The Daily Stoic - Megan Phelps-Roper on Radicalization and Redemption

Episode Date: August 21, 2021

On today’s episode of the podcast, Ryan talks to former Westboro Baptist Church member Megan Phelps-Roper about her experiences growing up in the church, the problem of radicalization in society and modern institutions, considering the individual perspectives of the people who we disagree with, and more. Megan Phelps-Roper is an American political activist who was formerly a member of, and spokesperson for, the Westboro Baptist Church. Phelps-Roper left the church in 2012 after she was unable to reconcile her doubts with her beliefs. She travels around the world to speak about her experience in the church and advocates dialogue between groups with conflicting views. In 2019, she released a memoir, Unfollow: A Journey from Hatred to Hope.LMNT is the maker of electrolyte drink mixes that help you stay active at home, work, the gym, or anywhere else. Electrolytes are a key part of a happy, healthy body. As a listener of this show, you can receive a free LMNT Sample Pack for only $5 for shipping. To claim this exclusive deal you must go to drinkLMNT.com/dailystoic. If you don’t love it, they will refund your $5 no questions asked.KiwiCo believes in the power of kids and that small lessons today can mean big, world-changing ideas tomorrow. KiwiCo is a subscription service that delivers everything your kids will need to make, create and play. Get 30% off your first month plus FREE shipping on ANY crate line with code STOIC at kiwico.com.Talkspace is an online and mobile therapy company. Talkspace lets you send and receive unlimited messages with your dedicated therapist in the Talkspace platform 24/7. To match with a licensed therapist today, go to Talkspace.com or download the app. Make sure to use the code STOIC to get $100 off of your first month and show your support for the show.LinkedIn Jobs is the best platform for finding the right candidate to join your business this fall. It’s the largest marketplace for job seekers in the world, and it has great search features so that you can find candidates with any hard or soft skills that you need. And now, you can post a job for free. Just visit linkedin.com/STOIC to post a job for free. Sign up for the Daily Stoic email: https://DailyStoic.com/signupFollow us: Instagram, Twitter, YouTube, TikTok, FacebookFollow Megan Phelps-Roper: Homepage, Twitter, Instagram, Facebook  See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Hey, prime members, you can listen to the Daily Stoic podcast early and add free on Amazon music. Download the app today. Welcome to the weekend edition of the Daily Stoic. Each weekday we bring you a meditation inspired by the ancient Stoics, something to help you live up to those four Stoic virtues of courage, justice, temperance, and wisdom. And then here on the weekend, we take a deeper dive into those same topics. We interview stoic philosophers, we explore at length how these stoic ideas can be applied to our actual lives and the challenging issues of our time. Here on the weekend when you have a little bit more space when things have slowed down, be sure to take some time to think, to go for a walk, to sit with your journal, and most importantly to prepare for what the week

ahead may bring. Hey, it's Ryan Holiday. Welcome to another episode of the Daily Stoke podcast. As you know, before I started the Daily Stoke, I had another life. Before I wrote really any of my books I had another life I was in marketing and I worked for a number of controversial companies and businesses and people from American Apparel, the Tucker Maxx. And, you know, if you read Trust Me On Mine, which is my first book, then you can trust it with what we talk about here, what I talk about in Stillness is the key,

what I talk about in the obstacles way, or you go to the enemy, it can feel very different. And it was different. I actually say in Trust Me On Mine, there's this word disintegrated, which means we think means falling apart, coming at pieces. But if you think about it more as disintegrated, what it means is not integrated. And so my journey to Stoicism begins very early on, right? I think

maybe 18, 19 years old. Before I had this marketing career, before I'd, you know, worked on any of these controversial campaigns and did the stuff that I talk about in that book. And so how do I reconcile those two things? Well the truth is for a long time I didn't reconcile them because I kept them separate. They were not integrated. The philosophy that I was learning about and studying on fascinated by was very different than my actual professional life.

As I left my media career partly in publishing that book, I was able to with time integrate them and it's still a past that I reckon with and struggle with and trouble explaining, but it also gives me a certain amount of empathy for people who had their own dark or confusing or seemingly contradictory chapters in their life. So it was actually through my speaking agency that I got connected with today's guest many years ago because she had actually read the obstacles the way. My guest is Megan Phelps-Roper, whose family, her grandfather, was the founder of the West Barrow Baptist Church, and she was a member of this well into her late 20s.

And there's no way around the fact that this meant she participated in from like being a toddler on with the horrible and cruel campaigns of the Westboro Baptist Church. The protesting of military funerals, the homophobia, the basically media trolling, ironically, some of the stuff that got to talk about interest in my mind, she was born into that tradition. That was her birthright, and it wasn't something that she was able to question for many, many years. That's how she participated in it. And so,

it's not that I can relate because my experiences are so radically different, but I get the disintegration. How do you have a smart, intelligent, kind person who could have been a party to who could have been a party to and sort of unquestioningly observant of this horrendous doctrine and behavior. It seems like it doesn't make sense, but it actually does make sense. And so we got reconnected somewhat recently and she was someone I definitely wanted to talk to. And I think there's a lot we can learn from

in this episode. It was a wonderful conversation. I hope no one rejects it out of hand because of the messenger. I do think this is a really good conversation is one I was very much looking forward to having. And I think it touches and we touch on this in the interview into a lot of common themes that we're in today. You know, most people are not in cults, but you can get wrapped up in anti-social destructive

beliefs. You can get trapped in a bubble. You can be radicalized. Social media can radicalize you. The irony for for Megan is that she actually ends up being de-radicalized. It's on Twitter that she starts to discover and learn things are very different than what she grew up with, and this helps her eventually sort of come to her senses. And it took no small amount of courage to leave that church, as she says, to go out into the world populated by all the people that she defended in her, and to sit with that, to sit with the shame, to sit with the fear, to sit with the loneliness.

This is not an easy thing to do. And there's a great interview. Look, you can go to her website at meganfelpsroper.com. You can watch her TED talk, which is called, I grew up in the Westboro Baptist Church. Here's why I left. It's got millions of views for a reason. It's a beautiful talk, and it's both inspiring and terrifying at the same time.

She has a book that came out a few years ago about these experiences that's very much worth reading called Unfollowollow a memoir of loving and leaving the Westboro Baptist Church. Anyways, I won't say anything more. Listen to this episode and I think it gives me hope as I said in the interview. It gives me hope. A lot of people are in a dark place intellectually spiritually, they've been radicalized, not nearly to the degree that she was, and the fact that she was able to break free, get free, get her life back,

and then use her experiences for good. It should inspire us. It should sober us, but it should also inspire us. So here's my interview with Megan Phelps-Roper. You can check out her book, Unfollow, and maybe you should follow her on social media as well. Talk soon. As I was preparing for this, I thought of a little poem by Philip Larkin that maybe

you have heard, maybe you haven't, but I'm going to read it to you. I know this is a little weird way to start a pocket, but I'm going to read this to you. Alright, they fuck you up, your mom and dad. They may not mean to, but they do. They fill you with the faults they had and add some extra just for you, but they were fucked up in their turn by fools and old-style hats and coats,

