Disturbing History - DH Ep:63 The Night I Turned Off the Grammys

Episode Date: February 4, 2026

Something happened the other night that got me thinking. I sat down to watch the Grammy Awards, expecting a celebration of music. What I got instead felt more like a political rally than an awards show.And it made me ask a question I think a lot of us have been asking quietly. When did everything become political? When did we lose the ability to just enjoy things together?This episode is different from our usual content. No serial killers. No mass graves. No presidents with dark secrets. But the most disturbing changes in history aren't always the obvious ones. Sometimes they're the ones that seep in slowly, so gradually you don't notice until you wake up one day and the world doesn't feel like the world you remember.I want to be clear from the start. This isn't a political rant. I'm not trying to change your mind or tell you how to vote. I'm not saying the issues people care about don't matter. They do.What I am saying is that something has shifted in our culture over the past two decades, and I think it's worth talking about honestly. The way entertainment became activism. The way corporations discovered that appearing virtuous was good for business. The way social media algorithms learned that outrage keeps us engaged. The way we lost the shared spaces that used to bring us together despite our differences. This is a conversation I've been wanting to have for a long time. I hope you'll stick with me through it.

In every corner of the United Kingdom and in every shadowed place across the world, there are stories the daylight can't explain. Whispers of figures that vanish into thin air, footsteps that follow when you're alone, and encounters with the paranormal that leave the living forever changed. On the Haunted UK podcast, we journey into these mysteries, exploring chilling accounts of hauntings, terrifying paranormal events and real stories,

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The Haunted UK podcast. Available now on all major podcast platforms. Ever wonder how dark the world can really get? Well, we dive into the twisted, the terrifying, and the true stories behind some of the world's most chilling crimes. Hi, I'm Ben. And I'm Nicole. Together we host Wicked and Grim,

a true crime podcast that unpacks real-life horrors, one case at a time. With deep research, dark storytelling, and the occasional drink to take the edge of, off. We're here to explore the wicked and reveal the grim. We are wicked and grim. Follow and listen on your favorite podcast platform. Some stories were never meant to be told. Others were buried on purpose. This podcast digs them all up. Disturbing history peels back the layers of the past to uncover the strange, the sinister, and the stories that were never supposed to survive. From shadowy presidential secrets

to government experiments that sound more like fiction than fact. This is history they hoped you'd forget. I'm Brian, investigator, author, and your guide through the dark corners of our collective memory. Each week I'll narrate some of the most chilling and little-known tales from history that will make you question everything you thought you knew. And here's the twist. Sometimes, the history is disturbing to us.

And sometimes, we have to disturb history itself, just to get to the truth. If you like your facts with the side of fear, if you're not afraid to pull at threads, others leave alone. You're in the right place. History isn't just written by the victors. Sometimes it's rewritten by the disturbed. I know what you're expecting. You're expecting me to tell you about some mass grave discovered in a forgotten corner of the world.

Some president who owned human beings or some government that poisoned its own citizens. That's what we do here, right? We dig into the darkness. We shine a light on the things that should shake us to our core. But here's something I've learned after years of doing this show. The most disturbing things in history. They're not always the obvious ones. They're not always the things that make headlines or fill documentaries.

Sometimes the most disturbing developments are the ones that happen slowly, quietly, almost invisibly. They don't announce themselves. There's no single moment you can point to and say, That's when everything changed. Instead, they seep in, day by day, year by year. Until one morning you wake up and realize the world you're living in isn't the world you remember. And you can't quite figure out when that happened or how.

That's a different kind of disturbing. Not the sharp shock of discovering an atrocity, but the slow creep of realizing something fundamental has shifted beneath your feet while you weren't paying attention. That's what I want to talk about today. Before we go any further, I need to say something important, and I need you to really hear this. I'm not here to get political. I'm not here to tell you who to vote for or what to believe. I'm not trying to piss anybody off. I'm really not. But more than that, I need you to understand what I'm not saying. I'm not saying that concerns about justice and equality are invalid. They're not. There are real problems in our society.

Real inequalities. Real injustices that need to be addressed. People who have been marginalized deserve to be heard. Systems that don't work fairly for everyone deserve to be challenged. I'm not saying that things were better in some mythical past. The past had its own problems, its own blindnesses, its own injustices. Some of the changes we've seen over the past decades have been genuine progress. Attitudes have shifted in positive ways. That's good.

I'm not saying that people who hold progressive views are bad people. Most of them are sincere. Most of them genuinely care about making the world better. I respect that. I share a lot of those concerns. What I am saying is that something has shifted in our culture, something that goes beyond addressing legitimate problems, something that has costs as well as benefits.

And I think we need to be able to talk about it honestly without automatically casting each other as enemies. That's all. It's not a radical position. But in the current climate, it can feel like one. So stick with me. Even if some of this makes you uncomfortable,

even if you're not sure you agree with everything I'm about to say, just hear me out. That's all I'm asking. I want to start with a simple question. When's the last time you just enjoyed something? I mean really enjoyed it. Without politics. Without agendas.

Without someone telling you what to think or how to feel about something bigger than the thing itself. The other night I sat down to watch the Grammy Awards. Now, I've been watching the Grammys for decades. It's one of those things. You know, a tradition, a night to celebrate music, to see artists you love get recognized, to maybe discover someone new,

to just enjoy the show. But here's what happened instead. From the moment the host took the stage, it felt different, and not in a good way. It felt like I wasn't watching a celebration of music anymore. I was watching something else entirely. Political posturing, social commentary,

lectures about this issue or that cause, acceptance speeches that spent more time talking about political movements than about the music itself. And look, I get it. Artists have always had opinions. They've always had platforms. There's a long history of music being connected to social movements. I'm not naive about that,

but this was something different. This felt mandatory, coordinated, like there was an unspoken rule that you couldn't just accept your award, thank the people who helped you get there and talk about the music. You had to make a statement. I turned it off about halfway through. And as I sat there in the quiet, I started thinking, how did we get here? When did entertainment become activism? When did award shows become political rallies? And more importantly, when did this become the expectation? That's what I want to explore today. Not to convince you of anything, not to tell you what to believe, but to walk through how

we got here, to trace the evolution of what's often called woke culture and try to understand it, because I think understanding is the first step to having real conversations about where we want to go from here. Let's start with the word itself, woke. It's funny how language works, isn't it? How a word can start as one thing and become something completely different. The term originally came from African American communities. It meant being aware, being alert to injustice, particularly racial injustice. Stay woke was advice passed down. It meant keep your eyes open.

Know what's really going on. Don't be blind to the systems working against you. There's nothing controversial about that origin. It was practical wisdom born from lived experience. And for a long time, it stayed within those communities as exactly that. Practical wisdom. But somewhere along the line, things changed. The term got adopted.

Then it got expanded. then it got weaponized by people on both sides. For some, it became a badge of honor. Proof that you were aware, that you cared, that you were on the right side of history. For others, it became an insult, a shorthand for what they saw as excessive political correctness or performative activism.

