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Your Therapist Needs Therapy
Your Therapist Needs Therapy 139 - Deconstructing Civic Faith
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This week Jeremy takes a look at people deconstructing their civic pride and offers the framework of religious deconstruction as a useful model for navigating the fallout. We look at the “American Dream,” “Manifest Destiny” and even “We’re #1” as mythology that has been shown false and what happens to identity when people begin to pull on the thread of American exceptionalism. We talk about identity, community, and critical thinking as important tools in building a healthier, more realistic worldview.
As always, Jeremy has all his practice info at Wellness with Jer, and you can find him on Instagram and YouTube. To show your love for the show you can pick up some merch! We appreciate support from likes, follows, and shares as well! None of my online work would be possible without my media maven Kenny, so check out their work as well at kenlingdesign.com
If you’re looking for community with fellow deconstructionists of the overculture then check out the retreat my great collaborator Emily and I are hosting Rest & Return: A Weekend for Soft Landings. This retreat is designed to let your nervous system settle and come back to yourself. It’s rest, grounding, and trauma-informed connection instead of more noise.
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Podcasts about therapy do not replace actual therapy, and listening to a podcast about therapy does not signify a therapeutic relationship.If you or someone you know is in crisis please call or text the nationwide crisis line at 988, or text HELLO to 741741. The Trevor Project has a crisis line for LGBTQ+ young people that can be reached by texting 678678.
Hello and welcome to another edition of
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Your Therapist Needs Therapy,
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the podcast where mental health
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professionals talk about how they take
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care of their mental wellness while
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working in the mental health field.
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I'm your host, Jeremy Schumacher,
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licensed marriage and family therapist.
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I, uh,
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I am.
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I'm doing okay.
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You know, all things considered,
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we're at a war.
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The poly crisis rages on and, uh,
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you know,
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Here we are, America, twenty twenty six.
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The topic I want to talk about today
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is an interesting one, I think for me,
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for a lot of reasons.
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I left the church a number of years
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ago and have gone through that
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deconstruction a long time ago.
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And I think for me in my journey
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as an aversion person, as a queer person,
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the leaving the church was the big domino
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and like so many other,
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all the other dominoes had been set up,
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right?
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And so...
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when I was like,
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I don't believe any of this.
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And I said that out loud,
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everything else fell into place, right?
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My middle finger to the law,
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sort of contrarian attitude about a lot of
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authority figures in my life,
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but also about America and the state as
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a concept.
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And a lot of the institutions that I,
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as a poor person growing up,
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didn't trust and didn't like and didn't
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see the utility,
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a lot of that went away.
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But in working with deconstruction and
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religious trauma,
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what I'm seeing for a lot of folks
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is they're having to deconstruct their
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faith in civics in America as a concept.
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But this isn't just a uniquely American
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problem because Mark Carney,
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the PM from Canada gave a speech not
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that long ago that like made a bit
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of a stir.
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that basically said the old world order is
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over.
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And I think a lot of people are
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sort of waking up to that reality of,
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yo,
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like the system hasn't worked in a long
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time.
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And I think there is a skillset
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that goes along with religious
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deconstruction,
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with deconstruction in general, right?
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It's why I liked Watchmen when I first
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read it,
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one of the great superhero
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deconstructions.
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I think there's a skill set that comes
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along with deconstruction.
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And for people who have deconstructed
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their religion since Trump,
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around that time, or between now and then,
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right?
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A lot of people have left the church
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in that timeframe.
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I think this is very triggering and the
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same skill set sort of works.
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And so this is, you know,
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I'm owning as a licensed mental health
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professional who works in this area,
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like part of the reason I work with
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it is because I felt like my own
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journey could have been easier, smoother,
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sooner if I had had more resources.
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So trying to put good resources out in
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the world,
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but also acknowledging that like, yeah,
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deconstructing religion is one thing.
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and deconstructing colonialism,
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capitalism, imperialism.
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I'm going to say should go along with
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that.
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I don't know how it can.
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And some people are waking up to this
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idea.
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The right-wing vibe voters,
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the Andrew Schultz's yuck of the world.
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If you don't know who Andrew Schultz is,
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awesome again as somebody who follows like
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online neo-nazis that's not where i'm
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going with andrew schultz um but how the
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right-wing uh authoritarians the neo-nazis
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have really sort of laundered their ideas
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in techno uh
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trade crypto bro bullshit but also to get
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into like the theovan andrew schultz's of
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the world andrew schultz recently was
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critical of the trump regime even though
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he's a trump voter and did a lot
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to sort of launder trump's uh terrible
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policies to be approachable sort of that
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like comedy podcast bro rogan offshoot
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offshoot group
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And Schultz said something to the effect
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of this is the first war they're not
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even bothering to propagandize.
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And like, while I don't think that's true,
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it was one of those things where like,
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I wouldn't send anybody to go listen to
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Andrew Schultz.
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Don't.
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Don't do that.
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There are people out there who are sort
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of right-wing watch groups who will listen
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to these terrible podcasts for you and
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summarize them and explain what these
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over-their-head media personality...
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are getting wrong and missing and how the
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simpletons who aren't trained in this sort
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of stuff are not the best people to
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listen to because they get a lot of
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stuff wrong.
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But again,
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an open Trump voter who voted on vibes
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and contrarianism,
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like Andrew Schultz questioning, hey,
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maybe we're the bad guys in this,
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I think is a significant turning point in
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the sense that a lot of people are
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going to start to tug on this thread
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of America number one
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Good job, America.
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And they're coming to realize that like,
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oh, we've been the baddies for a while.
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And again,
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people who have been doing this work for
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a long time know this.
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Black and brown people, indigenous people,
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people who are from a minority ethnic
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background in America understand this.
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They've lived through it.
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Forever?
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Because again,
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I don't want to jump into it.
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Because America was founded as land
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ownership and voting rights for white
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landowners.
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And so whether you want to go back
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to Reagan in the eighties or the
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reconstruction era, also in the eighties,
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but of the eighteen hundreds,
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we've had these opportunities to course
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correct the system and haven't.
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And I think that's going to come up
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again.
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And I think it's why deconstruction and
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skills around deconstruction are so
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helpful.
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for this process.
00:06:35.348 --> 00:06:38.110
Understanding that America is the bad guy
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and we don't need to return to a
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status quo.
00:06:41.091 --> 00:06:46.314
We don't need sort of moderate unity
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talking Democrats.
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We need full on systemic change.
00:06:50.576 --> 00:06:53.077
If we're not gonna get a revolution,
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then we need the collapse,
00:06:54.918 --> 00:06:57.021
the crumble to happen enough that we can
00:06:57.480 --> 00:06:59.221
build something new and different.
00:07:00.262 --> 00:07:02.663
And so, you know, oddly,
00:07:04.228 --> 00:07:06.490
The silver lining of Trump is through his
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own incompetence tearing down a lot of
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things that need to be torn down,
00:07:10.093 --> 00:07:13.997
not because that was his ethos,
00:07:14.016 --> 00:07:15.478
but because he just failed so
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spectacularly that people are saying like,
00:07:17.699 --> 00:07:20.100
hey, capitalism, bit of a mistake.
00:07:20.221 --> 00:07:23.463
Hey, dysregulation.
00:07:24.814 --> 00:07:25.814
Lack of regulation,
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especially on money and wealth
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accumulation and AI is bad.
00:07:32.937 --> 00:07:35.699
We shouldn't be betting and having a
00:07:35.778 --> 00:07:38.860
betting market on bombing other countries.
00:07:38.959 --> 00:07:40.800
That's maybe bad.
00:07:41.581 --> 00:07:43.641
And none of this is immigrants or trans
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people's fault or drag queens.
00:07:45.641 --> 00:07:47.923
It's actually the rich white guys who have
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been in charge the whole time.
00:07:50.663 --> 00:07:53.144
It's the always has been meme, right?
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So deconstruction is really helpful.
00:07:57.598 --> 00:07:59.538
One of the first things that happens with
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deconstruction is it's rarely an aha
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moment and it's often a tipping point
00:08:07.380 --> 00:08:07.800
moment.
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For a lot of the folks that I
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work with,
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they were questioning things for a long
00:08:11.401 --> 00:08:13.641
time or they were sort of seeing things
00:08:13.682 --> 00:08:15.322
that maybe didn't line up or they didn't
00:08:15.362 --> 00:08:15.882
agree with.
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And often it's just a thing that we
00:08:19.504 --> 00:08:20.783
can't get past.
00:08:22.192 --> 00:08:24.053
I was sixteen-year-olds old when I really
00:08:24.694 --> 00:08:26.255
seriously started deconstructing,
00:08:26.336 --> 00:08:27.576
even though I wouldn't leave the church
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for a number of years.
00:08:29.357 --> 00:08:30.718
But the thing I just couldn't get past
00:08:30.757 --> 00:08:33.019
was I was raised fundamentalist
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evangelical.
00:08:34.000 --> 00:08:38.423
So we were taught that communion is the
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body and blood of Christ,
00:08:39.484 --> 00:08:40.504
the true body and blood,
00:08:40.604 --> 00:08:42.926
like literal body and blood, right?
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Because we're biblical.
00:08:44.246 --> 00:08:45.366
I was raised fundamentalist,
00:08:45.386 --> 00:08:46.347
biblical literalism.
00:08:46.687 --> 00:08:50.190
The translation of the New Testament is
00:08:50.269 --> 00:08:50.890
this is,
00:08:51.110 --> 00:08:51.191
and
00:08:53.057 --> 00:08:54.558
Present moment, continuing forward.