who half the time were stoppy stern and half at one another's throats. Man hands on misery to man. It deepens like a coastal shelf. Get out early as you can. And this is the one line that I don't agree with. But it concludes the poem. He says, get out early, get out as early as you can and don't have any kids yourself. It's really funny that you bring that up because actually my writing mentor and very good friend, Eric McKenry, who like he like a big piece of the acknowledgments

of my book, he actually was the one who introduced me to that and it's very funny. And I think it's, I mean, it says something that's extremely obvious, but I think seems to be, something that's missing so much from the public conversation. There's so much about cutting off the toxic people in your life and specifically like your parents, you're holding your parents to these, you know, incredibly high standards for, anyways, like I could go on and on about this, but it's the recognition of, you know,

they also come from somewhere. And, you know, when I think about what my mom comes from and and how much worse it was, like people look at my upbringing and think, oh, that's super extreme. And in a lot of ways it was, but compared to what she went through, she saved me and my siblings from some of the worst of that. And she tried, like, the thing I can say about my mother more than anything, both my parents. They gave it they're all, you know, I'm the third of 11 children. And I think it's remarkable that I never felt like I was neglected or that I didn't get

enough attention or anything like that. Like, they spent so much time and energy and resources. Like, there's no question in my mind. They did their absolute best. And I am so, so incredibly grateful for them and for the people that they are. So, with that being said, how do you find yourself in the situation that you found yourself? So let's say people aren't super familiar. Walk us through the story then, because it sounds like you're describing an idyllic normal childhood, but clearly that

was not the case. Right, yes, correct. So my grandfather was a preacher. He founded the West Robaptist Church. He was the first pastor in the mid-1950s. And it's kind of the story of a person who becomes more extreme over time. Part of that ended up being really good, and by that I'm referring to the fact that he became a civil rights pioneer in Kansas. He went to law school and he called Topeka, you know, Brown vs. Board of Education

of Topeka. He arrived, maybe I'm going back too far with this, but he arrived in Topeka the same day that the Brown vs. Board case came down from the US Supreme Court, and he took that as a sign from God that he should go to law school and, you know, affectuate civil rights in this Jim Crow town, as he said.

And so that willingness to kind of stick his neck out and be, you know, super in your face and, you know, fighting this fight that requires the kind of moral courage and a kind of personality that's, you know, willing to alienate yourself from essentially everyone. And that ended up being a really good thing. Ultimately, though, he lost his license to practice law. He lost the license in state court and then gave out his federal court license later. And it wasn't until I was writing my book that I realized that it was just in the months after that, after he stopped practicing law, that this incident happened that sparked Westbro's protesting.

And this, of course, is something that people will look at and see it as almost the exact opposite of the civil rights work, which was that we started protesting gay people. Anybody, so just for context, I was five when the protest actually started. So my earliest memories are growing up on the picket line, you know, standing out there with signs that said these incredibly hostile, controversial attacking things, things like gays are worthy of death, and pretty quickly the word gay became the word,

Fag, and the message morphed, so right now, the most famous Westboro slogan is God hates facts, we became the God hates facts people. So all of my life, that was what we were known for. That was what we did. Our whole life, my whole life, sorry, was all of our lives were organized around preaching this message that we believed was essential for the world

to hear. My Gramps would say that the world needs this message more than they need, air to breathe, or or water to drink or food to eat and Yeah, so so How does a person get radicalized like that? How do you go from a civil rights pioneer to God hates fags like is it is it? a transformative moment is it a long slide? Is it mental illness? Is it projection? Like how does someone go from one extreme to the other?

So what's so funny is that I don't think, you know, Gramps definitely didn't see it as one extreme to another because for him, both of those positions came directly from the Bible. And so it's really fascinating. In the months before I left Westbro, I was thinking about all of the things that I would lose, because as soon as you leave, you are completely cut off from the other church members. Sure. And it's almost entirely my extended family.

It's like 70 people. My mom is one of 13 kids. It's almost my aunt's uncles, cousins, you know, so by blood or marriage, I'm related to almost everybody in the church. And so I was copying, are my dad kept many, many home movies and I started copying them.

And they started when I was two years old and one of the very earliest videos is this almost sermon that Gramps gave at, it was at a black church, and it was at a public event, where many of like state and local officials were speaking against apartheite in South Africa. And, you know, he was, the fire in Brimstone in his voice, you know, speaking against racism

was absolutely the same fire in Brimstone that I later, you know, heard him preach against, against gay people and against it. Basically, everybody, ultimately, everyone outside of our church was a target. Everyone outside was not preaching the truth of God as he understood it. So, I mean, and if you want specifics, where from the Bible does come from? So, when you talk about, against racism, God has made of one blood, all nations of men, to dwell on the earth. So one law shall be to him that is homeborn, and to the stranger that is homeborn, and to the stranger that sojourns among you.

So, equality under the law was a principle, absolutely, that he got from the Bible. And the same God that said that, you know, that there should be a quality into the law said, they'll shout, not lie with mankind, it's a full mankind, it is a bombination. And so that was the standard. And the way that I was raised, it was to understand everything written in the Bible

as this unquestionable, undeniable standard that we had to live by no matter what any modern human would say. Yeah, that must be that must be strange to watch someone that you love and care about that you know to be capable of loving and caring things. Do something profoundly not loving and caring and being... Cognitive resonance is a very powerful force, I guess is what I'm saying. And it's very hard for us to... Our mind works against us as far as seeing contradictions in that sense. So it must have been very disorienting, especially to be essentially born into it,

to have seen what was happening. Yeah, it's really funny, though, because, you know, since I was so young, the cognitive dissonance didn't come into later, I guess, as well as saying. Like, you know, having been born into it, this was the norm. I basically understood that the only people that I could trust were the people in the church. And even though people are sometimes surprised to find out that we went to public school, that we had access to books and read widely, I was reading Stephen King books in like first grade.

Right. And listening to popular music and watching movies and television, and television. And so it wasn't that we were ever cut off from the rest of the world. It was just that from a very young age being essentially indoctrinated, right? It's your taught with what lens to view everything. So before you ever have a question or a doubt yourself, your taught like, okay, well, this is what people are going to say.

This is what they're going to argue. Here's the chapter in verse from the Bible that shows why they're wrong, memorize it. And so it's just has the effect of inoculating you against these ideas before you even encounter them yourself. And honestly, the fact that they were able to, and I should also note that it wasn't just my grandfather who was a lawyer, he required his children and their spouses to also go to law school. So both of my parents are also attorneys. They're extremely smart, extremely well educated, and extremely analytical.

And so to have all of this information kind of, to be marinating in it, essentially, from the time we were very young and, you know, reading the Bible every day and going over these arguments and then standing on a picket line where we are constantly being put in a position to defend them. When they tell you this is what people are going to say and then people say those exact things and here you have this answer and it makes perfectly logical sense. It has the effect of, logical sense. It has the effect of, it really does feel like this larger than life. This clearly must be the truth of God because it all just follows. And like I said, it wasn't until I was much older that I realized that all of our beliefs, they're all valid arguments

from a traditional logic perspective, but they stem from two premises that I never allowed myself to question. And those two premises were that the Bible is the literal and fallible word of God. And number two was that Westboro had the only legitimate interpretation of it, the only one that was consistent in all of its doctrines. And yeah, so... Although, maybe a third one is, and this is always an interesting part to me about religion that like, what other people do is any of your fucking business.

