WEBVTT - Part One: Andrew Tate, and the Mythopoetic Men's Movement 0:00:01.120 --> 0:00:05.640 Welcome to him Motherfucker's I'm Robert Evans. This is Behind 0:00:05.680 --> 0:00:08.600 the Bastards, a podcast that has just encountered one of 0:00:08.600 --> 0:00:12.360 the worst disasters of its career. So, uh, we'll get 0:00:12.360 --> 0:00:14.240 into this more later. This is supposed to be and 0:00:14.280 --> 0:00:17.040 it's going to be the first of several episodes about 0:00:17.160 --> 0:00:21.120 Andrew Tate and the mythopoetic men's movement that led to 0:00:21.400 --> 0:00:24.599 his rise to fame and influence among a generation of 0:00:24.640 --> 0:00:28.319 young men. We started recording this episode just a few 0:00:28.360 --> 0:00:32.680 hours ago with the wonderful April Clark and Grace Freud 0:00:32.720 --> 0:00:36.240 of the Girl God podcast. Uh they have in anyway. 0:00:36.360 --> 0:00:38.199 We recorded a little bit with them, and then I 0:00:38.280 --> 0:00:42.080 had a minor emergency which has taken me out of 0:00:42.080 --> 0:00:44.920 the house for a while. Things are okay, you don't 0:00:44.920 --> 0:00:47.479 need to flip out on Reddit or whatever, but it 0:00:47.520 --> 0:00:49.839 was it was a problem, um, and we were not 0:00:49.920 --> 0:00:52.880 able to record with them. To finish recording with them, 0:00:52.920 --> 0:00:56.240 and because of the holiday, we have no backlog. So 0:00:56.600 --> 0:00:59.360 in order to get this episode done and ready for 0:00:59.400 --> 0:01:03.160 our editor asap, Sophie is going to be my guest 0:01:03.200 --> 0:01:07.520 today along with Ian our editor. UM and we will 0:01:07.720 --> 0:01:10.720 get this out as soon as possible, because otherwise we 0:01:10.760 --> 0:01:13.320 will not have a show and we are contractually obligated 0:01:13.360 --> 0:01:16.200 to provide you with entertainment every single week until the 0:01:16.200 --> 0:01:19.000 heat death of the universe. Um, but I do want 0:01:19.080 --> 0:01:21.960 to shout out April and Grace, who are wonderful who 0:01:22.040 --> 0:01:24.080 came on and booked time for us, and I'm sorry 0:01:24.080 --> 0:01:26.280 that things got messed up. We will have them back 0:01:26.319 --> 0:01:29.040 on the pod um at some point in the near future, 0:01:29.040 --> 0:01:31.160 and I wanted to let people know that there is 0:01:31.400 --> 0:01:35.720 They have an upcoming show at JFO Vancouver on February 0:01:36.319 --> 0:01:38.679 and people can get tickets for that show at Girl 0:01:38.840 --> 0:01:42.120 God Show dot com. You can also check out their 0:01:42.160 --> 0:01:44.759 podcast just type girl God and any of the things 0:01:44.800 --> 0:01:48.200 that have podcasts, and you can listen to their awesome show. 0:01:48.640 --> 0:01:51.040 Thank you so much again, April and Grace. I'm sorry 0:01:51.120 --> 0:01:55.760 that there was a minor calamity. UM. Now welcome to 0:01:55.840 --> 0:01:59.720 the pod. Uh, Sophie and Ian, How are y'all doing 0:02:00.640 --> 0:02:05.080 so well? So on I night. Ian is Ian Johnson, 0:02:05.120 --> 0:02:07.400 by the way, he edits a lot of our shows, 0:02:07.520 --> 0:02:12.520 and it's also uh one half of Gladiator with fellow 0:02:12.919 --> 0:02:17.360 fellow editor DJ Daniel. All Right, and um, we do 0:02:17.440 --> 0:02:19.800 have the full Gladiator on staff, which I like to 0:02:19.840 --> 0:02:24.119 bring up as much as possible. M. I appreciate the love. 0:02:24.639 --> 0:02:28.400 And yeah, you know it's Friday. Uh, ready for the weekend. 