TRIGGERnometry - "Anti-Racism Training Doesn't Work" - Dr Karlyn Borysenko

Episode Date: August 5, 2020

Karlyn Borysenko is an organisational psychologist and author of Zen Your Work: Create Your Ideal Work Experience Through Mindful Self-Mastery. Support TRIGGERnometry: Paypal: https://bit.ly/2Tnz8yq https://www.subscribestar.com/trigger... https://www.patreon.com/triggerpod Find TRIGGERnometry on Social Media:  https://twitter.com/triggerpod https://www.facebook.com/triggerpod https://www.instagram.com/triggerpod About TRIGGERnometry:  Stand-up comedians Konstantin Kisin (@konstantinkisin) and Francis Foster (@failinghuman) make sense of politics, economics, free speech, AI, drug policy and WW3 with the help of presidential advisors, renowned economists, award-winning journalists, controversial writers, leading scientists and notorious comedians. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Hello and welcome to Trigonometry. I'm Francis Foster. I'm Constantine Kissen. And this is the show for you, if you want honest conversations with fascinating people. Our terrific guest today is an organizational psychologist and an author. Dr. Carlin Borisenko. Welcome to Trigonometry. Thank you so much for having me. Excited to be here. Boys, great to have you. Listen, before we get in to the conversation, for anyone who doesn't know who you are, just tell everybody who are. you, how are you where you are? What has been your journey to the problematic seat in which you find yourself now? Yeah, so I'm an organizational psychologist and I, that would essentially, that means is I work with businesses all over the world to help create better working environments,

things like that. And that was a space I had been playing in since about 2012 until I had the, well, some would say fortune, some would say misfortune, of going to a Trump rally as a Democrat of 20 years. And I had no idea really what I was going to find, but I lived. in New Hampshire in the States. And so I had seen all of the Democratic candidates for president at some point or another in person because we're very spoiled. And Donald Trump came to town and I decided to go to a Trump rally and write about my experiences. And the article kind of went viral on the internet, which is how I got thrust into the problematic space rather quickly and unexpectedly. Well, we'll get on to that. We'll get on to the political stuff. But actually, Francis and I wanted

to chat to you about the workspace stuff for a bit, which is an era of expertise that we don't often cover. So go ahead, Francis. No, absolutely. So what we're seeing at the moment because of COVID and the COVID and Corona and all the rest of it is the way we work fundamentally change almost overnight. So could you explain a little bit to us about how the ways we've worked have changed? And what are the implications do you think about these changes and these rapid changes?

we're experiencing. Yeah. So, I mean, a lot to unpack there, but I think the first thing was just the absolute shock of how quickly work had to change. And when you think about the elements that people need psychologically to be set up for success at work, it starts at a very basic level of things that people don't even think about. Like, do I have a desk that's not broken to sit at? Do I have a lamp in my office that is not going to give me a headache? Do I have a chair that's not going to give me back problems. Do I have a printer? Do I have a fax machine? Do I have all these office supplies? These, when you're in the workplace, seem like a no-brainer, we don't even consider them. But when all of a sudden, you have to take your workforce and move everyone home and no one has an office set up and no one knows what

that means and half the office knows how to use things like Zoom and half the office has no idea what's going on. It creates instantly a lot of problems and consternation and anxiety that's frankly even worse than when people are afraid of losing their jobs, which was the second element that was added on top of it, because not only are all of a sudden everyone leaving and going home, but there's also fear of who's going to lose their job next with these mass layoffs, these furloughs. No one really knows how a lot of businesses are going to fare. And so that's the next level of psychological safety that was inhibited when everything first started. Now, as things kind of calmed down and people started to settle into what this was going to be, it actually gets worse in a little bit of a nefarious way

because now people are spending all day on Zoom or all day on WebEx or teams or whatever tool they happen to be using. And at least with the clients that I've worked with, the last couple months have been incredibly painful for them in terms of using technology to communicate to the point because they just get sick of it. They get tired of being on their computer all day. And so what happens is at that point, team communication. starts to break down, simply because no one wants to do it. And when we're looking at what are the core attributes of highly functioning, highly resilient teams, the number one thing that says highly resilient teams apart from every other type is psychological safety. They trust each other. They have

each other's backs. They're communicating openly. They're able to have productive conflict. Every single one of these attributes is inhibited when we're going to a full-time work-at-home scenario. And so that's what a lot of teams are managing through right now. People are just sick of it. They want to go back to the office. Well, some want to go back to the office. And then some are scared of going back to the office because I'm going to go, I'm going to catch the virus and die if I go back to the office.

And so it is a very tough place for organizations to be in. And, you know, I actually have not seen many that are handling it very well because we're talking about up and down the leadership chain. We're having all these problems that are coming up with communication and trust. and just being worn out, being burnt out. And Colin, a lot of people are saying that what we're seeing now is the death of the office in real time. This idea that we commute 40 minutes to an hour, to an hour and a half, to go somewhere, to go and then sit at a desk for eight hours and then commute an hour and a half back.

