the founding ideologies with Dr. Todd J. Stockdale (ep 2, 35).

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From Enlightenment ideals to the myth of the American frontier, the founding ideologies of the United States have long shaped how we define humanity, progress, and belonging. In this episode, Dr. Todd Stockdale invites us to trace how these ideologies, especially the Western liberal view of the autonomous individual, intersected with Protestant theology and national identity. Drawing on the work of John Locke, Max Weber, and Karl Marx, we explore how these frameworks have informed what counts as good and bad, civilized and savage, included and excluded, preserved and erased. And we ask what it would mean to reimagine our shared future not through domination, but through a deeper vision of what it means to be fully human.

Dr. Stockdale challenges us to examine how our ideas of justice, freedom, and selfhood have been formed by settler colonial logics, and how healing might begin by telling a different story. This conversation builds a bridge between earlier episodes exploring Indigenous erasure and theological complicity, and the final arc of this season, which seeks to confront systems of race, class, and gender that continue to shape our country and Northwest Arkansas today.

https://www.theunderview.com/episodes/the-underview-the-founding-ideologies-dr-todd-j-stockdale

About the underview:

The underview is an exploration of the development of our Communal Theology of Place viewed through the medium of bikes, land, and people to discover community wholeness.

Website: ⁠⁠theunderview.com⁠⁠
Follow us on Instagram: ⁠⁠@underviewthe
Host: @mikerusch

Send in a voice message: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/theunderview/message

Episode Transcript

todd stockdale (00:02):
The idea for me is first and foremost
recognize that our views, ourvalues, our systems of labor
have come from somewhere.
It's just not the way theworld has always been.
It won't be the waythe world always is.
So can we imagine a differentfuture, a different way of
being, a way that privilegesthe human being, a way

(00:26):
that privileges the humanexperience, a way that is not
alienating and dehumanizing.
Imagining a different futureand what we prioritize,
and are we prioritizingthings that are going to
lead to human flourishing?

mike rusch (01:22):
You're listening to the underview, an Exploration
in the shaping of our Place.
My name is Mike Rusch, and todaywe've come to a bridge between
the stories that we've uncoveredand the deeper questions that
remain of what it all meansand how do we respond to them.
This season, the storyof northwest Arkansas, it
started back in January andwe only have three episodes
remaining in this season.
So I want to take you back tomy first episode with Melissa

(01:45):
Horner, where I shared a story.
About two young fish thatwere swimming along when they
encountered an older fish.
And the older fish asked,"how's the water today?"
And the younger fishlooked at each other and
asked, "what is water?"And much like those younger
fish, we often fail torecognize the systems and
I would say ideologies thatshape our environment that
are influencing us so deeplythat they become invisible

(02:07):
to our everyday awareness.
This episode is a continuationof that question of trying
to recognize the waterin which we swim because
throughout this season, we'velistened to leaders like
Melissa describe the foundingsystems of this country that
continue to shape our land,our laws, and our lives.
We've heard from immigrantsand descendants of enslaved
people, workers, and organizers,and each voice has been

(02:30):
revealing a part of thestructures we live within.
But today we pause to ask whatelse lies beneath those systems?
What ideas about faith, aboutthe self, about the other have
been used to form and shapethe stories that we've heard?
And more importantly, whatdoes it mean to be fully
human within them in thewake of so much hardship?
Because if we're reallygoing to reckon with place,

(02:51):
if we're going to understandbelonging, we have to ask
about the ideas that serveas the water that we swim in.
The stories that have shapedour definitions of good and
bad, worthy and unworthy,civilized and savage, included
and excluded, preservedand erased all of it.
And we have to admit thatsome of those stories have
come wrapped in an ideologythat shaped how we see it all.

(03:14):
So today to work through someof these questions, I invited
Dr. Todd Stockdale, a theologianand professor of humanities
at Seton Hall University.
And in full disclosure, heis one of my longest friends
that I've known from growingup together here in Arkansas.
He and I have had conversationsfor decades about much of this.
So today he's going to help ustrace some of those threads.

(03:34):
This isn't an abstractacademic or religious exercise,
it's a necessary step inunderstanding ourselves
and the place we live in.
It's about asking thosedeeper questions we all have.
Is there meaning?
Is there purpose?
What is real?
What is true, and how can Ifind fulfillment and happiness?
Because hidden in all of thestories we've walked through
this season, we might justfind the very things we've

(03:56):
been looking for, truth andhealing, and a way forward,
a deeper story of who weare and who we could become.
Alright, we've got a wholelot to work through today.
Let's get into it.
Well, I have the privilegetoday of sharing a table
with Dr. Todd Stockdale, whohas been a friend of mine as
far back as I can remember.
And so it's a privilegejust to be able to sit

(04:17):
here with you, Todd.
But also we gonna dig into sometopics that we've been talking
about all this season, whichgoes to the root of our identity
as human beings and really allof the mythologies that wrap
around our understanding of whowe are in this world and what
that looks like in our space.
And so, Todd, welcometo the conversation.
It's great to have you here.

todd stockdale (04:38):
It's great to be here, Mike.
It's just such a privilege tosit at the table with you, like
you said, lifelong friends,and so it's a pleasure of mine.

mike rusch (04:45):
I think one of the components of that is that
we have walked through alot of these conversations
together over the years.
And so today to be able to sitdown and have a conversation
that really is rooted in, Ithink as you described, your
teachings and your pursuit ofwhat does it mean to be human?
It feels like at this pointin the season, it makes
sense to come back aroundto maybe where we started,

(05:06):
but from a little bit ofa different point of view.
And so gimme a little tasteof who you are and your
background and what you'vebeen up to over the years.

todd stockdale (05:16):
Yeah, so I'm a northwest Arkansas native.
I was born there,I was raised there.
I'm a proud product of the stateof Arkansas, educated there.
Met my wife there,married there.
Have a deep passionfor northwest Arkansas.
It is a place that I stillcall home even when I travel
abroad and people hear my accentthey ask me where I'm from.

(05:36):
And even though I flew out ofNew York and I'll be flying back
to New York, I just look at themand smile as have from Arkansas.

mike rusch (05:42):
I love that.
as I've heard you describe yourfield of study and I've heard
you say this to people overand over again when they ask
you like, what do you teach?
And your response istypically it's what does
it mean to be human?
Is the topic of your studiesand your pursuit within this
practical theology fieldthat you've been immersed
with and got your PhD in.
But maybe in the spirit ofthat question, like what

(06:04):
does it mean to be human?
Help me unpackthat a little bit.

todd stockdale (06:07):
Yeah, so it's really the theme that I
pull through my core classesthat I teach at Seton Hall.
The classes for the firstyear, students really take
up these big questions.
They take up the question ofmeaning and purpose questions
like how can we be happy?
Which, oftentimes we don't stopand ask ourselves that question.
We're pursuing happiness,but we don't actually stop

(06:27):
and ask the question of whatis going to make me happy?
How can I find fulfillment?
How can I flourish?
And so this question of whatdoes it mean to be human is
really the central questionthat gets pulled throughout the
various courses that I teach.
It really does look atwhat does it mean to be a
fully functioning, alivehuman being in this world?
That involves things likeempathy and care for the other.
It involves ideasaround flourishing.

