Speaker 1: From UFOs to psychic powers and government conspiracies. History is
Speaker 1: riddled with unexplained events. You can turn back now or
Speaker 1: learn this stuff they don't want you to know. A
Speaker 1: production of iHeartRadio.
Speaker 2: Hello, welcome back to the show. My name is Matt,
Speaker 2: my name is Noel.
Speaker 3: They called me Ben. We're joined as always with our
Speaker 3: super producer Andrew the try Force Howard. Most importantly, you
Speaker 3: are here. That makes this the stuff they don't want
Speaker 3: you to know. We're back from a brief break. We
Speaker 3: had some classic episodes as we were all off on
Speaker 3: separating collective adventures. We hope you had a great series
Speaker 3: of holiday adventures as well. This one reminded me a
Speaker 3: little bit, you guys, of our earlier conversation on how
Speaker 3: to navigate the holidays. Remember we did a whole episode
Speaker 3: about that.
Speaker 4: That has some seriously good intel. I think for the
Speaker 4: folks out there, it can be tough, and it's only
Speaker 4: getting tougher with these trying times.
Speaker 2: Yeah, but hey, spending time with family can be one
Speaker 2: of the best things ever. And guys, I don't know
Speaker 2: about y'all, it was wonderful this year.
Speaker 4: Oh it wasn't too bad for me either. My chosen
Speaker 4: family in general. Did you guys see there's an article
Speaker 4: that was floating around about the idea of like disconnecting
Speaker 4: from family is becoming more and more common because of
Speaker 4: like just irreconcilable differences, like to do with politics and
Speaker 4: certain things like these kind of awkward dinner table conversations,
Speaker 4: but just taken to the extreme. I think it's a
Speaker 4: generational thing that I saw a piece about it that
Speaker 4: apparently it's becoming super common.
Speaker 3: Yeah, the holidays are always very difficult for me personally,
Speaker 3: because you know, everybody's got a spectrum of experience, right,
Speaker 3: and chosen family can be just as important as biological
Speaker 3: family sometimes. Honestly, this is sadly familiar to a lot
Speaker 3: of us in the crowd this evening. You can feel
Speaker 3: like you're in a hostage situation when you're at the holidays.
Speaker 3: You know, like, come on, uncle Ronnie, I asked you
Speaker 3: to pass the you know, the mashed potatoes, not to
Speaker 3: give me a hard sell on crypto or the gold
Speaker 3: standard or whatever political bent is. In commemoration of everyone
Speaker 3: who survived perhaps strange non consensual proselytization attempts at a
Speaker 3: family gathering. We're going back to a conversation we had
Speaker 3: earlier in twenty twenty four. What is Stockholm? This is
Speaker 3: based on something from a listener mail segment. Why are
Speaker 3: some people convinced Stockholm syndrome is fake?
Speaker 4: It's a good question that we're going to get to
Speaker 4: right after just a really quick word from a sponsor.
Speaker 3: Here are the facts. All right, we've all heard of
Speaker 3: Stockholm syndrome, right, it's not a medical condition where you
Speaker 3: slowly turn into the city of Stockholm in Sweden. Oh,
Speaker 3: that look like terrifying. It would look it would look
Speaker 3: pretty weird, right.
Speaker 4: I have become a very progressive city with really good
Speaker 4: medical benefits and funding for the arts. Yes, actually sounds
Speaker 4: kind of great.
Speaker 3: I think more Stockholms in the world would be a
Speaker 3: good thing. I agree with you. This particular Stockholm syndrome,
Speaker 3: the one you hear about in film and probably tons
Speaker 3: of true crime podcast It's an alleged psychological response wherein
Speaker 3: someone held against their will, taken captives, somehow they begin
Speaker 3: to identify positively with their captors.
Speaker 2: Yeah. It's described and defined in a couple of different ways,
Speaker 2: and we're going to get into the complexity of that
Speaker 2: as we go here. But this concept of at least
Speaker 2: in some way empathizing or finding a common there's like
Speaker 2: a connection between captor and captive that is there.
Speaker 4: Right, And you don't have to be a kidnapping victim
Speaker 4: to understand this phenomenon as it's described anyway. I think
Speaker 4: we've all maybe had jobs in the past or we
Speaker 4: felt a little bit like we were experiencing Stockholm syndrome,
Speaker 4: whether it be because we're so stressed about losing a
Speaker 4: job that we just start to kind of empathize, I guess,
Speaker 4: with really really awful employers because we feel like the
Speaker 4: alternative is too terrifying to imagine.
Speaker 3: And you could also see it applied to a microcosmic level,
Speaker 3: a non crime level, just toxic relationships can lead to
Speaker 3: something very much like something very similar to what we
Speaker 3: call Stockholm syndrome. And that's because there's so many examples,
Speaker 3: because the name, the nomenclature, the terminology is new. But
Speaker 3: proponents of Stockholm syndrome will argue the phenomena itself is ancient.
Speaker 3: For example, back in less secular days, rival religious forces
Speaker 3: might take over a community and later the people who
Speaker 3: have been taken over convert to that religion. So arguably
Speaker 3: it's not us saying this. Arguably, Stockholm syndrome could be
Speaker 3: an example of that.
Speaker 4: There's so much psychology involved, Like I mean, you see
Speaker 4: it in folks who are put through really really horrific interrogations.
Speaker 4: For example, there's like mind games that are played by
Speaker 4: one's captors to make like almost the good cop bad
Speaker 4: cop kind of thing where you start to feel like
Speaker 4: someone's in your corner and they're the only ones that
Speaker 4: can rescue you from the situation that they themselves put
Speaker 4: you in.
Speaker 3: Start using the royal we, the inclusive pronouns, how they
Speaker 3: get you. This identification is to your point, Matt, it's
Speaker 3: a personal ideological exercise of empathy. Right, We're not so
Speaker 3: different to you and Ie. The person who experiences Stockholm
Speaker 3: syndrome has a rapport with their captor on what appears
Speaker 3: to be a personal level, kind of like how you
Speaker 3: would vibe with a close friend or a romantic partner.
Speaker 3: And then the extra layer on the cake here is
Speaker 3: that the person experiencing Stockholm syndrome also starts to identify
Speaker 3: with the agenda and demands of the captor. So Stockholm
Speaker 3: syndrome argues that if you are kidnapped in certain circumstances,
Speaker 3: even if your captors have the opposite ideology that you
Speaker 3: subscribe to. Over time, you start to lean toward the
Speaker 3: power structure in which you exist, which is another comp
Speaker 3: for this would be prisoners of war, right, maybe American
Speaker 3: military members held by communist forces back in the day
Speaker 3: who eventually said, there's something to this, Carl Marx guy.
Speaker 4: I mean, it's an odd kind of self preservation mechanism
Speaker 4: in a way, right.
Speaker 2: Yeah, that's one of the big questions, right, Is it
Speaker 2: a psychological condition, a strategy that can be employed, or
Speaker 2: a coping mechanism or other or some combination, you know.
