Inspire Change SEASON 7-298 Philosophy Politics & the Fragile Work of Democracy

This week on Inspire Change, Gunter deep dives into a conversation on philosophy, politics and the fragile work of democracy. He will ask the question:  how philosophy offer politcs at this moment? How do we keep democracy healthy? Tune in for this mindful conversation as we answer those questions.

#InspireChange #Philosophy #Science #Reflection #Contemplation #SelfDevelopment #Masculinity #MakingGoodMenGreat

This week's gratitude we are changing it up by giving gratitude to listeners in both the USA and around the globe.  For the US, our gratitude goes out to those of you listening in Alabama, for landing at #10 in the USA, particularly our listeners in Alabaster for bringing your state to the top 10, for positive social change.  Next we want to thank our listeners in the Philippines for always supporting Global Positive Social Change and  we appreciate your dedication, as you brought your Country to #4 on the Top (5) Global Listeners List. Yes #4,  CONGRATULATIONS !!!!!  You are now in the Top 4 globally.  Which warrants a special thanks to our listeners in Metro Manila, Central Luzon, Davao Region for bringing your country to #4 globally. Since we are focused on the Philippines, we would like to take a moment to give a very personal shout out to our team member & administrative assistant,  Dessie Bien, thanks for all you do, to help continue Inspiring Change.  We thank YOU for tuning in and promoting positive social change.  This makes you a part of Gunter’s efforts in transforming not only men's lives but lives in general and we are grateful you have joined us. I, DeVonna Prinzi the Co-Exec Producer and our Showrunner Miranda Spigener-Sapon sincerely thank you and ask that you please take the time to like, follow, subscribe, and share as your efforts make a difference to everyone here at Inspire Change with Gunter.   Please remember If you want to share your story of social change, feel free to reach out  to the show directly. Please see the show-notes for our contact information.As always thank you to each and every one of our listeners, but most importantly please keep Inspiring positive social change.

Become a supporter of this podcast: https://www.spreaker.com/podcast/inspire-change-with-gunter--3633478/support.

Gunter Swoboda and Lorin Josephson's neo-noir/supernatural thriller novel Amulets of Power, Book I A Brian Poole Mystery is officially ON SALE EVERYWHERE you like to get book, but if you want a discount please consider ording direct. ANY LISTENER who order's direct will get a surprise gift. https://shop.ingramspark.com/b/084?params=3RoOA6kVQ7ZgmqSK9LdnvNyDAZZFsg9IMaLUaprPgXK

Make sure you LIKE SUBSCRIBE & FOLLOW our new Official YouTube Channel of Video Shorts series: https://www.youtube.com/@InspireChangewithGunterSwoboda/videos where we will be adding new videos and content every week from Gunter and our guests.  https://www.youtube.com/@InspireChangewithGunterSwoboda/videos

Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
Hello, listeners, it's good to siboa here with some exciting news.
We're on the lookout for sponsors to join us on
our incredible journey with Inspired Change with Conta. If your
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(00:24):
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your brand will connect with listeners who truly value thoughtful
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(00:47):
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health Podcasts. For more information on how to become sponsor,
please reach out to Miranda Spegner sap On, our showrunner
and executive producer. We'd love to explore how we can

(01:09):
work together to inspire change. Now. Thank you for your
continued support, and let's keep inspiring change together.

Speaker 2 (01:18):
You're listening to Inspire Change, the broadcast that strives to educate, motivate,
and empower men to challenge traditions of masculinity to guide
us through the intricacies and intersections of emotions, relationships, and
male identity is renownced psychologists, author and speaker Gunter Swubota.
This is Inspire Change.