That is an obsolete idea. Do you agree with that, or do you think the answer is slightly more nuanced? I think it's much more nuanced than that. I think the reality is that we're talking about phasing out the office environment. And it is a lot easier to do that at tech companies like Twitter or Facebook than it is at places like, you know, an insurance company or, you know, I have this one client that they make socks. And so, I mean, there have to be people there. I have clients that are credit unions. Well, there have to be people in the banks. We have to be able to go to the bank. And so it does become a much more nuanced discussion. And frankly, it's not beneficial to phase out the office. We need to have these face-to-face. face human interactions. Otherwise, we literally forget that our coworkers are human, right? And then you have all these interpersonal problems popping up. So not only do I think this is not the death of the traditional office, I think that's a little premature. I think it's not even ideal for the traditional

office to die off. It's really interesting that you make that point because Francis and I were talking just before we started this conversation, which we're already really enjoying and look forward to continuing. But I was saying to him, like, we need to get back into the studio. You know, we're having these brilliant guests, you, Scott Adams, Brett Weinstein, Ben, you know, so many people that we love talking to. But I just watch one of our interviews done in studio, and I just feel like it's a whole different thing, you know, and it's a whole different thing to watch. It's a whole different thing to be part of. It's a whole different thing to be interviewed in that way. Like, I'm not sure that this excitement about, you know, moving back,

moving into this kind of online space entirely is going to work. And I suspect the point you make about forgetting that other people are human will tie into the political stuff we talk about later. But I imagine that some of the divisiveness we've seen politically and psychologically recently is a big product of that, wouldn't you say? I absolutely agree. And then you add on to it, hang on, I'll even, I'll even do this. Then you add onto it this. We're literally covering our faces. We're covering the thing that we use to express our emotions. I mean, this is like, this is a perfect storm, which is a, going to create a really difficult scenarios for teams to function in the workplace, but also,

I mean, just looking out more broadly, if we look at all the Karens attacking people in the stores for not wearing a mask, I mean, we have started to dehumanize each other. And it's very concerning to me. It's very concerning not only in the workplace. And I believe that work is important because it gives people a purpose. It gives people a place to focus their energy. Fundamentally, there are really two types of people in the world. They're creators and there are destroyers. And if you're not creating something and focusing your energy in a positive direction, well, then you're going to end up like the SJWs out pulling down statues in the street because they don't have anything else that's more productive to do. And so that's what work it gives people.

And when workplaces are, you know, becoming all about how much time I'm spending on my computer, that becomes a problem. Another factor is that working from home is a different type of environment than going into the office. And it's one that it is very, very easy to lose. work-life balance. Because what happens? People kind of roll out of bed. They don't even get dressed or shower and they just roll right into the office. And oftentimes you'll find that people don't eat throughout the day. They forget to take breaks. They forget to take walks maybe during lunch. They work way later. They stop going to the gym entirely. And so work life balance also gets really out of whack and people just become generally a lot more unhealthy, which makes them a lot more

consternated when they're in the work environment, which again only adds to those interpersonal issues. And there's been a lot of people who are saying that actually what we're going to start to see is our cities becoming more and more obsolete. When people realize that they can work from home, that they don't actually have to be amongst the hustle and the bustle when they're going to be on Zoom four days a week. What do you reckon about that? I mean, I think I don't know that cities are going to become obsolete. I think that there is certainly something to it. And I think we're seeing this in the States where people stop living in the city. but certainly there are always ways to commute in.

I think that my biggest concern with this entire affair is just the dehumanization that's going on all around. We've got to stop being afraid to be around each other. And whether that's from the virus or it's just we've gotten used to this new normal of working in our houses and never seeing each other, the more that the longer that this continues without some sort of corrective action to try to steer us back to where we were before all this started. I'm becoming increasingly concerned that this really is our normal now. I mean, people keep calling it the new normal. This is our normal. We've been at this now, what,

since March? So that's several months. That's more than enough time to develop a habit. And so all the work that we took to get into this scenario, we're now going to have to do the same work to get back out and reclaim a normal where it is common to be around each other and have conversations in person and do work in person. And that's going to be a whole process to get a back there. But Colin, you've just said that, you know, this is the new normal and, you know, where we've become not comfortable, but accustomed to being isolated. What effect does that have on the human being and the human mind being isolated, not being used to interacting with people, not used to socialising? Look, I spend a lot of time telling you what's wrong with the

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Well, I think it makes it, it makes it incredibly uncomfortable when you are in social situations. I mean, it's kind of roughly akin to, you know, I guess, I suppose, being an introvert going to a networking event. Now, it's not as though you can't engage in those social situations if you've gotten used to being alone, but it's going to take a lot more energy to do it. So, you know, we'll think back in olden times when we used to have networking events that we were going to. You know, for an introvert like me, it took a lot to get me out to a networking event. I didn't want to go. I didn't want to be around people I didn't know and be uncomfortable and all this good stuff and have to make chit chat. But I did it because you have to do it. And when you do it,

just get really tired from it, right? It just takes extra energy. And so what people need to realize is that we can still have these human interactions. We can still meet up in person. We can still do these things. But because we have gotten used to the isolation, it's simply going to take more energy. It's going to take more determination to actually see it through. Maybe it's useful to liken it to, you know, going back to the gym when you haven't been there for three months, as I recently had to do when my gym reopened again, and you know it's going to be painful and you don't want to go and you are not looking forward to it, but you know it's good for you. And so you do it anyway. And is it a little bit painful at first? Yes, it absolutely is painful. But once you get over that hump, I mean,

