You're listening to the reversing climate change,
podcast by the team at Nori. The carbon removal Marketplace.
This is a show about the innovators and entrepreneurs
developing solutions to climate change.
Hello and welcome to the reversing climate change
podcast. My name is Alex on that, I get
her and I'm here in Seattle with lovely co-host, Ross, Kenyan.
Keep getting those lovely. Stacking up, feeling extra
confident. Now.
Take it back today. You were not so lovely.
Ouch, I might have to edit that so it doesn't interfere with my
public perception as love. Yeah, it's scary just joshing
around as always. Well, we have an old friend of
mine who coincidentally moved to Seattle a bit before I did,
we've been hanging out and talking.
We have with us here today. Jeffrey, Howard, editor, and
founder of Gratis, which is an online.
Publication that takes a pragmatic, approach to ideas,
and focuses on human flourishing.
We're very happy to have you here with us, Jeffrey.
It's a pleasure. Welcome.
We should also say at the start that for the first time, I think
we're going to call a season break and break.
I think we're going to take a little break after this episode.
I don't know exactly how long it'll be, but we have some
episodes that were planning. We've been doing this basically
non-stop for close to two years now and I think it's time to
regroup a bit strategize. Absolutely.
So we hope that you are enjoying your holidays, some time with
family, resting recovering, getting some Moments of human
flourishing in a community. Nice, I know that I will be
taking a break. I will be off the grid for like
three weeks. You have.
Well earned it going to try to learn how to meditate.
That'll be fun. Hmm.
It's a, it's a good thing to do. I'm sure that will come up in
the show here too. Well, we decided to do this show
because well, where do I even start with this one?
Wendell Berry has come up so many times that it's become a
running joke. In fact, we had a fan, create a
bingo card. For Nori and Wendell Berry
himself is one of the Bingo squares.
I noticed that. Yeah, it's no longer talking
about doing the show with Jeffrey.
He's like, you gotta talk about, Wendell Berry line.
I was like, yeah, and Jeffrey and correct me if I'm wrong.
So you just read this book by dr.
Patrick Dineen called why liberalism failed and this is a
book, very much in the same school of thought, as Wendell
Berry dr. Janine, is a communitarian?
I think he calls himself a Catholic, communitarian he But
it definitely is a Catholic who speaks in communitarian circles.
So I think that's a dress, I pulled that from Wikipedia which
as you know, is 100% accurate at all times, but I could see that
I could see that fitting and we wanted to do an episode that
focus on the political philosophy of communitarianism,
because is strange, it doesn't break neatly along the political
lines that you might expect. Sometimes you'll be reading,
Wendell Berry and be like, wow, this is, this is to the left of
Bernie Sanders or Elizabeth Warren.
And sometimes you're like, this is extremely Conservative and I
have a hard time mapping this given my political experience as
an American in 2019 which for no other reason.
I think it makes it interesting to read because it isn't exactly
what you would expect all the time.
Like I know when I read a conservative, or libertarian or
Progressive or Marxist, I know what I'm getting communitarian
still have that like, little bit like a surprise in there for me
like a little spice. So we decided to have Jeffrey on
to talk about what exactly communitarianism is.
Why should we care should be? What does it have to say?
Because why don't I put words in your mouth?
Won't you just want to just start off in the broadest terms
possible here? What is it communitarian?
Yeah, so let me offer. I want everyone to Envision a
square rather a diamond. So for a comfortable with the
left-right Paradigm, politically speaking, the northern point,
you could see communitarianism which serves as a contrast
sometimes with individualism or even in some ways with
libertarianism and on the left, usually have a big focus on
equality and there tends to be a greater comfort with government
or state intervention in the market, discomfort, with State
intervention in quote, unquote, the bedroom or in people's
private lives, the converse of that, on the right, you know,
more comfortably or traditionally more laissez-faire
Market approach, but being more comfortable with State,
intervention into people's private lives, whereas South of
the Border, I guess you could say is More individualism or
it's really about really removing any means of
intervening and people's private lives that people are free to do
whatever they want. Essentially as long as they're
not harming other people, there's all sorts of squabbles
within that contain Chris corner of the political spectrum and
then you have communitarians, which is really focused on
ultimately Solutions, come from communities, that ultimate
meaning comes from community that things need to be
determined through communities and by Community, that's on the
local level. As contrasted with say, maybe a
national or a global Community. It's really about the
particulars versus the universal.
And as we'll talk about the contrast between liberalism,
which focuses on a more Universal ethos or more
Cosmopolitan view. Communitarianism, might contrast
with that with a more focus on a local, or a particular context.
All right, so if I read this back to you, you have people
that are broadly left-of-center now, who are progressive,
they're pretty comfortable with state.
Ian changing various things about the economy, whatever.
And you have people that are right of Center who tend to be
suspicious of the state messing with the market and that sort of
thing. But, communitarians seemingly
are suspicious both of like, the federal government introducing,
a new suite of programs ostensibly to help people.
They think that's maybe too big and too distant a solution, but
they're also very suspicious of the market ordering Society,
according to its dictates to, is that, yeah, I think that's
pretty accurate. You can depending on which type
Communitarians. You're speaking with, the may
also emphasize are being comfortable with State
intervention. The sense of more local state
interventions or economic solutions that are more locally
driven but it's, you know, they're going to be critical of
extreme laissez-faire approaches or extreme Federal level
mandates. So how do you know that your
communitarian? It's fluid.
Its individual. I you know, I don't know.
I'm sure there are quizzes online honestly.
Materialism is probably so Niche that there probably aren't any
BuzzFeed quizzes, whether you're a communitarian or not.
Oh man, but I, you know, I think a few Hallmarks you can look for
is, you know, when you're considering ethical and moral
questions, do you see it through the lens of is this going to be
good for my community or our community?
There's a slogan within sort of communitarianism is I don't
become a me without a we or something along those lines,
right? Like you cannot Cysts without
being part of a whole. And you can't just think of what
is only good for me or what I want to do.
You're always thinking the context of, how does this impact
other people? And ultimately as human beings
were relational creatures. Yeah, I was hoping I'd have a
chance to bring this up. Maybe you'll like this
Alessandra but there's a very famous Margaret Thatcher quote
when she was prime minister of Britain and she said that
there's no such thing as society and that this is just an idea.
Leah. I was like, that's true.
The idea of society isn't something that I could point
out. It sort of in the idea realm,
but I remember people coming back and being like the
individuals and abstraction like great.
So now, what do I do? It's useful, it's easier to
think in terms of individuals acting, or it's sort of like, is
this going to take us down a road?
That's too weird. Well, I have a wrote that I'm
safe. I'm gonna walk you back.
Just to what you were. Just describing Jeff.
Jeff. Oh, Jeffrey a lot of it
resonated with me in terms of okay you're going to see
something. And you ask yourself, this is
good for my community and less so about like is it good for me
as an individual? I very very much identified with
that because I have a loss of identity without my whole my
community. Never here's this, here's a
sticker it's a little bit different from what you were
describing with regards to locality.