0:02:28.480 --> 0:02:31.480 Let's talk some tape, you know, Let's let's do it Friday, 0:02:31.639 --> 0:02:35.480 get into Friday, but also almost Saturday. Uh. And Ian 0:02:35.600 --> 0:02:40.040 is currently in his closet. We may start drinking in 0:02:40.080 --> 0:02:43.919 the in the near future. Might need to happen. Yeah, 0:02:44.040 --> 0:02:48.280 let's do it, all right, Robert? Yeah, Ian, I actually 0:02:48.360 --> 0:02:51.040 have you been on just as one of our podcasts 0:02:51.040 --> 0:02:54.520 before you you have known this my first Well, you know, Ian, 0:02:54.600 --> 0:02:56.720 people should know about you again. You're you're one half 0:02:56.720 --> 0:02:59.920 of Gladiator. You're a longtime friend of our other editor 0:03:00.160 --> 0:03:06.760 DJ Daniel. Um, you are a legendary podcast editor. And 0:03:06.800 --> 0:03:11.760 you had absolutely no involvement in the July six plane 0:03:11.760 --> 0:03:14.560 crash that cost John F. Kennedy Jr. His life off 0:03:14.600 --> 0:03:17.639 the Massachusetts coast. No involvement at all. I don't know 0:03:17.680 --> 0:03:20.240 why people, Yeah, don't bring it up. We had nothing 0:03:20.240 --> 0:03:21.680 to do with it. Why are you talking about that? 0:03:22.280 --> 0:03:24.840 I just to let people know Ian had nothing to 0:03:24.840 --> 0:03:28.320 do with it. Ian Sophie, what do y'all know about 0:03:28.400 --> 0:03:34.240 Andrew Tate. Um. So my limited knowledge of him is 0:03:34.440 --> 0:03:38.600 he's I believe a former m M A fighter who 0:03:38.760 --> 0:03:40.400 I don't know how he made a lot of money, 0:03:40.400 --> 0:03:41.640 but it seems like he has a lot of money 0:03:41.640 --> 0:03:43.920 from what he's seen on the internet. Will be talking 0:03:43.960 --> 0:03:47.800 about how and he's into a lot of misogynistic men 0:03:47.880 --> 0:03:51.200 rights kind of stuff. And uh, he got thoroughly destroyed 0:03:51.240 --> 0:03:55.680 online by um Grenna, So I do remember that, um. 0:03:55.720 --> 0:03:57.600 And I think he's in jail now. He is in 0:03:57.680 --> 0:04:01.320 jail now, um. Unrelated to the Greta stuff. Um, there 0:04:01.400 --> 0:04:04.240 was a little bit of a confusion about that, but yes, 0:04:04.280 --> 0:04:08.400 he is in jail for sex trafficking in Romania. Um, Sophie, 0:04:08.440 --> 0:04:10.880 is that more or less your understanding of the guy? Yeah, 0:04:10.920 --> 0:04:15.480 he fucking sucks, Yeah he does. Indeed he does, indeed 0:04:15.520 --> 0:04:20.880 fucking suck. Um. Unfortunately, he's also kind of worth studying 0:04:20.960 --> 0:04:25.239 in detail because he's managed to do something with social 0:04:25.240 --> 0:04:27.839 media that I don't think anyone else has ever managed 0:04:27.839 --> 0:04:31.200 to the same degree of success. Um. He's he's he's 0:04:31.240 --> 0:04:33.920 smart in one very specific way, even though he also 0:04:34.000 --> 0:04:36.120 did a bunch of dumb things and some really dumb 0:04:36.160 --> 0:04:39.800 crimes that hopefully have ruined his life. Um, he was 0:04:39.880 --> 0:04:41.920 he was smart in one in a way that has 0:04:41.920 --> 0:04:45.880 allowed him to become dangerously influential to an entire generation 0:04:46.320 --> 0:04:49.240 of teenage boys. UM, in a way that like no 0:04:49.279 --> 0:04:52.600 one on earth has managed quite yet. Donald Trump is 0:04:52.640 --> 0:04:55.960 really the only other guy that I might put next 0:04:56.000 --> 0:04:58.480 to Tate in that kind, And I think Tate has 0:04:58.520 --> 0:05:01.960 a wider appeal among jin z teens and tweens than 0:05:02.040 --> 0:05:07.799 certainly Trump. It's interesting to see the spaces where Tate's content. Yeah, 0:05:08.120 --> 0:05:10.240 we're gonna be talking about all that. I am one 0:05:10.240 --> 0:05:12.040 of the things when I started looking into this guy, 0:05:12.200 --> 0:05:15.000 there's a ton of articles about because he blew up 0:05:15.200 --> 0:05:19.119 kind of mid one up until you know the arrest 0:05:19.520 --> 0:05:24.080 a couple of weeks ago. There's not profile articles on 0:05:24.160 --> 0:05:26.719 him that like go into detail about his background and 0:05:26.760 --> 0:05:29.520 his past and his entire rise to power. You'll generally 0:05:29.560 --> 0:05:32.760 the best articles you'll find in places like BuzzFeed or 0:05:32.880 --> 0:05:34.800 or UM. I think we have a couple from like 0:05:34.839 --> 0:05:37.840 The Guardian, but like summarize his backstory and two or 0:05:37.880 --> 0:05:40.640 three paragraphs. I wanted to get into who this guy 