00:08:55.139 --> 00:08:59.201
I forget what the term in grammar is,
00:08:59.302 --> 00:09:04.004
but the present future participle,
00:09:04.024 --> 00:09:04.524
I don't know,
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I might be getting that wrong.
00:09:06.125 --> 00:09:07.206
My mother, who's an English teacher,
00:09:07.225 --> 00:09:08.126
would be disappointed in me.
00:09:09.667 --> 00:09:09.927
But again,
00:09:10.368 --> 00:09:12.269
I knew that because a pastor sat me
00:09:12.288 --> 00:09:13.308
down and talked to me about this for
00:09:13.349 --> 00:09:14.909
like over an hour, because I was like,
00:09:15.551 --> 00:09:18.932
if I choke on the communion wafer and
00:09:18.993 --> 00:09:19.373
die,
00:09:20.953 --> 00:09:23.395
they do an autopsy i do not believe
00:09:24.056 --> 00:09:27.097
or one second zero percent of me believes
00:09:27.518 --> 00:09:29.178
that you will find human flesh in my
00:09:29.239 --> 00:09:31.740
system and if you're teaching me that
00:09:31.801 --> 00:09:36.783
communion the wafer is becomes is is the
00:09:36.823 --> 00:09:39.826
body and the wine is the blood then
00:09:39.885 --> 00:09:42.707
like now i i don't believe that and
00:09:42.748 --> 00:09:44.229
like you know reflecting now i'm like well
00:09:44.249 --> 00:09:45.730
because i was autistic and i was like
00:09:46.471 --> 00:09:48.351
they were telling me to read it literally
00:09:48.412 --> 00:09:49.552
and so i was and it
00:09:50.393 --> 00:09:51.474
didn't track for me.
00:09:51.953 --> 00:09:52.195
But like,
00:09:52.215 --> 00:09:53.254
that was the big thing that I could
00:09:53.274 --> 00:09:54.096
never get past.
00:09:54.155 --> 00:09:55.777
And like, okay, if that wasn't true,
00:09:55.918 --> 00:09:58.779
then evangelical fundamentalism wasn't
00:09:58.820 --> 00:09:59.200
true.
00:09:59.340 --> 00:10:01.302
And I moved through the progressive
00:10:01.381 --> 00:10:06.005
liberal Christianity for a while and sort
00:10:06.046 --> 00:10:07.647
of saying it's a metaphor and take the
00:10:07.687 --> 00:10:08.807
parts that are useful and leave the rest
00:10:08.847 --> 00:10:10.509
behind before finally being like, no, no,
00:10:10.528 --> 00:10:12.451
no, none of this is good or worthwhile.
00:10:13.131 --> 00:10:14.432
I understand that's not where everybody
00:10:14.493 --> 00:10:16.173
lands and not everybody needs to land
00:10:16.193 --> 00:10:16.354
there,
00:10:16.754 --> 00:10:18.355
but there is this tipping point moment of
00:10:18.395 --> 00:10:19.756
this thing that we can't get past.
00:10:19.797 --> 00:10:20.677
For a lot of folks,
00:10:21.477 --> 00:10:22.759
because we as human beings are
00:10:22.778 --> 00:10:23.698
storytelling creatures,
00:10:24.100 --> 00:10:24.799
for a lot of folks,
00:10:24.840 --> 00:10:27.282
how they end up deconstructing is an
00:10:27.322 --> 00:10:27.881
experience.
00:10:27.961 --> 00:10:29.903
They see their pastor lie.
00:10:31.264 --> 00:10:33.365
They experience a leadership team do
00:10:33.405 --> 00:10:34.547
something unethical.
00:10:34.586 --> 00:10:37.107
They see somebody that they care about and
00:10:37.148 --> 00:10:38.328
love being harmed,
00:10:38.428 --> 00:10:40.471
and then they see that harm be doubled
00:10:40.510 --> 00:10:41.471
downed.
00:10:42.878 --> 00:10:46.721
doubled down on and so they see sort
00:10:46.782 --> 00:10:49.283
of the the system collapse because of a
00:10:49.323 --> 00:10:51.365
lived experience something they have
00:10:51.385 --> 00:10:53.727
emotion tied to right that's how a lot
00:10:53.788 --> 00:10:58.352
of people get to deconstructing it's rare
00:10:58.552 --> 00:11:00.654
well I wouldn't say a lot of people
00:11:00.695 --> 00:11:02.196
deconstruct by going to seminary but I
00:11:02.235 --> 00:11:03.616
think people are going to seminary because
00:11:03.636 --> 00:11:04.738
they're already questioning and they're
00:11:04.759 --> 00:11:06.259
like I need to know more obviously
00:11:07.176 --> 00:11:08.176
which is why you have so many people
00:11:08.275 --> 00:11:09.777
deconstruct during seminary,
00:11:10.777 --> 00:11:11.697
which is the funny quirk of
00:11:11.738 --> 00:11:12.378
deconstruction,
00:11:12.738 --> 00:11:14.139
but there's this tipping point, right?
00:11:14.359 --> 00:11:15.298
Is the takeaway here,
00:11:15.698 --> 00:11:18.120
the tipping point of, I,
00:11:18.600 --> 00:11:20.620
I can't see how I can go back
00:11:21.201 --> 00:11:25.822
to full belief and I'm a millennial.
00:11:26.523 --> 00:11:29.724
So I go back to Columbine,
00:11:29.903 --> 00:11:31.164
but a lot of people will go back
00:11:31.205 --> 00:11:34.645
to, you know, the Bush v. Gore, um,
00:11:35.359 --> 00:11:36.480
Some people go back to Iraq war.
00:11:36.500 --> 00:11:37.880
Some people didn't really get here until
00:11:37.941 --> 00:11:38.501
Trump won,
00:11:38.542 --> 00:11:40.743
but like some people are only getting here
00:11:40.763 --> 00:11:41.344
in Trump too.
00:11:43.405 --> 00:11:46.467
The idea of like America as like manifest
00:11:46.508 --> 00:11:49.650
destiny as meritocracy as work hard and
00:11:49.671 --> 00:11:51.111
you'll move up for a lot of us
00:11:51.131 --> 00:11:51.652
millennials.
00:11:51.672 --> 00:11:53.754
That just was, was apparently not true.
00:11:54.214 --> 00:11:55.975
We entered the workforce, not everybody,
00:11:56.076 --> 00:11:56.576
but again,
00:11:57.076 --> 00:12:00.759
I'm simplifying my age bracket entered the
00:12:00.799 --> 00:12:03.601
workforce in a major recession, right?
00:12:03.642 --> 00:12:04.462
I graduated college in,
00:12:06.442 --> 00:12:08.623
Like, there's no job market there.
00:12:11.043 --> 00:12:13.826
There's not ever been housing available or
00:12:13.865 --> 00:12:15.126
affordable to millennials.
00:12:15.167 --> 00:12:16.826
So, like, the American Dream,
00:12:17.488 --> 00:12:19.469
capital letters, American Dream,
00:12:19.509 --> 00:12:20.690
the propaganda,
00:12:21.750 --> 00:12:23.691
the updated version of Manifest Destiny,
00:12:24.471 --> 00:12:26.232
didn't pan out for...
00:12:27.575 --> 00:12:29.715
entire generation the first generation to
00:12:29.754 --> 00:12:33.596
be better educated and less compensated
00:12:34.056 --> 00:12:36.517
than their predecessors um that had never
00:12:36.576 --> 00:12:38.976
happened in american history before and so
00:12:39.476 --> 00:12:40.917
i think pulling on that thread and
00:12:40.957 --> 00:12:43.158
deconstructing that was was really easy
00:12:43.278 --> 00:12:44.457
and is really easy for a lot of
00:12:44.477 --> 00:12:46.379
millennials but for different generations
00:12:46.418 --> 00:12:47.879
i think that's going to look different and
00:12:47.938 --> 00:12:50.119
it it ties into religious deconstruction
00:12:50.139 --> 00:12:52.159
because there's a loss of identity if
00:12:52.179 --> 00:12:54.059
you've been a christian
00:12:55.116 --> 00:12:58.898
a Muslim, a Jehovah's Witness,
00:13:02.837 --> 00:13:04.558
what is Osho, you know,
00:13:05.519 --> 00:13:08.339
a Ranjish follower your entire life,
00:13:08.379 --> 00:13:09.620
if that's how you identify,
00:13:09.639 --> 00:13:12.080
if that is part of what makes you,
00:13:12.379 --> 00:13:14.120
you, from your understanding,
00:13:15.721 --> 00:13:17.660
to have that thing go away or to
00:13:17.701 --> 00:13:19.280
pull on that thread and find that it
00:13:19.321 --> 00:13:20.782
crumbles is really difficult.
00:13:20.881 --> 00:13:21.822
And so a lot of people
00:13:22.918 --> 00:13:25.158
to do some identity work when they're
00:13:25.178 --> 00:13:27.438
deconstructing because this idea of who
00:13:27.460 --> 00:13:31.221
they were isn't there anymore.
00:13:31.321 --> 00:13:32.400
And that's devastating.
00:13:32.421 --> 00:13:33.682
I'm not oversimplifying it.
00:13:35.062 --> 00:13:35.402
I don't,
00:13:35.601 --> 00:13:36.942
as a therapist who works with this stuff,
00:13:37.003 --> 00:13:37.883
I don't find...
