Speaker 1: Welcome to the Psychology Podcast, where we give you insights
Speaker 1: into the mind, brain, behavior, and creativity. I'm doctor Scott
Speaker 1: Barry Kaufman, and in each episode I have a conversation
Speaker 1: with a guest who will stimulate your mind and give
Speaker 1: you a greater understanding of yourself, others, and the world
Speaker 1: to live in. Hopefully we'll also provide a glimpse into
Speaker 1: human possibility. Thanks for listening and enjoy the podcast today.
Speaker 1: It's so great to have Chloe Valderie on the podcast.
Speaker 1: After spending a year as a Bartley Fellow at The
Speaker 1: Wall Street Journal, Valderie developed the theory of enchantment in
Speaker 1: an innovative framework for social emotional learning, character development, and
Speaker 1: interpersonal growth that uses pop culture as an educational tool
Speaker 1: in the classroom and beyond. Chloe has trained around the world,
Speaker 1: including in South Africa, the Netherlands, Germany, and Israel. Her
Speaker 1: clients have included high school and college students, government agencies,
Speaker 1: business teams, and many more. She's also lectured in universities
Speaker 1: across America, including Harvard and Georgetown. Her work has been
Speaker 1: covered in Psychology Today magazine, and her writings have appeared
Speaker 1: in the New York Times and The Wall Street Journal. Cooley,
Speaker 1: So glad to finally chat with you. Likewise, well, where
Speaker 1: do where do we begin? There's so many, so many
Speaker 1: potential starting points. But if it's cool with you, I'd
Speaker 1: love to start with your Theory of Enchantment. I'm enchanted
Speaker 1: with it as a I know I'm so cordy, but anyway,
Speaker 1: I am enchanted with it because I you know, I
Speaker 1: have a deep interest in education and making sure that
Speaker 1: no kids fall between the cracks, and I'd just love
Speaker 1: to hear how your program addresses some of those issues
Speaker 1: and just you know what inspires you most about that
Speaker 1: work that you do. Sure, So, Theory of Enchantment is
Speaker 1: a social emotional learning program that I designed about a
Speaker 1: year and a half ago, and it comes out of
Speaker 1: my design to construct a framework to teach people how
Speaker 1: to love using the things that we already love and
Speaker 1: that we already gravitate towards. So things like pop culture,
Speaker 1: for example, because I believe that there are narratives within
Speaker 1: our pop culture that teach people how to believe in
Speaker 1: their own sense of self worthiness, believe in their ability
Speaker 1: to overcome obstacles, to endure hardship, and so by blending
Speaker 1: those elements of pop culture that teach these lessons with
Speaker 1: ancient wisdom. My theory is that you can teach people
Speaker 1: how to love themselves and then in the long run
Speaker 1: be able to get along with and love others. And
Speaker 1: I'm really inspired and motivated by especially getting it in
Speaker 1: as many schools as possible, but really young people, teenagers
Speaker 1: and adults. I'm really excited for the possibility of seeing
Speaker 1: how many people become enamored with this approach. So how
Speaker 1: many years have you been doing that? Like, when did
Speaker 1: you create the program? So? I created it formerly a
Speaker 1: year and a half ago, right on, So how old
Speaker 1: are you right now? I'm twenty six at the moment.
Speaker 1: Cool and yeah, So let's back up a little bit
Speaker 1: about your history. So what was your major in college?
Speaker 1: My major was International studies with the concentration in diplomacy.
Speaker 1: Oh wow, that's going to come in handy now. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I think so you're applying it well, I wouldn't say
Speaker 1: you're applying it on Twitter. You're applying those principles definitely
Speaker 1: try my best. Yeah, it's much much needed more people
Speaker 1: like that on social media and in the world broader.
Speaker 1: So when did you get interested in education? So what
Speaker 1: was the point before you created this program? You're like, Wow,
Speaker 1: there really is this need. So basically, after I graduated,
Speaker 1: I graduated in twenty fifteen, and then I moved to
Speaker 1: New York in the summer of twenty fifteen because I
Speaker 1: got a job at a Wall Street Journal. So I
Speaker 1: was at the Wall Street Journal for a year working
Speaker 1: on the op ed desk, and for nine months while
Speaker 1: I was there, I worked on a thesis that ended
Speaker 1: up being the catalyst for a theory of enchantment. And
Speaker 1: I was trying to again figure out how to create
Speaker 1: a framework for teaching people how to love within the
Speaker 1: context of conflict and diplomacy, because that was my background.
Speaker 1: But there was no framework that specifically and explicitly laid
Speaker 1: this out, like how do we get people to learn
Speaker 1: how to love? There were frameworks of how do we
Speaker 1: get people to stop fighting each other, but not necessarily,
Speaker 1: you know, to start loving each other. So I created
Speaker 1: a thesis, came up with a theory, and then lectured
Speaker 1: on that thesis for two years. And then increasingly when
Speaker 1: I would lecture, I would get the response from parents
Speaker 1: and from people from all walks of life saying, Hey,
Speaker 1: this isn't just applicable within the context of conflict resolution.
Speaker 1: It's also applicable within the context of social emotional learning
Speaker 1: in the classroom. But when you're talking about high schools,
Speaker 1: you're talking about interpersonal matters. What you're talking about just
Speaker 1: trying to create a society with more human flourid in general.
Speaker 1: So you might want to consider taking what you've done
Speaker 1: and expanding upon it and building upon it and developing
Speaker 1: it into a full course. So enough people told me
Speaker 1: that and I decided to run with it. Awesome. I
Speaker 1: see some perils there with the field of positive psychology
Speaker 1: that I work in, where we don't treat moving from
Speaker 1: negative ten to zero as you're being done. When you
Speaker 1: go to see a therapist, it's like you come in
Speaker 1: with a therapist. I'm anxious. I'm anxious, and your goal
Speaker 1: really isn't just to not be anxious anymore in life.
