April 25, 2021 • 50 mins
In this episode, we talk about more than just cancel culture and wokism, we also talk about the changing nature of our economy, the impact of the gig economy, job security (career security, really) and the slow death of our universities. Where are we headed?
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Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Raphael Freeman (00:07):
Welcome to heterodox Americana. This is a
show about thinking outside thebox, and examining the
conventional wisdom that informshow we think and shapes how we
see the world around us. Thequestion that we're ultimately
trying to get at is, how do ourunexamined ideas impact our
ability to thrive as humanbeings. And it's our intention
(00:27):
to unpack some of these ideas,take a fresh heterodox
perspective, that hopefullyleads us somewhere new. My name
is Raphael Freeman, and I'm oneof your hosts.
Angie Backues (00:38):
And I'm Angie Backus, another one of your
hosts.
Raphael Freeman (00:42):
Today, we're gonna just pretend like we
weren't going for a whole long,however, and just hop right into
it, because we're back. SoAngie, let's kick it off.
Angie Backues (00:58):
I was thinking of the story. I don't know. I have
been talking to this young womanthe last couple of weeks who
she's probably what she's barely30, maybe 30. And she's working
on her PhD. She was a studentundergrad social work degree.
(01:22):
And now she's getting hermaster's in somewhere along the
arc, her doctorate somewherealong the lines of social work,
but like with a bent towardslike social justice, things like
that, right. So but she was outin the field, so to speak for
years, like she worked inPhiladelphia with different
(01:44):
organizations. Some of them wereworking with the homeless, some
working with like teens, likedrug abuse, things like that. So
she has a lot of experience justkind of hanging out on the
street, and social work. But shewas telling me this past week
that she is starting to reallylose her. Her enthusiasm for
(02:07):
teaching like that was you know,you get a PhD and she's teaching
a couple classes. And it's
Raphael Freeman (02:14):
like a adjunct or
Angie Backues (02:15):
Yeah, as a as an adjunct. And she said that she's
finding that she's experiencinglike, really high levels of
anxiety every time she has to gointo teach. What we eventually
unpacked it was is that it'sscary to be a professor. It's
scary to be teaching on acollege level, because she talks
(02:38):
about pretty much every classthere's some kind of like to
call out around what she says orwhat she's talking. So um,
Raphael Freeman (02:52):
wait, this is someone who is already dedicated
their their lives to walk ism.
And now the the woke ism is, isbackfiring.
Angie Backues (03:03):
I didn't say she dedicated her life. I actually
this woman, I have greatadmiration for her. She she's
such a worker. I don't know thatshe would know, she was actually
kind of like, you know, sayingshe was talking about work
culture. And she was saying, Idon't know what to do with it. I
don't Okay. Um, you know,there's a lot of reasons why she
(03:25):
went into how, what she wentinto previously social work. I
mean, you know, they talk abouttherapists to that usually a
therapist is somebody who's hada pretty generally has had a
pretty rough, like, go of it.
People become therapists. Ithink social workers are
similar. I think people that getinto these like, intense helping
professions, oftentimes, we
Raphael Freeman (03:51):
you were making a point, and I think you got
distracted with my point. Soyou're saying that,
Angie Backues (03:56):
yeah, so she's has a lot of anxiety teaching
now. And we were talking abouthow, you know, she was saying on
college campuses, the, the, ifyou say anything that could be
misconstrued. Or, you know, Iguess one one of the people in
her class was really kind ofputting it to, to her around
(04:21):
just even social work, but theperson or class was getting a
master's in social work, so Idon't know. So anyway, it seemed
like maybe that's where we canstart today, this idea of, and
we've talked about this on theshow before, but what do you do?
What do we do when we havediffering viewpoints? What do we
do now? I watched this, like twohours of this woman talking
(04:44):
about getting called out on herTwitter account, and what she
was doing about it. I'll look upher name later. She's somebody
famous. My kids sent it to me,but it's we're at this place
now. Where what do you do? Youcan't you're damned if you do
damned if you don't. What areyou Yeah,
Raphael Freeman (05:00):
well, there's an easy answer. Yeah. It's a
very easy answer.
Angie Backues (05:04):
I think I know what your answers.
Raphael Freeman (05:06):
You don't apologize. And you double down.
Angie Backues (05:09):
I was gonna say does it start with two days?
Because I've heard you talkabout
Raphael Freeman (05:13):
you double down. I mean, there are lots of
good reasons to double downunless you listen if you're so
if you're so wrong, and yourecognize how wrong it is, yeah,
then, you know, only mistake,right? Always on your mistake.
But if you want to look at theart, like the, the the mastery
of how to double down forsomeone who has left of center,
(05:35):
and it's important, right,because if you're right
appcenter will culture can'tquit, you know, I mean, like,
nothing's gonna happen to BenShapiro. Because you don't I
mean, like his audiences suchthat if he says something that
people don't like, I mean, thisis anybody This is Ann Coulter,
Ben Shapiro, Candace will likepick anybody who's you know,
Target, Tomi lahren, whatevername is. If you say something,
(06:00):
and you, you know, you have anaudience that is right of
center, and people get offended,you just tell them suck it up,
Buttercup, go home and likewhatever. Like it's that left of
center audience that people sortof have to worry about in you
know, like, the call outculture, or canceled culture or
whatever it is that you want tocall it. Certainly, it's more
(06:22):
harmful to the people who arealready in that camp. So like
now Franken comes to mind right?
Now, frankly, I don't know whathe thought was gonna happen. But
you know, only mistake and thenjust, like, don't be politics
with Oh, I messed up. So eventhough I think this guy's
totally in the wrong if you lookat what was the governor of New
York, something como como
Angie Backues (06:47):
is it Chris?
Andrew, Andrew Cuomo, ChrisCuomo is his brother.
Raphael Freeman (06:55):
This guy's like he's trying to he's trying to
stay. He's trying to fight it.
For however wrong his actionswere the idea that he's just
like, not gonna give in, Ithink. think somebody like Al
Franken, who was far lessegregious, far less problematic.
He just caved too quickly.
(07:16):
Anyway, let me go back to theperson who I felt was the most
masterful. And that's KevinHart. Right. Kevin Hart was
like, Oh, I recognize how Imessed up. Like, I recognize
that. And it was wrong to me.
And then he was like, and I'mapologize and want. And that's
it. And every other time thatpeople tried to engage me, like,
Look, I'm not talking about thisanymore. And he didn't double
(07:37):
down on his statement or howwrong he was. He sort of he sort
of just own the fact that I'mnot going to be quartered. I'm
not going to be well suppose wasthe term a quartered in splayed?
They would like yeah, I don'tknow that to like, tie horses to
the four parts of your body andjust
Angie Backues (07:59):
right, you know, we'll say,
Raphael Freeman (08:02):
rip people into quarters. You know,
Angie Backues (08:09):
I'm not doing that. Well. He didn't hurt you.
He pulled out of hosting theEmmys that year. Yeah, that was
pretty controversial what he wasdoing, because I think that was
kind of right at the beginningof like, when this all started
to be pretty present, right?
People getting called out. Youknow, I was the woman that I was
referring to her name is LindsayEllis. And I don't know exactly
(08:31):
her background. She's got adegree from NYU. I think in
film, she's the one whose videoI watched. I got caught in
watching for two hours.
Raphael Freeman (08:42):
Woman your
Angie Backues (08:44):
earlier I said my kids sent me a video. Oh, okay.
And she got called out onTwitter and then spent two hours
like really just dissecting herentire career, all the things
that people had posted abouther. It sounds like it by saying
it had I not watched it. Itsounds like she was so involved
(09:05):
in this call up thing that shehad to spend tons of time trying
to address it. It didn't looklike that when I watched the
video. It was really about hersaying this is what's happening.
Let me give you the lowdown ofhow when you get called out your
nominally because she's like I'mnot famous, but I have enough
followers that you know, this isa thing. And really, she took
(09:26):
from the beginning the beginningto the end of how this all went
down. I think she startedbecoming an online presence in
around 2009. So she was saying Ihave so much material out there.
Like if you want to find stuffon me go ahead because from 2009
to 2021 you will find it and youknow that's what she says like
(09:48):
you'd get called out and thenpeople go into the archives and
then they just like massacre youwith anything you've ever put
out there. And of course youknow all of us, anyone any one
of us that have content on TheInternet could be called out in
some ways because, you know, inthat long span of time, you're
probably going to say somethingthat's not going to sit right
(10:09):
with everybody.
Raphael Freeman (10:12):
So, you know, to Jay Z lyrics come to mind.
Jeezy problem are both on thesame albums, the second album,
but one of the things that hesays that I really like, it's
always stuck with me says youcan love me or hate me, either
or, either or right. He wastrying to make it wrong. And I
(10:34):
remember so once upon a time Ihad a modicum of were now, I
wouldn't call it fame. Iwouldn't quite call it
notoriety, but maybe borderlinenotoriety in this neighborhood.
As Philly, by the way. Yeah,although, yeah, I mean, just
(10:56):
like just this neighborhood. Um,and it was, you know, as young I
was working at this restaurantthat was, you know, at the time
it was, it is the fresh newthing. I don't know, I, I sort
of got somewhere now, my peoplepeople knew me.
Angie Backues (11:19):
Like, you'd have one of those shirts on it says
I'm kind of a big deal aroundhere,
Raphael Freeman (11:23):
basically. And so people knew me people
recognize me. And then I foundout that there was like, this
odd sort of dynamic thathappened in the neighborhood
that made it even I think thatbrought me some notoriety as
well. So it happened in a fewways. You know, I have a little
bit of a aggressive personality,you might say,
Angie Backues (11:46):
you might say, you might say,
Raphael Freeman (11:49):
yeah, I mean, that's one way of describing it,
I have a little bit of a of anaggressive personality. So for
example, I don't laugh at jokesthat aren't funny. But lots of
people out there who will likethey'll try to make you know,
that's not me. I'm not I'm notgonna, you know, you're not
funny. But it goes past that.
Angie Backues (12:10):
Yeah, that's called a lack of attunement. For
those who are psychologicallyminded. Good. I mean, it comes
up.
Raphael Freeman (12:15):
Sure. No, I would, I would call it owning
yourself.
Angie Backues (12:18):
Sure.
