Rev Left Radio - The Philosophy of Stoicism w/ Massimo Pigliucci

Episode Date: August 7, 2021

In this episode, Breht is joined by philosopher Massimo Pigliucci to discuss the philosophy of stoicism. In the second half we open up the conversation and discuss politics, the European right, Massimo's application of stoicism to the climate crisis, and more.  Discover more of Massimo's work here: https://figsinwinter.blog Outro Music: "La Vie En Rose" by Aviva Le Fey ----- Support Rev Left Radio: https://www.patreon.com/RevLeftRadio or make a one time donation: PayPal.me/revleft LEARN MORE ABOUT REV LEFT RADIO: www.revolutionaryleftradio.com

Hello everybody and welcome back to Rev Left Radio. On today's episode, I have on philosopher Massimo Piliuchi to talk primarily about stoicism. But at the end of the conversation, we open it up to a broad discussion on politics, his political leanings, climate change, similarities and differences between the European and the American right wing, etc. So it's a really fascinating conversation with somebody whose work I've followed for many, many years. As I was sort of growing into my intellectual adulthood, I would listen to Massimo's podcast, rationally speaking, early on. And I got a lot out of it, and I've followed his career ever since. I've recently listened to his great courses on Audible on the topic of Stoicism and got a lot out of that as well. So today's discussion will be primarily focused on introducing listeners to stoicism, and then it'll open up into a broader discussion of politics, climate change, etc.

So I'm really excited to share this interview, and here it is. My interview with Massimo Piliucci on stoicism and more. Enjoy. Hi, I'm Massimo Pellucci, a professor of philosophy at the City College of New York. Yeah, Massimo, thank you so much for coming on the show today. I've actually been a big fan of yours for a long time. I think I was introduced to you in, I think, 2010, when I was a dishwasher at a pizza place, I would listen to a rationally speaking podcast, like every shift. Oh, nice.

So it's kind of surreal to be talking to you today. A big fan of your work, and you're the perfect person to have on to talk about Stoicism, and then we'll get into some politics and climate change stuff later on in the episode. But yeah, so thank you so much for coming on, and today's episode, as listeners may know, is going to be primarily focused about on Stoicism, but we'll move on from there in a bit. I've been a long time fan of and had a lot of interest in Stoicism. I come more out of a Buddhist tradition, which maybe we can get into, but the similarities have always been striking to me.

But first and foremost, I guess maybe a way to enter this conversation and for people that might not be super familiar with it. What is Stoicism, broadly speaking, and how did you personally become interested in it? Well, broadly speaking, Stoicism is a philosophy of life that teaches us that what's important in life is to be pro-social and use our brain, basically. So the Stoics believe that the two fundamental aspects of humanity, of human beings that differentiate us from other species is that we're capable of sophisticated reasoning.

That's how we solve our problems and that we are highly social. That's how we thrive. So from that, it follows, according to Stoic philosophy, that a good human life is one in which you use your brain to solve problems, and particularly to solve problems that have to do or to improve the situation at a lot. a social level. How I got into this? Well, a few years ago, I was going through a mild midlife crisis, and a few things happened that I wasn't expecting or that I had a little bit of trouble dealing with, like my father dying, for instance. And I reached out to what at the time I considered my philosophy of life, which was psycho-humanism, and I found it wanting. I mean, Psycho-humanism has a lot of interesting ideas.

I'm all on board with things like universal human rights and justice and rational thinking and all that sort of stuff. But it really wasn't that helpful when it came to actually dealing with the natural setbacks that you encounter in life. And so I decided, well, I'm a philosopher. Let me look around. Let me see what's available out there that might actually be helpful and not just sound good. in theory. So I spent some time exploring a number of philosophies of life, including Buddhism and several Western philosophies that fall into the general category of virtuetics. And none of them clicked. I mean, I found value in all of them, but none of them, I didn't

start reading something about Buddhism or Aristotle or Epicureus and say, oh, yeah, that's it. This is the way I want to live. And then one day, I was on. Twitter of all places, and I saw this thing that said, help us celebrate Stoic week. And I said, what the hell is Stoic week? And why would anybody want to celebrate the Stoics? And then I remember, it's like, wait a minute, the Stoics, oh, yeah, those are, you know, include Marcus Aurelius. And I read the meditations when I was in college, and I liked it.

I thought it was interesting. They also include, you know, Seneca. And when I was in high school in Italy, I translated Seneca from Latin, and he was interesting as well. So I said, maybe this is time to take a second look at Stoicism. Although at time, of course, I was still under the misconception that Stoics are kind of Mr. Spark from Star Trek, right? Going around with a stiff upper lip and suppressing emotions. So I looked into it and the first stoic that I read about was Epictetus, who was a early second century stoic philosopher with a very interesting life. He studied out as a slave. In fact,

his name, Epictetus, means acquired. And then he was freed. He studied philosophy. He established a school in Rome. He was kicked out by the emperor of the mission because he was speaking truth to power, which is something that emperors usually don't like. He moved to Nicopolis in northwestern Greece, reestablished his school, which became one of the most famous and sought after school of the only part of the

second century. So I said, wow, this guy is interesting. And then I started reading Epitios. And as soon as I did, it's like he. I heard the click in my mind. It's like, wait a minute, this guy makes a lot of sense. It talks in a very plain, easy to understand fashion, uses a sense of humor bordering on sarcasm when he talks to his students. This is my guy.

Here we are. Many years later, still talking about it. Wonderful. Yeah, and you mentioned Marcus Aurelius, Seneca, Epictetus. Can you talk just briefly about how Stoicism, like, historically arose as a specific school of thought like what era does it come from and what was the sort of milieu it came out of yeah the story of the beginning of stoism is kind of interesting in and of itself so there was this guy where in around the year a little bit before the year 300 bcc so at the end of the 4th century

before the modern era and this guy named zino of sitium was a merchant cytium is modern day cyprus and he was at sea with a ship and a lot of cargo and then he goes through a shipwreck, you know, there's a storm, and he loses everything. He survives the shipwreck and arrives in Athens. And, of course, what would be the first thing you would do if you survive, let's say, something like a plane crash? Of course, you walk into a bookstore. That's the first thing that comes to mind, which is what Zeno did. And when it was in the bookstore, he heard the owner of the bookstore reading out loud the memorabilia by Xenophon.

memorabilia is a biography. It's kind of a philosophical biography of Socrates. And so Zeno turns to the bookseller and says, where can I find me one of these people, meaning a philosopher? And of course, this being Athens in the Hellenistic period, the bookseller says, oh, look, there is one just outside the door walking by right now. Just follow that guy. That guy turned out to be critics of Thieves,

He's one of the most prominent scenic philosophers in ancient Athens. Zeno follows him. He starts studying with him. Then he studies with several other schools and philosophers, including Plato's Academy. And at some point, he felt confident enough. You know, it's like going around and teaching himself. And at that point, he made a crucial move. So you have to keep in mind that most of the ancient schools in Athens were kind of private places.

Plato's Academy was outside of town. You had to get there by horseback or, you know, long walk. Epicure's Gardens was also outside of town, although on the opposite side from Athens, Aristotle's Lyceum also was out of town. In other words, these were all places where you had to be invited. You didn't just stumble on. Zeno, on the other hand, decides, you know what, I'm going to teach philosophy right in the middle of the marketplace where everybody is. So he picked a place called the Stoa Poikile, which means the painted porch, and it was right outside of the Agora, the main market in Athens, and he started teaching philosophy there to whoever was around and wanted to listen, ask questions, have conversations, that sort of stuff.

