The Blindboy Podcast - Wrong Conkers

Episode Date: August 12, 2020

A hot take look at collectivism and individualism during a pandemic, in light of a recent study. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Wipe the shandy from the station master's gansey. The train looms large on the horizon. Don't let him embark with a gansey full of shandy. He will be sticky and wet. He will be unable to perform his duties. That was a poem called The Station Master's Gansey, written by Hollywood actor Edward Furlong. Thank you Edward. Welcome everybody to the Blind Buy Podcast. Edward Farlong if you're a regular listener what's the crack? how are you getting on? how are you enjoying August? is it crispy enough for you? it's not crispy yet is it?

when does August start getting crispy? the last week of August when I say crispy now I refer to the violence of a falling leaf from a tree crumbling underneath your feet. August is a very audible month. It announces itself with sound. The sound of leaves under your feet trampling on the corpses of leaves.

And just the sound that you don't really notice it. Of leaves. Under your feet. Trampling on the corpses of leaves. And. Just the sound. That you don't really notice it. But. Just leaves falling. You see them falling. But leaves make a little. A little microscopic.

Thud. When they hit the ground you know. But we're not there yet. We're not there yet. I'm still. Do you know you still get. The kind of floral. That floral bang.

Of the evenings. You still get a bit of that. And. It hasn't gotten cold yet. So I was out. I was out. As soon as darkness hit I was outside because

there's a Perseid Perseid how the fuck do I pronounce that a Perseid meteor shower happening tonight and the skies are clear I didn't see any of them I wasn't out there for ages but I was in and out

looking up towards the direction of is Perseus is that the name of the constellation I was using the fucking the night sky app on my phone trying to see some meteors I didn't see any of them

I but what I did see no not what I saw when I was looking for the meteors which weren't happening on this lovely crisp night I was pleasurably affronted

by just that lovely that smell of flowers in the air wildflower whatever it was I don't know what it was but there's only one word for it it's floral, do you know, you have different types of smells, there's woody smells, there's citrusy smells, but when a smell is floral, and it can only be described as floral, and not a specific

flower, but just a generic buzz of flower, and it hangs in the air in a there's a heaviness to it isn't that interesting about the smell about the smell of something floral like if I was to smell something that was citrusy citrusy is if I smell a lemon that smell is, it's stinging it's like a wasp, it's like an insect.

The smell of citrus, it kind of shoots up your nose and announces itself really quickly and then darts back out. But floral smells are heavy. They're like a curtain. A floral smell will never dart in and out of your nostril. Floral smells. Are heavy. They just. They're like a curtain. A floral smell will never dart in and out of your nostril. It kind of. It's like a cushion. That holds you up.

Do you know what I mean? So that's what I noticed tonight. While not seeing any meteors. The lovely floral a floral curtain and I like that I like that because it's what's nice about the floral curtain in the evening time

it lets you know that summer hasn't been defeated yet the floral curtain disappears when the night becomes crisp once you get into the end of August you get that crispness in the air the coldness and the crispness

the one that lets you know the leaves are going to fall soon and the floral curtain can't survive what the fuck am I talking about what in the fuck am I talking about trying to describe describe the fucking smells What the fuck am I talking about? What in the fuck am I talking about? Trying to describe the fucking smells. Describing the smells of the evenings.

But you know what I'm talking about. When you smell the fucking flowers, it gives you a sense of hope. It's like there'll be a few warm days left. But as soon as you get that fucking cold night, which is crispy and citrusy, let's be honest it doesn't smell like citrus but when the evening gets cold at the end of August it's

personality is citrusy it's a bit like a lemon or an orange rind it has that the bite of it, it bites your nostrils whereas the summer floral smell will never bite you it just, it bites your nostrils whereas the summer floral smell will never bite you it just, it weighs you down but not in a bad way, like a supportive friend

and then of course what happens after that that's when you start getting those real cold September nights that's where smoke lives someone could have a fucking a chimney or a turf fire two miles away

and that smoke will cling to the cold of a September night and that's not citrusy that doesn't go into your nose that goes directly into your throat which I find interesting and these are all the things I thought about tonight while I was bereft

of meteors from the Perseid meteor shower. I've never seen a meteor shower in my life. I've been present for loads of meteor showers. I've tried to attempt to see them. I've known they're happening. I've never fucking seen a meteor shower. Now, I've lived in cities my whole life. I don't know much about the rural environment.

So light pollution is a factor. But tonight was a crisp clear night. And the meteor shower was supposed to be abundant and violent. Nothing. Fucking nothing. So I'm contemplating smells. Another reason I'm contemplating smells is. I was in Aldi last week. And they had uh do you know that aisle in aldi where they just they sell no shit each week and they had uh

an led aromatherapy diffuser it was like 15 quid and I enjoy anything that has LEDs in it I think LEDs are beautiful so it's just it looks like a big glowing teardrop and you put water into it and an essential oil and it makes

it glows it breathes light and then it puts this lovely fragrance, steam, into the air. Which smells like whatever essential oil you have in it. And I happened to have a bottle of citronella. Because I went through a citronella phase about a year ago, right. Citronella is, It's an essential oil. I don't know what it comes from.

What's interesting about the smell of citronella... Citronella is the smell you'd smell if you... If you're at a barbecue as a child and someone lights a candle and this candle's job... They were always in little... When you were younger, citronella candles were in red glass

or orange glass with a honeycomb design on them looked a bit like yeah they were in a glass and they smell lemony and it kept mosquitoes away that's citronella and citronella reminds me of spain not because they're citronella plants it just whenever i i go into bathrooms in Spain, or, or anywhere really, they tend to clean floors, with citronella flavoured,

floor wipes, or floor wash, whatever you call it, so I fetishise the smell of citronella, I can't fucking say it now, I fetishise the smell of citronella, because it reminds me, of being on holidays in Spain. And I miss the capacity to spontaneously go to Spain if I choose so.

