the founding ideologies with Dr. Todd J. Stockdale (ep 2, 35).

From Enlightenment ideals to the myth of the American frontier, the founding ideologies of the United States have long shaped how we define humanity, progress, and belonging. In this episode, Dr. Todd Stockdale invites us to trace how these ideologies, especially the Western liberal view of the autonomous individual, intersected with Protestant theology and national identity. Drawing on the work of John Locke, Max Weber, and Karl Marx, we explore how these frameworks have informed what counts as good and bad, civilized and savage, included and excluded, preserved and erased. And we ask what it would mean to reimagine our shared future not through domination, but through a deeper vision of what it means to be fully human.

Dr. Stockdale challenges us to examine how our ideas of justice, freedom, and selfhood have been formed by settler colonial logics, and how healing might begin by telling a different story. This conversation builds a bridge between earlier episodes exploring Indigenous erasure and theological complicity, and the final arc of this season, which seeks to confront systems of race, class, and gender that continue to shape our country and Northwest Arkansas today.

https://www.theunderview.com/episodes/the-underview-the-founding-ideologies-dr-todd-j-stockdale

About the underview:

The underview is an exploration of the development of our Communal Theology of Place viewed through the medium of bikes, land, and people to discover community wholeness.

Website: ⁠⁠theunderview.com⁠⁠
Follow us on Instagram: ⁠⁠@underviewthe
Host: @mikerusch

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Transcript

todd stockdale: 0:02

The idea for me is first and foremost recognize that our views, our values, our systems of labor have come from somewhere. It's just not the way the world has always been. It won't be the way the world always is. So can we imagine a different future, a different way of being, a way that privileges the human being, a way that privileges the human experience, a way that is not alienating and dehumanizing. Imagining a different future and what we prioritize, and are we prioritizing things that are going to lead to human flourishing?

mike rusch: 1:22

You're listening to the underview, an Exploration in the shaping of our Place. My name is Mike Rusch, and today we've come to a bridge between the stories that we've uncovered and the deeper questions that remain of what it all means and how do we respond to them. This season, the story of northwest Arkansas, it started back in January and we only have three episodes remaining in this season. So I want to take you back to my first episode with Melissa Horner, where I shared a story. About two young fish that were swimming along when they encountered an older fish. And the older fish asked, "how's the water today?" And the younger fish looked at each other and asked, "what is water?" And much like those younger fish, we often fail to recognize the systems and I would say ideologies that shape our environment that are influencing us so deeply that they become invisible to our everyday awareness. This episode is a continuation of that question of trying to recognize the water in which we swim because throughout this season, we've listened to leaders like Melissa describe the founding systems of this country that continue to shape our land, our laws, and our lives. We've heard from immigrants and descendants of enslaved people, workers, and organizers, and each voice has been revealing a part of the structures we live within. But today we pause to ask what else lies beneath those systems? What ideas about faith, about the self, about the other have been used to form and shape the stories that we've heard? And more importantly, what does it mean to be fully human within them in the wake of so much hardship? Because if we're really going to reckon with place, if we're going to understand belonging, we have to ask about the ideas that serve as the water that we swim in. The stories that have shaped our definitions of good and bad, worthy and unworthy, civilized and savage, included and excluded, preserved and erased all of it. And we have to admit that some of those stories have come wrapped in an ideology that shaped how we see it all. So today to work through some of these questions, I invited Dr. Todd Stockdale, a theologian and professor of humanities at Seton Hall University. And in full disclosure, he is one of my longest friends that I've known from growing up together here in Arkansas. He and I have had conversations for decades about much of this. So today he's going to help us trace some of those threads. This isn't an abstract academic or religious exercise, it's a necessary step in understanding ourselves and the place we live in. It's about asking those deeper questions we all have. Is there meaning? Is there purpose? What is real? What is true, and how can I find fulfillment and happiness? Because hidden in all of the stories we've walked through this season, we might just find the very things we've been looking for, truth and healing, and a way forward, a deeper story of who we are and who we could become. Alright, we've got a whole lot to work through today. Let's get into it. Well, I have the privilege today of sharing a table with Dr. Todd Stockdale, who has been a friend of mine as far back as I can remember. And so it's a privilege just to be able to sit here with you, Todd. But also we gonna dig into some topics that we've been talking about all this season, which goes to the root of our identity as human beings and really all of the mythologies that wrap around our understanding of who we are in this world and what that looks like in our space. And so, Todd, welcome to the conversation. It's great to have you here.

todd stockdale: 4:38

It's great to be here, Mike. It's just such a privilege to sit at the table with you, like you said, lifelong friends, and so it's a pleasure of mine.

mike rusch: 4:45

I think one of the components of that is that we have walked through a lot of these conversations together over the years. And so today to be able to sit down and have a conversation that really is rooted in, I think as you described, your teachings and your pursuit of what does it mean to be human? It feels like at this point in the season, it makes sense to come back around to maybe where we started, but from a little bit of a different point of view. And so gimme a little taste of who you are and your background and what you've been up to over the years.

todd stockdale: 5:16

Yeah, so I'm a northwest Arkansas native. I was born there, I was raised there. I'm a proud product of the state of Arkansas, educated there. Met my wife there, married there. Have a deep passion for northwest Arkansas. It is a place that I still call home even when I travel abroad and people hear my accent they ask me where I'm from. And even though I flew out of New York and I'll be flying back to New York, I just look at them and smile as have from Arkansas.

mike rusch: 5:42

I love that. as I've heard you describe your field of study and I've heard you say this to people over and over again when they ask you like, what do you teach? And your response is typically it's what does it mean to be human? Is the topic of your studies and your pursuit within this practical theology field that you've been immersed with and got your PhD in. But maybe in the spirit of that question, like what does it mean to be human? Help me unpack that a little bit.

