0:01

Hello everyone. I'm talking today with Dr.

0:03

Ronnie Janoff-Bullman. She's a professor emerita at

0:24

the University of Massachusetts Amherst.

0:27

She's a social psychologist and the

0:29

author of two books, one from

0:31

about 30 years ago called Shattered

0:33

Assumptions and the

0:35

other called The Two Moralities,

0:38

The Origin and Fall of Right

0:40

and Left Politics. Why

0:42

did I want to talk to

0:44

Dr. Janoff-Bullman? Well, I'm very interested

0:46

in both angles of her work.

0:49

First, because

0:53

the notion of shattered assumptions is

0:56

associated with the idea that there's

0:58

something like a hierarchy of values

1:00

in our beliefs, in

1:02

the structure of our beliefs, that

1:04

we have some beliefs that are

1:06

more fundamental than others. Those would

1:08

be beliefs that many other beliefs

1:11

depend upon. And so I wanted to talk

1:13

to her about what

1:15

it might mean that the assumptions

1:17

that orient us in the world

1:19

are organized hierarchically, right? So that

1:21

some things are deep and other

1:23

things peripheral. And so that the

1:26

deep things are in some sense the most

1:28

real and vital. All of those

1:30

topics we're going to talk about in the

1:33

discussion with Dr. Ronnie Janoff-Bullman.

1:37

So I'm interested in your

1:41

two major works. I

1:43

want to talk to you about shattered assumptions and

1:45

I want to talk to you about the political

1:47

divide. And I think we'll start with shattered assumptions.

1:49

And so why

1:51

don't you start by letting

1:54

everybody who's watching and listening know

1:57

what you meant when you... discuss

2:00

shattered assumptions and why you felt

2:02

that was a reasonable way of

2:04

approaching the problem of

2:08

traumatic

2:10

injury, post-traumatic stress disorder,

2:13

profound disillusionment, even.

2:16

Okay, I mean, that's work that's now 30

2:18

years old, I should say

2:20

that. But I'm

2:22

a social psychologist, not a clinical psychologist.

2:26

And I did a great deal of research on

2:29

victimization back 30 and 40 years ago. And

2:33

what I was finding was some

2:35

commonality, actually a great deal of commonality,

2:37

of course, victimization, things

2:40

that we would now call trauma, rape victims,

2:42

loss of loved ones early, accident

2:45

victims, natural disaster victims. And

2:49

at the time, the clinical literature really

2:52

was somewhat problematic from my perspective

2:54

because it was looking at people

2:57

as pathological as opposed to the

2:59

situation just pathological in some

3:01

sense. And

3:05

I kept hearing the same thing

3:07

from people across

3:09

these domains, which was I never

3:11

thought it could happen to me, which

3:14

was kind of surprising at the time because

3:16

we assume people know bad things happen, right?

3:21

But it

3:23

led me actually to do some

3:25

work and further research. And

3:30

I posited this notion of shattered

3:32

assumptions based

3:34

on a sort

3:36

of people finding that what

3:39

we now know as implicit cognition, at

3:41

the time there was no work really

3:43

or very little work on implicit cognition,

3:45

but finding that basically

3:48

people's beliefs about these fundamental beliefs

3:50

about the world seem to have gotten shattered.

3:52

That beliefs about the world

3:55

being meaningful, not

3:57

random, benevolent, people being

3:59

worthy all of a sudden

4:02

people really question these very,

4:04

very basic beliefs that they didn't even

4:06

necessarily know they had. And

4:09

it led me to this notion of shattered assumptions, which

4:12

now, if I wrote the book now, would be

4:16

a little easier to claim

4:18

because of all we now know

4:20

about implicit cognition, right? These are

4:22

implicit beliefs. And these

4:28

beliefs actually were not

4:30

necessarily illusions. I mean, they

4:32

were these sort of working models of

4:35

the world, a good

4:37

enough world. And after

4:39

these negative events, they did seem

4:42

to get shouted. People had a sense of their

4:44

own fragility, their

4:46

creatureliness. You know, we have where

4:48

humans and species with symbolic systems,

4:51

yet we're where food

4:53

for worms, you know, that notion

4:55

of fragility, terror, so forth and

4:57

so on. So basically, I was writing

4:59

it in some ways as a

5:01

corrective to much that was

5:03

out there in these very distinct domains. So

5:06

there would be a literature on rape victims,

5:08

for example, or a literature on natural disasters.

5:10

Now, I should say there were wonderful people

5:13

working at the time, clinicians

5:15

who certainly knew

5:19

certainly as much as I did and probably lots more.

5:22

But they had a very different perspective. Social

5:24

psychology, I think, is a very healthy way

5:26

of viewing the world because it normalizes as

5:29

opposed to pathologizes. And that's where

5:31

it was coming from. I don't know

5:33

if that sufficiently responds to your question.

5:35

Okay. Oh, yeah. Yeah. Well, it's

5:37

definitely a good start. Okay, so now you

5:41

mentioned something that I'll just get you to

5:43

clarify a bit. You said that if you

5:45

were writing this book today with

5:47

what we know about implicit cognition, that

5:49

your argument would be easier to justify.

5:52

So just like flesh that out a

5:54

bit before I ask you some other

5:56

questions. Well, the notion, well, the

5:58

fact is that now we have explicit beliefs that

6:00

people don't necessarily know they have. So

6:03

it's easy to argue that when

6:06

something happens and the inner world

6:08

gets shattered, that these very fundamental

6:10

beliefs now, which really are at

6:12

the base of our conceptual

6:15

world, can

6:18

be impacted by real life events, even

6:20

though we don't know we hold them. At the

6:23

time, that wasn't necessarily clear. People

6:27

would say, well, we know what we believe. Everybody

6:29

knows what you know. That's

6:32

all I meant by that, Jordan. Okay, okay,

6:35

good. Well, I presume that's what you meant.

6:37

So now, let me run an idea

6:39

by you, and you tell me what you think about

6:41

this and see if it's in accordance with

6:43

what you believe. So I've been trying

6:45

to think about this

6:48

in part neurologically, because

6:51

I'm interested in why anxiety

6:54

and terror might be radically

6:56

disinhibited. Anxiety and

6:59

terror and pain radically disinhibited by

7:01

the shattering of belief and hope

7:03

destroyed at a fundamental level. Okay,

7:06

so now you believe in something

7:08

approximating a fundamental level. So

7:12

let me explain what I think that might mean, and

7:14

then you tell me what you think about that. So

7:20

in the landscape of implicit

7:22

cognition, there are hierarchical dependencies.

7:25

There are some presumptions that we

7:28

make, they might

7:30

be implicit, upon which many

7:32

other presumptions rest.

7:36

That's a good definition of fundamental. Here's

7:39

a way of thinking about it. Imagine

7:42

that you track the

7:45

citation count of a scientist's work.

7:49

Well, the more, if

7:52

the discipline hasn't become corrupt,

7:55

the more citations, broadly speaking, that

7:57

a given scientist has,

8:00

the more their work is fundamental

8:02

to the field. And

8:04

the reason for that is because much

8:07

other work in that field depends on

8:09

those publications. Otherwise

8:12

they wouldn't be massively cited.

8:14

And so then you could imagine that in

8:16

a system

8:18

of belief, there

8:20

are levels of dependency. Those

8:23

levels of dependency have a

8:25

bedrock. And

8:28

at that bedrock, everything rests.

8:31

That seem reasonable to you? Oh, okay, good.

8:35

So let's, okay, so let me go a

8:37

little farther with this and you tell me

8:39

if you object to any of this. Okay,

8:41

so I've come to understand

8:43

that that

8:46

implicit structure through which we see

8:48

the world is

8:51

equivalent to a weighting

8:53

system. It

8:55

looks to me like it's equivalent

8:57

to the statistical weights that large

8:59

language models extract. Yeah, that

9:02

makes sense to you too. Okay,

9:05

so then we have to filter

9:08

the world through a system

9:10

of weights. That's how we prioritize our attention.

9:13

We have to prioritize their attention because there's

9:15

too much information. There's way too

9:17

much information. There's way too many possibilities.

9:20

So we prioritize and we do

9:23

so in keeping with our axiomatic

9:26

assumptions and they

9:28

have a hierarchical structure, structure

9:31

of dependency. Now, if something happens to

9:33

us that violates

9:35

those assumptions, then

9:38

it blows the weighting system. It demolishes

9:40

the weighting system that we use to

9:43

prioritize our attention and

9:45

everything comes flooding back. Okay,

9:48

do you know Carl Friston's work by

9:50

any chance? Not well,

9:52

so- Okay, well, this

9:54

is an exciting thing. So

9:57

Carl Friston has a model

9:59

of... perception that's very well

10:01

developed. And he's a very well

10:03

cited neuroscientist. He invented most

10:06

of the, what would you call it?

10:08

The procedures that people

10:10

use to investigate MRI

10:13

images, for example. Right. Okay. So

10:15

Fristin's a very well established neuroscientist

10:18

and he believes

10:20

that both

10:22

anxiety and positive

10:24

emotion are related to entropy

10:26

control. So

10:29

this is different than terror management. It's a way different.

10:32

It's a very different idea, although they're analogous in some

10:34

sense. Okay. So anxiety

10:37

signals the collapse of a

10:40

system of orientation so

10:43

that hierarchical weighting is

10:46

no longer possible. So

10:48

that way too many things impinge upon you

10:50

at once and anxiety is actually

10:52

the signal that that happens. Technically,

10:54

it's the signal that that's happening. And

10:57

so it's the flooding back of chaos. Right.

10:59

And that enough. Okay. Now the

11:02

consequence of this, we know

11:04

the psychophysiological consequences of this.

11:06

The psychophysiological consequences are accelerated

11:08

and acceleration of

11:10

the stress response.

11:12

Right. Exactly. Hyper

11:15

preparation on the psychophysiological side.