And because of fucking coronavirus. So I've been fetishising citronella. But I kind of overdosed on it. All week. With this essential oil diffuser this LED teardrops essential oil Aldi diffuser

and I was giving myself too much citronella and citronella I'm going to need to fucking back off from this word soon because I'm not going to say it anymore citronella do you know when you say a word too much it means nothing

citronella smells like how someone would describe a lemon it doesn't smell like lemon right if I got you to sniff citronella it doesn't smell like lemon right if I got you to sniff citronella you'd never go yum yum what nice lemons you have blind boy

it's not like that citronella is like it's like if you showed a child a lemon and then got the child to describe the smell of that lemon to a perfume maker and that lemon to a perfume maker. And then they made a perfume that is based... If the perfume maker had never smelt lemons, but had the smell of lemons described to them by a child, that's what citronella is.

Alright? But I overdosed on it this week. It's a very invigorating smell. It's citrusy. alright but I overdosed on it this week it's a very invigorating smell it's citrusy like I said it's a bit like being assaulted by olfactory wasps it darts in and out of your nose

so I had to calm down on the citronella and instead I said sure fuck it man there's loads of smells there's loads of different smells that I could use in this burner so I went online and I bought myself

30 different essential oils that covered the entire gamut of potential smells ranging from citrus to woody to floral so I've just been like a mad bastard all week with this diffuser exploring the full

spectrum of smells so bitter fucking orange on the citrus scale um lemon i'm gone off citrus now because of the citronella then moved into the woody woody scents and like the woody scents are interesting like just just back to the citrus one orange lemongrass that smells like thai curries and then bergamot which i had very strong bergamot earl grey tea if yougamot, earl grey tea, if you've ever had earl grey tea, earl grey tea, the smell and taste of that is bergamot, I couldn't do that right,

so got rid of the citrus shit, and started getting into the woody smells, of these essential oils, putting them into the Aldi diffuser, letting them spread around the room, and then kind of mindfully exploring, the different emotions and visions that come up depending on the smell that i was using and the woody stuff what did i have cinnamon is

woody cinnamon's a weird word man it's kind of half woody and half half fucking citrusy but like thyme you know the smell of thyme you know but lavender lavender lads lavender is like a a transition if if if if the smells were a theater and you've all right starts off with citrus then you're into the the woody smells and then you know the floral smells are coming next lavender is like a scene transition between the two. It's like the curtains close. Lavender is both woody and floral at the same time. Then I started getting into the fucking floral smells.

And the floral oils that I got in this set. Sandalwood. Good fucking lord. Because I don't experience these in the wild Jasmine do you know patchouli people of a certain age who remember the 70s have got strong opinions on patchouli or people who live in Galway

I never experienced patchouli so it's new to me absolutely beautiful this one called Liang Liang it's a Chinese I believe it's a Chinese. Fucking name.

And they're just absolutely gorgeous. So that's. I suppose that's why I've just spent fucking 13 minutes. Talking about smells. I've been. Enthusiastically. Using. An aromatherapy diffuser.

With 30 different little bottles of essential oils and it's really causing me to it's it was causing me to view the world and my reality through the lens of a nose

I was really thinking about things from a smell point of view which I hadn't really done before and that was interesting so fuck the meteor shower fuck the meteor shower what would a meteor smell like metallic

and sulfurous and citrusy if I had to wager, if I had to put a bet on it, alright, that's enough about fucking smells, on a podcast, alright,

so what I would like to do, with this week's podcast, I want to revisit, a theme, of one of my earliest podcasts, I want to revisit the theme of collectivism and individualism. I covered this topic on, I think it was like my 10th podcast back in early 2017 or possibly would have been 2017, early 2017. Now the thing is we're we're almost up to episode 300 here with this podcast and not everyone who's listening has been listening 100 from the start they haven't in fact

to be honest from from what i've noticed the people there are a few people who've been here for the entirety of the journey of this podcast but mostly people come and go and now by nearly almost getting to episode 300 my audience is mostly international now in 2017 it was an exclusively Irish audience and the audience has changed a bit so I can't assume everyone has heard. Every single one of my podcasts. So. What was the name of the fucking podcast? Can't even remember the name of it. But it did. It was a podcast about.

Collectivism versus individualism. And I spoke about it in 2017. And the reason I want to revisit it. Is that. First of all to satisfy the hipster in me by which I mean current events in the coronavirus pandemic are hugely relevant to the topic of this podcast I did in 2017 it was I predicted something in a way by accident accident. And what I spoke about was how quote-unquote Western cultures

are what's known as individualistic and quote-unquote Eastern or Asian cultures are collectivistic. And I want to expand on it and revisit it in a 2020 coronavirus pandemic context and because I've got a hot take and I want to see if this hot take is answerable. What initially got me thinking about the constructs of individualism versus collectivism was a moment of culture shock that I had a few

years ago. I grew up seeing we'll say Japan and China on television we'll say on the news and when I was a kid whenever you would see news footage of people in Japan or China in a crowded city we'll say it was usually Tokyo in Japan you'd see a crowd of people just like you would in New York or in Dublin or in London but within the crowd of people in Japan when I was growing up there was always one or two people wearing a face mask and I'm talking in the 90s wearing face masks and it always stood out seeing it as a kid from Ireland as really jarring okay it was like what the fuck are they doing wearing face masks now I knew that the face masks were medical so I assumed all right okay so they're they're scared of getting

sick and when I was a kid seeing people in Asian countries wearing face masks and news reports it used to I'd feel insulted almost I'd feel like I don't think I'd like to go to that place that doesn't seem very welcoming I viewed the Chinese and Japanese people wearing face masks in public places as as an accusation it's like if I was there and a person was wearing a face mask I would say I would I would think that they're saying to me you are unclean you are dirty you are diseased get away from me I don't want your yucky germs and I viewed it as this person is an ultra hypochondriac or they don't trust other people and they think other people are diseased. And they're really selfishly protecting themselves from these diseases. And it's so irrational.

