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Speaker 1: Pushkin from Pushkin Industries. This is Deep Background, the show

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Speaker 1: where we explore the stories behind the stories in the news.

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Speaker 1: I'm Noah Feldman. Every generation has a handful of thinkers

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Speaker 1: and writers who profoundly shape the way we experience the

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Speaker 1: world by tapping into the seitgeist, the spirit of the Times.

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Speaker 1: Today's guest, Michael Pollen, is one of those rare individuals. First,

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Speaker 1: he did it for food, with a series of important

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Speaker 1: and influential books and articles for The New Yorker and

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Speaker 1: The New York Times that change the way we thought

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Speaker 1: about how our food was made and about what sorts

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Speaker 1: of foods we should eat. In recent years, he's been

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Speaker 1: doing it again, this time with psychedelics, with books like

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Speaker 1: How to Change Your Mind and most recently, This Is

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Speaker 1: Your Mind on Plants. Throughout this body of work, Michael

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Speaker 1: has focused on the intersecting point between nature and culture,

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Speaker 1: and he tries both to tell our stories and to

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Speaker 1: guide us directionally and how we ought to experience the world.

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Speaker 1: Michael therefore writes about power, one of our central themes

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Speaker 1: here on Deep Background this season. But he is also

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Speaker 1: someone who, in his own gentle way, deploys a substantial

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Speaker 1: amount of power in our culture because here today to

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Speaker 1: talk about his new book and the trajectory of his

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Speaker 1: career and how it all fits together. Michael, thank you

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Speaker 1: so much for being here. There are so many questions

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Speaker 1: that I want to ask you, but let me start

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Speaker 1: with one aspect of your fascinating new book. This is

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Speaker 1: your Mind on Plants. And this book is many different things,

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Speaker 1: but one of them is a kind of philosophical meditation

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Speaker 1: on the fates of different plant based substances and how

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Speaker 1: we end up regulating them. And I'm wondering how you

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Speaker 1: came to that thematic arrangement for the book, with your

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Speaker 1: three substances and the different status that each has. So

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Speaker 1: I looked at three plants and the chemicals they produced,

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Speaker 1: the psychoactive chemicals they produced, and I wanted to make

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Speaker 1: sure one of them was legal and completely acceptable in

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Speaker 1: our society and virtually invisible for that reason, and that

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Speaker 1: was caffeine. And I wanted to change the context of

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Speaker 1: opium and mescal in two by putting the three together.

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Speaker 1: Had the book been all illegal substances, it would have

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Speaker 1: been a drug book. But it's much more interested in

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Speaker 1: looking past the categories, which are interesting and arbitrary in

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Speaker 1: some ways logical and others to this base human drive

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Speaker 1: to change consciousness, which I think is such a curious

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Speaker 1: thing that we were born with this apparently this desire,

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Speaker 1: and it manifests itself even in children who loved to

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Speaker 1: spin and get dizzy, to very normal consciousness, to transcend

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Speaker 1: the ego or reinforce it in the case of some drugs,

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Speaker 1: and we have these remarkable tools presented to us by plants.

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Speaker 1: So I wanted to sort of change the context because

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Speaker 1: people go right to these categories illicit drug, acceptable drug,

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Speaker 1: pharmaceutical drug, but if you go back in time, you

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Speaker 1: know they've been upside down. I mean, there was a

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Speaker 1: time I described in the Opium chapter where the farmer

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Speaker 1: on the land where I now live in Connecticut, he

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Speaker 1: was making alcohol from his apples, making hard cider, which

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Speaker 1: is a very common drink in rural America for a

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Speaker 1: long time. That was a federal crime that could have

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Speaker 1: put him in jail. At that very moment, the women

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Speaker 1: for temperance were commonly enjoying their women's tonics, which were

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Speaker 1: these preparations you could buy at drug stores that contained

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Speaker 1: opium and cannabis, and that was perfectly legal, So I'm

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Speaker 1: trying to kind of defamiliarize ourselves with these categories a

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Speaker 1: little bit and get us to start read thinking them.

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Speaker 1: It was really fascinating to me reading the book, because,

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Speaker 1: as you've just very well described, we haven't yet gotten

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Speaker 1: to a peyote, the third substance you talk about. You

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Speaker 1: wanted three substances with different legal categorizations because you were

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Speaker 1: trying to move us away from thinking about the legal

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Speaker 1: categorizations and towards the plants and the human impulse to

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Speaker 1: ingest the psychoactive and yet or maybe, and also the

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Speaker 1: book that Emerged spends some time talking about the basic

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Speaker 1: human urge, sometime about the experiential relationship we have to

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Speaker 1: these different plant based substances, But a lot of the

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Speaker 1: book ends up being devoted to telling the story. You're

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Speaker 1: such a good storytelling you couldn't help yourself but tell

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Speaker 1: the story of how each of these substances came to

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Speaker 1: occupy the regulatory category, whether social or legal or both

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Speaker 1: that it did come to occupy. So, in a way,

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Speaker 1: a book that sets out to be a book about

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Speaker 1: the power of plants is also a book about human

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Speaker 1: power and the way humans categorize and engage with these

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Speaker 1: same plants, Oh, without question. I mean I'm fascinated by that.

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Speaker 1: I'm fascinated by history and how at different times in

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Speaker 1: history we see nature and culture in very different ways.