todd stockdale: 6:07

Yeah, so it's really the theme that I pull through my core classes that I teach at Seton Hall. The classes for the first year, students really take up these big questions. They take up the question of meaning and purpose questions like how can we be happy? Which, oftentimes we don't stop and ask ourselves that question. We're pursuing happiness, but we don't actually stop and ask the question of what is going to make me happy? How can I find fulfillment? How can I flourish? And so this question of what does it mean to be human is really the central question that gets pulled throughout the various courses that I teach. It really does look at what does it mean to be a fully functioning, alive human being in this world? That involves things like empathy and care for the other. It involves ideas around flourishing. It involves ideas around how to care for others, how to care for the most vulnerable amongst us. But really it is this notion of what does it mean to be a fully formed human being and the spiritual dimensions of life, the physical dimensions, the social dimensions . And it really does draw on questions that animate the human experience. And so what we do in our classes is we look at the way different cultures and peoples around the world. Philosophies, religions have tried to respond to that question.

mike rusch: 7:17

The work of your PhD has been within the subject of practical theology, right? Which should make sense to all of us, but I'm gonna be honest with you, I'm I, you may have to unpack that as well for us, but it allows you to connect to these big questions about place and about ethics and identity really to the specifics of what that looks like in everyday life. And so our conversation has been what does it look like to belong to a place and what does it look like and how do people connect with where they are? And so I'm curious maybe how you see this conversation, the overlap of those subjects around these ideas of place and identity and belonging.

todd stockdale: 7:55

So basically practical theology just looks at lived religious life. And I'm operating in a Christian context. So it looks at lived Christianity and Christianity at its very core is an incarnation religion. And so Christian communities, they incarnate themselves in place, they incarnate themselves in culture. And so what I look at oftentimes is in this question of place and culture how do we live out our faith authentically in those spaces? And so Practic theology looks at the messiness of Christianity. It looks at Christianity as it is lived. It looks at Christianity as it's lived locally. It looks at Christianity as it's lived within culture. And so a lot of my work that I do does actually hit that intersection of religion and place and culture.

mike rusch: 8:42

This has been one of the subjects within this season that we've really seen, really strung throughout every episode. And we, last week we explored this idea of kind of the historical foundations of how faith or religion, if you will, has moved in the United States and how it's shaped in the South, and even brought that back into northwest Arkansas. I realized this conversation is a little bit bigger than that, but I think it's really this question of how faith informs how we think about place and belonging and really this American idea and this American mythology. And so I think I'm really curious because as you talk about the subjects that you've been involved in this isn't just how it works out in an individual life, this is how it works out structurally within our institutions that we make. And you've been looking at this for, the past 2000 years at least, right? And so give us a starting point to think about how this subject really works itself into thinking about the things that really influence who we are today.

todd stockdale: 9:42

Yeah. In the courses I teach we deal primarily with primary texts, which means instead of reading about Augustine or reading about Plato or reading about Aquinas or even Darwin and Nietzche, we're actually reading these authors, we're reading their words. And first of all, it is an encounter with a culture that in many ways has shaped ours, but is different from ours. And that's one of the things that oftentimes I find with students encountering these texts for their first time is we all would assume we would do, they'll read their own experiences into these texts. And so one of the things that's really helpful is we go into these different cultures and these different contexts is to see how distinct and how unique we in fact are. And in our American system, we can see how we're shaped by these ideas. We're shaped by these texts, we're shaped by these thinkers. But yet we stand in a very distinct time and a very distinct place. So what that does, it allows us to actually better examine our own place. It actually allows us to see that we are in fact distinct. And when you see the peculiarities of our own culture, then you can begin to ask where these things come from.

mike rusch: 10:43

When you look at those historical texts and you think about where we are in the world today, bridge us a little bit. Give us some context and ideas around, and this is me personally, like I moved through this world and I realize that as much as I don't want to be biased or carry these ideas that have formed and shaped me, there are things that have been forming and shaping who we are as people for thousands of years. When you think about these primary texts, give us a foundation of what you feel like is essential that we take away from some of these ideas from thousands of years ago that may have really practical implication to where we are today.

todd stockdale: 11:19

One of the things I would say, Mike, is again I talked about this idea of being fully human. Part of that experience is learning to empathize with another and it's a challenge actually for us to do. It's really easy to read these ancient texts, to read medieval texts and to make quick judgements on the cultures, to make quick judgements on the people to make quick judgements on the ideas. And one of the things we actually ask our students to do is to stop and to pause and just imagine yourself in that world. Imagine yourself in the shoes of another with these values, with these assumptions. And once you imagine yourself having these values and these assumptions, then you can begin to see why would someone think that way? And why would they be seeing the world that way? Why would they think this is a appropriate response to whatever issue or concern is being raised that they're trying to address? And that actually helps us, it helps us become more empathetic as human beings to others. And so one of the things that, that I find so valuable in conversations with students is just that ability to, for them to stop, for them to think and say, that's not us. That's not who we are, or that's not how we are today. But I can see how someone in that context would come to those conclusions or be arguing the way this text is arguing. The bridge then becomes taking what we see in those texts and seeing how certain ideas get carried across culture, get moved into our current contexts and then play out. Oftentimes they play out in ways where we don't even realize it. You've mentioned earlier in your podcast series about this idea of fish and water, and you talk about the fish not being aware of the water around them. Oftentimes we inherit this tradition this intellectual tradition and we just assume that it's always been this way. When actually, if you can find out where these ideas come from, you begin to see the peculiarities of your own culture, and at least at the least recognize it. You don't have to immediately jump to evaluation, but at least to be able to recognize it. To recognize it's distinct and it's different from other cultures around the world, from other cultures in history, other ideas in history, and then you begin the process of perhaps critiquing it or evaluating it.

mike rusch: 13:26

I guess my question would start with, do these frameworks or these ideologies from long ago, do they impact us today?