11:17

Right. Right. And

11:19

that is sufficiently stressful

11:22

to be physiologically and neurologically

11:24

damaging. Right. The

11:27

hyper vigilance that comes with trauma

11:29

is clearly consistent with that. Right.

11:31

Right. Precisely. The thing I would say is, the thing I

11:33

would say that's interesting is one doesn't even need

11:36

to, I mean, obviously there is a

11:38

weighting system and you know, the accuracy

11:40

at the top, very top levels is

11:42

absolutely essential. And at

11:44

the fundamental levels, at some level you can have

11:47

some illusory beliefs because I mean, if

11:49

it's very dangerous, I believe I can swim and I'm a

11:51

great swimmer, but I go into a pool and I can't

11:53

swim. I'm in trouble. If

11:55

I think the world is sort of more benevolent than it really is. That's

12:00

not going to get me. Yeah, that's that's really

12:02

a fundamental belief It's not going to get me

12:04

into as much trouble, but can guide me in

12:06

a positive way Okay what are that one of

12:08

the things I was going to say is I'm

12:10

not sure you need to even pause the waiting

12:12

system in the Case of trauma because I think

12:14

what although I don't think we would disagree about

12:16

this What is being shattered

12:19

and disrupted is the base of

12:21

the of the fundamental of the

12:23

system the conceptual bedrock of the

12:25

system? That yes, I was

12:27

added and the anxiety is really a

12:30

double-duty anxiety first of all Understate

12:32

living in a world that does seem

12:35

more dangerous all of a sudden when

12:37

you've been sort of Horrible

12:39

things have happened to you, right? There's

12:42

this real-world phenomenon and on top

12:44

of that you have lost the

12:46

guideposts to survive it Right

12:48

the conceptual system that orients you as

12:50

you would say systems work would talk

12:52

about so you've kind of so you

12:54

now have this Double this anxiety that's

12:56

quite remarkable that leads to what really

12:58

a sense of terror It's not yet Well,

13:00

as well there's two things that happen in

13:03

first in conceptualization and I wrote a paper

13:05

about this with some students of mine Too

13:07

when we were trying to tie anxiety to

13:09

entropy. It's not only that anxiety mounts that's

13:11

bad That's terrible, right and

13:13

it does result in this

13:16

state of psychophysiological hyper preparation,

13:18

which is Physiologically devastating across time

13:20

right it can cause brain damage It

13:22

can make you it does in fact

13:25

make you old because you're burning up

13:27

excess resources the other thing that happens

13:29

though is that it destroys hope and

13:32

that's also an entropy problem, so Fristen

13:35

characterized positive emotion as

13:38

a signal that Entropy

13:40

in relationship to a valued goal

13:43

had decreased So so imagine

13:45

that you you have you posit

13:47

something of value and then you move towards

13:49

it and you see yourself

13:51

moving towards it And that's happening

13:53

validly then the the diminution of

13:56

the distance between you and the

13:58

goal is signaled by of being

14:00

released. It shows

14:02

that the probability that you're

14:04

going to attain that goal

14:06

is increasing. That's

14:09

what hope is. Now, if you blow

14:11

out your value structure, if it's pulled

14:14

out from underneath you, because

14:16

your assumptions are shattered, then

14:18

your conceptualization of or even

14:21

your belief in the

14:23

possibility of a valid goal also

14:25

vanishes. Not only are

14:28

you subsumed by anxiety, you're overwhelmed

14:30

by hopelessness. Right. No,

14:32

there's no question. I mean, and I talk

14:34

about that actually in the book, but I

14:37

don't talk about it. I only have a

14:39

few pages on the neurophysiology of trauma

14:42

because you have to remember it was published

14:44

30 years ago. Right. Of course.

14:47

It was 35, 40 years. We have learned, or trauma

14:49

researchers, and I haven't, by the way, done research

14:51

on trauma for many years, but trauma researchers have

14:54

learned a great deal as you're pointing

14:56

out about some

14:58

of the physiological, neuropsychological

15:00

bases or ramifications

15:03

and consequences of

15:05

trauma, which is not

15:07

something that long ago we

15:09

knew much about. It

15:12

is interesting, though, that from social

15:14

psychology, we do think about emotions

15:16

as signals. I mean,

15:18

you don't even have to posit

15:20

the physiology or neuroscience. You can

15:23

say your emotions

15:25

are the experiential automatic

15:27

signals about how you're operating in

15:29

the world. Yeah, they're navigation guides.

15:31

Yeah, they're navigation guides. Yeah, they're navigation guides.

15:33

Yeah, definitely. Which is very similar, but we're talking

15:35

about at different levels of analysis there. Yeah.

15:38

Yeah. Okay. Now,

15:40

let's go to the idea of the shattering.

15:46

There's something else I want to weave in. So

15:52

imagine that you have an aim and that it's predicated

15:55

on a set of values. Now

15:58

imagine that those values have a hierarchy. structure

16:00

in the way that we just described. So there's something

16:02

at the bottom. Now, the

16:05

question is, how would you

16:07

characterize that structure? So I

16:09

have a hypothesis for you, and you can

16:11

tell me what you think about this. It's

16:14

a hypothesis that I've developed fairly extensively,

16:16

but I'm working on in

16:21

detail in the new book that I'm working

16:23

on right now called We Who Wrestle With

16:25

God. So I

16:27

think that

16:30

a description of

16:33

the structure through which we look at the

16:35

world, the hierarchy of values through which we

16:37

look at the world, I

16:39

think that's literally what a

16:41

story is. See, a story,

16:44

so okay, so a story,

16:46

like if you go to a movie, and

16:49

you watch the protagonist,

16:51

hero or villain, here's

16:54

what you'll see. You'll see a

16:57

sequence of situations in

17:01

which the aim of the

17:03

character becomes

17:06

clear. Now, when

17:09

you watch that, what happens is

17:11

that you infer his aim, and

17:13

you adopt that, you embody

17:15

that, this is literally how you

17:17

understand it, you embody it, you

17:19

come to see the world through

17:22

that perspective, and you experience the

17:24

emotions that are part and parcel

17:26

of that aim. So

17:28

that's a form of exploration, because it means you

17:30

can go to a movie, or you can watch

17:32

a piece of fiction, you

17:34

can adopt a temporary aim, it's

17:37

like a game, you can adopt a

17:39

temporary aim, and in consequence, you can

17:41

explore the consequences of that aim, but

17:43

also have the experience that goes along

17:45

with it. It's the same thing that

17:47

people are doing, by the way, when

17:49

they go to a sports stadium, and

17:52

they watch someone aiming at the goal,

17:55

right, and being skillful in their approach,

17:57

right, they adopt the aim, which is

17:59

the goal, That's why they identify with

18:01

the team. And then they embody

18:04

the emotions that are

18:07

appropriate to that aim. Okay, so

18:09

I think this is a fundamental,

18:12

say I figured this out in

18:14

part 30 years ago, when

18:17

I was looking at the neuropsychology

18:20

of expectation, right,

18:22

there's a big cognitive psychology literature

18:25

on expectation. The idea of- You

18:27

know all about it, right? Right,

18:29

right. But there's something about that

18:31

that's wrong because

18:34

we don't expect in the world,

18:36

we desire. We

18:39

desire, right? Our expectations are

18:41

specified by our desires. And

18:44

that's a useful twist because it brings in,

18:47

it integrates motivation. You see,

18:49

if it's cold cognitive expectation,

18:52

we're prediction machines, but we're

18:54

not. We're motivated machines, we're

18:56

pursuing our desires. And

18:59

so our aims are motivated, right,

19:01

right. And so we're upset when

19:03

the outcome doesn't match our desire,

19:05

not when the outcome doesn't match

19:07

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19:57

that's very interesting. I

20:01

guess I agree in part. I do think that, I

20:03

mean, there's such a huge literature in psychology

20:05

on expectation that doesn't,

20:08

let's assume you're responding

20:10

to somebody on the basis of a stereotype, for

20:12

example. You're responding based on

20:15

expectation. You generally operate to

20:17

confirm it, but I'm not sure that's based

20:19

on a desire. So I'm not sure all

20:21

of it is motivated. I think some of

20:23

it is, much is motivated. I agree with

20:25

you, but I think there

20:27

is a great deal that's not motivated

20:29

cognition. The bulk of our

20:31

human functioning is. Okay, well,

20:34

so I think we can solve

20:36

that conundrum given the framework

20:38

we're already using. So imagine

20:41

that we're seeing the world through a hierarchy

20:44

of value. Frank, with something, okay,

20:47

the farther down the assumption hierarchy

20:49

you go towards the base, the

20:52

more motivation is involved. If

20:55

you're just playing on the periphery, where

20:58

things don't matter, then

21:00

it's expectation. But

21:02

if you go down into the depths, then

21:04

it starts to become highly motivated. And that's

21:07

because part of that motivation is the fact that

21:09

as you go down into the depths, the

21:12

world, like your

21:15

stability depends on the, what

21:19

you desire making itself manifest. Or

21:22

at least not being radically violated.

21:24

Right. Right. That's right. Your

21:26

stability depends on your working

21:28

models actually working. Right. And

21:31

I do agree, you know, you know, it's interesting

21:33

we talk about motivation because when I was doing

21:36

the Two Moralities book, of course, all

21:38

of that is funneled right through

21:40

motivation. I mean, the

21:43

fundamental notions of approach and avoidance.

21:45

I mean, that is really how

21:47

we organize our lives. Right. Sure.

21:49

That's the root of motivation. I

21:51

believe in motivation, please. For sure.

