[Music] Hey fellow G and tears. It was like our spirituality with a twist. So um we wanted to do this series on like cult psychology. This was our response to like events of the world and just what is going on but also like a deeper thing trying to get into like is there a deeper part of human nature that we're exploring with this? And we really have been doing this series and we're into this part where we're talking about authority, especially I guess from the cult point of view, what you might call charismatic authority, but other kinds of authority, too. Uh um and it's interesting because we're using the work of this great sociologist Max Vber to do this. So that's what we're up to, right? And we're continuing on these episodes around looking at authority. And the thing that struck me on this, Daniel, I learned a lot doing these episodes. So, thank you to you. Thank you to everybody else who would be listening to this, you know, like, you know, we both do our preps around these things and our thoughtfulness around these things. And like I really learn, you know.

Yeah. Yeah.

And this has been a deep one for me.

It's material I'm kind of familiar with, but some of it like just a long time ago and maybe not with this much depth. And what really struck me about this, I grabbed this book over here, a little bit up to the mic. Ah, camera's not going to get any good. It's Buddhist philosophy, and it's one of these Tibetan Buddhist books.

Who's it by?

And it is by Well, it's Daniel Kart and Craig Preston, the translators, and it's Jamyang Shabyaz root text on what they call tenants. Okay. So, it's a weird part of the Buddhist world. I like this part of Tibetan Buddhist culture, Buddhist tantra culture. What they try to do in things like this is they try to say, how do people think, you know, different kinds of people? So, they'll go through and they'll say, well, what do Hindus think and what's their psychology like? And you know, in other versions of this, there were people who did these kinds of things in China and they would go like, well, what do Dowists think like and what's their psychology? And

we used to do this. What's that?

We used to do this here. There was a whole campaign around it. Now, I don't know if they were just trying to sell uh bracelets and swag, but it was called WWJD. What would Jesus do?

Yeah, that thing too. If I was a And this is coming up in our episode, what would Jesus think of this stuff? Interesting question. What would he actually think? But, you know, like this is the same thing they would do with that. They be like, "Well, what do these Christians not just what they say, but like how do they actually think, you know?" And this has got to be interesting to me thinking about we did one episode in this this apart already talking about authority because we looked at like rationalistic legal authority one of Weber's ideas like of a way of like it's a kind of a way of a society could be but it's also you realize it's a way of looking at the world and maybe almost a way of uh individual people how they see the world. So there are people who are going to see the world through that filter. And it got me thinking during the weekend and I was like yeah that really matters in a way like he talks about authority right and what people will look at I guess on the societal level but also on that individual level like where do you think legitimate authority comes from? Now begin thinking then that's a really deep question, right? Where different types of people think authority lies and what you're willing to kind of devote your loyalties to based on like what kind of authorities you respect or something. It's kind of a deep question. Does that make sense what I'm trying to say here? I hope so.

So I was like this is a deeper problem. Uh well it's a deep problem anyways but it's a really deep discussion because it gets to something that I would associate with a book like this one. blurry for the camera, but you know, you're really trying to understand what makes people tick,

right?

Sure.

Because it's not just a question of who the authority figures are who are leading, but also what drives the people to follow,

right?

And he says something like interesting about this, you know, again, we're talking about this Max Vber and like one of the ideas that comes up with him is like he looks at these things as kind of like archetypal orientations towards the world, right? And of course that word archetype is really strong for people like you and me because it gets a yungian feeling to it too, right? But like these are kind of archetypal ways of approaching things. Maybe nobody's like the pure archetype,

but you know these are kind of ways in which you'll see human beings act in the world in terms of you know where do they think what are they willing to devote their loyalty to what kind of authority they're willing to respect and devote their loyalty to. So I mean it kind of like got me thinking very deeply about that and got me to see the as terms of our podcast too because we're commenting about what's happening in the world in our own way but we're also trying to link it back to like our project which is a psychospiritual one right

an educational one and I was like yeah that's a really deep question and hopefully in sharing this with people it'll get people's gears turning too because I got my gears turning as well you know more on that at all or no

no

you're cool with it I would say one other thing about this before we get into like talking about the X vor thing which is going to be traditional authority. Um I think this is what made a difference last episode when we were talking about the legalistic rationalistic approach to thinking about the world, right? Uh I think this is what was so powerful to my one friend who I talked about kind of fell down this a little bit more into this right-wing kind of silo, right? Oh, and speaking of silos, before I forget, and Daniel will scold me to help us with the silos and help us with the algorithm. If you can hit like, subscribe, and do all the things that people ask you to do, that would be great. Help us with the authority in that way. So, it's my job to say that at the beginning, and sometimes I forget, but um and Daniel's frowns at me. Yeah, that's very true. Uh in any case, you know, with my one friend, I think this is what was powerful for him in terms of presenting him these ideas. Again, we had this very long conversation. You know, we spent three hours kind of patching our friendship up. And I started presenting this to him and he was like, you know, there's something to what you're saying there because at the core he's a legalistic, rational, scientific person. And he was like, yeah, this is where my authority is. that's what I'm willing to devote myself to. And then we were looking around at the world around us now. Uh we're recording in July of 2025 and he was like, "No, there's you could see that there's a conflict going on. You know, my way of where I'm devoting my authorities isn't matching what's happening in the culture in in so many ways, right?" So he was kind of recognizing that and that was very persuasive for him. Which gets the other thing I just want to mention about this Vber thing is our little prelude on this. You know, it's not even a prelude. really about the main subject. But you know like he also re vber also recognizes that these authorities conflict with one another on some level right so people who maybe have one type of authority will have a natural point of conflict with like other people who look at the world in different ways and you're going to clash or when you do have like the way it could be in a place like America one type of authority taking over then it's going to clash with other types of authority and probably the individual people who kind tie their um their worldview to the different types of authority will clash with one another. So I think it's a really important set of issues.

