, faculty and staff absented themselves from the campus and did workshops off campus. 0 (5m 5s): And then so-called white people did workshops on campus about being white or being of color. And then they would come back up the next day and have the day of presence where everybody's supposed to celebrate diversity and all of it's wondrous flowerings of the multiculturalism. And, but what happened in the wake of the Trump election and also in the wake of much studied redesigning, or at least proposals of redesigning school, around concepts of diversity, inclusion and equity, especially, especially this word named equity, that everybody had a different definition of it. 0 (5m 51s): It had something to do with equal outcomes, and they were doing a lot of proposals about, you know, recreating a college that was much more fair, I think would be a more grounded term for everybody, especially students of color and especially black students. And especially, I guess, native American and Pacific Islander students, but mostly it was about the black students and the proposals that they made regarding that were based on data that was, and I have recordings of this from a, the head of the statistics, the data that they used to show that Evergreen was racist was fellatious. They cherry picked the data to show what they wanted. 0 (6m 33s): The actual outcomes include the, the, the negative outcomes actually include a lot of low-income first generation white male students. And they scrub that out because the white male as was events and seminar workshop, lecture, and class that I taught over the course of my four and a half years there, the white male was the dominant force and the, the, the vector of oppression. But, you know, but even though, you know, the white male is not being served by this institution, especially the low income white male that was kind of hushed up the boost up that particular group. And they wanted to reorganize resources to attend to. 0 (7m 13s): So Brett Weinstein was involved along with other teachers and arguing against this, and he's very progressive man. So he states time. And again, that he's for equity. I don't know exactly what he means by equity. And I don't want to put words into his mouth, but he definitely thought of a different version of equity, or at least he was thinking about the outcomes, the real outcomes of these initiatives, and when the college decided to reverse the day of absence and invite, and actually require students to segregate on it based on race and white students to go and participate in the, in these off-campus seminars and the content of these seminars, the content of these seminars for white people was about their privilege and about their complicity and the oppression of everybody else and owning up to that. 0 (7m 57s): So it was incredibly dogmatic as we can see, and other aspects of our society now. So the students decided to protest Bret Weinstein first, and they filmed that all and Brett had connections in social media land, and the way that the students protested was over the top. And you can see that you really have to see how they're acting. It is crazy making and anxiety making, and then it, it might, it might be bad for your blood pressure, but it might inoculate you to any struggle sessions that you might stumble into and your day to day life. But they, they protested Bret Weinstein. Then the cops were called because somebody said that they have it propelled, professor's being trapped. 0 (8m 40s): And so the cops responded to check that out and the students rushed, the cops, the cops moved the students out of the way. And therefore that was their claim to police violence. The cop's kind of just, it just kinda let the students go. And then the students went and they are like, well, what do we do next? It's all on video. What do we do next? Well, let's go to the, you know, let's carry on, let's keep this going. So they go to the admin building, the library admin building, and they just continue just going crazier and crazier and crazier all live stream on the live stream. So there were rooms that I was in it that I was witnessing this towards the end of the documentary, which is a very long documentary. 0 (9m 22s): There is a room that I'm actually in a class that I'm in, where a struggle session happens, where white people are told to shut the F up. We're told that our silence is killing, literally killing the students of color. And then when we asked for clarification, we're told to shut the F up. So we were like, well, what do you want? What do you want? And they just kind of want to tear us down and do the struggle session thing, where they brought beat people. It's, it's all on tape, it's on the tape. So at first it seemed really ridiculous because evergreens evergreens activist tendencies are always kind of S kinda silly to me, I'm sorry to say, but you know, all these posters and these slogans, and, you know, like they, they had this one, the epitome of Evergreen, they had this free, the nipple protest. 0 (10m 11s): And I don't even think that there's laws in Washington about the, the female breast. 2 (10m 17s): It can be naked, 0 (10m 20s): But they still wanted to protest that. So they all stood there and took off their shirts and, you know, and all these 22 year old girls topless, you know, and which is something. And, and so they get the hell that attention, and then they use that attention to it, to break males, say, men, you're sexualizing us. And it's disgusting how you look at us. And they're like, okay, like the one side of the story, and I'm not gonna say anything, but those are some very ripe bosoms that you have on display, displaying them to get attention and in order to do what the one that attention. So, yeah, it, it just kind of like that level of, you know, young people experimenting with being serious experimenting with having a lot of meaning, meaning, and their life changing the world. 0 (11m 9s): And there's a lot of rhetoric about changing the world at evergreen. And when the new president came on in 2015, he explicitly maid the college's activist wing. The, he put them in power, specifically around issues of race. And all these workshops started happening. I have all the footage, I was on camera and those, I was in those rooms and those rooms were very ritualized. It was just like being in a church, but a very, very boring sanctimonious church. Like it was all about oppression and solving oppression. And everybody had like these witness statements, and then they had these drum circles and they had all these sermons and stuff. 0 (11m 49s): And then they'd show you the data and the data. Like you could obviously see that Evergreen is doing really, really good with regards to the students of color. Like they're increasing ahead of the national average and there having a better reportage about the happiness of these students, but there, like, as you can see that you're looking at it, and as you can see that dominant culture is in the way, and we need to, you know, now's the time to really change ourselves and stuff like that. So there was a, a culture within the faculty and the staff that was supported and promoted by the president by the very top of making everything about race, about implementing all of these workshops and seminars. 0 (12m 34s): Dangelo Robin Dangelo white fragility woman. She was brought on campus and she gave like two or three very long explanations about how white people need to shut up and listen to her because you know, their wide and blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. And there was never argument about that. Whenever argument came up, it was very quickly squashed. It was squashed within the faculty. And I have all the emails where they would dog pile on anybody that questioned their axiomatic principal. That Evergreen was a racist place filled with white supremacy, even though it was the, the most, or it was the most progressive place, at least in Washington, which is a very progressive place already. 0 (13m 16s): So the culture was already there at the faculty level, and it broke out at the student level and what you see in the protest, and I'll wrap it up. And we can go on from here was that the, the, the actual power structure have the authority of the president was completely non-existent because they were doing everything that he and all of the college taught them to do. And they were not equipped to put a lid on this, or to even help them articulate themselves better. And so all of that footage went out on the internet and Bret Weinstein went out to the internet and, and spoke about too. And then I eventually said, okay, listen, internet. 0 (13m 58s): This isn't just about a bunch of crazy young people. Young people are crazy. This is about the ideas that were put into the young people's head that enabled them to act crazy and disabled the administration from actually controlling that, but rather, only conceding too it up to, and including allowing them to tell him, and then escort him to the potty 2 (14m 20s): C and D. So for me, I'm just so curious, I guess, too, the environment that led to the students to have, I guess, the confidence and the power to do these things. 'cause, like I said, when I was watching those videos and I kind of had to stop a couple of times because I w I felt so anxious. I was, I've been to university and in no way would that have flown where I went to school, just one that it would have been shut down, then, you know, probably 20 minutes. And this went on for a, and then a lot of people have the idea of saying, well, it's just college kids. And that's what they do. They're trying to find themselves and find the purpose and college kids. 2 (15m 1s): I always have been activist's and protestors it's like that, just part of that experience for those years. But when you're seeing this bleed out into society now, and to big business and into government and its regulations, and, you know, media, you can't, you can't kind of turn your head without bumping into it. And I think it's really important for people like you that are, that have this platform. And you're having these difficult conversations and bringing awareness to these topics. And a lot of people that are like this doesn't affect my day to day. So I don't have time to pay it any mind. And I was one of those people I haven't been in a couple of years because I'm like, I see it. And my husband's like, you need to calm down. 2 (15m 41s): Is this stressing you out? What are you going to do about it anyways? But we see these effects with raising our child and, you know, try to figure out what the school he's going to go to. And what's it going to be like for him to grow up. So I guess where I'm going with that is how did we kind of create this new normal? Is it kind of, it is right. Like you see the CU the Coca Cola thing that went viral of what, like a month ago, or it was like the less white, like, you can't say that any other group, like B less Gaye, the less Asian, the less black, you can't see that. So it, it shouldn't be okay. And in the reverse write, and then where are we going wrong? 2 (16m 24s): Like, what do we, how do we correct? Course 0 (16m 29s): I know that's a lot. That's really, really big. I mean, that's why hours and hours and hours of conversations with now, hundreds of people like talk it through this and talking about like different, tiny little aspects of it, right? The big thing is education. Big thing is it could probably look at the economics of this. You can look at kind of a theory of the managerial elite and how the re the people who really kind of control and steer are government and America at large are a class of unelected citizens that have all been programmed through universities. 0 (17m 10s): They all have university degrees. And I think that one explanation of diversity, equity and inclusion as a dogma is a way to gate keep and to push out to centers and push out like people who would rock the boat, which is actually what they were saying. And evergreen, they don't want people rocking the boat. They're going to call you out, or you need to get off. If you're going to rock this boat, this is just how we do things. And diversity, equity, and inclusion. It's a set of speech codes that, that you memorize. You know, you have to memorize that your privilege and your oppression. And do you have to like confess it all? So you're kind of handing over in a way you are handing over your conscience, too, the HR representative, or too, that trainer, that trainer is teaching a new morality with new vectors that you might not have known before. 0 (18m 3s): If you grew up in other climbs, this is, this was incubated and designed within academia. And it has all of this kind of these ideas that have been laundered through all these papers, talking about it over and over and over again, all these rhetorical maneuvers, Robin de Angelo, herself perfected her rhetoric or her religion through giving seminar after seminar, after seminar and seeing where people would resist her and figuring out all these tricks to put down that resistance, all these Kafka traps, which basically is a, she she'll call you a racist. And you're like, well, I'm not a racist, like, and she'll say, well, that proves that you're a racist to see the UR denial of racism is proof of your racism. 