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Speaker 1: And drugs are a great example, since they're constantly evolving

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Speaker 1: in our estimation of them. I mean, right now, we're

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Speaker 1: in the midst of a re categorization of psychedelics. I mean,

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Speaker 1: there's still a Schedule one drug with no accepted medical

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Speaker 1: use and a high potential for abuse, neither of which

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Speaker 1: is true, but nevertheless that's the official category for psychedelic

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Speaker 1: But because of this renaissance of research into their value

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Speaker 1: as therapeutic aids to help people deal with mental illness

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Speaker 1: and dying, they're undergoing a shift. And I think if

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Speaker 1: we did this interview in five or ten years, they

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Speaker 1: will no longer be on Schedule one and they will

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Speaker 1: be part of the pharmacopeia. And nobody would have guessed

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Speaker 1: that back in the late sixties when they were first prohibited.

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Speaker 1: So we're in the midst of a sea change right now,

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Speaker 1: I think, and obiits are going in the opposite direction,

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Speaker 1: of course. But my message is too in the book,

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Speaker 1: is it's not all one or the other. We need

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Speaker 1: to think about drugs with the kind of negative capability

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Speaker 1: or suppleness that the Greeks did. They called all these

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Speaker 1: drugs pharmacon, which can mean both poison or medicine, and

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Speaker 1: also scapegoat by the way, which is I think not

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Speaker 1: an accident, because we tend to blame these drugs for

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Speaker 1: all sorts of things. But it's very hard for us

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Speaker 1: to hold two contradictory ideas in our head. And around drugs,

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Speaker 1: you really have to because they can be very dangerous.

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Speaker 1: They can get people into trouble, they can kill people,

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Speaker 1: but they also can heal and give people insights into

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Speaker 1: existence and shift their consciousness in ways that is very

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Speaker 1: productive for them as individuals and for the species I believe.

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Speaker 1: Do you have any hope that we would ever reach

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Speaker 1: a more rational set of structures for making sense of

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Speaker 1: this and governing it? And if so, what would rational

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Speaker 1: look like to you? I mean, one could say, well,

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Speaker 1: here's the thing about coffee or caffeine. It doesn't leave

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Speaker 1: you rampaging in the streets. Right Yet, in your chapter

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Speaker 1: on caffeine, you make the point that we can't just

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Speaker 1: describe the effects of caffeine as minor or trivial. The

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Speaker 1: hope that will ever be rational about this. The evidence

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Speaker 1: of history is that we won't, and that there is

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Speaker 1: a fundamentally irrational part of human life and of the

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Speaker 1: human mind that drugs plays into. We're constantly, you know,

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Speaker 1: we're meaning making creatures, and we will make meaning out

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Speaker 1: of everything. And then if you take a particularly powerful

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Speaker 1: substance that seems to have its own meanings and perhaps does,

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Speaker 1: will project all sorts of stuff on that. But again,

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Speaker 1: the same drug at different times in history can be

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Speaker 1: regarded as encouraging passivity or encouraging violence. I mean, it's

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Speaker 1: interesting how inconsistent we are even about the image of

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Speaker 1: these drugs and what they do for us. I'm convinced

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Speaker 1: that our interpretation of psychedelic experience owes maybe one part

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Speaker 1: to the chemical and nine parts to culture and individual psyche.

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Speaker 1: I mean, that we construct this experience. I've always wondered

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Speaker 1: what would happen if psychedelics hadn't first been written about

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Speaker 1: by Aldus Huxley, who puts a very Eastern spin on it.

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Speaker 1: It's more like Eastern religion than Christian religion. And that

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Speaker 1: orientalizing of psychedelics I think descends from him. It gets

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Speaker 1: picked up by Leary, who used the Tibetan Book of

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Speaker 1: the Dead to interpret the experience. What if some Christian

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Speaker 1: mystics had written the first modern accounts of a psychedelic trip,

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Speaker 1: would it have looked very different? I'm guessing it could be.

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Speaker 1: It could have been constructed differently. But you have to

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Speaker 1: tease apart what's really inherent about the experience. But people

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Speaker 1: forget that everything you experience on a psychedelic is not

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Speaker 1: in the molecule. The molecule doesn't have anything in it.

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Speaker 1: It really is a catalyst for a process in your

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Speaker 1: own mind that draws on everything in your memory, from

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Speaker 1: your own personal experiences to what you've learned about how

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Speaker 1: the world works. And this is one of the reasons

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Speaker 1: I'm so interested in drugs. They're one of those interesting

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Speaker 1: rubs between nature and culture, between our biology and everything

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Speaker 1: we are because of the culture we inhabit. But then

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Speaker 1: you have this other tradition though, right, the Native American

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Speaker 1: tradition ayahuasca and payote and mushrooms. And I found that

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Speaker 1: really fascinating, partly because I didn't know much about it

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Speaker 1: and hadn't paid much attention to payote or the Native

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Speaker 1: American use of psychedelics before, but they have a different

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Speaker 1: construction and it's it's very religious, it's very social, which

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Speaker 1: is interesting. I mean, the drug trip is not an

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Speaker 1: individual matter, it's it's it's something that happens at the

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Speaker 1: level of the community, so they put a different interpretation

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Speaker 1: on it. Yeah, I think that's really important, and I

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Speaker 1: agree that that's one of the really interesting things in

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Speaker 1: your book. And you also show at the same time

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Speaker 1: the connection of the history of mescaline and other cactus

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Speaker 1: derivatives in resistance to the process of domination and cultural

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Speaker 1: and literal genocide perpetrated against Native American peoples, especially in

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Speaker 1: North America, but also in South and Central America, and

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Speaker 1: the way that payote came to be part of the

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Speaker 1: resistance to that story through the immersions of the Native

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Speaker 1: American Payote Church in the late nineteenth century, and then

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Speaker 1: it's flourishing again in the nineteen seventies and eighties. And

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Speaker 1: that's a really rich and important part of your book.