(06:49):
It involves ideas around how tocare for others, how to care for
the most vulnerable amongst us.
But really it is this notionof what does it mean to be
a fully formed human beingand the spiritual dimensions
of life, the physicaldimensions, the social
dimensions . And it reallydoes draw on questions that
animate the human experience.
And so what we do in ourclasses is we look at the

(07:11):
way different cultures andpeoples around the world.
Philosophies, religionshave tried to respond
to that question.

mike rusch (07:17):
The work of your PhD has been within the subject
of practical theology, right?
Which should make sense toall of us, but I'm gonna be
honest with you, I'm I, youmay have to unpack that as
well for us, but it allowsyou to connect to these big
questions about place and aboutethics and identity really
to the specifics of what thatlooks like in everyday life.
And so our conversation hasbeen what does it look like to

(07:39):
belong to a place and what doesit look like and how do people
connect with where they are?
And so I'm curious maybe howyou see this conversation,
the overlap of those subjectsaround these ideas of place
and identity and belonging.

todd stockdale (07:55):
So basically practical theology just looks
at lived religious life.
And I'm operating ina Christian context.
So it looks at livedChristianity and Christianity
at its very core is anincarnation religion.
And so Christian communities,they incarnate themselves
in place, they incarnatethemselves in culture.
And so what I look atoftentimes is in this question

(08:17):
of place and culture howdo we live out our faith
authentically in those spaces?
And so Practic theology looks atthe messiness of Christianity.
It looks at Christianityas it is lived.
It looks at Christianityas it's lived locally.
It looks at Christianity asit's lived within culture.
And so a lot of my work thatI do does actually hit that
intersection of religionand place and culture.

mike rusch (08:42):
This has been one of the subjects within this season
that we've really seen, reallystrung throughout every episode.
And we, last week we exploredthis idea of kind of the
historical foundations of howfaith or religion, if you will,
has moved in the United Statesand how it's shaped in the
South, and even brought thatback into northwest Arkansas.
I realized this conversationis a little bit bigger than

(09:03):
that, but I think it's reallythis question of how faith
informs how we think aboutplace and belonging and
really this American ideaand this American mythology.
And so I think I'm reallycurious because as you talk
about the subjects that you'vebeen involved in this isn't
just how it works out in anindividual life, this is how it

(09:23):
works out structurally withinour institutions that we make.
And you've been lookingat this for, the past 2000
years at least, right?
And so give us a startingpoint to think about how
this subject really worksitself into thinking about
the things that reallyinfluence who we are today.

todd stockdale (09:42):
Yeah.
In the courses I teach wedeal primarily with primary
texts, which means insteadof reading about Augustine
or reading about Plato orreading about Aquinas or even
Darwin and Nietzche, we'reactually reading these authors,
we're reading their words.
And first of all, it is anencounter with a culture that
in many ways has shaped ours,but is different from ours.
And that's one of the thingsthat oftentimes I find with

(10:05):
students encountering thesetexts for their first time is
we all would assume we woulddo, they'll read their own
experiences into these texts.
And so one of the thingsthat's really helpful is we go
into these different culturesand these different contexts
is to see how distinct andhow unique we in fact are.
And in our American system,we can see how we're
shaped by these ideas.

(10:25):
We're shaped by these texts,we're shaped by these thinkers.
But yet we stand in avery distinct time and
a very distinct place.
So what that does, itallows us to actually better
examine our own place.
It actually allows us to seethat we are in fact distinct.
And when you see thepeculiarities of our
own culture, then youcan begin to ask where
these things come from.

mike rus (10:43):
When you look at those historical texts and you think
about where we are in the worldtoday, bridge us a little bit.
Give us some context andideas around, and this is
me personally, like I movedthrough this world and I realize
that as much as I don't wantto be biased or carry these
ideas that have formed andshaped me, there are things
that have been forming andshaping who we are as people

(11:04):
for thousands of years.
When you think about theseprimary texts, give us
a foundation of what youfeel like is essential that
we take away from some ofthese ideas from thousands
of years ago that may havereally practical implication
to where we are today.

todd stockdale (11:19):
One of the things I would say, Mike,
is again I talked about thisidea of being fully human.
Part of that experience islearning to empathize with
another and it's a challengeactually for us to do.
It's really easy to readthese ancient texts, to read
medieval texts and to make quickjudgements on the cultures,
to make quick judgementson the people to make quick

(11:40):
judgements on the ideas.
And one of the things weactually ask our students to do
is to stop and to pause and justimagine yourself in that world.
Imagine yourself in the shoesof another with these values,
with these assumptions.
And once you imagine yourselfhaving these values and
these assumptions, then youcan begin to see why would
someone think that way?
And why would they beseeing the world that way?
Why would they think this is aappropriate response to whatever

(12:03):
issue or concern is being raisedthat they're trying to address?
And that actually helps us, ithelps us become more empathetic
as human beings to others.
And so one of the things that,that I find so valuable in
conversations with studentsis just that ability to, for
them to stop, for them tothink and say, that's not us.
That's not who we are, orthat's not how we are today.

(12:25):
But I can see how someone inthat context would come to
those conclusions or be arguingthe way this text is arguing.
The bridge then becomes takingwhat we see in those texts
and seeing how certain ideasget carried across culture,
get moved into our currentcontexts and then play out.
Oftentimes they play out in wayswhere we don't even realize it.

(12:47):
You've mentioned earlier inyour podcast series about this
idea of fish and water, and youtalk about the fish not being
aware of the water around them.
Oftentimes we inherit thistradition this intellectual
tradition and we just assumethat it's always been this way.
When actually, if you canfind out where these ideas
come from, you begin to seethe peculiarities of your
own culture, and at leastat the least recognize it.

(13:11):
You don't have to immediatelyjump to evaluation, but at least
to be able to recognize it.
To recognize it's distinctand it's different from other
cultures around the world, fromother cultures in history, other
ideas in history, and then youbegin the process of perhaps
critiquing it or evaluating it.

mike (13:26):
I guess my question would start with, do these frameworks
or these ideologies from longago, do they impact us today?

todd stockd (13:33):
Oh, most certainly.
It's one of those thingswhere we could pick any
topic you wanted to.
I'll use Nietzschein this example.
I talked to my studentsabout human morality, and
Nietzche does a genealogyof human morality.
And I ask them to describefor me a good person.
And oftentimes they'll saysomeone who's kind, someone
who's compassionate, someonewho cares for other people.

(13:55):
And without question, I thinkevery student in my class would
say, yes, that is a good person.
What Nietzsche does is he beginswith his genealogy to trace
that back and says, that'snot always how we thought
of a good person prior toChristianity and he's talking
about Judeo Christianity.
So he lumps Jewish traditionand faith in with Christianity.
Before that came intoprominence in western culture.

