TrueLife - Floating on a Stream of Consciousness w/George & David

Episode Date: November 1, 2022

One on One Video Call W/George https://tidycal.com/georgepmonty/60-minute-meetingSupport the show:https://www.paypal.me/Truelifepodcast?locale.x=en_US🚨🚨Curious about the future of psychedelics? Imagine if Alan Watts started a secret society with Ram Dass and Hunter S. Thompson… now open the door. Use Promocode TRUELIFE for Get 25% off monthly or 30% off the annual plan For the first yearhttps://www.district216.com/In this episode we begin with the idea of wonder. What are some things that are indeed wonderful? What is the relationship between curiosity and wonder? Has the recent pandemic caused a prolonged adolescence for the next generation? Can we use technology to bridge the gap between past & future?http://www.davidasalomon.com/https://davidsalomonblog.wordpress.com/https://www.abc-clio.com/ABC-CLIOCorporate/product.aspx?pc=A5537Chttps://www.amazon.com/Seven- One on One Video call W/George https://tidycal.com/georgepmonty/60-minute-meetingSupport the show:https://www.paypal.me/Truelifepodcast?locale.x=en_USCheck out our YouTube:https://youtube.com/playlist?list=PLPzfOaFtA1hF8UhnuvOQnTgKcIYPI9Ni9&si=Jgg9ATGwzhzdmjkg

Darkness struck, a gut-punched theft, Sun ripped away, her health bereft. I roar at the void. This ain't just fate, a cosmic scam I spit my hate. The games rigged tight, shadows deal, blood on their hands, I'll never kneel. Yet in the rage, a crack ignites, occulted sparks cut through the nights. The scars my key, hermetic and stark. To see, to rise, I hunt in the dark. fumbling, furious through ruins

maze, lights my war cry Born from the blaze The poem is Angels with Rifles The track, I Am Sorrow, I Am Lust by Codex Serafini Check out the entire song at the end of the cast Ladies and gentlemen, welcome back to the true life

podcast, the floating on a stream of consciousness with George and David. It just so turns out that both of us maybe a little bit under the weather. So I hope you'll still enjoy the stream and you'll still float with us because I think we're still capable of providing you with a lot of entertainment. That being said, David, for those people who may not know who you are, would you be so kind as to reintroduce yourself? Sure, George. So thanks for having me back on. I am the director of undergraduate research and creative activity at Christopher Newport University in Newport, Newport,

Virginia. I've been a professor of medieval and Renaissance literature, religion, and culture for about 30 years. Came here five years ago to open up this office and still teaching here as well. And I've written a bunch of books. My most recent book is a book on The Seven Deadly Sins and working on a new book on angels and demons and pop culture. and been kind of working a little bit more intensely on getting some blog posts up. So posted one earlier this week and I've got another one that will be going up probably maybe later this week, actually. What was the one that you posted this week? On Wonder.

Oh. Yeah. Maybe we could cover that a little bit. Like what was it? What was it about what was the body of the, what would you talk about when you spoke about wonder? Well, about the fact that we tend to, as a culture, look at only children as really being amazed by wonder, that that's something that we kind of lose when we grow up and when we become adults. And I think that's a sad thing, if that's true. And so in the in the blog piece, I mentioned, you know, my first exposure to Paradise Lost, which we've talked about before, which was in college and just blew me away and changed my life.

And then I talk a little bit about the sense of wonder that Adam and Eve have in that poem, about the world around them, about each other. and the sense that Satan has in that poem as well about wonder and the connection between wonder and knowledge that wonder really is what leads us to knowledge. What do you think the relationship between curiosity and wonder is? I mean, certainly it's very important, very, very closely linked. And I think curiosity, you know, I always tell my students who are doing research here that curiosity is the most important aspect of the work that they're doing in research and creative activity because that's going to lead them to exploration, which then leads to discovery and knowledge.

And so it's one of the early stages. And I think if you don't have that sense of curiosity, it's really hard to move forward from there. You know, I do a talk for students on graduate school. A lot of them want to go to graduate school. And I always tell them that in order to go to graduate school, you have to have both the passion and the intellectual chops. You can't have one and not the other. You can't be very smart and have no passion about what you're doing. And you can't be incredibly passionate and not know how to, you know, open a can.

That's not going to work. And, you know, I talk about students that I've had in the past who, you know, I had a student once years ago who was really quite intellectually gifted, a really talented writer and could write academic prose and was just really top notch, but had zero passion about it. And so, quite honestly, reading her stuff was kind of boring. You know, it was grammatically correct and mechanically immaculate and right on point, but that didn't have any spark. And, you know, the flip side to that is students who would come to me and say, oh, I want to go to graduate school for English. And I said, oh, yeah, okay, why? I said, well, I really love to read. I'm like, but that's not what we do.

You know, in an academic study, it's not just about reading texts. It's about dissecting them. You know, and I tell them that you're going to have to be able to cut up something that you really love. It's one of the reasons why I have, over the course of my career, actually rarely taught the works that I love the most because I can't see them cut up like that. Because that's what you really have to do is study them. And, you know, it's the equivalent of what a biologist does in a lab, right? Yeah. I often think of when I find something I read wonderful or when I see something wonderful, it usually allows me to describe it in a way that is unique to me, that resonates with other people. And I'm curious, if your students write something for you, can you see the wonder in what they're writing?