Speaker 1 (01:40):
Before I begin the actual podcast, I would like to
respectfully acknowledge the gategor people of the Order Nation, who
are the traditional custodians of the lane on which I work.
I would also like to pay my respects to their elders,
past and present. Welcome everybody to another episode of Inspire

(02:02):
Change with Gunta. I'm your host. On Sunday, in cities
across Australia, thousands have marched against immigration. Some say it's
about housing, cost of living and infrastructure strain yep. Among
the banners, we've seen extremist symbols and coordinated far right

(02:23):
groups trying to ride the wave. So I'm going to
pose a question today, what does philosophy offer politics at
this moment and in moments like this, and how do
those ideas help protect democracy when fear is loud and

(02:44):
certainty is cheap. Welcome to Inspired Change. I'm going to
svote your host, and this show is about redefining masculinity
and culture through the making good men great network and
what makes me look at both the inner work and

(03:05):
the civic work. The personal is political, and I have
to say so it's vice versa as well. Today I
want to weave some philosophical threads Hannah R and Carl Popper,
Judenhrbabus into the very practical question of how we keep

(03:25):
democracy healthy when anti immigration protests turn heated, and more importantly,
when extremists try to hide behind the everyday concerns of
ordinary moms and dads. So what do we think the
protests reveal? Well, for a start, there was a significant

(03:50):
gender bias, so men were very highly represented in this
group and not so much women. So over the weekend,
the March for Australia rallies were held across the major cities,

(04:16):
and what they we're calling for is a reduction in
what protesters termed mass immigration. Counterprotesters showed up too, condemning
the rallies as racist and warning of far right infiltration.
Political leaders weighed in with statements about social cohesion and

(04:37):
the dangers of extremists groups piggybacking on mainstream grievances. Now
here's the crucial point. Reporting indicates that neo Nazi networks
didn't just attend they in fact organized and used the
optics of ordinary people to launder white supremaci supremacist ideas

(04:57):
like remigration. That's a tactic normalized rhetoric by wrapping it
in everyday anxieties. Now you might want to ask the
question why does this matter? Because when public frustration about rents, mortgages,

(05:18):
or hospital wait times gets narratively stable to a radically
escape board, we move from policy debate to identity panic.
That is exactly the terrain in which democracy is most fragile.

(05:41):
So let's talk about philosophies first warning, and that pertains
to Hannah Arend. Writing after the catastrophes of the twentieth century,
she worned that great evils can be carried by simple thoughtlessness,
ordinary people suspending judgment, outsourcing moral responsibility, and letting slogans

(06:08):
do their thinking. The banality of evil wasn't about mustache
twirling villains. It was about the everyday refusal to examine
what we're being asked to go along with her lessons
for us, demagogery thrives when people stop thinking with others

(06:30):
and start thinking against them. At protests like these, the
line between legitimate policy concerns and the laundering of extremist
ideologies crossed. When human beings become abstractions. The problem the

(06:50):
flood the other Auran's remedy is not mere civility. It's
a return to active public judgment, slow dialogical, and resistant
to simplification. The next bit is it's just about housing

(07:15):
story and why that frame is particularly dangerous. Throughout this
you'll hear a claim most of these people aren't Nazis,
they're just worried about housing and the cost of living.
Two things can be true. People are worried about costs,

(07:38):
and extremist groups exploit these worries to struggle and smuggle
in racial hierarchies. They struggle with them because they rest
debit from what could be a reasonable dialogue into racism.

(08:01):
Political science gives us a nuance. Some research finds status
threat fear of losing group dominance was a stronger predictor
of support for hard to write projects than personal economic hardship.
Others show coalitions can be built from both resentment and

(08:21):
real economic exposure to shocks. The point isn't to deny
material stress. It's to refuse the move that says material
stress justifies dehumanization. Now history as a sharper edge. Scholars

(08:41):
like Ian Kershaw and Robert Gelatley have shown how ordinary
Germans often accommodated or supported the Nazi project, not because
every person were Swastia out of pure ideological zeal, but
because the regime focus and fused economic revival, status restoration,