You know, like, like, there is this weird element of all sort of belief systems where it's sort of not sufficient and I mean all belief systems. I don't even just mean religion, but it's sort of like what you believe a thing is not enough. And I guess this is where some cognitive dissonance comes in. It's you believing it is not enough. Other people also have to do it because almost to allow them to exist as they want to exist,

challenges the legitimacy of your beliefs. And I feel like so much of our societal conflict certainly are your sort of religious conflict, and then religious sort of first secular conflict is this idea that like the thing you're supposed to enforce your beliefs on other people. Yeah, and Westbro would, they would quote, the Bible verses that say that they absolutely should, that God says that it's your duty to judge, to judge righteous judgments.

But it is kind of funny though, because- But also let he who is without sin, you know what I mean? Cast the first stone, yes exactly. That actually ended up being, as you may know, incredibly instrumental in my ultimate decision to leave the church. But also, just one random thought that I had when you were talking about religion in general,

this was one of the things that I found, you know, honestly shocking when I was learning about Judaism, that they don't evangelize, they don't try to persuade people to join. And in fact, it's really hard. Yeah, for sure. But I mean, even the people that I was staying with as Orthodox Jewish family in Los Angeles read by Yona Bookshan and his family, and asking them a ton of questions in the months shortly after I left Westbro,

and they were saying like, yeah, in fact, if you say you want to join, they have to tell you know, you have to ask three times before that you can even start down this path. And I was just like, this is so contrary, there's so much of Judaism that is so contrary to my understanding of what it meant to be a good person, but that really resonated with me.

Anyway. Yeah, no, it's like you shouldn't want to be a in a club that wants you as a member. Judaism is doesn't actually want. Right. So, you know what I think is interesting about your story that I think has some relevance here is, I know you don't refer to the Westboro Baptist Church as a cult and I think you have an interesting argument for it. But let's say that it's not. Let's say that it's sort of more of a sort of circular, self-contained sort of universe that strikes me as being a problem we are struggling with as a society today on both sides of the spectrum, but then there's some certain issues that are

popping up where it's not so much that it's a cult, but it is operating under its own sort of destructive kind of anti-social logic that makes it impervious to facts or peaceful coexistence and maybe is actively self-destructive. Now, someone might argue that that is a definition of a cult, but I'm just thinking like I know a number of people for very different reasons who are militantly anti-vax. And it comes from this community that they're in

where this has become an issue of identity that makes it impossible for them to see not only what is in their obvious self-interest, but what is obviously in line with the actual teachings of what they purport to believe, and their sort of basic obligations to, their fellow human beings, I just think we should be,

I guess what I'm saying is we should be careful sort of going like, oh, cults are these things that other people get into and we should think about where we get sucked into things because it's Very it's much easier than people think Absolutely, and I think you know sometimes people think that intelligence is something that can save you from those kind of thought patterns and is something that can save you from those kind of thought patterns. And in fact, I've read several articles, there's one that I remember from the New Yorker that was basically saying that intelligence is actually something,

intelligent people are more likely to join Colts because of that very reason. They think that they're too smart to be taken in by these cognitive flaws that basically all humans are subject to. And so they know they're smart, and so they think they can't be taken in. And of course, my entire family is a, to my mind, a huge argument, against or a bunch of evidence against that idea. Yeah, it's like that I've found on at least two occasions in my life. I sort of got very absorbent in what you might call a cult of personality where it's sort of like you said where

where here's this person, they're very charismatic, they're very they have a somewhat antagonistic relationship to the rest of society or they're transgressive or disruptive in some way, they engender a lot of criticism. And that can be very seductive and attractive. And then the feedback loop that you're talking about, which is like, so let's say you have some natural affinity or some connection that draws you to this person, you hear their explanation of the universe of the world, you're, you're, I don't want to say complicit, but you're engaged in it in some way.

And then it's precisely because you are attacked by it for it or forced to defend it. This is where you get really sucked in because- You're constantly looking at the evidence that supports your position. It's, it's a combination bias, right? Yes. And motivated reasoning. And be, especially when you have tied your identity to it, like when you've gone far enough down the path

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I think it's even more than that, let's say, like, sort of COVID deniers and then anti-vax people. Now that's certain to really get serious, again, to suddenly admit, like, oh, the vaccines are not bad or, oh, COVID is real. Oh, you know, it is dangerous. Like let's say you lost someone or let's say you look at the evidence, you know, like, oh crap, you have to admit that you are a shitty person, right? You have to like the to change your, I think we wonder why people can't change their

mind. It's hard to change your mind when changing your mind is an implicit condemnation of yourself. So I got to imagine, for instance, you start to come to terms wrestle with the fallibility of the teaching you grow up with. The real hurdle is not like, you know, is the evidence 51, 49, you know, where is the evidence come down that it's right or wrong? It's you have to look in the mirror and go like, wait, I was I was holding up a God hates fags Sign, you know, and that that's like to wrestle with the

Awfulness not just of like the wrongness the incorrectness of it, but the consequences that add on other people, like the pain that was caused, I think that's why it's so hard for people to change. Yeah, absolutely. I mean, I don't know, I mean, I've talked about this a lot this moment where I was, it was kind of the epiphany moment, you know, painting in a friend's basement with my sister.

And we're, I know, our backs are to each other. We're painting opposite walls. And I'm kind of going through all of these, you know, all of this evidence essentially in my mind, all of the arguments that had been made. And they were, it was one thing after another that I had come to recognize as wrong. And they start out as relatively, you know, small points of doctrine and they grow and grow and grow and grow and tell there's so many of them that finally,

it wasn't, it literally wasn't until that moment that it finally occurred to me that we might be fundamentally wrong. Of course, it's this massive, massive paradigm shift that happens so quickly. It's kind of funny. I randomly thought of this weird Al song where everything you know is wrong,

black is white, up is down and short is long, and everything you thought was just so important doesn't matter. And so of course, these kind of dominoes are falling in my mind as to what this means. And the magnitude of it was just so enormous. Like it felt like I was choking. Like I had no, you know, and of course,

I'm just immediately breaking down. You know, I'm like weeping uncontrollably, trying to be as quiet as possible. It's just music playing so that my sister doesn't notice. Like the whole world has just absolutely fallen apart. And part of that, of course, is, like, I've spent my entire life here among these people believing that what we were doing

was the most important thing in the world, that it was not just acceptable, but it was good and righteous. And the only hope for other people, you know, we really believed, as crazy as this is, I think, for a lot of people to believe, but we really believed that what we were doing was the definition of loving our neighbor, right, that we were warning them of the consequences of their sins, like this is the only way they'll ever know that they have to change their ways and come to God or else face this eternal torment in hell. And coming to this realization that I had spent all of this time, I had essentially wasted my life

and I had spent it doing these things that had hurt and tormented so many other people. And I had done it with a kind of zeal that if it had been in the service of something, you know, something like what my grandfather had done, the civil rights work, that would be one thing, but to realize that I had gone so far in the wrong direction, and it just felt like there was no hope, you know, like how is, so now we're wrong, and the consequences of this are, I'm going gonna have to walk away from these people and lose everyone that I love and everything that's ever meant anything to me. And I'm gonna have to go out into a world

that I've spent my entire life antagonizing and be among people who have no reason at all to give me a second chance. And it just felt like everything was lost. Yeah, I mean, it sounds terrifying. How do you, did you feel like sort of guilt? Like how do you deal with just sort of looking in the mirror at that point? Yeah, I mean, at that, in that moment, I think, guilt isn't,

I don't know if that's quite the right word, shame, intense shame, intense shame, regret, I think, is a really good word. Like, I, how, like, and I kept searching, I was looking for something like, where along the way, could I have seen this earlier? How could I have come to a better place than the one that I've arrived at now? What should I have done differently?

