Speaker 0 (0s): Ladies and gentlemen, welcome back to the true life podcast. We are here with the incredible Dr. David Solomon and we have been going over his beautiful new book, the seven deadly sins. If you haven't got it yet, that might be a sin in itself. I hope you decide to pick it up. We've covered pride, we've covered lust. And now we are on to anger all the way from the Western ideas to the Bible. And then we're going to get into some genetics and without any further ado, let me just, let me just introduce it.

Maybe you could introduce it with the quote from Paul very early about anger, how this whole thing starts off.

Speaker 1 (40s): Do I have a courtroom?

Speaker 0 (42s): I have it right here. I think it would, as the, we are aware,

Speaker 1 (46s): Aware that a civilization has the same fragility as a life. Yes, yes. God Opens. That's correct. Thanks for having me back here, George. Appreciate it.

Speaker 0 (56s): I am excited to be here in the beginning of this chapter starts off with a Western history and how it's been predicated on feelings of anger and the Luddite movement to, I love Lucy. Where do you feel like jumping in over there?

Speaker 1 (1m 9s): Yeah. Yeah. I mean, it's th this actually is the first chapter that I wrote for the book originally. And th th the somebody came to me and said, you know, he was, he was, they were doing a book called understanding angry groups, which eventually was published on ice volume. And it has a mix of all different disciplines in it. And a colleague who was one of the editors said, I want you to chatbot hanging on the bias. That's my, that my, my area of, of studying and teaching is on the Bible.

And I said, oh yeah. So that could be in saying, as I wrote the chat and it was published on. And then the publisher asked me if I would do all seven deadly sins through them all. And so this chapter was actually the first one that I wrote. And what's interesting is that if you study the history of anger as just an idea, and then you attempt to try to use your understanding of that history to figure out what the heck is going on today.

It's, it's pretty frustrating because the answers don't necessarily present themselves. And I think that one of the key differences is in discussing the difference between anger and hatred and a lot of what we're dealing with today, globally. We're currently talking and we're in the midst of what the horrors are going on over in the Ukraine. A lot of the, the global conflict that occurs in the world today has more to do with hatred than it does anger.

And how can we really talk about those two things? The th the sort of the dictionary definitions and the distinction in the dictionary is that hatred is prolonged. Anger tends to be brief. So you can't sort of stay angry. The definition of, of the word kind of tells us that you can't do that. If, if anger is prolonged, it turns into hatred. And of course, hatred is much more deep seated in our, our beings and difficult to get rid of.

And oftentimes as the motivator for the kind of conflict that we see everyday, whether it's, you know, so-called now hate crimes or, or the kind of a war that we're seeing going on in Eastern Europe.

Speaker 0 (3m 51s): Yeah. It reminds me of our good friend. Blake wrote, wrote a poem about anger. And he says, I was angry with my friend. I told my wrath, my rats did, and I was angry with my phone. I told it not my wrath did grow. And it seems like that, that, that is the, the festering of anger can become the cancer of, of hatred. Is there a, is there something that we can do you think to maybe, I guess if we could solve the problem of hatred, we would be a better world, but what do you see as maybe something we can do to stop anger from becoming hatred?

Speaker 1 (4m 29s): It's, it's tough. And I'll tell you I'm as guilty as anybody. And it's interesting because I was looking online last night in preparation for our talk today. And there's a new poll that you can actually take. It's a survey about anger, and it will, it asks you, it asked a series of 38 questions that you respond to on a scale, and then it gives you back some sort of generic feedback on the angry you all compared to the general population.

And I'm sad to say, I do this morning. I'm pretty angry, but I'm also having a rough day. But I think that the, the interesting thing for me, at least personally, the way to counter bounce anger, is to look at the car, responding for Chu, which is patients. And when you talk about patients, I have not done a lot of work looking at patients as a Judeo-Christian virtue.

I have looked more and studied more personally about patients as role in a Buddhist context of Buddhist lifestyle, and is the, the, the, the famous, unfortunately just, just died. Techno Helen wrote a, a wonderful book called anger on the subtitle of it is a wisdom for cooling the flames. And his entire, of course, is tire advice is based on the kind of mindfulness that he wrote about throughout his entire life.

But he really is counseling patients that when you feel that emotion on the rise that you take one or two steps back and engage in some patients in some reflection and some for him, a lot of breathing, and, you know, it's that old sort of, you know, count to 10, too much of what we do in response. I think to our anger is rather knee-jerk we do it thoughtlessly.

And that's what we get into a lot of the problems.

Speaker 0 (6m 47s): Yeah. I agree. It's, it's, it's such a powerful emotion and I, that's probably why it's one of the seven deadly sins, you know, it, it has this ability to overwhelm us or even take control of us. And, you know, it's, I w I often wonder if humor could be some sort of antidote to anger, you know, I think we're going to get into that in a little bit, but

Speaker 1 (7m 12s): Yeah, it, it, it, it, it, it may be, I mean, that's part of, you know, I mean, I use humor a lot and maybe that's my, my way of, of dealing with it. I don't know, but I think you're right. I mean, a lot of what we're talking about just as we were talking about with lust and pride, is this the uncontrolled nature of it, anger uncontrolled is really what the S is the sin, right? Everyone has some anger, and I don't think that's necessarily the issue. The issue is when it becomes part of when it grows to be out of your control and essentially just take over and is driving the drive on the bus.

I think it's a metaphor of you the last time. But what I think is interesting is that connection, then when you get to that point between anger and fear, and that anger can often exhibit itself as either a response to fear, or as the anecdote to fear, you know, I'm afraid of something. And so, as a result, I don't like it. It's, it's Edwards, I E notion of the other, right.

I don't like what I don't understand, so that can grow to become well, I'm angry about that because I don't understand it. And I take my anger out on that subject rather than the problem is really me, because I don't understand. It reminds me of, of students will say, you know, oh, I hate math, right? It's like, well, why, well, I don't understand it. Well, that's why I hate it. Right. It's pretty simple. And, you know, not to use math, but it's a simple equation, right?