And that's the thing about language. Once a word enters the mainstream, it doesn't belong to anyone anymore. It becomes whatever people make it. And woke has become a badger. battleground word. A word that means different things depending on who's saying it and who's hearing it. So when I use it in this conversation, I want to be clear about what I mean. I'm talking about a cultural phenomenon, a shift in how we talk about issues, how we consume entertainment,

how we interact with each other, a set of expectations about what people should believe, how they should express those beliefs, and what happens when they don't. If you ask people when woke culture started. You get all kinds of answers. Some people point to 2012 or 2013. The rise of social media activism, black Twitter, the early days of hashtag movements. Others point to 2016. The presidential election that seemed to split the country in two. But I think the roots go deeper than that. I think we have to go back to the early 2000s to really understand what happened. See, the internet changed everything. That's not a profound statement. Everyone knows. Everyone knows. that. But I don't think we fully appreciate how it changed the way ideas spread. Before the internet,

cultural movements took time. They built slowly. Ideas moved from person to person, community to community. There were gatekeepers, publishers, editors, network executives, people who decided what ideas got amplified and which ones stayed local. Now, I'm not saying gatekeepers were always good. They had their biases. They kept a lot of important voices out. But they also slowed things down. Ideas had to prove themselves over time. They had to survive debate and scrutiny before they went mainstream. The Internet changed that math completely.

Suddenly, an idea could go from one person's mind to a million people's screens in hours. Movements could form overnight. Outrage could spread at the speed of a retweet. And social media accelerated this even further. Facebook launched in 2004. Twitter in 2006, Instagram in 2010. By the early 2010s, these platforms had become the primary way many people consumed information and interacted with culture. Here's what's important to understand.

These platforms weren't neutral. They weren't designed to promote thoughtful discourse. They were designed to maximize engagement. And what maximizes engagement? Strong emotions. Outrage. controversy. Us versus them. The algorithms learned quickly. Content that made people angry got shared more. Content that made people feel righteous got shared more. Content that created conflict

got shared more. So that's what the algorithms promoted. Not because anyone at these companies wanted to divide us, but because division was profitable. And here's the insidious part. The more outraged you get, the more the algorithm rewards you. Because outrage drives engagement. Angry tweets get retweeted. Inflammatory posts get shared. So the more you participate in the outrage economy, the more the algorithm shows you content that makes you outraged. It's a feedback loop, and it's making everyone miserable. When you see someone angry about something, you instinctively consider whether you should be angry too. And on social media, you see angry people constantly, all day, every day. A never-ending stream of outrage about a never-ending list of

grievances. This does something to your brain. It trains you to be vigilant for things to be upset about. It makes you scan every situation for potential offenses. It puts you in a permanent defensive crouch, ready to be outraged at a moment's notice. This is the soil in which modern woke culture grew, A communication environment that rewarded extreme positions, emotional reactions, and tribal loyalty. An environment where nuance was punished and complexity was ignored. But social media wasn't the only factor. There was also a shift happening in academia that would eventually spill over into everything else. Starting in the late 90s and accelerating through the 2000s,

certain ideas that had been confined to specialized academic fields started making their way into mainstream education. Concepts from critical theory, ideas about systems of oppression, frameworks for understanding power dynamics in society. Now I want to be careful here, because this is where conversations like this usually go off the rails. People either dismiss all academic theory as nonsense, or they treat it as gospel truth. Neither approach is helpful. The reality is more complicated. Some of these ideas have merit. Systems do exist that perpetuate inequality. History does shape the present in ways we don't always see. Power dynamics do influence how society operates. These aren't crazy notions. Their attempts to understand complex

social phenomena. But here's where I think things went sideways. These ideas were developed in academic contexts where they were supposed to be debated, challenged, refined. That's how scholarship works. You put forward a theory. Other scholars critique it. You revoke it. You revoke it or defend it, and over time the ideas that hold up to scrutiny become part of accepted knowledge. What happened instead was that these ideas got simplified, packaged, and exported to the broader culture before that process could fully play out. Complex theories got reduced to slogans. Nuanced frameworks got turned into rigid orthodoxies, and suddenly, ideas that were supposed to be tools for understanding became tests for belonging. You either agreed with the framework

completely or you were part of the problem. There was no room for, I think this part makes sense, but I have questions about that part. No room for nuance. No room for good faith disagreement. Universities have always been places where ideas were developed and debated. That's their purpose. To push the boundaries of knowledge. To question received wisdom. To train young minds to think critically about the world. But something changed. And it happened gradually, over the decades. The culture of universities shifted from one of open inquiry to one of ideological conformity. It started with good intentions. People genuinely wanted to make universities more inclusive. They wanted to address real historical

exclusions. They wanted to create environments where everyone felt welcome and valued. Those are good goals. But the implementation went sideways. Instead of expanding who could participate in the conversation, the conversation itself got narrowed. Instead of welcoming more voices into open debate, certain ideas got marked as off limits. Instead of teaching students how to think, universities started teaching them what to think. And the students who came out of these transformed institutions went into every sector of society. They became journalists and teachers and corporate employees and government workers. They brought with them the assumptions and frameworks they'd learned, and they applied those

frameworks everywhere they went. Now I want to be careful here because this can sound like a conspiracy theory, like there was some coordinated plan to take over institutions and transform them according to some ideological blueprint. I don't think it was that coordinated. I think it was more organic. People naturally hire people who think like them. Ideas that are dominant in one generation get taught to the next generation. Stay tuned for more disturbing history. We'll be back after these messages. Ever look up in the sky and wonder what's really going on up there? Hi, I'm Martin Willis and I host podcast UFO, the longest consistently running podcast dedicated to UFOs and UAP with over 700 episodes in the last 15 years. Each week I sit down with scientists,

researchers, filmmakers, and people who have had real encounters to talk honestly about what we know and what we don't. There's no shouting, no crazy music, just thoughtful conversations about one of the biggest mysteries out there. If you're curious, open-minded, or just a little bit obsessed with UFOs, you will feel right at home.

Search podcast UFO wherever you get your podcast, or visit podcastuFO.com. Podcast UFO, we're searching the mystery never ends. Norms shift gradually until what seemed radical becomes mainstream. But the effect is real. The institutions that shape our culture have been transformed, and that transformation has consequences that we're all living with. Somewhere around 2015 or 2016, corporations started

paying attention to these cultural shifts, and they saw an opportunity. Now let me ask you something. Do you really think multinational corporations care deeply about social justice? Do you think companies whose entire business model is based on maximizing profit and exploiting labor suddenly developed consciences? I don't. I think they saw which way the wind was blowing and decided to get ahead of it. They realized that appearing woke was good for business, that it helped them appeal to younger consumers, that it gave them cover for other practices that might otherwise draw criticism. So suddenly, every major corporation had a diversity statement. Every brand was, was releasing social justice advertisements.