todd stockdale: 13:33

Oh, most certainly. It's one of those things where we could pick any topic you wanted to. I'll use Nietzsche in this example. I talked to my students about human morality, and Nietzche does a genealogy of human morality. And I ask them to describe for me a good person. And oftentimes they'll say someone who's kind, someone who's compassionate, someone who cares for other people. And without question, I think every student in my class would say, yes, that is a good person. What Nietzsche does is he begins with his genealogy to trace that back and says, that's not always how we thought of a good person prior to Christianity and he's talking about Judeo Christianity. So he lumps Jewish tradition and faith in with Christianity. Before that came into prominence in western culture. That's not what a good person was thought to be a good person was a powerful person. A good person was a rich person. A good person was a beautiful person. And the poor, the weak. Those were considered to be bad people. Or at least their characteristics were bad. And Christianity is basically something that inverts that in western culture. And all of a sudden it is the God of the Jewish people, the God of the Christian people who start to care for the poor, who start to care for the marginalized, who then have us operating in this mindset of what Nietzsche ultimately calls slave morality. But this mindset of caring for other people and being kind and compassionate and loving is good. That's something we just take for granted, Mike. That's something we just don't ever question. And Nietzsche even says that Nietzche says, we have un reflexively accepted that a good person is a kind, compassionate, caring person and he just wants to say that's not always been the case.

mike rusch: 15:09

So Todd, one of the things I think that's captivating to me is this idea of what morality looks like, of what goodness looks like. It really, this is not a constant value. These are things that are shaped over time, maybe defined by the culture. Is that fair?

todd stockdale: 15:22

That is completely fair. And again, this is Nietzsche's argument, right? This is niche's argument that this is not always how it has been. A great example is a map. If we were to pull out a map right now and we were to lay it on the table you would have that map orientated towards the north, right? We even call it the northern Hemisphere, and that would be at the top of the map. The southern hemisphere would be at the bottom of the map. The southern hemisphere would be at the bottom of the map. There's no real reason for that to be that way. That's just how we've gotten used to seeing maps. If you have ever seen an upside down map, quote unquote upside down map where the south is at the top of the map and the north is at the bottom, it's very disorientating, but there's no reason that the map has to look that way. And matter of fact, the earliest maps were east orientated. And so we just assume that this is what the world is supposed to look like. Nietzsche is talking about human morality and  Nietzsche just saying, we just assume that it's always been this way. And his argument is, it is not.

mike rusch: 16:18

This is something that we talked about at the very beginning of the season, was these mythologies and these ideologies that shape our understanding of who we are and really where our country was founded. And so I'm curious like, as we kind of move into modern day what are some of those founding principles that we should think about that really influence the beginning maybe of this country and the stories that we've heard for so long? I know when we spoke to Melissa Horner back in the very first part of the season, we talked about this idea of settler colonialism. We talked about it being rooted in the church and the doctrine of discovery, but there's more to that story, correct?

todd stockdale: 16:54

That's right, yes. And I've so appreciated that podcast that you did with Melissa that was so informative for me. I would probably take us back to an enlightenment thinker, John Locke. He is incredibly influential. He certainly in his writings is echoed in the Declaration of Independence. Thomas Jefferson read and enjoyed and appreciated John Locke. And so when you read him, it'll sound very familiar to American Ears. He is English, but he's very influential in the American imagination of who we are. He's writing in the 16 hundreds and he is trying to propose some way of organizing society that is contra to what he has inherited. So if you think about him in the context of monarchial rule and it is where the sovereign derives his or her authority. And it is a divine right. So basically if you are a monarchy you have as the crown derived your authority from God. John Locke wants to imagine something different. He wants to imagine it in a different way. And he, along with Hobbes and Rousseau, help us get to what we come to call the social contract theory. That is that individuals band together to form a society. And we, the people give consent to the government to be governed. It doesn't derive from God, it derives from the consent of the governed. But he does that in a very interesting way, and he does that in a very interesting way that I think is very pertinent for this series because it has to do with property, it has to do with labor. And he has this story that he tells, and it's a really interesting story. He talks about humans and humans being born in a state of liberty and he believes we're born in a state of perfect liberty. Now, that's not licensed to do anything we want to do, but it's freedom, it's liberty. And you can again hear the echoes in our Declaration of Independence when you read Locke and his emphasis on human liberties and human rights. And Locke has this idea that humans are born sovereign that you have right to your body, you have right to your possessions, you have right to your labor, you have right to your property, And that's gonna be a big thing for Locke because it introduces something as a little bit different as far as our relationship to land is concerned. So he imagines it this way. He talks about us in the natural world and he says, humans have their liberties and they have the right to their selves, to their persons, to their possessions, and to their labor. So he has this idea in his mind of these many kings and many queens that you are born a sovereign, and I am born a sovereign. And we share though this natural world, and he calls it the state of nature. And he just says, let's just imagine the state of nature. If something is in the state of nature it's gonna do what nature does. So imagine an apple tree. The apple tree in the state of nature, it is going to grow. It's going to bud in the spring over the course of the summer and into the fall. It's going to produce an apple. But if left in the state of nature, that apple's going to ripen, it's going to fall to the ground and it's gonna decompose, and that will go on over and over year after year. And that is what the state of nature is. Locke says if someone exerts their labor and actually takes something out of the state of nature because their labor is theirs, whatever they remove from the state of nature belongs to them. It becomes their property. And so in Locke's mind, we do not need permission because we all, again, in this imagined world, share what is common, the natural world. I don't need your permission to go pick an apple use my labor to remove it from the state of nature and consume it because you don't have authority over me. Now, Locke in this theory says there are limits to this, and this is where it gets really interesting. He says, there's limits to how much one person can take outta the state of nature and claim to be their own. And the limit is this. If I take, let's use our apple tree for example. I'm an, I'm a person who gets up early in the morning. I'm a hard worker. I go out there and I just strip that apple tree bear and I take every apple for myself and I hoard it up in my room and I'm just nibbling on apples over there. What I've done by doing that is I've not allowed you, or I've deprived you from the opportunity to use your labor to take an apple outta the state of nature. But what's fundamentally wrong for Locke is this, if I hoard those apples up in my room and they start to spoil, I've wasted the produce because I've wasted the produce and no one has had an opportunity to take it, that's wrong. And so Locke has at least some limits on this idea of how much one can take from the state of nature to make it their own. But he says, we figured out a way. We figured out a way for a person to own more land than what they can make use of. And he says, we figured out a way to do that because I can take those apples that I've taken outta the state of nature and I can then exchange an apple with you for gold or silver. And he says, I can hoard up as much gold or silver as I want, and that will never spoil. So he has this idea that societies have entered into a tacit agreement where one person can own more land by tilling it, cultivating it, using their labor to make it theirs. Then what they can make use for if they exchange the surplus for gold or silver. And he has this idea that one person or people can hoard up more gold and silver than they can make use of, and that doesn't spoil and that's not wrong. So this is where we get this idea of private property that mike you through your labor, cultivating, tending, caring for the land can make it your own. You can say, this is mine. He goes further to say that then the role of government is to protect that private property. So very early in the American imagination is this idea of private property where individuals can own land, and it is theirs. And the role of government is to protect my property from someone else coming and infringing upon it.