21:53

Okay. Okay. So, so, so

21:58

the expectation. model came out

22:00

of the

22:04

cognitive and the neurophysiological literature

22:06

of the

22:08

early 60s. It

22:11

came out of cybernetic modeling and it came

22:13

out of neuropsychological

22:15

modeling and early cognitive

22:17

science. The notion

22:20

there, again, as I said, was that people were

22:23

rather cold prediction machines, expectation

22:26

machines. That's

22:28

where the notion of something like working model

22:30

came from. I believe

22:32

that there's a serious flaw, the

22:34

fact that that doesn't incorporate motivation,

22:36

the fact that it's

22:39

expectation rather than desire,

22:42

it does two

22:44

things. It's a fundamental flaw because it takes

22:46

motivation out of the picture and that's a

22:48

big problem because we're highly motivated. The

22:51

second thing it does is it obscures

22:53

the fact that we're not modeling, we're

22:55

telling a story. Those

22:57

aren't the same thing. I agree. Okay.

23:00

No, I was going

23:03

to say, I agree in part. I just wouldn't paint

23:06

the entire picture that way. I

23:08

do think there is much where

23:10

we are not ... so many

23:13

things are operating without our

23:15

awareness. I'm not

23:17

talking about Freudian unconscious. We

23:19

have automatic system

23:22

one, system two kinds of operations. It's

23:25

so much of that it won't necessarily ...

23:27

it is automatic.

23:29

Now you can still say that

23:32

automaticity derives from the system that's

23:34

fundamentally motivated. But

23:37

I do think in its operation, there's a

23:39

kind of automaticity to so much that

23:41

we do that

23:44

at least ... I

23:47

don't have any problem saying it's consistent with a

23:49

motivational model but I feel like that

23:51

in fact as it operates, it does

23:54

look like pure cognition in many cases

23:56

and that we're just ... we're

23:59

confirming expectations. Because

24:01

that on. because. That's

24:03

how we can operate in the war. Okay you

24:05

know, cases and smoking at a little bit of a

24:07

said. Okay so let me

24:09

take out a little bit part because I'm going

24:12

to reformulated and and old tell you why and

24:14

I'll tell you why. Think that's in keeping with

24:16

your theory. So. Confirming

24:20

it expectation. Of.

24:23

Know testing our. Fundamental.

24:26

Narrative hypotheses. And

24:30

why? Because. We want to

24:32

make sure that the foundation is remaining. Had

24:34

talked. Is that

24:36

automatic? Yeah, it's all about it

24:38

until the assumptions are shrouded in

24:40

that automatically. This, while excess. oh,

24:43

that's the thing. So that's that's

24:45

that's the see that shows you

24:47

that even the automaticity is dependent

24:49

on the integrity of the model

24:51

that motivated. Right now I

24:54

had it on an attic within the assumption

24:56

it's automatic with the in the. Maintains

24:59

essential. But. The

25:01

story is invalidated when the a socket. So so let

25:03

me tell you that. Let me tell you stories You

25:05

tell me what you think both this because I think

25:07

this is a story. Is

25:09

a fundamental story and it's Germane

25:11

to your hypothesis. I want

25:14

to put for the hypothesis that the.

25:17

Framework. Of meaning that shattered.

25:20

In. The case of trauma is a

25:22

it's a naive framework. Now it might

25:24

be implicit. It's a naive form of

25:26

face. And we know that nobody

25:28

is a. Risk. Factor for

25:31

trauma because we know that people who

25:33

are dependent. Are. More likely

25:35

to be traumatized, Seoul.

25:39

Okay so so here's here's the Navy element

25:41

of a I will. I want to tell

25:43

you I want to. Bring.

25:45

In a fundamental story. Since.

25:48

I think these. A

25:50

sensor networks are stories. Case.

25:52

So I've been studying the story of job.

25:55

And. Got the job is the story of

25:57

suffering. Yes, elk and meaningless.

26:00

Right, right. What seems like

26:02

random events, right? Well it or worse

26:04

than random malevolent malevolent, right? So

26:06

worse than random. Okay, so this

26:08

is how the story sets itself

26:10

up. So We're

26:13

told at the beginning of the story that job is

26:15

a good man And so

26:17

and we have the testimony of God

26:19

himself on on Job's account. And

26:21

so God is up in heaven bragging

26:24

away so to speak about how good job

26:26

is and His sons

26:29

come to observe and one of whom

26:31

is Satan and Satan says I

26:34

don't think you upset good I

26:36

think he's just fortunate and

26:38

God says no I think he's good and Satan

26:40

says why don't you let me have a crack

26:42

at him and we'll see if he's good And

26:45

so God says yeah,

26:47

okay have

26:49

do your worst and In

26:53

Consequence and that's the

26:55

malevolent element. Let's say it at least

26:58

the arbitrary element But perhaps the malevolent

27:00

element Job loses everything that

27:02

he's worked for virtually everything he works

27:04

for He loses much

27:06

of his family he's He's

27:10

he becomes very ill and not just

27:12

ill but an ill in a way

27:14

that's disfiguring and Shameful

27:17

and then his friends come along his

27:19

friends and tell them that Well,

27:22

you know if he had been a better guy None

27:25

of this would have happened. So really it's his

27:27

fault and then job Job

27:29

has a response and This

27:31

is why I'm bringing up this story Job's

27:35

response is to insist that

27:38

despite proximal evidence It's

27:42

a requirement To

27:45

maintain faith in the essential

27:47

goodness of the individual Especially

27:50

an individual who's been conducting himself ethically

27:52

which Job has been by his own

27:54

testimony and by God's testimony We know

27:57

Job is a good man and Job's

28:01

wife tells him when she observes his suffering,

28:03

she says, there's nothing left for you to

28:05

do but shake your fist at God, curse

28:08

him and die. And Job

28:10

says instead, and he insists this

28:12

to his friends, he refuses to

28:14

lose faith in his essential goodness.

28:17

And he also refuses to lose faith in

28:19

the essential goodness of God. And

28:22

there's something, it's something like this. And

28:24

this is what's relevant to the shattered

28:26

assumptions notion is that in

28:29

order to stabilize the structure through

28:31

which you view the world, it

28:35

is necessary to adopt as

28:37

axiomatic the notion that whatever

28:40

happens to you if you conduct

28:42

yourself ethically is the best thing

28:44

that could happen regardless of the

28:46

proximal evidence. And

28:49

also it's necessary for

28:51

you not to lose faith in

28:53

the essential goodness of being itself.

28:56

And those are religious proclamations, right?

28:59

They're proclamations of a kind of religious

29:01

faith. Right. Well, and

29:03

it seems to me... And tall

29:05

orders at that, right? Oh God. Yes,

29:08

the tallest, in fact, the tallest of words.

29:11

Exactly. Well, it's

29:13

interesting because the book

29:16

of Job is one of the books

29:18

that really sets the stage in the

29:20

biblical corpus for the story of the

29:22

crucifixion, right? Because the crucifixion story is

29:24

the story of Job expanded

29:26

even more thoroughly. Right.

29:29

Now, these shattered

29:32

assumptions that you described,

29:35

they seem to me to be

29:38

identical to axioms of faith, conceptually

29:40

speaking. Right. They're

29:43

a priori commitment. Except, yes,

29:45

at some level, except, you know, they develop,

29:48

you know, the way we think we should

29:50

need to think about them, they need to

29:52

develop some early infancy from childhood. I mean, these

29:54

are... They're based in... You know, it's

29:56

not like somebody's taking a leap of faith.

29:58

Faith is based on... You

30:00

don't need, sort of, validity in

30:03

the world is irrelevant. You

30:06

know, that's what faith is about, right? Things

30:10

don't have to, there's

30:12

no proof, right? You

30:15

take a leap, an act of

30:17

faith. These are fundamental beliefs based

30:19

on experience. They're not just, you

30:22

know, sort of pie

30:24

in the sky. They're not things that, you know,

30:27

I want to believe that these are not desires.

30:29

Based on, let's say, the infant who is

30:32

getting good enough parenting, not great, good enough

30:34

parenting, realizes the world is predictable.

30:36

The child cries, the mother, the father come

30:38

and help. The world becomes

30:40

meaningful, becomes benevolent. You know, it's good

30:43

world, I'm getting fed. I must be

30:45

worth something. I mean, it's a very,

30:47

you know, rudimentary kind of

30:49

beliefs, but it starts there and it

30:52

builds. And, you know, what comes first

30:54

obviously gets confirmed. I

30:56

do think, though you were calling them

30:59

naive, at one level it's what

31:01

allows us to wake up in the morning and

31:03

approach the day, okay? Yeah, assuming

31:05

our assumptions haven't been shattered. They

31:08

haven't been shattered, that's right. But even

31:10

if they have been shattered, what

31:16

is also important to recognize is

31:18

people that started with these positive

31:20

assumptions actually do better in coping

31:23

with the shattered beliefs because

31:26

they actually have something to kind of move

31:28

back to, okay? If you start with very

31:30

negative beliefs about the world, if you start

31:32

with, you know, you are gonna be more prone

31:35

to possibly a realistic

31:37

view of the world being bad, if that's

31:39

what, you know, bad things

31:41

do happen in the world, right? To good people,

31:44

right? Bad things happen to good people. But

31:47

nevertheless, you are gonna be more prone to

31:49

depression and anxiety, just, you know, living in

31:51

the world is harder. So some of these,

31:54

what seem like illusory beliefs are,

31:56

you know, are what allow us to be, you talked

31:58

about motivation, it allows us to be. allows us

32:00

to be motivated on a

32:02

daily basis to function and operate

32:05

and love and care. And

32:08

so I do say, and

32:10

they have long-term consequences

32:12

when bad things happen. Because

32:14

what happens after the

32:17

shattering is people try to rebuild

32:19

these assumptions in the best

32:21

cases. And by the way, most cases, not

32:23

the cases that all go to psychologists and

32:25

whatever, if you did huge community

32:27

surveys, which we did, you

32:30

find lots of people have gone through some

32:32

really horrible things and don't necessarily go to

32:34

a clinician. You know, now everybody goes to

32:36

clinicians 30, 40 years ago. That

32:39

wasn't the case. People

32:43

coped. They did well, no. They had people who

32:45

cared around them. Their own sort

32:48

of internal world allowed them

32:50

to try to deal. One thing that

32:52

I found that was fascinating, for example,

32:54

is that self-blame was

32:57

remarkably common after all of

32:59

these things. Even when I was,

33:02

I did some work with people

33:05

who were paraplegics or quadriplegics from being

33:07

shot randomly on the street or

33:11

just, you know, truly random events.