So to describe my situation, I've lived.
In all four corners of the Uso Miami New York LA.
And now, Seattle spent three months in Denver, there are
people that I have in different places that are my community.
I talked to them fairly regularly, very close to my
family and they're my community. And without the ability to talk
to them to see them to just continue that connection, I
would have a loss of identity but they're not local.
So can you be a communitarian without locality That's a great
point. I think you can be there's
definitely prefer communitarians and especially for Patrick
Dineen in this book, Wendell Berry there is a publication
called front porch Republic, which they talk about Place
limits and community and markets in a very specific way, but
like, Place does matter. But communitarians may talk
about three different types of community.
You have a community of place which is what we've talked about
is your geography-based, right? Your neighborhood or your anchor
to you. Have communities of memory,
which is a little bit more broad, sort of like we as a
community of Americans, right? We have this memory of the
American founding and certain mythologies that we have what
that identity in that Community. Is it's the most abstract of
community that communitarians will talk about third is
communities of psychology where it's essentially, the
face-to-face interaction. The way we get fed by one
another emotionally, and those more human elements that we I
felt like those really meaningful moments of community.
As I would say, we should definitely discuss that more,
but maybe we should do it through the lens of the book
here. So by liberalism failed, why did
it fail? What were the Alternatives?
What even is liberalism's? I don't even know that people
can recognize you since we all swim in it and even if you're if
you're listening right now, you're Republican or Democrat.
You're both still liberals in the broadest sense of the term,
you probably have more in common than you might think what is
liberalism? Yeah.
So to your first A point Dineen would say liberalism failed
because it succeeded which is sort of a clever plan words.
But what he's saying there is baked into liberalism are a few
tenants that ultimately are going to or have or are leading
to its demise and so liberalism, the way he defines it in the
most broader terms again it's not liberal Progressive or
conservative. It's a broad philosophical
tradition that generally starts back with John Locke.
Who is considered an Englishmen? Who is considered the founding
father of liberalism, you have Liberals like Hobbs and his
employer. Sir, Francis Bacon.
And the idea is that there is a state of nature and this is
arguably kind of a fiction. Maybe a thought experiment that
just state of nature that we were all our most free state of
being that we are non-relational.
We are not beholden to sort of arbitrary.
Things of birth, such as your heritage, the religion of your
parents, the boundaries. You're born into all these
things that liberals consider arbitrary and limiting, and then
in the state of nature. ER, as the most free being, you
are free of all those things and you have certain rights as an
individual, which the most liberal Maxim is sort of.
You're free to do as you want. As long as you're not harming
others, that's John, Stuart Mill's harm principle and that's
at the heart of liberalism as well.
And so this idea is that we exist as these non-relational
beings and in order to maintain that to avoid the sort of short
nasty brutish life, we enter the social contract in which we form
government, It's that, are there to secure those basic individual
rights. Lot of these are contained in,
you know, the Declaration of Independence, which was very
lucky. And and ultimately lat the
constitution for the United States and many other countries
and at the heart of it really is.
Individualism Denine also talks about conquest of nature.
So this really intersect with what we want to talk about with
the reversing climate change podcast is this philosophy that
nature is something to be conquered and and it's something
to be controlled and we're reaping the fruits of that in
the ecological devastations is The Logical conclusion.
So those are just a few things have heard of it.
You have there's a lot there. I almost forgot.
We're on the reversing climate change pocket.
When I get there. I promise ya.
Try to take this dirty jokes. Thank you Jeffrey.
I love the anthropology of this because it's clearly just a
thought experiment. And if you don't have language,
if you don't have touch you Can't even develop your mind,
you know, but that attachment disorder yard you, you will not
do well in a group setting ever basically.
Unless you combat that in order to even make sense of the
universe, you need language to help you develop Concepts to
partition the. So it's not just
undifferentiated Mass, you only get that by being born into
relations and you don't just develop that on your own but
sort of the contract Aryan view which is useful because it's
about consent, right about. How can people choose to consent
to political order? Which is Otherwise just
banditry. Basically, like States, just
saying like I rule you, you must consent and they're like, no
there's got to be there's got to be some consent in here, right?
And so they're trying to like, work their way into.
How could someone consent to Define monarchy?
This is where like as I understand Hobbs is trying to
work towards this, whereas like on social contract theory and
contract arianism is very much like a world, like The Walking
Dead where you have the the various bands of people
encounter each other in a state of nature where there's no
overarching law. It's like, do we trust each
other do we agree to stuff or not?
And then Course, they'll just kill each other.
So the point is to, like, go ahead.
One more beat each other with bats or beat each other.
We hate spoilers spoilers. Hey, that was ridiculous.
That never happened. Yeah, so that's like that's part
of that, that tradition I guess you literally just said, a bunch
of words like you're like banditry, like what was that
contract is own contract. Aryan is consult arianism think
what are these words wrong? It's, it's basically just, yeah,
like, social contract theory. So like, like people how do they
agree and can How do you consent to a government ruling you
because right now, like, you don't you?
Yeah, you've never given your consent to be governed.
But clearly you like, like, does implicit consent work in this
case or not people been fighting this question very long time, I
like David Humes of the original contract where he's like
implicit consent is like carrying a sleeping man onto a
boat and saying, if you don't like it you can jump off.
So not so good. And also explicit consent is
impossible and we would never all agree to the same rules.
So, it's like so does consent matter as a political principle
at all. Clearly, we want to present, you
don't want the idea of like being governed without your
consent, but then how do you make it work?
So, like social contouring thinking is trying to square the
circle to this day. I still don't know how it works.
I see it on a spectrum and I also don't see quite how it
works. Consents very important, it
doesn't work anywhere, that's like maybe maybe the see stats
people who want to like, that's what I was going to say.
Like if you could truly opt-in like that's explicit consent but
so like unitarians might Come back and say, consent is not
nearly as important as you think.
It is being born into these relations.
You didn't choose your family, but that's on arbitrary.
That doesn't mean you can just throw them to the curb as
garbage. You owe them some bonds of
affection and love, or unless they're, like, horribly abusive,
unless you choose not to, unless you're like, okay, this is
something. But you have to make that choice
very consciously and explicitly like, okay, I want to dump them,
and I now I burn this bridge and I will never walk back.
That's these, are some of the downsides.
Of liberalism that Denine sees, that quoting, the French
Aristocrat who came to visit, America, Alexis de tocqueville
in 1829 and 1830 had couple volumes Democracy in America, in
which talks about at the heart of liberalism, is this idea of
freeing ourselves from the chains that bound the
aristocrats all the way down to the peasants.
But what has happened? From Denise perspective.
Is that these other chains, that bind us family, the community
Faith communities, Is cultural ethnic communities.