(09:06):
and the racial mythology into a compelling, if deadly story.
Explaining participation is not excusing it, minimizing it. They were
just worried about bread and rent. Is how we forget
the moral stakes. So when someone says it's not Nazism,

(09:27):
it's housing, my response is, and what narratives are being
attached to that housing anxiety? Who benefits if resentment gets
a target with a face. Now, one of the things
that philosophy does is it trains us to catch the
sleight of hand. Now there's a very interesting philosopher of science,

(09:51):
Carl Popper, and he argued that an open society survives
actually by criticism, pluralism and institutions that make peaceful corrections possible.
But he added a hard lesson the paradox of tolerance.
If we are infinitely tolerant, even of movements committed to

(10:14):
ending tolerance, then tolerance disappears. Democracies therefore can and must
draw lines against organized dehumanization and incitement. That is not
illiberal it self defense for a free society. Poppus ethic

(10:36):
pairs well with the making Goodman great Lens. Patriarchy's five
pillars territory, hierarchy, acquisition, competition, and combativeness are precisely the
energy's extremist politics seek to inflame. But sure masculinity isn't passive.

(10:56):
It's principle. It says we will argue hard about housing policy,
and we will not outsource our frustration to race hate.
That's a boundary, and that is moral adulthood. Another thinker,
really solid thinker, was Jugen Harbor Mars, and here gives

(11:20):
us a positive project, a public sphere with citizens' test
reasons in common, guided not by domination but by mutual justification.
Now this isn't a Kumba fantasy. It's a demanding practice,
listening across differences, checking claims, allowing better arguments to win.

(11:48):
When protests become a stage for who can shout the
ugly slogan public reason with us. When communities convene deliberative
forums on zoning, migration, targets, infrastructure, democracy gains muscle memory.

(12:09):
If the fuel is cost of living pain, address the
pain directly. Now. This comes from Martha Nusbam's capabilities approach
and Amita Sin's work reminds us that freedom requires material
and institutional conditions housing, health, education, safety, so people can

(12:33):
choose lives they value. That's not soft, it's the foundation
for a resilient polity. The more we secure these capabilities
for everyone, the less oxygen there is for scapegoing escapegoating politics.
So yes, building dwellings, fixed, planning, invest in infrastructure, set

(12:58):
migration targets transparent, but refuse narratives that turn neighbors into enemies.
That's how we do policy without poisoning the culture. So
let me offer ten habits drawing on these philosophers Iron Popper, Harbor,

(13:21):
Mass Sneyder, and the Making Goodman Great ethos that any
of us can practice. When the streets head up, do
not obey in advance. Before sharing that clip or joining
that chance, slow down, ask what is this teaching me
to feel about other people? Two name red lines. Peaceful

(13:46):
protest is sacrisanc intimidation and dehumanization are not. And that's
Poppa's paradox supplied. Three, separate grievance from scapegard housing frustration
is valid, radicalized blame is not. Four Practice public reason

(14:10):
insist on forums, local councils, town halls, where claims mean evidence.
Number five counter slogans with stories. Share concrete stories of
migrants as neighbors, colleagues, cars, the real people, not abstractions,
not avatars of cartoons. Number six audit your feeds. Extremists

(14:37):
grow by algorithmic outrage, curate your sources, and reward correction.
Number seven unmasked laundering tactics. When extremists slope themselves in
ordinary concerns, call it what it is. Recent reporting has
documented exactly that playbook. Number eight build cross pressure communities,

(15:03):
joint groups where not everyone thinks like you. It immunizes
against echo chambers and radicalization. Number nine channel energy to policy,
support evidence based housing reforms rather than culture war spectacles.
Number ten. The last one model mature masculinity, courage without cruelty,

(15:31):
conviction without contempt. The making good men great path replaces
domination with stewardship. So from a clinical work, I've learned
to spot when anxiety reaches for control in male socialization.
Many of us inherit fear often disguised as toughness of certainty,

(15:57):
protests that center care dignit. The in debate can be
part of a democratic hygiene. Protests that's senter dehumanization are
acting out an anxious bid for dominance. And that's why
language matters. When we say invasion, we physiologically recruit threat systems.

