Speaker 1: Welcome to How to Citizen with Baritune Day, a show
Speaker 1: where we reimagine the word citizen as a verb and
Speaker 1: remind ourselves how to wield our collective power. I'm Baritone Day.
Speaker 1: In the US, we have elected a new president, Joe Biden,
Speaker 1: and a new Vice president, Kamala Harris. I'm still writing
Speaker 1: the emotions of it all. I didn't realize how much
Speaker 1: tension I have been holding for four years until that
Speaker 1: announcement came, and I just cried with relief. I'm talking ugly,
Speaker 1: ugly crying, just wailing tears intermittently throughout Saturday. Not because
Speaker 1: all the country's problems are solved, far from that, but
Speaker 1: because now I believe we have a fighting chance to
Speaker 1: build a democracy word of us all, a democracy that
Speaker 1: works for us all, something we've been striving to achieve
Speaker 1: for this country's entire history, never quite made it. Plus,
Speaker 1: it was nice to see people flooding the streets, not
Speaker 1: to protest unjust police, but to celebrate the exercise of
Speaker 1: people power. We set records, y'll, even those who voted
Speaker 1: differently from us, we showed up and we used our power.
Speaker 1: Well done, citizens, as of this recording, with some vote
Speaker 1: counting still happening, but not enough to change the outcome.
Speaker 1: A record seventy four million people voted for Joe Biden
Speaker 1: for president. It's the most votes any US presidential candidate
Speaker 1: has ever received. The second most votes ever received went
Speaker 1: to Donald Trump in this same election. So we are
Speaker 1: a nation decided, and we are a nation divided. The
Speaker 1: seventy million votes for Trump aren't just numbers. They're people,
Speaker 1: people we work with, live with, and love. How do
Speaker 1: we do that? How do they do that? How do
Speaker 1: we citizen with people who think so differently from us?
Speaker 1: These aren't just questions for Biden voters, but for Trump
Speaker 1: voters and non voters too. We're all in the same
Speaker 1: country together. I've got just the person to help us
Speaker 1: with that. In this our six and final episode of
Speaker 1: season one, what you mean you're could have stopped? There's
Speaker 1: an episode break. There's a season break. Huh, Yeah, that's right.
Speaker 1: We're wrapping this thing. More on the future of this
Speaker 1: show on the other side of the interview, that's what
Speaker 1: we call it, Deezer. Meanwhile, in this episode, we had
Speaker 1: taken it back to the beginning and our very first episode.
Speaker 1: Valerie Coo reminded us of the power of revolutionary love
Speaker 1: in How We Citizen, and she helped us see that
Speaker 1: holding relationships with others is a key part of what
Speaker 1: it means to citizen. In this episode, I spoke with
Speaker 1: one of the world's most insightful voices on modern relationships.
Speaker 1: She's a psychotherapist and best selling author of two books,
Speaker 1: Mating in Captivity and the State of Affairs. Her TED
Speaker 1: talks have garnered over thirty million views and counting, and
Speaker 1: she executive produces and hosts two of her own podcast,
Speaker 1: How's Work and Where Should We Begin? She likes putting
Speaker 1: questions in the titles of her podcast, and I liked
Speaker 1: putting questions to her in our podcast. Yeah, we brought
Speaker 1: in a relationship therapist, a certified relationship therapists, to help
Speaker 1: us close out this season as we try to build
Speaker 1: and heal relationships with the people in our country and
Speaker 1: in our lives who made very different choices during the election.
Speaker 1: I'm gonna tell you right up, this is one of
Speaker 1: the those episodes you gotta listen to the whole thing,
Speaker 1: and you're probably gonna want to listen a few times.
Speaker 1: Here is my conversation with as their parrel one of
Speaker 1: our pillars of what it means to citizen is, you know,
Speaker 1: showing up and participating and being an investing in relationships
Speaker 1: because we don't citizen alone and includes being a relationship
Speaker 1: with ourselves but also with others. Your work is there
Speaker 1: is anchored in the idea of relationships, and I'd love
Speaker 1: to know your take on what does it practically mean
Speaker 1: for someone to invest in a relationship? What does it
Speaker 1: mean for us to invest in relationships with people around us?
Speaker 1: You know, traditionally there was a way that looked at
Speaker 1: societies and divided them between task oriented societies and relationship
Speaker 1: oriented societies. To ask oriented often meant the priorities were
Speaker 1: given to time as a finite unit, to achievements, to accomplishment,
Speaker 1: to what can be measured, to what can be quantified,
Speaker 1: and so forth. And relationships where basically everything having to
Speaker 1: do with loyalty, legacy, harmony, discords stuff that is really
Speaker 1: qualitative rather than quantitative. Maybe I should have started with
Speaker 1: that very simple sentence. The quality of your life is
Speaker 1: determined by the quality of your relationships. And this is
Speaker 1: true both at home and at work. So no matter
Speaker 1: what you do, at some point you will ask yourself
Speaker 1: at the last moment did I love and was I loved?
Speaker 1: That will mean that you had invested in your relationship,
Speaker 1: no matter what else you've done. Some people call it
Speaker 1: the difference between a resume and a eulogy. Mhm. We
Speaker 1: often here and we even in the show, we promote
Speaker 1: the idea of investing in a relationship, of putting your
Speaker 1: relationship first, of giving to the relationship. What does that
Speaker 1: mean practically speaking? What does that look like? You know?
Speaker 1: Let me put it like this growing up, this is
Speaker 1: for everybody here. What messages did you receive about relationships
Speaker 1: where they're central in your family life and in your
Speaker 1: culture or were they're more peripheral. And if they were central,
Speaker 1: what were the messages that accompanied it? As in, you
Speaker 1: can trust people, people are there to help you. You
Speaker 1: belong to a group. Your needs just are not just
Speaker 1: your own, Your achievements are not just your own. You
Speaker 1: are part of a larger network of connections or where
Speaker 1: you talked more rely on your own to fit. Nobody
Speaker 1: will ever tell you what to do as best as
Speaker 1: you can tell yourself. Self reliance and autonomy one set
Speaker 1: of models about relationships or loyalty and interdependence. Another set
Speaker 1: of messages about and everybody here will pretty much be
Speaker 1: able to know what was the emphasis of the messages.
Speaker 1: Not always spoken by your parents like that. You know,
Speaker 1: sometimes just by the sheer circumstances of your life, you
Speaker 1: had to learn autonomy and self reliance versus interdependence. But
Speaker 1: to me, this distinction about how we frame relationships and
Speaker 1: therefore how we invest in them. This is a very
Speaker 1: useful frame. Mm hmm. Hearing that, I jump immediately to
Speaker 1: national characterization and you know, Western, Eastern, US, other parts
Speaker 1: of the world in terms of the individual focus, and
Speaker 1: you only have your self to rely on Protestantism. Yeah,
Speaker 1: there you go. So there's the origin. It's a combination
Speaker 1: of capitalism and Protestantism. You know, this notion that you
Speaker 1: are at the center. It's an I versus a we.