(14:18):
That's not what a good personwas thought to be a good
person was a powerful person.
A good person was a rich person.
A good person wasa beautiful person.
And the poor, the weak.
Those were consideredto be bad people.
Or at least theircharacteristics were bad.
And Christianity is basicallysomething that inverts
that in western culture.
And all of a sudden it is theGod of the Jewish people, the

(14:40):
God of the Christian peoplewho start to care for the
poor, who start to care forthe marginalized, who then
have us operating in thismindset of what Nietzsche
ultimately calls slave morality.
But this mindset of caringfor other people and being
kind and compassionateand loving is good.
That's something we justtake for granted, Mike.
That's something we justdon't ever question.
And Nietzsche even says thatNietzche says, we have un

(15:02):
reflexively accepted thata good person is a kind,
compassionate, caring personand he just wants to say that's
not always been the case.

mike rusch (15:09):
So Todd, one of the things I think that's
captivating to me is this ideaof what morality looks like,
of what goodness looks like.
It really, this isnot a constant value.
These are things that areshaped over time, maybe
defined by the culture.
Is that fair?

todd stockdale (15:22):
That is completely fair.
And again, this isNietzsche's argument, right?
This is niche's argumentthat this is not
always how it has been.
A great example is a map.
If we were to pull out a mapright now and we were to lay
it on the table you wouldhave that map orientated
towards the north, right?
We even call it the northernHemisphere, and that would
be at the top of the map.
The southern hemisphere wouldbe at the bottom of the map.
The southern hemisphere wouldbe at the bottom of the map.

(15:44):
There's no real reasonfor that to be that way.
That's just how we'vegotten used to seeing maps.
If you have ever seen an upsidedown map, quote unquote upside
down map where the south isat the top of the map and
the north is at the bottom,it's very disorientating,
but there's no reason thatthe map has to look that way.
And matter of fact, the earliestmaps were east orientated.

(16:06):
And so we just assume thatthis is what the world
is supposed to look like.
Nietzsche is talking about humanmorality and  Nietzsche just
saying, we just assume thatit's always been this way.
And his argument is, it is not.

mike rusch (16:18):
This is something that we talked about at
the very beginning of theseason, was these mythologies
and these ideologies thatshape our understanding of
who we are and really whereour country was founded.
And so I'm curious like, aswe kind of move into modern
day what are some of thosefounding principles that we
should think about that reallyinfluence the beginning maybe

(16:38):
of this country and the storiesthat we've heard for so long?
I know when we spoke toMelissa Horner back in
the very first part of theseason, we talked about this
idea of settler colonialism.
We talked about it being rootedin the church and the doctrine
of discovery, but there'smore to that story, correct?

todd stockda (16:54):
That's right, yes.
And I've so appreciatedthat podcast that you
did with Melissa that wasso informative for me.
I would probably take usback to an enlightenment
thinker, John Locke.
He is incredibly influential.
He certainly in hiswritings is echoed in the
Declaration of Independence.
Thomas Jeffersonread and enjoyed and

(17:16):
appreciated John Locke.
And so when you readhim, it'll sound very
familiar to American Ears.
He is English, but he's veryinfluential in the American
imagination of who we are.
He's writing in the 16hundreds and he is trying to
propose some way of organizingsociety that is contra
to what he has inherited.

(17:36):
So if you think about him inthe context of monarchial rule
and it is where the sovereignderives his or her authority.
And it is a divine right.
So basically if you are amonarchy you have as the crown
derived your authority from God.
John Locke wants to imaginesomething different.

(17:57):
He wants to imagineit in a different way.
And he, along with Hobbesand Rousseau, help us get
to what we come to callthe social contract theory.
That is that individuals bandtogether to form a society.
And we, the peoplegive consent to the
government to be governed.
It doesn't derive fromGod, it derives from the

(18:19):
consent of the governed.
But he does that in a veryinteresting way, and he does
that in a very interesting waythat I think is very pertinent
for this series because ithas to do with property,
it has to do with labor.
And he has this storythat he tells, and it's a
really interesting story.
He talks about humans and humansbeing born in a state of liberty
and he believes we're born ina state of perfect liberty.

(18:40):
Now, that's not licensed todo anything we want to do, but
it's freedom, it's liberty.
And you can again hear theechoes in our Declaration of
Independence when you readLocke and his emphasis on human
liberties and human rights.
And Locke has this idea thathumans are born sovereign
that you have right to yourbody, you have right to your

(19:02):
possessions, you have rightto your labor, you have right
to your property, And that'sgonna be a big thing for Locke
because it introduces somethingas a little bit different
as far as our relationshipto land is concerned.
So he imagines it this way.
He talks about us in the naturalworld and he says, humans have
their liberties and they havethe right to their selves,

(19:24):
to their persons, to theirpossessions, and to their labor.
So he has this idea in hismind of these many kings
and many queens that youare born a sovereign, and
I am born a sovereign.
And we share though thisnatural world, and he calls
it the state of nature.
And he just says, let's justimagine the state of nature.
If something is in thestate of nature it's

(19:46):
gonna do what nature does.
So imagine an apple tree.
The apple tree in the state ofnature, it is going to grow.
It's going to bud in thespring over the course of
the summer and into the fall.
It's going to produce an apple.
But if left in the state ofnature, that apple's going
to ripen, it's going to fallto the ground and it's gonna
decompose, and that will go onover and over year after year.

(20:07):
And that is what thestate of nature is.
Locke says if someone exertstheir labor and actually
takes something out of thestate of nature because their
labor is theirs, whateverthey remove from the state
of nature belongs to them.
It becomes their property.
And so in Locke's mind,we do not need permission

(20:29):
because we all, again, in thisimagined world, share what
is common, the natural world.
I don't need your permissionto go pick an apple use
my labor to remove it fromthe state of nature and
consume it because you don'thave authority over me.
Now, Locke in this theorysays there are limits to
this, and this is where itgets really interesting.
He says, there's limits tohow much one person can take

(20:51):
outta the state of natureand claim to be their own.
And the limit is this.
If I take, let's use ourapple tree for example.
I'm an, I'm a person whogets up early in the morning.
I'm a hard worker.
I go out there and I juststrip that apple tree bear
and I take every apple formyself and I hoard it up
in my room and I'm justnibbling on apples over there.
What I've done by doingthat is I've not allowed

(21:14):
you, or I've deprived youfrom the opportunity to use
your labor to take an appleoutta the state of nature.
But what's fundamentally wrongfor Locke is this, if I hoard
those apples up in my roomand they start to spoil, I've
wasted the produce becauseI've wasted the produce and
no one has had an opportunityto take it, that's wrong.
And so Locke has at least somelimits on this idea of how much

(21:38):
one can take from the state ofnature to make it their own.
But he says, wefigured out a way.
We figured out a way for aperson to own more land than
what they can make use of.
And he says, we figured out away to do that because I can
take those apples that I'vetaken outta the state of nature
and I can then exchange an applewith you for gold or silver.

