[Music] Hey fellow G&T, those of us psych spirituality with a twist. So we are doing this series on the psychology of cults, social psychology stuff. It's kind of our way of responding to what's happening in uh our land of liberty here in the United States, right? And uh so if you want to go check out previous episodes about that, we're doing a lot on conformity and we got to one of the major sort of social psych experiments on conformity which is the infamous Stanford prison experiment that we'll talk you all through. Uh and if you're familiar with it, we'll give our own like kind of two cents of what we think it's about in regards to we're doing this kind of on multiple levels, right, Daniel? On the one hand, we're talking about what's happening now that it seems like there's so much like cult psychology dominating our culture here in the United States, but also it's sort of a commentary on like the risks of cult psychology overall. So, we've been doing a bunch of episodes around Yeah. And I mean, it's also a continuation of a discussion that we've been having on conditioning. Yeah. For off and on for years at this point. It's just this has been kind of like a very pointed focused kind of attack if you will or dissertation on that from current events if you will. Yeah. It's kind of our way of trying to respond to because we're an educational psychospiritual podcast as we talked about in previous episodes. Not a news of the day thing, but you know, we we're we're hopefully adding to the conversation, help people figure out what's happening. Yeah. batshit stuff that's going on in the world. So, um, yeah. Yeah. Yeah. It's been interesting for me researching it, right? I mean, going back and looking at the social psychology that does relate back to my experience, what I was doing back in undergrad, but also going through and like learning new things about this has been, you know, it's been kind of an interesting little journey for me on a personal level, right? I'm learning a lot, so hopefully other people will learn things, too. All right. And as far as being stuck under the thr of evil forces. Oh yes. Help us get out from under the algorithm. Yes. Like, subscribe, do all the things. And uh, you know, it helps people out. So yeah, you've heard it a million times. Anytime you watch one of these things, we just did it again. A million in one. But thank you all for listening. All right. Stanford prison experiment or what's sometimes called the Zimardo experiment. You know, the main idea in this is really kind of interesting and it does fit into our wheelhouse of what we like to talk about so much because it's really about what they'll sometimes call the dispositional hypothesis or the situational one. Are people more kind of is it more that people are individually psychologically inclined to behave in certain ways or is it more like you put people under certain social situations and it will attend to elicit those behaviors more so than it something about this particular person's disposition or something. So I mean that's kind of a key I think point in our whole podcast like over all these years we've been doing it, right? Kind of asking that kind of question like you were talking about earlier. Yeah. Yeah. Now, the attitude to something like this is definitely like situational for what we're doing with trying to talk about like cult psychology overall. We're doing stuff on conformity. We'll probably also do social psych stuff on obedience and uh and persuasion a little bit at the end. But the other big things were sort of sociology things. And I've been doing my little research around this to remind myself of these issues. And um you know there's this famous psych like sociologist Emil Durkheim and he talks about this idea of what he calls social facts which is you put people in social situations and they kind of are almost like the laws of nature right you put something uh you know you you you shoot a billiard ball and it's going to follow Newton's laws it's just going to do it right and that's kind of how they think about these things a lot of this stuff that we would more be inclined to say well that's something about this individual person no it's much more like the social facts, you know, grooves that are there in the social system that just elicit certain behaviors from people. That's kind of the big idea behind this. So, um, the Stanford ex prison experiment or the Zimaro experiment, I think partially it comes from the point of view of u really questions about prisons. I mean, they were wondering about that, right? opening of this whole other massive set of questions once you do it where you realize wow this is asking something really deep about you know uh sociology psychology and what what what do you make out of that right yeah so is it like you know they were asking the question like is it something in the guards you know that leads to problems of abuse right or is it more something where the situation the structure is just eliciting out like you know you shoot a billiard ball and it goes a certain way on the table. You can't exactly blame the billiard ball. Right. Right. You shoot a you do a a putt on the putting green and it rolls a certain way. You don't get mad at the ball. It's just following the green. So, guns don't kill people, Eric. People do. Well, you put a bunch of guns everywhere. to say as far as the uh and like maybe we'll do it at the end, but as far as locally what's happening, we can talk a little bit maybe about, you know, not a news of the day thing, but there's weird [...] happening amongst like how people are being taken off the street in the United States and some interesting questions maybe at the end. Yeah, if you want to follow along to the end, you can hear our opinions about that too a little bit because it's ironic because it does fit, right? We're talking questions. Yeah. It's like right in the wheelhouse. I just posted that today because I was listening to some stuff about it and I was like, "Oh man, this is like right on time for what we're talking about and uh end of April 2025." I like So like here's how the experiment. So I'll go over the experiment, right? You got more intro stuff you want to talk about or No, no, no. That's good. Okay. So the interesting thing about this was as far as the dispositional thing, is there something wrong with the people? They just grabbed a bunch of like middle class male students kind of things, right? It was like typical what would happen. You know, they put up their ads like normal kind of psych experiments you'd have in any university and they just got the people in and there, you know, it was randomized over the groups that they're going to put the people in. So, there really wasn't anything about these folks that were particularly one way or another, you know, because you might wonder about those kinds of questions. Obvious thing to wonder about. Then it was just normal, right? To do it like anything else. It was just a kind of a random selection of just people who signed up to do an experiment you know for a university setting right at Stanford. Now what I didn't know about it when I went back and looked at again again is they really made the thing very realistic. I had studied it back in the day um but you know you don't remember all the details. So they really with the prisoners they really treated them like the whole way through. So once you signed up you went through like