Speaker 1: Do I conceive of myself as an eye that reaches
Speaker 1: out to we? Or do I conceive of myself as
Speaker 1: part of a we in which I try to develop
Speaker 1: an eye? Yeah, And it's not either or. There's a
Speaker 1: relationship between those two. There's a relation. And many of
Speaker 1: us have lived in both cultures. Many of us have
Speaker 1: absorbed both systems, both their values attached to many people
Speaker 1: today in the world have grown up in one place
Speaker 1: and moved to another, you know, inside the US as well,
Speaker 1: so we inhabit sometimes more than one value system when
Speaker 1: it comes to relationships. Give you a great example when
Speaker 1: I came to the US and I was working a
Speaker 1: lot with mixed marriages, interracial, intercultural, inter religious marriages, and
Speaker 1: many times the person was struggling between their ideology of love,
Speaker 1: which was free choice, enterprise, and their loyalty to the family,
Speaker 1: to the religion, to the culture, you know, to the
Speaker 1: larger forces. And people would say, you should do what's
Speaker 1: right for you, and I knew that that was a
Speaker 1: very particular frame in contrast with people who lived with
Speaker 1: the notion that what's right for you never exists separately
Speaker 1: from how it affects others, you know. So they felt
Speaker 1: terribly guilty about being selfish about doing what's read and
Speaker 1: other people. You can't let other people dictate to you. Well,
Speaker 1: this is a major division cross culturally. This is a
Speaker 1: division inside this country, inside families, and inside ourselves. It's
Speaker 1: a perfect example. I want to talk about division. We've
Speaker 1: seen an experienced an extraordinary amount of political division in
Speaker 1: the United States of late especially over the past four years,
Speaker 1: and we've seen it show up steep into our most
Speaker 1: cherished relationships, are family relationships, are intimate relationships. What have
Speaker 1: you seen in your own practice, maybe amongst your colleagues,
Speaker 1: about how our political divisions are showing up in our
Speaker 1: relationships and how the politics has become more personal. One
Speaker 1: of the basic ways that you experience divisions in relationships
Speaker 1: is when there is a loss of a shared sense
Speaker 1: of reality. This is what you've see in couples, in
Speaker 1: families all the time, when there is you know, no
Speaker 1: shared well off facts. And then that's you know, wrote
Speaker 1: this week that we've ceased to be a country in
Speaker 1: disagreement and we're now a country of mutual disgust. A
Speaker 1: deep division is often marked by contempt. Content is often
Speaker 1: the killer in relationships. You can have criticism, you can
Speaker 1: have defensiveness, you can have stone warding, you can have
Speaker 1: gaslighting even but contempt to actually guess that it goes off.
Speaker 1: And with content contempt, this kind of the you've lost
Speaker 1: the basic respect for the other person and for their humanity.
Speaker 1: That is part of what we have and it's happening
Speaker 1: inside families as much as it's happening in the society.
Speaker 1: In the broader sense, people live with a sense of betrayal,
Speaker 1: and betrayal generally represents the shattering of our shared assumptions.
Speaker 1: I thought we were in this together. I thought you
Speaker 1: had my back. I thought, you know, so there is
Speaker 1: that and to me, you know, it's an interesting thing
Speaker 1: to see on a macro level, that which you often
Speaker 1: see when you work as a couples therapists, which I do,
Speaker 1: when you work with very polarized couples, in which what
Speaker 1: else goes into division in a couple. I tend to
Speaker 1: think of myself as a rainbow. I think you are
Speaker 1: black and white. I think of myself as complex. I
Speaker 1: see you as one dimensional. I think that if I
Speaker 1: behave poorly, it's because there are circumstances. If you behave poorly,
Speaker 1: it's characteriological that is part of a of a polarization.
Speaker 1: I don't really care to listen to you because I
Speaker 1: experience everything you say as a threat and I'm in
Speaker 1: fight flight mode, and I think that you know, if
Speaker 1: we did it your way, you know, it would be
Speaker 1: a disaster. You are willing to destroy everything which we
Speaker 1: com planet do you live on? How can you even
Speaker 1: think like this? And it's mutual. You say the same
Speaker 1: thing to me with those words or other words. So
Speaker 1: that's what happens in a polarized couple is that you
Speaker 1: have instant escalation and a fundamental belief that the facts
Speaker 1: actually matter. But at some point the feelings and the
Speaker 1: form supersede the content. You know, if we start to
Speaker 1: talk with dismissal, it doesn't matter if we're talking about
Speaker 1: the economy or about green peace. In the engineer, it
Speaker 1: the form precedes the content. If what I think is
Speaker 1: that you have no idea what you're talking about, we
Speaker 1: can talk about anything. I will still think that you
Speaker 1: have no idea what you're talking about. If you think
Speaker 1: I'm even if you think I don't care, if you
Speaker 1: think I'm going to bring your demise, it doesn't matter
Speaker 1: the subject matter. You will have the filter because we
Speaker 1: see what we expect to see in your experience with
Speaker 1: these couples. What's the threshold for arriving at a place
Speaker 1: of contempt and dismissal? How does that escalation happen? How
Speaker 1: do you know your past that point? If I fundamentally
Speaker 1: distrust you and I think that you're just out for yourself,
Speaker 1: that you don't take my well being into account. I
Speaker 1: see you as a potential danger. That's part of why
Speaker 1: I'm going to fight flight. You are a threat to me.
Speaker 1: You're a threat to me because you're black. You're a
Speaker 1: threat to me as you're a man. You're a threat
Speaker 1: to me because you're rich, because you're poor, or because
Speaker 1: you're coming to take my job, or because you are
Speaker 1: bringing indecency into our society, or because you're bringing nationalism
Speaker 1: and populism into our society. You know, in political reunite
Speaker 1: has other names than in a marriage, but basically, you
Speaker 1: are danger. When you are danger, the first thing I
Speaker 1: do is I defend, and if I can, I attack
Speaker 1: a counterattack. I blame blame defense, blame defense, and I deflect.
Speaker 1: In a polarized relationship, I never think I have the
Speaker 1: responsibility for anything. It's you who make me do what
Speaker 1: I do, which I wouldn't do if you were different
Speaker 1: and didn't make me. And then you can you can
Speaker 1: translate it into quanity. I am the way I am
Speaker 1: because of you. If you hadn't done this, I wouldn't be.
Speaker 1: So it's what we call hostile dependence. I need you
Speaker 1: to change, but since you don't, I am angry at you,
Speaker 1: and the more I'm angry at you, of course, the
Speaker 1: less you're gonna do, and the less you're gonna do,
Speaker 1: and the more I'm going to need you to do,
Speaker 1: you knowder for anything to change, which you're not doing,
Speaker 1: so I get enraged. So that's a vicious cycle. That's
Speaker 1: an understatement. But yes, it's a negative reinforcement. Yes, it's
Speaker 1: a complete negative feedback loop. It's it's the route of escalation.
Speaker 1: And when you see it on the national level, it's
Speaker 1: basically when you watch Trump and Pelosi, that's what you get.
Speaker 1: So clearly there have been some efforts that you've been
Speaker 1: a part of that. You've seen that the human species
Speaker 1: has been through in our relationships before, to also repair,
Speaker 1: to return from a state of mutual disgust and contempt
Speaker 1: one of more trust and more partnership rather than threat.
Speaker 1: What is that road look like, the return to mutual
Speaker 1: respect in humanity? You know, I will respond to you
Speaker 1: on two levels. One is in my practice as a therapist,
Speaker 1: and then one is really in other things that I
Speaker 1: have been aware of, not always fully involved with. But
Speaker 1: I have looked at South Africa, I have looked at
Speaker 1: the groups that come together as mothers or fathers of
Speaker 1: Israeli and Palestinian children, people who could hate each other
Speaker 1: for life, and who decides that they have no choice.
