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Speaker 1: Hey, you welcome to Stuff to Blow Your Mind. This

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Speaker 1: is Robert Lamb. Today we have a vault episode for you.

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Speaker 1: This is going to be Authenticity Part three, Part three

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Speaker 1: of three. This originally published on three twenty eight, twenty

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Speaker 1: twenty four.

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Speaker 2: Enjoy Welcome to Stuff to Blow Your Mind, a production

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Speaker 2: of iHeartRadio.

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Speaker 1: Hey, welcome to Stuff to Blow Your Mind. My name

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Speaker 1: is Robert Lamb.

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Speaker 3: And I am Joe McCormick, and we're back with part

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Speaker 3: three of our series looking at the concept of authenticity. Now,

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Speaker 3: we had a little break in the middle of our

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Speaker 3: series there because on Tuesday of this week we had

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Speaker 3: an interview that you recorded, Rob that was already scheduled

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Speaker 3: to come out on that date. So there's a little

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Speaker 3: bit of discontinuity here, but we are picking up where

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Speaker 3: we left off last Thursday, that's right. So in part

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Speaker 3: one of this series, we started by trying to pick

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Speaker 3: apart the different common usages of authenticity, and I explained

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Speaker 3: why I became interested in the subject. It's one of

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Speaker 3: those ideas that I think is very very good for

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Speaker 3: exploration because it's like a commonly used concept that actually

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Speaker 3: is very vague and there's a lot of equivocation and

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Speaker 3: using the idea in different ways. So we tried to

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Speaker 3: pick apart some of these different usages of authenticity what

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Speaker 3: people mean when they invoke the idea, and we looked

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Speaker 3: at a study showing that we are not as good

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Speaker 3: as we think we are at perceiving authenticity in others.

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Speaker 3: In part two of the series, we talked about authenticity

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Speaker 3: in art and entertainment, what it means to look for

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Speaker 3: authenticity and musical artists and other types of art. We

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Speaker 3: talked about the Orson Wells movie F for Fake, and

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Speaker 3: then we discussed a specialized idea of authenticity that was

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Speaker 3: proposed by the art critic Walter Benjamin and how it

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Speaker 3: relates to two changes in media technology over the centuries.

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Speaker 3: And here we are once again to examine a couple

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Speaker 3: other facets of authenticity. Now, the thing I wanted to

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Speaker 3: talk about today was the interaction between and relationship between

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Speaker 3: honesty and authenticity. We talked about this a bit in

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Speaker 3: part one of this series because we were alluding to

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Speaker 3: the way that there is an apparent relationship between authenticity

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Speaker 3: and honesty. You know, there is some overlap between the

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Speaker 3: two ideas, but they are not usually understood to be

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Speaker 3: the same thing, And an easy illustration of that is

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Speaker 3: characters both real and fictional, who are known to tell

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Speaker 3: lies but are often thought of as authentic. And yet,

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Speaker 3: despite this clear illustration that the two concepts are not

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Speaker 3: exactly the same thing, we sometimes behave as if they're

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Speaker 3: the same thing. We like forget that we use these

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Speaker 3: ideas differently because we feel like if somebody is authentic, well,

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Speaker 3: that means we can trust them. So I ended up

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Speaker 3: looking at a paper for a trying to find a

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Speaker 3: careful analysis of the similarities and differences between honesty and authenticity,

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Speaker 3: how these ideas are culturally understood, and in how they

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Speaker 3: manifest in behavior. So this paper is by Erica R.

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Speaker 3: Bailey and Sena S. A Ingar, published in Current Opinion

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Speaker 3: in Psychology called Yours Truly on the Complex Relationship between

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Speaker 3: Authenticity and Honesty published in the year twenty twenty two,

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Speaker 3: and Erica Bailey was also one of the authors of

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Speaker 3: the study we looked at in part one, the one

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Speaker 3: about how we're not as good as we think we

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Speaker 3: are at determining whether other people are being authentic. Now

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Speaker 3: as a starting point, this paper gives essentially the same

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Speaker 3: understanding of authenticity that we talked about in part one.

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Speaker 3: This will be complicated when we start introducing survey responses

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Speaker 3: and how people actually use the idea of authenticity and

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Speaker 3: how it relates to honesty and so forth. But we

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Speaker 3: start off with the idea that quote, a person is

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Speaker 3: authentic when they genuinely express their true inner qualities and feelings.

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Speaker 3: In other words, the inside matches the outside. Our outward

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Speaker 3: behavior is consistent with our private inner feelings, thoughts, and character.

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Speaker 3: So by contrast, a person would usually be considered inauthentic

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Speaker 3: if they say things they don't really feel or think,

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Speaker 3: or if they act in ways that are inconsistent with

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Speaker 3: who they are inside, or if they don't express their

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Speaker 3: inner self in the outside world. And the authors begin

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Speaker 3: the paper by mentioning an episode in the life of

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Speaker 3: the eighteenth century Swiss philosopher Jean Jacques Rousseau, where they write, quote,

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Speaker 3: in order to be more authentic, he committed to expressing

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Speaker 3: himself honestly in every single moment of his day, certain

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Speaker 3: that this brutal truth telling, devoid of any cowing to

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Speaker 3: the social context, would allow him to manifest his authentic self.

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Speaker 3: And I gotta say that sounds absolute insufferable.

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Speaker 1: Yeah, who wants to hang out with this guy?

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Speaker 3: I mean, and I'm a big fan of being honest.

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Speaker 3: I think honesty is a good virtue that people should have.

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Speaker 3: You know, you should not tell lies to people. You

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Speaker 3: should try to be honest with people generally. But this

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Speaker 3: is actually describing something different than honesty. Saying every thought

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Speaker 3: that pops into your head, telling friends and family everything

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Speaker 3: they do that bothers. You be being honest, you know,

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Speaker 3: quote honest in the most brutal way is always seems

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Speaker 3: like a kind of nasty way to live. It's going

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Speaker 3: to cause other people grief and just alienate you from

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Speaker 3: everyone and everything you care about.

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Speaker 1: Yeah, I mean this you're talking about a life without decorum,

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Speaker 1: without patience, without you know, the limited capacity to be

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Speaker 1: supportive of others, because sometimes and being supportive of people,

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Speaker 1: you know, friends and family with their maybe sometimes half

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Speaker 1: formed ideas in some cases, like you don't want to

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Speaker 1: be brutally honest. You want to be supportive. You want

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Speaker 1: to you want to maybe push them in the right direction,

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Speaker 1: but being you know, completely brutally honest is maybe not

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Speaker 1: the right approach.

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Speaker 3: I think that's right. I mean, I think there is

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Speaker 3: a lot of middle ground between lying to people and

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Speaker 3: or enabling delusions versus being brutally honest to people in

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Speaker 3: a way that you know is liable to hurt them,

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Speaker 3: and just like avoiding tact altogether.

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Speaker 1: Yeah, imagine just deciding all right, from here on now,

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Speaker 1: I'm just going to be brutally truthful about everything. But then,

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Speaker 1: like then we get into that other question like what

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Speaker 1: is truth right?

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Speaker 3: Right? You may in fact be mistaken about some of

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Speaker 3: the things that you think you think are brutally true

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Speaker 3: when you say them, in which case it would turn

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Speaker 3: out that it was really unproductive. Yeah, So this like

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Speaker 3: raises the question of whether it would even really be possible,

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Speaker 3: Like is this kind of radical authentic truth telling even

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Speaker 3: self consistent because there are momentary thoughts we have but

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Speaker 3: don't express, and are those actually truer reflections of our

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Speaker 3: inner selves then what we would say if we thought

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Speaker 3: about it some more before we talked m Yeah so?

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Speaker 3: Or also is it are those more are like expressions

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Speaker 3: of momentary opinions or thoughts truer reflections of our inner

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Speaker 3: selves even than the choice not to speak in a

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Speaker 3: certain situation, wouldn't that choice also flow from the self yeah.

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Speaker 1: Yeah, it reminds me of something I've mentioned before on

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Speaker 1: the show, the medieval doodle of a christ like bird

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Speaker 1: or a bird like Christ, if you rather, in the

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Speaker 1: in the margins of various manuscripts, and the idea it seems,

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Speaker 1: based on what I've read, is that thoughts rise from

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Speaker 1: the heart, they travel up through a very long neck

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Speaker 1: before they reach the lips, and therefore, like it's about

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Speaker 1: deciding whether you actually want those feelings to come out.

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Speaker 1: That is why the neck of the christ like individual,

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Speaker 1: the christ like bird here is very long, because there's

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Speaker 1: plenty of time to reflect on set thoughts and perhaps

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Speaker 1: decide not to say them yeah.

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Speaker 3: Or even decide whether you genuinely feel them exactly. Yeah.

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Speaker 3: I think we've probably all had the experience of feeling

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Speaker 3: like we wanted to express something, only to think about

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Speaker 3: it for a minute and think, that's not really what

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Speaker 3: I feel.

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Speaker 1: Yeah, write out that angry email, but don't send it today,

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Speaker 1: set it aside for tomorrow, and then a lot of

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Speaker 1: the times you'll realize, you know, that's not exactly what

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Speaker 1: I meant to say.

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Speaker 3: So anyway, to come back to this relationship between authenticity

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Speaker 3: and honesty, from this example, of Rousseau. You know, we

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Speaker 3: see someone at least partially equating authenticity and honesty, assuming

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Speaker 3: that to be authentic is the most honest way to live,

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Speaker 3: and that authenticity entails NonStop, moment to moment displays of quote,

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Speaker 3: fearless honesty, or brutal truth telling. And the authors also

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Speaker 3: quote another another writer in this paper named Valor, who

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Speaker 3: makes a similar equivalence, saying that honesty is defined as

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Speaker 3: quote a willingness to put one's authentic self in play.

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Speaker 3: But the authors actually propose a counter hypothesis in this paper.

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Speaker 3: They write that quote honesty is one of many tools

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Speaker 3: in the pursuit of authenticity, and that people will disregard

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Speaker 3: or discount honesty as authentic under specific conditions. And I

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Speaker 3: want to be clear that they're not making a normative

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Speaker 3: argument like about how people should use the concepts of

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Speaker 3: honesty or authenticity. They're just trying to be descriptive and

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Speaker 3: discover how people actually do already use these concepts in

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Speaker 3: their day to day lives and in their self image.

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Speaker 3: So the authors investigate this idea of the relationship between

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Speaker 3: authenticity and honesty in several ways, and one thing they

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Speaker 3: do is a simple, small survey with an open ended question.

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Speaker 3: They asked participants if they could describe a time in

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Speaker 3: their life when they quote lied or did not tell

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Speaker 3: the truth in a way that was authentic or true

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Speaker 3: to themselves at the time. And the results of this

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Speaker 3: were that quote authentic dishonesty really did not generally seem

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Speaker 3: to people like an impossible situation or an incoherent concept.

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Speaker 3: People generated autobiographical examples of when they were dishonest in

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Speaker 3: a way they thought was authentic to themselves. Furthermore, and

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Speaker 3: here's the interesting part, the authors say that the examples

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Speaker 3: people gave of their own authentic dishonesty fell into basically

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Speaker 3: four categories, and I'll list these and describe them as

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Speaker 3: I go. So the first example is when the subject

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Speaker 3: was dishonest with other people in a way that they

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Speaker 3: were also not honest with themselves. So this category might

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Speaker 3: not be immediately intuitive, but I think it makes sense

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Speaker 3: if you see examples. So the stories people tell seem

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Speaker 3: to be about lying to others about some objective situation,

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Speaker 3: for example, about a worrying health prognosis or bad outcomes

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Speaker 3: at work or school, or mental health struggles or something

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Speaker 3: like that. At the same time, that they themselves were

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Speaker 3: in some way deluded or quote lying to themselves about

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Speaker 3: the situation. So, for example, you know, I'm telling my

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Speaker 3: parents that I'm doing fine at college, but in reality,

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Speaker 3: I am failing my classes and I'm going through a

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Speaker 3: mental health crisis. And the person who says this might say,

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Speaker 3: even though I was lying to my parents about well

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Speaker 3: how I was doing, I was being authentic because I

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Speaker 3: was also lying to myself. Essentially, I managed to truly

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Speaker 3: convince myself of the false things I was telling them.

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Speaker 1: Yeah, to borrow the catchphrase from stand up comedian Dusty Sligh,

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Speaker 1: we're having a good time Like that can essentially be dishonest,

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Speaker 1: but you can believe in it, and other people can

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Speaker 1: believe in it even if it's not true in the moment.

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Speaker 3: Yeah. And actually, that raises an interesting facet of this,

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Speaker 3: because it raises the question of what exactly it means

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Speaker 3: to quote lie to yourself. This is a common enough

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Speaker 3: concept that we've all heard of it, and probably you

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Speaker 3: have used it ourselves to describe something we've done, and

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Speaker 3: it seems to not be the same thing as simply

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Speaker 3: being convinced of a delusion. There's some overlap, but being

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Speaker 3: delusional can be entirely involuntary, you know, like you don't

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Speaker 3: you're not you don't feel like you are in any

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Speaker 3: way the cause of being deluded about something. But when

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Speaker 3: people say I was lying to myself, I think they

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Speaker 3: usually mean there is some element, even if just a

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Speaker 3: small element of willfulness in believing in the delusion, Like

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Speaker 3: some part of them knows better, but they are they

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Speaker 3: are purposely disregarding or ignoring that knowledge.