0 (18m 48s): And you're fragile about that. And, and the irony is, is that the entire, that and her entire network of thought is incredibly fragile to actual logical critical examination. And there's this wonderful man, wonderful writer, Jonathan Church, who's gone through. I don't have his book up now, but you can look up Jonathan Church. He's done a series of essays and articles, and at least one book, another book coming out, just dismantling Robin Dangelo and showing how it's like a nest of logical fallacies that aren't, don't line up to reality and actually exclude you from connecting to reality. 0 (19m 28s): So in on one level, one line of attack or criticism would be how it's being implemented at the corporate level. Then another question is how has it, and being implemented virally through social media, through a public pressure through peer groups, and you can go through and you can look at all these different, small collectives of individuals from knitting communities, a two, the atheist community to all these different communities, once this critical social justice stuff comes in, and that's the word I'll use, but we can talk about it. And all these different fashions, one fashionable way of calling it, it is wokeness or wokeism, but I've been told that that has a pedigree that has an authentic side to it. 0 (20m 13s): So, because it's going to call it a technical term right now, but once that interest into a group, it shifts the dynamics of the group into this well, won it, purges all dissent, is it, it attaches all this meaning to all these symbols and calls all these things racist or bigoted or phobic in one way. And then it destroys that individuals belonging to that group and Titans that belonging of the group, it's basically this, this virus that turns everything into a cult in a way, and by which I mean, a lot of policing of behavior, very narrow of what's acceptable and, and no room for debate. And it's infecting churches and synagogues. 0 (20m 54s): And I don't know if it's really gotten into the Muslim community, but it is very generational. And so there's the one way of at traveling through the gen X and the boomer mind, which it is. And then there's another way in which it's traveling through the gen Z and the millennial mind, which are more speeded up because of their access to social media. And then there's the whole education, right? 2 (21m 16s): Yeah. So when I was watching your videos, I think I, I got to, I almost completed the third episode in that series and I'm gonna finish and I'm going to have to do it and doses because it is, it blows my mind that these people are going to university, right? Because that's a privilege. A lot of people don't get to experience. Like most people don't get to graduate from college. You are already at an advantage compared to most of the citizens in this country. And you're going to sit there and shout about how unfair life has and how you're in the literal violence. And I was curious like, well, I don't see any literal violence happening except for this mob mentality. 2 (22m 2s): And, and they're trying to explain that the privilege is showing up because of the, I think someone had called the cops so that it was like a professor or another student, but the cops, it was like, yeah, someone had called the cops on the glass, the sign of, of you're privilege. And they have me. And why would they meats? It's like, if you know anything about group mentality, the maze probably needs to be there because it just takes one person to act out. And then all of a sudden that group thing happens. And then you're in a really dangerous position. But as I'm watching it, like none of this makes sense, they're asking to feel included or to feel safe. And that's really gray, right? 2 (22m 43s): Like, what does that mean? How can you, I guess, put that in a tangible way, like, you're, you're in charge of your interstate. So it's just like these roundabout arguments and will be like, well, you need to help us and like that. Well, how can we help you? And I feel like you need to shut up and like, how are we paying Robin D'Angelo $5,000 a session to make us it's more like 15, 15, holy cow. 0 (23m 8s): She's up to a hundred thousand now. Jeez. 2 (23m 11s): Okay. So whatever she's charging to essentially create this rift between employees or students and staff, where do you see the future of higher education? Are we gonna stop paying for college? Because I, right now I'm not a cynical person, but I don't see universities having a leg to stand on. If they don't make a swift change, because you leave with a hundred grand plus and debt for what to have your kid hate themselves, hate the world's hate the neighbor. 0 (23m 43s): What are you paying for? That is that that's another, so just call it alone. And I think that, that, that dovetails with what I was saying about the managerial elite. So over the last, what, 30 years or so, since the government started subsidizing student loans, colleges, it just screwed up the market. So as colleges so that they could charge more and what would they do with all that money? They pumped it into buildings, a lot of infrastructure, but most of that money went to administration, which is, again, the managerial elite and the actual power in the institutions has switched from faculty and has kind of gone to the student, but via the student as the consumer. 0 (24m 25s): And then there's all this infrastructure that makes sure to insulate the college from, you know, I guess, lawsuits or mishandling of this precious resource called the student, which is just a bunch of money that the student is now indebted with, but they do a lot of designing of the student experience. There's entire fields of study and administrative positions that are specifically around designing the best experience for the student. I think it's usually called student affairs or something like that, but every college has won. And what they do is they do all the planning of the events and helping the students manage their behavior. But in order to help students manage the behavior, which would mean like if there's something that happens and an altercation that happens between the students to, you know, for liability liability purposes, they put a bunch of training on how to act at the begin at the beginning of the school year. 0 (25m 21s): And so they'll have these really interesting, I mean, anthropologically interesting, you know, seminars on consent around how people should interact sexually. And, you know, so you have all these weird kind of bureaucratization of that part of human experience, which is good from the administrative level, because they say, well, we taught you to ask every five minutes where your hand should go next and where it should be and blah, blah, blah, blah, blah I'm. But what are the, was that that actually do too, the effect of people actually like experiencing and exploring that I think mostly non-verbal activities now imposed with all this bureaucratic mindset, also that safety ism about that your feelings matter. 0 (26m 7s): And if you feel unsafe, you have to stand up and then we will rally a bunch of resources around making you feel safe. That safety is, it was very evident in the Evergreen protests, but at colleges that large and Greg Lukey on off, and Jonathan Hyatt wrote a very wonderful book called cuddling of the American mind, which is largely based on Twinkie. I can't remember her first name, her, her art or her book called <inaudible>. I believe it's called. And she talks about specifically about the rise of social media and that affect on the student, but Lukey on off and height, talk about just the attitude towards him. 0 (26m 48s): Keeping that child safe has all these different consequences down the road, and actually creates a fragile psychology later on down the road. It's an anti resilient mentality that the college now reinforces. And there's a lot of, there's a lot of coddling going on specifically at evergreen a and elsewhere, and the administration and, and the faculty. They see these damaged birds that they're caring for, and that they do a lot of patronizing with regards to race that you see specifically in evergreen, the black student is living in a very dangerous world, is very fragile. 0 (27m 28s): And so it needs all these extra resources and all this extra attention and all these eggshells, we're going to scatter around the entire campus so that you don't upset the person that can barely even go to college, barely even step out their door without being shot, which is rhetoric. That's actually pushed out by faculty and Evergreen. So with regards to college, broadly speaking, there's a lot of different aspects or kind of factors that are creating the situation where now I can't remember what college, I should be better with facts and names and stuff, but just this past fall, even though it was COVID time and everybody was remote, the students staged this grand protest over something. 0 (28m 14s): I can't remember it. Wow. Bryn Mawr. Yeah. It was the stage, this grand protest. And they shut down classes for two weeks and it was all about this racist incident. It was like an email or somebody drew a poop swastika on the wall. It happens over and over and over again where this one little incident that could be interpreted as racist is then used as proof that the entire institution needs to be shut down so that we can demand a non-racist safe space and the way that Bryn Mawr or whatever this college was that under what this just this past fall, the president did this apology like the college has this down. Pat now it's become a Rite of passage. 0 (28m 56s): Students go to college to protest, to get their credit, to have the status of a protester now. And the college is more than happy to write all the apology's and stop the classes and implement all this training and all this stuff that doesn't have to do with learning and actual skill it has to do with learning and morality. And so the, the colleges have returned back to what they originally were, which is a institution of a religion that trains you to be, you know, it has all this science and stuff kind of going outward and this writing and rhetoric, but centrally it's there to program you how to be a good Christian or how to be a good, critical social justice activist. So it's reverted back to kind of a religious institution. 2 (29m 40s): So I lost probably the last 10 seconds of what you were saying. If you want to reiterate that really quick, really quick 0 (29m 49s): Colleges, Western colleges had originally been an extension of the church with different aspects of, yeah. Of there's a lot of, a lot of weird crusty aspects of college are actually descended from the middle ages. Just these weird ceremony's and why they wear robes. And then all this weird power structure stuff. It descends directly from the middle ages. And during the middle ages, there originally were all built around Christianity. And then you had all these disciplines that radiated out from Christianity, but it was principally a seminary. And, and if you want it to do a trade, you would actually work in an industry to get the skills 2 (30m 30s): And okay. Right, right. That makes sense. So again, I guess, would you, where do you think there's something more nefarious at play? Like what's the end goal because when you, I re-injured, and there's someone back there with like these puppet strings, like what's happening because you know that for someone to thrive, you can't make them feel like a victim. You can't make them feel scared and on edge and angry. No, one's going to thrive in that mental environment because you're in survival at that point, right. It's almost like they're purposely pushing certain groups in to that survival mentality. 2 (31m 11s): And, and if you just look at it, you know, I'm that hierarchy of needs, right. You can't get kind of get to that next level until the other ones, the basic levels or met. And it's almost like you're forcing certain groups below that level. Again, what's that end goal. Why would you want someone to be in that space? Like how does that benefit anybody? Yeah. 0 (31m 32s): Yeah. There are so many different factors into what is going on in 2020. We had a lockdown, right? Yeah. Oh, 2 (31m 44s): I feel like some of the country's still there and I'm fortunate enough to be in North Carolina. So we're, we're pretty open. Yeah. 0 (31m 52s): Yeah. So we had that lock down and everybody was concerned about death and death was our highest value. Avoiding death was our highest value. And then George Floyd happens and all of a sudden our highest value of avoiding death was completely set aside. And the most important value was justice and equity and black lives matter and racial equality and dealing with the sense of America and all of that stuff that had been in the wings, kind of getting ready and academia, and then being played with, at the HR corporate level. Right. And being put into the heads of those students. 0 (32m 32s): It all just snapped together. There was this pent up aggression because everybody was on lockdown. All these people like disassociated from school, they couldn't do their tiny little protest so that their little colleges, they, but they could do it all together and take over cities now and all scanned up on principal. And then you have the whole effect of a, the elite and Trump in this period battle to get the, the elite wanted power back to the elite. And Trump was the outsider and they needed to oust him. So there was a lot of dynamics around pushing that. I think that there was a lot of dynamics of not, not tamping down on that violence because they thought it made Trump look bad and he would tamp down on it and then they could call him a fascist, like they'd already been. 0 (33m 18s): So there was this, there was this game on the media level that was playing out. That was kind of, you know, saying mostly peaceful, mostly peaceful, 2 (33m 26s): The burning and the back. Yeah. Yeah. 0 (33m 30s): There there's that aspect of it, but you're, you're, you're, it feels like you're trying to get somewhere deeper. And I think that the easiest way to pardon me, this is an easy way. It's tired though, and it needs more explanation, but it does make sense that we have entered into a secular society where people, which was good to a certain extent where we have this understanding that the public sphere is divorced from belief. Everybody gets to have their own belief and that kind of led to people and just not wanting to have belief, not wanting to participate in that really boring thing of going to a church with these outdated ceremonies and these funny little stories. 