And I kind of write about this in my book too. And this became a question for me for a while in the months after I left. Like, you know, at what point, you know, at what point did this become my responsibility? Right? So I'm a child and my parents are taking me out on the picket line and they're teaching me all of these things. And so I'm five. Is it my fault then? I'm 12.

Is it my fault then? I'm 18. And I had, you know, after I left, I had some conversation with people on Twitter about this. Like, somebody was like, as soon as you turned 18, it was your fault. And I'm like, I mean, I get the argument, but also it's not like you turn 18

and you suddenly forget everything that you've learned in your life. And then I ultimately came to, it's not that I was looking for a way out of the responsibility. And I just was trying to understand what had happened. And you know, that poem that you quoted at the beginning, the answer, I kind of came to, I guess, was like, there's all kinds of things that lead people in bad directions.

And I think it's much less about assigning blame to people or it should be, much less about signing blame, and more about how and what can we do to help people, push people, prod people, nudge people in a better direction? And so that's kind of what I'm happy to to and I do. And I never, I was going to say, take the blame. Like I'm, I never argue that I'm, that I'm not responsible. But I also, when I talk to people, so my family, for instance, I still reach out to them and

still try to make arguments that I, you know, considering their perspectives and their view on the world. I think even, you know, believing what they believe, I still think there are many arguments to be made, you know, from the Bible that what they're doing is wrong. But I'm appealing to values that they already have. It's less about blaming them or being angry at them, you know, for instance, for cutting me off in the, you know, for cutting me off in the intense pain that comes from what they're doing

with respect to the world and with respect to me. But I just don't think of it in those terms. I don't think that I don't think it helps. And I guess in this, your work has actually been really helpful. Yeah, how did you end up finding that I'm curious? I was at an event and I met this guy. He was sitting at my table named Brian Levinson and he was just super passionate about. He had brought me a copy of your book, The Opsicle,

Is the Way. And I brought it home and I actually ended up listening to the audiobook. And then I listened to Ego is the enemy not long after that. So I think it was like five or six years ago, I think. Yeah, and I just have really loved a lot of what I see from you. I mean, it's really funny because I obviously knew you had a podcast because you asked me to be on it. But I mostly have not heard you hear. I mostly Instagram and your daily stoke, email, and your books. And yeah, it's just there's so much in it that resonates with me. in it that resonates with me. And that has made, I think, my life easier, more kind of full of grace, if that makes sense. Like the acceptance of the way that things are,

like not resisting and fighting, and all of your things about anger, which I had these experiences, like, I don't know, I think probably ten years ago when I was still at the church, where I realized that every time I got really angry, I hurt myself accidentally. Like, I'd go on a run and like, I fell in this giant hole that was covered with, I was running on the beach and this, I don't know, wave came up and made a giant hole right in front of me and I

fell into it. And anyway, just like stupid things like that. And I kind of started to like, resist or trying to like reform how I thought about, you know, things instead of getting so angry. And between you and Sam Harris, I feel like I'm much, much better about that now. No, it's funny was we have a mutual connection in David Abbott-Bull. And I remember reaching out and meeting him

when I was at American Apparel, which is sort of one of the things I was alluding to earlier, where you think you're working for this company or working on this thing that is good, it's a positive force for the world. And you realize that it's complicated, you realize like, hey, this is part of my job, you know, whatever.

And then sort of, he and I connected because he was friends with Tupcharni, who was the CEO of the company, who was a man who made all sorts of ethically forward thinking decisions as he built this company, but also had this sort of Harvey Weinstein side to him that sort of came to light over time. But I say that it came to light over time.

Like lots of people didn't tell me that, you know, it came to light over time. Like I'd like lots of people didn't tell me that at the time, right? That it wasn't sort of very public. But you find yourself for a lot of different reasons, sort of caught up in something. And it's, it's like I wrote, you go as the enemy as I, as American apparel was imploding, but I was also wrestling with, you know, sort of what, why the fuck was I even here involved in imploding? How did I get there? It was a sort of a surreal, strange experience where you sort of, you think you're part of something good, as you were saying.

And then you step away from it and you're like, not only was it not good, it was the opposite of good. And I'm at best, you know, didn't do anything to stop it and at worst, complicit. And at what point, you point, like that same thing, it's like started there when I was 21 years old, was I complicit for not stopping a person two times my age, you know, out of this power

and was hiding things. And at what point, like, I think I saw someone who they were talking about Harvey Weinstein, they were like, I didn't know everything, but I knew enough, right? And what is that point where you become culpable or tied up in it? And that is a very difficult thing to wrestle with as it's happening, and then it becomes weirdly even harder

as distance passes because it almost feels like it was a different person. Like you were a different person. Yeah, exactly. And I actually don't think that's a, you know, it's like a ship of the easiest thing, right? And like, yeah. Your cell has regenerated every seven years.

Like how long and how long until you're completely different. But, but yeah, absolutely, you're completely different. But, but you absolutely right. This is, and this is why it does when I look back, like it is such a strange, it's such a strange feeling because, you know, I can, I gave so many interviews. There's so many videos of me protesting and like making these arguments and it's such a strange feeling because I can, I can try when I think back, like, remember being that person and when those things made perfect sense. And at the same time, I know all the reasons why I don't believe those things now. And it's almost like watching myself be forced, you know, to say things

that I don't believe. And it feels, it's a very strange feeling. I think this is just generally like, living on the internet for everybody in some sense, everybody is in this position now where it's the same Twitter feed. You're going back 10 years, but it's the same Twitter feed. Clearly, you're the same person. You've been running it this whole time, but it's not obvious. I was just talking to a friend about this. It's not obvious these changes that take place over time. This is why it seems like it's such a... I understand, again, there's this kind of always this talk about culture of accountability, holding people accountable.

I understand that, but it seems like so much of the time these days, it's less about accountability and more about this kind of will to punish. In other words, you're not holding people accountable because you're trying to help them change. Like, if it's somebody who's already changed, right? It's like, we still need to find a way to punish people somehow. And there's also not an obvious way for people to, you know, to be forgiven or to have some kind of reconciliation.

So much of the, or rather so many of the sins that people seem to be getting in trouble for are, are things that, like they're not criminal. And if it were criminal, there's clearly a system. Like this is what you do. You go through the system. And if you pay the fine or you go to jail for a certain period of time,

and then you come through and you've paid your debt to society. And now, right now, we are really struggling with the fact that that system is kind of gone. And I, like, I can't tell you how often I have thought just how lucky. I mean, that I had that realization when I did because I feel like, you know, I left at the end of, toward the end of 2012, I think if I had left even a year and a half or two years later, the culture changed so fast, you know, at the end of 2012, Twitter was still more like old Twitter.