0:05:40.800 --> 0:05:42.760 is and where he came from because he kind of 0:05:42.800 --> 0:05:45.360 pops out of nowhere if you if you don't follow that. 0:05:45.640 --> 0:05:47.560 I think this is the first time anyone's really done that, 0:05:47.680 --> 0:05:50.039 So I think this will be valuable for for that. 0:05:50.320 --> 0:05:52.240 But I want to start by laying out why we 0:05:52.279 --> 0:05:55.640 have to take Tate seriously and kind of explain the 0:05:55.680 --> 0:05:59.680 scale of of sort of his influence. UM. I am 0:06:00.000 --> 0:06:02.479 not exaggerating when I say that he is maybe the 0:06:02.520 --> 0:06:05.880 most influential single person on teen and preteen males in 0:06:05.880 --> 0:06:08.080 the US and the UK and some other parts of 0:06:08.080 --> 0:06:11.039 the West than anyone else on planet Earth. UM. In 0:06:11.160 --> 0:06:14.880 fall of two, financial services company Piper Sandler released a 0:06:14.920 --> 0:06:18.359 survey of fourteen thousand, five hundred US teens taken between 0:06:18.400 --> 0:06:21.240 August and September of that year. Tait was the number 0:06:21.279 --> 0:06:23.880 one influencer on the list in terms of popularity. He 0:06:23.920 --> 0:06:26.640 beat Kanye West, he beat Mr Beast, he beat Dwyane 0:06:26.640 --> 0:06:30.560 the Rock Johnson, all of them. Mrs. I, Yeah, I 0:06:30.560 --> 0:06:34.080 don't know who Mr Beast is, but he's somebotuber. Yeah, yeah, 0:06:34.120 --> 0:06:37.400 he's a YouTuber. I know. Elon Musk joked about giving 0:06:37.480 --> 0:06:40.279 him control of Twitter or he asked whatever, I don't 0:06:40.279 --> 0:06:42.919 know anything about him. I'm sure you're fine, Mr Beast 0:06:43.279 --> 0:06:47.840 or he's horrible. Anybody used that famous on YouTube? I'm 0:06:47.839 --> 0:06:51.960 a little bit like, yeah, no, good people get famous 0:06:52.040 --> 0:06:54.240 on YouTube, which is what I text our friend Cody 0:06:54.320 --> 0:06:59.560 Johnston every single day when he releases a new YouTube video. Um. Anyway, 0:07:00.120 --> 0:07:03.080 Andrew Tate hashtag on TikTok has received more than ten 0:07:03.240 --> 0:07:06.760 billion views over the course of twenty two alone, which 0:07:06.880 --> 0:07:11.600 is fucking nuts. That is that is insane. Um. That 0:07:11.880 --> 0:07:16.800 is like incomprehensibly viral. Um. He was Also he will 0:07:16.840 --> 0:07:19.240 always claim that he's like the most Googled person on Earth. 0:07:19.680 --> 0:07:22.360 I looked into what he actually is. That's not quite it. 0:07:22.520 --> 0:07:24.600 He is the He is the number one when you 0:07:24.720 --> 0:07:28.240 type in who is into Google? Who is Andrew Tate 0:07:28.400 --> 0:07:30.800 is the number one who is question asked to Google? 0:07:30.800 --> 0:07:33.720 In two which is not the same as being the 0:07:33.800 --> 0:07:37.040 most google person on Earth. Um, although he is one 0:07:37.080 --> 0:07:38.760 of the most google people on Earth. I found a 0:07:38.800 --> 0:07:40.520 couple of lists of that, and he's often at like 0:07:40.680 --> 0:07:43.800 number eight, someplace closer to like ten. But like he's 0:07:43.880 --> 0:07:49.240 incredibly famous. I just tested that, and um it is factor. Yes, 0:07:50.720 --> 0:07:53.720 most Google person on the planet is that's your That's 0:07:54.080 --> 0:07:56.120 that's a lot of people that that is a funload 0:07:56.160 --> 0:07:58.640 of people and and in some counts he's like beating 0:07:58.720 --> 0:08:02.640 Donald Trump WI again drump the literal president um. And 0:08:02.720 --> 0:08:04.840 it's interesting because his career you can compare him to 0:08:04.880 --> 0:08:08.720 a guy like Joe Rogan, right Joe his career, there's 0:08:08.760 --> 0:08:11.440 nothing that people like. Wonder why he's popular, but there's 0:08:11.440 --> 0:08:14.080 no mystery as to how he became popular. He's got 0:08:14.160 --> 0:08:18.880 a very he's been consistently trajector is very very consistent guy, 0:08:19.360 --> 0:08:22.960 constantly in in in the limelight, constantly doing stuff. Not 0:08:23.120 --> 0:08:25.680 hard to see where he came from. Tate is a 0:08:25.880 --> 0:08:29.200 kickboxer for a while and then kind of drops off. 0:08:29.800 --> 0:08:32.040 Is just sort of a guy on Instagram, and then 0:08:32.080 --> 0:08:35.600 it's suddenly the most famous influencer on the planet, seemingly overnight. 