0 (34m 21s): And, you know, but that, those specifically just specifically speaking about Christianity so much of what we are as a society is actually kind of rooted in these old stories and these old ideas. And they're actually iterations of these ideas, going up ideas around justice ideas, around fairness, ideas, around individuality equality under the law. All these ideas are kind of rooted in these kind of premature stories and these, these wisdom traditions. And, and then they're, they're dressed up in the ceremony's that sync everybody up too, the sink up the community to being a community, by going through the same ceremony, then there's this little doctrine doctrinal stuff that, that gives you a story and gives you an explanation and tells you to be better. 0 (35m 12s): Let's just give a very good version of the church. It's not always like that. It's not perfect at all, but it's just encouraging you to be better. And I was talking to my dad a few weeks ago, he was talking about he he's the pastor. And he would, he was talking about being in a room with a bunch of other men and he's the pastor and they're all trying to be better. And there's the, and, and a homeless person or somebody very poor. And that status was gone because they were all equal under God. They were all trying to be better. They're all kind of wrestling with their imperfection, right. 0 (35m 52s): And in that way, and, and that, that sort of focusing on something transcendent or something deeply personal allowed those outer differences to kind of be released for that time and all that class consciousness and all the tensions of that kind of operating and kind of makes the community, and, and that's all built in. So there's all these structures that were in the church that weren't updated. I think that the church has really guilty for not really updating it. And, and so people just kind of left it because we had TV. We had other ways of getting together. We had all these other communities, but there's still a latent desire on a community level. For some sort of religion. 0 (36m 33s): Individuals can be site secular, but once these religious tendencies start to vibrate, they, they, they match up with other people and, and it starts, the people start to vibrate and, and this religious fervor of wanting to do something meaningful of being together and this community doing something real in the world. And without a story there that they all have the land on any old story we'll work. And the thing about critical social justice, it's kind of like all these ideas, and they're all about systemic oppression and implicit bias and the need for justice. And some, some Marxism kind of conflict theory. 0 (37m 14s): There's the good guys and the bad guys and the good guys are the R the R the have-nots and the bad guys, or the haves. And so we need to, we need to overthrow that. And then there's these racial things and these gender things, and this is sexuality thing. And, and then of course we're America's, and we're always kind of protesting. We're always kind of trying to upgrade our society. So there's that in our blood and stuff, but there wasn't, there was missing at the evergreen state college. I heard so much Christianity, but only, yeah. And half are all the sin, all the guilt, all the confession, all the shame, no redemption, other than submission to another person. 0 (37m 55s): And then, and then confession that the world itself is evil. It's very Gnostic. The world itself is this corrupted system. It's a patriarchal hetero-normative capitalist structure that screening all of our reality and, and hogging all our authenticity, our authenticity to herself, and then forcing us to judge each other and look down on each other and stuff. So there's that, which is like a God. And then there's all this implicit stuff like sin, like, oh, I'm, I have all these biases. And even if I'm black and I disagree, that means I have internalized white supremacy. It stains everything. Everything is racist. That's Robin de Angelo again. So this, this religious structure kind of comes in there and there's nothing else there. 0 (38m 41s): And, and in that space between people in so far as religion, isn't just a personal relationship with your authenticity, your soul and your God. But, but there's this community structure between people that kind of like the religion that was there was eroded, and it probably was outdated. It probably needed to be really just kind of dilapidated, so it can rise again. But what we have is a false religion rising, and the gap that is the deepest, that's like the beginning of the deepest level for me of this. And then trying to figure out that level of that, of, of just basic human experience in America at this time. 2 (39m 21s): I think that's an amazing analogy. I've heard it compared to a religion before, but not at that depth. And I think it makes a lot of sense. I think we, as human beings, all like, like you said, have that need that, or that, that kind of avoid that. We want to fill with something, something bigger than us. And right now it's very, it's not in Vogue to say that you're religious. Like if the closest you can really say and get away with it as saying that you're spiritual. Right. And a lot of people like, oh, the spiritual, not religious, sorry. And my experience, I think we're all kind of talking about the same thing. Right. But there's, there's a lot of, I think that we're all saying that there is a God. 2 (40m 5s): And for some reason we don't want to say, we can't say God anymore. So that's why we say, some people say source. Now, some people will say spirit or the universe, and you have to call it by these other things. Otherwise you're the food, you know, people are gonna think I'm weird or I'm gonna be more of an outsider or no, one's gonna take me seriously. But we're all talking about the same thing you can, when you talk about different religions, if you're talking about fauna or all or whatever, I think we're all just talking about this, this more pure forest that's bigger and greater than us that we're trying to essentially return to. I dunno, maybe I'm like over-generalizing for that. That's, that's my intake on it. 2 (40m 48s): So it to like, argue about these, these words that, you know, that are dirty or Christianity's bad, or being Jewish as bad or being Muslim, is that all of these were all F for the most part and the purest sense. We kind of agree that I think more than we disagree. And I, what I think is interesting too, is there's almost like an intrinsic shame that a lot of us have. And I think that's, so if you talk about the medieval times when you would repent and you would take like a whip with yourself, right. To, 0 (41m 22s): Yeah. It was that, that was a particularly outlier case that did happen. It wasn't always there, but there was confession. 2 (41m 28s): And there was like, yeah, well, 0 (41m 31s): But, but that guilt channeling that shame and channeling that guilt through a process of collective conscience, building that consciousness, but conscience building, and just, just the act of confession itself, where you go to a priest, you share your sins and borrowing from Jonathan Basho here, and then your sins are kind of dispersed through the community. Cause the priest kind of takes them onto himself. And then, and then, so, so you're not holding all of that inadequacy to yourself and all that mistake yourself. 2 (42m 5s): Yeah. And then what we're, what we're missing now is, is that road to redemption or the greats. So that's, what's missing and the social justice version or in the critical race version, because it's almost like they, they will demand an apology. If you do anything that goes against the dogma, but then once you apologized, you're still canceled. Like right now I like tweeted the other day. It was like, are you trying to cancel a state right now? Is that what is happening, Georgia, Georgia. Yeah. So I can't remember who I was, it was some commentator. And he was like, it's no coincidence that they call it the masters tournament. And it was like, you are reaching and it's, it's kind of, its like that race lens is that people talk the, talk about it and put those glasses on and you looked for racism, everything is racist. 2 (42m 54s): Or if you looked for sexism. Right. And, and like, I don't know. And I always thought when I heard masters, I thought of mastery. Right. Which is something that a lot of us don't have or, or even trying to get, which I think is a lot of the lack of purpose, which leads to everyone being mad and everyone going on social media and everyone being in constant state of outrage. So I thought that in a positive way, like mastery, right? Like these are the world's best, most elite golfers mastery. Right. 0 (43m 26s): Which is based on merit, which is a problematic concept, the grand scheme of yeah. Of critical social justice or whatever it is merit than it like that. Cause that was, that would include too much personal responsibility and obscure all the accident of birth, which there's something to be said about, you know, we're not, we're not all bootstrapping ourselves. We come from lineages and stuff. 2 (43m 50s): Yeah. I heard Sam Harris break that down and he was, he said, he was basically saying, you can't really take, you can't take credit for almost anything that he went like way too far on the other side of it. So I'm like, well, there's still a lot of hard work and decision-making and you know, making the right choices. Like just because you're talking about an athlete, right. Just because you're born six foot eight, it doesn't necessarily mean you're going to be them and make a career out of it. The speaker of that 0 (44m 20s): Strict determinism, which is, I guess the Sams as strict determinist are very outgoing. Everything's determined. Everything's predetermined. Basically you don't have any free will. It's all kind of just an accident. And you're you, you're not aware of your decisions. Your decisions are being made by all these neuro-networks and et cetera, et cetera, et cetera. The, the problem with thinking that way you can, again, the individual can abstract themselves into the state where they're objectively viewing the world is all these accidental things. But between people, if that, if that becomes dominant, that we're all just accidents. 0 (45m 0s): And that becomes the, the, the, the substance between us and our, and our secular between one individual and other, if that becomes the way that we're the soup that we're swimming in, you get these really weird emergent properties of people calling themselves bodies and the black bodies and, and talking about their own selves as though they are. And that's a word that's used in the Evergreen protests. And it is a protest lens or critical social justice lens, where they distill everybody into bodies and they, they talk about the, the harm that's being inflicted by the system on the body. But, and action, once you start thinking of yourself as a body and you're no longer responsible, you can act, however you want, you can be a shameless as possible. 0 (45m 45s): You're not free from shame. That shame will always be haunting you because you are a conscious creature, but in that moment, you can be shameless. And, and a lot of the evergreen footage is just completely shameless because they're acting on a global scale. They're no longer acting as humans towards humans. They're acting as bodies in this great historical pinball game where they're going to smash through these structures and create a guess, something better that they call community love, whatever that looks like, which is it actually in practice is just infinite, guilt and shame and scapegoating, everybody 2 (46m 17s): As good as the day. There's not a lot of love in those and those videos. That's not how you get to love. Yeah. 0 (46m 26s): Yeah. So I don't know how love, I think love is another concept that could be easier, more expensive and more relatable term to kind of flesh out the concept of God and how such a concept since such a universal concept or such a concept as universal love being the glue that imperfectly kind of ties people together, but at least provides the conditions for what, what conditions are there. If there's love between us, as opposed to, I guess, determinism or racism, oppression, and, and stuff. If you start looking at that, can, can love, embrace all of that pain and suffering better than all that. 0 (47m 12s): And seeing all that oppression and pain and suffering can embrace love. Can you ever get to love through pain and suffering? Can you get the pain and suffering through love? I think love is actually more powerful. 