00:13:39.826 --> 00:13:41.927
the rebuilds to be that hard because it
00:13:42.087 --> 00:13:44.710
is letting go of the idea that what
00:13:44.750 --> 00:13:46.149
being a Christian meant was because you
00:13:46.169 --> 00:13:47.171
were a Christian, right?
00:13:47.211 --> 00:13:48.491
If you think being a Christian means
00:13:48.912 --> 00:13:49.993
you're a good person, well,
00:13:50.013 --> 00:13:51.712
like what does being a good person mean?
00:13:51.854 --> 00:13:54.495
And like, are you still that, right?
00:13:54.774 --> 00:13:55.635
I'm millennial, right?
00:13:55.655 --> 00:13:56.096
I was raised,
00:13:57.289 --> 00:13:59.371
the teachings of jesus you take care of
00:13:59.392 --> 00:14:01.774
the earth you take care of the the
00:14:01.813 --> 00:14:04.115
marginalized the poor and needy i was
00:14:04.176 --> 00:14:06.096
certainly not taught the word marginalized
00:14:06.157 --> 00:14:08.038
in my fundamentalist evangelical
00:14:08.119 --> 00:14:10.581
upbringing the poor and needy and the
00:14:10.701 --> 00:14:13.043
earth and and again growing up evangelical
00:14:13.102 --> 00:14:15.264
fundamentalist and seeing like people be
00:14:15.303 --> 00:14:17.605
chill with global warming and not that not
00:14:17.625 --> 00:14:20.168
be a concern of the institution of the
00:14:20.187 --> 00:14:20.508
church
00:14:21.417 --> 00:14:23.557
like never jived for me, right?
00:14:23.878 --> 00:14:25.359
It wasn't just the communion thing,
00:14:25.379 --> 00:14:26.458
but that was the tipping point.
00:14:28.059 --> 00:14:31.322
Seeing churches accumulate wealth and
00:14:31.381 --> 00:14:32.062
build up money,
00:14:32.101 --> 00:14:34.222
but not help out even their own members,
00:14:34.263 --> 00:14:35.764
let alone other members of the community.
00:14:35.803 --> 00:14:36.504
I grew up in the North side of
00:14:36.524 --> 00:14:37.884
Milwaukee and then I went to this private
00:14:37.904 --> 00:14:38.144
school
00:14:39.065 --> 00:14:39.826
out in the suburbs.
00:14:40.426 --> 00:14:40.846
And so like,
00:14:40.865 --> 00:14:42.768
there was a huge disconnect between
00:14:42.927 --> 00:14:44.589
especially the wealthy students that I
00:14:44.609 --> 00:14:46.630
went to school with and like my lived
00:14:46.650 --> 00:14:47.811
experience in my neighborhood.
00:14:48.331 --> 00:14:49.653
And so, you know,
00:14:49.873 --> 00:14:54.535
seeing the institution fail wasn't hard
00:14:54.576 --> 00:14:55.557
for me to deconstruct,
00:14:55.596 --> 00:14:57.238
but for a lot of people seeing America
00:14:57.298 --> 00:15:00.480
fail is really hard to deconstruct.
00:15:00.541 --> 00:15:02.402
We, we,
00:15:02.442 --> 00:15:04.003
there's so much propaganda that you're
00:15:04.023 --> 00:15:04.423
racing.
00:15:04.523 --> 00:15:05.283
And so again,
00:15:05.484 --> 00:15:08.046
the identity piece of like being like,
00:15:09.778 --> 00:15:10.798
a Christian means you're a good person.
00:15:10.839 --> 00:15:11.359
We have to,
00:15:11.379 --> 00:15:12.899
we have to tug out what does good
00:15:12.940 --> 00:15:13.461
person mean?
00:15:13.500 --> 00:15:15.322
It's not because you were Christian there,
00:15:15.422 --> 00:15:17.823
there might be an ethic or something that
00:15:17.844 --> 00:15:18.924
you hold, you know, for me,
00:15:19.725 --> 00:15:20.745
I root for the underdog.
00:15:20.765 --> 00:15:21.726
That's always something that's been
00:15:21.767 --> 00:15:24.729
really, I would say inherent in me.
00:15:27.030 --> 00:15:28.331
And so like that,
00:15:28.412 --> 00:15:30.394
that can be part of a new value
00:15:30.433 --> 00:15:30.693
system,
00:15:30.714 --> 00:15:32.455
a new ethic that we build around rather
00:15:32.514 --> 00:15:35.957
than the identifier, the name of Christ.
00:15:36.570 --> 00:15:40.692
a religion right um having empathy caring
00:15:40.711 --> 00:15:42.852
for people caring for animals caring for
00:15:50.515 --> 00:15:53.337
caring for people caring for animals
00:15:53.398 --> 00:15:57.379
caring for you know lots of different
00:15:57.399 --> 00:15:59.780
things that can be like an ethos i
00:15:59.860 --> 00:16:02.422
having empathy isn't because you were
00:16:02.461 --> 00:16:04.163
religious is because that is how
00:16:05.130 --> 00:16:07.432
you're wired, your brain recognizes that.
00:16:07.592 --> 00:16:11.557
And that's a skill that then can be
00:16:11.697 --> 00:16:13.639
practiced and grown and expanded, right?
00:16:13.759 --> 00:16:18.403
And so the identity piece is scary and
00:16:18.423 --> 00:16:19.705
feels really big and overwhelming.
00:16:19.825 --> 00:16:21.066
And once you start digging in and sort
00:16:21.086 --> 00:16:25.230
of doing the work, it's not that hard.
00:16:25.269 --> 00:16:27.272
If you grew up with the identity of
00:16:27.371 --> 00:16:28.033
American,
00:16:29.144 --> 00:16:30.426
And America is great.
00:16:30.826 --> 00:16:31.828
We're number one.
00:16:32.649 --> 00:16:33.831
And all that stuff,
00:16:33.851 --> 00:16:35.173
like we have to dig in and say,
00:16:35.235 --> 00:16:37.719
well, that's not because of the name.
00:16:37.859 --> 00:16:39.542
That's not because of the label American.
00:16:39.581 --> 00:16:40.864
What does that actually mean to you?
00:16:41.735 --> 00:16:41.955
And again,
00:16:41.975 --> 00:16:44.477
a lot of people just have not actually
00:16:45.057 --> 00:16:46.899
deconstructed that idea.
00:16:47.841 --> 00:16:49.282
Just even deconstructed it into smaller
00:16:49.322 --> 00:16:49.863
parts, right?
00:16:49.903 --> 00:16:51.605
Not even like let it go completely,
00:16:51.644 --> 00:16:52.905
but with the idea of like, yeah,
00:16:52.926 --> 00:16:54.006
what does that actually mean?
00:16:54.506 --> 00:16:57.009
A lot of people are USA shirts, red,
00:16:57.049 --> 00:16:58.610
white, and blue, star spangled banner,
00:16:58.971 --> 00:17:01.014
fourth of July patriots, but like,
00:17:01.792 --> 00:17:03.734
What is it about this that you like?
00:17:03.874 --> 00:17:05.355
And a lot of what people like,
00:17:05.454 --> 00:17:06.316
unfortunately,
00:17:06.415 --> 00:17:07.757
is going to have to be deconstructed
00:17:07.797 --> 00:17:09.518
further into not just smaller parts,
00:17:09.557 --> 00:17:10.378
but fully let go.
00:17:10.419 --> 00:17:12.099
Because what a lot of people like about
00:17:12.119 --> 00:17:14.021
America is mythical.
00:17:14.182 --> 00:17:15.282
It's not real.
00:17:15.383 --> 00:17:16.804
A land of opportunity.
00:17:16.884 --> 00:17:18.625
Well, like, for whom?
00:17:20.113 --> 00:17:22.835
Cause we have two generations,
00:17:23.134 --> 00:17:25.476
millennials and Gen Z that have no
00:17:25.536 --> 00:17:29.239
opportunity or have extremely limited
00:17:29.298 --> 00:17:30.038
opportunity.
00:17:31.200 --> 00:17:31.619
And like,
00:17:31.859 --> 00:17:33.300
I don't know who's happy right now.
00:17:33.540 --> 00:17:35.201
Like the boomers are all angsty that their
00:17:35.241 --> 00:17:36.083
kids won't talk to them.
00:17:36.103 --> 00:17:37.423
And then the retirement homes are going to
00:17:37.442 --> 00:17:38.263
steal all their wealth,
00:17:38.304 --> 00:17:40.045
which like absolutely is happening.
00:17:42.846 --> 00:17:43.326
They're mad.
00:17:43.386 --> 00:17:45.347
Like they aren't respected for ruining the
00:17:45.367 --> 00:17:46.808
environment and destroying the
00:17:49.548 --> 00:17:51.809
I don't know, the institutions that be.
00:17:51.869 --> 00:17:52.289
And again,
00:17:53.471 --> 00:17:55.252
I'm not some New World Order sort of
00:17:55.353 --> 00:17:56.755
conspiracy theorist.
00:17:56.775 --> 00:17:59.696
I think there is a blue anon,
00:17:59.817 --> 00:18:02.480
a left-leaning response of conspiratorial
00:18:02.519 --> 00:18:02.900
thinking,
00:18:03.980 --> 00:18:05.623
which is why we need critical thinking
00:18:05.663 --> 00:18:06.323
skills throughout.
00:18:06.423 --> 00:18:07.865
But my point is...
00:18:09.526 --> 00:18:11.007
Letting go of that identity is scary.
00:18:11.067 --> 00:18:12.147
We're number one.
00:18:12.327 --> 00:18:13.209
We're exceptional.