maybe it would be helpful for people to visualize like, wouldn't it be nice to be sitting at a restaurant and have people around me again or having a conversation in person? If we can think about how it felt to do those things when we really enjoyed them, that'll make it easier for us to get back there. Yeah, it's an interesting point. And when you talk about creators and destroyers, that's something that reminded me, it's actually true of animals as well. Like, if you keep a dog at home and you don't give it enough exercise and et cetera, it starts, you know, chewing stuff and tearing stuff apart. And I mean, obviously, the other thing that's affecting workplace is now in a very big way is the whole conversation about race. People are being required to read certain

books and being forced to accept certain ideologies as being the truth sent down from above. What do you think will be the impact of some of those things on the way that we're having these conversations and the way people relate to each other in the workplace and outside of it? Yeah, I'm actually terrified of what I'm seeing in the workplace in response to George Floyd's death with certain books, the books that will not be named, being mandated out of out to the workforce. They're actually buying copies of the book in bulk, giving it out to everyone, forming book clubs around these anti-racist ideas, bringing in high dollar value anti-racist trainers. And by the way, there is absolutely zero evidence that anti-racist training works and has any

positive effect on the organization. There's zero evidence in the literature of that. But organizations are spending tens of thousands, hundreds of thousands. We know that the United States government spent $5 million on this training to indoctrinate government employees into anti-racist ideals. And this is actually the most terrifying thing to me because fundamentally what this literature says is you as a person do not matter. The only thing that matters is your skin color. And I have to treat you according to your skin color and talk to you according to your skin color. And that means that And that's an incredibly disempowering position to be in because not only does it not really give me the ability to communicate with you just as an average person to get what I need.

It also is incredibly disempowering to people who, to people of color, to be honest. It doesn't give them a whole lot of leeway as well. It actually takes their empowerment away and says, you are at the whim of what the group says. Because, I mean, those are really the people that feel of the most when they speak up. It's not white people like me. It's people of color who speak up and say, I don't want to be infantilized in this way in the workplace. They're the ones that get at the worst. And so I am deeply concerned about the impact of anti-racist training on things like team camaraderie, collaboration, connection, being able to engage in productive conflict.

Because every time you engage in conflict, it becomes, what does it become? A microaggression every time. And so it's going to start tearing teams apart and really is going to inhibit resiliency and productivity in the work environment. I mean, one of the things we should probably say at this point just for the low IQ people is that we're all against racism. This is like a disclaimer. You're nodding that people won't be able to see.

Let me, okay, let me make sure that everyone can see this. Three of us, we're all nodding. We're against racism, right? But the point is what you're talking about is very specific. That did look like brainwashing, mate. I'm going to be honest with you. That's what we do here, Trigonometry. We convince people not to be racist, Francis.

Remember, that's the goal of the show. That's not what people say on Twitter, but anyway, carry on. They're very true. But my point is, Colin, when most people, because you're an expert in this, and the two of us are an experts, but we've been paying attention, let's say, and because of what we do, most people, when they hear anti-racism training, like, that's a good thing, right? I mean, you want to train people not to be racist, right?

if you can help it, that would be fantastic. So when you talk about anti-racism training, the indoctrination you're talking about and that it doesn't work, just explain to someone who may be less, you know, aware of everything that's happening, what it is that you're talking about. What are people being taught? What are they being told? What are they being told they have to do now, etc.? Well, I mean, it is brilliant branding, isn't it, for anti-racist training? It's very Orwellian. It's a very Orwellian branding because what they're essentially saying is you, you as an individual, do not matter. You are not an individual. I've been telling Francis this for years. You know. It's Russian background.

And well, and in fact, being an individual in terms of an anti-racist framework is actually part of a white supremacist culture in organizations. You know what? And other components that they're going to teach you as part of the white supremacy are things like meetings. or writing things down or having goals or being on time. These are all part of white supremacist culture in organizations that need to be dismantled in anti-racist training. Are you exaggerating here? This is what they're actually saying. Meetings are racist.

I am 100% not exaggerating. In fact, there is a six-page document that I have that the city of Seattle was using in their anti-racism training about what is white supremacy culture. is that enumerates every single one of these things, even expecting a high-quality work product, white supremacist. And so, and the problem with this is these trainings come in and they teach you all the ways in which you are a white supremacist at work, but they don't offer alternatives. They don't say, here's what we should do instead. They come in and they say white supremacy bad, and they very literally make you confess your sins if you're a white person. Because they're also,

by the way, to call it, I mean, this is why I say anti-racist training. is Orwellian. The city of Seattle, when they did their mandated city anti-racist training, segregated it by the racists. There was a separate training for white employees of the city of Seattle than there were for black employees of the city of Seattle. Did they have separate drinking fountains as well just to spice things up? Well, they probably did, and I'll give you even one better. The white employees were asked to come in on a vacation day that they had already planned to participate in the anti-racist training voluntarily, of course. Wow. So they were segregating people because of their race to receive different training. And I think the question is, like, haven't we made this mistake before?