(22:00):
And he says, I can hoard up asmuch gold or silver as I want,
and that will never spoil.
So he has this idea thatsocieties have entered into a
tacit agreement where one personcan own more land by tilling
it, cultivating it, usingtheir labor to make it theirs.
Then what they can make usefor if they exchange the
surplus for gold or silver.
And he has this idea thatone person or people can

(22:23):
hoard up more gold andsilver than they can make
use of, and that doesn'tspoil and that's not wrong.
So this is where we get thisidea of private property that
mike you through your labor,cultivating, tending, caring for
the land can make it your own.
You can say, this is mine.
He goes further to say that thenthe role of government is to

(22:43):
protect that private property.
So very early in theAmerican imagination is this
idea of private propertywhere individuals can own
land, and it is theirs.
And the role of governmentis to protect my property
from someone else comingand infringing upon it.

mike rusch (23:00):
I think As you lay this out, this starts
to sound somehow veryfamiliar, which I think.
It makes me maybe want todig into that a little bit
farther into those questions.
But, I and this conversation isrooted in this idea of Christian
ethics because that's beenthe dominant religion within
our country, and so it makessense to maybe start there.
I know that's not the onlyperspective that we bring to
the table, but in the formingof this country, that was

(23:23):
absolutely part of that presentfaith system, religious system.
And so I think within that kindof context I'm really curious
when you think about this ideaof the individual versus the
communal responsibilities, whatare the spiritual, maybe ethical
implications of this ideaof property and consumption.

(23:43):
And the almost, it sounds likethis justification of myself
being able to do what I want.

todd stockdale (23:50):
Yes, Mike I'll pick up on two
things you said there.
You've picked up on the ideaof the individual and Locke
has almost this mythical humanthat just appears outta nowhere
as this completely free andindependent human being that
has no need for anyone else,no need for society, no need
for a community but then onlybans together in society to

(24:11):
protect that individual'srights and liberties.
And as we know from experience,that's not how it works.
We are all born into acommunity, be it a family,
be it a small town, beit a faith community.
And we are in some waysnourished and brought
up in that community.
So first of all, if you'regonna critique Locke, Locke
has this very individualisticmindset, which again, is

(24:34):
coming outta the enlightenment.
And he is going to privilegethe individual and say, we
operate as individuals whothen only form societies then
to protect these individualliberties and rights.
That's not how theworld has always been.
That's that's certainlysomething that's very modern.

mike rusch (24:47):
Well, And it wasn't the world that
they arrived to either.

todd sto (24:49):
Excellent point, Mike.
Excellent point.
But as far as the ethicalimplications of this,
particularly around perhapsprofit that comes from land
ownership when it comes toconsumption a voice that has
been speaking to this space wasPope Francis and Pope Francis's
2015 and Cyclical Laudato si'.
He's very concernedabout our relationship

(25:11):
with the natural world.
Pope Francis is writing,obviously from a Christian
perspective, and so he'sgonna talk about creation
versus the natural world.
But he says, we haveinherited this relationship
with the natural world.
That sees the natural worldas a resource for profit,
as a resource for gain.
And that's very muchin the lockean mind.
Locke has this idea of howto make use of the land, how

(25:35):
to gain profit from the land.
And that is, I think ina lot of ways baked into
the American psyche.
Francis is going to wantto push back on that.
He's going to want to say, wedon't want to first think of
our relationship with creationas a source of profit and gain.
Francis in writingLaudato si' is concerned

(25:55):
about the natural world.
He's concerned about whatis going on ecologically
in our world and how thatimpacts the poorest among us.
Pope Francis draws hisinspiration from St. Francis
of Assisi and St. Francisof Assisi mendicant Friar
in the 12th, 13th century.
St. Francis is reallyremembered for several things.

(26:17):
But if you were to take hisministry and distill it into
kind of two buckets, it would becare for the natural world, and
it would be care for the poorand the vulnerable amongst us.
That really was hisfocus, so to speak.
Pope Francis draws hisinspiration from him and
is equally concerned aboutthe care for the natural
world and the care for thepoor and the vulnerable.

(26:40):
What he sees in St. Francisis this, St. Francis has a
different orientation towardsthe natural world than
perhaps the modern Americanmind does that sees it as a
source for profit or for gain.
He talks about relationality.
St. Francis would talk aboutSister Moon, would talk about
Mother Earth, brother Sky.

(27:01):
So you get this familiallanguage introduced through St.
Francis of the natural world.
And so we are operating notas someone who is looking at
the natural world and seeingas a source of profit or
gain, but actually seeing itas a family member and how we
would care for and protect andlook after a family member.

(27:23):
And so what Pope Francis doesis he says let's just imagine
if we reorientate ourselves andwe don't see the natural world
as a place for profit and gain,first and foremost, but it's
something of a fraternal orfamilial relationship that is
to be cared for and tended for.
And he does great work with thegenesis narrative, perhaps a

(27:46):
portion of the genesis narrativethat has been abused where
God gives humans dominion.
That word gives humans dominionover, over the created world.
Francis says if you lookclosely, God actually
defines what dominion means.
He defines it as totill and to keep.
So it is this caretakerrole that we have.
Again, think of familialrelationships, how we would

(28:08):
care for our family members.
Pope Francis is reallyconcerned about this.
He says, if we see the world,particularly the natural
world, first and foremostas a source of profit and
gain, what that usuallymeans is a couple things.
One, it usually means theresources of this world end
up in the hands of a few.
And Pope Francis says,either it's the first

(28:29):
comers or the more powerful.
So if you get there first, Imean that locking imagination,
and you are the one who startsto till this ground and you
start to make it your own, thenit's yours and you possess that.
You own that and youcan profit from that or.
If you're our Native Americanbrothers or sisters and
you're here first, but themore powerful come in and
drive you from that, theythen can possess that, right?

(28:51):
So he says, resources endup in the hands of a few,
and usually it's the firstcomer or the most powerful.
And this relationship of seeingthe land as a source of profit
gives us permission to almostexploit the land, almost to
take advantage of the land,to squeeze every little bit
of profit out of it, versus arelationship that is to till

(29:14):
and to keep and to care for notseeing it first and foremost
as a source of profit, but as abeautiful mystery to be enjoyed.
Pope Francis in his encyclicalLaudato si' talks about St.
Francis and St. Francis hadthis rule in the Friary that
one portion of the Friarygarden had to be untouched.
That basically.
To allow nature to do whatnature does and to sit back and

(29:36):
just to see the splendor andthe beauty and the awe of nature
being, nature of this naturalgifted world doing what it does.
And again, that is thisidea that Pope Francis is
pushing back on of seeingthe natural world as a place
for profit and exploitation,which engenders violence.