0:08:36.000 --> 0:08:38.240 And this is not an accident. This isn't also something 0:08:38.280 --> 0:08:40.800 he didn't just get surprised because something of has happened 0:08:40.840 --> 0:08:43.679 to go viral. This was the result of a tactic 0:08:43.800 --> 0:08:46.760 I haven't seen anyone else used, or certainly not to 0:08:46.840 --> 0:08:49.679 the degree of success um that Tate used, and and 0:08:49.800 --> 0:08:52.720 the tactic that he unleashed not only made him as popular, 0:08:52.760 --> 0:08:54.400 but it made him popular enough that you can find 0:08:54.559 --> 0:08:56.600 articles about schools in the U S and the UK 0:08:57.160 --> 0:08:59.839 holding seminars for young male students and for teachers to 0:09:00.040 --> 0:09:03.400 try to talk about de radicalizing kids who have got 0:09:03.440 --> 0:09:07.439 who have fallen undertake spell. Um when I posted a 0:09:07.520 --> 0:09:11.319 comment about him during his bat with Tunberg, just because 0:09:11.360 --> 0:09:14.719 I was frustrated at the degree I had not with 0:09:15.320 --> 0:09:17.640 Greta's response to him, which I thought was totally fair, 0:09:17.720 --> 0:09:20.000 but with like people kind of cheering it on as 0:09:20.040 --> 0:09:23.800 if he'd been beaten by it, where my concern was like, well, 0:09:24.559 --> 0:09:29.160 the attention historically has just kind of made him more popular. 0:09:29.240 --> 0:09:31.760 And there were a bunch of comments in that post 0:09:31.840 --> 0:09:34.520 I made by teachers who were like, I don't think 0:09:34.559 --> 0:09:37.480 people understand how popular he is with like thirteen, fourteen, 0:09:37.520 --> 0:09:41.000 fifteen year old boys. Um, I talked to kids every 0:09:41.080 --> 0:09:43.680 day who worshiped the guy, and I've never seen anything 0:09:43.800 --> 0:09:47.160 like it. One of my really good friends Jack, this 0:09:47.280 --> 0:09:49.120 is actually a few weeks ago. We were hanging out 0:09:49.200 --> 0:09:51.960 and he was like, kind of joking but also serious. 0:09:52.000 --> 0:09:53.960 He was like, Yo, I'm like, it would be scary 0:09:54.000 --> 0:09:56.360 to be a thirteen year old boy right now because 0:09:56.400 --> 0:09:58.480 of the inundation of this kind of stuff that you're 0:09:58.520 --> 0:10:00.959 seeing all day, every day, and he was like, I'm 0:10:01.000 --> 0:10:03.079 not gonna lie. If I was thirteen or fourteen and 0:10:03.160 --> 0:10:05.480 didn't know better, I could probably fall for a lot 0:10:05.559 --> 0:10:08.000 of this stuff. It's like, I couldn't imagine being that 0:10:08.160 --> 0:10:10.360 age right now and just being flooded with that. Yeah, 0:10:10.440 --> 0:10:12.520 I think about that sort of thing, and a lot 0:10:12.600 --> 0:10:15.240 of I'll talk about kind of there's elements of Tate's 0:10:15.240 --> 0:10:16.760 pitch that I think might have worked on me when 0:10:16.800 --> 0:10:20.600 I was seventeen eighteen years old. Um. Particularly, A big 0:10:20.679 --> 0:10:24.640 part of it is like working a ship job that 0:10:24.760 --> 0:10:27.040 you hate for the entirety of your youth is bullshit, 0:10:27.480 --> 0:10:30.440 which it is, like it's a terrible way to spend 0:10:30.480 --> 0:10:33.719 a life doing the thing you hate forever. Um. And 0:10:34.480 --> 0:10:36.599 if you kind of if that's the hook you're leading with, 0:10:36.840 --> 0:10:39.360 rather than what a lot of male influencers lead in with, 0:10:39.520 --> 0:10:42.520 which is like here's how to pick up chicks. Um. 0:10:43.200 --> 0:10:45.320 You know, that's an interesting spin that he's put up. 0:10:45.320 --> 0:10:46.720 But well, we'll we'll get it. We'll get more into 0:10:46.800 --> 0:10:49.679 his pitch and