Speaker 3: Yeah, right? And this obviously, folks, this does not happen
Speaker 3: in every kidnapping, every hostage situation, every toxic relationship. As
Speaker 3: a matter of fact, as we'll come to find the
Speaker 3: smartest people in the field right now, still don't know
Speaker 3: how often this happens overall and exactly what mix of
Speaker 3: factors lead to this alleged phenomena occurring. But we do
Speaker 3: know the human face of this. We know the stories
Speaker 3: that led to both the existing of Stockholm syndrome in
Speaker 3: public in the public sphere, as well as the problems
Speaker 3: with whether or not, Stockholm syndrome exists. One of the
Speaker 3: most famous examples. I can't believe this is over half
Speaker 3: a century ago now is a newspaper eiress Patricia Hurst
Speaker 3: Patty to her friends, we all remember when she got kidnapped.
Speaker 2: Oh yeah, that's when the nineteen year old daughter of
Speaker 2: this huge, well known person, mister Hurst, was kidnapped by
Speaker 2: the Symbionese Liberation Army. This is nineteen seventy four. Well,
Speaker 2: it's a long story, and I guess let's tell you.
Speaker 2: Because she got kidnapped and then things started getting weird,
Speaker 2: at least the information that was coming out to people
Speaker 2: via newspapers like mister Hurst's.
Speaker 1: Yeah.
Speaker 3: Yeah, and that's a good connection there. It's surreal. The
Speaker 3: reason she was kidnapped the SLA Symbionese Liberation Army. They're
Speaker 3: like a far leftist terrorist group. Basically, they wanted a
Speaker 3: high value target for leverage because they wanted the authorities
Speaker 3: in California to free two of their members from incarceration.
Speaker 3: And they said, we need we need a VIP hostage
Speaker 3: and we can ransom off this hostage and exchange for
Speaker 3: our compatriots Patty Hurst to get This is yes, an heiress,
Speaker 3: but more importantly, for the SLA, she is convenient. This
Speaker 3: sounds so dumb, but they picked her because her apartment
Speaker 3: was near the SLA hideout. They were like, what am
Speaker 3: I going to drive across town through California traffic just
Speaker 3: for a hostage? What are the chances?
Speaker 4: That's so funny.
Speaker 2: Well, it makes it feel like it was an a
Speaker 2: crime of opportunity, right, oh, Patty Hurst lives over there. Shoot.
Speaker 3: It's like, you know, you may have a favorite grocery store,
Speaker 3: but the grocery store you go to most often is
Speaker 3: the one closest to you, you know, And that's kind
Speaker 3: of what they did. They went to the closest grocery store.
Speaker 3: California did not free the SLA members. The organization pivoted
Speaker 3: to this other request. It's a story all its own,
Speaker 3: maybe fit for ridiculous history. But to your earlier point there,
Speaker 3: things got weird so quickly. Hostage situation is never pleasant.
Speaker 3: It is incredibly dangerous. Multiple people are being held hostage
Speaker 3: for a multitude of reasons across the world today. Hurst
Speaker 3: was kept in a closet and blindfolded for weeks. Over time,
Speaker 3: her captors would say that she earned things like a
Speaker 3: flashlight for reading literature from this terrorist group, so she
Speaker 3: could get the blindfold removed in the closet and have
Speaker 3: a flashlight and read the stuff they allowed her to read.
Speaker 4: I mean, isn't it a kind of conditioning in a
Speaker 4: way if you think about it, sort of like the
Speaker 4: way you train an animal. You know, you train an
Speaker 4: animal by oftentimes being kind of mean and then giving
Speaker 4: a treat of some kind, you know, giving some sort
Speaker 4: of reward, but usually there is some sort of well
Speaker 4: not necessarily violence, some sort of unpleasant kind of forcing,
Speaker 4: you know, behavior on a creature when you're trying to
Speaker 4: train it. Carrots and sticks, Yeah, yeah, exactly. It certainly
Speaker 4: seems like there's a combination of carrots and sticks. I'm
Speaker 4: just trying to like wrap my head around how our
Speaker 4: minds kind of Yeah, what's the word acclimate to this
Speaker 4: kind of thing? Because to me, at the end of
Speaker 4: the day, it is about acclamation to a really nasty situation,
Speaker 4: and to keep us from kind of going insane, we
Speaker 4: sort of go a different kind of insane.
Speaker 3: Yeah, the mind is malleable, which is a tremendous advantage
Speaker 3: and a tremendous danger to the question about sticks.
Speaker 1: And all.
Speaker 3: Yeah, she was repeatedly threatened with death, like every day
Speaker 3: they said, you know, we're going to kill you. On
Speaker 3: a lighter pop culture note, if you are not familiar
Speaker 3: with the Hurst case, maybe you're familiar with The Princess Bride,
Speaker 3: where a spoiler the dread Pirate Roberts does about the
Speaker 3: same thing to the protagonist of The Prince's Bride, I'm
Speaker 3: going tomorrow, I'm going to kill you. Tomorrow, I'm going
Speaker 3: to kill you and then lo and behold. Ultimately our
Speaker 3: protagonist becomes the next dread Pirate Roberts.
Speaker 4: Yeah, spoiler alerted, just a spoilers.
Speaker 2: Just say it to the animal training thing, often, you
Speaker 2: don't train an animal by pointing a gun at it
Speaker 2: and saying sit.
Speaker 4: You know. That's what I'm trying to reconcile because even
Speaker 4: with training, it's not all pleasant, but you're also not
Speaker 4: necessarily whipping the animal or like you know there. I
Speaker 4: guess it's different depending on the animal. Like horses, you
Speaker 4: certainly are applying a bit, you know, putting like a
Speaker 4: bit in their mouth and sometimes whipping them and getting
Speaker 4: them to be sort of under your thumb. But then
Speaker 4: that's where the whole carrot and stick thing comes from,
Speaker 4: isn't it's horse training.
Speaker 3: That's exactly where it comes from. Yeah, and it's also
Speaker 3: positive reinforcement, right is, in the non scientific sense, is
Speaker 3: huge and does a better job of incurring loyalty, which
Speaker 3: is really what you're going for with indoctrination. Check out
Speaker 3: our episodes on cults.
Speaker 2: So yeah, and if that's the only thing you have
Speaker 2: access to, right, the literature that she's being supplied, then
Speaker 2: your mind is kind of racing inside that blindfold with
Speaker 2: the threat of death. But then when you have a moment,
Speaker 2: the thoughts that are coming into your head are the
Speaker 2: ones that they've curated for.
Speaker 3: You, right, Yeah, another cult in doctrination technique right limit
Speaker 3: access to information, or diplomatically put curate it. Hurst eventually
Speaker 3: is allowed to leave the closet for brief periods to
Speaker 3: eat meals. She's still blindfolded so that she doesn't clock
Speaker 3: where she's at, and she's allowed to participate in political discussions.
Speaker 3: That's a reward for doing the whole work and reading. Eventually,
Speaker 3: as their plans on the SLA's part keep going sideways,
Speaker 3: they offer Patricia Hurst a choice. They say, we're not
Speaker 3: going to kill you. As a matter of fact, we
Speaker 3: can release you or you can join our organization's interest
Speaker 3: into it.