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Speaker 1: And I wondered if I could ask you about an

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Speaker 1: aspect of that that has struck me when I hear

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Speaker 1: contemporary non Indigenous people talking about the use of payote

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Speaker 1: and that is, where do you think that fits into

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Speaker 1: our discourse around cultural ownership and cultural appropriation, especially cultural

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Speaker 1: ownership by indigenous peoples. I mean, on the one hand,

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Speaker 1: they are in some sense part of the common legacy

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Speaker 1: of all humans, and in another sense, they're very specifically

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Speaker 1: connected to particular cultures, cultures that have suffered from destruction.

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Speaker 1: So I wonder how you think about that. So I

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Speaker 1: struggle with this because I was deciding whether I was

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Speaker 1: going to use payote, having learned about the sensitivities about

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Speaker 1: it on the part of Native Americans. I had interviewed

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Speaker 1: many Native Americans who felt threatened by the white use

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Speaker 1: or the non native use of payote. But there are

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Speaker 1: two issues there. There's a cultural appropriation issue, and there's

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Speaker 1: a material appropriation issue in that there is a shortage

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Speaker 1: of payote, and that because of overuse. Because approaching this cactus,

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Speaker 1: the sacred plant, which has become so essential to Native

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Speaker 1: American identity among many tribes, hundreds of tribes now and

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Speaker 1: has been such a powerful tool of healing the unique

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Speaker 1: trauma of Native Americans, that I came to the conclusion

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Speaker 1: that as a non Native, I should leave it alone.

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Speaker 1: That that was the way to respect it. So I decided,

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Speaker 1: even though I had some opportunities there were Native Americans

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Speaker 1: willing to let me participate, the moral or ethical thing

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Speaker 1: to do was not to do it. It's not to

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Speaker 1: say I think that use of payote should be illegal.

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Speaker 1: I do think we should explore what Native Americans have

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Speaker 1: taught us about the healing potential of this compound, mescaline.

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Speaker 1: They did discover mescaline. And then there's another argument about

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Speaker 1: reparations and reciprocity. So there are companies that want to

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Speaker 1: use mescaline in their research and possibly as a treatment

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Speaker 1: for alcoholism, which is one of the big ways that

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Speaker 1: Native Americans use it. Is there any obligation on the

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Speaker 1: part of those companies to return profit or somehow recognize

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Speaker 1: or share their intellectual property if they develop it with

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Speaker 1: Native Americans. That's a really interesting question. I don't know

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Speaker 1: the answer to that. People are struggling with that right now.

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Speaker 1: But I do believe that even though all drugs should

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Speaker 1: be decriminalized, I think as a matter of individual conscience,

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Speaker 1: I would discourage non natives from using payote, especially because

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Speaker 1: there are other ways to get it. To get mescaline.

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Speaker 1: One is synthetic mescaline doesn't damage native payote stocks. And

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Speaker 1: the other is this other cactus I talk about sam

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Speaker 1: pedro or watchuma, which grows in South America. Very easy

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Speaker 1: to grow here or grow your own payote if you're

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Speaker 1: a very patient person and a good gardener. It takes

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Speaker 1: fifteen years to get from seed to usable button. But

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Speaker 1: I see no problem. I don't see that as cultural

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Speaker 1: appropriation if you have some seeds and want to crow it.

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Speaker 1: But again, people draw these lines in very different places,

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Speaker 1: and Native Americans do. I mean, I talk to Native Americans,

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Speaker 1: some of whom would say, you know, use all the

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Speaker 1: synthetic mescaline and sam pedro you want, just leave our

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Speaker 1: payote alone. And then I talk to others who said,

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Speaker 1: if you're going to use mescaline, you owe us reparations

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Speaker 1: because we discovered it. So there's not you know, Native

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Speaker 1: American opinion on this is not monolithic by any means,

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Speaker 1: and my own opinion is not monolithic either, as you

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Speaker 1: can tell. We'll be right back. I want to turn

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Speaker 1: to the magic word plants, which seems to be something

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Speaker 1: that has almost talismanic quality in the body of work

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Speaker 1: of Michael Pollen and in the culture at the moment.

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Speaker 1: By the way, I mean, have you noticed how many

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Speaker 1: products are now plant based in your supermarketing? Yeah? And

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Speaker 1: I'm not sure that if you know, when future historians

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Speaker 1: do an analysis of the evolution of the concept of

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Speaker 1: plant based if they won't find you at the very

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Speaker 1: beating heart of the birth of that movement. So I

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Speaker 1: want to ask you about the about that word, about

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Speaker 1: that the power of that word. You're a gardener, and

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Speaker 1: that has something to do with your long term interest

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Speaker 1: in plants, obviously, because it's famous to everybody. Now you're

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Speaker 1: a dictum about what we should eat started with plants

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Speaker 1: and was made plant central. I'm not really kidding. I

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Speaker 1: think when someday they ask why all these things have

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Speaker 1: the word plant based attached, they may come back to you.

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Speaker 1: And then this book uses advisedly the word plants. You

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Speaker 1: don't say drugs, you don't say medicines, which is a

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Speaker 1: word that some users of psychedelics prefer, and that some

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Speaker 1: Native Americans don't much like to hear used in this

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Speaker 1: context because they take it very seriously and are not

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Speaker 1: sure that everybody who uses these substances does. So talk

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Speaker 1: to me about the word plants. Well, it's been such

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Speaker 1: a kind of common word in my personal vocabulary for

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Speaker 1: a long time. I don't have that much perspective on it.