Yeah, usually. I mean, it's, there's, there's usually. usually a good sense that what they have discovered is new and is enlightening to them. Sometimes it comes through in the writing. Sometimes it comes through in the way that they discuss things in class. You know, I remember many years ago I was teaching a course in Shakespeare, and I had a, I think it was the chair of the department, had come to my class to observe me. And in the observation, and she even mentioned after the class that she was amazed,

she walked in to class at the beginning, and there were a couple of students in the back of the room who were, like, arguing about one of the texts that we were reading. And just she thought that was just the most amazing thing, because it showed how engaged they were. And I think that sense of curiosity comes through that. I mean, you know, if you're, and I guess that was the difference for me between, reading literature in high school and then reading literature in college once that that that curiosity switch got flipped for me. You know, I read the text when I was in high school, but they didn't mean anything to me. And I even remember reading in my my freshman year of college, we read Wuthering Heights,

which is really a fantastic novel, which I've since taught. And I'll never forget where I was sitting in the classroom when the teacher asked a question about something in the novel and this kid in class raised her hand and answered and i remember sitting there thinking of myself where the hell did she see that because i read the same book but i didn't have the sense of curiosity it just it didn't speak to me in the same way at that point yeah it's it's interesting the way you talk about some literature i find myself not only with literature but science fiction seeing this whole world of wonder And in that particular genre, I often find myself wondering, wow, how in the world did they build this world or how did they imagine this thing? But that can translate into any genre.

If you're looking at literature, it's a short jump from the story to the author to the time they live to that which inspired them. And it's just fascinating to me to be able to take a step back and see how wonderful it is. And sometimes I know that this is not the case for everybody, but. I wonder why, speaking of wonder, I wonder why everyone can't find that in literature. Yeah, I don't know. I wonder that myself because, as I say, I mean, I did not see it when I was in high school. Right. And I didn't even see it when I started college.

I didn't get it. And so, and I think that as a professor that's given me a somewhat unique take, because when students say I don't get it, I kind of understand what they're talking about because I was there. You know, this wasn't something that was always a passion for me. And I understand that the years that I went through were I was just baffled by what I was reading. It just didn't mean anything. And I think what it came down to for me was a realization that I didn't know how to read yet. And let me clarify that.

I mean, I obviously knew how to read the words on the page. But I didn't know how to read a text and really understand. understand it and interpret it and engage with it and make it mine. It remained for me at that time in my life pretty two-dimensional. It was just words on a page. You know, I struggled in English in high school. And one year we were reading Dickens Tale, Two Cities, and we were having quizzes. They were just reading quizzes on the text.

And I was just bombing them one after another because I just, I didn't read, or I kind of read it. And I remember we had a reading one weekend, and we had to read the next three chapters or whatever it was. And I said, damn it, I'm going to read this, and I'm going to do well on this test. Because I mean, I can read a text. And so I remember vividly laying down on my stomach in my bed with the book

and my headphones on, listening to Boston's. first album shows you how long ago this is and reading the three chapters or whatever it was of tale two cities and i read them and i went into class on monday and i promptly failed the quiz because i didn't read the text i was reading the words on the page it wasn't getting through to me uh the way that it needed to and it was just it was for some reason there was just some kind of a block there that when I finally got to college and read Chaucer and Shakespeare and Milton, that that block for some reason was, was, was raised. I, and I've often thought it's that, you know, what was it that made that happen at that time? And, you know, the only thing I can point to is I had to

be ready. And I wasn't ready until then. It reminds me of a therapist who said to me once, you know, if you're not ready to deal with this at this point, it means you're not enough pain. Right. I mean, you have to get to the right point to be able to see something the way that you need to see it. And I wasn't at the right point in my life, I guess, probably maturity to be able to read those texts the way that I needed to. And it was, it just, it's funny because it, I look back on it. It's like all of a sudden, it really is like a light bulb on. And it's just the oddest thing. But that's the nature I think of wonder and curiosity.

I mean, I had the curiosity before then. I mean, I was always interested in reading science and history and nonfiction. It was literature that was the block for me. I couldn't get to that level. And there was something that occurred for me in my life, I guess, that allowed me to get access to my imaginative faculty at that point that I hadn't before. That's really well put. And I think I can echo a similar sentiment in that when I was in high school, it was very difficult for me to even want to think about some of these books that were put on the reading list. And as you're talking, one thing that I really stood out to me that I thought was beautiful was that you didn't really read it.

You saw words on the page, but you didn't really see the words. Like you saw the words on the page, but you didn't read it. And I'm wondering if maybe that's a, I think there may be a two-fold analysis or a two-prong strategy that might work. And I'm curious to get your thoughts. The first part may be teaching kids exactly what you said. there's a way to read it and then there's a way to actually understand it. And if you look at the words on the page, that's one way of doing it. However, you're only going to see a one dimensional thing when you look at the words on the page. You're not seeing the whole picture. Another idea may be this idea of the world we live in is a sort of prolonged adolescence. And maybe you have to go through some tragedies in your life. And maybe that's what turns on the light bulb is you have gone through these things and now you can recognize them in the story. What do you think about that? That is quite possible.