an arrest experience like they arrested you at your house or something right? So they just grabbed you and just took you now where the what's happening now. But you what was the size of the what was the end end number for this? You know what I don't know if I [...] I didn't write down I don't think it was in the text that I look at. You can peek it if you want. Yeah I think I Yeah. I don't know. I mean it might have been like huge 25 30 people you'd imagine. Something like that. Yeah. And and the but were the guards. So we should just explain the experiment a little bit because so that we're you know Yeah. We're walking through it kind of like a story. So you got assigned randomly either to a guard group or prison group. Yeah. Uh for this context of the experiment again with no reason. It was randomized. You know, you just get put in one group or another. And then the people who were in the prison group, they they did a whole thing of like arresting them and then taking them into the prison setting. So they were like recreating this experience of, you know, being in prison, being arrested, and so on. And so I mean, I didn't I didn't remember it was so detailed, but they stripped them Did they louse them? They made them sort of just stand around. I imagine like kind of naked just standing there waiting to get kind of put into groups. They ended up having to wear like identification numbers. They put like the chains on their feet. So they locked them up. They put them in uniforms. And um eventually they were just going to go through this whole experience of what it's like to be a prisoner. And that included things. The most notorious thing about this experiment that like skipped through the end of it is that they had to call it off early because the thing went so out of control. The abuse in the environment got so crazy. The abuse of the guards towards the prisoners just like was so bad they had to like shut it down before it lasted six days. Yeah. It was super short. Yeah. So it I I looked it up. It was 24. Okay. Something like that. Yep. That's about range. Yeah. And it was like even number of guards and prisoners actually. Yeah, they it wasn't like there was a big like division of like power between one side the other. Yeah. Yeah. Maybe that makes a difference. I don't know. But um so there was no what happened as it went along was that they were sort of warned ahead of time to people in the prisoner group that they were going to lose privacy, right? But eventually they generated these different kinds of abuse. Um h and so you know it was that um you know they realized certain things like they realized they'd have to have public permission to go to the bathroom. All these things would be really super monitored and controlled. Of course you don't know you're stepping into a situation where rando people are going to start abusing you. The interesting thing on the guard side is they got training a little bit and they got uniforms. The commentary on this part in the social psych literature is this was all sort of like a de-individuation experience. So you went through and you were like put into groups in this random way and then you went through these experiences that would happen within these groups and it was sort of you people talk about sort of this loss of personal identity within this window. Right. Yeah. So then the patterns of abuse just started to escalate and escalate. Um as did as did the rebellion. Well, no, it went weird. So the prisoners initially resisted. Okay. But as the as the punishments got more and more severe from the guard side, they eventually like just collapsed and they So I mean that's part of the reason this is discussed about in terms of conformity I guess under threat, right? M but they initially sort of resisted is the way it's talked about you know um but again as the punish punishments sort of escalated um uh they conformed and it reminded me a little bit of another kind of classic psych thing which I thought was worthwhile bringing up here which is this idea of like learned helplessness. Did you ever study that in your life Daniel? Does that ring a bell at Donald that term? No. No but it sounds a little bit like uh Stockholm syndrome or something like this. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Well, that's a really interesting. So, this was sort of like I got it in like behaviorism studies back when I was in undergrad. It's one of the ones that always stuck with me because it was it was so wild to like, you know, imagine how it works. So, they it was really things that were done to dogs. So, if you're a dog lover, you might want to like fast forward through this part, that kind of dogs. But what they did was they put dogs in these cages and what they would do is sort of a behaviorist thing, you know, conditioning experiments, right? Mhm. So what they did was they had the door closed on the cage and they would like give shocks through the floor of the cage and then dogs would try to get out the door but the door was locked. And so eventually what happened was the dogs learned this helplessness. And so even when you open the door up when you would shock the dogs even though they could see that the door was open they'd still just sit in the cage. So eventually I think I remind me of because it seems that's what happened to these prisoners. They initially started to resist but eventually as resistance became you know futile yeah they eventually just like got learned helplessness then they just decided okay and they just started to like conform right to what was being demanded of them and then the other part of it which I didn't totally remember that either I had the same gut reaction you did I thought they got more and more wild from the prisoner side but that you know when I went back and looked at it again I was like oh no they didn't they collapsed yeah and they took on the learn helplessness thing. The learn helplessness thing has always been super profound to me. I think it even came up in a previous episode. There's the great quote that goes back to Confucious for Asian cultural roots on this episode where he says, "The way out is through the door. How come no one uses that method?" Yeah. Quote, "But like if you've learned that there's no way out, even when the door opens, you might just sit there." Which I think says something about not dispositional things, but situational things. people will again to feel like okay I tried for a while and even if an opportunity does appear maybe you don't find your way out right you watch people and you wonder why can't this person get out the door you know how come they don't use that method and then you start to realize oh no they probably learned there was no way out at some point and then they just say stuck wherever they are which I you know again it's it's a profound observation yeah the flip side and this is the social role aspect was the prisoners uh were in their situation. But the guards got more and more abusive and they started to exercise more and more kind of bizarre authority. So they would sleep deprive them, you know, they would do other kinds of weird stuff. Yeah. Strip them down and put them in solitary confinement and Yeah. spy on them and like Yeah. Yeah. Um and they would start to do it even in ways that were prevarently sort of like unprovoked. So just sort of like this abuse of power just started to escalate which is so striking of course in the