I mean, it's separate but equal if there ever was a case of it, isn't there? Yeah. Right. No. But they never offer an alternative. All they basically do when they come in and do this training is they say all of these things that white people have brought onto the organization, these are all bad. And so we have to dismantle them. Now, an extra thing I'm going to throw in here is I've actually analyzed that six-page document that they say is all white supremacy and organizations. And I'll tell you this, absolutely none of those things in organizations have to do with skin color. A lot of the grievances they have actually have to do with the work styles that people bring with them to work. So your work styles, things like how you communicate, how you collaborate, do you like to work at a fast pace? Do you like to work at a slow pace? Are you open and friendly? Are you more questioning and skeptical? All of these things make. up an individual's work style. And all of the conflicts that we see coming up that are that are grieved in this white supremacist document are all workstyle conflicts. I can explain every single one of them by saying, this work style does this, this work style does not. And so they're trying to frame it as though this is an issue of race. All white people do this. All people of color do not. And it's just

not true. And there is no evidence to back it up. And Conlin, we keep using this term white supremacy and white supremacist. Now, when I think of a white supremacist, maybe because I'm a bit backward and a bit ignorant, I imagine a Clu Klux Klan member in a little pointy hat saying awful racial epithets,

etc, etc., etc. Is that what we mean now by a white supremacist? It is not what we mean by a white supremacist. What we mean by a white supremacist is someone who is white. Oh, well. I'm nothing more to add.

She's talking about you, mate. You are the face of white supremacist. supremacy. You're surprising as that is for white supremacists. If that's the case, well, I don't know about that. The white supremacy movement is therefore fucked if I'm the leader of it.

No. Okay. I mean, you put it in a very blunt way, but I have to say, based on what I am hearing as the conversation about white supremacy, it's starting to feel a little bit like that is what they mean. It's exactly what they mean.

In fact, it's actually laid out in the books. I can point to passages in the cursed book that shall not be named, in which they actually say that white people do not exist in a culture outside of white supremacy. Okay, so all white people are white supremacists. Well, yeah, I have a feeling that might not be a healthy way of looking at things, you know, if I may say so without being canceled. So you talk about this being implemented in the world. workplace. I can't imagine this would have anything other than a horrific impact on relationships

between people in those workplaces. But I imagine in terms of broader society, the impact of that of re-racializing everything is going to be detrimental as well, isn't it? Well, yeah. And what I'm about to say can apply to workplaces. It can also apply to broader society. So one of the components of the anti-racist training is that white people are responsible for calling out other white people on their racist actions. It's part of your responsibility of being an anti-racist. And that's what they mean when they say it's not enough not to be racist, to be an active anti-racist. So you have to call people out when they're doing anything that they perceive as white supremacists. And you get points, of course, for calling people out on their racist actions. So it almost becomes like a game,

like who can score the most white supremacy points and all this stuff. And so when you're when you, it's essentially you've got a bunch of spies around you now looking for reasons to call you out because if they call you out, that means that they are more anti-racist than you. And so instead of incentivizing team camaraderie and collaboration and interpersonal relationships and giving people the benefit of the doubt, actually, you know what's funny is there was recently an infographic on a website for one of the Smithsonian Museum. in the states in which they said that having positive intent, assuming positive intent of people

is a white supremacist attribute. So we can't be giving people the benefit of the doubt any longer either. So when you take these attributes and you apply them to teamwork in organizations, it is going to go completely off the rails. And one of the things that is so insidious about this training, and I frankly don't really understand it, is it seems to suck people right into it. And it's almost like once this training happens, once these ideas take root, it is incredibly hard to facilitate teamwork, to facilitate collaboration, to facilitate even normal conversations. So in the work environment, it's going to be incredibly detrimental. But also in society where we have so many divisions right now, it makes it near impossible for people who even have the most minor disagreements

to have productive conversations. Francis, before you take over, let me just say this one thing. So, Colin, you're saying meetings are white supremacist, being organized as white supremacy, having positive intent and assuming positive intent on behalf of other people, that's white supremacy, working hard, creating good product. Are they trying to make white supremacy really attractive? Is that what this is all about? I have no, I mean, it seems like it doesn't it? But no, I mean, I have no idea.

And part of the problem, again, is that they haven't presented an alternative. Well, if this is white supremacy, what do you want? want. If you want to dismantle the system of white supremacy, what are you trying to replace it with? There's no alternative that's been presented. And, Colin, so we're saying all these things, you know, white supremacy and all the rest of it, but there's a cynical part of me that goes, hang on, when this affects the bottom dollar, when this affects profits, isn't it on the shareholders going to be up in arms and going, look, I don't care about any of this. Profits are down. We're going to cut this nonsense out.