mike rusch: 23:00

I think As you lay this out, this starts to sound somehow very familiar, which I think. It makes me maybe want to dig into that a little bit farther into those questions. But, I and this conversation is rooted in this idea of Christian ethics because that's been the dominant religion within our country, and so it makes sense to maybe start there. I know that's not the only perspective that we bring to the table, but in the forming of this country, that was absolutely part of that present faith system, religious system. And so I think within that kind of context I'm really curious when you think about this idea of the individual versus the communal responsibilities, what are the spiritual, maybe ethical implications of this idea of property and consumption. And the almost, it sounds like this justification of myself being able to do what I want.

todd stockdale: 23:50

Yes, Mike I'll pick up on two things you said there. You've picked up on the idea of the individual and Locke has almost this mythical human that just appears outta nowhere as this completely free and independent human being that has no need for anyone else, no need for society, no need for a community but then only bans together in society to protect that individual's rights and liberties. And as we know from experience, that's not how it works. We are all born into a community, be it a family, be it a small town, be it a faith community. And we are in some ways nourished and brought up in that community. So first of all, if you're gonna critique Locke, Locke has this very individualistic mindset, which again, is coming outta the enlightenment. And he is going to privilege the individual and say, we operate as individuals who then only form societies then to protect these individual liberties and rights. That's not how the world has always been. That's that's certainly something that's very modern.

mike rusch: 24:47

Well, And it wasn't the world that they arrived to either.

todd stockdale: 24:49

Excellent point, Mike. Excellent point. But as far as the ethical implications of this, particularly around perhaps profit that comes from land ownership when it comes to consumption a voice that has been speaking to this space was Pope Francis and Pope Francis's 2015 and Cyclical Laudato si'. He's very concerned about our relationship with the natural world. Pope Francis is writing, obviously from a Christian perspective, and so he's gonna talk about creation versus the natural world. But he says, we have inherited this relationship with the natural world. That sees the natural world as a resource for profit, as a resource for gain. And that's very much in the lockean mind. Locke has this idea of how to make use of the land, how to gain profit from the land. And that is, I think in a lot of ways baked into the American psyche. Francis is going to want to push back on that. He's going to want to say, we don't want to first think of our relationship with creation as a source of profit and gain. Francis in writing Laudato si' is concerned about the natural world. He's concerned about what is going on ecologically in our world and how that impacts the poorest among us. Pope Francis draws his inspiration from St. Francis of Assisi and St. Francis of Assisi mendicant Friar in the 12th, 13th century. St. Francis is really remembered for several things. But if you were to take his ministry and distill it into kind of two buckets, it would be care for the natural world, and it would be care for the poor and the vulnerable amongst us. That really was his focus, so to speak. Pope Francis draws his inspiration from him and is equally concerned about the care for the natural world and the care for the poor and the vulnerable. What he sees in St. Francis is this, St. Francis has a different orientation towards the natural world than perhaps the modern American mind does that sees it as a source for profit or for gain. He talks about relationality. St. Francis would talk about Sister Moon, would talk about Mother Earth, brother Sky. So you get this familial language introduced through St. Francis of the natural world. And so we are operating not as someone who is looking at the natural world and seeing as a source of profit or gain, but actually seeing it as a family member and how we would care for and protect and look after a family member. And so what Pope Francis does is he says let's just imagine if we reorientate ourselves and we don't see the natural world as a place for profit and gain, first and foremost, but it's something of a fraternal or familial relationship that is to be cared for and tended for. And he does great work with the genesis narrative, perhaps a portion of the genesis narrative that has been abused where God gives humans dominion. That word gives humans dominion over, over the created world. Francis says if you look closely, God actually defines what dominion means. He defines it as to till and to keep. So it is this caretaker role that we have. Again, think of familial relationships, how we would care for our family members. Pope Francis is really concerned about this. He says, if we see the world, particularly the natural world, first and foremost as a source of profit and gain, what that usually means is a couple things. One, it usually means the resources of this world end up in the hands of a few. And Pope Francis says, either it's the first comers or the more powerful. So if you get there first, I mean that locking imagination, and you are the one who starts to till this ground and you start to make it your own, then it's yours and you possess that. You own that and you can profit from that or. If you're our Native American brothers or sisters and you're here first, but the more powerful come in and drive you from that, they then can possess that, right? So he says, resources end up in the hands of a few, and usually it's the first comer or the most powerful. And this relationship of seeing the land as a source of profit gives us permission to almost exploit the land, almost to take advantage of the land, to squeeze every little bit of profit out of it, versus a relationship that is to till and to keep and to care for not seeing it first and foremost as a source of profit, but as a beautiful mystery to be enjoyed. Pope Francis in his encyclical Laudato si' talks about St. Francis and St. Francis had this rule in the Friary that one portion of the Friary garden had to be untouched. That basically. To allow nature to do what nature does and to sit back and just to see the splendor and the beauty and the awe of nature being, nature of this natural gifted world doing what it does. And again, that is this idea that Pope Francis is pushing back on of seeing the natural world as a place for profit and exploitation, which engenders violence. It of course, brings about consumerism as well. So that is, and that of course is Pope Francis' pushback on some of these locking ideas of seeing profit as the primary relationship that we have with the natural world.