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Speaker 1: I used it in the title of this book in

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Speaker 1: part to remind people that's where drugs come from, and

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Speaker 1: that they are part of our relationship to the natural world,

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Speaker 1: and we lose track of that. We think of drugs

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Speaker 1: coming from laboratories, and some of them do, but a

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Speaker 1: great many of them, of course, come from plants. And

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Speaker 1: why do plants produce them? Then that opens up a

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Speaker 1: whole conversation about evolutionary objectives of plants as opposed to people,

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Speaker 1: the fact that they are geniuses chemistry and neurochemistry in particular,

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Speaker 1: and why they are because they can't run away, basically,

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Speaker 1: and so they have to use chemistry to either attract

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Speaker 1: or repel. And I've been fascinated in that fact about

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Speaker 1: plants for a very long time. These are not simple

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Speaker 1: molecules they're making. And how incredible is it that a

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Speaker 1: plant can hit on precisely the the chemical formula to

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Speaker 1: have a profound effect on an animal brain. So I've

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Speaker 1: been marveling at plants for a long time. I've been

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Speaker 1: trying to win them more respect speak for them since

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Speaker 1: they can't speak for themselves. Michael paulin Lorax. We'll put

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Speaker 1: that on in the head notes of this interview. That

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Speaker 1: did have a big influence on me, the Loax? Did

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Speaker 1: it actually say? Would you say something about that? How

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Speaker 1: old were you when you first heard of or read

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Speaker 1: the Loax? You think, I don't remember. I don't. I

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Speaker 1: think it came out a little late in my childhood.

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Speaker 1: I'm not sure, but it was one of my sons

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Speaker 1: favorite books, and this whole time I was beginning this

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Speaker 1: work in the nineties, I read it to my son

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Speaker 1: over and over and over again. I've got it pretty

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Speaker 1: much committed to memory. I think at this point i'd

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Speaker 1: have to go back and check what year the Lorex

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Speaker 1: came out. I think of that as kind of late

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Speaker 1: and tied to the environmental movement. It has sentiments in

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Speaker 1: it that it's hard to imagine before nineteen sixty nine

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Speaker 1: or so, when when the environmental movement is starting. Have

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Speaker 1: you found it published June twenty three, nineteen seventy one,

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Speaker 1: So historical analysis is confirmed in a real time. It's

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Speaker 1: nice to when that happens. But the language is very

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Speaker 1: much you know post Rachel Carson post the First Earth Day.

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Speaker 1: So my exposure to it I was fifteen then or

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Speaker 1: sixteen then, So I wasn't reading Doctor SEUs at sixteen,

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Speaker 1: but I did read it over and over again to

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Speaker 1: my son, who loved it. I also know I've written

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Speaker 1: a lot about plant intelligence and the whole effort to

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Speaker 1: figure out how intelligent are plants? Are they conscious? And

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Speaker 1: what does that mean? I mean, I think we're learning

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Speaker 1: some incredible things about plant intelligence, plant sociality. This is

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Speaker 1: a kind of interesting moment for plant science, which has

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Speaker 1: been a very sleepy field for a long time. If

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Speaker 1: you talk to botanists, nobody was paying attention to them.

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Speaker 1: But now you have all this work on how plants

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Speaker 1: connect to one another, and the trees in a forest

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Speaker 1: are very social. Suzanne Simard has a new book on

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Speaker 1: this that's really interesting. She's done pioneering research showing that

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Speaker 1: they can swap nutrients using these fungle networks. They can

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Speaker 1: send messages, plants can hear. There's interesting research that if

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Speaker 1: you play the sound of caterpillars chomping on leaves to

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Speaker 1: other plants, they will arm themselves and produce defense chemicals.

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Speaker 1: You know, they don't have ears, but they can hear,

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Speaker 1: they don't have eyes, but they can see. I mean,

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Speaker 1: they're just bizarre. So it takes a lot of human

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Speaker 1: imagination to see the world from their point of view.

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Speaker 1: And I've been eager to do that for a very

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Speaker 1: long time and wrote a book in fact who's subtitle

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Speaker 1: was A Plant's eye View of the World. And it's

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Speaker 1: exciting to see there is, though, I worry a slightly

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Speaker 1: mystical strain coming into some of this work about trees.

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Speaker 1: I mean, there've been books out on trees that are

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Speaker 1: more mystical than scientific that really strain credulity, at least mine.

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Speaker 1: But in general, I think plants are getting a new

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Speaker 1: respect and that does tie into, you know, what we're

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Speaker 1: learning about nutrition. However, the twinkie is plant based too,

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Speaker 1: I think we need to remember. And there's a lot

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Speaker 1: of crap sold as plant based in the supermarket right now. Yeah,

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Speaker 1: as is tobacco, as is you know, there are plenty

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Speaker 1: of you know, plenty of other substances. I wouldn't put

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Speaker 1: a caffe and quite in the tobacco category, but it's

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Speaker 1: not in one of the good categories. I mean, as

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Speaker 1: one expands the category of the plant, it can come

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Speaker 1: to include not everything, but a large percentage of everything.

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Speaker 1: I was interested to hear you say that sometimes the

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Speaker 1: mystical tone of some of the plant work, the plant

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Speaker 1: based work, strains creduli because you're interested in mysticism right

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Speaker 1: in your work, there's a kind of you're on the edge.