(16:22):
When we say planning, target supply, inclusion will recruit problem solving,
same nervous system, different politics. So what should our leaders
fundamentally do? Leadership, political media community has to walk into gum.

(16:44):
So firstly, we need to condemn extremism explicitly, no winks,
no euphemisms, Hold open forums where policy is debated in daylight,
published transparent migration planning tied to housing and infrastructure capacity.

(17:06):
We also need to invest in social cohesion, civic education,
interfaith dialogues, and programs that put people in shared projects. Also,
we need to protect the space for counter speech because,
as arent would remind us, thinking flourishes when citizens speak

(17:27):
and judge together. So what's my closing reflection? I want
to return to that tempting simplification. They weren't Nazis, they
were just worried about housing in history and in therapy,
what we're worried about does not absolve what we do

(17:49):
with that worry. Ordinary Germans didn't all begin as ideological fanatics,
but enough accepteded or benefited from an order built on
exclusion and violence. The moral sleepwalking is the warning. Democracy

(18:13):
is not self cleaning. It's a practice thinking together, drawing
boundaries against dehumanization, solving problems without sacrificing people. That's philosophy
doing what it was always meant to do, not abstracting
us out of the world, but returning us to it

(18:37):
all the wiser. So if this episode resonated, share it
with a friend, start a conversation at your local council,
or host a kitchen table forum about housing that begins
with one rule, no escapegoats. If you want tools to
build that inner steadiness and outer current, check out the

(19:01):
Making Good Men Great Framework and all that comes with it. So, folks,
if nothing else, take this away as food for thought. Remember,
philosophy proceeds signs and politics. So this is me good

(19:22):
to Swaboda. I hope you will carry this with you
and the courage takes compassion and courage with care will
always inspire change. So until next time. This is me
signing off.

Speaker 3 (19:39):
Greetings everyone. This week we take a look both in
the US and around the globe. For the USA, our
creditude goes out to those of you listening in Alabama
for landing number ten in the USA, particularly our listeners
and Alabaster for bringing your state to the top ten
for positive social change. Next, we want to thank our

(20:01):
listeners in the Philippines for always supporting global positive social
change and we appreciate your dedication as you brought your
country to number four on the top five global listeners list. Yes,
number four. Congratulations, you are now in the top four globally,

(20:21):
which warrants a special thanks to our listeners in Metro Manila,
Central Luzon de Voo Region for bringing your country to
number four globally. Since we're focused on the Philippines, we
would like to take a moment to give a very
personal shout out to our team member and administrative assistant Desibien.

(20:42):
Thanks for all that you do to continue to inspire change.
We thank you for tuning in and promoting positive social change.
This makes you a part of Gunter's efforts in transforming
not only men's lives, but lives in general, and we're
grateful you've joined us. I Devana Press, the co executive
producer and our showrunner Miranda Speigner Sappone sincerely thank you

(21:06):
and ask that you please take the time to like, follow, subscribe,
and share, as your efforts make a difference to everyone
here at Inspire Change with Gunter. Please remember if you
want to share your story of social change, feel free
to reach out to the show directly. Please see the
show notes for our contact information. As always, thanks to

(21:27):
each and every one of our listeners, and most importantly,
keep inspiring positive social change.

Speaker 1 (21:35):
Love to hear from you, and if you're interested, please
check out my work on www Dot Gotoboda dot com
or www Dot gutman grit dot com.

Speaker 2 (21:52):
Thank you for listening to Inspire Change, a broadcast for
us to educate, motivate, and empowerment to challenge traditions of masculinity.
For more information on the making Good Men Great movement,
or for individual or group coaching sessions with Gunter, visit
Goodmangrade dot com.