Speaker 1: They won't be able to live well and sleep well
Speaker 1: unless they find some kind of dialogue with those other people,
Speaker 1: and they come together as mothers and fathers who lost
Speaker 1: their children, and that supersedes everything about this most intractable
Speaker 1: political conflict. So take me through the first part. Then
Speaker 1: as a therapist. So as a therapist, you know, the
Speaker 1: first thing I say is if you continue to repeat
Speaker 1: the same thing, the more you say what you say,
Speaker 1: the more your partner is going to say the exact
Speaker 1: thing that you don't want them to say. Meaning we
Speaker 1: have a knack of drawing from the other side the
Speaker 1: very thing which we actually don't want. If you continue
Speaker 1: to say things are really good, things are better than ever,
Speaker 1: your partner is going to answer they're awful. So if
Speaker 1: you want to hear something else, maybe you change what
Speaker 1: you've been saying. So that doesn't mean you say things
Speaker 1: are awful. That means you say, obviously you have a
Speaker 1: different experience. Let me listen very hard, very hard for
Speaker 1: us to listen to stuff that is fundamentally the opposite
Speaker 1: of how we see it. But that's the exercise. Then
Speaker 1: you step out of the kind of calcification of position shows,
Speaker 1: you know. Then you really start to pay attention of
Speaker 1: how you treat the other one as welle dimensional and
Speaker 1: how you think that you are much more layered and
Speaker 1: nuanced and complex, you know. So that's a big one.
Speaker 1: Then you find some common ground. The common ground at
Speaker 1: this moment is that people feel deeply unsettled and stressed
Speaker 1: out and exhausted. Well, let's start with that. Why we
Speaker 1: are stressed out. We may say it's your fault and
Speaker 1: the other one says it's your fault, like in a relationship,
Speaker 1: but the fact is none of us are sleeping that
Speaker 1: well for the moment, you know. Then you go and
Speaker 1: you check your perception gap. This notion that people often
Speaker 1: have in a relationship where they think that the other
Speaker 1: person is completely on the other side, like there's absolutely
Speaker 1: nothing we see how to eye here, and yet both
Speaker 1: of you wan't good for your child. One of you
Speaker 1: says we need to punish him, the other one says
Speaker 1: we shouldn't be so harsh on him. You are locked
Speaker 1: on this one. But the one thing we know is
Speaker 1: that both of you feel at the loss, and both
Speaker 1: of you would do anything to get your child to
Speaker 1: stop using drugs. For example, this is a classic you know,
Speaker 1: and people have divorced over it. People. And now the
Speaker 1: interesting thing is the only way you can only focus
Speaker 1: on the punishment is because you've got someone here who
Speaker 1: is actually holding the value of the kindness or the
Speaker 1: empathy if you want. And the only way that you
Speaker 1: can only talk about the empathy is because you've got
Speaker 1: someone here who is talking about the limits. And you
Speaker 1: actually need each other because basically your kids needs both.
Speaker 1: So instead of just thinking you're right, how about you
Speaker 1: try to be wise? It's better to be wise than right. Yeah.
Speaker 1: There's a phrase that I started saying the people and
Speaker 1: some of my own work, which is now, do you
Speaker 1: want to be right or do you want to be effective? Yeah?
Speaker 1: And you know that the feeling of righteousness is powerful,
Speaker 1: but its impact is pretty limited in terms of the
Speaker 1: outcomes you want. There's a requirement in the steps that
Speaker 1: you've outlined to slow down and to want to do
Speaker 1: it and to want it and to not say you first,
Speaker 1: why should I you have done nothing? Why should I
Speaker 1: be nice? You know? That's part of the indignation to right.
Speaker 1: This is a very critical moment. So yeah, I want
Speaker 1: to go there because in the United States, we've had
Speaker 1: years of attempts at outreach, at reconciliation, at deep empathy.
Speaker 1: After it felt to me like the New York Times
Speaker 1: devoted a whole new beat to understanding the quote unquote
Speaker 1: working class man in America. And I see all of
Speaker 1: this effort at recognition, at de escalation, at recomplexifying the
Speaker 1: other into a human I see it coming heavily from
Speaker 1: the side of liberals and progressive who feels some shame,
Speaker 1: some guilt, some compassion. We must have gotten something wrong
Speaker 1: about the country we're living in. So let's go to
Speaker 1: western Pennsylvania and find a coal miner to talk to
Speaker 1: and understand his plate. And I've searched, and I'm not
Speaker 1: saying it's exhausted, but I have very few examples of
Speaker 1: that coming from the right end of the political spectrum.
Speaker 1: I haven't seen the humility demonstrated there to say, maybe
Speaker 1: we don't understand the country we're in. Maybe we should
Speaker 1: go to Brooklyn and understand and have a latte with
Speaker 1: some hipster and see what's really going on. Their mind,
Speaker 1: or a black person in Alabama and see what's really
Speaker 1: on her mind. One you can tell me if my
Speaker 1: characterization is off, if you've seen something different. I'm happy
Speaker 1: to be wrong, truly, But beyond that, when one side
Speaker 1: feels like they're putting all the work in and the
Speaker 1: other side isn't, how do you move out of that
Speaker 1: sense and that possible reality. So it's very interesting because
Speaker 1: this could be a complete description inside a couple where
Speaker 1: one person says, I bring up all the conversations. I'm
Speaker 1: the one who's always asking questions. I'm the one who's
Speaker 1: trying to improve the relationship, and my partner just sits
Speaker 1: there and just thinks that you know, he or she
Speaker 1: is beyond reproach. You know I can do no right
Speaker 1: and the other can do no wrong. Why should I?
Speaker 1: And sometimes I say, you don't have to. But the
Speaker 1: world you want to live in, you could live with
Speaker 1: yourself if you did. It's the person you want to
Speaker 1: be now. From there, I can play the metaphor and
Speaker 1: the analogy of marriage and relationship ships. But I also
Speaker 1: understand that when nationalism and populism rises, there's a limit
Speaker 1: to the analogy. I think that things could completely improve,
Speaker 1: and your partner may still think that it's because you improved,
Speaker 1: and you would love to for them to say they
Speaker 1: made a mistake too, but they actually still think of
Speaker 1: themselves in this entitled righteous way in which they think
Speaker 1: you're the one who came to your senses. And that's
Speaker 1: where I say, you want to share reality or you
Speaker 1: just want to say. My partner thinks that our marriage
Speaker 1: improved because I changed, because I stopped yelling, because I
Speaker 1: stopped being critical, because I finally saw whatever he or
Speaker 1: she was saying, And I will say that's how he
Speaker 1: views it, and I'm willing for him or her to
Speaker 1: think that I made all the changes. That's actually a compliment.
Speaker 1: But if I think you are still basically blaming me,
Speaker 1: you're still holding me responsible for everything. So before it
Speaker 1: was you were the problem, now it's you are the solution.
Speaker 1: You are the solution. Is also implied you were the problem.
Speaker 1: I have to be able to not care and just
Speaker 1: say that's okay. I accept the compliment. I did all
Speaker 1: the work. Basically, my partner thinks completely different than me
Speaker 1: about what improved our relationship, and I let him think
Speaker 1: this way because it serves me. I have an autonomy
Speaker 1: to my thinking, I no longer need him to actually
Speaker 1: think like me in order to have a shared reality.
Speaker 1: And that is a whole other way of going about
Speaker 1: this different bridge. Yeah, and I don't know if that
Speaker 1: is done on a national level, but I'll tell you something.
Speaker 1: There's a story that just happened to me recently that
Speaker 1: I've been wanting to share. Jack and I have a
Speaker 1: flat tire. We're on the highway for four hours. Nobody
Speaker 1: can pick you up anymore because we're in the middle
Speaker 1: of this highway. A pickup truck arrives and the guy
Speaker 1: basically looks at us and he's a foreigner who got
Speaker 1: asylum who you would think, you know, you're an immigrant
Speaker 1: with that had this kind of history for sure, bad assumption.