Speaker 1: If you actually ask people what you actually want in life,
Speaker 1: it's much more than that, right, So I see some
Speaker 1: great confluence there. Also see great influences in our interests
Speaker 1: with humanistic psychology and the idea of at its base,
Speaker 1: we all have fundamental human needs, we all want the
Speaker 1: same thing, and looking beyond really superficial characteristics of a
Speaker 1: human to really get at the character. I think character
Speaker 1: is something that's really important to you and a part
Speaker 1: of your value system. Definitely. Yeah, I think you know.
Speaker 1: One of the first things that we teach in the
Speaker 1: theory of enchantment is the first principle, which is treat
Speaker 1: people like human beings, not political abstractions. But then we
Speaker 1: have to do the work of educating people and actually
Speaker 1: what it means to be a human being, what it
Speaker 1: what it means to have to navigate this human condition
Speaker 1: with all of its imperfection, with all of the suffering
Speaker 1: that's a part of life that comes with life because
Speaker 1: we are mortal, and so that's inevitable that there will
Speaker 1: be suffering in life. So how do we how do
Speaker 1: we shore up ourselves and shore up our sense of
Speaker 1: self and agency and build up our character so that
Speaker 1: we can endure the hardships of life and even transcend
Speaker 1: back to the world that you love those those hardships
Speaker 1: and character building is a key part of that. Character development.
Speaker 1: Resiliency development is definitely a key part of that. What
Speaker 1: about this is a buzzword in the education field, social
Speaker 1: emotional learning. Yeah, so what how do you target that.
Speaker 1: So I would say that a lot of thinking about
Speaker 1: social emotional learning in today's high schools comes from a
Speaker 1: belief in Maslow's hard hierarchy of needs. And well, that
Speaker 1: was a good that was a good signal, you know,
Speaker 1: all about self actualization. And actually, in the wake of
Speaker 1: COVID nineteen there have been mini schools. Because I follow
Speaker 1: a lot of school blogs education blogs, there have been
Speaker 1: a lot of high school all of a sudden realizing
Speaker 1: that oh, cl is like primary, it's not a secondary thing.
Speaker 1: As student is not going to be able to learn
Speaker 1: math if their sense of self, if their sense of
Speaker 1: social emotional wellbeing is out of whack. And so yeah,
Speaker 1: with the with the idea that ultimately the student's sense
Speaker 1: of self actualization needs to be nurtured, I think that's
Speaker 1: what social emotional learning is meant to do. And that's
Speaker 1: that's something that's certainly an objective that my program is
Speaker 1: trying to accomplish in the lives of its students. Awesome,
Speaker 1: And you also to teach and racism through the lens
Speaker 1: of developmental psychology and the study of texts by Baldwin May,
Speaker 1: Angelou Obama and others. How did how did you come
Speaker 1: about that curriculum because there are other different approaches, shall
Speaker 1: we say, to anti racism than your approach. How did
Speaker 1: you what inspired you to go down this path? So
Speaker 1: what's interesting is that it's only, uh, it's only coincidental,
Speaker 1: it's almost coincidental that my my program happens to also
Speaker 1: be an anti racism program. And in that sense, I
Speaker 1: mean that, yes, like the rich texts that the theory
Speaker 1: of enchantment pulls from to teach character development happened to
Speaker 1: be texts from some of our most incredible leaders in
Speaker 1: the contemporary sense. And many of those incredible leaders are
Speaker 1: African American, and so they include James Baldwin, as you said,
Speaker 1: doctor Maya, Angelou, Ralph Ellison, uh and others, and doctor King,
Speaker 1: who's whose writings we also teach in the course. And
Speaker 1: so in that sense, I teach anti racism, and I
Speaker 1: think a far more integrated way than some of what
Speaker 1: I've seen online, some of the programs that I've seen
Speaker 1: being promoted. And part of the first this goes back
Speaker 1: to the first principle of the theory of a Chatman.
Speaker 1: Part of what we teach to supplement that is to
Speaker 1: teach people how to not caricature each other, to teach
Speaker 1: people how to not terial type and reduce each other
Speaker 1: to mutable characteristics like race. And Baldwin had a lot
Speaker 1: to say about this. Oh yeah that real quick. Sure, Yeah,
Speaker 1: I'm not your Negro. I think that was the title
Speaker 1: of the documentary. I saw that again the other day,
Speaker 1: and I was like bawling the entire time. I kind
Speaker 1: of fell involved with him. I don't know if I
Speaker 1: allowed to say that, but I really did. Definitely are
Speaker 1: in a like, you know, in a deep sort of
Speaker 1: human connection sort of way, you know. Yeah, No, definitely.
Speaker 1: Baldwin was an artist. Many people don't necessarily think of
Speaker 1: him in that way, but I think in his most
Speaker 1: in the most purest sense above all, beside being a critic,
Speaker 1: and beside being a social critic, a writer and author,
Speaker 1: he was an artist. And in my mind, the purpose
Speaker 1: of art is to teach people how to create order
Speaker 1: out of chaos and to create meaning out of chaos
Speaker 1: and meaning out of suffering. And that's what he did
Speaker 1: in his writing. So we teach them. We teach two
Speaker 1: pieces by Baldwin. We teach the Fire next time, and
Speaker 1: we teach Everybody's protest novel, which was a piece published
Speaker 1: in nineteen forty eight, one of his earlier pieces. So, yeah,
Speaker 1: Baldwin is like considered pretty sacred in the theory of
Speaker 1: enchantment universe. But you know, I had to say, like,
Speaker 1: I feel like there have been a lot of people
Speaker 1: promoting Baldwin who haven't necessarily read Baldwin, right, yeah, and
Speaker 1: who haven't like seriously studied them in depth and parsed
Speaker 1: their writings and really wrestled with their writings. And that's
Speaker 1: what we encourage in the theory of enchantment curriculum. So
Speaker 1: I just love that another element of your courses to
Speaker 1: build holistic, transformational relationships with others. And here here's the
Speaker 1: here's the here's the big part. Even with those you find,
Speaker 1: even even with those who you may disagree, Yes, that possible.
