Welcome to Pub and Porsche, Applied Stoicism in Modern Life, hosted by Adam Peercy and Mick Mulroy. Okay, well, we are back here on uh Pub and Porsche, Applied Stoicism, and uh a podcast conversation between myself, Adam Pearcy, and Mick Mulroy. So uh Mick and I were uh discussing um a topic we were gonna start with today, and we're gonna jump right into it um due to time constraints for both of us today, which was um we'll start the topic I think is gonna start today with the topic of book bans and banning reading materials and things like that. I think uh even in my home country of Canada, we are seeing this occurring now, which is I would say alarming in general. Um, and uh I think you know there's some other examples of it happening in the States and some other examples of similar types of bans happening uh um at places both in Canada and the US and around the world right now. And um, as a stoic, I think it's an interesting kind of topic to talk about because we generally um pursue wisdom of all kinds to see whatever's out there. So, but um Meg, I'd love to hear your initial take on this situation right now, because it seems to be escalating. I seem to be hearing about this a lot more nowadays.
SPEAKER_00Absolutely, and the reason why I'm all dressed up snazzy is because I was just on ABC talking about Ukraine and Russia. Which one of those countries do you think bans books? Right? It's not a trick question, you know exactly which one it was. But I wanted to start with uh just listing some of the books that's been banned in history. Plato's Republic, pretty much the Bible in about six different versions, the Quran, all of Martin Luther's works, Copernicus, Galileo, Voltaire's Candide, Harriet Beecher's Stowe, Uncle Tom's Cavern, Walt Whitman's Leaves in the Grass, Gustoc Flaubert, Madame Bovary, Victor Hugo's La Miserelle, Mark Twain's Adventures, James Joyce's Ulysses, probably the best book ever written, D. H. Lawrence's Lady Chatterley's Lover, George Orwell's Animal Farm, George Orwell's 1984, J.D. Salinger's A Catcher in the Rye, Ray Bad Bradbury's Fahrenheit 451, Harper Lee's To Kill a Mockingbird, Anne Frank's The Diary of a Young Girl. And obviously I could keep going. But those are the books that people couldn't read that ended up being the most significant literary works in history. I don't think that's an opinion. I think that's safe to say that's a that's a fact. So when it comes to the stoic view on this, and you already started, uh Adam, wisdom, wisdom isn't just knowing facts. Wisdom is actually having the ability to change your mind. And you'll never change your mind if you're not exposed to different thoughts, different ways of thinking, and different opinions. So when you ban books, and let's face it, the books that are being banned share a different opinion of those that are banning it. That's why they're banning it. So you are taking away the ability for your citizens and children, um, in some cases, ability to learn and actually have input and make their own decisions on what uh what they believe. And it's children in the United States you referenced in Florida alone, they banned 4,500 books. Uh DOD, you know, obviously I'm a military person, dod schools, because that's the federal government can do this. Uh they banned uh over 400 books for the children, right? So Do D uh uh children that go to schools on bases, and then in the the academies, so these are adults about to be officers, yeah. They've banned books, uh they've banned uh Maya Angelos uh books, they've banned um the color purple. It's uh and there seems to be a trend there, to be frank. Uh, but ultimately these are adults, these are adults, and you know, the idea behind it was well, these are warriors, so they should only read like, I don't know, Sun Tzu's Art of War. Well, yes, of course they should read Sun Tzu's Art of War, but warfare isn't uh so um straight and clear cut. It's actually having the ability and knowledge of culture, it's having the ability and knowledge of history, whether you like the history or not, to be a good leader of men in uh the military situation, being a good leader of men and women uh everywhere, right? Uh you have to have a knowledge that's not just your own culture's view and not just your own sect of that culture's view, in order to be a well-rounded person and to form opinions that are real and not simply dogma.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, and I think I'll give off my soapbox. No, no, I no, but I think we're we're this is an opinion-based discussion, right? So we should be able to talk about these things in that way. But you know, I'll I'll quickly pick on one, which you mentioned, which was Sun Tzu. So Sun Tzu, okay, yes, he he pushes for practical reading, right, and warfare, but he also stresses understanding the broader strategic landscape, right? He understands he he he describes it basically as you have to gather intelligence to understand the terrain, the circumstances. Uh, the goal is essentially to know your enemy as well as you know yourself. And you you can't do that if you are entirely one-dimensional. Human beings aren't one-dimensional. I I think if if Sun Tzu were alive today and someone said, someone said, Do you um support only reading uh books about warfare? I'm sure he would say no. Like, like even in warfare, you read book, you you know, you're gonna need to read books probably about geology to understand different types of ground for earthworks, right?