You name it that we inherit our inheritances, even down to Denis
likes to talk about last name. So he'll give presentations on
this book, and he'll talk about how Dineen means of Neen for,
it's like an aristocratic name or like de tocqueville.
That's a name Smith. My last name is Deborah, which
means war and I haven't wanting to change it and that's an
inheritance, whether you wish to pain or not, right?
Yeah. He talks about how in trying to
liberate the individual from these aristocratic oppression.
We've liberated individual from all other demands that we could
place upon one another that we are so focused on trying to make
the individual completely free, that we are.
So non-relational that we are uncomfortable or not allowed to
make demands upon one. Another and communities are
based on us being able to make demands on one another where
it's like, hey I'm sick and unwell someone in my community.
I can make a demand of them that have in an unspoken demand.
Perhaps we're like it demand of them to come and take care of me
because that This the other direction and we don't really
have these strong bonds for a lot of us tocqueville.
And we're Robert Nesbitt, his book The Quest for Community
came up in this book, which is like an old favorite of mine
because he's one of the conservative thinkers.
I think is super interesting and he has a great section in that
book where he talks about how prior to the Industrial
Revolution literature. Tended to be about feeling over
to find everyone. In my small town knows.
All of my business. There I have no room to be
myself. I'm sure if you've ever been to
like a small town community or like your With your family and
you're just like everyone is constantly gossiping and knows
everything about me and I hate it literature tend to be about
being over hashtag holiday season.
They're going to be listening to this like on their walk away
from the Christmas table. Yeah.
So you probably know listeners, especially, you have to live
with that and that's just your life constantly, but then Nisbet
comes back and says, well after the Industrial Revolution
literature tend to be about alienation and about not feeling
connected and things like some like, Franz Kafka.
Thought you were just sort of like an anonymous person in the
city and you don't have any connections.
So basically we're just doomed to be unhappy is the point of
that whole Spiel. Well, yeah, yeah, that's, that's
the real worry. Here is as we've liberated
ourselves so much and I speak of this from a very liberal
perspective. There's this concern as where's
my place. Like we have these very thin
community. So, we, I think we all most of
us have communities that we talked about whether that's, you
know, the people I Go Boulder in rock climbing with the People
who maybe share some certain political or philosophical
views, maybe my family, or faith in your whatever communities we
have some that are thin and some are thick.
And by that is meaning, really these stronger bonds that
they're more difficult to exit. So one of the celebrations, or
achievements of liberalism is that it's made exiting
quote-unquote, arbitrary, relations or arbitrary.
Inheritance has that much easier.
Go. Absolutely.
So in this book, will the book again is called Why liberalism
failed and the beginning. He starts talking about how did
this point that our relationships are now super
loose? And he makes some pretty
sweeping statements. I'm not going to get into that.
I mean there's a lot of yeah. Anyways.
Hold yourself back and extend it out.
Okay. And we're moving forward so that
their looseness in relationships and he very much implies like
that, this is the terrible thing.
Like it has led to the demise of like social, I don't know.
I wouldn't even know how to describe the capital.
Yeah. But what's so interesting is
like I almost see almost like a pendulum.
So if I take a ball and I like swing it this way, there are
over here in an extreme super constraint, right?
They implicitly or just we're bound to some social contract
that they never said yes to and then.
Okay. Then there's liberalism we let
them go and that ball swings the other direction.
So now we're so free. We're like, oh my God, I'm so
far off the middle because now I have thin communities.
I have no one to take care of. Me when I'm sick.
I had to bring me some soup or whatever it is.
And so, I think that the feeling that I got or the idea from
listening to this book was well, what relax?
Like, it's just a normal thing where we can now come back to
the middle, that there might be this natural order swing, where
we find in the end, we'll settle on a middleware.
It's like you will have Community but you have more
freedom to Define what that Community looks like.
And we just might be at this particular point in time at a
stage because of Technology because of global Amy's where
we're just so far on the right or left or whatever on the side
that you're going to swing back mattress in the middle.
I was doing this whole thing with my hands, I hope so.
I think I wonder how much worse. It'll get until it gets better.
I think if you're if you're listening, take a catalog.
Be like, do you go to church or you member of any fraternal
societies? Are you in a knitting club, or
reading group, or a bowling league, or you in any of these?
I had to send this to Jeffrey to in prep for this.
My favorite comedy ever. Peep Show still the greatest.
There's a great scene. I think I'm gonna send it to you
also and I'll send it to you though, but they go on a double
date and they go to this play and it's like local community
theater and they're like, this is terrible last money.
We could be watching heat with Robert De Niro and Al Pacino at
home. It's like yes, like there's
definitely like like the competition for my attention
after work. Like, I'm sure you get home.
It's like, would I like to And pray or go to a Bible study
right now or what? I like to, I don't know, go and
play badminton with people. No I can watch literally any
show in the history of the planet with no effort at all.
I think it's just hard to compete.
I think we're going to see a lot more fighting on the internet in
your apartment by yourself. Before we see people joining the
stuff again, I hope I'm wrong. Yeah.
I like John was you're saying, is maybe it is a pendulum.
I'm generally an optimist of blah things but I do see a lot
of this pessimism where we are both from Market means as well
as through government interventions were able to
isolate and not have to invest as much in communities because
we can fall back in something else and I can think of a couple
of examples in which in my own life.
So I think to Ross and I met in DC during my second stint in
d.c., it was actually during my first go at DC that after
finishing a semester of teaching I was you know I was In some
sense, under employed under housed, I was crashing where I
have your I can find housing with people, as well as I didn't
have enough money for food and I'm grew up inherited a very
powerful, very thick faith community that I can still.
Although I'm non-practicing more culturally a part of this
community. I can go in many places across
the country and I can tap into people with a shared this sort
of shared story shared is only the people's Temple or Yeah,
it's one of those. No and but I'm in DC, I mean,
this hard place and I'm no longer practicing the faith, but
it's still part of my community. My family heritage and I go to
local clergy, talk about my situation and being as sort of a
law of reciprocity. I've given so much to this
community throughout most of my life that in speak with local
clergy, they're able to provide a little bit of help with food
for a couple months for me. And that's something that that
is a thick community that is providing Support and help to me
that I've placed a demand on them because they've been able
to place a demand on me whereas on contrast if I'm not part of a
really strong Community, I'm not incentivized have a strong
Community right now, because while if I fall in hard times, I
can rely on this state intervention or that state
intervention or maybe I can find some other.
Cheaper Market means to achieve something that doesn't require
me having to extend myself emotionally or socially with
other people, but then that's the thin that Even a thin way of
living superficial does not speak to your quarters.
Not revive you? Yes.
To everything that you're saying
and what comes to mind this conversation is it almost seems
like the trigger is moving is leaving, right?
So assuming of course, this is not the case for everybody.
But assuming you are born somewhere, you're raised
somewhere with a family and then you move.