Speaker 4: Yeah, gosh, I mean it really does mean. I'm sorry
Speaker 4: I keep getting hung up on this, but it starts
Speaker 4: to make me think about the behavior of cult leaders
Speaker 4: as well, you know, and just the conditioning that goes
Speaker 4: on in cults where certainly people join of their own
Speaker 4: volition or free will at first, but then their behavior
Speaker 4: becomes less and less about what they would normally do
Speaker 4: and is more molded in the image or in the
Speaker 4: interest of the cult leader, and oftentimes not in their
Speaker 4: best interest at all. But yet somehow, like for example,
Speaker 4: like Heaven's Gate, these people took their own lives, you know,
Speaker 4: at the a behest of this cult leader, and they
Speaker 4: believed that that was the right thing to do. But
Speaker 4: that is the very definition of a behavior that is
Speaker 4: not in one's best interest.
Speaker 3: Yeah. Again, please do check out our episodes of videos
Speaker 3: on how to start a cult and big thanks to
Speaker 3: our bells, Chuck Bryant, Jonathan Strictly, who else. There were
Speaker 3: several people in those videos. But we give you a
Speaker 3: step by step process of indoctrination. Again, and that's because
Speaker 3: it's a rubric it's a set of tactics that is
Speaker 3: ideologically agnostic. It'll work for a far right terrorist organization,
Speaker 3: a far left terrorist organization, any kind of religious sect
Speaker 3: you can imagine, and it worked for Patty Hurst at least.
Speaker 3: That's the argument that we'll see in court because after
Speaker 3: weeks of being indoctrinated, arguably brainwashed, when she was given
Speaker 3: the choice, it was a false decision. They knew what
Speaker 3: she was going to choose, because they had already primed
Speaker 3: her and groomed her to do so. She chose to
Speaker 3: stay and fight with the SLA and she put out
Speaker 3: announcements to the media to this effect.
Speaker 4: On the flip side of that, though, Ben, is there
Speaker 4: not a part of this that does somewhat remove the
Speaker 4: agency from an individual. Is there no chance that she
Speaker 4: really just did, in some small way identify with their cause.
Speaker 3: Yeah, it's excellent foreshadowing there because and that's why we're
Speaker 3: also introducing the idea of the legal argument, right, because
Speaker 3: the Hearst family was able to afford the best lawyers,
Speaker 3: and they did need the lawyers, because this was not
Speaker 3: just a statement of moral support on Herst side. In fact,
Speaker 3: after these statements were released, she went on to assist
Speaker 3: the group in bank robberies and other crimes. She eventually,
Speaker 3: spoiler alert, gets arrested on September eighteenth, nineteen seventy five.
Speaker 3: I really feel like we should do an entire episode
Speaker 3: of something just on this. Okay. So she's in the system,
Speaker 3: back in the system again for a couple of weeks,
Speaker 3: and she renounces her allegiance to this group. At the trial,
Speaker 3: she and her legal team claim she was coerced, she
Speaker 3: was threatened, she was under duress. This whole thing was
Speaker 3: a survival strategy.
Speaker 2: Yeah, and you can see that, right. Your logical brain says, oh, okay,
Speaker 2: that kind of makes sense. But if we take ourselves
Speaker 2: back and you think, okay, the granddaughter of William randolph Hurst,
Speaker 2: literally a titan of American industry, has taken a photograph
Speaker 2: with herself holding a gun in front of this flag, right,
Speaker 2: And that's after all of the newspaper stories about granddaughter
Speaker 2: of William Randolph Hurst missing, just coming at you and
Speaker 2: coming at you. I imagining just a member of the
Speaker 2: public experiencing this. And then you see that photograph and
Speaker 2: then you hear her denounce her entire family and the
Speaker 2: fortune that she would eventually come into and just how
Speaker 2: shocking that would be. You can see how a legal
Speaker 2: team then in the time we're talking about, would need
Speaker 2: a very strong argument to kind of explain the behaviors
Speaker 2: that everybody witnessed publicly.
Speaker 3: Yeah, well said, because straight up insanity defenses almost never work.
Speaker 3: That's like buying a lottery ticket, winning five dollars and
Speaker 3: then spending that on another series of lottery tickets and
Speaker 3: winning all of those. The odds are against you in
Speaker 3: court to try to plead insanity. This is happening in
Speaker 3: the public square, right, she gets sentenced. There's life in
Speaker 3: prison on the table. She gets pardoned, surprised, she gets released.
Speaker 3: And when the the defense team is putting together their argument,
Speaker 3: like you said, something needs to be really solid and compelling. Here,
Speaker 3: they look to a case over in Sweden less than
Speaker 3: around about a year before Hurst was kidnapped, there was
Speaker 3: a bank robbery in Stockholm and this led to the
Speaker 3: first description of what we call Stockholm syndrome. Today, we'll
Speaker 3: take a break for a word from our sponsors, and
Speaker 3: then we're gonna get a little cinematic and we've returned
Speaker 3: tri force. Can you hit us with some cool heist music? Yeah?
Speaker 4: There it is, man, we're dropping down from the ceiling.
Speaker 3: What's the origin story of Stockholm syndrome. Let's really get into.
Speaker 4: The moment there in seventy three, we definitely talked about
Speaker 4: this on that Listener Mail episode. Let's go into a
Speaker 4: little more depth here. On the morning of August twenty third,
Speaker 4: nineteen seventy three, and escaped convict by the name of
Speaker 4: yan Eric Olsen entered the Sveragas Credits Bunkin, which is
Speaker 4: a busy bank and an upscale neighborhood in Stockholm, which
Speaker 4: on paper looks like it should be pronounced normal Stork square.
Speaker 4: That is not how it's pronounced. Maddie, we help us
Speaker 4: out with this. I can't even remember you just told
Speaker 4: me off, Mike, and it's already left my brain place.
Speaker 2: I might be completely wrong, but I heard it sounds
Speaker 2: like Normum's story.
Speaker 4: Okay, h all right, I got a y sound from
Speaker 4: a g language. How about that?
Speaker 3: So yan Eric gets into this bank, he's he's strapped,
Speaker 3: not everybody in sweetness strapped. He's got a submachine gun.
Speaker 3: He fakes an American accent and he yells.
Speaker 2: The party's just good cow bunga dudes, doesn't he have
Speaker 2: like a wig on too.
Speaker 3: Yeah, he's got a wig. He's in a he's in
Speaker 3: a disguise, both audibly and physically.
Speaker 4: It's very point break kind of vibes. I don't know
Speaker 4: why I'm thinking that, but he did use said so
Speaker 4: machine gun to wound, thankfully, just wound a policeman who
Speaker 4: responded to one of those silent alarms. It's like the
Speaker 4: bane of bank robbery. Now, don't you do it. Don't
Speaker 4: you do it, lady, I see what you're thinking. Don't
Speaker 4: do it. But she did it. They did it. Whomever
Speaker 4: did it, and this policeman did respond to that call
Speaker 4: for help.
Speaker 3: And after things were surprised, things often go sideways in
Speaker 3: a heist. After the wounding of this police officer, this
Speaker 3: robber yon Eric takes four bank employees hostage. Yon Eric
Speaker 3: get this is conducting this bank robbery while he's on
Speaker 3: vacation because Sweden is one of those countries that lets
Speaker 3: convicts take vacation from prison. He had already been convicted.