mike rusch: 30:11

Todd. I think if we were to fast forward today, it's hard for me to wrap my head around because. What you're describing is not where we are today. This idea of what I own and the property that I have is really what defines my status, and it defines my ability to belong in many ways. And so this idea, especially coming from St. Francis, this idea of people who do not have they're left outta that equation. So like, how do I reconcile where we are today? It feels like Locke's, ideology's won, if I'm honest.

todd stockdale: 30:41

Yeah. Locke is operating in a world that is pre-industrial. And a lot of things will come about through the Industrial Revolution particularly around the idea of labor and the idea of our relationship to the produce of our labor. That's going to really make Locke and his purest vision difficult to maintain.

mike rusch: 31:03

yeah, Todd, I hear that. I think when we, I wanna be very careful because Locke wasn't this person who was maybe pursuing all of these ethical ideas. He was profited off the slave trade, for example. And so these ideas weren't meant for everyone. I help me, like when we think about that, this starts to set the stage for the privilege of a few, at the expense of the many,

todd stockdale: 31:25

100% with Locke there, mike. Locke was really in his mind and in his writings arguing for the property class and against the unproperty class. And of course, not surprisingly, the founding documents of our country privilege, the property class. And so there, there certainly are not everyone benefiting from Locke's ideas, although I will say that a lot of our modern notions of individual liberties and human rights do owe a bit of debt to, to, to Locke. But Locke has had his critics and probably the boogeyman of them all, Carl Marx. He had the advantage of seeing what the world looks like through the Industrial Revolution. And now we're in the post-industrial world. And this idea of labor Locke has this, almost pure vision of a of a field worker, tilling her land, tilling his land, a field worker or an orchard owner collecting their apples. The industrial Revolution just disrupts all of that, right? The dis the disruption that takes place first with the advent of machinery on the farms. And no longer do we need those people who are working the fields to know to, to do that. So they're displaced. They find themselves, rushing to the cities where the factories are to find work. And so Marx picks up this idea of labor as well, and where Locke saw labor as something that was yours and that you were able to, by tilling the land, by picking the apple, make that yours, it became your private property. Marx is gonna see something else happening with labor. He has a different view of what labor is meant to be, and he has a view about labor and our relationship with the land that's different than Locke's. Marx has this theory, its praxis is what he's known for, but this theory that humans are meant to change the land and by changing the land or by changing the natural world, express their creativity through that. So we can use something as simple as someone who likes to garden. What Marx would say is that as a human being, you have this fundamental desire to interact with the natural world and to shape the natural world, and to change the natural world and to express your creativity through that change. Through your labor. And when you do so, you'll find deep satisfaction. So someone who loves the garden, that's exactly what they're doing. They're out there and they're sweating. They're using their labor. They're landscaping. They're moving dirt. They're planting flowers and they're expressing their creativity through this landscaping or through the garden work that they do. And they step back from that at the end of a long day of work and they feel deeply satisfied. And that's what Marx thinks that humans are meant to do. So humans are meant to not use their labor to take something outta the state of nature and make it theirs, but to use their labor to change nature, to express their creativity. And we can think of all kinds of different ways that this would play out. I'll use the example because of where I'm going with this of a shepherd. And just imagine yourself a shepherd and you're tending your sheep and you've been there during lambing season and you've helped deliver the lamb, and you've made sure that he's with his mother and that he's taken care of, and you raise that lamb and you care for that lamb, and that lamb mature into a sheep, and then and through your labor you're working as a shepherd in the fields, and then you shearer that sheep, and then you take the wool and that sheep and you spin it and you dye it, and you niche yourself this beautiful sweater. How proud of that sweater would you be? Because it has come from your own labor, through your own sweat, and it has taken something that is in the natural world, and you've interacted with the natural world and you've changed it, and you've expressed your creativity through that. And Marx said you'd find deep satisfaction in that. I'm not saying Locke would disagree. Marx has the, again, advantage of seeing kinda what industrialization does to that. And so we'll move away from the hills of Scotland and the shepherds up there down into Manchester, England, where you're working in a factory, a textile factory, and you're still using your labor. But what are you doing? You're actually not taking a product from start to finish because the division of labor, which is very effective in capitalism and industrial capitalism you might have one little job that day, and your job that day is just to sow the sleeve on a sweater and it goes down to the next person line. You sew the sleeve on the next sweater and it goes down to the next person line. You sow the sleeve, or maybe you pull a lever that puts a buttonhole in the sweater, but your job is, your labor, so to speak, is not that kind of pure vision that, that Marx says. Instead, you are working, taking your labor and you're doing something very monotonous, very routine no skill required, no creativity is able to be expressed. And then at the end of the day, and this is Marx's theory of alienation, at the end of the day, it's not like you go down to the end of the assembly line and you pick out a sweater. Because remember, for Locke, you take something outta the state of nature and it's yours. You don't do that in the capitalist system as far as Marx's understanding of that. You don't go down the Indian assembly line and pick out that sweater that you worked on all day. Instead, you get a wage, you get a piece of paper and you find yourself then because of that, deeply dissatisfied with the work that you do, you no longer find satisfaction in your work because two things, one, you're not able to express your creativity, and two, you don't actually get to enjoy the produce of your labor instead, you get a wage. So his critique of labor systems. That would contra Locke is that our labor is not meant to take something outta the state of nature and make it our own and therefore make it private property. You don't have to know much about Marx to know he wasn't a fan of private property. But instead, our labor is meant to express our creativity by shaping and changing nature.

mike rusch: 37:12

Yeah. Todd, I think that's helpful to understand that. So our founding fathers, they were deeply influenced by John Locke and that idea of property and idea of liberty and what that looked like from an individual versus communal perspective. I think that's super, super helpful to, to understand the kind of the foundation of that. I'm curious, are are there other things in there that we need to consider that have also influenced our ideas of where we are today?