experiment. This is why this is one of the classics for sure because it was all just like rando people, right? Yeah. Um, and the kind of the part at the end was this idea of uh and Eric, the people were not like they didn't sign up saying I want to be a guard. They just signed up for the experiment and then it was selected as to who was guard and who was. So for people who are listening, it's not like someone's like oh well maybe somebody was like ooh I want to be a guard. I'm a sadistic person and I want to, you know, take revenge for my childhood out on a helpless, you know, experimentee. Yeah, it's not that they were all selected. I remember that, you know, they were just chosen. That's the crux of the whole thing because sometimes you do wonder about that. Are these are people who are dispositionally disposed to, you know, want to be [...] to other people or something? Not the thing. It's just, you know, okay, we took you randomly put them in these different groups and all of a sudden the social facts thing, that phrase is sticking with me a lot. Yeah. You know, this is the social facts of the situation and it'll start to elicit naturally these behaviors out of people. It's bizarre. And it was strange in the end because I guess, you know, again, I I hit some social psych literature around this, but at the end when they closed the whole thing down, which they had to because they were like, "This is getting out of control. We got to stop this thing." Yeah. Right. Um uh the people who were from the guard side were apparently initial reactions were that they were kind of sad to see that the experiment was over. The role was kind of appealing on some level tapped into something kind of dark which again is bizarre. The followup is interesting in that by the end of it um uh you know that everyone like sort of returned back to normal. They did do what they're supposed to do in a psych setting. They reevaluated the people later on and everyone seemed they just went back to their life as per usual which is also striking, right? You know, you go through this like bizarre thing. I don't know. I didn't even know what I would feel about that. Yeah. Yeah. Would you want to see that side of yourself? I don't know. But people did go back to normal apparently. Um but it's a controversial one in terms of ethics too in the psych world obviously, right? Because but I don't think that'd be the fault of even like the experimentter when I think about that. Would you expect this [...] to go off the rails in six days? I wouldn't have not that quick. Going in just Do you Do you know how long it was set up for, Eric? Do you know how long the experiment was supposed to be? Was it supposed to be like a two week or No, it's a good question. I don't know. It's notorious for getting shut down early, but I actually don't know what their goal was. Doing a little research on this as we're talking. So, yeah. Yeah. So the the interpretation in terms of what we've been trying to talk about is the power conformity relative to like social roles which is a big subject matter on the podcast for sure. Podcast um that was from our old introduction music the podcast. Um uh all right so you know this whole idea of like conformity being elicited by putting people in the social roles. Yeah Eric two two weeks I looked two weeks. Okay. Yeah seemed about right. That seemed intuitively right. didn't it? You kind Yeah. Yeah. Um, so anyways, it raises this really like, you know, like I think is an incredibly intense psychosspiritual question that we, you know, we talk about in different ways from different angles, but you know, how are you elicit conformity in this situation? In the previous stuff we looked at, it was more sort of the immediate social pressures of will you change an answer to a question or does it change the way you cognitively experience the world? We have previous episodes on these things. if you're just tapping into this one. So it's around other social psych stuff around conformity. Um you know but this is more like social role as a power of conformity which is kind of like an intense thing you know. Yeah, like how strong that is for people, right? Because once you define the role, people will tend to like go into the role as the interpretation and it I think it's an accurate one, right? Yeah. And it has that like kind of psychosspiritual power in the Yeah. I kind of got like a social psych kind of textbook out and they had a quote from the great philosopher Bertrand Russell that I guess I'll throw out as part of this too, but it's even different. So he says conventional people are aroused to to frenzy by departure from convention largely because they regard such departure as criticisms of themselves. Okay. So but you know the thing is he uses this phrase conventional people. I think the other way to frame that would be like conventional roles once you're in a conventional role well then you have more the risk of becoming a conventional person. And then once that gets established, then people tend to be defensive of like their own roles or something, you know? Yeah. It's like guarding a territory you don't even really want, though. Yeah. It's interesting. Yeah. So I couldn't help thinking about like you know of the things that we talk about a lot. You know, if you have the role of wife or husband or father or mother or employee, let's say, lawyer, what's the risk of just like taking on some kind of way of handling situations just because that role is sort of defined, right? and all of a sudden you just fall into the demands of that role without even totally realizing, you know, the the power of what you're involved with because those roles are so strong. Is that how you sort of think about this thing, too? Yeah, that's a that's an interesting that's an interesting thought. I mean, I guess my mind is going a little bit even more expansive in terms of when we say roles, I'll say like um participation in a particular ideological gathering. So, more to the culty aspect of it. Yeah. So you're you're uh we'll just we all you know you're a Christian, you're a Democrat, you're a conservative, you're a whatever doesn't, you know, like I think it can expand beyond the familial or the labor, you know, the economic side of it in into incorporating yourself into any tribe that you find yourself in or any role you take on within like the demands of that tribe or something, right? Like you're taking on a role when you enter into a tribe, you're taking on a part, right? But I I again I guess I'm I'm thinking of even just participation in a particular ideology itself. There's not necessar at least from my in my way my I'm hearing it now like there's not necessarily a role. So if you go to you know we'll we'll do both, right? If you go to a if you're a MAGA person, you know, like what's your role in that? You don't have a necessarily a role. I guess your role is, you know, to buy [...] that he sells you, you know what I mean? And and be happy about it, right? Um although that shit's going to get more expensive now that imports stuff coming from China. So, um but no, so there's so there's that, but you don't really have a There's going to be factories all over the United States. Oh, sorry. Making red caps. Sorry, I didn't I didn't realize. Um, but then you know the same like same thing if you're uh a more liberal-minded person and you're going to a Bernie and AOC rally, okay? Like you don't have a you're