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Speaker 1: You're skirting the edge between giving us a rationalistic, scientific

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Speaker 1: and social scientific contextualization, and you're at just at the edge,

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Speaker 1: especially in your interest in consciousness. Here of a field

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Speaker 1: of endeavor that is fundamentally mystical and that needs presumably

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Speaker 1: to be processed mystically to make any sense out of

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Speaker 1: it at all. Right, I mean to say meaning making

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Speaker 1: is a rationalizing process. No, I mean, one way to

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Speaker 1: make meaning is by making something rational. But another way

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Speaker 1: to make meaning is to embrace its mystical quality. And

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Speaker 1: it seems to me, with respect to psychedelics, that if

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Speaker 1: we tried to reduce everything to its rational it seems

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Speaker 1: like we would be missing the point. Yeah, so I

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Speaker 1: flirt with mysticism, but I am very grounded in the

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Speaker 1: scientific worldview. I get grief for this from certain people.

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Speaker 1: In How to Change Your Mind, there were many people

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Speaker 1: who objected to the fact that I didn't take seriously

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Speaker 1: enough this idea I presented that consciousness is a field

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Speaker 1: outside us, like the electromagnetic field that we tune into.

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Speaker 1: That our brains are tuners or television sets. And I

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Speaker 1: think that's a beautiful idea. But my mind goes to

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Speaker 1: a more materialistic understanding that even though we don't understand how,

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Speaker 1: consciousness is the product of our brains, and it's tempting

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Speaker 1: to think otherwise. And I'm more open to that idea

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Speaker 1: than I was before experience with psychedelics, but I haven't

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Speaker 1: yet been persuaded, and I'm curious to learn more about it.

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Speaker 1: But psychedelic experience for many people causes them to lose

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Speaker 1: faith in the materialist view of consciousness. And it's important

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Speaker 1: to mention that that material's view of consciouness is not

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Speaker 1: well developed at all. Right, Okay, it's an easy thing

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Speaker 1: to lose faith in my view. I mean, there are

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Speaker 1: propositions of science that are well established, and if someone

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Speaker 1: were to say, you know, I no longer believe in

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Speaker 1: Newtonian mechanics, I would say something's not totally right there.

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Speaker 1: On the other hand, when it comes to consciousness, there

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Speaker 1: isn't really a respectable materialist account of consciousness at all.

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Speaker 1: There is simply the commitment to the view that materialism

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Speaker 1: must be true in light of what we observe, and

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Speaker 1: therefore the consciousness must be reducible to the material which is,

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Speaker 1: you know, that's a plausible inference, but it's a form

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Speaker 1: of inductive reasoning. It's not deductive or demonstrated reasoning. That's right,

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Speaker 1: And I think the Dalai Lama was quite correct when

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Speaker 1: he said at the first Mind and Life conference where

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Speaker 1: they brought together neuroscientists and Buddhists, that the material theory

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Speaker 1: of consciousness is a very interesting hypothesis and we should

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Speaker 1: give it no more credit than that. And so, you know,

393
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Speaker 1: I'm open, but it must be my training and background.

394
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Speaker 1: But even when I'm writing about plant intelligence, I'm always

395
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Speaker 1: hanging out with people going a lot further than I'm

396
00:24:05,356 --> 00:24:07,836
Speaker 1: willing to go in terms of saying plants are conscious.

397
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Speaker 1: I have some sense that they have a point of view,

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Speaker 1: but I don't think they're conscious the way we are.

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Speaker 1: I don't think they're aware that they're aware. I think

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Speaker 1: they have an awareness of their environment. I think they

401
00:24:19,956 --> 00:24:24,116
Speaker 1: mostly run algorithms that are set in advance, although there

402
00:24:24,196 --> 00:24:27,316
Speaker 1: is some interesting research that suggests they can learn There

403
00:24:27,356 --> 00:24:30,196
Speaker 1: were some studies done recently that suggests that they can

404
00:24:30,836 --> 00:24:34,676
Speaker 1: learn from experience, remember and apply those lessons to future events,

405
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Speaker 1: which is pretty mind blowing. So, you know it, maybe

406
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Speaker 1: too many years writing for the New York Times and

407
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Speaker 1: the New Yorker and being fact checked that can limit

408
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Speaker 1: your willingness to imagine radical alternatives. Let me ask you

409
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Speaker 1: about that, because you talked just now about your grounding

410
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Speaker 1: and the scientific and then you talked about the institutional

411
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Speaker 1: framework in which a lot of your journalism was embedded.

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Speaker 1: You're also writing books pretty much the whole time, but

413
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Speaker 1: the New Yorker and the New York Times embody a

414
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Speaker 1: certain kind of cultural power that's connected to a kind

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Speaker 1: of scientific, liberal, rationalist worldview, broadly speaking, still an enlightenment

416
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Speaker 1: you and I guess I wanted to ask you about

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Speaker 1: how you conceptualize your role as an idea maker and

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Speaker 1: idea disseminator in the world with respect to those different

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Speaker 1: kinds of audiences, the kind of Times New York or

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Speaker 1: audience versus the bigger world audience. Because you're one of

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Speaker 1: the very small number of people who come out of

422
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Speaker 1: journalism who transcend a journalism at a fundamental level. You've

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Speaker 1: become a central figure in the culture, and your ideas

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Speaker 1: matter to a lot of people in a wide range

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Speaker 1: of spaces, and you have moments in your work where

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Speaker 1: you sound like a rationalist prophet, still a bit of

427
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Speaker 1: a prophet, though this happens sometimes the climate change writers too.