John Ronson talks about old Twitter was very confessional. People talking about these things that they struggle with. And does anybody else feel the same way? And people are just this very affirming, understanding place. And then it became this other thing that we see now. There's that expression of hurt people, hurt people, and I sort of think when I look back at American Apparel,

again, it's sort of not quite at the level we're talking about with Westboro Baptist or some other stuff, but I sort of also see it as like, okay, so there's this sort of toxic force, this person who was clearly broken in some profound way, who sort of, whose energy and dysfunction sort of sucks, you know, attracts people, right? And so you get in it, and then there's also this element

of like everyone comes to their sort of awakening at different points, right? And then it's like what can often happen is the ship starts sinking, right? It's sort of like the Titanic where you know there's people who are getting off, getting on the lightboats, getting free, and but then as the ship's going under, it can also suck people down with it. And so I, the same thing, I feel gratitude for, you know, getting free because I see other people, and I think we're also seeing this with Trump, right?

Where we're seeing that sort of people, you know, January 6th was this kind of like wake-up call, right? We're like, holy shit, we're not, we're playing with real stuff here, right? Like this isn't just things happening on the internet. This is more than just owning the lives or whatever, right? So you had this, you can even see it in some of the people's comments where there was this flash of truth and awareness and awakening. And then if you don't manage to get free in time, or you stall, it's like a lot's wife in the Bible. If you stop and you look back, you can get droffins. And so I think it's been interesting to watch people, like I feel like, so I got out in like 2014.

This is right when the obstacle is the way it was coming I got out. Basically, I was, and it was a complicated thing. I actually talk about it a little bit in the new book, but I get out and a couple, like other people, I know stayed for like a few more months And those people remain sort of sucked into the universe to that, to this day. Because by not getting out, they have the sort of flash of recognition you get, you have an epiphany like you did.

But if you don't act on it, if you don't move quickly, if you hesitate, then all of a sudden, all those cognitive forces that we're talking about, you know, sort of suck you in, it's almost impossible to get out of second time. Do you know what I mean? Yeah, yeah. Like you waver, and then, ah, no, you're not going to break. Yeah, it's really, you know, it's so strange though when you think about like the specific, you know, because I think about the fact that, you know, so many of the people in Westbro, like again, they're all like, you know, very intelligent.

And, you know, when people, you know, act like I'm special somehow. And I just think like just the set of circumstances that fell out the way that they did to me. Like the only thing that separates me from the current members of Westboro are is luck essentially. Like I was so lucky to have these experiences

on Twitter of all places that expose me to different ways of thinking in a way that I actually see. You're one of the only people I know that was de-radicalized by so many people. that exposed me to different ways of thinking in a way that actually fear them. You're one of the only people I know that was de-radicalized by so many. Yeah, I mean, it's, but I mean, that's, I think that's the power of real conversation. And it's, it was possible on Twitter in a way

that is, I think, much less likely now. And that's so sad to me. I think that a lot is lost in the current discourse, the way that we talk about each other. And it's so funny because you were making that comparison earlier to, you know, between essentially our kind of political tribes now, you know, to cults, like, you know, people like Westboro members. And like I made that exact comparison in my TED Talk in 2017. And it was writing it right after the 2016 election. And I gave it right after Trump took office.

And I remember feeling like, oh my god, I don't know if people are going to let me make this comparison. This kind of very black and white versus them, thinking the inability to acknowledge when your side gets something wrong or when the other side gets something right, like the most important thing is defending and advocating for your team.

And I was really kind of anxious about doing that, but for some reason, at that point, I think people were still willing to hear that. And I have heard from so many people, including incredibly people who were massive targets of Westbro and I mean that in like real deep personal ways. And that was really shocking to me that people were willing to hear that.

And you know, right before we started recording, you mentioned the Amy Cooper piece that I just published today. And like, I am, I feel better now. It's actually really easy talking to you. But like, before we got on, like all morning, kind of, I've just been feeling sick about, you know, because again, in this piece, it's essentially identifying all the ways that what's happening in public discourse, it feels very Westbroyan. And it brings me back,

and that will to punish, that's absolutely part of it. There are so many different aspects to it. And it's really painful to think about. And not just because of, you know, kind of the, the triggering, you know, taking me back to these like very emotional, like, treetop, traumatic moments, but, but also just the fact of like, you know, I could leave Westbro, right? I could walk away from this, you know, relatively small group of people, you know, and of course, it will, if those experiences will affect me and frame my thinking and inform my perspective for the rest of my

life. But I could walk away from that and try to rebuild. But this problem, like, it's not just like a fringe group. It's, it feels like so much of society and so many of our institutions. And yeah, it's a really, it's a scary place to be. So talk to me about that, because it's something I actually right before we got on someone from the social media team for Daily Stoic published. This piece I wrote in the Daily News last week about vaccines. There's this wonderful quote from Mark Serelis who he talks about,

which you said during the Antenine plague, he said there's sort of two types of plagues. He's like, there's the one that destroys your character and there's the one that destroys your body. And he was basically talking about what we've seen over COVID where, you know, this sort of thing that should be unifying and should get everyone on the same page has sort of motivated a certain percentage of the population to become sort of completely unhinged and let's just say monstrous, monstrously indifferent, right? And what's fascinating to me, or what I struggle with, the same I'm sure you're seeing the response on the post. You wrote this article, people can agree or disagree with it.

But it clearly came from a place of sort of understanding and it was heartfelt, your piece. But then you get this sort of vehement, right? This intense wave of like irrational anger and probably not unlike what people felt being on the other side of Westboro Baptist protests. But I really struggle with maintaining an equilibrium in the face of, it's not so much the onslaught of it because it's not like getting to me, I'm pretty protected, but it's like knowing that, knowing that those people exist

and that they are intensely more motivated than good people is something that's hard, it weighs on me. Does that make sense what I'm saying, or am I just rolling? I mean, a bit, can you just say a little bit more, but I'm just trying to. Yeah.

So this piece goes up about how we have this obligation to each other that vaccines are not just about your own health, but about the idea of public health, that vulnerable, and like, it's not like, hey, I disagree, right? Because that can't be, it can't be that. It has to be not only a defense of what someone is doing, which is at almost medically indefensible, but like aggressively nasty and cruel and vicious.

You know, it's not like, Hey, I don't, I don't support gay marriage. It's like God hates facts, right? Like the difference between those two, I have trouble even just sitting with the fact that like, Oh, like 10, 20, 15%. I don't know what the, the percentage of the audience is that has been broken in the brain or infected at this level. It's hard for me to deal with that. Yeah, it's I think I think my I think my Westbro experience makes me like it's it's much or maybe it's just much easier for me to see like Like, I basically, again, knowing where I come from,

like, I basically, it's very hard for me not to, like, intuitively, like, want to understand where people are coming from. And considering their environment and their life experiences, like, why they would come to the position that they've come to. And so, like, even though I intensely disagree with people sometimes and think that what they're doing is incredibly wrong and destructive to other people and to themselves, like, it's very difficult for me to be angry or upset about it.