33:13

You and I would unquestionably

33:15

call random for the victim.

33:20

And this would still engage in

33:22

some self-blame. Now, why? It's

33:24

not... And by the way,

33:27

the only literature that talked about self-blame were

33:29

rape victims because everybody was blaming the women

33:31

anyway, right? Which was just

33:33

because victims blame themselves doesn't mean

33:36

they're blameworthy. Okay? So

33:38

why? Why blame? Why engage in

33:41

this in ways that

33:43

seem inappropriate given the true

33:45

situation? It's because that allowed people

33:47

to get some sense of control, to start

33:50

believing the world isn't random, to start believing

33:52

the world is not as bad as they

33:54

thought, taking some of the blame on themselves.

33:56

Now, the sad part of that is,

33:58

of course, other people could. than blame then

34:00

more if they were blaming themselves, when that

34:02

is not appropriate or

34:05

legitimate. But what we do

34:07

in terms of our own coping, I think

34:09

is really fascinating. That was something that was

34:11

surprising to me, seeing all this self-blame. But

34:13

there are lots of other ways people cope.

34:16

They think of worse cases.

34:19

But people would try to rebuild assumptions. Of

34:23

course, initially, there's a

34:25

lot of numbing and people

34:27

can't deal with the situation. But

34:29

over time, you get all the intrusive

34:32

thoughts. Not the denial, but the intrusive

34:34

thoughts when you're ready to work on

34:36

it. Our brains or

34:39

human species systems are remarkable. It's

34:41

working on things that need to be

34:43

solved even when we're not constantly doing

34:46

it. Over time,

34:48

what I found is people did

34:50

remarkably well. That doesn't mean they

34:54

barely return to the same, as you

34:56

would say, naive assumptions. But they turned

34:58

to more positive assumptions about

35:00

the world and were sadder but wiser.

35:03

Now felt that they could

35:05

basically incorporate the negative events

35:08

in a broader belief system

35:10

that was still fundamentally positive.

35:12

Right? Okay. Let's

35:15

take a bunch of that apart.

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company insurance programs. The

36:38

first issue

36:40

I'd like to address there is

36:43

probably the notion of illusion. So

36:49

I spent a lot of time looking at Shelley

36:51

Taylor's work, the necessity of

36:53

positive illusion. Yeah, well, I

36:55

am not a fan of the idea of

36:58

positive illusions in the least. I

37:01

think it's one of the most dangerous

37:03

philosophical ideas ever put forward by academics.

37:06

And I know it's allied with terror management theory

37:09

too, that we need to inhabit a world of

37:13

something like necessary fiction. It's

37:16

predicated on the idea that reality itself is

37:18

so unbearable that if we ever saw it

37:20

in its unvarnished form, it would demolish us.

37:24

But no, I'm not there either. Okay, so

37:26

a better model perhaps is... Go

37:30

back, yeah. Yeah, no, no, go ahead. Go ahead.

37:33

No, I was going to say one

37:35

thing is you were talking about the hierarchy

37:37

of belief earlier. Go back to that. Illusion

37:39

is belief at the very fundamental level, which

37:42

allow you to have some positive motivation.

37:45

You're getting up in the morning dealing with life and so on. Those

37:48

actually could be very good. They're very

37:50

strong positive motivation to move ahead, to

37:54

act in the world. You don't want

37:56

illusions at the higher levels, right? You can't.

37:58

If you do, you actually... will not be

38:00

able to deal with the real world. As

38:03

I was bringing up before, if I

38:05

have an illusion about what a good swimmer I

38:07

am and I jump into a pool and I

38:09

can't swim, that's pretty damn unfortunate,

38:12

right? So I do think, you

38:14

know, Shelley and others didn't make this

38:17

distinction about using hierarchy. But go back to

38:19

the to the what you were talking about

38:21

earlier, if you incorporate it

38:23

into a hierarchical system, illusions at

38:26

the bottom could be wonderfully and

38:28

positively motivating. As you

38:30

move up, they're very, very dangerous, right?

38:32

Okay, so let's focus

38:35

on that because I don't think

38:37

that the proper

38:39

replacement for a naive

38:42

optimism is a functional

38:45

illusion because I don't think that

38:49

the retooling

38:52

produces an illusion. So let me

38:54

explain why. If

38:58

you are dealing with people

39:00

with an anxiety disorder, you

39:03

could have them organize a hierarchy

39:06

of fear, things they'll

39:08

avoid, right? And then you can

39:10

take you can get them to

39:12

rank order the severity of that fear. And

39:15

then you can get them to start working

39:17

on, let's say, the least severe fear. And

39:20

you can start to expose them to that, right?

39:24

You can have them imagine them being in

39:26

that situation or start acting it out. Now,

39:30

that exposure is predicated on the

39:32

idea that if they face what

39:36

plagues them, they'll

39:38

prevail. And

39:41

that's a faith in learning itself,

39:43

because we learn on the edge,

39:45

everything we learn is on the

39:47

edge. Everything we learn is

39:50

in consequence of some minor confrontation

39:53

with something we don't

39:55

understand, some minor retooling

39:58

of our assumptions. Gross.

40:00

Okay, go back to assimilation accommodation. Right?

40:02

Exactly. Yeah, you do that you do

40:05

that in a certain with a certain

40:07

degree of Trepidatation and excitement

40:09

right you learn what we need to

40:11

accommodate an assimilation. Right? Okay, right, right

40:13

Okay. So here's a fundamental assumption. That's

40:16

not a loser II if

40:18

if you face the world Forth

40:22

rightly and voluntarily With

40:25

faith in your ability to prevail The

40:29

pathway forward will make itself known

40:31

to you in the best manner

40:33

possible it's

40:35

the axiom of learning itself, it's what

40:38

we facilitate in our children

40:40

and you

40:42

can make an assumption that It's

40:45

it's not unreasonable to make the

40:47

assumption that the cosmos itself is

40:49

established on that principle And

40:52

I mean that in that deep

40:54

sense. So the para management theories

40:56

characters, right? deriving their theories from

40:58

Ernest Becker I love

41:00

herness Becker's He's

41:03

also deeply wrong the hero

41:05

myth that Becker lays out is

41:07

not an illusion It's

41:10

actually the fundamental principle by which

41:12

adaptation takes place because

41:16

Confronting so confronting a

41:18

sequence of minor know Confronting

41:21

a sequence of minor traumas,

41:23

let's say is exactly what

41:26

fortifies you right? It's the principle

41:28

of medicine itself a

41:30

little bit of the poison is what strengthens

41:32

you and It's also but

41:34

it's also the nature of learning and so

41:36

to have faith in that Capacity

41:40

above all is

41:42

not a loser II. In fact, it's faith

41:44

in the fundamental mechanism by which people Formulate

41:47

their adaptation and that's see Becker

41:50

Becker There's a whole

41:52

literature that Becker didn't know of a that

41:54

he didn't pay any attention to and

41:57

so he went He went astray at his

41:59

fundamental present And so did the terror management

42:01

theorists in concert. You've got to say you've got

42:03

to believe also that not everything works on

42:05

faith I mean there if if you know

42:07

the fact that you can swim I'm gonna

42:09

go back to this example again, and you

42:11

jump in the water because you think you

42:13

can do it You

42:16

know yeah faith is not gonna. It's not gonna.

42:18

Allow you to survive. That's okay. Yeah, yeah, well that's

42:24

But but it's sad much depending, but that's what you say I

42:26

mean the fact is we I

42:28

think you know it's all a matter of

42:31

opinion But I think we learn by being

42:33

exposed to situations that are new That

42:36

we are able to assimilate if it

42:38

is too different There's no you know

42:40

assimilate or we you know it kind

42:42

of simulated because it works Or we

42:44

can accommodate our structures to basically

42:46

incorporate it if there is a too

42:48

much of a disconnect It doesn't it

42:50

can't happen right cuz we don't know that

42:52

way we don't know how to manage the real That's

42:55

right trauma in trauma the disconnect

42:58

is at the bedrock level whereas in much

43:00

daily life the disconnect You know I don't

43:02

want to talk about small traumas. It's

43:04

sort of interesting Jordan that The

43:07

word trauma gets so overused now. Yeah,

43:09

that's for sure I get a call from a

43:11

podcaster in England that wants me to give it to

43:13

talk about The all the

43:16

people being traumatized by the Queen's

43:18

death. This is a yeah woman

43:20

that you could expect would die You

43:23

know that's really I don't call that

43:25

trauma right right and you probably wouldn't

43:27

either We now live in

43:29

a world where the word has gotten so

43:31

overused that I feel it's it It

43:34

means it in a way that people

43:36

who really are traumatized and go through

43:38

your trauma Um you know sort of

43:40

aren't Being recognized for

43:42

what they write of course right Carol.

43:44

Yeah, it's very good. Okay. Yeah So

43:47

let's go back to the notion of

43:49

assimilation and accommodation Okay,

43:52

so I want to put a neurological spin on

43:54

that in relationship to what we're discussing okay,

43:56

so okay So you said? And

44:00

rightly so. You said that

44:02

we can bite off more than we can chew

44:05

and we can neither assimilate nor accommodate. We

44:07

can't digest and we can't adjust ourselves

44:09

because the mouthful was

44:12

too big, right? We've taken on, okay.

44:16

Okay, so here's something. You tell me what

44:18

you think about this because I think this

44:20

is like the coolest idea ever. So

44:25

we're attracted towards optimal

44:27

challenge by the sense

44:29

of meaning. It grips

44:31

us. Okay, so instinct is the, no,

44:34

meaning is the instinct that puts us

44:36

on the edge of optimal change. Okay.