Yeah.

Yeah. It kind of it falls back on who was the who did the who was the philosopher for the organic and mechanistic views of

Oh yeah. Emil Durkheim. Yeah.

Yeah. Durkheim. So it seems to it seems to me that that view of society so if you and I I'll illuminate my point a bit here. So society, you know, he describes society society in kind of two two ways, right? One is a mechanistic version of society where things are very hardline. There are strict roles like very vertical. And then you have another version of society more community-based kind of more egalitarian. You can kind of get lost,

diversified, I suppose, right?

Yeah. Diversified. That's a good That's a good way of putting it. So in one in the mechanistic version the uh onus on the individual to achieve freedom really is to break out of this stagnation if you will and on the other one the sense of freedom is sort of finding cohesion amongst a diversification.

Yeah.

Right. That's the kind of like that's it makes you feel like you have a movement between these disperate groups and in this you know and moving that into this one the the authoritarian or the authority I'm already giving away my foreshadowing right the the choice of authority that people would probably fall under would be the same would be pre as previous as Durkheim described it so you'd have one camp that would look for more singular authoritarian type approach Right. And these would be, you know, your kind of I don't know what's the right I don't know what the term they use for this. I I don't know what term VBER uses for this.

Uh we're going to get to it. We have We did the one that was a little bit different that probably is more connected to the organic stuff because you have to get everybody cooperating together, occupying in their roles and things.

We wanted to do that one first just because it sets the tone and that's kind of how we think about America.

Yeah.

In some, you know, archetypal way. I guess that word. Yeah. But then you have this one which is I guess this this episode is is you seeing things as an as a structural kind of hierarchy where you have a singular entity at the top ruling downward and people projecting I don't know attributes and uh power on this entity on this being on this person And so it fits many of and it fits many monotheistic religious views that many people hold. So there's already kind of an innate hard wiring for that to be in many people's minds from the very be from their very uh beginning of their being raised you know as a children you know and then you compare this to the other side which is the more organic view of society as like there's separate groups and you're looking for cohesiveness which seems to be more we won't even call it let's just call it like democratic right where you have groups of coalitions that maybe have some I don't know overlapping interests that then work together for a common goal and then you can get compromise amongst these kind of cooperative groups to bring things together a more unification type um party if you want to call it this and those seem to be at odds now more than I'm not going to say more than ever because I wasn't alive in 19 55 to know how it was then. But

it seems that with the kind of increased interconnectivity with people on the internet that

people's thoughts can be spread out more easily, more diluted and more misconstrued also with AI and whatever else, but we get to see the kind of collective pulse as best as we can from our own little silos, you know. But given that we could see into people's psyches more than we ever could before outside of our own family friends or people who hung out at the local watering hole, you know, you can definitely see that there is a shift. There are people who are more willing to accept a singular ruler, you know, and other people who are definitely not willing to accept that at all. And unfortunately or maybe fortunately those two ways of authority do not exist simultaneously. You cannot have one and the other. You can only have one. If you want a if you want a spread out group to rule for everyone then you are in vehemently oppose opposed to a singular leader. And if you want a singular leader, then you absolutely despise cooperation and group think, you know, like you just they they're

they just naturally appear, right? They just it just happens by nature. It's kind of like a yin-yang thing or something in a way,

you know? And uh

okay, so the interesting thing in the vber stuff, and we'll go through it, and I have kind of a theory about what I think is happening now that I'll share in different ways as we go through. Sure. Um, and we can look in the past too and say what we think happened there as well. But you know, the thing that's interesting about it is he recognizes, you know, that there's tension between these things. They have a hard time coexisting. It's just different psychologies at work.

Yeah.

And that's kind of what hit me. It's like just different kinds of beings with different kinds of orientation towards the world.

Um, and then also the weird part and it hadn't hit me. I was doing the research for this part and I was writing up some notes around it and I was like every other one has some kind of ruler at the top. So the only one he has that isn't like that is the first one we did last week. This one where you need to have like a system there you kind of we all agree we're going to cooperate. Everyone's going to have their different roles. We're not it's not going to be about us. It's going to be about promoting the law or we could say the constitution if we want to be really American about we all have to buy in on this deal. Are we in? Let's go hike. Right. That's the one that you need. And then we at towards the end of the episode, we were talking about like Chinese culture with this because we do dowist and Buddhist things. And the confusion part of this was that this is the part that gets rid of corruption. You need something like this. Otherwise, they tend to go corrupt and it's a real problem, right? So, I think it's the psychosspiritual problem to me as I've been kind of letting this stuff, you know, percolate within me. I've been like, "Yeah, like it's, you know, if you want to be a Buddhist or you want to even try to be a Buddha, you have to understand what makes people tick, right? That's the way you have to be able to understand and you have to be able to try to be able to help people, right? And you know, this whole thing somehow has to get sorted out if we're all going to get enlightened someday, right? If that's the goal to get us more and more enlightened, somehow we have to get through the project of like this [...] out."