Like, I'm basically always trying to trying to like think about, this is kind of what my TED Talk was about too, right? It's, and it's just because that was what worked with me, like on me, I should say, like buy these people, like when I, it still feels like a miracle that I am not still, you know, a member of West Routes Church standing on, you on, a picket line somewhere in Kansas. And that's, or somewhere across the country. It blows my mind when I think about who I was in that moment, and it just seems like this

vast canyon between. Yeah, I think what makes me sad about it, it's not that it exists. It's that it doesn't exist in a vacuum, right? That it exists with real consequence. The vaccines again, yes. Great. Such a vivid example of this where, you know,

it's like, it's very hard to take, you know, just sort of an abstract political belief and tie it to sort of actual real world consequences in the way that something like vaccine denial or misinformation doesn't just affect you. Not first off, they're individual choice obviously had, but then to infect, to not just be like, let's say hesitant, but to be vehemently infecting other people

with, because they really believe it's dangerous. Right. And so it's like, so it's so funny. Because again, I can't get, I got to stop saying, like it's so funny. I feel like I feel like that. That's the hard part. It's not funny at all.

Right, exactly. Yes, but what I mean is like strange or interesting. Like when I hear those things, they really believe this. So my, again, coming from where I come from, which was the tendency to judge and condemn. Like, that's what I meant. You know, in that piece, like, I come from this culture of public judgment and condemnation.

Like, that was our, that was what we did, right? That was like our whole purpose. Like, we weren't actually trying to convince people. We were just telling them they were wrong. And after that, it was up to them, you know, or more specifically, it was up to God, whether he was going to change their minds or keep them in these sins or bad thinking or whatever.

And so now I resist, like again, it's almost like I'm constitutionally incapable. You know, there's, I love, by the way, how, how ready you are to quote things all the time. Like, I just vast number of, like, writers and books and things. It's really amazing. But, like, one of the epigraphs of my book is this line from the Great Gatsby. And I remember reading it at Westrow and actually kind of having this like faint sense of like this feels transgressive to be loving this quote and identifying so strongly with this quote. And the quote was, reserving judgments as a matter of infinite hope. And like that

just immediately rang true to me. Like it's the idea, it's the willingness to see other people as being on a journey. They don't have to be forever who they are in this moment. What can I do to help this person be more willing to go down this one path versus another that I believe is wrong? Yeah, but I think about the great Gatsby and he, you know, he talks about how they're careless people and they smash things up and then retreat back into whatever, you know, sort of fantasy world they live.

And I think that's what I struggle with on this stuff where it's like, this isn't a game, right? And I think that, that's what I think. But did you see, by the way, I, so we were actually just looking at this the other day. So like these tweets from earlier on, so earlier last year in the way, we were actually just looking at this the other day. So, these tweets from earlier on, so earlier last year in the pandemic, and then also, there's one last July from Joy Read, basically saying, they're rushing the vaccines, and we can't trust these things.

So it was liberals kind of, you know, on your... Yeah, sure. And so what I'm saying is, it's not a problem of, and you've said this too, it's not a problem with one side or the other, it's just a very human problem. And like after spending so long on the judgment condemnation side, like this is what I mean, when I feel like I can't help, but like,

I'm just basically always thinking of what is the answer? Like, what is the solution? What do we do from this? And it's so hard as an individual in this country, right? Like, we don't have, you know, you and I don't have like institutional power. We have, you know, our platforms, which, you know, yours is obviously vastly larger than mine, but it's like all we have is our voice and trying to, you know, and it sucks. It's really hard sometimes to not feel, not succumb to the kind of hopelessness that

seems to pervade, you know, our discourse now. Yeah, I think that's one thing that is hopeful about your story. And Mark Marin talks about how basically, just a certain percentage of the population has just been brain fucked, right? And it's largely older people, but it definitely skews across the spectrum politically socially.

But there's just people who've been sort of radicalized. Like, are there people on all sides that have been radicalized in one way or another? Yes, sure. Definitely. Right, of course. Some worse than others, for sure. One attempted to overthrow the Democratic election and hang the vice president, one,, although again, both sides of it as far as the vaccine, but, you know, one side is sort of keeping. Currently, yes, absolutely. One, one, one, one group of people, and again, there can be overlaps or not overlaps, but then there's, is probably more like the horseshoe theory of like extremes on both ends. There's a percentage of the population that's holding the and the entire world hostage as far as keeping us mired in this pandemic, it's really tough to... Yeah, it's just a tough situation.

Yeah, and I think what's hopeful about your story is that it is possible to get unfucked in the brain, apparently, perhaps not at scale, but at least there's some hope for individuals. And I read about this in my next book, too, where there's this scene where one of the people who beat John Lewis on the freedom ride, see like salted him for trying

to sit in this waiting room in Memphis. I forget where it was. Maybe Alabama, but not just assaulted him, but beat him nearly to death. 30, 40 years later, reaches out and tries to apologize. And they meet each other. It's this majestic moment of both vulnerability and... Reconciliation. Regret, but then also, yeah, forgiveness and self-control and hope, you know, like it can happen on the individual level. I think the scary thing what social media has done is,

you know, how many people are in the Westboro Baptist Church versus how many people have been radicalized politically through social media on all sorts of extremist movements, whether it's the white nationalist extreme movement or some of these sort of far left wing groups, like there's definitely a lot, but how do you de-radicalize millions of people who have been radicalized for different reasons

in different ways? Yeah, so I mean, I want to talk about it. I mean, several things come to mind. So first, do you know the story of Derek Black? No, I might, it sounds familiar. Yeah, so he's the son of Don Black who started this, you know, essentially home for white nationals on the internet, stormfront.

Oh, yes, yeah, I read this. Yes, there was a big Washington Post piece about it. The white flight of Derek Black. It was an amazing story. And so much of it, like paralleled my story, like in really eerie ways, actually. But so he and I are friends now. We talk about this all the time.

And so I guess part of the point here, and I'll keep making it. But part of this point is that my story is not unique, right? Like, Derek is an example. Have you heard of Darryl Davis? No. He is a black musician. There's a documentary on Netflix about this, what I'm about to tell you, it's this insane thing where he has personally convinced some like 200 members of the KKK to- Oh yes, okay, I know this one too, yes.

Yeah, absolutely. So like, you know, I think people think that stories like these are like just some kind of magic. Like, they just, you know, happen, you know, under some, you know, mysterious set of circumstances. And I don't think that's true. And I'm going to reference my 10 talk again. Sorry. But the whole point, like, you know, the whole reason I gave that talk was to talk about the second half, essentially. It's the, it's how to talk to people we disagree with. And then in this case, you know, it's one of those places where

the natural human instincts tend to lead us to a sucky places. So it's the judging and condemning, it's the attempts to shame people into, you know, being on what we believe is the right side. There's this, I didn't, I heard about this after I left, I became intensely interested in psychology and how all of this works. And the forces that kept me there versus the ones that eventually allowed me to leave. And one of these forces is this tendency toward complementary behavior, which is that we are tendency to mirror one another, right? So when we see, believe that people are attacking us and they're doing wrong, you know, our tendency

is to, you know, be defensive. And it works the other way. When people are kind to us, we want, we tend to want to be, you know, kind in return. But non-compimentary behavior, like it's incredibly difficult, but it's also really powerful because it means that one side can have enormous influence on the other. When somebody is being horrible to you, being kind back to them is not easy. It requires a kind of intentionality and a presence of mind. It's exactly the kind of stuff that you, all the things that you talk about, the self-control, the not reacting, but intentionally responding,

and being aware of how you're being perceived. It's a willingness to set aside your own ego and not have it be about how this person is offending you and making you feel, but really about accomplishing this thing that you want to happen, which is you don't want this person to be horrible. So instead of trying to shame people, especially across ideological devices,

sorry, I'm gonna do a small tangent here. Because this is another one of those concepts that was absolutely mind-blowing to me. So I was talking to this anthropologist a few years ago and she was distinguishing guilt and shame for me, like in whatever her official understanding. And shame, she defined as when we know that we have violated the norms of our community.