Speaker 1: Can you actually have transformative relationships with people that you disagree? Yeah.
Speaker 1: I mean, before our our politics became a sort of
Speaker 1: religious identity that we that we associated ourselves with, that
Speaker 1: we attached ourselves with so fervently, which I think is
Speaker 1: a relatively recent thing in our society, I think it
Speaker 1: was easier. First of all, we were even even in
Speaker 1: our political silos, we were more closely aligned with each
Speaker 1: other in the past, and we also were more willing
Speaker 1: to have conversations where we disagreed with each other nicely.
Speaker 1: But this logically follows this idea of not caricaturing each other,
Speaker 1: because once you understand what it means to be a
Speaker 1: human being, that we're all carrying imperfections and insecurities and
Speaker 1: trying to fulfill our untapped potential, you can be able
Speaker 1: to see where another person who is coming from, even
Speaker 1: while disagreeing with them, and that will make the disagreement
Speaker 1: less personal, I think, and therefore you will not feel
Speaker 1: the need to identify so fiercely with your own position,
Speaker 1: or to put it in a better way. A person's
Speaker 1: disagreement with you, whether it's of a political nature or otherwise,
Speaker 1: will not threaten your sense of identity because your sense
Speaker 1: of identity is secure, and if it's secure, then there's
Speaker 1: nothing that anyone can say or do to thwart that
Speaker 1: or to undermind that and to take an extreme position.
Speaker 1: An extreme example of this is Darryl Davis. And Darryl
Speaker 1: Davis is an individual who is, in addition to being
Speaker 1: an amazing musician, his claim to fame is also that
Speaker 1: he basically gets members of the k cake to leave
Speaker 1: the KKK and I interviewed him in the Theory of
Speaker 1: Man Chatman podcast, which people can check out online. But
Speaker 1: I asked him, how do you handle this when like
Speaker 1: they're yelling obviously racist things at you when they first
Speaker 1: meet you. And He's like, I get this question all
Speaker 1: the time, And I say, to my whole thing is like,
Speaker 1: but what does that have to do with me? That
Speaker 1: has nothing to do with me? Like, I know who
Speaker 1: I am, I know what they're saying is wrong. That
Speaker 1: has that has nothing to do with me. It has
Speaker 1: everything to do with them. And I went, huh, that's
Speaker 1: a great answer. So so yeah, answer, yeah, So why
Speaker 1: do you refuse to avoid white people? I just want
Speaker 1: to say that I was not the person to pick
Speaker 1: that title for that piece in the New York Times
Speaker 1: there disclaimer disclaimer no, But like I don't, you know,
Speaker 1: I don't really relate to this new wave of vocabulary
Speaker 1: that's being that's being promoted and certain quote unquote anti
Speaker 1: racist spaces that look at white people as like a
Speaker 1: conglomerate or a monolith or political abstraction. You know, I
Speaker 1: grew up around all kinds of people, black people, white people,
Speaker 1: Asian Hispanics. I grew up in a very multicultural environment,
Speaker 1: and I grew up engaging with individuals as human beings.
Speaker 1: So I really don't. It's not even that I, you know,
Speaker 1: quote unquote disagree with the approach that some have taken
Speaker 1: when it comes to forming relationships with, you know, folks
Speaker 1: of other backgrounds. That's very like again caricatured and state
Speaker 1: and and really objectifying. It's not even that I disagree
Speaker 1: with it. It's that it's a foreign concept to me.
Speaker 1: I cannot fathom that. That doesn't make any sense to me.
Speaker 1: That's like a I can't I can't even Yeah, I
Speaker 1: can't make sense of it. So so this this is
Speaker 1: a word that that's that's used a lot these days, woke.
Speaker 1: W Have you heard of it? Yes? Good question, Yes,
Speaker 1: I mean obviously you've heard of them. Is this something?
Speaker 1: Is that word? Is that a part of your identity?
Speaker 1: What are your thoughts? What's your relationship to that word? No?
Speaker 1: So short answer is no. But the long answer is
Speaker 1: that woke is just a euphemism for the term enlightened.
Speaker 1: It's just a synonym. That's what people are trying to say.
Speaker 1: They're trying to say that they're enlightened beings, which is
Speaker 1: teeming with irony, right because they're alive. There's so many
Speaker 1: there's so many layers of irony. One of the layers
Speaker 1: of irony is that there is this movement right now
Speaker 1: in certain small circles. I don't think it's a majoritarian movement,
Speaker 1: but there's this movement that says, we have to tear
Speaker 1: down the statutes of people, not of people who have represented,
Speaker 1: for example, horrible things like the promotion of slavery, and
Speaker 1: whose statutes were put out precisely to celebrate their promotional slavery.
Speaker 1: And that's, of course the Confederate statutes. I'm not talking
Speaker 1: about those, But there are others who say that we
Speaker 1: have to tear down every statute of every person from
Speaker 1: the past that represented sort of America, whether or not
Speaker 1: the statute was put up in their honor to celebrate
Speaker 1: their good virtues. And they're doing this in the name
Speaker 1: of being woke, and they're doing this in the name
Speaker 1: of sort of casting off their quote unquote Western slash
Speaker 1: European past. And what's ironic about this is that, again,
Speaker 1: the very concept of wokeness comes from a culture that
Speaker 1: is steeped in an obsession with the enlightenment, and so
Speaker 1: you cannot, even in the attempt to tear down your past.