I mean, if you, if you hate something, you're, you're probably not going to like it. And vice versa, you don't do well at it. And as a result, you're frustrated with it. And so I think that patience is probably, you know, we say patience is a virtue, right? And, and it is in this case, but it's difficult in our modern world to, to handle that. And I, and I mentioned in the chapter, various sort of pop culture stuff, early 20th century in particular, I love Charlie Chaplin and scenes from Charlie.

Chaplin's modern times where he essentially is, is really commenting on our modern existence and how fast things are moving. And we sometimes will react to that by lashing out. And you see it, I think with people every day, even if it's just in the grocery store, right? I mean, it's that old thing about how you, you, you, you, you, you sort of reach your boiling point, right? And once something reaches its boiling point it bloke, and that's where the end.

Speaker 0 (10m 11s): Yeah. I think you mentioned speed how it ramps up our emotions and for those of who are unaware, could you explain to them the scene and I love Lucy, which is working at the chocolate factory.

Speaker 1 (10m 22s): It's a great scene yet. So, and I love Lucy that the wonderful sit-com from the fifties, Lucy and Ethel are hired to work in a chocolate factory. They have to wrap the pieces chocolate as they come down a conveyor belt in an assembly line and they have to keep up. And so it's to them, we're standing there next to each other and they, they are wrapping each piece. ESTEM wrapped individually. Lou, this is before machines really were able to do this and everything was automated and they're, they're doing okay.

And, and eventually after not too long, of course, they start to fall behind. And Lucy starts making up for this by taking the pieces of chocolate and first stuffing them in her mouth and then putting them into her shirt because gotta hide it from the four lady who's about to come back. And the four lady for one comes back in after she stopped the assembly line. And both Lucy and Ethel are standing in their mouths full of chocolate. And Lucy's got tons of chocolate in her, in her blouse, all weighed down.

And the four woman looks at the assembly line and says, okay, good, beat it up. And of course, I mean that just completely derails them, but that's kind of, you know, I mean, and that was the 1950s. That was what, 70 years ago. And now everything in our lives move so quickly that it is hard to keep with the assembly line. And oftentimes our resulting emotion is anger.

And the way a lot of folks deal with it, myself included is to, is to every night, just to do a little bit of meditation. I believe that in some ways it's, it's, it's the old metaphor of the pressure cooker, right? I mean, the meditation at least let some of the steam out, so it doesn't explode, but I would, I would think that, you know, without that, if you don't have that release, you end up with extreme hatred,

Speaker 0 (12m 33s): Which is

Speaker 1 (12m 34s): Ugly in so many ways. Right?

Speaker 0 (12m 37s): Yeah. That brings us to the point where there's a difference between the way the west handles anger and the east handles English. He kind of got into it a little bit. Could you flesh it out a little bit more for us?

Speaker 1 (12m 48s): Yeah. I mean, it's that fundamental thing about this, the way that you got me there?

Speaker 0 (12m 56s): Well, I do the sound is a little bit kind of cutting out a little bit. Is it a

Speaker 1 (13m 1s): Maybe here? Hang on.

Speaker 0 (13m 3s): Okay. It's not bad, but it keeps cutting a little bit like a little delay.

Speaker 2 (13m 14s): Hmm.

Speaker 1 (13m 16s): Okay.

Speaker 0 (13m 17s): Okay. That sounds a little better. I'll let you know if it, if it starts crushing again.

Speaker 1 (13m 20s): Yeah. Yeah. So the fundamental difference between the west and the east looking at anger is, again, that, that ECNL internal thing, right. I mean, in, in, in a west in general, and I'm speaking in generalities now in general, if I'm angry, I'm angry at something or at someone, whereas in the east and Eastern philosophy, really the, the, the impulses instead to look within oftentimes the, the Buddhist texts, we'll talk about the anger being within you, and that you need to look at that and come to some sort of reconciliation with it.

Whereas in the west, we often are looking for something to sort of hang our blame on, right? So the blame game, again, I want to blame something for the reason why I feel like this when in most of the Buddhist texts, the response would be that, you know, your to blame it, it's your problem, not someone else's and you need to figure this out. And I think that that difference is so it's such a startling difference, the way that we look at the world really, and, you know, again, you know, I go back to somebody like, not who, if you, if you read him and his, his unschooling about mindfulness, which is not, you know, Buddhism doesn't have the, the, the market on certainly, you know, somebody like basil Pennington in, in the Cistercian tradition who came up with centering prayer, that's mindfulness, we see it.

It's just called different things. Right. Has different, different names. And if we can engage with that, we certainly would be better off. I feel like something's going on. That's funky with my sound though.

Speaker 0 (15m 13s): Yes. There was a little bit of an echo. It seems better. Now I wonder, is, is there a, there could be a bandwidth issue with being so far apart or whatever, or having multiple screens open or something like that. However, I think it, I think it's, it sounds fine. There's a few hiccups that are in there, however, yeah, it is good. It is good. And it brought me to another point when, when we were talking about the east versus west, and it seems to me that mindfulness is the answer to anger in the east.

However, I was curious if you think that maybe stand up comedy is the answer to anger in the west. It seems to be a uniquely Western, or at least it moves. It seems like it evolved in, in the, in the west. And you have some incredible stories about seeing the great Louis Black and, and, and his, his response to anger. Could you maybe share that with me?

Speaker 1 (16m 7s): I remember the first time I saw Louis Black and, and I, I was actually genuinely concerned for the health of the man. I thought he was just going to have a stroke right there on the stage. He was so angry and I remember going home and I had to sort of Google him at the time. You could already do that just to see what was this a persona or was this really who he was? And I was, you know, certainly relieved to know that much of it was a persona and that, you know, he, wasn't going to have a heart attack right there on the stage.

But I think that, that the, the connection between humor and anger is interesting because if you go back to the earliest days of film, for example, and you go back to like the silent slapstick comedies of the, the 1910s and twenties, and then the thirties, much of that by the time you get to the thirties is a direct sort of reaction to the depression. The great depression, people were literally depressed and also financially depressed and they wanted to laugh.

And so you went to the movies and you could see Abbott and Costello. You could see the three Stooges, you could see Laurel and Hardy. It was this physical Umer, which, you know, for, for whatever reason these days is, is, is only mostly enjoyed by men. I don't know why most women, of course, famously find the three Stooges. Ridiculous. They're so funny, but they're beating the hell out of each other and we're laughing. And I think maybe part of that is the cathartic bit, right? We're, we're, we're, we're letting go of our anger by watching them engage in that kind of physical activity.