I wish that was the goal for people, but I I don't know, man.

Yeah. Yeah, it's a weird call. Like you have to have a little confidence in Buddha nature that everyone's going to get there. Some part of them has that in there. No matter what the outside is. Fingers crossed. I tell you what, I never listened to Andrew Schultz before. Do you ever listen to him?

Yeah. The flagrant. Yeah.

Yeah. Yeah. I never listened to it before. It just isn't my jam, you know?

But it's been interesting because they've been commenting much more kind of like outspokenly, I guess, in these episodes that I watched. And I was like, "Okay, I can see these dudes. I get a little bit more of what their vibe is. You know, they had like the Pod Save America people on today and they were like they're they're they're more honest than I thought. They're willing to call [...] out. So, I was like, "Okay, that's good."

Yeah.

You know, I might not be in the same headsp space as these guys, but at least for these few episodes, they're like, "No, like when something needs to be called out, they'll call it."

You know, there's a little feisty streak in them. So, I was like, "Okay, I get it." You know, I may not listen to it all the time.

You know, I listen to a couple episodes and I was like, "Okay." Okay. I mean, they're not dumb guys, right? I was on

No, it's it's on, you know, it's it's vibes, though. People are are really on on the, you know, very very very tip of the iceberg. What is present right now? I'm going to ride that. I'm going to bring that on. And then

if the mood changes, then they'll change with it. So, it's not a ton of like ideological consistency, but we got to call call it what it is. And there's a ton a ton a ton of content, ours included, so I can be meta about this.

This has replaced general programming on broadcast television.

Yeah,

this is this is what's interrupted TV.

This has done it. So these are all now daytime talk shows. They got producers, directors, sets, lighting, guest lists, you know, outfits, all this. You know what I'm saying? That's We don't Um

Yeah. I was going to say we have to fire our producers and [...]

get some new ones.

Yeah. But like that's what's that's what's replaced. And so, you know, they need eyeballs. You need eyeballs. Consistency. Eyeballs over quality. That's how it that's what it's been. you know, in the war for attention, you have to be constantly producing. And so, people will go where the wind blows. And that's just, you know, that's just kind of how it goes. But for people who are looking for something more deep, which, you know, you could even say that, you know, we have, of course, people are going to change as time goes by. Um, but we try and maintain our consistency with what we're doing. We're tying in things that are happening with the beliefs that are coming that are arising from what we are seeing. So we are applying different psychologies, philosophies and viewpoints, perspectives ultimately from various traditions and and weaving them through what is occurring because everything always is a slightly new take on something that has happened before. And even though the circumstances and the individuals might be different and so therefore they're almost impossible to categorize as it's occurring, the hope is that you can find the through lines, the trends to say, "Oh, that's that thing, that's that thing." And then for me anyways, you could certainly say for yourself. Once I identify that, if there are some traditions that have identified that previously, then I can go, "Oh, yeah, they were right." without

I feel right

I feel the same way you use the word weaving in there and it caught my ear because that's tantra right tantra meaning to weave and I is and we're taking a certain approach to this but I see even like to the extent that we're talking about Max Faber for me that's tantra

because I think what you learn from him will help your tandra that's that's the pitch right

you know and if it's Carl Jung we did episodes on that or if it's like different spiritual kind of perspectives that we've tked about and we still have a lot of stuff to talk about. We've been doing this for five years. We still haven't talked about like

correct

all kinds of [...] that we have we have to we haven't done Dowist stuff and like we had stuff to talk about but in a way you can make them all Dowoism or all tantra or something.

Yeah, for sure.

Eventually all knowledge has to come together, right? And that's what's going to empower us to like have good insights into ourselves and the world.

And that's the hopey transformed oursel hopefully help help the world, right?

Yeah. It's it's the uh uh illumination of delusion or at least what we see as delusion. And so if you're, you know, ingesting content, I don't know the the for me the content should always be trying to clarify things, you know, and and for me clarification and empowerment, clarification and empowerment, like take the wisdom and help people see more clearly because it's very hard to be enlightened. And this, you know, so, you know, shout out to our conspiracy theor theory people who right now are like running around with their hair on fire, you know. Um because they they attempt to do this.

This is they should say this we're recording this during Jeffrey Epstein time, right? If that's what you're getting to is like this is a big crisis moment of what's going to happen around people who've invested a lot of energy in this

a lot of energy years, you know?