Every company was making bold proclamations about their values. Usually right around the same time they were laying off workers or avoiding taxes or engaging in the same old practices they'd always engaged in. This is what I call woke capitalism, and I think it's one of the most cynical developments of the past decade. Because here's what it did. It took ideas that started as genuine attempts to address real problems and turned them into marketing slogans.

It hollowed out the meaning of these concepts until they were nothing but empty gestures designed to sell products. And it put pressure on everyone else to play along. Because once corporations started making these proclamations, the expectation was set. If you didn't signal your values loudly and frequently, you were seen as part of the problem. Companies that tried to stay neutral were criticized for their silence. Celebrities who didn't speak up were called out for their complicity. The culture shifted from actions speak louder than words to words or actions, and silence is violence. This brings me back to where I started, the Grammy Awards, and the broader entertainment industry.

Entertainment has always reflected culture, and it's always influenced culture. That's not new. What's new is the degree to which entertainment has become explicitly political, not in the sense of exploring political themes through art. That's always happened. but in the sense of requiring political alignment as a condition of participation. I think about the movies I grew up with, the TV shows, the music. Sure, there were political messages sometimes.

Artists made statements, but there was also just entertainment. Stories told for the sake of stories, songs written for the sake of music, comedies that were just trying to make you laugh. Today, it feels like everything has to mean something bigger. Every movie has to send a message. Every TV show has to represent every community in exactly the right proportions. Every song has to be an anthem for something. And award shows have become the most concentrated expression of this.

They're not celebrations of craft anymore. They're statements of values. The speeches aren't about the work. They're about the causes. The performances aren't about the music. They're about the messaging. I watched an artist the other night receiving a award. for what was genuinely a great album. And instead of talking about the music, about the creative

process, about the collaborators who helped make it happen, the speech was a three-minute political manifesto. And look, I'm not saying artists shouldn't have opinions. I'm not saying they shouldn't use their platforms. That's their choice. But when it becomes mandatory, when it becomes expected, when an artist who just wants to thank their band and talk about the record gets looked at sideways for not making a statement. That's when I think we've lost something. I think about the artists I love, the musicians, the writers, the filmmakers. Many of them had political views, strong ones, but they also understood something important. The best way to change hearts isn't to lecture. It's to tell great stories, to create beautiful things, to make art that moves people and opens them up to new

perspectives through the power of the work itself. That's harder than making speeches. It's harder than issuing statements. But it's more effective and it's more respectful of the audience. It treats people as capable of drawing their own conclusions rather than needing to be told what to think. Hollywood has leaned hard into this new approach and you can feel it when you watch certain movies. The heavy hand of the message. The moment when a character says something that feels like it's aimed at the audience rather than emerging naturally from the story. The way conflict gets resolved, not because it makes narrative sense, but because the movie needs to make a particular statement. This isn't new. Hollywood has always had message movies, movies about important topics that

were meant to change minds and hearts. And some of those movies were great. They were great, because the filmmakers understood that the best way to convey a message is through a compelling story. That if you want to change someone's mind, you have to engage their emotions first. You have to make them care about characters before you can make them care about ideas. But somewhere along the line, that understanding got lost. The message started coming before the story. The ideology started dictating the characters, and audiences can feel it. Even if they can't articulate exactly what's wrong, they sense that they're being preached to rather than entertained. And here's the thing. It doesn't work. Preachy entertainment doesn't change minds. It just annoys people who disagree

and boars people who already agree. The only people who really enjoy it are the people making it, who get to feel virtuous about the messages they're sending. I want to talk about comedy for a minute, because I think what's happened to comedy tells us a lot about what's happened to culture more broadly. Comedy used to be the great equalizer, the court jester who could say what no one else could say. The truth-teller who exposed hypocrisy and pretension through laughter. The art form that brought people together by helping them laugh at the absurdities of life, including their own absurdities. Think about the comedians who shaped our culture. Richard Pryor, George Carlin, Joan Rivers, Eddie Murphy. They didn't just make people laugh. They challenged people. They made audiences

uncomfortable. They said things that were provocative and boundary pushing. And that was the point. Comedy is supposed to be dangerous. It's supposed to push limits. It's supposed to make you laugh at things you're not sure you should be laughing at. That's how it works. That's how it illuminates truth through humor. But something's changed. There's a new orthodoxy in comedy now. A set of unwritten rules about what you can and can't joke about. A list of topics that are off limits. A requirement that comedy punch in the right direction at the right targets. And look, I get it. Some jokes are genuinely harmful. Some comedy has been used to dehumanize and hurt people.

That's real. But there's a difference between criticizing specific harmful content and creating a climate where comedians are afraid to take risks at all. I've talked to comedians, working comedians who make their living doing stand-up, and they'll tell you, the calculation has changed. Before they write a joke,

they have to think about whether it might go viral for the wrong reasons, whether someone might clip it out of context and post it online, whether they might become the main character of the internet for a day, and not in a good way. That fear changes the comedy. It makes it safer, blander, less honest, because the best comedy comes from taking risks, from saying the unsayable,

from going to the dark places that we all think about, but don't talk about. When you punish comedians for taking risks, you get comedy that doesn't take risks. And comedy that doesn't take risks isn't really comedy. It's just entertainment. It might be pleasant. It might even be funny in a mild way.

But it won't be the kind of comedy that changes the way you see the world. The kind of comedy that tells truths you needed to hear. I want to talk about sports too. Because what's happened to sports mirrors, what's happened to entertainment in general. I grew up loving sports. Football on Sundays. Baseball in the summer.

Basketball whenever it was on. There was something pure about it. Competition. Excellence. The drama of not knowing how things would turn out. And the best part was the community it created. You'd go to a game or watch at a bar, and suddenly you were connected to strangers through this shared experience.

It didn't matter what they believed politically. It didn't matter where they came from. For those few hours, you were all just fans. United by something larger than your differences. That feeling has gotten harder to find. It started subtly. A gesture here. A statement there. Athletes using their platform to draw attention to issues they cared about. And look, that's their right. Athletes have always had opinions, and they have as much right as anyone to express them. But then it accelerated. Leagues started making

official statements about political issues. Broadcast started incorporating political messaging. The anthem became a battleground. The uniforms became billboards. for causes. And suddenly, you couldn't just watch a game. You were being asked to take sides. You were being put in a position where your enjoyment of sports was somehow connected to your stance on political issues. The escape hatch was closing. I think about the people I know who've stepped back from sports. Not because they stopped loving the games, but because they got tired of the politics. Tired of being lectured. Tired of having their entertainment turn into another arena for cultural combat. And here's what breaks my heart about that. Those people haven't been replaced.