like, what about it is not new? 0:10:49.800 --> 0:10:52.079 And what about it is new? But I wanted to 0:10:52.360 --> 0:10:55.800 I want to start by kind of explaining who tilled 0:10:55.880 --> 0:10:58.640 the soil that Tate grew up in. And to do 0:10:58.800 --> 0:11:00.800 that we have to travel back and time to the 0:11:00.920 --> 0:11:04.480 nineteen nineties and the work of the the first real 0:11:05.400 --> 0:11:10.160 modern masculinity guru. And now we've talked about guys like 0:11:10.200 --> 0:11:12.599 Bernard McFadden in the past who had elements of that 0:11:12.679 --> 0:11:14.920 where he's big into physical culture and getting buff and 0:11:15.000 --> 0:11:18.120 he talks about like, you know, how how modernity is 0:11:18.200 --> 0:11:23.160 making men weak. But the Robert Bligh is the guy 0:11:23.360 --> 0:11:26.319 who Jordan Peterson is cutting his image, and so do 0:11:26.440 --> 0:11:28.640 degree is a guy like Andrew Tate. He is the 0:11:28.720 --> 0:11:32.079 first guy to kind of bring both academic rigor and 0:11:32.240 --> 0:11:37.920 also this kind of focus on the damage capitalism has 0:11:37.960 --> 0:11:41.360 done to masculinity into this kind of it's become the 0:11:41.440 --> 0:11:44.800 men's rights movements. It's become the pickup artist community. That's 0:11:44.840 --> 0:11:46.800 not what it was called at the time. Um, but yeah, 0:11:47.000 --> 0:11:49.160 Robert L. Wood Bli is the name of the guy 0:11:49.200 --> 0:11:51.839 who kind of kicked all of this off. And he's 0:11:51.880 --> 0:11:54.560 not the dude you'd think he was. He's an American poet. 0:11:54.840 --> 0:11:57.240 By some accounts, he's one of the most influential poets 0:11:57.240 --> 0:11:59.920 in American history. And he was born on December twenty 0:12:00.000 --> 0:12:04.800 third nine in Minnesota. Um Initially Bligh seemed to be 0:12:05.120 --> 0:12:08.079 on certainly not the path that he wound up on. 0:12:08.280 --> 0:12:11.640 He goes to Harvard University, he studies at the Iowa 0:12:11.720 --> 0:12:15.240 Writer's Workshop. He receives a full Fulbright scholarship to go 0:12:15.360 --> 0:12:19.680 to Norway and translate Norwegian poetry into English. And during 0:12:19.720 --> 0:12:22.400 this time he also gets connected to these great poets 0:12:22.440 --> 0:12:26.400 who are not Westerners, like Pablo Neruda and Roumi, and 0:12:26.480 --> 0:12:28.839 they influence his understanding of art and the myths that 0:12:28.960 --> 0:12:30.719 underlie it. And it also leads him to feel that 0:12:30.840 --> 0:12:34.679 like modern contemporary American poetry is kind of hollow and 0:12:34.880 --> 0:12:38.439 lacks a connection to this kind of deeper mythology that 0:12:38.600 --> 0:12:40.760 he sees in some of these Eastern poets and some 0:12:40.880 --> 0:12:42.880 of these, you know, poets from other parts of the 0:12:42.920 --> 0:12:45.120 world that aren't the United States that he feels are 0:12:45.160 --> 0:12:48.920 making a deeper connection to things for just a personal preference. 0:12:49.000 --> 0:12:51.599 But I find the Iowa's Writer's Workshop to be a 0:12:51.760 --> 0:12:54.480 red flag. Oh yeah, wait, wait what I don't know 0:12:54.600 --> 0:12:56.679 much about it? Tell me, tell me why is this? No, 0:12:56.880 --> 0:12:58.960 it's just it's just one of those things that gets 0:12:59.200 --> 0:13:02.960 uh were used in TV as like oh, I need 0:13:03.040 --> 0:13:05.079 to go to this thing. It's like it has like 0:13:05.200 --> 0:13:10.520 a a weird weird to leadism to it that Uh yeah, 0:13:10.600 --> 0:13:12.920 I mean that. I feel that way about Harvard too. Yeah, 0:13:13.080 --> 0:13:15.160 there's a lot of weird to lead the elitism red 0:13:15.200 --> 0:13:19.840 flags where I'm like, uh, but hearing hearing Harvard University 0:13:20.000 --> 0:13:24.440 followed by Iowa Writer's Workshop is usually not the best. 0:13:24.559 --> 0:13:26.760 Oh and then and and then there's the full yeah, 0:13:26.800 --> 0:13:30.680 full bright grant. So it's you know, yeah, i Iowa 0:13:30.760 --> 0:13:37.400 Writer's Workshop. Sophie says, go to hell. Apparently it's right, motherfucker's. 0:13:37.480 --> 0:13:40.679 I don't know much about the Iowa Writer's Workshop. Um, 0:13:41.280 --> 0:13:43.760 but that's his background. And again this is also he's coming. 