Raphael Freeman (12:19):
But, you know, I can't be fake. So so one of
the things that happened was,there was a, there was another
person who worked at therestaurant, who is also black.
And I remember there was a,there was a husband, who he
(12:42):
encountered me, he sort ofconfronted me in a local coffee
shop, and asked his wife, isthat the guy? Of course, at the
restaurant,
Angie Backues (12:54):
you were at a coffee shop?
Raphael Freeman (12:55):
Yeah, it was at a coffee shop. And, you know,
whenever some person is pointingto you, or pointing at you, and
then asking somebody else thatthat the guy especially if you
grew up in a hood, like that,that's a Yeah, that's a date.
You know, that's, that's asignal some crazies is about to
happen. So, you know, I'm onhigh alert, like, yo, what's
(13:17):
this? And then a wife said,yeah, that's the guy. And the
husband, you know, I guess hethought he was tough. Yeah, I'm
always confused about thesepeople who like, like, you come
from middle class backgrounds,and like, you're gonna like,
I've had more fights by the timethat I was me, he doesn't know
me, right? probably have morefights. By the time I was 15.
(13:39):
Then you'll have in your entirelife, like you don't want this.
Or you better be from Marines orleg
Angie Backues (13:45):
and that aggressive personality. It's
like Gracie.
Raphael Freeman (13:49):
I'm just saying like, yeah, if you're not a
trained martial artists, oryou're, you know, you're not
trained and so like, bro, don'tapproach me. At any rate. He,
he, you know, he confronts me,he's like, yeah, my wife said,
You treated her poorly at therestaurant. And I said, No one
is not a thing, right? Like,that didn't happen. He said, he
(14:11):
called my wife a liar. I said,Yeah, that's exactly what I'm
doing. And, you know, he wasupset because I guess she, you
know, had dinner there with afriend and got like, poor
treatment. At the time, I didn'twork dinners. Oh, so Oh, you
(14:33):
mean the other black guy? Oh,right. Now I'm offended. And we
have a black guy who you know, Ihave a tremendous amount of
respect for we look nothing likeother than the blood, other than
the black thing. And so like Iyou know, I explained this to
him, but more importantly, nowyou've offended my honor, sir. I
(14:54):
challenge you to do so he's allaggressive. He asked me to step
outside.
Angie Backues (14:59):
I was worried After you had explained that
wasn't even made,
Raphael Freeman (15:03):
he was gonna, you know, he was convinced that
his wife was right. But I wascalling his wife a liar. And I
was just saying anything to getout of it. Oh, wow. And I was
like, let's go. So, you know, hechallenged me to step outside is
if he wants to fight my this,this entire argument is
happening inside of the greenline, the coffee shop. Every
(15:27):
other customers like what isthis crazy?
Angie Backues (15:30):
You guys were being seen as you did this?
Raphael Freeman (15:32):
Oh, yeah, this was inside the coffee shop. It
cost me inside the coffee shop.
So I'm like, like, let's go. AndI think that he thought that I
don't know what he thought thathe would challenge me to do to
step outside. And then I wouldlike a pose. I don't know what
he thought would happen. But Iwas like music to my ears like,
Oh, you want to you want to go?
(15:55):
Let's have it. And so you know,I started walking, I was run to
the door. I can't wait. Um, andI hold the door open for him. I
was like, let's do it. And thenall of a sudden his demeanor
changes. Here's what I know, fora lot of people. They don't
really want it. They don'treally want it. So you know, I'm
inviting the guy to go outside.
And
Angie Backues (16:18):
you think that was you kind of call this bluff?
Like,
Raphael Freeman (16:21):
I didn't even think it was a bluff at the
time. But yeah, but that's whathappened. Then he starts
backpedaling. You startbackpedaling and it's clear that
he doesn't want to, and nowdisappointed now I'm trying to
like egg him on. I was like,come on, bro. Like, let's do it.
Like let's have it. And thenhe's all quiet. No, he's all
like pipes down. And I justlaugh right? Because there's a
(16:43):
joke. At the same time, though.
There are probably 15 under 20.
They're like 15 onlookers whosee the entire thing. So now in
addition to my sort of renown inthe neighborhood, this entire
(17:04):
scene strike some people likethe wrong way. And it divides
them. There's some people whoare on my side because it people
like I don't know. But the themurmurations right, there's that
word, the murmuring. The talkabout me in the neighborhood
reaches like a crescendo.
They're like I'm, I'm beingtalked about in corners where I
don't even know people andpeople are taking sides, right?
(17:26):
Based on the information thatthey had through eyewitnesses.
And it was this lovely momentwhere even people who didn't
know me, like nobody wasneutral. No, I was like, Oh,
Angie Backues (17:44):
ah, it's like the Hatfields and McCoys or
something.
Raphael Freeman (17:46):
Yeah. Like, no, no, I was neutral. And it was
one of these times where like, Ithink about this Jay Z, like,
this is why I started the story.
Like, you can love me or hateme. either or, but I'm fine
with. I'm fine with peopleeither loving me, or hating me,
just don't be like, don't beneutral, right,
Angie Backues (18:04):
be neutral.
Raphael Freeman (18:06):
So that that's the one I'm talking about.
That's the one Jay Z. Sort of,you know, lyric that that I
remember and I think isapplicable, I'll get back to
the, to the to the, to thecancel stuff. And in the you
know, to the college adjunctprofessor, as well, particularly
(18:26):
because her situation is alittle bit more difficult. But
the other line that I reallylike, the JC says is he says no,
I got shots to give. So come andget me. You want me Come get me.
And I feel the same way. For methere are going to be metal
metaphorical shots. Because Ican defend myself
(18:48):
intellectually, you know, butcome and get me if you want to
come for me, right like you. Hiswon't be canceled. You're not
canceling me. I'm notapologizing. I'm gonna double
down. I believe in what I say.
And I can back it up. And Idon't say things that I can't
back up.
Angie Backues (19:05):
Yeah. And I think to your point, just a little
caveat, I think you did say ifthere's error, you can say Oh,
right. I totally messed upthere. I got it. Right and then
move on. Kind of like what KevinHart did like, a long time ago.
I said some things I shouldn'thave said. I said I was sorry.
Now moving on. Right?
Raphael Freeman (19:25):
Your you know, your your your college
professor, though? Aresituations a little bit more
tenuous. Cuz, you know, she's anemployee in a place that's
probably highly liberal. I sayhighly liberal, just based on
how, how college campuses tendto look right. And if she's at a
school that has like a socialwork school, then the likelihood
(19:48):
of her being in a very sort ofliberal environment, and the
types of administrators andother types of people who have
to sort of bend to the will ofthe student body which is paying
you know, they're paying thetuition. Her situation is a
little bit more more tenuous.
And I think unless you're aprofessor who also has a solid
online presence that allows youto pivot into something else,
(20:12):
then you sort of just have toacquiesce. You know, somebody,
you know, when I think aboutprofessors like Jonathan Hite
or, or Jordan Peterson, ifthings go wonky at their, at
their, you know, institutions,they have enough of a body of
work in terms of writtenmaterial, as well as online
presence that they can pivotinto another revenue stream. But
(20:35):
if your ad jumping, that's notthe case. And you might just
have to bite that bullet in. Doyou know, just watch your mouth?
What would you say?
Angie Backues (20:49):
Yeah, I think it's just, it's hard at this
point, because this is the rise.
This is kind of how, and you'reright, this is a liberal issue.
Right? Because you're absolutelyright. Conservatives really
aren't dealing with this Tucker,Carlson's gonna run his mouth
any way he wants to. Right. And,you know, it's a kind of a
(21:11):
conundrum, because they think,the liberal, you know, the, the
liberals have a sense of theirown, they carry their sense of
justice as well, you know, likewhat you were saying initially,
which I don't want to say thatabout this person. I know. But,
you know, oh, you know, a wokeperson is getting kind of beat
(21:32):
up by the, you know, the nextlevel of the woke person. And if
you're both, quote, unquote,woke, what do you do you get
stuck in your, you know, yourwoke conundrum, like, how am I
going to like, either either Iacquiesce to this, or I find a
way to completely validate whatthe weakest person says. And
(21:59):
that internal, you know, thatinternal conflict, like, Oh, my
gosh, I want to be more woke,what am I going to do? How do I
get Walker? So I don't know,man, I think this is a thing out
there. You know, Lindsey Ellis,this woman I was talking about,
she was talking about the peoplethat were calling her out, and I
(22:20):
can't exactly I can't quote her.
But she was saying somethinglike, these were the people that
were kind of championing for theunderdog, so to speak, with
their own voices that hadnothing to do with the situation
at all. It's like kind of thecome out of the woodwork and
say, You did this bad thing.
Like they're not even involvedin it. They just want to be the
(22:42):
call outs me Well, you know, andshe was talking about that,
like, how does this even becomea thing because these voices
just start populating and it'snot even somebody that's
connected to the situation. Theyjust want to kind of get on and
wrestle it down. People
Raphael Freeman (23:00):
love, they love that particular kind of
spectacle. You know, there'sthere's a scene in Game of
Thrones. And if you're listeningand you don't know Game of
Thrones, then
both (23:11):
I don't know what to say.
on Hulu right now.
Raphael Freeman (23:14):
Yeah. You know, maybe maybe in another country,
but it's a it's a worldwidephenomenon. If you missed it
somehow or another. I don't knowwhat you're doing. How do you
even get podcasts? Like what youknow, you have the internet
anyway. There's a scene whereCRC is like just one you know,
(23:34):
like, she's like the queen, Iguess for a long enough time. In
the Red Keep, and she gets torndown to the most humiliating
version of a bad scene. Yeah.
And you know, they cut her hairand it's just a walk barefoot
through the city naked. That'sright. She was completely naked.
And the nuns let's just callthem nuns. The sisters they're
(23:57):
yelling shame at her the wholetime when shame and but the
onlookers who were reveling intrcs misery, they were spitting
at her the throwing things thatare I think somebody threw like
a chamber pot, you know,contents at or just being mean
(24:20):
people. Yeah. And that's the waythat I sort of see those people
who like are the they're likethe the pilers on when somebody
gets a, you know, won't takethem, they get canceled. I'm
going to start calling it a wolftakedown. But when someone gets
(24:41):
canceled, and then all of these,you know, these cameras on, want
to participate. It sort ofreminds me of that CRC scene
where it's like, Look, you'renot even involved here. But you
just want to be part of themayhem and, and they're like low
level commitment, you know, to.