SPEAKER_00Like and I think anthropology.
SPEAKER_01Absolutely, and I think you know that's the that's the one key thing here. Um, but there's a thread that runs through this, right? Which you were kind of picking on, which is the feeling here is that books getting banned are are are coming from a point of view that is different from somebody's, right? And what's interesting today is I hear so many people say things like, we can't talk about things, I can't I can't say whatever I feel or think and talk about it. And it's like, well, I agree with that, but I don't think banning somebody else's writing is going to help that. It actually makes it worse, right? We're supposed to be able to look at these different viewpoints. We're supposed to be able to look at these different viewpoints, discuss them, nitpick them, right? Like I think, I can't remember, I think it's Seneca. He says something like, if you read something and it's better, and this is Seneca who would read from other schools of philosophy and look at them for what else, whatever else could be useful. He would say, look, you know, read, read everything, read anything, right? And if you find something that's better, then do that, right? And and I think that that there's a there's this thread that's going on right now, which is which is basically like, you know, uh it just feels like you're hiding something where you're saying, like, just don't look in there. I'm telling you what what to think, and just don't look in that other place, right? Because it's different from our view. And it's and you know, we don't go in there, we don't look at that. And it's kind of like, well, if your view is so strong, if your view is so good, then it can stand up to the scrutinies that come with getting different points of view. But I'd be curious to know what you think about that, because I think to me, that's a thread that's running through, but there might be a thread that you see that's different.
SPEAKER_00Well, to start with, you make a really good point, even when uh the book you read the books of what say allowed you read, and this is obviously much broader than the military context, but just stick with that for a second on Sun Tzu. Sun Tzu is telling you not to do that. So the very book that you highlight to your midshipmen or your cadets to read tells you the idea of banning the other books is a terrible idea, right? Right, and and there's a quote by Thucydides, if I pronounced him correctly, I've mostly read his name, ever seen it heard it uh said out loud. The society that separates its scholars from its warriors will have its thinking done by cowards and its fighting by fools. Right. So um, again, much broader than just a military context, but since that is is something that uh right now in the United States they can they can affect um the easiest, uh that's where it's happening. So they're they're basically changing the idea of a college education, even in a in a service academy, into one that's um not been seen in I don't know, centuries, right? You can't actually read certain books. And the one book I'd like to highlight, because it seems uh sadly ironic as they can't read, is The Handmaiden's Tale, right? Right, which is a modern book about a totalitarian society in the United States, written by a Canadian. I might I might mention one of the safe zones in Canada, right? Um, just the way they emphasize, you know, that could never happen. They banned the book, right? Which which basically says, well, perhaps it could happen, right? Because you're you don't want people to read about it uh for some reason. It's on it's on very unclear to me because it is not. And the the sad part about it, the reason why we're talking about the military stuff is because that's what the federal government can immediately affect. So what if they could affect just libraries across the country? You don't think they'd stop there? That's the thing. So it's a it's it's bad, but it could be far worse if they had the authority, is what I'm saying.
SPEAKER_01Absolutely. And I think you know, I think the interesting thing is is that they they this comes from a viewpoint of going back to the originals, going back to the founders, going back to the basics, and you're like, well, George Washington put on plays written by Seneca at I can't remember what battle it was before he did that. I mean, just after might have been before crossing, no, I don't remember. No, it was before Bunker Hill. The night before Bunker Hill, they had a play on, I think, which was Seneca's uh one of Seneca's plays. But that play wasn't called Seneca's the Art of War. That play was not about that, right? And you kind of go, so I feel like this is nitpicking that's going on as well, and that that bothers me. But it's funny because you're you mentioned uh Margaret Atwood, so her book was recently banned in Alberta, um, a western province here in Canada, out near British Columbia. And um interestingly, now they've reset, I should say they've re rescinded that order so far, but it's it's interesting to me because uh what the other thing that got me was there was no reason given behind the list, and one of the key reasons why the list was retracted was because there was no reason given. And so then it's like, well, what you know, where where is that coming from? I I just don't I just don't know that I could ever be if a practicing stoic and think that it's okay to to do this, to to shut so some kind of wisdom. Even if all the book is telling me is what somebody else might be thinking, I might disagree with it, but I can understand their viewpoint more. And you know, not not to continue to go back to where we started, but with the Sun Tzu comment of you know, knowing your enemy, well, I mean, how else will you understand other people's points of view? Right? And that's an interesting, that's an interesting way overall is to think about this, is just like, you know, if if you only know one thing, then you're apparently the genius of the universe, but the universe is a lot bigger than one person, right?