0:13:43.840 --> 0:13:46.360 He's doing this at an earlier time. I mean, Harvard 0:13:46.520 --> 0:13:49.599 was very very much that kind of thing. But I 0:13:49.640 --> 0:13:52.439 don't know, maybe the Iowa Writer's Workshop was was not. 0:13:52.720 --> 0:13:56.680 I don't know. Um. His first poem of collection of poems, 0:13:56.760 --> 0:13:59.439 which was called Silence in the Snowy Fields, was published 0:13:59.440 --> 0:14:02.280 in nineteens sixty two, and it focused on moments of 0:14:02.400 --> 0:14:05.800 solitude and beauty. As we see in this piece driving 0:14:05.880 --> 0:14:08.599 to town late to mail a letter. It is a 0:14:08.679 --> 0:14:11.319 cold and snowy night. The main street is deserted. The 0:14:11.400 --> 0:14:13.840 only things moving are swirls of snow. As I lift 0:14:13.880 --> 0:14:16.760 the mailbox store, I feel it's cold iron. There is 0:14:16.800 --> 0:14:19.600 a privacy I love in this snowy night. Driving around, 0:14:19.840 --> 0:14:23.080 I will waste more time, which is just like this nice, 0:14:23.360 --> 0:14:25.600 quiet little Certainly you don't see any red flags. There's 0:14:25.600 --> 0:14:27.200 just kind of a poem about one of those quiet 0:14:27.280 --> 0:14:30.000 moments that you have in your life. You know. Um, 0:14:30.560 --> 0:14:32.880 it's I don't know, I don't find it deeply affecting, 0:14:32.960 --> 0:14:36.200 but there's certainly like it's not like he's writing anything 0:14:36.280 --> 0:14:41.240 you would see a problem with, Yeah, for sure. The 0:14:41.400 --> 0:14:43.960 next year he published an influential essay and which he 0:14:44.000 --> 0:14:47.800 attacked mainstream American poetry as impersonal, lacking in soul, and 0:14:47.840 --> 0:14:51.520 a willingness to look inward. His criticism of American society 0:14:51.640 --> 0:14:54.080 expanded after that. In the nineteen sixty six he co 0:14:54.240 --> 0:14:58.160 founded the American Writers Against the Vietnam War. UM. He 0:14:58.320 --> 0:15:00.720 is one of the very first prominent amer Rican artists 0:15:00.880 --> 0:15:05.200 to like try and organize artists against the war. Which 0:15:05.280 --> 0:15:08.800 is I mean good because it was a bad war. UM. 0:15:09.960 --> 0:15:12.280 In nineteen sixty eight, he made a public promise to 0:15:12.320 --> 0:15:14.360 refuse to pay taxes until the end of the war, 0:15:14.920 --> 0:15:17.600 and he also made he made some very trenchent critiques 0:15:17.760 --> 0:15:21.160 of of US imperialism. In nineteen sixty seven, he wrote 0:15:21.200 --> 0:15:23.080 an article for the New York Review of Books in 0:15:23.160 --> 0:15:26.000 which he noted the fact that so few Americans have 0:15:26.120 --> 0:15:29.240 resigned from the government or from responsible posts to protest 0:15:29.280 --> 0:15:32.280 the Vietnam War is remarkable to me. And he's bringing 0:15:32.360 --> 0:15:34.880 up also cases of like the Russian Revolution and stuff, 0:15:34.920 --> 0:15:37.880 where you would have these horrible wars being prosecuted by 0:15:38.400 --> 0:15:40.840 regimes that are on paper a lot less free than 0:15:41.000 --> 0:15:43.960 the United States, but also would have a lot more 0:15:44.040 --> 0:15:47.520 defections or people just like refusing to do their jobs 0:15:47.640 --> 0:15:50.400 because they believed that of course that the sovereign had 0:15:50.440 --> 0:15:53.320 set was unethical. And he's like, why isn't this happening 0:15:53.480 --> 0:15:56.240 in American government? Why is no one refusing to be 0:15:56.320 --> 0:15:59.160 a part of the Vietnam War? And he went on 0:15:59.280 --> 0:16:03.000 to ask, can we imagine General Westmoreland resigning and refusing 0:16:03.040 --> 0:16:06.600 to prosecute a brutal war? Never pilots drop anti personnel 0:16:06.680 --> 0:16:09.080 bombs on small North Vietnamese villages and many of them 0:16:09.160 --> 0:16:11.240 hate it, but they don't resign with a public statement 0:16:11.280 --> 0:16:14.240 of protest. They quietly retire when their tour is over. 0:16:14.960 --> 0:16:18.120 Bligh wondered what this showed about Americans. Are we timid? 