Well, I mean, you say that, and I tend to agree with it, but here's the thing. When I talk to CEOs of organizations that are issuing their Black Lives Matter statements and making bold declarations of all the training they're going to do with their people, they don't care about any of this stuff. They don't care at all. They're doing it because they don't want the mob to come after them. That is the only reason that they're doing it. And so CEOs are actually between a rock and a hard place right now because if they don't issue the statement. They're going to have people saying, well, why didn't you issue the statement? What are we doing? What are we doing to dismantle white supremacy in our organization? And there's going to be a whole thing of it. If they do it, then they're going to be actively infusing their organizational culture with more of this nonsense. And it's eventually going to lead to the bottom line of having that bottom line impact. I don't know how this plays out until there's got to be one or two CEOs of major companies that stand up and say, we're not doing this. This is our business. Our business is not to fix every problem with society. Our business is to sell you socks. Our business is, like the My Pillow guy

probably, our business is to sell you pillows. That's what we do and that's what we're going to do. And Colin, it's very interesting all the points you're making. But then sometimes I do read a study, for example, it says that if you have a name that is more African or, you know, unless I say, European, you're less likely to be offered a job or an interview. Doesn't that mean that, therefore, some of these trainings are possibly beneficial? Well, I think, and that's, yeah, that's a, that's a great question. And you're absolutely right. There is research to say that if you have a certain sounding name, you are less likely to be invited in for an interview. And, you know, this is where I, we have to have a more nuanced discussion about this is my, is my big issue with

it, because there are very real problems and very real conversations to have about, race in organizations and of course in broader society. And we can have those conversations and think about ways to implement trainings, implement processes, implement procedures to counterbalance some of these things and make sure everyone in every organization has equal access to opportunity regardless of their race, their gender, their sexual orientation, any of the things. Those are real conversations to have. Right now, we cannot have those conversations because the only thing that people care about is implementing this anti-racist training. So the nuance is lost.

Either you are doing it or you are not. If you are doing it, then you are good, if you are not doing it, or if you want to have a conversation about different ways to approach these problems, then you are bad. That's a very, very important point to make. And it does actually feel as if at the moment we are arriving at the death of nuance and everything is binary and you're either red or blue or what. all Brexit remain, all the rest of it. But touching on politics, we are entering a very, very

interesting time in the political situation at the moment where we have Trump and he looks to be a little bit on the downward slope. What do you think about Trump? How has he handled the situation? And can he get out of it? I think Trump can absolutely get out of it. I think Trump absolutely can win the election in November. I think he actually probably will win the election in November. I I mean, listen, there hasn't even been a debate between Trump and Biden yet. And I think that what we're seeing right now, I don't think that Trump has handled the situation post-George Floyd's death perfectly. I think that there are a lot of things that he could have done differently.

I think that there was a lot that I liked about how Trump handled COVID. There was some stuff that I didn't like about how he handled him. He's like any other president. He is not perfect. Spoiler alert, Trump is not a perfect man, nor is he a perfect president. But I do think he's going to come out on top. And the reason I think that is because Trump may not be perfect and there may be plenty of problems that we can have about him. But the Democrats have gone off the rails in the United States. And if you look at Joe Biden and I'm not a clinical psychologist so I can say this because I won't get in trouble like the clinicians. Joe Biden has dementia. Joe Biden, in my opinion, has dementia. It is absolutely clear. And so we're basically deciding right now between someone who is a very deeply imperfect human being and someone who doesn't know what state he's in or what office he's running for. And so, I mean, I'm going to take the imperfect choice. And I think that a lot of

Americans will as well. It's interesting setting the background to that, Carling, because I wanted to start the conversation about your political journey. You've gone from being a Democrat for 20 years to now supporting Donald Trump. But actually, it kind of started with knitting. Is that right? It did. It did. It started with knitting. So I am an avid knitter. And so, you know, when I say it starts with knitting, what people think of are like knitting circles with old ladies and tea and they sit around and gossip and all that stuff. That's not actually what it is for a lot of people. Today, knitting exists primarily online like everything does. And so there are massive sites that are deal primarily when knitting, where knitters interact. And where I was mostly interacting with people was on Instagram. And you just see pictures of yarn and projects and all this stuff. And it's supposed to be. fun and relaxing and not stressful at all until the social justice warriors took over our knitting community and started going around and harassing people with businesses. The first woman they harassed, it was because she posted a blog post about being very excited about going on a trip to India. And it wasn't okay. That was not okay. She had to issue a dramatic public apology outlining all the

reasons it was wrong for her to be excited about going to India. The next person they went out to included what, sorry, like what's wrong with going to India? That it was wrong to be excited because she was othering people and it had something to do with colonization. It's still up on the internet today. I mean, it's like a full blog post apology

outlining everything that she said was wrong. The next person they went after was a woman who's a hand-dye-jarned. Her name is Maria Tuscan. And Maria saw what was going on with the initial bullying. And all she did was post-a- video saying, I'm not comfortable with this and I'm going to leave Instagram for a while. And

for her troubles, she was attacked and mobbed by hundreds of people and had her business destroyed. And she's one of the loveliest, sweetest people you'll ever meet in her life. But apparently for them, she was just too white to exist in the knitting community. And so they had to get rid of her. But the most distressing incident and the one that actually got my attention was a man, actually a gay man in the knitting community, which men in the knitting world are minorities, he posted a poem about kindness and just asking people to be kind and empathetic to each other. And he was mobbed so badly by thousands of people over the course of several days that he eventually checked himself into the hospital and was put on suicide watch. And so it really did.

I mean, it's kind of funny to think, you know, the knitting community, but it really did have very real impact on very real lives. And at that point, I started paying attention. I started going, what is the social justice stuff? Because I just really had no idea. And so once you wake up and you start seeing it, you kind of can't unsee it. And then, as you all know, you start seeing it everywhere. But I'm just going to get my head around this.