Speaker 3: He was serving a three year sentence for grand larceny.
Speaker 3: And I guess the folks in charge of the prison
Speaker 3: system were way more chill than they are in the
Speaker 3: United States.
Speaker 4: Man, man, it seems like the prisoners in Europe get
Speaker 4: treated better than the average citizens here in the United States.
Speaker 4: Not to be too hyperbolic about it, but yeah, sorry,
Speaker 4: we just after all this Luigi Mangioni talked that he've
Speaker 4: been doing lately, and the state of healthcare and just
Speaker 4: you know, wealth disparities in general. Talking about this kind
Speaker 4: of stuff really does sort of bum you out.
Speaker 3: Check out the pictures of Scandinavian prisons. You know what
Speaker 3: I mean.
Speaker 4: It's like an Ikea nice college apartments, I know exactly,
Speaker 4: It's like those little sample rooms and an Ikea show floor.
Speaker 3: So he has God on furlough because he's being so
Speaker 3: cool in prison, and as soon as he gets out,
Speaker 3: he goes on this bank robbery and he says to
Speaker 3: the authorities, you need to give me the equivalent of
Speaker 3: seven hundred thousand dollars in Swedish and foreign currency. Also,
Speaker 3: I want to get away car, and it better be
Speaker 3: a sweet getaway car. Also, you gotta let out my
Speaker 3: buddy Clark Olafson, not Olsen olla Son. He is currently
Speaker 3: locked up for armed robbery and aiding in the murder
Speaker 3: of a police officer in nineteen sixty six, So that
Speaker 3: guy's under the jail.
Speaker 4: Yeah, that's a tall order, wouldn't you say, releasing a
Speaker 4: prisoner of that caliber. We're in a country where there
Speaker 4: isn't nearly the level of violent crime that we have here. Yeah,
Speaker 4: you're right on that level of violent crime. Point too,
Speaker 4: This is so rare that this kind of armed hostage
Speaker 4: crisis hasn't really happened in Sweden. Everybody's tuned into the news.
Speaker 4: No one, including the police, are sure what to do.
Speaker 3: And the police say, okay, well, let's get this Clark guy.
Speaker 3: Maybe he can help us in the hostage negotiations. So
Speaker 3: they talk with Clark before they release him into the bank,
Speaker 3: and they say, look, you're going to be working for us.
Speaker 3: You're going to help de escalate this. That's why we're
Speaker 3: sending you in. We're not sending you in to ride
Speaker 3: shotgun in a getaway car, buddy, We're sending you in
Speaker 3: to help us. He complies. Within hours, the police deliver Clark,
Speaker 3: they deliver the ransom money, and they deliver a getaway car,
Speaker 3: which is a pretty sweet looking blue Ford Mustang with
Speaker 3: a full tank. A guess nice a little flashy for
Speaker 3: a getaway car.
Speaker 4: Probably just stick out like a sore thumb there in Stockholm,
Speaker 4: don't you think?
Speaker 3: Yeah? Oh yeah, why do I get a VW or exactly,
Speaker 3: he's in very good heightst etiquette.
Speaker 2: Just a quick little detail to add in here. One
Speaker 2: of the things that Yan brought into the bank robbery
Speaker 2: initially was a transistor radio, so he could literally put
Speaker 2: on the radio with these four hostages and listen to
Speaker 2: the stories that were being reported about him robbing the
Speaker 2: bank as he's doing it, Which is an interesting tactic,
Speaker 2: right You've we've seen in Hollywood films and stuff like
Speaker 2: somebody bringing in a police radio or something like that
Speaker 2: to scan to scan all the channels and see what
Speaker 2: the chatter is. In this case, he's just listening to
Speaker 2: the radio and you can imagine I don't know, I
Speaker 2: can imagine him being in there and then the hostages
Speaker 2: hearing the police response right as it's occurring, and I
Speaker 2: can only imagine that added to the terror feeling like
Speaker 2: something horrible is about to happen.
Speaker 3: Oh, oh, Kristin, turn it up.
Speaker 2: They mentioned you, yeah, Kristin Enmark, right.
Speaker 3: Yeah, yeah. The four hostages are Kristin Enmark, Bergeta Lundebland,
Speaker 3: Elizabeth Oldgren and ven Softstrom. So three women, one dude.
Speaker 3: And this this gets to a point where the Swedish
Speaker 3: authorities are saying, you know, look, we're trying to be cool,
Speaker 3: we're trying to save lives, but we are not going
Speaker 3: to let you leave with those hostages in this ford mustang.
Speaker 3: Where's that's a step too far for us. That's a
Speaker 3: rubicon we do not cross.
Speaker 2: And that mustang is pretty tiny.
Speaker 3: And that mustang is it's going to be cramped, you.
Speaker 4: Know, Is that that's like a two door though probably right,
Speaker 4: so you'd have to like literally pop the seats forward
Speaker 4: to get people into the back.
Speaker 3: It's yeah, it's it's going to be unpleasant to have
Speaker 3: six people in there. And as a result, the authorities
Speaker 3: and these criminals they're to stand off. The robbers hold
Speaker 3: the hostages in one of the bank's vaults for six days,
Speaker 3: and they're hank it. They're there for a week together.
Speaker 3: Olsen says, look, if you attempt to breach this structure
Speaker 3: with say, tear gas, then I will kill all four
Speaker 3: of these people, and the police eventually do mount an
Speaker 3: attack with tear gas. This causes the robbers to surrender
Speaker 3: all hostages survive. Olsen, the original guy is sentenced to
Speaker 3: ten years, but his pal Clark is ultimately acquitted.
Speaker 4: Yeah.
Speaker 2: Oh yeah, well, let's talk about what happened a couple
Speaker 2: of days before they tear asked the place when the police,
Speaker 2: the police didn't know who actually was in there at first, right,
Speaker 2: they sent somebody in who they believed was the brother
Speaker 2: of the person they thought was committing this crime. And
Speaker 2: that person walked up basically to the bank trying to say, hey, bro,
Speaker 2: it's me, it's your brother. But then I think it
Speaker 2: was Jan who fired several shots through the bank window
Speaker 2: or through the bank doors and the windows at this person,
Speaker 2: or at least to scare this person away. And that
Speaker 2: is one of the primary things that occurred where the
Speaker 2: folks being held hostage in the bank started to think,
Speaker 2: oh crap, these police might actually get us killed. And
Speaker 2: you know, you can feel that already occurring before the
Speaker 2: gas attack.
Speaker 3: Yeah, as Enmark recalls in specific, police started messing up
Speaker 3: fairly early on Jan Eric Olcid had successfully disguised his
Speaker 3: appearance and his voice, remember that American accent, so police
Speaker 3: did misidentify him. Initially. They confused him with another infamous
Speaker 3: bank robber who had previously escaped from prison, not on furlough,
Speaker 3: not on vacation, he was supposed to still be in prison.
Speaker 3: They sent the guy's brother in along with a police officer,
Speaker 3: thinking they could talk him down. John Eric understandably freaked out.