SPEAKER_00Right. And the play you're referring to was uh was done before Valley Forge, Valley Forge was done in a blizzard, uh was a play about Cato, right? So Cato is like the quintessential stoic soldier, yeah. But it wasn't just because he was a stoic soldier, it was because he was trying to uh push back against Julius Caesar and what he knew would be a totalitarian government, yeah, and that he lost and that he committed suicide because of that rather than submit. So I, you know, many think that if you go back to the time, George Washington had no idea whether he would win, right? Right in fact, if there was you know Vegas gambling betting on him, they probably would have bet against a US uh, or I should say, the colonialist uh winning the actual Revolutionary War. So he was probably doing two things. He was showing, you know, what it means to be the quintessential stoic soldier to his men, but also the consequences should this not work, which, you know, in the case of Cato was um, you know, a noble suicide, if you if you want to look at it that way.
SPEAKER_01Absolutely. So when we talk about this, there's the question I really think we should be asking ourselves is what are we trying, what what are we trying to do with the diversity of these these books that are out there, right? I I I in some ways I don't I don't care as much about why somebody wants to ban something because someone's gonna do it whether or not whether or not I say anything. And same with you. But I'm curious about this idea of a question like, why do we think why do we think it's so important that books like this are included, even if they have like one thing we hear a lot about, let's just get this under the table, is a lot of people say, like, you know, well, this has explicit content and this is no good for children, or something like that, right? Which is an interesting topic to talk about. You're a parent, um, I am not a parent, but though I have I have uh recently had children come come into my life, right? And I think that'd be an interesting thing to talk about, but I think as well, it's just like why do we think it's important to have all of these different books and out things out there? Because I can say it's bad to ban books all I like, but ultimately someone someone wants to ban some book.
SPEAKER_00I mean, that there isn't, I think, as a parent, or even if I wasn't a parent, you know, having some kind of rating system to me wouldn't be anything wrong. But like we do with movies, right? So explicit concepts that at least parents should be aware of, and if they don't want their kids learning about that kind of stuff too early, I certainly think that's I mean, I'm not telling parents what they should how they should view that. But you know, you could you could simply, I mean, if we're talking about in the case of public libraries, if a person is under a certain age, just like you get into movies, right? I mean, you in the old days, right? If you were too young, uh you either couldn't get any or you had to have your parents' permission to get, and you know, we didn't have NC17 when I was a kid, but now you have NC17, right? So it's I think that's the worst. But yeah, that's but that's not banning the book. It's simply giving, you know, warnings that it might contain. Yeah, for a parent you wouldn't want your child to. But it's not just the explicit content, but let's face it, I mean, the internet's Jesus to me.
SPEAKER_01Worse than a library now.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, they're it's the worst, yeah, right. But it's it's it's not that what they're trying to ban. They're trying to ban alternative viewpoints, right? Yeah, that's what the concern is. You can easily say, okay, well, have a rating system just like the movies on books, and that takes care of that. But what the problem is if they're banning books that simply disagree with their perspective, and that's for both sides, right? And even if it's obviously wrong, even if it's um Mein Kampf, right, from from Hitler. Like if that's the book that everybody would pick to say like nobody should like it, right? Because it's Hitler, for what they say. Yeah, right. But you still don't ban it. You don't ban it. Because then one, you do people need to be able to read how that happens, yes, right? So they can stop it from happening again. Two, if you ban it, those become those might, those people who are inclined to it might become more interested in it. Then it's a banned book, right? You know, it's just dumb all the way around, whether it's you know, Martin Luther King's Letters from the Birmingham Jail or Mein Kampf, you know, uh Hitler's Hitler's memoirs, uh, it should be you should be able to act, especially as an adult, um, in any case, in any any type. If not, you're not an educated society, you're an indoctrinated society.
