14 Comments
User's avatar
Hudson E Baldwin lll's avatar

I could not agree more.. If you're not pissed off and at least a little bit broken in today's world, you're not right. Or, you don't have a soul.....

Expand full comment
Mark Milne's avatar

Thank you for another excellent discussion! This time, as I ran through the forest and listened to it, I managed to interrupt the podcast only once to dictate a note to myself on its content before going back to it. When it was over, I thought “What? An hour already?”

The opening comments questioning the notion of what is to be seen as “normal” in a world as bent as ours were perfect and reminded me of Spock’s famous line that in an insane society, the sane person must appear insane, and then later I recalled the scene from the film “Jaws” when Chief Brody is confronted by the mother of a boy who was killed by the shark and is told “It’s your fault!” because Brody knew about the shark but didn’t close the beaches, at the insistence of the mayor, who is also present and who then tells Brody “Sorry, she’s wrong” after the woman leaves, whereupon Brody says “No, she isn’t.” We know that it is perfectly normal to react to all kinds of things the way we often do, but we are still told to deny that, to consider our reaction and our emotions as wrong, or as a sign of weakness. We may lie to ourselves, or be lied to by others about this, but I hope we know better. Some of the time it is people trying to cover their asses who tell us we are wrong, that we need to be repaired so that we can get back in there and make our expected "contribution to society."

The discussion that centered on the themes of mind-body, and logic-feeling, Western-indigenous made me think of Bruce Lee’s important comment (you would have had to be a fan and to have read books about him to know this, as it didn’t come from one of his films!) that it is wrong to speak of “yin and yang,” to divide it into these two pieces, because “it is never two.” This is a key to helping us avoid the contradictions we think see when finding apparent conflicts between, for example, “being logical” and “being emotional” or focusing on “body” rather than “spirit” or mind, that too few of us, perhaps many of them scientists, may pay attention to. When we say that a particular subject requires us to “leave logic behind” we aren’t saying for example that “now it’s time to be unreasonable” are we? It is perfectly reasonable to approach a subject from an angle other than what our “purely logical” tendency might seem to be telling us. In other words, there are good reasons for being “unreasonable,” and a logic to setting logic aside. In neither case are we suggesting being simply random or chaotic, or thinking randomly or chaotically. “There is a method to my madness!” My point is that when it comes to being logical, rational, emotional, mind-focused or body- or spirit-focused, we shouldn’t be afraid to try another method when one way isn’t working for us, shouldn’t be afraid to “listen to our bodies” and we also shouldn’t think that in going one way we are really departing from the other way quite the way we may think.

Expand full comment
nadine's avatar

It’s not either/or - it’s both/and. Which came first - sick society or sick earth? I think we know it is sick society rooted in capitalism, but it is still not either or if we can move into true system changes through well-being lense for planetary and human health. The sicknesses in both society/culture/dominant social paradigms and a sick planet is all inextricably linked and we can’t heal one without healing the other. I am sure I am stating the obvious. I’ve used Steffi’s 2021 article in the Journal of Social Work in classes with environmental studies students and it’s brilliant. Thank you for this interview. I am now going back to watch again and take copious notes!

Expand full comment
nadine's avatar

To further state the obvious, we can’t separate the individual from society, anymore than the individual human is separate from the tree, the meadow (as Steffi says) and all other beings. Humans (individuals in aggregate) have co-created this society, which emerged from our imaginations, we designed this, we are the architects. Until we re-imagine our way into a new paradigm and relationship with Nature, we will be stuck and continue the downward spiral of our species. I am an idealist, and this is terribly reductionist. :)

Expand full comment
Earl Mardle's avatar

I am hard core atheist, I don't have a soul, I am also enraged by the depraved indifference to the suffering of the planet, the ecosystem and the damage being done by our broken, and now failing way of living.

I am beyond fortunate that I have my 5 cows, a few hundred trees, my 3 ponds surrounded by native bush on a small piece of land to soothe, and sometimes express that rage and the grief that surrounds it.

Expand full comment
Hudson E Baldwin lll's avatar

The existence of matter and energy proves there is an omnipotent being. Deism is the correct and only logical conclusion by someone of critical thinking abilities.

Something created the singularity out of nothing. An impossibility for mere mortals.

Expand full comment
Earl Mardle's avatar

Show me where I suggest that "mere mortals" created the universe. Certainly your comment would disqualify you from any jury

Expand full comment
Hudson E Baldwin lll's avatar

Obviously you need to update your Cyrillic to English software. Your reading comprehension is nonexistent. I never said that you said anything or insinuated. I was just saying. It's part of the proof. It's a five point proof that most philosophy 101 or intro to philosophy classes at quality universities take the first semester to not only wait and architecture for the philosophy of philosophy for lack of better verbiage and at the same time answering a very heavy question about a very heavy topic.

Expand full comment
Hudson E Baldwin lll's avatar

As if that's going to save you when the shit hits the fan?

Expand full comment
Earl Mardle's avatar

Agreed, it wont save me, it might help save my grandchildren, but probably not even them.

What I wont, however, do, is

a) do nothing out of learned helplessness and

b) sit around like an infant, waiting for some omnipotent big daddy to come and save me, because

c) they don't exist and

d) if they did, I doubt they would find many of us, like yourself, worth saving

Expand full comment
Hudson E Baldwin lll's avatar

Nebulous gibberish and ad hominem bullshit all you've got? I account for my own existence. Far more than you can say. I have at the very worst and carbon neutral footprint. Some years it's carbon negative. Assumptions about topics you don't even know never work out. A bad optic. All you had to do is not keyboard and you only been suspected a fool. I do not engage with the stupid, genetically challenged, or disingenuous azzhats.

Since this isn't baseball, you're out two strikes, ciao... say hello to Felicia

Expand full comment
Mark Milne's avatar

My goodness! This was another wonderful discussion that Rachel had with her guest that left me, for one, on a high note. And now I see this mess. Hudson, for all your fury here, it is your own logic that needs checking. You might want to re-read the exchange to see where you went wrong after you’ve calmed down. I won’t say more at this time. I’ll just go on to post what I had come here to post (still on a high note).

Expand full comment
Hudson E Baldwin lll's avatar

All I'm doing is replying to rude, asinine at home and in second grade playground inciting rhetoric. Hardly me that is out of my lane here. Take your botboi incitement agitprop drivel elsewhere. No post, no note, no likes no picture no bio obvious agitprop silicone ship Putin fellation tool has no credibility. Imagine that?

Expand full comment
Hudson E Baldwin lll's avatar

Excuse me? Then don't bring bullshit. Calling someone else's bullshit does not make me the asshole. Read that again.....

Expand full comment