I mean, the second point that you make, I find really interesting, prolonged adolescence, because we do seem as a culture, an America in particular, we'll speak to, to really prolong adolescence. And as a college professor, I see this, and it's the constant lament, right, is that we pander to them and we treat them like children

when they're adults in common. college. And then it comes to the point where they're seniors and it's time to, you know, put on your big boy pants and apply for a job. And they're a little bit lost. I mean, we ran an event last week that students had to sign up to participate in. And one hour before the event, one of the students stopped by and said, oh, I'm not ready. I'm not going to do it. And I said, I wasn't, I happened to be in a meeting at the time. So my, my assistant is the one who talked with the student. And she told me that afterward. And I said, well, that's not really going to work when he gets out into the real world, you know. And so I think there's the sense that we keep our students,

our kids, in too much of a bubble. Now, I know that as a father, as a parent, you know, I get that we want to be protective, especially in today's world, which is just insane. But kids have to experience what reality is and have those real experiences and experience, you know, if not tragedy, then experience at least, you know, setbacks that, you know, as the great philosopher Mick Jagger said, you can't always get what you want, right? And to understand that sense of regret and failure and learn from that and grow from that. As far as the first point that you made, I think the key there, quite honestly, is engaging kids' imaginations early on. You know, my parents were high school graduates, not intellectuals in any sense. they liked the arts, but it was a superficial like. They didn't really delve because they didn't have the ability to do that.

But growing up as a kid, I don't remember my parents reading to me when I was a kid. I don't remember it happening. I don't think they did, which seems odd looking back, but I have no memory of it. And I mean, my own daughter, who's now 19, I mean, you know, we read two. with her from the moment she was born. And I think that that engaging a kid's imagination is vital. And we're seeing some of that the fall out from the pandemic when it comes to this now, right? That kids were missing. There was a missing piece of the puzzle during the pandemic when they were all locked up in their rooms. And one of those pieces, I think, is that engaging with imagination,

particularly as it's connected to the real world, the natural world, that they lost out on that. And as a result now, we're playing a bit of catch-up. Yeah, I think it's really sad to me what happened during that time as far as education. If you look at imagination or reading or just the play between children, math. Yeah, it's, you know, and I'm going to be dealing with it for me. many years, I think, going forward here. Yeah.

And we're already seeing it at my level at the college level, that the students are coming in and their skill level is not where it should be because they had two years of, you know, learning over Zoom from their bedrooms. And it was not the same experience. And, you know, and that's not to blame teachers. They did the best that they could through that period. My God, it was just hellish. and they did whatever they could to make it work,

but it was not the same kind of experience for the kids. And the teachers who were forced into that position, really majority of them had had no training in doing that kind of a shift. You know, we asked these teachers to pivot over a weekend, basically, in March of 2020, from being traditional in-classroom face-to-face teachers to all of a sudden, okay, now you're going to teach on Zoom. or whatever platform they were using.

You know, and I think it was especially damaging for the really young kids because, I mean, the kids who were in kindergarten, first, second grade, it was tough because they couldn't sustain on Zoom for any period of time the way they might have in a physical classroom. And so their days were shorter, lessons were shorter. But, I mean, I'm hopeful that's going to, we're going to write that. at some point. I think it's going to take a while, though, and we have to acknowledge that. And in higher ed, I know we've begun to, to acknowledge that, you know, it isn't what it was.

These students didn't have the same experience that students did five years ago that we were seeing. And we have to account for that. We can't. It can't be business as usual. Yeah. I think it's, there's so much there. Not only, in the ideas of English or math or science, but in the ideas of emotional learning and being together with other people. Like that particular time of development for emotional bonding, be it with an adult,

a teacher, or other students, that's difficult to make up. The emotional maturity. It's such a key, vital part of who we are and what makes us who we are and what makes us prepared to be able to engage with a text like to L2 Cities or Wuthering Heights, because it comes through then also an experience. You know, I mean, I do study abroad trips here, and, you know, I'm dealing with students,

many of them who've never mind, they've never been abroad, many of them never been on a plane. And, you know, at first my reaction was like, what? And then my colleague reminded me that, you know, they were all in high school, during the pandemic and they would have had high school trips and all those things were canceled. So they didn't get the opportunity to do those things. And so for many of them who are going on these trips with us, it's either their first time on a plane or their first time abroad or, you know, their first time having any kind of an experience like this.

And again, it can't be business as usual. We can't just assume, oh, well, they'll be fine. You know, it doesn't work that way. Are there some sort of remedies? Like how do you possibly catch somebody up from two years of not being? I don't think you can just, the only way that you can't, I mean, you know, you can't rush emotional maturity, right? I mean, you know, psychology, George, and, you know, it doesn't work that way. Right.

But I think it's about allowing them to have experiences, you know, making those experiences available to them. but also it's also about motivating and encouraging them to engage in those experiences. You know, they became so used to sitting on their beds in their bedrooms that, you know, we get them here now at college and some of them, they don't want to do anything because they were used to not doing anything. And we've got all this stuff going on. And so, you know, trying to engage them and encourage them to participate in things is it's very important. And it's also very difficult because I'm always been of the mind that I don't want to require students to attend things. I want them to go because they want to go.