And it may also be the part of the justification for why physical sports are so popular in, in the U S and globally, but in the U S I mean, if you look at it professional football and how just basically violent it is as a game, you know, it's, it's all predicated on, you know, let's hit the other guy as hard as we can and try to get the ball from him. And I'm a football fan. It, it, that is clearly, you know, I mean, I remember my uncle watching television, watching the game when I was a kid.

And I mean, boy, I mean, he, it was a cathartic expense. You scream and yell at the theory, but you could tell it was the way of him getting some kind of a release on a Sunday afternoon, but I think he needed. And so, you know, that kind of sport of course, goes back to the ancient world when those kinds of physical games were devised in order to keep the military occupied when they weren't at war, how the Olympics began, you know, and this, this, this whole idea of engaging in that physical sport to, to have that kind of release when there's nobody to fight, as far as you're concerned, was a battle with another country.

Speaker 0 (19m 8s): Yeah. It's, it's, it's which, which brings us almost back to the east, like there's inner connectedness, you know, be it be it comedy to anger or mindfulness to understanding, or it's just, it's fascinating to think about how we have two hemispheres in the brain, you know, the, the, the, the two sides there, and then we also have the east and the west, and we kind of need both of them in order to really understand what it is we're angry about, or, or to find some understanding.

And that I thought it was also interesting too, when you brought up anger in the Bible and how there's so many different kind of takes on it versus the old Testament versus the new Testament, maybe you could start with, with what Augustine writes about the anger of God seems inconsistent with his beneficence,

Speaker 1 (20m 2s): Right? I, you know, the old Testament, God is an angry dude, you know, I mean, there's no getting around it. I mean, from the, from the initial story in Genesis, when Adam and Eve eat the fruit, his responses get out of the garden, you're both gonna die. Now. It seems rather harsh. And that doesn't really cease until we get to the new Testament. The God is an angry figure in the old Testament stories, whether he is directly punishing figures or punishing the people.

We see it in the book of Exodus when Moses, for example, when, when he first comes down from Sinai with tablets and sees the golden calf, and he gets so angry about, about the idolatry of the people while he was gone, that he destroys the tablets, he throws them at the calf and God punishes them for that by saying, okay, you can't go to the promised land now. And he sure enough dies on the other side of the river, looking at the, at the promised land that he led the people to, you know, probably the most troubling story for my students.

When we look at this story of, as Isaiah, who's carrying the load of guys, who's carrying the, the covenant, and I think an op stumbles, and he reaches down to grab the Ark to, to keep it from falling to the ground. And the Israel lights have been strictly forbidden from touching the Ark. And as a result of touching the Ark, God, smites him right on the spot. And you're like, wait a minute.

And so we have to kind of look at the commentary in order to get what's going on there because the commentators had the same problem looking at that and trying to explain it. And their response is, well, he didn't have faith that the arc would be able to support itself. And so, as a result, he was punished, it seems as my students would say pretty lame, but it's what the commentators come up with for an explanation. And it's, it's one of the only ones we've got, because it's a very strange story.

Of course, once we tend to the new Testament, there is very little in the gospel that Jesus being angry and showing any kind of anger with, with really one exception. And that's seen with the money changers when he throws over the tickles. Other than that, most of what is in the new Testament comes from Paul, who is understandably, unexpectantly incredibly conservative about it. And essentially has the same feeling about anger that he does about lost, which is if you feel angry, you've already committed the sin.

It's not about necessarily the display of it. It's the thought of it. He wants us to be pure of mind, which is incredibly difficult to do. But again, when I deal with this with my students, I have to remind them that Paul was living in a different time. He's living right after the death of Jesus. He is living at a time when he expected, Jesus said he was going to come back and he's coming back like next week, got to get yourself an order here.

And a lot of what he counsels in his pistols doesn't seem like it was necessarily meant for us to be living necessarily today in 2022, what he was thinking about would work in, you know, 50 and 60 a D. And I don't think he thought about the kind of data smogs that we live in, that we have this bombardment of information hitting us and a life that moves so fast.

I mean, you know, I joke, but you know, Paul walked around and sandals, you know, and George living in Hawaii sandals too. I don't know. But you know, it, maybe it's a Pauline thing, But it, it, it, our pace of life is just different today.

Speaker 0 (24m 25s): Yeah. It really is. And getting back to, in the beginning of the book, you talk about, even with the Luddites and I love Lucy, there's been this form of dehumanization, and it's when we refuse to see the humanity in one another, it's easy to quantify people and look at them as a number and look at them as a means of production. But when we do that, you know, we, it makes me want to be more like the old Testament God, and, and, you know, it's it's, and in a way, maybe that's the cycle that's kind of happening here.

Maybe we're moving back into this angry side of the old Testament, and we've gotten away from the newer Testament. Cause that's the time you write something really profound. I thought that if you, if you, the old Testament, a fool gives full vent to his anger and it's aimed at the center, these are just kind of the thoughts that I had written down that came from the side. And then the new Testament is in your anger, do not sin aimed at the sin. So the old Testament is aimed at the center. The new Testament is aimed at the sin, and it just seems like a nice evolution to move towards.

You know, maybe when it was fresh, when it was this, it is aimed at the center, but it just brings me back to the idea.

Speaker 1 (25m 39s): So George, excuse me. I mean, maybe we are going back to that because now we do focus much more on punishing the center. Then we do the sin, which is much more of an old Testament approach to things and not necessarily the best way to go. I don't think it was, you know, it's, it's, it's the way God operates in the old Testament, but that is a different, different world. And, you know, w w w we've got to remember that what's going on through most of those old Testament stories is the attempt to establish your way as the one God, in a culture, in a world at the time, which was anything but monotheistic and in, and in fact, the three Western religions, the major Western religions, Judaism, Christianity, and Islam are not really following monotheism at heart.

They are Manila tree, right? Manila tree is the acknowledgement that there are other gods, but we, in this one, we're going to, we're going to stick with this one. So as you go through the old Testament stories, there's still mention of some of those other gods that existed in that people were believing and worshiping. And one of the things that separates the Israelites of course, is their devotion to this one, God Yahweh way. And we're getting their story in the old Testament.