Speaker 3: He doesn't know this guy from a canna paint. He
Speaker 3: fires at the strangers, and then there's this absurdist Vonnegut
Speaker 3: esque side note. The bank robber that the Swedish authorities
Speaker 3: thought was inside was actually on the run and made
Speaker 3: it to Hawaii, and he was pissed off. He was
Speaker 3: so mad that he was accused of being behind the heist.
Speaker 3: He called Swedish police and said, hey, come on, guys,
Speaker 3: be cool, I'm not the hostage taker here. And when
Speaker 3: he called that's what led to him getting extradited, apprehended,
Speaker 3: extradited and arrested and put back in prison.
Speaker 4: So we were talking about how rare this kind of
Speaker 4: stuff is, and there just happens to be another guy
Speaker 4: who was also on the lamb that was a candidate
Speaker 4: for this.
Speaker 3: That's really weird.
Speaker 4: It's a perfect storm of circumstances.
Speaker 3: Yeah, they were working with information asymmetry, right, They didn't
Speaker 3: know what they didn't know. And also we see, you know,
Speaker 3: a little bit of foreshadowing of the great controversy of
Speaker 3: Stockholm syndrome. And we'll get back to that moment later. Right,
Speaker 3: we know that there were multiple instances wherein according to
Speaker 3: the first hand experience of the hostages, the police seemed
Speaker 3: like their actions might be as dangerous as those of
Speaker 3: the robbers. All Right, something curious happens though, Right, the
Speaker 3: hostages are released and none of them will testify against
Speaker 3: either robber, against either criminal. In fact, they begin raising
Speaker 3: money for the criminal's defense fund, which is pretty fascinating
Speaker 3: when you think about it. You know, it seems counterintuitive, right.
Speaker 3: One of the first questions the police have is have
Speaker 3: these victims somehow been on the inside of the heist?
Speaker 3: You know, are they co conspirators? It didn't seem to
Speaker 3: be the case. Unlike the Patty Hurst situation. They did
Speaker 3: not recant their support. If you continue to visit the
Speaker 3: robbers after everything shook out in the aftermath, and it
Speaker 3: looks like they genuinely became friends, like lifelong friends.
Speaker 2: Well, they spent one pretty weird week together, that's for sure.
Speaker 3: Exactly.
Speaker 4: I will always have the trauma bonding right, Like you
Speaker 4: can trauma bond with somebody even if they themselves are
Speaker 4: the ones responsible for creating the trauma. Like I don't
Speaker 4: think our brains always differentiate those kinds of things. It's
Speaker 4: like it's a defense mechanism, like I was saying earlier.
Speaker 2: Yeah, agreed.
Speaker 3: So Swedish authorities call it in a criminologist and psychologist
Speaker 3: named Neil's help you with us on Matt Bejiru Beirut
Speaker 3: not native Swedish speakers, if they they're Matt. He is
Speaker 3: the guy who invents or coinvents the term Stockholm syndrome.
Speaker 3: Because again, pretty much the entire nation of Sweden is
Speaker 3: watching this. They're glued to the screen. Even to give
Speaker 3: us a sense of the magnitude, a higher percentage of
Speaker 3: the Swedish population is watching this than the percentage of
Speaker 3: people who watch the OJ Simpson trial or the car
Speaker 3: or the infamous car chase. Like everybody is watching this
Speaker 3: and they want answers. And this guy, this psychologist, he
Speaker 3: analyzes the victims' reactions and what he understands to be
Speaker 3: their accounts of being held hostage, and he says, look,
Speaker 3: these folks have been brainwashed. He originally called this Norman
Speaker 3: Story syndrobit after the square, how do we do that?
Speaker 3: Was it not bad? All right? So the Norman story syndrome.
Speaker 3: Outside of Sweden, they started calling it Stockholm syndrome because honestly,
Speaker 3: it's easier for non Swedish speakers to pronounce. And you
Speaker 3: hear it name checked in fiction, true crime, news, kidnappings, abusive,
Speaker 3: romantic or familial relationships. It seems like a huge deal
Speaker 3: and a deep rabbit hole of psychology. However, to this day,
Speaker 3: some critics and some experts will tell you this syndrome
Speaker 3: is pretty much made up. We'll be back after a
Speaker 3: word from our sponsors. Here's where it gets crazy. Most
Speaker 3: of the public long ago accepted Stockholm syndrome as a real,
Speaker 3: if rare thing, but it's academic and scientific reputation is
Speaker 3: far less secure. It's often referred to as a contested illness,
Speaker 3: which is a very polite way of acknowledging that a
Speaker 3: ton of experts seem to think beat me here, Andrew
Speaker 3: seem to think it's bold.
Speaker 2: Yeah, and it is interesting when you've got a term
Speaker 2: like this, it does feel like it's a quick and
Speaker 2: easy definition when somebody uses it, like in a sentence
Speaker 2: or to describe something. In my head, at least for
Speaker 2: a long time, it meant, oh, identifying with a bad
Speaker 2: guy when I hear Stockholm syndrome, like that's all. That's
Speaker 2: all I hear. But then if you actually look into
Speaker 2: it and you try and figure out what is the
Speaker 2: definition of Stockholm syndrome, you can look at places like
Speaker 2: the Cleveland Clinic, and you know, the Mayo Clinic and
Speaker 2: Psychology Today and all these places, and it's described a
Speaker 2: little bit differently everywhere, and then you realize that the
Speaker 2: DSM doesn't even have it right all right.
Speaker 3: The Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders, the DSM
Speaker 3: textbook familiar to any psychology college student. It is the
Speaker 3: bible of psychiatric illnesses and disorders here in the United States.
Speaker 3: It is a work in progress. It's highly imperfect. But
Speaker 3: Stockholm syndrome is not in there. And if you go
Speaker 3: to folks like Paul Appelbaum, for a long time was
Speaker 3: the chair of the DSM Steering Committee, he will tell
Speaker 3: you they can't put Stockholm syndrome in there because there's
Speaker 3: no consistent body of academic research on this. Stockholm syndrome
Speaker 3: as a concept never met the requirements to even get
Speaker 3: to the review stage for the DSM. Further, everybody seemed
Speaker 3: to know that because no one ever submitted it for
Speaker 3: inclusion in the first place. Nobody ever even pitched the
Speaker 3: idea of making this an official meant condition. There are
Speaker 3: no identified diagnostic criteria at all for the alleged condition.
Speaker 3: And to your point, it does seem that the origin
Speaker 3: story of Stockholm syndrome is widely misunderstood and perhaps in
Speaker 3: some cases purposely misunderstood. This is where we got to
Speaker 3: go back to one of the one of the hostages
Speaker 3: we mentioned earlier, Kristin Nmark. She had a great conversation
Speaker 3: with a therapist named Alan Wade that you can read
Speaker 3: in depth in the Independent, and she's been on record
Speaker 3: multiple times with her problems concerning how the concept of
Speaker 3: Stockholm syndrome was applied to her story and the story
Speaker 3: of those other hostages.