SPEAKER_01Absolutely. And interestingly, um, and this is covered in an episode of 99% invisible, which is one of my favorite podcasts of all time, and most people know it's Roman Mars, is the host. Um, they speak in that episode about something called the medicine cabinet or the poison cupboard, I think is what they call it. So in Germany, people would expect that the number one banned book in Germany is Mein Kalmer, and it actually isn't. Funny enough, it is it is the most restricted book in the in the country, but it's not the most banned book. It's it's in what they call uh the poison cabinet, and it's basically it's it's a room where there are restricted books. I think a lot of them follow along that kind of doctrine. But you can go to a library and you can you can check it out, you just can't take it out of the library, and you can read it there and then leave, right? So they are they're fully like, we have it, you can see it. All we're saying is is like we we need we you know, we we make sure that it's not being handed out to nine-year-olds, right? And it's so funny because there it's such a stark contrast to just straight up like, don't go in there, right? And and I hate to be the guy who says this, but it's you know, it is true. Like, if you were to take this for a different part of the view of you know, towards children, stuff like that, right? In in places where they teach only abstinence, right, teen pregnancy rates are always higher than where you have sort of open teachings of like all the different things around sexual health and whatnot for a human being. And and I think it's kind of the same, it falls in a similar or parallel thing where it's like you can arm people with knowledge. I do believe that knowledge is power. You can arm them with knowledge and teach them things that they have wisdom about it, but um, you can't teach them anything if they don't know about it and they just ignore it, right? And the indoctrination is an interesting one. Like, you know, I I had an interesting conversation to relate to Stoicism. I had an interesting conversation with someone about why Stoicism is a philosophy and not a religion, since there are a lot of people who are big, big proponents of it. And I said, Well, we could talk about it. Like, there's no dogmatic side of it where it's like this is what it says, and you're not allowed to discuss it. And I think you know, many people benefit from the discussion parts of a philosophy like this. And so, but I do think that applies to a greater society where you have to say, look, if we can't even talk about it, then we are already losing the game, fighting against it, right? And uh, you know, that's that's the challenge that I have right here. So many people I know, and it'd be interesting to get your take on this, Stephen, too. And I was saying it earlier, is so many people say things like it's so polarized now, like we can't talk about stuff. And I'm always like, I don't think book banning is helping that, because you're basically saying don't don't talk about things, right? And you kind of go, well, I uh my my thing is I relish the opportunity to talk about these things with someone so that I can help them find a good way and I can debunk stuff. Um, you know, I I most people say it's Rousseau, and I don't know if it is him actually, but there's a statement which is uh I may not like a thing that you say, but I'll defend to the death your right to say it. And I'm the kind of person that looks at that and says, Great, let's let's talk about it. I had a conversation with someone who uh we were talking about the Middle East and we were talking about Gaza actually, and and I said, I totally disagree with your statement on that. I I believe that what's happening in Gaza right now is horrible. I'm not negating the the actions that started the whole thing from the Palestinians on the on the Israelis, but what I'm saying is what's happening in Gaza today is horrible, and they didn't really like that. I said, fine, but we're talking about it, we're not yelling at each other. There is something better to be had when human beings converse than when we ignore and just avoid, in my opinion. But I'd love to hear your take on it though, because I think I think we have to keep talking about these things.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, so agree. I mean, I guess you could think of it this way: are you the person in a party that you know can talk uh to people that disagree with your perspective? Um do you have the ability to do that? Do you immediately just wait your turn to shoot them down on all their terrible ideas? Yeah, do you actually absorb what they're saying and and challenge your own thinking? Can the conversation keep going? Um, or do one of you get super pissed off and or do you get super pissed off and walk away? If you're not that person, then perhaps you should be. I'm not saying I'm the perfect person like this, but that's what I would challenge myself.
SPEAKER_02Yeah.
SPEAKER_00You know, can I listen to people who I don't think it's a great idea to ban books? I don't know, just since that's what we're talking about. Um I think it was a course, but it's certainly part of a course I did when they were talking to Oh, you still there, buddy?