Speaker 1: You're upholding your past. You're upholding this tradition of the
Speaker 1: pursuit of enlightenment, and so it's wrapped up, it's wrapped
Speaker 1: up in its rejection. So that's only one element of irony.
Speaker 1: But the point, so the major point, is that one
Speaker 1: cannot cast off their past. One is a product of
Speaker 1: their past, whether one wants to admit that or not.
Speaker 1: And that's the good, the bad, and the ugly. And
Speaker 1: so that's again going back to the first principle. What
Speaker 1: we teach about what it means to be a human
Speaker 1: being is to have the capacity to do good and
Speaker 1: the capacity to do evil. This is always true. This
Speaker 1: is not something that is the exclusively true about the
Speaker 1: past or people from the past. This is true about
Speaker 1: us human beings in the present, and it will always
Speaker 1: be true for us in the future. So our goal
Speaker 1: should be to keep ourselves in our minds and our souls,
Speaker 1: intact to develop our character, to have a moral ethic
Speaker 1: at the center of our movements, and to try to
Speaker 1: pursue that moral ethic. But if we are going to
Speaker 1: tear down relics of the past because those relics, because
Speaker 1: they represent individuals who also send. I'm sorry to be
Speaker 1: the one to tell people this, but we too will
Speaker 1: and have sinned in the present, and we will send
Speaker 1: in the future because we are human beings. And so
Speaker 1: the question is not you know how to be perfect.
Speaker 1: The question, to sum up one of the main tenants
Speaker 1: of the book East of Eden, which is also taught
Speaker 1: in the theory of enchantment, is now that you know
Speaker 1: you cannot be perfect, you can strive to be good.
Speaker 1: That is the point. I just love that. Another irony
Speaker 1: is that the idea of enlightenment. See, I didn't even
Speaker 1: connect it to the that that period of human history,
Speaker 1: the enlightened period. I connected it to the Buddha when
Speaker 1: I when I heard that word and kind of enlightenment
Speaker 1: that zen Buddhists talk about, or monks you know, who
Speaker 1: spend their whole lives meditating, is one where there is
Speaker 1: a oneness with all of the rest of humanity. Yes,
Speaker 1: And that was another irony I know this is that
Speaker 1: it seems like in a lot of woke ideology, there's
Speaker 1: the spirit isn't necessarily one of oneness with all of humans,
Speaker 1: you know, right, So I thought it's certainly a bastardization
Speaker 1: of the term. I actually just read my first book
Speaker 1: on Buddhism, on Tantric Buddhism called Journey Without Goal. Be
Speaker 1: familiar with that with that text, No, but it sounds
Speaker 1: like something I would It was. Yeah, it was very
Speaker 1: it was very interesting. I actually got it because I
Speaker 1: got it because I was watching tron randomly and they
Speaker 1: but it was not the old version that like the
Speaker 1: latest one that's cool. Oh there's a yeah, the latest
Speaker 1: one in three D. Yeah yeah, yeah, yeah, it's I
Speaker 1: mean it's like from an aesthetic perspective, it's beautiful. But
Speaker 1: one of the books that the main character mentions that
Speaker 1: he was sort of like meditating on and reading was
Speaker 1: that book. I immediately ordered it on Amazon. But yeah, no,
Speaker 1: there's an absence of this oneness or the sense of
Speaker 1: one oneness with the rest of humanity, unfortunately, and that
Speaker 1: you can't I mean, without that, there's it's not going
Speaker 1: to go. Well, let me tell you it's not going
Speaker 1: to go. That's right, that's exactly right. So let's uh,
Speaker 1: you you just published a piece I believe at USA today,
Speaker 1: and you said, this is a quote from it which
Speaker 1: I tweeted this quote. I loved it. This attempt to
Speaker 1: correct injustice is laudable. But the work of anti racism
Speaker 1: must be rooted in the moral ethic of love and
Speaker 1: acknowledge the profound sacredness of human beings. Before you elaborate
Speaker 1: on it, I just want to note a connection between
Speaker 1: that quote and uh and and and what Really some
Speaker 1: of the work really fascinates me. And I've been trying
Speaker 1: to get a you know, Abraham Assoh was a humanistic
Speaker 1: psychologist who created that hierarchy of needs. But people don't
Speaker 1: realize towards the end of his life that he argued
Speaker 1: that self actualization wasn't the highest motivation, I was actually
Speaker 1: self transcendence. And he viewed self transcendence a big part
Speaker 1: of it as And there's a great quote of his
Speaker 1: which I would bastardize if I try to remember it
Speaker 1: right now, but I'll send it to you later. But
Speaker 1: it's basically self Actually, self transcendence is really about respecting
Speaker 1: theakness and sacredness of another human being, no matter how
Speaker 1: different it may be from yours. And that's really you know,
Speaker 1: some people like talk about self actualization as it's this
Speaker 1: really selfish thing, and and they misattribute his ideas in
Speaker 1: that way, and it couldn't be farther from the truth.
Speaker 1: He actually saw self act like you're never fully self actualized.
Speaker 1: In the list, you pride you appreciate the self actuisation
Speaker 1: of another human. Yeah, I just wanted to put that forward. Yeah, yeah,
Speaker 1: that's a really that's a really beautiful that's a really
Speaker 1: beautiful point, I think. Yeah, I think, you know, this
Speaker 1: sort of sort of goes to the idea that no
Speaker 1: human being is an island, right, and so so we
Speaker 1: need nurturing of ourselves, but we also need to be
Speaker 1: connected with one another. And actually, one of the things
Speaker 1: I think that's plaguing our society, and this is in
Speaker 1: part because of the byproducts of COVID nineteen, is this
Speaker 1: inability to physically connect with each other, to be in
Speaker 1: spaces with each other, to have a sent with each other.