And, you know, I have the same philosophy about class, quite honestly. You know, if you don't want to come to class, don't come to class. I don't care. You're not hurting me, you know. I want you there because you want to be there. And so, you know, maybe that's pie in the sky. But there are points at which you do have to kind of push them a little bit, especially the group that we have now because, as I say, they're just, you know, used to sitting in their room and everything was fine. The world came to them through their computer screen.

And now suddenly we're saying, you know what, it's time for you to go out and see the world. You know, it's not going to keep coming to you. And a lot of them are, I think, are struggling with that transition. Yeah, it sounds like it. I'm curious if how this changes the, we've talked a little bit about how this changes the psychology of the student. I'm curious if you have any experience with the type of person that's now coming. Is this kind of a thinning out?

Are there more people that are going to college that are interested in college? Or is it just business as usual? I'm wondering, has this changed any way the type of person that is going to college? It has changed it a bit. We're starting to see that. You know, we, I mean, let's backtrack. I mean, we live in an anti-intellectual culture. Yes. Right. I mean, you know, it's amazing that we can do a podcast like this where we talk about ideas like this and we have people listening. Because we don't live in a culture that encourages this kind of discussion and this kind of thinking.

And we've seen the effects of that for many years in higher ed. That said, we still live in a time when the college degree is now an expected credential. A bachelor's degree is the new high school diploma. And quite honestly, a master's degree is now the new bachelor's degree. Everyone is expected to have a master's now. it's it's it's it's it's it's not a positive thing necessarily and i really think it isn't but what that has meant is you know for decades we've had people who've gone on to college because it was just the next logical thing to do after high school and um so i would say you know at my institution

which which is uh you know of course better than most i'm absolutely if our president's listening Um, we, the large majority of our students are here because they want to be here and they want an education and they want to go to college and they want to learn. Some are here because it was clearly the next thing to do after high school. Um, and, and I, I'm not referring exclusively to the students who come in with undeclared majors, who unfortunately, stereotypically for years have been looked down upon by many people because they don't know what they want to do and um you know quite honestly when i meet a student at an admissions event and i say what are interested in studying and they say i don't know i say that's the best thing um because you want to go to college but you don't know what you want to study so you're open to anything um you're going to take

classes in a bunch of different areas and and you know when you hit on the right thing all of a sudden boom You're going to feel it. You'll know it. That's what happened to me. You'll know it. So, you know, I think that we are seeing an increasing number of students who are taking time off after high school, intending to go to college eventually, whether or not they end up doing that, time will tell. A lot of more and more students are taking what used to be called a gap year, and they're still calling it a gap year, where students, you know, after high school take a year off to do something. else and then go back to school and come to college. Of course, the whole concept of a gap year dates back to the Renaissance.

When a student, men, of course, only, who finished college, the father would send the student on a tour. You would take a year and go and visit basically all the places. that you had studied. Milton did that after he finished college. He went on a tour of Europe and went to go see Greece and Rome and

all these places that he had studied. And, you know, I think that that is something which is an interesting phenomenon and we'll see how it pans out whether or not students return. Enrollments across the board

I think are down a little bit. not as much as I think many of us had thought they would end up being. You know, of course, the elephant in the room is the evils of the tuition and the financial aid system, which is just an absolute mess. But college is expensive. Yeah. It's absurdly expensive. It's too expensive.

It should not be this expensive. but the reality of it is, and I have to remind students of this whenever we have discussions about this, you've got to remember most of your tuition money, it's not going to pay my salary. Your tuition money is going to physical plant to run the lights and the air conditioning and the heat

and to maintain these buildings and to pay for the services. So many of our college campuses now look like resorts because they have to attract. students, you know, and somebody's got paid for that, and that's coming out of your tuition money. And, you know, so I, we, we, in some ways, our priorities are a little screwed up. You know, I imagine at many institutions, the operating budget for academics is not the highest part of the budget.

And sometimes wrong with that, to be honest. It should be. We're an academic institution. I always remember there's a, the Marx Brothers film Horse Feathers, which is one of my favorites, which is about a college. And Groucho is made president of the college. And they're losing money and they're in serious trouble. So he says to the board at one point, point. He says, if we got a football stadium, and they say yes. And he says, if we got a college,

you know, college buildings. And he said, yes. And he says, it's settled. Tomorrow we start carrying down the college, you know, because what's the priority, right? I mean, that's the, the satire in that film is that it's all about the football team. And that's not easy 30s. Yeah. There's a lot of truth to that. I was rereading the evolution of civilizations by Carol Quigley. And he makes a pretty interesting point that I think fits the moments we're in. And he talks about when the instrument becomes the instant, when the instrument becomes institutionalized or the instrument becomes the institution, the instrument no longer works. Right. And whether it's, I think that COVID has revealed that in some way or caused that in some way.

And I've, I've been on top of that, I've been hearing some other people in the world of academics begin thinking about, the idea of there being more schools for, you know, academics, college being for academics, and then there being some apprenticeships for schools, you know, and sometimes I'm torn. Thank you. I couldn't think of that word. Sometimes I get torn and part of my brain harkens back to the idea of like the communist systems where like, okay, you are chosen to go to this school, you're chosen to go to this school. But I would be lying if I said there wasn't some merit in it maybe.