you're a promoter of their beliefs and whatnot, but I don't know that you have necessarily have a role. So, but but you're still probably have some pressure to fall in line when talking about that thing. It's you're you're going to be less likely to criticize, you know, even if you're not necessarily totally in line. And I think that is probably one of our and it's definitely from our previous episode. That's our biggest complaint. It's like you you you're being ideological ideologically untrue. You know, you're you're you're maybe consciously participating in cognitive dissonant behavior in not expressing a who you are at the behest of other people's pressure. number one or two uh unable or unwilling to give honest critique honest critique of the the greater powers that you are more closely aligned with even if you know in your heart of hearts like I'm going to give him a pass again for the 15th time on this one issue don't worry it'll come around like no that that doesn't fit so that so when you say that there's a pressure in roll I could say that there's a a pressure in even being closely associated. Yeah. Like two things kind of pop up as a follow-up episode to this one foreshadowing of future episodes. We're going to be doing one on disscent, right? What does it mean descent and who are the people like the psychology of descent will be one of the episodes we'll do, right? And then maybe we'll double up back and we'll look more at things like obedience and uh uh and persuasion. But like descent will do, right? before we move on to other parts of this kind of big discussion we're doing on this danger of like a certain kind of psychology like you know I mean that's part that's says this in this thing too there's nothing special about these dudes who are in this experiment they're just average bros who were just taken out of this you know campus setting from this you know from around this town right Alto or something yeah so it's just people from that you know from that place you know there was nothing unique about them in terms of who they were Right. And I suppose you can say when you join a group the same way you might join the group of prisoners or the group of gu of guards then you're joining like something where you're going to take on some kind of role some way or another. I guess if you want to expand the idea and it matches what you're saying to my mind. Right. So as you identify as MAGA you start identifying as that or you identify as whoever you are from a different political perspective. You're taking on kind of a thing. Right. Well let me tell you there is something very powerful about a uniform. Yeah. And there is something very cohesive about being dressed identical to the person next to you. Yeah. Because all the only thing that's different is on the outside is just your face. You went through that experience in the military. How does that how did that Absolutely. Yeah. Um Yeah. I mean it it's str it gives you a strong bond between you and the person next to you. On the whole, obviously individual differences, you know, between people, but on the whole, those are people that are on quote unquote your team and now you know it. How do you know it? Well, because they're dressed the same as you. You're, as they like to say where I'm from, Eric, matchy matchy. Well, I was thinking like if you're part of this experiment and you're on the guard side, I'm sure you're shooting the [...] about what you're doing. Yeah. You're discussing how you're handling things. So this guy's a particular [...] difficult person over here. Like I'm treating him like this. Maybe you can do the same. You know, like I'm sure you're talking all kinds of stuff. Yeah. They they were working uh eight hour shifts. Yeah. So they were they were on 24 hours. Yeah. You know, eight hours, eight on, 16 off, three, you know, three guards at a time, nine, you know, whatever. Whatever it was. Um so they're Yeah, they're definitely coordinating. Yeah. And they're talking, right? You're developing a certain sense of like camaraderie around the role or something, right? Yeah. Yeah. And they're and they're dressed the same as you. So those people are you're on they're on your team, you know, it's like people who look like you or speak the same language as you or from the same town or whatever they are, you know, those that's the in-group. And so what are you willing to do to protect that in-group? Apparently very dastardly things even if even on a uh psych experiment at Stanford. Yeah. which is the power of like yeah the power of like group identity and social role. It gets it fits into the cult thing for sure, right? Because the minute you're there, you're going to take up some role within the context of whatever that group is. Right now, I have a role as a member of this group. Even it's more informal like I'm a member of MOG or I'm a member of like whatever you want to do on the left side that might be equivalent, you know. There is none. But okay. Yeah, there's nothing quite equivalent. I was trying to be polite. Yeah. Well, you know, but you know, when you look at it, it's kind of like okay, you know, you're you're taking on something. And you're right, there's an ideology behind that that you're engaged in and so on. I like I I have like in this experiment it's always struck me and this is obviously such an important part of how I think about psychosspiritual development too is like I was talking with someone about this today over brunch just the whole idea of like um because I was talking about this episode that we were going to do and just the whole idea that like you could look at like a whole society then as being defined by these roles you into them now you're taking on a whole thing it's not as dramatic as being a prisoner and a guard maybe those are pretty dramatic roles Right? That's one of the implications of the experiment which is why I brought about like there's a role called wife, there's a role called husband, ro called father, mother, daughter, son, you know, employer, employee. Those are all roles that will start to have definitions behind them. And I guess that's the power of like social facts too. I'm like, you know, that phrase I I I I believe that in my heart of hearts. I think this is true, you know, from like a a Dowist point of view or a tantric point of view as we talking as we talked about this before, but I think, you know, where I first got exposed to these things on a personal level was like studying this social psychology and just being like, [...] look how powerful this is, right? And for me, like in trying to understand my world, even going back to when I was in undergrad before I started doing Zen, which was my big spiritual first initiation thing. Yeah. you know, um I was like, well, I better understand some sociology and some anthropology if these roles are so strong. And I think that's what we're trying to do in this podcast, share some of those experiences, right? Yeah. What's like to kind of like see how these ideas stretch across like multiple fields, all of a sudden it's like all over the place. M I've had pretty deep conversations with people that you know I deeply love and care about where I tried to make the point like you know if you start taking on this particular role whatever that would be husband you take on the role of like father or something and you don't you don't differentiate yourself from that role those roles tend to have