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Speaker 1: Yeah, Like I mean, one easy example of this is,

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Speaker 1: like you that thinking back to like the old days

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Speaker 1: of of buying CDs, especially as a young person with

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Speaker 1: money's a lot tighter, Like you spend your money, you

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Speaker 1: cannot you can buy no other album this week, maybe

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Speaker 1: this month, And afterwards you're you're maybe a little less

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Speaker 1: one over by the album than you'd hoped, but you're

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Speaker 1: kind of like fooling yourself and like, no, this is good.

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Speaker 1: I'm getting this, I'm jamming to this. This was worth

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Speaker 1: my money, this is worth my time.

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Speaker 3: It's even got the bonus tracks.

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Speaker 1: Yeah, it's got the bonus tracks. It's like I thought

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Speaker 1: it was ten tracks, No, it's twelve tracks. I'd be

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Speaker 1: losing money if I didn't buy it.

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Speaker 3: Yeah. So However, despite this element of wilfulness, it seems

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Speaker 3: to at least in some cases, not rule out seeing

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Speaker 3: yourself as authentic when you represent that same misunderstanding of

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Speaker 3: reality to other people. So, like you take that CD

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Speaker 3: that you're talking yourself into thinking is so great, and

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Speaker 3: you show it to your friend and say it's so great.

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Speaker 3: You might not think you were being inauthentic there, because

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Speaker 3: you really worked yourself up to convince yourself it was great.

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Speaker 1: Yeah, I was authentically delusional about the quality of this record,

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Speaker 1: And honestly, if you know me, you should have seen

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Speaker 1: that in me. You should have seen that in my

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Speaker 1: eyes and known to approach this recommendation with caution.

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Speaker 3: Okay. Other examples of quote authentic dishonesty that people gave.

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Speaker 3: There were some examples that were when being honest would

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Speaker 3: have threatened the subjects basic needs survival or employment. This

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Speaker 3: is the self protection category. A lot of these seem

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Speaker 3: to seem to have to do with employment, which I

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Speaker 3: think is kind of revealing, but things like lying at

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Speaker 3: work to avoid revealing a mistake that could have cost

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Speaker 3: the subject their job. Another one that somebody gives is

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Speaker 3: lying about former job experience in order to get a

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Speaker 3: new position, and the subject in this example specifically says

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Speaker 3: they feel it was a good thing to do because

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Speaker 3: they ended up doing exceedingly well at the new job

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Speaker 3: that they lied in order to get fake it.

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Speaker 1: Do you make it right? I mean, that's basically what

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Speaker 1: we're alluding to.

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Speaker 3: That's what they're claiming. I mean, we can't evaluate if

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Speaker 3: it's true that they did exceedingly well, but you know,

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Speaker 3: for the sake of argument, we'll take it. Another one was,

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Speaker 3: and you understand this, somebody lying about psychiatric symptoms in

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Speaker 3: order to get admitted to a psych ward to avoid

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Speaker 3: being homeless. The subject says that this was authentic because

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Speaker 3: they were trying to escape living on the streets during winter,

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Speaker 3: which was extremely hard. So that is a lie. It's

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Speaker 3: hard to blame somebody for that. But in this case,

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Speaker 3: the subject not only saw that as justified, but they

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Speaker 3: said for that reason it was authentic that they did that.

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Speaker 1: Yeah, I mean, they're talking about survival here right.

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Speaker 3: At the same time, it does raise questions about what

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Speaker 3: authenticity means in this case. But we can come back

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Speaker 3: to that third question. When honesty would harm an important

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Speaker 3: relationship protecting a relationship, This is probably people can think

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Speaker 3: of examples like this, A close friend says, does my

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Speaker 3: new haircut look good? And maybe you find nice things

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Speaker 3: to say about it, even if you don't actually love it.

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Speaker 3: People thought this was still authentic behavior. And then there

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Speaker 3: are much more serious examples, such as like within family

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Speaker 3: and marital relationships, like protecting loved ones from negative judgments

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Speaker 3: that you or others would have made about them.

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Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, I think both these are very understandable. I mean,

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Speaker 1: the haircut is probably the best example because there is

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Speaker 1: a line. There is a line at which your close

285
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Speaker 1: friend's haircut has become so bad that you do have

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Speaker 1: to say something. You have to say, actually, this doesn't

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Speaker 1: look good. Come with me, we're going to go get

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Speaker 1: this fixed right now. You have a job interview tomorrow

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Speaker 1: or something. You know, I'm a good enough friend to

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Speaker 1: let you know that we have to go fix this.

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Speaker 1: But there's a lot of room on that spectrum for

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Speaker 1: just saying yeah, it looks great, and that's what you're

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Speaker 1: expected to do as a friend.

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Speaker 3: Or in fact, in the haircut example, in this paper,

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Speaker 3: they're like the person describes things they found to say

296
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Speaker 3: about the haircut that were true even though overall, they

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Speaker 3: did not actually think it was good.

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Speaker 1: Yeah, because I mean bad, bad haircuts happen, and you'll

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Speaker 1: grow out of them. You know, it's going to be

300
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Speaker 1: pretty bad to take it to that next level, say

301
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Speaker 1: we've got to go fix this. Yeah.

302
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Speaker 3: Yeah. I think the example was like, yeah, this will

303
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Speaker 3: really stand out, you know, putting a positive sounding tone

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Speaker 3: on them.

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Speaker 1: That'll grow in nicely.

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Speaker 3: Yeah. And then fourth final category, this one you can

307
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Speaker 3: very much understand. Again, it's hard to blame people for

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Speaker 3: this when honesty would threaten the survival or well being

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Speaker 3: of someone else, dishonesty in the protection of other people.

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Speaker 3: So examples would include like lying to protect people from

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Speaker 3: physical danger, maybe like a counselor lying to potentially abusive

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Speaker 3: family members that you don't know about somebody's whereabouts, or

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Speaker 3: maybe to protect someone from information that would be devastating

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Speaker 3: to them.

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Speaker 1: Yeah.

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Speaker 3: So it's interesting that some of these versions of authenticity

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Speaker 3: do sort of go along with the inside matches the

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Speaker 3: outside definition, but some do not. Some of these are

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Speaker 3: simply cases of people lying or misrepresenting themselves in a

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Speaker 3: situation where they believe in some way it was justified.

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Speaker 3: So in those cases, authenticity would seem to mean something

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Speaker 3: different than than the way we've been using it. It

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Speaker 3: would seem to mean morally justified, regardless of whether you

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Speaker 3: were expressing your true feelings on the outside or not.

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Speaker 3: And these examples just seem to reinforce to me how

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Speaker 3: fluid our concept of authenticity is. Once again, despite how

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Speaker 3: important it is in these day to day judgments we

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Speaker 3: make about people and about ourselves, it seems to have

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Speaker 3: ill defined boundaries, and the authors review some other findings

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Speaker 3: that further illuminate and complicate the relationship between honesty and authenticity.

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Speaker 3: For example, and this came up in Part one, in

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Speaker 3: order to evaluate whether your external behavior is consistent with

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Speaker 3: your true self, you have to both know what your

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Speaker 3: true self is and be able to objectively observe and

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Speaker 3: analyze your external behavior, and both of those tasks are

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Speaker 3: non trivial. The authors point out that that both of

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00:19:00,800 --> 00:19:03,160
Speaker 3: them are problematic even given what we know from other

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Speaker 3: psychology studies, because studies show systematic biases in how we

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Speaker 3: perceive ourselves. People tend to see themselves as morally better

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Speaker 3: than the average person, and experiments show that people have

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Speaker 3: selective memories of events end of information that help bolster

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Speaker 3: a positive self image. So this can make research about

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Speaker 3: honesty and authenticity rather difficult because both honesty and authenticity

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Speaker 3: people take to have moral implications, so people are motivated

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Speaker 3: to exaggerate the extent to which they are both in

346
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Speaker 3: self reports. Though the authors do point to one pretty

347
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Speaker 3: interesting study from twenty twenty that used a bit of

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Speaker 3: trickery to look into whether self reported and even test

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Speaker 3: evaluated authenticity might be biased or strategic self presentation. So

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Speaker 3: this other paper I went and looked at was by

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Speaker 3: William hart at All, published in Personality and Individual Differences

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Speaker 3: in twenty twenty, called to be or to appear to

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Speaker 3: be evidence that authentic people seek to appear authentic rather

354
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Speaker 3: than be authentic. So the authors in their abstract right

355
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Speaker 3: quote participants numbering two hundred and forty completed a bogus

356
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Speaker 3: color gazing task under the presumption that authentic people see

357
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Speaker 3: colors become more or less intense while gazing at them.

358
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Speaker 3: And these are the two conditions, the more intense condition

359
00:20:32,119 --> 00:20:34,840
Speaker 3: and the less intense condition. And they say that quote

360
00:20:35,040 --> 00:20:39,080
Speaker 3: participants reported perceiving color as more intense in the more

361
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Speaker 3: intense condition. But this biased responding consistent with appearing authentic

362
00:20:44,200 --> 00:20:49,400
Speaker 3: was enhanced by trait authenticity indicators. So to paraphrase there,

363
00:20:50,119 --> 00:20:54,359
Speaker 3: participants were told that, you know, other studies have found

364
00:20:54,359 --> 00:20:57,520
Speaker 3: that more authentic people will see the color of this

365
00:20:57,680 --> 00:21:01,919
Speaker 3: block either intensify or d intensify, and in reality the

366
00:21:01,960 --> 00:21:05,919
Speaker 3: colors did not change at all. And then the experiment

367
00:21:06,000 --> 00:21:10,040
Speaker 3: found that on average, people who rated themselves as more

368
00:21:10,160 --> 00:21:13,679
Speaker 3: authentic on a self assessment test were more likely to

369
00:21:13,720 --> 00:21:16,800
Speaker 3: claim they saw the color change in line with whatever

370
00:21:16,840 --> 00:21:19,679
Speaker 3: they thought an authentic person was supposed to see. So,

371
00:21:19,800 --> 00:21:21,960
Speaker 3: in other words, there was some amount of interest in

372
00:21:22,119 --> 00:21:26,800
Speaker 3: either lying or in perceiving reality differently in order to

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00:21:26,920 --> 00:21:31,560
Speaker 3: protect the idea of an authentic self. So this is

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Speaker 3: a piece of evidence that maybe not all the time,

375
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Speaker 3: but probably some of the time, maybe a lot of

376
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Speaker 3: the time, authenticity itself is a strategic performance e g.

377
00:21:42,440 --> 00:21:48,240
Speaker 3: Inauthentic behavior in service of appearing to be authentic. So

378
00:21:48,280 --> 00:21:51,800
Speaker 3: it's interesting to pair this with that study that finding

379
00:21:51,960 --> 00:21:54,439
Speaker 3: from part one about how people are not good at

380
00:21:54,520 --> 00:21:57,280
Speaker 3: judging who is authentic and who is not, at least

381
00:21:57,280 --> 00:22:00,920
Speaker 3: when compared with self assessments, which of course are themselves

382
00:22:00,960 --> 00:22:04,919
Speaker 3: possibly misleading. So I want to pause briefly here before

383
00:22:04,920 --> 00:22:07,679
Speaker 3: you lose all hope, Because remember that studies like this

384
00:22:07,840 --> 00:22:12,199
Speaker 3: are observing trends and tendencies on average and behavior, not

385
00:22:12,280 --> 00:22:15,399
Speaker 3: like totalizing realities about all people all the time. So

386
00:22:15,920 --> 00:22:18,679
Speaker 3: I would not walk away from these kinds of findings thinking,

387
00:22:19,119 --> 00:22:21,560
Speaker 3: oh my god, life is a lie, nobody is ever

388
00:22:21,600 --> 00:22:25,159
Speaker 3: being genuine. I don't think that's the takeaway personally. I

389
00:22:25,200 --> 00:22:27,960
Speaker 3: would think about it more like these types of studies

390
00:22:28,000 --> 00:22:33,000
Speaker 3: offer limited individual pieces of evidence that often the social

391
00:22:33,040 --> 00:22:37,440
Speaker 3: impressions of authenticity that we form are misleading, that social

392
00:22:37,480 --> 00:22:41,600
Speaker 3: impressions of authenticity are often not what they seem, and

393
00:22:41,640 --> 00:22:44,119
Speaker 3: we should be careful about placing too much weight on

394
00:22:44,280 --> 00:22:48,400
Speaker 3: the authenticity assessments of people that we form, especially after

395
00:22:48,440 --> 00:22:51,600
Speaker 3: superficial interactions. So in other words, you know, I'd say

396
00:22:51,640 --> 00:22:55,080
Speaker 3: it's probably not a good strategy to decide whether you

397
00:22:55,160 --> 00:22:58,399
Speaker 3: trust someone with something important on the basis of whether

398
00:22:58,480 --> 00:23:01,080
Speaker 3: they give off an authentic vibe or not. It might

399
00:23:01,080 --> 00:23:04,199
Speaker 3: be better to look at like an objective track record

400
00:23:04,240 --> 00:23:06,560
Speaker 3: of their behavior in the past or something like that.

