 This is the OGM Wakely Call on Thursday, April 20, 2023. We have a lovely and challenging topic in front of us, which emerged from our conversation, I think last week, last Thursday, it was one of those. And the topic is woke, wokeness, wokeism, any variant you'd like of the conjugated wake or to wake up. And I'm interested in taking us into the topic in some way that allows us to kind of play with the subject a little bit and explore it. I'd also like to encourage anyone to manifest these ideas in any form, you know, interpretive dance, systems diagrams, logic trees, poetry, whatever sort of strikes us. Because I think a variety of expressive forms might also might also help us. And I'm happy to start wherever, wherever anybody would like to sort of plant a seed. Do we have to be awake for this. I could do this in a in a daylight trance, which is like not quite woke but I don't know. You got me feels like we're in a kind of a trance, you know. And, and, and I think that's a piece of our conversation sort of there is like, there's a, there's a piece of the dynamics here that are about the use of words in the public sphere and the shifting of those word valences in the public sphere and that's been happening really actively. I think that's a piece of our conversation to have here. Would anybody like to take a first pass on woke or I'm happy to otherwise. Scott, please. I'll take a pass because I just sometimes I look at the email before, and I didn't this time so I wasn't sure what we're talking about but I just opened up the email. So the question here. The question is what is it. And something I'm finding really helpful is what is it not. And I know it's a simple, a simple twist, but maybe that's a place to start is what what is not part of of that topic, you know, what is it that's that we would consider. Outside of outside of that concept, and that I think would help me at least get my hands around it a little better, because there's a lot of. But like you said there's a, it started as one thing and now it's changed into having different meanings and different associations and all kinds of stuff so I'm kind of curious what what it's not. I think I'll take a swing at that because I'm not entirely sure how to answer that question. Okay, well, would close minded be in the category of not. I don't know. What would it not be. Well, see it's tricky, because if you, you know, from some perspectives, the idea of freedom would be not, but then from other perspectives it would be absolutely in. So that I don't think, you know, it that's that's interesting that. So that's not a not because it depends on the perspective. Well, a lot of times I find this is what happens when I say what is it not is it suddenly creates. Oh, I'm not really sure. I'm not, I'm not really sure what this thing is and, and what it isn't not unwilling to change. Is it a, is it not new, or is it not old. I don't know. Is this is this something that is a is an echo of things that have happened before, or is it a new something new because I think from some perspectives this is brand new this has never happened before what's happening. And from other perspectives. Well, and even this is something that needs to be new in order to to provide progress. I haven't heard a lot of people talking about how this is something that used to be that we're bringing that we need to bring back. Well, the word I mean, in the sense that history unfolds every day and every day is fresh and new. Everything we're talking about is new these situations haven't likely occurred before at least exactly but everything echoes and rhymes. But it was seen from a different perspective, all the issues about woke and wokeness are ancient issues and ancient grievances from, I'll call it both sides of the issue in some sense and woke is the battlefield in which they're living right now it feels like, if that makes sense. Well, the term itself implies that you are either paying attention, awake eyes open. Nice very simple way to think about it. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, exactly. And I think that the term itself creates this idea that. Well, if you just open your eyes you'd see what's going on, and what needs to happen. And I think that that completely misses the, the perspective. It's saying, well, of course, you would see what I'm seeing needs to happen, as opposed to, well, I'm, you know, someone else is opening their eyes and they're seeing the opposite. And so it's just an interesting term because I don't think it. How can I be more aware. Okay, more aware of what. Well, I can be more aware of. Again, of what and I think that the idea is what you just need to need to think you need to be open you need to be more aware you need to be awake attention. Okay, those are all things that can be applied to any, any one of the first, the takes on it positive or negative. And I think that creates a. I don't know if there's an implied goal in there or well no there isn't implied goal, but it's different from, from each side. And I'm using each side as a binary but you know I mean that there's all kinds of different ways that the same thing I just got into. Before going again going again your question about what is it not reminded me of something that I learned in the book common is air by Lewis Hyde which is about the Commons. And it turns out that in England at least they had a habit every year of beating the bounds of the village, which means kind of everybody including the mayor or whoever was kind of in charge would walk around the boundaries of the village and set straight all the violations of the Commons is that it happened so if somebody had sort of put a fence up or grow grown there, put a put a hut inside of land they shouldn't have been settling because it was seen as Commons land. They would sort of pick it up move it over do whatever, you know, basically they would set straight their boundaries with their Commons periodically it's really interesting and the idea of walking the boundary or being at the frontier and what is inside or outside these different things is appealing to me. You know I had a. I tend to be a little meta surprise. But I had a. I had a different interpretation or an understanding of weekly attendance in church as a return to values. And what I mean by that is return to the values of that organization. I think in the same way, because I noticed it when, when I go to hockey, this pond hockey thing I play in every year. Every time we go, it's a group of people who are returning to the place where we started and professing the values which is a lot of drinking and playing hockey and having fun and and being about good sportsmanship because that's our thing. And other groups are have a different competitive nature and and but it's it's that annual return to the values. It's that annual walking of the border to say, wait a minute, do we still agree with what's going on do we see anything here that feels outside of that and, and I just thought it was interesting because when you have those and you return to them. Well, like you said, the weeds need to be cut, maybe the fence needs to be moved, maybe things have fallen down me. It's just that. Are we okay with how things look. Okay, yeah, well, you know, let's regularly walk the field and check. And I'm not sure that we have the prescribed sense of what it should look like to compare against, which may be what we're kind of talking about as well. We all know what's what should be moved, or fixed or repaired or put up or taken down, but we're all thinking something different. And that's where organizations can serve a purpose by at least codifying it and saying okay, this is what we believe now and then every time we go around we can adjust those, but at least having it written down and saying here this is this is what we think is where things are. All right, sorry, Ken. So I just, I went to Wikipedia, and I just want to read a little bit of Wikipedia here. What is an adjective derived from the African American vernacular English, meaning a word to racial prejudice and discrimination. In 2010s it came to encompass a broader awareness of the social inequities such as sexism, which has also been used as shorthand for American