You know, it's always interesting to look at some of the other texts that we have. And they're few and far between from the ancient world of these cultures, that instead responded to an alternate, God maybe had the same kind of mano with their God, but ours, one out and many, in many ways, a lot of the tails in the old Testament are about your way really winning out. I mean, he says in, when Moses goes up to Sinai, he says, I I'm a jealous God.

He even in some of the translations, and if you read the, the Hebrew, he calls himself jealous. He says, as if that's his name, He's angry.

Speaker 0 (27m 51s): Yeah. I wonder this is limited. Let me throw this out at you here. You know, could it be that, like the word of God, like in monotheism and y'all wait that he wants his word to be law. And, and now today's like you said, there's like a data small. So there's all these chaos and different words out there. Might it be that returning to the word of God could be Rick returning to the truth of, of the world we live in.

Like, there's, there's just so much data small out there that the word can't get out. We can't agree on anything because no one knows what the truth is. And when you have no truth, all you have is correlation and no causation. And when you have correlation, that's like the weakest form of communication, because it doesn't really mean anything. And that's why maybe there's so much anger out there. What, what, what are your thoughts on that?

Speaker 1 (28m 42s): I mean, th the contemporary world is certainly indicated by complexity, right? I mean, we, I mean, people will say at all times a cliche at this point, right. We live in complex times. Yes, we do. What does that mean? As opposed to living in simple times? I don't know. It's not the opposite. And certainly, you know, if we look at ancient cultures as depicted in, in, in the Bible, they were living in much more simple times than we are when you compare it on that kind of a level.

Is that necessarily, you know, and I, I think you're right on the one hand, if we could give back to, and I think that's what the Buddhist texts try to teach is to get back to that kind of simplicity, because that's simplicity. Again, it's all about giving us the space to sit back and reflect. And maybe if I do, I wouldn't be so angry at John. If I had a chance to really think about this, you know, we, we, we talk about today and we, we, we throw around the phrase, you know, well, you haven't walked in his shoes.

You don't know what it's like. Well, no, I don't. And, you know, the, the, the, the next sentence would often be, and I don't have time to do that. Right. And it's interesting that there's a, an event that goes on across the country. I participated in a couple of times where men will, will walk and women's high heels. It's a, it's a walk against violence against women. And it is a walk in their shoes kind of thing. And man, those high heels are hard, but, you know, there is something about that.

And we, I have tried to over the years, even engage in that, on like college campuses, we're all w w w we'll be instituting some kind of a new policy or a new procedure. And I'll say to an administrator, we really need to spend a day walking in the student's shoes to see what that's actually like, because we've gotten so far away from that. And I think that that's culturally and socially that's become a problem.

We have people up on high who are making decisions about things that affect millions of people, but they really don't understand what those people are going through. And the result in figure the resulting emotion that the people feel then it's anger, right? I'm angry. I mean, I don't know what, what, what Jeff Bezos's day is like, I have no idea, you know, but he has no idea what my day is like. And he has no idea what a average worker at Amazon is like imagine.

And they're constantly trying to tell us what that's like, but people don't wanna listen and they're not hearing. And, you know, the, the, the walking in someone's shoes I think is, is a very important thing to do. Whether it's, whether it's just displaying the humanity that you feel for other people, you know, I'm always baffled by colleagues who ascend ignore.

I was keepers and the cleaning staff in the building companies, wherever, as if they just don't exist, we have to acknowledge each other's humanity. That's the only solution to any of this. I mean, and that's, that's really in my book. That's, that's the ultimate conclusion that I make is it's all about acknowledging other people's humanity. And by that we can acknowledge and improve our own humanity, our own humaneness, and what makes us human and get back to that in many ways, the technology has so gotten in the way of that, you know, and it starts, as I mentioned before, you know, go back to chaplain and modern times, look at, at, at, at Lang's metropolis where the workers are at the beginning of the film, just robots, basically walking into work.

And so Arnold and they were underground. The cuts of the, to the, the big wigs of course, work up on the top for far away from the workers. And I think the reaction that a lot of people have today to that is to feel anger. And unfortunately when it's left festering, it becomes hatred. And then we see the kinds of criminal acts that we witness the kinds of, of, of, you know, I, I, the, the mass shootings, which, you know, yes.

Oftentimes because someone is mentally ill, what does that mean? I mean, somebody who's angry, mentally ill, you could argue that. I mean, th the DSM is it covers anger. It tells us about it and how to deal with it, but it it's, it's, you know, w we, we, we live in interesting times, cliche put an asterisk over that, right. And it, it doesn't seem like we are going in the right direction on this, you know, not to go back to it, but, but I will, and to talk about Ukraine, because it's so in the forefront of our minds, at the moment, for many of us and the millions of people who have left Ukraine now, and are, are refugees, most of whom are our children and, and women who left their husbands behind, and what's going to happen with them.

How are we supposed to do with that? And as human beings, we need to start hearing that out. You need to start figuring out how we're going to take care of each other on, on so many different levels. Because quite honestly, since world war one, we've done a pretty lousy job of it. And it, it is not, you know, w w we, we founded the United nations after world war II and the United nations is a wonderful body.

They've done great things. The problem is today, they have teeth. And so they're coming out with, be statements against Russia against what Putin is doing, deporting the cranies, but it's words. And we need actions more than the words right now, when it comes to dealing with people who need our help. I was driving home last night, and there were two folks sitting by the side of the road, near the Dunkin donuts.

Clearly homeless was a couple, and the woman was, it looked to me consoling, the man, he was, he was, they were both sitting on the side of a curb. I could only see her because he was kind of hunched over, almost in a fetal position. And as I drove past, I just, I couldn't help, but wonder, what is the situation? What is their situation? How can I help? And I oftentimes will stop and try to help.

And it's more than just giving them money. They need more than money. They need help. And we need to kind of reconfigure what that looks like to help other people it's yes. You know, it's great. If you donated $10 to some fund, that's going to help you cranium refugees. Wonderful. And that may be the only thing that you feel like you can do right now. We need to figure out a way that we could do more.