The audiences have shrunk. The shared experience has diminished. Another space where people used to come together has been fractured along political lines. Something's happening in workplaces across the country, too. And I think it's worth talking about. Corporations have always had cultures, norms about how to behave, expectations about how to communicate. That's nothing new. But those cultures, you used to be about the work, about professionalism, about getting things done efficiently and effectively. Now, there's something else. A layer of ideological expectation that sits on top of the professional expectations. Diversity training that goes beyond treating people fairly to promoting specific political frameworks, HR policies that extend into areas that used to be personal, pressure to

participate in political activities and statements. I've talked to people who work in corporate, environments, people across the political spectrum, and they'll tell you when they feel safe to be honest, the environment has changed, there are things you can't say, opinions you can't express, questions you can't ask. This creates a strange dynamic. At work, everyone says the expected things. They attend the trainings and not along. They participate in the initiatives and display the appropriate enthusiasm. But privately, many of them disagree, or have questions, or feel like something isn't quite right but can't articulate what it is.

This gap between public performance and private belief is corrosive. It creates cynicism. It makes people feel like they're living double lives. It undermines the trust that makes workplaces function well. And here's what's particularly frustrating. The stated goal of all this is to create inclusive environments where everyone feels feels welcome. But does it actually achieve that? Do people feel more included when they're required to affirm specific ideological positions? Do diverse perspectives flourish when some perspectives are

marked as unacceptable? I'd argue no. I'd argue that true inclusion means welcoming people with different viewpoints. That genuine diversity includes intellectual and political diversity. That environments where people feel free to think out loud and ask questions are more creative and productive than environments where everyone is performing compliance. I can't talk about this honestly without talking about the media, because the media has played a huge role in shaping this cultural moment. I remember when news was news, when you could watch a broadcast and get a reasonable sense of what happened that day without being told how to feel about it. When journalists saw their job as reporting facts and letting people draw their own conclusions, that world is gone. And I don't think it's

coming back. Today, every major media outlet has a perspective, an angle, an audience it's playing to. Fox tells one story. MSNBC tells another. CNN tries to position itself in the middle but ends up pleasing no one, and that's just television. Online, it's even worse. Every niche publication serving every niche audience, confirming every prior belief. This means people can go their entire lives consuming information that only reinforces what they already think. They can watch the news every night and never encounter a perspective that challenges them. They can scroll through their feeds and only see takes that align with their existing views. And the algorithm makes it worse, because once you click on one thing, you get more of the same thing.

The bubble tightens, the echo chamber grows louder. I've watched people I care about disappear into these bubbles. smart people, thoughtful people, people who used to be curious about the world, and now they only consume media that tells them what they already believe. They've stopped questioning, they've stopped being curious, they've become certain in a way that makes real conversation impossible. I think this is one of the most dangerous developments we've seen, not because any particular media outlet is evil,

but because the overall ecosystem has made it possible to live in a completely different information reality from your neighbors. We're not just disagreeing about values anymore. We're disagreeing about basic facts, because we're being given different facts. I think this is where a lot of the cultural division comes from. People are literally living in different information realities. They're not just disagreeing about values or priorities. They're disagreeing about basic facts, because they're being given different facts by the

media they consume. Stay tuned for more disturbing history. We'll be back after these messages. How do you have a conversation across that divide? How do you find common ground when you can't even agree on what's happening in the world? I don't have an easy answer. But I think the first step is recognizing the problem. Recognizing that your media diet shapes your reality.

Recognizing that you might not be getting the whole picture. Recognizing that the other side isn't necessarily crazy or evil. They might just be operating with different information. That's not an excuse for bad beliefs. or harmful actions. But it's a starting point for understanding. And understanding is what we desperately need. Here's something I don't think we talk about enough.

The psychological toll of all this. On everyone. We've created a culture where people feel like they have to be engaged with every issue all the time. Where you can't just enjoy a movie or listen to an album or watch a sports game without it being connected to something bigger. Where relaxation itself feels irresponsible. Because there's always a lot of.

another cause, another outrage, another crisis that demands your attention. This isn't healthy. It's not sustainable. And I think it's making everyone miserable. I talk to people all the time who are exhausted, not from working too hard or not sleeping enough, but from the constant pressure to care about everything at maximum intensity all the time. From the fear that if they don't post the right thing or say the right thing or signal the right values, they'll be seen as part of the problem. Here's the thing. When you're exhausted from pretending to care about everything, you have less energy to actually care about the things that matter most to you. The specific causes that touch your life. The local issues where you could actually make a difference. The relationships that

need your attention. We've traded depth for breadth, real engagement for performative gestures, actual change for symbolic statements. There's another cost that I think is even more serious. and that's the chilling effect on honest conversation. One of the defining features of the current moment is how afraid people are to say what they really think. Not because they're terrible people with terrible opinions, but because the consequences for saying the wrong thing, even accidentally, have become so severe. I know people who've lost jobs over social media posts, not posts that were hateful or harmful,

just posts that expressed opinions that fell outside the acceptable range. I know people who've been publicly shamed for asking questions that were deemed insensitive. I know people who've watched their careers and reputations destroyed over misunderstandings or jokes taken out of context. And so people learn to stay quiet. They learn to say the expected things and keep their real thoughts to themselves. They learn to smile and nod and go along with whatever the consensus seems to be, regardless of what they actually believe. This isn't good for anyone.

It's not good for the people staying. silent, who feel like they can't be authentic. It's not good for public discourse, which loses the benefit of diverse perspectives and genuine debate. And it's not even good for the causes that are supposedly being advanced, because performative agreement isn't the same as genuine support. When people feel forced to agree, they often end up resenting the things they're being forced to agree with. When dissent is punished rather than engaged with, it doesn't disappear. It just goes underground. An underground resentment has a way of eventually exploding to the surface in ugly ways. I think some of the political backlash we've seen in recent years is directly connected to this

dynamic. People who felt silenced, who felt like they couldn't express their concerns through normal channels, eventually expressing those concerns through other means, often in ways that are counterproductive and destructive. If we'd allowed for more honest conversation all along, I wonder if things would have played out differently. Let me try to articulate something that I think is at the heart of the frustration many people feel. And I want to do this carefully, because it's easy to sound like you're just nostalgic for a past that wasn't as good as you remember. I think we've lost shared spaces. And I don't just mean physical spaces, although that's part of it.

I mean cultural spaces, mental spaces, experiences that brought people together regardless of their political views. Think about what entertainment used to be. You watched a show. You went to a movie. You listened to an album. And afterward, you talked about the story, the performances, the craft. Not about whether the politics were correct. Not about whether the casting was appropriately diverse.

Just about whether it was good. These shared spaces are disappearing. And I don't think people fully appreciate what we're losing when they go. Because here's the thing about shared spaces. There were people from different backgrounds. actually encounter each other. They're where you discover that the person you disagree with about politics is also funny or kind or knowledgeable about something you care about.

They're where you build the social fabric that allows a diverse society to function. When everything becomes political, we lose those spaces. We retreat into tribes of people who think like us, believe like us, vote like us. And the people on the other side become abstractions. enemies, rather than neighbors and coworkers and fellow fans. This is dangerous, not in some abstract, theoretical way, in a real, practical way, because a society that can't find common ground on anything is a society that's coming apart at the seams. Here's something I don't hear people talk about much, but I think it's underneath everything we've discussed.