And that's why the philosophy that resulted from this is called Stoicism, because it started at a Stoia. It really took off very quickly. It became, it was important in Rome during the period of the Republic, and then during the empire, it really exploded with, basically became one of the two dominant philosophies of the ancient world, the other one being Epicureanism. Then, of course, it died out like every other Hellenistic philosophy because of the rise of Christianity. You know, partly because Christianity was, in fact, much more popular than the classical philosophies. Also part of the reason was, of course, that the Christians, once a day controlled the Roman army, started shutting down everybody else, you know, burning temples and closing schools and stuff like that. So all of the linguistic schools kind of disappeared.

But Stoism had a lasting impact for the last, you know, 2,000 years because, first of all, it was a lot of elements of stoicism became absorbed into Christianity. All the major Christian writers from Paula Tarsus to Augustine of Hippo to Thomas Aquinas, all of them engaged with stoicism because they thought that several stoic ideas are very much worthwhile and they need to be, they need to be incorporated into Christianity. So that means that throughout the Middle Ages and then into the Renaissance, Stoicism had an impact on Christianity. Christianity itself. And then it re-emerged during the Renaissance, in the form of neo-stoicism,

which was a approach that was started by people like Justus Lipsius and Michel de Montaigne and things like that. And the main idea was to reconcile Christianity and Stoicism, to make them work together, essentially. That didn't work very much for a long time because the Christian authorities, of course, immediately shut the whole thing down as a heresy. But that still meant that Stoism had reemerged. And once they reemerged and there in a sense, it kind of never went away because several modern early philosophers were influenced by the Stoic philosophy, including René Descartes and most importantly, Bahrake Spinoza, arguably one of the most important early philosophers. and even Immanuel Kant, who is arguably the most important, early modern philosopher. And then now we are almost in modern times. Stoicism kind of re-emerged all of a sudden in the 90s and early 2000s

because of the work of several scholars who were interested in bringing philosophy, practical philosophy to the general public. Pierre Ha-Doh in France, Lawrence Baker in the United States, and then the group that is referred to as modern stoicism, which is the group that organizes the very same stoic week that got me into this thing in the first place. Yeah, absolutely fascinating, historical little ride there. And, you know, something to be said for Stoicism's flexibility and its ability to be adopted into or taken up by, you know, people from different schools of thought, specifically Christianity,

but many more. And my introduction to Stoicism mostly came initially through. Michelle de Montaigne, who I got really into in my early 20s. And so that sort of sparked my interest. And here on Rev Left, we just did and are continuing to do a sub-series on Spinoza himself. So

it's very interesting that, you know, think about Spinoza's ideas in relation to Stoicism. It makes, you know, a lot of sense. I guess the next question would be to continue to introduce people to Stoicism. What are some of the core teachings, the main ideas of Stoicism? And

importantly, what can it offer to regular people living their everyday lives. Yeah, good questions. So Stoism is based on one core idea that then gets developed into a number of practices. The core idea is that, as the ancient Stoics put it, we should live according to nature. Now, living according to nature doesn't mean, you know, getting negative and running into the woods and hugging trees, although there's nothing wrong with that. what it is, as I was mentioning earlier, is taking human nature seriously and therefore figuring

out what kind of life is a good life for a human being. Essentially, Stoicism is one example of, among many, of what it's called ethical naturalism. The notion that ethics is, on the one hand, a human creation, that is, it doesn't exist out there. It's not like, there's no such thing as moral laws in the same way in which there are natural laws. because ethics is a creation of human beings. But at the same time, it's not an arbitrary creation. You know, it's not a relativistic philosophy. It's not that anything goes.

Why is that? Well, because human nature constraints what is good and what is not good for human beings. So if you understand the nature of humanity, then you understand what it means to be a human being as opposed to being a chimpanzee, a lion, or a cactus. Then you understand that, you know, human beings need certain things and want certain things.

and therefore a good life for a human being involves, you know, staying away from, you know, pain and suffering and enjoying pleasures and using, as I was saying earlier, our mind to socialize in the best way possible and so on and so forth. So that's the fundamental, the basic idea of stories, we should live according to nature. Now, the way they cash it out is according to a couple of basic principles that are very practical. one of them is the four cardinal virtues. Stoics recognize a number of virtues. Virtues are character traits or behavioral tendencies, right? So if you're generous, for instance, that means that other things being equal. You tend to do generous things.

If you are nasty, then it means that other things being equal, you tend to be nasty to other people and so on and so forth. So there are biases and virtues. The Stoics think that four of these virtues are particularly important, and those are practical wisdom, courage, justice, and temperance. Practical wisdom is the knowledge of what is good and bad for you. So what is it that makes your life good or your life bad? Courage is the courage to do things in the moral sphere, even if it costs you something, even if it is, you know, if it comes with setbacks or limit. mutations. Justice is the notion that we should treat other people with fairness and respect the way in which we would like to be treated. And temperance is the notion that we should do

things in good measure. Now, how does that apply to everyday life? Well, let's say, for instance, that, you know, tomorrow I go back to work and I stumble in a situation where my boss is harassing a co-worker. And the question is, what should I do? Should I intervene? So I mentally consult the four virtues. Practical wisdom tells me that what is good for me is what makes my character better, and what is bad for me is what undermines my character. Intervening in a situation to help other people is good for my character, so I should do it. Does it take courage?

Yes, because it's my boss, so there might be retaliation at some point at some level or another. Is it a just thing to do? Yes, because my co-worker, presumably, if I were in the same situation as my co-worker, I would like somebody to step in and, you know, help out and try to diffuse the situation. So I should do it with respect to my co-work. And finally, temperance tells me how to actually intervene. On the one hand, I don't want to do too little. I don't want to just mumble something under my breath so that my boss doesn't actually hear me because that doesn't do anything. But at the opposite extreme, I don't want to jump in

start punching it on the nose because that's not the kind of situation that requires violence or anything like that. So temperance tells me, okay, the way to intervene here is to step in, say something, you know, moderate but very audible tone of voice, try to calm things down, et cetera, et cetera. So the notion, therefore, is that we should always go around in life with the four cardinal virtues in mind and use them as a kind of a moral compass. You know, You consult them, you say, okay, so given this situation, what do the four virtues tell me that I should do? And the idea, of course, is that the more you do this, the more you practice living according to the four virtues, the more it becomes automatic. It's not like you actually have to, you know, literally go through the mental process that I just explained.

It's kind of like learning to ride a car, to drive a car. So initially, you have to pay attention consciously to everything. because you don't know what you're doing. But the more you drive, the more your brain kind of becomes incorporating these things as habits. And so you don't have to consciously think about hitting the break if you see somebody all of a sudden crossing the road. You just go for the break and hit it.