left ideas involving identity politics and social justice, such as the notion of white pop right privilege and slave reparations reparations for African Americans. The phrase stay woke has a history as far back as the 1930s. In some context referring to awareness of the social and political issues affecting African Americans the phrase was uttered in the context by lead billion in mid 20th century, and by post millennium, Eric you badu. So, it emerged in the 2010 term emerged in the 2010s increasingly it's not only about racial consciousness but also that of gender and other discriminated identities originally in the context. So, it's very, I was not aware that history. I've had a 17 years of my life I studied Buddhism and sat retreats and, you know, worked on waking up. And for me being awake is is increasing awareness. So, that fits very well of being aware I'm now much more aware of the colonial mindset the imperial colony mindset and how, how that has trapped me in many ways. And as I wake up to that, I start to go wow this is not right. And, of course, as more and more people wake up to this, those who want to keep the Empire colony mindset in place and reinforce the status quo and not allow minorities and women to have power are going oh you're being woke and so it's coming up as a reaction So, I think there's two things here what is being awake what is being woke specifically came out of the African American context of let's be aware of how we're we're being discriminated against, and let's fight against that. And then as more and more people started to wake up to that and ally with that it created this reaction formation of oh no we got to keep those people down. And now we have this big fight going on about, you know, anti wokeness so it's just really interesting to me that that there's any time there's a threat to the existing power structure, it responds with. We're going to take you apart we're going to find the weakness in your arguments and we're going to we're going to just rip you apart. So, not sure about the last little sentence. And it's like, it's not that they're going to find the weakness in the arguments, we're going to like figure out how to flip or pervert the art it's like, it's not like there's a logical debate going on. And it's like, oh, you have a flaw in your argument. No, no, no, it's like we're going to emotional debate. Yes. Yeah, yeah, we're going to see if we can't debilitate your position in whatever means possible, because hey, usually through fear. Right. No, if you give those people what they want, you're going to take money from hard working rich white Americans and distribute it to poor black people and women who don't want to do anything. That's been an argument now since the Civil War since reconstruction. Everybody who reads Heather, Heather Cox Richardson, she talks about this constantly. Right. So that's also part of anti-wokeness is, you know, we have to keep the keep the status quo in place. And I'm not aligned with that. I want to be woke. I'm happy to be woke. I'm happy to be, you know, doing whatever I can to help other people wake up in a compassionate way. I don't want to be out there bashing heads. I just, I want people to recognize we all benefit when we all work together, and we all suffer when only a few people get what they want and the rest of us don't. I think also, one of the ways woke matters now is that it isn't just about money going to other people, but also about the silencing of people of privilege, meaning there's there's a shifting of vocabulary and woke has some inheritance of political correctness and identity politics. Those are kind of mixed into the pot here in really interesting ways. And a couple years back, identity politics was very, very hot political subject. And we, you know, the burner hadn't been turned up under the word woke, old as the concept woke may be. But all of that, all of those dynamics are super interesting to me. And in particular, the thing that pointed out to me was, I spent a couple days with a few people who were pretty progressive recently. And when the topic of woke came up, everybody else was like, ah, yeah, that word and they were all acting as if the word was spoiled and dead and a bad thing and I was like, wow, this campaign to like, delegitimize and neutralize woke is really working because here are people who are sort of nominally liberal, not all entirely, but but they're responding with the itchy crawlies to the word woke coming up in conversation and that is a success for people wanting to get rid of the word as an active thing and I was like, that's remarkable to me. And that's partly why I thought we this would make a good topic here is that is that I want to explore those dynamics and kind of see what's up. Scott, you're back up. Yeah. Thanks for that, Ken. That really helped give me a framework for my for something else to think about. So it started as a wake to racial injustices. And then it became less distinct. By including other injustices. And then I would say it became even less distinct by including all injustices, perhaps, or at least, you know, in some mindsets and so that makes it harder to fight for in some senses and easier to fight against. So the the idea that well, if you're, if you're saying you're for it, it's like, well, you just want everyone everywhere at all times to always be equal on every in every situation, which isn't true, but it's, it's turned into from this to this. I also should include these and also this and and also, you know, then it then it becomes any kind of lack of awareness of any injustices which then I think it just makes it less, less effective, maybe. If that kind of makes sense, I don't know if anybody has an opinion about that but that's, it just seems like oh well I'm. You guys are trying to expand this into every, every realm every possible thing and we could never deal with this because it's everyone everywhere all at once. And any little and so anyway that that's the thought that came out of it because I wasn't aware how it started. And I think maybe it's been, I don't know if corrupted is the right word but it's definitely less distinct, which makes it harder to, I don't know how hard it harder to act on or anyway, that's that's it. Deluded. Deluded. Yes, that's a good word. Thank you. I think very intense. Yes. Anyone connected this woke concept to neuro science. I have not seen any articles doing that. It might be one way forward actually because according to the Calcutta Management Institute. We're working on the difference between brainstorming and brainstorming. And brainstorming is something that might be in the traditional language, but brainstorming is actually to be productive in the flow of the brain to get a higher level of work capability. And that's an interesting dimension. Thanks life. And so I don't know whether alertness in general is part of our definition of woke as we're talking about it here, like being in the flow like me hi chick chick sent me hi might be from the perspective you're talking about it that might be a sense of awakeness or awakening and I'm not sure that's within the intentions here unless you're meant you're describing it in a different way that I'm understanding it. I'm describing it from the perspective of way of thinking. And regardless of the other frames. So, if you see it. Stress in brain storming is detrimental to the outcome. In Calcutta say that you have to start with the brain stealing that gives you the space for the new creativity. It's interesting I did some work it with Sun Corp in Australia it's an Australian insurance company, and we did a couple this is 2016 so years before pandemic and all that, but we had a couple of group calls on Microsoft teams for better or worse, but they started with somebody putting an iPhone next to the speaker on the table at one of the locations and playing a two minute mindfulness thing. And everybody went quiet, and the meeting began with with a recording to get everybody sort of still and present it was really, and I was like, whoa, okay I didn't expect that that's cool. That's cool. Yeah. So, what are your thoughts on this, Daisy. A partner of mine in Argentina and I. When we, we wanted to