(29:56):
It of course, bringsabout consumerism as well.
So that is, and that of courseis Pope Francis' pushback
on some of these lockingideas of seeing profit as the
primary relationship that wehave with the natural world.

mike rusch (30:11):
Todd.
I think if we were to fastforward today, it's hard for me
to wrap my head around because.
What you're describing isnot where we are today.
This idea of what I own andthe property that I have is
really what defines my status,and it defines my ability
to belong in many ways.
And so this idea, especiallycoming from St. Francis,
this idea of people whodo not have they're left

(30:33):
outta that equation.
So like, how do I reconcilewhere we are today?
It feels like Locke's,ideology's won, if I'm honest.

todd stockdale (30:41):
Yeah.
Locke is operating in aworld that is pre-industrial.
And a lot of things will comeabout through the Industrial
Revolution particularly aroundthe idea of labor and the
idea of our relationship tothe produce of our labor.
That's going to really makeLocke and his purest vision
difficult to maintain.

mike r (31:03):
yeah, Todd, I hear that.
I think when we, I wannabe very careful because
Locke wasn't this personwho was maybe pursuing all
of these ethical ideas.
He was profited off theslave trade, for example.
And so these ideas weren'tmeant for everyone.
I help me, like when we thinkabout that, this starts to set
the stage for the privilege of afew, at the expense of the many,

todd stockdale (31:25):
100% with Locke there, mike.
Locke was really in his mindand in his writings arguing
for the property class andagainst the unproperty class.
And of course, notsurprisingly, the founding
documents of our countryprivilege, the property class.
And so there, there certainlyare not everyone benefiting from

(31:47):
Locke's ideas, although I willsay that a lot of our modern
notions of individual libertiesand human rights do owe a
bit of debt to, to, to Locke.
But Locke has had his criticsand probably the boogeyman
of them all, Carl Marx.
He had the advantage ofseeing what the world
looks like through theIndustrial Revolution.

(32:09):
And now we're in thepost-industrial world.
And this idea of labor Lockehas this, almost pure vision
of a of a field worker, tillingher land, tilling his land,
a field worker or an orchardowner collecting their apples.
The industrial Revolution justdisrupts all of that, right?
The dis the disruptionthat takes place first

(32:29):
with the advent ofmachinery on the farms.
And no longer do we need thosepeople who are working the
fields to know to, to do that.
So they're displaced.
They find themselves, rushingto the cities where the
factories are to find work.
And so Marx picks up thisidea of labor as well, and
where Locke saw labor assomething that was yours and
that you were able to, bytilling the land, by picking

(32:54):
the apple, make that yours, itbecame your private property.
Marx is gonna see somethingelse happening with labor.
He has a different view ofwhat labor is meant to be, and
he has a view about labor andour relationship with the land
that's different than Locke's.
Marx has this theory, its praxisis what he's known for, but
this theory that humans aremeant to change the land and by

(33:17):
changing the land or by changingthe natural world, express
their creativity through that.
So we can use somethingas simple as someone
who likes to garden.
What Marx would say is that asa human being, you have this
fundamental desire to interactwith the natural world and
to shape the natural world,and to change the natural

(33:37):
world and to express yourcreativity through that change.
Through your labor.
And when you do so, you'llfind deep satisfaction.
So someone who loves thegarden, that's exactly
what they're doing.
They're out thereand they're sweating.
They're using their labor.
They're landscaping.
They're moving dirt.
They're planting flowersand they're expressing their
creativity through thislandscaping or through the

(33:58):
garden work that they do.
And they step back from that atthe end of a long day of work
and they feel deeply satisfied.
And that's what Marx thinksthat humans are meant to do.
So humans are meant to not usetheir labor to take something
outta the state of nature andmake it theirs, but to use
their labor to change nature,to express their creativity.
And we can think of allkinds of different ways

(34:18):
that this would play out.
I'll use the examplebecause of where I'm going
with this of a shepherd.
And just imagine yourself ashepherd and you're tending
your sheep and you've beenthere during lambing season and
you've helped deliver the lamb,and you've made sure that he's
with his mother and that he'staken care of, and you raise
that lamb and you care for thatlamb, and that lamb mature into

(34:39):
a sheep, and then and throughyour labor you're working as
a shepherd in the fields, andthen you shearer that sheep,
and then you take the wooland that sheep and you spin it
and you dye it, and you nicheyourself this beautiful sweater.
How proud of thatsweater would you be?
Because it has come fromyour own labor, through your
own sweat, and it has takensomething that is in the

(35:00):
natural world, and you'veinteracted with the natural
world and you've changed it,and you've expressed your
creativity through that.
And Marx said you'd finddeep satisfaction in that.
I'm not saying Lockewould disagree.
Marx has the, again,advantage of seeing kinda what
industrialization does to that.
And so we'll move away fromthe hills of Scotland and the
shepherds up there down intoManchester, England, where

(35:24):
you're working in a factory,a textile factory, and you're
still using your labor.
But what are you doing?
You're actually not taking aproduct from start to finish
because the division of labor,which is very effective in
capitalism and industrialcapitalism you might have one
little job that day, and yourjob that day is just to sow the
sleeve on a sweater and it goesdown to the next person line.

(35:45):
You sew the sleeve on thenext sweater and it goes
down to the next person line.
You sow the sleeve, or maybeyou pull a lever that puts a
buttonhole in the sweater, butyour job is, your labor, so to
speak, is not that kind of purevision that, that Marx says.
Instead, you are working,taking your labor and
you're doing something verymonotonous, very routine no

(36:06):
skill required, no creativityis able to be expressed.
And then at the end of the day,and this is Marx's theory of
alienation, at the end of theday, it's not like you go down
to the end of the assembly lineand you pick out a sweater.
Because remember, for Locke,you take something outta the
state of nature and it's yours.
You don't do that in thecapitalist system as far as
Marx's understanding of that.

(36:27):
You don't go down theIndian assembly line and
pick out that sweater thatyou worked on all day.
Instead, you get a wage, youget a piece of paper and you
find yourself then because ofthat, deeply dissatisfied with
the work that you do, you nolonger find satisfaction in
your work because two things,one, you're not able to
express your creativity, andtwo, you don't actually get

(36:48):
to enjoy the produce of yourlabor instead, you get a wage.
So his critiqueof labor systems.
That would contra Locke isthat our labor is not meant
to take something outta thestate of nature and make
it our own and thereforemake it private property.
You don't have to know muchabout Marx to know he wasn't
a fan of private property.
But instead, our labor is meantto express our creativity by

(37:09):
shaping and changing nature.

mike rusch (37:12):
Yeah.
Todd, I think that'shelpful to understand that.
So our founding fathers,they were deeply influenced
by John Locke and that ideaof property and idea of
liberty and what that lookedlike from an individual
versus communal perspective.
I think that's super, superhelpful to, to understand the
kind of the foundation of that.
I'm curious, are are thereother things in there that

(37:32):
we need to consider thathave also influenced our
ideas of where we are today?

todd stockdale (37:37):
Yeah.
So in this context of talkingabout labor in a capitalist
system it brings to mind MaxWeber, a German sociologist
writing in early 19 hundreds.
And he's looking aroundthe world and he is
doing something mostsociologists don't do today.
He's making broadsweeping claims but
he's seeing something.