If we just talked about college, maybe not being for everybody or maybe getting out of the way. What are your thoughts on that? Yeah, I mean, I've always said, I mean, you know, everybody doesn't have to go to college. You know, we need people to do jobs that are, you know, in all sectors of society. And a lot of that doesn't require a college degree and a college education. And there's nothing wrong with that. And that's why it's, you know, it's always been. my personal philosophy to really get to know the staff where I work on a on a on a on a on a

name basis to be able to talk with them and you know it's it's funny because a couple of years ago I was having a discussion with a colleague telling them a story about how he was talking to one of the housekeepers and the housekeeper had said something like I never talk to anybody like this, any faculty like this. And it's just, you know, there's too much of a class system. And, you know, it just, it goes back to the story. I think I told you about, you know, when I was on that job interview in San Francisco, I mean, you know, we're all human beings.

And we're all trying to pull our weight in this world and trying to survive and make a living. Some of us are PhDs who teach at Harvard and some of us are, you know, housekeepers who clean rooms. And I don't think there's anything less important about one than there is about the other. They are both important jobs, and they both deserve respect. that's just something which I think some people have lost sight of that, you know, the folks who are doing the so-called unskilled labor, who was going to do that? You don't want to do it. And so you should give them some respect for doing that. You know, the guy who picks up my garbage in the morning, you know, more power to him. I don't want to do that job. You know, I got to give him credit for doing it. Yeah.

It brings up the idea when we talk about class systems, what comes to mind is Aldous Huxley, because he wrote in Brave New World, this idea of alpha, gamas. But then in a similar book, The Island, he wrote about this world in which everyone, regardless of their role, is somewhat equal. And it's fascinating to come from the same mind

there's two different ideas of how that could happen. I'm curious. What are some, are there some strategies we could use to take maybe the stigma or the idea of worth out of jobs? Or is that just human nature? Well, it's ego, right? Oh, that's a great point. It's removing ego, which is tough. You know, whether you're a Freudian or Jungian, it's difficult to set that aside.

And, you know, I think for people who go through Jungian analysis, which is what I've dealt with in my life, you know, I mean, the point at which you are able to become objective about your own self and ego and see it from outside is one of those moments where you go, holy cow. Yeah. Wow. Okay. Now I understand and I understand how I need to really treat other people because I can move away from it all being about me But that's you know it's it's a journey to get there. I mean that's not going to happen overnight And it's not going to happen for a lot of people right and so I think you know part of it is is a re-evaluation of what What the worth question means

You know we we we we like to throw around and say, well, everybody has worth, you know, but we don't treat everybody that way. So it sounds good. You know,

it's a good bumper sticker, but it doesn't, you know, it doesn't mean anything unless you actually put it to practice. So, you know, show me how you're doing that. Show me how you are actually

manifesting that thought in reality, not just, you know, that it's words. And, you know, I guess that's part of the nature of, of politics, right, is a lot of it is words.

I mean, I'm writing something for the next blog post on division and divisiveness, because what's going on in the country right now really scares the hell out of me. And the political rhetoric, which is just completely out of control, and is so disconnected from reality. It's like, what are you talking about? Yeah. And I just, you know, I was telling somebody this morning, I'm so glad that I did not go the route that I originally had planned on taking in my life when I first started college. Because I think I would have been miserable, which was working in law and politics.

And it was it was when I did an internship at a law firm the summer after freshman year that I realized it wasn't for me. because there was too much in it that smelled of deception and hypocrisy and double standards. And I just, that, that just, I couldn't do that. And, you know, I think that that's, so, you know, going back to what you were saying, I think part of it is, is how do we, and let's go back to kids, right? How do we show kids and talk to kids about the worth of human beings, regardless of who they are? Because that's where it starts, right? If kids are taught that when they're young, it's going to stick with them.

And here we are again, but if they're sitting in their rooms on Zoom, and I'm going to learn that because they're not really interacting with people. I think a lot of it is you've got to interact with people. you just you have to and that's you know i that's why virtual reality and all these other things just really i think is is a bad way to go um it just further disconnects us from each other yeah you know i mean going back to what we were talking about weeks ago i mean you know d h lawrence right it's it's it's about making those connections and that's what that's what being a human being is yeah i agree it seems

that there's this false promise of tech, you know, and I think that it probably comes from a great spot of like, wow, wouldn't it be great if we could just get this message out to people who are living in a third world country and they could have exposure to some of the world's greatest teachers and they could learn. It's a beautiful idea. Everybody wants it. However, we've got to be honest with ourselves and saying that, first off, who's to say the education, the Western education, is for everybody? Our history isn't their history. And maybe this idea of, you know, the Fukuyama's idea of the end of history was a mistake.

You know, the end of history says that everyone should live by the Western world when every culture has their own way up. Well, it's a relativist perspective, right? I mean, I mean, we see this going back centuries with the Catholic Church, right? I mean, you know, you come in and you come into these savages, quote unquote, and you, you know, whip a little Christianity on them and show them how to be, you know, how to set up a democracy and open a McDonald's and everything will be fine. You know, and we've seen, I mean, that is not true. It doesn't work that way.