sort of figure out when humans co create together what's the starting place. And the first 18 months of time was spent. D languaging realizing all of the words we couldn't use. Because of the intrinsic load. Associative load they carried. Beyond definition, beyond dictionary definition. And rhetoric. Plus language. You know, sort of a lost art, lost awareness consciousness orientation as something skilled or trained or learned. It is a weapon in metaphoric warfare. And our whole culture. Pretty much every aspect of it is competitive and rooted in winners and losers. I can't think of a domain that that isn't that that doesn't attach to. And the negation I mean, another example of this sort of like negating a term or negating a meeting is turning black lives matter into all lives matter. Right. So, the, the layer in this, I think, is is really more about recognizing this dimension of words and language. Words and language relative, not to meaning, but to use. And to weaponization and to negation. And it's all facets of winning and losing it's all facets of, you know, the academic world operates by the same principle, right. So I come up with a hypothesis and the object of the academy is to knock me out of the saddle and agree that wrong. And if they succeed the prevailing hypothesis wins. And if mine wins than the prevailing hypothesis loses. And I'm invited into the academy. Yay. So, right. Yeah. So, like, hitting people on the, you know, hitting people on the head and going, yo, what's the meaning of what I'm saying when I invoke black lives matter and I'm talking about an expression and choice of words reflective of underlying societal condition, unique to being black in a white patriarchal culture. There's some dangers attached to and like meaning matters. And there's been a war against meaning. The ontological ontological revolution or whatever it's called ontological coup. That's what it's called. Yeah, I'm complete. Thanks, Doug. Stacy and feel free to take a pause before jumping in and forgetting our, our nicer protocols here so this question came up last week. The first thing that came to mind was like an illustration because I think you might have mentioned that. And I think of woke, literally as waking up and the different ways people wake up or the different ways people wake others up, whether it be throwing a bucket of water on their head, or pulling them out of bed. And, you know, coming from speaking for the people that are against wokeness that are constantly screaming your woke. I think a lot of that has to do with the way other people have tried to wake them up. So, I mean, even I've been in a conversation where rather than hearing the message that I'm saying, somebody points out that I've used a wrong word. That's very irritating. So I guess what I guess what I'm trying to say is that there's not like one woke or not woke it's sort of like a blend I mean sometimes you, you leave the person sleeping and you walk around them. And you do what you have to do I'm just thinking like when I was a mom, you know, and we were going on a trip. I waited until somebody was ready and then finally I had to start nudging them. But what Doug was saying about the words, if my feeling is, if I can choose a different word, then I'm going to do that because it cuts out half the battle. But I also want to balance it and not focus on every word, because some of that is the person's job to grow into being able to deal with the word. So I just think that the balance is really important. And I like people have to sort of grow into the middle that you know we can't just be trying to force all the boundaries. Thanks Stacy. From another viewpoint. The balance is a dead situation. So actually what you're looking for is how the words can help you to be on the move in the motion to a deeper understanding. I'm saying that balance or some kind of equilibrium is not necessarily desirable state because it doesn't involve any motion, and that preserving the dynamics around a concept is important to its life, to its aliveness. Yes. Most people are afraid of that. Yeah, go ahead Stacy. But what I just want to say because this is maybe using the wrong word is that you might need a different word for different people that because what they need is going to be different. And that's what I mean by using, I don't mean the word balance, but maybe a different calibration for the different words you use with different people. The different words like liberty and privilege are very afraid of these days as well, and carry very interesting meanings and when brought into conversations will cause different sorts of reactions than maybe they did 10 years ago in a different atmosphere a different sort of climate, and that this happens naturally all the time anyway we have like words, some words heat up because people are paying more attention to them or because people are instrumenting them in different ways on purpose, right. And it's really interesting I'm having an ongoing set of conversations with an older white guy about privilege. And he's like I'm not not sure what what you mean I don't like like why don't we just treat everybody the same sort of thing. And it's it's hard it's it's like, you know, the privilege of privilege is not noticing the privilege is what my favorite saying on the subject. And it's partly that people who have privilege can't tell that other people, when they get in their car and decide to go do errands are worried about being pulled over because black people are being murdered for having a broken tail light by and they're being killed by police who have the right to pull you out and hold a weapon at you in public. And it's like, that's just craziness that's a we've slipped into some kind of very strange world there. Hank, Mike, Mark, and take your time stepping in if you want. You said a number of very interesting things Jerry but what triggered me to raise my hand was your remark about freedom and liberty, being different in different periods of time. So I just like to tell the group a European anecdote about 10 years ago. My wife and myself, I've been very very Dutch visited Mount Rushmore, among other very interesting things in in South Dakota and this who or Lakota wrong word that wrong words Sue Lakota reservation in the in in Dakota and Nebraska. When we went to Mount Rushmore, it was after George W had co opted language to mean something else. And my wife took part or my wife witnessed the son and mayor and heard the story of Mount Rushmore which itself is possibly an example of very on the woke stories, very cruel to indigenous people, among other things. But what she said is that suddenly she realized how politicians like George W Bush co opted language, and that freedom and liberty and democracy and all of those words can be made to mean anything you want them to mean. And that was George W. It wasn't even Trump. And it happens on the right and it happens in the center, and it happens in the left. So here I am telling you a story, starting with the meaning of words, and referring back to what Stacy said which I really like bouncing on the wrong word. How many people thought when I said, Sue, instead of Lakota that I was on woke, whatever that means, and how many people. And I mentioned Mount Rushmore in the context of OGM, starting to think, what kind of wacko is that guy. So it's, it's a very complicated issue and the last thing I want to add to the, to this turn in the complications to the conversation is very early in the conversation I think it was Scott saying, what about just paying attention or being awake or having your eyes, and I added minds eyes and minds open. And to me that's what it comes down to. And whether it's about any type of white or Western or elite privilege or entitlement. I want to take back the word woke. I think it should just be about paying attention to what's going on, having your eyes and minds open, and possibly without a value judgment attached. That's my contribution. Thanks Hank. I think my brain is my background if you want to watch me as I'm no ticking this conversation pin me, and it should get big enough to read right now it's probably not big enough to read, go ahead Mike. I also wanted to jump in on the