(25:03):
But it's fun. I think peoplelike it. Well, I
Angie Backues (25:05):
think you're, you're right. It's being a part
of the mayhem. But I think, youknow, we've talked on the show
about the virtue signalingstuff. There's also some
something around that, you know,Lindsay Ellis was pointing this
out, she said, you know, youdon't want to be that next
person. So you're, you're goingto get ahead of the game, you're
not going to you don't want tobe the next person that's called
out, you're going to get aheadof the game, and be, you know,
(25:28):
virtuous, you're going to telleveryone else how terrible they
are. Nobody wants to be in thatposition that they all of a
sudden get, you know, they fall.
So she talks about how peoplekind of dogpile, so they are, so
they can stay kind of theguarding of themselves to ever
have to do not have to be in thesame position. You know, look,
(25:50):
I'm virtuous, I call out thingslike this. So not me, not me,
not me, not me, you know,
Raphael Freeman (25:59):
yeah, I can't roll my eyes hard enough.
Angie Backues (26:01):
did pretty good job right there.
Raphael Freeman (26:03):
All you have to do is like, just be righteous,
just be upright, not evenrighteous, just be a marine. If
you can just be upgrade, youhave to worry about that. You
really don't. And it's, it'sadvantageous to your character
in any way to just do, you know,do the right thing, do the hard
(26:23):
thing.
Angie Backues (26:24):
I hear you, and I believe you about what you say,
in terms of if someone were tocome at you that you would
probably I believe you woulddouble down. And I don't think
at this point, from what I fromwhat I know of you that this
would be a thing for you. Youwould just say no, that's not
what I I could paraphrase what Ithink you would say, but maybe I
(26:48):
just will stop right there. Likeyou're not going to do it.
Right. One of the things thatyou named on when you were
saying what you can come atpeople with is that you have a
pretty high intellect. Which I'mnot saying, you know, you have
to be like, beyond, you know,whatever score on your, you
(27:09):
know, your aptitude test to beable to do this. But I think
there is something about beingsecure enough to go into the
argument this people that I'vewatched that don't take
anything, even people that Iwouldn't necessarily, you know,
condone like, like, Shapiro,like, I don't personally,
(27:29):
personally, I don't like him. Ithink he's awful. But you know,
you can't take this guy down.
Really? I mean, some peoplecould, I was, you know, there
are people that I've liked towatch him, you know, kind of
have these discussions with, Ithink he's had a lot of
discussions with a lot of thosepeople with intellects, but he
has me and he has ammo, like heknows what he's talking about.
(27:50):
You can't really get into acorner, you can't back him into
a corner that he doesn't knowwhere to go, he's gonna know
where to go. Yeah. And I thinkit's scary for people that don't
feel like they have as much attheir, you know, at their home
at the home to offer in thoseways they get scared. And if you
can't, you know, if somebody iscoming at you and you can't go
(28:11):
toe to toe, what do you do youget all tongue tied, and you
don't know what to say. I wasgonna segue to something else.
But I'm gonna wait till whatwhat do you think about that?
Yeah, I
Raphael Freeman (28:24):
agree. So, you know, Ben Shapiro is
interesting. But there a coupleof things that happened to his
Ben Ben Shapiro, rarely, man,not never. So when he tends to
be prepared, right? I don'tthink the guy's a genius. I
don't I think he's really wellprepared. Maybe a genius? I
(28:46):
don't know, I don't think so.
But he's really well prepared.
He has a few cognitive tools athis disposal. So if you one of
the things he'll call out veryfrequently, is if someone will
start to drift the core of theirargument, and then make a
subsequent argument that hasnothing to do with the premise
of the first, this happens a lotwhen people there's a there's a
(29:09):
term for it in, in, in sort of,there's a what's the word like a
formal term for when people dothis? I forget what it is. But
if you start off making oneargument, and then your first
argument doesn't work, and thenyou just make a completely
different argument. It's like,what are we doing here? You
You're, you're moving thegoalposts. So he's really good
(29:30):
at calling people out with that.
And if you don't have some sortof formal training, then like
you're going to be obliteratedor he's going to take it apart.
The other thing is that he tendsto be really prepared, but he
also sets the ground rules forfor his definitions. And this is
really important because oftenpeople just assume that they're
(29:50):
talking about the same thing.
And if you don't establish yoursort of definition ahead of
time, and then someone else doesFirst, now you're automatic it
The minute you agree to thatyou're on the turf, wait,
whether you know it or not,right, they frame the entire
thing. So you step into someoneelse's framework. And either one
(30:12):
you're aware or two, you didn'tdo it first, or you don't refute
their sort of core assumptions,their core presuppositions, you
don't refute those, then you'regonna get slaughtered. Because
you, you know, so, so he'sreally good at that. So, you
know, maybe he's a smart guy. Ingeneral, I think it's important
to agree upon terms for thatreason. And also to make sure
(30:35):
that, that, you know, whateverit is that you're presupposing,
or whatever it is that you'reassuming is clear, or whatever
the other person is assuming isclear. I think that that's
really important. And one of thethings that doesn't happen with,
you know, with this particularcrowd, the call out people is
(31:00):
that they're assuming that theway that they, you know, I have
another example of mine, but Idon't want to like story as to
death, to death. But there's aprecept that, you know, there's
an assumption that we're talkingabout the same thing, and the
way that I see it, the coreassumptions that I have, are
true, not that they're justassumptions of mine, but they're
true. And it's, you know, onceyou sort of operate in that way,
(31:26):
then it makes it, it makes ithard to defend yourself, if you
don't push against those thosesort of core assumptions.
Angie Backues (31:35):
Yeah, and I think, you know, there, and not
that we all have to be, youknow, completely astute around
all of this, like, how do we,you know, take, we don't have to
take a course to like how todefend ourselves against color
culture, although, maybe wemight.
Raphael Freeman (31:51):
Yeah, I mean, if you're on a college campus,
you might, but um, you know, I
Angie Backues (31:55):
do think that there's varying degrees of, of
even personality types thatwill, kind of what I was talking
about being cornered the corneryou and one church in that
corner. And I think some ofthat, is that what you were
describing this, you know,starting with an assumption, and
(32:15):
then, you know, kind of COsigning with that assumption
that you've not reallychallenged it. And that's hard
to catch. You know, we werethere was a, an YouTube guy that
does these, these dating, or no,he calls out women all the time,
around what he thinks is a highlevel when woman His name is
(32:37):
Kevin Samuelson. And you canwatch him because he, I think
he's, he's pretty aggressive.
And in a really, I think, in aterrible way. Like, I think he
is not so great out there. Butwomen get on there. And this
happens all the time. Like, hewill start with his his
rhetoric. And he gets to thisplace where he's just the,
(32:59):
everyone's on the same while thewoman and he looks like to me,
the woman and, and he him, he heare arguing only his point like
that the women, the women don'tget to talk about their points,
because his the way he presentsis that the only points that
(33:20):
matter are the ones that he'smaking. And so then he starts
lobbing all these questions atthese women or statements that
these women that they have thento hold an answer as if that's
the only statements that thatmatter. Um, he's a very extreme
example of this. But I thinkthat sometimes what gets
happening with these colorthings is that you get in this
(33:42):
position where, like I said, ifyou don't know things about
language, or debate, or juststaying with the core argument,
that it goes all over the place,and then you start to look even
more inept, because now you'rearguing so many points, trying
to backpedal, trying to figureout what the best thing is to
say. And what you can see,oftentimes on the internet,
(34:04):
somebody will do the apology,and the words that they use them
will get called out again. Yeah,they did this and then, you
know, did you read in theirapology, it's not even a real
apology, and sometimes that'strue, but it just the layers are
just they just keep going.
Because it doesn't stay. Itdoesn't say contain to the
(34:25):
argument.
Raphael Freeman (34:26):
So you know, Greg, I want to say look Yon off
and Jonathan Hyde. I mean,obviously, they addressed this
in, in a, you know, an articlewhich became a book that they
had written together, it'scalled the coddling of the
American mind. But in that is,you know, somewhat that the
demise of liberal institutions,but we're gonna see and, and,
(34:49):
you know, to some degree, Iwonder what it might mean for
American universities ingeneral. If we, you know, if
we're thinking about the The theonline, you know, classes that
you can take for technicalthings like computer
programming, and, you know, somesome forms of engineering have
(35:11):
been there lots of online, youknow, courses that are available
that people can pursue them andtake that skill set and then
apply to directly directly tocouples, companies like Google,
or Facebook or Amazon orsomething like that. And so, you
know, that portion of, ofsociety who might be interested
(35:31):
in pursuing that career, theydon't need, they don't need
college in the same way they,and some might still choose. I
mean, there are otherexperiences to be had, they
don't need it, right, especiallygiven the cost. And then you
have this other sort of thisother portion of society, that
they have to watch every aspectof the language. And professors
(35:52):
also have to be super carefulabout what happens there. And
administrators and, you know,there's a sense of safety that I
think that people have to workwith. And that's ruinous to, to
the intellectual culture of thatcollege is supposed to be about.
And then you, you know, you haveto consider that people pay
money for all of this. And so,you know, there's a, there's a
(36:16):
critical mass of students thatyou need in order to, in order
to be able to keep your doorsopen, you know, colleges closed.
For that reason, it's not, youknow, and so it makes me wonder
about the sort of future of thehalls, the institutions of
intellectual discourse, here inthe United States, and what that
(36:38):
will look like, as people whowho have technical careers, do
more things online. And thepeople who are in the arts, you
know, essentially people who areliberal art, they start to
undermine their own sort ofintellectual, you know, their
own intellectual rigor, becauseeveryone is too afraid to say
(37:02):
the thing that they think goesagainst the received doctrine,
or the received wisdom. And Idon't know what that means for
us. You know, 20 years down theroad. If we're all afraid, you
know, on the left, if if peopleare too afraid to sort of speak
truth to, to the power of thepeople,
Angie Backues (37:24):
yeah. Well, I may, it may come out, you know,
who knows all the podcasts thatwe've done? I've thought about
that, you know, what we've beenputting out? I guess we've been,
while we took a little break,we've already mentioned that.