Yeah. that like those that crowd those people have been wanting clarity on something for such a long time and it's important for them and it's important for everybody for multiple reasons. you know, number one. But number two, that kind of focus on that particular thing while useful and necessary in order to make change as a society and say we're not going to accept this, that there are not other many societies within this society that are outside of the moral code that we all hope to have for each other. We may disagree on, you know, how to do the tax code for whatever, you know, but we all agree that like there's certain things that are like no nos, no, you know, and that kind of helps a bit with like social cohesion in a sense, but it's also clarifying for what reality looks like. Even if we see things differently, there's some things that we all see with the same lens. And this opportunity for people to kind of like free themselves a little bit I think was taken away for a lot of people because they thought that they saw something there. They were reading tea leaves as things were going on for so many years and they were like, "Okay, this is real. This is reality. This is the cabal that we're talking about. This is the archons. These are the powers. These are the deep state. This is all the [...] that is keeping us, you know, under wraps. This is the the pyramid that is under the eye of the pyramid. You know what I'm saying? We are these uneducated, under um privileged people without any clearance of security or anything and we're [...] tired of it and we could smell it and here's our opportunity and now it has been uh you know it's like yeah no go [...] yourself, you know, and so it's um it's difficult because you want people to have that kind of intensity on the vast aspects of reality that we're all in. like open it up. Be this pissed off about everything. I know that's hard to do. We don't have that much energy or that much time, but like in general,

there's a decent amount of things to be pissed off about. You can [...] around,

but like, you know, have that kind of like intensity and and use it in other in other places. I'm not saying let this go by any means. I'm not saying let this go. [...] those people, you know. Um, but also you have to expand it a little bit further because you're not I I personally believe you're going to have a very hard time finding self-development in a world that you find infinitely confusing. That's just me.

That's a kind of an interesting way to close on that. Yeah. Yeah. I'm like, uh, we're not doing news of the week, but we are recording in a time when this stuff is like come to kind of a head, right? The Epstein thing has come to a little bit of a head. Maybe they'll come to other heads later on. And I'm I'm thinking paying attention to it more than maybe I've always been a little bit paying attention to it, but paying attention to it more I'm like I'm empathetic to why people want answers for that.

Mhm.

It's bizarre to say that we need a me too about pedophilia, but hello folks, we probably do.

Yeah.

Right. Especially to the extent that it's like a rot within like uh the system in which we live, you know.

Yeah. And you know, again, I'm not going to join the Andrew Schultz fan club or anything, but like at least I was impressed with the fact that okay, there are people who are asking questions and they were being honest and feisty and

uh so maybe there's little reasons to be optimistic within what's going on, right?

Yeah.

Yeah. Yeah. But I agree like you need to have if you look at like again we go meta and then we talk about stuff, but like you know presenting this is like hopefully a way that you get the clarity about what's happening in the world. chip away at different parts, look at it from different angles, and it clarifies for us,

right? Yeah. Work on ourselves and hopefully be able to turn things outward and be able to be more productive and like evolving the world in better ways.

Yeah,

there's a little ambition for our little podcast. There you go.

There it is. Always got

always got to ignite the bodhicitta, you know.

Yeah, it is a bodhicha thing. You're right, Daniel. Yeah, bodhic chittita is this for people who aren't familiar with the term, it's a it's a a Buddhist term that means you're you're seeking uh improvement for yourself to be also of help to others. That's the basic gist. Mind of enlightenment, right? I was listening to something and and the and um he said imagine that you he's like how long would it take you how long can you imagine it would take you to walk somebody towards the best version of themselves the most enlightened version of themselves. He didn't use the word enlightenment but he just said to help them free themselves from all the things that afflicted them. How long would that take? He's like would that take 10 years? just one person. 10 years, a 100 years, a thousand years, 100,000 years. How long would it take one person? He goes, "Now multiply that by all the beings on the planet."

He goes, "You still have that same desire to do that for every single person." He goes, "How long would that take?" He's like the desire to see that to the end. That's bodhicha.

Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. That's true.

And I was like, yeah, I like that.

I we were talking about before. I can't even remember if this was on mic or off mic, but you sort of hope like everyone has that seed of Buddha nature inside of them, too. So, some part of us wants to go through and evolve ourselves

no matter what our

they sometimes use the word clacia for this, right? No matter what our issues are, right? claces or issues.

There's some part of us that is striving, you know,

for something better, right?

Let's do this diaper thing with

traditional authority is the next one on the docket. And what we're going to get to, like we were just talking about a bit ago, is that each of these is going to each of the other really three that we're going to talk about, and we'll wrap this this this uh part of what we're doing up, but each of these three has some authority figure at the top. It's kind of striking. M

you know so traditional authority uh you know you have some ruler on the top that is sort of the the master of that system right so you have someone on the top who's the personal master and as I was looking at this it's interesting one of the one of the things that was pointed out is like you don't call the people around that person like their staff or something everybody's like subjects to this authority

so it means you're kind of taking on the psychology of like okay here's the person on the top what you were talking about earlier at the top of the pyramid or the top of the hierarchy and I'm going to like naturally position myself below them, right? Which I think is just intrinsically spiritually problematic. You can't position yourself below someone else in that way. There's just an inherent toxicity in that. But we'll explore it as we go, right?

Um and so, you know, that's one part of it. Now, we're going to have traditional authority, charismatic authority, and something he's going to call patrimonialism. So there's going to be different vibes of what kind of what's the ruler going to be like, right? And again, for me, what struck me is like this could kind of be in the wiring of people. Like one of the things that I think about with this when I think about something like the MAGA thing, right? The, you know, the parts that are a little bit dangerous in that are like the traditional Christian people that are the ones that are seeking power. Not every Christian is like this, obviously. Obviously,

but there's people within the the this kind of Christian movement where they want to like have an authority figure that will then make other people follow their vision of the world. I mean, that's just reality. That's just the truth, you know. So, you know, that's what struck me about this. You know, you can have that kind of thing and then what for those kinds of people, what's up with them is that they put so much value in the tradition, whatever that might be. If you're a Christian nationalist, you put so much value in Christianity that that's where that's like part of where your authority is and the person that you're going to that's going to take the power to execute that is the person that you're going to put the faith in. Right?