Speaker 2: Yeah, it's pretty incredible. Yeah, the one the thing I
Speaker 2: read ben was in the ABC, but it's the Australian
Speaker 2: Broadcasting Corporation. I think where there's there's it's probably part
Speaker 2: of the same interview. But it is just fascinating the
Speaker 2: amount of things that people just didn't have the full
Speaker 2: context for when her story is being described and talked
Speaker 2: about back in seventy three, seventy four, when all this
Speaker 2: stuff is going down, there's just so much nuance to
Speaker 2: it that she talks to this person about. So this
Speaker 2: is a twenty three year old young professional working at
Speaker 2: the bank. Curiously, she's described as a stenographer at the bank.
Speaker 2: But we're not sure what that means or what that
Speaker 2: would be as a role in a bank.
Speaker 4: I guess we know that more in terms of like
Speaker 4: a court, you know, documentary and who's like taking things
Speaker 4: down that maybe in Europe it's a term for someone
Speaker 4: who does banking, who knows.
Speaker 3: Yeah, maybe everything has to be on record at the bank.
Speaker 2: You know, that would be important.
Speaker 3: So I's just there typing when you walk in. I
Speaker 3: think that's kind of cool. She is already immediately thrust
Speaker 3: into a surreal, dare we say, dream like situation. This
Speaker 3: is not a normal day, she would later tell The
Speaker 3: New Yorker in nineteen seventy four, I believed a maniac
Speaker 3: had come into my life. I believed this was I
Speaker 3: was seeing something that could only happen in America. Oh
Speaker 3: As the American accent and the US already has kind
Speaker 3: of a reputation.
Speaker 2: Well, it's an American movie playing out in the bank
Speaker 2: that you're about. Like, her plans were to quit the
Speaker 2: bank in a couple of weeks when this happened, So
Speaker 2: she was like, already, I'm gonna be out the door.
Speaker 2: I don't have to deal with this anymore. And then
Speaker 2: this happens.
Speaker 4: Nah, you're right, I mean, I said, point break because
Speaker 4: this scenario is the most cliche kind of like dramatic
Speaker 4: type bank robbery scenario you could possibly envision.
Speaker 3: And we mentioned earlier that n Mark's narrative, the narratives
Speaker 3: of all the hostages don't jibe with the case the
Speaker 3: police are trying to present. We mentioned how m Mark
Speaker 3: says police started messing up fairly often. That's something the
Speaker 3: other three hostages said. We mentioned the misidentification on the
Speaker 3: part of the police. These are the high points in
Speaker 3: the narrative difference. But there's a lot more going on there,
Speaker 3: and some of these things are things we will never
Speaker 3: really know, right, We won't know the full details of
Speaker 3: what went on in those vaults.
Speaker 2: Emotionally, so we know that at least we know Kristen
Speaker 2: was tied her hands and her feet were bound at
Speaker 2: least initially, so she's put into that place psychologically as
Speaker 2: all of this stuff is playing out.
Speaker 3: Yeah and yeah, let's focus there on the hostages, because
Speaker 3: the actions of the police of law enforcement are really
Speaker 3: putting the hostages in intense disease because they are hearing
Speaker 3: these crazy bits of speculation in the media, They're hearing
Speaker 3: these statements from law enforcement on that transistor radio, and
Speaker 3: they are increasingly certain with every passing day, perhaps every
Speaker 3: passing hour, that this is not going to end peacefully.
Speaker 3: This crisis is the first televised crime in the country.
Speaker 3: In real time. Something like three quarters of the population
Speaker 3: are tuning in just to get the latest updates, which
Speaker 3: means that even if you don't own a radio or
Speaker 3: read a newspaper or watch TV, you can't escape it.
Speaker 3: Everybody is talking about this. So Olsen, our original bank robber,
Speaker 3: yan Eric and Kristin Enmark, at separate times, both speak
Speaker 3: to the Prime Minister of Sweden, and the Prime Minister
Speaker 3: spends nearly an hour on the phone with Kristin and Mark,
Speaker 3: and she tells him directly, I feel like the police
Speaker 3: are gonna I feel like we're gonna die due to
Speaker 3: police action. They're going to try to rescue us, They're
Speaker 3: gonna botch it, and then we will be killed, and
Speaker 3: she later claimed this didn't come out for the public
Speaker 3: for a while. She later claimed the Prime Minister of
Speaker 3: Sweden said, look, if you get killed when police try
Speaker 3: to de escalate this, you should be happy to have
Speaker 3: died at your post.
Speaker 4: Ooh, yikes, I mean, talk about a psychological switcherero there
Speaker 4: when the hostages are beginning to identify more with their
Speaker 4: captors than they are with their supposed rescuers, because they're
Speaker 4: starting to see them as more of a threat than
Speaker 4: the bank robbers.
Speaker 2: Well, yeah, let's talk about the way Kristen describes the
Speaker 2: situation after Clark, the other criminal, shows up on the scene.
Speaker 2: She talks about how this other person came in and,
Speaker 2: as we described, the police basically said Clark, you're going
Speaker 2: in for our side to kind of take care of
Speaker 2: this situation, to handle it a little bit. And according
Speaker 2: to Kristen, she was very happy when this other guy
Speaker 2: showed up because he actually showed kindness to the hostages,
Speaker 2: specifically saying that he comforted me. He held my hand
Speaker 2: and he said I'm going to see that Yan doesn't
Speaker 2: hurt you. So you can imagine if you've got two
Speaker 2: people simultaneously holding you hostage, but one of them is
Speaker 2: good cop essentially, right, you can imagine a bond maybe
Speaker 2: being formed with one and not with the other, or
Speaker 2: in a different way at least.
Speaker 3: Sure. Yeah, there's the identification again, the building of some
Speaker 3: sort of rapport, and the construction of that rapport can
Speaker 3: be exacerbated by contrast. Right, one of these is the
Speaker 3: good cop, and that's the one that I will comply with. Right,
Speaker 3: and again, jan Eric said, if you try a gas attack,
Speaker 3: I'm going to kill the hostages. But even though the
Speaker 3: hostages knew this, even though the police knew that he
Speaker 3: said this, the police did so anyway, So if you
Speaker 3: put yourself in the mind of the hostages, it starts
Speaker 3: to look like the police may not super care what
Speaker 3: happens to you.
Speaker 2: Yeah, they were above the hostages drilling a hole in
Speaker 2: the ceiling so they could drop the gas down into
Speaker 2: and according to reports, hostages were down there going, please,
Speaker 2: don't do this, Do not do this. Can't you hear
Speaker 2: what this crazy guy is saying. He's gonna kill us.
Speaker 2: Don't do this please?
Speaker 3: Yeah, and so in the aftermath, the hostages seem pretty
Speaker 3: friendly with jan Eric and with Clark, and then critical
Speaker 3: of and downright hostile toward the police. So people are
Speaker 3: asking what happened. You know, you can imagine a police
Speaker 3: officer at the crowd going well, you know, we did
Speaker 3: save your life, and then getting the cold shoulder. This
Speaker 3: guy kneels, the psychiatrist we mentioned earlier. He realizes people
Speaker 3: want an explanation. Sweden wants to know what happened, why
Speaker 3: it happened, and why these people are acting this way right,
Speaker 3: why they don't seem thankful for law enforcement. And now
Speaker 3: they've got an expert who will give them a simple,
Speaker 3: black and white answer. So surely, says the public, whatever
Speaker 3: he says is correct. We want that explanation. Tell us
Speaker 3: explain it. Let's move on. But what a lot of
Speaker 3: the public doesn't know is this psychologist, the psychiatrist Nils
Speaker 3: has never met nor treated miss in Mark. His speculation
Speaker 3: is more like what Iffery and educated guesses, and before
Speaker 3: people could apply even a little bit of critical thinking
Speaker 3: or nuance or scrutiny to his statements, boom Patty Hurst.