And so it goes back to also what you were saying earlier about, when people are coming after you for something that you believe you're doing right, it tends to push you even deeper into this, because I might be getting a little bit lost here. When somebody from the other side comes after you, you know, you already believe that they're wrong. So the fact that they think that you're wrong, and I experienced this intensely at West Pro.

Like, my Gramps would say, this is a badge of honor that these people are coming after us. They're evil. Of course, they're coming after us because we're good. And so that attempt to shame people across the aisle, it has the opposite effect or tends to have the opposite effect. Unless you are kind of attaching something and another scientist was telling me this the other day, she called it moral reframing, right? So it's trying to, instead of trying to change their minds about something, you are appealing to values that they already, you're not trying to change their values, you're appealing

to values they already have and using that to try to persuade people and change their minds. So backing up again to shame not being effective, it is what people did with me, right? It's this kind of very intentional recognizing that I'm a human being with a lifetime of experiences that led me to this moment and their willingness. Like David, you mentioned David Abbott ball. Like he was the one who presented that very first argument

that it was the first direct contradiction in Westbro's internal contradiction in Westbro's doctrines. And I honestly don't know I would ever or could ever have left without that understanding. The irony is that there's also a biblical basis for that as well. Romans 1220 is like, if your enemy is hungry, feed him thirsty, give him something to drink.

And for this, you will dump burning coals of shame on his head. So it's a different kind of shame, right? Yes, yes. But it's by mirroring the exact opposite of the behavior and it is extraordinarily hard to do especially When and I'm saying this as a person is guilty of it all the time when the person is doing something Monstrous or insensitive or immature And I think that's where we really struggle where it's like right. Yeah, it's like you know

Your kid does something wrong and you want to, you, you realize that by reacting, you're actually reinforcing the exact behavior that you're trying to stop. Yes, exactly. And you, I mean, you, you talk a lot about, you know, humility, right, in, in your work, right, how, you know, smart people are humble. And, and part of that, I mean and there's a lot of reasons for that, but it's partly the recognition, I think, or, or, and, or maybe I'm wrong about this. Maybe it's not exactly.

It's a pistomological humility, right? This, this became a thing, you know, huge, huge, huge, huge, in, in reframing how I think about myself and other people. But it's, for me, it's the recognition that if I were that person, I would be doing this thing. If I was this person, if I had their DNA, if I had had their exact life experiences, well, I would, in fact, be this person, I would be that person. And so, and so it's, there's just a kind of grace, I think, that comes from that quote I mentioned from

Gatsey earlier, like, reserving judgments as a matter of infinite hope. That is, you know, this concept of grace, right? It's by not issuing the judgment and by instead, like like seeing this as someone who can change and also someone that who's changed you can contribute to. Like again, this is where the hopelessness that we see right now is so dangerous because if it really is hopeless, well then I can treat this person however I want, right? However, I feel it. It's not about making things better.

It's just about, well, they're just wrong. Again, it's a very West Browian view. These people are wrong, so therefore, it's justified for us to go and protest their funerals. Because really, our message is more important than this human being standing in front of us. For us to get this message across to them means far more in the end. You know, if they're gonna go to hell, well, a little pain now will save,

you know, a lot of pain later. So there's so many ways that you can reframe and this is, you know, how I felt watching what happened to Amy Cooper last year. Well, when you attribute the absolute worst motives to this person, well then tearing her life apart is perfectly justified. Like the fact that she is a essentially, well, then tearing her life apart is perfectly justified. The fact that she is a essentially, I mean, if you listen to the, I don't know if you've

probably not a chance to listen to the podcast or maybe you're an uninterested in hearing from Amy Cooper, like I think maybe a lot of people are, you know, it's really heartbreaking listening to what happened to her. And whether you believe that she was right or wrong to have called the police in that moment, whether you believe that her fear was justified, whether you think that, you know, her, you know, she says she was just essentially describing him,

thinking about how she was going to describe him to the cops when she mentioned his race, and that she only repeated herself, you know, because there was a bad cell connection. So the operator couldn't hear her. She wasn't trying to emphasize his race. She was just trying to get out of the situation. Whether you believe any of that or not, I think that the punishment that was needed out

to her, this essentially ending her life as she knew it is a really sad and horrible thing, especially knowing that it was done without all of like with so many of the facts buried. And in some cases intentionally buried. When I watch those videos, one of the things that I sort of try to remind myself even, you know, and from what I remember from the story, I wouldn't say it was a pattern,

but I remember this wasn't a first offense if I remember correctly. What I saw in that video was a disturbed person. I didn't know exactly why she was disturbed. It could be for the reasons you were saying, it could be that she was having a mental break. I see this when you watch the so-called sort of Karen videos of people freaking out in a supermarket because, you know, they're asked to wear a mask. Or, you know, I got this crazy letter from someone who came into our bookstore that, you know, was asked to wear a mask. It's like, this person is, is, is really struggling. It has nothing to do with what's happening right now, right? This is the means by which this pain and trauma is being expressed and it's wildly inappropriate and incorrect and sort of socially destructive and all those things can be true

and this could also be a person who's under immense dress. So it doesn't undo it, but it mitigates it, right? And it forces you to see it with a little bit more perspective and empathy. Yeah, exactly, exactly. It's not a computer game. Like this is a real person. Exactly. And so much of that is lost. Like it's, and again, it's, and I'm sorry,

I honestly feel like, could this possibly be true? Like I can't tell you how many times I feel like, when I make these comparisons to Westboro, like is possibly be true? Like, I can't tell you how many times I feel like, when I make these comparisons to Westboro, like, is it really true? Or am I just like, a one-trick pony or something, you know what I mean? Like, is this, am I just framing everything this way? But, but again, that idea, it's like, you know,

the end justifies the means, right? Like, we have to, we have this message, and it's the most important thing and therefore anything and everything that we do to preach it is justified. That was something that I came to disbelief and when I pushed back against that, like the resistance, like the idea,

like how could I possibly, who was I? To self-righteous person trying to call into question the motives of the servants of God? Like it's sorry, go ahead. I you know no to me the other reaction I have with like let's say you watch an Amy Cooper video or any of these people I try to go Whatever I think about what this person did right? It's not my place where my job to punish them. This is what prosecutors are for. This is what their family is for. This is what their employer is for. The people who actually have a relationship with this person or perhaps this is also what the community most directly affected by this thing.