todd stockdale: 37:37

Yeah. So in this context of talking about labor in a capitalist system it brings to mind Max Weber, a German sociologist writing in early 19 hundreds. And he's looking around the world and he is doing something most sociologists don't do today. He's making broad sweeping claims but he's seeing something. He's seeing countries that are doing quite well with capitalism and he's seeing countries that are not doing so with capitalism. Now, one of the countries that's doing really well with capitalism, of course, is United States. Yeah. But he's seeing the United States. He's seeing England, but perhaps Germany as well. They're doing really well in capitalism, and he looks at these other countries and he's seeing them not doing as well. And they're countries like Italy, Spain, France, maybe all of Latin America. And he's noticing, wow, the Protestant countries or countries that we would think of as being Protestant countries are actually doing better with capitalism than the countries that would be Catholic. And so he asked himself this question, is there something in the Protestant ethic that makes them more suited for capitalism or provides a foundation for capitalism. And so he begins to look at what he calls sometimes the puritans. Sometimes he calls them Calvinist Protestants. Sometimes he calls them aesthetic Protestants. But he's talking about our pilgrims and he's talking about the people who we trace our story back to and their values and their ethic. And so it would be helpful if you, just as I describe this group of people that he analyzes, think of the pilgrims. You'll know who I'm talking about. And he says they have this idea about labor. It all goes back to labor, is this has this idea about labor. They viewed their work as a calling from God, that God had called them into their profession. Today. We oftentimes think of people who are priests, moms, rabbis, pastors, being called to work. Our puritans they would've thought of anyone. Who was called into a profession to being called by God and they were working for God. And so the chief value for our Calvinist Puritans aesthetic Protestants was hard work, because if you're gonna work for God, you better work hard. And so hard work was their chief value and therefore the chief sin was laziness or slothfulness. So they had that view of work and labor, and that's the Protestant ethic that Weber talks about. Sometimes it's even referred to as the Protestant work ethic, but they had a twin ethic that kind of goes alongside that, and that had to do with money. The puritans, as you might imagine, our pilgrims they did not think that one could spend lavishly, one could only spend money on what was necessary to live. They said you could enjoy. Life and you could enjoy yourself. You just couldn't spend money to do it. And so they did not live opulently. And they were worried about the accumulation of wealth. They certainly made a distinction between pursuing wealth, which meant, Hey, I'm gonna go set out into this career 'cause I'm gonna make a lot of money. And the attainment of wealth, the attainment of wealth is I just happen to be in a profession that pays a lot, or I've made a lot in my in my profession, and therefore I have a lot of money. They distinguish between that, but they're very fearful of the accumulation of wealth for one main reason. And it goes back to their work ethic. It's a temptation towards idleness. If you have enough money, you no longer have to work. And again, if the chief sin is slothfulness or idleness, that's a great temptation to have a lot of money. So this twin ethic has to do with labor or work and wealth. So what Weber does is he then looks at this and he says, how does this provide a foundation for capitalism to flourish? And so let's just imagine yourself a cobbler. You're a shoe maker, and you're making your shoes and you're actually doing quite well at it. You're well known in the community, and you are quite successful and you're making a good deal of money, and you start to acquire wealth. And you know this as a Calvinist aesthetic Protestant, Puritan, you can't spend that money lavishly to have a great life. But here's something else you can't do. You can't just put it in the bank and let it sit there because the money then is idle. The money's lazy, the money's not working, and so you have to put the money to work. And so what you do is you invest that money back into your business because again, that's your calling and work is what is fundamental and fundamental value in your ethic. And so you start putting that money back into your business. Then extrapolate that over 4, 5, 6 generations where you've had limited consumption and wealth acquisition with all the capital going back into the business. And next thing you got a little corporation going. You got a little, Nike shoe factory as it were. That's Weber's theory of how capitalism is established and flourishes in this Protestant ethic. But what Weber also is noted for is his work on secularization and he's very much aware that the majority of Americans today, or at least in 1904, weren't doing their work as a calling from God, but they were actually doing their work as we do today. This is my job and this is what I do, and this is how I make money. And so the religious or spiritual dimensions are no longer there. And he says, now, wealth acquisition in the United States looks like sport. It's just whoever can gain the most, whoever can win the most, whoever can possess the most. He says it's different than the Puritan mindset. He quotes a Puritan saint who says that external goods should lie on the shoulder of a saint, like a light cloak. They can be thrown away at any moment. What that means is if you're in that Calvinistic Puritan aesthetic prostate mindset. You wake up, you work hard, you make a ton of money, you invest it back in the business grows. It flourishes. It thrives. Come Monday morning, you're gonna go to work. Your life's not gonna look any different. You're not gonna have a big house. You're not gonna have lots of possessions. It's gonna look the same. Conversely, if you work really hard, the tides turn against you. You're not making it. You're struggling. Your business is floundering. On Monday morning, you're gonna get up and go to work. Nothing changes in that puritan mindset with your relationship to work and labor vis-a-vis wealth. What Weber says about those possessions that should lie on the shoulder of a saint, like a light cloak has become an iron cage and we're now trapped in, in, in the system.

mike rusch: 44:01

I still go back to maybe where we started with the origin of this, right? You talked about. Pope Francis and this idea of relationality to our world, you'd talk about John Locke and this idea of property, which is, I would say anti-relational in many ways.

todd stockdale: 44:16

Very much

mike rusch: 44:16

And you fast forward, to modern day, and here we have this crisis, what I would consider this crisis of belonging or we've been retreating into these places of faith and power that seem deeply disconnected even though that we as a culture seem to have connected them together really well. We know obviously the world has changed since John Locke's idea of property has emerged. We've now a couple, maybe three centuries into it, if you will. How do we start to reconcile back to this idea of who we are within this American mythology and who we should be when So much of what I would consider, and this is my own maybe personal opinion so many of the systems institutions that we live in are this, they're just deeply anti relational. And we heard this from Melissa Horner back at the very beginning of the season of what this idea of settler colonialism does in this anti relationality. And if we're talking about belonging as a people. Where do we return to, to find this core or this idea of how we belong, to what we belong, and maybe to where we belong?