a lot of like baggage along with them right and we had kind of interesting conversation with the person I was talking with today because ultimately her point was well if you're in the midst of all of this it's pretty hard to be free and I was like yeah it works against psychosspiritual freedom right so confined into whatever that particular thing is and this of course is like it's not like these are Stanford undergrads they're not idiots no right it's smart people it's just the role that's what makes the experiment so persuasive the role is so powerful right that uh it like it has this uh impact here it's very dramatic maybe in other situations it might be a little bit more insidious But the roles are powerful, right? And the allure of power is also corrosive. And the or being cast in the role of the powerless. Yeah. Becomes, you know, its own uh uh I don't even what the right word for that is. It's hard to come up with it, isn't it? Well, we said learned helplessness, you know, earlier. Yeah. Learn help. It's your own learned helplessness. But like you you begin to like be affected, be worn into the grooves of that role. Yeah. Right. The disempowerment becomes infectious in a way. Right. Yeah. Tragically. So I mean that's part of the if we if we're playing this game, which I'm interested in doing for sure. I think you are too. This whole thing of like we can think about in the context of like subgroup cult psychology. That's an important subject matter for the now. But it also fits into ideas of like what happens to people when they're put into these kinds of boxes, right? All of a sudden the box is pretty strong, you know, which I think got to the other thing I just wanted to bring up kind of briefly in this, you know, for people to think about when I um and I do this sometimes in classes that I teach on psychology for uh you know, people who are in the Chinese medical world. in like the the sociology world, there's this sort of idea of functionalism versus what you might call dysfunctionalism, right? The idea that sometimes when people think about roles, they think about how they fit together and they'll be like the different roles within a group or within the society at large will fit together like the individual parts of an organism or something, right? They all kind of play the parts and fit together. That's a very positive framing of things. And that goes back to a guy named Telcott Parsons in the United States is one of the big people to talk about this idea there. We're going to look at it from other perspectives too because we're going to look at some great sociologists in upcoming episodes. Um but like this Tott Parson's famous American sociologist, his student was a guy named Harold Garfinkle. Um, some people point out the fact that he was a Jewish guy and that maybe maybe made him look at things a little bit different because, you know, would have been more exposed to things that would be anti-semitism, right? But, you know, the idea was that uh he started saying, well, uh, and you can imagine other people who are from like groups that could have been discriminated against could have a similar reaction. It's like, okay, yeah, you're saying all this stuff is functional, but a lot of this shit's dysfunctional. I might get a role in this performance, right? Uh, all the world's a stage, but the play is badly cast, you know. Um, that's that's Oscar Wild, but my own take on it is something like, oh, the world may be a stage, but the script sucks, right? So, this is the script sucks. And the guy's saying, well, look at you might have a role, but I don't want to play this role. I don't want to be the random person put into this role because this role sucks. Nobody wants to be an NPC or a prisoner. Or a prisoner. That's a shitty role. Great. You got a role for me? Yeah. But that role is just crap, you know? So, it's a real tension around like this question of roles, right? And I guess like from a psychospiritual point of view, I know how you feel about this, but like it raises a really interesting question about like what roles are you willing to take on or not take on? You know, what roles are you like going to say, "No, I'm not going to take on that role. I don't like that role. I'm going to resist it. Yeah. I don't even know how much people necessarily choose. I mean, I think if you like if the role of a parent, I think, well, I mean, I don't think I know for sure. Many parents if they could do it again, they love their kids, but I think if they could just, you know, hit the rewind button maybe just a little bit. It might do it, you know. Yeah. Yeah. I've had conversations recently with some people about that. Yeah. I think I've heard this parenting thing is hard. But like Okay, you go ahead. I'm I just heard it many times. They're like, if I, you know, if I would have known what I've known now about kids, I would have never had any. But they but also they would have said that nobody would have any. Basically, I'm the weird exception that because I never wanted any and they turned out to be delightful. Oh, okay. So, it's like kind of [...] this guy over here meaning me. Okay. Good for you. Yeah. Yeah. [...] you. Yeah, but I like maybe because I had no expectations and I also didn't want the role, you know, I knew I didn't want to do it. So, um so I felt no identity with it, you know what I mean? So, I sometimes like, you know, we we talk about different aspects of the tantra thing, right? And like yeah, you can perform different aspects of your life and make it into tantric theater. Yeah. But you have to be willing to take the role and make it into tantric theater. So I think, you know, that's kind of maybe what I the attitude that I took, you know, but I mean, so I mean that's a really interesting question. Again, when I was throwing it out over brunch today, you know, one of the responses I got was something like, well, people don't even really know that they're performing these roles. They don't even really ask the question or really think about it. And like the person I was talking to was trying to make some distinctions. I said something like they don't question it. And I think she was trying to go further and say, "No, you don't even really it doesn't even really occur to you to question it. They're so ingrained that the thought doesn't even occur to like ask the question." She's really originally not from the States, too. Mhm. So that maybe her perspective is a little bit different. But I know what do you think about that? I mean, we we talk about this idea of questioning in this podcast from the very first episode. Yeah. So this is kind of like our our our wheelhouse. Mhm. I mean, maybe it's like even pointing out to people like, "Hey, look at the role and ask a question and see if you're into it or not." Yeah. Yeah. I mean, we've I mean, we've been harping this for the last several episodes, you know? Yeah. It's a kind of a Yeah. Yeah. Just I mean, that Yeah. Yeah. Total agreement. Yes. Yeah. And like, you know, as we go further in it, there's definitely going to be things where you can be like attacked for non-compliance, right? For sure. Yep. So as we shift to our idea of talking about you know let's say resistance you know which will be our next big subject matter um you know there's no doubt that there's risks for being non-compliant with things absolutely right the social psych literature is pretty clear on that too it's interesting