Speaker 0 (36m 51s): Yeah. I, I often wonder like it, how is it that we continually make the same mistakes? How, how is it possible that like, we understand what war does we understand what the mass productions of weapons does? And yet, you know, I was thinking about this yesterday after nine 11, there was, there was this comradery, albeit misplaced, but there was this incredible, you know, idea of like, Hey, we're all Americans, we're all this, you know?

And they, there was a, I remember this, there was a campaign and it was like this, there was an African-American Americans. It's like, I'm an American. And then I'll wake up. I'm an American, I'm like a home, we're all Americans. And it is possible. If our leaders wanted to unify our country, they could do it. You could have on CNN and Fox, like, Hey, here's a guy, here's a young kid who, who designed this new thing, that's going to help our country. Here's a young kid helping another kid. Like we could have a really incredible campaign that unifies our country.

Yeah. And so if, if we agree that we could do that, if the people in charge wanted to do that, they could, if we can agree to that, then we must also agree that they don't want to do that. Cause they're not doing that. And I think there's so many people right now, there's just trying so hard to put gas in their tank, to, to talk to their parents, to help out the people in their neighborhood that we need our leaders to, to step up and, and, and do what's right. And

Speaker 1 (38m 29s): We need them to lead.

Speaker 0 (38m 30s): We need them to lead. And, and do you think that's a, is that our fault for not putting the right in charge? Or what does that say about us? And, and

Speaker 1 (38m 39s): The leadership today is a very difficult issue because, and part of it is, and it seems like a, like a silly response, but part of it is most of our countries have gotten so large that the idea that you would have one leader of that country is really kind of ridiculous. You know, I mean, I grew up in New York city for years, there have been complaints that it's ridiculous to have one mayor for the whole city of New York.

It's too big one, man can cover the entire city. And to think that one person as president can Gover the entire country of the United States with its vast population, it's geographic differences, it's demographic differences. It's really kind of foolhardy. Nonetheless, that's the system we have. So what have we done? Well, have we elected the wrong folks? Maybe, maybe it's the system that's problematic more than who we've elected, you know, not to, to go down that rabbit hole, but you know, the system has certainly gotten in the way in recent years, as far as the elections are concerned.

But I think part of the, the, the greater issue here is not just the leaders, but we need to kind of reframe what it means to be a leader. What are we looking for? You know, I, I mentioned last time we chatted that when Jimmy Carter mentioned that he had lusted in his heart, his poll numbers went down 15 points. He was still elected president. And then, you know, later, later on, of course we have Donald Trump who, when he said, what he said was elected president a couple of weeks later, what does it mean to be a leader?

What are we, what are we looking for with the 24 hour news cycle and the internet? Now we know much more about our leaders than we ever knew before. And so people will often say, well, you know, I can't imagine that, you know, I don't know, pick somebody, Herbert Hoover was ever like this. And it's probably was you probably just didn't know about it. And so, you know, I go back to the interesting sort of compact that FDR set up with the press, which was, they would never film him in the, in the, in the wheelchair.

They would never film him from the waist down in the wheelchair, because he was afraid that that was going to convey weakness. And the man brought us through world war II. So what are we looking for in a leader? And maybe it's not such a bad idea to go back to texts like the Bible and look at what those leaders were like, but to understand that they also were not perfect.

You know, oftentimes students will go back and they'll, and they'll write a, a paper about Moses as a great leader. I'd say, okay, what are you basing this on? And they say, well, the stories and exits, and I won't, well, no, that that's the, the, the, the pounced version of story. Right? And there's a lot of other texts about Moses that you should look at Alexandria. The, the, the, the Greek Jew philosopher who lived at the time of Jesus wrote two volumes about Moses that are absolutely brilliant and are, are incredibly insightful about not only the good things, but also the bad things, you know, none of us is, is perfect.

And so I think part of the problem could be that we're looking for leaders who are, and we're not going to find that because again, we're human beings, we're flawed. That's the nature of being a human being. And, you know, I was, I was listening to a podcast yesterday and it was patent Oswald two. I, I really like, and he and his wife have a podcast that's called, did you get my text? It's a weekly podcast. And he was talking about the fact that he's hoping that in a couple of weeks, something horrible, doesn't come out about Bladimir Zelenskyi.

Cause we all love the guy. And we're hoping that, you know, something isn't revealed in a couple of weeks, that all of a sudden makes him into a horrible figure and just, we all feel terrible. And he patent looked back at Mario Cuomo who were all, you know, cheering on during COVID. And then all of a sudden talk about a fall from grace. We, we were looking for people to be perfect. People are not perfect. They are not perfect.

We send we're human beings. If we weren't, we'd be saints. And, and, you know, I don't know anybody who is a, I don't know anybody who's even, you know, in the running, we've all got our, our flaws. And I think probably one of the best things that we can do. And again, this is a kind of a young Ian approach is to do that reflection and that to look inside and realize and understand what our own flaws are and to understand how we can negotiate and reconcile those flaws to still leading a productive and what Aristotle would call a good life.

Speaker 0 (44m 22s): Yeah. That's, that's a lot right there. I, I couldn't agree more. And maybe that's one reason that we are so angry is because like we have such high for other people, you know, and it's yeah. It's like, why is this leader not perfect? Or, or w you know, and the truth is maybe the things we're most angry about in the other are the things we're most upset about ourselves. You know? And if, if we could, that takes us right back to the Eastern philosophy is like, oh, maybe these people are mirrors.

Maybe there's people that you despise that you see the negative in is something that you're being shown, because it's something that you should be working on. Right. You know, I can't tell you how many times I've got upset at people. And I thought, I knew why. And after some meditation reflection, I, I almost have to put my head in my hands on my knees and go, gosh, darn it. I'm the one it's me. I'm the one that doesn't like that. Yeah. And I think that, you know, if anger could be turned around or, you know, it's, it's interesting to think about anger and comedy, like a magnet.

Maybe they're not the opposite, but they're the extreme ends of the same because they have the same energy just going the other way. And if you can, if we can begin to see the things we're angry about as things that we need to work on ourselves, that, that causes me to laugh sometimes, you know, because there's nothing left to do.

Speaker 1 (45m 50s): Yeah. Yeah. Well, I mean, it, it, it's, it's having the ability, I guess, to laugh at yourself and to be self-deprecating, which is, is, is really, you know, oftentimes viewed as being such a positive trait and, and that idea of not taking yourself too seriously.