SPEAKER_01Mick, did we lose you there? Welcome back. It sounds like uh it's oddly enough that we were we were at a very good point of the conversation that Mick's internet dropped out, so we're back now. Um so welcome back. So, but um we were talking about we were talking about being able to talk being able to converse about things and whatnot. So, Mick, if you wanted to go back to what you were saying.
SPEAKER_02Yeah.
SPEAKER_00Yes, I'm just saying you should challenge yourself, and I do, to be able to talk to people who disagree with you in a very in a way that's not uh competitive. Yeah. Because that's the way it is now. Um people just wait for the other person to stop talking to point to say their points and and with no real desire to learn why the other person thinks the way they do. And I had a, I was gonna say, I was in a course once where they, when you were having debates, you had to repeat the other person's position and why they held it before you answered. Right? So you think there should be book banning because of the dangerous messages that could get to children and have a negative effect, whatever they said, right? Yeah. So you say that before you then say your position on that.
unknownYeah.
SPEAKER_00And uh it was very disarming, I have to say. It didn't make you pause, calm the hell down before you launched into your because so much of today's debate seems to be more like you know, Mortal Kombat, um, especially on the internet, right? Um so that's one way I would say that's very stoic, of course, maintaining calm, listening to the other side, having the wisdom to potentially challenge your own opinions. Um I think it's completely imperative that we go that way. Because if you aren't, um, and it's the same thing, I mean, you could expand this not just to book book banning, but also limiting news sources, um, blocking news sources, blocking access to information in general. These, it's a progressive thing, right? Where you start with book banning and with the social, uh, what do they call it in China? You have a social rating score that if you fall under, they start cutting you off from basically society because everything's online now, right? So that's that's at the far end. But if you're headed down that direction, you're going in the wrong direction. So I would hope, especially in democracies, one we should push for everybody to live in a democracy, I think, but especially in democracy, you preserve it by ensuring that you defend Mein Kampf just as much as you defend uh, you know, uh the Federalist Papers, right?
SPEAKER_02Yeah.
SPEAKER_00Which is the foundation of the Declaration of Independence of the United States.
SPEAKER_01Oh, absolutely. Yeah. So I think I'd like to use a real-world example here to talk about why it's really important to be able to have these differing views come in and everything, too. So I work with the space program, I work in space safety, specifically human-rated space flight safety, which is the top one. And um in history, right, we have had bad things happen in um in the space program, absolutely. The three big ones you always hear about in the West are um Apollo, Challenger, and Columbia, which were major disasters where you experienced loss of life of astronauts. Um, two of those were astronauts in some kind of space flight of some kind. But uh what's interesting is um coming out of the, so the space program had three big programs leading up to the moon landing: Mercury, Gemini, and Apollo. And um Mercury and Gemini were were were pretty good, but you know, they did have some failures on flights. If anybody's seen the movie First Man, they cover one that Neil Armstrong had where their capsule starts spinning and they have to essentially cut the mission short because they're going over, they're going at one RPM. So, or it's not one RPM, sorry, it's it's one rotation revolution a second, so 360 rpm. So you're you're going, you're basically spinning like that. And um what they did in the Apollo era was they said we need to make sure that anytime we change something on a spacecraft, anytime we change something on a design, that we have we have people who are experts that come in and make sure that we haven't forgotten something or missed something and make sure that we're not in a just a go-get-a-done attitude that make sure that we're checking it to make sure that it's good and verifying it. And they instituted something called the the the Apollo CCB, the change control board, which is actually a uh it's a it's an acronym we still use in the space program today. And the Apollo change control board was so I have a design for a capsule, and I'm gonna change the door. I'm gonna make the door two centimeters wider. I have to show up to this change control board, and it's a huge room with like 400 people in it, or no, sorry, it was more like 100 people in it, and then there would be extra people in the background who would be helping like consult and everything, and you'd have to say, I'm changing this because of X and Y and Z, and we think it's gonna be okay because of A, B, and C, and da da da da. And then after your usually the first hour is your presentation, and the next seven hours of that day are that is basically everybody in the room, just as a friend of mine used to say, throwing rocks at it, and you get people, mechanical engineers, electrical