00:18:13.249 --> 00:18:15.651
That American exceptionalism can be a hard
00:18:15.711 --> 00:18:16.570
identity to let go.
00:18:17.011 --> 00:18:18.272
It's a pathway forward,
00:18:18.353 --> 00:18:20.173
similar for people who leave an organized
00:18:20.193 --> 00:18:20.614
religion.
00:18:21.375 --> 00:18:23.215
It's not that you suddenly lack ethics.
00:18:23.396 --> 00:18:25.117
It's that you need to own,
00:18:25.157 --> 00:18:26.219
you need to narrate,
00:18:26.278 --> 00:18:28.519
you need to shape them differently outside
00:18:28.539 --> 00:18:30.162
of the identifier of the religion.
00:18:30.761 --> 00:18:32.845
You need to shape what your ethic is
00:18:33.385 --> 00:18:36.509
as a citizen outside of the identifier,
00:18:36.569 --> 00:18:40.215
the name, the label, American, Canadian,
00:18:40.756 --> 00:18:44.221
North American, right?
00:18:44.481 --> 00:18:44.561
That,
00:18:45.628 --> 00:18:46.650
was a placeholder,
00:18:47.270 --> 00:18:49.613
should have been if we taught civics and
00:18:49.653 --> 00:18:51.394
actually educated people on what these
00:18:51.413 --> 00:18:51.994
things mean,
00:18:53.455 --> 00:18:54.457
this work would already be done.
00:18:54.497 --> 00:18:54.978
But again,
00:18:55.337 --> 00:18:57.519
for most of us growing up in a
00:18:57.579 --> 00:18:59.362
time and a place of prosperity,
00:18:59.962 --> 00:19:01.284
that wasn't really a need.
00:19:01.403 --> 00:19:02.825
And so a lot of people still haven't
00:19:02.845 --> 00:19:03.145
done it.
00:19:04.126 --> 00:19:04.887
And there are a bunch of people who
00:19:04.928 --> 00:19:06.788
are doing it now for the first time.
00:19:07.209 --> 00:19:08.109
Hey, hi, welcome.
00:19:08.349 --> 00:19:10.790
I'm guessing the algorithm didn't send you
00:19:10.830 --> 00:19:12.531
to this video as my first one.
00:19:13.792 --> 00:19:16.035
So yeah,
00:19:16.095 --> 00:19:20.196
but it's different and scary to pull those
00:19:20.257 --> 00:19:21.438
sort of pieces apart.
00:19:21.557 --> 00:19:24.220
But where we land is actually a far
00:19:24.259 --> 00:19:26.361
more authentic and genuine place than just
00:19:26.461 --> 00:19:28.843
an empty propagandistic
00:19:29.977 --> 00:19:31.978
placeholder and so I think it's it's a
00:19:32.038 --> 00:19:34.941
really wonderful opportunity to do that
00:19:34.980 --> 00:19:37.182
work to turn those those rocks over and
00:19:37.221 --> 00:19:38.864
sort of look at what's underneath them and
00:19:38.923 --> 00:19:40.765
understand that and be intentional with it
00:19:41.184 --> 00:19:43.567
rather than just being like oh no we're
00:19:43.606 --> 00:19:48.431
not number one which I think is you
00:19:48.451 --> 00:19:52.433
know it's it's frustrating for people
00:19:52.453 --> 00:19:54.154
who've been doing this for a while because
00:19:54.795 --> 00:19:56.757
like people have been trying to get this
00:19:56.817 --> 00:19:58.498
work going it's what like
00:19:58.884 --> 00:20:01.746
the backlash against CRT was all about.
00:20:01.786 --> 00:20:03.165
People were presented with their own
00:20:03.205 --> 00:20:05.247
cognitive dissonance, like, hey,
00:20:05.326 --> 00:20:07.007
whiteness isn't an identity,
00:20:07.468 --> 00:20:09.807
and also certainly not one to be proud
00:20:09.928 --> 00:20:13.269
of, because history gestures broadly.
00:20:14.049 --> 00:20:15.710
And there was a backlash to that,
00:20:15.730 --> 00:20:17.030
because people were uncomfortable with
00:20:17.070 --> 00:20:17.310
that.
00:20:17.391 --> 00:20:20.491
And they weren't uncomfortable with the
00:20:20.531 --> 00:20:21.451
fact, they were,
00:20:23.140 --> 00:20:24.780
But they didn't want to do the work
00:20:24.881 --> 00:20:26.842
of deconstructing that.
00:20:26.862 --> 00:20:28.482
They didn't want to pull that piece apart
00:20:28.502 --> 00:20:29.864
of what's making me feel bad.
00:20:30.224 --> 00:20:30.964
And so they're just like,
00:20:31.704 --> 00:20:33.606
minorities are making me feel bad because
00:20:33.727 --> 00:20:35.548
I'm in the majority and how dare they
00:20:35.567 --> 00:20:36.888
make me feel bad for that.
00:20:37.539 --> 00:20:40.123
How dare they point out the flaws that
00:20:40.143 --> 00:20:41.903
the majority has long enacted.
00:20:42.825 --> 00:20:45.508
Um, and so, you know, like we've,
00:20:45.627 --> 00:20:47.028
we've had these opportunities.
00:20:47.068 --> 00:20:48.510
We certainly had an opportunity to put
00:20:48.550 --> 00:20:52.674
like Trump in jail for like thousands of
00:20:52.734 --> 00:20:53.454
things, right.
00:20:54.316 --> 00:20:54.896
Um,
00:20:54.936 --> 00:20:56.778
going back to the seventies before he ever
00:20:56.818 --> 00:21:00.041
entered the political worlds, um,
00:21:01.959 --> 00:21:04.240
But there have been these opportunities
00:21:04.319 --> 00:21:06.480
after seeing Reagan fail.
00:21:06.500 --> 00:21:06.621
Like,
00:21:06.661 --> 00:21:09.082
why did we elect Bush after seeing Bush
00:21:09.122 --> 00:21:11.482
fail?
00:21:11.522 --> 00:21:12.743
Racism is the answer, right?
00:21:13.243 --> 00:21:14.023
That's the rebound.
00:21:14.064 --> 00:21:17.266
That's the swing from our first black
00:21:17.306 --> 00:21:20.426
president to one of our more openly racist
00:21:20.467 --> 00:21:22.147
presidents, which again,
00:21:22.188 --> 00:21:23.268
like there's some competition.
00:21:23.367 --> 00:21:25.348
It's Andrew Jackson's president.
00:21:26.028 --> 00:21:29.891
So anyways, I'm getting off topic here.
00:21:31.374 --> 00:21:32.836
There have been these opportunities to
00:21:32.875 --> 00:21:34.498
sort of do this deconstruction work,
00:21:34.557 --> 00:21:36.161
and there's been a backlash.
00:21:38.694 --> 00:21:41.175
it's not just deconstructing American
00:21:41.215 --> 00:21:42.116
exceptionalism, right?
00:21:42.156 --> 00:21:44.258
Because we have to then understand what's
00:21:44.298 --> 00:21:44.877
the backlash.
00:21:44.897 --> 00:21:45.018
Well,
00:21:45.057 --> 00:21:46.778
the backlash is from the ruling class,
00:21:46.818 --> 00:21:48.200
which is not just American
00:21:48.240 --> 00:21:48.779
exceptionalists.
00:21:48.799 --> 00:21:52.882
We haven't been ruled by flag waving,
00:21:53.021 --> 00:21:55.742
saluting military service patriots.
00:21:55.782 --> 00:21:56.344
We've been,
00:21:56.804 --> 00:21:59.005
the ruling class has been colonizers,
00:21:59.065 --> 00:22:02.547
has been the imperial capitalist ruling
00:22:02.586 --> 00:22:03.626
class here in America,
00:22:03.707 --> 00:22:05.587
the people who have capital and have made
00:22:05.627 --> 00:22:06.828
wealth off of their capital.
00:22:07.409 --> 00:22:09.809
But again, it goes back to colonialism.
00:22:10.010 --> 00:22:16.094
And so the idea that I deserve ownership
00:22:16.513 --> 00:22:17.775
and you do not.
00:22:18.836 --> 00:22:22.238
And yeah, we have to deconstruct that.
00:22:22.557 --> 00:22:25.098
That's why we have a failing economy that
00:22:26.000 --> 00:22:28.201
is only held together by an AI bubble.
00:22:28.381 --> 00:22:30.962
There's three AI companies in a trench
00:22:31.022 --> 00:22:32.243
coat and they're all just trading money
00:22:32.284 --> 00:22:33.684
back and forth and we're pretending like
00:22:33.704 --> 00:22:34.365
things are okay.
00:22:35.578 --> 00:22:39.320
While AI ravages the environment.
00:22:40.080 --> 00:22:42.241
So one of the few finite resources we
00:22:42.281 --> 00:22:44.983
have time and I mean,
00:22:46.804 --> 00:22:49.605
technically humans for sure.
00:22:49.766 --> 00:22:51.366
It's a finite resource because we don't
00:22:51.386 --> 00:22:52.086
live for that long,
00:22:52.146 --> 00:22:53.688
but the earth has a lot of time
00:22:54.688 --> 00:22:55.469
before it explodes.
00:22:55.509 --> 00:22:57.308
And then it's one of however many hundreds
00:22:57.328 --> 00:22:59.230
of billions of tiny little planets.
00:22:59.269 --> 00:23:00.250
So lots of stuff out there,
00:23:01.310 --> 00:23:02.432
the universe will go on.