There's a meaning crisis in our society. People are searching for purpose, for something to believe, in, for something bigger than themselves. And I think a lot of what we call woke culture is actually an attempt to fill that void. Think about it. Traditional sources of meaning have declined. Church attendance is down. Community organizations are struggling. Extended families are scattered. People are more isolated than ever before. Into that void has stepped something new, a secular religion of sorts. A belief system with its own sacred values, its own sins, its own saints and demons, a community of believers united by shared commitments and shared enemies.

If you look at it this way, a lot of things make more sense. The religious fervor with which certain ideas are held. The way dissenters are treated as heretics. The rituals of confession and absolution. The call to constant vigilance against evil. This isn't me saying these beliefs are wrong. I'm not making a theological argument. I'm making a psychological one.

People need meaning. They need to believe in something. They need to feel like they're part of something bigger than themselves. And if traditional sources of meaning aren't available, they'll find meaning somewhere else. Understanding this changes how I think about these cultural conflicts. I'm not just dealing with people who have different opinions. I'm dealing with people who have found meaning and community in a particular worldview. Challenging that worldview doesn't just threaten their belief.

beliefs. It threatens their entire sense of purpose and belonging. No wonder the reactions are so intense. No wonder disagreement feels like an existential threat. No wonder people are so resistant to questioning any part of their framework. This also explains something else. Why some of the most fervent believers in this new orthodoxy come from backgrounds that might seem surprising, from affluent families, from privileged circumstances, from situations where you think they'd have plenty of meaning and purpose. But material comfort doesn't provide meaning. Money doesn't answer the big questions. And people who have everything except purpose are often the most desperate to find it. Here's something I think about a lot. And it's uncomfortable,

so bear with me. The stated goal of much of what we call woke culture is to make society more inclusive, more welcoming, more fair, to break down barriers and bring people together across lines of difference. But has it actually done that? Has society become more unified? Do people feel more included? Do we understand each other better? I don't think so.

If anything, it feels like we're more divided than ever. More tribal. More hostile to people who are different from us. And not just different in terms of race or gender or sexuality. Different in terms of thought. Different in terms of opinion. The great irony is that in the name of tolerance, we've become incredibly intolerant of anyone who doesn't share our views.

In the name of inclusion, we've created new forms of exclusion for those who don't think the right way. In the name of understanding, we've stopped trying to understand anyone who doesn't already agree with us. This isn't progress. This is a different kind of tribalism wearing progressive clothing. And I think some people who genuinely care about these causes are starting to realize this.

They're starting to see that the tactics being used aren't actually advancing the goals they care about. That calling everyone who disagrees a bigot isn't changing any minds. That forcing compliance through fear isn't the same as building genuine support. But it's hard to say this out loud, because if you criticize the tactics, you're accused of opposing the goals. If you question the methods, you're told you must not care about the issues. Nuance is not welcome.

I think we need to be able to separate these things. to care deeply about justice and fairness, while also questioning whether the current approach is actually working. To support the destination while disagreeing about the route. One thing I find fascinating is how this plays out across generations, because there's a real divide in how different age groups experience and respond to these cultural shifts. For older generations, this often feels like a dramatic departure from the world they grew up in.

The rules changed. The expectations shift. Things that were perfectly acceptable to say 20 years ago can now end your career. That's disorienting. And it breeds a kind of resentment that I think we need to take seriously, rather than dismissing as mere reactionary backlash. For younger generations, this is just the water they swim in. They've grown up with social media.

They've been educated in schools where these frameworks were already embedded in the curriculum. For them, this isn't a departure from normal. normal. This is normal. And this creates a communication gap that's hard to bridge. When older people express discomfort with these changes, younger people often hear it as bigotry or resistance to progress. When younger people advocate for these frameworks, older people often hear it as indoctrination or oversensitivity. Both sides are missing something. Both sides have legitimate concerns that deserve to be heard. But we've lost the ability to listen to each. other across this divide. I think about my own experience. I've lived long enough to see the

culture change dramatically, and I try to stay open. I try to listen to younger voices and understand where they're coming from. But I'd be lying if I said it was easy. It's hard to feel like the values you were raised with are suddenly being treated as backwards or harmful. It's hard to feel like you're being judged by standards that didn't exist when you were forming your understanding of the world. At the same time, I try to remember what it was like to be young, to feel like the older generation didn't understand, to feel like important things needed to change, and the people in charge were standing in the way. That's not a new feeling. That's the perennial tension between generations. The question is whether we can find ways to have these conversations that don't

reduce each side to caricature, that honor the legitimate concerns on both sides, that recognize that change is necessary, but so is continuity, that understand that neither pure progressivism nor pure conservatism has all the answers. I've been pretty critical so far, and I want to balance that, because there are things about the younger generation that I think are genuinely admirable. They care. That's not nothing. In a world where cynicism is easy and apathy is comfortable, they've chosen to care about things, to believe that the world can be better. To try to make it so. That's not a small thing. That's valuable. That's necessary. Progress doesn't happen without people who care enough to push for it. They're also more honest about

some things that previous generations glossed over. They talk openly about mental health. They're more willing to challenge authority when authority is wrong. They're less likely to just accept things because that's how it's always been done. These are good qualities, qualities that every generation needs, qualities that have driven positive change throughout history. And some of their concerns are legitimate. There are genuine injustices that need addressing. There are systems that don't work for everyone. There are problems that previous generations either ignored or made worse. It's not wrong to want to fix those things. It's not wrong to be impatient about it. My concerns aren't with the fact that they care. They're with how that care sometimes gets expressed.

with the tactics that can be counterproductive, with the certainty that doesn't leave room for learning, with the intolerance that undermines the very values being fought for. But those are criticisms of approach, not of motivation. And I think it's important to make that distinction. Because if we just dismiss young people as naive or indoctrinated, we miss the chance to engage with what they're actually saying, and some of what they're saying is worth hearing.

Let me get personal for a minute, because one of the hardest aspects of this cultural moment is figuring out how to raise kids in it. Parents today face an impossible challenge. The culture their children are immersed in sends constant messages, through social media, through schools, through entertainment, through peers. Parents feel like they're fighting a tidal wave just trying to pass on their own values. And here's what makes it extra hard. It's not just about disagreeing with those messages.