Speaker 1: One of the things I'm personally missing is like music
Speaker 1: and dance and concerts and things like that, because that
Speaker 1: is where I get a lot of my spiritual nourishment,
Speaker 1: as being in spaces with other people where we can
Speaker 1: actually connect over music and so because that has been
Speaker 1: decimated because of COVID nineteen, and there's no experience of synchronicity,
Speaker 1: and there's no experience of physical connectedness between individuals. We're
Speaker 1: lashing out, I think in some ways that are very harmful,
Speaker 1: and I think that that reflects that teaching bi them
Speaker 1: as well completely in it, and it also reflects your
Speaker 1: own philosophy. Do you say to humanize a person is
Speaker 1: to treat them in a way that honors this complexity?
Speaker 1: Why do you think humans have such this tribal tendency
Speaker 1: that overrides their ability to see greater complexity. It's almost
Speaker 1: like it's a more powerful innate drive than the drive
Speaker 1: to transcend it. So it's a great question. I would say,
Speaker 1: based upon my experience, I think that human beings societies
Speaker 1: aren't always exposed to the fact that we can transcend,
Speaker 1: that we are capable of transcending. I think that the
Speaker 1: media plays a really unfortunately negative role. I won't say
Speaker 1: the media as if it's a monolithic, you know thing,
Speaker 1: because I use so much media in theory of enchantment,
Speaker 1: so that that would be unfair. But I think that
Speaker 1: I think that we're siloed and a lot of the
Speaker 1: media that we are exposed to is only showing us
Speaker 1: those tribalistic tendencies, is only showing us our capacity to
Speaker 1: descend into our base instincts, and it doesn't show us
Speaker 1: enough our capacity to transcend. And one of the reasons
Speaker 1: why I put so much pop culture in the theory
Speaker 1: of enchantment curriculum is to get those images and get
Speaker 1: those stories and get those you know, musical compositions that
Speaker 1: capture human beings working together overcoming conflict incredibly enchanting ways.
Speaker 1: So ask to remind people that this is possible. And
Speaker 1: the idea is that if I can do that enough,
Speaker 1: and if I can put enough images out there, you know,
Speaker 1: online that remind us of our common humanity, then we
Speaker 1: will begin to act in a way that reflects our
Speaker 1: common humanity. But I think that the media, parts of
Speaker 1: the media play a huge role in that. This is
Speaker 1: really interesting. Do you think that sometimes the very well intentioned,
Speaker 1: well meaning derive from a lot of people in the
Speaker 1: Black Lives Matter movement to illustrate or to talk about
Speaker 1: race issues. Can that backfire sometimes in the sense it
Speaker 1: can make us even more paranoid or more focused on
Speaker 1: the issue of race. Then maybe we even have been
Speaker 1: before in a way that might not be beneficial. I'm
Speaker 1: just curious if you thought that, thought that through. And
Speaker 1: I phrase that very sensitively because I'm not trying to
Speaker 1: be a provocatory at all. I'm trying to think it through,
Speaker 1: you know. Yeah, No, that's a great question. I think
Speaker 1: one of the reasons why we teach James Baldwin's Everybody's
Speaker 1: Protest Novel is precisely to worn against this, because Baldwin
Speaker 1: wrote about this very phenomenon in nineteen forty eight at
Speaker 1: a time when there are a lot of protest novels
Speaker 1: coming out quote unquote protest novels that were quote unquote
Speaker 1: anti racists, but that actually caricatured both blacks and whites.
Speaker 1: And this was his point. His point was that this
Speaker 1: is a problem. This is stereo typing both racist, This
Speaker 1: is reducing both races to these immutable characteristics. And the
Speaker 1: failure of the protest novel lies in its rejection of
Speaker 1: the human being. And this is sort of like I
Speaker 1: think this is more or less a quote he said,
Speaker 1: the failure of the protest novel lies in its rejection
Speaker 1: of the human being and his power, in his beauty
Speaker 1: and in his dread, and it lies in its insistence
Speaker 1: that it is the human beings category alone which is
Speaker 1: real and which cannot be tran sended. So yes, I
Speaker 1: think that there is exactly exactly that's that's why I
Speaker 1: love to emphasize how much of an artist Baldwin was.
Speaker 1: But and I think that that's the artist, the true
Speaker 1: artists that really understand this. Ralph Ellison of course, also
Speaker 1: talked about this a lot in his writings. But so yeah,
Speaker 1: I think there is a danger. It's important to highlight
Speaker 1: injustice and when it when it happens along racial lines,
Speaker 1: but we must not lose sight of the fact that
Speaker 1: if we reduce each other in the name of ending
Speaker 1: that injustice, we will be at risk of perpetuating the
Speaker 1: very thing that we're trying to end. And I think
Speaker 1: it's what's insightful to think about. Also, here is the
Speaker 1: Smithsonian African American Museum in DC. I was having a
Speaker 1: conversation with a friend about this the other day. What's
Speaker 1: brilliant about that museum and the way it's designed is
Speaker 1: that it starts out, so it has four floors. There's
Speaker 1: four floors and it starts out. The bottom floor is
Speaker 1: really about mostly about slavery and the experience of slavery.
Speaker 1: It's a little bit about the civil rights movement as well,
Speaker 1: but I think that the most compelling part is about slavery.