idea that words can be weaponized, and to do something that Hank already did which is to say it's also symbols. You may have seen the advertisements on the public broadcasting service for an upcoming series by David Rubenstein on symbols and icons of America. And he's going to go and look at what, what do Americans think of Mount Rushmore and the White House and the. There's a big, there's a big Confederate version of Mount Rushmore, and kind of see how they shape the debate stone mountain or something like that stone mountain Georgia, right. So I'd encourage people to watch that he's been part of a larger process to redefine patriotism and sort of read reclaim patriotism. It's been really quite tragic to see how the American flag is now being altered and modified to send different messages, particularly the, the flag with a blue stripe on it, or there's a black and white version flag which I'm not quite sure what that means. But there is a need for average Americans to keep using the flag and fly it on your house. Don't let one small group of people use it as their symbol on their motorcycle or their pickup truck or on their on their barn. And it's, it's, it's important. There are certain symbols involved, but if certain symbols of America get associated with certain political attitudes, then we've got a problem. I'd also encourage people who haven't read it to look at Frank Luntz's book words that work. You know, Frank as he was, Newt Gingrich is mind control expert, and he does some very good YouTube discussions about, you know how to re change people's thinking just by changing the wording. He's famous for relabeling the estate tax, which sounds like it only affects rich Republicans who die. He turned that into the death tax. And within two or three years, the House Republicans had dramatically limited what the estate tax covered. The other quote I'll finish with is from the bush White House. I'm not sure if they've ever figured out who actually said it, but there was a quote with one of the staff people talking to a White House reporter saying, you guys report reality. We make reality by which he meant, you know, we're reporting on how the world is viewed and creating the reality that people around the country and around the world are going to view. Why not. And, and often there's a big disconnect as we've seen now with Fox News. There was a, I will post a link to an amazing diatribe by, I guess it was Chris Hayes on CNN is like 10 minutes on how did we get here. And basically saying that Fox did such a good job of undermining everybody else, convincing all Americans there was no one they could trust. But when, when Trump came along and said, well, you can't trust Fox News either. He was able to very effectively get 30 million Americans to believe whatever he said. So I'll put that up there. Oh, I like that quote from Hurst about you, you provide the pictures will provide the war. Great, great. Great comment. Thank you. The origin of yellow journalism right there. And I have a thought in my brain I'll show in a second which is that the Pulitzer Prize is one of several prizes created to improve dubious legacies. I like the Nobel Prize. What the Nobel in that. Oh, right. TNT. And the Rhodes Scholarship is named after Cecil Rhodes who was a mad imperialist who was trying to basically fund the creation of scholars who would further the British Empire forever, etc, etc. Mr. Kranz, you're you're up. Thank you. I was going to introduce the domain, not so much of linguistics but of semiotics and Klaus has amazingly put up some text about the science of science. We think in science. Not in language. We communicate in science. Not in language sign is signs and semiosis. This production of science is the production of meaning. And it's from the American philosopher Charles Sanders purse. And Terry Deacon, and there you know there are many societies and places where semiotics studied. Although it's not common in our minds as all thought. All meaning is based on signs language as a subset of science. And I really want to you say inspire curiosity. And I hope class will continue on semiotics and semiotics buffer. Thank you class. I'll make one short anecdote about the difference between information and meaning. Again, short. When my Aunt Mary, her husband Frankie died, we, my dad and I went to New Jersey. And Jersey City. My dad went to St. Peter's go. Actually forget basketball team St. Peter's is but anyway they want part of the final, the elite eight the couple years ago, and Notre Dame from now. And we're in Jersey. And I'm seeing the side of my dad I've never seen before. Everybody knows that we walk in this bar. Hi, Vic. How you doing doing last 40 years I've been raising my kids. Good to see you. Bye. Oh the hell. What. How did these people, you know, they know each other so deeply. They say hi and bye. And they'll never see each other again in their lives. I don't know what they're talking about. Anyway, in the trip. I learned that my dad was great friends, because he was kind of like the mayor of Jersey City. He knew everybody, you know, you know, everybody drank. Everybody had a great time they all went to Coney Island road road on the flipper. On the, you know, early cars that they had. My dad was good friends with Frank Sinatra's parents. Now, yesterday, I was reflecting as somebody sent me a email with that's live. That's what people say. The Frank Sinatra remaster of that's life. And I had the information that my dad. Frank Sinatra's parents. And the meaning of that, while listening to Frank Sinatra sing was dad Frank Sinatra. Pardon the screaming, but that's the impact between the difference between information. The cold fact my dad knew thanks to his parents and the meaning. Oh my God. I was born from a man who shook Frank Sinatra's hand. That meaning is just weird. Just absolutely weird. I don't know how to process it yet. And it's kind of, you know, it's fun. It's fun. You know, I'm not going to basically, you know, be Jack Tashara. And basically, in our community, say, hey, I don't understand. That's, that's not the point. I could if I were Donald Trump. Hey, my dad knew Frank Sinatra. But this woke as information and woke as meaning has been exploited to allow elites on both the left and the right to bully each other. And as I put in a Facebook post, as Foucault says, when you eternalize oppression, you're doing the work of the oppressor. And people who say, Oh, I must be woke. If I do that, I'm oppressing myself from being less than human. Thank you. I'll pause and wait for class. Thanks Mark. And I want to, I want to pass to class, but I sort of want to come back to this mark because then a couple of recent calls you were like, Hey, people, you were reporting in on your own interactions. And I think in particular work with not being able to say certain things and responding kind of angrily to those things. And that's important to me. It's important territory to just sort of sit in for a bit. We can do that later or I can basically there's a Facebook post I can try to find. Why don't you find the post and put it in the chat and then we may come back to the topic here, but that'd be a great, that'd be a great start. Thank you, Jerry. And thank you again, Klaus for posting about semiotic worker. Yeah, go class. Yeah, I wanted to pick up from Mark here. And, and the last comment you made Mark is that it is being used by the left and the right. This term to bully each other. And I'm not sure I agree with it because by and large, the left is completely disorganized, whereas the right is working in a lockstep that is just absolutely stunning that it hasn't been called out yet. So the, the, the, to use, to use a term as a symbol and then attach meaning to it is something that the, the right wing hundreds have figured out to do in a way that is just absolutely impressive, you know, so they, they, and we have to understand there is, there is a lot of research and discussion behind the use of, of, of a word like this. And then when that word comes out, it doesn't just come out with centers using it. No, it's being used across the entire spectrum of right wing politicians, right, and the media. So it is an organization behind this that