engineers, people who've specialized in human health and performance, which is like astronaut safety and stuff like that. And their job is to literally sit there and say, Have you thought of this? Have you thought of that? What about this? What about this other thing? We changed something somewhere else, and it might affect this. How do you know what's gonna happen, right? And you know, that really took shape in Apollo, especially after the Apollo 1 fire, because the Apollo 1 fire was caused by certain things being overlooked, um, like 100% oxygen atmosphere, which is obviously very flammable. Um, and so but once the change control board went, you know, Apollo ended up having, you know, being being very successful. There was Apollo 13, you know, we know there are issues there and whatnot, but the change control board was seen within NASA culture, and now the wider space group, space uh space program culture, about you know, bringing other views in is no is nothing but good because it's it's checking you. It's checking yourself, it's checking your work, it's checking your plan, it's checking your next steps, right? And if we don't do that, you know, we are in a vacuum and not learning anything. And I I you know, when stuff comes through my my company and the space program stuff I work on today, it goes through a change control board. And it has to, because we need to make sure that the right eyes are looking at it and that we're challenging what this thing is doing. So I just thought I'd throw a real-world example in there because if we if we if we continue to talk about this in big things, right, um, it's hard for people to grasp it. But in my everyday, I need people to tell me when I'm wrong. I need people to tell me when they think something different than me because I am only better for it, as it were.
SPEAKER_00Absolutely. Professional contrarians, right? Yeah, you have to have that. Uh they do that in all sorts of uh contexts, you know, a red team, um, to basically look at what you've done and look at it from every angle to make sure, especially something as important as space flight, right? Yeah. Um it's it's uh, you know, anything goes wrong, as we've seen, as you've pointed out, Adam, um, can have catastrophic uh consequences, by the way. So I don't forget, I did get a chance to brief Senator Mark Kelly on uh the stuff we do with the humanitarian and the vets. Uh he, as you probably know, and his twin brother were NASA astronauts. That's right. And when you walk into the out uh the first part of his office, he's got the full suit. Um, so if we're ever in DC together, um of course I'll have to ask him, but I think you because if you're with the Canadian Space Agency at and he knows me, we should be able to go in there and see it, and hopefully uh you can meet him because he's uh he's a hell of a guy, actually. Help yeah help try to get us some some of the aid that were throwing away for a different podcast. But I just don't forget that because uh yeah uh I'm sure you would find that pretty pretty cool. Absolutely.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, so I'm meeting with an astronaut next week from from the CSA, so it'll be fun.
SPEAKER_00Right on, yeah, yeah. I think both him and his brother, I guess one of the things that was really helpful for him was they were twins, like identical twins. That's right. So they could they could test one that spent a lot of time in space while the other was uh still on the ground. So yeah, they could compare physiology, right? Yeah, actual Irish twins, right? There we go. Yeah. But um this is a topic that we should keep coming back to because uh this is the trend that I think is increasing. Um when it increases in democracies, that's hugely troubling. And if you don't have the capacity to read something you disagree with, or you think you know somebody somebody would think differently than you want them to think if they read a book, then you kind of need to rethink your own positions and whether you are truly a wise person or a person who just wants to indoctrinate other people into your way of thinking uh without any critical thinking of your own positions.
SPEAKER_01Totally agree. And yeah, we are gonna have to keep going back to this because it is a growing trend and we have to be careful of it. But we should wrap up there. Um, and so I'll say thanks, Mick, for uh letting me walk this topic on uh earlier this week. Um, but uh, you know, we'd love to hear from everybody else out there, so write us, check out a website, uh, but write us at info at pupandporch.com. You can find us on Twitter and social media. But we will hear from you all soon. So thank you, Mick. We'll talk to you the next one. Thank you, Adam.
SPEAKER_00Till next time. Thank you for listening to the Puppin' Porch Podcast. If you'd like to find out more about the podcast or its host, head over to puppinporch.com and you can listen to all our episodes on Spotify, Apple, or whichever platform you prefer. And if you'd like to help out with the podcast, you can find us on Patreon. Drop us an email if you have a comment on any past episode, you have a suggestion for future episodes, or you have an essay on an important topic for Stoicism, send it to us, and then we can be reached at info at puppinporch.com. Today's music was provided by BenSound.com. Until next time, puppin' Porch Out