Speaker 1: He looks at us and he says, they're an elderly couple,
Speaker 1: that we shouldn't let's go alone to the city. They
Speaker 1: only have a doughnut. He drives us for three and
Speaker 1: a half hours, And for three and a half hours,
Speaker 1: it's like being with Fox News, every trope, everything, everything.
Speaker 1: He's screaming. He's so screaming that I'm afraid he's going
Speaker 1: to run off the road with this truck and our
Speaker 1: car in the back, and Jack just continues to listen
Speaker 1: to him, like just kindly listening and so curious like
Speaker 1: how he did it. You would think it's like masochistic.
Speaker 1: But when we arrived, we gave him a big tip
Speaker 1: and he looks at us and he says, you're giving
Speaker 1: me money even though you know my beliefs and we
Speaker 1: are probably be really really quite different than what we
Speaker 1: think about. And I said to him, I'm not giving
Speaker 1: your money for your beliefs and giving your money for
Speaker 1: your behavior. And you were kind, and he says, I
Speaker 1: think I probably should listen a little more and talk
Speaker 1: a little less. And I said, I think that would
Speaker 1: be a good idea. You may actually here's some different
Speaker 1: things that would be important for you. Thank you. It
Speaker 1: really is one of the experiences that have shaped us
Speaker 1: in the last months because we could have done the
Speaker 1: you know, shut up and don't talk and you know,
Speaker 1: I don't want to listen this, but instead we were
Speaker 1: curious just to see how this whole thing makes sense
Speaker 1: to him. And it's not easy to sit because you
Speaker 1: start boiling inside. You know, an occasion, it's very hard
Speaker 1: to listen to people tell you things that you fundamentally
Speaker 1: disagree it and that will affect you. This is one
Speaker 1: thing we know in the couple, so we just instantly
Speaker 1: rebut and to actually let it land on us like
Speaker 1: that and then still be able to differentiate he's thinking
Speaker 1: from his actions, his kindness, from his racism. Oh, at
Speaker 1: the same time, holding multiple perspectives like that. I think
Speaker 1: that's on occasion when you have it, you feel hopeful.
Speaker 1: I mean. And what you extended to him in that
Speaker 1: moment was the benefit of complexity. Yeah, you allowed him
Speaker 1: to be something more than a Fox News raver, but
Speaker 1: also a kind neighbor at the same time, and break
Speaker 1: that contradiction and you a little bit. And the other
Speaker 1: piece that I'm hearing here is about what it does
Speaker 1: to you, what it does to the person who stops
Speaker 1: talking and listens to the person who does some kind
Speaker 1: of outreach, who prioritizes the preservation of the relationship over
Speaker 1: the righteousness of a specific position. But seriously, but don't
Speaker 1: I think that what makes the difference is if there
Speaker 1: is a relationship. This is what you asked me before.
Speaker 1: What does it mean to invest in the relationship for
Speaker 1: you to just want to understand the white man or
Speaker 1: what the Republicans think or what the Trump supporters think.
Speaker 1: You will do it if you have a friend and
Speaker 1: you kind of say, dude or or woman, doesn't matter,
Speaker 1: explain it to me. Explain me what you experience that
Speaker 1: led to how you think that leads to how you vote.
Speaker 1: Because you care about that person, you may want to
Speaker 1: have that conversation, or you may say we have a
Speaker 1: deep connection, but it stops right here. Like in families
Speaker 1: at this moment, there are people who will continue to
Speaker 1: love their brothers, sisters, parents, aunt with whom there is
Speaker 1: an app salute block, like we don't go there. We
Speaker 1: don't go there, but we have enough of the other
Speaker 1: things that we share, history, tradition, you know, family connections
Speaker 1: for which we are willing to stay together. Otherwise we
Speaker 1: will really be living lives in front of our own mirrors.
Speaker 1: And I think families are good training grounds for this.
Speaker 1: To see how the same aunt who is a white supremacist.
Speaker 1: This is a friend of mine who has seem sus
Speaker 1: like my mother died, she says to me, and my
Speaker 1: aunts are white supremacists, but they're the only way that
Speaker 1: I can stay connected to my mother with people who
Speaker 1: knew her and I don't know how to handle it,
Speaker 1: h to which you say, you know, basically, if you
Speaker 1: only talk about your mother primarily, you just focus on that,
Speaker 1: and it's a good chance that there's not much else
Speaker 1: that you will share with them, unless you say, I
Speaker 1: can be in the presence of people who think this way,
Speaker 1: they are a threat to my survival, and I'll find
Speaker 1: other ways to remember my mother, or you say I'll
Speaker 1: make sure to see them once a year. I mean
Speaker 1: it brings us back to the initial relationship conversation about
Speaker 1: seeing the person with whom you're in relationship as a
Speaker 1: threat more than as a partner, and that might be
Speaker 1: a decision that you come to, maybe after trying a
Speaker 1: few things before. Then. There are many of us who
Speaker 1: have parents, have partners, have colleagues who we have fundamental
Speaker 1: disagreements with, not about what color shade the sky is,
Speaker 1: but do we take a pandemic seriously or not? Do
Speaker 1: we believe in the humanity of immigrants or not? Do
Speaker 1: you know that I used to have screaming matches with
Speaker 1: my parents every Friday night when we had family gathering.
Speaker 1: I'm sure that screaming matches about politics. And then they
Speaker 1: would say you're young. It's okay to be lefty when
Speaker 1: you're young. You learned later, right, And that was even
Speaker 1: more like, you know, you your naive, you know? And
Speaker 1: I was saying you're immoral, and they were saying you're naive,
Speaker 1: which is kind of the division, you know, between liberal
Speaker 1: and conservative here. It's like once he's the other as
Speaker 1: dangerous and naive, the other one sees the other as
Speaker 1: morally dangerous. And yet we would finish the screaming match
Speaker 1: and we start doing the dishes together. I can't even
Speaker 1: tell you the rage that would come out of me,
Speaker 1: like how can you say things like this with what
Speaker 1: you went through? Who? Who are you? People? Kind of thing?
Speaker 1: And then to think you my parents, and yet you
Speaker 1: came back for more every Friday evening, and so did they,
Speaker 1: and so did they. And I don't know what I
Speaker 1: make of this, because I hadn't thought about this in
Speaker 1: a long time. This came up suddenly this week, I
Speaker 1: said to somebody. There was the same conversation over and
Speaker 1: over and over again. Then I started to feel like
Speaker 1: it created an ambivalent in my relationship between me and
Speaker 1: my parents, that my parents could be thinking this way.
Speaker 1: It really is an exercising attachment like who you try
Speaker 1: to continue to maintain a connection with, what is that
Speaker 1: connection based on, and where you realize this is dangerous
Speaker 1: for me and I may need to let go of this,
Speaker 1: I may need to just say bye bye. And what
Speaker 1: I respect about that is it gives you many layers
Speaker 1: or many options. You know, who am I trying to
Speaker 1: be in relationship with? What is it based on? And
Speaker 1: when is enough enough? And those are not binary choices.
Speaker 1: They exist on a spectrum as you spoke of earlier.
Speaker 1: It's not do I have any relationship with my aunt
Speaker 1: at all? It's what kind of relationship? What kind of
Speaker 1: context am I willing to allow what topics for discussion
Speaker 1: or owner off the table for my own sense of
Speaker 1: safety and well being and for the preservation in whatever form,
Speaker 1: at whatever level of some relationship with these people who
Speaker 1: are important to me. Still, that's a that's an exercise,
Speaker 1: and it's a nuanced one. Um. It's not as simple
Speaker 1: as friend unfriend. But you know, this thing that you
Speaker 1: asked me is very true. As you say before about
Speaker 1: I see my side in the ways what you say
Speaker 1: having tried to make sense of the other, and I
Speaker 1: don't see any curiosity on the other side, to try
Speaker 1: to meet me, to understand me, to know where I'm
Speaker 1: coming from. I think this happens in relationships a lot,
Speaker 1: in intimate relationships. You know, I've tried to understand why
Speaker 1: he doesn't want to talk, why he's so silent. I've
Speaker 1: gone to talk to his parents, I've gone. You know,
Speaker 1: I'm putting it in a straight context for a moment,
Speaker 1: but it doesn't have to be yet. It's really one
Speaker 1: person says, I've tried to understand my partner. I've tried.