401
00:23:07,040 --> 00:23:10,000
Speaker 1: Yeah. But though, of course, the conundrum is we do

402
00:23:10,040 --> 00:23:12,520
Speaker 1: this all the time, right, Yeah, And a great deal

403
00:23:12,560 --> 00:23:17,600
Speaker 1: goes into making sure that individuals put forward that vibe

404
00:23:17,640 --> 00:23:22,480
Speaker 1: that we trust, be that individual salesperson, a company spokesman,

405
00:23:23,400 --> 00:23:29,640
Speaker 1: a politician, a newscaster, I mean, you name it. We're

406
00:23:29,680 --> 00:23:33,840
Speaker 1: supposed to to instantly feel like, yeah, I trust this person.

407
00:23:33,920 --> 00:23:35,560
Speaker 1: This person seems to know what they're talking about. They

408
00:23:35,560 --> 00:23:38,040
Speaker 1: seem authentic. I don't need to look at a track record.

409
00:23:38,720 --> 00:23:40,040
Speaker 1: I don't need to see any papers.

410
00:23:40,400 --> 00:23:42,600
Speaker 3: Yeah. And again, you know, it's not that nobody is

411
00:23:42,640 --> 00:23:46,280
Speaker 3: trustworthy or nobody is authentic. I think it's just more that,

412
00:23:46,440 --> 00:23:50,240
Speaker 3: like you know, more caution and careful analysis is required,

413
00:23:50,280 --> 00:23:53,600
Speaker 3: maybe sometimes we are a bit naive in trusting how

414
00:23:53,600 --> 00:23:56,240
Speaker 3: good we are at judging the authenticity of others.

415
00:23:56,520 --> 00:23:58,680
Speaker 1: Yeah, I mean sometimes it comes down to the fact that, yes,

416
00:23:58,800 --> 00:24:02,760
Speaker 1: more homework would be required to make a really accurate judgment,

417
00:24:03,040 --> 00:24:05,800
Speaker 1: but we also often don't have time to make do

418
00:24:05,880 --> 00:24:10,719
Speaker 1: that homework, you know. Like I'm thinking particularly about local elections,

419
00:24:12,200 --> 00:24:15,280
Speaker 1: looking back now on a local election, maybe like a

420
00:24:15,280 --> 00:24:17,520
Speaker 1: couple of cycles ago, there are a lot of local

421
00:24:17,560 --> 00:24:21,040
Speaker 1: candidates going for this one position, and we were getting

422
00:24:21,040 --> 00:24:23,560
Speaker 1: a lot of information about these candidates. Nice, you know,

423
00:24:23,640 --> 00:24:26,520
Speaker 1: big sheets put in your mailbox, and sometimes they drop

424
00:24:26,560 --> 00:24:30,720
Speaker 1: by the house, and I had one interaction with one

425
00:24:30,720 --> 00:24:32,199
Speaker 1: of the candidates who dropped by the house, and then

426
00:24:32,240 --> 00:24:35,360
Speaker 1: afterwards I was like, oh, yeah, she's the one. Yeah.

427
00:24:35,520 --> 00:24:37,560
Speaker 1: It was just it was totally a vibe thing. It

428
00:24:37,600 --> 00:24:40,880
Speaker 1: was just like, she seems nice, and I've seen that

429
00:24:41,080 --> 00:24:43,960
Speaker 1: literature is coming through the mail about this candidate. They're

430
00:24:44,000 --> 00:24:46,639
Speaker 1: definitely on the ballot. I got a good vibe off

431
00:24:46,680 --> 00:24:48,119
Speaker 1: of them. They're the one. But I did not do

432
00:24:48,200 --> 00:24:50,480
Speaker 1: the homework. I think later on I did do a

433
00:24:50,480 --> 00:24:52,520
Speaker 1: little bit more homework and I realized, Okay, I need

434
00:24:52,520 --> 00:24:54,520
Speaker 1: to be more informed about this. But at least for

435
00:24:54,520 --> 00:24:56,159
Speaker 1: a while there, I was like, oh, yeah, yeah, that's

436
00:24:56,400 --> 00:24:57,359
Speaker 1: the candidate I'm voting for.

437
00:24:57,680 --> 00:25:00,560
Speaker 3: I know exactly what you're talking about. Yeah, it's in

438
00:25:00,600 --> 00:25:03,040
Speaker 3: that specific example, but in many things in life, you

439
00:25:03,080 --> 00:25:05,439
Speaker 3: just feel like it's it is. It would be a

440
00:25:05,520 --> 00:25:08,560
Speaker 3: prohibitive investment of time to try to get as much

441
00:25:08,560 --> 00:25:11,640
Speaker 3: information as you feel like you would actually need. So

442
00:25:11,760 --> 00:25:13,480
Speaker 3: it's just like how are you supposed to live?

443
00:25:14,000 --> 00:25:16,600
Speaker 1: Yeah, but I guess the challenge is just sort of

444
00:25:16,640 --> 00:25:20,240
Speaker 1: to have some level of self awareness when we're doing that,

445
00:25:22,000 --> 00:25:25,360
Speaker 1: so that we can we can avoid making the wrong

446
00:25:25,440 --> 00:25:26,160
Speaker 1: choices in life.

447
00:25:26,440 --> 00:25:29,200
Speaker 3: Yeah, yeah, or at least I don't know, be conscious

448
00:25:29,240 --> 00:25:31,680
Speaker 3: of ways that we are vulnerable to being swayed.

449
00:25:32,040 --> 00:25:34,199
Speaker 1: Yeah, because of course you also don't have to. You

450
00:25:34,240 --> 00:25:35,879
Speaker 1: just don't have time to be like, prove it faker

451
00:25:36,359 --> 00:25:37,920
Speaker 1: everybody that comes at you, you know.

452
00:25:38,640 --> 00:25:41,760
Speaker 3: But even then, I mean, like another question is is

453
00:25:42,280 --> 00:25:46,040
Speaker 3: imagine somebody is actually being quote authentic, they are truly

454
00:25:46,119 --> 00:25:49,240
Speaker 3: representing their inner thoughts and feelings versus somebody else who

455
00:25:49,280 --> 00:25:53,080
Speaker 3: is not. Is that necessarily actually a better a better leader,

456
00:25:53,160 --> 00:26:07,000
Speaker 3: or a better officeholder? Not necessarily Yeah. This paper looked

457
00:26:07,000 --> 00:26:10,160
Speaker 3: at several other studies in various domains about the relationship

458
00:26:10,200 --> 00:26:14,440
Speaker 3: between honesty and authenticity. One was cultural variation in how

459
00:26:14,520 --> 00:26:19,560
Speaker 3: seemingly honest expressions of internal states relate to perceptions of authenticity.

460
00:26:20,480 --> 00:26:23,760
Speaker 3: They look at a study from twenty fourteen that compared

461
00:26:23,840 --> 00:26:27,760
Speaker 3: perceptions of authenticity among both German and Chinese participants, and

462
00:26:27,880 --> 00:26:32,000
Speaker 3: this experiment found that you take a fictional character and

463
00:26:32,119 --> 00:26:36,600
Speaker 3: you have them list either their likes and their dislikes

464
00:26:36,880 --> 00:26:41,840
Speaker 3: or just their likes. And this experiment found that the

465
00:26:41,960 --> 00:26:45,200
Speaker 3: character was judged to be more authentic by German participants

466
00:26:45,200 --> 00:26:48,639
Speaker 3: if they listed both their likes and dislikes, but judged

467
00:26:48,680 --> 00:26:51,720
Speaker 3: as more authentic by the Chinese participants if they listed

468
00:26:51,840 --> 00:26:56,520
Speaker 3: just their likes and not their dislikes. Now, in both cases,

469
00:26:56,520 --> 00:27:00,480
Speaker 3: the likes and dislikes were presented as honest expressions, but

470
00:27:00,680 --> 00:27:04,840
Speaker 3: there were apparently some likely cultural differences in what types

471
00:27:04,880 --> 00:27:09,520
Speaker 3: of honest expression were thought of as displaying authentic behavior.

472
00:27:10,240 --> 00:27:11,120
Speaker 1: That's interesting.

473
00:27:11,440 --> 00:27:15,040
Speaker 3: There were also some studies in the political context, and

474
00:27:15,440 --> 00:27:17,560
Speaker 3: some of these findings can be a little bit unsettling.

475
00:27:17,880 --> 00:27:20,720
Speaker 3: The authors mentioned a twenty eighteen study by Hall at

476
00:27:20,720 --> 00:27:23,960
Speaker 3: All which found that in the case of a hypothetical

477
00:27:24,440 --> 00:27:29,720
Speaker 3: political demagogue who told flagrant and provable lies, people could

478
00:27:29,800 --> 00:27:34,080
Speaker 3: still believe the lying demagogue to be authentic, and that

479
00:27:34,359 --> 00:27:38,360
Speaker 3: mere partisan affiliation was not sufficient to achieve this view

480
00:27:38,400 --> 00:27:41,959
Speaker 3: of the flagrantly lying demagogue is authentic. The other condition

481
00:27:42,040 --> 00:27:45,840
Speaker 3: that was necessary was that the participant viewed the political

482
00:27:45,880 --> 00:27:51,040
Speaker 3: system as illegitimate, so kind of interesting finding like lies,

483
00:27:51,359 --> 00:27:55,120
Speaker 3: flagrant lies can be perceived as authentic if you think

484
00:27:55,200 --> 00:27:58,040
Speaker 3: the norms of the system under which you live is

485
00:27:58,160 --> 00:28:01,840
Speaker 3: not legitimate. In a way kind of the flagrant lying,

486
00:28:02,640 --> 00:28:05,520
Speaker 3: the violation of those norms comes to be perceived as

487
00:28:05,560 --> 00:28:10,200
Speaker 3: some sort of righteous rebuke. In a similar domain, experiments

488
00:28:10,240 --> 00:28:13,280
Speaker 3: have found a tendency for people to view expressions of

489
00:28:13,359 --> 00:28:17,880
Speaker 3: prejudice and politically offensive language as authentic as long as

490
00:28:17,960 --> 00:28:20,920
Speaker 3: they held the same prejudiced views as the person making

491
00:28:20,960 --> 00:28:21,600
Speaker 3: the expression.

492
00:28:22,080 --> 00:28:24,600
Speaker 1: That's a weird one to unwrap, because I feel like

493
00:28:25,960 --> 00:28:33,119
Speaker 1: you can judge someone's offensive language and expressions of prejudice

494
00:28:33,160 --> 00:28:36,920
Speaker 1: as being authentic even if you don't share them. Yeah,

495
00:28:37,160 --> 00:28:41,280
Speaker 1: but this is saying that there's a tendency for people

496
00:28:41,360 --> 00:28:44,480
Speaker 1: to view expressions of prejudice and politically offensive language as

497
00:28:44,520 --> 00:28:48,680
Speaker 1: authentic as long as they hold those same views, right, Okay.

498
00:28:48,880 --> 00:28:52,280
Speaker 3: Right, or maybe just to judge the trait authenticity in

499
00:28:52,360 --> 00:28:58,280
Speaker 3: the person making the expression, rather than evaluating the expressions themselves.

500
00:28:58,640 --> 00:29:01,400
Speaker 1: Okay, so this is kind of a someone's finally saying.

501
00:29:01,440 --> 00:29:05,280
Speaker 1: It's sort of a oh thinking with the language, gotcha exactly.

502
00:29:05,360 --> 00:29:09,280
Speaker 3: Yeah. So, given that whole blizzard of different findings in

503
00:29:09,320 --> 00:29:14,080
Speaker 3: the seemingly paradoxical relationship between honesty and authenticity, the authors

504
00:29:14,600 --> 00:29:18,640
Speaker 3: propose a model of how these two concepts actually interact,

505
00:29:18,920 --> 00:29:23,760
Speaker 3: and they call it a coherence model. So, to use

506
00:29:23,800 --> 00:29:27,880
Speaker 3: their own words here, quote, A coherence perspective stresses the

507
00:29:27,920 --> 00:29:32,800
Speaker 3: importance of how much new information makes sense in light

508
00:29:32,840 --> 00:29:35,920
Speaker 3: of what is already known or believed to be true.

509
00:29:36,480 --> 00:29:38,960
Speaker 3: And then later, a little later, they say, quote, we

510
00:29:39,080 --> 00:29:42,880
Speaker 3: propose that the more coherent the mental image of a

511
00:29:42,960 --> 00:29:48,040
Speaker 3: target person is, the more authentic they will seem. Similarly,

512
00:29:48,200 --> 00:29:52,479
Speaker 3: the more coherent a mental version of oneself is, the

513
00:29:52,520 --> 00:29:56,520
Speaker 3: more authentic they will report being. So does that make sense?

514
00:29:56,560 --> 00:30:01,840
Speaker 3: It's about like the idea of having a consistent mental

515
00:30:01,920 --> 00:30:05,640
Speaker 3: picture of the person, whether that's yourself or of another person,

516
00:30:06,160 --> 00:30:08,719
Speaker 3: that you feel like you fully understand and all the

517
00:30:08,760 --> 00:30:14,240
Speaker 3: information you have checks out with that image. So, under

518
00:30:14,280 --> 00:30:17,280
Speaker 3: this model, in both the self perception and in perception

519
00:30:17,360 --> 00:30:21,760
Speaker 3: by others, if behaving honestly in a given situation will

520
00:30:21,760 --> 00:30:25,120
Speaker 3: help increase the coherence of that self image, of that

521
00:30:25,200 --> 00:30:29,120
Speaker 3: image of the person, honesty will be perceived as authentic.