But in a year of material, youknow, I can't imagine that we
haven't offended people. And itdoes make me think, you know,
(37:44):
how much stuff does anybody wantout there right now. And, you
know, if you've got the thickskin, and you're like, I don't
care, then it doesn't matter.
But then, you know, there arepeople whose jobs depend on it,
or, you know, who may get theirreputation solid, and their
business goes, you know, goes upin smoke, you just don't know.
Raphael Freeman (38:04):
So here's one of the things so I agree, right?
Again, come and get me. Come andget me
Angie Backues (38:10):
calm and get referral, you guys.
Raphael Freeman (38:14):
is one of the things I think is true, and that
if you don't recognize this asan adjunct, then Shame on you
may Fool me once. Shame on you.
Fool me twice. Well, you're notgonna fool me again. I'm not to
know. So here's the, here's themodel. So we're in late stage
(38:41):
capitalism. Whether you like itor not, whether you know it or
not, things have changed interms of the way we distribute
human capital. fixed capitalworks in a very different way
than it used to circulate incapital works in a way in a very
different way than it did let'ssay 20 years ago. Part of this
you can see in there's a there'sa guy who writes a book it's
(39:04):
called capital city, SamuelStein, his name horrible book,
right? I thought I was gonnalike it was about
gentrification, just a dumbbook. Way to idealizing and I
digress. But he means what hecalls a real estate class. Act,
he calls it the real estatestate, and makes like a somewhat
(39:26):
of a decent argument for for howmuch real estate class affects
politics in cities. Right. Andto the degree that they are as
powerful as the industrialistwere, you know, in the, you
know, before the turnover, andthat seems like a reasonable. It
(39:48):
seemed like a reasonable atleast proposition to think about
real estate moguls and realestate interests as having a
controlling interest. In certaincities, right at that point, the
argument seems seems prettyfair. To me, the reason that I'm
mentioning it mentioning it,though, is if we look at the
(40:08):
real estate class, and we lookat the sort of tech class of a
like that, that drive the gigeconomy, right? So if you think
about like Uber and Lyft, andthings of that sort, Go, Go puff
that might just like doordash.
both (40:25):
Uber Eats, okay,
Raphael Freeman (40:27):
yeah.
instacart. caviar, shall we namehim, ah,
both (40:33):
we've been in pandemic, so. But
Raphael Freeman (40:37):
if you were to look at how that sort of like
how workers have to behave, andeven even Amazon, right, Amazon
has a different model, but it'sthey have elements that are gig
or gig ish elements, right,especially with the drivers and
delivery, all that kind ofstuff. But But the way that
workers engage have to engagewith those corporations, is
(41:02):
often it's not. I know, it's notdirect, it's through an app, you
get paid. And some however it isthey get paid. And, you know,
they're just the broker betweenyou, you know, you as a worker,
and then some other portion ofthe public. And so even when we
look at our employment rate, youhave to consider that the people
(41:24):
are doing, I've known to peoplewho to work for instacart. And
they both describe it as thehardest and the most
unrewarding, and just like ahard job, it's like super hard,
hard ways that you don'tnecessarily realize it, but then
you're like, you're hard up formoney. And then all of a sudden,
it seems like, you know, I'mbasically in Venezuela, I'm
working too hard for the night,I would look at those pictures
(41:47):
of the people like why don't youjust do something else. But
like, now I get it like that,when I have friends who do
instacart it's like, there'snothing, you know, I gotta do
all this, to pay the rent, whichis super high, because real
estate, you know, because rentprices are going through the
roof, gentrification, all thiskind of stuff. And you see the
people are having a hard timemaking sense of their reality in
(42:08):
terms of the amount of moneythat they earn, and then the
amount of money that they haveto spend just to stay alive. So
if you're looking at an in, Iknow, I'm a little rambley, if
you look at late stagecapitalism through this
particular lens, or look atwhere we are through this
particular lens, then yourealize it's really incumbent
(42:29):
upon all of us to not treat thework environment and not treat
our income sources, our revenuesources, the way they would have
made sense 20 years ago,essentially, what I'm saying is
that, that the model, therevenue, the income model that
we had, we all go to college forlike, we go to college for a
(42:53):
particular model of income, thatis, let's say, post Industrial
Revolution. Till till, you know,I guess, the beginning of the
gig economy, where or maybe alittle bit before that, but the
idea is that I'm going to get ajob, I'm going to have a
security, and it's going to makesense, I'm going to go to school
(43:16):
for this thing, so I can get ajob. And that job is going to
pay me this much money overtime. And it's going to make
sense. And I'm already knew thatif you can see the writing on
the wall, that that is goingaway for lots of portions of the
economy, whether you know it ornot, whether you see it or not,
if you don't have some kind ofalternate plan, you're gonna end
(43:39):
up in trouble, it's just gonnahappen. And there are lots of,
you know, there are lots ofportions that there's a guy
named Daniel Pink, he argues ina whole new mind that, you know,
anything that we do that'salgorithmic is subject to, to AI
or being pre done, he talksabout the some of the revenue
(44:00):
sources that attorneys wouldhave, through estate planning,
and wills, and all these sortsof documents that they needed to
be experts in, in order to, youknow, in order to help people
plan their sort of, you know,their estate, or whatever it is,
will write. But now you havethings like Legal Zoom, or, you
(44:20):
know, legal docs. And, and thesame is true for for tax
accountants through reallysophisticated software that will
allow you to do lots of thethings that you need an attorney
to do, or you needed, you know,an accountant to do, right. And
so because those things are sortof algorithmic in nature, it
(44:41):
means that a I mean, you know,it seems unthinkable that, that
the tax accountants mightdisappear, and maybe they won't
completely but if you have asignificant portion of what used
to be their revenue disappear,because there's an app for that
the And then there's aparticular kind of attrition.
(45:02):
One is like, How much money do Iwant to pay to be an accountant?
You know, in terms of school, ifthe revenue that I might expect
might be so small, you know,over time as these things
disappear, we're like a largeportion of what used to be
lucrative disappears. Thatdoesn't mean that all in the
(45:24):
same is going to be true forlawyers,
you know, once a certain portionof what used to be revenue
generating, you know, activity,once that disappears, then
people are going to have toconsider like, what's the
opportunity cost of going to lawschool? If it's not going to pay
me that much, versus doingsomething else that might pay me
(45:46):
more. So all of us, right? Allof us, I think, need to have
some sort of eye towards, youknow, multiple streams of income
or revenue, because the thingthat we thought was safe and
(46:06):
reliable and stable, is subjectto disruption. Basically, any
moment and ways that you didn'tsee coming.
Angie Backues (46:16):
Yeah, this sounds like a whole other show. You
know, what, what we need to doto be to sustain ourselves in
today's economy, the ways thatwe can't depend on how it used
to work before, it just can't wewere at a different place. Now.
Raphael Freeman (46:30):
There we are at a different place. Now. You
know, the writing's on the wall.
And, you know, I think peoplecan generally see when the
writing is on the wall. There'sa sense, I think, a very bad
sense a very mean, I thinkpeople can feel it deep down.
But you don't necessarily knowwhat to do when you see the
writing on like, even if youknow that something bad is
(46:51):
coming. Like what do you do,right? And that's not
necessarily like the easiestanswer. And it's helpful, right?
It's helpful to have lots ofmodels. And Lord knows history
helps. Having a passport andbeing able to get out of dodge
helps. But yeah, but this, thisfeels like the end of a
particular era. And I thinkmoving forward. Yeah, I don't I
(47:14):
don't know what things are gonnalook like. I mean, maybe none of
us do. But I think the thingthat we can, is the best bet for
you, here's the best bet, right?
is you can buy maneuverability,like I think of money as stored,
(47:35):
like stored potential forgetting out of jams. It's like,
it's like a way to storeoptions. I mean, it's not quite
that, but in some ways, it'ssort of that it's like, you have
more get out of jail free card,if things go crazy. You're
hedging against entropy. I don'tneed a third way to say this,
(47:56):
I'm just gonna go. And so here'swhat we can do. Get as much
money right now as possible.
That's like, yourresponsibility. It might seem
like, you know, there are lotsof people's like, I want to, you
know, I want to work in thisfield, like, okay, cool work in
(48:16):
that field, also, on the sideget as much money as possible.
Yeah. Which seems like a crazything to, you know, would have
been a crazy thing to say, uh,you know, I don't know, I mean,
maybe not, like 50 years ago.
Lots of people just want toprovide, but I'm saying that
things are falling apart in sucha way that if you don't get as
(48:37):
much money as possible, and anyof the bad scenarios happen,
you're simply not going to beable to maneuver? And that, to
me seems like, it seems like thewrong way to play this game.
Unknown (48:52):
Yeah.
Angie Backues (48:54):
Well, I have to chew on this for a minute, I get
what you're I get where you'regoing, I get what you're saying.
You know, there's a lot of valuestuff that when you said that,
that hit me, you know, my, how Ihold values. You know, I grew up
with this phrase that grew upfrom my home. But you know, once
I became an adult, it was livesimply so others can simply live
(49:17):
that's kind of I held that as avalue. So anyway, I'm saying
it's hitting something in termsof value. I'm also hearing you
say, things are changing enoughthat you're going to need
options. And the way that wehave options is to have money.
That's what you know, I mean,even even if we look at
something like health care inthis country, you know, if we
(49:38):
don't have money, we die of likea chronic disease. So I get it.
And you know, maybe we explorethat on our next show.
Raphael Freeman (49:49):
The next show will be about living simply,
while rich. Let's
Angie Backues (49:52):
There you go.
Nice, nice tagline.
Raphael Freeman (49:56):
Yeah, well, we're coming up on the 15 minute
mark. So I gotta say, if you canhear this message if you're
listening, thanks for hangingout with us. We certainly
appreciate you none of this ispossible without, you know,
people were interested in theseideas and hopefully from an iron
sharpens iron standpoint, we canall get better and learn more
things and explore our world andlive better lives. I mean that
(50:19):
that's the idea. So,
Angie Backues (50:21):
yeah, thanks for listening. We'll see you later.