Speaker 3: And when that case happens, an excellent defense team figures out, Hey,
Speaker 3: this is already in the public zeitgeist. Right, this cements
Speaker 3: Stockholm syndrome as a real thing, the not just the
Speaker 3: bank robbery in Sweden, but the almost immediate kidnapping scandal
Speaker 3: with Hurst. It's a one to two combo for sure.
Speaker 2: For sure, and just like in the Hirst case, with
Speaker 2: these weird moments that the public ends up getting to
Speaker 2: see in publications, right and in the news. There's a
Speaker 2: moment just I think we should describe here when the
Speaker 2: kidnapping is over in Stockholm, the initial one in seventy three,
Speaker 2: the person Kristen is heard, is seen and heard saying Clark,
Speaker 2: I'll see you again, as as he's being taken away,
Speaker 2: as she's going into an ambulance. So it's almost as
Speaker 2: though they are friends or maybe even romantically involved in
Speaker 2: the way that that stated and experienced at the time. Right.
Speaker 2: So when you combine I think all these things and
Speaker 2: as you're saying with Patty Hurst, seeing that image that's
Speaker 2: stuck in the mind of everybody with the gun and
Speaker 2: the flag, the one two punch is perfect, Ben.
Speaker 3: It's the I mean, I think you're right. The implications
Speaker 3: get pretty disturbing because Stockholm syndrome appears to paint the
Speaker 3: hostages as somehow weak willed or perhaps not fully mentally stable,
Speaker 3: and if you look at their situation, their actions are
Speaker 3: absolutely rational that therapists we mentioned earlier as a long
Speaker 3: interview with in Mark which Grieve Before the Independent, Alan
Speaker 3: Wade says, this hostage is watching police bungle the early
Speaker 3: stages of this and notices she's becoming less safe rather
Speaker 3: than more safe. The police action from the hostage perspective
Speaker 3: is making things worse. The police may trigger these these fatalities,
Speaker 3: and so Stockholm syndrome becomes a concept that can conveniently
Speaker 3: invalidate the real concerns of those hostages and shift blame
Speaker 3: away from the authorities, sort of matrix dodge the fact
Speaker 3: that they didn't have rubric and they were messing up
Speaker 3: a lot. This goes back to some stuff we were
Speaker 3: mentioning earlier Noel like the idea of what you will
Speaker 3: do to survive, sometimes called resistance theory.
Speaker 4: Yeah, and Wade describes this as one of a long
Speaker 4: list of resistance theories, such as identification with an aggressor,
Speaker 4: being infantilized, trauma bonding, like we mentioned, a learned sense
Speaker 4: of helplessness and internalization or false consciousness, and these all
Speaker 4: seem to assume that people have not resisted violence, and
Speaker 4: also seem to ignore what Wade calls careful analysis of
Speaker 4: circumstances on the ground.
Speaker 2: The Cleveland Clinic adds one other things into there as
Speaker 2: a similar set of circumstances or a linked psychological condition.
Speaker 2: Battered person syndrome is how it's stated. You can see
Speaker 2: how that kind of like all the things you just
Speaker 2: described their le and then combining it with that concept
Speaker 2: of a singular person in someone's life that is the
Speaker 2: aggressor and the abuser, but is also the comforter and
Speaker 2: like the shared roles that that person may have in
Speaker 2: someone's life. It feels very similar to this.
Speaker 3: And of course, as we said, DSM is a work
Speaker 3: in progress. Just because something is not in the DSM
Speaker 3: right now does not automatically mean it is malarchy. But
Speaker 3: there's no escaping the convenience of the story. It's cinematic,
Speaker 3: you know. We also didn't mention this. Yeah, and Eric
Speaker 3: kind of a smoke show. Pretty attractive dude, hot guy,
Speaker 3: at least to the minds of the Swedish public. So
Speaker 3: you got a good looking criminal, You got tense misstep
Speaker 3: on both sides, life or death stakes. This is everything
Speaker 3: you need for a summer blockbuster, and it ignores a
Speaker 3: key fact that has baffled humans since people started peopling.
Speaker 3: The human mind is complicated. It is not simple. It
Speaker 3: takes in a lot of information, It does a lot
Speaker 3: of stuff. The human mind does not know how the
Speaker 3: human mind works. And that's why hostages don't get center stage,
Speaker 3: even though they're the ones who almost died. Anytime their
Speaker 3: first hand account differs from the narrative the law and
Speaker 3: the media wants to push, they get kind of pushed
Speaker 3: themselves off to the side. It's a way of invalidating
Speaker 3: and diminishing and dismissing these lived experiences. And it's part
Speaker 3: of a larger conspiracy. Honestly, in the n Mark case,
Speaker 3: it's a conspiracy against women historically misdiagnosed from afar by
Speaker 3: male psychiatrist with all kinds of bogus disorders like you know, hysteria.
Speaker 3: That was a big one. Shout out to you or
Speaker 3: not shout out, but the Yellow Wallpaper read it if
Speaker 3: you haven't.
Speaker 4: Oh, Also tip of the hat to stuff mom never
Speaker 4: told you who in their vast back catalog of episodes
Speaker 4: have talked about a lot of these kind of gas
Speaker 4: lighting concepts.
Speaker 2: Oh yeah, well, okay, let's let's go with Christen's words
Speaker 2: one more time. Imagine you're in these shoes, You're about
Speaker 2: to leave your job. You're at your job, you just
Speaker 2: ended a relationship that wasn't going very great. You're single,
Speaker 2: you're twenty three years old, you are in you are
Speaker 2: thrust into the most stressful, terrifying situation of your life.
Speaker 2: Then another person enters that situation and is very comforting
Speaker 2: and kind to you. Don't you think there would be
Speaker 2: some kind of bond that gets created there, just in
Speaker 2: some tiny one, even just imagine the smallest one, you
Speaker 2: would feel so thing maybe for that other person, you know.
Speaker 4: And just to parken back to what I mentioned earlier
Speaker 4: in the episode about good cop, bad cop, you know,
Speaker 4: in interrogation scenarios, the whole purpose of having the kinder, gentler,
Speaker 4: you know, counterpart to the rough and tumble bullying kind
Speaker 4: of presence is very psychologically effective because that person can
Speaker 4: kind of manipulate and get the other person to let
Speaker 4: their guard down, or when the mean cop leaves the room,
Speaker 4: oh I'm sorry, he's just such as he's having a
Speaker 4: bad day or whatever. Can I get you a coffee?
Speaker 4: Do you need anything? But in many ways that good
Speaker 4: cop is just as, if not more insidious than the
Speaker 4: bad cop.