522
00:30:29,440 --> 00:30:33,000
Speaker 3: And if honest behavior would be inconsistent with that self

523
00:30:33,000 --> 00:30:37,000
Speaker 3: image or helps that image of the person make less sense,

524
00:30:37,640 --> 00:30:41,640
Speaker 3: then it will be perceived as authentic to behave dishonestly.

525
00:30:42,360 --> 00:30:45,920
Speaker 3: So the question is what makes sense given the image

526
00:30:46,000 --> 00:30:48,920
Speaker 3: you have of the person in question? And I think

527
00:30:48,920 --> 00:30:50,960
Speaker 3: this goes a long way to explain a lot of

528
00:30:51,000 --> 00:30:55,280
Speaker 3: these so called authentic lies, which are either rationalized as

529
00:30:55,320 --> 00:30:58,400
Speaker 3: authentic to the self because they serve a higher moral

530
00:30:58,440 --> 00:31:01,680
Speaker 3: good and the protection of others, or because they are

531
00:31:02,080 --> 00:31:05,080
Speaker 3: justified in some way in self preservation or in the

532
00:31:05,120 --> 00:31:08,920
Speaker 3: protection of an important relationship, or because at the time

533
00:31:09,000 --> 00:31:12,680
Speaker 3: the person told them they were also quote lying to themselves.

534
00:31:13,120 --> 00:31:16,480
Speaker 3: In any case, they could be framed as making sense

535
00:31:16,640 --> 00:31:19,040
Speaker 3: based on the image of the self or the image

536
00:31:19,080 --> 00:31:23,480
Speaker 3: of the person in operation at the time. So I

537
00:31:23,480 --> 00:31:27,840
Speaker 3: think the lies that people might see as inauthentic to

538
00:31:27,960 --> 00:31:31,480
Speaker 3: themselves would be ones that sort of undermine the self image,

539
00:31:31,520 --> 00:31:35,240
Speaker 3: that seem out of character or don't make sense within

540
00:31:35,320 --> 00:31:40,400
Speaker 3: the coherent view of the person. So, according to this model,

541
00:31:40,480 --> 00:31:45,680
Speaker 3: people perceive authenticity as not the unvarnished expression of people's

542
00:31:45,760 --> 00:31:49,520
Speaker 3: true inner feelings, but rather acting in a way that

543
00:31:49,680 --> 00:31:53,880
Speaker 3: is predictable and consistent based on the image of that

544
00:31:54,000 --> 00:31:58,479
Speaker 3: person that they already have in their head. Okay, and

545
00:31:58,520 --> 00:32:00,280
Speaker 3: this makes a lot of sense to me. I think

546
00:32:00,320 --> 00:32:03,480
Speaker 3: this is a good model of how people most often

547
00:32:03,600 --> 00:32:06,440
Speaker 3: use the idea of authenticity, but there's still so much

548
00:32:06,560 --> 00:32:09,440
Speaker 3: variation in how it's applied, and I think plenty of

549
00:32:09,520 --> 00:32:12,200
Speaker 3: reason that we should be cautious about relying too much

550
00:32:12,240 --> 00:32:14,920
Speaker 3: on our heuristic judgments of authenticity and others.

551
00:32:15,440 --> 00:32:17,880
Speaker 1: Yeah, absolutely, because Yeah, like we've been saying on one love,

552
00:32:17,960 --> 00:32:19,720
Speaker 1: you can't go through life accusing everyone of being a

553
00:32:19,720 --> 00:32:24,000
Speaker 1: faker and assuming that no one is being genuine, that

554
00:32:24,080 --> 00:32:27,480
Speaker 1: no one is authentic. But on the other hand, you know,

555
00:32:27,680 --> 00:32:29,840
Speaker 1: the reverse is true as well, Like it pays to

556
00:32:29,880 --> 00:32:34,479
Speaker 1: have some level of self analysis about to what extent

557
00:32:34,520 --> 00:32:37,400
Speaker 1: we're just you know, having these gut impulses and believing

558
00:32:37,400 --> 00:32:40,520
Speaker 1: this person or believing that person. We should be able

559
00:32:40,520 --> 00:32:43,920
Speaker 1: to take it apart to some degree, though as we've

560
00:32:43,960 --> 00:32:45,880
Speaker 1: looked at though, that can be difficult given all that's

561
00:32:45,920 --> 00:32:46,200
Speaker 1: going on.

562
00:32:46,640 --> 00:32:49,560
Speaker 3: Yeah, just to I would say my own thoughts here,

563
00:32:49,680 --> 00:32:51,560
Speaker 3: this is not necessarily based on anything we've read in

564
00:32:51,600 --> 00:32:56,400
Speaker 3: this research that I think with like interpersonal relationships, friendships

565
00:32:56,400 --> 00:32:58,960
Speaker 3: and stuff like that, it's good to be more generous,

566
00:32:59,000 --> 00:33:02,440
Speaker 3: at least at first, like unless you've been seriously betrayed

567
00:33:02,480 --> 00:33:06,080
Speaker 3: in some way, to be more generous and awarding of

568
00:33:06,120 --> 00:33:10,080
Speaker 3: trust to people. And if it's ambiguous, I guess the

569
00:33:10,160 --> 00:33:12,800
Speaker 3: situation in which you want to be careful is like

570
00:33:12,880 --> 00:33:17,040
Speaker 3: if there is something like a big material question on

571
00:33:17,120 --> 00:33:19,520
Speaker 3: the line, and you're you're trying to decide whether or

572
00:33:19,560 --> 00:33:22,160
Speaker 3: not to trust somebody, and they just give you an

573
00:33:22,200 --> 00:33:24,440
Speaker 3: authentic vibe, you know, Or are you looking to invest

574
00:33:24,480 --> 00:33:27,400
Speaker 3: a lot of money? Are you looking to like make somebody,

575
00:33:27,440 --> 00:33:30,320
Speaker 3: put somebody an important leadership position or something like that,

576
00:33:30,600 --> 00:33:33,360
Speaker 3: and you're just going on an authenticity vibe. I think

577
00:33:33,440 --> 00:33:36,080
Speaker 3: that's a good time to put the brakes on and say,

578
00:33:36,080 --> 00:33:38,400
Speaker 3: wait a minute, is there another way for me to

579
00:33:38,440 --> 00:33:40,120
Speaker 3: look at this? Can I be more objective?

580
00:33:40,640 --> 00:33:44,520
Speaker 1: Yeah, but like your favorite musical artists, just switch genres

581
00:33:44,520 --> 00:33:46,360
Speaker 1: a little bit, you know, give it the benefit of

582
00:33:46,400 --> 00:33:48,440
Speaker 1: the doubt. Let's tell me the worst thing that could happen.

583
00:33:48,520 --> 00:33:51,000
Speaker 3: Right, Okay, That's what I've got for today. But Rob,

584
00:33:51,040 --> 00:33:54,320
Speaker 3: I think you wanted to talk about authenticity and religion, right.

585
00:33:54,760 --> 00:33:57,760
Speaker 1: Yeah, Now, this is this is a big, big topic

586
00:33:57,840 --> 00:34:00,360
Speaker 1: to sort of dip our toes in a little bit here,

587
00:34:00,480 --> 00:34:05,840
Speaker 1: Authenticity of religion, authenticity in religion. I mean, we've already

588
00:34:05,920 --> 00:34:08,560
Speaker 1: discussed how difficult it is to frame all this up

589
00:34:08,600 --> 00:34:12,879
Speaker 1: in terms of the self, you know, and the mysterious

590
00:34:13,000 --> 00:34:17,200
Speaker 1: nature of our own self and other selves, other individuals

591
00:34:17,200 --> 00:34:20,279
Speaker 1: that we just have to form mental models sometimes very

592
00:34:20,320 --> 00:34:23,399
Speaker 1: inform mental models, but still mental models of what their

593
00:34:23,480 --> 00:34:26,920
Speaker 1: internal life is like. Is what is truly authentic for

594
00:34:27,080 --> 00:34:29,319
Speaker 1: that individual, where we have to form a model of

595
00:34:29,320 --> 00:34:32,120
Speaker 1: that in our own minds, But then getting into the

596
00:34:32,160 --> 00:34:37,000
Speaker 1: realm of religion, Yeah, that's obviously a whole different kettle

597
00:34:37,000 --> 00:34:41,360
Speaker 1: of fish totally. So yeah, how broadly are we supposed

598
00:34:41,360 --> 00:34:44,360
Speaker 1: to think about authenticity in religion? You know, there's a

599
00:34:44,360 --> 00:34:48,160
Speaker 1: lot to unpact there, you know, as we've already discussed

600
00:34:48,280 --> 00:34:52,000
Speaker 1: multiple ways to think about the concept of authenticity in

601
00:34:52,040 --> 00:34:54,600
Speaker 1: this series. And on top of that, there are various

602
00:34:54,600 --> 00:34:57,319
Speaker 1: ways to think about religion. You know, especially on this show,

603
00:34:57,320 --> 00:35:00,440
Speaker 1: we tend to dismiss the idea of just like, okay,

604
00:35:00,480 --> 00:35:02,279
Speaker 1: religion is that? Is that fake? Or is that real?

605
00:35:02,360 --> 00:35:05,400
Speaker 1: You know, like there's there's a lot of space between

606
00:35:05,480 --> 00:35:08,600
Speaker 1: those two extremes, you know, you know, you could you

607
00:35:08,600 --> 00:35:10,880
Speaker 1: can think about religion in terms of whether it is

608
00:35:10,960 --> 00:35:13,319
Speaker 1: one hundred percent accurate. Is it a one hundred percent

609
00:35:13,320 --> 00:35:17,760
Speaker 1: accurate understanding of reality? Is it a legitimate cultural tradition?

610
00:35:18,000 --> 00:35:20,960
Speaker 1: Is it are we talking more about the realm of mythology?

611
00:35:21,080 --> 00:35:25,800
Speaker 1: Are we talking more about a particular worldview? In many cases,

612
00:35:25,840 --> 00:35:28,319
Speaker 1: we may get into like religion as literature, Like there's

613
00:35:28,360 --> 00:35:30,680
Speaker 1: just so many different ways to look at a given

614
00:35:30,880 --> 00:35:35,279
Speaker 1: faith as opposed to just you know, saying like is

615
00:35:35,320 --> 00:35:37,799
Speaker 1: this a real story or is this a fake story? Like, no,

616
00:35:37,840 --> 00:35:39,600
Speaker 1: there's a lot of room between there, just in terms

617
00:35:39,640 --> 00:35:40,240
Speaker 1: of stories.

618
00:35:40,719 --> 00:35:43,960
Speaker 3: Well, yeah, I mean, I would say, specifically for our audience,

619
00:35:44,080 --> 00:35:47,279
Speaker 3: I think one thing that that did a lot of

620
00:35:47,400 --> 00:35:50,280
Speaker 3: damage was, like in the two thousands in the United

621
00:35:50,280 --> 00:35:52,759
Speaker 3: States context, there were there was a lot of like

622
00:35:53,400 --> 00:35:58,640
Speaker 3: evolution versus creationism debates and stuff that really forced people

623
00:35:58,719 --> 00:36:02,680
Speaker 3: to think about religion primarily in terms of whether the

624
00:36:02,880 --> 00:36:07,280
Speaker 3: claims of its founding myths are literally descriptive of facts

625
00:36:07,320 --> 00:36:09,920
Speaker 3: that took place in history. And I mean, obviously that

626
00:36:10,000 --> 00:36:11,799
Speaker 3: is a question you can ask, and it's fine to

627
00:36:11,840 --> 00:36:15,640
Speaker 3: ask that question, but I think that it caused a

628
00:36:15,640 --> 00:36:18,719
Speaker 3: lot of people to see questions of religion only on

629
00:36:18,800 --> 00:36:22,640
Speaker 3: those terms like is the Bible literally true or something

630
00:36:22,680 --> 00:36:25,839
Speaker 3: in the US context, which I think is a sort

631
00:36:25,840 --> 00:36:29,440
Speaker 3: of deranging lens of focus that really causes people to

632
00:36:29,600 --> 00:36:32,920
Speaker 3: miss a lot of what religion means to people and

633
00:36:33,000 --> 00:36:34,560
Speaker 3: the role it plays in their lives.

634
00:36:35,440 --> 00:36:38,920
Speaker 1: Yeah. Yeah, absolutely, So before we even get into it,

635
00:36:38,960 --> 00:36:41,759
Speaker 1: just know that likes. That's largely I think where we're

636
00:36:41,800 --> 00:36:44,640
Speaker 1: coming from. It's largely where I think a lot of

637
00:36:44,640 --> 00:36:47,360
Speaker 1: the sources that I was looking at are coming from.