And I wouldn't like to go to Tokyo if everyone thinks I'm dirty like that. And that's what I genuinely thought growing up. When I would see people in Asian countries wearing masks, surgical masks, in public places. And it was a common trope, it was a common thing. And the culture shock came a few years ago, long before coronavirus, when I learned these people in Japan and China are not wearing face masks because they are afraid of catching a virus or catching a cold or catching a flu the person who's wearing the face mask what it means is they are sick so all those newsreels I saw in the 90s of a Japanese businessman wearing a face mask it meant that he had a flu or a cold or wasn't feeling well

but he still went to work and he was protecting the other people that had to interact with him in a space he was doing his he was going i've got a cold i better not give it to somebody i'll put this on something something which is actually quite kind and considerate and compassionate when I saw it out of context I'd viewed it as the complete flip what a selfish bastard who are you to call me dirty who are you to say that I'm diseased and it took me back when I learned this when I when I learned that in certainian countries they wear face masks to protect other people i was like fuck wow i got that so wrong and that's what led me to investigate and find out about individualism versus collectivism so individualism and collectivism, they're words that are used in like sociology, right?

They're constructs used to describe something, but also it describes how we as a society, how we view ourselves in relation to our society and our social norms. to our society and our social norms what's considered rude what's not considered rude what's considered appropriate what's considered inappropriate what's considered embarrassing and shameful and what's not and these differ depending on whether a society is individualistic or collectivistic now asian asian countries tend to be collectivistic that mask wearing business i wear a mask because i have a cold and i want to protect other people from getting my cold that's collectivistic thinking you're not thinking about your own illness you're thinking about i am sick um i am therefore a danger to other people if i made other people sick that would be really bad for everybody i better do what i can to stop that happening that's collectivistic thinking but in europe and in America we don't think like that

if we get a cold we think fuck it I've got a cold how do I cure it what can I do to stop my cold affecting me and pre-coronavirus people didn't really give a fuck. If you've got a flu or a cold, it's like, it's not my problem. What can I do about it? I better go to the chemist and get my Lemsip and get my Panadol. And if I sneeze along the way or if I cough on someone, I'm not thinking about that.

Sure, it's out of my control. What can I do? I need to look after myself. And that's an individualistic way of thinking. thinking about that sure it's out of my control what can i do i need to look after myself and that's an individualistic way of thinking until this year to be perfectly honest i mean i'd be thinking about if i had a cold or a sore throat if it's someone like in my immediate group who i care about if if it's a family member, and I've got a sore throat, I'm talking now 2018,

no coronavirus. If a family member calls to my house, and I've got a sore throat, I'm going to say, I've got a sore throat, maybe don't call over. But am I thinking that way when I'm in Dunn's or in Aldi?

Am I thinking that way when I'm on the bus? Absolutely not. I never, ever, never thought about it, never felt required to think about it, felt that, sure I've got a fucking cold, if I have it everyone else is going to get it, what am I going to do on a bus, it wouldn't have even entered my head that I would give it to a member of the public, only immediate people that I care about, but I never thought about the public and my sore throat or my cold nor was i ever really asked to think about that and that right there is individualistic

and quite self-centered um individualistic cultures and i'm basing this now on it's a 2019 sociological paper on individualism and collectivism as they exist in the social sciences. But in individualistic cultures, people view themselves as having an independent concept of self. Whereas collectivist cultures, people view themselves as an interdependent concept concept of self it's a tough one to explain because like most of the people listening to this podcast will probably because a lot of individualist cultures are also english-speaking so if you're listening to this you probably come from an english-speaking culture you're a yank or you're european or australian we view ourselves as i am me and you are you and we are completely separate beings independent concept of

self whereas in a collectivist culture even with like if this individualist cultures, if you have a child, yes, your child is your fucking child, but you view them as a separate human. I have myself and they have their selves. Whereas collectivistic cultures can view children as a continuation of self. There's a fragmentation of the concept of self your child or your parent or your brother or your sister they're you are you are both you and also they contain a part of you which i i can't really get my head around that I can't get like I'm very individualistic in my thinking

even like the psychology that I use to help myself with my mental health like cognitive behavioural therapy it's a hugely individualistic way of seeing the world

I mean at the root of cognitive behavioural therapy I have no control over what happens to me but I have full control over my view towards it. It is not what happens to you that causes you to be upset but it is how you react to what happens to you that causes you to be upset or anxious.

And I subscribe to that because it's relevant to the culture I grew up in to the individualistic culture I grew up in and it's effective for me but cognitive behavioral therapy that isn't as effective in certain Asian cultures in African cultures it doesn't have the effectiveness it has in individualistic, quote-unquote, Western cultures. Individualistic cultures also view the self as completely separate to the environment and nature. The environment and nature is something to...