Raphael Freeman (50:25):
If you're not subscribed already, subscribe on
your whatever your favoritepodcast platform is. And, you
know, follow us on Instagram.
Peace.
Welcome to heterodox Americana. This is a
show about thinking outside thebox, and examining the
conventional wisdom that informshow we think and shapes how we
see the world around us. Thequestion that we're ultimately
trying to get at is, how do ourunexamined ideas impact our
ability to thrive as humanbeings. And it's our intention
(00:27):
to unpack some of these ideas,take a fresh heterodox
perspective, that hopefullyleads us somewhere new. My name
is Raphael Freeman, and I'm oneof your hosts.
Angie Backues (00:38):
And I'm Angie Backus, another one of your
hosts.
Raphael Freeman (00:42):
Today, we're gonna just pretend like we
weren't going for a whole long,however, and just hop right into
it, because we're back. SoAngie, let's kick it off.
Angie Backues (00:58):
I was thinking of the story. I don't know. I have
been talking to this young womanthe last couple of weeks who
she's probably what she's barely30, maybe 30. And she's working
on her PhD. She was a studentundergrad social work degree.
(01:22):
And now she's getting hermaster's in somewhere along the
arc, her doctorate somewherealong the lines of social work,
but like with a bent towardslike social justice, things like
that, right. So but she was outin the field, so to speak for
years, like she worked inPhiladelphia with different
(01:44):
organizations. Some of them wereworking with the homeless, some
working with like teens, likedrug abuse, things like that. So
she has a lot of experience justkind of hanging out on the
street, and social work. But shewas telling me this past week
that she is starting to reallylose her. Her enthusiasm for
(02:07):
teaching like that was you know,you get a PhD and she's teaching
a couple classes. And it's
Raphael Freeman (02:14):
like a adjunct or
Angie Backues (02:15):
Yeah, as a as an adjunct. And she said that she's
finding that she's experiencinglike, really high levels of
anxiety every time she has to gointo teach. What we eventually
unpacked it was is that it'sscary to be a professor. It's
scary to be teaching on acollege level, because she talks
(02:38):
about pretty much every classthere's some kind of like to
call out around what she says orwhat she's talking. So um,
Raphael Freeman (02:52):
wait, this is someone who is already dedicated
their their lives to walk ism.
And now the the woke ism is, isbackfiring.
Angie Backues (03:03):
I didn't say she dedicated her life. I actually
this woman, I have greatadmiration for her. She she's
such a worker. I don't know thatshe would know, she was actually
kind of like, you know, sayingshe was talking about work
culture. And she was saying, Idon't know what to do with it. I
don't Okay. Um, you know,there's a lot of reasons why she
(03:25):
went into how, what she wentinto previously social work. I
mean, you know, they talk abouttherapists to that usually a
therapist is somebody who's hada pretty generally has had a
pretty rough, like, go of it.
People become therapists. Ithink social workers are
similar. I think people that getinto these like, intense helping
professions, oftentimes, we
Raphael Freeman (03:51):
you were making a point, and I think you got
distracted with my point. Soyou're saying that,
Angie Backues (03:56):
yeah, so she's has a lot of anxiety teaching
now. And we were talking abouthow, you know, she was saying on
college campuses, the, the, ifyou say anything that could be
misconstrued. Or, you know, Iguess one one of the people in
her class was really kind ofputting it to, to her around
(04:21):
just even social work, but theperson or class was getting a
master's in social work, so Idon't know. So anyway, it seemed
like maybe that's where we canstart today, this idea of, and
we've talked about this on theshow before, but what do you do?
What do we do when we havediffering viewpoints? What do we
do now? I watched this, like twohours of this woman talking
(04:44):
about getting called out on herTwitter account, and what she
was doing about it. I'll look upher name later. She's somebody
famous. My kids sent it to me,but it's we're at this place
now. Where what do you do? Youcan't you're damned if you do
damned if you don't. What areyou Yeah,
Raphael Freeman (05:00):
well, there's an easy answer. Yeah. It's a
very easy answer.
Angie Backues (05:04):
I think I know what your answers.
Raphael Freeman (05:06):
You don't apologize. And you double down.
Angie Backues (05:09):
I was gonna say does it start with two days?
Because I've heard you talkabout
Raphael Freeman (05:13):
you double down. I mean, there are lots of
good reasons to double downunless you listen if you're so
if you're so wrong, and yourecognize how wrong it is, yeah,
then, you know, only mistake,right? Always on your mistake.
But if you want to look at theart, like the, the the mastery
of how to double down forsomeone who has left of center,
(05:35):
and it's important, right,because if you're right
appcenter will culture can'tquit, you know, I mean, like,
nothing's gonna happen to BenShapiro. Because you don't I
mean, like his audiences suchthat if he says something that
people don't like, I mean, thisis anybody This is Ann Coulter,
Ben Shapiro, Candace will likepick anybody who's you know,
Target, Tomi lahren, whatevername is. If you say something,
(06:00):
and you, you know, you have anaudience that is right of
center, and people get offended,you just tell them suck it up,
Buttercup, go home and likewhatever. Like it's that left of
center audience that people sortof have to worry about in you
know, like, the call outculture, or canceled culture or
whatever it is that you want tocall it. Certainly, it's more
(06:22):
harmful to the people who arealready in that camp. So like
now Franken comes to mind right?
Now, frankly, I don't know whathe thought was gonna happen. But
you know, only mistake and thenjust, like, don't be politics
with Oh, I messed up. So eventhough I think this guy's
totally in the wrong if you lookat what was the governor of New
York, something como como
Angie Backues (06:47):
is it Chris?
Andrew, Andrew Cuomo, ChrisCuomo is his brother.
Raphael Freeman (06:55):
This guy's like he's trying to he's trying to
stay. He's trying to fight it.
For however wrong his actionswere the idea that he's just
like, not gonna give in, Ithink. think somebody like Al
Franken, who was far lessegregious, far less problematic.
He just caved too quickly.
(07:16):
Anyway, let me go back to theperson who I felt was the most
masterful. And that's KevinHart. Right. Kevin Hart was
like, Oh, I recognize how Imessed up. Like, I recognize
that. And it was wrong to me.
And then he was like, and I'mapologize and want. And that's
it. And every other time thatpeople tried to engage me, like,
Look, I'm not talking about thisanymore. And he didn't double
(07:37):
down on his statement or howwrong he was. He sort of he sort
of just own the fact that I'mnot going to be quartered. I'm
not going to be well suppose wasthe term a quartered in splayed?
They would like yeah, I don'tknow that to like, tie horses to
the four parts of your body andjust
Angie Backues (07:59):
right, you know, we'll say,
Raphael Freeman (08:02):
rip people into quarters. You know,
Angie Backues (08:09):
I'm not doing that. Well. He didn't hurt you.
He pulled out of hosting theEmmys that year. Yeah, that was
pretty controversial what he wasdoing, because I think that was
kind of right at the beginningof like, when this all started
to be pretty present, right?
People getting called out. Youknow, I was the woman that I was
referring to her name is LindsayEllis. And I don't know exactly
(08:31):
her background. She's got adegree from NYU. I think in
film, she's the one whose videoI watched. I got caught in
watching for two hours.
Raphael Freeman (08:42):
Woman your
Angie Backues (08:44):
earlier I said my kids sent me a video. Oh, okay.
And she got called out onTwitter and then spent two hours
like really just dissecting herentire career, all the things
that people had posted abouther. It sounds like it by saying
it had I not watched it. Itsounds like she was so involved
(09:05):
in this call up thing that shehad to spend tons of time trying
to address it. It didn't looklike that when I watched the
video. It was really about hersaying this is what's happening.
Let me give you the lowdown ofhow when you get called out your
nominally because she's like I'mnot famous, but I have enough
followers that you know, this isa thing. And really, she took
(09:26):
from the beginning the beginningto the end of how this all went
down. I think she startedbecoming an online presence in
around 2009. So she was saying Ihave so much material out there.
Like if you want to find stuffon me go ahead because from 2009
to 2021 you will find it and youknow that's what she says like
(09:48):
you'd get called out and thenpeople go into the archives and
then they just like massacre youwith anything you've ever put
out there. And of course youknow all of us, anyone any one
of us that have content on TheInternet could be called out in
some ways because, you know, inthat long span of time, you're
probably going to say somethingthat's not going to sit right
(10:09):
with everybody.
Raphael Freeman (10:12):
So, you know, to Jay Z lyrics come to mind.
Jeezy problem are both on thesame albums, the second album,
but one of the things that hesays that I really like, it's
always stuck with me says youcan love me or hate me, either
or, either or right. He wastrying to make it wrong. And I
(10:34):
remember so once upon a time Ihad a modicum of were now, I
wouldn't call it fame. Iwouldn't quite call it
notoriety, but maybe borderlinenotoriety in this neighborhood.
As Philly, by the way. Yeah,although, yeah, I mean, just
(10:56):
like just this neighborhood. Um,and it was, you know, as young I
was working at this restaurantthat was, you know, at the time
it was, it is the fresh newthing. I don't know, I, I sort
of got somewhere now, my peoplepeople knew me.
Angie Backues (11:19):
Like, you'd have one of those shirts on it says
I'm kind of a big deal aroundhere,
Raphael Freeman (11:23):
basically. And so people knew me people
recognize me. And then I foundout that there was like, this
odd sort of dynamic thathappened in the neighborhood
that made it even I think thatbrought me some notoriety as
well. So it happened in a fewways. You know, I have a little
bit of a aggressive personality,you might say,
Angie Backues (11:46):
you might say, you might say,
Raphael Freeman (11:49):
yeah, I mean, that's one way of describing it,
I have a little bit of a of anaggressive personality. So for
example, I don't laugh at jokesthat aren't funny. But lots of
people out there who will likethey'll try to make you know,
that's not me. I'm not I'm notgonna, you know, you're not
funny. But it goes past that.
Angie Backues (12:10):
Yeah, that's called a lack of attunement. For
those who are psychologicallyminded. Good. I mean, it comes
up.
Raphael Freeman (12:15):
Sure. No, I would, I would call it owning
yourself.
Angie Backues (12:18):
Sure.
Raphael Freeman (12:19):
But, you know, I can't be fake. So so one of
the things that happened was,there was a, there was another
person who worked at therestaurant, who is also black.