Speaker 0 (46m 7s): Right. Yeah.

Speaker 1 (46m 9s): And I think that maybe what happens if, is if someone is taking themselves too seriously and is probably somewhere on the, the, the pride spectrum, because they're, they're a little bit involved. They have then that inability to really relate to other people and understand what's going on, because it's all about them. But they also have the inability to really do the reflection they can't look within. They're unable to, they look at the mirror and all they see is wonderful.

Whereas, you know, George and I look at the mirror and go, oh God, you wouldn't,

Speaker 0 (46m 50s): You brought up an interesting point. When you, when you spoke about pride briefly, do you think that maybe some of these sins, like, let's just take anger, for example, do you think that anger can be a bridge or a shortcut to pride and lust? Like they kind of feed off each other?

Speaker 1 (47m 6s): Yeah. I mean, often all of these sins do have a connection. They are all connected. And in, in fact, I mean, in, in, in the middle ages, it was not uncommon to see there's lots of art. You can Google it and find a lot of the images of the tree of vices and pride is usually at the base of the trunk because that's the first sin, the sin that Adam and Eve committed the center of pride. And then all of the other vices are depicted as growing out of that one sin.

And so oftentimes if you go to, for example, the rule of St. Benedict, where he's counseling monks about how to behave, he will talk about one sin leading to another. It it's, it's interesting because in the, in the chapter on sloths, which we'll get to eventually Benedict is particularly vocal about that. And he is clear that slot is going to lead to pride. There's a connection. And so, yeah, I do think that they are all, somehow there's a bridge between them.

And oftentimes I imagine if someone is guilty of excess in one, they probably struggle with at least one of the others as well.

Speaker 0 (48m 27s): Yeah. Sometimes I wonder, like in the world we live in today with, be it Ukraine, or, you know, the, some of the ideas of our leaders or there's, there's so many examples of all of these sins being played out on the world stage around us. And, and you spoke about how there was a, who was it that, that you just spoke about that, that the tree of life or not the tree of life, The tree of vices.

So I see forms of artwork being symbolic of the different vices, maybe what we are living in today as a form of artwork, where all around us, we see these vices and it's, it's our job to say, this is horrible over here. This is an example of this. What can we learn from this? And, you know, maybe at this, maybe all these things are happening so that we can show the next generation, this is what can happen, but here's what we can do to do it.

And I, you know, what, what is your thoughts on that?

Speaker 1 (49m 30s): The problem is we don't learn. We have memories. We don't learn. And oftentimes our reaction to that is instead of learning, we want to punish. And again, it's about, you know, the difference between internal and external, right? Learning would be about me making me better. Punishing is about punishing the person who's doing, whatever it is. If that's not going to help me, it's not going to help me at all. But, you know, going back to the discussion about the leaders, I mean, in the U S our sort of really our, our terms for a lot of these positions, I mean, four years for a president, it's not a long time a president doesn't have a long time to, to, to, to get anything accomplished.

And I'm, I'm, I'm, I'm oversimplifying the job of a president, but, you know, I mean, a president gets elected. And in that first term, by, by year three, they're, they're already campaigning to be reelected. And then they're reelected and automatically they're a lame duck. How are we getting anything accomplished? It's kind of a miracle that anything happens. And that, and that happens at so many different levels in our, in our government structure, at the national land and the state and the local level where, you know, you wonder how we're able to accomplish anything.

But I think it is you're right in, we should be learning, but we don't seem to be, I mean, what are we story is always tell us about learning from the past, right? We, we don't seem to be doing a very good job of that. I was having coffee this morning with a good friend, and we were talking about what's going on in Ukraine and, and should be done. And I say, you know, I don't know. I, I walked back and forth between, we should be intervening. We should be doing something to help, and we're not the world's police.

And I can't figure out which way to go. But of course, knowing in the back of my mind, almost daily is world war II, which the U S sat out of until we were attacked. And I just wonder is I hope not, but is that what it's going to take to get us involved in this and to stop what is clearly becoming a genocide?

Speaker 0 (51m 52s): Yeah. It's they say the world, maybe it doesn't repeat, but it rhymes. And if you were to look at some of the similarities between, you know, we had the world's greatest, or you could say that Wernher Von Braun was a world's greatest rocket scientists, and he created a rocket, but really it was a military delivery system. You could also argue that what's happening today is Elon Musk is the world's greatest rocket scientist, and he has a satellite system, but I think you could make a fair argument that that is also a weapon.

And you can, you can see so many similarities happening, but I, I hold strong to my belief in the goodness of people, that what we are witnessing is an opportunity for us to see things the way they've never been and say, why not? Like, why can't we come to terms? Why can't we put everything out in the open and have a debate, or at least like, what else is happening there that we're not aware of?

Is our people trying to steal resources from there? Is this, is this your, is this something that's been festering for a while that we are being shown one side of and yeah.

Speaker 1 (53m 5s): Yeah. Well, and I think that's the key though. I mean, for me, what makes us unique as human beings is potential.

Speaker 0 (53m 13s): Yes,

Speaker 1 (53m 14s): We out, we are living potential. Yeah. And whether or not we fulfill that potential, or even attempt is entirely in our, in our hands. We could sit on our hands and just say, well, I'm not gonna do anything. Or we could try to become functionaries of potential. You know? And, and Paul Valery talks about potential a lot in his, in his pros.

And, and the fact that human beings, we are about potential, a potentiality of our existence is what's so unique as being human separates us from anything else really, that, that exists. And, you know, it's always disappointing slash pressing when you see somebody who is not living up to the potential or who is not challenging themselves to live up to their potential and is just instead sort of happy to sit back on mediocrity.

And I, and I I'm, I'm talking here because I, after three decades in higher ed educating and students and, and convincing students of their potential, oftentimes they come in and they feel like, you know, oh, you know, some teacher in high school told me I was a bad writer. And so they believe that it's like, well, wait a minute. What, why? And, and, and can't that change, right? I mean, so even if you were a bad writer, quote, unquote, whatever the hell, that means, why does that mean that you're, you're, you're condemned now?