todd stockdale: 45:24

Yeah, that's a great question, Mike. I think you're exactly right. I don't think that we can return. I do think that it is important to be aware of some of the ideas that we hold so dear to us came out of a particular place and context. And as you mentioned, so much has changed. And so it is sometimes difficult to keep those principles, those ideas in place given so much has changed, I think for me and as an instructor with my students covering the material that I cover and I preface it to my students, the course we take is a course that surveys so much that I'm an expert in almost none of it. The idea for me is to first and foremost recognize these things. Recognize that our views, our values, our systems of labor have come from somewhere. It's just not the way the world has always been. It won't be the way the world always is. And so we can we imagine a bit so can we imagine a different future, a different way of being, a way that privileges the human being, a way that privileges the human experience a way that is not alienating and dehumanizing. Imagining a different future and what we prioritize and are we prioritizing things that are going to lead to human flourishing. I think for me, I teach these classes at Seton Hall and I tell my students all the time why I'm doing it. I let them know I'm not doing it for the money. I do find satisfaction from it. So I guess I could say I'm doing it for that. But I tell my students I'm doing it because I'm a 53-year-old man. My wife and I have no children. We're gonna need society to take care of us when we get older, and I wanna live in a good society. Yeah. And so I want my students who will be the ones who are making decisions about the life that I live as an 80, 85, 90-year-old human to be empathetic, to understand what it means to be human, to understand what human flourishing looks like, to want for, and to work for systems and structures that provide for that human flourishing. That would be my hope.

mike rusch: 47:33

I can't help but ask as we think through this as you've described these systems of property and labor and we've spent a whole, we've spent 35 episodes talking through really what it looks like for people who have been on the underside of power to tell their stories about what these systems have done. Are these systems things we should think about reforming? Are these systems that can become better or are these systems that need to really be dialed back? And we really have to fundamentally think about how we approach our life in this world going forward in a fundamentally different way.

todd stockdale: 48:10

Yeah, so I'll leave it to someone else to write the new book on labor and work. And our relationship to our natural world. I have too much respect for the people that I've been talking about, Locke and Francis and Weber and Marx, to think I can stand in their shoes. But I will say to that question of reform, I do think in speaking particularly from my place as a Christian, that we are to participate in this reform in the systems and the structures of our world to see it to be a more equitable, a more just a more compassionate, more caring society that does seek to see humans flourishing.

mike rusch: 48:51

So as we near the end of this season and we talk about these foundational ideas of what created our country. And really the idea is can we just, whether we agree with them or not, I'll leave to the critics that are listening, but I think it's important that we're aware of these, right? And that we understand the influences that they have over us, over our culture that we don't even think about on a day to day. And so I think in many ways we've got this beginning point where we start to talk about this idea of Settler Colonialism and its anti relationality. And we come back to what kind of a broader definition of that you've described around, I, I would also consider property. I, I think we, we set this in the beginning of anti relationality as well too. If I were to ask you what does it look like to move towards that idea of relationality, how do we do that in our world today? I think that's my. Burning question because I, if we can't do that, then what is belonging? What is belonging ultimately rooted in? And so from your perspective as someone in practical theology with an understanding of how these systems came to be, how do you think about what it means to move back to this idea of relationality in our world today? That's a big question.

todd stockdale: 50:08

That's a great question, Mike. I'm gonna do a plug for the humanities, Mike. Okay. I'm a humanities instructor. I think it is so important we talk about relationality and a move back towards relationality that we stop and we listen to one another. That's more or less what my classes are. My classes are listening to others, and that's others, across cultures, across time, trying to understand their world, trying to understand their complexities, trying to make sense of their values and how those values make sense in that context. As I do that with my students, my hope for them is once they leave the classroom, they'll be able to do that in their lives, that they'll be able to, whether it is an industry or whether it is a profession, or whether it's a community. Wherever they find themselves, they'll be able to truly hear the other, truly try to see something from the other's perspective. Truly try to understand the values of someone that they don't share those values with. And as you do, you start to bridge some chasms and you realize, wow, one thing we do share is our humanity. And in that human experience, as we've seen it throughout history, whether it's Plato, Socrates. And as we look back into the ancient world and the medieval world, the early modern world, and we see these people who are trying to respond to their environment, trying to respond to where they find themselves geographically, culturally, religiously. They're doing so in a human way. They're drawing upon their humanity that we all share and respond to these. So when I think about the day and I think about belonging, for me it's this solidarity with humanity that we're all human beings, who in some way, whether we take time to reflect on it or not, are taken up by the big questions of life. Is there meaning? Is there purpose? What is real? What is true? How can I, find fulfillment and happiness. We're all moving towards that. And if you can begin to see, that's what's animating everything from a corporate CEO to a migrant worker looking for flourishing, looking for fulfillment looking for ways that they can be happy. Then you can say, we're actually in this together.

mike rusch: 52:33

thank you. I mean, I think that's the issue. Is that when we look at, because that's not where we started as a country. I even, and I'll just say it, even though we wanna believe it, even though we want to assume good intentions. I guess my question is the reality is, if I'm listening to you, is that the reality is that's not where we started. I know that may be, oh, I don't know, it may feel outta reach for some people, but I think it's important to acknowledge, if I understand what you're saying, that's just not where we started. So should we be surprised as a culture that we maybe are having a really hard time getting there? I don't, that, that's what it feels like to me is that we have to step back and be honest with ourselves that are so much of our understanding of where're where we began is just not what you just articulated. And so I just, I, yeah, I just, maybe that's me and my opining in many ways, but it feels like we shouldn't be surprised at the difficulty that it takes to get us there.

todd stockdale: 53:29

No, we shouldn't. And if it were easy, they'd have figured it out long time ago, and we'd be living under the same patterns and systems that were present at the earliest days of civilization.

mike rusch: 53:39

But we don't get an out, do we get the opportunity to just say, yeah, forget it. We're just gonna continue doing what we're doing.