and the stuff I was looking at they talk you know again we'll shift to resistance and descent so they'll you know like if you do not comply then you can and if you're if you're consistent in that, you can be seen as sort of like sometime they use the phrase competent and honest if someone is willing to resist a role. People have a kind of a weird potential respect for it. Mhm. Okay. Yeah. It's funny you say that cuz I was telling uh a patient of mine today cuz we were talking about this cuz I talk about this a lot in general. You know, younger guy, got a family, works really hard, but works sometimes too hard, you know, it's almost it's almost sacrificial. It is. And he would agree. And um so we talked about his upbringing a little bit. And I said, you know, it's interesting, man. We're, you know, wherever we're from, whatever culture we're from, we're told, you know, we grow up being used to things, but it doesn't mean that we have to like those things. It doesn't mean we have to identify with those things. And people who don't identify with them often get a lot of push back. And I said, you know, case in point again, we're just talking about stuff. I said, I've been to Thailand numerous times. Do you know how many lady boys are out there? Lots. And do you know how much grief they get from society? None. Oh yeah. But here, oh my god, it's like the biggest thing ever. You know what I mean? Like it's like the biggest thing ever in the history of the world. News flash. That's cuz you're a bunch of [...] tight asses. Yeah. You know what I'm saying? Yeah. Sure. Is there some problem with some crazy pe people who are not right who are, you know, trying to they they lost some of their mind and their identity? I'm not saying that for everybody. I'm just saying in general it doesn't matter. Yeah, those people are going to be a problem then. You know, real quick on that point, we're clinicians. So if you have somebody who like that's the issue, that's a clinical question. That's a clinical question. Exactly. That's a clinical question. That's a person that person having beyond the deeper whatever. Yeah. Of gender and sexuality. That's an individual clinical question. Yes. Yeah. Yes. Yeah. And with the closing of all the these mental facilities in the early 2000s, where do you think all these people are going to go? You know, they're going to flood into society. And so we have again not saying everybody is a mental patient who who chooses a different lifestyle. Exactly. Exactly the opposite. Yeah. The exact opposite point. You know there's a difference between individual liberty and choosing what you want to do with your own life. And then some people are going to have issues. Right. Some people going to have issues. But my point of bringing it up to him is that like look at what happens when people question binary choice. Yeah. When people question their roles, when they don't want to fit in, then what happens? You know, it's a very um it's very common to say, "Oh, the pink-haired the pink-haired college liberal," you know, as like this sort of uh porative description for a group of, you know, kids who are in in college. And it's it's porative because they're making fun of them for a having pink hair. Okay, fine. B being compassionate and overly sensitive. and C getting an education, right? They're they're smart because they're getting schooling, but they're stupid because they they make quote unquote dumb choices while they're there, but they're also questioning they're questioning the status quo and people don't like that. So, the role that you've taken on is holding up the status quo. Is that what you want to do? Is that your actual choice? Did you sign up for that? When you were a kid, you said, "I want to maintain the status quo. Yay." And so I told him this and I said, "The people who get remembered in history are not good boys and good girls. They're not. They're the ones that ask the questions. They're the ones that stand up and are willing to be different. Those people get remembered. So for all the people's egos who want to be uh inflated and being remembered in the annals of history, just remember the people who fit in die unremembered." Yeah. It's funny because they had that point in the social psych book. They had a whole paragraph about that. You know, the people who are, you know, um, resisting are not always the ones who are going to be liked, you know, because there's a definite like social psychology, the research does say like you're probably going to be disliked on some level, right? Um, because you're challenging something. Uh, and then when we get to like the sociology stuff that we're going to do under things like social co cohesion especially, you can see where this there's another take on this. Yeah. But I Yeah, I think that's right. You know, this whole idea of um it takes a certain courage to do that, right? And there'll be some kind of sometimes some some some strange begrudging respect that will mix with hostility, right? Yeah. Yeah. I was like I was thinking about my own my own childhood. Um, I was talking with my brother today and uh, and you know, studying all this stuff, the sociology and the social psychology stuff has been interesting because I flash back and I grew up in what you would call MAGA America. Like I drew grew up in Crumps America. I understand it from a very particular vantage point because I Oh, you mean upper upper class New York? I wasn't amongst the real estate developers. I was amongst the people who were like uh the the lower middle class upper lower class white folk and uh you know I could never fit into those groups, right? Yeah. And you know my best friend was a dude who was Greek and his complexion was just darker. He was Greek and yeah, we had a lot of fights and uh and uh I look back on this and it was like okay, we were just willing to be to be different and it was funny every little thing where we learn these things like you sometimes you flash back through your life and hopefully this happens for other people too. But I flash back and I was like yeah you know when I look back on it there was like kind of a begrudging respect and then like this hostility. So you got both of these things. There were people who would be like they'd come up and they'd show respect you know because there is something that people can respect that you know if you do like with your if your patient if he decides okay I'm going to take a stand on certain things I don't like you know like it may be the case that people will go okay I respect this and that you're you will go up in their opinion you know but of course there'll be other people who will you know show that hostility right okay before we totally end it I guess we should probably this will be our one little nod to like news of the A but it's a deeper question than just that I think and I was curious of your opinion. Sure. So the particular news of the day is that under our current administration we're April 2025. It's hard to know what's happening but they're going in without clear identification that they're ICE agents. They just go in undercover. And the weirdest one that happened was they refused to show ID. Yeah. So, they were arresting this dude in the courthouse and the people around him and I don't even know if they were bystanders or people who knew him. They might have just been bystanders and they stepped up and they said, "Well, who are you exactly?" You