isn't, that isn't even subtle anymore, but it's still not being recognized and called out. And so it's, it's almost not worth it to try to make sense out of it, you know, and to figure out what it all means and what does it mean on the left, what does it mean on the right? No, I mean, this is something that has been recognized. And in order to defend yourself against an attack like this, it requires a counter. So in physical warfare, you know, you have an anti tank missile that takes out that tank. So walk has become a tank that is coming at us as a society. And so we didn't even begin to understand, to frame it as such and to understand what it really is and is designed to do. And so we should really have a discussion just like the Heritage Foundation and other groups are having think tanks, you know, to debate how to most effectively use symbols to rally this reality or to create this reality for people who are their target audiences. And so I just think we are overthinking what this is. No, it's simply an attack. And it's an attack mechanism. And if we want to defend ourselves and we have to really think about how do you neutralize this? You know, how do you counter this in ways that shifts the paradigm that it has invoked and neutralizes the effectiveness of what walk means to a thromber, you know, to a marker follower, to someone who considers himself conservative. And so that's, I think, where Mark was also going, it's simply something that has become weaponized and we have to identify it as such. And then how do you counter this? I think that's really the challenge. And we have been extremely ineffective in positioning these attacks and call them out for what they are. And then rather than trying to make sense of it and debate the logic of it or the, you know, philosophical underpinnings, no, it's just have to hit back in some way that is effective and counters this whole image that is being invoked now by saying walk. So, Klaus, I want to pick up what you said, because I think that's a really important piece of the present dynamics. And I'll say a couple of things that we haven't said so far in the call just to sort of put them out there, which is for me, Woke is being aware or awake of injustices that happen to other people and then maybe doing something about it, caring about it. That's like, Woke isn't a lot more than that. It's a request to be awake, stay awake, and to acknowledge that those injustices happened, I think is an important part of it. And then a whole bunch of things happened after Woke got into the conversation. And a bunch of things happened out on the progressive left, some of which are really surprising, like Woke-ness or something like that was shutting down speakers that people didn't like coming to college campuses. And Woke-ness became microaggressions and a bunch of other things that people don't know how to parse or respond to. And Woke-ness, the AP recently released a new style guide that for my mind goes way overboard in proper terms and terminology for a bunch of different things where the new terms are basically walking completely around the block to just try to say something. And they're cumbersome, they're ungainly, they're strange in a lot of different ways. This is my own response to them. But what I'm trying to describe here is a series of overreactions from the progressive Woke movement to go do stuff, some of which were infringements of freedom of speech. It's like, hey, if a Nazi wants to come talk on campus, maybe it's okay for them to do so, but then we get into this very interesting discussion of where are the boundaries of free speech, what is the difference between free speech and hate speech? And learning together as a society to draw that line and then hold that line would be a productive and interesting thing to do, in particular on college campuses, like Berkeley was the birth of the free speech movement back in the day and is one of the centers now for speakers being shut down because they're too controversial. And when there's a dynamic of speakers being shut down because they're too controversial, I guess who's going to use that to light up the far right? The far right's going to use that. It's going to be like, oh my God, the left just handed us a way to make them froth up again. And look, part of a, since before, probably since W, but certainly since Trump's campaign, one of the big tactics on the right is to froth up the left and to poke the left in the eye or wherever and say, hey, look, I made them froth. And the frothing seems fruitless and over time you can even turn the frothing around. So the number of legal jeopardies that Trump has been in over time and survived, I have a thought in my brain is this Trump is a weevil. He can, you know, you can knock him down, but he always bounces back up. And until he's wearing orange or whatever, I will not be, I will not be sort of calm and rest easy about this. But so the fact that somebody's yelling doesn't mean the thing gets remedied and that's unfortunate. So I mentioned all the overreactions because then I wanted to say that the sedition caucus has turned woke into a dog whistle or a proxy for racist tropes for all the bad words they can't say about black people. And so if there's a clip I saw recently, I can't find it again, I will look for it, but DeSantis basically has a war on woke going on as part of his 2024 presidential campaign. And there's a clip that shows him saying like, we will have no woke. There's Florida is no place for woke. Woke this, woke that. It's a little bit like the old clips of Trump saying, China, China, China, China. But you look at it and you're like, wow, okay. And he is going after all of the woke tropes and themes, whether it's transgender athletes or transgender bathrooms or CRT being taught in schools or name your thing. These are all or backlash against woke companies like Disney and the whole battle against Disney. But his supporters who number, I hope, tiny numbers, but don't apparently number tiny numbers. See all this is a battle for survival of their way of life. And woke is now being positioned as an assault on their way of life. And that's really dangerous. That's really dangerous. And throughout American history, anytime we get close to some kind of justice or awakening or acknowledgement, there's an immense backlash. The lost cause after the Civil War, a bunch of people create sort of the lost cause of the Confederacy, where they're like, yeah, yeah, we lost only because we ran out of resources. Our cause was still just and we will win eventually. And you can see a whole bunch of modern things playing out that are about the lost cause because that trope was kept very healthy within racist communities across the country. And there's a sort of whole subculture in the country to do that. And that's kind of what concerns me. And so coming back to what Klaus was just saying, I would love to figure out how to pop that boil, how to lance that boil, because anytime the far right is figured out how to put fuel under that kettle and make it boil over. That's exactly what they want. And the left hasn't figured out that when they boil over, that is exactly what the right wants. Then they can say, look, look, they boiled over and look, look how freaked out everybody is. And there have been in history and I wish I had a bigger collection, but the reason Orthodox Jews where a particular kind of fur hat is that they were forced to wear a cat fur hats or something like that in Poland in the Poland Polish Lithuanian. I'm forgetting what it was. I wish I'd get the history on this better, but they were forced to wear these things way back when so they appropriated and created them and said, oh, okay, we'll just make this part of our ritual garb. And that's what they did and took it back. So is there a way to take back what wokeness means or even the word itself to stand by it and also importantly, and sorry for this view of like 15 different thoughts here, is there a way for allies to help do that? And I think it's genuinely really important for allies to stand up and say, hey, woke is actually awesome. And here's how I'm helping woke actually work better in the world and see what's going on. But all those things were