44:41

If we talk about meaning as assimilation,

44:43

yes, yes, okay. Well, I would

44:45

say meaning is the motivation that puts

44:47

us on that edge, right? And it's

44:49

something like, okay, so now it grips

44:52

our attention, right?

44:54

It activates positive emotion, right?

44:59

And it does something like

45:01

optimize anxiety because zero anxiety

45:03

isn't the right amount. You

45:05

want to be a little bit on edge. Yeah,

45:08

a little bit, optimally, optimally, right? Just

45:10

like you are when you're preparing to

45:13

play a game with an optimal opponent,

45:15

right? There's a challenge, okay. Meaning

45:19

signifies the presence

45:22

of an optimized challenge. Okay,

45:25

and that meaning, that's

45:28

not the illusory consequence of

45:30

a delusional belief designed

45:32

to protect us from the anxiety of death.

45:37

Instead, that meaning is a signal that we're on

45:39

the developmental edge that will best prepare us for

45:42

all challenges that we

45:44

might confront in the future. That's fine,

45:46

yes. Okay, okay, but that, all right,

45:48

but that's, so

45:52

in a hero story, back to

45:54

Becker, in a hero

45:56

story, the hero takes on something

45:58

like a maximal challenge. Now,

46:01

Becker claimed that we identify with

46:03

those heroes in an

46:05

illusory manner to fortify

46:07

ourselves against the anxiety of death,

46:10

sort of narcissistically elevating ourselves. But

46:13

the alternative view is that, no, as a

46:18

proper sojourner forward, what we're

46:21

doing is taking on exactly

46:23

the optimized challenge that

46:25

expands our skill, that expands our knowledge,

46:27

that retools our maps, and that

46:29

makes us optimally prepared when all

46:32

for the future, even if all hell breaks

46:34

loose. That's reasonable for you. I agree. I

46:38

mean, I don't think we go through... I don't think all

46:40

these things we do in life is based on trying to

46:42

deny death, which is, of course, Becker's notion.

46:45

So I do agree with you. I mean,

46:47

there is this sense of, yes, the challenge,

46:49

we like the hero stories, we learn from

46:51

them, we kind of... Life

46:53

is not simply on a daily basis about denying

46:55

death. There's no point that we do... I mean,

46:57

I think we frequently do deny

46:59

death, but it is not the essence

47:01

of motivation, which, of course, is what

47:03

he would claim. Well, and I would

47:05

also say... I'm somewhat disagreeing with you

47:07

that the challenge is extremely

47:09

important in terms of moving forward, both

47:12

as individuals and as species. So

47:14

I don't disagree at all. Okay. Well,

47:17

the model that I talked about

47:19

earlier, the Fristen model, the model

47:21

that I worked on with my

47:23

students as well, the entropy control

47:26

model, it's also an interesting and

47:28

compelling alternative to the death anxiety

47:30

model, because the fundamental enemy in

47:33

the entropy model isn't death per se.

47:35

Death is a consequence of unconstrained entropy.

47:37

Too many things going wrong at once

47:39

do you in. Right? And

47:41

so we're trying to constrain and regulate

47:43

the chaos of our lives. And we

47:45

do that. The question is how we

47:47

do that. Well, we can do that

47:49

with illusory and naive beliefs, but they're

47:52

subject to shattering. Or

47:55

we can do that... Okay. Let

47:57

me tell you another... Yeah, but I don't... I

48:00

think the key to sharing is not that they're

48:02

illusory, it's that they're bedrock. The

48:07

shattering of illusions at the upper level

48:09

wouldn't matter. I mean, that would be

48:11

very, very unfortunate for

48:14

dealing with everyday life, but

48:16

it wouldn't shatter our assumptions.

48:20

Well, I meant that they're illusory

48:22

because they're susceptible to shattering under

48:29

dire circumstances, right? That's all I

48:32

meant. That's right. No, yeah, absolutely. Absolutely.

48:34

And they are, to some extent, illusory

48:36

because they tend to be positive, right?

48:39

Well, they tend to be naively positive. Naively

48:41

positive. Naively. Okay. So

48:43

let me tell you another story. This is a cool story.

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49:52

there's a story at the end of the Exodus

49:55

adventure and the reason

49:59

I'm bringing the stories up is because

50:02

I believe that the assumption structure that

50:04

we see the world through is a

50:06

story. And so I'm looking at the

50:08

bottom of stories, at the most fundamental

50:10

stories. Well our lives are narratives.

50:12

I mean there's a very good, there's

50:14

no question, our lives are narratives. Right. Right, right,

50:17

right. Yeah, the question. That's well, that's a

50:19

hell of a thing to say because it

50:22

begs the question, you know, is life

50:24

itself a narrative? That begs the question

50:26

of whether reality itself is best construed

50:28

as a narrative. It seems to me

50:30

that it's highly likely. Yeah, okay.

50:32

Yeah, I meant we live our lives as

50:35

narratives and when something doesn't fit we have

50:37

to make the plot work. Right, right, right,

50:39

right. The Exodus story. Yes, okay,

50:41

okay. So yeah, so there's a, there's

50:44

a, there's an event that

50:46

occurs at the end. It's quite, it's

50:48

a remarkable story. So the

50:50

Israelites are, they've made it most

50:52

of the way through the desert and they're, but

50:54

they're still bitching and whining and complaining.

50:57

They are, they're longing for the previous

50:59

tyranny, right. So that's the previous

51:01

set of assumptions. They don't like

51:03

to be lost, which is where they are

51:05

in the desert when their assumptions are shattered.

51:08

Yeah. Right, that's exactly right.

51:11

The desert, that desert sojourn is

51:13

the shattered assumptions that are

51:15

a consequence of leaving the tyrannical

51:18

state. It's exactly what that represents.

51:20

I mean I might not say they were

51:22

traumatized. I would say that they are, but they are

51:24

very I, but nevertheless, go ahead, they're lost.

51:26

They're lost. That's right, they turn to

51:29

Moses and Aaron and yes, okay, right.

51:31

They're lost and they're out of water in

51:33

this scene. Okay, and they get

51:36

all bitchy about this. They're

51:38

sick of eating the food that they have and

51:40

they're lost and they're hopeless and

51:42

they're longing for tyranny and

51:46

God gets tired of their complaining. Their

51:50

faithlessness, let's say, their rebellion against

51:52

movement forward and he sends a

51:54

bunch of poisonous snakes in to

51:56

bite them and

51:59

so The

52:01

Israelites get bitten by all these poisonous snakes and

52:03

they get kind of sick of it after a

52:06

while and they

52:08

go ask Moses, who they know to have a

52:10

connection with God, to intercede. And

52:15

Moses agrees and he goes and has a chat

52:17

with God and then

52:20

what should happen is that God calls off

52:22

the poisonous snakes and the Israelites move forward.

52:24

That's not what happens. And

52:28

what happens instead is insanely profound.

52:31

And you know that healing symbol of the

52:33

physicians that's a staff with a serpent rabbit?

52:36

Okay, so this is one of the variants

52:38

of that symbol. Okay,

52:40

so God tells Moses, take

52:43

the bronze of the Israelites and cast

52:46

a staff, so that's

52:48

like the rod of tradition, that's

52:51

like the fundamental axiomatic assumption, put

52:54

that in the ground and

52:56

on that put a bronze serpent and

53:00

have all the Israelites look at this. And

53:03

if they look at it, then the poison won't affect

53:05

them anymore. Now this is

53:07

very interesting, it's very interesting because God

53:10

could just call off the snakes, but

53:13

that isn't what he does. He fortifies

53:15

the Israelites against poison and

53:18

he does that by voluntary exposure.

53:21

Right, okay. Like aversion

53:23

therapy, right? Just precisely like that,

53:25

precisely like that and that's, you

53:27

know, that is the therapeutic approach,

53:30

that approach of exposure that every

53:32

single psychotherapeutic

53:34

school has converged on

53:36

in the last hundred years. Doesn't

53:38

matter with the origin, the psychoanalyst,

53:40

the cognitive psychologist, the behaviorist, the

53:43

existentialist, they all come to the

53:45

same conclusion. Get your story straight

53:48

and confront what challenges you. That's

53:50

the pathway to redemption. Okay, so here's a cool

53:53

twist on that story. This

53:55

has to do with what beliefs are

53:57

fundamental at the core, not illusory.

54:01

In the Gospels, Christ says

54:03

to his followers that unless

54:06

he is lifted up like the

54:08

serpent in the desert, there's no

54:11

possibility of redemption. Now,

54:13

this is a very weird narrative twist

54:16

because, first of all, it begs

54:18

a variety of questions. The first

54:20

question being, why in the world would Christ refer back

54:22

to that story? The second

54:24

question being, why would

54:27

he assimilate himself to that

54:29

figure? It's very unlikely, right?

54:32

A serpent on a pole. Okay,

54:35

so this is the conclusion. And this

54:38

has to do with the validity of beliefs,

54:40

I believe. And it's the antidote to the

54:43

notion that we need illusion to survive. So

54:46

a snake

54:49

is a pretty bad thing. And

54:51

a poisonous snake is worse. And a poisonous snake

54:53

in the midst of a desert is even worse.

54:55

But it's not the worst thing. What's

54:58

the worst thing? That

55:01

would be like a metasnake. What's the

55:03

worst possible thing? Well, the worst possible

55:06

thing is something like an amalgam of

55:08

the tragedies of life. You could throw

55:10

some malevolence in there just for space,

55:14

right? So the worst possible thing

55:16

is the core of mortality and

55:18

the fact of malevolence. All

55:21

right. It's the full confrontation

55:23

with that that's illustrated in the

55:25

gospel narrative. And

55:27

so the notion... Yeah. Okay, well,

55:29

I'll just close with that and then I'll let you respond. The

55:32

idea there, it's something like this. The

55:34

idea there is that faith

55:38

in your ability, faith in the

55:40

human ability to fully confront the

55:42

limits of mortal experience and

55:45

malevolence is the

55:47

proper foundational axiom. And

55:51

it allows for the existence of evil,

55:53

right? Okay, so... That's right.