Within individualism, an individualistic culture looks at a mountain or a forest and says what can i take from this mountain and forest that benefits me whereas collectivistic cultures will look at the mountain and the forests and think yes there are resources there which benefit me but there's a bit of a symbiotic relationship going on I'm not entirely separate from this tree I'm not entirely separate from this mountain if I take and take and take and take then nothing will grow back so there needs to be a balance going on similarly if i take from this tree or this mountain it's better to share that with the people around me rather than to try and hoard it and a lot of the worlds you might have gathered up up until this you might have gathered so far

that individualism kind of makes you a bit of a prick alright a lot of the world's problems I ask myself on a long enough lens in a thousand years

whatever the fuck the world looks like then most likely complete ecological collapse that's what science is saying okay individualism will be frowned upon if you look at the shittiest things

like look at what colonialism has done colonialism is pure and utter individualism right colonialism is I and utter individualism right colonialism is i'm going to take take take whatever the fuck is there for me me me that's colonialism and i'm going to use whatever type of rationale to quote unquote discover and take resources and get real real greedy that's individualism. Okay.

It's not ecological. It doesn't think about the environment. It thinks about exploitation. Just look at what's happened since the industrial revolution. 300 years. 300 years of that shit. And we're. Facing the possible extinction of the human race.

Within the next 200 years. Or 300 years. Unless some serious shit is fucking done. To. Change our attitude towards consumption. And greed. But. It's colonialism. That decides to look at a mountain in Africa.

And view it as a giant pile of gold. Or coal tan or uranium. To be completely extracted or it's colonialism that looks at the amazon rainforest and instead of actually seeing what what it is because nature is collectivistic the amazon rainforest if going to the amazon rainforest and deciding yum yum yum look at all that wood and flooring all of it and taking all the wood to build buildings and furniture it's real short-term greedy thinking it's not ecological and it will eventually lead to the extinction of us or other creatures whereas to look at the amazon rainforest as this is a resource and i can take some but i

must only take enough so that the fucking rainforest can replenish itself naturally and now you've got a relationship if if you go to the amazon rainforest and take what you need then the forest is like oh you're a human all right well you're part of nature and nature is a system where we're all part of this system together so you can have some of these trees not a bother i i can afford these 10 trees and that's what you need take the 10 trees i'll grow them back no hassle but when you go in with the individualistic mindset and take all the trees, then the forest is gone. This isn't symbiotic here.

There's no relationship here. This is just you looting the forest. And that's individualism. And it's destroying the world. And it has destroyed the fucking world. I don't want to be completely binary and be like individualism bad, collectivism good. Extreme, the extremities of anything

is usually always bad and colonialism is an extremity of individualism. To take lands for their resources and completely exploit them, regardless of who lives there, that's an extremity of individualism and that's bad. The extremity of collectivism, maybe what's going on in North Korea, elements of the Soviet Union back in the day, that's the extremity of collectivism and that didn't work out too well either so collectivistic cultures have an interdependent sense of self individualistic cultures have an independent sense of self total independence I am me and you are you

whereas with collectivism it's like yeah I'm me and you are you but we're gonna have to have some type of involvement here together for the benefit of the both of us if we're both just fucking being me and me i don't know how that's gonna work out um sociologists say that collectivistic cultures just to say countries china india India, Brazil, Japan, Mexico are used as examples of collectivistic cultures where people have an interdependent sense of self and that interdependence is expressed as people sharing resources and not just

now here's one for you when I say sharing resources immediately you're thinking food property you know money things whereas in collectivistic cultures that the sharing of resources that there's material resources but also non-material sharing time affection. Affection. Fun. Ireland. Was. They say was fairly. Not strongly.

Had elements of collectivism. In pre-colonial times. We use the word. Mehal. To refer to this. Mehal is like. It's a Gaelic. A Gaelic word.

That means. Like a team. And what it refers to is an Irish cultural, a rural Irish cultural thing where in a village or in whatever community you're living in, if something happens to one of your neighbours

I don't know, the fucking thatching falls off the roof of their cottage everyone gets together to help that person. Okay? If their crops fail, if you have something, you give it to them. If they need help harvesting their crops. And it's, that's called mehl, mehl in Ireland. And I would imagine humans naturally should be collectivistic

because we're social animals. Cooperative. We cooperate for the survival of the entire group through kindness and sharing rather than the kind of single minded. Cruel Darwinism. Of individualism. Where.

You only look out for yourself. And if you try as hard as possible. You can succeed. But if someone else doesn't succeed. It's their fault. And that's one of the huge huge you see it today with our fucking government it's anytime a government wants you to dislike poor people that right there is extreme individualism what that person is homeless because they didn't try hard enough selling people the idea that we're all completely equal and we all have absolute

equal opportunity so if if one person is a success and has a job and a mortgage and has loads of money if that person is really successful then the person who's on the street who's homeless well then they've failed and that's that's how toxic individualism tries to get us to look at ourselves and it's a tenet of a lot of western societies unfortunately you're told to believe that homeless person is home it's their fault why aren't you homeless because you tried really hard and you worked hard and you got up early in the morning and that's why you've got your mortgage but that person's homeless because they didn't try and they had the same opportunities as you and it's just not the case it's just not the fucking case equality equality of opportunity which means giving everybody the exact same opportunity

is it's bullshit because it doesn't take into consideration things like privilege extreme individualism also it sells people the notion if if you can convince people that this person is really wealthy because they just worked hard and tried really hard and played by the rules and this person is really poor because they didn't and they're a failure quote unquote if you can convince people of that it's how you get this strange phenomenon of billionaire worship you know you find people online defending billionaires you find people in Ireland defending Apple not paying any tax in Ireland

because what the system has done is convince these people that you're simply a billionaire that hasn't happened yet so people will defend a billionaire that hasn't happened yet. So people will defend a billionaire because they think unconsciously that they will become that person.