00:23:03.375 --> 00:23:04.537
But yes, for humans,
00:23:04.596 --> 00:23:06.179
time is a finite resource.
00:23:06.358 --> 00:23:08.740
And so where's I going with that?
00:23:09.902 --> 00:23:11.182
One of our few finite resources.
00:23:11.343 --> 00:23:13.464
I'm back.
00:23:13.484 --> 00:23:16.347
So colonialism, again,
00:23:16.607 --> 00:23:19.090
that idea of deserve and then in-group,
00:23:19.171 --> 00:23:19.490
out-group.
00:23:19.550 --> 00:23:21.333
And that's why deconstructed religion is
00:23:21.353 --> 00:23:22.933
so useful because religion is based on
00:23:22.953 --> 00:23:24.474
that in-group, out-group dynamic.
00:23:25.135 --> 00:23:27.617
Fundamentalist religions certainly add a
00:23:27.657 --> 00:23:29.059
deserving piece to it, right?
00:23:29.826 --> 00:23:31.188
People who are going to hell deserve to
00:23:31.208 --> 00:23:31.688
go to hell.
00:23:31.708 --> 00:23:33.108
People who are going to heaven deserve to
00:23:33.128 --> 00:23:33.549
go to heaven.
00:23:34.049 --> 00:23:35.851
You can cover it up with grace and
00:23:35.891 --> 00:23:37.551
not by works and all that stuff,
00:23:37.612 --> 00:23:39.973
but that is what every single religion,
00:23:40.433 --> 00:23:41.954
fundamentalist religion, comes back to.
00:23:41.994 --> 00:23:42.816
It's not just the in-group,
00:23:43.115 --> 00:23:43.737
out-group dynamic.
00:23:43.757 --> 00:23:44.616
It's every religion.
00:23:45.258 --> 00:23:47.138
But the deserve piece is really where you
00:23:47.159 --> 00:23:49.140
get into the fundamentalism and the higher
00:23:49.220 --> 00:23:49.820
control,
00:23:49.901 --> 00:23:51.701
the higher the messaging around deserves.
00:23:52.462 --> 00:23:52.863
And so...
00:23:54.666 --> 00:23:57.729
Having to let go of that is another
00:23:57.769 --> 00:23:59.250
piece of the identity and is a lot
00:23:59.289 --> 00:23:59.910
more complex.
00:23:59.970 --> 00:24:00.170
Again,
00:24:00.190 --> 00:24:02.571
this is the water we as Americans swim
00:24:02.612 --> 00:24:02.731
in.
00:24:03.152 --> 00:24:05.834
It's not our land.
00:24:05.854 --> 00:24:07.914
It's very obvious that we're colonizers
00:24:08.215 --> 00:24:08.635
and
00:24:11.892 --> 00:24:12.672
We're living on it.
00:24:13.073 --> 00:24:14.792
And so there's this cognitive dissonance
00:24:14.993 --> 00:24:16.874
around sort of this,
00:24:16.913 --> 00:24:17.954
the fall of colonizers.
00:24:18.035 --> 00:24:20.195
Like my family came over here however many
00:24:20.236 --> 00:24:21.156
generations ago.
00:24:21.196 --> 00:24:22.797
They were not on the Mayflower.
00:24:22.856 --> 00:24:24.337
They came over and probably went through,
00:24:24.778 --> 00:24:25.018
you know,
00:24:25.038 --> 00:24:27.299
the Ellis Island routine and like were
00:24:27.339 --> 00:24:29.840
immigrants at some point, not colonizers.
00:24:30.740 --> 00:24:32.582
And so a lot of people like struggle
00:24:32.602 --> 00:24:36.064
with that nuance of like, well, right?
00:24:38.025 --> 00:24:40.266
But it's colonizing in the sense of
00:24:41.602 --> 00:24:45.104
This now belongs to you and you deserve
00:24:45.163 --> 00:24:45.864
it, right?
00:24:45.884 --> 00:24:47.023
Your family worked hard.
00:24:47.085 --> 00:24:47.825
They saved up.
00:24:47.865 --> 00:24:49.224
They bought their plot of land.
00:24:49.905 --> 00:24:51.465
And so this is where deconstructing the
00:24:51.506 --> 00:24:54.928
institution, the country,
00:24:55.847 --> 00:24:57.128
should countries exist?
00:24:57.209 --> 00:24:59.869
Whoa, oh no, my brain just exploded.
00:25:01.431 --> 00:25:03.211
But that is where the deconstruction gets.
00:25:03.251 --> 00:25:04.392
It's like you start pulling on these
00:25:04.432 --> 00:25:06.012
threads and the whole thing falls apart.
00:25:06.032 --> 00:25:08.554
You remove one card from the house of
00:25:08.614 --> 00:25:10.255
cards and the whole thing tumbles down.
00:25:11.433 --> 00:25:12.315
And for some people,
00:25:12.355 --> 00:25:13.454
that's very easy and obvious.
00:25:13.494 --> 00:25:14.056
And for some people,
00:25:14.316 --> 00:25:16.017
it's a real complex system of house of
00:25:16.057 --> 00:25:16.817
cards they've built.
00:25:16.836 --> 00:25:19.219
It's a very complex knitting structure
00:25:19.259 --> 00:25:21.220
that one thread does take a long time
00:25:21.259 --> 00:25:23.201
to pull before we unravel the whole thing.
00:25:23.740 --> 00:25:25.342
But it gets us to this point of
00:25:25.762 --> 00:25:28.644
power and control.
00:25:29.365 --> 00:25:31.046
And so we have to, yes,
00:25:31.105 --> 00:25:32.606
dismantle capitalism, right?
00:25:32.747 --> 00:25:33.326
That's great.
00:25:33.366 --> 00:25:34.347
But there's, uh-oh,
00:25:34.667 --> 00:25:36.028
still string to pull on there.
00:25:36.048 --> 00:25:37.150
We're still pulling, pulling, pulling.
00:25:37.230 --> 00:25:39.411
Oh, no, colonialism.
00:25:40.180 --> 00:25:41.981
that's really deep and heavy across
00:25:42.402 --> 00:25:44.284
multiple continents right like that's not
00:25:44.384 --> 00:25:46.685
just an american thing and so as we
00:25:46.726 --> 00:25:48.748
start deconstructing these systems you can
00:25:48.788 --> 00:25:51.230
deconstruct america the good guys we're
00:25:51.310 --> 00:25:54.032
number one so again like that one's really
00:25:54.073 --> 00:25:55.835
easy to deconstruct because like other
00:25:55.875 --> 00:26:00.098
than like covid deaths and infant
00:26:00.159 --> 00:26:02.221
mortality rate we've not been number one
00:26:02.280 --> 00:26:03.061
at a lot of things
00:26:05.422 --> 00:26:08.483
um we're good at sports pretty pretty good
00:26:08.544 --> 00:26:11.826
at the olympic medals uh but yeah like
00:26:11.846 --> 00:26:13.487
we haven't been number one at very much
00:26:13.507 --> 00:26:16.249
for a very long time number of nuclear
00:26:16.288 --> 00:26:19.151
warheads one of those few things that that
00:26:19.171 --> 00:26:23.192
we maintain number one at so um you
00:26:23.212 --> 00:26:24.473
start pulling on these threads and you
00:26:24.513 --> 00:26:26.035
keep getting further and further up right
00:26:26.075 --> 00:26:27.915
you can say oh wow apparently we've been
00:26:27.935 --> 00:26:30.557
the baddies like again the whole time meme
00:26:30.698 --> 00:26:31.818
right um
00:26:33.071 --> 00:26:34.372
And then you're like, okay, well,
00:26:34.472 --> 00:26:35.333
so tug on that.
00:26:35.432 --> 00:26:35.992
Oh, well,
00:26:36.053 --> 00:26:38.473
America's capitalist ruling class,
00:26:38.574 --> 00:26:40.954
wealthy people, landowners.
00:26:40.974 --> 00:26:42.095
I get it, right?
00:26:42.174 --> 00:26:43.996
Let's tug the thread on capitalism.
00:26:44.096 --> 00:26:44.715
That's bad.
00:26:44.776 --> 00:26:46.757
The blatant corruption that's going on is
00:26:47.317 --> 00:26:49.637
unprecedented throughout history at the
00:26:49.678 --> 00:26:50.417
levels that it's at.
00:26:50.478 --> 00:26:51.178
Okay, that's bad.
00:26:51.198 --> 00:26:52.898
Let's deconstruct capitalism.
00:26:52.919 --> 00:26:53.499
Okay, we did that.
00:26:53.598 --> 00:26:55.039
Oh, no, there's still more.
00:26:55.880 --> 00:26:58.060
So we're sort of at this now what
00:26:58.201 --> 00:26:58.540
where...
00:26:59.457 --> 00:27:00.938
the identity and the different
00:27:01.018 --> 00:27:02.598
identifiers, right?
00:27:02.979 --> 00:27:05.840
American is an identifier,
00:27:05.901 --> 00:27:08.061
Christian or whatever religion, right,
00:27:08.103 --> 00:27:08.843
is an identifier.
00:27:08.883 --> 00:27:10.844
But now we're having to tug on those
00:27:10.923 --> 00:27:13.506
identifiers and see what else makes up our
00:27:13.546 --> 00:27:13.986
identity.
00:27:14.046 --> 00:27:15.666
And like, in a lot of cases,
00:27:15.826 --> 00:27:18.989
our garden, you know,
00:27:19.048 --> 00:27:20.250
is full of these rocks that we've never
00:27:20.269 --> 00:27:21.050
really turned over.