And I remember there was a,there was a husband, who he
(12:42):
encountered me, he sort ofconfronted me in a local coffee
shop, and asked his wife, isthat the guy? Of course, at the
restaurant,
Angie Backues (12:54):
you were at a coffee shop?
Raphael Freeman (12:55):
Yeah, it was at a coffee shop. And, you know,
whenever some person is pointingto you, or pointing at you, and
then asking somebody else thatthat the guy especially if you
grew up in a hood, like that,that's a Yeah, that's a date.
You know, that's, that's asignal some crazies is about to
happen. So, you know, I'm onhigh alert, like, yo, what's
(13:17):
this? And then a wife said,yeah, that's the guy. And the
husband, you know, I guess hethought he was tough. Yeah, I'm
always confused about thesepeople who like, like, you come
from middle class backgrounds,and like, you're gonna like,
I've had more fights by the timethat I was me, he doesn't know
me, right? probably have morefights. By the time I was 15.
(13:39):
Then you'll have in your entirelife, like you don't want this.
Or you better be from Marines orleg
Angie Backues (13:45):
and that aggressive personality. It's
like Gracie.
Raphael Freeman (13:49):
I'm just saying like, yeah, if you're not a
trained martial artists, oryou're, you know, you're not
trained and so like, bro, don'tapproach me. At any rate. He,
he, you know, he confronts me,he's like, yeah, my wife said,
You treated her poorly at therestaurant. And I said, No one
is not a thing, right? Like,that didn't happen. He said, he
(14:11):
called my wife a liar. I said,Yeah, that's exactly what I'm
doing. And, you know, he wasupset because I guess she, you
know, had dinner there with afriend and got like, poor
treatment. At the time, I didn'twork dinners. Oh, so Oh, you
(14:33):
mean the other black guy? Oh,right. Now I'm offended. And we
have a black guy who you know, Ihave a tremendous amount of
respect for we look nothing likeother than the blood, other than
the black thing. And so like Iyou know, I explained this to
him, but more importantly, nowyou've offended my honor, sir. I
(14:54):
challenge you to do so he's allaggressive. He asked me to step
outside.
Angie Backues (14:59):
I was worried After you had explained that
wasn't even made,
Raphael Freeman (15:03):
he was gonna, you know, he was convinced that
his wife was right. But I wascalling his wife a liar. And I
was just saying anything to getout of it. Oh, wow. And I was
like, let's go. So, you know, hechallenged me to step outside is
if he wants to fight my this,this entire argument is
happening inside of the greenline, the coffee shop. Every
(15:27):
other customers like what isthis crazy?
Angie Backues (15:30):
You guys were being seen as you did this?
Raphael Freeman (15:32):
Oh, yeah, this was inside the coffee shop. It
cost me inside the coffee shop.
So I'm like, like, let's go. AndI think that he thought that I
don't know what he thought thathe would challenge me to do to
step outside. And then I wouldlike a pose. I don't know what
he thought would happen. But Iwas like music to my ears like,
Oh, you want to you want to go?
(15:55):
Let's have it. And so you know,I started walking, I was run to
the door. I can't wait. Um, andI hold the door open for him. I
was like, let's do it. And thenall of a sudden his demeanor
changes. Here's what I know, fora lot of people. They don't
really want it. They don'treally want it. So you know, I'm
inviting the guy to go outside.
And
Angie Backues (16:18):
you think that was you kind of call this bluff?
Like,
Raphael Freeman (16:21):
I didn't even think it was a bluff at the
time. But yeah, but that's whathappened. Then he starts
backpedaling. You startbackpedaling and it's clear that
he doesn't want to, and nowdisappointed now I'm trying to
like egg him on. I was like,come on, bro. Like, let's do it.
Like let's have it. And thenhe's all quiet. No, he's all
like pipes down. And I justlaugh right? Because there's a
(16:43):
joke. At the same time, though.
There are probably 15 under 20.
They're like 15 onlookers whosee the entire thing. So now in
addition to my sort of renown inthe neighborhood, this entire
(17:04):
scene strike some people likethe wrong way. And it divides
them. There's some people whoare on my side because it people
like I don't know. But the themurmurations right, there's that
word, the murmuring. The talkabout me in the neighborhood
reaches like a crescendo.
They're like I'm, I'm beingtalked about in corners where I
don't even know people andpeople are taking sides, right?
(17:26):
Based on the information thatthey had through eyewitnesses.
And it was this lovely momentwhere even people who didn't
know me, like nobody wasneutral. No, I was like, Oh,
Angie Backues (17:44):
ah, it's like the Hatfields and McCoys or
something.
Raphael Freeman (17:46):
Yeah. Like, no, no, I was neutral. And it was
one of these times where like, Ithink about this Jay Z, like,
this is why I started the story.
Like, you can love me or hateme. either or, but I'm fine
with. I'm fine with peopleeither loving me, or hating me,
just don't be like, don't beneutral, right,
Angie Backues (18:04):
be neutral.
Raphael Freeman (18:06):
So that that's the one I'm talking about.
That's the one Jay Z. Sort of,you know, lyric that that I
remember and I think isapplicable, I'll get back to
the, to the to the, to thecancel stuff. And in the you
know, to the college adjunctprofessor, as well, particularly
(18:26):
because her situation is alittle bit more difficult. But
the other line that I reallylike, the JC says is he says no,
I got shots to give. So come andget me. You want me Come get me.
And I feel the same way. For methere are going to be metal
metaphorical shots. Because Ican defend myself
(18:48):
intellectually, you know, butcome and get me if you want to
come for me, right like you. Hiswon't be canceled. You're not
canceling me. I'm notapologizing. I'm gonna double
down. I believe in what I say.
And I can back it up. And Idon't say things that I can't
back up.
Angie Backues (19:05):
Yeah. And I think to your point, just a little
caveat, I think you did say ifthere's error, you can say Oh,
right. I totally messed upthere. I got it. Right and then
move on. Kind of like what KevinHart did like, a long time ago.
I said some things I shouldn'thave said. I said I was sorry.
Now moving on. Right?
Raphael Freeman (19:25):
Your you know, your your your college
professor, though? Aresituations a little bit more
tenuous. Cuz, you know, she's anemployee in a place that's
probably highly liberal. I sayhighly liberal, just based on
how, how college campuses tendto look right. And if she's at a
school that has like a socialwork school, then the likelihood
(19:48):
of her being in a very sort ofliberal environment, and the
types of administrators andother types of people who have
to sort of bend to the will ofthe student body which is paying
you know, they're paying thetuition. Her situation is a
little bit more more tenuous.
And I think unless you're aprofessor who also has a solid
online presence that allows youto pivot into something else,
(20:12):
then you sort of just have toacquiesce. You know, somebody,
you know, when I think aboutprofessors like Jonathan Hite
or, or Jordan Peterson, ifthings go wonky at their, at
their, you know, institutions,they have enough of a body of
work in terms of writtenmaterial, as well as online
presence that they can pivotinto another revenue stream. But
(20:35):
if your ad jumping, that's notthe case. And you might just
have to bite that bullet in. Doyou know, just watch your mouth?
What would you say?
Angie Backues (20:49):
Yeah, I think it's just, it's hard at this
point, because this is the rise.
This is kind of how, and you'reright, this is a liberal issue.
Right? Because you're absolutelyright. Conservatives really
aren't dealing with this Tucker,Carlson's gonna run his mouth
any way he wants to. Right. And,you know, it's a kind of a
(21:11):
conundrum, because they think,the liberal, you know, the, the
liberals have a sense of theirown, they carry their sense of
justice as well, you know, likewhat you were saying initially,
which I don't want to say thatabout this person. I know. But,
you know, oh, you know, a wokeperson is getting kind of beat
(21:32):
up by the, you know, the nextlevel of the woke person. And if
you're both, quote, unquote,woke, what do you do you get
stuck in your, you know, yourwoke conundrum, like, how am I
going to like, either either Iacquiesce to this, or I find a
way to completely validate whatthe weakest person says. And
(21:59):
that internal, you know, thatinternal conflict, like, Oh, my
gosh, I want to be more woke,what am I going to do? How do I
get Walker? So I don't know,man, I think this is a thing out
there. You know, Lindsey Ellis,this woman I was talking about,
she was talking about the peoplethat were calling her out, and I
(22:20):
can't exactly I can't quote her.
But she was saying somethinglike, these were the people that
were kind of championing for theunderdog, so to speak, with
their own voices that hadnothing to do with the situation
at all. It's like kind of thecome out of the woodwork and
say, You did this bad thing.
Like they're not even involvedin it. They just want to be the
(22:42):
call outs me Well, you know, andshe was talking about that,
like, how does this even becomea thing because these voices
just start populating and it'snot even somebody that's
connected to the situation. Theyjust want to kind of get on and
wrestle it down. People
Raphael Freeman (23:00):
love, they love that particular kind of
spectacle. You know, there'sthere's a scene in Game of
Thrones. And if you're listeningand you don't know Game of
Thrones, then
both (23:11):
I don't know what to say.
on Hulu right now.
Raphael Freeman (23:14):
Yeah. You know, maybe maybe in another country,
but it's a it's a worldwidephenomenon. If you missed it
somehow or another. I don't knowwhat you're doing. How do you
even get podcasts? Like what youknow, you have the internet
anyway. There's a scene whereCRC is like just one you know,
(23:34):
like, she's like the queen, Iguess for a long enough time. In
the Red Keep, and she gets torndown to the most humiliating
version of a bad scene. Yeah.
And you know, they cut her hairand it's just a walk barefoot
through the city naked. That'sright. She was completely naked.
And the nuns let's just callthem nuns. The sisters they're
(23:57):
yelling shame at her the wholetime when shame and but the
onlookers who were reveling intrcs misery, they were spitting
at her the throwing things thatare I think somebody threw like
a chamber pot, you know,contents at or just being mean
(24:20):
people. Yeah. And that's the waythat I sort of see those people
who like are the they're likethe the pilers on when somebody
gets a, you know, won't takethem, they get canceled. I'm
going to start calling it a wolftakedown. But when someone gets
(24:41):
canceled, and then all of these,you know, these cameras on, want
to participate. It sort ofreminds me of that CRC scene
where it's like, Look, you'renot even involved here. But you
just want to be part of themayhem and, and they're like low
level commitment, you know, to.