And a lot of America, England, Europe, Ireland, is now within capitalism, under capitalism, is very much extremely individualistic in our way of thinking and how we view ourselves and how we view others and this now, we now have an identity crisis because of coronavirus

we have an extreme identity crisis because of coronavirus coronavirus is utterly exposing individualism and its flaws. Just to tell you briefly, why are some cultures individualistic and other cultures are collectivistic? One theory that anthropologists have, right,

one theory is, it depends on the historical source of carbohydrates that that culture ate now i know that sounds bizarre but if the culture historically relied upon rice okay as its source of food these are the cultures that tend to be collectivistic because rice in order to be grown required a community effort you can't just grow your own rice in your back garden there needs to be a communal rice paddy everybody chips in for every part of the way and then everybody gets fed and one theory is that cultures that relied upon rice as the staple food tended to develop a collectivistic and an interdependent sense of self and countries like china and japan

are examples of this then if instead you had a culture whereby their main source of carbohydrate was grasses wheat barley grain okay these are things that you you could grow yourself in your back garden if you wanted some wheat or some barley you could grow some for yourself for your own family and feed yourself and your neighbor could do the same and feed themselves and what you end up with then is a way of viewing yourself as not necessarily needing your neighbor that much and if your neighbor doesn't grow enough fucking wheat it's because they're shit at growing wheat and you grow enough wheat for yourself and you feed your family and western european cultures and countries that european people then went on to colonize that's where you see individualism and then

colonialism and aggressive capitalism coming from these cultures on that note it's time for a little ocarina pause i don't have an ocarina i've got a shaker this week because it's time for a little ocarina pause, I don't have an ocarina, I've got a shaker this week, because it's more pleasant on the ears, you're going to be, a digital advert is going to be inserted, a digital advert is going to be inserted, all right, hopefully it won't be the British Army, a lot of controversy last week about advertising, British Army advertising on podcasts, if you've been listening to this podcast a long time, you'll know the British Army advertising on podcasts if you've been listening to this podcast a long time you'll know the British Army tried to advertise on this podcast I said no, they came back

I made it a hostile environment by listing out their war crimes as digital, anti-colonial guerrilla warfare against the British Army on the sovereign space of this podcast alright

but anyway look you're going to be sold an advert to some description here which will appeal to your individualistic self you're going to be sold something and most likely it won't sell you the product it will try and sell you a better version of yourself which is a tenet of individualism consumerism

operates within individualism don't sell him soap sell him how to be sexy you won't get a soap advert it'll be for beer or something I don't know, it's up to you whatever you're searching online is what will be digitally inserted

so here is the shaker pause on april 5th you must be very careful margaret it's a girl witness the birth Bad things will start to happen. Evil things of evil. It's all for you. No, no, don't. The first omen, I believe, girl, is to be the mother. Mother of what? Is the most terrifying. Six, six, six. It's the mark of the devil. Hey! Movie of the year.

It's not real. It's not real. It's not real. Who said that? The first omen, only in theaters April 5th. Will you rise with the sun to help change mental health care forever? Join the Sunrise Challenge to raise funds for CAMH, the Centre for Addiction and Mental Health, to support life-saving progress in mental health care. From May 27th to 31st, people across Canada will rise together

and show those living with mental illness and addiction that they're not alone. Help CAMH build a future where no one is left behind. So, who will you rise for? Register today at sunrisechallenge.ca. That's sunrisechallenge.ca. So there you go. Just so you didn't get a fright. Support from this podcast comes from you the listener

alright via the Patreon page patreon.com forward slash the blind buy podcast I don't know actually yeah I don't know I won't be gigging for a long long time okay I won't be gigging for a long time I don't know when we're going to have gigs again

it's grand fuck it the Patreon is what is giving me a regular source of income so if you're listening to this podcast if you're enjoying it and you're working and you can afford to give me the price of a pint or a cup of coffee once a week please do patreon.com forward slash the blind buy podcast this podcast is now my full-time job well I'm streaming as well but the podcast is my full full time job. Well I'm streaming as well. But the podcast is my full time job. It's my sole source of income.

And if you become a patron. Also what you're doing is. You're allowing the podcast to be 100% independent. Editorially independent. With. I can't pronounce my L's this week man. I can't pronounce my fucking. Remember that citronella, I'm not, let's not get back into citronella, this is an independent podcast, I can speak about what I want, I am beholden to no advertiser,

and this is all possible because of the patrons of the podcast, so if you can afford it, please pay me for the work I'm doing basically it's a lot of work doing this podcast i'm horsing through academic research this week lads it's not no wikipedia shit here i'm going through academic articles so pay me for the work i'm doing please if you're enjoying it but if you can't afford it you don don't have to. You can listen for free if you can't afford it because someone who can afford it is paying for you and everyone's fucking happy. Everyone is happy then.

That's almost a collectivistic way of looking at it. It's a community benefit. It's the community of everybody who's listening to it. I'm making the podcast, I'm getting paid. If you're paying for it, you're paying for my work and you're listening to it, but you're also i'm getting paid and if you're paying for it you're paying for my work and you're listening to it but you're also paying for someone who can't afford it and it's a nice little model there was a few people asking are there perks are there more things i can do for patrons only right i'd rather stay away from that. Okay. That's not what I want to do. The patron is more.

Pay me for the work I'm doing. I don't. Some people on Patreon. Are like. Here's an extra podcast. Once a week. Just for patrons. Here's extra stuff.

I want to avoid that. If I can. Because of the. The aforementioned model. I do it like. A little lottery. One patron. Every month.