00:27:21.330 --> 00:27:22.372
And so, you know,
00:27:22.451 --> 00:27:24.032
if you inherit a garden that's growing
00:27:24.073 --> 00:27:25.834
really well, you might know to weed it,
00:27:25.874 --> 00:27:26.213
but like,
00:27:26.766 --> 00:27:28.307
At some point, you have to rotate crops.
00:27:28.326 --> 00:27:29.448
You got to take things out.
00:27:29.508 --> 00:27:31.229
You got to dig those rocks that are
00:27:31.269 --> 00:27:33.451
underneath the surface out in order to
00:27:33.510 --> 00:27:35.672
maintain that sustainable growing.
00:27:35.811 --> 00:27:37.814
And so I think that's where a lot
00:27:37.854 --> 00:27:38.493
of people are at.
00:27:38.534 --> 00:27:40.375
It's like, well, if I'm not that,
00:27:40.454 --> 00:27:41.256
then this, right?
00:27:41.336 --> 00:27:42.957
And my own deconstruction process was
00:27:42.977 --> 00:27:43.497
like, all right, well,
00:27:43.517 --> 00:27:44.637
I'm not a fundamentalist.
00:27:44.698 --> 00:27:46.680
I don't believe in biblical inerrancy.
00:27:46.700 --> 00:27:48.101
I don't think Noah's Ark really happened.
00:27:48.161 --> 00:27:50.682
I don't think I'll die if I choke,
00:27:50.961 --> 00:27:53.663
or I don't think I will have human
00:27:53.683 --> 00:27:55.645
flesh if I choke on a communion wafer.
00:27:56.625 --> 00:27:57.866
um so you tug on that and you're
00:27:57.906 --> 00:28:00.888
like jesus says you know still said good
00:28:00.949 --> 00:28:02.910
stuff we should give to the poor so
00:28:03.049 --> 00:28:04.990
i'll just do the liberal thing and then
00:28:05.010 --> 00:28:06.852
like oh well i'm gonna keep tugging on
00:28:06.872 --> 00:28:08.032
that and be like well that's not great
00:28:08.093 --> 00:28:09.913
either and probably he never existed so
00:28:10.454 --> 00:28:11.795
why am i building my life around that
00:28:11.815 --> 00:28:13.195
or using it as a model for anything
00:28:13.215 --> 00:28:15.277
when there's lots of other better ethos so
00:28:15.298 --> 00:28:17.598
like you you start to tug on the
00:28:17.719 --> 00:28:19.960
one thread and more threads come out and
00:28:21.020 --> 00:28:22.521
yeah i think that's where a lot of
00:28:22.541 --> 00:28:24.583
people are at you start at one thing
00:28:25.222 --> 00:28:25.544
if it's
00:28:26.330 --> 00:28:28.292
Welcome to the party if your first thing
00:28:28.313 --> 00:28:28.653
was like,
00:28:29.253 --> 00:28:31.055
maybe we shouldn't be bombing Iran.
00:28:31.315 --> 00:28:33.336
Maybe it's like gas prices are going up
00:28:33.416 --> 00:28:35.259
and I voted for them to go down.
00:28:35.419 --> 00:28:39.722
So suddenly I'm mad and see the violence
00:28:39.742 --> 00:28:42.744
inherent in the system.
00:28:42.765 --> 00:28:42.925
Like,
00:28:42.965 --> 00:28:44.326
welcome to the party if that's your first
00:28:44.346 --> 00:28:47.229
thing.
00:28:47.249 --> 00:28:48.631
Critical thinking skills are a great next
00:28:48.651 --> 00:28:51.252
step.
00:28:51.292 --> 00:28:51.432
The...
00:28:53.349 --> 00:28:55.192
So you're left to tug on all these
00:28:55.211 --> 00:28:55.772
different threads.
00:28:55.792 --> 00:28:56.113
And again,
00:28:56.353 --> 00:28:58.516
I think this is probably a separate
00:28:58.615 --> 00:29:00.357
episode at some point for somebody who's
00:29:00.397 --> 00:29:01.077
more knowledgeable than me.
00:29:01.117 --> 00:29:02.338
I'm not a political science person.
00:29:02.420 --> 00:29:03.340
I would love to just be talking about
00:29:03.361 --> 00:29:06.202
mental health, but this is mental health.
00:29:06.544 --> 00:29:09.246
To have your identity crumble
00:29:10.406 --> 00:29:11.087
is scary.
00:29:11.508 --> 00:29:11.929
And again,
00:29:12.269 --> 00:29:13.990
a lot of people have been doubling down,
00:29:14.050 --> 00:29:14.651
tripling down,
00:29:14.711 --> 00:29:16.853
quadrupling down over the past decade
00:29:17.433 --> 00:29:18.494
since twenty sixteen.
00:29:18.914 --> 00:29:21.017
And that hasn't gotten them anywhere.
00:29:21.037 --> 00:29:21.297
Right.
00:29:21.376 --> 00:29:23.519
And so now we're in however many wars
00:29:23.538 --> 00:29:24.420
we're going to have going on.
00:29:24.901 --> 00:29:26.362
Venezuela is not really a war,
00:29:26.402 --> 00:29:27.884
but like we're going to start doing things
00:29:27.923 --> 00:29:30.105
in Cuba because because Trump's brain is
00:29:30.226 --> 00:29:31.886
addled and he's not really running things.
00:29:31.926 --> 00:29:33.308
Do you have to understand that people who
00:29:33.348 --> 00:29:33.568
have
00:29:33.949 --> 00:29:37.151
blackmail on him and have given billions
00:29:37.211 --> 00:29:39.531
of billion with a B billions of dollars
00:29:39.571 --> 00:29:41.553
to him and his family are pulling the
00:29:41.573 --> 00:29:43.114
strings on the Iran stuff.
00:29:43.134 --> 00:29:45.316
But somebody like Marco Rubio is pulling
00:29:45.336 --> 00:29:46.576
the strings on the Cuba thing.
00:29:46.955 --> 00:29:48.998
A neo-Nazi like Stephen Miller is pulling
00:29:49.018 --> 00:29:50.699
the strings on the immigration stuff.
00:29:50.999 --> 00:29:52.500
So we have like a group of terrible
00:29:52.660 --> 00:29:55.681
people running stuff and somehow RFK
00:29:55.721 --> 00:29:56.701
hasn't been impeached yet.
00:29:56.721 --> 00:29:58.323
So he's like making sure that veterans
00:29:58.363 --> 00:30:00.044
can't get prosthetics because somehow that
00:30:00.084 --> 00:30:00.804
makes us healthy.
00:30:01.625 --> 00:30:01.924
I don't know.
00:30:03.003 --> 00:30:04.685
It's a stupid time to be alive.
00:30:07.228 --> 00:30:09.288
Not saying we shouldn't be alive,
00:30:09.349 --> 00:30:11.191
just suggesting the stupidity is quite
00:30:11.250 --> 00:30:13.353
high at this particular time in history.
00:30:14.594 --> 00:30:17.076
So,
00:30:17.115 --> 00:30:19.077
because so much information is readily
00:30:19.117 --> 00:30:19.597
available,
00:30:20.179 --> 00:30:21.799
so much education is readily available,
00:30:22.080 --> 00:30:23.402
there's certainly been stupider times in
00:30:23.442 --> 00:30:23.741
history.
00:30:23.942 --> 00:30:26.364
Again,
00:30:26.564 --> 00:30:28.526
it's in comparison to how much knowledge
00:30:28.625 --> 00:30:30.086
is available that people are not taking
00:30:30.126 --> 00:30:30.647
advantage of.
00:30:32.785 --> 00:30:34.385
But there needs to be a rebuild, right?
00:30:34.465 --> 00:30:35.625
And so one of the things that I
00:30:35.665 --> 00:30:36.405
work with the people who are
00:30:36.445 --> 00:30:37.326
deconstructing is like,
00:30:37.385 --> 00:30:40.027
what does a healthier, more sustainable,
00:30:40.126 --> 00:30:42.347
more authentic spirituality look like?
00:30:42.647 --> 00:30:44.087
And when I first deconstructed it,
00:30:44.248 --> 00:30:46.308
a word like spirituality still felt too
00:30:46.348 --> 00:30:47.769
close to religion and I really wasn't
00:30:47.788 --> 00:30:48.449
comfortable with it.
00:30:48.950 --> 00:30:49.609
And look at me now,
00:30:49.670 --> 00:30:51.890
here I am years later using spirituality
00:30:51.950 --> 00:30:52.651
pretty comfortably.
00:30:53.451 --> 00:30:53.891
Because again,
00:30:54.711 --> 00:30:57.372
spirituality as what is sacred to you
00:30:58.173 --> 00:31:00.576
And that meaning making process is really
00:31:00.736 --> 00:31:02.517
unique and special and wonderful and
00:31:02.557 --> 00:31:02.958
lovely.
00:31:03.218 --> 00:31:05.078
And people do deserve the time and space
00:31:05.460 --> 00:31:06.540
to explore that on their own.
00:31:07.040 --> 00:31:08.882
I very deeply hold that.
00:31:10.123 --> 00:31:10.564
And so
00:31:12.538 --> 00:31:14.740
spirituality is like a study and
00:31:14.779 --> 00:31:17.582
understanding and appreciation of what is
00:31:17.622 --> 00:31:18.542
sacred to you.