Speaker 1: I've read so many books about you know, why my
Speaker 1: partner cheated on me. I've read so many books about
Speaker 1: why my partner drinks and alcoholism. I've read so many
Speaker 1: You know, one is completely invested in trying to understand you,
Speaker 1: and the other is really not interested, particularly in being
Speaker 1: self reflected ether not just a big being curious about you.
Speaker 1: That's a dynamic in and of itself. Yeah, there's a
Speaker 1: lack of curiosity in any direction, which can create a
Speaker 1: greater sense of contempt on the part of the party
Speaker 1: that sees itself at put as putting forth a lot
Speaker 1: of effort. You're not curious about me, You're not even
Speaker 1: curious about yourself? What is this? Why do I bother?
Speaker 1: Three quick ones? One is a national characterization question. You
Speaker 1: describe cultures that are more based in the eye and
Speaker 1: cultures that are more based in the wei, and they
Speaker 1: both kind of allow room to reach in the other direction,
Speaker 1: but their anchor point feels a bit different. I think
Speaker 1: the United States, broadly speaking, is based in an eye culture.
Speaker 1: And I wondered what your read on the individual and
Speaker 1: collective culture in the US really is And essentially, are
Speaker 1: we doomed? Strong word? But to forever try to struggle
Speaker 1: out of a sense of individuality into something a bit
Speaker 1: more common and collective, which I think is a requirement
Speaker 1: for true citizenship. But it feels at odds with the
Speaker 1: dominant culture. The dominant culture prizes individualism, the dominant cultural
Speaker 1: prices effort optimism. There is no problem that doesn't have
Speaker 1: a solution, even the existential conundrums. Everything has a solution.
Speaker 1: Break it down to pieces, get to work and fix it.
Speaker 1: This ethos is kind of core That is something that
Speaker 1: foreigners often observed about the US. It's like, what do
Speaker 1: you do as if everything has a solution and an
Speaker 1: answer immediately? Even in psychology, when I arrived, it was
Speaker 1: very much helping children to figure out what they want
Speaker 1: to do so they can leave the home. And if
Speaker 1: you were a home in which you wanted to children,
Speaker 1: not necessarily and giving you an old exams to go
Speaker 1: to the best college because it was far away, because
Speaker 1: what matter to you more was to have you keep
Speaker 1: be able to come home on Sunday for a family
Speaker 1: dinner and you wanted them close by. You know, you
Speaker 1: were at arts. Nothing should stand in the way of achievement.
Speaker 1: No relationships, no family ties, no tradition that stands in
Speaker 1: the way of that dominant individualistic piece. Now inside of
Speaker 1: us there are many, many, many cultures. The question is
Speaker 1: when you measure yourself against the dominant, then the institutions
Speaker 1: represent the dominant. Psychotherapy represents the dominant. Instead of seeing
Speaker 1: this as an alternative model and as a model that
Speaker 1: is highly resilient and adaptive, we for a long time
Speaker 1: would see this as what we would call and meshed families,
Speaker 1: you know, families who didn't know to let the people leave,
Speaker 1: and they curtailed the development of the individual because self
Speaker 1: growth is the measurements rather than people who understand that
Speaker 1: together is important that there is value in maintaining this
Speaker 1: weekly gatherings. That success is important, but not at the
Speaker 1: expense of family ties. That's a classic example in family
Speaker 1: therapy where this negotiation takes place between the power of
Speaker 1: the collective and the power of the individual. It's all
Speaker 1: the time like that, and intersecting with gender, with race,
Speaker 1: with religion. I mean it gets layered like this. I
Speaker 1: think there's a reason we're talking about how the the
Speaker 1: second epidemic here is not just coronavirus, but it's loneliness.
Speaker 1: Loneliness people are disconnected, lonely. You know, there's nobody to
Speaker 1: turn to enough, and the pandemic has just reinforced that.
Speaker 1: So we can't talk about the problem of loneliness without
Speaker 1: connecting it to the emphasis and individualism people think about
Speaker 1: the long genius will talk about I have done this,
Speaker 1: and they can talk about their resume and all their
Speaker 1: rather than I did it with There's always others that
Speaker 1: help you wherever you are. No, you're not alone getting there,
Speaker 1: But the notion that somebody could help me weakens me.
Speaker 1: The notion that I would need to rely on others.
Speaker 1: Dependency is such a frightening word to many many Americans
Speaker 1: who abide by that ethos, it is really and men
Speaker 1: more than women. That's a place where I spend a
Speaker 1: lot of time working. Yeah, is there anything you want
Speaker 1: to add on this subject of repairing relationships, investing in
Speaker 1: relationships in the context of deep political division. When people
Speaker 1: demonize each other, it's doomed. I mean, you can survive,
Speaker 1: but you're constantly looking over your shoulder. It's an awful
Speaker 1: way to live, to think that there is threat around
Speaker 1: you all the time. The other is your threat. And
Speaker 1: at the same time, I feel like I don't want
Speaker 1: to see anything that sounds massively naive. You know, when
Speaker 1: people come after you and want to kill you, they
Speaker 1: want to kill you, and there is not much talking
Speaker 1: with them that will soften them. I want to make
Speaker 1: that very clear. Otherwise I'm just living in la la
Speaker 1: land for a minute. I think you will find those
Speaker 1: from whom you need to really shield yourself, and then
Speaker 1: you find those with whom you think there's some hope here,
Speaker 1: there's a possibility, and I'm willing to look for the possibilities.
Speaker 1: In the end, every process of reconciliation has demanded people
Speaker 1: putting down their arms, all of them, and every process
Speaker 1: of reconciliation has often been done, not every but many
Speaker 1: by a person that once was completely on the other side.
Speaker 1: It takes the biggest dictator, It takes Bota in South
Speaker 1: Africa to actually begin reconciliation. I think Mandela Botta is
Speaker 1: an incredible lesson for us to go look at because
Speaker 1: it's men, it's black and white, it's years of oppression.
Speaker 1: I mean, I'm not a historian and a political scientist,
Speaker 1: but that's where I am drawn to go. See people
Speaker 1: have done it, and did they begin to like each other?
Speaker 1: Probably two men actually realized that they liked each other
Speaker 1: more than they thought they would. And from that place
Speaker 1: they got slightly intrigued, and from that place they decided
Speaker 1: that actually they have the power to give a legacy
Speaker 1: to this country that is better than the ship show
Speaker 1: that could otherwise take place. And why not do we
Speaker 1: have that kind of leadership at this point here or
Speaker 1: in many other parts of the world at this moment. No, No,
Speaker 1: at this moment, there are people who are going in
Speaker 1: a different direction. Speaking of going in a different direction,
Speaker 1: I'm interrupting my own interview here to give you a
Speaker 1: heads up. But there shortly will take us in a
Speaker 1: different and more personal direction neither of us expected, as
Speaker 1: she shares a lesson she learned as the child of
Speaker 1: Holocaust survivors in Belgium. Last question topic is something we
Speaker 1: ask everyone who comes in. We see this word citizen
Speaker 1: not as primarily about legal status or any kind of status,
Speaker 1: but about being a verb a set of actions. If
Speaker 1: you interpret the word citizen as a verb, how do
Speaker 1: you define what it means to citizens? It's an active verb.