Is picked at random. And I send you a. hand drawing in the post. That's it. I think that's fair enough. But unless people start screaming and roaring for it, I'd rather not afford a different level of privilege to patrons. Okay?

I plug the Patreon every week because people come and go, so I have to do it people subscribe for a while and then they don't subscribe and then more people come in other people leave so I gotta keep plugging it every week

because this is the sole source of income from the podcast I'm on Twitch twitch.tv forward slash the blind buy podcast I live stream three times a week Wednesday, Thursday, Friday at 8.30pm maybe the weekends as well but guaranteed Wednesday, Thursday, Friday you can.30pm maybe the weekends as well but guaranteed Wednesday, Thursday, Friday

you can come online you can see me making songs playing video games chatting responding to your comments come along also like the podcast and leave a review

that also helps yart back to the podcast even in individualistic cultures we still have friendships we still have relationships we still have friendships, we still have relationships, we still have kindness. But sociologists would argue that in an individualistic... Okay, here's a classic example.

Those YouTube videos where people help homeless people and film it. help homeless people and film it when someone on youtube or facebook buys food for a homeless person or gives a homeless person money and they film it and put it up online that right there is complete and utter individualism it is an act of compassion and kindness for another human being but ultimately it serves the individual self of the person doing it because it increases their social standing within a group it's it's the it's a colonial form of helping it's in pure individualism to help a homeless person like that and then to broadcast it on the internet to do it for yourself it's like resource mining instead of it being to help that other human being it is that person has resources and this resources is is social clout which you can then obtain from

that person by buying them a sandwich in the eyes of other people. Therefore, ultimately it being a selfish act. With myself, I help homeless people. I will buy a homeless person a sandwich. I will give a homeless person money. I'll share things online for charities. I'll donate to charities. I do all these things but i've said

it before to you like all right i'm not going to fucking buy a homeless person a sandwich and take a photograph of it and put it up on facebook and tell people that's not going to happen i'm comfortable with that being a private interaction and me telling myself I'm doing this to help the person in need but ultimately and I'm kind of okay with it because I don't know any other way because I'm raised in individualism when I perform acts of compassion for other people like that it's it's to help my mental health if I do something kind for a homeless person buy them a sandwich um buy them a new pair of boots whatever it is I'm doing that day yes there's empathy involved yes there's compassion but i walk away from it feeling like a good person i don't need other people to see me doing it but ultimately it's for me it's the individualistic

it's complete individualism i don't know any other way and they tested this out with uh japanese children now one thing i want to flag because i want to be very cautious about generalizing entire cultures because that can be problematic so the stuff that I'm talking about here I'm taking it all from a few different sources but the main source I'm using is

a published sociological paper from the Cornell University and one of the authors is actually Japanese American in this study and so of the authors is actually Japanese American in this study and so what they did is they they looked at both American and Japanese school children and they found that they were both motivated to learn in school when they were individually rewarded for learning right so the kids are learning and then

they're given a gold star at the end of the week if they do well and this motivates them to learn but the japanese children were motivated to learn even if their teacher was rewarded so if at the end of the week those kids are studying and doing tests but they don't get gold stars their teacher gets a gold star the japanese kids this didn't faze them they were like excellent teacher gets a star the american kids were like what do you mean teacher gets a star where the fuck is my star this is shit and that there is that's individualistic but the the japanese children's reaction is interdependent collectivistic way of thinking viewing the teacher as not a separate or not a hierarchy or not there in control but rather the teacher is in this

classroom and we're learning and this is a system. This is all systematic and the teacher is sharing knowledge with us. And if they get rewarded for us doing hard work, then it's all part of the system. Everyone benefits from it, so it's grand. Another interesting thing in this study was how they observed how collectivistic cultures and individualistic cultures will set goals for themselves, right? Collectivistic culture are willing to subordinate their own individual goal if it benefits the goal of the collective. But within individualistic cultures, people will pursue their own goals that are important to them

and even change their relationships with other people depending on them and what you see here is a higher rate of divorce in individualistic cultures now i'm not shaming divorce or saying that divorce is a fucking bad thing i don't give a shit about that um or saying that divorce is a fucking bad thing. I don't give a shit about that. Happiness is, if divorce makes a person happy, then get fucking divorced. I'm not taking a moralistic view on divorce,

but what I'm saying is, within the context of individual cultures, this study is using divorce as an example of a lack of compromise. Whereas in the collectivistic culture, people change their personal goals around the strengthening of a bond and relationship. Whereas in the individualistic cultures, they're like, no, this is what I want to fucking do. And if you don't fit in with that then we have to part i want to be cautious now that i'm not presenting collectivism good individualism bad each social construct has got positive and negative parts harmful parts and and beneficial parts um within collectivism for example they found in this study that like how the individual

relates to larger society how within collectivist culture larger society not just your immediate family or friends group but now the entirety of society and there tends to be quite a lot of pressure within collectivist society on the individual so in individualistic cultures you've got greater permission to be an individual pursue your own desires your attitudes your values your beliefs and because everyone else is individualistic there's a greater degree of mind in your own business if this person wants to do that that's their fucking business leave them off i'm doing my thing but in collectivism when it comes to the whole society people are less likely wanting to stick out conformity the pressure to conform is a lot higher you have a

much higher amount of social norms a higher amount of what's considered appropriate what's not much more rules about how you must behave and we'll say collectivists willingness to to accept the opinions and views of others, their willingness to conform, leads to their concern for face-saving or gaining the approval of the collective. Face-saving is an important construct that guides all communications in collectivist cultures. However, in the individualistic cultures, people are not guided by saving face. It's more important for people to speak their mind and tell the other person directly how they feel, rather than hide their feelings to make the other person comfortable. And that's directly now from this sociological study.