It's about the consequences of dissent. A kid who expresses the wrong opinion at school might face social consequences. A teenager who questions the dominant narrative might be labeled in ways that follow them. The stakes feel higher than they used to. I know parents who feel like they're walking a tightrope. Trying to raise their children with critical thinking skills, while also preparing them to navigate a world that sometimes punishes critical thinking. Trying to pass on values they believe in while also

helping their kids fit in and succeed. Stay tuned for more disturbing history. We'll be back after these messages. There are no easy answers here, and anyone who pretends otherwise is selling something. But I think a few things are important. First, the conversations matter. Kids need adults in their lives who model thinking through complexity,

who show that it's possible to consider multiple perspectives, who demonstrate that questions are healthy and doubt is normal. Relationship trumps ideology. Whatever values you want to pass on, they'll be passed on through relationship, not lecture. Kids who feel genuinely loved and respected by their parents are more likely to take their parents' views seriously. Resilience is key. The world isn't going to bend to any individual. Teaching kids to maintain their integrity while navigating difficult environments is more important than trying to shield them from those environments entirely.

Some humility goes a long way. Parents don't have all the answers either. Maybe there are things the younger generation sees that the older generation is missing. Being open to that possibility models the kind of intellectual humility we want our children to develop. I also think parents need to be more intentional about creating spaces where their kids can just be kids, where they can play and explore and create without everything being loaded with political meaning. Where they can experience. the joy of shared activities without ideological baggage. That's harder than it used to be. The culture makes it harder, but it's worth fighting for because kids need room to grow. They need space to figure things out for themselves. They need experiences of pure joy that aren't connected to any agenda. And if parents don't intentionally create those spaces,

they might not exist. This is hard stuff. And I don't think we talk about it enough. The cultural debates happen at, an abstract level, but they have concrete effects on families trying to raise the next generation. That's worth acknowledging. I want to take a minute to talk about something that's been on my mind, the way art used to change culture, and how different that was from what we're seeing today. Think about the civil rights movement. Think about the art that came out of that era,

the music, the literature, the film. It was powerful. It changed minds. It moved the culture. But how did it do that? Not by lecturing, not by demanding agreement. It did it by telling human stories, by making you feel something, by connecting you to experiences you hadn't had and people you hadn't met. When you listened to Sam Cook sing, a change is going to come, you felt something. You didn't need to be told what to think. The emotion of the song did the work. It opened your heart before it tried to change your mind. When you read James Baldwin, you entered into an experience different from your own. You saw the world through different eyes, and that seeing changed you. Not because Baldwin told you what to believe, but because he showed you what he'd lived.

The showing was more powerful than any telling could have been. That's how art is supposed to work. It bypasses your defenses. It connects you to your common humanity. It makes change possible by first making understanding possible. What I see today is different. It's art that leads with the message. That's more concerned with saying the right things than with being true. That treats the audience as minds to be corrected rather than hearts to be moved. And it doesn't work. People resist being preached to. They resent being lectured. They might go along with it publicly, but privately they're turned off. The very approach that's supposed to advance certain ideas actually generates resistance to those ideas. I think this is a tragedy, because the goals might be worthy.

There might be genuine injustices that need to be addressed. But the method is undermining the goals. The constant moralizing is creating backlash instead of change. If I could give any advice to artists who want to change the world, it would be this. Tell the truth about human experience. Create something beautiful. Trust your audience to draw their own conclusions. That's how art has always changed culture.

That's how it can still change culture. but only if artists remember that their job is to show, not to tell. I've been critical throughout this conversation. I've raised concerns about trends and tactics and consequences. But I want to pause and practice what I've been preaching. I want to extend some empathy to people I've been implicitly criticizing. The people driving what I've been calling woke culture are, for the most part, not bad people. There are people who see injustice in the world and want to fix it.

people who have experiences of marginalization or who've witnessed such experiences in others. People who genuinely believe they're making the world better. That's not nothing. That's admirable. The impulse to care about suffering and want to alleviate it is one of the best impulses humans have. And some of their concerns are legitimate. There are real inequalities in our society. There are systems that don't work fairly for everyone. There are historical wrongs that still have present-day consequences.

It's not wrong to want to address these things. It's not wrong to be impatient about it. What I've been questioning isn't the goals. It's the methods. It's the certainty. It's the unwillingness to consider trade-offs or acknowledge complexity. It's the tendency to treat disagreement as evidence of evil, rather than as an invitation to dialogue.

People who are passionate about causes often express that passion in ways that can seem extreme. That's always been true. The abolitionists seemed extreme to their contemporaries. The suffragettes seemed extreme. The civil rights activists seemed extreme. History often vindicates what the present condemns. So I try to hold my criticism lightly. I try to remember that I might be wrong.

I try to stay open to the possibility that what looks like excess to me might actually be necessary pressure for change. That doesn't mean abandoning my concerns. It doesn't mean going silent about tactics I think are counterproductive. But it means expressing those concerns with humility, with the recognition that I'm seeing things from a limited perspective, with openness to being corrected. That's what I'm asking of others. And it's what I have to demand of myself. There's a conversation we're not having as a society. And I think until we have it, nothing is going to get

better. The conversation is about tradeoffs. Every choice has tradeoffs. Every policy has costs as well as benefits. Every value we prioritize means another value we're deprioritizing. This is just how the world works. But our current cultural discourse doesn't acknowledge trade-offs. Everything is treated as if the right answer is obvious, as if the only thing preventing progress is bad people with bad motives standing in the way, as if anyone who raises concerns about costs or unintended consequences is just making excuses for injustice. This is childish. It's intellectually dishonest, and it prevents us from having the serious conversations we need to have. Take free speech, for example.

There's a genuine tension between free speech and protection from harassment. Both are legitimate values. Both have something to be said for them, and there's no way to maximize both at the same time. At some point, you have to decide which one matters more in a particular context. That's a real conversation. A hard conversation. a conversation where reasonable people can disagree. But we're not having that conversation.

Instead, one side acts like free speech is the only value that matters and any limit is tyranny. And the other side acts like protection from harm is the only value that matters, and any speech that makes someone uncomfortable is violence. Both of those positions are absurd. Both of them refuse to engage with the genuine complexity of the issue. Both of them substitute slogans for thinking. I want to have real conversations about these things. Conversations that acknowledge trade-offs.

Conversations where people are allowed to disagree about how to balance competing values. Conversations where raising concerns isn't automatically treated as evidence of bad faith. But that requires something we seem to have lost. Humility. The recognition that you might not have all the answers. That the people who disagree with you might have a point. That complicated problems don't have simple solutions. Until we recover that humility, I don't see how things get better.

I want to share something personal here, because I think it's important to be honest about my own journey through all this. I haven't always handled these cultural shifts well. There have been times when I've been dismissive. Times when I've let frustration turn into anger. Times when I've been less generous in my interpretations than I should have been. And there have been times when I've been afraid to speak up. Times when I've said the expected thing instead of the true thing.

times when I've played along with something I disagreed with because the cost of dissent seemed too high. I'm not proud of either tendency. The dismissiveness is a failure of empathy. The silence is a failure of courage. And I think a lot of people share this experience. We're all navigating this strange new landscape as best we can, and we don't always get it right. What I've tried to do is find a middle path. To remain open to ideas even when they're expressed in ways I find alienating.

to speak my mind even when it's uncomfortable, while trying to do so with kindness and humility, to resist both the temptation to dismiss everything new and the temptation to accept everything uncritically. It's not easy. Some days I fail, but I think it's the only way to maintain integrity while also remaining engaged with the world as it actually is. Before I close, I want to acknowledge something. The exhaustion is real. I think most people, regardless of their politics, are tired. Tired of the constant conflict. Tired of every issue becoming a flashpoint.