So it's a certain way of like looking at the world. Now the thing that's interesting about this that Vber points out is that the authority figure then also has to be bound by that tradition. So in a true traditional authority that person on the top also buys into that tradition right

and a certain extent that tradition also binds them. So we can argue I don't think that's what's happening here though I think there are people who maybe want America to look more this way right and they want a strong powerful figure to exert that power to make it go that way. But the thing is like in a true version of this the archetype everyone's on the same ballpark within this because they want they're the person who's in that position of authority also believes in that same tradition. So this would be someone like if you're a Christian nationalist you want a strong Christian leader who then would also be in some ways curtailed by that tradition because they're going to have to follow it. I mean, I think that's an interesting observation and the true version of it, even the person at the top doesn't have like ultimate authority because the tradition is sort of a check on them.

So, I think that's a subtle point, right? To me, when I look at like what's happening in America now, I just don't think that the person on the top buys into that.

He he doesn't have the view of that. He's not a true Christian person, you know, but I think there's people around him, if we're just like talking about what's happening in the world right now as an example, it's kind of like a case study almost, right,

for us as diagnosticians. I think there are people around him who believe in that, you know, and they want to impose that kind of authority. Um, but I just don't I think there's a disconnect almost. I think there's people who want to have it go that way, but the person actually in charge and maybe other people within this coalition of people don't think that way. But there is a part that's governed by traditional authority, right? And they're trying to exert a lot of power to make things go this way.

Yeah.

So, the other part that's interesting about this is that like legalistic law, we were talking about legalistic authority and this whole idea we all buy in like, okay, let's let's agree on a code of laws and we'll all try to follow them. And in a way like what you were talking about that has to bring a diverse group of people together but we'll all buy in. Okay, we may not agree with each other but we're gonna buy it on this code of laws. So the point that Vber makes around this that I think is also interesting is that the kind of legalistic thinking tends to get minimized

because the more important thing is the tradition right so in a way if like and it's actually on some level understandable right if I'm like really really

if I'm I'm really in the mindset of like a Christian nationalist if I'm going to try to do the Buddhist thing and understand where they're coming from right their deal is Christianity and that version of Christianity that I'm adhering to is much more important important than any legalistic authority. So in a way I can like blow past that legalistic authority if I'm following the higher authority of like the tradition. Does that make sense to you too?

It like it drives people then you could see that the motivation of what you're doing becomes different you know even if you're just trying to understand it.

Right.

So if I'm like again if I'm a true Christian nationalist I'm in that kind of mindset. Right. And there are people like I know in the government now Russ vote comes to mind as like an important person with this but they're Christian nationalists like they say they are. It's not trying to label someone. They're like yeah I'm a Christian nationalist. I want the country to be Christian. This is what I want it to be

and I'm going to do this by force right because I think that's right to do because I think that this authority is higher you know so that's just how that person operates you know that's their way of like being in the world and like where they come from. So I mean I think that's a really interesting observation too, right?

Everyone has to be bound by that. So in that within that circle, we have to be like we're all agreeing that the Christian vision is the most important one,

right?

You know, and that will bound the person at the top too, right? And if they don't follow it, we can call them out. Oh, you're being a bad Christian, so we're going to call your [...] out. That doesn't tend to happen now. And that's interesting.

Yeah. Shame doesn't have the power it used to. So, it's either because and like I was talking with my one friend. We've been kicking her this around and I've been again he went from a little bit more into the right and you can see he's entering back into this space where we can talk more. It's gotten into like a spot where like okay let's really talk and um I was like he was like well you know we kind of agreed we both proposed it at different times. It's like, well, you know, in a certain sense, maybe it's people trying to use each other. Like, if I'm a Christian nationalist, I'll try to use this other person to get my agenda through, and maybe they're trying to use me, and we're going back and forth, competing over our authorities, right? And we're, you know, there's going to be clashes between us, too. But, okay, for the time being, we're each trying to use each other. I think there's a truth in that, right?

Yeah.

Um or we're misunderstanding each other, and that might be possible, too. Or I do think about like like I have born again Christian relatives, right?

Nice people, but we have a hard time getting along now. I'm not going to lie. Like there's lots of tension in the family, you know? Um and it's going to be a problem. And I I I think for a while we're not going to get along as well. That's just going to have to be the way it is for the time being.

After they after they're born again, do they have a first birthday party or how does that work? Do they start their age over again? Um, well, there was a big celebration. You

have to wear diapers or like um I'm trying to imagine my aunt Fern having that. I don't know how to do that.

Not to be uh not to be offensive, but I think if you do that, you should have at least one day per one year, you know? So, one day you just lay on your back and drink formula and poop in a diaper and the next day you learn how to walk and the next day you learn how to talk. You know what I'm saying?

You went there and I'm going to let you do it.

Day 13 and 14, you're just like a total [...]

You're going you're going through puberty.

Yeah, that's right. You're like, I hate you. Their 80-year-old mom's like, "What is happening?" What? just the uh the the the volume on the on the music is blaring through the whole house.

That's right. That's right.

Um you know, the irony of my my family is it's my dad's siblings. It's so crazy because my dad was the most legalistic authority-minded person and he really tried to instill that as a value. Whether I was perfect or not, I don't know. I have a lot of my own ideas.