So it's the same idea with moral training. In fact, Epictetus, the guy that I mentioned earlier on, the second century stoic philosopher, said that one major goal of story training is to automate these kind of judgment. First, we want to think carefully and deliberately about things. But once you start practicing, these judgments should be automatic. They should come to you immediately as soon as you need them. The second very practical aspect of Stoicism is something called the dichotomy of control. Again, Epictetus says at the beginning of one of the two books that attributed to him,

which were actually written by one of his students. But for short, let's say that there are his books. One of the two books from Epitios is the Encaridion. And at the beginning of the Encaridion, he says that some things are up to us and other things are not up to us. And then it tells us to focus on the first group, on the things that are up to us, and to develop an attitude of equanimity toward the second group,

the things that are not up to us. And that's the key to a happy life, according to Epicelius. Now, this sentiment may sound familiar because it pops up in a number of other cultures. I found it at least in 8th century Buddhism, 11th century Judaism, and 20th century Christianity. Particularly, maybe some of your listeners are familiar with the serenity prayer, which is usually recited at the beginning of meetings of 12-step organizations like Alcoholic Anonymous. Now, the serenity prayer asks God to give us the, wisdom to tell the difference between what we can change and what we cannot change,

the courage to change what we can, and the serenity to accept what we cannot. Well, that's basically the dichotomy of control. That is the stoic approach to a good life. Focus where your agency is maximized. Try to make a difference both in your life and in the lives of others where you can act. And then the rest, ignore it. because you can't do anything about it anyway. So why are you going to worry about stuff that you cannot act on?

You need to just develop the notion that accept the notion that as an adult, you understand that in life some things go your way and other things don't go your way. And you don't throw a tantrum just because things don't go your way. You say, oh, okay, this time it didn't go my way. Next time, better luck. Again, I can give you a practical example. So suppose you are up for a job interview, for instance. And it comes normal, natural to people to focus on exactly the wrong thing from a stoic perspective

that is on the outcome of the interview, right? I want the job. We like that the job, that sort of stuff. But epithitos would say, but that's outside of your control. You can influence it, of course. You mean, you're working toward the interview in the interview to get the job. But ultimately, that's not your decision. This is the decision of whoever is doing.

doing the interview. It depends on a number of factors, including your competition, which is also outside of your control, all that sort of stuff. So the question is, what is under my control? Well, to put together the best resume possible, in order that I qualify for the job, to prepare myself as much as I can for the interview, to show up on time for the interview, if it is in person or on Zoom, to dress appropriately for the interview, not to go out drinking with my friends the night before because otherwise I don't get enough sleep and then I go to the interview messed up and I'm not going to do a good job. No, all those things are up to me. So our focus should be on those things because those are really under my control. And then,

however, I should also tell myself from the beginning that, hey, it's possible that even though I'm going to do my best, I will not get the job. And I have to be okay with it because it's not up to me. It's not under my control. Yeah, I absolutely love that. And the dichotomy of control, said pops up in many different schools of thought has been incredibly helpful for me wrestling with anxiety or just dealing with the ups and downs of life more broadly. In Buddhism there's that same sort of thrust of the basic idea of things you do have control over things you don't and how trying to impose control where none can possibly exist is a very common way that humans create suffering for themselves in a million little small ways as well as bigger and more obvious

ways. Before we move on to talk about virtue ethics and then Buddhism, specifically that automaticity aspect you mentioned, I think, is really interesting with both Buddhism and virtue ethics, and we'll get to that in a second. But just the practicality of stoicism, you've talked a little bit, certainly about the dichotomy of control and these wisdom, courage, justice, and temperance. One of the things that intrigued me about it and continues to intrigue me about it is dealing with emotional turmoil, right? Feelings of of rage or jealousy or despair, depression. What has Stoicism offered you in that regard? And what can it offer other people in that regard specifically? Yeah, the Stoics had an interesting

theory of human psychology in general and moral psychology in particular. And it's a theory that actually is remarkably resilient in terms of in the face of modern science. I mean, non-in-science, of course, has a much broader empirical base for its findings. But nevertheless, there is a reason why stoicism influenced, for instance, cognitive behavioral therapy, which is one of the most successful types of evidence-based therapy that we have today. A lot of stoic psychology actually works at the level in which it's supposed to be applied. So what the Stoics thought was that the emotions, you know, we often talk about emotions as if they were separate from reason.

Certainly that's the platonic approach to things, or even. in the Freudian approach to things. But the Stoics are like, no, that's nonsense. The emotions are a type of cognition. It's all one thing. You reason and you emote using the same brain, the same mind, the same basic equipment, biological equipment that we have, which means that you can literally talk to your emotions and modulate them, try to modulate them over time, by examining the basis for those emotions.

So, for instance, let's take anger. Right. So what Seneca, who wrote an entire book called On Anger, calls the first movement of anger is unavoidable. And you cannot suppress it. You cannot avoid it. You cannot do anything about it. So it's when, you know, that feeling when you begin to feel that you're getting angry, right? That's sort of the physiological reaction, which we today know is the result of a flood of hormones caused by the amygdala, one of the regions at the pace of the brain. And he says, you know, there's nothing you can do about it. Just observe it because it's telling you that there may be something wrong, right? You're getting angry for a reason.

However, the Stoics say, then before you start acting on the basis of that anger, you should inquire on what is the reason and what is the best way to go about it. Because you could be mistaken. You could be angry for the wrong reason, for one thing. Like, for instance, you might get angry because. your child is throwing a tantrum. Well, there is no sense in getting angry at a child because the child doesn't know what he's doing. He's just behaving like a child.

So why are you getting angry? If you realize that that's the case, then that can help you moderate your anger and not, especially not act on the basis of anger. In other cases, anger might be appropriate, like there has been an injustice that's been done to either you or other people. So it is, in fact, an understanding.

reaction to be angry. However, according to the Stoics, it is never a good idea to actually act on the basis of that anger. Why? Because anger is one of those emotions that the Stoics classified as unhealthy. And the definition of an unhealthy emotion is that it interferes and even overrides your thinking ability. You don't think clearly when you're angry, which means that you're more likely than not to act in a rush way and in a way that you're going be regretting. The classic example that the Stoics had of this kind of behavior was Medea. Medea was a mythological figure. We find it in a tragedy by Euripides, and actually Seneca wrote another version of Medea. And she was a barbarian, meaning a non-Greek princess who helped Jason

the Argonaut to steal the golden fleece. And Jason promised her that when they would get back to Greece. He would marry her. And they actually had two children. Now, they get back to Greece and guess what? Jason says, you know, on second thoughts, you're just a barbarian. I can't, I can't marry a barbarian. I have to go with a Greek princess. And so he lives. Medea, understandably, gets really angry, right? There's an injustice has been done to her. I mean, she has left her country, betrayed her father, as it turns out, in order to help Jason. And this guy makes a problem. And this guy makes a And then as soon as he's out of, you know, the dire straits, it completely changes his mind. So her anger is justified.

What she does after is not because she acts on the basis of that anger. And what she does is she kills the princess, the Greek princess, and her father. And she kills her own two children. I hope we would say that that is not the right reaction, right? That is not the kind of thing you want to do. But it is the kind of thing that anger can lead you to do if it goes out, you know, if it's unbridled, if it takes control of your mind unbridled. So the Stoics basically say that, look, we have two sets, broadly speaking, two categories of emotional responses. Some are healthy, some are unhealthy.