Speaker 1: So it's a practice that constantly needs to be fine tuned,
Speaker 1: that constantly demands that we check ourselves. I think it's
Speaker 1: very easy to think that we are good and the
Speaker 1: other people are not. That demands that we on occasion
Speaker 1: can see what effects do we have on others that
Speaker 1: on occasion makes us do stuff which we would never
Speaker 1: have done. You know, I'll tell you one answer about citizens,
Speaker 1: an anecdote, But I it's so many things that I
Speaker 1: have not thought about in a while. Sometimes come back,
Speaker 1: I hitch hike across the US. But almost two months,
Speaker 1: many years ago, in seventies six, the by centennials, I
Speaker 1: was eighteen years old. I saw America like I would
Speaker 1: never see it again. I was invited in all kinds
Speaker 1: of homes of people that had never heard of Belgium,
Speaker 1: that had beliefs and ideas of people that today I
Speaker 1: would be really disparaging. I would say, I have nothing
Speaker 1: in common with this. They opened their homes, they fed me,
Speaker 1: they drove me, really the America that I am not
Speaker 1: very much in touch with at this moment. But they
Speaker 1: just saw a hitch hiker and there was something very interesting.
Speaker 1: But they just saw me as a person. And on
Speaker 1: occasion I would say June and I knew they taught
Speaker 1: Christ killer and I mean, they went on and on
Speaker 1: like this. But something about the way that they just were,
Speaker 1: the kindness of strangers, and the fact that it was
Speaker 1: for a moment removed from ideology and politics, made it
Speaker 1: possible for us to have some very interesting moments together.
Speaker 1: And I do think that as I became more informed
Speaker 1: and more knowledgeable, and more brainwashed as well, I began
Speaker 1: to be narrower in my acceptance of these people. Today,
Speaker 1: if I saw them, I would call them sometimes with
Speaker 1: all kinds of labels, rather than they were nice people
Speaker 1: who picked me up on the road. I tried to
Speaker 1: use that because otherwise I can become bitter and very scared.
Speaker 1: I have to find ways to humanize other people, to
Speaker 1: be slightly less scared of them. I think that is
Speaker 1: a big part of citizenship at this moment, or citizen
Speaker 1: gree not to dehumanize the other because the more we
Speaker 1: dehumanize them, the more frightened we become. And you more
Speaker 1: than me. We know we don't have the same fear,
Speaker 1: and we're aware. Thank you for that. You know. In
Speaker 1: some ways, it's a different type of survival mechanism. There's
Speaker 1: something that gets triggered in us where we dehumanize another
Speaker 1: out of a sense of survival. We don't feel safe.
Speaker 1: There are monsters, monsters are bad. Get away from monsters,
Speaker 1: destroyed monsters, and there's another option, which is actually to
Speaker 1: humanize them more in response to the feeling of threat,
Speaker 1: so that we're not as afraid. My dad told me
Speaker 1: this when he was in the concentration camp. He said
Speaker 1: the old guards were nicer than the young ones. I said,
Speaker 1: explain that to me. He said, the old ones had
Speaker 1: more respect for the elderly. They remember their fathers. The
Speaker 1: young ones had no connection, so the old one hit
Speaker 1: you sometimes less hard. He tried to not think that
Speaker 1: all the guards were the same. I'm sure anybody you know,
Speaker 1: even today in the prison has makes a distinction between
Speaker 1: the guards that are nicer and the guards who have
Speaker 1: clemency and and the guard who doesn't just had the
Speaker 1: last beat of just sadistic hitting just because they can
Speaker 1: first as the one who thinks he got you back
Speaker 1: into the cell and that's enough. This is what I'm
Speaker 1: talking about it. I'm not saying we need to love
Speaker 1: these people and be nice. I just think that there's
Speaker 1: a way of really looking for the humanity in situations
Speaker 1: where one would think it's all equal. That's a wrap.
Speaker 1: I've never talked about this, you know. It's it's very
Speaker 1: interesting that you know, but I know people must do this.
Speaker 1: It's like the teacher in the school. You know, which
Speaker 1: is the mean teacher and which is the evil or
Speaker 1: sadistic teacher. And there's a range everywhere. Yes, in matters
Speaker 1: of black and white, there's always gray, and the whitest
Speaker 1: white and the blackest black, there's still gray. And you know,
Speaker 1: I said that's a wrap, but that wasn't quite true.
Speaker 1: It's more of an observation to share with you, which
Speaker 1: is the feeling that many of us have about the
Speaker 1: other side. I'll speak for myself. I know there are
Speaker 1: people on the other side of the political establishment in
Speaker 1: this country who would be happy with my death, and
Speaker 1: then it's easy for me to then leap to Okay, Well,
Speaker 1: sixties six million people voted for me to die, and
Speaker 1: the recomplicating, rehumanizing exercise that I'm trying in my mind
Speaker 1: right now is to say probably not now. Were they
Speaker 1: willing to look the other way? Did it not matter
Speaker 1: as much to them? They interpret these as less literal
Speaker 1: and more metaphoric. Cool Where their priority shifted was their
Speaker 1: attention elsewhere so that they could put their name on
Speaker 1: a document which aligns with someone who also aligns with
Speaker 1: someone who does want me to die. Yes, but that
Speaker 1: is a much different statement from sixty six million people
Speaker 1: in my unstection, and I think you have to be
Speaker 1: very careful. We all have to be very careful. It's catchy,
Speaker 1: and it's utterly ineffective and terrifying and inaccurate. It doesn't
Speaker 1: serve I think you're right. You look in the middle
Speaker 1: of those sixty six there are people who you know,
Speaker 1: have nine reasons for which they would be completely allied
Speaker 1: with you, But there is one thing that made them
Speaker 1: decide to go to the other side, but not because
Speaker 1: they hate you. Yeah, and then you probably say, what
Speaker 1: do I have to do all this effort? I get
Speaker 1: that too, well, I have to if I decide that
Speaker 1: the marriage, that the relationship in this case, that the
Speaker 1: society is worth it. Do I want to look over
Speaker 1: shoulder for sixty six million people? That's very exhausting. That's
Speaker 1: one out of two, you know, voters, at least, so
Speaker 1: that when the person asked me, why should I if
Speaker 1: I can, and if it's I think so, I say,
Speaker 1: because it serves you, because it's enlightened self interest to
Speaker 1: not think sixty six million won't kill me. It's enlightened
Speaker 1: self interest. Yeah, it's not naividda, it's not foolish faith.
Speaker 1: Thank you as there and pleasure. Oh good, we've gone places.
Speaker 1: Yes we have. What a journey. What a journey. Indeed,
Speaker 1: as their Perel, I still can't believe we had her
Speaker 1: on this show. We are so grateful to us there
Speaker 1: for joining us. Find her on the socials. She's on
Speaker 1: Instagram under as their Parrel Official and on Twitter at
Speaker 1: as their Parrel. You can go directly to her website
Speaker 1: as their Perel dot com E. S. T. H. E
Speaker 1: are p E R e L dot com and you
Speaker 1: should be able to tap on all those in the
Speaker 1: show notes if you're consuming this through a mobile podcast app.
Speaker 1: Now time for some actions on the internal front. We've
Speaker 1: got three things cued up for you. The first, what
Speaker 1: is your model of relationships? And something for you to
Speaker 1: think about and sit with yourself. Where you raised to
Speaker 1: believe in self reliance and autonomy or in interdependence and loyalty.
Speaker 1: Do you conceive of yourself as an I trying to
Speaker 1: develop a WEI or is it the other way around?