2 (47m 21s): Oh, 100%. Even if you look at David Hawkins, like his, his hierarchy of emotions. So he breaks everything down into frequency and, and I mean, this is science. Everyone always thinks that it's crazy when I talk about this or that, it's like, whew, but it's measurable. So love is, I want to say the second, the highest vibration that you can experience. I think joy is above that joy or peace, but yeah, if you go down into like the anger or the apathy or jealousy, all of those are super, super low and that's, that's where you actually start. If you are, if you're familiar with Joe Dispenza, that's where you actually start to get sick. 2 (48m 2s): Your body actually starts to get sick. So the things that cancer can start to grow and auto-immune S issues. And 0 (48m 7s): Certainly society gets sick when it's run on anger and agreed and envi, and those things were always be there, but they need to be put into, you know, they need to be ruled by principles, which would principles would be something that serves love, joy and peace. Right. But once anger becomes the rule, I mean, and so to, to kind of just ping back to what you asked me, that it had an answer. I was on campus. It was really silly at first, but it got really bad and not terrifying, but really bad. Like, and I, because we're in a safe space right now, we can talk about energy. 0 (48m 48s): The energy of the place was the most darkest, closest thing to the palpable. I don't say this word lightly. And I mean, it lightly, it was evil. There was something evil and not during the protest, but afterward there was a spirit over that just was everywhere. I could barely breathe. That's why I started making the videos. Cause I'm like, I have to, I have to get this out of me. I could barely breathe. Cause it was just so heavy and oppressive. And, and if I was walking around campus and S one, one that I was walking to get my coffee on campus and I saw black men and I got really scared. I'm like, oh God, it's gonna, I'm gonna get it. I'm going to get attacked now. 0 (49m 28s): And, and I looked him like, this is crazy. I never ever want to think this way. And I never did until this godforsaken, progressive college taught me that taught everybody that that's the order of the day. Like it, it was the exact opposite of love. And that's the weird thing. Cause I was at all these trainings and like, you're trying to, you're trying to teach charity and you're trying to teach respect, but you're not using those words and you're not producing that thing that I think is what you want. And, and so it just, it crumbled. It was vise. I don't know that that's like the weird kind of narrative poetic side of my story, experientially with that. 2 (50m 14s): No, I think that, that makes a lot of sense. It's like certain people can walk into a room and they're either energizing it and making it brighter or they can suck all up the air out of it. And I think when you have that many people that are on the same frequency, what is clearly of anger and clearly of fear and everything that's on that lower vibrational hierarchy scale, it makes sense that that's going to kind of radiate out and kind of linger. Doesn't just dissipate as the people leave, does it disappear? Camera's box there. And all of those things have a ripple effect. And where I see all, everyone going wrong, everyone going wrong, whether it's these professors or the CEO's that are bringing in people to teach these, you know, the quality seminars or whatever they are is they're letting everyone stay there. 2 (51m 8s): And just apologizing. Like when I was watching, I think it was the episode one, maybe that was going through the lineup of, I think different professors. And they were essentially apologizing for who they were. They're like, I'm so sorry. I'm privileged, I'm sick. I hate the word set. It's like, I refuse to use it to describe anyone, but they called themselves I'm TSYS and I'm hetero and dine white. And I'm a man. So I got the trifecta all have the privilege, you know what I mean? Like apologizing for these immutable characteristics. And then kind of, I guess you're, it's almost like giving the leash to a violent dog instead of correcting the behavior you don't want to see or trying to rehabilitate it with love or like there's all these other approaches you can, you can do. 2 (51m 57s): But just saying, I'm gonna take my hands off of the wheel and let you steer the boat, I think is the absolute worst thing that you can do. I think we can acknowledge that someone might feel all of these things. Like maybe you feel that you have had a bad experience at college or you've had a bad experience in the workplace, but how do we get to a place of loving each other and how do we get to a place of understanding? And if you can't get there, not your reality is not going to change. It doesn't matter how I, how I act or how I behave. You don't get to the place of love. Your reality is not going to change. So then it takes that accountability out, right? Like your mindset is your reality. 2 (52m 39s): It's not me. It's not the environment. It's your mindset. And for some reason, no, one's addressing that. It's not, you create your own reality. Yeah. Yeah. 0 (52m 49s): Well, the, the, the locusts of it's called hyper hypo hypo agency. It's something that a good friend of mine, I wish she still produced videos. She doesn't, she retired. The tag name was Alice void, very, very sharp Canadian philosopher. And she did a great video about hypo agency, specifically criticizing feminism for make making. Female's always the weakest won, like really leaning into the female is historically oppressed. And all of decisions are made for her and eventually puts all the agency are all the intention outside and you don't have any more because you're just a part of the system. 0 (53m 34s): And that leads to a bunch of, I guess, sicknesses of behavior and stuff. And also like just speaking about feminism, that kind of obscures a lot of the, the less obvious powers have communication. And of course the steering, the boat from the back that historically, I think women did a lot of, but weren't written down in song. Weren't really detailed because my supposition is that women were transmitting a lot and knowledge verbally that wasn't actually written down until later on and history. So that sense of hypo agency or displacing the individuals locus of control of their environment and also of their self on to the environment, it leads too. 0 (54m 18s): It leads to a lot of powerlessness and then anger and resentment. And then what happens. And this was the amazing thing about evergreen is that then who eventually it gets up in power is the most narcissistic, sociopathic individuals completely dominate this entire oppression, oppressed thing. The person with the right characteristics can now manipulate everybody. And if they're charismatic enough and articulate enough, everybody has to follow along because anything else is violence. And we see that now with Peter begonia and who's a professor at Portland state university, he's been writing about how this ideological faction within his college of these critical social justice scholars are now construing any criticism as harassment, which is incredibly sociopathic and narcicisstic. 0 (55m 17s): That means that you can never question this person, but they can always call you out and always dominate you and push their ideas, which are very invasive as we see upon everybody else. So there's, there's, there's a lot of, I think, I think you're really on the right track and this is kind of the place I try to go to because we can analyze all these structures from the, the systemic and the institutional to the rhetorical, all these different moves, but it was like, well, what are we trying to do here? And where are we all the same? And he go back to Martin Luther king Jr's, you know, and I want to judge people based on the content of their character and what is that even mean? Like, I, I think that that phrase is tossed around in the antiwar discourse and the classical liberal discourse, but we have to really get down to you, like, okay, what are the, what is it to have a content? 0 (56m 9s): And, and I love how you're, you're bringing up like these vibrancy keys and, and this, these feelings, these phenomenal realities that we inhabit and that we can choose to go through. And then somehow that creates a character and what is a character, and then you, you actually have to go through, well, what is that? What is a character in relationship to reality or God or the spirit. And then that's what I use to guide me when I was sitting through all these, you know, these, these trainings where people want me to look at people's race and their sex and their gender and, and label them correctly. And I'm like, I want to see the individual first. 0 (56m 50s): And yeah, there's all this pattern recognition woman, man. Black-white. And then, and then more importantly than black and white and their body posture and the tone of voice, like where are you coming from? Like, what, what's your state? You know, like that's how I assess somebody. What is your state? And then I'm like, well, I'm gonna speak to the who you are. And I had a lot of time with children working in the preschool for a long time. So I kind of have this, that I just, I kind of see who they always are and, you know, that's who I want to contact, connect with them. There's always these barriers and stuff. And my job as a communicator is to break through those barriers and make a connection, which is through humor or through some version of love, joy, or peace. 0 (57m 30s): That's how you make the connection, not all of this pattern recognition, all of this bias stuff and antivirus stuff, all that stuff, it gets right in the way have that connection and connection. And are you still connected? 2 (57m 42s): Yes. And it still connected? No, I think that makes so much sense and I always found it really interesting when people hyper-focused on and identifying ad as these things that are immutable. It's like, you can't change that. Well, you can't change what race you were born. You can't change what sex you were born. And we're so focused on that as being, so I guess, definitive of who you are and if you spend any time with spirituality or with religion, or even like, yeah, create yeah. With any kind of introspective work, you realize you're not those things don't really matter. 2 (58m 27s): I guess, to a point, like I don't walk around all day thinking that I'm a woman. Like, I just I'm, I'm like, no, I'm one is it, it, it doesn't, it's not an active part of my thought process throughout the day. I'm sure it probably defines a lot of my behaviors or decision-making, but it's not something that I'm the hyper focused on it. I'm not hyper-focused on my race. I mean, I don't know. It just, there's so much more, that's interesting about me or about you or about anybody than these immutable characteristics. And it's almost like we don't want to explore that territory or maybe we just simply don't know the answers to that. So then we're just, this is who 0 (59m 6s): I am. There's ways of establishing spaces for that discourse, those discussions, and that intermingling of humans to happen. And I think that we've been kind of like the, the, of our society has been smushed through the greater of social media and there are different technologies that are emerging. I, I, I see you on clubhouse. I think that that's a really good I've, I've been learning a lot. I've been learning a lot about African-Americans and, and their communication style and the way that they talk and the way that they, even, the way they interrupt one another. And, and then, and also so all their, all their behavior and their, their vibe, but then also their, where they're coming from. 0 (59m 53s): And like, you know, th they're experiences and trying to deal with their position as a group in a society. So there are realities to identity. There are realities to all these different intersectional standpoints. There is a reality there, right? The intersectionality based on the critical theory is only good at breaking people apart. It does not provide that coming together other than coming together to exhaust our oppression. And again, to return to evergreen, what I saw behind the scenes, well, behind what everybody saw was that the college took up this social justice goal, and they started becoming more and more empathetic and more and more concerned with people expressing their emotions and everything kind of turned into a therapy session, but there was no real good solid training by anyone on how to be a good therapist, let alone a good group therapist. 0 (1h 0m 56s): So part of the thing that's broken with the evergreen state college footage, that protest is that you see half of a therapy session. You see kind of have like that, that, that cathartic release, but you don't see anything other than demands for obedience. At the end of that, you don't see any feeling that circle of coming, coming back together because they can't do it because it's based on something that denies that in some way, in some way, there's something and critical social justice inter-sectionality and critical theory, and go with the dash of postmodernism. It's really good at corroding. And so it doesn't provide the spaces. It provides a lot of friction spaces where friction happens. 