The healthy ones are the ones that are in agreement with reason, and the unhealthy ones are the ones that are not in agreement with reason. So anger, hatred, fear are not in agreement with reason, meaning that they override your ability or interfere with your ability to think straight. And on the other hand, love and sense of joy and a sense of justice are in agreement with reason. And so those should be cultivated. So it's not true contra the standard stereotype that Stoics try to suppress emotions. But it is true that they try to modulate the emotional spectrum. of, you know, that comes natural to human beings and try to move away as much as possible

from the kinds of emotions that might lead you to act in ways that you're going to regret and mindfully, actively cultivating emotions that on the other hand are good for you and good for other people. Yeah, it's incredibly interesting. And that idea of cultivating a sort of observational distance to one's own emotions as they arise and getting good at practicing that sort of allows some space between the arising of the emotion and any actions that would otherwise be taken on behalf of that emotion. And in that space, you can meaningfully veto unhealthy or unhelpful actions. And in Buddhism, there's the idea of the three poisons of ill will, greed, and delusion,

and sort of uprooting them through systematic practice. And that's what I kind of want to move to here, because stoicism, like Buddhism, has both a theory as well as a practice. And I'm really curious, and this is an area that I don't know much about, what are some concrete practices that Stoicism offers? Yeah, that's a good question. There are a number of them. In fact, I wrote a book together with my friend Greg Lopez a couple of years ago called A Handbook for New Stoics, where we actually list 52 different exercises if you want to

practice. Stoises depending on what it is that you need to practice and what areas of ethical self-improvement you're particularly interested in. And all these exercises are called from the ancient literature and then updated with information from modern cognitive science, modern behavioral psychology. But let me give you two or three examples of the ones that I find particularly useful. Although, as I said, there are so many that it depends. Like just like in Buddhism, there are different kinds of meditations and there are different

kinds of practices. And some people may need more one than the other or may feel more comfortable practice in one way or the other, the same goes with stoicism. But one of the most fundamental practices that I engage in on a regular basis is the philosophical journaling. Almost every day, every night before going to bed, I take a few minutes. I collect myself. I go into a place in my apartment that is quiet.

And I write down some thoughts about what happened during the day, particularly what happened that had moral salient, what kind of episodes I might have learned something. I learned something from that happened during the day. And I tend to ask myself three questions in each case. What did I do wrong? What did I do right? And what could I do better? And the reasons for asking these questions are the following.

When I ask myself, what did I do wrong? This isn't in order to indulge in self-regret or justize myself or anything. Because the past is outside of our control. The dichotomy of control applies also to past, present, and future. I don't control the past. It's done. Whatever I've done, it's done. But I want to learn from my past.

I want to learn from my mistakes, especially if they're fresh in my mind, if something happened today. Let's say I overreacted to something that my daughter said or one of my colleagues, something like that. Then I make a note of that, okay, that goes into the columns of don't do it again if you can. Then you also want to pay attention to the things that you've done

that were in fact right. work in the right direction. Why is that? On the one hand is because, you know, it's okay to pad yourself on the back. We're human beings. Self-reforcement is a good thing. But more importantly, because now I have two goalposts, right? One, two points of references.

One is the kind of behavior I want to stay away from. The other one is the kind of behavior that I want to cultivate and become more of a habit, become more of a, you know, automatic reaction. So I have, by pay attention, mindfully, you know, running down these things, I reinforce that, hey, I need to stay away from this kind of stuff and I need to actually move in the direction of these other kind of stuff. The third question, what is it that I would do better? That's because, you know, we all like to think of our lives as infinitely varied, but they're not. Most of the times we just do the same things day after day, right? You know, you get up in the morning, go to work, come back home.

And you see your colleagues, you know, your boss, et cetera. You come home and you see your partner, your children during the weekend. You go out and you see your friends. It's, you pretty much do the same things over and over with, you know, some variation, of course, and the occasional novelty. But pretty much our lives are, you know, based on routines. And so the notion is that whatever situation occurred today, let's say, and I, what I did not react in the best,

way, something like that will almost certainly happen again in the future. And now it's the time for me to say, okay, if this happens again, what am I going to do? What is a better way to react to the next time? Because as Seneca says, a prepared mind is a mind that actually is more capable of dealing with, you know, complex situations or difficult situations. So philosophical journaling is one of my favorite practices. There are also physical practices. typically, these take the form of mild exercises in self-deprivation. So things like fasting for a day or two, abstaining from alcohol for an evening or two, not buying something for an entire week other than basic necessities, you know, that sort of stuff.

Now, why would you want to do that sort of stuff? Because the idea is, on the one hand, to remind yourself that a bunch of, of these things are not as important as you think. Like, you know, I'm Italian. I enjoy a glass of wine every night with meal, but I don't want that to become an addiction or a, you know, a habit that I cannot shake. So from time to time, I just have dinner without wine. And I think to myself, see, that's fine.

I can have dinner without wine. It's not a big deal. That's on the one hand. On the other hand, the same exercise is also an exercise in gratitude, right? because it's, hey, if I skip a day or two and I don't eat, then the following night, whatever I put on the table, it tastes really good because you don't, we get in the situations where, you know, we don't appreciate the kind of things that we have on a regular basis. We take them for granted.

And so doing without them for a little bit would actually make you appreciate better just how likely you are that you have meals whenever you want them you have a glass of wine whenever you like it you can buy whatever you need uh at you know when you need it and so on and so forth so doing without some of these things for a little bit uh is is a good reminder of just how lucky you are in uh in life so those are two let me give you just a third sure and that's one of my favorite is the sunrise meditation you find this in marcus aurelius and um although you actually you actually actually predates the Stoics. It actually goes back to the Pythagorians of the 6th century B.C. And this is the notion that the Stoics believe that we are, of course, part and parcel of nature.

We're not outside of nature. We're not exceptions to nature. We're just part of nature. We are embedded in nature in the same way in which we're embedded in human society. And so we are dependent on everybody else on the planet. The Stoics are very cosmopolitan from that perspective. we're also connected to the rest of the cosmos. And from time to time, it's a good idea to remind ourselves of that. Now, there are many different ways you can do that. One of my favorite is the sunrise meditation. From time with my wife, we set the alarm very early in the morning,

and we get up, and we go to a spot where you can see the sunrise with some coffee and on that, and we just stay there and look at the sunrise. Not directly in the sun, of course, as every. everybody should know. But it's a nice experience because it kind of reminds you, it calms you down. It puts things in a broader perspective. Like, you know, this is a, it's going to be yet another day where I'm going to have, you know, to deal with issues at work, to talk to people, to, you know, deal with the occasional

setback, et cetera, et cetera. Yes, but I'm going to start it by looking at my, the connections that I have with the rest of the cosmos. And that calms you down. that makes you appreciate that you're sort of part of a broader unity, not just, you're not just yourself. So those are just three of my favorite exercises. I absolutely love those, and I would highly encourage anybody listening to try and weave, even just those three practices into your daily life and to see, test for yourself the impact that it has, particularly the second one of this

sort of purposeful but moderate deprivation of certain things that you like. I have, for instance, is fasting daily, and I really get a lot out of it. There's, like, other deprivations you can do going out and camping alone in the woods, face your fears, you know, get by with very little, et cetera. It also helps cultivate discipline. You talked about wine. I myself have, I'm in my 30s now. In my 20s, I had an unhealthy relationship to marijuana where I would smoke compulsively,

and every day I've talked about it on the show. And I realize at a certain point, and this is applicable to alcohol as well, By overusing something that you once love, you start to not get the benefits and you start to see the negative side of that thing. So you're actually getting the worst parts of it. And so by radically moderating your relationship to it, you can actually come back to enjoy the best of it without having the negative aspects of it. So I think that's wonderful. And then the last thing is just, I think consumption. I think we're a society, especially here in the U.S., that is hyperconsumptive.