Like, for example, I moved from Miami to New York and I was 18
for college and then I had to start A whole new community,
they're in college. Luckily the soil is fertile and
then and you heared like forced to repeat interactions with
people. So you're able to build a
community that but again, it's not as thick as my family home
in Miami. Then I go to grad school and I'm
like oh that's even harder because there's like no social
there's no help from the University for like PhD students
to hang out, which is like oh it's the other PhD students that
were in your lab but they've been working together for 3
years. Then you have like an awkward
one year of like working lab and To be friends with people and
then like, just moving to me seems to be a pattern that
triggered my loss of thickness and Community or connection and
it takes a lot of intention and effort to rebuild that wherever
you go and you have to start from scratch.
Every time you move, I still don't feel like I've done a very
good job here in Seattle of, figuring it out, like a bit of a
Hermit getting me out to do. Basically, anything, is still
still an Endeavor, I need a lot of talking into and It's bad.
It's like think about how hard it is to make friends as an
adult, you really. And they're not even to make
them but to preserve those relationships because you can,
you can just like stop or you can say like maybe turn down an
invitation two or three times. Maybe that's the last one.
You get until you don't do it. So, like you, you really gotta
try. I don't feel like, I've been
trying very hard and I don't know that it's been the best
thing for me. Are you from here, Jeff?
No, so, I'm a little bit of my personal history.
I've lived in California, Utah. So you see English a roster
right? Yeah it'll yeah I mean Russ and
I followed similar. Geographic changes.
Just in parallel unbeknownst just bouncing around.
Wait we're like the rootless fungible.
Disaffected liberal extreme. Yeah well right like it's the
you don't know what you have until you lose it and you know
as someone who used to have such strong community and also being
at bit of a Hermit myself I've and how much I'm invested in
interested in Reviving. Immunity and the loss of it.
You know, it's hard you come home from a long day of work and
you're just like I just want to make dinner and crash.
I've got to take my dog out for a walk and we're inundated with
content consumed on every other streaming device and just like
the one we left behind. It's easier.
Moratorium on new content, guys. Like much content.
I got through months. I'm like, no, no more like oh
that used this could show. Nope.
Not gonna do it. There's a new edgy.
Serial drama. That's only seven seasons live
anti-heroes. Morally ambiguous, I'm still
finishing Game of Thrones, I'm out.
Oh my God. Okay, my friends, I've seen
every episode with time, you guys are part of the problem,
right there? I am finding a problem but you
know what I've been doing recently?
I mean you mentioned Seattle as Seattle's a tough one.
Like Jesus it's hard to make friends as an adult just live in
Seattle. Like the Seattle.
Freeze is a real thing but at least I can find more and more
people who also moved to Seattle and are struggling with the
fries. And so most of my friends are
not local to Seattle. Yeah, but it takes so much time.
It's what I've moved here, two years ago.
So December 4th. Oh wow, December 4th, was the
fifth of December and 2017. And I finally have friends were
now I get, this is the level. This is the measure of success
for communities. When you're going from failure.
Can see, she's itching. I'm pinching myself.
Yes. Yeah.
There's space is when do you transition from like, oh, we
have to like, hey, do you wanna go to brunch someday?
Like, let's do Sunday this time. Okay.
And everything, scheduled Super thin.
Then you go to thick like that Medium thickness where it's
like, hey I'm going home now. Do you want to come?
Hang out? Yeah, sure.
I'll be over. That is success.
That's a sweet spot. Yeah.
We should maybe maybe get it closer to the book again to
because I think do we? I think that's a good, a good
idea. All right.
I think that's terrific, dr. Patrick Deane heard this.
He'd be like, what the heck, guys?
Like, like mention my book and barely.
Then you start talking about making friends in Seattle.
This is the reverse Advantage, podcast is our last one of the
year. We've gotten to that, but we
sure will. Okay, so, maybe let's just let's
do our due diligence here and catch it up.
So, Francis fukuyama and a history.
He says, like, this is a famous thing.
Like, after the cold war, after the Berlin Wall came down, it
was saying, like liberalism is where we'll all head over.
So I like broadly, we believe in trade and private property and
in markets and this is going to be the thing.
It's not going to be fascism, which is another big alternative
in the 20th century. That has been thoroughly,
discredited less, so now but let's hope it stays
Discrediting, his cross communism was very discredited
after the Soviet Union collapsed, although it still has
its admirers and in certain circles but liberalism was
ascendant. We all sort of thought.
This is the best we can do. This is what we're going after.
And then now we're all staring into it and it seems like the
name thinks that we've sort of hollowed it out.
Like we spent hundreds of years building these communities, that
were actually quite robust and then liberalism was so
successful that it no longer required the communities that
Liberalism possible just by having people grounded and
contextualize and a part of things, it removed the need for
those. And now, all you have people who
do their primary identity is National politics or like,
identifying, with a political party and like yelling at people
online and there's nothing but that so like liberalism was so
successful that it might undermine itself because now
people have nothing about this and it isn't very good.
Yes. Is that your good job?
Yes. And I would add essential to
that. What he's talking about this
hollowing out our, the more Civic and social Institutions
that I think Robert Putnam highlights very well in his
book, bowling alone, which Denine talks about as well.
It was first an article, I think came out in the 80s, later
became a book where he highlights although the numbers
of those who bowl back then into the past few Decades of now are
still the same. The number of those who Bowl in
Bowling leagues, have mostly disappeared.
And that's uses as this imagery to show where isolated were
doing things not in associations.
And so part of why, that's a problem is because these
associations create norms and cultural expectations that
temper. Some of the Extremes in our
human nature and they're also part of what makes the
liberalism succeed. But Denine would say, what's
this? Individualism that's baked into
liberalism has slowly replaced those out that market logic and
large-scale state interventions have hollowed out those
intermediary spaces. Okay, and that's true.
That sounds may be small town or all you guys are going to exist
in large Urban environments to. But especially if you read
Wendell Berry so much of it is about this you know, bucolic
life out in the countryside and these small towns, you get a
poor William. If you read those those novels
which are lovely. If you just want pure distilled,
Nostalgia just read any of those part.
William as makes me nostalgic for something I've never
experienced. Its, they're beautiful.
I know you like them a lot to that I do, but we're just not
going back. I think this Century we're going
to Increasing urbanization. This is not even something
that's that disputed, as far as I know, everyone is moving to
the city and they're doing it globally.
And we're not going to have these sort of like small small
towns farming, Lifestyles anymore, those that are
increasingly mechanized and something that you don't have to
deal with unless you really really want to or you're just
born into it, you don't want to leave and even still.
It seems quite hard to stay there.
So I read this book recently by Peter ends called how the Bible
actually works. It was written about people.
Oftentimes read the Bible. As a rule book, but this is
actually not a very good way to read the Bible.
There are passages right back to back, even in Psalms because
it's you supposed to read like holy books as a way of
generating wisdom, not to, like, just get an answer and be like,
oh, what is the Bible say about X?
And you look it up, there it is. That's the end of it, accept it
if you're in Leviticus. Exactly.