0 (1h 1m 39s): So I don't think we have the, I think part of our work has to be, it is to bring up voice's I do it. One-on-one bringing up voices and, and interview and a relaxed manner, all these different people from different identity groups, but there can be communal spaces we have to go, but we have to have the overarching sense of community. And that itself is being corroded actively by this, all these theories that are saying it's all the oppression. It all needs to be torn down. So without that balloon faulty, though, it may be without that dome of, I don't know if America, but at least the human let alone, like if you want to go higher than you can say, God, which I think gives me personally more access to more states of being, but I am American, but I can only, I have to find that way of being together with people. 0 (1h 2m 30s): And we need to work on, on that structure so that all these identities and positions and, and then all the problem's and then hopefully some of the solutions can come to work. 2 (1h 2m 40s): Yeah. I mean, I definitely think that there's, there's a need for, I don't know how to say this there's a need for those spaces. Absolutely. And I think everyone has experiences that are really shitty and they need to find people that can relate to those shitty experiences. Right. It just, it helps you feel normal and seen and accepted and all of those beautiful things that we need. But what I'm saying that it is, it's almost counterproductive to hyper-focus on these, these identities that we can't change like race or gender is because if you scope out, like when you, you said, if you scope, scope out to God, right? 2 (1h 3m 22s): If you scope out that far, we're all the same. We all came from the same space and were all made of stars. But that is that it is our, our DNA is, it sounds like a mobi song, but it's true. And we, there is this there's this oneness and we all returned to the same place. So when we've focused on these things that are our Achilles heel, right, as, as a country, like race is definitely our Achilles heel. It's something that it's still very raw for a lot of people. I don't think you can get, it's a lot harder to S to arrive at that place of oneness or that place of love or that place of you. 2 (1h 4m 3s): Have you ever done this? Do you meditate? No. No. So there's a lot of M meditations that Jonah spins does and he's, he was like a world-renowned leader. And when it comes to like self healing and he does like seminars all over the world and some of the meditations he does, and my husband does all the time and like two hours long, and it's trying to become no one. So it's like, who are you when you become no one, when you detach yourself from this meat sack of a body, right. That you're going to exist further. Then like, once this thing has dead and gone and you don't cease to exist, there's a soul or spirit or an energy that the person that lives on it. Right. So what is that? 2 (1h 4m 44s): That's the important thing. That's the intelligent thing. That's the sense of, I, I think a lot of times we get, I guess, confused that this is, I right. This body is I, but you were something before and you're going to be something after. Yeah. And I think when we focus on our differences, it's so much harder to, again, get to love, which is the more positive place. And that's what we all want. Those people that are so angry and screaming and borderline and violent, they just, they need love more than anybody. And that was something I think that you're really good at is when were narrating some of your videos on the Evergreen stuff you were talking about this one professor who just, she was very angry. 2 (1h 5m 25s): She did a lot of shouting. I can't remember her name. And you were explaining why sh her mental state was where it was at. And you did a really good job at explaining her reality and her where she was coming from. And I think a lot of people don't do that. So I really appreciate it that insight. And, and I think that what was her name for a woman? 0 (1h 5m 47s): She left Evergreen, she got the settlement 250,000 that she goes to this art community or whatever, and Tulsa and ends up suing them for the same thing she 2 (1h 6m 2s): Carrying around. So where's that where's, this was the common denominator there. Right. I had this, speaking of, I had this and we're looking for a new nanny right now, and I had this application the other day and she was like, okay. So I think it's important that I let you know that I have a service dog, which is fine. Yeah. I don't have an issue with that. So that the service dog is for, for a lot of childhood trauma that I've had so very specific. And she says, I've had a lot of experience with negative situations and a really good and specifically a hospitalizations, traumas, abuse, and names, all of these things. 2 (1h 6m 46s): And it was like, whew, I do not want that. And she, and my house, or, and my family sound like you've had it rough go. I did it. And obviously not interviewing this person, but there's a lot of people like that where that's their normal and they don't, I guess, take it, I guess maybe you can't when you're in that state, but you, you don't take a breath step back and say, who's, what's the common factor that keeps here? Is it me? Or is this experience unique? If this experience is unique, maybe there's, you know, something else happening, but if it's a pattern, then maybe there's something that I have to look inside of myself to try to break that pattern. 0 (1h 7m 28s): There is an aspect of activist culture that attracts traumatized individual's and then concentrates that trauma, and then acts as a justification for maladaptive behaviors related to that trauma, basically a whole bunch of acting out to solve the world, but not really understanding that you're trying to solve something in here. Right. It's very clean your room. It's very clean your room. 2 (1h 8m 2s): I know. I love that rule. Make your bed. I'm really bad at that too. Every time like Jordan Peterson really mad at me right now, I'm try and change the world podcast. But my bed's not me. I was definitely one of those people though. I got, I got sucked into one of those, the gender and women's gender studies classes when I was a senior, I just like, I needed that, you know, random class to get accredited. What caught 0 (1h 8m 33s): You or captured you about that? 2 (1h 8m 36s): I thought it was going to, so I was a psych major. So I thought it was just an extension of a psychology class. I didn't really know anything about it. And I heard that it was a fun class that I heard from like other people. And I was like, I don't know, I needed an extra-curricular and I'll just throw it in. And maybe I'll learn something about, you know, women and sexuality and the show you day one was this awful, awful video of like the, the story of the S trans person getting murdered. And that's where they opened. And I'm like crying. And I'm like, the world is this evil place me. And it was in South Carolina. So, you know, there talking about how often the south is, which is weird at a Southern school. 2 (1h 9m 22s): And you just, you get so emotionally invested in these stories because they're just these individual stories and it's not to take away from the violence or those wrongdoings, because obviously no one's condoning that, but they make it seem a lot more prevalent. I think that it is. So it was actually ironic or I guess what started, I guess, for me to see things differently, because I, I went from thinking everything was bad and evil and not accepting. So I actually started a, like, I can't remember the name of it. I think it was called like the, it, it was like the pride group or something. Like, there was no, no spaces for like the gay community on campus at all. 2 (1h 10m 4s): It got kind of shut down and whatever it was like, okay, I'll do this. Like, I'll create this the space. And then I give it to someone who's actually a member of this group because I don't belong as the precedent because I'm straight. So I create this, this group handed over to somebody else. And we had like, you know, like tables out on the lawn and people were signing up and creating like meetings and there was food and drinks. And like, everyone was so nice. Like everyone was so nice. There was not a single negative interaction that I had at all. And I was like, okay, well maybe this place isn't as bad as that teacher said, because no one was like, move your booth or get out of here slur word. And not everyone was like, this is a party you and music. 2 (1h 10m 45s): And it was wonderful. And, and I'm pretty sure that club is still open, so that's awesome. But yeah, it, it just kind of showed me like the world's not as bad as those classes tell you that it is. And I don't know why we're trying to scare the shit out of young people before they go into the real world 0 (1h 11m 3s): Was me and a friend Mike nine hour tooling around with writing a script, trying to take our knowledge and put it into a traumatic. And I have this, kept it on returning to this image of this girl who's 18 and 19. And she shows up on campus just like bright eyed, bushy tailed. And she gets involved in one of these courses that starts to break her down and show her these evil things and just reduces her state and just bombard her with negativity and then bombard her with love and the negativity of the world and love from us and negativity from the world. And just like watching this, this really innocent, happy girl, like be transformed into this raging harpy, you know, like going around and like demanding people, change their behavior. 0 (1h 11m 52s): And just watching that happen, just to show that the output of a lot of this stuff there, there are psychological tools or that kind of these reprogramming ways. I don't know if they're emergent. I dunno if they're intentional, but the people are being turned into this stuff. Like what you were saying really brought that up to me. And there was one other thing that you're making me think of about, oh yeah. Deborah. So, so Debra. So you've had her own 2 (1h 12m 22s): And twice, and then she actually just had me on her podcast that just okay. Yeah. She's wonderful. I love it 0 (1h 12m 29s): Again. Yeah. And I was talking to her and Abigail Shrier and they both came out with books about, well, Abigail Shrier talked about a rapid onset gender dysphoria within teen girls, mostly. And then Debra wrote about gender. And we were talking about the school system because they both get in to the school systems, the stuff that's being pushed there and how it's not based on reality, how this, all this gender stuff is not based on reality. It's based on feelings. Do you feel this way? Do you feel that way? It's not. It's it's the reality is over there, but your real self is over here. So it is religion. It's very religious. They do, they do everything except say, and these documents that are in public schools, that your gender is your soul. 0 (1h 13m 12s): That's every, they do everything except to say that it's your soul, but they're describing the soul, which is this gender binary thing. That's fluid and exists outside. And anyways, so I'm trying to, I was asking Deborah, and I'm like, well, why teach? Why teach this IR reality? Why, why put this distinction between all this language about sex, which is really useful and the real world really useful for understanding how it works and understanding the consequences understanding of it's violated too, which is one of my big worries about this gender stuff, acute occluding sex sex is that you now have these children who can't even name if they're being molested anymore, because now there's all this language about, well, maybe it was okay because this and that and everything's fluid anyways. 0 (1h 14m 3s): But Deborah's point was that once you teach this to children or any sort of thing, that's not based reality, the children, they don't, they can't verify anything themselves. They have to verify it through this outer system that you can then control. They can't verify physical reality anymore. They're in this world that you then control and then you have access to dictating and they're completely reliant on you to tell them what reality is. It's a very, you know, I don't know if that's intentional or not. She didn't say it was intentional or not. But the effect is that you have a bunch of young people who aren't really connected to their bodies, let alone to their souls. 0 (1h 14m 44s): So there is like this, this broken religion, like you're saying, when, when you're talking about the soul, you're talking about the body. I understand that I have experiences of that. I have experiences before life, after life. You know, I understand myself as a continuum, but there's all that, there's all that. And there's all that in there too, but it's dressed up in all of this other stuff. And then I see the action of that is that it doesn't locate the agency and the reality and the personal experience, it locates it. And all these terms, all this language, that's always melting in this post-modern way with all the suppression, that's animating everything. So there's just something weird. That's very spiritual about it, very Gnostic about it, but it's hidden. 