know, and they said like, "We're not going to show ID." And they refused to do it. The one guy was wearing, is it a balava? Yeah. Yeah. He's wearing like a mask. The other dude looked like he'd be like uh like uh waiting in line to try to buy like a bootleg ticket for fish or something like that. You had like a man bun. It's an older looking dude ponytail man bun guy. And you're like, "Okay, untuck shirt, you know, some dudes just come walking up to you. one guy in a mask, the other dude looking like uh you know uh he t pulled his shirt out because he's on his way to the Grateful Dead concert or something like that and you're like okay who are these people? So they just came up and they started like trying to take this guy away and there was a couple of uh women there who kind of stepped in and said well who are you? We can you show some ID and they refused. Mhm. And uh the one guy kept saying uh you know, don't stand in the way of me doing my uh legal responsibilities. Don't touch me. Don't touch me. And he kept saying this over and over again. Mhm. And eventually they they took the guy away. They pushed the woman out of the way. She tried to get between them. And uh Okay. So the the kappa on the end of the story is that uh they're filing charges against those bystanders and they're going to like charge them with like interfering with, you know, the the the activities of a law officer or whatever the official charge would be or something. And I was looking at that and I was going, okay, that's [...] up on all kinds of levels. Obviously, we can all think that. But relative to this the the Stanford prison experiment, like who are these people? And it got to be the point of like are they just depriizing people to do stuff because they didn't I mean who are they right? And so you know got to the idea that the minute you put someone in the role of that authority everything in the Stanford prison experiment says that they're going to potentially really abuse that. Mhm. It's like immediately follows from like the social facts of the situation that the thing could immediately like deteriorate into, you know, uh violence and abuse, right? So anyways, I thought I'd get your like, you know, brief opinion on it. It was so bizarre that they wouldn't show ID and they wouldn't selfidentify. So I mean, what do you make out of that? M and it's going to go to a situation like okay if the whole idea is that we're also because the the thing I was listening to about I was thinking well maybe we're just deputizing people but like you know if you're not trained then you have to get trained to even function in that role right otherwise you get all the worst parts of the Stanford prison experiment potentially coming out that's a just to make the point that's a good I mean that's a that's a a very deeply psychological and intellectual uh argument to make there Eric So, very nice. Very nice to bring that home. Like that's what they're trying to show. I'm going to go I'm going to go uh regulatory and I'm going to say that the ICE falls under the Department of Homeland Security, DHS, which he's identifying himself as in the video that I saw. Yeah. This dude. Well, which which which it was uh let's say an outpouring or an eruption like a pimple Mhm. from the Patriot Act. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. So, so that's old school like Iraq war period 911 911. Yeah. Yeah. So, like those are 911 governmental 911 governmental organizations that were created. Yeah. you know, that sort of are not uh constitutional, but were brought about as a yielding of power from the people to the government in order to better secure us or whatever. And when at, you know, when they're not when they're not used in a predatory way, they don't serve a huge function. You know, they're another organization, right? And they they do whatever they do. Okay, they're homeland security, whatever that means. I don't So, what the FBI and the CIA that they're just we need another department. Got it. We're looking to cut stuff. I could find places to cut, you know. Uh but we're not going to cut that because that's uh you know has nefarious that budget's going up. That budget's going up for sure. Uh meals on wheels going down, but that budget's going up. Okay. So the the problem is that when you seed your freedom right over to the authority and now keep in mind that was a Republican administration and there w since then there was another eight years of Democratic administration then four years of Republican administration then four years of Democratic you know administration and now we're another nobody presses to change what was at once a sort a wartime short-lived need, reactionary need based on what happened at 9/11. And the kind of argument is going to say, well, we don't know when another one's going to happen, so we have to keep it in place. Okay, then this this also occurs because now you can take those methods of we'll call them safety, right? Which I say sarcastically for those who are listening. uh and those measures of safety quickly become the measures of control and then the measures of enforcement. Enforcement of what? Oh, I don't know. It depends on what you want to enforce because now you fall outside of the jurisdiction of you know wherever all the you know habius corpus juristprudence all these kind of right because they're they don't fall in those things and so people who are you know whether you agree with them or don't agree with them are very well adept in understanding all the various laws that are on the books and which ones can be used in this purpose. Even if you think that this is nefarious they know what they're doing. They look it up. They spend time studying and learning this and so they pick and choose the things they want and then implement it. But the larger point is that when you seed control, you know, and you don't fight to get it back, this is what happens. It's funny with the Patriot Patriot Act, but there's always been this conversation and you and I, you know, we don't talk about politics on the podcast, but we pay attention to what's happening in the world. In a certain sense, we think I think we both think a little bit that you have a spiritual responsibility to do so, right? It's a little bit something like that, right? Um, and we talked about that a little bit last episode, like a couple of the spiritual figures I really admire, Hosakaro, Roshi, Gellak, Riiche being people who tried to pay attention to what was happening in the world. Yeah. Yeah. But um there's always been this concern about the Patriot Patriot Act, it being abused at the time, too. Guantanamo being like, okay, right. And these still open, by the way. Yeah. Still open. made it through the whole Obama administration just to be honest about it. Um, but there always was this whole fear of what happens if you get like someone who's a political leader who just declares every everything an emergency, right? And all of a sudden all these powers kick in, right? How irresponsible that's been, right? Yeah. All right. Yeah. Thanks for all that. Yeah. I went into like the thing like we're so deep in the social psychology of this that I, you know, was saying, "Okay, there's a social psychology piece to this. if you all of a sudden depatize a bunch of people, you're putting him in the role of the guards. And I was curious what you thought about that too because I mean, you know, we've been around each other