Yeah. But even even sell their stuff
in there, too. That he goes into, I thought it
was a really, really compelling book but so like a lot of the
people who get really into Christianity and the Bible,
they'll go back and say Were like reclaiming primitive,
Christianity and going back to basics and just looking like,
what exactly does it mean to be a Christian?
I found my answer and done but he makes it a case in there that
actually, like, you can never go back.
A lot of that was historically. Contextual, you're probably
missing a lot of it. It's more about what can you
take from that and move it forward?
So, given that Wendell Berry and Patrick mean, seemingly have
this aesthetic that is very much, small town, living rule
America, that might be the ideal, but we're going farther
and farther away from that. How do we learn from that?
Knowing that we probably aren't actually going to go back to it.
Yeah, that's a great question. I think it's a major tension, I
believe statistically, what's it?
Like two percent of Americans are actually Farmers nowadays,
that may even be high. Maybe it's 1%.
I think it might be below that. Yeah.
And so, you know and for the last century and a half more,
we've been consolidating Farms larger scale that's where we get
the big questions around, big Agriculture, and so most of us
just don't want to be farmers. Those of us who didn't grow up
with it, read Wendell Berry or someone else and go.
Oh yeah, I think I want to just find my little parcel of land.
It just Farm it and live this idyllic life and farming is
really hard work. So I don't think there's a way
of going back. I like the idea of more and more
people wanting to try and get back to Earth back to the soil
as Wendell Berry will talk about.
There's a berry, I think Institute in Kentucky, where
they actually have free. Three scholarships where people
can learn to be farmers who are really wanting to revive a
little bit of this lifestyle. And I person, I'm personally not
as invested or optimistic of loads of people just suddenly
getting into farming, but I think it's really going back to
that Community. Ethos, that isn't necessarily
require everyone to be Farmers. But we have this real crisis of
the rural urban divide, which I think is probably one of the
biggest divides that we can consider at least in the United
States, North America, where there's such big differences.
And Lifestyles values, how rural urban folks view each other or
fail to talk to one another. And I think that's really big
crisis is trying to cross that divide.
So we've talked about the thing that is happening.
What are the consequences of it? Like the why it failed?
What is feeling like what are the consequences of all the
loose relationships, the lack of connection between rural and
urban people. But what are the consequences
was failing? Is it just the state of today,
or Why are we even having this conversation?
So I think a few of these things and some of them are hard to pin
solely on liberalism and I'm not sure Deneen would say, all these
are can be put on liberalism, but we never talk about this
alienation. We look at these Rising numbers
of people who deal with loneliness, especially the more
elderly or more vulnerable populations.
Who are just like, oh, you're not economically, fruitful,
you're not useful, you're sort of like discarded, but even
though, Or not, those of us who are chronicled economically
productive. We still live, pretty solitary
lives, a lot of us and we deal with the depression and
loneliness that comes from that, the lack of human flourishing
that you know, we're facing. So you've got Steven Pinker who
contrast this in his book, Enlightenment.
Now, where is talking about we live?
In this most prosperous time. Most peaceful least violent time
in human history and largely a lot of those statistics metrics
are true but in materially speaking, there's a lot of
unrest. There's a lot of Trust of one
another, we don't trust our Democratic institutions.
We don't know how to speak to one another politically or even
emotionally. A lot of us, lack at the
emotional intelligence to be able to communicate our
alienation and loneliness to one another.
Some of us don't even know how to recognize it because we're so
distracted, by all of our content that we consume are so
distracted by you name it. And so there are these some
could say they're they're sort of spiritual deficiencies,
psychological emotional, you name it.
And Those are coming out in ways of suicide, opiate crisis.
You can connect it to a lot of these which are hard to show.
Causation English, probably show some correlation, but those I
think are some of the things that he's trying to point toward
is as we've been so radically focus on liberating individuals
from everything we relate to. And we inherit, this is what
we're seeing and maybe it is a pendulum that can swing back.
Denine thinks the nature of liberalism as an ideology.
This is its success. It has been achieved and we
can't trying to use liberal solutions to liberalism is
trying to pour gasoline on a fire and maybe he's right.
I am skeptical. I mean, I'm open to it but I
think maybe there are some quote-unquote liberal solutions
that we can use to like Nori, maybe, like, annoying.
Maybe, I don't know. I don't know if he would really
don't know. Maybe we should just talk about
what is communitarianism have to say about climate change and the
environment I could see them thinking, something that was
more small-scale. I Us trying to commoditize
carbon removal. I feel like commoditize and
communitarianism are just sort of anathema and the same
sentence to start. They could be I'm not as expert
on communitarianism to know a lot of the conversations around
ecological crisis climate change and those things but I think
your intuition is probably right there is similar to on the
criticisms further on the left of this commodification of
Nature and soil and earth and air is, is a Problem and that
it's not just some material thing that can be controlled.
There's people that are attached to it and part of whether you
want to call it, a more of a Marxist critique or more of a
communitarian ethos, is that we lose something when we are so
separated from where our food comes from.
Yes, you know, Wendell Berry talks about how Urban centers
are colonizers of the farm lands that farm lands continue to be
left behind, they continue to become poor and they deal with
all these issues. We've About, but on a more
severe scale as Urban centers such as Seattle, d.c. many of
these cities that I've lived in and been able to benefit from
that, we are kind of these colonizers benefiting off of the
earth. And we don't know where most of
our food comes from. This is where we get into these
ethical questions. As to the people who are doing
this farming, are they under good working?
Conditions, are they contributing to more sustainable
farming. Practices were mostly just
looking at a price tag in a Suri store, most of us.
And I think that's problematic down the road, it is in some
ways, but in others to how much extra time, do you want to
devote to researching every product that you buy?
It's an especially, like the economy.
So interconnected, it's just sort of like, everything
produces everything else. I don't, I don't know if it's
about researching every product that you buy.
Because no, not under that. Absolutely no.
But it's more. I think what I'm hearing from
you. F is being connected to it.
So I don't know the tomatoes that I grew my garden versus the
tomatoes that I buy me and I just love my salad so much
better. It's like a whole experience.
Like I'm sitting there. I'm mindful, I'm savoring it.
Like, there's just it but that is life, but more.
So everything is just so easily and prepared and we pick it off
a shelf and we pay for it and there were numbing ourselves
out, and then we're watching Netflix, and then we're doing
this. And they were all why I'm busy,
and then I gotta go to this. This website and I got to do
this thing for work. And then I'm going to just get
back on the bus. It's almost like, well, what's
the point at all? If we're not stopping for a
second to think about the things and I'm experienced.
Oh yeah, I just I just spewed all that Devil's, Advocate at
Jeffrey here and I'm like, thoroughly alienated person and
also I could be happier how fast paced everything is.
We do not have the time. I mean to look at so deeply into
the supply chain as to, where everything comes from part of
minimizing that is going local. I think that's part of the local
movement is, you can more easily discern the sourcing of all this
food and where it's coming from. So it's not realistic to say
every single product that I consume.