Tired of having to navigate an endless minefield of potential offenses. Tired of being judged. Tired of judging. This exhaustion isn't a sign of apathy. It's a sign that something's wrong. Humans aren't built for permanent combat. We're not designed to be angry all the time. We need rest.

We need peace. We need spaces where we can just be human beings together without everything being loaded with significance. The fact that people are exhausted tells me that this current moment isn't sustainable. Something's going to give. Either the culture is going to change or people are going to check out entirely.

And neither option is particularly appealing. I think about what that means. What happens when people get so tired of the culture war that they just stop participating? Stop watching the news. stop engaging with politics, stop caring about things they used to care about. In some ways, that might be healthy. Disengagement from the toxic aspects of our discourse might be exactly what people need.

A return to focusing on what's immediate and personal and within your control. But in other ways, it's dangerous, because the problems don't go away just because people stop paying attention. And when regular people check out, the extremes fill the vacuum. The people who aren't exhausted because they feed on conflict end up dominating the conversation. So where do we go from here? What's the path out of this mess? I don't have all the answers. Anyone who says they do is selling something. But I have some thoughts. First, I think we need to rediscover nuance. To resist the pressure to have opinions about everything and to express those opinions in the most extreme possible terms. To be comfortable saying, I don't know, or I see merit,

on both sides, or this is complicated. I also think we need to rebuild spaces for genuine conversation, not debate, where the goal is to win, not discussion, where everyone performs their predetermined positions. But conversation, where people actually listen to each other and remain open to changing their minds, I think we need to be more forgiving, of others and of ourselves. People are going to say dumb things.

They're going to express themselves poorly, They're going to have blind spots and make mistakes. That doesn't make them evil. It makes them human. And if we want others to extend grace to us, we need to extend it to them. I think we need to reclaim some space for things that aren't political. To protect some aren't aren't aren't of life from the culture war. To agree that certain spaces will be about connection rather than conflict,

enjoyment rather than engagement, rest rather than resistance. I think we need to get off our screens more. To have conversations in person, where tone and context are harder to miss. To engage with our actual communities rather than abstract online tribes. To remember that the world is bigger and more complicated than social media makes it seem. Finally, I think we need to assume good faith more often. To believe that people who disagree with us are mostly sincere, rather than malicious. To engage with the strongest version of opposing arguments rather than the weakest.

to treat each other as potential allies in the shared project of making a better world, even when we disagree about how to do it. None of this is easy. All of it goes against the grain of the current culture, but I think it's necessary, because the alternative is more division, more hostility, more exhaustion.

And I don't think any of us really want that. I started this conversation with a simple question. When's the last time you just enjoyed something? I want to end with a related question. question. When's the last time you really listened to someone you disagreed with? Not to refute them. Not to find the flaws in their argument. Not to score points. Just to understand. To see the world through their eyes for a moment. To grasp why they believe what they believe and feel what they feel. That kind of listening is hard. It requires putting aside your own certainties. It requires

being vulnerable to the possibility that you might learn something. It requires treating the other person as a full human being rather than a representative of some deplorable category. But I think it's the only thing that's going to save us. Not better arguments. Not louder voices. Not more effective tactics. Just the simple act of listening to each other. Because here's what I've learned. Most people aren't monsters. Most people have reasons for their beliefs. Most people are doing their best with the information they have and the experiences that have shaped them. When you actually listen to them, that becomes clear. The person you were ready to hate turns out to be more complicated than you thought.

The position you were ready to dismiss turns out to have more nuance than you assumed. The enemy turns out to be a potential friend you just hadn't gotten to know yet. I'm not saying this solves everything. Some disagreements are real. Some differences are deep. Some conflicts can't be talked away. But I think we'd be surprised. how many of our conflicts are actually misunderstandings.

How many of our enemies are actually people we've never really listened to? How much of our division comes from assumption rather than actual incompatibility. So that's my challenge. To you and to myself. Listen more. Judge less. Assume good faith until you have real reason not to. Give people the chance to be more than your assumptions about them.

It's small. It's humble. It won't change the world over now. night, but it might change your world. And if enough people do it, who knows what might be possible. I still have hope. I know the situation seems dire sometimes. The divisions seem unbridgeable. The hostility seems permanent. The culture seems irreparably fragmented. But I've lived long enough to see things change. To see moments that felt permanent turn out to be temporary. To see problems that seemed unsolvable eventually get solved. To see people who seemed hopelessly divided find ways

to come together. Human beings are resilient. Societies are resilient. And underneath all the noise and conflict, I think most people want the same basic things. Safety, connection, purpose, joy. We just disagree about how to get there. And disagreement isn't the end of the world. It's the beginning of conversation. I don't know exactly what the future holds. I don't know if the cultural pendulum will swing back or if this is the new normal. I don't know if we'll figure out how to live together or if the divisions will deepen, but I know that I'm going to keep trying. Keep listening. Keep speaking.

Keep looking for common ground even when it seems like there isn't any. Keep believing that understanding is possible even when it's hard. Because that's what I think we're called to do. Not to retreat into our tribes and harden our hearts against those who are different. But to keep reaching out, keep engaging, keep holding on to the possibility that we can be better than our worst impulses. That's not naive. That's human.

That's what people have always done throughout history, in times far darker than this one. Found ways to connect despite their differences. Built bridges across seemingly impassable divides. Created something better out of the raw material of their conflicts. We can do it again. We have to do it again. because the alternative is unacceptable.

You know what? I think about that Grammy broadcast, and I realized something. Despite my frustration, there were moments of genuine beauty, artists performing songs that moved me, collaborations I didn't expect, flashes of the magic that drew me to music in the first place.

It wasn't all political statements. It wasn't all posturing. There was real artistry happening too. Real talent. Real creativity. Real connection. Maybe that's what I need to focus on. Not the parts that frustrated me,

but the parts that reminded me why I love music. Not the speeches, but the songs. Not the messaging, but the music. Because here's the truth. Despite everything I've said about the culture, despite all my concerns about the direction we're heading, beauty still exists, joy still exists,

things worth celebrating still exist, and maybe the best response to a culture that seems to be fracturing isn't to fracture along with it. Maybe it's to hold on to the things that bring us together, to cherish the experiences that transcend our divisions, to create and support art that speaks to what we share, rather than what separates us. That's what I'm going to try to do.

Watch the performances and tune out the speeches. Listen to the music and ignore the messaging. Find the moments of genuine connection and let the rest wash over me. It's not a perfect solution. It doesn't address the underlying problems, but it might be a way to stay sane while we figure out the bigger questions. And maybe that's enough for now. Maybe that's all any of us can do.