It is clearly a problem with regards to ecological sustainability, climate. change and just psychology. And so I've been actively sort of trying to reorient myself to consuming. And you'll often notice too that consumption becomes a habitual action that you take specifically when you're feeling feelings of discomfort or anxiety or even maybe a little sadness that our society says by consuming you can sort of at least for a while evade those feelings. And so cultivating that element of sort of moderate deprivation and training your

to be happier and okay with less and less and showing yourself that you actually are better off and happier without this compulsive need to consume or drink or whatever may be. It can be very, very helpful. So I love all that. Yeah, absolutely. I mean, one of the things that struck me as very strange when I moved to the United States from Italy in the 1990s is this typically American phrase or concept of retail therapy, this notion that you feel better by yourself.

so go out and chop. It's like, wait, what? No. Whatever it is that makes you feel bad doesn't come out of the fact that you don't have enough stuff in your house. It's something else, and you should probably try to explore it

at some point. But the immediate reaction, when I don't feel good, like a couple of days ago, for instance, my wife noticed that I had not a particular good day. I was not in my zone, and I was kind of bothered by certain things. And so I said, yeah, that's right.

So on one hand, I started thinking, okay, what is it that? It's bothering me. And it turned out it was a particular exchange with a friend of mine, you know, the day before that I kind of stuck in my mind and there was something that I didn't like about it. And I said, okay, so maybe that's what it is. However, I cannot solve that right now. I'm not, first of all, I'm not in a mood to call my friend and talk about it because I need to be more calm about this whole thing.

If I do it now, I'm only going to make things worse. But good, I isolated what the problem is. Now, what am I going to do about my mood, however? Shopping was not on the list. What I did was to just go out for a walk. We live in a really nice area of Brooklyn, you know, near the promenade with view of Manhattan. So I just went out for a walk. And half an hour later, I felt so much better.

And it was like, okay, great. Now it's time to get to work. And then eventually, I will talk to my friend about that issue when I think it's appropriate the one I think that we can make, maybe we can have a meaningful conversation about it. But the notion that, oh, you don't feel good. So go on Amazon and shop or go to the mall and shop. No, this, of course, is very good for capitalism, but not very good for us. Yeah. Or something I see in myself a lot and push me towards like fast fasting to get more discipline is the urge to eat food out of a feeling of like low level discomfort or anxiety. So I just

go to the fridge and eat, and that sort of fills the void, sort of metaphorically. But it never lasts. And it's a form of consumption, of course. Not only that, but when you get in your 50s like I am, you're going to pay for it. Yeah, exactly, exactly. Healthwise. You mentioned journaling, too, before we move on. Is there something, you know, so often the emotions, the turmoil, the inner turmoil that

the humans face, they can often get pushed down or not articulated fully, and so you can never really deal with it because you're not even sure. where there's feelings are coming from or what they are, does the act of making feelings and obstacles and trials and tribulations explicit in the form of journalism, sort of, or journaling, does that sort of by making it explicit help you see things that otherwise might have been pushed into the vagaries of the semi-consciousness? Yes, it does help me. And in fact, there is pretty good evidence, again, from systematic and political research that it helps in general.

However, there's a big caveat there. So there are good ways to do journaling and not good ways to do journaling if your goal is, you know, emotional awareness and ethical self-improvement. If you just want to write on your diary and, you know, bitch about something, you'll go ahead for it. But you're not going to feel better about it. And so the notion that the Stoics had and that modern cognitive behavioral therapists would recommend is to do journaling by staying away as much as possible from. emotional terminology. So don't use emotional words. Try to objectify as much as possible.

Try to distance yourself as much as possible. In fact, one trick is to write in the journal in the second person as if you were addressing a friend. Oh, you did this today. But, you know, don't you think that you should have done that instead? Now, this sounds silly. And in fact, in fact, it's what Marcus Eurlus does in the meditations. He always writes in the second person. It may sound silly, but there is very good evidence that shows that that helps with the emotional distancing.

It helps you to become more analytic because you're talking to a friend. You're talking to yourself in the way in which you would be talking to a friend. So you're trying to be helpful and not judgmental, basically, about stuff. Now, Marcus does it in ways that are actually either funny if you're so inclined or that people sometimes look at and say, what the hell of a person, what kind of a psychopath, what's this guy? So there is a bin in the meditations, for instance, when he says, you know, remember that the fish, the meal that you had tonight was just a dead, dead fish. Remember that that wonderful wine that you drunk is just fermented grape juice.

Remember that the purple that you wear, that was the color of the emperor, right? It's just the result of a blood stain from a shellfish. Remember that making love is just a friction of parts followed. by an explosion of mucus. Now, you read this, he said, what the hell is wrong with this guy? But what he was trying to do there was to distance himself, at least occasionally, from things that he cared too much about. We know, for instance, that Marcus Auretus suffer from fits of anger.

Now, if you're the emperor and you're angry, people's heads will roll. This is the most powerful man in the Mediterranean world. So you've got to be good at contriended and not acting on. your anger. So he's reminding himself that, you know, don't let the fact that you're an emperor get to your head. This is, this is just one other thing you need to do is your job, but it's not that important. He was too fond, according to himself, of drinking and eating. And that's why he tells himself, hey, you know, that's just fermenting cryptos and a dead fish. And he was also fond, very fond, of sexual pleasures. Now, there's nothing wrong with sexual pleasures,

just like there is nothing wrong with eating or drinking, but in a certain, you know, in moderation, in a certain, you know, you want to own your pleasures, not be owned by your pleasures. And, you know, we know that Marcus was certainly sexually active because he had 14 children. And when his wife died, he took up a mistress. So clearly he was into sex.

But apparently, according to his own judgment, a little too much into it. And so that's why it tries to re-describe to himself what he's doing and reminding himself that, you know, yeah, this is pleasurable, but slow down. It's not, you know, you don't need to do it that much. Yeah, incredibly interesting. Before we move on, I just have to ask, because I've been sort of interested in this, and you mentioned drinking and the fact that you're Italian, you mentioned coming over to the U.S. and having the culture shock of the hyper-consumerism. Based on your experience, are there noticeable or significant

differences in the drinking culture between Italy and the United States? Because I have this sensation that or this feeling that American drinking culture is much left less healthy and much less perhaps communal than it is in other places, particularly Italy. Do you have any thoughts on that? Yeah. Actually, there is research about this. You know, the Americans, of course, with exceptions, I mean, you've got to be careful about broad generalizations when it comes to entire cultures. But Americans have an attitude toward drinking that is closer to the British attitude, rather than, or the Irish, rather than the continental European, not just Italians, but French and Spanish and so on, and Greeks.