0:16:18.280 --> 0:16:21.080 Are we greedy? He thought not, And this is what 0:16:21.200 --> 0:16:24.680 he wrote. What it shows is a disastrous split between 0:16:24.720 --> 0:16:27.120 the Americans inner and outer worlds. He does not aim 0:16:27.200 --> 0:16:29.600 to use his life to make himself whole, to join 0:16:29.680 --> 0:16:32.280 the two worlds in himself. On the contrary, he is 0:16:32.320 --> 0:16:34.440 prepared to give up one of the two worlds. The 0:16:34.560 --> 0:16:37.040 businessman gives up the inner world and clings to the 0:16:37.120 --> 0:16:40.360 outer as his way. A large body of literature denounces 0:16:40.400 --> 0:16:42.760 the business man for taking the one world without the other. 0:16:43.080 --> 0:16:45.120 But when a writer is opposed to the Vietnam War 0:16:45.240 --> 0:16:47.680 and still accepts a grant from the government prosecuting of 0:16:47.720 --> 0:16:50.360 the war, he is doing something similar. He is letting 0:16:50.400 --> 0:16:52.960 the world split. He lets the outer world go by 0:16:53.080 --> 0:16:54.720 him with just a wave of his hand, and then 0:16:54.760 --> 0:16:56.880 he reaches out and pulls the inner world to him. 0:16:57.200 --> 0:16:59.400 He accepts the money for the sake of my work. 0:16:59.680 --> 0:17:01.560 It will enable him to live his inner live in 0:17:01.640 --> 0:17:04.520 his inner world. But the disastrous split has already taken 0:17:04.560 --> 0:17:06.480 place before he begins to use the money for his 0:17:06.600 --> 0:17:08.920 work instead of trying to apply what he has learned 0:17:08.920 --> 0:17:10.760 in the actions of his inner life to the actions 0:17:10.800 --> 0:17:13.560 of the world. He pulls back inside the house, closes 0:17:13.640 --> 0:17:15.520 the door, and declares he doesn't know what is going 0:17:15.600 --> 0:17:17.919 on out there, or knows, but has rejected at all 0:17:18.000 --> 0:17:20.800 as outside his sphere of influence or his interest. He 0:17:21.000 --> 0:17:23.359 is not political, but what could be more within the 0:17:23.400 --> 0:17:25.960 sphere of interest of a writer than the world. And 0:17:26.040 --> 0:17:30.520 I actually find that a really affecting critique. Um, I 0:17:30.880 --> 0:17:32.600 think about that a lot, just in terms of, like 0:17:33.920 --> 0:17:36.560 number one, this desire, I have a lot where I'll 0:17:36.640 --> 0:17:39.040 just be kind of like churning through the muck of 0:17:39.160 --> 0:17:42.440 a bunch of horrible stories about bullshit going on in Congress, 0:17:42.600 --> 0:17:46.439 or like see some horrible Twitter thing culture warship roll 0:17:46.560 --> 0:17:50.080 up and one to um feel this urge to like, well, 0:17:50.160 --> 0:17:52.480 fuck this. I don't want to pay attention to this anymore. 0:17:52.600 --> 0:17:54.680 I just want to discard this from my life and 0:17:54.840 --> 0:17:58.000 focus on this like piece of art or creativity that 0:17:58.280 --> 0:18:00.760 I think most people feel that most reasonably will feel 0:18:00.760 --> 0:18:02.720 that way a lot. And what he's saying is like, 0:18:04.160 --> 0:18:06.920 how can you call yourself a writer? How can you 0:18:06.960 --> 0:18:09.920 call yourself an artist an attempt to discard the outer 0:18:10.080 --> 0:18:13.480 world in favor of the one that you focus on 0:18:13.720 --> 0:18:18.359 for your creativity, Like, how can you actually be connected 0:18:18.400 --> 0:18:21.080 to your inner world in any way and and feel 0:18:21.119 --> 0:18:24.080 as if you can pretend the outer world does not exist. 