I know every single thing about every single Source, no one
knows that's impossible but it's trying to find the more tangible
areas of the That we consume and trying to pinpoint, what are the
things that are more? Ethically sourced things that
are more green and more sustainable to things that we
can connect to? Because with your point with the
tomatoes, right? When you invest something into
it, you're seeing literally at the fruits of your Labor's,
right? We still use that phrase.
Yeah. Because it matters.
Yeah, I've been trying to, we all do is a lot of intellectual
labor over here, and I sort of wish that I had some outlet that
was a bit more Hands-On, are used to play music back in the
day. And I just Fell off of that.
But occasionally I would go in the car.
Start fixing things working through hands, it was really
good. I feel like transforming things
in a tangible kind of way or interacting with the definitely
brings more pleasure than just buying it.
Although who doesn't love that sweet chemical Rush of buying
something off of Amazon and just a couplet like the then last.
Yeah, exactly. It's the pleasure of having
accomplished a task, I set out to buy this thing.
It has been done and I compare That to writing a book, not just
possible comparison. I think that the phrase that
popped out in my mind that you just said, was fast paced.
It's like, go, go, go go and stopping to experience the world
a little more and in community. So, this last was Thanksgiving
weekend last weekend, and so we had three days off.
I was like, I'm just going to work through cuz I'm going to
take a long break. I got to just work work, work,
work work. But then, because I was
scrolling Instagram, I found that there was a sauce.
The Congress which is like a salsa Festival, it's for three
days. They do like all day workshops
from 10 a.m. and then their social dance at 10 p.m. until
like 6:00 a.m. And I did that instead and it
was literally the best thing and made new connections and build
the community. And then I just at the end of
this three days of non-stop, like I slept four hours a night,
probably I was so exhausted. So now and I'm sitting there in
my couch, my weight. Why don't I ever do this?
Why? Like because I'm constantly
thinking, oh, I got to do this thing.
I got to do that thing. Thing.
Yeah, it's it's a hard hard life, a lot of lot of stuff to
do but for the environment I guess this might apply for
thinking as a communitarian might that we sort of treat
nature or the environment as a means to an end or or as
something that's that's fungible.
Like one of the ultimate critiques of of carbon markets
that we've heard so many times is this like, you know, one
Mangrove is not fungible with another.
So like if you just destroyed some wetlands and you bought
some mangrove Restoration credits, you're like, you still
destroyed the original one. You can't just you can't just
create on your head and it's like the communitarian
critiquing like anything. That's placed based and we will
bury super famous for this being attached to a very specific set
of Hills and Dales and where he lives and it has had Generations
on that land. There's something that's just
not, you just can't swap it out for something else.
I don't know what that's like, because I grew up moving right.
You're closer because you're, you're like, serious Miami.
Has ears Miami but I don't live there laughs.
Yeah, you're a traitor. A traitor to your people and I
fly. Okay.
Listeners guilty dirty laundry. I fly a lot to Miami but I'm
keeping track of my flight. So now that we have Nori, I can
negate my admission Terry's. Love you environmentalist.
Hate you hard to keep track of certain please.
Every Airlines love me. So I guess, what do we do with
that? So like one of the great parts
of this book, I love, I think this is imagery.
He contributes to Wendell Berry about, there's a sort of strip
mining process, so talented. Youth in various communities,
have your from like Akron or art Temecula or wherever you're
from. If you're really talented
academically, you will leave those places.
You will get a scholarship to some school.
You aren't coming back you're going to move on from whatever
big city. You go to get some fancy job and
you'll come back and you'll be one of the people you'll see
your townie friends and say, hey guys, how's it going?
And some people go back. Some people do the onion had the
most Savage take on this I've ever seen.
Seen, it was like, big city comedian, who makes 30 grand a
year like returns home for Thanksgiving.
Sees, well-adjusted friends who have time to spend with their
family? There's nothing like that.
It's just like, with less. That's good.
I will say statistically, I think most Americans I saw this
recently live within 40 miles of their parents on average which
is kind of crazy when you think of that.
So many people are so transient is right.
Like there's a lot of us are living or moving to this big.
Urban centers were leaving behind.
That's another big concern of the brain drain where these
communities that have literally been left behind.
Some of them are farming communities.
Others are just small towns that people thought, well, there's
nothing happening here for me. I want to go to the place where
the actions happening, and I think, one way forward can be,
is having more of us who we leave our communities, the ones
who are there, maybe we're in a lot of opportunities, and coming
back and giving. So I think of in mythology and
lots of great stories, There's the monomyth or the hero's
journey, where you have this individual as an individual, and
maybe in the liberal sense, who they are pursuing their self
chosen Mission, and they feel called to something, and they go
onto it, individually on their own, they take on challenges,
they go through these, and they come out on the other side with
this great gift, that they've achieved, that they didn't know
they needed, but the end of the story, it doesn't go there.
It continues. They come back to their
community and it's a gift for them and their community, and
that's something a lot of us aren't completing.
That hero's journey. We're lost.
Right? So it doesn't necessarily mean.
We have to all move back to our hometowns.
Well, why are we lost? Is it?
And it might be that were called to go home.
We've done this thing, we've accomplished the journey, the
road home is calling us and we feel pulled their but there's
Instagram and so God knows. If you move back home then
you're a failure and you're just going the opposite direction and
this is constant need to achieve and Achieve and level up level
up. It's just you just tell those
people be like Here. Read this.
Joseph Campbell, I wasn't surprised you brought that up
Chef, it was only a matter of time.
Anyone who knows me? But I would like to say, I think
a solution for some of these communities have been left
behind is remote work, which not every industry is able to do
that. But more and more are allowing I
think encouraging more remote work.
Including the housing crisis that a lot of us are facing is
being able to move to smaller communities, where it is more
affordable, especially for Millennials most Millennials
can't afford. Holmes moved to a community
where not only can you afford to live there but you can bring
your skill set and knowledge and the talents you've been gifted
with to bless whatever those communities are.
Maybe it's your own Community or maybe it's one that you're being
adopted into but you're saying, hey this is my place.
I see some needs that I can meet for other people and I'm going
to allow people to make demands on me and vice versa and I'm
going to Really dig in put some Roots here, but even that like
remote work is still confrontational.
I don't know. Like, we're split at Nori to on
the opinion of remote work and we're all Millennials.
There's a benefit to it and there's just a downside to like,
the human interaction, human connection.
Do I want to be working at my desk, in My Den all day long and
feel isolated from my co-workers, don't really know
what's going on. So yeah, it is a solution but
and maybe that middle ground, Around is because I where I
work, I'll say I work with a much more aged population, my
co-workers, and their bit more resistant, to remote work.