And so there's research, for instance, that shows, interestingly, that some researchers have compared the drinking habits of Italian-American and Irish-American communities on the East Coast. And accounting for the amount of drinking, so for the actual amount of drinking, they found, just as you say, that Italian-Americans, Indians tend to be to drink more socially. They drink with family. They drink on over a long period of time, long meals. And so the total amount might be actually the same, but it's distributed of a far longer period of time and it is in the in the process of socializing. Well, on the

other hand, a lot of Irish Americans, again, there are plenty of exceptions. But a lot of that subgroup of the population tends to drink on their own or in, in not necessarily highly social situations and in very, very fast. Right. So it's same quantity, but it goes down very fast. That's the way to get drunk, of course. That's the way to, you know, you're drinking in an unhealthy fashion in that manner. So, yeah, there are there are cultural differences. But again, what needs to be really careful about generalizations because, you know, cultures are complex. And so there are many different ways of doing things within any particular culture. It's not like Italians don't have, you know, it's not like in Italy there is no problem with alcoholism. There is. Not as much as there is in the United States, but there are such things there as well. Very interesting. So last question before we move on to climate change and politics, because I'm really interested in your thoughts on that. And I don't get to hear your thoughts on that often enough.

But I just wanted to touch on this relationship to Buddhism that we've been hinting at. And obviously a huge thing in Buddhism is this idea of reorienting your relationship to the present moment by decreasing the inner dialogue and chatter of the, of the, the monkey mind, if you will. And by resting your mind in what's happening here and now, the sensations of your body, the sounds of what's actually here, preventing your mind from running into the past or into the future, there's this peace that comes over you and this sort of okayness as inherent to awareness when it's not burdened by incessant inner dialogue. Is there any specific relationship that stoicism has to reorienting one's relationship

to the present moment as such? There is, although it's a very different approach from the Buddhist one. I mean, the Stoics, by comparison with the Buddhists, are very analytic in that sense, right? So they don't try to empty their minds or quiet the inner monkeys, sort of speak. What they try to do is to interrogate the inner monkey, to have it sit down and say, hey, what the hell are you doing this? Why are you thinking this way? But that said, the similarity is that the Stoics certainly focus their efforts and their attention to the here

and now. And neither to the present nor to the future. Why? Because the dichotomy of control tells you that the past is not in your control and neither is the future. You can influence the future and you can learn from the past, but neither one of them is under your control. Your agency is active only here and now. The only moment where you actually have agency is right now. And so that's why Epictetus uses a word. actually there, prosokic, which is sometimes translated as mindfulness. And it literally, however, means paying attention. And Epitius and Seneca both say, look, nothing gets improved by not paying attention. If you're the pilot of a ship, the best way to cause a problem is not

to pay attention to what you're doing. And so anything you do in life is improved by actually being mindful of it, mindful as in being present in the moment. Don't let your mind. wander into regret in the past or fearing the future or anything and that. Just focus right now on what you're doing because that is where your most, your gentic powers, so to speak, are at their apex, they're at the maximum. And that's why you want to do things here now by paying attention. Interesting. All right.

Well, let's go ahead and shift into the second half of this conversation. And I want to talk about climate change. It's been a huge thing on my mind lately, and it's been reflected in the last several episodes of this podcast, is trying to think about this thing from a bunch of different angles. And before we get into that, though, I'm just sort of curious. And I don't know if I've ever heard you explicitly talk about how you identify politically. Do you, how, I mean, I guess you're something to the left of center. It would be my best guess. But how do you personally identify politically, if you don't mind me asking?

No, I don't mind at all. Yeah, I guess I would certainly identify myself on the center, you know, left-to-center, depending on what one means by the left, because of course that's also an heterogeneous concept. I sometimes actually find myself to the right of some progressives, or at least what they would consider the right, but definitely not what nationally is considered the right or even the center. So I think that it's fair to say that I'm a left progressive as an attitude, general attitude. But what does that that means in practice may vary depending on the specific topic. Yeah, absolutely. And there's a lot of muddying the water around basic definitions of

certain formations on the left. I guess what's your relationship to to your thoughts on capitalism broadly? Are you critical of it? Do you see it as the end-all be-all sort of system? Like, what are your thoughts on that as a global economic paradigm? Yeah, so that's a good example. I'm not radically anti-capitalist, but at the same time, I'm very skeptical and very critical of capitalism in the way in which it has been implemented, especially in the latter part of the 20th century, particularly part of the 21st century, particularly in the United States. So my preference would be for not having a capitalistic system at all, but I don't think we found a particularly viable alternative at the moment. It doesn't mean that there are no viable alternatives. it just means that nothing that we tried otherwise seems to be working better. And so given that, then I prefer the highly managed kind of type of capitalism.

So a social democratic society along the model of Scandinavian societies or European societies more generally, where, sure, you have the economy works according to the motor sovereignty of capitalism, But there are very strict constraints about redistribution of wealth, about rights of workers, for instance, health care and all that sort of stuff that do not follow the capitalistic logic. But, you know, there are certain things. In Italy, France, and several other places, health care is considered a human right. And, you know, when I came, that was another one of those things that shocked me when I came to the United States. is like the very concept of health insurance. I honestly, so when I was, you know, I came here as a graduate student,

and so the very helpful person in the HR office said, so you need to choose your health insurance. I said, what do you mean? I had no idea because to me health is not something you insure. You know, healthcare is something that is provided for free, ideally, or for a very small fee to everybody that needs it, period. and it's funded through taxation, not through personal systems, and especially, you know, personal finances,

and especially not connected to your place of work. Yeah. That seems insane to me. So now does that make me a socialist? I don't think so. But it does make me a only a capitalist with a very small little seat. Yeah, absolutely. That's really interesting.

Thank you for being honest about that. And I know that sometimes can be an uncomfortable conversation, particularly when you're on a left-wing podcast. but I largely agree with that. And, you know, my myself, I've talked many times about growing up, you know, lower working class. And I remember one time in my early 20s, just having like a year-long spat of intense anxiety and depression. And because I was working as a dishwasher, I could not afford to get help. And I just suffered enormously unnecessarily because there just were no options for me to even talk to a therapist or much less talk to a doctor or physician.

and many people in my life, people that are not sort of, you know, a lot of Americans aren't really taught about the rest of the world. And a lot of people in my life are really just unaware, like they take it for granted that this health insurance system is the way that it goes. And they're unaware that people across the globe are radically different in their entire sort of understanding of health care. And it just leads to a lot of unnecessary suffering. And I hope that tide is slowly but surely changing in the U.S. because lots of people have suffered enormous amounts for no reason. Yeah, absolutely. And the other thing is Americans are convinced that, of course, they're number one.

So they must have the best health care system in the world, which is patently false. It's just empirically false. I mean, there are plenty of international agencies that compare all sorts of things, including health care systems. And the United States ranks, you know, maybe in the top 10, but certainly not the top. we spend more than any other country and that's because in part there's this middleman profiteering health insurance corporation that siphons billions of dollars out of the system and puts it in the pockets of a few irrational I mean I can I can give you a personal example a couple

months ago all of a sudden my back just gave up and I collapsed to the floor so I had to go to the emergency be brought to the emergency room fortunately wasn't anything you know particularly warism, but I had to stay an entire day, during which I mostly was on my iPad, you know, working and answering email because I saw the doctor for like maybe a total of three minutes. And then they did one set of tests. Then I got the bill. It was $22,000. God, damn.

And you have insurance, right? Yeah. Oh, yeah. Exactly. Fortunately for me, not only I have insurance, but because I work at a university and my university has a very strong union, then I, you know, my insurance pay is basically. for almost all of it. I had a small co-pay.