This is their job. Right? My job is to watch it and go where am I like that person? Right? What have I said that was offensive or not representative when I was under stress or dress? Right? Right. What where have I instinctively reacted in a way that was totally ignorant of the sort of potential risk that this might expose other people to so on and so forth? So, I think the idea of humility, that. Exactly. Yes, exactly. And it's that kind of humility that also mitigates your desire to hurt other people. Right.

It's what I mean. Say again. You should be too busy looking in the mirror. Right, exactly. I think there's a line from Confucius where you know, they're criticizing, you hear someone criticizing another philosopher says, ah, you must be more perfect than I am because I don't have time to do this, right?

And I think that's sort of how I think about it. It's like, I don't need to go after this person. Last question for you, because I think this brings us back full circle. You have children of your own now, yes? I have one girl, she's the, a little girl, she's the best.

How old? She is two and three quarters. And so somewhat approaching the age when the indoctrination starts for you, how are you thinking, you know, I think, if we're thinking about that poem, what that poem is really about is intergenerational trauma

and how we pass on the sins to our children and we perpetuate, you know, this stuff. So how are you thinking about both breaking the cycle and, you know, now that you have a child, how do you think about what you expose them to, how you teach them, how you let them sort of be their own person? I've got to imagine you have an immense sensitivity to that. And I even know like my own issues with my own parents having like my kids are now at an age where like I remember being

that age. Like you don't remember being two so you're not quite there. But like four or five you're like, Oh, I know I remember being alive. Right. And so it gives you a new lens on your own childhood because you suddenly go like, oh, that was a horrible thing to do to a four-year-old. Like I would never do that or whatever it is, right? Yeah, and how are you trying to write a new chapter with your own film? Oh, man, this is a great question

because I mean, for years before I got pregnant, I was reading parenting books because I realized that, you know, it's not enough. It's not enough to just say, I'm not going to do what they did. You have to have an alternate paradigm or else you're going to go right back to exactly what you know. Like, because it's in your muscle memory. Absolutely. And it was actually shocking to me that much harder.

I would say that it was quite easy for me to change my thinking about, to think differently about gay people or about Jewish people or any of these people, the people in these groups that we used to target. I started to see very quickly, like, oh, yeah, they're just people. You know, they're just humans, like what their own experience is. Like, and it was very easy.

And again, because I had thought I was, you know, going after them, quote unquote, like, for their own good, like, it wasn't like I had a sense of like personal hatred for them or whatever. So that was easy. It was much, much harder, much harder to change my thinking about children. Like, and maybe I'm actually not totally positive why this is. I would guess it's because, you know, that's essentially who I was to my family. I didn't leave the church until I was almost 27, but I was still a child to them. I was still a young person.

I was still living it at home with my mom directing my activities all day, every day, basically. The sense of powerlessness, that they have this authority over you. My mom would literally say, you can sum up the Bible in three words, obey, obey, obey. The emphasis on obedience without question or protest and the reliance on force and control to make children do what you want. It was just so much a part of my understanding of what the parent child relationship meant as loving as my parents were, that was always the, you know, like undergirding everything. And so I would listen to these parenting books about like you know, like, undergirding everything. And so I would listen to these

parenting books about, like, how to respond to a child when they're acting out or doing something that you think is, you know, bad or not the way that they should be acting. And, like, they would be advocating this kind of connection, right? This gentle, like, you know, if they're throwing a fit or having a hard time, like, you know, if they're throwing a fit or having a hard time, like, you know, like, I hear you, like, I understand this is not an easy thing, you know, to, it's not, it's not easy to not have what you want the second that you wanted or whatever, whatever, kind of like verbally affirming, like the feeling, not okaying the action, but affirming the feeling. And like, yes, this is hard. Let me help you through

it. Like, I was absolutely shocked by like, the feeling of this is hard. Let me help you through it. I was absolutely shocked by the feeling of this enormous resistance and like, no, no, no, no, no, I'm definitely not gonna be enabling. That's how my family would put it. I'm definitely not gonna be enabling this kind of behavior, all that kind of stuff. And I felt that and then I was like, oh my God, I need to read way more books about this.

I need to retrain my brain and how I think about this, because I can't do this. My mom would always say things like, these kids don't know how good they have it. And the implication being like she, and as I mentioned at the very beginning, she did save us from the very worst of what she experienced as a child and all her years growing up.

And, but it wasn't enough, right? It's not enough to just do better. Like, that's what I feel, I think, more than anything, like this huge sense of responsibility. Like, this, this child, like you are their first introduction to the world and like what a good relationship looks like and how to live a good life. And I take that responsibility so seriously. And I would say that's my like primary job in this world. Like that's what it feels like. More important than, you know, I'm than, I'm very grateful and glad to

have been able to do and to still be doing work that I believe and hope is valuable to others, but the responsibility that I feel to her is enormous. I don't think I've experienced, I mean, this is, I think, by far the greatest place of growth in my life since I left. Yeah, one book I'd recommend to people, I was probably relevant to your experience. There's a book, Adult Children of Emotionally Image Your Parents, which was very helpful to me, and a lot of people I know, I think it's by Dr. Gibson. And anyways, the idea being that like, you know, your parents were just like two random people that met, right? And had all sorts of issues and when you grow up, as it sounds like you did,

and a lot of people did, it was your parents' emotional immaturity that put them in the position they were in, right? That then you were in. And you have, if you don't wrestle with that stuff and we all have different issues, you know, some parents were opaholics, some parents were fundamentalist, some parents were neglectful, whatever, but you have to deal with the shit from your childhood,

or you will pass it on exactly as Philip Larkin is saying. And it's not your parents fault if that happens. It's your fault. Right. You cut out there for like 10 seconds. No, no, you were saying some parents are neglectful, some parents are abusive. Yeah, some parents are neglectful,

some are abusive, some are alcoholics. Every parent is a different issue. But if you don't deal with that, you will pass it on as Philip Barkin is saying. And it's not your parents fault. It's your fault. 100% absolutely. And it's that like, you know, when I in the moments when it's really, really hard, right, where I have to be the most intentional about everything that I'm, like, when I'm the most triggered, you know.

Yeah. You know, those moments, like, I think about how incredibly difficult it is, and I think, like, I don't want her experience of parenthood to be this, right? I want to give her the tools that, like, and I think, of course, parenthood is always going to be, you know, difficult in some ways. But when the, you know, I have a sister-in-law who's really wonderful. She's married to my brother. So my brother was in the, obviously, in the church with me.

And she, I see how she reacts to their children. And even though she can be just as frustrated and just as upset, it amazes me, like how she responds with such gentleness, even when she is tired beyond belief, even when, and it's because her understanding was built in from the time she was a kid. It's so much easier and more second nature to her. I want it to be second nature for my daughter. That's beautifully said. Let's call it there and I wish you all the best.

Thank you so much, Ryan. It's a really nice talking to you. Thanks so much for listening. If you could leave a review for the podcast, we'd really appreciate it. The reviews make a difference and of course every nice review from a nice person helps balance out. The crazy people who get triggered and angry anytime we say something they disagree with. So if you could rate this podcast and leave a review on iTunes, that would mean so much to us and it would really help the show. We appreciate it, and I'll see you next episode.

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