(37:58):
He's seeing countries thatare doing quite well with
capitalism and he's seeingcountries that are not
doing so with capitalism.
Now, one of the countriesthat's doing really
well with capitalism, ofcourse, is United States.
Yeah.
But he's seeingthe United States.
He's seeing England, butperhaps Germany as well.
They're doing really well incapitalism, and he looks at
these other countries and he'sseeing them not doing as well.

(38:19):
And they're countrieslike Italy, Spain, France,
maybe all of Latin America.
And he's noticing, wow,the Protestant countries or
countries that we would thinkof as being Protestant countries
are actually doing better withcapitalism than the countries
that would be Catholic.
And so he asked himself thisquestion, is there something
in the Protestant ethic thatmakes them more suited for

(38:43):
capitalism or provides afoundation for capitalism.
And so he begins to look at whathe calls sometimes the puritans.
Sometimes he calls themCalvinist Protestants.
Sometimes he calls themaesthetic Protestants.
But he's talking about ourpilgrims and he's talking
about the people who wetrace our story back to and
their values and their ethic.

(39:04):
And so it would be helpfulif you, just as I describe
this group of people that heanalyzes, think of the pilgrims.
You'll know whoI'm talking about.
And he says they havethis idea about labor.
It all goes back to labor, isthis has this idea about labor.
They viewed their workas a calling from God,
that God had called theminto their profession.
Today.

(39:25):
We oftentimes think of peoplewho are priests, moms, rabbis,
pastors, being called to work.
Our puritans they would'vethought of anyone.
Who was called into a professionto being called by God and
they were working for God.
And so the chief value for ourCalvinist Puritans aesthetic

(39:47):
Protestants was hard work,because if you're gonna work
for God, you better work hard.
And so hard work wastheir chief value and
therefore the chief sin waslaziness or slothfulness.
So they had that view ofwork and labor, and that's
the Protestant ethicthat Weber talks about.
Sometimes it's even referred toas the Protestant work ethic,

(40:09):
but they had a twin ethic thatkind of goes alongside that,
and that had to do with money.
The puritans, as you mightimagine, our pilgrims they
did not think that onecould spend lavishly, one
could only spend money onwhat was necessary to live.
They said you could enjoy.
Life and you couldenjoy yourself.
You just couldn'tspend money to do it.
And so they didnot live opulently.

(40:31):
And they were worried aboutthe accumulation of wealth.
They certainly made adistinction between pursuing
wealth, which meant, Hey,I'm gonna go set out into
this career 'cause I'mgonna make a lot of money.
And the attainment of wealth,the attainment of wealth
is I just happen to be in aprofession that pays a lot,
or I've made a lot in my inmy profession, and therefore
I have a lot of money.
They distinguish betweenthat, but they're very

(40:51):
fearful of the accumulationof wealth for one main reason.
And it goes back totheir work ethic.
It's a temptationtowards idleness.
If you have enough money,you no longer have to work.
And again, if the chief sinis slothfulness or idleness,
that's a great temptationto have a lot of money.
So this twin ethic has to dowith labor or work and wealth.
So what Weber does is he thenlooks at this and he says, how

(41:14):
does this provide a foundationfor capitalism to flourish?
And so let's just imagineyourself a cobbler.
You're a shoe maker, and you'remaking your shoes and you're
actually doing quite well at it.
You're well known in thecommunity, and you are quite
successful and you're makinga good deal of money, and
you start to acquire wealth.
And you know this as a Calvinistaesthetic Protestant, Puritan,

(41:39):
you can't spend that moneylavishly to have a great life.
But here's somethingelse you can't do.
You can't just put it in thebank and let it sit there
because the money then is idle.
The money's lazy, the money'snot working, and so you have
to put the money to work.
And so what you do is youinvest that money back into
your business because again,that's your calling and work
is what is fundamental andfundamental value in your ethic.

(42:02):
And so you start putting thatmoney back into your business.
Then extrapolate that over 4, 5,6 generations where you've had
limited consumption and wealthacquisition with all the capital
going back into the business.
And next thing you got alittle corporation going.
You got a little, Nikeshoe factory as it were.
That's Weber's theoryof how capitalism is

(42:24):
established and flourishesin this Protestant ethic.
But what Weber also is noted foris his work on secularization
and he's very much aware thatthe majority of Americans today,
or at least in 1904, weren'tdoing their work as a calling
from God, but they were actuallydoing their work as we do today.

(42:44):
This is my job and thisis what I do, and this
is how I make money.
And so the religiousor spiritual dimensions
are no longer there.
And he says, now, wealthacquisition in the United
States looks like sport.
It's just whoever can gain themost, whoever can win the most,
whoever can possess the most.
He says it's differentthan the Puritan mindset.
He quotes a Puritan saintwho says that external goods

(43:08):
should lie on the shoulder ofa saint, like a light cloak.
They can be thrownaway at any moment.
What that means is if you'rein that Calvinistic Puritan
aesthetic prostate mindset.
You wake up, you work hard, youmake a ton of money, you invest
it back in the business grows.
It flourishes.
It thrives.
Come Monday morning,you're gonna go to work.
Your life's not gonnalook any different.

(43:28):
You're not gonnahave a big house.
You're not gonna havelots of possessions.
It's gonna look the same.
Conversely, if youwork really hard, the
tides turn against you.
You're not making it.
You're struggling.
Your business is floundering.
On Monday morning, you'regonna get up and go to work.
Nothing changes in thatpuritan mindset with your
relationship to work andlabor vis-a-vis wealth.

(43:50):
What Weber says about thosepossessions that should lie
on the shoulder of a saint,like a light cloak has become
an iron cage and we're nowtrapped in, in, in the system.

mike rusch (44:01):
I still go back to maybe where we started with
the origin of this, right?
You talked about.
Pope Francis and this idea ofrelationality to our world,
you'd talk about John Lockeand this idea of property,
which is, I would sayanti-relational in many ways.

todd stockdale (44:16):
Very much

mike rusc (44:16):
And you fast forward, to modern day, and here we
have this crisis, what Iwould consider this crisis
of belonging or we've beenretreating into these places
of faith and power that seemdeeply disconnected even
though that we as a cultureseem to have connected
them together really well.
We know obviously the worldhas changed since John Locke's

(44:38):
idea of property has emerged.
We've now a couple, maybe threecenturies into it, if you will.
How do we start to reconcileback to this idea of who we are
within this American mythologyand who we should be when So
much of what I would consider,and this is my own maybe
personal opinion so many ofthe systems institutions that

(44:59):
we live in are this, they'rejust deeply anti relational.
And we heard this from MelissaHorner back at the very
beginning of the season of whatthis idea of settler colonialism
does in this anti relationality.
And if we're talking aboutbelonging as a people.
Where do we return to, to findthis core or this idea of how

(45:20):
we belong, to what we belong,and maybe to where we belong?

todd stockdale (45:24):
Yeah, that's a great question, Mike.
I think you're exactly right.
I don't think thatwe can return.
I do think that it isimportant to be aware of some
of the ideas that we holdso dear to us came out of a
particular place and context.
And as you mentioned,so much has changed.
And so it is sometimes difficultto keep those principles,

(45:46):
those ideas in place givenso much has changed, I think
for me and as an instructorwith my students covering the
material that I cover and Ipreface it to my students, the
course we take is a course thatsurveys so much that I'm an
expert in almost none of it.
The idea for me is to first andforemost recognize these things.