0 (1h 15m 28s): So I trusted even less because they hide it. 2 (1h 15m 31s): Yeah. That's the, that's where the whole, that I'm gender is. It makes you dizzy. We ended up in gender. Yeah. Yeah, we did. We did. And it makes me, I've read, I've read Dr. Deborah says book. She writes it in a very digestible way, but in less you come from that world or constantly carry a notebook with these stats or like the scientific findings. It's very dizzying. And then you have these people that talk about fluidity, whereas struggle with it is, well first, do you think that the soul has a gender? Like once you leave your body? 2 (1h 16m 13s): Yeah. That story. Okay. 0 (1h 16m 14s): So I have a spiritual practice it's called Subaru or, yeah. And it's it, it's a contraction of three Sanskrit words, meaning Sushila Buddhi and Dharma, but it's based on the actual practice is a direct receiving where I, where I relax and then I receive something it's usually it starts as an energy as a tingle, and then it kind of rises up into song and dance or words or thoughts, you know? So it's this something that's coming from inside of me out. And then that suits me and I get a lot out of it. And there's this really cool thing. And every once in a while you get an inside and I was, I was in this really relaxed state one day. This is a while ago, I was in this relaxed state. 0 (1h 16m 55s): And then I was curious and be like, well, what is my man, my masculine side? And I just felt it just from a very quiet place. I just felt my masculine. And then I asked, well, what is my feminine? And from the S C, I just felt that, and there were two distinct energies. Like there was this femininity and this masculinity, and they're like, well, what is it like, what is, what am I like? What is my state like when those are, when those are in harmony? And I felt really, I just felt complete. I felt like, totally relax, calm, engaged, soft, and heart at the same time. And in a way that was very, it was just, it was amazing. So I think that, you know, I have a lot of masculine functions in the world. 0 (1h 17m 39s): I probably have more masculinity than femininity. I don't go into that gender stuff because it's so romantic. But when I, when I write my fictions and I have a female character, I project my femininity in to that vessel. And there's different females, you know, there's just one female. There's the, all these, some of them are really scary. Some of them are really awesome. Some are beautiful. You know, some of the powerful, some are weak, some are sad, you know? And then when I write my men, I kind of locate my more masculine forms. So I play out my gender through fiction. I located in fiction. And then I have the interaction of the masculine and fiction and the symbolic world that hopefully eventually someday might be digestible by other people, or it might be entertaining or enlightening the other people. 0 (1h 18m 23s): Cause I'm communicating something by using those symbols. So it does make sense to me as a narrative form, but going around the world and feeling my gender, this and my gender for that. And then demanding that everybody see that part of me like, nah, that's unartistic, I will, I will evoke that feeling in you, but I'm not going to demand any S on artistic. That's a violation of the artistic principle. 2 (1h 18m 50s): I like that. Where you said that you're gonna evoke it and sort of demand it. Yeah. Yeah. That's beautiful. Yeah. So I feel like that concept is I think that the idea of gender, or whether you want to talk about, you know, the divine feminine, the divine masculine, which is terms you hear a lot now, or just those energies in general. I think a lot of that's probably attached ego. And what they say is that the ego dies of the body. It's not part of this whole, like, it's this own thing. Cause I don't think a dog walks around and it was like, I'm feminine. 2 (1h 19m 32s): And I'm like, they know that they're a female, but its not like, it's not like I can wear dresses or I can wear a lipstick or whatever it is traditional and in your culture. Right. Which kind of goes against the idea that, you know, is that it, I don't know where I was going with that, but, 0 (1h 19m 53s): And we can't and girl cat and they are definitely ones, female ones, boy. But they all the way, they're not all, not all females are female. Not all males are masculine and cats, but there's definitely differences between them. There's definitely 2 (1h 20m 4s): Differences. But I'm saying like they're not going around demanding other cats recognize their femininity. I would. I mean like its not, it just, is it just, is it just, it is. But when it comes to like souls, I don't think so. I don't think that his soul has a gender. I think that that's the human experience. It's fear for the human experience 0 (1h 20m 31s): Burn. Have you experienced it like that state of nonduality and 2 (1h 20m 35s): Briefly I've had, I've had like dwindling moments. So what I do, so I, I try, I'm trying to make this more regular thing, but I go to the Saint called bio cyber dot and it's its brain training and Biocybernaut but it's, it's the coolest thing. I think if every single person could go, the world would be a better place. Everyone would be happier, healthier, wealthier, all of the things. But when you're there, it's kind of like your doing like really deep meditations for what I would say a couple hours at a time. And like almost like almost sensory deprivation. You do have neuro feedback so you can hear your brainwaves, but that's it. 2 (1h 21m 19s): But other than that, it's like a pitch black room and your sitting and you're not, you know, there's not a lot of stimuli happening. No not and salt. It's just so it's in, it's in like an, a very small room. It's completely, once they turn the lights off, it's completely blank. It's like double doors and you're, you're connected to the wall behind you with your neuro-transmitters and they come out as an auditory feedback response. So you can kind of hear like, okay, I'm producing Alfa and my right occipital or my right frontal and I'm producing it in my left temporal whatever. And let's try and get know cohesion going. And it's this really cool thing that you just try to purposely manipulate your brainwaves. 2 (1h 22m 5s): And when you're in these really deep meditations, whether you're in a high alpha state or a high beta state, and because he offers like multiple kinds of trainings, there is a sense that you're no longer in your body. It's almost like your body disappears and you're just experiencing, you're just experiencing these noises. So in those moments, I'm not, I'm not even candidates. I'm not even, I'm not a woman. I'm, I'm just the observer. Yeah. And it's yeah, that's the only way I can really explain it. So when you get to those levels and realize how silly all of these things are, but where I was going with that with the gender thing is if the sole doesn't have a gender and part of it was like, okay, well it could, you know, gender is fluid and it can change. 2 (1h 22m 57s): And it's this elusive thing. I feel like they're kind of using that as leverage, I guess, to manipulate human experience. And I think two things can be true at the same time. I think that your soul can not have a gender, but while you're here having your human experience, I think that you're born into the body that you are for purpose. I think that there are certain lessons, hardships and gifts that come out of that. I don't think life is supposed to be easy. I don't think coming from my own experience that, you know, growing up in the female body as not the easiest, when you're going through puberty and you have all of these ads being thrown at your face with these gorgeous women that all of like chisel, like it's a very uncomfortable time. 2 (1h 23m 45s): Right. And the part of the journey is to, is to have love and appreciation for your imperfections and be okay with everything that is uncomfortable. So I think, yeah, the soul can be gender lists, but while you're here in this human experience, that there's two genders. And by trying to make that any more confusing than simply saying that it's to kind of hide from your purpose or your truth, or the reason that you're here on the surface. 0 (1h 24m 16s): I think what you bring up with the ego, here's the key, the key word, like, cause there's a lot of every Sunday, Twitter props up some sort of LGBT plus plus hashtag and you go over to it it's yesterday was LGBTQ duties. Right? And, and all it is is a bunch of young people taking sexy photos of themselves. There's just like a whole stream of people looking for adoration. Right. And it was just like it's to bring awareness of what that you're attractive or available, or you want some sort of recognition so that the at, and that's really, really shallow, but this realm of gender or this, this codification of this concept of gender and some sort of reservoir of self and then have connectivity through all these other genders and then sexualities to ten-year-olds now, or having these conversations, like what's your sexuality, you know, like, are you pan, are you buy or are you, you know, Pharaoh gender, you know, like you're attracted to magnets, you know, what, what is it? 0 (1h 25m 25s): And you know, which is disturbing a couple levels, but you just see how far this idea has gotten, where you have. And I was bringing up that example because I was interviewing a philosopher, his kid, his 10 year old kid, you know, through zoom, after the teacher left, all the kids started talking about their sexualities and I've talked to Sasha about this. Who's a therapist for teenagers and her big insight, one of her main and size she's very insightful. So I shouldn't say her main or major and insight, but one of her insights that she gifted onto me was that this a lot of the gender stuff specifically regarding females going through rapid onset dysphoria or a lot of gender issues that females are experiencing is because they are, their mind is developed and, and plugged into the internet and they're getting all this data. 0 (1h 26m 14s): That's not sensual anymore. And it's, it's all verbal or, you know, or even porn up and pornography, which is removed from the body. So they're getting all this, this information and then they're being asked, well, what is my, does that, what do I desire my lesbian? Am I gay? What am I? And I've spoken with a lot of D transitioners who like who females, who did steps to become men or to take hormones or at least to identify as males. And some of them turn out to be lesbian at the end. And I try to respectfully ask, well, to what degree was your desire involved in this? To what degree did you even have a sexuality before they had all these terms? 0 (1h 26m 57s): And a lot of them don't didn't even actually feel any desire for anybody. It was all up here and do what they are. It was all this identity stuff. So there's, there's this mismatch where the cart is leading the horse, the horse is and even ready and the carts are already going downhill, right. In a way. So I forgot my original point, but gender seems to be this way for it's this new language that's really helped that people are exploring right now. But ultimately you can look at all their by-product and it's been going on for ages like this. Isn't nothing new for a guy to wear lipstick, David Bowie, you know, and all these guys, it's a long tradition and it doesn't mean you're not a man. It doesn't mean you're not a woman, but what does it mean to be a man? 0 (1h 27m 40s): What does it mean to be a woman? To what degree do we need? Men's only spaces to what degree do we need? And women's only spaces and I'm not just talking bathrooms, I'm talking clubs and activities. To what degree do we develop when we're in a room, in a space with our own sex and to erase sex bars is from exploring that. And maybe bars us from a lot of evolutionary data that gets unlocked when we're among our own sub kind. 2 (1h 28m 7s): Yeah. I think that those spaces are, are vital. I think they're absolutely vital, especially when you're younger and you're growing up. I think I was listening to a podcast. It might've been Bret Weinstein's, but I could be mistaken, but he was talking about the importance of men's spaces. And I don't, I mean, I'm very ignorant to that because I'm not a man. So I've never been in men's only spaces. And it's funny because the narrative was always like that sexist, right? So the, the club clubhouse or M country club where members of like, they have a, men's only 16 Pohl and a women's only space. And we were like, well, that's that so sexist so that the women can go into that room because that's the only room with the bar. 2 (1h 28m 51s): So it's very easy to, to break it down and say, well, they're just trying to exclude us. But then you listen to his podcast and he's like, there's a lot that happens in men's only spaces. Like we, we correct each other's bad behavior and private, right? So we don't have to chastise you on Twitter and ruin your reputation and say, Hey, like you were acting like a Dick. We need to fix this. They were, you know, this behavior is not acceptable. So there's that aspect of it. There's just like certain jokes that aren't going to land. Well, maybe with women, there's ways to bring each other up. There's networking. There's just a lot, there's it sharing your experiences as men? The energy 0 (1h 29m 29s): Is very, to speak energy. It's like the energy of a women's space and a men's space, really different. I've had experiences of like being shown that I don't belong in women's spaces, just like dreams about my energy intruding on the female. And that I, I there's parts of me that I can't suppress, that would dominate a female group. I'm more beady and they're more sing songs. And so it was just, I've had experiences about that, like kind of visceral experiences on that level, but also socially and all that stuff. 