428
00:25:50,236 --> 00:25:52,276
Speaker 1: I mean, I think Bill mcibbon might be another example

429
00:25:52,276 --> 00:25:56,276
Speaker 1: of somebody who you know, who transcended in some sense

430
00:25:56,316 --> 00:25:58,916
Speaker 1: the rationalist account of what's happening in the climate and

431
00:25:59,396 --> 00:26:00,996
Speaker 1: was both a prophet in the wilderness and now a

432
00:26:00,996 --> 00:26:03,716
Speaker 1: prophet that many people are are listening to. When you

433
00:26:03,756 --> 00:26:06,076
Speaker 1: think of the sort of trajectory of your messages out

434
00:26:06,076 --> 00:26:10,516
Speaker 1: there to the world, how do you think of yourself? Well,

435
00:26:10,556 --> 00:26:15,396
Speaker 1: there's an evolution here. I mean, I used the platform

436
00:26:15,436 --> 00:26:18,916
Speaker 1: of the New York Times and the New Yorker to

437
00:26:19,076 --> 00:26:23,036
Speaker 1: give substance to ideas that were pretty edgy at the time.

438
00:26:24,396 --> 00:26:25,956
Speaker 1: You know, before I wrote How to Change Your Mind,

439
00:26:25,996 --> 00:26:28,396
Speaker 1: I wrote a piece for The New Yorker in twenty

440
00:26:28,716 --> 00:26:33,636
Speaker 1: fourteen called the Trip Treatment, and this presented early research

441
00:26:33,676 --> 00:26:37,196
Speaker 1: on psychedelics being used to treat, not treat, but help

442
00:26:37,276 --> 00:26:40,156
Speaker 1: people who were dying of cancer or you know, had

443
00:26:40,196 --> 00:26:45,116
Speaker 1: a terminal diagnosis, and this research wasn't pure reviewed yet,

444
00:26:45,356 --> 00:26:48,396
Speaker 1: and much to my amazement, David Remnick gave me, you know,

445
00:26:48,516 --> 00:26:51,036
Speaker 1: ten thousand or so words to talk about this, and

446
00:26:51,156 --> 00:26:54,676
Speaker 1: it gave credibility to ideas that had I published them

447
00:26:54,716 --> 00:26:59,396
Speaker 1: first independently, might not have might have struggled for that.

448
00:26:59,556 --> 00:27:02,796
Speaker 1: So having access to those platforms has been critical to

449
00:27:02,836 --> 00:27:05,316
Speaker 1: my career. You know, I was a magazine editor for

450
00:27:05,356 --> 00:27:07,116
Speaker 1: many years, and I have some sense of how the

451
00:27:07,156 --> 00:27:11,436
Speaker 1: media ecosystem works and where the edge of acceptable opinion is,

452
00:27:11,676 --> 00:27:13,796
Speaker 1: having run up against it a couple of times. But

453
00:27:15,316 --> 00:27:17,396
Speaker 1: I feel like I'm free of that now to a

454
00:27:17,476 --> 00:27:22,156
Speaker 1: large extent, and that's kind of liberating. But there's you know,

455
00:27:22,236 --> 00:27:27,156
Speaker 1: you mentioned mckibbon, and there's also an interesting transition or

456
00:27:27,156 --> 00:27:30,476
Speaker 1: evolution that happens from being a journalist to being an advocate,

457
00:27:30,956 --> 00:27:35,556
Speaker 1: and that's an awkward line to follow, and that happened

458
00:27:35,596 --> 00:27:39,156
Speaker 1: with me with my food journalism. I was writing, you know,

459
00:27:40,596 --> 00:27:44,356
Speaker 1: very opinionated pieces about the food system and how fucked

460
00:27:44,396 --> 00:27:47,116
Speaker 1: up it was for the New York Times magazine and

461
00:27:47,196 --> 00:27:50,556
Speaker 1: there was oddly no pushback for a long time, and

462
00:27:50,596 --> 00:27:53,316
Speaker 1: from my editors or from the culture until the industry

463
00:27:53,356 --> 00:27:55,156
Speaker 1: kind of woke up in two thousand and eight and

464
00:27:55,276 --> 00:27:59,596
Speaker 1: realized there's this critique getting currency. We better fight back,

465
00:27:59,636 --> 00:28:02,636
Speaker 1: and they have been fighting back ever since with some success.

466
00:28:03,036 --> 00:28:05,716
Speaker 1: And you're writing also shifted there. I mean you started saying,

467
00:28:06,036 --> 00:28:08,756
Speaker 1: look at the structures and how bad they are, and

468
00:28:08,796 --> 00:28:12,396
Speaker 1: then you went full normative by saying this is what

469
00:28:12,476 --> 00:28:15,636
Speaker 1: you should eat. You know, listen up, world, here's what

470
00:28:15,676 --> 00:28:17,476
Speaker 1: you ought to eat. I mean, it doesn't get more

471
00:28:17,676 --> 00:28:24,156
Speaker 1: vatic and peremptory and voice from one high than that. Yeah,

472
00:28:24,236 --> 00:28:27,076
Speaker 1: although I have to say I sort of felt pushed

473
00:28:27,076 --> 00:28:32,236
Speaker 1: into that position because my first book about food, Omnivorous Dilemma,

474
00:28:32,636 --> 00:28:35,236
Speaker 1: was an attempt to show people the system and let

475
00:28:35,236 --> 00:28:37,436
Speaker 1: them draw their own conclusions based on the system of

476
00:28:37,516 --> 00:28:41,076
Speaker 1: what you should eat and dilemma right right exactly, And

477
00:28:41,156 --> 00:28:44,316
Speaker 1: I was not as vatics as you put it in