(46:09):
Recognize that our views, ourvalues, our systems of labor
have come from somewhere.
It's just not the way theworld has always been.
It won't be the waythe world always is.
And so we can we imaginea bit so can we imagine a
different future, a differentway of being, a way that

(46:31):
privileges the human being, away that privileges the human
experience a way that is notalienating and dehumanizing.
Imagining a different futureand what we prioritize
and are we prioritizingthings that are going to
lead to human flourishing.
I think for me, I teachthese classes at Seton Hall
and I tell my students allthe time why I'm doing it.

(46:52):
I let them know I'm notdoing it for the money.
I do find satisfaction from it.
So I guess I could sayI'm doing it for that.
But I tell my studentsI'm doing it because
I'm a 53-year-old man.
My wife and I have no children.
We're gonna need societyto take care of us when
we get older, and I wannalive in a good society.
Yeah.
And so I want my students whowill be the ones who are making

(47:14):
decisions about the life that Ilive as an 80, 85, 90-year-old
human to be empathetic, tounderstand what it means to be
human, to understand what humanflourishing looks like, to want
for, and to work for systemsand structures that provide
for that human flourishing.
That would be my hope.

mike rusch (47:33):
I can't help but ask as we think through this as
you've described these systemsof property and labor and
we've spent a whole, we'vespent 35 episodes talking
through really what it lookslike for people who have been
on the underside of powerto tell their stories about
what these systems have done.
Are these systems things weshould think about reforming?

(47:53):
Are these systems thatcan become better or are
these systems that needto really be dialed back?
And we really have tofundamentally think about
how we approach our life inthis world going forward in a
fundamentally different way.

todd stockdale (48:10):
Yeah, so I'll leave it to someone
else to write the newbook on labor and work.
And our relationshipto our natural world.
I have too much respect for thepeople that I've been talking
about, Locke and Francis andWeber and Marx, to think I
can stand in their shoes.
But I will say to that questionof reform, I do think in

(48:31):
speaking particularly frommy place as a Christian, that
we are to participate in thisreform in the systems and the
structures of our world to seeit to be a more equitable, a
more just a more compassionate,more caring society that does
seek to see humans flourishing.

mike rusc (48:51):
So as we near the end of this season and we talk
about these foundational ideasof what created our country.
And really the idea is can wejust, whether we agree with
them or not, I'll leave to thecritics that are listening,
but I think it's important thatwe're aware of these, right?
And that we understand theinfluences that they have
over us, over our culturethat we don't even think

(49:13):
about on a day to day.
And so I think in many wayswe've got this beginning point
where we start to talk aboutthis idea of Settler Colonialism
and its anti relationality.
And we come back to what kindof a broader definition of that
you've described around, I, Iwould also consider property.
I, I think we, we set thisin the beginning of anti

(49:34):
relationality as well too.
If I were to ask youwhat does it look like to
move towards that idea ofrelationality, how do we
do that in our world today?
I think that's my.
Burning question becauseI, if we can't do that,
then what is belonging?
What is belongingultimately rooted in?
And so from your perspectiveas someone in practical

(49:56):
theology with an understandingof how these systems came to
be, how do you think aboutwhat it means to move back
to this idea of relationalityin our world today?
That's a big question.

todd stockdale (50:08):
That's a great question, Mike.
I'm gonna do a plug forthe humanities, Mike.
Okay.
I'm a humanities instructor.
I think it is so importantwe talk about relationality
and a move back towardsrelationality that we stop
and we listen to one another.
That's more or lesswhat my classes are.
My classes are listening toothers, and that's others,
across cultures, across time,trying to understand their

(50:31):
world, trying to understandtheir complexities, trying
to make sense of theirvalues and how those values
make sense in that context.
As I do that with my students,my hope for them is once they
leave the classroom, they'llbe able to do that in their
lives, that they'll be ableto, whether it is an industry

(50:51):
or whether it is a profession,or whether it's a community.
Wherever they find themselves,they'll be able to truly
hear the other, trulytry to see something from
the other's perspective.
Truly try to understand thevalues of someone that they
don't share those values with.
And as you do, you start tobridge some chasms and you

(51:13):
realize, wow, one thing wedo share is our humanity.
And in that humanexperience, as we've seen
it throughout history,whether it's Plato, Socrates.
And as we look back into theancient world and the medieval
world, the early modern world,and we see these people who

(51:34):
are trying to respond totheir environment, trying to
respond to where they findthemselves geographically,
culturally, religiously.
They're doing so in a human way.
They're drawing upon theirhumanity that we all share
and respond to these.
So when I think about the dayand I think about belonging,

(51:55):
for me it's this solidaritywith humanity that we're all
human beings, who in some way,whether we take time to reflect
on it or not, are taken upby the big questions of life.
Is there meaning?
Is there purpose?
What is real?
What is true?
How can I, findfulfillment and happiness.
We're all moving towards that.

(52:16):
And if you can begin tosee, that's what's animating
everything from a corporateCEO to a migrant worker looking
for flourishing, lookingfor fulfillment looking for
ways that they can be happy.
Then you can say, we'reactually in this together.

mike rusch (52:33):
thank you.
I mean, I thinkthat's the issue.
Is that when we look at,because that's not where
we started as a country.
I even, and I'll just say it,even though we wanna believe
it, even though we wantto assume good intentions.
I guess my question is thereality is, if I'm listening
to you, is that the reality isthat's not where we started.
I know that may be, oh, Idon't know, it may feel outta

(52:56):
reach for some people, butI think it's important to
acknowledge, if I understandwhat you're saying, that's
just not where we started.
So should we be surprisedas a culture that we
maybe are having a reallyhard time getting there?
I don't, that, that's what itfeels like to me is that we
have to step back and be honestwith ourselves that are so
much of our understanding ofwhere're where we began is just

(53:18):
not what you just articulated.
And so I just, I, yeah, Ijust, maybe that's me and my
opining in many ways, but itfeels like we shouldn't be
surprised at the difficultythat it takes to get us there.

todd stockdal (53:29):
No, we shouldn't.
And if it were easy, they'dhave figured it out long time
ago, and we'd be living underthe same patterns and systems
that were present at theearliest days of civilization.

mike rusch (53:39):
But we don't get an out, do we get the opportunity
to just say, yeah, forget it.
We're just gonna continuedoing what we're doing.