2 (1h 30m 0s): Right. And those are all in deniable. So I think it's silly to say that those places can exist or that, you know, it's just it's causing exclusion or whatever, because there's plenty of shared spaces. And no one mentioned that like almost every space, especially now because everything's digital as a shared space. But I think it's interesting that you, when you were talking about that therapist, she was saying that because so much stuff is online and that's kind of creating confusion. And that makes a lot of sense because you're not having that energetic connection or where you are experiencing, what is that attraction feels like? And it's different, even if you were watching porn, which it obviously is meant to make me feel a certain things that's not the same and they've done FMRs. 2 (1h 30m 41s): The brain is different when you watch porn and orgasm, then when you orgasm with person there, there's actually a neural difference. And I think the stuff like the lock down and not spending time with people, cause now we're also scared of getting germs. I think it's going to be really detrimental to this because if we're already seeing and rapid onset with young girls specifically, I wonder if that's going to get worse. Now I heard 0 (1h 31m 8s): Rumors that actually some of that, I, I haven't seen any studies and stuff, but I've seen because of the communities that I'm connected to through my, through my exploration of it. So it is a kind of a selection bias on my behalf, but it's, it seems that without that social pressure, some of the identifying as trans is leaking, there's actually some coded articles coming out that I've seen the last few days about women saying, I don't feel queer anymore. And then they get a haircut from their boyfriend like, 2 (1h 31m 42s): Oh, oh, you, I saw a tweet 0 (1h 31m 48s): The way my head and my edge is feeling that same way. So I went out there with some Clipper's and half hour later and the queer lawn again. Right? 2 (1h 31m 56s): So what's that queer 0 (1h 31m 59s): With it. And there was another article that I saw and my queer, without anybody seeing me or does my, and my I'm losing my gender identity because nobody's seeing me. So gender identity is a stand in for con for connection or some sort of filter on connection. That, that, for some reason, it's gone really viral, hidden behind that as some queer theory, which I don't think is actually manifesting and the actual social dynamics and social media and stuff. And you have those Tik TOK videos, you have these weird just hive minds that are going around and messing with all these ideas. The only problem is that now we have the technology to inject all these hormones into yourself with consequences that people aren't necessarily capable or really thinking about or are being minimized in those communities is not that big a deal. 0 (1h 32m 43s): So there's a lot of things that are not good because of the way that we can affect our reality onto our bodies in perfectly. No. Yeah. 2 (1h 32m 55s): And that's the thing that I think is alarming that they're not being more honest about. So I would assume that a big part of your sexuality and how you identify as to like, whether you're a man or a woman or you're gay or you're straight, whatever a lot of that has to do with your ability to sexually connect with somebody else. Right? Like I'm straight because I want to sexually connect with men or whatever the example is. But when you do these transitions, a lot of the times I was talking to a couple of people that have done a couple of gender episode's and I'm still dizzy about it, but it can, the chances of you not being able to perform sexually. 2 (1h 33m 41s): I mean, that goes up a lot. Like I wish I had the statistic in my head, but I w it was definitely over 50%. It like, there's a good chance. You can never get an erection or that you can never have an orgasm. So what is the point of doing that surgery? How is that it can make you happy or fulfilled or lead a healthy life. I don't know. And to make that decision when you're 10 is absurd, absurd, making that decision and tell your parents, 0 (1h 34m 8s): Yeah, you can't actually make that decision like informed consent. You can't do that in the UK through their Kira bell case ruled that children are not capable of making such a profound decision on their life, the America society, but you know what, the people, the hormones are being advertised on my channel. Now it's a huge industry. It's trillions of dollars for this lifelong medicalization. And, and that is something that needs to be brought up. We need to have conversations like I've tried to do, I could do more work on this, but with actual trans people and D transitioners and parents and husbands and wives and all that stuff, to really just map out the territory, because the activist collapses everything into my way or death, give me the hormones or give me death, which is just the worst, most irresponsible way of guiding our society towards the future. 2 (1h 35m 10s): Have you had buck on your podcast? Yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah. He's a great guest. Yeah, really great guests. Yeah. He was saying, and like, if I ever took my kid to a doctor and they were saying, give, give them the hormones, or they're going to kill themselves. He's like, I would get my kid out of there so fast, what I would Sue that Dr. It was like, how are more parents not having that mindset? So with the, with the advertising, do you know if that's showing up, if the viewer is, cause you know how you can tick like kids YouTube or whatever, does that still show 0 (1h 35m 47s): Up? I, I don't do kids YouTube. If you do kids YouTube, you don't get any comments. And plus my content is not for kids. So I'm being honest, but I'm also allowing more interactivity, but those ads, I'm not putting those ads there. That's algorithmically generated. So that is some algorithm watching somebody looking at a lot of gender and transition and videos and saying, okay, maybe you would like this product Mo. So that's just how it works. But that, that these products are being sold on YouTube. So you can watch all these videos. And this is what happens with a lot of the detransition there's a lot of transitioners do very young. They just start watching all these videos about these really charismatic people, talking about their depression, talking about they're not fitting into society, how this is the solution. 0 (1h 36m 33s): Then have you, these ads like inject this now, inject this, now inject this. Now it's just like, it's really screwed up. 2 (1h 36m 40s): And you know, what's really scary is when you're watching things for a long period of time and your brain goes into a theta state, like a high Thetis state. And when you are in that state, it's a lot harder to filter. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. And it's a lot harder to filter bullshit from, from facts. So you are a lot, like you said, more malleable and more susceptible to advertising. That's that's reckless. 0 (1h 37m 4s): Do you? Okay. Okay. This is it. This is, this is the dicey turn and the conversation. Okay. If you're doing, if you're doing these conversations that lasts an hour, maybe two hours, maybe you're going to rogue in it and do a three and a half hour session. So you get into the, the audience, probably the, most of the audience goes away, but you, you have like a good hundred people listening through the whole thing. So with your knowledge that the, in a theater state, right. They're relaxed, they're malleable. They're, they're just purely ingesting, probably their body's engaged in something else that they're kind of in the state that we're in right now, we're in a really relaxed, I feel like we're really relaxed. 0 (1h 37m 46s): We're just kind of going back and forth. What is your responsibility toward those individuals that are in that state? What would you like to give them? What is important for you to give them? And like, if you're aware of that, what are you going to intend to do with that knowledge year? 2 (1h 38m 4s): My goal is to always just share what I, what are the facts? What is my opinion not to, not to muddy those waters, because I think a lot of people will try to say that their opinion is the fact. And I think that that's irresponsible. Right. And just being honest, upfront about like, what's my opinion and what is the S the data as of today. And then for me, I would say my mission statement of the podcast is to just create more curiosity in people, right? So like have people ask questions and not just say this talking head told me that. 2 (1h 38m 46s): So I have to take it as, as truth or to agree or whatever it is go along with. And then also to show the humanity behind people, especially people that we disagree with. So for me, like, I'm obviously a, what's considered a controversial person, shocker. So to show like my humanity, if I have other guests on it, like I had Wayne to prion and Audrey Hough, both which were pretty controversial guests, I didn't really know that, but to show their, their human side and to get you to, I guess, maybe question fundamentally and fundamentally held beliefs that maybe aren't yours, right. 2 (1h 39m 27s): It's like to pick apart what's your programming and where your core beliefs were, whereas that authentic itself, and then just get people to more, to more of a love vibration. So all good stuff. 0 (1h 39m 39s): Yeah. Yeah. I, I, dovetail, I think everything that I'm doing is aligned with that. I'd like, I like the, the, what you are talking about, that pyramid piece and love and joy and alternating between those not love too heavy, but like, like that, that community, that bond is always possible. That connection, I guess, I guess. And then that love, and this sense of the admiration of that human being that we're witnessing together that we're experiencing together. And then joy is joy. Is it like, that would be, that would be a thing. Like if I have an aspiration, like, like being able to provide that to the world would be amazing. 2 (1h 40m 21s): That's the beautiful aspiration. I'm actually reading the book joy right now. It's what the Dalai Lama and the arch. Oh, you'd read it. Yeah. 0 (1h 40m 28s): No, I don't know. I'm just saying the of stance now 2 (1h 40m 30s): And like, okay, I'm going to take it. And so far it's really good and I would highly recommend it. So it's with the Dalai Lama and the Archbishop. So sorry, but yeah, you should check that one out that so far. So, so good. And 0 (1h 40m 46s): Is there any tidbits of that? 2 (1h 40m 49s): It's kind of it it's explaining that the difference between like joy and happiness, like happiness is usually based on external factors where joy is more of an internal state. And it's kind of what we were saying earlier on in the podcast, which is your inner state kind of creates your reality. So to be an enjoyable state is like better for you, better for everybody else. And that's not, as it's not dependent on anything else it's dependent on yourself. So that one's really good. And then letting go by David Hawkins is really good, so that he talks a lot about the hierarchy of emotions and like their vibrational state and kind of where it really, no, I would love to, he wrote M power versus force 0 (1h 41m 39s): Power versus horses. Oh four. So 2 (1h 41m 43s): I feel like everyone, I read that book back in the day was super, super popular. Yeah. His work is really, really great changed the way I look at it. A lot of 0 (1h 41m 54s): Things say that the, the, the thing about being a podcaster is you just, you talk to the authors so that you can read just half their book, get a sense of it and then have them just telling you the book, it's like a direct audio book right. Into your brain. 2 (1h 42m 9s): I know. And, and like having them be able to break it down further is so wonderful. So he's, he's on my list, but I feel like he's out of my league. Right. Yeah. You never know 0 (1h 42m 19s): Though. I just, I just shoot out things. I mean, yeah, I shouldn't say this, but I'm trying to get Peterson on it. Thank you. Can do it. 2 (1h 42m 28s): And he re posted you though today, the post me and I keep on dreaming about him. 0 (1h 42m 33s): So I know that he's, I know that the eye of Peterson is like, 2 (1h 42m 42s): And I think it's so cool. I never would have guessed that you were like, so into like spirituality or religion or vibrations when you say stuff like that. Yeah. I'm like, that's really awesome. 0 (1h 42m 54s): You know, I, I really appreciate us getting into that. And I, I keep that off my channel except for live streams, just because of the way that it is for me and the way that my audience is formed. But I I've been doing a lot of podcast interviews where this has come up and I've just been allowing that side of myself to shine, not shine, probably throb or subtly. 2 (1h 43m 30s): No, I love it though. Yeah, because looking at your channel, I never would have guessed. Is it just a lot more serious? I think. And Hmm. Yeah, yeah. Yeah. Like seeing that side, what was that? Was that something that you just like worked on as like an adult later on? Or I know you said your dad's a, are you more traditional? 