But $22,000 for what? For a few minutes? Criminal. In the emergency room? That's insane. Yeah. Really quickly will move on. My stepdad recently had a stroke.

And in the process of literally having the stroke, and my mom and my sister were there crying, scared, they were calling 911, and he was trying to mumble through having a stroke. Don't call them. Just take me yourself because I don't want to pay for the ambulance. And so that's what Americans are reduced to, unfortunately. That's really sad. Yeah. But let's go ahead and move on and talk about climate change, because I know that you have a Ph.D. in biology.

And before you got into philosophy, you were a biologist. And you've, of course, been a wonderful, longtime popularizer of science. And all around us this summer, the effects of climate change have seemed to really ramp up. Here in the U.S., we've had historic wildfire season, casting smoke and terrible air quality across the entire continent. I was in the Pacific Northwest recently when the historic heat wave hit. Only 20, 30% of people in Seattle have air conditioning. So that was absolutely brutal. In Europe and China, we see historic flooding that has taken many lives.

And even still, little meaningful action has seemed to be taken by the world's leaders. And this has led many people, including myself at times, to feel a deep sense of despair and disorientation and anxiety about what's coming in the next few decades. So as somebody in the science realm, I'm just wondering what your thoughts are and on where we're at in the fight against climate change. And in the face of such fear and anxiety, do you think stoicism has anything to offer us? Yeah, I think it does. But before we get to stoicism, you know, you talk about the fight against common change. I don't see any fight going on.

I mean, we're just taking it, you know, we're just laying down and taking it pretty much. I mean, there's been some perfunctory, you know, move toward, oh, yeah, let's. reduce carbon emission by such and such in the next 30 or 40 years. It's like, yeah, sure, whatever. That's not going to do much. It's already, arguably, it's already too late. You know, that arguably the best thing we can do now is to reduce the impact of climate change, but the climate is changing, period.

You know, it's amazing how this alleged conspiracy by the left is actually taking lives and causing, you know, all sorts of havoc. It's an amazing power for a conspiracy. So I don't think we're doing much. Certainly we're not doing enough. We're running out of time. We are probably already out of time in some sense. What I think, and honestly, I'm not very optimistic about what we're going to do in the near future.

Because of a number of reasons, too many people don't take it seriously enough until it actually hits them. And sometimes not even when it hits them. there are very powerful political and economic incentives not to take it seriously. So I, and there is a human tendency, you know, for all our self-congratulation that we are the rational animals and all that sort of stuff, there is a lot of, this is a human tendency to rationalize away problems until that literally hit you in the face. And that's when you start paying attention. So human history is full of examples where plenty of people had enough foresight to give warnings and the majority of people ignore them until it actually hit.

So what I think it's going to happen is that we're going to see major dramatic changes over the next 10, 20, 30 years and we'll keep doing little or nothing about it until enough people in the way. world are going to be affected, we're going to have serious, you know, climate-related migrations, not just between countries, but even within countries. You know, for instance, in the United States, people start getting worried about climate-related migrations from places like Guatemala or other areas of South America. But we're going to have climate-related migrations within the United States. The southwest and the Pacific coast are not doing well, and they're going to do worse and

worse. And so at some point, we're going to have millions of people displaced because of coastal flooding, because the climate will change in a way that will not, that will destroy their economy, agriculture, whatever it is. So all these things are going to happen. We're not going to do much about it. And then we're going to try to fix it, because that's how human beings work. Instead of, you know, as I say, in medicine, an ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure. well, we really want to go for the pound. Forget the ounce. We rather spend the pound or more.

And this is going to be costly in terms of, obviously in terms of money, financial resources and other kinds of resources, but especially in terms of human lives and human suffering. So it's going to happen, and we'll deal with it in some way or another. Of course, the people that are going to be worse off are the same people that are normally worse off, right? poor minorities that sort of stuff and you'll see the jeff bases of the world you know flying high on their stupid penis-looking spaceships right and looking down on the rest of us that that's what's going to happen i'm not very optimistic as you can tell about how we're going to deal with the situation now you ask me about stoicism well the stoic would say ask yourself the fundamental

question where is my agency most efficacious Where can I actually act, right? And so that's what I do personally about climate change. Where can I act? Well, I can talk about it and write about it like I'm doing with you right now. You know, hopefully some people will listen. I can prepare myself and my family and my loved ones for what is coming, particularly, you know, my daughter. I mean, I'm in my late 50s.

I'm not going to see that much of it probably. But my daughter, who is 24, is going to be seriously impacted throughout most of the rest of her life. So I'm preparing her. I am voting what I think is the right way, or at least the least damaging way. I don't think there is actually a right way to vote in this particular case on this particular issue in this country. Even the Democrats are not about to do much about it anyway. But they are certainly more likely to do something about it than Republicans. So I vote accordingly.

I send my money to organizations that try to do something about the issue. That's pretty much the extent of my age. agency. The rest of it is whatever it will happen will happen. It's not in my control. I cannot change the temperature of the planet. I cannot change the currents in the ocean. I can't do anything of that sort. So I can do what I can in my little area of practical application. And then the rest, I brace myself. I mentally prepare myself for the fact that, oh, we just went through a pandemic, which, by the way, it's not over yet. But very likely, I'll see at least another pandemic in my lifetime,

possibly a worse one. And, oh, this year I was, you know, with my wife, we went to a number of, to visit a number of national parks this summer in the southwest. And the last one was the petrified forest where we experienced temperatures upwards of 108, 190 degrees, which were record for the area. And that's only going to get worse. it's going to happen. Yeah, it's absolutely horrifying.

I have two kids and one on the way. I have a six-year-old, a 12-year-old, and one that is coming. Five, you know, in December it's due. And so this is, yeah, thank you. And it's been weighing heavily on my mind, obviously, their futures and their lives. And I like your point about agency

because it prevents you from becoming completely sort of blackpilled and despairing and sort of demotivating and deactivating yourself. We do have agency within limited personal and perhaps even public spheres of influence and we should do everything we can in that regard. Certainly political education, building up your own family's resilience, doing political work, obviously organizing, I think, is a huge thing that people need to do. I have some hope, and maybe you can tell me your thoughts on this, of as things get bad

and they're already bad and they're going to continue to get worse. and young people, certainly unlike 80-year-old Republican politicians and CEOs, know that their future is at stake here, that we're going to start seeing more and more mass action, global movements, taking to the streets, shutting things down perhaps, maybe even into the realm of strikes with sympathetic labor unions, etc. And that as the impacts pile up and become more obvious, so too will the resistance. And that gives me some hope. What do you think about that? I think you're right.

The real question is, is that going to make enough of a difference, you know, over the short time? And there I'm a little bit more pessimistic. I mean, yes, we've seen protest movements in the United States, in other countries already, on all sorts of issues, not just climate change. But, you know, there was a great summer, you know, during the pandemic for Black Lives Matter. And do you think that's going to actually change things in terms of how the police deals with black people? I don't think so. Good point.

We're going to have, you know, we're seeing, again, some perfunctory things. You know, one policeman finally got, you know, sentenced for what he did. One. But this is a systemic problem. So, yes, we're going to see protests. We're going to see, you know, possibly even riots in the streets. And hopefully they'll do something. But the interests and the power on the other side are very strong.