todd stockdale (53:45):
No, we don't.
We don't.
Not at all.
And I think we see peoplewho are critiquing, pushing
back questioning, and I thinkthat's valuable too, Mike.
I think it's important,as I mentioned earlier, to
recognize the waters thatwe swim in because you have
to recognize 'em first.
Once you recognize 'em, thenyou can begin to critique them,

(54:06):
analyze them, look at them incomparison to other ways that
people throughout history anddifferent cultures have lived.

mike rusch (54:14):
I finish all of my conversations with two
questions, and so I like ifwe can't figure that out,
what are your fears forwhere we are as a people?

todd stockdale (54:22):
I think my biggest fears are tribalization,
and it's rooted in a senseof a need to belong and we
find our tribes to belong to.
We find the peoplethat are like us.
That see the world likewe see it and we just
reinforce that in our tribe.
And we of course demonizethe other ways of living,

(54:43):
the other ways of being.
And so my fear is that ratherthan a larger, perhaps more
holistic understanding ofbelonging and that solidarity
that we share with thewhole human race we'll silo
ourselves and will find peopleto, to think just like us,
who live just like us, whobelieve what we believe and

(55:05):
will cut ourselves off fromany other kind of influence.
And that's a road Idon't wanna go down.
Again, Another plugto the humanities.
Just the experience of loan,of being forced to think
about how other people thinkis such a service in life.
And it's a skill thatcan be developed.
It's a trait of empathythat can be nurtured that

(55:29):
I think will lead us intoa more flourishing society.

mike ru (55:33):
Todd, one of the themes that we have really tried to
find in every conversation wehad is this idea of wholeness.
And this may be makingyour brain explode just
'cause of what you look atthis over the centuries.
For me, I look at itwhat it looks like today.
You may look at this overthe centuries, but when I say
that and you think about whatwe've just talked about and

(55:54):
all your experience, like whatdoes wholeness look like to
you today for us as a people.

todd stockdale (55:59):
We ask what wholeness means.
I've used the wordbeing fully human.
I could use a different wordbeing authentically human.
And that's me personally, youpersonally, our communities
personally living authentically,not trying to be someone
or a people who we are not.

mike r (56:18):
You've spent your career looking at what societies
look like when they are wholeand when they are fractured.
And I'd love your perspectiveof what do you see maybe are
the common threads of wholenessthat maybe allow those societies
to, to continue to pursuemaybe what it looks like to be

(56:38):
a people who are fully human?

todd stockdale (56:40):
Brother?
That's the question.

mike rusch (56:43):
Yeah.

todd stockdale (56:43):
The problem is a lot of the
dysfunction in society's.
And they're juston a repeat cycle.
It's always about othering.
What Yeah.
What takes them out of that.
Yeah.
Yeah.
It's interesting.
I like the way you frame thatby talking about kind of other
societies, the things thatthey've done and not done.
You do tend to see some ofthe same patterns repeating.
And oftentimes the patternsthat get formed are the patterns

(57:07):
that are disrupting society thataren't creating flourishing.
And for me, it perhaps couldbe things to avoid in society.
One of those is othering.
The idea of finding apeople, finding a religion,
finding a an ethnic groupto other, and that again.
Going back to that ideatribalism, that allows us

(57:29):
to come together and itprovides some stability and
solidity with the core, butat the cost of a broader,
more holistic community.
So that'd be one.
Two.
One of the things that younotice when you do survey
across history and acrossculture is how individualistic

(57:50):
western society andAmerican society can be.
And this goes back toLocke, this goes back to
this imaginary person.
Locke has being fully formedhuman being with perfect
liberty and no need to societyonly arranging themselves in
society so that their individualliberties can be protected.
That's new and that certainlyhas taken root in the

(58:11):
American imagination, butit's not how people live.
It's not how peopleacross history have lived.
It's not how people todayacross cultures live.
And so I think that pushingback against some of that
individualism that is bakedinto the American psyche
would be of great valuein fostering wholeness.

mike rusch (58:32):
I would subscribe to that as well too.
Thank you for sitting downand having this conversation.
And thanks for the work thatyou're doing in the world.
It's been a joy to call you afriend for so many years, but
you've helped me walk throughthese conversations of belonging
and understanding and identity,and it's been a, a joy.
And Todd, thank you very much.
It's been a pleasure toshare table with you.

todd stockdale (58:51):
Mike, I would say the same.
It is such a privilege to behere, and it has been such
a privilege to watch you dothis and to listen along.
And I'm just so thankful forthe work that you're doing and
the place that I call home.

mike rusch (59:03):
Love it.
Thanks Todd.
Well, an incredible thank youto Dr. Stockdale for helping
us wrestle with the veryframeworks we've inherited.
The stories that shapehow we understand good or
bad, who we see as worthyor unworthy, included or
excluded, preserved or erased.
When these stories come wrappedin theology and the mythology

(59:24):
of a nation, they don't justinfluence what we believe.
They form the very lensthrough which we see the
world in one another.
Dr. Stockdale speaks from withinthe Christian tradition, and we
began here because Christianityhas long been the dominant
faith perspective in theshaping of the United States.
It's the tradition thatbaptized manifest destiny,
blessed conquest, andmoralized inequality, and

(59:46):
also one that has sparkedmovements of liberation
and resistance and repair.
It doesn't seem to me thatfaith has ever found neutral.
And while Christianityis not the only tradition
that has shaped this place,it's the one most entangled
into our political andcultural foundations.
To really understand thesystems we live in, we have
to understand how faithand especially Christian
theology was used toconstruct those systems.

(01:00:08):
How it defined who belonged andwho didn't, who was human and
who was disposable, what wassacred and what could be taken.
My hope was that Todd couldoffer us a deeper way of seeing
the divide between the two.
This is a really importantquestion so that we can
begin asking what kind offaith and what kind of future
might lead us somewhere else.
This episode sits nearthe end of our season.

(01:00:29):
At the beginning, if MelissaHorner helped us confront
settler colonialism froman indigenous perspective,
the theft, the vacancy, andthe cost of not belonging.
Then with Todd, we steppedinto the philosophical and
theological scaffolding ofsorts that made that erasure
seem justified, even moral.
We begin to ask, what if thestory underneath it is the story

(01:00:49):
of what it means to be human?
And what systems have taught usto believe about one another?
Within all of it, how do webegin to tell a different story.
From here, we have threeepisodes left, and so we
begin to return to where thisseason started on a gravel
road in Western Benton Countyoverlooking a cemetery long
forgotten In our history.
We have a final story to tellabout some of the earliest

(01:01:10):
enslaved people that werebrought to Northwest Arkansas,
and this time their descendantswill have the last word.
This season of the underview isan invitation to see what has
been hidden, to hear what hasbeen silenced, and to remember
what has been erased, all inthe hopes, if it's possible, of
healing what has been broken.
We're learning to tell thestory of this place in full,

(01:01:31):
so that truer belongingmight become possible.
I wanna say thank you forlistening and thank you for
being the most important part ofwhat our community is becoming.
This is the under view,an exploration in the
shaping of our place.