sociological study so in in the individualistic culture you can you can you can express your distaste more you can express if you're unhappy with someone you can express your anger more without having to worry about being shamed for that action or making another person uncomfortable another thing i find fucking mad interesting about something historically within individualistic cultures versus collectivist cultures so individualistic cultures right the exchange relationships right now i just mean transaction it doesn't mean money it can go straight back to barter in individualistic cultures historically people will provide a service or give a gift to another person with the expectation that the other person is going to return it with something that's about equal value in a short period of time that's individualism i scratch your back you scratch mine and the scratch that you're going

to give me will be similar enough to the scratch that i gave you last week and this is understood and normal within individualistic cultures but in collectivist cultures the exchange thing it's it's less bartery a person in a collectivistic culture will scratch another person's back not necessarily expect a scratch back and if the other person responds to the scratch in a month's time with a hug

it's grand because what's valued the value isn't placed on the transaction or value of what's being exchanged but rather the quality of the the relationship as such the fact that positive interactions are happening and bonds are being developed is more important than the condition of those bonds and like this study is even hard for me to read and i can tell that the people writing it are also struggling because they're coming from the even though like one of them is japanese american but like even the way they write the

study you can tell that they're trying to explain concepts that you can't fucking understand in an individualistic culture so they describe it as the the value of the relationship the relationship valuing within collectivism you can't understand it as simple as simply as as a feeling affection for a person or feeling or worrying about another person which are almost exchanged based when you think about it but rather it's about establishing a sense of oneness a sense of of oneness that you know it's not the individualistic uh i just did something nice for you and now you are happy and now I can sense that you are happy. And if you're sad, now I am sad because you're sad.

It's something different. It's a holistic oneness, which can be hard to get your head around. but the basically what what i'm trying to get around to is all of this within the context of now coronavirus and what our society is facing and my kind of my thing that i'm wondering about is are collectivistic cultures doing better in coronavirus than individualistic ones? Yes, absolutely. That's without fucking question. Because the collectivistic cultures were the ones who, mask wearing, social distancing, contact tracing, quarantining, everything that needed contact tracing quarantining everything that needed to happen happened very rapidly and normally without question in countries in asia and you just look at their numbers compared to and you just rank it with the worst country in the world

is fucking the united states because of rampant capitalistic individualism. In Ireland, we're doing alright, but we were still able to bring a little bit of collectivism into it. It's like the mehal, as I said. When the HSE, which is our National Health Service, announced that they needed volunteers, like, about 100,000 Irish people volunteered this sense of mehal this sense of

we must all get together so we still have it but America's fucked America is just not it doesn't even want to address this thing people are dying Britain the same fucking shit two hugely individualistic

countries and individualistic cultures and colonial cultures and when you see things like mask wearing is the big one i've got friends who are living in China and living in Japan and they people in in the same way when I was a kid and I was seeing China and Japan and people wearing face masks and me thinking they're selfish they're hypochondriacs my buddies are saying that Chinese people and Japanese people and Korean people they think that we are mad they can't understand what the fuck is going on with people refusing to wear masks. People, I mean, there's so many viral videos every week of people violently refusing the mask as they go into a shop. Individualism is sold to Americans mainly, but it's sold as freedom. You are free to be you.

And people are going into shops and they're saying, can you please wear the mask? And the person is violently screaming, having to be pulled out of the shop because their very identity has been attacked. They believe that their sense of freedom is being attacked and they're calling masks muzzles. Even though the evidence is proven.

It's like if everyone wears a mask collectively, all of us together. It's like taking a pill that reduces your chance of coronavirus by 60%. If everyone wears a mask, but everyone has to do it. And people just aren't getting it. It's an attack on their identity. has to do it and people just aren't getting it it's an attack on their identity and i myself have had to have numerous arguments with well-meaning people people who aren't being assholes well-meaning people who just can't understand the mask concept when like people on facebook or twitter who'll say blind boy why do you keep talking about these

masks how can a cotton face mask stop me getting coronavirus and then i have to explain you have to think about it differently you're not wearing a mask to stop you getting coronavirus you have to wear the mask to stop someone else getting it and then you have to trust that they wear the mask to stop you getting it and only in this new way of thinking where it's a cooperational thing can you actually have an impact here and it's a tough one for us to get our heads around it's it's like if i fall backwards will you catch me type of thing if if you go to the shop and you don't wear your face mask then you've negated the efforts of everyone who has so it has to be you wear a face mask and they're wear a face mask and you're both protection protecting each other but thinking about yourself doesn't work but we can't think about this without framing ourselves completely as selfish individuals we don't

know any other way so finally two weeks ago they did a study in the university of kent literally looking at collectivism versus individualism and how does it relate to coronavirus and the spread of coronavirus and the research came straight out and said that people who adopt a collectivistic mindset are more likely to comply with social distancing and hygiene practices to reduce the spread of COVID-19 people who in their minds it's it's it you just start you start saying to yourself what I started doing early on because i was reading about because i had an awareness of collectivism and an awareness of individualism and i have an awareness at all times that i'm from an individualistic culture so i have to be

cautious of am i being a selfish prick at all times and have to try and think collectively where appropriate when i can as part of my even that as part of my as part of my own mental health regime taking it back to being a selfish prick but like what I started doing from the start was thinking you pretend that you have the virus you have to pretend that you have coronavirus and now that you pretend you have it then you start thinking about other people but if you start thinking about i must not get coronavirus i can't get sick i don't want to get infected by all these people all these people are a threat and they're going to infect me that's that individualistic hostile thinking

that's where you get reactionary but if you think instead i am sick even though you have no evidence that you're sick or not i am sick and my job is to not give the sickness to other people then it's collectivistic thinking so the study found straight out people who think in a collectivistic mindset or who adopt one consciously are the ones who will comply with the measures to keep this thing down. But the individualistic mindsets, these are the conspiracy theorists. These are people who are conspiracy theorists and who also feel terrified and powerless. The people with individualistic mindsets were unable to view coronavirus as something that might happen from the chaos of existence.