in my head and I wanted to get them into the conversation with which I will pass to Klaus, Mark and Stacy and take your time stepping in if you'd like. So I think that's sort of where the conversation makes sense to be centered on. So woke has become a symbol on the right that expresses things that you could legitimate disagree with. I mean, when you think about, for example, schools, teaching, sexual, you know, talk about whatever sex and my daughter has three little girls. And the last thing she would want is to have them go to school and listen to a teacher trying to explain sexuality. So they are some legitimate issues that reach an independent or rather moderate consumer. And so the centers was able to pick up on stuff where there is some legitimacy to be really concerned about. And so some hot button issue and associated woke with those things. And the challenging part is how organized these guys are. Where you reach across the entire right media spectrum picking up on something like this and then amplifying it and making it really successful. And that just doesn't seem to exist on the left. And even let's say in the moderate circles. So, Jerry, what you're saying is I think the core issue is how do you insert a defense? How do you find the anti-tank missile that takes this thing out? And that's really how I think we need to think about it. Because changing a person's mind changes what they do, changes their actions. So it's just profoundly important that we figure this out. Thank you, Koss. Mark, whenever you wish. I would like to point out that as adult human being who benefited from an amazing high school education, I learned the only person who can change your mind is you. The only person who can change my mind is me. That's what being an adult means. It's not being told what to do. It's not being told what to think. Every citizen in this country has the right to an education that basically gives them that agency over their own selves. I want to point out the warfare metaphors that are coming up in this conversation about information warfare. And this is playing into the hand of competition rather than cooperation. We are in control of the words that we use and the way that we say them. And the policies that come from our choices of identifying shared values and saying we stand together and we will overcome. So being an Orange County, California punk rocker and raging against the state during the Reagan era and being hosed by police and basically slam dancing. And I posted on Facebook a fear on Saturday Night Live. And basically this adolescent energy of we're sick as hell we're not going to take it as kids. As kids we rebel and we did it ourselves and some of the best music I've ever heard has come out of that. Not all best music, of course, but I was fortunate enough to be at the Arhuli Records Awards and benefit with, I'm sorry, I forget this man's name, but with Dave Alvin and with Santiago Jimenez. And the last song that they played was Good Night Irene, Good Night. And I posted that on Facebook. I made a recording at the concert and I found out who else plays Good Night Irene, Good Night. The readers, oh, I'm sorry, the Weavers, their last song at their last concert at Carnegie Hall. Good Night Irene, Good Night. Led Belly, the origin of it. And I remember the people underneath Richards, all kinds of people basically saying, you know, we got the blues. The blues ain't about feeling good. It's about making other people feel bad. One of my favorite quotes. Yeah, I want to make people feel bad. I remember AIDS. It's death. People screaming. Do not look away. Here's my source. Here's my dying. I don't think of that as war. I think of that as protest and effective protest. Diablo Canyon and effective protest. What Rebecca Solnit and Paul Hawken. Oh, the person who, uh, Ken Hawken. Somebody Hawken. Forget the first name. Paul Hawken. Yeah. Yeah. Thank you. He writes that we think. That because we catastrophize when we're depressed. A mental illness is seeing things in black and white thinking. With no gray area. We get really, really intense. And we get Hugo Boss. We get the swastika. I'm using the apotheosis and catastrophic aesthetics. They, oh my God. Those Nazis, they were insane, but they sure look great. Good stepping down the Plaza. All in time with each other all aligned all with the same. And it was a glorious purpose that they were stirred up emotionally. In some kind of emotional chain reaction. The madness of crowds. And media is doing that to us right now. I would refer. Timothy Snyder's great book on tyranny. Not only tyranny. From without, but tyranny from within. You don't talk that much about Terry from within. I refer to. Who talks about power. And basically. When we internalize the oppressor. We do their job for them. And we will not. According to Timothy Snyder. Except what they say at face value. We will say. No, you're wrong. And that's been going on. At least in the. In the last couple of years. I've been seeing. Filter bubble that I've been seeing. Thank you. I'll pause now. Thanks for reminding us of Timothy Snyder's thinking on this. For head sorry. A few things. I'll see if I can remember them all. Yeah. I chuckled when class was talking about the think tank. Because on one hand, that would be like such a dream place today. And then I think about a tank. And the weaponry and all that. And then I think about. I have been thinking. About when I was a kid in the lessons, whether it be from Sesame Street, it was always finding the difference. You know, one of these things are not like the other. And it seems like there was such a pushback then to be able to find the difference. But maybe we needed more of a push to see where things were the same. What else? Oh, in terms of. The way the right is in step. A lot of what I think is the difference is that there's no room for thinking. There's no discussions there. There's no. I know from being in these spaces. If somebody disagrees, everybody descends upon them and shuts them down immediately. Whereas on the left, even though sometimes those places are harsh as well, there's more opportunity to hear ideas that you hadn't thought about before. And so again, I'm going to use the war metaphor because I do. I feel like I have a dividing conquer strategy right now, which is when I go into these right wing echo chambers. To let these people discuss, because the more they start to tell who they are, the more they look at each other and realize, wait, man, I don't like you very much. Because when there was no discussion and they didn't know. The different thoughts these people had, they just connected on one thing, which was their anger towards the left. As they get to know each other, they realize they're not really as much the same as they think they are. And the last point I wanted to make is with the DeSantis and all that. And with the school that hang up. You know, you brought it up. I keep saying, I keep trying to, so the same way the argument used to be, you know, whether it was, you know, federal rights or state rights, I just keep trying to bring it down even smaller. Like why should DeSantis decide what happens in your school? Like to me, if we just took their same argument, but just brought it down smaller, because usually people don't see how they're being exactly what they claim to be against. I don't know if that's making sense. Everybody looks, I'm not seeing any facial expressions that tell me that you understand or are following what I'm saying. So I think one place where people connect is, and I think Mark said it, nobody wants to be forced to do anything. So I think that looking through the lens of force is a good starting place. And I wasn't going to bring this up now, but since it came up in the chat, the whole idea of looking away. So coincidentally, Doug Carmichael and I had the same birthday. And I was reading a little blurb he wrote about animals. And about that being a small leverage point. And that we shouldn't be looking down on animals, which is what we do. And I wanted to add that I don't know, at least for me, it's not so much the problem of looking down. It's that we look away. And I know for myself. I can't. Yeah, I don't, it would not be