Open a McDonald's and everything will be fine. Well, I mean, that's the thing that I always remember about when the Soviet Union found. When the first McDonald's opened in Moscow and there was an overhead shot that was on CNN of people lined up. around the block to buy a big Mac. And it costs like a week's wages. I'm like, what the hell is this? What is this teaching? You know, it just, so I think you're right.

You know, this. And again, you're back with ego, right? I mean, it's the ego of the Western mind that, you know, we've got it all figured out and our way is the best way. And so this is what you need to. I mean, and we've seen this in recent years in the Middle East, right? I mean, Iraq, Afghanistan, which we, you know, we, as the U.S. and the Western world have gone into and oh, we're going to, we're going to modernize them and we're going to bring them up to date.

And then the moment we leave, it all falls apart and goes back to what it was because that's not who they are. That's not who they are. We have to be who we are. Can't be somebody else. And so you can't go in and say, you know, we're going to whip a little bit of Western culture on you. and boy, you'll be enlightened and you'll be so much happier. That's not who they are. And so they end up just being miserable and end up falling back to, you know, the old ways,

which from our perspective, again, relatively, is not good or not up to, is not modern enough. But what's there to say, what's so great about modern? I mean, you know, I mean, you say, I mean, technology, right? I mean, technology first introduced is almost always introduced for a positive use. Almost always, one of the first things that happens is it's perverted for something that it's not really designed to do. So, I mean, even if you think back to the earliest days of print and film, right, some of the earliest printed books were pornographic. some of the earliest films once film was invented were stag films pornography right so there's always this kind of twist and i mean if you look at the internet which i mean it seems there's no going back from

you know the initial dream of the internet was oh well everyone will be connected wouldn't that be wonderful i mean it was a utopian idea right and you look at what it's become And particularly with the rise of course of social media, you know, holy cow. I mean, you know, I often wonder, and I heard him speak years ago, Tim Berners-Lee, who really was responsible for kind of inventing the World Wide Web back in the 1990s. You know, what he thinks today? And I have read recently that he has basically lamented it and said it was a mistake that that it didn't, you know, it, the intention is not the reality of what happened.

And, you know, we could talk about that with just about any technology from guns to automobiles, right? You know, what's the intention and what is it grow to become and what's the reality? I don't know. You know, I saw something online the other day. There was a picture from the 1950s of this, it was a. was a car cradle for kids that basically sat in the back window of the car and the kids laying in the cradle, baby. It's like, you know, we would never allow that now.

But the thing was that cars, I mean, it was nuts then, too. Don't get me wrong. But cars then, I mean, they went 30 miles an hour, 40 miles an hour. You know, and now it's it's lunacy if you're on the road. You know, I don't know. So technology has got, it's a double-edged sword, right? It can be really wonderful. And as with most things, it can be also used for really horrific things.

And we saw that with the development of atomic weapons in the 40s and 50s, right? And all the great writing by people like Oppenheimer and Einstein, if you go back and look at what their reflections were on these things, I mean, Einstein warned us. He said, this is not the way to go. This is a bad way to go. you know, in Oppenheimer famously, you know, when the, after the first test said, you know, I am death, right? Quoting the Gita.

It's just, it's one of those things I think where we sit back and we need to sit back and look at what we've done and assess. And because technology has encouraged us to move so fast, we don't have any time to do that anymore. And I think that's a problem. I've talked about that a lot in my writing. I talk about that all the time in my teaching. You got to slow the hell down and notice what's going on and assess what's going on and digest it. You know, when I used to teach philosophy, we used to talk about the fact that science can move very fast. And philosophy moves very slowly.

And so there are a lot of things that we can do scientifically that we haven't figured out ethically. whether we should be doing or not, because we haven't given ourselves the time to really reflect on it. You know, cloning is one of the big ones, right? You know, human beings have been cloned. Yeah. I'm sure, right? It's happened.

Now, ethically, we still are discussing it because that's a difficult topic. And philosophically and ethically, and that kind of thinking takes a while to work through. you know, but now, you know, the next new thing is out. I mean, you know, the one that I use all the time with students now is driverless cars, right? We can do that, should we? I don't know.

You know. Yeah, it's a good point. Just because you can do something doesn't mean that you should do something. And you brought up a point about philosophy and science. And I think, you know, when I was reading your book and when we covered the seven deadly sins, It seems like this was a time when science and spirituality were married. They were there together. And it seems that like that divorce of those two things has made people move at the speed of science

or has allowed people to move fast and break stuff. When you divorce this part of a whole, you're only seeing this part and you're forgetting about the whole. Like it's not whole. And you think of the word holy, you know, like this is not holy together. anymore. And when it's when it's moving so far apart, it doesn't work. Well, I mean, it's a separation that really started in the early middle ages of the profane from the sacred, right? The sacred and prophan. Right. So, I mean, it's that separation of, of ourselves. It's a bifurcation of who we are because we are both. Yep. But we tend

not to look at them as a whole anymore. We look at them as separate pieces. And that, is not, it's not beneficial because it then prevents us from understanding something that is scientific and saying, okay, but should we be doing that? I don't know if we should be doing that. You know, yeah, you can do that. But, you know, and I think about it in terms of lessons learned when we're growing up. And, I mean, the one that's coming into mind is something as silly as, you know, yeah, You can stick your finger in the light socket.