(25:03):
But it's fun. I think peoplelike it. Well, I
Angie Backues (25:05):
think you're, you're right. It's being a part
of the mayhem. But I think, youknow, we've talked on the show
about the virtue signalingstuff. There's also some
something around that, you know,Lindsay Ellis was pointing this
out, she said, you know, youdon't want to be that next
person. So you're, you're goingto get ahead of the game, you're
not going to you don't want tobe the next person that's called
out, you're going to get aheadof the game, and be, you know,
(25:28):
virtuous, you're going to telleveryone else how terrible they
are. Nobody wants to be in thatposition that they all of a
sudden get, you know, they fall.
So she talks about how peoplekind of dogpile, so they are, so
they can stay kind of theguarding of themselves to ever
have to do not have to be in thesame position. You know, look,
(25:50):
I'm virtuous, I call out thingslike this. So not me, not me,
not me, not me, you know,
Raphael Freeman (25:59):
yeah, I can't roll my eyes hard enough.
Angie Backues (26:01):
did pretty good job right there.
Raphael Freeman (26:03):
All you have to do is like, just be righteous,
just be upright, not evenrighteous, just be a marine. If
you can just be upgrade, youhave to worry about that. You
really don't. And it's, it'sadvantageous to your character
in any way to just do, you know,do the right thing, do the hard
(26:23):
thing.
Angie Backues (26:24):
I hear you, and I believe you about what you say,
in terms of if someone were tocome at you that you would
probably I believe you woulddouble down. And I don't think
at this point, from what I fromwhat I know of you that this
would be a thing for you. Youwould just say no, that's not
what I I could paraphrase what Ithink you would say, but maybe I
(26:48):
just will stop right there. Likeyou're not going to do it.
Right. One of the things thatyou named on when you were
saying what you can come atpeople with is that you have a
pretty high intellect. Which I'mnot saying, you know, you have
to be like, beyond, you know,whatever score on your, you
(27:09):
know, your aptitude test to beable to do this. But I think
there is something about beingsecure enough to go into the
argument this people that I'vewatched that don't take
anything, even people that Iwouldn't necessarily, you know,
condone like, like, Shapiro,like, I don't personally,
(27:29):
personally, I don't like him. Ithink he's awful. But you know,
you can't take this guy down.
Really? I mean, some peoplecould, I was, you know, there
are people that I've liked towatch him, you know, kind of
have these discussions with, Ithink he's had a lot of
discussions with a lot of thosepeople with intellects, but he
has me and he has ammo, like heknows what he's talking about.
(27:50):
You can't really get into acorner, you can't back him into
a corner that he doesn't knowwhere to go, he's gonna know
where to go. Yeah. And I thinkit's scary for people that don't
feel like they have as much attheir, you know, at their home
at the home to offer in thoseways they get scared. And if you
can't, you know, if somebody iscoming at you and you can't go
(28:11):
toe to toe, what do you do youget all tongue tied, and you
don't know what to say. I wasgonna segue to something else.
But I'm gonna wait till whatwhat do you think about that?
Yeah, I
Raphael Freeman (28:24):
agree. So, you know, Ben Shapiro is
interesting. But there a coupleof things that happened to his
Ben Ben Shapiro, rarely, man,not never. So when he tends to
be prepared, right? I don'tthink the guy's a genius. I
don't I think he's really wellprepared. Maybe a genius? I
(28:46):
don't know, I don't think so.
But he's really well prepared.
He has a few cognitive tools athis disposal. So if you one of
the things he'll call out veryfrequently, is if someone will
start to drift the core of theirargument, and then make a
subsequent argument that hasnothing to do with the premise
of the first, this happens a lotwhen people there's a there's a
(29:09):
term for it in, in, in sort of,there's a what's the word like a
formal term for when people dothis? I forget what it is. But
if you start off making oneargument, and then your first
argument doesn't work, and thenyou just make a completely
different argument. It's like,what are we doing here? You
You're, you're moving thegoalposts. So he's really good
(29:30):
at calling people out with that.
And if you don't have some sortof formal training, then like
you're going to be obliteratedor he's going to take it apart.
The other thing is that he tendsto be really prepared, but he
also sets the ground rules forfor his definitions. And this is
really important because oftenpeople just assume that they're
(29:50):
talking about the same thing.
And if you don't establish yoursort of definition ahead of
time, and then someone else doesFirst, now you're automatic it
The minute you agree to thatyou're on the turf, wait,
whether you know it or not,right, they frame the entire
thing. So you step into someoneelse's framework. And either one
(30:12):
you're aware or two, you didn'tdo it first, or you don't refute
their sort of core assumptions,their core presuppositions, you
don't refute those, then you'regonna get slaughtered. Because
you, you know, so, so he'sreally good at that. So, you
know, maybe he's a smart guy. Ingeneral, I think it's important
to agree upon terms for thatreason. And also to make sure
(30:35):
that, that, you know, whateverit is that you're presupposing,
or whatever it is that you'reassuming is clear, or whatever
the other person is assuming isclear. I think that that's
really important. And one of thethings that doesn't happen with,
you know, with this particularcrowd, the call out people is
(31:00):
that they're assuming that theway that they, you know, I have
another example of mine, but Idon't want to like story as to
death, to death. But there's aprecept that, you know, there's
an assumption that we're talkingabout the same thing, and the
way that I see it, the coreassumptions that I have, are
true, not that they're justassumptions of mine, but they're
true. And it's, you know, onceyou sort of operate in that way,
(31:26):
then it makes it, it makes ithard to defend yourself, if you
don't push against those thosesort of core assumptions.
Angie Backues (31:35):
Yeah, and I think, you know, there, and not
that we all have to be, youknow, completely astute around
all of this, like, how do we,you know, take, we don't have to
take a course to like how todefend ourselves against color
culture, although, maybe wemight.
Raphael Freeman (31:51):
Yeah, I mean, if you're on a college campus,
you might, but um, you know, I
Angie Backues (31:55):
do think that there's varying degrees of, of
even personality types thatwill, kind of what I was talking
about being cornered the corneryou and one church in that
corner. And I think some ofthat, is that what you were
describing this, you know,starting with an assumption, and
(32:15):
then, you know, kind of COsigning with that assumption
that you've not reallychallenged it. And that's hard
to catch. You know, we werethere was a, an YouTube guy that
does these, these dating, or no,he calls out women all the time,
around what he thinks is a highlevel when woman His name is
(32:37):
Kevin Samuelson. And you canwatch him because he, I think
he's, he's pretty aggressive.
And in a really, I think, in aterrible way. Like, I think he
is not so great out there. Butwomen get on there. And this
happens all the time. Like, hewill start with his his
rhetoric. And he gets to thisplace where he's just the,
(32:59):
everyone's on the same while thewoman and he looks like to me,
the woman and, and he him, he heare arguing only his point like
that the women, the women don'tget to talk about their points,
because his the way he presentsis that the only points that
(33:20):
matter are the ones that he'smaking. And so then he starts
lobbing all these questions atthese women or statements that
these women that they have thento hold an answer as if that's
the only statements that thatmatter. Um, he's a very extreme
example of this. But I thinkthat sometimes what gets
happening with these colorthings is that you get in this
(33:42):
position where, like I said, ifyou don't know things about
language, or debate, or juststaying with the core argument,
that it goes all over the place,and then you start to look even
more inept, because now you'rearguing so many points, trying
to backpedal, trying to figureout what the best thing is to
say. And what you can see,oftentimes on the internet,
(34:04):
somebody will do the apology,and the words that they use them
will get called out again. Yeah,they did this and then, you
know, did you read in theirapology, it's not even a real
apology, and sometimes that'strue, but it just the layers are
just they just keep going.
Because it doesn't stay. Itdoesn't say contain to the
(34:25):
argument.
Raphael Freeman (34:26):
So you know, Greg, I want to say look Yon off
and Jonathan Hyde. I mean,obviously, they addressed this
in, in a, you know, an articlewhich became a book that they
had written together, it'scalled the coddling of the
American mind. But in that is,you know, somewhat that the
demise of liberal institutions,but we're gonna see and, and,
(34:49):
you know, to some degree, Iwonder what it might mean for
American universities ingeneral. If we, you know, if
we're thinking about the The theonline, you know, classes that
you can take for technicalthings like computer
programming, and, you know, somesome forms of engineering have
(35:11):
been there lots of online, youknow, courses that are available
that people can pursue them andtake that skill set and then
apply to directly directly tocouples, companies like Google,
or Facebook or Amazon orsomething like that. And so, you
know, that portion of, ofsociety who might be interested
(35:31):
in pursuing that career, theydon't need, they don't need
college in the same way they,and some might still choose. I
mean, there are otherexperiences to be had, they
don't need it, right, especiallygiven the cost. And then you
have this other sort of thisother portion of society, that
they have to watch every aspectof the language. And professors
(35:52):
also have to be super carefulabout what happens there. And
administrators and, you know,there's a sense of safety that I
think that people have to workwith. And that's ruinous to, to
the intellectual culture of thatcollege is supposed to be about.
And then you, you know, you haveto consider that people pay
money for all of this. And so,you know, there's a, there's a
(36:16):
critical mass of students thatyou need in order to, in order
to be able to keep your doorsopen, you know, colleges closed.
For that reason, it's not, youknow, and so it makes me wonder
about the sort of future of thehalls, the institutions of
intellectual discourse, here inthe United States, and what that
(36:38):
will look like, as people whowho have technical careers, do
more things online. And thepeople who are in the arts, you
know, essentially people who areliberal art, they start to
undermine their own sort ofintellectual, you know, their
own intellectual rigor, becauseeveryone is too afraid to say
(37:02):
the thing that they think goesagainst the received doctrine,
or the received wisdom. And Idon't know what that means for
us. You know, 20 years down theroad. If we're all afraid, you
know, on the left, if if peopleare too afraid to sort of speak
truth to, to the power of thepeople,
Angie Backues (37:24):
yeah. Well, I may, it may come out, you know,
who knows all the podcasts thatwe've done? I've thought about
that, you know, what we've beenputting out? I guess we've been,
while we took a little break,we've already mentioned that.