healthy for me to really explore animal husbandry and what's happening in those areas. However, it is really a necessity in my opinion that that be brought to the surface. So I was going to ask you class or anybody else, if you know of anybody that might be well versed in different things that are going on in that realm, that would be willing to have a discussion or talk about it. Because the information is really important. I don't want to do it. I can't do it. And a lot of people, I mean, what we do is we just look away. It's easy to look away and animals don't have voices. And I really think that we need to focus more on that. Because that is at the root of. For me, when I hear all the discussions that we've been having, if we could change the way we look at animals, a lot would change, but that also means that we have to look at animal research differently. And that's what I'm trying to do. And that's what I'm trying to do. And that's what I'm trying to do when people aren't going to want to do that. So I know I'm going on a tangent, but this is something that's been on my mind. So thank you. Thanks, Stacy. I'm stepping when you want to. I'm trying to straddle where Stacy left off and where class started. That's right in my head. You know, class, when you were speaking to. How organized. And what kind of. Consistency and weaponization and impact. The path they're on is easier because they're in the fear business. The, the other side of the political spectrum isn't in the fear business. And the cultural and societal, you know, the sense of. Manipulation and incentivization as ways of. Getting people to do and behave in certain ways. Are sort of the dark arts of our age. And they're purpose driven, but they're devoid of morality and ethics and values. So it's a, it's a, a dimension of power over. And all of that stuff is rooted in fear and scarcity. And pushing the fear and scarcity trigger, which is. You know, Lizard brain level stuff. And so I don't think it's about. Figuring out a way to match. In the way they're being affected. Because to do that is to join them. Is to feed the dark wolf, you know, is to feed the. The evil and the hatred and the. Power over paradigm. The orientational shift is actually. Not so much on a words and intellectual level. It's on a heart and, you know, it's on lower, lower chakras, lower elemental centers. Having to do with earth and water having to do with. Safety and connection. Empathy. Like it's in those, those. Define feminine elements and dynamics. And people. Figuring out how to reawaken. Those channels. And dynamics. On a really large scale quickly. Is the path to salvation. Is countering all of that other stuff. Because. The human being part of human beings is in common. And the things that generate a universal empathetic response. Out of the natural center of what it means to be human. Is ultimately where our salvation is going to lie. And we can't, if we can't reconnect on that level. And reawaken that by and between each other on a connected and connection level. And caring level. We're going extinct. I'm sorry. Go ahead. No, I'm, I'm complete. I just wanted to tease out one thing you said, which really lit up in my head. You talked about fear and scarcity. And I added the word loneliness to it in the chat. And it seems to me like it's a very nice crisp definition of sort of some of the all far right, all right strategies to basically pump fear, scarcity and loneliness. To wake people up to go vote and then shut down all these movements that are too progressive to whatever. Which is also sort of political stance, but, but then the question arose for me, which is how might we counter strategies of fear, scarcity and loneliness. And it feels like the way to do that is to go make friends with people, to go build bonds, to go do the patient work of building relationships and rebuilding trust. Again, I'll point to Daryl Davis here who melts KKK members and has a garage full of their robes. His big question is how can you hate me if you don't even know me. Which is a truly simple, beautiful question. And, and feels to me like the start of a bunch of things. And one of the things that admire about the Biden administration now in year three, is that they're trying really hard to not engage in the battles that we're sort of talking about. And to just go do stuff that's going to make America a little better, even though it like from a progressive politics and structures kind of way some of it costs money because you've got to spend money to do some of these things. That's their approach. But they're actually trying to figure out, hey, if over four years we make people's lives materially better, maybe they will not vote for the same people again and will vote for us, which is an indirect hope. And I don't, you know, I don't know how, how well that's going to work out, but I'm, I've got, I'm hopeful. I, you know, I, when, when the reality people are experiencing and confronting intra community and buying between each other progressively diverges more and more from the ramping up of this dystopic frenzied picture of, you know, of crime and scarcity and searing the other and all of that stuff at a certain point, that, that strategy burns itself out of a certain point somebody in a congressional hearing says, you know, Senator McCarthy, what are you doing? I haven't waited for that moment with Trump for eight years. I understood, understood. And there's no jack while showing up apparently. But there's a certain point where that happens. And it's hard to know how far it goes before that point is reached. And sometimes it goes so far that you have concentration camps. And that's our species, like that's who we are. But do I believe there are affordances that are unprecedented courtesy of the level of global connection with the internet. And with a shared exposure. There's a certain awareness that there are potentials and opportunities to leverage that in service to addressing this. And precipitating that tipping point in a way that's different than one guy in a congressional hearing in front of a camera at the dawn of TV. Yeah. Yeah. Ken in the chat said something that rang my bell and I was just finding it in my brain. I didn't realize I kind of had it there, which is have you no shame calling out shame only works when people can be shamed. And it seems like we're in an era where strategists on the right, and I'm going to say this was explicit, figured out that being shameless is in fact a functional strategy. And as long as you repeat the time, you can lie like a rug. But if you anything I say three times is true as the truth is that we might have become immune to shaming, which has really dire consequences for nonviolent social action. For example, which absolutely relies on causing shame on the part of some people watching the action that's happening. If there had been no media covering the Pettus bridge back in the day, there might not have been any effects from that activity. So if shamelessness is a strategy and I think I can I could describe lots of ways in which that has actually that is actually what's happening right now. For example, lying about, you know, January 6th being a tourist visit or the election actually having, you know, they're having been evidence of tampering with the election. Those are shameless lies. But they're constantly being repeated because the these people know that that's the bet they've made on winning elections and all they really care about is winning elections, cynical as that may sound. But that describes to me a lot of dynamics on the on the ground, but it describes to me also a lot of fear I have that if we are in a post shame moment, that's really dangerous because then what you need to do is violence. I don't know. I don't know what the answer is in that way. What strategies work or how you come back to people understanding shame. So Mike puts George Santos in the chat and I'm like, I don't know. I don't know. I don't know. I don't know. To some people on the far right. Santos is an absolute hero because here's a guy who's lied about everything and is still in the house of representatives. Holy beans. You can do that. It's like he's a deep fake who made it into office who