55:55

Yeah, no, I'm totally... I

55:58

mean, so you know, that's all right. Right. You're

56:00

saying essentially that these illusory or

56:03

you're saying naive beliefs at the

56:05

fundamental level allow us to

56:09

function in the real world. That's right. I mean,

56:11

that's a very, this is a very mundane

56:13

way and simplistic way of saying what you've been

56:15

talking about. But one of the things I do

56:17

want to bring up is when we're talking about

56:20

sort of things that are illusory, it points

56:24

to illusory because they're over generalizations.

56:26

Okay. If you say the world

56:28

is benevolent, you may

56:31

have these beliefs, part of it is just it's

56:33

an over generalization. In general,

56:35

things are right. It doesn't take

56:37

into account all the bad

56:40

stuff that we know happen. But so

56:42

at the fundamental level, what we're talking

56:44

about these over generalized beliefs, when

56:47

people actually end up managing

56:49

and coping successfully with trauma,

56:51

they still end up having

56:53

some beliefs that are essentially

56:55

less over generalized. They're beliefs

56:57

that are positive that now

56:59

can account for, as you're

57:01

saying, these negative events. Okay.

57:05

But it's interesting to talk about it that

57:08

cognitively we cannot, as you

57:11

know all too well, we

57:13

cannot actually sort of respond

57:15

to every single little thing in the world. Most

57:18

of our beliefs and all of

57:20

our knowledge involves some over estimation.

57:23

Over generalization.

57:26

And when you get to that very

57:28

top of that hierarchy, then you

57:30

may be the things may be very,

57:32

very specific, right? But the further down

57:34

we move, greater the generalization. Yeah.

57:37

Well, and your point again, I

57:39

don't think there's any difference between noting

57:43

the undifferentiated and over

57:45

generalized quality of those initial

57:47

beliefs and naivety. That's

57:50

the same thing. It's the

57:52

use of an insufficiently detailed

57:54

map. So the map

57:57

that the aura too

58:00

optimistic and naive story. So the

58:02

problem with the belief structure

58:04

that's amenable to disruption by trauma

58:08

is that it doesn't take

58:10

into account the existence, let's

58:13

say of tragic randomness and

58:15

outright malevolence. Right, and

58:17

that works fine until you encounter

58:19

it, but it doesn't work at all

58:21

once you do. And once you

58:24

encounter it, having those beliefs actually enables

58:26

people to actually rebuild the assumptions. And

58:28

the only problem I have with the

58:30

word naive, even though

58:33

it's I think sort of accurate,

58:35

is there is a kind

58:37

of almost person blaming, victim

58:39

blaming about the, naiveté

58:42

feels like sort

58:45

of pejorative. Do you know what I'm saying?

58:47

As opposed to if we use the cognitive

58:49

word over generalization instead, it doesn't feel quite

58:51

so negative. But yes, in

58:53

terms of, but as a descriptor, I think

58:56

you're right, it's naive, that's right. Okay,

58:59

well, so that's interesting too, because this

59:02

is an ancient argument,

59:04

right? That the difference between,

59:07

let's say, ignorance and willful

59:09

blindness. Right, right. Right, right,

59:12

right. And you can imagine

59:14

that someone, okay,

59:17

so let, oh God, let me tell you a

59:19

story about that. So, one of the- Okay, but

59:21

we will read the other book sometime. We will,

59:23

right away, right away. I really need to know

59:25

what you think about it. Yeah,

59:27

yeah, yeah, we'll do that, we'll do that, we'll do

59:29

that right away. Maybe

59:32

we'll just close with this, with this part, with

59:34

this. Freud talked

59:36

a lot about the

59:39

Oedipal relationship that was characterized

59:41

by an overbearing

59:44

maternal presence and too much dependence,

59:47

right? Now we know that

59:49

people with dependent personality are more likely

59:52

to be traumatized now, but let

59:55

me elaborate on that. I'm

59:57

not sure that's true, but okay, we'd have to deal with

59:59

that the whole- Then just. Because.

1:00:01

On. Shortens. The New

1:00:04

Traumatized if you a if you

1:00:06

experience. Basically.

1:00:09

I'm sort of unusual out of

1:00:11

the ordinary events right that that

1:00:14

oh super challenge you. but people

1:00:16

who have the most people that

1:00:19

already have negative assumptions. Actually,

1:00:22

Often Trump. Or less Fargo, right?

1:00:24

the mega ramp. I don't think the negative

1:00:26

assumptions are a sign of a more differentiated

1:00:28

world's yeah, right on the north end of

1:00:30

the know. What a lot of a little

1:00:32

real money. For it also could be part

1:00:34

of dependence. you know the at the defendant

1:00:36

people but arms. But anyway go ahead I'm

1:00:39

i'm fire apologists into how well that well.

1:00:42

Let's let's see if I could lay the so properly.

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people People

1:02:02

maintain their

1:02:04

undifferentiated viewpoints longer

1:02:06

than they might, because when they're

1:02:08

faced with minor incidences of disconfirming

1:02:14

evidence, they turn away. They

1:02:16

don't process it. That's willful blindness.

1:02:18

Well, but here's it. Now, a better word

1:02:20

is willful blindness. Let's say that is cognitive conservatism. If

1:02:23

we changed our cognitive schemas every time there

1:02:25

was something that didn't fit, it would be

1:02:27

a problem. I mean,

1:02:31

things have to build up to change. And that's

1:02:34

what like, you know, we look at scientific revolutions,

1:02:36

look at CUNY and stuff. The notion that we're

1:02:38

not going to make a change every

1:02:40

second based on one disconfirm myself. I

1:02:43

mean, I actually love Karl Popper. The notion

1:02:45

is we should be cognitively conservative when it

1:02:47

comes to our schemas or our theories. It

1:02:50

should take a lot to turn them around, but we

1:02:52

should ultimately be willing to turn them.

1:02:56

And that should be dependent on the degree

1:02:58

of their axiomatic fundamental. Yeah,

1:03:01

fundamental. Okay. Yes,

1:03:03

exactly. So the notion should be that the

1:03:07

deeper you go into the axiomatic structure,

1:03:09

the farther down you go, the more

1:03:12

absolutely overwhelming the evidence has to be

1:03:14

in order to move that assumption. Yes.

1:03:17

Absolutely. Right. Okay.

1:03:20

And so I think the cognitive

1:03:23

conservatism, that's something like the...

1:03:25

That's the stake in the ground, right? That's

1:03:29

the bedrock of something like tradition

1:03:31

or cumulative experience. Yeah, you

1:03:34

can't let one deviation at

1:03:37

the periphery destroy the

1:03:39

center. Right. That's a

1:03:42

catastrophic mistake. But

1:03:45

it isn't only that people are

1:03:49

unwilling to change

1:03:51

their central beliefs because they're

1:03:53

cognitively conservative. They're also prone

1:03:58

to turning a blind eye. even

1:04:00

to repetitive information that indicates that

1:04:03

there's an axiomatic error. Right. No,

1:04:05

that's right. Okay. I

1:04:08

mean, we could talk about politics now, how

1:04:10

we turn our... Yes. Well, let's do that. No,

1:04:13

I was going to say, just at seguing,

1:04:15

the confirmation bias, we

1:04:17

only want to listen to things on our

1:04:19

side. We don't want to actually be exposed

1:04:22

to the other. We kind of live in

1:04:24

our silos. We confirm what we believe. I

1:04:26

mean, this is part of

1:04:28

how we live our lives. Unfortunately, right? Yes,

1:04:31

I totally agree. The fact

1:04:34

that we want to confirm what we already

1:04:36

believe and expose ourselves to stuff that will

1:04:38

confirm it is a very

1:04:41

major part of how we construct and live our

1:04:43

lives. Right. Right. And that's not... While

1:04:46

you tell me what you think about this,

1:04:48

that's not merely cognitive conservatism. That's also active...

1:04:50

Also motivational. ...not even away from... Okay, good.

1:04:52

Fine. Right. That's... And that goes back to

1:04:54

what you were saying earlier. That's motivational,

1:04:57

right? Right. That's part of the

1:04:59

desire. Right. Well, why...

1:05:01

First of all, if we've organized

1:05:03

ourselves politically, we have somewhere convenient

1:05:05

to put malevolence, and it's not within

1:05:07

us. It's in the opposite of our

1:05:10

ideological belief. So that's a lovely

1:05:12

thing to have. Plus, we've organized the

1:05:14

world in a relatively...

1:05:17

What would you call it? Oversimplified

1:05:19

manner, and that means we don't

1:05:21

have to think and that we're

1:05:23

on the side of virtue. So

1:05:25

that's pretty convenient as well. Let's

1:05:27

talk about the political landscape then

1:05:29

now. So that takes us to

1:05:32

your other major book. Yeah. And actually,

1:05:34

that's the one that was recently published.

1:05:37

That's within the last few months,

1:05:39

as opposed to 30 years ago. Right. Right.

1:05:42

That's the two morality. That's

1:05:44

right. Well, why don't

1:05:46

you lay that out first? Lay out your thesis, and

1:05:48

then we'll discuss that in some more detail. And

1:05:50

jump in when I overstate this or go on

1:05:53

too long. So

1:05:56

I do think

1:05:59

that moral psychology... is a very helpful

1:06:01

lens, an invaluable lens for understanding our

1:06:03

political differences. So let's

1:06:09

start with motivation. When

1:06:11

the fundamental motivational

1:06:13

distinction for people, for humans, is

1:06:16

or for any animals approach

1:06:18

an avoidance, very simply, pain, pleasure. We approach

1:06:20

the good, we want to avoid the bad.