638
00:36:47,760 --> 00:36:51,560
Speaker 1: And this is a topic concerning authenticity and religion that

639
00:36:51,600 --> 00:36:53,920
Speaker 1: a lot of people have written on. So I'm not

640
00:36:53,960 --> 00:36:56,279
Speaker 1: going to be able to provide like a huge overview

641
00:36:56,400 --> 00:36:59,239
Speaker 1: of everything has been thought or sad about this. But

642
00:36:59,480 --> 00:37:02,319
Speaker 1: I was looking in one particular paper, this is a

643
00:37:02,520 --> 00:37:05,319
Speaker 1: fake Religion or Deals of Authenticity in the Study of

644
00:37:05,320 --> 00:37:09,680
Speaker 1: Religion by David Chidester. At the top of this paper,

645
00:37:09,719 --> 00:37:12,799
Speaker 1: he points to a quote from Thomas Edison, who apparently said,

646
00:37:12,800 --> 00:37:15,759
Speaker 1: I think this was maybe in some letters, said, so

647
00:37:15,840 --> 00:37:18,480
Speaker 1: far as religion of the day is concerned, it is

648
00:37:18,520 --> 00:37:24,000
Speaker 1: a damned fake. Okay, And so on one level, okay,

649
00:37:24,000 --> 00:37:26,040
Speaker 1: if we just go with this view, all right, if

650
00:37:26,160 --> 00:37:30,040
Speaker 1: Edison is correct here, if all religion is fake, then

651
00:37:30,120 --> 00:37:33,360
Speaker 1: no auth then no religion is authentic. Nothing can be authentic.

652
00:37:33,440 --> 00:37:36,680
Speaker 1: Everything is just a story created by human beings, and

653
00:37:36,719 --> 00:37:38,760
Speaker 1: we can just simply pack it up right there, right.

654
00:37:39,080 --> 00:37:42,040
Speaker 3: Well, I mean that would raise questions about what he

655
00:37:42,160 --> 00:37:45,280
Speaker 3: meant by a fake, like does that mean that it

656
00:37:45,320 --> 00:37:48,800
Speaker 3: is that like the founding myths are not literally true,

657
00:37:48,880 --> 00:37:51,520
Speaker 3: in which case, you know, I guess I'm more sympathetic

658
00:37:51,560 --> 00:37:54,279
Speaker 3: to that idea. But if he means like it is

659
00:37:54,360 --> 00:37:57,640
Speaker 3: all propagated from a place of inauthenticity, I don't think

660
00:37:57,680 --> 00:37:59,960
Speaker 3: I would agree with that. So obviously the multiple meaning

661
00:38:00,239 --> 00:38:02,600
Speaker 3: of authenticity and fakeness come into play here.

662
00:38:02,840 --> 00:38:04,920
Speaker 1: Yeah, even in a statement like this that would at

663
00:38:05,000 --> 00:38:07,080
Speaker 1: least i'm a surface appear to be very you know,

664
00:38:07,320 --> 00:38:11,839
Speaker 1: like firm and extreme. So, as Chinaster points out, yeah,

665
00:38:11,880 --> 00:38:15,560
Speaker 1: it's it's not so simple to really weigh in on

666
00:38:15,719 --> 00:38:19,640
Speaker 1: authenticity and religion because even if this is even even

667
00:38:19,640 --> 00:38:21,440
Speaker 1: if we agree with this and say, all right, to

668
00:38:21,480 --> 00:38:25,560
Speaker 1: some degree, all religions are fake, and yet some religions

669
00:38:25,640 --> 00:38:28,640
Speaker 1: are definitely faker than others. That is to say, we

670
00:38:28,760 --> 00:38:32,319
Speaker 1: have occasionally or even frequently, depending where you're looking, we

671
00:38:32,400 --> 00:38:36,880
Speaker 1: do contend with outright religious frauds. You can, you know,

672
00:38:37,440 --> 00:38:40,520
Speaker 1: likely bust out some sliding scales on this idea as well,

673
00:38:40,520 --> 00:38:44,759
Speaker 1: But there are clear cases of hoaxes, pyramid schemes, and

674
00:38:44,880 --> 00:38:47,880
Speaker 1: cons that use the trappings of religion and are not

675
00:38:48,000 --> 00:38:50,840
Speaker 1: engaging in what you might call good faith at any

676
00:38:50,920 --> 00:38:52,000
Speaker 1: level of the operation.

677
00:38:52,440 --> 00:38:55,520
Speaker 3: Okay, Yeah, so I can definitely see the difference there.

678
00:38:55,960 --> 00:39:00,360
Speaker 3: For example, faith healing, I might be skeptical of the

679
00:39:00,440 --> 00:39:03,800
Speaker 3: literal efficacy of faith healing in any case, at least

680
00:39:03,880 --> 00:39:06,560
Speaker 3: you know, by other than placebo mechanisms. But there are

681
00:39:06,640 --> 00:39:09,600
Speaker 3: different types of faith healing. There are the kinds where

682
00:39:09,640 --> 00:39:12,960
Speaker 3: people believe they are engaging in something that is really

683
00:39:12,960 --> 00:39:15,200
Speaker 3: going to help people, and then there are people who

684
00:39:15,239 --> 00:39:18,520
Speaker 3: are pulling hoaxes. There are people who are like you know,

685
00:39:18,680 --> 00:39:21,360
Speaker 3: engaging in conscious fraud and fakery.

686
00:39:22,000 --> 00:39:26,760
Speaker 1: Yeah, and obviously with various with large larger religious organizations

687
00:39:26,800 --> 00:39:30,120
Speaker 1: and groups, and even like big churches or temples, there's

688
00:39:30,200 --> 00:39:32,000
Speaker 1: room to have multiple things going on at once. You

689
00:39:32,040 --> 00:39:35,279
Speaker 1: could have conceivably easily have a situation where you have

690
00:39:36,120 --> 00:39:39,000
Speaker 1: some individuals in an operation that are very much believers

691
00:39:39,520 --> 00:39:43,120
Speaker 1: and are being what you might call authentic, and then

692
00:39:43,160 --> 00:39:44,799
Speaker 1: you might have say, like, I don't know, maybe the

693
00:39:44,800 --> 00:39:51,040
Speaker 1: building department they're just bad, Like there's there's something very

694
00:39:51,360 --> 00:39:53,840
Speaker 1: suspicious about this botch. You know, you can have multiple

695
00:39:53,960 --> 00:39:57,840
Speaker 1: energies going on within the same movement. Obviously, so anyway,

696
00:39:57,880 --> 00:40:00,040
Speaker 1: there's sort of one way of thinking about it, But

697
00:40:00,880 --> 00:40:07,279
Speaker 1: there have also been numerous inauthentic efforts or attempts to communicate, say,

698
00:40:07,320 --> 00:40:13,360
Speaker 1: indigenous religions to foreign audiences. So the author here, David Chidester,

699
00:40:13,480 --> 00:40:16,799
Speaker 1: points to an extreme example of this again like getting

700
00:40:16,840 --> 00:40:20,239
Speaker 1: into just straight up con artist here, and that would

701
00:40:20,280 --> 00:40:25,320
Speaker 1: be eighteenth century French con artist George saul Manassar, who

702
00:40:25,760 --> 00:40:28,920
Speaker 1: was who for years convinced many in Britain that he

703
00:40:29,080 --> 00:40:32,400
Speaker 1: was a native of Formosa what we now know is

704
00:40:32,440 --> 00:40:37,320
Speaker 1: Taiwan and shared all sorts of just completely fraudulent information

705
00:40:37,520 --> 00:40:43,279
Speaker 1: about his supposed life there, shared an invented alphabet, uninvented

706
00:40:43,360 --> 00:40:47,200
Speaker 1: religion and saying, oh, yeah, this is the real Formosian

707
00:40:47,480 --> 00:40:49,200
Speaker 1: religion right here, this is what I grew up on,

708
00:40:49,520 --> 00:40:52,520
Speaker 1: and also making all sorts of crazy claims that okay,

709
00:40:52,840 --> 00:40:55,000
Speaker 1: some of them protective of his con like saying, well,

710
00:40:55,040 --> 00:40:58,279
Speaker 1: of course I have pale skin because upper class Formosians

711
00:40:58,280 --> 00:41:04,120
Speaker 1: live underground obviously, and uh, and he was, and he

712
00:41:04,200 --> 00:41:05,960
Speaker 1: could he still had. There were plenty of skeptics that

713
00:41:05,960 --> 00:41:08,960
Speaker 1: were like, this guy's not on the level, but they

714
00:41:09,000 --> 00:41:11,680
Speaker 1: also included and they also included Jesuits who had actually

715
00:41:11,800 --> 00:41:16,560
Speaker 1: visited Formosa, but they were largely apparently dismissed within Britain

716
00:41:16,680 --> 00:41:20,720
Speaker 1: due to anti Catholic sentiments of the time, so still,

717
00:41:20,719 --> 00:41:23,160
Speaker 1: and there were people saying, you're you know, you're, you're

718
00:41:23,160 --> 00:41:25,279
Speaker 1: full of it. This doesn't sound right. But he was

719
00:41:25,360 --> 00:41:28,879
Speaker 1: good at at least fighting off these critiques, at least

720
00:41:28,880 --> 00:41:34,839
Speaker 1: in the short term, and his reports of life over

721
00:41:34,880 --> 00:41:37,360
Speaker 1: there contained all sorts of just you know, outrageous and

722
00:41:37,360 --> 00:41:41,919
Speaker 1: offensive concepts, including things like ritual cannibalism. But the thing

723
00:41:42,080 --> 00:41:46,880
Speaker 1: is they felt exotic enough to capture the attention of

724
00:41:46,920 --> 00:41:51,760
Speaker 1: his intended audience, like they they met expectations to some degree,

725
00:41:51,840 --> 00:41:54,759
Speaker 1: like this is the kind of account that many in

726
00:41:54,800 --> 00:41:58,040
Speaker 1: the population were hungry for, even if the experts were saying,

727
00:41:58,880 --> 00:42:01,320
Speaker 1: I don't know if this is actually accurate. This doesn't

728
00:42:01,400 --> 00:42:03,839
Speaker 1: match up with what I've heard from other individuals who

729
00:42:03,840 --> 00:42:07,080
Speaker 1: have traveled either to this particular place or to places

730
00:42:07,080 --> 00:42:07,640
Speaker 1: in the region.

731
00:42:07,800 --> 00:42:11,600
Speaker 3: Oh, that's interesting. It sounds almost like from his audience's perspective,

732
00:42:11,640 --> 00:42:15,080
Speaker 3: he was presenting a coherent view of a person that

733
00:42:15,280 --> 00:42:18,920
Speaker 3: made sense given their expectations of what someone from this

734
00:42:19,000 --> 00:42:22,120
Speaker 3: place would be like. And thus like there, you know, yeah,

735
00:42:22,160 --> 00:42:23,560
Speaker 3: he's being authentic.

736
00:42:23,360 --> 00:42:28,160
Speaker 1: Yeah, and essentially created inauthentic religion, a fake religion and

737
00:42:28,239 --> 00:42:31,600
Speaker 1: presented it as if it were real. Again, this is

738
00:42:31,640 --> 00:42:37,520
Speaker 1: an extreme example, and it's one that's grounded in outright fakery,

739
00:42:37,560 --> 00:42:40,440
Speaker 1: But there are various levels of the problem, even in

740
00:42:40,480 --> 00:42:44,560
Speaker 1: well meaning attempts to study in chronicle religion. Now he

741
00:42:44,560 --> 00:42:47,640
Speaker 1: gets into another obvious reality about all of this. Among

742
00:42:47,640 --> 00:42:50,880
Speaker 1: the faithful, the religion you practice is often talled is

743
00:42:50,920 --> 00:42:53,719
Speaker 1: the authentic one, and of course it's the other religions

744
00:42:53,880 --> 00:42:56,160
Speaker 1: that are the fakes. Like, that's just how this sort

745
00:42:56,160 --> 00:42:58,359
Speaker 1: of thing works, that's how you build your worldview, that's

746
00:42:58,360 --> 00:43:00,399
Speaker 1: how you maintain the US versus of them.

747
00:43:00,719 --> 00:43:03,040
Speaker 3: Well, to be fair, I would say that there is

748
00:43:03,080 --> 00:43:07,040
Speaker 3: actually variance among the religions in how they regard the

749
00:43:07,120 --> 00:43:11,120
Speaker 3: other religions. So there are some religions that are outright like, yes,

750
00:43:11,239 --> 00:43:14,239
Speaker 3: every other religion on earth except mine is a lie.

751
00:43:14,360 --> 00:43:17,239
Speaker 3: It's a complete fraud. There are others that have kind

752
00:43:17,280 --> 00:43:19,680
Speaker 3: of like yes, other people may have part of the

753
00:43:19,760 --> 00:43:21,719
Speaker 3: truth or something like that.

754
00:43:22,080 --> 00:43:25,320
Speaker 1: Yeah, it definitely depends on the context and the exact

755
00:43:25,600 --> 00:43:29,560
Speaker 1: arrangement in time period. You know, there there are cases

756
00:43:29,560 --> 00:43:33,320
Speaker 1: where you have different Like you can look to some

757
00:43:33,480 --> 00:43:40,640
Speaker 1: Protestant versus Catholic divisions. They have been rather extreme and

758
00:43:40,719 --> 00:43:45,160
Speaker 1: heated obviously at different times and in different places, in

759
00:43:45,520 --> 00:43:49,080
Speaker 1: ways that seem like more heated than would be the

760
00:43:49,120 --> 00:43:53,200
Speaker 1: relationship between religions that were more different from each other.