Speaker 1: And then the second floor is about black enterprise, black education,
Speaker 1: blacks in the military. The third floor is about gives
Speaker 1: you the opportunity to explore on your own, So explore
Speaker 1: whatever topic that you want to dive deeper into. But
Speaker 1: the fourth floor is about art, and it's about all
Speaker 1: of black representation in the arts, from music to dance,
Speaker 1: to cooking, to TV entertainment, comedy, film. And what's brilliant
Speaker 1: about that? I was like, Oh, these guys, they did
Speaker 1: this on purpose. What's brilliant about this is that it
Speaker 1: is literally designed to transcend from slavery level of the
Speaker 1: hierarchy of needs, yes, yes, yes and each and it's
Speaker 1: like from slavery to the art and it's absurd to
Speaker 1: self actualized transcendence. Yeah, it's a it's a brilliant commentary
Speaker 1: not only on after American life, but on the human
Speaker 1: spirit and the ability of the human spirits arise above well.
Speaker 1: You I literally just got to chill. It's amazing that
Speaker 1: the Yeah, I love it. I can't emoji emoticon more
Speaker 1: what you just said. I started to think in terms
Speaker 1: of emoticons because I got my new touch bar for
Speaker 1: my new MacBook and at the top there's an emoticon
Speaker 1: automatically shows up for anything you type. So now I've
Speaker 1: been starting to overuse moticon anyway. That was ation, but
Speaker 1: love what you just said. And then the final part
Speaker 1: of this article you wrote for USA Today is about
Speaker 1: a push for inclusive policies. You say, will we push
Speaker 1: for policies that reflect the spirit of democracy, that seek
Speaker 1: out the well being of all black and white, civilian
Speaker 1: and cop, poor and rich, conservative and liberal. I love that,
Speaker 1: But that way of thinking really requires us to transcend
Speaker 1: a zero some way of thinking. It seems like that
Speaker 1: zero sum way of thinking is what's prevalent right now.
Speaker 1: How can we get people to kind of see that
Speaker 1: promise land so to speak, that you outlined there. Yeah,
Speaker 1: that's a great question. I think societies begin to start
Speaker 1: thinking in zero some ways when there's a great deal
Speaker 1: of scarcity. And again this is exacerbated by COVID nineteen.
Speaker 1: The fact that we're dealing with so many issues right now,
Speaker 1: whether it's from an economic issue. We're dealing with poverty, unemployment,
Speaker 1: We're dealing with people perceiving their livelihood is going on
Speaker 1: their people's actual livelihoods are going on there. We're dealing
Speaker 1: with all of these perception issues. And again, for me,
Speaker 1: it goes back to the perception issue, because perception is reality.
Speaker 1: And so in terms of what I can do as
Speaker 1: a human being and with my company, theory enchantment is
Speaker 1: to change the perception by putting out these images, by
Speaker 1: putting out these videos, by engaging folks in the theory
Speaker 1: of enchantment course so that they can begin to imagine
Speaker 1: that their lives are far less narrower than it actually
Speaker 1: seems right now, and that there is far more potential
Speaker 1: than it actually seems right now. So that's what I
Speaker 1: try to do, at least in the you know, in
Speaker 1: the articles that I create. And it's useful to study
Speaker 1: you know, I quote King at length in that piece.
Speaker 1: It's useful to study those who have come before us,
Speaker 1: who had to endure incredible discrimination, racism, hardship. And it's
Speaker 1: crazy to me because it's like, obviously, if these people
Speaker 1: of incredible moral strength, moral fiber, and caliber were able
Speaker 1: to have this wide expansive view of humanity, of our
Speaker 1: ability to transcend. Then surely we in twenty twenty can
Speaker 1: adopt some of their outlook and arm ourselves with the
Speaker 1: love and the grace that they arm themselves with. I mean,
Speaker 1: we are we are, on the one hand, dealing with
Speaker 1: incredible problems with scarcity, but on the other hand, we're nowhere.
Speaker 1: It's I think it's no way, in no way is
Speaker 1: shape or form comparable to what you know many who
Speaker 1: came before us endured. And so this speaks to us
Speaker 1: to yes, economic impoverishment, but also to a spiritual impoverishment
Speaker 1: that we're dealing with right now. And I hope that
Speaker 1: there even it can speak to that and help change that.
Speaker 1: I love that. And you know, technically someone could make
Speaker 1: the case there's more slavery around the world on mass
Speaker 1: now than there was in eighteen seventy, So it seems
Speaker 1: like we have there's a lot to address in this world,
Speaker 1: right yeah, large and really getting it. You know, great.
Speaker 1: I love what you're saying, and I thought maybe we
Speaker 1: can transition to some Twitter questions. Okay, sure, I don't
Speaker 1: know if you saw, Oh boy, did you see that?
Speaker 1: I put up a call today for I did see
Speaker 1: that anyone. What do you want to ask Quale? So
Speaker 1: here's some things. John asks, what's your view on cultural
Speaker 1: Marxism and the reduction of attitudes that increase polarization. I
Speaker 1: mean that those are two separate questions. I feel like polarization.
Speaker 1: I think I've spoken to a little bit earlier in
Speaker 1: this in this talk cultural Marxism. I'm not quite sure
Speaker 1: what he means by that, So I would have to
Speaker 1: ask him to expound upon that if he's asked me
Speaker 1: what I think about Marxism in general. I think that
Speaker 1: what Marx lacked in his political philosophy was a sense
Speaker 1: of the existential. The existential piece was missing from his philosophy.
Speaker 1: The sense of the metaphysical was missing from his philosophy.
Speaker 1: Camil Poglia talks about this in some of her writings.