Take care of our own hearts. Tend to our own relationships. Create our own spaces of sanity and connection. And trust that if enough people do that, the larger culture will eventually follow. That might be optimistic, but I'd rather be optimistic than cynical. I'd rather believe in the possibility of change than resign myself to permanent division. I'd rather light a candle than curse the darkness. So that's what I'll do.

That's what I invite you to do. Not to give up on the culture, but to take responsibility for your own corner of it. Not to wait for things to get better, but to make things better where you can. It's small. It's humble. But it's something. And in times like these, something is better than nothing. Here's something I think about as someone who spends a lot of time studying history. We're not just living through this moment.

We're making history right now, every day. And someday, people will look back at this era and try to make sense of it. They'll study the cultural shifts we're experiencing. They'll analyze the divisions we're living through. They'll try to understand how we got here and what we did about it. What will they see? I hope they see people who tried, people who struggled with difficult questions and didn't always get the answers right, but kept asking the questions anyway. People who cared about justice and

truth and connection, even when those values sometimes seem to be in tension with each other. I hope they see a generation that eventually figured it out, that found ways to address real injustices without creating new ones, that learned to have hard conversations without tearing each other apart, that remembered how to enjoy things together despite their differences. I don't know if that's what they'll see. Maybe they'll see a society that couldn't hold itself together. A culture that fragmented into warring tribes that forgot they were all part of the same human family. A people who lost the ability to talk to each other and paid the price for that loss.

But here's the thing about history. It's not written yet. We're writing it right now. With every choice we make. With every conversation we have. With every time we choose connection over conflict or conflict over connection. That's a heavy responsibility. But it's also an opportunity, because it means the future isn't determined. It means what we do

matters. It means we still have a chance to get this right. I believe that. I have to believe that because the alternative is despair. And despair doesn't solve problems. It just makes them worse. So I choose hope, not naive hope that ignores problems, but active hope that engages with problems while believing they can be solved. Hope that does the work of building bridges even when those bridges keep getting burned. Hope that refuses to give up on the possibility of a better future. That's the kind of hope that changes history.

And that's the kind of hope I'm trying to practice. Let me share a few things I've learned from thinking about all of this. From having conversations, from paying attention to what's happening around me. I've learned that most people are more nuanced than the labels we put on them. The person you think is a woke warrior probably has doubts and questions they don't express publicly.

The person you think is a reactionary bigot probably has legitimate concerns mixed in with whatever else you disagree with. People are complicated. They don't fit neatly into boxes. And when we treat them like they do, we miss opportunities for understanding. I've learned that fear drives a lot of what looks like conviction. People who seem most certain about their positions are often the most afraid of being worried. wrong. People who attack most aggressively are often the most offensive. When you see someone being rigid and aggressive, you might be seeing someone who's scared. That doesn't excuse bad behavior, but it might help explain it. I've learned that everyone thinks they're the good guy. Nobody wakes up in

the morning planning to be a villain. The people you disagree with most strongly believe they're fighting for what's right. They have a story in their heads where they're the hero. Understanding that story, even if you think it's wrong, is essential for having any kind of productive conversation. I've learned that changing minds is slow work. Nobody changes their worldview because of a clever argument or a devastating comeback. Change happens slowly, through relationships, through exposure to different perspectives, through experiences that don't fit the existing narrative. If you want to change someone's mind, you have to be patient, and you have to genuinely care about them as a person, not.

just as a mind to be changed. I've learned that I'm part of the problem too. It's easy to point fingers at others. It's harder to notice the ways I contribute to the very dynamics I'm criticizing. The times I've been dismissive. The times I've assumed the worst. The times I've retreated into my own tribe instead of reaching out. I'm not innocent. Nobody is. And acknowledging that is the first step toward being part of the solution. I've learned that connection is more important than agreement. I have friends I disagree with about almost everything political. But we're still friends because we've found other things to connect over. And those friendships have taught me more than any argument ever could. They've shown me that it's possible to hold different views and still see each

other's humanity. That's valuable. That's worth protecting. That's what we need more of. And I've learned that hope is a choice. It's not something that happens to you because circumstances are hopeful. It's something you decide to practice even when circumstances seem hopeless, because that's when hope matters most. So here's my invitation to you, and I mean this sincerely. Think about someone in your life who you disagree with, someone whose views frustrate you or confuse you, or make you angry, someone you've maybe written off as beyond hope or not worth engaging with, and consider reaching out to them, not to argue, not to change their mind, just to listen, just to understand. Just to remember that behind those views you disagree with is a human being with a story

and experiences and fears and hopes that you might not know about. You might be surprised what happens. Maybe nothing changes. Maybe you still disagree. Maybe you even disagree more after hearing them out. That's okay. The point isn't to achieve agreement. The point is to practice the kind of listening that makes agreement possible, even if it doesn't happen this time. Or maybe something does change. Maybe you learn something you didn't know. Maybe you discover some common ground you didn't expect. Maybe you find that the person you thought was your enemy is actually just someone you haven't understood yet. Either way, you'll have done something important. You'll have resisted the pull toward division. You'll have practiced the kind of engagement that builds bridges instead of walls. You'll have

been part of the solution instead of part of the problem. And if enough people do that, if enough of us choose listening over judging, understanding over dismissing, connection over combat, then maybe the culture starts to shift. Maybe the temperature starts to come down. Maybe we start to remember that we're all in this together, even when we disagree about almost everything else. That's the hope I'm holding on to. That's the future I'm working toward, and I'm inviting you to join me. Not because have all the answers. I've made that clear throughout this conversation. I don't have all the answers. I have questions. I have concerns. I have hopes. But I don't have certainty about much of anything. What I have is a commitment, a commitment to keep engaging, to keep listening, to keep trying to

understand people I disagree with, to keep looking for common ground even when it seems like there isn't any. That's what I'm inviting you to share, not my conclusions, but my commitment, the commitment to stay in conversation, to resist the easy certainties on both sides, to hold on to the possibility that we can figure this out together, because I really believe we can. I really believe that underneath all the division and hostility, there's a shared humanity waiting to be rediscovered. I really believe that most people are good, that most disagreements are solvable, that most conflicts are misunderstandings waiting to be resolved. Maybe that's naive.

Maybe I'm wrong. But I'd rather be wrong about that than be right about the alternative. I'd rather spend my life working toward connection and fail than spend it resigned to permanent division. That's where I am. That's what I believe. And that's what I'm inviting you to consider. Thanks for listening.

Thanks for staying with me through all of that. I know it was a lot. I know some of it might have been uncomfortable. but I think these conversations matter, and I appreciate you being willing to have them. Until next time, take care of yourselves, take care of each other, and don't forget to just enjoy something today,

without politics, without agendas, just for the simple pleasure of it. You deserve that. We all do.