So knitting, right? The knitting community. People sitting around with two needles and a ball of yarn making scarves. And then we ended up by talking about white supremacy in colonization. Oh, I'll give you, I'll give you another one. These are actually two, two guys in the UK, actually. They live in London. They wrote a book called Knit and Nibble, which is all about knitting and also baking desserts. And they went on some show that apparently

is about losing weight in a healthy way to promote their book, as people do when they write a book, they want to promote it. And these two men were bullied and mobbed for fat shaming and how dare you contribute to this toxic, fat-shaming industry when their whole book was about desserts. Like, this was not a diet book. And so, I mean, there is no rhyme or reason to why they're making these attacks. It's simply that, and I think we see this with the anti-racist training. I think we can look at any part of society that social justice has impacted. It's not about white supremacy. It's not about equality. It's not about treating people well. It's simply about having something to be angry about. And if they don't have something to be angry,

about because we've already talked about creators and destroyers. Destroyers need something to destroy. They will go and find something to be angry about. And the people that were doing this in the knitting world, and I do feel like we're focusing on knitting quite a lot, but this is interesting because just for people who are watching this, maybe not be aware, as you say, what happened in your knitting community, so to speak, happens everywhere. It's just one example of it. So if we delve slightly deeper into that. Were the people who started bullying the people that you mentioned,

were they kind of existing members of the community or were these people who came seeming out of nowhere? No, they were existing members of the community, but I mean, and actually some of them, there's actually a very big knitting site, ravelry that actually ended up banning all support for Donald Trump. So you are not allowed to talk about Donald Trump on the biggest knitting site on the internet.

So no, I mean, they were definitely existing members of the community, but I'll tell you a funny story about one of them. So the person that was leading the charge against the man that eventually went into the hospital and suicide watch, it was later discovered, she actually lives in the UK as well. It was later discovered that she was running a scam out of her house to sell handicapped children vacation packages and is currently in jail because of it. So I have to say there's a little bit of vindication about that. Just side note They're always good people, aren't they really? It's just terrific moral human beings But it just feels so surreal That even a subject as uncontentious as knitting He's now becoming You know, just riddled with violent anger

It's utterly bizarre Well, it's because it's not about the knitting though And this is what I think it's really We need to hit this point home And your viewers know this It's not about the knitting It's not about the gaming It's not about young adult fiction.

It's not about, it's not about racism in the workplace. It's not about any of these things. It's about having something to be angry about. Right. So, but I guess then the question is, and maybe I don't know if you feel like you're the right person to answer it, but why now, Carlin? Why is it that now people, so many people all at once feel

that they've got to be angry about something? Is it that we've done so well as a civilization that there's nothing to be angry about? Or is it, on the other hand, rising inequality? and people genuinely have a reason to be angry at something. Like, what is it about this moment that has erupted in this way? I think that's a really good question. And I don't know that I have a concrete answer to it.

I have some theories about it. I think that if I'm looking at the people that are being really destructive in this moment, they're primarily younger people, right? They're primarily people under, you know, 25, certainly under 30 for most of them. And they never had their civil rights movement. I mean, when I was younger, I was fighting for gay marriage to be legalized and not, I mean, because I thought that was something that was very important to me. That was part of a reason I became a Democrat is I wanted anyone to be able to marry who they loved. Well, that was really one of the last big battles of civil rights in the United States. I mean, today, if we look at their marginalized groups, I mean, we can talk about how, you know, trans people struggle. And I think there's certainly conversations to be had there. But can they do anything under the law that I can do? Well, yes, they can. The legal barriers to this have been torn down. And so there has not been a civil rights battle for people to struggle. And I think when younger people especially look back at the civil rights era and the protests, I think there's something enticing about that. There's something enticing about being part of the group that is fighting for the moral good of humanity. But there's no battle to fight. So they had to create something. Now, I also don't think that social media has helped matters any. I think that social media and the dopamine hits that people get from those likes and having those large followings

and they're always on their phones all the time has only contributed to this. The other part of this, though, is that we know that people who spend a lot of time on social media or on their phones, they get clinically depressed. They are much more likely to be clinically depressed. And so we're factoring in mental illness into this affair. And really, there's no, people have not taught them how to productively manage these challenges. how to productively cope with these challenges. What they are doing is just feeding them more things to be angry about. So I blame the education system, number one, primarily. That's the thing

that I spend the most time thinking about these days is how much our system of education, at least in the States, and I'm sure elsewhere as well, from kindergarten all the way up through higher education, how much our teachers have contributed to this problem? Because not only are they teaching a very distorted version of history, but they're not teaching people how to productively cope and how to actually build things and become creators. They're only teaching them about how to do negative things. And don't you think part of the problem as well, Carlin,

is that we've built, you know, Twitter, Facebook, all the rest of it. And really, we have tools that are so powerful. We don't even know the long-term implications of being exposed to these kind of things. And also, let's be brutally honest, it's not in these companies best interests to minimize your time on their platform. No, no, it's not in their best interest at all. And so they've got all sorts of, I mean, they know exactly what they need to do to keep you