Speaker 1: There's no sense of the expansiveness of human life and
Speaker 1: his philosophy, and there's no sense of the spirit of
Speaker 1: the of the existence of the spiritual life and inner
Speaker 1: life that exists in his philosophy. So which is which
Speaker 1: is why there's an irony in calling for material solution
Speaker 1: to what is fundamentally a spiritual problem. So that's That's
Speaker 1: what I would say in a nutshell, because I can't
Speaker 1: really have a three hour conversation about Marx right now,
Speaker 1: but that's that's what I would say. That isn't to
Speaker 1: say that some of his observations about about a hyper
Speaker 1: consumerist society, you know, wasn't accurate, but I think a
Speaker 1: lot of his solutions were off so great. Michelle Carol,
Speaker 1: who used to host the wonderful Exploring Minds show. I'm
Speaker 1: a big fan of Michelle Carroll, so I thought I
Speaker 1: pulled her a little bit. She asked, would would love
Speaker 1: to know how maintaining a constant presence in social media
Speaker 1: and exploring sensitive topics has affected your mental health and
Speaker 1: life online? How do you handle the toxicity of trolls
Speaker 1: slash haters that comes with a growing audience. Great questions
Speaker 1: for yourself as well, Scott, That is a great question.
Speaker 1: It's a learning curve, especially as I as it seems
Speaker 1: my social media platforms have been taking off in the
Speaker 1: past few weeks, so this is something very new to me.
Speaker 1: I definitely am going to try to build a team
Speaker 1: as I build a real en gentlemen, so that I
Speaker 1: won't have to be on social media as much. As possible,
Speaker 1: so I can export that duty to a team that
Speaker 1: can handle it. So if anyone's listening to this podcast
Speaker 1: and would like to be interested in helping me with that,
Speaker 1: please feel free to reach out. But I also, like
Speaker 1: you know, try to engage in my own forms of practice.
Speaker 1: I meditate for an hour every single day. I try
Speaker 1: to read every single day, like do some long form
Speaker 1: reading for two hours every day. And I also try
Speaker 1: to practice dance and making music on my at least
Speaker 1: once a week, whether that's actually producing music or playing
Speaker 1: guitar and or dancing. So those are some of the
Speaker 1: ways that I try to maintain sanity and balance and
Speaker 1: stay off my phone as much as possible. I think
Speaker 1: that's very very smart, very smart. Jacob Forensic asked some
Speaker 1: questions which you may not want answer, and if you don't,
Speaker 1: I'll just edit out. I totally respect that is what
Speaker 1: problems she has with David Rubin Oh's one question and
Speaker 1: the second questions, and I was answered. I'll put to
Speaker 1: both questions and feel free to pass on both of them.
Speaker 1: The second one, this is a double whammy. What would
Speaker 1: you tell Candace Owens on her intentional misinforming of the public?
Speaker 1: For personal political gain. Do you want to respond to
Speaker 1: either of those two? So I'm not going to respond
Speaker 1: to the Dave Ruben one, but I will respond to
Speaker 1: the candaces. My message to Candace Owens is first of all,
Speaker 1: that there's there's a lack of internal moral consistency message.
Speaker 1: So I was actually thinking about this the other day.
Speaker 1: One of the things she does. One of the things
Speaker 1: she did was she talked about some of the flaws
Speaker 1: or sins, so to speak, of George Floyd. She talked
Speaker 1: about George Floyd's raps. She for example, and suggested that
Speaker 1: that rap sheet, that criminal rap sheet should should sort
Speaker 1: of stop us from turning him into a martyr. And
Speaker 1: there's so many There's so many things here because you know,
Speaker 1: it's ironic because on the one hand, kind of someone's
Speaker 1: talks about criminal justice reform, which is rooted in this
Speaker 1: idea that the worst thing that you do shouldn't shouldn't
Speaker 1: define you. You shouldn't be defined by the worst thing
Speaker 1: you've done. So on the one hand, Sheets promoted that,
Speaker 1: and on the other hand, she says that this sin
Speaker 1: that George Floyd committed should stop him from being a
Speaker 1: symbol of a lot of our protests, and I think
Speaker 1: that that that it's telling that there's a contradiction in
Speaker 1: that number one. But number two, the other more glaring
Speaker 1: thing that she does is that she she points out
Speaker 1: the sins of you know, these individuals very very readily.
Speaker 1: But then when it comes to asking, you know, seeing
Speaker 1: conversations she's been engaged in about Thomas Jefferson or Christopher Columbus,
Speaker 1: it's a very simple and easy sort of write off.
Speaker 1: It's like, oh, well, yes, they did all those things,
Speaker 1: but they but they you know, discovered the New World
Speaker 1: in the case of Christopher Columbus, or they you know,
Speaker 1: talked about or they wrote the Decoration of Independence in
Speaker 1: the case of Jefferson. And I think what I would
Speaker 1: say is that we need to be internally and morally
Speaker 1: consistent here if we can, we have to be able
Speaker 1: to hold both the sins and the saintliness of individuals
Speaker 1: across the board, whether they're in the contemporary sense or
Speaker 1: whether they come from our past, whether they're black or
Speaker 1: whether they're white. And I think that what Cannie owens
Speaker 1: lax is an ability to do that across the board.
Speaker 1: And I would also say that she's selective in the
Speaker 1: grace that she extends to the people, and it does
Speaker 1: seem to it does seem to me to be rooted
Speaker 1: in a political objective, and she she's more far more
Speaker 1: willing to extend grace to though she considers to be
Speaker 1: in her own camp, than those that are outside of it,
Speaker 1: which is not the definition of grace. That's not what
Speaker 1: that's not what grace is by definition extending it to
Speaker 1: folks who don't belong in your camp, in your community,
Speaker 1: in your and how you choose to see yourself. So
Speaker 1: that would be how I would. I would I would
Speaker 1: challenge Cannas on that, and I would I would challenge
Speaker 1: her to take more nuanced that way. So thanks for
Speaker 1: offing your thoughts on that. Maybe I'll get both of
Speaker 1: you on the podcast some time to luck good luck
Speaker 1: with that one. Thank you. I'm gonna try so well.