Just look at what it's happening. For instance, in Myanmar, when the government wants to suppress protest movements, they'll do it. And they'll do it viciously and ruthlessly. And I don't think for the moment that the American government is above doing that sort of stuff. Right. I mean, yeah, we saw last summer the brutal crackdown national guards ripping people off the street, putting them in unmarked cars, blowing people's eyes out with rubber bullets. It's that short range.

I mean, yeah. Or remember what the United States government did during the protests about the Vietnam War. So, you know, it's the same kind of thing. I mean, I'm not suggesting that we live in a brutal regime like the one in Myanmar yet. But we certainly don't live in a place where certain politicians are above using the military force even to suppress protests. By the way, I, you know, recently I've been reading a fascinating book by Jason Stanley called How Fascism Works. And actually, I had him as a guest on one of my podcasts. And Jason makes an interesting point in that book.

He says that there is studies in political scientists have shown that there is an inverse relationship between the tendency of a government to develop fascist policies and the strength of the, unions. In other words, countries that have strong unions tend to have governments that are more accountable. And vice versa, when the unions are busted or they have legal obstacles to overcome in order to be efficacious, then the government tend to be more authoritative, you know, leaning more toward the fastest thing and the fastest end of the spectrum. And as you know, the American government has been busting unions for decades, beginning with regularity. So we don't live in a country where protests are going to be very efficacious for the simple reason that we don't have well-organized labor movement anymore. We used to.

I mean, major changes, major move forward where may were accomplished in the 1920s, 30s, and so on and so forth. That's because there was a very strong labor movement. But that doesn't exist anymore in the United States, and that's a problem. crucial point and I mean for one of the first things you know Hitler and the Nazis did is attack unions we see all throughout South America when you have right wing military dictatorships they destroy and assassinate union leaders etc and neoliberalism did it in a less explicit and bloody way but they still did it effectively with the dawning of Reagan and Thatcher and we're still living in that wake and the reason for that is because look I am not here to but it's by way to say that our unions are these you know perfect kind of organization where they can do no wrong. Any, any organization large enough and powerful enough, will do wrong at some point or another. So this is in a question of being polyanish about unions. The question is just that unions, what unions do is they build coalitions across groups that are oppressed, right? So right now, we do not have broad national

coalitions that put together women, you know, white people, black people, brown people, women of color and white women, et cetera, et cetera. These are all press groups. But if you divide them, if you don't organize them, then it's pretty easy to actually keep them down. Exactly right. Each one separately. Exactly right.

In the U.S., we obviously see one of our two major political parties pretty much have climate denialism as a cornerstone of their politics. And you can't really run in. the GOP primary in most states saying that we should do something about climate change, you will get obliterated. Is there a parallel to that denialism on the European right insofar as you have your finger on the pulse of European politics? Yeah, that's right.

I mean, it's amazing that the right seems to be everywhere, at least everywhere in the Western world, has espoused a number of bizarre positions because it didn't used to be that way. You know, it's not like there's nothing inherently constructive. conservative about being anti-science. But there is something inherently fascistic about being anti-science. Fascism has always been against science because, you know, fascists don't like facts. They don't like to deal with the reality.

They prefer mythology. They prefer to invent their own reality. And that's the problem with the GOP right now. I'm not saying that the GOP is a fascist party, although it's certainly going in that direction. But it is not a standard kind of conservative party either. And neither are a number of European, you know, right-wing parties that have been active over the last decade or so.

These are people who have embraced, you know, nonsensical ways of looking at the world, climate denialism, anti-vaccination, you know, that, all that sort of stuff. This is a denial of reality. And, you know, whenever we're talking about denial of reality, my favorite quote is from Philip Picay Dick, the sci-fi writer, who said the reality is that which, even if you stop believing it, doesn't go away. You know, it will stay there. And so the fact that you can deny all you want, but for instance, you can deny the efficacy

of vaccines all you want, and the result of that is that the statistic right now is that in the United States, 99.6% of people who are hospitalized for COVID are not. vaccinated. Exactly. 99.6%. Wow. I mean, if that doesn't convince you, I don't know what it will. Exactly.

Yeah, absolutely. So I don't want to take up too much more your time. You've been very generous. I really appreciate it. I guess there's one last question, just looking into the future. The best and worst case scenarios for climate change sort of come up. And I know you lean pessimistic in a sense, and that's really you lean realistic, given the variables that you laid out.

But I do wonder, because some people have such catastrophic. catastrophic scenarios that's like the worst case is like, you know, human extinction by 2100. I think civilizational collapses within the realm of possibility if we do business as usual for the next several decades. Where do you see like the likely best and in the likely worst case scenarios going by the end of the century? Yeah, I don't think that this is either a civilization collapsing event or even more so definitely not an extinction type of event.

It's going to be a series of catastrophes globally. It's going to, as I said, cause a lot of suffering. There's no way and loss of life and loss of resources and all that sort of stuff. And, of course, increased inequality, increased levels of injustice. That's what we're going to see over the next decade or two or three. But no, civilization is going to survive. Humanity is going to survive. we've survived the, you know, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, this sort of stuff, particularly because our technology will allow us to survive, but survive, but surviving shouldn't be the goal, right? Surviving of a small, a relatively small number of people shouldn't be the goal. The goal should be the thriving of the majority of people on Earth. That's definitely not what we're going to have. So, so I'm not trying to minimize, you know, when I, I'm certainly not trying to minimize, you know, I'm certainly not trying to

to minimize the damage and the suffering that this is going to cause. But, yeah, when some of my fellow liberals go and talk about extinction, I think they don't know what they're talking about. Right. So it's going to get bad. We're going to act a little too late, but, and obviously the distribution of suffering is going to be along the class and racial hierarchies that are already established. But, I mean, it's not going to be the end of. But we're going to make it, yeah, no, we're going to make it on the other side, however badly

we will come out of it, but we will. Very well could be a bottleneck sort of situation. Yes, that's right, exactly. And now how large that bottleneck is going to be, that's an interesting question. That depends on, that will probably vary globally, you know, from place to place. It depends on how local governments will deal with the problems. It depends on how much the public will react and force governments to deal with it. So there will be a lot of differences at a regional scale.

in the size of the bottleneck, but we'll definitely go through a bottleneck. All right, well, on that note, Massimo, thank you so much for coming on. Honestly, I really have gotten so much out of your public work over the years, and it's an absolute honor to have you on. Before I let you go, can you just let listeners know where they can find you, your podcasts, and your work online? Sure. It was a pleasure to be here.

This was a really nice conversation. If people are interested in my work, the place to go is something called figs in winter. dot blog. It's not just a blog is basically a repository of pretty much everything I do. And the term, the name, figs in winter, comes out of a phrase from the stoic philosopher Epictetus, who said that you're a fool if you regret not having figs in winter, meaning that you should do things in season. You know, be appreciative of your loved ones when they're alive.

Don't regret them when they're dead. Wonderful. Well, I'll link to that in the show notes. and that's where you can find your books and your podcast and everything? Yes. Perfect. That's right.

All right, Massimo. Thank you so much. Let's do it again sometime. It was a pleasure. Thank you. These years who fall beze the mien. One rier's to per se la bush. Here the portrait and sent retouche.

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