478
00:28:44,316 --> 00:28:47,116
Speaker 1: that book at all. But all I heard from people,

479
00:28:47,156 --> 00:28:50,716
Speaker 1: I mean thousands of people, is like, okay, okay, environmental problems,

480
00:28:50,956 --> 00:28:53,156
Speaker 1: animal rights, all this kind of stuff, but what should

481
00:28:53,156 --> 00:28:58,196
Speaker 1: I eat? And nobody would leave me alone until I said, well,

482
00:28:58,236 --> 00:29:00,796
Speaker 1: this is this is how I think we should eat, right,

483
00:29:00,956 --> 00:29:04,036
Speaker 1: so they demanded it of you, that your flock demanded

484
00:29:04,036 --> 00:29:06,076
Speaker 1: it of you, that we hear that story a lot

485
00:29:06,116 --> 00:29:08,756
Speaker 1: from religious leader show. I know it's an old story,

486
00:29:08,836 --> 00:29:11,996
Speaker 1: but I felt awkward doing it. Initially I felt awkward

487
00:29:12,156 --> 00:29:14,876
Speaker 1: becoming an advocate because I had been brought up in

488
00:29:14,956 --> 00:29:19,556
Speaker 1: a different, more innocent time in journalistic history, where you

489
00:29:19,556 --> 00:29:22,876
Speaker 1: didn't do that. But on the other hand, I was

490
00:29:24,596 --> 00:29:28,876
Speaker 1: digging so deeply into the food system that it was inevitable.

491
00:29:28,916 --> 00:29:32,276
Speaker 1: I was drawing conclusions. And this is something that still

492
00:29:32,316 --> 00:29:36,156
Speaker 1: if you're a beat reporter on certain beats, you have

493
00:29:36,236 --> 00:29:39,276
Speaker 1: to pretend you don't have conclusions, even though you're now

494
00:29:39,316 --> 00:29:42,796
Speaker 1: an expert. And so I had moved from this point

495
00:29:42,916 --> 00:29:47,116
Speaker 1: of following my curiosity posing questions to the food system

496
00:29:47,156 --> 00:29:49,276
Speaker 1: to having a pretty good idea what was wrong with

497
00:29:49,316 --> 00:29:51,516
Speaker 1: it and the direction of which it needed to go.

498
00:29:52,356 --> 00:29:56,716
Speaker 1: And gradually you get drawn into that advocacy conversation, which

499
00:29:56,996 --> 00:29:59,596
Speaker 1: is great in one way, and I have done my

500
00:29:59,636 --> 00:30:02,156
Speaker 1: share of lobbying before Congress and things like that on

501
00:30:02,276 --> 00:30:08,836
Speaker 1: various food policy, but it's also awkward, and it sometimes

502
00:30:09,156 --> 00:30:12,516
Speaker 1: can shut you out of the news pages and relegate

503
00:30:12,556 --> 00:30:14,676
Speaker 1: you to the op ed pages, where I don't want

504
00:30:14,676 --> 00:30:19,036
Speaker 1: to be so for the interest of journalism and wanting

505
00:30:19,076 --> 00:30:22,876
Speaker 1: to do narrative journalism, it's sometimes best not to have

506
00:30:23,236 --> 00:30:27,156
Speaker 1: reached that point of advocacy. The same thing happened with psychedelics.

507
00:30:27,356 --> 00:30:30,796
Speaker 1: I mean, my book is the story of an amateur

508
00:30:30,876 --> 00:30:34,596
Speaker 1: really learning about this new world. And I remember my

509
00:30:34,716 --> 00:30:38,956
Speaker 1: first book event at Harvard, at the Harvard Bookstore someone

510
00:30:39,076 --> 00:30:41,676
Speaker 1: saying as well as a leader of the psychedelic movement.

511
00:30:42,276 --> 00:30:45,836
Speaker 1: I was like, oh shit, here we go again. So

512
00:30:46,036 --> 00:30:48,196
Speaker 1: I don't have very mixed feelings about the roles. It's

513
00:30:48,276 --> 00:30:50,636
Speaker 1: how I do my political work on these two topics,

514
00:30:50,796 --> 00:30:56,316
Speaker 1: and that's my biggest contribution politically is advocating for things

515
00:30:56,396 --> 00:31:00,196
Speaker 1: I see as being helpful or necessary. But it's not

516
00:31:00,236 --> 00:31:02,276
Speaker 1: where I started out. I really started out as a

517
00:31:02,356 --> 00:31:06,236
Speaker 1: storytelling and it's odd that both these things turned into movements.

518
00:31:06,236 --> 00:31:10,116
Speaker 1: They didn't have to. I want to thank you for

519
00:31:10,196 --> 00:31:13,236
Speaker 1: your fascinating body of work, and I'm also looking forward

520
00:31:13,236 --> 00:31:15,316
Speaker 1: to finding out what's the next area where you'll start

521
00:31:15,356 --> 00:31:19,596
Speaker 1: at the boundary doing reporting and then gradually shifted into advocacy.