But I think remote work, that's, you know, maybe you're within 50
60 miles of your actual office in one of these smaller
communities, and you're able to come in once or twice a week
where it's a little bit more bearable because right, like
your workplace is a place and that's part of what gets lost
when everyone's remote you don't have a Shared sense of geography
or that community of psychology where you see each other face to
face the Arbitrage is so great though, if you can do it, where
I've had friends, who they'll be working at a company in DC or
New York and they'll be living someplace that you like living
in Phoenix or living in summer. One of the Rust Belt cities and
they're like, wow, I just bought a house.
So if you're able to pull that off, its Great.
But I also do I've done a lot of remote working and I used to
think telecommuting is the future every in the future,
everyone's going to do this and I was like I still feel very
disconnected calling into stuff like that.
So much better just being in the room.
Even if I'm just like at home versus being in the office, it
depends what you're doing though.
To like some of the jobs over to be like I don't need to be here.
We all know I don't need to be here.
Just let me go home but does it have to be all or nothing?
It's like, oh, you either live. A place and you work there and
your whole life is in that Community or you do.
And or you do remote work, you live somewhere else.
But what about in between, it's like, I'm starting to get the
idea of like, well, what if I spent just a good portion of my
time? I had multiple homes.
I mean, like, what? If I just spent a good portion
of my time in Miami's bonding with my nephew, my God, my
listeners must hate me. Like, I literally only talk
about Noah, my nephew on this podcast, and then I come to the
bingo card. Yes, but That on the next video
card. My nephew Noah love, you going
home to Miami but then also coming often to Seattle but then
also being on the road so that I can meet with potential clients
meet with business partners, but having some type of cycle where
you are able to be in one Community also into an another.
Because do you really need me here every day?
Like I don't know. I think that there's a like
everything at a point of diminishing returns.
I think I've talked to you about this event to Jeffrey.
I very good. I had a friend who wanted to do
some travel blogging as a career and make this jump into
something that he could travel with.
And I've traveled a lot. I used to work like from my
computer and bounced around all over the world and it was a
great experience. But a lot of the time I was
like, I can't wait to get back into a routine and I can't wait
to like build a long-term connection to places and people
and whatever as opposed. Endless variety and stimulation.
I think, I don't know what it is.
That has so denigrated the stability of yet.
Living close to your parents, being able to have that sort of
like grandparents helping you with the kids, seeing them often
actually building those relationships now that you're an
adult and you can transform them from whatever they were when you
were a kid and sort of like because you can't you can't
really grow past that as an adult where you don't see your
parents. Like it's you sort of need like
repeated exposure to that. And I think people have
overvalue travel and they've undervalued, the sort of place
based that being said, one more thing real quick as I'd like to
make it heretical view but please fuck it.
I want it. I want it.
I want this heresy to that being said, I also I also like the
freedom that liberalism has given me to choose these things
and I'll sign it right now. We're talking about this in
discussing the book. Before you got here is I like
that I have the choice, whether to be a part of this community
moved back home so to speak. Or to live in the big city, and
I'm not like bound to the land, like, a surf where I can't leave
and go chase after better opportunities, because I have
some sort of abstract Community benefit of my staying.
Well, give me your hair is see how my hair is C.
So I would like to kind of trash on travel or maybe just
Wanderlust do dunk on it. I mean, I don't know what noise
that was. That was a dog, especially for
partially. It's a generational thing, some
of its in age, Thing. But there's this romanticization
of seeing the world and travel distance.
Travel is a great thing for Expanding Horizons and being
able to do a lot of stuff. Obviously, there's the carbon
footprint concerns with so much travel that.
So many of us do, that's part of the communitarian focus on
going. Local, is minimizing a lot of
that footprint as well. But part of this thing, I have
against travel is more of Ken's waterless or psycho.
I need to go find myself. I need to go Eat.
Pray, Love somewhere, right? Where it's just like the Reality
is that wherever you go? Most of your problems are going
to go there with you, right? So it's if you're just trying to
go wander around my friends who live in Vans would be upset with
me but, you know, just living in a van wandering, around the
country, trying to solve your problems.
May not be the best way to go that you have to face those
wherever you're at. And so I think part of the
importance or the benefit of local is minimizing the, those
carbon footprint. It's also about not having an
outlet to try and Escape your problems that you really have to
face them. Now, Now there are some very
real threats in your physical space that do require you to
leave. Maybe you do have an abusive
relationship or an abusive Community, etc, etc.
That's a different circumstance. It's funny that you say this and
you make like this, Eat Pray Love reference and like going
off and kind of dumping on this wander less.
I totally agree. And I say it's funny because
when this airs, I will be like, meditating in a temple and like,
Chiang Mai Thailand and just trying to unplug.
So I agree with you. Wholeheartedly and I know I
might sound like I'm contradicting myself.
But I've been I plan this be like right right at the end of
techstars at the end of October going through a lot of stuff,
lost your family member. So you know when Ross was
talking about being with your parents and appreciating that
I'm like yeah you just don't know when that's going to end.
So enjoy it as much as you can. And anyways, it decided to do
this trip stress of nori and I'm constantly reminding myself, you
know, girl like It's not like the trip is going to like solve
your problem. So I've been meditating every
day in the morning and the evening, since I decided to take
the trip in preparation for X, I'm like, yeah, that might allow
me to heightened get a little bit more quiet.
No more. Slack messages and we're emails,
no more text and it would just give me a sense of just a space
and maybe a little bit of variety.
So I could feel refreshed when I come back but the journey is
just going to continue. It's just like a little blip
because all of all of the things that you're working through our
like they're just Come with me and so I completely agree with
you and it's still like a weird balance of.
Yeah. Can I give myself a moment to
just be really, really still and meditate.
And I have to worry about any other things because it's really
hard to do that, too. I know that if I were to say,
okay, well, I'm going to be off the grid in Seattle.
No, I would blow up my computer. I would do, I would come stop by
the Nori office, like I would just find all those little
distractions. So to completely pull away to
give yourself some space to is just like the, the alternative
view of that. So, I'ma Agreeing with you but
also highlighting some complications of trying to be
local. You don't really get to unplug
if that's something that you want to do every once in a blue
moon. Well, we should start thinking
about how to end this thing. And I think we should do a
little more on the book, what I would like to cover, which I, I
hope or think would be really beneficial to listeners.
Would be really trying to connect it into the question
around solutions to reversing climate changes.
Do we focus on what I think. So for example, there's an essay
that was actually submitted and published with erratic asst by
one of my friends, Charlie dies. When the green New Deal came
out, this is sort of his response to his.
We don't need a green. You do, we need thousands of
them and larger. What he's trying to say is look,
when we have this very top-down approach to Solutions.
Often times, they don't work one because they lack the motivation
that comes from local Affinity, but they also lack the local
knowledge, that small communities have.
So when you have something that comes from say Washington DC or
even something in Seattle, that maybe comes from Olympia as a
Washington state level. There are norms, there are even
like legal nuances, that aren't known on these Federal levels.
And so when you try and bring this top down, here's what
everyone has to adopt. And endorse end up having a lot
of negative unintended consequences.