for, you know, how long we know each other? A decade or more now, right? More. Probably more like 13. But like, you know, you were in the military and like I was never in the military. But, you know, I think one of the things that happens in the military is you have to train people Yes. to take a role or to train people how to exercise a role responsibly, right? Because you know a soldier is a a role associated with potential violence. Obviously, it's part of the role, but you learn how to control. Correct. Part of the training is to control the violent parts of the role. So, you handle it responsibly. If you don't really train people in those way, even the the Sanford prison thing says you're gonna bring out potentially dark people if you put them in a dark dark aspects of people if you put them in a dark role, right? Or be careful the roles you create because you're going to elicit things out of those roles, you know? But I was like the whole idea that like I mean, you know, if you start looking at the training behind these folks, what is it so that people can learn how to handle the darker parts of those roles. So I was just curious what you thought about that. someone who was trained as a soldier because you have to learn how to control aggression and violence and use it in the right way appropriate to that role, right? Yeah. Yeah. I mean, yes. Sometimes experience does that and sometimes the training does. Okay. You learn both ways, right? Yeah. For sure. Yeah. You can't ever No, nobody can train you for every situation. It's not, you know, one of the dudes I was listening to about this particular thing was like if someone comes up, someone sent, you know, it's a it's a it's a podcast thing I listen to. We have to talk about the details of it, but you know, the guy was basically they got someone like kind of writing into their show and said, you know, my wife is uh, you know, a green card holder and if some dudes came up and like bought a colavas and no identification and they just started trying to take her off the street, would I let them do that? I think not. No. and he said, you know, I have like a I have a concealed carry permit. Correct. I think that weapon would come out in that circumstance, you know, very likely. And then you're getting to situations where, you know, even you put someone in the role of prisoner or, you know, an authority thing like this. You know, we may not like the role in a lot of ways, but you're putting people into those roles. Well, you're putting them in danger. Actually, you are because eventually you're get you no identification, no nothing. You just come up. You come up. You're putting people like who the [...] to say that someone doesn't just decide that we're just going to start taking people off the street. We've had this kind of vigilante kind of [...] before in the United States and people have gotten killed around these things. Yeah. Yeah. It's d It's dangerous. It's dangerous. I mean, it's dangerous for the even for the people who are who are doing it. Yeah. You know, this is why you don't really see it uh in places that have uh very loose laws about concealed carry. You just don't you don't because you don't know you don't know who you don't know and some you know you get you run up. I don't know. That's true. You don't want to go into like you go into the certain neighborhood you're like I'm not going to just like jump some person randomly. No, it just Yeah. But anyh who someone else Yeah. Yeah. It was like, you know, it's like it's fit so well into the Stanford I was just watching the Yeah. And I was just like, man, they're arresting these bystanders, but the bystanders are like, I don't know who you are. And then the what the Stanford prison experiment says, the Zardo experiment is like, man, you get real abuse of power here. Yeah. Yeah. Without Yeah. Go ahead. Yeah. Without without proper training, without proper um you know ability to manage your emotions, it uh it can go ary for sure. And like proper expectations of how people are supposed to handle these things and behave. The role is dark. Or can happen to dark places, right? So it fit into the conversation. So yeah. No, it's good. That was good. Yeah, that was good. All right. Well, I wish we could end on a more positive note. The positive note is probably like for all of us what I take is like a take-h home message of like this whole thing would be like and I again I think conversations with people I deeply love about this you know look at the roles that you're taking on. Sure. And like if anything hopefully this helps define what this is. Look at the roles that you're voluntarily taking on and say okay do I want this role? Do I not want this role? And maybe use that functional versus dysfunctional thing if that helps as a tool. say, okay, what aspects of this role do I really think are functional? They're good, right? And what aspects of this role do I think are dysfunctional, you know, and like maybe that's a kind of a, you know, like we talk about mandre's blade sometimes, right? You know, in Buddhism, like the the bodhicapp wisdom carries a sword and it's like to help you cut through the wrong ideas. Yeah. You know, so maybe that's, you know, that kind of thinking ends up being kind of a tool, kind of a sword you can use to start going, okay, what are the what are the aspects of not even on a personal level, but what are the aspects of the role that are problematic? I got to say one more thing about this. You know, when I talk about this with students in classes now, and I've gotten more conscious about this, you know, there's definitely conversations in the culture which are good about like my childhood pro trauma is the source of things, right? And we're cool with that on this podcast. We did a whole thing about attachment theory that all relates back to childhood trauma and you know potentially but this is the problem of role right it's you know that's the other set of questions that you like have to really think about you know if you want to spiritually free yourself so you know maybe this s this Zaro experiment says okay roles are powerful we've just shown it to you right we take random people we put them in things the role takes them over roles are powerful right okay point number one point number two Okay, now we can question, do I want this role? Do I not want this role? Or what aspects of this role do I want or not want? I think maybe that's a more positive way to end things. Sounds good to me. Okay, you're cool with it. Yeah. All right. Yeah. Awesome, Eric. Well, thank you so much. This has been a very enlightening experience today. Yeah. One that is, you know, certainly a nice capper for where we've been so far. Um, and you know, we'll continue to do we'll continue to get into this topic as we're in the uh semester of social psychology in this in this podcast that we're in right now. Psychology. Next episode, Descent. Yes. So, uh, on Descent. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Um, but thank you as always, audience. Thanks for tuning in. Uh, subscribe whatever platform you're on, whatever you like. It definitely helps the podcast to grow and, you know, help our message reach more folks. And uh if you got some love or some hate, leave comments or send us an email at jinantandantra@gmail.com. Hit us up on the gram, the Jin and Tantra podcast for Eric. This is Daniel. We'll catch you guys in the next one. Peace. [Music]