Speaker 1: Have a question, are you how much do these values
Speaker 1: do you derive from religion? Are you religious? Question? I
Speaker 1: think a lot of what you're saying to me resonates
Speaker 1: with a Christian philosophy, and perhaps other not. I didn't
Speaker 1: mean his hone in specific and Christian, but an idea
Speaker 1: of universe love, you know, Jesus Jesus would love a
Speaker 1: lot what you're saying. I think, yeah, yeah, I think
Speaker 1: that's true. I think, you know, it's hard for me.
Speaker 1: It's a pinpoint. I definitely, first of all, derive a
Speaker 1: lot of what I say from from religious teachings I was.
Speaker 1: I was raised as a Christian. I am firmly settled
Speaker 1: or nested within the Judeo Christian ethic and the Judaio
Speaker 1: Christian worldview, but I pull from various different faiths in
Speaker 1: mind and the way that I curate content and the
Speaker 1: way that I have curated my own philosophy, Buddhism being
Speaker 1: one of them. Judaism definitely, I've you know, I studied
Speaker 1: Jewish philosophy at an institution here in New York, and
Speaker 1: I'm very much rooted in I find that I'm my
Speaker 1: moral sense is definitely rooted in the writings of many
Speaker 1: Jewish teachers and philosophers and rabbis. In addition, and you
Speaker 1: guys can't see it, he's dancing on the screen right now,
Speaker 1: in addition to the writings of Christian theologians. You know,
Speaker 1: Terrence Malick is probably my favorite film director, and he's
Speaker 1: very much a Christian filmmaker, but Abraham Joshua Heschel is
Speaker 1: a is a Jewish Rabbi that I relate to. Mayor
Speaker 1: Salivachik is a Jewish Rabbi that I relate to. Again,
Speaker 1: I said earlier that I'm just not getting into Buddhism.
Speaker 1: So that's that's that'll be a that'll be a journey.
Speaker 1: I teach a lot of Stoicism as well in the
Speaker 1: theory of enchantment, both through the writings of Marcus Aurelius Epictetus,
Speaker 1: but also through the lens of the Disney film The
Speaker 1: Lion King, which I actually considered to be a sacred text.
Speaker 1: So there's a lot there. But yes, answer your question.
Speaker 1: For answering it, I appreciate it. Yeah, I do consider
Speaker 1: it to be a spiritual exercise, so I know it's
Speaker 1: a really deeply personal question. So thank you for for
Speaker 1: being so gracious to answer the question. Connor Eden says,
Speaker 1: why do we prefer our mythological heroes to be morally ambiguous?
Speaker 1: For example, not all good, not all bad, like King
Speaker 1: David or Ironman? But we demand moral purity in our
Speaker 1: brothers and sisters, especially when they are leaders in the
Speaker 1: conscious world. I thought this was a terrific question, and
Speaker 1: I've been trying to wrack my brain over it as well.
Speaker 1: I'd alive to hear your thoughts. So this goes to
Speaker 1: why I believe it's important for us to study pop culture.
Speaker 1: I think that it's because we see these mythological stories
Speaker 1: too often. We see them as vehicles of escapism. You know,
Speaker 1: we go to the movie to watch The Avengers, and
Speaker 1: you know, we read about King David and the Bible,
Speaker 1: but we don't actually really study what we're reading, I think,
Speaker 1: and we don't really wrestle with iron Man. We don't
Speaker 1: we don't really wrestle with the character of Iron Man.
Speaker 1: We just go to the movies, we see the Avengers,
Speaker 1: and then we move on, right. And so what I'm
Speaker 1: trying to get us to do, and especially to young people,
Speaker 1: is to consider that the things that they gravitate toward
Speaker 1: have deep lessons, deep wisdom to teach them and to
Speaker 1: teach us. And so I'm trying to get us to
Speaker 1: pause and reflect instead of rushing onto the next movie
Speaker 1: for purely entertainment purposes. And so I think that's why
Speaker 1: we don't actually take take these mythological teaching seriously as
Speaker 1: serious as we should. Fascinating. Okay, so I'm just going
Speaker 1: to end with two not questions you're off the hook with.
Speaker 1: In terms of questions you can take a side. Just
Speaker 1: some positive Twitter comments that are just complimentary. Richard Saint
Speaker 1: Marie said you are a breath of fresh air and
Speaker 1: hope regarding the future and super galactic hippiecheck who. I
Speaker 1: just absolutely adore adul this person's handles. I love this
Speaker 1: person's handle, they said. Can you tell her thank you
Speaker 1: for sharing her inspiring her inspiring beauty and brilliance question
Speaker 1: mark exclamation point. I am inspired and excited to learn
Speaker 1: more from her. So I just want to end here
Speaker 1: today with my favorite quotes from you, which I thought
Speaker 1: would really put a nice ending to this chat we
Speaker 1: had today. Will we develop the inner conviction to have
Speaker 1: compassion for each other this fiercely in spite of our
Speaker 1: tribal brawls and bickering, we gather the strength of love. Cooley,
Speaker 1: I love the work you're doing and I truly appreciate
Speaker 1: you coming on the Psychology Podcast today. Thank you, Thank
Speaker 1: you so much for having me. Thanks for listening to
Speaker 1: this episode of the Psychology Podcast. If you'd like to
Speaker 1: react in some way, to something you heard. I encourage
Speaker 1: you to join in on the discussion at the Psychology
Speaker 1: podcast dot com. That's thus psychology podcast dot com. If
Speaker 1: you can, please add a rating and review on iTunes.
Speaker 1: I read all of the reviews and really appreciate your feedback.
Speaker 1: Thanks for being such a great supporter of the show,
Speaker 1: and tune in next time for more on the mind, brain, behavior,
Speaker 1: and creativity.