Why can't you change? Why can't you improve? We are about potential. So if you have at the age of 18 decided I'm a bad writer and that's it, we're going to put that on your tombstone. Right. You're born, you're done. You're never going to, so you're telling me, you're never, you, you've given up, you throw up your hands and said, that's it. You know, I can't do it. And, you know, I always tell a student who tells me that will say, you know, my, some high school English teacher told me I was a bad writer and I'll say to them, so you're basing your entire existence as a writer on the opinion of one person, how crazy is that?

And I only realized that myself, when I started teaching and I would go in to see my mentor after a really bad day in the classroom and tell him about some students who just was just really giving me a hard time. And I would say, you know, oh, I'm a lousy teacher and you start questioning your entire existence. And he would say to me, you're basing your entire existence on one person's opinion notes, really the only person that I have to live up to, and the only person's expectations I'd even live up to on my own.

And, and I don't know about you, but I mean, my expectations for myself are pretty darn high, which itself it could be a problem. But, you know, I th I think that the, the, the opposite is even worse. If you have no expectations of yourself, right. And you're just happy just to sort of exist. What, what a boring life one would lead to never see one's potential.

You know, I, I was always amazed when the first time I visited the United Kingdom and I was on the London underground and was just stunned by the fact that just about everybody sitting there is reading a book, reading a book and not, you know, and they're reading like literature. I was like, wait a minute. I don't see that on the New York city subway over here. And sure enough, when you, when you would take the escalator to go down to the London, underground on the wall would be posters for new books that were coming out.

And of course, any little village you go to throughout England has used the pub general store and a bookstore. It's just part of the culture. And we in the us have moved so far away from living that kind of an intellectual existence and maybe technology certainly hasn't helped it. People are happy to sit and just stare at their phone for hours, but boy, we could be so much more productive than that.

And we have potential. We have the potential,

Speaker 0 (58m 10s): We know

Speaker 1 (58m 11s): $6 million man, right. We can rebuild them. We have,

Speaker 0 (58m 17s): I think so. I, and I, I really think, like, I believe this in my soul, that what you're going to see come out of the Ukraine and Russia is going to be something beautiful. I know it's so difficult when people to think about that right now. But I believe like I have faith in all of us as humans. And I have faith that humanity is better side is going to prevail. And I see this as like a test right now for all of us. Like, here's this side saying this, and here's this sign saying this, but when I look into the eyes of the, just the, the Russian people or the Ukrainian people, I see myself and I see people that are scared and that are, that have pride.

But I also see people that have hope and that they want change. And I think that the pressures to put us at war are such a small few, and they're, they're just feeding the fear and anger of these two sides to get them to do things that they really don't want to do. And I, I, I know in my heart that what we're going to see come out of this, going to be something that's beautiful. And as someone as like a scholar, like you, I have read so many accounts of people that in the, in the madness of war, they find community.

They, if you read back at some of the accounts of people, they say, you know, although there were bombs going off here and there, it was the best time of my life. I was around the people that I cared about. Have you heard those experiences before?

Speaker 1 (59m 45s): I have not, not in recent years.

Speaker 0 (59m 49s): I

Speaker 1 (59m 49s): Mean, I've heard them come out of, I mean, I've heard accounts of that come out of world war II. Right. But it just seemed that we were more United. And I mean, meat, we, as in people, not, not Americans, we're more United as human beings. And again, maybe this is part of the fault of technology of sending us all to our own little corners that we, we are increasingly losing our connection to other people. And so, as a result, when something like this occurs, it makes it even more difficult to come together.

You know, it was, it was wonderful. I guess it was last week. I think that we raised the Ukrainian flag here on campus. And we had, we had a, we had a fantastic turnout for the event. Everybody very supportive, but I think that when it came down to it, you know, most people walked away from that feeling good. But then I, if they were anything like me walking back to my office, it was like, okay, now what?

Right? I mean, that was a kumbaya moment. We all felt good about it. I'm glad we did it. The flag is flying out there. It's a symbol of our support, but it's a symbol And symbols. Aren't gonna save people, symbols. Aren't going to save people. Symbols are not going to save the people at Kharkiv whose city is being bombed. As we're talking symbols, aren't going to do it. They're nice, but we need action. And we need to figure out what it is that we can do actually do that active verb.

Do what can I do, right. To make a change and to, to help people. And maybe it's, it's, it's, it's small things. Maybe it's things that just affect one person last summer, going back to my neighborhood, there was another homeless couple who showed up in the summer. They would stand out on the corner of, of one of the blocks that I drive past every, every day, every day they were there, the two of them relatively young couple, and the young woman had a very high forehead.

And I was really worried because it was the middle of summer and the sun was just beating down on them. And, you know, I could have given them 10 bucks. I mean, I'm sure over the time, I probably did give them some money. I don't remember. But the thing that I do remember consciously doing is one day I brought her a baseball cap because I said, I'm really worried about your skin sitting out here in this boiling sun day-to-day today. And she was, she hugged me. She was very grateful and very thankful.

And I was disappointed because the next day when I saw them, she had given the hat to the, to the guy she, which I thought was kind of interesting, but you know, maybe it's just about her helping one person. Maybe that's all we can do at our level. Right. I'm not the president, I'm not a Senator. Maybe I can only help one person. And maybe in just doing that and making that effort, I'm contributing to some kind of, you know, cosmic karma here.

I'll get all new agey.

Speaker 0 (1h 3m 19s): Yeah. I love

Speaker 1 (1h 3m 19s): It. Yeah. I should have tapestries, you know, maybe, maybe it's part of that right. Worker just contributing. I mean, and that's what, what young is talking about. Right, right. Collective unconscious as this kind of ongoing universal thing that we're a part of. And when we agree to engage in that, I think we become better human beings.

Speaker 0 (1h 3m 44s): Yeah. Do you remember that there was a sort of a Cohen, am I saying that right. Like a sort of a, I think it was, gosh, darn it. Do you know that one off a hand that the young referred to the Bible in sort of a Cohen Is a Genesis 18, 3 23.

Speaker 1 (1h 4m 3s): Yeah. I think, I, I think I characterize it as a Cohen.