But in a year of material, youknow, I can't imagine that we
haven't offended people. And itdoes make me think, you know,
(37:44):
how much stuff does anybody wantout there right now. And, you
know, if you've got the thickskin, and you're like, I don't
care, then it doesn't matter.
But then, you know, there arepeople whose jobs depend on it,
or, you know, who may get theirreputation solid, and their
business goes, you know, goes upin smoke, you just don't know.
Raphael Freeman (38:04):
So here's one of the things so I agree, right?
Again, come and get me. Come andget me
Angie Backues (38:10):
calm and get referral, you guys.
Raphael Freeman (38:14):
is one of the things I think is true, and that
if you don't recognize this asan adjunct, then Shame on you
may Fool me once. Shame on you.
Fool me twice. Well, you're notgonna fool me again. I'm not to
know. So here's the, here's themodel. So we're in late stage
(38:41):
capitalism. Whether you like itor not, whether you know it or
not, things have changed interms of the way we distribute
human capital. fixed capitalworks in a very different way
than it used to circulate incapital works in a way in a very
different way than it did let'ssay 20 years ago. Part of this
you can see in there's a there'sa guy who writes a book it's
(39:04):
called capital city, SamuelStein, his name horrible book,
right? I thought I was gonnalike it was about
gentrification, just a dumbbook. Way to idealizing and I
digress. But he means what hecalls a real estate class. Act,
he calls it the real estatestate, and makes like a somewhat
(39:26):
of a decent argument for for howmuch real estate class affects
politics in cities. Right. Andto the degree that they are as
powerful as the industrialistwere, you know, in the, you
know, before the turnover, andthat seems like a reasonable. It
(39:48):
seemed like a reasonable atleast proposition to think about
real estate moguls and realestate interests as having a
controlling interest. In certaincities, right at that point, the
argument seems seems prettyfair. To me, the reason that I'm
mentioning it mentioning it,though, is if we look at the
(40:08):
real estate class, and we lookat the sort of tech class of a
like that, that drive the gigeconomy, right? So if you think
about like Uber and Lyft, andthings of that sort, Go, Go puff
that might just like doordash.
both (40:25):
Uber Eats, okay,
Raphael Freeman (40:27):
yeah.
instacart. caviar, shall we namehim, ah,
both (40:33):
we've been in pandemic, so. But
Raphael Freeman (40:37):
if you were to look at how that sort of like
how workers have to behave, andeven even Amazon, right, Amazon
has a different model, but it'sthey have elements that are gig
or gig ish elements, right,especially with the drivers and
delivery, all that kind ofstuff. But But the way that
workers engage have to engagewith those corporations, is
(41:02):
often it's not. I know, it's notdirect, it's through an app, you
get paid. And some however it isthey get paid. And, you know,
they're just the broker betweenyou, you know, you as a worker,
and then some other portion ofthe public. And so even when we
look at our employment rate, youhave to consider that the people
(41:24):
are doing, I've known to peoplewho to work for instacart. And
they both describe it as thehardest and the most
unrewarding, and just like ahard job, it's like super hard,
hard ways that you don'tnecessarily realize it, but then
you're like, you're hard up formoney. And then all of a sudden,
it seems like, you know, I'mbasically in Venezuela, I'm
working too hard for the night,I would look at those pictures
(41:47):
of the people like why don't youjust do something else. But
like, now I get it like that,when I have friends who do
instacart it's like, there'snothing, you know, I gotta do
all this, to pay the rent, whichis super high, because real
estate, you know, because rentprices are going through the
roof, gentrification, all thiskind of stuff. And you see the
people are having a hard timemaking sense of their reality in
(42:08):
terms of the amount of moneythat they earn, and then the
amount of money that they haveto spend just to stay alive. So
if you're looking at an in, Iknow, I'm a little rambley, if
you look at late stagecapitalism through this
particular lens, or look atwhere we are through this
particular lens, then yourealize it's really incumbent
(42:29):
upon all of us to not treat thework environment and not treat
our income sources, our revenuesources, the way they would have
made sense 20 years ago,essentially, what I'm saying is
that, that the model, therevenue, the income model that
we had, we all go to college forlike, we go to college for a
(42:53):
particular model of income, thatis, let's say, post Industrial
Revolution. Till till, you know,I guess, the beginning of the
gig economy, where or maybe alittle bit before that, but the
idea is that I'm going to get ajob, I'm going to have a
security, and it's going to makesense, I'm going to go to school
(43:16):
for this thing, so I can get ajob. And that job is going to
pay me this much money overtime. And it's going to make
sense. And I'm already knew thatif you can see the writing on
the wall, that that is goingaway for lots of portions of the
economy, whether you know it ornot, whether you see it or not,
if you don't have some kind ofalternate plan, you're gonna end
(43:39):
up in trouble, it's just gonnahappen. And there are lots of,
you know, there are lots ofportions that there's a guy
named Daniel Pink, he argues ina whole new mind that, you know,
anything that we do that'salgorithmic is subject to, to AI
or being pre done, he talksabout the some of the revenue
(44:00):
sources that attorneys wouldhave, through estate planning,
and wills, and all these sortsof documents that they needed to
be experts in, in order to, youknow, in order to help people
plan their sort of, you know,their estate, or whatever it is,
will write. But now you havethings like Legal Zoom, or, you
(44:20):
know, legal docs. And, and thesame is true for for tax
accountants through reallysophisticated software that will
allow you to do lots of thethings that you need an attorney
to do, or you needed, you know,an accountant to do, right. And
so because those things are sortof algorithmic in nature, it
(44:41):
means that a I mean, you know,it seems unthinkable that, that
the tax accountants mightdisappear, and maybe they won't
completely but if you have asignificant portion of what used
to be their revenue disappear,because there's an app for that
the And then there's aparticular kind of attrition.
(45:02):
One is like, How much money do Iwant to pay to be an accountant?
You know, in terms of school, ifthe revenue that I might expect
might be so small, you know,over time as these things
disappear, we're like a largeportion of what used to be
lucrative disappears. Thatdoesn't mean that all in the
(45:24):
same is going to be true forlawyers,
you know, once a certain portionof what used to be revenue
generating, you know, activity,once that disappears, then
people are going to have toconsider like, what's the
opportunity cost of going to lawschool? If it's not going to pay
me that much, versus doingsomething else that might pay me
(45:46):
more. So all of us, right? Allof us, I think, need to have
some sort of eye towards, youknow, multiple streams of income
or revenue, because the thingthat we thought was safe and
(46:06):
reliable and stable, is subjectto disruption. Basically, any
moment and ways that you didn'tsee coming.
Angie Backues (46:16):
Yeah, this sounds like a whole other show. You
know, what, what we need to doto be to sustain ourselves in
today's economy, the ways thatwe can't depend on how it used
to work before, it just can't wewere at a different place. Now.
Raphael Freeman (46:30):
There we are at a different place. Now. You
know, the writing's on the wall.
And, you know, I think peoplecan generally see when the
writing is on the wall. There'sa sense, I think, a very bad
sense a very mean, I thinkpeople can feel it deep down.
But you don't necessarily knowwhat to do when you see the
writing on like, even if youknow that something bad is
(46:51):
coming. Like what do you do,right? And that's not
necessarily like the easiestanswer. And it's helpful, right?
It's helpful to have lots ofmodels. And Lord knows history
helps. Having a passport andbeing able to get out of dodge
helps. But yeah, but this, thisfeels like the end of a
particular era. And I thinkmoving forward. Yeah, I don't I
(47:14):
don't know what things are gonnalook like. I mean, maybe none of
us do. But I think the thingthat we can, is the best bet for
you, here's the best bet, right?
is you can buy maneuverability,like I think of money as stored,
(47:35):
like stored potential forgetting out of jams. It's like,
it's like a way to storeoptions. I mean, it's not quite
that, but in some ways, it'ssort of that it's like, you have
more get out of jail free card,if things go crazy. You're
hedging against entropy. I don'tneed a third way to say this,
(47:56):
I'm just gonna go. And so here'swhat we can do. Get as much
money right now as possible.
That's like, yourresponsibility. It might seem
like, you know, there are lotsof people's like, I want to, you
know, I want to work in thisfield, like, okay, cool work in
(48:16):
that field, also, on the sideget as much money as possible.
Yeah. Which seems like a crazything to, you know, would have
been a crazy thing to say, uh,you know, I don't know, I mean,
maybe not, like 50 years ago.
Lots of people just want toprovide, but I'm saying that
things are falling apart in sucha way that if you don't get as
(48:37):
much money as possible, and anyof the bad scenarios happen,
you're simply not going to beable to maneuver? And that, to
me seems like, it seems like thewrong way to play this game.
Unknown (48:52):
Yeah.
Angie Backues (48:54):
Well, I have to chew on this for a minute, I get
what you're I get where you'regoing, I get what you're saying.
You know, there's a lot of valuestuff that when you said that,
that hit me, you know, my, how Ihold values. You know, I grew up
with this phrase that grew upfrom my home. But you know, once
I became an adult, it was livesimply so others can simply live
(49:17):
that's kind of I held that as avalue. So anyway, I'm saying
it's hitting something in termsof value. I'm also hearing you
say, things are changing enoughthat you're going to need
options. And the way that wehave options is to have money.
That's what you know, I mean,even even if we look at
something like health care inthis country, you know, if we
(49:38):
don't have money, we die of likea chronic disease. So I get it.
And you know, maybe we explorethat on our next show.
Raphael Freeman (49:49):
The next show will be about living simply,
while rich. Let's
Angie Backues (49:52):
There you go.
Nice, nice tagline.
Raphael Freeman (49:56):
Yeah, well, we're coming up on the 15 minute
mark. So I gotta say, if you canhear this message if you're
listening, thanks for hangingout with us. We certainly
appreciate you none of this ispossible without, you know,
people were interested in theseideas and hopefully from an iron
sharpens iron standpoint, we canall get better and learn more
things and explore our world andlive better lives. I mean that
(50:19):
that's the idea. So,
Angie Backues (50:21):
yeah, thanks for listening. We'll see you later.
Raphael Freeman (50:25):
If you're not subscribed already, subscribe on
your whatever your favoritepodcast platform is. And, you
know, follow us on Instagram.
Peace.
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