Speaker 1: The next internal thing, take inventory of the relationships in
Speaker 1: your life. Identify those that are polarized because of politics,
Speaker 1: and determine which relationships make you truly unsafe that you've
Speaker 1: gotta let go of at least for now, and then
Speaker 1: focus on those where you're still committed to some level
Speaker 1: of relationship where you can still see possibility. And in
Speaker 1: those relationships, make a choice. Choose to humanize the other person,
Speaker 1: Choose to listen. Choose to find common ground, no matter
Speaker 1: how small, reflects on your own behavior and language throughout
Speaker 1: this relationship, and ask yourself if you can acknowledge any
Speaker 1: responsibility for the state of things in that relationship. Just
Speaker 1: do this with yourself. The last internal action opportunity we
Speaker 1: have for you is to examine your own perspectives about
Speaker 1: people who vote differently than you. What about your view
Speaker 1: or belief about those people makes you fearful of them
Speaker 1: or of the consequences of their votes. If these thoughts
Speaker 1: were reversed, would they sound fair or accurate to you?
Speaker 1: If they categorized the way you vote and the people
Speaker 1: you vote with behave? Can you imagine another dimension to
Speaker 1: one of these other voters as to why they behave
Speaker 1: or vote the way they do? Can you complicate them
Speaker 1: in your mind a little bit? All right, All that's
Speaker 1: super easy. Should be done with that in just like
Speaker 1: a few seconds. And then on the external front, a
Speaker 1: few options here. Three is the magic number still. The
Speaker 1: first is I want you to choose to deepen one
Speaker 1: or two relationships with people who have voted differently from you,
Speaker 1: Just one or two. It's instead of ignoring a loved
Speaker 1: one who voted away you disapprove of, choose to engage
Speaker 1: with them. But here's the thing, not with a pile
Speaker 1: of facts, not with arguments, but instead engage with questions.
Speaker 1: Go all the way back to episode two with Eric
Speaker 1: lou And remember when he suggested the question what are
Speaker 1: you afraid of? What do you think is going to
Speaker 1: happen in the worst case scenario in your mind if
Speaker 1: your side loses this, ask that of this person who
Speaker 1: you have a relationship with, and add a few more
Speaker 1: questions what do you hope for and what do you
Speaker 1: care about? And then the trick is you got to
Speaker 1: actually listen to what they say. The second external action
Speaker 1: option is to build that invest in relationships beyond politics.
Speaker 1: We need more excuses to connect with each other beyond
Speaker 1: the explicitly political. In our second episode, again Eric asked
Speaker 1: us to start or join a club, any club, do
Speaker 1: it if you haven't already, and if you have good
Speaker 1: for you. We need to stay connected to others through
Speaker 1: common interests that we share and invest in those relationships
Speaker 1: in that arena and the third it's a bit bigger, wider,
Speaker 1: more diffuse, but it's definitely out there in the real world.
Speaker 1: I want you to stay engaged and to recommit during
Speaker 1: this transition. Our kind tree is literally in a transition.
Speaker 1: This podcast is in a transition. Voting season is over,
Speaker 1: but it's always a season too, citizens and depending on
Speaker 1: when you're listening to this voting season might not even
Speaker 1: be over because of the special runoff election in Georgia,
Speaker 1: but you get my drift. I need you to keep
Speaker 1: showing up, to keep investing in relationships, to keep exploring
Speaker 1: and understanding your power, and to keep working for the
Speaker 1: benefit of the many. This ain't over. It's never over.
Speaker 1: That's a feature, not a bug of the system as usual.
Speaker 1: If you take any of these actions, hit us up
Speaker 1: action and how to citizen dot com, put humanized in
Speaker 1: the subject line, and share about us on the socials
Speaker 1: with hashtag how to citizen. Now about this end of
Speaker 1: season talk, I've been dropping all episode. What you're talking about, Barratune,
Speaker 1: What you mean you can't stop citizening. We're taking a
Speaker 1: bit of a pause. This is a wrap on season one,
Speaker 1: but there will be a season two. There will be
Speaker 1: a season two. It's very exciting. It's very exciting to
Speaker 1: get a podcast renewal. I feel so Hollywood. So there's
Speaker 1: some things I want to say about this first season.
Speaker 1: But first I want to reflect back to you a
Speaker 1: few of the things some of you have said to us.
Speaker 1: You've hit us up on this email. I haven't shared
Speaker 1: very often. I apologize for that. Will do more in
Speaker 1: the second season, but right now I have a few
Speaker 1: messages to share that reflects a range of sentiment from y'all.
Speaker 1: Kelly wrote in I wish I was a high school
Speaker 1: history a Civics teacher who could teach us this way.
Speaker 1: My sons are in high school and it's so boring,
Speaker 1: and I love history, citizenship, Civics classes. This format got
Speaker 1: me thinking. It gave me resources to use my power
Speaker 1: more efficiently. I am so pleased to have found this podcast.
Speaker 1: I am so pleased Kelly, that you found this podcast.
Speaker 1: Thank you so much. In feedback to the show about
Speaker 1: feeding Ourselves, we got this note loving the podcast. So
Speaker 1: many wonderful guests providing diverse perspectives on a variety of
Speaker 1: topics with real actionable items to back them up. Thank you,
Speaker 1: Thank you. Someone understood the podcast. This episode struck a
Speaker 1: chord because I'm here in Humboldt County, California, where we
Speaker 1: have a program called the Little Free Pantry that is
Speaker 1: similar to the fridge program in l A. Through an
Speaker 1: organization called Cooperation Humboldt, pantries are installed much like you
Speaker 1: would see community libraries invisible highly accessible areas so that
Speaker 1: people can easily utilize them. This person goes on to
Speaker 1: write more details about the the shifts and the stocking
Speaker 1: and who's using the the pantries and it sounds just
Speaker 1: like the fridge. And if you want to know more
Speaker 1: about this, if you live in the north coast of California,
Speaker 1: check out Cooperation Humboldt dot com. And thank you for
Speaker 1: writing in about that. This is from Gene, who's written
Speaker 1: us a couple of times. We see all your messages. Jeane,
Speaker 1: thank you so much. I've listened to all the episodes
Speaker 1: of How to Citizen except the new one, which I
Speaker 1: assume has been remedied by now Gene, and I've been
Speaker 1: recommending it widely to all my various citizens circles. I
Speaker 1: will just send a link or suggestion to the markups
Speaker 1: new citizen browser project. This is at the markup dot
Speaker 1: org slash citizen dash browser. I think it could beautifully
Speaker 1: add to what you're already doing. It might make an
Speaker 1: awesome episode thing. So this is a browser which allows
Speaker 1: you to see the flow of disinformation. We didn't talk
Speaker 1: a lot about technology in this season, but this is
Speaker 1: a great tip and we'll try to find a place
Speaker 1: for it in season two, and the last piece of
Speaker 1: feedback I wanted to share really cut into some of
Speaker 1: the type of impact that I was hoping in my
Speaker 1: wildest dreams we might have. I'll just read good Morning.
Speaker 1: I stumbled across your episode with Phil Goff and Zach
Speaker 1: Norris on keeping us Safe Beyond Policing. It was excellent
Speaker 1: and very informative. I've been following Dr goss work with
Speaker 1: the Center for Policing Equity and will definitely continue to
Speaker 1: listen to you. I'm in the process of initiating a
Speaker 1: citizen survey for our community and we use some of
Speaker 1: your questions in the internal action section of your show.
Speaker 1: I'm now a subscriber and look forward to listening to
Speaker 1: future shows. Keep up the great work. You need to
Speaker 1: be syndicated. That message came from someone who works for
Speaker 1: the County Sheriff's office at a police department in Colorado.