00:31:19.324 --> 00:31:23.147
And so in this deconstruction of civics,
00:31:23.548 --> 00:31:25.609
faith in a country,
00:31:26.971 --> 00:31:28.352
there needs to be a landing place.
00:31:28.372 --> 00:31:30.513
And like, what else could there be?
00:31:31.234 --> 00:31:32.757
And I think a lot of the landing
00:31:32.777 --> 00:31:34.739
places that I have found myself in have
00:31:34.759 --> 00:31:36.119
a really high entry level.
00:31:36.240 --> 00:31:38.541
I think it's why somebody like me is
00:31:38.583 --> 00:31:39.763
like, I'm not a Democrat.
00:31:39.784 --> 00:31:41.645
There's not a leftist enough party for me,
00:31:41.705 --> 00:31:41.986
but like,
00:31:42.066 --> 00:31:43.807
I don't even really like politics as a
00:31:43.887 --> 00:31:44.588
concept.
00:31:44.648 --> 00:31:44.868
Right.
00:31:46.431 --> 00:31:47.771
I'm an anarchist at heart,
00:31:47.872 --> 00:31:49.471
even though I know that's not possible.
00:31:50.913 --> 00:31:53.693
And so we need better messaging,
00:31:53.753 --> 00:31:54.855
and it's not going to come from the
00:31:54.875 --> 00:31:56.055
Democrat Party.
00:31:56.115 --> 00:31:58.457
It might break off of the Democrat Party,
00:31:58.497 --> 00:31:59.416
which is what we need.
00:31:59.457 --> 00:32:01.057
But having a true progressive wing,
00:32:01.498 --> 00:32:03.479
something like a communist...
00:32:04.932 --> 00:32:07.432
manifesto is lovely and i think not really
00:32:07.452 --> 00:32:08.973
approachable for a lot of people who are
00:32:09.013 --> 00:32:11.755
like being like as system isn't great
00:32:11.894 --> 00:32:14.476
right democratic socialism is a model that
00:32:14.536 --> 00:32:17.676
certainly works in other countries and and
00:32:17.737 --> 00:32:21.318
could certainly work here at scale um i
00:32:21.358 --> 00:32:23.078
think again you're fighting a propaganda
00:32:23.098 --> 00:32:25.019
machine that's been at war with socialism
00:32:25.059 --> 00:32:27.161
for a long time and so i
00:32:27.950 --> 00:32:30.651
Things like basic human dignity, food,
00:32:30.691 --> 00:32:31.550
water, shelter,
00:32:31.971 --> 00:32:34.731
are not hard concepts to package up and
00:32:34.791 --> 00:32:37.252
say we could feed people instead of bomb
00:32:37.313 --> 00:32:40.753
them.
00:32:40.814 --> 00:32:43.234
We could maintain the largest military in
00:32:43.255 --> 00:32:45.454
the world and still pay for housing and
00:32:45.494 --> 00:32:46.556
food for everyone.
00:32:47.655 --> 00:32:48.435
Everyone, right?
00:32:48.496 --> 00:32:50.217
I'm not even saying in just this country.
00:32:52.538 --> 00:32:53.938
The money we cut from like,
00:32:55.248 --> 00:32:57.959
Aid programs could have been funded.
00:32:58.019 --> 00:32:59.262
Social security could be funded
00:32:59.625 --> 00:33:00.689
indefinitely.
00:33:01.488 --> 00:33:02.449
with what we're spending,
00:33:02.608 --> 00:33:04.630
just unlike the two weeks we've been
00:33:04.950 --> 00:33:05.851
bombing Iran.
00:33:06.611 --> 00:33:07.791
So, you know,
00:33:08.071 --> 00:33:09.492
I don't think the messaging is hard,
00:33:09.573 --> 00:33:11.234
but I certainly think we need people who
00:33:11.315 --> 00:33:13.536
are not like a return to form,
00:33:13.576 --> 00:33:13.976
I think,
00:33:14.616 --> 00:33:16.438
needing to be able to say this is
00:33:16.478 --> 00:33:17.419
bad and wrong.
00:33:17.479 --> 00:33:18.960
And like we as a species are not
00:33:18.980 --> 00:33:21.181
going to tolerate this behavior from
00:33:21.221 --> 00:33:22.362
people who have hoarded wealth,
00:33:22.382 --> 00:33:24.824
from people who have murdered at scale,
00:33:25.523 --> 00:33:28.526
CEOs, massive polluters,
00:33:28.905 --> 00:33:30.627
people who have profited off of the war
00:33:30.647 --> 00:33:31.127
machine.
00:33:32.914 --> 00:33:34.037
Right.
00:33:34.136 --> 00:33:34.857
And like, I don't know,
00:33:34.877 --> 00:33:35.999
I'm not hopeful about that.
00:33:36.058 --> 00:33:37.561
We can't even prosecute pedophiles.
00:33:37.582 --> 00:33:38.403
So like, what are we doing?
00:33:39.104 --> 00:33:43.048
But when it crumbles, which like, again,
00:33:43.108 --> 00:33:44.371
seems like it is accelerating,
00:33:44.431 --> 00:33:46.133
but we're still not at a collapse.
00:33:46.894 --> 00:33:47.154
Um,
00:33:48.479 --> 00:33:49.660
it's building identity and then it's
00:33:49.700 --> 00:33:51.201
building community, right?
00:33:51.281 --> 00:33:53.064
And so when people leave,
00:33:53.483 --> 00:33:55.527
when people deconstruct and they do that
00:33:55.646 --> 00:33:56.928
identity work, then it's,
00:33:57.469 --> 00:33:58.730
now it's finding people in community
00:33:58.769 --> 00:34:00.471
because it can be a very lonely feeling
00:34:00.511 --> 00:34:01.032
process.
00:34:01.492 --> 00:34:03.134
And so when you realize what your ethics,
00:34:03.174 --> 00:34:03.796
what your ethos,
00:34:03.836 --> 00:34:06.018
what your value system is, right?
00:34:06.637 --> 00:34:08.320
then you can find and connect people who
00:34:08.340 --> 00:34:09.420
share that value system.
00:34:09.501 --> 00:34:10.521
And that's like lovely, right?
00:34:10.581 --> 00:34:11.922
We are social creatures.
00:34:12.583 --> 00:34:13.923
It's what our species,
00:34:14.425 --> 00:34:16.126
how our species has survived because we
00:34:16.166 --> 00:34:19.208
can do things in a community and we
00:34:19.228 --> 00:34:20.289
have good endurance.
00:34:22.371 --> 00:34:24.634
And so I think that's where we sort
00:34:24.653 --> 00:34:25.295
of need is like,
00:34:25.775 --> 00:34:27.456
what is the messaging around it?
00:34:27.496 --> 00:34:30.458
What can be a new identity placeholder?
00:34:31.159 --> 00:34:33.322
What if it was just like humans who
00:34:33.342 --> 00:34:34.742
care for other humans?
00:34:37.009 --> 00:34:39.891
life is a limited thing in the universe.
00:34:40.472 --> 00:34:41.293
It's probably not.
00:34:41.353 --> 00:34:43.315
It's probably exponentially vast,
00:34:43.416 --> 00:34:44.896
but that's just because we're dealing with
00:34:44.916 --> 00:34:48.019
such exponentially vast concept like
00:34:48.059 --> 00:34:48.400
space.
00:34:48.440 --> 00:34:49.461
But like, yeah,
00:34:49.981 --> 00:34:52.164
it's rare in our neck of the woods.
00:34:52.925 --> 00:34:53.806
And so, you know,
00:34:53.865 --> 00:34:56.208
we could protect it better than we have.
00:34:56.628 --> 00:34:57.570
What if we did that?
00:34:58.822 --> 00:34:59.043
And again,
00:34:59.103 --> 00:35:01.025
I think at least two generations are
00:35:01.085 --> 00:35:01.585
interested in that.
00:35:01.605 --> 00:35:03.106
I would say millennials for sure.
00:35:03.226 --> 00:35:04.307
And Gen Z for sure.
00:35:04.327 --> 00:35:06.989
It's why we all like love our rescue
00:35:07.030 --> 00:35:07.489
dogs.
00:35:07.710 --> 00:35:07.951
And yeah,
00:35:11.215 --> 00:35:12.155
Yeah.
00:35:12.215 --> 00:35:14.615
So I certainly think the messaging is not
00:35:14.655 --> 00:35:15.735
that hard.
00:35:17.456 --> 00:35:19.097
Am I cynical enough in my third to
00:35:19.137 --> 00:35:21.077
seven years of age to be like, well,
00:35:21.097 --> 00:35:22.277
the Democrats will fumble that because
00:35:22.318 --> 00:35:23.117
it's easy messaging?
00:35:23.677 --> 00:35:24.617
Absolutely.
00:35:25.659 --> 00:35:27.338
But it's not really Democrat or
00:35:27.378 --> 00:35:28.298
Republican, right?
00:35:28.358 --> 00:35:30.340
That even is like the American lens.
00:35:30.699 --> 00:35:32.199
It needs to be much wider than that
00:35:32.260 --> 00:35:34.280
and it needs to be more expansive than
00:35:34.300 --> 00:35:34.621
that.
00:35:34.701 --> 00:35:36.300
And I think that is still really
00:35:36.340 --> 00:35:37.081
approachable.