on that platform, to keep you doing posts, to keep you to liking things. They've got us all by something. I'll tell you that. Well, done for being inclusive there, Colin. Well, I don't want to make any assumptions, right? No, so I mean, this is a problem. I don't know how we counteract this because people are, they're not only addicted to social media, but also that anger that people are feeling, there is actually a physical addiction to anger and to outrage

that is just as powerful as an addiction to cigarettes or alcohol or sugar or any of these things. And if we're constantly just feeding people anger, we're not helping them to get over that addiction. That's really interesting. So people in a sense just become addicted to that. to that emotion, that emotion that they're feeling. And do you think Trump as a president helps to kind of perpetuate that anger when he puts out some of his more, there we say, inflammatory tweets? I think Trump takes pride in being inflammatory. Trump is the ultimate troll for sure. No, I mean, Trump is not helping this. This is one of my biggest challenges with Trump is that he could, I really think Trump has had moments in his presidency where he could have worked

to bring people together. And what does he do? He demonizes the other side, just as much as the other side has demonized him. There are no innocent people in this scenario. And I think that the challenge is that we need to have people in leadership positions that are actually interested in solving the problems, not interested in winning the fight, being interested in solving the problems because when you shift from winning the fight to solving the problem, it's fundamentally different because when you're trying to solve a problem, you have to come to the table and be willing to compromise, be willing to debate different positions, be willing to give up a little bit of your position to give someone else a win so you could bring them along. You know who Paul knew this as a

politician? Arnold Schwarzenegger, of all people, he absolutely knew this. Arnold Schwarzenegger as a Republican when he was governor of California. He had Democrats on his team. He had a whole little team of rivals going on. He also, you know, I saw him speak at South by Southwest several years ago. And one of the things he talked about in his talk, I'll never forget it, he was talking about how he brought all the stakeholders around health care in California into the same room and to try to fix health care. And he told them going into it, he said, none of you should expect to walk out of here with a 10. The best you should expect for is a seven because if you get 70% of what you want and that means you're giving other people a win. If you demand 100% of what you want, that means that

guy's over there is only going to get 30% of what he wants and he's not going to go along with it and he's going to leave entirely. We have forgotten that it's pretty good to get 70% of what you want and to give the other side a win. Instead, what everyone is doing is digging their heels in until they can get 100% of what they want. And what that leads to is everyone getting nothing. That's a really good point that you make. And I guess the question is, as we come to probably last 10 minutes of the interview is, how do we start to set society back on the road to the sensible ideas that you make? I mean, for example, in the workplace, how do we, how do we go back to, or maybe go forward to that way of thinking? I think it's going to take people,

in leadership positions that are going to have to make unpopular choices. They're going to have to say, no, we're not doing this anti-racist stuff because we are a pillow company. That is what we do. We are going to do the very best that we can to produce the best pillows that we possibly can, and that does not involve anti-racist training, and to have the courage to stand up and do that. And, you know, I have a series of conversations on my channel with Dr. Howard Asher, who's a psychotherapist out in Los Angeles. And he says all the time, is Carlin, people have to be willing to be called a racist and to know that is not the end of the world. And once people get over that obstacle of being willing to be called a racist, then that

frees them up to make all sorts of decisions because they're no longer at the, at the, at the, uh, having fear of what the mob is going to do to them. But isn't that a lot to ask from people? Because I've been, I mean, we both have been called racist. I've been called pro-fascist. I've had a deeply hurtful email written to me from someone who I used to consider a friend, explaining to me how I've now become a mean and nasty person, all the rest of it. All right, mate, it's not a therapy session, Jesus Christ. She's a psychologist. It is therapy. I can't. But my point is this, isn't that a lot to ask from people? Because these words are deeply

hurtful. Well, Francis, you're still doing the show. Yeah, but I'm a narcissist. I want attention. Well, I mean, then your desire to keep doing the show has become stronger than your desire not to be called a racist. Yeah. I mean, for business owners, this is going to be the decision between do I want my company to be successful and profitable or do am I afraid of being called a racist? That's the choice. And whichever one you want more is the one that's going to win out. So suppose what you're really talking about, and it's a running theme through most of our recent interviews, I suppose, is you're talking about the need for people to be courageous.

in the face of bullying and in the face of peer pressure and pressure from above. Absolutely. And I think that this is actually, it could almost evolve into a solution for society as well. But you have to know who you are. And if you know that you are a good person and you do not treat people differently based on the color of their skin or who they love or their gender or any of the other things, if you know that you are not a racist, then why would you listen to you? to someone else who tells you that you are. Why are we giving other people, people who are

significantly more likely to have mental health issues? Why are we giving them that power over us to tell us who we are and what we believe? But isn't there's also something to be said, Colin, and that we're all, let's be fair, and relatively privileged positions, you know, that we have started, we've got our own platforms, we've started to develop our own followings. a lot of people don't have those advantages. Well, listen, I didn't have any of what I have now in terms of a platform before I wrote my Trump rally article. And, you know, I'll admit, it was very scary for me to put it out there that I went to a Donald Trump rally and it turns out that they aren't racist and Nazis and KKK leaders

and just normal people. It is scary at first. But it doesn't require, you know, Eric Weinstein tweeted not too long ago. that it requires FU money to stand up to the mob. It does not require FU money. It does not require a platform. All it requires is a spine. And we have seen this over and over and over again that people who stand up to the mob

and do not bend the knee, the mob tends to leave them alone. We saw this in the knitting community. The knitting community is not unique in that it was invaded by SJWs. The knitting community is unique in that it fought back and is still fighting back hard against the SJWs. And guess what happened when a lot of us started fighting back and speaking up?