Speaker 0 (1h 4m 6s): You did

Speaker 1 (1h 4m 8s): About the line was hang on a second. I know, I know what pages I know which side of the book it's on. So There was a mid brush Jewish test on Genesis 1823, which says if desirous the world to endure, there can be no absolute justice. Well, if that desirous apple, absolute justice, the world cannot endure it. That would hold the cord by both ends desiring both the world and justice.

Speaker 0 (1h 4m 40s): What does that make you think about Ukraine?

Speaker 1 (1h 4m 42s): We want it all. We want to have it all. We want there to be justice and we want, we want the world to be the way that it is a nicer, calmer, kinder place. But, you know, I mean, what are we talking about over the last couple of weeks? I mean, again, you know, w w we're not looking necessarily at the sin, we're looking at the center. So what are we already talking about?

Well, prosecuting Putin for war crimes, right. That is going to help somebody who died in Kharkiv.

Speaker 0 (1h 5m 21s): Right. It's never going to happen either.

Speaker 1 (1h 5m 22s): No, but, you know, but that's what we're talking about. Right. Instead of how do we help people and stop the war, we're already thinking about how are we going to, how are we going to, what are the punishment for this?

Speaker 0 (1h 5m 36s): Yeah. It's, it's faulty to, to think that we have any sort of control over, over that. And then, you know, what do we do? We do, we send weapons to then, and then how many innocent people die because we build weapons and send them over there, you know? And it's

Speaker 1 (1h 5m 56s): Problem is that we're, we're dealing as we have so often with someone who is so sure that he's right, that really there's no caulking to them. And we all know people like that. Right. There's, there's just no convincing them otherwise. And I think that the real trick here is how do we deal with people like that? Whether they're living in our house or whether we work with them, or whether they're, you know, running one of the largest countries in the world, how do you deal with someone?

Who's so sure that they're right. That they are just unwilling to listen to any other viewpoint.

Speaker 0 (1h 6m 33s): I think the only way to do that is to try to understand why they think that, like, regardless of what people, like, they have a reason, it might not be a good reason, but they have a reason. And if you can listen to them or allow them to say what their reason is at the very least, you could understand their motivations and understanding that

Speaker 1 (1h 6m 54s): Correlation and causation are.

Speaker 0 (1h 6m 55s): Yeah, absolutely.

Speaker 1 (1h 6m 57s): Cause yeah. But oftentimes, especially when it comes to the way that the human mind works causes are, are confusing and unclear why we do things. I mean, you know, why do, why, why do I eat something when I know I shouldn't. Right. I mean, you know, it's, it's all kinds of things like that. I mean, you know, I always joke with students, if they have an eight o'clock class, you know, your alarm goes off and, and you roll over and you know, oh, I've got to go to class and it's so nice and cozy here.

I don't want to go to class. I always joke with them. And they don't edit because they're, they're young, the teen and animal house where he has devil on one shoulder, trying to control, making one choice over another. And it's really what it comes down to. It's, it's it's how do we make the choices that we make? Why do we make the choices that we make? And that why question, that's a tough one, right? Why do we do what we do? Why do people do what they do? I mean, oftentimes I don't know about you, but I'm baffled by why people do what they do.

And I'm not even talking about, you know, somebody's ordering the invasion of another country. I'm talking to us about, you know, everyday stuff. So where we're curiosity as a species to be sure. But yeah, I think we're, we're, we're pretty interesting as a curiosity and without it existence would be very boring.

Speaker 0 (1h 8m 29s): Yeah. I, I, I think there's something to be said about. I wish that instead of people going and watching, you know, 50,000 people watching football, that 50,000 people would fill a debate stadium and we could hear people talk about why you think this and why you think that. And imagine having Putin and, you know, Zelinsky on a stage and each one, given an hour to present their case of why they're doing what they're doing and who's representing them. And imagine that was on CNN and Fox for four hours a day, and you could listen to the different people, debating, like we would live in such a better world where people could express their ideas and it was brought to you by Pfizer.

You know, You know, you can have this debate that was sponsored about things. And I think we're close to that. Like the technology that we have could present us with something like that. And I,

Speaker 1 (1h 9m 26s): Well, I mean, it's, it's more easily done now than ever before.

Speaker 0 (1h 9m 29s): Yeah.

Speaker 1 (1h 9m 30s): I mean, the idea when you go back and study, you know, the histories of world war one and world war II, and, and look at what the, the machinations that had to be put in place to get those leaders in the same room, we don't have to worry about that now. Right. Turn on your camera. We've got zoom. Right. We can talk that way.

Speaker 0 (1h 9m 48s): Exactly how I'm going to, I, I'm going to try to find a representative from like the Russian Orthodox church. Maybe if I can find one, we can all you, him and I could have a talk together.

Speaker 1 (1h 9m 56s): That would be

Speaker 0 (1h 9m 57s): Fascinating. Right?

Speaker 1 (1h 9m 58s): Sure.

Speaker 0 (1h 9m 59s): To hear a man of faith from a different place in the world telling you, Hey, well, here's how I see the sunrise. And here's how I see the sunset. And I bet you, I bet you, we would see in him the same dreams and the same desires that we see in ourselves that we see in the mirror. Right.

Speaker 1 (1h 10m 16s): Just a different perspective. It's a different perspective on the same thing at the same thing. We just see it differently.

Speaker 0 (1h 10m 24s): I agree. I, I, how are you doing on time? Are you,

Speaker 1 (1h 10m 26s): I got to go soon because I got another meeting coming.

Speaker 0 (1h 10m 28s): Yeah. I figured so. Well, I really enjoy talking to you. And I think that we, I think that the things that you've talked about so far are going to help more people than you possibly know. And I'm grateful for your time. Is there anything you want to leave us with before we end today's session?

Speaker 1 (1h 10m 43s): No. Next week we're onto gluttony. So get your, your fast food. Ready. We're going up. We're going to talk about the pains of gluttony that has experience in the last hundred years and, and how we might cope with it today. So

Speaker 0 (1h 10m 58s): Fair enough. Okay. Well, all your links are below. The book is seven deadly sins, and we are a raw number three, moving to number four. And thank you so much for being here and spreading a little bit of a low haunts of love to all my listeners. And I hope your day is phenomenal from here on out. So thank you for your time today.

Speaker 1 (1h 11m 15s): Thanks so much for having me.

Speaker 0 (1h 11m 17s): Of course. Okay.