Speaker 1: That's why we do the show. We want to raise
Speaker 1: the bar. We want to transform this word citizen from
Speaker 1: a state of being. Two actions that we do. We
Speaker 1: want to build bridges and not walls, and the way
Speaker 1: that Tonika Johnson showed us, we want to see our
Speaker 1: opponents as just that and not enemies in the way
Speaker 1: Valerie Carr said, And we want to make our communities
Speaker 1: better and safer. And so the idea that someone in
Speaker 1: law enforcement listened to, that heard what we were really
Speaker 1: putting down and took the time to write, that's just
Speaker 1: really moving. Also moving the idea that we need to
Speaker 1: be syndicated. That we got a subscriber out of it.
Speaker 1: So tell all your people about the show. If you
Speaker 1: have thoughts, like to share them with us. If there
Speaker 1: are things you want to see us take on. People
Speaker 1: you know of Citizen ng hard organizations, themes you want
Speaker 1: us to explore an upcoming season, let me know I
Speaker 1: like it. If you send a voice memo too, comments
Speaker 1: at how to citizen dot com. You can type it up,
Speaker 1: or you can record a thing and ship it off.
Speaker 1: But the word of mouth really helps podcasts grow, and
Speaker 1: with this second season, we look forward to growing more
Speaker 1: with you. Thank you for riding with us on season one.
Speaker 1: We'll be back with season two sometime in the first
Speaker 1: quarter of one. We don't have an exact date yet,
Speaker 1: and as a chance, we will drop some items in
Speaker 1: your feed between now and then, maybe some best of
Speaker 1: maybe some reflections based on your comments. No explicit promises,
Speaker 1: but I'm not not promising. I'm just saying it's it's possible.
Speaker 1: Like our democracy, I want you to remain open to possibilities.
Speaker 1: In the meantime, here are some ways to stay connected.
Speaker 1: I am me, I am baritun Day at Barton Day.
Speaker 1: On the socials. Pick one that's me, I'm there, and
Speaker 1: you can text me to vote to eight nine four
Speaker 1: eight eight four four If you put the word citizen
Speaker 1: in your text that I'll make sure you get updates
Speaker 1: about the show and things related to the podcast, including
Speaker 1: when we come back. I'm gonna text people first because
Speaker 1: it's just the easiest thing to do. We also have
Speaker 1: a social handle on Instagram. Finally for the show. We're
Speaker 1: slowly building it up, but it's how to citizen with
Speaker 1: barratun Day on Instagram. Send us your thoughts on season one.
Speaker 1: Constructive feedback and criticism is also welcome. We've seen some
Speaker 1: of that. Thank you and ideas for where you want
Speaker 1: us to go. And if you're new to the show,
Speaker 1: you came in on episode sixteen, you're like, wait, what's over.
Speaker 1: We've got fifteen more shows tweet and they're good. They're
Speaker 1: really good. We're very proud of them. So listen back
Speaker 1: to the season. We made this show not for the
Speaker 1: fall of We made it to spur and investment and
Speaker 1: to all of us showing up, building relationships, understanding our power,
Speaker 1: and working on behalf of the many. And that's timeless.
Speaker 1: So I'd love if you revenged the whole thing. But
Speaker 1: in particular, there are some episodes that I think fall
Speaker 1: into this transition period we're in as a nation that
Speaker 1: would help us and help you. The first episode with
Speaker 1: Valerie Cower on revolutionary Love. Give that a real good
Speaker 1: listen right now. She asks us to wonder about others
Speaker 1: and our opponents, and as you just heard as there
Speaker 1: say in this episode, to be curious about ourselves and
Speaker 1: those with whom we have a relationship. And that works
Speaker 1: on a national scale too. Valerie opened it if they're
Speaker 1: brought it home, as the same thing said differently real
Speaker 1: Listen to Valerie. Eric Leu our professor of Civics, the
Speaker 1: founder of Citizen University, Coach Democracy. I got so many
Speaker 1: code names for this dude. Listen to him in episode
Speaker 1: two again, the episode about making work work for everyone
Speaker 1: with Saru and Michelle, we have a lot of thoughts
Speaker 1: about the economy and the economic situation. We're still in
Speaker 1: this pandemic. Things are still so hard. No relief is
Speaker 1: yet in sight. Listen to that too, and help reimagine
Speaker 1: in your own mind what an economy could look like
Speaker 1: that actually worked for you, How your own worth might
Speaker 1: be better valued in an economy. Imagine that, and let's
Speaker 1: let's go build that. The Youth Civics episode I believe
Speaker 1: it was episode eight with Zoe and Josh who that's
Speaker 1: an injection of specific boost, specific booster shot to listen
Speaker 1: to young folks and as you're virtually gathering or safely
Speaker 1: gathering and there's more young people in your family around you,
Speaker 1: talk to him, ask them what they're working on and
Speaker 1: how you can help. It's a beautiful episode. Tonica Johnson
Speaker 1: speaking of beauty, the building of bridges and not valls
Speaker 1: with her folded Map project. If ever there were a
Speaker 1: time that we needed to fold the map in our nation,
Speaker 1: it is right now, So go back and get moved
Speaker 1: by Tunica. Desmond Meade has another great episode, episode thirteen,
Speaker 1: on voting. He's down in Florida with the Florida Rights
Speaker 1: Restoration coalition that got amendment for a past, that got
Speaker 1: voting rights for storage to people convicted of felonies, and
Speaker 1: the legislature put a big dampener on that. And I'm
Speaker 1: pretty sure that Desmond's desired result in the election in
Speaker 1: Florida was not achieved. But I'm also confident he is
Speaker 1: so excited that so many more people got to participate
Speaker 1: in the process because that's part of what he believes in.
Speaker 1: Desmond will get you fired and remind you of why
Speaker 1: we do this, which isn't just about specific electoral outcomes,
Speaker 1: it's about activation of us. Lastly, on the recommendation playlist,
Speaker 1: besides listen to everything, Dr Michael Oster Home episode fifteen,
Speaker 1: the kindness pandemic that we need to battle, the coronavirus
Speaker 1: pandemic that we're suffering through right now. It was a
Speaker 1: really big deal for me to get Dr Michael Olster
Speaker 1: home on this show. He set the wheels in motion
Speaker 1: for me to take this seriously on March eleven and
Speaker 1: to have him help us close out this season. It's
Speaker 1: really beautiful and so were his ideas. The humility with
Speaker 1: which he approached the racial inequities and injustice in this country,
Speaker 1: and weaving that into the public health challenge of a pandemic.
Speaker 1: Very elegant, and he's now serving on incoming President Joseph
Speaker 1: Biden's COVID nineteen advisory panel. He's one of thirteen people,
Speaker 1: which leads me to think that, you know, Joe Biden
Speaker 1: has been looking at our guestless who else is he
Speaker 1: gonna poach? Take them all? Everyone we've had on this
Speaker 1: show should help lead this country, and everyone who's been
Speaker 1: a part of the show, who's listened, who's contributed, should
Speaker 1: also be so tap us all, President Elect Biden, because
Speaker 1: you're the president for us all, whether we voted for
Speaker 1: you or not. What a season, what a ride. Thank
Speaker 1: you for doing this with me. I will say this
Speaker 1: for the last time in a little while. How the
Speaker 1: Citizen with Barritton Day as a production of I Heart
Speaker 1: Radio Podcasts. Executive produced by Miles Gray, Nick Stump, Elizabeth
Speaker 1: Stewart and Barritton Day Thursty, Produced by Joel Smith, edited
Speaker 1: by Justin Smith. Powered by You