You probably shouldn't do that. Go ahead, you know. So this trial and error and this, I think a lot of it comes down to experience, right? Experiencing the world. And that's one of the things that we hear so often about these folks who are developing a lot of these new technologies, is they are not locked in enough to, what's going on in the world and what the world actually is ready for and needs. And instead it's, well, we can do this.

You know, we don't need that. And so, you know, one of my favorite pieces that I think we've talked about before is that essay by Vannever Bush called, as we may think, 1945. It's a brilliantly written essay, as is so much of what Bush wrote. And, you know, he basically predicts the Internet in that essay. And in the essay, he says, this is going to be wonderful because it will free our minds up to do the kind of higher level thinking that we were meant to do as human beings. So we'll have the Internet. We can look up trivial facts. Everything will be right at our fingertips.

We don't have to worry about memorizing all these things anymore because it's going to be right there. We can use our minds for more higher level thinking. And, you know, when I read that essay with students, we get to that point in the essay, and I say, so how's that going for you? You know, what are you doing with all the time that the Internet has freed you up from? Are you engaging in higher level thinking or are you, you know, binge watching squid games? You know, it's just we we missed the boat on this, I think. We really did.

The internet's a great tool. Great tool. It can be incredibly helpful. No doubt, no argument. But I think we're missing part of the initial rationale for why it was developed. You know, which if you go back to Bush's essay is this, you know, well, it'll allow us to do the kind of thinking that we really should be doing as humans. And the speed issue is just so problematic for me that, you know, and I see it in my students, is just they're moving so fast and they don't have time to really reflect on things.

And, you know, one of the assignments that I give in one of my, I teach a course called Hamlet and Hyperspace. It's a course on writing and technology. And it deals with all these issues about technology in the modern world. and in particular how it intersects with the history of writing. But one of the very first assignments I give them is I give them each an index card on which I've written the call number for a book in the library. Ostensibly, it's a book that's in their major, in their area. And they have to go and find the book,

and they have to look at all the books that are on the shelf around it. And they have to write a short sort of reflection piece on what, was that they discovered. And I tell them, you know, take the book off the shelf, open it up, feel the paper, smell it, look at it, really take some time. And it's amazing over the years how many students have come back and say that was the assignment that they remember. Because for many of those students, they don't go to the library to take out books

because everything's online. And they always will pick up on, you know, they not necessarily the book that I assigned but some book that was near it on the shelf. They're like, wow, I didn't know that that existed. And, you know, I just remember as a student in college, the joy of going into the library and going to a shelf because I was looking for a particular book and then looking at what's all around it, what's here.

And you lose that when you do the, when you do things like this on the internet. It's serendipity, right? The joy of serendipity, of finding something accidentally that brings you joy. And you don't find that when you're searching on the internet because it's too focused, right? I'm rambling.

No, it's so true. On the stream, aren't we? Yeah, we're getting to some fun little, some rapids over here, you know? I always think of the Phaedrus, Plato's Fadris, when you talk about writing and technology and how there's a section in there where they get to Toth,

the Paragon of inventors, Vince writing and he is told that this technology that you think is going to help mankind is actually going to be a hindrance because they'll no longer need the experience to understand. Like you think you're helping. And it gets to the idea of with every bit of technology we're given, it's a tradeoff. Like we lose something. Sure. Too many people forget that we're giving something up in order to get something new.

And the newness, the novelty of this new thing, which is often a poor copy of the the real thing. You know, we don't, we don't understand that until it's too late. It's, well, I mean, it's important, I think, when you are going to engage in something new like that to do a sort of a cost-benefit analysis, right? What am I going to gain? Right. What am I going to lose by doing it this way? Now, some people would say that, that virtual reality is an example, is an incredible, you know, incredible tool. And yes, For some people, it can be. You know, I mean, if you could go, and I use that word, but it's metaphorically, right?

I mean, if you put on Oculus virtual reality glasses and you can hike up Mount Everest and do that that way, fantastic. If you are able, physically able and financially able to do something, like that in real life do that first right but i mean if the only way you can do it is to do it with the glasses then sure um and you know we've seen a lot of use of virtual reality glasses with um patients who have physical disabilities or you know i can't do and yeah that's really amazing um and you know There's your kitty. It reminds me of the debate over cochlear implants, right? That there are a lot of people in the deaf community who are completely opposed to cochlear implants

and think that it's just completely, they actually think it's unethical. And for people in the hearing community, they look at that and I say, well, what? I mean, why wouldn't you want to hear? You know, I mean, we can do that. We have the technology. and so we could do that for you and it will improve your life and we're back with the relativism again, right?

I don't know what their life is like. They may be damn happy the way that they are. And so I think we need to take a step back at times and just think about the effects of a lot of these technological advancements, as we like to call them. right? Is it really an advance or is it just a movement, you know? Are we really making progress? Or is it just the next new thing? It's just, I don't know. It worries me. I mean, I like technology. I mean, I like a lot of the things that it's brought. And I've been very engaged with a lot of it. but by the same token, I mean, you know, I missed my record collection, which I got rid of because, you know, we didn't need it anymore because everything's on an iPad or an iPod or an iPhone.