These are the people who believe that it was deliberately created in China. Donald Trump, there's an individualistic man. China, like Donald Trump, there's an individualistic man. Absolute and utter, pure, unbridled American individualism. Grew up with utter fucking privilege. Would view poor people as people who have failed. And Trump, like Trump is punishing China at the moment. Trump is very aggressive to China.

I'm saying China like him. He calls it the China virus. This wasn't created by, it started in China. It wasn't created by the fucking Chinese. No one of any rigor is saying it was man-made in a fucking lab except Trump. And Trump has gone at it from that

transactional point of view. Alright, so you made a virus and gave it to us. You just scratched my back. Well, I better scratch yours. And he's unable to think outside of it that it might be from just the chaos of nature. So Mike Biddleston, who's a psychologist in the University of Kent, who was part of this study,

he said for a finish, he said, they have found that collectivistic thinking is most likely to encourage social distancing and compliance around what needs to happen to flatten the curve. Individualism is all conspiracy theories and people resisting compliance. He said interventions that focus on collective empowerment and champion a we are in this together mentality will encourage people to comply with guidelines and will reduce the spread. Promoting collectivism could also make a positive difference to future public health crises too. As leaders look to improve response strategies a collectivist mindset might also make people less susceptible to conspiracy theories and misinformation that can negatively affect their behavior so there you have it that's

the study global warming climate collapse biodiversity these are also all things that are going to require us to collectivistically we're going to have to deal with it in a collective way we're going to have to think deal with it holistically we're going to have to seriously understand that we are not these special individuals but we are all a part of a fucking system and we must behave as a system symbiotically with each other and with nature because this individualistic business of just hoarding and taking and stripping resources for the short term is what will cause our extinction.

And here's the extreme hot take. I've said it before, you're entitled to laugh at me, not take it seriously. But, you know, what do I see? A future of rampant individualism. And I've mentioned, you know, rampant individualism, colonialism. We've been tricked into worshipping billionaires

because we believe that we will one day become them ourselves take, take, take it's going to end with a small amount of billionaires eventually figuring out the technology to leave the earth and colonise Mars and do that

shit over there while the majority just burn on earth i know that sounds extreme i'm aware of it but that's kind of what they're planning it might be 300 years in the future but it's kind of what they're fucking planning nasa isn't a thing anymore really it's it's going over to the hands of private companies and space tourism and fucking elon musk and spacex they want to colonize mars they they want to get humans onto a different planet because the intention is to eat up all the resources here find a new place do the same shit there and just keep hopping and hopping and it's not going to be you and me that gets to go on that spaceship they'll tell us and convince us that we can become the billionaire

it's going to be a group of 10 000 people of the ultimate elite assuming something like that ever fucking happens whatever everything else burns and everyone dies because of utter Darwinian individualism and they'll tell themselves that the people who get left back on earth as the waters rise that these people had the same opportunities as us, equality of opportunity and I guess they were just lazy

and that's why I'm on my way to Mars with grimes em hot take lads I'm on my way to Mars. With Grimes. Em. Hot take lads. Roaster. Roaster.

Call me a shithead if you like. That's science fiction level hot take. I'm not making a conspiracy theory prediction. I'm just. I think it's worth. It's worth thinking about. It's worth saying out loud at least. You know. Or. We all collectively. Understand ourselves worth saying out loud at least. You know.

Or we all collectively understand ourselves. As being part of a system and an ecosystem. Which includes animals and plants and everything. And we change how we consume. And we change our relationship with each other. And we change our relationship with the environment. I think coronavirus is the opportunity for it. There's so many class opportunities that now come with the coronavirus world

in terms of working from home, thinking collectively, thinking more locally. Like, the affordability of global travel is without question a driving factor for coronavirus. Like,

they mapped this. Look at how quickly it left China and went all over the entire world because of international travel, you know? So, that's this week's... I don't know, it It's not a hot take Because I backed the whole thing up With an actual scientific study

So it was more a hunch That I was happy to find a scientific study Which addressed this And then that batshit bit at the end About colonising Mars while we all drown Which if you want to go fucking No we're not going there We're not going there

Sometimes I wonder about the cyclical nature of time ah no we're not going there how do I say this without looking I just find it fucking strange I just find it odd no I find it interesting it excites the creative part of my brain i'm not saying it's true it excites the creative part of my brain that flood mythology is such a huge part of world

religions you have it there with fucking noah and the fucking ark one of our origin myths of humanity which came from the collective unconscious the collective unconscious of humankind and then the fact that you know time what the fuck is time i had a quantum physicist on talking about it before you know time is not linear that's just how our brains understand it and our collective unconscious and this flood myth and maybe the flood myth isn't the past but it's the future that's me thinking out loud lads don't be going onto the internet saying blind boys after getting into christ he's he's found a quantum interpretation of the bible and he's telling everybody that noah's ark is in the future.

Alright? I'm thinking out loud. These are things that I find interesting. I'll talk to you next week. Go fuck yourselves. Rock City, you're the best fans in the league, bar none. Tickets are on sale now for Fan Appreciation Night on Saturday, April 13th when the Toronto Rock host the

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