They stopped bothering us. They came after us a little while, but then they stopped bothering us. And then once other people saw that they stopped bothering us, they started fighting back too. And all of a sudden, you've got a lot of people that have been given that courage that they don't have giant platforms. They don't have FU money, but they're standing up and saying what they believe. And once you stand your ground, the mob won't hurt you. That's a really interesting point because I wrote an article probably two or three weeks ago on The Spectator over here about why I don't support the BLM organization and why neither should the readers who are reading it.

And I got almost no negative feedback on it at all. It was quite extraordinary. And I think they've just kind of given up because I just clearly say to them, I don't care what you think and I'm going to make fun of you. And I think if you do that and you just stand up for what you believe, as you say, I think over the time they just leave you alone because they're like, oh, this person isn't actually vulnerable to us. Did you think that's really what it's about is what they zone in and they hone in on people

who they sense are vulnerable and who they sense are susceptible to being bullied? I think that that's exactly what it is. And I actually wrote my doctoral dissertation about workplace bullying in organizations. And workplace bullying is a power game. Just like what the SJWs are doing. It is a power game. Bullies hone in on the people who they perceive are not going. going to fight back because it makes them feel powerful. And most bullies, by the way, are people

who have been bullied at other points in their lives or their careers or whatever. And so that's how they learn how to bully. And when you're bullied, fundamentally, that takes you out of power. When they're bullying other people, that's the way that they're putting themselves back in control. But if you stand in front of them and make it very clear to them that you are not going to allow this to happen to you in, and there are a bunch of different ways to do that, they will eventually back down because you know what, there's a sea of people who are willing to allow themselves to be bullied. They have got a lot of other options to go to. Why expend energy on people who are simply not going to take it and are going to fight back and are going to make your life

more difficult when you can just go right over to Susie Q who's absolutely going to take it because she hasn't learned this lesson yet. And if you were going to put together just a little bit of a guide or certain points for someone who is going through this type of online bullying, What advice would you give them? The very first thing I would say is that, you know, get off the computer probably. Like Twitter is not real life. Social media is not real life. Go out and be in the real world. Even in the era of coronavirus, you can still go out and be in the real world. But I think the most important thing is that people need to start doing more inner work to build up their internal security.

Because if you have internal security, no one can knock you off that. rocker. That's innate to you. No one can take that away from you. The very best way to build up internal security that I know of is a regular daily practice of meditation. People have got to start meditating. And I know that doesn't seem like a direct route or even one that makes sense. But when you're meditating on a daily basis and there are lots of ways to do this, lots of free programs people can use. It's just a matter of getting into the habit. You learn how to control your emotions. you learn how to put things in perspective. You learn how to give yourself the love and consideration that you're looking for from other people.

And so it teaches you so many valuable skills to be your own best friend, to be your own biggest supporter, to be your own biggest advocate. And that's what's going to develop that internal security. You try bullying someone with internal security and you watch what happens. You're not going to last very long. So people have got to do that for themselves. No one else can do it for you. That sounds like the tools of white supremacy to me, Colin. Probably.

Well, on that happy note, I was going to say on that happy note, but then France has broadened white supremacy and it's a lot less happy all of a sudden. But on that note, Colin, it's been absolutely fantastic speaking with you. I think some of the insights you've given us into the workplace events that are ongoing now and also what you say about the importance of building up your own confidence and your courage are also really, really important in this moment that we're in. And with that in mind, the last question we always ask is, what is the one thing that we're not talking about as a society that we really should be talking about? I think that, you know, we've kind of waffled around it a little bit in this conversation.

But the thing that is keeping me up in night is how do we break this addiction to anger? And what I want people to really understand is it is it is a physical addiction because what happens in your mind makes its way into the body. We see this every time someone has a nightmare in terms of they wake up. They're sweating. Their whole bodies clenched. They feel like they just ran a 5K even though they're laying in bed. That's our mind having a direct impact on the body. And every time we're angry, our brain sends certain hormones into the body that makes us physically feel that anger.

How are we counterbalancing that? That's something I would like to hear a lot more conversation about. And how are we counterbalancing it not only for the adults that have this addiction that are wreaking havoc on our society, but how do we teach young children? how to do that so they don't grow up and become an SJW. That's the question. Thank you very, very much, Carlin. It's been an absolutely superb interview. If people want to find you on social media, where would be the best place for this? Yeah, one of the best places right now is actually YouTube. I have my own channel on here where I pontificate on the daily. I can also be found on Twitter at Dr. Carlin B and on Parlor, Mines and Gabs at Carlin.

Fantastic. Well, thank you very much for coming on the show. And thank you. Thank you. you everybody for watching listening we will see you very soon with a live stream or another brilliant episode absolutely all our episodes and all our line streams go out at 7 p m UK time at 7 pm UK time see you soon guys