1:06:26

I actually ended up using these two ways.

1:06:28

I first have to talk a little bit

1:06:30

about morality and my understanding of the moral

1:06:32

map a little to move

1:06:35

on to politics. Have at it, have at it.

1:06:38

Okay. So if

1:06:41

you think about approach and avoidance, I sort of

1:06:43

make a distinction in morality between two

1:06:45

kinds of morality. One is prescriptive and

1:06:47

one is proscriptive. Prescriptive is based in

1:06:49

avoidance. These are the things we

1:06:51

shouldn't do. We shouldn't lie. You can feel it,

1:06:53

you shouldn't cheat. We all know that,

1:06:55

right? Is that the same as conscience?

1:06:58

That's proscriptive morality. Well, conscience is sort

1:07:00

of a, is a sort of a

1:07:03

internal mechanism that allows us to know

1:07:06

the rules and the norms and

1:07:08

pushes us in the right direction.

1:07:10

Yes. But proscriptive

1:07:12

morality is about not doing the wrong

1:07:14

thing. It's based in inhibition, constraint,

1:07:16

and so forth. Prescriptive morality

1:07:18

is doing the right thing. It's a difference

1:07:20

between not harming and helping, right? And

1:07:23

our default morality is based on

1:07:26

interpersonal interactions who we're interacting with,

1:07:28

don't harm, i.e. don't steal, don't

1:07:30

lie, don't cheat, and help, right?

1:07:32

Be kind, respect others, you know,

1:07:34

help, right? Now

1:07:37

that difference, and by the way,

1:07:39

motivationally they're not harming and helping

1:07:42

are not the same

1:07:45

thing. They're not just opposite sides

1:07:47

of the same coin. They're opposite in

1:07:49

many ways. The child who doesn't, you know,

1:07:51

is told not to take somebody else's

1:07:53

toys and doesn't take the toys isn't necessarily

1:07:56

good at sharing his or her own, right?

1:07:59

So the three. and the post-script

1:08:01

are really quite different. And in fact, children

1:08:03

learn post-script morality, the do-nots, much

1:08:06

more readily, quicker, more quickly

1:08:08

than the do's.

1:08:10

Okay, I've mapped the

1:08:12

moral domain based on that, and I'm not gonna

1:08:14

go through the personal and interpersonal domain. What I

1:08:16

wanna move to is the group

1:08:19

domain. So group-based

1:08:21

moralities that are post-scriptive or prescriptive.

1:08:23

Post-scriptive morality, the shorthand for that

1:08:25

is protect. Protect from

1:08:28

harm, okay? The morality of protecting

1:08:30

from harm versus providing for

1:08:32

wellbeing, okay? Instead of post-scriptive and

1:08:35

prescriptive, they're very wordy

1:08:37

words, right? So let's

1:08:40

think about morality as rules

1:08:43

and norms that

1:08:45

facilitate group living. In

1:08:48

part, they're based on protecting from harm,

1:08:51

the group, protecting the group from harm in this case,

1:08:53

and providing for the group. Those are the

1:08:55

two basic tasks

1:08:57

for group living, right? Defending and providing.

1:09:02

And when I've looked at this, these

1:09:04

two moralities, which

1:09:07

by the way, I should also argue

1:09:09

motivationally, what is the most difficult

1:09:15

part of do-not, if

1:09:18

your temptation has to be

1:09:21

inhibited in the case of the

1:09:23

pro-scriptive or the protect, the

1:09:27

enemy of prescriptive morality, the provider,

1:09:29

is not having

1:09:31

to tamp something down. It's not temptation, it's

1:09:33

apathy, it's not caring, right? So

1:09:36

what I've, if you look at liberals

1:09:38

and conservatives, they

1:09:41

don't differ in terms of how much they think

1:09:43

you should be helping or they may say you

1:09:46

should help different people. But both

1:09:48

groups believe you shouldn't harm you and you

1:09:51

shouldn't steal and lie and cheat and you

1:09:53

should help your neighbor and you should be kind

1:09:55

and respect other people. When

1:09:57

you start seeing huge differences is the

1:09:59

group-based morality. In

1:10:02

the case of a pro-scriptive group dates

1:10:04

morality, the protect, protecting the group looks

1:10:06

like social order. You know, what

1:10:08

people are after is social order stability and

1:10:11

security of the group. And in

1:10:13

the case of a more, of

1:10:15

a pre-scriptive, it looks like social

1:10:17

justice, providing for the group.

1:10:19

So everybody is cared for,

1:10:21

a shared communal responsibility. So we have

1:10:24

this social order and social justice, which

1:10:26

are quite different. But it

1:10:28

turns out those are not correlated. They're

1:10:30

negatively correlated. Every other area of

1:10:34

morality, protecting

1:10:38

and providing are highly correlated. Okay. So

1:10:40

I want to move to this. How

1:10:43

did you, how did you determine that they weren't

1:10:45

correlated? Well, because we took

1:10:47

large samples of self-described liberals

1:10:50

and conservatives. Okay. And you

1:10:52

can see what their, their

1:10:55

support for these various beliefs,

1:10:57

beliefs as a social order. We have, there

1:11:00

are constructs that underlie

1:11:02

that. And we, you know, have, I

1:11:04

mean, in the book we talk about

1:11:06

all the confirmed effect, all the, all the statistics, but

1:11:09

what's important for me to go back for

1:11:11

one moment is what's

1:11:14

up sandwich heads today on Steve O sandwich reviews, we've

1:11:16

got the tips and tricks to the best sandwich order.

1:11:19

And it all starts with this little guy right here.

1:11:21

Pepsi zero sugar, partial to the strumming

1:11:23

craving a cubano. Yeah. Sounds delicious. But

1:11:25

boom, add the crisp refreshing taste of

1:11:27

Pepsi zero sugar and cue the fireworks

1:11:29

lunch dinner or late night. It'll be

1:11:31

a sandwich. We're celebrating. Trust me. Your

1:11:33

boy's eaten a lot of sandwiches in

1:11:35

his day. And the one thing I

1:11:37

can say with absolute fact, every

1:11:41

bite is better with Pepsi. I

1:11:44

actually believe that both liberal liberalism and

1:11:46

conservatism are morally based. Now I'm on

1:11:49

the left. So, um, but I believe

1:11:51

very strongly that liberals and conservatives have

1:11:53

to work together to preserve our

1:11:55

system. I do. You

1:11:58

said in some sense, right? because you need

1:12:00

order and you need provision. You need

1:12:03

order, you need, and in many ways,

1:12:06

you cannot, we're not gonna preserve a democracy

1:12:09

with just half the country opting

1:12:11

for it, right? I mean, if

1:12:13

you look at any presidential election,

1:12:15

about half the country votes Democrat,

1:12:17

half a Republican. Now, I

1:12:20

do wanna put a disclaimer here. I

1:12:23

do think that the people that wield these

1:12:26

ideologies are not necessarily moral. And

1:12:28

I want to say that, you

1:12:30

know, mother, if you are a MAGA

1:12:34

conservative where the core of your political

1:12:36

belief now is based in a big

1:12:38

lie, I'm not opting for, I'm not

1:12:41

saying that these are moral, I'm

1:12:43

already precluding morality there, okay? But

1:12:45

I think there are huge numbers

1:12:48

of conservatives in our

1:12:50

country that, and your

1:12:52

country as well, right? Are you Canadian, correct? I'm

1:12:54

Canadian, yeah. Canadian, right, lots

1:12:57

of conservatives that I

1:12:59

disagree with probably in terms of policy, but I'd

1:13:01

be happy to sit down and talk about it.

1:13:03

We'd find out there are lots of things that

1:13:05

we'd agree about, okay? We'd

1:13:08

find out that we both care about family, we care

1:13:10

about community. I, you know, Liz Cheney's a great example

1:13:12

of this. Everybody

1:13:14

I know on the left says, I'd be happy

1:13:16

to sit down with Liz Cheney. She has integrity.

1:13:19

I don't agree with her about any policy, but

1:13:22

she has proven that she is a person

1:13:24

that's moral, okay? So I

1:13:26

wanna take, I do wanna say, I'm

1:13:28

not talking about the MAGA conservatives right

1:13:30

now. We

1:13:35

only have to go to the global party

1:13:37

system, global party survey of 2,000 international, well,

1:13:43

2,000 experts on parties and elections

1:13:46

who now have claimed that our Republican

1:13:48

Party in the US is an alt-right

1:13:50

party. It is no longer considered a

1:13:52

mainstream Republican Party. Democrats

1:13:55

are considered a mainstream liberal

1:13:57

party. So,

1:14:00

you know, we're now talking about a party that

1:14:02

isn't even really a mainstream

1:14:04

conservative party. But let's

1:14:06

put all of that aside, all right? There

1:14:10

is a reason to believe that half

1:14:14

the world, half the US, half the Canadians

1:14:16

probably are 10 towards a

1:14:18

conservative, half

1:14:20

10 toward a liberal. These are

1:14:22

not, I don't believe, as Hibbing and his

1:14:25

colleagues do, that politics is

1:14:28

inherited. I do think there

1:14:30

are some temperamental differences early on that can lead

1:14:32

people to one direction or another. You

1:14:35

know all the literature on threat sensitivity

1:14:37

for conservatives. Threat sensitivity,

1:14:39

we talk about that as if that's necessarily

1:14:41

a bad thing. That's not necessarily bad. Somebody

1:14:44

has to be sort of alert for threat,

1:14:46

right? We know when you

1:14:48

look at eye tracking, for

1:14:50

example, studies, conservatives are more likely

1:14:52

to look at the negative, etc. Liberals

1:14:55

are more likely to look at the positive or at

1:14:57

least don't differentiate. Liberals are

1:14:59

more, the psychological attribute

1:15:03

that defies liberals is openness. So you

1:15:05

have openness versus a sensitivity to threat.