todd stockdale: 53:45

No, we don't. We don't. Not at all. And I think we see people who are critiquing, pushing back questioning, and I think that's valuable too, Mike. I think it's important, as I mentioned earlier, to recognize the waters that we swim in because you have to recognize 'em first. Once you recognize 'em, then you can begin to critique them, analyze them, look at them in comparison to other ways that people throughout history and different cultures have lived.

mike rusch: 54:14

I finish all of my conversations with two questions, and so I like if we can't figure that out, what are your fears for where we are as a people?

todd stockdale: 54:22

I think my biggest fears are tribalization, and it's rooted in a sense of a need to belong and we find our tribes to belong to. We find the people that are like us. That see the world like we see it and we just reinforce that in our tribe. And we of course demonize the other ways of living, the other ways of being. And so my fear is that rather than a larger, perhaps more holistic understanding of belonging and that solidarity that we share with the whole human race we'll silo ourselves and will find people to, to think just like us, who live just like us, who believe what we believe and will cut ourselves off from any other kind of influence. And that's a road I don't wanna go down. Again, Another plug to the humanities. Just the experience of loan, of being forced to think about how other people think is such a service in life. And it's a skill that can be developed. It's a trait of empathy that can be nurtured that I think will lead us into a more flourishing society.

mike rusch: 55:33

Todd, one of the themes that we have really tried to find in every conversation we had is this idea of wholeness. And this may be making your brain explode just 'cause of what you look at this over the centuries. For me, I look at it what it looks like today. You may look at this over the centuries, but when I say that and you think about what we've just talked about and all your experience, like what does wholeness look like to you today for us as a people.

todd stockdale: 55:59

We ask what wholeness means. I've used the word being fully human. I could use a different word being authentically human. And that's me personally, you personally, our communities personally living authentically, not trying to be someone or a people who we are not.

mike rusch: 56:18

You've spent your career looking at what societies look like when they are whole and when they are fractured. And I'd love your perspective of what do you see maybe are the common threads of wholeness that maybe allow those societies to, to continue to pursue maybe what it looks like to be a people who are fully human?

todd stockdale: 56:40

Brother? That's the question.

mike rusch: 56:43

Yeah.

todd stockdale: 56:43

The problem is a lot of the dysfunction in society's. And they're just on a repeat cycle. It's always about othering. What Yeah. What takes them out of that. Yeah. Yeah. It's interesting. I like the way you frame that by talking about kind of other societies, the things that they've done and not done. You do tend to see some of the same patterns repeating. And oftentimes the patterns that get formed are the patterns that are disrupting society that aren't creating flourishing. And for me, it perhaps could be things to avoid in society. One of those is othering. The idea of finding a people, finding a religion, finding a an ethnic group to other, and that again. Going back to that idea tribalism, that allows us to come together and it provides some stability and solidity with the core, but at the cost of a broader, more holistic community. So that'd be one. Two. One of the things that you notice when you do survey across history and across culture is how individualistic western society and American society can be. And this goes back to Locke, this goes back to this imaginary person. Locke has being fully formed human being with perfect liberty and no need to society only arranging themselves in society so that their individual liberties can be protected. That's new and that certainly has taken root in the American imagination, but it's not how people live. It's not how people across history have lived. It's not how people today across cultures live. And so I think that pushing back against some of that individualism that is baked into the American psyche would be of great value in fostering wholeness.

mike rusch: 58:32

I would subscribe to that as well too. Thank you for sitting down and having this conversation. And thanks for the work that you're doing in the world. It's been a joy to call you a friend for so many years, but you've helped me walk through these conversations of belonging and understanding and identity, and it's been a, a joy. And Todd, thank you very much. It's been a pleasure to share table with you.

todd stockdale: 58:51

Mike, I would say the same. It is such a privilege to be here, and it has been such a privilege to watch you do this and to listen along. And I'm just so thankful for the work that you're doing and the place that I call home.

mike rusch: 59:03

Love it. Thanks Todd. Well, an incredible thank you to Dr. Stockdale for helping us wrestle with the very frameworks we've inherited. The stories that shape how we understand good or bad, who we see as worthy or unworthy, included or excluded, preserved or erased. When these stories come wrapped in theology and the mythology of a nation, they don't just influence what we believe. They form the very lens through which we see the world in one another. Dr. Stockdale speaks from within the Christian tradition, and we began here because Christianity has long been the dominant faith perspective in the shaping of the United States. It's the tradition that baptized manifest destiny, blessed conquest, and moralized inequality, and also one that has sparked movements of liberation and resistance and repair. It doesn't seem to me that faith has ever found neutral. And while Christianity is not the only tradition that has shaped this place, it's the one most entangled into our political and cultural foundations. To really understand the systems we live in, we have to understand how faith and especially Christian theology was used to construct those systems. How it defined who belonged and who didn't, who was human and who was disposable, what was sacred and what could be taken. My hope was that Todd could offer us a deeper way of seeing the divide between the two. This is a really important question so that we can begin asking what kind of faith and what kind of future might lead us somewhere else. This episode sits near the end of our season. At the beginning, if Melissa Horner helped us confront settler colonialism from an indigenous perspective, the theft, the vacancy, and the cost of not belonging. Then with Todd, we stepped into the philosophical and theological scaffolding of sorts that made that erasure seem justified, even moral. We begin to ask, what if the story underneath it is the story of what it means to be human? And what systems have taught us to believe about one another? Within all of it, how do we begin to tell a different story. From here, we have three episodes left, and so we begin to return to where this season started on a gravel road in Western Benton County overlooking a cemetery long forgotten In our history. We have a final story to tell about some of the earliest enslaved people that were brought to Northwest Arkansas, and this time their descendants will have the last word. This season of the underview is an invitation to see what has been hidden, to hear what has been silenced, and to remember what has been erased, all in the hopes, if it's possible, of healing what has been broken. We're learning to tell the story of this place in full, so that truer belonging might become possible. I wanna say thank you for listening and thank you for being the most important part of what our community is becoming. This is the under view, an exploration in the shaping of our place.