Um and that's for another time. You know, I sometimes think that Daoism thing might supersede some of the Confucian legalistic authority to my mind. Different conversation. Yeah.

But it's ironic because it's his it's his siblings, you know, and he was very much like, "No, we have to cooperate together. We have to like have

shared rules and laws we agree on. If someone who's very big on the whole quote about like if someone goes after someone else in the culture, you have to protect them because the next person they're going to go after is you eventually."

He's really into that whole philosophy. you know, like that. Like they came after these people and I did nothing. They came after these people and I did nothing and eventually when they tried to get to me, there was nobody else left.

Nobody else left. Yeah.

Yeah. He was really into that. So, but you know, in talking with my uh my sort of guy, yeah, we're again, we're finding our place with one another. It's kind of nice, right, to the you know, and I'll ask him his opinions about this and he's a good sounding board too for our podcast in a way. you know, you and I talk I talk with other people about our ideas, but um he was like because he follows things, you know, in the law, he was like, you know, this we had a conversation about like the United States Supreme Court as an example of this, too. And I was saying, you know, it's interesting because, you know, uh there's a whole thing where like six of the justices are Catholics,

right?

You know, I think eight of them are Catholics actually, but six of them that vote the same are all Catholics. And I had this conversation where I was like, you know, like if there's a tension there, you know, because if like your Catholicism is what actually is more important in some level that's going to like undermine your ability to be legalistic, you know, you're going to always be trying to instill that traditional authority and like like get it to like either be part of or override aspects of your legalistic thing. And I think he was like we talked through it a lot and he was like yeah there's really something to that you know and uh and he was like you know he reads a he's read a lot of like cases you know he pays attention to those kinds of things you know and he was like yeah I could see it and then he brought up that again this is a bit I don't know like it's something we should all probably understand maybe we don't think about but even this whole idea of constitutional originalism he brought that up and I hadn't thought about that was this is the idea that you decide a case by going back and you say Well, in 1647, Goodie Jones in Massachusetts did this and then Cotton Mather decided that it was bad. And you know, they go back into these traditional things. And he was like, "Yeah, that's that's traditional authority. You know, that's a certain psychology." And I was like, it was very eye opening to me. I was like, "Oh, that's a way of looking at the world." And he was like, "Yeah." And then he he was the one who brought it He said, you know, that's Christian stuff, you know, because, you know, it's that gets into the idea that we're going to go back into the tradition and say it's a it's a Christian culture and all those old decisions are rooted in Christian ideas and we're just going to like use them to decide what's happening now and we're going to like, you know, and implant them forward. And I was like, that's pretty profound, bro.

You know, because when you get to vapor, it clashes like, you know, it's hard to hold those two at the same time.

Yeah. They don't function in the same space.

Yeah.

Yeah. It's wild.

Yeah.

Okay. So, the other part about this, and this is going to be across a lot of these ones, once you get a person who's sort of like the person at the top, this happens a lot. But what Vber points out too is that the ruler can delegate authority to like the underlings, but then he can scapegoat them, too. That's happening a lot. But the thing that's interesting about it, like I don't think of like Trump himself, you know, as being like a traditional authority person because he just doesn't care about

no

tradition. He doesn't have that's not his value space.

No,

but it does make me go ahead. Yeah, I'm sorry.

Well, it's hard to and it's hard to know in some of these other countries where this is the where this is the rule and the law. I'm thinking Hungary or Russia, you know, like we're not in we're not involved in their political dayto-day to know how, you know, I I don't know enough about their the day-to-day existence and their media and and how they they do their, you know, how they live their life essentially to say, "Oh, this is happening here or there." I'm just not that well-versed in international. I imagine every culture is going to have its own version of what shit's going to look like, right?

Correct. Correct.

I was listening to uh it's a good podcast this episode. They did something like the court of history and they were doing comparisons between America now and Germany in the 30s because everyone's making those comparisons and I mean the striking thing was I mean it's not Germany in the 30s. It isn't. So when you say that that's not right, you know.

Yeah. And that sounds hyperbolic and it almost becomes less persuasive somehow if you're always making those comparisons like that was really violent, you know.

Yeah,

they're setting the Reich stag on fire, the parliament and they're taking everything over and they're dissolving it and like people are getting murdered and everywhere and like you know so I think we both can agree like if you start talking that way then you're going to lose more people because you lose empty language because it's just not persuasive, right?

You're not you're not you know that people can look around and be like well that's not happening. So like,

yeah,

your your main point is not valid. So everything else that you say is probably tainted in some way.

Yeah. Because it just seems like you're using hyperbole and you're just cl like just throwing things and it reads empty,

right?

But the other point they made was, okay, when you when you do cross-cultural comparison or cross historical comparison, you know, if you set Germany is the bar, then like, you know, you're never going to get anything else that's totalitarian,

right?

Because it's like so extreme. you know, it's the goat of totalitarianism.

Yeah. There you go.

Right. So, what are you gonna do? You know, that everyone can be the goat, you know. So, but they were like, yeah, there's still things that you have to be concerned about even though you wouldn't make that false comparison,

right?