522
00:31:19,596 --> 00:31:21,276
Speaker 1: And I think I will not be the only person

523
00:31:21,796 --> 00:31:24,196
Speaker 1: watching closely, but I realize it we'll have to involve

524
00:31:24,236 --> 00:31:29,996
Speaker 1: the word plants. I'll see what I can do. Thank

525
00:31:30,036 --> 00:31:32,996
Speaker 1: you so much. Thank you know, a great pleasure talking

526
00:31:32,996 --> 00:31:46,756
Speaker 1: to you. We'll be right back. Listening to Michael Pollen,

527
00:31:46,956 --> 00:31:51,116
Speaker 1: I was genuinely fascinated by the story he is telling

528
00:31:51,716 --> 00:31:56,156
Speaker 1: about the human encounter with plants and plants substances, and

529
00:31:56,596 --> 00:32:00,516
Speaker 1: with the human impulse to change our consciousness. This is

530
00:32:00,556 --> 00:32:03,236
Speaker 1: in some way a story about human power, the human

531
00:32:03,276 --> 00:32:05,876
Speaker 1: power through trial and error to discover what plants can

532
00:32:05,916 --> 00:32:08,436
Speaker 1: do for us and what's bad about the things that

533
00:32:08,476 --> 00:32:10,876
Speaker 1: they do for us. But it's also a story about

534
00:32:10,876 --> 00:32:14,116
Speaker 1: the human impulse to regulate. And indeed, Michael took the

535
00:32:14,196 --> 00:32:19,556
Speaker 1: stance that human beings inherently seek to regulate the uses

536
00:32:19,796 --> 00:32:22,556
Speaker 1: of plants to shape consciousness, and that they've been doing

537
00:32:22,596 --> 00:32:27,556
Speaker 1: that for as long as they knew how to do so. Simultaneously,

538
00:32:28,036 --> 00:32:32,956
Speaker 1: I was personally interested in how Michael balances a scientific materialist,

539
00:32:33,556 --> 00:32:36,916
Speaker 1: call it enlightenment worldview. Perhaps it makes sense that for

540
00:32:36,956 --> 00:32:39,876
Speaker 1: someone who thinks about the relationship between nature and culture

541
00:32:40,116 --> 00:32:42,716
Speaker 1: and the human power to shape that the question of

542
00:32:42,716 --> 00:32:46,676
Speaker 1: getting beyond the simple conception of power through the notion

543
00:32:46,716 --> 00:32:50,916
Speaker 1: of the mystical would be in the margins and pushing

544
00:32:50,916 --> 00:32:55,356
Speaker 1: itself back towards the center. Last, and definitely not least,

545
00:32:55,396 --> 00:32:57,956
Speaker 1: I was deeply struck by the way that Michael talked

546
00:32:57,996 --> 00:33:02,636
Speaker 1: about his experience in journalism and using that to shape

547
00:33:02,676 --> 00:33:05,676
Speaker 1: the way we think about ideas by recognizing that there's

548
00:33:05,716 --> 00:33:08,076
Speaker 1: some outer bound of public opinion, and that if you

549
00:33:08,156 --> 00:33:11,076
Speaker 1: push too hard again that outer bound, you lose your audience.

550
00:33:11,436 --> 00:33:13,476
Speaker 1: I can think of almost nobody who's done a better

551
00:33:13,556 --> 00:33:17,196
Speaker 1: job of expanding that outer bound, and it's intriguing to

552
00:33:17,236 --> 00:33:20,316
Speaker 1: hear that from Michael's perspective. He did so very much,

553
00:33:20,436 --> 00:33:24,916
Speaker 1: beginning within the system and gradually moving from the news pages,

554
00:33:25,036 --> 00:33:29,636
Speaker 1: as it were, to the place of advocacy. Those are

555
00:33:29,636 --> 00:33:33,196
Speaker 1: takeaways that are extremely valuable to anybody who's interested not

556
00:33:33,236 --> 00:33:36,516
Speaker 1: just an understanding power, but in altering the way power

557
00:33:36,756 --> 00:33:40,396
Speaker 1: is deployed and what we think is an acceptable point

558
00:33:40,396 --> 00:33:43,916
Speaker 1: of view to hold on a given topic. Until the

559
00:33:43,956 --> 00:33:47,356
Speaker 1: next time I speak to you, Breathe deep, think, deep thoughts,

560
00:33:47,836 --> 00:33:52,476
Speaker 1: and if they'll let you have a little fun. Deep

561
00:33:52,476 --> 00:33:55,756
Speaker 1: background is brought to you by Pushkin Industries. Our producer

562
00:33:55,836 --> 00:33:59,116
Speaker 1: is Mola Board, our engineer is Ben Tolliday, and our

563
00:33:59,116 --> 00:34:03,916
Speaker 1: showrunner is Sophie Crane mckibbon. Editorial support from noahm Osband.

564
00:34:04,396 --> 00:34:07,796
Speaker 1: Theme music by Luis Gara at Pushkin, Thanks to Mia Lobell,

565
00:34:07,996 --> 00:34:12,836
Speaker 1: Julia Barton Idea, Jean Coott, Heather Faine, Carlie Migliori, Maggie Taylor,

566
00:34:12,956 --> 00:34:16,516
Speaker 1: Eric Sandler, and Jacob Weissberg. You can find me on

567
00:34:16,556 --> 00:34:19,316
Speaker 1: Twitter at Noah R. Feldman. I also write a column

568
00:34:19,356 --> 00:34:22,076
Speaker 1: for Bloomberg Opinion, which you can find at bloomberg dot

569
00:34:22,076 --> 00:34:26,636
Speaker 1: com Slash Feldman. To discover Bloomberg's original Slater podcasts, go

570
00:34:26,716 --> 00:34:30,076
Speaker 1: to Bloomberg dot com slash Podcasts, and if you liked

571
00:34:30,076 --> 00:34:32,796
Speaker 1: what you heard today, please write a review or tell

572
00:34:32,836 --> 00:34:35,596
Speaker 1: a friend. This is deep background