0:18:24.160 --> 0:18:27.440 You're doing the same thing as a businessman who focuses 0:18:27.680 --> 0:18:31.280 entirely on his his desire to make money and ignores 0:18:31.359 --> 0:18:35.000 his spiritual development. Like there's not a fundamental moral difference 0:18:35.040 --> 0:18:38.600 between what the two of you are doing, because you're both, Uh, 0:18:39.040 --> 0:18:44.280 you're both rejecting half of of of you're being in 0:18:44.480 --> 0:18:47.520 order to stick with the one that's more comfortable because 0:18:47.560 --> 0:18:50.040 of whatever you've you've chosen as your profession. And in 0:18:50.119 --> 0:18:52.399 the case of yeah, I don't know, I found an 0:18:52.400 --> 0:18:55.840 Attrention critique that makes me think a lot about myself. Um, 0:18:56.920 --> 0:18:59.760 maybe maybe check out what Bligh has to say about 0:18:59.800 --> 0:19:01.960 the Vietnam War. And he put his money where his 0:19:02.040 --> 0:19:04.760 mouth was. He used that article to republish a letter 0:19:04.840 --> 0:19:07.000 he'd sent to the chairman of the National Foundation of 0:19:07.160 --> 0:19:09.879 the on the Arts and Humanities, UM, because they had 0:19:09.920 --> 0:19:12.280 offered him a five thousand dollar grant. And he turns 0:19:12.320 --> 0:19:15.200 it down because he's like, look, this is uh, this 0:19:15.400 --> 0:19:18.399 is an instrument of the United States government, and I 0:19:18.720 --> 0:19:21.760 am opposed to a war they are waging. And even 0:19:21.840 --> 0:19:24.320 though I could argue that, like, well, if I take 0:19:24.359 --> 0:19:26.600 this money and won't get spent on bombs, what I'm 0:19:26.600 --> 0:19:30.320 really doing is providing legitimacy to the state that is 0:19:30.520 --> 0:19:33.000 carrying out this terrible war. And I'm simply not going 0:19:33.119 --> 0:19:36.080 to do that. I'm going to choose to refuse to 0:19:36.240 --> 0:19:40.320 support it in any way, even by letting it support me. Um, which, 0:19:40.359 --> 0:19:42.080 whether or not you agree with it, is a deeply 0:19:42.160 --> 0:19:46.920 principled stance that requires sacrificing something. Yeah, so when when 0:19:47.000 --> 0:19:50.920 does he right he's not a bad guy so far? Yeah, 0:19:51.000 --> 0:19:53.880 I'm waiting. Yeah, this is not this is not cool 0:19:53.920 --> 0:19:57.159 people who did cool stuff. No, no, no, So spoiler alert, 0:19:57.520 --> 0:20:01.920 the Vietnam War ends. Um, we don't do great um 0:20:02.240 --> 0:20:05.439 goes goes okay for Vietnam though, well, I mean, millions 0:20:05.480 --> 0:20:09.000 of people die, but they do win. Um Bli remains 0:20:09.119 --> 0:20:12.119 an influential poet and thinker. In the nineteen seventies, he 0:20:12.320 --> 0:20:15.840 organizes the first Great Mother Conference, which is still going 0:20:15.920 --> 0:20:19.800 on today. It's a nine day festival that explores human consciousness, 0:20:19.840 --> 0:20:23.240 and it celebrates this kind of archetypal idea of the 0:20:23.320 --> 0:20:26.560 Great Mother as this kind of like feminine creative force 0:20:26.800 --> 0:20:32.879 that that you know, underlies everything in society. Um and 0:20:33.520 --> 0:20:35.879 BLI the reason why he felt it was important to 0:20:35.960 --> 0:20:38.840 kind of bring consciousness and get people focused on this 0:20:39.040 --> 0:20:42.000 idea and on this celebration of femininity is that he 0:20:42.119 --> 0:20:46.560 saw the Vietnam War as kind of the expression of masculinity, 0:20:47.080 --> 0:20:49.680 like running wild and leading to terrible death. And he 0:20:49.760 --> 0:20:53.040 believed that Americans needed to reconnect with femininity in the 0:20:53.080 --> 0:20:55.280 wake of the Vietnam War, which is again not an 0:20:55.359 --> 0:20:59.480 unreasonable stance. Um. You know, you can argue with it, 0:20:59.560 --> 0:21:02.199 but you and see where he's coming from. And they're 0:21:02.359 --> 0:21:06.240 like both waiting for it. I'm just waiting for job 0:21:07.280 --> 0:21:11.720 is coming. Motherfucker is coming. So as the aftershocks of 0:21:11.800 --> 0:21:16.640 Vietnam faded, America enters the swinging eighties, Blind becomes concerned 0:21:16.720 --> 0:21:19.639