761
00:43:53,560 --> 00:43:57,279
Speaker 3: Yeah, it's a part of that would be physical proximity

762
00:43:57,360 --> 00:44:03,480
Speaker 3: and thus having to negotiate political spheres. But then on

763
00:44:03,520 --> 00:44:06,600
Speaker 3: top of that you could also attribute some of it

764
00:44:06,640 --> 00:44:09,239
Speaker 3: to what might be called the narcissism of small differences.

765
00:44:09,600 --> 00:44:12,759
Speaker 1: Yeah, And of course it's often the role of an

766
00:44:12,840 --> 00:44:16,560
Speaker 1: orthodox fate faith to point out who the heretics are

767
00:44:16,640 --> 00:44:18,920
Speaker 1: within their own faith or in the peripheries of that faith.

768
00:44:19,520 --> 00:44:22,560
Speaker 1: And these efforts, I guess in some cases, you know,

769
00:44:22,600 --> 00:44:27,520
Speaker 1: they may deal with identifying actual harmful splinter groups or extremists,

770
00:44:28,160 --> 00:44:30,120
Speaker 1: but it can also simply involve the other ring and

771
00:44:30,160 --> 00:44:34,279
Speaker 1: criticism of competition or you know, the endangerment of other

772
00:44:34,719 --> 00:44:39,279
Speaker 1: practices of a mainstream and entrenched religion, if you will.

773
00:44:40,400 --> 00:44:43,000
Speaker 1: And of course this also includes the demonization of local

774
00:44:43,000 --> 00:44:48,840
Speaker 1: religious traditions. We saw this, especially by European Christians, create

775
00:44:48,880 --> 00:44:52,279
Speaker 1: an inauthentic interpretation of a traditional faith in order to

776
00:44:52,360 --> 00:44:56,200
Speaker 1: prop up the authority and authenticity of one's own your gods.

777
00:44:56,239 --> 00:44:58,640
Speaker 1: These old gods you believe in, well, those are actually demons.

778
00:44:59,360 --> 00:45:01,760
Speaker 1: That's how we understand them. When are the truth?

779
00:45:01,800 --> 00:45:04,880
Speaker 3: Thing, So not just saying whatever you believe is wrong,

780
00:45:05,000 --> 00:45:08,239
Speaker 3: but also saying, like, here is an alternate interpretation of

781
00:45:08,280 --> 00:45:11,040
Speaker 3: whatever you believe, a very unflattering one.

782
00:45:11,320 --> 00:45:14,600
Speaker 1: Yeah, And the interesting double nature of this, this Chidester

783
00:45:14,680 --> 00:45:17,080
Speaker 1: points out, is that on one hand you're saying a

784
00:45:17,080 --> 00:45:19,879
Speaker 1: local shaman is a fraud who made all of this up,

785
00:45:20,200 --> 00:45:22,960
Speaker 1: But on the other you're saying that he's totally not

786
00:45:23,120 --> 00:45:25,800
Speaker 1: a fraud and is actually in league with demonic powers.

787
00:45:25,840 --> 00:45:29,680
Speaker 1: So which is it? Sometimes both even at the same time.

788
00:45:30,480 --> 00:45:33,520
Speaker 1: Chidaster points to examples of this involving say, early nineteenth

789
00:45:33,520 --> 00:45:37,799
Speaker 1: century missionaries in Africa, who at once would have been saying, oh, well,

790
00:45:37,800 --> 00:45:40,399
Speaker 1: that guy, the shaman, he's a fraud, he's just making

791
00:45:40,400 --> 00:45:42,400
Speaker 1: all this up. But also beware of him. He's in

792
00:45:42,480 --> 00:45:45,200
Speaker 1: leak with the devil, which is we also see he

793
00:45:45,239 --> 00:45:49,000
Speaker 1: points out the double standard regarding authentication via material objects.

794
00:45:49,280 --> 00:45:52,520
Speaker 1: So relics were of course of great importance, especially to

795
00:45:52,800 --> 00:45:55,640
Speaker 1: the early Roman Catholic Church and into the Middle Ages

796
00:45:55,680 --> 00:45:58,600
Speaker 1: and so forth. And you know, the tradition still holds

797
00:45:58,600 --> 00:46:01,560
Speaker 1: to this day. You know, here is physical evidence that

798
00:46:01,640 --> 00:46:05,640
Speaker 1: this saint existed, that this saint suffered. You know, here

799
00:46:05,920 --> 00:46:10,120
Speaker 1: this is our evidence, is this is authentic. In Chita's

800
00:46:10,120 --> 00:46:13,080
Speaker 1: are points to accounts that stolen relics were sometimes thought

801
00:46:13,120 --> 00:46:16,040
Speaker 1: to be even more valued because the saint it was

802
00:46:16,080 --> 00:46:19,920
Speaker 1: associated with could have been viewed as implicit in the theft,

803
00:46:20,320 --> 00:46:23,680
Speaker 1: you know, like they the saint willed that this item

804
00:46:23,920 --> 00:46:26,160
Speaker 1: be taken so that it could be kept somewhere better,

805
00:46:26,239 --> 00:46:29,480
Speaker 1: that sort of thing. But on the other hand, magical

806
00:46:29,520 --> 00:46:32,600
Speaker 1: items from outside of the faith, well, these were deemed

807
00:46:32,600 --> 00:46:35,560
Speaker 1: as fetishes and idols. These were harmful things. These were

808
00:46:35,560 --> 00:46:38,319
Speaker 1: not proof of anything, these were these were just these

809
00:46:38,320 --> 00:46:40,359
Speaker 1: were harmful fixations.

810
00:46:40,920 --> 00:46:44,200
Speaker 3: It's interesting in that it frames like the artifacts used

811
00:46:44,239 --> 00:46:48,560
Speaker 3: within one's own religion as like pieces of rational evidence,

812
00:46:48,840 --> 00:46:52,600
Speaker 3: and the artifacts used within someone else's religion as objects

813
00:46:52,600 --> 00:46:55,080
Speaker 3: of people's irrational emotional attachment.

814
00:46:55,600 --> 00:47:09,000
Speaker 1: Yeah. Now, eventually you get into the Enlightenment and the

815
00:47:09,040 --> 00:47:11,239
Speaker 1: out there points out here that you have two sort

816
00:47:11,239 --> 00:47:15,440
Speaker 1: of contrasting ideals that emerge to determine authenticity, particularly with

817
00:47:15,520 --> 00:47:20,799
Speaker 1: Christians in Christianity and Christian thought. One is transparency, which

818
00:47:20,800 --> 00:47:22,720
Speaker 1: seems to kind of center on kind of a gut

819
00:47:22,760 --> 00:47:25,440
Speaker 1: feeling a Christian will have. He describes it as an

820
00:47:25,440 --> 00:47:31,719
Speaker 1: illuminated capacity that would supposedly help you distinguish between genuine

821
00:47:31,840 --> 00:47:35,360
Speaker 1: and the genuine and the fake, which is something that

822
00:47:35,600 --> 00:47:38,440
Speaker 1: we've been saying. This could surely never steer one wrong, you.

823
00:47:38,360 --> 00:47:42,680
Speaker 3: Know, right, No, this is you sometimes like you just

824
00:47:42,800 --> 00:47:45,200
Speaker 3: you have a feeling in your heart that you know

825
00:47:45,280 --> 00:47:45,800
Speaker 3: it's true.

826
00:47:47,320 --> 00:47:51,279
Speaker 1: And then the other idea is control. And this is

827
00:47:51,280 --> 00:47:54,080
Speaker 1: interesting getting this idea that's it kind of gets back

828
00:47:54,120 --> 00:47:56,160
Speaker 1: to what we were talking about in terms of like

829
00:47:56,280 --> 00:48:00,120
Speaker 1: not not being the first to speak your mind and

830
00:48:00,600 --> 00:48:03,160
Speaker 1: letting thoughts percolate, but it ends up ends up going

831
00:48:03,200 --> 00:48:06,400
Speaker 1: beyond that. So much of this is apparently based on

832
00:48:07,760 --> 00:48:13,560
Speaker 1: the New Testament and then the Letters of James, and

833
00:48:14,000 --> 00:48:17,080
Speaker 1: I think the two main bits from the scripture here

834
00:48:17,120 --> 00:48:19,319
Speaker 1: are those who consider themselves religious and yet do not

835
00:48:19,440 --> 00:48:22,120
Speaker 1: keep a tight rain on their tongues deceive themselves and

836
00:48:22,200 --> 00:48:24,960
Speaker 1: their religion is worthless. And then I think there's a

837
00:48:25,040 --> 00:48:27,840
Speaker 1: later bit where it is but no human being contained

838
00:48:27,880 --> 00:48:30,600
Speaker 1: the tongue. It is a restless evil, full of deadly poison.

839
00:48:31,560 --> 00:48:35,200
Speaker 1: And so it gets into like controlling the human voice,

840
00:48:35,200 --> 00:48:38,160
Speaker 1: controlling what you say, and more importantly, what you don't say.

841
00:48:38,960 --> 00:48:41,359
Speaker 1: But they didn't stop at the human voice. They also

842
00:48:41,400 --> 00:48:43,520
Speaker 1: put a great deal of thought into how belching and

843
00:48:43,600 --> 00:48:49,600
Speaker 1: farting impacted authenticity and religion. Apparently I'm not making this up.

844
00:48:49,880 --> 00:48:54,640
Speaker 1: Like laughter, sneezing, these are also things that attracted the

845
00:48:54,680 --> 00:48:58,440
Speaker 1: attention of the theologians of the day, though it really feels

846
00:48:58,440 --> 00:48:59,720
Speaker 1: like they're in the weeds at this point.

847
00:49:00,640 --> 00:49:02,600
Speaker 3: I don't think this is what you're talking about at

848
00:49:02,640 --> 00:49:05,520
Speaker 3: this point. But Martin Luther, that you know, who was

849
00:49:05,880 --> 00:49:10,120
Speaker 3: responsible for the Protestant Reformation, was famously skatological I love

850
00:49:10,200 --> 00:49:11,840
Speaker 3: talking about like farting and pooping.

851
00:49:12,360 --> 00:49:14,640
Speaker 1: Yeah, And it seems like he would be kind of

852
00:49:14,680 --> 00:49:17,200
Speaker 1: in sharp contrast to what this line of thought is saying.

853
00:49:17,239 --> 00:49:21,000
Speaker 1: You know that you know, absolutely shouldn't be belching and farting,

854
00:49:21,080 --> 00:49:23,840
Speaker 1: You shouldn't be sneezing, you should be controlling. Laughter or

855
00:49:23,880 --> 00:49:28,000
Speaker 1: any kind of physical outburst that is not tightly control

856
00:49:28,520 --> 00:49:32,680
Speaker 1: is somehow a danger to authenticity. So I don't know,

857
00:49:32,719 --> 00:49:38,319
Speaker 1: I won't pretend to fully understand how this applies to

858
00:49:39,080 --> 00:49:42,440
Speaker 1: being able to judge one's religion as being authentic and

859
00:49:42,480 --> 00:49:46,080
Speaker 1: to rightfully judge other versions of the faith or other

860
00:49:46,160 --> 00:49:49,680
Speaker 1: faiths as inauthentic. But I guess it shows like the

861
00:49:49,800 --> 00:49:53,920
Speaker 1: level of sort of mental gymnastics and theological gymnastics you

862
00:49:54,000 --> 00:49:58,680
Speaker 1: end up turning to when grasping, grappling with a question

863
00:49:58,880 --> 00:50:01,480
Speaker 1: like this, like what how do you know what religion

864
00:50:01,560 --> 00:50:07,280
Speaker 1: is true? Like, because you know, outside of miracles occurring,

865
00:50:07,960 --> 00:50:11,879
Speaker 1: what do you have? You know, just subjective experience, personal charisma,

866
00:50:11,880 --> 00:50:16,520
Speaker 1: and other people weighted arguments for interpretations of natural phenomena

867
00:50:16,719 --> 00:50:19,160
Speaker 1: that are better understood through science. That's what I see

868
00:50:19,480 --> 00:50:22,239
Speaker 1: all the time. You know, where someone's like, you don't

869
00:50:22,239 --> 00:50:26,880
Speaker 1: believe in God, Well have you looked at this cat? Right? Yeah?

870
00:50:26,920 --> 00:50:29,640
Speaker 1: You know, on an emotional level, it's like cat is cute.

871
00:50:29,800 --> 00:50:31,520
Speaker 1: I don't know, you kind of got me there. But

872
00:50:32,719 --> 00:50:36,560
Speaker 1: we have all these other ways of understanding why the

873
00:50:36,600 --> 00:50:39,200
Speaker 1: cat looks like it looks and why we feel this

874
00:50:39,280 --> 00:50:40,359
Speaker 1: way about said cat.

875
00:50:40,760 --> 00:50:43,000
Speaker 3: Oh yeah, yeah, I'm very much on that frequency. I

876
00:50:43,040 --> 00:50:45,799
Speaker 3: don't begrudge anybody their religious beliefs, but you can't prove

877
00:50:45,840 --> 00:50:48,960
Speaker 3: your religious beliefs by saying, look, observe the cat, look

878
00:50:48,960 --> 00:50:49,520
Speaker 3: at the cat?