happens to be a meat puppet. And that's insane. And it's cool and powerful. And I can see high fives going around because of that. And it makes me really sad because it's also about how much hate is being created in the zoom. There. Sorry. My headset wasn't perfect. It's now burst and cone used to be burst on Marsteller. These are the public relations firm that specialized in helping shamed politicians rehabilitate themselves to say, Oh, I found Jesus or you know, I really feel remorseful and they've perfected the art of, you know, they work with, with horrible people over the world, terrible regimes, you know, and they rehabilitate people's public image. Doesn't matter what they do in private. They're going to give you a public image that's that shines. So it's just, yeah, Mike, I saw that Santos is running for reelection. I just can't even, I can't even with that guy. But there's just, there is a large industry that is working on shamelessness. And we even have TV shows shameless, both here in the US and in England. And I watched it for a while and Mike, I can't freaking watch this. It's disgusting. These people have no morals, no ethics, you know, and, and people are going, Oh, I want to be like them. So I think we have a large problem with, with the fact that there's a media and an industry that specializes in how to let people get away with terrible things and make it look they're okay. So just a little comment there. And I liked it better when it's BM because it really sounded like what it was. So just to be seen. Mm hmm. Thanks Ken Stacy, then Gil, and then we're getting close to the end of our time. Yes. I wanted to share with you a personal realization that ties in with strategy and with shame. Because I do think that they can still feel shame, but their shame is different from what our shame would be. So what happened the other day when I learned about the shooting of. That 16 year old boy by that. Does everybody know that I can't think of his name right now. An 80, an 85 year old man shot a 16 year old boy who showed up on his doorstep thinking he was going to pick up his two Ralph Yarrow. When brought thank you. And immediately, you know, all the anger in my head went off of this racist garbage, you know, all the words that you would think of. And it took a while. Before I realized that that's where the strategy shift has to change. Because. Instead of seeing him through this lens of hatred. And I don't want to focus on this man, because I don't want it to be about. A person. I want to talk about a group of people that could be so afraid. Afraid to shoot somebody. Fear is something that. Those people are ashamed of. If you listen to Trump, he's constantly talking about this one came to me crying. This one came to me crying. Oh, wow. In their world. That's something to be ashamed of. See, we don't look at it that way because when somebody cries to me. I don't know. I don't know. I don't know. I'm not comfortable to express themselves. But so I guess what I'm trying to say is when you're thinking about shaming somebody. You have to think what is it that shames them. And I know. Shame is not my favorite way of teaching somebody. But unfortunately in some situations that may be the way it has to be done. But I think it's something that can help to liberate emotions. Is probably going to be a good thing. So with that, I feel confident saying. If I could shame someone into recognizing. That their. Racism is not. If I can move it away from the frame of hatred and anger. Into the frame of their own fear. That's. A different way to look at things, but I'm mentioning this because I had to come to that within myself. I had to catch myself being so angry and projecting out that kind of anger towards a person. Instead of saying, wow, there are actually people. Not that man, but there are actually people. That really genuinely would get scared. And then it ships everything. I'm sorry if I'm not that articulate. And it's a hard point to bring out because. I will share that when I've tried to say things like this in other groups. I don't mean in these groups, but I've had the experience of being attacked. When I try to change the frame of something. Because. We don't always want to be the more forget, you know, I'm usually on the side of the more forgiving people. You know, sometimes you do have to hold your ground. Something's got to shift. I just wanted to throw that out. Thank you, Stacy. And thank you also for along the way there, lighting up Trump's many invocations of how people came crying as him pointing to that as shame. I'm like, oh, oh, I had not read it that way either. That was great. Has anybody created any artifact they'd like to share in about this conversation? I've been no taking, but you can see that over my head. I will share that link into the chat. Gil and then Ken has a poem for us, but has to leave at the, at the half hour. So go ahead, Gil. I'll try to be brief. I came in late. I apologize for that. I walked in on the shame conversation and a couple of thoughts. Nothing is fixed. The moods aren't fixed. The shame that people feel isn't fixed and then and can shift. It's been cultivated. It's been cultivated. Fear is fascism 101, right? Generate fear, generate fear of the other and use that to drive the game. So, God, we have to condense this. When, when, when McCarthy got confronted with Sir, have you no shame? That wasn't that what it was not one person saying that one thing that changed things. There was a cultivation of a mood in the country. There was a political context that was being developed. There was a receptivity to that statement. You know, we think that Rosa Parks sitting down on the bus in Montgomery was a. Thank you. Exactly, Jerry. Was a random act. No, but she was trained at Highlander Center. There was a strategy developed over years in Highlander Center, which focused on, you know, produced a focusable event, but it took a context to get there. And so. Santos is announcing reelection, but a lot of Republicans are increasingly uncomfortable with him and with Marjorie Taylor Green and so forth. And so there's that background of the game as well. It's complicated. The other obviously other thing we're going to say. No, that's it. I'll leave it there. I'm going to let's go to the poem. Thank you everybody. So I did not choose this poem last night. I chose this as I was listening to this conversation. And. I think you'll probably have all heard this. It's called please call me my by true names by tick. Do not say that I'll depart tomorrow because even today I still arrive. Look deeply. I arrive in every second to be a bud on a spring branch to be a tiny bird with wings still fragile. Learning to sing in my new nest to be a caterpillar in the heart of a flower to be a jewel hiding itself in a stone. I still arrive in order to laugh and to cry in order to fear and to hope. The rhythm of my heart is the birth and death of all that are alive. I am the mayfly metamorphizing on the surface of the river. I am the bird which when spring comes arrives in time to eat the mayfly. I am the frog swimming happily in a clear pond. And I'm also the grass snake who approaching in silence feeds itself on the frog. I am the child in Uganda all skin and bones. My legs as thin as bamboo sticks. And I am the armors merchant selling deadly weapons to Uganda. I am the 12 year old girl. Refugee on a small boat who throws herself into the ocean after being raped by a sea pirate. And I am the pirate my heart not yet capable of seeing and loving. I am a member of the Polita borough with plenty of power in my hands. And I am the man who has to pay his debt of blood to my people dying slowly in a forced labor camp. My joy is like a spring so warm it makes flowers bloom in all walks of life. My pain is like a river of tears so full it fills the four oceans. Please call me by by true names so I can hear all my cries and laughs at once. So I can see that my joy and my pain are one. Please call me by my true name so I can wake up and so open the door and so the door of my heart can be left open the door of compassion. Thank you all. See you next week. Thank you so much, Ken. A lovely note to end on as well. See everybody next week. Thank you.