And, you know, it's all electronic now. And so we don't need the physical records anymore. And of course, you know, the interesting thing is now we're seeing a resurgence in records. People are collecting them again and buying them. I was at Barnes & Noble the other day, and a new album cost $32, George. $32. I used to buy a record for $5 at Alamanders. Yeah.

$32 for an album. Holy cow. I wonder what a record player cost. A record player would cost not even much more than $32. That's the odd thing about it, right? Right. You know, unless you want to get something that's really good. But, I mean, I miss that.

But there's this, there is an interesting movement toward, moving back towards the analog. I saw a story on the news the other day that apparently coming out of the pandemic, there's a real resurgence in the purchase of film cameras. That people are going back to shooting on film and not shooting digitally, that they want to do that again.

I don't know where they get in the film from, because you can't buy it in stores. You must have to order it online. But, you know, there's a real movement towards that. And I guess the price of used cameras has really skyrocketed. rocket it as a result. Yeah, I think that there's something about getting back to basics that people are finding. Maybe that's them just refining the humanity.

Maybe it took this world of digital illusion in order for you to see that, hey, maybe the real thing is a little bit more authentic. When I look at technology versus experience, I see the same kind of dichotomy with, you know, it's an old kind of a trope where people say, oh, I like the book better than the movie. Yeah. Well, I like the real experience better than the digital thing. And think about all the people, like, I'm sure all of us have read a book and then talk to somebody who's watched the movie or vice versa.

And there's so much that gets left out of the movie. The same is true for the virtual experience. It's going to be not enough memory. There's not enough stuff to put in there. You don't get to see the eagle that flies by with the snake in his mouth. Or there's all these things that only you would get to see during the experience that would be unique to you versus the Big Mac that you can get in every system. in every country that looks the same.

And maybe if we change the incentive structure, maybe it's the incentive structure that is causing technology to be more limiting. You know, I don't know how that would change. But yeah, I think you can see similarities with everything around us that's continuing to happen. This idea of specialization in this idea. It's almost like a theft in some ways,

it seems like to me. Well, I mean, a lot of it comes down to something that you mentioned earlier, which is, I mean, looking at the worthiness, of human beings.

We're looking at the worthiness of a real experience. So re-evaluating the worth of these things is something that we would be well to do. Yeah. Imagine a man or a woman that saves up their whole life to go have an experience. How much have they built up that experience? And how much more is it worth to them?

And how much have they studied because they couldn't afford it in the beginning? How much research have they done? And then that it seems to me that that particular experience, becomes much more worthwhile because it's something you have given a lot of thought to and you've put a lot of time into it. It's something you want to do. Now we're back to the kids, some that want to go to school and some that just want to go and have the virtual reality experience.

Well, and let's face it, I mean, modern life is too easy. It's very easy. Right. It's too easy. And, you know, the idea that we have to work towards something like that is not common. anymore. You know, we can get things too readily and too easily. You know, I mean, I'm a book guy and the joy of going to, you know, used bookstores hunting for things and discovering things. I mean, it's largely been shot to hell because of the internet again. You know, you can get

anything you want easily enough. You know, one of my favorite writers is he became a good friend, Tim Sandlin. Tim lives in Wyoming. And I remember, I mean, I've always wanted a first edition of his first novel. I don't have one. I bought it when it was originally a paperback. That's how he discovered it. And it was out in hardcover. I've never actually seen one.

And I always look when I'm in used bookstores, hoping that I'm going to find one. Now, I can easily purchase one online, but I don't want it that way. I want to find it some. It's the joy of discovery, again, you know, curiosity, right? Yeah. a bookstore, it's going to just be sitting there on the shelf. I go, wow. Yeah, I agree.

I'm hopeful that people that are taking a moment to watch us find some joy in what we're talking about. I really admire how we can start off with an idea of what we want to talk about, but then we just float on down the stream into the world of whatever makes us feel awesome. So it's really fun, David. This is so much fun. And I feel it's helped soothe my soul a little bit. So before we go, that's where we go, that's really.

land in this plane here. Is there, what is it you got coming up and what are you excited about? Well, what am I excited about? I mean, I'm working on some writing, which is going well, finally, and I'm excited about that. I'm excited about my teaching. I'm teaching an introduction in museum studies course this semester and prepping for the advanced course in the spring where my students will actually curate an in-person show. So I've been collecting things for them to to curate, which when that time comes, it'll be interesting. We'll have to discuss that. And actually maybe we'll have some of them on because I think that would be really interesting. That would be great. So I really enjoy that. I mean, I enjoy, I enjoy being around people. You know,

it's what we were talking about before. I mean, the interaction with people is what makes it for me. I think that's probably one of the reasons why you're so good at your job and you have somebody students that respect you. And where can people find you? What's the name? You want to give on your sites? My website's David A. Solomon, S-A-O-M-O-M-O-N dot com. And you can find the links to all my books and the blog and speaking engagements

and consulting and all kinds of other Easter eggs. Absolutely. And those links will be in the show notes below. Ladies and gentlemen, thank you so much for spending time with David and I. We had a blast doing it. Thank you for everyone who participated in the conversation, and we will see you again next to Tuesday. Aloha.