Speaker 3: And you know, again, we can't we can't discount the
Speaker 3: human moment right in this bank robbery example. Well, I
Speaker 3: do believe the good cop bad cop dichotomy holds. There's
Speaker 3: also the true possibility that this Clark guy just didn't
Speaker 3: want to be a jerk, you know, and had again
Speaker 3: earlier agreed with police say I will be there to
Speaker 3: help to try to de escalate. But Stockholm syndrome as
Speaker 3: a conspiracy, the folks who believe it is weaponized are saying,
Speaker 3: this is just one more instance of entrenched, institutionalized assumptions
Speaker 3: and inequalities that have been around for centuries. You know.
Speaker 3: The idea here leads us to a pretty convincing argument.
Speaker 3: What if the story of the bank robbery the public
Speaker 3: initially heard was itself a heist? What if that story
Speaker 3: was stolen by the powers that be? See what we
Speaker 3: did there, manipulated to make the victims and survivors look
Speaker 3: like they're crazy. To your earlier point about gaslighting, if
Speaker 3: certain facts are counter to the narrative, they can be ignored.
Speaker 3: The police can say, look, were we perfect? Of course not.
Speaker 3: But let's be honest. The hostages here were not in
Speaker 3: their right minds. They had stock syndrome, So can we
Speaker 3: really believe what they were saying?
Speaker 2: Dude, dude, let's play that out to the Luigi thing.
Speaker 2: Is Luigi the twenty twenty four version of Yan or
Speaker 2: is Yon the seventy three version of Luigi? Like that?
Speaker 2: Are we all experiencing Stockholm syndrome because of the intense
Speaker 2: public support of someone who's an alleged murderer?
Speaker 3: I mean really, yeah, Again, the name Stockholm syndrome is recent,
Speaker 3: but as we're seeing, this is just a verbal hook
Speaker 3: to hang these experiences on, to give them a name,
Speaker 3: to simplify them. Man dangerously run the risk of dismissing them.
Speaker 3: I mean, it's obvious that abuse and crime are real,
Speaker 3: and we're never going to try to diminish nor dismiss
Speaker 3: that horrific reality. But was Stockholm syndrome weaponized? I think
Speaker 3: the answer is yes.
Speaker 4: I think so too.
Speaker 2: Perhaps it feels that way, Yeah, it does. It does
Speaker 2: feel that way well, and.
Speaker 4: It makes sense too, because you know. I think it's
Speaker 4: so clear from how much of a stand in the
Speaker 4: term has become, Like I use it in therapy all
Speaker 4: the time. I say, gosh, I feel like I had
Speaker 4: Stockholm syndrome from X Y scenario that I was maybe
Speaker 4: not you know, standing up for myself in you know
Speaker 4: what I mean, like because I was letting somebody bully
Speaker 4: me or and I was almost feeling as though I
Speaker 4: were empathizing or trying so hard to identify with someone
Speaker 4: who was being unkind to me. So I just think
Speaker 4: it's such a it's become such a catch all term
Speaker 4: that I think is much more complex than the way
Speaker 4: people use it kind of conversationally, and I think it's
Speaker 4: something that most people can wrap their head around, so
Speaker 4: it's easy to weaponize it in just kind of a
Speaker 4: discourse around something where maybe it doesn't apply. Hmmm. I
Speaker 4: don't know, what do you guys think.
Speaker 2: I think you're I think you're absolutely right, and this
Speaker 2: is what I would I don't well, would you guys
Speaker 2: mind if I read something that's at the bottom of
Speaker 2: the Cleveland Clinics explanation of what Stockholm syndrome is, and
Speaker 2: it just says a note from Cleveland clinic. It's a
Speaker 2: little long, but I'm gonna read it. Quote. Stockholm syndrome
Speaker 2: is a coping mechanism. Instead of feelings of fear, terror,
Speaker 2: and hostility towards your abuser, you may begin to feel
Speaker 2: a sense of humanity and compassion for them. If you
Speaker 2: or a loved one has experienced Stockholm syndrome, know that
Speaker 2: your positive feelings towards your abuser are not a fault.
Speaker 2: What you're feeling is an understandable way of coping with
Speaker 2: and surviving what happened to you. Your healthcare provider will
Speaker 2: work with you to help you or your loved one.
Speaker 3: Recover well, said Cleveland. And also we have to note
Speaker 3: not every medical authority agrees with this, because there is
Speaker 3: no to this point, there is no silver bullet universally
Speaker 3: agreed upon definition. So there's still a lot of nuance
Speaker 3: because you know, people again love explanations. The simpler, the quicker,
Speaker 3: the more black and white, the better I got stuff
Speaker 3: to do, says the human mind. So explain this, solve
Speaker 3: this puzzle for me, and on to the next one. Unfortunately,
Speaker 3: the curious case of Stockholm syndrome as a possible conspiracy
Speaker 3: shows us something deeper. At play and whenever you hear
Speaker 3: stories about this and you see those narratives competing, you
Speaker 3: have to ask yourself, is there something that people in
Speaker 3: power don't want you to know? Spoiler? We think the
Speaker 3: answer is yes. We'd love to hear from you. You
Speaker 3: can find us on email, you can find us on telephone.
Speaker 3: You can find us online as a group or as individuals.
Speaker 4: That's right. You can find us at the handle conspiracy
Speaker 4: stuff where we exist on Facebook with our Facebook group
Speaker 4: Here's where it gets crazy, on x FKA, Twitter, and
Speaker 4: on YouTube with video content color for you to enjoy.
Speaker 3: As individuals.
Speaker 4: You can also find this I myself exist at the
Speaker 4: handle how Now Noel Brown exclusively on Instagram. Ben, how
Speaker 4: about you?
Speaker 3: Yes, if you have questions, if you have book recommendations,
Speaker 3: if you have terrible jokes or memes, you can send
Speaker 3: them to me directly at Ben Bullen on Instagram, at
Speaker 3: Benbullin HSW on Twitter, or the website Benbullin dot com. Matt,
Speaker 3: what's a are you sipping those social meds?
Speaker 4: Uh?
Speaker 2: You know what? If you can find me, you win?
Speaker 2: How about that?
Speaker 3: Awesome? Awesome?
Speaker 2: Hey, we also have a phone number. It's one eight
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Speaker 2: call in, give yourself a cool nickname and let us
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Speaker 2: in that department where we are catching up right now
Speaker 2: after we record this, so do call in. We look
Speaker 2: forward to hearing from you. If you've got more to
Speaker 2: say than can fit in a three minute voicemail, why
Speaker 2: not instead send us a good old fashioned email.
Speaker 3: We are the entities that read every piece of correspondence
Speaker 3: we receive. Be well aware, yet on afraid. Sometimes the
Speaker 3: void writes back. As a matter of fact. Right after
Speaker 3: this recording, we're going to respond to some librics and
Speaker 3: we're going to follow up. Listen pretty fascinating email correspondence
Speaker 3: we got. If you want to be part of that correspondence,
Speaker 3: then join us out here in the dark. Also, thanks
Speaker 3: for the kind words about Big Parma from our buddy
Speaker 3: Big Shucks brother. That's too kind. We are conspiracy at
Speaker 3: iHeartRadio dot com.
Speaker 2: Stuff they Don't want you to Know is a production
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