But like the thing that got me about it was when I started to really try to get into the psychology of this for me because again, we're trying to understand like the Buddhist part of this to me like, well, how do people think if you're a traditional authority person? How is it that you think? And if Vber's describing this accurately and he seems to be doing a lot of interesting observations when when the person at the top starts scapegoating, you're kind of okay with that because it's sort of part of that traditional authority model, you know? It's kind of like and maybe if you really are that kind of person when you go, well, you know, I'm the authority, but I'm gonna say this person [...] it up, you know, then it's kind of more okay to you,

you know, because it sort of fits into your worldview in some way. We're not going to blame the person on the top, you know,

they're embodying the tradition. We're going to say that this person [...] it up and we'll point the finger at them. And I thought, well, that's an interesting insight. It does explain why for a group of people, we're not going to point the fingers at the head honcho guy. That's not what we do. That's not traditional authority. We're not going to point fingers. It'll be this local person who screwed it up, right? And that's like way saying that's part of that authority structure. And I was like, that psychologically explains a lot to me

because eventually you get people who are in that headsp space will be like, okay, you know, I'm tolerant to the fact that like this person doesn't want to take responsibility and wants to point at somebody else, right? like that's okay, you know, that's that's part of how I'm used to functioning like under traditional authority.

Yeah,

that's an interesting observation.

Yeah,

I'm not going to blame the pope. I'll blame the local bishop or something, right? Or whatever it is,

if he wasn't such a [...] up everything, but that pope, he was he was he was rocking. He was on fire. Yeah,

that local bishop, he was a total [...] screw-up. It's like that,

you know? So, you don't challenge the thing at the top. Real quick, I know if we got a couple of minutes, Daniel, you okay to stay finish this one up?

Yeah, finish this one up. Yeah.

Okay. So, the other thing that he that comes up with this that's different is that in Vapor's point of view, capitalism and traditional authority aren't really in line either.

They're not perfectly in line. Maybe in America, they're getting forced together. And that's worthwhile like looking at maybe some episode in the distant future when we come back to some of these subjects again. But you know in the traditional authority thing you have to have a certain sense of fairness by the tradition and so that's another point of tension right how do you like square that circle if you're going to be a traditional authority person and also be capitalistic you know and I guess that's to me an argument of like why why we're seeing now I think there are people who believe in traditional authority who are part of a coalition trying to push what's happening I think they want their agenda to go through you know they want like Planned Parenthood apparently just got slashed today. It's gone,

you know. So like people who want a like to impose a Christian way of looking at the world kind of by force, right? Um you know that part of the the Christian world, obviously not every Christian is like that. No,

but that part of the that Christian nationalist part of the world, you know, and it it doesn't sit right in vapor's point of view with capitalism because it doesn't like, you know, it doesn't have a fairness to it,

right?

You know, capitalism is so brutal and unfair and it clashes. And so there's a certain sense within a traditional a pure tradition, the archetypal thing, those two don't fit together that well. So that's an interesting point of clash too, whatever we want to make out of that. I imagine people who are if you go out and you just imagine some American person who maybe is of that mindset, they're a traditional authority person. I think somehow maybe in their mind when they see traditional what they see as traditional authority going on. They're projecting that feeling. Okay, this is going to be traditional authority in that traditional authority that's going to make the world more fair for me. I wonder if that's part of the psychology of that. You know what I'm saying? Mhm.

I see someone that I think is a traditional I'm projecting that traditional authority thing onto this person whether they are or not. But I'm projecting that there maybe instinctively because I'm a traditional authority-minded person. I think, okay, this shit's going to get more fair because that's what a traditional authority person does. But it's not going to get more fair.

No.

Right. Traditional authority and capitalism don't fit together. So, it's not going to like res like we're going to find out in the end, which probably be a point of disappointment. I imagine, but I guess we'll see. But eventually we realize, oh, wait a minute. This [...] isn't getting put together in a more traditional authority kind of fair way. That's not happening, you know?

And it's kind of like almost like they were one of the guys I was listening to was comparing to like a Robin Hood thing. You know, I'm a traditional authority figure. You can't steal all the money. That's against traditional authority. We have to rebalance things. You know, that's the mindset. So I again, I wonder about that projection aspect. Oh, I'm seeing this person as a traditional authority person. So that means I they should want to bring fairness, but instead you get like not that, you know, and maybe on some level it's probably confusing for you because you're seeing the world through that prism and it's not turning out the way you would instinctively expect it to go.

I feel like any kind of authority is uh inherently opposed to fairness. Well, maybe like I mean to the extent we're trust and vapor in this. He says like this has a certain thing that's supposed to guide people, right? You're supposed to say, "Hey, you know, you're not supposed to screw over everybody all the time. You have to have something that's a little bit more fair." You're skeptical.

I am too.

Yeah.

But anyways, I could if this is a if this is a mindset and the way of looking at the world, you would get it. You know, I'm casting my vote for somebody. You know, I'm a traditional authority person. and I think this person's going to like reinstate my values. I would almost like expect on some level that a kind of a more sense of fairness or something would be part of that and then I you're not going to get it, you know, and then however you rationalize that or whatever to was kind of interesting.

All right. Well, you took a psychological journey. I think stuff is interesting in that I find the Weber stuff interesting. It's been thoughtprovoking for me.

Yeah, I agree. And in a certain sense developing compassion because I'm like I could look at my relatives and go okay they're traditional authority people they think this is what's happening

right

and they think the world is going to become more fair and then also more in their own vision of things which I would be against

probably more that one more that one

I would I would oppose my [...] on other people but it's going to be more fair.