And so, part of the thrust of this argument, I think can be a
very communitarian argument is that our approach to reversing
climate change. Needs to be thousands of
communities working together. As tangible actual communities
who know their Norms their practices.
That are their nature that surrounds them and that they can
come up with Solutions. I think of one of your former
podcast, guess who I think a little bit more radical
solution. But was it the black sheep who
were in were they Costa Rica? Yeah, that's right.
And how they take very much this community.
At least in some way could be interpreted as a communitarian
approach where they're trying to keep Keep, you know, a very
community-focused solution to food sourcing, you know, using
permaculture, which is fantastic.
And phenomenal thing. I love to think about and
they're really focused on what they can do in this.
More holistic approach rather than waiting for some federal
mandate to make the magic happen or waiting for large scale.
Corporations to make the magic happen.
I think all of them can be a solution and this is a praise.
I want to give that I actually wanted to give to you all for
your podcast. I think with the the many, many
perspectives from people that you have on the podcast, there's
tons of people doing a lot of different solutions that as a
whole, all these different unique efforts can come together
and hopefully address this crisis that touches every aspect
of our lives. And rather than having one
top-down solution, it's thousands of communities working
together because you don't have a community unless you're
building something together and climate change.
Aw, Offers a chance for us to unify as communities to combat.
Something drop the mic. That was good.
That was necessary to get that in there.
So if you're listening you're saying why is this podcast
called reversing climate change? Are they going to get to it?
Shut your pie hole right now. That's it, Jeffrey, what do you
think is the best criticism of communitarianism that, you know
of? I don't think it like we painted
a picture that was a bit Rosie. I think but it isn't a View and
there's plenty of room to challenge basically everything
we talked about. Yeah.
So I'm going to list off a few names.
I think communitarianism, the nature of it is such that it
doesn't fit easily into any other political camp and so it
has enemies and a lot of directions where, for example,
some of the points we brought up where maybe communitarians is
too limiting that what if you're in a community that is so
opposed to some aspect of your individual identity, that's very
threatening. Maybe you Identify in a
non-binary way, with gender or sexual orientation and your
community is absolutely against that in to the point of
threatening your physical safety, right?
That's an issue that communitarians maybe have to
struggle with because you can't guarantee that that's part of
the challenge with liberalism is trying to offer a universal
ethos that preserves, the individual that pushes back
against the particulars of different communities.
And so there's plenty of critics for that.
I'm sorry. I Do not see why the two are in
Conflict liberalism versus Community terrorism because
liberalism could be a pathway to that.
Again, you can break through the expected social contract of what
your sexuality is, find your new community.
But the problem is again, like I think we're just too far out
that were free and we're like going wild like when you first
get to like drink alcohol, but now it's like okay, find those
communities be able to break free little bit and reconnect
and value really intentionally Building community and
connections because if we just start off and say, okay
liberalism was not working for us, it doesn't allow us to do
this build communities. Then what happens is, you're
bound and we're full circle. I think me turns don't like that
because it's elective. It's like something that you can
do if you want to but you can get by without it and the
consequences of us, not choosing that are bad and people are not
choosing it, some critics I would save communitarianism.
One particular would be effective, altruism Peter
singers and Big advocate of effective altruism, which the
centerpiece of that argument is that when it comes to charity,
and what is the ethical thing to do that, you need to find who is
the person that is in greatest need of help.
And that's where your charitable focus should go to.
So shouldn't go to your family, or your local community, even
though for most of us that's natural and reasonable to think.
Oh, if there's a stranger versus my Child and both of them are
starving. Who do I help?
And maybe committee chairman say well you help your child.
That's your child. They have a natural obligation
to you vice versa whereas maybe an effective altruist would say
well who's in Greater need. Well, if your child ate
yesterday or maybe they ate two days ago, but the stranger down,
the road hasn't eaten for a week, you give that food to that
stranger, which it can be interns going to have qualms
with. But it's sort of this question
of, in our communities, in wealthy Seattle, do we help our
neighbors or do we? Provide some support to the most
impoverished corner of the earth.
I think those are those are fair criticisms to.
I think another prison that could be made is that you just
don't get scale with a lot of these small things.
Like with the problems were facing, we actually need scale
and that scale either comes from the market or states.
And that's what we need right now.
We don't have time to Tinker around with little things on
farms. We need the gears of Industry
moving right now, so people can make those claims and Fight
about them. But whatever I think it's a cool
perspective. I think it's worthy of people
giving it a chance. Reason, Wendell Berry go hang
out in Port William if you want. This book was very interesting
to why liberalism failed by Patrick Janine.
I thought it was good. I think it's a very good
introduction to. There's another concept that we
didn't get in get into called Republican virtue, or
communitarian thought, it's like, conservatives love to say
it's liberty, not license. So I've heard that Like if you
can't be free to choose to be some sort of rabble-rousing,
some dab will do ya. You're supposed to choose.
Good things if you're going to if you're going to govern
yourself and live in a self-governing society, you got
to be a well-ordered person. You can't just be a drunk
running around doing ever you want.
So like what does freedom mean? If you can't choose us.
Anyways, this is the book is a very good introduction to those.
If it's new to you at all, I hope you enjoyed it.
We went along, we went along but I think I think we covered some
good ground there. Got silly Geoffrey if I want to
follow your work if they like you and want to know what's
going on in those mind, grapes over there.
How might they do so? Well, first of all, I can check
out erratic asst. Just type in erratic Ascend into
any search engine, it will pull up on top nice.
Good SEO. Put them in the show notes.
Grr, 80 icus, correct, cool. Anything else no start there.
I'm on Twitter. You can find me.
Jeffrey, Howard as well, but all goes back to radek asst.
Nice. I just want to wrap up here with
our final show for the year, for the two years.
Oh my God! You're right, because it is a
continuous season. Is that what we're going to do?
This is the end of the first season and then we're going to
open a new one, A two-year long season speaking of continuous
content, it's more work than it looks like folks.
Yeah and you can please send rasa lovely email.
Tell him how much you appreciate the podcast?
Ross puts a lot, a lot of I mean, it's like the driver
behind this podcast, so happy New Year Ross.
Thank you so much for having us on this podcast and doing this
all the time. And also, I just wanted to say
thank you to our listeners. We so appreciate hearing from
you on a lot of you send emails to us, they're lovely to read.
We hope you have a beautiful holiday, a blessed new year.
And don't forget to keep tuning in and watch out for season 2.
Yeah, we have some exciting things planned.
And for it. Thanks for the kind words.
Yeah you can reach us at podcast and worry.com or hello.
It nor e.com you want to rate and review Us in iTunes.
Apple podcast. Stitcher please do so.
Thanks for listening and thanks for being here.
Jeffrey, thank you, it's a pleasure.
Thank you. Jeff had a good time.
Okay okay well we'll see you whenever it is that we return in
2020 2020 sometime. Okay fine.