00:35:38.302 --> 00:35:39.181
I think that's what
00:35:40.382 --> 00:35:42.063
indigenous folks were doing for a long
00:35:42.103 --> 00:35:46.688
time and uh we could certainly go back
00:35:46.728 --> 00:35:50.731
to that and sort of you know the
00:35:50.771 --> 00:35:51.952
the way that people talk about it with
00:35:51.972 --> 00:35:54.255
like two-eyed scene which is like it's
00:35:54.434 --> 00:35:56.717
it's not a return to some mythical put
00:35:56.777 --> 00:35:58.840
on a pedestal thing that's probably like
00:35:59.880 --> 00:36:01.442
again, mythologized,
00:36:02.262 --> 00:36:03.842
but it's understanding that there are ways
00:36:03.882 --> 00:36:05.702
of being and ways of doing that have
00:36:05.922 --> 00:36:06.884
existed for millennia.
00:36:06.923 --> 00:36:09.264
We don't need to reinvent the wheel and
00:36:10.105 --> 00:36:12.726
we can use modern technology and modern
00:36:12.746 --> 00:36:14.027
ways of understanding too.
00:36:14.146 --> 00:36:16.126
It's a both and, not an either or.
00:36:17.047 --> 00:36:18.007
And I think, again,
00:36:18.047 --> 00:36:21.108
that is what people are asking and that's
00:36:21.250 --> 00:36:22.230
been pushed back to that.
00:36:22.250 --> 00:36:23.130
But that's propaganda.
00:36:23.150 --> 00:36:24.331
We have to deconstruct that.
00:36:25.161 --> 00:36:26.083
How do we know what we know?
00:36:27.083 --> 00:36:27.985
Critical thinking skills.
00:36:28.405 --> 00:36:33.530
Having the sense and the intellectual
00:36:33.590 --> 00:36:36.172
honesty to hold the same standards for the
00:36:36.193 --> 00:36:37.873
things that we like and that we don't
00:36:37.914 --> 00:36:38.235
like.
00:36:38.275 --> 00:36:40.097
That we're not critical of things we don't
00:36:40.137 --> 00:36:42.077
like and then not critical of our own
00:36:42.259 --> 00:36:42.498
shit.
00:36:46.637 --> 00:36:48.219
So deconstructing,
00:36:48.699 --> 00:36:50.940
understanding the identity can be broken
00:36:50.960 --> 00:36:52.601
down into component parts and those can
00:36:52.641 --> 00:36:54.362
still maintain meaning while having a
00:36:54.402 --> 00:36:56.664
different identifier and then building
00:36:56.684 --> 00:36:57.505
that community back.
00:36:57.644 --> 00:36:58.525
And that, again,
00:36:58.565 --> 00:36:59.885
takes messaging and will take some
00:36:59.905 --> 00:37:00.646
accountability.
00:37:00.706 --> 00:37:04.088
Like I'm not expecting my next round of
00:37:04.148 --> 00:37:06.170
voting here as American to have awesome
00:37:06.269 --> 00:37:08.152
options when I've never had good options
00:37:08.211 --> 00:37:08.811
my whole life.
00:37:10.132 --> 00:37:11.094
I am expecting...
00:37:12.155 --> 00:37:14.438
to vote for whoever is going to prosecute
00:37:14.699 --> 00:37:18.063
the current regime gets my vote uh because
00:37:18.103 --> 00:37:20.746
we need regime change but we also need
00:37:20.786 --> 00:37:22.367
like people who are interested in like not
00:37:22.427 --> 00:37:24.431
going back to what was but building
00:37:24.490 --> 00:37:25.211
something different
00:37:25.887 --> 00:37:26.128
And again,
00:37:26.148 --> 00:37:28.251
there are pieces of what was not the
00:37:28.311 --> 00:37:30.934
American experiment that ninety percent of
00:37:30.994 --> 00:37:33.378
our history has been spent in active
00:37:33.438 --> 00:37:34.340
military action.
00:37:35.460 --> 00:37:37.224
But going back to thinking of like the
00:37:37.264 --> 00:37:39.266
continent, the earth, the planet,
00:37:39.327 --> 00:37:41.429
what what has been, what has sustained,
00:37:41.469 --> 00:37:42.692
what has worked overall?
00:37:43.760 --> 00:37:45.981
um and bits and pieces right there are
00:37:46.001 --> 00:37:47.702
countries that are doing good things there
00:37:47.722 --> 00:37:49.583
are civilizations that are doing good
00:37:49.643 --> 00:37:52.344
things that are working in harmony with
00:37:52.405 --> 00:37:54.284
each other and with the planet with the
00:37:54.445 --> 00:37:57.186
earth and there's ways to use science
00:37:57.346 --> 00:37:59.567
current knowledge and indigenous and
00:37:59.586 --> 00:38:02.447
inherent knowledge um to make that all
00:38:02.487 --> 00:38:05.389
work so and and you know i know
00:38:05.429 --> 00:38:06.909
if i like said this to my still
00:38:06.949 --> 00:38:08.070
very christian parents they
00:38:09.079 --> 00:38:10.519
balk at it right and so there needs
00:38:10.559 --> 00:38:12.101
to be people at all sort of levels
00:38:12.601 --> 00:38:14.063
when i'm doing work with deconstruction i
00:38:14.083 --> 00:38:15.724
like people who are like questioning
00:38:15.764 --> 00:38:17.347
leaning towards leaving or i've already
00:38:17.467 --> 00:38:20.028
left versus people who are still deeply
00:38:20.068 --> 00:38:21.630
ingrained in their religion like i'm not
00:38:21.650 --> 00:38:23.211
i'm not trying to proselytize people out
00:38:23.231 --> 00:38:25.313
of their religion and so i know there's
00:38:25.353 --> 00:38:27.315
an avenue of the deconstruction process
00:38:27.335 --> 00:38:30.559
that i work really well with and there
00:38:30.579 --> 00:38:32.159
need to be people people who are like
00:38:32.260 --> 00:38:34.402
still christian but like let's
00:38:35.663 --> 00:38:38.568
maybe agree that like hating gay people
00:38:38.690 --> 00:38:39.291
isn't good.
00:38:39.311 --> 00:38:40.733
Yeah.
00:38:43.255 --> 00:38:43.635
that's great.
00:38:44.056 --> 00:38:45.295
We need people who are there too.
00:38:45.396 --> 00:38:47.177
And then like, you know, I don't know.
00:38:47.976 --> 00:38:50.797
I'm naturally deconstructionist.
00:38:50.858 --> 00:38:53.079
So I'm a social constructionist,
00:38:53.219 --> 00:38:54.460
like philosophically, right?
00:38:54.480 --> 00:38:55.900
That's the symposium I just went to.
00:38:56.041 --> 00:38:57.721
I like the deconstruction of it.
00:38:58.242 --> 00:38:59.561
So much of what I was raised with
00:38:59.581 --> 00:39:00.963
was socially constructed by people,
00:39:01.202 --> 00:39:01.623
not me.
00:39:02.222 --> 00:39:04.643
And so needing to pull on those threads
00:39:04.684 --> 00:39:07.545
before being able to have something new or
00:39:07.585 --> 00:39:08.505
better or different.
00:39:10.068 --> 00:39:10.369
Anyway,
00:39:10.389 --> 00:39:12.329
I thought I'd share my fun little thought
00:39:12.369 --> 00:39:13.829
experiment with you that my brain was
00:39:13.849 --> 00:39:15.530
happy with that like deconstructing
00:39:16.710 --> 00:39:21.411
religion is a good sort of approachable
00:39:21.451 --> 00:39:23.251
skill set for people who are being like,
00:39:23.351 --> 00:39:24.291
wait, are we the baddies?
00:39:24.311 --> 00:39:30.012
The answer to that is yeah.
00:39:30.092 --> 00:39:30.293
Yeah.
00:39:31.932 --> 00:39:32.253
And again,
00:39:32.313 --> 00:39:34.893
in a different timeline or in some future,
00:39:34.954 --> 00:39:37.233
maybe I'm getting to finally do the like
00:39:37.333 --> 00:39:38.594
years I've been saying I'm going to do
00:39:38.614 --> 00:39:39.414
a Watchmen video.
00:39:41.733 --> 00:39:44.815
My first big deconstruction superheroes.
00:39:45.675 --> 00:39:48.639
A lot of people's deconstruction.
00:39:48.679 --> 00:39:49.219
Watchmen.
00:39:49.679 --> 00:39:50.960
I would love to just do regular mental
00:39:50.981 --> 00:39:52.222
health concepts and not have to be like,
00:39:53.103 --> 00:39:53.722
war.
00:39:54.463 --> 00:39:56.565
But, you know, it's what's going on.
00:39:57.606 --> 00:39:58.847
I do have some cool guests lined up.
00:39:58.947 --> 00:40:00.588
I've been saying that for like a month,
00:40:00.648 --> 00:40:03.090
but it took like two months off of
00:40:03.150 --> 00:40:07.134
guests and have then taken one of those
00:40:07.193 --> 00:40:08.655
months was just taking a month off of
00:40:08.715 --> 00:40:09.094
guests.
00:40:09.175 --> 00:40:11.197
And the next month has been working ahead
00:40:11.217 --> 00:40:12.458
to schedule those guests.
00:40:12.677 --> 00:40:14.418
So cool people coming up.
00:40:15.099 --> 00:40:15.940
Excited about that.
00:40:16.320 --> 00:40:19.043
Come back next week for another new
00:40:19.103 --> 00:40:19.483
episode.
00:40:19.822 --> 00:40:21.083
In the meantime, take care of yourself.
00:40:21.264 --> 00:40:22.065
Take care of somebody else.
00:40:22.164 --> 00:40:22.545
Peace.