879
00:50:49,960 --> 00:50:52,880
Speaker 1: Yeah, I mean, in my own opinion, I mean it

880
00:50:52,960 --> 00:50:55,280
Speaker 1: comes down to faith, right, And a lot of faith

881
00:50:55,400 --> 00:51:01,680
Speaker 1: is believing in that which cannot be proven without without

882
00:51:01,680 --> 00:51:04,359
Speaker 1: a shadow of a doubt, you know, that's what it's

883
00:51:04,360 --> 00:51:08,239
Speaker 1: about again without an outright miracle occurring. And even then

884
00:51:08,920 --> 00:51:12,440
Speaker 1: you get into you know, we've discussed hallucinations and so

885
00:51:12,480 --> 00:51:15,200
Speaker 1: forth on the show before, So even then you're still

886
00:51:15,200 --> 00:51:20,240
Speaker 1: dealing with something that has tremendous subjective weight and tremendous

887
00:51:20,440 --> 00:51:23,879
Speaker 1: emotional weight and personal weight, and is therefore not something

888
00:51:23,920 --> 00:51:26,080
Speaker 1: that can be presented as like here we go, approove

889
00:51:26,120 --> 00:51:29,319
Speaker 1: of God confirmed right now. The author here also gets

890
00:51:29,320 --> 00:51:32,680
Speaker 1: into what he calls virtual religions on the internet, but

891
00:51:33,440 --> 00:51:37,400
Speaker 1: something that is elsewhere discussed in terms of hyper real religions.

892
00:51:37,400 --> 00:51:39,840
Speaker 1: And I believe we've talked about the hyper real religions

893
00:51:39,880 --> 00:51:40,600
Speaker 1: on the show.

894
00:51:40,440 --> 00:51:44,759
Speaker 3: Before, right, So religions that we've actually been able to

895
00:51:44,800 --> 00:51:48,960
Speaker 3: see within human history. The arc from something that began

896
00:51:49,400 --> 00:51:53,160
Speaker 3: as consciously inauthentic in some at least in one sense,

897
00:51:53,239 --> 00:51:57,000
Speaker 3: like began maybe as a joke, or began as a

898
00:51:57,440 --> 00:52:00,319
Speaker 3: sort of an art project or something like that, something

899
00:52:00,320 --> 00:52:04,840
Speaker 3: that was not originally believed as a genuine religious movement

900
00:52:05,200 --> 00:52:08,600
Speaker 3: that came to be believed as a genuine religious movement.

901
00:52:08,920 --> 00:52:12,040
Speaker 1: Yeah, Like it's the roots may be in fiction, they

902
00:52:12,080 --> 00:52:14,759
Speaker 1: may be in activism, you know, or like you said,

903
00:52:14,840 --> 00:52:19,439
Speaker 1: parody and so forth. But over time they may grow

904
00:52:19,440 --> 00:52:21,520
Speaker 1: into something else. They may not they may not grow

905
00:52:21,560 --> 00:52:23,359
Speaker 1: at all. They may just be you know, a quick

906
00:52:23,440 --> 00:52:27,000
Speaker 1: laugh and then we're done with it. But you know,

907
00:52:27,040 --> 00:52:29,560
Speaker 1: we have been able to observe some of these things

908
00:52:29,600 --> 00:52:34,320
Speaker 1: growing taking on some of the the the aspects, the trappings,

909
00:52:34,320 --> 00:52:37,880
Speaker 1: and sometimes even the legal protections of religion of quote

910
00:52:37,920 --> 00:52:39,240
Speaker 1: unquote authentic religion.

911
00:52:39,719 --> 00:52:42,160
Speaker 3: And as with most things in authenticity, it's it's hard

912
00:52:42,160 --> 00:52:44,719
Speaker 3: to look at somebody else and judge whether, wait, do

913
00:52:44,760 --> 00:52:48,879
Speaker 3: you really believe in the Jedi religion? I mean, there's

914
00:52:48,920 --> 00:52:51,080
Speaker 3: a there's a tendency to doubt people like that. But

915
00:52:51,120 --> 00:52:53,759
Speaker 3: if someone professes that they do. I'm I am a

916
00:52:53,880 --> 00:52:56,680
Speaker 3: true believing Jediist, what are you going to say to

917
00:52:56,719 --> 00:52:57,200
Speaker 3: them You're not?

918
00:52:57,760 --> 00:53:01,440
Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, Jediism is a good example. Well, there's Dudism.

919
00:53:02,440 --> 00:53:04,640
Speaker 1: There are other examples like Church of the SubGenius and

920
00:53:04,680 --> 00:53:08,399
Speaker 1: so forth, where Yeah, it's like it may start as

921
00:53:08,440 --> 00:53:11,759
Speaker 1: a joke, it clearly has roots in fiction. But if

922
00:53:11,760 --> 00:53:14,440
Speaker 1: it takes, if it truly takes on this light. If

923
00:53:14,440 --> 00:53:17,600
Speaker 1: it becomes an important part of someone's life and their worldview,

924
00:53:17,680 --> 00:53:20,600
Speaker 1: and and above all of it, if it improves their

925
00:53:20,640 --> 00:53:23,839
Speaker 1: life and doesn't hurt anybody else, then you know what's

926
00:53:23,880 --> 00:53:25,960
Speaker 1: the beef right. And I think you can also throw

927
00:53:25,960 --> 00:53:29,960
Speaker 1: in discussions of the likes of say Leveyan Satanism and

928
00:53:30,000 --> 00:53:35,279
Speaker 1: also more recently the Satanic Temple, with the acknowledgment that

929
00:53:35,400 --> 00:53:38,879
Speaker 1: there's often this kind of ambiguous space for any new

930
00:53:38,920 --> 00:53:42,600
Speaker 1: religious movement, a kind of discussion of authenticity and even

931
00:53:42,640 --> 00:53:45,920
Speaker 1: a change in mission for a given movement, because, as

932
00:53:45,920 --> 00:53:49,120
Speaker 1: with any religion, things change over time and a central

933
00:53:49,200 --> 00:53:56,560
Speaker 1: body or central individual cannot always control it. Actually, this

934
00:53:56,600 --> 00:53:58,719
Speaker 1: is something that Frank Herbert gets into a bit in

935
00:53:59,000 --> 00:54:01,280
Speaker 1: the Doom novels. You know. Oh, it's like once a faith,

936
00:54:01,360 --> 00:54:04,440
Speaker 1: once a following has built up, that doesn't mean the

937
00:54:04,480 --> 00:54:07,279
Speaker 1: person at the center off it has full control over

938
00:54:07,320 --> 00:54:10,319
Speaker 1: it anymore, you know. And just because you have the

939
00:54:10,320 --> 00:54:12,840
Speaker 1: copyright for the name of the religion doesn't mean that

940
00:54:12,880 --> 00:54:13,640
Speaker 1: you are its master.

941
00:54:13,960 --> 00:54:17,120
Speaker 3: And this doesn't apply only to religions, but I think

942
00:54:17,160 --> 00:54:21,600
Speaker 3: there is a general tendency among people to, over time

943
00:54:22,600 --> 00:54:27,040
Speaker 3: try to find meaning in whatever they have spent their

944
00:54:27,080 --> 00:54:31,000
Speaker 3: time and effort doing, even if that thing started off

945
00:54:31,040 --> 00:54:34,200
Speaker 3: as just fun, whatever, you have spent your time and

946
00:54:34,239 --> 00:54:36,640
Speaker 3: effort on, even if it started just as a game

947
00:54:36,960 --> 00:54:39,799
Speaker 3: or a joke or whatever. I think there's just this

948
00:54:39,880 --> 00:54:43,880
Speaker 3: inexorable pull over time to look back and want to

949
00:54:43,920 --> 00:54:47,359
Speaker 3: feel like your time has been well spent and thus

950
00:54:47,520 --> 00:54:50,080
Speaker 3: think that maybe there was more to what I was

951
00:54:50,160 --> 00:54:53,640
Speaker 3: doing than I originally thought. And I can definitely see

952
00:54:53,640 --> 00:54:56,600
Speaker 3: how this tendency like on one hand, this is the

953
00:54:56,680 --> 00:54:59,439
Speaker 3: kind of thing that turns like jokes and memes over

954
00:54:59,480 --> 00:55:03,480
Speaker 3: time into sincere political beliefs. You've probably seen this kind

955
00:55:03,480 --> 00:55:05,960
Speaker 3: of arc of people who are like meming all the

956
00:55:05,960 --> 00:55:08,239
Speaker 3: time on the Internet. I think the same thing could

957
00:55:08,280 --> 00:55:11,560
Speaker 3: happen with a joke religion. You spend enough time on

958
00:55:11,640 --> 00:55:15,200
Speaker 3: the joke and you eventually decide like, actually, there's something

959
00:55:15,239 --> 00:55:16,000
Speaker 3: going on here.

960
00:55:16,800 --> 00:55:19,839
Speaker 1: Yeah. Yeah, And I was thinking about that a lot

961
00:55:19,920 --> 00:55:22,200
Speaker 1: as I was looking at this other source two thousand

962
00:55:22,239 --> 00:55:26,520
Speaker 1: and eight worked by Thomas Alberts titled Virtually Real Fake

963
00:55:26,560 --> 00:55:31,000
Speaker 1: Religions and Problems of Authenticity and Religion, and he invokes

964
00:55:31,160 --> 00:55:36,319
Speaker 1: three different principles, including Walter Benjamin's theory of the dialectical

965
00:55:36,360 --> 00:55:39,840
Speaker 1: image and Peter Berger's theory of redeeming laughter. But I

966
00:55:39,880 --> 00:55:42,160
Speaker 1: want to just briefly focus on the third, and that's

967
00:55:42,520 --> 00:55:48,920
Speaker 1: Australian anthropologist Michael Tausig's theory of defacement. So Tasig wrote, quote,

968
00:55:48,960 --> 00:55:53,480
Speaker 1: defacement asks what happens when something precious is despoiled. It

969
00:55:53,520 --> 00:55:56,440
Speaker 1: begins with the notion that such activity is attractive in

970
00:55:56,520 --> 00:56:00,000
Speaker 1: its very repulsion, and that it creates something sacred, even

971
00:56:00,000 --> 00:56:04,320
Speaker 1: in the most secular of societies and circumstances. So Tasa

972
00:56:04,360 --> 00:56:07,360
Speaker 1: gets into the importance of like secrecy and both religion

973
00:56:07,400 --> 00:56:11,520
Speaker 1: and taboo and the interplay between the two. And I

974
00:56:11,560 --> 00:56:16,760
Speaker 1: may not be grasping the full depth of this topic,

975
00:56:17,000 --> 00:56:19,920
Speaker 1: but if I'm understanding it even halfway correctly, I think

976
00:56:20,000 --> 00:56:23,799
Speaker 1: one possible use of defacement here is that anytime you

977
00:56:23,880 --> 00:56:27,040
Speaker 1: despoil something that is held up as sacred, you can't

978
00:56:27,080 --> 00:56:31,359
Speaker 1: help but potentially create something that is also sacred. So

979
00:56:31,520 --> 00:56:36,080
Speaker 1: Alberts argues that quote, fake religions produce secruelty in there,

980
00:56:36,320 --> 00:56:39,880
Speaker 1: connecting the body of the perceiver with the movements of

981
00:56:39,960 --> 00:56:41,600
Speaker 1: concealment and revelation.

982
00:56:43,360 --> 00:56:46,239
Speaker 3: Well, I'm not sure I fully understand the concealment and

983
00:56:46,320 --> 00:56:49,600
Speaker 3: revelation aspect of this. But I mean, I can certainly

984
00:56:49,840 --> 00:56:53,720
Speaker 3: see how by simply engaging with the sacred at all,

985
00:56:53,880 --> 00:56:58,640
Speaker 3: even to negate it, you implicitly assume some of the

986
00:56:58,680 --> 00:57:01,600
Speaker 3: power and authority of the sacred dimension of life, because

987
00:57:01,600 --> 00:57:05,080
Speaker 3: you're sort of showing that you yourself are on the

988
00:57:05,520 --> 00:57:07,919
Speaker 3: level like the plane of authority with which you can

989
00:57:07,960 --> 00:57:11,000
Speaker 3: interact with the sacred. And so by defacing the sacred

990
00:57:11,080 --> 00:57:14,400
Speaker 3: or negating it in some way, you you assume a

991
00:57:14,480 --> 00:57:17,760
Speaker 3: mantle of cultural power. And people may well look to

992
00:57:17,840 --> 00:57:19,800
Speaker 3: you then and say, well, are you the new Are

993
00:57:19,800 --> 00:57:23,000
Speaker 3: you the new boss? You know, is what you're doing

994
00:57:23,040 --> 00:57:25,320
Speaker 3: somehow supposed to replace what you destroyed?

995
00:57:25,680 --> 00:57:27,760
Speaker 1: Yeah, I mean I was thinking too about you know,

996
00:57:27,800 --> 00:57:31,120
Speaker 1: like what you're just talking about with various memes and whatnot.