0 (1h 43m 54s): Are you talking about my spirituality? Yeah, yeah. A reality in my life that I could never stray too far away from they're like, that's the guiding principal of, it was always been the guiding principle of my reality. I mean, since I had very, very strong spiritual experiences as a kid that showed me that the reality behind or underneath my life. And then when I strayed from that, you know, growing up and kind of getting disillusioned with things like I want to search for that. And now I go through this getting closer to that and going away from that, getting close to that the next month, I'm going to kind of slow down my life and kinda give up alcohol drink too much and, and kind of do a version of Ramadan to kind of clean house and, and get back to that, that Benjamin, Benjamin thing, you know, it's important for me. 0 (1h 44m 46s): It helps me a lot. 2 (1h 44m 48s): Yeah. I feel like you get almost like a cheat code when you're like, when you're finally in tune with spirituality, you get those dreams, like you said, like that you can feel the eye of Petersen and then all of us that, and he's reached tweeting at you. I think that you get more of those serendipitous moments when you do focus on your spirituality and that, that part of your life, and start to think for you. 0 (1h 45m 12s): I was, I was listening to a talk by the founder of Sue bird this weekend. And he was talking about that where when you are in tune with power of God is the word that that I use, but we could use whatever you want when you are close to that, in that is something that it's infused you get, you get insights. And I was just thinking about that, like to what degree can I perfect my interview by, by really being attuned to that. And then really just, I, every once in a while, I just know that right thing to ask, and I know, and the right thing to say, and, and you can feel us go to a different different level. And I think it really does. 0 (1h 45m 52s): It's based on the exploring and, and maintaining and awareness at that level of myself. And then I can actually really pay attention to the other person. And I noticed that in you, I noticed that in the way that you handled this conversation, like you're providing the ground for conversation because of the way that the quality of your attention is allowing this to take shape on a different level than other people. You know, what's the super smart people. It really difficult to keep up with, but I'm not, I'm not super smart. Like James Lindsay or local, you know, they're like, oh, I'm like, okay, well maybe that's the question. 2 (1h 46m 29s): I dunno. I would put you on the same level as James, for sure. Yeah. I was, I was just as, I guess, nervous with my performance with you as I was with James. Oh, really? Yeah. Yeah. I didn't know 0 (1h 46m 43s): What we were talking about. No, I think, I think we did like two interviews this time. Like we did Molly interview and your interview, the kind of like, it kind of fit together. And this one, I didn't know what to talk to you about, and now I know what to talk to you about. Well, 2 (1h 46m 55s): I think that's, I think that that's the confusing thing. When you have someone that has their own podcast, it's to try to figure out what to talk to them about, because when you have the channel like yours, you hit so many topics and it's, it's hard to find that you write, like where's, where's Benjamin because you know what I mean? Because as a good host, you obviously want to provide a platform for your guests to be able to share because that's, I'm here to like, learn from you. And, and then add my little tidbits as we go along. It's like not about me. So I think that's what makes it a good host. And you do that a lot too, where you let your guests do their thing and then you chime in when you need to. 2 (1h 47m 38s): But yeah, like I was definitely, definitely nervous because you're this Analect. And I think for me finding who are the, yeah, I mean, that is a compliment, but for me, it being able, I'm obviously still fine tuning it. Cause I'm, you know, not even a year in, but being able to just focus on where you are going. And then just where my, my genuine curiosity is, and just go there because I've tried the whole format of like making a list and making a note. Like I have a notepad in front of me that like, I almost journal before each one, just like, let my mind go. 2 (1h 48m 18s): But anytime I've ever like, looked and say, okay, well what about this? And it's just so Dahl and it does it. There's no life there. It's too constricted. 0 (1h 48m 26s): Yeah. And once in awhile, I feel like I should have had a question that whenever I set up an interview and then people like, well, what are we going to talk about? I usually just say, I usually say, okay, your life and then your expertise, right. I want to know who you are. And then here's a couple topics that I'm curious about. And then usually they completely forget, and then they just kind of go off and we just go out and adventure or like, we're going to go, I'll follow you. And what's over there. You know, what does that mean? What's dangling from that tree. Huh. 2 (1h 48m 57s): But that's how you get more. That's how you get, I guess, deeper conversations. And then you can also have repeat guests because, so with Deborah, for example, she talks about her book a ton, obviously like that's mostly what she's doing on her press runs. And when she's doing all of these guest podcasts, when I had her on a second time, we just went somewhere totally different. And we were just talking about like sex and paraphilias and all of it, like any kind of abnormality is, and it was like a free for all. And everyone loved it and was like, man, I don't really get to see this unbridled version. And I think when you can do that with a guest, it's such a beautiful thing. And then they're more authentic instead of asking you a question that you've probably been asked a thousand times, right? It's like, well, let's just see where we naturally end up together. 2 (1h 49m 41s): It's a lot more fun that way. So I'll, 0 (1h 49m 42s): I'll land a guest who's popular and then they'll get the Benjamin treatment. And then I get the comments, the response like, oh, I get to see this other side of this person. You know, cause I don't, I don't adhere to that level, which is the marketing level or the, the, or even like the, the intellectual discourse level where people are kind of having the same conversations over and over and over again and be like, well, who are you with? Me and James and Lindsey, Jim, James, Lindsey, and vocal, we're getting, and we, we do, I do like the regular guests. Cause then you start to get a better pattern on each other. And then, you know, some people like learn how to listen to you or learn, you know, you kind of craft something like that. 0 (1h 50m 25s): And then you get more comfortable and, and get totally deeper. So when you find those people that you sync up with, definitely have them on it again. And then you get to kind of do a series. I like to meet up with people like some people like once a year and check in like, where are you now with the transition or the girls, especially because they're so young and every year is such a big leap from them, you know? And then other people like that, the NICU to kind of provide like this archival document on these people over time, which we lose a lot of it. Part of the flaw of cancel culture is that it compacts time and humanity and do something that doesn't change over time. And I think that that mentality is because we don't witness these people were attacking as living over time and developing and changing and moving from one idea to another. 0 (1h 51m 15s): And to Mar to, to, to model that for people I think is, is a valuable thing. 2 (1h 51m 22s): Oh yeah. There's like I said earlier, there's no room for forgiveness or grace or growth. And there was this quote and it's like, if you're not totally embarrassed about who you were last year, you're not doing enough work. And for me that's so true. Like even, even in shorter periods of time and like, man, I can't believe that's my, that was my head space. Right? Like I'm totally different. Like I M I was supposed to have Johann Johann Hari on last week, but it just didn't work out. He wrote lost connections. He's very difficult to nail. I thought I had him and just, it didn't pan out, but he totally changed my beliefs like radical 180. 2 (1h 52m 8s): And there's few times in my life where there's been such a stark difference. Like aha moment. I had a cop dad. So, you know, drugs were always, drugs were bad, right? Drugs were always bad. And you know, the way is fighting the drug quote, unquote drug war is the way to go. And Mexico's this awful place that, you know, is just trying to push drugs through our border. Yada, yada, I didn't have a lot of sympathy for addicts. I was kind of like, you made your, your bed and just stop. Right. Like, just stop was my, my belief. And then listening to him and reading his book and, you know, watching his interviews and all of that 180, like now I'm like all drugs should be decriminalized and we should have the centers where you're giving out heroin to people like crazy things that I was like, those people are mad men and they just want to ruin the, the youth of America. 2 (1h 53m 10s): That's what I believe that after spending time with him through his work, it just kind of, it completely changed my mind. So you could go back in time and probably find, you know, pieces of me where I'm criticizing addiction or these hard drugs or the legalization, or I should say, decriminalization of all drugs, who, who just did that, was it Washington state, Oregon, Oregon. When they initially did that, I was like, what the fuck are they doing? I thought it was the worst ID on the planet, but then I listened to him and all of the data that he was, you know, displaying. And I was like, we can't argue with that. 2 (1h 53m 49s): So 0 (1h 53m 50s): As long as you do the other end and take care of all the addict's and provide recovery for them, and that's the part where it fails, where people don't, the, the state doesn't set up the institutions for, you know, helping people that get hooked on that. 2 (1h 54m 7s): Okay. Yeah. So I haven't, I, I haven't seen what they're doing, but he was talking specifically about like Switzerland and who and who else was it as well? And 0 (1h 54m 19s): You use, okay, when you use European countries as the model, those are really deep cultures. So you're talking about a specific culture and America's its own culture. And even within America, there's so many different cultures, so that there's not that unifying culture, but I, I can't get too deep into that argument, but I'm always kind of like, we're not like Europe, any given country and something else is going to happen. And we don't have that connectivity. We're very, we're very scared and we're very, we're very independent. We're very atomized and our inner culture. And so we, I don't know if that lends to us taking care. And it's one thing to take the lid off the problem, the problem, which is that ultimately human nature, but, you know, human nature is to be lazy and just like, let the problem fester. 2 (1h 55m 7s): Oh, totally. But I definitely think we should try to implement what they were doing over in Switzerland just, and maybe some someplace small and just keep a super eye and see what happens. But if that's the subject that you're curious about, I definitely recommend checking out that book because I don't know that this is like the switch for me. Yeah. 0 (1h 55m 28s): Yeah. That's the whole conversation so I need to learn more. So we'll see what happens in Portland, but I know I'm on the street. It's like immediately, it's just like, okay, now we have even more heroin, homeless encampments going on. So, you know, but Portland's got many different problems. 2 (1h 55m 45s): Yeah. So it's not, not necessarily LSD. 0 (1h 55m 49s): I can get all the answers, the reason I want, but I can't get a single tab of acid. 2 (1h 55m 54s): Oh yeah. That, I always wonder where people are getting like all of those crazy drugs. So like when Rogan talks about doing like DMT, it's like, where's he getting that? I'm sure. I'm sure. I'm like, I want to explore that. I w I'm terrified again, cop daughter. So it's like deeply embedded in my place. Subconscious that if I do anything I'm gonna die. It's like when of the first time I smoked weed, I was 19. And I was convinced that I was, I was going to die, like overdose on weed. Cause I was so ignorant to it. So it was super paranoid. I was a really bad first experience, but yeah, it was a lot, but I'm actually supposed to be doing my first psilocybin experience. 2 (1h 56m 39s): Like next month is the goal. I'm really nervous. I'm doing a lot of prep work prior to that to make sure that I have like the best experience possible. And don't completely lose my mind and just cry and sob for six hours. But yeah, we're doing like a little mini girls' retreat with oh, it's ShawMan and we're just going to go see what we can find. I'm really excited, but I'm also equally nervous. So yeah, I've made giant strides in my, my belief system in that category. So do you want to tell the listeners are like where they can follow you support you like plug away? 2 (1h 57m 20s): Yeah. This 0 (1h 57m 21s): Is Benjamin Boyce and M my podcast is voice of reason. It's found in all the various podcast. Platform's my YouTube channel has Benjamin a boys. I do a lot of interviews. I have this really intense documentary and a lot of just talking heads stuff. The, the best way to serve me, support me. It's just check me out also, I'm on Twitter. If you're like my sentences, I was very spicy today. We didn't get into that, but maybe we, it well in the future and that's at Benjamin Boyce as well. Thanks for having me on 1 (1h 57m 52s): Of course. And thank you for giving me so much of your time and seriously appreciate it. That's it for this week's episode. If you enjoyed the podcast, please rate and review, and don't forget to hit that subscribe button. You can also share this podcast with a friend. It helps my bottom S grow and I really appreciate it. I hope to see you next week.