1:15:09

These do lead to very different kinds

1:15:11

of policies and concerns, okay? There's no

1:15:14

question. Unfortunately, you

1:15:16

know, I think a lot

1:15:18

of social order could, in fact,

1:15:20

if you have an interest in social

1:15:22

order, you could actually believe in working

1:15:24

towards greater equality, which basically

1:15:27

is really, would

1:15:31

help social order a great deal.

1:15:33

But in fact, what most conservatives move

1:15:35

towards instead are

1:15:37

abortion, social issues, abortion

1:15:40

and since it's marriage and, you

1:15:42

know, Dr. Sis and suicide and

1:15:44

prohibitions. These are based

1:15:46

on constraints and they are based on

1:15:49

prohibitions. That's exactly right. Which is prescriptive?

1:15:51

Yeah, I'm sorry. So, yes. Well,

1:15:54

so, so that well, that's I

1:15:57

want to make sure that I'm I've got the argument exactly.

1:16:00

And so let me lay out what

1:16:02

you said and tell me if

1:16:04

I've got it correct. The

1:16:06

best evidence that I know

1:16:08

of for distinguishing between conservatives and liberals

1:16:11

is temperamental. The

1:16:14

liberal types, the progressive types are

1:16:17

higher in openness and lower in

1:16:19

conscientiousness, especially orderliness. And

1:16:21

then the conservatives are the reverse of that. Low

1:16:24

in openness and high in conscientiousness,

1:16:27

especially orderliness. And

1:16:29

so they see less possibility in

1:16:32

potential compared to the

1:16:34

liberals, which is why the liberals

1:16:36

tend to be open border types. Because

1:16:38

they see beyond the constraints

1:16:40

something like potential

1:16:44

that can be creatively engaged with,

1:16:47

whereas the conservatives are more likely to think,

1:16:49

no, that's a place where all hell can

1:16:51

break loose. And the problem is they're both

1:16:54

right. Because

1:16:56

what's beyond you can be very promising

1:16:58

and engaging, and what's beyond you can

1:17:00

do you in. Well,

1:17:03

let's think about what would be the attributes that

1:17:05

concerto will be looking for. Strength

1:17:08

and power. You're talking

1:17:10

about threat, trying to protect

1:17:12

from the group. Strength and

1:17:14

power. Socially defined

1:17:17

roles. Everybody knows where they

1:17:19

fit, stability. Tradition

1:17:21

is looked at in culture as markers

1:17:26

to fight self-interest, etc., etc. Liberalism,

1:17:31

that's not

1:17:33

what liberalism is about at all. Liberalism

1:17:36

is about equality, greater equality for groups,

1:17:39

providing resources for groups.

1:17:43

Very different kinds of interests here. Liberalism

1:17:46

wants regulation. Liberals want regulation

1:17:49

in the economic domain. We

1:17:52

want people to have – we believe

1:17:56

in entitlements that

1:17:58

help people, social security. Security and

1:18:01

and welfare if you need food and

1:18:04

You know believe in great trying

1:18:07

to establish greater equality, right? That's

1:18:09

the economic domain Conservatives

1:18:11

actually really more are more

1:18:13

interested in unfettered Capitalism

1:18:17

right unfettered economy

1:18:19

economy They want

1:18:21

autonomy in the economic domain Conservatives

1:18:24

given the interest in socially defined

1:18:26

roles cult and tradition and so

1:18:28

forth they focus on Norm

1:18:32

adherence strong norm adherence norm

1:18:34

adherence and and strict roles really is

1:18:36

a social domain. They want Regulation

1:18:40

around things like abortion and and

1:18:42

same sex marriage and things like

1:18:44

of this sort And

1:18:48

and they want and they want what and

1:18:50

they want autonomy You know was we have

1:18:52

policies that are completely mirror image

1:18:55

one group wants regulation in economics

1:18:57

liberals and the other wants autonomy

1:18:59

there and conservative

1:19:01

regulation in social domain and Liberals

1:19:04

want autonomy there so you get this crazy

1:19:06

thing which is why people have always said

1:19:09

why is it that? Conservatives really you know,

1:19:11

they want to be so strict about abortion,

1:19:13

but you know, don't touch the

1:19:15

economy Well, it's of course it's not their

1:19:17

domain. It's not you see it's not where

1:19:20

the morality The morale

1:19:22

it doesn't touch that for them. That's it's

1:19:24

not a relevant domain So, okay. So

1:19:26

let me ask you. Well, that's okay. That's okay. Let me ask

1:19:28

you this I'll

1:19:31

put a good word in for the Conservatives I

1:19:34

know and I know you have been doing

1:19:36

that as well with regards to the necessity

1:19:38

of maintenance of social order But there's also

1:19:40

another difference that seems to me striking and

1:19:42

I don't think the Conservatives are very good at

1:19:44

playing this out the

1:19:47

reason that the Conservatives

1:19:49

with integrity want autonomy

1:19:51

in economic matters is

1:19:54

so that Individuals rather than the

1:19:56

state can bear the responsibility for

1:19:59

provision Right.

1:20:01

Well, why is that? Okay. I

1:20:03

understand the argument, but why is

1:20:05

that better? Here's the thing. The

1:20:08

conservative mantra is equal opportunity, equal opportunity.

1:20:10

I guess I'm very tired of hearing

1:20:12

that because you never have equal opportunity

1:20:14

if people are not starting at the

1:20:17

same place, right? What's equal

1:20:19

opportunity if somebody has a lot of money

1:20:21

they've inherited from their parents and somebody has

1:20:23

nothing, you say there's equal opportunity. There's not.

1:20:25

It's like running a race with some people

1:20:27

starting a laugh ahead. So even though

1:20:30

this notion

1:20:33

of individuals should be responsible, it's

1:20:35

not that liberals don't think that it

1:20:37

matters. Well, it's not just individuals. But I

1:20:39

think it's not that individuals don't believe that

1:20:42

I... I mean, you're right. People

1:20:46

are also responsible, but I love

1:20:50

the notion that picking people up by their own bootstraps

1:20:52

and how important that is. And you go back to

1:20:54

Martin Luther King and he says, well, you know, some

1:20:56

people don't even have boots. You know,

1:20:58

it's important to remember that we just,

1:21:01

you know, we started very different

1:21:04

places based on social policies in

1:21:06

the past, right? So it's

1:21:11

not as if people

1:21:13

who work hard shouldn't also

1:21:15

do well. It's that lots of

1:21:17

people who work very hard still

1:21:20

can't get ahead. So, you

1:21:23

know, this notion of individuals should

1:21:26

be responsible for

1:21:28

those who can make it without the

1:21:30

help, great. But you

1:21:33

want, I think, I believe in communal,

1:21:35

you know, sharing and communal sharing, communal

1:21:37

responsibility. I believe in that, you know,

1:21:39

maybe that's... that is

1:21:41

a liberal belief that it's not each

1:21:43

person for him or herself and you

1:21:45

make her or you break. It's

1:21:48

that we have a responsibility to each

1:21:50

other. We're in this game together. We

1:21:52

go around once in life, you know,

1:21:54

help each other. And that

1:21:56

includes having a

1:21:58

system. government, right?

1:22:02

That's what we've got. Helping those who

1:22:04

need it. And I don't

1:22:06

think that's inconsistent with people

1:22:08

also working hard,

1:22:11

right? This

1:22:14

is what I would recommend for the time

1:22:16

being. I think we should

1:22:18

continue this discussion

1:22:20

of the political on the Daily Wire

1:22:22

Plus side. I'm happy to

1:22:24

do that. Yeah, let's do that. Let's

1:22:26

do that. And so that's a reasonable

1:22:29

place. We've covered a lot of material.

1:22:31

That's a reasonable place to draw this

1:22:33

part of the conversation to an end.

1:22:35

For everybody watching and listening, thank

1:22:38

you for your time and attention, first of all, on

1:22:40

the YouTube side. Yeah,

1:22:43

I didn't know it was already 10 to 6. Thank

1:22:45

you. Yeah, well, there we go. That's

1:22:47

the consequence of an

1:22:49

engrossing conversation. Okay, so for everybody watching on

1:22:52

YouTube, thank you very much for your time

1:22:54

and attention. I'm going to continue

1:22:56

this conversation behind the Daily Wire Plus

1:22:59

platform paywall. And so if you want to

1:23:01

join us there, please do and we'll hash

1:23:04

out some more of our discussion with regards

1:23:06

to conservatism and liberalism. Thank

1:23:10

you very much. Dr.

1:23:12

Janoff, is it sorry? Janoff Omen?

1:23:14

Yes, no, it is Janoff Omen.

1:23:16

It's Janoff, okay, yes. Okay.

1:23:20

And yeah, thank you

1:23:22

very much for walking me through your

1:23:24

thoughts on shattered assumptions and your

1:23:27

political ideas. We're going to continue that.

1:23:29

And thank you to the film crew here

1:23:31

in Scottsdale for making this possible and to

1:23:33

the Daily Wire Plus people for putting this

1:23:36

all together. And feel free,

1:23:38

everyone, to join us. And

1:23:40

the film crew here, yes. Right,

1:23:42

right. So thank you. And

1:23:44

we'll take five and we'll

1:23:46

reestablish contact on the Daily

1:23:48

Wire Plus side. All right.

1:23:51

Bye, everybody. Yep, yep. What's

1:23:55

up sandwich heads? Today on Steve O's Sandwich Reviews,

1:23:57

we've got the tips and tricks to the best

1:23:59

sandwich order. And it all starts with this little guy right

1:24:01

here. Pepsi Zero Sugar. partial to

1:24:03

pastrami, craving a cubano. Yeah, sounds delicious,

1:24:05

but boom! Add the crisp, refreshing taste

1:24:07

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1:24:09

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1:24:11

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1:24:13

Your boy's eaten a lot of sandwiches

1:24:16

in his day, and the one thing

1:24:18

I can say with absolute fact, every

1:24:21

bite is better with Pepsi.