Yeah I'm going to help you don't worry.

Yeah. Well if you have Christian values you're like oh we'll get some Christian values in here. There'll be more fairness. There'll be more whatever. Yeah. I think they probably think that way. You know, you're shaking your I don't think it's going to happen, but

No,

no. I got I got a bridge I'm selling. If you are interested, you can email us at jyn andandragmail.com

or hit us up on the gram.

Hit us up on the gram. The jin andra podcast for sure.

Yeah, I could I could see how people I could see how they would think that way. But anyways, we got we got our closeout started. Daniel, thanks so much. No, it's all good. Eric, thank you so much for uh for doing it. This is a good good journey, you know, and uh yeah, we're just we're doing our best to try and and frame what's you know, what's happening through, you know, various perspectives of different psychologists, social psychology people, you know, stuff like this in general over the last few months. uh as you know the intensity it feels like the intensity of things has really picked up and um you know there are traditions that have views on the world as we interact with it and I think it's important to you know see through as much as you can in order to understand what's happening. Obviously we're always growing. We're always learning new things. We're doing you know Eric and I you know we're doing podcasts. People are listening. they're taking in other other things. Um, we're never the same versions of ourselves and society is always a new version of itself too. So there's this constant for me what I think is a constant kind of like catching up and then moving ahead like as my skills grow then kind of like the world around me becomes crazier and then I have to level myself up so and find a new place that I could be balanced and and get the things that I find to be useful in it because in the in the west in the any capitalistic society it's infinite growth. That's the only way that it it it thrives is with infinite growth. If you're, you know, projected to grow uh 2% over the quarter and you and you don't grow 2 and a half%, then you're you're going to lose value in your company, which makes no sense technically speaking, but that's just how it is. It's sentiment. You know what I'm saying? So, from a personal perspective, we also have to have some level of growth that exceeds or at least equals, right? We have to keep up with inflation. We have to equal what is going on around us. And sometimes it takes us in uh different journeys and to look at different things so that like my mind changes and my perspective also changes and develops because people will have different questions. And if you have any different questions, please feel free to leave them in the YouTube section, the comment section of YouTube channel. Hit us up jinnantra@gmail.com or on the gram at the jin andra podcast. But you know, people's questions evolve, right? So I'm

I like the image that you used of like leveling up because if the world gets makea more chaotic the responsibility that I can at least control for myself is I have to level up to meet

yes

whatever craziness is happening in the world to keep my own sanity keep myself growing like that's a truth

and I got and I got you know and I got to keep it a buck like I hear in my own mind sometimes like with what we've been doing it's like this is not what you know what we used to do or this our our this podcast in particular And I'm going to argue with myself a a cuz I'm crazy, but uh b because I think it's a you know thing to say is that like I we this is this is what we do. This is not it's not the same thing. It's always going to change. It's never going to be the exact same way as it was before. So, these are conversations that Erica and I are having between each other, you know, that we talk about throughout the week and whatnot about what's going on and this and that and why is this happening and what, you know, and fortunately there are many, many, many, many people who have commented on society and have been doing so for thousands of years, you know, in a means to help illuminate what's going on so that ultimately we can turn that light back and illuminate what's going on within ourselves and then how we fit and where's that balance, you So the goal is to help, the goal is to illuminate, the goal is to educate, the goal is to empower, the goal is to uplift. This is always what it is. And and sometimes

and I to go back to the thing I think to be a Buddhist or to try to be a Buddha means you have to try to understand all the things around you.

Yeah.

You know, we want to talk about cool Dowist [...] and Buddhist [...] and tandra and we're going to get back to that. You know, like this is a a vignette in our in our work together and you know, maybe we'll pick up on pieces of this later on the road. We won't do this forever, but you know, like I think you need to understand everything around you, right?

Yeah.

And the other thing I wanted to say, just a quick comment before, I know we're logging off, but I I like what you said about the authority thing because if I really look at it, if I had to sit down with my relatives, I would say, you know, you can't impose authority on other people.

No,

you can't do it. You're always going to get a backlash. It's like Newton's third law. For every action, you're going to get an equal and opposite reaction. If you want to impose your thing,

other people are going to re back react back again. No matter who you are, left or right or center of, you know, if you want to make it a political thing or whatever, if you try to impose your stuff, you're going to get a you're going to get a reaction. You can't impose authority on others. It just doesn't work. You know,

there's always a whiplash. It, you know, just because you think that they're not going to come for you, don't worry.

Yeah.

There only is uh, you know, like there's fidelity, that's it. There is no part part way. There's you're not in our group. You're not up here. and everybody else is down there. Even if you believe the same way that we do, you are subject. Full stop. You know, it's those that have means to purchase their way out of being the subject that the only ones that are not subject. And even they're still subjects, you know, like Yeah. But

or spiritual freedom can make you not a subject. Hopefully. Correct.

Fingers crossed. Right. I step out of the game. Let me just step out.

Step out of the game.

And now like as much as I can and now I'm not a subject anymore.

Yeah.

Yeah. I could be a free person. All right. Yeah. Thanks so much, Daniel. Deep.

Always. Always. All right, Eric. Thank you, audience. Thank you uh for Eric. This is Daniel. We'll catch you guys in the next one. Peace. [Music]