997
00:57:31,240 --> 00:57:36,120
Speaker 1: And I'll see occasionally memes that are about propping up

998
00:57:36,440 --> 00:57:39,600
Speaker 1: villains from popular franchises, you know, siding with the villain,

999
00:57:39,680 --> 00:57:45,800
Speaker 1: be it the Empire in Star Wars or with Thanos

1000
00:57:45,800 --> 00:57:50,360
Speaker 1: in the Marvel Cinematic universe, you know. And on one level,

1001
00:57:50,360 --> 00:57:52,800
Speaker 1: it's like, yeah, it's fun. They're just movies, right, It's funny. Yeah,

1002
00:57:52,840 --> 00:57:56,240
Speaker 1: And Thanos is a great villain that the Empire. They're

1003
00:57:56,360 --> 00:58:00,400
Speaker 1: they're cool villains. But I don't know, But what point

1004
00:58:00,480 --> 00:58:02,520
Speaker 1: you end up drawing the line and think like, wow,

1005
00:58:02,560 --> 00:58:05,440
Speaker 1: I'm you know, are we how much thought are we

1006
00:58:05,440 --> 00:58:09,400
Speaker 1: putting into this? Are we propping up, like, you know,

1007
00:58:09,440 --> 00:58:13,800
Speaker 1: some sort of like awful authoritarian figure, even in fiction

1008
00:58:14,160 --> 00:58:17,160
Speaker 1: that's gonna end up casting a shadow on our reality

1009
00:58:17,200 --> 00:58:20,480
Speaker 1: and the way we interact with risks in the real world.

1010
00:58:20,720 --> 00:58:23,720
Speaker 3: Well, yeah, I would say, like, it's a it's funny

1011
00:58:24,040 --> 00:58:26,920
Speaker 3: to say, Okay, yes I'm with the Empire in Star Wars,

1012
00:58:26,920 --> 00:58:28,960
Speaker 3: because it's not a real it's not a real thing.

1013
00:58:29,080 --> 00:58:33,280
Speaker 3: That's like funny Initially, I would truly be careful about

1014
00:58:33,880 --> 00:58:36,240
Speaker 3: keeping up that joke for a long time. If you

1015
00:58:36,400 --> 00:58:40,080
Speaker 3: just keep doing that over time for years, I strongly

1016
00:58:40,120 --> 00:58:42,920
Speaker 3: suspect some people who do that would end up thinking

1017
00:58:42,960 --> 00:58:45,200
Speaker 3: that it's not just a joke and the Empire had

1018
00:58:45,240 --> 00:58:46,040
Speaker 3: some good points.

1019
00:58:46,440 --> 00:58:48,200
Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, I agree.

1020
00:58:48,640 --> 00:58:50,200
Speaker 3: I think that's just how we are. It's like, you

1021
00:58:50,280 --> 00:58:52,280
Speaker 3: want to think that what you've spent your time on

1022
00:58:52,720 --> 00:58:55,600
Speaker 3: is time well spent, even if it's something you originally

1023
00:58:55,640 --> 00:58:59,439
Speaker 3: meant ironically. I think there's there's a pull to start saying,

1024
00:58:59,480 --> 00:59:00,520
Speaker 3: actually that is right.

1025
00:59:01,120 --> 00:59:04,040
Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, So this whole like defacement theory thing, I

1026
00:59:04,040 --> 00:59:06,200
Speaker 1: think it can. It seems to definitely get a bit heady,

1027
00:59:06,680 --> 00:59:09,800
Speaker 1: but I think we can easily take it and apply

1028
00:59:09,920 --> 00:59:14,720
Speaker 1: it to discussions of conspiracy thinking, fake news, misinformation, and

1029
00:59:14,800 --> 00:59:19,800
Speaker 1: more items that often twist authenticity and or reality into

1030
00:59:19,840 --> 00:59:23,040
Speaker 1: a form that is on some level more appealing to

1031
00:59:23,080 --> 00:59:27,240
Speaker 1: the individual, that is more infectious, it's more bombastic, and

1032
00:59:27,320 --> 00:59:29,960
Speaker 1: in some cases not without the trappings of religion in

1033
00:59:30,000 --> 00:59:30,360
Speaker 1: the end.

1034
00:59:30,680 --> 00:59:33,880
Speaker 3: Oh, now that you get into like conspiracy theories and stuff.

1035
00:59:33,920 --> 00:59:35,840
Speaker 3: I've said this on the podcast before, but I will

1036
00:59:35,880 --> 00:59:40,040
Speaker 3: reiterate my personal belief that I think a whole lot

1037
00:59:40,080 --> 00:59:44,600
Speaker 3: of conspiracy theory ideation begins as entertainment. It's people not

1038
00:59:44,960 --> 00:59:48,760
Speaker 3: engaging with this subject like as a serious true believer.

1039
00:59:48,880 --> 00:59:52,360
Speaker 3: At first. It starts with people engaging with it because

1040
00:59:52,400 --> 00:59:55,760
Speaker 3: it's entertaining. It's just kind of like funny and interesting. Okay,

1041
00:59:56,040 --> 00:59:59,720
Speaker 3: it's a meme whatever. But do you spend some time

1042
00:59:59,760 --> 01:00:02,280
Speaker 3: with it and it works its magic on you, You

1043
01:00:02,320 --> 01:00:04,960
Speaker 3: get adapted to it, and it starts to seem more

1044
01:00:05,000 --> 01:00:09,640
Speaker 3: and more legitimately authentically compelling. So I think it's it's

1045
01:00:09,680 --> 01:00:12,760
Speaker 3: a dangerous road. Things that start off as just just

1046
01:00:12,880 --> 01:00:16,160
Speaker 3: for a laugh end up being quite serious and meaning

1047
01:00:16,160 --> 01:00:16,720
Speaker 3: a lot to you.

1048
01:00:17,360 --> 01:00:20,360
Speaker 1: Yeah, so think about that the next time you load

1049
01:00:20,440 --> 01:00:25,320
Speaker 1: up a particularly dank meme to share on social media.

1050
01:00:26,000 --> 01:00:28,160
Speaker 3: I want to be I don't want to overstate that.

1051
01:00:28,240 --> 01:00:30,440
Speaker 3: I mean, I think it probably takes time and repeated

1052
01:00:30,480 --> 01:00:33,040
Speaker 3: engagement and stuff like that, but but I do think

1053
01:00:33,080 --> 01:00:34,080
Speaker 3: that tendency is there.

1054
01:00:34,400 --> 01:00:37,040
Speaker 1: Yeah. So again, there's much there's much more that that

1055
01:00:37,200 --> 01:00:40,600
Speaker 1: can and could be said about the interplay of authenticity

1056
01:00:40,600 --> 01:00:43,760
Speaker 1: and religion because it's you, You're you're dealing with very,

1057
01:00:44,040 --> 01:00:47,360
Speaker 1: very complex topics when you're just asking what is religion?

1058
01:00:47,720 --> 01:00:52,560
Speaker 1: What is authenticity? What is truth? And religion? Uh, it's

1059
01:00:52,680 --> 01:00:55,600
Speaker 1: it's very gets, very subjective, open to a lot of

1060
01:00:55,640 --> 01:00:56,720
Speaker 1: different interpretations.

1061
01:00:56,960 --> 01:00:59,880
Speaker 3: All right, does that do it for Part three on authenticity?

1062
01:01:00,440 --> 01:01:03,360
Speaker 1: I believe that is authentically the end of the third

1063
01:01:03,400 --> 01:01:05,160
Speaker 1: episode on authenticity.

1064
01:01:05,600 --> 01:01:07,240
Speaker 3: This is one of those subjects where I feel like

1065
01:01:07,280 --> 01:01:09,880
Speaker 3: we went kind of deep for three episodes and still

1066
01:01:09,920 --> 01:01:13,560
Speaker 3: there's like so much we didn't get into. So maybe

1067
01:01:13,560 --> 01:01:15,200
Speaker 3: we could come back in the future, who knows.

1068
01:01:15,440 --> 01:01:16,920
Speaker 1: Yeah, I think and I think there's some sort of

1069
01:01:16,920 --> 01:01:20,600
Speaker 1: like splinter topics. Like, I was looking at some other

1070
01:01:20,640 --> 01:01:24,880
Speaker 1: sources regarding the topic of heresy, and I think there's

1071
01:01:24,880 --> 01:01:27,440
Speaker 1: a lot to discuss there that might be more deserving

1072
01:01:27,560 --> 01:01:30,880
Speaker 1: of its own episode or series of episodes on just

1073
01:01:30,920 --> 01:01:34,560
Speaker 1: the topic of heresy, you know, not just within like

1074
01:01:34,640 --> 01:01:38,520
Speaker 1: Christian traditions, but also like globally, you know, with accusations

1075
01:01:38,560 --> 01:01:42,960
Speaker 1: of heresy being thrown between different factions, different religions and

1076
01:01:43,000 --> 01:01:43,480
Speaker 1: so forth.

1077
01:01:43,520 --> 01:01:46,600
Speaker 3: And what does it mean getting into the idea that

1078
01:01:46,920 --> 01:01:50,080
Speaker 3: a religion, which is in fact just like a set

1079
01:01:50,160 --> 01:01:53,760
Speaker 3: of related practices and beliefs held throughout a culture, that

1080
01:01:53,800 --> 01:01:57,240
Speaker 3: there is some correct, original version of that, there's the

1081
01:01:57,320 --> 01:02:00,360
Speaker 3: authentic version of it, and that at some point point,

1082
01:02:00,600 --> 01:02:04,280
Speaker 3: some practice that a person has is different enough that

1083
01:02:04,360 --> 01:02:08,800
Speaker 3: it's actually not the same thing anymore. Yeah, Like, yeah,

1084
01:02:08,840 --> 01:02:11,440
Speaker 3: where do you draw those boundaries and how does that emerge?

1085
01:02:11,440 --> 01:02:12,640
Speaker 3: That is an interesting question.

1086
01:02:12,880 --> 01:02:15,880
Speaker 1: Yeah, what is the real Highlander too? Is it the

1087
01:02:15,880 --> 01:02:20,000
Speaker 1: theatrical cut, is it the director's renegade cut? Is it

1088
01:02:20,040 --> 01:02:22,880
Speaker 1: a fan edit that comes later on that is combining

1089
01:02:23,800 --> 01:02:26,880
Speaker 1: a portions for multiple versions of the film into a

1090
01:02:27,000 --> 01:02:30,920
Speaker 1: new model which is heresy, which is orthodoxy, which is authentic.

1091
01:02:31,240 --> 01:02:34,760
Speaker 3: Fortunately, I am a geist Cut fundamentalist, so I can

1092
01:02:34,760 --> 01:02:37,600
Speaker 3: speak for the authentic version of the Highlander two religion.

1093
01:02:37,680 --> 01:02:40,680
Speaker 3: Anybody who's trying to get me to watch the Renegade

1094
01:02:40,680 --> 01:02:43,120
Speaker 3: Cut or whatever you blaspheme.

1095
01:02:43,760 --> 01:02:46,880
Speaker 1: Well, fortunately we're aligned on that. All Right, We're gonna

1096
01:02:46,880 --> 01:02:48,160
Speaker 1: go and close it out, but we'd love to hear

1097
01:02:48,200 --> 01:02:50,880
Speaker 1: from everyone out there, because, again, everything we've been discussing

1098
01:02:50,880 --> 01:02:53,480
Speaker 1: in this series, there are so many applications for our

1099
01:02:53,560 --> 01:02:58,000
Speaker 1: daily life, for history, and just the entire human experience,

1100
01:02:58,080 --> 01:03:00,280
Speaker 1: So writ in, we would love to hear from you,

1101
01:03:00,720 --> 01:03:02,440
Speaker 1: just a reminder of that. Stuff to Blow Your Mind

1102
01:03:02,480 --> 01:03:05,040
Speaker 1: is primarily a science and culture podcast, with core episodes

1103
01:03:05,040 --> 01:03:08,320
Speaker 1: on Tuesdays and Thursdays. On Mondays we do listener mail,

1104
01:03:08,720 --> 01:03:12,400
Speaker 1: on Wednesdays we do a short form episode, and on

1105
01:03:12,480 --> 01:03:14,400
Speaker 1: Fridays we set as I had most serious concerns to

1106
01:03:14,480 --> 01:03:16,880
Speaker 1: just talk about a weird movie on Weird House Cinema.

1107
01:03:17,200 --> 01:03:20,840
Speaker 3: Huge thanks as always to our excellent audio producer JJ Posway.

1108
01:03:21,080 --> 01:03:22,680
Speaker 3: If you would like to get in touch with us

1109
01:03:22,680 --> 01:03:25,080
Speaker 3: with feedback on this episode or any other, to suggest

1110
01:03:25,160 --> 01:03:27,440
Speaker 3: topic for the future, or just to say hello, you

1111
01:03:27,440 --> 01:03:30,800
Speaker 3: can email us at contact Stuff. To Blow Your Mind dot.

1112
01:03:30,600 --> 01:03:40,760
Speaker 2: Com stuff to blow your mind is production of iHeartRadio.

1113
01:03:41,120 --> 01:03:44,080
Speaker 2: For more podcasts from my heart Radio, visit the iHeartRadio app,

1114
01:03:44,240 --> 01:04:02,200
Speaker 2: Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to your favorite shows

1115
01:04:02,200 --> 01:04:03,320
Speaker 1: Had not the po